We were working on the Weather Report for the week, which is a bit dizzying. The remnants of Hurricane Ian are still hanging atop our Farm. The Lady in Red says they will start being swept away this afternoon, and maybe the sun will shine for the first time in a week. DeMille looked at Buck over the whole Weather Report thing, which of course was a Writer’s Section inside joke about using the clouds and rain to mimic the antics of our Government. Dark gray in the sky, and a slightly sour taste of foreknowledge.

We ran through the Top Ten issues yesterday as part of the preparations for the somewhat ironic Weather Report, which is depicted above. All of that stuff is going on. In fact, there is more going on than even fits on our single slide. We normally like to insert a couple sharp color images to emphasize some of the newsworthy parts, but there wasn’t room. there was a picture of one of the North Korean ballistic missiles being launched. We liked that one, plus a full-color battlefield depiction of the former Ukrainian Oblasts in the East of that nation which are now the Western Oblasts of Russia.

That matter may be resolved in a fashion that will reverberate through what used to be Western Civilization. There is a current story about the Russian ballistic missile submarine- the biggest SSBN in the fleet- that departed port not with the usual secrecy, but with fanfare. The Old Salts don’t know quite what to make of it, since that boat is rumored to carry atomic tsunami-causing torpedoes that could inundate Britain’s coasts. There may be an association with Mr. Putin’s warnings about his Ukrainian adventure, or there may be the start to something else over the Nord Stream pipeline bombings.

The latter is beyond short and definitely not sweet. Blame for the explosions ranges broadly with a sour taste of suspicion. Blamed so far are, in general order: Russia, The U.S., European competitors to GazProm and a host of non-state commercial interests who stand to make a ton of money over this cold European winter.

Make that “tons.”

There was some nodding from DeMille, who spent his time under the waves as a Navy Bubblehead and knows more than he tells. Splash laughed, and said it was just a trick. He claims all the pipelines and communications cables under the broad ocean area have had demolition packages added silently below the waves, waiting quietly for someone to make things difficult when difficult times require it. There was such a package found on the Nord Stream pipelines before, and that could mean everything is wired the same way.

There was generalized nodding about that possibility around the Ring. Melissa is normally opposed to explosive precautions, but she nodded sadly as well. And that, gentle readers, is as short and sour as we can do this morning. Someone has been preparing for something for a long while, and it may be that the time is nearly at hand.

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