Archive for January, 2021

A sad day

Posted: January 19, 2021 by chrisharper in Always look at the bright side of Trump
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By Christopher Harper

It’s a sad day.

It’s a sad day because more than 74 million people who voted for Donald Trump will no longer have a voice in the U.S. government.

Most of us voted for Trump because the Republican and Democrat parties had disregarded our views and ignored us for far too long.

Like many who voted for Trump, I don’t trust politicians, and I hold the Washington autocracy and bureaucracy in contempt.

Like many, Trump wasn’t my first choice. But I came around to like his blunt, sometimes disrespectful view of the Washington crowd.

More important, I look back at what Trump, despite overwhelming opposition from Democrats and the press, was able to accomplish in four years.

I just checked my retirement investments over the past four years, and they grew at the fastest rate of any time in my nearly 50 years of working. During the Covid-19 years, my investments soared at a clip of 13 percent.
Until this past year, I was not alone in this economic prosperity as nearly everyone saw huge economic increases throughout the country at almost all income levels.

For the first time in my life, including many years reporting about the Middle East, Trump came as close as any president to bringing peace to the region.

He virtually destroyed ISIS and helped achieve remarkable peace agreements that lead to diplomatic relations between four Muslim nations and Israel.
T
rump abandoned the flawed nuclear agreement in Iran and the flawed Paris climate change strategy. Unfortunately, President Biden will reestablish both.

Trump stood up to China, resetting the terms of the relationship between our countries. He understood that China had become a growing threat to America. Biden and his son’s suspect relationship with China is likely to embolden Beijing.

Trump’s appointments to federal courts, especially the U.S. Supreme Court, will have an impact for more years, particularly if the five conservatives on the bench don’t wilt in the Washington political heat.

Ironically, Trump did a lot better than Obama when it came to politics.
Democrats lost 13 seats in the Senate under Obama, while Republicans lost just one under Trump since 2017.

Under Obama, Democrats lost 69 seats in the House. Under Trump, the GOP lost 29 House seats.

Furthermore, the GOP still has control of most governorships and statehouses.

Despite the handwringing within the GOP, the Republican Party in 2021 is in a much better position than it was in 2009.

Unfortunately, the GOP will rid itself of Trump. As a result, my fellow Trump supporters and I won’t be voting for Republicans or Democrats. We’ll find somewhere else to go or sit on our hands while we remember how much Donald Trump got right.

Our last day of assured Freedom

Posted: January 19, 2021 by datechguy in Uncategorized

Smaug: I am almost tempted to let you take it, if only to see Oakenshield suffer, watch it destroy him, watch it corrupt his heart and drive him mad

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug 2013

I’m been in COVID quarantine for a little over a week and have taken advantage of this time to not only get my 3rd season of Dynasty All time Great league going (Opening day is Friday if you’re interested in joining although a few have gotten games in early) and also took the time to re-watch the entire five seasons of Maverick (1957-1962), the one season of Brett Maverick (1982) and the extended versions of Peter Jackson’s Masterpieces the three Hobbit Movies (An Unexpected Journey 2012, The Desolation of Smaug 2013 The Battle of Five Armies 2014) and the three Lord of the Rings Movies ( The Fellowship of the Ring 2001, The Two Towers 2002 and the Return of the King 2003).

What might seem odd is that with all that free time I didn’t bother to read a pair of old history books that I was excited to pick up. Essentials in Ancient History from the earliest records to Charlemagne (1902) by Arthur Mayer Wolfson and Albert Bushnell Hart and Essentials in American History from the discovery to the present day by Albert Bushnell Hart (1908) both were a bit beaten up but to my delight both turned out to be 1st editions. My wife had bought me a third book Essentials in Medieval and Modern History From Charlemagne to the Present Day by Samuel Banister Harding and Albert Bushnell Hart (1905) for Christmas and I had been nibbling at it on my lunch hours at work.

One of the reason why I didn’t hit these books is I like to read this kind of history during my breaks and lunch hours at work to give me the intellectual stimulation that current employment does not but also because of how depressing it will be to read these histories during a time when I don’t have the distraction of work to avoid the obvious comparisons between the degree of scholarship that was expected of teachers and students 110 years ago and ignorance of the students of today fueled by educators either fueled by their own ignorance or by cowardice at the consequences from any deviation from pushing said ignorance on their charges.

The end results are so plain to the point where people who should know better are pushing it for the sake of political power and control is so disgraceful and so soul shattering to a person who has had a love of history since childhood is one of the most disheartening things resulting from the fraud imposed upon us, fraud so imposing that the media and government actually pretends that the number of troops are necessary to herald its reign safely was twice as many as Winfield Scott Needed to conquer Mexico in 1847.

Of course that’s a fact that ‘s unlikely to be known to either students or teachers today because we allowed our enemies to take over the curriculum to be taught to our students to the point that our students have no idea that the freedoms that they had enjoyed up to and including today and the sudden drop in their liberties that will commence (and to some degree has due to peer pressure) was not the natural state of humans in general or Americans in particular but something that came to them due to the efforts of great and good men that they have squandered.

But there is one more card I’d like to play. Reading this history today will be no different that reading it any other day I have over the last 40 or 50 years…but starting tomorrow, reading such history will be a revolutionary act. Not because it talks of the acts and deeds of people who are mostly male (they were) and mostly Caucasian (they were) and to a large degree the founders of western civilization (which they also were) but because with less technology, less resources and more risk created a civilization better than any that has to this date existed in human society which not only provided an abundance of material wealth and comfort but raised more people out of the poverty, slavery and servitude that was the norm of the vast majority of the human race since we have walked this earth.

Reading these books and sharing those fact with people who have never been exposed to them are the best acts of defiance that can be made to challenge our new wannabe lords who would reduce us to serfdom and my I humbly suggest to those who might have children or grandchildren who are now being home schooled or doing remoting learning that spreading these facts to your children and grandchildren might be the single most valuable service you can do for your country or society short of baptism.

As the left sells their big lie tomorrow counter with the truth of what America has been and maybe, just maybe it can be that once again.

Closing thought: As I linked to free online editions of these books one might ask why I bothered to buy them. Two reasons:

  1. The only power I need to read them is a light source
  2. Nobody can edit a physical book in my hand without my knowledge

Report from Louisiana: Covid Fatigue

Posted: January 18, 2021 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
Tags: , , ,

By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – This probably won’t be a popular opinion, but I have to be honest.

I am sick and tired of losing good people to coronavirus. A very good man died this week from Covid-19; he was 57 and had recently retired from teaching. He was a popular high school football coach during his career and highly regarded by his peers. He leaves behind a father, a brother, a sister, and two children.

My friend is but one example of the hundreds dead from this virus.

You can tell me that these people died from their comorbidities, from sepsis, from heart attack, whatever; the point is, they’d be alive still had they not contracted the coronavirus.

Another good friend of mine came down with Covid-19 over the Christmas break. She is in her 50s, and in excellent health. She has mostly recovered from her illness but is still recovering from the double pneumonia Covid brought to her. She’s being closely monitored for blood clots.

My stepson, a nurse, caught Covid from a patient. Young and in excellent health, he suffered greatly and was hospitalized for a week. Because the hospitals are full, he spent over 30 hours in the ER waiting for a room

I know people that I otherwise thought were intelligent, educated professionals who are refusing the vaccine because they’re convinced that the government is injecting something into them through the virus.

I can no longer pretend understanding for people who think the virus is a politically motivated hoax. Even those who believe government officials are using the virus for nefarious gain – to tank the economy, to promote themselves, whatever.

I have been called “delusional” because I believe the virus is real and that it will kill you. I do not care. Names do not hurt me.

I believe in the science.

Period.

And I am tired of watching friends suffer or die because people won’t wear a mask, are tired of wearing a mask, or think masks are stupid and useless. I am tired of parents sending their kids to school sick, while they wait on test results to come back. I am exhausted for the health care workers putting in twelve hour shifts laboring day after day to save people who are drowning in their own fluids because someone else thought this virus was a political tool.

We are so busy trying to solve the immediate crisis that we aren’t thinking too much about the coming mental health toll all this will bring.

Over the holiday season I have seen my social media filled with people gathering with family, extended family, and friends. I’ve seen photos of New Years celebrations, baby showers, football playoff parties, and birthday celebrations. And now the case numbers are higher than they’ve ever been. Go figure.

Deaths are rising too.

I know that people have to work, that the economy has to keep going. I get that. I see the benefit having the schools open has on our children.

But I’m past being patient with people who are too selfish to wear a mask and maybe save someone’s life.

I’m looking at the children of my friend who died yesterday and wondering how they will ever understand this.

Wear your mask. Get your vaccine. Let’s just please do our part to help end this and we can analyze conspiracy theories later.

Pat Austin blogs at And So it Goes in Shreveport and is the author of Cane River Bohemia: Cammie Henry and her Circle at Melrose Plantation. Follow her on Instagram @patbecker25 and Twitter @paustin110.

Memories of Brady, Cities of Champions, Riots that don’t count, Non-Reliable Sources and Wednesday’s “Whose the Boss?” DC revival Under the Fedora

Posted: January 18, 2021 by datechguy in Uncategorized

Tom Brady is once again going to a Conference Championship game having beat Drew (I’m so Sorry) Brees in the game that counted. Next week he faces Aaron Rogers for the chance to go for Lucky Ring Seven

I remember when the Patriots had a QB like that and so does every single Brady hater who celebrated his replacement by Cam Newton who in fairness was gotten for a bargain price. The Pats got exactly what they paid for.

One other interesting Tom Brady fact.

When Brady came to New England it has been more than a decade since any Boston team had won a Championship. You had to go back to the Celtics of Bird, the Bruins of Esposito and the Red Sox of Ruth to find them.

Once he got there within a decade every single team in the city had at least one title and and had gotten to at least the conference championship more than once.

Now that Brady is gone no Boston team made a conference championship and two didn’t even make the playoffs.

Meanwhile Tampa Bay’s Hockey Team won the Stanley Cup, Tampa Bay’s Baseball team went to the World Series and now their football team is off to the Conference Championship.

I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.

Four years ago when Donald Trump was being sworn in their were riots and arson.

At least 217 people were arrested in the melees, police said…

…In the violence, knots of activists in black clothes and masks threw rocks and bottles at officers wearing riot gear, who responded with volleys of tear gas and stun grenades as a helicopter hovered low overhead.

Oddly enough nobody was blacklisted nor were companies pressured to stop doing business with people associated with Hillary Clinton.

I remember when an incoming president wasn’t afraid of the people and when

The New York Times is reporting that the New York Post no longer considers them or MSNBC or CNN or the Washington Post as reliable sources for stories.

Now while I think this is excellent advice and I would encourage such a decision from any source interested in fact, wouldn’t the story appearing in the Times be enough reason to doubt it?

A while back I pointed out that this was going to be Obama’s third term and that the idea that Joe Biden was in any sense in charge was a joke.

As I look at the people this incoming administration is choosing for positions I have yet to see any names that are deeply associated with Joe Biden which is a tad odd when you consider he has been in Washington since 1972 but all are associated with Barack Obama.

Back when LBJ took over from JFK after his assassination he make it a point that the people he would be appointing to positions were Johnson men, not Kennedy men but then again I remember the days when there was no doubt that the sitting President was the man in charge, although in fairness that façade will be kept up until Jan 21 2022 comes around, because as of that date the usefulness of that idiot will disappear.

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