Five Humble Opinions

 1.  There seems to be a lot of heartbreak, weeping and childlike behavior occurring from the general public over the Twitter 'banning' of WaPo tech reporter Taylor Lorenz.  

To be honest, from the various videos I've seen on YouTube of her (from the past year or two).....she impresses me with almost no real reporter skills, and often deliveries some 'report' like a 12-year old kid (mostly 'acting' her way through some assessment).

On my BS-meter of any of this 'banning' being a terrible event....I'd rate it no higher than a '2'.

2.  You get the impression after a while....that Twitter is mostly like a WWF-wrestling 'channel' and that you need good guys constantly fighting off bad guys.  That's the gimmick or draw to Twitter.  

3.  It is 2022, yet about one-quarter of the public is hyped up and concern over free-speech....something that should have been settled 'science' in 1776.

4.  You ever sat down and read the 18th Amendment to the Constitution?  The one shutting down booze production, sales, and consumption in America?

The text?

Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the 

exportation thereof from the United States and all the territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited. 

Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. 

Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

Yes, that's it.....nothing more.  It's something that you could type up in five minutes....run a draft/spell-check ten times, and be ready for a vote in two hours.  

5.  Switzerland has one of the highest man-hour wage situations in the free-world.  So I was looking at the cost of a Club-sandwich at a normal non-upscale place.  This is just the plate (with fries). 

Cost?  $37 for the plate, and figure around $4 for a beer.  

Minimum wage level (per-hour) there?  23 CHF ($24.68).  

Crazy stuff. 

My Gut Feeling Over These Digital Trump Trading Cards

 What idiot would pay $99 for these?

Then BAMM.....45,000 sold in a matter of a couple of hours.

Yes, in the middle of a recession....they were gone.

Biden's crew?  They have to be sitting there....probably for months thinking about this crazy idea, and Trump's crew beat them to it.  Now?  They have to criticize Trump....giving up entirely on their $99 moment and the potential $4.5 million for their campaign fund.

Next?  Trump probably will sell blinking red hats with MAGA written on them....or a $40 'free-pass' at the border card.

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.