Month: July 2024

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The only question I care about right now is can Joe Biden beat Donald Trump. If he can, I don’t care what physical and mental shape Joe Biden is in. You can also see the problem with this position. If Joe Biden is unable to put all his energies into campaigning for the presidency, how is he going to beat Donald Trump?

A candidate for office is required to give speeches, debate, travel the country, shake hands and kiss babies. This involves a lot of mental and physical energy. Can Biden muster the energy for the long days on the campaign trail necessary to win what will be a close race for the presidency? If he can’t, he must go.

People argue that his debate performance was just one bad night. It isn’t fair to dump a man based on one night. I am afraid it is. A candidate can have a mediocre night and carry on but a terrible night is unforgivable. This is what distinguishes a championship performance from just regular guy performance. A champion will have an off night and still fight through it to look OK and maybe even win the night. Biden had a terrible night.

What about all the lies Trump told. His performance wasn’t much better than Biden’s So what? It isn’t the first time Trump lied and it won’t be the last. Biden should have vigorously attacked those lies. Blaming the moderators for not fact checking Trump is a little lame when Biden, who is actually running for office and has a chance to challenge the lies, fails to do so. Indeed, that is the whole reason Biden was on the stage — to challenge Trump. Why didn’t he?

Then, there are those who say Biden is the only one who can beat Trump. Huh? Are people looking at the same poll numbers I am looking at. And look, if Biden were ahead in the polls, and was going to win reelection, I would vote for Biden if he was in a coma. But that isn’t the case. He is in a close election and, right now he is running behind. The fact is he is getting further behind with each passing day. How exactly is Biden going to change that dynamic?

There needs to be a reality check here on the President. He has served well and I like the man. But he is going into a job interview and he needs to show his best self on a fairly regular basis. A mediocre day can be forgiven, a bad day can not.

Unfortunately for Biden, staying in the race is only going to make his situation worse. The Republicans and the Media will scrutinize his every word, his every stumble, and will keep asking can Biden run the country. His every performance will be studied for gaffs and his message, and more importantly the Democratic Party’s message, will be lost.

If this is truly an important election then the Democrats need to step up and show they are interested in winning. Sticking with a man who is behind in the polls, performing terribly on the stump and has to be in bed by 8PM does not bode well for beating Trump. Then, what choice do the Democrats have than to dump Joe Biden?

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I had another point I wanted to make in my blog about Free Checking and I realized that I forgot to say it.

Marianne Lake, the evil genius who runs Chase Bank, explained that the elimination of free checking was due to the government cracking down on banks for their late and overdraft fees. She also warned that the end of free checking was going to have the biggest impact on the people who can least afford it.

This is the standard business reaction to anything government does to help regular people. It is actually bad for regular people because business will just find some way around it. You see, Business is trying to do the right thing but Government is forcing their hand. Government is making us hurt regular people because they want to regulate the way business treats regular people. In other words, since Government is preventing banks from screwing regular people one way, banks will just find another way to screw them and it’s all Government’s fault. Lake’s concern for regular people is underwhelming.

Furthermore, who exactly does she think is paying the exorbitant late and overdraft fees now? Billionaires? Vulnerable people are already being taken advantage by her bank just in a different way. Doing away with Free Checking is just another new way to take advantage of them.

So fuck you Marianne Lake and your phony concern for vulnerable customers.

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Marianne Lake, who runs Chase Bank, announced that Free Checking is going to end for that bank and she anticipates the other big banks will follow.

I only stay with the big banks for 2 reasons — Free Checking and Free ATM’s. If this ends I see no reason to stay with the big banks. They are completely useless to me as a normal business customer because every time I use my ATM, I am taking money out of my checking account. I am guessing that means if I use an ATM, I will be charged for writing a check. This ends Free Checking and Free ATM in one fell swoop.

The big banks are useless especially to those of us on the more modest side of the pay scale. I tried getting a saving’s accounts at a big bank. It cost more money to have the account than I received in interest. CD’s are better in the sense that I don’t lose any money but when I close out my last CD with a big bank I was getting in the neighborhood of .50 cents. You heard me right — .50 cents.

The sad part of this whole thing is my leaving will not be a problem for my big bank. In fact, a clerk accidentally spilled the beans with me one day when I was trying to find the best place for my $5,000. The answer was loud and clear. I just didn’t have enough money for the bank to bother with my accounts.

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In the past few weeks, I’ve been seeing more of Tesla’s Cybertruck. Every time I see it, I have exactly the same response. This has got to be ugliest automobile I have ever seen. My jaw goes slack and I find myself staring it is so damn ugly. There must be good points about the car but I just can’t get past the ugliness.

Thinking I must be missing some modern aesthetic standard, I googled “world’s ugliest car” and sure enough the Cybertruck appeared with discussions on how damn ugly it was. It is reassuring that I have maintained my high standards of beauty but it reopens my concern about the mental state of Elon Musk. What is he thinking and can he be stopped?

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I know it is hard to believe but I am an experimental type of guy. This means I occasionally, while cursing out my household chores, think is there an easier better way to do this. So, I try something. Most of them are failures but nonetheless important information to learn as you can now skip that particular household experiment. So not all a loss in hearing about and you get to know me a little bit better and who wouldn’t want that.

So my experiment this week was trying to fill my water bottle with one hand and wiping the counter tops with my other one. I can report to you that it was a complete fiasco. It is difficult to both hold a bottle, especially one with a small entry way, under the tap and vigorously wiping the dirt off of counter tops. It is like trying to tap your head and pat your stomach at the same time. Every time you check to see how the counters look, you unconsciously move the bottle away from the tap even with 40 to 60 percent focus I was giving it. Any time you would have gained by the dual approach you lose when you go over the missed spots on the counter top and wiping the water off the bottle. So you can mark this one off of your to do list.

I know that some of you are asking why wipe off the bottle before putting it in the refrigerator, nobody will ever notice. Well, not at my house. A certain someone will discover my crime and want answers. I just don’t have a good enough reply for why I didn’t wipe the water off the bottle before putting into the refrigerator. I mean how weak of an argument is I was too lazy to do it and I thought I could get away with it without anyone noticing. Take my word for it — it is really awkward position.

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My doctor and I have been working on the best way to handle my acid reflux. Antacids work but some are better than others. The one that I have had the most success with can also damage the liver. Our discussion turned to what do I do if the new antacid fails to work. He said then I would have to make a decision – is the toxic antacid worth continuing for relieving the symptoms of my acid reflux or should I take the less effective and less toxic antacid and learn to live with acid reflux which also carries the possibility of esophageal cancer. What is the better choice then — liver problems or esophageal cancer.

As I get older, I’ve been noticing that a lot of my healthcare decisions are like that — the choice isn’t an obvious good versus an obvious bad. It is two imperfect choices where I have to sort through the information and weigh the good and the bad to come up with an answer for me. Which got me thinking of chronic pain and addiction. There is this default preference for living with the pain over becoming an addict.

But why, particularly if the choice is being unable to have a normal life because the pain is too great versus living with addiction and having a normal life. The important question here is what makes the person more functional. Can they enjoy their lives with the pain or is it better lived with the addiction? There is something in the American Mind which fights the idea of addiction. Addiction is bad. Addicts ruin their lives and the lives of their families. At all cost, we must avoid addiction.

But can addiction be better than the alternate.? And, importantly, can addicts lead normal lives while addicted to drugs? Surprisingly, at least to me, most addicts lead pretty normal lives. They hold jobs and they take care of families. Now I am not saying it is ideal because it isn’t. It would be better not to be addicted to drugs. Life long drug use is associated with younger death — somewhat like the experience of cigarette smokers which is an addiction that is tolerated and we get along just fine. The problem with addiction is when the addict’s drug of choice is illegal or regulated by people who want to discourage addiction (think Oxycodone). Then the addict has to deal with dangerous suppliers, unregulated doses of their drug and getting arrested. These would all go away if we just let them use it legally.

And, yes, there will be deaths but would there be more than there are now. Certainly we would have reduction in deaths to turf wars between drug lords and wrong doses. It also opens up the possibility of working with addicts to get them off drugs whenever possible. Think again about cigarettes. An aggressive anti-smoking campaign has been successful in cutting the number of smokers dramatically. All while cigarettes were legally available and easily accessible.

I know several people that have chronic pain. They are in their 70’s. Their doctors try to find a way to stop the pain without addictive pain killers. The pain is still there which leads to the question what is worse chronic pain or drug addiction. And is getting off of drugs made more difficult by the return of pain? What is the point of 70 years not getting addicted to drugs? I know very few people in this age bracket that isn’t already taking a life long drug.

Personally, I have 4 prescriptions that I will take for the rest of my life. One of these is anti-depressant which if I stop, I will have problems. I am sure I can deal with them but it would be a difficult week or two and, if I do quit, would my depression return. So am I an addict and, if the addictive drug, allows me to be lead a normal life, why would I quit. If an addictive pain killer can do this, and everything else has been tried, why keep people from an effective, but addictive, pain killer.

This is a valid choice between options. I could live in pain and be addiction free or can live in pain with a dependance on drugs to keep me that way. I suspect this is already happening in the wink, wink nudge, nudge world we live in it. Doctors and patients are already making this decision but if Medicare and the insurance companies decide to monitor this more stringently, this wink wink nudge nudge deal can end tomorrow. Why not just come clean and say sometimes drug addiction is the best option in some cases.