Measles -- Covid-19 -- And A Whole Bunch Of Other Stuff -- March 28, 2025

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Measles and Mutations

Conspiracy theorists need to spend some time on this story: link here.

By the way, that's what they said about the SARS-2 virus at first. I remember that because I posted that on the blog back in 2020 - 2021. 

And, oh, by the way, under the new Secretary - HHS it's pretty much agreed that we won't be doing any basic vaccine research again any time soon. Maybe on cod liver oil, Vitamin A, and injectable Lysol, but not basic vaccine research.

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Jeff Goldberg

And also spend some time on this story: the "origin" story of how Atlantic's Jeff Goldberg's telephone number was on speed-dial for Waltz's group-chat group. LOL. I find it simply amazing we haven't hear this story -- how it got there in the first place -- yet. The fact that we haven't heard that "origin" story suggests journalists are not capable of connecting dots like Bernstein and Woodward did.

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The Book Page

One of the best books I've read recently: 

1177 BC The Year Civilization Collapsed

, Eric H. Cline, c. 2021. Updated.

Notes will be posted here.

The first thing I noted: "BC" and not "BCE." Interesting. 

Lots of place names in the eastern Mediterranean. An important book.

Hatshepsut: p. 24 and following.  

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Fast Food Page

For the past week I've been doing an informal and very unscientific survey of fast food restaurants in our local area -- I can bike to all of these places in less then three minutes. McDonald's is the most difficult for me to get to, having to cross an interstate-like four-line divided highway.

Whataburger: I no longer care for hamburgers at Whataburger. I won't go back. Incredibly good service, but Chick-fil-A is slightly better.

McDonald's: remains my #1 choice for hamburgers, a small order of French fries, and a diet coke. A simple hamburger, small fries, and diet Coke costs $5.62 with tax. Service, at best, is very good but both Whataburger and Chick-fil-A have better customer service.

Chick-fil-A: a full meal -- the sandwich plus waffle fries plus drink would be way too much for me, so I simply get the sandwich and the diet drink. No waffle fries. The entree is priced at $5.09 according to the menu board at Chick-fil-A. This was my receipt tonight:

• So, the entree -- the #1 sandwich sells for $5.09. Tax at 8% would bring it to $5.50 which is very, very close to $5.51.

• So, does that mean the small drink was free and all I paid for was the sandwich? If so, that's a better deal than McDonald's. I'll have to check it out again tomorrow. 

French fries: I didn't check the waffle fries at Chick-fil-A tonight but over the years I've had Chick-fil-A's waffle fries many times. So I remember them. Without question, McDonald's French fries are still the best. No argument there.

Traffic: I've generally been eating at 7:30 p.m. or thereabouts. Observations:

• McDonald's: inside restaurant, absolutely empty every night at that time. Drive-through is steady but by no means a long line.
• Whataburger: drive through fairly empty. Inside restaurant, fairly empty.
• Chick-fil-A: almost no tables available; almost every table taken. 
• Many Spanish-speaking latinos. Lots of families -- two parents and two or three kids, not uncommon. Only of the three that has to have an employee outside taking orders to move the line along. Clearly the busiest restaurant of the three. Chick-fil-A, at 7:30 p.m. is busy, cheerful, and reminds me of the good ol' days (pre-Covid). McDonald's and Whataburger are "dead" by comparison. 

Employees:

• it appears McDonald's has cornered the market on non-English speaking employees, many of them middle-aged women;
• Chick-fil-A: 1950's high-school boys and girls (young men and women); only two genders, it appears; off the Hollywood set of Back to the Future or American Graffiti.
• Whataburger: English-speaking but a more socially / culturally diverse employee pool .

Bottom line: if all three restaurants next to each other:

• first choice, nine times out of ten: McDonald's
• second choice: Chick-fil-A -- simply because of the French fries, and perhaps I enjoy a smaller burger than a huge chicken sandwich these days. But I think it's the French fries.
  
• never go back again (as a rule, some exceptions, I suppose): Whataburger.

Now that summer has returned, I assume I will be at McDonald's or Chick-fil-A three or four times a week, mostly for dinner, not lunch.

Oh, that reminds me -- wifi:

• Whataburger: no wi-fi; if I blog, I use my phone as a hot spot
• McDonald's: dependable;
  Chick-fil-A: dependable and really, really fast

In the old days, wi-fi was important, but no longer now that iPhones are incredibly good hotspots.

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Blu-Ray DVDs

Perfect combination:

• Phillips big-screen smart television
• Hulu - Amazon Prime - YouTube Video
• Amazon Fire Stick
• Sony Blu-Ray player
• BDP-BX370 Streaming Blu-ray DVD Player with built-in Wi-Fi, Dolby Digital TrueHD/DTS
• list price: $89.99
• currently: $79.99, same day free delivery

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Best Market Ever

Best market ever, for 18-year-olds; 26-year-olds; everyone with a 30-year horizon, and maybe Cathie Wood.

I continue to scoop up tech shares, dividend-focused ETFs, and large-cap, tech-focused ETFs. Some great opportunities in fossil fuel but I'm fully-weighted in energy so no new shares there. 

No trading, all investing. 

I've collected a very few gold coins over the years for the grandchildren, certainly not an investment but I see gold is trading at an all-time high. 

On the other hand, I continue to acquire US silver dollars and a few silver dollars from Canada, Australia, and China. Silver? Except for the craziness in silver from 2010 to 2013, silver, historically, right now is doing quite nicely. But, again, I'm not buying silver as an investment; simply coins for the grandchildren as a "novelty."

As of March 28, 2025, at 5:00 PM, spot gold is trading at approximately $3,086.00 per ounce, while spot silver is at around $34.62 per ounce.

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Pete Hegseth

Unless some story of enough magnitude to push Hegseth off the front page of the newspaper occurs, Hegseth will step down to spend more time with his family within the next two weeks. This could happen as early as next week.

About the only two stories with enough magnitude to push Hegseth off the front page:

• something "bad" happens in Iran; or,
• something "really good" happens in Ukraine.

But if there's no big story, Hegseth remains the story. And that's not a good story for Trump.