My Gut Feeling on Credentialism

 It's not a term that you usually hear and I'll give you the simple definition.

This is typically where a guy has gone out and been to x-number of courses, and achieved a minimum of a Master's Degree....maybe even a PhD....for the purpose of having a status 'marker' implying they have a major say on something....even if they are a general idiot or marginal competent. 

Some people would stand and say that this precludes people from actually reviewing a situation, and thinking.

I bring up this topic because there's hardly a week that goes by now....that some credentialism guy shows up on CNN, MSNBC, Fox or BBC, and you get seven minutes of dimwitted discussion.  Some deal with science....some with Covid....some with politics.

The problem these days.....people have kinda figured out this game and recognize a credential guy pretty easily.  

It's a funny topic if you think about it.  

The Thing About Alabama

 There was a piece written by Ryan Hankins on Al.com which went to the topic of 'Alabamians, why do you need all this distrust and suspicion about things'?  I'd generally recommend a read.

So the pitch to his essay piece....Alabamians are these people who just seem to have an inherent view that things just don't work as advertised.  You people (Alabamians) always believe some hidden agenda is at work.

Well.....yeah, that's the plain basic truth.

Hankins does imply at some point that the government of the state is mostly Republican.  Most folks around the state will say that it's marginally true that they claim Republican status, but the same people will laugh and say that half of these Republicans are just fake-Republicans and working with some lobbyist group to achieve goals.

It's like bringing up the state-park fiasco of a couple years ago, and how some list got shuffled around that the state was going to part ways or sell a number of state parks. Then strangely enough....casino chatter started back up and various people had this funny feeling that the state parks list had some relationship to the casino people.   

It's also like bringing up the state constitution.....which has been around since 1901, and generally regarded as a 'mess'.  There's been some many lines added to it....that it's now considered the largest constitution in the US, and one of the largest in the world itself.  For every 'freedom' mentioned....there's probably forty limits listed.  About every four years, this topic of re-writing the Constitution comes up and members from both parties agree on this....but neither trusts the other party or the fake Republicans enough to get the job done.

The idea suggested by Hankins that we have greater responsibilities....like human trafficking, etc?  No.....we basically want the Alabama leadership business to handle and work on local issues (fixing potholes, reducing crime, spend tax revenue in a responsible fashion, provide good decent education, etc).  

The hints of Covid throughout the piece?  There are a couple of mentions which lead back that way.  Presently, using just every country around the globe, there is no indication that heavy regulation really fixes or resolves Covid....other than it has the same effect if you'd spend eight hours a day praying for some Jesus-miracle to occur.  

I would go and suggest that five things are at work here, and the working-class guy in Alabama is geared to stand back to assess things:

1.  Most folks in the state see the Baptist 'empire' thing to be corrupted.  All those years with the 'dry-county' business probably didn't help matters.

2.  Most folks see the NCAA 'grip' on football to be corrupted.  It shouldn't matter but some people actually lose sleep over the matter.

3.  With all the vast amounts of money poured into state education over the past forty years....we ought to have 1,200 Einsteins out there.  You don't see that, and you just sit and wonder....how did they spend all that educational funding.

4.  Every time you had some mayor or some state legislature guy claiming they want to fix things.....at least fifty percent of the time....they make matters worse.  

5.  Out of the last ten governors....you can generally say that three were 'legit' and competent, and the rest were either criminal in behavior, lusty old guys, or pretty racist in actions.  This Ivey gal (present governor) is about the only one that most would say is of pure ethical behavior. 

Look, I'm not defending the state or the landscape, but if you go into most other states (California in particular).....the distrust in government is just as bad.  

A Curious Scenario

 If you go and read through all the various reports of the Afghans 'rescued' and brought out....most of the crowd are presently at Ramstein Air Base Germany....there's this odd problem.

The Homeland Security folks have viewed the names list and a couple of them appear to be ISIS 'thugs'....on some watch-list.

The Border Patrol folks?  I'm guessing they've laid down the card and said they won't be allowed to step on US soil.  But at the same time....the Germans are probably making it plainly clear....they can't remain on German soil either.

This is going to turn into a curious episode.  I don't think any North African country will accept the guys either.  Sending them back to Afghanistan?  That probably won't happen.  

The possibility that President Biden will over-rule the Border Patrol and allow these guys into the US?  I'd say it's a 50-50 chance of that happening.  Course, it'd just be another point for impeachment (if you ask me).

Shouldn't all of this been reviewed before allowing the guys on the exit plane?  Well.....that's part of the discussion as well.

The odds that if you approached the Taliban on bringing them back....they'd refuse on account of how 'dangerous' these guys were (grinning as they said that)?

It's Just An Odd Thing

 It's now a bit more than 48 hours after the Biden Administration announced that via a drone attack....retribution had been accomplished in Afghanistan for the attack at the airport.  

The claim?  They'd killed two of the ISIS-K planner 'guys'.  

So here's the odd thing (as of this moment).....they (the WH or the Pentagon) have NOT announced the names of the two ISIS-K planner 'guys' who are now supposedly dead.

Odd?

Well...you can go back to a hundred-odd occasions and usually within 24 hours....you were hyped with information about drone attacks, the names of the folks dead, and how this helped the 'war'.

Are there actually two 'guys' dead?  Are they ranking ISIS-K dudes?  Well....it's just odd that the rest of the story is stalled at this point.

I do believe that a drone launched a missile down on 'something'.  Beyond that....it's pure speculation.  

Could it be that they just know this building is the planning operation, and there were two unknown guys who just walked into the structure?  I could also believe that.  I would speculate that the drone guys don't want to admit that they hit 'unknown guy #1' and 'unknown guy #2'....finding out later that they were the copier-repair guys or being there for a telephone out-of-order situation.  

Could it also be that by withholding information, they are just sitting there with another loaded drone....waiting for the new planner guys to arrive and retrieve something critical at the site?  I could also believe that story.  

It's just a bit odd.  

Sirhan

 After 53 years in prison....Sirhan Sirhan was given parole yesterday.  At the heart of the RFK assassination, virtually every year that passed....the case against Sirhan weakened.  Even the state prosecutor agrees....justice probably got screwed up in some fashion.  

The general view?  I've probably put over a hundred hours in the past thirty years looking at various accounts....the problems with the extra bullet, and at Sirhan himself.  I have no doubt....the bullet that killed RFK....came from the rear of RFK (with Sirhan in front of him).

The weird way that Sirhan seemed to be unable to explain his shooting of the President?  There's no doubt that he had a pistol, and he fired 6 rounds from his .22 Iver Johnson weapon.  Beyond that....the evidence is blunt....there has to be a second pistol in play and from the opposite direction.

What'll happen to Sirhan, upon release?  I would imagine he gets interviewed a good bit, and the general public tends to view the shooting in a different way.

Key Provisions of the 25th Amendment

 This is discussed a good bit so maybe there's a moment to review the 'rules'.

First, there are only three ways for the 25th to be drawn into play.  The President can just say he's go health issues and it's a simple process.  

Second, the VP stands up and has the support of the majority of the cabinet.  If you don't have the full support of the cabinet?  Then you are left to the third method....the House (acting as the 'body').  

The House in this case....would have to present 'evidence' and then gather for a vote.  Presently, with the Democrats managing the situation....it's Pelosi's situation.  It's anyone's guess if she has the votes to manage this.

How many days, if the House is managing this?  I'd go and speculate that you could wrap this up in three days.  But I'd also suggest that one-third of the Democrats would refuse to vote, or vote against this. 

Does Harris have support of the majority of cabinet officers?  That's another problem.  Fifteen cabinet position, and some might be die-hard pro-Biden fans.  You might also have two or three who see Harris as lacking the skills to be President.  

If Harris had the eight letters attesting to 'issues' with President Biden....then this would go rather quickly (I would speculate) and it might be over in one to two days, with the House just agreeing.....without a lot of discussion.

If the 25th started to fall into play....would President Biden just resign?  He probably would go to several of the cabinet officers and ask them in a blunt way how they were going to 'vote'.  Could he fire them if they voiced a problem?  Yes, without any doubt.  But I would suggest that Biden hasn't shown much history in firing people.  

Is this goof-up in Afghanistan the only visible mistake of the Biden administration?  Well....that's the key question....you don't know.  The news media should have made comments over problems, but generally, they've failed at their responsibility.  So you have no idea how bad the situation might be, or how successful Biden has handled problems.

Should they just wait to get out of this mess, and hope to continue on?  At this point, the lack of common sense is openly discussed and you have to wonder if more mistakes will be committed over the next year.  When you arrive in the fall of 2022...with the mid-term election....could these mistakes be made into a dozen Republican campaign ad's and massively destroy the Democratic chances?  

Then finally.....does Harris really want the job?  I would argue that she's gotten a glimpse of incompetence within the White House staff, and probably 50-percent of what went wrong here.....were simply incompetent people around Biden.  If you don't fire them, you end up committing the same mistakes as Biden made. 

One footnote, after Harris moves up to the Presidency, she would select her new VP.  Both the House and Senate has to agree to the person.  The Senate, with Harris as VP?  Well...the Senate is currently 50-50.  You would need at least one Republican to flip and vote along these lines.  So I don't think Harris would be able to select a Senator, or some far-left idiot.  The new VP will end up as a very likeable individual (my take on this).  

Observations Over Afghanistan and President Biden

 My ten thoughts:

1.  When the President said there would be retribution upon ISIS.....he's basically saying that we will do some retribution, then they do some retribution, and we get back into the regular terror business. 

2.  This Q-and-A episode with the President last evening....didn't really give you any confidence.  He looks like he's been up for twenty-four hours straight, and there's just not much confidence that comes via these sessions.

3.  Will President Biden show up at Dover AFB as the cargo plane brings the Marines 'home'?  I doubt it.....it'll likely be the Secretary of Defense at best.  I don't even think the VP will show.  

4.  Where do you go after Friday?  If you were with the Pentagon or CIA....anything requiring a Presidential 'OK' will trigger a meeting and it's a 50-50 chance if the President can select the better of choices.  If he says he needs 24 hours to make a decision....is he really making it himself, or does have some oddball character giving him advice (like Hunter, or his wife)?

5.  If I were the DNC and looking ahead.....2022 mid-terms really look like crap. You can't use the President for campaign episodes to help anyone much.

6.  Will the Taliban end up having to treat the ISIS folks like Hitler treated the Brownshirts?  There's a point where contracted-soldiers aren't that much value to your organization.

7.  If you were Macron of France and just sat there for an hour or two....thinking about what just happened in the past ten days.....could you rely upon anything that President Biden said?  You'd probably write a memo to the various ministers of France and just say 'do as little as business with the US as possible'..  

8.  The pressure to use the 25th Amendment to remove President Biden?  I would imagine Pelosi has twenty phone-chats per day with people, who want the situation drawn out and used (rather quickly).  But within this chatter.....the idea of who becomes VP....probably gets brought up as people realize Harris has to select someone, and the Senate has to approve that person (hint, it won't be a Senator selected). 

9.  The same people who goofed up on Afghanistan.....also manage a thousand other issues, and it ought to make you sit and ponder.....what else are they getting wrong?

10.  All this worthless assessments from May, June and July?  Well....you could have gotten better information from a bunch of 5th-grade kids in Kabul.  

If There Were Another 'Office' Show

 I've noted a lot of chatter over the past six months of this idea of something 'like' THE OFFICE being re-introduced.  Same people?  Well...no.  The idea is the production team would be brought back.

So these are my seven ideas for the new show.....if it were to be brought back into some new reality:

1.  Close the door on the paper industry, and make this a small strip mall (five shops in some small mall facility).  One steel building, and a parking lot with lamps that continually blink.  The building was originally a Dunder-Miffin paper store which went out of business, was remodeled by a Lebanese millionaire who married a former 'Bay of Thunder' TV show blonde gal. 

2.  Introduce in episode one a mall-cop, and at the end of the season....admit the fact that the mall management never hired a mall-cop, and this guy is an escapee from a mental institute...who sleeps in the maintenance back-closet.

3.  Allow one of the shops to be a zero-profit business, and admit it's more of a money-laundering operation than a legit business.

4.  Have four retirees to have rotating episodes where they make trouble for the mall.

5.  Allow one of the shops to fail every four episodes and a new business to arrive and fail four episodes later as well....over and over.

6.  Allow the coffee shop to be run by cannabis enthusiasts who secretly sell their product under special names.

7.  Act as if the whole thing is a reality show.  

News Topic

 I sat and read through a piece on Newsbusters today.

Topic.....when news is NOT news.

The Media Research Center went reviewed the top three cable news networks.  

What they found in the end....around a quarter of what you see on the air...would be simple old-fashioned regular news.  By that, I mean a regular story with five or six facts, and just a plain outline of the event.  

The rest?  Non-news.  It could be speculation, slanted news, biased opinion, or some moderator leading four folks to say 'something'.

Fox does it.  MSNBC does it.  BBC does it.  NBC, ABC and CBS do it.  PBS does it. 

For about twenty years, I've hyped on this issue...that news isn't really news anymore.  

It reached a point last year with CNN...where you got basically four minutes of news per hour, and the rest was talk-show format, biased slant, or taking four facts into a 30-minute long drawn out discussion.  

One of these networks will eventually wake up and realize they are losing viewers, and invent some new format....where they invent the term 'real news' and limit themselves to only 15-minutes of news per hour.  

Ten Observations Over Afghanistan

 1.  If you watch a good bit of footage, seems to be an awful lot of people walking around without a mask, in a Covid-rich atmosphere (I'd say 1-percent of folks appear to wear a mask).  These Taliban 'bosses'?  They are all over the age of fifty and prime-candidates for Covid (religious ideas forbid use of vaccination).  If you ask me....there's serious Covid times about to arrive on the landscape. 

2.  Once Biden's crew leave the airport, if you add up Americans and Europeans....I'll bet a minimum of 5,000 never get a 'rescue-deal'.  It'll be curious if the Taliban agree to regular airline use and allow them to leave.  Some idiot with the History Channel will probably start a reality series entitled 'Stuck in Kabul'.  

3.  Unlike the 1990s when the Taliban took over after the Soviets left.....there's a fair bit of Taliban propaganda that is generated daily by use of Twitter/Facebook in Afghanistan.  The general question I'd ask....who 'friended' up with Taliban on social media? What happens if you 'unfriend' them?

4.  Chatter started up yesterday that among the several thousand 'rescued' Afghans who were airlifted out....that a minimum of a hundred of them are on some watch list (either via the EU or the US).  You typically don't get on a watch-list for selling fake watches, or running a unhealthy grill establishment.  All of this leading to another catastrophic event in six months?

5.  White House Press Spokesman (Psaki) said that she just wasn't sure if the escaping Afghan President did arrive in Dubai with $169-million in cash.  It'd be more impressive if the guy had eight Hunter Biden oil paintings in his possession....that might be worth more at this stage.  

6.  If you opened up the doorway.....just to go anywhere (even Turkey)....out of the 39-million Afghans, I would suggest that a quarter of the population would just opt to leave the country.  In a economically downward spiral that you have in Afghanistan, maybe the Taliban ought to 'help' them leave.  Whatever economic progress they made over 20 years....it's not going to be much to discuss over the next twelve months.  The Taliban don't have any Harvard business degree members.

7.  At the conclusion of yesterday's WH press conference....some NBC reporter threw a question out there....as Biden was leaving....that triggered him to halt and attempt to answer (in a laughing sort of way).  WH technicians killed the mic system and so you never got the comment.  It's reaching the point where it'd be better on these WH Q-and-A episodes that they should just hire some actor to read what Biden would have said.  

8.  Taliban spokesperson said yesterday that there is NO proof that Ossama bin Laden was ever connected to 9-11.  I would imagine that the WH team will be impressed with this Taliban spokesperson and ask if he were interested in a new job (with them).

9.  In the midst of evacuation efforts yesterday....the Brit cargo plane took out some Afghans and Brits, but the last thing loaded on the plane was a Brit embassy SUV.  Naturally, this irked a ton of Brits.  

10.  If you believe the general propaganda of the Taliban.....they believe that they deserve the Nobel Peace Prize for 'saving' Afghanistan.  Somewhere in the nomination process....there's probably one single idiot who will nominate them.  

When Space Ghost or Deputy Dawg Would Be a Better Leader

 At one point in my military 'life', I ended up working in an organization that was foundering (serious morale problems, leadership issues from several individuals, and a continual negative trend).  

We reached a point (third commander in a year) where the new guy came in and gave us a pep-talk.  I wasn't so much impressed by the 'pep', as I was over the alternate reality that he discussed.....we needed to find a positive reason to just accept a new reality because....frankly, the current trend was crap.  Once you grasped that....you just sat there with no real thrill for the current trend or the pep-talk trend.

From that point on, for the next thirty-odd years....I was stuck in a skeptical state of mind (probably still that way today).

Part of me looks at the continual poor leadership crisis in the country....going across political lines, economic lines, business lines, and even religious lines.  There are instances where you view some example of leadership, and realize that a 12-year old kid or fictional character like Deputy Dawg/Space Ghost could probably do a better job.

The idea of leadership changing, and a recovery is on the way?  Don't count on it.

The Truth About Afghanistan

 Long ago, the nature of Afghanistan was that it was along a trading route....the 'Silk Road', and people came through....watered-up, got fed....then proceeded on.  Traders had a 'road-map' and Afghanistan was simply a stop-off point.  It's a 18-day venture across the middle of the country.....if you were doing twelve hours a day.

Lets also be honest and admit that it has been a tribal nation since day one, and remains mostly a tribal nation today.  Some might argue that the past fifty years has changed things, but the majority of residents live in a tribal mentality.

There are a minimum of ten ethnic groups....of which the Pushtuns make up around 40 to 45 percent of the population. 

The modern era?  There are three British-India-Afghan wars....the first starting in the 1839 (going to 1842).  The general fight over?  It's generally discussed that the Tsar folks from Russia had come into Afghanistan....stirred up tribal units, and the Brit-India folks got reactionary.  When the assumed leader of Afghanistan died in 1839, a follow-on leader became bogged down.  In simple terms, a civil war erupted and the Afghans lost heavily but got the Brit-India folks to agree on leaving.  

Around 1878, a second war occurred....same game (Russians, Brits, Indidans, and Afghans).  This war lasted until 1880.  

The 100-odd day war in 1919?  This was going by the same script.....getting any British influence out of the country.  The final result was that Afghanistan was recognized as a independent country, with no outside influence.

In the summer period of 1926, Afghanistan installed a 'king' and moved toward a 50-year period of stability.

In the summer of 1973....the King was kicked out and the country evolved into a 'republic'.  Some will argue over this five-year period that followed, and that a lot of outside influence arrived, with a 1978 coup occurring, and a socialist Afghanistan state then existing.

This peaceful era of the new state?  It basically lasted around 18 months.  Pro-Islam groups gathered up, and a new civil war started.  The state would have fallen....except the Soviets decided in December of 1979....to enter the conflict (staying for nine years).

The pro-Islam state that came after the Soviets left?  It marginally existed because of continual conflicts with the warlords of various tribal districts.  

If 9-11 had never occurred.....a continual civil war would be going on for the past twenty years and the two groups still fighting each other.

Afghanistan has never seen much of anything....except for conflict, and outsiders barging into the middle of a mess.  The new Islamic Emirate?  You can start the clock to ticking....this probably has no more than three to five years before they fall into some revolution and some new warlord rises to be 'supreme-leader'.  Then some third generation Taliban crew will arrive and restart the clock to ticking once again.  

That 31st of August Deadline in Kabul

 What the Taliban has said, in a blunt way.....on the 31st of August....the last of the Americans and NATO folks must leave, period.  That's nine days from today.

So the question is....what type of consequences then occur?  

I have three scenarios in my mind:

1.  Total cutoff of the runway, with no one entering, under any circumstance....other than flying in.

2.  A demonstration of missile launchers on the 1st of September, to ensure the Americans get the message.

3.  Full scale attack on any American military or NATO military members at the airfield.

So what's really left now?  

President Biden has to conclude this mess....one way or another by the evening of the 31st.  This idea of bringing 200k to 300k Afghans out?  Gone, unless you did some massive airlift.

The Americans left?  Some suggestions exist that 30,000 might be in the country.  I  generally discount this 'rumor', and I doubt if there are more than 1,500 Americans left.

If impeachment or the 25th Amendment were to come up....it'd be roughly a week after the conclusion of this event.....as long as no hostages existed. 

So What Happened at the G-7 Meeting in June 2021?

Well....President Biden got chatty and basically told the other six leaders that the US would ensure 'forces' remaining in place to keep Kabul safe following the drawdown of NATO forces, 

Notes were kept from this meeting and the comments made by President Biden.

Three weeks after this G-7 meeting....the US quietly left in the middle of the night from Bagram Air Base.  Looking back, this one runway area would have made perfect sense to keep and operate while evacuating out of Afghanistan at the 'end'.  There's no indication that Bagram was even mentioned at the G-7 meeting.  

Was there a master plan in June existing?  There is zero indication of that now.  Even the G-7 folks have to be standing there now and wondering what President Biden was all chatty about or if he even understand the whole situation.

My Picks for VP

 If impeachment or the 25th Amendment come up....'President Harris' becomes a reality, so I have five likely Democrats that I suggest will be on her VP list:

1.  Secretary of Transportation: Pete Buttigieg.

2.  Governor of Michigan: Gretchen Whitmer

3.  Governor of New Jersey: Phil Murphy

4.  Andrew Yang

5.  Former Governor Kasich of Ohio (claiming some fake unity)

I suspect that the DNC will put a fair amount of pressure upon her with 'options'.  It has to be someone that would get only moderate opposition in the Senate.  Age to play a big deal?  Yeah....no one over the age of 65 will be listed.  

Rescue 'Who'?

 If you were given a rescue mission, and about ten minutes into discussing it....some Captain raised his hand and asked....'who are we rescuing, and how many of them'....if you can't answer that question, then the whole discussion needs to halt at that point.

I sat there last night, watching the CNN report situation in Kabul, and it's painfully obvious that the Pentagon has a mission, but has no idea how many Americans are in the country.  It might be 500....it might be 5,000.

It looks painfully obvious as well....that tens of thousands of Afghans might be flown out....only because there aren't any Americans at the airport, to take up seats.

The planning process?  Well....back in July...some idiot should have sat down and eyeballed the number business, and wrote a simple three-page plan to cover the basic departure.  But this never happened.  

The Biden What-If Scenario

 So what if impeachment, the 25th Amendment or he just resigns out.....does anything really improve with President Harris?

You would have to pause and ask if the Secretary of State and National Security Adviser leave as well, and the answer is probably no.  So I would suggest that nothing much improves.

Harris prepared for this type of situation?  Not really.  

Public confidence with allies of the US?  I would suggest nothing much improves.

2022? It becomes a pretty rough year, and mid-terms appear to be the only way to clear the deck.  

Ten Things About This Afghanistan 'Mess'

 1.  You get the impression that President Biden thought the job was a part-time situation, and you'd get enough advice daily to make half-way decent decisions. 

2.  There was a letter found in the bin Laden compound after his death (2011).  Some element of the al Qaeda group had asked 'permission' to put a hit on VP Biden at the time.  Bin Laden said 'NO', because he felt Biden was useful as a incompetent future President, and would lead the nation into chaos.  You have to stand back for a while, think about how this question arose, and how he answered the question.  

3.  President Biden was 'rebuked' today by the British Parliament.....over his decision-process.

4.  Shocking enough, Taliban 'bosses' are now treated at the same level as 6 January insurrectionists or Trump, by the US news media. 

5.  Early in the week, PM Trudeau of Canada wanted to talk to President Biden.  He got nowhere in getting a response, and tried the number he had for VP Harris....getting nowhere on that.  He ended up pulling up the private number of Hillary Clinton, and got a personal opinion of the mess from her.  Whether it helped or not....unknown.  

6.  In the middle of this chaos, three US senators earlier in the week announced they had Covid (Wicker, King, Hickenlooper).  This might have been page one news, had Afghanistan not come up.  

7.  Some story has started up over the past couple of days....Biden....either through the excitement or the pressure....can't sleep.  The story goes that he (or his wife) thinks the only place where he can sleep is the family house in Delaware.  Truth to it?  Well....you'd think that he'd be juiced up by the Presidential doctor to sleep.  Maybe they've already reached the peak on that sleep medication and it's not effective enough.

8.  The 'good' Taliban chatter?  Yesterday, based on a number of bad-boy events, I'd say that evaporated completely.  Same bad-boys as in the 1990s.

9.  If you were stupid enough to be an American in Kabul, and wanted a way out....you have to sign a document pledging $2,000 as a 'fee'.  I should note, that only gets you out of the country.  Wherever they land the plane....from that point on, you pay commercial rates for the ticket.....to return the rest of the way.

10.  This afternoon in Germany, Chancellor Merkel asked Russia's Putin, if he can influence the Taliban.  No comment was uttered over the grin or return comment.  This had to be one of the ten most embarrassing moments of the Merkel era.  Odds that Putin could do 'something'?  I'd give it a 99-percent chance.  

'Residents'

 I sat and read a piece this morning, and the topic was....an announcement by a sheriff (up in Wisconsin) that he's going to start using the phrase 'residents' instead of 'inmates'.  He says that it's more human to use the term.

I sat and pondered over this.

Generally, when you use the term residents to me....it usually means folks who stay and live in a 'community'.....long-term.  

Sheriffs tend to run jails....not prisons.  So this is usually where the judge has passed some sentence and you got 30 to 90 days of 'time', and you stay right there in the county jail....NOT some state prison 300 miles away.

Would most guys care for the term being introduced?  I doubt it.  Maybe if it meant an extra muffin, or a private 3-minute shower, or new mattresses being part of the deal....it'd make a difference, but I doubt that you get anything new.

Failures Story

 I sat and watched a bit of CNN today, with Clarissa Ward.  At some point, talking over the Biden business and Afghanistan, she hyped-up and asked....."If this isn’t failure, what does failure look like exactly?"

I worked in various military-related organizations in my life, and we had projects which were deemed by members of the unit as 'failures'.  Some of us (not myself) even got medals for the 'failed' projects.  Some folks even got promoted (even Captains to Major) by accomplishing a doomed and utter failure.

I sat and looked at a renovation project....probably involving $50,000 in funding....where the end-work could not be used as projected, and simply became a storage room.

I could point at a dozen construction projects in the DC area, where tens of millions were spent, and were utter disasters at the half-way point....requiring tens of extra millions to renovate the screw-ups.

There's a hotel/BX project at Ramstein.....which came to be a serious crappy project.  The opera-house in Hamburg, went way over the original estimate because of failures.  The BER airport in Berlin?  Massive failures.  The Stuttgart-21 railway project.....massive failures.

I'm sure that I could sit down with twenty folks and probably identify well over 300 failed situations.  

CNN itself?  Well....it's a failed news media organization.

Trying to get President Biden to admit his decision doomed this whole Afghanistan thing?  No, he has no will-power to go and admit this.  

So it's just something better left lying on the street....like dog-crap.  Don't pick it up.....don't worry about it, and don't hype color or texture of the dog-crap.  Just leave it.  

Something To Make You Pause Over

 When you consider twenty-odd years of US-war on the Taliban, al-Qaeda, the ISIS thugs in Syria and Iraq, and various Muslim groups in Africa, with the Saudi-war itself in Yemen....there are tens of thousands upon tens of thousands of dead Islamic guys.

This 2021 Taliban group?  The CIA says....there were around 80,000 Taliban warriors who made the 'win' in Afghanistan possible.  How accurate were the CIA on this assessment or any other assessment here in 2021?  You really can't say.  They might be 100-percent correct.....they might be 60-percent correct.

Here's the thing....how many of the Taliban crew were originally Afghan Army members, and simply defected over to the Taliban?  It wouldn't surprise me if in six months....the CIA come to admit almost half of the Taliban membership for this drive into Kabul.....were former Afghan Army folks (disenchanted with the corruption of the Afghan state).  

If that was the case, you'd probably ask a lot of questions about what went on for that entire twenty-year period, with no one really willing to answer questions. 

Poll Story

 I sat and read a piece today over a new poll from Rasmussen Reports.

So, here's the deal....ten percent of people who identify as Democrats....say now that they regret their vote for Joe Biden in 2020.

Yeah.  One out of ten.  Now, maybe the poll asked the question in a funny way and half of them just didn't grasp what was meant.  Maybe they were even under the influence of narcotics, booze, or paranoid schizophrenia.  

We are eight months into this Biden-era, and it's a bit shocking that ten percent admit this already.  Getting into mid-summer of 2022?  I would imagine it might be twenty percent by then.

But here's the odd thing....from these same polling folks, they broke it out to minority status, and blacks came up to around 14-percent admitting they were regretful over their vote for Biden as well.

So out of every nine blacks who were hyped-up and voted for Biden....one of them has regrets now?  Yeah.  They aren't saying they would have voted for Trump....just that there's regret over Biden.  

If you had a black co-worker or friend in this category?  You can console them and offer up a beer.  

Afghanistan, Biden and Observations

 1.  I went back yesterday and watched the Monday evening Biden 'talk'.  It's an odd thing...I counted just in a five-minute period, about twenty-five moments where he was about to say something 'else', caught himself, and corrected.  Maybe it was the speed of the text machine in front of him, some personal style of his, or just being tired, but it was noticeable.

2.  Why have these reporters in the room, and pretend it was a news conference....when he would finish and just walk out of the room?  Unknown.  I would imagine they were all standing there at the end...wondering why the hell they got the phone-call to show up.....when nothing could be asked.

3.  Yesterday, President Biden said 15,000 Americans (non-military, non-embassy) may be in Afghanistan still in the end, with no way out.  An accurate number?  Well...no one can be sure about this.  Just in journalists, it wouldn't shock me if there were fifty-odd Americans walking around.  Contractors?  I seriously doubt if any of them remain.

4.  This 'good Taliban' suggestion?  It's probably multiplied over the past twenty-four hours.  I know....it sounds like 'good Nazis' or 'good KKK members'. 

5.  Serious use of smart-phones and Twitter by the Taliban?  This has been brought up a number of times.  A lot of the messages received by the public....come from Taliban leadership via Twitter.  Twitter wasn't around in the 1990s, and the cellphone technology was just beginning to really take off.  It's an odd factor in this whole game.

6.  The idea that the Russians or Chinese are supporting the Taliban this time around?  The rumor is continuing to be pushed.  

7.  When the Americans left Bagram Air Base on 5 July (Monday), in the evening hours without saying a word to the locals....that was the moment when everyone (the Afghans, the Germans, the Brits, etc) should have realized how messy and unplanned the next two months were.  That was the moment to pack up in Kabul and get a plane out of the country.

8.  If this mess elevates to the point where a thousand Americans are left after the rescue concludes, and are arrested/detained/held?  This will mean 'talks' and some 'gift' for the Taliban.  In this scenario, I would suggest that President Biden's strategy will have reached a point where impeachment or the 25th Amendment will be openly discussed.  At the very least, back in June....he should have asked for an evacuation plan to be prepared, and positioned enough troops to carry it out.  

9.  Where is VP Harris?  In Vietnam, visiting.

10.  On the bizarre scale....this ramped up and I'd give it a 'solid-TEN'.  As weak as President Carter was, and the severe marginalized skills of President Harding....you are just left wondering how the remaining 3.3 years of Biden can go.  You almost need a full-time person standing there and asking him to explain why his decisions go this way, and force him to evaluate priorities in a totally different way.  It's ridiculous to suggest that you need to teach a 78-year old guy but that's the simple blunt truth.

Seven Things I Expect for Remaining Months of 2021 With Afghanistand/Biden

 1.  I don't think you will see a live Q-and-A with President Biden for remainder of 2021.  There might be an agreed upon format....one moderator, and agreement NOT to bring up Afghanistan at all.  It'll be January of 2022 before he does a real interview session. 

2.  The Taliban, within the next month or two....will give out a statement thanking President Biden for his help in conquering the opposing force.  It'll be a serious statement but done in a cynical way.  Even comedians will laugh over how the 'insult' was created.

3.  President Biden will try to drum up a European 'visit' (I'd suggest October, after the German election).  He'll find that virtually no one really at ease in having him visit.  The visit discussion will come and go.  Maybe by December....India or Russia will agree to a visit.

4.  Jen Psaki, White House Press Secretary, said she'd leave before the end of the year.  I suspect she'll speed it up and probably be gone by the end of September.  Whoever comes....I will go and predict that they last no more than four months, before resigning.

5.  Jake Sullivan, National Security Adviser to President Biden, is going to be 'rewarded' with a lesser-position in the State Department (you will perceive as a demotion).  Several bungled episodes leading back to him (even in the Obama White House) will add up and he'll be eased out.  Pointed questions to Psaki will get responses that indicate her dislike for the guy.  

6.  VP Harris distances herself even more from the insider meetings at the White House....realizing that competent authority is marginal.  

7.  Finally, some rumor by January will start up about the DNC reviewing options for the 2024 Presidential election.  Both the WaPo and NY Times will be covering the confidential talks and Biden hostility will brew over how he is excluded from the discussions.  The DNC will eventually suggest that they don't want any support statement or 'blessing' from Biden for their top two or three choices.  

WaPo Article: 80,000 Afghans on Some List for a Green Card

 It's an interesting story, with no idea given on who joked around or started this story in the Biden White House.

So, what happens if 80,000 get the 'card' and a free ticket into the US?

I would suggest massive cultural shock, and a three-year period where half of the incoming folks fail miserably integrating.  I wouldn't even say it'd be their fault.

You'd go support a group of 500 into some community in SF, and this whole fake wokeism would be an extremely tough thing to grasp, or having some tell you that there are 39 genders, or that BLM actually does matter.  

Educational level?  You'd wake up a year into this and find of the eighty-thousand....a quarter them were educated to what you'd say is the sixth-grade level.  You'd tell the mayor or local federal guy that integration gets tougher day by day, and frankly....they don't care.  Eventually, the term 'fake-integration' would be uttered.  

At some point, four years into this...ten-thousand of them would ask to be helped to fly back into Afghanistan....giving up because the American culture is 'too-crazy' for them to adjust to.   

The Design of a Plan for Biden to Fail Miserably

 When you go back to the July press conference, and President Biden gives his 'zero-speech'....this is a position taken by his own White House advisers.  All the BS in this Q-and-A session....all position points written by his own people.

The attempt to keep the carrot-and-stick approach by Trump?  Gone.  Any real exit plan to anticipate the fall?  Marginally existing.  

When you stand and admire the landscape on this moment in history....it's like some group intentionally wanted Biden to fail in a fairly miserable way.  They gave him this one particular position....giving him the words for the July chat with the news media, and held his hand all the way up until last week when reality finally struck.

If you were a normal guy....you'd fire the advisers (not tomorrow or next week, but today).  You don't see that....so I'd anticipate for the foreseeable future....the same 'design-team' is at work....creating the next blunder for President Biden to walk into and accomplish. 

In simple terms, we all realize now that we are in the Biden-Yugo, and are utterly dependent upon 'luck' to make it onto the next repair station (2024).  

Public Confidence to React to Biden

 As this Afghanistan business unfolds....the question is....if 'fools' are gathered within the CIA, State Department, Pentagon, and White House staff...providing advice to Biden of a crappy nature....is he even smart enough to fire them?

The problem here, night after night for the next ten days...the news media is stuck with one single message....this was all Trump's fault.

By the end of the ten days, the question will arise....over the next two years, how many other events will occur where Trump is gone from DC and the 'Trump-power-complex'....is still running America and triggering magnificent and chaotic events?

Three?  A dozen?  Forty?

By the end of 2021....I don't expect too many Americans to really believe into this media message.  You'd have to paraphrase every single question that Biden gets.....since you aren't responsible for Trump-events, how can you reshape things to occur in a Biden-way?  Or is this the total landscape for the remaining three years?  

In simple terms, if you don't get off the 'blame-Trump-horse' soon....you will wake up to realize the horse has collapsed and actually be lying dead-like on the ground for a whole year.  Riding a dead horse....doesn't get you far.  

FYI....for all that training and equipment that the Pentagon and State Department talked about for almost 20 years....it all collapsed in a matter of hours and days in Afghanistan.  

This Kabul 'Rescue'

 Five observations:

1.  How this chaos unfolded quickly?  Well....throughout 2020, as the Trump administration talked to the Taliban folks....the suggestion was that any attempt to create a wave of warfare as the Americans would exit, would result in a massive amount of bomb-dropping.  

So as the Trump folks exited....there probably was a meeting where the Pentagon folks and the CIA folks met, and openly discussed how this exit would go.  I would imagine that both agreed on the Trump 'carrot-and-stick' routine to be a fundamental part of the strategy.  Then the State department folks (with Biden appointees) stepped in and said that was not the sophisticated way of handling this.  

The carrot-and-stick business?  Dumped.  I would suspect back in June, the Taliban had their strategy laid out and aggressively began their campaign, with nothing to worry about from the Biden folks.

The Pentagon and CIA now?  Probably at the furious level.  But hey....sophistication rules the game.

2.  How f**ked-up will the 'rescue' business go?  It'll be bad enough that most news organizations won't cover it or mention much on the nightly news.

3.  President Biden getting any positive spin out of this?  Zero.  

4.  Resurrection of al-Qaeda?  Somewhere in this chaos...there's this young guy with dreams of terror acts, and within two years....his name will be mentioned weekly as the CIA admits that history repeats itself.  

5.  A movie over this rescue business?  No....no one in Hollywood will touch this topic.  

Observations

 1.  Cuomo.  I suspect if you went and ask Governor Cuomo about his situation....he'd tell you that he's utterly shocked at events, and that he's just acting the same way as he has for the past thirty years.....never grasping that he's been on the line of bad behavior for the whole three decades.  

2.  Kabul, Afghanistan.  Within ten days, I expect the city to fall.  US evacuation efforts?  By the end....they probably will manage to get 30-odd thousand people out of the capital by cargo planes.  President Biden?  He'll be unable to say much over this, and just avoid any mention.

3.  At some point in the next five years....we will end up finding half of the US states having education standards that mirror Bolivia of the 1960s.  No one will be able to explain the rational sense to this, and the US Army will admit it's hard to recruit when the typical 18-year-old kid can't read beyond the 3rd grade level. When you ask the kid about this issue....he'll ask why reading is such a big deal. 

4.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd start to suggest a food crisis starting up in China in the next month....with serious public discontent over how this developed.  Trigger?  Floods, Covid, and shutdown regulations. 

5.    The next official of the Biden administration to likely leave?  Homeland Security chief Mayorkas.  The job is beyond his expertise.  

Observations

 1.  With all the chatter going on about Critical Race Theory (CRT), I'll make the judgement and future prediction that ten-percent of white kids in America (particularly in urban environments) leave the public school, and either do private schooling or home-schooling.  The shock will be that they advance further by age 18, than they would have done via the public school system (suggesting that either the teachers are crapped-out, or the system was designed as a failure).

2.  The average cost of a 12-ounce Coke, bought at a non-cheapo place (like a interstate gas station) in the US....is now around $1.90.  

3.  Senator Rubio pushed up an idea of a zero-interest student loan deal.  You borrow $80,000.....you pay back $80,000.  Using normal conditions/rates, if you borrowed $80,000 and had a 4.6 rate, the twenty year period would involve you paying $510 a month for the period.  Amount?  $122k for the whole 20 years.  

To be honest, if you used his program, the 'kid' could finish up his $80k (if he had a valued degree) in 12 years without much trouble...maybe pushing himself to do it in 8 years.  

Course, I would add one stipulation....if you are getting a worthless degree, the government should limit the loan to just $25,000 max.  Telling the kid in a blunt way....you won't make more than $45k a year over the first dozen years....might be some harsh reality though....for some kids.  

4.  Did Joe Biden actually say the chances of the Taliban recovering and taking back over Afghanistan were unlikely?  Yeah, he did say that.

It would be interesting to ask him who in the CIA or Pentagon suggested that.

5.  Some folks in Baltimore tested some recent high school graduates (from June), and found that a fair number were only capable of handling reading/writing/math....down to the 2nd grade level (being HS graduates).  From the group tested....60 percent were at this level....only 10-percent were at the expected level.

The question I'd ask....why bother even hiring college-degreed teachers?  You could hire out-of-work bartenders or waitresses to do the same work.  

Another question....has anyone bothered to test the teachers in this crap?

6.  Finally. Wuhan is mostly all shutdown this week....the next wave of the virus hit.  I'll predict that as you get to summer of 2022....same shutdown occurs again, and locals start to loose serious confidence in the political system.  

My Oregon Story

 So I'll tell this story, and try to keep it simple.

Oregon went and had a legislative process.  A bill was drafted, and passed.  No ceremony was held by the governor, as it was signed.  Entry into the state legislative database?  Well....it only occurred two weeks later.

So what the bill says is that there will be NO process to identify a high school graduate as being able to read, write, or perform math (even adding two and two).

Nothing.

This goes into effect in the next school year, and stands there for five years.  So if you are 13 years old in Oregon today.....you can chill out and not worry about anything.  

I sat and pondered upon this deal.  The question is....why even bother attending school?  I could get a landscaping job and just mow lawns for the next five years, and not worry about attendance or learning anything.

In fact, I kinda wonder why you need college graduates as teachers.  You could just as easily hire transmission mechanics, waitresses, and retired professional baseball players to teach.

Was There Ever a Biden Strategy on the Border and Migrants?

 As each week passes, it becomes painfully obvious that what the Biden team developed was five to ten strategies....'roped-together', and never fitting into anything that President Biden could explain in front of the cameras without tripping over logic or himself.

Six months into this 'game'....the Sunday talk-show moderators can't even find a person from the insider group to really drill down and explain the various strategies at work here.

My general prediction?  As you get to spring/summer of 2022....the obvious failure of this multi-plan situation will be laid out and harm the Democratic message for the mid-term election. 

After November of 2022, I'll predict that President Biden brings a minimum of two new individuals in, and assembles a task force to get one single plan with three simple objectives....that he can explain in two minutes or less. Yes, a coherent plan.

As this period develops....at least half of the old insider crew pack up and leave the White House....frustrated because they can't agree with the simplicity of the new plan, or the end-result.  

Next Thing To Worry About

 I've sat and viewed at least two versions of this story via California regional news.

So....it revolves around this one California family, and a birthday party they held back around two months ago.  What the family says (I don't doubt them) is that there's some kid in the group at the party (14-year old boy)....that got Covid.  

However, this is not the normal symptom Covid.  The family says (even now 2 months later)....this kid is suffering from some sort of psychosis.  Now, for the benefit of folks who aren't familiar with psychosis.....typically, you see things which aren't real.  Yes, hallucinations. 

Typically, most of us who've seen folks in this situation....will say that drugs in some way play a role.  But in this case?  Covid-19?

The local medical folks?  They don't seem to be getting into this situation.  Either they don't believe the situation, or they think there is some other cause involved.

So I sat and pondered.  

I've had Covid, and other than the fever period where I felt like crap....I didn't have any psychosis.  However, my fever never got above 100 (trust me, I checked at least four times a day).  Generally however, if you were getting up to 102 or above....you can have a bout of delirium (kids and teenagers are noted in this group a lot).  

The problem I see here....if you started to see a trend where teenagers got Covid at a higher rate, and went into some delirium/psychosis stage....it'd beg a lot of questions on length of this period, and how recovery goes.    

What Did Landlords Learn After the Eviction Drama of 2020/2021

 I suspect over the next hundred days.....two things will come up and be a sort of 'lessons-learned' experience.

First, I think landlords are going to be extremely tough on knowing the future rental clients, and ask for a complete background check.  It won't be a 100-percent of them, but I would imagine around two-thirds of all landlords will be checking the past history.  If you were part of this no-pay crowd?  You probably won't find that many landlords willing to give you a fresh new chance.   

Second, something of a legal nature is going to be added to rental contracts....where you sign for a 'damages-clause', and if you fail on rent for an excessive period (probably four months)....you agree to a fee (maybe up to $1,000 or more) to be paid as a settlement upon eviction.  

The rental properties of value?  Those landlords will not be happy over the losses, and this will be a harsh new reality for the renting crowd to get used to over the next decade.  

So to this final prospective of mine....I think the mobile-home properties will start to be fairly popular with the eviction crowd.  You will find a cheapo $6k used trailer and park it for less than $200 a month, in a crappy trailer-park.  

Ten Things That Don't Make Sense

 1.  The idea of a mandated vaccination digital passport being 'Ok'....but a mandated ID (either plastic, or digital) for voting not Ok?

2.  The idea that 25-percent of your daily news is 'gut-America' being well received?

3.  The continued fake-use of the word 'bipartisan' in politics?

4.  Geraldo Rivera looks the same today, as he did in 1991?

5.  If you asked a thousand people what the Watergate incident was about....only about 30 of them can answer that question. 

6.  News on CNN would cease to exist if the House/Senate took a two-month long no-work period, and all were forced to exit DC (go home).

7.  Probably over 30-percent of Americans can name the governor of NY (Cuomo) but not name their own state governor.

8.  There are now more people portraying hypocritical-fake behavior than genuine behavior.

9.  If you had a public poll over trust....with only the CDC, and FEMA.....FEMA  would likely win by a score of two to one.

10.   There's just as much interest in Charles Manson today....as in 1969.  Nothing has lessened.  

Hysteria-Prone

 In the old days (at least before 2000).....most people defined hysteria as a psychological disorder which meant you needed to visit a particular doctor and probably spend four weeks at a special clinic.  

These were people that professed that they'd seen hovering alien UFOs near their barn and they'd gone into a 'turbo-like' mental decline.  They weren't dangerous, but they weren't 'trusted' to the degree they'd been before.  

A great example of hysteria is the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692/1693.  In this small community of a couple hundred folks....a couple of these teenage girls had reached a stage of hysteria that they truly believed themselves or others were engaged in witchcraft.  In a matter of days, they had the entire village driven by this belief and were willing to destroy the stability of the village to get to the bottom of the witchcraft business.  

The chief people in the middle of this?  Oddly enough....those who weren't consumed with the passion or determination of the Puritan 'lifestyle' and religious cause.  Obviously, without the passion....they must be connected to Satan.

How many died during this witch process?  Nineteen.

If I look around today....via Twitter, Facebook, CNN, and a dozen-odd news or social media players....I see the same type of hysteria being played out.  

There is social justice hysteria.  There's Covid hysteria.  There's vaccination hysteria.  There's gender hysteria.  There's border hysteria.  There's eviction hysteria.  There's college loan hysteria.  There's environmental, climate-change and global-warming hysteria.  There's Marxism hysteria.  There's capitalism hysteria.  There's defund-the-police hysteria.  

If you flipped the local news on at 6 AM.....there's various examples of hysteria being played-out even in your local town or region.  As you drive to work.....hype-radio wants you to get hysteria over a dog-attack, fire-ants, or some crazy women who was naked along highway 44.  

In simple terms.....the mess is just feeding you day after day.  

So chill out....skip the news for a few days.  Go camping for a week.  Paint the barn roof.  Shoot off some fireworks.  

Life's too short to waste it on a hyped-up hysteria campaign.  

Renters, Evictions and States

 CNBC actually did a four-star analysis piece....over eviction folks, states, and who owes the most.

So here's the thing....the average American owes $3,700 for back rent.  Yes, that's it.

I looked at the map, and its a curious piece.

What the average Alabama guy on the back-rent deal owes?  Between $2k and $3k.  

What the average California guy owes on back-rent?  More than $5k.

In 19 states, the amount is $2k to $3k.  Those particular states?  Mostly all 'red' states and in the south.

By their analysis.....around 11-million fit into the back-rent issue.

So, should all of this chaos been handled back six months ago....like early on in March of 2021, under a fired-up and getter-done President Joe Biden?  Well....common sense says yes.

My gut feeling is that the sixteen-percent of American renters in this bucket....would all prefer to avoid living out of a tent, and not being kicked out of their apartment/house.  But this would mean that Covid needs to shift back into being a marginal worry...something that Biden is simply unable to accomplish.  

So I recommend a read of the story, and compare the numbers yourself.

Why Did Pelosi Ask For a Sixty-Day Situation on the Eviction Moratorium?

 As things unfolded in the past week.....House Speaker Pelosi basically asked the President to use 'imaginary' powers to delay the eviction moratorium one more time (roughly sixty days).  Biden said sure, but he also said clearly....legal minds told him such powers didn't exist. 

So the question is....what did Pelosi have in the 'magic-bag' to work out if Biden's imaginary powers did give her sixty days?

I sat and pondered over this and finally came to this idea.  I think she wanted to draft up a package of a massive amount of funding (probably over 300-billion dollars)....that would be gifted out to every single eviction situation and bring the landlords all back up to zero losses.  Then on top of that....maybe some ninety day amount of relief....telling everyone to just go back to work.

An insult to people who worked through this period, and paid the landlords on time?  Yeah....without any doubt.

Will this strategy be laid out in the next week or two....within the House?  That's my humble belief.  Getting this past the Senate?  Hard to say.

The key thing to think about....all this Covid-downtime business....who is to say that you just need fast cash to resolve this and enough 'loot' to cover things to November?  In California for example....I don't see the economy in recovery for at least another year.  New York City?  Same way.

It's a stupid strategy, but the only way that you'd keep the 8-million-odd people in a residence, and not ending up as hobos on the street....living out of a tent under a interstate bridge.  

The 'Dossier' Story

 I read the National Examiner yesterday, and this one story sticks out.  Former National Security folks under Trump now say enough effort by China on personal data of people....reached a level where they can practically build a 'dossier' on every single American adult.

I sat and pondered over this.

My 'dossier'?  It probably says a bit over my preference for cheesecake.....my normal expenses for ice cream per year....a list of Amazon purchases over the last year....my preference of Ironman over Thor....my general dislike of the NY Yankees....my preference for railway travel....that last speeding ticket I had to pay....my preference for ice tea (no sugar added)....a weakness for Italian food, and the fact that the cat has sent the wife to the hospital for emergency stiches on two occasions.  

My brother's dossier?  It probably talks over his preference for catfish (without the garlic), his selection for dogfood, beer preferences and a list of ammo purchases. 

Lets be honest....whatever kind of dossier they think they have....about 99-percent of it is marginal information and really doesn't say much. Wo-wan probably sits there in the basement of the building....thinking mostly....these folks live pretty quiet and non-stressed lives.  

My Biggest Question over Gobecki Tepe

 Out on the far southeastern section of Turkey.....on a small hilltop...there's this ancient ruins that was discovered around sixty years ago, and in the 1990s....they'd dug enough up to set up a pretty serious discussion.

Here is a stone 'religious-area' (fair amount of stone cutting done), which they can date back to around 7400 BC.  

What bothers the dig-crowd is that they had most humans of the time assigned the task of hunters....not the farmer or settler type.  So constructing this site (others around too)....there was a fairly long period (probably more than ten years) that stone carvers were doing this business.

But I tend to have an even bigger question.  

Once this was built....things stayed active for about a thousand years.  Then....someone came along and covered the area up.  They didn't dismantle or destroy the religious site....they simply buried it.  

Why?

Most folks who go through some anti-religious situation....go to great lengths to destroy what stands there.  These people didn't do that.  

Amount of effort to cover it up?  Even if you had three-hundred people....I'd take a guess that at least six to eight weeks (minimum)were spent in hauling the dirt up and covering the site.  

So what happened?  My humble guess is that ten to fifteen generations of folks from this region (draw a circle of 1,000 miles) made a 'walk' to this site every couple of years and locals who'd settled that region were getting frustrated with tens of thousands of people who'd show up.  So one year, the locals did a quick burial of the site and announced some mysterious event had occurred and wiped out the whole site.  

Maybe for another thousand years, locals knew the whole story but kept their mouth shut.

My Thoughts on the Eviction Moratorium

 Starting on 1 August.....landlords were supposed to have full power to evict renters who were behind on rent.  It was figured that around 8-million Americans are in this situation.

The CDC has tried to throw up another 60-day delay but the courts have said they don't have the power.  Yesterday, President Biden announced an order for a delay....suggesting he has the 'power'.  If you look around...most lawyers are laughing because anything that has to do with money....must come from the House, and clearly...Biden doesn't have this 'power'.

If you wanted a clear example of how the US is now fitting into a 1930s 'hobo-era'....this would be the cherry on the cake of what damage has already been done.

I expect by the end of August that evictions will start up and by the end of September.....the majority of the 8-million Americans will be tossed out onto the street.

Biden's power then?  He can direct the Pentagon/National Guard to provide tent-cities and house the 'crew' in 'Desert-Storm' style tents.  He could direct FEMA to give out a bunch of crappy RV trailers....although no one would want them parking in their neighborhood or city.  Beyond that....nothing.

This whole 'screw-the-landlords' agenda has to come to an end.  It wasn't right or fair to go down this path.  

If you asked me going into 2022 (mid-terms)....this eviction mess will end up being one of the top five problems for the nation, and these 8-million people added to the crowd living under bridges....will make for a fine mess to clean up.  

A Business Story

 Over the past week, NBC has come to agree...'yes, the Olympics hasn't been a big viewer deal'.  It's to the point where discussions are going on, with companies who paid for viewers via their commercials, and the fine-print of the contracts say that if things don't reach x-level....NBC has to 'gift' them other commercial airing times.

Whats this mean?  Well.....imagine yourself a car company and your $25-million was a total bust on viewers.  So the fine-print now allows you a chance to get 20 prime-time slots in January of 2022.  

The damage this triggers?  Pick one single show on a Tuesday night and suggest that two of the advertisements will be 'pay-back' situations....meaning there is no profit for these two commercials that you are giving away.  

The show in question?  Well....they will be furious over the free deal, and realize they didn't make the cashflow they anticipated.

Could they do this for NFL football evenings?  Yes.

So here's the real cherry of this discussion....NBC signed an extension to the Olympics contract (back in 2014)....which brings them up to 2032.   Cost?  7.75 billion dollars.  

What if the woke business continues into 2024 (Paris), and they were forced into 'gifting' another hundred-odd commercials?  2028 in southern California?  Same story?

All of this leads me to this one thought....that NBC will be putting itself into some economic spiral and probably to be sold off within the next five years.  

Biden's Infrastructure 'Deal'

 I read a piece from FEE (Foundation for Economic Freedom) this morning.  They've looked over the 2,700 page draft bill that Biden's folks are pushing.  There were five things which I sat and pondered upon:

1.  There's around $40-million which would go to rural Alaska....for the sole purpose of improving sanitation.  They aren't clear about this.  It might be spent on garbage trucks....building new garbage pits in the wilderness...or just hiring folks to pick trash along the roads of Alaska.

2.  Half-a-billion would be spent over four years.....for something called 'energy' efficiency in schools.  They don't indicate what states get this 'loot', or how the efficiency will play out.  Might this all be spent just on new bulbs?  Well....yeah, it might be that simple.  So some idiot school principal might go and ask for $25k in some grant, just to put all LED lights in the hallways of his school?  

3.  The $12,786,434 number?

Well....somewhere in this draft....this unusual amount appears for what you'd call  annual funding.....to cover “sport fish restoration” and “recreational boating safety".

Normally, in the political world....you write a round number ($40-million for example).  Is this some precise program?  Unknown.  I'd almost speculate that someone from Montana just asked for the amount.....as a joke.  

But for boat safety?  What are going to do.....put up more signs? 

4.  Somewhere in the draft, there is a 'create-a-commission' idea written up (no amount listed) where they'd study the low numbers of women as 'truckers'.  Yes, there are apparently too few female truckers, and a commission would go out and resolve this problem.

Who would make up the commission?  All women?  All men?  

5.  Finally, two-million a year would be granted out to plant wildflowers along highways and interstates.  It's a fairly small sum and I would imagine it'd only pay for the seeds....not the manpower.  

The 'Mute' Generation

 Around twelve years ago, I was traveling around and sitting in an airport situation....CNN was on the terminal TV system, and I reached a point on maximum acceptance' of the CNN lecture.  I plugged in my smart-phone ear-plug, and turned on some Woody Guthrie tunes....to mute-out the lecture.  

I started to notice over the next year or two....I was hitting the mute-button on the TV a good bit, and my wife got irritated at my mute-rate.

Riding in a car?  I got to muting news pieces just as much.

I know that the national networks have the idea that people have their programming on....but I suspect if you gauged a thousand people....at least one-third of them are muting on a fairly regular basis.

All of this leads me to pronounce this 'crowd' as the new 'mute-generation'. 

I can probably sit in some Baptist church today and mute the whole sermon if the guy has suddenly connected climate change to Moses, or social justice to that Paul-character in the New Testament.  

I can be sitting there and watching some sports piece, and the second that they go to social justice, or lives matter chatter....I can hit that mute-button and leave it there for the duration of the show. 

So where does this 'trend' lead onto?  

I would suggest that month by month....more and more people join the mute-generation.  Studios and networks have a feeling of accomplishment....that at least they left the TV on, and the program still stayed on....while the mute was progressing.  This would be like watching an NFL game....with no sound.  If a majority of viewers reached this level....you could just lay off the moderator/talking-heads, and give people plain raw NFL action, with no analysis.

I might go and suggest this is a pretty worrying situation....where a whole bunch of folks might be dismissed and looking for future employment.  

In Star Trek Borg chatter....the comment would be: 'We are Borg, We will mute you'.

The Unifier Story

 This past week, I sat and watched a podcast where the moderator brought this talkative 'expert' on, who got all into the problem of division in America.  He (the guest' actually did a great job for about three minutes.  Then he wanted to lecture you that the only time in the past couple of decades that you got some 'measurement' of unifying....was under the Obama era.

I sat and kinda laughed.

During the build-up of the 2008 campaign....into the primary period....some guy came on CNN and hyped up the unifying experience/background of candidate Obama....saying that the Illinois era was a great example of how Obama worked across party lines.

So about three months into the President Obama era....you just came to realize on unifying skills....he was missing the talents, the smarts, and the savvy to unify people.  It wasn't just him....even the people around him in the White House....were lacking the same talent-set.

By the end of the 4th year.....you could asses the unifying 'hype' as mostly all bogus.  

So, back to Bush II, Clinton, Bush I.....were they all missing unifying skills?  For the most part.

Reagan?  He won the 1976 election mostly because Carter got caught up in the Iran mess, and Carter's debates were good but not enough to bring down Reagan.  Reagan as a unifier?  No....but the news media wasn't corrupted enough to make it a big deal. 

Carter as a unifier?  No....Carter was brought in to clean up the perception of Watergate.  

Nixon and Ford as unifiers?  Not really.

Kennedy or Johnson as unifiers?  Kennedy marginally filled that 'square', and Johnson was simply the guy filling Kennedy's empty shadow.

So I'd suggest that it's been a mighty long time since Eisenhower was around and decent unifier.  

The job of social/news media to present a fake unifier today?  Well....that's what you are left with.  There's probably sixty different national characters walking around today....as hoax-unifiers.  Some Republican....some Democrat...some journalists...some clowns-pretending-to-be-leaders.  It's bad enough that you can't even recognize a real unifier from a fake unifier.  

Your Gender is Based Mostly on Someone's Imagination?

 If you had made this statement twenty years ago....99-percent of people would have laughed.  Today?  The statement is mostly leaning toward what I'd call a hoax-fact....meaning people accept it and don't question it, but if you tried to make it a logical statement in a discussion....you MISERABLY fail.

As each year passes now....active imagination adds another couple of genders (with pronouns).  Without the active imagination....this trend goes nowhere.

Right now, sitting in some basement in Milwaukee, is some guy who is dwelling on a brand new gender which he will introduce via his social media situation, and sell to 10,000 followers over the next month, and by January....have convinced around 20-million Americans of the new gender.  The fact that this may only involve 300 people around the US?  It's best not to bring up this fact.

The possibility that some alien (UFO-type) gender will be invented out of thin air over the next year?  I'd say it's better than a 50-percent chance. 

So this whole thing....the chatter....the arguments....the 'got-you' talk....the furious nature of society forever on a binge frustration...all based on imagination?  Yeah, and the best part, because the way that imagination works....there's no limit.

You might as well open up that fine whiskey you've been saving, and sit over on the porch tonight....thinking over this implication, and how the future now proceeds.  

The 1 August Arrival: The Evictions Start

 This Covid-protection law protection....to keep house/apartment renters from being kicked out for failure to pay rent....ended this morning.  

If you go by the figures....it's estimated that around 15-million Americans are in this 'boat'.  Landlords, I will predict...probably already have the legal documents drawn up, stamped, and will probably hand them to the local sheriff or police to enforce (I would suggest tomorrow morning...Monday).

A few states...like California for example, have some rules in place where this might be drawn out and hindered for a while, but the bulk of states have no delay rules.

So the question, if you think about, where you find 15-million Americans in sixty to ninety days?  

My general prediction here goes three ways:

1.  I think one out of ten will have some cash flow or third-party 'loan' where they buy a RV or trailer, and just go living off some public street, or city park.

2.  About forty-percent of these people will approach friends or relatives....getting an invite for a period of time to live in their house/garage/basement. 

3.  The remainder will end up at some local church or charity operations....with a new enthusiastic view for home dwellings (temp fix).

The Biden crew in a mess?  This whole Covid handling mess by Congress....handing out this no-eviction notice created a magnificent mess which has no reliable or simple answer.  

As for the news media?  I expect in two to four weeks....almost every evening will feature some story over the pitiful folks kicked out and camping out on the streets.  Most of us will mute the story, and just avoid water-cooler discussions over the mess.