Talk About Tennis 2.0

ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 21, 2021 4:09 pm Cosmic coincidence.
Just finished reading an article about how the population in Russia is declining. It is down to 146MM, with some models even saying it will be down into the 135MM range in about 20 years.
I have also read (forgot were) that in the USA the population growth is fueled solely by immigration and immigrants having children. The reason is simple: finances. As we said further above, having a child nowadays involves a complex and expensive financial situation. For the vast majority, it means two incomes as the older model of working-dad/stay-at-home-mom seldom works (ignoring here the social issues of working women and equal salaries). So in Russia (this article says), the same situation is showing up. Fewer and fewer jobs, state-run companies that are collapsing with the consequential unemployment and therefore more couples deciding that no children is the way.
Add that Russia is not a friendly place for immigration (I can assume the language barrier is a tough one to hurdle over to begin with) and yes, families with more than 2 children are not in vogue right now.
It will be a very different world in 50 years. And I am not sure if I would even want to be around to see it (I won't).

I think that's one aspect, for the lower-income groups. For higher-income people, it's the same issue as elsewhere - women choosing to have children later or not at all because of career preferences and the cultural mindshift around the necessity of having a husband and children when you're financially independent.

The theory that I have heard is quite different. For a long time, the main way to not starve when you could no longer work was to have children that you could live with. However, now that we have enough money to retire separate from living with our children, having children are no longer necessary to survive your old age. Therefore, the countries where people have enough personal wealth to retire comfortably are the countries where the number of children per family has fallen.
I suspect some of this is also due to the increased mobility. As people have gotten more mobile, and as people have had to move to their job locations more often as opposed to finding jobs where they live, depending on help from your children in retirement becomes more difficult if they don't live in your area. I wonder if the increased amount of teleworking, etc., will have any affect on the size of families.

Until historically recently, having children was a MUST, financially speaking. You needed those extra hands at the farm, and there was only one way to make that ironsmith shop or the carpenter's workplace more profitable. Plus, who were you going to sell it to? It had to be passed.
Now that does not apply.

Does anyone else remember this classic scene/blooper (pretty sure it never aired, but I could be wrong) from The Carol Burnett Show? I discovered it on YouTube a few days back, and I keep going back to it.

So much talent on one sofa (left to right)--Tim Conway, Carol Burnett, Vicki Lawrence, and Dick Van Dyke (who never said a word in the entire sketch but still added to the humor since he couldn't hold himself together).

Some time back, I saw an interview with Vicki about this scene. Apparently, Carol had been warned before filming that Tim Conway was going to go off-script. Carol implored Vicki to keep it professional and not lose character. (At the time, Vicki was the "junior" member of the cast and had significantly less experience.) Except for Dick Van Dyke, it turned out to be Carol herself who struggled the most to keep it together. Vicki was 100% professional. And then near the end, she delivered the killer line that backfired on Conway.

Good stuff.

Yes, I remember it well. Before my time, but it was a regular feature in any of the best outtake/bloopers that were shown because it's basically the best one ever. It's why I recognized him almost immediately when he guest starred on 30 Rock. Priceless. He won a Guest Star Emmy for his appearance.

Tim Conway.

Found a fascinating youtube channel on lock picking. As far as simple bike locks are concerned this guy can get them open in under a minute.

Yeah, not surprising for a pro. I'm not saying it's ever happened to me, but if you've ever been dumb enough to lock yourself out of your car and give a call to AAA, you will realize these (reformed) car thieves technicians can break into your car door lock for you in under 5 minutes no problem, under 3 minutes is fairly normal. Not that I have any personal experience with that or anything.

The real US Strategic Command's Twitter account just sent this out. Panic has ensued.



Nine minutes ago:

Gone! What were the tweets about?

Wow that was fast. A string of what people were jokingly saying was "code" got sent out by the SAC twitter account. It was up for about half an hour before they said "ignore this" and now they've deleted the Tweets. I'll see if someone got a screen shot.