Archive for November 2021
⚡Stupid Newspaper Headline⚡ Leave a comment
11/09/2021 Needed, Insurance Claim Translators Leave a comment
Once upon a time in a galaxy far far away I was required to work eight hours a day, 40 hours a week, with insurance companies. Truthfully it wasn’t much fun and after talking to literally hundreds of insurance company employees, they agreed. I was forced to read hundreds of accident reports and then pass them on to the insurance carriers. Some information contained in those reports was incredible to say the least. The following list of quotations is taken from actual submitted insurance claims concerning automobile accidents. You can read them, take your time, and try to figure out exactly what they mean. Here we go . . .
- “I told the police that I was not injured, but on removing my hat I found that I had a fractured skull.”
- “Coming home I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I don’t have. The other car collided with mine without giving me warning of its intention.”
- “I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law and headed over the embankment.”
- “I thought my window was down, but I found it was up when I put my head through it.”
- “The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve several times before I hit him.”
- “I collided with a stationary truck coming the other way.”
- “In an attempt to kill a fly, I drove into a telephone pole.”
- “As I approached the intersection a sign appeared in a place where no stop sign had ever appeared before. I was unable to stop in time to avoid the accident.”
- “The pedestrian had no idea which direction to run. So I ran over him.”
- “I saw a slow moving, sad faced old gentleman as he bounced off the roof of my car.”
- “The telephone pole was approaching. I was attempting to swerve out of the way when I struck the front end.”
- “I was thrown from my car as it left the road. I was later found in a ditch by some stray cows.”
- “An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my car, and vanished.”
- “The accident was caused by me waving to the man I hit last week.”
- “I had been shopping for a plant all day and was on my way home. As I reached an intersection a hedge sprang up, obscuring my vision, and I did not see the other car.”
I give thanks everyday that I know longer have to deal with this nonsense. The only thing worse than dealing with insurance companies is dealing with their customers.
BEWARE! THEIR EVERYWHERE
11/08/2021 ***Limerick Alert*** Leave a comment
A woman who lived in St. Paul,
Had breasts undeniably small;
Her husband growled: “Dear,
Why not burn your brassiere?
It’s fulfilling no function at all!”
11/08/2021 Is 2021 Becoming 1984? Leave a comment
I’m a reader of just about any printed material. I enjoy fiction, nonfiction, and anything else I can get my hands on. By far my favorite genre is science fiction and I’ve been reading it religiously since the age of nine. I love it for a number of reasons but primarily because of its ability to foretell the future. So many things included in the oldest sci-fi stories have eventually become part of our reality i.e. lasers, satellites, cell phones, and space travel. I then asked myself the question, if sci-fi writers have the ability to see the future so clearly, why not others. The novel 1984 is considered sci-fi by some but to me it’s just social commentary taken to extremes. But . . . could it be prophetic as well?
I look at the direction of our country today. It’s slowly sliding toward socialism with people like LBJ, Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and Joe Biden insinuating their kind of changes into every facet of our lives. In Orwell’s future, the Party is everything and only our service to the Party has any value. Sounds vaguely familiar doesn’t it?
Orwell rewrote the language into something called Newspeak. Changing words to reflect new meanings such as terms like Head Start, Hope and Lifetime Learning Credits, Peace Corp., Americorp and of course Welfare. Newspeak allowed the Party to suddenly change the perception of something just by making the name more palatable. The “proles” weren’t smart enough to figure that out. Are we?
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING was the mantra of the “proles” in Orwell’s novel. The “proles” were the regular citizens excluded from the upper echelon of society and needed to be strictly controlled. Could the NSA be the new “Big Brother”? Could Homeland Security be the new “Thought Police”? You tell me.
Mentioned throughout Orwell’s novel are the following three terms:
- WAR IS PEACE – Doesn’t this clearly describe our current approach to the rest of the world or not?
- FREEDOM IS SLAVERY – Does corroding our civil rights and freedoms under the guise of security explain this?
- IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH – When government transparency becomes just some phony “politically correct” term, does that explain this?
Orwell’s” Ministry of Truth” comes alive when you read this description:
“There were the huge print shops with their sub-editors, their typography experts, and their elaborately equipped studios for the faking of photographs. There was the tele-programs section with its engineers, its producers, and its teams of actors specially chosen for their skill in imitating voices.” – Sounds a lot like the Main Stream Media and “Fake News” to me.
I could continue these comparisons all day long. Orwell had the Thought Police and the Ministry of Truth and we have the Criminal Justice System. The comparisons were striking to me but will easily be shrugged off by our current government as a gross exaggeration of an old and antiquated novel. Just like the lasers and communication satellites were written about in the 1940s, at the time they were also considered a gross exaggeration. I’ve made my decision on where I think were headed as a country and a society. I’m not saying it’s a certainty but it could become our reality very easily and very quickly.
I’ll admit one thing of Orwell’s that does not translate to our current generation is the “Ministry of Love”. He thought his “Big Brother” government should mandate copulation and childbirth as a service to the Party as a means of keeping the population levels growing. I’m sure he never anticipated a government assisted by the courts that would permit the wholesale slaughter of unborn children just to maintain the status quo and keep citizens voting a certain way.
LETS CALL THAT OUR “MINISTRY OF UNLOVE”
11/07/2021 ✨Great Quote Award✨ Leave a comment
“One fifth of the people are against everything all of the time.”
Robert Kennedy
11/07/2021. What’s Are Your Answers? Leave a comment
As I’ve stated so many times in the past, “an unexamined life isn’t worth living”. With that in mind I’m offerring up these twenty questions. There are no right or wrong answers and no scoring of any kind. This isn’t a test but a chance to help you examine yourself. I’m going to answer them as truthfully as I can. I hope you’ll take a few minutes by yourself or with your partner or spouse and answer them together. It should prompt some interesting discussions. Enjoy . . .
1. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one ability or quality, what would it be?
A. The ability to speak every language in the world.
2. If you knew there would be a nuclear war in one week, what would you do?
A. I’d take my better-half, my cat, and a couple of cases of good wine and spend the week camping in the mountains.
3. Would you have one of your fingers surgically removed if it’s somehow guaranteed immunity from all major diseases?
A. No way in hell.
4. How do you picture your funeral? Is it important to you to have people mourn your death?
A. Cremate me, throw my ashes in the ocean, and move on with your lives. No special anything.
5. If you could take a 1-month trip anywhere in the world and money were not a consideration, where would you go and what would you do?
A. I’d fly to Easter Island to take photographs and meet the people.
6. If your friends and acquaintances we’re willing to bluntly and honestly tell you what they really thought of you, would you want them to?
A. Yes and I would do the same for them if requested.
7. You believe in any sort of God? If not, you think you might still pray if you were in a life-threatening situation?
A. I’ve been in life threatening situations and there was no praying of any kind going on. If there is a God (which I doubt) he didn’t seem the least bit interested.
8. Assuming that complete recovery were instantaneous, would you be willing to accept a year of complete paralysis below the neck to prevent the otherwise certain extinction of the blue whale?
A. No way, there’s an easier solution. Kill all the damn whale hunters.
9. Would you like to know the precise date of your death?
A. No way, I just love surprises.
10. Someone you loved deeply is brutally murdered and you know the identity of the murderer, who unfortunately is acquitted of the crime. Would you seek revenge?
A. Yes and it would be done intelligently and be undetectable.
11. If there were a public execution on television, would you watch it?
A. No, look how well that sort of thing worked out for the Romans.
12. How many times during the day do you look at yourself in a mirror?
A. As few times as possible. I no longer impress myself much.
13. Would you prefer to be blind or deaf?
A. Deaf, it would be a blessing not to listen to the constant drumbeat of noise from the rest of the planet.
14. How old were you when you first had sexual intercourse?
A. Age 13 and it was wonderful.
15. You are given $1,000,000 to donate anonymously to charity or to a stranger. How would you dispose of it?
A. $750,000 to the Wounded Warrior Project and the remainder to the ASPCA’s no-kill shelters.
16. How much do you like your body? You awoke alone on a warm morning and we’re going to laze about the house, how long would you wait to get dressed? What do you wear when you sleep?
A. I probably wouldn’t get dressed until at least 11 a.m. I always sleep in the nude whenever possible and will till the day I die.
17. Would you be willing to eat a bowl of live crickets for $40,000?
A. Hell no that’s disgusting but I might reconsider for $50,000.
18. Can you urinate in front of another person?
A. Many times and in many places.
19. Would you be willing to go to a slaughterhouse and kill a cow?
A. I’m a meat eater not a meat killer. We have specialists to handle that.
20. Would you be willing to murder an innocent person if it would end hunger in the world?
A. Absolutely not.
Those were my honest answers and it wasn’t as bad an experience as I thought it might be. The straight-up truth is always easier than trying to prevaricate or exaggerate.
GIVE IT A TRY
11/06/2021 Andy Rooney Remembered Leave a comment
It’s been ten years this month that Andy Rooney passed away. I’ve been thinking for a few days on exactly how I wanted to memorialize him. A standard review of his resume doesn’t do him justice. I wanted to thank him more than anything for the interesting insights he gave me while sitting and enjoying his essays.
I was never a big fan of 60 Minutes from the start because I felt at times they were dishonest and biased despite what they claimed. I can count on one hand how many of their shows I actually watched in their entirety. That being said, I tried never to miss an Andy Rooney segment if at all possible. He brought to the table many years of experience which helped make him special. His downright honesty was the first thing I noticed and appreciated. He spoke of things as he saw them and didn’t tolerate biases and prejudices and all the other crap the majority of journalists do. I’ve always felt that he, like Jerry Seinfeld, had that special view of things along with an excellent means of communicating them to millions of people with humor and honesty.
If the three of us were in a room together that was full of stacks of old books here’s what would happen. Seinfeld would write a 30 minute long TV episode about how people stacked books. I would attempt to explain how certain book stackers irritated me. Andy would take certain information from some of those books and weave a five-minute story that would make you laugh and capture your imagination at the same time. He had a knack!
I’ve missed him a lot over the years but I’ll never forget the pleasurable moments he gave me every Sunday night. Shalom and Aloha Andy and thanks again.
RIP
11/06/2021 ***Limerick Alert*** Leave a comment
I met a lewd nude in Bermuda,
Who thought she was shrewd, I was shrewder;
She considered it crude
To be wooed in the nude –
I pursued her, subdued her, and screwed her.
11/06/2021 Decisiveness or Lack Thereof Leave a comment
I’m as big a critic of President Biden as anyone one but one of my biggest pet peeves with him is his inability to make a quick and logical decision without involving the Congress or twenty advisory committees. It’s as if he realizes his decisions may be faulty so he asks for backup to try and cover his butt if things don’t go as expected. In my mind that does not make a good leader, it actually weakens the presidency in the eyes of the world as recent comments from Great Britain confirm. So I’ve gone searching for the thoughts of other late and great Americans on this subject.
- “Problems come when the individual tries to hand over the decision-making to a committee.” Rupert Murdoch
- ” If I had to sum up in one word what makes a good manager, I’d say decisiveness.” Lee Iacocca
- “The percentage of mistakes in quick decisions is no greater than in long, drawn-out vacillations, and the effective of decisiveness itself “makes things go” and creates confidence.” Ann O’Hare McCormick
- ” A decision delayed until it is too late is not a decision; it’s an evasion.” Anonymous
I understand the need of big government to have panels and advisory committees. The President supposedly makes the final decision but a really smart president makes it in a reasonable length of time. The need for lengthy meetings, conferences, and telephone calls in the middle of the night to Democratic and Republican buddies isn’t getting the job done in my view. Nothing is more important than a timely decision. If the voters in this country took as long to make a decision as some of the politicians, it would take twelve years to elect a president. Now that I think about it maybe that’s the best way to go.
A QUESTIONABLE DECISION IS PREFERABLE TO A DELAYED ONE
11/05/2021 ✨Great Quote Award✨ Leave a comment
“To escape criticism – do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.”
Elbert Hubbard
everyuselessthing.com 