Monthly Archives: October 2024

Before You Make Your Bet

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I guess I have lost track of the number of ways a person can make a wager; and that’s just the legal ones. In the regular casinos, there must be at least half a dozen ways. Then there are the horse and dog tracks. You can legally make wagers on, I guess, any sport. You can even bet on the outcome of elections. There isn’t a day goes by that I am encouraged to make bets over the internet.

I don’t have any part in it. There is one thing I keep in mind at all times. The odds are always against me.

If you go into the casinos in Vegas, you will see big lavish surroundings. They are expensive, you know. They are paid for by people not like me. The lavish surroundings are expensive. They are air conditioned and well lit, which costs money. Each table takes up space and requires someone to operate it. Besides them, there are people that monitor the area, probably one for every 3 or 4 tables.

The places generally have at least a camera on every table which is likely monitored from who knows where. I would suspect most casinos are kept spotlessly clean. Someone goes around making sure it is kept that way 24 hours a day, you know. Someone pays for that. It is not paid for by the casinos. If it were, they’d go broke. Those that pay are the ones sitting at the tables buying the chips and dropping the tokens in the machines.

It is true, some people who enter those casinos come out with more than they come in with. It is true and they have it down to a science. They can tell you on that day how many will win and how many will lose. They know how much the house will win and and how much they will lose. They also know the winnings will exceed the losses.

Well, I guess there is one situation in which the casinos lose. If no one goes in and makes bets, the casino will close down and declare bankruptcy. I don’t just know this from theory but observation. One of the casinos that originally opened in Tunica, name Splash, closed up and went away. The customers stopped going in there. They went to the big ones that are still there.

Now let me see, one of the casinos implied with their ads that if you went there and gambled, you could, you might somehow become a Hollywood movie star. They actually showed pictures of a woman lying on a bed and clicking her ruby red heels. I wonder were they got that idea. I don’t know if the advertising worked, but they did have a bunch of visitors dropping off their earning for which they worked so hard.

Invariably, every year near the end of basketball season, the places I worked had pools. Every year, that is before I retired, they asked me to take part in it. I never did. I told them I worked to hard to throw my money away on such things. They never let it go at that. They generally tried for about five minutes to talk me into it.

I have no idea why, but it is something the alcoholics share with gamblers. They never want to do it alone. They always encourage others to join them. I never made a dollar off the pools, but then I never lost a dollar either. I made more than one person angry with me over it.

Before you make that bet, you might remember, “A fool and his money are soon parted.” Proverbs 21:20. Even if you are a staunch atheist, you must admit the proverb is rock solid true. (actually, the Bible has a bunch of truth in it, aside of the religion. For instance, a society will be better when it does not allow robbery and murder.)

Hence, invariably the world of gambling consists of fools and those wanting to take advantage of their foolishness.

Even so, the world would not be as it is today without those willing to risk what they have. Even the farmer gambles. Large advances in technology only took place by those willing to take risks. You know them and their invention, Edison and his light, Bell and his phone, Marconi and his radio, for a few.

Certainly for this reason, I cannot completely put down risk takers. It just is, when you put that bet on 23 on the roulette table, you pretty much know you may as well toss that money in the trash. When you buy that lottery ticket, you know you’ve seen the last of that little bit. You are joining the world of fools that keep giving your hard earned money to those who make their living off of fools.

A Matter of Reputation

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When one person has a reputation of lying and another has a reputation of telling the truth, when the two attest to two different accounts, which one are you apt to believe?

So, let’s see, the dems, in particular those in Old Joe’s administration tells nothing but lies for 4 years, it becomes sorta common knowledge that anything that the dems say will be a lie, especially when others who are eye witnesses says something to the contrary.

Ergo, when the folks in the Appalachian mountains say that they are taking people out of trees after the storm, and the dems say they are providing timely rescue and aid, I have a tendency to believe the Appalachians.

I have no reason to disbelieve the people who are stranded. On the other hand, why in the world should I believe the dems. Moreover, those who are stranded are in a republican part of the state. Draw your own conclusion from that.

I don’t know. However, we have one group of people who say one thing and we have one thing who say something else. You can believe who you want. As for me, I am not going to believe the group who told us that the China virus was not very contagious. Then they said it came out of a wet market, not the lab. Then they got upset with any of us who called it the China virus, saying it was racists. Then we find out, the virus was developed in the lab and purposely spread throughout the world. It took a long time to get them to swallow that lie) Then we are told that the vaccine works. Then we are told it kind of works. Then we are told it kind of works sometimes. Then we are told that masks don’t work and then that they do. So, they actually require them. Then we find out, they were right in the first place. They serve no purpose whatsoever. Then they start requiring children to take the vaccine, though there is no evidence it has any affect on them, the virus or the vaccine. Then children start are having complications from it the vaccine. The dems give us a list of drugs that don’t work and we are told that we are the liars for saying the drugs do work. And on it goes. Just one string of lies after the other.

We are told that Trump colluded with the Russians and they have proof. So they impeach him, though they never ever produce any hard evidence. In the end, it is proved it was a big hoax from the… you got it… the dems.

So, after they have told so many lies, pardon me if I don’t believe one word from the dems without solid evidence. Even then, I’d still have some doubts.

The Battle of Redefinitions

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You are welcome to look it up. US title 8 code 1101 defines an alien as a person who is not a citizen of the the united states. By inference, a person who is an alien and is in the US illegally is an illegal alien. However, the dems define them as immigrants.

By simply changing the definition from alien to immigrant their argument is half won??? Their logic, immigrants are good, even if aliens are bad. Ironically, the term alien is used to define immigrant. That is to say, an immigrant is also an alien. Sorry dems. aliens who are illegal immigrate are still aliens who are in the US illegally… hence, illegal alien.

As the bard said, the rose is still the rose, even if called a flower. Regardless of any of the above, the person who is not a citizen in this country illegally is still an illegal alien.

On the other hand, the unborn child in a short time is a son or daughter. He is someone’s niece or nephew. When you look at that for three or four years he or she is your son or daughter, can you really imagine taking your three year old son’s life, only three years earlier.

The dems call it abortion. Regardless, it is a death.

When soldiers go into battle, they prefer to call the enemy anything but human. However, they are still human. This was never more aptly illustrated when they stopped the first world war long enough to celebrate Christmas, enemies all. For just about a day, they were humans were on both sides of that battle front. Then, suddenly they were the no good enemy again.

Redefinitions are dangerous. We need to see babies for what they are. On the other hand, we need to see an illegal aliens for what they are. When we don’t, we are very apt to make horrible irreversible decisions.

Decide what you will, but don’t try call wrong right (or right wrong) by redefining it.

If it Were Only So Easy

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I must say I really like and respect Habitat for Humanity. It is one thing that Jimmy Carter ever did that was worth while. However, even this organization is careful. They require that those who are going to get the house take a real part in building the house. Houses are never just given to people so that they really appreciated them.

The great majority of homes provided are held onto by the original owner for ten or so years. However, not all can be foreseen and sometimes things didn’t work out.

There was one case I heard of over the news. A family helped to build a home and it was truly appreciated. Even so, the family lost the home in less than a year. They could not come up with the taxes required for the property tax. You see, when you build a house in NY,NY, you really need to make a lot of money to pay the property taxes, especially when it was a nice home as this one was.

And so it was NY, NY took the house and auctioned it off. Those who had been given the home was again homeless. It is more than a sad story, though it is that. It also has a lesson. You can’t fix the homeless problem just by building homes and giving them to the homeless. It doesn’t always work, especially if if it costs them nothing. They don’t appreciate it and in the long run, nothing is solved.

As I said, I do respect and appreciate what Habitat for Humanity does. However, even they will admit that it does not always work. Though they do screen those they give the homes to carefully, sometimes things do not work. For this I say it is a shame. In the case I cited, it was because of the government. However, there are a thousand things that can go wrong.

In fact, it did. Perhaps, if you were ten years old at the time, you remember. There was a time when the government provided loans to millions with no down payment to people who could not make the loan payments. Yeah. I remember it. Thousands, maybe millions of people defaulted on their loans. Many times it was on purpose.

People would apply for one of the give-away-loans, never intending to make more than 1 or 2 payments. They lived in the house, in essence free of charge. Then, eventually, the home was repossessed.

The people that lived in the home free for a year while frequently not maintaining it, then went their way. The bank that wrote the loans were stuck with the paper on the house and they were having a very difficult time recovering it.

Well. It was actually more complex than that. It won’t fit in a post. You wouldn’t want to read it and I’m not sure I could keep it accurate. The thing is, the mortgages were sold to other financial institutions and then they were sold again. After all, the loans were insured by the feds you see. They, in theory had value. I wrote checks to three different banks before I refinanced my home.

Then I wrote checks to two different banks on that loan. It is very common for a 30 year loan to be carried by 3 or 4 banks. It is a little frustrating. The bank that originally carried my loan was local. I could rush down to the bank the date the payment was due and give them a check. The other outfit was in Tupelo and I had to make sure to mail the check 5 or 6 days early or be in danger of a late charge.

Going back to the bank tragedy of which I was writing. As you can imagine, it went along swimmingly for a couple of years. Then, as usual, we tax payers had to come to the rescue and bail out all the financial institutions. The reason we had to bail them out, I don’t really understand. They said that if we didn’t, the banking institutions would collapse.

The point is this, Kamala can’t solve the homeless problem by throwing money at it. We tried it and ended up with an enormous banking institution disaster. It is one of the reasons that financial institutions usually require a sizable down payment.

People who have a large down payment in their house will work hard to keep it up and keep the payments up. It is considered a good investment by the bank and everyone wins. When the loan is not secured, it is a risk, not an investment. And it is quite possible the bank, the government, or most likely the tax payers end up paying for it.

It is also why Old Joe should have never let 20 million people in this country. They have their hands out for hand-outs and their only real loyalty is to themselves or the county they came from.

Just as with the people that walked away from homes they didn’t pay for, the illegal aliens will quickly leave this country should things start turning bad. It is the sort of thing that people try when they have no practical experience in running real things, like banks, like businesses, like restaurants. Kamala has her head in the clouds in the clouds when she says, we will fix it by throwing money at it. We will fix it by giving things away.

Those who go around with their heads in the clouds are doomed to fall and fail one day. Gravity will have its affect one day. Gravity always works. The real rules of economics will eventually work. The many man made rules will eventually be overtaken and the natural ones will prevail.

Something for nothing never works…not for long anyway.

Echoes From the Past

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September 10,1986 a man gave a speech at The National Press Club. It was elegant and persuasive. I know. I heard the speach back then and twice more this morning. (the benefit of internet) If the speech and the man succeeded at the goals, Israel would not have the iron dome today. Conceivably, it would no longer exist. On the other hand, seeing the hopelessness of surviving the onslaught missiles fired at them, Israel might have launched their nuclear weapons to protect themselves.

The man who made the speech was none other than Old Joe; you know, the current occupier of the Oval Office; you know the character who doesn’t want Israel to use the most effective targets for defending themselves (oil and nuclear targets ). Old Joe should thank Reagan for SDI and all those that developed it. If it did not exist today, his presidency would be far more difficult. I suspect things will be better for the whole world if Iran never has nuclear weapons. If they lost their method of making money, oil, things would certainly be better in the Middles East. Most important, it would likely save millions of lives.

In the speech he proposed that it was preposterous that it would work. He and his dems decided to fight it at every turn. Fortunately, it continued to be developed. Fortunately, it works. With the proper research, it will only work better.

The unarguable fact is that Old Joe was wrong back then. He is also wrong today. Hopefully, it won’t be too late.

The Not News

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The other day, on a “news” program, it was reported that Bruce Springsteen was going to vote for Kamala. Sorry, not news. News, as it implies is new. It is not new that Bruce Springsteen was voting democrat. It is not much different then reporting the sun rose this morning and it will set tonight. Not news

So I have decided to coin a new expression, not news, or maybe not-news. Others might prefer un-news. It would fit those stories like, former VP pence will not be voting for Trump. Now that is a -dog bites man- story if I ever heard one.

Then there’s that father and daughter who were representatives. They were on a news program and, yup they drug it out of them. They will be voting democrat this time. My guess, they will vote the democrat ticket all the way. That means they are no longer republican. That makes them truly dems, even if they say it not. Which means they are dems voting dems: not-news. What was it doing on a network news program being reported as news when it is not news?

And of course it was all repeated and repeated. Even if it was news at the start, it would is un-news long before they stopped repeating it.

I am not an expert of the English language but I have been speaking it a lot longer than many of these news readers. I am wondering, would you all help me to coin the word, Let’s make it “not-news,” so that one day we can get it to start popping up in dictionaries. Maybe that way, when they report the news, it will actually have to be the news. If it is not news, then they will have to report it as not-news.

Let’s start using not-news every chance we have and encourage others to do the same.

I Wish News Reporters Could be Fined for Reporting Things That are Factually Wrong

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I listened to a reporter just say that the Supreme Court found that Trump had insufficient evident to prove fraud in the last election. That was not the ruling at all. It never got that far. They just ruled that there was no standing.

There is… a difference you know. The court never ruled on the substance of the lawsuit.

It might seem strange, but some of us remember things like that, you know, even when the reporter would conveniently like to forget.

In truth, there was never a ruling if there was fraud or not. The real proof never got to court. The truth is that it will remain forever undecided because the Supreme Court found a convenient way out. They never made a decision and never will.

The Release of Jack Smith’s Brief

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It was not appropriate. First, what happens in a grand jury is secret. It is never supposed to be released unless it is the result of a grand jury investigation. There is a reason for this. In general, the accused never has a chance to defend itself, although the brief is often accepted as accurate fact. It is so to speak, only one side of the story. People who are accused by a grand jury are frequently found innocent. Indeed, once the other side of the story is heard, the case is frequently dropped before getting to court.

Schiff said it was appropriate to release the brief. Then again, he has a record of saying that there was collusion between Trump and Russia and he had proof of it. We now know he never had proof. When asked to produce it, he didn’t. I assure you, he hates Trump so much that if he had the proof, he would have produced it and he didn’t. because the proof was that there was never collusion. I wouldn’t believe the man if he was telling me the time of day. When a person has a long record of lying, we can only assume that when he speaks, he is likely lying.

Consider, someone says that you held up a bank and it went before a grand jury. You would likely never know it. If the grand jury is acting properly, they look at the evidence and see you did not hold up the bank and return a “no bill.” As a result, your life is never interrupted and your good name is not soiled. That is the way a grand jury is supposed to work.

Those on the grand jury are sworn to secrecy, which prevents the prosecutor or anyone on the grand jury from ruining your reputation. Now, that grand jury accusations are in public and Trump was never given the chance to build a defense. It is not the way our justice system is supposed to work. It is not the way you’d want it used on you. At the very least, it should have been accompanied with a statement that it is only an accusation that has yet to be proved.

Moreover, and more important, those that have heard or read the brief should realize that any and all all the statements in the brief have yet to be proved and they should not be accredited as fact.

Finally, any and all statements made by anyone based on that brief should not be treated as fact until, if and when they are proved. Hence, in the news media who use the brief as fact should be utterly disregarded as a legitimate source of reliable news.

A Fast No!

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The suggestion was made that Israel go after the atomic targets in retaliation. The suggestion was hardly made before Old Joe said “No!”

At first I didn’t think anything about it but I had some second thoughts and I far from being the only one. I have heard many ask the question of just why was it that Joe replied so very fast and with so much resolve.

It does make me wonder if he has US interest in mind or Iran’s. Moreover, many others have the same or nearly the same thoughts. Wish I could ask Old Joe where everyone could see him.

I am open to suggestions. Is it the one thing, the other thing or something I have not thought of?

Time to Do Away With FEMA

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  1. Highly inefficient. Took a week to start helping victims of last hurricane. Then they issue a check when there is nowhere to spend it.
  2. Misdirecting of funding. A billion of FEMA money goes to illegal Aliens in two years. Old Joe and friends should go to jail for that. I think they have a name for that.
  3. A lot of red tape for people who are in a position where they don’t need a lot of red tape.
  4. A whole lot of politics when helping people should be the priority.
  5. Can anyone tell me of one person who was rescued by FEMA in any of the first 3 days after the hurricane blew through? Can anyone point to any infrastructure repaired by FEMA… to this day. Is there one gallon of water taken into North Carolina by one man carrying a FEMA I.D. in the first day, in the first three days. If someone knows of one electric generator taken in…. I think you get my point. We paid billions of dollars for FEMA and got absolutely nothing. Moreover, we will have to pay for it again. All the money we provided FEMA is long gone. And, Georgia, the Carolinas and eastern Tennessee still need a lot of help. I would suggest to them that they don’t wait to get it from FEMA.

It used to be that state militias took care of stuff like that… under the control of the governors. Most militias will already have the important stuff to help people: helicopters, heavy land equipment. The additional equipment needed could easily be added, medical, distribution and communication to name a few.

They already have stores of food and can store emergency water. Just a few heavy tractors can clear highways and roads quickly. Some of those in the state capitals care. In DC, not so much.

Finally, in really bad situations, states can share resources. They already come to the aid of each other for repair of grid systems.

Moreover, FEMA is not constitutional. It’s not the responsibility of the federal government to come to the aid of states. It’s what happens when the feds get involved in the stuff they shouldn’t. You want to improve public schools, get rid of the federal government out of them. That simple. That fast.

Perhaps my biggest complaint, distribution of funds is not equable. NY, NY gets hit by a hurricane and the victims get hundreds of thousands of dollars each. The Carolinas get hit by far more damage, and they get a few hundred dollars. Well some do get the checks. Even worse, the federal authorities stand in the way of civilians going in and helping.

If I were to lose my house, I would much rather not have any help than to have the federal government come in and say my neighbor down the street can’t help me get the tree off my house.

Well, I suppose we could keep FEMA. Just don’t let the dems control it. Make sure the dems don’t give the emergency funds to illegal aliens. Now does anyone have an idea how we do that?