Good versus Evil..

There is a finiteness attached to a lack of something and infiniteness only possible in its abundance.  Silence is the absence of sound, darkness the absence of light, stillness the absence of movement and cold simply the absence of heat.  Silence can’t get quieter, dark darker, stillness stiller or cold colder.  Sound, light, heat and movement can all be intensified in one direction only, outward from their absences and infinitely intensified by volume.

Good and evil I believe can be thought of in the same way.  Evil is the absence of good and can only intensify in direct proportion to a lack of goodness.  Just as sound, light, motion and heat defeat silence, darkness, stillness and cold, goodness overcomes evil.

God and faith gird our goodness.  The more distance we put between ourselves and God, the closer we allow evil to come.

Just as heat, light, motion and sound are all choices that we moderate, so too is it with our relationship with God and our faithfulness and with that comes the level of evil we are willing to tolerate.

Our duty to ourselves is only one of two responsibilities we face when addressing our positions in the battle of goodness over evil.  The second condition has to do with the state of our collective conscientiousness that indicates to God the validity of a nation, the nobility of a people and the worthiness of mankind as we are judged by the Almighty when He holds us up to His image, which is what he had in mind upon our creation.

When that day comes when the collective evil in the world outweighs the good and the faithless outnumber the faithful, it will be too late but today is not that day and today, we can reaffirm our faith and redouble our relationship with God as we celebrate His birth and refocus on that which matters most; Goodness.   

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An Open Letter to Former President Trump

Mr. President:                                                                           November 9, 2022

I strongly encourage you to run for the office of President of the United States once again in the 2024 election.  Armed with the experience you gained in your first term, I can only imagine what progress you will make in your second.  The country needs you desperately and the stakes could not be higher for refocusing, rebuilding and re-exciting both the country and the citizenry.

Mr. President, I believe that enlisting the support of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as your Vice-President will afford you the highest likelihood of gaining that second-term for which American’s so hopefully pray. 

Governor DeSantis

Engaging Governor DeSantis as a protagonist is a mistake.  Instead of potentially weakening a terrific governor with a splendid track record, enormous name recognition and wide-spread public support, better to harness that positive energy for not only your re-election, but to insure the legacy of accomplishment two strong-willed and patriotic men can best accomplish together.

I believe the key to this alliance will be to assure the Governor that it is your solemn promise to do everything in your power to see to it that he is your successor.  Leaving Governor DeSantis out of the equation for 2024 will only spell trouble in splitting voters and by doing so, assist the opposition party by encouraging us to war against ourselves and thereby making their path to a victory that much easier.

Mr. President, please Take America Back Again and do so with the horsepower of a Trump/DeSantis ticket to a sure fire victory.

Kind regards,

Bob Kingsley

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Accountability

If you need an example of today’s double-speak and lack of personal responsibility, look no further than today’s story in the Wall Street Journal, (WSJ) regarding Tyson Foods Chief Financial Officer, (CFO) John R. Tyson entitled, “Tyson CFO Held On charge Of Home Trespass.”

This 32-year-old “man” is the silver-spooned-snot-nose son of Tyson Food founder John W. Tyson and according to the WSJ article, the younger Tyson got so drunk that he was found asleep in the wrong house.  He was subsequently arrested for criminal trespass and public intoxication.

Here is the money quote, from Tyson himself:

“I am embarrassed for personal conduct that is inconsistent with my personal values.”

Huh?

REALITY CHECK SON:

Your personal conduct DEFINES your personal values.  Tyson’s twisted logic here infers that his conduct was somehow independent from his values.  Sorry Johnny but that thinking won’t fly any better than your chickens.  If your alleged personal values were as elevated as you suggest, your CONDUCT would reflect that.

Here is a better public statement that would be at least honest:

“I am embarrassed that I didn’t take appropriate measures to enlist the help of others to monitor my drunkenness and keep me out of trouble.  Unlike most people, I can afford to hire any number of people to see to it that I stay out of trouble and I didn’t do that and for that, well, I’m embarrassed.  I’m counting on the fact that regardless of my personal life issues, Tyson Foods will continue to provide me the boat-loads of money I regularly receive for the rest of my life.  Thanks dad.”

Tyson’s chickens will never come home to roost.

(Photo by Greg Smith/Corbis via Getty Images)

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Principled Leadership?

Broome County voters are facing a terrible choice when it comes to electing our next sheriff.  NYS Senator and former Broome County sheriff Captain Fred Akshar is running for Broome County sheriff against Kate Newcomb, his former live-in girlfriend and current Captain in that same sheriff’s office.

The adage about politics and odd-bedfellows has never been more literal.

Akshar is campaigning on “Principled Leadership”.  Seriously?  How “principled” was it to have a sexual encounter with a woman involved in an active criminal case still at trial in which Akshar was involved?  How “principled” was it to dispatch his own brother, (also a Broome County sheriff at the time), to a domestic dispute involving one of his political friends who will undoubtedly be running for Broome County district attorney in the next election?  How “principled” was it to hire an assistant in his office and raise her salary exponentially while having a romance with her, only to be slapped down by the Senate ethics committee?

As for Newcomb, how “principled” was it for her to interfere with a NYS Police investigation involving her nephew, advising him to obstruct an investigation into his drunk driving and then protecting him while screaming at the troopers that she should be afforded professional courtesy because of her position in the sheriff’s department?

Barring a miracle, Akshar will win this race, parlaying the vote-getting appeal of former Binghamton mayor Rich David in exchange for his Senate seat.  After Akshar takes office, you can expect to see Newcomb resign and the county loses a career cop while gaining back a man with well documented integrity and judgment issues.

Then, God forbid, in two years, the Akshar political machine gets into gear and elects his buddy Paul Battisti to the Broome County District Attorney’s office, that’s right, the same guy who called in a favor in having his former wife arrested by Akshar’s brother in the parking lot of Dick’s in Binghamton.  The same Paul Battisti that owed more than 86,000.00 in back taxes to the IRS in 2019.

“Principled Leadership”

When the two most significant legal entities in the county are being managed by men with a history of manipulating the legal system, womanizing, using taxpayer monies to over-pay girlfriends and failing to pay their own taxes, what kind of a justice system will that mean for Broome County?  Those systems will be forged in the respective images of the men who manage them, striking at the very heart of institutions that rely overwhelmingly on morality, truth, character and high principles, qualities which go wanting by all those political players.

Thomas Jefferson was right when he said, “The government you elect is the government you deserve.”

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Under the Bus

The Covid crisis not only crippled ridership of the poorly run Broome County transit system, it shed much needed light on what is an under-scrutinized and opaque government operation.

According to a former career county worker within the department, BC Transit is a corrupt, mismanaged operation that misrepresents facts, cooks the books and cheats taxpayers out of millions of dollars. 

Because over 75% of the department’s budget is funded with federal and state tax dollars, management was quoted as saying to employees, “We don’t run this like a business because we don’t have to.”  No doubt about that.  The 21 fixed route bus lines run empty the majority of the time and most routes could be serviced with a motorcycle and side-car.  Instead, a fleet of nearly 50 full-sized buses traverse thousands of miles of roads, usually with only the driver aboard, little more than diesel-belching billboards.   Astonishingly, the department claims 2-million rides last year which equates to a just-not-believable 5400 plus riders a day, every day, a total fabrication.

In the competitive world of private enterprise, buses would be replaced with passenger vans, adjusting to dwindling demand and saving fuel and maintenance costs.  Instead, strong unions prohibit any changes and routes are set and unalterable.  Because of that, dozens of perfectly suitable vans sit silently in the Broome Transit lot.

When there is no competition and no profit incentive, there are no consequences and that crushes motivation.  BC Transit is little more than a 13 million dollar make-work-program for the 100 plus employees that devour an annual salary and pension cost of about 9 million dollars.

With alternatives like Uber, Lyft, electric scooters, bikes, and work-from-home situations becoming the norm, these realities don’t influence the “we’ve-always-done-it-this-way” mindset of an organization that has no reason to be better and brags about its own mediocrity.  Instead, we celebrate when Senator Schumer announces a $12M infusion of electric buses into the fleet so we can more greenly and grandly waste taxpayer’s money.

Just a few of the ways the county does this:

  • The newer hybrid buses have power trains made by Cummins Corp.  Cummins contractors are on-site almost every day, at $1500/day fixing problems that the employees cannot.
  • Instead of using an older bus closer to the end of usefulness to provide a Covid enclosure, management instead put a newer, $700,000.00 dollar hybrid unit into that role thereby rendering it inoperable for anything else and ultimately scrapped.
  • When touring the BAE bus manufacturing facility to see the newest models, management overruled the recommendations of BAE officials when choosing buses, opting for all electric versions when experts were telling them that was the wrong application for our area and terrain, deciding instead that green symbolism was a better political choice.

BC Transit should be privatized, along with the Arena, the Forum and the Willow Point nursing home, all entities that the county has proven it cannot manage.  Government fails miserably when competing with the private sector.  Get back to basics.

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The Myth of Hunger

Broome county’s poor don’t have a hunger problem, they have a nutrition problem.  The biggest medical issue for the poor is obesity.  Real hunger problems look like this:

The poor in America look like this:

The Left cries about “food insecurity.”  This is a myth.  The federal government doles out food vouchers like they were candy.  In many cases, that is exactly what it turns out to be. 

On top of that federal safety net turned hammock, the local food bank hands out food to anyone who shows up, no questions, no means testing of any kind.  This lack of accountability, combined with the myriad of free diners, free lunches, and school feeding programs allows for a black market in food.

It works like this:  A single mom with 3 kids receives an allocation of federally funded dollars appropriate to the family size.  This allocation is meant to be sufficient to meet the nutritional needs of the family.  The children all receive free breakfast and lunch at school.  The federal benefit is not downwardly adjusted to account for this.  Should the mom avail herself to a food bank, or meals from churches, soup kitchens and free lunch programs, again, because there is no means testing or accountability, these additional sources of food have no significance to the federally funded benefit that was in and of itself appropriate to feed this family.

Once this over-abundance is achieved, then the mom can turn entrepreneurial and sell her excess federal benefits for cash.  This takes the form of “shopping” with a customer and after using her benefits card, exchanging that cart of groceries for 50 cents on the dollar, the current-going rate here in Binghamton.

Like most scams, the actual truth of what is happening and why is a far cry from what is advertised.  The federal government will tell you it’s about nutrition.  If that were actually true, the program would identify the nutritional needs of the family and then provide pre-packaged allotments designed to meet those nutritional needs and the lowest possible cost.

The government provides this benefit to buy recipients votes.  If government gave a damn about the nutritional well-being of the poor, they would design nutritionally healthy handouts and stop allowing recipients to eat there way into the healthcare system where once again, the taxpayer receives the bill for the poor choices of those who cannot or will not support themselves responsibly.  If this was actually done, recipients would scream about their rights and the pool of likely voters would shrink significantly and so, the government looks the other way while the poor poison themselves with unhealthy eating habits.

The local food-banks and other “free” food programs are just as culpable as the government.  Without means testing, accountability can’t exist and donors ought to be aware that their donation might very well be used to support an under-ground economy that provides the cash to buy alcohol, tobacco and drugs.  Again, the food-bank tugs at your conscious by telling you about “food insecurity” when what is really happening is that donors get to check off the box that says they did their good deed for the day by simply dropping a can of beans into a barrel and then pretending they are saving the world.

The poor are obese and sick courtesy of a government that wants nothing greater than to stay in power and a population of supposed do-gooders that are looking for the easiest  way to assuage their consciousness and save their souls.

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Take America Back Again


After 8 years of enduring the lackluster outcome of America’s first affirmative action
president, Donald J. Trump was a fresh sharp blast of arctic air blowing away the
political version of a tropical depression that had engulfed an America being led in the
wrong direction.

What was originally described as “the swamp” was more accurately a cesspool of
scoundrels, self-servers and scumbags; political maggots feeding off the very infection
they themselves had bred and spread into the body politic.


As the Trump term began to rip the old wallpaper off the hallowed halls of our nations
places of governance where the hacks and flacks that had been too long squatters, the
lingering stench and stains of dishonor began to yield to a remodeling underway.
The American stock market climbed to record levels and soared. Our southern border
was secure and getting rebuilt. The USA was the largest net-exporter of energy in the
world and gas was cheap. Unemployment and inflation were both near zero. Our
enemies feared and respected us. Al-Qaeda and Taliban leadership were either killed or
forced into inactivity making them practically inert. China was forced into fair play and
North Korea into quiet civility. Over-burdensome regulations were cut and more than
25,000 pages removed from the Federal Register resulting in trillions in tax cuts and the
reformation of the tax code. And finally, Trump fulfilled a promise broken by every
living past US President by moving the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to
Jerusalem.


Say what you will about the Trump/Biden election, it’s over and the Swamp won. That
“swamp” however was really something far worse; a mile-deep lake of shit.
And if ever there was a creature of that fetid lake, Joe Biden was the poster-boy. Never
employed outside of government he was a twice failed presidential contender, famous for
being a liar, (“…I got a full scholarship, graduated in the top third of my class…”) and
also a plagiarist, (stole Britain’s Neil Kinnock’s speech word-for-word.), Biden is a
principle-less poser, a pliable useful idiot, making him the best candidate to easily
control.


Enter the Soros/Obama cabal of tech giants and the vast tentacles of the Administrative
State grinding away at the organ while Biden dances to their tune as America loses her
way.


When assessing motive, money and power are the main ingredients. Trump had plenty of
both before running for office and he was beholding to no one. Trump won’t be bought
and being the President not only loses him money, it forces him to do battle every
moment for his own survival so again, what is the motive?
It is obvious that for Trump, being President again will be nothing short of a fight to the
finish. He views this as his obligation to the greatest country on earth that supplied him
with so much. He made America great again and now he needs to finish flushing that
nasty national toilet and Take America Back Again.

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Deterrence

Current penalties for violent crimes are too lenient.  In the case of any violent crime committed that could have been met with deadly force during its commission, victims of these crimes ought to have the option of applying that deadly force to the guilty defendant as an option after trial.  In other words, for the crimes of rape, home invasion, robbery, assault with a deadly weapon and car-jacking, to name a few, after a trial in which the defendant is found guilty, the victims should have the lone decision-making authority to impose the penalty of death.  In states where the death penalty is unavailable, then life without parole would be an option, exclusively decided upon by the victim.

A large part of the problem in our current system of incarceration is the fact that the conditions under which inmates serve their sentences are not uncomfortable enough to serve as a deterrent.  Additionally, any actions aimed at rehabilitation, mental health help and education are either non-existent in some cases, or poorly managed in others.

When a criminal is facing the prospect of going to prison, that ought to invoke in him fear and terror sufficient to be of nightmare proportions.  For starters, no gyms, no weight-training, no television.  Meals are designed to be minimally sufficient to maintain basic levels of health and nourishment, no more.  Every inmate begins their sentence assuming the most intense depravations and the minimal existence.  Working opportunities, good behavior, availing ones self to mental health counseling, education, self-improvement, skill-set-development, all of these opportunities come to inmates only after they demonstrate humility, contrition and compliance.  Until this happens, those non-compliant inmates receive the barest of minimums and enjoy only human rights and not civil ones.  It is the greatest of insults that prisons cost taxpayers anything.  Prisoner work needs to pay for prisons not the law abiding.

As long as criminals are not deterred from a stint in prison because doing the time is not as miserable as it could be, there is no incentive to stay out.  Once prison is known to be a nightmare experience, this alone will act as a deterrent.  For those caught up in the system, we either keep them locked up if they refuse to comply and improve, and we take those who do cooperate and actually make inroads in rehabilitation as they earn-back those things free people take for granted.

Criminals may make stupid mistakes and take stupid chances, but they do not lack of the instinct for self-preservation.  When today a car-jacking or a home invasion criminal gets released without bail, what message are we sending?  If those same criminals understand that if they get caught, their victims could take their lives or send them to prison for the rest of their lives, you can bet that criminal decision-making will change.

Some years ago a national campaign against crime used the then-popular catch-phrase, “Take a Bit Outta Crime.  How about we start taking a bite out of the criminals?

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My View

  • Mankind is not perfectible, only God.  The pursuit however of that perfection is our noblest obligation.
  • The things and ideas we decide to reject in life are every bit as important, even life-changing, as those things and ideas we choose to accept.
  • Rejecting your chance at learning means accepting your future as a fool.
  • The ability to read is different than the love of reading.  Only by fostering and gaining that love can the entirety of the world be truly opened.
  • Anything worth hearing was first written and writing gives the author immortality.
  • Failure is the finest teacher of what is success.
  • If you aren’t willing to participate in determining how our world works, hold your complaints for others who could also care less.
  • Whether or not your past hurt you or helped you, what you do today determines your future.
  • Authentic friends tell you the truth, hold you accountable and support you based on righteousness, reality and reason, especially in times when those words sting.  Faux friends comfort you when you’re wrong and walk you down the easier path by never making you think.
  • The true demonstration of overcoming adversity is the fact that every decent man had to reject what 1000 fools were telling him.
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It’s the driver not the car..

In the late spring of 1972, high-school buddies Allen Hopkins and Mike Sturdevant picked me up at my house in order to go on a little road-trip to inspect a motor for sale.  “Hop” as we called him was a “gear-head” and a Mopar fanatic and he had knowledge of a hemi-engine for sale somewhere up near Greene, NY. So the three of us piled into his 1966 Plymouth Belvedere and headed up NYS Route 12 to go and see if this motor was anything Hop wanted.

As we neared the village of Greene, a small sign caught Hop’s attention.  “Look at that, a rally, let’s check it out on the way back.”  Now I do not remember anything about that engine we were originally going to see, but I do have a vivid recollection about that rally.

As we headed back, Hop was clearly into the planning mode.  As he discussed this, it became clear to me that Hop had no interest in observing this event; he was going to compete in it!

We pulled into what was ordinarily the Green airfield, but today was the site of the auto rally.  As we approached, a gaggle of BMW coupes, a few Corvette’s and a variety of British sports cars were either parked and waiting or on the track competing.  A small set of bleacher seats oversaw the rally layout, defined by plastic, orange pylons, strategically placed over the tarmac forming a serpentining lane of obtuse turn angles, switch-backs and abrupt angles, all designed to test the handling and dexterity of car and driver.  The track layout made its way around a circuitous route that ended where it started, allowing one car at a time to be timed with a stop watch, start to finish.

The announcer had a public address system and was located behind the bleachers in a small, elevated box-like room, delivering a turn-by-turn analysis and comment about each car and driver as they completed the course.

After parking the car, the three of us were wandering around, looking at the cars and watching the competitors navigate the course.  I saw Hop talking to the men at the start line and all of a sudden, he was gone!  Mike and I watched as he got into the Plymouth and took off for the highway.  We looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders, not knowing quite what to think, but decided to watch the festivities and see what would happen next.

As we sat on the bleachers, twenty-minutes later Hop rolled back into the parking lot and made his way over to us.  “What was that all about?”, I asked.  Hop replied, “Had to put extra air in my tires and get a quart of oil.  Now I need to find someone to lend me a helmet.”  I said, “Are you shitting me?  You’re gonna run the Belevedere through this course?  Hop was already searching for a helmet as the words were leaving my lips.

I glanced over at the men who looked like the guys running things and you could see the big story was this helmet-less kid entering the contest in the antithesis of a sports car.  Hop came back, sporting a helmet and heading for the car, we followed along, wondering what in the hell he was going to do.  He opened the truck and got out a tire iron and began taking the hubcaps off the wheels.  “Don’t wanna have to go find them scattered in the weeds”, he said.  When Hop put the helmet on, Mike and I burst into laughter.  His size 8 head was hugged quite tightly by this size 7 helmet and it was just plain funny.  He looked like a cartoon character.

We had been looking at the clock, which was located just over the top of the announcer shack, and we were noting the various times; 2:45, 2:42, even a 2:39.  As it became clear to the crowd of spectators that Hop had entered his big 4-door-Plymouth, a din of excitement mixed with laughter began to build in the group.  Hop got into the car and pulled into line behind a black BMW which was behind an MG, as they nervously waited their turn.  We found out later that the entry fee included for each competitor three trips around the course, culminating with each driver’s fastest time.  Because we had arrived late, Hop had only one lap in which to compete and he was to be the last driver of the day.

Bright orange plastic cones outlined the road-course that meandered over the cracked, tarmac surface of the aged and little-used airport.  As the circuit ended where it began, just before the finish-line, a series of cones about one-hundred yards long indicated the end of the line by being spaced ever and ever closer together as the finish line appeared.

The BMW crossed the line, 2:41, not too bad, but it appeared that the 2:39 was the time to beat.  Hop and the MG nudged up one car-length and then the MG shot off and down the runway as Hop waited.  The MG had a mechanical failure of some type about half-way around the track and the flaggers were busy getting him off the roadway as Hop began to nervously rev the engine of the Plymouth.  Once the all-clear was indicated, Hop was given the count-down, three-two-one, GO!

You could hear the big 4-barrel carburetor gulp gas as he lumbered down and out of the start-gate.  Spectators were laughing and carrying-on as Hop burned around the little track, tires screaming, motor racing, but he was making amazing time.  Out through the worst of the switch-backs, through the off-camber turns, it was obvious that Hop’s driving skills were making up for whatever he didn’t have in terms of the ideal car.  As the land-yacht headed towards the finish-line, Hop mistakenly began to serpentine the Plymouth in and out of the finishing line pylons, thinking this was a part of the course!  He did so successfully, never touching a single piece and when he crossed the finish line, he had beaten the best time by full 6-seconds!  2:33 and with it the trophy, even after showing off his skills needlessly doing a slalom run at the end.

All of the hoity-toytee’s stopped laughing and no one would even talk to us.  It was great.      

As we piled into the car and rocketed out of the airport, I held the trophy out of the back window as we waved good-bye to the brave men and women who made up the membership of the local sports car club in Greene, NY., now 50-years a memory of the day when a very confident 20-year-old gear head named Hop taught “the grown-ups” a valuable lesson about the importance of the driver’s confidence and ability over the quality and price of the car.

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