The Price of Gas...

I just returned from gassing up my mid-sized car.  Six cylinder engine, delivers decent fuel economy, never before lamented not having an electric bike.

I purchased 13 and some-gallons of regular unleaded, "winter blend" petrol and left the giant sum of $64.35 at my local discount Energy Place.  Discount.  Harrummph!  I asked the attendant if he had an application for a second mortgage.  He thought that was a pretty funny joke.

It wasn't a joke.

While nursing the painful hole now left in my meager bank account, which isn't of much account, I reminisced back to a kinder, gentler time.  A time when gas companies were fighting it out with each other at the gas pumps.  Gas wars!  Ever hear of them?  I lived them.  Here's a bit of the story...

It was the fall of 1961 ("It was a dark and stormy night...").  I had just turned 18 and had just acquired my first somewhat fast car.  In a town full of fast cars.  VERY fast cars.  At one time there were 10 American Hot Rod Association national record holders there.  For a town of under 10,000, fast cars, indeed!  

And I'd say it was damn nice of the Standard Oil Company and Phillips Petroleum, in a period of crude oil glut (this was right after Standard's "ARAMCO" started pumping Arabian crude), to decide to try and out-cheap the other guy.  To lower prices in an effort to put the other guy out of business.  Or force it to sell at a discounted stock price.  So the price of gas began to fall.  Precipitously.  Every day.  So that by the end of November, 1961, the price of a gallon of Premium was $0.19 cents a gallon!  

You read that right.  Nineteen - maksalotta - sense!  It was seemingly worth less than water, and we treated it as such.  Talk about wasting gas!  We would drive up and down the "four-lane" highway, which ran through the center of Chillicothe, Missouri.  About five miles of it.  A four-lane highway, with a wide, concrete median, and tall streetlamps, right through town.  So we'd drive north to the end, turn around, burn out, laying loooonnnng streaks of black rubber (hello, "Happy Days!"), drive back south to the end of town, turn around, burn out, repeat.  

All.  Night.  Long.

Got it?  And each time we'd see each other, we'd wave and flash our lights.  And God help us if we didn't!  That'd mean we weren't friendly, and the rumors would start to fly.  Yeah, nothing's changed.  At all.  Everywhere's the same.  

I recall on several occasions I'd fill up, empty the tank, refill it, and then drive most of it out again.  In the same night.  In a town with nothing else to do, this would do.  It did quite nicely, in fact, for hundreds of us over dozens of years.  Don't feel sorry for us.  We didn't.

And oh yeah, when the taunts got too much, one driver would challenge the other to a "contest of speed" at the "Old Highway."  That's one-time Highway 36, which by that time had been replaced by one newer and wider, and much one more protected from annual local Grand River flooding.

So picture an unused two-lane highway, completely deserted, unlighted and just waiting for crazed speed enthusiasts, like me, and like everyone in my home town, to head on out there and drag race.  Like they do on the Discovery Channel's "Street Outlaws."  It's usually on Monday nights, if you'd care to watch.

So dozens of us would head out around midnight to the Old Highway and drag race 'til dawn.  We named it the "Bear Lake Bottoms Timing Association."  Funny.  We made decals for our cars and displayed them prominently.  The cops knew.  Some of them even were known to participate with their private cars...

And back to that "$0.19 Cents per gallon.  When we drove in to the local gas emporium, the bells rang to announce our arrival.  And a paid attendant, usually a retired old gent, would come right out and pump our gas for us, check our oil, check the air in our tires and the water in our radiator.  Each time we bought gas.  All included.  Even if it was the second time in an evening.  Or even third...

So how about that for your "customer service?"  And all for bupkus.  Ahhhhh, but Utopia was not to continue.  The gas companies resolved their issues, to our detriment.  And the price of gas went back up.  I cannot recall to how much, exactly.  But I remember it was still considered cheap.  

So back to the price of gas.  Where you live it might now cost $3.50, or a $1.20 higher than a year ago.  Here, in Taxifornia, where I live, and in New York, it's now approaching $5.00 a gallon.  And from what I hear those who wind O'Biden up and trot him out to spew their Progressive garbage are not done yet.  We can count on the price of gas going up, waaaay up, for some time to come.  

And they even have the chutzpah to tell us that this is a reason to more quickly move to alternative energy, so we don't have to pay these inflated prices for gas!  They inflate the prices, and then present us with an unpalatable remedy for their carnage.  Like your doctor first giving you cancer, and then offering you a treatment for can't live with.  We can thank Joe O'Brandon each time we fill our tanks and deprive our kids of food.

Remember:  A year ago we were Energy Independent.  We pumped more than we used, and exported it as a weapon against socialism and communism.  And its price reflected our World Dominance.  Joe O'Brandon is now begging OPEC to pump more...so we won't have to.  

Join me in a rousing, "Let's Go Brandon!"

I Saw UFO'S!

Yeah, I/we really did!  And here's how it all unfolded...

My daughters know that my belief in the existence of life on other planets runs deep.  And in the life forms that may indeed be visiting us therefrom.  And that I've been threatening to go where they seem to hang out for about 20 years.  That would be Sedona, Arizona.  Soooo, my daughters conjured up this plan to take me there for my birthday.  My, ummm, four score minus two birthday.  

After initially blowing off this idea as crazy, I warmed to it.  I got to thinking, hey, I live alone, and mostly don't go anywhere, and could use a vacay desperately, so why not?  The only risk we took was hoping we could all be civil with each other for a Road Trip.  We thought it worth a try.  And so we did...

We know that Sedona, Arizona is considered a locus for UFO sightings, as well as vortexes, and lay-lines, and crystals, and red rocks, and a collection of kind of quirky, weird spiritualists.  And as it happens I've been paid by a series of companies to travel all over the place on business, as in something more than 1,000 commercial flights, but I somehow never made it to Sedona.  Yup, I've visited 37 countries and 49 states.  Never somehow made it to North Dakota, either, although I never really missed it.  But I've missed Sedona.  And my daughters knew it...

So they got together and conjured up a plan to scoop me up and take me there for my birthday.  And to experience the red rocks, and the vortexes, and the weird people, and the UFO's for myself.  They treated me to a "UFO's Sedona" tour, so we could see for ourselves if they're "out there."  And the results were somewhat surprising...

Our tour guides took us out of town a few miles to a dark area of the desert where light pollution wasn't a problem.  And then they provided us with night vision goggles so we could see for ourselves.  After a short course in astronomy, we focused our attention on the billions and billions of stars we could now see.  And the stuff flying around below them.  Within our atmosphere.  And if what we saw, several high-flying bright objects scooting along, were UFO's, as our guides inferred, then we saw UFO's.  They were indiscernible as to shape, being so far away, but were much bigger than the stars, were flying briskly north to south, over the desert, where our satellites don't normally travel (what's to look at from above in Sedona?), without a noticeable means of propulsion, or heat signature, or blinking lights.  

Which means they are "UFO's" by definition.  Or, as our Gubmint now chooses to call them, after lying to us for more than 70 years as to their existence, and now being forced to admit they are real, "UAP's."  Or, Unidentified Areal Phenomena.  

BTW, if you saw a UFO, and you subsequently identified it, and then it landed, would it therefore only be an Object?  Just askin.'

Ahem...

Anyhoo, back to the subject at hand.  It was a very cool tour and a very cold tour.  The temp dropped and we shivered.  But we soldiered on for the hour or so we looked up at the bright sky through goggles that magnified the lights by 4,000 times or so, for the folks who'd just taken the 3:14 from Sirius B to come visit their "pets" in their "zoo."  I mean, Little Green Men need recreation too, right?  And it's my theory that they first colonized us about 12,000 years ago, and they keep on coming back to check up on their handiwork.  Especially once we invented atomic bombs.  With which we could blow up the "zoo."  

And yes, I'm "sirius."

So we went, we saw, and we all got reacquainted as a family.  We'd not been together since the girls' Mother died four years ago.  And the chance to get their Dad off his ass and make him go visit the place he'd always threatened to go to was just to rich to miss.  So they conspired to take me there, and I'm so happy they did.  We had a tremendous time.  We had hours to share ideas and concepts and stories and beliefs and fears and thoughts and loves and hopes and dreams.  And remembrances of their Mom.  Yes, a very fine time.  The "Grand Tour," I call it.  Certainly the first, and perhaps the last.  

But then again, maybe not!  Maybe this is but the first such time we'll get together and tour!  They've threatened now that they know I can take it to make me take it again in the future.  To the wine country, perhaps.  I certainly hope so.  I'm primed and ready.  These old bones are weary, but they haven't given up quite yet.

And yes, it was a gas to see filling stations along the way selling gas for $3.29 a gallon.  Being from Taxifornia, that was a rare treat.  Maybe that's why so many are leaving here and going there...

Thanks, kids!  You did your old Dad proud! 

Let's Sue the Illegals!

If you're not a Liberal, who watches Liberal TV channels, and reads Liberal newspapers, and talks only with other Liberal friends and associates, you've no doubt heard that the O'Brandon Administration intends to pay foreigners who broke our immigration laws, and perhaps had a child separated from them and misplaced, for a time at least, an amount up to, wait for it...

$450,000 per individual illegal, and up to $1,000,000 per illegal family.  

Ummm, what?  Paying foreigners who broke our laws nearly Half A Million Dollars?  Each?  For breaking our laws?  And suffering family dislocation as a result?  Under the very same laws Obama used to detain illegals during his term?  And often in the very same "cages?"  Are they serious?

Unfortunately, this was not a headline from the "Babylon Bee" (I originally thought it was; I was wrong).  They're serious.  They're so serious about buying votes, from wherever they can, simply arresting illegals and turning them loose to blend into the interior of America, illegally, is no longer enough.  Now, they want to... 

                      PAY THEM!  

And all they can say is it's O'Brandon's Justice Department negotiating with the uber-Liberal ACLU, which has brought some 940 lawsuits on behalf of these law-breakers.  Can you get your brain around that?  Greedy, Anti-American louts!  

So they're saying "It's not us!  It's those other guys!"  They so desperately want to point the finger at Trump.  But it's them.  It's O'Biden and his sycophants, who are running things (does anyone, anywhere actually believe that this scrawny, phlegmatic old goat has any idea what's happening?  Anytime?  Anywhere?  Exactly...).  And they're running amok!  And we've got to stop them!  And we can't wait to vote the bastards out, so let's get creative.  As creative as they are.  So here goes...

I suggest some organization which holds Constitutional Rights dear sue each and every one of these 940 illegal aliens who stand to receive a settlement from this flawed, Orwellian plan, for exactly the same amount they're due to receive.  

For what?  How about for damaging our soil?  Or forcing our Border Agents to become hoteliers?  Or causing our immigration enforcement agents psychological harm?  Or maybe we just charge them $100,000 per hour for lodging while in our Country illegally?  

Plus, I propose we sue the ACLU attorneys $1 Million Dollars for each of these bogus lawsuits they file.  For whatever reason they can come up with.  I suggest "treason," but that might be a bit harsh.  And also sue the O'Brandon Administration for not enforcing our immigration laws.  And for being dumbass idiots.  Whatever.  These actions should not only stop the wheels this socialist train is running full-blast upon, it just might serve to freeze the commie fools at the ACLU from continuing with their anti-American activities (I can hope, can't I?)

Up with this anti-American crap we shall no longer put (with apologies to Yoda)!  The O'Brandon Administration risks the Major Wrath of the American People should these activities continue.  And I'm talking...

Major Wrath... 

"Critical Race Theory," Exposed...

We shoulda' seen it coming.

All the clues were there.  We shoulda' been smart enough to see them.  But we got lucky.  The stars aligned themselves so that this crime against democracy and freedom and fairness could be exposed.  And those who sought to perpetrate it could be exposed as well.  

The effort to inject "Critical Race Theory" into our lives began a long time ago.  Long before it had even been given a name.  And long before our recent successes at exposing it.  Major successes.  To wit: 

  -   First, you have your basic pandemic, complete with the Gubmint scaring the crap out of you so you comply with its unrealistic, draconian demands.

  -   Then, you close down all the schools and send all the little kiddies home.  To their parents.  Who must now either provide for child care, which costs $Bundles, or stay home from work and watch their kids themselves.  And take a yuuge financial hit.  

The very same parents who've been paying yuuuge house taxes all these years so their kids would have a nice, safe place to go while they were at work, earning the money to pay for all of it (are there to be any refunds?).  And to be taught all that boring "readin,' writin,' and 'rithmatic" stuff like they were so those kids can get good jobs and become productive citizens.  

  -   Next, we set up all sorts of remote teaching arrangements so kids could sort of continue with their education.  While the virus was killing us.  

Sort of.

  -   Then, some of this "Zoom" teaching began to catch the eye of parents who like to know what their kids are learning.  So they started looking over little Johnnie's and Suzie's shoulders.  At their curriculum.  

And boy, Howdy, did they get a shock!  They learned that their little White kids were the oppressors, and that all the little Black kids are dumb and weak and need the care and feeding of the Democrat Party.  And its sycophants.  

This so-called "Critical Race Theory" blew up in educators' faces.  That's the idea that America didn't actually begin until the first Black slave set foot upon our soil in the year 1619.  1492 was no longer operative.  Columbus was out.  He was a genocidal maniac anyway, they thought, so no big loss here.  

They'd been quietly, surreptitiously slipping in this CRT garbage for years, hoping to stay under the radar until Martin Luther King's admonitions about the "content of their character" were long forgotten by some future generation.  White teachers expunging their Liberal White guilt and privilege by teaching other peoples' kids they are bad if they are White, and hopeless, without the Democrats, if they are Black.  Bad to the bone.  From the womb. 

And so parents are rebelling Bigly nationwide.  And it won't stop anytime soon.  Not until well after the mid-term Election come November, 2022.  And I'm loving it.  I hope you are as well.   

My solution?  Put closed-circuit TV cameras in every classroom in America, on a 24-hour, continuous loop.  And then have members of the local PTA review the recordings.  And any teacher who has been found to violate fair teaching standards should be immediately terminated.  Shown the door.  Ushered out.  Without redress or fanfare of any kind.  Regardless of what their union has to say.  And if the local school board doesn't enforce this policy, then they need to be replaced with those who will.

Starting now! 

The Next War Between the States...

I'm prescient.  That means I can foretell the future.  Sometimes.

And this is one of those times...

I would project that within the next few weeks a caravan of "migrants," those desirous of coming to American without going through the necessary legal "niceties," will present itself at our southern border.  Probably right about Del Rio, TX.  Where it happened last time.  Where 15,000 illegals from more than 150 countries broke into America.

Unannounced, uninvited, unwanted. 

They might have arrived already had their members not been waylaid by a dengue fever outbreak  amongst them (say wha...?).  They are being treated by a team of volunteer doctors, so we're assured they'll be back on the road very soon.

Whew!  Well that's a relief!  

The Rio Grande flows quite low and slow there.  An illegal alien is able to walk right across.  Aided by his/her coyote.  Who he/she paid $7 - $8,000 to guide them across.  And to kill them if they tried to get across without paying.  O'Biden's stupid dumbass foolish wasteful actions at the Border are making the Cartels $Billions!  

Hey Joe!  At least put a cash register on a card table and a Border Guard at the border and charge the illegals directly!  You could deprive the cartels of revenue and put another $2 Million a Week into our Treasury!  

So anyway, I'm guessing that a caravan of 10,000 - 20,000 will try and overwhelm the Border within the next few days.  But I predict that TX' Governor will rebuff this assault.  This attempt to subvert our sovereignty.  Although a cripple,* he stands tall in defending America's interests.  

He's most likely spending the time between now and then working out all the details how he and his Texas Rangers will manage this assault.  He'll be assisted by his National Guard, and the volunteer National Guard troops which I'm guessing will be provided to TX by Florida, and Arizona, and Tennessee, and So. Dakota, and Mississippi, and Oklahoma, and a whole bunch of other states.  I'm guessing there will be a regiment awaiting the arrival of these "migrants."  They'll all man the barricade of shipping containers and ex-Army trucks and concertina wire all lined up there at Del Rio.  They'll have live ammo, ready to defend our sovereign interests against an illegal foreign invasion, which may well wind up as an instant replay of The Alamo!  

Just imagine: the interests of Texas, and the American People, and all the other Border States, and all Americans which disavow "sanctuary cities," which is at least half of them, and the Rule of Law, and History, and Reason, and Common Sense, and our Constitution, all lined up against the interests of The O'Biden Administration, the Democrat Party and their sycophantic crazed lunatic Leftists everywhere.     

I don't think it'll be a fair fight.

One just has to wonder whether the O'Brandon Administration will choose to insert itself into this volatile situation.  Will it try to stop Texas and the other Southern States in its/their efforts to protect us from invasion?  Will Texas tell O'Biden to pound sand?  Will the Feds send troops?  Will Americans do an instant replay of Les Miserable?  Federal troops, patriots behind (shipping container) barricades, wave after wave of Federales pouring over the battlements, hand-to-hand combat, the ACLU waving banners?  Wouldn't any disinterested observer have to call this the...

Next War Between the States?  

Stay tuned, America, this could get really good...

*   (NOTE:  "Cripple" is not a pejorative term.  I, The Chuckmeister, being a proud cripple myself, started "Proud Cripples of America" a few years back.  And I'm proud to say that TX' Governor has received my invitation to join.  He hasn't responded yet, but I'm sure he's busy, what with doing O'Biden's job of protecting America from foreign invaders and all, so I'm sure he'll get back to me when The Invasion has been thwarted...)

Schadenfreude...

You'll forgive me I trust for taking inordinate glee at the wailing and gnashing of teeth going on in the more Liberal enclaves.  I'm sort of unevolved like that; I engage in "Schadenfreude"* at every opportunity. 

And so I was anxious to check out the Liberal websites on Wednesday morning to see how they were faring after last night's monumental electoral drubbing.  The poor folks at MSNBC and CNN were looking mighty forlorn, I'd say.  Some no doubt had to seek medical attention, I was thinking, after the "Defcon 4" meltdown they were suffering.  In fact, the opening masthead on MSNBC's website yesterday morning, up there at the very tippy-top, was...

"Glenn Youngkin's win proves White ignorance is a powerful weapon." 

They just don't get it.  Fortunately.

I understand that others of a Conservative nature like me, The Chuckmeister, spent a lot of time on Tuesday watching Election returns not on the "Fair and Balanced" Fox News, but on MSPMS and CNN(LOL).  I moved over to these uber-Liberal enclaves when it became apparent that Youngkin, against all odds, had slam-dunked the Virginia governor's race, and Citiarelli was running even, if not ahead, in New Jersey's.  So I could relax and take a tour of the Far Left cable channels to see how they were handling the news, and, of course, to take joy in their displeasure.  

They weren't dealing with it very well.  I gorged on MSNBC's Nicole Wallace, Joy Reid and Rachel Maddow as they went through the "Five Stages of Grief."**  It was delicious.  Their arms flailing, they each proclaimed that the Virginia Election was "...stolen by white supremacists!"  And "...CRT isn't real!  It isn't being taught in Virginia's schools!"  Of course, had Ms. Reid taken the time to visit Virginia's school system's own website, it clearly states that it not only supports Critical Race Theory, but it lists several publications on the subject it highly recommends for reading.  Had they just taken the time.  Or more likely, had the interest.  Or, perhaps the willingness to consider other points of view...

Oh, pardon me.  I'm sorry!  That was an outrageous thing for me to say!

*        An olde-timey German word that means, "taking pleasure at the misfortune of others."  Yeah, like what I said...

**      Dr. Kubler-Ross' book, the "Five Stages of Grief" details what one goes through following the death of someone close or other major trauma.  They are:  denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.  I'd say the fine folks at these two failing cable stations*** are in about State One, or maybe Two.  Doncha' just love this?

***   The October cable channel viewer reports are in:  CNN averaged 626,000 daily viewers in the most important demographic.  One million is considered acceptable.  They came in at 25th.  Right behind the Home and Garden Channel (LOL).

Independents Shall Reign!

It's Election Day, America!  It is in Virginia, at least, and in Minneapolis, and Milwaukee, and dozens of other state and local spots all across the Fruited Plain.  And I mention this because our friends at ABC and NBC and CBS forgot to mention that fact last night!   Not a word!  NBC mentioned how desperately some in Minneapolis are to abolish their police force.  CBS talked a bit about "climate change" and how O'Biden is going to fix it.  And ABC gave a food truck in Austin a full two minutes, but couldn't find time to mention that there's an Election in Virginia today and a certain Democrat gubernatorial candidate is poised to go down in flames.  It's like if they ignore it, it'll go away.  

It's not going away.

And there's another thing I'd like to pass along to my Faithful Readers.  It used to be, and I mean for several decades now, that America's two major political parties could claim just about the same percentage of the electorate as its own.  And those percentages would routinely vary up and down a bit.  The Republicans have most recently claimed about 39%, the Democrats, 41%, and the Independents, those apparently too (willfully) ignorant on the issues, or scared to pick a side, about 20%.

It's been that way forever.  Even the two memorable Independent Party nominees over the past several decades each attracted only about 20% of the popular vote.  So, live with it, right?  Evenly divided electorate, with a smattering of Independents that go back and forth with the wind to clot up the process, and just might elect one candidate or the other.

NO, NO, NO!!!

According to a recent Pew Poll, reality has been turned on its head.  The Pew guys, no right-wing zealots, just told us that we now have 29% Republican, 30% Democrat and...wait for it...

41% Independent!  

All of a sudden, over night, as if by magic, a yuuuuge number of members of each political party have bolted, and the number of Independents has doubled.   Can you say "portent of things to come?"  I can...

The Independents used to sway elections.  They could swing an election either way depending upon the issues or their preferences.  And that was THEN.  Now?  Hoooo boy!  "You betta' fasten your seatbelt, it's gonna' be a bumpy ride."  

Or, if you don't prefer that ancient black and white movie quote, try this one: The Democrats lost 63 seats in the House in the 2010 election,  the first one following his Party's excesses with the Stimulus Plan, and 3 in the Senate.  And that's when they had a 41 member majority.  Their majority now?  

5...

So, the trends are favorable; If we can just gird our loins and prepare for a long onslaught of socialism-light, go forth knowing that the future seems bright.  I'd predict the next Election will send them all packing.  Skulking back to their lairs, banished for a long, long time...

The sane among us can only hope...