Yeah, About That Test

 This past week.....the Homeland Security folks announced a 'test' episode for the current US citizenship test.  

Currently....there are four parts to the test (civics, English language, reading and writing).  

To pass the current test.....you have to answer six of the ten questions right.  To be honest....they kinda tell you the questions ahead of time....from a 'listing' of 100 questions.  So you'd have to be an idiot....to fail this test.

What they want to change?  Well....to make it multiple choice, and then they hinted....there would be new material, but they really weren't clear what this meant.  They did say there would be a different type of English test...leaving you to wonder what they meant by this.

Having taken the German orientation class, and passed it.....it kinda runs the same way.  

Lessening the test business?  You would do that if the incoming folks really weren't that bright or educated....like they were at the 5th-grade level at age 25.  That would make sense but beg questions if you admitted that you had a bunch of 'new' Americans who really weren't that bright.

But lets get honest here.....probably one-third of Americans probably are at the 5th/6th grade level of knowledge and ability anyway.  If you applied the current test to some 40-year old Americans....they'd likely fail.  

My humble view is that a fair number of the 'test-change' folks came in...reviewed the material....feeling it was way over their heads, and reported back to their bosses in DC....the whole test is too complicated (even for them).  

It's Just a Job Strategy

 Over the past couple of weeks....between Meta/FB, CNN, Twitter, the Washington Post....the signs are there that a bunch of journalists, fact-checkers and social media creators....are about to lose their jobs.

The curious thing here....there's no real back-up plan or landscape....where a guy or gal can land, without losing half their level of income.

Adding to this situation....once the cuts occur....is that really the 'end'?  Could we reach the end of 2023, and find another 10,000 folks dumped?

I'm reminded of a story of a guy via social media that popped up around five years ago.  He'd come out of college with a journalism degree, and for several months....found no one really hyped to pay the level of pay that he expected.  He ended up at a small regional TV station...barely at $30k a year.  For a year or two, he lingered....then someone came along to suggest he wrote travel pieces for a magazine...mostly under an assumed name, and brought in a couple thousand a year.  A dozen years after college, he found his 'position' in the jobs market....mostly as a travel journalist.  It wasn't what he dreamed of....but it paid his lifestyle.

Most of these people....from the journalists, to the fact-checkers....will linger around, and eventually realize that their time with Twitter, or CNN, or WaPo.....was just a lucky streak.  Accept it, and just move on.  

Washington Post Story

 I sat and watched a piece yesterday.....WaPo management held a meeting with employees.

Basically, 500,000 subscribers left the paper in 2022.  

Management laid out the path....there would have to be some layoffs.  They didn't say the numbers, but the plan would start up in the first quarter of 2023.  

Actual number of journalists working there presently?  1,050 approximately.  I would suggest that a 10-percent cut is the probable outcome of this.  But you'd have to ask the question....will more subscribers leave in 2023?  

What really happened?  It's basically the CNN/NY Times trend.....you get to a biased state of existence, and people reach a stage where they say 'enough'.  

The days where they did investigative reporting?  Long gone.

The sad part of this story.....those hundred-odd journalists that they release...won't find any jobs in the region, for the pay-scale required.  A lot of these people will be disgruntled, and shake their heads because they saw this coming five years ago.  

Stupidity

I tried to make sense out of this Fortune article that relates to Covid.

 First, you'd have to collect data that involves traffic accidents.  Would insurance companies or the police ask for this?  I'm shaking my head....it just wouldn't be on  the top twenty questions that LE people would ask at a scene, or that some insurance guy would ask as you file for damages to your car.

Then you'd have to ask....did you booster up.  

Would people even respond?

Then it's hinting that if you just skipped the booster by a month, a week or a day....you'd have increased odds of an accident. 

Logically, I'd be asking....as the insurance folks....do you drink Pepsi or Coke, and rattle off a statistic that more Coke people have accidents prior to noon, or more Pepsi people have accidents on weekends.

Perhaps I'd ask....do you regularly have bowel movements and gather data to prove the morning-bowel movement people are 31-percent more likely to have an accident than the mid-day bowel movement people.

I could ask....are college degree people more likely or less likely to have accidents than barbers with no degree?

Are you more likely or less likely to have a car accident....if you are Marvel-passionate, or DC-passionate?

Do guys who roll their own smokes....have a higher rate of accidents than people who buy regular smokes?

Logically thinking here....maybe it'd be best if I just hung out in the woods....avoided cars in general....and lived a low-stress lifestyle.  

Was There a Two-For-Two Deal With Russia?

This thing with lesbian black basketball player being released, in exchange for the US releasing this Russian arms merchant (held in prison on a conviction)?  Was it a one-for-one deal?

NO.

The original intent was that two would be traded....Russia letting the Marine (Whelan) and the black lesbian basketball player go, and the US getting the arms merchant on the plane, and picking up a German-held prisoner (assassin arrested two years ago for a murder in a Berlin city park).

Basically, there was nothing that the US could offer for the German-held prisoner....so that part of the deal fell apart.  

Ethical crap?  Once you start trading around for people....the whole value-system that you maintain....falls apart.  

Just Three Things You Notice

 1.  Washington Post more or less admits...has lost half-a-million subscribers since 1 Jan 2021.

There's zero profit, and if you checked out the current pricing.....it's almost triple what it was in 2020.  

Does any of this matter?  No....Jeff Bezos owns them and will spend what he has to....to keep them afloat.

But it underlines the fact that fewer people read their stuff and influences opinions around the nation.

2.  If you were waiting on 'Wonder Woman III' to be made.....well....it won't be.  The current plan got cancelled.

A lot of this leading back to II and its dismal presentation?  Yeah.

3.  If you follow the CDC and their Covid booster advice....this past week, they said that you might need to booster-up....every two months.  I'll just offer this advice....about five weeks after my end-of-June-2022 booster....I got Covid.  So the two months advice might not be that valuable.    

Seven Things I Believe Today

 1.  SBH of the crypto empire FTX....will never be arrested unless he steps into the US.....which I don't believe he will do.  No one wants to admit that the US gov't allowed a money laundering operation to operate, without any authority over it.

2.  If the Democratic Party is successful in removing Iowa from the first primary episode.....Joe Biden will not run.  These two things are linked up.

3.  A major drop in product production in China is about to occur....where you can't get 300-odd drug store items, for at least six to twelve months.  Yes, even some cancer drugs will be on that list.

4.  A whole bunch of folks who sold things off E-Bay....are going to line up for IRS viewing.  Could well be over half-a-million who never reported income.

5.  CNN will be bought in 2023....by a non-US entitity.

6.  Hunter Biden will come out on a advertisement.....for data protection in 2023.

7.  Elon Musk starts talking about the next acquisition, and it will be just as shocking as Twitter.