Biden: Hunter is the smartest guy he knows. Is that intended to reassure us?! Hunter dropped his laptop off for repair, with lots of emails about his business in plain text. Then he just abandoned it! This guy is smarter than anyone Biden is nominating for top jobs in the gov’t?

Could some folks with Apple devices do an image search with an Apple search engine for “China president” or “Xi Jinping.” I heard that Apple does not include those images in their search results. I’d like to confirm whether that is right or not. I have only Win & Android. TIA.

It occurs to me there are public health officials who thought they would be only doing good for people in their jobs. And now they are being forced to shut businesses down because of political fights! Some must be horrified. How did they get stuck in the middle of such insanity?

It’s 3 am & 28°F outside. My weather app has been reporting snow flurries for an hour or so. Just looked out the window & see snow on the sidewalk & the side of the road, none accumulated on the grass. It’s our first snow of this winter. Maybe we’ll have more by morning. 🌨 ☃ 😁

Wow, I just heard the news that HP has announced that they are moving their headquarters out of Silicon Valley (San Jose) to Houston. I made that decision to get the hell out of CA in Oct 2017, after living & working there for 50 years. I was early in a flood out of the state! 🏃

We started the day today with tiny snow barely visible in the sky, right at 32° F. So 30 Nov 2020 is our first day of snow, but I don’t think they’ll need to get the snow plows out. We have had snow in Oct & much earlier in Nov in the past. We have had no really cold temps yet.

Dave Winer linked to this article about why this writer decided to live in Berkeley. It makes some good points about the advantages of college towns. I started my 50 year residency in California there. It was cool, but I only stayed two years. I’m glad to be back in Illinois.

“You know, the one thing I will say about Donald Trump. He doesn’t talk down to anybody. He is who he is, but he doesn’t talk down to anyone. And … there is a certain voter out there because of that who identifies with him and appreciates him.” Rep. Elissa Slotkin (Dem - MI)

Thursday night Justice Alito gave the Keynote Address to the Federalist Society.

He said: 
To quote a popular Nobel laureate;
“It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there.”

Of course he was quoting Bob Dylan’s 1997 song, Not Dark Yet.
🎸 🎶

Next documentary on reading is Out of Print. Informative, but also scary as you get toward the end, as they show kids in school & you see how fast things are changing! Several reviews suggested watching it to hear the famous laugh of Jeff Bezos. He sounds scary insane.

The Booksellers on Amazon Prime is terrific. If you love bookstores, watch it. If you ever stumbled onto a really rare book at a crazy low price at a bookstore, watch it. If you ever wanted to see what Book Row in NYC was like, watch it. What an exciting world, be careful.

I’ve been watching the Roger Moore episodes of The Saint on Amazon Prime off & on all year. The episode tonight was exceptional. The female lead was gorgeous & looked familiar, but I couldn’t place who played Judith. In the closing credits I found out. It was Julie Christie!!

Tonight, one of our Thai friends here in IL, probably in her mid-30’s, texted me that she & the Thais here would protect me during the crisis. I’m 75. That is the kind of support I always got in Thailand, where age is always respected. It felt good to get that here too! 🇹🇭

Lincoln’s advice to lawyers:

“Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser—in fees, expenses, and waste of time….There will still be business enough.” From here

An example of the excellence of Doc Searls. These days about the only useful thing I get out of reading Dave is links like this, to another blogger who can clearly express interesting ideas. It’s gold.

Tonight my beloved wife is home at last after 16 days in the hospital for what is normally a routine one day procedure in the US. She suffered a lot & I so wish there could have been a Theravada Buddhist monk anywhere near our town to minister to her. She is so strong. ❤