June 26, 27

 It looks cloudy this morning but with all the smoke that has been blowing down from Canada it is often hard to tell. With the amount of rain we have had over the last two days I don't have to water again today. We have errands today.

I found this Robert Reich post that expresses some of the thoughts I have had about the Putin-Prigozhin situation. Who has lost and who has gained? Underneath the the notion the pundits have been pushing that Putin has been seriously weakened is the fact that his military command has been far more damaged. We'll see if Shoigu and/or Gerasimov resign or are fired (or suffer a fall from a high window). The Russian army has been incredibly ineffective which has been a blow to Putin's and Russia's reputation. The Wagner Group, on the other hand, has been effective. Prigozhin's rhetoric was focused squarely on the military command and said absolutely nothing about Putin. That criticism provides Putin an out on the military debacle by putting the blame on his generals for giving him tragically flawed advice and information which led him to agree to the adventure in Ukraine. It also eliminates two potential threats to his own power. Putin and his supporters win on this count. And Prigozhin may still be available to play hatchet man.

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Well, we did our errands yesterday which mainly involved grocery shopping and visiting our landlord to fix a problem with our last rent check. The latter wasn't really urgent because we are well ahead of our deadline. We had a long shopping list and got a couple of items I forgot to put on the list. As usual we seemed to be low on or out of a lot of things. By the time we finished everything, including putting the groceries away, we were pretty wasted and spent the rest of the day chilling out. We have had cycles of rain for the last few days and expect more over the next few days. Maybe I will get a dry period when I can clip some herbs for drying without getting drenched. A couple of the spates of rain were quite heavy.

I will try to ignore the so-called news today. I have heard way too much of the situation in Russia (about which no one actually knows any thing concrete) and the circus in Washington where certain RepTHUGlicans are trying to make the past conform to their preferred version of the past by "expunging" The Former Guy's impeachments.

Doomberg has an interesting article (partially available--the rest is behind a pay wall) about some of the challenges of processing the metals needed for a high tech economy. I remember reading a book on the history of technology a very long time ago and the author claimed that technology makes the process (and the cost) invisible. He used the notion of lighting our homes. Today we flip a switch and get light. But we never see the wires connecting us to the plant which generates the electricity or the trucks, pipelines, or rail cars which bring the fuel the plants use to generate the electricity that we access by flipping a switch. Nor do we see all of the processes that get the fuel out of the earth and converted to a form that can be transported to the plant which uses to..... . And so it goes. The boosters of electric vehicles tout the reduction in carbon generation but none of the ever take into account all of the pollution and waste generated in the processes of getting the materials those vehicles require. The same goes for every kind of "green" technology. Nor are very many pundits talking about the waste that comes at the end of the cycle when the items are no longer useable. What happens to the depleted lithium batteries, the wind turbines vanes, or other parts?

I just read an interesting argument on a post from a blogger who has been accused of spreading misinformation about the dangers/ineffectiveness of COVID vaccines. He suggests several ways his critics can "prove" their case against him. However, the first technique he cites strikes me as problematic if not actually fallacious. He note a friend of his who has collected the stories of his friends and family who had bad reactions to the vaccine and wonders why there aren't any countering anecdotes from those who had spectacular success stories. Problem #1) anecdote does not equal data whether for either side. Problem #2) when a particular outcome is expected we don't usually notice individual successes whereas the failures become glaringly apparent. Failure is the dog that doesn't bark in the night when it should bark. If the dog barks it is doing what it should and isn't note worthy. Problem #3) the suggestion ignores actual data.

The Free Press has a good piece on the possible end of "affirmative action" ahead of a possible negative ruling by the Supreme Court. It raises a question in my mind: is there any way to devise a truly "fair" admissions program for colleges and universities--or for hiring at companies and government for that matter? I have been asking myself that question since the Bakke case in 1978. Though the Court ruled then that race and other such factors could be used in the admission process quotas could not. When I was 28 I was finishing a BA in Biology and considering what to do next. I thought veterinary school might be a good idea but my advisor gave me the clue that my age would be against me. I wasn't yet 30 and I was "over the hill." I entered a MS program in Zoology instead. Ten years later a colleague finished his PhD and applied for both postdoc positions AND medical school, and was accepted at both in spite of being over 30. He opted for med school. Things do change but I wonder what a truly "fair" system would look like.

Stan Cox provides a few new thoughts about climate change and what we might see as it goes from bad to worse.

When I went out to get our mail I thought I saw a low lying haze. I didn't think too much about it because we were expecting periods of light rain. However, we aren't too far from Lake and McHenry counties in Illinois and that is where the haze shown in the pictures here. Yep, the Canadian fires are still burning.