Tired of blogging, time to become a troll

Yes, all good things come to an end.  Consider this one of my last postings, if not THE last.  I may post something from time to time....or not.

Instead, I will now continue to read blogs that are worthy and post comments accordingly (some might call that kind of activity as one of a 'troll', but consider me a friendly troll).  But starting today, posting fresh blogs is not something that is foremost on my agenda.

To the delight of many,I am signing off,  and to my detractors I say 'fuhgeddaboudit.' 

Over and out,

Fredd

Joke of the week: Who wins this poker hand?

At the poker table one day, we find four players all with what appear to be winning poker hands in 5-card draw:

Player #1: The smartest man in the world, sitting President Barack Hussein Obama, who has a royal flush, ace through 10 all in spades.

Player #2: The smartest woman in the world, former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, also holds a royal flush, hers in hearts.

Player #3: The smartest economist in the world, former Sec. of Treasury Timothy Geithner, has a royal flush in diamonds.

Player #4: Ralph Wozniak, assistant bricklayer and part-time H&R Block tax consultant, Ralph has a royal flush in clubs.

All players bet everything they have, and push all of their money into the pot. 

Who wins? 

Why, Ralph Wozniak, of course, when he laid down his winning royal flush on the table.  The other three are simply made up characters by the Main Stream Media, and have no idea what they are doing in reality and accordingly all folded their hands because they are all clueless as to real values in life.

Joke of the Week: 'In the land of the Midgets...'

Once upon a time, in the land of the Midgets, there lived three midgets, Winken, Blinken and Nod.

One fine day, Winken, Blinken and Nod were strolling down the main street in the Land of the Midgets and noticed a new office building with a sign that stated 'Guiness Book of World Records, Land of the Midget Branch'.  Curious, they went inside and began a conversation with the clerk at the window.

After introductions, the clerk, well versed in all things regarding world records, was asked by Winken if indeed he himself, Winken the Midget, was still listed in his latest volume of the Guinness Book of World Records as having the world's smallest hands.  The clerk thumbed through the pages and verified that indeed Winken was listed as the world record holder as having the worlds' smallest hands.

'Woo hoo,' shrieked Winken.  And high fives were given to each Blinken and Nod.  After the celebration among the midgets had somewhat subsided, Blinken stepped up and asked the clerk if he was still the world record holder as having the world's smallest feet.  The clerk dutifully searched the volume of Guinness Book of World Records and subsequently Blinken was informed that he was still listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as having the world's smallest feet.

'Woo hoo,' cried Blinken, and a round of high fives began anew.  After a few moments, Nod stepped up and quietly whispered to the clerk to check and see if he was still the world record holder as having the smallest brain.  Since this was something Nod was not particularly proud of, he tried to hush the conversation as much as possible.  Agreeing to Nod's wishes, the clerk checked the book to see if Nod was listed as the record holder with the world's tiniest brain.  After several minutes, the clerk whispered into Nod's ear his findings, and Nod seemed subdued at the information.

All three midgets left the office, and Winken and Blinken were persistent in finding out what the clerk has whispered to a now despondent Nod.  'Tell us, Nod, did your name get listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as having the world's smallest brain? Please tell us, Nod, pretty please.' 

After a moment, Nod indignantly blurted out 'who the hell is Barack Hussein Obama?'

Public worship declining due to bad clerical policy

For a few decades now, attendance at public worship masses, services and assemblies has been on a steady decline.  Fewer and fewer pilgrims are planted in the Catholic Church pews, and accordingly fewer and fewer dollars are being placed in the collection plate.

The clerical community is puzzled by this phenomenon, and is at a loss as to how to get those wayward sheep back into the flock. 

Of course they are puzzled and confused: the clergy and their policies are the reasons that less and less people attend public worship services.

Front and center, of course, is the issue of sexual abuses by untold multitudes of Catholic priests on young boys.  The Church has never really issued an official widespread apology, per se, to the victims of these evil priests, and no real reparations to the victims have been considered by the Church. 

The Catholic church has serious issues in recruiting and training priests, and has not come up with any viable process to eliminate pedophiles from its ranks.  None whatsoever.  One of the requirements of the priesthood is that the applicant must fore go all sexual activity, and for young men that is asking the world.  Who but the most dedicated, pious and righteous among us can keep that kind of oath?  Well, not enough, as reality has proven. 

For the Church to expect that the true believers should overlook this little matter, ignore the fact that there are still predatory clergy within its ranks is one of the major reasons that their Sunday masses are shrinking year by year.  In reality, the Church and its upper management has actually gone to great lengths to cover up this horrible activity, and to paper over any pain or suffering that its own policies have wrought on their flock. 

Nobody trusts them anymore.  Well, almost nobody.  In days gone by, Fathers, Priests and Vicars all held considerable esteem within the worshipping community, and their integrity was beyond question.  Now, all of that trust has gone up in smoke with this pedophile scandal, and the Church has essentially done nothing about it.

Now as I write this, the Catholic College of Cardinals is convening to select the next Pope.  The last Pope, Benedict XVI, did virtually nothing to reform the Church over this scandal.  Now there are two camps within the College: those who want to continue with business as usual, much as Pope Benedict did, and those who want to reform the policies in place that allowed these priests do do their evil within their sacred domain and trust.

Hopefully the second faction prevails, but with the Catholic Church, change comes very, VERY slowly. 

Obama uses tactics of past and present tyrants

Perhaps you have heard that Janet Napolitano's Department of Homeland Security released thousands of imprisoned illegal aliens into the population, reportedly as a result of lack of funds to continue their detention because of the sequestration budget cuts.

Of course Madam Secretary distances herself from this action, suggesting that a bureaucratic snafu was to blame.  Fat chance. 'Big Sis' was acting on her boss' orders.  In the not so distant past,  Josef Stalin's purges were so widespread, the average Soviet citizen watched as their friends and families were rounded up and marched off into the Siberian gulags, and these loyal Soviet citizens were heard to say 'this is not right, if only Mr. Stalin was aware of what is going on, he would put a stop to this.'  Josef Stalin ORDERED these purges, but the citizens still loved him as the big cuddly bear of a leader they all adored. 

This move of releasing plagues and pestilences into a wayward population was previously done by legions of past and present tyrants, despots and potentates to cow their populations into behaving in a manner acceptable to the regime in power, or to otherwise weaken and dilute the power of perceived or real enemies of the state.  Cuba's Fidel Castro offered thousands of violent prisoners a choice: stay in prison, or accept Visas to the U.S., and you can guess which choice all of them made.  Accordingly Castro succeeded in polluting our population with violent criminals.

Lately, Obama has been quoted constantly as being against sequestration, claiming it would severely damage our economy and put thousands out of work and grind our economy into ruin.  Although none of this is true, he continues to spout these lies.  All of these 'cuts' are simply reductions in the rate of growth: the Obama regime will still spend more money this year than last year.  There are no cuts. 

Regardless, this sequestration that Obama currently loathes was HIS idea in the first place, concocted last year to avoid sensitive discussion of cuts (that aren't even cuts, for crying out loud) that might irritate his liberal voting base right before an election, voters who live off of the government and want to hear nothing about no stinking cuts.  And this lie is so obvious, it is not even worth denying.  But Obama denies it anyway, a tactic used by virtually all past and present dictators but most famously by Adolph Hitler's Minister of Propaganda, Josef Goebbels.  This tactic is better known as 'The Big Lie.'  It basically works because the lie is repeated loudly, often and constantly, leading the population no other conclusion than the current lie must be true.  Otherwise, nobody would lie so blatantly and continue to drone on and on otherwise. 

Of course, there is his statement that Obama made lately that essentially means that if Congress doesn't take action on initiatives Obama feels are important to furthering his liberal agenda, Obama will act independent of Congress and initiate programs via fiat, which would fly in the face of the Constitution, a document Obama finds as detestable.  Every dictator and tyrant known throughout history has used that one. 

Obama has no need to invent a new play book to wield dictatorial power over Americans.  These tactics have been in the 'Dictator's Play Book' for thousands of years.  Obama has simply dusted off a page or two of this dastardly play book and implemented them, since they have worked every time they have been tried since the dawn of mankind.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it is Obama's way of looking at things. And we can expect many more pages of this playbook to be called by the current despotic regime of Barack Hussein Obama.  Many, many more. 

What happened to all the 'manly' men?

Question: What is more sad and pathetic than the sight of an able bodied average American guy standing next to his car on the side of the road with a flat tire, cell phone to his ear calling AAA to come rescue him?

The answer: nothing.
 

What happened to us formerly red blooded, All-American guys over the last few decades? Have we guys all become helpless weenies? A nation chock full of what Arnold Schwartzenegger would call 'girly men?' Maybe so. I drew this cartoon above a few years ago after reading an article from Popular Mechanics, whose editors compiled a list of the basic skills that they deemed every American guy should possess, and it appears below.

Read it and weep:

1. Patch a radiator hose
2. Protect your computer
3. Rescue a boater who has capsized
4. Frame a wall
5. Retouch digital photos
6. Back up a trailer
7. Build a campfire
8. Fix a dead outlet
9. Navigate with a map and compass
10. Use a torque wrench
11. Sharpen a knife
12. Perform CPR
13. Fillet a fish
14. Maneuver a car out of a skid
15. Get a car unstuck
16. Back up data \
17. Paint a room
18. Mix concrete
19. Clean a bolt-action rifle
20. Change oil and filter
21. Hook up an HDTV
22. Bleed brakes
23. Paddle a canoe
24. Fix a bike flat
25. Install a wireless router system.

When I read this list, I agreed that most of these are all skills that fathers used to teach their sons in days gone by, and I scored a perfect 100%. But I am an old guy, with perhaps tired old notions of self reliance, determination and a willingness to get your hands dirty from time to time. In that bygone era, dads used to take their 10-year old boys out in the back yard and show them how to build a tree house. That right of passage taught young boys many skills to include using hand tools, planning, organization, safety and pride in workmanship.

Sadly, those days are gone thanks to several factors such as advances in technology, and the slow and steady urbanization of the country. Most folks don't have backyards with substantial trees able to support any kind of tree house anymore unless they are out in the country. And even if they do, they have busy body home owners associations keeping their eyes peeled for these unsightly tree houses, those images of Americana now lost to our modern sensibilities. Rather than make excuses for why guys are turning into helpless losers, I suggest that this trend need not continue.

Take a long, hard look at this list, guys. If there are a few things here that you don't have a clue as to how to proceed, man up. Find out how, and go do it. If you can't start a campfire, then you have no business calling yourself a guy anymore. Just turn in your man card, and we will scratch you off of the man list, and don't bother coming to the man meetings anymore. And one final thing: change your name to Shirley. Or Pam.

(re posted from a few years ago due to popular demand)

'Ugly people need not apply.' A reprint of reality

In Utopia, people would be judged not by the 'arrangement of their skin, but by the content of their character.' (apologies to Martin Luther King for butchering his phrase in his 'I have a Dream' speech).

I just thought I would wander off the conservative reservation for a bit, and point out that the pretty people in this world get a leg up in almost every endeavor, while the less than pretty folk get the shaft when trying to compete for a share of life's goodies against these good looking hunks and babes.

Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton are rich and famous for one thing only: their looks.  They are as dumb as a bag of hammers (my apologies to all of those bags of hammers out there, you are WAY smarter than either of them), they both dropped out of third grade, and treat everyone around them like a bags of dirt. But none of that matters.  They are lookers, and as such are entitled to fame and riches. Life is like that, you know, whether you think it should be that way or not.

There has actually been legislation passed prohibiting discrimination in hiring by race, sex, age, color, creed, religion and sexual orientation. You will note, however, that general appearance does not make the list.  In the real world, the ugly among us should not even bother to apply, and maybe even do us all a favor and just drop dead.

After all, let's get real, shall we?

All of the above politically incorrect rant makes an irrefutable point: we all prefer watching pretty people read the news on TV, rather than a wart covered, wrinkly obese slob, right? It's not even arguable. Please point out a homely news person on Fox.  Go ahead, let me know the name of that ugly reporter.  I'm waiting............ (insert crickets chirping here).

We all discriminate against fat, zit faced, ugly old people. We do it every day. Virtually all of us (and Roger Ailes, CEO of the Fox Network in particular).

But is it right? Is this the way things SHOULD be?

In Fredd's Dreamland Utopia (where most liberals always hang out), we would ideally be judged by our credentials, attitude, love of life, respect for others, tolerance, people skills, gumption and verve, period. Looks? Not applicable.

But then, reality rears its ugly head and will always remind us all with its' cold bucket of water that we don't dwell in Dreamland Utopia. Let's get real. The Uglo-American segment of society can just forget about getting ahead in life based on their credentials, etc.

And they can certainly forget about sitting behind the newsdesk, for the ugly need not apply. Indeed, they should do us all a favor and drop dead. Or, if they choose to keep on living for reasons unknown to us all, at least they should wear paper bags over their heads.

But life is like this, and we all know it. But it still ain't right....