Random Thoughts for January
2021
Robert A. Hall
Feel free to post or forward.
Health update: I’m pretty much recovered from the left lung removal in June. Stomach only upset infrequently, appetite back, weight 158.9 lbs. last Sunday compared to 158.5 the day of the operation (It got down to 137.7. I have now cut way back on the Halvah bars I was eating to gain weight. Gained 10 lbs. in December.) Pain in left side mostly gone. Still sleeping 10-11 hours a day, but off the anti-fungal, so perkier. Big problem now is the osteo-arthritis in my right hip. Lots of pain. Using a walker at home, a wheelchair at the VA and an electric cart at the store. Will try to convince the VA to do a hip replacement; risky because I’m immune-suppressed. But I came through the lung removal okay. If not, will have to look at mobility scooters. I will be 75 in April, if I’m spared (as the Scots say). So I’m definitely old.
I still don’t do messenger on Facebook.
And when someone on Facebook says, “Bet you won’t share,” they win.
I’m not saying “Happy New Year” until I get some assurance it will be happy. It may be worse.
I’m all for “Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men,” provided the men don’t want to tell me what religion to follow, or to rule, enslave, or kill me. See, that’s gonna be a problem right there with the whole goodwill thing.
It feels like people put up more Christmas lights this year, and earlier. Maybe needed a little cheer.
Let he who is without sin cast the first tweet!
Trump supporters think Biden and his family are crooks. Biden supporters think Trump and his family are crooks. Could they both be right?
“The spirit of which I speak creates imaginary and magnifies the real causes of complaint; arrogates to itself every virtue—denies every merit of its opponents; secretly entertains the worst designs…mounts to pulpit, and, in the name of a God of mercy and peace, preaches discord and vengeance; invokes the worst scourges of Heaven, war, pestilence, and famine, as preferable alternatives to party defeat; blind, vindictive, cruel, remorseless, unprincipled, and at last frantic, it communicates its madness to friends as well as foes; respects nothing, fears nothing.” –Sen. Edward Livingston, speech to the Senate, 1830
National Review reports that the 2019 world energy numbers. From wind and solar: 1.5%. From Hydro: 2.7%. From nuclear: 1.7%. From burning coal, gas, oil, wood and biofuels: 94%. I guess Hot Air from proponents of the Green New Deal might add about .5%.
"Live your life that the
fear of death can never enter your heart.
Trouble no one about his
religion.
Respect others in their views
and demand that they respect yours.
Love your life, perfect your
life, beautify all things in your life.
Seek to make your life long
and of service to your people.
Prepare a noble death song for
the day when you go over the great divide.
Always give a word or sign of
salute when meeting or passing a friend,
or even a stranger, if in a lonely
place.
Show respect to all people,
but grovel to none.
When you rise in the morning,
give thanks for the light,
for your life, for your
strength.
Give thanks for your food and
for the joy of living.
If you see no reason to give
thanks, the fault lies in yourself.
Abuse no one and no thing, for
abuse turns the wise ones to fools
and robs the spirit of its
vision.
When your time comes to die,
be not like those whose hearts
are filled with fear of death,
so that when their time comes
they weep and pray for a little more time
to live their lives over again
in a different way.
Sing your death song, and die
like a hero going home."
-- Tecumseh
(1768-1813) Shawnee Chief
Funny how the right loved AG Barr and the left hated him. Switched now.
So I’m in the VA
for bloodwork. Guy at the kiosk in front of me doesn’t put his VA card in.
(Which you need to do to verify it’s you.) Paper pasted to the bottom of the
machine says: To complete your registration press:
PRINT NUMBER
This gives you
your room number and where you are in line.
So he reaches out and presses “print number” on the paper!
Th problem isn’t those who distrust the media. The problem is that so many still trust it.
Nothing says “I support slavery” like buying Nike products.
Watch for the Biden administration to transfer money from your wallet to prop up failing pension systems in Democrat run cities and states.
It has become clear that Trump rejecting the TPP played into China’s hands.
Trump thinks Russia is fine. Biden thinks China is fine. Both are enemies of the US.
In 1960, 40% of the world lived in severe poverty according to the World Bank. Now less than 10% do. Thanks you free markets.
According to National Review it takes 150 tons of coal and two tuns of rare earth minerals to make one wind turbine. This will save the earth?
We finished our Christmas shopping in November. But we didn’t stop.
“I have found alimony and a mortgage a pretty good way to cure writers block. I highly recommend it.” –Arthur Roberts.
Facebook posters seem to think everyone who voted for Trump thinks alike.
Funny how the people calling for unity are also calling for draconian action against Trump and Republicans.
A vet I interviewed for My Life, My Story at the Madison VA told me his philosophy is that, “You are a product of your environment until you know better. Once you know better, it’s up to you. That keeps you from blaming anybody else; I can’t blame Vietnam, I can’t blame my mom, I have to take responsibility for myself.” Wish everybody thought this way.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. Their very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals. —C. S. Lewis.
In chess, politics, or war, it is fatal to assume your opponent is doing, or will do, what you want him to do.
The Grinch is a Democrat.
The more the left talks about limiting the Second Amendment, the more guns and ammo are sold.
When Black Lives Matter defaced the memorials to General Grant, Colonel Heg, the gallant black regiment the 54th Massachusetts, and others who fought slavery, the ghosts of slave owners grinned and muttered, “We told you the darkies didn’t want freedom.”
“That special infatuation with sentimentality we continue to misname Liberalism.” –Roger Kimble.
Thee elites who preach socialism always seem to keep their luxuries, money, and capital investments.
(Speaking of the UN.) “Why in the world should any sensible person give a damn what the spokesman for cannibalistic tribes or slave-holding nomads things about nuclear testing?” --James Burnham
If the people who want to bring down America succeed, they will find that what replaces it is much, much worse.
Postpone your responsibilities and they will bite you hard tomorrow.
With Trump-haters having said they wouldn’t take the vaccine because it was produced by his Warp Speed program and they don’t trust Trump, and Trump lovers saying they won’t take it because Fauci recommends it and they don’t trust Fauci, there should be plenty for the rest of us.
Guy told me to go to an AA meeting. I said I already had plenty of batteries.
From Facebook: A hate crime is disagreeing with a liberal.
“Human beings are born with different capacities. If they are free, they are not equal. And if they are equal, they are not free.” ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Get the collection! My
“Random Thoughts” from 2009 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 twelve 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. During the
crisis he is working from home.