PensionersRants

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Our Power is Patience


Our power is patience. We have discovered that writing allows even a stupid person to seem halfway intelligent, if only that person will write the same thought over and over again, improving it just a little bit each time. It is a lot like inflating a blimp with a bicycle pump. Anybody can do it. All it takes is time.


KURT VONNEGUT

Thursday, April 14, 2016

The House Next Door (on the other side.)


The other day I wrote about the house next door. Today I will mention about the house next door, on the other side.
Last Sat. night - Sun. morning, we had a snow storm, high winds etc. About 3 a.m. my wife heard a loud boom. I told her it was probably thunder. It snowed most of the morning, wet snow, and we got about 6 inches. It was supposed to get warmer, so I didn't bother shoveling the driveway. Figured it would be all disappear, which it did.
About 3 in the afternoon we went out to settle the garbage around. My wife went around the corner, let out a "Oh My God" and called me.
The house on this side is a duplex, rented out. It has four large columns in front. On the ground was one of the columns. . It had fallen off and lay about a foot away from my neighbors SUV. I went to talk to my neighbor about it and he didn't even know. He was glad it didn't fall on the SUV. The first thing he did was call the landlord. No problem. Someone would be there the next morning. Then he went out and moved the column. Said it was quite heavy. I would have left it there for the landlord to see. He does have three more columns.
Next morning, at 8 a.m. two trucks showed up to do repairs - at least that was what I thought. They worked all day and built a new step on the front of the house. Huh! What!
This is three days later and the column still lays on the ground. Went to the neighbor. Told me he asked for a column and got a mini patio. He also mentioned that the column was held at the top by six 3 inch nails. Maybe the landlord should also be looking at the other columns.

Monday, April 11, 2016

U.S. Flag on the Moon


Tony Reichhardt in 2008 Smithsonian Air & Space Magazine wrote: The flag is probably gone. Buzz Aldrin saw it knocked over by the rocket blast as he and Neil Armstrong left the moon 39 summers ago. Lying there in the lunar dust, unprotected from the sun’s harsh ultraviolet rays, the flag’s red and blue would have bleached white in no time. Over the years, the nylon would have turned brittle and disintegrated. (see Finding Apollo).   He also wrote:  Dennis Lacarrubba, whose New Jersey-based company, Annin, made the flag and sold it to NASA for $5.50 in 1969, considers what might happen to an ordinary nylon flag left outside for 39 years on Earth, let alone on the moon. He thinks for a few seconds. “I can’t believe there would be anything left,” he concludes. “I gotta be honest with you. It’s gonna be ashes.”

The House Next Door

     Well, we have some action on the building lot next door. Time to build a house. Right off the bat, that didn't work out too well. First they had to test the soil for pollution. And no wonder, as soon as they dug into the soil, you could smell the oil. Pollution from the oil tank. I remember when they were tearing down the house, they just batted that oil tank around. When there is pollution like that, they have to remove the soil for cleaning.
     That's when they got another surprise. They never removed the foundation from the old house. They just knocked it into the hole. So they had to dig that out and haul it away. Then they had to take out the polluted soil. They took truck loads away. It was going on for days. They told me they don't bring the soil back. Probably sell it. When they finished, there was a hole at least 20 ft. deep. After that they filled part of the hole with crushed rock. Truck loads and truck loads.
Today, they are getting ready to lay the foundation. The guys told me it would take 6 months to build the house. Get used to the noise.
     They told me the new owner wasn't too happy when he heard about the pollution. I think he went after the seller.
     I met the new owner last fall. If he was the guy that bought the house. The first thing he said to me, "I don't like your fence. I'm going to build my own." We're off to a good start. Then I looked at the bright side, I only have to paint my side of the fence. +-

Friday, April 8, 2016

Every time I buy salmon, the cans seem smaller.

Snow! Really?

A low pressure system is forecast to develop off the US coast and pass south of Nova Scotia overnight Saturday into Sunday.

Snow and strong winds giving reduced visibilities in blowing snow are expected to develop over much of mainland Nova Scotia overnight Saturday. As much as 10 to 15 cm of snow are forecast for Saturday night with additional snowfall expected for parts of the province on Sunday.
Rapidly accumulating snow could make travel difficult over some locations. Visibility may be suddenly reduced at times in heavy snow.

Winter storm watches are issued when multiple types of severe winter weather are expected to occur together.

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Jefferson and Muslims

A different type of president then.

When Jefferson saw there was no negotiating with Muslims, he formed what
is the now the Marines (sea going soldiers). These Marines were attached
to U. S. Merchant vessels.

When the Muslims attacked U.S. merchant vessels they were repulsed by
armed soldiers, but there is more. The Marines followed the Muslims back
to their villages and killed every man, woman, and child in the village.
It didn't take long for the Muslims to leave U.S. Merchant vessels alone.
English and French merchant vessels started running up our flag when
entering the Mediterranean to secure safe travel.

Why the Marine Hymn Contains the Verse "To the Shores of Tripoli"

This is very interesting and a must read piece of our history. It points
out where we may be heading.

Most Americans are unaware of the fact that over two hundred years ago the
United States had declared war on Islam and Thomas Jefferson led the
charge!

At the height of the 18th century, Muslim pirates (the "Barbary Pirates")
were the terror of the Mediterranean and a large area of the North
Atlantic.

They attacked every ship in sight, and held the crews for exorbitant
ransoms. Those taken hostage were subjected to barbaric treatment and
wrote heart-breaking letters home, begging their government and family
members to pay whatever their Mohammedan captors demanded.

These extortionists of high seas represented the North African Islamic
nations of Tripoli, Tunis, Morocco, and Algiers - collectively referred to
as the Barbary Coast - and presented a dangerous and unprovoked threat to
the new American Republic.

Before the Revolutionary War, U.S. merchant ships had been under the
protection of Great Britain. When the U.S. declared its independence and
entered into war, the ships of the United States were protected by France.
However, once the war was won, America had to protect its own fleets.

Thus, the birth of the U.S. Navy. Beginning in 1784, 17 years before he
would become president, Thomas Jefferson became America's Minister to
France. That same year, U.S. Congress sought to appease its Muslim
adversaries by following in the footsteps of European nations who paid
bribes to the Barbary States rather than engaging them in war.

In July of 1785, Algerian pirates captured American ships, and the Dye of
Algiers demanded an unheard-of ransom of $60,000. It was a plain and
simple case of extortion, and Thomas Jefferson was vehemently opposed to
any further payments. Instead, he proposed to Congress the formation of a
coalition of allied nations who together could force the Islamic states
into peace. A disinterested Congress decided to pay the ransom.

In 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams met with Tripoli's ambassador to
Great Britain to ask by what right his nation attacked American ships and
enslaved American citizens, and why Muslims held so much hostility towards
America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts.

The two future presidents reported that Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman
Adja had answered that Islam "was founded on the Laws of their Prophet,
that it was written in their Quran that all nations who would not
acknowledge their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty
to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of
all they could take as prisoners, and that every Musselman (Muslim) who
should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise."

Despite this stunning admission of premeditated violence on non-Muslim
nations, as well as the objections of many notable American leaders,
including George Washington, who warned that caving in was both wrong and
would only further embolden the enemy, for the following fifteen years the
American government paid the Muslims millions of dollars for the safe
passage of American ships or the return of American hostages. The payments
in ransom and tribute amounted to over 20 percent of the United States
government annual revenues in 1800.

Jefferson was disgusted. Shortly after his being sworn in as the third
President of the United States in 1801, the Pasha of Tripoli sent him a
note demanding the immediate payment of $225,000 plus $25,000 a year for
every year forthcoming. That changed everything.

Jefferson let the Pasha know, in no uncertain terms, what he could do with
his demand. The Pasha responded by cutting down the flagpole at the
American consulate and declared war on the United States. Tunis, Morocco,
and Algiers immediately followed suit. Jefferson, until now, had been
against America raising a naval force for anything beyond coastal defense,
but, having watched his nation be cowed by Islamic thuggery for long
enough, decided that it was finally time to meet force with force.

He dispatched a squadron of frigates to the Mediterranean and taught the
Muslim nations of the Barbary Coast a lesson he hoped they would never
forget. Congress authorized Jefferson to empower U.S. ships to seize all
vessels and goods of the Pasha of Tripoli and to "cause to be done all
other acts of precaution or hostility as the state of war would justify".

When Algiers and Tunis, who were both accustomed to American cowardice and
acquiescence, saw the newly independent United States had both the will
and the right to strike back, they quickly abandoned their allegiance to
Tripoli. The war with Tripoli lasted for four more years, and raged up
again in 1815. The bravery of the U.S. Marine Corps in these wars led to
the line "to the shores of Tripoli" in the Marine Hymn, and they would
forever be known as "leathernecks" for the leather collars of their
uniforms, designed to prevent their heads from being cut off by the Muslim
scimitars when boarding enemy ships.

Islam, and what its Barbary followers justified doing in the name of their
prophet and their god, disturbed Jefferson quite deeply.

America had a tradition of religious tolerance. In fact Jefferson,
himself, had co-authored the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, but
fundamentalist Islam was like no other religion the world had ever seen. A
religion based on supremacy, whose holy book not only condoned but
mandated violence against unbelievers, was unacceptable to him. His
greatest fear was that someday this brand of Islam would return and pose
an even greater threat to the United States.

This should concern every American. That Muslims have brought about
women-only classes and swimming times at taxpayer-funded universities and
public pools; that Christians, Jews, and Hindus have been banned from
serving on juries where Muslim defendants are being judged; Piggy banks
and Porky Pig tissue dispensers have been banned from workplaces because
they offend Islamist sensibilities; ice cream has been discontinued at
certain Burger King locations because the picture on the wrapper looks
similar to the Arabic script for Allah; public schools are pulling pork
from their menus; on and on and on and on..

It's death by a thousand cuts, or inch-by-inch as some refer to it, and
most Americans have no idea that this battle is being waged every day
across America. By not fighting back, by allowing groups to obfuscate what
is really happening, and not insisting that the Islamists adapt to our own
culture, the United States is cutting its own throat with a politically
correct knife, and helping to further the Islamists agenda.

Sadly, it appears that today America's STUPID leaders would rather be
politically correct than victorious!


If you have any doubts about the above information, Google "Thomas
Jefferson vs. the Muslim World

Thursday, February 18, 2016

Canada Selling Part of Its Gold Reserves

by Martin Armstrong

Governments everywhere are going broke. Despite what people think, gold may yet make new record lows under $1,000 in the months ahead. Canada has sold off a piece of its gold reserve into this rally. There is NO intention of returning to a gold standard. They are moving fully electronic and intend to eliminate cash everywhere. In so doing, the “official” view behind the curtain is that they no longer need gold.

Monday, February 15, 2016

Fitbit

     I finally got rid of all my old VCR tapes. They start to degrade after so many years. Imagine, saving all those old movies and TV shows. What was I thinking? Now I guess I've made myself space for some other junk.
     I need a new strap for my Fitbit. This one is falling apart, but I don't think a new strap will solve my problem. A piece of plastic has broken off one end so I won't be able to secure the new strap. Need to think out of the box on this one. Have to figure something out. The bottom line is, I hate the strap.

Friday, February 12, 2016

Dual Citizenship

     While I was in the R.C.A.F, I was for a short time stationed in Sardinia, an island off Italy. It was an air force base for Italians, Germans and Canadians. One evening, a few of us went to a club on the Italian side. While sitting there, a guy came up and told us a memorable story. He was actually a Canadian, who went to Italy to visit his Grandparents. While there, the government grabbed him and shoved him into the Air Force. The surprise and price of dual citizenship.




Thursday, February 11, 2016

Snow Storm

 
Well, we had our big snow storm on Sat. The forecast was for 16 ins. starting at 10 am. As I watched the weather map on T.V, I saw that there was snow all around us, while we were in a long stripe of no snow. As it turned out, the snow didn't start falling until 5 pm. Seven hours of no snow made a big difference. Around us did get the18 ins. We received a lot less snow, but the high winds did kick up some small snow banks.

Thursday, February 4, 2016

Raisin Bran

I had Raisin Bran for breakfast the other day. On the box it read that there were hundreds of raisins in every box. I'm not trying to doubt Kellogg, but hundreds of raisins? I wonder how they figure that out, drop 200 raisins in the bottom of the box? Well, I'm not going to empty the box and count them. I'll just have to take their word for it. Can you take the word of a Cooperation?

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Horatio Hornblower

Watched an old movie the other day. Horatio Hornblower. When I was young, I thought this was an actual sailor. Never read any of those books. Must rectify that.

Saturday, January 16, 2016

Van Recall

     Had to take my van in on Thursday for a recall. Actually the recall was for last July, it took this long to get the part. There was a switch for a back window that could catch fire. It happened to a van in the parking lot next to the Supermarket. Burnt the whole van out. I was thinking that it would be a disaster if it caught on fire while my daughter was in her wheelchair, strapped in the back. I couldn't get it unbuckled that fast.
     It only took about five minutes to change. It was in the armrest on the driver's side. The girl just pulled it out, unplugged it, plugged in another one, and stuck it back in. And that was that.

Saturday, January 9, 2016

The Earth is Round.

     When I was at the ruins of Ephesus a few years ago, I saw what was left of a Roman statue. It was an emperor's foot on a globe. The ancient Romans obviously knew the world was round.

     (From Armstrong Economics: Knowledge itself moves in cycles. The reverse side of the coin of the Roman Emperor Theodosius II (402-450 AD) dpicts the emperor standing holding the world as a round globe. To the left is the scepter of the only Roman emperor to have been discovered. Here too, we see from Maxentius (306-312 AD) that the world is represented as a globe and not a flat piece of land. The Chinese and Romans knew about each other; both claimed that the world was round and they were the rulers of the world. Yet knowledge is lost in the Dark Age and we returned to the primitive idea that the world was flat. What our computer is accomplishing is an awakening of knowledge that has been lost. This is a journey to rediscover reality.
     The fall of Rome destroyed a lot more than people realize. It was more than just gold coins vanishing until the 13th century. Knowledge itself also vanished and we are still clawing our way back to understanding. Personal opinion is meaningless for it does not even scratch the surface. Open your mind and you just may begin to see what we have forgotten.)

Thursday, January 7, 2016

Pineapple

For breakfast the other day, I had a slice of pineapple. Not from a can, but an actual pineapple where I cut off a slice. It just so happened that day I read 'Ripley's' and one of the items was about pineapples. Back in the 16th and 17th centuries, pineapples were so rare, that one would cost between $5,000. and $10,000. I don't imagine there was much waste.
Next month, my toaster will be 48 years old. That means I will be married 48 years. Funny how it is easier to remember how old my toaster is, than my wedding anniversary.
The CBC certainly hates Trump. (Can you imagine the back tracking if he becomes President.) Back tracking everywhere, especially at CNN.