Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog

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Stacy McCain on why so many Police Confrontations these days:

One reason you’re seeing more situations “escalate” in this manner is simply that technology has shifted the balance toward law enforcement. More and more police vehicles are equipped with scanners that automatically read tags of passing cars, so that if you’re driving a stolen vehicle or, as in Nika Holbert’s case, driving a car whose owner is wanted on arrest warrants, the cops are gonna get you. Five or 10 years ago, you could be driving around with a car full of felonies and cops wouldn’t know it, unless you did something to attract their attention. Nowadays, it’s a lot harder for criminals to get away with crimes, which is why we keep seeing videos like this. Race has nothing to do with it.

Now I know why Massachusetts considered a dirty license plate a “safety issue” to flunk me on an inspection a few years ago.

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Don Surber reports (among other things) on moments when silence is apparently golden:

The New York Post reported, “A federal judge on Thursday agreed with Ghislaine Maxwell’s request to keep certain details in the criminal case against her secret — finding that information would be too ‘sensational and impure’ to reveal to the public.
“US District Judge Alison J. Nathan issued a ruling on redactions that Maxwell had asked for regarding transcripts the government filed under seal last month.”
After watching the Grammys, nothing is too sensational and impure to reveal to the public.
Obama judge. He’s covering up for some Democrat. Likely the name rhymes with Blinton.

I guarantee you that if Maxwell or Epstein had videos of Trump among their blackmail collection they’d would have been out in the public years ago.

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An excellent point on well adjusted kids at Adrienne’s Corner:

Comment from an esteemed blogger buddy:I worry about my grandson on a daily basis. I worry about all of the issues you brought up. I can see his social skills declining, and it worries me. The democrats had a plan and I’m afraid it isn’t fully implemented yet.

My answer:

I would look to how home-schoolers handle their kids. In all the years of hubby teaching music the most well adjusted, happy, socialized, and smartest kids were the home-schooled. Therefore, I have to wonder what is going on to make the public school kids so unable to cope. Is it how the parents are handling all this?

Given what our schools are apparently teaching our children I’d say the continued closing of the Public schools are the biggest silver lining of this entire pandemic shutdown. Parents would be wise to find permanent alternates to public schools.

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William Hoge channels South Park on the cold dark effects of reality on journalism’s narrative:

after years in attack mode, they’ve been unable to find good news to report to sell the new Narrative. For example, years of ranting about kids in cages has made it hard to put a positive spin on a sudden surge in minor children being detained at the border. Masks still required after vaccination, no Fourth of July, and renewed bombing in the Middle East are not an easy sell as good news. Reality keeps interfering with The Narrative, and the public is beginning to suspect that the warm fluid on our legs isn’t rain.

Alternatives to the Main Stream Media and Main Stream Social Media are popping up and some are getting traction because the compete with The Narrative rather than colluding with it. There’s a market for news and truth, and I suspect that many of the legacy media companies will be replaced by new organizations.

You can see signs of panic in the calls for censorship that are beginning appear, some from media outlets beginning to sense they are at a disadvantage competing with truthful reporting.

The real problem is that when you decide to live on a niche market of exclusively serving the left you find yourself more and more needed to bend reality to keep that decreasing niche watching.

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Finally Jeff Dunetz on the universal popularity of Voter ID.

Per a Rasmussion poll, support for voter ID runs across political parties. 60% of Democrats the party pushing HR1,  89% of Republicans, and  77% of unaffiliated voters support voter ID.  Support is also high for conservatives (91%) and moderates (68%). But almost half of the self-described liberals (47%) support voter ID also. Even likely voters who are African-American (69%) support  ID laws.

Photo ID is needed to get on an airplane, buy cigarettes, get into many office buildings, enter comedy clubs, and establish other establishments selling alcohol. Photo ID is even needed at the Democratic National Convention to receive their official credentials (at the GOP convention too). Heck, you can’t even get into the DNC office in D.C unless you can prove who you are.

I’ve said it over and over again I’ll believe that Voter ID is racist when I see lawyers suing banks, airlines and business for requiring them, and frankly if Democrats wanted to have the people believe the last election was on the up and up Democrats would jump to embrace it but not at the expense of losing the ability to steal election they can’t win otherwise.

Personal story my late mother used to work the polls and she knew the neighborhoods well, during key election large groups of people would show up at the polls (usually bussed in) to add last minute votes. Such people would come to her table and give an address. Mom would look at them and bluntly say. ” I know that address, you don’t live at that address.” Invariably said people rather than complaining would dash away quickly. Nobody every complained or challenged her on it likely because the game would be up.

Based on a couple of drives around Los Angeles the last couple of Friday mornings, traffic in the city has distinctly increased from a few months ago, at the height of the pandemic. While a couple of drives are hardly conclusive, others have noticed, too. The days are growing longer, the California sun is feeling warmer, and the shutdown is, if not quite in the rear view mirror, at least in the slow lane, everyone zooming past.

American cities are about to undergo a unique experiment. The rise of remote work has made much office space obsolete. A friend of mine, an animator on a popular cartoon series, has been working remotely since the pandemic began. The producers recently told much of the staff that they won’t be required to return to the studio, once the city opens back up. They can continue to work remotely, out of state, for all the producers care. In California, the top tax rate is 13.3%, with anyone making more than $58,000 paying almost 10%. That’s going to chase people out of state, especially when Nevada is next door, with no state income tax.

Strange time, then, for new District Attorney George Gascon to hollow out law enforcement. Gascon, sounding like some Tea Party pork cutter, touted the hundreds of millions of dollars the county will save by reducing prison sentences for convicts. He’s also vowed to do away with the death penalty, and is going after police officers accused of misconduct. Gascon apparently kept up with how such reforms have treated Minneapolis.

Back in L.A., these “reforms” have so far prompted the city of Beverly Hills to issue a vote of “no confidence” in the district attorney, and L.A. suburb La Mirada is expected to do the same. And a victims’ group is launching a recall effort against the D.A., with support from the county sheriff. So things are going great in L.A.

Now with crime bound to rise, demand for office and industrial space collapsing, commercial property values sinking, city budgets reliant in large part on property taxes, and so city services dwindling — the city previously announced deep cuts to the police force — and with drought to only worsen, L.A. may soon resemble one of those wasteland dystopia’s the city’s artisans are so fond of depicting on screen.

Tough luck. I always preferred “Blade Runner” over “Mad Max,” but you get the dystopia you deserve, I guess. Installations have consequences, after all.

The irony of the fact that the avg age of Democrat leadership being 70 means they are all children of World War 2 era people and should know better.

The Irony of the advancement of the Transgender agenda, which is the extension of the Gay Agenda, which is an extension of feminism which is that all of this has been made possible overwhelming by the votes of women who have been made more alone and miserable by this.

The irony of the current state of the woman’s movement and the current state of the civil rights movement is that those who suffered the most would be horrified by the results.

The irony of the current state of US education is that I can clearly see all the mistakes that were made at the early or mid stages of the fall of the Roman Republic going on in the country, which would be recognized by every schoolchild 100 years ago because they were once taught to every schoolchild in America.

Is there anything more ironic than the American left insisting that the US is a racist murderous and Russia and China making it a point to publicly agree?

Of course not all ironies are bad. Apparently a large chunk of the money being sent back to induvial Americans is being spent on guns and ammo.

All sorts of virtues painted in the fantasy or approved by the intellect or even, in some measure, loved and admired, will not keep a man from Our Father’s house: indeed they make him more amusing when he gets there.”

C. S. Lewis Screwtape 7

Reuters promoted a story saying that some Catholic Priests will defy the Vatican and bless same sex weddings.

The Catholic Church has a term for such people who defy doctrine for their own spin, they are called “Protestants”.

For myself I’ve always called them what they actually are: “Catholics for Mortal Sin”.

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All of this reminds me of the entire Transgender business.

The people who are getting bits of themselves cut up are mentally ill, but are so desperate to been seen as normal and are willing to go to great, even destructive lengths to deceive themselves in order and to convince or impose on society that this standard of insanity is a beautiful thing.

That’s bad but the real evil comes from the Physicians , the psychologists and the surgeons who know better who take advantage of these people for fun and prophet. As Christ said to Pilate: “You would have no power over me if it had not been given to you from above. For this reason the one who handed me over to you has the greater sin.” (John 19:11)

There is a reason why the sin of Pride is first among the mortal sins. It’s because it’s replacing one’s own judgement for that of God.

This is why these priests are guilty of the greater sin in giving a false blessing and abusing the rights of the church than the couple seeking it.

For the priest it’s all about them.

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Is it not ironic that the couples involved do not respect obviously do not respect the teaching of the church by an open defiance of it , yet are apparently desperate to be seen to have the blessing of the God and the Church for what they are doing and have that blessing seen and acknowledged?

It reminds me of something that Fr. Z once said about the difference between a couple in an invalid marriage resolving to live as brother and sister receiving communion privately from the priest and going to confession if they fall and another defiantly going up for communion during mass.

One couple wants to receive Christ because it’s all about God, the other wants to be seen getting the wafer because it’s all about them. It’s not about submitting to God, it’s about God submitting to them.

It’s the sin of pride once again.

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Looking at this it’s basically the difference between two famous gay Catholics Milo Yiannopoulos and Andrew Sullivan.

Both understood the church teaching on the subject of homosexuality and gay marriage but Milo acknowledged and struggled to conform himself to combat the mortal sins he was inclined toward while Andrew fought to have his mortal sins celebrated and blessed by church and state.

It’s still up in the air whether or not Milo will manage to win his fight against sin or go the way of Fr. Corapi but as a person who struggles with is own sins I’d rather be in Milo’s place pleading with God for help and mercy and forgiveness than Andrew’s place telling God what the score is and expecting a prize.

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All of this by the way include a trap for everyone else. As I’ve noted Milo’s situation is much like that of the Tax Collector that Christ told of who approaches the alter with his head bowed saying: ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’. The Trick is to make sure we don’t look at the Priests and the couples involved and declaring our righteousness before the Lord in comparison to them particularly for our own aggrandizement. As C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape puts it:

Once you have made the World an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing. Provided that meets, pamphlets, policies, movements, causes, and crusades, matter more to him than prayers and sacraments and charity, he is ours–and the more ‘religious’ (on those terms) the more securely ours. I could show you a pretty careful down here.

That’s the same sin of pride and it’s just a deadly or even more so. Rather we should pray for those involved while also confessing our own sins and asking for the mercy of God.

As I’ve said many times. Heaven will be no less glorious nor Hell any more bearable if we find ourselves next to someone we didn’t care for on Earth.