My Lion Story

 For about 30 hours here in Germany....we had this worried situation developing....over a lion being loose.

So to tell the story.....a woods-sort-of-guy set up a camera on a trail, and a photo was taken....in the region between Berlin and Brandenburg.  To be honest, it's fairly wooded and what you'd typically see is wild boar.  

This photo comes off the guy's camera.....appearing to be a female lion.

I've seen the digital photo....kinda grainy, and for me....having seen around 50 female lions in my life (between zoos, and a South African safari).....I judged it to be a female lion.

This got people highly disturbed and the cops were active.....telling folk to stay in their house while the professionals hunted for the lion.

The big question....where did the lion come from?  No zoo or private folks (circus crowd) admitted any lost 'cats'.

This AM, the anti-lion-believers stood up and said 'no way'.....it can't be a lion.  

By noon, the anti-lion-believers had convinced the local mayors and police of this....so the 'hunt' was called off, with the word being that whatever we saw in the photo....was a wild boar.

On the wild boar idea....one-to-ten belief for me?  I give it a '3'.  

Could it have been a hoax?  Well....yeah, I'm leaning toward some guy having a pet female lion, and working with some crew....this camera was known, and they had the lion walking up to the path.  

Now?  Lot of Germans still walking about the lion story, and there's probably 10-percent of folks who still hold a conspiracy-belief that the lion is real, while the anti-conspiracy folks hold the fake lion belief.

Footnote: I'm probably one of the few Alabama folks who has been to twenty-odd zoos and safari parks in my life.  If you asked me from 500 feet away to judge if this was a lion or not....yeah, I could do that.  But once I noted it was a lion....that 500 feet wasn't enough space between me and the lion, and I'd be looking for a tree, or a tour-bus to enter.  

Blackouts?

 

I sat and read through this story...one single time.  Basically, the journalist has pumped-up the idea that maybe if we did have an occasional blackout.....this might in some minor way change the perceived climate problem.

My issue?  Well....lets say that we went to a blackout for 12 hours every two weeks, and after a year.....we determined that it barely did anything.

Would the same crowd then suggest a blackout every week....mostly at night....for a year?  And if that had marginal change....would it go to a blackout once a day for three hours?

My belief is that after five years of playing the blackout game...we'd reach the point of agreeing...there wasn't much of anything gained.  

But here's the problem....there are people willing to talk about radical changes without much of a realistic 'gain' being shown as a fact.  

My dad was born in the early 1930s, and it's basically a couple of years into this era that electricity finally arrived.  I'm of the first generation of this family to have grown up since day one of birth....with electricity being 'normal'.  I'm also in the same generation having air conditioning being 'normal'.  I'm also of the generation where ice cream isn't considered a luxury.  

Convincing me of the blackout idea?  It's going to be awful hard.  

This Low IQ Discussion

 In my Air Force years, I worked around a lot of 'odd-people'.  I'd reserve one group as the low IQ folks....which I'd put around a dozen folks into this special group.

By low IQ?  I mean folks that weren't going to achieve more than 70 on the general IQ test.  

The Air Force will tell you that people need to have a high school diploma and achieve x-score (36) on their ASVAB tests.  Generally, if you score 60....you are in a high IQ group.  (Max on ASVAB?  99)

These people weren't necessarily stupid....but if you had some problem or situation develop....they were generally the last people you wanted to resolve the issue.

These were also the people who saw technology as a boundary.  

There's a lot of debate over how many folks are in the low IQ levels.  Me?  I'd suggest that 10-percent of people fall in the IQ of 60 or less group.  Is this a big deal?  Normally, I'd say no....but I think a lot of them have crept past high school, and some have even gone onto college....getting a degree while being a low IQ person.  Then you start to wonder.....with the degree....did they move to be a teacher later in life? 

Just makes you wonder if this is the product of our generation.....education dimwits....motivating lesser IQ kids....to proceed on and succeed in life?

Yeah, About That Caesar Guy

 We tend to get zero Roman history.  You can blame it on historians....college intellectuals who think it's worthless, or modern TV.

So a historical story.

Around the year 60 BC....Caesar was turning around 30 years old.  He'd led the Roman Army to victory in the Gallic Wars (eight year period, against Germanic, French and Brit tribal unit).  He'd also done in his opponent in a Rome civil conflict (Pompey).  

You can say around 50 BC....Caesar had taken charge and was emperor of Rome.

About six years into this....some folks in Rome felt that Caesar had gone too far, and was not going to easily retire....to give someone else a chance.

Day in and day out....lot of hyped up feelings in Rome.  

Around 44 BC....a group had decided that what Caesar was trying to create was a monarchy, and it was a terrible set of woes facing the 'insider' crew.

So they decided they had to murder/kill Caesar.  I should add....it was not clear what would come to replace Caesar or his management style.

Chaos arrived....week after week....things seemed to be in turmoil with Caesar gone.

So a nephew of Caesar arrived...Octavius.

What you can generally say of Octavius....every single thing brought up in terms of 'fear' over what Caesar was conjured up and people felt he was going to do (not necessarily what he did do)....came to occur.  

The republic?  It did end.

A dictatorship?  Yeah, it came.

So this whole conspiracy thing....to get rid of Caesar....brought in the worst possible ending?  Yeah.

Funny how history tells you a story.

Just a lot of Greek and Roman history that we might want to go and review at this point.  

IQ Issue

 

To be honest, I had suspicions back in the 2002-to-2004 era....that IQ was decreasing.  You could see it with 18-to-20 year old Air Force recruits that I worked around.

What I tend to blame?  Poor quality teachers/instructors....high school and college level.

I'd even suggest that 20 to 40-year old 'professionals' are in a marginal IQ 'path'.  

It's like some business journalist trying to explain the Biden economics 'idea', and after three minutes....you feel like you are dealing with a 7-year old child.

Is anything going to change?  I seriously doubt it.

Even if we were worried about this.....is there anything that could be done at this point?  No.

Four Things I Tend To Believe

 1.  I think someone could squat in the White House and crap on the floor, with the Secret Service admitting they can't connect to anyone, and folks would just accept that it's a 'Scooby-Doo-mystery'.  

2.  I think there's well over 1,000 fragile Americans who'd get all hyped-up if they had to watch the 'Green Acres' TV show, so you'd have to advise trigger-warnings prior to the start of each episode.

3.  The NBA is talking about a 4-point 'line'.  Actually, I was thinking of having six spots on the floor where a successful shot would be 7-points.  Then we could have some of those 230 to 210 point games (for the winner).

4.  It's painfully obvious that 'Bidenomics' was invented in a DC bar, by four drunk economic's professors, and the fifth person (non-drinker, the driver) was a White House aide who wrote down the whole formula to later explain to Joe.   

Seven Humble Thoughts

 1.   I don't think this writer-actor strike will end any time 'soon' (meaning....we will get to the traditional 'new' TV season, and nothing new).  Both the writers and actors will be shocked over the delay tactics.

I also think we will get a dose of TV shows from the 1960s/1970s/1980s from ABC, CBS and NBC.  

2.  Roger Stone (buddy of Donald Trump) has now said that Michelle Obama will be the 'big' candidate for President in 2024.  Honesty, it wouldn't shock me.

3.  I have an opinion about hefty and extremely overweight people flying in planes.  If you can't step into a plane toilet and do your 'business'.....you probably probably shouldn't fly.  

4.  This past week, I was in a shopping district and noticed some guy in a t-shirt, with two watches on his arm.  For some reason, this has been on my mind a good bit.  Can't imagine why you'd have two watches being necessary.

5.  For this first Republican debate being planned (the one that Trump won't attend)....it's now plainly obvious that Pence doesn't have the numbers to attend.  In fact, it may just be DeSantis and Vivek.

6.  There is a report that says fingerprints were found on the White House cocaine baggy.  

7. Since 2000 (23 years), there's only about 10 TV shows that I consider of quality: Lost, Breaking Bad/Saul, The Office, The Wire, Battlestar Galactica, Southpark, Game of Thorns, Barry, Squid Game, Boardwalk.