Yes, I guess I’ve been a bit quiet lately. Mostly, there’s not much to talk about unless you want to hear how the weather is (cool but pleasant once the weekend was over), though I did see this story (not in the US media, of course) where Russia says the rockets used in the chemical weapons attack in Syria weren’t sold to Syria.

…Russia’s new “evidence” about the attack includes the dates of export of the specific rockets used and – more importantly – the countries to which they were originally sold. They were apparently manufactured in the Soviet Union in 1967 and sold by Moscow to three Arab countries, Yemen, Egypt and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya. …[I]f the information is correct – and it is believed to have come from Moscow – Russia did not sell this particular batch of chemical munitions to Syria.

Since Gaddafi’s fall in 2011, vast quantities of his abandoned Soviet-made arms have fallen into the hands of rebel groups and al-Qa’ida-affiliated insurgents.
[…]
The Syrians have long claimed that a substantial amount of Soviet-made weaponry has made its way from Libya into the hands of rebels in the country’s civil war with the help of Qatar – which supported the Libyan rebels against Gaddafi and now pays for arms shipments to Syrian insurgents.

Not that you can believe the godless Russkies, of course.

For the most part, though, I’ve been basically ignoring the news – just don’t have the heart to pay attention. This is a tough time of year for me. I just cut the checks for the school taxes, and paid the home owners insurance on the house, plus the car insurance for the three vehicles – one of which needs to be inspected, but needs a set of tires first (and then god knows what else). Just had to buy a new battery and alternator for my car, and now I’m limping around with a noisy exhaust, courtesy of a broken flex pipe.

Sadly, on my particular model, this pipe also includes one of the catalytic converters, and is too close to the 02 sensor to just cut out the bad part and replace (maybe if I was a better welder, I could manage it, but I’m not). Even worse, this car has the good old “California” emission, and they don’t make a CARB compliant aftermarket version, so it’s ungodly expensive (and from what I’ve read, even if your car passes emissions, if you’ve got the wrong numbers stamped on there, they fail you anyway). And that’s just for the parts, which I had to order from a dealer in Florida, and just picked up at my nearby FedEx office, ‘cuz they required a signature.

Everything’s rusted all to hell under the vehicle, and I know it’s going to be a miserable time trying to get the old shit out and the new shit in, so I don’t want to start it after work on a school night when I need to go to work the next day. What a pain.

This is all on top of the NY State “deficit reduction plan” kicking in with today’s paycheck. DRP is a euphemism for cutting my pay 2.5%.

No to worry, though – at least winter’s coming!