Category Archives: Uncategorized

Like Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen misfiring on the potential game-winning two-point try against the Philadelphia Eagles Sunday, I choked.

Specifically, I thought the Steelers could win a game against a very bad Cleveland football team and by so doing, win the AFC North. I said as much right here earlier today.

As I wrote then, I expected an ugly game and was not interested in watching, but the Steelers would win. Well, reports indicate it was ugly. But the Steelers didn’t win.

All I know is, I got around to checking for the final score in the evening, while my wife and I were visiting the granddaughters and before taking them downtown to look at the massive, musical Christmas tree, dislocated from Central Park, which now is pretty much a frozen mud hole, and relocated to PNG Park.

Imagine my surprise when I saw the Steelers had ended up on the short end of a 13-6 final. I guess that’s why I heard the yelp of so many kicked dogs while driving late Sunday afternoon.

For God’s sake, if one team in a Browns game is going to score just six points, it’s almost a given it will be the Browns.

Even the hapless Las Vegas Raiders, leading the pack to get the top pick in next year’s draft, the booby prize awarded to the worst NFL team, got 10 on the Browns in a 24-10 loss earlier this season.

That would be the 4-12 Browns, the NFL’s epitome of everlasting losing.

To say the Steelers failed miserably in the clutch is the same as saying Cackling Kamala slightly mishandled her $1.5 billion-plus war chest.

Unlike the cackling one, the Steelers get a second chance, this coming weekend against Baltimore. I will ponder that at a future date.

Meanwhile, my thoughts Sunday evening were in the Far East, with precious metals trading opening at 6 p.m. our time.

Owing to the way silver, and to a lesser extent, gold, had skyrocketed last week, there was great excitement surrounding the Sunday night Asian open, which is Monday morning there. I found numerous YouTube types doing live broadcasts of it all and tuned in to follow along, after getting back from the tree and losing a Monster Card game to granddaughter No. 3.

Silver ripped from the gate and got as high as $84 an ounce in the spot market before the actors behind the scenes hit the silver and gold prices, buoyed by word that the COMEX (called the CrimeEx by critics) would be raising margin rates yet again Monday a move designed to tamp down prices by raising the cost of holding positions for those using leverage.

Silver got beaten down to a tad over $75, but has rebounded and now trades at 80.60, down $3 and change from the high earlier tonight, but still up $1.33 from the Friday close.

This is why the Steelers’ collapse hasn’t darkened my mood.

I learned long ago, while still working as a sports writer, that there were bigger, more interesting and potentially more lucrative avocations than following sports.

The Steelers lost, but silver just might continue to win. I’ll accept that tradeoff.

We’re running our own-two-minute drill here, rushing to get this written and posted before the Steelers-Browns game kicks off in less than an hour.

But first, a little anecdote. When I covered the Steelers for the local Woke Gazette, I flew on the team’s charter flights to road games – except Cleveland. The Steelers rode buses to the Cleveland games then and I preferred to drive myself. Otherwise, I flew with the team.

On one return flight from San Diego, whose airport had and likely still has a curfew due to the city having grown up around it, we throttled up and raced down the runway toward takeoff, only to throttle down and return to the gate.

A lift truck was dispatched to position a mechanic who, I swear, seemed to be looking at an engine with a flashlight.

It was a flight from the now defunct Pan Am airline, which went out of business in 1991. The flight attendants explained that a warning light had lit and the pilots had decided it likely was nothing, but . . .

And so, the mechanics were rushing to make a final determination as the clock ticked until takeoffs no longer were allowed.

Quipped Steelers radio broacaster Myron Cope at the time: “They’re running a two-minute drill with my life and I don’t like it.”

The final decision was made there likely was no problem, albeit after curfew. The Steelers gave the order to go, regardless, and they’d pay the fine.

The fact that I’m writing this indicates the flight was uneventful.

Now, to the matter of Cleveland. It’s raining here, but it could be worse. I could be in Cleveland. Past visits produced a lot of miserable experiences, including a car tire flattened – likely intentionally due to my Pennsylvania license plate – in the media parking lot. There also was a lost raincoat, hairy travel and some pretty uninteresting games to chronicle.

Today’s game has it all there for the Steelers, playing yet another certifiable putrid Browns team. There is growing sentiment to pick the Browns at least to cover a point spread that has oscillated between 4.5 points and three.

Maybe, but the big thing for the Steelers is they wrap up the division with a win and spare themselves a must-win game next week vs. Baltimore.

In a way, this game epitomizes the lowly state of the AFC North, where only the Steelers at 9-6 have a winning record.

If you’ve been with us from before the season, you might recall that I anticipated a soft overall schedule and a weak division would conspire to give the Steelers playoff life, a postseason life that would end in typically early fashion for them.

It’s too late to change horses now. The Steelers will win, despite the absence of wide-receiver DeKaylin Zecharius Metcalf, despite their ancient quarterback, despite the race toward sack history of Cleveland’s Myles Garrett.

It likely will be ugly and I won’t be watching, but now I’m on the record and it’s 12:42 p.m. as I type this final word, 12:47 as I hit the publish button.

Today, we’re revisiting the lyrics to this Christmas standard.

We three kings of orient are,

Better that we’d driven a car.

But instead,

It’s camels we’re riding,

Leaving us still afar

Oh, camels are such smelly beasts,

Offering comforts in the least.

Biting, spitting, often sitting,

Making our woes increase.

This trek it has gotten so long,

Leaving us to make up this song.

Singing, humming,

Rum, tum, tumming,

Where have we all gone wrong?

Oh, camels are such smelly beasts,

Offering comforts in the least.

Biting, spitting, often sitting,

Making our woes increase.

Still we’re bound to honor the king,

Packing gifts and assorted bling.

There’s no wrapping,

Only our yapping,

Listen to us all sing.

Oh, camels are such smelly beasts.

Offering comforts in the least.

Biting, spitting, often sitting,

Making our woes increase.

Finally the end is in sight

Any luck we’ll be there by night.

Food and toys,

Assorted joys,

As we bask in the light.

Oh, camels are such smelly beasts.

Offering comforts in the least.

Biting, spitting, often sitting,

Making our woes increase.

‘Twas the night after Christmas, and all through the nation,

The peeps they were crying ’bout too much inflation.

The presents were opened, the bills not yet due,

So why were the peeps all feeling so blue?

The fears that were nestled so deep in their heads,

Had been put there by leftists who peddle such dread.

They’d gotten to mamas and papas and more,

Making the lot of them think they were poor.

To cut through it all came a Trumpian clatter,

The great man was noting it’s truth that does matter.

He posted this truth on his social creation,

Telling us all this still’s a great nation.

The prospect of tax cuts and other rewards,

Would push back the gloom in all of our wards.

His message was strong, a clarion call,

Uplifting the mood and the purse of us all.

He arrived in the beast, it was drawn by a crew,

And he shouted their names till their ears turned quite blue.

Now, Hakeem! Now, Nancy! Now, Schiff and Swalwell!

On, Jazzy and AOC, just all go to hell!

To the far, far left, let you socialists go,

And bury your heads quite deep in the snow.

And I heard the bells ring with deafening clanks,

To note that tax refunds had arrived in the banks.

Trump’s eyes, how they twinkled at the sound of the money,

And he brushed back his hair, ’twas the color of honey.

Trump spoke of the cash with little timidity,

He was talking his language of increased liquidity.

His suit was quite dark and his tie it was cherry,

He was an odd sight, this cash-giving fairy.

But we all knew there was nothing to fear,

It truly would be a happy new year.

His work now completed, Trump readied to go,

Leaving behind all that stimulus dough.

They sprang up from nowhere, his security team,

And spirited him off; it was just like a dream.

But I heard him exclaim, ere he whisked out of sight,

MAGA Christmas to all, not just those on the right.

Christmas Day is in the homestretch and it looks like I somehow will survive without watching any sporting events.

Imagine that. Instead, I spent time with the extended family, and now that they all have returned to their respective homes, I’m DVRing a Christmas movie, monitoring the upward explosion of gold and silver prices in Asia trading, contemplating plans for Friday before the ice storm hits, and writing this.

The NFL made it easy to decide not to watch, exiling their three Christmas Day offerings to Netflix and Amazon Prime in the league’s never-ending quest to wring yet more money from media outlets. No big deal, I’ve read, because “everybody” has Netflix and Prime.

I don’t have either, and I’m certainly not going to sign up just to watch three irrelevant football games. Really, people are expected to pay up to watch not one, not two, but three matchups in which five of the six teams won’t be making the playoffs?

They ought to be paying us to watch the games, and even then I’d not be a taker. It was more fun helping the two granddaughters explore their slime presents today, or watching them learn how to write cursive with instruction from my wife.

Interesting note: Cursive writing no longer is widely taught and I read that an effective code these days to prevent younger folks from catching on to a message is simply to write it in cursive. It’s akin to the foolproof way to prevent car theft by millennials and younger – drive a manual transmission car, which they cannot do.

The NBA’s “Dunk the Halls” marathon of Christmas games was available on regular and cable outlets. Still, I’m not a taker.

I recall back in the days when I wrote for the Local Woke Gazette and the Christmas Day NBA was just being tested. Some hack glandular case who played for the New York Knicks was whining about playing on the holiday and I noted a lot of regular folk – me included – often worked on Christmas and other holidays, and for a lot less money.

Somehow the guy read it and ripped me on one of those daytime talk shows afterward. If only I could have been there to respond.

I’m the first to admit to enjoying holiday time with the family. I’m also aware that there are many who have to work holidays, ranging from police, military and healthcare workers, down through newspaper types. Remember, your morning newspaper is put out the night before, so if you want a product the day after Christmas, people work Christmas day or night to make it happen.

Add in that sporting events often are played on holidays. If you are covering a team, you are working those holidays. Even if there is no game, frequently you are on the road in anticipation of the games, or returning home from same.

This is not a complaint, merely a statement of facts. If you want to work Monday-Friday daylight hours, get a job as a bank teller.

Too bad Steelers wide receiver DeKaylin Zecharius Metcalf wasn’t playing on Christmas Day and going after a fan who had the temerity to call him by his legal name.

Also, too bad we didn’t have yet another meaningless bowl game that devolved into an end-of-game brawl to spice up the holiday.

Increasingly, I’m finding sporting events carry too much baggage to make them able to hold my interest.

That goes doubly so on holidays.

Merry Christmas!

LameStream media has been taking great pains to paint this as a bleak Christmas in terms of consumer sentiment.

Left-wing politicians have joined right in, or maybe I’ve got the order reversed and it is those types who have issued the marching orders to the Democratic house organs that are the LameStream mouthpieces as part of their “affordability” political gameplan.

Regardless of the order, Elizabeth Pocahontas Warren was lamenting it takes more wampum to buy Christmas gifts this year.

Factually, she is correct, but . . .

Where was Pocahontas when Big Chief Clueless Joe was presiding over 9 percent annual inflation? The current inflation rate is in the mid 2-percent range. So, while, in theory, things cost 2.7 percent more this year than last Christmas, they cost 9 percent more, year over year, during the height of Biden’s inflation, and about 20 percent total more over the course of his four years playing president.

You didn’t hear Democrats or the LameStream media whining about that affordability crisis, did you?

Oh, how they cherry pick items. They noted Trump had not gotten egg prices down during his first month or so in the White House. Then, when egg prices declined, they moved on to other items.

Perhaps you have noticed gasoline prices are down? They’d be down much more if Pennsylvania didn’t have one of the most punitive gas taxes in the nation.

I saw one clueless type, ironically while out shopping, with a car window sticker proclaiming how tariffs cost all of us, somehow neglecting to observe that a lot of tariffs are being eaten by the companies in the interest of selling as much product as possible.

But wait, there’s more. Wages are up, on average 4 percent, which is more than the rate of inflation. The economy is growing at more than a 4-percent rate over the past summer and nearly that the past spring.

Add to that the reality of a lot of people who pay taxes being on the cusp of collecting larger tax returns because of Trump’s tax-cutting, including, but not limited to, no tax on tips or overtime, lower tax rates in general and higher deductions.

Because the typical worker didn’t adjust tax withholding to account for such changes during 2025, these people are going to get more of their money back than they might have anticipated in a couple of months.

Even now, I can report from first-hand observation that there was a lot of Christmas spending taking place, even in depressed Greater Johnstown. Richland shopping outlets were packed, both the stores and the parking lots, on several recent shopping trips by me and the wife.

Carts in said stores were brimming with items and the checkout lines were long.

If people are feeling depressed financially, they have a funny way of showing it.

I can tell you I spent more of what Warren would call wampum this Christmas shopping season. I’m retired, so the tax cuts only benefit me in passing, specifically Trump’s $12,000 increase in the deduction for retirees. That’s nice, but my financial happiness has more to do with the prices of gold and silver running away to all-time highs, at long last living up to my long-held predictions.

Also, allow me to note, although I have six vehicles in my fleet, I own them all outright. No leasing for me so as to drive a higher end car than I can afford.

I also don’t indulge in $7 cups of coffee, or trips to Bermuda, Florida, or Hawaii. I don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loans I’m ignoring, massive credit card debt, or a crushing mortgage for a McMansion on an acre or more of land.

I do now what I have done most of my adult life, and that is to consume wisely, hoping to leave a bit of a financial legacy for my son and my granddaughters.

If others have lived beyond their means, spending now on instant gratification and planning on paying later, they need to look in the mirror for the source of their plight, not at the White House, where the current occupant has done more during his first year in office to make things better for the common taxpayer than the previous tenant did in four inflation-prone years.

That, my friends, is the economic reality, regardless of what you might be hearing.

Of all the affronts Christians must endure as they celebrate Christmas – and there are many – the latest is being vomited by the dolts who conflate ICE actions against illegal immigrants with the story of Mary and Joseph.

These functional illiterates cite religious training from their formative years, apparently superficial and lacking context, to wonder aloud if Joseph and Mary would have been put in zip-tie handcuffs and shipped back home had they been traveling to the United States circa 2025.

One such blathering type, the police chief of Minneapolis, ironically a city rife with immigrant Somali frauds of various stripe, felt moved to pontificate on the matter, citing Mary and Joseph being “forced to stay in a barn!”

I will note for this fellow, who seems to be both uniformed and uninformed, that Mary and Joseph were Jewish. That means were they to fast-forward to current day, they might expect to be slaughtered at a music concert in Israel, or at a beach celebrating a religious holiday in Australia. Why? Because they were Jews.

They would be subject to online hate speech, violent treatment from Free Palestine types with towels wrapped on their heads, or generally chastised and loathed for allegedly being the money behind the scenes in almost all countries. Again, because they were Jews.

Now, if Mary and Joseph had concealed their religion, and were just plain illegals, they could head to any of our self-proclaimed sanctuary cities, where they would be put up in first-class hotels (even as homeless veterans and other legal citizens starve and freeze on the streets outside), given cell phones, preloaded debit cards, and offered advice on how to beat the system and stay here, maybe even registered to vote as Democrats.

Mary, of course, would have free healthcare on the taxpayer dime and Jesus would be a U.S. citizen by virtue of being born here.

What the fools fail to note is a basic fact, that being Mary and Joseph were headed to Bethlehem due to a decree by the ruling Romans. They were not sneaking in; the presence had been demanded.

Here’s where the leftist, “pay-your-fair-share-of-taxes-unless-it-affects-me” types should identify. Joseph was required to register for taxation in Bethlehem and Mary went along, but not because she and her unborn son would provide useful deductions or soon qualify for $1,000 in Trump Saving Account seed money.

If Trump had demanded immigrants flood into this country to register to pay taxes, your analogy would be accurate. Otherwise, shut your pie holes.

And what if it had been widely known thousands of years ago that Mary would give birth to a savior and the religion he inspired?

That would have invited persecution worldwide, too, especially in Muslim countries where the only good Christian is a dead one.

If these would-be Biblical scholars want a more apt comparison to our efforts to repulse illegals, they might look into ancient invasions by Assyrians and Babylonians.

Spoiler alert, neither turned out well for Israel.

Today, with Christmas near, we offer assorted quick hits – from the category of gifts that keep on giving.

ITEM: Fulton County Georgia has admitted that approximately 315,000 uncertified ballots from the early voting operation were illegally accepted for counting in the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump allegedly lost Georgia by under 12,000 votes. And, those of you with good memories might recall a story in December 2023 about 20,713 “ballots” that didn’t exist on voting machines, also in Georgia. But that 2020 election was fair and just. Right. And this is just one state. Similar shenanigans were going on in Michigan, Pennsylvania, etc., etc., etc.

ITEM: Democrats have been pushing for release of Epstein files and photos and, like the dog chasing the car, now that they’ve gotten what they were pursuing, it’s a big disappointment. Instead of these file dumps incriminating President Trump, as even that left-wing PR organ The New York Times has conceded (they provide no evidence of Trump participating in Epstein’s trafficking and abuse of minors), they raise other questions. What the photos do show is a lot of presence around Epstein by Bill Clinton and Bill Gates, among others in the Democrat orbit. But the leftists see nothing wrong with this.

ITEM : The College Football Playoffs for the big guys are underway and already ChokeLahoma has underperformed in typical fashion. This time the school also known as Oklahoma, blew a 17-0 lead – at home – in a loss to Alabama. For those of you keeping track at home, Oklahoma now is 0-5 in these playoff appearances since 2015, mostly embarrassing blowouts. This doesn’t even include the 2004 season, when Southern California eased past ChokeLahoma 55-19 in the Orange Bowl to win the Bowl Championship Series national title. Attention bettors: Going against Oklahoma in a national championship playoff is a lock.

ITEM: Note to the Notre Dame whiners, who lamented that the Fighting Irish deserved to be in the playoffs more than Miami or Alabama. As mentioned above, Alabama went on the road and beat ChokeLahoma in the opening round Friday night. And, Saturday afternoon, Miami won at Texas A&M. That’s Texas A&M, which beat Notre Dame, at Notre Dame this season. And that’s Miami, which beat Notre Dame at Miami earlier this year, and now has beaten the other team that beat Notre Dame this season. Put that in your leprechaun pipe and smoke it.

ITEM: Reports of coaches and athletes fixing games in the pursuit of ill-gotten gambling gains are coming at us in rapid-fire fashion, and with them, increasing speculation that the rash of ridiculously bad plays, coaching calls or officiating decisions are something other than just human error. I find myself watching games in which I have no rooting interesting and wondering aloud about such things I see that just don’t pass the smell test. An NBC poll indicates I am not alone. A full 70 percent believe the rise of gambling damages the integrity of the games and could lead to games being fixed.

ITEM: Rogue leftist Wisconsin judge Hannah Dugan has been convicted of a felony for obstructing federal agents trying to arrest an illegal immigrant outside her courtroom. But, before you celebrate, understand she and her attorney will appeal the conviction and if past is prologue, she will skate just like other leftist scofflaws. Dugan doing significant prison time is as unlikely as ChokeLahoma winning a playoff football game.

Does anyone else find it ironic in the extreme that Rob Reiner, who burst on the scene as “Meathead’ in the 1970s left-wing sitcom “All in the Family” ALLEGEDLY was offed by his own son?

Reiner’s wife also was killed, ALLEGEDLY by the son. Talk about keeping it all in the family.

Further irony, the progressive blowhard Reiner reportedly had his throat cut. We’re talking First Amendment violations.

And that meanie, President Donald Trump, posted on social media he wasn’t exactly broken up by Reiner’s death.

This sent the left wing extremists into fits of outrage, the sort of outrage they didn’t express when beauty-challenged Kathy Griffin posted that picture years back with a bloody severed Trump head.

That Trump would take to social media to express his opinion is fitting, because Reiner haunted social media, trying for parts of two terms to get rid of Trump with unhinged diatribes.

It didn’t end there.

It is Reiner who reportedly helped fund efforts of former intelligence types to take down Trump. When it became clear that Russia, Russia, Russia was fake news, Reiner began to be roasted by Trump supporters on social media.

And what did this democracy-loving, free-speech-kind of guy do? Glad you asked. He posted a measured social media comeback : “Until Trump goes to prison, I will no longer be posting on Twitter. I’ve had it with the insults and putdowns. Fuck all of you MAGA assholes.”

Thank God the Reiner progeny was identified and arrested quickly as the ALLEGED killer. Failing that, we’d be treated to breathless speculating by LameStream media about the typical “white,” “right-wing” perpetrator.

Just like the alleged Brown University killer. Oh, wait, that allegedly was a Portuguese guy, reportedly living here legally but not a citizen of the U.S.

OK, but Charlie Kirk’s killer was a right-wing nut job? No, he was a sexually confused leftist.

Trump’s attempted assassins? Ditto and ditto.

Yeah, but the D.C. pipe bomber suspect, the man who supposedly confessed, he’s white and right-wing. No, despite what CNN’s Jake Tapper said on air about him being white, shortly before airing a picture of the dude, he was and presumably still is, black. Also, it’s unlikely he is right wing.

What about all those mass shooters CNN identified as white even as they ran images that the criminals were not white and, presumably, not right wing?

What about George Zimmerman, he of the Trayvon Martin furor, who LameStream media, desperate to mislead, labeled as a “white Hispanic?”

I find all of this more outrageous than Trump failing to eulogize a man who hated him and tried to ruin him with misinformation.

And for all of you decrying Trump’s social media post on religious grounds, understand that Reiner was a self-described atheist.

‘Nuff said.

It is important to remember when it comes to investments, or sporting prognostications, one is never wrong, but merely sometimes early, or late.

Along that line, I’ve been promoting silver and gold as investments for probably 30 years. At long last, all-time highs are being hit. I was early, yes, but making money eventually still is nice.

When it comes to sporting picks, a few weeks back I liked Pitt at home vs. Miami in a college game. Among the thoughts was Miami was coming north for a cold-weather game late in the season and might not play well.

For a quarter and change, the pick looked good. Then Pitt imploded, or Miami exploded. Regardless, the weather was not as cold as expected, and there was no rain/snow, which helped Miami’s cause.

But, I’m back again, preaching a similar story.

I like the Steelers tonight, giving three points to visiting Miami.

How might this be different than taking Pitt over Miami in a college game a few weeks back?

First, we’re talking night game instead of afternoon, and a temperature expected to be 20 to 30 degrees colder.

I can only imagine what those Dolphins thought, sitting around frigid Pittsburgh yesterday and today, anticipating a huge game in the freezer.

The Steelers play in the stadium formerly known as Heinz Field. At best it has a questionable grass playing surface and very tricky winds.

On this night, the frigid temperatures figure to legislate heavily against a warm-weather team being able to perform well.

Yes, the Steelers have their litany of problems, accentuated by T.J. Watt’s lung woes.

Still, motivation should be sitting on the Steelers bench. The home team needs the win to stay ahead of Baltimore atop the weak AFC North division and thereby slip into the playoffs. Unlike the Kansas City Swifts, the Dolphins still have a playoff pulse, but it is a faint one. They need to win all their remaining games, and get some help. That’s an unlikely parlay.

This is a night when a marginal team such as Miami might be looking for a soft place to recline, admittedly against a similarly marginal team, but one playing at home and with realistic playoff hopes.

Having been proven horribly wrong on that Pitt-Miami college pick, and also whiffing on taking the Steelers over Buffalo the same weekend, I’m bloodied but unbowed.

The Steelers win tonight – I think.