Bert's Musings

Weather was beautiful. High was 62 degrees with bright sunshine and no wind. I helped with cleaning and building forms for a stair, again. (David, wish you were here. We would have been at least twice as efficient if all you did was supervise.) I will add a some photos of the place later but right now I am pooped and it is past time for bed. Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Things never seem to change. If you can't read the text of this scan it is reproduced below. ODE TO THE WELFARE STATE Daily News, Friday, November 4, 1949 Mr. Truman's St. Paul, Minn., pie-for-everybody speech last night reminded us that, at the tail-end of the recent session of Congress, Representative Clarence J. Brown (R-Ohio) jammed into the Congressional Record the following poem, describing its author only as “a prominent Democrat of the State of Georgia”: DEMOCRATIC DIALOG Father, must I go to work?  No, my lucky son. We're living now on Easy Street On dough from Washington.   We've left it up to Uncle Sam, So don't get exercised. Nobody has to give a damn – We've all been subsidized. But if Sam treats us all so well And feeds us milk and honey, Please, daddy, tell me what the hell He's going to use for money.   Don't worry, bub, there's not a hitch In this here noble plan – He simply soaks the filthy rich And helps the common man. But, father...

How much more evidence is needed before all conservatives and libertarians abandon the Republican party? Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday opened the door to extending the payroll tax holiday, just two days after his top deputy suggested Republicans would not support a renewal of the temporary cut. "In all likelihood, we will agree to continue the current payroll tax relief for another year," McConnell said Tuesday The "payroll tax cut holiday" is nothing more than the blatant theft of money that should be going into Social Security. The lying scum in DC claim that they are going to use money from the general fund to put the money back into Social Security. Obama is running massive annual deficits of $1.3 TRILLION, where is the federal government going to get the money to put into Social Security? The people in DC can't be so stupid as to think the huge increases in spending and debt the past few years was good for the nation. I'm not ...

Today went well. I walked over and had breakfast in the dining hall. It was "do it yourself" instant oatmeal. At 9 AM Kathy and I met with Patty, the volunteer coordinator. She talked to us some more about what we wanted to do while we were here and then had a guy give us 2 hour tour of the facility. For lunch we had potato soup, NOT like Grandma Ruthie used to make, but edible. Supper was chicken and I think Kathy called them lentils. She like it. I thought it was barely edible. One of the guys said that we were having fish and chips for supper. The chicken was a huge disappointment. We ended up driving into Lindale so that I cold get some Long John Silver's fish. At 1 PM I started "work". I helped build forms for a stair on the new building. Tomorrow we hope to finish the forms for the first stair and start on the forms for a 2nd stair. Kathy did some painting and staining in the afternoon and is in charge of organizing the paint room. Starting Monday she is g...

This morning I picked up a Tulsa newspaper. As I scanned the front page I was quickly reminded of the astounding level of incompetence of those we have elected to office. These people are ignoring issues such as Social Security, Medicare, federal spending levels that have skyrocketed over the past 20 years, etc. They flatly refuse to enforce current immigration laws. They let this president ride roughshod over the Constitution while spending over a billion dollars bombing the hell out of a nation that will end up hating the United States. In addition to that they can't even pass a real budget! What these overbearing demigods are able to do is to waste their time involving themselves in minutia that should have nothing to do with the federal government. Just on the front page of the paper I read the following: The USDA has inspectors who inspect dog breeding facilities. It now wants more control over such facilities. Please will someone tell me which Article...

We arrived about 2 PM today. The overnight low in McAlester last night was actually 24 degrees. It was the coldest temperature we have experienced while living in the motorhome. Since we overnighted at a Walmart parking lot we had to run our generator most of the night to provide electricity for the heat pads on the tanks, run the furnace blower, keep a light bulb on behind the refrigerator, which is basically outside, to keep the ice maker water line from freezing and to power my CPAP machine. I mentioned in last nights post that I would include some photos I took at a rest area in OK.  The sidewalk had a center stripe painted to make it look like a highway, Route 66. The picnic tables were in little structures that represented stores. Here we are parked at YWAM near Lindale, TX. Sorry for the bad photo. I don't know why it turned out so cloudy. This is the view out the front window of our motorhome. Beyond the trees, which are mostly oaks, is one of the many ponds on the property...

We had lunch with Kelsey & Andy and then headed for Texas. We are spending the night in the Walmart parking lot in McAlester, OK. We are about 375 miles from K&A's and have another 200 to go tomorrow to get to Tyler/Lindale, TX. Traffic was somewhat heavy a lot of the way. The only real delay came just before we got out of Missouri. Repairs are being made to a bridge/overpass on the Missouri/Oklahoma border. It took us over 50 minutes to go 4.5 miles. We stopped at a rest area to stretch our legs. I took a couple of photos of it but am to tired to mess with them tonight. I will try to remember to post them tomorrow night. It is 35 degrees here now and supposed to get down to 24 by 6 AM. Tomorrows high in Tyler/Lindale is supposed to be 53 and then 57 on Tuesday. Lows are supposed to be right at freezing for tonight and the next 4 nights. I don't much like that, but the days are supposed to be sunny with highs in the high 50's. Good night to all and may God bless you...

Kelsey, Andy, Doug, Anthony & I took a two hour tour of the old Missouri State Penitentiary this morning. It was quite interesting. The prison opened it 1836, the same year that the Alamo was overrun by Santa Anna, and 97 years before Alcatraz became a Federal prison. It closed in 2004. During its heyday it housed as many as 5,300 offenders at one time. The prison was known as "the bloodiest 47 acres in America." In the late 30's Missouri executions started being done using cyanide gas, rather than by hanging. The tour included the gas chamber but I didn't tank any photos of it. It was interesting to learn that, in the past, justice was handed out without waiting for criminals to die of old age. In Sept 1953 a couple kidnapped and murdered a 6 year old boy. The kidnappers were a drug addicted, alcoholic couple. They buried the boy in the woman's back yard. They were caught, tried, convicted and were executed on December 18, 1953. Had they committed a similar c...

We all (Andy, Kelsey, Doug, Anthony, Ed, Cindy, Kathy &I) went in to Jefferson City this morning. We drove around looking at things for awhile and then stopped and had lunch. It was nice enough that we had lunch at an outside table. After lunch we drove to the downtown area and walked around, mostly just looking around. Then we went to the downtown dairy/ice cream place. We also drove by some of the houses that Kathy & I had looked at. Kathy made more noodles for supper, plus there are still lots of leftovers. In the morning some of us are going to the old prison in Jeff for a two hour tour. Temperatures are cooling down, but so far no rain. Today's high was in the high 60's and it is still 57, but feels cooler. Tonights low is supposed to be 52 but tomorrow's low is supposed to be 32. Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

I just love it when the lefty, liberal, big government socialists make it so easy to point out their hypocrisy. Last month while speaking at the 4 th Annual NW Conference on Teaching for the Social Justice (wonder if “teaching for Social Justice" just means that it is OK to revise history as necessary to support your position), Chicago Teachers Union (if you do web search CTU apparently is the acronym for both the Chicago Teachers Union and the Cannabis Training University) President Karen Lewis not only “bullied” the US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, an Obama appointee, because of   his lisp, she also seemed proud to admit that she had   “self-medicated” with “lots of weed” while in college. I don’t really care whether or not she used drugs while in college, but I do care when someone representing a teachers union get up in front of an audience that contains kids, and sounds like she is proud of her previous illegal drug use. All the teachers unions have come out strong...

We have a lot to be thankful for this day, week, etc. Our first great-grandchild is due next June, family and friends, health, retirement is great, good food, today's weather, etc. We had Thanksgiving dinner with over 20 family members and friends, at our grand-daughters and her husbands. During the afternoon there were at least 40 people here at times. It was sunny here, in central MO, today with a high of 64. It felt a lot warmer. It was nice enough that we many of us were able to spend significant amounts of time out on the deck. All the food was good. Kathy made a LOT of noodles. They were really good. There was even enough for me to have some for a late afternoon snack. Elaine's (Andy's Mom) yeast rolls were fantastic. I can't understand how one happened to be left to have with my noodle snack. A true blessing <grin>. Kelsey left a while ago, around 9 PM, to go shopping. Debbie, Andy's niece who is a couple of years older than Andy, went with her. Jack, D...

Why is the federal government discouraging thrift? Due to current government policies people who have tried to save a few dollars, rather than blow every cent they have on new toys, are being punished by interest rates that are below the rate of inflation. I think that there are a couple of obvious reasons. First, the federal government needs the rates held down to ridiculously low levels so that interest on the massive federal debt that they have run up doesn’t seem to be quite as bad. Second, politicians are far more interested in getting re-elected than in the long term fiscal health of the nation. They are willing to do anything if it will entice people to spend more money, thus artificially stimulating the economy. Basically that is what caused the housing crisis. The federal government made it far to easy for people to borrow more than they could afford, and it enticed lending institutions to make the loans because the feds guaranteed them. The end result was that housin...

Family members from NW Ohio & Indy are supposed to start arriving at K&A's any time now. There will be 20-25 here for dinner tomorrow. K&A and Kathy & I went to Moose Bros tonight. That makes 3 times for Kathy and I since we have been here. When we moved here from Ellington the right turn signal on our CR-V did not work. I tried, unsuccessfully, to figure out why today. It is somewhere in the motorhome wiring, but so far I have not been able to trace the wire back to the problem area. Drew, our son in San Francisco, closed on a house in Oakland today. He is a first time homeowner. When he is ready,we plan on going out there to help him with some maintenance work. Guess that is all for tonight. Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

We received great news soon after we arrived at our granddaughters a couple of weeks ago, but were told to be silent until further notice. Further notice has now been given. Kathy & I will become great-grandparents next June. Can't wait to take 5 generation pictures with both Kathy's Dad & my Mom. I put up the last piece of crown molding in Kelsey & Andy's living room today, and then started packing my tools getting ready to leave for the WYAM base in Tyler/Lindale, TX next Monday. We have put Missouri house buying on hold for the time being. After the temperatures we have been experiencing in Missouri Kathy is wondering if maybe Tyler/Lindale may not be far enough south. Tyler's temps forecast for the next week are a high of 71 with a low of 36. The 71 is great but our heat pumps sure run a lot when it gets below 40. Low temps here in Russellville for the next week are 38 tonight, 37 Wed night, 33 Sat night & 29 Sun night. Good night a...

I have one piece of crown molding to put up in the living room (can't put it up until Andy finishes the drywall patch over the old attic opening, maybe today). Yesterday we put up molding around the bathroom ceiling and replaced the jamb trim on the utility room door. Friday Kathy and I had lunch at Moose Brothers BBQ in Russellville. My hamburger, with a nicely toasted bun, was so large that I had to squeeze it hard so that I could open my mouth wide enough to take a bite. The onion rings were great. Kathy had the pulled pork sandwich with mushrooms. She said the sandwich was good and I can vouch for the mushrooms. Friday night Andy & Kelsey took us to Colton's Steak House in Jefferson City. I was feeling a little puny and ended up having my steak with eggs for breakfast. It was good. Last night and today have been much colder than what was forecast. Last night the low was 36 and today it never got above 40. Tonight's low is supposed to be 40, we will see. Kathy and I ...

There still appear to be US citizens who support Obama’s “raise taxes and have the Federal Reserve print more money for me to give away” fiscal policies.   It appears that the deficit reduction “super committee” will fail; no shock. Their goal was to reduce deficits by $1.2 trillion over 10 years. If they did nothing more than reduce federal spending to 2008 levels, the claimed deficit reduction would be $6-7 trillion. The self-serving scum in DC only care about raising taxes, increasing the size of government and getting re-elected. Facts don’t seem to deter the support of the big spenders. The information below is from Obama’s 2010 budget proposal.             Federal Spending    Defense Spending            Social Spending           Per Capita Spending Year     as % of GDP      ...

We are about finished with installing/fixing the trim at K&A's. I still have some pieces to install in the bathroom, one area will be a real bear because a 12" piece of trim will need to be cut into 3, maybe 4, mitered pieces. Yesterday I was able to get the TV coax cable run down and out the wall so that now I can close up the old attic access with a piece of drywall. I told K&A that I don't tape drywall so they either need to try doing it or get someone else to do it. After the taping is done I can put up the last piece of crown molding in the living room. That will finish all the trim work in the kitchen, dining room and living room. Kelsey wants a ceiling light installed above the dining room table. I think she is going to buy a light/fan unit that is operated by a remote control so that it won't be necessary to run wires for a switch. I told her I'm not going up into the attic, but I will give guidance <grin>, grandpa's are such crotchety old...

A group of 21 millionaires went to DC today to urge Congress to increase their taxes. It was an obvious publicity stunt but I bet there will be a lot of Democratic voters who actually will be impressed by such a stupid display. Does anyone believe that these millionaires are actually saying, “We are to stupid to distribute our money to help others; so would you, the Federal government take it away from us and waste it like you already do with trillions of taxpayers dollars.” What they really believe is, “There are other people out there who believe they can make better decisions about how to spend THEIR money that the Feds, we need to tax them and regulate them to the point where every individualistic tendency is beaten out of them.” Grover Norquist had a great piece of wisdom for them , "If you think the federal government can spend your money better than you can, then by all means pay more in taxes than you owe. The IRS should have a little line on the form where people can dona...

This morning I picked up a Jeff City paper and was looking through it while eating breakfast. It took virtually no time to pick up the pro-Obama tilt. "In a rare tangible achievement from the annual Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, President Barack Obama, said Saturday he was optimistic that work on the American-backed trade pact, dubbed the Trans-Pacific Partnership with the U.S. and eight other countries, could result in a legal framework by next year." I saw nothing in the remainder of the article that sounded positive. China is described as being "unenthusiastic" about the pact. The article says that after 10 years of "costly and so far unfruitful talks" the World Trade Organization can't get anything done because of "unbridgeable differences between the United States and major developing countries such as India, China and Brazil". Had Bush made such a baseless comment the press would have justifiably torn him apart; Obama gets...

Watch Europe if you want to see our future. Remember last year when the French authorities allowed roving gangs to burn hundred of cars, over a period of weeks? The authorities just stood by until the rioters apparently got tired of destroying the property of others. We are now seeing that start in the United States. Of course it started some time ago when, in a similar vein, US authorities started the practice of refusing to obey our Constitution and do something about illegal aliens. So far “We the People” have let them get away with not only the Federal governments refusal to enforce the Constitution, but now, under Obama, the Feds are actively preventing States from trying to protect their citizens from illegal aliens. The latest example of governments refusal to “serve and protect” law abiding citizens is the way governments are treating the Occupy protesters. Even the most active local governments only make a few token couple of arrests now and then. My guess is tha...

According to Obama US citizens should no longer have any expectation of privacy if they travel on public highways. The government wants the Supreme Court to allow the government to put a GPS tracking device on anyone's car, without a warrant, so that they can track their movements. Justice Stephen Breyer told the governments lawyer, "If you win this case then there is nothing to prevent the police or the government from monitoring 24 hours a day the public movement of every citizen of the United States." He further stated, "You suddenly produce what sounds like 1984." Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac need more money. Some of it will no doubt go to pay the millions in bonuses they are  handing out. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are government controlled mortgage companies that guarantee mortgages for people who no sane lending institution would give a loan. Fannie says it needs another $7.8 billion from we taxpayers. Last week it report a quarterly loss of $5.1 billion. N...

It is now quite obvious that John Morton, Obama appointed him to run ICE (Immigration and Custom Enforcement) is blatantly derelict in his duty to enforce the law. Last July, Chris Crane, president of the union that represents ICE officers, told the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration that officers were being told not to arrest illegal aliens. EVEN IF THEY WERE FUGITIVES EVADING DEPORTATION ORDERS! Mr. Crane has since provided copies of emails that seem to support his testimony. More Obama “change”, blatant disregard for his DUTY to enforce the Constitution. Perhaps Obama is to busy to be bothered with such things as illegal immigration. Last Tuesday his minions announced that a new tax was going to be imposed on Christmas trees. The Obama folks needed a source of income so that they could put yet more people on the Federal payroll by starting a new “board” that would be tasked with promoting Christmas trees. Could someone point out to me in which Article and Section of the Con...

We didn't do a lot yesterday. It rained most of the day. We did make a trip into Jefferson City to get a specialty RV bulb and a length of potable water hose from an RV place. We also went to Lowe's and bought 1x6's to do trim work at Kelsey and Andy's. Today Kathy painted, did laundry, cooked, etc, etc. I did the trim work around the opening between the living room and dining room. I also got some of the trim up around the opening between kitchen and the living room. It was windy and felt cold here this morning. It will actually be much colder tonight. The low is forecast to be below freezing tonight. Tomorrow nights low is supposed to be near freezing but then it is supposed to warm up some. Kelsey has been working 7 PM - 7 AM but has tonight off. Andy has been working his normal day job and then installing leather seats in the evenings. Monday he didn't make it home until well after midnight. Last night he made it home by around 10 PM. He should be a little earli...

Today I wore my electricians hat. After a trip to a couple of stores, more on that later, I changed out the entry panel in Kelsey & Andy's garage. The existing box was only an old two fuse box, but it was fed by 3- #8's. I installed a 100 amp panel, the #8's aren't good for 100 amp but it was cheap and the #8's are on a breaker in the main panel in their house. The new panel had space for a 30 amp 220v breaker for an outlet for "shore power" for our RV. Previously we were only plugged in with an extension cord. I limited the draw on the cord to 15 amps. It was enough for lights and keeping the house batteries charged. Now we have 30 amps on each of two 120 volt legs. It isn't enough to provide full capacity for everything running at once but it will be more than adequate for our needs while we are here. The charger on my Hitachi cordless tools quit working while in Logan Valley. I called Hitachi, told them I bought the tool set last April and they ...

I was just reading an article about worst case scenarios for Greece. In the mind of many economists the worst thing that could occur, for the Greek people, would be for Greece to decide to leave the European Union. If it did that there would be no way for it to repay the massive debts run up by the government. The government would have to start printing its own money. Who outside of Greece would want to be paid in currency of a country that just went bankrupt? I have always considered the formation of the European Union to be somewhat similar to what happened in our nation when some of the original free, independent nations of North America voted to form a central government to take care specific things; i.e. common defense against foreign aggression, settling disputes between the nation states, etc. When several of those states decided they no longer wanted to be part of the Union the remaining group went to war to against them and plundered them. It was called the Civil War. Anyo...

We left Logan Valley Christian Retreat late morning last Thursday and moved to Kelsey and Andy's (our granddaughter & her husband) in Russellville. We had a good time while at Logan Valley Christian Retreat. We had the good fortune to meet many interesting people. A big benefit to me was that I was able to improve my carpentry skills while working on the new building. Thursday evening/night I drove to Coldwater, MI for a quick visit with family members and to take care of some business. Today I drove back. Nearly 1200 miles round trip. I look forward to tomorrow, the Sabbath, being a "day of rest." An interesting thing happened while driving in the Odel/Dwight, IL area. On Thursday night I saw hundreds, if not thousands. of red lights that seem to flash at the same time. On the way back today my suspicion that the lights were associated with wind generators proved to be true. There must be around a 1,000 wind mills in that area. I can't even begin to guess how mu...

Last  night the low was 32 degrees here, it didn't actually get below freezing. Weatherbug consistently show low temperatures that are at least 10 degrees higher than what we have experienced while being in Logan Valley. Bruce, the carpenter who I've been working with, says that is normal. He told us that the winter low temperatures in the valley are always significantly (10-15 degrees) colder than they are in Ellington. Weatherbug claimed that the low last night was 50 degrees. Maybe it was in Ellington, less than 10 miles from here. Ellington's low is forecast to be 41 tonight so before bed I will be going out to turn off the water, disconnect the softener and bring it into the RV. This morning Kathy did more door painting. In the afternoon she went to check out Poplar Bluff and buy a few things we wanted/needed. Poplar Bluff is an hours drive from here and is the closest reasonably large town. Bruce, David & I put the sheathing on the building gable ends, ripp...