Fourteen Months Until Mid-Terms

 Typically, mid-terms are supposed to be some corrective action....where 10-percent of folks who voted for the standing President....realize their screw-up, and vote for the opposing party.   That's the general formula.

This time?  I would go and probably triple the screw-up vote group.  

So, is this just a House/Senate corrective action that will unfold, where the Republicans might actually shock folks?

It's actually more than that.  Thirty-nine governors are up for election as well.

It's probably conceivable that at least four states with Democratic governors....will convert over (California might be one of them).  I might even go and suggest Michigan being another.

Can President Biden even help matters?  No.  

So, how big a mess do we have if you have a majority of Republicans in the House, and 55 likely Republican Senators?  You could start an impeachment process and see this snowball for three months.  Just Biden in the middle of this?  No....I think Blinken (State Department) could easily be dragged in as well.  And you might as well ask if the Pentagon's folks might be dragged into some mess as well.

It'll be a long frustrating period.  

The 'Freedom' Essay

 The NY Times had a guest essay piece on Monday.  This was a liberal piece written by Margaret Renkl, and her theme for the essay was.....there's just too much freedom, and you need the government to just run/supervise things.

She ranted on about how southerners were die in some unnecessary way because they just weren't going to play Covid the right way....they weren't handling natural disasters the right way....they were preventing abortions....and they were fully accepting of gun violence.  

Course, in her mind....all of this lead back to this crazy stuff called 'freedom'.  The suggestion is....there's just too much freedom......we need less of it.

There are several problems in the essay (at least I thought so).

Chicago is the centerpoint of gun violence in America, with massive regulation and government involvement.  There is no way to describe Chicago as a 'southern-city'.  But in Renkl's mind.....Chicago would have to be 'southern'.  

Then I looked over at wildfire management in California.  In Renkl's mind....the fires have to relate to 'southern mentality', but it's hard to suggest Californians are 'southern' in nature.  

Homelessness throughout America?  Perhaps created by some southern mentality?  Well....NO.

Meth curse upon the nation?  A southern mentality thing? No.

Do I think Renkl is totally wrong?  No.  I do believe we need less freedom for journalists.  There should be a index of sorts....which stories you can talk about or stories you are forbidden to tell, with updates listed each month for the general public and journalists to read/observe.  

In fact, we just need less news in general.  The nightly broadcast should be limited to just fifteen minutes.   All of this could be done by governmental control....more regulations, and more 'whatever'.

I might even be more agreeable to less freedom on travel.  Folks should just stay around their home-town or local area.  

Maybe we even need less freedom on sodas.  When you walk into a Wal-Mart....instead of 120 different types of sodas....maybe there should only be Tab, Diet Pepsi, and Mountain Dew.  

Yes, maybe the day has come where we just need a good dose for five years....of less freedom....to wise up and appreciate what we do have.  

$6.4-Billion Dollar Project?

 It came out this afternoon....President Biden wants $6.4-billion for the Afghan folks coming to America.  

Assuming you were talking about 50,000 folks.....it'd be writing out a check for 128,000 dollar for each single person.  

Even if you doubled this to 100k folks....it'd still come to 64,000 dollars for each single person.

The odds of getting this passed?  Unknown.

It is a ridiculous amount and right away....if I were a Honduran 16-year old kid in the US with a new visa.....I'd be asking for my $128k check. 

Who came up with the number?  Unknown.  Maybe Joe was just sitting there in the closet getting dressed this morning.....and the 128 number came up in his mind.  

The Problem With Decision-Paralysis

 Paralysis generally means 'something' has occurred which interrupts your normal movement/reaction.  It should be noted....it could be a temporary thing....or a permanent condition.

In the past ten years, I think a growing number of people have faced what I'd call decision-paralysis.  

You have a plan, which under all normal or pre-existing situations....the plan would unfold, and generally lead you to the right end-result.  

In this new era....after you get a step or two into your perceived reality...you've had to stop and review the mess.  You are hindered from plan A, and now wondering how plan B might built.

But now, in this present reality, your decision process gets more and more crapped-up.  

You watch Channel Nine news and come to realize one evening that they often mislead you on certain things.  You watch Doctor Doom on some CNN interview, and realize his medical advice is not sound.  You watch some idiot from the Bush era (2005) that says five things which are absolutely BS.  You attend some church service where the minister has dished a parable which he has slanted for propaganda purposes.  

You start to reach a decision-paralysis situation.....where you know that you've been fed false information and can't reach a 'feel-sure' stage about the situation.  It's too complicated, and the whole landscape is cluttered with fakeness.

In the end, I suspect most people will start to step back a couple of steps....disregard most news events, and distrust just about everything that the news media generates.  

The Chant Story

 We are into NCAA football season.  Typically, I might care to some degree (I hate professional football these days).

An unusual 'thing' started up this weekend via the college games and televised situations.  Fans at the Carolina Coast game....started a chant...."F**k Joe Biden".  You can go view YouTube and find clips of the game....at least presently.  I expect YouTube to take them down by mid-day today.

Occurring at the Virginia Tech game as well?  Well.....yeah.

The Auburn game?  Yeah, it occurred there as well.

My humble belief is that by this coming weekend....most all football games will have the "F**k Joe Biden" chant going on, and probably spread to professional NFL games as well.

Cutting off the sound?  You might be able to do that that a dozen times...but if there were a hundred chants?  No.  What I expect is fake fan background noise to be geared up for these games by the networks, where you watch an entire game with fake noise.  

This flipping over to major league baseball?  Probably.  

Social and news media having created this 'creature' (the environment that we now live in)?  Absolutely, but at this point....it's like one of those Japanese monster movies where you have no idea where the monster is going to end up in the next scene.  

Just Something to Think About

 So, all this original chatter about Covid/Corona/Wuhan 'fever'....all comes from the suspected 'wet-market' in Wuhan (or if you believe the conspiracy stuff....some secret bad-ass toxic lab).  The creature in the 'wet-market' story is the Pangolin (I'd describe as a Chinese ant-eater).  

I noticed today a Chinese police story.

They (the cops) say they busted this smuggling ring operation....involving 62 tons of Pangolin 'scales' (used in Chinese medicine).  

Apparently, the backdoor Chinese herbal market and home-remedy market....is still active with this Pangolin stuff.

Now you sit back....as an American and think about things.  If there was some virus that started up in Nashville, or Austin....involving some kind of American-roadkill critter causing a triple-bad virus to occur....the last thing on Earth that you'd deal in, buy or make any kind of food out of....would be that roadkill creature.

These Chinese folks?  They went right back to the Pangolin critter.

Either they don't believe the Chinese 'wet-market' story.....or they just like Wuhan-fever type situations.  

Clinic-Hospital Visit

 I went to a clinic-hospital (not for myself, but for the wife).  It was a simple appointment, to a facility that we'd never been to.  Over my entire life (from Alabama, through the Air Force years, the contractor years and since retirement in 2013)....I've probably visited around fifty-odd clinics/hospitals.

So this visit on Thursday was a bit unique.  

I stood there about twenty minutes into walking around (you had to do a fair amount of that).....to gather the perception that about 90-percent of all nurses in this facility....were extremely obese (probably 50 pounds minimum over their regular weight, and by that that....I mean regular non-slim). 

Yes, here were a mix of male/female nurses (probably 80-percent female), from ages 17 to 60....all chunky to the extreme. 

I don't ever remember being in a place like this....in my entire life.

After about three hours of walking around, from paperwork-room-one to paperwork-room-two, and onto paperwork-room-three....I came to count the number of breakrooms (an abundant number), which all had a minimum of two soda machines and one snack machine.  I stopped counting when I got up to around thirty machines.  

In some weird way....there's some Einstein-like formula existing here....where x-number of break-rooms....related to x-number of snack/soda machines.....related to x-number of people....equal heavily obese people of some quantity.  It's pretty much that simple.  There's probably another Einstein-like formula for free-coffee type machines....related to hyped-up highly focused people, or horse-power related to speeding tickets.