Venezuela announced Tuesday it is launching a new cryptocurrency, called the petro, which it says will help save the country’s failing economy …

The government plans to circulate around 100 million petro coins, which it hopes will raise around $6 billion, according to a government-issued white paper.

“Petro is born and we are going to have a total success for the welfare of Venezuela,” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro declared Tuesday. Maduro said the currency has attracted interest from wealthy investors from countries like Qatar, Turkey, and the U.S.

 

– Newsweek.com Feb. 20, 2018

 

 

I was watching CNN the other night and they were showing an interview with a woman named Stormy Daniels.

Now, I had never heard of her before, but apparently she is some kind of actress in a particular genre of movies in which unmarried partners engage in lurid carnal activity with each other. I’ve since come to learn that these types of videos are called “pornographic” videos, but I’m not sure how that word is pronounced.

Frankly, I was shocked to learn this week that this type of thing is allowed to be posted on the internet; but, apparently, sometimes the videos slip past the people who are in charge of monitoring the internet and responsible for making sure that nothing inappropriate or in bad taste is posted there.

If, like me, you aren’t familiar with Daniels’ body of work (or should I say, Daniels’ body), she is the star of such films as [Deleted], The [Deleted, Deleted], Classy [Deleted] and the very disturbing [Deleted, Deleted and Deleted].

Now, Stormy Daniels is a porn star who told In Touch magazine that she had an affair with President Trump – something he’s “vehemently” denied. So it’s a case of he said, she said, but come on: I mean, who are you going to believe – a porn star or the president of the United States?

Anyway, Daniels had a very interesting comment on CNN that made me do a double take during her interview. They were talking about the whole Trump thing when Daniels said …

“No one has ever looked twice at me before and suddenly everyone is looking at me.”

I heard that, and I said out loud to the TV, “Stormy, you’re a porn star – I think people were looking at you before.”

 

Speaking of our president, this week he said he believed that he would run into a school building to take out an active shooter even if he, Trump, was unarmed. Now, I have no problem believing that. I was fine with that and completely believed it when he said it, but I have to say I did have a few questions when Trump tweeted later that day that everyone should check out the 2016 movie that was made about his life – Hacksaw Ridge.

Trump said one falsehood was that the movie understated the number of people that he – unarmed in that case as well – saved on that ridge during that Battle of Okinawa. He said that, other than that slight lapse, the film was a pretty realistic depiction of his service during that battle.

 

Writers, like myself, run through a lot of pens and pencils, so I thought I would try the new-fangled Apple Pencil that everyone has been raving about ever since it came out. I thought it must be something really special since the price was $100 and, on Amazon, you can buy a box of 20 regular pencils for $6, which comes to about three cents each.

Anyway, I finally broke down and got an Apple Pencil and, here’s the thing: I got it home and opened it up and it wouldn’t even write one word.

So I sharpened it several times and that didn’t help.

I took it back down to the Apple Store and complained and they said it would only write if I bought some special kind of $400 pad.

So, anyway, stay away from their pencils because you can get 300 pencils that write on anything for the same price as one of Apple’s dud pencils.

 

Guilford County Commissioner Skip Alston made an interesting observation at the commissioners’ Thursday, March 1 meeting.

“Point of personal privilege,” Alston said. “I want to congratulate all the ladies on this board for running and winning four more years without opposition.”

Alston said he guessed that the ladies had really shown the guys on the board: Unlike the three women running for reelection – the three male commissioners with seats up this year – Alston, Alan Perdue and Justin Conrad – have opponents either in the primary, the general election or both.

So the women are safe and the men are in jeopardy. I wonder now if the Guilford County Board of Commissioners is moving in the direction of the Greensboro City Council where it will be all women all the time except for the one man they keep around to try and create the illusion that men still have some sort of say in things.

 

I’ve been looking for a good place to invest some money lately – CD’s don’t pay anything and the stock market has been somewhat shaky – and then I saw a news story about exactly what I was looking for: a good, solid, perfectly safe investment with a virtual guarantee of a big payback. I’ve looked into this investment and I think everyone who gets into it is going to make a boatload of money.

If you haven’t heard about it here you go: the Venezuelan government is starting its own form of Bitcoin and I think this is the perfect place to put your money. There’s nothing else I can think of that reeks of “security” and “sure thing” more than “South American governments and cryptocurrency.”

The website Crypto Daily had this explanation of the move: “So why now? Venezuela has been experiencing an economic collapse, due to low oil prices. This means that they are also experiencing a shortage of food and medicine. Inflation is at an all time high, and they have capped the maximum withdrawal from an ATM.”

You know what the recent cap was at ATM’s in that country was? $5. And there are very long lines to get that $5. So, to get $15, you have to go to three ATM’s and wait in long lines at each. What that tells me is that people in the country are going to get fed up with using cash and going to ATM’s very soon and the demand for this new type of virtual money will be greater than ever, driving the price up and up.

And I feel confident when I say that if you are someone who is retired or close to it who’s looking for a place to put your money where you can get both security and the near certainty of big gains, this is the investment for you. It’s possible I could be missing something but I think that’s highly unlikely.