#trump #npd #2020election This past Sunday, ABC news released an exclusive interview with Trump which spanned over 30 hours. During the interview, George Stephanopoulos, talked to the President about his taxes. As of yet, Trump has not released his tax returns as he'd promised to do during the campaign. One of the suspicions for this lack of transparency is that Trump, who ran under the pretense of being a great businessman, may not be as successful as he boasted. This aspect has been reasonably documented elsewhere, so I'll...

#universalhealth #2020Election #healthinsurance As the 2020 election approaches, there is talk about Universal Healthcare and Free college tuition from most of the Democratic candidates. For me and my family, neither one of those topics had any real immediate impact (eventhough we supported them). I say had, because recently something which had never affected me before, did. My husband and I have always been insured through our jobs. So we've never had to carry the heavy burden of getting insurance for ourselves. It has always been heavily subsided by...

https://youtu.be/PzfS1n8ED10 The silliness and craziness hit a new high this week when Trump unveiled his proposal for a makeover of Air Force One. In an interview with ABC news where Trump discussed various topics, including whether or not he would accept help from a foreign country to win an election (he said he would), he revealed his plans to repaint the iconic plane, Air Force One. The cost of the repaint? Over $3 billion. That is simply insane. Like always, Trump did a poor job communicating much more...

Guyot [Public domain] There is a famous phrase we use all of the time; "smoke and mirrors". Do you know where it came from? It came from a German charlatan named Johann Georg Schröpfer. Mr. Schröpfer lived in the 1700s and gained notoriety by claiming to be able to raise the ghosts of the dead. Of course he could not. It turned out Mr Schröpfer used a simple projection mechanism, smoke and mirrors to give the illusion of ghosts appearing in front of his victims. Since then, we've...

Smartphones have most definitely changed the way we communicate with each other. This revolution in communications began not with Smartphones or the iPhone, but with the internet and computers. Already, back in the late 90s, in the era of instant messenger and the early days of VoIP technology, distances across the globe became obsolete. Communicating with a friend across the street, or on the other side of the world, happened at the speed of light. In the 90s and early 2000s, the communications revolution belonged to wealthy countries....

#illusion #certainty #reality Certainty, order and control are something we strive for. We want to know what will happen next. We want to know there is some order or method to the madness that is our life. And if we can figure out this order/method, we may be able to control it. For us, certainty, order and control are very important. So important in fact, that they are only less important than water and food according to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. The reality, however, is that we live...

#trump #impeachment #2020 The talk of impeachment is heating up in congress and with some Presidential candidates (all democratic at the time of this writing). Most folks think once Trump is impeached, he'll be removed from office. What most fail to realize is that impeachment is only the first step in a long and political minefield. In the late 90s, President Clinton was impeached, yet he finished his term. Prior to the impeachment of Clinton, the only other President to have been successfully impeached was President Andrew Johnson....

#trafficsolution #trafficjam #commuting If you have always lived in the US, this observation may be alien to you. And if it seems alien at first, please think about it and then let me know your thoughts. Traffic in the US, in large metropolises, has only gotten worse. The promise of less traffic through either self-driving cars or car-sharing has yet to materialize. Instead, the latter, has actually created more traffic as it has become a means of income for some people. My observation and suggestion is for highway...

We have all been at the requisite Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner where we get into a discussion with someone about a topic we disagree on. The topic can be as mundane as a cooking recipe, to something as polarizing as our elected officials. And time after time, we are there, facing the other person, in disbelief of their divergent view(s). And we seldom come to an agreement. More often than not, we push each other farther and farther away from agreement, compromise or even understanding. One of the...

First, let me start by saying that quality is in the eye of the beholder and based on their experience. Meaning, that you only know what you know and therefore, what may be of high quality to me, may not to you, and vice versa. With that in mind, as US expats living in Europe, we were surprised by the differences quality and living standards in different countries within the Western Block of the EU, never mind the Eastern portion. I suppose, part of that “surprise” was due...