Saturday 9 October 2021

Is President Biden's Entire Problem....That He Wants to Be the Anti-Trump?

 About a month ago.....after hearing either Joe or his press secretary, or some VIP of the Administration talk about trying to fix what Trump broke....I just finally lost my patience with the argument.

Joe basically needs to be Joe....nothing else.  He shouldn't have ever started the campaign or his Presidency with the thought....he's supposed to be the anti-Trump.  It's like a 5,000 pound boat anchor, and he can't maneuver or float in any direction.

The border crisis.....the economy crisis....the Covid crisis....the Afghan crisis....the France-sub crisis, and so on?  It's all a staging event to be the anti-Trump.  

Is he stuck on this theme?  Presently, I don't know.  Maybe his advisers all think it's the wise thing to do....just spend four years being the anti-Trump.  But in this case.....what exactly has he accomplished in 2021 so far?  Anything much?  Enough to write on two pages of bond paper?

Either let Joe 'free', and just stand there with this gimmick of the anti-Trump.  I can tell you the anti-Trump act....by the end of 2023.....will be a five-page piece of a marginal Presidency.  

College Cost Spiral

 So I'm going to point this story from over at Real Clear Investigations, which asks a pretty dramatic question over colleges and just what they can afford to do.  

With all the woke stuff from the past decade.....no one really goes over court business....where a student's rights were violated.  

They bring up Harvard (the University) and this 2017 court episode which is still brewing.  A racial admissions policy is in court, and has burned through 25-million dollars so far, without an end.  

The chief insurance company covering cost?  Their policy is wiped out, and the university is now suing a second insurance company.....saying they need to cover continuing cost of the unfinished case.  The company (Zurich) say 'no'.....challenging this in court.

University of North Carolina?  Same story.

They go through various colleges with woke business and legal challenges, and it's eating up their insurance....driving the rates higher....year by year.

Impacting the cost of higher education?  Well, you can't help but feel that as each year passes....there's another thousand here and there....added to the tuition or various fees of the university system....to cover wokeness.

All of this leading to a fear of risk?  You can't help but feel that administrators are sitting there now and asking stupid questions.

If this led to a yearly tuition fee of $60k for what was $24k just a dozen years ago?  Who'd pay that much for what ought to be $30k max.  

Real Remote and Rural

 My brother brought up the topic of New Zealand and the subject of remoteness.  Back in 2018, I made an 18-day swing through NZ, and came to a number of conclusions about life in rural areas, and living remote.  

Let me describe how it is in NZ.

Imagine the scene in 'Castaway' (Tom Hanks on the island)....where at the end, there's Tom at the four-way intersection and asking the lady about directions.  She says in a matter-of-a-fact way.....if you take the west road....you end up here.  If you take the east road, you end up there.  It's probably one of the most dramatic scenes of any movie made in the past thirty years.

So, here you are in NZ, at some four-way intersection in a highly rustic area.  Now draw a 70-mile circle.

If you take the road west, the only civilization is 15 miles away, right before you hit the ocean.  It consists of a gas station, a local pub, a church/cemetery, and a Co-Op/gardening shop.  A hundred people make up the entire population.  In the past twenty years, the biggest thing that has ever occurred....some tourist whipped into the gas station with his RV on fire.  Everyone in town came over to watch it burn to the ground, and later offered up an open drink situation for the poor tourist at the local bar.  

If you take the road north, it winds down through valleys and curves for about 45 miles....taking you about an hour at the safe speed limit to reach civilization. This town consists of three-thousand people.  It's mostly known for the one border collie that has memorized one-thousand commands, and having three ladies all born in the same year with the name 'Ruby-such-and-such'.  Six bars, two gas stations, a school, and a hardware store make up the bulk of commerce.  

If you take the road east?  You endear 22 miles of fairly dangerous driving, 16 bridges crossing creeks that often flood, and eventually reach some town of 1,000 residents.  They've got a gas station and a community center mostly known for Friday night dances.  They have the only public radio station in the region, but mostly run by four older ladies who discuss love-found/love-lost, and often depressing chatter over men's manners.

If you take the road south?  It's a clear straight shot of non-dangerous driving, for about 42 miles....with mostly abundant roadkill.  The town at the end of this trip?  Around 14,000 and the only real point of real civilization.  They have a clothing shop or two, plenty of bars, and a theater with two shows nightly.  

So you gaze at the intersection, and look at the three neighbors you have within 2 miles.

Gus is the hobby-welder, hobby-carpenter, hobby-roofer, hobby-plumber, hobby-electrician, and seems to be the only neighbor who has ever left NZ for any length of time...spending four years in France.  His wife (Monique, a former French gal) is some far-out hippy type gal who grows 150 varieties of vegetable/fruit in her massive garden.

Martin is the next neighbor, who is mostly a cattle/sheep rancher, and has enough knowledge to be a licensed veterinarian (if he'd ever taken this serious).  He repairs tractors and cars on the side.  His wife, Ann, is a bit crazy and reads around seventy-five books a year....mostly Doctor Bob-and-Nurse Ingrid romance novels. She has a library in one corner of the house with over 3,000 books in the room.

Karl is the last neighbor, who averages at least one near-death accident per year, and seems to be addicted to dangerous situations.  His passion is the farm-ranch, with every single post on the fence line painted green.  He claims that he average 88 hours per week on his work-schedule.  His wife, Mona, is the only licensed nurse within 25 miles.  Mona mostly paints on her spare time....mostly rural settings where one person stands in the midst of a huge valley.

Growing up in Alabama....I had this one single image of remote and rural....but after leaving NZ....I came to realize on the remote/rural scale (1 to 10)....I barely hit '4'.  The NZ folks were a solid '10'.  

Bringing the FBI Into a School Board Matter Trend

 This past week, we had this interesting situation occur where the DoJ decided that they would involve the FBI into school board escalations, and possibly identify 'parents' as domestic terrorists.  After some thought, I came to a conclusion.

This makes obvious sense.....but why stop there?

Fistfight at a local high school Friday night football game?  Call the FBI and identify the attendees as domestic terrorists.

Confrontation at a local bar and grill between four drunks?  Call the FBI and identify the offending party as domestic terrorists.

Bad service and mouthing-off at you at the 'lube-shop' over what was supposed to be a discount service deal?  Call the FBI and identify the shop employees as domestic terrorists.

School bus fight, between a 'white-Mexican' kid and a transgender 'girl'?  Call the FBI and haul the 'white-Mexican' kid off to jail for being a domestic terrorist.

College kids in a Fort Lauderdale 1-star hotel drinking excessively and cursing the President as he drives by the hotel?  Call the FBI and haul the punks off to some jail for being a domestic terrorist. 

Course, we'd have to enlarge the FBI by 200,000 employees and build another 200 federal prisons to contain the ever-growing domestic terror crowd.  The suggestion of the FBI being like the East German Stassi (secret police)?  Well....yeah, that might occur, but this is a bold new world we live in.