Ten Things About Corona That Remain Odd

 1.  Remember how the wet-market story (out of Wuhan) suggested the trigger to the virus was Pangolins (the anteater type creature)?  And now?   It's always bat-chatter.  it's like the Pangolins paid someone to just drop them as a news topic.

2.  Wet-markets still operating in China?  You would think that once Corona started up....virtually all Chinese would have halted business with wet-markets.....yet that never occurred.

3.  The automatic answer in China to a upward 'tick' of Corona?  Shut down an entire city.....for weeks.  If you tried to do this in the US....civilization would fall apart in ten days, or people would just pack up and leave (like NY City).

4.  Covid vaccines approved by FDA?  Well....to put this into prospective....Fentanyl is also approved (since 1998).  It doesn't mean that everything FDA approves is 'God's gift'.

5.  This whole 'cult-like' state over Corona....revolves around oppression in various ways (if you sit and think about it).  

6.  The difference between Trump-Corona mandates and Biden-Corona mandates?  One group obeys one, and another group obeys the other.  Pepsi-versus-Coke type discussions?  More or less.

7.  After about 70-odd years of Soviet-style regulation on people.....no one took anything serious anymore.  You see the same skeptical nature of people building up, and the Corona-Soviet regulations are falling into the same path.

8.  There are various misinformation, mis-misinformation and mis-mis-misinformation campaigns going on....on a daily basis, about Corona.  Just in an average day, you are probably engaging in Corona-chatter-misinformation with at least ten people.   

9.  In the past month, some people have started to pull out Lyme disease and ask stupid questions over the CDC handling of it, and ask if Lyme disease connects to the same incompetence of Corona.

10.  Will the epidemic in the US ever end?  People rarely asked this in 2020.  Today?  I would take a guess that a quarter of the population engage on this topic at least once a week, and the 2024 Presidential election might be more about ending it....than anything else.  

Hunter and Art

 I noticed there's a second 'art-show' for Hunter Biden being arranged....Soho, NY.  

The first show?  Well....he had five paintings up for show, and sold them....roughly $75,000 each.  The exhibit management folks will take some money off of this (figure $5k minimum).  So he walked away with around $350k.

For those who didn't know....there's a tax credit (federal) out there for artists.  You can deduct 20-percent of your net income from the 'business'.  You can also count various expenses (like the shows) as a credit.  

The Soho event?  Well....the hint is that very few of Hunter's works will be shown.  I'd just take a guess.....it won't be more than five (like the California exhibit).  Another odd thing....it's highly private.  The guys in charge already hint that you'd apply to get in and there would be a review of who you are, and the 'status' you have.

In the real art world (not that I really have that much interest)....most hobby artists will tell you they might work on two to four pieces per year.....meaning they put an enormous amount of effort into this, and don't paint daily.

The Van Gogh tradition?  At the point where he entered the mental facility (for the breakdown).....he'd done roughly 130 paintings in one single year.  After the mental facility.....he reached around one painting per day.  There in 1890....at the peak of production.....he committed suicide.  

Doing the rough math, I'd take a guess that he's producing around one painting every three to four weeks.  Profit-wise?  Again, if you estimate on production and $75,000 being the norm.....Hunter ought to be able to make near one-million dollars per year (before taxes).  This to continue after Joe's four years?  That's the real question.  

Did Mayor Pete Buttigieg Have Any Qualifications?

 For Transportation Secretary?  No.

From the past ten 'fillers' of the job.....did any of them really have the resume or background for the job?  No, not really.

I hate to suggest it, but this is usually where you offer up a job to some 'loser' within the party (Republican or Democrat), and it's just a 'honor' situation.  

I'd even go and suggest from the late 1980s....Neil Goldschmidt...was probably a more unqualified individual for the job than Pete Buttigieg.

But as you glean the past decade of accomplishments for Pete Buttigieg....he just hasn't done anything on paper that noted him as capable for an executive type position.  

The feeling that Biden just 'owed' him something?  That's mostly how you see this mess.  

Marginalized Comedians?

 Somewhere around a decade ago, I came to the realization that probably half of the people who were trying to 'sell' themselves as comedians (either on TV, radio or at clubs)....weren't that capable.  

Do we have an over abundance of comedians today?  Yes, I'd offer that observation.  Probably forty-percent ought to renew their resumes, and just look for real work.  From the remaining crowd?  Probably half of them are marginally cutting it....either improve or just preparing your resumes as well.

There's a Brit comedian who came out with a five-star response/explanation for BREXIT (comparing to a Burger King), who had one brief moment.  Ever since that joke.....he's gone back to marginal humor.  He still gets invites to comedy club routines, but it's obvious that he was just lucky for one four-minute routine for BREXIT, and the rest is history.

Late night TV?  It's mostly crap....with the exception of Gutfeld on Fox.

Would I go to a comedy club for an evening?  If I knew who was appearing.....yeah.  But if it's an unknown group, or two 'losers'?  No.....I'd skip it. 

Shutting Down Purchasing

 I sat and watched a economic news piece yesterday, and the advice given by one 'expert'.....just lessen your purchases, and things will improve.

Back around 2008 (the great stock collapse year).....Germany had a serious financial decline, and someone bought up the standard German dedication for periods like this....lessening purchases.  It quickly got brought up....this traditional remedy to German economic woes (historically)....also brought on an industrial 'mess' where factories went to 50-percent production (folks laid off) and a whole new problem was cranked up within months.  

The experts could actually go back over dozens of years and show the German standard of lessening purchases....was the wrong method for recession and price-issues.  

In this scenario, you'd wake up around April of 2022....where half the number of freighters were progressing across the Pacific, and there were truly less items on the shelves....because production went to a 50-percent level.  Then price-increases would occur on a weekly basis because of the shortages.  

If you use the history of recessions....at least since WW II....most recessions never last more than twelve months.  If you used the history of recessions.....prior to 1900....most recessions went on for two to four years.

The system normally improves the situation....unless you really 'toy' with it and create additional 'triggers'.  

White Power - Joe

 About two years after I retired from the Air Force (around 2001 timeframe)....I was continuing to work for the AF, as a contractor.  One day, we had this incident occur with an airman in the shop, who'd posed for a picture for the base newspaper.  In the pose, she had some finger gesture that the photographer had suggested which was really the simple old-fashion 'OK' finger deal.

After the photo was published and the paper came out.....suddenly the base social affairs office got entangled in the airman's business.  You see....this 'OK' gesture had been assigned now to meaning some type of gang-symbol, and meant 'white power'.  

There was some type of meeting....this young female, her First Sergeant, two or three social affairs geeks, and some officer from the Base Commander's office. The airman had grown up in some Arizona town....fairly naïve (even by 1990s standards), and was totally shocked at the amount of hype this photo had triggered.  Eventually, they all decided she was that naïve.....that she didn't know much of anything about white power, and wasn't a gang-member.

After she came back to the office, I asked if there was some official way of this white power gesture being done.  No....just the plain old 'OK' gesture was enough. 

For about an hour, I sat there....in a bit of a daze, and just made a mental note....never-ever show an 'OK' gesture to anyone.

So this all comes up because Joe Biden went over the past couple of
days....showing the 'OK' gesture, and the news media had to go and defend Joe.....that he didn't mean 'white power'.

The trouble is.....you don't know.  Maybe Joe is all into 'white power', and he knew precisely what he was doing.  Maybe he is like me, and the whole 'white power' thing just missed him in the 1980s/1990s.

Around this 2002 era, I brought this up to some guy, and he laid out the various gang signs.....probably two dozen of them.  I sat there and felt....well....from the baseball crowd alone, there's probably five or six hand signals you'd use....which might be gang-related.  

Did the news folks explain this to Joe?  Does he understand this now?  His response?  He probably did a frown, and indicated to them that these are all 'Joe-power' symbols, and they need to get with his gang.....to understand the whole thing.  

It's all ridiculous but it's kinda how that that airman felt in that meeting....she meant it as 'OK', and the fact that she was 50-percent Latino.....didn't really matter on 'white power'.  

Dozen Things Biden Ought to Be Doing Now

 To recover out of this 'administration-in-the-ditch' situation, my ten suggestions:

1.  Order the Pentagon to rig up a rescue deal for the remaining 350-odd Americans in Afghanistan.  All of them should be 'home' by Thanksgiving.

2.  Declare the Covid 'national-emergency' finished as of Thanksgiving week.  

3  Fire Fauci immediately, and have a full investigation over how he funded the Wuhan research.  

4.  Admit Blinken as Secretary of State was a four-star mistake.....release the guy, and hire up someone who had nothing to do with the Obama administration.

5.  Admit that Hunter's art business is highly unethical.....let him go back to the Ukraine and be a natural gas executive for cash flow.

6.  Halt all chatter within the administration about being the 'anti-Trump'.  Just be Joe Biden.

7.  Admit the FBI is totally screwed up, and set into motion a plan to divide them into three separate groups.....each headquartered beyond DC.

8.  Dump the trillion-dollar scheme.  If it did come with zero-dollars cost....then increase it up to forty to fifty trillion and just issue everyone a $30k voucher.  Truth is....no one believes the zero-dollars cost chatter.

9.  Stop telling 1960ish Bob Hope-type jokes.  Trying to be the 'funny' Joe Biden doesn't work anymore.

10.  Fire Pete Buttigieg (make it an ambassador if necessary), and hire some guy who has a massive amount of logistical background (non-Democrat) and then force the LA port folks (union members) to accept modernization.  

11. Admit the immigration program and border control issue is a serious problem, and hire someone to correct the whole program (don't hand the job to Harris).  

12.  Force yourself into a conference room every month with a dozen reporters and answer questions for sixty minutes.  If you aren't capable of handling this situation....then admit it, retire, and hand the job to Harris.