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As many of you are aware on Sunday I pay tribute to someone who should be worthy of our praise. This week the honoree is Steve Finn.

From a Epoch, Bright headline:

“Former Cop Saw Too Many Kids’ Lives End Badly—So He Built a Christian School to Give Them 2nd Chance”

The sons of West Virginia were the reason former police officer Steve Finn, once serving Atlanta Metro, hung up his badge. In the line of duty, from the late 1990s, he saw it happen firsthand to young people in his home city: He knew a young woman who, in conflict with herself, chose gang life—fatally. She died in the passenger’s seat during a head-on car crash. A known gang member, also deceased, was in the driver’s seat. Too many children’s lives were ending in bad ways, the officer saw.

Finn said, 

“I just saw again and again, children that I knew that were making really poor decisions that were putting them in the grave early or putting them in jail for the remainder of their youth.”

Officer Finn had wanted to make a difference in their lives, wanted to get upstream and fix the problem, somehow. As a “Christian in uniform,” he went home and told his wife his intentions and prayed about it.

“What if we could do more?” Mr. Finn asked his wife. “My wife, God bless her, she’s a trooper. She said, ‘Let’s go after this,’ and we went after it. And we almost lost everything in the process.”

They would found an all-boys school for troubled youths in West Virginia.

Why West Virginia? West Virginia, per capita, is highest in the nation for having children in foster care. While the national average is 3 children in foster care for every 1,000, in West Virginia, that number is 13 children in foster care for every 1,000. That’s over four times the nation’s average, and doesn’t even include children being raised by grandparents. In Braxton County, a staggering 86 percent of grandparents raise their grandchildren. West Virginia, Mr. Finn learned, was the state with the greatest need.

He said, ‘Let’s just put our chips on the table and see if God’s in it. If He’s in, He’s in; if He’s not, He’s not,’” Mr. Finn told his wife. “Let’s give it 12 months, and if nothing’s happening, we’ll shut this thing down.”

They were down to their last $12.54 at their lowest. 

They broke ground in 2005. And now, we have Chestnut Mountain Ranch which, sure enough, holds troubled kids accountable but also seeks the areas where they truly shine, nurturing that with its capacity for 28 boys.

In the latest news, a 370-acre children’s home shut its doors a few miles down the road and Chestnut Mountain was asked to take over. With encouragement from the community, the deal is all but done; attorney-drafted papers still need signing, but handshakes have been made. It appears that, soon, there will be a new all-girls Christian school for the daughters of West Virginia.

Steve Finn recognized a need, and Steve Finn risked it all. Consequently, many teenage boys have benefitted, soon many teenage girls will also benefit.

3/24/24

As many of you are already aware, I was a big fan of Ivermectin even before I took it for Covid in late November, 2023. A few days ago I saw “Ivermectin” in the title of a piece in Epoch Health, but the piece had nothing to do with Ivermectin and Covid!

From Epoch Health:

The following summarizes an anecdotal report of what happened to Rick Alderson who was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer back in November, 2020. He was diagnosed with terminal colon cancer, and given only six months to live.

Mr. Alderson got started with 10 rounds of radiation therapy. Initially, his carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), a marker for tumor activity, was significantly elevated, and just continued to go up as the tumor metastasized to his liver with twenty-five metastatic sites identified in his liver. 

Due to concerns about COVID-19 and the ongoing pandemic, Mr. Alderson started looking into preventative medication and found ivermectin.

Further research showed that the drug could likely enhance the effectiveness of his chemotherapy and radiation therapy and was relatively safe. In February 2021, he began taking ivermectin.

By midsummer, his CEA had fallen into the normal range. Of the 25 tumors in his liver, only three remained.

Mr. Alderson went on to live another two years before succumbing to liver failure due to the progression of his three remaining liver tumors.”

Most of those with IDS (Ivermectin Derangement Syndrome) will shrug this off as simply an isolated anecdotal report … however

“There are at least nine perfectly defined cancer targets affected by ivermectin,” Dr. Alfonso Dueñas-González, an oncologist and senior researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, told The Epoch Times.

The first reports of ivermectin’s anti-cancer properties came in 1995. Two French researchers found that ivermectin—a Nobel Prize-winning anti-parasite drug—could reverse multidrug resistance in tumors. The drug targets tumor stem cells—a driver of cancer tumors and relapses—and promotes cancer death.

Ivermectin also enhances the effects of chemo and radiation therapy. It has a broad impact on the immune system, increasing immune offense against cancers.

3/23/24

Sometimes when I read about something a company did, I wonder what planet are they on? What sort of tiddlywinks do they have working in their front offices. Individuals who are in charge of a company owe their allegiance to the stockholders. It shouldn’t matter what degree of wokeness they are, but in the real world, it does matter! Plus, apparently these yo-yo have never heard of Bud-Light or Target! OMG!

And this brings us to Planet Fitness.

From BlazeNews:

In Alaska a Planet Fitness member, Patricia Silva, complained that a “trans woman” was shaving in the female locker room while a girl — who could have been as young as 12 years old — was sitting in the corner wrapped in a towel and appearing distressed over the biological male’s presence.

Three days later, Libs of TikTok posted an update, noting that “the woman who exposed a man shaving in an Alaska Planet Fitness women’s locker room with a 12-year-old present just had her membership revoked. 

According to the Daily Mail, Planet Fitness said that even though some members may feel uncomfortable sharing facilities in this way, “This discomfort is not a reason to deny access to the transgender member.”

What’s more, the outlet said Planet Fitness revoked Patricia Silva’s membership and filed a police report against her, saying she violated gym policy by taking photos and/or videos in the locker room.(She took a picture of HIM shaving.)

Well, what do you think happened next?

The company’s value dropped from $5.3 billion on March 14 to $4.9 billion on March 19, the outlet said, and its shares were down 13.59% compared to a month ago. The Daily Mail used another set of figures to describe the setback, noting that Planet Fitness’ stock fell by 7.8% on 3/12, going from its opening price of $59.44 to a five-month low of $54.80, before rebounding slightly.

TipRanks reported that investors took nearly 4% of Planet Fitness’ market cap Tuesday, and the company has lost 23.52% of its share price over the past year.

Disagreeing with Patricia Silva’s view on transgenderism is one thing, but revoking her membership seems like an act of war!

3/22/24

President Joe Biden proclaims to be a Catholic even though a lot of his policies do not seem to be in accord with his supposed .Catholic faith. However, in this an election year, the more important thing is not what a candidate proclaims, but which candidate gets the Catholic vote, and how important is the Catholic vote?

From Townhall:

“Historically, the Catholic voter base has a stellar record in determining the presidential winner. In fact, before the 2020 election, for a half century the Catholic vote went to the presidential winner in every contest but one. The exception was the super-close 2000 race between Al Gore and eventual winner George W. Bush.  

In 2020, the Catholic vote split almost exactly evenly between President Trump and Biden. But crucially, Catholics in 2020 shifted materially against Trump compared to his 2016 performance. According to the Pew Research validated voter survey of election returns, in 2016, Trump earned a Catholic windfall, winning the group by eight percentage points, 52-44%. That big margin proved critical, especially in heavily Catholic battleground states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.”

But what about 2024?

From Townhall:

New polling shows a commanding +23% lead for President Trump among Michigan Catholics, a key voting block for November in this super competitive battleground state. Right now, per a survey commissioned by the League of American Workers, Trumpearns 54% of the Catholic vote in the Great Lakes State  vs. 31% for Biden and undecided at 15%.  

If current trends hold, Trump could well enjoy a victory among Catholic voters that far exceeds his prior 2016 triumph.  

Looking at the details in the polling crosstabs, the main driver for this Trump romp among Catholics is the economy.

Secondly, rank-and-file Catholics clearly reject Biden on the immigration enforcement.  When asked to rate the federal government’s job performance on managing the border, a stunning 0% of Michigan Catholics rated it as “very strong” and a shopping 70% said it is “very weak.” That latter number was far higher than even Evangelical Protestants, who lean well to the right politically.  

In addition, Biden’s extremism on abortion seems to cost him Catholic support.

If Catholics continue their near perfect record of deciding the presidency, then Donald J. Trump appears headed to a second term as the 47th president of the United States.”

Let us pray!

3/21/24

Until Covid came along, I had always felt that Natural Immunity was the real deal. That is what I learned in Med School, and prior to 2020, I pretty much thought that the concept of Natural Immunity was widely believed and accepted. 

But then somehow. all of the sudden, Natural Immunity somehow became  a mystery! All of the sudden if you had documented Covid, you were no longer immune to Covid, and needed a Covid vaccine. Let’s be clear, I am not an anti-vaxer, having had the two initial vaccines plus a booster, but I am a pro-natural immunity individual. One would think that after this long a period of time, this issue would be settled. Why is it still controversial? Could it be that rather than being a medical issue, it became a political issue? 

Just imagine all of the confusion that would have occurred if the long standing concept of the effectiveness of natural immunity had withstood the onslaught of political doubters! If “those who know best” would have come out and said that natural immunity to Covid was the real deal, what would have happened? … Chaos!!! If those who already had documented Covid were naturally immune and thus did not require a Covid vaccine, so be it. That makes sense. However, what about those who self tested at home. Would we have taken their word for it? How could their positivity be proven? … It couldn’t. 

So could it have been that because “those who knew best” saw the potential chaos coming, they decided to lie about the effectiveness of natural immunity? Hmmm … did their end justify their means? Perhaps in theory, this approach could be argued. However, were the penalties imposed on individuals because they had documented Covid and thus refused to be vaccinated justified? We’re they penalized because they were right?!

This retrospective question becomes even more important in light of a recent study summarized in the Epoch Times:

“People who recovered from COVID-19 and received a COVID-19 shot were more likely to suffer adverse reactions, researchers in Europe are reporting. Participants in the study were more likely to experience an adverse reaction after vaccination regardless of the type of shot, with one exception, the researchers found. Across all vaccine brands, people with prior COVID-19 were 2.6 times as likely after dose one to suffer an adverse reaction, according to the new study. Such people are commonly known as having a type of protection known as natural immunity after recovery.”

So to me, not only were “those who know best” wrong about the concept individual’s natural immunity, but also apparently their bullheadedness also caused those who had natural immunity to suffer more adverse reactions when they were forced to get the Covid vaccine!

3/18/24

On Sunday I write about individuals who we can admire. Today the honoree is Lynne Pinches, a British woman who has principles and stuck to these principles.

From Epoch Bright:

The World Eightball Pool Federation (WEPF) had said in August that transgender players would not be able to play against “naturally-born women” but has since reversed this decision.

This was the “nail in the coffin” for Lynne Pinches, … a U-turn by the sport’s governing body, the World Eightball Pool Federation (WEPF), on its transgender policy.

Pinches, who has been dubbed the “matriarch” of a pool and snooker-playing family, walked away from the chance of a national title in protest against facing a transgender player in November.

She shook hands with opponent Harriet Haynes, who identifies as transgender, before she put away her cue and conceded the final of the Women’s Champion of Champions tournament without playing a single shot.

Subsequently, Lynne Pinches, one of Britain’s top female pool players turned down a first-ever professional contract in protest at a decision to allow transgender players to compete.

Ms. Pinches, 51, was offered a place on the Ultimate Pool Tour—featuring the game’s top 32 players—but did not accept.

“I’m absolutely gutted that I’ve dropped out, my heart wants to be on the Ultimate Pool Tour. I feel excluded even though I’ve self-excluded,” Ms. Pinches, from Norwich, Norfolk, told BBC Sport.

“I’m sticking to my principles. I don’t want to face the transgender players who would be on that tour. I don’t think it’s fair.

“You can’t bring up the hopes of hundreds of women and say you’re going to have a female-only section in August, and then change that eight weeks later.”

A principled Brit? … You betcha!

3/17/24

In general when dealing with important  things in retrospect there may been a tipping point … something that has swung the situation in a certain direction. Going out on a limb, I am going to predict that the tipping point of a Trump presidential victory in November was the establishment of Laura Trump as co-chair of the RNC. Why do I think that? … because of an interview of her and her innovative plans for the RNC.

Among other things she talked about establishing an election integrity division, training poll workers, having attorneys actually in polling places, and warning potential cheaters that they will be prosecuted and held responsible. She also talked about early voting so that the late fraudulent last minute ballots will not be able to steal the election.

However, perhaps the most important thing that she is doing is bringing Scott Presser on board to help with Republican voter turnout.

Now while I am not familiar with Scott Presser, what he recently tweeted

is very encouraging.

From C&C:

So Laura Trump/Scott Presser/RNC combination is my tipping point. Don’t forget to give credit where credit is due after this November’s election!

3/16/24

I just read two items in the news. As usual for a contrarian I wonder if these two items are related, and if so, why? I am having a difficult time correlating #1 with “where did they send them” in #2.

#1- An effort by Senate Republicans to stop non-citizens, including illegal immigrants, from being counted on the census for the purposes of apportionment for House seats and the Electoral College was shot down later Friday after the measure failed to gain the support of a single Democrat.

From Fox News:

“Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., moved to include an amendment, attached to the $460 billion spending package, that would require the Census Bureau to include a citizenship question in any future census, and then bar anyone who isn’t a U.S. citizen from being counted for purposes of congressional district and Electoral College apportionment.

While the bill would also exclude legal immigrants on temporary visas and green cards from the census, the move has been undertaken explicitly to stop illegal immigrants from being counted amid millions of new arrivals at the southern border. It’s similar to a Trump-era effort to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census. Trump’s effort sparked widespread criticism and condemnation from Democrats and left-wing immigration groups who argued that a citizenship question was unlawful and was designed to help Republicans in future elections.”

#2 … From Issues & Insights:

“According to the Center for Immigration Studies, “U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has approved secretive flights that last year alone ferried hundreds of thousands of inadmissible aliens from foreign airports into some 43 American ones over the past year, all pre-approved on a cell phone app.”

This was not disclosed at a news conference or at the daily White House press briefing but learned through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that pried the information from an administration that clearly wanted to hide it.

It’s anyone’s guess as to where these aliens have landed. The CBP has withheld the names of the airports that “received 320,000 inadmissible aliens from January through December 2023.” It is also refusing to reveal which foreign airports the immigrants departed from.”

Now here is my question. Do the Democrats have a plan for the 2030 census? Did Joe Biden authorize sending these 320,000 illegals to airports in Red states or in Blue states?

Did Biden send them to Blue states to counterbalance the vast outmigration of actual U.S. citizens from a lot of Blue states, especially New York and California?

Or … did Biden send these 320,000 to Red states. Does he figure that by 2030 all of these illegals will be voting and thus could change the make-up of these Red states to Blue, as certainly these 320,000 will vote Democratic.

As I view this blatantly illegal gambit of secretly transporting these 320,000 individuals into the U.S. I cannot help but think that there is some master plan. I hope that this stealthy Biden maneuver does not involve a real insurrection by 320,000 young military aged illegals!  

3/15/24

www.californiacontrarian.com

As many of you may have already read my personal experience with using Ivermectin, perhaps the data put forth in a recently published paper will not be surprising.

The paper was published by the Journal of Infection on Feb. 29.

The study covered an open-label trial that involved 2,157 ivermectin recipients and 3,256 who received typical care from June 23, 2021, to July 1, 2022. Participants were randomized and reported symptoms and recovery.

A recent headline from Epoch Health:

“People Who Received Ivermectin Were Better Off, Study Finds”

Continuing from that same Epoch Health piece:

“People who tested positive for COVID-19 and took ivermectin as a treatment recovered faster than a comparison group, a new study found. The time to self-reported recovery was a median of two days faster among the ivermectin recipients, according to the large UK study. The quicker recovery period was statistically significant.

People who received ivermectin were also less likely to be hospitalized or die, with 1.6 percent of ivermectin recipients being hospitalized or dying versus 4 percent of the comparison group, which received typical care, which in the UK is largely focused on managing symptoms. Ivermectin recipients also enjoyed a reduction of severe symptoms and sustained recovery, according to the study.”

Of course, as expected, some recalcitrants downplayed the results of this study. However, from my personal experience after last Thanksgiving with taking Ivermectin for Covid, the recalcitrants be damned!

3/14/24

From the Washington Times:

Americans have long viewed a four-year college degree as essential to financial success, but a reportfinds that most graduates can’t find a job requiring a degree within a year of commencement.

The nonprofit Strada Institute for the Future of Work and the Burning Glass Institute reported this month that 52% of graduates were “underemployed” in food service, hospitality, retail sales, office administration and other fields a year after earning a bachelor’s degree. The study analyzed federal statistics, job postings and online resumes of more than 60 million U.S. workers.

Ten years after graduation, 45% still didn’t hold a job requiring college-level skills. By contrast, 79% of graduates who started their careers with college-level jobs still had such work five years later.

Perhaps this is merely an example of supply-demand imbalance. Because “those that know best” told everyone that a college degree was necessary to achieve success in life, we now have an over abundance of college graduates. If 79% of those who graduated college five years ago still have college level jobs, maybe at that time (five years ago) we had enough college graduates. 

So what did the “everyone should go to college” dictum get us? … A deluge of individuals who owe more money than they can expect to pay in a reasonable period of time, and a future in which there will be a drought of skilled plumbers, electricians, etc.

3/13/24

www.californiacontrarian.com