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.

The Remedy Worse Than the Disease

I sent for Ratcliffe, was so ill, That other doctors gave me over, He felt my pulse, prescribed his pill, And I was likely to recover. But when the wit began to wheeze, And wine had warm'd the politician, Cured yesterday of my disease, I died last night of my physician.  -Mathew Prior, 1714

So, thinking of the current state of affairs, is the cure worse than the disease?

Beware the Ides of March

People are assholes, if you haven't already noticed. With the arrival of corona virus aka COVID-19, the country has moved into super-asshole territory. Everybody has, by now heard of the run on basic necessities; toilet paper being the poster boy of the movement (pun intended).

Yesterday, I went to Wal-Mart with my usually small shopping list. Most of it was food-related and I had to pick up a prescription for my wife at the same time. When I arrived, the parking lot was full, and I mean full. I had to park out on the perimeter; this was my first clue that all was not well (pun intended) in the store.

I was right. Never mind that the Governor of our great state, in his infinite wisdom has banned gatherings of over 500 people, after entering and navigating the aisles for a bit it was obvious there were thousands of people in the store. Shopping carts were filled to overflowing, the checkout lines were long and even the self-checkout lines had quite a few lined up.

Okay. Get my stuff and get out asap is my shopping mantra and has been for a long time. But yesterday, that would not happen. There was clearly a run on products. Obviously, the toilet paper and paper towel racks were cleaned out. There were 2 boxes of Kleenex left and I bought one because it was on my list. The bleach shelves were empty, ditto for the vinegar. The deli was closed and I heard some choice words as people walked by it. The bar soap shelves were cleaned off. Some food shelves were empty; it must be some sort of pasta panic set in because those shelves needed restocking also.

One of the reasons I have stopped going to Wal-Mart as often as I used to is the fact that they have instituted a program where you can call in a shopping list and their employees will pick it for you and even put it in your car when you arrive. And of course, the aisles were clogged full of those too. It was something to see.

I am happy to note most people were polite and decent; some even offered rumors on what stores had TP left. But I am sad to note that in times of crisis, there are always scalpers and they have seized the day. A quick visit on-line to eBay with a search for TP in my local mailing address revealed this:

Ah, toilet paper profiteers. $40 plus shipping (and tax, eBay now adds tax) for what is usually well under $10 at the store. The old saying of never let a good crisis go to waste (pun intended) is apropos here. The ironic words in that picture are at the bottom (tell us what you think).  If I were to do that, eBay would probably ban me.

As I said in my opening statement, people are assholes (pun intended) and the run on TP shows that some rise above and beyond to the head of the pack. Congratulations, well done. One small step for man, and one smaller step for mankind.

In a few short weeks things will go back to normal, the stores will be restocked and life will seem normal again. In the meantime, we're going to have to suffer the assholes of life.

As a closing note, I have to say this whole thing has been overblown. No sports, schools are closed, St. Pats day parades are cancelled and the concert I have tickets for (since Xmas) has been rescheduled. BTW, can anybody tell me why toilet paper becomes such a valued commodity with a respiratory illness going around? What is the connection?

Does anybody really think that in this global economy, with the amount of people traveling every day that a germ can be contained? No, this will have it's run and be a memory in a few short months. More people will die and health care systems will be tested. History shows us the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 and the black plague had their run and there was little people could do about it other than take the usual precautions. Even so, millions died.

But there is a lesson here: The next time you hear of a new virus or illness going around, run to your local store and clean the shelves before anybody else. That way, if you survive the doomsday predictions... and, if you're savvy, you can even pick up a few bucks doing it.

When the wagon stops in front of your door and you hear the words bring out yer dead being shouted in, then maybe it's time to panic. Until then, I'm going to live life as normal as possible.

One sheet at a time.

The Bigots versus the Totalitarians: The Roots of Our Partisan Divide

This article sheds a different view on the current divide in America. It deserves a fair read, probably twice to see what the author is really saying. It examines what happens when society legislates what it thinks is morality to solve one problem and the unintended side effects years later. Spoiler alert: It comes from one of the few conservative colleges in America today.


https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/roots-partisan-divide/

Super Tuesday Autopsy

Thank God that's over. A whole bunch of things came out of Super Tuesday; the arrangement of dominoes left in the quest for the Democrat nomination went on a severe diet this week. Last week at the debates, there were seven people on the stage scratching and kicking each other trying to convince voters they're the chosen one. These people were:

• Joe Biden
• Bernie Sanders
• Michael Bloomberg
• Amy Klobuchar
• Elizabeth Warren
• Tom Steyer
• Pete Buttigieg

First, after a dismal showing in the South Carolina primary  Steyer dropped out. He spent the most amount of time of any candidate in the state and spent somewhere between $150-200 million without winning any delegates. Buttigieg and Klobuchar dropped out 2 days later (prior to Super-Tues) and threw whatever support they could towards Biden. Not that it matters much, Steyer has not endorsed any of the remaining candidates as of this writing. Nobody is asking for his endorsement either, probably because he has no delegates to offer.

That brought the field down to four. Then came Soooo-per Tuesday, which appears to have revived Biden. It is remarkable that even the Democrat powers-that-be are trying their best to keep Sanders from winning the number of delegates needed to lock up the nomination, probably because they know he's poison to the majority of American voters. If there were anybody responsible for Sanders being viewed as a Communist, it's probably Bernie Sanders when he opens his stupid trap by praising the systems of such murderous tyrants like Fidel Castro, not to mention his thoughts on why bread lines are a good thing. Taking a honeymoon in Moscow probably didn't help wash the red off his resume, either.

Bloomberg withdrew shortly after with the bold win of ... all the delegates of American Samoa (one). Estimates of his spending to date are somewhere between $700mil to over a billion dollars. The four delegates he won in Texas cost him over $5 million each! Sensing the danger of running a Communist against Trump in November, he too threw his endorsement along with his 53 delegates to Biden.

That leaves three still in the race, and it is obvious the next one to go is Fake-ahontas aka Elizabeth Warren. But she's not going yet, and she's not going silently either. After the embarrassment of losing in her home state, she's holding on for what she sees as a brokered convention, one that will go at least 2 rounds of voting to unleash the super-delegates (who can't vote in round one, unlike 4 years ago in the Hillary-rigged convention).

She's a fool on a fools errand. The reason many stayed as long as they did was for consideration for the #2 spot, Veep. Warren knows she's not going to get that nod because her home state is safely blue in November, not to mention she couldn't even muster winning support for herself in her home-state primary. The one in the drivers seat right now (if Biden is crowned this summer) is Klobuchar for 3 reasons: One, to appeal to female voters, two, to bring Minnesota with her in November and three, because she was canny enough to endorse Biden almost immediately when she withdrew.

Watching where her delegates end up is going to be interesting. I suspect she'll toss them to Bernie, most likely because her brand of politics is the closest to his. It will be interesting to see if she has enough to give him the nomination, and if so, everything I previously said about Warren not getting the Veep nod is out the window if she can trade her delegates for the spot on the ticket.

[added 1 day after I posted this: Warren withdrew. I didn't expect it this soon. I have no idea who she will support before the convention.]

It's going to be between Biden and Sanders. Both are rich old white men (so is Trump but at least he made his money in the private sector, not during government service); Sanders is older than Biden by more than a year. Neither one of them is a spring chicken; Sanders recently had heart problems and Biden seems often confused by mixing up the office he's running for (not the Senate this time, Joe), where he is (misidentified the state he was in) and other gaffes that are going to cost him ... not to mention the video where he brags about blackmailing the Ukraine into firing a prosecutor. And there's ... oh yeah: His son Hunter: Ukraine energy profiteer without any qualifications or experience except having the right last name, a hasty military career rumored to have ended over cocaine, and affairs resulting in children that he initially denied fathering. His life history appeals to ... nobody.

Sanders defends his wealth poorly. He calls his third house a "camp" now, but that's not really accurate. It's a real nice "camp" valued at over a half-million dollars. His 3 houses add up in value to somewhere between $1.5-2 million dollars. It's going to be tough to convince people he's just an average guy and his hard-left radical views are going to drive moderates of every persuasion away from him. Simply put, he's going to lose; the only question is what month this year it will be. Biden has better chances in November than Sanders, but he's still got a long row to hoe and I'm not sure he's up to it.

I note as a sidebar Bernie graduated from the University of Chicago in 1964, which is coincidentally the year my sister arrived there for her liberal brainwashing. She was followed by my older brother in 1965. The school is skilled in liberal arts programming; both arrived as the children of a conservative Republican family from New Hartford and by the time they left, their brains had been through so many liberal scrubbing cycles that the brainwashing they underwent is still effective even to this day.

But the clear and present danger is still lurking in the shadows, and that's Bloomberg ... or more specifically, Bloomberg's money. He wasn't lying when he said words to the effect that he bought enough Democrat Congresspeople 2 years ago to take the Republican majority away ... and it is clear that he intends to do so again. Never mind his estimated billion-dollar bath of recent, it's his money placed with Dem Super PACS that he intends to fund again that are the problem. In my Congressional district (NY-22) it is already known Bloomberg is putting ~$2mil into keeping the seat Democrat even though the margin of victory 2 years ago was less than a percent. It's going to be a rematch of 2018 and the money is going to buy advertising that will kill everybody's appetite for any sort of media. The good news is, it's a Presidential election year and NY-22 went to Trump by 16 points in 2016. If he campaigns here, chances are good the seat is going back to the Republican fold. If there is any one fatal mistake the Democrat made, it was folding under pressure and voting to impeach Trump. Trump is popular upstate and that vote has turned off a good portion of his support.

Re-electing Donald Trump in November isn't enough. If America puts Trump back in for 4 more years, they need to give him the tools he needs to do a good job, and that's by electing Congresspeople that are interested in results, not putting the political knife into his back every chance they get. Re-electing recalcitrant Democrats who care more about hurting Trump rather than anything else is the recipe for 4 years of what we have now (legislative malaise). This is not good for our country and if it continues, the die will be cast for intense political squabbling for years to come and the justification will be the power struggle we've been witnessing for the last 3 years.

As the political season passes this summer into fall, you are going to be bombarded with ads both telling you how good one candidate is while smearing the other. It's going to be stomach-wrenching; get ready for it - and also ready to tune it out, because 99.9% of it is going to be pure and unadulterated bullshit.

Be prepared, it's coming.

Blue Dog Democrats, Your Party Has Left You

If you're a moderate in your party and consider yourself middle-of-the-road on political issues, you're probably in the majority of voters in this country regardless of party affiliation. Republicans have moderated over the years and have moved a little left, but the left hasn't moved one millimeter right.

Looking at the Democrats running for President, it is obvious they have moved far left. They now reside with the extremist element on the far left. I'll highlight some of the radical ideas below, but before I do I want to issue an invitation to those blue-dog moderate Democrats who are being abandoned by your party's radical takeover by the far-left extremists:

Consider joining the Republican Party. If you can't bring yourself to do that, at least leave the party and join a smaller third party. If you can't bring yourself to do that, change your party enrollment to "no party."

Why should you consider another party?

Because your party has hopped on the insane bus and left you behind already. Oh, they want your vote, but not your centrist views.

Insane bus? What do you mean?

Exactly that. Insane. Scan the list below and tell me these ideas and proposals are good for our country. If you think they are, then consider that you're a passenger on the insane bus already, and stay put.

• Open borders: If you believe that a country is defined by and needs borders, border security and enforcement of existing immigration law, welcome to the Republican Party. If not, enjoy the view from the far left.
• Illegal Aliens: If you believe that immigrants should apply to come to the US, wait for their turn, go through background checks, learn about America and its history complete with a thorough test before becoming legal citizens, welcome to the Republican Party. If you drink the Kool-Aid that these are just 'undocumented people,' and it's ok that they drain the resources of every US taxpayer, again, stay where you are.
• Free college: If you believe that people should be responsible for continuing their education after high school, and that if they or their children choose to go to college, that every other taxpayer shouldn't pick up the tab, welcome to the Republican Party.
• Democratic Socialism: If you're wise enough to understand that money doesn't fall out of the sky and that forcefully taking money from somebody who earned it and giving it to somebody that didn't or refuses to is wealth redistribution via legal robbery, welcome to the Republican Party. If you believe that no matter how hard or smart you work, that you should not be rewarded for your efforts any more than any other person, again, stay where you are in the new Democrat Party, which rightfully should be named the Democrat Socialist party now... and oh, by the way, congratulations on becoming a Communist, Comrade.
• Socialized medicine: If you like your doctor and want to keep him/her, or if you like your health insurance plan and would like to keep it, welcome to the Republican Party. Oops, too late, somebody already took those promises away from you even though he said he wouldn't. Seriously, if you understand the advancements in medicine are directly linked to money and that the healthcare system in the US has been and remains the leader in medical innovation because money is available to fund it ... ... and that other countries with socialized medicine fall short as evidenced by the number of foreigners coming here for medical treatment, again, welcome to the Republican Party.
• Criminal Justice reform: If you believe that eliminating bail for all but the most serious crimes is a bad idea, and that giving appearance tickets to criminals after arrest doesn't result in more crime, just look at how the Democrats ruined the NY criminal justice system this year ... and then consider your Democrat Socialist candidate for President just campaigned on making this part of the Federal system. If you think this is wrong, welcome to the Republican Party.
• Antisemitism: If you believe this is wrong, welcome to the Republican Party. If you agree with it, then consider yourself on the insane bus driving left again, and the passengers with you are named AOC, Rashida, Ilhan, Al and Jesse.
• Gun control: If you think the framers of the Constitution got it right, welcome to the Republican Party. If you think the words the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed  means people -don't- have the right to keep and bear arms, then you're already far-left ... and again, stay put.
• Full-term abortion aka infanticide: If you are repulsed by the idea of a full-term human being being legally murdered seconds before taking their first breath, welcome to the Republican Party. If this doesn't bother you, or worse agree with the refusal of Democrats to sign onto legislation requiring immediate medical treatment for just-born survivors of abortion, again, enjoy your view from the far-left.
• Climate change: If you are opposed to the idea of the government significantly taxing you more in the name of climate change because they promise this somehow will miraculously fix the problem, welcome to the Republican Party. If you think putting restrictions on US industry in the name of climate change is wise and that other industrialized countries won't take advantage of it when we do, again, keep in your seat on the insane bus. It's going to be made of Chinese steel in the near future anyway.

Seriously.  If you are a moderate Democrat and have difficulty moving farther left because you're wondering what happened to the party that used to espouse your views, you're not alone. Many Democrats are wondering what happened to the party of JFK, and I suspect that if he were alive right now, he'd probably consider switching parties after seeing the craziness coming from (now far) left.

We're waiting for you, and it's easy to do. You can probably even do it online now, check with your local Board of Elections.

I'll see you in November. Either way, even if you remain a Democrat ... I suspect a rather substantial portion of you are probably going to vote for the same person I'm going to vote for ... not somebody that promises free everything while promising to do it for no extra cost.