May 17

 A bit on the cool side this morning. Weather predictions put the potential high at mid-60s. I pulled out a set of sweats yesterday. During the last couple or three weeks my wardrobe has moved from winter to spring to summer and back to winter.

Yesterday I linked to a dismal story about the expected not-very-good winter wheat harvest over here. Environmental problems, however, aren't the only issues affecting the food supply. I found this story about the effect of the sanctions on Russia on the cod and crab supply. The US cod fishing and processing industry has been under pressure for a good while as the data the article noted dropping from harvesting 100million pounds of fish in the 1980s to less than 2 million in 2020. The problem there has been overfishing combined with warming ocean waters which collapsed the cod population.

Last year I saw pictures of the Po River in northern Italy with long stretches parched and dry from the drought they experienced for a couple of years. Now I watched BBC cover the flooding in the same area. This Reuters article covers it nicely.

The reports I saw this morning about the debt ceiling talks followed a very familiar course. The Republicans are demanding spending cuts they weren't able to get through the budget process as a ransom for raising the ceiling until the next time the country's borrowing bumps up against the limit. They always demand cuts that won't cut the spending directly but will do so by making it onerous for those who want or need to get certain benefits to get them. Fewer people = less money spent. They always seem to think that the programs are rife with people who could work but "won't." I have known two people who needed disability but had to go through all kinds of hoops. One was a woman, who has since died, who suffered a major stroke. The stroke left her weak and with mobility problems but the officials continually wanted her to provide new proofs that she couldn't work. No matter how many doctors attested to her disabilities they demanded more--on the assumption, I guess, that some one would finally give them the diagnosis they wanted: she was a freeloader who could work. The other has rheumatoid arthritis which has been crippling. So crippling that they are now checking out a motorized wheelchair. She also now is fighting cancer. She had to continually provide more proofs to be approved and then had to fight doctors who thought she was faking the pain to get pain killers. One actually yelled at her she needed to grow up and kick her addiction. It would be funny if it wasn't so maddening that the biggest cheats on government largess have been "upstanding" businessmen and doctors. But the Republicans want to acknowledge are the poor.

I found a mention of a fire that destroyed one of Russia's supersonic bombers but had explore the story on Google because I had exceeded my limit on the original site. Here is a story by Popular Mechanics that elaborates on the story. Key points: the fire the story focuses on isn't the only on. Several more have happened well away from the Ukrainian border. And the Russians have lost some 60 aircraft in Ukraine. Putin must be taking industrial antacids for his ulcers. Worse, the people sabotaging the aircraft are Russians.

I found this Guardian story about the problems of Brexit after finding a tease on a site that is behind a pay wall. They still haven't solved the problem of the Northern Ireland border and many of the expected  benefits of Brexit appear to have been more than countered by the drawbacks. And no one really knows how to fix the problem--or even wants to acknowledge it.

Bill Astore has a new substack post on our health care industry. As so many commentators say about so many aspects of our society/economy "follow the money." Another blogger I read frequently refer to health care as "sick care" and notes that the aim seems to be to make sure we remain sick enough to keep paying them.