Opuscula BOYCOTT! OK for me, Not for you?

I’M A LITTLE CONFUSED OVER this “boycott” business.

 

I am both Jewish and a dual-national: U.S. by birth, Israeli by choice.

I place my hand over my heart when the Stars and Stripes go by. I did my U.S. military service back in the 60s. I am a Red, White, and Blue American.

But I also am an Israeli.

I should mention that I am old — “ancient” as my Spouse reminds me — and I am “thin skinned” in more ways than one.

My problem with boycotts

Having written that, I confess to having a problem with boycotts.

I have, from time-to-time boycotted things.

I will not buy anything from China if I can find an alternative source.

That’s a boycott.

I don’t buy from China for a number of reasons, including

• poor and dangerous products,
• alleged government oppression,
• alleged theft of others’ ideas and technologies,
• the gift of the Wuhan/Chinese/Covid pandemic

I don’t buy Ford products having been burned twice with Ford vehicles.

I am not on Facebook or Twitter and I closed my LinkedIn account when I retired. I’m not “boycotting” these platforms; I simply have no interest in them

Being honest, I admit that the above is a “partial” list of products I won’t (knowingly) buy.

These are boycotts, albeit personal boycotts.

Since I boycott products, how can I express umbrage when someone boycotts products from all or parts of Israel?

Is there a real difference between my personal boycotts — that I freely publicize — and the political Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS)?

My boycotts are personal; while I might welcome people who would divest themselves of countries and companies I boycott, and while I would privately encourage sanctions (in the form of higher tariffs), I don’t mount a soap box, raise a battle flag and yell FORWARD to willing followers.

The “B” in BDS stands for, IMO, “bullying.”

THE DIFFERENCE is that my personal boycotts are not based on lies (Israel is an apartheid state; Israel oppresses Arabs, both of which I know first hand are lies) or senseless hatred of a people. The BDSers are know nothings; 99% have zero first hand experience with Israel, Israelis, or Zionists. (There are many, mostly Jewishly ignorant as well as politically ignorant, Jews who are BDSers. )

Image at https://tinyurl.com/jtpxfnwv

You only hurt the ones you ...

The interesting things about the anti-Israel BDS movement are

• It hurts the people the BDSers claim they support
• It is a political movement that borders on the illegal
• It doesn’t seem to be working

BDSers have cost the so-called “Palestinians” jobs.

The PLO/PFLP is an economic disaster. The citizens line up to work in the horrible, apartheid Israel (think about that) where they hold all manner of employment, both trade and professional.

SodaStream employed Israelis and “Palestinians” in its plant across the “green line.”

The BDSers put an end to that, putting the “Palestinians” out of jobs that paid the same wages regardless of where the worker lived. SodaStream did not have to employ “Palestinians” and the “Palestinians” did not have to work for SodaStream.

SodaStream moved to the south and now hires Israelis.

So, did BDS help or hurt the “Palestinians”? Did its action help of hurt the “Palestinian” government?

A QUICK WORD ON APARTHEID An Israeli Arab may live anyplace in Israel. An Israeli Jew is forbidden by the “Palestinian” government and Islam, to live in “Palestine,” even though there are “progressive” Jews who would rush to live in “Palestine” were they permitted.

Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, includes Muslims who promote the destruction of Israel. That would be like having nazis in Congress during World War 2 or Communists in Congress during the Cold War era. (Soviet Premier Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev was angry and threatened to bury us because President Eisenhower prevented Khrushchev from visiting Disneyland in California. There also was the small matter of Francis Gary Powers and the U-2 downing over what was then the USSR.)

It could have been avoided

Had the Arabs agreed to the 1947 Partition Plan, Israel would be a sliver of a state, with Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt as its immediate neighbors. “Palestine” as separate from Jordan did not exist.

Had the Arabs agreed to a peace agreement after 1948, they still would have Jerusalem and Jordan would own the so-called West Bank.

So far, nothing has satisfied the Arabs who insist on attacking Israel.

Jordan lost the “West Bank” to an Egyptian (Arafat).

Jordan lost Jerusalem to Israel.

(Since, both Egypt and Jordan have signed peace treaties with Israel, and while peace between them is nothing like peace between the U.S. and Canada, the treaties have held.)

Oslo divided up the West Bank into three sections. Both Israel and the” Palestinians” agreed to the agreement; the Palestinians quickly abrogated it.

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.

Web sites (URLs) beginning https://tinyurl.com/ are generated by the free Tiny URL utility and reduce lengthy URLs to manageable size.

 

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Opuscula Post Office Personnel lie To Customers

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED to a piece of Priority Mail.

It never arrived.

The tracking notice showed

You item is being held at the (Branch Name) post office at 6:19 p.m. on February 11, 2021. This is at the request of the customer.

I WENT TO THE Post Office and spoke to a person who claimed to be a supervisor.

I showed the “supervisor” the tracking message (ibid.) and complained that the letter carrier who SHOULD have delivered my priority mail

• Never delivered any mail to ANYONE on my block on 2/12/2021
• That the customer (this scrivener) never requested that the letter carrier return the mail to the post office (since I never SAW it).
• That this is not the first time this letter carrier has failed to deliver — one previous time she took a Certified letter back rather than put it in my street-side mailbox.
• That this letter carrier is notorious in the neighborhood for failing to deliver mail on a daily basis; sometimes she simply fails to deliver ANY mail.

The “supervisor” told me

• My mail was not at the post office.
• That my mail was with the letter carrier who failed to deliver my mail on 2/11/2021
• That the letter carrier’s vehicle “broke down” and she was unable to finish her appointed rounds
• That the letter carrier was completing her rounds from Thursday on Friday (2-12) and that I could expect my mail to arrive earlier (than the carriers normal 6:30-7:00 p.m. delivery time)

Does not compute

I admit that having had many problems with this letter carrier in the past I am suspicious.

The Post Office tracking claimed the package was at the post office branch.

It was not.

The Post Office tracker claimed the customer requested the letter carrier to return the mail to the branch.

We did not.

The Post Office “supervisor” said the letter carrier would pick up where she left off when her vehicle allegedly became disabled.

Does that mean the people who were SUPPOSED to get mail on Friday (2/12) MIGHT get Friday’s mail on Saturday, 2/13?

Fortunately for the people in my neighborhood, once a week — and only once a week — we get our mail delivered in a timely manner and on the day it is expected. That day is the day the incompetent letter carrier is replaced by her alternate.

Protection

Although at least two supervisors have fielded complaints about this letter carrier for years, nothing can be done to remove or even reassign her. Union and seniority.

I have complained to my useless senators — Rubio and Scott — and I don’t even get a “We got your message” response. I don’t bother with my local rep to Pelosi’s House; she is even more useless than Rubio and Scott.

Telephone out of service — for a week!

Both my Spouse and I called the post office branch to confirm that the missing mail piece was there.

On both occasions, the phone rang and rang and rang until it finally disconnected.

When I mentioned this to the “supervisor,” she told me the phones had been out for a week.

If a real business’ phones were out of service, someone would be calling the telephone company to get things working again — YESTERDAY.

The USPS’ inaction proves to me that the organization’s name is a misnomer; there is NO “service” in U.S. Postal Service.

I have lived all over the lower 48 (states) and NEVER had such poor mail service; even on rural routes in the winter where it snows.

I also lived overseas in a socialist country known for bungled bureaucracy and even there, mail service was more dependable.

This is not a GOP-Dumbocrat issue. The problem preceded both Trump and Harris-Emhoff administrations.

To paraphrase America’s first Post Master (https://tinyurl.com/5gn6fj3e), “for want of the mail” an opportunity was lost.

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PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.

Web sites (URLs) beginning https://tinyurl.com/ are generated by the free Tiny URL utility and reduce lengthy URLs to manageable size.

 

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Opuscula It isn’t easy Saying good-bye To some vendors

KERMIT THE FROG sang “It isn’t easy being green.”

If he ever tried to close out technology accounts, he would find that “being green” is the least of his worries.

 

We — my Spouse and I — are relocating.

We’re going to move closer to the grandchildren.

We have accounts for (alphabetically)

Electric
Internet
Mobile phones (2)
Water

We also are selling a car. In Florida, the plate stays with the seller, an inconvenience implemented in the 1970s.

Finally, we have to get an OK from the homeowners’ management association. (The buyers have even more association hoops to clear.)

Closing proof

In order to terminate our account with the city’s Water Department, we have to PROVE we sold the house. Present a copy of the closing papers.

Just to turn off the WATER!

What if we were leaving for our vacation home in the UP of Michigan. Seems fair; the snowbirds come south every winter. Turn off the water for “n” months. What do I have to do to prove I’m leaving town and I don’t want to chance a water pipe might break?

What is the Water Department going to demand of the buyers? ANOTHER copy of the closing?

Ridiculous.

Our homeowner’s insurance carrier also wants a copy of the closing document.

Perhaps I simply don’t want to pay for homeowner’s insurance. The house is free and clear. I am not obliged by law (so far) to have homeowner’s insurance.

People would be foolish not to have homeowner’s insurance — never mind that it fails to include flood insurance and that every time a hurricane comes ashore in Louisiana or Texas the insurers raise OUR rates in south Florida.

I thought this was 2011, not an Orwellian 1984.

Our mobile phones are with Consumer Cellular. Normally it is a “so-so” company. That’s probably the “norm” for phone companies in the 20s (2000, 2001, etc.).

The Spouse called Consumer Cellular and told Customer Service we want to cancel service on a specific date.

CSR replied: We can’t do that. You have to call us on the day you are canceling service.

Hopefully we will be able to call Consumer Cellular from the airport to get the service stopped.

Alternatively, we could just ignore bills from Consumer Cellular, but I was not brought up that way.

I may have to remember to bring a Consumer Cellular statement with us so I’ll know what to cancel — in case our phone numbers are insufficient.

One would think we were Consumer Cellular’s only customer and that our bill is in the hundreds of thousands every month. (We are not and our bill is not.)

AT&T only asks that we return a modem/router we had for internet connectivity. I’ve had the device for a number of years and, frankly, I cannot conceive of a reason AT&T would want it back. Maybe AT&T techs can salvage or scavenge parts from it.

To AT&T’s credit, it is proving pre-paid FedEx service back to a company address. It also is allowing sufficient time for one of my sons to get to a local FedEx to get the device on its way.

AT&T told my Spouse that the device could be returned by either UPS or FedEx, but it sent a document to ship via FedEx. Both work for me.

What AT&T apparently was unable to accomplish was a change of address so we will have to trust our highly unreliable and oft complained about letter carrier to get the bill forwarded.

I’ve lived all over the U.S. and I NEVER had such lousy mail service. There are days when no one on my city block gets mail — the carrier simply doesn’t deliver or collect mail and nothing can be done to replace the carrier.

Florida Power & Light, FPL, was the easiest of all to terminate.

The Spouse called FPL — I prefer email; she’s great on the phone — and asked that the power be turned off on a specific date.

FPL said no problem; the power would be turned off one (1) day after the requested date. The helpful clerk even gave my Spouse a “guesstimated” bill.

USPS The Post Office now charges for a Change of Address: US$1.05.

I’ve moved a lot and I never had to pay for a change of address. USPS is happy to bill my credit card.

Of course, the “modern” Post Office (that may or may not deliver mail, ibid.) also has a steep surcharge for Stamps By Mail. Almost like buying stamps from a vending machine (do they still have those?).

I could understand if the surcharge and the postage to get the stamps to me were about the same, but they are far from that.

We got a Change of Address form from the USPS and mailed it — postage free — at a free-standing mail box (almost an anomaly anymore, akin to corner pay phones).

If we waited for the lazy letter carrier to collect the card — the alternate carrier is great — we would be well settled in into our new residence.

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PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.

Web sites (URLs) beginning https://tinyurl.com/ are generated by the free Tiny URL utility and reduce lengthy URLs to manageable size.

 

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Opuscula DUMB0crat must Have frozen brain To seek my vote

THERE IS A DUMBocrat running for a congressional seat in Ohio.

This DUMBocrat continues to send me — a Floridian conservative — with appeals for send cash to help the campaign.

 

ON READING THE CANDIDATE'S FIRST mistaken missive, I sent the candidate a message I THOUGHT making it clear that

1. I do not live in Ohio
2. I am a conservative (albeit one who often votes a split ticket)
3. The John Glenn to whom she apparently thinks she’s communicating — former U.S. Marine officer, astronaut (twice), U.S. Senator from Ohio, and once candidate for president (he didn’t get past the primaries) — died on December 8, 2016

This scrivener

1. Started life in Indiana
2. Was an Air Force enlisted man
3. Ran — and lost — for Red Bluff CA city council
4. Was a fairly successful newspaper printer, newspaper reporter and editor, PR flack, and technical writer, finally retiring as an enterprise risk management practitioner.
5. I am very much alive.

In all my travels I never lived in the Buckeye State — traveled through the state on occasion, but never resided there.

The parties, particularly the Democrats, have a reputation for “digging up” votes and voters

Most people who know how to read and have ever studied U.S. political history are well acquainted with the name Tammany Hall.¹

Tammany Hall is infamous in U.S. politics for its shenanigans, including buying votes and managing to have dead people vote — Democrat, of course.

Chicago is no better.²

“You gotta swallow this one,” says a Republican hack in Oliver Stone’s Nixon, referring to the 1960 election, in which John F. Kennedy prevailed. “They stole it fair and square.”

According to CBS³

Susie Sallee was buried in 1998. Yet records show she voted in Chicago 12 years later.

Victor Crosswell died in 1994, but records show he’s voted six times since then.

And then there’s Floyd Stevens. Records show he’s voted 11 times since his death in 1993.

Again, Democrats caught in the act.

Given the Ohio hopeful’s political allegiance and the fact the candidate — and/or the candidate’s handlers — either cannot read or their level of comprehension of the English language is less than that of a pre-kindergarten child, there is no way this scrivener would — let alone could — mark a ballot for the candidate.

This MIGHT become possible under the proposed new federal voting rules. Congress apparently has forgotten a war was fought over federal interference in the states’ rights.

The last email appeal from this particular candidate offered me the opportunity to buy clothing emblazoned with the candidate’s name.

I don’t pay anyone for the pleasure of advertising their product, not even Nike. If someone wants me to don advertising apparel, they can either GIVE me the item or pay me for being a signboard.

Apparently courting non-eligible voters is a common Ohio practice.

I recently got an invitation from yet another DUMBocrat asking for my vote.

I flagged the first candidate’s emails for SPAM; political porn, if you will (and I do).

The spam filter is only so-so, but when I see the sender’s ID, my finger automatically goes to the Del key.

I only received one missive mistake from the other candidate. If I am burdened with any more emails from that source, it also will be flagged as political porn.

Perhaps what I SHOULD do is complain to whatever office is in charge of electioneering in Ohio to let the Powers That Be know what the DUMBocrat candidates are doing. I suspect, however, that would be a waste of a stamp.

Now that DUMBocrats control both houses of Congress and are playing the judiciary (instead of their Constitutional role as legislators — but when has the Constitution ever been considered sacred?) they intend to revamp ALL voting laws and to make a new law that would prevent Donald Trump for ever holding office again. (Did I mention they are running roughshod over the Constitution?)

This is not the United States I was born into in 1943.

This is not the United States to which I brought my blushing bride in 1979.

I still place hand on heart when I hear the National Anthem or watch the flag being raised or passing by.

I firmly believe in equality for all and think that discrimination laws for this or that condition are stupid: discrimination should be outlawed: PERIOD.

I also believe the country’s regressives are about to prove Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás⁴ was right as was Walter Crawford Kelly, Jr.’s Pogo.⁵

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Sources

1. https://www.history.com/topics/us-politics/tammany-hall

2. https://www.helleniscope.com/2020/11/05/voter-fraud-is-nothing-new-the-1960-election-of-jfk/

3. https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2016/10/27/2-investigators-chicago-voters-cast-ballots-from-beyond-the-grave/

4. https://images.linescafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/T-1856.jpg

5. http://libertytree.ca/quotes/Walt.Kelly.Quote.96B1

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.

Web sites (URLs) beginning https://tinyurl.com/ are generated by the free Tiny URL utility and reduce lengthy URLs to manageable size.

 

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Opuscula It’s not 1984: Big Brother Has Arrived

THE GOVERNMENT IS TRYING to protect us.

The question is: Who is protecting us from the government?

Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is deciding to protect us from ourselves. Ronald Reagan

 

IT STARTED WITH FDR.

Before Franklin Delano Roosevelt, FDR, people generally took care of each other.

Granted, the country found itself in a depression brought on by greed and lack of concern for our neighbors. The whole world suffered.

So FDR initiated a number of social programs, including Social Security, the TVA, WPA, and a host of more “alphabet soup” organizations, many of which linger on even today.

(At the same time FDR was creating “make work” programs for Americans, he kept Jewish refugees from Germany at bay by closing the borders to them.)

Another three-initial president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, LBJ, gave us Medicare, a social service into which citizens pay and pay and then, when retired, CONTINUE to pay — more every year.

Unfortunately, we — Americans — brought some of this on ourselves.

We allowed technology — that “miracle” that was supposed to save us time and money — to take over our lives . . . and our wallets.

Doctors DON’T know best

I am about to travel overseas for six months.

My Spouse and I have a Medicare Advantage plan that is SUPPOSED cover our prescription medicines, BUT when my Spouse tried to get a Vacation Override so she could get two 90-day supplies — enough to last six months (180 days by my count) she was denied.

The insurer also claims we will have emergency coverage while out of the insurer’s coverage area. But only for five (5) months. I’ll bet the insurer collects from CMS for the sixth month!

After going around and around with the insurance company, she discovered that the most she could get would be a 5 month supply of medications. The insurer told my Spouse that it would terminate her coverage if she was outside of the company’s service area for six months.

Understand, that she could be back on day 179 and needed her pills until she could get a refill from the pharmacy.

ONE DAY and the insurer refused to give the override.

None of her medications are narcotics.

To be fair, there was a person at the insurance company and another at the pharmacy that did their best to help my Spouse. The insurance clerk was about the 15th clerk with whom my wife spoke. Getting to the helpful clerk was a several-day process.

MEANWHILE, SEEING THE PROBLEMS MY Spouse encountered, and knowing that I have far less patience that she, I contacted my Primary Care Physician (PCP) and asked that he write a script for double the number of pills — from one-a-day to two-a-day. That way, my normal 90-day supply would last 180 days.

The pharmacy refused to honor my doctor’s order.

The insurer told the pharmacy that what my doctor did was “unethical.”

Again, no narcotics. Nothing to sell and I’m certainly not about to OD on a diabetes pill.

Still, it failed to meet some esoteric law in place to protect me.

The insurer knows better than my doctor how many pills I need? My insurer has never examined me and I doubt it ever has seem my laboratory results.

I’m 78 years old and I don’t think I need protection from myself; but I’m not so sure I don’t need protection from The Powers That Be.

Something new? Hardly

There was a time when a committee of prudes determined what made-in-America movies could include. Married couples had to sleep in twin beds or, Hollywood forbid, if they managed to share a double bed, each bed partner had to have one foot on the floor. (How did movies ever have babies in them?)