So You'll Be Screwed Either Way...

So you're headed out to visit Aunt Maude and Uncle Herb this Labor Day Weekend.  And that involves filling up the old steed.  Something we've come to dread because gasoline costs are way to high.  And they have been since O'Biden took office.  

Shutting down the XL-Pipeline before lunch on Day One had a lot to do with it.  Killing fracking and refusing to issue new drilling leases did the rest.  And gas has fluctuated from too expensive to way-to-expensive ever since.  Our National Average per gallon was $2.42 on the Day O'Biden/Harris took office.

It's $3.41 today.

Which brings me to the subject of today's rant.  I've always wondered why gasoline costs so much more here in Taxifornia than it does anywhere else.

Perhaps you have as well.

As in, gas costs $5.00 a gallon here or even more.  It costs $6.00 or $7.00 up the Coast, which should outrage them, but somehow doesn't.  It's up to $8.50 in Baker, I hear.  That's halfway to Vegas and I guess they're just practicing "we have it, you don't" economics.  

I think they think if you're dumb enough to drive 5 hours to offload your $Cash, why should they cut you a break on the price of their gas?  

And while we're shelling out our $Cash for this overpriced gas, we're watching the Talking Heads on TV tell us about how low our National Average for gas now is.  Have you ever noticed that our "Corporate Media" never mentions that fact that 15% of the U. S. population, 41 Million People, Taxifornia residents, are paying $2.00 a gallon more?  

Maybe it's because they're Democrats, and the folks running Taxifornia are Democrats, so they don't want to risk embarrassing them.  Assuming they possess the genes permitting them to actually be embarrassed, that is.  

That's capitalism, folks!  If you need it, and somebody else has it, they they can charge anything they want.  And you have to pay it.  Which is how I envisioned how the dicks in Sacrascrewyou have been orchestrating this trainwreck; make gas so expensive the rubes have to buy those little electric buggies.  For twice what other cars cost.  That don't run in either cold winters or hot summers.  With dammm few places to charge.  So that the planet can continue to survive.*  

CO2 and all that...

But I really wanted to know if there was anything more than just rank politics in the price of our gas.  Nobody else's gas, just ours!  And I did.  Perhaps you can learn from my efforts as well...

Taxifornia is pretty much divorced from the rest of the gas and oil market.  There are no pipelines crossing the Sierra Nevada.  We don't compete with any other producers on price or availability.  Only our own local drillers and producers.  And the "Jones Act" prevents us from shipping barrels of crude oil by ship.  Natural disasters and all that.  It's also much pricier to ship oil when others are delivering it by pipeline.  

The State is also isolated by choice.  The Idiots in Charge have mandated a special blend ("bubble, bubble, toil and trouble") of smog-reducing gasoline.  They say.  I sure hope that helps to offset the 54% of all of Earth's atmospheric pollution contributed by China and India.  For which they're doing Absolutely Nothing to minimize.  The U.S. is responsible for only 27% of all pollution, and because our private refineries have been investing in clean energy, that number has been going down annually for more than two decades.

And then there's the $1.67 in State and Federal taxes Taxifornia adds to every single gallon (the Feds charge $0.18).  Which is the highest in the Nation and nearly twice what the #2 state charges (NY, $0.87).  Why?  Because our BoyGuv ("Hairgod") Newsom says so.  And he's calling the shots.  Somebody voted for him and he's making us pay.  

And he also wants to depress demand for gasoline so his unilateral (and unconstitutional) pronunciamento ordering Taxifornia to permit nothing but "zero emission vehicles" to be sold here by 2035 is followed.  

So if you can make it too expensive for Juan to get to his tree trimming job unless he buys an electric car, and electric cars cost a $Bundle more than gas cars, and Juan cannot afford to buy one, then Juan goes out of business.  And has to fire his brother and two of his cousins.  Sorry, Juan!  Juan will no longer have a choice.  The very choice that Capitalism demands.  

I can only assume Capitalism no longer exists in Taxifornia.

Is that what states are supposed to do for their citizens?  TO their citizens?

Then there's the problem with the signal this sends to the State's refiners.  They now know their future is limited, so they'll back away from any major financial investments to either improve or expand their operations.  Yet, the State needs them to continue operating at peak levels to meet current and future demand, while they tinker with their little autocratic electric car, save-the-planet thingie.  

That their citizens do not want.   

But Read This:  Import dependency has just about doubled relative to the 5 years prior to that.  We are now importing more than 75% of all our oil!  We're standing on it, yet they're importing it!  And it's coming from places like Colombia and Venezuela.  Remember when Hairgod told us more than half our energy was now coming from so-called "clean" sources?  Another lie?

And then there's the refinery crisis waiting-to-happen.  There were 14 operating refineries in the State as of 1/1/2024 compared to 21 a decade ago.  Making us more vulnerable should a refinery goes down.  Which they do all the time.    

Looks like scared money to me...  

Pluuuuuussssss, we're sitting on a river of oil.  The U.S. Geological Survey tells us we have proven crude oil reserves under our feet, right here in beautiful Taxifornia, of between 1.7 and 5.6 Billion Barrels of Oil.  That's enough for the next 200 years.  And although one would think we'd be exploiting those reserves, our oil production is less than half of what it was 30 years ago.  Aging fields, coupled with the enviro-wacko tree-huggers, have forced the Gubmint to refuse permmiting for any new ones. 

So here's the deal, as the cops like to say.  If you're one of those few who still live here in the once-Golden State, you're basically screwed.  Either way.  We're gonna' wind up like Cuba.  Everyone driving '54 Chevies and '56 Fords because of embargoes.  We'll be scrounging like Mad Max for black market gas, while the Rich drive bloated, overpriced PIE golf carts.  

Charged by electricity, BTW, which is manufactured by gigantic outfits like PG&E and SCE, fired by oil and gas.  

Ever wonder what will happen when there's no more oil and gas?  And the wind isn't blowing?  And the sun isn't shining?  

Horses and buggies.  Is that where they want us?

*    Remember, plug-in electric (PIE) cars did not exist until 10 years ago.  And now those we've elected are trying to stuff them down our throats.  While the manufacturers of PIE's are dumping their programs.  Ford loss $4.5 Billion on them last year.  That's a $44,000 loss for every car they sold.  And their trade-in values have plummeted since Hertz dumped 90,000 PIE's due to overly high maintenance costs.  Which should scare every prospective PIE purchaser.  Oh yeah, 4 out of 10 PIE purchasers say they're going back to gas-powered cars.  I guess saving the planet isn't all that big of an incentive...    

  

Be Thankful You're Average...

Now let me start by reminding my loyal Fellow Patriots that I'm a car guy of the First Magnitude.  I've personally owned more than 100 of them, have raced them in all sorts of ways, have used them in commerce, and have showed them in competitions.  So I really love speed and acceleration and try and get a dose any time I can. 

So when I read about the most recent Bugatti we can buy, I dug beneath the headlines a little.  I wanted to know beyond the purchase price just how much this thing would cost you or me to actually drive.  On the road, where it belongs.  And you're now getting the inside information. 

One of the joys of being filthy rich is you get to buy a lot of cool stuff.  Great big houses, and blingy jewelry, and the fastest jets, and snazzy clothes, and cool cars.  

Cool, expensive cars.

Except, once you've got all that stuff, you become paranoid about losing it.  Getting it stolen from you while you're getting your "Man of the Year" award, doncha' know.

Like one car I'd like to own for instance is the Bugatti Veyron.  Or even the newer Chiron model.  They're built in France for one reason and one reason alone:  To go really dammm fast.  As in, the first road-legal automobile to go faster than 300 miles per hour.  Built for those few who just have to have a car that will go 300 miles per hour.  There just cannot be all that many who do, and not too many who can also pay for it, I'm thinking.

However, highly-tuned automobiles require extra maintenance.  Done by extra expensive mechanics.  In extra expensive places.  Lemme' tell you about it...  

Let's say you've got what they call "F-you money," and along with a big house and your own little jet and the requisite 18 year-old girlfriend, you just have to have the most expensive car in the world.  Like $3,600,000 expensive, for either model.  So you write the check and get the keys.  Oh, but that's not the end.  

When you buy something so tightly-wound that it will scream to 250 mph or more in less than a half-mile, you have to feed that sucker.  You have to give it premium oats to keep it flying high!  And in the case of the Veyrons/ Chirons, we're talking 1,300 horsepower.  16 cylinders.  Four turbochargers.  Think about that... 

So, in addition to supplying your new steed with a climate-controlled garage fit for a king, with 24-hour security, which costs a fortune, you'll have to also pay to keep it performing as it should.  And here's a list of your Bugatti Routine Maintenance Requirements (read it and weep!):

     -  Annual Maintenance Inspection:  $10,950,  Molsheim, France.  ($25,000 if air freight to Molsheim proves necessary!)

     -  Replace all fluids annually:  $25,000

     -  Replace all tires (required every year):  $38,000

     -  Replace all wheels (must occur every 10,000 miles):  $50,000

     -  Turbocharger Replacement (it has 4):  $6,400

     -  Front Brake Rotors:  $18,347

     -  Front Brake Pads:  $18,317 (!)

     -  Rear Brake Pads:  $4,024

     -  Transmission Replacement:  $185,469

     -  Replace Tailight:  $10,000

     -  Replacement Key:  $13,547

And get this, if for some reason you have the very worst day a Bugatti-owning $Billionaire can possibly have, and your headlights get broken.  And they need replacement.  Ya' ready?  

     -  Replacement Headlights:   

                      $164,000!*

My statistics-oriented mind automatically went to how much this thing would cost per mile if you drove it 12,000 a year?  After you pay $50,000 a year to insure it?  I'm thinking that even if you could afford to buy it, you just might not be able to afford to drive it!  In fact, most owners say they drive their Bugattis less than 100 miles per year. (!)

BTW, one sprint to 250 mph burns 8 gallons of high-test fuel.

So please revel in your normalcy and average-ness.  Be happy you're driving a Honda and it runs just fine and you'll likely never have to take it in for service.  Ever.  But we have therefore accept the fact that we'll never know the absolute joy of planting our Johnson & Murphys flat to the floor on the Autobahn and letting one of these boys out of the barn!   

And I do mean OUT!  

Zero to 60 mph in 1.5 seconds.  150 mph in 8.9 seconds.  250 mph in less than a half-mile.  Screaming at the top of its Gaulish lungs!  Scaring the crap out of the driver!  And dayummm, I'd love to experience that feeling.  But thank you anyway, not for $7,999 a mile.  Or whatever...

Imagine losing your key?  $13 Grand!  You sh*tin' me?

And I'll never worry about some creep trying to steal my ride.  And having to whip out my heater and blowing holes in him/her/it.  I'll just be average, and own a ride that looks pretty good but nobody wants to steal.  And then sleep like a baby...

*     There were only 500 sets made originally, artfully crafted, actually, and 360 have been used in production.  Only.  And there won't be any more produced...

For Those Who've Never Had the Pleasure...

I share this wonderful Country with 1,700,000 other Veterans of military service.  Who I think of often.  Especially those Vets who are sleeping on our sidewalks tonight.  We do so much for economic refugees (i.e., Illegal Aliens) from 156 countries, so far, but nada, zip nothing for our own Veterans.  Do they get a free cell phone?  Do they get a bus or train or plane ticket to anywhere, paid for by you and me?  Do they get free legal services?  Free rent, food and clothing?  Nooooooooo!

I think it's shameful.  I also think that my time in the military helped make me into who I finally turned out to be.  And here's a little tale about how all that journey started...

It was late in the afternoon of October 31st, 1966.  That would be Halloween.

And I was being formally inducted into the United States Army that very same day.  Trick or Treat!

I rolled into Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri just before sundown.  My life as a pool hustling, car racing, girl chasing, poker playing and beer drinking scofflaw was over.  My life as cannon fodder in our "Police Action" against some poor folks 8,000 miles away was just beginning.  

And I was scared sh*tless.

I sold my 1966 Chevrolet Corvette.  It was a sweet 427 cube, 425 hp., 4-speed with side pipes.  And all my guns.  52 of them.  Gave away all my hunting and fishing stuff, too.  I fully expected to be sent to Viet Nam.  I fully expected to have to get off the plane running, with some assassin taking pot shots at me.  I'd lived my life like the moth next to a flame.  I didn't expect to live to see 40.  Pool hustlers are like that.  I spent most of my evenings and weekends in dirty, dark biker bars with names like "Dew Drop Inn."  Places where you can get beat to death by a guy named "Bunny" and be buried near the tracks.  

So I wasn't quite sure how my new life would unfold.  But I knew it would be rough.  And here's how it all began...  

The Continental Trailways bus I was riding in arrived at the front of the Fort Leonard Wood U. S. Army Induction Center right at 5:00 p.m.  I was ushered off the bus along with 23 other young guys by an Army sergeant with the loudest voice I've ever heard.  Made even louder as it reverberated around the inside of the bus like a BB in a boxcar.  

I remembered I'd forgotten my earplugs.

We were herded, not usered.  Screamed at!  Cursed!  Belittled!  Intimidated!  Intentionally, I later learned.  This was the beginning.  They were stripping us of our identity.  To take us apart and then hopefully put us back together over the coming weeks in the mold of the U. S. Army.  To build us into soldiers.  Who would follow orders as given.  Without hesitation.  As a hesitation might cause death.  Yours and a lot of somebody elses.

Individualism is not appreciated in the Army. 

And as we were in the build-up stage of that Viet Nam Unpleasantness, following orders to a "T" might be our only chance of survival...

We scurried off the bus.  We were ordered to line up, side-by-side.  With me, being the tallest of the 23, all the way at the right end of the line.  It was a cold, wet, misty, dank, late October evening.  And it was near freezing.  That kind of bone-chilling, late Fall cold Missouri is so famous for.  

It was uncomfortable, as Missouri weather can often be.  I tried to explain Missouri weather one time.  There are four distinct seasons.  Winter, almost Summer, Summer, and almost Winter.  And each of those "almosts" lasts about two weeks...   

We were shaking like dogs sh*tting razor blades.  Out of fear and from the cold.  And then this little bitty guy with a Smokey the Bear hat came strutting his way out of the front gate and up to me.  He was a Filipino drill sergeant, and he came so close to me that the brim of his hat was banging onto my sternum.  Over and over.  As he screamed at me.  I was looking down on the top of that hat.  That was the only thing I could see of this guy who I'd never met but clearly did not like me.

A lot.

This guy was no more than 5' 5", proof that the Army is a good career option for those with no other options.  Or, if you're dumber than a bag of rocks, and can learn to scream gibberish at total strangers...

BTW, they were orders.  I think.  Or very loud requests, at least.  

This little dude was screaming in some language approximating English.  It was Tagalog, I later learned.  That's the national language of the Filipines.  And English.  Which they have to learn in order to become nurses at the Lost Angeles County USC Medical Center (inside joke).  I only understood about every third word.  I think he thought by screaming down the tallest guy there, he could intimidate all the other poor losers.  Instead, my chuckling at the hilarity of it all, laughing out loud, actually, so incensed this little drill sergeant that he ordered me to stand at attention, in the cold, for the next hour and a half.    

And the "Army" hadn't even really gotten started yet!

BTW, I got pneumonia and spent my first week in the Army in the hospital.  And the little Filipino guy probably got a promotion.

And when it did get started, boy, did it ever!  It would take nearly the 4 years to tell you about my 4 years of the Army.  Via the Army I was able to visit more than 20 countries.  It sent me to Germany to work in Army Intelligence.  An oxymoron, I'm aware.  I'd love to tell you how I saved everybody's butt from communism, but nearly everything I did is still classified.  So there's that... 

I was a loudmouth pool hustler who thought everyone wore a moneybelt and carried a gun before I went in.  By the time I came out I was seasoned, hardened, tough, resilient, well educated and wise.  I signed up to be an Army sniper.  I was able to make a far greater contribution than shooting one Bad Guy at a time.

Maybe one day I'll write about it.  The stuff I'm able to, that is...

The Army made me one very grown-up gentleman.  And Patriot.  One well prepared to take my place in society.  If you've got a son or daughter who could use some growing up and a free college education (and take the burden to pay for that education off of  you), call your Congressman.  He'll help get the paperwork to Anapolis, or West Point, or Colorado Springs started.  It just might be the second best decision you'll ever make.  Marrying your wife or husband being the first, of course...

"Desensibilisieren."

That's the German word for "Desensitization."  A process Adolph Hitler's Nazi Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels used to "mold" his citizens into those who could be easily led into doing the unimaginable.  Let's see what the Oxford Language Dictionary calls it:  

Desensitize:  "Make (someone) less likely to feel shock or distress at scenes of cruelty, violence, or suffering by overexposure to such images.  'The Media has desensitized him to the horror of violence.'" 

Are we becoming "desensitized" because of the 24/7 onslaught from both our "Corporate Media" and our "Social Media," from every single angle, all day and all night long?  Or is our society becoming ever more course?  And ugly?  And self-centered?  And uncaring?  And even unpatriotic?  

And certainly ungodly.  And crime-ridden.  And scary.  And in an alarming recent discovery by me, and I'd guess half of America, even antisemitic. 

I grew up in a time when none of this would have been tolerated.  It would have been rooted out, macht schnell.  Done away with.  Like Giuliani erased the Mafia in the 80's and 90's.  We wouldn't have put up with gangs of theives emptying our stores.  The stores owned and operated by our neighbors.  Perhaps your neighbors.  Killing their livelihoods.  

And offering pre-forgiveness via "feelgood" Liberal insanties like "no cash" bail.  

Officially sanctioning the theft of up to $950.00 a day, per store!  And in the rare instance when a cop happens to be nearby, and hasn't yet decided that "Protecting and Serving" is optional, he just might arrest them.  Resulting in a $50 misdemeanor ticket, without a court date to appear.   

Or if the crook had resisted, and forced an arrest, he'd be back out on the street before the cop was through the booking process.  

Like I mentioned in this humble blog awhile back, the average number of arrests before imprisonment is now 37!  When you don't punish bad behavior, you get more bad behavior.  I know that.  You know that.  Why don't the stupid fools who run the Big Blue States and Cities know that?  

Or are they so far removed from the damage they've caused that it never negatively impacts them?  

Everything our society is facing hardens us.  It steels us to the outrage occuring around us.  The crimes are bigger.  They occur more often.  More shootings.  More muggings.  More carjackings.  We need to cover our ears sometimes to stop the onslaught!  It's like living in a tinderbox, never knowing when somebody's going to go "BOOM!"  You can't carry firearms, 'cause guns be "BAD!"  But they're emptying our prisons.  A total and complete oxymoron.

Thank God for food delivery services so we don't have to go outside!  

We're taxed out of our shoes.  The bozos back there in the Swamp will do everything they can to deprive us of our liberties.  To make us more compliant.  Our "Freedom of Speech" is being legislated away.  The "Right to keep and bear arms" has been erased in half of our states.  The Right to be "...secure in your person, your papers and your effects," the 4th Amendment to our Bill of Rights, is laughed at by the road pirates we employ to protect us.  As they demand our I.D.'s without suspicion of a crime.  Likely not even knowing that they're violating our Constitutional Rights by so doing.  Or caring.

And once again, because of the incessant cacophany from our "Corporate Media," we've become numbed to it.  We've lost the ability to care, in many instances.  If for no other reason than to protect our fragile psyches.  Reports of a rapist here.  A murder over there.  Anti-Jew parades down the middle of Main Street.  China preparing to invade Taiwan.  Russia killing Ukrainians wholesale.  Iran preparing to start World War Three.  In the recent words from one rapper, "I don't have any more sh*ts to give."  

Doubt me?  Just look how hard our vaunted "Corporate Media" is working to help Kamala Harris erase her "uncomfortable" past.  Including to help insulate her from press access.  Their own access!  All TelePrompTer, all the time.  It's 1984, a few years too late.  

Just imagine how tough it is for a Republican to get elected when he's fighting not only the Democrat political machine, but also the 4th Estate.  The only profession listed by name in the Constitution.  Legislated into being by our Founding Fathers so as to guarantee us "transparency."  The only thing our Constitution's Media is required to do, and the only thing our "Corporate Media" has come to fear. 

Just as a reminder, our Washington-based press corps admitted, following our last General Election, to voting Democrat 95% of the time.  

Desensitization.  It's chicken or egg.  Were we always a flawed society?  Rome, revisited?  A Country with an Arc, with us on the downhill pull?  A Country that's guaranteed to flame out at some point, like Rome?  Or are we a Godly and just society which has simply hired the wrong people to run it?  Or permitted the wrong people to hire the wrong people to run it?

As you're the voters, it's up to you to decide.  And then to act.  

I've written for an upcoming posting that Conservatives worked hard for what they've got and want to keep it.  And Liberals don't want to work at all, and are coming after some of what those Conservatives have packed away.  It's the "haves" versus the "have-nots."  The classic battle.  It killed ancient Rome.  It just may kill us, too.

I remind my Fellow Patriots that all our "Dinosaur" Media is located within a sixteen-block area in Midtown Manhattan.  ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, Newsmax, NewsNation, NPR and PBS are all located between Central Park South and Radio City Music Hall.  They are all incenstual.  They all live, work, play, eat, sleep and probably get drunk together.  And they are complicit in our societal downfall.  You expect to be told the truth when you tune in to the evening news.  Not be fed the information Dear Leader wants you to know...  

Older folks like me are metaphorically put on the iceberg and pushed out to sea.  To serve as a snack for orcas.  But be aware we take with us the generational knowledge and memory that this isn't the way things ought to be.  And when we go, no one will remember what we had, so no one will remember what they've lost.  And be forced to accept whatever the future holds.  Good or bad...

My generation's moms filled us up with cornflakes and pushed us out the door each morning.  With a warning not to come home until dark.  We made our own stuff to play with.  We caught crawdads in the stream.  We tubed down the river.  We hunted with bows and arrows we carved out of twigs.  We fished with homemade poles, using worms we dug up ourselves.  We snagged lightning bugs in a jar.  We played "spin the bottle."  Don't know what that is?

Exactly...

Have you become desensitized?  Or are you willing to fight to keep what you've got?  Or more likely, had?  To fight those dedicated to taking it from us.  Are you a Patriot or are you a drone?  We'll find out the answer to that existential question very soon... 

The Ozempic Revolution...

No doubt you're (overly)familiar with Ozempic by now.

That's the Type 2 drug from Novo Nordisk that's taken the Nation by storm.  Not because it works to lower folks' ACT's.  Which is why it was approved for sale by prescription of a licensed physician.

No, it's because it causes people to lose weight.

             Lots and lots of weight.

So people who don't have Type 2 diabetes are flocking to their doctors and getting Rx's for Ozempic.  Because it can be prescribed "off label."  Meaning a condition for which it's not indicated.  Which is legal, if technically unethical.  And God help you if you're a physician and you tell your patient "No."  He/she/it will simply go next door and find a new physician.  And doctors do not want that.  Because their patients are their source of revenue.  That stuff which buys their wives all those mink stoles.  

Ozempic works by forcing food past your gut faster than normal.  Meaning you can eat the same, but your pancreas makes you adsorb less nutrients.  Think about that: you eat like Henry the VIII-th, but lose weight.  And you get to do that by either A), having Type 2 and getting an Rx; or B), stepping up and buying it outright.  At the astounding price of $1,329.00 a month!  That's retail, but you can find it for as low as $900 if you shop around.  $900 to eat the same and lose weight.

Of course, the package insert says you must also exercize and eat less.  Ummmm, what?  You take this crap so you can lose weight, but you could lose weight by simply eating less and working out!  Which they say you gotta' do with this stuff, anyway!  And be $1,000 lighter!  

Why not save $1,000 a month by eating less and going to the gym?  Oh, I'm sorry.  That makes waaaay too much sense...

And that happens a lot, BTW.  For example, Sendenafil was originally developed by Pfizer to combat high blood pressure and angina.  Except it wasn't very good for either.  But it proved spectacular for erections!  So Pfizer marketed it for blood pressure, but "wink wink," ask your doctor to prescribe it "off label."  And they did.  By the Billions!  And made Pfizer $Billions!

And now, the fat chick in the blue pantsuit, backed up by a full choir, and orginal catchy music, blasts out that you should go to your doctor and demand an Rx for Ozempic!  So you can lose weight!

Oh, BTW, it has side effects.  Several.  Serious side effects.  Like occasional unannounced diarrhea.  Which can be somewhat embarrassing, if it occurs during a garden party.  Or your first date after having lost 100 pounds.  

And terrible stomach pains.  And upper esophagheal gastric distress.  So you can pay $1,000 a month to poop your pants at the local Albertson's, while being so sick you can't shop.

Orrr, you can change your dietary habits, eat less and exercize.  For free.  

But that'll never work!  Americans want the easy way out.  And they'll often pay to get it.  But as they often say, "Be careful for what you want, you just might get it."

Kicking Golf, Cold Turkey...

I've heard that the game of golf was invented by a Scotsman.  And you know just how crabby and unkempt and smelly and ill-tempered those Scots can be, right?  I'm thinking it's the tweed fabric they use for their underwear.

Which sort of makes my point.  My Mom once told me about cooking:  "You put good things in, good things gotta' come out."

Yeah, well, the opposite I fear is true.  You put bad stuff in golf, and bad stuff's gotta's come out.  Like my golf score...

Now then, I've reported before on these august pages that I used to shoot a fair game of pool.  Ranked among the Top 50 by Billiards Digest Magazine, I was.  I knew how to play like a champ on a 4' x 8' pool table, or even a 6' x 12' billiard table.  So I was predisposed to believe that I should therefore be able to perform like a champ on a golf course.  

I mean, let's face it.  It's called "Pasture Pool," right?  RIGHT?  

It's a stick and ball game, right?  You take a stick and hit the ball.  The ball then goes in the hole.  It takes one try on a pool table.  It just takes 3 or 5 or 17 tries on a golf course.  That's because the inventor of this infernal game had no gym to go to way back in 18th Century England.  My theory is the inventor needed to get out of the house, and smacking a ball around the forest sounded like a good thing to do.  And overnight a game was born.  And then he discovered that if he removed the trees, it became easier.  And EASIER is the entire focus of and for folks who play this God-forsaken game.  To make it easier.  Farther drives.  Easier putts.  Fewer strokes.  

Wouldn't you think people would want to have MORE strokes, given the arm and leg this friggin' game costs?  But people have been infected by it ever since.  And I'm writing to tell them it's okay to quit.

I did.  And here's how.

First, ask yourself, what's with 15 different clubs?  Just use one club, walk around, preferably with Old Shep, and smack the ball.  If you want to count strokes, do so.  If not, don't.  You'll never be the club pro anyway, so who gives a s*it?  Just go to the closet, stare at your golf bag, and ask yourself:  "Isn't the only reason I go back for more pain and torment is that really good drive on the back 9?"  

Just that one perfect drive is all we remember.  We lost 7 balls, hit a poor woman with an errant drive, shot 99 and broke a driver over your knee.  Just force yourself to realize the feverish fascination with this dummmass game defies all comprehension.  Just accept it as that.  Like methamphetamine.  They are both addictive, and they both cost a lot of money.

Next, ask yourself, "Isn't the only reason you play golf is for the comraderie you enjoy with the boys?   You know, tell dirty jokes and talk about the "strange' they just got.  Wouldn't a Wednesday night poker game be less injurious to your fragile psyche?

And what's with looking this way, but trying to smack the ball THAT way?  It's biomechanically unnatural.  I don't do yoga, with a stick in my hand or not.  And unlike pool, where you're actually looking at what you're shooting at (DUH!), with golf, you're looking over there somewhere and hitting it someplace else.  What the Hell!  That's just plain dumb!  You should use the club like a mallett, as in croquet.  Swing a club between your legs and clock the ball!  You can do it!  Like cricket!  You're overthinking it!  

And about that lowest score.  That just promotes jealousy, fits of anger, nasty comments, unnecessary competitiveness and the need to consume mass quantities of alcohol.  Which makes one drunk.  Or "tipsy," like the Scots would say.  Which makes you play worse.  But try harder.  It's a rabbit hole you're going down, and it ceases to be fun.  

And that's by the 7th hole.

My addiction began, and ended, I should tell you, one fateful day at the local community golf course.  A friend and I (hey, Tom!) decided to buy some Coors, which was illegal in Kansas at the time.  And when we had some, we could give the used set of clubs Tom had just bought at a yard sale a try.  And find out if they were worth the $7.00 he'd paid.  

So we checked in at the clubhouse, rented some shoes, paid our greens fees (which I thought was exhorbitant, even then!), and each got a cart.  Look out world, we were ready to become instant pros! 

It took us each 4 or 5 tries to smack the ball off the first tee box.  While suffering barely stifled chuckles.  What da' Hell?  This don't feel right!  I'm gonna' have to focus!  By the  3rd or 4th hole I was pissed.  So was Tom.  We looked at each other, said what da' Hell, and let loose.  We started smacking back the Coors as we tried smacking the ball.  First a hook, then a slice.  losing balls one after the other.  Wading in the mud, on the cart, off the cart. 

Screw this, I decided.  Maybe racing golf carts would be more fun!  

It was a "CUI" for sure.  "Carting Under the Influence."  Shoulda' been that.  But what it was, was a race!  Tom and I drifted all over the place.  First he had the lead, then I'd pass him.  Up and down this hills, in and out of the tee boxes.  Whooping and hollering.  Using the carts like polo ponies, going full blast as we swung our 5 irons.  Making general asses of ourselves.  But having a really, REALLY good time.  

This golf thing is alright!

That "good time" ended when Tom's cart wound up in a ditch and mine ran out of juice.  Maybe my dislike for electric cars began that very day.  So we walked back to the clubhouse looking for some new carts to destroy.  What we got was an invitation to depart.  As in, "Get the f--k out!"  Imagine being tresspassed from the only public course in town, on your very first try.  One could look at it as a personal failure, for which public condemnation is well deserved.

Or, I prefer to think of it as a personal best and course record, achieved simulfriggintaneously!  First game, last game.  I tried the needle, loved the high, hated the low and never did it again.  And have therefore saved about $680,000 over the course of my storied life.  

See?  Just follow The Chuckmeiter's lead.  Stop playing golf and get a life.  Maybe even take up pool.  Your wife won't leave you and you'll probably save enough to buy a Porsche... 

Burger Wars...

I've written previously in these humble pages that I purchased my first McDonalds hamburger for $0.15 cents.  That was awhile ago, I'll confess, but it sets the "baseline" for today's little rant.

The price of a MickeyD's double cheeseburger was $2.39 four years ago.  When Big Orange was in the White House.  Today?  $4.89.  More than double.  And I doubt MickeyD would choose to commit economic suicide by increasing prices so much people stop buying...but that's exactly what is happening.  And should be happening...  

And not just to our friend, the Mic.  Every fast food operator with more than 60 locations in Taxifornia must now pay their entry-level employees $20.00 an hour.  Up from $15.00 an hour.  A 25% jump, overnight!  93% of thier stores have since increased prices.  To the point many can no longer afford to pay them.  A Major-League conundrum.  Orchestrated and implemented by perhaps the dumbest, most self-centered and greedy politician in all of history.  Our own Nero, burning down the once-Golden State.  Forcing 1,000,000 taxpayers to flee!  So far!  Running like bandits in search of greener pastures.

Knowing any pasture is greener.

Rubio's has closed all 48 of its stores.  Dominos has fired all 930 of its delivery people.  Approximately 20% of stores have closed their dining rooms and operate drive-thrus only.  Every store polled said they're reducing employee hours.  And every store polled stated they're implementing robots and AI much sooner than previously planned.  

And those efforts may stem some of the bleeding.  But BoyGuv ("Hairgod") has killed the Golden Goose.  Major chain stores are now operating at break even, or at a loss.  That makes them worthless to a prospective buyer, as stores like these are only "worth" a multiple of what profits they can produce.

And because the stores are now virtually worthless, in terms of profit generation, they cannot keep on paying their franchise fees.  Which means the stock of their corporate owners will take a hit.  And every 401(k) plan in America owns McDonalds stock.  And the stock of many other fast food operations.  As this s*it flows downhill, it may even cause a recession.  

Plus, the dick in Sacrascrewyou destroyed entry-level jobs forever.  Little Johnnie can no longer work a few hours after school and on weekends to afford some gas in Dad's car, so he can take Little Suzie to the movies.  At $7.75 an hour.  Which is our Federal Minimum Wage.  MickeyD's counted on the Little Johnnies for 7 decades before BoyGuv "fired" them.  And while I'm writing this, the "Fast Food Council" that BoyGuv created, along with this dummmmass law, is now preparing to increase the MinWage in Taxifornia to $22.00 an hour!  Which will force another round of price increases and employee layoffs.

And store closures, and stock market tanking and maybe even nastier economic aftershocks.

Wanna' fix all this?  It's easy.  When I was a kid the Moms would fix sack lunches for Little Billy, Little Mary and Big John every morning.  And then fast food happened.  It was cheap enough that Big John could afford to buy a combo at Wendy's.  Or Burger King.  Fast food was the province of the poor and lower-middle class.  And it stayed that way until the Dumbass of Sacrascrewyou personally strangled it.  

To death!

So here's how to put Humpty back together.  Everyone all together now, 

just stop buying fast food!  

Put together a sack lunch and deal with it.  It's cheaper and quicker and easier.  And you can help put a stop to this nonsense.  There are 500,000 Taxifornians working in these fast food emporiums whose vote is being bought by this joke of a law.  They will be out of a job in a week.  Stores will close.  Stores will declare bankruptcy.  But just before they do, BoyGuv will squeal "Enough!"  

And then he and his "Supermority" Democrats will undo this mess overnight!  He is a coward and needs that fact to be exposed.  All we need are people with the will to show some spine.  Pack a lunch!  Tell 'em all to get screwed!  They're screwing you, screw them back!

This is what happens when you give one Party such a stranglehold on legislation they can use the public treasury to buy votes.  By giving favors.  And bestowing titles.  And phantom jobs.  They think we're like a bunch of dairy cows.  To be milked and then put away.  They treat us Taxpayers like their very own Uyghurs.  Just pay your taxes and shut up.  But there are still enough of us true 'Muricans here to put this stupid move on TILT!.  All we have to do is band together and commit... 

I'm betting this whole house of cards will collapse within a week!  And oh yeah, I'm a graduate economist.  So I actually know what I'm talking about.  

This time...

It would work.  Will you do it? 

Are We All That Was?

We've been told for decades that civilization began in Sumer, now in Iraq, about 6,000 years ago.

That was it, said the archeologists, it was the Sumerians.  Nobody was earlier.  No other beliefs will be tolerated.  The archeological elite tend to be inflexible like that...

And then a few years ago a farmer in Turkey happened to uncover the top of what turned out to be a 20 foot tall statue.  Weighing more than 20 tons.  Delicately carved with animals in relief.  Animals that haven't lived in Turkey for thousands of years.  If ever.  

BTW, Gobekli Tepi is located close to Mount Ararat.  Near to where the Ark dropped off all those animals thousands of years ago.  

Then they discovered 5 more of them, in a circle.  And even more, there are now 5 of these stone circles.  And it's estimated they've only uncovered about 5% of the dig.  They expect to be working this dig for the next 100 years.  

There are more than 20 acres of these enormous statues.  Built by what we're told were "hunter/ gatherers."  And then we did the Carbon 14 tests on related organic material.  And found out what is now called Gobekli Tepi is 11,600 years old.  At the end of the last Ice Age.

Ooopsie!  More than 5,000 years before the Pharoahs started building pyramids.  It's obvious these folks weren't "hunter/gatherers."  They were skilled artisans and builders and mathmeticians and chroniclers of time and space.  And the movement of our planets and heavenly bodies.  A long lost society.  Of master builders.  Who the archeologists tell us simply couldn't have built the stuff they obviously built.  With a straight face.   

And then there's that pyramid in Indonesia.  It's more than twice as big as the Great Pyramid of Giza.  And more than 25,000 years old.  And one in Bosnia that's even older than that.  40,000 years old, we're old.  And 4 times as large as the one in Giza.  It's as big as a mountain.  In fact, they thought it WAS a mountain!  It's apparent we don't know as much as we thought we did...

Let's do an inventory:  There are 122 pyramids in Egypt.  That we know of.  And more than 1,000 in the Americas.  Mostly in Peru, Bolivia and Columbia.  And pyramids all over China.  And India.  There are pyramids, all looking alike, on 6 of our continents, and a suspected one, at least, in Antartica.  Since there's no way these people could have collaborated, it's apparent a supreme power was involved in the design and construction of these massive monuments all over our Earth.

In short, something caused hundreds of thousands, millions, even, of ancient peoples to dedicate so much time, effort, energy and treasure to construct monuments with no known purpose.  Which we could not construct today.  

Example?  Let's use that Great Pyramid of Giza.  The archeologists tell us it was built by Pharoah Khufu, although the only proof of that is a little 8" tall statue of of the dude they found "nearby."  But attempting to accredit this enormous monument to somebody without loads of proof seems ludicrous to me.  Regardless, this sucker remains One Big Mystery!

     -  Let's start with the fact that the Pyramid is 481 feet tall.  It was the tallest man-made structure on Earth for more than 4,000 years!  It was built using more than 2,800,000 stone blocks, each averaging 2 and 1/2 tons in weight.  They were quarried from some 500 miles away, and delivered using specialized boats via the Mighty Nile River.   How they were then lifted hundreds of feet in the air and inserted perfectly into this Pyramid, we don't know.  And it's pretty obvious we'll never know.

It was then clad with pure white limestone blocks from the base all the way to the top.  With that golden pyramidium glistening there.  It was designed to be seen reflecting the sun from up to 50 miles away.  

One could. 

But here's some of the other statistics that blew my mind.  And I'm pretty sure will blow yours as well:

     -  It was never built using slaves.*  Often as many as 20,000 artisans worked on it at any one time.  It was built by seasonal labor, 6 months out of the year, during the off-growing season, by true patriots.  Who were trying their best to insure their Boss Man gets to the promised land.  And thus insuring each of his countrymen will be saved as well, once he becomes a "god." 

     -  They artisans who built the Pyramids worked 6 days out of the week, 12 hours a day, for beer and bread, BTW.  Only.

     -  And since we can't C-14 carbon date stone, we have to take the archeologists' word for this age of this thing.  They say was built in 2,570 bc.  Others say the Sphinx is as old as 10,000 bc, with geological proof.  And the pyramids might be as old as the end of the Ice Age as well.  

     -  Size?  It sits on a 13-acre footprint.  It's sides are each 753 feet wide.  It was originally covered in bright, gleaming white limestone.  With a solid gold "pyramidium" on top.  Perhaps as tall as 14 or 15 feet.  Imagine the worth today?  Somebody else did as well, as the valuable white limestone disappeared in the depths of time.  Now probably cladding some nearby mosque.  

     -  It was built using a 57-degree angle for its sides.  A greater angle, it would fall down.  Less, it would fall down.  How did they know?  It was also built with the cardinal points of the compass uppermost in mind.  Meaning pointing to "true" north.  It was built to within 3/60th of a degree of perfection.  The most accurate large buiding on Earth.

     -  It is also built in the exact center of all the land mass on Earth.  North, south, east and west, all the continents, the exact center.  And there is only one exact center.

     -  If you take the height of the Great Pyramid and multiply it times the number 43,200, because of the Earth's "precession," (it "wobbles" on its axis) you'll get the Polar Radius of the Earth.  How did they know that?

     -  And here's a good one on which to bow out.  The exact Latitude on which the Great Pyramid sits is 299,792,458 Degrees North.  The speed of light is 299,792,458 meters/squared.  Coincidence?   You decide.  Could we build it today?  No.  Even if we could afford to pay to get it built, there's nobody who could build it.  

And that's true especially because if you divide the number of seconds in 20 years, the supposed time it took to build, through 2,800,000 stone blocks.  They would have had to place a 2 and 1/2 ton block every 55 seconds in order to make the numbers work.  Could they do that?

I somehow doubt it...

But the archeologists dismiss that fact out of hand.  They don't care.  They have their neat little theories as to how and when things were built, and by whom.  And don't try and disturb those beliefs.  Just like they felt before Gobekli Tepi was discovered.

I know how I feel.  I don't think there's any question but what Egyptians built these pyramids.  But as to who designed them, created the machinery and mechanisms necessary for it to work, and then orchestrated the construction, in the background, on at least 6 continents, simultaneously, I'm convinced it was by some Little Green Men.  Or perhaps Grey Men.*  

Whatever... 

*   The slaves that Pharoah "let go" during the "Exodus" through the efforts of Moses, and God, was Rameses II.  That was in the middle of the 13th Century bc.  The archeologists tell us the Great Pyramid was built in 2,570 bc.  That's 1,200 years earlier.  Whatever the slaves were working on, it was not the Great Pyramid.  Or any pyramid on the Giza Plateau...

Harry and Me, we Were Tight...

I remember the day vividly.

My Dad and Mom owned, and we lived at, the "Show Me Tourist Court" in Springfield, Missouri.  It was a motel located directly across the street from the Dixie Cup factory, which was huge, so their employees would stay with us sometimes.  It was located on Glenstone Boulevard, an 6-lane highway right down through the middle of town.

Which was convenient, as we could sit out on the front porch and watch the parades go by.  4th of July, Thanksgiving, Easter, Christmas, like that.

And I especially remember the one when Harry S. Truman, the-then President of the United States, was the featured guest in a parade.  Going right past my home.  And I was a little 6 year-old boy.

The crowd was huge!  Tens of thousands lined the boulevard to see Harry go by.  He was in a 1948 Chrysler Town & Country convertible.  A glistening forrest green with gorgeous wood paneling on the sides.  It was fantastic!  I was far more impressed with the car than the President.  I'm pretty sure my lifelong love of cars started on that very day.

And Presidential Parades were different back then.  Murdering Presidents wasn't yet in vogue.  So you could get up real close and personal.  Like, maybe 50 feet away as the POTUS rides by.  You could have hit him with a brick.  Or a paper airplane.  

And I recall no Secret Service types in black suits were running alongside, either.  

Perhaps under-protecting Presidents began right then...

So my Dad, ever the salesman, saw an opening.  He picked me up and made his way through the cops and the crowd to the edge of the ropeline.  And just as Harry's car drove slowly past, Dad lifted me up and said, "Here, Harry, here's your youngest supporter!"

Harry knew good politics when he saw it.  He stopped his driver and said, 

"Hoist that boy up here!  He needs to ride with me!"  

Harry sat me down on his lap and we drove all the way to the end of Glenstone Boulevard.  Maybe a mile and a half.  With Harry and me smiling, and waving at the crowd, and applauding with glee.  And my Dad followoing alongside.  What a trip!

(I should insert about here that Harry was a Democrat.  If you'll recall.  And I wasn't schooled enough in politics to know to avoid Democrats like the plague.  For some of what makes a Democrat a Democrat just might rub off on me.  But I've subsequently rationalized the error in Dad's judgement by appointing myself in retrospect a Young Ambassador From the "Makers, to the "Takers.")

Now, I could say I knew the true significance of that act, that day.  But I didn't.  Not until 1959 when Lyndon Baines Johnson was campaigning for Vice President.  And decided to come to Chillicothe, Missouri.  

He was on JFK's ticket and must have thought my farmer neighbors would go for his brand of politics (fat chance).  So he rented a flatbed hay wagon and a huge, overly large, gigantic International 806 tractor to pull it.  And advertised a campaign stop in a farmer's back lot.  Him campaigning from the flatbed, and then handing out cold beer to the couple of dozen attendees.  In the middle of a really hot summer day.  

(We went there only for the beer, BTW.)

LBJ shook everyone's hand on the way out, including mine.  So I can advertise to everyone that your friend and mine, Me, has shaken the hand of two Presidents of these Here Eeyyuuunited States.  

And they were both Democrats.  

Which I now offer up as an Olive Brach to all those who hate me simply because of the color of my skin...

I bask in your faint praise...

How Did We Get So Stupid?

Spleen Vent # 1,456:  So we hire folks to do our work, but are forced to permit them to join organiztions dedicated to making it harder, and more expensive, and more time-consuming for us to get that work done?

You know we have more than 2,900,000 Federal employees, right?  

I know that you know that I know because I've researched the pi*s out it.  And written about it a dozen times.  It's one of my buggaboos, given that only about 15% of these highly-paid civil servants are declared "essential" on any snow day.  

Meaning the other 85% won't be missed if they don't come to work.  

What are these, patronage positions?  Your uncle Fred works in Social Security so he got your brother a job there?  And also your cousin Anthony?        

And as I mentioned in another recent posting, 31% of our millions of Federal workers are still at home, suffering from the Chinese Wuhan Killer Pandemic Virus.  No, not from the virus itself.  From the possibility of getting the virus.  So they're sitting in their 'jammies, eating bon-bons and watching Jerry Springer re-runs.  Tapping a key every now and again so the algorythm from the Mother Ship doesn't time them out.    

Or maybe it's like PTSD.  And if they don't have it, they're worried about getting it.  So much so they're not coming back to work.  For us.  Has anyone done research on how many of them have other jobs?  Just asking.  Except there's apparently nothing we can do about it.  Because they all joined unions.  

             Public Sector Unions.

Did you know that?  Did you know that our employees, the people we've hired to do our work, have banded together to try and extract ever better and bigger goodies from us, the Taxpayers?  It's like we hired them and then they put a gun to our heads.  Lemme' bring you up to speed:

There's the "American Federation of Government Employees."  The AFGE represents more than 750,000 Federal and government workers across more than 900 local unions.  AFGE represents doctors, nurses, SSA employees, TSA agents, law enforcement officers and park rangers.

All of whom supp at the public trough.  The Civil Servant trough.  Working for you and me.  But no more or no longer, and certainly for no less than they currently are.  And plans for a whole lot more.

And if that's not enough there's the "International Federation of Professional and Technical Employees (IFPTE)."  Whew!  It represents state and local Government professionals such as architects, accountants, engineers and healthcare professionals.  

And then we have public-sector trade and labor unions, and those representing the interests of Government organizations.  In 2023 total public-sector union membership was...

                       ...32.5%.

Meaning One out of Three of our employees is a member of an organization directly at odds with the interests of you and me, their employers...

Again, that's You and Me.

Did you ever axe yourself why we Taxpayers hire folks to get our work done, and then permit them to join organizations whose only reason for their existence is to make it harder for us to make them do the work we just hired them to do?

Uhhh, wha...?  

To try and use the weight of their membership to force us, YOU and ME, to give them more money, for less work, with more paid time off, while receiving better healthcare than any privately-employed American will ever enjoy.   And 11 paid holidays a year.  

Unless they've added another one while I was writing this humble missive.

When we were puked forth from college we knew working for The Man would get you job security (it would take a live boy in your bed or a dead girl in the trunk of your car to get yourself fired!), and the very best healthcare on Earth, but your pay would suck.  Your choice: low pay and great healthcare, but you're guaranteed to get that low pay forever!  

But Now?  

There's a sheriff's deputy in Lost Angeles County, I just noticed, who made $453,000 last year.  And his union was just fine with it.  With a base of $233,000 a year (are you kiddin' me?), he managed to work enough overtime to earn more than the President of the United States.  Or maybe I should say, we "pay" the POTUS.  There's more, much more, but that's enough.  And he's got great healthcare, too.

The little bastard who made you wear a mask and stand 6' away from everyone else just retired on $413,285 a year.  For funding the virus and then lying to us for years.   

Each and every one of those 2,900,000 Federal Employees I mentioned above earn, er..., are paid, an average of $108,433 a year.  

But only 15% of them are considered  "essential."  

Doesn't that just take your breath away?

And oh, BTW, Public Sector Unions cannot strike!  So any threats they might choose to make would be toothless!  Yet we treat them like the AFL/CIO!

How did we get so stupid?  Why are we negotiating against our own best interests?  Who bought off whomever to permit this outrage to gain traction?  Why do our Public Sector employees earn twice the National Average?  It seems to me we need some sort of massive investigation.  FBI, NSA, CIA, MI-5, AAA, ASPCA, etc.  All those guys.  

And lastly, why don't we vote in leaders who will abolish this crap?  ASAP?  

("Abolish This Crap, ASAP!"  Catchy little bumper sticker, yes?)

Some Arcane Little Factoids...

I was just rummaging through my vast store of knowledge the other day.  Accumulated over a career shooting pool for money, playing a spook for the Army, selling stuff to people, and racing cars for fun.  And I thought you might get a kick out of some of the more interesting tidbits I dredged up:

     -  Did you know that the very largest and longest living thing on Earth...is the Great Barrier Reef?  The one that encircles the north end of Australia?  It's more than 2,570 miles long!  And I've dived on it.  With great pleasure.  It was awe inspiring.  In fact, I met a grouper the size of a Volkswagen whilst diving there, and he and I became fast friends.

I think it was a he.  I don't want to mis-prounoun him/her/it/they...

     -  Did you know that if you gave a guy $0.01 cent per day for their labor, and then you doubled it every day thereafter, as in 2 cents, 4 cents, 8 cents, etc., you'd go broke before his 30th day of employment?  Don't believe me?  You'd owe that employee $5,368,709.12 at sundown on day number 30.  A 31 day month would kill you.  Do the math...

     -  And I discovered a way to stop unwanted conversations on airplane trips.  You know, where you're crammed in your seat for hours, and cannot get away?  When they ask what you do for a living, just say:  "I specialized in animal husbandry, until they caught me at it."  Crickets.

Like that one?  Here's another, no charge:  "I'm a retired shepherd."  Trust me, all efforts to start a conversation after that will stop dead in their tracks...

     -  Did you know that the Wagon Trains West that started in 1836 had their beginnings at Independence, Missouri?  Yep, close to where I was born and raised.  I'm somewhat of an expert on the Old West, so here's a factoid you might enjoy.  After giving the "Wagons, Ho!" signal, these trains, consisting of up to 100 Conistogas, made no more than 20 - 25 miles a day.  And often less.*  So an 1,800 mile journey to their new "promised land" was a 7 or 8 month commitment.  And many were buried along the way.  But some decided they'd had enough before the journey's end and threw a flag on the play.  And that's why there's a town every 20 miles all across the Fruited Plain West.  Check it out if you doubt me...  

     -  Did you know that more than 55% of all our property taxes collected by counties and states across the land, go to building, staffing, maintaining and operating our schools?  So we'd have twice as much money if we'd just stop having kids?  Or twice as much if we simply left our kids go unschooled, maybe.  Or get twice as much for our money if we had twice as many kids?  Or, there'd be twice as many of them for the Gubmint to try and corrupt, once we had them?

BTW, from what I hear about our plunging National Reproduction Rate, we'll likely cease to exist early in the next Century.  Assuming we haven't gone up in a poof of smoke first...

     -  Did you know that SUV's are ugly?  Yes, yes they are.  They are stubby 6,000 pound pickup trucks with a new suit of clothes, and are as aerodynamic as a brick.  I come from an era where car makers competed with each other via their automobile's looks.  On their beauty!  Cars were rolling art!  Designed from scratch on a clean sheet of paper by the likes of Raymond Loewey, and Virgil Exner, and Harley Earle.  And the engineers were then told to stuff their cars inside it.  Or find a new job...  

And now we're being sold big, heavy, plodding, wasteful lumps of metal.  For $60,000 or $70,000, or even more.  A car is the 2nd biggest purchase you're likely to make, right behind your house.  Why buy something ugly when you can get a nice zoomy sedan?  If you need a 4' by 8' sheet of plywood from Home Depot, borrow your friend's truck.  He's probably not using it.  Unless you're a soccer mom, you don't need all that room anyway!  

    -  Do you know that there's never time to do it right, but there's always time to do it over?

     -  Do you know that in spite of our being told to call the cops when we're in danger ("You don't need no stinkin' guns!), the average police response time from 911 call to arrival, across our 50 Biggest and Bluest cities, is...wait for it...31 minutes?  More than 15% slower than just a year ago?  Probably because they have 15% fewer cops.  Or maybe just because they can?

And did you know that more than 41% of all our households have a gun, loaded and at the ready?  At least one?  And that our citizens are buyiing 3,500,000 new guns a month?  More than 25% are Black, and more than 61% are women?  And that the FBI tells us we have more than 525 million guns in circulation?  And if every household had a gun, there would be no more crime?

Imagine what the response time to a 911 call would be if there were no crime?

     -  And I'll close with a prediction.  I predict there's no way on Earth Americans will go into the voting booth come November and pull the handle for Kamala Harris.  Forget her policies, or past statements, or her part in our current economic disaster.  They won't vote for her because they would never want to hear that ear-splitting, soul-crushing cackle for 1,460 days.

So in fairness to our new recently Selected and Coronated Co-President, I hereby annoint her as our...

              "Cackler-in-Chief."

Stay tuned, Fellow Patriots, if God's willing and the creek don't rise, I'll be sharing other arcane stuff with you over the coming days/weeks and maybe months...

*  If you're interested, visit Oakley, Kansas.  You can still see the wheel ruts from hundreds of wagon trains about 6 miles north of town.  From 170 years ago.  Foot-deep ruts still visible in the prairie.  If you find yourself on I-70 with nothing to do, it's worth a visit.  And yes, the town's named after Annie...