We're gonna take it! Yes, we're gonna take it! We're gonna take it... forever!

□ [“CDC Director Finally Admits that COVID Cases are Hugely Over-Counted — 'For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned.'"]

Sensible people have known that for a year now.  But others, if you drink alcohol and get into a car and drive into a brick wall, they want the virus to be blamed for it.  94% of deaths had other causes and they wanted to avoid that fact at all costs.

□ [“Bill Gates Was Reportedly Removed from the Microsoft Board for an Alleged Affair with a Microsoft Employee"]

Not likely to go anywhere but it's something, I guess.

At most, I paid very little attention to the 'Alpha/Beta/Delta/etc. Male' insights of the last decade and pay even less attention now, but I have to wonder if Gates is [blanking on which version is the horrible one] to the extreme.  He went all those years without getting pussy and now he's rich and famous so he's entitled to as much as he wants whenever he wants it.

□ [“Jeffrey Epstein 'gave Bill Gates advice on how to end his 'toxic' marriage to Melinda during dozens of 'men's club' meetings at pedophile's NYC home', claims new report"]

And he got it.  I have wondered how much of the last couple years was about fear that Epstein would release secrets that many rich and famous people don't want to be made public.

□ [“Police Report About Arrest of Bill Gates Engineer for Pedophilia (Detained at Residence of Bill Gates)"]

And this was dated August 4, 2020.

New Video Shows U.S. Capitol Police Gave Protesters OK to Enter on Jan. 6
May 17, 2021

Portland: Man Chased by Knife-Wielding Thug in Broad Daylight
May 16, 2021

Disabled Army Vet Attacked By Four Black Women Calling Her a ‘White B-tch’ — Court to Decide if it Was Hate Crime
May 16, 2021

CNN Contributor Adeel Raja Tweets Out His Support for Hitler’s Genocide – "The world today needs a Hitler"
May 17, 2021

After Years Harassing the President of the United States, Donald Trump, the Fake-News NY Times Finally Admits, the Steele Dossier Was a Lie that “Never Materialized or Has Been Proved False”
May 17, 2021

Media Quietly Reports that US Retail Sales Unexpectedly Stalled in April and By Some Measurements Declined
May 17, 2021

Rand Paul: “Social Security Had 6.6M Listed At Over 112 Years Of Age Still Active In The Rolls”
May 17, 2021

I'm still looking at the articles I found about Axl Rose's financial problems.  Obviously they are only partially-descriptive.  For one thing, I've suspected that a lot of people who suddenly become rich and famous are able to get people who know how to manage money.  Of course, if anyone couldn't, it was probably Axl.  Rock stars aren't known for sensible spending habits anyway.

□ [“Any theories why Axl is such a prolific tourer in the last decade?"]

On June 14, 2011, he settled a lawsuit with former manager Irving Azoff.  We'll never know the specifics but Azoff did get G'n'R tour rights for an undetermined number of concerts under Azoff's Live Nation Entertainment.  How and why are more things we don't know, but Axl has done a lot of touring since 2010 and that might be related.  The settlement was made four months before the final round of Chinese Democracy concerts started in the last three months of 2011.  Were those all the required shows or where there more?

What's more interesting is the $2 million mortgages he got for his mansion, starting on March 1, 2002.  Over the next five years, he got six more mortgages, presumably taking up the previous one and giving him more money, although two mortgages were just for $500,000, including the final one on April 23, 2007.  This was following a 2/23/2007 mortgage for $5,525,000.

Mansions aren't cheap.  Mortgages aren't cheap.  Combined for a guy who hadn't done much touring for years, hadn't released almost no music at all for getting close to two decades and had legal and medical issues, that's gotta be expensive.  He lives in Malibu and not the poor section of town either.  He's gotta pay roughly $5,000/month in real estate taxes too.  Mortgages, taxes, maintenance, the mansion itself probably costs a million dollars a year.

There's the lawsuits, some are probably meaningless nonsense like most rich people get, but he's sued by a former G'n'R employee Chris Pitman in 2016 for lack of payment.  He was sued in 2010 by Bentley for damage/overmileage of a leased car which rich people usually don't need.

Pretty sure Chinese Democracy didn't bring in a penny once it was finally released and probably not before that.  Axl owns the business and the owner is the last one to get the profit.  You and I could probably live comfortably for the rest of our lives with a percentage of the money that comes in on "Welcome to the Jungle" or "November Rain," but that's not how life works on rock star's level.

In 2005, Axl sold the rights to G'n'R's music, or at least tried to.  He sold his third of the rights to pre-1998 G'n'R songs and 100% of G'n'R music after that for a 20-year deal with Sanctuary Music Group, run by then-G'n'R manager Merck Mercuriadis, but they were having serious financial problems too.

Obviously his tours weren't cheap, with all the transportation and crew-work required.  I think it was around this point that Axl stopped showing up late.  Of course the band got a large percentage of expensive ticketsales to sing 30-year old songs.  Notice that the people insisting he doesn't do things for the money never mention that.  G'n'R concerts could be free, or at least all money goes to tour employees and none to the *ARTISTE.*  Why buy a mansion if you don't do things for money?  Word is he also bought some property in Vancouver which he sold in 2004 without ever visiting, likewise renting an apartment in New York City in 2011-2 and never going there.  Why?  [The Canadian property is iffy, the building was constructed in 1993 and Axl is one of the two previous owners listed before its current state.  The other is Canucks Hockey player Pavel Bure.]

I notice that most of these articles, and the commenters, take seriously the claims that everyone was pushing a reunion with Slash and Duff.  I can't take that particularly seriously.  Yes, there would be people who want a reunion but I think the majority of the G'n'R audience would be fine with listening to Axl's new music via released albums or concert performances, but he didn't do those.  Slash and Duff played some G'n'R songs on stage and go on to other songs from the rest of their career because they had one.

Slash's Made in Stoke live album has 21 tracks, 7 of which came from G'n'R, another one is his version of the Godfather theme, a cover he started playing in G'n'R concerts.  That's it.  Yes, he would have been fine going back to the band that made him famous but it was obviously more problems than it was worth to deal with Axl.  We don't know how much the divorce from Perla gave him a need to bring in more money.  It's entirely believable that she got a huge chunk of his money and he wanted to replace it as soon as possible, but that would have meant putting up with Axl.  I think Duff was in a similar position, minus the need for money.  If he could come back, sure, no problem, but problems were why he left in the first place.

Izzy just wanted out, especially once he quit using drugs, and he's known Axl the longest.  An argument is made, especially by his fans, that he was the center of the band and without him, it all went downhill.  Steven was fired, Matt may have been as well, it's unclear.

For Axl, it's more like telling him 'you won't do anything without Slash and Duff so let's bring them back' as incentive for him to do something.  Unless he's utterly insane - which is entirely possible - I doubt he still owes mortgages and whatnot after three years of reunion tours.

Dunno what to make of this but at least it's here.