"Classroom excellence" ha! His big idea for improving test scores for the Chicago public schools when I worked there was to exclude as many low-performing students as possible from even taking the tests...

Lots of damage around the city - I've seen videos of trees down, things flying off buildings and even multiple windows broken out on some high rises. Tornado sirens must have gone off because I can see on the group chat from our building that people were wondering if they should head out to the hall or down to the basement. (When every Midwesterner knows that's the time to go out or up on the roof and see how bad it really is outside!!) We are out of town so missing it all.

Out for a walk around a local Wildlife Trust area with ponds and river and there were loads of ox eye daisy, flocks and campion. And lovely water lilies [image: 1781236077354-20260607_120015-resized.jpg] Meanwhile my sisters garden is in full bloom with yellow scabious [image: 1781236426195-20260609_130953.jpg] A pure white peony [image: 1781236447723-20260609_130813-resized.jpg] And rampant fragrant rose with clematis [image: 1781236523498-20260609_130719.jpg]

Just an aside on games, which Mary Anna brought up. The musical backdrop of games is itself becoming a musical genre of its own, with recognized composers, some of whom have gained reputations as serious composers. This is something I haven’t investigated, but it sure surprised me. It sort of echoes what happened in the previous generation with film composers like Ennio Morricone and Bernard Herrmann and Ryuji Sakamoto, who now see big orchestra concerts devoted to their film music.

It’s clearly the work of those same aliens responsible for crop circles.

Well, for automobiles, the emissions are water vapor. There's been hydrogen cars on the road from Honda and I believe others in test programs limited to specific areas in specific states. But however they produce it and whatever the environmental factors involved in its production (and thank you; this is fascinating) is there not a consensus that the oil industry will never really allow it? The worst thing I've heard said about them is that they explode, as if gas and electric vehicles don't?

I just did a Google's AI search about relations between country x and country y. I thought I was reading Cold War propaganda. It was wild.

[image: 1781183934674-img_2824.jpeg]

Oh, it just occurred to me that maximum annual contribution and market volatility are not related to each other. Duh. I had to leave the USAA page alone and do something else. It's almost sunset. It's finally cooled off again. I might return to it tonight. I might wait until tomorrow.

@Mark Place "WOW" emoji here.

My grandfather kept one for upkeep on the farm ditches. He called them by an older name, "motor patrol". He would stand and watch it work. He would stop it and tell the driver what he wanted more frequently than was necessary I am sure. The water drainage district did more of that work in later years. No doubt my grandfather told them how to do it.

@AdagioM said: Ewww. But well played. Exactly that. Thanks

The Oracle founder bought CBS, the largest private donor to the IDF in history. I already knew of him because he bought an entire Hawaiian island. He bought one of the neighbor islands. CBS is not news. And the attack on 60 Minutes was predictable.