A Wordy Post About Stuff

Posted on 27/11/2023 by Grumpa Joe

One problem with writing a post everyday is finding themes. In that regard I admire Daniel Greenfield who writes for his blog called Sultan of Knish. He posts several times a week and each time it is an academic essay on some aspect of politics or world affairs. His posts are between 1200 and 3200 words each time. On the other hand, when I am in good form I will post about three times a week and average about 600 words. Lately, my posts are about four times a month, and I am having difficulty thinking of stuff to write about.

I wouldn’t be surprised if someone labels me racist again, because when Obama was president he did so many things I disagreed with that I couldn’t stop writing negatively about him. When Trump was president, I didn’t want to fan the fires of those who were against him because the press didn’t need any help from me. Biden on the other hand hasn’t done anything I like, and I believe he is destroying the country. Biden is making Obama look like an amateur when it comes to stupid policies and stupid governance. I don’t want to waste my time repeating what the daily news is already doing. Besides sleepy Joe is an old timer like me, and I won’t pick on someone who can’t help himself because his brain has stopped functioning. There is nothing sadder in life than watching a person who was a fireball while younger, and who has lost it to Alzheimer’s. I saw what happened with my wife, and it is truly saddening that so many people end their time on earth by slowly losing their memory to the point where they forget how to breath.

One memory invoked by Sleepy Joe is the era of Jimmy Carter when inflation kept rising and the Federal Reserve couldn’t do anything but raise interest rates to 16%. It was a great time for people with cash who could buy Certificates of Deposit earning a 16% return for a five year period. They advanced the size of their savings dramatically. The high interest rate eventually worked, and the economy adjusted so the rates began to drop, and about the time the 16% CD’s matured the rates were back to a paltry 3%. So for anyone looking at how long this pain will last history says it will be at least five years after the current rates rise to 16%.

For the past twelve years we have enjoyed an economy that was operating on free money. Loans were down to the low 3.0% range and that allowed many people to buy the house of their dreams. Those who had cash in the bank were sadly only making 0.1 % on their savings. Most people invested in stocks to make decent money. My retirement has been happy because of the earnings I have received, but I’m not so sure I will be happy moving forward as the economy begins to falter. My advisor continues to admonish me to look at the long run, and not the short term. Excuse me, but just how much longer do I have? Ten minutes, ten days, ten months, ten years? I worry that my paltry portfolio will not be strong enough to keep me going for the duration.

Last week I went into a McAllister’s deli for a sandwich($20 for a cup of soup and a six inch sandwich), and I swear the lady who took my order was older than me. I had a vision of me behind the counter making sandwiches, and that is not appealing. I’d rather spend my time standing in the middle of busy intersection dodging traffic with a bucket in my shaky hand collecting money for my Lions club.

In the good old days everyone was a farmer who worked until he died. It was only after the industrial revolution, and the Great Depression that people began looking at work as a forty-five year duration. Pensions, vacation, and medical insurance all became perks for workers. These benefits were being offered by companies desperate for help. With Trump’s economy we saw a huge shortage of help, but I didn’t see anyone offering huge new benefits to lure workers to their factories. About the most extreme benefit I saw was the work from home model which came because of Covid. Let’s hope things get better sooner than later.

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Filed under: Aging, Conservative, economy, Government, Memories, Seniors | Tagged: , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Believe

Posted on 10/11/2023 by Grumpa Joe

If you were to ask me what I think about the war in the Middle East, I would more than proudly proclaim that I hope the Israelis do as well in this war as they did in the past when Egypt invaded them. They call it the Six-Day War. That is how long the Egyptians lasted. I don’t like or believe in the genocide of a race, but I do think eliminating a murderous, hate-filled cult from existence is appropriate to save the world. The cult in Palestine is called Hamas. If we in America want to see peace in the world, we must do all we can to eradicate this mentally diseased order of people.

I received this article from a friend, and it deserves a reading. It is truthful and insightful. I remember when General Dwight D. Eisenhower visited a Nazi death camp, he informed the photographers to take pictures. He said

“Get it all on record now – get the films – get the witnesses -because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened.” 

― Dwight D. Eisenhower

Eisenhower predicted the future correctly. Today, we have the Muslim community believing that the Holocaust never happened and countries in Europe recommending that all mention of the Holocaust be removed from being taught in their schools for fear of offending the Muslims. My take on the matter is that Muslims should be eradicated from the face of the Earth. If that is considered hate speech, so be it. I am a hateful person when it comes to a religious belief system bullying the world toward their doctrine.

With what is happening in the Middle East now I feel this should be passed along …

 Who really died at Auschwitz?What really died at Auschwitz? Here’s an interesting viewpoint. The following is a copy of an article written by Spanish writer Sebastian Vilar Rodriguez and published in a Spanish newspaper. It doesn’t take much imagination to extrapolate the message to the rest of Europe, and possibly to the rest of the world. I walked down the streets in Barcelona and suddenly discovered a terrible truth: Europe died in Auschwitz. We killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Muslims. In Auschwitz we burned a group of people who represented culture, thought, creativity, talent.We destroyed the chosen people, truly chosen, because they produced great and wonderful people who made great contributions to the world, and thus changed the world.The contribution of today’s Jewish people is felt in all areas of life: science, art, international trade, and above all, as the conscience of the world. Look at any donors’ board at any symphony, art museum, theatre, art gallery, science center, etc. You will see many, many, Jewish surnames.These are the people who were burned. Of the 6,000,000 who died, how many would have grown up to be gifted musicians, doctors, artists, philanthropists?And under the pretense of tolerance, and because we wanted to prove to ourselves that we were cured of the diseases of racism and bigotry, Europe opened our gates to 20 million Muslims, who brought us stupidity and ignorance, religious extremism and lack of tolerance, crime and poverty, due to an unwillingness to work and support their families with pride.They have blown up our trains and turned our beautiful Spanish cities into the third world, drowning in filth and crime. Shut up in the apartments they receive free from the government, they plan the murder and destruction of their naive hosts.And thus, in our misery, we have exchanged culture for fanatical hatred, creative skill for destructive skill, intelligence for backwardness and superstition. We have exchanged the pursuit of peace of the Jews of Europe and their talent for a better future for their children, their determined clinging to life because life is holy, for those who pursue death, for people consumed by the desire for death for themselves and others, for our children and theirs. What a terrible mistake was made by miserable Europe.Recently, the UK debated whether to remove The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it “offends” the Muslim population which claims it never occurred. It is not removed as yet. However, this is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving in to it.It is now approximately seventy years after the Second World War in Europe ended. This email is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, twenty million Russians, ten million Christians, and nineteen-hundred Catholic priests who were murdered, raped, burned, starved, beaten, experimented on and humiliated. Now, more than ever, with Iran, among others, claiming The Holocaust to be “a myth,” it is imperative to make sure the world “never forgets.”This email is intended to reach 400 million people. Be a link in the memorial chain and help distribute this around the world.How many years will it be before the attack on the World Trade Center “NEVER HAPPENED” because it offends some Muslim in the United States? If our Judeo-Christian heritage is offensive to Muslims, they should pack up and move to Iran, Iraq or some other Muslim country.Please do not just delete this message; it will take only a minute to pass this along. We must wake up America, England, Australia and Europe before it’s too late.
“If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools.”                                                      —Plato  
Holocaust-denial graffiti was spray-painted on one of Seattle’s largest synagogues, Temple De Hirsch Sinai.Rabbi Daniel Weiner

Filed under: Aging, Conservative, Education, family, muslims | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

Bootleg Gasoline?

Posted on 28/08/2023 by Grumpa Joe

A good blogging friend posted a question to one of my recent posts. What will happen if we buy a sixty thousand dollar car and the government outlaws the same in favor of electrics? Well, for one thing, Uncle Sam would never be able to do such a thing without starting a civil war. That is something the liberals would be very unhappy about because they would be the unarmed bad guys that we, the armed conservatives, would be shooting at.

Americans would improvise to keep their cars running. It occurred to me that in January 1920, the government passed a federal law prohibiting the sale of drinkable alcohol. The law caused a lot of pain to the population, and ‘we the people’ began to improvise by bootlegging alcoholic beverages. The government was put into a sad state of affairs because the citizens didn’t pay taxes on any of the booze they drank, or produced. This era also spawned a huge gangster industry that has never been completely eliminated, much like the drug industry today.

Prohibition lasted for thirteen years before Uncle finally cried Uncle, and Congress repealed prohibition. If it takes that many years to prohibit electric cars, the roadside will be littered with millions of these cars abandoned without charge. I hope to live to see the day. Americans, being Americans, would sadly innovate and carry gasoline-powered generators to run their charge-less cars. No doubt, they would be using 100-proof vodka to run the generators.

Filed under: Cars, Conservative, Government, Sarcasm | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

It All Adds Up to Ugh!

Posted on 24/08/2023 by Grumpa Joe

My life has never been this amazing. This week, my car odometer turned 186,000 miles, and I gave it a huge Yahoo! Never have I owned a car that carried my sorry ass so faithfully for so many years and miles. Previous transport appliances never lasted more than 110,000 miles. They were all rusted, oil-leaking, and unreliable. But like many love affairs, this one also, may be coming to a rapid end.

It all began when I noticed that my tires began showing the wear bars between the treads, and the car has been leaning left, indicating a need for wheel alignment. The “maintenance required” light has been on for the past two months. Stranger, yet, during the past week of ninety-degree days, the air conditioner has been blowing hot air into my face. Compounding that, there is a strange squealing sound straining my ears whenever I back out of the garage in reverse. The frosting on the cake was applied today when I took the Death Star to the Toyota dealer for its regular oil change.

As usual, when I go in for the hundred-dollar oil change, I decide to get my money’s worth by asking them to answer some questions like those posited by the list of strange experiences above. Never ask for trouble someone is likely to find it for you. Steve, my friendly service advisor of seventeen years, came to me with the report. He was shaking his head negatively as he chased me down in the luxurious waiting chamber. Oh, Oh, this won’t be good messaged my mind. My mind was right. The good news came first: all my gripes from the list above have been fixed except one; the squealing noise is what I suspected the brakes are in need of new brake pads, and by the way, while we were looking, we found that the boot on the drive axle is leaking and needs to be replaced, and the transmission gasket seal is seeping. I fought back with “that seal has been seeping for the past seventeen years, why would I change it now?” Anyway, Ca-ching went the cash register as the oil change bill came to $371.00 after a special $40 discount.

I have written several positive blog posts about the merits of owning a Toyota, and now I am faced with adding more accolades to the former post. This week I replaced the tired tires with the fourth set, and aside from tires and brakes, I have paid a minimum for failed parts. It is the finest car I have ever owned and now, after spending all this money to keep it running I have decided to keep it until it becomes the last car I ever owned.

I decided it to be my last car because while I was at the dealer, I took the opportunity to peek at some new cars. I immediately went into sticker shock of an immensity that overwhelmed me. In the year 2021, I was at the same dealer getting an oil change, and I took the same peek at the new models. The one I fell in love with had a sticker price of $46,000. Today, that same model is priced at $60,000. Thank you, President Biden, for being such a strong world Asshole who supports the Ukraine war, and the solar and wind industries over fossil fuels. You never got my vote, nor will you ever! I am almost at the point of resuming political cartooning and expressing my opinion on this blog again.

Filed under: Biography, Cars, Conservative, Government | Tagged: , , | 3 Comments »

Parallel Lives

Posted on 10/08/2023 by Grumpa Joe

The challenge today is to describe my life in a parallel universe. I can do better than that. How about three parallel lives?

Number One is a life here on earth, but idyllic. The main character is a fifty something perfect body specimen who lives with several women, and partakes of bodily pleasure often. Enough said about number one.

Number Two is about a man who loses his wife, and is living through deep grief. In this grief he gets an idea to find his wife in heaven. He truly believes that heaven is real and exists somewhere in the universe. In the meantime, the widower meets a stranger while transporting his newfound dream truck home to Illinois from upper Michigan. His mission is to rebuild the new-old truck into a modern street rod. The stranger learns of his dream to convert the truck, and also to find his wife. The two of them become fast friends and agree to allow a third man to build this truck into a vehicle that can help lead them to find find heaven.

This story jumps into the universe outside the realm of planet earth, and as one might guess the lonely man gets involved in many outer space skirmishes as he tries in vain to find his dead wife’s soul in heaven.

Number Three is an alternate-history tale which takes place in the 1776-1976 time period. America loses the revolution and remains under the rule of the English king, and the U.S.A. as we know it today has never existed. England loses World War Two to Germany. Life is very different in Europe and in North America. The story tells the tale of a single family from Illinois who refuse to give up on the dream of Washington from 1776. The father of this family finds a copy of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, and decides to rekindle the flames of revolution but this time against Germany. The story is complicated, intriguing, and suspenseful. The ending leaves the reader thirsting for more, and the writer contemplating a series.

Too many ideas, too little time.

Filed under: Arts, Conservative, Fiction | Tagged: | Leave a comment »

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