WTF happened earlier today in Washington?

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for being "disrespectful" Friday in an extraordinary Oval Office meeting, then abruptly called off the signing of a minerals deal that Trump said would have moved Ukraine closer to ending its war with Russia.

The astonishing turn of events could scramble affairs in Europe and around the globe. During his visit with Trump, Zelenskyy was expected to sign the deal allowing the U.S. greater access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals and hold a joint news conference, but that plan was scrapped after the heated engagement between the leaders in front of the news media.

https://apnews.com/article/zelenskyy-security-guarantees-trump-meeting-washington-eebdf97b663c2cdc9e51fa346b09591d

I have no goddamn idea what Trump thinks he's doing. But it sure sounds like it's Vladimir Putin's bidding.

I've successfully registered for this summer's edition of the All Star 2 conference on Star Island.

In a minor annoyance, Star has joined the universe of non-profits asking people to kick in an extra three percent to cover the credit card processing fees. But that's a minor annoyance.

Like I said this time twelve years ago, I was not expecting Donald Trump to win the election.

Last time, Trump lost the popular vote and won the Electoral College.
This time, he's winning both of them; the Associated Press is currently showing Trump with 71.6 million votes to Kamala Harris' 66.7 million.

Not looking forward to the next few years.

This is a new one: the folks at Verizon sent me an email today saying they were issuing a credit to my account "due to a service outage" (presumably this one).

I'll believe it when/if I see it. But I'm cynical, sometimes.

Today is both Massachusetts' state primary election, and the first day I was able to schedule this year's COVID vaccine at my local CVS.

I'd already voted early, so that wasn't an issue. And, unlike last year, there wasn't any insurance company confusion about which version of the vaccine was covered this time.

This year was quick and easy; in, jab, and out. As a bonus, the sweet young thing who gave me the shot was both gloved and masked.

Once again, Team Moderna for the win.

I had a fun time, even though Star has given up on being COVID-free. There were no announced cases on-island last week, and apparently most (if not all) conferees tested themselves prior to arrival. I did stay masked up indoors in public areas (and ate my meals outdoors). I also carried my little Aranet CO2 monitor around. Even indoors, most of the time, CO2 levels were down in the 450-600 range. There was a *lot* of wind most days, with not very much rain, so the windows were kept open almost all the time.

I'm still not pleased that the island management decided to give up on being COVID-free. I wasn't the only person on island masking up for some or all of the time; there were a few other conferees, and even a few staff members, masked up most of the time.

The mainland weather was hot and humid all week; that meant that the island weather was cool and humid. (Advantage of being surrounded by sixty-plus-degree Atlantic Ocean water.) There were a couple of quick downpours, but overall the week was dry.

Of course, this week is also going to be hot and humid on the mainland; alas, this time *I'm* in the middle of it. Sigh.

Joyeuse fête du Canada [1] à mes amis au nord de la frontière, qui continuent de démontrer délicieusement bon goût en célébrant leur fête nationale sur ce, mon jour natal.

[1] For Canada Day salutations in English, please press 2.

Last March, former President Donald J. Trump was indicted in a New York city court on thirty-four counts of falsifying business records.

Today, the jury in that trial returned thirty-four guilty verdicts, after deliberating for only two days.

To paraphrase Gary Trudeeau from the May 29, 1973 Doonesbury comic strip:

That's guilty!
Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty,
guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty,
guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty,
guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty,
guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty,
guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty,
guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty!

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration has put out their official 2024 Atlantic hurricane season forecast - and, as the Boston Globe reports, it's an "extraordinary" one:
( 17 to 25 named storms this season )

"Higher ranges ... than 2005" - you know, the year they ran out of names for named storms and had to hit the Greek alphabet?

Yay.

The actual NOAA press release is worth reading (and not paywalled!)

Today is what the US politicos call Super Tuesday, when, to quote the Associated Press,

voters in 16 different states and one territory (Get it? "Super" Tuesday.) will be choosing who they want to run for president.

Massachusetts is one such state, and I voted in today's Democratic Party primary.

Given that Biden is nearly certain to get the Democratic nod in Massachusetts, and Trump highly likely to get the Republican nod, I wasn't surprised to see fairly low turnout numbers when I voted earlier this afternoon. (Less than four hundred ballots cast in my precinct of around two thousand or so registered voters.)

Slightly amusing note: on today's ballot, there were more options for Libertarian Party preferences (5) than for Democratic Party preferences (4). On the other hand, the Libertarian Town Committee had ten open seats, and nobody named on the ballot for any of them ...