Treasury Secretary Scott
Bessent moved to calm the bond markets yesterday after a recent selloff
made mortgages and other consumer loans more expensive.
Bessent's move to
increase repurchases of long-term government notes and bonds
(increasing demand for them) is largely symbolic but could still help
bring those costs down.
Wall
Street is skeptical the relief will stick, given that the Treasury
Department's purchases are quite tiny compared with the roughly $30
trillion market for government debt.
The reason any of this matters is that the bond
market impacts how much it costs everyone — the government, consumers,
and companies — to borrow money. The bond market is getting squeezed
from multiple directions. It sure looks like we’re in for a spell of rising interest rates.
Meanwhile,
Mr. Trump’s unilateral war in the Middle East and de facto closure of
the Strait of Hormuz is feeding inflation all the while destabilizing
global security and the world’s economy. So much winning.
Yet we have gilded statuary, a ballroom, an airborne Qatari palace, reflecting pool and a triumphal arch.
Used to promote the sale of their Fire Chief gasoline brand Texaco introduced this nifty firefighter helmet in the 1960s. It was available exclusively through Texaco filling stations for $3.98 with a fill-up. It became an iconic promotional item that any boy would want to have. My little brother had one.
Naturally, it boasted the technology of the era with a transistor loudspeaker and a handset microphone powered by a 9v battery. Same as your transistor radio.
Next time I see my brother I'll endeavor to remember to ask if he still has his helmet. Even if it's no longer working it might be worth $20+ on eBay. An excellent condition, working model might fetch $75-$100 from a collector. While a pristine model in the original box might command a price north of $400.
Around here most whitetail deer fawns can be born from April through July, with late May thru early June the peak. Consequently, the local class of fawns have grown considerably as you can see in the first photo taken August 9.
They're getting bigger by the week.
A month ago the fawn in the second photo showed-up; a spindly newborn.
This happens when a doe that wasn't bred during the main rut in November comes back into estrus in December. Furthermore, it is not unusual that a fawn born in the spring of 2025 reaches sufficient weight to enter their first estrus later in the season. The bottom line is that a whitetail doe can be bred late as long as her biological timing is receptive to a buck. They're promiscuous animals.
In any event, mama and this little runt have been showing-up regularly on the trail cameras.
In the last run of the trail camera trapline I can tell you that with newborn fawns and turkey poults on the landscape; this year's graduating class is a big one for sure.
Further evidence that if you build wildlife habitat they will come...
Last week Doggo and I ran the trail camera trapline to so what's up in our summer woods. Wouldn't you know it, they've finally and at long last made an appearance.
We've had solitary hens...
We've had solemn long bearded gobbler bachelors processions....
We've had roving gangs of juvenile delinquent jakes...
And now there was this. Whew!
Brood flocks of hens corralling their clutches of poults. As a die-hard turkey hunter it is always encouraging to be witness to a successful graduating class....
Kermesse, or kermis, or kirmess,
is a Dutch
language term derived from 'kerk' (church) and 'mis' (mass) that became
incorporated in French and English. Its origins are originally
associated with the mass said on the
anniversary of the founding of a church (or the parish) and in honor of
the Patron Saint. Such religious celebrations were regularly held in
the Low Countries, in Central
Europe and also in Northern France, and were accompanied by feasting,
dancing, drinking
and sports. The
Dutch-American Village of Little Chute, Wisconsin, has celebrated Kermis
annually since 1981 with a street festival. The Wallonian settlements in
Door and Kewaunee Counties have celebrated Kermis with traditional
Belgian dishes and events for as long as anyone can remember.
Traditionally, Kermis around here stretched over several
calendar weeks as each small settlement - Namur, Brussels, Rosiere,
Little Sturgeon, Forestville, Lincoln, Duvall and Casco celebrated the harvest and the life-giving bounty of food.
The 2026 Belgian Kermiss Festival took place Sunday at the Belgian Heritage Center in Namur. This historic harvest festival dates all the way back to 1858. This event serves as the center's largest annual fundraiser; plus it's a terrific way to get your Booyah fix.
The historic church, school and convent serve as the repository preserving the history and culture of the largest Walloon Belgian settlement in the United States.
Anyway, there were demonstrations featuring old school mechanized farm machinery powered by early gasoline engines. Cool stuff.
But this caught my attention.
Driven by the power takeoff on a modern Deere tractor this is technically a diesel-powered ice cream maker.
Apologies to the late great Tom Clancy. One of my beloved and favorite authors who penned the classic alternate history novel; Red Storm Rising. Get a copy as it has it all; radical Islamists, communists, submarines, nukes, Russians swarming thru the Fulda Gap into eastern Europe and a cold war turned hot. The first time I picked it up I couldn't put it down.
Shortly after COVID and early into my retirement I was invited to join a private Face Book group that discussed, argued-about and otherwise carried-on adult-like exchanges covering current affairs.
Regrettably, it seems to have become dominated by one or two particular individuals who have become the masters of cut-and-paste posts. By that I mean cut and paste social media meme's and other similar material. On rare occasions some of it might be substantive; but most of it is click bait. They seem intelligently clever-enough and capable of producing original content so I don't get the emphasis on cut and paste. But that's none of my business; C'est la vie.
Early-on in my experience on that particular site much of what one individual had to say had to do with Marxists. Everyone had to be on guard and extra vigilant about Marxists. Apparently they lurked everywhere and were out to somehow make mischief, meddle in our governance and otherwise topple American society as we knew it.
I was extra vigilant to be mindful of their potential to live-up to their reputation as No-goodniks. The dogs and I looked for them daily while on our walks. I looked for them in town, at the library and at the grocery. I searched everywhere for these Marxists; even in the woodpile. And in the end never found one. At a minimum you'd think the dogs woulda flushed at least one stinkn' Bolshevik. I came up with nothing. Sigh.
Now it seems I have to be on high alert for Islamists. Apparently, everyone has to be on guard and vigilant over the creeping spread of radical Islam and the looming imposition of Sharia Law. Considering the level of hysteria you'd think if I drove to Green Bay to go to Fleet Farm I would pass a forest of minarets on the trip.
Between you and me the Belgian community I live in is Christian; mostly in the Roman Catholic tradition of the Christian faith. There is one Lutheran church just down the road in neighboring Kolberg; where German immigrants settled.
Yet not a single solitary mosque.
See; the Supremacy Clause guarantees there will never be the imposition of Sharia Law. Or Catholic Canon Law or Judaic Halakha Law for that matter. Perhaps they haven't read the Constitution? But I digress.
Naturally, for my social-media soaked acquaintances there has been the recent rise of Democratic Socialists; who they dismissively refer-to as Communists. Democrats are thusly Commies.
I happen to know a great deal about this subject because I am a child of the Cold War. I don't scare very easily and and certainly Socialists and Communists don't scare me a bit. That's because my formative years included a steady diet of the Red Baiting and Red Scare tactics. So, on top of the clutching of pearls over radical Islam I gotta feeling that between now and the midterms we're gonna hear more and more about communism than normal; most of which will be child's play compared to old school, cold war-style, red-baiting.
For what it's worth, Bernie Sanders and candidate for governor Francesca Hong got nothing on this. And she lost the primary.....
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