Enjoy the Memorial - or - Happy Easter - or - Sameach Pesach, depending on your denomination. Greetings from our little tin can by the sea, where my wonderful wife, Wendy, and I try to survive through the pandemic and me having stage IV colon cancer. In the news, we have Russia and Ukraine at war, which was instigated by Russia. This has become a war of attrition on the Ukraine and I hope that they survive it. This war threatens US involvement, since NATO countries are on Ukraine's western borders. This was a wake-up call for the EU. For far too long, they have not funded their defenses, instead relying on US involvement. Time for them to put on the big boy panties.
The pandemic is still going strong, though the case numbers have become even more vague than they once were. Once the at home test became available, many positives went unreported, and that continues. The CDC is relying on samples from wastewater treatment plants to measure the spread of COVID. This may be sound for cities, but rural areas are missed, since many of those homes do not have their sanitary sent to a central processing plant. Easter will be a spreader event.
Global warming continues unabated. In fact, the Rus-Ukr war has exacerbated it. As it turns out, Russia supplies a good deal of oil and gas to the EU states. Without it, the EU is left to supplement their energy needs with coal. The US is trying to shore up inventories in the EU, but it has nearly doubled the price of gasoline at the pump in the US. We were out on Friday and our neighborhood Wa-Wa gas station showed $3.98/gal. The feds have released oil from the strategic reserve as well as extended the use of ethanol in the fuel to try and keep the price down. However, economics dictates that price moves up are rapid, moves down are slow. This is termed "the stickiness of menu pricing." It was once blamed on reprinting the "menu" or updating the advertised price. In this digital age, that is hardly a factor, though the stickiness persists and I expect that the gluttonous oil companies will ensure that the drop in price will be as slow as they can possibly make it.
Black lives matter? Well, it has certainly quieted over the past year. The latest efforts are not to defund the police, but, rather, to fund them and retrain them. I'll offer up my opinion - there is no reason for a police to have a swat team. Every state already has a National Guard that can be quickly called up. They should be the ones with bomb disposal capability and they should handle terrorist situations. That would take a good bit of the police budget. Same money, but different pots. With the National Guard option, you have very few "lifers", where the police force, especially swat, are all "lifers." It's the insertion of new blood that maintains the integrity of the organization, not the seniority of position.
All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too
Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl
- Bob Dylan, "All along the Watchtower", John Wesley Harding, Dwarf Music, 1968
