Stefan Pastis does it again! Click the image to be taken to a larger version at the "Pearls Before Swine" Web page.
I sense a business opportunity here. I still have farmer friends in South Africa who aren't far from major inland rivers, complete with Nile crocodiles. How many crocodiles per yard of moat, do you think? Given enough wetbacks moatbacks, they wouldn't require much feeding, either!
There's a video on X.com showing a Russian army officer opening some of the candies and chocolate that have been found in the battle zones in Ukraine. If you're logged into X, here's the link. If you aren't a member of X, here's an alternative link that will let you play the video. The candy is loaded with explosives and a detonator, proving that too many sweets really are bad for you!
There are plenty of comments following the video that are worth reading. My favorite is from user Bitcoin Wizard - mavensbot:
"I'm starting to think that these processed foods are not healthy."
You can say that again!
Peter
I'm going to embed a video clip below. It shows Gina Plata-Nino, the Director of SNAP Policy and Advocacy at the Food Research and Action Center, being questioned by Rep. Brandon Gill. The topic of discussion is efforts to remove unhealthy food choices - in this particular case, sodas - from the list of items eligible to be bought using funds from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
Ms. Plata-Nino is clearly left-wing and populist in her approach, defending peoples' right to use SNAP benefits in any way they please. Notice how she avoids, evades and dodges any attempt to get her to admit that sugary sodas are in no way nutritional, and aren't really "food" as the SNAP program was originally intended to fund. She literally can't be persuaded to acknowledge facts. Instead, all she can do is repeat her pre-programmed talking points.
It's a bit like medical administrators and professionals who absolutely cannot admit that only biological women can become pregnant and give birth. They daren't acknowledge that fact, because in doing so they would be forced to acknowledge that "trans" women are not, in fact, women at all - merely cosmetically adapted males.
Here's the video. It's only about five minutes long, but I think it's worth watching.
That's what we're facing in every election in this country. Districts dominated by people who use government benefits will listen to advocates and politicians like Ms. Plata-Nino, and vote in lockstep with those who promise them more benefits without cost to themselves. Districts dominated by people whose taxes have to fund those benefits will be (legitimately) angry at how they're wasted, exploited and abused by the recipients.
Sadly, more and more districts are dominated by those who want something for nothing, and vote accordingly. Many of those votes are, of course, illegitimate, as the widespread investigations into voter fraud and electoral register mismanagement are demonstrating. Will that be enough to put things right? Your guess is as good as mine . . .
Peter
I was amused to see this list over at Raconteur Press's Substack. Click the image for a larger view.
I've used literally all of them - they're more common in English-English than in American-English. To one, however, there hangs a tail (you should pardon the expression).
Shortly after I came to this country, thirty years ago, I noticed a number of references to berries that I hadn't encountered in South Africa. There were blueberries, and white mulberries, and more. However, although I occasionally heard the term "dingleberry", I never saw one. Intrigued, I asked a family one day (with whom I was staying for a few days) where I could find "dingleberries".
You can imagine my puzzlement when the father cracked up laughing, the mother had to leave the table with her hands clasped to her face and her shoulders shaking from suppressed merriment, and the two daughters blushed red as roses. When Dad stopped laughing, he explained the true meaning of the word ( for the benefit of non-American readers, it's the third meaning of the noun in the list provided).
My innocence shattered, I declined the opportunity to sample a dingleberry pie . . .
Peter
Gathered around the Internet over the past week. Click any image for a larger view.
And now for something completely different, as they say in the classics! Ernest Tomlinson, who died in 2015 at the age of 91, was an English composer of light music. One of his better-known works was this "Fantasia on Auld Lang Syne", composed in 1976. The fun part about it is that it includes many very short excerpts from other classical pieces - more than 120 of them. (A list of included works may be found here.) For a piece that's less than 20 minutes long, that's going some!
A commenter on the video's YouTube page says, "Only an insane genius could have produced this." I'm not sure about the "insane" part, but it's certainly a remarkable piece of arrangement, if not entirely original composition.
Peter
I'm sure most of my readers have grown used to vegetarians vegans anti-meat activists trumpeting that it wastes far too much water to produce a pound, or a kilogram, of beef, compared to just eating vegetables and fruit. Turns out they've been fudging the numbers, to put it mildly.
From Sama Hoole on X:
The crime they see: 15,415 litres of water to produce one kilogram of beef. Every campaign, every documentary, every leaflet through the door since about 2012.
The crime they do: not reading the paper.
The figure is real. It comes from Mekonnen and Hoekstra at the University of Twente, and it is careful, peer-reviewed work. What the campaigns strip out is that the same authors split that number into three parts, because the three parts are not the same thing at all.
Green water is rain. It falls on the grass. The cow eats the grass. For beef, green water is about 94 per cent of that headline.
Blue water is the stuff that matters. Rivers, lakes, aquifers. The stuff that gets pumped, metered, fought over in court, and does not come back.
So here is the blue water, in litres per kilogram, from the same authors, same method, same units.
- Pistachios: 7,602
- Almonds: 3,816
- Walnuts: 2,451
- Dates: 1,250
- Cashews: 921
- Beef: 550
Read that last line again, then go and look at what is in your granola.
The 15,415 counts rain that fell on a Welsh hillside as a cost, against an animal that was standing in it, on land where nothing else grows, in a country where rain is the one thing we have never once been short of.
The pistachio is drinking fourteen times more of the water that actually runs out.
I've no doubt the "greenies" will object that most of the rainwater runs off and feeds their vegetables, so it's by definition "greener" than beef anyway: but that's splitting nutritional hairs, IMHO. I'll continue to favor a carnivore diet, thank you very much!
Peter
I had to laugh at Japanese visitor Nobunaga's description of his first time at a Buc-ee's gas station. A couple of excerpts:
I had been warned about the bathrooms and I had dismissed the warning as the pride of a loud people.
I was wrong to dismiss it.
The bathrooms are famous across the whole state and they have earned it.
I have slept in worse hotels. I nearly bowed upon entering.
. . .
I came out with fudge, a shirt printed with a joke I do not fully understand, forty dollars of jerky, and a feeling I can only describe as having been to church.
I did not need any of it.
I needed all of it.
I have walked through the great cathedrals of the old world. I lit no candle there.
I lit no candle at Buc-ee's either.
But I did fill the truck.
And I understand now that in Texas, this is the same thing.
There's more at the link. Go read the whole thing. You'll smile.
I was delighted to find that Nobunaga has compiled about 100 of his "discovering America" posts into a book, "A Samurai Loose in Modern America".
The blurb reads:
All of it. One samurai, one impossible year, one hundred field reports.
This is the complete collection: every dispatch from a man who woke up in modern America in full armor and decided to treat all of it as real. The free chips. The bottomless soda. The neighbors who will not let him pay. The stadium that adopts him in six seconds. The nurse named Brenda who undoes eight hundred years of his philosophy with a juice box.
The table, the counter, the street, and the crowd, gathered in one volume, each of the hundred stories now closing with a note from the samurai himself, written afterward, reporting how far the misunderstanding has been allowed to go.
He came to understand America. He failed, completely, and the failing is the book. He gets the small things wrong with total conviction and the large thing right by accident: that the only law of this country is that no one is ever unkind.
A hundred stories. Pull up a chair. The chips are free, apparently bottomless, and he intends to honor all of them.
It's free to read on Kindle Unlimited. I think I'm going to enjoy it.
(BTW, Nobunaga isn't alone in his bemused wonder at Buc-ee's. YouTube has a range of videos showing the reaction of World Cup visitors to the gas station, which they appear to treat more as a tourist attraction than anything else. Go watch a few and have fun with them.)
Peter
Regular readers will recall my misadventures with medical bureaucracy in May, and the follow-up (mis)adventures last month. Yesterday, Tuesday, most of the results came together, with moderately satisfactory results and a certain amount of pain.
My new CT scan images and analysis were ready, and my pain management specialist (who made the necessary arrangements for them) discussed them with me. There appears to be more going on "over my head" than I'd been made aware . . . it appears possible that the original surgery, twenty-two years ago, might have been - how shall I put this? - sub-standard. Nobody used the word "malpractice" - perish the thought! After all, given the passage of time, that probably couldn't be proved. Nevertheless, it may be one of the reasons why two neurosurgeons, a neurologist and an orthopedic surgeon had all been noticeably reluctant to commit themselves to a potential solution to my problems. Armed with this (strictly unofficial and off-the-record) information, I'm now in a position to ask very blunt, pointed, direct questions when I see the new neurosurgeon, and apparently he's one of the few doctors who's willing to answer such questions appropriately. The next couple of months should be interesting . . .
That said, I had my second caudal epidural injection yesterday morning. The first one (in March) gave me 2+ months of moderate pain relief, so I'm hoping the second one will be at least as useful. That, plus wearing a back brace for all walking and driving, will hopefully keep me mobile enough to see the new neurosurgeon in Dallas before the end of August, and (with his help) develop a plan for short- to medium-term treatment in preparation for surgery. It's a slow, painstaking process, but as I've been told repeatedly, spinal surgery is one of those "measure ten times, cut once" solutions that one daren't rush or mess up.
Right now I can't feel anything in my lower back, the result of the anesthetic used to perform the injection into the spinal cavity. By Wednesday morning I'll be feeling it again, I'm sure.
Peter
I'm sure most of us have read news reports about the imminent return of the climate phenomenon known as El Nino, possibly in the form of a so-called "super" El Nino, far stronger than "normal" events of this kind. There have been all sorts of alarmist forecasts about drought, flooding, and everything in between. However, the big story may be the effect of this climate phenomenon on global commerce and industry, regardless of whether it's rainy or sunny. TT Club, a "provider of mutual insurance and related risk management services to the international transport and logistics industry", examines the implications.
El Niño events are part of a naturally occurring climate cycle, but “super” events are characterised by exceptionally high sea surface temperature anomalies, which are far less frequent and significantly more disruptive. Current forecasts are suggesting that a very strong event is increasingly likely, with some indicating increases well above historical norms. The result is not a single point of failure, but rather a synchronised, multi-regional disruption that has potential to affect the interconnected global supply chain.
. . .
Perhaps the most concerning aspect of the current outlook is the convergence of climate and geopolitical risk factors. When overlaid with El Niño-induced climate shocks, the potential for cascading effects increases significantly.
For example:
- Reduced fertiliser availability may exacerbate the impact of drought on crop yields
- Higher fuel costs may increase the cost of transporting goods
- Trade route disruptions may amplify delays caused by weather-related events
- This interconnected risk landscape highlights the need to view El Niño not as a standalone hazard, but as part of a broader system of interdependent risks.
. . .
The critical point for global businesses is that exposure is rarely limited to the location of the physical hazard. Organisations may face indirect impacts through suppliers, commodity markets, logistics networks, energy systems, insurance costs and customer demand.
Key global vulnerabilities include:
- Food and commodity price inflation driven by crop losses or supply uncertainty
- Disruption to agricultural, industrial and consumer-goods supply chains
- Transport delays, port disruption and reduced reliability across maritime and inland logistics routes
- Energy market volatility linked to higher demand, reduced hydropower output and infrastructure stress
- Increased insurance, financing and working-capital pressures as businesses respond to greater uncertainty
For internationally exposed organisations, these second-order and third-order effects may prove just as significant as direct physical risks. The practical implication is that El Niño should be assessed not only by geography, but by dependency: where goods are sourced, how they are transported, which inputs are most constrained and where alternative capacity exists.
There's more at the link.
That's an often underestimated factor in many plans: military, political, business, disaster, whatever. A factor that is described in geographical terms - like El Nino, often termed the "southern oscillation" of weather patterns - can have effects far outside that geographical area. I'm sure most US businesses on the East Coast aren't planning for any major disruption due to weather that might affect the West Coast of this country, but that's very short-sighted. What about Europe, or Asia? I'm sure many nations on those continents are dismissing El Nino as "someone else's problem", but if, as the article suggests, we define it by dependency on economic activity in the area where it occurs, that dependency reaches into every corner of global markets, both imports and exports.
Even on a small scale, in terms of personal planning for the next year or two, this bears thinking about. For example:
Peter
Gathered from around the Internet over the past week. Click any image for a larger view.
A few weeks ago I put up Mike Oldfield's 2008 quasi-classical album "Music Of The Spheres". In a comment to that post, reader Mauser said "I still need to get a copy of Tubular Bells 3". I thought I'd save him the trouble, and give the rest of my readers a treat at the same time. Here, from 1998, is the world premiere of "Tubular Bells III", live (in sometimes pouring rain) at the Horse Guards Parade in London.
Tubular Bells III was less popular than its two previous versions, but I like it very much. See also "The Millennium Bell" and "Music Of The Spheres" for further development of the musical themes first encountered in earlier Tubular Bells versions.
Peter
This news is several days old, but it only caught my eye yesterday.
Months before New York City approved a historic two-year rent freeze, Google co-founder Sergey Brin quietly exited a struggling real estate fund at a steep loss.
In December, Brin sold his stake back to A&E Real Estate, the fund's manager, for six cents on the dollar, according to documents obtained by Bloomberg.
The fund holds 5,900 rent-stabilized apartments, with Brin's stake being valued at roughly $79 million, a drop in the bucket when viewed next to his $280 billion net worth.
"A&E bought out one of our long-term investors, who was willing to accept six cents on the dollar on their original equity investment to divest itself from the New York City multifamily sector," a company representative told Bloomberg in a statement.
"The simple and deeply troubling fact for renters is that institutional capital – both equity investors and lenders – are fleeing New York City’s rent-stabilized apartment sector," the A&E representative continued, according to Bloomberg. "They understand New York is in a doom loop."
There's more at the link.
Think about that for a moment. Working backwards from "Brin's stake being valued at roughly $79 million" at the sale price - i.e. at six cents on the dollar of his original investment - that means he originally invested about $1.3 billion in the real estate fund. He's lost almost all of that money, thanks to New York City's cratering real estate market, undermined as it is by the socialist communist policies of newly-elected Mayor Mamdami.
If a man as economically savvy as Mr. Brin walks away from a $1.3 billion investment, writing it off as unrecoverable, what are smaller investors to think? Can they afford to follow his example? For that matter, can they afford not to follow his example? Makes you think, doesn't it?
If I were unfortunate enough to live in or near New York City, or have money invested there, after hearing that news I'd be taking steps (rapid ones) to move myself and/or my money somewhere (anywhere!) else . . . before I lost all my investments, too.
Peter
Submissions for the annual International Aerial Photographer competition closed at the end of April. A short-list of 101 best images has been compiled, and will be made into a coffee-table book in due course. Here are just three of them to whet your appetite. Click any image for a larger view, or click through to the competition's Archive of all 101 images to feast your eyes. (If you click on each image there, a slightly larger version will open; click on that and tell it to open in a new tab, and a still larger picture will be displayed.)
First, here's Azim Khan Ronnie from Bangladesh, who took first place in this year's competition. His photograph depicts migrating Siberian seagulls arriving at Yamuna Ghat, India.
Second place winner was Chin Leong Teo from Singapore. His "Dawn Net" shows a fisherman casting a traditional net in a circular pattern around his boat.
Craig Davis of the USA submitted "Sculpted by Time".
I wish I had space to post more of the images here. There are some spectacular examples in the compilation. Click over there to view them for yourself.
Peter
I had to laugh at this blog post from fellow South African expatriate Kim du Toit. He and I see eye to eye on many issues (not surprising, given our similar backgrounds).
This morning he wrote about an article titled "One Super Predator in Africa Instills More Fear Than Lions". The super predator, of course, turned out to be humans. We use brains and tools to conquer our environment and the nasty things that we find there. We've done it for millennia, and will doubtless go on doing it until the extinction of our species and/or the entropy death of the universe.
Kim doesn't mince his words.
We are, in the animal kingdom, like marshmallows. Pork-flavored marshmallows, to be precise, just the thing to make lions sharpen their claws before putting on a dinner napkin.
So why do these dangerous animals think that we are the apex predators?
Because we don’t fight fair. As though fighting for one’s life, or hunting down food requires us to be all Marquis-of-Queensbury types; what foolishness.
**** that. If a pride of lions wants to target a few humans for brekkie, well… say hello to an A-10 Warthog or an Apache attack helicopter, and let’s see who’s really the apex predator, Fluffy.
Click over there to read the whole thing. It's giggle-worthy . . . and true, too, for the most part.
Of course, if one of those predators catches you alone and unarmed in the bush, you're toast, but that's your fault. Being a successful apex predator requires remaining on the apex, so to speak. Step off it, and there will be consequences.
Peter
Readers with any connection to the shooting sports and/or law enforcement will recognize the name of Bill Jordan. His accomplishments are far too many to describe here: one was to draw his firearm from a holster, shoot, and hit his target in 0.27 of a second! He merits inclusion in any Top Ten list of American shooters.
Now comes the news that a special presentation Smith & Wesson Model 19 "Combat Magnum" revolver, a one-of-a-kind firearm with engraving specially developed for this weapon, is up for sale on Gunbroker. It's almost certain to go for six figures, I think. Feast your eyes on this (click the image for a larger view) and the other photographs available at the link.
The seller's headline for the gun is simply "GRAIL", shorthand for "grail gun", a well-known term used by firearms collectors. The blurb reads as follows:
Presented here is a truly extraordinary and one-of-a-kind engraved revolver, meticulously crafted and personally presented to U.S. lawman, Marine, Texas resident, and renowned author Bill Jordan in recognition of his distinguished service with the United States Border Patrol, his pioneering role as the father of the K-Frame .357 Magnum Combat revolver, and his illustrious career as an exhibition shooter. This special revolver features intricate gold inlay and masterful engraving, with a high-quality design completed on April 25, 1989, never to be repeated. The work includes gold outline borders surrounding the "SMITH & WESSON" barrel marking and flowing into Jordan’s signature, also inlaid in gold, along with floral scroll engravings on the under lug. The frame boasts 75% coverage floral scrolls, a gold banner inscribed with "No Second Place Winner" from Jordan’s book, and a gold and silver Border Patrol badge on the side plate. The top of the backstrap bears the signature of Smith & Wesson Master Engraver Paul Piquette. The cylinder features floral scrolls between the flutes, all inside gold inlaid triangular borders, and the revolver is fitted with a gold bar inlaid blade front sight, an adjustable rear sight, and custom scrimshaw-Ivory inlaid grips—one medallion depicting the U.S. Border Patrol and the other a portrait of Jordan. Encased in a finely fitted walnut display case with a green interior and Border Patrol medallion on the lid, this piece is accompanied by a wealth of documentation, including a factory letter confirming its unique status, a letter from former S&W President T. Stephen Melvin expressing gratitude for Jordan’s contributions, remarks from Melvin at the NRA presentation event, and an article by Walton P. Sellers about his brief acquaintance with Jordan.
William Henry Jordan (1911–1997) was a celebrated Texas native whose over three-decade career with the U.S. Border Patrol included serving as Assistant Chief Patrol Inspector, and he was also a Marine Corps Reserve colonel during World War II and the Korean War. Jordan made significant contributions to firearms development, collaborating with Walter Roper on revolver grips, assisting Smith & Wesson in designing the .357 Magnum K-Frame, and helping Elmer Keith and Skeeter Skelton develop the .41 Magnum. Recognized with the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Ronald Reagan, Jordan also served as a field representative for the NRA, demonstrating exceptional quick draw skills, teaching western actors, and authoring numerous articles and books, including his acclaimed autobiography, "No Second Place Winner," which is included with this piece. His legacy as a lawman, shooter, innovator, and author is celebrated through this extraordinary engraved revolver, a fitting tribute to his remarkable life and career.
I'm afraid that revolver would be wasted on me, because I don't have any "safe queens" that never get used. If I have a gun, I'd like to shoot it from time to time - and shooting this one-of-a-kind presentation piece, even once, would knock thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) off its value. I hope whoever buys it will appreciate the sheer artistry it exhibits, and enjoy looking at it - and that he/she has another Model 19 to shoot regularly, so as to appreciate it all the more!
Peter
The woman suspected of trying to blow up a Ukrainian tycoon in Monaco has been found shot dead near Kyiv.
Anastasiia Berezovska, 39, was named as the prime suspect in the attack on Vadym Iermolaiev, a Ukrainian property magnate, at the end of last month.
Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) said on Tuesday that her body had been found overnight near the Ukrainian capital with gunshot wounds to the head and pistol casings nearby after an international search.
The SBU added that an acting officer from Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR) had confessed to killing Ms Berezovska with the assistance of a former law enforcement officer, and that he had acted on his own initiative without informing superiors.
There's more at the link.
So . . . the "official" story is that the alleged perpetrator of a bomb attack on a self-exiled Ukrainian oligarch (who appears to have a great deal of money at his disposal, suggesting possible probable underworld activity) is herself dead under mysterious circumstances, with "an acting officer from Ukraine's military intelligence agency" confessing to her murder.
Translation: Ukraine was known as (and probably still is) one of the most corrupt countries in Europe. I'm betting that the oligarch in question wasn't sharing enough of his profits with his intelligence agency partners; or, possibly, they wanted in on his criminal network and he wouldn't let them. They decided to rub him out in retaliation. Their chosen emissary wasn't efficient enough to accomplish that, although her bomb did severely injure him. When she was identified in the news media, somebody decided to close her mouth permanently so that she wouldn't give away incriminating (and possibly lucrative) secrets. A "fall guy" is going to take the blame for her murder, probably because he, too, wasn't sharing enough of the profits from his own illicit activities.
I suspect my impromptu translation is far more accurate than all the news reports now spreading about the incident. Watch to see which (if any) of the oligarch's activities are taken over by "new" Ukrainian bosses, and figure out to whom they are loyal, if not to him. I strongly suspect a takeover bid by corrupt Ukrainian intelligence people is under way.
Peter
I was reminded recently of William J. H. Boetcker (1873-1962). He's perhaps best known for his 1916 pamphlet, "The Ten Cannots". In summary:
He also authored this list of "Seven National Crimes":
Both lists bear thinking about as we celebrate our nation's quarter-millennium anniversary. May our descendants still remember them when the half-millennial anniversary rolls around!
Peter
Gathered from around the Internet over the past couple of weeks, as and when I could take time off traveling. Click any image for a larger view.
I don't publish this blog on Saturday, so there won't be a post tomorrow either. However, the 250th anniversary of our Republic is worth celebrating all year long!
Here's what the Congressional Research Service says about the first celebrations of July 4th.
On July 4, 1777, the first anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence was marked by a nearly spontaneous celebration in Philadelphia, as described in a letter by John Adams to his daughter, Abigail “Nabby” Adams. Although officially adopted on July 4, 1776, the vote by the Continental Congress to approve the Declaration of Independence occurred two days prior, on July 2, 1776. Adams originally predicted that celebrations would occur annually on this earlier date, as noted in a letter to his wife, Abigail Adams, in 1776:
The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. —I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.After that initial celebration in 1777, the traditional observance of Independence Day on the Fourth of July took hold, becoming commonplace after the War of 1812.
Congress declared July 4 an official holiday in the District of Columbia in 1870 (16 Stat. 168) and a paid holiday for federal employees in 1938 (52 Stat. 1246).
I'm particularly pleased and proud to be an American on this 250th anniversary of our nation's emergence from colonialism to independence. May we live up to the example and courage of our Founding Fathers for the next 250 years as well!
Peter
