Stormbringer's Thunder

Buona sera. Today's rant is a bit different. It's from the heart (I do have one despite what my ex will tell you), there are no hard facts — but some reasoning. Lemme 'splain, Lucy. I'm going to connect my conclusions with my observations, and I'm going to show a bit of "two can play at that game". Due to circumstances that I will not discuss, I had to watch some of a soap opera. (To be politically correct, "daytime drama". To be honest, "waste of time".) But I have to give some credit to the actors, actresses, writers and director because the cast was doing quite well in looking like the infant on the show really was in imminent danger of dying from a virulent disease. I almost wanted to reach out and comfort the sobbing babes. One scene set off a mental chain reaction for me. She was in a hospital chapel and saying to God, "Is this what you want? What are you doing? Spare the child" and that sort of thing. Well, that sort of...

Buon giorno. First, I wanted to say that I had a "rodeo visitor" the other day. I call it that because he only lasted eight seconds. Time for some thunder today, since yours truly is very angry indeed. This has been going on for a while, and now I'm going to let it out. A few months ago, I purchased a 500 mb "My Book Essential" by Western Digital. (Cowboys usually like westerns, right?) It's an external hard drive that runs through the USB. These are a great idea: Back up your regular hard drive, install a second operating system, store all of that music that you downloaded illegally, store all of that music that you purchased legally, save the scanned photos of your ancestors, hide pictures you don't want your kids to see in an encrypted partition next to the government secrets you're hiding, store whatever you have downloaded or created over the years. I say again that it's a great idea. It's a great idea until it fails, that is. Then all ...

First of all, I want to say that there seem to be quite a few people in Arab-type countries that don't seem to like women. They wind up hitting my article called " Man Bad, Woman Good " when they are searching with terms like "bad women" and so forth. I bet they're disappointed! Anyway, quite a few of my articles come about from discussions that I have. This one happened at bed time. (No, I'm not giving you her name.) And I'm sure that there will be people that get angry with what I say here. It's the truth as I see it. There are many American women that simply wind up hating men. They get angry and confused. "Where does the anger and confusion come from, Cowboy Bob?" Several sources. One of the main sources is the modern femi-Nazi movement. These are leftovers from the "women's liberation" movement that began in the 1960s. On the surface, it was "equal pay for equal work". But the broader (heh!) perspective was ...

Buon giorno. I was having a discussion with a co-worker from a sister agency, and that discussion sparked some thoughts that simply cascaded in my mind. And now, you're about to reap the benefits of that process. Consider yourselves fortunate. I believe that personal opinions can be "seasonal". They are not real because they only last for a season, and are not true convictions based on thought, experience and the heart. The easiest example of this was the disastrous attitude of, "Let's vote for the half black guy! Yeah! He's different! And the old white guy is more of the same. CNN and the New York Times told me so." That was simply jumping on the popular bandwagon, and I did not find many people who could find any actual substance in B. Hussein Obama. On a slightly aside note, I think one reason that I've been doing the cowboy thing is that those values (integrity, honesty, faith, standing for something in the first place, etc.) have always b...

No time for gay banter, I'm simply going to launch. I would like to know something. What foundation do atheists have for their morality? (I'm not talking to the arrogant atheists that simply want to destroy the faith of others and prove that they're so much smarter than the rest of us. This is for honest atheists that are capable of rational dialogue.) Since you believe that there is no God, what is your basis for any sense of right and wrong? You can't base it on "civilization" for several reasons, especially the fact that the values of individual countries in a civilization change over time, and differ over distance as well. You can't base your morality on your own conscience and beliefs, because it's highly subjective. You may feel that it's wrong for me to put a bullet in your head, and I may feel that executing you is for the good of humanity. No, we have to appeal to someone higher up to settle that dispute. Also, I'd like to know...

Buona sera. Nothing to thunder about this time, just some speculation. I had some things to deal with in Michigan, so I left Lela and Nicky in charge of operations in my absence. (I'm not blaming them for the CD/DVD on my primary computer not being able to "recognize" CDs, but still play DVDs. Any advice out there? And the external hard drive quit right after I got back, so my collection of hot cowgirls is gone. No more Western Digital products for me!) Things are running well, so my confidence in them was well-founded again. You've seen those commercials saying, "We know why you fly" for one of the airlines. Cute, but unrealistic. It would be nice, though. And it would be nice that hotels and motels knew why we used their services as well. The main thing that most of us expect is a dark, quiet, safe place to sleep. Other things come secondary. But the reasons we end up at a sleeping establishment are as varied as there are individuals to have those reason...

Buona sera. Yours truly had an interesting trip. Oh, you didn't know I was going away? Right, I neglected to mention it. Almost 2,000 miles by car. (And for that stronzo on US-131 between Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo, you're damn lucky I was in too much of a hurry to pull over and explain a few facts to you.) Anyway, had a safe and productive trip. OK, gang, Uncle Bob is going to reveal some personal history to you. Way back in the mid-1980s, before my activities became both confidential and occasionally underhanded, I was married and we had a young child. And we were very devout in our Christian beliefs. (I still believe, but I'm much less active today.) We were also down on our luck. After much searching, a job offer came in. We were going to be co-resident managers of a self-storage facility. Back then, we were living in the town of Ionia, Michigan (which is a situation that I do not recommend for anyone), and the job was in Grand Rapids. Or so we thought. The owner was...