On the whiny baby of Kamala Harris...

Why does Kamala Harris irk me so, I sometimes wonder. 

She loves the limelight, that's for sure. She wants the camera (and audience/voters) to love her, no doubt about it. Somehow things just aren't going her way. But, that's not necessarily unique to her. Almost all other politicians, male or female, have that character trait. 

Biden's BBB Bill (Build Back Better) has been stalling, thanks (but no thanks) to Joe Manchin (West Virginia) primarily. Harris must have breathed a sign of relief that her name isn't associated with the rise and fall of BBB. But, the Voting Rights Bill is something that's going to be the albatross on her neck. Afterall, who should be the best ambassador to champion for voting rights, particularly to disenchanted black voters, but Harris who was installed as on the 2020 presidential ticket as VP because she's, first and foremost, a (half) black? As things turn out, Democrats simply don't have enough votes to pass the Bill, thanks to Manchin (again) and Krysten Sinema (Arizona). 

Harris did a few speeches, but didn't seem to do any backroom deals to help advance the Bill. Yes, of course she met with the Black Caucus and other activists groups, but they are not the audience she needs to sell the Bill to. She never really seeks to reach out to less friendly audience to get their buy-in, or seek compromise, in order to get the votes for the Bill. And, she's conspicuously missing when Biden went alone to do the backroom negotiation with Manchin and Sinema. 

Unsurprisingly, success (as the Infrastructure Bill is) has many fathers, but failure (like BBB and now the Voting Rights Bill) is always an orphan. At least Biden owns up to it. As Biden's VP, Harris is nowhere to be found.

In short, she never bothers to do the hard work of negotiation (or maybe she did, but nothing comes to fruition, hence no news comes to light). Herein lies the biggest handicap of Harris as a VP. A vice president is never meant to be glamorous job, the VP should be content to do the grunt work and let the President takes the glory, the VP needs to have sufficient clout to work the Congress on both sides of the aisles to help advance the president's agenda. That was why Biden was an effective VP for Obama because Biden was about to help negotiate and whip the votes to get the arguably only major legislation (ObamaCare) that Obama had achieved in his eight long years of tenure. That was also why other VP's, like Cheney, or LBJ, were such powerful figures, even if they were primarily just backroom dealers far from the limelight in their veep tenure because they had years of experience in the Congress. That is something that Harris that never has. I would surmise too that those men have enough self-confidence to be comfortable not being in the limelight or headline news all the time. Harris constantly wants photo op opportunity.

There is something to be said, about the "support" that one should garner. I rather doubt that the Biden team actively works to undermine Harris, even if they never defend Harris (or her team) enthusiastically. Thing is, if she (or her allies) is constantly complaining about others not coming to her rescue or defense, she's barking up the wrong tree. Instead, Harris should be asking herself, "How Can I Defend Myself Or My Position Better?" If she cannot speak for herself forcibly, what good is she? She was an Attorney General in CA, for crying out loud. If she can't even articulate to voters why they should take her seriously, what good is she in the West Wing?

By and large, I should be the kind of voters that Biden and Harris could be able to win over. I'm an Independent voter who is liberal-leaning on social issues but conservative-leaning on fiscal matters. I have more distaste toward GOP in general and I don't use social media (since I don't want to be bothered by all the junk and white noise that's just a waste of time). I've been enthusiastic supporter of the Infrastructure Bill, but the BBB and Voting Rights Bill are something else.

Far-left liberals want to thrash anyone and everyone who don't support the BBB and Voting Rights Bill as racist, xenophobic and heartless. It really irks me. 

Why would far-left liberals think it's so unreasonable to have the work requirements for child tax credits (as insisted by Manchin)? Why would the rest of the society be sponsoring families to stay home and make babies when they can't afford it in the first place, adding to the child poverty rate? Voting is a privilege for citizens of a country - any country - it's not a right that is inferred to anyone who manages to set foot in a country. Why do they find it so unreasonable to show any photo ID to authenticate a voter is indeed who s/he claims s/he is? And, with the omicron becoming much milder for the vaccinated populace, and the economy has reopened and is overheating to a point where inflation reaches 7% (the highest in more than 30 years which more than enough to wipe out the wage gain of 5.4%), direct cash monthly payments to families with children no longer cuts it, adding to the inflationary pressure and the mounting deficit spending that future generations have to bear. The list goes on and on.

Heck, I don't even come to these conclusion with any GOP input. I block all right-leaning news source since they are so biased, but I've pretty much ignored a number of left-leaning news source these days (including New York Times, Boston Globes, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times) since they are so skewed in their coverage too. If a voter like me, who looks at hard numbers on most nonpartisan news source like Bloomberg News and Reuters, can come to the conclusion and my position, what does it say about Democrats at large?

Talking about whiny babies, it extends far beyond Harris of course. Democrats, like the "Squads" (the mostly young progressives), think they can legislate using social media as bully pulpit. They are wrong. They won't take No for an answer, and even want to ramp through BBB and the Voting Rights Bill by potentially getting rid of filibuster (as a procedural measure for opponents to block the passage of a bill). Granted that GOP has abused filibuster many times in the past, Dems have come to rely on them as well. What they fail to understand is that, if they cannot get the votes and buy-in, even ramping through a bill without majority support is not going to work. 

Once upon a time, I've been more generous. I had not minded paying more taxes to have a functioning government that would provide reasonable, balanced services to its citizenry. Government exists for a good reason. But I've become so disenchanted these days that I'm no longer satisfied with just being mandated to pay more and more taxes, yet the distribution of the tax dollars is going to allow others to not work so that they can have the same lifestyle as I am, something that I've worked very hard to attain my entire life. Where is the grit? But ultimately, it is that sense of fairness (or the lack thereof) that pushes me away from the Democrats' position. 

Progressives like the "Squads" would term everything as a "human rights" issue. Everyone should have their own home (and if they can't afford it, government would provide it)!! Everyone should have high speed broadband and cell phone!! Everyone should have college degree!! Everyone should have a good-paying job!! Everyone should have what everyone else is having!!!! 

Does that sound familiar? Remember USSR? Remember Cuba? Remember China's communism?

'enuf said.

On Dexter: New Blood finale

I've been a fan of Dexter and have religiously watched its prior seasons. The first four seasons were great, though it's been slacking off for the last few seasons before it wrapped up in Season 8. The series finale was a bit too melodramatic for my own taste, but perhaps it's a logical and reasonable conclusion to have Dexter Morgan rode out to the storm and have a sea burial for his beloved sister Deb, the foul-mouthed, intuitive, and neurotic detective who could not live with the fact that her only living relative was a serial killer. 

That was 2013, and a lifetime ago.

Dexter is perhaps the most lovable serial killer there is. Not that he's adored because of his Dark Passenger (aka. his dark urges to kill), but his adherence to the Code set by his adopted father Harry on who he should choose to kill. As Harry's reasoning goes, if Dexter is born with the Dark Passenger, he might as well use that for vigilant killing, for a greater societal good. In the real world, there are many criminals (some of them doing evil evil things), yet they are able to get away from law and justice. Harry, himself a cop, saw it first-hand how unjust the world can be, and he knew full well that he could not do a thing to these criminals if he were to go by the book. The Code that Harry devised for Dexter, is the set of rules that guide him on how to select the victims (criminals who committed heinous crimes but got away from the law), how to go about the kill, how to cover up the killing, and Never Get Caught.  So far so good. Plenty of irony abound which makes for great TV drama. Dexter was blood splatter analyst who worked with Miami Metro Police, his sister was a star detective (oftentimes with insights from Dexter), and a lot of his buddies were from Miami PD. Sooner or later though, the chicken will come home to roast. One way or the other, those around him would get ensnared in the killing world. That was of course how Dexter thought he had nailed the Trinity Killer, but sadly the Trinity Killer was one step ahead of him, murdering his then wife Rita first, leaving his son Harrison to be "born in blood" (ie. witnessing the killing of his own mother), as had happened to Dexter himself when he was little.

Long story short, Dexter is like the modern day Dark Knight (aka. Batman). Dexter likened the Dark Defender moniker which was just as well. Yes, Dexter's killing was horrendous (not only did he kill, but he also had to dismember the corpse so as to dispose of them), but at least he felt it's all justified. Audience (like me) tend to agree. That's why he's so adored.

Michael C. Hall is perfect in his role as Dexter Morgan. He's affable, likable, yet he could turn a pleasant mood on a dime into vicious feat for a kill. There's a certain darkness behind his steely stare, something menacing and scary all at once. Has it not been for the fact that audience can hear Dexter's narration and what goes on in his mind, we would probably be very scared of his stare too. Very few people can pull that off, and still somehow makes it relatable or likable. That's why he was and still is, the one and only, Dexter.

Dexter: New Blood

I was thus thrilled when I heard that there's a follow-up mini-series (ten episodes) of Dexter, with timeline jumped some years after the Season 8 anticlimactic finale. 

I have to admit, I was apprehensive when news of this sequel came out. Are the producers going to just do the same-old-same-old to milk the franchise? Very few sequels, particularly after these number of years have lapsed, are able to pull it off and not ruin the audience's fond memory of the original series and its characters.

I'm duly and pleasantly surprised to see how the ten episodes have unfolded. The settings are totally different, from the very tropical and sunny Miami, to a very cold, snowy lumberjack town upstate somewhere. It's a brilliant idea to reintroduce Harrison into the life of Dexter. Arguably, Harrison has been the only tether to his Miami past-life. The young actor as Harrison performs reasonably well. Instead of Harry's "ghost" visiting Dexter like a guardian angel, Deb has now taken the place, though Deb is still as annoying as she usually is, mostly just admonishing and chastising Dexter (now under the new alias of Jim Lindsay) for screwing up everything in life. After a while, Deb the ghost is just repetitive hyperventilation, with not much new added value.

All seems reasonable and understandable, except it's unclear how Dexter could have held back his Dark Passenger in all these years. Audience are simply told to accept the fact that Dexter has managed to suppress that dark urges, but that's not entirely convincing. 

That said, in Dexter's life (past or present), serial killers must be had, even in a remote lumberjack town with just 2760 residents. The big baddies come in the form of a father-and-son duo. The son was callous that had gotten people killed, but the father was the true evil who has apparently killed transients for the past 25 years. Some inklings was spent in explaining his needs to kill, but here too, the 2D depiction isn't that convincing either.

One thing leads to another, Harrison shows up at Dexter's doorstep after Harrison manages to track his father down. Apparently Harrison is a very capable and resourceful type of (late) teen. Ok, I can accept that. And then Harrison is revealed to have the same kind of dark thoughts, just as Dexter's Dark Passenger had once haunted him. Eventually Dexter let Harrison in on his own demons, and how his own father (Harry) had thought him the Code to channel those killing urges to do some good for the society. Fast forward a few episodes, Dexter/Harrison have dispensed of the biggest baddie (the monster serial killer). It's rather unsatisfying since this big baddie seems to exist only to provide an intellectual excuse for a bonding exercise for Dexter/Harrison.

But, just as it was in the original series in which Dexter's killings were like a vortex that sucks in everyone he loves into his blackhole, Dexter's sheriff girlfriend, Angela (apparently just as capable and astute as Deb the detective) has figured out not only who Dexter really was, but that he was the real Bay Harbor Butcher (the serial killer in his past-life who killed hundreds of "victims" and dumped their chopped-up body parts into the Gulf, though of course audience don't see those as "victims"). I truly wish that there is more to be said about Angel Batiste (Dexter's colleague at Miami PD) who was another good man and was one that Dexter considers to be a friend. No matter. As Angela closes in, Dexter planned to run off with his son, so that he can pass down his tradecraft to his son. But life is not meant to be.

Dexter's undoing, is Harrison. Dexter killed Logan, one of Angela's deputies who was also Harrison's high school wrestling coach, and Logan was a good guy. Dexter regretted the killing though Dexter had not meant to kill him when Login struggled to retain Dexter in custody. For this, Harrison laid everything on Dexter. In Harrison's reasoning (as unreasonable as it usually is for teenagers' reasoning), his dark thoughts was a result of abandonment by Dexter when he was little...but is it really?  Harrison thrashed Dexter's Code from Harry as bullshit, just as Deb once did...but that is simply not true. Without Harry's Code, Dexter would likely be a true monster that kills just for the thrill of it. Harry's Code has given Dexter a certain moral compass (for lack of a better word). Why is it so hard for Harrison (and Deb) to see? 

Sadly Harrison is never as great as his father Dexter ever has been. All that Harrison tried to do - or rather, to pretend - is to "be normal, like everybody else." But as Dexter had shown us all these years, that Dark Passenger will never go away. Maybe we would give Harrison a pass, for being unreasonable, as most teenagers do, in blaming all their frustrations and problems in their very small world, to someone else, particularly their parents. 

And so, Harrison did. He blamed Dexter for all the wrongs, and dark thoughts that he has had. Along that line of thinking, the only way to free himself from these dark thoughts, Dexter must die. What a bullshit line of thinking, and a lazy justification for some complex psychology. Unfortunately, this is episode 10 already, and no one has time for any more psycho-therapy.

We have come to the end of the road, Dexter gave in. This is one adorable trait of Dexter, in that he has always been brave enough to own up to his shortcomings. Dexter has always blamed himself for his inability to feel or truly understand others' feelings. When Harrison blamed him for killing Logan, Dexter fully accepted it as his own fault that a good man like Logan had died along the way. Once Dexter gave in, there's no longer any argument when Harrison blamed his father for everything that has gone wrong in his life.  All those whom Dexter considered "good people," particularly those he holds dearly, flash before his eyes. Then, Dexter guided his son in his loving fatherly way, one last time, on how to use the rifle ("unlock the safety" and "aim [here]", pointing to his chest), and Dexter let his son end his life.

One could argue that it's a poetic ending to Dexter since life-on-the-run isn't really much of a life at all. Ultimately it's a good thing that the series has not tried to glorify a serial killer - even one as adorable as Dexter - and there is always a price to pay. It's a sad, but fitting, end to Dexter's life. 

The thing that saddens me most, is that Dexter the character is truly gone. There is no more sequel. The producers, and Michael C. Hall, have done great service, to provide a fitting end to Dexter. Perhaps that's the closure that audience has been left wanting all these years, and it's finally delivered.

This mini-series sequel is well-made. All the materials and timeline fit. Dexter has aged as any normal human beings would after all these years, though his agility and physicality remains. The storyline and plots are decent, perhaps with the exception of the serial killer baddie which was rather weak.

With Dexter's gone, Harrison is driving off on his own. Unlike Dexter, Harrison is really just lying to himself, thinking that he'll be "normal" again, now that his serial-killer father is dead for good. But he's too cowardly to admit - or maybe he's still too young to understand it - that the Dark Passenger will never go away. Sooner or later, it'll nibble at him, but he'll no longer have a father like Dexter to truly understand (what those dark thoughts are) and guide him, a loving father who loves him unconditionally even if he's unseen, thousands of miles away, and will not judge Harrison for what he truly is, much as Harry did to Dexter. That said, I'm not really interested in how Harrison might turn out. To me, Dexter is still the No.1.

On the essential survival guide to Covid...

After some two years of pandemic, assuming that you are in the sensible demographics who believe that Covid is real and Covid can kill, we should all know about the in's and out's of Covid, the symptoms, the variants, the test kits, the treatment, the prevention, the works. Well, if you don't, you should at least start with the CDC website to find the more definitive source of truth. Traditionally reliable news media like CNN could be a safe bet too. I'm not going to regurgitate any of those. 

Remember what I say about the power of reduction to allow our brain to process large volume of data (truthful and imagined/fake)? Well, here's a few things I do to keep my sanity:

1. Read from official sites for info (CDC is a good start). Any other pushers (including some who flash their credentials - "I'm A Doctor!") who claim to know better, they don't. Ignore them.
2. Don't read social media about anecdote of so-and-so (who's the friend of a friend of a friend or some such) about Covid. You're just wasting your precious time. If you can't verify and prove it and have the incident checked by hospitals and researchers, you should consider them fake or simply half-truth. Half-truth can oft be just as dangerous as totally fake account.
3. Don't respond to any forwarded messages from social media. It's 99.9999% certifiable junk. Again, you're just wasting your time. 
4. Even if you don't believe Covid (or the vaccines) is real, you should at least have the decency to respect others that believe in it. Afterall you do want others to extend that courtesy to you as well, right? The motto: To Each His Own.
5. Further to (4), respect others' choice. Even if you don't take the vaccine or wear a mask, you have no right to stop others from doing that. On the same principle, no one can force a mask on you, so extend that same courtesy to others.
6. That said, Private means Private. That means when a private organization (wink wink, employers, stores/shops, restaurants) sets the rule, they can do whatever they want. You sign on the dotted line the employment contract, and you're bound by it. And a shop can decide not to do business with you. Period. So, stop whining about your First Amendment Rights. You are free to bring it elsewhere. They have their First Amendment Rights too, as much as you do.
7. And for those who do believe in the vaccine, the social distancing, the face masks, etc, it's been working well for two years, so keep at it. But, there's no point trying to convince those who after two years are still not convinced. You will never change their hearts and minds. So, leave them be.
8. WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT HAND-WASHING ANYMORE!?!?!!??! Is it because it's just not visibly controversial enough for social media?!?!??!

My rule of thumb, is one of disengagement. Much as I disavow social media, I would rather have less vitriol. Then again, there really is no point in yapping the same response ("Me Too!") or clicking likes button a million times. Well, maybe for someone who seeks to be an influencer, it matters to them, but I don't give a damn, nor should most of us non-influencers. Bottomline is, it's just useless bits on the web. 

Think of it another way, five years, ten years, even just one year from now, no one gives a flying rat what you have said (unless you're caught with your pants down, metaphorically or literally speaking). So, all these so-called social media participation is just a colossal waste of collective time that these mass of people could have employed more productively elsewhere. 

Covid the virus will keep mutating. We know that will happen. (Hey, even seasonal flu mutates often.) We humans have to learn to live with it. It's not the end of the world, so stop whining about the hardship as an excuse to squeeze more money from the government. Take the vaccine (or not), it's up to you, but get your arse off the couch and back to work. Covid is no longer an excuse to say you're afraid to work or to provide for yourself, if you have half the self-respect you think you have.

 

PS - The cynical side of me does want a policy that sends those people who refuse the vaccine but get sick to just go home. Maybe they'll die, maybe they'll live, but hey, they want their freedom and choice, and that's the ultimate freedom they can ever get. Somehow I find it hard to feel sorry for them for getting really sick or even die. Their names can enter into the year's Darwinian Award, and they would very well win.

New Year Resolution...

The last time I made a New Year Resolution, it was 2019.

It's high time to have a midterm assessment of how I've been doing with that...and I'm feeling quite good about it.

Fitbit

Since the health scare in 2019, I've bought a Fitbit (Inspire 2) in 2020 to help me track myself. I've turned myself into a pseudo-lab rat, religiously tracking everything that the Fitbit app allows me to do. I log my water intake, food intake, I wear my Fitbit 24x7, and I've been exercising more, monitoring my resting heart rate, and sleep patterns. It's working out well so far (for almost two years now). 

I used to think that I can do all these on my own. As it turns out, having a non-intrusive device that tracks my bodily vital signs, and an app that I can use on my phone, has been immensely helpful. The food logging gives me an idea of how good/bad my eating habits have been. (Well, I kind of know my diet is healthy, though I indulge myself at times; but now I have the actual data to prove it.) The water intake reminds me to drink more water on a daily basis. And I was surprised to see how closely the Fitbit has monitored how my body has handled the recovery from the recent Covid booster shot that I took. (It took a full five days for my resting heart rate to come back down to normal level, with first day shot up from 67 to 73, and then dipping down to 60, but it's since bounced back to 67 now. The first day after the Covid booster was also the first time I'd ever had deep-sleep for more than 2 hours since the fatigue as a result had me sleeping for 16 hours, straight.) It turns out, that also mirrors the CDC guidelines as well on the booster shot symptoms and recovery. All told, the Fitbit works as intended.

In the initial months, I did also do the night-time breathing exercise with soothing music. But I've since dropped that habit as I normally don't go to bed until I'm tired, and when I hit the sack, I fall asleep almost rightaway (hence, not even time enough for breathing exercise). I take that as a good thing.

The one thing that I wish it would do, is to get the Fitbit app to allow for blood pressure (BP) logging. Apparently this has been a feature that has been requested by Fitbit users in forums for years, yet it's still not available? How could it be that the Fitbit app lets you log even your "stress level" (which is totally subjective) but still no BP logging (which is objective data point and such an important vital sign)?!?!?! (I mean, WTF!!!) 

The side-effect of Fitbit for me is that, I don't wear wristwatch anymore. I have a collection of expensive wristwatches that I love, but they are all gathering dust in safebox these days since I don't need them anymore (as a timepiece). I also don't want to be bothered by wearing Fitbit on one wrist and a wristwatch on anymore (which is a bit silly), leaving me to still wear bracelets and bangles on my free hand. 

I heard some good reviews of Apple Watch, but Fitbit is working quite nicely for me. I don't need a fancier (and more expensive and bulkier) Apple Watch to do all the other fancier things like doing calls which I can easily use my phone for.

If there is one thing I want to keep doing, it is that I'll keep up the healthy habits, with the help of the Fitbit. 

Estate Planning

US (indeed the whole world) has been blessed with low inflation, low interest rate for the past three decades. That party appears to be coming to an end. The inflation in Oct 2021 has shot up to 6.2%, and interest rate is set to rise as well. This has been the highest level in the past 31 years. Imagine that. For more than a few generations, people never even know or experience mortgage rate above 3%, and interest rate hovering zero, courtesy from Alan Greenspan. 

Maybe it's the stop/start/restart of economy around the world due to Covid, maybe it's the supply chain squeeze (due to bottleneck from shipping, shortage of truck drivers, and - alas! - China), maybe that's simply way too much money pumped into people's pocket by Biden's stimulus packages, the end result is the same, inflation has gone up and is almost certain to stay up. How long would USD hold its value before the world realize that it's just a numbers game, and USD will lose its value? 

I've been lucky enough to have finished the refi of some (though not all) of my mortgages to take advantage of the low rate in 2021, but that looks to be the end of the refi efforts, now that mortgage rate has shot back up already. 2022 is likely going to look substantially different than 2020/21.

I guess my era of asset acquisition is drawing to a close. It's time to reassess the household finance, taxes, and estate planning. 2022 is likely to be the year I do some housekeeping on this front.

Disclaimer: I keep wondering if Biden is going to pander to the far-left progressives and substantially increase taxes across the board. Although I'm hardly in the ranks of rich-and-wealth, I have no doubt that far-left liberals would label me as such. What they don't realize is that, you would never feel rich when you still have a mortgage to pay. (Would AOC or Bernie Sanders care to know that I routinely clip coupons to get cheap(er) grocery from supermarkets? No, I highly doubt it, they are too busy pestering Washington to divert my tax dollars to pay for some illegal migrants' cell phone bill, all in the name of equity. Another WTF moment.) Life, afterall, is but a series of frugal decisions over decades that hopefully will lead to a worthwhile retirement. Steady eddie, that's the way to go. 

On surviving Big Data world with human brain, partisanship, news media et al...

I must be getting old. I don't feel the urge or need to read about all the junk, white noise on social media. Sadly I increasingly find the stories and reports on main media (that use to be reliably good in the past) rather subpar. Perhaps it's the new crops of reporters who come of age from 150-word tweets, perhaps it's robo-reportings by algorithms (that a lot of news source seem to be employing these days). The end result is, news headlines - if you can call it "news" - of even main media are mostly clickbaits. I get so tired of reading about "Read This On Five Things You Don't Know About Social Security," or "Three Ways To Reduce Your Taxes," etc etc, all of which are simply a rewrite of some well-known tidbits of facts and old news that literally everyone should know about. Then again, maybe these clickbaits are not targeting me, per se, but the much younger folks who don't know about these things that they should have learnt long time ago. (I'm quite tempted to use the word ignorance, but I feel charitable today.)

Regardless, I've mastered the trick of discerning non-news and junks like these. This is a useful survival skills, given the increasing volume of horseshits floating around on the web. Younger people might feel the need to read everything, partake in every forum, but nay, the trick, mi amigo, is to discern the repetition and ignore them all. 

I do have to say, one has to get to a certain age, and be self-assured enough to know one's place in this universe, that one doesn't need to seek approval from total strangers on the web (which oft turn into vitriol in a heartbeat). Thankfully my life and livelihood don't evolve and rely on being "famous." (I value my privacy, of all things.) There is a genuine need to stay connected and learn new things even as we age, but discerning/ignoring the junk is an absolute must. Think of it this way: AI relies on Big Data to feed it absolutely everything (in an ever-increasing volume) in order to learn and discern patterns, but for us humans, our brain doesn't follow that pattern. Us humans use our brain power and the power of reduction. The important bits of inputs, is facts. 

It is thus that I've relied more and more on main media's actual news reports on hard news. I've come to love Bloomberg News, coupled with cogent column reporting like Financial Times and Foreign Affairs. The actual data, plus the focused reporting, are what I want/need. I guess I have enough of my own opinions that I no longer need partisan columnists (from both the left and the right) to tell me what I should think or where I should stand. Occasionally there are great investigative reports from the likes of New York Times and Los Angeles Times, but the reporting and opinion pieces in the likes of Washington Post and Boston Globes have become so partisan and skewed that I have stopped subscribing to them altogether. 

I subscribe to multiple news media, oftentimes just to show my continued support of their work. If news media are to find a target audience who is committed, well-funded, and willing to pay for their paywall, I would be their model customer. 

The past two decades have been hard on news media. Faced with the onslaught of social media and news aggregator like Google News who pays peanuts to use their contents almost for free, main news media have joined the social media game, tweaking their news headline to become clickbaits. I can totally empathize with that plight. If there is one thing that anyone can learn from the likes of New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg News, it is that there are still news audience like myself who are willing to pay for quality reporting. I don't need to read a non-news story that was sourced from a tweet with 12 likes, these are just junks to me. I don't need to keep reading the same shit over and over and over again, sometimes even shamelessly plagiarized, copy-and-paste from another source without citation. (I read multiple newspapers on daily basis, so it's easy to discern outright plagiarism like this.) Perhaps some woke reporters are really passionate about low-income plight, but their editors should be smart enough to provide a more balanced view from other reports to show how expanding social welfare will do to the country's budget over the long term. When a government employs a staff, it isn't just the salary to pay, there are benefits to cover, there are pensions to pay well into retirement, and these are expenditure commitments that are decades in the making. How would that affect a government's long term finance??? No one cares about the long term (certainly not AOC or Bernie Sanders). And when someone like Joe Manchin who does ask the right question, he is vilified as evil baddie. Readers are more intelligent than that kind of simplistic black-and-white binary portrait of reality. Responsible news media would seek to inform and educate readers if they don't see nuance, leaving the readers to make their own decision, rather than having the reporter spoon-fed them with a foregone conclusion. THIS is something that I see missing in our increasingly polarized world. I, for one, refuse to participate in this polarization.

Recently I'm finding time to reread classic books (not just novels, old texts, but ancient scripts and poetry), some of which I read ages ago. I have not realized that the writing has morphed so much that I would not be surprised if younger generations (from the likes of the woke crowds to the likes of Proud Boys who probably never read a damn book from start to finish in their lives) don't find interests or even understand how to discern the meaning behind the words. It's easy for anyone to be opinionated, but it's hard work to have an opinion that's debatable and supportable with balanced facts (not just a one-sided view).

In case anyone is interested: It turns out, Amazon has tons of old books, poetry, even ancient texts that are available for Kindle download, for free (!). It's such a wealth to build a personal library which I'm doing right now. While it's not the same as having a physical book in hand, reading on a device has its perks (including easily configurable font size that can be easier on the eyes). This is an oasis to me when I'm alone at home, cooped up with a hot chocolate in hand, it's so much fun to read and far more enjoyable than to troll on social media to get one's blood pressure amped up. Trust me, social media isn't worth pushing your blood pressure to stay elevated. 

2021: Taking stock, and looking ahead...

2021: Another eventful year...that I've tuned out.

Where to begin...

Covid

It's year-two of Covid-19. Infection caseload and death tolls rose and fell with second-wave, third-wave etc until media seems to stop numbering it, and simply refer it as "another surge" which might as well. Evolved through 2020, covid the virus has mutated like a petulant child, giving us the Delta variant, and then the Omicron variant. 

When Omicron variant starts showing up in South Africa, and countries (including US) impose travel Ban from South Africa, no one bats an eyelid or complains about it. Yes, that's the right thing to do and it has to be done. There is nothing "racist" about it. When covid the virus speaks, you listen and act. In that sense, it's a good thing. Remember in early 2020 when Trump first imposed the travel ban, and China complained that the act was "racist?" Well, according to the CCP logic, China is the most racist of them all, imposing border closure and travel ban whenever it gets the whiff of covid cases. 

It's also a miracle that two highly effective mRNA vaccines (Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna) are widely available now for anyone who wants it (well, at least in developed countries). There is even an oral pill for covid. What more can mere mortals wish for in a miracle?

And yet, that's not enough for religious-right groups. Nay, that's decidedly not the miracle of their choosing. They want their rights (hence no mandate will suffix), freedom, and they want their money (from government) even if they reject economic relief bills. I have to say, the amount of self-loathing and hypocrisy of these people is really quite astounding. After some two years of covid, after more than 1.8m people have died from it, after effective vaccines are now available, after enough government support to families are given, I've really had enough of any more whining and complaints, not just from the religious-conservative-right but from the far-left-progressive-left. I'd say, if your employer mandates vaccine and you refuse it then you can choose to work somewhere else; if you refuse the vaccine and get sick with it then you are absolutely free to die from it too. No one is stopping them. In fact, I think they should just...DIE.  The world population is exploding so much that it's not a bad thing to have one less petulant mouth to feed. It might sound harsh, but it's absolutely true.

I have stopped discussing about anything covid within family circles as well. The discussion/argument is really pointless. If after some two years and mountain of scientific data, and they still can't be convinced or make up their minds, then I don't think they ever will.

To each their own. I rest my case.

Politics

With the clear majority win by Biden in the 2020 election, one would have thought the matter is settled. Given a sore loser like Trump, things are never settled...not in his mind anyways.

So, instead of quietly retreating to his ever-shrinking rabbit hole in Florida, he schemes and plots to stay in power, even to the extent of inciting the Jan 6th Insurrection on Capitol Hill. The images of armed militia storming Capitol Hill - the pinnacle of US government and power - were both jarring and scary. If this had been in some third-world country like Somalia, no one would give a rat. But this is US of A. How could it ever be allowed to happen?

The Congress inquest in the aftermath has since exposed much of its cumulation. A multitude of GOP lawmakers were actively working with Trump circles, in cahoots with private militia groups, to coordinating and plotting to force the government's hands, even threatening Mike Pence (Trump's own VP) to stop the certifying of the election result. Thankfully there were still a few men left in the GOP ranks who have the half decency left in their bones to not comply with Trump's threat. 

Meantime, lawsuits after lawsuits, each of them more frivolous than the last, from Trump's cronies keep coming, even if all of them got shut down by layers upon layers in the judiciary, all the way to the SCOTUS. From my vantage point, at this point, the only thing that will shut them down, is for them to just DIE as a result of covid. That's the process of natural selection at work. Yet, hypocrites like Trump won't be one of those. He might push falsehood, misinformation, and disinformation, but he'll be the first in line to take the goddamn vaccine. He might incite others to storm Capitol Hill and refuse the vaccine/face masks, but you'll never catch him doing any dirty work. Guys like Trump, are too much a coward to do any deeds. (Remember Dick Cheney who was so trigger-happy to send military troops to start a war? Well, he - much like George W Bush - was another coward who dodged military draft back in the days. GOP should be renamed as COP with a big C for Cowards.)

Yet, more than 40% of US voters (those GOP blowhards) are still solidly behind a con-job like Trump. THIS is the saddest part of the story. Trump is but a symptom of the malaise that these group of voters exhibit. It is thus that I have stopped reading any (and all) stories about Trump. Social media is mostly just junk and mindless videos. Why bother reading such a loser when the most business success that he's ever had, is to declare bankruptcy so that he could get out of debt that he owes? 

China and CCP

The annexation of Hong Kong by CCP is complete. In just two years, CCP has managed to wipe away all that Hong Kong was famous for: Its freedom. Its civil servants and police force used to be highly regarded. No more. As it turns out, they are all just a bunch of kiss-arse and boot-lickers.

It's incredibly ironic to see CCP twist the term Rule of Law. Now that CCP is in charge, it's free to dictate what is in the law, it's free to decide who sits in the legislature that mouth absolute support to only CCP's agenda, and it has free rein on enforcing only the laws that suits its purpose. In fact, CCP only needs one law, which is National Security Law (NSL). All the tear-down is done in the name of NSL. Independent mass media, journalists, and anyone who dares to paint even the slightest hint of bad light on China, they get shut down, arrested and thrown to jail, all for the crime of violating NSL. You would wonder what a 12-year-old student mouthing a four-letter support of Hong Kong (in general) could do in violation of NSL and gets arrested and jailed. The ultimate crime is, the child is not brain-washed enough. There is absolutely no logic or sense in that. BUT, that's exactly how CCP wants it. CCP can do whatever it wants, however way it wants it, and no one can say a fucking word about it. 

The West might mouth some weakly-worded rebuttal, but ultimately they still want to do business with China, and CCP knows it. THIS is their secret weapon. This is also why for whatever outrage that CCP did in South China Sea, no one is doing a damn thing about it. Now that Xi Jinping has secured the office for life for himself, he can simply bid his time, wait for a more "friendly" (or easily bent) politicians in each Western government and even in Taiwan, and then Xi will pick them off, one by one. In short, he's playing the long game, and sadly he seems to be having the upper hand.

Hong Kong seems like a lost cause now. Xinjiang is not even on anyone's radar in any meaningful way. Taiwan is the next frontier. Now that CCP knows that it can no longer use the façade of One-Country-Two-System to bait Taiwan to bent its knees, I wouldn't be surprised if CCP would stage a surprise flash military attack on Taiwan. No country (not even US) has the appetite to start a ground war with China, and CCP will secure this juicy pork of Taiwan (particularly with its chip design and production that China needs sorely).

I really pray for Taiwan.

Australia learns its lesson the hard way, allowing its economy to become so dependent on the China trade that it suffers the hard blow when China punishes it for stepping out of line by criticizing China on covid. This is one silver lining of covid, in showing the world how the interdependence of world supply chain, and the over-reliance on China (both as a market and as a supplier), can be a perilous path to continue.

So far, Biden seems to have learnt the lesson, and kept up the pressure on China (and not rolling back the tariff on Chinese imports). Biden is actually recruiting allies, beefing up Five Eyes, and Quads, as a containment strategy to check the CCP aggression. But, China is no longer the weakling of old, it's buying it minions in so many other weak nations in the world (in Africa, Middle East, South America, and Eastern Europe, while teaming up with Russia). The one silver lining from the awful Trump presidency, is his stance against China that garners support across the board, even the US farmers who bare the brunt in the reduced exports to China. 

The question now, does Biden have the backbone to stand firm and stand tall for long? I'm not so sure.

Covid Economy

There is so much absurdity in this covid economy, I don't know where to begin. There is absolutely no logic to support the meme stock trading (like GameStop, AMC) that has no basis in reality or fundamentals. It's all just a tulip mania waiting to pop. Much like the stupid GOP blowhards (who buy in to the Trump horseshit about election fraud and vaccine fake news), these meme stocks pushers are mostly young men with a lot of free cash suddenly pushed on them by the federal stimulus checks, but with not much of a brain, courtesy to Biden's covid relief bill. 

Same goes with the sudden rise (that will surely fall at some point) with most SPAC listings. 

This year has also seen the cryptocoins seemingly going "mainstream." Or, has it? There is still no true purpose of most BS cryptocoins like Dogecoins. Just because some stupid money is pumping (who likely dumping once you jump in) doesn't make it a "viable investment." Much like those who choose to rather die than to take an effective vaccine to guard against covid, they will die and the world won't miss a beat. For those who lose their shirts in cryptos and SPAC and meme stocks, no one will shed a tear for them in the end.

NFT though, is a different matter. It does serve a purpose to allow a meaningful for owners of intellectual properties to sell that ownership using NFT, although whether it really "means" something, it's entirely up to your interpretation. Just because you can prove ownership of something abstract or ephemeral, that doesn't change the nature of the underlying collateral, even if you are the proven "owner" of it. Who cares if you are the owner of some sand castle, proven with NFT, when the sand castle is already washed away by the water? 

On a macro level, I'm getting so tired of the back-and-forth about the Build Back Better Bill that Biden tries to ramp through, cheering on by the far-lefts. While I understand the more noble goals to act on climate change and address inequity, Joe Manchin is right to challenge the price tag. Democrats are used to complain about GOP being the one-trick-pony of tax cuts and more tax cuts, they themselves are locked in this myopic view that the only way to fix inequity is to give people social welfare, and more social welfare. It's not uncommon to hear Dems complaining about GOP diehards who are recipients of Dems' largesse acting against their own best interest by rejecting Dems. There is some truth in that, with Exhibit A being Manchin (himself coming from WV that is one of the poorest states in US, yet rejecting the BBB Bill). What Dems liberals (mostly progressives from urban enclaves like AOC) fail to recognize, is the mentality of their rural folks who might be poor, but they don't want just handouts. What they want, is good jobs. If Dems can't deliver that, then no amount of free cash is going to help buy their votes.

Thankfully, the Infrastructure Bill was split out and passed by Congress with flying colors. Everyone agrees that infrastructures in US desperately need upgrades. It's a good thing that Manchin was able to get this Bill separated out from the chafe of the BBB Bill. I do have confidence that Pete Buttigieg will see it through.

Speaking of Buttigieg, it reminds of the rather useless Kamala Harris. She is the Exhibit A of a pseudo affirmative-action candidate who got picked (as VP) to fill the checkbox of, yep she's (half) black, yep she's a woman, yep she's minority racial group. She "looks good on paper," but one year on, she has achieved nothing. When she's given a portfolio (eg. border migrant crisis) that seems too intractable to be resolved with news headlines for her to gloat about, she runs from it. When she gets less news headlines than cabinet members (as Buttigieg gets nods from both sides of the aisles for building consensus for the Infrastructure Bill), she instead goes to state and talks about infrastructure too (which isn't her portfolio). And then she turns around and complains that White House doesn't have her back and defend her when she does stupid or useless things or has negative reports (like staff exodus from her own team). All I hear, is a whiny baby. And Dems keep giving her a pass, for being a woman, or a black, or a trailblazer. In short, affirmative action will get you in the door, but it will only get you so far, and affirmative action doesn't guarantee you success or same outcome if you can't perform.

As to the migrant border crisis, the immediate rollback of the Stay-In-Mexico policy by Biden was one of the stupidest things he could have done. Trump has done the dirty groundwork for him and Biden should have utilized it (much like the tough stance against China which Biden lets stay). By rolling it back and now trying to reinstate it, Mexico is no longer compliant. This is the kind of stupid back-and-forths by Biden, pushed by the far-lefts, that irks me endlessly. Biden tries to be the Mr. Nice Guy, but an effective leader requires far more just "being nice."

The way it's going, Nancy Pelosi will lose the 2022 Midterms, and if Harris runs in 2024, Dems will lose White House too. (Yes, GOP has been laying the groundwork of enough negative press coverage for Harris, but it's Harris who walks straight into it.) I'm quite certain of it.

On a Personal Note...

Now I know how being an empty-nester feels like. Even my mentality is shifting. I no longer feels the urgent need to get to work. Maybe I'm gearing up for retirement. Curiously I don't feel the keen interest to travel to new places anymore. The border closures by various countries due to covid might feel more constricting at times, but there is no real hardship on me. 

I've even cut down my workload and find more interests in home-cooking. Even grocery shopping brings me renewed vigor.

Covid also brings sharper focus on the need on estate planning and taxes. I was rather angry when I realize that I had to pay so much taxes for 2020. (Yes, the drastic cut in SALT has a lot to do with it too.) While I was hard at work, the news kept bombarding me with all the free cash and federal stimulus payments that Washington is sending to seemingly EVERYONE. I keep asking myself why I'm working so hard paying so much taxes, seemingly treading water in-situ, while all the taxes go to fund others in chasing stupid things like meme stocks and SPAC. This is all while inflation is shooting up - way up - a rarity in more than 30 years. The long term prognosis for USD and trajectory of the national budget deficit are decidedly not good. If all the free-money handouts are made permanent by the BBB Act, the future generations will be left holding the bag to pay for all these.

And while I understand the initial hardship of low-waged workers during early days of covid when no vaccine was available yet, that is no longer true anymore. So, now if I hear one more person mouthing the word "I Am Scared Of Covid," yet refusing to take the vaccine, refusing to go to work, and INSISTING the government continue paying them free cash because "I Am Poor." Sorry, but that just doesn't cut it anymore. THAT is not an argument for "being poor," but rather, it's an excuse for "being lazy." I don't want my hard-earned tax dollars to fund lazy people doing nothing, or to stupid people doing stupid things. The use of Covid as a trojan horse to ramp through the dramatic expansion of a welfare state is getting increasingly tiresome.

With the interest rate at such record low, I'd be a fool not to refinance the mortgages. I've come to realize that the reduced interests I've saved, plus the reduced taxes (due to my cutting down on workload) actually amounts to more than half of my reduced income.  All told, I'm not much worse off by working less (and less stress), and paying less taxes. Factoring in the likely possibility that Dems far-lefts like Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and AOC could successfully push for higher taxes, which would mean I'd be paying even more taxes for keeping the high workload, it in effect doesn't pay to work at all. And so, when politicians and media talking-heads puzzle over about the Great Resignation trend, I am the Exhibit A that they should be looking at.

The lesson learnt is, the country could have squeezed productivity out of me (as a taxpayer), but I choose to work less because I don't want to pay that much taxes anymore (to fund someone else's lifestyle choice). This is decidedly not a good outcome for the country as a whole. If there is something that the Democrats should learn from their BBB Bill push, this is one taxpayer (one who is liberal-learning socially but conservative-leaning economically) telling the Dems, they'll very likely lose my vote in 2022 and 2024.

2020: Taking stock, and looking ahead...

2020: What an eventful year. 

If there is indeed something called Black Swan events, they would have looked to 2020. 

No one could have foreseen an epidemic like covid-19 to becoming a worldwide pandemic in 2020, with more than 1.8m death, out of reported infection cases of 82mso far. I became aware of covid-19 when the news started circulating in China and Hong Kong in Nov/Dec 2019. People starting panic-buying face masks, hand sanitizer, toilet papers, food, emptying out shelves in supermarkets. The issue was still considered "local" and scarcely anyone outside of those areas paid much attention to it. Familes started accelerating their plans to send their kids out of Hong Kong and China. If ever there is something called a "peacetime war," it would have looked like this. 

China always does everything with a sledgehammer, not only in suppressing any news of covid-19 infections, but also criticism on the government's handling of the epidemic within its own border. People were jailed (for reporting the news, or just raising concerns), news and social media were muffled. Wuhan - the place where covid-19 was originated - was suddenly put into lockdown. For a city of 11m people, the heavy-handed approach was highly effective. People were locked inside their own homes, with doors chained from the outside to prevent them from getting in/out. 

And then, infection cases started showing up in Europe (Italy, Spain, elsewhere, and then UK) when finally in Jan 2020, infection started showing up in US. Covid-19 has suddenly become a useful political weapon for Trump to blame everything on China (rightly or wrongly). When Trump announced the travel ban from China into US in late Jan, it was billed as racist and discriminatory. Now, one year on, it is used as the first tool of almost all governments and countries to curb international travel (and spread of covid-19). Idiotic as he is, Trump has stumbled onto something that is much more meaningful than he truly realized. 

I followed all the covid news closely. After some six months into it, I begin to tune out. There's so much repetition. Borders have to be closed, economic activities have to be shut down, there's much suffering (mostly economic but medical as well), no one can provide a more conclusive overview of where the medical research has been, White House has totally abdicated the leadership (worse yet, Trump is actively UNDERLMINING the efforts to make things better, with so much junk and fake news coming from his filthy mouth). Yet, I can't believe people took him seriously when he said maybe people can inject bleach in themselves or use ultraviolet light on themselves to rid the virus from their body. I mean, seriously? I thus don't give a flying fuck when news came out that he was infected. I was only hoping that he should die sooner (given his ripe age of 70s), yet the idiot lived. There is saying that cockroaches are the hardest to kill, I can certainly see much truth in it.

There's much ado about federal stimulus assistance to prop up the economy. Trump never helped much, yet every time when he signed the bill (eg. CARES Act) into law, even without doing anything (in fact he did much to undermine the efforts), he loudly took credits for what others (eg. Democrats in Congress who did all the pushing) had done. What a fucking useless peacock. 

Perhaps not so curiously, covid-19 only amplifies the widening inequality in society. When retail shops are falling (and closing) like flies, when people who live hands-to-mouth are getting desperate (losing their jobs, livelihood, potentially getting evicted), stock market is flying high. 2020 is also a banner year for IPO, and rookie retail traders are crowing about stock trading gains using Robinhood. (I still don't see what's so special about Robinhood as a brokerage.) But when the federal and state governments are stuffing money into people's pocket, regardless of whether they need it or not, there'll likely be tons of money wasted along the way. 

Internationally, WHO is missing in action. Much like White House leading from behind, the credibility of organizations like WHO and agencies like CDC has been thrashed, thanks to Trump. I'm not sure how long it'll take for them to rebuild their reputation. 

Now that vaccines are out (thanks to Pfizer and Moderna, among others), I surely hope that the curious case of this 2020 pandemic will come to past. That being said, I wouldn't take the vaccines from China or Russia, even if someone pays me. How could anyone take it seriously, for China to start vaccinating people when it doesn't even have the clinical trial data to back up its claim? 

Amidst all these hoopla, my life is curiously serene and "normal." I still work from home (as I've always been for the past 18+ years). Wearing face masks is perhaps the only thing that I've done extra. (I always washed hands anyways, though I'm washing hands a few more times now.) I could not have done anything any differently now than I used to be doing, with or without covid. This is perhaps the main reason I'm tuning out all the covid news. I've heard enough. 

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And then, of course, there is the US election. As if Trump isn't enough reasons to make this election more consequential than any other, covid has forced so many rules change and consumer behavior. Suddenly, everyone is working/learning remotely. (In the years past, telecommuting has only been confined to the lucky few.) Suddenly everything has to be done with social distancing. Mail-in ballots are in, voting in-person is out. 

I've become so tired of the two extreme ends of the political spectrum, with Trump cheering on the far-right to disregard the government that Trump himself should've been leading, and far-left progressives like AOC and Bernie Sanders bashing everything as "not enough." No one gives Joe Biden enough credits for being a "known quantity," so much so that he was able to win this election by a wide margin and impressive fund raised, all without all campaigning or fundraising. Obama didn't even help Biden much throughout 2019, and it was only in the final couple of weeks before Nov 2019 that Obama came out swinging for Biden when it's not even needed. Obama, in short, is only interested in maintaining his legacy, rather than helping Biden. As it goes, if Biden has lost the election, it would have been a voter repudiation of Obama's policy. As it turns out, this election is really what voters doesn't want (Trump), rather than what they do want. To be sure, I don't think anyone wants to go back to the good old days. Big trade deals like TPP (championed by Obama but killed by Trump) or NAFTA (championed by Bill Clinton but reneg'ed by Trump) are no longer in vogue since they are really predicated on the backs of the working class. Yet, this will only push the rest of the world into the arms of China who continues to push for this type of big trade deals, given that China (being No.2 in world economy) has become sufficiently large enough to make the access to its domestic market indispensable. 

The Nov election came and went. With the exception of the 2000 election (between Bush v Gore), no one could have imagined a scenario when election results will get challenged every step of the way. Trump and his cronies threw up so many nonsensical and frivolous lawsuits that are nothing more than a joke. Yet, here we are, less than one month before inauguration, after all 50 states have certified their election results (rendering the casting of the electoral votes all but a formality), this symbolic step suddenly becomes yet another roadblock for Trump challenge the reality. This is all while so many of Trump's appointees in courts up and down the judiciary (all the way to SCOTUS) have refuted his claims that have no supporting facts or evidence. 

It is thus that I've been ignoring all these news as well. It's just inconsequential, mere white noise from Trump. He can start his own reality show to do that, but not in my very real world. I have also stopped reading all those news about Trump doing this or that idiotic things (eg. his whining about fashion magazines not putting his wife on their covers often enough). Trump, in short, is just old news. 

Still, Trump continues to weaken the US civic establishment, granting pardon to all those who lied and cheated for him. THIS is something that needs to be reined in, for all future presidents. 

About the only thing that Trump is still doing meaningful work, is the signing of the laws that curb the spread of China's powers (banning Huawei from 5G rollout, banning CCP officials that are linked to suppression in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, boosting support to Taiwan, in particular). I sure hope Biden is not naive enough to think that US can "negotiate" its way with China and make CCP more civil. Has CCP had that inclination, it can roll back its aggression in the South China Sea, which I doubt will ever happen. The world is seeing China's aggression as it is. The Five Eyes are banning together, with Japan, India, and South Korea in tow. Yet, the trade deal with China that EU unanimously agreed to this week only shows how weak EU really is. China is going break EU's back, one member country at a time. 

Looking at Biden's administration lineup, it looks like the tougher stance against China will stand. The only question is, will Biden stand tall? Or, will he fold? 

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Brexit is finally done, four years in the making. All the scary talks, all the huffing-and-puffing, all the posturing, it all comes down to fishing rights (in the UK territorial waters). The UK parliament finally approved the EU deal, less than a day before the no-deal deadline happens on 12/31/2020. 

Things won't be as convenient, or easy, or straightforward. There'll be less trade. People will need visa (as it was in decades past) to work or travel. But that's hardly the end of the world that economists and politicians had made it out to be, all those talks just feel like "whiny babies" to me. I'd say, Get Over It, The Deal Is Done. 

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The curtain is finally falling in Hong Kong. There is no longer any more pretense about the One-Country-Two-Systems, no more No-Change-For-50-Years (from 1997). It's all just a facade, a mirage that wasn't meant to be. China has pushed through the National Security Law in Hong Kong, started arresting opponents like Jimmy Lai, threatening all those protesters in exile, even putting up scary talks like banning people from leaving Hong Kong using BNO. 

Ultimately China doesn't give a damn about anyone leaving Hong Kong (as long as they don't take their money with them). CCP simply wants everyone to kowtow to its whim. China thinks that it can buy allegiance with its money and economic power, even to the extent of demanding public gratitude from European countries when China "donated" PPE (personal protective equipments) in the early days of covid, and the chinese vaccine to third-world countries (who can't afford to get their hands on the Pfizer or Moderna or AstraZeneca vaccines, effectively turning themselves into the beta-testers for China's vaccine in "live" clinical trial). Put it another way, EVERYTHING from China comes with tha string attachd. It's a faustian bargain that sooner or later, dues will have to be paid. 

It is for this exact reason why China will NEVER be the true leader that CCP so desperately wants to be, it is also why China's "soft power" is so damn weak, no matter how much money it's amassed. 

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On a more personal note, there are changes too. My parent has passed away (unrelated to covid). The extended families had originally planned to have big gathering, but was forced to cancel due to border closure of covid, robbing us of the one last chance to meet. The only silver lining, if one has to be found, is that there was no suffering. My mother had lived a long and full life, she had said more than once that she feared no death, her passing would have been what she had wanted. I do admire her religious faith that has sustained her all these years. I do have some faith but am mostly agnostic to religion, though I doubt if I could ever attain that kind of unquestionable faith as she had. 

My health scare last year has subsided, though my mindset has shifted. I'm increasingly less interested in doing the work at work, then to do something else. On the subconscious level, I know that I'm mentally preparing for retirement, even though I haven't found the next interest/hobby that I'd like to do yet. 2021 looks set to be another year of my soul-searching.

Oh, I've recently bought a FitBit (Inspire 2), and love it. With the health data, I've committed to do more physical exercise some more. It also reminds me to drink more water too (which I'm consistently lagging). Given the the food details (calories and macronutrients allocation), I can't bear myself to eat junk food anymore, particularly on those days when my calories burnt is also lagging behind the intake. This is decidedly a good thing which I plan to keep going.