20,000 Ton ship full of Ukrainian corn bound for Lebanon.

 Ship has cleared inspection in Istanbul.  It's off for Lebanon.  Front page color picture in the Wall St Journal this morning.  It's really happening. 

Thank you Nancy Pelosi

For going to Taiwan.  You showed the Chinese that we will support Taiwan if they try to invade it. We showed our friends in Asia, Japan, South Korea, Philippines, even India, that we still oppose Chinese Communist takeovers of anywhere.  A good point to make. 

   Nancy’s trip is the best thing that any democrat has done in years.  Thank you Nancy.

First Shipment of Ukrainian corn leaves for Tripoli in Lebanon.

It is a back page story in the Wall St Journal.  20,000 tons of corn.  That ought to fill up a big ship, and when made into Corn Flakes is will take up a lot more space.  Ukraine has a lot more grain it can ship, a million tons or more from last year and as much again or more from this year’s harvest which ought to be starting soon.  The Ukrainians say it will take a month or more to ship that much grain.  They worry about running out of room to store the new harvest if they cannot more last year’s harvest. 

   Unsaid in the Journal story is how much Ukraine gets paid for that first shipload, and follow on ship loads.  And in what currency, US dollars, Ukrainian currency, Russian rubles, Lebanese currency, IOUs, time payments, or who knows.  Surely Ukraine needs all the money it can get to keep fighting the Russians.  

Apparently a deal was struck between Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, and the UN to  allow cargo ships thru the war torn Black Sea.  Gotta wonder why Russia signed on, you would think they would be happy to strangle Ukraine  by blockading their Black Sea ports. 

 

SOS. Save our Sink.

The kitchen sink faucet has been leaking, a steady drip drip drip, for some time now.  It got to the point where I could hear the drip drip all over the house.  I would go to bed and hear the drip drip until I fell asleep.

  So yesterday I decided to do something about it.  I shut off the water and took the faucet apart.  I took the old seals and the strange metal ball that made a single lever work both hot and cold along with me.  Went to Lowes in Littleton.  Pleasant surprise, Lowes had replacement washers and replacement for the metal ball.  That faucet was installed way back in 1962, so I had worried about finding parts for it.  But Lowes had them.  Groovy.

   I got home, put the liquor away, and started in to put the faucet back together.  Arrgh.  I just could NOT get the damn thing to go back together.  I even made a second run to Lowes to buy a third little set of spare parts, thinking maybe I needed it.  No luck. 

   So I called up my brother John, who has been a contractor up here for 40 years or so, thinking he might have an idea.  Well he could not think of anything to try over the phone, but he said he could drop by and take a look.  Son of a Gun, John got the faucet to go back together.  It doesn’t leak, the hot and the cold work.  Fantastic.  Without Brother John, I would have next tried to replace the entire faucet assembly, probably $90 from Lowes. 

  So the water runs, I can wash dishes, life is good.  Thank you John.

Things Democrats have brought us.

   

1. $5 a gallon gasoline.  It has dropped off a bit from $5 but not enough to matter.
2. Attempts to renew the “assault weapons” ban.  Since there are no real differences between “assault weapons” and deer rifles, this law will ban all rifles.
3. 9.5 % inflation.  Your dollars are worth 9.5% less in buying power than a year ago.
4. The Afghanistan debacle.  We pulled out of Afghanistan turning the country over to the Taliban and leaving billions of dollars worth of good American weapons to Islamic terrorists.  We had Afghani’s clinging to USAF transports and falling to their deaths when the plane took off.
5. Lack of baby formula in store.  For that matter a lot of empty shelves for all sorts of common products like bacon.
6. Kamala Harris for vice president.  If anything happens to Biden, impeachment, heart attack, Covid 19, falling off bicycles, falling down the boarding stairs from Air Force 1, you name it, Kamala becomes president.  By all accounts she is worse than Biden.
7. Opening up the US-Mexican border to anybody who shows up.  Resulting in  floods of fentanyl, Covid 19 cases, and illegal immigrants.
8. Turning the presidency over to Who Runs Biden’s America (WRBA).  They write the executive orders and the speeches on the teleprompter.  Biden signs what is put before him and reads out loud what ever is on the teleprompter.  We have no idea who WRBA is but who ever they are they are running America right into the ground. 
9. Biden is pushing a big spending bill thru Congress and will sign it when the Congress approves it.  It will make inflation worse. 
10. Biden is putting the Armed Forces onto a lefty greenie path, including Critical Race Theory training for the troops and mixed sex bathrooms and mixed sex locker rooms.  There was a scene of this in the movie Starship Troopers.  They are discharging 60,000 regular and National Guard troops who lack Covid 19 vaccination.  The armed services are reporting recruiting shortfalls of as much as 45%.
    

       All real Americans need to vote a straight Republican ticket in the mid term federal elections coming up this November.  Only that will save America from total ruin.

More Old Line Science Fiction authors. Poul Anderson.

He wrote a lot of stuff.  I have 17 Poul Anderson books on my bookshelf and I dare say there are more such books out there. Andersen wrote good fantasy, good historical novels and good hard science fiction. Some of my favorites are Three Hearts and Three Lions, War of the Wingmen, The Star Fox, and The High Crusade.  All Poul Anderson books, not just my favorites, are good reads.  Anderson stories have a protagonist who also serves as the view point character.  In the eyes of the protagonist, his friends are noble and good, his enemies are evil.  A very simplified world view but this is fiction, and a straight forward and not too complicated world view makes for a good story.

   Anyhow if you are looking for a good science fiction and fantasy writer you cannot go wrong with Poul Anderson.

 

Are we in a recession?

 The usual description of a recession is two quarters (half a year) of declining GNP.  We got that today.  The Biden Administration is saying “No we don’t.  We have to have something else before it is a recession.”  They never said what “something else” might be.  This story doesn’t convince many people, but it soaks up hours of TV time debating the worthless issue. While this fruitless debate goes on, the Administration doesn’t have to answer real questions, like “Will you reauthorize Keystone XL?”, or “When will you start leasing land for oil and gas exploration?” Or “When will you tell the banks and finance houses that it is OK to lend for oil and gas drilling?”,  The Wall St Journal simply mentioned that most people believe two negative quarters is a recession and then they moved on.