Kyoto  © PJ Croft 2020

Another three day gap. I admit it becomes hard to think of enough new material for a daily post, although you might not think it for the way I prattle on.

Still glorious weather, with no end in sight, no rain on the horizon. I did weaken and had a hot shower this morning. Must put a stop to that.

________________________________________

Glum – the battery in the Honda MDX has died a stone cold death. I don’t know if there was something draining it but I confess I hadn’t driven it for about six weeks. I’ve got a smart charger made by Century, the battery makers, and it’s been connected for more than 48 hrs so far, but there’s no sign of life. $189 for a new one. Booger, this will  be the second new battery I’ve had to buy recently – the Verada needed a new one about August last year.

________________________________________

No matter how much you like something, you can make yourself sick of it. About a year ago I discovered cashews with the skin on in Coles. Yum! I took to buying a small bag each week. But I think I’m sick of them. I never would have believed it.

Likewise, I’ve been spending a lot of time getting my music collections in order using MusicBee, as I’ve said, and playing a lot of music in the process. Even that’s becoming boring. I’m valuing silence now.

________________________________________

I just thought of a couple of words to write about: onto and into. And lead.

Onto does not have the same meaning as on to. Nor does into mean the same as in to.

“If you go down the road a bit, then proceed onto the next town…” is wrong. It should be “proceed on to the next town…”  Onto means to place yourself on top of something. He climbed onto the horse’s back. To go on to means to proceed forward.

Similarly, into and in to. They have different meanings. I groan when I read or hear that a batsman (e.g. in cricket) is “going into bat”. What, inside the bat? I know they can have TV cameras inside the stumps but a batsman going into a bat stretches the imagination too far.

Lead and led: for some reason, a couple of years ago it became the fashion to add an a to led, as in “She lead [led] him to the bedroom.” Lead is the noun for the element, that heavy metal, symbol Pb, pronounced “led”, or a dog’s lead, pronounced “leed”. These are not interchangeable. Why some people want to add unnecessary letters and complications is beyond me.

Likewise, lay and lie. Lay is the past tense of lie. I lay down on the bed. I will lie down for a while. Pleease!  Not, “I am going to lay down.”

__________________________________________

Great Eastern Highway     ABC News photo

My brother’s a mathematician and I asked him the question yesterday, does a log vertical scale (1; 10; 100; 1000; 10000 and so on) imply that all the COVID country lines will roll over eventually like Australia’s has? (Because the effect of plotting on a log vertical scale is that the plot points get closer together.)

The answer is, yes and no, but the point is that the USA’s curve is nowhere near flattening, which means they are nowhere near getting their COVID infections and deaths under control. Their curve is still rising even on the log vertical scale, which is quite a frightening thing.

Here we have the “world’s greatest country”, the “world’s richest country”, the “world’s most powerful country” and they’re losing it. They do not have control. Their death rate is still climbing while most of the rest of the world (except for Brazil, India, Russia and the UK, all ruled by fellow imbeciles) has gained some measure of control. The consequences don’t seem to have penetrated the thick skull of The Dump, the Imbecile in Chief.

This pandemic has a long way to play out yet – years and years. The USA is likely to become crippled for a long time to come. They have ceded leadership before this even started and they’ve become pitiable now. The ingredients are there for political instability. I find it hard to believe that good people in government and power in America would let chaos rule forever, especially when it poses extreme danger to themselves. At present, there is effectively no leadership. “Nature abhors a vacuum.” Sooner or later, someone will try to fill the vacuum.

I don’t believe conspiracy theories about China planning this, but I’ll bet there are plenty of Chinese hawks looking to take advantage of this situation. It’s a worry.

And meanwhile, our attention is diverted from Global Heating.