Received this yesterday in the mail.  The envelope looked all official but when I opened it, this was the only thing, this and an envelope to send it back.  It looks a lot like one of the forms you get here around tax time.  The 2022 in the upper right-hand corner and the large FL in the left.  One could mistake it for an IRS document.  

What it is, however, is a solicitation for life insurance. I think of all the elderly people who are taken by false claims, and flat-out deceptive advertising and thinking I'm not that far from that demographic.

Be careful.     

 Just Some Random Thoughts

Under the Madison Avenue is devoid of ideas file:  there are, at present, three commercials with Louis Armstrong's It's a Wonderful Life tune.  This among the other past commercials that used the same song in the past 10 or 15 years.  A song I once liked is now one that makes me wretch.

This is the anniversary of January 6th coup attempt.  The Green Bay Sweep Republican attempt to reject the election failed, but what about next time?  Thanks to the election officials, Capitol cops and the present Commission for defending freedom and lifting the veil to flush out the rats and vermin who went along with it.

Under You Are Now Officially Old file: looked at the list of Grammy winners the other day and only heard of one person.  One!  Out of 30 or so.  I knew Lindsay Buckingham but none of the others.  

Covid is wild.  Two years into it and we still lack available testing.  

Stopped sending out Christmas cards this year.  Except to a select few who sent me one.  I stopped caring somewhere amidst Covid, Trumpers, no particular reason and the cost of stamps.

Dating movies in credits by roman numerals seems to me to be pretty stupid.  A country that is ignorant of the metric system surely won't have a clue to a dead language's numerical system.  

I've been trying to get though Season 1 of Snowpiercer.  I keep thinking I'm gonna stop watching and now has become some kind of weird honor thing that I have to get through.  I read Season 2 is better, but I-I-I-dono. 

  

 

 

 

This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

 

The President signed into law this week the latest military budget.  Alongside the social safety nets the biggest tax expenditure is the Pentagon.  Never mind that this far exceeds the next 26 nations spending, all but 2 are allies.  Could we slash this budget with no ill effects to our security - almost certainly.  Is there some reason it has not been cut, especially now that after 20 years we are not at war?  The quick answer is that this beast must be fed regardless of external circumstances.  Generals and Admirals want their toys and a a good argument could be had supporting the notion that they run the country, not the elected folks.

This is why we can't have cradle-to-grave health care for all Americans.  This is why we can't have rapid rail transport, or free universal education.  This is why we can't have new infrastructure, climate initiatives or reduced taxes.

This is why we can't have nice things.   

 

I fired him [MacArthur] because he wouldn't respect the authority of the President ... I didn't fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail.^[208]

—Truman to biographer Merle Miller, 1972, posthumously quoted in Time magazine, 1973