Ten Stupid Questions

 1.  Is there any way to validate that elections in the US (locally, state, and federal) are 'free and fair'? 

No.  There's no audit trail and no regulations to prove or disprove a free and fair election system.  It's been this way for 200-plus years and nothing is about to evolve to fix this.  Your county clerk, and county judge....are the only measures that might indicate a trust-level, and odds are.....you don't know the names of either.  Sadly, you probably can name all the Kardashian folks. 

2.  Is our debt-ceiling problem still lingering?

Yeah, it's not talked about much...but Congress simply kicked the 'can' to this fall.  

3.  Can you self-identify on your race?

Well....if you can do gender self-identification....then yeah, you can do race.  I would imagine you could also do IQ self-identification....saying you were intellectual....when you were premium 3rd-grade material at age 45.

4.  Does the Vatican have a UFO file area?

Well....see, some folks have openly discussed this and the Pope hasn't cleared the deck to say 'no'.  The fact that they have a 'demon' file?  Yeah....it just begs more questions.  

5.  When Fitch dropped the credit rating for the US....was this a big deal?

On a scale of one to ten....it was a solid 'ten'.  It invalidates virtually everything Bien has said for two years.

6.  Does home-office or remote-work....really work?

I think if you went and surveyed people....thirty-percent of people give a better performance while sitting on their patio at home.  The remainder?  They probably spend half of a eight-hour shift doing crap....the same way they did it at work.

7.  Major civil war brewing around Niger (in Africa)?

There's probably six neighbors of Niger who are worried that things will get rough over the remainder of 2023.  Wouldn't shock me if the US placed a carrier off the coast to help evacuate people.  If you asked folks to just generally identify where Niger was....less than one-percent could do it. 

8.  With some prosecutor chatter that Trump might be doing 750 years in a fed prison.....what will happen to the anti-Trump folks if all convictions fall/fail?

Well....it'd be like someone shot Lassie, Ben-the-bear, Mister Ed, Flipper and Tiger King in a single hour.  Best to practice your 'hug-talents' and imagine the scene where you approach the freaked-out lady....offering a hug, and uttering maybe they can fix up 1,500 year charge next year against the evil-Trump.  It would help if you had a flask of strong liquor to offer at this moment.  

9.  Are some stores just hinting to the Bud-Light folks....don't bother stocking the shelves?

I just noticed a comment or two this week, where shops said the space allocated to the product.....will be less.  They didn't say 'don't-stock' the shelf.....just that the shelf is a bit smaller.  

In simple terms...it's a bad sign.

10.  This week, I noticed several times when the word 'weasel' was used to describe a person.

In case you are under the age of 20, and wondering what it means.....old guys usually uttered this when talking about some half-wit guy who couldn't tell a straight story, and usually very insincere about his relationships or work accomplishments.

Physical Chatter

 Back before Covid (spring 2020), I read a 'rant' piece from a gym instructor at some high school.  What he hyped about was the 500 'lads' that he had for daily gym class....he figured at best....about sixty of them were in decent physical shape....meaning they could run a mile without stopping, or do forty sit-ups.  So, figure about 12-percent of the group were in this top category.

Then he came to the second group....the lads who could probably move up to this level in four weeks....if they were to put effort into some physical training.  He figured 20-percent of the group fell into this category.

So, then came the final group....the totally unfit gentlemen (ages 14 to 18) who would require a minimum of three months to reach any real physical conditioning.  You can do the numbers but it's like near the two-thirds point of the whole group of 500.

The rant direction?  Well....he came to discuss physical conditioning of what existed in the 1960s and how things could not match up today.

I would imagine if you took the young ladies and did the same analysis.....it'd likely come out the same way.  

The fact that no one really cares?  Well....yeah, that probably is the central part of this discussion.  

The out-of-shape kid.....what grade are they giving him for gym class? 'A'?  Someone ought to come along and say you got new year starting in gym, and at the end of the first six-week period....a simple test comes up.  If you can't run a mile in 16 minutes, or do twenty sit-ups in three minutes....you fail.  Next semester?  Same deal.  At the mid-year point, you now raise the mile run to 1.5 miles and 18 minutes, and double up the sit-ups.  

Doctors trying to waiver the kid out of this?  I'd call up the state license board and ask how the health of the kid is, and if the doctor is hindering....not helping.