Thursday, September 30, 2021

Why 80 million Americans like Trump


I posted this a year ago, and nothing has changed, except the man in the White House is a puppet and a bumbling fool who took us all down in August over Afghanistan. We have sunk so far since January.

"Some people are with Trump because he's the only president who has ever been strongly pro-life. (me)
Others support him because he's the only president who has come through with solid, constitutionalists for all the courts (plural).

Others support him because he won't steal their legally owned guns.

Others support him because they want their good health insurance back which Obama stole from them.
Others love that he has done what no others have been bold enough to do with Israel and her enemies that surround her.

Others realize he's right to call out identity politics, critical race theory and the racists on the Left. It's systemic Marxism.

Others like him because they didn't elect the administrative state (aka deep state) to run the country.

Others know he doesn't judge by skin color or ethnicity but looks at skill, character, and quality.

Others love that he isn't wasting our tax dollars on international agreements that never benefit the U.S.

Others like him because he pushes back on behalf of the little guy."

More money for failed Head Start in the budget bill

"Since 1965, Head Start has been a sinkhole for taxpayer dollars and an ineffective education program for children. And yet, proponents—hand in glove with Congress—want to model hundreds of billions of dollars in the $3.5 trillion tax-and-spending package on it."

It now costs more than $10,200 per participant.


One of the problems I see in all Biden's programs is the "no legacy" legacy of Barack Obama.  If there were ever evidence for this administration being Obama 2.0, it is the trillions now being thrown at Obama's failures in the Build Back Better spending bill.  It includes a $3 billion “tree equity” outlay for planting saplings and $25 million on “anti-discrimination and bias training” in the healthcare industry — as well as nearly $79 billion for the Internal Revenue Service to step up its enforcement of tax laws. (Don't spend more than $600 or you might get audited.)  And now this boondoggle.  The belief apparently is that it was lack of money, not lack of history, of common sense, and his own racism.
September 30 is the feast day of St. Jerome, patron saint of librarians and libraries as well as archivists, translators and encyclopedists. It is celebrated in the Catholic Church for this canonized saint and Doctor of the Church and as a day of commemoration in Lutheran churches. I was aware of this since I was a librarian, but it was not until 2009 and we were on a tour of the Holy Land that I visited his cave where it is said he translated holy scripture into the language of the people, which was then Latin. It took him 30 years. According to St. Augustine, St. Jerome had a remarkable knowledge not only of Latin and Greek, but also of Hebrew and Chaldaic, and had read almost every author. He translated the Old Testament from the Hebrew, and, at the command of Pope Damasus, the New Testament from the Greek. Besides this, he translated into Latin the writings of many learned men, and enriched Christian learning from his own pen.
 
He wrote many letters over 50 years which document the history of religious controversies and squabbles among Christians about scripture (imagine that!) and also his own sarcastic and sharp temperament.
 
And today we think we've accomplished something if we send a text or hit send on a blog or Facebook post. Even librarians, who should know better.

Tuesday, September 28, 2021

Our medical ethics, rules and Covid

In 1974 President Nixon signed the National Research Act which established the National Commission for the Protection of Human subjects, requiring Public Health Service to promulgate regulations for the protection of human subjects. This was necessary because until the 1970s, our government was engaged in some pretty dicey research, like experiments on living aborted humans removed from the womb by c-section, testing products and procedures on mentally challenged adults, and perhaps the most famous, the Tuskegee syphillis study on black males. But in over 40 years, we haven't moved the needle that far. Primarily, because academics and bureaucrats are so smart and devious.

I am vaccinated, and will wear a mask if the venue requires it or if there are crowds. (Even though I know the research on masks is contradictory and confusing and almost useless outside a medical setting.) That said, I believe the mandates, passports and cancel culture attacks on anyone who suggests treatments rather than vaccines is in violation of laws already on the books.
 
You see, elected Democrats (they believe stealing our rights is "progressive") and some very unethical Republicans are willing to go around all our protections, and the unelected bureaucrats (like Fauci) and lobbyists (Big Pharma, Big Tech) don't seem to be constrained by any code of ethics, laws, regulations or even common sense. And we have no way to get rid of them.

Monday, September 27, 2021

Biden's record of disaster

Earlier this year, Twitter expelled President Trump from its platform, citing the danger that he would incite violence. As Kabul fell in mid-August, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid tweeted updates on the progress of his comrades. His account has been active without interruption since 2017. R. R. Reno, First Things, Oct. 2021.

This makes Twitter a supporter of the Taliban, and Biden a fascist. Fascism is a form of government which rules through private businesses to achieve socialist goals.

As the MSM get a bit squeamish wondering who is in charge, the real reporters like Lara Logan are taking the pulse of Afghanistan and noting the slaughter of minor tribes and an underground railroad to help those who Biden left behind that is quickly running out of food and water.
 
Bush made a terrible mistake thinking he could infuse democracy into a medieval state controlled by fundamentalist Muslim warring tribes. Obama made it worse by increasing the troops to 100,000. Trump ran on getting out, and we know from his love of country and his Christian values he would have never left Americans behind.
 
Then Biden jumps in, he creates a hasty exit, leaving a disaster not only for Americans, those Afghans who helped us, all the nations who worked with us, but also all those other vulnerable countries in the Middle East.

If there was ever a President who wanted to tear down the United States, its reputation and its values, it is Biden--or whoever is pulling the stings of the puppet government with his demented persona as spokesperson.

Friday, September 24, 2021

Thursday, September 23, 2021

He's mad at the people destroying America, and there are many

Michael Smith has a good analysis of the footsteps we're walking in.  From Facebook post.

"I've been reading and studying a number of economic collapses from history - from the crash of tulip bulbs to Venezuela - there are certain aspects, certain markers, that were easily recognizable before each of the collapses.

The US has a lot of those markers, three of of the most significant are an incautious, incestuous involvement between government and industry, a national leadership who chose to ignore the markers and an opposition party that simply stood by and did little to nothing to change direction.

The Biden administration is building upon the rotten foundation of the Obama years to create some real structural deficiencies in our economy and are building in crises for the future - and there are giant corporations who have signed on to help.

Electric car mandates are an example. The auto industry is killing the internal combustion engine at the behest of government. The fossil fuel sector is being dismantled - both at the same time when electricity generation is predicted not to be able to keep up with demand. This guarantees future shortages of electricity - and likely rolling blackouts, something more common in third world countries than in a nation that has led the world for over a century.

It's not just Biden, there are many powerful forces (foreign and domestic) that have been cheering for decades for America to fail.

The next 18 months are going to be bad, I fear.

The fall can be stealthy - you may have the same job and a paycheck, but each week that pay will buy less and less (that same theft by erosion will happen to your savings). You may be able to do most of what you used to do, but over time, more will be forbidden to you.

Look, 9/11 shut down our national transportation systems. The mortgage bubble burst and collapsed our financial systems. The reaction to Covid 19 shut down our supply chains, shut down a national economy and locked us behind closed doors. Cyber attacks and ransomware are in the news weekly for shutting down hospitals, agricultural and energy transmission businesses.

Imagine all of those happening at the same time.

I get accused of being pessimistic - and that is a fair assessment, because I am - but it isn't a violent pessimism, it is more of a resignation, a "better get ready" sort.
 
Better have enough space for a garden, better have a few critical things stocked up, better know a few basic SHTF (sh*t hits the fan) skills, better be ready to protect yourself and your family and have the equipment and supplies to do it, better transfer your investments into hard assets, better know where your loved ones are and how to communicate with them when cell phones no longer work.

I wake up every morning with a burning anger toward the people who destroyed my America and stole the good life I have had from my children and their children.

But more than that, I'm like one of those movie characters that has been shifted in time. I can see the explosion about to happen but nobody can hear me yelling at them.

My Spidey Sense is tingling, telling me there is something wrong. I can't put my finger on it, but it sure feels that something wicked this way comes.

The Durham Report and Hillary Clinton

"We already know about Hillary Clinton’s attempted takedown of the Donald Trump candidacy and presidency in the Russia hoax. We know a government lawyer lied to the FISA court in order to get a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. We know about Christopher Steele’s fake “dossier,” the spying on the Trump campaign by the FBI, and the deployment of Democrat apparatchiks to conscript their Leftist media transcribers to plant or amplify the fake news in the service of The Party."

Latest Durham Indictment May Make Russiagate the Most Corrupt Scandal in U.S. History – PJ Media

No wonder the Democrats and their henchmen in the media want to keep you focused on a protest on January 6, calling it an insurrection. The biggest scandal in our history is their candidate and former FLOTUS. No wonder they want to scare the daylights out of you with Climate Change and Covid and buy you off with a $3.5 trillion "infrastructure" bill, which is totally unneccesary. Democrats in Congress are crooks and the Republicans in Congress are enablers and wimps.

Wednesday, September 22, 2021

An old, old story

 Social media--e-mail and Facebook and Instagram--will never give you joy in memories 80 years later--those pixels will be long gone (unless you've printed them), and the next time I get a new computer, most of what I saved from my sister, cousin, and friends will be gone. But generations before this had the post office. I've seen the letters that my great-grandfather received from his parents in Pennsylvania after he settled in Illinois in 1848. And until recently when I repacked all my old letters, I had a birthday card from my mother written in 1995 that I would re-read. She died in 2000 so I loved looking at her handwriting.

Sept. 18, 1995

Dear Norma--This card will probably be late for your birthday, so we can look at the date this way.  You were born several days--one or two--early.  Dr. Dumont gave me the hurry-up treatment of castor oil and something on the evening of the 19th so the baby would come quickly and allow him to go on the fishing trip scheduled for the next day.  There was no harm done and one or two minutes before midnight you were on the scene.

Of course, that quick journey  left you a most beautiful baby, not red and wrinkled.  So you became "Peachy" at a very early age and you probably would have had September 20th or 21st as a birthdate!


Tuesday, September 21, 2021

Who trusts government when Biden is in charge?

I was reading through the comments of yet another expert, Dr. Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. Virus Expert Just Issued This "Sobering" Warning (yahoo.com)  He is baffled by 2 things--the fast increase in cases among children, and the distrust of the government mandates. I have no idea either why it is increasing among children, but have an opinion on the federal mandates.
 
During the Trump administration, the media and "experts" were insulting and lying about him, and his supporters. Trump supporters were called deplorable racists, white supremacists and stupid. That transfers to the entire country. You can't expect a complete turn around when for four years Democrats have been telling people they can NOT trust the government! The flip flopping by Dr. Fauci, who after all did advise Trump as well as Biden, has been stunning.
 
The mismanagement at the border and the disaster in Afghanistan certainly haven't caused Americans, even Democrats, to trust Joe Biden! Renaming "infrastructure" and slapping a $3.5 trillion bill (our money) to build up the Democrat party doesn't help. Saying Climate Change is the no. one problem when other things are more pressing and more difficult is also a terrible mark against federal mandates. That ill will that Democrats have seeded for years is bearing fruit, and it just may be costing lives. It's bleeding into the minds and hearts of the American people.


Monday, September 20, 2021

Perhaps this is a charity that can help save NYC

New York City, spends $28,000 per student -- half-a-million dollars per classroom! Private charities step up to the challenge to send kids to charter schools. John Stossel features Student Sponsor Partners, or SSP, a nonprofit that helps low-income students go to Catholic schools.  Not only scholarship money, but mentorship.

Jeniffer Gutierrez, a parent in the Bronx, was ecstatic to get SSP's acceptance letter. "I cried so hard when I received that letter because I knew it was an opportunity for my son. ... High schools in the Bronx are violent. There's no discipline. There's no education."

https://youtu.be/-qPSxp7Fy-g  Stossel explores the issues--he has been a mentor and donor for SSP, a way out for poor children.

Sunday, September 19, 2021

India battling Covid with Ivermectin

"With a combined population of 241 million [Uttar Pradesh] there are only 199 active cases and the positive test rate is 0.01% – statistically zero." Too bad that in the U.S. it's forbidden to speak of an alternative treatment. Big Tech and Big Pharma and Big Joe are killing Americans. Even peer review studies are being blocked.

Saturday, September 18, 2021

Clean up your own neighborhood first

 

  
My mother's famous words: I can't save the world, but I can clean up these 4 acres (her garden and orchard).

Motion is lotion for the joints

I just heard a marathon runner, age 69, who started running because his father died at 55, say that on the radio show, "Doctor, doctor" EWTN. We know that obesity is a big factor in Covid deaths. What about sports? Are marathon runners doing better than joggers? Hockey better than tennis? Swimmers better than bikers? I did find research comparing athletes with couch potatoes in the Covid survival race. I get about 30 minutes a day.
 
Also, I learned that knee injuries are the most common for runners, but runners that land on the mid-foot have half the injuries.
 
Kaiser Permanente (California) did a study including 48,000 of its clients, not by type of sport, but by level of activity. "Even after correcting for all of those characteristics (age, sex, race, smoker, etc) , people who were consistently inactive had a significantly higher risk of hospitalization, ICU admission, and death after getting COVID-19 than those who were active for at least 150 minutes per week. Additionally, those who were active for over 10 minutes per week had some protection against severe illness or death from COVID-19 — though not as much as those who got the full 150 minutes. The highest rates of COVID-19 were among those who were Latinx: 65% compared to 18% (whites), 7% (Blacks), and 6% (Asian or Pacific Islander). It’s worth noting that people who were white were somewhat more likely to meet physical activity guidelines — a discrepancy that should be acknowledged and addressed."

So my friends (on Medicare), time to check to see if your insurance plan includes Silver Sneakers.

Friday, September 17, 2021

Christmas is coming--advice from Joan

Christmas is coming, so again: if your last name ends in s (or a letter that makes a sibilant sound - x, z, ch, sh) then, to identify your family, add “es” and collectively you are “the Coxes” or “the Adamses” or “the Lopezes”. If your name ends with any other letter (even a “y” or an “e”) then just add an “s”. You are “the Smiths” or “the Prices” or “the Macys”. No apostrophe is used to make plurals of any name. Just a friendly reminder! Class dismissed.

Joan Shaw Turrentine, retired English teacher and pastor's wife, blogging friend since 2003

Wednesday, September 15, 2021

Exercise and cognitive benefits


FNDC5, Fibronectin type III domain-containing protein 5, the precursor of irisin, is a type I transmembrane glycoprotein that is encoded by the FNDC5 gene. Irisin is a cleaved version of FNDC5, named after the Greek messenger goddess Iris.
 
Researchers found that irisin, an exercise-induced hormone, improves cognitive performance in mice.
The hormone, which is identical in people, could potentially be used to treat cognitive disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.

Mean girls--today and 68 years ago

I just watched a Fox News story on the damage social media is doing to young teen girls and their body images. I used to be a young teen girl who hung out with other teens, caring about every word and piece of gossip. We didn't have social media like Instagram or TikTok (the focus of this story). We didn't have personal phones (most of us were on a party line). We didn't have organized sports (against the law in those days). If we took a photo it was on film and it was 2 weeks to get it developed. We all went to church and almost no one had divorced parents. But we still found all the ways to be mean girls and make snide remarks about bodies and tease anyone who didn't fit the mold or current fashion. Can I get an Amen or am I the only one who remembers "the good old days?"

  





Tuesday, September 14, 2021

Black Lies Matter


“For every Trayvon Martin killed by someone not black [whether white, Asian, or Latino], nine other blacks were murdered by someone black,” wrote John W. Fountain, an award-winning journalist, and professor at Roosevelt University. . . . [Fountain continues,] Imagine Soldier Field . . . filled beyond capacity, brimming with 63,879 young African-American men, ages 18-24—more than U.S. losses in the entire Vietnam conflict. Imagine the University of Michigan’s football stadium—the largest in the U.S.—filled to the limit of 109,901 with black men. Now add 28,233 more—together totaling more than U.S. deaths in World War I. . . . The national tally of black males 14 and older murdered in America over a 30-year period from 1976-2005, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics: 214,661 [roughly 192,000 of which were killed by blacks]. (30)" From Black Lies Matter by Taleeb Starkes, 2016

This book was written before Donald Trump became president, and the point of view and statistics have nothing to do with the current riots and destruction (which were on their way). But it does supply some detail on the narrative that if we just got rid of cops everything hurting or killing blacks would be over. It was building as an issue long before Minneapolis and George Floyd.
 
Most murders are intra-racial, so you could also fill up a few stadiums with whites killed by whites--however, white Americans do not riot when a policeman, black or white, shoots a white criminal resisting arrest when wanted for rape (Blake) or addled by drugs with a long rap sheet and resisting arrest (Floyd).

BLM is a relatively new organization (created by 3 radical feminists when Martin, a black teen, was shot by a neighborhood private security guard who was Hispanic), but has built up its wealth on the efforts of other groups that came before them going back decades.

(written a year ago)

Monday, September 13, 2021

Lunacy on the Left must be attacked with logic and reason


Michael Smith of Utah writes:

"I just can't get past the idea that our most significant problem is the superficiality of our society.
So, few people on either side think deeply about anything before opening their cake holes to illuminate the world with the light of their ignorance.

Last night I read about what Jenn Jackson, a political science professor at Syracuse University, said about 9/11. I understand that the left never misses a chance to crap all over everything, and it is sort of a leftist tradition to pull out the stops on 9/11 anniversaries, but this one was spectacular.

She (I assume her pronoun is "she”) sparked a major uproar after tweeting: "We have to be more honest about what 9/11 was and what it wasn't. It was an attack on the heteropatriarchal capitalistic systems that America relies upon to wrangle other countries into passivity.”

OK.
 
If you have ever spent any time in corporate America – and have been stuck a meeting that was really a portal to PowerPoint Hell, you have heard this kind of statement before. It happens when the presenter: 1) doesn’t know what she is talking about, 2) knows but her data is so weak, he thinks he needs to pump it up with smart sounding words or 3) she is trying to bury the facts in a cacophonous word salad because they do not support her goals.

Those meetings are filled with the unintelligible corporate jargon that qualifies for business newspeak: “The new normal forces us to pivot and circle back to thinking out of the box and creating synergies by listening to thought leaders and being agile in our alignment.”

It is like living in a live action version of a Dilbert cartoon.

Superficial thinking is the order of the day, and this superficiality prevents theoreticians and their audience from thinking past their initial conceptions and applying the bounds of their own theories to, unsurprisingly, their own theories.

For example, any form of Critical Race Theory (LatCRT (Latino/Latina Critical Race Theory), etc.) cannot survive critical examination of itself. For example, LatCRT proposes that people of Spanish extraction were present in North America before White Europeans, so they have a more valid claim to be “Americans” and control America than do whites. They are the “original” Americans.

We are witness to the hyperbolic reasoning of every hysterical “activist”, how every “subjugated class” presumes to claim their little slice of the pie due to some presumed “wrong” done to them by someone, somewhere, at some point in the revisionist version of their history. That’s all the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School, the Derrick Bell version of Critical Race Theory and the LatCRT of Tara J. Yosso are.
I always marvel at both the “reparations” crowd wailing about slavery like only American blacks were subject to that reprehensible institution and the “multitud enojada” (angry mob) of La Raza claiming that the Southwest is really “Azteca” – their “ownership” probably would come as a great surprise to the Apache, Comanche, Havasupai, Hopi, Jemez, Kiowa, Kiowa Apache, Lipan, Maricopa, Mohave, Navaho, Paiute, Papago, Panamint, Pecos, Pima, Pueblo, Shoshoni, Sobaipuri, Tewa Pueblos, Ute, Walapai, Yavapai, Yuma and Zuñi and the Anasazi, who predated all of them.

And the modern proponents of LatCRT never seem to address their own Spanish heritage of conquest and the fact that South America saw more slavery (including black Africans) and genocide that did North America (actually, most of the black Africans from the Atlantic slave trade – 97% - went to South and Latin America, not North America).

The same with slavery – the Critical Race Theorists claim that 1619 is the date white Europeans created slavery in the New World, when, for centuries, the native civilizations of the Western Hemisphere had been taking slaves (usually entire tribes the had defeated in war) for centuries. CRT proponents completely ignore slavery in Africa prior to the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade and the fact that slavery was a common part of the civilizations inhabiting the continent.

All forms of Critical Race Theory deny the existence of the millions of white Americans who are below the poverty line. If the only explanation for the lack of socioeconomic status is race, these people should not exist.

When theoreticians pick a convenient point in history or a convenient action as a basis for their claims, that “theory” is not based in reality.
 
The proponents of these theories know their positions cannot withstand examination under their own rules – that is why the use the Kafkaesque retort that even criticism proves their theories, that for a white person to say they are not a racist just proves they are. It is why Larry Elder, a conservative black man from South Central LA can be labeled, by a major newspaper, as the “black face of white supremacy”.
It is lunacy. Pure, unadulterated insanity.

And yet the people who should know better – academicians, teachers, and scientists – are promoting this idiocy and impregnating our public-school curriculum with it.

People make a mistake by attacking CRT from the perspective of race or social science. Attack it from a logic and reason angle.
 
Saul Alinsky’s Rule #4 destroys all variants of the Derrick Bell form of CRT: "Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.""

Censorship by Big Tech


I have moved this comment of mine from Facebook:

"Democrats and their media buddies continue to blame Republicans for hesitancy to get the jab. Yet they were the ones sowing seeds of doubt about it when Trump was president--not because of science, but because of hate and they wanted to defeat him in the election. 

Also there are two groups that are always featured in low vaccination rates--1) blacks, and 2) health care workers. Democrats love to depict Republicans as knuckle dragging idiots who don't understand science. So what does that say about how Democrats think about blacks and health care workers?"

So, Facebook follows that up with a warning or suggestion about how to find information on the virus or vaccine.

Whether I use Johns Hopkins, Cleveland Clinic, WHO or CDC data, the geniuses at FB use algorithms that flag, target and demote my posts and comments so few will see them. Big Tech in collusion with the Democrat party is denying us access to information.

Sunday, September 12, 2021

Mask mandates--do not reduce deaths

In a government study mask mandates did not reduce deaths, patients hospitalized in either intensive care or regular hospital beds or ventilator use nor do mandates reduce number of Covid-19 positive patients.
The study was conducted by scientists from the US Army Institute of Surgical Research and the Brooke Army Medical Center, JBSA Fort Sam Houston, Texas, the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland, the Madigan Army Medical Center, Joint Base Lewis McChord, Washington, the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colorado, and the 121st Field Hospital, Camp Humphreys, Republic of Korea.

Trust the science. All you need to do is figure out which science pushed by which politician and lobbyist.

Abortion, slavery and the Church

 Except maybe videos of actual legal abortions, you'll probably never see one— the dismemberment, little arms and legs in a basin, scalps being sold to labs, scissors in the brain, etc. Big Tech has decided those are too gruesome and violent. Also, I’m not Catholic, but the Roman Catholic church is a huge target, and if Protestants and Bible churches were smarter, they’d realize they are all being attacked. Child sex abuse is a case in point. More teachers abuse children as do more doctors, than Catholic priests. This was actually studied and published in the 90s. And I don’t mean numbers, because obviously teachers and doctors far outnumber priests and have more access. It’s rate. You might find something in the last section of the paper, but a priest will be on the front page. My blog today concerns the relationship between slavery, abortion and powerful political leaders.

From 1435 to 1890, we have numerous bulls and encyclicals from several popes written to many bishops and the whole Christian faithful condemning both slavery and the slave trade. And guess what? Many powerful and greedy Christians, including some religious orders, ignored the clear message of the church. They followed the ways of the world. Just as Biden and Pelosi are ignoring the clear teaching of the Church on the crime of abortion.

Abortion is treating the unborn, the weakest and most helpless among us, as less than human. Biden is doing that. Slavery has existed from the beginning of time/civilization where the strong had complete control over the weak, to use and abuse their bodies as they wished. The women for sex and men for labor. Sometimes the slavers became the enslaved when someone stronger came along--particularly in Africa--which not only enslaved their neighbors, but then sold them to Europeans and Asians (still do). John Newton who wrote "Amazing Grace" had been a slaver who ended up a slave. With abortion, that doesn't happen --the little body that ends up in the trash doesn't come back to do harm to her oppressors. Justice (and mercy) will wait for Jesus' return.” The Popes and Slavery: Setting the Record Straight | EWTN

Saturday, September 11, 2021

Friday, September 10, 2021

Trump's plans for Afghanistan, August 21, 2017

After commending our brave men and women who have served in our longest war. . .

"My original instinct was to pull out -- and, historically, I like following my instincts. But all my life I've heard that decisions are much different when you sit behind the desk in the Oval Office; in other words, when you're President of the United States. So I studied Afghanistan in great detail and from every conceivable angle. After many meetings, over many months, we held our final meeting last Friday at Camp David, with my Cabinet and generals, to complete our strategy. I arrived at three fundamental conclusions about America’s core interests in Afghanistan.

First, our nation must seek an honorable and enduring outcome worthy of the tremendous sacrifices that have been made, especially the sacrifices of lives. The men and women who serve our nation in combat deserve a plan for victory. They deserve the tools they need, and the trust they have earned, to fight and to win.

Second, the consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable. 9/11, the worst terrorist attack in our history, was planned and directed from Afghanistan because that country was ruled by a government that gave comfort and shelter to terrorists. A hasty withdrawal would create a vacuum that terrorists, including ISIS and al Qaeda, would instantly fill, just as happened before September 11th. 

"And, as we know, in 2011, America hastily and mistakenly withdrew from Iraq. As a result, our hard-won gains slipped back into the hands of terrorist enemies. Our soldiers watched as cities they had fought for, and bled to liberate, and won, were occupied by a terrorist group called ISIS. The vacuum we created by leaving too soon gave safe haven for ISIS to spread, to grow, recruit, and launch attacks. We cannot repeat in Afghanistan the mistake our leaders made in Iraq.

Third and finally, I concluded that the security threats we face in Afghanistan and the broader region are immense. Today, 20 U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations are active in Afghanistan and Pakistan -- the highest concentration in any region anywhere in the world."

How very different was Trump's vision from the cowardly betrayal of the Biden Abandonment. Biden has besmirched the memory of all the soldiers who fought there, following 4 presidents, and allowed Afghanistan to again be the launching place of terrorist attacks.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/21/trump-afghanistan-speech-text-241882

"But we will no longer use American military might to construct democracies in faraway lands, or try to rebuild other countries in our own image. Those days are now over. Instead, we will work with allies and partners to protect our shared interests. We are not asking others to change their way of life, but to pursue common goals that allow our children to live better and safer lives. This principled realism will guide our decisions moving forward."

But there was no "principled realism" in the Biden's Abandonment. It was shameful, and now he's making mandates about vaccines in order to cover for his ugly behavior. And our children and those in the middle east and Israel will certainly NOT have better and safer lives.

Thursday, September 09, 2021

Seeds oils, are they safe

I haven't paid much attention, but there seems to be a war against seed oils (omega-6) What do you think?

Are seed oils (not common until the 20th century) in the processed food industry the biological drivers of modern health problems? https://youtu.be/7kGnfXXIKZM I use butter, peanut oil, coconut oil, and olive oil if I cook from scratch, but the others (seed oils) are in processed food.

This speaker, Dr. Chris Knobbe,  was an ophthalmologist and has switched to nutrition, primarily because of research on macular degeneration.


"Unlike traditional fats such as olive oil, coconut oil, butter, ghee, and lard, industrial seed oils are a very recent addition to the human diet.

In fact, industrial seed oils, the highly processed oils extracted from soybeans, corn, rapeseed (the source of canola oil), cottonseed, and safflower seeds, were only introduced into the American diet in the early 1900s. How, then, did these oils come to occupy such an influential position not only in the Standard American Diet but in “”Westernized” diets around the world? The story is strange indeed."

From Toxic Waste to “Heart Healthy”: The History of Seed Oils

Transition surgery for children is child abuse

How could genital mutilation on a child of healthy organs by a physician and at request of parents NOT be sexual abuse? Call it transition or confirming or affirming, throw in a few thousands hormone blockers, and it is still sexual abuse. If an adult chooses a mastectomy or penile amputation, that's their business. But a child may need the protection of the law. Transgenderism is a hoax, and it's OK if adults want to do it and have other adults changing their pronouns to comply with their confusion.

Texas Agency Rules Gender-Confirming Surgery Form Of Child Abuse – CBS Dallas / Fort Worth (cbslocal.com)

Florida restaurant won't serve Biden supporters


A diner in DeBary, Florida, became popular overnight among residents and the international community after announcing they would no longer serve Biden supporters. They sold out of food the same day and temporarily closed.

I don't think this is a good idea. It's unAmerican to deny service due to politics. However, the owner could serve them a piece of cooked crow with every order.

I was a Veterinary Medicine Librarian at Ohio State, and one time I got a call from a New York Chef wanting to know how to safely bake 4 and 20 blackbirds in a pie. Swear to God, a true story.

Nidal Hasan, a killer, approves of Joe Biden



Former Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Islamic radical who murdered 13 people and wounded more than 30 at Fort Hood in 2009, is now celebrating the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan after President Joe Biden's botched pullout of U.S. forces and lauding the opportunity to install Sharia law in the region. (The Blaze)

I'm sure he's not the only one. And he was a citizen who swore to protect Americans.

Ancestral Health--what is it?

Got me. I saw an article about the Ancestral Health Symposium (9th) held August 12 in California so have been searching for articles (it was sold out). In simple terms, it's probably about eating "natural." Came across something by a diabetes group on Paleo, Primal, real/whole food, keto etc. ways of eating, but nothing substantial. There is also a Vitamin D chapter in this group presenting on protections against SARS (many trials and published papers), Omega-6 group, seed oils, cognitive decline, the hidden health epidemic, the anti-meat ethics, bone health, African traditions, infections and psychiatric disorders, gateway drugs. This Youtube says there are 20 presentations. AHS21 - YouTube

Tuesday, September 07, 2021

Ivermectin--why are the media destroying its reputation as a miracle drug?

Our major media sources have denied the world knowledge of treatments that could have saved perhaps even the majority of the 641,450 people who died in the U.S. and the nearly 4 million who died elsewhere in the world.  Why?

"It was just another day in the most misleading, murderous coverage of a global issue in modern times, the attempted assassination of poor little ivermectin. Little Ivy, smaller and safer than aspirin and sometimes portrayed as a lovable little blue bird by its worldwide supporters, is the remarkably safe, affordable, FDA-approved, generic, Nobel-Prize winning drug known to doctors as one of the great “wonder drugs” in human history, rivaling penicillin, until it made the mistake of killing both COVID and big pharma profits like nothing known to science ." commenting on a New York Times article. . . 

The doctors’ treatment protocols of safe, FDA-approved drugs, including ivermectin, for COVID prevention, early and late-stage treatment, hospital care, long-haul symptoms and even post-vaccine symptoms, have saved more lives and relieved more misery in the pandemic than any human being can count, and would yet, many scientists believe, restore normal life everywhere if used universally. The rest of the mainstream media has known about these remarkable doctors and this remarkable generic drug that, in tandem with the vaccines already jabbed into billions of arms, and even without mass vaccination according to scientists like m-RNA vaccine technology inventor Dr. Robert Malone, could drive the coronavirus swiftly extinct. But they have simply ignored the story—and called some of the most renowned doctor-researchers on the planet scientific kooks and frauds."

The Texas case

For you pro-choice Christians all huffy, weepy and hysterical about the Texas jury case involving abortion, how did you feel about the story of baby scalps grafted to the backs of rats, all with your tax money? Were you sickened? Did you say to self, "This is women's health?" Did you excuse those abortions as "for the good of all people this little girl gave her life?"

"In the fall of 2020, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh published a study titled, “Development of humanized mouse and rat models with full-thickness human skin and autologous immune cells.” In studying how organs reacted to pathogens or infections on human skin, researchers grafted “full-thickness human skin” as well as thymuses, livers, and spleens from fetuses onto rodent bodies, creating what they call “humanized rat models.”

https://thefederalist.com/2021/05/07/university-of-pittsburgh-uses-taxpayer-funded-aborted-babies-for-medical-research/

Monday, September 06, 2021

C.S. Lewis on the times we live in

Written by the famed Anglican author C.S. Lewis in 1948. Very applicable to today:

“How are we to live in an atomic age?’ I am tempted to reply: ‘Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of chronic pain, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.’

In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways.

It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

The first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about death. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.”

Sunday, September 05, 2021

Blogging--a blast from the past

Google sent me a notice that my top achieving blog entries for August were from 2005--Hillary Clinton's recipe for chicken and rice soup, and a story about the son of Richard Thomas (John-boy on the Waltons) and a local girl (Fremont) getting married. I'm so happy I've had the chance to make a difference in this messy world (snark).

Saturday, September 04, 2021

Need for vetting of refugees

If Biden hadn't been so cowardly, better vetting would have been done before thousands of Afghans entered the U.S., as Trump demanded. This administration's "word" to properly vet the Afghans fleeing their country, means little. Look at everything Biden promised in August that he flip flopped on.

"An estimated 100 Afghan refugees from Afghanistan to the United States have been flagged for potential ties to terrorist organizations, including the Taliban, according to a new report. Of more than 30,000 evacuees from Afghanistan to the U.S., about 10,000 needed additional screening as of Friday," NBC News reported, citing two sources familiar with evacuation efforts. "And of those about 100 were flagged for possible ties to the Taliban or terror groups." The report stated that two of the flagged Afghans "raised enough concern for additional review" and are being sent to Kosovo for further review amid security concerns."

Time to turn to therapeutics and get rid of the politics

Almost 5 million people have died in this pandemic world wide, and all are using the same control methods--masks, hand washing, social distancing, business and school closings and vaccines. Perhaps it's time to focus more on therapeutics, and stop shutting down suggestions of treatment, especially early and preventive. It is going to be with us for years and will continue to evolve. We've lost the war, let's not give up the fight by allowing Big Tech, Big Pharma and the Democrat Party to destroy our lives while they pretend to be "saving" us.

Friday, September 03, 2021

I'm no longer elderly, I'm an older adult

 English is flexible and has more words than any other European language. Remember, "The sun never sets on the Union Jack," and the Brits borrowed a lot of words from those they conquered. But government and academe make speech and writing very difficult between going woke and demanding political correctness, plus the old words don't really go away. We still have "handicapped parking" instead of "differently abled parking."  In the 1970s when we visited the Ohio Penitentiary (a term invented by Quakers for penance and reflection about crimes) with our church group we were told that "convict" or "ex-con" or "inmate" were not acceptable. And I'm sure no matter what was OK then, it isn't now.

The CDC doesn't just tackle diseases any more, it polices our language. The trend of adding Person with/of, and twisting words and phrases to say something unpopular less directly, is being carried to the extreme. In 21st century English we must be reminded that everyone is a person (except an unborn child) and groups of persons are people or communities. This has the effect of returning English quickly to its Germanic roots--5-10 words to say something that could be accomplished by adding a prefix or suffix or a simple adjective to a noun. So that garbled phrase must then be shortened to an acronym. Like BIPOC--Black, Indigenous and People of Color, a phrase that includes many who aren't any of those.

Today sexually undecided people don't have "reassignment surgery," but instead it's "affirmation surgery" or "confirmation surgery" or "gender congruence surgery." (And if done on children, I call it sexual abuse, but that's another essay.) Just when I was getting used to being elderly or a senior, I'm now just an "older adult," which is what I'd been calling anyone over 50!

You may no longer be a smoker (wasn't that easy?), but a "person who smokes."





CDC's 'woke' new language guide proposes replacing 'dehumanizing' words like ELDERLY  | Daily Mail Online



Thursday, September 02, 2021

It's OK to be angry

It’s Okay to be Angry says Dutch Sheets

"I do not think it appropriate today to release a post that ignores the events of the past couple of weeks. Like many of you, my emotions are pretty raw. Though my faith is strong, still, I’m a mix of anger, grief, sadness, shame, and embarrassment. Faith and hope do not insulate against grief, nor do they demand denial.

I’m angry that my nation is led by weak, unprincipled liars.
I’m angry that the innocent have and will suffer - mercilessly.
I’m angry that brave young women and men pay for the stupidity, arrogance, and selfish ambition of spineless bureaucrats, lying politicians, senile puppets, and woke, incompetent, military leaders.

I grieve, realizing the horror experienced by 80-year-old Americans in Afghanistan who were heartlessly abandoned by their government.
I grieve over mothers and small children beaten by demonized animals as they tried to get to the Kabul airport.
I grieve over busloads of them who were stopped and turned away by the “new and different” Taliban.
I grieve for the pregnant woman kicked in her stomach for trying to flee from our government’s “trusted” new partners.
I grieve over those who made it to the airport gates only to be turned away by our “honorable” military leaders.
I grieve for the 13 young Americans and their families who needlessly lost their lives, as well as for the 150 or so innocent Afghans who were blown to pieces.

I am saddened by all of the above.
I am saddened because I know the suffering isn’t over.
I am saddened because I know none of it was necessary.
And I am saddened that some of my brothers and sisters will be martyred.

I am ashamed and embarrassed for my country.
I am ashamed because we have unprincipled leaders.
I am embarrassed that Americans would give a senile, incompetent liar the most powerful position in the world.
I am embarrassed as our shameless government and military leaders, those responsible for all of this, pat themselves on the back with disgusting self-adulation and sycophancy while the torture and beheadings begin. (We’re not surprised that a nation with our wealth, resources, and a military as dedicated and well-trained as ours can evacuate as many people as they did from Afghanistan in 2 weeks. Stop back-slapping yourselves over this. We’re surprised that you wouldn’t allow this well-trained force to go outside the walls and get the rest! And that you took orders from terrorists.)
I am ashamed and embarrassed that we turned our backs on friends, fellow warriors (then called them cowards), allies, and helpless women and children.
I am embarrassed that many of our leaders who wept and ran in fear on January 6th while their desks were overturned and windows broken - and won’t stop talking about it - can smile and boast as they talk about Afghanistan.

Having dumped my all-too-human emotion on you, I want to leave you with a dose of faith and hope...because I still believe! It is imperative that we not give up or grow cynical. Go ahead and grieve - just as I am - but get up and march on! Use the anger; don’t let it use you. We WILL win.

I believe God is good and will infuse redemption into this evil.
I believe principalities are being judged and will be dislodged by Christ and His church.
I believe many Afghans will turn from Islam and to Christ because of the tragic suffering.
I believe this will spread to other people and nations in the region. I believe the Arab World, the Middle East, and other Muslim nations will receive an earth-shaking revival.
I believe America, too, will experience revival.
I believe the EKKLESIA will accomplish everything Jesus said she would accomplish.
I believe the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

2 Corinthians 4:7-9 says, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels so that the extraordinary greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” (NASB)

“We are like common clay jars that carry this glorious treasure within so that this immeasurable power will be seen as God’s, not ours. Though we experience every kind of pressure, we’re not crushed. At times we don’t know what to do, but quitting is not an option. We are persecuted by others, but God has not forsaken us. We may be knocked down, but not out.” (TPT)

Pray with me:

Father, once again we appeal to You for mercy. We are not asking for what we deserve, we are asking for Your lovingkindness and mercy, which You love to bestow. We plead the precious blood of Jesus over America, asking You to forgive her and restore her fully to your ways and precepts. Revive us; give us Your mercy.

We also ask You for a wind of Your Spirit to blow all across the earth. We ask for this wind to destroy Your enemies and redeem those who are willing to respond to You. Rescue billions of people from sin and darkness. We ask for dreams and visions to be given to those who don’t know You. We ask that angels be sent to show them the truth about Jesus and who He really is. We ask for Jesus to literally appear to many, also.

And we pray for the precious people of Afghanistan. We pray for comfort, deliverance, protection, salvation, and the breaking of the hold of this evil regime. Work miracles to reverse what has occurred there. And for those who are relocated to other nations, may they find Jesus there. We pray these things in Christ’s name. Amen.

Our decree:

We decree that great revival is coming to the people of Afghanistan, and to many others in the Muslim world."

Dutch Sheets, September 1, 2021, Facebook

Wednesday, September 01, 2021

Guest Blogger, Jeffrey Verasano

Covid is here on Earth to stay. The vaccine may have partially succeeded in reducing morbidity but it has failed at any dream of eradicating the virus like we eradicated smallpox. Delta is partially outside its reach, it doesn't last that long, jabbed people can still transmit, etc. Herd immunity was estimated to be 70% -80% with the alpha variant but with Delta, it's essentially 100%. We have nothing else in the pipeline that can resurrect the idea of herd immunity.

Herd immunity can be put aside as a strategy. It will not happen. 36% of Americans according to the CDC already had covid by May 31st 2021, so it's at least 40% today. All of the remaining ones will encounter the virus just like we all get colds and flu.

You can stop blaming your neighbor because you can get it from someone who is vaccinated and masked. You will get it and it doesn't matter who you get it from. Therefore lockdowns, masks and vaccine passports are essentially pointless. At best they delay the inevitable. And they do so at the price of creating social discord, depression, continued recession, and empowering power-hungry bureaucrats.
Focus on your own health, your weight, your immune strength, take whatever prophylactics you want such as vaccines, ivermectin, vitamin d, etc. These are all about of equal effectiveness. The vaccine is no more so than the others.