I cut Teslas off... cross posting from humour

I cut off Teslas....

Saw a snippet of a comic. Here is what he said

I cut off Teslas. You just know they won't let you in.
Why bother even signalling your intent. I just cut tehm off.
You know Tesla's self braking is really something else.
I cut them off, look in the rearview and the driver is shaking his fist and cursing.
The car is saying go ahead sir....

A disclaimer, I don't own a car. But I might try this when I rent one.... Sarcasm.

With this leadership and corporate base

we are screwed in a war.

We don't take others seriously. We don't want to learn from the best (Ukraine) and our procurement system is too bloated and rigid. Todays wars aren't the same as in Afghanistan. which wasn't the same as the Kuwait war.

This is a good paper covering our issues, and those of Europe as well.

https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/modern-war-and-the-systemic-learning-deficit-in-western-military-institutions?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

CA election and ballot

We live in Germany and vote by mail.
We waited to see what was going to shake out before we sent in our ballots.
We mailed our ballots on the 23rd of May.
As of today, Alemeda county says they haven't gotten our ballots. Over 2 weeks.
The delivery has never been this slow. Don't know if they are behind in the updating of the website or they just haven't made it there.

For the General election it looks like we will have to mail a month in advance or find a way to fax in the ballot.

Noon thursday, Pacific time, it starts

The Football world cup. Like it or not. Like the nasty political nonsense by a certain country the first gameis Mexico v South Africa.

As a former referee I like to keep track of the laws. Prevents me from making too much of an ass of myself commenting on the laws of the game. So here is the site of the group that does all the law updating. This link will give you the 2026-2027 rule book. It is effective July first but the teams will be playing under these laws as written.

https://theifab.com/

Under the 'hamburger"symbol, 3 horizontal ines, drops down and you can get the laws one at a time.
This gives you a pick list including changes for this year.
Expand Laws of the Game. That will get you a list including laws 1-17, and a glossary.

there is a section on VAR protocol and for the soccer geeks, guidlines for match officials.

Enjoy the matches. I don't know if I will see many as we are 9 hours ahead and except for Germany's matches I will have to pay for find an outdoor venue. The first USA match is at 3 AM our time.....

Passau photos

Here are some pictures of Passau. It ia located at the confluence of the Danube (Danau), Inn, and Ilz. I does get some flooding historically. The last big one was 2013. !0 meters above normal.

The Rathaus


Dom Towers


The confluence of the Danau, left, and Inn, right




Might have been a mill.

RE: 25% tariff on Brazil

For certain stuff but not agriculture equipment.

This is probably the big reason. Brzil has stepped onthe toes of banksters who have problems making money now in Brazil.

It's called Pix. It is a payment system.

electronic payment system. Pix.

It was launched by the Central Bank of Brazil and has changed how the country does transactions. It operated in real time and settles transactionsin under 10 seconds. It has surpased credit and debit cards and is now th country's most prefered payment system.

Users don't need bank details. They use a Pix key.
Transactions are free to individuals. Fees average 0.22% for merchants. Much cheaper than traditional credit cards.
81% of the adult population uses it and it has integrated 70 million unbanked citizens.

This is the reason it has drawn scutiny from other governments.


They have cut out the big international banksters so they are trying to kill it of trim it back.

Here is the Bank's website

https://www.bcb.gov.br/en/financialstability/pix_en

St. Stephan's Cathedral, Passau

The main organ is being repaired. The secondary organ sounded wery nice. The inside is spectacular.
And yes the translation of the manufacturer of the crane means Dear Lord.

The Dom.


What we came to hear.












Pulpit detail

Passau Flowers

Took a short train ride to Passau. I hadn't made it there yet. The plan was to relax and add another organ to our list of significant organs. It is being refurbished and won't be available for 2 more years.
So here are the flowers I saw while wandering around the town.

Apricots on sale, jam time

The other day I found apricots on sale. I have let my jam supply dwindle so this was a good time to get going again. I use a recipe that uses just over a third sugar compared to fruit weight. Three 350 ml jars of slightly tart jam.
Hope to find another sale.