Observations

 1.  Not that it really matters....but I noticed that North Korea's Kim has publicly spoken and said he intends to bring the US (under Biden) 'to it's knees'.  

Whether President Biden reacts or not....is the big unknown.  I'm sure that CNN can stretch this into a full-hour of coverage (sarcastically spoken).

2.  As they hauled various Congressmen and Senators out of the Capital building on the 6th.....they were in fairly tight quarters.  So it came up late yesterday....at least a couple of them now have Covid-19.  If you figure the 14-day cycle, none of them are going back to the office until late January.  The inauguration?  Skipped.  

3.  The British health care system is fairly overwhelmed now with Covid-19 patients.  So they are about to make up a new rule.....when they reach 100-percent capacity....they will only take in patients who seem to have 'potential value to society'.

I sat and looked over the phrase.  You could bring in 100 'graders' and then some folks to grade over their potential value to society.  There would be a lot of differing views.  Is this a doctor assigning your value to society, or a transmission mechanic?  Does age play into this, or your drinking habits?

4.  What is said in DC.....around 15k National Guardsmen will be brought in for the inauguration.  There's apparently a Congressman or two, who are now asking the head of the National Guard to assess if any of his folks are 'problems' (domestic terrorists was the term used).

The issue I see here....you could have more than 70-percent of the Guard who now fit into this new identifier 'domestic terrorist'.....so are you going to kick them out?  Will you order them to disarm....so you can feel safe around the 30-percent who are armed?

Just from this group of 15k being brought into the inauguration....you might assess each single guy and find out that more than 12k are 'bad-boys'.....then what? 

The police and firemen from the region?  Assessing them as domestic terrorists as well?  This is turning into some kind of science fiction 'play'.  

5.    I'm now a ex-Facebook and ex-Twitter user.  Deactivated, deleted.  It was one of those odd feelings....like you won $40 at some poker game....walking out ahead.  

You have to wonder....if half the US population is either purged out of Facebook/Twitter, or just deletes their account....can either company financially survive long-term?  I don't think so.....so I'll just predict....they both get bought up by someone in the next year or so....for half-the-value they currently hold.  Downsizing of staffs will come next.  

Radio Liberté

 There was a piece over the weekend written by Politico, which goes at the topic of Trump leaving office, and creating his own 'network'.

The jest of this?  Well....the way this was written....Oprah Winfrey has attempted this and boldly failed....the system just doesn't work like you'd think.  Then they added....conservatives all watch Fox-News, so he can't take them over.

I sat and pondered over this.

In this position, I wouldn't bother with a news network.  I'd organize and package a Internet Radio network....calling it 'Radio Liberté' (yes, the French spelling for Liberty, with the funny é at the end).

I'd hire a French-speaking salty gal, to give a 60-second introduction of every hour....kind of relating this to 'occupied-France' and how the home-front needs to stay focused and alert.  The intro would end with her saying that the 'allies' are coming. as of such-and-such day of the Iowa Caucus in 2024.  

Then I'd hire twenty-five hosts to provide 1-to-2 hour pieces.  I'd make sure Latinos got at least three hours a day of 'chatter'.  I'd find a serious black conservative minister to talk over black community problems.  I'd find a financial expert to take apart California crazy spending.  I'd have weekend jazz fests and Mariachi band music.  I'd bring in Derschowitz once a month and just him lecture Constitutional law.  I'd bring in former baseball players of the 1970s and talk about the era where social gimmicks were not practiced.  

(this sounding like the original NPR in 1974?  Yeah....that was kinda how they started)

Cost?  I'd make this a internet station and a subscription required (figure $6.99 a month).  Without the subscription.....no package.  Just my humble estimate, but I think you could easily round 500,000 subscribers in sixty days.  

I do agree....Oprah Winfrey failed miserably on the network business.  She didn't didn't have the quantity of an audience to keep a network thriving.  

As for each evening ending around 10 PM?  I'd have a 8-minute conversation/speech by Trump.  Play it like spring of 1944....with the French patiently waiting for the landing at Normandy.  

The Voter Saving Ink

 Of the one-thousand odd things from the November election....the one key thing that I look over and it continues to bother me in some way......there is the one-mark ballots.

By one-mark ballots, this is an entire page of candidates and amendments (not just the Presidential race), where ONLY one single line was marked.

As an example, the ballot I had from Alabama had roughly 20 lines of candidates and ballot measures.

I'll readily admit....every four years...at least four ballot measures appear, and I might be keenly aware of one single ballot measure, with the other three zero knowledge.  I tend to always vote 'no', if I don't know anything about the measure.

I've discussed in the years past with other folks.  Some from California would remark that they have a serious problem in understanding the list of political options and measures.  

But here in this ballot discussion....there's this issue that 450k ballots, from five states...returned to be counted and ONLY the Presidential race was marked. NOTHING else on the page submitted was marked.

Around 98,000 ballots in Pennsylvania, around 80,000 to 90,000 in Georgia, roughly 42,000 in Arizona, around 110k in Michigan and roughly 62,000 in Wisconsin.

I'm told by journalists and experts....this is normal.

I'm a bit skeptical that this is normal.

You'd have to assume that Senator races are significant (like in Georgia) but that 80k to 90k didn't mark that?  Same issue in Arizona and Michigan.

To say it's occurred in past races?  Well....that would drag me back to those races and ask just how far back do you have one-line ballots filled out?  Does this go back to the 1990s?  The past four to six election periods?  And no one really said anything or went out to ask people why they don't fill out the 20-odd other lines?  

The comical thing here....you could in most states....pick up the ballot and just mark ALL-REPUBLICAN or ALL-DEMOCRAT at the top, and at least get most of the ballot filled out and leave the measures empty.  But they didn't even choose to do that.

You end up with some guy or gal....who just saved a ton of ink....by marking one single X in a column, and leaving the rest blank.  

Just something to think about.  

Observations

 1.  How many times has Colin Powell announced that he's probably not a Republican?

Well....I'd suggest over a 20-year period....it's probably been at least sixty times.  He probably carries a 3x5 inch index card in his pocket to recite the quote precisely.

2.  If you flew into DC for the 'riot' and got on the bad-boy list....you can't fly home until the investigation is done.  Amtrak or Greyhound?  Probably the only route unless you call your cousin to come and pick you up.

3.  "We came very near to half of the House dying on Wednesday."  Quote by AOC.  

Logic would dictate here that a Marine unit needs to be stationed inside of the capital building and ready to launch a counter-offensive if required.  (note: it's fairly silly to imagine this, or AOC's scene).

When Social Media Became a Massive Safe Zone

 Democracy dies in the darkness. Fascism thrives in censorship.

Throughout the weekend, I've watched various little games played out via Facebook and Twitter....both cycling through some censorship gimmick.

The chief problem is that someone will stand up and say they are 'judge-and-jury', and this topic is now censored.  A day later.....they add another topic.  After a month, you seem to view the landscape and there's forty-odd things that you can't discuss or converse on.

Last year, I was reading a piece by George R. R. Martin (The Game of Thrones writer).  He wrote a fine piece on censorship...."When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say.”

That quote kinda stuck with me.  In this darkness of censorship....you are admitting a heck of a lot of fear.  Fear of the truth.....fear of the unknown....fear of reality....fear of the future...and even fear of consequences.  

The one tiny chip on the shoulder of censorship.....you don't want anyone to say something to incite anything (not a discussion, not a conversation, and certainly not a debate). 

How we survive as a incite-fearful society?  You might as well shut down theaters...close down libraries, and just hope TV can produce plain vanilla shows like Gilligan's Island or Grizzly Adams.  

At this point, I would suggest that both Facebook and Twitter are probably done as major platforms by the end of 2021.  If they chase away half of their customers....their income level falls, and stock prices dwindle.  

Yeah.....social media finally 'woke-up' enough....that's become one massive safe zone.  

Why Should I Pay the 'California-Tax'?

 First, to the key core-element of this discussion....the total debt of California as of the end of 2020....is around 770 billion dollars (more or less).

If you were discussing the way they got to this scale of a problem....I'd have to make the 300-line essay. It took a lot of hard work, significant incompetence, and poor attention to spending habits.  

So as we enter 2021 and the arriving Biden-Harris team, there's likely to be a full-scale press for 'relief', to be a 50-50 deal by the House and Senate.  My belief is that they will 'gift' California a minimum of 50 billion dollars, and loan them a zero-interest package of 100 billion dollars (spread out over 20 years).  

Does any of this 'rescue-package' really do much?  I would suggest that it gives a year of marginal help, and the same issues arrive by the summer of 2022.  You see....the exodus of people of people, the exit-strategy of retirees, and various companies moving beyond the border....leave the state with a dwindling amount of taxation dollars.  It simply isn't there.

But here comes the real question....if non-Californians are paying into the federal pot of money, and all this 'free-money' is funneled out to a failing state....why should I pay the 'California-tax'?  

At some point, tens of millions are going to turn to their Representatives and Senators, and ask some stupid questions.  All of this will lead back to financial habits of a failed state, and wondering how 49 other states got into a gimmick like this.  

The people who left California?  Well....they kinda thought that as they drove past the border sign....they were finished with California-taxation.  In this case....via their federal taxes....they still in some crazy way get attached to California.  

Just something to think about.  

A Dead Horse Chat

 In the early 1990s, the Air Force decided that they'd 'retrain' me a third time (you'd think two were enough in a 22-year period).  I was to become an IT-jack-of-all-trades (enough to be dangerous....enough to make a system work....enough to recognize failures or issues).  Over the next five years, I came to encounter a number of people who knew marginally more than me and were just 'jacks' as well.  

One day, in the midst of a system failure....a contractor (more than just a 'jack') looked over a particular problem and ended with the quote: 'It's a dead horse....we could do a hundred things here, but they all came to a definite end-point...it was a dead horse'.  

It was one of those moments that you kinda remember from 22 years.  Once you reach a stage with something....it doesn't matter what you do from this point on....it's a dead horse, and you won't get much of anything out of it.  

This past couple of days (since the 6th), I've sat and pondered over a number of things....politically speaking....news speaking....cultural speaking....and future speaking.

I would suggest we've approached some sunset, and there lays a dead horse issue in the landscape.

You bring up the Boy Scouts, their politicization over the past decade....it's a dead horse now.

You bring up transgender issues in schools over the past decade....total politicization of the topic.....it's a dead horse now.

You bring up MAGA hats....total politicization of the topic...it's a dead horse now.

You bring up NFL football or NBA action....total politicization of the topics....it's a dead horse now.

You bring up local TV news.....total politicization of topics....it's a dead horse now.

It's hard to find any normal situation still existing....that hasn't been politicized, and it's laying there like a dead horse.

Covid-19, mask-wearing, ban-rules, bars and restaurants shut down....all politicized and lays there as a dead horse.

The thing about this whole 'dead horse' discussion....it doesn't matter what you do from this point on, you can't resolve the dead horse problem and all matters after that point are muted and useless to discuss.

Generally, societies all try to motivate themselves and try to stay on the positive-thinking side.  But once you stand back a bit, and you just see dead horse after dead horse, there's not much motivation left.  It's going to be curious how you proceed now....if there's zero confidence.  Nobody rides dead horses much.