BMEWS
 
Sarah Palin will pry your Klondike bar from your cold dead fingers.

calendar   Thursday - March 07, 2024

Once Again, The One And Only Post

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March 7, 2024


She was taken to the hospital an hour ago. Do not know what they can do, cannot get clear take from my brother’s texts. She cannot come back to the house at this point, he cannot care for her. Apparently her condition has deteriorated significantly since I was there Monday, and it was pretty bad then; much worse than when I was there 2 weeks before that. And it wasn’t good then either.

But he still isn’t willing to say that a home health aide won’t be enough. So what can I do?


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March 5, 2024


End of her road approaching, one exit left

My mother is dying. This is a terrible thing to say, and a difficult and painful thing to accept. But it’s true nonetheless.  While her physical health is pretty good, her mental health gets worse almost every day, and her body follows along with it. As of this week she can hardly walk. She doesn’t have the strength to stand up from a chair or the couch even with the assistance of a walker to hold on to. She can’t dress herself, or undress herself, or do much of any personal hygiene. She’s pretty much lost all bladder control. Sometimes she can talk and sometimes she can’t, as the dementia ravages her mind. And she’s barely eating. She can’t manage a knife, fork, or spoon; she can barely manage a small cup. Even though the doctor got her appetite stimulant pills, she continues to lose weight. I took her to her doctor yesterday. She’s lost another 5 pounds since 2 weeks ago. There really isn’t anything that can be done. He’s putting us in touch with county hospice, who can do some kind of at-home assessment and give her some palliative care in the time she has left.

She’s lost the will to live, she’s lost the will to eat. Her mind is deteriorating at an alarming rate. 3 months ago she could walk around inside the house and follow most conversations; 5 months ago she could walk around out in the yard. She could carry on conversations and even do some light cooking and housework, and was at least a bit aware of the news and the outside world. 4 years ago she was driving, and was as sharp as she ever was. 3 weeks ago she could control her feet and legs enough to get in and out of my car, although she hasn’t been able to figure the seat belt for some time now. Yesterday getting her out the door, in and then out of the car, and up the elevator to her doctor was nearly impossible.

She will be 89 on April 7. I really don’t have much faith she’ll make it that long.

I cried and cried for hours when we got home last night. But there’s nothing that can be done. My brother lives with her, and will try to get her to eat and stay reasonably clean and fresh. And that’s it.

I can’t write anymore.


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February 29, 2024


Happy Leap Day !!

Once upon a time, long long ago, I think today was known as the calends. Because it’s the end of the calendar. A free extra day. Because the “modern” calendar the West has been using since the Roman Empire is slow by around 6 hours a year, so every 4 years we add an entire day to mostly square things up again. And in general, that’s accurate enough. Ok sure, some bloodthirsty seriously anal Central American culture figured out a truly accurate system hundreds of years ago, but moving great big stone rings around was a pain, not to mention the constant upkeep on all those weird-ass looking carvings. And the buckets of blood. The lakes of blood. Um, no, I’ll keep my Timex, and we’ll add a day every once in a while. Much easier

Personally I think the entire world should just take today off. No work, no wars, no shopping. Have a drink or 3 and go back to bed. I dare say we could all use a day like that far more often than once every 4 years.


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February 22, 2024


Ok, this works. Scale it up if you want more dough. Once well rested and matured, this is a super extensible dough that can stretch out to “windowpane” thinness, and will bake nicely in a 500-500 oven in just a few minutes.

Autolysed Poolish NY Style Pizza Dough

Autolyse, or autolysis, is the term applied to the way flour breaks down when wet. Without any yeast or any heat, damp flour will soften up and start to form glutens. This is a good thing. About an hour is long enough.

A poolish is a “pre ferment”, in which a little bit of commercial yeast is added to a good amount of some very wet flour and left alone for half a day or so. Not only does it use less yeast, it creates lots of flavor, as the little flour bacteria start to breed. It’s kind of halfway to being sourdough, but with supplied yeasts, instead of what occurs naturally on the wheat in the field. A poolish is very wet, often 100% hydration.

Hydratian level is the amount of liquid in a dough, expressed as a mass percentage of the total amount of flour in a recipe. So 100% hydration would have a certain weight of flour, and the same weight of water. 50% hydration means the water weight is half that of the flour weight. Another kind of preferment, called a “biga” often uses 50% hydration. Bigas can be harder to work with because they are very stiff, but they are also rather forgiving time-wise to their peak yeastiness, whereas poolish is pretty close to flour soup but the yeast peak is a more narrow time window.

A New York style pizza dough needs to be a bit firmer than a Neopolitan dough, but also not brittle; a NYC street slice is a long thing, and everyone folds it in half lengthwise so the toppings don’t drip off.



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Makes a bit under 800 grams of dough, which is enough for 2 15” pies

Mix together
323 grams King Arthur Bread Flour
139 grams King Arthur All Purpose Flour

then put 300 grams of the mixed flour in your mixer bowl. Set the remaining 162gm mixed flour aside.
To the mixing bowl add 270 grams of warm water. 270/300 = 90% hydration, so this will be pretty soft. You don’t knead here, just mix it up. Rough mix is ok; you can do this with bare hands or a wooden spoon or the beater in your stand mixer.
Cover the bowl and let it sit for an hour. It’s just flour and water.
Next, dissolve 1/4 teaspoon of instant yeast in 30ml of water, which is 1 fluid ounce. A good excuse to get out your cocktail jigger! Add this to the autolysed wet flour, then use the mixer to thoroughly mix in the yeast water. Cover, and leave it in the bowl on the counter for about 12-14 hours. When the poolish is ripe you will see plenty of little moon crater bubbles on top.

To the remaining flour, add an mix in 12 grams of salt, 1 teaspoon of instant yeast, 2 teaspoons of white sugar.  Pour this onto the poolish along with 2 teaspoons of Extra Virgin Olive oil. Mix on low speed for a minute or two, then knead on speed 2 for only 3 minutes. This slack dough will not require much kneading at all!

Now cover it up, leave it on the counter for 90 minutes, then into the fridge for at least 8 hours ... 2 or 3 days is fine; the longer it’s in there the better the flavors you’ll get.

When it’s time to make some pizza, dip both hands in plain all purpose flour, and carve off about half the dough, and work it. The flour on your hands will dry things out just a bit (it might take 2 dips in the flour) and leave you with a very soft dough you can play Pizza Guy with to your heart’s content. You can stretch this stuff out and out and out, to the point where you can easily see light through it. Windowpane!

and it tastes good too.


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February 20, 2024


Maybe, maybe I might be starting to get well. Or less sicker?

I have been very sick for 3 weeks now. A few days into the huge doses of Augmentin and the Prednisone, along with a ton of vitamins and some Mucinex tablets, and I might be turning a corner. Might. Not quite as much coughing, nose running much less.

The initial positive reaction was just initial; it’s still a fight and it doesn’t always go my way. but I’m doing everything I know how to do.

Sorry, that’s about all I have.


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Ok, I tried making pizza dough yesterday. And then found out later that there is a tremendous difference between a Neopolitian dough that’s designed to bake up in a minute in a 1000 degree oven, and the more or less New York style dough that will do well in a typical home oven which tops at at perhaps 550 degrees.

And all that other baker stuff ... use a biga, use a poolish, do an autolyse, do a chilled 72 hour ferment ... oh gak, a bit more than I could handle. But that was yesterday. Today I feel up to experimenting with a small amount of flour and water, enough to make one decent sized pizza when all is said and done.



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I might do some kind of beef and bean burrito thing for dinner. Keep it fairly small. Not sure what kind of cheese we have or how much. Beans and chiles, no problem there!


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February 17, 2024


Another week of light posting. Another week of being sick. Ok, I finally broke down and went to the local clinic. The extremely young woman PA set me up with some strong antibiotic and a heft 12 day dose of prednisone. Both prescriptions together cost me $2.26. Got home, took the first dose of each, and within an hour my nose is not running and I am not coughing and my chest is not congested. Son. of a. Gun.




[ sorry, snipping off old posts as needed ]


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Bowled over average all 3 games Wednesday night and Friday Night. We got smeared all 3 on Wed, and we cruised to an easy win all 3 on Friday. Go figure.



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February 12, 2024


Superbowl leftovers ... we had too many wings ... so ...

Halfway To Hell chipotle wing sauce

Chipotle chilis are dried mature jalapeno peppers, smoked. The morita chipotles are leathery and moderately smoky. The meco chipotles are bone dry and super smoky. Arbol chilis have a lighter smoky flavor and a good kick of heat. This is not a murder_death_kill hot sauce, but it is pretty zippy. And it’s quite smoky. Sure, you could just throw in a few tablespoons of chipotle powder and some smoky hot paprika. Seriously? The flavor is many many times richer when you use fresh chilis. Even dried ones.



In a small pot, boil 1 1/2 cup water
add
8 arbol chilis
4 chipotle meco chilis
4 chipotle morita chilis

You may need to use a small bowl or saucer to weigh the chilis down to keep them under the water.
Simmer for 10 minutes then remove the arbols. Simmer for 5 more minutes and remove the moritas. Turn off the heat. Remove the mecos when you are finished processing the others; they should be rehydrated enough at this point. Throw away the water, even though it smells like a campfire.

To process: lay the chilis out on a cutting board by the sink. Using a sharp pair or scissors or a very sharp pointy little knife, cut the stem ends off then cut open one long side of each pepper. Rinse the seeds and the pith out under gently running water. Use the scissors to cut each pepper in strips, then cut a pile of strips into small chunks. Put these in a Magic Bullet or other small blender and pulse into mash. Set aside. Now wash your hands with dish detergent. Twice. At least.


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In a medium pot, gently melt a stick of butter

Then add:

1/2 cup Crystal hot sauce
1/2 cup Frank’s hot sauce
6 - 8 shakes of Tabasco
1-2 Tbl Worchestershire sauce
all of the chili mash
a nice squirt of ketchup, about 2Tb



Stir and simmer this for 10 minutes until it reduces somewhat. Taste test, add more Frank’s, more Tabasco as needed. You might want to add a squirt of lime juice or two, and maybe a nice dollop of honey. A splash of soy sauce if you must make it salty.
There is enough here to coat about 3 dozen wings, given that most wings these days are smaller than you expected.

Naturally, you dedicated fire eaters can amp this up as hot as you want it. As made, this is plenty hot enough for “normal” people who like it plenty hot and spicy.


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Chiefs Win Superbowl In Overtime

I got my annual football game in last night. I like football but I’m not a huge fan of either conference or any particular team, and the annual changes in the rules annoys me.

That said, yesterday’s Big Game was kind of odd. The first two quarters were rather lackluster, and error filled. At one point, after yet another “oops, forgot to hang onto the ball” moment, I texted a friend that the game was a comedy of errors. So the first half was more angst than excitement. Things got better in the next THREE quarters; the 4th was pretty good and the semi-sorta-sudden-death overtime quarter was definitely worth watching.

There were an awful lot of injuries too, about 8 players left the game I think. And this is from playing in a nice warm roofed stadium on real grass.

Way too many camera moments of Taylor Swift, although her curvy buddy in the white tank top and the curly blonde hair was totally nice to look at. Gee, really? That was actress Blake Lively.

I think the refs did a good job. They flagged the obvious fouls, but generally stayed out of the way, and didn’t try to “balance” the game with questionable calls. Well done.

Kudos to the kickers! Two longest field goal records were made last night, the first a very impressive 55 yards from the Niners’ Moody, only to be broken a while later with a 57 yarder by KC’s Butker. Moody had another good one of 53 yards too. The thing is, in the dead air of the Las Vegas closed stadium these guys put the ball easily 20 feet over the goal posts. Which makes me think that a 70 yard field goal is not impossible. 

In the end, the nail biting final end, with just 13 seconds left on the OT clock, the Chiefs pulled ahead by getting an actual touchdown, which ended the game under this year’s new sorta-sudden-death overtime rule.

So the Chiefs earned back to back Superbowl titles, and got 3 wins in 5 years. The first of those wins was when they beat the 49ers in 2020. And if they get rid of fumble fingers Pacheco maybe they take the Bowl again next year too.

Most of the ads were pretty stupid. The worst one was the campaign ad for Kennedy, trying desperately to make itself look like an early 1960s spot for his more famous progenitor. It looked like it had a $99.99 budget. The Budweiser ad seemed almost phoned in, but at least they got the Clydesdales out again. Because tradition.  Was I the only one who resented the Pfizer ad and sponsorship? Go the hell away, you evil murderers.

A link to a decent re-cap.


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February 10, 2024


I’ve been sick. Got the cold going around. But I’m getting better. I think.

We lost all 7 in Friday bowling league. We were simply outrolled by the team that almost always wins the league. I rolled 2 good games, a 215 and a 186, but died in game 2 with a 124.

Ok, time to go grocery shopping, get beer, get gas. then back to bed? No, I have to make bread. Crap.



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February 5, 2024


The beast is in the house!



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Kneading multiple loaves of heavy bread dough is more than my KitchenAid 5 quart Artisan can handle. And I’m tired of replacing parts. So I found a factory refurbished Professional 600 6 quart model and bought it. It’s much sturdier and heavier, has a larger bowl and a motor nearly twice as powerful. It weighs about 10lbs more too, on a wider base. KA’s refurb price was 1/3 less than a new one costs retail, same warranty. This baby ain’t gonna rock and roll and throw the bowl like little “Arty” does. Somehow the thing looks like some droid or war machine from Star Wars to us, so she instantly named our new mixer “C 3 P Dough”.


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February 3, 2024


Bowling Blogging Friday Night Edition

I was Mr. Consistency Friday night. I have a 176 average there, and rolled 183, 183, 176 to come out slightly over average for the night. Considering I’m wearing 2 or 3 sets of braces, and that my thumb is insanely painful and not reliable, I consider that a success. We only got one game, losing 2-5, but not really my fault. OTOH, they were bowling pretty well. Yeah, but most of my team was well under average in at least 2 games of the 3.


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I got a phone call from Vilmar today. First time I’ve ever actually talked to him. He’s still recovering from his surgery but there was more damage than anticipated. Or should I say that the non-cancerous brain tumor was bigger than they thought. So he’s getting by, but it is not easy. Pretty much house bound, can’t type, hard to read, hard to do just about anything. He has plenty of food and the guy is super organized, with 30 days of pre-cooked meals in the freezer/fridge in individual portions, and another 60 days worth in the freezer out in the garage.

Pray for Vilmar, he needs whatever help he can get.


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February 1, 2024



And around we go again ... another young attractive female teacher doing the frisky with students hardly 10 years younger than herself, before and after marrying her babyfaced boyfriend. A marriage that lasted about a month.

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  A newlywed Iowa school teacher has admitted sexually abusing students as young as 13 — leaving her facing up to 33 years in prison after already losing her job and short-lived marriage.

Cassidy Kraus, 24, a teacher at IKM Manning School, got hitched in July — just for new husband Zachary to file for divorce on August 28 when the abuse against at least three boys first emerged, according to Fox News.

Three days before the divorce filing, the teacher tendered her resignation to avoid getting fired, school officials said.

She pleaded guilty Monday to one count of third-degree sexual abuse, two counts of lascivious acts with a child and three counts of dissemination and exhibition of obscene materials to minors, KTIV reported.

The charges were for sexually abusing and sending obscene Snapchat messages to at least three boys between the ages of 13 and 14.

Kraus “knowingly disseminat[ed] obscene material” via Snapchat to one boy between January and May 2022, and to the two others between January and June 2023 — the latter just before her marriage, Law&Crime reported, citing a Carroll County criminal complaint.

More links here and here.

Ok, so she’s 24 now. And she was sending naughty pics to her students 18 months ago. Which means she was probably 22 then. Which means she was straight out of college, ink still wet on the diploma, was given a job teaching kids barely 10 years younger than herself, and almost instantly got into some raunchy flirtatious photo swapping on social media. With boys who were just hitting puberty. I keep hearing that the schools are desperate for teachers, but in my day there was no way such a young woman would be assigned any students beyond 3rd grade for the first 5 or 7 years of her teaching career.

I do not understand this kind of thing. Is there some kind of sexual allure in dorky boys trying to deal with their first erections? Does the “coltish” thing work for women too, the way that some guys find a certain degree of charm in 11-14 year old girls who hit that pubescent growth spurt. And by charm I do not mean sexual allure or desire. Just awareness of the beauty of a flower beginning to bloom. Was she driven to teach them more than what was in the syllabus? Where is this coming from, and it’s pretty damn common these days. I couldn’t get dates with 20 year old girls when I was 18 because I was so much younger and they were so worldly and mature. Yeah right. And like every female 14 and older, they were only interested in older guys, especially if they were tall, had good hair, some kind of job and a reliable and possibly cool car. But these days it’s like a certain kind of female is out there collecting “V cards” as fast as she can, and reveling in it. And they’re all married already.

I can sort of understand the comments at the news sites; the kind of aura that an attractive 22 year old woman exudes would have been utterly hypnotic to a 13 year old boy. Slack jawed unblinking mindless confusing desire. And the comments reflect that; nobody believes these boys are damaged or victims in the slightest. No, they have a mind blowing memory that will become their favorite fantasy for the rest of their lives. And yet as a society we continue to swallow the canard that girls the same age are fragile little innocent flowers so easily damaged ... yeah sure. Have you seen what tweener girls look like these days? 13 going on 24, can’t get there fast enough, and frantically eager to get busy getting busy. They’re walking hormone bombs ready to explode, just like the boys are.

And you know what’s going to happen too ... she’ll get the “too pretty for jail” treatment, maybe get 2 years at county, out in 6 months with 5 years probation, probably not have to register as a offender, change her name and hair color, and start her life all over again.

The ex husband? For the next year or two he’s going to be a laughingstock, but that too will pass. Especially if he moves cross country, changes his look, and never comes back.

Instapundit is always running this kind of news under the “Teach Women Not To Rape” banner ... and nobody wants to admit that maybe this kind of predatory female thing has been going on a damn long time, half a century or longer than the “where did this new thing come from?” narrative the media runs with.

I just don’t have the answers, and I’m not even sure of the questions. Just like a 13 year old boy I guess.


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Back in the 60s the leftists had a good time poking fun at patriotic Americans who pointed out that many new social trends were “commie plots”. Oh those silly stiffnecked fuddy duddies. Turns out ... no kidding ... they were pretty much right. Duh.

You want to read this; an excerpt from a well researched book that’s about to hit the market. It’s a long read, but connects dots you forgot even existed from way back then to all the degenerate lunacy going on now.

Front Page Magazine’s post on White Privilege

On December 26, 1969, in Flint Michigan, roughly 300 college students – almost exclusively white – gathered in a run-down dance hall called the Giant Ballroom. The ballroom was located in the heart of one of Flint’s black neighborhoods, and also one of its most violent. A bullet hole in the front door marked the spot where, the night before, a disgruntled patron had fired a shotgun into the hall inadvertently killing a black customer who was there to celebrate Christmas, and was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.[1]

The attendees were members or alumni of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the largest radical movement on university campuses during the 1960s. They had come to attend the last “National Council” meeting of SDS.

The organization’s recently elected leaders, who called themselves the “Weathermen” were billing the event as a “National War Council.” The name was not rhetorical. Their intention was to transform SDS into an underground terrorist army whose mission was to be an “enemy within,” taking up arms against America, in behalf of the non-white peoples of the world whom America allegedly oppressed. They intended to play a key role in the struggle to defeat the global empire of U.S. imperialism, and replace it with a communist state.

Columbia graduate, Mark Rudd, the National Secretary of SDS, described the venue of the gathering in his memoir Underground: My Life With SDS and the Weathermen. “The Detroit collective had decorated the ballroom unlike any other dance hall I’d ever seen. A six-foot cardboard machine gun suspended over the stage set the tone, as did psychedelic portraits of our heroes Fidel, Che, Ho Chi Minh, Lenin, Mao, Malcolm X, and Eldridge Cleaver of the Black Panthers.”[2] Cleaver had earned his spot by breaking with the Panther leadership over his call for a shooting war against America starting immediately.

The evening’s speeches began with Weatherman’s queen bee, Bernardine Dohrn issuing a signature call to arms. Dohrn mounted the platform wearing a brown mini-jumpsuit and thigh-high Italian leather boots causing a stir among the tie-dyed, blue jeaned Weather army sitting at her feet. Referring to the date on which the Weathermen had staged a three-day riot in Chicago billed as the “Days of Rage” specifically targeting police, she said “Since October 11th we’ve been wimpy….

So the commies have been at their game for over 50 years ... and today the top Democrats use those 1960s talking points nearly word for word.

I did post on the Indivisible organization didn’t I?  They’re everywhere, they have huge amounts of dark funding, they own loads of politicians and media figures, they set the talking points, and every connected D parrots them back immediately. And it’s all one great big commie plot.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=Indivisible+organization#ip=1



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Some almost local news. Manville is about 30 miles away, down Rt287 to the Somerset area.

Nothing more to say; the post title does it all: Manville home vandalized with pepperoni.  Man, is that Joisey, or what? Eh!!

(my Italian neighbor reminds me that pepperoni isn’t Italian, it’s an American sausage, so this could be a counter-racist act of revenge. )

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Not sure how it happened, but I had one day earlier this week that was pain free. No, I didn’t go for a run or do any high impact aerobics. I just moved around pretty much normally. It was really nice.

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BowlingBlogging!

My average in the Wednesday night league took a huge hit when my knees went south. Not so much my Friday league, as I was a little smarter and took more time off. So on Fridays I carry a 176 average, and was running a 156 in the Wednesday league. I’ve done pretty well in both the past few weeks, so my Wednesday numbers are up to 160. I threw a 526 there this week, which is a 175 average. So pretty much normal. Sadly, we were playing a pretty hot team, and my series was the low one, by 37 pins. Most of the rest of the guys rolled in the mid 600s to mid 700s. And this isn’t really a hard core league. We did win all 7 points though, which brings the team stats back almost to 50% wins. Mid pack. Tough crowd but we have fun.

I have no idea where we are in the standings for Friday league. I never look. We might be doing pretty well.


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January 27, 2024


Fox News Online Sinking Into Pathetic Obscurity Faster Than Their TV Channel

Figured I’d check the news this morning. Went over to my old standby FoxNews. Lead story is that leftist garbage “fact checker” site Snopes has been forced to change it’s opinion about Biden wearing a hardhat backwards. Seriously? There’s a picture. And anyone who has ever worn, or even seen a real hardhat, knows that the strap goes across the back. Duh. But Fox goes downhill from there. Yes, it’s possible! Next story up is about the big debate online at Reddit over whether customers checking out at Costco should put their membership card on the divider between the orders, or hold it up for the cashier to scan. THIS IS NEWS.

Goodbye Fox, game over. It was fun while it lasted, but it’s been over for several years now. Gutfield is the only thing on their channel worth watching, barely. And they haven’t covered much in the way of regular news in a very long time anyway.

Sad.


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January 27, 2024


Crap, has it been a week since my last anemic post? Sorry. My sorry ass life continues, a daily constant battle with pain. It saps my will to do anything. Sometimes I hope that I go to sleep and just don’t wake up. I spend most of my time alone anyway, and there is very little I can do at this point. What am I living for? And yet I plod on.


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I want to get excited about Texas Governor Abbot’s stand against FJB’s treasonous border policy and the turncoat commie pussy Supreme Court’s inept judgements.

At this point 25 state governors, all Republicans, have signed letters of support ... that’s probably all of them. But is this just more bullshit empty virtue signalling? I fear that it is.

The time to close the border was when Reagan was President. He cut that amnesty deal and the left wing Congress stabbed him in the back. The only right response would have been to immediately build a wall along the Mexican border, from the Pacific to the Gulf, and execute another Operation Wetback like Eisenhower did, along with shutting down all immigration and asylum for the next 25 years. But that didn’t happen.

And now this incontinent mumbling moron sock puppet pedophile is occupying the White House.

There are probably 50 or 60 millions illegals in our country. We don’t owe them shit. All benefits should be cut off immediately, including healthcare and education. And then march them out of the country at the point of a bayonet. Oh the libs will scream and cry and protest!! And when a couple hundred of them get shot down in the streets and their bodies left there to rot, they’ll STFU in a flash. We are in a period of lawlessness, at the end of our civilization. So laws no longer apply. Which means anyone with power and organization can do anything. Great, let’s clean house. Revoke all the visas while we’re at it. Dismantle 99% of the government. Flush the entire education system down the toilet and start over, with not a lib, commie, trans, or leftist in the system. Sure, we’ll suffer for a while. But look at all the job openings created for all the deadbeats and former government workers ... if they can toe the American line. If not, well, too bad. No work means no food and they can all go to hell and starve as well.

Yeah, I’m evil today. I’m just beyond fed up with everything, top to bottom.


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January 20, 2024


It’s cold as all get out, temps hovering just over 10°F and the wind is blowing, giving a wind chill of about ... nothing. Zero. So naturally, in an attempt to survive, it’s time to bake something good.



I made Brownies Embers from scratch




It was pretty easy, and I did it entirely by hand. No mixer, no whisk, just a spoon. Ok I weighed out the flour, but I don’t even think about baking without my sweet little Oxo digital kitchen scale. So I looked around the kitchen and found a bit of this and a bit of that, and had my little AhA! moment. Time to make brownies.

Get all the ingredients out ahead of time an hour or two in advance. This gives the butter a chance to soften and the eggs to come up to room temperature.

1 stick of butter
1 4oz block of baker’s chocolate. Ignore the date code if it’s within a couple years and the package is unopened. The stuff lasts forever if kept somewhere cool and dark, like in a kitchen cabinet

2 cups of white sugar

4 large eggs
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

1 cup of all-purpose flour
1 cup of crushed walnuts or pecans (smell them to make sure they haven’t gone rancid. I only had 1/3 cup, so use what you’ve got)


Start the oven, set to 350°F. Take a 9x13 glass baking dish and really big piece of tin foil, and make a liner with the foil that sticks out a couple inches over the baking dish. Give it a good spray with Pam, or go to town with some Crisco. Set aside for now.

Put the block of baker’s chocolate - 4oz is the whole package - in a plastic bag, seal it, and whack it on the counter a few times to break the bar into a couple dozen chunks.

In a medium double boiler ( I used a DRY 2 quart steel mixing bowl over a 4 quart pot with perhaps a quart of water simmering in it) put the butter in and let it start melting. After a minute or two, dump in the chocolate. Stir things around constantly until the chocolate has melted and combined with the melted butter. Set this aside to cool for a bit. Don’t put it outside to freeze, or even put it in the fridge. Just set it aside. In 5 or 10 minutes it will be room temperature.

Stir in the vanilla. I use the spendy double strength Bourbon vanilla, so don’t be cheap with the 2 teaspoonsful.

Add the 4 eggs. I suggest cracking them all in a cereal bowl first, just in case any shell bits get in and need removing. Take a fork and whisk them up. Pour this into the cooled mixing bowl, and mix until it’s all combined smoothly.

Dump in the sugar, and stir until smooth. You get something a bit more liquid than toothpaste, but not runny.

Dump in the nuts, stir, then dump in the flour. Stir until smooth, making sure to get any flour stuck to the side of the bowl.

Pour the batter into the foil lined baking dish. Use a spatula to get every last bit of batter. You might need to spread the batter around the baking dish with the spatula.

Ok, into the oven, for 25-28 minutes. Do the classic toothpick test to check doneness; you want the toothpick to come out clean in each of the 8 or so places you stick it in, with just a little darkness on the end. That’s done. If you want crispier brownies, let it cook perhaps 3 more minutes.

Put the dish on a cooling rack and walk away ... all the way to the dishpan, and start cleaning everything.

And that was that, and it came out great, and now the kitchen is nice and warm and the whole house smells great.



Ok, why are you calling these embers? You didn’t burn the heck out of them, did you?

Nope, they came out just right. And the reason for the big chunk of foil is so that the whole thing can be lifted out, put on a plate or cutting board, and sliced into pieces.

(this recipe is from the Joy of Cooking cookbook, where they tell you that they’ve been running this recipe since 1939. )

Ok already, WHY ARE THEY EMBERS????

Because brownies are not just little chocolate fudge bars. They’re also the name of the entry level group of Girl Scouts. Little girls in 2nd or 3rd grade I think. They have their little brown uniform dresses, their brown knee socks, and their little brown beanies. I have no idea what they do, but most of them like it enough to graduate to regular Girl Scouts, where they learn new skills, earn badges, get outdoors and so forth. The uniform changes to green if I remember right.

EMBERS, m’kay??

Up in Canada, the Girl Scouts organization is called Girl Guides. Like the rest of Canada they have gone woke Socialist with a vengeance. So they’re changing the name from Brownies to Embers. Perhaps because embers are even browner than brownies? Or because they’re so much hotter, and that’s an important and necessary way to look at some 8 year old little girls? Maybe, maybe not. But they’re claiming it’s more inclusive, for “racialized” little girls. What. The. Fudge Brownies? Everything the Leftists get their hands on, they destroy. I can’t begin to imagine what new skills (ahem) they’ll be teaching these children now. Team arson to push climate change? Emergency gender reassignment in the forest with just basic kitchen tools and duct tape? Sexual deviance and self-doubts? Self hatred for not being brown yourself under the brown uniform? Ok, I can imagine, and I’m certain they’ll screw it up the same way that Boy Scouts was destroyed here in the USA.

Canada Girl Guides drops ‘Brownies’ name after it’s deemed offensive

The Girl Guides of Canada has renamed the “Brownies” branch - who are now called the “Embers” - after the old name was deemed too racially divisive.

“Embers are full of potential and when they work together, they can ignite a powerful flame!” the Girl Guides of Canada (GGC) tweeted on Wednesday.

The group said in November that the old name had caused “harm” to some minority members, and kept girls from joining.

CEO Jill Zelmanovits says the girls have been very open to the name change.

“After hearing from our girl, youth and adult members, it was resoundingly clear that this was the preferred choice,” Mrs Zelmanovits said in a news release.

“We can’t wait to keep bringing the magic of Girl Guides to girls ages seven and eight, now with the name Embers.”

The decision came after input from current and former members, who said that the previous name “caused harm and was a barrier to belonging for racialised girls and women”.

The release added that applications have increased since November, after the group’s decision to become “more inclusive for their daughters”.

The GGC says that the new name should be used immediately, but it will take until September for it to be fully adopted in merchandise and gear.

The Embers join the other GGC branches, including the Sparks (ages five to six), Guides (ages nine to 11), Pathfinders (ages 12 to 14) and Rangers (ages 15 to 17).

The Brownies were formed in England in 1914 as girls sought their own version of the Scouts.

They were originally called the Rosebuds - a name that did not survive long - and today members earn badges for activities like crime prevention and science investigation.

“This wasn’t just about a name or its origin,” Mrs Zelmanovits added. “This was about the fact that girls experienced racism and felt that they weren’t welcome in Girl Guides.”



Complete and total Bull Shit. Some Canuck Twit Karen must have decided that wearing a brown uniform was cultural appropriation, so it had to go. Or at least the name did.

Sparks and Embers? I think these little kids are going to get burned.


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January 19, 2024


Not a whole lot to say. It’s Winter here, cold and snowy. My knees still hurt. I have to call the body shop who repaired my car, as I think the hatchback hatch has come a little loose. It isn’t falling off, but there’s just too much humidity inside the car, like the seal isn’t making enough contact. And after this last snow there was snow in the channel between the back of the roof and under the lip of the top of the hatch. That’s never happened before. And it turns out that the hatch is at least a little bit adjustable. Ok,Mazda calls that part the liftgate. Same same.



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I was thinking of writing up an essay on chili. Yeah, I made another batch, this one a bit hotter. And I added some chipotles, which are smoked matured jalapeno peppers. One kind is leathery soft and a bit smoky, the other kind is dry as a bone and smells like a campfire. Both need to be rehydrated, then away you go. And what is chili at heart, other than pepper stew? So lots of peppers of lots of different kinds, finding a balance between red and green, bright and deep, zing and zoom. Plus meat and onions and bacon and other stuff.



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We managed to win just one game in Wednesday night bowling. We played a team that was a bit low average, and suddenly they remembered how to bowl. Beat us the first game by 151 pins. Our guy threw a 289 in the second game, and we lost that one by 4. We did win the third game, but we didn’t take wood. I was over average in all 3 games, getting better as the night wore on. It’s our two guys in the middle who didn’t do so good. But the other team was running really hot, so what can you do?

I’ve got my ball in the ball oven, getting it warm and clean for tonight’s league. And I’m doing wash, as I’m tired of wearing the same oversize fleece lined jeans for yet another day. They sure are warm, and the relaxed carpenter cut gives me plenty of room for my knee braces. But it’s getting a bit eeeww, 4 days on the same pair of paints. ‘

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Here is a very nice essay about Robert E Lee. Plenty of references to his writings, his views, his background, and what other people had to say about him, North and South. It goes without saying that the modern drive to cancel him because reasons is totally ass backwards. He was a patriot, a hero, a man of honor and distinction, and perhaps the best general in all of American history. Oh, and he freed the slaves he was in charge of, even though he wasn’t their actual owner. So there.


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January 15, 2024


Hello old blog, I’m back again. Life plods along. Still having the knee issues. Go for an MRI next week, and back to the hand orthopedist as well.

Made another batch of red & green chili which has 6 kinds of chilis in it; I want to find some chipotle meco, which is the smokier version of a dried and smoked mature red jalapeño. And I should find some better smokier bacon for the next batch. Love the smoky flavor. This batch had more reconstituted chilis in it, a dozen each of anchos and guajillos, turned into a paste in the old Magic Bullet mini blender. Gives you a seriously rich flavor, and the chili is so dark red it’s pretty much brown. Heat level is enough for me, spicy without being a spoonful of fire. A pot full makes at least a dozen bowls, so we eat on it for several days.

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Float copper? Unless you’re from northern Michigan you’ve never heard of this, but it’s about the purest naturally occurring copper on earth. And it looks really cool too.

Same topic: Saving the big one.

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Gee whiz, guess those primitive natives and those crazy crystal sniffing moonbeam naturopaths knew a thing or two after all. Willow bark tea, sort of a liquid aspirin, has significant antiviral properties.

In Finland, researchers have recently discovered that willow bark extract, a plant known for yielding various medicinal compounds including the basis for contemporary aspirin, exhibits a wide-ranging antiviral effect in laboratory cell studies.

The extract worked both on enveloped coronaviruses, which cause colds as well as COVID-19, and non-enveloped enteroviruses, which cause infections such as flu and meningitis. There are no clinically approved drugs that work against enteroviruses directly, so this extract could be a future game-changer.


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Gain of Function Bioweapons progress in China: psycho military scientists modify pangolin COVID brain virus to make it infect people. 100% lethal on 4 out of 4 “humanized” mice.

Do they have lampposts and rope in China? Or pikes?

So far (or at least as far as we know...) it’s only been tested on “humanized mice” which have been scientifically altered to have human genes so they can be tortured without having the ability to file lawsuits. And the new virus has killed every last one of those little humanized cheese nibblers, presumably when their brains turn into an inflamed slurry and ooze out through their perfectly circular ears. Which is likely what would happen to 100% of infected humans if the virus escaped, so isn’t it good that Chinese virus labs are so very, very secure except for their open windows, screen doors, and tendency to sell dead animal specimens to wet markets for soup stock?

There’s pretty much no reason that researchers would want to create such a thing unless it could A) be used as an apocalyptic bioweapon, B) make a lot of money for companies coincidentally selling pangolin brain virus vaccines, or C) beat AI to the punch of killing us all, giving humans quite literally the last laugh.

Which is why we should immediately be taking common sense safety measures including, but not limited to, calling together the world’s leading gain-of-function researchers and, after careful deliberation, displaying their heads on pikes.


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January 7, 2024


A new thing in our area. We didn’t know about it, but we heard lots of people talking about it up in Warren County. A good time was had by all. Maybe we’ll get there next year.

First Annual New Year’s Eve Lentil Drop

HACKETTSTOWN, NJ (Warren County) – Thousands of people decided to ring in the new year in Hackettstown, where a huge crowd enjoyed the first New Year’s Eve Celebration with an M&M’S lentil drop.

The New Year’s Eve celebration included beats from DJ SC3 Entertainment, free giveaways from Atlantic Health System/Hackettstown Medical Center, Centenary University, WRNJ Radio, and Mars Wrigley, TSA Cheerleaders performed from 9:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., the Centenary Cyclones mascot, an M&M’S character, and activities from participating businesses.



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The red M&M’S® lentil is 40″ in diameter and had more than 1,000 LED lights.




Mars Wrigley has been producing iconic M&M’S in Hackettstown since 1958, making it the perfect community partner to help ring in the new year for the town.

“Millions of M&M’S are produced right here in Hackettstown every day,” said Courtney McHugh, Vice President Marketing, M&M’S, Mars Wrigley. “We’re proud to inspire moments of everyday happiness for the Hackettstown community and are thrilled M&M’S can help ring in 2024.”

“It’s very exciting to be able to have our residents and visitors come together to witness the largest M&M ever falling from the sky to ring in the new year,” said Mayor Jerry DiMaio.

Hackettstown is about 10 miles NNE of us, and about 10 miles NE of the bowling alley. It’s the “big city” in our podunk red corner of blue NJ. M&M Mars is a major employer around here, running a massive factory and having corporate operations there. So we know plenty of people who work there. They used to give out sample boxes to the employees, or sell them for cost. I hope they still do. The candy in that colorful box is fresh off the line from that day’s production, unlike the product you buy in your store which may have been warehoused for a couple of years. The fresh chocolate is really very good, much smoother and richer than the age matured stuff.

So a huge crowd went to the event, everyone got their picture taken with Red, there was music and bands and fun all around. Beats freezing to death in NYC after a 2 hour drive, $50 for parking, and getting mugged and thrown up on.



PS: Why is it called a lentil? Because an M&M is actually formed by two molded hemispheres of chocolate, each about a drop’s worth. The two halves are put together, and the uncoated result looks like a lentil bean. So it’s a lentil.


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Bowling Blogging!!
I’m trying to do my leagues again. I went Wednesday night, and threw ok, well over average in the first two games and just a couple under in the third game. We won all 3, so that moves us up a bit in the standings.

I bowled Friday night too, and I finally brought the soft pretzels I’ve been promising people for a while now. We played the team that our former teammate is on, so we were worked up ... and slaughtered them, even though we had to give them 104 pins handicap.
We won all 3 games, each one by more pins than the handicap. Which means our scratch was always more than 210 pins better than theirs. Sweet. I threw great: 212, 198, 211 for a 621 series, which is my best night so far this season in either league. Wore my shorts and my robo-braces and rolled carefully. Lane conditions were a bit slow with no intense back-end action, but they were pretty consistent as well. So it wasn’t the typical “I need a new line and a new ball every 5 frames” we’ve become accustomed to. Thank goodness.
My thumb timing needs some work. I’m coming late out of the ball and not getting enough finger on the ball, so my axis tilt is back to being almost horizontal. I had it perfectly vertical before my joints went on vacation to Hellena Handbasket.


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January 4, 2024


I bowled Tuesday afternoon, just to see if I could. Wore my braces and shorts. Did pretty well. Pain was manageable and not that bad. Went to league Wednesday night, bowled well over average in G1 and G2 and just 7 under in G3. We won all 7.

Had my last visit with the podiatrist today. Ankle looking good, keep doing the foot brace as needed.

Went to the hand orthopedist yesterday, got Xrays ... you have pretty severe arthritis in your thumbs. Yeah, I know. Got the cortical steroid injections, which helped immediately. They probably won’t last long. Go back in 3 weeks.

I’m bowling Friday night too. Making a double batch of pretzels for everyone, because I’ve been promising them a long time and just haven’t been up to making them. It’s a 2 or 3 day recipe, but they come out awesome every time. After 7 years I’m just about out of lye powder, so I ordered a new one. To my amazement, the price hadn’t gone up a cent since the last jug I bought. Wow.


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January 1, 2024


15 Years Late And Chickenshit Anyway

[ Yes, I’ve gone down this road before. And it’s a straight and narrow highway. It just hit me as odd that a conservative leaning website would make this point about a Republican. That’s honest, I’ll grant you that. ]

The American Greatness site put up an essay today saying how Nikki Haley absolutely could not be President or Vice President, as she does not meet the qualifications as written in our Constitution. And they are utterly correct.

Article II, Section 1, stipulates that “No person except a natural born citizen or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.”

Back in the Age of Reason, The Enlightenment, in 1758 actually, a book based on Natural Law was written by Emmerich de Vattel. It was title The Law Of Nations. Within 2 years it had been translated into English from the original French. Like the writings of John Locke two or three generations earlier, Vattel’s writings had tremendous impact on the political world, and lit a fire in the minds of our Founding Fathers.

Vattel defined citizenship. He modified the existing English concept of Natural Born Subject and thus defined the term Natural Born Citizen. Our Constitution requires the President to be one. Later on the 12th Amendment added that qualification to the Vice President. No other federal office holder or officer has to be an NBC. Problem is, our Constitution assumed that people would understand the concept. Ok, there are 2 to 4 other little problems with that document, but this is the one under discussion.

Under Emmerich de Vattel’s Law of Nations, Citizenship is determined by the father, the mother and the nation. Section 212 of Law Of Nations, defines Natural Born Citizen:

“The Citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they participate equally in its advantages.  The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are Citizens”.

A primary concern among Emmerich de Vattel, and the Framers of the United States Constitution, was that the President be completely free of foreign influences.  Emmerich de Vattel wrote:

“The Constitution and the laws of a State are rarely attacked from the front.  It is against gradual attacks that a nation must stand guard”.

For Emmerich de Vattel, it was of paramount importance that the President be a person whose primary allegiance is to the Sovereign nation.  The independence of the nation, and the President, from foreign influence, according to Emmerich de Vattel’s formulation, was key to its proper performance.  Emmerich de Vattel maintained that “each sovereign State claims, and actually possesses an absolute independence on all the others”.  He continues, “Nations are free and independent of each other, in the same manner as men are naturally free and independent”.  Emmerich de Vattel argued as it is important that each Sovereign maintain its independence, “No foreign power has a right to interfere in the internal affairs of other States” (with rare exceptions).

So to be a Natural Born Citizen, you have to be born here (or in other territories or areas owned or controlled by the USA, our embassies, military bases, and probably military ships and airplanes in transit across the oceans), AND your parents have to be citizens AT THE TIME OF YOUR BIRTH.

Ok, over to the essay -

The question of presidential eligibility under the Constitution has been a hot button one, especially in recent years with the controversial campaigns of John McCain, Barack Obama, Ted Cruz, and most recently, Kamala Harris. The controversy arises from the text of the Constitution itself. Article II, Section 1, stipulates that “No person except a natural born citizen or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.” The core issue centers on the meaning of the phrase “natural born citizen.” The Constitution explicitly lays out three requirements to run for president: (i) be at least 35 years old; (ii) have been a resident of the United States for at least 14 years; and (iii) be a natural-born citizen of the United States.

The question of natural born citizenship is crystal clear, though it often gets confused with the more controversial debate surrounding birthright citizenship. From the outset, it should be stressed that the two are entirely different constitutional issues. The question of natural-born citizenship as an eligibility requirement for president is well settled, whereas the issue of birthright citizenship is still up in the air.

There is a reason the Founding Fathers attached the requirement of being a “natural born citizen” to the President (and, with the passage of the Twelfth Amendment, the Vice President) only and no other federal offices. The idea was to elevate the threshold for the highest elected political office of the land; notably, that language is absent in Article I, which stipulates that lawmakers running for the House or Senate need only be “citizens” to qualify. The early debates surrounding the passage of the Constitution add support for the view that the Framers wanted to exclude “the admission of foreigners into the administration of our national government,” as John Jay wrote to George Washington in July of 1787.

A central concern for the architects of the nascent American republic was that only the most qualified statesmen be eligible for the country’s highest office. In his Commentaries, Joseph Story elaborated that “it is indispensable… that the president should be a natural born citizen of the United States… [T]he general propriety of the exclusion of foreigners, in common cases, will scarcely be doubted by any sound statesman.” Joseph Story, who enjoyed over a thirty-year reign as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, famously elaborated the principles of the republicanism of Alexander Hamilton and John Marshall well into the mid-nineteenth century. His Commentaries specifically distinguished between natural born and naturalized citizens, the latter of whom were ineligible to run for president, despite qualifying for the privileges of citizenship. This view is supported by the best legal commentary of the day

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In Nikki Haley’s case, it is well documented that neither one of her parents were citizens, natural born or naturalized, at the time of her birth in 1972. It has been previously reported that a South Carolina-based newspaper included a quote from the Office of Nikki Haley, stating that “her parents were not U.S. citizens at the time of her birth in 1972 and did not become citizens until 1978 and 2003.” Thus, although the parents may have been lawful residents at the time of her birth on South Carolina soil, which may or may not confer her with the privileges of citizenship, it is important to note that she does not qualify for the Constitution’s higher requirement of natural-born citizenship.

And of course, since she does not meet the qualifications to become President, she is ineligible to be Vice President as well. And that’s what the Constitution says.

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John Eastman has also raised the issue of natural born citizenship in the related context of Kamala Harris’ eligibility to serve as Vice President. In a 2020 Newsweek article, Eastman argued that Harris would only qualify as a constitutionally eligible natural-born citizen if her parents were “lawful permanent residents at the time of her birth.” However, in the case of Harris, if her parents were “merely temporary visitors,” then she patently did not qualify as a natural-born citizen pursuant to Article II, Section 1. The logic of Eastman’s argument is straightforward, and I would maintain does not even need to implicate the Fourteenth Amendment or the outstanding question of birthright citizenship, which might otherwise detract from the fundamental soundness of the constitutional issue.

Kamala Harris was born October 20, 1964. It’s hard to find out when either of her parents became citizens, but they weren’t when she was born. Game over. Period. She is NOT a natural born citizen no matter how much blarney the media spews, and boy did they, in utter lockstep. Which is all you need to know to see that they were pulling the wool over the eyes of the sheep once again.


Funny thing is, Barack Obama is never mentioned in this essay.
You remember him, the guy who was born both in Kenya and Hawaii, the one with the dodgy “certificate of live birth”? The one whose mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, b 11/29/42, gave birth to Barack Hussein Obama II on 8/4/61, when she was 18 years old, and below the threshold of legal adulthood at that time. (which may have disabled her ability to pass on citizenship to her child, especially if not born in the USA). Her husband Barack Hussein Obama Sr, married her on 2/2/61 after she became pregnant and left school. It is entirely possible that she became pregnant at 17, which would have made Barry Sr guilty of statutory rape. He had a wife back in Kenya who he left pregnant. I don’t know if bigamy was legal in Kenya at the time; it certainly wasn’t legal in the USA. As a Kenyan national, the senior Obama also held British citizenship. He was not, and never was, an American citizen. Thus bathhouse Barry was also not a natural born citizen, and was completely ineligible to be President. Twice. And you’re a racist for even reading these words.

But let’s harp on Nikki Haley, instead of demanding the ouster of Kamala Harris and opening the big Obama can of worms. Because dark people are above the law these days.  What a crock.

Oh, and just for “fun”, we have had 2 Presidents who were actually ineligible to hold the office, as they were not NBCs. Chester Arthur in 1881 and Barack Obama. As far as I know there has been only 1 Vice President who failed the test ... although Vice Presidents from way back when are usually less than footnotes to history.

Oddly enough, as the Information Age entered it’s full stride, we have had a large number of potential nominees who never passed the NBC test. Not to mention the 8 failed attempts (lead by the D party) to snip out the Natural Born requirement, in the years leading up to 1008..


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Forty five years ago I had a dog that looked a lot like this one. Katie was the best dog ever. True love for both of us from the moment we met. She’s been gone over 30 years. I still miss her.

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December 31, 2023


Happy New Year!!!

I am so glad 2023 is over. What an awful year for me.

Knees still not up to even trying to bowl. Will try again to try again on Tuesday. I hope.

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The comments area was nearly full so I erased them. Sorry. But I read the newest ones first. Start the new year with a fresh comment! And thank you all for sharing your thoughts and opinions. I do appreciate it.

It took almost 3 years to fill up the comment buffer. Maybe if I have better things to post about, I’ll get more comments?

here’s one ... South America is going Evangelical.  https://latinarabia.com/christianity/revival-in-latin-america/

and a bunch more that are all related ... our border crisis is largely caused by Venezuela’s commie tyrant Daniel Ortega. Yeah, he’s still the boss down there, still in power since the Reagan era.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/12/anybody_notice_how_nasty_nicaraguas_ortega_regime_has_gotten_since_the_migrant_remittances_started_flowing.html
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/12/blood_boiler_daniel_ortegas_role_in_organizing_the_us_migrant_crisis_is_bigger_than_thought.html
https://www.voanews.com/a/african-asian-migrants-seek-nicaragua-shortcut-to-us-/7418273.html

Ok, this young fella and his old knees are heading upstairs. If I want to watch the balls drop, I’ll take off my pants. Ewww.



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See? I did get something done today. Granted, it was supposed to be done Friday afternoon, but whatever.

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I had to up the lye concentration 50% as the 7 year old bottle is almost empty, and I swear the crystals lose potency after a while. And this was a long long while! So I ordered another one, and to my surprise, the price had not increased at all since I bought the previous bottle! Amazing.

The taste was just a little strong, but definitely what pretzels should taste like.



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December 27, 2023



My Christmas post seems to have gone missing. Oh well. Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas. We did the Italian Christmas Eve party at the cousin’s, as always. Definitely felt the passing of the years, as one generation fades away, another generation hits middle age, and all the little kids are now young adults. So the food wasn’t as good or as fancy this time, several faces weren’t there due to medical issues, but there were a good number of really nice looking young women all done up fancy for the holiday. That was nice.

We made it home just before midnight, then went over to her dad’s Christmas afternoon for lunch. I baked pretzels at their place, and everyone was a bit frightened that the things are dipped in drain cleaner before baking. Ok, it’s lye. Sodium hydroxide. And it’s perfectly safe when cooked, as the sodium either evaporates or bonds with any nearby salt ions, and the hydroxide part, OH- just forms water. Hey, better living through chemistry, which none of these people know much about. Oh well.

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I turned on the TV news this morning, to take a look at the world. I managed to watch almost 5 whole seconds before getting annoyed. They’re going on and on about all those deranged radical right wing crazy people sending in death threats and calling for civil war over the gross overreach of the Colorado State Supreme Court, which has decided President Trump is guilty of fomenting revolution or some such garbage. Not a word that the court’s action is one of the most egregious and horrendous instances of judicial activism in our nation’s history, and in several ways. Oh no, it’s Trump, so EVIL, so no rules apply.

So I walked away from the TV and checked the weather on my cell phone. Chilly and rainy. Oh joy.

Ocean City and Cape May County officials have been among the most outspoken critics of Orsted’s plan to build 98 towering wind turbines as part of the controversial Ocean Wind 1 project, which some opponents believe will cause irreparable harm to the shore’s economy and environment.

“It is a terrible project, the worst I’ve ever seen. This project has no redeeming qualities at all,” Barr said.

No redeeming qualities? Well they are getting rid of all those pesky whales. But let’s blame Climate Change instead. ( PS whales have been around 50 million years, so they’ve managed to adapt to every previous climate change. And they have sonar, so they can tell how deep the water is).


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 03/07/2024 at 10:34 AM    avatar
MiscellaneousComments (13) • Trackbacks (4) • Permalink

calendar   Wednesday - August 19, 2020

Gee, Oops

A total non-surprise. We saw this coming back in early March. The richer you were the earlier, faster, and further you ran. Problem is, it’s worse than anyone thought at the time.

NYC Ship Sinking, Rats Long Gone

New York City is home to 118 billionaires, more than any other American city. New York City is also home to nearly one million millionaires, more than any other city in the world. Among those millionaires some 8,865 are classified as “high net worth,” with more than $30 million each.

They pay the taxes. The top one percent of NYC taxpayers pay nearly 50 percent of all personal income taxes collected in New York. Personal income tax in the New York area accounts for 59 percent of all revenues. Property taxes add in more than a billion dollars a year in revenue, about half of that generated by office space.

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The budget for a city as complex as New York is a mess of federal, state, and local funding sources. It can be sliced and diced many ways, but the one that matters is the starkest: the people and companies who pay for New York’s poor are leaving even as the city is already facing a $7.4 billion tax revenue hit from the initial effects of the coronavirus. The money is there; New York’s wealthiest individuals have increased their net worth by $44.9 billion during the pandemic. It’s just not here.

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While overall only five percent of residents left as of May, in the city’s very wealthiest blocks residential population decreased by 40 percent or more. The higher-earning a neighborhood is, the more likely it is to have emptied out. Even the amount of trash collected in wealthy neighborhoods has dropped, a tell-tale sign no one is home. A real estate agent told me she estimates about a third of the apartments even in my mid-range 300 unit building are empty.

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Fewer than one-tenth of Manhattan office workers came back to the workplace a month after New York gave businesses the green light to return to the buildings they ran from in March. Having had several months to notice what not paying Manhattan office rents might do for their bottom line, large companies are leaving.





Posted by Drew458   United States  on 08/19/2020 at 10:52 PM    avatar
EconomicsPandemic PandemoniumTrackbacks (0) • Permalink

The ‘Rona Song

Leave it Country music to be perfectly topical and metaphorical at the same time






When the dogwoods start to bloom
And the crickets hum their tune
That’s usually about the time
That I feel most alive

But the news has all been bad
And the whole world seems so sad
I ain’t had much else going on
So I sat down and wrote this song

I miss my mom, I miss my dad
I miss the road, I miss my band
Giving hugs and shaking hands
It’s a mystery I suppose
Just how long this thing goes
But there’ll be crowds and there’ll be shows
And there will be light after dark
Someday when we aren’t six feet apart








Posted by Drew458   United States  on 08/19/2020 at 10:27 PM    avatar
MusicPandemic PandemoniumTrackbacks (0) • Permalink

Follow Me !

One of the benefits of our universally computer driven modern world is package tracking. Mated with theoretically optimized routes and warehousing, we now can get our deliveries much faster than in decades past. For the impatient, most of the deliver services allow you track your boxes or letters step by step as they wend their way in your direction. [ OTOH, this also allows you to watch the Post Office send your stuff all over the country willy-nilly, leave it at distribution centers for days or weeks at a time, and sometimes take days to move something just 7 miles from one center to the next, and then take a full week to deliver it a whole 42 miles away. Sorry, my pet peeve, after recently pulling my hair out when a letter took more than a month to get delivered. Just wait until the whole country tries to vote by mail this November. Guaranteed disaster. ]

Now UPS has brought out “Follow Me”, a real time, self-updating, GPS driven mapping application, that let’s you see the big brown truck driving all over with your package in it. Not sure if this is going to help or hurt, because most people won’t realize that there are 300 other boxes in that truck, and yours is almost guaranteed to be last in line. It was already a bit frustrating just following the data, watching my box go from Florida to Edison NJ in hardly over a day, but then on to Allentown PA, right past my home, and then have to go on to another truck to come back to NJ days later and to get delivered ... later today?  Maybe. “Out for delivery” for 3 days? Oy vey.





Posted by Drew458   United States  on 08/19/2020 at 09:22 AM    avatar
Big BusinessDaily LifeHigh TechTrackbacks (0) • Permalink

eye candy, high plains edition

image



I thought I posted this the other day, but it seems to have evaporated. Whatevs.

Anyway, this is actress Kelsey Asbille Chow. She had a small but regular role in the One Tree Hill drama a few years back, and was in the 2017 film Wind River. Currently she has a supporting role on Paramount’s cowboy drama / Kevin Costner vehicle Yellowstone.

We watch Yellowstone, it’s great, and it’s interesting to see her character developing from a whiny liberal into someone more normal. That’s going to be long journey. She is super attractive though. 





Posted by Drew458   United States  on 08/19/2020 at 09:08 AM    avatar
Eye-CandyTrackbacks (0) • Permalink

calendar   Monday - August 17, 2020

Flowers For Algernon?

Leftist InstaHate For COVID Flower Cure

because Trump mentioned it

image

Funny, I kind of thought it was the President’s job to keep people aware of new possibilities and to give them even temporary hope. But the Left may be right on this one. Like the blind squirrel ...

Most Americans have been praying for a cure to the Chinese Communist Party virus. Such a prospect turns out to be horrifying, however, if you are a Deep State bureaucrat, someone invested in open-ended and lucrative research into unpromising medicines or vaccines and/or a political opponent of President Trump.

Hence the vehemently hostile response of a leftist publication called Axios to information about Oleandrin, a natural supplement that has proven in clinical experiments and limited human trials in Texas to crush the CCP virus. Rather than celebrate this development and call for an urgent effort to validate such findings with widespread, life-saving trials, Axios touted the uninformed criticisms of naysayers determined to snuff further work on this apparent breakthrough.

To the alarm of some government health officials, President Trump has expressed enthusiasm for the Food and Drug Administration to permit an extract from the oleander plant to be marketed as a dietary supplement or, alternatively, approved as a drug to cure COVID-19, despite lack of proof that it works.

Driving the news: The experimental botanical extract, oleandrin, was promoted to Trump during an Oval Office meeting in July. It’s embraced by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and MyPillow founder and CEO Mike Lindell, a big Trump backer, who recently took a financial stake in the company that develops the product.

OMG, if Mike Lindell is behind it, you know it’s deathly anathema.

Oleandrin is an extract from the oleander plant. Researchers have suggested that it could be useful to treat cancer because of the way it affects cells, and that it could enhance the effects of other cancer therapies.

Professor Sharon Lewin, the director of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity at the University of Melbourne, is an international authority on antiviral drugs and has a laboratory working on COVID-19.
Asked about oleandrin’s potential efficacy as a COVID-19 treatment, Lewin told Axios, “Oleandrin looks to have antiviral activity at high doses in a test tube model. You’d certainly want to see more work done on this before even contemplating a human trial.”

A July 2020 study from the University of Texas at Galveston shows, in a laboratory setting, that oleandrin can inhibit the coronavirus in monkey kidney cells. This study has not been peer reviewed and one of the authors of the study, Robert Newman, is chairman of Phoenix Biotechnology’s scientific advisory board — the company developing the oleandrin product.

The bottom line: Scientists around the world are in a race for cures, treatments and vaccines for COVID-19. Government regulators are investigating hundreds of products. When a biotech executive like Whitney can take his case directly to the president, it casts doubt over the scientific rigor of the drug development process.

From the research study:

Using Vero cells, we found that prophylactic oleandrin administration at concentrations down to 0.05 μg/ml exhibited potent antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2, with an 800 fold reduction in virus production, and a 0.1 μg/ml dose resulted in a greater than 3,000-fold reduction in infectious virus production. The EC50values were 11.98ng/ml when virus output was measured at 24 hours post-infection, and 7.07ng/ml measured at 48 hours post-infection. Therapeutic (post-infection) treatment up to 24 hours after infection of Vero cells also reduced viral titers, with the 0.1 μg/ml dose causing greater than 100-foldreductions as measured at 48 hours, and the 0.05 μg/ml dose resulting in a 3578-fold reduction.The potent prophylactic and therapeutic antiviral activities demonstrated here strongly support the further development of oleandrin to reduce the severity of COVID-19 and potentially also to reduce spread by persons diagnosed early after infection.

In years past the FDA has been dinged for major slow walking and foot dragging when it comes to testing and approving new medicines. Many drugs are available to the rest of the world that are not yet available to us. With this pandemic that slowness has become an issue, but I don’t think the best idea is to throw caution to the wind and let anything fly. That way leads to snake oil. There has to be some level of significant proper, fair, testing.

OTOH, the Axios article does mention how this could easily be marketed as an herbal supplement, which could NOT focus on any curative ability. To which there’s an easy work around; “We’re NOT ALLOWED to mention that this cures Covid, and thus cannot recommend a dose of 2 pills a day for 2 weeks. This product is for dietary supplemental use only, and we bear no responsibility for it’s use in any other manner.” kind of advertising.

OTTH, shouldn’t President Trump know by now when to keep his fat mouth shut?



BIG FAT WARNING FROM MEMORIAL SLOAN KETTERING:
Oleandir is poisonous !!! !! !

Consumption of even one Nerium oleander leaf can be fatal. Onset of toxicity occurs several hours following consumption. Symptoms include vomiting, abdominal pain, cyanosis, hypotension, hypothermia, vertigo, respiratory paralysis and death.

However, a carefully controlled tea made from the flowers could be an effective cancer and AIDS treatment. But more trials are needed!!

A hot water extract of the plant, known as Anvirzel™, has been developed as a potential treatment for cancer, AIDS, and congestive heart failure. It consists of a mixture of oleandrin and the glycone oleandrigenin. Experiments suggest that a combination of Anvirzel and cisplatin may be more effective than cisplatin monotherapy . In an earlier study, Anvirzel appeared safe in humans when injected intramuscularly, although adverse effects such as injection site pain, fatigue, and other GI symptoms were reported.

Anvirzel™ is not an approved cancer treatment in the United States. Until more data regarding its efficacy and toxicity are available, this product should not be used outside of clinical trials.

Anvirzel may be a modern version of a medicinal extract of oleander that goes back to the dawn of history.

Historical records prove that Oleander plant has healing powers; thus it was highly regarded by the Mesopotamians in the 15th century B.C. During the age of the Babylonians up to the Romans it was used as a relieved for hangovers. To the Arabs it has better worth since the plant was used for cancer medication in the 8th century A.D.

OTOH, the Romans also used it to commit suicide.

I looked up the entry at Wiki ... and I think I’ll pass on this one. There may be too much risk in a cure made from just a little bit of deadly poison.





Posted by Drew458   United States  on 08/17/2020 at 01:06 PM    avatar
pandemic and epidemic diseasesTrackbacks (0) • Permalink

The Death Of NYC?

This is what happens when you elect a communist as mayor. One who encourages rioting and lawlessness. Riots after weeks of extended lockdown. Retail is dying. Populations are fleeing. Violence is everywhere, at unprecedented levels. It’s anarchy and depression.

Beirut DeBlasio

image

De Blasio’s New York has finally hit an all-time low: the once bustling city is now on the verge of looking like a demilitarized zone. Between the pandemic and the riots in the city, iconic 5th Avenue now looks more like a dystopian nightmare in a recently shot video posted to Twitter.

The video follows a car driving down a deserted 5th Avenue, with almost all of the area’s high end stores boarded up and shut down. There are few people seen on what is usually a busy street.

“Look at everything. Everything’s boarded up. Even the hotel. Boarded up,” the video’s narrator, who is obviously fed up with how the city looks, says.

He continues: “This is all Manhattan, boarded up. Have you ever seen Manhattan look like this? The media will not report this.”

“Everything boarded up. They don’t want to show this to you people because they’re afraid. Saks 5th Avenue - boarded up from end to end. They put up barbed wire. Everywhere you see boards, windows are gone. Look at New York City - what happened,” he says.

The video runs over 2 minutes and shows dozens of boarded up businesses.




Check the video. Manhattan is boarded up. Block after block of high-end retail closed down and barricaded.



This isn’t exactly new. Similar video from more than a month ago.

No, it’s not a war zone — it’s Manhattan.

Video shows once-bustling Big Apple streets nearly deserted and dotted with boarded-up, spray-painted and bashed-in buildings after days of looting.

The footage taken Tuesday and Wednesday in Midtown and Soho shows the windows of popular stores shattered while others — such as Burberry, Sephora and Sunglasses Hut — are covered in plywood to protect against looters.

...

Only a handful of masked pedestrians and police officers are seen walking on eerily empty sidewalks. Some plywood panels put up by shops were tagged with graffiti reading, “Justice for George Floyd” — the black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pinned him to the ground for nearly nine minutes.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, many Big Apple retailers have been closed for months prior to protests over Floyd’s death.



These riots happened at the end of May ...

Sidewalks across the SoHo neighborhood, Union Square and Fifth Avenue were covered in broken glass. Multiple police cars had been burnt to nothing but ashes. Stores, including a Duane Reade, Urban Outfitters and Swatch, were looted. Banks were ravaged. An Equinox gym had been broken in to. Graffiti covered retailers’ logos up and down some of the glitziest shopping districts, which normally would be hosting a hotbed of tourist activity this time of year.

The New York Police Department has since said it arrested almost 350 people Saturday evening, following protests across parts of Harlem, Brooklyn and Staten Island. NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said in a press conference held Sunday that more than 30 officers suffered minor injuries due to clashes with demonstrators.

It’s now the middle of August. More than 11 weeks later. And these businesses are still closed, still boarded up. Whatever stock that wasn’t looted has been sold online.

Do you really think these storefronts are coming back? Even if the beneficent dictator of NYC allows them to open, with 25% customer capacity and ridiculously paranoid levels of isolation and plexiglass protection inside the stores? Somehow, I kind of doubt it.

Greatest city in the world, killed by policy in half a year. This was not an accident.





Posted by Drew458   United States  on 08/17/2020 at 09:11 AM    avatar
CrimeDemocrats-Liberals-Moonbat LeftistsEconomicsPandemic PandemoniumTrackbacks (0) • Permalink

Very Funny Officer

So I got another ticket yesterday. Me and my red car manage to get pulled over a couple times a year. Yes, I’m an inveterate speeder, but I do it properly. I don’t tailgate, I don’t cut people off, I use my turn signals, I almost pass anyone on the right, and of course my car is in perfect working order and my papers are current. And I don’t go flying around corners on two wheels, or anything close to reckless driving. I’m just an impatient driver, like everyone else in the state.

In NJ, everyone speeds. Everyone. Nearly everywhere. The only place we make up for it is in those 25mph zones near schools, parks, and downtown. People generally do about 17 in those.

NJ has a scheme in place on the highways. They “let” you drive 65mph, but fines are doubled. Should there be a traffic cone by the side of the road, or a permanent sign saying that bit of highway is also a construction zone, fines are doubled again. So getting a speeding ticket on the highway can be a darn costly experience.

Generally, highway traffic moves at 75mph in good conditions, even in the slow lane, but on the weekends it flies. 85 is typical, 95 is not unheard of, with cars maybe two lengths apart traveling in packs.

And NJ keeps points for 5 years, with a big long list of how many points for whichever of the 65 or so moving violations they have. Get more than 6 in a 3 year period, and get an extra fine to pay. There are a fair number of 0 point offenses, but they are not on the list. Good luck trying to find them, although we all know that the seatbelt one and the red light camera one are no-pointers.

How many points are on your license? Like many other states, you have to pay the DMV to find this out. Gosh, wouldn’t you think that this would be part of their regular job? Available online for free, given that this is a microscopic database inquiry? Heck no.

But there’s a game involved. There are a good number of offenses that don’t have points. Just a fine. So most cops short circuit the plea bargaining process, and give you a break and just write you up for some 0 point offense. It puts donut money in their coffers, nobody wastes time going to court, an you just go online and pay the fine with your credit card.

So I got pulled over for doing 85 in a 65 zone on a demarcated highway. I wasn’t racing, or playing artful dodger, or zooming down the road alone. I was just cruising along with traffic. The Statey did his job in about 2 minutes and I was back on my way.

He wrote me up for the 0 point offense of Delaying Traffic.

Haha, very funny.





Posted by Drew458   United States  on 08/17/2020 at 08:23 AM    avatar
Daily LifeTrackbacks (0) • Permalink

calendar   Saturday - August 15, 2020

Rhubarb !!!

She came home from work with an armload of rhubarb that a coworker had brought in from their garden.

I haven’t had rhubarb in ... probably 45 years. Pretty sure my parents used to grow it in the vegetable garden, but that’s loooong ago in the past.

So we’re making strawberry rhubarb pie, and, since we have so much of the stuff, we’re making a strawberry rhubarb crumble as well. Both are a great excuse to get hold of some good vanilla ice cream.

Rhubarb has an unusual taste, but it’s one that I’ve always loved. Can’t wait to get to baking things up and trying them out. Might even have enough to send her to work Monday with another crumble.




~~~~


Oh goody, and I guess I’d better go look outside. Amazon says my copy of Law of Nations and John Locke’s Two Treaties of Government were delivered today. Along with my new Solo 2L hand sprayer, as the old one died after a decade of use.





Posted by Drew458   United States  on 08/15/2020 at 05:41 PM    avatar
Daily LifeFoodTrackbacks (0) • Permalink

Fauci Gets One Right

Fauci: Voting In Person OK If Social Distancing Done

Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser for the White House coronavirus task force, said this week that there is “no reason” Americans are not able to vote in person for the 2020 presidential election in November.

Fauci emphasized that voting in person would not need to be avoided as long as voters followed CDC guidelines and maintained social distancing.

“I think if carefully done, according to the guidelines, there’s no reason that I can see why that not be the case,” Fauci told ABC News. “If you go and wear a mask, if you observe the physical distancing, and don’t have a crowded situation, there’s no reason why shouldn’t be able to do that.”

Fauci noted, however, that those who are at high-risk if exposed to coronavirus or have a compromised immune system should stay indoors and use mail-in voting.

OK, 99% right. I think most absentee ballots should be dropped off well ahead of time at the polling centers, logged in, and signed for ... once proper ID and voter registration is checked. The USPS is highly leftist, so I would not trust them too much. 





Posted by Drew458   United States  on 08/15/2020 at 01:04 PM    avatar
FREEDOMGovernmentTrackbacks (0) • Permalink

calendar   Friday - August 14, 2020

toldja so

As reliable as the coming dawn, the willfully stupid and the left biased media and “the experts” have once again yelled real loud to subvert the proper understanding of the law. And that noise will do the job.

I said it yesterday: This application of the Constitution will be ignored and denied by the media and everyone else. Because “birthers”. People are so terrified of being called a name that they are willing to ignore the law, the history of the law, and the true meaning and intent of the law. That’s beyond sad. It’s beyond cowardly. It’s apathetic, pathetic, and bathetic.

And here it is.

Trump slammed for not rejecting conspiracy theory Kamala Harris is ineligible for vice presidency
Biden campaign calls Trump comments ‘abhorrent’

That’s right; it’s a conspiracy theory. And he’s abhorrent. Because he referred to a statement made by somebody about the natural born issue, and then said he didn’t know if that was correct or not. So slam him for even implying that this could be a problem.

And then the lies come out by the bucketful. And the overwhelming noise of indignation and implicit raycis drown out the truth, once again. We are totally fucking doomed.

President Trump would not reject a conspiracy theory Thursday that Kamala Harris is ineligible to serve as vice president because her parents were born outside the United States.

Asked about the unfounded and widely refuted claims during a press briefing at the White House, Trump responded, “I heard it today that she doesn’t meet the requirements” before adding, “I have no idea if that’s right.”

Harris is a United States citizen born in California in 1964, making her eligible to serve as president or vice president under the Constitution. [ Fox you are wrong ]

However, a professor of law at Chapman University, John C. Eastman, wrote a piece for Newsweek this week after she was named to the Democratic ticket questioning whether Harris is a “natural born citizen” because her mother was born in India and her father was born in Jamaica.

[ Editor’s note: Some readers reacted strongly to this essay, seeing it as an attempt to ignite a racist conspiracy theory. ]
...
The fact that Senator Kamala Harris has just been named the vice presidential running mate for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has some questioning her eligibility for the position. The 12th Amendment provides that “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.” And Article II of the Constitution specifies that “[n]o person except a natural born citizen...shall be eligible to the office of President.” Her father was (and is) a Jamaican national, her mother was from India, and neither was a naturalized U.S. citizen at the time of Harris’ birth in 1964. That, according to these commentators, makes her not a “natural born citizen"—and therefore ineligible for the office of the president and, hence, ineligible for the office of the vice president.

Newsweek also ran a counter essay by noted lawyer Eugene Volokh. IMO, as its typical for greasy lawyers, and all lawyers are greasy because the law is merely a tool to them, and not something held sacrosanct, Volokh makes his counter from the wrong direction. He’s throwing shade and puffing smoke, and emphasizing aspects that have no real bearing. Argument by non sequitur. 

Some people have argued that Kamala Harris is ineligible to be vice president of the United States. The Constitution requires presidents and vice presidents to be “natural-born citizens”; Harris was born in the U.S., but her parents (who had come to the U.S. to study) weren’t U.S. citizens at the time. Does “natural-born citizen” include Harris, and others like her?

It does. “Natural-born citizen” was a familiar legal phrase to the Framers—an adaptation of the English term “natural-born subject.” Sir William Blackstone, an English treatise writer who (in Justice Scalia’s words) was “the Framers’ accepted authority on English law and the English Constitution,” explained:

Natural-born subjects are such as are born within the dominions of the crown of England, that is, within the ligeance, or as it is generally called, the allegiance of the king. ...The children of aliens, born here in England, are, generally speaking, natural-born subjects, and entitled to all the privileges of such.

It’s possible that “natural-born citizen” has since been broadened to include children of U.S. citizens born overseas (a 1790 Act of Congress specified that, “The children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural-born citizens").

He is wrong. It is not an adaptation of natural born subject, even though natural born citizen shares two of the three words with the other concept. Oh, and that 1790 Act was overturned in 1795, which he fails to mention. Even the best lawyer is a weasel dick. They argue for or against a topic. Searching for and declaring the actual truth has nothing to do with it.

What is a natural born citizen? It is someone born in this country whose parents are already citizens of this country. Period. Full stop. And that’s all there is to it.

I am a natural born citizen because I was born in this country and both my parents were born here as well, and their parents were citizens when they were born which thus made them natural born citizens. All my grandparents were born here too, although one of them might not have qualified as natural born because her parents came here from Germany, and I have no idea who things worked in the 1890s and I don’t know if they were naturalized citizens by the time granny popped out. But that was generations ago, so it isn’t germane.

It seems we go through this every presidential election cycle. I think what is needed is a SCOTUS decision. And that will never happen, because an honest decision, true to original intent would also torpedo the anchor baby concept that’s been around for 4 decades now. And probably squash the legality of dual citizenship too. And we do not have brave, honest, true Americans on the Supreme Court who are willing or able to make bold, proper decisions. Without the slightest doubt in my mind, this should be a 5 minute, 9-0 decision, made for clarification purposes alone - not delayed forever until some case with standing worms it’s way upwards.

I’m going to add this to my list of life truths:

•  Sulfur is properly spelled sulphur.


•   Eohippus is the Dawn Horse. No other taxonomy name is correct. There is no relation to the rock hyrax, so putting the original horse in the order Hyracotherium was a mistake.

•  The big long dinosaur was a brontosaurus

•  A shark is not a fish, dammit, it is an elasmobranch. Real fish have scales, gill pumps, and a swim bladder. Creating a new intermediate order called “bony fishes” to include both is cheating, especially if you don’t also include dolphins who, by that redefinition should also be fish. Fish who are mammals. No, this is wrong.

•  Ok, I now grudgingly nearly accept that Pluto is not an actual planet, “merely” a dwarf planet or planetoid, because somebody either moved the definition goalposts or because science has advanced enough to go there and find out how big the thing actually is. Pluto 1473 miles across, 2/3 the size of our moon. Mercury still counts as a planet. Mercury is 1516 miles across, a whopping big 43 miles larger. Oh puh-lease. So my grudgingly is very grudgingly. OTOH, given that Pluto has 5 moons, one moon called Chiron which is half the size of Pluto, perhaps it should be called a double planet or a multi-planet.


•  A natural born citizen is someone who is born within the desmenses of a country and both of whose parents are already citizens of that country.

I got so worked up about this yesterday I went out an bought a copy of Law of Nations, and while I was at the digital bookstore I got a copy of the writings of John Locke.





Posted by Drew458   United States  on 08/14/2020 at 10:43 AM    avatar
Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat LeftistsStoopid-PeopleTrackbacks (0) • Permalink

calendar   Thursday - August 13, 2020

Of course she isn’t, but you’re uninformed and intellectually lazy so she’ll get away with it

Here we should be going again with the natural born citizen thing. And just like Obama, Kamala Harris does not qualify as such.  Not that most anyone else can understand the concept, or knows that it is very important to care about this and why. So should be going won’t even get off the ground. This will not even be brought up in passing, much less discussed, debated, and ruled on. It. Does. Not. Exist. Because ... raycis!!!

Les ancres ne sont pas les naturelles

( The anchors are not the naturals )

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

14th Amendment, Section 1, 1868

It is abundantly clear that “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” means exclusively subject to the jurisdiction thereof, which means not in any way beholden to the whims or powers of a foreign government. This was clearly understood by all until fairly recently.

Yes, she was born in the USA. Neither of her parents were citizens at the time. This makes her an anchor baby. According the the 14th Amendment, anchor babies are not citizens. This isn’t a “strict” reading of the amendment, it is a plain reading thereof. Original intent is easy to find in the Congressional Record of the day. The only “reason” that they are considered such these days is due to a single footnote in the 5-4 1982 SCOTUS decision Plyer v. Doe, added to the majority opinion by Justice Brennan:

“no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment ‘jurisdiction’ can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful.”

This weakening of the meaning of jurisdiction within the 14th - that it sees the term as meaning subject to the laws of this nation, and not solely subject to those laws (ie not being also subject to the laws of some other country, as is the legal situation of illegal immigrants) - was a part of the Plyer case, which dealt with Texas’s claim that school funding should not be granted to illegal immigrant children. And of course, Brennan’s footnote comment overlooks that such illegals have no right to be here at all.

Right.

Harris’ parents were a citizen of India and a citizen of Jamaica. While she herself was born in California, and shortly thereafter went to Canada, where she spent nearly all her formative years, she qualifies as a citizen by the anchor baby misconception. Being a citizen does not make you a natural born citizen.

The entire concept of natural born citizen comes from a French book called The Laws of Nations, which was written in 1758 and is the only book or exterior document referenced in the US Constitution. It was used extensively by the Framers, far more than the code of English Common Law, which they strongly felt did not apply to the USA, although they borrowed large parts of it ... as our own law.  Anyway, in The Laws of Nations it says:

“Les naturels, ou indigenes, sont ceux qui sont nes dans le pays, de parens citoyens”

A direct translation is “The natural, or indigenous, are those who are born in the country, of parents who are citizens”.

While there was an 1797 update to the english version of the book, which clarified that line to read “The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.”

This is a rather strict definition. To be a natural born citizen, you need to be born here and both your parents need to be citizens when you are born. Not just born here, and not with just one parent a citizen, regardless of where you were born.

Later extensions to the concept allowed “here” to include territories of the country (eg Guam and Puerto Rico), areas controlled by the country (eg military bases), land considered part of the country that was in other countries (eg consulates and embassies), and things controlled by the government of the country (eg military aircraft and ships that happen to be outside the confines of the country at the moment of birth). This is how John McCain, born at a military base in another country, was deemed a valid candidate.

[ “naturels” is the masculine form of the word, “naturelles” is the feminine form. French is so sexist, but both words mean the same thing. ]

Merely being born to two citizen parents is insufficient. Merely being born within our country is insufficient. This is a precise and sharply focused concept, and about the only time it every applies is when someone is considering running for President or Vice President, although it should probably apply to any elected representative who could possibly be in the chain of succession.

This application of the Constitution will be ignored and denied by the media and everyone else. Because “birthers”. People are so terrified of being called a name that they are willing to ignore the law, the history of the law, and the true meaning and intent of the law. That’s beyond sad. It’s beyond cowardly. It’s apathetic, pathetic, and bathetic.




Read more if you want, in great detail with clear explanations of case law over the years, plus how we’ve now been lead astray, when and by whom:

http://www.conservativehq.com/article/30722-kamala-harris-anchor-baby-not-%E2%80%98natural-born-citizen%E2%80%99-united-states

https://www.dagnyintel.com/post/kamala-harris-is-not-eligible-to-be-president-the-natural-born-citizen-requirement

https://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/2008/12/06/urgent-historical-breakthrough-proof-chester-arthur-concealed-he-was-a-british-subject-at-birth/





Posted by Drew458   United States  on 08/13/2020 at 11:25 AM    avatar
Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat LeftistsTrackbacks (0) • Permalink

calendar   Wednesday - August 12, 2020

Walter White Moved To Holland?

Netherlands Cops Find Giant Crack Cocaine Lab In School


image

Dutch police have uncovered what they described as the biggest cocaine laboratory ever discovered in the Netherlands, leading to the arrest of 17 suspects from Colombia, Turkey and the Netherlands.

The drug lab was hidden at a former horse riding school in Nijeveen, some 75 miles from Amsterdam, police said in a statement Tuesday.

Police raided the riding school on Friday, discovering tens of thousands of liters of chemicals and 220 pounds of crack cocaine. Sleeping quarters and recreation areas were also found at the site.
The facility was equipped to produce up to 440 pounds of cocaine a day, officials said.

The facility was equipped to produce up to 440 pounds of cocaine a day, officials said. (Politie Landelijke Eenheid)

“This is the largest cocaine laboratory ever found in the Netherlands,” police chief Andre van Rijn said in the statement.

Van Rijn said the lab was equipped to produce 330-440 pounds (150-200 kilograms) of cocaine a day, with a street value of $5.3-9.4 million (4.5-8 million euros).





Posted by Drew458   United States  on 08/12/2020 at 11:29 AM    avatar
CrimeTrackbacks (0) • Permalink

TLH? Typical Leftist Hypocrites

This sounds like it could be one of those urban legends.

How Dare You!!

An anonymous poster on Reddit’s “Am I the A--h---” subreddit said he started a meat-eating club at his job in response to a coworker’s vegan-only club.

He claimed that one of his colleagues started a vegan dinner club exclusively for their coworkers following a vegan, vegetarian or pescatarian diet. Other coworkers “will not be able to join the club,” the poster said the group’s “statement of purpose” read.

In response, the poster claimed that he and some other meat-eating coworkers started a burger and steak club to go out and try new restaurants each week. They only allowed meat-eaters to join. However, members of the vegan club filed a complaint with the company’s human resources department.





Posted by Drew458   United States  on 08/12/2020 at 11:20 AM    avatar
Daily LifeFoodTrackbacks (0) • Permalink

calendar   Tuesday - August 11, 2020

Biden Picks Kamala Harris For VP

I can’t. I just can’t.

Biden VP Choice: Kamala Harris

“She makes history as the first Black woman to serve as a major political party’s VP pick”

Oh how brave, how strong, how empowering. How false and hollow an accomplishment.

And Fox’s headline ... OMG ... “Biden taps Kamala Harris as running mate”. Heels up!

Kamala Harris, the politically shrewd California senator with a law enforcement background that has caused some tensions with the progressive left, was announced Tuesday as Joe Biden’s running mate.

She makes history as the first Black woman to serve as a major political party’s VP pick. The Biden campaign said Biden and Harris will deliver remarks together on Wednesday in Wilmington, Delaware.

“I’ve decided that Kamala Harris is the best person to help me take this fight to Donald Trump and Mike Pence and then to lead this nation starting in January 2021,” Biden said in an email to supporters.

Biden also tweeted: “I have the great honor to announce that I’ve picked @KamalaHarris — a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country’s finest public servants — as my running mate.”

He added: “Back when Kamala was Attorney General, she worked closely with Beau. I watched as they took on the big banks, lifted up working people, and protected women and kids from abuse. I was proud then, and I’m proud now to have her as my partner in this campaign.”

The Trump campaign also released a statement from Katrina Pierson, a Trump 2020 senior adviser, that said: “In her failed attempt at running for president, Kamala Harris gleefully embraced the left’s radical manifesto, calling for trillions of dollars in new taxes and backing Bernie Sanders’ government takeover of health care. She is proof that Joe Biden is an empty shell being filled with the extreme agenda of the radicals on the left.”

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to any of you. Politico made the call at the beginning of the month, and many others had figured out that from Biden’s limited field of choices, seeing how his search was utterly sexist and racist in demanding a black woman, this one was the least atrocious of a stupefyingly horrible bunch. 





Posted by Drew458   United States  on 08/11/2020 at 03:56 PM    avatar
Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat LeftistsTrackbacks (0) • Permalink

Feral Child Killers

The Little White Kid Next Door

A five-year-old boy is dead after a Wilson, North Carolina, man reportedly ran up to the child while he was playing in a neighborhood street and fatally shot the child in the head. According to a report from WRAL-TV, the shooting took place on Sunday.

Cannon Hinnant was playing outside his father’s house on the dusky summer evening when their neighbor — 25-year-old Darius N. Sessoms — charged Cannon, produced a handgun, and shot him in the head.

The child’s seven-year-old and eight-year-old siblings witnessed the murder.

First responders came to the scene and transported the little boy to Wilson Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Doris Labrant, a neighbor, said she witnessed Sessoms running up to Cannon, putting the gun to his head, and firing the weapon before fleeing the scene into his own home.
...
Authorities took Sessoms into custody on Monday night and charged him with first-degree murder.

“5 yr old Cannon Hinnant was executed in front of his sisters for accidentally riding a bike on his neighbors lawn,” producer and director Robby Starbuck posted. “There’s no pain our justice system can impose on his killer Darius Sessoms that‘ll equate to justice. CNN & MSNBC haven’t even covered it.”





Posted by Drew458   United States  on 08/11/2020 at 01:45 PM    avatar
CrimeRacism and race relationsTrackbacks (0) • Permalink
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