Trade Wars

Today I spent a lot of time with Maxwell. I'm always impressed by his astute analysis of situations, especially where politics is involved. He's attuned to Norwegian politics better than I am and informed me of NATO's plan for US more troops to do exercises on Norway's border with Russia. I said don't worry, Norway will maintain good relations with Russia - after all, we just visited one of several Russian cities on Norwegian territory in Svalbard. And there's an old submarine base in northern Norway they sold to the Russians a while back.

Maxwell doesn't use the word submarine. When there was one in Bergen harbor this week he texted me about the "u boat". I think his finger might be a little closer to the local pulse than mine. Still, I warned him that if Russia invaded fighting wouldn't last long because Norway would give up quickly. And then we would be placed in concentration camps as Americans. Not slightly tongue-in-cheek. That was slightly disturbing. Or else Bergen would be nuked and we'd all get a short and deadly sunburn. The bi-annual air raid siren test in Bergen was also this week. But, yay!, Russian World Cup!

Trump is picking up trade wars with tariffs against so many places I've lost track. I'm not in tune enough to noodle out if he's a modern day Reagan or another Hoover. I fear that he's a Hoover because he seeems so vapidly socialist, but I concede that he's gotten some shit done. Ironically my highest hope for his administration is provoking the (now) many California secessionist movements until one succeeds. Imagine that. American legal seccession. That'd be the biggest contribution to politics America's made since the end of the Cold War!