Sgt Trainer: I want to wish each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas this season and hope that it finds you healthy, safe, and happy...and with rejoicing in the blessings that you have! The music videos I have posted are for your pleasure. One I have posted is intended for listening to for a 8 hours without you having to go to a separate video to listen...if you desire. I do have some articles posted below the videos in case you decide you want to read them. My present this year was my adopting two homeless cats this past week...or at least they consented to stay with me...and if I am unable to find them a loving home, I will be keeping them. It always makes me happy to be able to provide for critters that don't have a home. Be happy and celebrate life!
"You're in the supermarket gathering ingredients for eggnog and a Christmas Bundt cake, and you're staring at a wall of egg cartons. They're plastered with terms that all sound pretty wonderful: All-Natural, Cage-Free, Free-Range, Farm Fresh, Organic, No Hormones, Omega-3. And so on. And yet the longer you stare at them, the more confused you become. You are tired and hungry, so you just grab the cheapest one — or the one with the most adorable chicken illustration — and head for the checkout line. This is what I've been doing ever since I moved back to the U.S. five months ago after four years abroad. Then I finally cracked. It was time to figure out what all this egg jargon actually means. Here is the result. Consider it a glossary for the wannabe informed egg buyer."
(Sgt Trainer: And THIS is why I have chickens!)
"Ever wonder how the TSA decides which international travelers get secondary screening? Wonder no more."
"One of the biggest mysteries in life is why a company that’s as universally hated as Comcast seems to get whatever it wants when it comes to merger approvals. Two new reports — one from Bloomberg and one from Washingtonian — give us some good insight into the bag of sneaky tricks that Comcast uses to get influential lawmakers, journalists and nonprofit organizations to stand by its side."
(Sgt Trainer: An Americon Icon!)
"Gun controllers suffered a major defeat in a US Court of Appeals in mid-December when a three-judge panel struck down a federal law that barred persons with a history of mental illness from gun ownership. The 3-0 decision could impact the gun rights of millions of Americans – particularly if the ruling’s logic is applied to other gun restrictions. “The government’s interest in keeping firearms out of the hands of the mentally ill is not sufficiently related to depriving the mentally healthy, who had a distant episode of commitment, of their constitutional rights,” wrote Judge Danny J. Boggs of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit."
"2014 ends with little media attention or criminal prosecutions about corporate violations of laws already on the books. When the ranks of anti-business liberals and radical environmentalists compile their list of the worst offenders, their types of abuses exemplify that the most egregious and reprehensible of company practices do not hit their radar screen. The Global Exchange contends that the top 10 Corporate wrongdoers must behave badly accordingly to a well defined pattern."
"The Obama administration is cramming like a college student trying to study for a final exam, publishing more than 1,200 new regulations in the last 15 days alone, according to data from Regulations.gov. Energy and environment rules are the biggest category, with 139 published by the federal government in the last 15 days, according to Regulations.gov."