Posts Tagged ‘datechguy's magnificent seven’

Opioids are no joke

Posted: June 11, 2022 by navygrade36bureaucrat in Uncategorized
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The opioid addiction crisis in America has been in the news for quite a few years now. It tends to elicit the same politically-motivated responses from each side. The Left seems to ignore it mostly (since it hits a large portion of rural America that doesn’t vote for them), but occasionally someone uses it to argue for more lenient drug laws and better rehab options. The Right uses it to argue for more money for rural areas and occasionally rails about Big Pharma.

It’s hard to really understand what motivates someone addicted to opioids if you’re a regular person like me that doesn’t use illicit drugs. But I got a taste of it this past week. I had surgery last Friday on my shoulder to repair the over 18 years of damage the Navy has done to me, shoving me in submarines, airplanes and other small spaces that I was probably never meant to fit into. It all caught up, so I spent over two hours with a surgeon poking around my shoulder and repairing the various tears and installing a lot of anchors. When it was all finished, my brother-in-law drove me home with a large pack of medications, one of which was oxycodone.

Now, I’ve never had any narcotics, so I was careful to take the oxycodone on the prescribed schedule. By Sunday, I felt awesome. Sure, my arm was still in a sling and I was slowly working it back into a full range of motion, but I still felt great. I was walking around the house just fine, enjoyed being outside in my garden showing my kids what vegetable to pick, and I did plenty of “Netflix and chill.”

The chill dropped off on Tuesday. My prescription ran out, and that morning I had physical therapy. I would describe the crash of my mood like the drop as sudden, awful and gut wrenching. The last case was definitely true, since I threw up after the physical therapist had tortured me for 30 minutes. I spent most of Tuesday on the couch with some sort of ice pack on my shoulder, wondering what pain the next 10 minutes will bring.

Wednesday was better, and I learned to work through my pain, and by Thursday I was back to a much happier place. That brief glimpse of how effective oxycodone was, and how my whole world changed just after going off it from a weekend of use, gave me a far better understanding of just how powerful addiction is and the difficulty in breaking it. I have a lot more sympathy for someone that is in constant pain and just wants to feel normal, and if you can take a tiny pill (my oxycodone was the size of my thumbnail) to make it all go away, why wouldn’t you?

I can’t say I know what the answer to the opioid crisis is, but I can say some of our assumptions are flawed. I don’t think most people want to be addicted. I knew that while it was easy to take that tiny pill to feel better, long term it was a bad idea. Thankfully I have a family that can support me sitting on a couch for a while. What about senior citizens that don’t have family? What about the many single people who don’t have adult kids or even neighbors to check in on them? Thrusting these people into a bucket labeled “deplorable addicts” denies them humanity and makes it too easy and convenient to ignore their plight.

We need some actual solutions to opioid addiction that preserve our use of these drugs to manage pain while recognizing the power they have to destroy our lives if we aren’t careful.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency. If you liked this article, why not donate to Da Tech Guy or purchase one of the author’s books on Amazon?

Democrats are destroying the United States because they are true believers

Posted: June 9, 2022 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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It is self evident that modern Democrats live in a fantasy world.  A world where the most fundamental natural laws do not exist.  In order to exist in that world they must ignore reality.   Facts and evidence are meaningless.  All that matters is what they feel and believe.   The state of conscious they inhabit resembles that of mystics who belong to a primitive religion. 

Progressivism, and all other offshoots of Marxism, are primitive religions who worship a harsh and unforgiving god, the all powerful State.  Modern Democrats follow the same Marxist religious belief system.

Every individual is free to believe whatever they wish.  No one has a right to force their beliefs on anyone else.  Unfortunately leftists believe they have every right to force their religious beliefs on the rest of humanity.  They force others to follow their belief system.

If an individual follows a belief system that is completely devoid of reality, that individual alone suffers the consequences.  Because leftists force others to follow their belief system, others suffer the consequences. When Democrats gain power over a community they try to force their belief system on everyone in that community.  The entire community then suffers the negative consequences.

This is exactly what is happening here in the United States. Ever since the Democrats stole the presidential election from Donald Trump they have been forcing their Marxist belief system on the entire United States,  The entire United States is paying the price for the Democrats denial of reality.

Democrats believe that man made climate change is destroying the planet, with every fiber of their being.  Man made climate change only exists in deeply flawed computer models.  Because of the belief in man made climate change, Democrats are destroying the economy of the United States, by forcing us to abandon fossil fuels, in favor of deeply flawed wind and solar power.  Millions are suffering because of skyrocketing gas prices.  How many will die during extreme cold and heat because of brownouts caused by the abandonment of fossil fuels to generate electricity, in favor of wind and solar.

Democrats believe Marxism is superior to capitalism, despite the devastation caused Marxism, compared to the overwhelming prosperity brought about by capitalism.  Because they believe this Democrats are destroying the economy of the United States.

Because Democrats believe their Marxist philosophies are superior to the founding principles of the United States, they have indoctrinated countless children into this mistaken belief system, destroying our education system, and potentially our entire nation.

I am a Roman Catholic.  I believe my religion is the best religion.  I know I have no right to force my religion on any other individual.  I have never tried to.  The United States would still be the freest and most prosperous nation if Democrats did not force their Marxist religion on everyone else, in direct violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

Report from Louisiana: Growing Frustration

Posted: June 6, 2022 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By: Pat Austin

ARNAUDVILLE LA – We are on the road again this week, down in south Louisiana. As it happens, this dysfunctional economy reaches all points of our nation, including tiny little Arnaudville in St. Landry parish.

Through our years traveling in this area, we’ve always known it to be a conservative stronghold; the more liberal elements of our voting population are over in New Orleans and that’s a whole ‘nother world, as they say. In south central Louisiana you find a lot of strong Catholic families who are of conservative belief in their politics. On top of that, this Cajun culture especially is comprised of hard working, independent people who want to raise their families, earn a living, and in many cases, build their business.

And so when you walk into a bakery, for example, and the proprietor is suffering because she can’t get the products she needs to create the goods she sells, the message hits home.

The frustration among business owners we’ve talked to around this part of the state is clear. One of the major issues right now is the cost of fuel; truckers are paying inflated prices for diesel, which is passed on to the business owner, which is passed on to the consumer. The bakery owner we talked to said she was told that the trucking company she uses is laying off drivers and others are shutting down completely. The smaller, independent companies can’t carry these prices increases much longer.

This is all anecdotal, but the fact is, we all see the higher gas prices. We talked to another business owner who can’t get the spirits and alcohol he uses in his bar business. They’re having to get creative in their mixology and sales. But, he said, in the end, they’re still losing money.

The story remains the same in nearly every shop, restaurant, business, that we’ve visited this week. Frustration is real. More and more people are talking about what I call “doomsday planning” – they’re putting in gardens and stocking up on basic supplies. We talked to one lady dining next to us in a restaurant this week who said she’s storing up cans of tuna, dried beans, water, just as a precaution. “I’ll still be able to eat; I’ll still be able to feed my family,” she said.

And that’s what it comes down to. People want to be able to provide for themselves and their families and pretty much nobody I’ve talked to wants any handouts.

I feel fairly certain this is the case throughout the country, not just in south Louisiana with perhaps the exception of those liberal pockets who want to keep making excuses about it being the fault of the conflict in the Ukraine. People around here scoff at that and are quick to remind that gas prices were rising long before that conflict erupted.

I’m not usually a worrier about things I can’t control, but I suspect all of this is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. And I also suspect that the midterms are going to be a bloodbath for the Democrats. People don’t like living like this and the only thing we can do about it is vote correctly.

America’s worst mayor, Lori Lightfoot, will announce she is running for a second term this week

Posted: June 5, 2022 by John Ruberry in crime, economy, elections, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

Now that New York’s Bill De Blasio has been term-limited out of office, America’s worst mayor is Lori Lightfoot of Chicago.

This week Lightfoot will announce she is running for a second term, from an unusual location, Chicago’s West Side, a largely overlooked part of the city, except in regard to violent crime. At her side, according to Fran Spielman of the Chicago Sun-Times, will be three West Side aldermen, each of them black. 

Chicago’s candidates for mayor will face off in a late February election. If none of them receives 50 percent of the vote, the two candidates who tallied the most votes face off in an April runoff.

In his most recent Chicago Way podcast, John Kass, as he interviewed former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas, spoke of racial politics, which has plagued Americas’ third-largest city for decades. “Lori Lightfoot has gone from presenting herself as an agent of change,” the former Chicago Tribune columnist remarked, “to an able practitioner and player of the race card.”

A year ago, to mark the two-year anniversary of her inauguration, her office sent invitations to reporters for one-on-one interviews with a restriction–only reporters of “color” were requested.

But Lightfoot has another joker card up her long sleeve, the gender card. Last week, in what you would think should been an opportunity to offer a message of healing and unity–kicking off Pride Month–Lightfoot is a lesbian by the way, she and Governor JB Pritzker dedicated Chicago’s AIDS Garden. It was at that event where she dismissed criticism of her turbulent three years as mayor by her opponents.

“Another day, another man who thinks he can do his job better than me,” Lightfoot said.

As America’s worst mayor, there are plenty of men–and women–residing in Chicago who can do better. 

Crime has skyrocketed since Lightfoot moved into the fifth floor of City Hall. In 2019, according to Hey Jackass, there were 603 carjackings reported in Chicago. Last year there were 1,848. In 2021, AP reported, there were 797 homicides, 299 more than in 2019. 

Apologists for Lightfoot will blame the COVID-19 epidemic, but Chicago’s lockdowns were among the nation’s most severe. Infamously, in August of 2020, on the same day Lightfoot cracked down after a large group violated her ridiculous ban on entering the expansive Lincoln Park on Chicago’s beautiful lakefront by dispatching a heavy police presence there, looters that night mowed through the city’s Loop and Magnificent Mile shopping areas downtown. Those areas were still recovering from the late May riots after the murder of George Floyd. This led to a continuing exodus from that area that includes the Gap, Disney, and Macy’s. It will take decades for Chicago to recover from what another blogger, whose name escapes me, called “the Night Chicago Died,” referencing the 1970s pop hit by Paper Lace. 

The Loop, the Magnificent Mile, and the immediate surrounding area is the driver of Chicago’s economy. The rest of the city is simply along for the ride. 

The retail departure hasn’t escaped Paul Vallas’ attention. “I used to say a number of years ago,” he said in that Kass podcast, “when I ran [for mayor] last time, that Chicago was Detroit with a thriving downtown–now I can’t even say that.”

Back to the lockdowns. Lightfoot all but sanctioned the large outdoor celebrations in Chicago after Joe Biden was declared by the media the winner of the 2020 presidential election, which occurred a few days before she issued new lockdown orders in time for Thanksgiving–on top of the others that were already in place.

I wonder if knowledge that two years later gasoline would double in price would have muted those flash mob gatherings?

To be fair, Chicago and its Cook County suburbs are burdened with a Soros-funded politician, State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, who is more of a woke social worker than a prosecutor. Lightfoot on occasion has spoken out against Foxx, but her criticism has been guarded. Foxx, a Democrat like Lightfoot, is of course best known for the special treatment she gave since-convicted race-hoaxster Jussie Smollett. Foxx deserves some blame for the fall of Chicago too, as does another wokester, Timothy C. Evans, Cook County’s chief judge.

Will Chicagoans reelect America’s worst mayor?

UPDATE June 7:

In a video that was released today, Lightfoot officially announced her reelection effort.

Yesterday, Lightfoot bizarrely attacked Kim Foxx, who she endorsed for reelection in 2020 in what should have been a tough Democratic primary for the radical prosecutor. “Given the exacting standards that the state’s attorney has for charging a case, which is proof beyond a reasonable doubt – when those charges are brought, these people are guilty,” the mayor said, but quickly adding, “and of course they’re entitled to a presumption of innocence.” Some more back story: Foxx is the former chief of staff for Toni “Taxwinkle” Preckwinkle was Lightfoot’s runoff opponent in the 2019 mayoral election–she’s a leftist too.

John Ruberry regularly blogs from suburban Cook County at Marathon Pundit.

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