not mono

I find the garden more beautiful wet. I'm glad I've covered the exposed area with new mulch, it looks nice in the rain.

My former employee and I talked about trying to balance needs and risks now. He told me about friends, both scientists, who went to a gala. They were masked. During dinner they sat at a table of 10 or so people. No one else was masked. They wore their masks and just slipped them down to get food and then slipped them back up. Everyone else at the table caught Covid. They didn't, even though they were slipping the mask down intermittently to eat.  

The most interesting thing is that it turns out Putin went to war in Ukraine to fight the gays. Yep. So says Apti Alaudinov, commander of Chechen Forces Fighting for Russia. It is a holy war against the Satanic values of Europe and the US, and the gays. 

In 2019 there was a  homophobic heckler at a political event and Zelensky shut him down and said to leave LGBTQ people alone for God's sake. So maybe Apti is right and the war in Ukraine is really a war against LGBTQ people. 

Also fun, the Russians are shooting down their own planes. A $36 million bomber was supposedly shot down by Russia. Russia made a video of it and bragged on Telegram about how they had shot down a Ukrainian plane, until someone saw the inscription that said it was a Russian plane. The video has been deleted now. 

Ukraine destroyed yet another Russian ammo depot. I guess they don't have enough fireworks so they have to blow up ammo depots. 

In early May Ukraine bragged about destroying Russia's most sophisticated, fancy tank, the T-90M, DAYS after it was brought to Ukraine. It was destroyed with a Javelin anti-tank missile system. Part of the fanciness is the "multi-channel sighting system" which turns out to mean optical AND thermal channels, which turns out to mean it can fire day or night. An article today said that Russia's failure to strategically deploy their tanks is part of why they aren't doing well. The loss of so many fancy tanks is forcing them to use older, Soviet-era tanks. 

H&M said it is leaving Russia. Why didn't they leave before? Well, they suspended sales but now they are calling uncle. They will open the stores back up to try to sell off inventory and then they are out because sanctions make operating so complicated. 

UK Defense Chief Sir Tony Radakin explained Russian low morale and recruitment struggles on Sunday. They have to go to ever more rural areas of Russia. The Institute for the Study of War has a video of Russian soldiers complaining about lack of food or medicine. Some are refusing to fight. There are more than 22,200 vacancies for contract servicemen throughout Russia. An unemployed man from the Tatarstan republic said he was offered 300,000 rubles ($5,126) a month. Even the mercenary army, Wagner Group, is lowering its recruiting standards due to heavy losses. They are even hiring convicts and formerly blacklisted individuals and not providing a lot of training. The Kremlin both denies that the Wagner Group exists and gave the head a medal which should further impact Russian military morale. 

To end today's absurdity, a report broadcast on Russian state television highlighted how a Russian couple was able to buy a new white car using money they received after their son was killed in the Ukraine war. "In memory of our son, we bought a nice new car."