Random Thoughts for February,
2018.
By Robert A. Hall
Feel free to post or forward.
Trump was touted as a businessman
who would hire the best people. Looking at the failures and other aspects of
his businesses, I had my doubts. Now it seems like the Trump administration
has, as I feared, become the graveyard of careers. This list includes some big
Trump boosters. And he’s talked about firing Kelly and Sessions. When you talk
about the “deep state” and “draining the swamp,” remember there are a lot of
Obama appointees that Trump hasn’t been able to replace, or hasn’t gotten
around to. “Powerful White House staffer Rob Porter resigns — here are all
the casualties of the Trump administration so far.”
I’d like to see how this list compares with previous
administrations at this point. If you go to work for Trump now, know that the
media will interview every woman you dated, worked with or met, trying to find
a couple who will accuse you of something.
While some politically literate
liberals might understand how rapidly the Democrats have moved leftward, I
suspect that most run-of-the-mill activist Democrats don’t really see it. They
see the Republican party as having moved farther and farther away from them.
And the farther the Democrats drift, the more “extreme” they think the
Republican position is. –Jonah Goldberg
These days, supporting the
freedoms guaranteed in the constitution makes you a radical.
An impartial observer might well
find the political rhetoric of both sides to be hate speech. If there was an
impartial observer.
I have read that there are two
things every man believes passionately: that he is an above average driver and
that he has an above average intellect.
When you graduate from high school
or college, it is time to start your real education: lifelong reading. At 71, I
still read at least a book a week, somewhere between 50 and 75 a year (still below
the 100 books a year George W. Bush reportedly reads), about two-thirds serious
non-fiction. The person who doesn’t read a lot will not have a very successful
life.
We could stop the opioid abuse and drug overdose crisis if
we had the will. Arrest the dealers, including doctors, quick trial, fast
hanging. You say that’s cruel and inhuman? What’s cruel and inhuman is letting
20,000 Americans die from drug overdoses every year, murdered—that’s the right
word—by those selling the drugs. Singapore doesn’t have much of a drug problem,
I hear. Because they hang dealers. Singapore: Under Schedule 2 of the
Misuse of Drugs Act,
[26][27] any
person importing, exporting, or found in possession of more than the following
quantities of drugs receives a mandatory death sentence:
In life, there is no such thing as
a “gimme.” Make the opposition earn every point.
Most people are either a “sail” or
an “anchor.” And sometimes, to make progress, you have to cut the anchor line.
My fine motor skills are anything
but fine.
You can tell some people went to a
great deal of trouble and expense to make their hair look that weird.
Too many professional politicians
are amateur human beings.
My wife goes fairly often to get a
“permanent.” If you have to go often, shouldn’t they be called a “temporary”?
I hear they are coming out with
the Official NFL Wife-Beater Tee Shirt.
Few things are as pleasant as reading the
obituary of an old antagonist.
There is no such thing as a
“non-partisan” election. There are only openly partisan and secretly partisan
elections.
The first weekend in February was very frustrating. Saturday,
I was doing the end-of-January finances, putting things in our budget spread
sheet, and I discovered six bogus charges on our credit card. Five were to SAMS
clubs in AZ & NV, each for $105.38. The other was a charge to an AZ hotel
for $102.78. So, had to cancel the card, will get another, then update the
people we do direct payments to. Third time someone has stolen out number. Once
someone tried to buy three pair of jeans costing about $122 each! (I get mine
at Goodwill for $8.) Like to break their fingers. Sunday, I was going to do the
taxes, but discovered that Windows 10, which I upgraded to a month or two ago,
has no place to click to open the CD drive, so I can't install Turbo Tax. Very
annoying. Wife fixed it Monday, thankfully. (Then I did the taxes, and because
we earned $19k in PT jobs last year, they taxed our SS a lot more, so the
refunds were down $5K.)
The first progressive was the guy who killed the golden
goose hoping to get all the golden eggs at once.
Some people should be rendered into fat to grease wagon
wheels.
Speaking from experience, nothing makes a legislator more
independent than deciding not to run for reelection.
“I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be
supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.” –Viktor E.
Frankl, “Man’s Search for Meaning.”
With 12 million copies printed in 24 languages, this book by a Jewish
Psychiatrist who survived four concentration camps is widely read and
respected.
Everybody is entitled to their own idiosyncrasies.
Since they always boost spending, as nobody wants their
program cut, they might as well repeal the debt ceiling permanently. The coming
fiscal collapse will fix it anyway.
From what I see on the net, eating Tide Pods is an epidemic.
In my view, that is a good thing. It will likely take a lot of idiots out of
the gene pool before the procreate, or before they do worse things that hurt
other people who are not as stupid.
If you are trying to find an experienced, competent,
nonpartisan individual to appoint special counsel, or elections judge or to any
other office requiring independence, the pickings are going to be very slim.
TV Cooking Shows should be titled, “Making America more
obese.”
A 150 years ago, the people now selling “miracle cures” on
TV were peddling it in brown bottles, going town to town in “medicine wagons.”
Don’t eat at a restaurant where the silverware isn’t worth
stealing.
Eventually you will have been dead longer than you were
alive. But if you had meaning in your life, if you helped other people to be
better, to be happier, your spirit will live down through the ages.
I met a weirdo the other day. His tee shirt was blank, he
didn’t have a smart phone to study, and he greeted everyone politely in a
friendly way.
If you don’t feel like the world is falling apart around you…you’re
probably not paying attention.
You must always remember that the clothes you wear make a
statement. Mine, for example, say, “Goodwill! Goodwill!”
Increasingly I think the FBI should be called The Federal
Bureau of Ineptitude.
My job interviewing vets at the VA for the My Life, My Story program keeps me
grounded. Every week I talk to vets who are worse off than I am, and/or have
been through much worse than I have.
I have always hated the euphemism “Passed Away” like the
person ran out to the store, will be right back. But eventually it will acquire
the negative connotations of “died” and have to be replaced with something
milder. Given the tech age we live in, I can imagine the next generation
saying, “Grandma has gone to liver in the Cloud.”
There’s a difference between “change” and “improvement.”
Many changes make things worse.
When I was in high school, I couldn’t have told you what
marijuana or heroin were, or the difference between them. There’s a change that
is not progress.
If you live in Chicago, you don’t have to visit Detroit.
Detroit is coming to you.
I believe in the constitution, small government, free trade,
and fiscal responsibility. What party should I support?
Think there’s not media bias? Wisconsin just had it’s spring
primary for the state supreme Court election. The final is in April. Turnout was
up; 11.8% of registered voters voted. There was one conservative candidate,
Judge Michael Screnock (whom I voted for), and two liberals, Judge Rebecca Dallet
and Attorney Tim Burns. The two top vote getters go to the finals. I knew Screnock
had advanced, but didn’t know the totals, so while doing my med stuff Wednesday
morning, I flipped through the local channels. NBC had news and the election
story came up. They said that Screnock and Dallet will face off in April. They
did not mention that Screnock was first with 46.6% of the vote to Dallet’s
36.8%. They showed two pictures, Nallet and a bald guy. Maybe they mixed up the
pictures and it was Burns, who is bald. Maybe it was an old picture of Screnock
and he had a hair transplant. But he has hair now and had hair back when he was
appointed to the circuit court. I conclude they, being a leftist Madison
station, were subtlety trying to influence the April vote. Despite his win,
Screnock must improve his turn out, as Burns is far left, promising to
legislate his liberal agenda from the bench, and his voters will surely go for
Nallet.
Who says Europe can never be united? Both Napoleon and
Hitler came very close.
People who had “better things to do” than serve the country
in the military (Think Clinton, Obama, and Trump. And G. W. Bush served in the
reserves, but never volunteered to fly those jet in Vietnam) will wonder when
the country collapses, as I fear it will, why somebody didn’t do something.
When I die, don’t put the flag at half-mast. I fought all my
life to keep it high.
I told my boss I wanted to complain about sexual harassment.
Specifically, that no one thought I was worth harassing!
Don’t give house space to dishes that have only one
function, or are for only one food. In my dad’s collection of “what’s its”
there was a watermelon dish, that would hold one slice, cut to that size, and
nothing else.
Perhaps public opinion is so fickle and the public’s attention
span about that of a gnat because most of the public is so poorly-informed. To be
fair, with all sources now pushing an agenda, being even moderately
well-informed takes a lot of work.
All those teens campaigning for gun control. Maybe we should
let them vote on a 15-year-old drinking age?
I read that the Louisville Basketball Team has been stripped
on their 2013 title and had to forfeit a bunch of games, as the coaches had
been arranging strippers and prostitutes for the players. I just want to assure
my readers that none of that went on with the Mount Wachusett Chess Team when I
played first board and lettered in chess during the 69-70 season. No sir.
I think smart phones make people stupid.
School Shooters are just one of many poisoned fruits we have
inherited from the destruction of the culture in the 1960s. Did you hear of
them before that?
"Just last week, Congress was calling on Tide to change
the design of the Pods so teenagers would stop eating them. This week,
people want Congress to listen to these same teenagers to determine gun
policy?” — From Facebook
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.
*****
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