Pizza Story

 I noticed this week....NYC is going to some regulation on pizza shops....no more stone-oven baking of pizza (bad for the environment).

I'd gone through 30-odd years of my life and around 1994...being in Italy for a military duty situation....I sat at a true Italian pizza shop and ordered a pizza which was baked in the stone-oven.

This was not a thick bread dough situation and it was fairly crispy in the end, but it was a five-star pizza. 

Over the years, I've probably eaten at least one-hundred pizzas from a stone-oven.  

If you gave me a choice?  I'd also select the stone-oven choice.

So this brings me back to the environmental folks.  After years and years of watching them at work....it seems like their preoccupation is to destroy civilization.  

Air Force Chatter

 This past week, the Air Force announced that they would probably miss their yearly goals for 2023 recruitment by 10-percent....for active-duty.  In the Guard/Reserve....it's up to around 12-percent.  

Reason?  They don't go into a lot of detail or explain the problem.

Resolving this?  Well....it's just odd.  

First, the tattoo rules are going to be seriously relaxed. 

Second, if you were drug-tested and failed on marijuana....they are now ready to consider 'second-chance' options.  They don't really detail how this would work.  My humble guess is that you'd agree for 'treatment', monthly tests to show your dedication, and some rehab therapy for a year or two.

Third, the BMI/weight stuff?  It appears to be going to a slightly relaxed state.  Don't get excited...I doubt if they'd allow more than half-a-inch extra on BMI or five pounds more weight for the max level.   

My view?  The minute they hit better numbers....this whole policy will be reversed, and folks will be standing there in frustration.  So I doubt that the changes will do much to get enlistments back up.

At the pace of things for 2024?  I would make a humble bet that they progress from a 10-percent miss....to a 15-to-20-percent miss.  

Adding more resolutions in 2024?  Yeah....I would imagine there's a group of twenty-odd people trying to dream up something that would get a couple of thousand more people into the recruitment office.  College funding or bonus activity?  That probably will come next.

It wouldn't shock me if they started to offer a $80,000 college fund if you agreed to six years of service.  It also wouldn't shock me if they offered up a $20,000 TSP-retirement fund start-up situation if you agreed to four years.  

But here's the thing....isn't this recruitment problem a crappy long-term situation...probably lasting for an entire decade?  I'm suggesting in five years....that they'd be routinely missing 30-percent of their goal, and unable to fill 50-percent of squadrons to full manning.  

It is a curious problem....with no real ability to fix.  

Ten Things: 27 June 2023

 1.  Out of the 37 Shakespeare plays that we are sure about (that he wrote)....how many would require a trigger-warning if shown to a 18-to-21 college crowd?  Five?  Ten?  All?  What's that really say about society 500 years later?

2.  If AI (artificial intelligence) gave you conflicting advice against what your dentist says about your teeth....who do you believe?

3.  If you look at dock traffic going OUT of China....it's very limited.  Question is....if that much less traffic....how do you hide all the Fentanyl that was shipped in previous year's containers?

4.  I watched some 60-second clip off Fox News yesterday (I try to limit myself)....some mental expert says of the sub tragedy from last week....lot of people lack empathy.  I paused over this.....where has this guy been the past 20 years?  I passed this reality back around 2005 to 2010.  

5.  I pulled out some old clothing and decided to dispose of three jackets.  Oddly, I found a ten-dollar bill in one of them (probably from the 2004-to-2008 era).  This is probably what happened at the Pentagon and how they found the 6-billion dollars....just cleaning the closet, and there it was.

6.  As fragile as some people are....if you just offered them avocado on toast....probably 10-percent of people would freak out and require a shot or two of premium whiskey.

7.  With all this gender chatter going on and how a 8-year old kid can make decisions for himself....some kid will wise-up and say he should be able to buy whiskey with his allowance money or his yard-clean-up job cash.  How will you explain that he can't have whiskey but he can go trans?

8.  If you evaluate erratic behavior in America....is it possible that we down to the last million people with zero-erratic lifestyles?  

9.  There must be at least six different 'defenders of Russia' in existence, and each claiming some 'status'.

10.  I read this yesterday....16.5 million Americans are training/excising in a reckless fashion....to trigger an early death.  Basically, we need a law to prevent you from too much exercise.