I was on the way to the office this morning and for some reason noticed the use of car horns in today’s world.

The original need for horns is still pretty vague to me, except to get someone’s attention as i drove by in my ‘horseless carriage’. Still think you could have just yelled at the person so they could see how cool you were in your new vehicle.

i found out early, that sitting in front of your date’s house and using the horn to call them out wasn’t very smart. That continued to married life.

i really can’t think of a time that i needed my horn, except for some aggressive action. The dumb-ass in front of you doing their Facebook, sending emails, reading emails and then accelerating just in time for me to miss the light!

I’ve noted over the years that there are two kinds of honks; the little ‘toot – toot’ to get someone’s attention and the ‘HOOOOOOOONK!!!!!!!!’, which is significantly more of an aggressive act.

You know it when you hear it.

While I’m not an expert on the matter, my observation of the issue suggests to me that a great deal of road-rage incidents might be solved by taking the horns out of cars.

Seventy-five years ago, The United States was drawn into WW2 with a wanton attack of the Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor, on Oahu Island, Hawaii.

The entry of the United States in the war ensured the eventual decisive victory of the Allies over the Axis powers during the war.

May we long remember and pay homage to the more than, 2300 soldiers and sailors killed at the attack and the more than 480,000 casualties during the resulting war.

These heroes kept America safe.

Irony – “a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result.”

On this date 154 years ago, in a battle of the Civil War, the Union forces held off an attack by the Confederate forces to secure parts of Missouri and Arkansas for the United States, in the battle of Prairie Grove, Arkansas. This battle, along with other notables, ensured the United States would stay whole.

This culminated with the defeat of the Confederacy, keeping the Confederate States in the United States.

The irony to me, is that as California and other states talk secession, maybe all the original Confederate states simply stay put, bide their time and watch their coastal brothers leave the Union.

Ultimately, wouldn’t that be the same as if they had won the Civil war and left? All that without firing a single shot!

A good friend of mine called me this morning to whine about U of H losing another head coach, this time to the University of Texas. Let’s see, that makes Baylor, Texas A & M and now UT.

Now my friend, William Bradleigh McKinney, better known as Billy Mac, not to be confused with the “detective down in Texas”, and I have known each other for a good many years.

We both went to UT years ago, both playing some sports while we were there. When we graduated, I went over the pond to Oxford for what Billy Mac laughingly calls the “Roads Scholarship”.

He did graduate work at the University of Houston, so has some identification with both schools. Actually, he has mixed feelings about both of them when they play each other.

Well, he called up bellyaching about losing the current UH head coach to Texas. Said there wasn’t anything money couldn’t buy. While I guess he’s right, I hope he helps UT do better.

I do kinda feel a little bad that UH has lost three of its last coaches to bigger (and wealthier) schools.

Well, here’s the electoral college vote for the United States as of today.

Which of the states do you think would like to have a popular vote for the Presidency?

Right, the blue ones; the ones that lost via Electoral College.

The Electoral College was put in place by the Constitution of the United States on September 17, 1787. It was then amended by the 12th Amendment, which basically ensured that the President and Vice President were from the same party.

The original purpose was to ensure that the less populous states were not run over by the more populous (i.e. New York, California, etc.)

It has served us well, giving an ear to all the people, not just the coastal states, which today trend to the liberal side of the chart.

Watching the results from the Presidential election and the following firestorm days following, I saw a guy from California advocating seceding from the Union.

I was really shocked, since we fought a fairly ugly war over that very issue in the mid 1800’s. Someone from such a liberal state calling for secession was a bit surprising.

But on second thought…

A glance at the electoral map shows blue on either side of the continent and a great red swath in the center, running from the south to the northern border, except of course, Minnesota. Someone please explain Minnesota to me.

Just a thought, though. Texas might get the better of the deal if we sold oil and gas to California and bought motion pictures from them.

Hell, I can go several days without watching a major motion picture, but my car requires gasoline almost daily. And a couple of gallons of gas cost as much as the ticket to a movie.

I personally would vote for their secession.

I’ve been watching the goings-on around the country with the protests against a duly-elected President, and have been trying to remember the last time i went out and burned, looted and destroyed property.

As best as I can remember, the last time was never!

Now skipping school for a “legitimate protest” is a different issue. I can remember a time where I skipped school for no real reason. I just needed a day off.

School was so hard! And I was so scared!

And they didn’t serve latte. Or scotch.

There’s a lot of noise out there for a popular vote outcome to determine the Presidential race, particularly from those folks who lost the Electoral College and seem to want the gigantic population areas of the East and West Coast to bulldoze the smaller states of the Union.

Well, let’s see.

The votes for President were cast on Tuesday, November 8, 2016, ten days ago.

Still, the votes from Michigan are still only unofficial. The counties have until November 22 to certify their results and a state Board has until November 28 to make the vote official.

Wouldn’t it be great if all the states were still out and we were counting minuscule numbers of votes to determine the winner?

Looking at several sources, it seems to be conventional wisdom that there are about 300,000 precincts in the United States.

Since all the hoopla is about the difference in about 947,000 votes, if there were only 4 Trump votes miscounted, not counted or considered to be questionable, the winner of the Electoral College would also have the popular vote advantage.

Any chance you think that your precinct could screw up 4 votes in their total?

Do you really think this is where we need to go?

“Go out there and win an election., elections have consequences.” (“I won, you lost. Get over it!”) – President Obama, January 2009.

Well, it seems that elections, including surprising victories, do have consequences, except unless the other side wins.

Significant chatter from the losers of the election about what the winners want to accomplish, who the winner wants on his team and how they do plan on meeting their promises during the campaign are being reported daily.

“Do it our way”, “compromise our way” and unify our way, or you are a xenophobe, racist, sexist, bigot and homophobe.

Does it ever end?

Definition of Compromise – “an agreement or a settlement of a dispute that is reached by each side making concessions”

Unity – “the state of being united or joined as a whole.”

Now that the election is somewhat behind us, the calls for compromise and unity between the Democrats and Republicans have begun.

Please re-read the definition of compromise above. Compromise does not mean one side coming to the other, it means each side making concessions.

As the calls begin, remember that being true to your beliefs and to the reasons you were elected, giving up only small bits is real compromise, get something in return! Totally ceding your beliefs to accept the arguments of the other side is not compromise, it can only be named “total surrender”.

I’m not sure, but I’m pretty sure that these calls are for the Republicans to come to their sense and do what the Democrats want. If they don’t, I’m also sure that means that the Reps. are “obstructionists”