Archive for the ‘under the fedora’ Category

Under the Fedora: Somebody is Listening, The Hollywood China Post?, The Liberal Body Cam Backfire, Ignorance vs principle, Bring back the Last Gospel, and the Patriots Catch up with Bill Russell

Posted: February 8, 2026 by datechguy in under the fedora
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I’ve been arguing for some time that instead of getting rid of the filibuster the rules should be changed so that to you have to hold an actual filibuster, that is, holding the floor continually to stop a bill like it always had been instead of doing the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy version where they just assume that since they have the votes we all pretend that there is one.

Apparently somebody is listening:

“We ought to nuke the zombie filibuster and require a talking filibuster if Democrats want to try to block it,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, wrote in a post on X, referring to the bill that Republicans argue is essential to ensuring “election integrity.”

“The modern-day filibuster is a perversion of how the Senate was supposed to function,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., one of the loudest proponents of the legislation, wrote in a post on X this week. “Instead of arguing positions and attempting to pass legislation, it has become a way to avoid doing the work and to block the President’s agenda in the name of institutional supremacy, even though most of the senators got elected with help from POTUS.”

I for one would be delighted to have democrats on record saying that women & minorities are so ignorant that they can’t get a photo id for voting when they have to show one for everything else.

Given that my own job is about to disappear in the next 90 days the whining by the Washington Post Guild about layoffs really strikes me the wrong way.

The argument that the owner should happily lose money to keep it open seems a joke.

But what I’m not seeing is the obvious alternative.

If they’re convinced that there is a demand for what they are offering why not find financial backers to open an alternative to the paper. Surely there must be plenty of people in the woke crowd making seven figures or more who would love to be owners of a Newspaper and with all of Hollywood backing you should have no problem getting such a venture off the ground.

Show us how it can be a profit making business for them all & how vital those post employers are.

The fact that this is not happening and that even China doesn’t find it worth financing such anti Trump propaganda through you speaks volumes.

Ronald Reagan famously said: “The trouble with our Liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.” the best example of this had been the huge backfire that police body cams have been to the left’s narratives.

While there have been cases of cops turning the cameras off in situations, which rightly raise suspicion of misconduct in those situations the vast majority of the times said cameras show police trying to calm situations in the face of violent screaming and/or unhinged people resisting arrest of threatening them.

This has been a giant shock to the narrative that so many in the left bought into for years and now that the question of Body cameras for ICE agents is coming up some of the left aren’t all that pleased with the idea.

Congressional Democratic leaders have made universal use of body cameras one of their prime demands for imposing accountability on Immigration and Customs Enforcement, especially after federal agents fatally shot two American citizens in Minneapolis. But after an outcry from privacy advocates that surveillance tools will allow ICE agents to identify and track protesters, Democrats are also calling for restrictions on how the body cameras can be used.

Or to put it simply if Body cams show that these “protests” are not organic & can identify people who are constantly bussed or flown from one protest to another the whole narrative breaks down.

Furthermore while video of protestors violating civil rights of others who disagree or calling black ICE agents “Nigger” to their faces might play well with millions of violent leftists, in the end a million violent leftists in a country of 330 million is far less that then tens or even hundreds of millions who would be applauded by these actions show leftist thugs for the violent lunatics’ that they are.

Democrats hate transparency

One of the things that I’ve observed in life that has surprised me over the years is not how many people don’t know things, but how many people don’t WANT to know things.

You see knowledge carries with it responsibility. If you don’t know something you can’t be held responsible for it. It was the go to defense of Germans in 1945 who claimed ignorance of the death camps and in fact two of the three conditions necessary for Mortal Sin which if un-repented & unconfessed brings damnation are full knowledge & deliberate consent. (although the church teaches that deliberate ignorance to avoid knowledge doesn’t absolve responsibility)

So if you actually KNOW things, like that there is funny play with the ballots in Georgia, or that a daycare is collecting federal funs without without having kids or that the illegal aliens that ICE is hunting for in neighborhoods have criminal records and are being released by prisons & judges endangering the general public for political reasons they become very difficult to defend.

Must better to pretend it isn’t happening and be secure in your beliefs because once you know it becomes a moral choice that needs to be made.

This came to mind when I was reading US Grant’s memoirs Vol 2 when he was meeting Lee to arrange the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia. Grant notes the following:

I then suggested to General Lee that there was not a man in the Confederacy whose influence with the soldiery and the whole people was as great as his, and that if he would now advise the surrender of all the armies I had no doubt his advice would be followed with alacrity. But Lee said, that he could not do that without consulting the President first. I knew there was no use to urge him to do anything against his ideas of what was right.

(emphasis mine)

Personal Memoirs US Grant 1885

I would very proud if anyone, particularly an enemy, thought that about me. I frankly & regretfully think a lot of both the political & social media world functions on the exact opposite principle.

56 years after the change in the Catholic Mass there are still those who debate the change and argue for the Latin Mass.

I’ve been to Latin masses both Sunday and daily & while I find them in many ways more reverent I don’t find it superior to the vernacular mass, nor do I find it inferior.

My thought is as a Catholic looking to keep souls out of hell the more people who go to mass the better so I’d encourage having both masses available if doing so gets a larger amount of total people getting to mass. I want people in heaven, I’m indifferent to which devotions, which saints they venerate & which mass they use to do so.

All that being said if there was one change I would make to the current standard Mass it would be the return of the Last Gospel which is read at the Traditional Latin Mass just before dismissal.

That is John 1:1-14 which I include below:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

A man named John was sent from God. He came for testimony, to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came to be through him, but the world did not know him

He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him. But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision but of God.

And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.

This was once read at every Mass & every Catholic knew these words, which is the summery of who Jesus Christ was and is.

In my opinion it would be very healthy if every Catholic had this reminder on a weekly basis again.

Finally today is Superbowl Sunday and the New England Patriots are playing in their 12th Superbowl, their first in the post-Brady era.

This is the first time since in over twenty years that I’m not working the day the Pats are playing so I’ll be able to watch it for a change. But the Patriots have met a different milestone by this trip.

As I said this is the Patriots 12 trip to the Superbowl they are 6-5 going into this game (0-2 in games not started by Brady) as a team.

This means they finally matched Bill Russell’s record of 12 trips to the NBA finals. Of course Russell did better than the Pats. He went 11-1 in those twelve trips, two of them as player-coach of the team.

You can argue that the Pats are more impressive since NFL playoffs are one and done so it only takes one bad game or one bad break (think the helmet catch) to lose so they had to be excellent just to get their and flawless to win.

On the other hand in a best of 7 series the best team generally wins and Bill Russell’s Celtics teams managed to win best of seven series 11 times out of 12. So there’s no question who the better team was.

Five Christmas Season Thoughts Under the Fedora: The Standard of How Great the US is, Human Progress Two Measures, Too accustomed to Trump’s Success or A Psi-op? $2.63 That’s five water/sewer bills and Temps, Finally Yes Minister in Minnesota

Posted: December 28, 2025 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, economy, under the fedora
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For all the horrible things our friends on the left say about America being racist, sexist unequal etc etc etc let me make one important point.

This horrible America of which you speak is so great that given the choice between going back to their own countries at no cost to themselves with $3000 in their pockets (An amount higher than the average yearly income in 54 countries) or staying in the US and risking arrest and deportation the majority choose the former.

On twitter today saw a post about how difficult it was to program back in the punch card era compared to today when you can literally ask a AI to create code for you. The fellow marveled at the progress in just 50 years and he’s right about that but let me tell you want progress really is:

Being able to feed a family of four a hot meal with meat for less than an hour wages? THAT’s human progress that king and princes could only dream of.

It’s very easy to forget that Donald Trump has been back in office for less than a year. This is because of his insane work ethic and the breakneck speed that things have been

The amount of things he has managed to get done in these first 11 months is so vast that any other president in history would have considered it a grand set of accomplishments for a full term and quite a few presidents would have been lucky to accomplish as much over two terms. Any person with a even a slight grasp of US history could see this.

Yet lately my X feed has been bombarded by posts aren’t happening fast enough in the Trump administration from cracking down on fraud to arrests, particularly arrests. The post seem unrelenting

I’m thinking this is one of two things or possibly both.

It could be that people just have gotten so used to Trump getting things done fast they can’t grasp the idea that getting things done in Washington is the exception not the rule. It’s sort of how Patriots fans were spoiled by Tom Brady basically making a trip to the Super bowl every other year and acting like something was wrong when we didn’t

It could also be a PSI-op to anger Trump supporters to trick them into staying home in 2026 and try to drive his numbers down.

Frankly if it was my job to try to foment dissent within MAGA that’s how I’d try do it.

One must always remember that most pols aren’t saints. There are some who will do the right thing out of principle (although they might disagree on what the “right thing” is) but in the end most will only do the right thing if the incentive is greater than doing the wrong thing or nothing at all.

That’s reality

When I went to mass yesterday I passed by the cheapest gas station in town which is conveniently located next to my church.

Gas was $2.63 a gallon. That’s a full 16 cents less per gallon than it was two months ago.

Over the course of a year that’s enough saving for me and DaWife to pay 5 water bills or allow us to go out to eat 5 times.

If that’s not enough Friday when I went to work there were no temps in the building.

That it itself is not unusual for the day after Christmas, but what WAS unusual is that Friday was the first day this month when there were no temps in the building.

Last year the temps were gone by December 3rd and at no time during the Biden presidency where they here for more than a week.

The Trump boom is coming in fact it might be already here.

One of the things about importing people from a different culture who don’t want to become Americans is importing a different value system.

A great illustration of this was shown nearly 50 years ago on the TV show “Yes Minister” in an episode called: “The Moral Dimension”

A great explanation of how this works comes from this excellent post on X

Key Quote:

The weird thing about this to me was that whenever I turned down such an offering, it was treated as a grave insult. I was the one in the wrong, and not the fraudster trying to bribe me. They considered it rude that I was in their country and refused to accept how things got done. After all, why did I not want to help my tribe by helping their tribe?

Let me repeat: in these cultures, FRAUD IS NOT EVEN A CONCEPT. There is only what helps your tribe.

They people have no concept that stealing is wrong, unless you’re stealing from them. The stealing doesn’t shock these folks, what shocks them is that we weren’t already doing it on the scale that they are.

Until that changes things won’t change.

Five Thoughts and Observations Under the Fedora: $269.9 Gas in Fitchburg, A Temporary Sign?, Open Roads, , Reagan 1981-84 redux? and A function of math not a Miracle of God

Posted: December 14, 2025 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, economy, politics, under the fedora
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This week I picked up my son from work and had him pump gas for me at the station near my church on Mechanic Street in Fitchburg because it’s the cheapest gas in town. The price was $273.9 and as I was almost empty it took a lot to fill it.

The very next day gas was at $269.9 which both annoyed me as I had filled up the day before but is a huge sign. If that price continues to drop it will mean an awful lot of extra cash in people’s pockets & a lowering of costs to every single business that gets a delivery by truck.

If this becomes a trend then it could be the sign of the turn in the economy that will change the dynamic in this country for 2026 or 2028.

Last year’s Christmas peak season, the final one of the Biden years was the shortest and weakest in my decade at the warehouse that I work at.

After dropping from 3 local warehouses to 1 during the 2nd year of Biden and losing our 2nd shift in the 3rd Biden year, last year’s peak lasted from Black Friday to Cyber Monday. By Tuesday every temp was gone and peak was finished with voluntary days off being offered.

Back during Trump’s first term we would be flat out for 3-4 weeks from Black Friday on, we’d have 10 hour days and at least one mandatory overtime day a week. We would bring in 100’s of temps to keep up with the work who would usually be kept till about the 14th or 20th of December with about a tenth of them, the best, kept on for the returns season who would eventually become full time employees.

In the first “peak” of the 2nd Trump term we’re not at that level but numbers were higher than expected and our temps were still here on last Friday (albeit they left two hours early that day). Word is we will be busy next week.

Even if the temps aren’t there tomorrow we would have kept them a full two weeks longer than last year. Does that mean the economy has turned around? I can’t say but it’s a data point.

There has been one more interesting sign of the times.

I generally try to leave for work by 6:20 AM to be at my place of work by 6:50-6:55 for my 7 AM shift.

Now when I worked every Sunday I knew I could leave as late as 6:30-6:35 and still (barring accidents on the highways) get to work in that time period but as a rule if it’s a school day and I leave for work anytime after 6:25 AM getting to work on time is iffy and leaving at 6:30 meant I’d have to punch in before I head to the cafeteria to put my lunch in the cooler to hit the grace period and have any shot of avoiding being late.

For reasons I won’t get into I’ve been running very late this week not leaving before 6:25 AM four of five days and leaving as late as 6:33 one day this week. Yet every single day the traffic has been so light that I’ve made it to work with plenty of time to spare. In fact the day I left on time I had so much spare time that I almost forgot to punch in as I sat waiting for the day to start.

Now Massachusetts being as blue as it gets has been fighting back on ICE’s attempts to apprehend illegal immigrants but that hasn’t stopped raids in Boston, Worcester and even in my city of Fitchburg from taking place.

I have no idea if this has effected the traffic coming north from Worcester or east from Gardner. People might be staying home because of the cold but I find the sudden end to the normal morning congestion on school days…interesting.

One of the advantages of age is being able to recognize patterns in history repeating not from books but from memory.

Back in the late 70’s the Carter economy was in the toilet which led to Ronald Reagan’s famous words:

As you know Reagan beat Carter and the economy took off, but it didn’t do so right away. The first year of Reagan was a tough one as he got his agenda passed and it wasn’t until 1982 that we saw signs of what would become one of the best economies of my lifetime. Alas for Reagan it didn’t happen fast enough for him to keep the Senate but it did happen fast enough for him to crush Mondale in 1984 so completely that even the blue states of Massachusetts, New York & California voted for him.

The Trump recovery which I’ve noted some signs of in this post is coming. I don’t know if it will come fast enough to save the House in 2026 but I know when it’s in full swing it’s going to make JD Vance a tough customer to beat in 2028, particularly if the best the left can come up with is Gavin Newsome or an AOC wannabe.

I feel very optimistic about the future & I suspect that as I near my retirement my country will be in good hands.

A few days ago I saw this tweet from Benny Johnson:

While I have seen more than my share of actual miracles from God (after a while they become almost mundane) this is not a miracle of God it’s a function of math as I noted in my reply:

For the last 60 years the left has promoted birth control, abortion, homosexuality & transgenderism even to the point of spaying their own kids. When you do that for two generations the population of people who believe what you do naturally decreases.

Meanwhile I’ve seen over the last few years a large rise in large families at church not quite at the 1940’s & 1950’s levels but getting there. Put simply Christians keep having kids and thus naturally are starting to catch up on unbelievers who don’t.

If the westerners had kids at the same rate they did in 1930 Islamic immigration even at the levels they have in Europe & Canada would have little effect.

Assorted Thoughts Under the Fedora: A Commie Plot? , Even Worse, A four hour gap, Common Ground for Russia & Ukraine , and not there yet

Posted: August 10, 2025 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, politics, under the fedora, war
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On twitter this week I noticed a discussion on pot and found myself retelling the story of visiting the school where my wife worked as school nurse 20 years ago and the big chart with the human body on it and pointing to all the various functions that Pot impaired or damaged. All of that science is still valid but during the discussion something hit me.

I’ve often argued that our foes decided during the Reagan Years that they couldn’t outspend us so they decided that they would instead of strictly investing in weapons they would invest in our institutions because people were cheaper to buy and lasted longer. An examination of our higher and even high school educational system suggests today suggests our foes dollars were well spent.

But I also wonder if they invested in the pushes to legalize Pot to grant us all the social and general societal problems that a culture where a good sized percentage of the population is stoned. This might sound odd but I noticed one thing in my research…

…none of our enemies have made pot legal in their countries, NONE!

Just a coincidence I’m sure.

I was going through my archives for my tribute piece for former DaTechGuyblog writer Christopher Harper who died last month and I found myself revisiting the days after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump and the media reaction to it.

They seemed completely taken aback that we had such outrage over it and were even more put out by any suggestion that their rhetoric had anything to do with it.

Six months into his term we find that the Democrats have normalized violence to such a degree that if Trump was shot tomorrow you would have members of the press saying, “He had it coming.” without any shame.

And people wonder why Trump isn’t giving these bastards a pass this term.

If you’re a conservative you might have watched one of the many videos of the left on election night going from the anticipation of victory to the agony of defeat.

There is a lot of snickering watching it but there is one part that really jumps out at me that nobody seems to talk about.

Early in the day they kept stressing the indicators that Kamala was going to win the day and that Trump was in huge trouble and that particularly Hispanics were abandoning him etc etc etc and as soon as real number came out suddenly pivoted to “we always knew it would be close”

How is it that none of the “conservatives” at the table called out the folks for literally pivoting on a dime from a desired lie to the facts on the ground within just a few hours?

I really can’t see how anyone considers anything these people say even the least bit credible.

As you might know Donald Trump will be meeting with Putin this week in Alaska to discuss ending the war in Ukraine.

There is a lot of talk, most of it just noise, concerning this meeting but there is one disadvantage that Trump has that nobody seems to be bringing up.

While both Ukraine and Russia have reason to want the war to end the reality is the one thing both Putin and Zelenskyy have in common is this: Neither of them is anxious to give Donald Trump a victory on the international stage such as achieving a peach deal would generate.

It’s really possible, I might even say probable that one or BOTH of them given the choice of peace, even with a deal to their advantage, or defeating Trump they might choose the latter.

That’s how bent things have become.

Finally you might remember the serial fan fiction story hosted here crossing over Doctor Who, The Great Escape, Superman and Hogan’s Heroes. Well on twitter this morning Grok’s image generator was being lionized so I’d thought I’d put it to the test.

I asked it to generate an image of Superman standing before the escaped allied prisoners looking completely surprised with a pile of spent machine gun slugs at his feet.

I got a four legged superman sitting down on the ground in front of a bunch of Nazi soldiers. I kept telling the AI the things it needed to fix and some things like the man of steel having the right number of legs did get fixed but in the end I gave up as it seems incapable of generating the image according to my instructions.

It’s still impressive to see how far we’ve come in a few decades but it’s not where it pretends to be, at least not the free version on X.

The day will come.

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