Ten Odd Things About Lee Harvey Oswald

 1.  He never graduated from high school.  Highest level completed....ninth grade.

2.  He could not spell or write in a coherent fashion.

3.  His IQ level suggested around age 16 was estimated to be 118.

4.  Just about everyone who knew him in high school....said he was temperamental and it took very little to set him off.

5.  The apartment Oswald was given in Minsk (for 13 months of living there) was a 1 room situation, with a bathroom in the hallway.  He never paid any rent.

6.  The 13 months of employment while in Minsk?  He was a lathe-operator for a TV-manufacture operation.  Remember, these were the old fashion TVs with a lot of wood in the system.

7.  Oswald's job in Dallas?  Basically to take book orders....find the books....putting them in a box to be shipped out.

8.  Upon completing bootcamp, Oswald only fired twice for the range.  First time.....middle of the pack.  Second time....marginally passed.

9.  Oswald finished the Marines with a hardship situation, but had a honorable discharge.

10.  The ship that Oswald sailed to Europe, to exit the US, was a freighter.

Bible Review Story

 The Keller Independent School District in Texas has gone to remove 41 books from the school library....while they do some type of review on content guidelines (handed down by the board).

So, here's the thing....among the 41 books....the Bible did make the list.

The chief question?  Appropriate reading material for juveniles?  

I sat and contemplated this.  

First, I admit....there's a ton of violent episodes that fall into play with the Bible, and for fragile people....you probably should avoid it.  

Second, it's mostly a male-dominated situation.  Out of 1,700-odd names in the Bible....only 170 are female.  That might bother some fragile folks.

Third, no matter how you detail Revelations....it just seems to be some guy writing it who might have sipped a bit too much wine, or smoked a fair amount of Cannabis.

Fourth, this Genesis chapter leaves about 700 unanswered questions laying there, and for some fragile folks....it's way too much to grasp.

Fifth, this guy Moses....seems to be awful blunt on management technique. 

Sixth, on hardships....the whole book is pretty demanding that you stand....take on purpose in life and not lay back to play 'victim-status'.  For fragile folks....you'd have to abandon your feelings.  

Seventh, this mercy and compassion stuff....dumped almost on every single page....is an awful lot to handle as a fragile person.

What'll happen in this review?  I suspect a number of folks will say that the Bible should only be read in youth groups where there is supervision, and some moderator there to handle fragile folks who might fall apart.  Also, there probably ought to be some safe 'zone' created for fragile folks to escape to.....if readings were too much for them to handle.  

My Voyage PTSD Story

 Before Covid came along, my wife felt it would be wonderful to do a cruise (we'd never done that type of trip before).  

My wife and I often differ on traveling arrangements.  She is more of a frugal-basic-travel, and I'm one to view trips as a special operation where things should work (mechanically).  In simple terms....being frugal for me....is not an option.

So she arranged this voyage.  There was a travel special she saw....some 30-year old liner which would pick you up in the Den Haag area of the Netherlands, sail to the Fjords of Norway, sail back and spend a day 30 minutes by train to London, then return to Amsterdam.

I gazed at this and kept quiet.....there were at least ten violations of common sense.  Mixing a few Germans  on a vessel with mostly Brits....was just one of those problem areas.  

The all-you-can-drink package was not that clear, and we were unable to get the 'box' to click....so I wasted two hours over the phone for a week....trying to get the travel people to add this. 

The trip started from Frankfurt's Airport....which had around an hour delay (weather).  We arrived in the Amsterdam Airport to discover it was one of the most complicated airports in Europe.  

The hired driver to pick us up?  That took about an hour to find the guy.  I'll just say that he was not a Dutch guy, or a European.  

Upon the arrival at the dock?  The five-minute check-in took around 30 minutes instead.

The cabin?  It was outdated and cramped.  In the closet sat two life-preservers which had to be a minimum of 15 years old.  

The all-you-could-drink package?  It was some 3rd-world booze....no more than 12-percent alcohol....so you could order gin sours all day long....forty of them, and never get more than marginally drunk.  I think on the 3rd day, from 9 AM to 11 PM....I hit that 40 gin sour point.

The food?  There were two dining areas....one that served the luxury meal, and one that was for average folks.  You had to pay extra on your reservation (three months prior) to get on the luxury list.  Upon discovery of this....I had to slip 40 Euro to some Philippine guy to move us to the right list. I'm not saying food was that much better, but it went from 2.1 stars to 2.5 stars.

The briefing on the evening of the first day about evacuation business....manning of the life-boats, etc?  Well....we had to show up with two antique life vests, and sit for 15 minutes to get the lecture.  "Marvin", our Philippine guy who did cabin clean-up....was supposed to lead our rescue raft.  My level of trust was marginal that this would all work.

As the vessel parted from the dock around 8 PM....there was this 'bump'.  The vessel had a five-second shake.  I suggested to my wife that something wasn't right.  It felt like the propeller broke.

For about an hour, we made way on some canal, and eventually docked where 'Scuba-diver-Joe' came out and assessed the propeller.  It'd hit something....made a tree....maybe a golf cart....maybe a WW II submarine.  'Scuba-diver-Joe' eventually said things were fine, and off we sailed.  Time wasted while 'Joe' drove over and examined things?  Maybe three hours....or four gin sours (depending on how you want to count time).

Day two would be the time to assess breakfast.  On a scale of one to ten....it was a three.  The bacon must have come out of a WW II rations kit.  The eggs had a funny sodium-like taste.  The coffee was stuff that we'd had in the Air Force chow hall. 

I did my best to sip through gin sours, but never got past twenty on this day.  That evening, we went to a Brit comedian show.....where the guy told jokes mostly from the 1980s.  To be honest, we wasted a lot of time....doing mostly nothing.

That night....around midnight, as I was sleeping....'Captain Frank' came on the intercom in the room.  My heart got to beating and I was in some Desert Storm PTSD moment....thinking we'd hit the iceberg and needed to trust on 'Marvin' and that stupid rescue boat.

No....it was actually worse than that.  The blade was screwed up, and would never make it to Norway.  'Captain Frank' was turning the vessel around....in simple terms, the trip was now cancelled. 

It was a brief message.  Then my wife wanted to talk about this...for at least 90 minutes.  There's not much to exchange on this type of discussion, but she rambled on about this and that.  I suggested at some point maybe the boat is leaking....which led to various questions about how you'd know it was leaking.  That probably didn't help settle matters.  

Breakfast the next day was a pretty interesting situation.  Numerous Brits I came into contact with that morning....admitted that the midnight thing had caused heart ailments and several folks had to see the ship doctor.

At least 500 people wanted a detailed report at this point....what we were going to get, and how would we return home.  No one knew much of anything.

The vessel was moving back to Amsterdam at three-quarter speed.  

I sipped through forty-odd gin sours that day, and eating around a dozen ice cream sticks....avoiding the garbage lunch menu.

Day four, we were at the dock, but they were openly discussing the problems.  No one would say anything about the going home arrangement or the mess.  We lounged all day aboard the vessel....with me sipping twenty-odd gin sours.

The next day (day five), we were given a piece of paper to explain a free trip in the future.  A bus would come by around 8:30 and take us to the train station in Amsterdam.  The arrangements?  Nothing.  They were basically dumping us at the train station and letting us figure out the way back.  

I knew some things of the station and led the wife to the appropriate counter....getting first-class rail tickets, and an arrangement for a early afternoon return to central Germany.  From this point, I was in chaos planning and being frugal wasn't on my agenda.  

We then handed the bags to a storage area, and walked around Amsterdam for three hours.  Breakfast?  Well....McDonalds. 

The refund?  Well....it was a piece of paper to say a free trip would come in the next six months.  The train fare?  They agreed to pay, with no issue.

Six months would pass and I discovered one day....the liner was bankrupt and folded up.  The free trip? Gone.

The wife bringing up another voyage?  Yeah, I kinda hinted in strong words....one was enough.  It's funny....about once a year, I will awaken at 1 AM.....from some dream where Captain Frank is announcing the evacuation is underway, and we boarded some stupid raft.  I refer to it as the voyage PTSD thing.  I mostly go back to sleep dreaming of sipping through a gin sour.

The highlight of the whole trip?  This was a voyage with mostly retirees (mostly British retirees).  Some guy had brought along his 20-year old mistress, while the ex-wife of his was with her group from the village.  At some point, with enough alcohol in both women (one 20 years old....a bit of a Cinderella-bitchy gal and other 65 years old....who seemed to have threatened a few people in life verbally)....they were getting close to a 'cat-fight', and insulting each other left and right.  I watched from thirty feet away and must admit....it was the highlight of the whole trip.  Neither did much, but insult each other ('you whore this, you whore that').  I don't think the husband/ex-husband grasped much of anything....he was mostly passed out.  

I assessed that he was a lucky guy....to have that many women fighting over him. 

(Note: it is my belief that shot glass for the gin added....had the bottom half of the glass filled, so you never got more than half-a-shot of booze in drink.  If it'd been a true gin sour, with the waves threshing around....I probably would have thrown up a dozen times.

Recruitment Issue

 Yesterday, I spent some time reading over an article at Epoch Times....discussing the approaching crisis with the Pentagon....recruiting volunteers for the US military is reaching a massive problem.

To simplify this....the recruitment folks are doing their best to sell the current military, and noting that kids around the time to graduate high school....have virtually no interest.  Why?

This goes to three problems. First, the woke and pronoun stuff isn't selling well.  Second, there is apparently a lot of push for kids to go off to trade schools, community colleges or universities.  Third, the patriotism angle business is at all-time low.

Frankly, if I were 18 today...the last thing on Earth that I'd go and consider....is four years in the military.  You'd have to watch every comment...every criticism...that you made in front of woke/transgender folks.  It's just not worth the hassle.

So this brings me to the beef of this talk....I suspect that a major crisis will exist by the summer of 2024 with the Pentagon.  You could be talking about missing over half the recruitment numbers, and some units unable to filed an operational unit for deployment.  

How can you un-do the woke/pronoun thing? I don't think it's possible.  So I'm suggesting by 2030 (with the trend continuing)....the US military will be half the size of today (1.4-million today), meaning they will be around 700,000.  There will be no reason to maintain the number of bases/stations around the globe.  

I also think daily efforts will center around disgruntled people threatening to sue in some public court over insults, and leadership chaos being a normal thing.

I looked at the US Army bonus program.  Basically, it's a package that centers around 3, 4, 5 or 6 years, and a max of $50,000 depending on what profession you enter as.  My gut feeling is that it will be revamped in 2023 to $75,000.....with another revamp by 2025 to $100,000.  For some folks, the money offering won't matter.

In some way, it's funny how this problem developed, and how it cannot be resolved.

Q-and-A

 1.  Worst question to ask President Biden?

When were you briefed that there was missing nuclear material from the White House?  He'll pause there and realize that if he says only AFTER the warrant was served on Trump...it's a big problem.  If he says from March of 2021.....that's a big problem.

2.  If the bulk of the documents taken by the FBI on Trump's compound....were attorney-client privilege documents....are they of any value?

No.  It renders the DoJ case in using any of the info for any case....as useless.  Course, I think they know that already.

3.  Did Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton lose nuke codes?

Well....yeah, but lets not bring up that subject.

Three Things

 1.  You hear the term tyranny these days.  I think if you had ten people to sit down and ask them to define the word....nine of them would draw a blank.  But they seem to have read the script a good bit.

2.  If you told people that the Revolutionary War was mostly an insurrection....they'd be utterly shocked.

3.  With that one single bombing effort on the Crimea last week by the Ukrainians.....traffic is still more than 90 hours later....on the outflow to leave out of the one-and-only bridge from the island heading east.  Some say the traffic jam is more 20 miles long to leave.  All pro-Russian folks in fear.

How I Think The Trump 'Game' Will Play Out

 Charges will occur over handling classified.  Court appearances for this won't occur until probably first quarter of 2023.  

One charge will be used and eventually stick with some type of conviction....with no jail-time.  Term of felony conviction will be used.

So by the end of 2023, as Trump would start to prepare for the primary period of 2024....at least eight states will have legislation that a convicted felony guy can't run (figure both California and NY state into the group of eight).

A group of at least twenty states will then come to say that if you decline Trump on the ballot, then there is no election for President possible, and offer the idea of no Presidential ballot period (meaning not Trump or the Democratic contender).

From the remaining twenty-odd states, this becomes a crisis period as they openly discuss the matter of invalidating the Presidential election.  

Under my scenario....the Electoral College situation falls apart, and the states send their delegations to January of 2025.....to vote state by state....where Trump wins.  

At least five states then contend that it's time to part ways as a nation, and the conflict just intensifies.