tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33606975708734994572024-03-05T17:49:15.034-07:00Lost in AmericaA Modest Scriblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698092153994590787noreply@blogger.comBlogger1785125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3360697570873499457.post-10508394440845655362020-02-18T13:13:00.001-07:002020-02-18T13:13:10.094-07:00A Post Coming Much LateI'm sure my loyal readers have wondered about my absence. I am sincerely sorry that this absence has remained unexplained. A month or so ago I experienced a severe health setback and it turned out to be advanced cancer. After a hospital stay I came home and am taking both radiation and chemo and my days have not been easy, to say the least. <br />
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If I manage to lick this thing maybe someday I'll be back. Should that not happen I'll thank all of you now who have stuck with me for so many years.<br />
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Much love and warmest regards.<br />
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Dearel FriendA Modest Scriblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698092153994590787noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3360697570873499457.post-49075664373575054612020-01-15T02:00:00.000-07:002020-01-15T02:00:01.602-07:00When Two Right Wing Nuts Saved The World <br />
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In the fall of 1974 a group of independent scientists were puzzled over an ozone hole above the earth that seemed to be expanding. They began to study it a little. Then, by the early eighties, they saw that the ozone hole had grown larger. Yet they had no explanation for it. So they sent flying lab planes down to Antartica and began flying directly through that ozone hole. What they discovered was that 35 percent of the earth's ozone layer had been eaten away, exposing the earth's inhabitants to a global warming and skin cancers and various other ills that would soon destroy life on earth.</div>
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They learned that chlorofluorocarbons (CFC's) were the villain. Seems the very freon that was keeping our air conditioners cooling was actually destroying the only protecting shield that protects us from the sun. </div>
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Worse than that, it seems that some 200 plus sectors of the world's industry depended on CFC's to operate. The problem was so wide-spread it seemed nearly impossible to solve the problem. </div>
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Leaders from all over the world met to discuss the problem. Though the science was undeniable very few nations, including the larger nations, seemed willing to sacrifice their economy and their treasure to try and come up with a replacement for CFCs in so many segments of the economy. So the leaders walked away from a conference and did nothing.</div>
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Then George Schultz, President Reagan's Secretary of State got involved. He listened to what those scientists were telling him, weighed the scientific proof, then came to President Reagan with some dire warnings.</div>
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And, yes, President Reagan listened. He got on the phone to the CEO of the Dupont Corporation, the largest makers of those CFC's. Reagan told that CEO that he had better find a free market fix to come up with a replacement for CFCs damned quick. Remarkably Dupont responded with a Manhattan Project type effort....to stop production of CFCs and come up with a replacement.</div>
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Meanwhile, across the pond, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher listened to the CFC evidence. Fortuitously she had studied chemistry so the learning curve was short and swift.</div>
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So, in 1987, President Reagan sent Secretary of State George Schultz and a team of American scientists to Montreal for a world wide meeting of the world's leaders. And, while Schultz was jaw-boning France and Germany and other world leaders, Miss Maggie got up on the stage, led those leaders through the science, pledged economic assistance by the west for the third world, and convinced the world's leaders that "no" was not an option.</div>
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So in 1987 the Montreal Protocols were signed, each nation pledging to rid their industries of those CFC's. In the years hence, scientists make their trek to the Antarctic every year. They found the sharp reduction of CFCs stopped the ozone erosion. Then it began to heal. Scientists now say that, in 20 years or so, the Ozone layer will become completely healed.</div>
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Yes, we still have many climactic problems that comes with 8 billion people inhabiting our planet. But those same scientists say we would not have had a planet to worry about had not President Reagan and Margaret Thatcher led the way in healing the ozone layer that would have been gone today, all of us burning to death, our protective shield gone forever.</div>
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Two right wing nuts, leading a market-driven, scientific fix, even as the far left made fun of both of them and warning of "global cooling".</div>
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Note: I was inspired to read up on this by a PBS special that aired this week. It must have been hard for liberals to watch as two "right wing nuts" worked to save our planet.</div>
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A Modest Scriblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698092153994590787noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3360697570873499457.post-2975025709958145602020-01-13T02:00:00.000-07:002020-01-13T02:00:05.078-07:00Ladies, Just Stop It! <br />
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<span data-offset-key="35ej9-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">In just the last few months I have seen an unending parade of 55 plus models and movie stars displaying their "wares" in bikinis.....and even less. Selma Hayak, Christie Brinkley, Brook Shields, Elizabeth Hurley......the list goes on and on. And their female fans just love it!</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="cns8r-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">I can find no more definitive example of objectifying women than these photos, many of the women posing being bonafide members of the MeToo Movement. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="dt57i-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">So why are these senior women doing it? Could it be for the same reasons they pay to have their chests transformed into cantaloupes? Or sport lingerie, meant for the boudoir, on the red carpet? One would think that, if women want men to take them seriously, they wouldn't self-objectify their legs and boobs.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="5tld6-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">What the hell is wrong with senior women of all sizes and shapes just standing before the camera, fully dressed, happy in just being generally healthy? Anything else is a huge insult to the women who bear birth marks and mastectomy scars and all manner of scars disease has wrought.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="debne-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Perhaps the worst of all this flesh peddling is the vast difference in lifestyles between these Hollywood types and the average woman. These wealthy women can afford plastic surgeries, personal nutritionists, fitness trainers, and daily massages on demand. Sadly, the average woman cannot afford that life lifestyle, yet learn to look like Liz or Christie or Brook.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="b6581-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">And on a final note, most of these iconic women just happened to win the lottery of good genes..........something they have no business taking credit for.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="7015a-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">All I can say is that many women, both the famous and not so famous, are responsible for a culture that values sexiness and the grand flesh peddle. Stop blaming men for your MeToo woes and assume a little responsibility for the casting couch invites and office come-ons. Women are proving to be their own worst enemy.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="v2bm-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">So stop it, ladies. Your hypocrisy is gag worthy.</span></div>
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A Modest Scriblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698092153994590787noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3360697570873499457.post-40924878148465109362020-01-10T02:00:00.000-07:002020-01-10T02:00:04.099-07:00Our Gas Pump Quagmire <br />
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<span data-offset-key="39ie0-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Know this; every time you depress the handle of that gas pump you are pulling the trigger and killing a Christian or Islamic "non-believer" somewhere in the world. Don't believe that? Consider this. Until the late 1940's Middle East Muslims kept their wars regional, now and then a tribe of Shites driving their camels into a tribe of Shias in an effort to prove one version of Islam was preferable to another.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="7j40d-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Yes, there has always been a war between Muslims and other religious sects. (Did you forget the Crusades?......or why India and Pakistan had to break up?) Islam, by its very nature, demands conflict whenever religious principles clash. The Muslim "bible", the Koran states that "there is no god but Allah and there is no other religion acceptable". And if one must kill a few million, or many millions of nonbelievers to make Islam the only religion, well that's okay too.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="c0tg9-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">One should also note that, in a culture that finds first cousin marriages preferable to any other, one can expect some frightening mutations in the old gene pool.....which I believe explains a culture that believes mass killings of innocents will win you those 72 virgins and a seat at Mohammed's table. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="9b97h-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">It was not until the west developed a great thirst for Middle East oil that the Middle East began to have the ability to subsidize conflict throughout the world. Hell, some of America's "best buddies", like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, funded the waging of wars against Israel during the last fifty years. Libya, Iraq and Iran were and still are the terrorist's best banker. That oil also funded the mad Khadafi, the insane Hussein, the two attacks on the World Trade Center, innumerable Muslim attacks on all the world's continents. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="era3g-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">So, yeah, it's been Middle East oil that brought out the crazies. Oil and a hell of a lot of political leaders who haven't read the Koran and will never understand why, wherever Muslims live, violence and conflict with western beliefs will always follow. Just read what those Muslims are doing to once peaceful and serene European nations after they were allowed to immigrate there. Or, here at home, take a look at how many of those Islamic conclaves in Michigan and elsewhere are living under Sharia law, and not the laws of our land.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="8ois5-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">After having lived and worked in the Middle East for ten years I learned a few essential lessons. A Muslim, no matter how kindly, will always choose a fellow Muslim over a "non-believer"...doesn't matter how despicable that Muslim is.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="ah3sg-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">So what do we do about this mess? After all, three fifths of the world is already under a Islamic fiefdom. Well, first of all, let's all ease up a little on the gas pump. (Yes, you really did pull the trigger and kill a Christian when you depressed that lever!) And let's frack the hell out of oil shale. And let's find a sensible, market-driven solution to solar rooftops and electric vehicles. And since the U.S. is now the number one producer of oil in the world, let's use our excess and put those Middle East oil producers out of business.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="8b42q-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Can we stop those Middle East Muslims from warring? Hell no. They've been doing that for a thousand years. But we CAN stop them from exporting their hate to the rest of the world.....simply by denying them the petro-dollars that fund their terroristic madness. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="c2rjj-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">You all might think about that when you depress the lever on that gas pump.</span></div>
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A Modest Scriblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698092153994590787noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3360697570873499457.post-18326628903703504732020-01-08T02:00:00.000-07:002020-01-08T02:00:14.868-07:00A Place Where Johnny CAN Read <br />
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<span data-offset-key="8h0dp-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Hundreds of Phoenix area parents began camping out in front of the Sunnyslope High School administrative offices, awaiting a 7AM opening. They've been there since 6PM Saturday night. Their goal? To score one of 30 slots available for their out of district children.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="pbpc-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">As the local reporters began threading through the crowd this morning, interviewing hopeful parents, the crowd was festive.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="a3e91-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">I find it sad. That long line of tents and sleeping bags speaks volumes about our public schools. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="bk8bk-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">The allure of Sunnyslope High School? They simply teach. Ranked 1,300 of 13,000 schools nationally, the school has a modest physical footprint. Yet the relatively small campus turns out some 6,000 students annually who regularly score well on national achievement tests. 53 percent of Sunnyslope graduates have already earned college credits. The school teaches, in addition to the basics, to marketable career fields.....the arts, education, the sciences, animal husbandry, veterinary services, medical, carpentry and, yes, even auto and wood shop for those willing to surrender white collar for blue and pull in $100,000 a year.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="5osdc-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">In an era where many public schools offer history, geography, civics, math and languages as an option, at Sunnyslope they are mandatory.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="3as2t-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">So what do those long waiting lines over the weekend really say about the rest of the public school system? And though Arizona leads the nation in the number of charter schools it looks as if we need to build more...if only the teachers' unions would stop fighting them. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="ejp4-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Sadly, Sunnyslope seems the "little education engine that could" in an America where the only answer to our 50 percent illiterate high school graduation rates, who seem prepared only for burger flipping or pursuing a college major specializing in the demonization of our white founding fathers.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="ejp4-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Oh, and did I mention that Sunnyslope's demographics is largely minority? </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="5pg1d-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Sad. Damned Sad.</span></div>
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A Modest Scriblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698092153994590787noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3360697570873499457.post-64016784886609666992020-01-06T02:00:00.000-07:002020-01-06T02:00:12.127-07:00Madness! <br />
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Could we all just set aside our political preferences this morning and cast a rational and objective eye toward a few national headlines? Thanks in advance to those willing to do that.</div>
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Let's first look at President Trump's order to take out that long time Iranian military leader, Soleimani. </div>
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I just read a news article this morning that said the American military has wanted to take out Soleimani as early as 2007. The Iranian general had been directly responsible for thousands of American deaths during the Iraqi Freedom campaign. He and his Shite proxies planted IED's, engaged snipers, funded, served as proxies, and deployed rocketry to kill our own young men and women. Were that not enough the Iranians have stirred up trouble in Africa, in Lebanon, in Syria, in Iraq, and have used Yemen as a surrogate for terrorism throughout the Middle East.</div>
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This Iranian mayhem was going on long before American troops arrived in force in 2002. And their trouble-making has gone on whether in peace accord with the west and without.</div>
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Now let's get back to that moment in 2007, when American commandos had a bead on Soleimani and could have taken him out. Sadly, and incredibly, General McChrystal (under higher orders?) ordered them to stand down, afraid that taking out Soleimani would stir the anger of the Iranian Mullahs. That "stand down" stood all during the remaining Bush and Obama years......the Commanders in Chief of the mightiest military on earth deathly afraid of one general and one bad-acting third world country! How is that even possible, even as our own military was dying by his efforts!</div>
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So once again we have President Trump doing something that previous Presidents were too scared to do! And we have Hollywood's latest "liberal darling/unappointed ad hoc Secretary of State, Rose McGowan apologizing to Iran, saying "please don't kill us......52 percent of us are being held hostage by a President we don't support." Is that not madness? Does Hollywood even understand that Iran has been the regional bad guy for some 40 years now? Did she not follow Iran's firing on western oil tankers just a few months ago? Has she not followed Iran's legacy of terrorism across five continents for over these many decades?</div>
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But let's forget Hollywood's "foreign policy ignorance" for now. We know their type and are not surprised by anything Hollywood does or says. What is truly astounding are our previous leaders treading so softly around a stone-age third world country who chooses to do us harm whether we leave them alone or not. And so many times has!</div>
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So, okay, we all can say what we want about President Trump. And yet, here he is this week, taking out a bad guy whom no one in the west was willing to touch, even as western diplomats and America's far left quake in their boots about what Iran might do to retaliate! </div>
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Madness!</div>
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A Modest Scriblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698092153994590787noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3360697570873499457.post-27840748531552592402020-01-03T02:00:00.000-07:002020-01-03T02:00:12.374-07:00America In 2020 <br />
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More than two new generations of Americans have been born since President Ronald Reagan took office. Nearly forgotten now was the mess America was in back then, both spiritually and financially. It now seems incredible to contemplate Reagan's inheritance of Jimmy Carter's 20 percent annual inflation rates and mortgage rates at 16 percent, making home buying nearly impossible for two thirds of our citizenry. President Carter made a national address, warning us that the world was running out of oil and any American who denied that fact was both ignorant and selfish.</div>
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On the foreign front the Russians considered Carter a lightweight and Iran was holding American hostages from the American embassy in Tehran.</div>
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President Reagan promised he would restore our military to full strength and, were our hostages not released, would bomb Iran into the stone age. On the first morning of Reagan's presidency the Iranian hostages were released. Those Iranians knew Reagan was sincere in his threat. </div>
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It would take President Reagan more than two years to wring inflation out of the economy, implement policies that spawned the growth of new business (Walmart, Home Depot, Apple and Microsoft are just a few of the new American behemoths that got their start during the Reagan years).</div>
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Perhaps most important was what President Reagan did for our national morale. In enjoying low unemployment, and stable interest rates, and our new national pride around the world, we all felt that our futures were indeed golden again after the miasma of the Carter years.</div>
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In 2016 we elected a far less moral, less articulate man that the one who took the helm in the spring of 1981. America elected President Trump because they had an almost intuitive sense that America was headed in the wrong direction. Weary of wishy-washy politicians, and social designing Democrats, the American people shook the dice and rolled them.......saying "Trump cannot be worse than what we now have".</div>
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And on this first day of 2020 we know enough to see the results of our last electoral efforts. Though the way has been more stormy than we'd like, we do have two new conservative Supreme Court justices, we have an economy rolling along at 3 percent GDP growth rates (something Obama could not achieve in his entire eight years), low interest rates, we have the lowest unemployment rates in more than half a century, we are now the world's largest oil producer (take that Jimmy!), we have a China on notice that America is no longer the whipping post and discount outlet for their prison made products, we have nixed that horrible Obama Iran deal, and, despite the Left's best efforts, we have a President who is serious about enforcing our national borders.</div>
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In 2020 we will have to decide between "Morning again in America" or a transformational change to a socialist state.</div>
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No one knows what we will become. Our future will be decided at the ballot box, the large national question being "are there enough morning believers? Or will they stay home on election day and witness the election of a political party hell bent on confiscating our guns, our wealth, and, most important our constitutional freedoms?.</div>
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2020 will be the watershed year when we decide who we are and who we want to be. If the "morning people" stick together, and gather at the polling stations, the horizon is infinite. If, offended by a less moral and less articulate man than President Reagan, and we stay home, we will witness a socialist transformation not seen in our 220 plus year history.</div>
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As it always has been, the decision is ours.</div>
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A Modest Scriblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698092153994590787noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3360697570873499457.post-29105553116703778332019-12-30T02:00:00.000-07:002019-12-30T02:00:07.061-07:00Hey Egyptians........Ya Got Nothing On Mickey D's. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-hIYx7Xj4n3DizpsnZxtX3Ff1xrQeHtXrOi-Bo_7PQUNYt_T00J7zcPLY9NcBmi9RrlXkgDgUaG9JJ4khJAPvYWKtmC2rMFRR1nIP4Vw-qXs_1uQOW_MJIHU4ZtK9mueIms1zskRc22g/s1600/maxresdefault.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-hIYx7Xj4n3DizpsnZxtX3Ff1xrQeHtXrOi-Bo_7PQUNYt_T00J7zcPLY9NcBmi9RrlXkgDgUaG9JJ4khJAPvYWKtmC2rMFRR1nIP4Vw-qXs_1uQOW_MJIHU4ZtK9mueIms1zskRc22g/s320/maxresdefault.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Egyptian Mummies? Big deal. In 1999 a Utah man strolled into McDonald's, ordered two hamburgers, ate one and stuck the other one in his coat pocket for later. Except the Utah dude forgot about that burger. He did not find it until 2013, just after its 14th birthday. Astonishingly the burger was doing just fine. No mold, no green slime, nothing!</div>
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So every year about this time I check in on how that ancient burger is doing. Just fine I'm glad to say. I hear it made an appearance on CBS as well as the medical show, The Doctors. It was there where the docs examined the burger, proclaimed it free of rot, not stinky, the only sign of age being the dried up pickle. The doctors explained that there are so many enzymes and preservatives in a McDonald's hamburger even bacteria take a sniff and walk away.</div>
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As the McDonald's hamburger celebrates its 20th birthday I bid you all "Bon Appetit!" for your next visit to the golden arches.</div>
A Modest Scriblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698092153994590787noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3360697570873499457.post-24467685363656312972019-12-27T02:00:00.000-07:002019-12-27T02:00:10.704-07:00The Melting Pot Ain't So Savory Lately <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxBhh3hIZyh6CwcPJhx6lUpN-UfAfdtIIF_mzXYPnALqNoVe7muARGn53bi4qse8gdLiJys5H9KpSJRbwKkZmaCj5tgz31CdUkO2kJk-So-AuiNBpiFPQ_waDMNCVGLY5FJdrClyzy984/s1600/Melting_Pot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="669" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxBhh3hIZyh6CwcPJhx6lUpN-UfAfdtIIF_mzXYPnALqNoVe7muARGn53bi4qse8gdLiJys5H9KpSJRbwKkZmaCj5tgz31CdUkO2kJk-So-AuiNBpiFPQ_waDMNCVGLY5FJdrClyzy984/s320/Melting_Pot.jpg" width="286" /></a></div>
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<span data-offset-key="77guo-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Assimilate:</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="ek8b9-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">"to take in and utilize as nourishment : absorb into the system. 2 to absorb into the cultural tradition of a population or group the community assimilated many immigrants."</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="7fdm3-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">This week North Dakota's capitol city, Bismarck, with a relatively tiny 95,000 population, will decide if they want to take in any more refugees. According to local news reports the 22 member city commission has decided to declare a loud "no".</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="b7nte-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Now this would be a little startling, given that only a few years ago cities in North Dakota was promising free or cheap houses for anyone who would come and live up in their frosty climes.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="9ui32-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">A little background is required here. On 26 September of this year President Trump issued an Executive Order that said no American city would be forced to take in an already drastically reduced refugee quota. The Executive Order specifically requires each city to declare their willingness to accept refugees, with none to be relocated in that city unless an acceptance documented is forwarded to Washington.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="7q24h-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">So let's get back to tiny Bismarck. Doesn't a capitol city need a larger tax base? More people to pay property and sales taxes...to fund schools and museums and local community centers?</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="arp4d-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Apparently Bismarck is suffering from the same unsavory melting pot that the rest of America is feeling. Folks who immigrate here, refuse to assimilate by learning English and respecting our traditions. Instead we keep getting the rest of the world's dregs.......folks who make their living by crime....or exploiting the wonderful "Disneyland" of public benefits.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="1hddm-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">And can we find no better example than up in Michigan......where entire population conclaves consist of Muslims, bound and determined to ignore U.S. law, and live by Sharia Law only.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="csg6h-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Ironically the ACLU is taking the opposite tack from Trump's position They are suing Trump for his miserly refugee quotas. And the ACLU, who normally battle to prevent folks from being forced to do anything, now argue that cities and towns should be forced to take in refugees.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="6h8ph-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">I'm with the President on this one. The American Melting Pot has become a bitter brew these days.</span></div>
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A Modest Scriblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698092153994590787noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3360697570873499457.post-86334894188203621532019-12-25T02:00:00.000-07:002019-12-25T02:00:01.448-07:00Merry Christmas <br />
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Read an article this weekend about someone who had been called into their Human Resources department and scolded for wishing a work crew Merry Christmas. I was already expecting to hear the HR guy/girl suggest an alternative greeting. Instead the lady worker was advised not to say anything at all.</div>
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Wow! The writer for that article had done a little more research. As if boasting that there really isn't a war on Christmas (55 percent of Americans still prefer "Merry Christmas" to "Happy Holidays", it seems that a solid and growing 11 percent of folks are actually offended if you wish them Merry Christmas. I'm sorry but some 20 million Americans offended by "Merry Christmas" sounds like a war to me.......or at least a serous skirmish.</div>
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With apologies to that 11 percent, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and joyous New Year.</div>
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A Modest Scriblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698092153994590787noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3360697570873499457.post-819446468560650292019-12-23T02:00:00.000-07:002019-12-23T02:00:14.309-07:00Impeachment, Part Deux? <br />
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This week the Democratic controlled House will vote for impeaching the President. The straight party line vote will no doubt end up voting "for", thus setting up a trial in the Senate.</div>
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Once the Senate trial begins the Republican controlled Senate will have two options...........either take basically a "guilty or "not guilty" straw poll, to see if 67 Senators vote "Yes", or stage an extended trial, each side allowed to call witnesses.</div>
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Though both Majority Leader McDonnell and Trump's defense team wants quick procedure, the President has said he'd like to have an extended trial. He wants his defense team to issue summons to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, and Biden and son........that they might all be grilled on national TV, just as his staff has been.</div>
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I'm all for that. In an age where guilt by accusation is society's "modus operandi", I can think of dozens of the Democrats's missteps and coverups over the last decade. A trial like that might be cleansing for our nation. Alas, chances are the Senate and Trump's lawyer will prevail and January's impeachment trial will be quick and dirty.</div>
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The Democratic party is unique. Though they already know the outcome of their impeachment efforts they went ahead anyway. Why? Because they lost in 2016, took a look at the pitiful herd of their own 2020 Presidential candidates, and decided to "play the lottery", hoping their numbers come up. With such long odds a reasonable person might not go out and purchase a Rolls Royce as they wait for the lottery pull. The Democrats are doing exactly that.</div>
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And we might also note that nothing in the Constitution precludes the Democrats from starting another impeachment effort as soon as this one is over. (God knows next November's election is looking dismal for the Dems.) They might label the next impeachment efforts "Impeachment, Part Deux" and call on Adam Schiff to do a better job next time in writing political fiction.</div>
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Mon Dieu!</div>
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A Modest Scriblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698092153994590787noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3360697570873499457.post-25616386048427082802019-12-20T02:00:00.000-07:002019-12-20T02:00:03.484-07:00Santa In Cleats <br />
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In the 1960's only two professional baseball players made $100,000 per year......Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays. (Prior to that only Babe Ruth and Joltin' Joe made that kind of money). Mickey and Willie were worth it. Every year they were Triple Crown candidates. Sadly, once the two greats showed symptoms of decline they were retired or shuffled off to hawk beer or breakfast cereal.</div>
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In the Mantle and Mays era one could take his kid to a baseball game, order up hot dogs and beer or soft drink, and have enough left from a $20 dollar bill for some Crackerjacks. Today those same two tickets, and food fare would cost you more than $160 dollars. What has changed since the 1960's? Baseball free agency. </div>
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Hey, as a life long baseball fan I can tell you that free agency was a welcome change from the baseball slavery that went on for the first century of professional baseball. Before free agency baseball players were just the "property" of team owners. Until the 1970's the vast majority of baseball players had to take on second jobs during the winter months, so paltry was their pay. The average baseball player in that era made less than $7,000 a year. And he had no control over where he might play, nor any guarantees that he'd have a contract the following year. And, god forbid he have a bad year. The owner would slash his contract in a heartbeat.</div>
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Consider the Los Angeles Dodgers' dynamic duo of Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale; two Hall of Fame pitchers who perennially won 20 games, had sub 2.00 earned run averages, and mowed down major league hitters with regularity. So, in the mid-60's Drysdale and Koufax had a brilliant idea. They would jointly hold out until the Dodgers offered them a hundred grand a year. Well, after a prolonged holdout Koufax got $90,000 and, as I recall, they bumped Drysdale up to $65,000 or so.</div>
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As baseball fans know, everything changed with the Curt Flood challenge. The courts ruled that no baseball team can ever own human beings. That ruling was further reinforced with later court rulings.</div>
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The first beneficiary of free agency was the great Jim Catfish Hunter, for whom the New York Yankees shelled out $160,000 or so for a long term contract. Other stars began receiving similar rewards.</div>
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Then, during the 70's and 80's, a sort of balance was achieved. Players were finally being paid what they were worth, and owners were still reaping profits.</div>
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Alas, no one could have predicted what we see today. A .220 hitting, average shortstop makes the major league minimum of $600,000 or so. If he hits .260 he makes millions. If he can hit .300 the owners open the vault and shell out ten million a year for his services, all of it guaranteed money. Then there are the superstars......the pitcher who can win 15 games a year, with a sub 3.00 ERA, or the hitter who can get a hit once in every three times at bat, club 30 home runs, and drive in a hundred. For that talent, that would have seemed mediocre in the 50's and 60's, owners sign them up for a decade and fork out hundreds of millions. Are they worth it?</div>
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Let's just look at his week's signings. Pitcher Stephen Strasberg, hero of this year's World Series, has never won 20 games in a single year, has never stayed healthy enough to pitch 200 innings, yet was able to opt out of his 25 million per year contract and sign one with his Washington Senators for $245 million over seven years.</div>
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How about Anthony Rendon, the Washington Senators third baseman last year. The Angels just inked a deal with him that pays him over 35 million a year or seven years, all guaranteed....even if he suffers a career-ending injury.</div>
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Ah, but the most insane contract belongs to former Pittsburgh Pirate and Houston Astros's pitcher Gerrit Cole. Prior to last year Cole was a mediocre, average pitcher. Then he had a good year with the Astros. So the mighty New York Yankees came calling. And they signed him up for a $345 million dollars (yeah, that's a third of a billion!). </div>
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You almost wouldn't gasp if these 30 million dollar a year wonders actually earned that kind of money on the field. But, Quick! Name me just one player in the modern era who ever earned that kind of lucre after the ink was dry on his contract.</div>
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I can think of only a few "civilian equivalent" to the baseball madness that occurs today. The only rivals to these overpaid, underperforming baseball jocks are the Chief Executive Officers of our corporate giants, Wall Street traders, and politicians who always seem to enrich themselves on the taxpayer's dime.</div>
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Take a minute or two to mourn for Yankees fans. They're gonna have to shell out $200 bucks for a couple of nose bleed seats to pay Gerrit Cole's salary. And they won't even get a box of Cracker Jacks out of their change back.</div>
A Modest Scriblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698092153994590787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3360697570873499457.post-89763880361616627422019-12-18T06:05:00.000-07:002019-12-18T06:05:51.438-07:00No Round Table Or Wrenching Sword From Stone In Our Future <br />
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I slept fitfully the other night. The day's headlines were on my mind as I lay in bed and travelled down the dreadful parkway of worry. Our communities are plagued by the lotus-eating creatures who make it unsafe to walk the streets, necessitate barred windows and who, along with parenting in abstentia, are helping to tear our children to shreds with meth and opioids, and impractical quests. </div>
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And we have never experienced such a vacuum of principled leadership. Our founders feared the very things we are living through today. Though Washington was somewhat non-futuristic, Jefferson was fancifully hopeful and fearful at the same time about our Democratic Republic's chances. Both Hamilton and Adams, suffering from royalist envy, were cynical from the start......believing that the average citizen was neither intelligent or principled enough to maintain a republic formed on the previous three century's best social philosophers.</div>
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For the first two centuries of our Republic we did okay. We certainly weren't perfect. We see-sawed through periods of controlled chaos, then managed to right ourselves through the adherence to the pillars of basic societal laws that held us together. We spent the remaining part of the 18th century jelling into a coherent form, the 19th century fanning out over the country, our citizens moving west whenever they spied the smokestack of a neighbor's chimney, and the 20th century searching for our adulthood and trying to figure out our place in the world.</div>
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It was the 20th century when things went very right and very wrong for us. Ignoring Washington's warming to stay out of Europe's unending warring, we fought two world wars. Ignoring Adam Smith, perhaps the world's greatest economist, we suffered through the robber barons.....the Carnegies and Rockefellers......and our own personal greeds. It would take a Great Depression to slap us silly and reclaim a work ethic and fear of hunger. And we hired a fellow who wore tu-tu's and prom dresses at night, while by day he ran our FBI, kept the commies at bay for half a century, kept the streets relatively safe.</div>
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It was in the 1960's when things went really wrong. Baby Boomers, spoiled by the Greatest Generation parents, came to find it acceptable to decide which wars they would fight in, which park they would openly copulate in, which drugs gave them the greatest high. </div>
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The 60's was a firestorm of the liberal Warren courts, the ascension of a psychopathic President who thought he could buy his place in history with the dispensation of "war on poverty" dollars while simultaneously fighting brush wars in Asia and elsewhere.</div>
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America since that 60's era has busied herself with mixing up a toxic brew of buying votes with government gravy, abandoning the PTA and parental responsibilities, allowing the courts to legislate instead of mediate, ignore our national borders, resolve the crime problem by eliminating the law itself and giving the miscreants a second, third, fourth or fifth chance at redemption. </div>
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And we have few leaders to lift us from our national morass. The principled men and women pretty much stay out of politics, deathly afraid their entire lives will be examined under a microscope......which leaves us with pampering, unprincipled magpies who talk pretty, speak a good game, then fail to follow up on any promises.</div>
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Break out the history books if you want to see where our parkway of misery is leading us. We are a broken nation and it is far too late for an Arthur to come along and pull Excaliber from stone, and sit us down to a round table to discuss and fix our ills.</div>
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Inevitably an unrulable nation descends into chaos.........a societal state where the emergence of a dictator seems remarkably attractive. President Trump, far from being a dictator, regardless of how the Left perceives him, may very well provide the blue print for a dictatorial ruler who comes along in the next couple of decades. It seems inevitable. Our problems are just too complex to fix within the confines of the Constitution. Instead we'll need a Caesar, a Hitler, a Mussolini, a Stalin, or a Mao to "make the trains run on time"...... a metaphor for a little social stability. While the first "rulers absolute" will probably emerge from the Left, those guys never last. Bread and toilet paper shortages eventually send them packing, with a cargo of gold to a political haven where they can't be extradited.</div>
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The boomers, and X, and Y generations can probably relax. They can still feed off the last vestiges of capitalism and the thinning remains of a two hundred year old constitution. It's our grandchildren we should mourn for. It is they who will live under the iron-fisted rule of a despot. By that time the guns will have been confiscated, the meth and opiod lotus eaters long since dead from mass executions, and everyone can feel secure from crime.........except for the institutionalized crime committed by an intrusive government.</div>
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It is at that time, when the eternal dreamers will open a book (if they are still allowed books) and wistfully imagine an Arthur coming along, pulling sword from stone.....and making things wonderfully right once again. Well those dreamers can forget it. America had her chance. She has been saved more than once....by the founders who risked life and limb and property for freedom, by the millions in uniform who died to preserve those freedoms, only to see our citizenry piss all those freedoms away in grand fits of irresponsibility.</div>
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So that's what kept me up the other night. At my age, when I should be worried about keeping my remaining teeth, drawing up funeral plans, or wiling away the hours in carefree splendor, I lay sleepless, fretful for a republic I so dearly love, no matter how sick she is.</div>
A Modest Scriblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698092153994590787noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3360697570873499457.post-47451284524692222882019-12-17T06:08:00.001-07:002019-12-17T06:08:54.254-07:00No Gold, Frankincense Or Myrrh Required <br />
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I had a little difficulty yesterday, trying to avoid the bumper car world of lies, exaggerations, personal attacks and general savagery that appeared in the newspaper headlines. So I googled "Christmas miracles" and was introduced to a story about a Colorado mom whose heart stopped beating as she went through labor. Fearful for the unborn child the doctors performed a C-Section and removed the infant, its skin already tinted blue from lack of oxygen. Once the child had been stabilized they wrapped him in baby blanket and placed him in the arms of expired mother. Then somehow, and not a little a miraculously, the beating heart of child awakened the heart of dead mother. Both mother and child survived their ordeal without any enduring ills.</div>
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After reading that I sat there at my desk, thinking about all the wonderful things that happens to we humans, the most spectacular of them being written about during the Christmas season.</div>
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In fact, if we really stop to look around us, we can see gestures of goodwill that better another's life nearly every day. </div>
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So after reading that wonderful little story I ventured up to my local grocery, to replenish the eggs and bread and lunchmeat stocks. And since my mind was more closely attuned to the human activity going on around me, I saw a produce clerk run to the back and pluck a more appealing head of lettuce for a woman who had looked sourly on what was stocked out front. In a grocery aisle I saw a tall young man reach up and grab a jar of spaghetti sauce for an elderly woman who was too short to reach that top shelf. Then, as I checked out, I waved the woman behind me, dressed in medical garb, holding a single bottle of juice in her hand, to go before me at the register. I usually do that with anyone who has less than me in hand or cart. I figure I'm retired and have more time than the working and harried. Finally, as I walked out to my car in the parking lot, I saw a store worker wave off the offer of a tip from a lady who he had assisted in loading her groceries. I'm sure the acceptance of tips is frowned upon by the grocery store. Still it was both comical and touching to see how vigorously that young man waved off a tip, as if that dollar was tainted with arsenic.</div>
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As I drove home I began to think how, no matter how modest the gesture, goodwill can be spread among men. Just as sprinkling a little sugar and cinnamon will make an apple pie more tasty, we can sweeten the lives of those about us with the smallest kindness. No miracles and no gold, frankincense, or Myrrh required.</div>
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Merry Christmas, people. May you be showered with the smallest of miracles during this Christmas season.</div>
A Modest Scriblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698092153994590787noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3360697570873499457.post-48216150146285818282019-12-16T02:00:00.000-07:002019-12-16T02:00:02.610-07:00Will Trump Call "Foul?" <br />
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<span data-offset-key="8o3e4-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Will Trump Cry "Foul!" At The Last Minute Over This Latest China Trade Deal?"</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="2aekn-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Better hope so. This deal is a sham. In exchange for the Chinese buying $50 billion dollars of American wheat and soybeans the U.S. drops the tariffs on $300 billion of Chinese products and puts off imposing tariffs on $375 billion more.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="80gsu-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">No Chinese promise to stop stealing our technology. No Chinese cessation of China demanding American companies who wish to sell in China to turn over their corporate technology.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="2j157-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Is Trump feeling the heat? (He promised we'd see 4 percent GDP growth rate...(and got less than 3.) Has Trump weakened as we enter the 2020 Presidential race? </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="dubaf-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Trump's "mouthpieces" at Commerce and Treasury are cleverly portraying this deal as "Part I" (Kind of like Part I of those Police Academy movies). But just as Senator Rubio and Senator Graham have said, you don't lift those tariffs until the Chinese hold up their part of the bargain.......and make real concessions. Otherwise, where's the stick to beat em over the head with?</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="b64o1-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Besides we've been doing just fine without Chinese made basketball shoes and Walmart plastic and poisoned baby food and dog treats......while the Chinese are really hurting as evidenced by their latest economics report.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="du86e-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Let's see how much flack Trump catches from the National Chamber of Commerce and his own party. This deal ought to be a bit "no!". I've got my fingers crossed that Trump catches enough flack and nixes the deal.</span></div>
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A Modest Scriblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698092153994590787noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3360697570873499457.post-39788405825203171672019-12-13T02:00:00.000-07:002019-12-13T02:00:05.560-07:00Lizzie Warren Took An Axe...Gave Charter Schools 40 Whacks....Then <br />
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<span data-offset-key="6g3j1-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Did anyone catch the 30 second clip of Presidential candidate Liz Warren getting booed by a Black audience last week in Atlanta? In typical main stream media fashion CNN, MSNBC, nor any of the big three networks bothered to explain why Lizzie was getting the loud cold shoulder.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="9poe3-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Seems Liz had just declared charter schools an abomination that shouldn't be allowed to thrive. She declared it a threat to public schools.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="4faqi-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">It was then when her predominately Black audience began to boo. Why? Because public schools are breeding grounds for guaranteed failure. And remarkably, if the federal and state departments of eduction are to be believed, it is the charter schools who are not only more effective at educating minority children, but are more diverse in accepting a minority child.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="cdkeb-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">We should not put all the blame on Liz for being a cheerleader for public school teachers unions. Raising their pom-poms, and throwing ridiculous amounts of money at public schools has been a pillar of the Democratic party for decades now. And why not.........90 percent of all teacher union money goes toward electing Democrats.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="6sjbr-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">I am proud to say that Arizona leads the nation in the expansion of charter schools. Charter school students score higher on national achievement tests than their public school brethren and the state encourages charter school expansion by offering dollar for dollar tax write-offs for your charter school donations.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="ffg2s-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Was Liz's "mob-booing" a sign that things are changing among the electorate? It would certainly seem so as minorities are quickly learning that only charter schools are lifting them out of poverty.</span></div>
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A Modest Scriblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698092153994590787noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3360697570873499457.post-10533900528555125342019-12-11T02:00:00.000-07:002019-12-11T06:32:33.460-07:00Humor; The Lost Art <br />
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Each night, at 10PM, I turn to one of my retro channels and watch re-runs of Johnny Carson and his Tonight Show. I can always tell the year the show was recorded simply by listening to Johnny's opening monologue. Those were things of beauty. Johnny would mix in general humor with side swipes at both political parties. It was not until many years later that I learned ol' John was a social liberal. (Whew!)</div>
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When asked why he didn't talk about his personal politics Carson said he'd be a fool to offend half of his audience. Wise advice.</div>
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Contrast that with our current late night hosts. First of all you can scrap the humor. There is none. Those shows are packed to the gills with an hour of liberal snark, most always to the detriment of President Trump. And lest they offend their liberal ilk, they never attack a political liberal. Wouldn't be "prudent", as George H.W. used to say.</div>
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I find these later talk shows just soul deadening. If there is even an attempt at humor it is usually aimed at the latest round of societal targets.........those folks who have already been beaten up unmercifully by social media. That form of "ganging up" just shows how cowardly the "two Jimmies" and their fellows are. They dare not call out anyone who has not yet been assigned a crown of thorns.</div>
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So I watch Johnny. And a lot of dead celebrities. Sometimes I gasp as Johnny makes a joke about gays, or cross dressers, or loose ladies. Sometimes I watch as Carson jokes about cleavage, or general sexiness.</div>
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Carson did the Tonight Show for 30 years. Did it well. Made us laugh back when little offended us....when we had our sense of humor intact.</div>
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Today we are an easily offended, serious-minded nation where nearly every attempt at humor must be narrowly defined.</div>
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Johnny wouldn't survive a month in this barren desert of political correctness.</div>
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Sad. Damned Sad.</div>
A Modest Scriblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698092153994590787noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3360697570873499457.post-56017365198247489792019-12-09T02:00:00.000-07:002019-12-09T02:00:15.842-07:00Civilization As We Know It.........Really? <br />
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<span data-offset-key="c20qh-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">This past week we saw three of four well succored liberal legal scholars testifying in support of impeaching President Trump. (Not once did any of them find a problem with Obama's "live mic" concessions to Russia, or his treasonous speech to the Egyptian Parliament, when he said America was no more special than any Islamic fiefdom. We also didn't hear any liberal lawyering about the Clinton Foundation corruption...and not a word about Biden's son and his half million dollar salary with a company that ripped off $14 billion of our tax dollars).</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="8j3ih-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">On a separate front Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi reiterated that these impeachment proceedings have nothing to do with politics. (If you believe that can we talk about a deal I can offer you on a swamp in Georgia?) Pelosi also said she doesn't hate Trump........cause "she's a good Catholic girl" ((who just happens to support 500,000 fetal murders each year)). Pelosi even says she prays for Trump every night. (Perhaps with needles and voodoo dolls?). Pelosi said if Trump is allowed to continue in the Presidency "civilization as we know it will be destroyed forever!"</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="br76c-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Most of America is paying little attention to the Democrats' dog and pony show. Why?</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="ad9gc-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Perhaps some answers can be found in Friday's job report. A whopping 266,000 jobs were created last month and the unemployment rate fell to 3.5 percent.......the lowest in half a century.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="d9rb1-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Better yet, American wages increased 3.7 percent. That puts an extra $100 bucks per month in the average worker's paycheck. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="a7kfl-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Please give us more of that civilization destruction that Nancy and her ilk fear so much.</span></div>
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A Modest Scriblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698092153994590787noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3360697570873499457.post-9099130336444210182019-12-06T02:00:00.000-07:002019-12-06T02:00:09.375-07:00Crazy Joe's Crazy Minimum Corporate Tax <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9X7ToaNe2ACwCMSgKkPcaN-WeKHVD0eAIqY7P96tKRORk8mkbl29NJ8t-Kg-M0kYiwCIoCYuBNf0mn7GOGrL4sxT-ZFtLmjNpFU6W-k4H00tK4M2Re-PTO53IrOlINoKLCImk9-hkADE/s1600/safe_image.php.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="540" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9X7ToaNe2ACwCMSgKkPcaN-WeKHVD0eAIqY7P96tKRORk8mkbl29NJ8t-Kg-M0kYiwCIoCYuBNf0mn7GOGrL4sxT-ZFtLmjNpFU6W-k4H00tK4M2Re-PTO53IrOlINoKLCImk9-hkADE/s320/safe_image.php.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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On Wednesday Crazy Joe, in an effort to cater to the far left, says he will propose a minimum tax on giants like Amazon and Google, et al.</div>
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This "Carnival Barker" and his liberal ilk just don't get it. If Amazon had never expanded from just selling books, to selling everything under the sun, they would not be employing hundreds of thousands of workers. Had they not plowed their profits back into Cloud Services, hundreds of thousands would be seeking work elsewhere. And it is not even true that they pay no taxes. They pay out billions to the states in sales taxes, they pay into the Social Security Fund, and in<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;"> those years when they are not investing in other businesses they pay out billions in federal taxes. Last but not least, were Amazon not as successful as they are, their stock holders would never be forking over billions more in capital gains taxes!</span></div>
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Putting onerous taxes on businesses whose existence creates jobs, enrich lives, and generate government income will destroy what America does best.</div>
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But the "Carnival Barker" lies sound nice to the liberal lemmings who will never, ever get it.</div>
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A Modest Scriblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698092153994590787noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3360697570873499457.post-4929041957443839842019-12-04T02:00:00.000-07:002019-12-04T05:01:28.260-07:00Liz Warren's New "Medicare For All" Starvation Diet <br />
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Just read this morning that Presidential candidate Liz Warren is ready to cut her Medicare For All plan by a cool $15 trillion dollars. Liz now says she has a plan to provide medical freebies for a mere $2.5 trillion a year. </div>
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Well any of us who passed eighth grade math knows that her annual Medicare For All budget is exactly $2.5 trillion more than the government now takes in every year. Assuming Liz wants to implement her pla<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;">n, that pretty much leaves nothing to spend on what we are spending today. Stuff like national defense, Social Security, Welfare, food stamps, education, et al.</span></div>
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Liz says she has plans to make up for that $2.5 trillion dollar annual deficit. Says she'll cut payment to doctors by a third. I ran the numbers on that and it looks like doctors would have to pay for their office staff, the lease on their building, comply with government mandated health record laws, and fork out $150,000 a year in malpractice insurance while being paid $40 bucks per doctor visit from Medicare. </div>
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Quick! Everyone raise their hands. How many think doctors (especially those paying off eight years of student loan debt) will say in business and how many will retire and go to work as a cashier at Walmart?</div>
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Liz also wants to pay hospitals less. While I think that's a good idea, she might want to take a look at how many hospital emergency rooms have driven hospitals into bankruptcy since ER's became the plan of choice for illegal Mexicans. Any more cuts and you can expect more hospital closures.</div>
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Ironically it is the government run hospitals that cost the most, with non profit hospitals coming in second, and for profit hospitals costing the least! (In California you'll pay a thousand bucks more per night in a government run hospital than one that is privately owned). That doesn't say much for a government run healthcare system, does it.</div>
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Leaving doctors and hospitals out of the equation, Warren's plan gets even more ditzy. Her wealth tax was made unconstitutional by the 16th amendment so that 1 percent wealth tax is out the window. That leaves basic income taxes on the wealthy. Since the top 1 percent of the wealthy are already paying 87 percent of all taxes Liz is gonna have to sock it to the middle class to come up with the $25 trillion ($25 trillion!) she needs over the next ten years on her "bare-boned" new plan.</div>
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Well I passed my eighth grade basic math. The only way Liz Warren funds "Medicare For All" is to revive Barack Obama's death panels..........those appointed folks who were supposed to let anyone over 65 die in their rocking chairs.</div>
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Politician........heal thyself.</div>
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A Modest Scriblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698092153994590787noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3360697570873499457.post-60525034026658964022019-12-02T08:25:00.001-07:002019-12-02T08:25:10.964-07:00California's Brilliant Homeless Solution <br />
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Over the last two decades California has managed to formulate revolutionary new means to deliver the gravy bowl to homeless folks. It is now possible for a homeless person to stake out a rent free spot of sidewalk on Main Street, all the while collecting welfare and food stamp checks and Medicaid cards. Just send the goodies via General Delivery at the local post office. Funds received can then be used to purchase booze or drugs. No onerous apartment rent, or utility bill, to get in the way of whatever dependency one is enjoying.</div>
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California's major cities, drowning in homeless shit and drug needles, have decided a "get tough policy" is needed. The cities of Los Angeles and Sacramento have committed tens of billions of dollars toward building new homes for their ever growing homeless ilk. Once built these brilliant pols will then demand that the homeless move in to their rent free homes.....or face the consequences. </div>
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Except the politicians won't say what those consequences might be. Unused to enforcing the rule of law, I'm sure municipal and state officialdom will have to convene various committees to decide how they'll handle the miscreants.</div>
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Perhaps the homeless are a bit smarter than their municipal leaders. For example, in the last few years, the drunks and druggies have learned how to monetize their free nightly motel and hotel vouchers. They simply turn those vouchers over to a tourist scalper for half the value, whereby the scalper sells the motel vouchers to out of state tourists suffering from a tight vacation budget. Brilliant!</div>
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California's new governor has opened a second front on the housing war. He has ordered city leaders in California to build homeless housing.......or face denial of those cities' share of state taxes collected. Guess Governor Newsom never checked with Detroit or Chicago or Baltimore about ghetto building.</div>
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I'm no rocket scientist but I gotta feel that California's new homeless strategy.........building homes for free, will only lure more homeless to the La La Land that is now California.</div>
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A Modest Scriblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698092153994590787noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3360697570873499457.post-82917962087425831922019-11-29T02:00:00.000-07:002019-11-29T02:00:09.806-07:00The Joys Of Victimhood <br />
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<span data-offset-key="esp82-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">This past month we saw a Snowflake rebellion over on the campus of Syracuse University. Seems someone had scribbled racist comments on a bathroom wall and it set off an explosion of outrage that someone on their campus might harbor racist thoughts. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="a8di1-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Both local and campus police quickly began investigating. The FBI was brought in. That was not enough. Thousands of students congregated in protest. They demanded that a million dollars be set aside to re-educate the entire faculty on racial and social oppression.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="9g8rr-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Syracuse's liberal dean immediately allocated the million and was drawing up plans to mentally cleanse the faculty........even if the professors never stepped a foot in said bathroom. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="5hv4n-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Upon the dean's satisfying what the Snowflakes demanded the Dean called an assembly and announced he was meeting all of their demands. The students said it wasn't enough. They stomped their feet in loud unison and demanded the dean's resignation. They demanded safe spaces</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="439pu-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">In the interim another racist comment was found on campus. Except the guy was caught. He turned out to be a fellow snowflake and explained he wrote that stuff to call attention to all the submerged racism.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="15nnr-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Turns out all the racist comments scribbled were not by racists but by the snowflakes themselves..........looking for something to protest about.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="eff4b-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">All that ruckus about nothing. These snowflakes had shit in their own diaper, then complained about the stink.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="f5sc2-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Added note: Last year a liberal think tank, alarmed by the growing racial incidents, funded investigations to find out why. They fanned out all over the country, performing "deep background" investigations on all the purported racial incidents. The liberals were shocked to find out that fully two thirds of alleged racial incidents were totally contrived.........either made up or falsely staged.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="14sdc-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">It must be absolutely miserable to be a snowflake. Seems their life has so little purpose, so little meaning, they must actually create ways they might be offended.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="cfh75-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Victimhood is now a plague on our society........one that may never be resolved.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="4p8uk-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Sad. Oh so damned sad.</span></div>
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A Modest Scriblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698092153994590787noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3360697570873499457.post-20613923722728559312019-11-27T02:00:00.000-07:002019-11-27T02:00:03.092-07:00Why Meatloaf Ought To Be On The Thanksgiving Table <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg69VoC0VEyEzTMtHZp7E7yCTdW6E6pwjnfSNLTcH4euV8tylxDOn54DojfR3zmDXOMDOjNGKixXriKQO0BSLQmqWjOxx9o_wvH78Rdxyv1B1W9BqYRnAOB38EjIZ6BACpQV_7dKbDs47U/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg69VoC0VEyEzTMtHZp7E7yCTdW6E6pwjnfSNLTcH4euV8tylxDOn54DojfR3zmDXOMDOjNGKixXriKQO0BSLQmqWjOxx9o_wvH78Rdxyv1B1W9BqYRnAOB38EjIZ6BACpQV_7dKbDs47U/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" /></a></div>
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It was Benjamin Franklin who wanted the turkey to be deemed our national symbol. Thankfully better heads prevailed and our founders chose the eagle.</div>
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I don't know why Franklin and his ilk had such a fetish for turkey. They are ugly birds. And, let's face it, if you don't dress the dish up with cranberry and stuffing, and smother it in gravy, it ain't really much of a meat.</div>
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So the other night, as I was scarfing down my wife's utterly delicious meatloaf, I began to think meatloaf really ought to be the centerpiece on our nation's Thanksgiving Day table. </div>
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Consider how meat loaf is made. Your toss into a bowl a certain amount of ground beef, you add ground sausage, you toss in an egg, then you dump your chopped up, stale, three day old bread into the mix. You add spices, stir it all up, then dump into a loaf pan for baking.</div>
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Let's face it; America has always stood for diversity. We have somehow been able to mix English, German, Irish, Italian, Chinese and Japanese and Hispanic, and served up a melting pot that nourished us for more than two hundred years.</div>
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All we are as a people is basically meatloaf, the the sum of our parts much greater than the many parts that make up that whole! </div>
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You might be interested in knowing that meat loaf has been around since Roman times. But it wasn't until America began preparing it that it became a tasty dish indeed!</div>
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So we are wrong to be embracing the turkey. No matter how we doll it up it will never achieve the culinary delight we find in a good pan of meatloaf. </div>
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Maybe we could save the turkey for another holiday. New Year's Day perhaps? When our stomachs are a bit queasy after the New Year's Eve debauchery of downing quarts of hard liquor? A good Bloody Mary and the penance of dry turkey meat ought to be our lot for drinking, dancing and wearing funny hats the night before!</div>
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That's all I got to say. If you think I'm crying "fowl" on turkey, well you're right!</div>
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Happy Meatloaf Day, Blog friends!</div>
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A Modest Scriblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698092153994590787noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3360697570873499457.post-27570126680243667102019-11-25T02:00:00.000-07:002019-11-25T06:08:28.288-07:00A Thousand Shards Of Hell <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHbT5W2_vs-2viKN-cI6KMrjWidgV0m-A2FEJ3-wtNSdyBnyB5BdgYmnp0_uCkQIx8m4_V_mDMjrzQGJmT753q65NF9Gu0hm3X9jqlcJmZC7p50U1j6E3s5IRF845F5E-UN8RIbvbi1ac/s1600/9dc1220b3d52c45435d0a573d630eba6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1440" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHbT5W2_vs-2viKN-cI6KMrjWidgV0m-A2FEJ3-wtNSdyBnyB5BdgYmnp0_uCkQIx8m4_V_mDMjrzQGJmT753q65NF9Gu0hm3X9jqlcJmZC7p50U1j6E3s5IRF845F5E-UN8RIbvbi1ac/s320/9dc1220b3d52c45435d0a573d630eba6.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Twenty years ago one struggled to detect future societal trends. Today they rise up and bitch slap you in the morning headlines. </div>
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Tim Tebow putting his dog down was heart-rending. Watching Elizabeth Warren being shouted down by the very folks she and her liberal brethren have spawned was equally sad. While I have no affection for Warren it is sad to see what liberals have wrought in the spermal offal liberals they produced.........whole generations of severely imperfect societal tit suckers demanding perfection from others.</div>
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The media loves it. The national chaos fills their air time and keeps eyeballs glued to the screen.</div>
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There is a reason why we are experiencing a surge of folks who love dogs. All in all they are far nobler creatures than their human masters.</div>
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Trying to figure out what kind of society we'll have in twenty years is like trying to put together a jig saw puzzle. Government entities sue the drug companies for their drug abuse woes and their own failures in managing the problem. Problems themselves become society's solutions. Drug problem? Legalize cannabis and pass out free needles to those into heavier stuff.</div>
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Crime problem? Attack the police, call them racist when you find minorities represent the largest criminal element. Make police work such a hard road to hoe the good ones give up and you get cops as corrupt as that in a third world country. </div>
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Immigration problem? Ignore the immigration laws that are hard to enforce. Legalize the illegal. Throw out the welcome mat to all of central and south America and worry about the consequences later.</div>
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Education Problem? Ignore poor parenting and poor teachers and administration and just throw more money at it. Then dispense with grading and merit scores and failure becomes success. And when the illiterates migrate to adulthood forgive their student loans and raise hourly salaries to "living wages" with $15 dollar Big Macs, so that no one is a loser.</div>
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Our nation's history? Re-write it. Demonize the founders and every imperfect icon who ever trod on the American landscape. Stow their statues in industrial warehouses somewhere, then champion instead those who did nothing........and thus offend no one.</div>
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Capitalism? Do away with it. Brand every wealthy success story as an attack on the unproductive. Confiscate their wealth and give it to those too lazy to work. Rather than working to bake a bigger pie, fight over the little pie.</div>
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Heroes? Integrate women into combat units, even when they physically can't meet combat standards. Ignore the military altogether and choose as your icon Hollywood divas who display a talent for displaying butt and boob. Label blue collar as "dumb" for going to work everyday and keeping the lights burning and water running.</div>
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Greening? Shut down nuclear reactors, coal mines, natural gas companies and oil rigs and then try to figure out a way to keep the economy running on solar panels and windmills......or wonder about the energy source you'll use to re-charge that electric car. Cheer the "green champs", even as they flit about in their private jets and own a carbon footprint larger than your entire neighborhood.</div>
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There are 990 more of those "shards from hell"......but I'm tired of writing about them. As a nation we either try to piece those shards back together or we crumble, like Rome, into the ash heap of history.</div>
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Sigh.</div>
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A Modest Scriblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698092153994590787noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3360697570873499457.post-90632057174823135872019-11-22T02:00:00.000-07:002019-11-22T02:00:03.895-07:00I'm Not Ready For Still Another Social Experiment <br />
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<span data-offset-key="6kq6u-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Democratic candidates for President are so out of the mainstream even their party loyalists are agonizing over who might govern from the "left-middle". Not a week goes by that we don't see some new champion emerging in the polls. First it was Biden out front, then Bernie for a week or two, then Liz for a month. Now the polls in both New Hampshire and Iowa have South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg taking the lead.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="9qa18-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">I'm sorry but I'm not ready for "Mayor Pete" to be "President Pete". I'm sure I'm in the minority on this but I'm not ready for a "First Man", I'm not ready for the hand-holding and victory kisses. But most of all I'm not ready for the 20 percent of the country who are cruel savages, who fill social media with terms like President Butt Plug, or a Commander in Chief labeled as President Butt Giggle. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="3sf0-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Frankly, I'm not ready for still another social experiment. First we voted in a Black man who nearly destroyed us. Then we elected a businessman who couldn't recite you even the Preamble to the Constitution, or even score five of the ten Bill of Rights. This nation cannot afford still another social experiment.........just too see how a gay man might steer the ship of state.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="9a4v1-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">There may come a time for that. I don't believe it is now and I don't believe why I say that stems from my aversion to gay marriage. While I have resolved myself to accepting (and not being cruel about) gay marriage, I believe there are far too many important national issues that need to be resolved. And we don't resolve those with ever increasing fractures in our society.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="8uhcu-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Call me a sexual bigot if you like. But even when I throw out all the other objections to Buttigieg I can only come up with a mayor of South Bend, Indiana who has been largely ineffective in solving even that city's woes. How can we expect him to lead a nation when he has shown he can't even manage a city?</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="4ig7b-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">I have no idea who's gonna win the Democratic Presidential lottery. And don't much care. My values clash so fiercely with all of them I find none to be acceptable......"Mayor Pete" among them.</span></div>
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A Modest Scriblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698092153994590787noreply@blogger.com2