Free Republic

That's the problem with old sailors, long time, no sea.

SpyNavy

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

Evidently medical professionals have stopped referring to home births as deliveries since the baby is already at home.

So if it's not delivery, what are they going to call it, DiGiorno?

SpyNavy

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

The Democrats, and other leftists, will ALWAYS fight against private property rights. It stands in the way of their reintroduction of slavery.

At the heart of private property is the concept of self-ownership. You own you and no one else does. You own your body, your labor & the fruits of that labor, and your thoughts & the intellectual property that stems from those thoughts.

ALL of the other rights of man stem from this right and it is this right that must be denigrated before the others can be infringed upon.

SpyNavy

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

For entertainment purposes: Tucker 🤣

For governance purposes: Greg Abbott 👨‍🦽

SpyNavy

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

But a hell of a lot better armed and led.

SpyNavy

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

I got 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep from 0630 to 1330.

I dreamed I was a vinyl record and woke up feeling groovy.

SpyNavy

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

So far, so good. EVERYTHING is awkward as hell since my elbow is being held about five inches out from my side.

I actually got twelve hours of pretty decent sleep. The only downside was getting up 5-6 times to pee.

When I got up @ ~1430 EDT, my back hurt more than my shoulder. I think this is a positive development.

SweetiePalm just helped me with the two stretching exercises the physical terrorist gave me. That went well.

Thanks to all y'all for the prayers.

SpyNavy

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

Not to bad after a 5 hour nap. The pharmacy delivered my new DRUGS while I was out. SweetiePalm approved so I guess she will allow me to take them.

SpyNavy

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

Can you picture Bill Halsey with Bourbon and Yamamoto Isoroku with Shōchū on opposite sides of the curtain?

SpyNavy

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

I got arrested yesterday for walking out of the museum with a painting.
I was so confused. Earlier I had asked a guard if it was OK to take a picture and he told me yes.

What do you get when you cross a polar bear with a seal?
A polar bear.

SpyNavy

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

Did you hear about the cannibal who passed Uncle Bosey on the beach in New Guinea?

SpyNavy

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

A "Broken China" Update.

If you want on or off the ping list send me a FReepMail.

One last update before my shoulder surgery tomorrow morning. I'll let you know how it went when I get back.

Item One:
In advance of the Third Plenum national meeting of the CCP there has been an unprecedented number of arrests and detentions during investigation of CCP officials, industry leaders, and military leaders on corruption charges related to corruption in government and military equipment purchasing. More on this as it develops.

Item Two:
Municipal workers are being forced to accept pay cuts generally around 20%. Workers don't dare quit or they will lose any back pay. I mentioned the other day that things will go down hill fast when they stop paying the police. Well, it has started.

Item Three:
6.5 million migrant workers leave the construction industry amid China's deepening Real Estate crisis. These workers are already at the bottom of China's worker hierarchy and are the hardest hit by the ongoing recession. The lack of workers means the likelihood of unfinished buildings being completed drops even further.

Item Four:
Country Garden, China's largest builder has reported that sales are down 87.3% year-over-year. It has also failed to make interest payment totally ~$4.1 million US. The last day of the grace period is Monday 13 May. They won't make it.

Item Four:
Nicaragua has revoked a century-long canal concession granted to a Chinese firm. The decade long effort has been rife with fraud and was resulting in increasing societal discontent in Nicaragua.

Item Five:
I would like to propose a new name for the People's Republic of China. I think we should now call it West Taiwan.

WWG1WGA

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

Many people will find it hard to forgive you for being right when they weren't.

SpyNavy

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

If you truly wish to protect minority rights then you must be, perforce, a supporter of individual civil rights. The smallest minority is the individual.

Once you start placing the rights, needs, or wishes of any group ahead of that of the individual the discussion becomes one of just how much tyranny is acceptable to you.

SpyNavy

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

My advisor in college was Dr. Robert Gallman. He was one of the foremost experts on the economics of slavery. It was not dying as fast as you would believe.

Interestingly enough, the slaves actually received about 40-50% of the value of their labor.

SpyNavy

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

They aren't man-made. There isn't enough energy in North America in a year to power one of those things for an hour.

SpyNavy

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

The future belongs to those who show up for it.

SpyNavy

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

I am torn over this issue. My family were southerners from before the American Revolution.

I am a firm believer in states rights as it was the states that created the federal government rather than the reverse.

On the other hand, I am absolutely and unalterably opposed to slavery in all its forms. Whether chattel, penal, or mental, slavery is utterly evil.

James Madison wrote, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce. ... The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives and liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State.”

I think that Mr. Madison would be dismayed to see how his great work, the US Constitution has been misused and misinterpreted.

I think we need a Congress of the States to reign in the Federal Government. The implied powers of the Federal government needs to be sharply curtailed.

SpyNavy

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

Oh, yes. People like you are absolutely indispensable.

Rarely loved but absolutely indispensable.

SpyNavy

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

That's some good stuff right from the start. I saved it for background music while putting together puzzles.

SpyNavy

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)