Month: April 2023

After reading about some of what is supposed to be in the alleged intel leak from National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, there needs to be a few questions answered. While Teixeira is being written off as a traitor, and a criminal, etc., I have not heard anybody with any real authority actually saying if the leaked info is true or not true. In fact, the quieter those who actually know about the leak’s veracity are, to me, the more likely what is contained in the leak is spot on.

First a few pertinent questions:

Is Ukraine, visa vi, the U.S., actually winning or losing this war?

Are the Russian casualty counts being inflated, while at the same the Ukrainian casualty counts are being suppressed?

Does the U.S actually have boots on the ground?

Of all the questions that need to be answered, to me, this last one about boots on the ground, is perhaps the most important, because having boots on the ground IS waging war. Is Joe actually taking it upon himself to wage war? Does he need glasses or did he not have his glasses on when he read the Constitution?  Granted, perhaps Joe has never read the Constitution!

From BlazeNews:

Our Founders were very deliberate in leaving the power to initiate a war in the hands of the legislature, not one executive. They believed it would be the number-one opportunity for administrative abuse. “Nations in general will make war whenever they have a prospect of getting anything by it,” John Jay wrote inFederalist No. 4. “Absolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for purposes and objects merely personal, such as thirst for military glory, revenge for personal affronts, ambition, or private compacts to aggrandize or support their particular families or partisans.” Such factors could motivate the executive “to engage in wars not sanctified by justice or the voice and interests of his people.”

It is therefore very clear that our Founders, based on the reality of warfare defined in their time, believed that any initiation of offensive action taken against another nation must be approved by Congress.

Hmmm! Could this be the second time that Joe has not used his glasses to read the words of the Constitution? The first being the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipeline. Indeed this was an offensive act of aggression … by whomever did it.

As some of you may recall, back in the beginning of 2022, I questioned why Joe did not react when Putin was amassing troops along the Ukraine-Russia border. My thinking back then was that it would be better to avoid a war than to fight a war which was going to be difficult, if not impossible, to finish.

Again, months back I asked how this war was going to eventually end. Was Putin ever going to kowtow to Zelensky/Biden and their tough talk?

Again I need to ask how this war is going to end. If what has been postulated to be in Teixeira’s leaks is true, then my answer can only be … “Badly.”

4/21/23

For those who do not know me well, I am a beer drinker. I do not drink a large volume of beer, but typically, except maybe during Lent,  I will have one beer a night. Over the years my beer taste buds have evolved from a lager to a porter, and for years now to an IPA.  I am consistently drinking IPAs because they have more gusto (more hoppy) than other types of beers. FYI for those non-beer drinkers, in addition all IPAs are not the same as some are definitely more hoppy than others. At present my favorite IPAs are Stone(the most hoppy), Lagunitas, and Goose Island.

Sometimes I pay attention to stories on the internet, and one of the hot topics now is the major faux pas made by the makers of Bud Light when they essentially endorsed a transgender individual. If I had been a Bud Light drinker, I would have ceased drinking it. Subsequently I asked myself, “How could I get my protest across to Anheuser-Busch, the makers of Bud Light?” By chance today on the Internet, I read something and the answer came to me, and it was concerning something that I had never heard of before.

From BlazeNews:

The social media account for Yuengling Brewery, the oldest brewery in the U.S., scored a viral hit against Bud Light with an understated jab.

Yuengling took advantage of the controversy by tweeting a simple message with a photograph of the U.S. flag and a bottle of its beer.

“Yuengling, The Oldest Brewery In America.  Independently Owned and Family Operated since 1829 because we make good beer.”

I then looked up Yuengling, and looked over their multiple types of beer. Indeed they do have a wide variety of choices, but much to my dismay, they do not have an IPA. A dilemma of sorts? No, not really as I plan to find where in my neighborhood, I can buy Yuengling beer. Even if they do not have an IPA, I will buy some other type of Yuengling beer and offer it to my friends when they come over … hoping that they will like it, and buy some for themselves. I figure that’s the least I can do to protest against Anheuser-Busch and support Yuengling, a U.S. brewery from Pennsylvania.

4/20/23

On more than one occasion just over the last few years California Democrats have told its residents, “trust us as we know best; we will help you!” 

First it was with facemasks … outdoor, indoor, in cars, on the beach. How did that turn out? Useless! 

Then it was their lockdowns which destroyed multiple businesses in the state. While it was okay to go to a crowded Costco, I could not go to my gym or to church. Obvious nonsense!

Next was the closing of schools, despite the fact that school children were at minuscule risk from Covid. They told all of us that online learning would be fine, despite causing innumerable hardships for families, and in fact, it caused the learning by school children to go down the tubes.

Then came the mandatory vaccines which proved to essentially be baseless for healthy adults.

After imposing sequential absurd policies one after another, could it be that they would recognize the error of their ways, and be finished telling us what to do? … Not a chance! The latest way that California Democrats are going to save us all, is via bill banning additives used in Skittles, jelly beans, Campbell’s soup, some bread brands, and more.

The bill proposes a prohibition on “manufacturing, selling, delivering, distributing, holding, or offering for sale” food containing any of five substances. The substances are brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, propyl paraben, red dye 3, and titanium dioxide.

Directors from companies including the National Confectioners Association, California Grocers Association and the American Chemistry Council oppose the bill, the Daily Mail reported. The groups say the bill is premature and that the targeted substances are safe.

‘All five of these additives have been thoroughly reviewed by the federal and state systems and many international scientific bodies and continue to be deemed safe,’ the letter says.

But is there any downside to this bill? Certainly there would be a black market on Skittles, jelly beans, Campbell’s soup etc. These black market items would not generate any tax revenue for the state, and any place just across the California border would be more than happy to sell Californians the contraband items!

However, it gets worse as the confectionery industry creates $7.7 billion of economic impact in California, according to the National Confectioners Association. The industry provides over 100,000 direct and indirect jobs in the Golden State. … Ouch! 

The best way for California Democrats to help Californians, is  … not to help!

4/19/23

This is an excerpt from chapters in a new book by Steven Schaefer.

Part 4

Failed Computer Modeling

The case for human-caused warming is primarily based on computer modeling. The predictions from the modeling have been consistently and spectacularly wrong. The scientific method states that if predictions are wrong, then the hypothesis is flawed. Results from computer models are not evidence!

“This fascination with computer models is something I understand very well. Richard Feynman called it a disease. I fear he is right.” Michael Crichton, 2003

One repeatedly hears, “The Hottest Year Ever!” The NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) includes land-based measurements, as well as accurate satellite measurements in their reporting. Land-based results are problematic, due to poor siting issues (near urban heat islands, airports, etc.). They read high. Additionally, the declared small yearly increase is often within the margin of error.

Man-Made Climate Change Theory will eventually end up on the “Trash Heap of History,” joining other doomsday predictions.

• Malthusian Theory of Population Growth

• Paul Ehrlich’s book, The Population Bomb

• Acid Rain

• Peak Oil

• Lysenkoism, which rejected Mendelian genetics and led to starvation in the Soviet Union

• Anti-GMOFoods

• Round-Up: Junk Science and Jackpot Justice

• Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and its “precautionary principle” leading to the banning of DDT, which led to the malarial deaths of tens of millions world-wide. “People are the cause of the problems; we have too many of them; we need to get rid of some of them and (banning DDT) is as good a way as any.”

Charles Wurster, Scientist Environmental Defense Fund

Part 5

The Green New Deal

Early advocates for the Green New Deal admitted it was not about “saving the planet”, but rather an effort to bring about the world’s greatest transfer of wealth, replacing capitalism with socialism.

The Paris Climate Agreement is another transfer of wealth scheme. There are no enforcement mechanisms and the non-participation of China, Russia and India make a mockery of the whole enterprise.

Renewable energy will never replace fossil fuels, which presently supply 80% of the world’s energy.

Magical thinking and utopian pipe dreams lie behind “tipping points”, “Net Zero”, carbon capture, green hydrogen and atmospheric geoengineering. For the past forty years, dramatic apocalyptic warnings headline the world’s news sources: “We only have ten more years to save the planet!” It’s becoming a bit tiresome.

The mad dash towards electrification is producing lots of losers in the West, but only one clear winner, China. China poses as a climate warrior, while opening two coal mines per week. They also supply the West with rare earth minerals and the processing of them, as well as supplying the West with wind turbines, batteries and solar panels. Mining of the raw materials are producing human rights violations in developing countries (think child labor in cobalt mining in the Congo), as well as massive environmental destruction, all performed with machines fueled by fossil fuels.

4/16/23

I just read read something that piqued my interest. Either we have a string of coincidences or a pattern. I will let you decide.

First from BlazeMedia:

On 4/6, a man in a dress reportedly struck former NCAA swimmer, Riley Gaines at least twice after the 23-year-old swim star gave a speech about keeping women’s spaces female-only. Her attacker was part of a hysterical mob of transsexual extremists and LGBT activists that descended on the Turning Point USA and Leadership Institute event at San Francisco State University.

She had been subject to verbal and written abuse in recent weeks after she took a stand against the inclusion of men in women’s sports. On the evening of 4/6/23, however, her attackers turned to physical violence. 

Gaines posted a video to Twitter documenting some of the chaos that reached a fever pitch as audience members were being let out of the classroom, noting, “The prisoners are running the asylum at SFSU…I was ambushed and physically hit twice by a man. This is proof that women need sex-protected spaces.”

The 12-time All-American swimmer underscored that the vicious attack “only further assures me I’m doing something right. When they want you silent, speak louder.”

A TPUSA spokesman told Fox News Digital that the mob had been “organized by SFSU’s Queer and Trans Resource Center.”

Okay, so one isolated violent outburst by a trans-group. This could happen anywhere to anybody. No pattern here. Meanwhile on the same day I read that charges have been filed against a man who identifies as a woman after he allegedly planned to carry out mass shooting attacks on multiple schools in Colorado Springs.

From The Epoch Times:

“William Whitworth, 19, was charged on April 6 following an investigation into threats involving the schools in Colorado Springs Academy District 20, officials said.

Eric Ross, a spokesman for the 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, told The Gazette that Whitworth is in the process of transitioning to female.

Whitworth, who told police he identifies as “Lilly,” has been charged with two counts of criminal attempt to commit murder in the first degree, one count of criminal mischief, one count of menacing, and one count of interference with staff, faculty, or students of educational institutions.

Arrest records state that a family contacted the Elbert County Sheriff’s Office after Whitworth allegedly made multiple references to school shootings and threatened to shoot up a school, NBC affiliate KOAA-TV reported.

Whitworth reportedly confirmed to law enforcement officials that he had been planning the school shootings for months and had “too much” knowledge about school shootings.

His arrest affidavit reportedly references a manifesto with an entire page regarding mass killings, which allegedly includes drawings of classrooms and a detonator. Whitworth allegedly told police that he had watched a YouTube video to learn how to create a detonator.”

Okay, so one violent episode by trans-individuals and one potential massively violent episode by a trans-individual, which was thankfully averted. Hmmm. Coincidence or a pattern?

Whitworth is not merely a “copy cat” as he had been planning his attack for months prior to the recent Nashville incident.

The charges against Whitworth come shortly after a former student of The Covenant School who identified as transgender and used male pronouns opened fire on the Nashville school, killing six people, including three young children.

Police said the suspect in that shooting, identified as 28-year-old Audrey Elizabeth Hale, also had a manifesto and had planned the massacre by drawing out a detailed map of the school, which included potential entry points.

Meanwhile, a 30-year-old male transsexual has been charged with fatally stabbing a taxi driver in Portland on Easter Sunday. The Oregonian reported that the victim was a longtime driver with Radio Cab. Darin Campbell, a spokesman for Radio Cab, indicated the victim’s shift was cut short when a passenger butchered him just a few minutes into a fare.

It was “vicious, senseless and brutal,” said Campbell. “There was no conversation. No altercation. Nothing.”

Andy Ngo of the Post Millennial reported that Lopez is a biological male who claims to be a woman, characterizing him further as an “LGBTQ+ activist.” The suspect’s Facebook page has pictures of him posing in blue nail polish with LGBT symbols, with one rainbow-crowded image captioned, “Love wins pride.”

In several other pictures, Lopez appears with a mustache and women’s makeup. Ngo reported that Lopez appears to have begun masquerading as a woman around 2018, having previously identified as a gay man.

The Portland Police Bureau announced Monday that Moses Lopez had been booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center. He was charged with second-degree murder and the unlawful use of a weapon.

Lopez pleaded non guilty to both charges Monday, reported the Oregonian.

Just days before the murder, on April 3, Lopez had been arrested and charged with menacing two people with a dangerous weapon in Coos County, but was subsequently cut loose without having to post bail.

Is this story about Moses Lopez and Darin Campbell just another apparent violent coincidence involving a transsexual? Does it seem that what started out as just apparent coincidences is now morphing into more of a pattern? You decide.

4/17/23

On Sunday I like to highlight individuals who we can all admire. We have all heard of dramatic rescues, but this heroic rescue by Francis Zuber has to be near the top of the list.

From vancouverisawesome.com:

A snowboarder is lucky to be alive after a stranger was skiing and rescued him from a tree well in the backcountry of Washington’s Mount Baker.

Francis Zuber, 28 of Bellingham, was enjoying an afternoon skiing with friends when he spotted a snowboard sticking out of the snow. Zuber, who was wearing a GoPro at the time, quickly jumped into action and freed the suffocating snowboarder. The rescue was captured on video.

“I had no idea how long he’d been there for,” he tells Glacier Media in an interview. “I knew I needed to get to them immediately.”

In the video, you can hear Zuber yell, ‘Are you alright?’

Ian Steger, who was stuck in a tree well, managed to move his snowboard slightly. Zuber, who has been skiing for 24 years, had all the right gear for the dramatic rescue.

“The part of the process of getting (to him) was really the scariest ordeal of the whole thing,” he says, noting it was a struggle.

Zuber used his skis to get closer but the snow kept pushing him down.

“I sunk into the snow and realized that me getting to him is going to just be a huge effort. I was really scared I was not going to be able to get to him in time,” says Zuber.

With the clock ticking, he cleared the snow out from in front of him instead of climbing over it and grabbed the snowboard to pull himself up. Out of breath, Zuber dug deeper and deeper to try and get to the trapped man.

“Ah, c’mon,” he can be heard saying in the video. 

Steger tried to remain calm. He had a small air pocket.

He heard his friends on his walkie-talking trying to talk to him but realized they weren’t able to locate him. 

At one point, a large section of snow falls on top of Zuber as he says, “Are you alright? Can you hear me?”

After digging for more than a minute, he finally finds Steger’s face. 

“Once I got to him, there was a little bit of relief because he was still moving. I knew that he was going to be OK, and that I would be able to dig him out,” recalls Zuber, who estimates Steger was trapped head-first for five to seven minutes.

“It probably felt like a lifetime for him.” 

Once Zuber reached Steger, he told him they were both going to catch their breaths. He then pulled out a shovel to clear the rest of the snow.

“I cleared enough around him, had him grab onto my arm and pulled him out,” says Zuber. “The first thing I did was just give him a big hug.”

The video is dramatic and very impressive., and thus is recommended to all.

Francis Zuber is indeed a modern day hero!

4/16/23

This was published on my blog in April, 2021, and is still relevant today!

Single Moms  

Single moms . . . good? bad? indifferent?

Single moms . . . increasing incidence? decreasing incidence? the same ?

According to the Census Bureau, the number of children living with two parents has dropped since 1968, while the percentage living with their mother only has doubled.

“About 7.6 million (11%) children lived with their mother only in 1968 compared to 15.3 million (21%) in 2020,” the Bureau found.

So what ?

Brad Wilcox, a senior fellow at the Institute for Family Studies and the director of the University of Virginia’s National Marriage Project, warned that the trend could spell disaster if not reversed.

He cited an essay he wrote for Slate, in which he pointed out that “boys raised in a single-parent household were more than twice as likely to be incarcerated, compared with boys raised in an intact, married home, even after controlling for differences in parental income, education, race, and ethnicity.”

“Of course, many kids raised by single moms do just fine,” Wilcox added. “I was raised by a single mom.”

“This is bad news because kids raised by single mothers are markedly more likely to grow up poor, fail in school, be depressed, and end up incarcerated,” Wilcox tweeted. 

Again from the Census Bureau: 

“Monitoring these trends is important because children’s living arrangements can have implications for children’s outcomes, such as academic achievements, internalizing problems (e.g., depression and anxiety), and externalizing problems (e.g., anger and aggression).”

But why should this be the case?

Is there any similarities in other animal species?

I recently read an article that started off by describing a past problem at Pilanesberg National Park in South Africa. It was written by a Will Alexander, of whom I am not familiar, but from the photo adjacent to his article, he is a black African American.

Pilanesberg National Park, or Pilanesberg Game Reserve as it is often called, is located in the Bojanala Region, within the North West Province and relatively near Johannesburg, South Africa.

I usually do not do this, but because I found Mr. Alexander’s story about Pilanesberg Park so interesting, most of the following is copied word for word from his piece:

“Years ago, South Africa’s Pilanesberg Park had big trouble. Tons of it. Someone went on a killing spree of its prized white rhinos. Thirty-nine of the 5-ton ungulates were mysteriously turning up dead around the park. That was 10 percent of the park’s endangered rhino population.

“A break came in the case when staff saw a video of young elephants terrorizing tourists. Others witnessed elephants taunting and bullying rhinos for hours.  After tracking the herds, chronicling their behavior, and developing rap sheets on the most aggressive ones, rangers found their killers: gangs of teen male elephants.”

But why?

“The problem went back two decades. Kruger National Park, half the size of Switzerland, was dangerously overpopulated with elephants. Adult males were too big to relocate, so the excruciating decision was made to shoot them and move the children and some of their mothers to other parks.”

This is where Pilanesberg National Park enters the picture as it received some of these young elephants. Mr. Alexander goes on describe a male elephant hormone called “musth,” which has a lot to do with aggressive male adolescent aggressive behavior, and must be tempered.

Alexander continues:

“But what seemed like a good idea at the time severely disrupted the delicate balance of life in elephant society. It triggered a disaster. Young elephant herds, deprived of adult male leadership, were forced into an extremely destabilized childhood that turned deadly in their teens.

“ ‘You don’t want to believe that an elephant is capable of killing a rhino,’ said Gus Van Dyk, the Pilansburg’s field ecologist. ‘What’s different is they don’t have a father,’ said Dyk. ‘I think everyone needs a role model, and these elephants that left the herd had no role model and had no idea of what appropriate elephant behavior was’.

“‘Like juvenile delinquents from urban jungles, they’ve grown up without role models,” said journalist Bob Simon, who reported on the story for 60 Minutes in 1999.

“To solve Pilanesberg’s problem, adult male elephants were brought back to the park on specially designed trucks emblazoned with the words: ‘We’re on our way to kick butt in the Pilanesberg.’ And that’s what happened.  The adult males established a new hierarchy, and the rhino killings stopped.  Simon called it the ‘biggest Big Brother Program in the world.’”

Now although it would be interesting to go to Pilanesberg National Park, the reality is that I will never see it in person. Sure I like wild animals, and this story is interesting, but is what happened in Pilanesberg Park many years ago, relevant to anything in our world today? 

Hmmm!

I will close with a 17th Century English Proverb:

“One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters.” 

4/27/21

4/15/23

Because today was a dismal overcast day, my wife and I considered going to a movie. However, we did not find a single movie that we wanted to see. Unusual? Not really as the movie makers are not in sync with normal everyday Americans. In fact, a lot of things that are on the market are not being bought by everyday people, because a lot of the producers are dreaming, and not appealing to the common man. What we have here is a disconnect!

Is the phenomenon of the maker of something not being cognizant of what the consumer wants, becoming more prevalent? After the recent Bud Light debacle, one would think that a producer of a product would attempt to communicate on the same level as the buyer. But increasingly we seem to have a disconnect. To me, these disconnects are anti-common sense. 

Nonetheless, this “we know what is best for you” dreaming is becoming more prevalent the further left the government leans. The vast majority of Americans do not want and cannot afford Electric Vehicles, yet the Biden administration is now mandating that by 2035, the majority of vehicles produced will have to be EVs. “Dream on, Joe!” 

From POWERLINE … consider what is happening in Germany:

Not the German government, which continues on a collision course with reality. But Germans have figured out that the green dream is turning into a nightmare. This report is on a survey of Germans done by forsa:

An overwhelming majority of the German population is of the opinion that a successful energy transition is not realistic. According to a Forsa survey, 88 percent of respondents share this view.

An 88 percent disconnect! That is stunning.

The Germans have less and less confidence in their Federal Government’s plans for the energy transition. Only ten percent still believe that renewable energy systems such as photovoltaics and wind power can adequately meet the country’s energy needs.

In 2011, 39 percent of respondents were still optimistic and 61 percent skeptical.

Even among the supporters of the Greens, skepticism now prevails.

A majority of 59 percent of respondents continue to support the use of natural gas as an energy source in Germany. 57 percent are in favor of a continuation of nuclear energy.

The German government’s green dreams promise to destroy that country’s economy … similar to Biden’s green dreams and what is happening to the U.S. economy.

4/15/23

Because I have no legal training or legal background, thus far I have refrained from commenting on the Trump-Bragg fiasco in NYC.

However, I recently read a front page headline in my local “newspaper” that stated “Trump Faces 34 Counts,” in rather large print. It seems that much of the piece that followed came from the Washington Post and The NY Times, both notoriously left-wing newspapers. There was no indication or suggestion that there was anyone with legal knowledge that contributed to the front page piece.

The one day later I read an article from the New York Post by Andrew C. McCarthy, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Not only is Mr. McCarthy a lawyer, but also he was a former assistant U.S. attorney. That becomes of utmost importance because of what he has to say about this Trump-Bragg fiasco.

McCarthy begins his NY Post article, “Alvin Bragg alleges that Donald Trump defrauded voters into electing him president on November 8, 2016.

Alvin Bragg also alleges that the first crime Donald Trump committed occurred on February 14, 2017.

Are you seeing the problem here?”

Later in this piece, McCarthy summarizes what he thinks of D.A. Bragg’s case … “The DA’s biggest problem, however, is that his indictment is utterly incoherent.” McCarthy bases this summation on the following:

“The indictment suffers from a number of what should be fatal legal flaws: First, the charges were filed after the expiration of the statue of limitations; second, as McCarthy writes, “It fails, despite its 34 counts, to state a crime”; third, Trump was charged with felonies that, even if proved, are usually misdemeanors paid for with a fine, not more than 100 years in prison.”

Here’s my point. Why does my local “newspaper” attempt to sway its readers with a large print headline, instead of trying to educate its readers with some legal facts about the Trump-Bragg case? Could it be that my local “newspaper” doesn’t really care about the facts? … Bingo!!

4/14/23

For those who might be unaware both my wife and myself are from the Chicago area. I was actually born within the confines of the windy city (St. Anne’s Hospital), and lived on the west side of Chicago until I was a junior in high school. I worked multiple jobs in the city … working at a can factory to earn money for college, driving a cab while in med school, and finally interning at the infamous Cook County Hospital. In the last ten years we went back to visit downtown Chicago multiple times … to celebrate an anniversary, another time to enjoy the city in autumn, and yet another time to show three of our grandchildren the sites of a wonderful big city. Over the years we  have contributed to the city coffers by spending a fair amount of money there. At one point we actually considered purchasing a time share at the Drake Hotel on Michigan Avenue.

However, no more. The city of Chicago is officially off of our list. … Why?

Basically it has become too dangerous, because it is too soft on crime, and too anti-police. Additionally Chicago’s new ultra progressive leftist mayor will only make things worse.

Although I will consider flying in and out of Milwaukee, at present, I will fly in and out of one of the two Chicago airports to visit friends and relatives in the northern suburbs where it is safe to walk around.

My present feelings about Chicago came to mind when I read an editorial from the San Francisco Chronicle bemoaning the future fate of San Francisco, which has a progressive Democratic mayor, London Breed, and a just recently recalled left-wing District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who was accused of taking a soft-on-crime approach. Furthermore, in the early morning hours of 4/4/23 Cash App founder Bob Lee was stabbed to death in an affluent part of the city.

I used to enjoy visiting San Francisco, but like Chicago, it is now off my list! Que sera, sera.

4/13/23