Enjoy my mind wanderings. Thought provoking. Serious humor. Stimulating thought since 2006. Nathaniel Hawthorne-"Easy reading is damn hard writing." Tertullian-"Credo quia absurdum", I believe it because it is absurd. John Lennox-"Nonsense remains nonsense, even when talked by world-famous scientists." George Burns-"Someone who makes you laugh is a comedian. Someone who makes you think and then laugh is a humorist." Willy Wonka-"A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men."
At the LCBO (Liquor
Control Board of Ontario) which consists of 660 stores. They have a no chase
policy. Thieves have figured out that they could just walk in and steal liquor
off the shelves and walk out and nobody would chase them.
The history...
Way back when, it used to be that you
would walk in the store and fill a form out with what you wanted to buy. You
would then pay for it and a clerk would get the product for you from the
storage room at the back. There was no display of product.
This evolved to open shelving with
product but offices in the middle with one way glass so you could be watched
but you could not see who was watching you.
They then evolved to just straight open
shelving and checkouts. This led to people just walking in and stealing liquor.
Now I ask you, is that not a Smart Blog Posting or what? Who
would have known at the time that I was as Smart as I was? That was 15 years
and 2 months ago! I was so young and I was already that Smart! Since then I
have Matured. Now I am Matured and Smart. My Blogging must certainly be
better...Or is it?
My two youngest grandchildren are really smart but their
problem is they are really young. All grandchildren start out that way. I am confident that one or the other of them
will be President of the Good Ole USofA someday and the other will be the Vice
President to the one or the other of them that is the President.
Now that I have covered myself so I won’t be accused of
saying that my grandchildren aren’t smart, I want to tell you about a recent
visit we enjoyed from these two future Presidents and/or Vice Presidents...
ØThey
both slept on the same room.
ØIn
that same room there was a Radio/Cassette Tape/CD Disk Combo Player.
ØBeing
as young as they are they are curious.
ØThey
started playing around with the player and found the CD that was inside.
ØBecause
they are curious and young they asked their Father what the CD Disk was.
I guess I am behind the times. I was not aware that a CD was
a thing of the past.
Time marches on.
Would I kid u?
Smartfella
Lagniappe: I bet
neither of them knows what a Buggy Whip is.
I once wrote a Blog Posting that told you about the Smartest
Man in the History of the World for All Time. I’m not sure where that guy is
today, but if he were here with Fella today, I am certain he would agree with
Fella when Fella says, “The voters are
talking about the high price of gasoline but they really don’t care about the
high price of gasoline!”
Did I just hear you dare me to prove it? Oh ye of little
faith. OK, here we go...
The people who do polling get all excited when they get a
poll that gets over 50%. They contend that this is Conclusive Proof and they
expect you to hear and believe because they have a 51% (or higher) response to
their polling.
Well Fella has done a poll of his own and his poll has come
up with a 100% finding, therefore, That’s The Name of That Tune, That’s How the
Cow Eat the Cabbage or That’s All She Wrote...
'That's All She Wrote', recorded by
Ernest Tubb and published in sheet music form in 1942:
I got a letter from my mama, just a
line or two
She said listen daddy your good girl's leavin' you
That's all she wrote - didn't write no more
She'd left the gloom a hanging round my front door.
[If you want to hear it, and it is a
classic of the country music genre, follow this link to YouTube.]
************
Now that I have that out of the way, I will tell you the
Rest of the Story...
ØI
pulled up behind a lady at Costco’s gasoline filling station who had just
started filling up her Buick.
ØI
had time to waste so I got out of my car and walked up to the Buick Pumping
Lady and asked, “What’s the price?”
ØShe
said to me without turning to look at the pump, “I don’t know”.
There it is! There’s your proof! There is a Fella Poll that
comes in with a conclusive 100% result! The Good Ole USofA’s Voters really do
not care because they gotta pay whatever they (whoever they are) tell them
they gotta pay!
Amazon Prime has now increased its annual fee by another
$20...
ØI
first signed up for Amazon Prime at their Startup Fee of $79 per year.
ØThe
Fee was increased to $99 in 2014 and I signed up for the $20 increase.
ØThe
Fee was increased to $119 in 2018 and I signed up for the $20 increase.
ØThe
Fee has now increased to $139 and a little voice somewhere inside of me said,
“Whoa!”
I’ve now decided that Amazon has enough Prime Money. The way
things are going somewhere in our bleak future (somewhere around 2072) one of
the members of our 2% Approval Rated Congresses is going to decide to pass
Stimulus Bill #753 in order to garner some votes just prior to an election and
the Head Bean Counter is going to say, “Whoa!”
Congress is going to say to the Head Bean Counter, “What do you mean by saying “Whoa?” and
the Bean Guy is going to say, “There is no money
left. Amazon has it all”.
************
Please allow me to explain how we might get to this point...
ØAt
present Amazon has 310,000,000+ Members. (Are you wondering how many “+” is? So
am I.)
ØRecently
the fee was increased by another “only” $20.
Ø310,000,000
members X $20 = $6,200,000,000+...that’s $6.2 Billion with a B. (Don’t forget
the “+” ... However many that is?)
Should Amazon worry about me since I’ve
decided to say, “Whoa! Enough is enough.
I ain’t gonna give you my $20”. (Actually a total of $139 for the year!)
I don’t think they will since, because of my boycott, Amazon will still pocket
$6,199,999,980+ from this latest “only” $20 Increase. A little voice somewhere
inside of me just said, “Don't fret for Amazon, Fella, they will get along just fine without you”.
You don’t pay State Income Taxes. If you want the State to
send out a Bureaucrat who is trained to Wrestle Alligators for you, you gotta
pay State Income Taxes!
I’m not sure how the Chicken Finger Food Industry
turns Chicken’s Fingers into such tasty treats but I sure am glad they do do
that because I think Chicken Fingers are great!
Get ready, My Dear Readers, the above Subject
of this Blog Posting is about to make perfect sense...Or is it?
************
Because so many of us like to eat Chicken
Fingers, if Cartoon Characters were Chicken, we would be facing another
shortage in our present Supply Chain Shortage Crisis Dilemma Awful Situation
because Cartoon Characters only have 3 Fingers!
We
Need Congressional Action!
If there were a National Cartoon Finger
Shortage our 9% Approval Rated Congress could step in and pass a law that requires all Cartoon
Characters to have 4, 5, or maybe even 6 fingers.
Did I hear you say that Congress does not have
that kind of power? Allow me to say this about what you say, Where Have You Been? We have seen
Congress pass many laws that they do not have the power to pass.
************
At least you did not say that Congress should
not do such a thing because it would be Foolish. Foolishness Avoidance is not
common in the hallowed halls of our 9% Approval Rated Congress.
I am here to commit to you that I am ready to
vote for a candidate seeking re-election that had the campaign slogan which said, “I am the most foolish member
presently in Congress”.
Does this surprise you? Allow me to explain. I
would take comfort as I pulled the lever inside the voting booth by saying to
myself, “Well, at least he is being
honest about what he has to offer”.
Actually the word “again” is not needed in the above subject
because the times never stops a-changin. Bob Dylan probably should have sang,
The Times Are Always a-Changin’
Allow me to give you some examples...
First Example: There
was a time when everyone knew what a Buggy Whip was because Buggy Whips were
everywhere. Everyone had Buggies and everyone had Horses hooked up to their
Buggies and everyone had to have Buggy Whips to make the horses pull the Buggies.
(I sure hope the PETA people don’t read this Blog Posting)
ØHazel,
where are the Buggy Whips?
ØHorace,
you are show ‘enf starting to lose it.
ØDon’t
you remember we keep all the Buggy Whips in the Buggy Whip Box right outside
the barn door?
Second Example:
Grandpa, you just said that when you were young and you
wanted to mail a letter you used to lick the back of your 2-cent postage stamp with your tongue to wet the postage stamp glue and then you would stick the
stamp on your letter.
I’m beginning to worry about you, Grandpa, because that just
cannot be true. If you did that, even one time, you surely would have
caught COVID-19 and died before you got to be as old as you are.
Third Example:
How to get from Point
A to Point B in the Old Days...
Grandpa explains to Grand Whippersnapper (Grandchild)...
ØGrandpa
went to the Service Station to fill up the Packard.
ØHe
tries not to obsess because the price per gallon is up 5 cents to 17 cents a
gallon because he knows he has no other option but to pay what those crooks are
charging.
ØHe
makes a mental note that while he is out and about to stop in at the Five and
Dime Store and buy some fine letter writing paper so you can write his
congressman about the high price of gas (he knows he is wasting his time
because he wrote his Congressman when gas went up to 12 cents a gallon and he
paid him no never mind).
ØWhile
the smiling Service Station Attendant is pumping his gas, wiping his
windshield, checking his oil and his tire pressure, he goes inside the service
station and gets a supply of Free Maps for the trip to Point B.
ØHe
resists the guilt feeling of his being wasteful because he knows he already
has these same maps from his last trip to Point B but they got all crinkled up
when Hazel sat on them.
ØWhen
he gets home he lays out the maps on the kitchen table and writes down every
turn and the mileage he will drive before he gets to every turn on some loose
leaf paper.
ØThe
day of the trip he sets himself up in the driver’s seat and gives the maps and
loose leaf turn sheets to Hazel with these exact instructions... ”Hazel, you are the Trip Navigator. I
need you to keep me informed of the next upcoming turn. Don’t give me more than
just the next upcoming turn like you kept doing last time went to Point B. That
caused me to make a wrong turn. Remember not to sit on the maps.”
************
How to get from Point
A to Point B in the New Days...
Grand Whippersnapper (Grandchild) explains to Grandpa...
ØPlug
the address of Point B into the car’s GPS.
ØClick
Go and Go.
Would I kid u?
Smartfella
Lagniappe: Did I
just hear a couple of my Dear Readers say, “Wasn’t
it a waste of time to Whip A Buggy?”
If you have no idea what the Frog in the Pot of Boiling
Water Story is all about, here it is…
If you put a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will
jump out, but if the frog is put into a pot of normal water and then slowly the
water is heated to the boiling point, the frog will eventually be heated to
death due to its unconsciousness of the gradual temperature change.
(First 4 paragraphs only
of an online news article)
Article Headline:
Going into 2022, Portland still has no answer for its
record-breaking homicides
January 04, 2022
“Several cities are no doubt hoping to leave their surging
homicides in 2021 as the new year begins. If that is the hope for Portland, it
is off to a rough start.
Portland saw its first two homicides of 2022 just hours into
the new year. Those victims have now been identified as Andre Foster and his nephew Quayan
Foster. A third person was also shot but is expected to survive. The next
day, another person was shot and killed in the city.
In 2021, Portland saw more homicides than San Francisco and
more than double the amount of Seattle, despite having a smaller population
than both. According to the Portland Police Bureau, the city saw a record 90 homicides last year. Oregonian reporter
Shane Kavanaugh (reporting preliminarily before three more murders were added
to the official count) pointed out just how severe the increase in shootings
and people wounded in shootings has been for Portland over the last few years.
The worst part is that this was entirely predictable.
Portland, a city that tolerated rioting for years, folded before the “defund
the police” movement in 2020, slashing police funding by $15 million and
disbanding several specialized units, including one that investigated gun
violence. The city did all it could to neuter its own police department, including preventing officers from using
riot-dispersal tools, while Multnomah County repeatedly declined to prosecute
rioters.”
************
Has it gotten any better? The answer is no. Here are a
couple of examples from recent news articles...
(First two paragraphs
only)
Article Headline:
Businesses vandalized after weekend protest in NE Portland
April 18, 2022
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — After a weekend protest left behind a path of broken glass,
graffiti and a burned dumpster, the head of the Portland Police Association
says there needs to be a frank conversation in the city about
accountability.
“Wanton destruction and arson have no place in a functioning
society. Whenever we ignore it, we fan the flames. Wherever we excuse it, we
acknowledge its legitimacy,” Sgt. Aaron Schmautz said in the letter posted
Sunday night.
************
Article Headline:
A Running List of Portland’s Restaurant, Bar, and Food
Cart Closures
April 19, 2022
I counted the list for you... 24 Restaurants and Bars closed
January 1, 2022 until April 19, 2022.
************
However, if you get shot or knocked down or decided you want to lie
flat and cover your head with your arms, Portland apparently provides clean
ground to lay down on...Or do they?
According to The Discoverer Blog Portland is one of the 10 Cleanest Cities On Earth...
The Bolded Words below were placed there by
Fella...
Consistently
ranked among the greenest cities in the United States, Oregon’s largest city is
known for its progressive ways (Is it a “progressive”
for a city to burn itself down* most any day of the week?) and quality of
life (Is it a “progressive” for a city
to burn itself down* most any day of the week?). It’s no surprise then,
that the laidback citizens of Portland(LaidBack?!...The
guy who wrote this article has got to be kidding!) are proud to
keep things clean (Must use leaf blowers
to blow the ashes off). Take the Portlanders’ penchant for biking. In 2017, more than seven
percent of commuters in the Rose City commuted to work by bike, according to
the Portland Bureau of Transportation. For those who don't want to bike,
excellent public transportation is also available (Fella recommends equipping their busses with tracks so they can climb
over last night’s debris). Although already a leading city in renewable
energy use, Portland leaders recently joined a global pledge to transition to
100% clean energy by 2050 (If there is a
Portland in 2050).
The Internet has no respect for our intelligence. It thinks
we have nothing better to do than read “news” articles they dangle in
front of us that prove we are not intelligent. I’ll come right out with it...The Internet thinks we are stupid.
************
The people who act on TV Shows are called “actors” because
they act like they like each other but they often do not like each other and/or
actually hate each other...
ØFred and Ethel in I Love Lucy hated each
other.
ØRobert
Cummings and Julie Newmar in My Living
Doll hated each other.
ØBea
Arthur intensely disliked Betty White on The
Golden Girls.
ØAlan Young and Connie Hines of Mr. Ed
hated each other.
ØMost of the cast members on The Andy Griffith Show were not too fond of Frances Bavier...
>Ron Howard was the only cast member who ever came to visit Ms. Bavier in
North Carolina and she refused to see him.
>When she died, neither Andy nor Don Knotts attended her funeral.
ØPatricia Heaton of Everybody Loves Raymond was a
well-known conservative and Doris Roberts and Peter Boyle were big-time liberals
so, of course, they did not get along well.
ØBack in 1989 Carol Burnett's daughter said that, at
the time, her mother and Vicki Lawrence "are no longer friends".
ØJoan Davis and Jim Backus hated each other when
they did I Married Joan.
ØAlan
Alda truly hated one of his co-stars on MASH
(article did not say which).
ØSeveral of the Happy Days co-stars secretly
hated each other.
ØThe actor who played Gilbert on Leave It To Beaver said he and Jerry Mathers didn't care that much for
each other.
ØCybil Shepherd and Bruce Willis on Moonlighting hated each other. It got so bad that they had to film them for the
show in separate cities for almost a whole season.
I just tricked into wasting your time
reading about this Miscellaneous Inconsequential Stupid Stuff.
A Miracle Drug is being used in
the fight against COVID which has the effects of inhibiting virus replication,
anti-platelet aggregation, anti-inflammatory and anti-lung injury, is expected
to reduce the incidence of severe and critical patients, shorten the length of
hospital duration and reduce the incidence of cardiovascular complications.
Oops! Did I forget to mention
the Miracle Drug? It’s Aspirin. You just might have this Miracle Drug in your
medicine cabinet.
I could have saved her if she
had only listened to me. I had nourishment that could have kept her alive but
she refused to eat what I had to offer. I watched her starve to death.😞
Fighting back tears I begged
her to eat but she smiled telling me not to take her death so hard. She said, “I have no choice. I’m not a Jack. I’m a
Jill.”
I begged her to reconsider. I
found myself shouting as she passed on, “It’s
perfectly good and nourishing food. Americans have been eating it since 1896!
Please take a handful!”
I don’t know if I will ever
stop hearing her sweet voice saying her last words, “I’m a Jill”.
Would I kid u?
Smartfella
Lagniappe: My
fellow Americans, notice they are rewriting history! It actually says on the
bag, “The Original”.
If you have some money left, I will now offer you two ways
that you can spend your left money...
Seen
in a local mall department store March 11, 2022...A Bathroom Rug (with no
backing) for $100...
Please note that I said “A Rug”. I did not say “A Six-Pack
of Rugs”.
ØThankfully
we got it On Sale for “only” $35.
ØI
still think $35 is too high because it does not even fly.
I was not around when my wife purchased this “bargain” but
my mind got to wandering and I wondered if the signage next to the stack of
rugs said something like this...
Today Only $35 for Our Finest Imitation* Walmart Rugs
*Exact knock-offs of the popular rugs sold in Walmart for anywhere
between $25 and $35
************
Outside the rug selling department store was a Kiosk that
sold shoes which (because of the thick soles) looked like the kind of shoes
Herman Munster or Frankenstein’s Monster would have worn when they played
basketball...
These shoes cost between $520! and $1,620!!
As for me I would not pay this much for these funny looking
basketball shoes even if Herman Munster’s or Frankenstein’s Monster’s feets
were still in them.
I can just hear this conversation taking place between a
customer and a salesman inside this Kiosk...
ØCustomer:
I don’t understand why this pair of shoes is selling for only $520 and this
pair of shoes is selling for $1,620?
ØSalesman:
I’m a bit surprised that you don’t see the difference. The $1,620 pair of shoes
is much uglier than the $520 pair of shoes.
What will I not do? I will not take a position about how the State of California can fix all of its problems. What I will do is present the Facts of where California is today and then I will walk away because I am a Smartfella but I ain’t smart enough to fix California’s Gargantuan Awful Predicament...
Today Fact #1:
California has 12% of the United States' Total Population but it has 49% of the
Homeless Population of the United States.
Today Fact #2: In
the last 10 years over 15,000 Businesses have fled California and the exodus is
Accelerating!
Today Fact #3: California
annually spends more on Welfare than does All Of These StatesCombined!: Texas, Hawaii,
Arizona, South Dakota, North Dakota, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Oregon, Idaho,
Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico and Montana.
************
I will now attack myself for being a Liar! I said above that
I would not take a position as to how California can fix all of its problems. I
have changed because I now see it is An
Easy Fix...
Figure Out What California Has Been Doing For The Last 10
Years And Do The Opposite!
You are probably kicking yourself for not seeing this Obvious Corrective Course of Action. I guess I am really smart after all.
I was walking down the street trying to keep other people
who were walking down the street while looking and pecking at their Smartphones
from bumping into me when it happened.
I saw a big sign above the entrance to a meeting hall the
read, “If You Love America, Come In”.
I went in because I do love my country.
The place was packed with wide-eyed cheering fellow lovers
of America. The first thing I thought was, “Wow!
This is really great!” The first word I hear come out of the current
speaker’s mouth was “corruption” and
the second word was “Ukraine”.
Man, that guy was on a roll! He was shouting things like (in
bullet point format)...
ØPeople
are elected over and over who are not rich when they first get elected but they
all leave office Stinking Rich!
ØThe
people they elect to office are paid too much especially when you consider how
much they work, however, they are not paid so much that they should all become
stinking rich while in office!
ØThey
are repeatedly caught on tape taking bribes yet nothing happens to them.
ØThey
are repeatedly caught on tape laughing about how often they are repeatedly
caught on tape taking bribes yet nothing happens to them.
ØThe
people they elect are repeatedly caught driving drunk and then they are reelected
again.
ØThen
they probably go celebrate their re-election and get drunk again and drive home
drunk again
ØThe
people they elect never change their minds about positions they hold even after
the most impassioned and fact filled evidence is presented to them that their
positions are absolutely poppycock (whatever that is).
ØThe
people they elect hardly ever show up in Congress to listen to opposing
arguments and when they do they fall asleep during the opposing arguments.
I had heard enough! I jumped up and shouted, “This is absolute corruption of the highest
order! The United States would not support Ukraine one day longer!”
Then I added on a question, “What I don’t understand is why you just called their National Assembly
a Congress. Ukraine’s National Assembly is not named a Congress. It is named
the Verkhovna Rada”.
They all shouted at
me in one voice, “Fella, what are you thinking? Who said we are talking
about Ukraine?”
Would I kid u?
Smartfella
Lagniappe: This
Blog Posting was inspired by the fact that often members of our Corrupt Congress go out of their way to remind
us that Ukraine, even though it is presently under a completely unjustified attack
by Russia, is really a very Corrupt Country.
I apologize that this Blog
Posting is so Complicated. It had to be Complicated because the subject matter it
covers is Complicated. I also apologize for the Lack of Foolishness. There is Very Little Foolishness below because This Is
Important Stuff!
I recommend you read all of
these 2 articles but you probably won’t because they will probably wear you out.
Even I had to recommend to myself 3 times that I read all of these 2 articles
but I’m glad I took my advice.
Now what do I have to do to get our Congress to read these 2 articles? I understand they don't have time to read what I send to them because they are too busy not reading all those bills they are passing. The best I can do is get the
articles piped into the overhead sound system during Happy Hour. 😀 (This paragraph is the closest this Blog Posting will come to
Foolishness.)
************
This Is Important Stuff! This Is Important Stuff! This Is Important Stuff!
First Article June 1 2021 by Dr. Jay Lehr
and Tom Harris
Here are the opening 3 paragraphs
of the 1st article...
One
of the most unjustifiably hyped innovations of our lifetime is the electric
vehicle (EV). The federal government and the state of California are wrong to
think that the internal combustion engine is destined to end up in the dustbin
of history in the next few decades. It will not happen for many obvious reasons
that governments are blind to, and some reasons that are not so obvious.
The most obvious one
is that EVs are so expensive that the average American cannot afford to own
one. Vehicles powered by internal combustion engines will always be
significantly cheaper and will transport you much farther.
Regardless, EVs can
never be produced in the numbers the government wants because of a lack of
necessary rare earth elements needed for EV battery production, minerals that
are mostly held hostage in China. Fortunately, the situation has improved
slightly in recent years, as the below figure shows, but China still has
the largest known deposits of rare earths.
Here are the closing 2 paragraphs
of the 1st article...
EMERGENCY
VEHICLES MUST CONTINUE TO BE POWERED BY INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINES
The electric
automobile will remain a niche market for the foreseeable future, likely never
exceeding 10% of the cars on the road. Automobile manufacturers that are
heavily investing in EVs will be very disappointed in their sales. Perhaps they
know this and instead will soon make only what they know they can sell. And
then President Biden and Governor Newsom’s plans will crumble with the
inevitable return of the gasoline-powered vehicle.
In the meantime,
consumers who made the leap to EVs will increasingly find themselves freezing
in the dark on the side of remote highways with their EV batteries depleted. If
they are lucky, they will be rescued by a tow truck operator who had the common
sense to stockpile gasoline and keep their internal combustion engine-driven
trucks tuned up and ready to go.
This Is Important Stuff! This Is Important Stuff! This Is Important Stuff!
Second Article Jan 15 2022 by Dr. Jay Lehr
and Tom Harris
Here are the opening 2 paragraphs
of the 2nd article...
The
utility companies have thus far had little to say about the alarming cost
projections to operate electric vehicles (EVs) or the increased rates that they
will be required to charge their customers. It is not just the total amount of
electricity required--but the transmission lines and fast charging capacity
that must be built at existing filling stations. Neither wind nor solar can
support any of it. Electric vehicles will never become the mainstream of
transportation!
In part 1 of our
expose on the problems with electric vehicles (EVs), we showed that they were
too expensive, too unreliable, rely on materials mined in China and other
unfriendly countries, and require more electricity than the nation can afford.
In this second part, we address other factors that will make any sensible
reader avoid EVs like the plague.
Here is the closing
paragraph of the 2nd article...
Our Conclusion
The electric
automobile will always be around in a niche market likely never exceeding 10%
of the cars on the road. All automobile manufacturers are investing in their
output and all will be disappointed in their sales. Perhaps they know this and
will manufacture just what they know they can sell. This is certainly not what
President Biden or California Governor Newsom are planning for. However, for as
long as the present government is in power, they will be pushing the electric
car as another means to run our lives. We have a chance to tell them exactly
what we think of their expensive and dangerous plans when we go to the polls in
November of 2022.
