Random Thoughts: Thinking about...Ann Landers?

2024-01-01: "At age 20, we worry about what others think of us.
At age 40, we don't care what they think of us.
At age 60, we discover they haven't been thinking of us at all."
-- Ann Landers (1918-2002).
At age 20, we thought Ann Landers was embarrassing.
At age 40, we conceded that she sometimes knew what she was talking about.
At age 60, we missed her dearly.

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2024-01-01: "US To Remove ‘World’s Biggest & Deadliest’ Aircraft Carrier Gerald R. Ford From Warzone Despite Iranian Threats." -- The EurAsian Times.
Just like the WWII airplane made obsolete the WWI battleship, modern missiles are making obsolete the WWII aircraft carrier.

2024-01-02: Big Ten wins. SEC loses. I'm happy on both sides of that score. I'm not a Jim Harbaugh fan, but Alabama shouldn't have even been in the the game, even if they took Michigan to overtime. Florida State belonged in it, even with their star quarterback injured.

2024-01-02: So the college football championship game will feature the last two undefeated teams in the country. That's fitting, but the men in charge (they were all men, right?) did everything they could to see it wouldn't happen.

2024-01-03: The Big Ten champ and the PAC 12 champ will meet in a postseason game in...Houston, Texas??? Many say this game belongs in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. They have a good point.

2024-01-04: "It just shows, doesn't it, how much worse things can get when you think you've hit rock-bottom? Life has more complications in store than you can ever formulate or imagine." -- Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety

2024-01-08: My armchair political analysis? Trump's hold on the far right is due, not to love of Trump, but hatred of liberals. They see Trump as fighting liberals. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" and all that. The unbalance in politics comes in that the left doesn't have the same attitude. They hate Trump, sure, but they are still searching for their standard-bearer in the fight against him.

2024-01-09: "Michigan beats Washington to win national championship".
Welcome to the Big Ten, Washington!

2024-01-12: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott: "The only thing that we are not doing is we're not shooting people who come across the border because, of course, the Biden administration would charge us with murder."
If this doesn't repulse you, you have no humanity.

2024-01-15: 11° and snow. This is what Dallas woke up to this morning. It's like Christmas morning. It's how we know the Packers were here and left a lump of coal in Jerry Jones's stocking and flew home to the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field.

2024-01-15: After seeing a football injury, TV announcers often say if he can't return, it'll be a big loss for his team. I never hear them say if he can't return, his team won't miss him.

2024-01-17: Headline: "Border Patrol shut out of city park."
Any claims by the GOP about being the "law and order" party or "backing the blue" are hollow. They are the vigilante party.

2024-01-24: Projection: the mental process by which people attribute to others what they themselves think or do (see Donald Trump).

2024-01-25: Nikki Haley: Trump is not as sharp as he used to be.
Trump: "I would sit down right now and take an *aptitude* test, and it would be my result against her result, and she's not gonna win, not gonna even come close to winning."
Trump can't help himself. After he loses again, maybe he should consider doing standup comedy.
youtu.be/aY6KyCuqeoA?si=HRUvhy...

2024-01-26: Jennifer Rubin says Trump has a burden no other presidential candidate has had, to show that he is "sane, law-abiding and pro-democracy." And he casts more doubt on those every time he opens his mouth.
Yep, pretty much.

2024-01-26: Dallas Morning News: "Texas has had an estimated 26,000 rape-related pregnancies since the state enacted its abortion bans."
This isn't "pro-life." It's pro-rape. It's insensitive to women, cold-blooded, unfeeling, callous, cruel. It won't end until voters reject everyone in power in Austin. Yeah, that probably means that lady who pretends to be nice, too.
dallasnews.com/news/public-hea...

2024-01-28: "Allen West, a former chair of the Republican Party of Texas, announced his bid for party chair of Dallas County about two months ago. In a previous interview with The Dallas Express, he asserted that the party needs to do a better job of getting Republicans elected in the Dallas area." -- The Dallas Express.
Just a wild guess here, but the GOP might have a better chance electing candidates if they don't pick people like Allen West for party chair.

2024-01-29: "Democratic debate planned for UTD unexpectedly moved, sparks tension" THE MERCURY
This article reminds me of the quote by Will Rogers: "I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat."
utdmercury.com/congressional-d...

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