Lifestyle Blogs (2,464)

“If you are depressed you are living in the past.
If you are anxious you are living in the future.
If you are at peace you are living in the present.”

? Lao Tzu

Mostly seen in the US and ooouuut there in Canada, eh? Two of my favorites here in the North Country are: 'Woman wanted---must be able to skin, gut and put up a deer, trout fish, have a noisy big PU truck, and a large dog. Send photos of truck, dog and fishing gear.' And,--- 'Save the black fly'. Clues to the driver's mind set.

passes the US House of Reps. on thin stark party lines, but hasn't a prayer in the US Senate, much less with the pen of our Brilliant and Dazzling President Trump. As always, the devil's in the details. Millions for artsy programs, and other political pork, gets little shrift in the alt left biased media. But the real story goes much deeper. The title of the plan includes the language 'aid to states and municipalities'. And here's the rub, oh my dear taxpayers, and debt strapped generation to come.
For generations, many US states and cities have suffered the mismanagement of ueber left, often minority, corrupt Democrat pols. Now the yard birds are back to roost. Illinois (Obama land), Californicate, NY, NJ and others, if in the dreaded private sector, would long be soundly into the courts' protection of bankruptcy. OK, so just keep raising taxes. But taxation has limits, and default is not legally an option. Even so, there is already talk of such, most recently by the governor of NY, care facility resident killer, Andrew Cuomo. So instead, why not take advantage of a crisis?
This plan would be little more than a bailout for this fiscal mismanagement of these government entities. Mismanagement? Begin with unsustainable bureaucratic government growth, including the sky high costs of make work, paper pusher, "Jobs", with their sky high bills for salaries, benefits, and topping all lists, ---unfunded RETIREMENT PENSION PLANS. The dirty huge secret is that these wasteful approaches to big government, defined pensions, have long vanished in the dreaded private sector, yet, with small changes, still are part of every government "worker's" retirement support expectations. It gets worse. Over the past few months, during Covid-19, these employees have continued to collect pay checks, and benefits, such as health plans, all typically unavailable to real workers in our real economy.
So we have two systems of employment. Secure statist paper pushers, and for the rest of us, well, not so much secure. And so the Republican resistance to millionaire Pelosi's bailout for Democrat government mismanagement. Oh, sure, the lefties will toss about terms like "uncaring Republicans" and such. Don't be fooled. Bureaucracies are like untreated cancers, in terms of uncontrolled growth. This is the real story behind Mrs. Pelosi's doomed plan. Don't take my words for it. Just compare the sizes of government bureaucracies, including buildings and pay/pension rolls, between now, and a few generations ago. Again, the lefties will say this incredible growth corresponds to population growth. No comparison, taxpaying lemmings, no comparison.

I want my mtv







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The dilemma. A very autocratic and often brutal police state. Capable of suppressing the tiniest (Democracy Wall), and largest (Tienanmen) trace of popular dissent, and of bullying almost all neighboring states (Tibet and South China Sea). Yet capable, as a partial result of the above, of 30 years of near ten percent yearly GDP growth, and, after initial duplicity, of manhandling the C-19 virus. It may well be a cautionary tale of where national governments may be going, as the world is choked by mismatches between resources and population, all lubricated by nationalistic demagogue tinpot leaders. We hear and read these ideas from academics, but it really hasn't reached the level of the body politic world wide. The trade off. Increased surveillance, and decreased personal and civil rights freedoms, in exchange for material goods, and "stability". The latter for comfy higher members of the one Party. There's a story about a lady Wuhan bound train passenger, in December of last year, reading a medical journal, and on crossing over into city limits, spontaneously putting on her mask. She was alone in this on a train full of citizens who were clueless as to C-19. As a doctor, she knew, but couldn't let others know that this was different from the usual mask wearing custom. The academic discussions may soon extend to every day folks, who are less worried about the right to speak out against the government, than to forego a new toaster, or electric back scratcher.. Paraphrasing an American statesman, those who will easily trade freedom for security, will soon have neither.

Non-smokers who are bothered by smoke – you know how far away you need to be from someone smoking before it doesn’t bother you. Stay that far from others. And we all know how long the smell of smoke hangs in an enclosed space.

Non-garlic-eaters who are bothered by the smell of it on someone’s breath (or their garlicky lasting body-odour) ditto.

Shouting REALLY loads the air with particles. Stay away from protesters. Except from polite ones. First comment refers.

It hasn't dawned yet but everyone agrees things won't ever be quite the same

There are some things from our respective quarantines many would like to keep. For those who can, working from home, with perhaps one or two trips to the office a week, would be good to keep

More meetings online instead of dashing around on planes trains and automobiles, definitely worth keeping

Socially, not being expected to kiss-kiss or hug every stranger you meet, that works for me

The floor is open. If you were in charge of designing the New Normal, what would you aim for ...

When I think of money, that I singlehandedly work for:
All those long hours, exhausting, causing major migraines, that you suppress till your own private time.

Money, Is just a means to an end, else it will show on your bank account, of what use, you may ask, till you need it next time, earning interest. After all it is your money, to do with as you wish!

Money is there to spend, and save some for a rainy day too?

If you watch TV detective movies, you know that BOLO is a police acronym for 'Be on the lookout' and in this case I'm issuing a BOLO for a Pennsylvania blogger who goes by the alias of Palmfrond. Like a day trader, it's normal her her to close her profile and return a short time later, but the COVID-19 pandemic has her missing much longer.

Tough times, I know she's had more than a share and if someone has contact with her in real life, please pass a message that I wish her the best!

I shouldn't ask a question... do women still fall for men in uniform?
Yesterday, I watched a bunch of YouTube videos and news articles and cleared my cookies & cache file. This morning, when I came to the CS main page, the images at the bottom were men and women where I only see local women after I've previously logged in.

Oh look... it's a man in an army uniform appearing on CS. He's using the name of McJames. We all know he's a scammer with a stolen photo of General James C. McConville.

Every week I see bogus profiles of guys in uniform and wonder if women are attracted to a military man or if it's something only perceived by scammers.