Not much baseball practice, too much rain and cold. Nothing in the garden, muddy ground makes clods not planting hills.
We had global warming for a few days and then, alas, alas, it fled like Obama when he is expected to do the Presidential thing and make a decision.
And April isn't even here yet, but:
April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
- - - T. S. Eliot "The Waste Land"
I have been mildly depressed, I think, from just watching the news. The Repubs and the Demos are arguing over the budget. Less than 1% cut??? Pulezzeeeeeeee.
And we discover, again, that the Left doesn't mind us expending our blood and treasure for "humanitarian" reasons.
I hate to tell them but people die. Some die after a long and happy life, others not so much. And since God has not given me the power to fix the world's problems, I try to be selective and advise our leaders to respond only to things that are in our National Interest.
Does Libya as a country fit? I don't think so.
But Libya's oil is in our national interest. Why? Because even though 98% of Libya’s oil has gone to Europe, if it is lost then Europe will move its purchasing power to Saudi Arabia and other places where we get oil and the price will just keep spiraling up.
That’s pretty basic stuff, eh?
But Obama doesn’t get it. Or else he does and doesn’t care. I have long been trying to figure out if Obama is evil and has a plan to destroy the country or if he is just incompetent and is letting the country be destroyed.
Of course it doesn’t make any difference. The country is being destroyed.
And the Repubs, those guys we elected to get us started drilling for oil here and cut the budget are arguing with the Democrats over less than chump change.
As I tell Senator Alexander and Corker’s staff people…. “Tell him to get off his behind and start doing something.”
Not that they will.
The hot water saga continues……
I discovered that the downstairs unit was leaking into the drain pain and from there thru a drain to under the house. No big deal.
Only the unit is in a closet under the stairs along with the cold air return on the downstairs heat/ac and there is no extra room. So I go looking for a 40 gallon unit that is no bigger than 45” tall and 22” in diameter. Not a lot of choices but Sears has one with reasonable specs. So I order same, pick it up in my trusty but elderly Ford Ranger, bring it home, unload it and notice that the box says that the height is 3.89’.
That’s 46.68 inches. 1.68 inches higher than will fit.
Hmmmmm. Go back and check the specs of the model ordered on the website. Sure enough, they say 44”. Dig around in the closet and figure out that I can move the drain pan three inches out from the sloped ceiling and it will then fit. But that means I will have to drill a new drain hold and move the drain…. Back under the floor to see what that will do. Discover that this will put the drain over a heat/ac duct so I will have to move it and extend the drain with an elbow… grumble grumble..
At this point decide to open the top of the box and measure the water heater…. And it measures 44”.
So the box was wrong. Thought maybe it meant box dimensions. Nope. They are 48 x 25….
All is well that ends well.
See? That would make a great reality TV show.
Mike L sent me this.
The Pharmacist's Monday Morning
Upon arriving home, a husband was met at the door by his sobbing wife. Tearfully she explained, "It's the druggist. He insulted me terribly this morning on the phone. I had to call multiple times before he would even answer the phone."
Immediately, the husband drove downtown to confront the druggist and demand an apology.
Before he could say more than a word or two, the druggist told him, "Now, just a minute, listen to my side of it. This morning the alarm failed to go off, so I was late getting up. I went without breakfast and hurried out to the car, just to realize that I'd locked the house with both house and car keys inside and had to break a window to get my keys.
"Then, driving a little too fast, I got a speeding ticket. Later, when I was about three blocks from the store, I had a flat tire."
"When I finally got to the store a bunch of people was waiting for me to open up. I got the store opened and started waiting on these people, all the time the darn phone was ringing off the hook."
He continued, "Then I had to break a roll of nickels against the cash register drawer to make change, and they spilled all over the floor. I had to get down on my hands and knees to pick up the nickels and the phone was still ringing. When I came up I cracked my head on the open cash drawer, which made me stagger back against a showcase with a bunch of perfume bottles on it. Half of them hit the floor and broke."
"Meanwhile, the phone is still ringing with no let up, and I finally got back to answer it. It was your wife. She wanted to know how to use a rectal thermometer.
And believe me mister, as God is my witness, all I did was tell her.”
Birthers and other stuff.
I love some of the stuff The Donald says. I mean bad hair do and all he is a treat to listen to because what he says has a bit of truth in it.
Like, why don’t we charge for being someone’s policeman?? You and I pay for protection with our taxes. Why should we be protecting the people of Iraq, Afghanistan and Iraq for free?
I mean look, we’re so far gone down the bankruptcy slide that we talking about cutting Medicare and Social Security. Who comes first? Our citizens or the world’s citizens??
Simplistic? Maybe the problem is that we have taken some simple concepts and made them complex. Maybe the problem we have now is the same problems the Catholic Church brought to its members for years when Mass was said in Latin to people who didn’t know Latin. Why? Because it was the Priests who would tell everyone what was meant. The masses were too dumb to understand complex issues.
Maybe it’s time we admit that nation building doesn’t work. Unless you’re willing to absolutely tear a society apart, as we did in Japan and Germany, it won’t work. You can’t bribe them into doing what you want. You have to convince them by proving that your way, which just kicked their butts into next year, is the right way.
Is that insane?
Well, let me tell you that one of the prime symptoms of insanity is for someone to keep doing the same thing and expect a different result. And we’ve been dashing around the world ever since the Soviet Union collapsed looking for someone to save.
Hasn’t worked well. People don’t want saving. Time to let them go out on their own.
The other point The Donald made was the stupidity over Obama’s birth certificate. The guy hasn’t produced one. Some people think that’s important. But anyone who does is attacked as a racist, just as The Donald was on “The View.”
Well, The Donald does have a point. It only took him an hour to get his. Obama has had two plus years. That tells me that he doesn’t want to. Why? Don’t know and don’t care. Do I believe he was born in HI? Yes. All of this is just another way to draw attention and sympathy. Poor me. See how the Birthers treat me…. And I Am The Chosen One!
The only thing is, this isn’t new. Chester Arthur was accused of being born in Canada. Charles Hughes was declared to ineligible because his father was a British immigrant and Goldwater was born in a US territory before Arizona became a state.
At least he could get an original whine.
OnTwitter I am Lesabre1 "Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Karl Popper
“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” - William Pitt
"Logic. There is little logic among the cultural elite, maybe because there is little omnipresent fear of job losses or the absence of money, and so arises a rather comfortable margin to indulge in nonsense." - Victor Davis Hanson
