Migrant Story

 Gallup went out and did a survey....to estimate up how many non-Americans around the Caribbean and Latin America would want to pack up and move to the US.

From the 33 countries on the list (remember, this doesn't include Africa, Asia, or the Middle East)....they figure 42-million people are 'interested'.

If you included three other regions (Africa, Asia and the Middle East)?  I would take a humble guess that those three regions would add up to over 150-million.  So you add the 42 and 150 numbers up, and you come close to 192-million.

So the logical question here to ask....just using the 42-million number only....how easy would the group be assimilated into America?

Just looking at the population of South Carolina currently (5.14-million)....they'd probably bump to around 6-million.  

Using Tennessee?  Currently at 6.8-million?  With incoming, they'd come fairly close to 7.5-million.

The fact that most would only settle where real jobs are located?  So you count almost figure Montana and Utah....get almost no bump-up.  States like Texas or California?  They'd likely get seven to ten million new residents each.  

Are there even homes or jobs for a 'bump-up'?  No....if you sit and think about it....neither exist in the numbers required.

The fact that tens of thousands of Africans are viewing Twitter or Facebook daily, and seeing encouraging news of migrants from Peru making their way into Mexico, and to the border?  

The crew around Biden really don't grasp or understand the depth of this issue and how far they can turn this into a deep pit.

So, it's just something to ponder and wonder about.  When 2024 comes around....just how big a mess will migration be, and how angry will the public be at that point?

Then you come to this one problem....what if the others (the Africans for example) find a way to get a freighter seat and land somewhere in Honduras or Costa Rica?

Baltimore

 For the past month, I've been following the woes of the Baltimore city school system, and how crapped-out it's become.  So I'm going to lay out what really happened and why it's 'unsolvable'. 

After Baltimore emerged from WW II....around 1950....they were at the peak of population and economics.  As the 1960s arrived....over a ten-year period (ending at 1970), they'd lost around 4-percent of the population.  

By 1980, urban decay had started to arrive....roughly 13-to-14 percent of the city left.  At this point, from 1980....the decline of the school system started up.  Part of this is due to the population shift....neighborhoods in decline....tax revenue is a freefall....and everyone trying to do, with less.  I should mention this as well....cocaine arrived in the 1980s.

The teacher's union....whether grasping this or not....were recruiting and hiring teachers with addiction problems.  The quality slipped.

By the 1990s....the older generation teachers were aware of the discipline problems....the poorer quality teachers coming in....student behavior crapped-out, and lax standards.

In this era...you marginally educated a kid, and at the end of the year....even if he was only 70-percent ready for the 5th grade....you passed him anyway.  The next year....that same kid was passed to 6th grade....probably only 60-percent ready for the requirements.  

In twenty years, even if you recruited 4-star teachers (young and out of college)....it only takes two to three years for the teacher to realize the false atmosphere that exists.  At that point, you submit your papers, and leave (quietly).

If you look around the landscape....probably half the kids from Baltimore who are at age 15....probably have the school level of a 5th grade kid. At best....at age 18....they might be at the level of the 7th grade.  

Resolving this?  What can you do with a 16 year old kid who is four to five years behind the level he should be at?  The bulk of teachers in the city for this job?  You'd have to fire all of them and start from scratch....mandating weekly drug tests.  

My gut feeling...it's not worth resolving.  If you were a parent with a 5 year old kid....the best thing to do is leave the city....don't look back.  

New Border-Problem 'Fixer'?

 Yesterday, without a lot of words....President Biden appointed VP Harris to head the border-crisis effort. The press wanted to ask questions but were shuffled out of the situation.

Harris?  The crisis?

First, the entire crisis revolves around three key issues: (1) migrants believe the border is totally open and Biden won't shut it down to them crossing, (2) more than any point in the past fifty years, juvenile migrants are crossing....which the border patrol guys are marginally created to handle this type of situation, and (3) surrounding states of the border region don't want this issue to linger and get bigger.

Second, the resume of Harris for jobs like this?  Non-existent.  She's not a deals-person.  She's never managed a crisis of sizeable proportion.  And she does not have the means to say that the border will be upgraded and shutdown for illegal crossings.  So, other than photo opportunities, and casual chats with the government of Mexico....I don't think much of anything will occur.

Third, and this is the blunt 'truth'....Harris has about 30 days to deal with this and get the numbers down.  By May, warm weather will start up, and the current crossings will probably double.  

Footnote: I read this morning some PhD guys studied things in Central America, and they say around 42-million residents want to cross the border.  If this group number is true....Biden is probably looking at a five-star mess, and it'll burn through all of his 'must-do' lists.  The mere suggestion that you might have 1.5-million migrants arrive in California over the next 18 months....should scare a fair number of people.  Course....250k new migrant residents for Alabama might scare a few folks.  

What Happens When Trump's Social Media Device is Delivered?

 Over the past two months, I've spent a fair amount of time pondering this question....so I have three observations:

1.  Out of 70-million voters....I would imagine that forty-million minimum....will have accounts within a hundred days of opening up.  Even from overseas....there might be another ten-million minimum.

2.  Will these Trumpsters (my name for members) keep  their Facebook and Twitter account?  Probably.  But instead of browsing forty times a week each over at Facebook and Twitter....you will see a remarkable decline in users/viewers at Trumpster use of Facebook/Twitter.  In my mind, they are giving up around 10-percent of their 2021 traffic business.  In 2022, it might double that.

3.  If Facebook and Twitter appear to only have liberal viewers?  Well, this invites a unique problem....that they are one-sided on political views, and it's likely to hurt the 2022 business cycle for them.  

At some point, AI (artificial intelligence) will have a meeting with the leadership of Facebook and Twitter....noting that there is no opposite view-point to their 'product', and then ask....do you want us to create fake news to improve the viewership?  

You can imagine this chat with the AI system....who has figured out that business is down and you need to bring customers back.  Zuckerberg will be standing there....mostly laughing over AI being this smart, and telling AI to just shut up and carry out a one-sided business plan situation.  

As for Biden and team for 2022's election?  Maybe he'll sign up as a Trumpster member....in order to read the critique of his 'team'.  Doctor Jill won't be happy over that.  

The Thing About Burning Books

 It's just an odd thing you notice....countries or societies that burn or ban books....usually go through a collapse period, a revolution, or some dramatic coup d-etat.  It's like a 99-percent chance that something clicks, and you wake up a year or two later....in utter shock over the missing 'government'.   

My Worst Ever Accommodations

 If you count out the camping experience during a tornado 'alert' in Alabama....then you come to this seven-day deployment to Honduras for an exercise.  

The Air Force, in the mid-80s....had sent me to Honduras to play out some headquarters exercise.  They dumped us at some tent-city....the old fashion canvas tents that were still of the Vietnam era quality.

The mosquito netting?  Non-existent.

Next to some snaky-looking terrain?  Well...about sixty feet away.

Daily temperature?  Near 95 degrees and 70-percent humidity. 

Warnings about spiders and such?  Yeah.

I was among the 'lucky' ones....another hundred-odd guys had arrived five weeks prior to set the entire camp up, and their enthusiasm by the 5th week was marginally around non-existent.

The minute the exercise broke up....we got our bags, ran to the airfield and in two hours....were aboard some cargo plane going back home.  

So I kinda look over the photos of this migration-kid's center in Texas, and see a pretty nifty deal.  No mosquitos apparently.  No snakes.  No spiders.  AC apparently in use.  Three meals a day.  

I don't really see much negative over the conditions.  

Why Alabamians Get into Dear Abby or Dear Ann Landers

 Most Alabamians, after getting through the front-page, and local murders....usually go straight to the Dear Abby or Dear Ann Landers section.  It could be a seven-page description of some problem with a guy and his ex-girlfriend....the in-law troubles...the loser cousin who has confessed to 300-odd sins since age sixteen....the torrid love affair with Thai lady down at the garden shop, or the break-up of a forty-year marriage.  

It's just that we look for juicy gossip that go beyond our house, or family.

If you were to wander into a barbershop around 8 AM....there's odds that the barber will bring up the latest story, and want to chat for three hours about some guy who got into a sizzling affair with the local Baptist minister's wife.  

Part of this issue is that we live pretty routine and boring lives.  Occasionally, the transmission fails....sometimes, the neighbor comes over to chat over their cousin in state-prison...now and then, the mail-man comes by and you chat with him over food poisoning affair at the local grill....off and on, the UPS guy stops and gives you a two-minute update on his ex-wife who ran off to Orlando to hook up with a Micky Mouse-actor.  

So the Dar Abby thing gives us hope that wild things are just around the corner....it could happen to us.  Any day now....some new gal might show up at the gas station and give us the double-wink then walk over to introduce herself to you....telling you her name is Alessandra or Chantel.  Or maybe some Italian guy moves two houses down, and mows his yard in skimpy shorts....attracting a dozen local gals to come over and offer up some ice tea.