Author Archive

Let’s Be Blunt: We All Know

Posted: July 12, 2021 by datechguy in Uncategorized

Malone: [stopping at a post office] Well, here we are.

Ness: What are we doing here?

Malone: Liquor raid.

Ness: [looking at the police station across the street that they just came from] Here?

Malone: Mr. Ness, everybody knows where the booze is. The problem isn’t finding it, the problem is who wants to cross Capone.

The Untouchables 1987

At NEO site she has a post with a question that is a topic of conversation among people I know:

What might the now-ongoing audits show?

It’s the wrong question just like it’s the post has the wrong title

What if the 2020 election audits end up revealing that Trump was actually the winner?

The actual question is:

What do we do when the audits prove that Trump was actually the winner of the election.

We need to stop playing this game. If the left thought for one moment that this election was clean and was won fairly they would have been all over themselves to put out audits, the media would be all over themselves to cover them, on Facebook and twitter and Instagram all of the tech platformed would be pushing for this data to be out there and praising the transparency and fairness of these Democrat stongholds. They would revel in their chance to proclaim to the entire country indeed to all the world that not only was the election clean but those who are saying otherwise are liars, fraudsters, grifters.

Instead they have fought tooth and nail to prevent these audits while at the same time saying there is no proof that there was anything untoward. It’s like the cigarette lobby insisting that there was no proof that smoking was dangerous in the 80’s.

The real danger to the left and the establishment isn’t that the audits will show that Trump was the winner. They know this is the case. The danger is that they will establish the methods that the left has been using for years to steal elections on the city state and local level, methods that members of the establishment right were quite willing to allow to happen as long as it didn’t threaten them.

You see once this is all out in the open and people can no longer deny or pretend they don’t know about then they have an excuse for inaction, as illustrated by this exchange between Sir Humphrey & Minister Jim Hacker when he found out about arms going to terrorists.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: So minister may we drop this matter of the arms sales?

Minister Jim Hacker: No we may not. I’m going to tell the Prime Minister personally, make an appointment Bernard. This is the sort of thing the prime minister wants to know about.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: I assure you minister this is the type of thing the Prime Minister desperately doesn’t want to know about

and his explanation to Hacker’s permanent private secretary.

Bernard: So what do we believe in?

Sir Humphrey: At this moment Bernard We believe in stopping the minister from speaking to the Prime Minister.

Bernard: But why?

Sir Humphrey: Because once the Prime Minister knows there will have to be an inquiry, like Watergate. The investigation of a trivial break-in lead to one ghastly revelation after another and finally to the downfall of a president. The golden rule is don’t lift lids off cans of worms.

Yes Minister The Whiskey Priest 1982

Once these things are established then the question will become:

What are you going to do about it?

And that’s when the shit hits the fan for a lot of career pols and civil servants whose job is to supposedly prevent this type of fraud:

How many state and local officials owe their positions to fixed elections or to appointments made after same. How many local contracts, local patronage jobs, local, state or even federal contracts worth millions are directed as a result of these things. How many useless relatives, friends, hangers on and incompetents are making a good living from their ability to feed at the public trough whose meals might be disrupted by these things being revealed? And if they are happening in WI, and PA, and GA and AZ the question becomes are they happening elsewhere? How blue are the deep blue states? Do people actually buy all this crap that been shoveled out from them or are they just silent or resigned to what’s going on and in fear of being called names?

This is the real question and it’s bigger when you consider this story about the RNC throwing Trump under the bus while pretending otherwise.

It’s like dealing with an army of Sir Humphrey’s. It’s not about policies , it’s not about what’s best, it’s what can we raise the most money on to feather our nests.

And so the question stands? WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?

Opinions on Haiti, Woke Raytheon, A Matter of Honor, Catholics Demanding Refunds and a name for What’s been happening to my wife Under the Fedora

Posted: July 11, 2021 by datechguy in blogs, business, catholic, Church doctrine, culture, entertainment, News/opinion, under the fedora
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Saw this at Don Surber’s site this morning on the assignation of the president of Haiti:

Why do I get the feeling the Clintons and their fake foundation are entangled in this mess?

Maybe it wasn’t an assassination.

Maybe it was Arkancide.

My best friend at work is a 70 year old Hattian man who is a naturalized citizen. When I asked him about the assassination last week he offered a similar opinion on what happened over there.

My first employer out of college was Raytheon and I worked there with secret clearance for three years during the climax of the cold war (until I opened my comic book store). now I’m thinking that I might want to take that off my resume after this:

ATTENTION EMPLOYEES, MOVE OUT OF THE WAY BY GETTING ANOTHER JOB NOW:  Raytheon CRT Training: White Employees “must work on ‘recognizing [their] privilege’ and ‘step aside’ for minorities”.

The company will then go the way of every company that hires for reasons other than competence. And they deserve it.

As this is a defense contractor as long as the left has power their bottom line is not endangered but I’ll bet a lot of 80 year old Russian spies are wishing they had managed to pull this off 30 years earlier.

My favorite show when I was seven years old was the Richard Greene series The Adventures of Robin Hood which was televised on WMUR about 30 minutes before I had to wake up for school. While they had it on the air I never was late getting up.

I was reminded of the show or rather a particular line I saw this story out of Boston:

Judge William Young has just announced in court that he is withdrawing the Opinion he issued dismissing the case brought by a Boston parents group over the so-called Boston “Zip Code Quota Plan.” For background see our posts:

The key bit:

“This was my opinion, my signature’s on it, I was misled”

“The opinion is wrong, it’s wrong because the facts on which it was based … an opinion I issued under my signature is factually incorrect”

“I’m inclined to withdraw the opinion, I’ve never done that [before in 35 years]”

“I work very hard on my opinions, and this one’s no good.”

The clerk will enter the note: “The opinion entered in this case is withdrawn on the ground the court is satisfied it is factually inaccurate in certain material effects.”

Any judge appointed in Massachusetts over the last 35 years is likely a liberal but a person of that age might not like the idea of their personal honor being tarnished. In the old days even a villains didn’t want to be seen as breaking their word in public.

Give it a few years more and I’m sure the state with only those brought up woke to choose from will not have to worry about this problem again.

One of the things I constantly argue is that things will not change until there are consequences for the left, like this:

Anthony and Barbara Scarpo noted how the Academy of the Holy Names in Tampa even named its auditorium “Scarpo Family Theatre” after their huge pledge in 2017, saying they were helping it raise $9 million in total.

But now the parents want their money back — including tuition paid for their two daughters — in outrage at how the school turned its back on Catholicism to go “woke,” their 13-count, 45-page lawsuit claims.

The Scarpos claim they were betrayed by the school suddenly “embracing the new, politically correct, divisive and ‘woke’ culture where gender identity, human sexuality, and pregnancy termination among other ‘hot-button issues,’ took center stage,” the lawsuit said.

I couldn’t help but remember when my oldest had been offered a big scholarship at the Anna Maria College but when we visited it it turned out to be “Catholic” in name and fundraising only (although the president in response to my letter to the bishop claimed otherwise. Which thanks to this story turned into yesterday’s lead post twelve years later.

A lot of catholic institutions make a lot of money off of donors who don’t know that their Catholic identity is only visible when asking them for checks.

Finally I just got this link via email concerning Long Haul COVID-19 Syndrome (LHCS) a sample:

The Long Haul COVID-19 Syndrome (LHCS) is an often debilitating syndrome characterized by a multitude of symptoms such as prolonged malaise, headaches, generalized fatigue, sleep difficulties, smell disorder, decreased appetite, painful joints, dyspnea, chest pain and cognitive dysfunction. The incidence of symptoms after COVID-19 varies from as low as 10% to as high as 80%. LHCS is not only seen after the COVID-19 infection but it is being observed in some people that have received vaccines (likely due to monocyte activation by the spike protein from the vaccine). A puzzling feature of the LHCS syndrome is that it is not predicted by initial disease severity; post-COVID-19 frequently affects mild-to-moderate cases and younger adults that did not require respiratory support or intensive care.

The symptom set of LHCS in the majority of cases is very similar to the chronic inflammatory response syndrome (CIRS)/myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, although in LHCS, symptoms tend to improve slowly in the majority of the cases. Furthermore, the similarity between the mast cell activation syndrome and LHCS has been observed, and many consider post-COVID-19 to be a variant of the mast cell activation syndrome. LHCS is highly heterogenous and likely results from a variety of pathogenetic mechanisms. Furthermore, it is likely that delayed treatment (with ivermectin) in the early symptomatic phase will result in a high viral load, which increases the risk and severity of LHCS.

This describes what happened to my wife (who is still out of work since March and things are starting to get tight around here) perfectly. But I note that some people who have gotten this because of the vaccines.

Now I don’t blame the developers, these vaccines were done in a hurry because of the emergency and this was a new disease but it’s one more thing to consider when deciding if you want to get the shot or not.

Having already had COVID I don’t see the need myself, I’ve already got the antibodies.

The glories of the market

Posted: July 10, 2021 by datechguy in Uncategorized

Ten days ago or so, Nike CEO John Donahoe stated on an earnings call with investors that his fabled shoe company, started in Oregon by American Phil Knight, was “of China and for China.” Nike currently has 7,000 branded stores in China, and is, Donahoe boasts, the “largest sports brand” in the world’s most populated state, now a cruel dictatorship run by the Chinese Communist Party.

China is currently committing genocide against the Uyghur people of East Turkestan. It’s also crushing human rights and democracy in the former jewel of the British Empire, Hong Kong. And, still not finished crushing dissent and torturing its citizens, the Communist police in Tibet like to beat Tibetan monks silly.

This is who Nike and Mr. Donahoe are “of and for.”

And apparently, so are those athletes who take Nike’s money for endorsing their products: Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Lebron James, among many others. Has a single sports “journalist” asked any of these multimillionaires whether they are “of and for China?”

Of course not. The story has already been washed away from the sand under the unrelenting media tides. The media would rather gush over the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party.

In all likelihood, Nike will not suffer one noticeable whit from the contemptible musings of its CEO. It will continue to sell billions of yuan to the massive Chinese populace and lobby the U.S. Congress against banning slave labor.

Yes, Nike actually lobbied Congress to water down a bill banning slave labor. No one cares. Why should Nike? They know how this goes. So long as you give people the chance to buy something they want, they’ll forgive anything.

There’s no better example of this than Porsche, the legendary auto manufacturer. Porsche was founded in Stuttgart, Germany in 1931, shortly before Hitler and the Nazis took control of the nation. If any company was of and for Nazi Germany, it was Porsche. Ferdinand Porsche himself, the founder, was a Nazi and member of the Schutzstaffel, or SS. Along with designing the Volkswagen Beetle, at Hitler’s personal urging, Porsche also built the tanks that killed British and American solders, among others.

Did Porsche suffer any for its huge role in supporting Nazism and fascism? If they did, it’s long been forgotten.

Nike knows how this will go. Hell, the Left is already fighting to protect China from any consequences for its reprehensible human rights violations.

I wonder if they were wearing Nikes at the time.

The 2nd Best Non-Move I ever made Anna Maria College 12 Years Later

Posted: July 10, 2021 by datechguy in catholic, Church doctrine, culture, personal
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Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal. But store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.

Jesus via Matthew 6:19-21

My oldest son turns 30 next week and when I was writing my under the fedora piece for today (that is going up tomorrow instead) I touched on a story that brought this to mind.

Back in 2009 he had been offered a big scholarship to Anna Maria college and we went to visit the place. What I saw at the “catholic” college was less that overwhelming:

My problem with the place is one of my pet peeves. The college is a Catholic College There are old crosses on buildings and portraits of older bishops in one or two places, but I saw nothing affirming their Catholic identity. No portrait of the pope, no schedule of Masses (although they do offer daily Mass).

There were pictures celebrating the new president all over the place, banners celebrating diversity, announcements of the woman’s study courses but nothing on the March for Life later this month in Washington. The concert was a “holiday” concert. In the Anna Maria in the news bulletin board at the admissions office there was an article talking about protesting the pope in the US. That was the extent of any recent mention of religion.

Of course that was written in the days when “Is the Pope Catholic” was a one liner rather than a legit question but I digress…

When he was offered a full boat at the local Fitchburg State college (before it became Fitchburg University) which never pretended it wasn’t a secular organization he jumped at it allowing him to live at home and continue in our parish where his faith was well formed. I was going to let it go at that until we got a letter from the Bishop congratulating us on being accepted at Anna Maria and the Scholarship and the importance of a Catholic education.

At that point I wrote a letter to the Bishop that said in part:

We were excited when Sam was accepted at Anna Maria; even more so when they offered the largest (in dollars) scholarship of any of the nine colleges that have accepted and attempted to recruit him. We looked forward to the visit to the college and liked the prospect of a college that would expand both his faith and his educational horizons.

Then we actually visited the college.

Comparing your description of the college as a “great example of a Catholic institution…” and my experience I thought of George Weigel’s line commenting on the differing press releases concerning Speaker Pelosi visit to the Holy See: “Were Benedict XVI and Nancy Pelosi in the same meeting, or even in the same city?”

it continued:

When I talked to the gentleman from admissions after the tour he informed me that this was not unusual at Catholic colleges and seemed to stress diversity rather than the Catholic identity, in fact seemed happy to reassure the next visiting student that he would not have to take any courses having to do with religion. Continuing my quote from the blog:

…It would be nicer if Catholic identity actually meant something. I’ve spent much more than I can afford over the last 10 years giving my sons a Catholic education. If I’m going to spend a whole lot more for a Catholic College then I expect a Catholic College.

I can’t reconcile your description of Anna Maria with what I saw and I can’t believe you would make that description after visiting the college yourself. While academically I believe it would be strong I don’t believe attending would foster his faith, in fact I suspect if he choose to wear his faith proudly it would go hard on him there.

The Bishop forward my letter to the president of the college who wrote me to dispute my impression and I posted both letters on the blog trusting readers to make their own decision.

Because I was referencing this story in the post I took the liberty of visiting the Anna Maria Web site curious if things had changed in twelve years and under a different president.

The front page like many sites has a rotating gallery highlighting many different things none of them involving the faith and while on other tabs you could find a reference particularly on the Campus Ministry page you will be hard pressed to find a sign of it. For the fun of it I did a search for the phrase: “Jesus Christ” on the site here were the results:

search result 7/10/21 10:20 am

two of those are blog posts from 2020 and the other two are programs offered.

Now if you search for “diversity” however…

Search 7/10/21 10:24 AM

You’d have to go to additional pages to see all the results you can find but I figured the 1st page was enough to make my point. If you search for LGBT…

search result 7/10/21 10:26 AM

Well at least Jesus does equally as well as LGBT in the search results. I’ll wager there are plenty of Catholic Colleges where he doesn’t.

Well that’s Anna Maria College 12 years later. As for my son twelve years later last week I had a rare Sunday off and so I had the pleasure of my wife and sons all with me at the 6 PM mass at our parish. Neither of my sons received communion but both went up to the priest arms crossed for a blessing. When the mass was over they asked him for confession. When they had both received the sacrament the pastor took them to the tabernacle and they received Holy Communion after mass. I can imagine my mother & father punching the air in heaven at this and as their dad I can’t adequately state how proud I was to see this.

The best non-decision my wife and I ever made still remains not moving to the Portland Oregon area after our Honeymoon there 33 years ago but I’m thinking giving Anna Maria a miss twelve years ago comes in as a pretty solid second.

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