The Bronze Rat
 
A tourist walked into a Chinese curio shop in San Francisco. While looking around at the exotic merchandise, he noticed a very life-like, life-sized, bronze statue of a rat. It had no price tag, but was so incredibly striking that the tourist decided he must have it. He took it to the old shop owner and asked, "How much for the bronze rat?"


"Ahhh, you have chosen wisely! It is $12 for the rat and $100 for the story,” said the wise old Chinaman.


The tourist quickly pulled out twelve dollars. "I'll just take the rat, you can keep the story".


As he walked down the street carrying his bronze rat, the tourist noticed that a few actual rats had crawled out of the alleys and storm drains, and had begun following him down the street. This was a bit disconcerting, so he began walking faster.


A couple of blocks later he looked behind him, and saw to his horror that the herd of rats behind him had grown to hundreds, and they had begun squealing.


Sweating now, the tourist began to trot toward San Francisco Bay .


Again, after a couple of blocks, he looked around only to discover that the rats now numbered in the THOUSANDS, and were squealing and coming toward him faster and
faster.

Terrified, he ran to the edge of the Bay and threw the bronze rat as far as he could into the water.


Amazingly, the thousands of rats all jumped into the Bay after the bronze rat, and were all drowned.


The man walked back to the curio shop in Chinatown .


"Ahhh," said the owner, "You come back for story?"

"No Sir," said the man, "I came back to see if you have a bronze Democrat.”

My explanation is that they were threatened with something akin to Arkanicide.

Ain’t Aviation Great!

- 22 years old: Graduated from college. Go to military flight school. Become hot shot pilot. Get married.

- 25 years old: Have 1st kid. Now hotshot jock getting shot at in war.

- Just want to get back to USA in one piece. Get back to USA as primary flight instructor pilot.

- Get bored. Volunteer for war again.

- 29 years old: Get back from war all tuckered out. Want out of military.

- 30 years old: Join airline. World is your oyster.

- 31 years old: Buy flashy car, house and lots of toys. Get over the military poverty feeling.

- 32 years old: Divorce boring 1st wife. Pay child support and maintenance. Drink lots of booze and screw around while looking for 2nd wife.

- 33 years old: Furloughed from airline. Join military reserve unit and fly for fun.

- Repeat above for a few more years.

- 35 years old: Airline recall. More screwing around but looking forward to a good marriage and settling down.

- 36 years old: Marry young spunky 25 year old flight attendant.

- 37 years old: Buy another house. Gave first one to first wife.

- 38 years old: Give in to second wife to have more kids. Father again. Wife concerned about "risky" military Reserve flying so you resign commission.

- 39 years old: Now a Captain. Hooray! Upgrade house, buy boat, small single engine airplane and even flashier cars.

- 42 years old: 2nd wife runs off with wealthy investment banker but still wants to share house (100%).

- 43 years old: Settle with wife # 2 and resolve to stay away from women forever. Seek a position as a flight check Captain for 10% pay override to pay mounting bills. Move into 1 bedroom apartment with window air conditioners.

- 44 years old: Company resizes and you're returned to copilot status. 25% pay cut. Become simulator instructor for 10% override pay.

- 49 years old: Captain again. Move into 2-bedroom luxury apartment with central air conditioning.

- 50 years old: Meet sexy Danish model on International trip. She loves you and says you are very "beeeeg!"

- 51 years old: Marry sexy Danish model for wife #3. Buy big house, boat, twin engine airplane and upgrade cars.

- 52 years old: Sexy model wants kids (not again). Resolve to get vasectomy.

- 54 years old: Try to talk wife out of kids, but presto, she's pregnant. She says she got sick after taking the pill. Accident, sorry, won't happen again.......

- 55 years old: Father of triplets!

- 56 years old: Wife #3 wants very beeeeg house, beeeegger boat and very flashy cars, "worried" about your private flying and wants you to sell twin engine airplane. You give in. You buy a motorcycle and join motorcycle club.

- 57 years old: Make rash investments to try and have enough money for retirement.

- 59 years old: Lose money on rash investment and get audited by the IRS. Have to fly 100% International night trips just to keep up with child support and alimony to wife #1 and #2.

- 60 years old: Wife #3 (sexy model) says you're too damned old and no fun. She leaves. She takes most of your assets. You're forced to retire due to Age 60 rule. No money left.

- 61 years old: Now Captain on a non-schedule South American 727 freight outfit and living in a non-air conditioned studio apartment directly underneath the final approach to runway 9 at Miami Int'l. You have "interesting" Hispanic neighbors who ask you if you've ever flown DC-3's.

- 65 years old: Fail FAA medical. Take job as simulator instructor. Don't look forward to years of getting up at 2 AM for 3 AM sim in every god-forsaken town you train in due to the fact your carrier can find cheap, off-hours sim time at various Brand X Airlines.

- 70 years old: Hotel alarm clock set by previous FedEx crew member goes off at 1:00 AM. Have heart attack and die with smile on face.

- Happy at last!

- Ain't aviation great?!

Interesting to contemplate:  President Trump declining the nobel prize.

Wouldn’t surprise me at all.

He works for no salary, donating it to charity every year. He also doesn’t seem inclined to hang medals around people’s necks for every little thing, like the Dems seem to relish doing.

Honestly? I think his motive for the sacrifices he is making and the risks, and long hours, is love. He does thrive on challenges, but at his core is a love for people in general, and for America, and Americans.

And for God. We’ve all seen the journey he has made to this point.

https://x.com/ericmetaxas/status/1936748713944248777

The left can say anything is a high crime. Trump removed the tag from his mattress. 

I thought Peter said not an impeachable offense. Am I missing something?

My thought is he has NOT committed an impeachable offense.

I have not read enough about AOCs comment to know what she thinks it was. I don’t really care much what comes out of her mouth. I have an older MeWe contact that said the initials stood for “Alexandria Occasional Cortex”.

But the point that the language is vague is well taken. Essentially they can impeach anyone they want if they can get enough votes. But that is quite hard to do.

The whole point of the book “Three felonies a day” is that there are enough felonies on the books now to nail just about anyone, if the prosecutor is so motivated.

Glad I got some sleep before reading this. Of course, we have no real way of knowing anything.

https://voxday.net/2025/06/22/team-trump-and-bibi/

Iran state radio wouldn’t lie.

Seriously, at this point it is he said she said. We have no way of knowing for sure. I certainly hope Trump wouldn’t tell us “have been completely destroyed” without being pretty certain.

.