Truck Trudeau and the rest of the Covid totalitarians

Posted: February 3, 2022 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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Being the first to connect Trudeau with the word truck, as in the not so polite version of “Let’s Go Brandon,” is another thing I cannot claim credit for.  I first encountered it in this photo, taken by an unknown photographer, which I saw on Facebook.

For more than twenty months I’ve been waiting for organized resistance to all of the Covid tyranny to begin in earnest.  As each month has gone by without widespread revolt I’ve been getting more and more agitated and disheartened.  Because the United States has always been the land of the free, I expected that the people here would have put an end to all of this tyrannical nonsense well over a year ago. 

I got my hopes up too many times, as it appeared that all of these mandates, passports, and lockdowns would all be swept away by an orgy of mass protest, that appeared to be igniting, only to see the flames sputter out.

Finally there appears to be a mass movement, camped out in Ottawa, that could bring an end to the totalitarian nightmare in Canada. 

So far the Canadian Government has not backed down. They are actually considering imposing new mandates.   Trudeau has demonstrated tremendous courage during the mass protest by fleeing to an unknown location.

The protests have been peaceful.  Yet that has not prevented the chief of the Ottawa police from threatening them.

Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly told reporters on Monday that “all options are on the table,” including “enforcement,” to end an ongoing protest led by truckers in the Canadian capital against the country’s onerous anti-coronavirus mandates that Sloly himself admitted had led to no injuries or violence.

These convoys are spreading.  One is planned for Australia, one for the United States, and several in Europe.  Gould this finally be the end of our totalitarian nightmare?

The Real Scandal in the Brian Flores Story out of Miami

Posted: February 3, 2022 by datechguy in nfl, Sports
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The Brian Flores suit charging systematic racism against the NFL has been the subject of a lot of talk on sports radio and a lot of beating of breasts.

All of this comes from the so called “Rooney Rule” which requires a minority candidate to be interviewed for any coaching position that opens up. This of course creates tokenism and thanks to the accidental Belichick text that Flores received Flores, who is in my opinion and excellent coach, was called up to interview for the Giants job after it was already given to someone else.

This in itself is not a surprise as when you create a rule that encourages “pro-forma” interviews you are going to get them, but whatever you think of Flores charges of racism his charges include in my opinion a much larger and more significant scandal that everyone seems to be passing over.

One of Flores’ charges is that Miami after a bad start offered him a six figure bonus per game lost to improve their draft prospects. To in effect, THROW GAMES.

Flores being a disciple of Bill Belichick and as I noted, an excellent coach an apparently an honorable man didn’t bite and turned his team around so that after a bad start they finished with a winning record just shy of a playoff birth. Miami played spoiler to the Patriots and only missing the playoffs due to a loss to the #1 seed in the conference in the 2nd to last game of the season. When I and the guys who drive into work with me heard he was fired by Miami we were all shocked but if his charge concerning the bounty for lost game is true then it explains a lot.

Given the expansion of sports betting around the nation I can’t think of anything that could be more damaging to the game of football, not even the woke bullshit, then the idea that teams might be directing coaches to lose. This, and not the race angle, should be the real scandal here and I suspect Flores unwillingness to play ball in throwing games is the real reason why he hasn’t gotten a coaching position that he is eminently qualified for.

But because that scandal would be more damming and if investigated if suspect would be discovered to be more prevalent around the league then anyone wants to admit and has the potential to curb the betting that can draw a lot of extra eyes to the games, it will be downplayed or ignored.

Unexpectedly of course.

Closing thought: Why the leagues don’t see what widespread gambling is going to do to the various leagues is beyond me.

All Good Things Must Come to an End

Posted: February 2, 2022 by datechguy in business, entertainment, fun, pinball
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Today is February 2nd the feast of the Presentation of the Lord and the 40th day after Christmas.

Under the old church calendar this day marked the end of the Christmas season which under the current calendar ends on the feast of the Baptism of the Lord.

By an odd coincidence this also marks the end of the Christmas gift my sons got me because today the good folks at Bushey Brothers came down to pick up the pinball machine that they dropped off on the 2nd day of Christmas Dec 26th.

The storm that hit New England snowed him in badly so I ended up with four extra days which meant this Christmas gift lasted the entire traditional Christmas season. My best score of 65,7 Million but alas that was only good enough for 3rd as my youngest scored 66.4 million and on his next visit managed over 91 million.

Most arcades these days that are not pay one price tend to charge between .75 & a buck a game and with over 300 games played on this machine in the time I had it it was pretty much like going to the arcade on a daily basis. Here is our exit interview:

I highly recommend such a rental as a gift and if you’re so inclined you can find the Bushey Brothers on facebook here.

‘American Pie’ turns 50

Posted: February 1, 2022 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
Tags: ,

By Christopher Harper

“American Pie,” the iconic ballad that chronicled social and musical history during the 1960s, has turned 50.

Don McLean, the author and singer of the eight-minute-long tune, has launched a 65-city tour in the United States and Europe to belt out the tale of taking a Chevy to the levee, which actually was a bar rather than part of a river.

Throughout the years, people have tried to untangle the meaning of the lyrics, which reflect the downward spiral of the United States in the 1960s.

If you want all of the interpretations of the song, here they are: https://americansongwriter.com/american-pie-don-mclean-meaning-lyrics-50-years-later/

The top of the pops from American Songwriter:

–“The song is about the nostalgia that comes with closing a chapter in time. A chapter that was good, youthful, and innocent. The song starts in the late 1950s, where both McLean himself and the post-World War II American sentiment were still sincere and innocent, if also blindingly naive. And as we know, naivety and innocence are always lost. For McLean, it was lost when he discovered that his favorite musicians, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, had died in a plane crash—the day the music died. And for America, it came when the utopia of the 1950s was exposed as a veneer, giving way to the more socially conscious, but turbulent 1960s.”

–“Everything became more political in the 1960s. [President John] Kennedy was assassinated, and the courtroom was adjourned with no verdict, as Lee Harvey Oswald was killed prior to judicial proceedings. The Helter Skelter murders happened during that sweltering summer, which, if not expressly political, was certainly ideological. 

Music was no exception to all the politicization. John Lennon was reading from the book of Marx, as The Beatles released songs invoking revolution and even referencing China’s Mao.”

–The Levee was a bar in New Rochelle, New York, where McLean drank with his friends. 

What’s refreshing about McLean is he hasn’t turned into a nattering nabob of negativism like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell.

In a recent interview with Fox Digital, McLean underlined the positive values he learned in his youth, which are sadly lacking today. 

“The America now is not the America I started out in,” said McLean. “And it’s not the America that I was in before I started out … The America that I remember in the 1950s when I was growing up and was a young boy and teenager — that’s the America I knew and the value system I knew.”

He also pointed out that “so many people today make it sound like the America of the ’50s was some horrible White racist country, and it’s disgusting the way [some] people have characterized our country. There was a wonderful civility [back then]; there was trust; doors were open; we had the No. 1 colleges in the world; and we were No. 1, for real.”

Rock on, Don! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RciM7P9K3FA

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