tombeane-blog

[tombeane-blog]

Mix 1 Ounce of Elation, 1 Pound of Depression

"Meet the new boss, Same as the old boss" The Who - "Won't Get Fooled Again"

Boy did I feel muchas more goodish a few weeks ago when it was reported that Oregon had learned it's lesson on de-criminalizing drugs.

So our elected political class (elites, experts and betters) have been hard it in conference working to solve the problem.

You'd think it would be pretty easy to put the same laws and penalties back on the books that existed until 4 years ago.

Maybe just pass a resolution to cancel Measure 110?

Nope. Gotta be some comprehensive all inclusive bigger better faster solution that only progressive do-gooders can think up in a back room trying to please all known sub groups - except law abiding taxpayers.

And after a few weeks, they've just passed out of committee the solution - along with it's new price tag of $211 million dollars. That's 211 as in 1/5 of a billion of our money.

At first I thought, "Wow. That's gonna pay for a lot of cops and jail beds.

But, you know, whatever it takes to make Portland Great Again."

Then like a fool I read further.

The $211,000,000 includes:

Money for specialty courts (diversion programs, assistance with housing, training on how to bathe, etc.)

“Shovel ready projects” to address addiction and mental health

Medication to treat people in jails who suffer from opioid addiction

Training for people working in mental health fields

$30 million for county-based diversion programs

$800,000 for the state to come up with ways to address the mental health and addiction needs of youths

Cops? Penalties? No mention of going after the dealers, middlemen and the kingpins.

Keep in mind, they aren't going to spend 1/5 of a billion dollars one time and the problem is solved. Nosirree. This will be another ongoing forever program with hundreds or thousands of new state or NGO career employees helping addicts (victims), and dealers (just selling to feed their families).

First I'm gonna to buy a Semi-Trailer Truck full of beer and a U-Haul 15 footer packed to the gills with pepperoni sticks. Then I'm gonna crawl deep, deep back into my underground bunker to wait this out.

I'll peek out each year on Groundhog day to check on things.

Make Speech Free Again

[tombeane-blog]

Things In The Mirror May Appear Larger

"He got a big ugly club and a head full of hair Like great big lions and grizzly bears He's the toughest man there is alive" Hollywood Argyles - Alley Oop

"Have you noticed I'm standing a little taller and straighter lately Vern?" "Hmmm Maybe you are a teeny bit more placidly posturous, laid back and devil-may-carish. What have you done?" "I can't brag about it. I give all the credit to Tommy Copper." "Who's that some friend of yours?" "Not sure who he is. Must be some famous athlete or something. I just recently noticed his products on T.V." "So now I'm wearing the Tommy Copper Bra and it's pulling my shoulders back, down and making them relaxed. I feel like a new me." "Well that's good but I'm a little turned off by that new smell. What is that? Midnight In Paris?"

"Since we are talking about how you look Tom, you've been going to the gym 5 times a week for over 17 years. So why do you still look a little… how do I put this?… 'Tumescent." "That's just sound money management Vern." "I'm gonna' pretend that you didn't understand my question, so let me re-phrase it. By 'Tumescent' I mean - Pot Belly - or as they say in England - Spare Tyre." "After all this time, shouldn't you be working harder to slim down, get rid of that?" "No can do, Vern. Wouldn't be prudent. All my exercises exclude that part of my anatomy." "W?T?rhetoricalF?" "Return on investment Vern. Over the course of my adult life, I estimate that between the beer, the bourbon, the wine and the bar snacks, I've invested at least $25,000 in my paunch." "And if I eliminate it, it would be as if all that money was wasted."

"Besides, I may not have told you this Vern but I have the body of an elite power athlete." "Oh yeah, where is he? Buried in your back yard?" "So funny I forgot to laugh. Anyway, I can prove it." "Wait. Let me sit down…….. OK, prove away." "Being a long time customer of 23andMe, I occasionally log in to check my genetic traits. And it's been dead correct on my ear lobe type, freckles and finger ratio. It even discovered a genetic marker I have that is associated with feeling rage at the sound of other people chewing." "While there, I also came across this… and I quote, 'Tom, your genetic muscle composition is common in elite power athletes." "Ok, Tom. I'll give you that. However, you may have been born with the body of an elite power athlete, but… look what you've done to it."

"Look, I read a recent study that showed that people like me with a shorter index finger than the ring finger quote, 'scored high on mental toughness and sports performance." "I read that report Tom. It was actually a psychiatric study and you left out the part where people with that marker also scored high on various types of negative psychosocial and psychological outcomes, including intolerance of uncertainty, anxiety sensitivity callous affect, and interpersonal manipulation.” "Yeah, that's what my wife said, along with "I don't need some fancy psychiatric study to know that!"

"Then how about this? Someone recently told me, and I quote: 'Tom, you are as handsome and muscular as you were in high school'." "Who was that?" "Can't say Vern, anonymity and all that." "When was this, like 50 years ago?" "No no, fairly recently." "Tom, we've gone over this. You can't pay attention to that guy you see every morning while shaving."

"But I will say, I saw that picture of you on your last blog with the long hair and the beard. Back then you were looking pretty good." "Yeah my wife even said, 'Maybe you should let you hair and beard grow again."

"Kinda stroked my ego until she continued…."

"Back then, the more you covered up the better looking you got."

[tombeane-blog]

Moon Merde Memorial Instead

January, 2024

The Peregrine One Space Craft was launched January 8.

Phase one of it's mission was to put a lunar lander on the Moon - creating a memorial with the DNA of George Washington and John F. Kennedy, among others.

After, it was to continue traveling forever into the blackness of space carrying DNA from a bunch of famous people along with more DNA stuff from some narcissistic A$%&les with too much money.

Shortly after launch it began to fail.

Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic decided to dispose of the craft by letting it burn up while re-entering Earth's atmosphere somewhere over the South Pacific Ocean.

They made that decision to keep it from wandering aimlessly through space, posing a collision hazard.

Excuse me! Wandering aimlessly through space posing a collision hazard!. Wasn't that part of the goal of the mission to begin with?

As my grandson would S.M.S me, LL&OLO.(1)

"What's your problem Tom? It seems like the common sense thing to do. Why leave that junk to clog up our galaxy - maybe even spoiling our late night view of the Milky Way from the Kitt Peak Observatory?" "Listen up Vern. It is estimated that there may be as many as 170 million pieces of space junk orbiting the Earth. Of the approximate 55,000 pieces that are large enough to track, the Department of Defense’s global Space Surveillance Network is constantly monitoring about 27,000 of them."

Talk about collision hazards - it's a global cloud of junk.

Let's face it, this whole thing was a secret conspiracy at the highest levels of the government/hollywoke cabal. That craft and it's mission was purposefully sabotaged!!!

"I gotta' stop you right there Tom. Take a breath. Enough with the hypervenistrating. What in the Wide World of Suzie Wong makes you think it was sabotage?" "Wake up Vern. Nobody believes that an object slightly larger than Lizzo wandering through a void slightly smaller than infinity is gonna be a collision hazard."

Nope, it has everything to do with the first part of it's mission - depositing a small hair from George Washington and a few tonenail clippings from John F. Kennedy's left foot smack dab on Moon where everybody can see it."

And here is why:

"Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren issued a statement to express his objection to the NASA planned Jan. 8 launch of the United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur rocket to the moon."

"The sacredness of the moon is deeply embedded in the spirituality and heritage of many Indigenous cultures, including our own," Nygren said in a statement. “The placement of human remains on the moon is a profound desecration of this celestial body revered by our people.”

"Vern, do you seriously think our current weakwoke government was gonna stand up to an angry minority?"

Nope. Goodby space craft. Hello indigenous votes.

But as for me. No Mas!

From where the sun now stands, I stand athwart history, yelling stop! Chief Joseph / William F. Buckley.

"Stick with me on this Vern. Climb into the WayBack Machine and set the dial to 300,000 B.C. (which was a sunny day as it happens)."

And what do we see? Mankind originated in Africa, not New Mexico.

And in the before-time, our forefathers migrated north until they found themselves in the Middle East.

Most of them had no desire to get involved in that frigging Middle East mess, so they split up. Half went left and half went right, settling in Europe and Asia.

Long after the before time - due mainly to Climate Change 12.4.1 - the Asia guys stumbled onto a land bridge which allowed them to cross over into North America.

You and I and my dog knows that somewhere in that chain of tree dwellers, snake eaters, hut owners and semi-advanced civilizations a few of those people felt that the big glowing celestial thing in the sky was sacred.

Hundreds of thousands of years before anyone in North America was even around.

So I'm not gonna let these johnny-come-lately Indigenous Moon-Worshipers take ownership of our Moon. It belongs to all of us.

But all that aside, I do agree with Buu Nygren that none of wants to have to stare at toenail clippings every night.

So next time, maybe they should save us all a lot of trouble and figure out a better way. Something that is not a profound desecration of anything.

Here's my plan.

Let's use the DNA of the earliest ancestors of everyone on the planet. We can find this DNA in Cretaceous Crocodile Coprolites.

Place a couple of Sacred Coprolites in an urn and create a Mooner Memorial by crashing it on the Dark Side Of The Moon(2) where no one has to look at it.

All Hail Royal And Ancient Moon Merde!

(1) Laugh Long and Out Loud Obnoxiously (2) Discovered by Pink Floyd in 1973

[tombeane-blog]

Deep, Down Deep Into The Deep State

"And you may ask yourself, "Well, how did I get here?" Talking Heads - "Once In A Lifetime"

It's time to step groin deep into the Deep State.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa Tom. That's pretty heavy. You sure we need to get into that?" "What do you mean Vern?"

"Well, I mean we all know what the deep state is even though none of us understands what the deep state is." "Besides, what does that have to do with the price of a cold pint at Bob's Beers Bros & Blues Tavern - who's motto is - Every 10th Beer Is Half Price? (I save a fortune drinking there.)"

"Ok Vern I'll break it down. It's about those poor herring fisherman on the East Coast."

Article I of the Constitution explicitly directs that “All legislative Power herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States,”.

Until forty years ago that meant - Congress - Not Regulatory Agencies.

I think the problems started with President Roosevelt and the 'New Deal' which then got supercharged by President Johnson and the 'War On Poverty'.

More government giving, more government controlling.

And then came Covid.

Every level of government from the President down to your local dog catcher realized they could amplify this health emergency to control every aspect of your life. What to wear, where to go, how to stand. In California, they arrested a guy for surfing for cripe's sake. They filled skate parks with sand to keep kids from using them. The economy was hammered. Many kids educational progress and social skills were damaged beyond repair.

No laws were passed to allow this. No one voted on it. It was just a bunch of elite bureaucratic pinheads taking control of life in America.

"Ok Beane, so since Article 1 was pretty darned explicit, how did the government bureaucrats get so much power?"

"Hang on Vern, I'm getting to that…"

In 1984 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “agenc[ies] may... properly rely upon the incumbent administration’s views of wise policy” in “reasonably” defining statutory ambiguities."

In other words, in 1984 the Supreme Court and Congress via the Magnuson-Stevens act gave the agencies themselves the power to determine what a Congressional law the agency deemed ambiguous really meant. They gave the bureaucratic 'experts' the power to decide how to interpret laws.

As an example, the federal government was given the authority to manage 'navigable rivers and waterways'. Still makes sense in principle. One state shouldn't be able to dam up a navigable river. Later, this was diced and sliced to mean the Feds had authority over mud puddles if they eventually ended up in a creek that flowed into a 'navigable river' miles away.

So now to the poor herring fisherfolk.

The 1984 Magnuson-Stevens act allowed the National Marine Fisheries Services to govern fishing in federal waters.

For a long time, the NMFS has required herring boats, relatively small vessels that normally carry only five or six people, to also carry a federal monitor on every boat to enforce its 'regulations' in order to manage fishing resources. Every single little 5 person fishing boat has a federal monitor on board to watch them fish! (I want one of those jobs.)

Recently the NMFS without any express statutory authorization decided to require these and other companies like them to also pay the salaries of these monitors , estimated to be $710 per day, an amount that can easily exceed the profits from a day’s fishing. (Now I really want one of those jobs)

These two companies, Loper Bright and Relentless are suing the federal government saying 'proper authorization' should not force them to pay federal employees' salaries.

Both cases are now before the Supreme Court.

Depending on how broadly or narrowly the Supreme Court rules, the outcome could greatly diminish the ability of federal bureaucrats to interpret, reinterpret and misinterpret laws, or, the Supremes could let the bureaucrats continue to decide what the law means and how to enforce it.

"Vern, wake up. Have you listened to a word I've said?" "Mmmmph? I'm listening, I'm listening!… you said something about a dog catcher… mud puddles… somethin' somethin'… fissures. Yeah, heard every word."

"Stay awake. Let me put this into terms you understand."

"If the Supreme Court rules very narrowly, it would be like putting a tiny dent into the rear of today's government bureaucracy - which looks like this."

"But if they follow the intent of the Constitution and rule broadly, our government will start to look like this…"

Smaller, more efficient, quicker handling, cheaper, faster.

"I know this isn't as sexy sounding as Roe V Wade or the 2nd Amendment rulings. But surely, you have to agree that this one is just as, maybe more, important."

"OK, Ok, I agree with you Beane. But don't call me Shirley."

(Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, from the District of Columbia Circuit, and Relentless v. Department of Commerce, from the First Circuit, are now before the Supreme Court.)

[tombeane-blog]

Will There Be Cockroaches In Heaven?

"Cause I have wandered through this world And as each moment has unfurled I've been waiting to awaken from these dreams" Jackson Browne - Doctor My Eyes

"They" say that dreams are your brain sorting out the days events or trying to problem solve stuff. Freud thought dreams were all about your mommy… or sex.

A few weeks ago, I dreamed I was with a large group of people and we were hijacked by Islamic terrorists and held hostage in a barn on some dusty farm. The very next night I dreamed I was a basketball coach and I was being interviewed along with other coaches for a job at a high school. (I never played organized basketball.) I recently went to my grandson's wrestling tournament. That night I dreamed about zombies. Sometimes I was a zombie hunting human brains, other times I was human being chased by zombies - switching back and forth all night. I'm trying to figure out what wrestling has to do with zombies and how zombie dreams could sort out W-ever-TF? was in my brain…

So I got to thinking - What if your dream state isn't just your brain doing janitorial stuff or acting as your therapist?

What if it's your soul wrestling with your ethics as related to your earthly experiences and problems. Preparing you for…?

Near death experiences seem kinda like that don't they? There you are drifting and dreaming and floating above it all - just watching - sometimes seeing your mommy and daddy, sometimes seeing light at the end of some smoky tunnel, sometimes just looking around..(Cool. Over there. isn't that ToTo?), sometimes even seeing God.

What if when you die you just shift to permanently dreaming? And after your death your dream state is made up of all that you are, all that you experienced, all that you did - up to that moment?

And the kind of person you are at death determines your dream. If you are a terrible, evil person, your dreams are your hell. If you are a good, nice, uncommonly handsome person like me you will enter a permanent heavenly dream. But, if there is a a dash or two of evil (like you guys) you enter a purgatorial dream for a fewmongous millenia or until you get your dream s%i&t together. (Don't worry, I'll wait for you.)

So I'm thinking maybe when you are born you get connected with this dream-state-soul which may have been created by God, or, by some sub-atomic quark to quark connection with the Universe. After all, we are all made of 'Star Stuff' - which includes quarks and muons and freons - all one with the the Universe (at least according to the laws of String Theory).

And if we evolved from single cell thingies, at what point did we develop this soul/dream connection? Or was it always there, waiting to connect to a life form?

Do dogs have a dream state, a soul? - They dream too. What about bugs? Ants sleep for a second or two hundreds of times a day. Do they have ant dreams commensurate with the intelligence and experience of their little ant brains? Does an ant join the etheream in a somewhat smaller, but still infinite ant dream after you step on the little irritating scumbag?

Do we die and merge with a God/Universe and permanently dream along with everything and everyone else? And is that what Heaven is? Or Hell?

Will we dream-connect with duck billed platypie and our lovable pets and every species that ever existed when we join in a universal dream spun by the Dream Weaver or, by Physics and String Theory?

"Though the dawn may be coming soon There still may be some time Fly me away to the bright side of the moon And meet me on the other side" Gary Wright - Dream Weaver

Will there be cockroaches and slugs and liberals mixing their own grubby little infinite dreams with ours???

Ewwww!!!

Make Speech Free Again

[tombeane-blog]

Pantone 13-1023 Just In Time For Christmas

I woke up this morning, logged onto the Google and was slapped with this horrific headline.

"El Nino appears to be on the verge of rapid collapse"

Holy c-rap! Rapid collapse? That can't be good, can it? Will we hear the sucking sound as it collapses - pulling in all the birds, fish and ships in the area along with that giant floating pile of plastic straws the size of Texas?

I can never remember exactly what El Nino means in terms of winter weather. I think El Ninos cause winter to be hotter and wetter… or maybe it's colder and drier?

On the other hand I just can't take La Nina seriously because it seems smaller and weaker - all girly or something.

Anyway, none of these seem like a good thing. I've been told nothing related to a changing climate can ever be good.

I mean we are supposed to spend 67 gazzilion dollars(adjusted for inflation) over the next X years keeping it from changing 1 or 2 degrees right?

So I ask myself, why do we put up with 20 degrees in the winter and 101 degrees in the summer? Can't we fix that too?

But I got off base here. Back to the headlines.

"The climate pattern known as El Niño, which quickly strengthened into a strong event, appears to be on the brink of a major decline, which would send the world into what is known as a neutral status."

Sending the world into Neutral Status? Are we supposed to think that is better? Somehow it sounds even scarier, or, at the least, more boring.

====================== Speaking of health hazards. How much do we know about what we put into our bodies?

Study the following list of ailments: Dizziness, headaches, nausea, diarrhea, constipation, blurred vision, hives, itching, fever, trouble breathing, drowsiness, insomnia, dry mouth, urinary tract infections (UTIs), genital infections, erection lasting 24 hours, dehydration, low blood sugar, ketoacidosis, alopecia, dermatitis, photosensitivity, dry skin, sweating… …and then there is low blood pressure, high blood pressure, no blood pressure… …and in rarely common cases - near death, far death, fear of death, fear of not dying and dying.

Now match them to the common medications we see on T.V. each and every day: Abilify, Jardiance, Rinvoq, Skyrizi, Viozah, DexcomG7, Dupixent, Jardiance, Celexa, Cialis, Celebrix, Claritin-D, Cosyntyx, Chantix, Lyrica, Lutada, Lexapro, Eliquis, Humira, Paxil, Zoloft, Xeljanz, Viibryd, Viagra and Voya (Not sure about that last one. It might be a financial thingy)

Ha! You just wasted three hours categorizing and cross referencing and fell for a titanius tower of trickery!

Most of them match most of them.

====================== While we are contemplating titanastic towers of stuff…

In the early twentieth century, New York City had a population of 7,000,000 humans and about 150,000+ horses. Each horse on average produced twenty-two pounds of manure a day, i.e., forty-five thousand tons of horse poop a month.

"Experts” at that time predicted that by 1930, the stuff would be piled three stories high in the streets. If asked, the "expert's" solution probably would have been to just kill all the horses.

As Yogi Berra once said, “Predictions are hard, especially about the future.” Because soon a technical solution in the form of the automobile came along.

Goodby poop smell! Hello sweet odor of automobile exhaust!

Maybe we should question "experts" a little more carefully and think through the "solutions" they push.

Like that deep throated guy in the movie 'All The President's Men' said, "Follow the money".

====================== Good news I just saw on the Telly! After the 87th attack on our forces in the Mideast, Our Secretary of Defense has just announced that the U.S. may be forced to taunt the Houthi's a second time.

====================== But I don't want to leave you feeling down just before The Holidays. So there's this:

"A warm and cozy shade highlighting our desire for togetherness with others and the feeling of sanctuary this creates, it presents a fresh approach to a new softness. Subtly sensual, it is a heartfelt hue bringing a feeling of tenderness and communicating a message of caring and sharing, community and collaboration."

I don't know about you but I'm feeling all tickly inside somewhere near my duodenum.

Yes. It's the 2024 Color Of The Year - PANTONE 13-1023 PEACH FUZZ.

Much better than 2023's color of the year - Gang Green. But, unlike Peach Fuzz, it is a Holiday color - sooo…

Merry Christmas!

[tombeane-blog]

The End Of Mankind As We Know It - The Mega Maga Merge

After wasting your time and patience in the previous two blogs, I'll just cut to the chase in this one.

Mankind as we know will become fini, kaput - harder to find than Waldo. By that I mean flesh and blood versions of ourselves are no more, done, over, turn out the lights.

Relax, it will not be soon. Not in decades, maybe within a few hundred years, for sure within a thousand.

We are on the verge of creating real A.I. (Sounds weird to say real artificial?) And it will be way smarter than us, although not necessarily sentient very soon. Keep in mind, being smart doesn't guarantee common sense. A very smart, very educated Supreme Court Nominee could not answer the question, "What Is A Woman?".

We are on verge of creating a working Quantum Computer. I won't try to describe how it works except to say that instead of using ones and zeros, it uses the state of quantum particles and waves such as bosons, quarks, nerds and dorks.

Bottom line, it will be 1,000,000,000,000 times faster than today's fastest supercomputer. (For recent college graduates, that's 1 trillion times faster.)

According to Michio Kaku, world renowned theoretical physicist, it will change everything….everywhere….all at once - and very soon.

QC based A.I. that is 1 trillion times smarter than us? Within decades? - maybe. Within a century or two? - absolutely. Everything will change everywhere, all at once.

What will that mean? Take health - A QC computer would understand the entirety of all the genomes of all living things - humans, animals, plants, viruses and germs. If a new viral disease infects humans, a QC computer could run all the trillions of outcomes or variations in the virus genome against the human genome and construct a vaccine to cure the disease. No lab tests, no trial runs in mice, monkeys or humans. And it would be able to do it in nanoseconds. And it could analyze the DNA of each person in real time and manufacturer an individual vaccine for each person so there are no side effects. You enter a medical pod, get a custom vaccine and walk out.

QC will most likely design a newer quantum computer a trillion times faster than itself - maybe by using string theory to utilize the states of particles and waves everywhere in the Universe?

All knowledge. Common sense. All data.

We may ultimately know the answer to the Big Bang and the Purpose of the Universe?

During a podcast, Joe Rogan asks Michio Kaku "In the future, how do we contend with an entity billions or trillions of times smarter than us?" Michio responds, "We Join It."

How soon it is going to happen and especially how it is going to happen, I have no idea.

Will we create and become (a) god?

Arthur C. Clarke's third law, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Then isn't magic (or the power of a god) simply the end result of technological advancement?

As we join our consciences into a massive computerized entity: Will our soul join with us or do we die? Or will we just be a soulless copy of our knowledge and experience? With no flesh and blood, only consciousness, are there any limits to what we know, where we go? Planetary, galactic and inter-galactic exploration? Explore the Universe, swan dive into a black hole just for fun? Live hundreds of millions of years?

"We are like caterpillars spinning a cocoon. We are driven to do it even though we have no idea that we will become butterflies." Joe Rogan quasi-quote referring to Quantum Computers

As we explore the Universe in a box the size of a sugar cube, or, sense the mysteries of the Universe through vibrating strings of matter, will we eventually discover all there is to discover, know all there is to know?

And maybe even meet God.

[tombeane-blog]

The End Of Mankind As We Know It - Fadeout And Objectaphilia

(Warning: Contains a male only viewpoint. Your perception of misogyny may vary.)

Earth's population is within a few decades of reaching an irreversible turning point.

In many countries, developed or not, the people are no longer having enough children to replace themselves.

We don't notice this now because increased life spans and other factors temporarily mask the trend. The population is still growing but not for much longer.

(The Fadeout) A total collapse or transformation is going to take place in global economies.

No matter whether a country is a democracy, socialist, a dictatorship, or even communist - it needs growing internal and external markets to survive.

Less people, markets shrink. No matter the ideology or frantic machinations of the government - in order to survive, the dwindling population will force governments to spend less, build less, progress less.

The population decline may not play out the same in different countries and at the same rate. But as one country starts to shrink, it will affect markets with any country in which it shares commerce.

Government handouts and investments shrink, jobs disappear, exports and imports are reduced. The trends gain speed towards the ultimate economic transformation of civilization as we know it.

People today are more and more disinclined to take on the task of having and raising children. Some to save the planet, others maybe because it is too expensive.

As governments flay wildly at the problem using higher taxes for some, tax breaks for others, wage and price controls - this well just accelerate the trend. People will not want to have more kids. Not even the 2.1 required to maintain the current population levels.

Sooner or later economies and governments begin to decay or suddenly collapse. Globally this will happen over a period of 75-200 years.

But no matter how current experts interpret, parse, cherry pick or misinterpret the data, global economies and populations are in for a rough ride for a century or two.

But one specific trend may supercharge the decline because it will balloon the collapse and grow the shrinking. (weird word pairings huh?)

What is it? Yep yep yep, we're talking sex now!

More specifically, Artificially Intelligent Sexual Companions.

In the modern world, men are more and more treated as 'the problem' and the solution to 'the problem' is to delegitimize and feminize men in order to root out the toxic masculinity. So I ask, "Who wants to stand tall, be masculine, work hard, raise sons to do the same and be stigmatized as toxic for doing so?"

And women have been told since the 70's that, 'A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle'.

So what happens is, more and more young males grow up in a digital fantasy world, never developing social skills. Men who have no interest dating real women, much less build a family.

I don't want to anger you folks (OK I will) by going through 99.9% of human history of male and female roles. I'll just state that a main biological driver for most men is to have their egos stroked and to be provided with sex on demand. So women throughout evolution stroked men's egos and gave them sex in exchange for the safety and security required to nurture and raise their offspring. Nature evolved hormonal attraction. But human society called it love and made it a binding familial proposition to ensure the growth of mankind.

Men came to accept, and really like this arrangement overall and in fact, really loved the woman. Women liked the security and stability it guaranteed and even loved the man.

(Here is a typical Male-female conversation that hasn't changed much over thousands of years) "You numbah one Joe. Small ones hungry. You need get more meat next time. Me love you long time." "Move female. Me watching Monkey's play Coconut Ball. Tell small ones hush. Get meat later. Bring fermented grain."

Family life is great. Spouses are great. Kids are great. Everyone loves it.

But now, all of this is changing before our very eyes.

Guys growing up in the digital world will not develop the skills to woo a real women - even if they want one - which they probably won't. Women more and more choosing a career and providing for her own life without men's support and without kids. Trading a long term relationships for occasional hookups.

(And The Objectaphilia) Just speaking for the guys - what happens when they can get all the ego stroking and sex without any strings attached? Bald, pudgy, un-bathed and unshaven - guys can meander around town, meeting up with their bros - a beer in one hand and the latest Letitia model 17.3.5, a young, beautiful, individually programmed, volupionated gal clinging to their left arm. She's smiling, programmed love in her eyes, obviously enthralled with the man's every word.

"You numbah one Joe. You so handsome. All other men numbah 10. Me love you long time"

And like a car, men can get a new model whenever they want? Smart ones, quiet ones, loud brassy ones that play pool and like football. The list is endless. Want a harem? No problem.

Want a kid that looks just like you? Buy one tailor made. Keep him in the closet when you aren't playing catch in the back yard.

Of course there will be many men who will resist this. But less and less men will want a life lived the old fashioned way. Not enough will want to commit to a real woman and have the 2.1 kids that it will take to stop the coming collapse.

As all this plays out, A.I. will take over almost all jobs, do all the farming, keep all the lights on, provide all the burgers, give us all the entertainment we demand and in general, serve the dwindling population. The fewer and fewer will be well cared for by A.I.

I can not, and will not, speak for women. Will they want an Artificially Intelligent Companion? You gals are gonna have to wrestle with that one.

"You know they ain't thinkin' about no man These women ain't playin' no secrets, no more They playin' a wide open hand" Johnny Winter - Bad Girl Blues

[tombeane-blog]

The End Of Mankind As We Know It - Climate Change

"It's the end of the world as we know it, It's the end of the world as we know it, It's the end of the world as we know it, And I feel fine" R.E.M - "It's The End Of The World As We Know It"

The Good News: WE AIN'T GONNA DIE FROM MAN-MADE CLIMATE CHANGE!! The Bad News: WE MAY END UP LIVING AS SERFS.

According to a small group of climate hucksters (who profit and gain more power) - unchecked carbon caused by me driving to my son-in-law's house to watch America's Cowboys beat the hapless Eagles every year will increase the temperature a couple of degrees over the next few decades.

Let's cogitate on those couple of degrees for a moment shall we?

A few thousand years ago, Canada and a large part of the northern United States was covered in multi-maga thick ice. To add insult to injury, nature created a lake as big as Lakes Erie and Ontario combined right where Missoula, Montana sits today.

The ice dam holding the lake back was over 2,000 feet tall.

Every 15-20,000 years the dam would suddenly collapse, and a flood would be released with a force equal to 60 Amazon Rivers that would rush to the Pacific Ocean. These floods every few millennia created much of the geography of Washington and Oregon.

Every 15-20,000 years. Over and over.

When the next ice age happens, and it will happen again - Portland, Oregon will disappear in a matter of hours - washed away by the inevitable Missoula Flood - sweeping all the tents, boxes, trash bags, drug needles and street poop down the Columbia River and into the Pacific Ocean.

So even if you buy into the line that by driving petrol fueled cars and heating our homes with natural gas means an increase in the temperature of a couple of degrees - which means we can grow bananas in Iowa… I'm good with that.

Sounds a lot better than wearing four polar bear hides during the next ice age - trying to stay warm while gazing at the eastern horizon fearfully anticipating the next gargantious wall of water.

Or, maybe future elites will plan on stopping that too?

The only for-sure-bad-news Climate Change we need to worry about will take place in a few thousand years and it will be totally unrelated to driving cars or eating meat.

Even in the worst, most scarious scenario absurdias, i.e., the elites are correct and us petrol heads kill all the polar bears and the oceans rise and the Mojave Desert is all of a sudden at the bottom of an ocean… so what? The Mojave was under water before. If it happens, we will just squeeze a little closer together and have some beautiful views of the Pacific Ocean from the west side of the Rocky Mountains. (Los Angeles and San Francisco will be the first to go when the ocean rises - so it's not all bad.)

Look, there are two Doomsday Scenarios related to Climate Change.

Scenario One: The highly touted nightmare scenario that is not going to happen.

Me and my goombahs cause the earth to heat way up, the oceans rise and hurricanes and floods and drought destroy civilization.

Which means that the animals will rule once again and us few goombahs left will retreat to the trees where we will sip Coconut Mojitos and watch the Chimpanzees beat the hapless Orangutans in a game of Coconutball.

Scenario Two: The secret plan to enslave mankind that won't do a thing to stop climate climate.

The more likely scenario is that the elitists are successful in convincing us to give them all of our individual liberties so they can guide us and make decisions for us.

No more constitutional protections, no more free speech, no more free markets that threaten to destroy the environment by us driving our 1964 Midnight Blue Ford Mustangs.

We will sit huddled in our solar and wind powered homes, always cold in the winter, always hot in the summer, eating our government approved bug meal and plant based tuna casseroles.

Only allowed to travel more than a few blocks occasionally to re-elect our wise leaders.

Or, maybe to conduct ceremonial abortions and sterilizing genital mutilations in honor of The Goddess Gaia.

Either way it'll all work out in the long run for Mother Earth because, either we end up living in trees, or we live our lives as serfs ruled by the elite managing our carbon footprint.

The first one ain't never gonna happen.

The second one might happen if we believe the climate hysteria stories and we give up more and more power to the hustlers, elites, 'experts' and the upcoming climate biased A.I. super computers.

I'm an optimist so I'm looking forward to watching Coconutball.

[tombeane-blog]

A Naive White Boy Growing Up In Dixie

"His enemies say he’s on their land They got him outnumbered about a million to one He got no place to escape to, no place to run" Bob Dylan - "Neighborhood Bully"

As an 8 year old living in Atlanta, Georgia, most of the warm summer days would be spent running around the neighborhood playing war.

Either the Second World War or the "Silver War" - where the lucky guys would be the Rebels and the unlucky ones would be the Damn By-God Yankees who deserved all the Hell we could give 'em.

One day after a few hours of this, one of the gang says out of the blue… "Hey I know! Let's go over to a house on the next street and beat up this kid who lives there."

My dad was career military. Growing up, I never once heard my dad disparage any group or person because of their race or religion. As far as my young every day life, hate for religion or race just didn't exist.

Of course living in Atlanta in the 50's, I can remember seeing the twin drinking fountains, one labeled 'white' and the other 'colored'. I also saw the signs requiring the colored to sit in the back of the bus.

All of this was just white noise like road signs and store billboards. They were there but as a kid I didn't think about them.

I knew at a very shallow level what the signs meant but they had no affect on my daily goings on.

That was a big part of the problem in the South at the time. All this was just accepted as normal by most of us white folks and was just ignored.

That wasn't the case for those suffering from religious hatred or even worse - direct overt discrimination, hate and racism.

I didn't actually meet and talk to a black person until I was in high school. If I were to run into him at a high school reunion today would he be classified as Black or would he prefer African American? I just remember him as a nice guy. Maybe he would want me to call him Bernie - just like when we were in school.

I also didn't meet my first Mexican until I was a sophomore in high school.

One of them I didn't even think of as Mexican because he was just another friend. If I met him today I wouldn't know how to classify him - Mexican, Mexican-American, Hispanic, Chicano, LatinX? Would I just shake his hand and call him Johnny Z like all of us did back then?

My first high school girlfriend was Catholic. I didn't think one way or another about anybody's religion much less my girlfriend.

That was, until my senior year during the Nixon/Kennedy Presidential Election when many in America were very much afraid that if Kennedy got elected it would mean the Pope would be running the country.

After Kennedy was elected and he governed lust like all the Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians and Episcopalians before him, it looked like we were beyond all that.

But a couple of years ago during the Supreme Court confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett, Sen. Dianne Feinstein told nominee Barrett "The dogma lives loudly within you" - as if her religious beliefs would taint her ability to rule based on the U.S. Constitution. (She never said that to Sonia Sotomayor who was also Catholic)

When I joined the Navy and went to boot camp, I ran into my first Damn By-God Yankees. All of us southern boys talked normally while all them Yankees sounded funny. Other than that though, they turned out to be just like us.

I was in the Navy for a year before I finally reported aboard my first ship. That was when I stumbled across my first Jew. Of course on a ship you never knew anything personal about one of your shipmates until you had already become friends and by then it was too late to hate them. Eventually, it would just come up in a casual conversation.

"You're Jewish? You don't look, walk or talk like I thought a Jew would! You seem almost normal."

During my time in the Navy and throughout my business career, I had friends that were Lebanese, Chinese, Muslim, Southern Baptist, Mormon, Hindu, and Democrat - plus all kinds of religions, castes, ideologies, minorities and backgrounds.

It was never a big deal when I first encountered someone left handed or black or red-headed or Mexican, or a Yankee, a Jew, a Catholic, a Muslim or even, heaven forbid, an Italian.

If I found out, I just thought of it as an interesting aspect of them as a person, like if they put ketchup on a hot dog or something. (And why would they do that?)

Sadly, so much of government, society and culture today seems to be devoted to dividing us into separate tribes and then teaching us to hate anyone not in our tribe.

The propaganda is extreme, loud and constant. It is harder and harder to resist becoming one of them.

It is obvious that some, for their own purposes and profit, wants us to hate each other.

On my own, there are lot's of people I don't like and some I come close to hating. But it's because of what they do or have done, not who they are, what they look like or where they come from.

I'm a racial, religious and gender cosmopolitan. I can hate anyone - regardless of (insert the usual list here).

"So why do we need to go beat him up? I don't even know who he is." "He's a Jew!!!"

I tried to find out what a Jew was and why we needed to beat him up but he just repeated, "He's a Jew!" - as if that was enough.

It didn't seem like a good enough reason then and it doesn't seem like a good enough reason now.

Me and my brother just walked on home.

[tombeane-blog]

The Lonesome Death Of A Backyard Buddy

Starring:

Molly, as the young and brainless German Shepherd belonging to my daughter's family.

Seeva, as the older, more beautiful and extremely intelligent Australian Shepherd who loves me beyond human comprehension.

Carolyn, as the well meaning, innocent, caring, giving and totally unsuspecting  - dog-dupe.

Since we've been doggy sitting Molly 3 days a week, Carolyn and Molly have developed a unique relationship - Backyard Buddies.

When Molly gets here she immediately wants out into the backyard to run and play.  She insists that Seeva go with her.

Seeva waits for me to go outside to clean up the poop and only then does she join us.  Then the two of them romp around the backyard while I slouch around with a shovel and a bucket, trying not to breathe.

Seeva chases Molly.  Molly chases Seeva. They stand and bark at each other and eventually they run barking and growling, side by side as they rush to the fence to deter some unseen danger on the other side.

By the time I've finished and I'm putting the bucket away, Seeva is all done in and comes back into the house with me.

So Molly comes in after her and they wrestle some more with Seeva so tired by now she lays on her back, legs in the air while Molly jumps around her.

Then finally, Seeva lays down next to me and calls it quits.

Pretty soon Molly is bored and wants to go back outside.  I say, "No thanks, not me." so Carolyn goes outside and sits in a chair on the deck while Molly runs for another 20-30 minutes.

Now that summer is over, it is wet and cold with nothing in our future but wetter and colder as far as the calendar can see.

So now I keep thinking of those movies that take place in Montana or maybe Wyoming in a brutal winter storm where, at the end the bad guy is found sitting in the snow, eyes open, frozen more solid than an ice cube.

I'm beginning to think that before the end of winter, I'm gonna find Carolyn out there, still in her night dress, blanket over her legs, glassy eyes staring at something over the horizon.  Covered in a light coating of snow. Like a statue, frozen stiff.

A Nana Flavored Popsicle.

Molly next to her, thinking "Hey human person, I guess I'm ready to go in now".

[tombeane-blog]

Lost In Schertz, Texas

"Whoa-oh. oh mercy, mercy me Oh. Things ain't what they used to be, no no" Marvin Gaye - "Mercy. Mercy Me"

October 14th, 2023. Schertz, Texas. Directly in the path of the "Ring Of Fire" annular eclipse.

There's a danger in going to a reunion after 62 years.  That person you liked may now be an obnoxious jerk.  If so, a beautiful, comforting memory is destroyed forever. It rips a piece of who you are out of you. Will I like them? Will they like me?

I join a small group of strangers for the Memory Walk Saturday morning at 9 a.m. The first people I meet are my high school best friend Roger, his wife Brenda and his sister Rosie.

We walk and talk the few blocks to the old high school and back.  Rosie brings up the famous chicken-in-the-teacher's-car episode and Roger and I have to raise our hands and confess.  (In our defense, how could teen aged boys know how much poop a panicked chicken could scatter all over the inside of a locked car?)

After the walk, Roger invites me to come to his house for a visit.  There, we chat outside, then inside and we keep talking as we take a walk down to his pond.

I see a small snake about two feet long, motionless in an S shape on the hard ground. We get close and it stays frozen - looking up(at what?).

I reach down and tap it lightly. It slithers away, still looking up.

Back inside, we talk for a while and then Roger and I run up to a local Mexican restaurant for a couple of Tacos.

As we are leaving we see a woman looking up... and that's when we realize that we had talked through the entire 2 plus hours of the eclipse. (Is that what the snake was looking at?)

Even though the ladies were bummed out after hearing the news of the missed eclipse, we still had four lives to review so we chatted away the afternoon.

At 4:30 Rosie and I leave for the Reunion Dinner at the local VFW hall.

Somehow my memory failed me completely and we ended up lost(lost in Schertz, Texas???).

Rosie logs onto that Google map thingy and she directs me to the VFW hall.

Just to the left of the hall is the ancient sign outside the long abandoned Drive-in Theater where teen paradise in Schertz awaited.

There's only a small part of it still standing and it's eroded to the point it's no longer even readable.

We go inside the VFW hall and get our name tags and head into a large, crowded room filled with strangers we once knew.  

I was hoping they wouldn't see me as that slightly paunchy, incompletely bald and totally 80 years old guy standing in front of them.  I didn't get even one - "Tom, you dog.  You haven't changed a bit".  Understandable, but.....Damnit to Heck!

"I had to rearrange their faces

And give them all another name"

Bob Dylan - "Desolaton Row"

We blend into the crowd.  I grab a cold Lone Star and wander around, going up to various people and starting conversations with "And you are...?"  Often I walk away thinking, "Yeah but... CLASS OF 61' RULES!"

I sit for a while with Jane, Joan and Lynda - classmates who all became teachers.  Not one of them looks older than 50.  How did they manage that?

"He rocks in the treetop all the day long

Hoppin' and a-boppin' and a-singin' his song"

Bobby Day - "Rockin' Robin"

They are playing 50's Rock and Roll.  The dance floor redefines the word empty.

Rosie comes over and says, "Tom, let's dance."  "No way, I haven't danced in decades and besides we'd be the only ones out there."

She won't let go of it and drags me onto the dance floor.  The music is irresistible and it overwhelms my common sense.  

All of a sudden the music is around us and in us and all alone on the dance floor we are 'Rockin' ana' Boppin, Rollin' ana' Strollin'. 

We are on fire and burning up the floor.  In my mind I'm as good as I ever was, although I can't shake the feeling that most of the crowd is probably thinking, "What in the wide wide world of sports is that old fool doing out there dancing with that hot chick?"

The music ends and out of breath, we proudly slink back into the crowd.

I'm sitting with some classmates talking.  The music is so loud I can only hear snippets - "do you remember.... what happened to... moved there and... it hurt like hell with my two hip replacements."   Hearing some, pretending to hear others, I nod and I smile.

All of a sudden it's 9 o'clock and Roger is here to pick up Rosie.  We walk to his car.  Brenda is sitting in the passenger seat with her little Yorkie on her lap.  Rosie slides into the back seat and we say our goodbyes.

As I walk to my rental, I look up, and there, standing tall above the trees is that big Starlite movie screen.  From a distance it looks pristine and white but I know it is stained and rusty and decaying.  I wonder how it hasn't fallen down after all those decades of being abandoned.

I think of the before times when teen couples in cars - with other things on their minds - blissfully ignored the moving images on the screen.

And those teens are all gone now.  Some gone somewhere.  Some gone somewhere else. Some gone forever.  Some remembered.  Some forgotten. 

Battling against time, that big white screen seemingly pays no heed to the years. It ignores the rain, the wind and the neglect. 

Weathered and old, but still standing.

Just like us.

[tombeane-blog]

On Her Way To The Sea

September, 2023

I'm going to my high school reunion next week so I thought it was time to practice re-living my youth....

Two young ladies from Brazil are forever intertwined, although as far as I know they never met.  

Overnight, one became globally famous and her name is known to this day.

The other also became famous overnight and is still talked about today but outside of her home country, almost no one knows her name.

Rio de Janeiro, 1962 - A 17 year old girl walks to the beach each morning.  

36 year old Antonio Carlos Jobim and 49 year old Vinicius de Moraes,  two Brazilian Bossa Nova composers sit in the Veloso bar sipping Brahma beer and musing about their latest song collaboration. 

The duo favor the place for the good brew and the even better girl-watching opportunities. 

And these two older married guys are totally enchanted by a 17 year old girl young enough to be their daughter and granddaughter.

Vinicius de Moraes describing her later...

“She is a golden girl, a mixture of flowers and mermaids, full of light and full of grace, but whose character is also sad with the feeling that youth passes and that beauty isn’t ours to keep.  She is the gift of life with its beautiful and melancholic constant ebb and flow.”

After watching her day after day, they collaborate and compose a Portuguese song about this 17 year old titled, 'Menina que Passa’'.

"Tall and tan and young and lovely..."

In March of 1963, Stan Getz, a renowned jazz saxophonist, teamed up with Brazilian guitarist João Gilberto in New York to record the songs of Antônio Carlos Jobim.

They wanted "Menina que Passa’' to please the American audience so it was re-written on the spot in English.  

"...and when she passes, each one she passes goes...ahhhhhh"

The only problem was that there was no one available with a good enough command to sing the song in English except for João’s Giberto's wife Astrud, who had come along to the studio just to sit and watch.

Although she had never recorded professionally, she was an experienced vocalist having sung on stage with her husband.  

What followed catapulted the 22 year-old singer to worldwide fame.

The song was described as: "Astrud’s child-like vocal, devoid of vibrato and singerly mannerisms, was the perfect foil for her husband’s soft bumblebee voice. Jobim tinkled piano. Getz blew a creamy smooth tenor. Four minutes of magic went to tape."

"The Girl From Ipanema" became the second most recorded song in history, just behind "Yesterday" by the Beatles.

Astrud Gilberto was reportedly paid just $120 which was the standard rate for her contribution – although Stan Getz was apparently insistent that she should be paid nothing.

He made a fortune.

This became the pattern of her entire life.  She became globally famous for a while and was semi-famous for decades to come.  She performed and recorded for the rest of her life but never benefited financially in a major way and was taken advantage of by pretty much everyone she performed with or was managed by.  

She later lived a quiet life in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and passed away this past June.

And the girl from Ipanema?  Heloísa Eneida Paes Pinto Mendes Pinheiro better known as Helô Pinheiro lives to this day.  

Although little known outside of Brazil, Helo has had a successful life as a Model, TV personality, Brazilian Playboy Playmate, Olympic Torch Bearer, Business Owner and Entrepreneur.

"When she walks, she's like a samba ,

That swings so cool and sways so gentle ,

That when she passes, each one she passes goes - ahhhhhh"

"But each day that she walks to the sea,

she looks straight ahead, not at he."

During the Opening Ceremonies of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro a gorgeous Brazilian Super Model in a sparkling dress strutted down the catwalk accompanied by a Bossa Nova classic, paying homage to, "The Girl From Ipanema".

The Super Model?  Gisele Bündchen.

There are songs that take you back to a certain place - like slow dancing in a darkened gym with the smell of fast-dance-induced sweat mixed with the aroma of sweet perfume.

And there are some songs that generate those same feelings but are created by something that never, ever happened.  

This one did 60 years ago and still does.

[tombeane-blog]

Same Planet, Different Worlds

I know too much and most of it is wrong. My grandsons know too little and much of it is questionable.

But by sheer volume of mental stuff - I win.

My doctor and my physical therapist are maybe two generations younger than me.

I keep saying to both, "Hey doc, my back still hurts after all this modern medical technology and exercise. Don't you know someone in Tijuana that knows somebody that knows some other guy who could smuggle a couple of magic pills across the border that would fix all this?". "Wink wink nudge nudge - not those Fentanyl thngies"

And all l keep getting from them is the same spiel - "You're back pain is all muscle weakness Tom. You're just gonna have to work harder and work harder on all three major muscle groups - especially the core."  

"Doc, I'm way past all that. I only have two major muscle groups."

"What's that?"

"Those that hurt and those that don't hurt."

=========================================

I had an argument recently with one of my grandsons who believes that just because he is 60 years younger, and, better looking than me, his brain still works and mine doesn't.

It got heated and loud - even involving a few creative variations of the F word.

Afterwards, thinking maybe it's a generational thing and maybe, just maybe, my brain is mis-rememberating, I logged onto the World Wide Google and asked Chatty Kathy / GPT to explain it to me.

Before the research, I was convinced that I was 100% right and he was just wrong.

I hate to admit it, but it turns out that the exact opposite is true and that, according to the GPT, He was wrong and I was right.

=========================================

I recently saw an article on the Internet that pointed out that I have been washing my armpits wrong. 80 frigging years gone by and now they're telling me! Schmucks!

So first I'd like to apologize to all of my friends, family and co-workers who have had to put up with the odoriferous result of my lack of proper armpit hygeination.

Now I'm wondering if I should pass this wisdom along to my teen age grandsons so they don't spend the rest of their lives in an unhygienic cesspool wondering why nobody stands close to them.

But I hesitate to do so because for some reason, every time I try to tell them how to live their lives, they ignore me - or worse.

I can envision the short bitter conversation already. (I've paraphrased it for clarity.)

"Hey (names redacted), I saw on the WWW that you are washing your armpits wrong. How about I teach you how to do it properly?"

"How about you stay out of my life, you old fool."

"Besides, old-timer, don't you know you can't believe everything you read or see on the Internet?"

"So here Pops, I got some Spanish advice for you - largate estupido pendejo!"

"Anyway Pa, I'll believe it's true when I see it on the Instagram."

"That's MISTER pendejo to you! And, I got your German lesson right here - Teletubbyzurückwinker!"

=========================================

I recently found out that one of my 15 year old grandsons is exactly the same weight as me.  

I can't help wondering, "So how come he looks like that and I look like this?"

=========================================

For the past 30 years or so I've been invisible to anyone under the age of 30.

So now every time I go into a store staffed by youngsters, I take souvenirs?.

[tombeane-blog]

Everything Is Stupid

September, 2023 I got up this morning and logged on to the Oregonian hoping to find something to read other than the usual articles about racism, climate doom, 'what somebody said wrong 30 years ago and hurt someone's feelings' or, 'Our heroic teachers need more time and more money'. And I get this.

"Portland transportation cuts would include nearly 100 layoffs, massive service reductions"

"...the agency will halt large paving projects and put off replacing 30 disability-accessible ramps, stop snow plowing on secondary roads and reduce funding for replacing Portland Streetcar vehicles"

Wow.  Tough times.  Everybody needs to tighten their belts.  We're all in this together.  Maybe the rich should finally pay their fair share!

And then I read this.

"Frogs could get their own underpass on Portland highway"

Several old Navy phrases jumped to mind both ending in pronouns.  First I thought,  "#$%& Me!".  Then I thought, "#$%& You!".

Depressed, I reached out to the national news to see if it is only Portland that is stupid beyond belief.  And...

"Several users across TikTok have been participating in a recent trend called “bone smashing,” where users, particularly men, hit their faces repeatedly with a blunt object with the goal of creating small fractures in the bones to encourage bone growth in desired areas"

I'm thinking maybe somebody should tell those guys, "Hey, maybe it works on the groin area as well - give it a try."

I'm going back to bed.  Wake me when it's over.

[tombeane-blog]

No Mas, Por Favor

September, 2023

There have only been 46 Presidents in all of American History.  I've lived through 30% of them - so far.

From the time I was born, they've generated hundreds of federal departments and created hundreds of never to end programs.  They've introduced a mega-gazzillion new laws and spent trillions upon trillions of dollars on the war on drugs, the war on crime and the war on poverty - all leading to the next wars on Covid, Equity and Climate Change(hide your wallet and your gas stove).  

We've spent hundreds of billions on big wars called wars and little secret wars not called wars  We've tried nation building around the world and none have worked.  

We give billions upon billions to countries that hate us hoping they'll stop hating us.  

Every one of our governments has given free this and free that and made us pay more for this while they've taxed the hell out of that.  

This is what our federal government has been doing for 80+ years - no matter which party was in power.

Three quarters of a (censored) century ago, Conservatives were talking about liberty and opportunity and Liberals were talking about the privileged few.

The 1948 Republican Party Platform.

"To establish and maintain peace, to build a country in which every citizen can earn a good living with the promise of real progress for himself and his family, and to uphold as a beacon light for mankind everywhere, the inspiring American tradition of liberty, opportunity and justice for all—that is the Republican platform. "

That same year this was the Democrat Party Platform.

"We chart our future course as we charted our course under the leadership of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman in the abiding belief that democracy—when dedicated to the service of all and not to a privileged few—proves its superiority over all other forms of government."

And Republicans are still running on protecting liberties and opportunities and Democrats are still campaigning against the privileged few.

Even with all those slogans and high speech, in terms of government it doesn't seem like much has changed for the better while the bad crap the government does for us to us keeps growing and accelerating and costing ever more.

There are over 21,000,000 people working for federal, state and local government.  This includes 40,730 Amusement and Recreation Attendants and 270 Hairdressers.(*)

Many Americans no longer vote for the party they believe in.  They vote for the party they think will screw them the least.  

"I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

Please stop helping! No Mas!

80+ years of campaign slogans, campaign promises and idealistic party platforms. 

These quotes are from each U.S. President during my lifetime, each and every one working hard to make life better for all Americans.  

I'm not going to name the president or the party because history proves that it doesn't seem to matter that much. But, they are in order, starting in 1943.

"The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the government."

"Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear."

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

"My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered."

"We must always remember that America is a great nation today not because of what government did for people but because of what people did for themselves and for one another."

“A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.”

"We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams."

"We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions."

"We know what works. Freedom Works. We know what's right. Freedom is right."

"There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured with what is right in America."

"Government does not create wealth. The major role for the government is to create an environment where people take risks to expand the job rate in the United States."

"If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists - to protect them and to promote their common welfare - all else is lost."

"What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people."

"Our future cannot depend on the government alone. The ultimate solutions lie in the attitudes and the actions of the American people."

Newburgh, New York, 15 March 1783. 

"If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter"

George Washington

(*) https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/999001.htm#00-0000

[tombeane-blog]

Life Insurance

September, 2023.

"Hey Vern, Good news.  I no longer fear dying in a highly suspicious 'Household Accident'."

"Why's that, Tom?"

"Well, my wife recently came to me with a problem on her smart phone.  Since I remember the conversation somewhat differently than her, and, in the  interest of fairness, I'll present both sides of the conversation and you can decide what really happened."  

Her version of events.

"I can't access our bank account using my smartphone.  It was working fine yesterday and today it just gives me some message saying something about trying later." "Is yours working OK?"

"I haven't done anything whatsoever to make it not work. I'm doing the same thing I've always done exactly the same way I've always done it.  "I've tried un-installing and re-installing the bank app multiple times.  I've un-installed the app, restarted the phone and re-installed the app multiple times.  I verified that no other apps were interfering.  I went through all of the app's permissions to verify nothing had changed.  My software is the latest version but I updated it anyway.  I checked to make sure none of the system registries were corrupted but I reset them anyway.  I closed all the unused apps, scanned the boot registries and cleared the cache."  "To be very clear, this is not my fault."

My version of the conversation.

"No work!  You fix!"

And so I began the standard husband protocol designed specifically for these types of situations.

Step 1. Ignore the problem until it threatens our marriage.

Step 2. Follow standard Navy Technical Repair protocol and f*$%k with it hoping I might accidentally fix it.

Step 3. Get serious and start a more systematic approach. A - un-install the app, B - restart the phone and C - re-install the app.  I did this in 30 or 40 various combinations of these 3 possible sequences.  It turns out there are only 9 combinations.  Didn't know that.

Step 4. I tried various ways of doing the same thing 4 or 5 times in a row just in case.

Step 5. I tried Step 2 and 3 again.

Step 6. I looked in the kitchen drawer where I found my lost keys not too long ago thinking maybe I'd get lucky.

Step 7. Realizing this was only going to be resolved with a bigger hammer, I advanced to the dreaded 'gotta do some sort of serious reset on this piece of crap' phase. But before taking such an irreversible action, I tried step 2 a few more times.

Step 8. So I tried a soft reset, a super soft reset and finally a reset with just a hint of lime.

Step 9. I realized everything short of a factory reset wasn't going to fix this thing.

Step 10. I backed up all settings and data to the micro-sd card which took 30 minutes.  Backed 'em up a second time just in case it didn't work the first time.

Step 11. Closing my eyes I hit 'factory reset' and began that long wait - hoping it wouldn't crash in the middle requiring a trip to my wireless provider.

Step 12. With the phone screen now looking like it did when we bought it long ago, I tentatively went through the restore data process - only opening my eyes when I heard a welcoming  'ding' sound.

Step 13. Voila!  The banking app is now functional.

Proudly handing the phone to my wife, I was expecting to hear something like, "I love you, you wonderful person.  You are definitely not just another manly hunk.  You are also sooo very smart.  Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm gonna cook you your favorite dinner tonight and bake an apple pie - just for you."

Instead after a couple of minutes I get, "I'm trying to log onto Facebook and it's asking me for my password - which I can't remember.  THANKS A LOT!"

Again, there might be a little wiggle room for misinterpretation in the actual conversation.

But now there's a change in our marriage dynamics.

Realizing it might happen again, all of a sudden she may not want me dead after all.

"So I've got that going for me, Vern."