Category: Uncategorized

“I used to favor immigration, but now, not so much.”

This type of sentiment seems be increasing in many European countries.

From REMIX:

Nearly two-thirds of all German citizens want the country’s federal government to impose a ban on migration from predominantly Muslim nations, a damning survey has revealed.

Polling conducted by INSA on behalf of the Bild tabloid newspaper showed that 61 percent of respondents now advocate refusing any more migrants from Islamic countries with many explaining they no longer feel safe in their own country and believe an increasing number of new arrivals despise German society.

Meanwhile in France, from Breitbart:

“Senators in France started debating a bill Monday that is intended to toughen the country’s immigration law but advocacy organizations have criticized as a threat to the rights of asylum-seekers and other migrants.

French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said the legislation “is about being firm” on immigration. The bill especially is aimed at “being tougher on foreigners who commit crimes, expelling them all,” he said, speaking Sunday night on TV channel France 2.

The legislation includes a provision that would give legal status under certain conditions to undocumented individuals working in specific sectors with labor shortages.

‘There’s a political compromise to be found. What counts is the general interest,’ Darmanin said.”

Meanwhile in Scandinavian countries … from American Thinker:

Increasing crime numbers may explain why Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Iceland are beginning to take steps to get rid of illegal immigrants:

While the Europeans once sneered at America’s high crime rate, they’re now grappling with high crime, too. That seems to be thanks to the influx of Middle Easterners and Africans flooding their once safe, homogeneous little countries 

Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden announced a new agreement on Tuesday that they were to combine their efforts on removing migrants, saying they would launch joint deportation flights and other initiatives. The agreement came out of a two-day Nordic nations summit in Copenhagen where the group said they had come to a “strong commitment” to strengthen their cooperation on migrant returns.”

From the Washington Post:

“The latest victory came in the socially liberal Netherlands, where hard-right icon Geert Wilders and his anti-European Union, anti-Muslim and anti-immigration Party for Freedom landed a shocking first place finish this past week in parliamentary elections.”

From JusttheNews:

“Caring for illegal aliens currently within the United States could cost American taxpayers up to $451 billion per year, a Monday interim staff report from House Republicans has concluded.”

$451 billion per year is a lot of moola. Will this be the straw that reverses the influx of illegal migrants, and could perhaps even swing the U.S. in the same direction as is happening in many places in Europe?

11/27/23

www.californiacontrarian.com

On Sundays I write about individuals who stand on principle, and should be praised for such. This Sunday is no different.

As an aside, if you look up the word, “cojones,” there are two separate meanings … For those who are aware, there are women without cojones who demonstrate courage, and men with cojones who have no courage. The following two real life stories demonstrate both species.

From a BlazeMedia headline:

“Female boxer learns at last moment her opponent’s manhood was kept a secret, drops out of women’s competition”

An Australian transvestite won a Canadian women’s boxing competition in Quebec by default in late October because his 36-year-old female opponent, Dr. Katia Bissonnette, refused to fight a man.

Bissonnette, a recovered drug addict turned psychologist, figured she had fair shot in the 0-5 fights, 165 lb. super welterweight category. That dream was dashed by 27-year-old Mya Walmsley, a man evidently keen on beating up women.

Denis Gravel, Katia’s trainer, indicated that neither the QOBF nor Boxing Canada bothered to mention that Mya Walmsley was a man, reported La Presse.

Bissonnette, accustomed to fighting women, recalled worrying whether they’d be facing off “on equal terms,” noting that she “could have after-effects, end up in hospital with a concussion or in a coma.”

Are her concerns valid?

Still from BlazeMedia:

“A 2020 study published in the Journal of Experimental Biology found that “males’ average power during a punching motion was 162% greater than females’, with the least-powerful man still stronger than the most powerful woman. Such a distinction between genders … develops with time and with purpose.”

A 2021 study published in the journal Sports Medicine revealed that the “performance gap between males and female becomes significant at puberty and often amounts to 10-50% depending on sport. The performance gap is more pronounced in sporting activities relying on muscle mass and explosive strength.”

The second cojones-courage dichotomy is from Wales and involves a non-contact sport.

From BlazeMedia:

“Female pool player forfeits championship rather than compete against a man — and the crowd goes wild”

On Sunday, 11/12/23 a crowd of pool enthusiasts gathered at a resort in Denbighshire, Wales, about 240 miles northwest of London, for the women’s 2023 Champion of Champions tournament. In the final round, Lynne Pinches was scheduled to play against a man whose name was once reportedly Chris Haynes but who now pretends to be a woman and calls himself Harriet Haynes — or “HH” on the competitive pool circuit.

The Daily Mail noted that Pinches could have opted not to appear at the final round at all, but if she had, would have been declared a no-show. By showing up and going through some of the tournament procedures, Pinches may have been sending a “message” about men competing in women’s sports, the outlet indicated.

A social media user stated that Harriet Haynes was once a mediocre pool player and began winning tournaments only after he started competing against women. While Blaze News cannot independently verify his record in men’s competitions, Haynes has had tremendous success in women’s competitions.”

Whereas Katie Bissonnette refused to fight a male transvestite because she realistically feared for her safety, Lynne Pinches refused to compete against a male transvestite out of principle.

Both women deserve our respect for standing up for what is right!

11/26/23

I just watched part of a recent Megyn Kelly podcast interview with Dr.  Drew Pinsky, a cardiologist with forty years of experience. Basically Dr. Pinsky was aghast that a recently published article in Circulation(a premier worldwide cardiology journal) has not received more attention. The article had to do with Covid-vaccine myocarditis, and the long term consequences of such. 

The study basically followed 39 people up to 10 months after COVID-vaccine-induced myocarditis. Of these 56% had persistent features of myocarditis and 2/3 had abnormal findings overall.

Dr. Pinsky’s take home:

Most people who get myocarditis from the COVID vaccine have long-term changes to their hearts.

 I agree with his frustration that this article in Circulation did not get more press, but what is missing is the amount of cardiac tissue that is involved by this vaccine induced myocarditis. If a large amount of heart tissue is affected by any type of myocarditis, then I would agree that it portends a very poor long term prognosis. However, there is no info on the degree of involvement. At this point I would have to assume that the more heart tissue is involved, the poorer the prognosis, and vice-versa. But in reality, at this point we do not know the answer to that question. If the amount of myocardium involved is not a crucial piece of this puzzle, then I would have to agree with the extremely pessimistic outlook of Dr. Pinsky.

Personally, this myocarditis-long term outlook segues into the present status of Damar Hamlin who was used on the Bills’ special teams unit only for kick returns in the fourth game of this season. Very hard for someone who does not live in Buffalo to know what Damar Hamlin’s playing status is from week to week. Did Damar Hamlin have myocarditis? Furthermore, since the NFL  mandated that the players receive the Covid vaccine, is the league legally responsible for what happens to a player who gets myocarditis from the vaccine?

On that same Megyn Kelly podcast the issue of the legal responsibility of the future possible deleterious effects of the Covid vaccine as suggested by this Circulation article, and the colleges that mandated those vaccines to young students who had a minuscule chance of dying from Covid. Is it possible that what is now a mere drizzle of an article in Circulation could morph into a huge coming thunderstorm?

11/25/23

A number of years ago a friend of mine had a job offer in Wyoming, so he and his wife went to visit the area. As his wife started to open her car door a gust of wind came up and violently blew the door open! To make a long story short his wife then refused to get out of the car. Her final comment was, “Any place but here!” Needless to say, my friend did not take the job.

Even though that was a long time ago, it is unlikely that the wind has changed as Wyoming’s topography has not changed. Now even though the wind in Wyoming might not make it a pleasant place in which to live, it would certainly be a perfect place for green wind power. Oops! … as Tonto would say, “not so fast kemo-sabe!”

From the Blaze.com:

“Once upon a time, the people of Wyoming enjoyed the lowest electricity rates in the nation, thanks to their supremacy in coal production. A state rich in God’s natural energy is now facing a 29% increase in electricity rates, thanks to Republican Governor Mark Gordon’s windmill grift. Who needs cheap natural fuel when you can have expensive and inefficient wind power?

“Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Rocky Mountain Power, the state’s largest utility company, announced the nearly 30% hike in rates due to rising costs. Residents responded with outrage. They had thought, with good reason, that the state’s abundance of resources would shield them from the national trend.

“It wasn’t always like this. Coal plants accounted for about 71% of the electricity produced in Wyoming in 2022, down from a peak of 97% in 2003 but still second-highest in the nation after West Virginia. What changed? Wind power now accounts for 22% of the share, more than doubling just in the past three years under Governor Gordon.”

To me if wind power cannot succeed in Wyoming, it is unlikely that it will be successful anywhere. (If not there, … where?)

BTW, my friend and his wife settled in Kansas City, and to the best of my knowledge, at last report the wind in Missouri has not violently blown their car door open.

11/21/23

Let’s pretend that you voted for something because it sounded like the “nice” thing to do. If this nice thing then proved to be not so nice, how long would you have to wait before voting again? When it comes to a candidate that you voted for, you would have to wait until his/her term had expired … no matter how poorly that elected individual was performing. But what if the thing that you voted for was not an actual person, but rather a concept. Here I am not referring to Oregon’s recent law that abolished all but minuscule penalties for possession of hard drugs, and has turned out to be a total disaster. Rather I am referring to the populace of New York City voting to be a sanctuary city.

From the Daily Wire:

New York City Democratic Mayor Eric Adams announced Thursday that his administration would be making significant cuts affecting NYPD and Education Department budgets, saying the cuts are necessary to deal with the ongoing illegal immigration crisis. Adams’ budget cuts will freeze police hiring. The budget cuts will also slash the city’s Education Department budget by more than $1 billion over the next two years, affecting school programs and libraries. The cuts to the NYPD come just a month after Adams said the Big Apple needs more police officers as the city faces a rise in felony and misdemeanor assaults and car thefts.

From the Daily Mail: 

The mayor announced a $110.5 billion budget, claiming cuts across all departments were necessary after the city spent $1.45 billion in fiscal 2023 on the migrant crisis. The city is predicted to spend approximately $12 billion on the ongoing migrant crisis within the next two years. The budget cuts would cause NYPD officers to be cut by a fifth, or 13.5 percent, by postponing the next five academy classes, bringing officers below 30,000 – down from 36,000.

So the citizens of NYC are now paying the price for voting to be a sanctuary city, and apparently will continue to pay the price for doing the “nice” thing. Serves them right!

11/20/23

I usually do not get interested in issues involving inmates etc. in prisons, but I found this particular story very interesting because of Roberta Bell who stepped up when somebody had to.

From BlazeMedia:

58-year-old Roberta Bell lives in Vickburg, Mississippi, where she takes care of five of her eight grandchildren. Bell worked as a corrections officer at the Louisiana Transitional Center for Women when she met a pregnant woman who needed help.

Katie Bourgeois only needed to serve two more months on her sentence, but she was about to give birth. No one in her family could take in the child until she was released and she asked Bell if she could take the baby. Bell agreed and alerted her supervisor, who told her that there was a conflict of interest with her job.

“I said, if the hospital calls me to come get that baby, I’m going to get that baby,” Bell told CBS News. “And he said, ‘Well, OK, I’m going to have to terminate you.'”

Bell decided the baby was more important than her job. A week later, the baby was born and she took him home with her.

Bourgeois was released on July Fourth, and she went straight to Bell’s home to pick up her baby.

“She was kind of, you know, a little nervous because he didn’t really know her and she says, ‘He’s crying, Ms. Bell,’ and I said, ‘Well baby,’ I say, ‘He’s got to get used to you,'” Bell explained to CBS News.

Bell found a new calling after word spread in the community and people began to donate money and baby products to her.

“God provided so much stuff,” Bell said tearfully. “People came by, agencies called. It [was] just overwhelming, because I couldn’t do it by myself. That was part of my ministry that I’m getting ready to start.”

Bell, who now works sorting cans at a food distributor, is using the donations to establish a transitional home for women leaving prison called the “Serenity House.”

A truly amazing example of self sacrifice … Roberta Bell stepping up when there was no one else! Roberta Bell is a truly amazing person that we all can admire and hope to emulate.

What makes this even more amazing to me is that while Katie Bourgeois and her baby are white, Roberta Bell is black and lives in Mississippi!

11/19/23

Blast From the Past 

All of the branches of the military, except the Marines, are falling woefully short on recruiting. As you read the following published over two years ago is there any mystery as to why this shortfall is occurring?

Who Would Ever Choose To Work Here ?   9/3/21

All of the branches of the military, except the Marines, are falling woefully short on recruiting. As you read the following published over two years ago is there any mystery as to why this shortfall is occurring?

Let’s say for the sake of discussion that you are in the midst of a job interview, and as fate would have it, you are interviewing with the CEO of the company. During the interview you notice that your potential future commander-in-chief repeatedly glances at his watch. After his fifth glance you actually become a bit irritated, but then you rationalize that he may in fact have something more important to do … like going to the funeral of a friend’s son. 

During the interview the first time that he apparently forgot your name, you rationalized that you may have misunderstood him. However, the second time he called you “Sam,” you felt that it was necessary to tell him that your name was not Sam, but Dan. He responded to that by saying, “Yes, yes, I know,” in a somewhat jocular tone. Nonetheless, the thinning of his lips and the narrowing of his eyes were dead giveaways that he did not take kindly to being corrected … even when he was obviously wrong.

To some of your questions he repeatedly referred to the index cards that he was trying to hide in his lap. It almost seemed that he needed the cards to answer some straightforward questions. In addition twice I asked what I thought was a simple question, and twice his convoluted answer came around to something called ‘bow’ accompanied by a tear in his eye. By the end of the interview I had pretty much made up my mind. To myself I said, “Who would ever choose to work here?”

As you walked out of his office someone in the hall tugged at your arm and whispered, “Be very careful, son. He will never stand behind you in a pinch. Furthermore, if you make a wrong decision based on his advise, he will let you hang on your own. Because he is in charge, he constantly ignores the advice of those that know much more about something than he does. That is why those that evaluate the strength of this company are increasingly giving it a failing grade. The only reason I am still working here is that I am getting close to my twenty year retirement, and if I quit now, I will lose big time. Be assured that I will deny what I am saying to you, as the last seventeen year vet that opened his mouth got fired. Some say that the CEO’s ineptitude is related to early dementia, but I think he was incapable and incompetent long before he became demented.”

Then he added parenthetically … “who would ever choose to work here?”

I predict that we will see a drop off of new enlistments in all the branches of service as those in charge are now too woke, too gutless, and too stupid!

9/3/21

www.californiacontrarian.com

As many of you are aware, our military is having a big time problem recruiting. Granted not all branches are having this recruiting problem, but three of the four branches are having a major issue. FYI: The Marines are not having a problem. In fact as opposed to the other three branches of the military, the Marines do not seem to be having any issue. My guess is that this is because pride, professionalism, and challenge are all a part of being a marine. Likewise the standards to get into the Marines remain tight, and there are no perks accompanying signing up.

The Army recruiting is down for the third year in a row. This year the Army has 50,000 new recruits instead of the 65,000 that it hoped for, and as a consequence of this year after year of its poor recruiting numbers the total number in theArmy has dropped down to 452K instead of 485K. Similarly the navy is short 7,500 recruits despite offering perks to some to induce them to sign up. Likewise the Air Force is short 10% of its 26,877 goal. 

A recent article from the Washington Post essentially said that this recruiting shortfall across the three branches of the armed forces was a conundrum. To me there is no mystery here and rather, there is an easy common sense answer. 

Let’s assume that one is a graduating high school athlete, and he/she is considering which college to attend. First, there is a meeting with the college coach. Recruiting high school graduates is an integral part of a coach’s job. The coach is very aware that he must treat not only all the prospective recruits, but also all of the other kids on the present team with respect. If he doesn’t treat all of his players with respect, then  recruit A, recruit B, etc. will find out, and the word will spread. Consequently, before not too long, this commander-in-chief coach will be out of a job because he will have a recruiting shortfall … prospective recruits will not sign on. How would this be different than the present military commander-in-chief, Joe Biden, and his minions who did one thing after another during Covid to s**t on those in the military with his vaccine mandates,etc.

Similarly, when military physicians attempted to speak up about what they were seeing in terms of increased side-effects from the vaccines, the kibosh was put on them. Word of this utter disregard for these military physicians spread to those back home, and this lack of respect from the military higher-ups filtered down to future potential recruits.

Whereas no one would be surprised if a pompous, unsympathetic, surly, ‘my way or the highway’ college coach had difficulty recruiting new players for his team, why should anyone be surprised at the present day shortfall in military recruiting, considering who is the military commander-in-chief?

To me … an easy answer!

11/18/23

Last week I witnessed some of my grandkids playing “duck, duck, goose.”

For those no longer familiar with that kid’s game, it involves all the kids sitting in a circle, and then the chasing by the newly identified “goose.” When I saw them playing, the refrain of “duck, duck, duck etc” reminded me of our illustrious Supreme Court.

As I have pointed out many times before, if the Supreme Court had not ducked their responsibility in the aftermath of the 2000 Presidential election, our country would not be in the mess that it is in today. Hopefully the country will not have to depend on SCOTUS after the 2024 election.

Today I read about another SCOTUS “duck.”

From The Epoch Times,

“The U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 13 declined to take up a lawsuit filed by four New Jersey nurses to challenge a now-scrapped state COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

The justices will not examine a U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals decision that dismissed the nurses’ challenge as moot. In the Supreme Court’s list of orders released on Nov. 13, the court rejected an appeal in the case, Katie Sczesny, et al. v. Murphy, Gov. of New Jersey, et al. No comment from the justices was provided.”

The case involved a Covid vaccine mandate by New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy. In early 2022, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy issued an executive order that “unvaccinated covered workers must obtain their first dose of the primary series of a COVID-19 vaccination by January 27, 2022,” adding that those workers have to give “adequate proof” they’ve received all their shots by Feb. 28 of that year. Those who do not provide sufficient proof ‘must be considered noncompliant.’

“The nurses—Debra Hagen, Jamie Rumfield, Katie Sczesny, and Mariette Vitti—filed a lawsuit against the governor’s office and said that although the order allowed for religious or medical exemptions, the state “mass-denied religious exemptions in state institutions, stating that accommodating people with religious exemptions would constitute an ‘undue burden’ on the state because the employees with religious objections to the COVID-19 injections are a ‘threat’ to the safety of others.’

“A US. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order that declared their lawsuit moot after the New Jersey mandate has since been rescinded. The nurses then appealed their case to the Supreme Court”

Either what Governor Murphy did was legal or it wasn’t. The fact that “the case is now moot” because his vaccine mandate has been rescinded, is pure and simply a Duck by SCOTUS! When the next pandemic-like illness happens, and it will … we will all have to undergo the same rigamarole that these nurses had to go through, because SCOTUS ducked. When the country has important legal matters to deal with, one would think that SCOTUS would have the balls to step up (with apologies to the female members of the Court). Just like their election case cowardice, assuredly this will come back to bite them.

11/17/23

Perhaps an arbitrary question, but wouldn’t it have been prudent to evaluate the untoward health effects of cannabis before jumping off liberal groundswell of cannabis approval. Today I am going to talk about another as yet previously unknown side effect from cannabis.

Recreational use of cannabis is associated with a 1.5-fold increased risk for atrial arrhythmias, according to study findings presented at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2023, held in Philadelphia, PA, from November 11 to 13.

The analysis included 17 cohort studies (4 prospective observational) with 81,269,314 participants from North America, Europe, and Oceania. The patients had a mean age of 46 years (range, 41-72), and 45% were women.

Recreational cannabis use was associated with a significantly increased risk for atrial arrhythmias (OR, 1.55; 95% CI, 1.13-2.13), with a high degree of heterogeneity observed (I2 =99%). Meta-regression analysis showed that mean age was not a contributing factor (P =.58).

While atrial arrhythmias are often not life threatening, they can significantly increase the risk of stroke. What is even more amazing about this atrial arrhythmia-cannabis causal relationship is that age is not a contributing factor! Perhaps this should have been looked into before the rush to legalize its use. Just saying!

11/16/23