Saturday, May 28, 2011
ridding our shores of this deadly menace
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. ~Henry David Thoreau
Friday, May 27, 2011
America, America
God shed his grace on thee.
And crown thy good with brotherhood,
From sea to shining sea.
Memorial Day Weekend
Thursday, May 26, 2011
where the pilgrims landed
I came upon this cool old truck riding my bicycle on City Island a few weeks back but couldn’t identify the make or model. So where’s an identifying feature?
The hood ornament looked unusual, so I zoomed in.
A sailing ship? Really? Google: “sailing ship hood ornament”
Ahhh, that’s the Mayflower on a 1937 Plymouth PickUp, one of 11,000 units built that year. This one is in great shape for a 74 year old truck.
It cost a mere $523 back in the day and honored the Mayflower on its hood because “Plymouth” was named for Plymouth (Rock), Massachusetts, where the pilgrims landed in the Mayflower in 1620. Who knew that?
I found an ornament on eBay, too.
The ’37 Plymouth was powered by a six cylinder engine producing 70 horsepower or less than half the ponies of a modern-day MiniCooper S, which makes about 163hp. I’d take that old Plymouth any day.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Monday, May 23, 2011
through the ages tryin’
Long as I remember the rain been comin’ down
Clouds of mystery pourin’ confusion on the ground.
Good men through the ages tryin’ to find the sun.
And I wonder, still I wonder
who’ll stop the rain.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
“Hey Australia? Everything okay down there?”
That was a funny internet meme beginning about 6:05 on Friday evening.
From NPR:
"Starting in the Pacific Rim at around the 6 p.m. local time hour, in each time zone, there will be a great earthquake, such as has never been in the history of the Earth.”
Ah yes. Another great rapture that never was. Harold Camping, head of the Family Radio Broadcast Network had it wrong in 1994, too, but this is a great business to be in.
According to MSNBC Camping still has $80 million in the bank, $122 million as recently as 2007. His prime commercial radio network alone is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, all collected from his true believers. They must be quite baffled this Sunday afternoon but Harold’s not alone, others have succeeded profitably in this old-school scam as well.
Consider the Jehovah’s Witness, another cult that has famously leveraged its followers in 1925 and then again in 1975 with end-of-the-world predictions. So ignorant and fearful were the JW’s in 1975 it was widely reported that some actually gave away their cash, sold their homes and even euthanized their pets to prepare for what they had been told by their elders was imminent.
Some people crave faux certainty in an uncertain world. Others take comfort in simple answers to life’s complicated questions. “Because it’s in the Bible” will always be good enough for an indoctrinated few. These businesses famously sit on huge piles of cash in real estate and other holdings, all tax free, while drawing in billions more on just this kind of fear and ignorance.
“Follow the money” is a time proven way of understanding religious motivation and “end of the world” scenarios are big cash-flow for these groups. And notice, by the way, not one of these so-called “organized religions” asks their followers to donate their tithings to hospitals, colleges or charity. Oh no. The money is always to be sent directly to the elders and the people do just what they are told.
livingdaveramsey.com
“The Bible guarantees it.” ™
Oh, really?
Armageddon very tired of this.
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