It was laid out over the weekend, that Congress will investigate Donald Trump over three visits to Russia....the first going back to 1996. The trips? All three revolved around resort projects under consideration.....hotels, golf, etc. Congress wants to know the full extent of Trump's visits, who he met in 1996, and what may have been 'promised'.
I sat and pondered over this. The truth in the end may be that young Donald Trump....around age sixteen, was enticed by Russian agents in the US who promised to aid in 2016. All of this may have started in 1962, shortly before Kennedy's assassination.
Yes, the Russians guiding and helping Trump, from 1962 to 2016....to become President of the United States.
How silly does it sound? To the max.
Having Congress now open up some investigation in an era when Joe Biden was in his early 50s?
The problem here is that some Democrats will start looking at the 'reach' of this and just start laughing. Virtually every single candidate will have to be asked if they ever met a Russian in their life, and how they conducted business with them. No one is going to take politics serious if this trend continues.
Sunday, 3 March 2019
The Fake Ping?
One of the odd things brought up this past week in the Cohen 'chat' in Congress....was the continued denial that he was in Prague in the summer of 2016. Blunt answer, he says no....he just never was there.
So, what drives the accusation? Well....some Eastern European spy agency (probably the Czechs, but it might be even the Germans)....says (no one from the CIA or former Obama group says who, which is curious to me).....that Michael Cohen’s cell phone pinged off a local cell phone towers in Prague. No one says for a day or two. In fact, the story only suggests that a conversation occurred between Cohen (the holder of the number) and some Russian guy.
The rest of this story? The phone call was a moment where Cohen chatted with Russians (one assumes in a Russian English accent situation). Cohen doesn't speak Russian.
The topic mentioned from this spy agency? Cohen and the Russians supposedly discussed how to hide the campaign’s close relationship with the Russian government.
As the story goes....this secret chatter (in either text form, or tape form) rests with Robert Mueller.
If all true....why do this Prague? Cohen could have easily picked any western European city (London, Paris, or Munich). Why not meet the sources in person in Prague? A face-to-face between Cohen and the Russians? But no.....Cohen flew all that way to Prague....to conduct one single phonecall?
Curiously, if this were a taped version....you would think that it'd be analyzed by FBI experts and just confirm the voice of Cohen. Yet oddly, no one says that. The Russian angle to this? You'd think that the ones on the Russian end would be checked out.....yet no one says that.
If you fly into Prague International (from the US), you have to have a stamp in your passport. If you flew from the US into Germany, and later onto Prague (the normal route).....you'd have the German stamp....but there is no stamp for Europe in that time period (Trump himself reviewed the passport back when this got brought up).
So what happened? I suspect that someone in the US took some time to figure out Cohen's cellphone number....copy it, and then send some guy on a quick trip with the fake phone to Prague....to arrange a fake call, which would be picked up. In fact, the more you look at how this story is told....people go to a great length to avoid suggesting what part of Prague (it's a fairly big town) where the 'ping' was picked up. There's probably more than a thousand towers within Prague, if you just suggested the area....you could assess and identify the hotel that he stayed in. But no.....they can't go and suggest that tower's location. To this date....no hotel information has been demonstrated as part of the story.
So this 'fixer' situation was planned out already in the summer of 2016? Yes, and I would go to suggest that most of the Obama-team players already knew in advance that Hillary couldn't win the Electoral College, and this was a foregone conclusion in their mind that they needed to 'seed' legal matters to take Trump or the Trump-team down.
Screwed up? Once you establish that this was a false phone story, and planted....then the rest of this whole Mueller topic is mostly open to additional speculation.
So, what drives the accusation? Well....some Eastern European spy agency (probably the Czechs, but it might be even the Germans)....says (no one from the CIA or former Obama group says who, which is curious to me).....that Michael Cohen’s cell phone pinged off a local cell phone towers in Prague. No one says for a day or two. In fact, the story only suggests that a conversation occurred between Cohen (the holder of the number) and some Russian guy.
The rest of this story? The phone call was a moment where Cohen chatted with Russians (one assumes in a Russian English accent situation). Cohen doesn't speak Russian.
The topic mentioned from this spy agency? Cohen and the Russians supposedly discussed how to hide the campaign’s close relationship with the Russian government.
As the story goes....this secret chatter (in either text form, or tape form) rests with Robert Mueller.
If all true....why do this Prague? Cohen could have easily picked any western European city (London, Paris, or Munich). Why not meet the sources in person in Prague? A face-to-face between Cohen and the Russians? But no.....Cohen flew all that way to Prague....to conduct one single phonecall?
Curiously, if this were a taped version....you would think that it'd be analyzed by FBI experts and just confirm the voice of Cohen. Yet oddly, no one says that. The Russian angle to this? You'd think that the ones on the Russian end would be checked out.....yet no one says that.
If you fly into Prague International (from the US), you have to have a stamp in your passport. If you flew from the US into Germany, and later onto Prague (the normal route).....you'd have the German stamp....but there is no stamp for Europe in that time period (Trump himself reviewed the passport back when this got brought up).
So what happened? I suspect that someone in the US took some time to figure out Cohen's cellphone number....copy it, and then send some guy on a quick trip with the fake phone to Prague....to arrange a fake call, which would be picked up. In fact, the more you look at how this story is told....people go to a great length to avoid suggesting what part of Prague (it's a fairly big town) where the 'ping' was picked up. There's probably more than a thousand towers within Prague, if you just suggested the area....you could assess and identify the hotel that he stayed in. But no.....they can't go and suggest that tower's location. To this date....no hotel information has been demonstrated as part of the story.
So this 'fixer' situation was planned out already in the summer of 2016? Yes, and I would go to suggest that most of the Obama-team players already knew in advance that Hillary couldn't win the Electoral College, and this was a foregone conclusion in their mind that they needed to 'seed' legal matters to take Trump or the Trump-team down.
Screwed up? Once you establish that this was a false phone story, and planted....then the rest of this whole Mueller topic is mostly open to additional speculation.
The Next Executive Order
At some point in Star Wars Episode VI (really number three, but let's not get into mixed-up ways of telling a saga), General Akbar utters the line "It's a trap" to the Jedi military staff, and then all hell breaks out. You could have predicted the trap angle five minutes prior in the movie, but it had to climax in some way with Akbar's brilliant moment of deduction.
I sat and watched the 2-hour speech by President Trump from yesterday, and there was the moment where he's talking over issuing an executive order.....that would be laid upon public colleges (not the private ones) to actively support freedom of speech....or face consequences. At that moment, I uttered in my mind: "Its a trap".
Yes, it's the most brilliant trap ever devised by President Trump.
First, it's basically guaranteed anyway....via the Constitution. But a number of anti-Trump folks are going to get ballistic, and go anti-free speech.....getting the general public in red-states to get further annoyed by the negative chatter. Imagine Senators having to stand there, and suggest that freedom of speech is guaranteed, yet you must fight it.
Second, on every occasion that anyone is affected by the failure of freedom of speech on a public campus.....the President can turn to the AG and ask for a full-scale investigation. Punishment? They could drag you into a court, and it gets fairly messy with the Chancellor having to explain to some judge why he can't allow freedom of speech. But it gets even more interesting.....the federal guys could deny research funding into science and technology projects that the university might be highly attached to. Imagine four science professors showing up at your door, and angry over a twenty-million-dollar project now stalled because of speech issues and the feds withholding funding.
Third, imagine CNN trying to explain the good things about banning or holding back freedom of speech.
Fourth, more security? Well, if you were a California campus, and realizing the impact....you'd have to go and hire up at least sixty additional campus cops, and add an additional 25-million onto the operational cost of providing adequate security for the college. Yes, within a year or two, you'd have to bump the tuition up ten-percent....just because of security.
Fifth, more court fines? Well, again.....as a California campus....imagine having listen to some federal judge lecture about being at fault, and assessing a $10-million dollar fine for allowing four punks on your campus (maybe not even students there), and them beating up on some freshman student. Just two or three of those per year, and you'd be talking about another 10-percent rise in tuition.
Yes, Trump has rigged up a five-star trap, and basically letting the university crowd know that their cash flow system is about to be marginalized. Imagine five more years of Trump and this freedom of speech angle, with a behavioral problem that has to be repaired by the campus intellectuals.
I sat and watched the 2-hour speech by President Trump from yesterday, and there was the moment where he's talking over issuing an executive order.....that would be laid upon public colleges (not the private ones) to actively support freedom of speech....or face consequences. At that moment, I uttered in my mind: "Its a trap".
Yes, it's the most brilliant trap ever devised by President Trump.
First, it's basically guaranteed anyway....via the Constitution. But a number of anti-Trump folks are going to get ballistic, and go anti-free speech.....getting the general public in red-states to get further annoyed by the negative chatter. Imagine Senators having to stand there, and suggest that freedom of speech is guaranteed, yet you must fight it.
Second, on every occasion that anyone is affected by the failure of freedom of speech on a public campus.....the President can turn to the AG and ask for a full-scale investigation. Punishment? They could drag you into a court, and it gets fairly messy with the Chancellor having to explain to some judge why he can't allow freedom of speech. But it gets even more interesting.....the federal guys could deny research funding into science and technology projects that the university might be highly attached to. Imagine four science professors showing up at your door, and angry over a twenty-million-dollar project now stalled because of speech issues and the feds withholding funding.
Third, imagine CNN trying to explain the good things about banning or holding back freedom of speech.
Fourth, more security? Well, if you were a California campus, and realizing the impact....you'd have to go and hire up at least sixty additional campus cops, and add an additional 25-million onto the operational cost of providing adequate security for the college. Yes, within a year or two, you'd have to bump the tuition up ten-percent....just because of security.
Fifth, more court fines? Well, again.....as a California campus....imagine having listen to some federal judge lecture about being at fault, and assessing a $10-million dollar fine for allowing four punks on your campus (maybe not even students there), and them beating up on some freshman student. Just two or three of those per year, and you'd be talking about another 10-percent rise in tuition.
Yes, Trump has rigged up a five-star trap, and basically letting the university crowd know that their cash flow system is about to be marginalized. Imagine five more years of Trump and this freedom of speech angle, with a behavioral problem that has to be repaired by the campus intellectuals.
Saturday, 2 March 2019
The Problem With a One-Variable Thought Process
It generally amazes me to go and review a week of various news pieces, and note the absolute trend to keep people focused or tied to one single variable.....to make a story work.
It'd be like saying McDonalds entire success, was dependent on cheap burgers. Or you could say Microsoft's entire success was built upon no competition. Or it could be about the traffic around Atlanta being based on the single failure of design.
In some ways, people are desiring for single variables because once you admit that McDonald's success is dependent on sixty different variables....you turn it into a pretty complicated affair. Or suggesting that Congress can fix a problem just a six-line text bill, when the truth is that it'd have to be thirty items written out and in a change-mode....to resolve some issue.
It'd be simple to say your pancakes for this morning were a failure....chiefly because the floor you used was from a container with the expiration date of January 2004. But that one-variable type situation is fairly rare.
You got Trump as President because of a hundred different variables. You have a dynamic business atmosphere going on now, with job-hirings 'hot'....because of a hundred different variables. You have a rainy spring, because of a dozen variables all colliding around the same time period. You have Ford bringing back the Bronco, for a dozen-odd reasons. You have the NFL in a failure mode for a dozen-odd reasons (it's just kneeing). You have fake Russian collusion going on, for a dozen-odd reasons. You can have thousands of kids entering college this year, borrowing $100,000 to get their degree, for dozens of reasons (none of them logical).
Just accepting one-variable success or failure doesn't exist? I don't know if you even convince people of that dynamic. People hate complicated affairs, and can't imagine a complex failure or success.
It'd be like saying McDonalds entire success, was dependent on cheap burgers. Or you could say Microsoft's entire success was built upon no competition. Or it could be about the traffic around Atlanta being based on the single failure of design.
In some ways, people are desiring for single variables because once you admit that McDonald's success is dependent on sixty different variables....you turn it into a pretty complicated affair. Or suggesting that Congress can fix a problem just a six-line text bill, when the truth is that it'd have to be thirty items written out and in a change-mode....to resolve some issue.
It'd be simple to say your pancakes for this morning were a failure....chiefly because the floor you used was from a container with the expiration date of January 2004. But that one-variable type situation is fairly rare.
You got Trump as President because of a hundred different variables. You have a dynamic business atmosphere going on now, with job-hirings 'hot'....because of a hundred different variables. You have a rainy spring, because of a dozen variables all colliding around the same time period. You have Ford bringing back the Bronco, for a dozen-odd reasons. You have the NFL in a failure mode for a dozen-odd reasons (it's just kneeing). You have fake Russian collusion going on, for a dozen-odd reasons. You can have thousands of kids entering college this year, borrowing $100,000 to get their degree, for dozens of reasons (none of them logical).
Just accepting one-variable success or failure doesn't exist? I don't know if you even convince people of that dynamic. People hate complicated affairs, and can't imagine a complex failure or success.
Friday, 1 March 2019
2020 Democratic Chances?
Listed Democratic candidates for 2020 primary season, that I give a marginal chance to:
- Senator Booker
- Senator Gillibrand (likely to drop out by 5th primary)
- Senator Harris (likely to drop out by mid-Feb)
- Senator Sanders
- Senator Warren
- Mayor Castro (San Antonio)
- Andrew Yang
- Joe Biden
- Micheal Bloomberg
- Beto O'Rourke
- Presently, there are roughly 10 additional folks 'running' but I don't think they will be able to meet the debate 'requirement'.
What is the debate deal? Here's the thing....there are six public debates scheduled between June and 1 January. There's a funny rule that you have to have 200 unique (they don't explain what that means) donors in a minimum of 20 states.
Out of this group....I don't think Gillibrand or Booker can get the donor deal up and they may miss the debates, and thus fall way behind. Same is true for Harris.
So this is mostly a race between Sanders, Warren, Castro, Yang, Biden, O'Rourke, and Bloomberg? My best guess is yes. The six debates, and the way of cancelling out potential folks....will limit who shows up in Iowa.
The Iowa event? The three that I think have excellent chances are Biden, Yang, and Sanders.
All of this is rigged in some ways for three to four people to battle this out, and no one to have more than 35-percent of the primary vote....so the convention this time? It'll turn into a dynamic event, with Castro or Yang as the VP, and Sanders, Biden or O'Rourke being the top three.
Bloomberg has the capital to run a four-star race, but here's the thing....his chatter for the past decade is kinda like a left-of-center 'Trump-like' character. In the south and midwest, it just won't sell well to Democratic voters.
If this were a Booker (President) and Castro (VP) race? It would draw out a lot of Obama-voters. But I can't see Booker making it through the debates or the first couple of primary states.
My ticket for a better-than-Hillary chance? Biden (President) and Yang (VP). They would draw the dynamics to take 22 states.
- Senator Booker
- Senator Gillibrand (likely to drop out by 5th primary)
- Senator Harris (likely to drop out by mid-Feb)
- Senator Sanders
- Senator Warren
- Mayor Castro (San Antonio)
- Andrew Yang
- Joe Biden
- Micheal Bloomberg
- Beto O'Rourke
- Presently, there are roughly 10 additional folks 'running' but I don't think they will be able to meet the debate 'requirement'.
What is the debate deal? Here's the thing....there are six public debates scheduled between June and 1 January. There's a funny rule that you have to have 200 unique (they don't explain what that means) donors in a minimum of 20 states.
Out of this group....I don't think Gillibrand or Booker can get the donor deal up and they may miss the debates, and thus fall way behind. Same is true for Harris.
So this is mostly a race between Sanders, Warren, Castro, Yang, Biden, O'Rourke, and Bloomberg? My best guess is yes. The six debates, and the way of cancelling out potential folks....will limit who shows up in Iowa.
The Iowa event? The three that I think have excellent chances are Biden, Yang, and Sanders.
All of this is rigged in some ways for three to four people to battle this out, and no one to have more than 35-percent of the primary vote....so the convention this time? It'll turn into a dynamic event, with Castro or Yang as the VP, and Sanders, Biden or O'Rourke being the top three.
Bloomberg has the capital to run a four-star race, but here's the thing....his chatter for the past decade is kinda like a left-of-center 'Trump-like' character. In the south and midwest, it just won't sell well to Democratic voters.
If this were a Booker (President) and Castro (VP) race? It would draw out a lot of Obama-voters. But I can't see Booker making it through the debates or the first couple of primary states.
My ticket for a better-than-Hillary chance? Biden (President) and Yang (VP). They would draw the dynamics to take 22 states.
Google's Team Project
Around seven years ago, Google went off (2012) in search of something that they felt would be a worthy project.....they wanted to know how to build the best team.
I know.....it sounds pretty hokey and if you were going to guess the outcome....it'd likely be some 1,700 page study, with no real value. That's what most PhD-level studies deliver in the end.
But oddly enough, Project Aristotle (that was the name for it), came back recently, and the study laid out five pieces of what makes a team function or work:
1. Basic simple risk assessment. Whatever the team members felt was the goal....it had to have reasonable risks assigned to it, or the potential for failure was not a big deal. Once you crossed the line and said your job, or your career were in jeopardy....you met and exceeded the invisible line that existed.
2. There was a quality of work known to the members of the group. 'Good enough for government work' couldn't be the end-result.
3. There was a known beginning and end to the team effort. In simple terms....there was a clear path ahead, and someone sat there to create a defined end-point.
4. Curiously, there had to be some reward attached to the project. They didn't come out and say it.....but all of this was marginalized in terms of a 'gift' at the end, then why do it?
5. Finally, they came to realize the group's project had to be part of some bigger end-result. The team left it's 'mark' on the job.
At one point in my military life, I arrived at an organization in transition....it was a division without a compass, a map, or adequate leadership to latch onto the group. Over the course of a year, this group picked itself up.....laid out goals...'gifted' performances....and became noted for taking enormous taskings.
Looking back over twenty-five years ago, I can say that we had three distinctive characteristics at work: (1) extreme risk acceptance, (2) never turning away a single customer, and (3) letting the lowest level guy to be lightly mentored, while he/she were were actually loaded with taskings beyond their normal level.
Will Google make use of their team 'discovery'? That would be a curious end-result.
I know.....it sounds pretty hokey and if you were going to guess the outcome....it'd likely be some 1,700 page study, with no real value. That's what most PhD-level studies deliver in the end.
But oddly enough, Project Aristotle (that was the name for it), came back recently, and the study laid out five pieces of what makes a team function or work:
1. Basic simple risk assessment. Whatever the team members felt was the goal....it had to have reasonable risks assigned to it, or the potential for failure was not a big deal. Once you crossed the line and said your job, or your career were in jeopardy....you met and exceeded the invisible line that existed.
2. There was a quality of work known to the members of the group. 'Good enough for government work' couldn't be the end-result.
3. There was a known beginning and end to the team effort. In simple terms....there was a clear path ahead, and someone sat there to create a defined end-point.
4. Curiously, there had to be some reward attached to the project. They didn't come out and say it.....but all of this was marginalized in terms of a 'gift' at the end, then why do it?
5. Finally, they came to realize the group's project had to be part of some bigger end-result. The team left it's 'mark' on the job.
At one point in my military life, I arrived at an organization in transition....it was a division without a compass, a map, or adequate leadership to latch onto the group. Over the course of a year, this group picked itself up.....laid out goals...'gifted' performances....and became noted for taking enormous taskings.
Looking back over twenty-five years ago, I can say that we had three distinctive characteristics at work: (1) extreme risk acceptance, (2) never turning away a single customer, and (3) letting the lowest level guy to be lightly mentored, while he/she were were actually loaded with taskings beyond their normal level.
Will Google make use of their team 'discovery'? That would be a curious end-result.
Sunday, 24 February 2019
Being Affluent or Not
The word 'affluent' got brought up in the past couple of days, by Bill Mahler (HBO's comedian) over redstate people who just aren't as clever or affluent as bluestate people. Naturally, it begs questions.
Where did the word affluent come from? Around two-thousand years ago, the Latin language folks came up with this word, and it was supposed to mean (in the beginning)....'to flow' or that things could happen with this event or prospect occurring. Eventually, the Latin word got taken over by the French (old French, not that modern stuff), and they gave it a kind of slang term meaning....that you don't move up in life or be someone of status, unless you had affluent things going on (flowing). Somewhere down the line....some British folks got sophisticated and started to share the word in the UK, and it was a status-type word, where you were someone clever, smart, witty, sophisticated, and with profits somewhere in the background. Two old Brit gals on the street could talk about up-and-coming Mister Jameson in a respectful way, hinting that he was affluent, and would get a 'fine' wife one day.
The trouble with Mahler's meaning and use of the affluent, is that we are in a 'Twilight-Zone' situation with most Americans, and a lot of folks are affluent without even knowing about it.
You could be living in a double-wide trailer home, with a Ford F-150 truck in the carport, and be affluent.
You could be living in a cottage in upstate Michigan, with $22,000 a year rolling in from your waitress job, and be affluent.
You could be making $1.3 million playing for the San Diego Padres as a relief-pitcher, with a trampy girlfriend, and NOT be affluent.
You could be a Detroit dope-dealer making $300k a year, and living out of a crack-house, with a brand-new $60k car in the drive-way, and having vacations in New Orleans each year, and think you are affluent.
You could be a mobster for the Akron, Ohio mafia, and be absolutely sure about your affluentness.
You could be an idiot who got $120,000 in student loans back in the 1990s, and still today....at age 47....still be paying off that stupid loan....feeling absolutely no affluentness.
You could be an electrical engineer driving an Oldsmobile 88 model (the last one made in 1999) and feel some surge of affluentness each morning as you rev up the engine....drive the forty-two miles to work, and hum along with Led Zepplin tunes coming out of the twelve speakers you installed in the car.
What Bill missed here is that affluentness is a mathematical 'estimation' of where you were, how far you traveled, and where some nifty end-point exists in your mind. Only you can prescribe your affluentess scale number. You might be a one.....you might be a ten.
Does being affluent make you a conservative or a liberal? No. That's the sad thing about this whole discussion and argument. That seventh-grade nutcase in your class, that you regarded as a potential psychopath? Well....he might today be the carpet-king of Jefferson City, TN and fairly affluent.
Where did the word affluent come from? Around two-thousand years ago, the Latin language folks came up with this word, and it was supposed to mean (in the beginning)....'to flow' or that things could happen with this event or prospect occurring. Eventually, the Latin word got taken over by the French (old French, not that modern stuff), and they gave it a kind of slang term meaning....that you don't move up in life or be someone of status, unless you had affluent things going on (flowing). Somewhere down the line....some British folks got sophisticated and started to share the word in the UK, and it was a status-type word, where you were someone clever, smart, witty, sophisticated, and with profits somewhere in the background. Two old Brit gals on the street could talk about up-and-coming Mister Jameson in a respectful way, hinting that he was affluent, and would get a 'fine' wife one day.
The trouble with Mahler's meaning and use of the affluent, is that we are in a 'Twilight-Zone' situation with most Americans, and a lot of folks are affluent without even knowing about it.
You could be living in a double-wide trailer home, with a Ford F-150 truck in the carport, and be affluent.
You could be living in a cottage in upstate Michigan, with $22,000 a year rolling in from your waitress job, and be affluent.
You could be making $1.3 million playing for the San Diego Padres as a relief-pitcher, with a trampy girlfriend, and NOT be affluent.
You could be a Detroit dope-dealer making $300k a year, and living out of a crack-house, with a brand-new $60k car in the drive-way, and having vacations in New Orleans each year, and think you are affluent.
You could be a mobster for the Akron, Ohio mafia, and be absolutely sure about your affluentness.
You could be an idiot who got $120,000 in student loans back in the 1990s, and still today....at age 47....still be paying off that stupid loan....feeling absolutely no affluentness.
You could be an electrical engineer driving an Oldsmobile 88 model (the last one made in 1999) and feel some surge of affluentness each morning as you rev up the engine....drive the forty-two miles to work, and hum along with Led Zepplin tunes coming out of the twelve speakers you installed in the car.
What Bill missed here is that affluentness is a mathematical 'estimation' of where you were, how far you traveled, and where some nifty end-point exists in your mind. Only you can prescribe your affluentess scale number. You might be a one.....you might be a ten.
Does being affluent make you a conservative or a liberal? No. That's the sad thing about this whole discussion and argument. That seventh-grade nutcase in your class, that you regarded as a potential psychopath? Well....he might today be the carpet-king of Jefferson City, TN and fairly affluent.
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