The Simple Truth About Sports

At some point around 1839.....New England kids took 'rounders' (a British sport) and cricket (another Brit sport) and combined them into baseball.

Chief drive behind this?  Entertainment.  

Over the decades, various other sports started out....purely as entertainment.  

Golf, tennis, basketball, football, volleyball, roller-derby and so on......all came for the purpose of entertainment.

We paid money to watch the sports....in exchange for entertainment.

This current trend?  Making sports into a cult-like device, where one gets a lecture on politics or social ideals?  It's not entertainment, and basically....we were already getting that nightly via MSNBC, CNN and Fox.

Just a gut feeling, but most of these sports-turned-non-entertainment situations....are probably going to dive on profits, and the millionaire players are going to be asking why salary structures are torn apart in a matter of six to twelve months. 

At that point, people will bring the fact....we just wanted entertainment, and nothing else.  

Virus Chatter

James Woods wrote a Tweet today and asked the magic question:

It has been widely suggested that the #CoronaVirus was developed in the Wuhan Virology Lab in Wuhan, China and accidentally leaked into the population. Pure speculation, but if true, this question remains: what was the intended use for this “designer” virus in the first place?

So you sit and ponder upon this.

First, there is evidence existing to show that the virus was actually around in Europe (in Spain) around March of 2019.  

I tend to think that with various projects going on with this Virology Lab in Wuhan....someone sat there on some project, with the 2019 Chinese New Year week off period coming up, and told some clean-up crew to take care of some area, and the crew went beyond what was required.....removing the virus materials, and contaminating themselves.  

Week by week, this bounced around.....a dozen here, a hundred there.

What was the lab experiment in the first place?  They simply had isolated a bat virus, and wondering what would happen....that's my simple guess.

Beyond that, I don't think this was developed as some weapon.  If that was the intention, it's destroyed a great deal of the Chinese business development and financial stability.  

Ghost Reparations Story

Back in the 1970s of Zimbabwe....the nation was falling apart in a civil war.  So some promises were made to various military groups revolving around land reform.  The war ended in 1979, and in the 1980s....Robert Mugabe acted upon his land deal.  

What he basically did....involved a massive agricultural enterprise that had been developed over a hundred years, which not only fed Zimbabwa with no problems.....but profits from the crop sector came from various neighboring countries.  

When the smoke cleared by the 1990s....most all farms in Zimbabewa had flipped from white owned operations (large in nature) to small farms (all black owned in nature).

So a 2,000 acre farm would be broken up into 1k small farms.  The production level of the nation when to a level where they couldn't even farm enough....to feed their own country.....so they were importing from other countries.  

Paying the white owners for the land or the equipment lost?  No....nothing.  

Around a decade ago, Zimbabwe started to admit this issue was screwed up.  They'd screwed up the whole financial apparatus that supported a vast part of the revenue plan for the country.

This past week, they wrote up a plan to create a 3.5-billion dollar effort....to pay the white farmers for the improvements made to the land.   Some of the owners have been gone for 30-plus years.  

Where the money will come from?  Unknown.  

Most speculate that there might be 10 to 20 million dollars a year put toward the plan each year, and some showing of effort, but beyond that....it's really a 'ghost reparation'.  It's simply meant to show something.  

Bringing the white farmers back?  No....zero intention to accomplish that.  It's just a PR thing and supposed to show that a mistake was made.  

Corona Worry Story

I watched (clip-wise) about 15 minutes of the John Lewis funeral.....which was held in his home state of Georgia.

So, what's interesting here, dozens of Congressional folks were there, with at least a hundred-odd journalists who are based out of Washington.

If you follow DC 'bans'....there's a list of states which require you.....upon returning to DC....to sit in a mandatory home quarantine for two weeks.  

Yes, Georgia is on that list. 

The list creator?  Mayor Bowser of DC.

The odds that some 'second-wave' starts up from this funeral?  It wouldn't surprise me.  But the hypocritical attitude here.....rules are for little people....not for us?  It just stands out.  

Just Observations

1.  The CDC says (you can't doubt them): School age kids with the Coronavirus have a one in a million risk of dying.  The same kids, with regular flu, have a 5 to 10 times higher risk of dying.

I know....it begs questions, but you just need to accept that fact.

Oh, and by the way....the same CDC says that for teenagers.....it's a better chance you will die via suicide or drugs, than by Covid-19.

2.  Who actually called the police in Minneapolis on George Floyd, with the counterfeit $20 bill issue?  Originally, people thought the store owner called....but no, this was a teenage employee of the store, who noted that store protocol was to report such incidents.  The owner, after the death and riots....said that he would have NEVER called the police on the counterfeit $20 bill.

Some parts of the story never make sense, and it's better not to get to attached to the truth.

3.  The speed on which the Portland riot folks will cease their operation?  On 19 August, the Oregon public school system will re-open, and the bulk of riot folks who do hold jobs....MUST return to work.  My humble guess is that 30 to 50 percent of the protest folks will disappear at that point.

4. I had to sit and watch some Bill Gates commentary today that waiting 48 hours for Covid-19 test results was ridiculous.

If you walk around Europe, you can get the 6-to-8 hour test result deal done for around $250.  The 12 to 24 hour test?  In the $130 range. 

5.  Number of registered Republican voters in Nevada? Around 530k.  Number of Democratic voters in Nevada?  Around 624k.  All others? 460k roughly.  Totally different kind of race in 2020, without McMuffin.  The odds are heavily in favor of Nevada going from the Hillary column to the Trump column in 2020.

If Harris is the VP Choice?

I'm mostly shaking my head.  There's probably five individuals I would have easily gone to instead of Harris, and probably gotten better 'traction' for the vote.  Since April, I figured that Warren or Bloomberg would be VP.  At a long-shot....I would have even put Mayor Pete into the situation.

But this was limited to the 'golden-rule'.....you had to be female and black.  Once you established that situation....you cut the potential down a great deal.

So the questions left?

Will there be a convention?  At this point, I'd say there might be forty people sent by the DNC, and some Twitter-type convention might occur.  I'd even go as far to suggest that Biden might hold a convention in his basement, with 12 DNC officials, Senator Harris, his wife, and local pizza kid.

For several months, I've suggested that Joe will reach a point after the convention, where he either has a heart-attack (fake) or says yeah....dementia is now a problem.  I still believe that may come, with Harris the one left to be the candidate in November.  If we get past 1 September, with Joe still there?  It'll really shock me.

As for Harris attracting voters?  She doesn't have the charisma, the charm, or the character.  If you wanted someone with less structure, and less potential than Hillary....then Harris is it. 

So I'm shaking my head.....this is an arranged poker hand to marginally run against Trump. 

Barr and the 'Circus'

I put between 90 and 120 minutes into watching the House hearing from yesterday, with AG Barr.  I came away with five observations:

1.  In the old days, prior to the internet, C$PAN would have covered this but you needed cable or satellite connectivity.  At the very most, maybe 300k Americans would have watched the hearing. 

Today?  Via at least ten different internet platforms, C$PAN, Fox Business, etc.....there were probably 10-million who watched elements of the hearing live, and probably another 10-plus million who watched clips later. 

A lot of people....independent-type voters, probably sat there and kept asking themselves where the drama was, and just viewed the whole thing as a 'circus-like' operation with 12-year-old kids trying to act like adults. 

2.  This exchange with Rep Hakeem Jeffries, where Jeffries wanted to play the fantasy game that Trump wouldn't leave office if the election went to Biden....was 5-star comical. 

3.  Once Barr laid down the card of the Republicans being the only ones against violence and destruction in the metropolitan cities....it really scorched the whole Democratic accomplishments of the Hearing.  It begs the question....is this a Democratic Party agenda item?

4.  Ineffective hearing?  In terms of bringing down Barr, or really damaging Trump?  It was barely felt.  The suggestion that Jerry Nadler can't lead a heavy-type critical Hearing?  Here's the thing, you go around the 24 Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee, and there's no one in the group who'd you grant five-status as a lawyer.  Most of them haven't stepped into a courtroom in twenty years. 

5.  It just wasn't much of a drama, with 'point of order' and 'reclaim time' being uttered on a constant basis.  It would help if the entire committee was made up of nine people total, and just end the 'drama' at the 2-hour point.