World Views

[Amigoo]

Re: https://www.insideedition.com/massive-l ... hood-46428

"The huge lizard is known as an Asian water monitor and can grow to be more than 6 feet and weigh up to 150 pounds.
They’re muscular and possess extremely sharp claws and a bone-crushing bite."

"The lizard is actually an exotic pet that belonged to a neighbor and somehow got loose."

"Pet that somehow got loose" is good example of understatement
Maybe frightened by a different neighbor's 10 foot pet python ...
such are the potentials of Florida's exotic pets, now roamin'.

Rod

[Amigoo]

Re: https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/24/investin ... index.html

"Some market strategists were quick to point out that the Dow's rise above 30,000 is a more psychological milestone than anything else. But it does show just how bullish investors are... Along those lines, the CNN Business Fear & Greed Index is now showing levels of Extreme Greed."

Considering how many businesses are suffering financially (and reducing employees or finally closing), this article would have been amazing journalism without the F&G comment! Like Bitcoin "investing", ride the wave if you can spare the real or faux coins, "they say."

Rod

[Amigoo]

More about stock market euphoria ...

Re: https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/eve ... -is-today/

"Clearly, traders have become intoxicated once again by the strength of the rally off of the March lows. And with most of the major indexes up 50% or more over that span, who can blame them? It’s been a historic run. However, for those trying to take the market’s temperature here, it’s hard to shake off the feeling that we’ve now crossed the boiling point. For this reason, the stock market may be vulnerable to another reversal."

Who can tell
The "market’s temperature" seems to be a noteworthy expression
since the market's mouth is just one way to take its temperature.

Rod

[Amigoo]

Hot cocoa (and chocolate desserts) for the holidays! Who knew

Re: https://www.studyfinds.org/drinking-hot ... flavanols/

"Researchers note that not every person in the study benefited from extra flavanol in their cocoa. Participants with already high levels of brain oxygenation at the start of the experiment did not see any added performance from enriched cocoa. This may indicate that some individuals, perhaps already very fit, have little room for further improvement."

Re: https://www.studyfinds.org/dark-chocola ... -immunity/

"this is the first study to look at how consuming dark chocolate with a minimum of 70% cacao might directly improve cognitive, endocrine and cardiovascular health."

Re: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6950163/

"Chocolate exerts several effects on human sexuality, mainly acting as an aphrodisiac"

"serotonin has been found in several regions of the female genital tract in humans and other animals, where it acts on vasoconstriction and vasodilatation. The principal component of sexual arousal is peripheral vasocongestion of genital tissues; serotonin could be involved in sexual stimulation."

Note to self: When planning to gain weight for the holidays, be sure to include lotsa dark chocolate (like 85% cacao), but remember this repurposed sentence from above: "This may indicate that some individuals, perhaps already fat, have little room for further enlargement."

Rod

[Amigoo]

Considering that a worldwide pandemic eclipses both "religious" and "political" perspective ...

Re: https://www.foxnews.com/us/supreme-cour ... g-key-role

"while the pandemic poses many grave challenges, there is no world in which the Constitution tolerates color-coded executive edicts that reopen liquor stores and bike shops but shutter churches, synagogues, and mosques" - Justice Gorsuch

What's intriguing about this problem is that the "executive edicts" were trying to limit, for better virus protection, how people gather and interact rather than create preferences for the types of gatherings. However, this Court ruled that types of gatherings were the effect of the edicts - not the numbers of people who gather.

Apparently, a win for the virus ... if large gatherings help it spread.

Rod

[Amigoo]

Re: https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/blo ... oming-off/

"GBTC buyers are likely not long-term HOLDers, but short-term traders."

Actually, the investment markets are such these days that nobody (or institution) is a long-term holder. While this hints that
a great buying opportunity will exist for the next wave of bitcoin "investors", "timing the market" is always a goal - never reality
... unless, perhaps, certain market influencers can effectively force a correction.

Who knows how ... a few traders can "hang ten" even when the wave crashes ... as always! But this consistency
alerts that bitcoin cannot be a nation's "currency" until severe and sudden corrections can be prevented.

Rod

[Amigoo]

Re: https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/26/us/utah- ... index.html

"The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources built the bridge back in 2018 over Interstate 80 to reduce traffic accidents in Parleys Canyon caused by wandering animals... released a video of the bridge in use, aiding moose, porcupines, deer and even bears across the busy highway."

To make it safer for smaller and slower creatures, a sign is posted on both sides:

"No lurking, tracking, or eating on or near this bridge. And Management
prefers that you anticipate personal urgencies before crossing."

Rod

[Amigoo]

Re: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/califo ... strictions

[a comment] "Allow churches to remain or stay open. No one forces you to attend. My church distances well and has strict protocols and so does my gym for that matter. It should be up to the business and the individual to decide. This isn't smallpox or ebola."

However, neither is it a cold or seasonal influenza ... according to many months of medical science research.
Yet, the trend is obvious: this virus will keep spreading until tamed with vaccines and herd immunity
... since the world remains evenly divided about virus protection measures.

Rod

[Amigoo]

Re: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/3 ... -a-reality

"After decades of toiling and dead-ends, the dream of operational laser weaponry is about to become a reality."

The good news is that broad areas need not be bombed to achieve target destruction.
The bad news is that more targets might become available ... and the really bad news
is that satellites become targets, like those required for communication & commerce).

Rod

[Amigoo]

Re: https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/27/world/ne ... index.html

"Neanderthals may have used their hands differently from humans"

"The digits of the Stone Age people, who went extinct about 40,000 years ago, were much chunkier than ours... a Neanderthal's thumb
would have stuck out from his hand at a much wider angle... There would be confusion over where to place the thumb"

Perhaps, the larger thumb (evolutionary mis-timing?) anticipated cellphones with texting, etc.
Instead of DNA research, anthropologists might simply observe today's cellphone usage ...
to detect one's potential Neanderthal ancestry, for example.

Rod

[Amigoo]

Re: https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/27/business ... index.html

"Restaurant operators complain that third-party delivery providers like Seamless, DoorDash and Uber Eats are prohibitively expensive. These platforms offer a way for customers to order from local restaurants, process restaurant payments and provide contract drivers to pick meals up from restaurants and deliver them to customers. For these services, they often charge restaurants around 30% per order. But profit margins in the restaurant industry are often razor-thin, so these fees can wipe out the restaurant's profits or put them in the red."

Note: "In the red" is not related to pizza sauce and related dishes.

Best guess: Restaurants need to offer really fast pickup at their location. No lengthy interaction!
Customer stays in vehicle and receives package; order placed online and delivery confirmed (payment received)
with a handheld device that reads arriving customer's Q-code (also presented when ordering).

No changes to order permitted while customer is in the Zip Q line
(must use regular drive-in line).

Rod

[Amigoo]

Re: https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/man-c ... day-dinner

"Man compliments waitress on bald head at wife's birthday dinner, suffers consequences for 'over a year' "

"Others claimed that people in the service industry may not enjoy discussing anything other than the business at hand, despite any appearances otherwise, and especially not their own bodies. As a rule, you should not tell a waitress (or waiter, or any person whose job is to serve you) they are beautiful or comment on a part of their body."

Seems good evidence why robots will become popular waiters
(or wait-persons or ... frequent dinner partners).

Man to waitress: "You have a good memory!"
Woman to man: "What am I? a dumb blonde?"
Man to woman: "I know that's a new hair color."

Rod

[Amigoo]

Re: https://www.rt.com/russia/507965-novosi ... -ice-rink/

"the Mayor of the Siberian capital, Anatoly Lokot explained that the authorities didn't consider the appearance of the rink, but purely wanted to maximize 'pleasure' and make it large enough to enable a 'sporting element,' allowing for acceleration. 'Honestly, both this year and last year, the shape of the ice rink was the last thing we thought about. We thought about the area, and maximizing the territory that can be occupied by an ice rink in order not to create crowding' "

Perhaps, those whose imagination suggests an unrelated object want to be reminded of what excitement used to be like when they were a young skater. After all, even the clouds in the sky become frequent reminders of many such pleasures, depending on good imagination.

Rod

[Amigoo]

Re: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ch ... r-BB1bqwRs

" 'Of course, the house is good. But if we can’t find work, it’ll be difficult here,' said one relocated resident who only gave his surname, Yuan. He was making about $15 a day on odd construction jobs, which were fewer because of the pandemic. He had to pay electricity and maintenance fees for his new home, and no longer had the savings benefit of eating food grown on his own land."

A good lesson that poverty is not eliminated with a better place to live if living expenses
(and new inconveniences) checkmate the old lifestyle. In fact, such mandated changes might
benefit the government more by simply reducing the visual evidence of poverty.

Rod

[Amigoo]

Re: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55071058

"While many have suggested - some sincerely, most in jest - that the monolith was planted by extra-terrestrial visitors,
the prevailing theory is that it is an as-yet-unclaimed conceptual artwork."

"Three large sheets of what appears to be stainless steel were riveted together, with the inside left hollow."

Curiously, "three sheets to the wind" comes to mind.

Rod

[Amigoo]

Re: https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3910287/posts

"pending petition Box v. Henderson asks, 'Whether a state, consistent with the 14th Amendment due process and equal protection clauses, may adopt a biology-based birth-certificate system that includes a rebuttable presumption that a birth mother’s husband — but not wife — is the child’s biological parent.' "

Intriguing dilemma, since biological sources of sperm and egg can be proven scientifically ...
regardless how each parent of the biological union defines their sexual identity!

Where same-sex marriage is legal, a dual birth-certificate system may be needed where the marriage is recognized but also the biology (which might remain undisclosed to the public). However, the increasing ease of producing DNA evidence hints that non-disclosure can only be a temporary solution.

Rod

[Amigoo]

Re: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-face ... SKBN2870UY

"The Libra Association, of which Facebook is one of 27 members, is seeking the go-ahead from Switzerland’s markets watchdog to issue a series of stablecoins backed by individual traditional currencies, as well as a token based on the currency-pegged stablecoins. Yet under the body’s new plan, other coins backed by traditional currencies, as well as the composite, would be introduced at a later date"

"Stablecoins are designed to avoid the volatility typical of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, making them in theory more suitable for payments and money transfers."

The good news is that "stablecoins" are being planned - the bad news (exciting news to day traders) is that some volatility remains, making this another cryptocurrency occasionally ripe for harvesting ... if you can time the seasons.

Rod

[Amigoo]

Re: https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/27/business ... index.html

Interesting psychology ...
What would a well-constructed completion of this Colosseum cost?
More or less than a new kit? Who knows

A sale of completed Colosseum + new kit might finance
purchase of a good used chariot (or one of the Circus era:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circus_Maximus )

Rod

[Amigoo]

Re: Curiously, "three sheets to the wind" comes to mind.
and https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55071058 ,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/28/us/utah- ... index.html

"A tall, silver, shining metal monolith discovered in the desert in southeastern Utah -- which prompted theories of alien placement and drew determined hikers to its secret location -- has now disappeared, the state's Bureau of Land Management said Saturday. The monolith was removed by an 'unknown party' "

Apparently, strong winds in the Utah desert!

Rod

[Amigoo]

Re: https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/28/asia/jap ... index.html

"Japan has long struggled with one of the highest suicide rates in the world"

"The first time, she was just 22 years old with full-time job in publishing that didn't pay enough to cover rent and grocery bills in Tokyo.
'I was really poor,' said Kobayashi, who spent three days unconscious in hospital after the incident."

"reasons for Japan's high suicide rate are complex, long working hours, school pressure, social isolation
and a cultural stigma around mental health issues have all been cited as contributing factors."

This suggests that COVID-19 is but one of many suicide triggers
where suicide is a permissible solution to a personal problem.
However, taming this coronavirus - not letting it run rampant -
is still the more effective elimination of this trigger.

Rod

[Amigoo]

Re: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/arti ... ldren.html

"A mother has been praised by thousands after she shared her simple trick
for hiding ice cream from her children inside empty frozen food bags."

Good camouflage training for the kids
when they want to hide their own things.

Rod

[Amigoo]

There's dumb and there's dumber ...
(amusing misread of early morning advertising):

"Do you feel dull? Don't feel as dumb as you used to?"
"Remove heavy toxins and metals from your body."

"Where's the misread?"
There's dumb and there's dumber ...
... but this was pre-coffee!

Rod

[Amigoo]

Re: https://www.foxnews.com/media/daily-bea ... biden-dogs

" 'pet psychic' who says she communicated with Biden's dogs"

"The fight is by no means over ... what has gone on up to now will continue
and ramp up, and be worse than it is already, unfortunately."

Despite the dogs' perspective, the cat-elect* said "Life will be Purrfect!"
(* only a psychic would know)

See also: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/28/us/B ... pherd.html
"Lincoln was a major 'cat fan' ... often fed Tabby from the dinner table despite his wife’s criticism."

These pets might be a good source for "insider tips" whenever the media is silent ...
especially considering that the Hoarse Whisperer will have finally conceded.

Rod

[Amigoo]

Re: https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/30/europe/d ... index.html

"Denmark to dig up thousands of mink after carcasses emerge from mass graves"

Unsettling news but hinting that premature solutions to greenhouse gasses
might have similar (unexpected) results. Hopefully, not similar (unexpected)
results from mass distribution of rushed coronavirus vaccines.

Rod

[Amigoo]

Re: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/a ... stion.html

"Vaughan, a former Amazing Race contestant turned TV host, had custom rings made for the couple
and also serenaded Bennett with a song he had written specially for the occasion."

Apparently, when girl-meets-girl or boy-meets-boy, the question is not popped without both lovers being well aware,
for a long time, of pop's potential. However, in today's world of mandated isolation, "a long time" seems best defined as
"It seems like a long time ... that I've been waiting ... to pop or to be popped."

"What are you jabberin' about?!" Just tryin' to comprehend ...
the Jiffy Pop instructions from that adult culinary bookstore.

Rod