Thank you, Bar Vacilando, for introducing me to the marvelous mist machine. I was sitting in your courtyard with Rebecca Brown and Emily Hall. They were talking about some book concerning the 20th Century Russian composer, Dmitri Shostakovich, when an attendant entered the courtyard and informed us that the machine was about to be activated—get ready; we are going to get a little wet. And then the mist happened. And, as it drifted, it cooled the air in the shade beneath the big and velvety leaves of a sprawling princess tree. How had I lived so long with no knowledge about this kind of machine? "They are common in Las Vegas," I was told the following day by a person who clearly had been there and done that.

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That's not a set for a new James Bond movie. It is a truck carrying "volatile chemicals" on I-5. 

I5 southbound into Seattle has cracked and buckled. pic.twitter.com/cE4vGWmsZZ

WATCH: A witness captured video of a tanker exploding on I-5 in Downtown Seattle. You can see a flaming tank of liquid oxygen flying down the interstate. 🎥: Joshua Parsons pic.twitter.com/PPdpMvYUE4

It "caught on fire and exploded." As if the heat was not enough, this had to happen. A ball of fire and smoke near Mercer Street. Expect nothing but traffic from hell for the rest of the day and night.

We feeling you, West Seattle. Transportation has been so hard on you these days.

Side note: From the "you have to laugh or else you'll cry" department, a commenter quips: "'You’re never getting off this island! We’ve blocked all the exits' – West Seattle overlords"

Amazon beat Wall Street expectations by posting a $2 billion loss against a mind-boggling revenue of $121 billion. The value of its stock went through the roof. Bezos added billions to his billions in mere hours. Amazon blamed the small loss on its $4 billion investment in Rivan, a maker of electric cars based in California. Wall Street Journal: "The company said it expected third-quarter sales to come in between $125 billion and $130 billion, the high end of which is above Factset's current consensus around $126 billion."

The big economic story of the day was, of course, the contraction of the US's GDP.  The right was quick to declare a recession. The US's economy is now dying, thanks to Biden and his socialism and free-money-to-everyone. Job claims, however, fell this week. But that's not the point. What's really amazing about all of this recession talk, even by the economists on the left, is this simple fact has not been pointed out: A recession only hurts after a crash. A recession following a long period of GDP growth is not the same beast as one that follows the strike of the rich—a sudden and violent collapse of the capital markets and business investment.

But even if we don't accept the "technical definition" of a recession, two months of GDP deceleration, the Dems are still fucked, because the standard of economic success is still growth measured by compound interest. We live in world that's burning, and we still want growth rates that are, by every measure, out of this world. More than melancholy should be felt by the fact that none of the main political parties come anywhere close to questioning the sustainability of capital-determined growth. 

Can someone let mainstream Dems know that no one cares about deficits anymore. No one. But you.

This is 💯 a losing message for the Dem Party. https://t.co/mtYKMnQrol

Susie Collins is now saying she will not support the same-sex marriage bill because Dems want to tax billionaires and deal with climate change. Is this spite? If so, know that this kind of behavior has not been observed in any animal but the human. Not even our very close cousins, the chimps. Spite, an act of harming oneself to harm another, is specific to humans. Hostages are also specific to humans. They are not found among elephants, wasps, dogs, bears, goats, ants and so on. Maybe humans are aliens?

COVID boosters for people under 50 likely to come in Sept: If you are under the age of 50, and you have been wondering when you might be able to secure a booster to protect yourself from the latest strains of the coronavirus, the New York Times has given us the answer: September. Why? "Because Pfizer and Moderna have promised that they can deliver doses by then." 

Anyone who enjoys Louis Malle's first movie Elevator to the Gallows for its crime plot (which twists and turns and twists) has the brain of a bird and the heart of a horse. This movie is remarkable for one reason alone: the scene that finds the beautiful queen of French cinema, Jeanne Moreau, walking around the streets of Paris at night looking everywhere for her man. He was supposed to meet her for a date, but unfortunately he got stuck in an elevator. As Jeanne walks and whispers her lover's name, jazz master Miles Davis blows a trumpet solo that translates precisely the sorrows of her heart-hurt soul. The film screens at The Beacon on the last day of this month, and possibly our 6th 90 degree day.