SamKat's current rant

I am a Conservative Christian.  I am neither Republican nor Democrat.  I will be 81 years old in November.  I am becoming more forgetful and I am concerned.  Recently, I became dizzy and asked my wife to arrange a doctor's visit with our family doctor.  A druggist suggssted Bonine, which has definitely helped the dizziness.  Jeanie helps me as I write my books or blogs in remembering even simple things like common nouns, verbs, etc.  I have always had difficulty remembering  names.

I may soon see a neurologist for testing of dementia.  Whatever!  I don't care at all for the memory symptoms.  Most friends don't accept my explanation that my brains turned to kidneys when I turned seventy and I now only know when to pee (my bad joke, I hope).  If treatment may delay or prevent Alsheimers I am for it.  

I print a lot of the things I put onto my SamKat blog and take them to a good friend, since he isn't often on computer.  He is a long time Republican of the old school Republicans.  He claims that my copies have shown more hate and grouchiness in the last year.  I hope not, but if so, I apologize to any I may have offended.

I rationalize, but I claim that America's problem of two Americas, as Victor Davis Hanson writes it, is that our national media is far left and ignoring true reports and Conservative Christians are far right and wanting the facts.  I fit the latter group.  I see the problem further that most of my Republican friends are center politically, but they and we Tea Party people are letting the secular-progressives leftists have their way far too much.  I do not like the word 'hate' nor do I like the word 'racist'.

I do believe the current pusa is a black racist who wants to be the dictator of the world, not just of our wonderful country.  He is a heavily financed black-white, raised black, who doesn't believe in our Constitution or the American value system.  He certainly lacks qualifications to be our pusa and Commander in Chief.  His choices of leadership appointees also  lack qualifications our country needs so badly.  There are many other blacks who could have led so much more effectively without all the speeches, blustering, blaming,  and meaningless chatter. 

I believe the 86 % Americans who believe in God are composed of many who may be the key problem in letting the left wing fly the airplane which requires both wings.  We are in a spin for that reason and we need to pull out of it.  America is drifting, similar in a way which allows dictators  to take over country's governments.  It has happened throughout the history in which the USA has been in this world.  I think we have too literally disallowed talk of religion and politics in our social gatherings whether family, secular or religious.

One more thing regarding the possible imminent USA actions in Syria, I heard a conservative talk show host today on 98.9  FM, The Answer,  quote a respected friend of his who said that the current Syrian conflict has two sides: 1.) the Syrian, Hezbullah, and Russians on the government's side, and 2.) Alquaeda, islamic terrorists, and Muslims on the rebels' side.  I, personally want to risk no more of our service people in a confrontation where we cannot support a win for the USA .   To truly win the USA has to get in and stay in until peace and the rule of law, not sharia, can maintain a peacefiul society.  I hope we stay out of this one, especially since we have already waited too long.

SamKat

Ford answers Mac ... Thx good Christian friend, Bob G! Boy, do I love this!

 Windows vs. Ford Motor Co.

For all of us who feel only the deepest love and affection for the way computers have enhanced our lives, read on. At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated,

"If Ford had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon."

In response to Bill's comments, Ford issued a press release stating:

If Ford had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics (and I just love this):

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash.........twice a day.

2.. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car. 

3... Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.

4.... Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine. 

5..... Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads.

6...... The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" warning light. 

I love the next one!

7....... The airbag system would ask, "Are you sure?" before deploying.

8........ Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna. 

9......... Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

10.......... You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off. 

PS - I'd like to add that when all else fails, you could call "customer service" in some foreign country and be instructed in some foreign language how to fix your car yourself!

Please share this with your friends who love - but sometimes hate - their computer!

Oldie but goodie ... Thx Clay V! Says a lot I have had on my mind lately!

Another “oldie but goodie” that has been around; another good read.
 

 I grew up with practical parents. A mother, God love her, who washed aluminum foil after she cooked in it, then reused it. She was the original recycle queen before they had a name for it. A father who was happier getting old shoes fixed than buying new ones.

Their marriage was good, their dreams focused. Their best friends lived barely a wave away.

I can see them now, Dad in trousers, tee shirt and a hat and Mom in a house dress, lawn mower in one hand, and dish-towel in the other. It was the time for fixing things. A curtain rod, the kitchen radio, screen door, the oven door, the hem in a dress. Things we keep.

It was a way of life, and sometimes it made me crazy. All that re-fixing, eating, renewing, I wanted just once to be wasteful. Waste meant affluence. Throwing things away meant you knew there'd always be more.

But then my mother died, and on that clear summer's night, in the warmth of the hospital room, I was struck with the pain of learning that sometimes there isn't any more.

Sometimes, what we care about most gets all used up and goes away...never to return.. So... While we have it..... it's best we love it.... And care for it... And fix it when it's broken......... And heal it when it's sick.

This is true. For marriage....... And old cars..... And children with bad report cards..... And dogs with bad hips.... And aging parents...... And grandparents. We keep them because they are worth it, because we are worth it.
Some things we keep. Like a best friend that moved away or a classmate we grew up with.

There are just some things that make life important, like people we know who are special........ And so, we keep them close!

I received this from someone who thinks I am a 'keeper', so I've sent it to the people I think of in the same way... Now it's your turn to send this to those people that are "keepers" in your life. Good friends are like stars.... You don't always see them, but you know they are always there. Keep them close!

When you die, 10 things GOD won't ask you:

1..... God won't ask what kind of car you drove. He'll ask how many people you drove who didn't have transportation..

2..... God won't ask the square footage of your house, He'll ask how many people you welcomed into your home.

3..... God won't ask about the clothes you had in your closet, He'll ask how many you helped to clothe.

4..... God won't ask what your highest salary was. He'll ask if you compromised your character to obtain it.

5..... God won't ask what your job title was. He'll ask if you performed your job to the best of your ability.

6..... God won't ask how many friends you had. He'll ask how many people to whom you were a friend.

7..... God won't ask in what neighborhood you lived, He'll ask how you treated your neighbors.

8..... God won't ask about the color of your skin, He'll ask about the content of your character.

9..... God won't ask why it took you so long to find Him and ask Him into your house, He'll lovingly take you to heaven and not to the gates of Hell.

10..... God won't have to ask how many people you forwarded this to, He already knows your decision.

 

Video- Wildlife ... Thx Ex-Sgt. L of the US Marines and Mound Park Urchin fame!!

>     Video by Scott McKinley Productions, Produced for Rocky Mountain Elk
> Foundation for Ad campaign. Licensed music by Kenny G.. This short video
> won Grand Prize - Best of Show at International Wildlife Film Festival in
> Missoula Montana! The majority was shot on location in Yellowstone National
> Park, Grand Teton National Park and The National Elk Refuge in Jackson
> Hole, Wyoming.
>      *Click*
>     *Int'l Wildlife <http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=BUOQ_yPW_0s>*
>
>skegley.blogspot.com

Breath taking beauty- Rain Drops- Digital Photography after a Rain ... Thx Pidge F!

The beauty in this world is incredible in the smallest things if we only take time to seek them out and enjoy them. This piece is but one small example.    BREATH TAKING in its wonder and beauty.     

RainDrops(1).pps 6218K   View   Download

skegley.blogspot.com

Giant arrows from the Past ... Thanks good pilot friend Ramey H!

These Really Exist:

Giant Concrete Arrows That
Point Your Way Across America . . .
 

Every so often, usually in the vast deserts of the American Southwest,

a hiker or a backpacker will run across something puzzling:

a large concrete arrow, as much as seventy feet in length, sitting in the middle of scrub-covered nowhere.

 

What are these giant arrows? Some kind of surveying mark?

Landing beacons for flying saucers? Earth’s turn signals?

 

No, it's . . .

The Transcontinental Air Mail Route.
 

 On August 20, 1920, the United States opened its first coast-to-coast airmail delivery route, just 60 years after the Pony Express closed up shop.

There were no good aviation charts in those days, so pilots had to eyeball their way across the country using landmarks.

This meant that flying in bad weather was difficult, and night flying was just about impossible.

The Postal Service solved the problem with the world’s first ground-based

civilian navigation system: a series of lit beacons that would extend from

New York to San Francisco. Every ten miles, pilots would pass a bright yellow

concrete arrow. Each arrow would be surmounted by a 51-foot steel tower

and lit by a million-candlepower rotating beacon.

(A generator shed at the tail of each arrow powered the beacon.)

 

Now mail could get from the Atlantic to the Pacific not in a matter of weeks,

but in just 30 hours or so.

Even the dumbest of air mail pilots, it seems, could follow a series of bright

yellow arrows straight out of a Tex Avery cartoon. By 1924, just a year after Congress funded it, the line of giant concrete markers stretched from Rock Springs, Wyoming to Cleveland, Ohio. The next summer, it reached all the way to New York, and by 1929 it spanned the continent uninterrupted, the envy of postal systems worldwide.

 

Radio and radar are, of course, infinitely less cool than a concrete Yellow Brick Road from sea to shining sea, but I think we all know how this story ends. New advances in communication and navigation technology made the big arrows obsolete, and the Commerce Department decommissioned the beacons in the 1940s. The steel towers were torn down and went to the war effort.

But the hundreds of arrows remain. Their yellow paint is gone, their concrete cracks a little more with every winter frost, and no one crosses their path much, except for coyotes and tumbleweeds.

But they’re still out there.

All the girls we've loved before ... Thx Anon Ymous!

Wow!  Where have the years gone?!?!  

This takes a few minutes but I am sure you will like it. If you are over fifty you should.   It’s all in our genes or in the hands of the plastic surgeons. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All_the_girls_we've_loved.pps 4708K   View   Download

skegley.blogspot.com

Two Americas- Victor Davis Hanson ... Our journalistic ostrich mimicing ... Thx Judi C!

Two Americas- Victor Davis Hanson- Where it is at in journalism ... thx Judi C!

Two Americas By Victor Davis Hanson

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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Two quite different 21st-century Americas are emerging. The nation is not so much divided by "wars" between the rich and poor, men and women, or white and non-white. Instead, there is the world of reality versus that of triviality.
In the vast plains of the Dakotas and the American West, thousands of men and women of all classes and colors are fracking oil and gas to create new energy for millions of homeowners and commuters -- while giving America a second chance at strategic energy independence.
Yet the beneficiaries mostly ignore these elemental efforts. They instead prefer to fixate on the alleged sexual creepiness of big-city political mediocrities like Bob Filner and Anthony Weiner.
As we sleep, 7,000 miles away there are still thousands of American soldiers of all races, ages, classes and genders in godforsaken conditions fighting the Taliban to allow millions in Afghanistan the chance for an alternative to medieval theocracy and to deter terrorists.
Meanwhile, back home, the nation is focused not on such existential struggles but transfixed by racial melodramas.
Was Oprah victimized by racial insensitively in a Swiss boutique when inquiring about purchasing a $38,000 crocodile purse? Were 10 black "American Idol" contestants really victims of "cruel and inhumane" treatment because their arrest records were brought up on the show? Should a rodeo clown -- whose stock and trade is humor -- be sent to "sensitivity training" for wearing an Obama mask?
At the end of two years of near-record drought in California, the fate of hundreds of thousands of acres of irrigated farmlands, which feed millions of Americans and earn billions of dollars in critical foreign exchange, hinges on a snow-filled winter in the Sierra Nevada. You might never know of that razor's edge from the state legislature. Rather than discussing new dams and canals, it debated whether transgendered youth in public schools could use the bathrooms of their choice and whether residents should need a permit to buy ammunition.
The historic role of government is changing before our eyes. President Obama is making the argument that the executive branch by presidential fiat can pick and choose which laws should and should not be faithfully executed -- whether Obamacare, immigration amnesties or No Child Left Behind statutes.
The fate of the entire concept of voluntary tax compliance is currently endangered by the politicization of the Internal Revenue Service. Whether the government can monitor the communications of either reporters or average citizens depends on getting to the bottom of the National Security Agency and Justice Department/Associated Press scandals.
Instead, the media seem more interested in whether Obama is playing golf on Martha's Vineyard.