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Several centuries ago, the Pope decreed that all the Jews had to convert or leave Italy. There was a huge outcry from the Jewish community, so the Pope offered a deal. He would have a religious debate with the leader of the Jewish community. If the Jews won, they could stay in Italy, if the Pope won, they would have to leave. The Jewish people met and picked an aged, but wise, Rabbi Moshe to represent them in the debate. However, as Moshe spoke no Italian and the Pope spoke no Hebrew, they all agreed that it would be a silent debate. On the chosen day, the Pope and Rabbi Moshe sat opposite each other for a few minutes before the Pope raised his hand and showed three fingers. Rabbi Moshe answered by raising one finger. Next, the Pope waved one finger around his head. Rabbi Moshe pointed down at the ground. Then the Pope brought out a communion wafer and a chalice of wine. The Rabbi pulled out an apple. On seeing that, the Pope stood up and declared that he was beaten, the Rabbi was too clever, and the Jews could stay. Later, the Cardinals met with the Pope to ask what had happened. The Pope said, "First, I held up three fingers to represent the holy trinity. He responded by holding up one finger to remind me that there is still only one God common to both our beliefs. Then, I waved my finger to show that God is all around us. He responded by pointing to the ground to show that God is also right here with us. I pulled out the wine and wafer to show that God absolves us of our sins. He pulled out an apple to remind me of the original sin. He had me beaten and I could not continue." Meanwhile the Jewish community was gathered around Rabbi Moshe to find out how he won the debate. " I haven't a clue," said Moshe. "First, he said to me that we had three days to get out of Italy. So I gave him the finger. Then he tells me that the whole country would be cleared of Jews. So I said to him, "We're staying right here." "And then what?" they asked. "Who knows?" said Moshe. "He took out his lunch, so I took out mine."

The doctor, after an examination, sighed and said, ‘I’ve got some bad news. You have cancer, and you’d best put your affairs in order.’ The woman was shocked, but managed to compose herself and walk into the waiting room where her daughter had been waiting. ‘Well, daughter, we women celebrate when things are good, and we celebrate when things don’t go so well. In this case, things aren’t well. I have cancer. So, let’s head to the club and have a martini.’ After 3 or 4 martinis, the two were feeling a little less somber. There were some laughs and more martinis. They were eventually approached by some of the woman’s old friends, who were curious as to what the two were celebrating. The woman told her friends they were drinking to her impending end, ‘I’ve been diagnosed with AIDS.’ The friends were aghast, gave the woman their condolences and beat a hasty retreat. After the friends left, the woman’s daughter leaned over and whispered, ‘Momma, I thought you said you were dying of cancer, and you just told your friends you were dying of AIDS! Why did you do that??’ ‘Because I don’t want any of those b****es sleeping with your father after I’m gone.’.

…and you can bet the speed limit is whatever he says it is!

Or having good taste

It's FRIDAY! A man parks his bicycle nearby the Capitol in Washington, DC and walks on. A police officer stops him and asks, "Why did you park your bicycle here? Don't you know it is a VIP road and all congressmen and senators pass from here?" Man replied, "Don't you worry about it, I locked my bicycle!"

I've been saying similar for years. If I was a woman I would be ashamed to admit that I was either too stupid to look and see if the seat was down, or too stupid to know how to lower the seat, and therefore I had to depend on the guy to always put the seat down.

I didn't know that horses used urinals.

A mother was concerned about her kindergarten son walking to school. He didn't want his mother to walk with him. She wanted to give him the feeling that he had some independence but yet know that he was safe. So she had an idea of how to handle it. She asked a neighbor if she would please follow him to school in the mornings, staying at a distance, so he probably wouldn't notice her. She said that since she was up early with her toddler anyway, it would be a good way for them to get some exercise as well, so she agreed. The next school day, the neighbor and her little girl set out following behind Timmy as he walked to school with another neighbor girl he knew. She did this for the whole week. As the two kids walked and chatted, kicking stones and twigs, Timmy 's little friend noticed the same lady was following them as she seemed to do every day all week. Finally she said to Timmy, 'Have you noticed that lady following us to school all week... Do you know her' Timmy nonchalantly replied, 'Yeah, I know who she is.' The little girl said, 'Well, who is she' 'That's just Shirley Goodnest, 'Timmy replied, 'and her daughter Marcy.' 'Shirley Goodnest...! Who is she and why is she following us..' 'Well,' Timmy explained, 'every night my Mum makes me say the 23rd Psalm with my prayers, 'cuz she worries about me so much. And in the Psalm, it says, ' Shirley Goodnest and Marcy shall follow me all the days of my life', so I guess I'll just have to get used to it.' May Shirley Goodnest and Marcy be with you today and always. (I know you smiled!)

THAT AIN’T NO HAUNT His name was abbreviated from Kolascinski to Kohl, and right now his middle name could have been Aggravated. Kohl was a miner, and a good one. Kohl and his partner were following a vein that looked like it was going to peter out and disappear. They cut higher, lower, left, right, searching for the elusive trace: finally, aggravated, Kohl took his pick, made a mighty, sideways swing – there wasn’t enough room to stand up straight, a man had to hunch over and swing his pick sideways – the pick drove through what he didn’t realize was just a thin web of busted rock. He worked the pick, tore it out, drew back, hit it again. His partner grabbed his forearm as the pick drew free, bringing a peck basket of loose rock with it. “Listen.” Two men looked at one another, their eyes white, stark in the mine’s lamp-lit gloom. Kohl saw panic widen his partner’s eyes, then the man turned, ran, dropped his pick like a terrified sentry faced with an oncoming wave of screaming infantry, will drop his musket and run like a scared little girl. Kohl frowned, leaned closer to the hole he’d just made, listened. That ain’t no haunt, he thought. Kids, Fitz thought. No thought for anyone, they just go – He looked around, swinging his smoke-cutter flashlight slowly as he went. Radios were useless underground, save for line-of-sight only, and that a limited distance; minerals in the walls drank RF energy like a thirsty man drinks beer – still, he had a talkie in one hand, his light in the other. They were looking for a child, a high school kid who’d taken his trumpet (or his Fluglehorn or whateverthehell they played in Marching Band these days) and his Mama feared he’d gone into an old mineshaft to practice, since a cranky neighbor complained about noise when he practiced on his back steps. Fitz knew the kid, the boy was nice enough, but like most kids, his train of thought was really short and tended to leave station prematurely. His Mama speculated he’d gone down into the old mineshaft to practice alone and got lost, and he’d not come home, and she’d gotten worried and then panicked and called in the cavalry, and now he, his medics, his firefighters, were penetrating the gloom in a spaced-out file, each one with a talkie, each one a radio relay point. At least there’s air, he thought as the chilly breeze moved past him: he could see his breath, carried deeper into the mine: it was already cool underground, constantly cool but not terribly cold: they’d set up their ventilation fans, run by a portable generator, near the mineshaft’s opening, they were blowing an impressive number of cubic feet per second into the mineshaft, pushing cold, clean air in, shoving old, stale air ahead of them and out an opening God only knew where – there were old mining maps, but none reliable, and only a handful of locals knew where all the mine openings were: most were an uninviting hole in the ground, a very few – like this one – still had a timber framing, and a man, crouched over, could navigate it. His Mama thought he came down into the mine to practice, he thought. She thought he came down here. She said she didn’t know for sure. Now I’m in a hole in the ground that could drop a mountain on top of me. God save me from women that speak a fear as if it were a fact! His pique yanked itself away from him faster than the fog of his breath on cold, steadily moving air, was blown own the mineshaft. He heard a scrabbling ahead, then breathing – fast, panicked breathing – Something moved in the distance. Fitz raised his talkie, keyed up: “This is Fire One, I have movement ahead.” He crouched, shoved his light forward, damning its limited range: he’d meant to replace these with higher-intensity lights, there was a conversion available now – Something was headed toward him, he saw a pale oval, two more pale ovals, he realized this was the kid he was looking for, and then he realized the kid’s face was dead white, his eyes were wide with panic, and his mouth was open, as if he were trying to scream and nothing would come out. “FIRELANDS FIRE DEPARTMENT! WE’VE GOT YOU, LAD!” he shouted, just before a skinny high-school kid clutching a trumpet to his chest, barreled into him, knocked him over and continued in blind flight down the mineshaft. Kohl used the pick to rake loosened dirt and busted rock, he swung hard, shattering chunks that didn’t want to cooperate: he bent, looked through a hole the size of a bushel basket. “HELLO!” he called. “WHO’S THERE!” His voice did not quite echo, it was more like his voice shivered as it disappeared down the gloomy shaft. “I HEARD YOU. SING OUT, MAN! ARE YOU HURT!” ‘Twas a mouth organ I heard, he thought, frowning, wishing for a better light: the butter lamp on his miner’s cap cast a weak glow that didn’t push back much of the surrounding darkness. Kohl cut a bigger hole, thrust his pick through, then his head and shoulders, wiggled into a larger chamber. He came up on his worn trouser knees, looked around. His head came up, his stomach tightened: Kohl knew when the mountain started to mutter, a man was better off elsewhere: rarely it was that the overhead gave any warning before it failed, and the wise man fled at the first sound of the mine’s roof cracking, shifting or starting to trickle debris down the back of miner’s neck. He’d heard a muffled crack from overhead. He looked down, froze. Kohl sank to one knee, groaned. He knew the man: Eli, he’d said his name was: Kohl remembered he had neither family nor many friends, a morose and disagreeable sort, preferring to wrap his sorrows about him like a cloak: Kohl tried to draw him out on occasion, but without any luck a’tall, and now here the man lay, dead. Not just dead. His hands were nearly fleshless, bone showed through a tear in one trouser leg; he’d been killed when part of the overhead fell, swift, silent, crushing the soul from his body like a man would squeeze a seed from a ripe fruit. He lay face-up, what used to be a face, now a rotted mask of horror. “Holy Mary, Mother of God,” he whispered, “speak kindly to Your Son on behalf of Eli’s soul.” Something hit Kohl’s miner’s cap and he jumped back, looked up, caught a philter of dirt in the face: he turned, dove back through the hole he’d just made, legged it down the mineshaft as fast as a man can move, bent over double. His worn brogan just missed crushing a mostly skeletal hand, and the still-shiny harmonica in its fleshless fingers. Chief Charles Fitzgerald, in his class A uniform, ceremoniously placed an ancient but still-shiny mouth organ on a blue-velvet-covered tea saucer: the glass display case was closed as Fitz stepped back into the ranks of the Irish Brigade, formally assembled for this presentation. Angela Keller wore a handmade gown of unrelieved black, a sheer black veil misting down from her fashionable black hat, draping over her unrelieved black shoulders: she’d spoken the graveside elegy an hour before, when what was left of a mine-rat-chewed skeleton was retrieved from an old mine, from a chamber forgotten until a high-school kid wanted to find a solitary place to practice his trumpet, without disturbing a crotchety neighbor whose heart’s delight was to complain. Abbot William sent a delegation from the Rabbitville Monastery, tonsured Brethren and veiled White Sisters alike: the skeleton, in a handmade wooden coffin, was committed to the earth with due ceremony, and the White Sisters sang in a glorious a capella harmony, committing the eternal soul of this unknown miner to its reward. It might make for a good ghost story if we added that the high school kid would sneak into the Museum and play during the full moon, and as the echoes of his softly offered brassy notes faded, he would hear a mouth organ’s accompaniment following his notes into the darkness. That didn’t happen. Once, and once only, when the kid went to the graveyard and played his trumpet, very softly, at the foot of a recent grave. When he finished, when he lowered his trumpet, he heard the harmonica, as if from a great distance. He never knew that a woman in a long black gown, a woman with a sheer black veil misting down from her fashionable little hat, stood still and unmoving beside a graveyard fir, listening as he played, and he never knew that a woman's black-gloved hand noted in a handwritten journal that the unknown miner's music was heard by perhaps the only living soul that knew his name.

Maybe yes and DEFINATELY NO!!!!

I remembered this from some years ago referencing that very idea. I didn't write this, I'm not this clever, but I certainly agree with it. I present, THE MAN RULES: Please note: These are all numbered"1 " ON PURPOSE! 1. Men are NOT mind readers. (FIRST & FOREMOST RULE) 1. Learn to work the toilet seat. You're a big girl. If it's up, put it down. We need it up, you need it down. You don't hear us complaining about you leaving it down. 1. Sunday sports, It's like the full moon or the changing of the tides. Let it be. 1. Crying is blackmail. 1. Ask for what you want. Let us be clear on this one: Subtle hints do not work! Strong hints do not work! Obvious hints do not work! Just say it! 1. Yes and No are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question. 1. Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That's what we do.. Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for. 1. Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument. In fact, all comments become Null and void after 7 Days. 1. If you think your fat, you probably are. Don't ask us. 1. If something we said can be interpreted two ways and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, We meant the other one 1. You can either ask us to do something OR tell us how you want it done. Not both. if you already know best how to do it , just do it yourself. 1. Whenever possible, please say whatever you have to say during commercials. 1. Christopher Columbus did NOT need directions and neither do we. 1. ALL men see in only 16 colours, like Windows default settings. Peach, for example, is a fruit, not A colour. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what mauve is. 1. If it itches, it will be scratched... We do that. 1. If we ask what is wrong and you say "nothing," We will act like nothing's wrong. We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle... 1. If you ask a question you don't want an answer to, expect an answer you don't want to hear. 1. When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine... Really. 1. Don't ask us what we're thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics As Football or Hockey. 1. You have enough clothes. 1. You have too many shoes. 1. I am in shape. Round IS a shape! Thank you for reading this. Yes, I know, I have to sleep on the couch tonight. But did you know men really don't mind that? It's like camping.

Some of my friends played on those cuts and the Fire on the Mountain album was actually recorded at a friend of mine’s studio here in Nashville before they put down the album tracks that appear on the disc so that they had everything EXACTLY like Charlie and the guys wanted it upon release.

Steve still has his dinosaurs. The beginning part about Jonah has nothing to do with Steve. God is talking to Stacy, his secretary.

Now his friends are warned.

My wife ask me what I was planning on doing today. I told her "Nothing." She said "That's what you did YESTERDAY!" I said, "I wasn't done!"

Your point?

Hmm, while I wasn't in at the time, my MP National Guard unit did a tour in Iraq during Desert Storm guarding EPW's; a tour in Iraq during OIF training the Iraqi police. There were 10 Purple Hearts given out for that deployment and they also deployed to Afghanistan. And guess who won the 2023 International Sniper Competition, held April 10-13 at Fort Benning, Georgia? https://taskandpurpose.com/news/international-sniper-competition-2023-army-national-guard/ The National Guard of the 70's and 80's is gone. Most National Guard units could be expected to deploy overseas to either Afghanistan or Iraq when we still had a major presence in both countries.

Goon Day?

They get help from Steve.

Just a reminder!

There are secret bases scattered throughout the country, where breeding colonies are supported and protected. They are especially dangerous during the breeding and hatching season and often take over entire areas.

Scalloped Potatoes – from “The Southern Cookbook- 322 Old Dixie Recipes” 1935 Slice about 6 raw potatoes with a slaw cutter. Cover the bottom of a baking dish with bread crumbs, bits of butter and a little parsley. Put over it a layer of potatoes, salt and pepper. Alternate potatoes and bread crumbs until dish is full. Pour a cup of milk over it and bake in moderate oven (350 F.) for one hour. (MY NOTES: Be generous with the salt. After you pour in the milk, finish with a layer of bread crumbs. Layer in some thinly sliced onions if you like – I used an Oxo Mandolin set on 1 to slice the onions, and on 3 for the potatoes. Try adding some grated Parmesan Cheese to the bread crumbs.)