California

 I sat and ponder over this in the AM today....California Governor Gavin Newsom has now issued an executive order for the removal of homeless camps in the state.

How this will occur?  Well...I would imagine the police will start some effort and find that the groups exit the jail and re-start another camp.....at a new location.

After six months of zero accomplishment....I expect the National Guard to be dragged into this....with the same result.

After a year of this....about half of the homeless folks (say about 40,000) will end up on a free bus-ride....to Portland (my prediction).  

Taking a bunch of paranoid schizophrenic types, and forcing some 'change' into their lifestyle?  It's just got bad luck written all over it. 

For you folks in Portland who thought crazy things had peaked out.....well....you might want to prepare for 2025.  

Flight Accident Story

So this is a funny story in a way.  As you might know....I spent 22 years in the Air Force.  Over the years, I noticed a lot of screwed-up things....some got people into trouble....some just came and went.

In the early part of 2024....there's a Air Force bomber (a B-1B) that crashed...$450-million gone.  It happened at Ellsworth AFB.

What they basically did....they missed the runway by 100 ft.  When this occurred, there were a lot of criticism how the crew (2 guys) could have done this.  

So an investigation started up.  

The team came to a couple of failure points.  

Flying operation supervision....meaning a ranking officer around to remind people of good  habits, bad weather, or minimize risks?  That was laid out there as a problem.

Bad weather? Yep....that was a problem.

Something called "an unhealthy organizational culture that permitted degradation of airmanship skills."  This typically means the pilots party too much. 

Then they got to two interesting aspects. 

Once you show up for the flight....you end up in the room with the pilot gear and you put on X, Y and Z.  For some odd reason....one guy in this group wasn't wearing proper-fitting gear.  They don't explain this to any detail....but they note that this was the one guy who was injured when he ejected out of the plane.  They don't say it was the pilot's fault or the NCO who was preping him.

So here's the funny part.....the ejection seat?  It was set to 211 pounds.  Based on what they said....it probably would have worked still ok.....up to 245 pounds.

If you are 6'1".....then your max AF weight can be up to 208 pounds.  Enlisted or officer....it doesn't matter.

As they carried the injured pilot  off to the hospital after the event....they weighed him....without all the gear....he came to 260 pounds.  Meaning?  He was 52 pounds over his max.

In the final report....they just kinda hinted around....his injuries came mostly from the excess weight.  Him getting disability later in life?  Well....they don't say anything but I doubt that they will ever approve his disability status.

How you get to 260 pounds....if you were only 73 inches?  That might be interesting to note.

What'll happen now?  I'm guessing for a year or two...the Air Force is going to get super-strict over weight, and likely start weighing everyone at least two times a year.  Pilots?  They probably will get a lot of  attention.

Just Eighteen Humble Thoughts

 1.  As much investigation that occurs when you buy a firearm....you'd think an equal amount of investigation would occur when you register to vote.  But you can't find a single thing to suggest such.

2.  Just stand and admit it....the Trump VP choice?   His mother was a junkie....period, no exception.  She was a crappy parent, and did everything possible to screw up his life.  Vance ended up with Grandma, who did everything possible to reverse the damage done.  There's some Trump morale here....being played out in front of the nation.

3.  If you were ever appointed 'Czar' of something....by any President....you got paid to mostly talk in front of the camera, but produce zero results.

4.  We are today a nation of dependency...whether by fate, design or accident.  You might want to ponder about that for a while.

5.  If you'd said back in the 1980s....that we'd have a female candidate who'd 'whored-up' for twenty years of her life....running for President....people would have laughed you out of the room.

6.  If you are a company producing 'fake' meat....I'm not giving you good odds of financially surviving.  You might want a plan 'B'.  It's like the people who made fake-Coke....where are they today?

7.  If I were a white plain American guy with Democratic Party views....wanting to get voted up for city-council, mayor, state-house, or the US Senate....I'd probably be working on  classifying myself as either disabled, trans, gay, or half-black/Hispanic.    

8.  When some group says you need to be net-zero....the last thing on their mind is a cheaper energy bill.

9.  If you stood up and said lets fly from Huntsville, Ala to Vegas....I'd tell you there's too much risk of flight issues, and lets just drive there.  

10.  In the last 24 hours....watching various newscasts.....I keep hearing the term 'root-causes' (probably up around sixty times now).  Just odd....so many networks/podcasts, and they utter the term 'root-cause' in the first minute to prepare you for their 'message'.

11.  If you've spent five minutes talking and I interpret your 'message' as something written by a nine-year-old kid.....you've got a serious problem.

12.  If you own a dozen rental properties, and have legal actions going  on to kick out five of these people.....are you that confident that once you have an empty house....that you will have a steady person to rent it?  I'll just offer the opinion....we are at the highest rate of risk/trust....in fifty years.

13.  We are reaching a point where 'half-wit'  status (H-W) will like an identifying symbol of who you are.  Some people will be proud of the H-W.

14.  I think we need to invent the term 'Working-Class-Lite'....to identify people marginally making enough, and likely living in dad's house, or bunking-up with three buddies.

15.  If Darwin sailed off today (2024) and came back to report evolution....half of society would immediately accept his Twitter announcement, and the other half would dump all over him that he was confused and full of BS.   He'd likely exit the science business and retire off to some cattle-ranch in Wyoming.

16.  Number one problem in  America today?  People aspiring to surround themselves with like-minded people....who distribute BS you prefer....accepting no other reality.

17.  Maybe it's ok to hire-up dementia folks to manage banks or run fire-departments.  Maybe it's been that way for the past forty years, and it would explain why the nation is so screwed-up.

18.  If you asked people in 1985 to explain 'evil'.....it probably wouldn't match up to what people in 2024 would say.  

Seven Observations

1.  That plan by Ford to build a E-car plant in Canada? Dissolved.

2.  I have a odd 'tick' to develop.....each time I see VP Harris come up on TV....I bump the sound up a notch (not muting as you might expect).  

I end up spending a fair amount of time....trying grasp what she said, and what she meant.

It rarely makes any sense, and seems to be text written by a 3rd-grade kid.  

Back in the late 1990s....Microsoft's WORD came out with a text-checker which graded your written report.  So you could see if the text was at college-level, 10th-grade-level, or possibly even 6th-grade level.  For about six months, I actually made an effort to write at college level (helped by Microsoft's product).  Eventually I was told by my boss (a AF Captain)....I needed to tone down my writing.  So I went to the 6th-grade level.  It made him happy.

I get the impression that Harris has kept this version of Microsoft, and mostly has her speeches/text....set to 6th-grade-level.

3.  Just appears to be an awful lot of people who say they are leaving the US, if Trump wins.  

I've debated over this....wondering if you had 100,000 folks start some migration trail....would they be accepted in various countries?  Japan and South Korea?  NO....that won't happen.  The UK?  I'm not sure you'd be getting a better deal.  France?  You might dwell there for three months and then admit....there's problems there.  

I hate to say it, but I think the vast majority will quietly re-enter the US and admit they had a mistake in leaving.

4.  Was there anyone really in charge of this Trump visit in PA?  The more they talk about it....I get the impression that the Secret Service hired some 12-year old kid named 'Timmy' to organize things.  The blue-jacket squad folks to protect Trump?  He'd done just as well with a dozen Mexicans hired from the Piggly Wiggly parking lot.

5.  In every chaotic event.....there are potential exceptions to the ending.  But when you have five or six exceptions that come up....it's just not a coincidence.

6.  I just see an awful lot of trends leading to 1930s chaos....people living out of their cars....kids moving back home into dad's house....banks in freefall.

7.   All these 'Czar' titles given out originally by President Obama?  

Well....it's just curious.  These were paying jobs within the Obama administration that had ZERO authority.  You made appearances....gave speeches....sipped coffee with President Obama  at least once a week, and constantly appeared on TV with some 'brand' message.

So here was VP Harris given a border-Czar project.  Biden talked about this probably a dozen times.  Harris?  She just looked around with a dazed view of the mess.  

Someone should just admit....if you got some 'Czar' title by the President....you probably aren't going too far in life. 

My Odds on Kam

 Selling the Kam 'brand' for the Presidency is difficult and I offer four problems:

1.  First, there's this behavior that you see almost daily....like she's lit up on some Cannabis or some panic attack medication.  Yeah, the funny laugh and the speech pattern.

2.  Then you have the fact that as VP....she had to notice Joe Biden was in some mental decline, and did nothing.

3.  Her resume?  In SF...she has some reputation as a tough DA....putting a fair number of black guys away for drugs.  The six years as state AG?  If you ask most California folks....they can't remember anything about the era.

4.  Finally, this Willie Brown chatter that comes up....on how she elevated herself into the city DA job in 2003.  It reads like a Hollywood script.  

So, I'll just say it....when Biden selected her in 2020....I think Obama was standing there and shaking his head.  I don't think Obama will say anything much in approval of her abilities.

If they move to early-convene a digital meeting to appoint her?  Well....why conduct a Convention in Chicago?  I'd cancel that...it has no purpose.

Pretty funny how this whole thing has unfolded.

My Crazy Lady Story

 For 3.5 years,  I worked and lived in Arlington, VA.  I lived in an apartment complex....about 2 miles from the Pentagon.  If you drew a half-mile circle....there were four 'large' apartment buildings near my building.

One of these buildings had a coffee shop-bar operation. 

One day....the local cops got called....to untangle a mess.

So....it took a number of hours and here is the basic story.

One day (around the end of 2010)....some gal  (in her 30s) moved into this apartment  building with the coffee shop.  She got to know a number of folks,  and she projected herself as a member of the CIA. 

Yeah, I know....usually, CIA people don't openly chit-chat about themselves and state their profession.

Weeks and months went by, and some younger guy (late 20s) eagerly bought into her story.  Toward the end of 2011....she had convinced this younger guy that she could hire him on as an assistant.  But there was a catch.....he needed a clearance, and he would be going 'off' with her on a secret mission to the Middle East.

For a number of reasons....I seem to believe that the guy was having physical relations with this secret-agent gal.  But lets not dwell on the lusty stuff.

He filled out the security paperwork and gave her the package.

Right before Christmas....he gave notice to his present gov't job.....and that his secret-agent gal was taking him on a mission.  

This was right before Christmas, and the guy was going to visit his parents (with the secret-agent gal), and announce all this stuff.

Well....his parents didn't really believe much of anything.  Yeah....imagine that.

So they called the real CIA, and eventually.....told 'junior'....this is all BS.

'Junior' calls the Virginia police and that's when they step in to figure out the mess.

My apartment building manager talked around with the cops.....what they said in the end....it seems like the secret-agent gal was paranoid schizophrenic.  She had well-to-do parents....who set her up in this apartment and paid her monthly bills.

The guy?  The story goes that he went back to his old job.  

No one said much of jail for the crazy gal....or even some mental eval.

In this brief conversation with the building manager....I offered the opinion that there were probably dozens like this secret-agent gal in the DC region.  He indicated that the police figured they handled at least one or two of these per year....with most people not wanting to admit they fell for a pretty crazy story.

(I probably have 400 stories like this from my 3.5 years of DC life)

Observations

 1.  I'm retired....so I have free time.  This week, I ended up watching about three hours of this Secret Service Chief 'interrogation' by the House members.

It was a total waste of time.

At some point, you could tell that even the Democratic members were peeved.  

My general impression (having spent around 30 years around military organizations)....this 'chief' was mostly unqualified for the job, and had no desire to at least tell a 12-line story over the shooting of Trump.

2.  Just odd....the key person that VP Harris needs to support her candidacy.....is Barak Obama.  So far, he hasn't said much of anything.

3.   Apple-TV has started cutting it's budget and production schedule....saying there just aren't enough people watching the shows they make.

Probably the first signal of streaming TV decreases.  My bet?  Within 2 years....there will just be three services left.