Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Governor Baker has jumped the totalitarian shark

Posted: August 27, 2020 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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This past week Governor Charlie Baker, the esteemed Republican governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, ventured further along the road to totalitarianism than any other governor during the Coronavirus pandemic.  This article contains the gist of his latest and most outrageous proposal.

Gov. Charlie Baker says that the new flu vaccine requirement for Massachusetts students is aimed at trying to keep hospitalizations down this fall and winter as the coronavirus pandemic persists. The Department of Public Health announced Wednesday that all students in the state will be required to get the flu vaccine by Dec. 31.

The new mandate affects all children 6 months or older in Massachusetts child care, pre-school, kindergarten, K-12, and colleges and universities.

When Governor Baker made this proposal public I don’t believe he had any idea the outrage it would generate on social media.  The amount of outrage it did generate was spectacular, even among those who blindly accepted all of his other overbearing Coronavirus decrees.

With his flu vaccine mandate Governor Baker is intruding rather forcefully into two  sacred and intimate relationships.   Parents alone should determine if their children should be vaccinated.  Governor Baker is absolutely trampling on the parental rights of every single parent in the State of Massachusetts.  That fact is at the very heart of the outrage that swept across this state. 

Governor Baker is also sticking his nose into the sacred relationship between doctors and patients.   That has also led to a lot of outrage.  Government at no level has a right to intrude into that relationship just like it has no right to intrude into the child parent relationship.

With this one addition to his flu vaccine mandate Governor Baker did not descend into absolute totalitarianism:

Exemptions will be made for medical or religious reasons, the state said. Homeschooled students and college students who are completely off campus and only learning remotely are also exempted.

According to the article 81 percent of students got the flu vaccine last year.  With that high rate already why is the mandate even necessary?  I believe the mandate will actually lead to fewer students getting the flu shot.  Government forcing someone to do something is a great way to make sure a sizable percent of individuals do not do that something even though it is in their best interest.

For the second month in a row Massachusetts has the highest unemployment rate.  That is thanks to Governor Baker’s disastrous business lockdowns.  Business owners are losing enormous amounts of money because they cannot open their doors.  So many business will never open their doors again.  All of this is unnecessary, About 200 individuals a day are discovered to be infected with the Coronavirus.  That is only because about 10,000 a day are being tested.  Deaths and hospitalizations are way down.

Six Kenosha Thoughts now that the Shooting Back Has Begun

Posted: August 27, 2020 by datechguy in Uncategorized

A long time ago I gave the left a warming:

The left assumes that as long as they don’t strike first at the right they can do what they wish.  It’s reached the point where the very suggestion that the right would fight back is almost quaint.

This forgets a basic fact about the traditional American Culture that the left have abandoned:  Americans take a long time to reach their breaking point but if you keep prodding them they eventually reach it. 

That’s all the folks in Kenosha they can stands, they can’t stands no more!

About a year ago I tweeted that I thought civil war was unlikely

Portland, Seattle, Washington, Minneapolis and Atlanta reinforced the misconceptions of those folks too stupid to care. Now that people are fighting back they might start.

For those of you worried if we are going to see a full blown Civil War, the answer is No.

But what Kenosha represents what we WILL see if this continues, which is a lot of small “range” wars like the Lincoln County Wars where there is no “formal” war but different groups of citizens shoot each other.

This is bad news for people who want to live the ordinary life that America offers but if the alternative is to let people riot loot and burn I don’t any other solution.

One of the other disadvantages of being on the left is having an education that doesn’t teach actual history but teaches a parody of it that conforms to the left’s worldview.

If leftists knew history they would know that the police are historically a fairly modern invention. For example Boston was founded in 1630. Boston’s police force the 1st in the nation was founded in 1838 over 300 years later and 62 years after the Declaration of Independence. Before then the people who kept law and order were ordinary armed citizens who were not burdened by a lot of rules on the use of force.

It looks very much like that system is about to make a comeback.

For the record I don’t find the shootings in Kenosha funny or good. It’s more like having to undergo a painful operation, you don’t want to have it and there are risks involved but the alternative is much more dangerous.

But I confess I do find the reactions of some on the left online simply hilarious:

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

I found this tweet even funnier:

and rephrased it thus:

Strange how unappealing a “world without police” is suddenly so unappealing to the left.

Oh and I used the image because the writer blocked me as soon after I replied. Nothing upsets the left more than being called out.

Finally I’ve been saying for a while that the goal of the left has been to produce a “Kent State” moment where they can put a body of a dead useful idiot on display as an attack on their enemies.

Now they have their bodies, but alas for them it wasn’t the national guard or federal troops who produced them.

The media spin on this is going to be very interesting.

Report from Louisiana: Week One – Done

Posted: August 24, 2020 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – Schools across the country are opening up, some all virtual, some all in-person, and some a hybrid mix A/B schedule. School districts are making decisions about transparency and how much information to share with the public with regard to Covid exposures and outbreaks. These policies differ from district to district.

When making decisions about exposure transparency several factors seem to be at play. First to consider is patient privacy, of course. Some districts are interested in image and in containing community panic. Others are wide open and are making weekly disclosure announcements.

In exploring this same topic last week, The New York Times spoke with Dr. Ashish Jha, of the Harvard Global Health Institute, who said “If schools don’t notify, it actually can make disease control more difficult. And it’s not like no one will know. Word will get out through a rumor mill. You don’t scare people by telling them what’s going on. You scare them by hiding information.”

Personally, I think communities should be informed, but I do see the problem if it is a very small community where patient identity would be obvious.

Most districts are choosing to notify only close contacts who might need to quarantine, and the rumor mill is taking care of the rest. This is a poor system.

I teach high school, and we had four days of inservice and training of the new programs that will support virtual learning, and then we had students for two days so far on an A/B hybrid schedule. We get half of our students on an A day and the other half on the B day, then they alternate Fridays.  This is my twenty-fifth year to teach high school, and it was the first year that I felt sad at the end of the day. There were no hugs, no high-fives, and no smiles that I could see because everyone was wearing a mask.

Many people were so anxious for schools to open so we could “get back to normal,” but let me tell you, this is in no way normal. When the bus drops kids off they go straight to a homeroom, or to the cafeteria to pick up a grab and go breakfast in a big Ziploc bag, then they go to homeroom. Everyone sits in homeroom until the first bell at 7:25. We are six feet apart, and there are no more than ten kids in any classroom at one time.

Same procedure for lunch.  The kids never go outside, and can’t let loose and relax much at lunch, because they are sitting six feet apart in a desk.

This is not normal.

Classes aren’t even normal. There are no group projects – we have to sit in straight rows all facing the front. Some elementary teachers have spent their own money to build plexiglass partitions and cubicles for students to avoid the rows.

The halls are quiet because you can’t stop and socialize – six feet apart.

It’s just very surreal and dystopian and it made me sad.

My colleagues and I are trying as hard as we can to find solutions, to break the monotony, to be engaging. To make them laugh, to feel safe, to feel welcome.

But this is not normal school. It still is better than 100% virtual for some students, that is certain. There is still bound to be a little bit of social stimulation here.

But outbreaks and exposures are already happening. I personally know of several in quarantine after only two days. I take precautions – I’ve bought a HEPA air purifier for my classroom (out of my own pocket.) We wipe down Chromebooks between each student, and desks, all day long. At the end of the day the custodians come in with foggers to kill any lingering virus. We have to exit our classrooms right after the students leave, so no more long afternoons at my desk catching up on grading. When I come home, I leave my shoes outside, change and shower immediately. The clothes go straight into the washer.

Meanwhile, a large part of the general public tells us teachers to quit whining, that grocery clerks, medical personnel, and other frontline workers have been working since March. Suck it up. I’m in my classroom from 9:05 – 2:15 with kids, with no personal break. None. I’m eating breakfast and lunch with them. (First block is my planning block, so after breakfast in have 90 minutes to take care of things prepping for the day). Cleaning. Sanitizing. Worrying – did I miss something?

I’m already exhausted, and I can’t imagine how my kids feel.

And if that’s not enough on anyone’s plate, here in Louisiana we have two hurricanes rolling in this week. TWO. IN THE SAME WEEK.

 I mean, really. Stop, already.

I’m not having a pity party, I promise. I love my job, and I love my school and my students, but I worry – this is not normal school. And if parents thought that’s what they were getting, it’s just not. Basically, they are getting virtual school, in person.  And they may or may not be notified if there is an exposure in their child’s school.

Even with all that, the kids really do seem happy to be back! And I’ll do everything in my power to keep it that way.

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.

Just Words

Posted: August 22, 2020 by datechguy in politics, Uncategorized
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The Biden campaign, planning for every contingency it seems, recently wargamed a situation where, in the event Trump won re-election, the entire West Coast would secede, and the public would wait to see what the military would do. Democratic insider John Podesta played the role of Biden in their scenario, and refused to concede, prompting the secession.

Secession is all the rage these days among the Left, which always seems to fester among the losing side in any election. (Which makes me wonder about all those polls showing Biden ahead.) Along these lines, just this past Thursday, NPR featured the author Richard Kreitner on its morning news shows, Morning Edition. Kreitner was pushing his new book, a history of American secessionism. Kreitner has previously written for the Nation and Slate and currently lives in Brooklyn, so I think it’s safe to call him a leftist.

Kreitner’s book purports to examine whether “it’s time to break up” the United States. Of course, Kreitner assured the listener, while he didn’t “want” states to secede, he also didn’t see why California should have the same number of senators as Wyoming. My way or the highway, essentially.

You hear this argument quite a bit among the Left, actually. The tyranny of the Senate. California has so many times the population as Wyoming, so why should they have the same number of senators? A cursory glance at some of Vox legal writer Ian Milhiser’s ravings will reveal similar sentiments.

Memo to the Left: California should have the same number of senators as Wyoming because California agreed to have the same numbers of senators as every other state when it applied to join the Union in 1850.

No surprise the Democrats put little weight in words. From Kamala Harris laughing off her earlier condemnations of Joe Biden’s sexual predations as merely the stuff of a “debate,” to Bill Clinton dancing around the definition of “is,” Democrats treat words as things to be twisted and manipulated, not to be backed up with conviction. Joe Matthews, a journalist for Zocalo Public Square, claimed on NPR that it was good that Kamala Harris had no conviction, because it allowed her to blow wherever “the wind blows.”

Words are supposed to mean something. To fewer and fewer Democrats, they don’t.

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