The first official day of the most important time of the year. The summer, when there is the least amount of snow in New England. Currently hippies are ululating and prancing around Stonehenge and reminding us why druids practiced human sacrifice. https://t.co/QxgYrxzxj5
— orionscoldfire (@orionscoldfire) June 21, 2023
Today is the longest day of the year and the first official day of summer. Regular readers know that I have an inordinate attachment to summer. This probably developed when I was a child and despised school as a form of imprisonment. This week has been unpleasantly crowded with commitments that have kept me from writing and performing my other blog duties. Well, it can’t be helped.
Most of the news today has to do with the submarine that has disappeared during a trip to the Titanic wreck site on the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean. From what I’ve read, the guy who runs the company that brings sight-seers to the Titanic was piloting the sub. Opinions about whether the trip was a senseless death trap or a brave adventure seems about evenly split. As someone very familiar with pressure vessel design, I wonder if carbon fiber as a structural material is well understood. Materials like stainless steel and other alloys have been tested for decades to understand their reaction to pressure, temperature, corrosion and other factors. I guess this situation will probably bring to light the details of this company’s policies with respect to design and risk.
Elsewhere in the news, Hunter Biden and Donald Trump and their comparative treatment at the hands of the Justice Department is providing supplementary examples of what a two-tier justice system means in practical terms. We’re all going to learn over the course of the next year and a half whether the awakening of the American public to the realities of who runs this country makes any difference at all in how those in charge behave. We may find that they now have nothing to fear from us at all.
On the Ukraine front, the summer offensive by the Ukrainians has been ongoing for about three weeks. It’s not completely clear whether the operations are probing attacks or some kind of multiple axis maneuvering. At this point, the Ukrainians have lost about 20 – 30% of the tanks and armored vehicles that the West provided them since December. This is due to the extensive minefields that the Russians have laid out in front of the defensive lines that they built. Maybe there will be a successful penetration of those Russian lines in the near future but so far it doesn’t look promising. There’s a NATO meeting coming up in Vilnius, Lithuania on July 11th. Speculation is that the Ukrainians have until that meeting to show that they can use the equipment and training that the West has given them to make significant progress against the Russians on the battle front. We’ll see how that turns out.
As far as the economy, prices continue to soar on just about everything and companies report lower earnings. Of course, “no recession in sight.” But that may be just the new way the economy is reported. Basically, see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Well, we’ll see how that goes in the fall when the election is in high gear. Once again, maybe our masters no longer care what we think or say.
On the home front, Camera Girl continues to stuff me with splendiferous foods whenever I return from the various annoying errands, I’ve been assigned this week. Tonight, is eggplant stuffed with sausage and rice. I guess I shouldn’t complain about living in bondage if it includes good food. But of course, in Biden’s America the sausage will be replaced with crickets. So, there is that.
The fix was on. Hunter was never going to prison. He can spill too much.
My dearly departed used stuffed cucumbers, with a crumb, onion and sausage filling. Both me and our grandson would stuff ourselves on them.
Oh yeah. Vegetables stuffed with meat works for me. That way I can make believe it’s health food.