Sunday, February 2, 2014

Random Thoughts for February, 2014

Random Thoughts for February, 2014
Robert A. Hall

People ask me if coping with my lung transplant and the more regimented life style it gave me is hard. Not near as hard as Marine Corps Boot Camp, Parris Island in 1964. I've been trained to cope with things like this. Thank you Sgt. W. H. Harris, Sgt. M. P. Martin and Sgt. E. Owens, Jr., my DIs.

One of the changes that came with my new lung is a low sodium diet, as sodium interferes with my meds and creates Edema (swelling) in my legs. So at the Table of Life, I now sit below the salt. That's okay--at least I'm still at the table!

But if God had wanted me to be on a low-sodium diet, he'd have made more low-sodium food.

I've thanked God everyday for the gift of a new lung, thus the chance to live a few more years, and asked for comfort for the donor's family. I suspect it's because I'm an especially tricky work in progress, and God wanted more time.

With my new lung, I feel like a football team down three that kicks a field goal on the last play. It ain't over, but we are in overtime.

They told us to use tissues instead of hankies, and paper towels to dry hands instead of cloth ones, for infection control. Looking at how many we are going through, you might want to invest in the companies that make Puffs and Bounty Towels.

Most people seem to like having head colds several times a year. Or they are just too lazy to eliminate them. If they would wash their hands in warm water and soap for 20 seconds by count and dry with paper towels (not the germ ridden ones in the kitchen) every time thy use the bathroom, come in from outside or shake hands, and if they'd use a Neti pot twice a day to wash the virus from their nasal passages, they could eliminate 90% of their colds.

In politics, especially Washington, you cannot take any accusation or any denial at face value.

"Scared? I was shaking like a liberal confronted by reality..."

I'm thinking of writing another book: When good things happen to bad people.

There are two types of countries in the world. Ones where the military obeys the leader picked by the people, such as the United States, Britain and Israel, and countries where the people obey the leader picked or supported by the military, such as Egypt, North Korea, Syria and Russia.

It was Charles Anderson Dana, an editor in New York, who nicknamed Chicago the "Windy City." It wasn't the wind off the lake (I think Boston is windier off the ocean), but that Chicago had so many big talkers, full of empty promises. Promises like, "You can keep your plan, period," "I'll cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term," "You can keep your doctor," "No one making under $250,000 a year will pay a dime more in taxes," "I won't sign a healthcare bill that adds a dime to the deficit," "Under the ACA, the average family will save $2500 a year in premiums," "All bills will be posted on the Internet three days before I sign them," and, " "I'll have the most transparent administration in history."

Democrats believe that Republican corruption is evil, because it benefits the Republicans, but that Democrat corruption is at least passable, as it serves the "right policies." They all seem to do as well out of this personally as the corrupt Republicans, though.

No one who fathers and abandons a child for someone else to raise, often the taxpayers, deserves the title "Man."

I bet that some people say they are praying for you, but it's too much work to actually do so.

Notice those prating about "income inequality" never try to get the organizations they work for, such as the White House, to pay everyone employed there, from the boss to the janitor, exactly the same equal salary?

Irony is when a ship studying "global warming" gets stuck in the Antarctic ice in summer.

What's the difference between a Welfare Queen and a Crony Capitalist, like the folks at Solyndra? The cronies live better.

If scars are scary, my side where they put in the new lung would frighten a mongoose.

If a man has no enemies, he probably has no principles.

Given how the "War on Poverty" and "War on Drugs" has gone, Obama's "War on Income Inequality" shouldn't give inequality any worries.

Islam may be a Religion of Peace, but a lot more people are scared to offend Muslims and Islam than to offend Christians and Christianity.

I don't believe that Christie knew nothing about the "Bridge Gate" scandal anymore than I believe Obama knew nothing about the IRS, Fast & Furious, the NSA or the Benghazi cover up.

Many people act like they think God hears them when they pray, but isn't listening the rest of the time.

All you need to know about the Islamists' view of God is that they regularly use children as young as six as suicide bombers. I would defy a god who wanted me to do that.

People knock President Obama for having been a "community organizer," but that's not fair. I'm not aware of one thing he's ever organized well, except a campaign. And he had help with those--he didn't build that!

I think Obama has narcissistic personality disorder, with a touch of sociopathic tendencies that allow him to play humble and suck up to the less discerning. But underneath, I think he holds almost anyone not named Barack Obama in contempt.

My thirteen-year-old granddaughter is wearing a boy's necklace. I told her he could come over and help me clean my guns...

As bad as this world is, it would be a lot worse if it was as bad as the media reports.

OCDC: A former congressman obsessed with staying in Washington.

The world is inundated with jerks. I try not to be one of them. I think I mostly succeed, but...

The world is also full of weird people. In fact, we are all weird to someone--I certainly have been. In high school, most of the guys were interested in cars and football. I was into politics, poetry and history. They thought I was weird--until an English teacher assigned them to write a poem and I was suddenly popular. I wrote about eight different poems to the first two lines the teacher gave them, got all As or Bs. and I wasn't in her class.

The best preparation for a career in Burger Delivery is to major in something ending in "Studies," e.g. Gender Studies, Peace Studies, etc.

If you major in Education, Social Work or something else where there may be five graduates for every job opening, one person will get a job at low pay, as they can hire one of the others if the first choice won't work for that salary. The other four will work at McDonalds. This is called Basic Economics: The Law of Supply and Demand, which I realize is as obscure and esoteric on the left as Sanskrit.

Don't talk to me about "artificial intelligence." My computer already does too much evil that I didn't ask it for.

Maybe It's time to return to The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union?

Few thing fill me with dread like an announcement of upcoming "improvements" to a website or computer program I use often.

If I had a way to eliminate government waste in return for 1% of the savings, I'd be the richest man in the world.

If al Quada knew we were going to pass Obamacare and trillion dollar deficits, thus guaranteeing the near-future collapse of our economy and likely the country, they could have saved themselves the trouble of 9/11.

If they developed a method to determine if a baby in the womb was likely to be Gay, and parents started aborting them for sexual orientation, would progressives still think that abortion on demand for any reason was a good idea? They are fine with aborting girl babies for their gender and black babies at three times the population of blacks.

I do not understand the impulse of politicians like Obama, Christie and Hillary with her enemies list to want to punish people who opposed them in the last election. I wanted to win over  people who opposed me for the next election--the last one was history, and I had won it. For example, a local radio host of an Irish music program was a bitter opponent and supporter of the senator I defeated. I set out to win him over. (It didn't hurt that, though I can't sing, I like Irish folk music, or that he was basically a very good guy.) He ran events for the Jimmy Fund, fighting children's cancer. I went patiently to every event, supported it as I could, never asked him for support or anything. Pretty soon he was a big Hall booster, and had me on his show several times. Dumb politicians focus on the last election, smart ones on the next. But maybe their egos are bruised by opposition, and they can't help it.

Why would young people buy health insurance when they can wait and if they get sick, they can buy it then, as they cannot be turned down for a pre-existing condition? If this rule applied to car insurance, I'd wait until after the accident to buy it.

Funny how you don't hear much from Obama, his progressives worshipers and his media sycophants about the glories of the "Democratic Arab Spring" anymore.

Get the collection! My “Random Thoughts” from 2008 through July, 2013 are now collected in this book: The Old Jarhead's Journal: Random Thoughts on Life, Liberty, and Leadership by Robert A. Hall
The Old Jarhead’s Journal is a collection of Random Thoughts on politics and life and Conservative Political Essays, mostly published on the author’s blog, including the essay “I’m Tired” which went viral on the Internet in 2009, “The Hall Platform,” “This I Believe,” and “Why I’m a Republican.” While they will be of interest to conservative thinkers, they are collected here in book form as a service to readers who wish to give a copy to favorite liberals and watch their heads explode. All royalties are donated to the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund.

*****

Robert A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam Veteran who served five terms in the Massachusetts State Senate. He is the author of The Coming Collapse of the American Republic.

http://tiny.cc/g02s4 For a free PDF of Collapse, e-mail him at tartanmarine(at)gmail.com. Hall’s eleven books are listed here: http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2010/07/new-book-published.html

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