A Toastmasters Meeting and BBQ. War news (yawn). Covid news (double yawn)

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We had a wonderful Toastmasters party at our house on Saturday. It had everything – a meeting with good speakers, a barbecue to which the guests as always brought some wonderful dishes to augment our shashlik, sausages and fish, outstanding piano playing, games, swimming in the river and a lot of good conversation. It went from noon until 8:30 p.m. Our vice president of public relations has posted some wonderful pictures. Telegram is better than Facebook.

Readership of this blog jumped at the start of the war when I started posting Bob Homans’ stuff. I'm glad for the increased traffic, though I note that readership of his pieces has fallen over the past month. The war news seems not to change that much from day-to-day. The Russians say that they are regrouping after taking just about all of Lugansk Oblast. Ukrainians are receiving new weapons and are training a number of troops in England.

Even for all that, Ukraine reports 38,000 Russians killed in just over four months of war. To put that in context, the United States lost about 50,000 in more more than 10 years of the Vietnam War. On the other hand, Russia has always been willing to take huge casualties. They lost somewhere around 150,000 in the half year of it's ill-fated invasion of tiny Finland in 1939.

I wondered what happened to whatsherface, one of my favorite YouTube personalities. She just dropped out of sight. Characteristically, she has a straightforward explanation. She's tired. Covid has been talked to death. It is time to do something.

That's kind of the way I feel. Every day I get more and more explicit, detailed analyses of the ongoing disaster brought by the Covid injections. At this point I should have the discipline to say, "So what?" Two thirds of the world population has already been injected. It can't be undone. No minds are going to be changed at this point.

Going forward, the battle is against the kind of tyranny that made the shots so hard to avoid. The disappearance of free speech and bodily autonomy. I have to fight where I can, but mostly just raise children to survive this madness.

bad cattitude has a piece today on the folks who managed Covid during the Trump administration. A pair of well seasoned grifters whose larceny had been known for 30 years before Trump appointed them. It was astoundingly bad judgment on his part. If he had tried to find out about Robert Redfield and Deborah Birx the information was certainly available from Washington insiders.

There is so much wrong in Washington, it makes one wonder what is right? Is absolutely everybody on the take? It seems so. If we, the people, ever again have a voice in government, we should do what the framers tried: strictly limit its range of functions.

That’s the news from Lake WeBeGone, where the strong man and the good-looking woman had a quiet day after all the excitement. The kids and I picked up some excellent blueberries and cherries at the farmer’s market. The war has had weird effects on prices. Great blueberries $1.50/lb, but $1.00/ear for corn. Go figure.

Graham