I think therefore I am, OK, I get that, but what if I think inside my own head during a coma, could all of you be something I made up to pass the time?
My routine in the morning is pretty simple, I take my bucket O'pills, drink my water, check my blood sugar, pee twice, fart once, sneeze twice, pour myself some coffee, turn on the TV and then start taking notes about what I am going to write about today. Sometimes the notes are elaborate, sometimes they are just one word and very simple, but I always draft somewhat of an outline to get started. It's just how I do it. I have always done things somewhat like this or a version of this.
Start with a plan, even if its a simple one, and then go from there. The concept is pretty simple. P,P,P,A,E or Plan, Prepare, Present, Apply then Evaluate. I start with the end in mind, that is I try to visualize what I am trying to accomplish first and build my plan around what I am trying to do. Most of the time when the subjects are not real complicated requiring analytical skill or deep-dive research this approach works pretty well. Occasionally I have to GAME the process to which is Gather facts, Analyze the data, Make a Decision as to what to do, and Execute the process.
So today I got as far as to turn on the TV and then blew coffee all over the place when the picture and sound came on which tore my plan to shreds. Mike Tyson said "Everybody has a plan until you punch them in the nose", so UM, yeah. The military says that no plan remains perfect after the first contact with the enemy. Turns out both of these doctrines are right on the money.
So anyway I turned on the TV and was looking down at my coffee when I took my first sip, I had the TV muted because hell, who knows how loud it is from the night before. As I looked up and at the same time I turned up the volume, an infomercial from a company called Adam & Eve was playing and the lady doing the presenting says "The extra appendage here is to give your lady all the stimulus and pleasure that she desires", as she held up a big pink dildo complete with the "butt tingler" attachment. That's when my plan fell to pieces as I blew coffee all over the place, laughed out loud, got coffee all over the front of me and all over the paper I was going to use to take notes on and then she says "If you order right away we will send you the very special second device designed to enhance his pleasure. You can get it with or without ribs in any size or color you desire."
I freaking lost it.
So anyway. Plan totally ruined I started completely over. New notepaper, cleaned up the table, turned off the stupid ass TV, I wiped me off, took a deep breath, and spent the next 30 minutes or so just trying to think of something else, anything else. Jesus H. Christ on a crutch.
Two of the main companies I worked for (One has an NDA with me), so um yeah, have gone into bankruptcy or are very close to it. The square hamburger one did file for bankruptcy, and today the news is that they are being sold once again to a firm called something like Fortress Investment Group. The deal is allegedly worth around 48 million dollars, with 27 million of the deal in cash and the other 21 million being the assumption of 21 million dollars of their debt. These guys bought a couple of hundred restaurants on the cheap. Both of the main restaurants I used to work for are struggling now. Hell maybe it was me?
I must be some kind of smart stupid. I hear these conspiracy theories just like everybody else does. Usually, I get the kernel of truth, I can understand the confusion that leads to the theory. I can't say I believe it however I can say that I understand how someone who isn't a scientist could be lead to believe that certain things could be true when there is no scientific basis for the assumption. I have no problem with that because mainly that is how man has always operated. We come up with things that explain what we see, with ideas that explain what we hear and etc.
For example, people don't believe we actually went to the moon. They say it was faked on a sound stage. OK, whatever. They don't know about the science of light refraction that totally disproves their theory based on an analysis of the light sources alone in the videos of Neal Armstrong stepping down off the lunar lander. There is one about the flag-waving, only it never moves. It is however wired in place to look full. Look I'm not trying to convince you of anything I'm just saying I accept the science. You don't have to, It makes no difference to me. People say and have said to me that jet fuel doesn't burn hot enough to melt steel, so there is no way that the airplane took down the tower because the steel could not have melted from the intensity of the fire. It just wasn't hot enough. I understand their position and also understand how they have misinterpreted the data and what was said about how the towers fell. Actually, no scientist ever said the steel was melted by jet fuel, that was the assumption made by the conspiracy theorist. What was actually said was that the steel was sufficiently weakened by the fire to allow it to buckle, which made it collapse inward sort of like a U shape. Just look at the pictures of the debris, there is not one picture of melted steel. There are however hundreds of pictures of weakened and broken steel that was damaged by the weight and the forces created by floors falling from above. Again, believe what you want, I'm ok with whatever makes you happy.
Science doesn't care if you believe in it, I don't either.
The latest one has me scratching my head though. There is no doubt in my mind that people have died as a result of the Coronavirus. There is no doubt in my mind that literally, thousands have died of other causes as well, that there are and will continue to be many contributing factors that lead to death from a lot of causes. For example, there is no science that says that smoking directly kills people. It causes other conditions however that does kill people, it does it every day. Heart attacks, strokes, COPD, emphysema and a host of other conditions are the direct result of smoking. Really, no one disputes this. I can't wrap my head around the two conspiracy theories that are out there right now that say that A) The Coronavirus is fake and hasn't killed anyone and B) Thousands of deaths are being misclassified as Coronavirus deaths even though the death was from say, a shotgun blast to the head. I just don't get either one of these.
Here's why. To say this is a made-up news story that is being fed to the masses in order to control us to make the populace of the world do certain things that "they" want us to do is goofy. Who are they? What do they have to gain? Who is making money by collecting fewer taxes and having 40 million people out of work in the US? Who could possibly be controlling dictatorships, communists, us and the other 265 countries like puppets to make "Us" do "their" bidding? It is ludicrous. Secondly, I have never heard of any government program that pays anyone for the death of any classification. Misclassifying death on purpose in order to collect a payment would be so quickly exposed by literally everyone involved including doctors, nurses, funeral home operators, families, whistleblowers, and hundreds of other people that it would never get off the ground. It's like trying to say that the thousands of people that were involved in the moon landing while it was "faked on a sound stage" were somehow kept absolutely quiet for the past 50 years and not one person has ever come forward to talk talked about it, not one credible individual. Not one person with nothing to lose, that's dying from cancer has ever come forward and said "I worked on the faked moon landing", not one. People still believe it though.
However, if somehow, you could explain that to me using those pesky things called "facts", evidence that can be checked and scientifically and empirically analyzed, I would be glad to change my mind. That's what rational people do. They follow the evidence and base their opinions on the latest evidence. New facts come to light cause a reevaluation of the opinion. That's called the scientific method. We used to think the earth was the center of our universe too.
Hello? Flat earther ding dongs anyone?
You ever notice we don't really have any livelong days anymore? No doo, dahs either.
- The crawl (and the logos) on the bottom right of the TV screen is starting to get on my last nerve. It wouldn't be so bad if the producers of content would just abandon that space and quit trying to put things in that space, but it is like no one talks to each other at any of these networks. It almost makes you want to be the star of your own Truman show so you can bitch directly at the person responsible. The logo is there, the next episode time or date is there and if you are deaf like me, so is closed captioning. It drives me batty.
- Georgia put out this ridiculous graph from the Governator's office where they were trying to manipulate the data to show a decline in Coronavirus cases over time. It looked as if, based on this graph, that high numbers were behind us, and day after day the number of cases were falling. It almost worked too. If they had not printed the graph it might have gotten right on by all of us, as it was a prop used in the Governator's press conference justifying why things ought to just open right the hell back up.
Visualize this. The number of new cases per day represented on the left side of the graph. You got that part. That's the up and down data on the left. Now on the bottom you plot the days, and in a normal graph the progression is by date 01/01 first, 01/02 second, 01/03 third, and so forth. Well what they did was not that. what they did was plot the days on the bottom by ranking the new cases per day from highest to lowest not by date progression. That makes the graph look like its falling from a high on the first day to a low on the last day, that is until you look at the way the days are represented. On their graph March 20th comes after May 5th because the number of new cases was less on March 20th. Sneaky as hell huh? Well, they got caught and had to own up to it and present the real data and it is scary as all hell. They flat out lied and the cases are rising not falling like they said and they are getting worse, and each day is getting worse as they open more and more activities. Science doesn't care if you believe in it, it will kill you dead even if you don't, dumbasses. Yep, It's all the fault of that corrupt mainstream liberal lamestream media. - I wonder what the end game is going to look like for all these cord-cutting decisions we are making about our TV consumption? Every day channels are being repackaged and branded as separate entities and separate streaming services to the point where it is sort of starting to look like the old 3 channel TV again.
Here's what I mean. I see the future coming and I am sorta confused. It seems like all the services that group things together are slowly but surely being eliminated in favor of single-serve options. We used to have for example 3 or so major networks per town or area broadcasting over the air. Then a grouping service came along called "Cable" which allowed you to access all your favorite shows on one service. Then things got huge and pretty expensive and the networks got hungry for more money per eyeball and they started launching their own grouping services. This allowed and encouraged us to cut the cable cord if we wanted to and get a service for content that was free or we got a paid one like Netflix or Hulu or something like that.
Now it almost seems like we headed back to the old 3 channel style individual option. Sort of. Now each individual player wants their own streaming service and wants to create content only to be shown on that service. Now we have Disney+, CBS All-access, and a slew of others. The only thing missing is a place to get to all of them easily. For now that market is being served by the TV itself (a smart TV), or by a player or a box like a Roku box or your Blu-Ray player. If someone decides that it would be convenient to have one device that can display all of those options, would they call it a Cable box? - The debate is reignited. Are we going to have drive-in movie theatres or not? I hope so but I'll bet the footprint is different. I hope they do, I used to love going to the Drive-In movie theatre.
- Have you ever heard of herd immunity? Essentially it means that enough people around you are immune to the disease you are trying to prevent that you will be protected by the fact that nobody is available to spread the disease to you, even if you are not immune or cannot take the drugs which give you immunity. You understand that? Good. Now understand this.
In order to get to that point, if that is what you are proposing should be the solution, (as a lot of misinformed and uneducated people are currently doing) that obviously have NOT thought about it enough, to get to that point in our society means that lots and lots of people are going to have to die to achieve it, especially if there is no vaccine that makes people immune. Waiting for natural herd immunity, which seems to be a possible solution won't work in the USA, and here is why.
The concept of herd immunity especially without a vaccine that is given to prevent the disease, can not work in the USA without killing millions of people.
We are too big, too mobile, and have too many variables that are constantly shifting like airports for example, to make it feasible. If that is your proposal please with your proposal also include an acceptable death estimate to make it happen and list who in your family you would be willing to sacrifice and let die in order to achieve your noble and valuable oft-stated goal.
Yeah, sometimes you have to yell to be heard,
BigMike
glad I wasn't drinking hot coffee
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