Zelensky tried to push around the POTUS and got thrown out on his ass.
Afterwards the WH staff ate his lunch.
Hopefully some Marine PFC got some of it.
Friday, February 28, 2025
I see where the WH staff got a free lunch.
I do not know why but I have had a change since I held that baby the other day.
It seems something has come over me and things in life appear to be a lot clearer. There's a sense of clarity that has returned to me since I held that baby the other day. It did something to my spirit.
It is a damned good feeling that goes into my very soul.
Thursday, February 27, 2025
What's in it for us?
I'm seeing a minerals deal, not yet confirmed with Ukraine and it sounds pretty good to me. They need aid and from what I have gathered Trump is willing to send aid in return for certain mineral rights in Ukraine.
It's about time we stopped throwing money all throughout the planet and not getting anything in return. Trump makes good sense here and I can certainly go along with the plan if it materializes.
We have given out too damned much money over the years and gotten nothing in return. We even have given vast amounts of money to places that hate us which is poor financial control because if we don't give them any money they'll still hate us for free.
Before we give any money to anyone the first thing we should ask ourselves is what's in it for us?
Tuesday, February 25, 2025
Yesterday's trip to the mall
was rather interesting. It was rather upscale. I decided to start 'shoplifting prices' which is a colorful way of saying check a few prices to see what kind of a mall it had morphed into.
A pair of 501 Levis were marked $98 and I can get them for half that delivered to my door on Amazon. At a Sunglasses Hut I saw $300+ Ray Bans. The total mind blower is when I saw the Burberry shop and ambled in. I was curious what an Old School trench coat would cost me. A few decades ago I had one I had picked up somewhere along the line secondhand.
An Old School trench coat is the preferred overgarment of spies, secret agents and private detectives and must be worn at all times with a fairly wide brimmed fedora.
Anyway, I have the fedora but I guess my career as a private eye isn't going to launch because they wanted about $2250 for the damned thing! WTF?!
I just searched on line and that actually is about what they are running. (I also noticed I can get an almost identical one at Banana Republic for a little over a hundred bucks.)
I stuck my head into the Swarovski store and asked if they carried optics. Nope. Just jewelry. I glanced at a few hefty prices and ambled out.
As I type this I DO recall the last time I was in the mall, I was in and out because I went directly to the perfume counter. I had just licensed as a ham and got lucky having had a brief chat with a guy in French Polynesia. I wanted that QSL card and on his QRZ page he advised against mailing for a card because there was a lot of mail theft.
In a hold my beer moment I grabbed my card, a pink envelope, a lavender ball point and headed straight to the Macy's perfume counter and explained what I wanted to the old prune behind the counter. She rolled her eyes and didn't know what to say but the Gods were with me that day. The woman in her late 40s had overheard my request, laughed and came over and fixed me up. She addressed the envelope for me in a very girly manner, even dotting the Is with little tiny hearts, slapped a big lipstick kiss on it and asked me if I wanted it sprayed in Chanel #5.
"You don't have to," I replied. "Just use the cheap stuff that strippers use."
"OK. We sell gallons of this stuff," she replied.
She soaked the letter in cheap perfume and I dropped it in the mail on the way home. About a month later my card arrived with a note telling he he made sure his wife opened it when it arrived.
Needless to say, Abercrombie and Fitch and Banana Republic were there. Both used to sell safari and travel clothes but went upbeat decades ago. You used to be able to walk into either of those places and walk out looking like you were going to go shoot an elephant somewhere.
The big question I had to ask is where the money comes from. All of those places turn a profit or they would not be there.
Yes, there is a Jos A Banks there, which isn't high end and Banana Republic is somewhat reasonable in the mall but the high end places confuse me.
For the most part, this general area is pretty working class with the usual fairly modest homes and a few year old car in the driveway. This here ain't Beverly Hills with swimming pools and movie stars and Rodeo Drive nearby. This is Ford, Chevy Subaru and Toyota country. The average housewife certainly isn't a supermodel, nor is there a lot of gardeners, pool boys and maids in the households.
I just can't seem to figure out where the money comes from to support the high end stores.
.
Monday, February 24, 2025
What an exceptional day!
I have felt caged an and decided to go for a walk in the mall which I don't thing I have been in for at least 10 years. It wasn't crowed and was actually rather nice checking things out. It's been kept up and maintained.
A young mother with a two week old son was leaving one of the stores and having kind of a hard time with a package and the new infant. I went over and offered to help. She looked at me carefully and explained she was going over to the bench to put her newly purchased infant carrier together. She looked to be about 22 years old.
Holding a 2 week old infant is a joy for me. The infant is entering the world that I am soon leaving. Holding the child was a very, very spiritual moment for me. Of course no spiritual moment lasts very long.
I was spotted by a woman I barely knew and had not seen in years which was a food deal as far as I'm concerned. She walked up to me and asked me how my wife was doing. I decided to take one helluva chance.
"She threw me out a few years ago," I said. "As you can see, I've remarried."
The infant's mother never looked up. She continued setting up the carrier. The woman's head exploded and she mumbled something and walked off.
That's when the mother looked up at me with mirth and merriment in her eyes. She snickered and said, "Good one!"
I went back to enjoying the two week old, the mother finished with the baby carrier, loaded up her precious cargo and said to me, "I can't wait to tell my husband about this. Thank you for your help."
I'm fairly certain this will get back to my wife who will be glad I helped a woman with an infant but I'll probably catch hell for claiming fatherhood of the cherub.
I'll simply explain that it's in the manual, The Suburban Dwellers Guide, 2023 Edition, Government Printing Office (Which Trump had told DOGE not to close) on Chapter 8, Duties of old men. Section H Targets of opportunity are to be engaged so long as no physical risk is present.....Subsection 6 Specifically says that elderly gossips are to be given something to gossip about, preferably a story of a scandalous nature.
I suppose I'll still get my ass chewed anyway, but being able to hold a two week old infant is worth it.
This was an exceptional day.
A young mother with a two week old son was leaving one of the stores and having kind of a hard time with a package and the new infant. I went over and offered to help. She looked at me carefully and explained she was going over to the bench to put her newly purchased infant carrier together. She looked to be about 22 years old.
Holding a 2 week old infant is a joy for me. The infant is entering the world that I am soon leaving. Holding the child was a very, very spiritual moment for me. Of course no spiritual moment lasts very long.
I was spotted by a woman I barely knew and had not seen in years which was a food deal as far as I'm concerned. She walked up to me and asked me how my wife was doing. I decided to take one helluva chance.
"She threw me out a few years ago," I said. "As you can see, I've remarried."
The infant's mother never looked up. She continued setting up the carrier. The woman's head exploded and she mumbled something and walked off.
That's when the mother looked up at me with mirth and merriment in her eyes. She snickered and said, "Good one!"
I went back to enjoying the two week old, the mother finished with the baby carrier, loaded up her precious cargo and said to me, "I can't wait to tell my husband about this. Thank you for your help."
I'm fairly certain this will get back to my wife who will be glad I helped a woman with an infant but I'll probably catch hell for claiming fatherhood of the cherub.
I'll simply explain that it's in the manual, The Suburban Dwellers Guide, 2023 Edition, Government Printing Office (Which Trump had told DOGE not to close) on Chapter 8, Duties of old men. Section H Targets of opportunity are to be engaged so long as no physical risk is present.....Subsection 6 Specifically says that elderly gossips are to be given something to gossip about, preferably a story of a scandalous nature.
I suppose I'll still get my ass chewed anyway, but being able to hold a two week old infant is worth it.
This was an exceptional day.
What were they thinking?
A while ago some DX team decided to take a DXpedition to Somalia which I immediately wondered it it was a good idea and I ran a quick search to see what the State department had to say about visiting that hellhole.
Make sure you have a last will and testament filed before you leave.
Well, THAT says something right there. Maybe it's not a nice place to visit.
I have certainly done more than my fair share of crazy things but I am not not completely stupid.
The place has an average sub room temperature IQ of 67.67.
The place is completely beyond repair and no amount of time nor money can do a bit of good there. None.
It's one of the last places on earth where piracy is a part of its income.
Yet a group of hams tried to show up with a bunch of expensive, bright shiny objects (radios) and set up a working radio station there.
What could possibly go wrong?
While they did manage to get home safely the whole thing was a bust.
Why am I not surprised?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I just ordered a western cut shirt to replace the other one that got accidentally destroyed. Every American should own at least one western outfit.
My wife asked me why and I said, "Suppose I have to go to Europe?"
Sunday, February 23, 2025
Merit.
I was glad to see DEI disappear because I am not a racist.
A free people are not equal and an equal people are not free.
I have stated time and again that we should all be held to the same standards of excellence.
If the fire department has a requirement that one is able to drag a 250 pound whatever for 200 feet then that means everybody. If some 87 pound chick can do it she has met one of the requirements to be a fireman. It doesn't matter if she is a gay, black, Jew or a gay white freckle faced redhead. 250 pounds, 200 feet and that means for anyone that wants to be a fireman.
I'm sick and tired of DEI. It is a major insult to all parties. It's a carryover from Rudyard Kipling's poem, stating that the 'civilized' countries had a duty to colonize and civilize it's peoples.
Meaning, of course teach them to drink Coca Cola etc. The assumption being that our poor little brown brothers were incapable of taking car of themselves. (Needless to say, most white men had no clue of how to take care of themselves in the bush. The locals did as they had been doing so since time began.)
Still, today in the States DEI has no merit whatsoever.
One thing it does do is to hurt minorities that went the whole mile and became excellent in their field. People look at a person like that somewhat dubiously because they are afraid he's a less than stellar DEI hire.
A nurse friend of mine has reported having had more than one black insist on a white doctor. Why? Because they suspect they are being handed off to a DEI hire if the doctor is black.
Saturday, February 22, 2025
Today is going to be a good day.
Like a lot of us I am a creature of habit in some things.
I wake up, shower and throw yesterday's underwear in the hamper.
Daily. Without thought.
As a result I play hell getting rid of s pair of briefs when they get really ratty. Last June before a trip I went through my briefs and took the rattiest 5 skids with me and simply pitched them after each shower.
Anyway the pair I had on when I woke up this morning was really ratty so something caught me as I dropped my drawers to step into the shower. Instead of automatically throwing them into the hamper* I dropped them into the waste basket.
That was a pretty good start.
*The underwear hamper is a cardboard box on its side in the living room I toss yesterdays underwear into because for some reason the cat like to sleep on my used underwear. The house is organized for the convenience of the cat.
Friday, February 21, 2025
Had to double check this one
If it's too good to be true it generally is.
I heard that some liberal court threw out 84 of Biden's last minute pardons. Fake news, dammit!
========================================
I have heard but am unable to confirm 100% that the crew on the Delta flight that flipped up in Canada had an all female aircrew.
I'm also aware that Delta is still running a DEI business.
I am certainly not going to even hazard to venture a guess over the competency of the crew. I have no idea but you can bet that if it is an all woman aircrew that Delta's DEI policy is going to have a lot of people question it. As of a few seconds ago a quick Google search says Delta is holding to their DEI policy. Same for United.
As of now Delta and United are on my no fly list because of the policy. When they decide to return to a meritocracy I'll start flying on them.
There is no excuse for not running something like an airline on anything BUT a meritocracy. I don't want to get killed over some stupid social experiment.
Needless to say, the airline officials say they hire on merit which is likely bull$hit because you can't have both.
Until recently I have not looked twice at a minority or female pilot or co-pilot because I simply figured that they had passed the same qualifications as everyone else. It's sad because now I tend to question things which I never used to.
What's interesting is the conversation I had with a female pilot. I asked her where she learned to fly. Was she military?
She gave me a proud smile and replied, "I learned the hard way."
She'd given lessons and flew the bush. I glanced at her hands and saw it was true. I was damned glad to have that skinny woman haul me across this great nation of ours.
Nowadays?
I question things a lot more because of DEI.
However I will not comment either way over the competency of the all female aircrew on that Delta flight. I WILL quietly wonder if DEI had anything to do with it.
Thursday, February 20, 2025
Kash is in.
Which means Adam Schiff is $hitting little green apples.
And that is a good thing.
Of all of the arrogant faces I have seen in my life I have never seen one so deserving of having a pie thrown in his face. Where is Moe Howard now that wee need him.
=====================================
On a more serious note here, while I am all for the deportment of illegal immigrants, I have never forgotten that they are human beings.
I know why they came here and what they were looking for. For the most part, they are nothing more than people that came here to try and better themselves. My argument is they did it the wrong way.
Had they entered legally I would support them.
They didn't and therefore entered without a proper vetting and health check. They broke the rules and they should be deported.
I read on another website where a couple of bullies tormented an 11 year old illegal immigrant girl and as a result she committed suicide.
Had they quietly called ICE I would have no problem but they took it upon themselves to torment her.
People have no business mistreating illegals. They should be reported but there is no excuse whatsoever to mistreat them.
We have enough cruelty in the world.
Whoops!
Missed a day.
Distracted by a doctor's appointment.
Tuesday, February 18, 2025
The DOGE story.
The prep work was amazing and the speed of the auditing totally unbelievable and increasing an an astonishing rate.
https://x.com/envisionalt7/status/1891316861133807774
Monday, February 17, 2025
A mental health day off line.
Was relaxing once in a while.
It's OK to not knowing what's going on once in a while.
After all, half the country doesn't.
Sunday, February 16, 2025
A deal for Bernie Sanders.
One day back in Massachusetts I was walking along Humarock beach after a pretty good storm and absently kicked a pile of seaweed. Something was in it so I reached down and dug whatever it was out of the pile. It was a lamp. I looked it over carefully and saw it was inscribed with 'Santa Maria MCDXCII'. Wow! It was made in 1492!
Anyway, I shook the lamp and discovered there was still oil in it! I spied a dog walker and I knew the lamp was valuable. I stuffed it under my coat. After a short time the inside of my coat got rather warm so I looked inside it. The lamp was still lit!
Now, when RFKjr was getting grilled by Bernie and he was accusing Kennedy of possibly wanting to take money from Big Pharma, Kennedy threw it right back at him and pointed out to Bernie that he had accepted a pretty good amount of money from them himself.
Bernie went through the roof babbling that no CEOs had ever given him money. (Well, no $hit. The CEO tells the CFO (financial officer) to hand out the money. It's not like the CEO of a major corporation met Bernie in an alley somewhere and handed him a briefcase full of cash.
Bernie's excuse was 'The workers gave it to me'. That's kind of unlikely as I have a hard time believing that all the workers at a pharmaceutical plant passed the hat and came up with a million bucks. If anything, Bernie shook down one of the unions and claimed the money came from the workers.
Unions can't use dues for political purposes, however many of them have PACs and they sometimes try shake down their membership for donations. It happened to me a few times but I squirmed out by explaining I had no cash on me, just a credit card. This was before cell phone credit card readers.
After the third or fourth time the business agent asked me why I never had cash with me. With a nonchalant air I explained that my wife cleaned out my wallet the night before I left for work to keep me from buying whores with it. He blushed and my longtime shipmate quickly said to him I was married to a mean, mean woman and excused himself to go below where he laughed himself silly.
A nearby deckhand looked at me wide-eyed and agape and I knew that story would go through the fleet like wildfire.
Back to Bernie. My best guess is that he he says 'the workers gave him the money' that they were shaken down for it by the union. so here's what I'll offer Bernie.
If he admits he got money from what was most likely a union shakedown of the rank and file, I'll blow out my lamp.
One of my pipe dreams was to go back to being a sailboat liveaboard.
Which means the inter-coastal waterway and figuring out a route between, say New England and Florida. I'd have to find dock space in Florida between Thanksgiving and early June. I start the northward sail, say Memorial Day and gunkhole my way north.
Hurricane season begins around Memorial Day and ends about Thanksgiving. That's almost perfect because summer in Florida sucks.
Both my sisters live on the Gulf of (now currently America) coast which means I'd probably want to sail around the bottom of Florida to be near them.
It would not have been a bad retirement gig but at this late date it's probably not a good idea as my health precludes it.
==========================================
Someone keeps pointing out that we need people to pick the various crops and do agricultural work to keep the price of produce down.
That's true enough.
However I want those people out of here because they are here illegally.
I think that the first 10 million that self-deport should be automatically given a shot at getting a work visa assuming they check out and have clean records and are free of disease.
If we have to throw you out then you don't get to return.
If we throw you out and you do return then you get thrown into a tent city in Arizona desert jail for a year or two while you await re-deportation.
Strike three and you get thrown back over the wall with a trebuchet.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this:
http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
Saturday, February 15, 2025
Take Grandma out of the freezer NOW!
Thaw her out.
If she's got too much freezer burn you probably ought to have her cremated. If not I suppose you can bury her but make sure you cover the grave up with endangered flowers so it's illegal to dig her up.
Quickly report her to Social Security as just having died. Empty her bank account after Social Security evens up with things. They'll only recover what was paid to her after you reported her demise.
If you work fast you probably won't get caught up in the upcoming Social Security audit.
You should be OK.
Friday, February 14, 2025
I wish President Trump would rename the San Andreas Fault
and change it to Newsom's Fault.
That is all.
More screeching about the rich.
I hear people screech that someone's net worth has increased by a few million and that the few million should be taxed.
That few million is unrealized capital gains.
Most homeowners that have lived in their home have noticed that their home value has increased over time. The difference between what one paid for the place and what it's worth now is also an unrealized capital gain.
Like the millionaire's stock, the working stiffs house has created a capital gain.
The people that want unrealized capital gains taxed probably never thought of that one.
Over 30 years the value of my home has tripled. For this area that sounds about right.
The figure of 25% of a capital gains tax has been tossed around and that means if you bought your house and paid $100K for it and it's now appraised at $200K then you owe about $25,000.
As in sit down and write a check.
Fair is fair and if the millionaire just had an unrealized capital gain of $4 million he should cough up a million bucks.
If he has to, you have to and you better be able to sit down at the kitchen table and write a check for $25,000.
For those that say he isn't paying his fair share, he is. He's paying the same 25% you are. He's also writing one hell of a bigger check than you are.
While an oversimplification, you get the drift.
I just read where DOGE has found out that Medicare has been plundered for $2.7 TRILLION
which is about 7.5% of the national debt!
(of which my share is about $102,000)
GET SOME, DOGE!
Musk's people have also discovered Social Security is paying people over 150 years old.
Medicare/aid isn't going broke. It's being outright ROBBED.
I have advocated an audit like this for DECADES!
Thursday, February 13, 2025
Being a billionaire probably doesn't mean what a lot of people think it means
If someone told me that Elon Musk borrowed ten bucks from one of his team to buy lunch with I would not be surprised in the least.
It simply means he had no cash on him to buy a couple of hot dogs from a street vendor that didn't take plastic. $hit happens.
People scream about billionaire not paying taxes and how the loopholes favor the rich and so on and so forth. I do not know about high finance tax laws but I know about income tax. It's about income.
When people scream about how some gazillionaire didn't pay income taxes there's probably a pretty good reason. He didn't make any money that year. He's still living off of the income from the big deal he made a while back. No income, no income taxes. Remember they call it an income tax.
But, what about all the stocks and real estate he owns?
What about it? He may simply be sitting on the real estate watching it increase in value. While it is doing that it is bringing him no income. The income will happen when he sells it for a profit. If he sells it for a loss, it's a loss and as such a portion of the loss can be deducted from his taxes. Any profit is taxable.
Same holds true for stocks. Say someone threw the dice on some penny stocks and the company grew very successful and their stock became valuable. The man has a net worth of 10 million and still works a $35K/year job. He pays taxes on $35K. The value of the stock means nothing. Nor should it, really.
The ten million is considered to be unrealized gains which should not be taxed because the game ain't over til it's over and the man sells his stock. It is also entirely possible that the company that issued the stock tanks and the stocks become worthless overnight.
In which case the man is no longer a millionaire. He's a stiff making $35K/year.
It's kind of like fish. If a skipper manages to put 100K pounds of fish on board which is selling for $1/pound he has 100K pounds of fish. He doesn't have $100K dollars until he unloads the fish and gets paid for them. If the boat sinks on the way to market he's got nothing.
He doesn't have to pay income tax on the fish until he sells them and turns them into money. The money is taxable, of course. The fish are not, needless to say.
People have odd ideas about the rich. They seem to think that like Scrooge McDuck that they have a giant vault full of cash somewhere and they are greedily sitting in it and counting money all day. It doesn't work like that.
Being a millionaire doesn't mean one has huge piles of cash laying around. It simply means that the person has assets worth over a million bucks. That's not too hard to do, really. Some people are and don't even realize it.
An example of this would be a guy that bought some logged over land in the middle of nowhere and he built a home of some sort on it and have lived there for 35 years. Last of the pioneers.
Over the past 35 years the forest has grown back in and some logging company wants to log it and offers you a million buck for the land.
Surprise! You are now a millionaire even if you don't accept the offer because you now hold an asset worth a million bucks. The offer has set the value of your property. It's now worth a million bucks simply because that's what someone is willing to pay you that much for it.
Actually if you sell it for a million bucks you will stop being a millionaire on April 15th. Your million bucks becomes income and is subject to taxes. You will be left with about $630, 000 after taxes because the tax rate on a million bucks is 37%.
Incidentally if you bank that $630K at 4% interest it will earn you about $25,600 annually and that is taxable income.
Most of this post is an oversimplification but you get the general idea.
It's easy to hate the rich because people are easily taught to. It's easy to appeal to a person's sense of envy. Hell, it happened to me at work. Early on I was promoted ahead of my time.
Why? Because early on I took the company test to become a tankerman and aced it. As a result of that I got sent to the company run training school, briefly apprenticed and was promoted. I got a substantial raise.
I took advantage of an opportunity. Most people didn't.
I also earned my Able Seaman rating concurrently. That meant a little more money in my pocket. For bettering myself I was called a kiss ass even though the programs were open to everyone. In less than a year my income almost doubled.
I noticed the people that slurred me were long time Ordinary Seamen, the entry level rating. The kiss ass name calling ended after a pretty good public verbal shoot out. I was pretty savage.
I pointed out that the tankerman program was open to everyone but he chose not to enter the program. I did.
While I was sitting home and during my off watch time I was studying and trying to better myself while he was down at the club swilling down beer after beer. Instead of sticking $20 worth of ones in some stripper's G-string I spent the $20 on the Merchant Seaman's manual. By doing so I had invested in myself. I told him it was about choices and instead of investing in himself he pissed it all away every payday. I told him it was about choices and he had gone through life choosing poorly.
The kiss ass insults stopped instantly.
He was probably 10 or 15 years older than me and I heard he took an early retirement (another bad choice) and retired a bitter, angry man. He was still an Ordinary Seaman.
I'll tell you about Vic later.
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