Readers- All is fine on the spacious Hope n' Change ranch, but the news of the day seemed to just be more of the same old, same old. We therefore decided to "just blow it off" in much the same way Barack Obama likes to angrily announce that he will investigate his administration's failings and abuses...before doing nothing. Hey, at least we're honest about it!
Here's hoping that all of you enjoy this Memorial Day Weekend (and for any Hoosiers like me, watching the Indy 500)! -Stilton
Had an amusing exchange with a liberal yesterday who actually said "Imagine a government that would allow any sick person to die because they cannot afford insurance and mo system that would allow preventive care because those who can easily afford it refuse to help. imagine such a country...welcome to a third world nation designed only for the wealthy."
ReplyDeleteMy response? We don't have to imagine it! It's happening!
Do these people even pay even a fleeting glimpse at current events? (I guess I can't blame them for not doing so; it's got to be painful) We don't have to imagine it. It's actually happening!
When I pointed this out, he blames it on "a problem inherited from Bush". Funny, because before ObamaCare, liberals were lauding the VA as the perfect model of government-run health care.
It must be bizarre in these people's heads.
Not a Hoosier, but Dad raised me on the Indy 500 as must see. So, as a race fan like you, I'll be watching the 500 and then the 600 later on. :-)
ReplyDeleteHave a great weekend amigo.
@Doc
ReplyDeleteWhew! Was getting' worried there, Doc ... Yes have a good Memorial Day wknd. I wanted to go see the Indy 500 in person but I couldn't convince anyone to go with me - I guess my hygiene needs some work or sumthin'. You know what neanderthals we right-wing loons are.
I know, I know, "What's this 'we', white man?!"
@John
The left's use of the word "free" means "free from any hardship", to be taken care of. The envision a world where childhood is forever. A state whose paternalism is never ending. They do not acknowledge human nature whatsoever - they have no idea that pain is a feedback mechanism. It's is nature's way, as the Spirit song from the early 70's used to say.
They do not understand that this is the feedback mechanism that built up the things we now take for granted - and that by eliminating the feedback, they will destroy it all, as you point out. The healthcare system is slowing being destroyed. You do not elevate the poor by destroying the rich, as the saying goes. You end up destroying the society. You end up destroying the middle-class, the backbone of society, what Marx (and the progressives) call the bourgeoisie.
They are truly evil in their childishness.
I have been following you for a long time now but didn't realize you were a Hoosier! One more reason to be proud of Indiana, Stilt!!!
ReplyDeleteKeep up the GREAT work!
I grew up 17 miles northeast of the Speedway. When I got a legal driver license in 1956, I got an old 1950 Chevy.
ReplyDeleteDay before race day, my grandmother (who raised me) would fry up a whole BUNCH of chicken legs and wings, and my stepfather would get me several cases of beer.
Took the back seats out of the Chevy and lined it with a big rubber tarp. Filled that with chipped ice, layered beer all over it, and late that nite a friend of mine and I drove over to Lafayette Road to get in line to park in the infield the next day.
What you do then is wait 'til the race is about 2/3 over, and you let it slip that you have fried chicken and cold beer. (Got the idea from an uncle of mine, Marine who'd been shot 3 different times in the march across the Pacific. All the wounds were hip, side, and thigh. Finally the Corps just said he'd had enough and let him out.)
We could get anywhere from a quarter to half a buck for a piece of chicken and at LEAST a half dollar for a beer, normally closer to a buck.
Never saw much of the races, but made a lotta cash doin that. And never got caught, which is the amazing thing. Not really sure just how many laws we were breakin, but it was definitely more than a couple.
Incidentally, the tag "bocopro" is short for "Boone County Professor."
Memorial Day: a date set aside to honor those patriotic heroes who gave up their lives so that the president of our country can totally ignore the day's importance and go play golf instead.
ReplyDelete@John the Econ- Re: "A third world nation"...I've cited the story for years now, but some years ago the state of Hawaii was rated #1 for "access to healthcare." The definition for access was "having insurance." But it turns out that all the doctors were leaving because they couldn't survive on the payments they were getting. Ergo, everyone had insurance, but people couldn't actually see doctors. They had "access" to empty offices. Which is why the head of the medical association out there (who coincidentally did surgery on my mother) called Hawaii's healthcare system "third world."
ReplyDeletePresumably, our Hawaiian president would have known this.
@Reiuxcat- The Indy 500 is important to me because it was always the occasion of a big backyard cookout for my family and close friends. The race itself played on the radio as our background for badminton, kickball, grilling, and good times.
Now I can actually watch the race in HD...but I still resonate most strongly with the "neeeeeOWWWW!" sound of the cars whipping past as they did on the radio.
@Chuck "Quesito" Ef- I'd scheduled today's non-cartoon to run at the regular time, but I clearly managed to goof something up. And shockingly, I was sober at the time.
On a far more serious topic, you nail the Left's attitude nicely: "Free...from any hardship." Which of course is impossible without visiting hardship on others...and taking away their freedom.
@Sue- I was born and raised in Indianapolis, went to IU in Bloomington (where I met the lovely Mrs. Jarlsberg), and eventually migrated to Texas where we've lived for about 30 years now.
@bocopro- What a heartwarming story of free enterprise! Not to mention the fact that you've made me yearn for some fried chicken and a cold beer.
I never saw the actual race in person, though attended the time trials once and couldn't believe the intensity of having even one of those cars roar past - you felt it in your bones.
And as a cub scout, my pack visited the Speedway, toured the museum, and got to take a slow lap around the track (albeit not in anything remotely like a race car).
And interesting to hear what bocopro actually means! We were nearly neighbors (my high school was in Carmel).
@Geoff King- I'll definitely be doing something here for Memorial Day, but I'll admit it's difficult NOT to turn it into another reason to be pissed off at Obama.
ReplyDeleteDang- now I really need to buy a cold beer from bocopro...
When you are up to your ass in alligators, it is difficult to remind yourself that the initial objective was to drain the swamp.
ReplyDelete@leelu
ReplyDeleteHa! You can't read that while drinking one of bocopro's beers without injury to one's sinuses.
BTW, @Geoff King - you nailed it.
ReplyDelete#MarineHeldinMexico
ReplyDeletePETA called, something, something
ReplyDeletealligator safety & handling or something. Anyone for Gator Nuggets? They're great when deep fried!
I'm about 30 miles from Charlotte Motor Speedway, and around here you wouldn't even know there WAS another race happening on Sunday unless you accidently tuned into a Yankee TV station. You dare not mention you watched a race that took place in Indy, unless it was the Brickyard 400. As my granpappy said, "Them there Indy cars is fer sissies, son!" Actually, he never said that, and he was from Blue Mound, Illinois. I've always thought it would be fun to watch a race that had both Indy cars and Nascar cars. Any bets on who'd come out on top?
ReplyDeleteJohn the Econ,
My wife accuses me of having selective hearing. Your average liberal has selective memory in half their head, and memory of events that never happened in the other half. Ask any liberal what party filibustered and tried to block the Civil Rights Act. You'll get the wrong answer every time. How about which party pushed for abolition?
My heart and prayers go out to the veterans and their families who have suffered under our current Democrat's policies. And I pray that people's eyes will be opened to see that O'Liarcare will end up just like the V.A. if it is not stopped very very soon.
Y'all have a great Memorial Day weekend. I'll be taking the back seat out of my car tonight.
Like Reiuxcat, I'm not a Hoosier in any way, but I'll be watching all 1,100 miles of racing this weekend. After I get back from 'planting' flags for vets at the National Cemetery.
ReplyDeleteGood man, txGreg.
ReplyDeletePer Grumpy and Frankie yesterday.
Second Chuck Ef's comment re: txGreg
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of alligators, FWIW even CNN has finally taken note of life under obama.
"It's become a familiar pattern in Washington.
A new controversy emerges. Media reports raise questions, and Republican critics hurl accusations. President Barack Obama stays hidden from scrutiny, leaving spokesman Jay Carney to bob and weave like a cornered boxer in the White House briefing room.
Only under heightened public anger and political pressure does Obama emerge..."
Of course, they left out a few scandals, such as Fast and Furious, but at least they're coming to the party, even if they are late...
Maybe you should check with UPS and FedEx on the cost of shipping a few gators to an appropriate golf course, if you know what I mean...
ReplyDelete@Colby
ReplyDeleteAbout 5 or so years ago the IndyCar series ran races at Richmond International. The differences in lap speeds were: NASCAR - 148mph, INDYCAR - 178mph. It was stated during one of the broadcasts that if they had staged a 200 lap race between a NASCAR racer and an INDYCAR, by the time the INDYCAR completed the 200 laps, the NASCAR car would be on lap 94!!
JES42
Carmel is about 20 miles from where I grew up (Lebanon). Think we played football and basketball against some teams there in the 50s before I left town. Over near Noblesville, which was another rival town along with Crawfordsville and Frankfort and Shortridge and Crispus Attucks.
ReplyDeleteGood place to grow up back then. People didn't lock their doors or their cars, and out away from the city, you never found harsh drugs . . . just some occasional weed (which was really a joke 'cause it had such low levels of THC) and booze. We called it "smokin rope" 'cause the plant is actually hemp, which is what rope is traditionally made from. All it ever did for me was burn my eyes and make me cough. Hell, corn silk in a pipe was better'n a roach.
Sure wish I could have a do-over and go back through those years again, tho.
@Chuck Ef +10 !
ReplyDelete"Bystander" = Priceless!
@Sam L
ReplyDeleteRoger that.
Need a plan. Need a plan. But great idea ...
I suspect if we put a sign-up sheet in a VA Hospital or two, we might get some support. A couple of pickups, maybe bocopro's Chevy. Could work, could work.
Logistics....
@Chuck "Quesito" Ef, the left here envies Europe, where adolescence has been extended well into middle age for decades now. (I have friends who didn't graduate college until their mid-30s, and then went to work for the government, where they expect to retire some time in their 50s) I had a great time in school, and if they'd have let me stay and someone else would have been paying the bill, I'd still be there too!
ReplyDeleteOf course, we now see that phenomenon here as well. Sandra Fluke, the middle-aged women who was so upset that we weren't subsidizing her recreational sex made it to the 26th grade before she finally left. It never occurred to her or her feminist sisterhood that at any other time in our history, this might this station in life would have been embarrassing. I can understand women who don't want to be totally dependent upon a husband. But they think nothing of being totally dependent upon a state.
You are so right. Pain is a vital part of the feedback mechanism that no longer exists. So like spoiled children, they'll keep pushing and pushing until there is pain.
Yes, @Stilton, we'll finally be a "fair" nation because we'll all have "access" to waiting rooms. But this has always been the end result of socialism, the "poor" remain poor. It's the middle class that takes it on the chin with the more equally distributed misery. Unfortunately, my idiotic acquaintance yesterday won't figure that out until it actually hits him, just like millions of others didn't give ObamaCare a serious thought until they got the cancellation notice, and then saw what the exchanges had to offer.
@Colby, life in an echo chamber does that. Our universities are certainly good examples of the phenomenon. By now, your average American History professor (the few that are left) probably doesn't even know what you do.
I swear - this is NOT from The Onion!
ReplyDelete@Readers- You're going to make me lazy; I blow off my day's work and you STILL fill these comments with great thoughts and observations!
ReplyDeleteStilton, have a great weekend. I have an ancient book titled 'Thirty Days In May' that explains past and current motivations to qualify for the race.
ReplyDeleteJim
George Washington didn't take a day off from the Revolution to watch things go round in circles ...
ReplyDeleteand he didn't even sleep in Indianapolis!
:) hehehe.
Jim, Jim, Jim,
ReplyDeleteWhat are we to do with you? Or are the circles you speak of the idiotic things going on in DC?
Anyway, someone with a whiskey distillery on his property would have LOVED watching the Indy 500. It's a law of physics.
The Phoenix whistle blower.
ReplyDeleteThankfully, we have that polymath, Touré, to explain to we SWM’s how awful we are.
I am named after my father's cousin, a SWM who did not come home from WWII. Both he and my father were 82nd AA. That was some serious sh*t.
Yeah, this country has had issues. There are new ones today: working hard for your family ain't one of them - whining about SWM privilege IS.
ChuckEf -- there's actually a minor NACAR driver named "Jimmy Hlavac" -- poor guy - I hope he doesn't get confused with me too often.
ReplyDeleteand G. Washington also grew hemp -- between the whiskey and the pot I'm sure he was going around in circles :)
@JIm Hlavac
ReplyDeleteHa! I did not know that about the hemp.
George Washington not only grew hemp, but wrote extensively on how to produce female plants over male plants. Totally irrelevant if your only goal is to make rope. It is only the female plants that contain THC.
ReplyDeleteBTW, for those who are unfamiliar, THC is the psychoactive compound in Marijuana. Many of the founding fathers notated in letters their pleasure in smoking marijuana, Including Washington, Madison, Monroe, Jefferson & Andrew Jackson. Then there was Ben Franklin. He was most definitely the biggest drug user of his day, but still found the time to discover electricity, invent several things, and publish a periodical that is still in print today.
Delete@Geoff King
ReplyDeleteMy word! I did not know that either. Fascinating.
But I guess I shouldn't be so surprised. The roots of the drug laws were racist in nature. Prior to worrying about the Chinese and African-Americans on drugs, people the world over consumed these things. To be fair, they were for the most part unaware of the consequences but still, the roots of prohibition (of drugs and marijuana) had little to do with "health" - that was just the excuse.
@Geoff King and Jim Hlavac
ReplyDeleteSo what does any of this have to do with alligators?
Hehehehehehehe.
I seriously doubt that any of the men who wrote the U.S. Constitution ever indulged in smoking anything stronger than tobacco, if even that. There are an awful lot of people who almost desperately want to believe that, but you can ask any of the experts on the Founders and they'll likely just laugh at you. Try Clay Jenkinson of the Thomas Jefferson Hour, for a start, at jeffersonhour.org.
ReplyDeleteSadly, the once-great state of Colorado is now overflowing with people whose sole goal in life is to get high. I personally have little to no use for the dope heads. For that matter, I have little to no use for the heavy drinkers of the world. Why waste your life that way?
So, Geoff King...
ReplyDeleteare you telling me that Washington, Madison, Monroe, Jefferson & Andrew Jackson were the ORIGINAL Doobie Brothers? Whooda thunk.
JustAJeepGuy - sir -- smoking pot or drinking booze does not make one a "head" or a "druggie" or diminish anything -- it is the abuse of such things that is the problem. Much as a cup or 2 or 3 of coffee in the AM doesn't harm -- but after the 3rd or 4th pot of the stuff you're a little wacky. Moderation is the key. If one can freely relax after a hard day of fighting government with a scotch, I'm sure one can also do it with a joint without much peril.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure one can find any number of historians who will argue the issue one way or the other -- but that's all opinion -- for none of the founding fathers actually wrote "Man, that hemp was a good smoke" or something-- but they all grew it -- and knew of its various properties. And they all had ample access to Indians - who all smoked it.
The weirdest thing? The DEA is charged with eradicating the "weed" -- and when they get close the EPA will have to step in to preserve it as an endangered species!
ChuckEf -- as a former member of the Louisiana Alligator Farmers Association -- I can assure you -- none of this is related to gators.
Perhaps you all should look up hemp to see what it's uses and importance was centuries ago. It had nothing to do with smoking pot!
ReplyDeleteOf course Nasty Nancy blames George; me, I blame AlGoreBull Worming, cuz there's nothing (nada, zip, zilch, zero) that it can't do!
ReplyDeleteOK, it can't make Barry smart, or responsible, let alone take responsibility, or tone down his partisanship.
Feel free (if the Head Cheese here allows) to add to the list.
That's OK, Stilt.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy some R&R.
Besides, we all know this mis-administration is just one huge croc anyway!