Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog

There has been a sudden spate of deaths of people I know (in fact in the hour before I started this post two friends both told me of deaths in their families one yesterday and one earlier one that I hadn’t heard of) in the month of December. Most people would not have heard of these folks but I think they deserve a mention.

The 1st was Mary Margaret Rogers. Of the three she was likely the most prominent. While a British citizen she had lived in the US for decades and was active in political circles in NH. I first met her covering a Herman Cain event. I interviewed Ted Cruz at her home, spoke to Ben Carson there. Her husband writes for Granite Grok and it was through that association that I became an honorary Grokster.

But it was her kindness to people in general and my family in particular that stuck me. She had a high opinion of my wife and sons and treated us with the type of love and affection that people are used to associating with family. This however is not odd as all who knew her would have said the same. As her mass card quotes her:

“People will forget what you say, people will forget what you do but they’ll never forget how you made them feel.

She made me and mine feel special. She was the best of the British Isles.

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The 2nd was Ed Thomas. He was a professor of history at Fitchburg State College when I was there and later Fitchburg State University. He had an active mind and a love of history and facts. His notes were copious (I once asked about buying them but he declined) and he delighted in original sources. He was not shy about his opinions (that often differed from mine) but he always made clear the difference between opinion and fact. In later years after he retired I would occasionally see him coming early to the 4:15 mass when confessions were running late and he would chat.

He was the best teacher I had during my college years bar none and only Theresa Mahoney from grade school had a bigger influence on me.

Generations of students benefited from his instruction and will mourn his leaving us.

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The third if a fellow by the name of Mike Karamanos. Most people never knew his last name. To them he was Mike of Mike’s Pizza. He was a hard working man who for decades ran his small pizzeria making pizza, subs and salads for the people in town. He was honest with his customers, generous of his charity and grateful for the chance to make his business in America but his heart was always in Greece where he will be burried.

He was an American success story and it is my great regret that I never interviewed him for my series of that name but it was my great privilege to know him.

None of these people will rate an obit in the Times or Post but all three were fine people who touched those who know them. That is what life is all about.

2021 is going to interesting. And very, very ugly.

Hogewash: Losing Their Grip

I’m wondering what the spark is going to be, a friend think it’s coming but is generations away.

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Just imagine how this triumph would be reported if it had been achieved by a Democratic president. But they didn’t achieve it, partly because they didn’t actually want to. 

Glenn Reynolds on the ‘Hanukkah miracle.’ of Arab delegations in Israel for the lighting ceremony.

It would not surprise me if the someone nominates Biden & Harris for the Nobel as a result of Trump’s actions.

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Bad cops suck, but not as much as a complete breakdown of civil society. The only people who don’t realize that yet are the ones whose living room windows haven’t been smashed in.

Jim Treacher Seattle Councilwoman Calls Cops She Wants to Defund

If I was the police I’d set up a special group of social workers to answer these calls.

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The man lived in Washington for 44 years — including 8 as vice president — and he still hasn’t picked a parish?

Don Surber on Joe Biden now making mass attendence a regular part of his schedule

I’m not surprised, if he had been regularly attending mass for 44 years the thought of stealing an election from 80 million people might have put the fear of God in him.

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This is not an accident. Someone knew when they introduced these machines into the voting process what would happen.

Right Wing Granny Computers Do What They Are Programmed To Do

For America’s enemies both foreign and domestic this is a feature not a bug and no amount of knowing this matters unless we are willing to stop it.

A newly released research report from the Center for Global Policy indicates that the Chinese are now forcing Uighurs to hand-pick cotton in the western province of Xinjiang, north of Tibet. Xinjiang produces 20% of the world supply of cotton. The report notes that hand-picked cotton is considered to be of higher quality than machine-picked, and that the government had previously used prison labor to pick the cotton, creating a “cotton gulag.” Now, through “poverty alleviation programs,” even more laborers are being forced into the back-breaking work.

But beyond the purported efforts at eliminating poverty (a long-stated goal of Chinese President Xi), the enslavement of the local population is an effort at population control. The report notes, “[W]orkers who work and live on secure compounds… are more easily controlled.” In addition, in some regions, working-age Uighurs are shipped off to state-assigned cotton-picking work assignments” while their children and elderly parents are cared for by the state.”

The report traces the roots of the desire for population control to 2014, after a series of violent attacks the government blamed on Uighur “terrorists.” Xi visited Xinjiang, and documents leaked to the New York Times reveal Xi ordered local officials to “rewire” the minds of the Uighurs. In 2016, Beijing hatchetman Chen Quanguo became Xinjiang’s Communist party secretary. He immediately “set up an unprecedented police state” in the region, followed in 2017 by the policy of mass internment of the local population.

Now, the Uighurs are being enslaved, to pick cotton.

The implications the report will have on world trade could be significant, considering the level of Chinese textile production.

The Trump Administration on December 2 placed a Withhold Release Order on cotton from the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, which accounts for 33% of Xinjiang’s cotton production. It’s a start.

Unfortunately, with an incoming Biden Administration – compromised as it is by the Chinese Communist Party, among others – it will likely be an end, too. After all, this is the Administration reportedly considering Bob Iger for Ambassador to China. The same Bob Iger who until recently ran The Walt Disney Company.

You know, the company that just gave a special shout-out to the “publicity department of the CPC Xinjiang Uighur Autonomy Region Committee” – the local communist hacks currently oppressing the Uighurs – for their assistance in the recent big-budget production of the live-action movie, “Mulan.”

Democrats supporting slave-owners over the oppressed? No wonder they hate Abraham Lincoln. Of course, it’s nothing new.