More than bears! Also, hockey players! https://russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2022/01/22/hershey-bears-teddy-bear-toss-game-returns-after-two-year-absence-due-to-pandemic/ and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c76I7i8DShY from http://www.reddit.com/r/MadeMeSmile/comments/sb1wbj/the_ahl_hershey_bears_collected_52431_stuffed/htx3ljz/

"Never underestimate the stupidity of American blowhards."

Y'all approproated that from H. L. Mencken.* Thought of that too. But sometimes, folks can surprise a body.

EX: mininum wage ballot ininitive, a few election cycles ago, came up in 5 RED red states and they passed easily. even when the state govenments wouldn't do so at gun point. sometimes folks know what's what and go w/it.

just saying things can go so bad for so long, good things can slip in w/o anyone noticing. progress in america has never came in waves but in sporatic pulses.

heck. the GOP was a progressive movement at conception. some of that progressness flowed into the turn-of-century. got nat'l parks from teddy. (think of that? a Republican supporting land - for everybody - just to look at and not exploited? it's true!)

hope for hope's sake, s'all.

'Lightn' Hopkins said (or close to), "If'n your first though is 'I can't'; then don't even try". I say we should try. It can be done.


*he also said, "On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." spot-on.

So good.
Next I expect them to build a room full of mounted Teddy Ruxpin heads singing choir songs in unison with 4 part harmonies.
*doublepromote a *quality wall treatment. If I'm ever in Chicago, I'm stopping by there.

I live near this family(organization) and they do incredible work. I had the pleasure of being able to pay a visit there one time, with a good friend of mine who knows them well.

Unfortunately I do believe they lost this big teddy bear to old age just recently.

R.I.P big guy..

Badly untrained dog that someone is neglecting because it looks like a teddy bear.

Okay, folks. History is converging here through six degrees of separation.

Long story. I think it is worth your time.

I grew up with a father who said terribly racist things, the n- word, disparaging remarks about all races. There was much screaming and bitter words from me for a lot of my childhood and well into my 20s.

After he died, I got into a short email exchange with someone I didn't know at all. A former co-worker of my father.

My dad's job, as I have said here before, was Range Safety Officer. His job was to blow up missiles that went off course. (No person has blown up more missiles, and no one will ever catch up to him, since they know how to do it now.)

In my email exchanges with "Teddy", I find out slowly that Teddy is a woman. The first woman in the Range Safety Flight arena. She tells me that she was treated horribly in those early days. Except for three of her co-workers, who mentored and helped her.

One of those men was my father.

Oh.

And then she reveals that she is Hispanic.

Dang.

So my dad talked nasty at home, and acted MORE THAN honorably at work. I wish I had known that when he was alive.

Then she tells me that her daughter became an engineer also, and is currently working in Range Safety.

Wow.

Fast forward to last week. I watch Hidden Figures, the movie about black women helping in the first manned space launches. They were in Langley VA, while my dad was stationed in Cape Canaveral, not NASA but the Air Force, working on unmanned missions. But still. It all came flooding back to me -- how my dad was one of the good guys. (It was also cool to see all the actual news footage of people on the beach and parades and what-all -- I was there with my family, doing those things.)

This reminded me of Teddy. I sent her an email, telling her that I was reminded of her story and how touched anew I was.

Then the Falcon 9 launch happened. This launch on this video.

The next day, I got a response from her. Here is her email to me, lightly edited:

Thank you so much for thinking of me. The 60's were a time quite different than today. This morning It came to me just how far we women have come since then.

I stood on the balcony of my house and watched the launch of a Falcon Rocket take off in all its glory from Vandenberg knowing my daughter was the Lead Flight Safety Analyst on that mission. For the last couple of months I have listened to her tell me about all the problems she has had to deal with in preparing all the destruct lines, impact limit lines and all the other things that go into getting the mission package ready for launch and knowing what she was talking about. Boy, was I jealous. I really miss being in the middle of all that. I was/am very PROUD of my little girl being part of the missions leaving out of Vandenberg and knowing I played a small part in making all that happen just like those ladies in Hidden Figures. I have not seen the movie yet but my friends and I are looking forward to it coming to Lompoc so I can see it

Your Dad would be surprised to learn that most of the new Flight Safety Analysts are now all women.

You have been awarded 1 Power Point for fixing the embed code for Dead Pool video Funny Ad - teddy humping bunny. Thank you for helping maintain VideoSift's reliability.

Yeah, I think he'd keep truckin' and run on his own as an independent. I think his ego is big enough. Plus, he'd have a pretty legitimate beef which would solidify his supporters and potentially draw in some more who are displeased with the modern GOP. I think he'd take somewhere between 30%-60% of the republican votes with him all the way to the general election.

That thought made me wonder what other independent or 3rd party candidates have done in presidential elections, and I found this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_third_party_performances_in_United_States_elections#Presidential

I think he'd be somewhere between Teddy Roosevelt in 1912 and Ross Perot in 1992. Roosevelt got nearly 30% of the vote, took 88 electoral votes, and placed 2nd of 6 in the race. Perot got almost 20% of the popular vote, but took no electoral votes and placed 3rd of many.

I think Trump running as a 3rd party could take somewhere between 20%-30% of the popular votes (40%+ of Republican-leaning voters, semi conservatively). It would be hard to match Roosevelt's percentage of electoral votes, but he'd get at least *some*, unlike Perot, because of states with proportional rules about allocating electoral votes. And I think he'd place second, like Roosevelt. In that sense, you could argue that the Republican candidate (whoever that would be) "stole" the election from Trump, rather than vice-versa as would be the GOP's narrative.

--I should note that I'm not an expert about any of this, these are just my thoughts--

About Reid Fleming, I hadn't actually heard of that before -- but I got my handle from a character from a different (web) comic called Red Meat:
Homepage
Milkman Dan comics

Warning, this is long. It's a general reply to bob, but really it's a rant about the reality of this country, origins, issue, and where we are headed... Like they say in Horace and Pete, at this point we just might deserve a president like Trump (especially because we are stupid enough to vote for HIM, and for so many Senators AND Congressmen like him or even far worse)...

Reply to bob at the top...


I hate to tell you, but "SHALL", according to the times in which the founding fathers wrote this IS indeed the utmost highest form of that period meaning that you "HAVE TO" do something.

Go ahead and let your own party change what grammar and vocabulary meant from that period--or simply not have enough brains to know what it really means (though most of us know by now their assistants have let them know what it means, they just refuse to believe reality and instead insert their own collective psychotic delusion).

Typically when it says SHALL (BTW, NOT doing that job should be getting them in HUGE amounts of trouble as well), they should be doing everything they can TO nominate a new judge into the open position in their next open session (not a session one year away, so Trump or Hillary has to do it).

If they want to complain about the nominee they CAN, just while they are under scrutiny to go up for the vote. But, they simply are NOT supposed to do nothing and furthermore say they WON'T do anything...

I'll have to look up what the penalty is for not doing this, but it could be a full "boot" from their job. Simply what has been referred to by Republicans in the past as Impeachment. But, then the Senate has to start that (I'm not sure if anyone else can; hence, this is why I said I'd try to see if there is anything else that can be done)

I believe they can also do it at the state level... BUT ALL of this requires for our government officials to do their fucking jobs! PLUS, the citizens that voted them in to give a shit!
----------


We REALLY, REALLY, do not deserve a country like this...it is BARELY alive and well. We are just a few presidential terms away (plus senators and congressmen) before we grind to a complete halt.

Then we can finally watch everything implode on CNN and FOX while REAL extremists take over and then the real fun starts. True extremists taking control with minimal bloodshed and shouting matches, civil war with outcomes that grant us either the NEO-United States (the U.S.A. V:2.0, which might be good), to the Neo-Confederacy (since that is what it all amounts to on the FAR right's spectrum). OR we simply just dissolve and become something entirely new.

Hey, bob did you know that your party used to be JUST like the Democrats of Lincoln's age. The Republican's were more like the Democrat's of our age. Weird right. THAT conservative party died out with Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose party; then all of the citizens decided that they simply liked the name "Republican" more (since they'd always voted for that name, right...it'd be weird to change it). That is where the Republican's became a FAR different party than they had been (though they still had a few more GREAT leaders before their schism drove them all, sadly, into madness ). The "Democrat's", they thought slavery was just peachy at first, and now they vote for gay-rights. NEITHER party remembers it's roots and the citizens of the United States have had their idiotic teachers and parents tell them all sorts of stories about how great either party WAS, but never telling them what they are like NOW. We all need to vote for our president, nowadays, without even LOOKING at their part's affiliation. It doesn't do any of us any good. Because none of them have ANY real lineage or links to the old presidents of these United States--they're full of shit.

Just remember, Republicans and their party were formed basically to try and abolish slavery--now they are more likely to put it back into action; a complete reversal of their direction, progressive and liberal!

Democrats tried to keep things the same as it was and to even expand slavery--now they want to allow marijuana to be legal, allow gays to have rights, and essentially pick up many progressive and liberal causes... They too have utterly reversed the direction they were at and taking during Abraham Lincoln's time. Conservative on many topics and wanting to expand the states' rights and abilities. Now they are the ones that would abolish slavery and even have Lincoln on their ticket if he ran...

Our parties in these United States are abysmal, a joke, a farce, and shouldn't even be used... The Founding Fathers would be dismayed over so many issues it wouldn't be even funny. They would more than likely throw OUT the Constitution and start a new draft, simply due to the amount of changes we've made in the WRONG direction and the fact that they weren't able to see the future far enough ahead to imagine gigantic empires made only of Business (with a mere handful of people, not hundreds, thousands, and many more like it was in their times) and how News would become so powerful it is essentially as powerful as the president of the United States--and if watched by enough people it is even FAR more powerful than him/her (like in Russia; The Internet being the ONE thing the Founding Fathers would pat our country on the back over and it's what can restore balance to the people who watch or only can gain information from these entities; a new type of "University" where anything can be shared; truth and facts obtained at every man's fingertips nearly instantly at any point on this planet; it IS the world's greatest WONDER ever made).

Lastly, they would absolutely abhor our parties and how they are used--internally and externally (how our politicians...how all the issues interconnect together; all politicians that receive outside money, they would likely want to have them all impeached, same with those that USE the media; they would HATE parties--but they know they'll always exist, you just have to get rid of the things that LET parties abuse we the people and also the government, and those things are: money and media...).


/length

Your video, The Teddy Bear From Your Nightmares, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

*quality headshot with that teddy bear. Nice.

Explain ABC stores in Honolulu now. Teddy was cloned and an army of Teddy was pacified through the promise of retail sales.