Littleton Wal-Mart Remodels

They have been at it for a month.  They put down a nice stone floor, dark gray, nicely polished. They are upgrading their shelving.  Dunkin Donuts seems to be gone.  No donuts on their shelves, no one behind the counter, no coffee.  Tables replaced by shelving full of kid’s toys.  Too bad I liked Dunkins honey dipped donuts and used to buy a few for breakfast when I was in the store.  They removed the seating at the pharmacy so you have to stand while waiting your place in line.  The book shelf seems to be gone.  Small loss, they have not stocked a book I cared to buy for a year or more.

How to read the MSM.

The main stream media have a lot of fake news, and a lot of news slanted so heavily as to reverse the true meaning of the story.  So how does one find out what is really going on in the world?  Maybe George Soros can hire a small crew to sort thru the news and give him a short summary of what is really going on, but few of us have George Soros’ money.

The first thing to do is identify the really untrustworthy sources and just don’t bother the read them.  For instance, I don’t believe anything coming from the New York Times.  They have been passing out falsehoods since the 1930s when they sent Walther Duranty to Soviet Russia.  The Russians were just getting things organized and were making wondrous claims about the goodness of Communism.  Duranty took in the Russian propaganda, including all the good things the Russians were saying about Joseph Stalin.  Duranty wrote up stories in English and sent them back to New York, where the Times printed them all just as Duranty wrote them.  The Russians got a lot of good publicity out of the Times.  Years later the Times fell in love with Fidel Castro when Fidel was trying to overthrow Batista and take over Cuba.  Castro got a whole bunch of American help just because the Times made him seem like a romantic reformer.  Then later in 1967 or 1968 the Times sent a top editor, Harrison Salisbury, to North Viet Nam.   Harrison got together with some North Viet Namese village chief who told heart breaking stories about Yankee air pirates who had bombed his village repeatedly and killed four civilians thru wanton bombing of a purely civilian target.

   I just happened to be in the Air Force and assigned to the 366 Tactical Fighter Wing based in Thailand that year.  I did a little checking.  Yes indeed we had bombed that village repeatedly.  It had the biggest railroad yard you ever did see, running right thru the middle of it.  I figured if we had only killed four civilians for all those bombing missions we had been very careful. 

   Anyhow I stopped reading the Times and have not looked at it for 50 years.  For that matter I don’t read the Washington Post for the same kind of reasons.  I don’t bother to watch CNN, CBS, MSNBC, or ABC.  I do watch Fox News and have found it fairly reliable.  The Wall St Journal is still good.  Anyhow the point is you ought to have a list of sources you don’t bother to read because they are passing out BS.

   When reading or watching the MSM look to see if the article has any numbers in it.  In the real world numbers tell us how many things they are talking about, the length or width or height of something, how old something is, lots of things.  Most newsies are innumerate, they cannot under stand numbers and they cannot write them out properly.  I usually dismiss stories that lack numbers as the product of poorly educated and not very smart newsies.

   Much of the verbiage coming out of the MSM is  pure opinion, and lacks any facts to support the opinion.  Some times I agree with the opinion and sometimes I disagree.  In either case there ought to be some facts in the story. 

  

20,000 Ton ship full of Ukrainian corn bound for Lebanon.

 Ship has cleared inspection in Istanbul.  It's off for Lebanon.  Front page color picture in the Wall St Journal this morning.  It's really happening. 

Thank you Nancy Pelosi

For going to Taiwan.  You showed the Chinese that we will support Taiwan if they try to invade it. We showed our friends in Asia, Japan, South Korea, Philippines, even India, that we still oppose Chinese Communist takeovers of anywhere.  A good point to make. 

   Nancy’s trip is the best thing that any democrat has done in years.  Thank you Nancy.

First Shipment of Ukrainian corn leaves for Tripoli in Lebanon.

It is a back page story in the Wall St Journal.  20,000 tons of corn.  That ought to fill up a big ship, and when made into Corn Flakes is will take up a lot more space.  Ukraine has a lot more grain it can ship, a million tons or more from last year and as much again or more from this year’s harvest which ought to be starting soon.  The Ukrainians say it will take a month or more to ship that much grain.  They worry about running out of room to store the new harvest if they cannot more last year’s harvest. 

   Unsaid in the Journal story is how much Ukraine gets paid for that first shipload, and follow on ship loads.  And in what currency, US dollars, Ukrainian currency, Russian rubles, Lebanese currency, IOUs, time payments, or who knows.  Surely Ukraine needs all the money it can get to keep fighting the Russians.  

Apparently a deal was struck between Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, and the UN to  allow cargo ships thru the war torn Black Sea.  Gotta wonder why Russia signed on, you would think they would be happy to strangle Ukraine  by blockading their Black Sea ports. 

 

SOS. Save our Sink.

The kitchen sink faucet has been leaking, a steady drip drip drip, for some time now.  It got to the point where I could hear the drip drip all over the house.  I would go to bed and hear the drip drip until I fell asleep.

  So yesterday I decided to do something about it.  I shut off the water and took the faucet apart.  I took the old seals and the strange metal ball that made a single lever work both hot and cold along with me.  Went to Lowes in Littleton.  Pleasant surprise, Lowes had replacement washers and replacement for the metal ball.  That faucet was installed way back in 1962, so I had worried about finding parts for it.  But Lowes had them.  Groovy.

   I got home, put the liquor away, and started in to put the faucet back together.  Arrgh.  I just could NOT get the damn thing to go back together.  I even made a second run to Lowes to buy a third little set of spare parts, thinking maybe I needed it.  No luck. 

   So I called up my brother John, who has been a contractor up here for 40 years or so, thinking he might have an idea.  Well he could not think of anything to try over the phone, but he said he could drop by and take a look.  Son of a Gun, John got the faucet to go back together.  It doesn’t leak, the hot and the cold work.  Fantastic.  Without Brother John, I would have next tried to replace the entire faucet assembly, probably $90 from Lowes. 

  So the water runs, I can wash dishes, life is good.  Thank you John.

Things Democrats have brought us.

   

1. $5 a gallon gasoline.  It has dropped off a bit from $5 but not enough to matter.
2. Attempts to renew the “assault weapons” ban.  Since there are no real differences between “assault weapons” and deer rifles, this law will ban all rifles.
3. 9.5 % inflation.  Your dollars are worth 9.5% less in buying power than a year ago.
4. The Afghanistan debacle.  We pulled out of Afghanistan turning the country over to the Taliban and leaving billions of dollars worth of good American weapons to Islamic terrorists.  We had Afghani’s clinging to USAF transports and falling to their deaths when the plane took off.
5. Lack of baby formula in store.  For that matter a lot of empty shelves for all sorts of common products like bacon.
6. Kamala Harris for vice president.  If anything happens to Biden, impeachment, heart attack, Covid 19, falling off bicycles, falling down the boarding stairs from Air Force 1, you name it, Kamala becomes president.  By all accounts she is worse than Biden.
7. Opening up the US-Mexican border to anybody who shows up.  Resulting in  floods of fentanyl, Covid 19 cases, and illegal immigrants.
8. Turning the presidency over to Who Runs Biden’s America (WRBA).  They write the executive orders and the speeches on the teleprompter.  Biden signs what is put before him and reads out loud what ever is on the teleprompter.  We have no idea who WRBA is but who ever they are they are running America right into the ground. 
9. Biden is pushing a big spending bill thru Congress and will sign it when the Congress approves it.  It will make inflation worse. 
10. Biden is putting the Armed Forces onto a lefty greenie path, including Critical Race Theory training for the troops and mixed sex bathrooms and mixed sex locker rooms.  There was a scene of this in the movie Starship Troopers.  They are discharging 60,000 regular and National Guard troops who lack Covid 19 vaccination.  The armed services are reporting recruiting shortfalls of as much as 45%.
    

       All real Americans need to vote a straight Republican ticket in the mid term federal elections coming up this November.  Only that will save America from total ruin.