Do the Mavericks have more than a drunk puncher’s chance in hell of winning the first series?

 Well we are glad the Mavericks made the playoffs, but the Clippers have an inordinate amount of motivation to do well And then there is Kawhi Leonard. People always argue who is the best player. That argument is always subjective of course. Mr. Leonard is a great player and is in the discussion as one of, if not best players in the league right now. What scares me more is there is this mystic element of his game that either consciously or subconsciously he turns on during some games. 

In talking about great players, they always have a will to win, an undeniable force in games where they take over, yet with Mr. Leonard something else happens. It is like you can see wisps of some unknown element in his game on the TV screen. Like all great players his will leads his team to victory, yet with him there is something more. This does not always appear in every game. He plays great all the time, but this secondary mystic element is not always present. I fear though this will be prevalent against the Mavericks as this series goes on. 

Certainly the Clippers have more talent and will play hard, but the Mavericks have enough talent that if they play harder they could win, yet this Leonard aurora of a light around him has a life of its own and the Mavericks may be coming home sooner than I hope or want. 

So there is only one thing left to do.....Hey Bubba, get your butt in here; we got to pray like hell.

Cheers and go Mavs

Let’s make this perfectly clear

Republicans supporting Trump or Trump supporters are not conservatives. So someone tell the media to stop calling these people conservatives.

Trump was never a conservative, not sure what his real political stripe is outside of being an opportunist, so please stop calling these people conservatives.

Actually the Republican Party, especially at the national level has not been conservative for decades, unless you believe the establishment Republicans and the original Fox News message that making rich people richer is conservatism (it isn’t), but hey they had millions believing that so what is so hard to believe that Trump took it to a whole new level of insane lies. 

This is what happens when you convince generation after generation that conformity is good. Sooner or later they lose critical thinking of anything in their world. 

Anyway, stop calling these people conservatives so I can hold onto my self respect. 

I know I have said this before, but as long as the media mis-represents conservatism or who is conservative, I will keep repeating myself.

Have a good weekend

Some observations, comments

 Well good evening all,

I think third party and independent candidates that participated in the 2020 election in Arizona need to sue to stop the recount since there is no one monitoring to make sure none of their votes are being stolen. Also there is very little representation for third parties and independents in any election so this recount potentially could be ripe for fraud and their votes stolen. I am not in Arizona or I would as an independent voter to make sure my vote was not changed or lost. Something to look into.

Republicans are fighting infrastructure, but what is infrastructure? Take the pipeline that was compromised by ransomware or something. Shouldn’t we be spending money on protecting our critical systems and even those managed by private interests, however this type of investment in infrastructure should be a public private cooperation, since the private companies make money from the pipeline or electric grid or waterway that would receive funds to update protecting their systems. This is where companies need to step up to help the government help them. Yet the Republicans fighting how much should be spent on infrastructure is either ignorance on how much is truly infrastructure in the modern world or making some attempt to play to the pre Trump Republican base. Either way.... sad.

And speaking of pre Trump Republican base, they are raising their little corporate oh poor me little heads, with all this talk about cutting unemployment benefits so people will come back to work. One article has the franchise owners of McDonalds up in arms they cannot hire anyone because of the extra unemployment benefits. Do not be fooled, they do not want to pay high enough wages to bring people back and are trying to convince the public that $7.25 minimum wage is enough. If you do the math people earning $7.25 hour do make approximately the same as unemployment benefits, If you pay people $10, $12 $15 an hour it does eat into their profits, but put things in scale. If a McDonald’s franchise turns a profit in the hundreds of thousands to close to a million, dollars then paying 25k to 100k extra in wages and extra benefits is not going to hurt them, only their ego. They will still be in business and the Franchise owner still makes money because he has people to serve his customers. If you pay $7.25/hour, yeah you make more profit for so long until sales drop due to no service and then you go out of business because you were too greedy to pay somebody enough to buy your food. Inflation is coming, but it isn’t because people should be paid a bit more, it is because free money from the Fed has allowed us to build up too much debt and the wealthy have skewed the system by using this free money to make themselves richer  off playing with money not investing in commerce. There are going to be some serious shortages in supply and products which will drive up prices. And honestly there is much to this argument so you will find people arguing all over the map about who is to blame so tread carefully in inflation discussions. Even my little point is subject to a wide range of factors.

Or in general the only people making money are criminals. The crimes they commit have nothing to do with the way they look. 

Cheers

A few observations

So, the news is the news today, but reading through some stories got me to thinking how fast the Republican Party is hurting itself over and over again.

First of all, just a reminder if you do not read this blog regularly, I do not like either the Democrat or Republican Party, especially at the national level, but these are basically some  general and more local observations on some madness going on.

On a side note, usually when I talk about stories specifically I try to mention where they came from or some other reference so my apologies to everyone. I was reading throughout the day on my phone in between chores and eating so I do not remember where these stories originated. 

First there was a story that Republicans cannot get people to realize they do have some honest policy questions because the conspiracies and other related madness dominate the headlines about the Republican party. The argument was the left leaning press plays up the idea that all Republicans are conspiracy touting nuts. Maybe not exactly this statement, but the gist of it was close. The author did bring up a specific policy that was concerning that Republicans could not get any traction. I am not getting into that because I didn’t like the policy, but generally the author is probably correct. Most Trumpian Republicans and Democrats aren’t really listening to any policy ideas coming from the establishment Republicans right now so I bet there is some frustration on that end. Personally I think FOX News and their ilk has made the national Republican party CINOs anyway so it doesn’t matter. My real concern is there is no credible voice espousing true conservative policies right now.

The second story that caught my eye created some humor in me, yet is also  dangerous. There are some policy and laws being brought up in the Texas Legislature this year around voting and poll watchers. Basically the Republicans in Texas are trying to make it easier for poll watchers to go to various areas and challenge votes as they happen. And the article brought up an incident where apparently someone was trying to recruit people from upper middle class presumably white neighborhoods to go be poll watchers in certain neighborhoods of color. Soooo, what happens if people from these same neighborhoods decided to be poll watchers in the upper middle class neighborhoods? They would have the same right to be poll watchers as these Republican recruited individuals. So let’s just not be shy and say; how do you think a 70 year old white lady is going to feel about a guy with dreadlocks halfway down his back staring over her shoulder while she votes. ‘Excuse me maam, but your drivers license says you are 70. You do not look a day over 60 to me. Is this you?” Maybe the Republicans need to rethink this.....just sayin’  lol

And finally let’s talk about coal. We shouldn’t, but Wyoming has decided to earmark taxpayer money to continue down a path of financial ruin. Apparently the Republicans in Wyoming are trying or have earmarked just over a million dollars for lawsuits to protect the coal industry in Wyoming. Now to be fair the coal industry in Wyoming historically has been important to their economy, yet the article mentioned that coal production has dropped significantly over the last decade. You would think the Republicans could read the writing on the wall. If it is dropping year over year and in a decade you are now half or less than half of what it was, isn’t it about time to think about change? Apparently not. The people of Wyoming probably need this million plus much more to start shifting their economy into new industries and businesses. If I was in charge I would have the coal mining companies take what money they have left and clean up. And also probably help them reinvest into some of the new industries. We do not want people to lose their jobs, but this million is money that won’t bring any jobs back or even hold onto to many for much longer. Better to start making the change so you can retrain the workforce and start investing into the future. Yet, Republicans are in charge, you know conservatives who aren’t conservatives, either Trumpians or the crypt holders of dying industries or both. Shame the people of Wyoming do not have better.

And speaking of the dying coal industry. Maybe Biden should include money in his infrastructure plan that helps the coal industry die with some grace and allow the people in this industry a way to move forward in new industries. Tell this to a Republican and ponder the blank stare you get back or duck as misguided anger gets directed back at you.

Cheers