My Chief Problems With the E-Cars (Battery Cars)

 I have five issues:

1.  The idea is that you (the gov't) is going to inflect enough pain....that my gas car becomes a major problem.  Then I'm stuck with a car with marginal value.  

2.  The minute you get into 10 F degree weather or 103 F degree heat....your battery goes into heavy loss use, and you can cross off one-third of the 'power' in that battery.

3.  If the gas cars go away.....the gas tax goes away.  If people install panels on their house.....how will you collect enough tax revenue to cover the lost taxes?  

4.  About every month in Germany....an E-Bike, E-Car, or E-Bus burns up.....sometimes in the driveway.....sometimes in the basement....sometimes in a parking garage.  If you triple the current quantity?  It'll start happening every week for battery fire.

5.  It might be a positive, but you reach a point where the only thing wearing out are the batteries, tires, and lights.  Do you really want a car that lasts 20 years?

Joe and McAuliffe Event

 I sat and watched the 28-minute piece, from four days ago.  My four observations:

1.  Joe was physically up and showed a fair amount of energy.

2.  About every 30 seconds....he hyped 'Donald Trump', which reached a point after ten minutes....I just kept thinking you were there to help McAuliffe.  You should have been talking about his plans, or his vision.

3.  His job (I believe) was to work on independents, and based on the text/chat....he did a miserable job selling McAuliffe.

4.  Around the 18th minute, he gets into how major companies don't pay taxes and how he's going to force change.  Funny thing....he didn't mention that he and the other Senators write the tax code and helped the companies achieve this. Even now....they are writing the new 'code' and will help regular Americans pay the tax.

The Arrival and Decline of Opium Dens

 So this is a short essay over how the Opium 'world' arrived in America, and how it declined.

Basically....around the mid-1800s....as California became a magnet.....the Chinese began to arrive, and 'Dens' began to get set up.  San Francisco?  It was the chief draw for well over fifty years.  Toward the last quarter of the period....NY City became the second magnet.

Acceptance?  Most everyone agrees that the dens flourished all the way through WW I, into the 1920s and 1930s, then the acceptance business started to fail as WW II started up.  From that point on....acceptance was on the decline. 

The last raid of a known Opium Den in NY City?  Mid-summer 1957.  

I was reading a piece this past weekend over the business aspects (most all of these were run by Chinese members of society....rarely Americans themselves).  

Successful people came to the Dens for a day or two of relaxation, and whatever pain they had (whether real or imaginary).....they felt relief from.  Yes, kinda like the issue with fentanyl or opioids today.  

Where Did Jimmy Carter Fail?

 In recent months, the topic of Jimmy Carter has come up more often, with varying explanations of how he screwed up, or how he fell into a 'pit'.

I would offer three observations:

1.  Jimmy Carter was supposed to be the cleaned-up and 'pure' President after Richard Nixon.  In simple terms....that role was marginalized and the 'act' that you got was the anti-Nixon.  It was a brand name or sales gimmick that just never took off.

2.  Carter was in some ways, the activist President.  He was bringing new positions, new roles, and a new path ahead for the nation.  As an activist.....he just never took off.  

3.  Finally, the nation's problems (mid-1970s to late-1970s).....were more than he or his team could really comprehend.  They seemed to always be a page or two behind the times....never getting the public trust, and replacing a failed policy with a new-so-to-be-new-failed policy.

Trying to compare Carter to Biden?  You might be able to take five or six points....but there are dozens of differences.  I would suggest that the Biden crew is 'sitting' in some airport-reality, and waiting for their plane (yet to arrive).  They keep talking about the future and injecting woke topics into their daily chatter.....but it gets less and less traction. 

All of this.....in just nine months?  Yeah, that's the worrying part of this discussion.  Carter had four years to reach this point.....Biden is already there and we aren't even at the 12th month.  

My Take on the Baldwin Episode

 It's a page 3 type story that still lingers around on page 1....a week later. 

First, you can  ask yourself who really wants to watch a Alec Baldwin 'cowboy-western'?  Out of a thousand people....probably fewer than twenty.  

I think this was a deal done on the cheap with one of the streaming video networks.....with a decent amount of cash but nowhere near the amount for what would have been a theater 'cowboy-western' for say....the 1990s era.

I think Baldwin was attempting to produce this at a certain price.....discovering a couple of weeks into it....that the profit margin was almost non-existent.  So he went even cheaper than normal.

The gun matter?  

I'm always reminded of the 1960s 'Apache Gold' movie.....where tens thousand blanks were fired (one of my top twenty 'cowboy-westerns').  No one was severely wounded in the movie....other than those who fell off the horses. 

That's the thing about it.....you go back through Bonanza, the Big Valley, High Chaparral, the Rifleman, Lone Ranger, Rawhide, Death Valley Days, Wagon Train, and Kung Fu (yes, it was a western)......there's just not incidents where gunfire killed someone.  You had experts on the set.....guys over forty mostly, who had ironclad rules about the use of weapons.  

So you add it up.....cheaply produced....the weapons-master being fairly young/inexperienced.....prop-guns being taken off the set for real gunfire practice....and people on a schedule to produce scenes.   Someone will get a manslaughter charge, and they will....in turn....sue the production company for various oversight problems.  The odds of the production company being bankrupt by the end of 2022?  I'd suggest that.

Movie being finished....ever?  I'd question this.  The network who financed this?  Screwed, I think.  

Ten Things About Corona That Remain Odd

 1.  Remember how the wet-market story (out of Wuhan) suggested the trigger to the virus was Pangolins (the anteater type creature)?  And now?   It's always bat-chatter.  it's like the Pangolins paid someone to just drop them as a news topic.

2.  Wet-markets still operating in China?  You would think that once Corona started up....virtually all Chinese would have halted business with wet-markets.....yet that never occurred.

3.  The automatic answer in China to a upward 'tick' of Corona?  Shut down an entire city.....for weeks.  If you tried to do this in the US....civilization would fall apart in ten days, or people would just pack up and leave (like NY City).

4.  Covid vaccines approved by FDA?  Well....to put this into prospective....Fentanyl is also approved (since 1998).  It doesn't mean that everything FDA approves is 'God's gift'.

5.  This whole 'cult-like' state over Corona....revolves around oppression in various ways (if you sit and think about it).  

6.  The difference between Trump-Corona mandates and Biden-Corona mandates?  One group obeys one, and another group obeys the other.  Pepsi-versus-Coke type discussions?  More or less.

7.  After about 70-odd years of Soviet-style regulation on people.....no one took anything serious anymore.  You see the same skeptical nature of people building up, and the Corona-Soviet regulations are falling into the same path.

8.  There are various misinformation, mis-misinformation and mis-mis-misinformation campaigns going on....on a daily basis, about Corona.  Just in an average day, you are probably engaging in Corona-chatter-misinformation with at least ten people.   

9.  In the past month, some people have started to pull out Lyme disease and ask stupid questions over the CDC handling of it, and ask if Lyme disease connects to the same incompetence of Corona.

10.  Will the epidemic in the US ever end?  People rarely asked this in 2020.  Today?  I would take a guess that a quarter of the population engage on this topic at least once a week, and the 2024 Presidential election might be more about ending it....than anything else.  

Hunter and Art

 I noticed there's a second 'art-show' for Hunter Biden being arranged....Soho, NY.  

The first show?  Well....he had five paintings up for show, and sold them....roughly $75,000 each.  The exhibit management folks will take some money off of this (figure $5k minimum).  So he walked away with around $350k.

For those who didn't know....there's a tax credit (federal) out there for artists.  You can deduct 20-percent of your net income from the 'business'.  You can also count various expenses (like the shows) as a credit.  

The Soho event?  Well....the hint is that very few of Hunter's works will be shown.  I'd just take a guess.....it won't be more than five (like the California exhibit).  Another odd thing....it's highly private.  The guys in charge already hint that you'd apply to get in and there would be a review of who you are, and the 'status' you have.

In the real art world (not that I really have that much interest)....most hobby artists will tell you they might work on two to four pieces per year.....meaning they put an enormous amount of effort into this, and don't paint daily.

The Van Gogh tradition?  At the point where he entered the mental facility (for the breakdown).....he'd done roughly 130 paintings in one single year.  After the mental facility.....he reached around one painting per day.  There in 1890....at the peak of production.....he committed suicide.  

Doing the rough math, I'd take a guess that he's producing around one painting every three to four weeks.  Profit-wise?  Again, if you estimate on production and $75,000 being the norm.....Hunter ought to be able to make near one-million dollars per year (before taxes).  This to continue after Joe's four years?  That's the real question.