Blog Archives

A Bad Experience

5/11/2017

The content of my post are always meant to provide insight into various areas such as history and politics but I felt led to share an experience I had with Brothers Heating, Air, and Plumbing in Charlotte, North Carolina.

In December, Brothers came out to perform routine service on my heating system and informed me they needed to install a surge protector next to my A/C unit but that it would be free of charge. The first time we turned on the A/C it wouldn’t work so we called Brothers back to investigate. After performing their diagnostics we were informed the unit needed over $3,000 in parts and labor to fix.

We then decided to get a second opinion from Bradham Brothers and when the tech ran through his diagnostics he told us he couldn’t finish because the A/C unit didn’t have power going to it. There was power leaving the electrical box but for some reason the power cut out before reaching the A/C unit. He recommended I call an electrician.

I called Roby Electric and the technician isolated the problem and said that when the surge protector was put in, the wiring wasn't correct and that’s why the power made its way to the unit but not into the unit.

The bottom line is Brothers installed a surge protector I didn’t ask for then coincidentally my unit stopped working and they wanted over $3,000 from me to fix. Why didn’t they tell me they couldn’t finish conducting the diagnostics because the power wasn’t going into the unit? Was it an innocent mistake on their part or was it strategic by installing surge protectors and then “fixing” the problem when peoples’ A/C units stopped working? It would be easy checking the books on this to see if there is a pattern which I'm considering contacting Don Griffin at Action Nine News to see if it's something he'd be interested in investigating.

The bottom line is I spent hundreds of dollars to get my A/C going versus the over $3,000 that Brothers said it would take. If you’ve had a good experience with them that’s great but if you’re looking for assistance with cooling, heating, or plumbing, you might want to play it safe and pursue other options.

The World's Most Famous Colonel

5/3/2017

Colonel Sanders who was the founder of KFC, had more jobs than anyone I've ever researched. For example he got a job painting wagons at the same time Henry Ford was launching his car line so Sanders' job went away. He was also a "Fireman" for a railroad. This person is responsible for keeping the fire going on a steam engine train.

He went on to run a gas station in Kentucky that was owned by the Standard Oil Company. He had a vicious feud going with a competitor in town and one day the man came to Sanders' gas station and attempted to shoot him. He missed but ended up killing a man standing next to Sanders who happened to be visiting from Standard Oil's headquarters. The man was arrested for murder.

This was during The Great Depression and Sanders was selling food out of his house to make ends meet. People were going crazy over his chicken recipes and he ended up with so many customers that he had to build a restaurant. The person who came up with the name Kentucky Fried Chicken happened to be the sign painter who thought the name sounded good. He was right.

To War or Not to War?

5/1/2017

I hate to use the word propaganda but what a lot of us were taught regarding America’s involvement in WWI does include a good amount of it which I’ll explain in a moment. First of all, President Wilson (D) was mostly a pacifist and wanted to remain neutral when Germany made their move on Brussels, France, and Russia.

He was able to refrain from declaring war on Germany even when the British luxury passenger liner Lusitania (that had some Americans on board), was sunk by a German U-Boat. But just because we hadn’t declared war doesn’t mean we weren’t engaged in the war.

Although Wilson said we would remain neutral, Germany and Austria-Hungary didn’t see it that way (nor did German Americans), because we were selling supplies (i.e. ammo, clothing, food, weapons, etc.), to the Allied Forces. Although not shared in most U.S. history textbooks, the main reason Germany sank the Lusitania was that it was hiding military supplies in the hull of the ship that the passengers didn’t know about. In Germany’s mind we had chosen sides and weren’t neutral like President Woodrow Wilson’s Administration was telling everyone.

The Wall Street Investor J.P. Morgan, Jr. had even established a $500 million line of credit for Britain and France. Keep in mind the U.S. was in a recession then all of a sudden manufacturing took off and the same money we were lending was being spent here in the U.S. and collecting interests; it was truly a win-win for us.

Then there’s the fact that we had every incentive to insure the Allies’ success because that’s the only way we’d get our $500 million back. It was actually the same scenario that France had with us during the Revolutionary War when they backed us with credit and supplies. It was extremely important for them that we win our Revolution.

So it wasn’t the sinking of the Lusitania with its innocent victims that got us to declare war against Germany or the atrocities they were guilty of that we’d known about for years; instead it was when President Wilson received a cable from Germany that they’d no longer allow us to sell supplies to the Allied forces and that they’d use their U-Boats to sink our merchant ships if we tried to support them.

This was President Wilson’s final straw of no longer being a pacifist and remaining neutral so what truly changed at this point? Germany’s atrocities were already well known. Quite simply, a big part of it was our ability to make money off the war and if Germany won, we wouldn’t get all the money back that we were owed by Britain and France.

The spin of course was that we were a great country who was going to help out our brethren but to be realistic we should admit there was more to our generosity. Our Allies who had long been trying to get us to help knew exactly what our motives were but they certainly didn’t care, they just wanted the help.

My goal was to accomplish four things with this post. First, that the use of propaganda isn’t something only prone to communists’ or socialists’ countries as it doesn’t matter which of our political parties are in office, they twist the truth to fit their needs. Another way of putting it is they mislead us or some would go as far as saying they lie to us, it just depends upon your moral compass.

Second, that it’s easy for some people to demonize people who profit off the war but the fact is, our economy benefits not just a bunch of corporate executives. Even today people work for companies who have military contracts with our Federal Government and they’re pumping money into the economy. If you were one of these people keeping your family afloat with your job how would you feel about us being a pacifist’s country?

Third, when trying to find out the motive regarding many things, especially politics, the answer can typically be found sitting alongside the money. President Wilson was a brilliant man so he knew he was misleading people about us truly being neutral. He knew we were benefiting from the war and that we desperately needed the Allies to win.

Lastly, he wanted to stick to his ideology about being passive/neutral but the real world of economics gave him an awakening. The thing is, someone’s ideology means little when people are struggling to put a roof over their heads and/or food on the table. You can be as philosophical as you want but only after you've met the most basic human needs.

I think this is an amazing statement made by President Wilson where it’s easy to see that a realistic world view was finally sinking in for him: “It would be a hopeless piece of provincialism to suppose that because we think differently from the rest of the world we are at liberty to assume that the rest of the world will permit us to enjoy that thought without disturbance.”

In this particular case of WWI, many people thought it wrong to join the war effort and had huge peace marches taking place in New York City and in Washington, DC. They felt they were taking the moral high ground but were they? If the U.S. would’ve helped the Allied forces sooner, how many millions of lives could’ve been saved?

Millions of brothers, fathers, sons, uncles, etc., died partly because people in the U.S. including President Wilson, believed in pacifism. How many more people would’ve died through German atrocities in WWII if we would’ve stayed on the sidelines? A true pacifist would still say we shouldn’t have helped the Jewish people being brutally murdered but how is this moral?

Sometimes taking the moral high ground means being responsible for authorizing and/or committing violence. For example, if you saw a woman being brutally beaten and raped would you pursue a peaceful solution? Would you jump in and use physical violence to stop the man? Would you run and get help so that someone else would take care of the physical violence so you wouldn’t have to because you’re a pacifist?

The title of this article is: “To War or not to War, That is the Question.” To help protect citizens the U.S. has to be on the world stage because if our voice isn’t heard and respected it makes us vulnerable to outside influences. Our enemies no longer have to travel on ships to reach us they can be thousands of miles off our coast and have the ability to annihilate major U.S. cities. Avoiding foreign wars would’ve been feasible back in the 1700’s and 1800’s but not any longer.

The fact is we’ve learned over thousands of years that in most cases peace is achieved through strength and sometimes it takes war to bring people to the table to discuss peace. Closing our eyes and hoping for the best to occur around the world so that we aren’t negatively affected is naïve. We certainly shouldn’t enter war lightly but we also shouldn’t not enter it lightly either.

The Fighter

5/1/2017

Micky Ward was a boxer from a rough part of town in Lowell, MA who was primarily used as a stepping stone for other boxers working their way up the ranks. His mom was his boxing manager and his older brother Dicky who was previously a boxer, trained him. His brother was famous around town for having once knocked Sugar Ray Leonard down in a fight (he did lose the fight though). Micky worshipped him.

Dicky got hooked on drugs and had a long rap sheet including an assault on a police officer which at this point even the boxing commission wanted Micky to not allow Dicky to train him anymore. HBO did a documentary of Dicky's life and how drugs ruined him which he watched from prison with other inmates. After watching the documentary he finally understood how far he had fallen and decided to turn his life around through turning back to God.

Meanwhile Micky started putting a string of wins together and got a shot at the second ranked boxer who was getting ready to get a title shot. Quite frankly, it was going to be the first real boxer Micky had fought so very few people besides family and friends thought he’d win.

He went to visit his brother in prison who found out the strategy he was going to use in the fight and he said it wouldn't work and gave Micky something else to try. Micky went with his new trainer's plan and it wasn't working so in the middle of the fight he switched to Dicky's plan and he ended up winning.

Micky was given a chance to fight the champion who had never lost a fight and had knocked out every opponent but one. Dicky got out of prison and showed up at the gym where Micky was training but was told he had to leave because he wasn't allowed to train Micky anymore. Dicky was devastated and left. Micky tracked him down later and said he didn't care what everybody else said that he wanted him in his corner during the championship fight so Dicky took over the training.

They left for London (which was the first time his family had gone anywhere), and after several rounds the referee stopped the fight and Micky won by a TKO. The world was shocked.

By the way the movie called The Fighter became one of very few movies in history where the Academy Awards gave out the "Best Supporting Actor" and "Best Supporting Actress" both in the same film. Christian Bale received the award for "Best Supporting Actor" which he dropped a lot of weight for the role to play a strung-out druggie. It was pretty amazing.

Trump's Tax Returns

5/1/2017

With everything going on in the world thousands of protestors (a.k.a. Liberals), are up in arms over Trump's tax returns. First of all, Maddow, much to the dismay of these very people, showed that Trump paid more in taxes and a tax rate than any of their political leaders especially Bernie Sanders. So what is their legitimate reason for protesting?

One of the protestors said Trump's tax returns were hiding his connection with Russia. His parents must be proud. Apparently he's never filled out a tax return before. One woman said she doesn't believe he's a billionaire so she wants him to provide his tax returns; once again, someone who doesn't have a clue. A person is deemed a billionaire based on their net worth/wealth it has nothing to do with a tax return.

These are the bright people who listen to and read political information from the mainstream media and they should be embarrassed that they've been taken in versus thinking for themselves so they could realize that what they're doing is ridiculous.

If they want to march and protest something real, please head to south Chicago and beg African Americans to stop killing other African Americans. Thanks.

Soap Operas

5/1/2017

Soap operas got their name from when Proctor & Gamble produced their own radio show back in the 1930's that had drama and romance and of course highlighted their detergent products. Subsequent shows used the term soap opera to differentiate the genre of entertainment.

Alexander the Great

5/1/2017

Alexander the Great marched his men for several years as he expanded the great empire of Macedonia (Greece). During his travels he heard about India and how beautiful it was but he also heard that no one had beaten their army. This was exactly the kind of thing he liked to hear because it was a challenge and quite frankly a lot of places Alexander went didn't even put up a fight out of fear due to his reputation which included crucifying thousands of enemy soldiers. He showed mercy to those places who didn't fight.

As his men approached India a large army was waiting. They were in shock because they saw something they had never seen before and that is the entire front line of the Indian army had soldiers sitting on top of huge creatures (elephants). These men also had extremely long spears and shields so it looked like it would be practically impossible to get to them. This was the reason no one had beaten the Indian army because the elephants would charge the enemy and crush them while the soldiers on top would use their spears to help kill the rest.

Alexander assessed the situation and told his men not to charge the enemy straight on but instead to keep darting from side to side and when the elephant got close shift to one side and attack it. He told all his men to not worry about the soldiers on top but to take their fight to the elephants. The strategy worked as the elephants began coming down with their riders who were then killed. The elephants who hadn't gotten killed yet freaked out and ran away from Alexander's army crushing Indian soldiers in the process. So as with every battle that Alexander was in, he won.

After this battle Alexander's soldiers became so livid about something he did that they demanded to go home and he had to give in to them because they were going to leave with or without him. Do you know what he did? He was so impressed with their people that he gave them their kingdom back. Here the soldiers lost friends in the battle and it was all for nothing. I love world history!

High School Dropouts

5/1/2017

Over three million high school students drop out of high school each year while eventually 451,000 of these get GED's. Of all the dropouts there are only 10% of jobs they qualify for without a high school degree. The prison system is filled with these dropouts. Our country would save a lot of money in the court system and in the costs of incarceration if we could make a dent somehow in this terrible problem.

The 9th Circuit Court

5/1/2017

I don't know if you've noticed but don't you find it interesting that Trump's Executive Orders continue to be reviewed by the 9th Circuit Court (San Francisco), out of 11 different Circuits across the country? This judge hates Trump and the 9th Circuit is known for its liberal bias. They are actually so bad that close to 80% of their judgements have been overturned by the Supreme Court. This is the same judge who ruled against the company who caught Planned Parenthood Employees discussing the selling of baby parts. Keep in mind they didn't make anything up, they just showed us the truth behind Planned Parenthood business practices.

His latest ruling is that he doesn't think it's Constitutional for the Federal Government to pull back Federal funds when a city or state has chosen not to follow Federal Laws such as sanctuary cities. Of course he was going to rule the way he did because California is so poorly run that Federal funds being pulled would be devastating. We'd live in anarchy if individual states could pick and choose the Federal Laws they wished to follow; it's truly this simple. If places like Chicago and San Francisco want to change Federal Laws through the Legislative Branch via Constitutional means then that's fine but until then, follow the laws or suffer the consequences.

Opinion Articles (Op-Eds)

5/1/2017

Most Americans are being taken advantage of and they don’t even know it. The Obama Administration was a master at doing it but he’s certainly not the first politician to plant information in a devious way to sway public opinion.

Some of the most popular articles in newspapers like the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Washington Post are the Op-Ed pieces (opinion articles), that are written by people who don’t work for the newspaper. They’ll list who wrote the article when in fact many times the person getting credit didn’t even write it.

Without disclosure and certainly without transparency, many articles over the last eight years came from members of lobbyists groups, the Obama Administration, and the Democrat Party. They write articles that will help push whatever agenda they have whether its climate change or healthcare and then find people who are willing to claim authorship so readers won’t know where the information is really coming from. These major newspapers know what’s going on but the fact is the Op-Ed’s wouldn’t be as popular if readers knew it was propaganda. The problem is sometimes these opinion pieces are legit but it’s difficult to tell.

It’s kind of the same process when authors use ghost writers. The most successful New York Times best-selling author is James Patterson. He has supposedly written over 100 books in the last ten years. Let’s face it, that would be physically impossible but a lot of people don’t realize that in many cases they’re not reading an actual James Patterson book; they are being duped. So the bottom line is readers of newspapers are often being duped as well by these Op-Eds.

I would like to elaborate though that it isn’t just a Democrat or Obama tactic, as I’m sure that Trump will play some of the same games but the problem he’ll have is he won’t get liberal newspapers (which are most of the major ones), to run conservative Op-Eds, at least not many.

I’ve got to say that I find the practice disgusting because at its core it’s lying. There’s even a group of U.S. Journalists who have pushed for “Op-Ed Transparency” but haven’t gotten anywhere. By the way, the New York Times is the first newspaper that came out with Op-Ed’s back in 1970.

I’m so sick of both parties misleading taxpayers but I don’t see it ever ending. My hope with this article is that if you didn’t know how these major newspapers were using Op-Ed’s that you do now and will question their authenticity. I find it very sad that the truth has become so hard for us to find.

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Author: John Mann

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