My Theory On Manifesto-Intellectuals

 After reviewing a fair bit on the shooting in Minneapolis this past week, with the transwoman....I'll offer my belief on these people who seem to think they are manifesto-intellectuals, and needing to write of the great wrongs in society, life and the 'demons' they need to defeat.

Most people go through their entire life....never writing a manifesto.   No one collects such data....if you asked me......less than five people per 10,000 get into this habit.  Most went to some college environment, or had a higher-than-average IQ.  

Once you finished writing your manifesto...whether three pages, or sixty pages....it's  rarely ever read by anyone, unless of course you go out in some blaze of glory, and then 3-million folks will read your manifesto.

I've probably read a total of seven manifestos over my entire life.   It's not really science stuff....collected data....or even factual.  I'd lean more toward it being perceived things.

Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf (published in 1925) a manifesto?  Yes.  Awful wordy, and mostly a statement of perceived things (things to blame).

The Communist Manifesto (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, a manifesto? Yes.  It fits for early 1800s civilization....not modern society.

Common Sense (1776) by Thomas Paine, a manifesto?  Absolutely.

Always written by someone mentally ill?  No....you can't make that case.  

Most always...the guy writing this...reaches some level where he wants you see things his way, and fix the wrongs.  

The one odd factor I've noted?  Well....it's roughly 99-percent of guys who write manifesto crap.  I have no idea why women avoid this....maybe they got better things  to do. Maybe they've already fixed most of the wrongs in society.

The Next Three Companies To Be Destroyed

 After thinking over it and pondering.....these are my next three picks to be in the Cracker-Barrel situation:

1.  Walgreens.  Combination of factors.....online competition hurting them.  One dismal CEO away from total destruction.

2.  AMC theaters.  Massive debt....people not hyped-up to see movies....streaming services are getting more attention.

3. Spirit Airlines.  They are evolving into an airline that survives (marginally) from bankruptcy one....faltering into bankruptcy two, and so  on. They might linger around for ten years but never getting out of the mess.

Ten Random Thoughts

 1.  There is no such thing of infinite tolerance. There's X-amount, and then it's zero.

2.  Audacity is a noun....meaning boldness or daring....mixed to a fair degree with a sense of disregard for conventional norms, rules, or consequences.  It used to be maybe once a day....you'd see an example (either positive or negative).  Today?  I see forty examples a day.

3.  A guy in the 1980s...had a small toolbag with 16 screwdrivers, wrenches, or tools....for normal house maintenance.  Today, it's tool-case, which probably holds 75 different tools.

4.  Governor Newsom has all of the hand-signal talents....required to be a professional 3rd base coach for the Dodgers.

5. The threat of consequences....ought to make you do a fair amount of planning, pondering, and wise-decision-making.

6.  I'm actually against conceal-and-carry (weapons). I think everyone ought to have a holster on their belt/shoulder, and have a minimum of six rounds to fire.

7.   The problem we have with Cracker Barrel and Bud Light....the board ends up hiring CEOs who really aren't consumers of their product.  It'd be like a vegan being hired to sell your sausage or bacon products.

8. It used to be...when someone said 'so-and-so' fled.....they meant they fled a civil war, tidal wave, or volcanic eruption.  These days....when they say 'so-and-so' fled....they mean cops were coming to ask questions.

9.  If you told  100 people today....to drive from the east coast to the west coast....without a GPS in the car....to only use a regular paper-map...most all would refuse.

10.  If you lack incentive to move up or progress....you don't have a job that will last more than 12 months.  Flipping burgers is not a life-long passion....trust me.  

On The Topic Of 'Crazy'

 From my college years....I took one simple class of psychology (101), with some retired mental health director/professor who'd spent the 1950s/1960s/1970s....running a couple of different clinics in Washington and Oregon.  

Most of these evenings....he'd give 20-odd stories of whacked-out people, and I usually left class by 9:30....in some daze...wondering  just how many nut-cases really exist in the world.  I'd be at midnight....thinking over things. It was the wrong evening class to take.

For the sake of eyeballing mental illnesses are typically categorized based on the DSM-5, which has 20 major categories of 'problems':

Neurodevelopmental Disorders (e.g., autism, ADHD)

Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic Disorders

Bipolar and Related Disorders

Depressive Disorders

Anxiety Disorders

Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders

Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders (e.g., PTSD)

Dissociative Disorders

Somatic Symptom and Related Disorders

Feeding and Eating Disorders (e.g., anorexia, bulimia)

Elimination Disorders

Sleep-Wake Disorders

Sexual Dysfunctions

Gender Dysphoria

Disruptive, Impulse-Control, and Conduct Disorders

Substance-Related and Addictive Disorders

Neurocognitive Disorders (e.g., dementia)

Personality Disorders

Paraphilic Disorders

Other Mental Disorders (catch-all for conditions not fitting elsewhere)

Over the past thirty years....I've of the mind that we need to force everyone through some mental-health class by age 15, and double-up by age 18 (in college).  

Four Things

 1.  After a while....you start to understand that Donald Trump is merely selecting  issues that a 60-to-40 mix of people support.  Once the Democrats hear the issue....they immediately go anti-Trump. I call it the Wylie Coyote-Roadrunner Complex....they can't win.

2.  I've probably wasted two hours of reviewing this transexual shooting episode in Minnesota.  Total nutcase....with his parents supporting his stupid behavior for several years.  At some point....he even says (in writing)...he wished he'd never been  brain-washed.

3.  31/Atlas, the weird space 'rock'  approaching us, and there's thousands of theories that I've read  over the past month.

The weirdest?  I noted yesterday...someone wrote up the idea that it's a alien vehicle....heading close to Mars....to terraform Mars (to drop something that would make it livable there).  Pretty nifty idea...but who sent the 'rock'?

4. “I can tape a stick on a horse’s head, but that doesn’t make it a unicorn.” Trump's quote on trans-people.

How To Destroy A Restaurant

 In the 1990s on Ramstein Air Base....there was a popular base-run Italian restaurant.  For lunch, they offered a buffet deal....around $7.99....all-you-could-eat spaghetti/pizza, with ice tea.

At the end of the 1990s...it went up to $9, and it still maintained popularity.  I would  take a guess between 11 AM and 1 PM.....they averaged around 350 to 400 guests.

Around 2003, the base-level management folks were freaking out that it was not churning out the profit it'd made in the 1990s. They had already bumped the lunch price up to around $10.50.  

The manager up-and-left.

The new guy dumped the recipe for everything....went to cheap ingredients....keeping the price near $10.

Almost immediately, people grumbled.  The daily number of folks?  It dropped to 150 within six weeks.

The new manager?  He left about four months into this episode. 

The next manager continued the trend, and the daily count fell to around 75-to-100.   

At this point, I quit using the place. 

What should have happened? They should have gone to $15 a meal....but that probably would have freaked folks out to  some degree.

This Lucy Connolly Story From The UK, And Where Things Might Land

 Lucy Connolly was a Brit 42-year-old former childcare person from Northampton, UK, who was jailed for 31 months in October 2024 after pleading guilty to inciting racial hatred. 

How the incitement occurred?  Well....on 29 July 2024, three girls were murdered in Southport by a young juvenile lad.  Later....she posted a tweet calling for "mass deportation" and urging people to "set fire" to hotels housing asylum seekers, amid false rumors the attacker was an immigrant. 

The post, viewed 310,000 times, was deleted within hours, but she was arrested on August 6.  

The prosecution made a 'deal'....which she would admit guilt, and accept X-sentence.  Well....the judge decided there was no deal and gave out the most harsh sentence possible....to  set an example.

So she served about 40-percent of the sentence.  Back in July....President Trump took up interest, and this messy situation had to be corrected....so she was released from HMP Peterborough in August 2025 after serving 40-percent of her sentence.

Where things might now lead?  She probably can sue 'someone', but I would imagine there's bitter feelings, and politically....this is the kind of thing you can't really clean up.  Lot of Brits now feel like they need a 'freedom-of-speech'.

In the present landscape....there's also financial folks talking of a massive financial  collapse coming....toward the end of 2025 in the UK. They don't have a level of income....to cover the massive present and future budget.  Some folks believe a massive taxation package would have to come....on the backs of the wealthy and companies....instead of cutting the budget.

At the very least...a new national election in 2026....is pretty likely.  

With Trump around....he might go and utter that maybe it's time to bring a 1776 revolution to the UK....incorporating them into the US.  It wouldn't be serious but he's  said such commentary for Canada to be a US state....so it wouldn't be wild to think the UK itself could be made a US state.

Might be something to watch unfold over the next 12 months.