OK, Part 1 was done in April – too many Shiny Objects to contemplate so  back to playing catch up. The premise was that we should pay more for what we buy because CONSUMERISM and ENVIRONMENTALISM!  We all should be forced to make do with less, and I commented on this at the time (not wanting to make you click back):

“…the experience becomes less pleasurable and more painful.” You may not realize it but that statement seems to sum up how environmentalists come across to a lot of the rest of us (those of us that pay attention, anyways) – force life for the rest of us to be more miserable to satisfy their outlook on things.

Somehow, y’all gotta change your style (and I’m not talking about clothes or furnishings) because when I see this kind of statement, it cements even more my perception of what is “required”: Happiness is misery!

And for the record, I hate shopping all together; I have clothes older than you that I just can’t part with because I don’t care about fashion at all.

And went down hill from there – a bit.  In fact, if you go there now, the next two comments were deleted:

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Reformatted, emphasis mine:

An 84-year-old Korean War veteran killed a home intruder Friday with a single shot right to the chest, and he’s crediting God with his success.

Two robbers tried to break into Korean War veteran Don Lutz’s home early on Friday morning in Lawrence County, Penn., but were quickly dissuaded by some serious firepower. “Two guys tried to rob me, and I killed one of them,” Don Lutz said, according to WTAE-TV. “Maybe the other one, the bullet hit him, too. I hope so.” Lutz recounted that he woke up Friday morning at about 1:15 a.m. to the sound of someone breaking into his house. He grabbed his gun, which was stored underneath his pillow, and ran into the two robbers.

 

…Lutz is not facing any charges for his act of home self-defense.

The Great Equalizer –

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Yet another piece from the Concord Monitor where Don Vallone of Reaching Higher New Hampshire makes the argument, financially, that ONLY Government schools should be allowed to teach your children.  How?  He cries in his cups of how government public schools would be losing money to other entities if HB 193 is enacted.  Boo-hoo (reformatted, emphasis mine):

Two public policy groups provided closer looks Wednesday at the financial impact of a sweeping school choice bill under consideration at the State House. Senate Bill 193 could cost the state $31 million in new spending over five years, an analysis by public school advocacy organization Reaching Higher New Hampshire has found, and the legislation could cost school districts nearly $6 million in state aid in its first year of implementation.

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In the wake of the ABC Fake News that resulted in lying Brian Ross getting an unplanned 4-week “vacation” a new story emerged. Donald Trump Jr. was reported to have received an email from Wikileaks directing him to documents ten days before they were made public.

CNN jumped all over it. But when the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and NBC News published the actual “news” President Trump took to Twitter.

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Yeah, Treehugger again.  I have NO idea what I said that would be an affront to these socialistic/communitarian (and let’s not forget that in every Socialist, there is a much worse Totalitarian yearning to get out – like in the movie Aliens) environmentalists. It seemed to be a hum-drum enough post (“Air pollution is hurting human procreation“, reformatted):

It distorts sperm, makes it harder to get pregnant, and can lead to premature births and low birth weights — yet another reason why cars and humans don’t mix well. Air pollution has become the world’s single largest environmental health risk, and scientists say it causes more than 3.7 million premature deaths per year (data from 2012). But what does air pollution do to unborn children? Or even to those parents who are trying to get pregnant? New research shows it’s having a seriously detrimental effect.

Problems start with a man’s sperm. In a study titled, “Exposure to ambient fine particulate matter and semen quality in Taiwan,” researchers from the Chinese University of Hong Kong examined 6,475 men between the ages of 14 and 49 and found that the more air pollution a man is exposed to, the greater his risk of having irregularly shaped and smaller sperm. Most of the participants did not smoke and had less than one alcoholic drink per week.

And of course, the obligatory (for them) WE HATE CARS!!!

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Reformated, emphasis mine:

Man Allegedly Grabs Woman from Behind, Flees When She Puts Gun to His Stomach

A suspect in Sterling Heights, Michigan, allegedly grabbed a woman from behind then fled when she pulled her concealed carry handgun and pushed the barrel against his stomach. The incident allegedly occurred “near 15 Mile and Van Dyke” during evening hours, as the woman was walking her dog.

…The woman said she noticed a suspect get out of the van and that he “started walking parallel to her.” She instinctively reached under her coat and put her hand on the handle of her gun. Then the man disappeared. Suddenly, the man reappeared and was coming right at her. Chief Dwojakowski said, “He grabbed the back of her jacket and tried to grab her and pull her towards him.” The woman drew her handgun, put the barrel against the suspect’s

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The nationwide survey by YouGov shows that only 29% of Americans now say life is fair, down from 38% in December of 2016. And, while Republicans are more likely than Democrats to view life as fair, both saw a drop in optimism since last year.

“Life Is Fair”:

• Republicans: 39%, Down from 47%
• Democrats: 26%, Down 34%

Total: 29%, Down from 38%.  Likewise, a smaller percentage of both Democrats and Republicans now say life “should” be fair. Overall, 55% of Americans believe it should, down from 63% in 2016 – and one in five (20%) said “Life shouldn’t be fair” – while 25% weren’t sure.

“Life SHOULD Be Fair”:

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In 2008, while Barack Obama was campaigning for the presidency, many Americans were deeply concerned about his background, as well as his ideology. Among many other issues, they were profoundly disturbed by his admitted friendships with Marxist professors and assorted socialists and anti-American zealots. His notion of wealth redistribution was also, at that time, a concept foreign to Americans, who had always believed that success and wealth come from hard work, not redistribution by the state. His critics were afraid that the country was about to elect a president like no other, a president whose values were antithetical to American values, and a president who only saw America’s flaws, not its greatness.

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QA: that would be Quality Assurance for those not in the know. In any manufacturing environment, if someone (if not EVERYone) is watching the quality of your product(s), the last person who holds or uses your product or service is your customer. While that customer really is the ultimate QA guy in the end (“do I have to return this for non-conformance” or worse “I’m not buying this again”), do you really want to give them a reason to go negative?  Expensive, expensive, expensive if you fail to do your QA.

During my first stint on our BudComm, I never asked the following question but just kept being amazed at how many new “programs” kept popping into the budget – new textbooks, time to train teachers, new teaching supplies; we’re talking on a new curriculum that may span several grades up to 100s of thousands of dollars.  And then see that new program replaces after a couple of years??  But the mostly costly question is:

What difference did it do and did it work better than what it replaced?

“HEY – THAT’S NOT IN THE BUDGET!”  HOW DARE YOU ASK THAT!

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Meet two women who thought they could pick the new US Senator from Alabama – with help from the mainstream media and SwamPublicans. Gloria Allred – faux attorney and Beverly Young Nelson, admitted forger.

On Friday, Nelson admitted that she had added “notes” to an inscription that she claimed Moore made in her high school yearbook. She still insists that Moore signed the yearbook, but admitted that some of the writing was hers.

That is textbook forgery

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Recent research has uncovered another one of those ‘water is wet’ discoveries.

A new survey by insurance firm Aviva found that 72 percent of 16 to 24-year-olds believe the term “snowflake” is unfairly applied to millennials. 74 percent of respondents took it a step farther, arguing that they believe the use of the label could have a negative effect on young people’s mental health.

This ranks up there with researchers discovering that oral sex can lead to intercourse among teenagers.

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Two days ago we reported President Trump’s announcement that the US formally recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel with not much if any analysis. But I did include this quote from Mr. Trump’s remarks.

“It is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,” Mr. Trump said at the White House. “It is the right thing to do.”

The US passed the resolution approving the move during the Clinton administration, but no president since has had the balls to make it official. They all pandered to the idea of the “peace process.” But Pete Ingemi over at DaTech Guy blog has some thoughts on why “it’s time.”

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