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  • Ruminations – 6oct21 (updated 9oct21)

    George Rebane

    The autocratic state advances. ‘Government secretly orders Google to track anyone searching certain names, addresses, and phone numbers’.  The Deep State on the march under a very supportive administration.

    ‘Domestic Terrorists’ is the DoJ’s new designation for parents and citizens attending local school board meetings to protest teaching Critical Race Theory, gender-bending, and revisionist history to young students.  The FBI, acting more like the STASI every day, will be investigating and arresting Americans who still believe that the state does not own their children.

    ‘The Woke Left’s Primitive Economics’ are described by Paul Rubin in the 6oct21 WSJ.  When examined, it becomes clear that liberal thought in its acute embodiment ‘wokeness’ requires the adherent to first become butt stupid in most things about how the realworld works.  These pages have chronicled this phenomenon for over a decade.

    [updates] Ivermectin manufacturer Merck dunned that drug for C19 therapeutics and is now promoting a new therapeutic that it is pre-marketing and will soon introduce (more here).  By its own admission it will be about half as effective as IVM (which costs about $3 a course).  But you can bet the farm that the new pill will be many times more profitable.  (H/T to reader)

    Braindead journalists on Fox News and Republican politicians in Congress have yet to ask germane questions of the Democrat elites who are siccing the FBI on American parents on the pretense that they are ‘domestic terrorists’, parents who openly and legitimately protest the local schools’ curricula during public school board meetings.  The critical unasked question is ‘Show ONE example of evidence of “intimidation”, “public threat”, “violent action”, “threat of violent action” toward elected school boards on which you base your case for federal law enforcement intervention against the publicly protesting parents whose children are being subjected to unmitigated socialist propaganda during class periods in which they should be learning the basic skills ultimately required of an educated and informed electorate?’  The Dems’ attempt to answer that question should expose them as the pariahs that they are.

    [7oct21 update]  Women in clodhoppers and combat boots.  In these days of topsy-turvy sexes and genders, women’s fashions have adopted a distinctly counter-culture currency.  And nowhere more violently than in their new footwear rage – gone are Melania’s elegant pumps, and in are shoes and boots with multi-inch platforms and styles with trench warfare uppers and soles with treads more commonly found on military Humvees.  My great-aunt Tante Alvi, a recognized fashion expert during the pre-war era in Europe, enunciated the de rigueur of women’s footwear – ‘Ladies do not appear in public sans heels’ (with the usual exceptions of course).  My sainted mother and my beloved sweetie-pie were/are strict adherents.  And fortunately, especially for us men, that dictum held until the current societal disintegration began.

    Terry McLaughlin's column on the Hyde Amendment in the 7oct21 Union (here) will be an eye-opener for most readers concerned about the federal funding of abortions.  Attempting to end run its inclusion this year is yet another about-faces which the Dems are doing as they reconfigure their party in its Great Leap Leftward as called for by their growing socialist faction.  McLaughlin's succinct and clear description of the goings on is worth a read.

    [9oct21 update]  The leftwing Quinnipiac Poll respected by all leftwingers came out with a typical report of Bumblebrain’s numbers diving for the mud.

    • Overall opinion of administration: Approve 38%, Disapprove 53%
    • On ‘Immigration’: Approve 25%, Disapprove 67%
    • On Foreign Policy: Approve 34%, Disapprove 58%
    • On Economy: Approve 39%, Disapprove 55%
    • Overall assessment on running the country: Incompetent 55%

    Note that our drive-by liberal poll commenters remain totally silent on the nationally recognized and reported disaster of the Biden administration.  I don’t follow polls per se, but I’m told these numbers are historic.

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  • Sandbox – 3oct21

    [“Falling Unemployment Adds to Worries About the U.S. Labor Market.  A lower rate could signal that many people are staying out of the workforce, which could add to employers’ hiring difficulties.”  This is among the flood of maladies that Bumblebrain’s socialist policies and promises now causing suffering and hurt in the land.  Has anybody yet found a SINGLE THING that he and the Dems have done right?  gjr]

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  • A Leftwing Journalist Admonishes

    George Rebane

    Darrell Berkheimer is one of our more thoughtful, though still terminally misguided, local columnists whose current crusade to “curb misinformation” and “halt the spreading of lies” is at its apex with The Union publishing his 24sep21 and 2oct21 back-to-back columns.  His main thrust is to find a solution to the government allowing “mass media to continue the spread of misinformation, lies, untruths and false conspiracy theories that create dangerous divisiveness and threaten individual citizens.”  To his favor, he does want such state enforced prohibitions while still protecting freedom of speech.

    In his 24sep21 piece he attacks conservative media and quickly demonstrates that he knows not of which he speaks, especially when it come to C19 therapeutics.  But his naivete reaches new heights with his assertion that there is a government-discernible and “distinct difference between opinion and factual truth.”  Hence, we need to implore “our lawmakers (who) are long overdue to draft such limiting and protective legislation.”  And to help this process along, we grassroots citizens can “ask our attorney friends to recommend some suggestions and proposals”, which we may then communicate to our representatives.

    The entire cast of his two columns reeks of the righteousness of the Left, and leaves no doubt that it is the conservative media that must be reined in.  He, of course, stands aside and above such crass practices of ‘fake news’ and yellow journalism.  Before one examines his recent record, it’s instructive to read – ‘Hunter Biden’s Emails Were Suppressed for a Reason’ – a well-summarized and pithy letter from Mr Dan Pisenti of Mill Valley, CA in the 2oct21 WSJ.

    “Vindication Over Hunter’s Emails” (Review & Outlook, Sept. 25) rightly criticizes the press and prominent former officials for labeling Hunter Biden’s emails as Russian disinformation. But the victim—President Trump—is again disregarded. The Hunter story was neutralized to prevent Mr. Trump from winning re-election. Fair reporting of the graft and low behavior on full display in Hunter’s laptop could have kept Mr. Trump in office.

    The media speaks often of “the Big Lie” about the election result, but Mr. Trump faced a buffet of lies spanning his entire presidency. Dirty tricks kept him embroiled in a Russian hoax for two years and left the stink on him even when Robert Mueller could provide no evidence. Congress tied Mr. Trump up in impeachment trials. The press manufactured phony scandals about him and his family. And then key states relaxed controls on ballots. Acknowledging the onslaught that Mr. Trump faced could help the press understand why he might question an election result.

    Through his own condemnations and silences, Mr Berkheimer was one of our local co-conspirators during the ongoing epoch of journalistic lows.  Today he continues to wear his TDS mantle to comfort him as he looks down from the chilly and revealing heights of Mt Olympus.

    In his latest offering Berkheimer concludes “The importance of repressing misinformation cannot be overstated — because it is tearing apart the fabric of our American society. It’s at the root of our mounting divisiveness. It is our biggest crisis.”  In consuming such heartfelt proposals to expand the reach of government to evermore precisely and consummately control our speech and thought, it is important to always note from which side such ‘solutions’ originate, and who then accuse their opposites of fomenting tyrannical government.

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  • ‘Most wildfires started by people’

    George Rebane

    In a recent exchange with Union publisher Don Rogers I lamented that since most wildfires are started by people, there was not enough coverage or interest in the attribution of such great disasters in our state.  Wildfires were implicitly treated in the press as if they were some kind of natural phenomena, acts of God if you will.  Don agreed, and we began to see more stories in our newspaper covering details of how our regional wildfires were started by suspected arsonists or identified careless (stupid?) humans ranging from campers to homeless indigents in the woods.

    As part of this exchange I wrote a letter to The Union which was finally published today (1oct21) with an interesting editorial insert at its conclusion in the print edition – the online version is here.  My letter reads –

    The genesis of our wildfires. Here’s a topic everyone is afraid of discussing. Almost all of our wildfires are man-made — they are started by indigents, crazies, and people with a political agenda. The fires started by accidents and natural causes are well-known, few and far in between. However, our politicians, liberal activists, and media of all hues treat Western wildfires as if they were “acts of God,” and therefore their genesis need not be questioned, let alone examined, any further.

    Given the number of annual wildfires, notice how rare is there any subsequent mention of arson investigations or what these may have discovered. It seems that the “vulnerable underprivileged” have a natural right to start fires and then be left alone.

    And it is not a stretch to imagine the damage anti-American terrorists can do in a free country by simply setting wildfires with easily fabricated, time-delayed pyrotechnic devices. But from what the public sees, our authorities neither suspect nor pursue such errant behavior — the fires just magically flare up and cause totally acceptable devastation.

    … and followed by this editorial coda.

    Editor’s note: Studies of wildfire causes show a range of 85% to 95% are a result of human activity, with 20% to 25% of those deliberately set.

    I may be accused of some hyperbole to make the point of how easy it is for bad people to set devastating fires in our wildlands that destroy, kill, and deplete scarce resources.  But to me the editor’s note is a bit too dismissive, if not inaccurate, of not only the history of fire starters but also the portent of purposely caused destruction meant to impact both the mode and quality of life in the less populated regions of our country.  My main thesis is that wildfire arson is still both under-reported and therefore under-acknowledged by the public and even law enforcement.

    Here are two documents that speak to this assertion.  The first is a study – Wildland Arson: A Research Assessment – by the US Forest Service that concludes – “Wildland arson makes up the majority of fire starts in some parts of the United States and is the second leading cause of fires on Eastern United States Federal forests. … Beginning with initial studies by Donoghue and Main (1985) through studies by the authors reported here, it seems clear that law enforcement deployment and other efforts to apprehend and incarcerate arsonists work to reduce wildland arson in the long run in high-arson locations in the United States.”

    Another report from FEMA’s US Fire Administration (here) recounts various aspects of arson wildfires including arsonists’ motives and the significant but relatively few court cases that result from the apprehension of suspected arsonists.

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  • Scattershots – 28sep21 (updated 30sep21)

    George Rebane

    In the aggregate and hands down, California continues to have the most ignorant cohort of voters in the Union.  Rebane Doctrine

    This tenet of Rebane Doctrine has stood the test of time and today continues to express itself at every opportunity.  No one can point to any other state that has been done in so thoroughly by its voting residents (citizens?) over the years as has the once Golden State.  To make any kind of reasonable comparison, you also have to consider the tremendous heights from which our state has fallen.  When I was a young’un California had achieved the pinnacle in about every attribute that civilized humans attach to a desirable place in which to put down roots, raise their families, and build productive communities for their progeny.  And then came the socialist takers, generation after generation they have infected every institution that served as the pillars of this fair land.  Now they virulently infect every nook and cranny to guarantee that any possible road back has already been scorched beyond hope; and these same from here and other similarly afflicted states are looking to infest the remaining regions of the heartland yet to be touched by their destructive and rapacious policies and world views,

    The above outpouring was again prompted by a couple of op-ed columns and a letter in today’s 28sep21 Union.  One by a regular contributor claiming technical credentials who nevertheless cannot parse not being against wearing masks, while also being against mandates to require wearing them.  For him, this and a number of other concepts are simply a cognitive bridge too far.  Then we have another contribution by an indefatigable lady liberal who continues to genuflect to science at a distance from which it is unrecognizable to her.  An example will suffice – “Our forests are burning because we are in the throes of a catastrophic warming of the globe caused by the increase in carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.”  To such perceptions she adds “extreme weather events” as another unsupportable calamity caused by preventable manmade global warming in which her faith is unwavering.

    [29sep21 update]  It’s always a source of bittersweet humor to hear how socialists and proto-socialists wrestle with economic matters.  In fact, it would be 'Comedy Central' if their policies did not muck up the country's economy.  The latest farcical attempts come from PressSec Jen Psaki who assures us that it’s “unfair and absurd” to think that corporations would pass on increased tax expenses to their customers.  This woman has to be among the dumbest on Team Biden, or among the evil in hoping that her audience is equally ignorant to know that all corporate taxes are paid by customers.  And then we have political scientist William Galston of the Brookings Institute who writes a regular WSJ column on economics.  In today’s paper he assures us that “you don’t need a doctorate in economics to understand that when rising demand meets too little supply, the result is inflation.”  Wrong.  To students of economics, the words of Uncle Milton taught us that inflation is strictly a monetary phenomenon, i.e. when there is too much (government printed/borrowed) money chasing too few goods.  A doctorate in economics would have informed our leftwing political scientist that what he described is just the normal dynamism of a capitalistic market explained by the intersection of the demand and supply curves, as most of us learned in Econ 101.

    [30sep21 update]  Bread and circuses galore.  Just read about the $300M+ A Round funding for Trading Card Fanatics, Inc, valuing the company at over $10B (see today’s WSJ).  These people are to become the online marketplace and clearing house for all sports trading cards, and a lot of smart money is betting on their success (this is no longer a kids’ activity).  My little fevered brain got all discombobulated about another piece of evidence that our nation’s electorate cum body politic is really more interested in the various ‘bread and circuses’ they are offered to while away time not spent in more productive undertakings.  A friend recently educated me on the growth of sports betting, which is another bird of a feather to such massive diversions now made available to a population that daily understands less about the fundamental transformations going on in Washington and their state houses.  They no longer ‘do politics’, which is a deadly portent for our republic.  And with technology driven systemic unemployment now on the rise, the ratio of takers to makers is already at a dangerous level. 

    “Doctors and pharmacies are rapidly signing up patients for Covid-19 booster shots, many with requiring proof of eligibility under standards that federal official set last week.”  These people get spiffed by the big pharmas selling the boosters to the government.  And all this is going on as pharmacists are refusing to fill legitimate prescriptions for other demonstrated but less profitable C19 therapeutics like Ivermectin.  More rampant national insanity, again demonstrating that it is easy to put a dollar value on human lives.

    Bumblebrain’s nominee for Comptroller of the Currency (i.e. our economy) is a devout and declared communist.  Cornell law professor Dr Saure Omarova has published “radical ideas (that) might make even Bernie Sanders blush.”  A 1989 graduate of Moscow State University, she is truly one of Lenin’s lasses who unabashedly and favorably compares USSR’s economy and economics to that of the US and the West.  Even SecTreas Yellen, under whom Omarova would work, is not happy with the president’s latest nomination.  It is hard to witness day after day how this Oval Office idiot can do nothing right.  (more here and here)

    Green energy insanity is rampant across the land.  The lamestream’s reports gush with news of green energy taking over all of electricity generation and even transportation and much of manufacturing by 2040.  The reality is markedly different as calculated by the International Energy Agency and reported (here) by noted environmental economist Bjorn Lomborg, president of the Copenhagen Convention.  Green electricity is extremely expensive (ask Europeans and Californians) and requires massive back-up generation from fossil fuels.  The attempted road to green electricity guarantees only that 1) our energy bills will skyrocket, 2) third world power blackouts will become the norm, and 3) the whole effort will have no discernible impact whatsoever on climate change which the true believers and central planners propagandize as preventable manmade global warming.

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  • Sandbox – 23sep21

    [My how time flies when you're having fun.  Apologies for letting the last Sandbox get a little too ripe.  At our house we were busy with our last eagle on final, guiding it in for a secure touchdown.  gjr] 

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  • Your Covid Factsheet (updated 24sep21)

    George Rebane

    The Swiss Policy Institute is a sober outfit that has helped compile a list of established facts about C19 and its pandemic (here).  Most of what you’ve read and heard about the disease is mired in politicized BS.  You have read a lot of the good stuff on RR posted by our readers and me.  But The Guardian has also published a compelling “crib sheet” of referenced facts and graphics which summarize what is known about Covid-SARS-2 (here)  Definitely worth a read so that you can be immunized against what comes out the lamestream and various government agencies and state houses.  (H/T to reader)

    [24sep21 update]  NIH Publishes Study – Ivermectin works.  NIH has published on its website (here) an article in the July-August issue of the American Journal of Therapeutics that concluded that “large reductions in COVID-19 deaths are possible using ivermectin.”

    And the American Journal of Therapeutics concludes (here) –

    Moderate-certainty evidence finds that large reductions in COVID-19 deaths are possible using ivermectin. Using ivermectin early in the clinical course may reduce numbers progressing to severe disease. The apparent safety and low cost suggest that ivermectin is likely to have a significant impact on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic globally.

    "Given the evidence of efficacy, safety, low cost, and current death rates, ivermectin is likely to have an impact on health and economic outcomes of the pandemic across many countries. Ivermectin is not a new and experimental drug with an unknown safety profile. It is a WHO “Essential Medicine” already used in several different indications, in colossal cumulative volumes. Corticosteroids have become an accepted standard of care in COVID-19, based on a single RCT of dexamethasone.1 If a single RCT is sufficient for the adoption of dexamethasone, then a fortiori the evidence of 2 dozen RCTs supports the adoption of ivermectin.

    Ivermectin is likely to be an equitable, acceptable, and feasible global intervention against COVID-19. Health professionals should strongly consider its use, in both treatment and prophylaxis."

    You heard it here first and often, and that through all the bullshit that the evil Democrats and their lamestream media tried to cover up with the resulting loss of hundreds of thousands of lives for which no one is responsible nor accountable – your government at work in peace and war.

    [and more]  Led by Bumblebrain and the CDC, the government is still convincing those who don’t know any better that science speaks with a single voice, and that they are “following the science.”  The 24sep21 WSJ reports “Behind Booster Authorization Were Disagreements on Evidence, Broad Access" … The extra Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine doses are rolling out to certain fully vaccinated adults, after disputes inside the U.S. government and with its scientific adviser.”

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  • Scattershots – 20sep21 (updated 23sep21)

    The greater the number of laws and enactments, the more thieves and robbers there will be – starting with the lawyers and enactors. Lao-Tzu (as embellished by Rebane)

    George Rebane

    The wisdom of Lao-Tzu was brought to my attention again by a friend and reader.  Jeff Thomas, a true conservetarian, wrote ‘The First Libertarian?’, an important little essay on governance – its ills and desiderata.  In it he distilled some more useful aphorism from the great sage.

    Those in power are meddlesome.

    The greater the restrictions and prohibitions, the more people are impoverished.

    The more advanced the weapons of the state, the darker the nation … thus the virtuous attend to contracts, while those without virtue collect taxes.

    Act before things exist, manage them before there’s disorder

    Trickle down taxes is a specialty of the Democratic Party which it sells gift-wrapped in a couple of its perennial Big Lies – raising taxes does not impact economic behavior (the Laffer curve doesn’t work), and corporate taxes lower the tax burden on the working class.  They correctly assess their constituents as being too ignorant to questions such lies, but they know both of them to be false.  For example, Kennedy lowered taxes in xx to stimulate the economy.  And corporations pay no taxes but pass that cost on to their customers in the form of higher prices, which quietly impacts most the poorest in the land.  And a tax not even the Democrats want to talk about is inflation – always government induced (more here and here).  The worker bees’ bigger paychecks don’t give them any more buying power, but do promote them into higher tax brackets (plus higher sales taxes) which surreptitiously increase their overall tax rates.  But our leftwing elites have no worries about pushback from their Democrat voters, people who are totally oblivious to such economic factors, and continue to believe that their political leaders are making corporations and the rich pay their ‘fair share’.

    [21sep21 update]  Sorry ass Biden.  I have been aware of presidential doings since ol' Harry was in office, and want to enter into the RR record that I have never seen such a terminally sorry ass elected President of the United States of America as Bumblebrain Biden.  This idiot has done everything wrong that he could possibly do, as he continues to work on bringing about even bigger disasters for the country.  The list of his failures gets rehashed regularly in these pages, and I’m sure that at some future date I’ll compile another list of them myself.  Right now the bigger problem for our republic is that a huge share of our voting age citizens have shown themselves to be simply too dumb to maintain the blessed land we inherited.  Ben Franklin’s admonition – “… a republic, if you can keep it” – has come true as ever more of our freedoms are stripped away daily.  Nay, not stripped, we have now been reduced to compliant serfs who willingly give away our freedoms – no stripping required.  And many of us even sing hosannas to the munificent wisdom of our socialist overlords so long as the checks keep arriving.  They are buying our freedoms with our own money, and welcoming in millions more aliens, cum tomorrow's Democrats, who will guarantee our descent to tyranny.

    [22sep21 update]  Bumblebrain’s poll numbers are tanking and Republicans are happy dancing in the streets about next year’s election.  That election is more than several political eternities in the future, and the not-too-bright electorate has a short memory.  By next Fall things could easily be turned 180, especially if the Dems can pass more social legislation to increase the number and size of checks to the takers, while crowing that their massive tax increases will make the ‘rich’ makers and corporations pay their “fair share”.  (Over 60% of US households pay no capital gains or federal income taxes.)  Their constituents are dim enough to lap up all that kool-aid, especially if Republicans don’t have the balls to call it like it is – loudly and often – singing castrato doesn't cut it.

    [23sep21 update]  Biden denounces and repudiates capitalism and the US economic system.  Bumblebrain made it clear in his speech last Thursday that, contrary to his professions of being a capitalist and not a socialist, he is indeed most strongly a socialist and not a capitalist.  As Daniel Henninger underlines in the 23sep21 WSJ, “At no point in that speech did he acknowledge the private sector contributed anything positive to the life of Americans.”  His work on $3.5T Democrat debacle, that is supposed to be the hallmark of his administration, has been assessed by the US Chamber of Commerce as being an “existential risk” to the US economy.  Astute readers know that the USCC is far from being a rightwing propaganda organ.  If Bumblebrain knows anything, it is that he has only a short time to put some mark, any mark, on his reputation and legacy.  And so far everything he touched has turned to s#!t, so with what’s left of his cognitive abilities, he now thinks that locking America onto the path of irretrievable socialism is the only thing he can pull off with the Democratic Party that has already declared itself ‘all in’ for that fundamental transformation.

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  • The Canadian COVID Conspiracy: Dr David E Martin (updated 19sep21)

    George Rebane

    A longtime reader and friend sent me this mind-bending video on Bitchute of an interview with David Martin (here) who lays out the multi-decadal conspiracy of developing the human infectable/transmissible corona virus and the worldwide pandemic to create a market for its ‘vaccine’, which is really not a vaccine in any medical sense of the word.  I found the 54-minute video riveting as Martin unfolds and exposes the business, marketing, investment, collusion factors that come together as a description of the most massive and well-executed conspiracy to fleece the world with the enthusiastic cooperation of governments and the media.  The financial and political gifts to the co-operating players appear to be unending.

    As to the verity of what Martin reports I cannot attest, since at this writing I’m not very familiar with other corroborating sources of this information.  I do invite readers to share such sources should they discover them.  In any event, for those interested in the ongoing COVID saga, the video is definitely worth watching with a glass of your favorite adult beverage, and possibly a pen and paper.  (and here is more)

    For more research on David Martin and what he reports, search ‘David E Martin credibility’ on Bing to get some links that cover the pro/con sides of the matter – Google search gives a definitely one-sided collection of hits on that query.

    [19sep21 update]  Here is a noteworthy development on C19 vaccines – ‘FDA Allows Whistleblower Testimony that COVID-19 Vaccines Are Killing and Harming People!’  This report has some astounding stats on the aftereffects of certain 'vaccines' that studies are now revealing.  We now know that what people are being inoculated with are not real vaccines in the medical sense, but designed, special-purpose bio-molecules ("medical devices") that are supposed to prompt your immune system to then manufacture the antibodies (provided by normal vaccines) to resist C19.  (H/T to reader)

     

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  • Ruminations – 14sep21 (update 18sep21)

    George Rebane

    Government bureaucrats allocate capital better than private investors – fundamental tenet of the Left

    Newsom's recall is opposed by another progressive dimwit in the 14sep21 Union (here) arguing that all of CA’s problems were there before he was elected.  The ‘gentleman’ does not understand that the recall is about his making all of the problems worse, and then adding on new ones.  And he also quotes a fictitious $70B “surplus”, having no idea that any such monies are long spoken for with the state’s over $1T in unfunded liabilities.

    Europe’s electricity prices are going through the roof (here).  Why?  Well, the goddam wind is not blowing very much these days, and their having shut down their nuclear and fossil fuel plants without much consideration that the so-called sustainable sun/wind/water energy sources are sometime things, now they find their mammaries twixt the rollers.  Brings to mind the old Estonian saying about not crapping in the old well before the new one’s dug.  Here in CA, we haven’t learned a thing about that problem.

    NIH investigates removal Covid genetic data per Chinese researcher request (here).  The agency removed C19 gene sequence data obtained from Wuhan patients in January/February 2020.  This data would be an important input to determining the source and type (manmade vs nature) of the virus.  The  portents of its compliant and rapid deletion from our database opens up more serious questions about the NIH/Wuhan lab relationship.  Chalk up another one for China.  Dr Fauci call your office.

    [15sep21 update]  Newsom’s recall rejected by a landslide.  CA voters once again demonstrate that they know not how to select their political leaders as the state continues its downward plunge along every imaginable way – illegal alien and welfare recipient surge, rampaging homelessness, dilapidated infrastructure, exodus of productive workers, businesses, and retirees, overall population loss, increasing already high taxes, regulatory tsunami, continued growth of eco-fanatics, historic water mismanagement, historic power generation/distribution mismanagement, continued mismanagement of forests, fiscal corruption and incompetency, continued growth of record unfunded liabilities, … .  And perpetuating a never-ending, one party monopoly that only serves the takers and punishes the makers.

    Gen Mark Milley’s phone calls to China promising to warn them of any pending US military action against them was one of several acts of treason our chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff pulled off during the Trump administration.  He is part of the devastation in our flag officer ranks that Obama left behind in his politicization of the military.  Bob Woodward and Robert Costa outline this travesty in their Peril (2021).

    SecState Blinken, who is particularly unsuited for his job, now claims to bring the Taliban to heel with his toothless diplomacy.  Echoing Stalin’s famous ‘How many divisions does the Pope have?’, after our precipitous and shameful retreat, the Taliban now ask, ‘How many divisions does Blinken have?’  Biden and Blinken have given new meaning to our shooting diplomatic blanks – Blinken Blanks?

    C19 response mismanagement last year is laid bare in Uncontrolled Spread (2021) by former FDA commissioner Dr Scott Gottlieb.  The good doctor documents the numerous and impactive screw-ups perpetrated by the CDC, FDA, and NIH which cry out for deep and penetrating investigations to better prepare us for the next pandemic.  Gottlieb highlights Warp Speed as the only government initiative undertaken correctly and against massive political opposition.

    Facebook confirmed a sleazebag outfit, as demonstrated again by its corrupt censorship policy which selectively favors the high and mighty.

    C19 ‘cases’ and hospitalization stats are grossly misleading and meant to support more government command and control mandates.  Both cases and hospitalizations have been overwhelmingly (positively tested) asymptomatic and mild when admitted.  Continuing to serve as the DNC trumpet, the lamestream has, of course, omitted mentioning any of this.

    [17sep21 update] California voters got what they deserve, 'good and hard' (a la HL Mencken). Syndicated columnist Michael Barone lays out the particulars for us here.  And more and more of today’s college graduates reflect the socialist crap they were taught in universities by voting Democratic.

    Democrats’ planned price controls on drugs will kill America’s innovative pharma industry and will be dangerous to your health. (more here and here)  The party of evil is hard at work taking the country down as fast as it can to a uniform level of misery (aka equity) that has been presaged by so many other nations adopting elitist autocratic regimes that have successfully sold central planning and control to their terminally benighted citizens.

    [18sep21 update]  My essay 'America the Unnatural', originally posted here on 27 June 2021, finally appeared in today's print and online editions of The Union.  Unfortunately the print version was edited enough to change/omit several critical points in the submitted version.  However, they did kindly post the full submitted version in their online edition (here), for which I am grateful.

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