Finished Series

 In the past week, I've finished up season 1 of 'Wednesday Addams' (off Netflix).  Four comments:

1.  On written material, it's probably one of the best shows of the past five years....although it's a limited number of episodes in the 'season'.

2.  Jenny Ortega playing Wednesday?  Fantastic.

3.  So the whole thing is about taking one single character out of the Addams Family series (1960s) and suggesting that a show can evolve out of this idea.  It's probably going to open up a dozen TV shows where taking secondary people and evolve them (Festus out of Gunsmoke for example).

4.  Finally, it's written mostly for teens to be entertained....but I would suggest most everyone would get a laugh out of the show.

Q-and-A

 1.  Did 250 million Chinese folks catch Covid in December?

There's this news story going around and hyped-up.  So, the problem here.....I suspect, is that 250 million folks did get sick with a cold, flu, or possibly Covid, and then got tested with these Chinese-made Covid tests, and 250 million of the tests said they were positive, when the majority of the tests were correct.

I noticed about a year ago....some German university went and tested a fair number of the Covid tests on the market (most all made in China).  There were one or two, which were pretty reliable (up in the 90-percent range), and there were were one or two in the extremely low range (reliable at the most in the 40-percent range).  

So my BS-meter is up around a '8' here on this 250 million talk.

2.  Did 343,000 folks leave California in 2022?

Census folks say yes.  

Big deal?  Current, they number around 39-million, with probably 3,000 migrants arriving every month.  So, it's probably not a big deal. 

But when you see companies pack up and leave....that's different.  That takes a chunk of jobs/income out of the state and would hurt in the long run.

3.  Lumber prices on a total reverse?

Yeah....remember back 12 months ago, when plywood was at some outrageous price...like $95 a sheet?  Well....construction has dropped like a rock in late 2022, and lumber yards have dropped pricing in a big way.  

4.  All this money being handed to the Ukraine for the war....leads back to a US agenda of sorts?

Yes, and the more you discuss this....the more worried you should be about the agenda and the amount of discussion which led to this White House decision.

5.  What's the term 'died suddenly' mean?

Well....in recent months, it means you died from either Covid complications or vaccine complications.  It's an odd phrase and probably not uttered much by pro-Covid people.

Ten Observations

 1.  Just about everything you see on TV today or via the internet....is a narrative.  It may be a stupid narrative.  It may be a intellectual narrative.  But it's built up to be a story with a understanding at the end.

2.  This SBF character sitting in the Bahamas on charges (crypto fraud)....I'd question his mental state, and if he were under the influence of drugs for the past five years....remembering little to nothing of what he did.

3.  If you wanted mostly privacy in your life, you'd have to disconnect all internet connectivity to achieve that.

4.  It's a curious tactic by big-name newspapers now.....they go and hype a story on Twitter with two lines.  You click to see the rest, and hit a pay-wall.  Then you kinda realize....the two lines were written into a form to beg questions....but the rest of the article really missed on your need for answers.

5.  If Elon really wanted to make his money back...quick....he ought to charge 25 cents for each comment that people make, and 3 cents for each 'like'.

6.  Biden made a big comment yesterday about all the FREE masks, FREE tests, and FREE vaccines being provided by the government.  Well....to be honest, none of this was FREE.  It was paid by taxation.  He could just as well provide FREE beer and FREE donuts, except it'd be paid by taxation as well.

7.  I generally believe by 2030, the US will have to resort to a draft again, because the volunteer idea has hit a brick wall.  If you think things are bad now.....just wait till the draft arrives.

8.  Oddly enough, over the past two years, I've learned that Joe Biden worked in the timber industry in his youth, hit a 368 ft homer in his youth, and once drove a long-haul truck.  Also...oddly enough, no one can vouch for any of the stories.

9.  Something sweeping around Europe...being referred to as a 'super-cold'.  Affects are several times worse than an average cold....so the folks claim.

10.  The odds of anyone reading the 816 page 'final report' by the Jan-6 'truth commission'?  I would imagine that fewer than 500 people in 2023 read the full and entire report.  I should note, almost 150 pages of this is reference material....so it's not as harsh as you might think.  If you want a copy?  Cost is around $12 to $16.  

Covid Chatter

 I don't normally read the WaPo much, but this AM....they had this odd story....a health study done....over Covid.  So it comes out.....people who have a routine regular exercise schedule (even just walking or hiking)....stood a fairly high chance of never getting hospitalized over Covid, or dying from Covid.  We aren't saying 100-percent, but apparently it's enough to suggest that your fitness level might figure into your health situation.

I saw a news piece late in 2021....where a German marathon runner had Covid, and even three months after the virus.....he was nowhere near his past stamina.  The illness had taken a lot of energy out of the guy.  I should note....he didn't have to go off to the hospital.  Based on his description....it was like a serious bout with pneumonia.  

I also noted from another 2021 news show....the interview with a 90-year old German gal....in a retirement home, who did a two-week bout with Covid, and emerged with no health problems.  Course, she hyped-up....after breakfast each day.....she took her 90-pound frame (my judgement) and walked an hour.  She also noted that she munched on a apple everyday, avoided bad habits (I assume smoking and boozing), and ate what you'd consider one real meal (dinner) per day.  

Course, if you said any of this on 'old' Twitter.....you would have been censored or forbidden to chat over such things.  

Three Observataions

 1.  Some intellectual 'idiot' appeared at the World Economic Forum.  Their quote?  "We can solve all the Earth's problems, if we reduced the world population to where it was 500 years ago." (Basically 1522 for reference).

I sat there for a while.  This was around 100 years prior to the Mayflower landing, and around 140 years prior to my family arriving in the 'new world'.

If you gaze around at Japan and European numbers.....we've crossed the point where 2 births per woman occur (going downward, not upward), and population shifts are easily noted today.  You can actually draw a Excel spreadsheet on German populations in approximately a hundred years and show a 25-percent decrease in numbers unless immigration takes off big-time.

The problem I would assess as a bigger deal....we have too many intellectuals in our midst, and need to lessen their number by 50-percent....to save humanity.  

2.  After all that chatter with the Nord Stream I/II pipelines blown up in the Baltic region....still today....no one is sure who blow the pipes up.

Based on chatter this week....some evidence is concluding it wasn't the Russian government.  If it wasn't the Russian gov't (still holding out on some Oligarch or Wagner contract group)....it opens up a big discussion.

3.  Some people are concluding in 2024.....that a 8-year Republican Presidential trend will occur, and the suggestion is that Sotomayor/Kegan (Justices) might want to retire in the next 18 months....to prevent a 'big' mess for the Democrats.  While they hold a lead in the Senate....the conventional wisdom is to use it for some benefit.  

It's amazing all the factors that agenda groups are dumping into these days.  

Two Thoughts Today

 Someone brought up the topic....if people had ever met a white supremacist  in their life?

I paused over the question.

To me, it means asking if you mean a KKK-guy, and the answer would be no.  You might have accidentally bumped into such a guy and not realized it because the topic didn't come up.  

In my Air Force years?  I came across one single guy who was 50-percent a nutcase (a alcoholic as well) on top of being a racist.  Beyond that....you just don't normally bump into white supremacists.  

A number of folks saw the comment on Twitter, and they all basically said the same thing.....they just haven't met these supremacists that get mentioned all the time.  

To be honest, if you asked me about meeting nutcases....well....OH YEAH, there's probably two-hundred folks that I considered seriously bothered, and potentially dangerous.  Just in walking around DC on a Saturday....you'd meet a minimum of one.  Sitting at an airport around twenty years ago....some older gal was all tranquilized-up and talking over church members in her church....who were going to hell.  

The topic that came up today....my brother brought up the topic of great Alabama restaurants.....primarily getting scored this way (over the top) because they had 'nice' waitresses'.

What does 'nice' mean?  This is the gal who greets you at the door....bringing to the best table, and then immediately getting you glasses of iced-up water with a menu.  

Then they start talking....with the usual slow dictation, with a Selma-like drawl.  You get the elongated vowels....that aren't supposed to exist, but they insert them anyway. 

They always let you know that the salad is fresh....like you were expect 7-day old salad. 

The ice-tea?  They always let you know it was just brewed in the last hour, and the lemons were cut 'fresh'....leaving you to wonder what'd happen if they weren't fresh.

At this point in the conversation, you note that her distinctive pronunciation of terms has slowed down 25-percent....like you were paying extreme attention to her vast knowledge of the menu.

Now, you've memorized her name-tag (always a 'Cindy', 'Mandy', or 'Darlene').  

By the end....with just plain good cooking, the waitress has brought things up to a five-star level.  

The thing is....you remember that sparkle and extra effort....bringing you back for a second trip.  

You need moments like this.   

Ten Observations

 1.  This truth-commission stuff (6 Jan committee) and the entire discussion of 6 Jan 2020....resembles a 'mass hysteria' campaign to some degree.  The House committee drums up TV theatrics and get you hyped up.  Unfortunately for them....unlike like the Watergate era where the three networks carried the hearings and limited any options of watching something else.....between satellite, internet and cable....you had other choices.  I'd say well over 70-percent of the country gave this little attention.

2.  99-percent of people had no idea in the 1980s of what narcissism meant.  Today?  Probably ten-percent of society knows the term, and the mental 'disorder' involved.

3.  After a while, you come to realize that Twitter is an addiction of sorts....to get you hyped-up.

4. As much hype as generated about people crossing the US border heading north.....it just seems like no one is crossing the border heading south.  Literally no one.

5.  I'm of the mind that prior to entry into a four-year university deal....the college ought to be forced into conducting an IQ test.  At the end of four years of college, if your IQ numbers are the same....the entire cost of the college should be refunded.

6.  Congress, today in 2022, is more of a theatrical show, than actual democracy at work.

7.  I'm of the belief that all this crazy stuff that Hunter Biden did from 2006 to 2020....was cocaine-influenced, and half of the events....he has little to no memory of.

8.  Some poll indicates 60-percent of people in the US....are living paycheck-to-paycheck.  I lived in the Arlington, VA area around a decade ago.  The local paper had a story they ran of a couple....both gov't workers of some type....both together pulling in over $260,000 a year. They were living paycheck-to-paycheck, and had been doing so since moving to the DC region (five years prior).  Reality here?  Things are relative.

9.  I think we are at 75-percent-plus on the side of believing JFK was killed by elements of the CIA/Mafia combined.

10. If you were in the middle of an insurrection, with no shots being fired....would you even recognize it as a insurrection?