So, So Tired I am not so-so tired, I am so, so very tired. Just as I finished my deposition yesterday and wrapped up a three month expert witness blitz that had me putting in over 180 hours, a reasonably brisk pace for a semi-retired guy, I have not been able to just take a deep breath and relax in anticipation of my upcoming travels to Asia. What has stolen away my well-deserved “School’s Out…
Super Duper We just watched Super Bowl LVIII. That means the first Super Bowl was in 1967 and it was between the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs. It was a rout in favor of the powerful Packers of the NFL, whereas the Chiefs were from the expansion team AFL. It’s all about the NFL these days and there are five teams (Patriots, Steelers, Cowboys, Broncos, and 49ers) with more than the six…
Tax-Us or Texas The World Economic Forum at Davos started fifty-three years ago but has really gained momentum and notoriety among globalists in the last decade. I have never attended (when I was in my corporate prime and realistically a candidate, Davos was not yet a must-do) and now I doubt I ever will go (now that I am a mere bystander and observer of the world and decidedly not a mover and shaker), but…
Mailing It In For most of the last fifty years, I have voted by finding my local polling place and going there most often in the early morning to vote. Truth be told, while I have never missed a presidential election, I probably voted in only 80% of the mid-term non-presidential elections and I would estimate only 30% of off-year local elections and almost no primary elections. I have no excuses for the fall-off for…
The Perils of Postponement A big part of every news cycle these days is a review of the calendar that we face in 2024. The calendars that bear most of the interest are the political process calendar of primaries, Party Conventions and elections (including the ballot printing and finalization calendars) and then the legal process calendar of Donald Trump, including his four criminal trials and countless civil trials and all their attendant appeals and motions…
The World at Large As we prepare for our big SE Asia trip a week from now, I have a lot on my mind. The range of topics that are swirling in my mind little pea brain that suffers from too little capacity and too much thought turnover and too much caring about shit is vast. I’m not sure where to begin, so I will just stumble forward. We have had Buddy now for seven…
Econometric Confusion The study of economics is called the dismal science. It was called that by Thomas Carlyle during the Victorian era of England because another famous economist and demographer called Thomas R. Malthus had postulated that human population would always grow faster than man’s ability to grow sufficient food to feed itself. That was a very Dickensian outlook that was before the Industrial Revolution (first, second, third or fourth), when technology started to improve…
O’Biden We just had a surprise visit (at least it was a surprise for me) from our dear friends from San Francisco/Sonoma. One of the things they do is is keep a list of great limited series shows based on true life events and movies of the same genre. I must admit, I haven’t considered that genre for its uniqueness, but when we do happen to watch one (as we did with Dopesick, Painkiller and…
Limping to the Finish Line This morning, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin held his longest press conference of his three year tenure in the job. The position of Secretary of Defense is always an important cabinet position, usually the second or third most important among the cabinet. In fact, the official presidential line of succession flows from the Veep to the Speaker of the House, to the President Pro Tempore of the Senate (strangely enough,…
Healing the Divide We all understand that we live in what seems to be an increasingly divided world. I doubt that many of us like that situation and I know most of us scratch our heads and wonder why it has to be that way. Today’s Washington Post had a lead article that seems to offer some explanation. The problem is thought to be rooted in the age old cultural phenomenon of tribalism. Tribalism is…