Via a spokesperson for the Taliban yesterday....the organization confirmed their chief trading partner.
The old version of the Taliban (1990s)? They would never have gone to some arrangement like this.
So the trend here? The Chinese will arrive and set up the mining operations, with an understanding by the Taliban not to screw around or bring harm to any Chinese worker in the country. Whether or not this works? Anyone's guess.
1. Someone ought to sit down....analyze things....and prepare what I'd call a 'MUTE-index'. This is where a certain person suddenly appears on your TV, and your mind reacts immediately with the finger going to the mute-button of the TV. I'd probably have over sixty prominent characters and politicians on that list.
2. Yeah, that mid-July phone call from President Biden to Afghanistan's Ghani (President) has come up as a problem. The House Republicans have demanded text of the 'talk'. They don't have the votes to get it (they will in January 2023).
It is a repeat of Trump-treatment over Ukraine, and Biden is sitting there in a pretty crappy position. He might survive all of this right now, but the day will come when this phone chat will be dragged out and impeachment is openly discussed.
3. President Biden leaving Friday for another vacation episode? Well....the rumor started up yesterday that he's leaving for Delaware. With Americans still stranded in Kabul? Well....yeah.
The President on 'burn-out'? If you consider....throughout all those years as Senator and eight years of VP....he's probably never had a 40-hour work-week in the last forty years. This President business? If you looked at past history...since the 1960s...it's turned into a 60-hour a week job. So I would suggest Biden burn-out is going on presently.
4. Over a hundred generals have signed a letter to the SECDEF and four-star leading the Pentagon....telling both to resign over the chaos of Afghanistan.
I looked over the letter....it's blunt and direct. I looked down the list of names and it's a an impressive list of past generals (at least from the Air Force side).
Will it do anything? No. Both characters are there to stay.
5. The thing about all these US weapons being 'captured' by the Taliban....if you don't have the maintenance contract and parts to maintain them....the weapons are worthless.
This isn't 1966 where various rifles, jeeps, trucks and tanks operated on, and on, and on.
All this equipment is built to fail within certain parameters, and if you don't have some US deal for parts....the equipment is metal-clutter.
6. Joe Rogan got Covid. Joe Rogan went to the max-list of drugs recommended. Joe Rogan beat Covid in roughly three days.
Note, Joe eats pretty well (at least nutritionally)....works out daily...and from the list of nine ways to get 'bad-Covid'....he doesn't have any of the health issues they talk about. I'm not going to say the drug business did the deal.
Note: Joe also likes an occasional bit of cannabis. Maybe that had a positive trend on the virus as well.
7. Finally, the AP brought up this topic....Chinese government policy came up with a new idea....no more 'sissy-guys' on TV. Either you appear as masculine....or you don't have a career on TV.
I sat and paused over this. After four years of college, and maybe twenty years of working for Channel 9 out of Wuhan....you really don't want some government guy coming into the studio and pulling out the index to show you that your 'look' or behavior isn't manly enough.
Where'd this idea come from? Unknown. But I'd be willing to bet within twelve months....the same index arrives in the US, and 3,000 male TV 'chatters' are told the same thing.
The he-man era is returning.
I was reading a piece out of the NY Post this morning. They say (I assume they aren't lying)....that the administration kinda lost contact with several thousand unaccompanied illegal immigrant kids.
You remember them....the ones released from fed custody.
For some reason, HHS went and tried to make 14,600 phonecalls....to check on those released kids. What HHS said....around 4,900 were NOT answered by the kid or the parent, or the sponsor.
In a real world situation, you'd call up the cops and ask them to check on the kids. Here? Nothing much has happened.
Why? Well....I would go and speculate that if you had the cops called, and they showed up.....something 'freaky' or weird would be in the mix, and this would be one of those five-page police reports (sounding more like a Hemmingway novel).
You'd find that sponsor 'Hernandez' probably wasn't the real name for the person who signed for the kid....that they left Arizona two days after they signed for the kid....and indications exist that the 12-year old kid is now working sixty hours a week for some grocery store in Louisiana.
You might even find a dozen cases where a 15-year old showed up...pretending to be 30 years old, and signed for four kids who aren't even relatives of his.
Just my advice.
First, I'd go down to the local liquor store and probably buy an ample amount (minimum of two bottles) of booze (the good stuff, more than 30-proof).
I'd go to the back forty acres of the farm, or some quiet out-of-sight point on the property, and reflect upon how I felt in 2020.
You know....that feeling that you had that Trump had to go, and anyone would suffice. You didn't care about qualifications that much, or speeches.....just that Trump had to go.
All those occasions when Joe Biden (the candidate) seemed to be a bit crazy, schizo, or unhinged? You just accepted as being the norm for Biden.
The dozen or so signs in the spring of 2021....where Joe seemed to be really busy but only had one single hour blocked daily off on the Monday through Friday work-calendar? It did sound strange but no one via CNN or NPR ever made much discussion over that.
The public chatter that Joe has made since the spring.....where he said things that didn't make sense? You just seemed to overlook it.
Dumping the border mess on Harris.....who didn't seem to have any real talent at much? It was like asking the church lady association at your church to handle a meth-recovery group.
So you sip through the bottle of booze for about three hours, and eventually come to this reality....you screwed up.
The sad truth is that you can't fix or undo the mess. In fact, it bothers you enough....that you vow to mute the TV each time that Biden comes on, or when Presidential news is dumped upon you by CBS, or CNN.
Now, you start to question your judgement. You spend hours analyzing yourself, and how you got brought into a situation to believe something.....that was pretty crapped-up.
Out of eighty-million that voted for Biden.....I'd take a guess that 10-percent of them feel this way right now, and by the end of 2021....it'll probably reach the 20-percent point. For the mid-terms of 2022....it's a harsh reality that will be approaching.
As things continue down this path....I'd offer the judgement that a fair number of people will simply start taking up drinking....to ease their disheartening feeling. The liquor industry will do fine in the recession period of 2021/2022....that's my humble feeling.
I was reading a piece this week over a California teacher (grade-school) that had decided to remove the US flag in her room (feeling it was threatening), and replaced it with the 'gay-flag' (rainbow design). The Pledge of Allegiance? She convinced the kids to say it, while facing the 'gay-flag'.
Well....this all came out in local news (southern California) and it appears that they've put the teacher on suspension, and having some investigation on the matter. A sub has been called in for a while (another news piece suggests that), and I suspect the sub might be around through Halloween as a minimum.
So I pondered over this discussion.
Young gal...maybe mid-to-late 20s. Probably out of college in the past two or three years.
Dumbass-level? On a scale of one to ten....I'd say 9-to-10. Just doing this was bad enough, but then advertising on Tik-Tok that you'd done it....almost bragging on the ease of this....was extremely stupid.
In the late 1960s and up to 1977....I attended what was a rural-region school, and looking back....I had around two dumb-ass teachers.
Of the two....one was simply not capable of conveying math situations, and was ill-qualified for that particular subject. Another had a problem with the subject of evolution and would never dare allow the topic to be openly discussed in the classroom.
My suspicion is that various teachers came out of the system over the past thirty years....with marginal qualifications from the university experience, and probably are more qualified to run a Dairy Queen shop than a classroom.
So....ask yourself...what exactly will happen to this dimwit when the school pulls the contract out and fires her? You wasted four years getting a degree that you can't use? I'm guessing she will find some group to sponsor her and just disappear out of California....ending up in Oregon. A month or two later....the locals will figure who she is, and ask that she be let go.
She'll probably end up in some Baltimore school (they will take anyone), and curse the whole mess that she created for herself.
Will kids now start to figure out this dumbass angle and question authority? I wouldn't be that surprised that a even bigger mess gets created over the next decade....where school kids stage revolutions and the whole system starts to fail.
It's not a term that you usually hear and I'll give you the simple definition.
This is typically where a guy has gone out and been to x-number of courses, and achieved a minimum of a Master's Degree....maybe even a PhD....for the purpose of having a status 'marker' implying they have a major say on something....even if they are a general idiot or marginal competent.
Some people would stand and say that this precludes people from actually reviewing a situation, and thinking.
I bring up this topic because there's hardly a week that goes by now....that some credentialism guy shows up on CNN, MSNBC, Fox or BBC, and you get seven minutes of dimwitted discussion. Some deal with science....some with Covid....some with politics.
The problem these days.....people have kinda figured out this game and recognize a credential guy pretty easily.
It's a funny topic if you think about it.
There was a piece written by Ryan Hankins on Al.com which went to the topic of 'Alabamians, why do you need all this distrust and suspicion about things'? I'd generally recommend a read.
So the pitch to his essay piece....Alabamians are these people who just seem to have an inherent view that things just don't work as advertised. You people (Alabamians) always believe some hidden agenda is at work.
Well.....yeah, that's the plain basic truth.
Hankins does imply at some point that the government of the state is mostly Republican. Most folks around the state will say that it's marginally true that they claim Republican status, but the same people will laugh and say that half of these Republicans are just fake-Republicans and working with some lobbyist group to achieve goals.
It's like bringing up the state-park fiasco of a couple years ago, and how some list got shuffled around that the state was going to part ways or sell a number of state parks. Then strangely enough....casino chatter started back up and various people had this funny feeling that the state parks list had some relationship to the casino people.
It's also like bringing up the state constitution.....which has been around since 1901, and generally regarded as a 'mess'. There's been some many lines added to it....that it's now considered the largest constitution in the US, and one of the largest in the world itself. For every 'freedom' mentioned....there's probably forty limits listed. About every four years, this topic of re-writing the Constitution comes up and members from both parties agree on this....but neither trusts the other party or the fake Republicans enough to get the job done.
The idea suggested by Hankins that we have greater responsibilities....like human trafficking, etc? No.....we basically want the Alabama leadership business to handle and work on local issues (fixing potholes, reducing crime, spend tax revenue in a responsible fashion, provide good decent education, etc).
The hints of Covid throughout the piece? There are a couple of mentions which lead back that way. Presently, using just every country around the globe, there is no indication that heavy regulation really fixes or resolves Covid....other than it has the same effect if you'd spend eight hours a day praying for some Jesus-miracle to occur.
I would go and suggest that five things are at work here, and the working-class guy in Alabama is geared to stand back to assess things:
1. Most folks in the state see the Baptist 'empire' thing to be corrupted. All those years with the 'dry-county' business probably didn't help matters.
2. Most folks see the NCAA 'grip' on football to be corrupted. It shouldn't matter but some people actually lose sleep over the matter.
3. With all the vast amounts of money poured into state education over the past forty years....we ought to have 1,200 Einsteins out there. You don't see that, and you just sit and wonder....how did they spend all that educational funding.
4. Every time you had some mayor or some state legislature guy claiming they want to fix things.....at least fifty percent of the time....they make matters worse.
5. Out of the last ten governors....you can generally say that three were 'legit' and competent, and the rest were either criminal in behavior, lusty old guys, or pretty racist in actions. This Ivey gal (present governor) is about the only one that most would say is of pure ethical behavior.
Look, I'm not defending the state or the landscape, but if you go into most other states (California in particular).....the distrust in government is just as bad.
