PN:
Joe’s Comment – When we retired from TELUS in 2002 the future looked secure. Since then the value of the Canadian dollar (hence our pension) has eroded by over 30 %. Please send us your recipes for cat food.
Mother’s Day
Joe and I had a wonderful childhood.
We were a mama’s boy.
Mom was a beauty –
To all mommies everywhere, thank you from all of us who are alive.
You are how we got here. We celebrate that fact.
Joe and I thought the FLOTUS’s address to military moms was heartfelt and meaningful, and captured the spirit of motherhood and Mother’s Day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLZQHM89cK8
The Booger Man Can
Who woulda thought that grandson Rourke is doing a healthy thing eating his boogers? You know, nose nuggets. Snot shots. Mucus M&M’s.
Joe and I for one cringe at the thought.
The scientific and medical community has a different perspective.
Home made immunization is what it is…..
A picture of the Booger Man (in disguise). He is smarter than he looks –
Yer Feelings
Why your feelings may take second seat to what actually happens:
Other Privilege
Joe and I are warriors for words.
So many words have multiple meanings, and so many words have changed meaning – subtly or grossly – for better or worse.
We are not a Spring chicken: we’re done with that. Sometimes a word Joe and I use the way we used to use it has changed popular meaning.
One such word is “privilege”.
Joe and my most oft used definition is as “authorization or license” such as driving or owning firearms (in Canada).
The word has been hijacked.
Here is an introduction to different types of privilege:
Speaking of Privilege
Joe and I understand the underlying message for today in this painting by Luke Fildes titled “The Doctor“, painted in 1891 –
The message is not hidden. What you see is a distraught mother, a worried father, a sick child, a seriously pensive Doctor, furnishings and surroundings of a time period long past in our country. What you don’t see is the government or a government representative for the simple reason that in that time there was no government death grip on health care.
Fildes’ own son succumbed to tuberculosis. Shortly afterward, Fildes abandoned his work with the Socialist magazine “The Graphic” and pursued a different artistic style to portray life in his time.
Conclusion?
The government has no business in health care for the simple reason that the government CANNOT successfully author a “RIGHT” to a scarcity. That is, there is no “right” to health care. The government, if it does enact such legislation, can in no way satisfy the undertaking. These “rights” are rhetorical feel good emotional salves.
Don’t take Joe’s word for this. Or mine.
Kevin D. Williamson explains the hollow fruitless and expensive path to misery and fiscal ruin by careless and emotional lawmaking that cannot be obeyed. The article is in The National Review and is titled “The “Right” to Health Care“.
A quote from the article:
“……Here is a thought experiment: You have four children and three apples. You would like for everyone to have his own apple. You go to Congress, and you successfully persuade the House and the Senate to endorse a joint resolution declaring that everyone has a right to an apple of his own……..
Question: How many apples do you have?
You have three apples, dummy. Three. You have four children. Each of those children has a congressionally endorsed, U.N.-approved, saint-ratified right to an apple of his own. But here’s the thing: You have three apples and four children. Nothing has changed…….
Health care is physical, not metaphysical. It consists of goods, such as penicillin and heart stents, and services, such as oncological attention and radiological expertise. Even if we entirely eliminated money from the equation, conscripting doctors into service and nationalizing the pharmaceutical factories, the basic economic question would remain.
We tend to retreat into cheap moralizing when the economic realities become uncomfortable for us. No matter the health-care model you choose — British-style public monopoly, Swiss-style subsidized insurance, pure market capitalism — you end up with rationing: Markets ration through prices, bureaucracies ration through politics. Price rationing is pretty straightforward: Think of Jesse James and his “Pay Up, Sucker!” tattoo on his palm. Political rationing is a little different: Sometimes it happens through waiting lists and the like, and sometimes it is just a question of money and clout. American progressives love the Western European medical model, but when Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi needed a pacemaker, he came to the United States to have it implanted……”
It is not all doom and gloom.
“……After we are done lamenting the unfairness of it all, what do we do?
Ideally, we’d plant some apple trees. We would find ways to invest in medical care with an eye toward making it more effective and less expensive. There is no substitute for abundance. And the great enemy of abundance is the bias against profit. There is something deeply rooted in us that instinctively thinks we are being abused if someone else makes a profit on a deal. That is a dumb and primitive way of thinking — our world is full of wonders because it is profitable to invent them, build them, and sell them — but the angel is forever handcuffed to the ape.”
In the best Clint Eastwood fashion, the question then becomes “Well, punk, are you feeling angel or ape?”
Holding the Bag
What happens when law and order takes a vacation, when drug use is rampant, when unemployment figures reach double digits, when crime is on steroids, when “immigration” grinds you down?
What happens is the regular person, the “average Joe”, the people next door, the small folks who make up the middle of society, they all take it on the chin.
What do the rich do?
They “take a powder”, they vamoose, they scat, they make like the birds and flock off. The wealthy are leaving major centers in significant numbers, quoting unacceptable risk levels as a motivator.
Here is an interesting article at Diogenes’ Middle Finger for your edification.
Chicago is high on the list, which is topped by Paris, and includes Rome and Athens. Millionaires are managing their risk by leaving the “hot spots” of crime and social unrest.
Joe says this is survival of the fittest in action.
I say the fucking politicians should be held accountable for dreadful social policy.
Who Am We?
Joe thinks the storm in a tea cup is beyond the ken of most folks regarding the environment, the welfare of Gaia, the future of humanity, et cetera.
Joe also thinks that the average person believes (upper case BELIEVES) that all the end-time tales will occur in their lifetime.
For a reminder, our friends from Skunk Bear explain just how important the antics of humans are in the cosmos, and how much influence we have on the future of Earth:
Joe’s Garage
The old-time gear heads in the American South have a unique way of making the best of equipment they run.
The following excellent video shows how to make a 10 bolt Chev open differential into a posi WITHOUT spending a ton of $$$.
All you need is a welder and some beer:
POLITICS, POLITICIANS, WACKJOBBERY, HUMOROUS, STUPID
GUNS, GUNNERS, GUNNERY
2nd Amendment
Joe and I are advocates of the natural right to life, and what the American 2nd Amendment to the Constitution implies.
We admire the clarity of vision and mastery of the law Mr. Trey Gowdy exhibits. We believe he will do great things for his country and humanity.
The following is a speech he gave to the NRA in 2016:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw3md54mNrY
THE RELIGION OF PEACE (ALL OVER US)
SUNDAY SERMON
Trey Gowdy is a man of conviction, a man of honor, and a man of justice.
There should be more Trey Gowdys and fewer Nancy Pelosis.
I would also like a pony.
Joe would settle for a Ford without a “Check Engine” light blazing:
WEATHER (OR NOT)
This week in Vernon has been a continuation of the unsettled rain, cool, cloud, with a couple of sunny days in the mix.
The amount of groundwater saturating the surface in the yard has not abated significantly over the last 7 days.
Mowing the grass has become a machine choking exercise.
Moving a truck or Bobcat over the land results in a 2 to 3 inch rut. Truly a bog.
The flood danger is high everywhere in the area, especially low lying areas near the lakes or run-off water courses.
Today (Sunday) was warm.
If the warm continues, the unmelted snow pack will make things even worse.
June could be the high-water month.
Joe (trench-foot) Mekanic
p.s. Ramirez is back at work –
