Author Archives: Sam Ross Jr.

The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament concludes tonight or, as one coach christened it, the UConn Invitational.

And the UConn Huskies are seven-point favorites to win it all for the second consecutive season, with a significantly fresh cast of characters.

Standing in the way is Purdue, a serial tournament disappointer in the recent past that finally made it to the title game.

I’m thinking the seven points is not nearly enough to tempt me to back Purdue in this game.

The Boilermakers’ guard play, particularly at the point, stunk in a semifinal win over Cinderella story North Carolina State. The glass slippers finally turned to pumpkins for that No. 11 seed. It was as much a case of NC State blowing the game as Purdue winning it.

UConn was kept close by Alabama going into the second half of the other semifinal, but eventually won going away.

The Huskies’ edge in guard play vs. Purdue is immense. They have the size on the front line to match up with Purdue and 7-foot-4 center Zach Edey.

It’s possible Purdue could win, just incredibly unlikely.

I figure I will watch at the start, hoping to be proved wrong by Purdue. But, my hand will be on the remote to seek out alternative viewing if and when UConn begins to take control.

Lest you consider risking cash money on any of this thinking, understand that my best bracket in the CBS challenge ranked 308,000 and change out of I don’t know how many entries. I did somehow have Alabama and Purdue in the Final Four and had Purdue advancing to the title game, even winning there. But . . . I’d change that in a heartbeat now.

Regarding today’s epic eclipse, cue the Peggy Lee: “It that All There Is?”

Maybe throw in a little Shakespeare: “Much Ado About Nothing.”

I know, I know, this was supposed to be the highlight of our lives. The cable TV types my wife was watching early Monday afternoon spoke of chills running over their bodies and tingling legs. This was attributed to viewing the eclipse, or videos thereof.

These seasoned professionals claimed to be breathless that it got dusky during traditional daylight hours. They ran countless shots of the sun gradually disappearing into shadow. They expressed reverence and awe so much, I thought I’d bumbled onto a televised church service.

We were supposed to be just as thrilled, amazed and awed by it all as they were. For me, not so much.

Amidst the overcast conditions here, my wife was rewarded for reclining on her back and looking skyward for long periods of time with some brief glimpses of the phenomenon.

I even slipped away from the computer a time or two to go outside and observe first a crescent of sun and, later, a mere sliver. That’s before the clouds pulled down the curtain on this much-hyped show.

Since the approved viewing glasses seemed to be manufactured in China, the topic came up that if the Chi-coms really wanted to take over the U.S., they could have forgotten TikTok and instead flooded our country with ineffective protective glasses, rendering the vast majority of the eclipse-curious blind.

Oh, well, wait until next eclipse. Then again, be alert to reports of blindness leaking out in coming days, sort of like adverse reactions to COVID vaccinations. Likely the blindness news would be similarly suppressed and censored, so maybe you won’t notice it.

On the whole, I’m glad I didn’t drive or fly thousands of miles to take in this short-lived spectacle. I have seen and heard of many who did and know of a few personally. Some (most?) spent lavishly for the right to say they were there – somewhere – to witness the eclipse.

For them I cite a couple of bon mots from Ben Franklin. First, lost time is never found again. Second, a penny saved is a penny earned.

If all had gone to according to plan, I’d have been in transit during peak eclipse viewing time today, not to watch it, but to consummate the purchase, title transfer and trailering home of a modified C4 Corvette.

But the chance to look at the car in-person was moved up to Sunday at the seller’s request and, with the notary not being available Sunday, the rest of the transaction was pushed back to Tuesday.

While driving north on I-79 Sunday, we were amused to see temporary flashing signs set up alongside the road warning drivers not to park along the berm to observe the eclipse. Presumably parking there other times for random reasons was tolerable.

I also saw evidence of various eclipse functions, including one camping area that was having a “viewing party.”

Bless them all. I hope they enjoyed the eclipse viewing and had no regrets about time and money lost on the venture.

Maybe Clueless Joe can make political capital of it all, offering to reimburse eclipse viewers for their expenses. It would make as much sense as his never-ending effort to forgive student debt for those who never bothered to repay the claims.

I’m thinking the eclipse handout would make more people happy and buy more votes.

Living in Johnstown for parts of eight decades can tend to give one a sense of being a purge target of sorts.

We’re not talking the classic purges of Stalinist Russia, in which millions were killed and/or deleted from history through clever use of retouched photos and rewritten accounts.

The Johnstown example to which I refer also is not part of our current national and worldwide purge attempt as the Woke crowd operates in censorship of social media, Lamestream media, and government accountings to cancel opposition. We’re not yet sure how many, if any, have been killed in this left-wing push. Perhaps that is coming.

What is happening in the Johnstown area is more the tale of a once-vibrant small industrial town going the dust-to-dust, ashes-to-ashes route in its transition into a welfare community, with all the attending decline.

Beyond the obvious general examples of closed business and industry, all of the schools I attended in the Greater Johnstown School District are gone, save the example of the current high school’s auditorium being the former Cochran Junior High facility.

Even that is a shell of its former self. The last time I was there, for a dance recital, the balcony was closed. The main floor also has been modified and not for the better.

The recent hillside slide along the Easy Grade brings up another reminder of my personal purge. Many of the houses that once were home to me or members of my family, also are gone, for various reasons.

Although I never lived in it, my mother and her second husband, along with my brother, once lived along Barnett Street. It was the second house from the top on the left side if you headed toward the Easy Grade.

Even as they lived in the house, there was evidence of hillside instability and an attempt was made to address that by rebuilding the garage that sat under the house. It cost a lot and didn’t work, almost as if it had been a government project.

My family moved on from Barnett Street before the previous slide that wrecked several houses and forced the 2018 repair attempt that turned the hillside into a pile of rocks visible clear across the valley.

In an ironic bit of timing, I took granddaughter No. 2 along to pick up my brother for the family’s Easter meal and made sure to use Barnett Street both going and coming.

The first leg was designed to allow her a peek at the eagle’s nest along the Easy Grade – she insists she saw the bird.

Coming back, my brother and I pointed out where he and her great grandmother once had lived along Barnett Street. We told the child the tale of the hillside giving way and the rocks being put where houses once had stood attempting to stabilize things and prevent a repeat.

But Mother Nature cannot be fooled – heavy rains come periodically to this area. And gravity never rests, eventually winning the battle.

Both of these conspired to send more of the hillside toward Barnett Street, coming perilously close to undermining a section of the Easy Grade at mid-week.

If I lived along Barnett Street, I’d be nervous, just on general principles.

Also, if I lived in any of the remaining houses our family once called home – and there still are a few standing – I might be a tad nervous, too, lest that purge continue.

So much of what you read or hear from public figures is disingenuous pap, designed to mollify or confuse rather than accurately portray the individuals’ thoughts.

Should you doubt this, just think of all the hot mic moments throughout the years, when people thinking they were speaking privately revealed their true thoughts, in direct opposition to what they just had said for public consumption.

For example, we had Barack Obama caught talking to a Russian leader (not Putin) and pleading for more time regarding missiles because “after my election I have more flexibility.” This despite Obama talking tough publicly on the topic.

That was March 2012. A mere six months earlier, Obama again had been caught bad-mouthing the Israeli prime minister, supposedly an ally, to the French president. Clueless Joe Biden had a similar hot mic moment regarding Netanyahu following Biden’s State of the Union address.

This is a bipartisan issue. Many Republicans are just as hypocritical in the gap between their public and private thoughts.

It occurs to me that we need translators of sorts, to give us the straight story regarding events, in a what they said, what they meant format.

WHAT THEY SAID: Clueless Joe’s energy department said Wednesday it was halting attempts to refill the strategic petroleum reserve due to “keeping the taxpayers’ interest at the forefront.”

WHAT THEY MEANT: We blew it, failing to move to refill when crude oil prices were low. We drained the reserve to help Joe’s popularity and now can’t replace the oil because that would add demand to an oil market whose prices already are up substantially. Just pray we don’t really need this reserve to help us through, say, a time of war.

WHAT THEY SAID: Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, head of the so-called Open Markets Committee (Open Mouth Committee considering the penchant for attempts to jawbone markets) was pledging yet again that he and his cohorts will not be eager to cut interest rates any time soon lest they send inflation raging higher.

WHAT THEY MEANT: Look, we blew it with overly loose monetary policy designed to help ease the Great Financial Crisis in 2008 or the COVID debacle of 2020. Now we’ve had to raise interest rates to try to tamp down inflation and trust me, we feel your pain. We lost a record $114.3 billion in 2023 due to those higher interest rates that we set costing us more, too, in terms of money paid to banks or losses we took on our bond portfolio. In a word, we’re stuck and don’t know how to get out of this mess we created.

WHAT THEY SAID: U.S. spokesmen announced that Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and his delegation had to motorcade to Brussels after their airplane had a “mechanical” issue while at an airport in Paris. This is the second time in three months a Blinken government-issued Boeing plane has failed him while on foreign soil.

WHAT THEY MEANT: Aren’t you a bit nostalgic for the time when such aircraft were designed, built and maintained by the best available people, not DEI types who fill quotas and look good in company promotional ads?

WHAT THEY SAID: Donald Trump proclaimed Nov. 5 (election day) will be Christian Visibility Day.

WHAT THEY MEANT: With Trump, you don’t need a translator. He referred to the Clueless Joe Regime cleverly proclaiming Easter Sunday this year as Transgender Day of Visibility. Trump thinks that might hurt the Clueless One, who denied having anything to do with the proclamation that was released under his name. I hope Trump is correct.

It’s 11:40 p.m. Tuesday, the rain continues to pelt down, and if electronic wizardry had worked as it should you’d be able to currently be reading a lengthy dissertation on hobbies, particular collector cars.

Alas, the efforts of an hour and 20 minutes vaporized spontaneously, leaving no previous versions, only some haunting screen shot of the first three paragraphs or so.

Rather than dropkick this worthless piece of digital hardware garbage out into the precipitation, to die a fitting death, I will note only that the blog post had been about my current, frustrating, pursuit of a C4 Corvette to purchase.

This development neatly continues that frustration.

Perhaps tomorrow, refreshed by a good night’s sleep, I will attempt to recreate the post; dare I dream even improving upon it.

Or maybe my attention will be drawn to another bright light and the topic will be put on the metaphorical shelf to collect dust.

Good night, all.

This Monday morning dawned with me informing the granddaughters, who are on a sleepover holiday weekend, that I was giving them each $1 million, promising them freedom forever from school or other unpleasant commitments, and guaranteeing them they could eat ice cream and sweets without needing first to eat their regular food.

Their eyes gleamed with joy. Then I explained to them the concept of April Fools’ Day, with all the attendant fibs, distortions and outright lies forgiven if followed by the admonition that it was just April Fools’.

I book-ended the whole experience by presenting the girls with some more Easter booty (this holiday has begun to rival Christmas in our household in terms of gift-giving). The girls were shown a three-pack of very nice kites that we will assemble and fly when weather next permits, and each child received a full-size fishing rod and reel (none of packaged kids stuff with short rods that make it much more difficult to cast or set the hook).

It occurs to me that the weird world events of our times would make for an entertaining game. I tell you about a news story (real or imagined) and you have to decide whether it’s legitimate, or just April Fools’ fare.

Ready? Let’s start.

Happy Easter. An El Paso judge on this traditional holiday ordered the release of illegal migrants who rioted and attacked members of the Texas National Guard because said illegals were unhappy at being thwarted at our southern border for processing.

Sadly, that one’s true.

Another Happy Easter. This sacred Christian holiday was chosen by decree from the Clueless Joe Regime to be, instead, Transgender Day of Visibility.

Again, sadly true.

As Major League Baseball began its Monday slate of games, the Pittsburgh Pirates at 4-0 were tied with the New York Yankees for the best record in the majors, and were ahead of the Los Angeles Dodgers (4-2) and their seemingly multi-billion dollar payroll.

Amazingly, true.

Fast-food workers in California who are employed by national chains with more than 60 national locations now have a $20 minimum wage.

Incredibly, true. Almost as incredible, even before this law kicked in, the average wage for food-service workers in California was $17.89 an hour.

Harry Potter author JK Rowling could be imprisoned under a new Scottish “hate crime” law. Her offense would be her penchant for insisting men identifying as women still are men, due to obviously biological truths.

You guessed it, true.

If only these all were examples of April Fools’.

Today’s release of personal consumption expenditure (PCE) inflation numbers by our friends at the federal government was a spin on the philosophical chestnut: If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a noise?

In the case of this inflation release, stocks, bonds and precious metals markets were closed in celebration of Good Friday and Easter, so there was no way for investors to display their typical knee-jerk reaction to such government statistical updates. We must wait until Monday for that.

What is amusing about the lack of immediate (over?)reaction is that billions, even trillions of dollars of capital market valuations customarily change on these announcements, based on numbers that are little more than guesswork.

Don’t take my word for it. Just examine the track record of the people giving you those guesstimates, then revising them in succeeding months.

Today’s PCE print was “in line” with expectations, coming in at a 3-tenths of a percent increase from last month, and up 2.8 percent over the past 12 months.

The Federal Reserve Board of Governors, who are supposed to use such numbers to set their interest rate policy, are reported to favor PCE because it is less volatile. PCE also excludes food and energy costs, so you tell me how relevant a number is that arbitrarily excludes what arguably are the two top priorities of individual spending.

And, as to the accuracy of these inflation numbers, this report was used to slip in that the January core inflation number had been revised to a 5-tenths of a percent increase. This 3-tenths current number might be 5-tenths, higher, or lower by the time the next month’s figures are divulged.

It’s not only the inflation numbers being dispensed by bureaucrats and treated as gospel by policymakers and investors that are suspect. Those glowing job reports the Biden regime is so fond of referencing don’t ring true, either.

The good folks at zerohedge.com, citing the Philadelphia Fed, headlined that payroll numbers are overstated by as much as 800,000 for 2023 and 1.1 million for 2022.

The zerohedge post goes on to delve into how one person working several jobs to make ends meet in an inflationary environment, largely is treated as multiple workers. Similarly, no distinction is made between part-time (ordinarily low paying and zero benefits jobs) and full-time work (customarily with higher pay and benefits).

You are forgiven for wondering why, in view of the blatant shortcomings of these data dumps, are they taken so seriously?

Because they are all we have to prop up the house of cards that is the U.S. stock, bond and real estate (particularly commercial) markets.

We’re creating national debt at the rate of $1 trillion every 100 days and inflating the job numbers gives the appearance of better return on that debt.

But, providing accurate inflation reports harms the case if those numbers are high, so best to tamp down those figures.

What follows are some parting thoughts for those who dismiss inflation’s negative effects by noting people make more money these days to account for it.

When I was young, say 12-years of age in 1967, a full-sized Three Musketeers bar, a Milky Way or a Snickers cost 5 cents at the corner store. Almond Joy or Mounds were the high-priced spread at 10 cents, so we only bought those occasionally.

Routinely, these candy treats now cost more than $1 each, a 20-fold or more increase for the 5-cent bars. This does not factor in their shrinking size.

I attended Cochran Junior High in those days, hard by the former Hallman Chevrolet lot. I recall new Corvettes going for the low $4,000s and confirmed that with some quick internet research. In 1967, the base MSRP for a Corvette coupe was $4,385; $4,240.75 for a convertible. Fast-forward to 2024 and the base Corvette MSRP is $69,994, an increase of roughly 16 times.

Energy, housing, health care, prescription drugs, all those costs have skyrocketed.

But I promised to reference increased pay. Social Security lists average annual wages for indexing eventual benefits to be paid out.

The 1967 average wage figure was listed as $5,213.44. For 2022, the last year available, the number was $63,795.13, an increase of about 12.2 times. If you’re buying a candy bar, a Corvette, or almost anything, your wages have not kept up with their increasing prices.

And that doesn’t factor in that the federal income tax is a progressive one – the more you earn the higher the rate you pay on marginal income. Comparing net take-home pay would show an even larger decline in purchasing power.

The average worker is much worse off now, than in 1967, due to rising costs and taxes and compensation that has not kept pace.

Now, if you’re an illegal bumbling across the border and being handed pre-loaded debit cards and other benefits such as free food, housing and health care, it’s a different story.

But we can’t all be illegals, can we?

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are having a laugh at our expense. There’s no other rational explanation.

It’s nothing short of unbelievable that this once great land could have not one blithering idiot, but two atop its executive branch simultaneously. They must be acting like utter fools intentionally, just to see how much the public will swallow before seeing through the obvious ruse of their buffoonery.

Viewed through that lens, it all becomes obvious. Biden and Harris, in the spirit of the entertainment trend of the times, are providing updates on classic programming, but spiced with characters of different race and gender in the key roles.

They’ve turned the Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels comedy classic, “Dumb and Dumber,” albeit a predictable original with two white guys in the lead roles, into a sendup worthy of 2024 with a non-white female and a doddering old guy who is one facelift short of looking like a leather wallet, as its stars.

In another, long-running cinematic rehash, just for kicks Biden likes to milk the “Forrest Gump” theme, projecting himself into momentous world events. The twist is that while Forrest was portrayed as being clueless at the time, Biden comes off as clueless with his attempts to rewrite history after the fact.

Biden was at it again earlier this week, making the Baltimore bridge collapse all about him by recalling the many times he had crossed the bridge, either by car or train. The problem is, the bridge had no railroad tracks. Maybe the replacement bridge will.

Fie, I say, on all the spoilsports who rushed to social media and other outlets to point out Biden got it wrong – again.

He did it on purpose, I tell you. It had to be that way. This is vintage Biden, projecting himself or his family into situations and getting the facts wrong. Biden’s I had a similar experience . . . is the equivalent of Henny Youngman’s Take my wife, please! routine or Rodney Dangerfield’s I don’t get no respect.

Sure, you Maui residents had your homes vaporized by wildfires, but did you know Biden once had a fire in his house’s kitchen?

Yes, you military families are grieving the loss of loved ones in combat, but did you know that Biden’s son Beau died in combat in Afghanistan? OK, it was from a brain tumor and happened back home, but he once served in the military, albeit not really in intense combat or anything like that. He was a military lawyer.

Speaking of Beau, that trickster Joe, AKA The Big Guy, even worked Beau into his interaction with the special prosecutor regarding Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, apparently being unable to remember when the oft-cited Beau death actually had occurred.

That was enough, according to the investigation’s final report, to get Joe off the hook regarding any charges for the classified miscues. Maybe Joe should have been awarded an Oscar, or Emmy, for the performance.

Now it becomes clear why Joe picked Harris as his running mate, a move viewed at the time as a total sellout to identity politics. He needed a comedic partner in the spirit of Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, Martin and Lewis, or Cheech and Chong.

And Harris has delivered. Her latest triumph was appearing to clap her hands mindlessly and smile as a protester in Puerto Rico sang lyrics mocking Harris, Biden, and the U.S.

It was a nice touch by Harris to display the pained, embarrassed look when a handler seemingly informed Harris they were laughing at her, not with her.

We eagerly expect the next dopey delivery of our Two Stooges. With as bad as things are under their leadership, we can use a good laugh.

Likely by now you’ve seen the container ship ramming and taking down the Francis Key Bridge in Baltimore. It was, and is, stunning video.

Nearly as stunning was the U.S. intelligence community insisting, even as the bridge structure still was hitting the water, that it was not terrorism.

This comes hard on the heels of the Moscow Massacre, in which the usual intelligence suspects were out with assurances even as the bullets still were bouncing around the concert hall venue that this WAS terrorism (ISIS-K, which sounds like a vitamin) and not a rogue act under the sponsorship of Ukraine or any of its collaborators.

Now, let us return to the past summer, when a bag of cocaine was found in the White House. A flurry of activity ensued and an investigation that took 11 days to determine that nothing could be determined. Case closed. Nothing to see here. Keep moving.

Repeat, cocaine was found in one of the most heavily guarded and surveilled buildings in these United States and nearly two weeks later, all we had was a final decision to say they had nothing to say and that was the final determination.

If only we’d had the geniuses who were so quick on the Moscow shootings or the bridge felling working on that cocaine deal, we might have gotten some explanations.

Instead, we got – and continue to get – what is politically expedient for the current Biden regime. They don’t want Zelenskyy’s fingerprints all over the Moscow shootings, just as they don’t want to acknowledge so early in a re-election campaign a terrorist incident on U.S. soil that is going to hamper the public for some time.

This series of events – and widely differing timing for explanations — to put it politely, does not pass the smell test.

Gen. Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, was one of those not willing to buy the kneejerk reaction that the bridge incident was not terrorism.

Understand, you don’t have to assert it absolutely was terrorism to say that it’s more than a tad premature to rule out terrorism entirely.

It’s the same with the Moscow attack. Did it have to be Ukraine-related? No. Did it have to be anti-Russian terrorism and nothing else? Also, no.

Was it impossible to get anywhere with the White House cocaine investigation? Well, if you didn’t want to discover the truth, then yes. Absolutely.

But keep buying what they’re selling because this is only the start as we move toward November’s election.

While you were paying attention to the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Sunday afternoon, the Pittsburgh Penguins quietly continued their stumble toward playoff oblivion.

Oh, it looked good for a time, with the Penguins inexplicably leading the powerful Colorado Avalanche 4-0 in the second period. But, just as water finds its own level, the stumbling Penguins were able to turn that mammoth lead into a 5-4 overtime loss.

That left the Penguins at dead-even .500 – 30-30-10 — 70 games into an 82-game season. Worse, with several games yet to be played Sunday by their rivals for a wild-card playoff spot, the Penguins sat 9 points out a playoff spot, with five teams ahead of them in that chase for the Stanley Cup playoff field in the east.

The computer rating system at moneypuck.com gave the Penguins a 1.7-percent likelihood to make the playoffs after the Sunday loss. To borrow the line from the movie “Dumb And Dumber,” so, you’re telling me there’s a chance?

Yes. There is a fleeting, rapidly diminishing chance that the Penguins will avoid missing the playoffs for a second consecutive season.

But what would that mean, even if they did pull off the longest of longshots?

This still is a team with a porous defense, as epitomized by defenseman Kris Letang who has taken it upon himself to make critical gaffes in crucial games of late. From misplays in his end, to getting caught spectating as Colorado’s Jonathan Drouin swept past him to score the winning goal in overtime Sunday, LeTang has been a glaring problem.

The top-heavy salary structure of the team leaves little room to accumulate depth, and led to Jake Guentzel being traded away due to a lack of money.

The Penguins also pitched the Guentzel move as an attempt to get younger. He is, after all, pushing an ancient 30 years of age.

This is what happens to dynastic teams, in many sports. From the Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1970s, to the New England Patriots of recent decades, the time comes when age, salary caps and other issues conspire to turn winners into losers.

Just look at what has happened to the Detroit Red Wings and Chicago Blackhawks going from penthouse to outhouse in hockey.

It’s is likely that the Penguins will miss the playoffs this season, and it may not be the last such miss before they can turn over the roster and be successful again.

That’s the way of life in professional sports in the age of the salary cap.