Tuesday 7 April 2020

A Democrat's Nightmare Moment

Let's say that we get all the way to early October, and Joe Biden has not stepped to the side, and he will be the guy on the ballot in November.

For you....gazing at Joe's insane moments over the past hundred days.....saying some things that just don't make sense....you've started to pour more whiskey into your nightly cocktail. 

It bothers you that Joe is showing some dementia issues.

It concerns you that the news media doesn't really notice this or say anything.

It annoys you that right after a Joe speech....some analyst has to come on, and wiggle around the words or phrases that Joe used....to convey something different.

It distresses you that the VP is continually talked about in a highly important way, without explaining that they might be in charge of the country in six months.

It irritates you that he's sounding like your crazy uncle who talks about his 'Nam-adventures' but he only spent six months in the National Guard in the 1980s before thrown out for drug issues. 

It drags on your patience that Joe utters something almost daily that your 9-year-old son asks what he really meant. 

So the question is....do you accept this scenario, stay home, or flip your vote to Trump? 

This Aircraft Carrier 'Firing'

It's not a page one story.

Basically, the carrier 'Theodore Roosevelt' had a batch of Coronavirus occur.  The numbers kinda overwhelmed the commander of the ship.  He fires off a unclassified 'wordy' piece that goes beyond his boss, or his chain-of-command, and include twenty-odd other commanders.  Basically, he wanted his sick folks removed from the ship and care be rendered as soon as possible.

Several things then occurred, but the chief thing.....this guy was 'fired'. 

What he did wrong? 

His 'script was simple.  Just write a five-line confidential message to his boss, and inform him that the safety of the ship and mission was compromised.  It was in the best interest to steam off toward the nearest US port, and dock.  In the five to seven days that this would have required....he would have detailed out several hundred folks from the ship to carry on essential duties, and care for the quarantined folks on some indoor deck.  He failed on the 'script', and just acted like he wasn't ready for the decisions required.

The problem I would have worried about is that this is a nuclear-powered ship and you only have x-number of nuke technicians onboard.  If all of them got the Coronavirus.....you wouldn't Seaman Freddy from the chow-hall to be dispatched to monitor the nuke controls. 

I feel sorry for the guy, but it's often the case that when you have a fast-moving emergency situation....fifty-percent of people do the wrong thing, and can't react to fix their mistake....compromising the whole mess and hurting 'trust'. 

Next NY Problem

Last night, it came up as a new 'rumor' in NY City.....the New York City Council Health Committee met and suggested that they are looking at using city parks for temporary burial grounds.....(trenches will be dug for 10 caskets in a line) because the city morgues, funeral homes and cemeteries are so 'overwhelmed'.

I sat and pondered over this.  Normally, upon death....a family member or friend of the family would go and 'claim' the body via some funeral agency within 24 hours....maybe 48 hours at the most. 

Then you'd set up the arrangements and have the funeral in a matter of three to six days. 

So, the real question here....are New Yorkers incapable of handling a simple task like this? 

I watched some video two days ago....a NY funeral home director (some small-time operation).  The guy had twelve dead folks in a room big enough for four folks.  The director was at his wit's end.....he couldn't get families to react and make a decision on the arrangements.  Some folks in his possession were on their ninth day of 'waiting'. 

So to use a city park for a temp 'burial-ground'?  I'd make a simple rule....you have five days to pick up your relative from a morgue and seven days to conduct the funeral.  After those limits.....we (the city) bury your relative in a no-name cemetery in upstate NY.   No temporary status or waste of city park land. 

It's a stupid problem, but it's the type that you'd need to go and ask President Trump at the news conference what he's going to do about the dead bodies laying around NY City, and his response would be a direct....'well, just bury them'. 

The 93-Percent Image

Once or twice a year, someone will put up the NY Times piece from late October 2016, to remind folks of the 'odds' of Hillary Clinton winning against Donald Trump.

Maybe if they'd lessened the amount (say instead of 93-percent.....it was 58-percent), then a lot of people would have been more controlled in their anti-enthusiasm of the situation.

The thing is....they lead these people like a herd of cattle to one broad expectation.  And in evening hours of election day....that expectation died off.

But I go back to this one central theme.....93-percent.  How the hell do you arrive at such a number, and how realistic was it in the first place?  Was the act of 5th-grade kids, working with a marginal instructor?  Or was this just a wild number they plucked out of the sky?