Tag: China

Saturda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

We have a new version of The China Syndrome happening, right here in the U.S. of A.

The original idea behind the China syndrome is a nuclear reactor meltdown that causes the nuclear plant to figuratively melt through its containment building, and keep going until it goes through the earth and emerges in China on the other side of the world. In other words, it’s a baaaddd disaster. A movie starring Jane Fonda, Jack Lemon, and Michael Douglas was made about it. Released in 1979, it’s called The China Syndrome.

That’s not quite what we’re talking now. Instead, we’re talking the nuclear family and some wrong-headed ideas about population growth. One of these wrong-headed ideas that China had was that they could control and direct their nation’s population growth by laws. See, their population was growing too much and too fast. Pursuing efforts to stop it, China’s government implemented ‘The One-Child Policy’. it was wickedly wrong in many ways, including what happened to female children because families wanted a male as their one child. Males were more highly prized than females in that society.

Now China faces a problem caused by an aging society. Oh, gosh, how did that happen? Could limiting child births have anything to do with that? Why, yes, of course.

And so we saw another edition of ‘unintended consequences’ demonstrated to us. You’d think that would make others think about trying such efforts.

But not everyone is willing to think and learn from the mistake of others. That’s the new China Syndrome.

All this comes to mind because of a new memo from the new Trump administration. New DOT Memo Directs Funds To Communities With Higher ‘Marriage And Birth Rates’.

WASHINGTON ― The federal Department of Transportation has issued a memo ordering programs supported by the agency to prioritize funding projects for communities with “marriage and birth rates higher than the national average.”

The article later notes:

Newly confirmed Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy buried his agency’s oddly specific requirement by describing the memo as focused on economic growth ― rather than population growth ― and echoed Trump’s criticisms of programs to improve diversity, equity and inclusion.

“The American people deserve an efficient, safe and pro-growth transportation system based on sound decision-making, not political ideologies,” Duffy said of the memo.

Ha,ha,ha, see what old Sean Duffy did there? He’s using ideology to make decisions and pretending otherwise. And he’s apparently doing it without any irony or self-awareness that he’s doing it.

Cause, gosh, the declining population growth in the U.S. probably doesn’t have anything to do with stagnant wages and misplaced priorities, such as pretending climate change doesn’t exist even as droughts, wildfire, and extreme weather events wipe out crops and housing, causing increased housing and food costs. Yes, and the low population growth probably has nothing to do with the healthcare insurance industry and their record profits and the high price of having a child. Nor does the low population growth have anything to do with the need to have both parents work because wages suck and the cost of everything is so high.

But no, let’s pretend that those things don’t matter. Have a child, get a road! There we go, that’ll increase the population. Makes total fucking sense. At least, in Trumpworld.

Sounds like more FAFO will be forthcoming.

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Munda’s Theme Music

We’re rolling through January now, picking up steam for 2025. It’s the 27 and Munda. Blue skies and sunshine are storming our valley. Air temp resides at 36 F and the stagnant air has settled back in. High today will check out at 52 F, which is what we saw yesterday. No snow yet in the winter of 2024-2025 in Ashlandia. No snow yet in 2025.

Tech stocks tumbled. ‘It’ — they — are worried about China’s AI advances, but Trump occupies the Oval Office, so it’s his fault, isn’t it? Sure is. Same thinkin’ they threw at President Biden must be adhered to here and now, brothers and sisters. Trump has taken over and before his first month in office, look at how the tech industry is reacting. Tsk, tsk. Terrible, terrible, Taken a great market and turned it into trash.

The California wildfire situation has gotten worse since Trump has taken over, with new fires exploding into new areas. Why everything is burning up under Trump’s guidance. This must be the worst administration ever, the actual absolute worse. He’s done nothing to put them out. What an abysmal record on fire fighting and disasters. And it’s having such a devastating impact on multiple industries, which will translate to unemployment and inflation both rising while the insurance industry bleeds and the economy tanks. What a terrible person he is. Absolute worst person for the job, and it’s already showing in all of these areas.

The Neurons are piping the Killers into the morning mental music stream. Today’s offering is “All These Things that I have Done” from 2004. This is directly related to the U.S. political situation as Trump and the GOTP trample the Constitution and everything it stood for while attempting to drag us back into the 1800s. The song features lyrics which keep repeating, “If you can, hold on, if you can, hold on, hold on.” My word for 2025 is courage, and my motto, “If you can, hold on.”

Coffee and I re-assessed our positions and have concluded a mutual aid agreement that lets me brew and drink. So begins another day. Here’s the music. Hope you watch and listen. Cheers

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Friday’s Wandering Political Thoughts

Just a few things cropping into my mind in the final month of 2024.

With Trump as POTUS, I expect him to install his beloved tariffs. That will damage the economy. I expect unemployment to rise as companies cut staff to deal with less sales volume and protect the bottom line. I expect less sales volume because companies will pass on tariffs to consumers. I expect inflation will rise, first due to tariffs; second, due to retalitory tariffs; third due to shortages in manufacturing, service employees, and agriculture. I expect sales to decline because discretionary income will decrease as inflation drives up the cost of goods. I expect the shortages in manufacturing, service employees, and agriculture will come about because of the expected mass deportation scheme the Trump administration plans. I expect local economies to falter due to all the previously mentioned issues. I expect drug use, suicides, homelessness, and crime to rise. I expect the national debt to swell as tax revenues decline. I expect record profits to continue at corporations as they take advantage of the shortages and business-favored governmental environment and raise prices. I expect the air and drinking water to get worse, especially in poor communities and red states. I expect voter’s remorse to arise by 2026. I expect the media to begin turning on Trump and his administration by the middle of 2025 as they sense the nation’s mood and deem it safe to criticize him. I expect Trump’s administration to start turning over before the end of 2024 as infighting, anger, and frustration among them escalates and Trump attacks them for his collapsing approval numbers. I expect Trump to get angrier and angrier, sending out attack texts in increasing numbers, using false information, making accusations, and whining about being treated unfairly. I expect many of his texts will be in all caps with multiple exclamation points.

I don’t have a crystal ball. I’m not a prophet. I just read my history. These are all trends that history predicts because it’s all happened before.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Mood: weatherspeculative

We’re popping in on Saturday, August 17, 2024. Now remember, as a time-traveller, you won’t know anything about the future that you’re from while you’re on the selected travel date, but you will remember it all when you go back. Just want to ensure you understand the parameters.

It’s 66 F in Ashlandia, our destination for today, where the hills are brown and the beers are cold. Today’s high is said to be anywhere from 77 F to 84 F. Though clouds are sparse and small, they’re calling for rain this evening. Some say it’ll be heavy rain. There’s also an extreme fire warning out because thunderstorms with lightning are expected.

The air quality is good for now. No smells of smoke, no hazing of the sky. Super. Worrying that so many wildfires continue burning California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, etc.

Hurricane Ernesto is making landfall in Bermuda. Gonna be rainy with six to nine inches of rain predicted for them.

Colleges are wrestling with how to deal with protestors and free speech over the war in Gaza.

Of course Republicans are calling for probes of Gov. Walz’s China trips. The GOP are so laughably predictable and pathetic, screaming about tit for tat politics as a reason they shut down various measures to enforce ethics and then pursuing tit for tat actions. Funny how they didn’t give a shit about Gov. Walz’s trips until he became selected as Vice President Harris’s running mate. Yeah, they’re funny that way, especially Rep Comer, R-Jackass.

In more backward thinking, Georgia has misguided ideas that having ballots counted three times by hand is the best way forward.

We’re switching themes today, going from dance to colors. That excited The Neurons. Lot of songs with colors in their titles. They immediately fired up “Black Velvet” performed by Alannah Myles from 1989 into the morning mental music stream (Trademark trending). It’s a blues ballad about a young Elvis Presley. Whatever the subject, The Neurons love Myles’s voice and style. Hope you enjoy it.

Be strong and remain positive. Vote Blue in 2024. Coffee has kicked in, so here’s the music. Cheers

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Chunkofloof

Chunkofloof (floofinition) – 1. An overweight animal. (Origins: late 1990s, early world wide web.)

In Use: “Cunning at finding and getting her treats out of cupboards (often aided by the cat), Annie Barkley quickly grew into an adorable chunkofloof.”

2. A large collection of animal toys, tools, or memfloofabilia. (Origins: 2014, “The Official Guide to the Floofiverse,” McMeowing, Barks, and Wings.)

In Use: “Most homes with pets have a chunkofloof, and I’m no exception, with a cupboard full of food, dishes, brushes, and toys for my floofhearts.”

Recent Use: “Monica shared a video of her chunkofloof, China, building up a chunkofloof of things China was stealing form the neighbors.”

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The Big Board

I checked the coronavirus big board this morning. I used to check sports or the stock market. The former is on pause and the latter is a shitstorm that I’m avoiding until the age of coro is done.

The U.S. had reached number five last night, but Iran overtook them overnight. China’s flattened growth continues to give us hope.

South Korea provides more hope, though. They took swift action and held strong after a terrible start. Meanwhile, Japan has it together.

And Russia? Their numbers astonish.

Russia

Italy’s numbers are painful (and shocking and dismaying) to view, with reports of almost eight hundred more dead overnight. I feel them.

Italy

After that, I get more granular with the U.S, looking at the state and county shots. A friend put this one together.

The red continues taking over; no state is spared. West Virginia (who has a very vulnerable population) was last to report on a case. After reading about someone who sought testing (a grim comedy), I suspect that it existed there, but incompetence (or politics) (or fear) kept the numbers from showing up.

Here’s an excerpt of the grim comedy that Carolyn Vigil endured in WV to get her husband tested.

We went to the ER, and I left James in the car. He was really sick: his fever had been as high as 104°F; he had a cough, terrible headaches, body aches. He has asthma, which can lead to more serious disease. I had no symptoms at that point, but I was trying to keep my distance from people at the hospital, because I thought I could be a carrier. A staff member met me at the door. She was very kind, but she said, ‘I don’t think we’re equipped to do this.’ A nurse came out to the car with a sticky note and the number for a hotline—which I had already tried to call, only to find that the number didn’t work—and told me I had to leave and just call that number, or drive to Morgantown, two and a half hours away. I told her, ‘I’m going to remain calm, but I’m not leaving unless he is at least screened.’ The head nurse came out and saw James, and she could tell he was sick. James and I waited in the car until they took him to a room where they could do the exam without risking others in the hospital. Once he got back there, they were very compassionate. They gave him very good care.

They first tried to rule out all other respiratory illnesses. Those tests came back negative, so they decided to go ahead and do the COVID-19 test. But we had to wait until Tuesday to get the result back. Then Tuesday came and nobody contacted us. We called the ER. The ER told us to call the state health lab. The state health lab told James to call the county health department. The county health department said, ‘We have no record of you ever being tested.’ It was bizarre.

h/t to Time.com Check the whole story. Interesting read.

Beyond it all, we’re still waiting for large pieces of information regarding duration, or an unpleasant second wind from COVID-19, waiting to see if social distancing will successfully flatten the curve and buy us time for a vaccine and more resources. Meanwhile, practice safe living out there.

Cheers

 

 

 

 

 

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Today’s Theme Music

Today’s theme music streams in from the fall of the Berlin Wall and the massacre in Tienanmen Square.

The Berlin Wall wall was first a fence and then a guarded concrete wall. Built in 1961, it made East Berlin an island of Soviet Union totalitarianism and communism amidst western culture, democracy and freedom. I traveled through East Berlin by train while the wall was up. Still scarred by the tanks and guns of World War II, the streets were ghostly empty avenues behind crumbling concrete and rusting steel.

The massacre in Tienanmen Square is sometimes called the June Fourth Incident. The People’s Republic of China was experiencing a spring of democratic thought in 1989, with its people hoping for greater freedoms and independence. They dissented with their government’s position and were killed by their government for their ideals.

Now, in 2017, the Berlin Wall has fallen. The Union of Soviet Socialists States has fragmented into smaller nations, dominated by Russia. The PRC, often just called China, remains. While shifts have occurred there, it remains a nation of oppressed people with little freedoms.

Here in America, a billionaire has been elected POTUS with less than the popular vote. He wants to build a wall to protect us. As a child and adult who lived with a wall as a symbol of political differences and repression, I’m dubious of his motives and ideals, and leery of what might come to pass.

The events of Tienanmen Square and the fall of the Berlin Wall inspired Seal to write this song. Let’s hope this song inspires us and we avoid becoming the people behind the wall.

Here, from 1991, is Seal with ‘Crazy’. We’re never going to survive unless we get a little crazy.

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