Category: Uncategorized

Those of you who are familiar with my Sunday modus-operandi realize that the individual written about is someone who is to be admired for having principles and standing up for and acting on these principles. The honoree today is Lauren Handy, who tried to stop the abortions of unborn babies at an abortion clinic in 2019. Now she’s spending 45 days in jail.

A Michigan judge sentenced Handy [and three other pro-life activists with the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU)] in mid November for impeding abortions from taking place at a Michigan abortion clinic (PAAU has described such blockades as “nonviolent direct action”).

Handy was also charged with obstructing a police officer for going “limp” during her arrest. PAAU says this “ is a decision often made by nonviolent social justice activists who refuse to assist in their own unjust arrest.”

(Parenthetically, as similar activist tactics are also employed by groups like ShutDownDC as they block traffic over climate protests or RiseUp4AbortionRights activists who chained themselves to the Supreme Court fencing over the summer, I wonder why “going limp” is the equivalent of “resisting arrest” in Handy’s case.)

From The Daily Signal:

“My time in jail has been used to further the mission of loving and serving others wherever I am placed,” Handy said in a message to The Daily Signal from the Flint, Michigan jail. “I have created friendships that will last beyond bars. Many girls have shared their stories of pregnancy loss and abortion and I have in turn shared the message of hope and healing.”

“I am right where I need to be during this Christmas season,” Handy added. “I am at peace and thankful for this opportunity to reach the abandoned of the abandoned.”

Now whether you agree or disagree with Lauren Handy’s position on abortion, she certainly is one who is to be admired for standing up for her principles.

12/18/22

This is a blog I wrote on 7/20/20 – well before the election. Enjoy!

What If ? 

As some of you may know I like to write and I recently had an idea upon which I could write my next novella. Let me first set up the basic plot:

What if in the year 2032 there was a close presidential election which was won by the older candidate, Joseph Delaware, and what if Mr. Delaware had specially chosen his running mate in order to appeal to various specifics  portion of society. 

The  VP-elect was Hispanic (Yes, Mr. Delaware did get the Hispanic vote.) The VP-elect was a female. (Yes, Mr. Delaware did overwhelming win the female vote.) The VP-elect was gay. (Yes, Me. Delaware did win the gay vote.) The VP-elect was born in New York, and presently lived in California. (Yes, Mr. Delaware did win the vote in both New York and California.) The VP-elect was a Harvard educated lawyer. (Yes, Mr. Delaware did win both the Harvard vote and the lawyer vote.) What if no one really knew much about the VP-elect other than she was an Hispanic gay lawyer who had been in Congress. (Actually not that much different from the VP candidate from about ten years prior.)

What if in 2032 there were no Presidential debates and no VP debates, because many years prior it had been decided that these debates were giving an unfair advantage to one of the candidates.

What if between the election in November and the inauguration in January the President-elect was said to have supposedly suffered a mild stroke which only affected his cognitive abilities. There were no other signs of a stroke, but Mr. Delaware now had an Alzheimer’s-like condition. Would he then be able to function as the President? Would he be sworn in, and then immediately step down? What if it became apparent that while the VP-elect was a nice person, she was in fact, a bit ditzy? Would his VP-elect be then immediately sworn in as the President?

Even though I think that this would be a terrific storyline for a novella, I decided not to embark on writing this because . . . who would believe that this could actually happen? After all is there anybody that could believe that the President-elect developed an Alzheimer’s-like condition between the election and the inauguration? Would anybody swallow the fact the neither the President-elect or the VP-elect were not asked some difficult questions because there had been no debates? Would anybody believe that the country would elect a VP that was not actually qualified to be the President?

The scary  thing is that something very similar could happen this year if the Dems can come up with a reason not to go through with the debates.

7/20/20

12/17/22

While reading this morning, I began to ask myself if there are different degrees of hypocrisy. I knew that I would not read about either of these situations in my local ‘newspaper” for obvious reasons. Remember back last year when Rep. Nancy Pelosi was able to go to her hairdresser to get her hair done while no ordinary person was allowed to do the same. Likewise at about the same time, the Governor of California, Gavin Newsome, went to a fancy Napa restaurant, while mandating that the rest of us ordinary people could not go to a restaurant. Was one of these two elites few merely a hypocrite, while the other was a HYPOCRITE? 

Hmmm!

The two following situations are obviously hypocritical, but is one  ‘Hypocrisy’ while the other is HYPOCRISY?

First, let’s consider Pete Buttigieg, the Transportation Secretary of the United States, who has made climate change his main focus. To him apparently climate change is an existential threat and that we better do something about it. 

However, this same Pete Buttigieg who is telling us common folk to get rid of our gas guzzling cars (“You gotta stop driving around in your big, gas-guzzling SUV,”  Buttigieg has said.), is flying on private jets to the tune of hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars? I know that Buttigieg is important, and most likely will say that is time is too important to have to fly commercial, but come-on man! Hypocrite or HYPOCRITE?

From BlaseMedia:

Meanwhile in Detroit the School Board voted in November to remove Dr. Ben Carson’s name from the Benjamin Carson High School of Medicine and Science. Democrat school board member Sherry Gay-Dagnogo said that community members complained about the name and its link to the Trump administration. (Right away, her hyphenated last name tells you all that you need to know!) … Gay-Dagnogo asked the board to scrap the name.

Carson High School opened in 2011 and was named as such because the doctor ‘was widely held up as a role model for Black youth.’

For having accomplished so much and inspiring a generation of black doctors, a public high school was named after Carson in the city where he grew up and in the school system where his education first started.

While the Detroit School Board engages in partisan theatrics, the rate of chronic absenteeism amongst its students continues to spin out, having risen to 79% last year.

According to Public School Review, Detroit public schools have an average math proficiency score of 13% and a reading proficiency score of 21%.

The city’s schools have an average ranking of 1 out of 10.

So here we have a hyphenated member of the Detroit School Board who apparently is not concerned about the extremely poor job that the Detroit schools are doing in educating the Detroit youth, but rather is playing politics with a school’s name.

FYI: In response, Dr. Carson thanked those who voiced their support for not changing the school’s name, but noted, “I don’t care what any school is named so long as every child gets an equal chance at becoming what they aspire to be.”

Dr. Carson is truly a class act, whereas Sherry Gay-Dagnogo is a truly a hypocrite … or is she a HYPOCRITE?

(BTW: if anyone is looking for a truly inspiring book to give to a child for Christmas, the life story of Ben Carson should be high on that list.)

12/17/22

Recently it seems that there has been a number of First Amendment free-speech cases that have been or are in the process of being decided. This morning I read about another one that I found unusual and interesting, because of its novel circumstances. For sure I will not be reading about this case in my local “newspaper,” as it is not something that will garner any attention from the political left.

From what little I know of the details, it appears that back in 2020, the soccer coach of the women’s team at Virginia Tech, in essence, said to a player, “you acted in a way that I do not agree with, and so consequently, you will be punished.”

From BlazeNews:

Kiersten Hening was a starting defender and midfielder for the Virginia Tech Hokies from 2018 to 2020. As a freshman, Hening appeared in all 22 games and started in 19 of them. As a sophomore, she appeared in all 19 matches, was a starter in the last 18 contests, and had the second-most minutes played among field players, according to the Hokies women’s soccer website.

However, Hening claims that the relationship with her coach changed after she refused to participate in a social justice demonstration. Hening refused to kneel before the team’s season-opening game against the Virginia Cavaliers on Sept. 12, 2020.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported, “While her teammates knelt during the pregame reading of the Atlantic Coast Conference’s unity pledge — a show of support for the social justice movement and Black Lives Matter — Hening and one other unidentified player remained standing.”

Hening accused Hokies head coach Charles Adair of launching a “campaign of abuse and retaliation” after she refused to participate in the pregame social justice demonstration.

The lawsuit claims, “He singled her out and verbally attacked her, pointing a finger directly in her face. He denounced Hening for ‘bitching and moaning,’ for being selfish and individualistic, and for ‘doing her own thing.'”

The lawsuit alleges that Adair’s actions violated Hening’s First Amendment rights. The lawsuit stated that Hening “supports social justice and believes that black lives matter,” but she “does not support BLM the organization,” because of its “tactics and core tenets of its mission statement, including defunding the police.”

Federal Judge Thomas Cullen ruled on Dec. 2 that the case can proceed to trial, according to Fox News. Cullen noted that Adair slashed her playing time.

“While the U.S. Supreme Court and the Fourth Circuit may not have addressed the novel factual circumstances presented here—i.e., a college coach allegedly retaliating against a player for refusing to kneel with her coaches and teammates in support of perceived unity and social justice—the core constitutional principle is both clearly established and fundamental to a free society, and especially to an institution of higher education,” Cullen wrote.

I will attempt to follow up on this suit, however, it will not be easy, since my local “newspaper” does not seem to have much interest in free-speech. In addition, the fact that “Chugger” Adair is a local favorite makes it all the more likely that the facts and the outcome of this case will  not be reported locally, especially if Kiersten Hening prevails.

12/16/22

 Covid is on the decline. Is it gone? No, but Covid is but a shadow of its former self. (For the week ending Dec. 4, 407.3 thousand cases were reported, a decline of 93% from the peak. Meanwhile, deaths from the pandemic have likewise trended sharply downward. From a peak of 23.4 thousand weekly deaths in mid-January of 2021, the most recent week shows just 2.3 thousand deaths, a drop of 90%.)

At what point should we have a cogent discussion about Covid and our country’s reaction to it?

From Issues & Insights:

Recent studies have raised questions over the efficacy of mRNA “vaccines” and their inherent dangerto those who take them, leading to skepticism about vaccines among the public. Notable respected voices in medical research, such as Stanford University’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, have claimed that the “emergency declaration” and other policies that stifled debate have harmed science and the American public.

“We needed to have a discussion, an open scientific discussion about the right policies for COVID,” Bhattacharya, a co-author of the pro-science Great Barrington Declaration, said in a lengthy interview. “Imagine how different all the small businesses who stayed open, all the people that wouldn’t have missed their cancer screenings, all the kids that wouldn’t be depressed and suicidal, all the learning loss that could have been avoided if we just had an open scientific discussion.”

Wow! “An open scientific discussion!” What a novel idea! A discussion without politics involved. In today’s world, this could not happen, because those on the left would never allow it. 

That leads me to a related topic … when are we going to have an open scientific discussion about climate change, aka global warming?  Since liberals are basically in charge the world over, the answer is … not until the general populace says, “enough!” This open discussion will not occur in my lifetime as I am not Methuselah.

12/15/22

In George Orwell’s 1984 those in charge were actively trying to change history. Anything that went contrary to what they were pushing was erased … expunged from any available records. Is what the FDA is now saying a modern version of the same thing that transpired in Orwell’s book?

Remember my old friend Ivermectin, which for whatever reason, the FDA strongly frowned upon. 

On their website the FDA stated that Ivermectin “can interact with other drugs, like blood thinners.” ( As can multiple other drugs!)

The FDA also said, “you can also overdose on Ivermectin.” ( Basically, one can overdose on just about any drug.) 

Back in August, 2021 the FDA tweeted: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.” ( Could it be that the FDA was not aware that it is not suggested that a human take a drug in a dose that is recommended for animals!) 

In Texas Boyden Gray & Associates filed a lawsuit in June on behalf of three doctors who allege that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) illegally interfered with their doctor–patient relationships, resulting in harm. They also claim that the FDA broke the law when the agency issued statements prohibiting the use of ivermectin to treat COVID-19.

In response to the lawsuit, lawyers for the FDA claimed that its guidance for people to “stop” taking ivermectin for COVID-19 was informal and just a recommendation; as such, they weren’t mandating against it.

From the Epoch Times:

In an interview that aired on NTD’s “Newsmakers” on Nov. 23, Dr. Scott Atlas, a senior fellow in health care policy at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, confirmed that the FDA did, indeed, take an “unprecedented” approach against ivermectin and said that their defense amounts to the FDA trying to rewrite COVID-19 history.

Orwellian ? Hmmm!

When asked why the FDA was attempting to rewrite history by stating that its guidance against ivermectin was a recommendation only, Atlas said that the rewrite on ivermectin is just the beginning.

“What we’re seeing is a complete Orwellian rewrite of all kinds of things during this pandemic,” Atlas told NTD. “Many colleagues of mine were always saying the truth will prevail. And once the truth comes out, that some of these drugs were either useful or safe …  there’s a lot of ‘cover your behind.’”

Further, Atlas said, there’s an overall “Orwellian rewrite of what the advice was on a bigger picture.”

He pointed out that Dr. Deborah Birx, former White House COVID-19 response coordinator, claims that she opposed lockdowns, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, claims he opposed school closings.

The difference between what happened in Orwell’s 1984 and what is being attempted now in 2022 is that now the Internet and YouTube record just about everything that one says and does. This makes it impossible to actually manipulate/change/expunge what the FDA, etcetera said and did during the Covid pandemic.

12/14/22

This week I am going to continue to repeat actual science about “global warming,” taken from a long piece in Rip’s Newsletter by Terry M. Campbell. To continue:

“All major temperature variances are caused by the following physical cycles, each cycle containing all of the previous cycles: 1st cycle (24-hour or one-day-cycle – rotating): This first weather cycle is determined by the earth rotating on its axis; hence we have the temperature variance between cooler nights and warmer days.   Absence of sun’s energy versus direct exposure to the sun’s energy. 2nd cycle (365 ¼ day or one-year cycle – orbital):  This second cycle is determined by the earth’s rotation around the sun, which is manifested by the weather changes we refer to as the four seasons (summer, fall, winter, and spring).  These weather changes occur because of the earth’s axis tilt in its position in its orbit around the sun.  It is warmer in the northern hemisphere while it is cooler in the southern hemisphere and vice versa (axis tilt). 3rd cycle (an 11 year with a sliding variable beginning cycle – sunspots): This cycle is another natural factor that has a large short-term effect on our weather.  It is the variance in the energy released by the sun.  This variance in the energy from the sun, some people refer to this as sunspots or no sun spots, causes the temperature to rise or fall.  The more sunspots the warmer the temperature and the fewer sunspots the cooler the weather.   Most of the sunspots are around the equator of our spinning sun that we are orbiting around in the same direction.  The current surface of the sun facing the earth has very few sunspots, therefore this is one of the reasons the temperature is slightly cooling and has been for the past thirty years, with some exceptions.  Heavy sunspot activity is credited for slight global warming in the 1980s, what there was of it.  In the highly publicized global warming swindle, they never mention sunspots.  Records of solar activity have been kept quite accurately for hundreds of years. It’s also amazing that the sunspot activity mirrors the short-term (years to tens of years) temperature as it rises and falls. Could it be that that big fireball in the sky has something to do with the temperature here on earth?  One of the side effects of sunspots is the disruption in our communication system, mainly satellite interference. 4th cycle (26,000-year-cycle – axis wobble):  The next predictable cycle is determined by the variance in the earth’s rotation on its axis (earth’s wobble on its axis).  The current tilt on the earth’s axis is causing the summers to be warmer and cooler in the winter in the northern hemisphere and the opposite in the southern hemisphere.  This tilt is the reason for thirteen thousand (13,000) successive years of overall gradually warmer weather followed by thirteen thousand (13,000) successive years of gradually cooler weather in the northern hemisphere. This also causes the north to get warmer as the south to get colder and vice versa depending on the tilt of the earth on its axis.  The ice in Antarctica, a continent larger than North America, is getting thicker in many places.  The summer ice in artic is decreasing.  This balance of nature is keeping the sea levels constant.  This is due to the current tilt in the earth’s axis, nothing to do with so-called man-made global warming.  The North is currently getting warmer because it is closer to the sun.  The South is getting colder since it is pointing more away from the sun. 5th cycle (hundred thousand year-cycle – expanding/contracting orbit):  This cycle is the variation in earth’s orbit around the sun. This expansion/contraction is caused by the variances in the gravitational forces from the planets and other gravitational forces as we move through space.  Currently, the earth’s orbit around the sun is slowly lengthening.   Therefore, the entire earth is gradually cooling, because it is gradually moving farther from the sun.  This is the longest period weather cycle.  This variance has caused the many ice ages and long periods of extreme heat that formed most of our deserts over the last few hundred thousand years.  The longest period, that we have data on, goes back a little less than six hundred thousand (>600,000) years.  During this period, there have been five (5) major ice ages, spaced a hundred thousand (100,000) years apart.  Each ice age lasted only a few hundred years, almost eliminating all life on this planet.  But there were thousands of years of major warming periods between each, with no fossil fuels being used, when life flourished.  The last major ice age ended ten thousand (10,000) years ago and there has been gradual warming ever since, with minor fluctuations up and down. “These are the physical things that cause most of the temperatures on earth to constantly change.  The climate (temperature) is never stagnating, it is continually changing because the earth is never standing still in reference to our spinning sun, our heat source.  Bottom line: “Most major climate changes are the direct result of the earth’s axis wobble, orbital eccentricities of Earth, and variations in the sun’s energy output.”  Climate change is a natural phenomenon, not something that can be altered by us mere mortals.  There is one more physical entity that affects the weather of the various hemispheres, but not globally.  This is the ocean currents.  Their temperature, volume, direction, and speed have a large effect on local weather but are globally neutral.”

12/13/22

A few years back my wife and I traveled to New Zealand. I found the country to be quite beautiful, but what I remember the most was how nice and how polite the New Zealanders were. However in contrast as many of you may recall, New Zealanders had a devil of a time during Covid with overbearing authoritarian mandates and leadership. (The ‘we know best’ crowd was in charge.) Well now even though Covid is for the most part over, apparently authoritarianism is still alive and well in New Zealand. 

As best I understand the situation involves a six month old baby that needs non-emergent heart surgery. 

While the open-heart surgery is said to be lifesaving, the father stated, “We don’t want blood that is tainted by vaccination.”

“We’re fine with anything else doctors want to do,” said the parent of the baby.

Okay, I get it. If someone … anyone, has chosen not to receive a Covid vaccination, so be it, as it is his/her own choice. From my point of view, it doesn’t matter what the reason is, as one should be able to control what goes into their own body. Likewise, if parents choose not to have their children receive the Covid vaccine, I feel that similarly it is their choice. One of the questions in this New Zealand situation, is whether or not the parents have the right to demand that their six month old not receive any blood from a vaccinated donor. 

Is anybody certain that there will not be any long term adverse consequences from this new mRNA vaccine? Obviously the answer is, “no, no one can be certain.” Likewise can anyone be certain that there will not be any long term adverse consequences from receiving blood from a vaccinated individual? Obviously, the answer again is, “no, no one can be certain.”

To me, the solution here is quite simple. Use “donor-specific blood. Here in the U.S., for a small fee, one can request that “donor-specific blood” be collected and saved to be used specifically for a certain individual.

(Blood is donated by X, to be used specifically for Y.) If Y requires a blood transfusion, then the collected “donor-specific blood will be preferentially be used. If Y does not need the collected “donor-specific blood,” then after a relatively short period of time, that blood is released for use in the general population. It is not wasted.

As New Zealand is not a medical wasteland, the solution is quite simple … use donor specific blood. However what do you think is happening in New Zealand? 

According to BlazeMedia:

“New Zealand health officials take custody of baby whose parents refused ‘vaccinated blood’ transfusion.”

This despite the fact that the parents have already found hundreds citizens with non-mRNA vaccinated blood, who are ready and willing to donate blood to be used, if needed, by the six month old during his upcoming surgery. 

“Outlandish!” you say. “Could never happen here.”

My warning: “Be very careful, America, as this movie could be coming soon to a theater near you!”

12/12/22

As is my modus operandi on Sunday the following is about someone we can all admire. Lieutenant Colonel Bradley Miller is certainly such an individual. A true man of principle. Perhaps I should rightly refer to him as former Lieutenant Colonel Bradley Miller. What did Bradley Miller do to warrant his dismissal from the army after 19 years? Presumably, something horrendous. … Err, not really, as his egregious offense was refusing to get the Covid vaccine.

“I was a hard refusal, not because I do not have extreme religious objections to these injections. I do,” said Miller. “But in my mind, having a religious objection … would almost be to concede that the shots are safe or to concede that the shots are effective, neither of which I’m willing to concede.  So for me, it was not just a matter of the research or the development that went into the production of the shots. But I also just won’t concede that they’re safe or effective.”

From the Epoch Times:

“With the Biden administration’s vaccine mandates still in effect for U.S. military personnel, although evidence that the shots do not stop transmission and reports of adverse effects are mounting, many service members are making the decision to resign, giving up their livelihoods and retirement funds.

Many times in the past I have pointed out that there is often a fine line between courage and foolishness … for example, Evel Knievel. Can there also be a fine line between adherence to principle and foolishness? … e.g. in the case of Bradley Miller. From his picture Bradley Miller appears to be age forty or less. This means that his adherence to principle will most likely cost him at least 20 years of a deserved military pension in addition to other benefits.

Speaking during a Nov. 21 interview with NTD’s Capitol Report, former Lieutenant Colonel Bradley Miller said he chose to give up his material benefits to preserve his integrity.

“I gave up my command; I gave up my career; I gave up my retirement pension. But I still think I came out a winner because, after 19 years of service, I left the army with my integrity intact, and my oath to the Constitution unbroken,” Miller said.

Truly Bradley Miller is an individual that we can all admire, whereas I am not so sure that I can say the same for those who are still mandating a marginally effective, and at best a temporary Covid vaccine.

12/11/22

I just read an interesting summary a study led by a John’s Hopkins researcher dealing with a “what if.” … “What if aggressive use of vitamin D had been used to prevent and to treat Covid instead of, or in addition to, what the government encouraged, pushed and sponsored.

During Covid, in addition to Zinc, I took 4000 units of Vitamin D each day. This was despite the FDA, the CDC, the WHO, and Dr. Fauci essentially telling everyone to only do what they said … and Vitamin D was not included in their recommendations. Eventually, I did get Covid (15 days after getting my first, and only, booster), felt crappy for 4-5 days, and then back to normal. What if I wasn’t taking Vitamin D?

A study of American veterans suggests that nationwide distribution of vitamin D supplements could have prevented over 110,000 COVID-19 deaths and millions more infections from the virus.

The study, published earlier this month in Scientific Reports, a sub-journal of Nature, looks into the relationship between vitamin D2 and D3 supplementation and the risk of dying from COVID-19 within 30 days following infection.

Using data provided by the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (VA), the research team conducted an analysis of 199,498 veterans who were treated with vitamin D3 and 33,216 veterans treated with D2 between the pre-pandemic period from Jan. 1, 2019 to Dec. 31, 2020, and during the pandemic from March 1, 2020 to Dec. 31, 2020. Each patient was matched one-on-one with an untreated VA patient as control.

According to researchers, vitamin D2 and D3 supplementation during the pandemic reduced the probability of COVID-19 infection by 20 and 28 percent, respectively. There was a 49 percent reduction in COVID-19 infection in patients who had lower-than-normal vitamin D blood levels.

The study also found that vitamin D3 supplementation was related to a 33 percent lower risk of dying within 30 days of COVID-19 infection, although vitamin D2 treatment didn’t produce statistically significant results in that regard.

Now that Covid has basically gone by the wayside, I haven’t heard Fauci et al comment on this recent “what if” Vitamin D study. Nonetheless, with RSV still around, I have decreased my Vitamin D intake to 2,000  u per day.

12/10/22