It’s been too long, folks, and for that I apologize. No excuses proffered, no forgiveness expected. I’ve had a lot to say, others are just jumping on that bale of cotton before I could open my own….keyboard.
Sorry, just seemed apropos since it’s cotton-pickin’ time in the ‘Sip. I actually PICKED cotton with a canvas over-the-shoulder drag-bag, so sue me.
It’s pretty hot outside, and while I know I should be out there doing manual labor or PT in the heat, I just can’t force myself away from the remote in the cool confines of Schloss Schumacher. Yes, yes we are not in the Khaleesi Kave in South Florida…we rescheduled our weekend there due to a flight path over Idalia. Speaking of that, I ran across a rather tempting summer libation recipe
https://blog.blueapron.com/watermelon-palomas-are-the-refreshing-drink-of-the-summer/
The Khaleesi pointed out that the recipe is adaptable to a number of different fruits, all of which contain tequila, of which I have great fondness and a number of rather questionable memories, one involving Dallas, a sunroof, a jalapeño-eating contest with a Marine on leave and a pretty young woman. We’ll just pass on that one since it didn’t turn out well.
This summer has been hot, without question, but it doesn't strike me as odd, hailing from South Texas. Brown lawns and wavy lines on the horizon seem almost nostalgic for me. Walking the levees in Lou’s rice fields at age 12, a loaded 38 Special on my hip for the nutria rats, shovel in hand for repairs, didn’t seem any hotter than now. Never got to drive the combine with a/c when I got older, though, because by then I was at the rice dryer, climbing the catwalk inside to make sure the pile of rice hulls wasn't uneven enough to topple the silo. We never watched the temperature, with goggles and masks, caked in rice dust. It had to be 120F in there, at least. Nothing like water from a garden hose, though, to slake real thirst. A Godsend, for sure. Looks like I got the grunt jobs.
Have any of you heard of the Tonga volcano? I thought so. I guess since it was an UNDERWATER volcano, 400 feet down, and spewed only 148 TRILLION grams of water into the stratosphere
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/tonga-eruption-blasted-unprecedented-amount-of-water-into-stratosphere
with no great video clips it wouldn't have lasted long on CNN. Remember, the most common greenhouse gas, AHEAD of carbon dioxide, is…..duh…..water vapor. Sheesh, no wonder it’s hot, Rupert.
This climate stuff and carbon dioxide…it makes no sense. Right now we’re at 420 (plus or minus a point or two) parts per million in the atmosphere,mostly from my 9 year old Porsche and backyard grill. Funny, it seems to me, the CO2 levels in several geological epochs was quite a bit higher, and unassociated with higher temperatures, to the best of our abilities to discern. And we know that levels less than 200 ppm are associated with …. Death. Extinction. No matter, I’ll just turn in my natural gas stove and water heater for a carbon credit, as that flim-flam concept seems to be the currency de jour.
Speaking of that, what OF the currency? I mean, the world reserve currency. How long can the USD last? Let me rephrase that…. How long can bullshit walk? Apparently a while, since BRICS 2023 was kind of a, mixed bag, rather than an outright repudiation of Uncle Sam. With Vlad (Putin, the Impaler) on notice from the International Criminal Court and the meeting hosted on the abject hellhole that is Johannesburg, it doesn’t seem like much got done. But, then again, much doesn't get done in those parts of the world, anyway, outside of Russia and China. Apparently, they just needed some vowels to go along with their consonants. Not that the US has much to say. We have a pseudo-incumbent that no one wants running against a multiply-indicted former President who is crushing his (his party?) party’s challengers in the polls whilst they attempt to ignore him. What’s not to like? This makes for high drama, and what American doesn’t like electoral drama? America is on one hand closer to civil war than ever before and on the other wedded to their collective TV remotes. I guess it boils down to who you believe.
I, for one, am pulling for RFK, Jr as the spoiler. Let me say that on NUMEROUS policy positions I am in compleat disagreement with him, but I like him because, like Trump, he PISSES PEOPLE OFF. Generally, in American politics, if you’re pissing a large number of people off,, you’re on to something. I can’t predict who TPTB will assassinate first, Trump or Bobby, Jr. I vote Trump because there has to be some cosmological consequence of killing yet ANOTHER Kennedy (assuming, of course, that JFK, Jr was just another overconfident low-time dead private pilot consigned to the dustbin of history, which, as a thousand-hour pilot myself, I tend to believe).
I don’t have a lot of cool memes for this issue, just irreverance and speculation. Stay frosty, my friends.
Seriously, what more can you ask for than irreverence and a cocktail recipe?
RfK Jr. has the advantage of being 100% right on one subject...vaccines...
There are a handful of people like Cornell West (we wuz akademics and sheeit) who might siphon enough votes to throw the election to Trump but of course They aren't going to let that happen. It is going to get ugly in 2024