Russia’s Concern

Russia saved the world from the Nazis with Stalingrad — the true turning point in the war. The cost of World War 2 to Russia was 27 million dead. That’s MILLION.

It is not difficult to understand Russia’s concern about European expansionism and imperialism toward Russia. First there was Napoleon, then more aggression from Europe toward Russia in World War 1, and then Hitler and the Nazis and that huge loss in lives in the millions. Now we have NATO and the US waging a proxy war in Ukraine — a covert invasion of Russia.

In much the same way that the Cuban missile crisis was existential for the US, this proxy war in Ukraine is existential for Russia. Russia will not tolerate having American missiles in Ukraine, that close to their capitol — thus their point of view that Ukraine cannot be a member of NATO.

No way Russia will back down from this conflict without complete capitulation by Kiev. That’s the only deal out there acceptable to Putin.

Putin’s Restraint

Trump A Winner

Trump is going to win on all the tariff gambits and negotiations with all of these countries, including China, simply because they need the American market much more than we need theirs.

Trump may turn out to be the preeminent president of this century. He is willing to do the tough things.

Tariffs

Food Order

The best thing to eat before your larger meal begins is a handful of mixed nuts and seeds. Eat these 10 minutes before you begin the main course. They will be high in both fat and protein, and fat and protein will slow down the digestion of the carbohydrates in the main course so that you don’t experience sharp insulin spikes, which is what you want. They will also increase satiety so that you end up eating less.

The worst thing to eat first is bread. That will do the opposite — cause a tremendous insulin spike and make you eat even more than you need to.

So get into the habit of first eating a handful of mixed nuts and seeds when you sit down to eat — before anything else.

No Salt

Tribalism

Humanity has never really gotten above simple tribalism. What is nationalism — to which we are all addicted — but a modern version of ancient tribalism?

We all seek the protection of belonging to a group, even if this is pure fantasy. [providing little or no true protection.

Tribalism is our human heritage. We cannot escape it.

Strengthen Character

Tariffs

The US has a terrible imbalance in trade with Europe, Mexico, Canada, and of course China. Much of this is largely due to the fact that these other countries impose severe tariffs on American products, and so these products don’t get sold there.

What Trump is doing by imposing tariffs is to even the trading field so that the US doesn’t have these terrible trade imbalances. In a real sense, that these other countries are using punitive tariffs on American products forces Trump to do what he is doing.

Trump is a businessman, and businessmen want lots of international trade. Given his druthers, I actually think Trump would prefer entirely free trade — no tariffs at all. But what he will not tolerate are these trade imbalances because, in the end, they make the US poorer.

Trump is known as a deal maker. He sees himself in that light. His book is actually titled “Art of the Deal”. Imposing tariffs is his first move in trying to lower or neutralize foreign tariffs against American products. The second move will be the negotiation with each country on setting up equitable or no tariffs.

Trump

Cuts

In the last 12 years — retired — I’ve learned how to cook, mostly getting instruction from Youtube videos. To my surprise, I love cooking — just love it. I spend a lot of time each day planning the OMAD meal of the following day, and use cronometer.com to do that.

But what I now know about cooking is there is a lot of dicing of food with sharp knives — an incredible amount of chopping for every meal. So the question I have is to what extent the best chefs of the world suffer from cuts, probably some cuts that can be severe, given the sharpness of their knives and perhaps the need for haste for food preparation in a restaurant?

I suspect that getting cut is a very common occupational hazard for the top chefs, and something that happens on a fairly regular basis. Just speaking from my own experience.

Tasty Veg Casserole