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Bagels: 13 for $6.00 or $0.46 each Velveeta: 24 slices for 3.88 or $0.16 each Spam: 12 ounce can ($3.88) cut into 12 slices or $0.32 use two(2) slices) so $0.64) Egg: 18 eggs ($3.26) or $0.18 per egg

$1.44 for Total cost

The current price for a Sausage McMuffin with Egg in Portland, Oregon, is approximately $5.59.

Takes about ten minutes (includes time for toasting bagel and heating griddle)

So: here in Portland we had a pretty large showing for the No Kings march. This was no surprise. There are discussions about crowd size, but that kind of thing is like comparing sizes in other venues, the people doing the estimates have a vested interest in either under or over-estimation.

I will be generous and give the range of 30,000 to 50,000 the benefit of the doubt.

The Portland metro area is officially defined as thePortland–Vancouver–Hillsboro Metropolitan Statistical Areaand includes seven counties: Clackamas, Columbia, Multnomah, Washington, and Yamhill in Oregon, and Clark and Skamania in Washington

So the overall population of the area is between 2.4 and 2.7 million. Now despite the long-term "blue" nature of the area, there is a couple of things to consider: 1) the reds aren't voiceless, they do probably constitute around 40%, so we can safely assume they will have a smaller relative need to attend. So of the 2.55 million, we can safely reduce the total for the area population to around 1.5 million that would be interested in the march.

Then there is the nature of the outlying areas. Clark and Skamania can be safely pulled out. They really don't like to be thought of as part of Portland so their contribution can be minimal. I am pulling around 300K from the total of "interested" to yield around 1.2 million. Yamhill and Columbia only add around 150K so that will pull out another 100K to yield a total population of potential interested parties to around 1.1 million.

I will use the official estimate of 40,000 for the next step. 40,000/1,100,000 yields around 3.6% of the target population that feel they need to demonstrate.

Tell you the truth, being a long term resident of the area, that feels about right.

Now onto the next completely personal observation with little or no "scientific validation". I felt that there was a very large contingent of grey hair. Portland is a pretty young city. Best numbers I can come up with is only around 18% being over 60. But I might be wrong here, but my feel of what I observed was upwards of 40% (a straight scientific wild ass guess) was grey hairs.

Now I am not at all certain what his means, I am just presenting my observations.

I will wait a couple of days to see if the march has any effect.

I am agnostic on this.

Now, let's be completely honest.

• I don't have good sources for what I think that I understand about the clusterfuck that is going on in the Pontic Steppes. I do read folks who state (A) is completely true and will result in a particular result. Then I read another "expert" who categorically states that (A) is completely false and will yield the opposite result.
• My military experience is forty years stale and while I have tried to stay abreast of the issues, my training is from long ago and far away and forged by fighting a different kind of war.

Now that my bona fides had been (dis)established, I can pull anything out of my ass as analysis and you will hopefully not consider anything that I write here as expert testimony. It is just the best I can do with the meager resources that I can bring to bear. My history of prognostications is spotty in the extreme and while I treasure my occasional correct prophecy, lets not for a moment think that that flavor is all that common.

• It seems the Russians are rolling back the Ukranians and look to be continuing doing so in the none too distant future. I really can see how Ukraine can keep anything east of the Dnieper if they continue this tomfoolery.

• The Russians have a positive kill ratio. The numbers that I trust the most lets me think that they have a 3:1 advantage.

• The Russian population is not against the war, the conscriptions and the voluntary enlistments will more than make up for their combat losses. I don't think that Ukraine will be able to truthfully make that same claim.
• Europe has spent the last thirty years becoming a petting zoo. Their militaries are too small and their populations too comfortable. They have relied on the American umbrella for too long. Their leaders might well want to fight, but the populations probably don't have it in them
• We have an established history of messing around overseas and then cutting our losses and heading back home with a couple of nice oceans between us and the problems.

One of the things that I have realized is that I, like almost everyone, suffer from the need to cast my actions in a light that makes me "right" somehow. I find this habit annoying in other people and when I discover it in myself, I want to become physically ill.

I do try and look at my current relative poverty and the subsequent lack of spending as a product of choices made twenty years ago, when I decided that the number in my "earnings" column really had nothing to do with my level of contentment. While the American dream worked for most everyone else I knew, the commitments needed were incompatible with how I wanted my life as structured.

So, I run my life like a reasonably intelligent man of limited means. It isn't all that hard. Once you stop listening to electronic voices telling you to buy an item, your costs go way down. But there is another insidious set of voices out there who want to help you. I find this group much nicer and much more likely to insinuate their beliefs and tastes into your life without proper analysis and reflection.