Entering 2023 Quotes

They came to us and grabbed my friend's bag, and one of them started beating him on the head with a stick. That friend punched the guy who grabbed him, and together, we started running toward that dry creek. We ran for our lives. Those guys, who were Gaza citizens, entered through breaches in the fence and apparently came to rob us or kidnap us.

Redrum by Stewart Stafford A Winter's tale of horrors profound, The haunted hotel's dark tapestry, Supreme isolation's moonscape snowbound, A father gripped by homicidal history. He sought to write, heal, absolve sins, Overlooked the hotel’s Redrum plans, Vomiting up daymares of phantom twins, His mind possessed by unseen hands. Room Two Three Seven, malevolent, Forbidden to enter its dark hole, Where ageless ladies bathed decadent, Luring caretakers to an adulterer's role. His wife and son sensed the danger, A bloody elevator with nowhere to run, A father's warpath with axe and anger, He became the monster, the devil's son. It might horrify 42 ways from Sunday, Only his shining son grasped the fact, May as well be across the galaxy, As in a labyrinth with that maniac. He failed to kill, he froze, met his fate, The hotel consumed his spirit as its own, Purgatorial torture in damnation's bait, He smiled in the photo, eternally alone. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.

prerelease: Snuggie Bobo grew up in the rural Midwest, but soon became enticed with running the streets of the hood. It became an area to be conquered by all means necessary! This, of course, led to a long stay in ‘upstate’ maximum security correctional college nicknamed ‘Gladiator School’. It was the school of hard knocks where men left better criminals than they entered. In the process of trying to omit the truth of the past years’ regrets, Snuggie became educated, going as far as obtaining a PhD with the hopes to rejoin society. Unfortunately, society tends to look down upon street hoods and ex-felons! Now, Snuggie lives in Chicagoland spinning tales based on this lived history to bring the reader into his world. Sean Jr. was one of the people in this world. He was a gay brother, who lost his father to crack. His father was dealing with their family problem. Sean’s mother abused him due to his forbidden illness: lusting for men. Snuggie knew Sean since he was knee-high to a grasshopper and years later took him in. He was his mentor. These are tales out of Sean and Snuggie’s life. © Snuggie Bobo 2023

Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.

The remedy is ineffective until the medicine enters the stomach. Nothing is obtained until the Divine Word enters the heart.

Ebay is still the number one site for individuals and small businesses to sell their items to people worldwide. While it is much larger than it was initially, at its core, Ebay still functions like the world’s largest flea market with items of every type and at every price point available. Ebay continues to expand and improve, giving sellers like me confidence that they will be around for years to come. With nearly two hundred million registered Ebay users, there are still plenty of opportunities to make money on Ebay. But why sell your items on Ebay instead of a garage sale or consignment shop? Hands down, you will get the most money for your items on Ebay versus selling them locally. As I mentioned earlier, there are nearly 200 million registered Ebay users, meaning there are 200 million more chances to sell your items. Let’s say you have a rare collectible to sell. While only a handful of people will come to your garage sale or enter your local consignment shop, on Ebay, your item is available for purchase to the millions of Ebay account holders worldwide. You only need to wait for that one

When God's light enters your heart, the particles from the light of God, God's attributes, become part of your character.

When you enter the New Year with longing for the old year, you break the heart of the New Year and you ethically forfeit the right to ask for new things that the New Year can give you!

Kirkus Review: Carroll Engelhardt, By the Sweat of His Brow: The R. M. Probstfield Family at Oakport Farm (FriesenPress January 5, 2023) “Engelhardt recounts a German family’s experience living in Minnesota’s Red River Valley in the late 19th century. In 1832, Randolph Michael Probstfield was born near Koblenz in the Prussian-controlled Rhineland in western Germany, the son of devoutly Catholic parents who encouraged him to enter the priesthood and were bitterly disappointed when he did not (Probstfield observed, “If I had promised to be a priest and kept my word, today I would be . . . a feted-up, high-living hypocrite in the so-called vineyard of the Lord, and not a farmer . . . earning his bread by the sweat of his brow”). Like many other Germans before him in search of a better life, he emigrated to the United States in 1852, traveled extensively, and worked a dizzying array of jobs before he finally settled in Minnesota in 1860, a time when Germans were the state’s dominant immigrant group. In an effort to assimilate, he altered the spelling of his last name, which was originally Probstfeld. For the rest of his life he would maintain a delicate balance between his enthusiastic loyalty to the United States and pride in his German ancestry. Eventually, Probstfield’s indefatigable work ethic paid off, and he bought Oakport Farm in the Red River Valley in the 1868. He would eventually purchase thousands of acres of land and enjoy the prosperity that came with a great agricultural boom at the end of the 19th century, a period depicted with a scrupulous exactitude by the author. Engelhardt delivers much more than a family history—his book is a granular account of frontier life in America, a life of punishing toil that also held the promise of wealth and freedom. Probstfield emerges as a fascinating patriarch of his family (he married Catherine Goodman, with whom he had 13 children); a rugged, secular individualist, he held progressive political and cultural views, including a great attraction to socialism. He was exceedingly active in local political life, a contentious milieu diligently reconstructed by the author. His extraordinary rigor can be a bit overwhelming—there are minutely detailed discussions of Oakport’s small-grain production, Probstfield’s horticultural experiments, and various meat-preservation methods. However, for the reader looking for a finely detailed treatment of this period in American history, this is an edifying study. A magisterially researched work in American History.

Time's Magpies by Stewart Stafford Time’s magpies swoop to taunt and rob, And pluck out hair and gums carefree. Opportunity and energy drained by mob, As we duel pitiless reality. The cat’s jowls swelled in uproar, His gut sags and snarls with pain. Feathery barbs of a matador, Feline fleeing to copse again. A younger cat enters the fight, Ousting the aged tom. Crown prince routs thieving flight, A proud lion of dawn's sun. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.

The two points are only about two kilometers apart and there is no need to enter any tunnels. Even in 2023, more than ten years since this incident, the cab ride would cost about 6,000 won on an ordinary taxi during the daytime.

Blood & Sand by Stewart Stafford Enduring to be burned, bound, beaten, And to die by the sword if necessary; Verus and Priscus entered the arena, To stain Colosseum sand with blood. Emperor Titus drained Nero's lake, Built the vast Flavian Amphitheatre, Panacea to the idle citizens of Rome, Symbol of his beneficence and might. Priscus, far from his Germanian home, Fighting within a symbol of Rome's power, Which ravaged his life and fatherland, For them to decide if he is free or dies. Verus, the hulking, bullish Murmillo; Trained to deliver heavy punishment, Priscus - lightly-armed, agile Thracian; Primed to avoid his rival's huge blows. Titus showed he was Nero's antithesis; No hoarding of tracts of primo Roma, In a profligate orgy of narcissistic pride, Nor taking his own life to escape execution. Domitian, the brother of Titus, watched in envy, The emperor-in-waiting who favoured Verus, And the direct Murmillo style of fighting, Titus favoured Thracian counter-punching. Aware of the patriarchal fraternity's preferences, The gathering looked on in fascinated awe, As their champions of champions clashed, Deciding who was the greatest gladiator of all. Titus had stated there would be no draw; One would win, and one would perish, A rudis freedom staff the survivor's trophy, Out the Porta Sanavivaria - the Gate of Life. One well aware of the other, combat began, Scared eyes locked behind helmeted grilles, Grunts and sweat behind shield and steel, Roars and gasps of the clustered chorus. For hour after hour, they attacked and feinted, Using all their power, skill and technique, Nothing could keep them from a stalemate; The warriors watered and slightly rested. The search for the coup de grâce went on, Until both men fell, in dusty exhaustion, Each raised a finger, in joint submission, Equals on death's stage yielded in unison. Titus faced a dilemma; mercy or consistency? Please the crowd, but make them aware, Of his Damoclean life-and-death sword, Over every Roman and slave in the empire. Titus cleaved the Rudis into a dual solution; Unable to beat the other, both won and lived, Limping, scarred heroes of baying masses, None had ever seen a myth form before them. It was Romulus fighting Remus in extremis, Herculean labours of a sticky, lethal afternoon, In the end, nothing could separate these brothers; Victors united as Castor and Pollux in Gemini. For life and limb on Rome's vast stage, Symbiotic compensation of adulation's rage. Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved

During the trip to the NATO base, Agnew noticed something that made him wary. “I observed four F84F aircraft . . . sitting on the end of a runway, each was carrying two MK 7 [nuclear] gravity bombs,” he wrote in a document declassified in 2023. What this meant was that “custody of the MK 7s was under the watchful eye of one very young U.S. Army private armed with a M1 rifle with 8 rounds of ammunition.” Agnew told his colleagues: “The only safeguard against unauthorized use of an atomic bomb was this single G.I. surrounded by a large number of foreign troops on foreign territory with thousands of Soviet troops just miles away.” Back in the United States, Agnew contacted a project engineer at Sandia Laboratories named Don Cotter and asked “if we could insert an electronic ‘lock’ in the [bomb’s] firing circuit that could prevent just any passerby from arming the MK 7.” Cotter got to work. He put together a demonstration of a device, a lock and coded switch, that functioned as follows: “[a] 3-digit code would be entered, a switch was thrown, the green light extinguished, and the red light illuminated indicating the arming circuit was live.

The Economics of Property-Casualty Insurance With the acquisition of General Re — and with GEICO’s business mushrooming — it becomes more important than ever that you understand how to evaluate an insurance company. The key determinants are: (1) the amount of float that the business generates; (2) its cost; and (3) most important of all, the long-term outlook for both of these factors. To begin with, float is money we hold but don't own. In an insurance operation, float arises because premiums are received before losses are paid, an interval that sometimes extends over many years. During that time, the insurer invests the money. Typically, this pleasant activity carries with it a downside: The premiums that an insurer takes in usually do not cover the losses and expenses it eventually must pay. That leaves it running an "underwriting loss," which is the cost of float. An insurance business has value if its cost of float over time is less than the cost the company would otherwise incur to obtain funds. But the business is a lemon if its cost of float is higher than market rates for money. A caution is appropriate here: Because loss costs must be estimated, insurers have enormous latitude in figuring their underwriting results, and that makes it very difficult for investors to calculate a company's true cost of float. Errors of estimation, usually innocent but sometimes not, can be huge. The consequences of these miscalculations flow directly into earnings. An experienced observer can usually detect large-scale errors in reserving, but the general public can typically do no more than accept what's presented, and at times I have been amazed by the numbers that big-name auditors have implicitly blessed. As for Berkshire, Charlie and I attempt to be conservative in presenting its underwriting results to you, because we have found that virtually all surprises in insurance are unpleasant ones. The table that follows shows the float generated by Berkshire’s insurance operations since we entered the business 32 years ago. The data are for every fifth year and also the last, which includes General Re’s huge float. For the table we have calculated our float — which we generate in large amounts relative to our premium volume — by adding net loss reserves, loss adjustment reserves, funds held under reinsurance assumed and unearned premium reserves, and then subtracting agents balances, prepaid acquisition costs, prepaid taxes and deferred charges applicable to assumed reinsurance. (Got that?)

Since I entered the business world, conglomerates have enjoyed several periods of extreme popularity, the silliest of which occurred in the late 1960s. The drill for conglomerate CEOs then was simple: By personality, promotion or dubious accounting — and often by all three — these managers drove a fledgling conglomerate’s stock to, say, 20 times earnings and then issued shares as fast as possible to acquire another business selling at ten-or-so times earnings. They immediately applied “pooling” accounting to the acquisition, which — with not a dime’s worth of change in the underlying businesses — automatically increased per-share earnings, and used the rise as proof of managerial genius. They next explained to investors that this sort of talent justified the maintenance, or even the enhancement, of the acquirer’s p/e multiple. And, finally, they promised to endlessly repeat this procedure and thereby create ever-increasing per-share earnings.

As such, it is in my humble opinion as an astrologer that Donald Trump will not be impeached as long as Saturn is in Capricorn. However, as Saturn enters his 7th House in Aquarius in December 2020 up until March 2023, he will experience a major obstacle that may compel him to readjust his Goal. As such, it can present itself as possible difficulties if he tries for re-election, forcing him to modify his strategy and rethink his moves. Or, it could have something to do with marriage troubles (the 7th House is concerned with relationships, after all). But it would be a temporary hurdle. All’s well for him as he is still in the steady climb state until 2028, when Saturn enters his 10th House and halts his progress, so he can still get re-elected either in 2020 or 2024 should he retain his Goal of becoming President.

Then we entered the house," he continued his testimony, "and we simply saw a human body standing. His head was slumped, and the body was pinned to the door frame. We didn't understand what we were seeing at all. Then, we noticed a nail gun on the floor, which apparently belonged to that resident. The terrorists nailed him to the door frame. Yes, they nailed him to the door frame.