Random Thoughts

• Get it in writing. Verba volant, scripta manent. (Spoken words fly away, written words are permanent.)
• You can't win the lottery if you don't buy tickets, and you miss 100% of the shots you never take. But don't get goofy buying lottery tickets too often.
• There is nothing worth going to jail for. Nothing. Govern yourself accordingly.
• If you have a choice between being lucky or smart, choose lucky and ask for 2 more wishes.
• Instead of coveting what others have, tend to your own corner of the vineyard.
• Give respect when due and ask it of others.
• Don't let your mouth write checks your ass can't cash.
• There are old pilots and there are bold pilots. But there are no old bold pilots.
• If you're the boss, treat those below you as if it was vice-versa.
• When doing something complex repeatedly, get a system and master it.
• The words please and thank you buy more than you will ever know.
• Give thanks to your creator and the people that brought you to this moment.
• Do random acts of kindness. Do them anonymously if possible.
• Remember, what goes around comes around.
• If you live by the sword, you will die by the sword.
• Revenge is a dish you should never serve cold at all; that's a job for karma.
• Beware of shadenfreude (joy at others misfortunes); what goes around ...
• Fix the airplane on the ground, not in the air.
• Define the problem, define the goal ... and then implement action to achieve the goal. But don't keep moving the goal.
• Don't eat crap food regularly.
• Dispose of your trash properly and recycle as much as possible.
• Monitor your alcohol consumption, lest it consume you.
• Never interrupt your opponent when he is making a mistake.
• There are lies and there are lies. Know the difference.
• Measure twice, cut once.
• When speeding, don't be first and don't be last.
• Unless you're female, never shake a man's hand sitting down.
• If you're lucky enough to drive in the Indy or Daytona 500, don't turn right.
• Remember the golden rule: Those with the gold make the rules.
• Unless you can run faster than 3000 feet per second, don't run from the cops.
• Those that can afford it the least will pay the most.
• Beware of telephone callers with a Calcutta accent.
• If you serve food at a party, go through the garbage looking for your silverware after. Yeah, I was surprised too.
• Discard derogatory racial language from your vocabulary.
• The phone rings both ways.
• When approaching another car, boat, or airplane head-on, veer right.
• Dislike is okay. Hate is not.
• Know where you are on the ladder.
• If you convince yourself you can't do something, you're right. You can't.
• Leave things the way you found them.
• Choose your words carefully.
• Be aware of the coefficient of friction, especially in wet and cold temperatures.
• Eschew obfuscation.
• Sign your name to your work. Anonymous authors are usually cowards.
• Proofread your words twice.
• Beware the pitfalls of the stock market; don't spend more than you can afford to lose.
• When you're right, avoid telling people I told you so unless they really deserve it.
• When you're wrong, admit it and try to repair things. And then move on.
• Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
• Never refuse a breath mint when offered.
• Give of your time to those who deserve it.
• Swearing is okay sometimes. You'll know when sometimes is; it's when you swear.
• There is no such thing as painless dentistry, but going to the dentist is far better than not going.
• Money may not be able to buy happiness, but it can buy most everything else including misery.
• Today's speed warning sign is tomorrows speeding ticket in the same location.
• Resist the temptation to joke with the cop when he asks if you are drunk.
• Remember... no matter how smart you are, there is always somebody smarter.
• Don't buy tickets to a discount bungee-jumping event.
• Sign the organ donor part of your drivers license.
• The hardest part of writing a book is not the writing, it's the editing.
• If counting to 10 doesn't work, keep counting.
• You never get a second chance to make a good first impression.
• Don't tell the funeral director See you soon. He just might.
• You may not be able to take it with you, but you can probably wear the hell out of it out before you leave.
• 86.377% of statistics are made up on the spot.
• Never hand a knife to somebody who already stabbed you in the back once.
• Sometimes, winning is losing and vice-versa.
• The news media may be free, but it is far from responsible.
• Teach your children well.
• Trust your gut instincts. They have nothing to gain from lying to you.
• Choose your charities and vices carefully.
• Act surprised at surprise parties thrown for you.
• Remember, slim chance and fat chance mean the same thing.
• Never say never.
• Don't be a complete horse's ass. Being one partly is bad enough.
• Life is tough. It's even tougher when you're stupid.
• Money is a wonderful slave, but a horrible master.
• A mistake repeated more than once is a choice.

And finally ... Be careful what you pray for; you might just get it. Sometimes more tears are shed over answered prayers than over unanswered prayers.

The Leper Colony

When I visited the grocery store yesterday, I wondered if a Hollywood film crew was shooting a remake of The Getaway. That's what it looked like, anyway. We're all lepers to each other now.

Today (April 17, 2020) marks the one-month anniversary of living in the New York State leper colony. Non-essential businesses have been closed for a month as of this date because of Governor Andrew Corona's executive order commonly known as the pause order. Yesterday, he extended it for another month (until May 15) and that will mark 2 months of business closure; possibly more if he decides to extend it yet again. Also, as of today the residents of this wonderful state are being ordered to wear protective face masks over our noses and mouth. Somehow this is supposed to slow or stop the spread of corona virus. It reminds me of when I first started flying a twin-engine airplane with deicing boots and hot props. Oh, I felt good about about having them available until the first time I actually needed them and discovered how worthless they really were. The only thing they did was to boost the confidence of inexperienced pilots like I was at the time, and I hope you get the feel-good comparison of how masks make you feel versus how effective they really are. You're probably only fooling yourself.

There are a few things that should be acknowledged at this point:

• The odds of you coming into contact with CV at some point are high
• There is no such thing as a non-essential business
• Don't believe all the data about CV - it's being manipulated

Yes, you are more likely than not to eventually come into contact with CV. The odds are higher in densely-populated areas and conversely lower in rural areas. But one thing is certain: If you think you can hide forever from this pathogen, you are wrong. In some cases, dead wrong ... especially if you have other medical issues. For these people, sheltering and other protective steps are probably not a bad idea. For everybody else, it's overkill. 

So what are we doing to ourselves?

Listening to the talking bulb-heads on TV, we're being duped, scared and misled. The daily conferences of the count remind me of 1960s newscasts telling us the number of wounded and killed in Vietnam. That was then; this is now. As Yogi Berra famously said,  It's like deja-vous all over again.

In Oneida County where I live, the county executive is on tv every afternoon giving us the grim stats. We're over 200 cases with 4 deaths at this point in time. What's not mentioned is that the 4 had other underlying causes, but they're listed as CV deaths regardless. Bordering counties are mostly far less; what's not mentioned as a reason for OC is that we have a few state prisons here and the families of the incarcerated often move up here (from the NYC metro area) to visit them and at the same time overload our social systems. It is not a stretch to say they are one of a few conduits of CV being in the county. New York City is experiencing hundreds of deaths daily that are attributed to CV. Again, what's not mentioned is that on an average, every day well over 400 people in NYC say 'Oh shit' and expire anyway.

The next point is, the numbers are being skewed. To my surprise, Governor Corona bitched that NY is only getting $12,000 from Uncle Sam for every fatal CV case whereas some other states are getting considerably more per body because ... they have less bodies. So it becomes about money, and when money is involved, all bets are off about the accuracy of the data. At this point, even doctors are griping about the CDC directive to sign death certificates with CV as the primary cause of death, absent real medical evidence.

Meanwhile, the country is headed for recession and possible depression because of these decisions. When people don't work, times are tough. People are being subjected to financial hardship because of the decisions being made in state capitals every day. Some are experiencing extreme hardship because they are in a group that basically lives from paycheck to paycheck; they have no reserves and many are going to really suffer because of this. Two things bear mention here; 1, the class that can afford it the least will pay the most (as it always does anyway) and 2, they are the least likely to be able to upset the applecart in their protest.

When I said above that there is no such thing as a non-essential business, I meant it. Every business is essential to somebody, be it the customer or the business owner. If it wasn't essential to somebody, it wouldn't be there in the first place. The restaurant industry, the sports industry and the entertainment industry are essential businesses, not to mention all the businesses that support them. The airline industry is in shambles; thousands of airplanes are now parked. When this is over, not only will we have to rebuild employment, government will have to retool. Not only are they collecting far less in tax revenue than anticipated, they're also being hit with record unemployment payouts. This means only one thing: Taxes are headed for substantial increases when we reopen the country.

If the Governor can hold daily press conferences with reporters sitting 6 feet apart, then the question begs as to why other businesses, churches and organizations can't do the same. When the list of essential businesses includes liquor stores ... and when elective surgery is banned, but abortions aren't, you begin to see how crookedly stacked the deck is. Add to that the political waiver system (which has been used locally for pet projects)... and again, using the Vietnam comparison, I'm reminded of how tilted the draft system was when I was growing up. If you came from wealth, you went to Harvard or Yale during the war. If you didn't, you went to Da Nang or Khe Sanh.

If you want a different view of how another intelligent culture is handling CV, look no farther than Sweden. Schools are open, businesses are open and there is very little government interference. Their chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell has a somewhat different view of epidemic and pandemic events. He's not stupid by any means; he has all the academic qualifications and he knows about contagions. But he is also a realist about the social construct of humans and isn't rushing to judgement on this; nor is he panicking about it either.

Finally, we're being told that every life matters and even one death is a real loss. It sounds great, until you realize the party in control of the state I live in has a different view of life. They don't count the first 9 months of your existence as life, and with that said, I'll leave the reader to decide about the ethics of life and death.

In any event, we're now living in a leper colony of our own construction, and that's pretty sad.


PS: Bill Gates is a jerk who can't even keep his software virus free. Anything this rich toad has to offer as an opinion about pandemics, digital virus certificates, vaccines and the like should have the shelf life of an ice cube in hell.