Checked Out Wal-Mart's Web Site...

...And, it looks like old WallyMart hasn't learned zip in ten years about how to design the web site. The whole thing looks like it is designed to sell paper cups and toilet paper, nothing more than that. It may be that they are just not intelligent enough to understand the digital age. Too many fossils up at the top of that company.

We Probably Do Need a Trade War

Trump's certainly correct that a trade war would be in U.S. interests, until the rest of the world stops exacting high taxes and barriers to American products. The reason so many of our people remain unemployed or underemployed in poorly paid, part-time jobs with few or no benefits and no retirement plans is that the rest of the world has been crucifying the U.S. on trade. Free trade is a great concept, but only the U.S. has been playing by the rules. The other countries block American goods at the border. This is why cities like Detroit are crime-ridden hell-holes. China is probably the worst offender, but the other countries certainly have problems as well. I think that Europe needs to start doing some soul-searching and stop raping the U.S. on trade. The U.S. can't foot the bill for everything for ever. Just because Europe is completely to blame for WW2, and the U.S. pulled their feet out of the fire and nursed their economies back to health, doesn't mean the U.S. is now the permanent nurse of Europe and has to give, give, give and never take. Trade needs to be equal, or else there does not need to be trade at all. I am sure that Europe has plenty of farmland to grow food, or else they can turn to Russia and ask for food, and maybe while they're at it, negotiate with the Russians as to surrender terms, and how many of their citizens need to be transported to slave camps in Siberia. Europe needs to think first of all about what they can do for the U.S., rather than imaginary obligations that the U.S. has to their ungrateful, bickering, backstabbing and freeloading societies. If the E.U. can't even keep calm, cool U.K. in the fold, it is not worth the paper their treaty is printed on.

AMD

AMD may be a cpu worth considering for Windows gamers, but no one else. AMD doesn't care about Linux. Never has, never will. So for me, it's Intel all the way. And the same goes for the hundreds of folks I buy PC's for. I don't even look at or consider AMD products, ever, under any circumstances, and for all of us, INTEL is worth a sizable premium. In fact, there is only INTEL, and they can charge whatever they want.

Republicans and Corruption Go Hand in Glove

It is amusing that Ben Carson, respectable Black Republican, talks against welfare for the poor, but greedily grasps welfare for himself. He is not O.K. with a $5000 budget to redecorate his office. He needs $31,000, or an ordinary person's entire salary, in order to buy a fancy gold-plated chair, diamond-studded desk and so on. What a hypocrite, grabbing bread from a child's mouth to sell it off so that he can put a feather in his cap. Stealing from the government is the Republican way. They talk against welfare for working people, then they take welfare for themselves.

It seems every member of Trump's team has indulged themselves, enriching themselves and their families at the public expense. Indeed, why work? Just mouth a bunch of lies and make people believe, and you can make a killing just hanging on the coattails of the Liar-in-Chief. I imagine Ben Carson finds taking handouts from the government easier than difficult, risky neurology ever was. In fact, the same motive is behind all of Trump's henchmen.

What we need is a good Democrat to go in and drain the swamp! Sell off the gold-plated chairs and expose all the excesses and theft of the entire Trump Administration.

Is the U.S. Doomed?

The United States will one day be one great big desert, with slave camps for all its people, who will be used as body bags by foreign conquerors--fresh organs, blood, tissue. One reason is other countries take science seriously, like Japan with its new cure for flu. How come the U.S. did not come up with that miracle drug? What's the reason?

All that Trump wants to do is buy bullets and bombs to blast the ragheads in the Middle East from afar, just like every Republican since 1988. Other than that, no medical care for the poor, no science, no space exploration, no infrastructure. The U.S. decays from within, while the Republicans have a jolly good time running up the deficit in a race to see how fast they can bankrupt Treasury and deplete our Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

The number of young people interested in pursuing a career in actual hard science (not just computers and nursing) is abysmal and paints a picture of the slave camps that will stretch from California to Florida. Sex slaves and organ bags are what our defeated people will become, to whichever nation or group of nations takes science seriously enough to gather up the secrets to future tech. China has already stolen a great portion of our technology, due to our leaders being asleep at the switch. No one in Washington, D.C. cares about or even really understands cybersecurity or science. All they care about is bombing ragheads, looking tough, standing tall, and partying all night in their drunken reveries of arrogance over their temporary power in this world. They will be forgotten, just like the old Weimar politicians.

Time is not on our side. I wish the Republicans would think for one second how many Ph.D.'s are graduating in China as opposed to the U.S., and how many new discoveries are being made, not in the U.S., but in competitor nations. It is not just because of resolve or toughness that the U.S. won WW2. It is because of what? Because of science. Without science, there would have been no radar, no breaking Enigma, no advanced bombers, no nukes.

Instead of a stupid border wall, which is a great big admission of defeat in the failed war on drugs, the Chinese are building dams, internet, highways, universities. Instead of invading worthless cesspool countries, the Chinese are investing in factories.

Who is going to rule the world in the future? It won't be the U.S., twenty trillion in debt. Our economy collapses the moment investors wake up and realize the debt is never going to be repaid. Inflation will turn into hyperinflation, and no one will have any retirement savings.

American Steel

Damn straight that steel should be produced in America. 100% of all steel used in the U.S. should be produced in the U.S., because steel is a vital national security resource, as is aluminum and many other metals. It is completely ridiculous that our leaders were asleep at the switch and let all these foreigners dump steel on the market. If there is ever a war or international disaster, then there are going to be a lot of problems as we will not the material necessary for the war machine, let alone domestic needs. And there is no safety margin in letting Japan supply our steel over China. An ocean, a language, a culture, and a vast distance separates the U.S. from Japan. It is entirely possible China could take over Japan in the foreseeable future. I can see letting Canada supply our steel, but not any other country. Canada is practically an auxiliary of the U.S., anyway. Canada would be an American state, except that Canada is better than the U.S. in so many ways, mainly in knowing not to get too involved in foreign wars.

The Mental Illness Defense

I'm not sympathetic to those murderers pleading mental defectiveness to escape the death penalty. They should be hung from the neck just the same, regardless if they suffer from every mental defect in the book. Although their brain may not understand the rope, their neck will understand perfectly and behave according to the laws of physics. This business where a murderer pleads insanity, then gets the taxpayer to foot his bill the rest of his days, is complete nonsense.

If there are some who want to pay to keep a murderer alive, then they should donate the cash, after compensating the victims' families a million dollars per life, and compensating the state for all legal costs, police overtime, etc. Perhaps some of these people that want to keep the insane murderers alive can sell their homes, cars, clothes, kidneys, fingers, eye-balls etc. to raise money. It is not the responsibility of the taxpayer to keep an insane murderer alive for the next hundred years. It is a violation of my rights as a human being to compel me to finance a murderer's food, shelter, and so on. The amount I am willing to pay for that sort of thing is zero.

Lenovo

Lenovo doesn't want to make money. Lenovo is in the business of losing money. I've seldom seen a company so determined to avoid acquiring new customers. The salesmen don't seem very interested in making sales. You're lucky if you can get one to call you back. Of course, their computers aren't any better than anyone else's, either. The Lenovo desktop has zero room for upgrades. Want to add another hard drive? Forget it. Open up the Lenovo desktop, and you are in Nightmare Alley. There's no space for anything, and working in it is a nightmare. But the worst part about Lenovo is that it is based in China, so their hardware probably comes with built-in hacks to let the Chinese spies in.

And, word to the wise: the defect rate of Lenovo products is high, while their technical support is extremely poor. Their tech support staff speak poor English, the kind of English that a third-grader in China learning English as a second language might use, and frequently Lenovo staff will return a product without performing any repairs at all. The amount of time Lenovo requires to perform a simple repair is 2-3 months; a complex repair is completely impossible. Those who invest in Lenovo as a company or as a customer have a desire to lose money and lose time. They would be better off playing video games, because at least they would have fun that way.

The Opioid Epidemic

I hate what opium and meth do to our people. Hate it. Rational human beings, good folk, transform into Cavemen, Cavewomen. Hurt themselves and others. Ruin their lives. Ruin others' lives. I sympathize with the desire to wall off Mexico, with its vast criminal drug network. Mexico has had a lot of time to reform itself and become like America, but is left behind in progress, because its people are stupid, in general. What else is to blame for drug lords running rampant in Mexico? What is to blame for the high level of corruption and crime in Mexico? Is everything the Yankee's fault? Mexicans should look in the mirror, and look at their kin and look at their neighbors, before pointing the finger North.

We should legalize marijuana from coast to coast and let that be our people's drug, because it has little harm, even next to alcohol. The resources devoted to locking up pot users are resources wasted. Pot is tea. No big deal. The biggest downside is potheads get thick-headed and lazy, but they aren't addicts and can quit tomorrow, with a bit o' willpower.

The other drugs, should they be legalized too? Yes and no. I would support legalizing methadone and other mild things to help addicts wean themselves off the hard stuff. I would not support the legalization and availability of meth, heroin or crack, because people are stupid, and they will take poisons until they die, and unfortunately, addicts have a nasty tendency to wreak ruin on those around them.

The Stock Market

I'm bailing.

The question is when, not if.

I'm quite satisfied with my gains thus far. Thanks, Obama. Oh, and a tip of the hat to Trump for not following Republican tradition in launching a new war. Yet.

True, bond interest rates are abysmal, insufficient to keep up with any rational projection of future inflation.

But, so what? Interest rates should catch up in time. Nice to have a hefty chunk of change in the bond market, dry powder for future use in the event of a stock market meltdown.

Right now, foreign stocks look interesting to me. I like the look of Asia. A war with North Korea just isn't something the U.S. really wants to do at this time, because our trade with Asia is such a huge part of the U.S. economy. Also, North Korea is nothing but a hundred-pound baby, with needs, not anything useful to offer the world. Bombing them just sort of reinforces their already existing bunker mentality, and they don't have anything worth bombing. If peace prevails, then Asia stands to gain, because China is highly rational when it comes to economic and trade policy.

Intel Slipped on its own Banana Peel

Intel's handling of the Meltdown/Spectre has made a quagmire, a nightmare for I.T., and I think many businesses around the world will be more receptive to AMD chips in the future. My biggest reason to avoid AMD is its abysmal performance in Linux, and the strange problems with its Catalyst video driver in Windows. I have not even looked at AMD in years and have no notion of what Catalyst looks like now, but perhaps I will be willing to try AMD again in 2030 or so. I figure by that time, AMD will have beta-tested Catalyst sufficiently. It was a horrible mess, worse than Meltdown/Spectre, ten years ago, and one thing I know about AMD is that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

How to Handle Afghanistan

This business where the U.S. just bankrolls a corrupt Afghan government into perpetuity is foolishness. The way to handle Afghanistan is to let the Taliban take over--after we have dumped all nuclear, biological and heavy metal waste on every acre in Afghanistan. Let the Taliban spend its energies on the environmental clean-up and enjoy the fun experiments in three-headed sheep. Do the same over in Pakistan, to impress upon that country's leadership the downside to betraying the U.S. after taking our money. What the Muslims need to focus on, instead of building bombs, is their three-headed sheep, poison in their water and air, and a host of communicable diseases. Perhaps the islamabads of the world can start cracking a book once in a blue moon, instead of a grenade pin. They need to learn about science and medicine instead of chanting the Koran every day. Maybe after a couple of generations, there will actually be some science going on in those worthless barbarian regions.

A bonus to dumping waste in Afghanistan is that the opium crop would have a built-in deterrent for all the drug users. They could get a hefty dose of radiation with every injection. That would cut down on the drug epidemic.

I don't understand why the U.S. has not recovered reparations from all the mines in Afghanistan. We should be rolling in gems and rare and precious metals now. Every taxpayer should receive a box filled with treasure captured from Afghanistan. Instead, all we receive is a big tax bill, and the tax money has gone over to help the ragheads, who hate us anyway. Worthless waste of money, getting involved in raghead nonsense. All they live for is martyrdom, they have no life and no culture.

500% Tax on Turkish Imports

Anything imported from Turkey should be taxed 500%. I think that Turkey has, for a long time, allied itself against the United States in every possible way, and the only thing that Turkey dreams about is killing Christians and sowing the seeds of terrorism throughout the Christian world. It's another Muslim-fanatic society, dedicated to genocide against non-Muslims. The markets of the West should be closed to Turkish goods, or else taxed at such a rate as to make them out of reach. Turkey's natural partner should be Iran, a similar society. The two of them can possibly merge one day to become Greater Persia. The only things they need to teach their children is Islam and how to make bombs. That is about the summit of the Muslim mind's imagination. Allah and bombs. Turkey needs to make reparations to one of the ethnic groups they practiced genocide against already, and then stop committing genocide against their own people, the Kurds.

Fever

Influenza does make me wiser, in the ancient meaning of the word. That may be its only benefit. Nice that there is a positive mingled in with so many negatives. To take advantage, it is necessary to sleep long and undisturbed. The more bed rest, the better. Flu is wasted on those who play video games or sit at the computer all day.

Religion in Iran

Religion in Iran consists of the systematic serial rape of the people for generations. Their deity, which it is convenient to name Allah in contemporary times, is like the demon-god, Tsathoggua, that finds ways to insert itself into everyone over there and give them a jolly good working over. Tsathoggua's vast priest-class reigns like princes in that closed society and enforces piety and religiosity with the whip and the rifle. They steal, rape, plunder, torture, kill, all in the name of their demon-god, yet with every outward appearance of piety. A more pious nation than Iran would be hard to find, yet it is steeped in evil and corruption, because it worships, not goodness and light, but evil and darkness. Interesting that Rohani's recent budget included a 20% increase for the Supreme Leader's enforcers embedded in universities. So he is their liberal?

Trump Administration Drama

The drama in the Prez's Administration isn't too surprising, given the actors and their ideology. I wonder whether it will harm the U.S. or the U.S. economy. There is the possibility of the so-called Black Swan event. It might happen because Trump goofs, as he tends to do. He's not anywhere even close to a genius. Just an above-average ballsy loudmouth with a knack for giving speeches and for communicating his particular point of view. I have watched him on television speak before MAGA crowds--his supporters. In truth, he gives better speeches than Clinton ever did, and he connects with people a lot better. After a bit, I turned the sound off, and watched him. He is better than any other politician I know of at one particular thing. He has great body language and knows how to use his hands. Clinton had no idea what to do with any part of her body, always came across as awkward and, her detractors said, phony. It's because Clinton was more of an introvert. She was, after all, just a nerdy scholar who happened to get swept up by Bill Clinton. She definitely got promoted above her abilities and competence, but that happens quite often in politics, and one could argue the same could be said of Trump.

Trump is a natural extrovert and basks in any kind of attention, negative or positive, and he has an impressive, thick skin. I don't imagine he is really upset over the whole Bannon deal or over much of anything else. Instead, he keeps his eye on the game at all times, always looking at how to win. That, I think, is his secret. He comes across as emotional and passionate, and to an extent, he is genuine, but in reality, at his core, he is calculating all the time. It is probably true that he pays little attention to details, has little knowledge of world affairs, lies frequently to make himself look better, traffics in deceit and corruption, harbors numerous personal vendettas (he's a game-player), and is suffering from early stage Alzheimer's, but he may get through his term, nonetheless. Key is whether Ivanka can exert a moderating influence and remain as a close advisor. After four years, he's done. No way people will sign up for another four years with Drama Queen, I think.

I just hope Trump doesn't get us into yet another war. It seems to me, the U.S. has borne the heavy weight of the Cross for far too long. Time for other countries to shoulder the burden of World Policeman. We are twenty trillion in debt. This is no time to take on new commitments. I am for investing, not in war, but in infrastructure, here in the U.S. I place the need for better infrastructure even above health care, because better infrastructure would result in better health care. I am talking about better, safer, faster trains, better roads and bridges, Universal, Cheap High-Speed Internet in every mile of this country, whether rural or not, and better services from the government. It is rather shameful, some of the things I see and hear about regarding government services. For instance, some government offices still run on Windows XP. There is nowhere in the world that Windows XP should still be in use. I don't care how much money it costs, people need to upgrade, or else go Linux.

Alas, Iran!

My father bore a striking physical, although not intellectual or spiritual, resemblance to the raghead mullahs of Iran, including the so-called Supreme Leader, an asinine dolt that plunged vibrant Persia into economic depression and cultural and spiritual decline with his sexual and social hang-ups and long-nourished bitter enmity against the United States and Israel. That fool has punished his people, rather than the U.S., which could care less for all his whining, in truth.

Proud Persians are tortured, imprisoned, psychologically crippled, sexually maimed, and sometimes murdered, for no good reasons at all, but just due to the whims of the ignorant mullahs, who think they have a direct line to the Omnipotent. They do not. The gods hate them, without exception. They are hated and reviled universally. They must continue to imprison, to murder, and to torture their own people, for that is the only way they can cling to power, and that is their curse and their damnation, to be compelled to such acts. Both the tortured and the torturer suffers and both become bankrupt in spirit.

I am glad I don't live in Iran, among the savages. If I did, then I'd probably be investigating all of the ins and outs of cyanide, strychnine and like substances for ending my life, but only after, don't you know, only after taking some of the oppressors with me into the grave. I believe it is a duty to resist such tyranny as is exhibited in Iran. It is a solemn, spiritual duty, and to die without taking the life of an oppressor is a grave Sin in Iran. I would seek at all costs to maximize the loss of life and the suffering among the oppressors, which is to say the mullahs, and take every precaution to ensure that my goals were obtained, prior to my own destruction.

Swatting Gnats

The U.S. could yet emerge victorious in the current world scenario, if our people proved worthy, which remains to be seen. The odds are in our favor. The U.S. is fantastically powerful in every way. North Korea barks about its nukes, but through science, we could neutralize nukes, even ICBMs, from North Korea, Russia, China, Iran and all comers.

I doubt, however, whether our people are ready to devote resources to complicated, hard to understand science and scientific research, instead of the usual, par for the course: bombing ragheads in the Middle East.

The problem with bombing ragheads is they just reproduce like rabbits and make more ragheads. What's the point? The fanatic, despotic Muslims never were a realistic threat to the U.S., just a distraction and an annoyance. They are miserable savages, yes. They should be sealed off from North and South America, Europe and Australia and contained in the miserable Third World region with the other savages. Instead, our myopic leaders squandered the nation's treasure bombing places that were probably improved by the bombing and never were anything special to begin with. Meanwhile, Asia and the real threat, China, crept around and surprised us with a nuclear-armed NK.

North Korea is just a sock-puppet for China, yet another distraction while China wages economic warfare, seizing all manufacturing, and the U.S. transforms into a service economy unfit and unprepared for any serious endeavor, useless and dependent.

The United States, twenty trillion in debt and lagging in scientific research and development, with Trump wanting to spend money, not on science--goodness no!--but on military hardware, bullets and bombs and gadgets, in order to enrich his crony friends, and possibly wage war against the next annoyance, the outlook for the U.S. does not appear all that great. China's long-term strategy, meanwhile, is apparent to those who watch and listen. China's strategy must succeed, if the U.S. does not change course and focus on what is real, rather than swatting gnats.

The proud old lion gasps in the jungle as the bold hyena comes to claim dinner.

Trump's Right about USPS. USPS Sucks.

Trump's right here. Even a stopped clock will be right twice a day.

The USPS is managed by morons, who should be placed in a facility. It operates at a loss, because the management does not know what to do, other than play with their thumbs. Management wants the USPS to be privatized, so they are doing everything in their power to destroy the USPS.

The USPS gives money to Amazon for no apparent reason, charging half what UPS and FedEx charge to deliver packages. Meanwhile, they pay the drivers $15 an hour, with no benefits at all, and no full-time hours. They use part-time, disposable temp workers. Very few drivers are full-time, with benefits. The USPS does not provide good jobs to most of its employees. Instead, it is far worse than Wal-Mart. The driver jobs are noisy, dusty, long hours for little pay, and the vehicles are unheated, uncooled, violent, and liable to cause severe, permanent hearing loss in drivers. For $15 an hour, a driver can expect to lose 25% of his hearing for life, suffer injury to joints, bones and tissue, and possibly lose a limb, because the little jalopies the drivers run around in on dirt roads for twelve hours at a time are unsafe, antiquated WW2-style jeeps.

Lawsuits are Good for Apple

I'm glad Crapple is finally facing the music over their Iphone batteries. The problem with Iphones is simple. How do you replace the battery? Yeah, it is complicated, and that's Crapple's fault, for putting users in a pickle. Either pay to replace the user's battery every 3 years, for eternity, or else design the Iphone to be easily serviced by the user, as all devices used to be, just ten years ago. This planned obsolescence bit is tricky and tiresome.

Apple is a tax dodger anyway for hiding all their profits overseas and refusing to pay much of anything in taxes to anybody, even poor old Ireland. They have no goodwill as far as I am concerned. Microsoft is a better corporate citizen than Apple, any day of the week, and that's saying something.

While I'm on Crapple's case, why did they move all the jobs to China? They should stop calling themselves American. List Apple in the Chinese stock exchange and just call themselves a Chinese company. They don't need U.S. protection. Their executive types need to move over to Beijing and learn all about the tender mercies of Chinese law and attend all those Communist Party meetings.

I don't give a hoot about new Iphone models, because they have zero features that interest me. There is one feature that would interest me: a replaceable battery. Will Apple ever design such a phone? No, because they're greedy, irresponsible idiots.