2 cents is fini. I decided that all the things I wanted to write would take too much time and deliver too little.
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
2 cents – nevermind
Monday, March 11th, 2013Packing it
Friday, March 8th, 2013In the car a couple days ago my five (correction, “five and a half”) year old grandson told me he had a “six pack.”
His three year old (and proud of it) brother piped up and said that he had a “three pack.”
“No you don’t” said the older brother. And the argument continued.
My Favorite Movie Pt 3 (another unedited late night mental ramble)
Wednesday, February 20th, 2013Its midnight and I’m too bushed to fill another post up with my unedited ruminations. If I get to it tomorrow it should tie my recent snow sculpture with a way by which I might emulate Lincoln’s extraordinary liberal inclinations. I’m not sure I’ll have any more to say about movies. They were just a convenient launching pad.
Apparently the movie Zero Dark thirty…
Friday, February 1st, 2013…didn’t get Pakistan right. They don’t, for instance, speak Arabic:
A Pakistani blogger offers up a similar appraisal of life in these here United States and some of things he learned about Pakistan from the movie:

give that man a hand
Tuesday, January 8th, 2013Im still working on new tricks.un zzz uccessfully. Typing
In moving car. Ttoo bumpy. Ill try microphone. Here goes.
I had a picture of my hand on my phone.it turns out I can’t access it from the phone. So, you won’t get to see it. Poor you. For me. Parentheses wags tail and parentheses. Paragraph no not paragraph space space space are good good good good. No not good. Tail no longer wagging.
Im
Still
Got
My
Learning
Permit
Just popped open a bottle of champagne
Tuesday, November 6th, 2012Cameron Hughes Lot 25 – Officially a Napa sparkling wine.
Vote as though free enterprise depends on it
Friday, October 5th, 2012and vote Republican!
Its worth remembering that as he entered the Oval Office Obama was reading….
Thursday, September 6th, 2012…Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Lincoln Biography, Team of Rivals.
I’m grateful to have a President trying to emulate my favorite hero.
Congratulations on your endorsing convention Mr. President. It was a corker and fortunately, unlike the one last week, it wasn’t “content free.”
The Answer: Made my day
Thursday, August 30th, 2012The Question: What did Clint Eastwood do today.
He did Mitt no favors.
The last post is mistaken…
Monday, August 13th, 2012…in saying the DNT did not carry the story about the Minnesota Supreme Court ruling against the St. Louis County Schools.
I was in town for a short time when I quickly perused two day’s worth of Tribs. I already knew the story was out there because it had been on MPR (public radio). I found it when I googled but missed the small story on an inside page in the DNT.
If only my general observation about the DNT’s coverage of the Red Plan were as inaccurate.
The dark arts of Johnson Controls
Wednesday, July 4th, 2012I’ll write about these revelations from the Timberjay tomorrow or later tonight.
p. 10: Zelda Bruns: ” We’re worse off now than we were operating seven school”.
page 10: Zelda says she is “sympathetic to those who believe the district was “taken to the cleaners by JCI “.
page 10: Chet Larson: wants a comparison of operating costs compared to prior the restructuring. He noted that several schools had been using coal for heat and switched to propane to increase costs.
p. 10: According to Kim Johnson, business manager: the district saw a 34% increase in heating and fuel for 2011-2012 . Board members questioned the increase when we had a mild winter.
Why Obamacare won
Friday, June 29th, 2012“Let’s talk about [US Supreme Court Chief Justice John] Roberts. I’m going to tell you something that you’re not going to hear anywhere else, that you must pay attention to. It’s well known that Roberts, unfortunately for him, has suffered from epileptic seizures. Therefore he has been on medication. Therefore neurologists will tell you that medication used for seizure disorders, such as epilepsy, can introduce mental slowing, forgetfulness and other cognitive problems. And if you look at Roberts’ writings you can see the cognitive disassociation in what he is saying,” – radio host Michael Savage.
A newspaper in JCI’s pocket…
Wednesday, April 11th, 2012…get’s pulled out with the lint.
Apparently after cheering on JCI and the closing of the Orr School the Cook News-Herald is finding ad revenue hard to come by. That at least is what this letter sent to the rival Timberjay suggests:
4/4/12
Publisher should consider his positions
I read with some amusement that Gary Albertson, editor and publisher of the Cook News-Herald was upset that the Orr City Council decided to award the bid to print the council’s minutes and other official business to the competitor Timberjay. I’ve had a good relationship with Mr. Albertson, but what in the world did he expect?He supported the closing of the Orr School. The Orr retail community is realizing the fallout from the closing now and the future in my mind doesn’t look bright. Orr has a mayor that supported the closing of the Orr School and sided with the school board and Johnson Controls because they had an exclusive contract with his employer, the 49ers Union. Between the two of them, and board member Zelda Bruns, Orr is struggling. There is no advertising money available to buy ads in Mr. Albertson’s newspapers and shopper. He should have given this more thought and reserved his fervor for the new JCI/Albertson school in the hayfield north of Cook. But no, instead of keeping his thoughts on the editorial page, he chose to editorialize his news coverage of the issue. Orr apparently voted their pocketbooks and decided Mr. Albertson was no longer a booster of the community and denied him the advertising revenue he could have enjoyed by continuing to print the Orr public information.
But don’t worry, Gary still has the St. Louis County School Board in his back pocket and they will continue to pay him monthly to print their newsletter that goes to the mailboxes in the district. I wonder how he might feel if the school board pulled the plug on this revenue source? Would he then think the new, needless, useless new teacher’s union school was worth his effort?
And Cook, don’t think you are immune from this economic disaster. Wait until your school closes this spring and watch how dead your downtown will become.
Jim Saranpaa
Orr, Minn.
Word Search of the Day
Friday, March 23rd, 2012Word Search of the Day
Friday, March 2nd, 2012belated
Since I haven’t been on the Internet all day and its now 9:30pm.
It happened in Minnesota first
Saturday, February 25th, 2012Democrats are contemplating voting en masse for the weaker candidate, Rick Santorum, in Michigan’s “open” Republican primary election.
Minnesota Republicans did much the same thing to Hubert Humphrey in 1956 in the newly established Minnesota open Presidential primary. HHH was angling to become Aldali Stephenson’s VP and was heading up his Minnesota campaign. A victory for Humphrey’s Adali delegates would have given him a seat at the convention and made the popular Humphrey the odds on favorite to be the vice presidential nominee. Because no one expected Adali to beat the popular Eisenhower the then youthful Hubert felt a vice presidential nomination would make him the odds on favorite to be the Democratic nominatee for the open Presidential seat in 1960.
I’ve got a lovely insider story I’d like to include in my book about how the Republicans helped thwart Adali’s Minnesota campaign and embarrassed Humphrey in the bargain. It helped close up the 1960 window of opportunity for the ambitious Humphrey.
Mitt Romney no longer looks that formidable. A loss in his “home” state of Michigan on Tuesday would only add to his and the Republican Party’s woes.
Hubert Humphrey saw to it that the DFL killed Minnesota’s open presidential primary after 1956 and its never been held since.
“The Rich are different from you and me …
Friday, February 24th, 2012…they have more money.”
They don’t mind defaulting on their obligations when their McMansions become a drain.
“But with a recovery in the housing market still years away, foreclosure has turned out to be a worthwhile option after all. Saddled with bloated mortgages after a long run up in property values, many high-end homeowners have chosen to pursue a “strategic default.” Even though they can afford the monthly mortgage payments, they still decide to walk away from their home because they owe more on the property than it is worth.”
Perhaps this is because the rich have become conditioned to think differently from the rest of us.
[A] number of new studies suggest that, in certain key ways, people with that much money are not like the rest of us at all. As a mounting body of research is showing, wealth can actually change how we think and behave—and not for the better. Rich people have a harder time connecting with others, showing less empathy to the extent of dehumanizing those who are different from them. They are less charitable and generous. They are less likely to help someone in trouble. And they are more likely to defend an unfair status quo. If you think you’d behave differently in their place, meanwhile, you’re probably wrong: These aren’t just inherited traits, but developed ones. Money, in other words, changes who you are.
About that quote in this Post’s title.
Word Search of the Day
Friday, February 24th, 2012I couldn’t find “plutocrat” or “filthy rich” but I’ve made previous allustions to “multi-millionaires.”
Word Search of the Day
Friday, February 24th, 2012Groupthink Storming
Monday, February 20th, 2012Is that what Brainstorming really is?
But that’s how they came up with the Red Plan and watched it grow and grow and grow:
Keith Sawyer, a psychologist at Washington University, has summarized the science: “Decades of research have consistently shown that brainstorming groups think of far fewer ideas than the same number of people who work alone and later pool their ideas.
Chalk one up for us lone wolves.