Posts by Alex Miller

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Deadly Texas Flash Floods Kill Dozens

Rain-sodden remnants of Tropical Storm Barry dumped more than 6” of precipitation on Kerr County, Texas, USA in the early hours of 4 July 2025.  Rainfall rates of 2-3” per hour prompted the Guadalupe River to overflow its banks in a surge of more than 29 feet, causing devastating flash flooding across hundreds of acres of Texas hill country.  At least 84 were killed, including 21 children, with search and rescue efforts for more possible victims ongoing, including 10 girls missing from a summer camp in Hunt.

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Don’t Mess with the Zohran

On Tuesday, 24 June 2025, 33-year-old State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani sent shockwaves through the Democratic Party structure when he won the primary in the New York City mayoral race, besting frontrunner Andrew Cuomo, a former New York governor, by some twelve points, in a stunning upset.  Mamdani, who describes himself as a Democratic Socialist and entered the race last November with 1% support in polling, ran an effective grassroots campaign based on making the Big Apple more affordable for working class families, presenting himself as a populist fighter.  If elected in November, he will be the first Muslim and naturalized citizen to serve as New York City’s mayor.

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Garden Glimpses:  Solstice Stunners

I’m sure you’ve heard the expression, “It never rains, but it pours.”  Well, that was May 2025 in the garden.  After a dry, showerless April, the May flowers were distinctly lacking, but 9” of rain that month brought on the vegetation like gangbusters, and by summer solstice, the garden had become a tangled jungle.

Between the incessant rains and then a physical setback when a burst water cyst behind the newly replaced left knee kept me in pain and off my feet for two weeks, there was no curb on the ambitious plans for world domination clearly hatched by my local weeds during their dormancy.  I hadn’t even finished the last of the winter cleanup when the deluge began, and that boat has now sailed, with the eastern bank of the sand mound a revolting mix of old and new weeds.  Well, there’s always 2026.

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Tesla:  Out of Gas?

OK, Tesla makes electric vehicles, which don’t run on gasoline, but you get the idea.  Once valued in excess of a trillion dollars, Tesla Motors stock has plunged in 2025, shedding some $380 billion in value since January, which, not coincidentally, is when founder Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, began his stint with the second Trump administration, as head of the now notorious DOGE, Department of Government Efficiency.  The extra-governmental task force, with no statutory authority beyond the President’s fiat, attempted to trim $2 trillion from the federal budget, but came up a bit short. 

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Donald Trump’s 79th Solar Return

US President Kim Jong Don will be celebrating his 79th birthday on Saturday, 14 June, 2025, with a North-Korean-style military parade in the nation’s capital, while simultaneously, 3000 miles away, US National Guard and Marines patrol the country’s largest city, ostensibly to quell “insurrectionists” protesting his administration’s immigration policies.  The dual displays of military power, both unprecedented and controversial, well encapsulate the leading feature of Dear Leader’s Solar Return, which occurs the day before:  a square between Mars, planet of the military, violence and war, and Uranus, planet of shocks, upsets, controversy, volatility, and extreme reactions.

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Massive Ukrainian Drone Strike in Russia

On 1 June 2025 more than 100 Ukrainian drones struck at air bases deep in Russia, targeting long-range bombers with nuclear capacity, in an attempt to cripple Moscow’s ability to prosecute the war on Ukraine, now in its third year.  Code-named “Spider Web,” the attacks, eighteen months in the planning, were carried out by drones smuggled into Russia in wood structures carried on trucks, whose local drivers were apparently unaware of the contents, and activated remotely.  Drivers had received their destinations by phone, and were stunned when the drones emerged; some tried to incapacitate them with rocks.  Moscow has downplayed the attacks, citing simply “some damage,” but Ukrainian sources allege 41 bombers were struck, and at least 13 destroyed, in locations across five Russian regions, as far as 8000km from Ukraine’s border. 

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