ETYMOLOGY OF WORDS AND PHRASES, PART 11

Education, Entertainment, History, Scientific 6 Minutes

Murphy’s Law

If anything can go wrong, it will. This expression appears to have originated in the mid-1900’s in the U.S. Air Force. According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle of March 16, 1978 (cited in the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang), during some testing at Edwards Air Force Base in 1949, Captain Ed Murphy, an engineer, was frustrated with a malfunctioning part and said about the technician responsible, “If there is any to do things wrong, he will.” Within weeks his statement was referred to as “Murphy’s Law,” and by about 1960, it had entered the civilian vocabulary and was attached to just about any mistake or mishap. In succeeding decades, it became a cliche.

If the shoe fits, wear it!

If something applies to you, accept it. This expression is a version of an older term, if the cap fits, put it on, which originally meant a fool’s cap and dates from the early 18th century. This version is rarely heard today. It’s replacement by a shoe probably came about owing to the increased popularity of the Cinderella story and, indeed, an early appearance in print, in Clyde Fitch’s play “The Climbers” (1901), states, “If the slipper fits,”

Pennies from heaven

The first time that the expression “Pennies from heaven” came into the public consciousness was on the release of the 1936 film, starring Bing Crosby. It wasn’t coined by the film’s writers though, having been used in print a few years earlier, in Abraham Burstein’s book “Ghetto Messenger,” 1928.

A country mile

The complexity of what a mile actually is, or more to the point was when this phrase was coined, is more confusing than enlightening. Each country that has used a mile as a measurement of distance, has defined it differently from all the others, and most of them have changed the measurement at some point. What may help is a look at some documentary evidence. An early expression in print is in a poem by the Cornish seaman Frederick de Kruger – “The Villager’s Tale,”1829:

“The travelling stage had set me down
Within a mile of yon church-town;
‘T was long indeed, a country mile.
But well I knew each field or style;”

It’s reasonable to assume that the expression originated in the UK. The expression crossed the Atlantic in the 19th century and is still widely used there. Hardly any early 20th century report of a baseball game fail to use the expression when a ball is hit out of the ground. The expression is used in pretty well every English-speaking country and many have their own variants of it. People also speak of a ‘Welsh mile’, ‘a Scottish mile’, ‘Irish’, Dutch’, ‘German’ and so on.

Back to the drawing board

This term has been used since WWII as a jocular acceptance that a design has failed and that a new one is needed. It gained common currency quite quickly and began appearing in US newspapers by 1947, as here in theWalla Walla Union-Bulletin, Washington, December 1947: “Grid injuries for the season now closing suggest anew that nature get back to the drawing board, as the human knee is not only nothing to look at but also a piece of bum engineering.”

A drawing board is, of course, an architect’s or draughtsman’s table, used for the preparation of designs or blueprints. The phrase originated as the caption to a cartoon produced by Peter Arno (Curtis Arnoux Peters, Jr.), for the New Yorker magazine, in 1941. The cartoon shows various military men and ground crew racing toward a crashed plane, and a designer, with a roll of plans under his arm, walking away saying, “Well, back to the old drawing board.”

Know the ropes

The first known use of the expression in print is a figurative one, that is, one where no actual rope is being referred to. It comes in James Skene’s travel mémoire “Italian Journey,” 1802: “I am a stranger and… I beg you to show me how I ought to proceed… You know the ropes and can give me good advice.”

Clearly, ‘know the ropes’ must have been in use in some context where real rope was being used before Skene wrote his diary, but it seems that no one wrote it down. The first printed example of ‘knowing the ropes’ which alludes to a context where actual rope would be present is in Richard H. Dana Jr’s “Two years before the mast,” 1840: “The captain, who had been on the coast before and ‘knew the ropes,’ took the steering oar.”

That clearly has a seafaring connection, although it appears to be using the figurative meaning of the phrase, that is, ‘the captain was knowledgeable’, but without any specific allusion to ropes.

Bag and baggage

The phrase is of military origin. ‘Bag and baggage’ referred to the entire property of an army and that of the soldiers in it. To ‘retire bag and baggage’ meant to beat an honourable retreat, surrendering nothing. These days, to ‘leave bag and baggage’ means just to clear out of a property, leaving nothing behind.

The phrase is ancient enough that the earliest citation isn’t in contemporary English. Rymer’s”Foedera,” 1422, has: “Cum armaturis bonis bogeis, baggagiis”. The earliest reference in English that most would understand is in John Berners’ ‘The firste volum of John Froissart’, 1525: “We haue with vs all our bagges and baggages that we haue wonne by armes.” Shakespeare later used the phrase in “As You Like It,” 1600:

“Let vs make an honorable retreit, though not with bagge and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage.”

Yada-yada

This phrase is a modern-day equivalent of ‘blah, blah, blah’ (which is early 20th century). It is American and emerged during or just after the Second World War. It was preceded by various alternative forms – ‘yatata, yatata’, ‘yaddega, yaddega’ etc. One of the earliest of these is from an advertisement in an August 1948 edition of the Long Beach Independent:

“Yatata … yatata … the talk is all about Chatterbox, Knox’s own little Tomboy Cap with the young, young come-on look!” All of those versions, and including ‘yada yada’, probably took the lead from existing words meaning incessant talk – yatter, jabber, chatter.

Yellow belly

The term ‘yellow-belly’ is an archetypal American term, but began life in England in the late 18th century as a mildly derogatory nick-name. Grose’s “A Provincial Glossary,” with a collection of local proverbs, and popular superstitions, 1787, lists it: “Yellow bellies. This is an appellation given to persons born in the Fens, who, it is jocularly said, have yellow bellies, like their eels.”

The usage wasn’t limited to the Lincolnshire Fens. In the same year,”Knight’s Quarterly Magazine” (London) published an account of life in the the Staffordshire Collieries. It began by describing the region as “a miserable tract of country commencing a few miles beyond Birmingham” and went on to recount a lady’s attempts at guessing the nick-name of a local resident: ‘Lie-a-bed, Cock-eye, Pig-tail and finally Yellow-belly.’

Up shit creek without a paddle

This slang phrase, like most street slang, is difficult to date and determine the origin of precisely. What we can say is that it, or at least the ‘shit creek’ part of it was known in the USA in the 1860s as it appeared in the transcript of the 1868 Annual report of the [US] Secretary of War, in a section that included reports from districts of South Carolina: “Our men have put old [Abraham] Lincoln up shit creek.”

Australia

In Lincoln’s day, as now, ‘shit creek’ wasn’t a real place, just a figurative way of describing somewhere unpleasant; somewhere one wouldn’t want to be. The ‘without a paddle’ ending is just an intensifier, added by later wags for additional effect. This dates from the middle of the 20th century. The American novelist John Dos Passos used the phrase in”Adventures of a Young Man,” 1939:

“They left the store ready to cry from worry. It was dark; they had a hard time finding their way through the woods to the place where they’d left the canoe. The mosquitos ate the hides off them. ‘Well, we’re up shit creek without any paddle’.”

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Army veteran (1976-1979), retired with entirely too much time on my hands

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168 thoughts on “ETYMOLOGY OF WORDS AND PHRASES, PART 11”

  2. This is from 2018 but very instructive vis-a-vis the terrible earthquakes in Turkey….

    “The connection with weather events is the mechanism that is used for pulling the trigger, by the force of ELF waves created by HAARP. Earthquake management was started by Nikola Tesla in the 1890’s, to become the plaything of scientists over time, in which a managed earthquake would be recognized only by its creator. That both hurricanes and earthquakes show parallel increase is a super coincidence indicative of human decision.
    —————-
    There is no question whatsoever that earthquakes can be set off electronically by a HAARP transmitter if the underground or undersea earth structure is ready. Abrupt changes in pattern in the record allow one to observe by mathematical probability some oddities that are otherwise unstated.

    The reader will better understand this with some examples, which I will keep as short as I can. One that is basic is that simply by count, the number of earthquakes worldwide noticeably increased in 1992, not gradually but suddenly, to a level that continues today.
    —————–
    With very few exceptions, the official truth which is not to be disturbed is that only Mother Nature can cause a serious earthquake, a flood, tornado, a hurricane, or, worst of all, a drought. Even if one finds it wise to tell his children that babies are brought by the stork, it is still a fabrication. Geoengineering and weather control were known well before the nations got together in 1977 to approve the Environmental Modification Treaty —not only regarding control of the weather, but specifically modification of the earth, through earthquakes.

    If one believes none of this is factual, what was all the fuss about ENMOD, signed by 76 nations? And why is the respected Secretary of Defense William M. Cohen widely quoted at a counterterrorism conference in 1997, that ”Others are engaging in an eco-type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves. … It’s real, and that’s the reason why we have to intensify our efforts”?

    The USSR and the USA both backed ENMOD during a period of unusual frequency for highly fatal earthquakes during Nixon’s second term, when he found it wise to resign and to let an unelected “vice president,” Gerald Ford, take his place in 1974. Both nations had the capability, and while they were probably the major protagonists, it was a game increasingly available to others. Senator Claiborne Pell had been central to the action but to his expressed regret was unable to prevent the Senate from exempting research and development from the ENMOD prohibitions, preventing only engaging in “military or other hostile use of environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects as the means of destruction, damage or injury to the other party.” Pell’s prediction was that as the machinery and skills were developed under this exception the temptation would be great to ignore the limitations of the treaty.

    The pre-ENMOD statistics of the brief Ford period tempts one to conclude that the major earthquakes in those years were unnatural. Not counting Ford, from 1900 to 2013 earthquakes which caused 5,000 or more fatalities occurred on the average 1.5 times per four-year term of the 18 presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to Barack Obama, most with one, others not more than 2. This is a remarkable regularity. George W. Bush had six qualifying events occurring over eight years, thus averaging 3 per term, exceeding everyone but Ford ratewise. With 7 events and only 2.4 years in office, Ford’s rate for a whole term would be 11.5.

    What this best resembles is a duel between the U.S. and the USSR, one which had statistically quieted after ENMOD took effect on October 5, 1978, with Jimmy Carter in office. In the Carter term, then Reagan, then the senior Bush, a period of 16 years, there were only four earthquakes with 5,000 or more fatalities, the number thus only 1 per presidential term against that 11.5 rate for Ford. The most fatal event of that period was under G.H.W Bush: Iran in 1990, its 50,000 fatalities the highest number for that Muslim nation at least since 1900. (All these coincidences require thought of motivation.)”

    Long but interesting: https://memoryholeblog.org/2018/09/18/stealth-terror-iv-earthquakes-2/

    Liked by 2 people

  4. Chernobyl in Ohio Hypocrisy & DeWine Globalist Corruption

    Tom Renz
    7 min ago

    EXCERPT: “For those of you that did not notice, the world ended in 2015, Al Gore – Oscar Award winner – said in his movie An Inconvenient Truth (which was entirely lies) that we would reach the point of no return on global warming by roughly the end of 2015. The sea levels would rise, the reefs would die, and all would end. He and his leftist buddies pushed for drastic changes to global governance to save us all from this horrible end. Naturally, all of those changes would enrich and empower him and the others promoting the idea, but that was a sacrifice they were willing to make for the good of the planet. It is worth noting that Governor Mike DeWine has long been concerned with the horrors of global warming as well (don’t let his shadey dealings with Ohio energy special interests fool you – he’d sellout on anything for his own interests but you can see the important vote here).

    The climate change crowd has been pushing the “save the planet” narrative for quite some time but only when they make money or gain power from it. The pollution that will be caused by the millions of car batteries and strip mining for lithium doesn’t bother them but the CO2 that every living animal on this planet (including humans) breathes out is apparently an issue even though plants recycle that CO2 into oxygen (that’s why they used to push planting more trees and saving the Amazon). While this hypocrisy is not new, it is now becoming crystal clear and there is no better example of it than the “chemical weapon attack” that was carried out by our corrupt EPA/DoT officials with Governor DeWine in East Palestine, Ohio earlier this month.

    Let me begin by explaining how the intentional burning of around a million pounds of a toxic chemical happened. Lighting these on fire was an egregious violation of numerous environmental and public health laws and could not have been done without authorization from someone with substantial authority. The EPA exists on both federal and state levels. The funding for the states is often from the feds and comes with strings attached that force the states to promote certain federal initiatives if they want the funding (which they usually do). This makes the lines between state and federal authority pretty blurry but is a common tactic our federal government uses to control the states. Further, there are numerous variations between state and federal requirements on any given regulation with many states frequently adopting more stringent environmental requirements than the feds so the bottom line is that environmental regulation and responsibility is a mess. That said, the state typically has a lot of control over environmental issues.

    In this instance there are numerous reports that DeWine himself authorized the burn-off of the spilt chemicals, thus causing one of the greatest environmental disasters in history. First, let’s be clear, DeWine and all others involved knew the disaster burning these chemicals would cause. Vinyl Chloride is a very dangerous substance and burning it – especially this amount – was inarguably something they would have been aware would cause critical health and environmental issues. Here is a nice snapshot of what has long been known and acknowledged by the EPA about this chemical.”

    https://tomrenz.substack.com/p/chernobyl-in-ohio-hypocrisy-and-dewine

    Liked by 1 person

    1. So DeWine and his advisors knew this was going to cause a disaster, but did they order the burn. In this article, DeWine was was quoted as saying, “We looked at the danger of a controlled release which is what the railroad company felt should be done. We then went ahead with the second option, which was the controlled release.” So DeWine admitted he was responsible for this but why would a RINO with a record of capitulating to environmental special interests agree to create a HUGE environmental disaster in his home state? This is where this story becomes even more interesting (and by interesting I mean corrupt).

      DeWine has willingly been the target of more than a little bit of influence buying by Norfolk Southern. According to a story by Progress Ohio:

      According to the Ohio Secretary of State’s website, Norfolk Southern and its affiliates made over 100 contributions to Ohio state officials and candidates over the last five years. Including $29,000 to Gov. DeWine’s campaign and transition team, totaling nearly $100,000.

      Since DeWine took office, Norfolk Southern has given him and other Ohio lawmakers $73,000 and successfully killed bipartisan railway safety legislation that would have helped protect railroad workers and the communities their trains passed through.

      Since 2019, lobbyists for Norfolk Southern reported efforts to influence the outcome of lawmaking and policymaking in Ohio’s legislative and executive branches of government. Activity reports on file with the Joint Legislative Ethics Commission show that Norfolk Southern lobbyists reported 26 attempts to influence the Attorney General, Governor DeWine and the Departments of Transportation and the Ohio Rail Development Commission on issues ranging from safety to taxation.

      In addition to attempts to lobby the executive branch, the company’s hired guns sought to influence lawmakers on 20 pieces of legislation ranging from taxation to safety, including one proposal to require trains to have a minimum of two crew members on board. In 2019, the company testified in opposition to the bipartisan rail safety legislation, supported by rail workers, saying it was unnecessary and unjustified. The bill died in committee without becoming law. In 2021, the company’s political action committee continued its giving to Ohio lawmakers, including the Chair and Vice Chair of the transportation committee, and an identical bill failed to move during that legislative session.

      As it supported both federal and state politicians with campaign cash, Norfolk Southern has been able to evade safety regulations and reduce its costs, resulting in higher profits. In 2022, Northfolk Southern reported earning $4.8B, up 8% from the year prior. However, the consequences of deregulation have been disastrous for the people of East Palestine.

      Two of the biggest stakeholders in Norfolk Southern (and most other railroads) are BlackRock and Vanguard. BlackRock and Vanguard are heavily tied to both the WEF (George Soros & others) and the CCP in China. Both are, in my view, corrupt institutional investment groups that are leveraging their financial power to push their own interests over those of “we the people” such as freedom through things like social credit scores and ESG investing. You may note the irony that Norfolk Southern requested to create an environmental catastrophe despite the fact that their main stockholders are promoting ENVIRONMENTAL Social Corporate Governance (ESG) but that aside these organizations are also huge supporters of the Biden Administration.

      Norfolk Southern asked DeWine to burn the chemicals so they could get the tracks open despite the fact that everyone knew the environmental disaster it would cause. DeWine and the rest of the government will run cover for the inevitable lawsuits to the best of their ability but I’d say it’s fair to ask why a woke company whose primary stockholders are globalist environmental social justice warriors would put profits over a real threat to the environment (assuming you do not buy into the “conspiracy theories” that this was an intentional chemical attack on American soil orchestrated by globalists and the CCP… which is almost as crazy as suggesting the numerous attacks on our food supply are orchestrated).”

      Liked by 1 person

  5. H/T D

    EXCERPT: “Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine discussed revenue opportunities resulting from hiring a gender clinic social worker while Levine was serving as Pennsylvania’s acting secretary of health, according to emails obtained by parental rights activist Megan Brock and reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

    The pair discussed the potential return on investment and downstream revenue generated by social workers at gender clinics, particularly through surgical referrals.

    “I am trying to give them some numbers to help them realize the eventual ROI [return on investment] for this necessary position,” the doctor wrote. “Even if the patients under 18 who go for surgery might be limited, the patients we start with will eventually be over 18…so I still think it’s worthwhile. Of course, I think it’s worthwhile no matter what/”

    Rachel Levine, who is now assistant secretary for health in the Biden administration, discussed the potential revenue that could be generated by a gender clinic social worker who could advocate for child sex change procedures in emails, reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation, with a pediatrician.

    Dr. Rollyn Ornstein, a pediatrician at Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital, believed a social worker for the hospital’s gender clinic would generate enough revenue to make funding the position worthwhile, noting that even with age restrictions for sex change surgeries, child patients would eventually turn 18 and be eligible for further interventions, according to emails from 2018 between Rollyn and Levine obtained by parental rights activist Megan Brock and reviewed by the DCNF. Social workers at pediatric gender clinics can work as surgery advocates, gathering letters of recommendation on behalf of minors seeking sex change procedures that insurance companies are otherwise hesitant to cover, according to a 2021 report from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and the National Association of Social Workers.

    Levine recommended a contact for Ornstein to reach out to and said that, while surgical referrals might be limited to only mastectomies for minors, the position would still pay for itself. “As I am trying to convince the administration about the need for a MSW [Masters in Social Work] position specific for the imminent (?) Gender clinic, I am trying to put together a presentation re: potential revenue, including downstream,” Ornstein wrote. “The info from the 2015 report is great but I believe insurance has changed since then, with more coverage (? For surgery) than previously.”

    Levine, who at the time was Pennsylvania’s acting secretary of health, was confident that the hospital would be able to fund a social worker in this position, but noted that age restrictions for gender surgeries meant the social worker’s consultations for minors would be limited to “FtM [female to male] top surgeries,” a euphemism for mastectomies. Mastectomies are more commonly performed on minors than other gender-related procedures.”

    https://www.sgtreport.com/2023/02/unearthed-emails-show-rachel-levine-discussing-potential-revenue-from-child-sex-change-procedures/

    Liked by 1 person

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  22. we brought in some of the wood we cut, but didn’t split and hubby’s splitting that now.
    then we have to load it up and take it up to the woodshed to dry for the next wood burning season. we went thru pretty much wood this season already!
    when we came up the driveway yesterday we could see about 8 more ash trees that should be taken down this summer.
    next weekend we’re going to order 2 pear trees to plant late spring for along the driveway too.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. there is. but the kids come up and work a weekend in the summer –son and daughter come at different times and help us get the trees down safely and chunked up so we can split some at a time.

        Liked by 1 person

  24. Gatesofhell wants to turn close to 6,000 acres of farmland he owns in Ohio into solar farms…claiming he wants to create “jobs”…how exactly does a solar farm create jobs i wonder. what happened to he was buying farmland and leasing it to FARMERS to PRODUCE FOOD???
    FTA
    “Why are you buying up so much farmland, do you think this is a problem with billionaire wealth and how much you can disproportionally acquire?” a Reddit user asked Gates during his most recent annual “ask me anything” session on Reddit.

    “I own less than 1/4000 of the farmland in the US. I have invested in these farms to make them more productive and create more jobs. There isn’t some grand scheme involved – in fact all these decisions are made by a professional investment team,” Gates replied.

    https://valiantnews.com/2023/02/people-dont-like-change-ohio-county-battles-bill-gates-over-massive-solar-plant/

    Liked by 1 person

  25. more voter fraud in CA
    FTA

    BREAKING NEWS- Arrests Made for Massive Voter Fraud – Multiple Tactic Ring! https://t.co/EQugTGAeK8

    — JovanHuttonPulitzer™ #SaveAmericaFromSocialism (@JovanHPulitzer) February 18, 2023

    KCRA reported:

    A judge granted Shakir Khan’s release on his own recognizance on Friday after the Lodi council member appeared in court a day after his arrest on election fraud charges. Khan was wearing an orange jumpsuit and seemingly in good spirits, showing thumbs up to the members of the media and pumping his fists in the air as he walked into a Stockton courtroom. His attorney Allen Sawyer advocated for his release so Khan can return home with his family while ongoing investigations and proceedings in the case continue. Friends and family members calling for his release came out to show their support. Khan faces multiple felony charges that stem from the 2020 election. He is accused of stashing 41 ballots at his home. Investigators also say he registered 23 people to vote at his home and that his email and phone number were used to register 47 others. Body camera footage showed voters telling detectives how Khan allegedly pressured them to vote for him and how he allegedly falsified voter registration documents.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/lodi-city-council-member-arrested-on-voter-fraud-charges-related-to-2020-election-stash-of-ballots-found-at-his-home-over-70-fake-registrations-linked-to-his-name/

    Like

  26. so Mexico just sends its sewage into the ocean?
    another reason to avoid the water!!
    FTA
    San Diego is contending with millions of gallons of raw sewage that are flowing into the city from Mexico via a pair of canyons on the border.

    The sewage spill began when a construction crew accidentally ruptured a significant pipeline near Tijuana, forcing the closure of several pump stations that send sewage away from the border toward the coastline. This caused wastewater to escape from the collection system and drain into natural channels such as the canyons and the Tijuana River.

    As a result of the contamination, San Diego has been forced to close some of its beaches. The county of San Diego’s Department of Environmental Health currently lists several major closures in connection with the sewage spill. The Imperial Beach and Silver Strand shorelines are currently closed because the bacteria levels there exceed health standards, and residents are being advised to avoid contact with the water in this area. Several other shorelines in the area are open but under an advisory related to the presence of bacteria.

    Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre has said that her top priority is cleaning up pollution that flows into the area from Tijuana, saying: “I’ve said it 1,000 times, but I’ll keep saying it until it’s fixed: It’s an environmental injustice.”

    The current spill is largely concentrated in Smuggler’s Gulch and Goat Canyon, where concrete capture basins are serving to redirect at least some of the flow toward an international wastewater treatment plant situated on the border. The South Bay wastewater facility normally treats around 25 million gallons of sewage per day but has been taking on an extra 10 million gallons each day to try to stem the impact of the spill.

    The Area Operations Manager in San Diego for the American section of the International Boundary and Water Commission, Morgan Rogers, noted: “We can sustain this, but it is adding wear and tear on our plant.”

    Rogers added that Mexican officials hope to build a temporary bypass pipe that can be used to restore the flow of sewage to their wastewater plant, but that will take several days.

    It is expected to take at least another week to fix the broken pipe, but experts warn that this will not fully address the pollution that comes from the aging San Antonio de Los Buenos wastewater plant in Punta Bandera, which is situated 6 miles south of the border near Tijuana.

    Estimates from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency show that the treatment plant sends roughly 35 million gallons of raw sewage per day into the Pacific Ocean. This waste often floats up the coast, leading to beach closures.
    No easy solutions

    The EPA has a $630 million plan to deal with sewage pollution flowing in from Mexico that includes expanding the international wastewater treatment plant in San Diego. Projects related to this plan could get underway within the next three years. However, the agency warns that it will be impossible to fully stop the flood of urban runoff that is caused by heavy rains, and Tijuana needs to make significant investments in improving its infrastructure.

    https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-02-17-millions-gallons-sewage-mexico-san-diego.html

    Liked by 1 person

  31. I am adding a short daily prayer to the board. I would invite each of you, if you wish, to also add one or maybe two of your own liking. I do not want to stifle anyone but please limit yourself to one or two religious postings. here’s one I found that I liked.

    Like

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