If you asked me since since 1982....how many times I've watched First Blood....I'm probably up to around thirty occasions.
Suggesting a re-do or a make-over? No....why? It can't be improved.
The text, the landscape, the characters....it all works perfect.
The other Rambo movies that came and went? No interest. I don't think I've ever watched any of them a second occasion.
Just odd.....probably fewer than ten movies like that....that you get fixated upon.
First, if you had a guy already geared up for a IQ level of 75....then you toss in a fair amount of meth and cannabis.....yeah, there's probably more than 10,000 people like him around the US.
But then you come up to this.....you paid $500 to some idiot who claims he can make you invisible....when you know the going rate should not be more than $25. This is me speaking from a Alabama prospective.
Then finally....how the hell are you so sure this is a real and certified wizard? I could walk around St Louis on a Saturday, and forty folks would probably try to claim wizard status....when only two or three are certified wizards (with a Harry Potter 'stick').
So you can imagine this scene....he's sliding through the door of some bank....walking up to the clerk and handing her a note.....stating your invisibility and that $2,000 is what you want to steal. She's eyeballing you for 60 seconds, and then it hits you....she done hit the button, and here is the cop car arriving at the door.
Then you go and explain things to them, and they let you know.....they also hired a wizard, and they got 'super-powers' to overcome the invisibility.
I walked into a German coffee shop today...ordering a double-espresso. Back in 2020...it would have been 2.40 Euro (about $2.90).
Today, 22 Feb 2024? It was 4.5 Euro (about $5).
The German gal was nice about it....giving me a mini-cookie. It was one of those that had about 30 calories.
I sat there and contemplated this. By the end of 2025...it'll likely be up to about 5 Euro ($5.50).
The sad thing? I can't really whine about this to the German wife because she will freak out and get all hyped-up....telling me not to buy coffee, and just wait till we get home....to have home-brewed coffee.
A mess for Joe Biden to clean up? No. It's left to whichever Democrat that the Convention delivers to replace Joe Biden (either Michelle Obama or Gavin Newsom).
Personally, both would have to come out and do some weird dance....to say their plan is radically different from Joe Biden, and 'throw' Joe under some heavy criticism.
So I suspect MO or GN....will stick with Joe Biden's plan, and try to sell people on this.
If Trump wins?
I see five things happening:
1. The whole path to citizenship is going to be halted, and you only advance if you came through approval to enter. The 'walkers'? They might get a Green Card and a work-deal...if no crimes exist, but the rest will end up in some holding system to be sent home. The bulk of these people will never get citizenship.
2. I suspect the US Army in Europe will get orders to return to the US, with the bulk placed in southern California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas....with some 60-day deployment schedules worked out for 4,000 to be on daily border-patrol.
3. The fence? It'll be finished by mid-2026.
4. Sanctuary cities asking for fed money? I see that money path gone. There will be a sudden change in public attitude, with Democratic mayors looking for some miracle to pay for housing they can't afford.
5. Finally, just this odd feeling.....approximately 80,000 IRS agents will be given a new job.....border patrol, and half of them exit government service.
Early in my college adventure, with the Pierce Community College (Tacoma), I took this course in Logic. It was a total waste of time....a class taught by a visiting Italian professor whose English was marginal, but I seemed to have picked up a dozen things which helped later in life.
One of the things that we engaged upon one night....was Occam's Razor.
For those who didn't know the origin of this 'idea'....it was back in the 1400s...with some Friar (William of Oakham). 'Bill' had probably spent a lot of time just thinking and pondering about things. In his world....as it is today....problems come up and people search for an answer. When answers aren't readily available....you need a simple way to solve the problem.
So this 'razor' says that if you put up some possible answers (from one to a hundred)....the simplest one is the one to side with....unless you get more facts. The simplest one? Yes, ALWAYs.
Some time this summer (2024), I will have around 13,000 days or 1,877 weeks, or 36 years that I've lived beyond the US border (either in Panama, Saudi, or Germany).
Yeah, I have this odd prospective on things....because I can remember the last year or two of the farm period (1976/1977).
The number of times that people sat around and talked over President Ford or President Carter....in some chatty situation? Well....it just didn't happen...not in church....not at the general store....not on the front porch.
Friendships, relationships....broke up over politics? Never happened.
You didn't sit around and label one out of ten people you heard speaking in 1976/1977 a hypocrite.
You didn't stand there in 1976/1977 assessing someone's marginal IQ....like I continually do today.
You didn't see people so far into debt in 1976/1977....that even if they were making $100,000 a year....they were stone-cold 'broke'.
You didn't really notice that many people who were toxic in their personality in 1976/1977.....so bad like it today, that you'd almost think they got some demon-situation requiring a Catholic priest.
You tended to readily identify people in 1976/1977 easily as having lunacy or being senile. Today? You get told that only qualified and certified people can label people with dementia.
People in 1976/1977....still remember members of the family or neighbors from the early 1960s.....who got sent 'off' (meaning they went to the state facility for insane folks). Today, you just know that cousin Randy went off to LA and lives off the street, and your aunt with the schizophrenia problem....is in some Oregon jail for 12 years, for trying to exercise some demon out of a lady friend.
People in 1976/1977 barely grasped the official rules of pronouns, and with their southern dialect....you had to sometimes ask for a second speaking of the sentence to get the 'word'. Today? You have Johnny-turned-Belinda....giving you 12 extra rules on pronoun use, and the grocery clerk gal.....Belinda-turned-Johnny giving another whole set of pronoun rules. Neither seem destined for anything in life except trouble.
People in 1976/1977 read through a 16-page newspaper in thirty minute, watching 30 minutes of Mister Cronkite, and 30 minutes of local news....highlighted by H.D. Bagley telling you that storms be acoming shortly on Friday. Today, from 6 AM to 10 PM.....you could be getting a minimum of 12 hours of news....of which 90-percent doesn't really affect you, your dog, or the crazy blonde gal next door who mows the lawn weekly in cowboy boots and a bikini.
Finally, if you were stopped on the street in 1976/1977....being asked to define a man or a woman...100-percent of people could define it in 30 seconds. Today? I'm not sure that a quarter of the nation can do it.
There's some loss of reality going on, but most can't recognize it.
