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| It's officially COLD here in south-central Missouri. -1 with a real feel of -15 degrees. Yeah, I know its colder elsewhere, especially in the northern states. But I've always thought of Missouri as a (somewhat) southern state. After all, we serve sweet tea down here. |
| I read an interesting article today on Yahoo regarding Pres. Trump ordering the U.S. Mint to stop making pennies. Question: Do you think the penny should go away in the US? |
🐕GeminiGem🎁  - I agree if I am buying something for £1.99 in my head it is £2.00 - so just charge £2.00 and have done with it! It's silly. |
Jayne  - I agree that it's a legitimate cost savings area to examine... but at the same time, the U.S. federal budget was $6.8 trillion in 2024 and, according to CBS News, "the U.S. Mint reported losing $85.3 million in the 2024 fiscal year that ended in September on the nearly 3.2 billion pennies it produced. Every penny cost nearly $0.037 — up from $0.031 the year before." That's 0.0013% of the federal budget spent on manufacturing pennies. Is it better that nothing? Sure. Can we get by without needing 3.2 billion new pennies being minted every year? I'd hope so! But given how dramatically defense spending is ramping up, it feels a little bit like your average household canceling a $2.99/month subscription, turning around and upgrading from a Honda Civic to a Mercedes G-Wagon, then patting themselves on the back for the $36/year they're going to save on the canceled subscription.  My guess is that it's low-hanging fruit for the administration to take a victory lap on, even if in the grand scheme of things it's not going to meaningfully reduce our federal spending. It's certainly easier than trying to reform the federal defense budget!  |
| Received some unexpected results today from a CT procedure I underwent a week ago. Apparently, I need a consult for more tests in my immediate future. I really dislike hospitals. Probably a good thing I have a conscientious wife encouraging me to accept help. |
| Do you watch your news first thing in the morning, or in the evening? |
Preferably never. I happened to hear Amy Goodman reeling off today's horrible world headlines and now I'm  |
| Any news I take in is best served mid-day. I prefer to wake up and enjoy my mornings, and I don't want to get worked up and agitated in the evenings before bed, so mid day is best; after lunch of course, one doesn't want to ruin one's appetite. |
| I was reading an article this morning, the subject of which was the Office of Management and Budget issuing a memo to rescind its previous memo freezing all federal programs. The original memo was the Trump administration’s pause of all federal funding and grants as an effort to make sure “DEI” had been purged out of government agencies. It cut everything from Meals on Wheels, to education, local law enforcement, and the Medicaid on which programs for the elderly depend. But then the White House Press Secretary contradicted the new memo stating the cuts were still in effect prompting a US District judge to grant a restraining order against the cuts, and stating “the administration is acting with a distinction without a difference.” I had to look up that phrase having never heard it before. From Wikipedia, it means: A type of logical fallacy where an author or speaker attempts to describe a distinction between two things where no discernible difference exists. Risking the can of worms I'm opening, what do you think about the current state of affairs within the US? State your opinion, and keep it CIVIL! |
Carol St.Ann  - What scares me is that it's working ... on so many levels. People really are that gullible. I live in rural south-central Missouri, and you can't have any discussion with anyone here--they don't want to hear it. |
Just A Short Rant I love football--High School, College and especially the NFL. I suppose with the diverse membership around the world, many may not feel me with this. That's Ok. What happened to the days when the NFL football week was a Thursday night game, a Monday night game and the remaining games were played on Sunday? Now in their pursuit of the almighty dollar, the NFL schedules games on every day of the week (except Tuesday this year). Games get flexed (changed) with a week's notice to the teams involved. There used to be one game on Thanksgiving--now there's two or three. Don't get me started on Christmas games. There's a lot of NFL chatter about looking out for the safety of the players ... and then schedule a team (Kansas City Chiefs) for three games within 11 days. KC, by the way, has played scheduled games this season on six of the seven days of the week, something not done by another professional team since the 1927 Yankees. Saturday used to be for College games; Sunday for NFL. Now that regular season college games are done, let's slide the NFL to Saturday now and get some more of that advertising money. And now you have to be especially prepared to search for your team's game. Will it be on a local cable channel, ESPN, NBC, CBS, Fox, YouTubeTV, Prime Video, Paramount +, Peacock, and of course, NFL + or Redzone. Guess I'll watch the two games scheduled for today. Yeah, I'm hooked! |
| Days are gone that the average guy could watch as much as he wanted. Now we have pay through services like Amazon Prime, NFL, Apple Tv. Everyone wants the almighty dollar. Besides its a bunch of millionaires fighting each for an hour. Very sad days. |
| Yes, to all of it. You can blame the Lions for starting the Thanksgiving game. All I know right now is... One Pride. Go Lions!! Once in my lifetime, all I'm sayin  |
| It seems like a lot of members traveled to some exotic places last year. Are you planning any trips this year? And to where are you going? I'll start: My wife and I are planning a trip to visit Ireland this May, AND a Fall Foliage cruise from Quebec City through the Maritimes to Portland, ME in October. I'm really beginning to like being retired.  |
| Cancun in February, arguing over Bordeaux region in France (my vote ) or Portugal end of summer. |
HAPPY NEW YEAR!! As you begin the final year in the first quarter of the 21st Century, do you wonder where all the years have gone? It seems like we just went through Y2K. Dang. Time needs to slow down.  Looking forward to great things to come. |
A quick call for action! Our good friend and Moderator, THANKFUL SONALI Love my family  often posts in one of our forums whenever a Moderator has a WDC Anniversary. I was struck by two Mods specifically who started their WDC journey in December, 2008. In a nostalgic bent, and since I joined in 2008, I wondered how many more Mods joined in the Class of 2008. If you're a Moderator and joined WDC during 2008, please post your anniversary date in this Newsfeed post. Again, I'm curious. Just Mods for this post; tomorrow I'll do one for Preferred Authors. |
 Five and a half years after the tragic fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, the church has been re-opened to the public. I'm amazed at the work needed to repair and restore the burned church. The skill of all those who worked on the restoration is superb. Above is a picture I took of Notre Dame while visiting Paris while stationed in Europe as a young Lieutenant. |
Remembering December 7, 1941 . The beginning of deadliest and most destructive war in human history, claimed between 40 and 50 million lives, displaced tens of millions of people, and cost more than $1 trillion to prosecute. The financial cost to the United States alone was more than $341 billion (approximately $5.8 trillion in 2023 dollars when adjusted for inflation). Source: Britannica, Casualties of World War II But one could never summarize the complete chaos and ... we could never come up with enough negative superlatives to describe the utter waste that that second "war to end all wars". I'd like to think we've learned a lesson from that debacle. But I wonder.... |
Sadly, I've closed this contest until further notice. At least, until I can find a way to make it more enticing to the members. I'm still committed to finding and consoidating How-To items for "The File Cabinet"  . Thanks to all who participated. More to come on this in the future. |
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Come summer, however, you can get back at me.