Author: Californiacontrarian

How many of you know much about Trump’s nominees to the various health agencies? I did recognize the names of the recent appointments, but to be honest, that’s are far as it went. Therefore when I read an article in Epoch Health, I thought that some of it would educational for my readers.
All of the following are excerpts from that 12/14/24 article from Epoch Health.

NIH Director: Dr. Jay Bhattacharya

The National Institutes of Health is the largest funder of biomedical and behavioral research in the United States and worldwide.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University and the new pick for the head of the NIH, would be making decisions on allocating potentially $50.1 billion of funds into research that would benefit American’s interest. Some expect Bhattacharya to reform the funding process to ensure that priorities for research grant approvals are driven by uncovering the root causes of the chronic disease epidemic in the United States rather than symptom mitigation medications.

“The NIH haven’t focused on any of the issues like obesity, they’ve done very little work on diabetes … smoking, these are major problems In the United States,” Dr. Cody Meissner, professor of pediatrics and medicine at Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine, told the Epoch Times in an interview.

The thing that I remember most about Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
is that he co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration with two other researchers. The Declaration advocated for focused protection, proposing that public health measures be primarily directed toward high-risk individuals while allowing young and healthy people to return to normal life.

As we have since learned the Great Barrington Declaration was spot on!

FDA Commissioner: Marty Makary

Dr. Marty Makary, a professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and author of several books, is seen as a person who values evidence more than consensus.

Makary’s op-eds throughout the pandemic showed an evolving view that adapted as more research emerged.

Makary criticized the way the CDC was keeping records on COVID-19 deaths, arguing that it has inflated COVID-19 mortality numbers by not differentiating people who died from COVID-19 as compared to those who died with COVID-19.
Makary welcomed vaccinations but has criticized the policymakers’ sole focus on driving up vaccination without considering herd immunity and also that children had significantly lower risks of dying from COVID-19 provided they did not have chronic health disease.

On problems with food and chemicals, at a congressional roundtable discussion hosted by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc), Makary echoed beliefs Kennedy said during his campaign.

CDC Director: Dr. Dave Weldon
Prior to reading the aforementioned Epoch Health piece, I do not recall ever hearing Dr. Weldon’s name before, and consequently knew nothing about him.

Weldon is well known for being a skeptic of vaccine safety and a critic of the CDC.
During his time in Congress, from 1996 to 2008, Weldon tried three times to introduce a bill that would ban mercury vaccines. The bill was blocked each time by the health subcommittees.
Weldon’s views align closely with Kennedy’s on examining vaccine safety and removing conflicts of interest in health agencies.

At the start of his testimony at a 2002 hearing discussing vaccines and autism, Weldon praised vaccination systems as significant breakthroughs. However, he criticized the lack of transparency from agencies like the CDC, which does not allow researchers to access the vaccine safety data, and suggested “to open it up and let objective scientists look at it.”
He added that unless there is an open dialogue on vaccine safety, he will “never be satisfied that there isn’t some data suggesting that some children may have serious side effects,” including potential side effects of autism.

Three interesting picks for these health agencies. The next four years will certainly be very interesting!
1/14/25

Back on Halloween of this year there was a wildfire in San Diego. Luckily there were no concomitant Santa Ana winds and within an hour or so this fire was contained and subsequently extinguished. A friend of mine had that wildfire come right up to his back fence. Yes, it was a close call. The cause of that wildfire was a homeless encampment. For even though it does not freeze here in San Diego, it does get cold at night. The nighttime cold temps as well as the need to have a fire for cooking are the two main reasons that the homeless encampments have fires.
At this point no one knows what started the horrendous L.A. fire in Pacific Palisades. In general the more common reasons for wildfires include lightning, arson, downed power lines, and campfires which get out of control. At this point we know that there was no lightning, and there is no evidence that arson was involved. There is a suspicion by some that arcing between power lines may have been involved, but nothing definitive at this point. In terms of causal possibilities, what are we left with?
Could a campfire in a homeless encampment have been the prime cause in conjunction with the Santa Ana winds? I guess that only time will tell. However remember that the vast majority of homeless are not up-to-date on the latest info on the Santa Ana winds, and wildfires caused by homeless campers are not rare in SoCal.
From PJMedia
Here are just a few recent wildfires started by drug-addled “homeless” campers.
* Jan 7, 2025: Santa Ana Riverbed Fire one acre, destroyed tents, RVs, and at least 12 cars.
* Nov. 14, 2024: Van Nuys, impacted commuters on freeways throughout San Fernando Valley.
* May 2024: Hollywood Boulevard, aforementioned electrical fire, threatened nearby buildings.
* Jan. 7, 2024: Hollywood, Cahuenga Pass, during high winds. Two cars and some trees were destroyed.
* April 20, 2021: Venice Beach, one home was destroyed and a dog killed. Believed linked to a string of homeless encampment fires in the area.
Keep in mind that Gavin Newsom’s plan to help the homeless has resulted in not only missing and unaccounted for billions of dollars, but also a nearly doubling of the homeless population in California.
It will certainly take months to figure out the cause of the Palisades fire, but could it be in the future that this fire will be what Gavin Newsom is mostly remembered for?
1/13/25

For quite awhile I have been using Sundays to write about individuals who deserve our praise and respect for something they did. Daljit Soni is such an individual.
From the Epoch Times:
Truck driver Daljit Sohi made a stop at the rest area on Nov. 29, 2024, when he saw Shailly James, of High River, Alta., inadvertently drop her purse during the stop while assisting her 4-year-old child.
As James drove away, Sohi got into his truck and followed, intending to return the purse, which contained James’s ID cards, $1,100, a gold chain, and her credit cards.
James was concerned when she noticed a truck following her, she said in a message she wrote to Sohi’s trucking company later. When she stopped about three hours later to fill up at a gas station in Sicamous, B.C., Sohi took the opportunity to return her purse.
“I was incredibly grateful for his honesty,” James wrote to Sohi’s employer in a note shared with The Epoch Times. “As a token of appreciation, I offered him a $500 reward, but he kindly refused and did not provide his name or any details about his company and left.”
James took note of Sohi’s trailer number and was able to contact his B.C. employer, Abbotsford-based trucking company Triple Eight Transport Inc.
James said she wanted to express her gratitude to Sohi for his “integrity and kindness,” and later sent him an iPhone to the company’s address as a token of appreciation, a spokesperson for the company told The Epoch Times.
Sohi was named a TCA Highway Angel on Dec. 9 and has been nominated for the 2024 Highway Angels of the Year Award.

Kudos to Daljit Soni. I hope that he wins the Highway Angel of the Year Award.
1/12/25

I do not often agree with the present governor of California, Gavin Newsom … in fact I am having difficulty recalling if I have ever agreed with him. But today I am agreeing with what he said on 1/8/25, when California Gov. Gavin Newsom accused President-elect Donald Trump of politicizing the ongoing wildfire crisis after the incoming president blamed his leadership for the fires currently raging through the Los Angeles area.
Speaking to CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Wednesday, 1/8, Newsom said: “Kids have lost their schools. Communities have lost their churches. Families have lost their homes. Some have even lost their lives. And the president-elect’s response is to politicize it.”

Memo to President-elect Trump: “Now is not the time to throw stones! It doesn’t matter whether your contention about who is at fault or partially at fault is true or not … Now is not the time.”

From the Epoch Times:
Newsom’s comments were made in reply to Trump’s comments on Wednesday that Newsom had refused to sign a water restoration plan “that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the north” to flow into other parts of the Golden State, including those currently impacted by the fires.
Trump criticized what he described as “gross incompetence and mismanagement” by the state and federal government in a series of posts on Truth Social.
There has been an ongoing debate about whether California should divert some water to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and San Francisco Bay to protect smelt and other fish or instead send it to Central Valley farmers and Southern California cities.
Trump, who has championed diverting the water to farmers and residents in those areas, has repeatedly clashed with Newsom over the issue.

All of the finger-pointing has just started, however, with the risk of unnecessarily repeating myself, I say to DJT, … “Now is not the time!”
1/11/25

Today I again have to admit that I do not understand the political system in England. Labour Party … ? Tories … ? From the way a vote turned out on 1/8/25, I am going to guess that the Labour Party is our equivalent of the Dems, while the Tories are the conservatives. You might ask, ‘which vote?’
The following from X tells the story.
UK’s Labour Party Votes Down National Inquiry Into ‘Grooming Gangs’

Labour MPs have defeated a Tory proposal for a national inquiry into grooming gangs — roving groups of migrants accused of rap*ng and s*xually assaulting girls — by a vote of 364 to 111 against the motion.
The vote follows heated political debate and public pressure, including demands from tech billionaire, Elon Musk, who criticized the government’s refusal to support a nationally led inquiry in Oldham.
Musk earlier reacted to a report that British PM Starmer would EXPEL Labour MPs unless from the party unless they vote AGAINST the national inquiry.
“Unbelievable,” Musk said. “Starmer must go.”
While complaints about the “grooming gangs” skyrocket, many point out that the divisive term even downplays the severity of the egregious crimes. Many of the victims have been recorded as minors, thus causing some to call these groups “ped*ph*le gangs.”
The Labour Party has attempted to quell public outrage by pointing to public complaints about migrants rap*ng and s*xually assaulting young girls as nothing but “Islamophobia.”

IMO, here the Labour Party is using a typical leftist strategy of going after and insulting those who hold opposing views (ad hominem attacks) instead of addressing the actual issue at hand. Again I find myself taking the side of Elon Musk. Can we hope for some common sense to suddenly to come to the Labour Party?
1/10/25

After years of discussion and haggling finally on 1/5/25 New York City’s controversial ‘congestion pricing’ program went into effect. Basically it charges exorbitant fees for commuters to enter Manhattan in their vehicles from areas surrounding the city. One of the intents of the law is to push more people to public transportation.
While I cannot thoughtfully argue the pros and cons of ‘congestion pricing,’ I thought that Vickie Paladino had a creative way to voice her opposition. Ms. Paladino is a Republican council member representing parts of Queens. In other words, her constituents are the exact people who the congestion pricing is harming.
Ms. Paladino tweeted the following”
“Important warning: A high-powered green laser pointer like the ones you find on Ebay for under $30 can destroy a camera sensor. So if you buy one of these lasers, be sure to NOT point them at any cameras, because they could be permanently damaged!”
It is interesting that in London, ever since the government enacted ‘Ultra Low Emission Zones’ that punish people for driving older cars with higher emissions, people have been destroying the cameras used to spot those violators.

While neither any law-abiding person nor a city councilwoman can officially support disabling traffic cameras with a green laser pointer, will the sales of these gadgets soon start to skyrocket on eBay or Amazon?
Is Vickie Paladino advocating for using these laser pointers to destroy these cameras or is she advocating for NOT using these laser pointers to destroy these cameras? Read her words carefully! … Hmmm!
1/9/25

On 1/7/25 the House passed the Laken Riley Act with a majority of Democrats voting against the bill. The Laken Riley Act is the first bill in the 119th Congress addressing illegal immigration, requiring that aliens charged with theft or burglary be detained.
As we can all recall Laken Riley was a 22-year-old nursing student who was brutally murdered by an illegal alien while she was jogging at the University of Georgia.
As would be expected a majority of Democrats voted against this bill … despicable Dems! However, despite the overwhelming resistance from 159 Democrats, 48 voted with 216 Republicans to pass the legislation.

Speaker Mike Johnson praised the legislation, saying it will “ensure criminals like Laken’s murderer are detained & deported before they can commit such evil acts.”
Actually, this Democrat resistance is not surprising as “President Biden never apologized to Laken’s family for allowing her killer into our country, but he DID apologize for calling that monster an illegal,” added Mike Johnson.
Joe Biden, another truly despicable Dem!
1/8/25

I am going to assume for the most part that you are not familiar with Mario Mendoza. For the most part one would have to be a baseball aficionado to know about him.
From Wikipedia:
Mendoza was a lightly used shortstop from Chihuahua, Mexico, who played for three franchises during a nine-season Major League career. While his fielding was highly regarded, his hitting was not. His batting average was between .180 and .199 in five seasons out of nine.
For those of you who are not familiar with baseball, one’s batting average indicates how good a hitter that individual is. In general a good hitter’s batting average is above .300, while a batting average of .250-.300 is indicative of an average hitter. A batting average of <.250 is what one would see with a poor hitter, and below the so-called Mendoza line with a batting average of <.200 … is extremely bad!
From Wikipedia:
The term is also used outside of baseball to convey a similar connotation of unacceptably subpar performance:
* “The U.S. 10-year note yield declined below 2%… before moving back above the Mendoza Line… to 2.09% by early afternoon.”
* “A sub-$2,000 per theater average… is the Mendoza Line of box office numbers…”
* “Republican pollster Neil Newhouse… argues that these numbers have crossed below the political ‘Mendoza line’…”

Last week Joe Biden Awarded the Medal of Freedom to Hillary Clinton, and George Soros. Besides severely diminishing the award, in my opinion, Joe Biden’s awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to a bunch of far liberal leftists such as Hillary Clinton and George Soros clearly puts the Presidential Medal of Freedom below the Mendoza line, perhaps forever!
Consequently this award means nothing now!
1/7/25

Before you read the following, lest you have any doubt, let me be perfectly clear … I do not listen to PBS radio. However, my friend, Jerry, sent this from PBS Morning Edition of 12/25/24, and I felt that a lot of it was worth passing on, especially during this holiday season.
The title of this Morning Edition piece was:
When kindness becomes a habit, it improves our health
(What follows are a few snippets from the Morning Edition show.)

Research shows that people who volunteer regularly have a lower risk of mortality and better physical health as they age.

It’s that time of year when it’s customary to be a little kinder and do nice things for others. Research suggests that when we make acts of kindness a habit, it’s also good for our health. Whether it’s volunteering at a local food bank, or taking soup to a sick neighbor, there’s lots of evidence that when we help others, it can boost our own happiness and psychological well-being. But there’s also growing research that it boosts our physical health too, says Tara Gruenewald, a social and health psychologist at Chapman University.

Most of the evidence comes from observational studies of people who volunteer regularly. But there is also experimental evidence.
Other research has found that people who volunteer regularly have a lower risk of mortality and have better physical function as they age. “People are able to walk longer at older ages and have better balance and so forth,” says Laura Kubzansky, a professor of social and behavioral sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Kubzansky studies the interplay between physical and mental health. Her research has found that people who engage in more volunteering and charitable donations have lower levels of physical pain.
She says researchers still don’t know the exact mechanisms by which volunteering and acts of kindness improve people’s health, but it is likely that multiple processes are at play.

Most of the research in this field has looked at middle-age and older adults.
But one study that really stands out involved high schoolers who were randomly assigned to volunteer for 10 weeks with elementary school kids. Compared to students in the trial who were put on a waitlist, the teen volunteers had improvements in several markers of cardiovascular health.
“Those students who were engaged in volunteering activities with younger students showed healthier body mass index, healthier inflammatory markers and healthier total cholesterol,” Boehm says. And the students who increased the most in empathy and altruistic behaviors, and who decreased the most in negative mood, also showed the greatest decreases in cardiovascular risk over time.

Given the findings so far, Kubzansky says she’d like to see health officials make research into the health benefits of volunteering and other acts of kindness a public health priority.

For what it’s worth I think that Kubzansky is right on, and I hope someone in the new Trump administration will follow up on this.

[On a completely different subject with no segue except for the title of this blog, “Good Morning,” I have a new book on Amazon, titled,”Good Mourning.”]

1/6/25

Initially, here I was going to repeat the title from my previous blog from 1/10/23 entitled … “Will the ‘Woke’ Ever Learn?” However, rather than again stating the obvious, I have chosen to give praise to Vivian Geraghty.
Most of the following is taken from The Daily Wire.
Two years ago, Vivian Geraghty was unceremoniously fired by Jackson Memorial Middle School when two students asked Geraghty to use new names that aligned “with their new gender identities rather than their legal names.” One of the students also requested that teachers use a preferred pronoun that did not reflect the student’s biological sex.

Geraghty went to the principal in hopes of reaching a solution, but the principal and his superior, the director of curriculum, instruction, and assessment, told her “she would be required to put her beliefs aside as a public servant.” She was allegedly accused of insubordination and told that continuing to teach without participating in the students’ gender transitions would “not work in a district like Jackson.”
She was informed that if she would not participate, she must resign immediately. She was then forced to resign after she said she could not use trans-identifying students’ new names and pronouns due to her Christian faith.

Geraghty said she attempted to tell the principal that forcing her to resign was a violation of her right to free speech, but the principal repeated that as a public servant, she must “set [her] religious convictions aside” or resign. The principal’s superior then handed her a laptop and told her to draft her letter of resignation immediately,
That was two years ago.
Earlier last month a court decided that Geraghty’s former Ohio school district will pay nearly half a million dollars to Geraghty, the English teacher, who was forced to resign after she said she could not use trans-identifying students’ new names and pronouns due to her Christian faith.
“No school official can force a teacher to set her religious beliefs aside in order to keep her job,” Alliance Defending Freedom Legal Counsel Logan Spena said in a statement.
“The school tried to force Vivian to accept and repeat the school’s viewpoint on issues that go to the foundation of morality and human identity, like what makes us male or female, by ordering her to personally participate in the social transition of her students,” Spena said.

Kudos to Vivian Geraghty who stuck up for her religious principles.
1/5/25