Month: July 2022

Years ago when a sign of the times was to pass laws legalizing marijuana, I thought that the passing of these laws was a mistake.

I said that primarily because there wasn’t a test to determine whether or not someone was driving “under the influence.” As best I can tell there is still no test like there is for alcohol, mainly because of the long half-life of marijuana in the body’s tissues … in other words tests for marijuana cannot identify the timing of when this drug was taken (mostly smoked).

In a similar vein because marijuana is a drug, it was only going to be a matter of time, before more and more of this drug’s side-effects were going to become manifest.

What follows is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg as far as side effects:

A study, published Monday in the journal BMJ Open Respiratory Research, looked at national health records data for over 30,000 Ontario, Canada, residents between the ages of 12 and 65 over a six-year period.

When compared with people who did not use marijuana, cannabis users were 22% more likely to visit an emergency department or be hospitalized, the study revealed.

Respiratory problems from smoking weed was the second leading reason users seek emergency care, the study found.

The finding held true even after adjusting the analysis for over 30 other confounding factors, including other illicit drug use, alcohol use and tobacco smoking.

A number of studies have shown an association between marijuana use and injury, both physical and mental.

Heavy use of marijuana by teens and young adults with mood disorders — such as depression and bipolar disorder — has been linked to an increased risk of self-harm, suicide attempts and death,according to a 2021 study.

Another 2021 study found habitual users of cannabis, including teenagers, are increasingly showing up in emergency rooms complaining of severe intestinal distress that’s known as “cannabis hyperemesis syndrome,” or CHS.

The condition causes nausea, severe abdominal pain and prolonged vomiting “which can go on for hours,” Dr. Sam Wang, a pediatric emergency medicine specialist and toxicologist at Children’s Hospital Colorado, told CNN in a prior interview.

A review published earlier this year looked at studies on over 43,000 people and found a negative impact of tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, the main psychoactive compound in cannabis, on the brain’s higher levels of thinking.

For youth, this impact may “consequently lead to reduced educational attainment, and, in adults, to poor work performance and dangerous driving. These consequences may be worse in regular and heavy users,” coauthor Dr. Alexandre Dumais, associate clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Montreal told CNN in a prior interview.

Now while I am not consciously implying that the liberal politicians who were pushing for laws to okay marijuana usage knew of these various side-effects, I am implying that they just didn’t care!  

7/20/22

Californiacontrarian

For those of you who are not up on the latest world crisis … it is in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is an island nation in the Indian Ocean south of India that is in the midst of an actual insurrection (an actual insurrection as opposed to a political pseudo-insurrection). 

For the first time ever, I used Al Jazeera, or more precisely a You-Tube video as a source of information on the present Sri Lankan crisis. Apparently a combination of government corruption and nepotism, overwhelming debt, and cronyism all played a role, but the crowning blow was a “green” mandate that all fertilizers needed to be organic. As would be expected, crop production tanked, followed by food shortages, which contributed to rampant inflation. People in Sri Lanka were literally starving … and that led to insurrection.

From the Daily Signal:

“The tension has been brewing for a long time. Last December, Sri Lanka’s government banned chemical fertilizers to force the country to move toward organic and environmentally friendly farming.  

After only seven months, the government was forced to revoke the program as crop yields plummeted and food prices skyrocketed. The New York Times reported that rice prices shot up by nearly one-third, while prices for vegetables rose five times what they were the year before. 

Starving and unable to find relief, Sri Lankans began to rise up and revolt against their climate-obsessed government. On July 9, thousands converged on the presidential residence and stormed the gates.”

The President and his brother, the prime-minister, have fled the island nation. However, chaos remains. The latest from the AP:

“Sri Lanka’s acting president on Monday declared a state of emergency giving him broad authority amid growing protests demanding his resignation two days before the country’s lawmakers are set to elect a new president.”

In total, a very sad situation, and “green policies” were the last straw.

7/19/22

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Does anybody remember the  K-Mart Blue-Light Special?  To refresh your memory, while innocently meandering around K-Mart, suddenly over the loud speaker … “Attention Shoppers; For a limited amount of time, a Blue-Light Special at the head of aisle four; XXX marked down 25%!” Those in the store would rush over to the head of aisle four, as nobody wanted to miss a Blue-Light Special! However, what used to be, is no more, as in 2002 K-Mart declared bankruptcy and closed over 200 stores (apparently three still remain), and consequently the Blue-Light Special is largely a thing of the past.

I just read something Covid, Omicron, and immunity that I thought perhaps Dr. Fauci and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, should be interested in. But how to attract their attention? Perhaps a “Blue-State Special?” It could go something like this:

“Attention experts, Doctors Fauci and Walensky, in a new study from Qatar, there is new information about natural immunity specifically related to Omicron and its most recent variants, BA.4/BA.5.”

The background:

Omicron became the dominant virus strain in many countries in late 2021. Since then, a number of subvariants have taken hold. BA.5 is the strain currently dominant in the United States.

The gist from this study:

While protection from an Omicron infection provided robust shielding against reinfection from BA.4/BA.5, those who contracted a pre-Omicron strain had little protection, according to the Qatari scientists, who were led by Dr. Laith Abu-Raddad with Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar.

From Epoch Times:

“Protection of a previous infection against BA.4/BA.5 reinfection was modest when the previous infection involved a pre-Omicron variant, but strong when the previous infection involved the Omicron BA.1 or BA.2 subvariant,” the scientists wrote.”

What I can conclude from this is that natural immunity from a pre-Omicron variant was quite good in protecting against pre-Omicron Covid reinfection. However, that same natural immunity (pre-Omicron) is no longer nearly as good against the present Omicron variants that seem to be better at evading protection. Thus individuals that had pre-Omicron Covid are now susceptible to getting infected with an Omicron variant. In other words, my prior statements that it would be very unlikely to get Covid twice are no longer valid with Omicron now the predominant player. That’s the bad news … mea culpa, mea culpa. 

Likewise, it seems that a Covid infection in the recent past was most likely due to an Omicron variant, and thus individuals are reasonably protected against a recurrent infection with an Omicron variant, and that’s the good news.

To close, if anyone knows where either Dr. Fauci or Dr. Walensky live, perhaps a flashing blue light put in front of their respective houses might get their attention !

7/18/22

californiacontrarian

From BlazeNews:

On 7/11 around 12:30 a.m. Nick Bostic was driving home and noticed that a house was on fire. He immediately pulled into the driveway and ran to the back of the home.

Bostic told WXIN, “I saw the fire on the balcony so I slammed on the brakes, pulled in the driveway, and ran into the house from the back. I was hollering ‘Is there anybody in there?’”

Bostic busted into the burning home. The 25-year-old Lafayette man helped a 2 year-old, and an 18-year-old sister escape the inferno. However, they told him that there was still a 6-year-old child trapped in the smoldering home.

“The smoke just came out of nowhere. It was pitch black, pitch black. The heat was excruciating,” Bostic explained. Emergency personnel said they couldn’t enter the blazing home because of the “intensity of the fire.”

“Nicholas wrapped his shirt around his mouth and nose and plunged into the blackness,” the city of Lafayette said in a statement. “He described it as so black that he couldn’t see anything in front of him, and the heat from the fire made it seem as if he was walking into an oven.”

He was able to locate the 6-year-old girl, but the only exit available was through a window on the second floor.

“I grabbed her and held her snug and I ran up those stairs like a running back for the Colts. I jumped out that window,” Bostic said. “I was just pushing time on its edge. I was pushing its limit, literally pushed its limit to the last millisecond. I just got lucky.”

Bostic broke the window by punching the glass with his bare hands. Bostic emerged from the daunting scene carrying the child away from the blaze. 

Police noted that the 6-year-old was “miraculously mostly uninjured.”

Bostic was seriously injured in the frantic rescue, suffering from severe smoke inhalation, burns, and cuts on his arms and legs. Bostic was flown to a hospital in Indianapolis. Bostic has since been released after several days of treatment.

Bostic was recognized for his heroic actions by the Lafayette Police Department, the Lafayette Fire Department, and Lafayette Mayor Tony Roswarski.

“Nicholas Bostic’s heroic actions saved lives. His selflessness during this incident is inspiring, and he has impressed many with his courage, tenacity, and steadfast calmness in the face of such perilous danger,” the city of Lafayette said in a statement.

Nicholas Bostic is a true hero in so many ways – stopping and pulling into the driveway; entering the back of the burning house; continuing on through dense black smoke to find the six year-old; breaking a window to provide an egress for himself and the six year-old; jumping out of the broken second story window clutching the six year-old.

Whereas the emergency personnel could not enter the house because of “the intensity of the flames,” Bostic courageously entered and rescued three children … this is, indeed, a true hero!

7/17/22

A few days ago I wrote about the practical consequences of the vaccine mandates for military personnel. Today I read something that could mean there is some hope to counteract the actions of the dunderheads now in control of our military.

On July 14, a federal district court issued a temporary restraining order preventing the Biden administration from taking any action (for at least the next 14 days) against any Air Force member who opted not to take the COVID vaccine.

Specifically, Judge Matthew McFarland, who was appointed to the bench by President Donald Trump about three years ago, issued the order that effectively blocks the Biden administration from enforcing their vaccine mandate on all of the thousands of Air Force members who opposed the vaccine on religious grounds—but had their religious exemption applications denied.

As I have stated many times before one of the biggest mistakes in this whole Covid travesty was not considering natural immunity, but rather  looking at vaccines as the only source of immunity. Now granted with the newer Omicron sub-variants, natural immunity no longer is highly protective … but neither are the vaccines and the boosters. To me it is almost as if Covid is two different animals with the initial strains having a higher morbidity and mortality compared to those variants that we have now. Likewise it seems that the natural immunity that was acquired from the initial variants was a “stronger” immunity than the natural immunity from these latest variants. 

From Epoch Times:

“The protection against severe illness from so-called natural immunity remains superior to that bestowed by COVID-19 vaccines, according to a new study.

People who survived COVID-19 infection and weren’t vaccinated had sky-high protection against severe or fatal COVID-19, researchers in Qatar found.

“Effectiveness of primary infection against severe, critical, or fatal COVID-19 reinfection was 97.3 percent … irrespective of the variant of primary infection or reinfection, and with no evidence for waning. Similar results were found in sub-group analyses for those ≥50 years of age,” Dr. Laith Abu-Raddad of Weill Cornell Medicine–Qatar and colleagues said after studying long-term natural immunity in unvaccinated people.

Natural immunity was thought to provide strong protection against reinfection. But the Qatari researchers found it provides poor protection against reinfection from Omicron.

“Pre-Omicron primary infection against pre-Omicron reinfection was as high as 90.5 percent, and remained around 70 percent by the 16th month, according to the study. But pre-Omicron primary infection against Omicron reinfection was just 38 percent effective, although it was higher among people infected with the original Wuhan strain or with the Delta variant, and lower among those who got sick from the Alpha or Beta strains.

Modeling signaled a drop to zero percent protection by 18 months, but the shielding still appears to last longer than that of vaccines, researchers said.

‘Vaccine immunity against Omicron subvariants lasts for <6 months, but pre-Omicron natural immunity, … may last for just over a year,’ they wrote.”

Although I have referred to this recent Qatar study before, I brought it up again because the mandates were handed down during the time of the earlier Covid strains … a time when consequent natural immunity was at its peak effectiveness. While it appears that no one is protected from these newer Omicron variants, remember that for the most part, it is similar to having a bad cold. Sooooo, why is anyone still thinking that vaccine mandates are appropriate? 

I am of the opinion that vaccine mandates were not right from the git-go, mainly because of natural immunity, but also, similar to the thinking of Judge McFarland, because religious objections were only minimally considered.

Looking at the present Covid situation, the only reasonable solution at the present time is to:

“Mandate an end to all previous vaccine mandates!”

7/16/22

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From NBC News:

Every branch of the U.S. military is struggling to meet its fiscal year 2022 recruiting goals, say multiple U.S. military and defense officials, and numbers obtained by NBC News show both a record low percentage of young Americans eligible to serve and an even tinier fraction willing to consider it.

The pool of those eligible to join the military continues to shrink, with more young men and women than ever disqualified for obesity, drug use or criminal records. Last month, Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville testified before Congress that only 23% of Americans ages 17-24 are qualified to serve without a waiver to join, down from 29% in recent years.

An internal Defense Department survey obtained by NBC News found that only 9% of those young Americans eligible to serve in the military had any inclination to do so, the lowest number since 2007. 

‘This recruiting crisis is like a slow-moving wave coming at us,” said one senior defense official involved in recruiting and personnel issues. “As the military has gotten smaller and the public have gotten less and less familiar with those in uniform, it has grown. And Covid accelerated it.’”

Hmmm! … “and Covid accelerated it.” 

Why would that be the case? When Covid was raging there were less job opportunities as businesses either closed permanently or temporarily shut down. One would think that with fewer job opportunities, the military would seem like a reasonable option. Likewise with inflation now out of control, the military would seem to be a good option … steady pay, benefits, and the potential for the G-I Bill. This seems like a conundrum. Could it be that there is a simple reasonable explanation for this? In the business world if a company treats its employees like crap, what happens? Obviously word gets out, and consequently that company then has trouble not only retaining its present employees, but also recruiting new employees.

Segue to another story that I noticed today in The Epoch Times:

“62,000 Unvaccinated Guards, Reserve Soldiers Facing Loss of Pay as Army Prepares to Enforce Vaccine Mandate”

About 40,000 National Guard and 22,000 reserve soldiers will be blocked from service for rejecting the COVID vaccines, U.S. Army officials said.

The deadline for the Defense Department’s vaccination mandate passed at midnight on June 30. The order cuts off pay and some of the military benefits to the 62,000 service members.

Retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant general Tom McInerney criticized the Biden administration’s vaccination mandates.

“Why would the army do that when the survival rate of their age group is [extremely high]?” McInerney told The Epoch Times”

To my way of thinking there are basically very few reasons for someone refusing to be vaccinated. The common reason for refusal appears to be prior Covid infection. Granted it is appearing that having Covid does not protect one completely against the present omicron variants. However, having a prior Covid infection along with its consequent natural immunity is proving to be just as good as the vaccine.

The other reason for an individual to refuse to be vaccinated is a medical or a religious issue.

Across all states and territories, only 23 permanent medical exemptions and 19 permanent religious exemptions have been issued by the U.S. Army, according to their vaccination data from July 8.

 So the situation seems quite clear … clear as mud!

The military is having an extremely difficult time recruiting and yet at the same time all branches of the military are planning to get rid of trained experienced personnel because they are refusing to get a vaccine that they basically do not really need! I used to say that the classic example of an oxymoron was the phrase, “military intelligence” … now I am convinced! Obviously, in the military, the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, and to be sure our enemies are also aware of the present military oxymoron.

7/15/22

californiacontrarian

For those of you who do not know me one of my favorite groups is ZZ Top. Although Sharp Dressed Man is my favorite ZZ Top song, Give Me All Your Lovin is in my top three. This morning while listening to 

Give Me All Your Lovin,’ for some reason one particular line stood out …

“Like a boomerang I need a repeat.” After repeating this line over and over, I decided to continue with my “Mendacity … series.”

As most of you are now aware, “mendacity” refers to untruthfulness and a tendency to lie. Similar to what was pointed out in “Mendacity … Windmills,” there are many hidden truths not being forthrightly told about solar power.

As with part 1 of “Mendacity … XXX,” some of what follows is from that same Marvin Covalt piece in Rip’s Newsletter:

Whereas the discussion of cement/steel requirement for energy from wind is sobering, energy from solar power requires even more cement and steel than wind turbines to produce the same amount of electricity.

In addition, solar panels require rare-earth elements which are not currently mined in the US., and future access to these metals is questionable.

Solar panels are not for everybody, especially in areas that do not get much sunlight in the winter. The largest downside to solar panels is the initial expense. Because of geographic locale much of the country will be not be able to recoup this initial expense for many many years to come, if ever. 

Solar panels cannot store electricity, so you will have reduced power output in cloudy weather and zero power output at night. Because of this, most residential solar systems require a solar battery which is an added expense.

Those who are hung-ho proponents of solar energy do not ever mention some of the inhuman facets involved in solar panel production, such as:

-Solar panels are mostly produce by slave labor in China. And, for what it’s worth, Chinese solar panels are produced with coal-fired power plants.

-Ninety percent of the world’s cobalt is mined from the Congo. Pretty well all of the world’s cobalt goes into electric vehicles. The miners in the Congo are black children who are slaves, who work underground, dealing with toxins and unsafe mines that collapse on them.

So we are back to that same old question:

Could it be that those who are pushing solar power as part of a “green” solution to our energy needs either are not aware of these facts (doubtful), or know all of these facts, but knowingly withhold them … and thus “the mendacity of solar power?”

7/14/22

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Today I read an article which exemplifies how “wokeness” is leading to outcomes that were not expected by the “woke-masters!”

The article is from the Washington Examiner titled:

“‘Virtue signaling’: Bank sparks exodus of customers over pronoun policy”

In England customers are withdrawing funds and closing accounts after a British bank told them to leave if they didn’t agree with a new pronoun policy.

Halifax bank revealed new employee name tags featuring preferred pronouns in a tweeted image and captioned it, “Pronouns matter.” The move has caused customers to criticize the bank for “virtue signaling” and hundreds to say they will end relations with the bank.

One customer tweeted:

“I shall be transferring my £300k+ mortgage over to another bank. One that values customer service and short wait times over pronouns and virtue signalling. Loved the good old days when a bank was just a bank.”

Halifax representatives replied to several of the comments that questioned the move, noting that the bank strives for “inclusion” and “equality.”

Another customer told the Daily Mail that his or her family transferred around $540,000 in investment accounts and savings. Another closed his credit card account, saying: ”Sick to death of woke.”

Amazingly one Halifax representative named “Andy M” told a user: “If you disagree with our values, you’re welcome to close your account.”

British public relations expert Martin Townsend called the situation “astonishing.”

One might ask if Halifax’s “striving for ‘inclusion’ and ‘equality’” leads to a disastrous business outcome, will their “wokeness” then cause them to strive for something different? Hmmm!

7/13/22

californiacontrarian

As I am sure you have heard multiple times, if you want to get to the bottom of an apparent mysterious problem or dilemma … “follow the money!” 

Perhaps some of you are cognizant of the present brouhaha in the Netherlands. To summarize, Dutch farmers are protesting new climate policies they say will force them to kill off livestock and drive them out of business — policies which some argue also will drive up consumer food prices and contribute to the global hunger crisis.

The new Dutch policy stems from a 2019 court order that nitrogen-compound pollution in the Netherlands “will have to be cut by 70% to 80%.” [NB – not 10-15%, but 70-80%!]

According to a recent report by journalist Kim Iversen, “the farmers in the most regulated areas would essentially be put out of business.”

Iversen said farmers who do not “voluntarily” accept the government’s proposal may have their land seized outright. [Sounds suspiciously like “in the name of climate change, do as we say or else” …where have I heard that before?]

Iversen quoted Henk Staghouwer, the Dutch minister of agriculture, nature and food quality, who said, “There is not a future for all farmers within this approach.”

According to a New Zealand report on this crisis: “Dairy farmers that want to be bought out need to reduce their cattle stocks by 95 percent and permanently relinquish their right to increase stocks in future.

“For pig, chicken, and turkey farms, this percentage is 80 percent.”

What does this have to do with the “follow the money” mantra?

In a recent episode of the “RFK Jr. The Defender Podcast,” agricultural researcher, permaculturalist and author Christian Westbrook — also known as the “Ice Age Farmer” — said the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have long pushed the idea of a so-called Green Revolution, based on the idea that animals and plants are “dirty and dangerous.” … Hmmm!

Dutch political commentator and legal philosopher Eva Vlaardingerbroek also recently raised questions about the Dutch nitrogen-reduction policy and a possible link to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

She tweeted:

“The Dutch minister who pushed the nitrogen law that grants the government the power to expropriate our farmers’ land has a brother who owns online supermarket @picnic. Guess who invested $600 million in that company? Bill ‘fake meat’ Gates. This is what corruption looks like.”

“Fake meat” Gates refers to this statement by Gates:

“I do think all rich countries should move to 100% synthetic beef.

“Eventually, that green premium is modest enough that you can sort of change the [behavior of] people or use regulation to totally shift the demand.”

[In other words, if you don’t agree with their green policies, they will figure out how to change your minds … or they will force you to accept their regulations … like mandating a nitrogen decrease of 70-80%!] … Hmmm!

For those of us who think that the classic mantras have substance … 

Perhaps “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” would lead credence to this “follow the money!” query. … Hmmm!

7/12/22

californiacontrarian

From the very beginning of Covid, I have been interested in Sweden’s approach to the virus. Their approach was markedly different from almost all other countries in that it was a much less restrictive approach that depended much more on individual responsibility and much less on mandates. In the beginning they made an error in that they did not try to seal off their nursing homes, and thus their mortality statistics suffered in comparison to those of their Scandinavian neighbors.

Today I saw something that exemplified the difference between the U.S. and Sweden in how each country handled young school children. As a point of reference educating young school children in the U.S. this year was an enormous challenge. The children in grades 1-3 started off this school year way behind and in general did not totally recover to where these grade levels had been in past years. (This info is from a teacher who teaches in a  large city grade school.)

When Covid first hit Sweden, the country’s public health authorities made it clear that daycare centers and primary schools, which serve students in grades 1 through 3, must stay open. Swedish government held on to that policy early on even after its COVID-19 death rates surpassed those of its Nordic neighbors.

In a study published in the International Journal of Educational Research, a team of researchers at Stockholm’s Karolinska University analyzed data from 97,073 primary school students across Sweden. The goal was to investigate whether Swedish children suffered any potential learning loss during the 2020-2021 school year.

The researchers compared average LegiLexi test scores from the four school years from 2017–2018 to 2020–2021 in two aspects: word decoding and reading comprehension. The result shows that test-takers in the 2020–2021 “pandemic year” performed just as well as those in previous school years in both areas of language.

“We conclude that there is no evidence of a learning loss regarding early reading skills in Swedish primary school students,” the researchers wrote.

The finding comes amid numerous reports on loss of literacy skills among American children in the aftermath of pandemic lockdowns and widespread school closures.

According to a report (pdf) published this February by curriculum and testing company Amplify, in the U.S. the percentage of students at highest risk for not learning to read jumped by 8 percent during the pandemic, from 29 percent in the 2019–2020 school year to 37 percent in the 2021–22 school year.

Another study (pdf), conducted by the University of Virginia, found that about 35 percent of Virginia’s children in kindergarten through 2nd grade scored below their expected levels of literacy in the fall of 2021.

So young children who do very very with Covid were kept out of school in the U.S. at the behest of the Teacher’s Unions, and not surprisingly, it is the children who are suffering.

7/11/22

californiacontrarian