Sheep and Goats

Category: Government

  • Ben Franklin Strikes Out in Both Worlds!

    Ben Franklin courted the widow Helvetius. However, she spurned him because she wanted to be loyal to her deceased husband, whom Franklin had known previously.

    Immdediately afterwards, Franklin falls into a deep sleep and has a dream in which he meets the man in heaven. The following are his words, from 'Letter to Madame Helvetius:'

    "He asked me a thousand questions relative to the war, the present state of religion, of liberty, of the government in France. “You do not inquire, then,” said I, “after your dear friend, Madame Helvétius; yet she loves you exceedingly: I was in her company not more than an hour ago.”

    “Ah,” said he, “you make me recur to my past happiness, which ought to be forgotten in order to be happy here. For many years I could think of nothing but her, though at length I am consoled. I have taken another wife, the most like her that I could find; she is not indeed altogether so handsome, but she has a great fund of wit and good sense; and her whole study is to please me. She is at this moment gone to fetch the best nectar and ambrosia to regale me; stay here awhile and you will see her.”

    “I perceive,” said I, “that your former friend is more faithful to you than you are to her; she has had several good offers, but refused them all. I will confess to you that I loved her extremely; but she was cruel to me, and rejected me peremptorily for your sake.”

    “I pity you sincerely,” said he, “for she is an excellent woman, handsome and amiable….As he finished these words the new Madame Helvétius entered with the nectar, and I recognized her immediately as my former American friend Mrs. Franklin! I reclaimed her, but she answered me coldly:—“I was a good wife to you for forty-nine years and four months,—nearly half a century; let that content you. I have formed a new connection here, which will last to eternity.”

  • Hyphens are a Tool of the Lazy Devil

    The ebook is written but that does not mean it cannot, being an ebook, be tweaked after date of delivery. Other than for matters of publication, I will do this very sparingly, for it seems that more would be 'cheating.' I did find a way of explaining neutrality that i like, however, and I managed to insert it:

    "All human governments will drop the ball and usually it is a bowling ball; this fact explains why many of Jehovah’s Witnesses become Jehovah’s Witnesses in the first place. Thereafter, were they individually to contemplate their own toes, they might conclude that those on their right or left foot appear most vulnerable. But they strive not to bring such matters into the congregation and thus disturb its peace, opting instead to focus on the fact that human governments of all stripes drop the ball but God’s kingdom does not."

    Speaking of punctuation, I am coming to grips with the fact that I am inconsistent in their use. One must not blow it off as nothing (as I am initially inclined to do) but one must face the fact that there are plenty of people who care about such things

    Sometimes I use double quotes, sometimes single. Sometimes put titles in apostrophies, sometimes not. Dashes I regard as the tool of the lazy devil, who can't quite figure out the precise relationship of two adjacent phrases and so simply flings a dash at the mess to get on with life. I'll go back in and fix it all. It will take a while.

    I will try to get it as close to exact as I can before pitching it to journalists, newsmakers and such. Some of them are real sticklers.

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  • Candidate Cat is Probably Lying Through His Furry Face

    I think it is very important for voters to realize that when Candidate Cat advocates food control for dogs, he is being disingenuous at best, and lying through his furry face at worst. Food rights for dogs has long established that optimal results in satisfaction and productivity are achieved at two meals per day per dog, but Candidate Cat uses the data of dogs who binge-eat to skew the overall data. It is important to note that such data must be placed into the category of statistical outlier with no practical application. If fact, recent research points to the likelihood that two meals a day are actually insufficient, and that three or even more meals per day per dog would result in happier returns.

    Candidate Cat, on the campaign trail, tends to speak figuratively, in ways that his advisors would no doubt like to reign him in on. He floats an off the cuff remark that one meal per day per dog is the policy he would like to pursue and his advisors quickly reassure the public that he is still committed to a two meal per day per dog policy. In reality, this tactic serves to distract the voter from his true agenda, which is patterned after his true desire – I am assured by insiders who do not wish to be identified – that there be no meals for dogs at all – per day, per dog, or per anything. He purrs a good game, but the public is catching on to him and I predict he will not succeed.

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  • Is Not the Election a Godsend for Witnessing?

    “Bob Corker…couldn’t get elected dog catcher in Tennessee, [and] is now fighting Tax Cuts,” Trump tweeted today. Corker shot back with the charge he has made before – that the White House is a day care center in need of better supervision.

    Even the circuit overseer last week spoke of what to do if someone tries to draw you into a fight over 'that crazy Trump' – whether he thought Trump was crazy or was just quoting others is unclear. For the most part, our people know nothing of politics and when they weigh in at all, it is to say: "he's bombastic, and I try to be polite."

    As far as I am concerned the election is a godsend – and it has nothing to do with Trump himself, but with the catfights it ignites among persons once thought reasonable. It used to be that if you quoted 2 Timothy 3:1-5 about people being 'fierce and unreasonable and not open to any agreement' and your householder did not agree that the verse applied now more than at any other time, there was not much you could do about it.

    There still isn't, however the spectacle of supposedly smart people screaming at each other day in and day out makes it less likely they will deny it. Animal-1299573_960_720

  • Rocketman

    Imagine – calling the other guy Rocketman at the U.N. and getting the whole world to join in the refrain. How can you not give a thumbs-up when a guy does that? And then some kid comes along and photoshops an Elton John concert playing that very song, replacing John's head with Kim's, and inserts the huge video screen backdrop of North Korean rockets wheeling about, the shrill newscaster shrieking, the troops goosestepping – how do you expect any guy with a sense of humor to hold it together? It is as Paul said – the world is a theater.

    The only thing that might check your hilarity briefly is the unpleasant thought that a misstep, for starters,  will result in half the planet up in smoke. But that is small potatoes.

    Is it reckless? Tillerson certainly seems the more stable of the two, doesn't he? Unless they are both playing good cop/bad cop. And, to be fair, while everyone hopes for diplomacy, the diplomacy that has led straight up to the present situation and will presumably lead up to one where North Korean missiles are parked on your toes, should at least be mentioned as having worked out not that splendidly. Isn't there a Neville someone-or-other who favored negotiations back during another evil time? Or do I misunderstand even that? The trouble with history is that whenever you think you have something figured out, along comes someone from a different perspective to upend all your notions.

    Meanwhile, it was Putin – mean, nasty, Chief Officer of Evil, His Wickedness, 'murderer and a thug' Putin – all that remains in the West is to photoshop him with Devil's horns, grinning ear-to-ear at his laptop as he hacks US elections – who supplied a key bit of understanding when he visited China. Sanctions will never work on North Korea, he said – Kim will see every single one of his people starved to death before he will give up on his nukes. Why? Because he knows about Libya and Iraq. Though Saddam swore up and down he had no weapons of mass destruction – which turned out to be exactly correct – that did not stop his enemies from taking him out and killing a family member or two in the process.

    Look, he is not my friend – Putin. I mean, he hasn't exactly been nice to my people, Jehovah's Witnesses, lately, has he? But give credit where credit is due. He nailed it. Tellingly, when CNBC or someone covered that Chinese meeting – if Putin so much as tied his shoe there, they reported it – they covered every detail EXCEPT his statement about Saddam, thus allowing perception to stand in the US that Kim is completely unhinged - a perception he does nothing to clear up by his own pontifications – listening to him is not exactly like listening to John Tesh, is it?

    Jehovah's Witnesses are neutral in the world's affairs for noble reasons – it is not God's idea for the world to be carved up into scores of squabbling factions ever playing 'King-of-the-Mountain" and he will soon act to  bring about his own kingdom replacement. However, another reason to be neutral – albeit a less noble one – is that it is almost impossible to get the truth on anything – you are forever acting in the dark – for every outlet spins 'truth' their own way according to their own agenda. Even Western media condemnation about calling Kim Rocketman must be weighed against their approval of calling Putin a murderer and a thug, a Senator's description that they picked up on and used freely. Is it wise to taunt him like that? Whenever in my house-to-house ministry I spot a murderer and a thug, I cross over to the other side of the street. Rocketman

  • Did He Call the President a Moron? – Why You Can’t Watch News Anymore

    The reason I cannot watch network news anymore is that they are obsessed over whether Secretary of State Tillerson called Trump a moron or not. It is a huge story.

    Yesterday, Tillerson called a news conference. They carried on and on about how unusual it was for a Secretary of State to do such a thing. He called it mostly to scold them, yet they were too stupid to realize it. Despite media reports that the two do nothing but squabble and that he has had it up to here with the President's dumb ways, Tillerson said he has never even once thought about quitting, that he and the President get along just fine, that he regards him as smart and demanding of results, that he envisions foreign policy possibilities that no one else does.

    (yeah but, yeah but…did you call him a moron or not?)   'Look, I don't come from this town [Washington], but where I come from we don't have time for such petty nonsense,' he answered. YEAH!

    Incredibly, they are not chastened by this rebuke. …'well…he didn't actually say that he didn't call him a moron, did he?'

    He probably did, is my best guess. It is the realization that they think this is meaningful that takes your breath away. I cannot watch anymore, my viewing has steadily decreased over the past few months. When you work closely with someone, he will do or say things that will nettle you sometimes, and you say in passing 'what did that moron do now?' for Trump does speak impulsively at times – sometimes I think it is by design, to see these characters fall all over themselves 'fact-checking' things that everyone else realizes doesn't amount to a hill of beans. They truly think such things are significant in news-land?  I have to go someplace where there are grown-ups.

    For crying out loud, he used to run Exxon! He put that aside for what is the role of a lifetime for him, an area in which he thinks he can best bring his talents to bear – and he probably never imagined there would be such a role other than Exxon. How could anyone possibly be so juvenile as to imagine that he spends his days in cat-fights with the President? I've never seen anyone with less political ambition in my life.

    You can't even watch the networks for disaster coverage anymore, something at which they were arguably good. All they can talk about is who did comforting and relief better: this President or the one before.

    This piece is more political than I like to get, but it is not really political at all. It is a commentary on the media. What a bunch of children they have become.

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  • Will Trump Bring in Socialized Healthcare, Beat Dems to the Punch?

    I will be very bold and predict that Trump will bring in socialized medicine, though it will not be called that. Even I do not think this likely, but most do not think it possible, so I still come off as being bold, though some will say insane.

    Trump is pragmatic and has shown he is not bound by ideologies. I can't imagine how healthcare could work via competition among insurance companies when healthy persons can opt out. Obamacare, though it will surely crash of its own weight, has planted the notion, accepted everywhere else, that everyone deserves access to healthcare. Trump himself seems to embrace the idea. He may take the bull by the horns, figure he can craft a system that incorporates the private sector better than any Democrat can, for they distrust the private sector, and charge ahead.

    It will be a very hard sell. He will lose many of his own people, but may gain from the other side. Even then it may be doomed. Americans are used to Cadillac treatment, and while universal health care is universal, its quality goes down. Pharma too, may scream, because they are used to soaking Americans to offset the modest profits they must take elsewhere. They will carry on about 'choking innovation,' and so forth. As it is, they don't bother innovating unless they see a substantial buck in it; that's why there is MRSA with no new antibiotics to fight it. It's hard to be overconfident here, but I can imagine Trump may try tackling it.

    Maybe he can still sell it. Overall healthcare quality in America is well above that of any third world country. But among the developed countries, it comes in dead last. I'm tired of playing Russian Roulette with my modest net worth for every sliver I have removed. Perhaps other people are, too.

  • Trump and the Populist Homeowner

    For several months I have subscribed to The Week Magazine. I like the short synopsis of news stories from around the world. It also has good obituaries. It is as sneeringly liberal as anything I have seen, routinely calling the President an ignoramus, an egomaniac, and a liar, but I figure that's just politics and let it go.

    But some things are just too much. Like the Trump/Putin romance meme. See, we've been conditioned, rightly or wrongly, to not like Putin. Therefore, if Putin and Trump can be portrayed as bosom buddies, we will not like Trump either, which has been the object of portraying him that way ever since the election. Usually if you run a thread which consists solely of allegations, with conclusions heralded though no evidence is provided, admin will take down the thread. However, it doesn't work that way in journalism, where the mission, from Day 1, has been to take out Trump.

    At any rate, when he carries on as he did in Syria, it clearly shows he is a lover from hell, and more likely, he was never a lover at all. The story line of the past few months that he and Putin were in cahoots was pure fiction, written for the purpose of Trump's elimination. The Week has been foremost in spinning this line.

    In light of Syria, do they repent of the rubbish they're written? Not a bit of it. "Blowing up a Bromance" says the cover of the most recent issue, with Trump and Putin portrayed with backs to each other, each holding wilted roses.They are indeed lovers who have just suffered a little lover's spat, that's all.

    Therefore, I tend to not like The Week simply for their lack of humility, and their bending the facts to fit their story, rather than the reverse. The reason they do this is that they despise the 'populist' candidate. I'm not sure what is so perjorative about 'populist,' Doesn't following the populist course mean you are doing what is popular with the majority? Isn't this the very purpose of democracy? But there is another view.

    Career politicians like to think of themselves as plumbers. (my example, not theirs, theirs will be more pretentious, but the idea is captured with plumbers) When you hire a plumber, you don't tell him how to fix the problem. You hired him because you do not know how to fix the problem. You trust his expertise to figure it out and do what he thinks best. He is not expected to report his every step to you. Career politicians love to see things this way. They are the experts, elected by the dumbbells, to do whatever they want. 

    These days, what they want is to push toward a world government. That aspect, in itself is also what we want, but theirs is run by humans, not God, so it is not necessarily an improvement over the 'carved up earth' model. Six to one, half dozen to the other.

    This is not the only scenario under which you might hire a plumber – because you have no idea what to do. Some homeowners know exactly what to do, and simply want or need someone else to do the labor. These are the populist homeowners.

  • Trump Strikes Syria – How to Read This

    Trump bombed Syria and made a lot of people mad. How can you not make them mad when you’ve killed 15 people? He broke a lot of things, too, but he can always say: “Look, Vlad, what’s the big deal? I’m a billionaire. You’re a billionaire. But them some new planes out of your own pocket if it takes that to placate them.” The people are a different matter. But even that is mitigated by pointing out they were all (or almost all?) military people who have signed on to the program.

    For some inexplicable reason, I feel I have a read on this guy. I long have. It surprises me to think so few do. Even that is hard to know for sure because in this scenario, as in all others, liars spin the facts this way and that for their own purposes. In the case of a President, the motivation to do so is high.

    At any rate, his actions clearly turn a lot of memes on their head. Clearly, he is not a pawn of Putin, as U.S. media has insisted for months. Clearly, he does not hate Muslims, as they have also insisted. It is now spun that he is impulsive and acts from the heart. “Trump said he would not do Syria! No way! No how! Then he saw a picture,” I have heard.

    Or perhaps it is all spin. The trouble with conspiracy theories is that, once a few of them prove to be true, you readily swallow the next one coming down the pipe. There are cabals hanging about and they do try to skew things. But these cabals have hated Trump from the beginning. I think it is because he is not one of them and they don’t feel able to control him. We all know that Trump is not a Republican. He took over the Republican party. It might just as well have been the Democratic party. He simply read the tea leaves and saw that, at the moment, the Republican party was easier to commandeer. When he says ‘drain the swamp,’ he is not referring to one party or the other.

    Anyone in small business, which I have been, can easily conceive of a businessman who loves his country but thinks the slippery boobs have ruined it, saying: “There!  I built my business. Now let’s see if I can fix the country.” A BIG businessman can easily miss this because he is primarily worried about Trump’s effect on the stock market, but a small businessman doesn’t care, or at least it is not his chief concern. If your experience is something else entirely, you heard the ‘grab them by the you-know-what’ and concluded life around him was a 24/7 brothel. I always thought It was nonsense. I always agreed with him that it was ‘locker room’ talk. I did this because I have been in the locker room and they do not read Plato in there.

    He can spin this as I believe it really is. There are some things so barbarous that you cannot go there. Chemical weapons are among them. They are not good, especially when you have just had photos of the victims thrust under your nose.  He did what he did impulsively, from the heart. Yet even that cannot be determined with certainty. Insiders said he leaned on and took options from the military people. He didn’t hastily tell them what to do. He let them tell him, and chose from the choices they presented.

    It is easy to conclude that they, however, are swayed by the business model. When BigDefence gets too big, it must keep the profits rolling in. If it does not, the stockholders will bolt for some noble competitor – say, BigPharma. So if the world threatens to get too peaceful, they must stir up the pot. It is the United States, not Russia, that is bombing many countries. It will never be fixed because money drives everything here. You solve nothing by taking out a bad guy. Another bad guy simply sees a fine new career opening. It is the play that must be changed, not the actors in the play, who simply follow the script given them – sometimes begrudgingly, sometimes with gusto. Human reformers can change the actors, but they cannot change the play. Only God’s Kingdom will do that.

    In a world where barbarities are commonplace, it is tough to know where to draw the line. “What’s one more slaughter in the greater scheme of things?” is easy to say. Is it preferred for Trump to say: “Ah, well – shit happens?” Obama drew a line in the sand and it was instantly crossed. Perhaps leaders should keep their mouths shut over such things, and not make grandiose remarks about slaughter being ‘unacceptable’ (duh) and how people will ‘be held accountable.’ They won’t be, usually. Why carry on as though they will, except so as not to look like a helpless fool. And don’t carry on about people being ‘cowardly.’ They may be despicable, but surely it is not cowardly to be willing to die for a cause – any cause, from Boy Scout to Barbarians-R-Us. Also, don’t whine on about how the terrorists are trying to change our way of life, but we won’t let that happen. If anything, they want us to maintain our way of life and thereby be easier targets to kill. And even the terrorists will say: “Look, they elect their leaders over there, and the leaders come over and kill all our loved ones. That makes them not so innocent after all.” Victims of massive suffering and evil, many turn into unreasoning animals that must be taken out, like putting down a vicious dog. But that doesn’t mean you must judge them for it; many in the West become unreasoning animals with far less provocation.

    A man that recoils at the use of chemical weapons and reacts immediately can be spun as not such a bad thing. He can say to Putin: “Sorry. I lost it. but nothing has changed in the big picture. Let’s work together when it is expedient to fix the world.”

    It’s not my cause. I am a neutral Jehovah’s Witness, interested in these things only as ‘current history.’ All human governments will drop the ball; the only question to be answered is upon which toe will if fall. The Kingdom arrangement, as detailed in the Bible, is the only permanent answer. So if you have read these words and said: “Harley is an idiot! I’ll write to tell him so,” please don’t. I will respond by saying: “you forgot to mention that I am also a moron.”

    (See the Foreword of No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash - it is in the 30% free preview section)

     

  • Nominating Mitt Romney

    In circles of humility and modesty, no one cycles higher than Tom Sheepandgoats. Far be it from he to blow his own horn, but….hang it all….if you've nailed something, you've nailed it! Why not trumpet it far and wide throughout the blogosphere?

    Several months ago I prophesied that Evengelical Born Agains would vote for a pig in heat before they would vote for a Mormon. Some readers were doubtful, and those of scientific bent still demand a pig should run Porkso as to properly test the hypothesis. But everyone else is convinced, having watched in dismay the unfolding of the 2012 Republican Primary race.

    Among GOP (Grand Old Party) operatives, Mitt Romney is the guy they'd like to see as Presidential Candidate to run against Barrack Obama. The other wannabe's carry way too much baggage. They all have starry-eyed bases, to be sure, but that's it. In a general election you can't depend upon them to attract one additional vote. But with Romney you probably can, and thus he might conceivably beat Pres Obama, who is not that strong of an incumbent.

    Even Romney doesn't positively thrill them, but he can probably get the job done. Why, oh why, they sigh, can't someone like Mitch O'Connell run? The South Dakota Senator gave the Republican response to the State of the Union and he was so reasonable, so reassuring, so competent, so……yawn….isn't there something on another channel?…..so boring. Only flamboyant cowboys run for President today, because folks can't focus on anyone else.

    That's what Sesame Street did to us. 2012 2 16 Strong Musuem of Play 101It made us unable to hold a thought longer than two minutes. We have to be razzle-dazzled, awed by charismatic presence, and candidates in recent decades have had that ability in spades, if nothing else. Sesame Street…brought to us by the best and brightest and most well-intentioned of PBS child development experts. They loused us up, just like Dr Spock loused up the generation before. "We have reared a generation of brats,” he acknowledged toward the end of his life. “…..Of course, we did it with the best of intentions. We didn't realize until it was too late how our know-it-all attitude was undermining the self assurance of parents."

    But don't let me stray off topic! We're talking about voters, Mormons, and Evangelicals. Romney does fine in eastern, western and northern states. There, he is watered down only by the Evangelical minorities. In the south, however, where Evangelicals prevail, he gets shellacked. He came in 3rd in Alabama and Mississippi, behind Santorum and Gingrich. Yet Romney outspends them 10 to 1! The reason is painfully obvious, though no one will say it lest it appear politically incorrect: Romney is a Mormon. He thinks…..I almost feel sorry for him…..that surely these folks can be won over, swayed by his reason, charm, and ability. I don't think so.

    Do a blogoshere search of “Mormon” and “cult” and your server will crash.  Mormonism is a “cult,” the Evangelicals insist, in the same league with devil worship and Jim Jones. Do you think in your wildest dreams Evangelicals are going to vote a cult member into the Presidency? They're not. As Amy Sullivan writes, “it is nearly impossible to overemphasize the problem evangelicals have with Mormonism.” Only one other significant faith draws the 'cult' label…..Jehovah's Witnesses. Actually, I think JWs draw it more, but I could be wrong.

    Now, Mormons don't fit the traditional definition of a cult any more than Jehovah's Witnesses do, but they do fit the new refined definition: faiths we don't like. At any rate, pundits, naïve as can be, suggest the real problem is that Romney may not be conservative enough for Evangelicals. Nonsense. What about how Mormons rammed through Proposition 8 in California that banned gay marriage? Call THAT not conservative? What about when Ron Paul suggested the U.S. ought not go picking fights around the world, and Mitt Romney swore that on his watch American military forces would be second to none? Call THAT not conservative? No, believe me, the problem is that Mitt Romney is a Mormon. Everyone else can adjust and live with that fact. But Evangelicals? From early years they're indoctrinated to think Mormons are a cult, same as JWs. We wouldn't have a prayer either, were we to run. Fortunately, we never have, save only for Dwight D. Eisenhower, who doesn't count, since by the time of his election he'd long outgrown his JW upbringing.

     

    Thinking his trouble might be Northernism, not Mormonism, Romney lays a “Mornin' y'all” on a Mississippi audience one recent morning. He started his day off right, he says, with “a biscuit and some cheesy grits.” Sigh….that's cheese grits, laments poor Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post, who  wants to know why can't he just be himself? Because 'himself' is Mormon, that's why,  and he's playing to an audience intent on re-establishing America as a Christian nation, and a Christian nation is not one led by a Mormon.

    Be it Republican or Democrat, each primary race lands more spectacular than the one preceding it. The pattern's held for decades. But this current race takes the cake. Already, wannabes have shot like meteors only to vanish into thin air. Who can forget Rick Perry, an Evangelical like Ron Santorum, vowing in debate that he would eliminate three Federal departments…this one, that one, and um…um….uh….he couldn't think of the last one!….Ron Paul had to help him out. I guess it doesn't matter if you're going to ax them anyway, but voters weren't reassured. And Herman Cain, the GodFather Pizza founder….what pure charisma that fellow has! Alas, it turned out that he likes the women.

    Romney will likely emerge with the candidacy, but will he emerge strong enough to beat Obama in November? Kathleen Parker offers advice ('be yourself') but it's inapplicable, because Evangelicals know who he is and don't like it. If he listens to me, however, the election is in the bag. And I offer my advice freely. I am not seeking Vice Presidential office, and will not accept it if drafted. The secret lies in registering dead voters. There's a lot of them. It plays to a Mormon strength. Nobody else has thought of it. And dead voters are not about to contradict you.

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    Read ‘Tom Irregardless and Me.’    30% free preview

    Starting with Prince, a fierce and frolicking defense of Jehovah’s Witnesses. A riotous romp through their way of life. “We have become a theatrical spectacle in the world, and to angels and to men,” the Bible verse says. That being the case, let’s give them some theater! Let’s skewer the liars who slander the Christ! Let’s pull down the house on the axis lords! Let the seed-pickers unite!**********************

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    Tom Irregardless and Me               No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash