Archive for April, 2021

Stacy Abrams & USA Today Channels Yes Prime Minister

Posted: April 28, 2021 by datechguy in Uncategorized

Matt Whitlock presents us evidence that USA Today is playing fast and loose with their own record of events.

You see despite MLB bragging how many minutes of games being streamed the decision to pull the All Star Game has not only proved embarrassing for them but has proved damaging to both Stacy Abrams in Georgia and to the Biden administration so it became necessary to change the record of what was said to deflect blame from Abrams, and the Biden Administration in general and Democrats in particular.

Not only did USA today retroactively edit Stacy Abrams published op-ed but after said op-ed was edited the media used the edited op-ed to claim that her position on the Georgia boycott and moving the the MLB All Star game was not .

“Twitter gave it an entire trending blurb, CITING the op-Ed she had edited after the MLB move to cement the narrative that the MLB move wasn’t her fault. That’s some Orwellian stuff,” Whitlock wrote on Saturday.

Furthermore they didn’t bother noting adding a disclaimer that the piece had been updated until days after they were called out on it.

If this all sounds familiar to you then you must be a fan of the TV series Yes Prime Minister when the PM and Sir Humphrey found it necessary for political reasons to redo the record to fend off a supposed leadership challenge. The scene and the reaction appears below:

Prime Minister James Hacker: [Cabinet Enters] Ah Gentlemen please be seated Now you’ve all have a copy of the agenda. Item one minutes of the last meeting.

Employment Secretary Dudley: Prime Minister excuse me a point of order, I see that my plans for defense establishment relocation is not on the agenda.

PM Hacker: That is correct Dudley yes.

Dudley: Well Why not?

PM Hacker: It’s all this leaking that’s been going on. It’s making a very damaging row in the press. I can’t allow the cabinet to seem divided.

Dudley: It is divided.

PM Hacker: Yes that’s why it mustn’t look it. It’s a very complex issue and I’ve decided to defer all further discussion to a later date.

Dudley: I can’t understand it you were in favor of it last time?

PM Hacker: No I wasn’t.

Dudley: Yes You were, and so was everyone else expect the Secretary of State for Defense.

PM Hacker: No they weren’t.

Dudley: Yes they were and you promised a further discussion.

PM Hacker: Ahem…

Sir Humphrey Appleby: I’m sorry to interrupt but I think not.

Dudley: What?

Sir Humphrey: There was no such promise, And the Prime Minister did not support the proposal because if he had it would have appeared in the minutes, and it doesn’t.

Dudley: Doesn’t it? Prime Minister why was my request for a further discussion and your reply not minuted?

PM Hacker: I ah…

Sir Humphrey: [interrupting] It is characteristic of all committee discussions and decisions that every member has a vivid recollection of them and that every member’s recollection of them differs violently from every other member’s recollection. Consequently, we accept the convention that the official decisions are those and only those which have been officially recorded in the minutes by the officials, from which it emerges with an elegant inevitability that any decision which has been officially reached will have been officially recorded in the minutes by the officials and any decision which is not recorded in the minutes has not been officially reached even if one or more members believe they can recollect it, so in this particular case, if the decision had been officially reached it would have been officially recorded in the minutes by the officials, and it isn’t, so it wasn’t.

PM Hacker: Told you so.

Yes Prime Minister Yes Prime Minister Man Overboard 1987:

Alas for USA today and the left unlike Sir Humphrey and PM Hacker we now live in an internet age when screen shots are routinely taken of such articles and that it takes but a single person to note a difference and communicate their discovery via DM/Tweet/Post or email for those who have taken said shot to compare and if their own screenshot doesn’t exist there is always the Wayback machine (at least until someone starts edition those results).

I’m sure the media and the pols they protect miss those days and it makes one wonder how many “official” archives have been so “corrected” over the years before the current scrutiny became the norm?

A sad but inspirational story about Catholic nuns

Posted: April 27, 2021 by chrisharper in catholic
Tags: ,

By Christopher Harper

It’s wonderful to have a local newspaper that offers news that comforts the soul rather than slants the news.

Since moving to central Pennsylvania, I have become a fan of the Williamsport Sun-Gazette, which operates a few miles from our home.

The Sun-Gazette has a staunchly conservative editorial policy, which I relish as a change from the claptrap of most news organizations that surrounded me in the Northeast Corridor. Moreover, the local reporting offers some great insights into the surrounding community. The newspaper is one of the oldest in the country. Once owned by a local family, the Sun-Gazette is part of Odgen Newspapers, a small media company based in Wheeling, West Virginia.

Recently, the newspaper focused on a virtually untold story about the deaths of many Catholic nuns throughout the region. See https://www.sungazette.com/news/religion/2021/04/how-many-of-us-will-be-left-catholic-nuns-face-loss-pain/

“These were women who held the hands of the dying and who raised the unwanted, who pushed chalk to slate to teach science and grammar and, through their own example, faith. And when the worst year was over, the toll on the Felician Sisters was almost too much to bear: 21 of their own, in four U.S. convents, who collectively served 1,413 years, all felled by the virus,” the story reported.

“On Good Friday [2020], Sister Mary Luiza Wawrzyniak became the sisters’ first casualty in Livonia, a blow that landed with stunning intensity for the women who’d known her for decades.

‘My heart just leaped,’ said Sister Nancy Marie Jamroz, 79, who had known Wawrzyniak since entering the convent and was one of her closest friends.’She was my little buddy.’

“Wawrzyniak’s teaching days were ended by multiple sclerosis, but she continued contributing any way she could, shuffling behind a wheelchair to work in the laundry room and remembering every birthday with a card.

“On Easter Sunday, it was Sister Celine Marie Lesinski, a teacher, organist, and librarian, and Sister Mary Estelle Printz, who put aside an early life working at Chrysler to take her vows. Then, Sister Thomas Marie Wadowski, who relished a game of canasta and telling of her second-grade class that won a contest to create a Campbell’s Soup commercial, and Sister Mary Patricia Pyszynski, who taught in 13 schools across Michigan in six decades as an educator….

“After the first week of the crisis claimed five sisters, the second week took five more.

“Sister Mary Clarence Borkoski, whose long ministry included work in a food pantry. Sister Rose Mary Wolak, whose two stints working in the Vatican brought brushes with St. John Paul II. Sister Mary Janice Zolkowski, who wrote a definitive 586-page history of the Felicians. Sister Mary Alice Ann Gradowski, who as a principal could be seen cheering, with fierce loyalty, in the bleachers at basketball games. And Sister Victoria Marie Indyk, who led mission trips to Haiti where she insisted students fill their luggage with clothes and medicine and toys going to the hemisphere’s neediest.

“The second wave haunted and taunted with erratic efficiency, and by the middle of November had robbed the Felicians of sisters in Buffalo, New York; Enfield, Connecticut; and here in Greensburg.

“Sister Mary Christinette Lojewski, the educator with a disarming smile. Sister Mary Seraphine Liskiewicz, whose faith persevered even as her health waned. Sister Mary Michele Mazur, the keen-eyed artist who gave succor to orphans. Sister Christine Marie Nizialek, who’d bounced back from losing an eye and receiving a new kidney but could not come back from this.”

The nuns mourned, consoled one another, and prayed. This disease had taken an enormous toll. But their faith persisted.

Thanks to the Sun-Gazette for a sad but inspirational story—a story that virtually no other media outlet has deigned to cover!

A Really Funny Biden Admin Thought

Posted: April 27, 2021 by datechguy in Uncategorized

Some polling is out on the Biden Admin and it’s kinda meh.

I find it really funny to be so when you consider:

  1. A media that has spent the last 100 days propping it up.
  2. Tech giants that have suppressed contrary voices.
  3. And Polling who routinely bend polling to favor dems.

Yet despite all this the Biden admin polls: meh!

I wonder how bad the real numbers would be if they generated real numbers, but then again when you have an admin that doesn’t rely on actual votes to gain power you don’t have to worry about pols do you?

Report from Louisiana: Loose Thoughts

Posted: April 26, 2021 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
Tags: , , , ,

By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT:  Random thoughts and observations today.

Help Wanted.  Have you noticed that nobody wants to work anymore? I mean, with this extended unemployment and the stimulus rollouts, the restaurants and shops around here are all begging for help. Almost everywhere you go there are help wanted signs. We went to a Mexican restaurant after church today and the first thing the hostess told us was “we are short of servers today – nobody wants to work…”.  It’s crazy.  I went to Bed, Bath, & Beyond later: also help wanted signs. They’re everywhere.  If you want a part-time job, this might be a really good time to find one. I’m thinking about it! I’m retiring from teaching in less than a month; a little side-hustle might not be a bad thing.

What? Retiring?!  Yes, after twenty-five years, I am done. As of May 28, I’ll be officially retired. Mentally, I’m already there. We took our end of course tests last week – six weeks early because the State was concerned about quarantines. So mentally, the students are done, too; they think, why bother? We took the test already.

To be honest, I’d love to have gone five more years and retire at 30 years; it is about a $300 a month pay cut for me to go now (thus, the side-hustle), but I can mentally no longer battle kids with cellphones, TikTok, terrible curriculum, and apathy. I. Just. Can’t. 

My husband has been retired from the police department for several years and he is bored senseless. I don’t think I’ll have that problem: I’m looking forward to time for writing, doing another book, a million and five home projects, working in the yard, and traveling. But, maybe I’ll tire of all that, too. He doesn’t really have many hobbies and I think it is important to keep busy. We will see. 

But, yeah: twenty-four more days of school. Do it.

Seacor Power Tragedy: President Donald Trump has donated 10K to the United Cajun Navy to help search and rescue efforts in the Seacor Power tragedy.

United Cajun Navy founder Todd Terrell confirmed Friday that the former president made a hefty donation toward the rescue efforts of the seven men who are still missing from the Seacor Power crew.

The U.S. Coast Guard suspended their search for the missing crew members on Monday at sunset. At that time, officials said they do not expect to find more survivors from the vessel.

Officials spent several days searching for the missing workers from the oil industry lift boat Seacor Power, which capsized on April 13 during a fierce storm in the Gulf of Mexico south of Port Fourchon. Six of the 19 workers on the boat were rescued within hours of the wreck; five more bodies were found in the water.

This has been a terrible tragedy and so devastating to watch and hear from these families. Heartbreaking.

Kudos to President Trump.  Thank you.

Y’all have a good week!

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

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