Ten Things That I've Kinda Changed On In The Past Year

 1.  The less I watch/hear of national news (like CNN, NPR, BBC)....the less I read on social media (I'm not in F-Book or Twitter anymore)....the more normal things seem to be.  

2.  My skeptical ratio (if there was such a thing) has probably tripled in intensity. Even if you had some Bible-lecture chatting over Moses....there's probably a dozen things you could bring up and I'd shake my head over the story told.

3.  I've kinda reached the point where I notice people talking a lot (maybe five minutes straight)....but they aren't really saying anything.

4.  When someone says 'trust the science'.....I generally just start laughing and looking for the mute-button.

5.  There are some politicians now....that I regard with such juvenile behavior....that I would support sending back to the 6th grade.

6.  My definition of the word 'RARE' is probably not going to match 90-percent of CNN journalists.

7.  The various Doctor Doom's that appear on TV (not just in the US).....are starting to remind me of used-car dealers.

8.  I'm getting pretty close to identifying 'woke-people' as paranoid schizophrenics. 

9.  We are reaching the stage where a fact-checker probably has the same level of competence as your local meth/dope dealer, or some mule-trader.   

10.  The minute you equate politicians into the Jesus/Satan categories....democracy is finished/over.  You might as well bring David Hasselhoff in and let him run the Presidency for four years.  Maybe Kitt could advise him, and just do the logical stuff (they'd have to get a better voice though for Kitt).   

Saving Us: The Tiki-Torch Boys

 Over the weekend, this image and the Virginia political story has been on my mind.  So the basic situation?  Five guys showed up next to Youngkin's bus (the Republican running for Governor).  White shirts, ball caps, and Tiki torches.  This was supposed to 'signal' white supremists in support of him.

Well....things were checked out, and the five were identified....as 'hired-hands'.  

What's now said is that 'Bob', 'Marty', 'Rufus', 'Charlie', and 'Karl' were all hired by a political group, and they took 'orders' from the Democratic candidate (or his handlers).....McAuliffe.  

First, the five were paid something (no one says how much).  Just a humble guess, I'm thinking somewhere around $300 to $500.  Most of us (myself included) if approached to put a white shirt, ballcap, and hold a Tiki-torch by a bus for eight minutes....would have easily been bought for around $200 (Alabama rate).  Maybe in California...the rate would have been a bag of cannabis and $100.  Virginia rate?  Maybe a bottle of Jim Beam and $300.  

Second, no one has said who paid who.  This middle-guy (company) didn't do this for free.  They got paid something (anyone's guess....it might have even been $20,000) to arrange all of this.  But the question is....did McAuliffe's campaign pay for it, or did some special PAC pay for it? 

Third, once you admit this happened....what else has been faked up?

Fourth, the tiki-torch industry needs some advertising.....could we get the five guys to come on TV and stand by various politicians (Democrat and Republican)?

It's just a funny way of trying to assemble propaganda, and convince people of some fake agenda.  White shirt, ballcap, and Tiki-torches?  Yeah.  

The funny thing.....various news organizations around Virginia picked up the original story and tried to run with it.  Regular people looked over the comedy involved, and the news people suggesting a big deal....look like juvenile reporters now.   

F-Book to Meta?

 I sat and watched the Facebook episode with Zuckerberg explaining the name change (to Meta) and how the future unfolds.  Then I sat and pondered for a while.

This fantasy video that Zucky showed....eventually gave me this idea that within the next five years....you will be able to drive home....sit in a chair with googles on and have a chat with four friends.  

The four 'friends'?  Well....it's pretty good odds that they will all be imaginary and fake.  

Marty will be some world-traveler, who is pro-environment, continually in need of a 'safe space', drinks only glacier water from Canada, and is continually confused about things.

Maja will be your Swedish friend, who is 50-percent male/50-percent female, hyped-up on vegan food, drinks Swedish glacier water, sings Elvis Presley tunes, wears most Green Bay Packers clothing, and has never been beyond Sweden in her life.

Birger will be your Viking friend, who reads Scottish erotic stories, thrilled about Egyptian pyramid chatter, sips Nile River water, and allows himself a piece of chocolate once a week.

Muffin will be your New York City friend, who tells gritty stories about the subway, hypes up environmental issues, sips mostly coffee (nine cups a day) and feels continually depressed about Trump.

None of them are real....it's just that Zucky rigged up some massive server in Utah and it builds 'friends' for people who don't want human attachment.  

You're feed a thousand bits of info about yourself into the system, and it'll spit out imaginary 'friends' to fulfill your life. 

What'll happen when the bulk of F-book people realize this end-game?  It's hard to say.  Some might readily approve of it.  Some might go and ask if they can retrieve the old F-book server, and just have plain regular and real friends.

So, if you thought things today were confusing....just wait.  

Observations

 1.  Joe in Rome.  I had to sit and read through several stories, and there are two that stand out.

First, President Biden wrapped up his visit to the Vatican with a drive-around-Rome episode.  I'm guessing the mayor arranged this with several hundred police holding off traffic, while the Presidential motorcade passed around forty odd historic sites.  The group never stopped....far as I can tell....Joe just looked at the window and someone probably said 'we just passed such-and-such'.  The comical side of this....there were a total of 85 vehicles.  There was the entourage, the Secret Service team, support personnel, etc.  If you wanted to make a anti-statement about climate change and the way that we accomplish it....the 85 vehicles would be a good starting point.

Second, Joe's team had some type of scripted deal that they wanted Pope Francis to say and do, with cameras running.  The Pope was supposed say such-and-such....Joe had memorized some lines and would respond with such-and-such.  Choreographed?  Yeah.  The Pope's people, at least until that morning thought it was just some talking topics, and once the choreography was apparent.....they said 'NO'.....we ain't some type of TV production (like Knight Rider, MacGyver, or the Fall Guy).  At that point of the 'show' starting up.....live coverage stopped.  This brings me ask.....day after day in America, since day one of the administration....has it been the 'Joe-Show'?

2.  Kaepernick came out and said that the NFL draft system was somewhat like slavery.  He didn't say much about how he'd replace it.  I paused over the draft system....which gives loser-teams a chance to get a decent pick, and maybe rebuild (of course, unless you were the Bengals of Cincinnati).  If you just threw things out, and said it was purely about money offerings, then teams like the Patriots or Rams would be in the Super Bowl nine times out of ten and forever be signing the best players each year.  If you wanted advance past the Patriots/Rams....you'd have to pay a tremendous amount of money, and ticket prices for various teams would double within two to four years.  

It's just another occasion that logic defies the Kaepernick vision.

3.  Some study was done....really just a poll....where they asked folks if they had witnessed ghostly things in their house/apartment.  83-percent of Americans said 'yeah'.   Now, no one asked if they were smoking some cannabis, drinking heavily or maybe doing a bit of LSD when this occurred.

4.  There are now four different versions of 'Lets Go Brandon' in the I-Tunes top ten.  It seems like every three or four days....someone cranks out a pretty good tune with the magic words. 

The Syrian Version of 'Lets Go Brandon'

 So to lay this story out in the simplest version.....there's been this ongoing crisis in Turkey with Syrian refugees sitting there and 'waiting'.

The war in Syria....just for the record, has not ended.  No one feels comfortable going back, and frankly.....they all feel the ISIS war could restart.

The average Turk?  Their patience with the refugee business is reaching a breaking point.  If you live in the southern quarter of Turkey....from Adana (the tourist region) over to the east (to Kasrik).....there are various camps/compounds, which the Turks house/feed the refugee community of Syrians.

Off some Turkish news site recently....an older Turkish guy shouted at some refugee gal (Syrian) that he couldn't buy bananas right now because the Syrian refugees were buying these by the kilo (meaning they were bulk-buying bananas).  True or not?  Unknown.

So the Syrians went to view the situation via YouTube, and a 'Lets Go Brandon' type situation developed.

Literally hundreds of social videos came up in a matter of days.  One portrayed a 'poor' Turkish family...sitting in a circle, with one single banana.  They slowly cut the single banana up....to claim the fact that they were fake-Turks trying to survive off the one banana as a family.

Naturally, this version of the Syrian's 'Lets Go Brandon' wasn't widely accepted by the Turkish community.

So in recent days....to show their anger, the Turkish government selected seven young guys who were making the banana videos....filed the deportation paperwork, and forced them to leave Turkey.

If you go and view social media chatting.....there's a fair amount of humor on both sides, but there's a serious amount of hostility brewing as well.  

The term 'eating bananas provocatively'?  It's enough now in Turkey to get you in serious trouble.  You could get a visit by the cops if you were in a pub....drinking tea and suddenly everyone pulled out bananas to munch on.   

Those That Stay and Those Who Go

 I sat yesterday and read a 'Dear Annie' piece (kind of like a Ann Landers piece).  So this lady (figure in her 40s, single, professional in job/life) had this problem.  Her life centered on the family (her parents, and her brother....with his wife and three young kids).  The story is here.....but I'll try to simplify it to ten lines.  

This was a California group.....all born there.....schooled there....living out their lives there.

'Suddenly', the brother announced that he and the family were leaving, and relocating to Texas.  The sister?  Severe case of distraught, and emotionally....barely taking the situation.  

At some point in the piece, the lady says the primary reason driving the brother to leave is 'politics'.  She can't understand this logic though.

So, you have someone who can't handle the brother's family leaving, and she asks if she should speak to the family and try to convince them of the great 'wrong' they are planning.  'Anne' responds....sure, tell him the anxiety you feel....just don't make this a 'us or nothing' situation.

I sat looking over this.  In the past 18 months (Covid era) I've viewed at least a hundred YouTube videos where people have said 'enough', and sought to leave from NY City, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and LA.  They all needed some outlet to explain their logic and reasoning.

One guy, just into retirement and exiting NY City......was a third-generation New Yorker in his family.  His entire life since the mid-1950s was centered on life in the 'big apple'.  This was around six months into the Covid era, and it was a sharp pain to make the decision.....but staying there was near impossible.  His entire life was structured around socializing and pub-hoping in NY City.  Covid destroyed his 'hub' of his life.  So he packed up the house, and moved to Florida (I should note that it took a month of thinking over the idea to reach this conclusion).

One gal....having lived two decades on the outskirts of Portland....couldn't take the destruction of Portland by the Antifa folks in this Covid era.  It was no longer the ideal place, and she left for rural surroundings on the east coast.  

As you look at the hundred-odd people....there are four basic things that fall into place:

1.  Covid or Covid authoritarian rules.  The NY City crowd and the California group often cite this at the very top.  They simply don't know when their lives will ever return, and that length of the unknown....drove them to extreme decision-making....doing something that they would have never done five years prior.

2.  Taxation.  In the case of the NY and California people....they all cited the odd factor that while things were shut down....taxation continued at a normal pace.  There was no relief.  It bothered them even before Covid came, but this just intensified things.

3. Politics.  This ran off in different directions.  Some cited the political climate in California over the homeless folks, and how the police were helpless.  Some cited the ease of drugs on the streets.  Some cited the crime rates going up.  Some cited the irresponsible behavior of the city council/mayors.  

4.  Finally, real people.  Several folks from California talked at length about increasing public behavior of fakeness (being ultra-fragile about feelings).  You can call it the 'safe-space' crowd,  You could be standing at a patio bar-b-q, and get some lecture about some topic....where they are directing you to live x-life or x-style....without any alternate discussion.  This lecture mentality is something that you rarely saw five years ago.

So I look at the landscape and kinda wonder....if Covid doesn't end in 2021, can I even expect it to end in 2022, or 2023?  If so....why would I stay in in Seattle, NY City, or SF?  I don't want the homeless camped out in my yard.  I don't want to worry about drugged-out nutcases at the grocery store.  I don't want lectures given every four hours.  And I don't want to worry about fragile people who can't handle reality....begging constantly to escape off to a 'safe space'.  

More to move?  I expect another wave of people giving up in 2022....a million-odd people from the urbanized areas....giving up.  There is life elsewhere.....you just need some motivation.  In the end, we will end up with two societies.....those who stay, and those who go.  Which will be the grumbling group in the end?  

Baseball, the Pope, and Joe

 “You’re the famous African-American baseball player in America.”

-- President Biden speaking to Pope Francis

There was a 75-minute meeting between the Pope and Joe this morning, and you are left to guess what Joe meant as he said this comment to the Pope.

As for the Pope's reaction?  I'm guessing he raised a finger to the exorcist-geek in the Vatican.....indicating we had a four-star demon situation brewing.  

Priest-Pete ran off and got the gear....came back with a bucket of Holy Water, and doused Joe.  The Pope then recited the right chant....driving the demon out.  Joe kept shouting 'what-the-hell'.

Afterwards, the Secret Service folks made the Pope aware that this occurs all the time, and it's not anything about demons.