The Case for Mr. Willy
18/12/22 07:07
We're coming down the final stretch here, boys and girls. I'm talking about year-end, 2022. It will be another year gone by the boards, as they say in the movies. On a less hospitable note, the missus was not a happy camper yesterday. She got caught up in a bit of bad weather coming back from her schtick in Massachusetts. The first day of snowy weather came a little early than forecasted, and it was something that she had hoped to avoid, but that was not the way it turned out. "Never again," she said. "If snow is in the forecast," I'll not be making the trip. I think that's reasonable. She made it home okay, but there was plenty of slow going, more than a handful of accidents along the highway, and all in all, it could have been avoided. Sometimes, when you least expect it, things turn to shite, and there's not a lot you can do about it. Grin and bear it.
I put our Christmas tree up while the missus was away. I threw some lights on it, which usually falls in her wheelhouse, but the tree looked so barren that I couldn't bear not putting something on it, truth be told. Besides, I wanted my missus to come home to a beautiful tree all lit up with nothing left to do but throw our ornaments on it. That's her favorite activity when it comes to decorating the tree. It was the least I could do since she was out of town for the day. I didn't get around to everything that I'd hoped to do while she was away, but I feel pretty good about putting up the tree. I might have thrown a little tinsel on the branches if I'd had some. Do they even sell tinsel anymore? Or, is that just another relic from a bygone era when boys were boys and girls were girls?
We got maybe an inch of snow overnight. I can barely see the creases in the wood slats on our back deck, so an "inch" might be a bit of an exaggeration. Is it, or is it not, enough such that I should be out clearing the snow from our driveway and back deck before the next storm comes along? Will it warm up sufficiently over the next few days so that going out to clear the snow now may not be the best use of my time? I usually clear my neighbor's driveway after we get a snowfall of a few inches or more. Will she expect me to stop by this morning? I should probably step outside at some point and further assess the need to clear or not clear the snow that we have on the ground. Do I have enough gas in our snowblower to get the thing up and running? As usual, I'm feeling a little flat-footed after our first snowfall. It's just par for the fucking course.
This Twitter thing is really something, isn't it? Elon Musk recently tweeted, "My pronouns are prosecute/Fauci." This comes just days after he fired Twitter's Chief Legal Counsel, James Baker, for suppressing data that Elon had instructed his staff to release to the public. The data that Baker, an ex-FBI hatchet man, was suppressing had everything to do with the FBI's involvement with Twitter and their collective and insidious efforts to take Trump off the platform prior to the 2020 presidential election and to conceal any and all criticism of Biden and his administration. Now, it looks and sounds like Elon has the goods, or the receipts if you will, on Fauci and his lies that caused the deaths of millions of Americans. What is that all about? I don't know how else to say this so I'll just say it. Elon Musk is a hero. He's doing precisely what he said he'd do when he purchased Twitter. And, at great personal and professional risk, I might add.
Elon Musk is proving to everyone that what everyone has been saying all along about these leftist big-tech behemoths is true. They are nothing more than organizations that live and breathe to serve their leftist democrat paymasters. Their primary goal is to create an echo chamber for the messaging of the democrats and to excoriate and/or suppress any and all political opposition. These are the very tactics employed by the Nazi party in the 30s and 40s during and after Hitler's rise to power. Goebbels would be proud of the propaganda machine co-opted and perfected by the modern-day democrat party. The democrat's near-complete infiltration of America's institutions, from classrooms to boardrooms and courtrooms, ensures that they will continue their takeover of the levers of power in America without any real resistance. Maybe exposing them as the criminal organizations that they are will be the light of day that finally has the rats scurrying for cover. Hope springs eternal.
Speaking of rats, officials in the Bahamas finally put the cuffs on that Sam Bankman-Fried guy. He was the CEO and founder of FTX which was based in the Bahamas. I hear that it was done at the request of officials in the United States. He is being charged with a raft of criminal violations as a result of running what was an alleged Ponzi scheme involving crypto and other worthless currency tokens. Worthless is a relative term when it comes to these so-called coins that numbered somewhere north of twenty thousand as of the end of 2021. There may be a place for digital currencies in our future, but, thus far, most of them have been made up out of thin air. They are only worth what someone is willing to pay for them. Right? Now that they have Sam in custody, can we also expect that they will collar his accomplice? What's her name again? Yeah, the mousy one with the advanced degree in mathematics from Stanford. That one.
I don't much care for the idea of digital currencies. I don't like the idea of someone being able to track my spending and all that entails. It's none of their fucking business. It would certainly provide the government with a cornucopia of avenues to further tax us, and that is never a good thing. Get your hands out of my fucking pockets. That's me thinking out loud. Funny thing is, these so-called tokens or crypto coins were put out there with the promise that one could conduct business, and none of it would be trackable or traceable. I guess it's one thing to stash your portfolio away in the form of a digital currency, and it's quite another to have that very same portfolio managed and tracked by your government. The fact that most of these coins are now turning to shite should be a lesson to us all. Unfortunately, for people who had their life's savings in digital wallets managed by FTX, they are now shit-out-of-luck. Maybe there's a lesson somewhere in there for the government.
We got just enough snow that I went out and cleared my driveway using a shovel. There wasn't enough snow on the ground to justify using my snowblower. I'm always of the mind that if I don't clear the snow, only bad things can come of it. That is to say, if we were to get more snow on top of what we already have, I'll end up regretting not clearing the pittance that fell the first time around. Besides, exposing the blacktop beneath the surface of the snow to the midday sun should go a long way toward melting any ice that lies just below the surface of the snow. I can't have my missus worrying about slipping and falling every time she steps out of doors and onto our snow-covered driveway. There are enough weather-related things for her to worry about this time of year, so I don't need to add to her concerns when I have the wherewithal to do something about it. Come to think of it, I think that's my job. Do your job, Johnny.
I didn't see my neighbor out and about clearing any snow from her property, so I'm wondering what, if any, plans she has to clear her driveway. I did tell her earlier this year that I would be lending a hand with clearing the snow from her driveway this winter, so I'm wondering if she was expecting me to show up. I can't imagine that she thinks that what came down overnight qualifies as a snowfall requiring my involvement. Is she sitting over at her house stewing in her juices while watching me clear my driveway? Did watching me put my shovel away after a half hour of working to clear my own driveway put her over the top? I certainly don't want to be on the hook for having to remove every bit of precipitation from her driveway that falls out of the sky no matter the amount. I should have been clearer about that when I made the offer. Well, maybe now she knows. Even the best offers have parameters.
Fast forward 12 hours and I get a call from my neighbor. She's laid up in the hospital with a broken hip. I had seen flashing lights the previous night, but I thought it was just a sander or a plow truck coming down our street to clear what little snow had fallen. It turns out that it was an ambulance that had come to take my neighbor to the hospital. She had fallen inside her home, so I didn't need to waste a lot of time feeling bad about not clearing her driveway. I'll say it again because it bears repeating, there wasn't much of anything to clear. Was there just enough snow to give her something to slip and fall on had that been the case? Without a doubt. I think the real culprit here is her Jack Terrior or whatever the hell you call those little furry fucks. She would never admit to that, of course, so we'll let the proverbial chips fall where they may.
It was an interesting day in the financial markets yesterday. There was a flurry of activity in the put/call activity prior to the opening of the market that suggested that someone had leaked the CPI numbers. In fact, the market rallied the day prior, and I saw a tweet that asked that very question. I mean, who throws all of their chips on the table in the casino, not knowing which way the markets were going to go once the announcement came down? I may have seen a tweet or two talking about the fact that no one should be surprised at anything coming out of the Biden White House. No one believes for a minute that Bumbles and his minions wouldn't enrich themselves and their lot by taking advantage of having prior knowledge of good CPI numbers. Futures were up pretty sharply before the market opened and just sold off during the day. The markets had the last laugh and that, I suppose, is as it should be. The casino always has the advantage. Live and learn.
I got my seasonal flu shot the other day. I'll admit, I was hesitant to do so. If I'm not mistaken, my flu vaccine is manufactured by the same people who make the Covid vaccine. I trust them with my health about as far as I can throw them. Maybe I got the flu shot because I've always gotten the flu shot. I know, I know. It's a shite reason, to be sure. The missus got after me to get the shot as well, so that helped to move things along. For better or worse, I guess it's too early to say. I do wonder sometimes about the necessity of getting all of these shots as we get along in life. Are the shots really designed to cull the herd at the end of the day? If I got no shots, would that increase my odds of living longer? There is just something about putting unnatural and potentially poisonous substances in our bodies that has me pushing back against the orthodoxy. Does that make any sense?
Raise your hand if you think our putting Patriot Missile Systems in Ukraine is a bad idea. To do what precisely? To protect the Donbas? It's a shithole of a country, and we're sending our most sophisticated weapons systems to them so they can shoot down Russian drones and Russian pilots? Every country in Europe would give their left testicle to have the protection that a Patriot Missile System provides, and that was before the shit hit the fan when Russia invaded Ukraine. Yet, we've not provided the systems to any of them. You have to ask yourself, what does this clown Zelensky have on Bumbles Biden that Bumbles would agree to send these weapons systems to Ukraine? We all know that Biden is compromised by the various and sundry schemes that the Biden Crime Family has pulled off over the years in countries like Ukraine, but they must really have the goods on Bumbles if he's now willing to give them these systems.
The placement of these systems in Ukraine represents an abrupt escalation in the war against Russia and our country's involvement in the proxy war that we've been waging since the war began. Putin has said that Russia will target our missile systems should they be put into Ukraine. More than likely, that means that Americans operating those missile systems will also be targeted. We're not about to let some hayseed from the cornfields and backwaters of Ukraine get behind the wheel of one of the most sophisticated, expensive, and deadly weapons systems that the world has ever seen. I'm a little surprised that Putin hasn't offered more than what appears to be a lukewarm response to Biden's deployment of this weapon system. It's no different, really, than Putin's standing threat to kill any and all foreigners fighting on behalf of Ukraine in Ukraine. Am I wrong about that?
Come to think of it, Zelensky may well have the silver bullet that could bring down Bumbles, and his minions, should Bumbles not agree to his demands. This involves the alleged laundering of money by FTX and that scumbag, Sam Bankman-Fried, who has donated tens of millions of dollars to the democrats in the months leading up to the 2022 mid-term elections. As I understand it, FTX sent millions to Ukraine, and Ukraine, in turn, purchased digital assets from FTX, which were then distributed back to both Ukraine and the democrats. Oh, and then there was ten percent for the big guy. We all know who the big guy is. In other words, Zelensky has the receipts. This is bigger than Watergate. This is bigger than the stolen 2020 election. This could put the democrat party on ice for decades should Zelensky spill the beans. Don't think for a minute that the arrest and detainment of Sam Bankman-Fried by the Bahamian authorities the day before he was scheduled to appear before Congress was a coincidence.
I'm trying to think of a good way to tell my neighbor that I may not be up to taking on the task of clearing snow from her property this coming winter. I'm good with doing what I've always done, which is doing her driveway, but she has other paths around her home that I know she clears for various reasons that I'm not sure I'm up to doing. I offered to help her with her snow removal earlier this year when she was planning to have her knee replaced, but I thought that might be short-lived since she got back on her feet so quickly. Now that she's broken her hip, she's not going to be doing any snow removal anytime soon, so therein lies the predicament as to what my involvement may or may not look like. As of this morning, she's lying in a hospital bed awaiting transportation to a local rehab joint, so now is not the time to have that conversation. She had a lad do some yard work for her over the summer, so having him come back on board might be an option.
Both the missus and I have been exchanging e-mails with her during her time in the hospital. Her main concern seems to be her dog, Joey, who was put up in a local kennel while all of this plays out. It looks to be a foregone conclusion that her dog will not be able to return to her home for a yet-to-be-determined period of time. Joey is a small dog, a Terrier type, if I'm not mistaken. She's not said, but I suspect, that she may have tripped over Joey one way or another, and now he's a liability of sorts, at least in the interim. I think what I'm hearing in her e-mails to us is a plea for the missus and me to take her dog while she recuperates. She's not come out and asked the question directly, but she's made it very clear as to what she doesn't want to happen as it relates to Joey's final destination. I'm referring to one option that has Joey going off to spend the winter with a friend of hers who spends his winters in a mobile home park in Florida. I don't want to read too much into her comments about the Florida thing, so we'll leave that alone for the time being.
The missus and I like dogs, but we're not amenable to having one stay with us for any period of time. As such, I've not said anything in response to my neighbor's e-mails that might have her thinking for even a moment that we'd be open to taking Joey in. The missus and I are very much on the same page here, so that's a good thing. I should also mention that this little Terrier is the apple of my neighbor's eye, so we'd likely be under the microscope day in and day out were we to take him in. Nobody likes that level of scrutiny. We'd always have to worry about whether or not she thought we were walking him enough, whether we were giving him the kind of attention that he's accustomed to receiving, etc. We like her as a neighbor, but most of our interactions, for better or worse, have been transactional at best. In other words, we're not buddy-buddy in any real sense of the word. We don't exchange presents at Christmas, we don't acknowledge birthdays, you get the idea.
Trump commented on social media earlier this week that he had a big announcement to make. He is the only candidate on the Republican side of the aisle to announce his campaign for the presidency in 2024 thus far, so I thought we might be in for something of a treat. He's not said much of anything in terms of fleshing out possible policies, so having him come out with a platform of sorts, no matter the significance, would be welcome for those of us who can't wait to see the sleazy and corrupt Biden Crime Family ousted from our beloved White House. To my great disappointment, he announced something having to do with a digital something that he was hawking for $99 or something. I'm thinking to myself, what the fuck is this? It's clownish! It's unbecoming of a man who is asking we Americans to take him as a serious contender for the presidency in 2024. Has he completely lost his mind? Who on his staff thought this was a good idea? Somebody needs to fire that mother fucker. Oh, and Trump did have something to say about his policies later in the day. Here's the problem: He'd lost half his audience with the rollout of some stupid meme and a plan to sell some stupid tokens. I'm done.
It was so funny. The Ev man and I visited a car dealership in a nearby town yesterday. Our goal was to see what they had for used cars in stock, and, secondarily, I wanted to get some sense of the trade-in value of the Ev man's car. We still haven't solved this so-called check-engine issue with his car, and I'm feeling both aggravated and desperate to get out from under the problem. We ended up test-driving a used car that looked like it might be a good fit for the Ev man. Here's the funny part: We took the wrong car out for a test drive. The two cars we were interested in were identical, but the two models were two years apart in age. It didn't really matter since we didn't like the car we took for a test drive anyway. The suspension was way too stiff, and the side windows didn't seem to seal properly. You could hear the wind whistling at speeds between thirty and forty-five once we got out on the highway. Compared to the ride of the Ev man's Volvo, it was a real piece of crap. Their offer for Ev's car was also not up to snuff, so that was that. Stay tuned.
It just so happens that Mrs. G has a car that she plans to give up in a few months, so I thought there might be a chance that we could purchase it from her maybe sooner rather than later. It would be a good replacement for the Ev man's car. We mentioned it to Mrs. G, but she wasn't biting. This will be the last time she gets behind the wheel of a car for the rest of her life, so she probably wants to savor those moments, at least for the next few months. That's fine, we respect her decision. She didn't come right out and say no, but she intimated as much, and we moved on to talk about other things. We also talked to Mrs. G about whose responsibility it is to clear the snow off of the cars at her facility. We were under the impression that the facility took on that responsibility, so you can imagine our surprise when Mrs. G told us that it was the responsibility of the tenants. What does that even look like? If Mrs. G has forgotten how all of that works, that may not bode well for an extension of her driving privileges one way or another. We need to sort this out.
The missus and I took a ride over to the local Lowes store yesterday late yesterday afternoon. It was a rainy and miserable night and probably not the best of nights to be out and about. I was happy to get to our destination in one piece, truth be told. The roads were shimmering with wetness, and under the darkness of night, our headlights were hardly up to the task of illuminating the path ahead of us on the roadway. I knew the road well enough, so we were never in any real danger, but it felt mildly perilous nonetheless. It was one of those nights where there were more store employees than customers. I wasn't sure if what we were seeing, here just a week out from Christmas, was due to the weather, or maybe, and perhaps more to the point, the ongoing malaise of the economy. I wondered aloud for the benefit of the missus if half of the employees of this well-staffed establishment, sleepwalking through their shifts as they were, wouldn't be standing in the unemployment line after the holidays, or, God forbid, sooner.
It was another in a long line of shitty weeks in the financial markets this week. The Feds keep hiking interest rates into what appears to be a recession coming down the pike, and that is never a good thing. I did a quick tally of where the S&P 500 was as of the end of the day yesterday, and it's down nearly twenty percent year-to-date. There hasn't been much in the way of panic in terms of the day-to-day activity, but, then again, we're not yet in stage three of this what many are calling an inflationary bear market. Capitulation only comes around in stage four, so we have a ways to go before we reach a buyable bottom. That is to say if you have any money left to invest once we get there. Shorter term, people are taking it on the chin, financially speaking, and they can't feel good about spending the few sheckles they have left on discretionary items like Christmas presents. As a last resort, you max out the credit cards and hope that you don't join the ranks of the unemployed in the new year before you have a chance to pay off the debt you've incurred. The market always goes back up. No?
Should I be thinking more globally about this shit-fest of a world we find ourselves in? By comparison, think about the clusterfuck that is Ukraine. Do you think their major concern is making sure that the kiddies have presents under the tree on Christmas morning? They'd be happy to have heat, a hot bowl of soup, and a roof over their heads on any given day. We lose electricity for an hour or so, and we're going Defcon-5 trying to figure out how we salvage the pork chops we bought for dinner earlier in the day. It's like you can't even put yourselves in their shoes long enough to appreciate what the hell they're up against. Maybe that's a good thing. I'd hate to be so rattled that I'd want to go hunting Russians here in my little hamlet thousands of miles away from the actual conflict in Ukraine. I just can't get my arms around any of it, if I'm honest about it. Would I even know a Russian if I saw one?
I turned on the telly (CNN) for a few minutes last night. It was for shits and giggles, but that's fine. I always wonder what governmental spin (propaganda) they're working on any given day or night. They were going full bore with the Deep State's version of Ukraine being good and Russia being bad. They had their usual paid contributors from the Army or Navy giving their version of what was going on on the ground in Ukraine and the anticipated next steps of the Ruskies. They played a video of what appeared to be a Russian advertisement for soldiers willing and wanting to go to the front lines and the benefits that might accrue to young men willing to enlist. Would it surprise me to find out that the video I was watching came out of the bowels of some left-leaning think tank in the bowels of Washington? It would not. The talking head on CNN, and her feckless guests, mocked the film as evidence of Russia on the ropes while going full grievance politics on behalf of the poor, embattled people on the ground in Ukraine. It's what they do. It's who they are.
We tried talking Mrs. G into paving the way for Debbie Rah-Rah's paramour, Mr. Willy, to join the family Christmas party at her facility this year. She would have to take it up with the management at her place since they make the rules about who can and who can't visit the facility as long as we're in the "crosshairs" of the Covid pandemic. The rules all along have been that if you're unvaccinated, you're not welcome. As I sit here today, there are a couple of problems with that position. One, the missus and I are out some three years now after getting the two shots, so we, at least in theory, no longer have any residual protection from anything since we never agreed to get boosters. Yet, we are free to come and go as we please. Secondly, Mr. Willy had Covid recently, so he, at least in theory, has more natural protection than anybody since he has the antibodies. Yet, he's not welcome at her facility. The ball is in Mrs. G's court now. She needs to make the case for Mr. Willy with the management of her facility.
It gets even more bizarre when you consider the fact that her facility has these little machines set up in their lobby that spit out name tags for visitors after the visitors answer a series of questions about their vaccination status, etc. We never go through the main lobby when we visit Mrs. G, so it doesn't apply to us. It should, but we enter her unit from the ground floor, so nobody is the wiser. Can one or more of her neighbors drop a dime on us should they so desire? Of course, said the horse. Anyway, you've got all of these visitors admitting to having been vaccinated when the fact of the matter is that many or most probably never got a booster after the original injections some three years ago. The standard for being vaccinated has never been updated to include boosters, so what good is asking people who got shots in early 2020 about their vaccination status in December 2022? Its sheer lunacy is what it is. It's theater and not especially good theater. Did I mention that the FDA just admitted that the Covid vaccines are known to cause blood clots? I rest my case.
I put our Christmas tree up while the missus was away. I threw some lights on it, which usually falls in her wheelhouse, but the tree looked so barren that I couldn't bear not putting something on it, truth be told. Besides, I wanted my missus to come home to a beautiful tree all lit up with nothing left to do but throw our ornaments on it. That's her favorite activity when it comes to decorating the tree. It was the least I could do since she was out of town for the day. I didn't get around to everything that I'd hoped to do while she was away, but I feel pretty good about putting up the tree. I might have thrown a little tinsel on the branches if I'd had some. Do they even sell tinsel anymore? Or, is that just another relic from a bygone era when boys were boys and girls were girls?
We got maybe an inch of snow overnight. I can barely see the creases in the wood slats on our back deck, so an "inch" might be a bit of an exaggeration. Is it, or is it not, enough such that I should be out clearing the snow from our driveway and back deck before the next storm comes along? Will it warm up sufficiently over the next few days so that going out to clear the snow now may not be the best use of my time? I usually clear my neighbor's driveway after we get a snowfall of a few inches or more. Will she expect me to stop by this morning? I should probably step outside at some point and further assess the need to clear or not clear the snow that we have on the ground. Do I have enough gas in our snowblower to get the thing up and running? As usual, I'm feeling a little flat-footed after our first snowfall. It's just par for the fucking course.
This Twitter thing is really something, isn't it? Elon Musk recently tweeted, "My pronouns are prosecute/Fauci." This comes just days after he fired Twitter's Chief Legal Counsel, James Baker, for suppressing data that Elon had instructed his staff to release to the public. The data that Baker, an ex-FBI hatchet man, was suppressing had everything to do with the FBI's involvement with Twitter and their collective and insidious efforts to take Trump off the platform prior to the 2020 presidential election and to conceal any and all criticism of Biden and his administration. Now, it looks and sounds like Elon has the goods, or the receipts if you will, on Fauci and his lies that caused the deaths of millions of Americans. What is that all about? I don't know how else to say this so I'll just say it. Elon Musk is a hero. He's doing precisely what he said he'd do when he purchased Twitter. And, at great personal and professional risk, I might add.
Elon Musk is proving to everyone that what everyone has been saying all along about these leftist big-tech behemoths is true. They are nothing more than organizations that live and breathe to serve their leftist democrat paymasters. Their primary goal is to create an echo chamber for the messaging of the democrats and to excoriate and/or suppress any and all political opposition. These are the very tactics employed by the Nazi party in the 30s and 40s during and after Hitler's rise to power. Goebbels would be proud of the propaganda machine co-opted and perfected by the modern-day democrat party. The democrat's near-complete infiltration of America's institutions, from classrooms to boardrooms and courtrooms, ensures that they will continue their takeover of the levers of power in America without any real resistance. Maybe exposing them as the criminal organizations that they are will be the light of day that finally has the rats scurrying for cover. Hope springs eternal.
Speaking of rats, officials in the Bahamas finally put the cuffs on that Sam Bankman-Fried guy. He was the CEO and founder of FTX which was based in the Bahamas. I hear that it was done at the request of officials in the United States. He is being charged with a raft of criminal violations as a result of running what was an alleged Ponzi scheme involving crypto and other worthless currency tokens. Worthless is a relative term when it comes to these so-called coins that numbered somewhere north of twenty thousand as of the end of 2021. There may be a place for digital currencies in our future, but, thus far, most of them have been made up out of thin air. They are only worth what someone is willing to pay for them. Right? Now that they have Sam in custody, can we also expect that they will collar his accomplice? What's her name again? Yeah, the mousy one with the advanced degree in mathematics from Stanford. That one.
I don't much care for the idea of digital currencies. I don't like the idea of someone being able to track my spending and all that entails. It's none of their fucking business. It would certainly provide the government with a cornucopia of avenues to further tax us, and that is never a good thing. Get your hands out of my fucking pockets. That's me thinking out loud. Funny thing is, these so-called tokens or crypto coins were put out there with the promise that one could conduct business, and none of it would be trackable or traceable. I guess it's one thing to stash your portfolio away in the form of a digital currency, and it's quite another to have that very same portfolio managed and tracked by your government. The fact that most of these coins are now turning to shite should be a lesson to us all. Unfortunately, for people who had their life's savings in digital wallets managed by FTX, they are now shit-out-of-luck. Maybe there's a lesson somewhere in there for the government.
We got just enough snow that I went out and cleared my driveway using a shovel. There wasn't enough snow on the ground to justify using my snowblower. I'm always of the mind that if I don't clear the snow, only bad things can come of it. That is to say, if we were to get more snow on top of what we already have, I'll end up regretting not clearing the pittance that fell the first time around. Besides, exposing the blacktop beneath the surface of the snow to the midday sun should go a long way toward melting any ice that lies just below the surface of the snow. I can't have my missus worrying about slipping and falling every time she steps out of doors and onto our snow-covered driveway. There are enough weather-related things for her to worry about this time of year, so I don't need to add to her concerns when I have the wherewithal to do something about it. Come to think of it, I think that's my job. Do your job, Johnny.
I didn't see my neighbor out and about clearing any snow from her property, so I'm wondering what, if any, plans she has to clear her driveway. I did tell her earlier this year that I would be lending a hand with clearing the snow from her driveway this winter, so I'm wondering if she was expecting me to show up. I can't imagine that she thinks that what came down overnight qualifies as a snowfall requiring my involvement. Is she sitting over at her house stewing in her juices while watching me clear my driveway? Did watching me put my shovel away after a half hour of working to clear my own driveway put her over the top? I certainly don't want to be on the hook for having to remove every bit of precipitation from her driveway that falls out of the sky no matter the amount. I should have been clearer about that when I made the offer. Well, maybe now she knows. Even the best offers have parameters.
Fast forward 12 hours and I get a call from my neighbor. She's laid up in the hospital with a broken hip. I had seen flashing lights the previous night, but I thought it was just a sander or a plow truck coming down our street to clear what little snow had fallen. It turns out that it was an ambulance that had come to take my neighbor to the hospital. She had fallen inside her home, so I didn't need to waste a lot of time feeling bad about not clearing her driveway. I'll say it again because it bears repeating, there wasn't much of anything to clear. Was there just enough snow to give her something to slip and fall on had that been the case? Without a doubt. I think the real culprit here is her Jack Terrior or whatever the hell you call those little furry fucks. She would never admit to that, of course, so we'll let the proverbial chips fall where they may.
It was an interesting day in the financial markets yesterday. There was a flurry of activity in the put/call activity prior to the opening of the market that suggested that someone had leaked the CPI numbers. In fact, the market rallied the day prior, and I saw a tweet that asked that very question. I mean, who throws all of their chips on the table in the casino, not knowing which way the markets were going to go once the announcement came down? I may have seen a tweet or two talking about the fact that no one should be surprised at anything coming out of the Biden White House. No one believes for a minute that Bumbles and his minions wouldn't enrich themselves and their lot by taking advantage of having prior knowledge of good CPI numbers. Futures were up pretty sharply before the market opened and just sold off during the day. The markets had the last laugh and that, I suppose, is as it should be. The casino always has the advantage. Live and learn.
I got my seasonal flu shot the other day. I'll admit, I was hesitant to do so. If I'm not mistaken, my flu vaccine is manufactured by the same people who make the Covid vaccine. I trust them with my health about as far as I can throw them. Maybe I got the flu shot because I've always gotten the flu shot. I know, I know. It's a shite reason, to be sure. The missus got after me to get the shot as well, so that helped to move things along. For better or worse, I guess it's too early to say. I do wonder sometimes about the necessity of getting all of these shots as we get along in life. Are the shots really designed to cull the herd at the end of the day? If I got no shots, would that increase my odds of living longer? There is just something about putting unnatural and potentially poisonous substances in our bodies that has me pushing back against the orthodoxy. Does that make any sense?
Raise your hand if you think our putting Patriot Missile Systems in Ukraine is a bad idea. To do what precisely? To protect the Donbas? It's a shithole of a country, and we're sending our most sophisticated weapons systems to them so they can shoot down Russian drones and Russian pilots? Every country in Europe would give their left testicle to have the protection that a Patriot Missile System provides, and that was before the shit hit the fan when Russia invaded Ukraine. Yet, we've not provided the systems to any of them. You have to ask yourself, what does this clown Zelensky have on Bumbles Biden that Bumbles would agree to send these weapons systems to Ukraine? We all know that Biden is compromised by the various and sundry schemes that the Biden Crime Family has pulled off over the years in countries like Ukraine, but they must really have the goods on Bumbles if he's now willing to give them these systems.
The placement of these systems in Ukraine represents an abrupt escalation in the war against Russia and our country's involvement in the proxy war that we've been waging since the war began. Putin has said that Russia will target our missile systems should they be put into Ukraine. More than likely, that means that Americans operating those missile systems will also be targeted. We're not about to let some hayseed from the cornfields and backwaters of Ukraine get behind the wheel of one of the most sophisticated, expensive, and deadly weapons systems that the world has ever seen. I'm a little surprised that Putin hasn't offered more than what appears to be a lukewarm response to Biden's deployment of this weapon system. It's no different, really, than Putin's standing threat to kill any and all foreigners fighting on behalf of Ukraine in Ukraine. Am I wrong about that?
Come to think of it, Zelensky may well have the silver bullet that could bring down Bumbles, and his minions, should Bumbles not agree to his demands. This involves the alleged laundering of money by FTX and that scumbag, Sam Bankman-Fried, who has donated tens of millions of dollars to the democrats in the months leading up to the 2022 mid-term elections. As I understand it, FTX sent millions to Ukraine, and Ukraine, in turn, purchased digital assets from FTX, which were then distributed back to both Ukraine and the democrats. Oh, and then there was ten percent for the big guy. We all know who the big guy is. In other words, Zelensky has the receipts. This is bigger than Watergate. This is bigger than the stolen 2020 election. This could put the democrat party on ice for decades should Zelensky spill the beans. Don't think for a minute that the arrest and detainment of Sam Bankman-Fried by the Bahamian authorities the day before he was scheduled to appear before Congress was a coincidence.
I'm trying to think of a good way to tell my neighbor that I may not be up to taking on the task of clearing snow from her property this coming winter. I'm good with doing what I've always done, which is doing her driveway, but she has other paths around her home that I know she clears for various reasons that I'm not sure I'm up to doing. I offered to help her with her snow removal earlier this year when she was planning to have her knee replaced, but I thought that might be short-lived since she got back on her feet so quickly. Now that she's broken her hip, she's not going to be doing any snow removal anytime soon, so therein lies the predicament as to what my involvement may or may not look like. As of this morning, she's lying in a hospital bed awaiting transportation to a local rehab joint, so now is not the time to have that conversation. She had a lad do some yard work for her over the summer, so having him come back on board might be an option.
Both the missus and I have been exchanging e-mails with her during her time in the hospital. Her main concern seems to be her dog, Joey, who was put up in a local kennel while all of this plays out. It looks to be a foregone conclusion that her dog will not be able to return to her home for a yet-to-be-determined period of time. Joey is a small dog, a Terrier type, if I'm not mistaken. She's not said, but I suspect, that she may have tripped over Joey one way or another, and now he's a liability of sorts, at least in the interim. I think what I'm hearing in her e-mails to us is a plea for the missus and me to take her dog while she recuperates. She's not come out and asked the question directly, but she's made it very clear as to what she doesn't want to happen as it relates to Joey's final destination. I'm referring to one option that has Joey going off to spend the winter with a friend of hers who spends his winters in a mobile home park in Florida. I don't want to read too much into her comments about the Florida thing, so we'll leave that alone for the time being.
The missus and I like dogs, but we're not amenable to having one stay with us for any period of time. As such, I've not said anything in response to my neighbor's e-mails that might have her thinking for even a moment that we'd be open to taking Joey in. The missus and I are very much on the same page here, so that's a good thing. I should also mention that this little Terrier is the apple of my neighbor's eye, so we'd likely be under the microscope day in and day out were we to take him in. Nobody likes that level of scrutiny. We'd always have to worry about whether or not she thought we were walking him enough, whether we were giving him the kind of attention that he's accustomed to receiving, etc. We like her as a neighbor, but most of our interactions, for better or worse, have been transactional at best. In other words, we're not buddy-buddy in any real sense of the word. We don't exchange presents at Christmas, we don't acknowledge birthdays, you get the idea.
Trump commented on social media earlier this week that he had a big announcement to make. He is the only candidate on the Republican side of the aisle to announce his campaign for the presidency in 2024 thus far, so I thought we might be in for something of a treat. He's not said much of anything in terms of fleshing out possible policies, so having him come out with a platform of sorts, no matter the significance, would be welcome for those of us who can't wait to see the sleazy and corrupt Biden Crime Family ousted from our beloved White House. To my great disappointment, he announced something having to do with a digital something that he was hawking for $99 or something. I'm thinking to myself, what the fuck is this? It's clownish! It's unbecoming of a man who is asking we Americans to take him as a serious contender for the presidency in 2024. Has he completely lost his mind? Who on his staff thought this was a good idea? Somebody needs to fire that mother fucker. Oh, and Trump did have something to say about his policies later in the day. Here's the problem: He'd lost half his audience with the rollout of some stupid meme and a plan to sell some stupid tokens. I'm done.
It was so funny. The Ev man and I visited a car dealership in a nearby town yesterday. Our goal was to see what they had for used cars in stock, and, secondarily, I wanted to get some sense of the trade-in value of the Ev man's car. We still haven't solved this so-called check-engine issue with his car, and I'm feeling both aggravated and desperate to get out from under the problem. We ended up test-driving a used car that looked like it might be a good fit for the Ev man. Here's the funny part: We took the wrong car out for a test drive. The two cars we were interested in were identical, but the two models were two years apart in age. It didn't really matter since we didn't like the car we took for a test drive anyway. The suspension was way too stiff, and the side windows didn't seem to seal properly. You could hear the wind whistling at speeds between thirty and forty-five once we got out on the highway. Compared to the ride of the Ev man's Volvo, it was a real piece of crap. Their offer for Ev's car was also not up to snuff, so that was that. Stay tuned.
It just so happens that Mrs. G has a car that she plans to give up in a few months, so I thought there might be a chance that we could purchase it from her maybe sooner rather than later. It would be a good replacement for the Ev man's car. We mentioned it to Mrs. G, but she wasn't biting. This will be the last time she gets behind the wheel of a car for the rest of her life, so she probably wants to savor those moments, at least for the next few months. That's fine, we respect her decision. She didn't come right out and say no, but she intimated as much, and we moved on to talk about other things. We also talked to Mrs. G about whose responsibility it is to clear the snow off of the cars at her facility. We were under the impression that the facility took on that responsibility, so you can imagine our surprise when Mrs. G told us that it was the responsibility of the tenants. What does that even look like? If Mrs. G has forgotten how all of that works, that may not bode well for an extension of her driving privileges one way or another. We need to sort this out.
The missus and I took a ride over to the local Lowes store yesterday late yesterday afternoon. It was a rainy and miserable night and probably not the best of nights to be out and about. I was happy to get to our destination in one piece, truth be told. The roads were shimmering with wetness, and under the darkness of night, our headlights were hardly up to the task of illuminating the path ahead of us on the roadway. I knew the road well enough, so we were never in any real danger, but it felt mildly perilous nonetheless. It was one of those nights where there were more store employees than customers. I wasn't sure if what we were seeing, here just a week out from Christmas, was due to the weather, or maybe, and perhaps more to the point, the ongoing malaise of the economy. I wondered aloud for the benefit of the missus if half of the employees of this well-staffed establishment, sleepwalking through their shifts as they were, wouldn't be standing in the unemployment line after the holidays, or, God forbid, sooner.
It was another in a long line of shitty weeks in the financial markets this week. The Feds keep hiking interest rates into what appears to be a recession coming down the pike, and that is never a good thing. I did a quick tally of where the S&P 500 was as of the end of the day yesterday, and it's down nearly twenty percent year-to-date. There hasn't been much in the way of panic in terms of the day-to-day activity, but, then again, we're not yet in stage three of this what many are calling an inflationary bear market. Capitulation only comes around in stage four, so we have a ways to go before we reach a buyable bottom. That is to say if you have any money left to invest once we get there. Shorter term, people are taking it on the chin, financially speaking, and they can't feel good about spending the few sheckles they have left on discretionary items like Christmas presents. As a last resort, you max out the credit cards and hope that you don't join the ranks of the unemployed in the new year before you have a chance to pay off the debt you've incurred. The market always goes back up. No?
Should I be thinking more globally about this shit-fest of a world we find ourselves in? By comparison, think about the clusterfuck that is Ukraine. Do you think their major concern is making sure that the kiddies have presents under the tree on Christmas morning? They'd be happy to have heat, a hot bowl of soup, and a roof over their heads on any given day. We lose electricity for an hour or so, and we're going Defcon-5 trying to figure out how we salvage the pork chops we bought for dinner earlier in the day. It's like you can't even put yourselves in their shoes long enough to appreciate what the hell they're up against. Maybe that's a good thing. I'd hate to be so rattled that I'd want to go hunting Russians here in my little hamlet thousands of miles away from the actual conflict in Ukraine. I just can't get my arms around any of it, if I'm honest about it. Would I even know a Russian if I saw one?
I turned on the telly (CNN) for a few minutes last night. It was for shits and giggles, but that's fine. I always wonder what governmental spin (propaganda) they're working on any given day or night. They were going full bore with the Deep State's version of Ukraine being good and Russia being bad. They had their usual paid contributors from the Army or Navy giving their version of what was going on on the ground in Ukraine and the anticipated next steps of the Ruskies. They played a video of what appeared to be a Russian advertisement for soldiers willing and wanting to go to the front lines and the benefits that might accrue to young men willing to enlist. Would it surprise me to find out that the video I was watching came out of the bowels of some left-leaning think tank in the bowels of Washington? It would not. The talking head on CNN, and her feckless guests, mocked the film as evidence of Russia on the ropes while going full grievance politics on behalf of the poor, embattled people on the ground in Ukraine. It's what they do. It's who they are.
We tried talking Mrs. G into paving the way for Debbie Rah-Rah's paramour, Mr. Willy, to join the family Christmas party at her facility this year. She would have to take it up with the management at her place since they make the rules about who can and who can't visit the facility as long as we're in the "crosshairs" of the Covid pandemic. The rules all along have been that if you're unvaccinated, you're not welcome. As I sit here today, there are a couple of problems with that position. One, the missus and I are out some three years now after getting the two shots, so we, at least in theory, no longer have any residual protection from anything since we never agreed to get boosters. Yet, we are free to come and go as we please. Secondly, Mr. Willy had Covid recently, so he, at least in theory, has more natural protection than anybody since he has the antibodies. Yet, he's not welcome at her facility. The ball is in Mrs. G's court now. She needs to make the case for Mr. Willy with the management of her facility.
It gets even more bizarre when you consider the fact that her facility has these little machines set up in their lobby that spit out name tags for visitors after the visitors answer a series of questions about their vaccination status, etc. We never go through the main lobby when we visit Mrs. G, so it doesn't apply to us. It should, but we enter her unit from the ground floor, so nobody is the wiser. Can one or more of her neighbors drop a dime on us should they so desire? Of course, said the horse. Anyway, you've got all of these visitors admitting to having been vaccinated when the fact of the matter is that many or most probably never got a booster after the original injections some three years ago. The standard for being vaccinated has never been updated to include boosters, so what good is asking people who got shots in early 2020 about their vaccination status in December 2022? Its sheer lunacy is what it is. It's theater and not especially good theater. Did I mention that the FDA just admitted that the Covid vaccines are known to cause blood clots? I rest my case.