What California is missing for it's 2024 budget....will be around $73 billion.
What Alabama spent in 2022 for it's budget? About $37.3 billion total.
Back in 2019 (before Covid), the Bama budget was around 28.9-billion.
Note: they actually sent me a distribution check of $300 at some point last year....saying they had too much money still in the revenue pot.
I sat and watched a podcast (Loomer in Panama). So she sized up the deal....migrants making their way from the jungles of Venezuela up to civilization in Panama.
You rest for three or four days, then the bus pulls up.
You, the migrant, pay $60. This gets you from the jungle clearing (eastern side of Panama) up through the capital, and all the way to the Costa Rican border.....1,100 kms or 11 hours.
Bus....max of 60 passengers....driver gets you there and dumps you for the next bus.
$3,600 for the run. But here, I sat and analyzed this. Once you figure fuel, and bus cost....then you have an empty bus requiring you to drive 11 hours back to the village to pick up the next group....there's zero profit.
So I'm not buying into the story....as is.
There has to be a fee given to the bus company/driver....probably in the range of $2,000 to $3,000 to even out the whole cost. So I'm wondering....who else in the game and paying the extra fee to make this all work for just $60.
As for Costa Rica....border to border? 513 km....roughly 8 hours of driving.
That Nicaragua drive....around 320 km, and four hours.
Bus-to-bus-to-bus, the whole route? I'd take a guess that with a 4-hour layover at each border....you'd need three days to reach the border region of Texas, from Panama and in the neighborhood of $500 for bus action and food.
Walking? Eighty days....from the jungle to the Texas border. I can guarantee you....you'd lose about 40 pounds of weight.
For most of my life, up to 2007....I had avoided NY City. That year....there was to be a high school reunion, and I had decided (while stationed in Germany)....I'd make a trip back to the US.
The base airline package folks sat down and had this fantastic priced deal...$850 for a R/T airline ticket. I'd fly from Frankfurt to NY City....sit there for four hours, board a 1-hour flight to Reagan Int'l in DC, and then finally arrive in Huntsville, Ala around 10 PM. Yeah, all total....roughly 27 hours on the go.....that was the crappy part of the deal.
So in mid-summer, we arrive at JFK, after some massive 8-hour storm in the area....to find that the schedule is now totally screwed-up and virtually all flights for the remainder of the day (this being 1:30 PM) were cancelled.
The airline desk? Swamped and they were telling the long line of folks....it might be 3 to 4 days before you can 'exit' NY City. After waiting about 90 minutes and realizing the odds of getting a new plan was at least 3 hours away...I gave up and started to walk around JFK to find an exit, and determine a hotel for the night.
For anyone who hasn't been to JFK....it's crap. Of the 50-odd airports I've been to in my life (both in Europe, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Panama, and the US)....it is by far, the least desirable place to be stuck at.
The terminal has this mildew smell. On having information about hotels or options in getting stuck.....it's marginal.
I eventually got enough information and called the Roosevelt Hotel....getting one night on a military discount....roughly $240. Getting from the airport to the hotel? That turned into a 45-minute mess, and after talking to a shuttle bus guy.....I worked out a deal with eight folks being hauled over to mid-town.
The 'tour' of the city from the airport to the Roosevelt? OLD was the key word to use. The pothole ratio per mile (PRPM) was probably in the 60 range.
I finally got dumped at the Roosevelt. There....I stood in line at the desk for 30 minutes...finally getting the key to the room.
The room description? Mold smell....about half the size of most rooms I've ever rented. The sandwich tray I ordered from the kitchen, with a Coke? It was around $22.
The next morning....I did the breakfast business....shocked to find that ran around $34.
Getting from the hotel back to the airport? That took about 10 minutes to drag a solution out of the lobby folks. I ended up on some Greyhound-like bus....likely in the 30-years of use. Yeah, it smelled like mold as well. The driver? This was some guy who spoke no English....I thought he was probably from Vietnam or such. The lady at the bus door selling tickets? Definitely Vietnamish. This was another $25 fee.
So I finally got to the airport....shuffled through the line and they worked up some deal....they'd get me to Atlanta (stopping at 4 places along the way), and just dump me there. The deal inferred that I'd sit in some 1st class area....giving up the remainder of my ticket.
I sorta accepted this.
Upon arriving in Atlanta, I went back to the customer folks and said I wanted the end-result....Huntsville. They eventually rigged up the system, and gave me one final ride at 9 PM....into Huntsville.
My adventure? It was one of those crappy episodes that sat on my mind for several years. I will not accept any 'leg' of a trip into the US....that requires stopping off at NY City. Just about everything in NY City is priced way above most other places. Mildew is just a normal smell in the city. And nothing really functions like you'd expect....like in Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Atlanta, or Dallas.
I've been back in NY City twice....mostly to tour the city. Neither trip really impressed me....as a tourist. Don't even bring up the subway....I'll ramble on for 3 hours about the crappy conditions there.
My general advice? If you are going there for a couple of days....have a master plan, and a back-up plan. Carry around alcohol wipes with you, and wipe-up at least once an hour (particularly after the subway). Get a subway map ahead of time and spend an hour reading over how it works. Getting a five-star cheesecake? Go to Grand Central Station and the cafe in the basement. The Roosevelt no long exists....it's a refugee center today....but there are at least fifty 3-star hotels around the city (don't go expecting much). Crime has escalated big-time in the past year....so don't go wandering around after dark. Don't get stupid to pay $95 for some 30-minute horse-carriage ride around Central Park. Finally, to get away from that constant mildew smell....buy up some cheap men's after-shave and douse your nose every 30 minutes or so.
Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott, Vivek Ramaswamy, Byron Donalds, Kristi Noem, and Tulsi Gabbard.
I noticed this from late yesterday.
The odd thing....back in 2016, as Pence was selected....if you walked around and asked people on opinion...more than 90-percent would have said they didn't know the guy or his resume.
If you asked a hundred folks today over the six? 99-percent would say they absolutely know the resume of DeSantis, Ramaswamy, and Gabbard. Probably 50-percent would say they know something about Donlds, Noem and Tim Scott, but it's limited.
Prior to the 1990s.....the VP selection (for both Republicans and Democrats) was a no-name character that maybe a quarter of the nation knew a brief bit about. If you asked around Alabama about Agnew (Nixon's VP)....maybe 3-percent would have responded about him being briefly a governor of Maryland. If you'd brought up Eisenhower's selection of Nixon as a VP in the 1950s....maybe only 3-percent of the public would have known he was a Senator from California (late 1951 to Jan 1953).
Even if you brought up Bush II's selection of Cheney and asked people of his resume....they would have responded for the most part that he'd been in the Reagan era, but had forgotten his job or success story.
So, here's the thing.....whoever Trump selects (if he wins)....is likely to the be the follow-on President in 2028's campaign.
For this reason, the pick matters more than you'd anticipate.
What happens to the remaining five? Well....I suspect that most will be getting cabinet posts. Gabbard for example....might well fit into the SecDef job. Tim Scott might make a fine Secretary of State. Donalds? Homeland Security?
Scandals to be found? That's the odd factor playing out....in that most have had 'heat' put upon them and there's just not much scandal-material existing. I admit....Donalds would normally be dumped-upon, but he being black....he might hold a 'ace' or two in his hands and avoid trouble.
Picking Ramaswamy? That's my logical choice. On debate and style...he would hurt the news media folks to a great extent.
Back in the fall of 1998...a work-associate loaned me his VHS tape of 'Starship Troopers'. It'd been out for about 18 months.
I sat and watched it, and for about a week....the movie was on my mind. I'll admit....two or three times a year....someone will bring up the movie, and it gets my attention once again.
First, it's a crappy script....marginal text, and revolves around a advanced bug-species who seem 'bad-ass'.
Second, on propaganda-value....it seeks to get you to a anti-bug mentality....but you eventually by the end start asking stupid questions.
Third, the more years that pass....I seem to see the movie as satire.
Fourth, I've probably attempted to watch it three or four times since 1998....never getting more than 20 minutes into it, and losing interest.
Fifth, I don't see it as a 'bad' movie.....just that the script and science-fiction factor...are crap. But I can probably name forty SF-movies that are in the same problem area.
Out of NY City, the mayor has said he intends to hand out a debit card....to incoming migrants....loaded up with $10,000 (noting is it re-loadable later)....without any real ID check of the migrant, with no restrictions on the card (meaning you could buy booze) and then have zero fraud control.
Where the hundreds of millions will come from? Unknown. Will it likely entice hundreds of thousands of migrants outside of NY City to come to the city? Oh, I would imagine you quickly see 25,000 new migrants in the city within four weeks.
The no ID check? What prevents some group of American Hispanics (born in California for example) to fake up their situation....get border control fake papers, and show up in NY City....pretending to be migrants and get the $10,000 credit card? I'm not talking about a one-time showing....I'm saying I could put various disguises and pick up a $10,000 card every two weeks, without these idiots figuring out my scheme.