Grew up in Iowa and live here again after I retired from the military.
If you’re driving around with your arm hanging out the window at -10F, you must be an implant @Iowaboy.
My dad walked to school up hill both ways in a t-shirt and holey jeans with no shoes or only bread sacks over your feet at -10F. If you haven’t, you ain’t an Iowan.
Truth be told, I used to love to hear of my dad tell me stories of his childhood. I remember my grandma having newspaper on the walls of her house as wallpaper.
I love to hear my mom tell me stories of my grandpa giving her, my aunts and uncle, and other country kids a ride to school on the horse drawn hay wagon with hay bales piled up around them to protect them a little bit from the Iowa winter snow out in the country on the country roads, all the while being given a horse drawn ride to school in a one room country school house with a wood burning stove. She is 86 years old and ocassionally walks 16 blocks round trip to go to the local Casey’s convenience store. She doesn’t complain. She just does.
We’re not satisfied enough to control America. We have to control everyone else. There is no live and let live. This goes for Russia and any other government that wants to have control. But, IMO, we cannot control Russia, North Korea, or Iran if they have nukes and have a ruler willing to use the nukes. Long range nukes are an equalizer.
We haven’t been in a war to win it since WWII, and we haven’t won a war since WWII. I may be incorrect, but I believe it was Gen Patton that said something to the effect of you win a war by killing more than we have being killed. Sorry, not looking it up. Don’t believe we have won anything since trying to win the “hearts and minds campaign.”
U.S. motto used to be: “Superiority through superior fire power.” Maybe it still is. It used to be that way until other countries gained nuclear weapons. You cannot bully someone who will not be bullied. Putin may just be that person who cannot be bullied. Ex-KGB agent. Are we ready to go nuclear? He may be.
Brittney Griner broke the laws of another country, like it or not. If you are not educated enough to understand that, so be it. Then you must be okay with a federal or national police force and doing away with local law enforcement forces whether it is police, sheriff, or state patrol/police. You may want to educate yourself on countries that have such national or federal police forces and the affects they have on the country.
I lived in the Philippines for three years. They had and may still have a national police force. Pretty corrupt from what I remember. We were there from 1986 to 1989. Wife was stopped by them while driving with a friend, and the officers were easy to pay off (bribe) for a “traffic violation” because they were under paid and very easily assassinated. It was not uncommon to hear of a local police chief and/or their family to be assassinated while eating supper.
I guess you would be okay with paying off police officers on a traffic stop instead of traffic violations being controlled at the state level. Can you think of the money the officer could generate conducting traffic stops? I guess you would also be okay with the local police force entering your house without a search warrant to ensure you are generally following all local ordinances and laws.
As far as marijuana use goes, it is a drug. Period. As a drug, like all drugs, it affects everyone differently. It affects the body and judgement. Learn about drugs and their affects on the body, especially when it comes to judgement and driving. Not much different than using drugs, including alcohol, judgement, and raising children. I don’t want people on the road under the influence of marijuana or another drug. Accidents with drivers under the influence of marijuana or another drug across the country are up. Habitual users have the drug in their system longer than no-habitual users.
And just in case you want to judge me, I was adopted at birth. My birth father was killed by a drunk driver back in the 1960s before I had the opportunity to meet him.
I was in a strip bar by the age of 10 with my adopted dad. I wouldn’t trade him for anyone. With over ten bars in my little town growing up, I had three of the telephone numbers of the bars memorized so I could “find my dad and get him home for supper” when my mom told me to find him. My dad bowled, and the bowling team used to travel with a keg of beer in the back of the van going down the road. Yes, they drank the beer going down the road. GASP!!!! Be careful of what you ask for.
Brittney Griner broke the laws of Russia. Don’t want to be in that position, don’t do stupid stuff that puts you in that position. Especially in another country. If you think her sentence didn’t go with the crime, look at countries that execute people for possession of marijuana or other drugs. I would say she is fortunate that she was not in a country that executes people for drug possession.
Should we be spending what we are spending on Ukraine? I believe Biden is proposing or is asking for 8 billion dollars to be sen to Africa to prevent them from using coal. Eight billion dollars is a made up number to me that has little to no meaning. I can’t keep up and in the words of my wife, “I don’t watch the news. It is depressing.”
We’ll be up at Wheeler’s the second week of January. @Dutchboy, pm me since you aren’t so far away. Maybe we can get together for supper at Ballards after a day on the ice. The older I get, the less I like to argue. Take’s too much time. I can’t imagine being 80 years old and wanting to argue with anyone. I’d rather do something else.
Go get an ice cream, like your leader, you won’t have to worry about 
brain freeze. 
