If the current Duke Energy Outage Map is current, and to be believed

Then this incident has demonstrated loudly and clearly how a small group of dedicated terrorists can disable large swaths of the US quickly and readily. It demonstrates that the availability of spare parts and skilled workers is so limited that they can't get one county in NC back up and running. Imagine a more sophisticated and disseminated attack plan.

Link to current outage map (now Tuesday evening, this started Saturday evening):
https://outagemap.duke-energy.com/#/current-outages/ncsc

1 dead, 5 injured, in Atlanta mass shooting: report

From Raw Story:

"So far, police have said five victims were shot, in addition to the man who lost his life on the scene," Fox 5 Atlanta reported. "They have not identified any of the suspects or victims yet, but said this was a result of a dispute between teenagers and young adults that ended with gun violence."

Mass shooting at Chesapeake, Virginia Walmart leaves 'at least 10' people dead

Story still developing, but seems to have occurred at about 10:12 PM EST.

Another day, another mass shooting.

My one great fear, with the current election results

Is that the ideologues on the Supreme Court, seeing the possible fading of ReThug power, will be energized to decide that state legislatures can overturn any election they damn well please. They are more interested in partisan power than rendering legal decisions that actually comply with the Constitutional structure of our country.

(Jewish Group) As Yom Kippur Approaches

Any thoughts as to what the disruption of the Nordstream pipelines will do in the coming months?

Now that coverage is indicating that the two gas pipelines to Europe have been physically blown, the possibility of a "good" winter in Western Europe is fading quickly. I was just curious what folks thought the future months might look like, as a result.

Brutal Hippo Attack Caught on Video

A quick reflection on taxing the richest of the rich

I just looked up a list of the 10 richest people on the planet. Nine of the top 10 are from the US.

I just looked up the price of an aircraft carrier (That being one of the priciest items I could think of) - about $13 Billion

And then I compared the wealth of these people to the price of an aircraft carrier (the US currently operates 11 of them)

Elon Musk, at $218.3B could buy 3 of them for the US and STILL retain his position of the richest person in the world.
Jeff Bezos at $165.5B could buy 2 more of them for the US and STILL retain his position of the 3rd richest person in the world.
Bill Gates at $130.7B could throw another one in and STILL retain his position of the 4th richest person in the world.

Warren Buffet, Larry Page, Larry Ellison, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Balmer, each with $100B+ could easily afford one each aircraft carrier, and there we have replaced all of the US aircraft carriers (plus added another new one), and not have even put a dent in their personal fortunes, nor even changed their positions in the global competition for how many dollars they can stuff into their pillow cases.

The wealth these individuals are hoarding is completely distorting the current economy and needs to end. Ever wonder where the middle class went in the US? Its stuffed into some burlap dollar-sign bags in their back rooms.

For the millon we have lost

As we cross the 1 million deaths from Covid mark here in the US, I thought it would be appropriate to do SOMETHING to recognize that fact. While the entire country seems to be doing the Yippee Yippee dance that they can go maskless, Covid is just regrouping for yet another go at us.

Here is a link to a piece on YouTube which was posted to commemorate this occasion.

The Ukrainian National Anthem on a Baroque Lute

Daniel Estrem is one of my favorite musicians. I love the sparse yet clear statement of this piece: