Back in my day, on a TV program named 77 Sunset Strip, the parking lot attendant, Kookie Burns, used to say, “Baby, you’re the Ginchiest.” If you’re under 70, you might need to see this clip from Dick Clark’s American Bandstand to get an idea of his character.
Back then, ginchiest was Kookie’s beatnik word for somebody who was the absolute coolest person. Nowadays, we have somebody who is the exact opposite. Donald Trump is the GRINCHiest person.
When a reporter informed him that there would likely be a toy shortage this Christmas, if he kept the high tariff on China, Trump said that children would just get two dolls instead of 30, and they might cost a little more, but it wasn’t a big deal.
No toys for our little tots? No big deal? If a Democrat said that, the Fox “News” Nutwork would already be screaming about the heartless “War on Christmas” by pinko leftists. Now, since Trump said it, they don’t even bother to comment on his comment. If they ever have to say something, they will find a way to blame it on Biden. “If Biden didn’t force all the toy manufacturers to move to China….”
Donny Two Dolls doesn’t think anything about taking away somebody else’s toys, but he raced back from Italy immediately after the funeral of Pope Francis, so that he could get in a round of golf at his club in New Jersey before the sun went down. He sure won’t give up any of his toys, but he expects your kids to “take it like a man.” Beside, why are you wasting your money on toys when you can get your kids digital action pictures of Donald Trump for only $99.99.
It’s gonna happen. We have two paths we can take. One leads to a Utopian society, where machines do most of the work and we spend five days a week doing the things we actually want to do, reading, writing, hobbies, vacations with loved ones, spending time with our families, taking classes, or just about anything else we want to do that’s not too expensive. The other path leads to a few trillionaires doing whatever they want to do, no matter how expensive it is, while the rest of the world lives in poverty because there aren’t enough jobs and the government doesn’t provide a safety net.
To achieve the Utopia, everyone will have to get along. If we continue to fight each other we will be doomed. Our only hope is to work together to create a wonderful world.
To achieve the Dystopia, we don’t have to change a thing.
I wondered why the Jews didn’t fight the Nazis, so I looked it up. The idea that Jews didn’t resist the Nazis is a misconception. Jewish resistance took many forms, from armed uprisings like the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising to acts of defiance within concentration camps. However, the Nazis used extreme violence, deception, and psychological tactics to suppress resistance. Many Jews were misled about their fate, believing they were being relocated rather than sent to death camps. Others faced impossible choices, with families threatened and communities devastated.
They fought, but it wasn’t enough.
Fifty years from now, will our ancestors be living in autocracies ruled by cruel dictators and wonder why we didn’t fight harder? Will they wonder why we didn’t recognize the obvious evils and fight harder against them? People are already being dragged off to concentration camps in foreign countries without even a hint of due process. Nine to Zero Supreme Court decisions are now being laughed at and ignored by the current regime.
“All that is required for evil to win is for good people to say nothing.”
Stand up. Say something. Like our fine neighbors in Canada say, “Elbows up.” “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.” Fight the tyranny now, while it can still be stopped. Don’t make your children and grandchildren wonder why you let it happen.
I want to reply to all the people who commented on my most recent post, but I don’t have a “Reply” button. So, until I figure it out how to do that, I’ll just post this as a new post.
Most people commented along these lines…”when you look at the current scenario in the US where the rich are not only determined to get richer by the usual methods, but by re-directing financial support from those needing it into their coffers, it would be enormously hard for the rank and file worker bees to trust.”
I agree 100%. This will not be easy. The rich will make it very difficult, extremely difficult. It won’t happen until we reach a tipping point where the rich have almost everything, and the people have almost nothing. The thing is, I believe that day is rapidly approaching. With AI, Robots, and Drones, most workers can easily be replaced in the next decade or two. Unfortunately, the benefits of the technology will only go to the companies who own the AI, Robots, and Drones. They will not willingly share the wealth. We won’t get more leisure time, but they will get more money. They will have the money, BUT we have the many. We can change society by sheer force of numbers. We can make the future brighter. They know that, so they simply keep us divided. That is their strategy, and unfortunately, it is working. Someday, though, when we’re really downtrodden, out of necessity, we will put aside our petty differences. We will stop with the nonsense of white people versus people of color, middle class versus the poor, educated versus the uneducated, Democrat versus Republican versus Independent, and young versus old. We will unite and win, but it may come too late, especially when the rich will control all media, and they will not tell us the truth. We have to start now.
A fellow blogger wrote that she passed through a hotel and there weren’t any desk clerks. There were six computer terminals where guests checked in and out, and there was only one employee there to provide assistance to anyone who needed it.
She worried what this might mean for jobs in the future. I chose to embrace the idea, feeling that AI and Robotics can actually lead us to a more utopian society, not a more dystopian society. To help me formulate my plan for the future, I naturally turned to AI, and here is the result.
The 16-Hour Workweek: A Bold Vision for a Better Future
Imagine waking up to a world where work is no longer the center of life. A world where AI and robotics handle most of the labor, and instead of scrambling to protect jobs, we redefine work itself. In 10 years, automation will replace many routine tasks—so what if, instead of fighting it, we embraced it and gradually transitioned to a 16-hour workweek?
This shift wouldn’t just prevent mass unemployment; it would reshape society for the better. More people would stay employed, but with shorter hours, higher efficiency, and more free time to spend on leisure, creativity, family, and community.
Why a Shorter Workweek Just Makes Sense
Automation Will Handle the Heavy Lifting: AI and robotics are replacing repetitive and technical tasks—we don’t need to work 40+ hours just to keep the system going.
Less Burnout, More Productivity: Studies show that shorter workweeks lead to higher efficiency. When people work fewer hours, they work smarter.
A Creative Renaissance: With more free time, people will write more, read more, and engage in art, crafts, and learning—ushering in a new wave of cultural growth.
Strengthening Human Connections: Imagine having more time to actually enjoy life, engage in the community, and focus on personal fulfillment.
Making It Happen
This won’t happen overnight, but a gradual reduction over 10 years—starting with a 32-hour week, then 24 hours, before finally arriving at 16 hours—would allow economies to adapt. Governments and corporations could incentivize this shift, ensuring wages remain fair and working conditions stable.
So the big question is: Would you support a future where work is a fraction of what it is today, leaving more room for life itself?
Drop your thoughts in the comments—I’d love to hear what you think!
Just for the sake of argument, let’s say you’re a billionaire. No, a multi-billionaire. What would you do? Would you buy a private jet? Probably. Who would you hire to fly the plane? Tom Hanks played Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger in the movie “Sully.” Would you hire him? No. He’s not a real pilot. You would hire someone with a pilot’s license. You could hire Tom Cruise who played Lieutenant/Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in the movie “Top Gun.” He actually does have a pilot license, but he is the exception to the rule. Most actors are actors, not the role they are playing.
If you needed surgery, would you hire Alan Alda, who played Dr. Hawkeye Pierce in “M*A*S*H” from 1972 through 1983? Or maybe Hugh Laurie who played Dr. Gregory House in “House” from 2004 through 2012, or Richard Chamberlain, who played Dr. Kildare in “Dr. Kildare” from 1961 through 1966, or George Clooney, who played Dr. Doug Ross in “ER” from 2000 through 2009? No, you would find a real surgeon, one who actually went to medical school and practiced surgery.
If you had legal problems, would you want Raymond Burr defending you. He played Perry Mason in “Perry Mason” from 1957 through 1966 and never lost a case, at least not until “The Case of the Terrified Typist.” James Spader was terrific as Attorney Alan Shore in “Boston Legal” from 2004 through 2008, but in real life, he never passed the bar. If you needed a lawyer, you would hire an experienced lawyer.
Jane Withers played Josephine the Plumber in Comet ads from the 1960s through the early 1970s, but if your gold toilet was overflowing, you would call a real plumber. If you needed other home improvements you probably wouldn’t call Tim Allen, even though he played Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor on “Home Improvements” from 1991-1999.
If you bought a major league baseball team it is unlikely that your starting pitcher would be Charlie Sheen, even though he played Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn in “Major League.” Kevin Costner played “Crash” Davis in “Bull Durham,” and he pitched a perfect game in “For Love of the Game,” but he probably wouldn’t make your team either. It’s also unrealistic to think that you would have Robert Redford in the lineup, even though he played Roy Hobbs in “The Natural.” It’s also quite unlikely that you would have Tom Hanks manage the team, even though he did a swell job as Jimmy Dugan in “A League of Their Own.” If you did hire these guys instead of professional athletes, you might learn the hard way that “there’s no crying in baseball.”
If you chose to buy a football team, Cuba Gooding Jr. would probably not make the team, no matter how much money you showed him, even though he played well as Rod Tidwell in “Jerry Maguire.” Adam Sandler and Burt Reynolds both played star quarterbacks in two different versions of “The Longest Yard,” but neither of them would start on your team, unless you didn’t care about winning.
If you wanted to sign a prize fighter, I’m sure you would want somebody with more real ring experience than Sylvester Stallone, Robert De Niro, Will Smith or Hilary Swank, even though they put in many hours as Rocky Balboa, Jake LaMotta, Muhammad Ali and Maggie Fitzgerald in the movies.
The list of famous people you wouldn’t hire could go on and on. In just about every case you would hire a professional, instead. Maybe, you might make an exception and hire Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson as bartenders, but otherwise, you would stick to people who do the job in real life, not actors. If there’s something strange in your neighborhood, you’re not going to call Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd unless you need a laugh.
My favorite TV President is Martin Sheen who appeared as President Josiah Bartlet in “The West Wing” from 1999 through 2006, and my favorite movie President is Michael Douglas who played President Andrew Shepherd in “The American President.” Kevin Klein was also a great substitute President in Dave, but I wouldn’t vote for any one of these three to be the actual President. They don’t have the real-world experience.
So, I wonder why 75 million Americans elected to the Presidency a failed businessman and con artist who bankrupted 3 casinos and was convicted of 34 felony counts of fraud, simply because he played a successful businessman in “The Apprentice” from 2004 through 2017.
This song is 20 minutes and 31 seconds long. It’s mostly an instrumental, so you can listen to it and enjoy it while reading this blog. Actually, it should only take a few minutes to read this blog, but you’ll probably want to listen to the entire song, anyway. It’s a masterpiece.
In 1982, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) was adopted. It established a legal framework for the use of the world’s oceans, including the regulation of deep-sea mining in international waters.
The United States has still not ratified UNCLOS.
UNCLOS has faced opposition from certain U.S. senators over the years, preventing its ratification. A notable instance occurred in 2012, when a group of 34 Republican senators, led by Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), publicly opposed the treaty. This group included senators like Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) and Rob Portman (R-OH), among others. Their opposition was enough to block the two-thirds majority required for ratification in the Senate.
What was the result? U.S. companies didn’t want to invest billions in deep-sea mining in international waters, without having the legal protection of the U.S. Government as a signatory of the U.N. resolution.
Guess who did sign the U.N resolution and invest heavily in deep-sea mining technology? China.
Well, over the years, oceanographers discovered an interesting area on the ocean floor where polymetallic nodules were “growing.” These small potato-shaped mineral deposits have been formed over millions of years as minerals like manganese, nickel, cobalt, and rare earth elements precipitated from seawater and formed around small rocks or shell fragments, kinda like the way pearls form around bits of sand inside an oyster’s shell. The greatest accumulation of these nodules is found in an area called the Clarion-Clipperton Zone in the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Mexico.
So, U.S. companies are not mining these deep-sea nodules but China is, and a funny thing happened on the way to the future. We’ve known the value of manganese, nickel, and cobalt for centuries. The value of rare earth materials , however, was not so well known. Recently, in a speech about a potential deal with Ukraine, President Trump even referred to them incorrectly as “raw earth materials.” No big surprise. He’s not exactly a scientist.
I’m not a scientist either so I had to look them up. Here’s what I found.
Rare earth elements (REEs) consist of 17 elements on the periodic table, including the 15 lanthanides plus scandium and yttrium. Here are their atomic numbers:
These elements are prized for their unique properties and are critical to many technologies, like magnets, batteries, and LEDs.
You don’t need to memorize the names of these elements, but let’s have another look at that last sentence. These elements are prized for their unique properties and are critical to many technologies, like magnets, batteries, and LEDs.
So, while China has been harvesting these precious “potatoes” off the ocean floor, the U.S. has been waiting since 1982 for the Senate to ratify UNCLOS. The result is that China is now the world’s largest producer of rare earth elements, and the U.S. relies heavily on imports, particularly from China, for processed rare earth materials. China is kicking our ass in the area of refining rare earth elements.
Let’s revisit that sentence one more time. These elements are prized for their unique properties and are critical to many technologies, like magnets, batteries, and LEDs.
Ukraine has rich rare earth deposits, which is why – Surprise Surprise – Donald Trump wants to quickly end the war in Ukraine so that the U.S. can start mining their rare earth elements.
So, Ukraine, Donald Trump desperately wants your rare earth elements and he will stop at nothing to get them. He’ll even cooperate with Russia. So, like the band Rare Earth said in 1970, “Get ready, because here I come.”
For those of you, too young to remember this. On November 18, 1956, during a reception at the Polish Embassy in Moscow, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev addressed Western diplomats amidst the tense atmosphere of the Cold War. The world was still reeling from the aftermath of World War II, and the ideological struggle between capitalism and communism was at its peak.
Khrushchev, known for his fiery rhetoric and bold proclamations, declared:
> “Мы вас похороним!” > (Pronounced: “My vas pokhoronim!”)
Translated literally, this means “We will bury you!” The statement sent shockwaves through Western nations, intensifying fears of Soviet aggression and the potential for nuclear conflict. We started building bomb shelters and holding air-raid drills.
The phrase, however, was a subject of misinterpretation due to cultural and linguistic differences. In Russian, the expression is a common idiom akin to saying “We will outlast you” or “We will be present at your funeral.” It’s not necessarily a direct threat of violence but rather a prediction of the eventual triumph of one system over another.
Khrushchev later clarified his remarks, stating:
> “I once said, ‘We will bury you,’ and I got into trouble. Of course, we will not bury you with a shovel. Your own working class will bury you.”
This reflects the Marxist belief in the inevitable collapse of capitalism due to its internal contradictions, leading to a proletarian revolution.
Khrushchev was a complex figure. He criticized Stalin’s brutal regime and introduced reforms to reduce oppression. He launched the Virgin Lands Campaign to boost food production. Under his leadership, the USSR launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, marking a significant achievement and initiating the space race with the United States.
Yet, his approach to diplomacy was often unorthodox. In 1960, he banged his shoe on a desk at the United Nations to emphasize a point. His decision to place nuclear missiles in Cuba led to a critical standoff with the United States in 1962, known as the Cuban Missile Crisis.
In November of 1956, Krushchev predicted that Russia would outlast the United States, because our people would overthrow our government. In November of 2024, 75 million Americans did just that when they elected Donald Trump, a pro-Russian Putin puppet, as President. Today, in the same U.N. building where Krushchev once banged his shoe on a desk to protest a U.N. decision, the United States turned its back on Ukraine and voted with Russia on a U.N. proposal. It took almost 7 decades for Krushchev’s prediction to come true, but our own working class has finally buried us. I just hope we can dig ourselves out.
Donnie Dumbdumb wants Canada to be our 51st State. Why would they want to do that?
I can’t think of a single reason.
Canada has 10 provinces and 3 territories.
The 10 provinces are:
Alberta
British Columbia
Manitoba
New Brunswick
Newfoundland and Labrador
Nova Scotia
Ontario
Prince Edward Island
Quebec
Saskatchewan
The 3 territories are:
Northwest Territories
Nunavut
Yukon
So, at the very least if Canada joined the United States, they should become 10 new states. We’ll let their territories stay in Limbo for now like we do with Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico.
As of October 1, 2024, Canada’s population was estimated at approximately 41,465,298 people.
As of January 1, 2024, California’s population was estimated to be approximately 39,128,186.
California has 54 electoral votes in the Electoral College. This number is based on its representation in Congress, comprising 52 members in the House of Representatives and 2 senators.
So, since Canada has a population slightly larger than California, it should get at least as many Representatives in the House as California, 52. Plus, the 10 states would each get 2 senators. That would give Canada a total of 72 electoral votes.
That would make a lot more sense than the country of Canada becoming one measly state in the United States. Add stars on the U.S. flag for Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Saskatchewan, and maybe we could make a deal, eh.
On this day, Americans traditionally have a little fun by taking meteorological advice from a groundhog. We know that whether or not he sees his shadow on this day, has no effect upon the seasons, but it gives us a little something to celebrate in a cold month.
Unfortunately, our willingness to take advice, for harmless fun, from what is essentially a large ground squirrel has taken a tragic turn, as 77,000,000 Americans now take advice from a huge orange rat. This has resulted in 346,000,000 Americans now having their lives controlled by a wannabe Dictator, who, in two short weeks, has alienated us from the rest of the world.
Our two closest neighbors now despise us and Canadians, who are well-known for their politeness, now boo loudly when they hear our National Anthem at sporting events.
The next Summer Olympics will be held in Los Angeles, California, USA, from July 21 to August 6, 2028. The whole world will be watching, and it sickens me to think that our wonderful athletes may probably hear more boos than cheers when they stand on the victory podium listening to The Star-Spangled Banner, solely because we currently have a President who is quickly turning the world against us.
It’s a nightmare worse than Bill Murray could ever have imagined.
earlthepearl137 