Let me just say, I never meant to hurt nobody, though I guess there's some I couldn't look in the eye.

 I don't think I'm going to get this one under the gun, but what the hell. What is time? Something I really don't pay attention to all that much anymore.

 And why should I? It's rare that I have to interact with the outside world at a specific time, and I like drifting around wherever and for however long I want. So, it's a waste of time, for me anyway.

 I'm not going to lie, this might not get done until tomorrow morning. It's past midnight already and we got word from the good people at Tombigbee Electric that the ol' internet would be done for some terribly good reason that I can't remember. I was playing Pathfinder: Kingmaker all evening, working on a "serious run" and I'll probably go back to that. Beyond that, I don't know.

 August 31 came and went, and best I can tell, the U.S. didn't leave anyone in service in Afghanistan they didn't mean to - apparently there's going to be an armed presence for a little bit - and they, along with the EU, cut a deal with the Taliban to get Afghans out of there if they want to go. Money talks and bullshit walks on that, so we'll see.

 There is much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments over this, by both conservatives who don't want to give Joe Biden a win and the big-time press because war sells newspapers. Plus, a lot of them were big cheerleaders for this back in the day and they've all been proven to be dumb bloodthirsty bourgeoisie shit asses.

 One wonders what the next thing that will be used to wind up the gibbering masses. The yacht-left Substackers are still banging on that being disagreed with or, worse, mocked is akin to brutal, Orwellian censorship. But I don't think they really pay attention to anything else, which makes sense if you think about it. These people have convinced themselves their words and thoughts are golden.

 They might circle back around to "wokeness" and Critical Race Theory, but I imagine it'll be another round of refugee panic as they forget the whole "bring our partners and helpers out of Taliban tyranny" by the middle of the month. They haven't had a good reason to build up a serious hate-on for Arabic folks, that's always a favorite.

 Moving on, at least four wingnut talk show goons have caught COVID and died over the last couple of weeks, and all except one were fanatically anti-mask and anti-vaccine and pro-"this is all a hoax to make Trump look bad and, anyway, it's just a light cold only old people and fat people die from and we don't really care about them." The other might be, too, but I'm too lazy to look.

 We've also seen a passel of just regular jackasses who scoffed at the vaccines and the masks, only to wind up with a tube down their throat begging everyone else to get the shot. I should be more empathic with them, but I'm not. They need to do more work on their own because we've still got ding-a-lings showing up at school board meetings accusing vaccination efforts to be Satanically inspired.

 Two of my cousin's kids tested positive. They're both under 10. Another cousin tested positive and I've been directly exposed. We're averaging 5,000 new cases a day in Mississippi. More kids died from it last month than the entire 17 months beforehand. The hospitals are past strained further than they need to be, and more people will die.

 And it's all their fault. I don't celebrate an anti-vaxxer going down like I don't cheer when a drunk driver wraps their car around a live oak tree. It's the damage they cause to others that piss me off. Because of them, we're going to have to let COVID burn through us like the 1918 influenza plague, and not all of us will survive it.