Thursday, February 1, 2018

Random Thoughts for February

Random Thoughts for February, 2018.
By Robert A. Hall
Feel free to post or forward.

Once the Trump fire-eaters have replaced all the “RINOs” with liberal Democrats, as they did with Senator Doug Jones in Alabama, and Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer control the congress and the flow of business from liberal-dominated committees, things will get better, right!

I expect if and when ISIS is finally eradicated, the liberal press will headline it: “Trump defeats JV team.”

The line between heroic and foolhardy is very thin.

The Weather Channel at 6:00 am on 1/3/18: “The current temperature is 12. The high today is 10.” Pardon me, but isn’t 6:00 am part of today?

Fat-free, sugar-free, GMO-free or gluten free do not mean “Good for you.”

I dreamt that I was at a secular meeting at a large church and saw this quote, attributed to one of the Psalms, on a poster: “I shall speak and my words shall be a banner on the tower.” Google turns up nothing similar. Anyone ever heard anything like this?

I don’t believe that the Russians were trying to help either Trump or Hillary get elected. I think they were just trying to sow hatred, bitterness, distrust and confusions among Americans to weaken our country. Mission accomplished.

From the Net: Hillary Clinton took an axe. And gave her emails 40 whacks. When the job was nicely done. She told Congress she had none.

I hate automated toilets, sinks and towel dispensers. Standing there waving my hands at an uncooperative sink makes me feel like an idiot. I hate companies’ voice mail hell. I hate seeing people wandering around like zombies studding their smart phones. Maybe I just hate the 21st century. Not that the 20th was a bundle of joy.

I wish I had the money to start a fair, balanced and unbiased newspaper, that presented both sides of an issue. No slander, name calling or vituperation allowed. I’d name it The Forlorn Hope, because both sides would eviscerate it.

I find it hard to take health advice from a nurse or other provider who is an obese smoker.

With good employees, you don’t have to reprimand them for a mistake. You only have to point it out, then stand by to step in to keep them from beating themselves up too badly about it.


Someone once joked that the unwritten subtitle of every Washington memoir was “If Only They Had Listened to Me.” –Jim Geraghty

You should get irritation pay for putting up with some people.

When folks say, “In a perfect world…’” I want to say., “In a perfect world, you and I, being imperfect people, wouldn’t be here.”

Life is full of catch 22s. I am diabetic from the meds for my lung transplant, so I have to keep my sugar intake down. I also have osteoporosis from the meds, so need to drink more milk. Which has 12 grams of sugar per cup.

Some people think that the expiration date on food products is a law of nature and they instantly go bad on that date. In reality, some go bad before the date and some are good years after.

I know too many people who are worse than worthless.

Those who seek to run from the challenges of life, who try to hide from its hard realities, who want to foist the work and suffering off on others, find in the end that they have led sad, empty and meaningless lives.

If you vote for despicable people, why are you surprised when you get despicable government? If you vote for narrow self-interest over the good of the country, why are you surprised the country is going to hell?

Some people don’t have families, they have circuses.

If half of what a politician, a salesman or an advertising man tells you is true, he will soon have a reputation for being bluntly honest.

(Arthur) Brooks: The “deep truth” is that “Work, not money, is the fundamental source of our dignity. Work is where we build character.” It is not in our consumption, but in the “practice of offering up our talents for the service of others” that we find “value with our lives and (that we) lift up our own souls.” –Sen. Ben Sasse, The Vanishing American Adult, P155.

Recently I did a My life, My Story interview with a vet at the VA. When the next day I took him back his copies of the story I wrote, he said, “Bob, you’re a wonder. I have a bad cancer. Now they are just trying to extend my expiration date. I really appreciate this and my family will appreciate it as well.”

I don’t believe in ghosts. But if it turns out they are real, I have a long list of people I want to come back and terrorize.

So, I read that all of the 70 or so computer models of climate change have been wrong over the past ten years, showing far more warming than occurred. And we know the predictions have been wrong, from the prediction by Rep. Pat Kennedy that the kids in Virginia wouldn’t know what a sled was for, to Al Gore’s prediction that the artic would be ice-free by 2013. But if you are skeptical about their doomsday claims, YOU are the science denier.

Rationalizations are the most potent enemy to integrity. They work like an anesthetic to our consciences allowing us to avoid the pain of guilt when we don’t live up to our values. We want to think well of ourselves so much that we develop strategies to convince ourselves that we are better than we actually are. --the Josephson Institute

Man walked by our house, pushing a baby carriage, walking a dog on a leash and studying his phone at the same time. Another Smartphone Slave.

If the thought is as bad as the deed, e.g., lusting in your heart is as bad as adultery, isn’t the thought also as good as the deed? Isn’t wanting to help the poor is as good as helping the poor?

Hardly a drama movie today can be produced without the empty cliché, “Failure is not an option!” It may not be your preferred outcome, but it is certainly always possible, usually strongly possible in the cases it’s used in. It only means, “I really, really don’t want to blow this!”

You’d have to be really old to remember when Newtonian Physics was settle science. Before Einstein.

If they are heavily advertising a drug on TV, you know they are making a lot of money selling it.

If Obama or Trump said the sun would rise in the west tomorrow, you can bet that thousands of their most rabid partisans would be out there waiting to see it. And would blame it on the other party when it didn’t happen.

I have read that a majority of people under 30 oppose unlimited Freedom of Speech, because it allows people to say things that hurt others feelings. So, I ask them “Who gets to decide what is forbidden? The Government now in the hands of trump and Republicans? I find the NFL players protest of the national anthem and the flag my friends died for as hateful, offensive and it hurts my feelings. If I decide, they would be rounded up and put in jail.”

I think I’ve mentioned this peeve before. Our recycling bin is a third smaller than the trash bin, and they only pick up every two weeks, but every week for trash. That means we often have a couple of bags that don’t fit in recycling, while the trash bin is partly empty. If only I could think of a solution…

                           
Get the collection! My “Random Thoughts” from 2008 through July, 2013 are 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://www.amazon.com/Coming-Collapse-American-Republic-prevent/dp/1461122538/ref=sr_1_5?s=booksandie=UTF8andqid=1304815980andsr=1-5 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. His blog of political news and conservative comment is www.tartanmarine.blogspot.com. He currently works part-time as a writer-editor in the My Life, My Story program as the Madison VA hospital, interviewing vets and writing up their life histories.

No comments:

Post a Comment