ACB Could Make A Huge Splash -- November 10, 2020

It only takes one US Supreme Court justice to agree to take a case, as I understand it. Could be wrong. But if that's true, ACB could certainly make a name for herself and go down in history, far outshining the current chief justice. Just saying. 

Later: see first comment regarding referrals to the Court -- 

It takes 4 justices to vote to grant Cert. for a case "take the case" for argument. However each Circuit Court is assigned to (normally one) Justice for "immediate" appeals. That justice can refer the "immediate" case to the full Court and issue emergency stays and such. These situations are not the actual resolution of the case, which only occurs at the full Court (9 justices).

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The "Pandemic"
and
Western Civilization

Link here.  

I don't agree with the premise of the article at all. The writer implies that the Chinese orchestrated the Wuhan flu pandemic from the beginning to destroy western civilization. No one could have predicted how this would have played out. Even the writer, Helena Handbasket, admits this virus is no more serious than "seasonal flu."

My worldview follows.

The Italians and then the Europeans in general panicked. Their response was worse than the disease. I have no trouble agreeing with those who suggest this is a terrible disease (I don't buy it but for sake of argument, I won't disagree). I just don't agree with those who say this "terrible disease" required the response that was taken, and I definitely don't agree with those who say the response was not severe enough. Hiden' Biden, Dr Faust, and Kash 'n Karry want at least six more weeks of total lock down and Biden/Harris plan to hire ten-thousand out-of-work census workers to monitor the lock down. 

But I digress.

So, the Italians and the EU panicked.

This president had few options. From my perspective he threaded the needle quite nicely but this is where the Hillary War Room went into overdrive. The "Hillary War Room" is a metonym. 

But regardless of what happened and why it happened, it is what it is. Let's move on. I won't entertain discussion on the forementioned.

The writer  mentions that the estimated number of retail stores closing will be upwards of 15,000. The closing of retail stores hardly proves the western economy as we know it will be destroyed. In fact, the western economy will come out of this stronger than ever. 

The writer than lists twenty-one major chains that have announced they are closing. Hellooooo...they were on death's doorstep years ago. In most cases, it is amazing they lasted this long. The only one on that list that surprised me was Walgreens. But if Walgreens fails, the chain will be bought by someone else and 90% of their existing stores will remain but with a different name. 

But Sears? I thought it was dead twenty years ago. K Mart? Are you kidding me? K Mart closing is a sign of the demise of western culture? LOL. Now, if Walmart were to announce its closure the writer might be on to something.

Here's the bottom line. "Western culture" -- whatever that was -- economy, technology, politics, energy -- was headed in a certain direction and the difference between 2020 and 2035 would have been notable. The "response" to the pandemic and the pandemic itself simply "telescoped" those fifteen years into five years, from 2020 - 2035 to 2020 - 2025. 

With technology, why are folks still working in high-rise offices? The pandemic proved quickly that working from home is incredibly more efficient and rewarding. Telemarketers do it all the time. Farmers and ranchers have been working from homes since the demise of the hunter-gatherer economy.

Travel? How much of the travel industry was driven by business men and women flying to conferences when Zoom meetings and Webex would have been so much more efficient. Number one complaint from business men and women: all the flying they have to do. A full day of travel on Monday for an inefficient three-day meeting followed by a full day of travel back home on Friday. Blue collar workers are expected to work full five-day, maybe six-day, weeks. White collar men and women: they were expected to work Tuesday through Thursday, travel on Mondays and Fridays. 

Sports events? One-hundred thousand people in a stadium? We've been doing that since the days of Caesar Augustus. Perhaps with technology we could watch these games on television? And, if we didn't like how the game was going, we could use AI and change the ending for our own personal enjoyment. For example, Dallas Cowboys fans would have AI installed that showed no interceptions by Garrett Gilbert and the Cowboys defeating the number one team, the Pittsburgh Stealers, this past weekend. What's not to like?

Politics? We now have the husband of the Speaker of the US House owning the computers that count the votes, or so I'm told, and the mainstream media declaring the winner based on faxes received from the Hillary War Room. Did I mention that the Hillary War Room is a metonym? This was going to happen by 2035 based on tea leaves, but the pandemic simply telescoped this to happen in one election cycle. Wow.

Remote learning? Incredibly efficient. Huge cost savings. Harvard has been doing this for decades. Professionals have been doing this for decades. I wonder if the number of MBAs obtained through distance learning exceeds those who paid gazillions of dollars in dormitory rent to live on campus when they could just have easily done it from home. In their pajamas. Something called "executive MBAs" were awarded through on-line learning. The only travel, maybe: a graduation ceremony.

Those twenty-one chain stores will fail but trucking companies and logistics companies will replace them. The most common truck sighted on my trip from Dallas to Tucson and back? FedEx. Then Amazon. 

This meme that Papyrus failed due to the pandemic is ludicrous. When was the last time you visited a Papyrus store? Probably not since the Pharaoh's daughter found Moses. How many folks even knew a store called Papyrus existed outside of Cairo? We had a Papyrus store just down the road and we often visited a Papyrus store at the malls in California -- over-priced, and everything at those stores could be bought online. 

Anyway, enough of this. You get the gist. I need a cup of coffee. From a Keurig coffee maker ordered from Amazon. And at 67 cents per K-cup al lot less expensive than a $3.00 cup of black, sugar-free coffee from Starbucks.