Posts Tagged ‘datechguy's magnificent seven’

Da Magnificent Seven Minus One or What the #AB5 ever Happened to Baldilocks?

Posted: July 11, 2020 by datechguy in dablog
Tags: ,

Over the 12 years of this blogs life there have been few constants but since the introduction of DaMagnificent Seven Bloggers seeing Juliette “Baldilocks” Ochieng every Saturday night became a regular feature of the site.

And when Fausta Wertz ended up leaving due to illness Juliette started posting twice a week picking up Tuesday nights. She has brought plenty of traffice to the site and her pieces have been worth every penny I’ve paid her over the years.

However if you have been reading the blog this year you might have noticed that you’ve seen less and less than her. First her twice a week posts became once a week, then it became every other week it became once a week, then they were gone.

The good news it that it’s not due to illness, Juliette is feeling fine, nor is it a matter of a drop in quality. I’ve been delighted with her work and her opinions and insights for years and she is just as sharp as she has been since day one.

Alas the culprit here is the State of California or to be specific the AB5 law.

Under this law if a contractor produces beyond a particular amount of contract work said contractor must be hired as a full time employee subject to all the laws of a normal full time workers rather than as a contributor to a magazine or site.

And while I love her work I simply can’t justify such an expense which would be beyond what we bring in, furthermore if I ignore this law being in Massachusetts I might face a suit from California that would be even more expensive.

So until AB5 is repealed or January rolls around I’m afraid you won’t be seeing new posts authored by Baldilocks. But even more importantly this means Juliette will not be able to earn the money I would have paid her for those posts and the bonus I would give her every time she brought an Instalance to the site.

So while I’m always delighted when anyone hits DaTipJar I’d like to ask an odd favor.

If you have the time, the cash and the inclination consider heading over to her own site here and hit her tip jar to help make up for the dollars that she will not make from the 75 posts that she will not write on the site this year.

I would appreciate it and so would she.

The politicization of science has a staggeringly high body count

Posted: July 9, 2020 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , ,

As I’ve watched the media coverage of the Coronavirus pandemic unfold over the past several months I am continually amazed at how all aspects of the science associated with this crisis has been politicized.

Right from the beginning, when the computer models predicted a death total in the millions, the politicization was evident.  Those scientists that were predicting a far lower death count did not get anywhere near the same news converge, especially on the mainstream news stations. Could it be that the liberal journalists and politicians thought if they could generate enough hysteria governors would have no option other than shutting down states, collapsing the economy in the process just so they could influence the 2020 election?  How many businesses were destroyed because of the lockdowns?  How many deaths will result from suicides and delayed diagnosis thanks to the lockdowns? How many will have died needlessly because of the media attacks on the drug hydroxychloroquine? That was done solely because President Trump praised the drug.  Requiring masks is another example of the politicization of science.

The politicization of science is not new.  In the 1960s it led to the banning of the pesticide DDT.  This article sheds a lot of light on that deadly fiasco: Millions Died Thanks to the Mother of Environmentalism

Since the mid-1970s, when DDT was eliminated from global eradication efforts, tens of millions of people have died from malaria unnecessarily: most have been children less than five years old. While it was reasonable to have banned DDT for agricultural use, it was unreasonable to have eliminated it from public health use.

The science behind the banning of DDT did not hold up at all.

Environmentalists have argued that when it came to DDT, it was pick your poison. If DDT was banned, more people would die from malaria. But if DDT wasn’t banned, people would suffer and die from a variety of other diseases, not the least of which was cancer. However, studies in Europe, Canada, and the United States have since shown that DDT didn’t cause the human diseases Carson had claimed.

The politicization of science reached an absurd level with all of this global warming, climate change, global climate disruption nonsense.  It is difficult to measure a body count associated with that scientific malpractice but it is there because of impacts on developing nations being denied the use of cheap fossil fuel energy sources.

No politicization of science is more deadly that the politicization associated with abortion.  Only absolute scientific fraud can deny the unmistakable scientific evidence that an unborn child is actually a live human being.  The website Wordmeter documents just how many abortions happen worldwide:

According to WHO, every year in the world there are an estimated 40-50 million abortions. This corresponds to approximately125,000 abortions per day.

Report from Louisiana: Opening School

Posted: July 6, 2020 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
Tags: , , ,

By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – We are about five weeks from opening school in Louisiana, and teachers are beginning to get anxious. Certainly parents and students are as well, but teachers are natural planners and we like to know the lay of the land with as much advance notice as possible.

Districts across the nation have started releasing tentative plans, but we all know that could change on a dime. Most look like hybrid plans – part virtual school, part in-person. There are also all-virtual options for parents who don’t feel comfortable sending their kids back to school just yet.

I see a lot of concern about masks; both teachers and students are generally going to be expected to wear masks to school. I see lots of concern about social distancing, about number of students in a classroom, and about spacing kids out on the bus.

What I don’t see a lot of is concern for the teacher. In discussion threads I’ve been reading, many parents can’t wait to get their kids back to school, for a variety of reasons, and many seem comfortable that their kids will be safe. After all, it’s older folks who are mostly catching COVID-19, not young kids. We haven’t seen a lot of outbreaks in day care centers, I’m told.

Teachers across the country have a great deal of anxiety about returning to the classroom. There are a great many teachers near retirement age, or that are currently eligible to retire but just haven’t wanted to. These are the teachers expressing the most concern right now; many of us are caring for elderly family members or are in an at-risk group ourselves. Some of us live with immunocompromised people. So yes, we are invested in being certain that school opens safely.

From ABC News:

Some teachers around the country say they are nervous about returning because of underlying health conditions or concerns about infecting family members. Others say they are frustrated by the lack of clear guidance from officials about what’s safe. And for some, it’s about child care if their own kids are only back at school for a handful of days during the week.

The result is an inevitable clash between leaders pushing aggressive reopening policies in states like Texas and Florida and teachers, some of whom say local officials need to think more about what they are asking teachers to do.

There is so much conflicting information, it is difficult to believe anything or to truly know what is safe and what isn’t. After months of social distancing and stay at home orders, how can we just return to school with any degree of certainty that things will be safe?

Overall, a combined 54 percent of American voters said they are somewhat uncomfortable or very uncomfortable with reopening K-12 schools for the beginning of the coming school year, according to the latest POLITICO/Morning Consult poll that assessed the nation’s mood about students returning to day cares and schools shut down by the pandemic.

Some districts are offering either virtual learning or in-person learning that “almost totally” disregards CDC guidelines because social distancing won’t be possible and students might not be wearing masks, said Daniel A. Domenech, executive director of a school superintendents association.

“A lot of states along the Southern belt are just planning to move ahead with, all students, all come, and to me, that is going to be a horror,” he said.

And on the issue of masks, many school districts are recommending them but can’t mandate them unless they supply them. Or can they? How is it different than a mandated dress code? And what if a student refuses? What about students with asthma or other concerns?

So many unknowns.

And yes, we still have a few weeks. Things can change very quickly as we all know.

But I worry.

I worry about bring this virus into my home. I worry about getting sick, myself. I worry about exposing so many more people to the virus by opening schools and all that brings.  So many surfaces to clean! Where will all those Lysol wipes come from!? This is certainly a logistical nightmare for district decision-makers on so many levels.

What are your thoughts on the new school year? Would you be comfortable sending your kids into a public school in five weeks?

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.

Ham Radio, Homebrew, and great political conversations

Posted: July 2, 2020 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
Tags: ,

I’m writing this week’s article from a rather unusual location – in a tent, in the middle of a farmer’s field, out in the boondocks of Thompson Connecticut.  Surrounding me are three other tents, a few camping trailers, four generators, a bunch of laptop computers, and over a dozen radio transceivers.  Strung up in the trees is about a mile of wires in the form of antennas.  The day before this was an empty field and tomorrow afternoon it will be an empty field again. 

This is my station

The two dozen individuals gathered with me in the middle of this field for the weekend have two things in common, we are all ham radio operators and we all belong to the Eastern Connecticut Amateur Radio Association.  All across this country thousands of clubs gathered in similar locations and thousands of individuals operated from their homes. This weekend all of us Amateur Radio operators are taking part in the single largest emergency communications exercise in the world, which is known as Field Day. 

Field Day is something we Amateur Radio operators take very serious because emergency communications is the heart and soul of Amateur Radio.  Whenever there is a major disaster such as a hurricane or an earthquake the only communications into and out of the affected area is through Amateur Radio.  We provide essential communications during medium and small scale disasters also. 

For the weekend my club, which is a small club, set up five complete stations.  All of the stations are completely self contained, running on either generators or deep cycle marine batteries charged by solar panels.  The wire antennas are all strung up in trees by ropes.  From these portable stations we were able to contact over a thousand similar stations all across the United States and many across the globe.  I personally talked to France and Sotland along with 30 states..

All year round we plan for Field Day and we continuously practice our emergency communications skills and test our equipment.

Field Day is also a social event.  We always have a potluck supper and we gather together all weekend just to gab.  The club I belong to is one of the hardier clubs, we decided to hold our usual Field Day despite the Coronavirus. 

The social aspect of Field Day allows me to combine two of my other favorite hobbies, brewing beer and engaging political discussions.  Every year for Field Day I brew up a batch of Field Day Amber beer and bring it to share with everyone.  It is always a big hit with the club members. 

Even though we are located in New England there is a large percentage of conservatives and libertarians in our club.  All sides of the political spectrum get along great in our club.  The Coronavirus did not deter any of us right wingers from attending.  This weekend I engaged in a great many enjoyable political discussions with fellow patriots and many liberals.   Beer and political discussions go so great together,

Older Entries
Newer Entries