Cluster Bombs for the Ukraine?

Wednesday, Washing Day, and the clothes are on the line, as ordained in the Holy Scripts of Yore and Elders.
I saw the common blackbird this morning, tooling about in the garden. So, good to see.

As I was hanging out the washing I thought about The Ukraine getting a lot of cluster bombs from the USA.

Now, Cluster Bombs are really awful things, hundreds of little bomblets, many of which go off, and many don't. Many just lie there for ten, 20 years waiting for a child to step on them, then Boom! No legs!...as still happens every day now in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, from the bad old days of American penetrative imperialism.

Cluster Bombs are a real Cluster Fuck that defines true hatred for an enemy, and their children, in a very real and abiding way. You can't just go and pick up the ones that don't go off. Why? Because then they go off!

Odd that the Ukrainian President, our Hero, will be dropping them on the Ukraine, itself, his own beloved countryside, and his very own loved peoples, but only where the Russian soldiers and the Ukrainian Folk who like Russia, who live there as the Majority. All those troublesome Eastern Provinces he's been trying to neutralise and effectively 'sterilise' for many years.

Kind of shows the true Mettle of the Man... who is beginning to make Mr Putin look like a bit of a humanitarian in comparison.

Dropping cluster bombs on your own people, even if those folk don't really like you, is not a good idea. That blood and shattered bone in the present and in the generations to come, doesn't come out in the wash. That's a real War Crime. That's a real and hateful Cunt Act.

2023 Womens World Cup Football, friendly game, Australia versus France

Womens World Cup, Friendly, France V Australia.

Result: Aus 1 Fra 0.

An interesting preliminary game, without much risk. Both teams do and can play very well, and true, it is good to see that the Aus finishing side, at 90 minutes, was competent.

The concern with Australia is that the strength is in the attack, with great strikers, and with a semi-okay defensive line, with Polkinghome being the linch-pin for the defence. Putting pressure on that defence, and somehow taking out Polkinghome would leave Aus quite vulnerable to an assertive, attacking opposition. They'd have to contain Kerr and the other 2 Aus strikers, for sure, which will always be a hell of a task.

Australia should do well. I expect an advance from Number 10 to about 6 for Aus after this competition. Will they win the world cup? Unlike the men's game, yes, they could. The US, the UK, Netherlands ...these are very serious teams and brilliant players. They are both very excellent and skilled athletes and very hungry driven and very talented individuals.

Melbourne Chinatown

So, the other night in Chinatown, due to my Mental Health Eyes...always assessing, even though now clouded in a nice way with soft glaucoma, keeping eye contact, always, I met a few really dodgy folk in alleys...and gave them cigarettes. One of them remembered me from work. I didn't remember her. Not much of a memory I guess.

They used to be in asylums. Streets are better.

I used to, in my former life, in end-stage palliative care, walk about noting who was about to die in the street, on trams, in offices, drinking cappucinos, eating healthy buns, getting off buses etc; You can pick em pretty easily, if you've had the right background training over the many years. There's no mystery. There's a real guaranteed trajectory there.

Don't worry, there's no conflict, never any conflict, people just don't want to know anyway. What good would that do? Just let it be, and stand clear and get out of the way of the paramedics.

I try not to do that anymore.

Its a drag.

Mental Health is much more fun.

Everyone is kinda still living for a little while.

It feels a lot better on a cold night.

War and Peace

War and Peace

Whatever side we are on, when it comes to Russia and the Ukraine, it really doesn't matter. The economics of the world are not permanently changed by the conflict, but rather all the economies related to Europe will suffer a lot, by the sanctions regarding Russian Oil and Gas, and I expect that will go on for the next decade...thus a deep world recession. Lots of crashing European governments, for sure. Look at France now.

But not any great or big war.

The only place a World War could happen would be in the Korean Peninsula...with North Korea the most expensive piece of land on earth. North Korea has the Position, Position, Position every real estate agent dreams of.

It butts onto South Korea, China, and Russia....is close to Japan...and between those combined economies rests the world economy itself...and North Korea does have massive natural wealth and huge totally untapped natural resources, and it has enormous military power, and it has a very disciplined and highly tech-educated, and obedient, population.

In any conflict by the USA, the first army to arrive in PyongYang would be China's Red Army, then Russia's Army, then the American Army, and what a great stand-off between the Powers that would be! But it won't happen. North Korea is far too important to all the world.

Its a war none of them could win, except China, really. Yet it is the only place on earth that a conflict that fundamentally involved all of us, everywhere, could possibly happen. It is the one Geo-Political 'moving tectonic plate' in our whole world.

I know North Korea is the worst Government on Earth, and then comes our friends, Saudi Arabia, for sure, and the Middle East, well, its not what it used to be in terms of being greatly important anymore, but North Korea has got it all... but...as long as the status quo remains the status quo, we are all saved from a World War by the continuity of the bizarre Kim regime, in a way. That regime, unfortunately for the North Korean folk, has all the hallmarks of lasting a very, very long time, indeed. Longer than any of us alive will be alive.

Still, peace is, indeed, peace...and we have it now...so don't worry so much, especially about China. China does not make war. We and our friends make war. China has learned how not to. We haven't.

That China knows how to do well and not make war is not a failing of theirs, its a triumph of the human spirit and brilliant planning over a horrible history of ours.

Cold Winter Now

Awhile back, Mrs Fitz bought me a Kathmandu puffer-type jacket, and one for herself, from her Airport Shop.

They are really good things. I'm noticing, coming home, its about 11.30pm now, and its about 5 degrees C and I'm really comfy. Not cold, not hot. Just had a walk around the cold courtyard, and impressed upon it some more ideas of what to do with it, and came inside. Bloody cold inside the house too, still no need to turn on the heater.

We don't want to use the big gas heater in the roof much, although its good, and very fast, until we see how the bills are going.

Got a nasty shock last month. The gas bill went from $50/month to $280/month and we don't want that to happen again. Damn you, Zelensky, you and your cohort of n'er do wells and certifiable rapscallions, spending all my future pension. Ah well, after that I guess the USA will be spending all my pension on not giving us the nuclear submarines we paid for. You can trust the Americans in that way. They never pay their debts.

It's about an hour and 15 minute drive from work to home at night. Mostly all freeways, but still slow, as someone is usually fixing up some part of it around the clock.

I stopped at McDonalds on the way home and got us some warming food-like stuff to eat when she gets home soon from work and we have our enjoyable late night long yack about life, the universe, and everything. Some nice wine is left too.

Work was good. I love not being in charge. I can manage to look after 8 folk and not be so concerned about the other 14 or so. After all, my stoic stellar career in nursing is well and truly over and now this is just rewarding part time stuff that pays okay, especially on weekends, and I'm okay at it still, and still learning, and I like the company I work for, and the folk I work with, and that's a pretty rare gift at any time.

Work was good. Interesting how group dynamics can change so quickly with the absence of just one person and the addition of another. Amazing. From cohesion and compassion to down right horribility. From no problems to all problems. I guess the whole world could be like that. And, of course, there's always Protestant Christians, always deceitful, and up to no good, as we know, and as we were warned about in that holy precious Catholic primary school of the one true faith.

I work with a lot of Chinese and Indian and Sri Lankan and Irish nurses, and that's great. I feel at home.

Then, an extra benefit at the end of the day, I get to come home and study the garden.

Yes, I'll need to raid the consultant's garden again for some more nasturtium plants, and then put them in the birdbath here and let them soak for a day or two, then put down 4 more bags of earth in the side yard, and then plant them out all the way to the end of the yard where Phil, the statue, our Gardening Angel, will look after them through the cold winter.

Spring could well be very interesting.

Gardens are great. they teach you to plan the future, but not too much, and without great certainty, because the world is like that, and, indeed, so are we.

I recall looking after a soldier who eventually went off and killed himself. Jumped out of a high tower on the Coast. He said 'well, we rolled into the town, in .......... in Afghanistan, and we were all hootched up on crack, and then some raghead kid fired an RPG that got caught in the steel wire, and didn't go off, it just fizzed there, and it really spooked us all, and we were so fuckin twitchy, so, we all got out of the truck, and just killed everyone in the town. We used so much ordnance that we ran out.' 'Later, the Army psychologist said that we did a good job. He did suggest that in future we try not to use all the RPGs and ammunition we had, as it was in short supply, but... we did a good job. We should be proud. We did the job. We did a good job. I don't know if we did a good job.'

Ben Roberts Smith: pride goeth before the Fall. You have fallen, dear Ben. Pour yourself an icy beer into the prosthetic limb and have a deep sigh. Why you? Well...there's a reason for that. There's stuff you should do, and there's stuff you should not. I know its a drag, but that's true. Sure, we should never have gone to war in Iraq or Afghanistan, they were evil errors of governance, but, still, there on the ground, once you're there and you wanted to be there, you just don't cut loose, you have to make sense of it in a way that doesn't involve killing innocent muslim folk and poor families who actually have to live there. There's a lesson in that for you. It's a life lesson. Learn it.