"The German army was the best tactical instrument in the world, but it was employed in the service of a strategy of bedazzlement that was essentially lunatic.” -Max Hastings This morning's headlines included the whopper that the Department of Defense/War is about out of money. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/07/21/pentagon-sinking-billions-into-iran-is-quickly-running-short-cash/ How exactly does one run a trillion-dollar-a-year enterprise out of money w

Anxiety How do you always get the best of me? I should be living in a fantasy I can't enjoy a goddamn thing Anxiety Why am I never where I am supposed to be? Even with my lover sleeping close to me I'm wide awake and I'm in pain -Jason Isbell We've been listening to a lot of Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit lately. I've written about that before. The above lyric sort of captures this Monday, every Monday for years now, from 3 a.m. until I finally roll out of bed. I may blame my

"Old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer provide bad examples." -Francois de La Rochefoucauld Yesterday evening, as Peg was immersed in planning for the furnishing of the new Manhattan apartment (it's so small I figure she's given several minutes of her attention per square foot on the subject), I was reading an online essay that casually dropped a quote from one of my favorite little books, La Rouchefoucauld's Maxims: "Hypo

"Is global warming causing more extreme weather events of greater intensity, and is it causing sea levels to rise? The answer to both is an emphatic 'no.'" -Jim Inhofe Jim, you may want to come out here to the street and take a look at the sky. Or I reckon you could just peek out the window from here inside the condo right now. I guess the good news is that all this particulate has driven down the temperatures a bit. We hit 100 degrees in Corning on Tuesday, the second time w