“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
Pablo Picasso

It has been a busy summer and keep falling farther behind. There have been several subjects brought up in diaries I wanted to add a few thoughts.

Stocking up. It is part of farm life and living with the seasons. There is a time to harvest, preserve and consume. The act of creating a working inventory of regularly used products and foods with scheduled turn-over rate.. The criteria used to determine how much to buy ahead of expected need is based on storage space, funds and ease of replacing item when time to repurchase or replace.

A working inventory evens out my monthly expenses, helped with income disruptions and reduces the times I need to run into town for one item.
The concept extends to many consumables in life from a few extra PVC joints to repair or modify irrigation system, an extra bottle of shampoo to a few extra jars of pickles. If the cucumber harvest is poor I can always buy a few jars of a commercial product to fill the the pantry selves.

I have evolved past buying a product just because the price is very low. Those are the items often thrown out due to expiration date or are awkward to store. Quit buying special food for all the different animals. If I was buying Purina Chow products would need to buy and sore at least 10 different products. The primary reason I did the research and mix many of the food products. The same simplification can be done with cleaning products.

Asia Times has been a big supporter of the Ukrainians. There coverage has been slowly shifting. Maybe war fatigue is setting in or the editors are feeling less confidant of a Western desired outcome.

The bottom lines for peace in Ukraine Asia Times July 22, 2022

The recent assertion by Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s security council (and former president), that the invasion of Ukraine will “achieve all its goals” and that peace will be “on our terms” raises an obvious question: what are those terms?

History suggests the answer may be a hard one. Modern Russian wars have followed a pattern – victory is either total (Chechnya or Syria) or it involves the dismemberment of the other country (Georgia or Ukraine after the first Russian intervention in 2014).

Peace treaties are rare, and settlements – as Medvedev’s comments implied – have been Russia’s alone to approve. Opponents are expected to surrender, not negotiate.
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While Putin’s bottom lines remain unknown, the onus is now on Ukraine and its Western backers to set out their own terms for what is and isn’t negotiable. Although it may be Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s country at war, ultimately peace will have to be settled by Putin and US President Joe Biden.

There appear to be four main questions that will determine what the bottom lines for peace would look like:

Should Russia be economically liable for the restoration of the damage caused by its invasion?
Should those accused of war crimes be brought to justice?
Should Ukraine’s territorial integrity be retained, or should the country be divided and parts ceded to Russia (as former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger has recommended)?
What would ongoing security guarantees for the region look like?

Another example of the mood changing.
United States: end of an illusion of omnipotence Asia Times July 21, 2022

For decades, the United States has been in relative decline, facing the prospect of someday being overtaken by a rival power. Its main problem, however, is not the relative decline itself – it’s a natural phenomenon occurring as companies, sectors, regions and countries grow at uneven rates. Instead, its main problem is a failure to recognize this condition, whether out of pride, electoral calculation or simple lack of awareness.
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This relative decline in economic and productive weight ultimately results in a narrowing of the margins for political action, due to the phenomenon of “overstretching,” the phenomenon at the origin of the fall of some great empires (from the Roman Empire to the Russian). Kennedy – in 1986 – explained it in this way:

“Decision-makers in Washington must face the awkward and enduring fact that the sum total of the United States’ global interests and obligations is nowadays far larger than the country’s power to defend them all simultaneously.”

That is, the global interests and obligations that the United States could afford to defend with a GDP of nearly $3.46 trillion in 1960, could not all be defended simultaneously in 1986 with a GDP of $8.6 trillion, and even less so today despite a GDP approaching $20 trillion. This paradox is only apparent: while the GDP of the United States in 1960 was almost half (46.7%) of the GDP of the rest of the world, by 2020 it had become less than a third (30.8%).

At some point we need to be concerned about the quality of life to those who live in the United States.

Not sure how much time will be available to check in today. It could be this evening before I can visit the Open Thread.

What is on your mind today?