A Binge TV Viewing

 I've sat this past seven days watching (bingefully)....a South Korean series entitled 'Kingdom'.  It's a 12-episode piece (over two years) from the fictional book 'Kingdom of the Gods'....which took off as a book and got the interest of Netflix to sponsor the 12 episodes.

So to the three key things:

1.  It's a fantastic layout of landscape and clothing style (from the early 1600s).  The castles, the villages, and the landscape all appear authentic.

2.  The acting.  Among the top dozen characters, I'm shocked at the acting level.  For the Emmy level....I could see at least four characters getting nominated.  

3.  Finally, this crazy script.  Well....the basic story revolves around this evil queen who has poisoned the king-husband....keeping him in a state of half-dead/half-alive.  And when I refer to half-dead....yes, zombie-like.

So the story is what makes this a crazy situation...about three minutes into it....you realize that this is a South Korean version of 'The Walking Dead'....set in ancient South Korea.

You've got all this effort to make it into a fantastic tale, and the whole thing revolves around zombies....not some simple 4-star crazy-evil queen story.

Around the 3rd episode....you are attached to the story in a binge-like way.

An ending?  Well.....NO.  They easily wrapped up the basic story at the season of season two, and then in the final eight minutes....lay out the whole scenario for season three, and probably season four. 

So if you have access to Netflix....I'd highly recommend 'Kingdom'.  Even if you don't like zombie movies.....just the landscape and basic evil queen story will keep you interested.   

Ten Things I Expect in 2021 Now

 1.  Governor Cuomo of NY probably won't be around by the end of the year. Between sexual harassment, the Covid-19 business with the nursing homes, and just incompetence....he'll have to exit.

2.  The court case in Minneapolis with Derek Chauvin?  They will not be able to convict him.  More riots in the city?  Probably....but this will come back to rest on the Biden team for reactions.

3.  For the rest of 2021, President Biden is basically in a campaign mode (against Trump)....whether he likes it or not.

4.  I'm predicting for the rest of 2021....the new AG Merrick Garland will be mostly unnoticed and barely of significant value to the White House.

5.  The Pentagon, by mid-summer, will order all military personnel to get Covid-19 vaccinated....whether they like the idea or not.

6.  No in-person State-of-the-Union speech will occur.  It'll be a virtual episode, with several noticeable cuts/pastes involved in the video.

7.  The opportunity to bring DC in as a state?  It'll drag on through October, and then get dropped entirely.  If you had a dynamic President (Clinton, Obama or Trump)....pushing the agenda, then it would happen.  

8.  The anti-Trump conservatives/Republicans that exist?  By the end of the year....they will find themselves drifting around with no public support, and marginally any news media support (mostly CNN and MSNBC).

9.  President Biden's cognitive situation will be openly discussed after the summer vacation period of the House/Senate.  The discussion will center....can they wait till after the mid-term election of 2022, or do they have to make the move to dump him by January 2022?  Some in the public will grasp this whole dynamic and ask....when exactly did people start to notice this decline, and the news media will refuse to discuss the topic. 

10.  For the remainder of 2021....I believe the stock market will be a up and down situation....with marginal gains for the year.  

China Problem

 Last week, I read a piece over 'leftover' Chinese women.

Generally, when you refer to 'leftover' Chinese gals....it means they are over 27 years old, still single, still looking for a 'decent' guy, and fairly frustrated.  The statistics here?  Unknown, and the Chinese government certainly doesn't want to go and collect this data.  If you browse around....it suggests that one in five women over age 27 are single.

The real issue here?  Well...a lot of these women are educated, somewhat successful, and really don't want 'losers'.

So the piece I was reading came from the director of a Chinese think-tank that looks at social issues.  The guy says that these women should go out into the rural regions of China to find a guy.   

I sat and pondered over this suggestion.

Generally, I suspect that Chinese women are going to laugh over this guy's advice and comment that rural guys are way down on their list.  If you stayed around the farm or rural area....you probably didn't advance that far in life (at least that's the way that things would seem).  

Where this will lead onto?  I suspect in the next decade, a few of these 30-year old Chinese women will finally take the plunge....looking for non-Chinese guys and leave China.

Optics Story

 So the whole reason for marginal or minimum security on the 6th of January....was a decision by Rep Pelosi.....concerned about 'optics' of having the National Guard in place?  

Yeah....more or less.  That came out in yesterday's news.

I'm one of those people who believe that you hire people to be in charge of things....who have responsibility and tend to see beyond 'optics'.  None of this business should have been left for Pelosi to handle.  

What happens now?  The chatter is that 1,000 additional Capital Police will be hired....with a security fencing deal to be put up around the Capital building. 

Having been there and walked around the structure....you probably will spend well over one-billion (Washington DC rates) for this stupid 'wall'.  

Renaming the Capital building 'Green-Zone, DC'?  It wouldn't shock me if the fencing or wall is green, and this immediately comes up.  Giving Trump ammo to continue chatting over border walls?  Absolutely.

The optics of this?  It's best not to even talk over that problem.

Five General Rules on Disinformation or Biased News

 My humble advice:

1.  If you read through a forty-line story and there's only marginally two lines of pure fact...the odds are that there's a fair amount of 'sway' or disinformation in the piece.

2.  If 'anonymous' sources are the primary structure of the article/news....it's best to just discard it.

3.  If they tell you right away that their data has been fact-checked....like in paragraph two, then it's probably wise to ask who the fact-checker is, and their background or past.

4.  Typically, the headline of a disinformation piece is signaling you ahead of time.....so look over the headline carefully.

5.  Finally, if the article is written to help someone or some group, or to harm someone/some group.....the odds are heavily in favor of it being disinformation. 

The Biden Dilemma Over Illegal Immigration

 If you go and review CNN or any of the normal news networks....the number of illegal migrants in the US is somewhere between 10 and 20 million (it's generally the number that the US government will sign up to and agree on).

So the real question here....if Biden's policy to offer amnesty occurs, and suddenly the real number turns out to be 30 to 35 million?  That type of revelation would put the whole government and migrant focus into a different prospective.  Some would ask....how did fifteen-odd million people just hide from all this data collection, and others would ask.....what type of work were these people doing to hide from state and federal officials.  

All of this to occur by the end of 2021?  Probably.

If the numbers stay in the ten to twenty-million range?  The situation can just continue on.  If it gets up around 25-to-30 million?  Just settle back to be entertained, and once you get to around 35 million....things will get real interesting. 

Is Mitch McConnell Nuts?

 Around six weeks ago, Senator McConnell made a blunt statement....Trump was finished....Trump was not helpful....the party needs to move on....etc.  It was obvious then that the Kentucky Senator was finished with relations with Trump.

So in the past forty-eight hours....the same guy comes out and says he will support Trump in 2024 if he wins at the convention.  

Nuts?  On my humble scale....Mitch is somewhere around a 9-to-9.5 on the nuts scale.  

If Trump emerges in 2024 and wins at the convention....I expect Mitch to be one of about forty Republicans who are deemed as unhelpful and given zero access to Trump's inner circle.  

What really happened here?  I would suggest around fifty-percent of Republican Senators have been around DC so much.....that they really don't grasp what has occurred in the nation over the past forty years.  

These are people who need to pack up a camper, and spend six weeks traveling around the nation....getting a clear understanding of what changed, and how they (the Senators) no longer fit into reality.