By the Numbers ... NOT

No numbers , just words

World's largest democracy votes
India held elections , the process took a week

The FIFA World Cup is way over budget - bribes seem to be a problem Duh , like this is news.
These games in Brazil ( oh , yeah , forgot to tell you that bit )
are the most expensive soccer games ever

Weather : here in the GWNs ( little ' s ' is for south )
grey and partly sunny
temperatures will be in the  jacket to light sweater range

Note: Weatherboy at the QMH is broken. The outside sensor only works w/in 2 ft of the main monitor station. Thus , on the monitor ,
the temperatures reported are for the base monitor and the sofa.
Oh well , the outside sensor used to report nut-so temperatures b/c it was either in the sun ( high ) or in the shade 

The long range forecast for us , is a warmer than average summer Jun - Jul - Aug
Apparently , tho' its going to take us a while to get there
Warmer winds from the south are encountering a very cold lake system
Planting season is back - ordered by 3 weeks , I use the Amazon terminology , here
The dandy - lions are not affected by the back - order , it seems
tough little buggers

Finished reading a book called ' A Man Named Intrepid ' by William Stephenson about William Stephenson.
the W Stephenson in the story is a Canadian who is rumoured to be the model for ' James Bond '. Ian Fleming the author of the Bond series was also a espionage agent.
The book details the efforts of a clandestine group of Americans , British and others who fought the spy war prior to and during WW II.

Here in Canada , the Dieppe raid on the coast of France is highly revered but mostly as a sacrifice. The bad guys are usually ,the British high command that sent the troops over.
The book has a different angle on the ' raid '
Practice
Well ,that and politics
Practice ??? For every other amphibious landing in WW II , excepting Guadacanal. The Allied Command got to see equipment and men and techniques on display. The AC was able to verify enemy intercepts ( code breaking etc ) and slip in a lot of agents
These agents , often had life expectancies measured in days.

Politics , b/c Russia was getting hammered. The Soviets threatened a peace treaty with Germany. The Soviets claimed the West was sacrificing Russians to use up German forces. The Soviets wanted a western front to the war.
Thus , Dieppe. Allied casualties were measured in 1 / 2 to 3 /4 of all units sent. Disastrous is an euphemism
Churchill believed the Dieppe raid proved Allied techniques were basically correct. just needed some tweeking

Overall , the book aMNI highlighted the effectiveness of behind the scenes information gathering and mis-information dispersal.
For a Canadian , it brought into focus the role of Canada as a locale for organizing and training ,  and manning of the network.
Remember , we need all the praise that we can get up here