Just Observations

 1.  On the $40-billion to Ukraine deal?

Here's the thing....that basically pays for an offensive against Russia, which probably carries the marginalized Russia to a end-point.....where they aren't much of a threat to anyone....for one entire generation (40 years).

Imagine a sick Putin who probably has 12 months of life left....this dismantling of Russia might be good thing (I'd give it a 7-in-10 chance of occurring).  With no trades likely to occur with Russia and anyone from the west....their GDP will drop like a rock.  They will be unable to replace depleted military equipment and demand of the Oligarch folks for Russians to sacrifice to rebuild the infrastructure.....will trigger an internal civil conflict.

While this is going on, with nothing much to sell in Russia.....I see China in a world of economic hurt.  

So, in three years.....we could probably cut 30-percent of our military budget because both of our 'enemies' are NOT capable of conducting military operations.  

So for me....it's not a waste of money.  It's a remarkable moment where you dissolve a fake super-power....down to the status of....well...Belgium.     

Now.....will Hunter or a bunch of DC lobbyists get $300 million of the $40-billion?  The odds are yes, unless you build an audit into the deal, which is what Senator Paul is suggesting.  

2.  This chatter about fake accounts on Twitter harming the Elon deal?

Well....Twitter admits it's around five percent or less of total accounts which are fake.  Elon says....what?  

Stock price at $45 but there's some rumor of a drop coming out of this situation (figure $3 minimum).  If anything....Elon might say, you know.....I'm cutting my offer by $3-billion.  

The key thing is....how long have they known the fake accounts existed in this number.

3.  My gut feeling on all this trans surgical stuff for kids under 18?

Any day now.....some kid is going to demand the right to enter a school with a ninja-sword, or wearing a Nazi-SS officer uniform, or wearing barbwire around his head.  

Reaction by the 'lets-do-it' crowd?  Nothing wrong.....let them do it.

A month or two will pass, and the next round occurs....some 13-year old kid who wants to marry two other 13-year-old kids (legally), or kids eating raw liver as a snack in class, or kids refusing to use the school toilet---just doing their thing in the parking lot, or kids having demon-fits in the middle of class.

The question is....just where will you finally draw a line.  

The Reality of Safe Spaces

As a rural farm kid, I grew up 'under-privileged'. You only had one single 'safe-space' to go to.....the barn. 

You'd typically enter the safe-space of the barn and have utter quietness to relieve you of your stress. 

The landscape within the barn?  Typically 1800s-like scenic charm.  There was a single light installed, for night-time safe-space requirements....if you desired.  A bale of hay lay there for you sit and get over your anxiety or stress.  Typically, between the hay smell, and manure scent of the barn....you got over your anxiety in a matter of twelve minutes (in July, eight minutes was max).

As I look at these college teens with their stress issues and the need for 'safe-spaces'....I tend to think of the barn and how it'd easily solve the torment in the minds of these kids.

It bothers me to some degree.  How would these 'kids' get all bothered and stressed out.....with the world that we live in?  

The kids in college seem to get all hyped up....disturbed...over the lecture business.  In affect, they were falling apart and some needed physiological counseling (so they claim, but I have my doubts).  Their chief complaint?  After you read through everything, they just didn't like all this hype over a bunch of old white guys like Aristotle or Shakespeare.  They were at the point of having panic-attacks. 

Being all bothered and hyped up?  You get that idea.  Course, they don't have enough barn-like space for safe-space demanding folks.  My brother would likely suggest that someone needs to wheel up some hay-wagon with a few bales on it and have a cooler of Pabst Blue Ribbon (PBR) offered up with some Earl Scruggs or John Hartford banjo music in the background.  Thirty minutes on the hay-trailer would return inner-peace to the disturbed students.....well, in my mind anyway.  But you'd probably need forty thousand of these hay wagons across America, to make this work.

There seems to be an awful lot of students who either aren't capable of handling reality, or they are super-smart, thus deserving of a degree with no real study required (they could actually teach the professors/instructors). 

Yeah, About Them UFOs

 Next week....the House Intelligence Committee subcommittee......on  Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation, will have a meeting with the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security Ronald Moultrie and Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray.

Topic?  UFOs.

First meeting of this type in 50 years.  

What'll happen?  More or less.....nothing.

Oh, the Pentagon folks will admit something is going on....just that it doesn't meet their logic 'test' and they can't suggest nothing.

The odds of a government project going on with connections leading back to some secret captured UFO or two?  Most people suspect something like this is going on, to which the Pentagon absolutely can't openly discuss that.

My opinion?  If you are Yorg-1 and Yorg-2.....coming light-years away (maybe taking sixteen years), and get zapped by one bolt of lightning to down your spacecraft.....you've got a pretty crappy plan 'A', a marginal spaceship, and were deserving to be caught/held by the Pentagon.

So I'm of the belief that there is a Yorg-1 and Yorg-2, and they've never been 'caught'.  I'm also of the mind that both Yorgs are mostly AI creations with a programmed list of jobs to perform, and interacting with humans is on the low side of priorities.  

As for the Pentagon guys?  They've got tons of crapped-up programs to run....why mess with them on this issue?  Maybe it's time to hand this some other government group (like FAA).  

Q-and-A

 1.  What's the biggest challenge for the Biden administration?

Basically, creating an illusion that they really care about regular working-class Americans with skeptical views of Biden, missing on funds for inflation problems, and crazy crap occurring nightly on TV.  

2.  What's with this '2,000 Mules' documentary piece?

Listen....folks carry around a bunch of stuff in the trunks of their cars (duct-tape, hunting rifles, PBR beer, machetes, cocaine, bowling balls, etc).  So it's not a big deal if on the days prior to the 2020 election.....2,000 guys opened up their trunks at 3 AM and pulled out 300 to 3,000 voting ballots and crammed them into a deposit can at the county office.

You shouldn't ought to be probing what we carry in the trunks of our vehicles.  Now, I will admit....it might be curious to ask how 'Joe' got 3,000 ballots, but that'd lead to forty additional questions.

3.  Government seeming not worried over the shortage of baby-milk?

Generally, I'd say they don't care.

Now, if this were a national shortage of beer, or cocaine....things would be different.

4.  Is Libya a 'fake-country'?

Well....some journalists have started this chatter, and the suggestion is that mafia-groups, organized crime, and slave-cartels have taken up the management of the country.  

Removing Gaddafi a wise move?  Looking back....no.

5.  Does anyone (Biden, Republicans, Democrats) have a plan on the recession and the economy?

NO. 

If you ask me?  I would suggest five things: (a) invest infrastructure money into roads/bridges....but not gift money for 5000 non-bridge/road projects, (b) deregulate at the fed level, (c) run a limited payroll tax holiday (no more than 90 days), (d) cut 5-percent of government employees, and (e) shut up about giving college debt idiots free money.  

6.  Did the House pass a bill to allow unionization among staff members?

Yes, has to have Senate backing.  Fantastic bill.....if they strike....House/Senate members left without any support, and the dimwitted folks will backslide real quick.

7.  Are the Chinese in trouble with this zero-Covid idea?

Well....everything is shutdown, and nothing is being produced.  If you ask me....something big (negative) will occur in the next three or four months.  

Not That I Really Care

 I sat this AM looking over US news for an hour, and all this chatter over the Roe versus Wade business.

There's a couple of things that bother me. 

Just beyond the chatter on this legal business.....there is a baby formula scarcity popping up in the US.....which you'd think would be topic number one and begging for news media attention.

Also just beyond the Roe business....the stock market is crapping up and hurting 401K plans.

Also just beyond the Roe business....gas prices are hurting grocery pricing, and the normal American.

Also just beyond the Roe business....lot of drug issues (overdoses) are occurring in both urbanized and rural areas of the US.

Also just beyond the Roe business...there seems to be a lot of nutcase problems happening on airplanes, in stores, or within schools.  

Also just beyond the Roe business....particularly if you live in SF.....petty crime is reaching a level where drug stores and grocery operations are closing.  

To suggest that Roe will drive the November election?  No, I suspect that about 90-percent of the nation have other worries.  

"You think the American people are so stupid they need you to tell them what the truth is?"

 Rand Paul spoke these words last week....aimed at the new Disinformation group being created in Homeland Security.

Over the weekend, it's been on my mind a good bit.

I'll make five observations over the statement:

1.  I hate to disagree with Rand, but on stupidity-meter....I'd say a good two-thirds of Americans are fairly stupid, and half of them might have college education (maybe even a PhD), and not be able to view something with open eyes.  

2.  I can say that the amount of propaganda, fake-news, and biased chatter....is enough to make this problem bigger than what it ought to be.  Unless you tossed the TV....used the radio for weather and calming music, and used the internet to share mostly pictures of 'Pinky' (your dog) and 'Zippy' (your cat).....you probably get a dose of 'stupidity' every single day.  

3.  On the other side of this....the US government is probably the last place on Earth that you want to 'correct' the disinformation chatter, or to bring truth to the 'town-square'.  

You also wouldn't want your minister, your boss, your NFL coach favorite, your wife's brother, your Mexican landscape guy, or your transmission guy to attempt some truth commission effort.  

4.  In some cases, even if you can reach a truth conclusion....it might spoil the fantasy world that the majority of Americans live in today.

Would you want California to admit of every hundred dollars spent on homeless projects of the past decade.....seventy percent of the money went into a 'pit' and had zero value for the problem?

Would you want Seattle to admit that two-thirds of all homeless people can't pass a drug test, or are in a state of paranoid delusions on a daily basis?

Would you want NY state to admit that when they closed all those mental health facilities in the 1960s/1970s.....that they basically opened up the state prison system, and house the mentally unfit there today?

Would you want pro-baseball to admit that 168 of Barry Bonds home-runs....were asteroid-driven?

Would you want NBC to admit that Saturday Night Live has been 'dead' for almost twenty years?

Would you want the general public to admit that they are fed up with the two political parties, and they want five or six parties to exist instead?

Would you want the government to admit that six Senators and fourteen House members are mentally unfit for the job?

5.  Finally, lets just admit it.....truth is pretty boring stuff.  If I did the right thing and gave you a nine-minute 'batch' of news....with no bias or propaganda....would you enjoy it, or feel 'cheated' in some way?

News has become....sad to admit this....kinda like wrestling.  You have some good guys and bad guys in the ring.....with the result being entertainment, which news has now become.  

At some point, you'd really like for Junk-Yard-Dog to arrive, or George 'The Animal' Steel to enter the building to square away all the fake stuff. 

Ten Things On My Mind

 1.  You ever noticed how the LGBTQ community want to discuss with you (or with kids)....their sexualized dramas/desires.  

It often reminds me of cult-people, who think they've found the 'Lord' and need to confess to you.....hoping to convert you over.  If you tell them you ain't got time for this cult-talk or conversion action.....you are quickly dismissed.  Just an odd thing.

2.  When Trump discussed up that idea of shooting missiles at cartel sites in Mexico....folks in the Pentagon got all hyper.

The more I sit and look over the idea.....I can't see much wrong with this.  

3.  Just odd.....Tucker Carslson, Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, and Ron DeSantos seem to be the biggest 'demons' on the face of the Earth.....when discussions with liberal folks start up.

4.  NY Times Editorial staff is suggesting various states will make some rule that you can't marry outside your 'race'.  Oddly, they seem to think that the Supreme Court will allow that to occur.  Biggest farce I've seen yet in 2022.

5.  Just odd how Bill Gates now says.....it's odd in his opinion that Covid killed mostly all old people, and among the whole population....it was just awful low death rates.  Yeah, Bill saying that now.....two years into this epic virus period.

6.  All this legal stuff to halt the sale of Twitter to Elon in court?  Well....here's the thing....the board has the legal responsibility over the sale.....not judge.  Now, if the board says a 'vote' must occur.....they can conduct such a event.  

If the vote by stock-holders went against Elon?  Well....I'd suggest the current price of the stock ($49.80) to drop over a ten-day period....probably to $35 to $38.  Then?  Well....Elon would take more of money and now go buy enough shares to make 51-percent (then arrange another vote).  This time, he'd have the vote to validate his deal.

You folks really don't get it.....Elon wins every single time.

7.  If you asked a hundred Americans to define Eugenics....fewer than 10-percent can probably do it.

8.  New Zealand went and had a big meeting....government VIPs....everyone inside of the room....unmasked.

When they emerged...PM asked them to stand there....put the masks on....while she did the 'chat' of the meeting results.

Probably most stupid PR moment of 2022.

9.  Jill Biden went to the Ukraine this weekend....NOT Joe.  

10.  Seems like everyday is some massive Jesus versus Satan political fight developing.