Wed Musings

All that was missing was "a foot of snow."  This AM I ran uphill, into the wind, but only in about 5 or 6 inches of snow.  Yep, I chuckled, but also grateful there wasn't "a foot of snow."  It was very pretty out there this AM, just beautiful.  Deer tracks, or were they coyote?, were all over the freshly fallen white stuff.  And there was just enough to shovel, but not enough to be burdensome.  Come to think of it, I think I've shoveled each day this week, from one to three or four inches, Sun through Wed.  It's a good workout and fun, too.

I also laughed at Mon AM's newspaper.  There were four pages plus part of a fifth that covered Sun's MSU-UM basketball game.  OK, I know the game/rivalry is very important to a lot of people, but still......  C'mon.  Do we really need to know if Joey Basketball ate oatmeal for breakfast or Johnny Hoopster had a hangnail and missed two minutes of practice last week?  Who won by the way?

And isn't this college recruitment of high school athletes, namely football and basketball players, just a little ridiculous?  I know it's a multi-million dollar industry, but when do the adults begin to take over?

Michael and Cody had a basketball game on the boob tube last night, a college game, but I don't remember which teams.  I don't watch much, if any, basketball and was reminded why as I saw about ten minutes of the game.  First, when did the rules change?  It used to be players with the ball had to dribble when they moved their feet.  More than once I saw a driving player stop dribbling and come down with a foot (OK so far) and then take two more (easily counted without the slow-motion replay) steps to the basket and a lay-up.  The announcers cooed at "the great move" or "burst of quickness" each time.  Then there are the fouls.  The officials called a couple of fouls.  That surprised me because the last time I watched games, be they college or high school (I avoid the NBA like the plague.), I thought whistles must be in short supply; I never heard any.  Anyway, twice last night the whistles blew and fouls were called.  Both times, the TV guys said, "I didn't see that [the fouls]."  On the replay, one clearly showed the defender reaching in for the ball and grabbing the offensive player's forearm, not just a hack, but a grab.  "No, I didn't see it," one of the TV guys said.  Maybe he wasn't really looking?  The other time, a defender make a clean block of a shot; there was no foul on that, but a whistle was blown.  The TV guy exploded.  "Whoa!  That was all ball!"  The replay showed indeed there was a clean block, but followed by the defender's body just smashing into the driving player, sending him sprawling out of bounds.  "That was all ball!"  No, it wasn't.  I quit watching before I heard the ubiquitous, but almost always wrong, "Good no-call."

I came across a good line from Harry Truman, who had a good number of them.  He said, "The problem with the President," referring to Franklin Roosevelt, "is that he lies."  Heh Heh.  Gee, I wonder how that holds up with liberals, who almost worship at the altar of FDR.  Obviously, I don't.

Although I know it's too serious to laugh, I laugh anyway.  The LameStream media and the Democrats in Congress are laughable.  Are they stupid?  Are they too smart by half?  I don't understand them.  Why do we keep hearing about the "ban" on "Muslim" immigrants?  It's repeated again and again by the politicians in opposition and by the media, ad nauseum.  "It's not who we are" or "It's against American principles."  Huh?  Why are things sometimes OK, but other times, when others do the same things (or similar), it's as if the world is caving in?  First, it's a limited time detention, limited until proper "vetting" can be done.  (What is the derivation of that word, "vetting?"  I don't really know.)  Second, it's not all Muslims, but immigrants from seven nations, all ID'd by the way by our recently departed Messiah Obama.  Third, although the specific details were a bit different, Obama decreed (yes, decreed) the same thing about 5 years ago with immigrants from Iraq.

Trump's appointee to the Supreme Court has already led me to laugh--at several of the Democrats, namely Chuckie Schumer (How did he get to be minority leader, let alone a US Senator?) and Faux-cahontas, Elizabeth Warren.  Read or listen to their ignorant comments and then go back and do some research.  First, when they insist on a Justice who will stand up against "unconstitutional" executive actions, why didn't they also insist on that from their own appointees, or rather Obama's?  Heck, even W. Bush's John Roberts made a mockery of the Constitution, making a ridiculous ruling on the Congressional power to tax to uphold Obamacare.  (I know, I know--"The Constitution means what the judges say it means."  So stated Supreme Charles Evans Hughes.  I don't think so.  The judge might determine the law of the land, at least for a while, but they can still get it wrong.)  The fine or penalty for not purchasing health care cannot reasonably or in any other nonconvoluted way be called a "tax."  And calling for Supremes who will uphold the principle of stare decisis, (respected and abiding by past court rulings) seems a bit stupid. If all judges did that the law of the land would still be Plessy v Ferguson, "separate but equal" in race relations.  And, I think, if we go back to check, we will find both of these (and many of the other Dems) voted to confirm Judge Gorsuch for his Appeals Court seat.  Are the criteria/standards for the Supreme Court that much more stringent than the Appeals Court?

Gorsuch sounds like a good pick.  One source cited him as once saying, perhaps at his Appeals Court hearing?, that he made a number of rulings he didn't like.  That is, he didn't invoke his own prejudices or politics in a ruling; he ruled on the law and the Constitution.  It didn't matter whether he favored the law or not.  If Congress passed it and it didn't violate the Constitution, he was bound by oath to uphold it.

But it seems some politicians have redefined some terms.  Apparently "unconstitutional" now means "something we don't like."

Off to grade essays and rest a bit.  It appears I have a second run scheduled for this evening.