• WORKAHOLICS – THOSE WHO ALWAYS SEEM TO HAVE UNFINISHED TASKS AND UNDER HIGH-STRESS SITUATIONS – “commonly experience fatigue, gastrointestinal problems, reduced immunity, and are more likely to suffer severe anxiety and/or depression. Studies have found that many highly accomplished people, especially professionals (doctors/ lawyers/ scientists/ entrepreneurs/ politicians) with personality traits of hard-work, high risk-taking, persistency, and stubbornness have very high health risk, and are among the top few in psychiatric suicide rankings. The underlying condition is a biochemical process called ‘hypomethylation’ involving neurotransmitter production of dopamine & serotonin which regulate mood and level of psychological satisfaction in life, work and study, which, when lacking, lead to a sense of life being meaningless.”  [www.theepochtimes.com/health/hidden-danger-behind-success-most-perfectionists-face-these-conundrums]
  • “WHEN IDENTITY POLITICS ARE TAKEN TO THEIR NEFARIOUS LIMITS, everything is viewed through the lens of which religion one belongs to, and certain political movements are very much wedded to that idea.  Examples of what ‘identity politics’ is in terms of how society is organized are Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Rwanda, where people who live under a supposedly unified nation are more tied to whatever identity marker first defines them more so than the country.  What made the United States great is that nothing used to be superseded by immigrants’ commitment to American values. But today so much of that has been erased, eradicating that foundational value, and it might take 100 years or 500 years but we’ll get the exact same final outcome.  Fifty years ago, there are a lot of things that would have seemed completely benign to anyone at that time living in North America — the idea that men and women are different, that capitalism is better than communism, that demanding equality of outcome will lead to tyranny — commonsensical statements which have now become, if not dangerous to talk about, absolutely provocative.  Postmodernism at its root simply says that there are no objective truths other than one’s personal objective truth, and attribute difference in political orientation of another person to being irrational & bigoted, so people just end up closing the doors to anyone who is not exactly like themselves.”   [THE FREE PRESS – 10/27/24]
  • “THE ONLY THING WORSE THAN A MALFUNCTIONING PRODUCT is being trapped in an automation prison by a robot giving you the runaround, programmed to require a cumbersome process by forcing users to press a bewildering combination of numbers, or chat with a Bot that regurgitates generic responses to narrow questions – a strategy known as ‘deflection.’ Artificial Intelligence may soon rescue irate customers, as multiple startups along with tech & software titans like Alphabet/ Amazon/ Microsoft/ Salesforce are now developing A.I. large language models to create responses informed by a company’s training materials and previous customer service interactions, along with dialect more consistently understandable. Objective is to make customer service less maddening for users and less costly for companies by replacing 20-30% of the nearly three-million call-center agents in America alone.”  [ECONOMIST – 10/19/24]
  • BUSINESS REMINDER – CORPORATE TRANSPARENCY ACT FILING DEADLINE IS JANUARY 1. These reports on ‘Beneficial Ownership’ in all U.S. entities are to enable the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN) to search for money laundering and other illegal activities. After that date, any changes in ownership, addresses or company, plus any new companies formed, have 30 days to update filings or penalties for non-compliance up to $10,000 can be levied.
  •                         THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK:

 —  The impact of overdrinking alcohol worsens for most people as we age, including: (1) Disrupting and undermining sleep quality, causing earlier wake up and increasing next-day fatigue; and (2) boosting concentration of alcohol in the bloodstream – since it is both a diuretic which expels water from the body, and is toxic to cells which damage DNA & impede cellular processes – which can cause inflammation tied to malaise, anxiety, irritability and fatigue, all common hangover symptoms. [LIVE SCIENCE]

 —  Federal tax revenues during this past fiscal year increased by 11% to a record $4.9 Trillion. Yet, out-of-control spending – without any pandemic spending to blame – exceeded this by another $1.9 Trillion, of which over one trillion was interest on the previously accumulated $35+Trillion federal debt. Is there a greedier institution than the federal government?

 —  Front row seats at a SeaWorld show came with a surprise when an Orca whale splashed and totally doused the upfront crowd with a “nasty greenish-brown slurry of excrement. Since aquarium-captive whales must swim through their own excrement, it may be their way of striking back at annoying onlookers the same way that other animals in the wild are known to play with their food.”  [FUTURISM]

 —  The House Judiciary Committee reports over a million “QUIET AMNESTIES” have so far already been granted to illegal aliens by the Biden team: 700K “dismissed/ terminated/ administratively closed”; another 100K “closed without adjudication”; plus, 200K cases “DHS failed to file” which allows immigrants to stay in the country indefinitely.  [PATRIOT POST]