Month: February 2023

Now to start out I need to be clear. Neither my wife nor myself own an electric vehicle (EV). We have two gas powered cars. Furthermore in spite of Biden’s exorbitant gas prices, we have no plans to buy an EV in the near future. Granted our cars are old, 2000 & 2013, but if either were to bite the dust, like the other 93% of new car purchasers, we would buy another gas powered vehicle. At present, EVs, still only make up about seven percent of all new-vehicle purchases. Why would I not buy an EV? No, it’s not because of the price, as I can afford one. Rather, it’s because, at heart, I am an environmentalist. 

I can almost hear the guffaws, and the comments, “Not buying an EV, because of concern for the environment is an oxymoron.”

However, a study recently published by an environmental advocacy group, the Climate +Community Project expresses concern. According to this study’s authors:(Climate and Community Project, Jan 2023):

“A crucial aspect of electrified transportation is new demand for metals, and specifically the most non-replaceable metal for EV batteries– Lithium. If today’s demand for EVs is projected to 2050, the lithium requirements of the US EV market alone in 2050 would require triple the amount of lithium currently produced for the entire global market. This boom in demand could only be met by the expansion of mining. 

Large-scale mining entails social and environmental harm, in many cases irreversibly damaging landscapes without the consent of affected communities.”

Destroying the environment by lithium mining is a significant concern according to this environmental advocacy group. Their nonsensical solution to this potential environmental quagmire is … to stop driving automobiles, which is not going to happen.

So, it seems that we have an EV oxymoron in that the building of EVs which are supposedly good for the environment are destroying the environment.

Hmmm!

2/28/23

We are all aware that Rochelle Walensky is the Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Prior to being the head of the CDC, Prof. Rochelle P. Walensky, was the Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, Massachusetts General Hospital, Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, USA.

We are all probably aware that Rochelle Walensky is the Director of the 

However, we are all probably not aware that in 2020, Rochelle Walensky was a signatory of the John Snow Memorandum which was a kind of rebuttal to the Great Barrington Declaration.

For those not familiar with the John Snow Memorandum the following is from BlazeMedia:

“The John Snow Memorandum endorsed the efficacy of lockdowns, denied evidence of natural immunity following COVID infection, and essentially acted as the blueprint for ‘zero COVID.’ All of these positions were, of course, resoundingly discredited in the ensuing years.

Walensky’s signing of the John Snow Memorandum was in keeping with what may be her most damning quote of all. In a radio interview just before being appointed as CDC director, Walensky contrasts Sweden’s light-handed response to COVID negatively with China’s ‘really strict lockdowns,’ and gives her stamp of approval to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) data purporting to show that the lockdown of Wuhan had succeeded in eliminating the virus from all of China.”

With her backing of China’s lockdown policy in Wuhan, and with her signing of the John Snow Memorandum, we should not have been at all surprised by some of the “I run the CDC, and I know best” things that she has done over the last few years.

Knowing that a zebra doesn’t change its stripes, no one should have been taken aback by some of the things that came out of her testimony before Congress last week.

Again from BlaseMedia:

“In just a few hours, Walensky managed to tell Congress that the CDC’s guidance to mandate masks in schools would never change regardless of new evidence, that the CDC had conducted no randomized controlled trials (RCTs) as to whether masks were effective because it was so obvious that they worked, and that COVID vaccines had been added to the child immunization schedule so they could be given to uninsured children.

“Walensky has a long history of testimonies nearly as terrible as these. Back in 2021, Walensky couldn’t explain to the Senate why the CDC hadn’t conducted any field studies on natural immunity from COVID.

And then there was the time when Walensky explained that the CDC’s initial bravado for vaccine passes, mandates, and grandiose promises about vaccine efficacy back in 2021 had been based on a ‘CNN feed’ claiming the vaccines were ‘95 percent effective.’

When asked about the efficacy of masks a Walensky quote tells me more than I need to know about Walensky s persona. 

From Twitter:

“I’m not sure anybody would have proposed a clinical trial because, in fact, there wasn’t equipoise to the question anymore.”

I would guess that 99+% of Americans are not familiar with the word, “equipoise.” Even after I looked it up, I still do not understand the meaning of her sentence. However, now I am cognizant of why I couldn’t understand the logic of what Walensky has been saying over the last few years … I don’t speak “Harvard-ese!”

2/27/23

Born and raised in the small town of Geraldine, Alabama, Buford “Hody” Childress served in the U.S. Air Force for eight years, was a farmer for 50 years, and worked at Lockheed Martin’s Alabama Space Center until he retired. He continued farming until two years before his death.

For almost ten years Mr. Childress had a secret, and the few that knew this secret were sworn to secrecy themselves. Buford “Hody” Childress recently died , and so his secret came out.

From Epoch Bright:

His daughter, 58-year-old hairdresser Tania Nix, lives in nearby Ider, Alabama. When Hody suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and other health issues, he had trouble moving around and was pretty much bedridden. He knew by then his end was approaching and he couldn’t keep his secret any longer.

“I was going to the drugstore one day and he told me, ‘I’ve been doing something for a while, and I would like to continue doing this as long as I’m alive,’” Nix told The Epoch Times. “I said, ‘Okay, what is that, Dad?’ and he said, ‘I’ve been carrying a $100 bill to the drugstore on the first of the month, I give it to Brooke, and she has the liberty to do what she chooses to help someone. I told her just to tell them it’s anonymous, and it’s a blessing from the Lord.’”

Nix told her father she would be glad to take the money on his behalf. She handed the bill in the pharmacy Geraldine Drugs but had no idea how long her father’s tradition had been going on until after he passed away, peacefully at home, on New Year’s Day 2023.

The family of the Alabama farmer discovered a moving secret on his deathbed: the 80-year-old donated $100 to a local pharmacy every month for ten years, in secret, to help people access the medicines they needed but could not afford.

Before the funeral, we gathered to reminisce about Dad,” Nix said. “One of my cousins was a personal friend of Brooke Walker [the pharmacist at Geraldine Drugs] … she immediately sat down and started telling the story … that’s how I found out about the depth and magnitude of what he had done.”

Walker had been “sworn to secrecy,” by Hody but felt the family deserved to know about Hody’s heartfelt mission.

“He never was one to be down and out, no matter the circumstances,” Nix said. “I feel very blessed that I was raised by a man that was so gentle and kind, and I feel very thankful that he was able to give back to the community.”

2/26/23

I just hesitantly came to the conclusion that perhaps, just perhaps, there is some hope for California. As background, last year the “woke” principal at a local high school decided to do away with honors classes in a number of different subjects. Apparently she felt that by doing away with these honors classes, and having all students take the same classes was the equitable thing to do. The parents of the students at that high school were not happy for a variety of different reasons, and wrote letters and showed up at a  PTA meeting. The principal was forced to backtrack on her decision to dumb-down the curriculum, and the honors classes were restored.

Here just recently a similar thing was happening in Culver City, California.

From the NY Post:

“Parents at a Los Angeles area school district spoke out at a Tuesday school board meeting against the administration’s decision to eliminate honors classes in the name of racial equity because they didn’t enroll enough Black and Latino students.

Earlier this school year, the Culver City Unified School District (CCUSD) replaced honors classes at Culver City High School with a one-size-fits-all approach that officials said would give students of all races an equal education, the Wall Street Journal reported. Many parents attended the school board meeting to ask the CCUSD administration to reinstate honors classes, which they laid out in a two-page resolution. 

A group of parents representing the Culver City Families for Education and Equity introduced the resolution at Tuesday’s meeting, arguing that a history of inequity requires a robust and varied array of learning opportunities, so students at all levels can get the support they need to achieve their highest potential. 

‘Our beloved local school district, Culver City Unified School District, is in crisis,’ one parent told the school board during the meeting. ‘We have entrenched patterns of disparity amongst different student populations when it comes to academic performance and an alarming reduction of educational opportunities that are available to every student with no input from key stakeholders: parents, families and students.’”

Getting down to the nitty-gritty … are all students equally prepared for high school? A resounding “NO.” Why is that? To me the answer is obvious, and can only be one or a combination of three things:

• most students are inadequately prepared for high school, because they did not learn what they were supposed to in elementary and middle school.
• the parents did not emphasize that learning and the hard work necessary to learn were critically important.
• certainly all high school students do not have equal IQs; according to standard distribution curves a portion will have higher IQs and a portion will have lower IQs. This has nothing to do with the gender or the race of the children attending high school.

Culver City is in the Los Angeles area, and the fact that the parents ifirst in San Diego and then in Culver City did not like the new “woke” equity plan is encouraging. Could it be that there is actually some hope for California?!

2/25/23

This piece is from two years ago. Has anything changed?

Is This Still America ? 

On 2/9/21 I sent out a link to a Townhall piece by Dennis Prager which was  harshly critical of the medical profession because of their position on the use of hydroxychloroquine for Covid. Mr. Prager did not pull any punches in his article. One of those on my master mailing list apparently did not appreciate me sending that link to him, as he has a long-standing view that anything which is complementary to the use of the drug, hydroxychloroquine for the treatment of Covid is verboten. Shortly after I had sent out the link, he fired back with a long commentary about how the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat early Covid was basically heresy, and implied that anyone who thought otherwise should be burnt at the stake. [Let’s be clear here. I have never prescribed hydroxychloroquine although this drug was used by physicians in my book (The Keneally Chronicles) – with good results, I might add.]

When I asked him about his familiarity with Dennis Prager, I received another bazooka-like response with no comment as to his familiarity with Dennis Prager . . . nada, so I can only assume that he is not familiar with Dennis Prager. Who Dennis Prager is, and what he stands for.

There are multiple important issues here:

First off, I have a single email master list. I do not have a list titled 

“for pro-hydroxychloroquine readers only.” In the past I have had to delete someone from my master mailing list because they did not want to get any more political stuff. “Sorry Charlie, I have one master list. If you do not want to read political emails, do not open them.” I then deleted him from my master email list, and I have to assume that we both are now happy. Another guy objected to an email that was critical of Democrats. He was offended as he proclaimed “I am a Democrat.” He is no longer on my master list, but has been repositioned to my Ken/Karen email list. To my anti-hydroxychloroquine reader, “Sorry to have offended you. I will do my best to remove you from my master list.”

However, there are much more important issues with that Dennis Prager piece than whether or not hydroxychloroquine works for Covid. For me the entire hydroxychloroquine issue is basically a political issue. The left apparently felt that it had to attack the use of hydroxychloroquine, because Donald Trump spoke favorably of its use. Any of Dr. Fauci’s “do a prospective study” of the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine were cancelled. (Note: all prospective studies on the use of hydroxychloroquine in early Covid were cancelled because “physicians should not use a drug for an off-label indication and all drugs have potential side-effects.”) This is just an example of “true, true, but unrelated.” Drugs are used for off-label indications all the time … at least they used to be in the USA that I knew. True, all drugs have potential side-effects, however in many many parts of the world hydroxychloroquine is sold over the counter without a prescription. When I was prescribed this same drug for malaria prophylaxis, I was told how to take it, but was not warned of any “potentially serious side-effects.” Hmmm! Why was that? Could it have been because the risk of a serious side-effect was minuscule?

There is a group of physicians right here in what I thought was the USA that advocate for the use of hydroxychloroquine in early Covid. Their YouTube videos have been taken down. (I guess that now licensed physicians cannot speak freely about their own personal medical experiences if it “offends” YouTube/Google.) What’s worse is that here in what I thought used to be the USA, the governors of some states have “commanded” that the pharmacists in their states not fill any prescriptions for hydroxychloroquine if it is to be used for the treatment of Covid. (I thought that I lived in a country where the relationship between the patient and their physician was somewhat sacred and protected . . . I guess I missed the memo that I had moved to Venezuela!)

Now back to Dennis Prager, who I can only assume was unknown to my anti-hydroxychloroquine reader. For those who are unaware, Mr. Prager runs an educational website called Prager University. Multiple Prager U videos have been blocked and taken down (censored) by YouTube because they have been deemed to contain material that YouTube said was “inappropriate” for younger audiences. Were they inappropriate because of porn? No, rather they were deemed offensive because they promoted conservative values. More than 50 PragerU videos which have either been “restricted” or “demonetized” by Google/YouTube. The PragerU videos range on various subjects presenting a conservative point of view, and include a video by noted Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz on the founding of Israel. PragerU has compiled a complete list of their restricted videos which  includes: “Why America Must Lead,” “The Ten Commandments: Do Not Murder,” “Why Did America Fight the Korean War,” and “The World’s Most Persecuted Minority: Christians.” 

If these are the type of Prager videos that have been deemed offensive by the likes of Facebook, YouTube, and Google, just imagine what will happen to Prager’s anti-hydroxychloroquine piece if anyone tries to post it on Facebook.

In summation the hydroxychloroquine issue is really not about whether or not it works for early Covid, but rather it is about who is allowed to speak freely today in America. And more importantly what an individual in America is allowed to say if it somehow offends those who are in control.

Is this still America ?

2/9/21

2/25/23

Before reading the rest of this piece, take a guess at what the title, “Unjected” means or refers to.

Let’s go back to 2021. If, for whatever reason, someone chose to be unvaccinated, he/she was often essentially blackballed. Faced with discrimination and censorship, many unvaccinated people lost jobs and relationships because they chose to remain unvaccinated. 

Now, finally, many of those who were unjustly terminated will get their day in court, getting reinstated and in some circumstances getting back pay.

A lot of the following taken from Epoch Premium:

During this time what was happening on dating sites? Well, to avoid any further suspense … the same thing was happening. On most all dating sites, vaccination was a prerequisite. The un-jabbed “didn’t have the option to say they were unvaccinated” to potential online dating partners.

They were only allowed to be vaccinated. And you had to have this badge in your [online] profile. Too often, the unvaccinated would hear on dating sites, “Swipe left”—move on.

In May 2021, the two business partners, businesswoman Shelby Thomson and Heather Pyle of Maui, Hawaii, moms, and best friends launched “Unjected,” a dating app for the unvaccinated, on the Google and Apple stores.

Apple eventually banned “Unjected,” and when Google threatened the same, and Unjected.com went live using the web domain host GoDaddy in August 2021.

“Unjected was founded to help us easier connect in a world of medical discrimination and censorship,” according to Unjected’s online introduction.

Thomson said 2021 was the fastest-growing year for the new dating site because so many unvaccinated people had lost their jobs in the pandemic.

Thomson said “Unjected” is more than a dating service for the unvaccinated. It’s also a blood bank database and a fertility bank for the unvaccinated.

The dating service alone boasts 110,000 subscriptions in 85 countries and 3,000 to 5,000 new clientele every month, Thomson said.

As the world’s “first unvaccinated dating platform,” Thomson said “Unjected” is part of an unvaccinated blood matching coalition that includes the Pureblood Registry, Blessed by His Blood, and Safeblood.

If I were unvaccinated and interested in a dating site, “Unjected” would be my first choice because I would be potentially matched with someone with a similar philosophy.

2/24/23

Is it the brain of leftists that doesn’t work right? It certainly sometimes  seems like that north of the border.

From BlazeNews:

“A man from Milton, Ontario, in Canada has been charged with second-degree murder after shooting a man who was trying to rob his home, as part of a five-man home invasion, according to the Toronto Star. One intruder was pronounced dead after being shot, and one more was arrested, while the remaining three are still at large.

At approximately 5 a.m., the suspects went to the house with the intent to commit robbery, according to police. The group was confronted by the man charged with the murder offense, Ali Mian, 22. Multiple gunshots were fired inside the home.

According to Mian’s lawyer, Jag Virk, Mian lives with his mother, who was being attacked by one of the intruders, who was in possession of a firearm during the invasion.

“The intruder had a gun and was attacking his mother,” Virk said.

The lawyer also told the outlet that Mian’s gun is legally registered and that he only fired it once without the intention to kill. After shooting the armed man, Mian allegedly called the police.”

Leftist Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau famously said in 2022 that citizens can’t use guns for “self-protection” in the country.

Let me get this straight!

Multiple shots were fired inside the house, but Ali Mian only fired one shot. Where did the rest of the shots come from? It doesn’t take a brain to deduce that the other shots must have come from one or more of the intruders’ guns.

Likewise Mr Trudeau, is there a tipping point as far as using a gun for self-protection? If there were ten armed men breaking into your house, , would it then be okay to use a gun for self-protection? What about twenty armed men?

Did Ali Mian have to wait until his mother was shot to use his gun? Should he have waited until he had already been shot to fire back?

If one of the armed intrudes had a gun, would it have been okay for Ali Mian to defend himself with a knife? The enlightened Mr. Trudeau did not mention using a knife for self-protection. What about a chair, or a slingshot? … Hmmm!

Granted, I have taken Trudeau’s statement to the point of ridiculousness, but to prove a point. My conclusion is that Justin Trudeau’s leftist brain doesn’t really understand the concept of self defense. In addition, the local police where Ali Mian lives are idiots!

2/23/23

From the title, I’ll bet you assumed that this was going to be about the train wreck in East Palestine, Ohio. Much has already been said about this train wreck, and will continue to be said in the next few weeks. Interestingly, once Donald Trump chimed in, the Biden administration changed its tune! But this piece is not about the East Palatine train wreck, but about the other train wreck, the head of the DOT, Pete Buttigieg. “Pothole Pete” is the ex-mayor of the fourth largest city in Indiana, who for some reason thought that he should run for President. Other than being a mayor of a relatively small city, he has no experience in anything related to government, and yet, Joe Biden appointed him to run the Department of Transportation. One might ask … “why?” It seems for Joe Biden appearances are much more important than qualifications. I could go on about this, but let’s focus on who the Washington Free Beacon refers to as a “train wreck.”

From the Washington Free Beacon:

Buttigieg’s actual record as transportation secretary is not great. Here are some of the scandals he allowed to happen on his watch:

• Toxic train derailment scandal

Buttigieg hasn’t met with residents, but he did go on television this week to urge everyone to calm down. “While this horrible situation has gotten a particularly high amount of attention, there are roughly 1,000 cases a year of a train derailing,” he said reassuringly, several hours after another train derailedoutside Detroit.

• Airline cancellation chaos scandal—2022 was one of the worst years for (public) air travel in recent memory. The U.S. airline industry descended into chaos on Buttigieg’s watch. Delays and cancellations surged along with ticket prices.

• Vacationgate—Buttigieg went on paid leave for almost two months in the fall of 2021 before the mainstream media took notice. In August 2022, the secretary took a “personal trip” to Portugal at the height of tense negotiations with rail worker unions to avoid a potentially catastrophic strike.

• Private jet privilege scandal—While normal Americans were suffering through the chaos at commercial airports, Buttigieg was flying all over the country in taxpayer-funded private jets while lecturing common folk about the dangers of climate change.

• Electric car abomination scandal—Buttigieg has repeatedly scolded the American people for complaining about rising gas prices when they could simply buy an electric car for $70,000 and not have to worry about the price of gas. After returning from his secret paid leave in 2021, the secretary touted the department’s purchase of Ford electric SUVs that were made in Mexico. Ford recalled the vehicle model months later due to a safety defect that “could result in a loss of power” and “cause a crash.”

• Racist roads and other woke nonsense scandal—Buttigieg refuses to let his job—running a federal transportation department—distract him from his real priorities. For example, in an effort to combat America’s “racist” highway system, the department allocated $1 billion to “build racial equity in roads.”

Back to the recent train wreck in Ohio … in East Palestine a resident at town meeting this week speaking about the personalization of “train wreck.” Where’s Pete Buttigieg? Where’s he at?” 

East Palestine mayor: “I don’t know. Your guess is as good as [mine]. Yesterday was the first time I heard anything from the White House.”—via Fox News 

2/22/23

In the midst of the recent Covid pandemic, how often did we hear, “just follow the science; look at the data” … a lot of times! So why now are we hearing, “do not believe the science; do not pay any attention to the data?” Here I am speaking about the latest data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which shows that there is a pattern that demonstrates that there has not been global warming for the past eight years. And NASA satellite data reportedly confirms that evidence, showing no global warming for eight years and five months. That not withstanding, leftists are quick to warn people against drawing the obvious conclusion that we are not experiencing global warming.

In other words, they are basically now saying, “If you do not like the data … close your eyes and ignore it!”

From PJ Media (this is the actual data):

Also from PJ Media:

Recently published evidence also showed that there was actually a near-record low of major hurricanes in 2022, indicating that weather isn’t getting progressively and exponentially worse globally, despite the climate frenzy of the media and governments. And the Northeast is currently experiencing record coldin a harsh winter, with Mt. Washington, N.H., yesterday dropping to -45.5 degrees Fahrenheit and -107 degree wind chill.

Liberal Reuters actually issued a Feb. 3 “fact check. The outlet can’t explain away the data, of course, but it hastened to assure readers that the eight years of global cooling are not a trend. Whole decades of such data must occur before we can stop expecting the imminent end of the world. 

In other words only believe the data when it seems to confirm what the leftists think. Otherwise, do not put any credence in real data. Do not believe the pattern that you are seeing means anything. Rather just ignore it. This, my friends, is the definition of “gaslighting.”

2/21/23

Today I have had enough of the doom and gloom in the humdrum daily news. So when I heard this story, I thought, “why not!”

Thirteen years ago in Ontario, Canada outside of the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds hockey team ice rink a branch of the Canadian Red Cross had set up a table to help raise money for Haiti, and Juliette Lamour, then five years old,  and her sister Sophie were determined to help.

That was 2010 and the island nation of Haiti had just been ravaged by an earthquake. Aid organizations from across the world rushed to help the people of the obliterated country stabilize and recover.

The sisters upturned their big pink sharing piggy bank that day, out of which came $61.38. The sisters gave it all to the Canadian Red Cross for Haitian people.

I can almost hear the murmuring of “that’s nice, two compassionate sisters giving all of their piggy bank to charity”, but que sera, sera. However, now fast forward to last week, thirteen years later, for what Paul Harvey used to call “the rest of the story.”

Juliette told the local paper, Soo Today, that she was on her way to bring her grandfather some ice cream.

“I called him on the phone asking what kind of ice cream he wanted,” she recalled. “And he said to me: ‘You just turned 18, go buy a lotto ticket, test your luck.’ So I did.” Lamour had just recently turned 18, the legal age to buy lottery tickets in Ontario.

Lamour stopped at the Circle K at Pine and McNabb. “I got to the corner store and I’m in my car — and I didn’t know how to buy it,” she laughed. “So I had to call my dad. I said: ‘Dad, Grandpa wants me to buy a ticket. How do I do it?’ He’s like: ‘Oh, just go inside and get a QuickPick.’ ”

Now for the rest of the story:

Juliette Lamour won the lottery … $48 million … on her first and only ticket purchase!!

The suggestion that her generosity, thirteen years prior, has been rewarded is impossible to resist making.

2/20/23