Category: Current Events

ABC – Wash Post Slanted Poll Still Very Bad News for Dems in November

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I don’t like to spread good news prematurely but when the Left starts saying discouraging things about the November Elections it does tempt me to weigh in.

Here are some of the highlights of this ABC / Washington Post Poll:

The headline on the poll results is: “Biden Struggles, As Does His Party; Most Dems Look Elsewhere for 2024.”

But what makes this poll notable is that it found some remarkably weak findings for Democrats, even with the Democrat-leaning sample and the alleged shopping for youth respondents.

Among Registered Voters in competitive (close) Congressional districts

55% favor Republicans (mirroring the 24 lead for Republicans in solid GOP districts)

34% favor Democrats

 

Suburban women

47% favor Republicans

44% favor Democrats

 

So let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves here.  Election fraud is a very powerful friend of the Democrats.  When you just open up a firehose of manufactured votes it’s pretty easy to overcome a twenty one point lead in the actual vote.  But it does say something about the possibility of a whole bunch of chickens coming home to roost on Joe Biden’s head.  And roosting chickens (and the attendant debris) couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

Well, if at least we know Nancy Pelosi will be losing her gavel in a few months that is something to be looking forward to.  If Schumer is also demoted that would be fun.  And maybe I’m about to be pleasantly surprised by the incompetence of the Democrat fraud machine.  We’ll have to see.

 

 

 

 

 

Joe Biden Cures Cancer

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Recently the odious fungoid that infests 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was raving about his imaginary “war against cancer.”  Under ordinary circumstances I assume that every pronouncement that emanates from that malignant wretch is a lie.  But when it comes to wars on cancer, I have a special level of scorn.

Since the 1960s America has been bombarded with headlines on how the titanic energies of the federal government and the medical science infrastructure would finally defeat cancer “within twenty years.”  Now this twenty-year estimate is very similar to the one that has been promising us nuclear fusion energy “within fifty years.  We’re currently on the eightieth year of that guesstimate.

The idea that a moron like Joe Biden is going to solve a biological mystery like curing all cancers is truly absurd.  Sure, he’s only talking about funding a research initiative but the scope of what he’s proposing to do dwarfs the resources he’s talking about by a factor of a million to one.

The mistake that people make when they compare biology to something like technology or economics is thinking that there is a linear relation between what you know and what you don’t know.  Everyone was told that once we had decoded the human genome everything else in human biology would be a matter of reverse engineering solutions to every disease and problem.  Boy was that stupid.  The genome gives us the code for figuring out the peptide sequence in all the proteins that the body uses.   But it turns out that understanding how these proteins interact with all the other chemical substances in the body is so complicated that all knowing the compositions of the proteins does is mock us with the actual complexity of our cells.

Even the shape of these protein molecules is a mystery that has to be painstakingly determined with X-ray crystallography and other complicated and exacting techniques.  And even then, we don’t know the shape the molecule assumes in the specialized environment when other molecules are associated during various interactions.  Recently artificial intelligence has been tasked with automating the calculation of the shapes of all the proteins known to man.  And this is surely a boon.  The countless man-hours saved by the machine cataloguing the shape of two hundred million proteins is stunning.  But as is freely admitted by the AI’s creators, these shape estimates are extremely questionable.  They only form the basis for a more through examination of the protein.  Maybe they really only help to narrow a research effort down from an even larger problem down to just an enormous one.

The metabolic pathways associated with the human immune system is one of those areas where protein shape is critical.  An enormous amount of effort has been expended in trying to understand how the human body differentiates between pathogens and self when it tries to protect from viruses, bacteria and other organisms.  When the immune system becomes too active, we end up with auto-immune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis or Crohn’s Disease where the body attacks its own cells.  And yet that same immune system is also charged with attacking cancer cells.  Tumor necrosis factors exist in the body for this purpose.  These delicate balances and how they fail is the subject of endless research.

Practical results have been made.  Antibodies have been manufactured with the ability to target the exact cancer cells that a patient is producing.  There have been cures.  But failure is the rule, success the exception.  Once again, what we know is still an infinitesimal part of what needs to be learned.

It can be hoped that AI will eventually be an accelerant for the research being done.  But I suspect that what we are looking at is a multi-generational effort that will involve incremental progress.  In fact, it’s possible that fundamental biological research not even aimed at cancer will provide the stepping stones that one day will allow truly effective cancer treatment.

One thing I can guarantee is that Joe Biden will never be thought to have done anything meaningful to help advance cancer research.  In fact, I’ll go one better.  Joe Biden will never be thought to have done anything meaningful to help anyone but himself.

To Paraphrase Huey Lewis and the News, “It’s Hip to be Unwoke.”

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According to the New York Times there is a troubling trend among some avant-garde kids to assume the trappings of traditional institutions, like the Catholic crucifix, and defy the virtue signaling mantra of their generation’s elite guardians.  So, the Times is looking for a sleuth to ferret out the details of this heresy and hopefully expose the malefactors so that they can be properly punished and then allowed to recant and declare their love for Big Brother.

This New York Times project is described in an article in the City Journal that goes on to try and explain these young rebels as the first fruits of a rebellion of the young against the dominant culture which in this case is the current all encompassing orthodoxy of woke-ism.  In other words, these young people are organizing a counter-culture against what used to be described as the Left’s counter-culture against western civilization.

The author states: “Few things are more natural for young people than to push back against the strictures and norms of their day, even if only to stand out a little from the crowd and assert their independence. A counterculture forms as a reaction against an official or dominant culture—and today, it is the woke neoliberal Left that occupies this position in America’s cultural, educational, technological, corporate, and bureaucratic power centers. In this culture, celebration of ritualized, old forms of transgression is not only permitted, but practically mandatory. Dissent against state-sponsored transgression, however, is now transgressive. All of what was once revolutionary is now a new orthodoxy, with conformity enforced by censorship, scientistic obscurantism, and eager witch-hunters (early-middle-aged, zealously dour, tight-lipped frown, NPR tote bag, rainbow “Coexist” bumper sticker, pronouns in email signature—we all know the uniform).”

Apparently, these young rebels can be found in trendy areas of lower Manhattan and their cachet as members of the avant-garde worries the gatekeepers of public morality at the Times and the author equates this worry with genuine peril that the youth among the elites could be corrupted and driven over to the dark side where one day they would produce a new consensus to shift the balance of power away from the monolithic progressive world view.  And a new regime could populate the Deep State with acolytes of the Dissident Right.

Well, I don’t know about that.  I know that Curtis Yarvin is interested in the lower Manhattan scene being discussed and he is of the opinion that the only way to neutralize the Deep State is to peacefully displace it with a new elite.  But in both of these examples I wonder at the circumstances and the time line that would bring about such a transformation.  Some kids in Manhattan adopting Christian symbology isn’t a bad thing but what is the larger significance?  Do these young people hope to change the values that guide modern life?  Are they looking to traditional values to give meaning to their existence?  And how many people are we talking about?  A handful, a few thousand or a growing trend?

And what will be the reaction of the gatekeepers?  I’m sure they’re already busy looking to siphon off any discontented teens with a Tik-Tok influencer who sports a trans-friendly pseudo-Catholic rosary that involves anti-Pope Francis’ official rainbow seal of approval.

I guess, on balance, any fear on the part of the official organs of the state like the Times is a good and promising symptom.  Therefore, I won’t rain on their parade.  But I think I’ll wait to celebrate until I see some larger more widespread evidence that the Zoomers have begun to rebel.  Possibly the “Let’s go Brandon” cheers (or their actual words) at football games could be interpreted as the first real sign of popular unrest of the young against the Left.  But I’ve assumed that was more of a reaction to the COVID lockdowns by the Biden administration and not a general anti-woke reaction.  We’ll need to see clearer signs such as voting trends or support for traditional institutions like religion and marriage.

But I’ll end by saying that anything that hints at the young abandoning the woke cult is encouraging.  Even if it’s a minority movement, it’s a start.

Forget Politicians, We Need a Huckster

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One of the reasons that Donald Trump did so well with the American public is that he’s a salesman.  He knows how to talk to people and he knows what they want to hear.  Can you imagine listening to a speech by Mitch McConnell?  Not only is he a hopeless boob of a speaker but he doesn’t have a clue about what the voters want.  And he doesn’t care.  So even in politics you need someone with people skills.

But my point is that politicians can only fight a battle against the Left in Washington and the state capitols.  And, no doubt, winning the political wars is important.  But what is just as important and what has been completely neglected is the social life of the Right.  Currently we are not served by any of the corporations that provide cultural products and services.  In fact, the opposite is true.  Books, movies, games, music and entertainment of all sorts are specifically and intentionally curated to exclude anything that might appeal to the Right.

Go to Amazon and look for books that appeal to you.  You’ll be fighting an uphill battle even if you already know the names of some.  And when they recommend other books (as they always do) they seem to be selected from the LGBTQ Book of the Month Club.  And forget movies and tv.  The number of tolerable selections is miniscule and also hard to find.  And that goes for music, games, comedians, dating services, sports channels and on and on and on.

Recently a very few social media outlets like Rumble and Truth have come into existence.  But these are primarily political outposts that currently have only a small following and don’t fill much of a niche in terms of “social impact.”  And I think the reason for this is that no one with a true huckster’s skills has arrived on the scene.  What is needed is a showman to orchestrate an exciting and engaging social experience.  Someone has to look intelligently at this enormous underserved market and identify a way to make a ton of money serving it.

And honestly, there’s no reason why someone doing this wouldn’t be able to make money off of the rest of the market that isn’t right-wing.  Maybe the blue-haired cat ladies and LGBTQ freaks would boycott it but regular progressives are just as interested in getting stuff at a reasonable price as we are.  You can sell the same dog food and toilet paper to everyone from Karl Marx to Ronald Reagan.  All you have to do is make sure that you have an aisle in your “store” that has our stuff too.

I’m surprised that supposed geniuses like Elon Musk and Peter Thiele haven’t recognized the opportunity to go head-to-head with Bezos and Hollywood.  They could make a fortune.  And all they’d have to do is package it all with some glitz and showmanship.  There’s a demand for wholesome entertainment for children.  And it could start small.  A small studio and a small publishing operation but one that has invested in talented creative types could do extremely well.

This could be a lot more profitable and a lot less expensive than buying Twitter.  Taking money away from Disney and Amazon with their lame Star Wars and Rings of Power franchises is a no-brainer.  They’ve abandoned tens of millions of fans by making blatantly woke and boring products that ignore the underlying stories that these fans value.

So, Musk, Thiele and anyone else who has money and wants to make more of it, open your eyes and put on your ringmaster’s hat, tails, boots and whip and address the “ladies and gentlemen and children of all ages” to pay their ducats for a chance to enter the tent and be entertained.  Just make sure the female trapeze artists are actually women.  And while you’re at it, we wouldn’t complain if they were pretty.

Seasonal Activities

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So today is the last official day of summer.  Tomorrow is the Autumnal Equinox but here in Dunwich fall is well advanced.  The crickets are hiding under stones and digging down to avoid the chill well before sundown.  Their chirping is becoming slower and weaker each day.  The frogs are still enthusiastically croaking and piping in the swamp but even they haven’t got too much longer to go.

We’ve gotten tons of rain in the last couple of weeks so the grass is green again and growing.  But the vegetable garden is on its last legs.  There are some peppers and eggplants almost ready to pick and a couple of butternut squash in a race to ripen before the death of the vines they’re on.  And the flower gardens are down to a few new cone flowers and some black eyed susans that haven’t given up the ghost yet.

Even the dragonflies are so lethargic that I think I could catch them with my hands if I tried.  Camera Girl saw a hummingbird a couple of days ago but they must be ready to head south already.  I haven’t seen any butterflies in the last couple of days so maybe they’re all gone.

So, it’s officially time to shut everything down and winterize the grounds.  All the lawn and pool furniture has to be stored away.  My fence repairs will have to be completed before the ground freezes.  And there are some incidentals.  I have to install a tree swing for Princess Sack of Potatoes.  I’ll use my weight as a test for the branch we’ve selected.  It’s in an odd spot because of a slope but it’s the only convenient branch.  I’ve also got to replace the transmission on my snowblower.  The parts are in but I’m hemming and hawing because I don’t want to do it.  It’s supposed to be straight forward but you know how that is.

Then there’s the rotten wood that needs to be replaced.  I’ve been stalling on that too.  Realistically I can skip this year but I promised myself I’d get the ball rolling and tackle one or two problems before winter.  At the least I should cover the problem areas with some tarps to avoid additional damage.  Maybe I’ll flip a coin.

The shorter days are already noticeable.  After dinner the sun is behind the hill in the west.  The light is gone by seven o’clock.  But the good news is that I mourned the end of summer on the last day of July.  After that I’ve already skipped ahead to thoughts of winter and any incidental good weather is all gravy as far as I’m concerned.  So here I am concentrating on Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas to get me through the end of the year and into the new one.

This year I have the elections to distract me from the shortening days and cooling temperatures.  The horror of Biden, Pelosi and Schumer along with their henchmen in the Deep State and the Media should provide stimulation that can’t be overlooked.  After all we could be looking at the official end of the republic as a legitimate political institution.  That’s got to be a noteworthy event to live through.  And even if we are saved by a shocking Republican victory I don’t think that will be something to sleep through.  And who knows, World War III might be in the wings if Biden keeps poking the Russian bear.

And I have a long list of tasks that I can perform indoors.  I’ve got a ton of pictures that need adjusting and all kinds of writing that has to be done so I’ll be anything but bored.

But it’s funny.  Once it gets chilly at night, say in the forties, we close the windows after dark.  And then there’s no outdoor sounds to hear.  No frogs, no owls, no coyotes even.  And that’s a big change.  You become detached from the natural world and plugged into the artificial one.  Electric light takes over and you tend to go to bed later and get up later.  Well, not Camera Girl.  She’s plugged into the dogs’ schedule and they’ll get her up at 6 am even if the apocalypse descends on us.  But I start to stay up later and read too much and watch too much television.

But that’s normal.  We compensate for the change of season as we do.  And there are family activities coming up.  Kids’ soccer games and birthday parties are in the offing.  And it’s almost time to drag out the Universal Classic Monster movies and introduce the youngsters to the hokey joys of Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolfman.  I think I’ll indulge in some popcorn for that film festival.

Okay, Autumn 2022, let’s see what you’ve got.

Here’s Another Poll That Says, “It’s the Economy Stupid.”

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The Democrats are working as hard as they can to replace the lousy economy on the minds of voters with anything else; abortion, the Ukraine, gun violence, January 6th, anything.  But it hasn’t worked:

“In the latest Investor’s Business Daily/TIPP Poll conducted in early September, we asked Americans to pick top-3 issues facing the country. The economy came as the top issue for most. It does not matter what party you are from; the sentiment is shared across the political spectrum.

The economy is the #1 issue for nearly half (48%) of the Americans who took part in the poll. It is important to 38% of Democrats, 63% of Republicans, and 46% of Independents.

The #2 issue is Gun violence/Gun control at a distant 27%. Democrats (37%) think it is important and it is ‘somewhat important’ to Independents (21%), but it has limited appeal to Republicans (15%).

Immigration and border security (24%) is the #3 issue. While immigration and border security is a critical issue for one-half (49%) of Republicans, only 21% of Independents think it is important.

Many Democratic politicians want to leverage abortion as a wedge issue, but it has only limited appeal. One in five (21%) think it is important, with 26% of Democrats and a similar share of Independents (25%). Only 13% of Republicans rated it as a top issue.”

So apparently Americans aren’t as clueless as the Democrats hoped.  Sounds hopeful.  Let’s just see if the voter fraud machine is ready to crank out more fake Democrat victories.

Democrat Pundit Starts to Come Back to Reality on Mid-Terms

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Ed Kilgore has re-evaluated the chances of Democrats dodging the Mid-Term curse and he’s not very hopeful.  What I found interesting was the discussion about the polls

“If you consider the polls from the outlets that were most accurate in 2020, the mixed prospects for the GOP look even better. Of the pollsters doing abundant 2022 public-survey work, Trafalgar Group was the most accurate in 2020 per FiveThirtyEight. Yes, Trafalgar has a well-deserved reputation for serving up results that please Republicans. But what if they are as right this year as they were two years ago? They show a lot of the GOP candidates already written off by most analysts as being still viable. Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters? Down by just two points, according to Trafalgar Group. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania? Ditto. The wildly extremist Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastrioni? Him too. All three of these alleged “losers” are within the margin of error in Trafalgar Group polls, which also show half-forgotten Minnesota Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen within three points of incumbent Tim Walz, left-for-dead Michigan Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon within four points of incumbent Gretchen Whitmer, and little-discussed Colorado Republican Senate candidate Joe O’Dea within five points of incumbent Michael Bennett.

Oh … and Trafalgar Group also shows Republicans with a six-point advantage in the generic congressional ballot.”

And as far as the importance of abortion as an election issue this statement was very telling:

“A September 2022 NBC News poll bluntly asked voters whether a candidate’s position on “dealing with the cost of living” or on “the abortion issue” would most affect their choice. “Cost of living” was deemed more important by a 59-37 margin. And in rankings of the most important issue, NBC found that crime barely trails abortion as a voter concern (both ranking well below “jobs and the economy” and “cost of living”). The poll gave Republicans a 23-point advantage on crime and a 19-point advantage on the economy. Democrats do have a 22-point advantage on abortion policy, but it’s all in the mix.”

Mr. Kilgore tried to leave some room for optimism but you could tell his heart wasn’t in it.  So unless the voter fraud is industrial strength as it was in 2020 it looks like the Congress may flip to the republicans in November.

Well, we’ll see.

Handicapping November 2022

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Of late I’ve stated that the coming November elections will be a clear indicator of how much hope there remains for the American political system.  My often-repeated basis for this statement is that the various progressive organizations have totally dropped the mask and exposed their disregard for all legitimate behavior.  And by this, I mean the activities of the last two or three years during which we were exposed to complete loss of freedom during the COVID lockdowns, the collusion between the federal government and the tech companies to silence and punish dissenting opinions, the selective enforcement of laws by the Justice Department.  In addition, with the outbreak of stagflation history informs us that the party in power is always punished severely by the electorate.

Based on this situation we find ourselves in, I would assume that if the American electoral process is still functioning, the Democrats would be handed strong losses in both the House and Senate.  Currently the polls indicate that the Republicans will reclaim the House with a ten to twenty seat majority.  The Senate is much closer with current estimates indicating that the Republicans will take two seats and have a slim majority.  To my mind that is hardly the outcome to be expected when every indicator of government failure is flashing bright red.  To my mind this indicates that the system has stopped working.

But to be fair I think I should define what I think would be a functioning result of the political system in these mid-terms.  As far as absolute numbers I’d say that the House would have to give the Republicans a forty-seat majority.  And the Senate wouldn’t provide that lop-sided a change but I would expect to see all the purple state contests go to the Republicans.  That would be Arizona, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Georgia and Nevada.  In addition, I’d expect to see a couple of governors of blue states getting ejected.  Specifically Wisconsin and Michigan should be looking to boot out their governors.

So that’s my definition of a healthy American electoral response to the dysfunction and malfeasance that has been on display by the Democrats in the last few years.  If something resembling this response occurs, I will be heartily encouraged that maybe we can vote our way out of this.  Then it will be up to these politicians to use the people’s mandate to begin holding Biden and company accountable for their reckless misuse of our government.  I’d expect investigations to conclude with an impeachment of at least Biden.  Of course, we won’t have the votes in the Senate to convict him but it will show responsibility on the part of the House.  And it will set the stage for replacing Biden in 2024 with a Republican (Donald Trump) who intends to repair the damage.

But if we end up with the ten-seat majority in the House and a one or two seat majority in the Senate I’ll consider that proof that the United States is no longer able to change course in response to disaster.  Whether this is the result of widespread voter fraud or due to a majority of the electorate having been bought off by the promise of free stuff really doesn’t matter.  The outcome will be the same.  Democrat control of the United States federal government will be assured.

And if that’s the case I will spend my time looking for a Plan B.  whether that’s a red state or a different country depends on how the red states stand up to the feds.  There have been some positive signs in Florida and Texas.  Maybe they’ll move forward with these actions and establish their states as sanctuaries for freedom loving Americans.  Maybe they’ll expand this by joining with neighboring states to form a freedom zone within the United States.  It could be a very large zone.

But that’s a story for the future, after November.  First things first.

Some Republicans Finally Embracing Pro-Family Economics

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Even the stupid party is finally waking up to the fact that we can help our side by embracing public policy that favors stay at home moms.  It requires a degree of intelligence to craft laws that help one-paycheck families without feeding the machine that currently sucks up trillions of dollars for the sake of welfare cases.  But it can be done.

This article describes the outline of policies that would support working families that want mom at home to make it a home for young children.  Child tax credits and other forms of tax relief are a beginning.  But what is needed is a new way for government to measure economic prosperity.  The raising of children as an economic outcome has to be valued as a higher good than the economic value produced by forcing a woman into the workforce so that she can pay for her children to be attended by day care centers and pre-K education.

And once people start looking at the hidden costs for making children prohibitively expensive, we can quickly find the money needed to prevent it.  The United States compensates for the low child birth rate by allowing enormous numbers of illegal immigrants.  These are poor, uneducated and often criminal individuals who require enormous support payments in the shape of government support for housing, food, schooling and health care costs.

If all these dollars were transferred to ensuring that American parents have what it takes to afford a middle-class existence on one salary there would be plenty of money left over to pay down the national debt.  According to the article, even that idiot Mitt Romney is open to some of the ideas that pro-family economics espouse.

So, here’s a tiny white pill to make the day a little better.

Talking Family with Some Friends

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Today I went to visit some very good friends.  It was a pretty long trip but it was so good to spend time with people who speak my language.  We talked about many things.  We even talked about the political situation and I got some different points of view about the outlook for the mid-terms.  Apparently not everyone is as pessimistic as I am.  But the opinions on what’s wrong with the country were still very close to my viewpoint.

One thing that was brought up was the awareness by women in their thirties and forties that they’ve been tricked.  They’ve traded their most precious resource, their fertility, for ten or twenty years as corporate poster children.  The paradox is the women in their twenties will deny to the death that this is what is happening.  It’s only after the deal has been paid for that they understand what has happened.

But at the same time, it has to be acknowledged that our society has made the one salary middle class family a virtual impossibility.  And both millennial men and women have absorbed this as an unavoidable reality.  I countered that Hungary has begun the process of trying to provide a way out of this trap with tax incentives for couples that allows the wife and mother to stay at home with her kids in exchange for benefits that acknowledge the advantage to Hungarian society of providing new Hungarian citizens for the state.  I got some agreement that this would be highly desirable but there was also a lot of skepticism about any chance of it happening here.

And that’s true.  There’s no consensus among Americans that the stay-at-home mom is a necessity.  In fact, among young women, it’s exactly the opposite.  They’ve been proselytized to believe that only after they’ve achieved corporate success should they even think about getting married and starting a family.  The problem is no one wants to marry a thirty-five-year-old middle manager who makes more money than you and wants her husband to facilitate her remaining at the office to further her career after she has the one child, she thinks she has time (maybe) to produce.  So, we’re in a Catch-22 that neatly resists any fix.

So, I shrugged my shoulders and thought I should open a matrimonial agency and entice twenty something women to marry any men who are brave enough to try and raise families on one salary.  I’ll pitch it to these young women as a quixotic adventure that dooms them to poverty but provides the most enriched personal space in the known universe, the nuclear family.  And it’s true.  There is nothing more dynamic than a man and a woman struggling to provide a home and an upbringing for their own children.  What it requires is a man to spend his twenties saving up a stake to own a house and develop a career that he can use to sustain a family.

And it can be done.  I’ve seen it done.  Some military men have done exactly this.  And there are other career paths that can accommodate this goal.  And then he has to find a girl who’s interested.  But the real question is how many men of this type are left?  It may be a small number.

But this is what I was doing today.  And it was a stimulating discussion.  It’s good to get out and about when there are smart people to talk to.  I only wish there were ten thousand people like those I was talking to today.  If only those kinds of numbers existed.  I could see things getting done.  But when it’s handfuls it seems impossible to cause change.  Well, it was a good day.