Posts Tagged ‘jon fournier’

The politicization of science has a staggeringly high body count

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

Ham Radio, Homebrew, and great political conversations

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

Things would be so much better in the US if the news media was worthy of our trust and respect

Posted: June 25, 2020 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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All across the board, on every single issue the Mainstream News Media has failed the American people.  They have gone way past failing to inform us on so many key issues, they are intentionally misinforming us.  This has produced truly disastrous results, namely the recent rioting that rocked so many US cities and the Coronavirus lockdowns that have crippled the US economy and destroyed so many businesses.

The Mainstream News Media is more than deserving of the label Fake News, which I will use for the remainder of this article.  They have completely thrown out all objectivity, and are now the propaganda arm of the Democrat party and the progressive side of the political spectrum.  This article News Media Credibility Rating Falls to a New Low indirectly provides the proof of the bias, which reached an extreme level during the Obama Administration, only to be surpassed during the Trump Presidency.

As America grapples with a historic crisis under the leadership of a Republican president who frequently derides the media as “fake news,” new Morning Consult trend data finds Americans’ views of the fourth estate’s credibility have hit a new low during the Trump administration, largely driven by declines among Republicans.

The share of U.S. adults who said nine leading media outlets — including CBS and The New York Times — were credible has dropped roughly 9 percentage points since December 2016, from 60.6 percent to an average of 51.2 percent today. Last year, the average credibility rating sat at 55.4 percent.

As was seen in last year’s analysis, Republicans are driving this drop.

If the Fake News was not so incredibly biased toward the political left then the disapproval ratings of the networks by both parties would be roughly equal.  The drastic lopsidedness of the disapproval and approval is proof that the coverage is severely slanted to one side.

Sadly Fox News is no longer the Conservative powerhouse it used to be and that shows in the media survey.

Fox News is the only media entity to remain relatively unscathed, though the share of GOP adults who find it credible has slipped 6 points since 2016. Two-thirds of Republicans say the “Fair and Balanced” outlet is credible, a figure that’s more than 20 points higher than the next outlet’s credibility rating among Republicans (CBS, at 46 percent). 

The Fake News has particularly failed the entire nation during the Coronavirus and the survey proves it.

The poll comes at a particularly sensitive time for news information, as residents across the country seek out accurate reports on the coronavirus pandemic. Recent polling shows a country divided over the job that news media is doing: Fifty-five percent of respondents in a March 13-22 Gallup survey disapproved of the news media’s handling of the coronavirus in the United States, while a Pew survey, fielded March 19-24, reported that 54 percent of the public said the news media is doing a “good” or “excellent” job responding to the outbreak.

From the very beginning of the Coronavirus crisis the Fake News gave far more airtime to the scientists and experts that had predictions of doom and gloom. I believe this was done on purpose so government officials would lockdown the United States and tank the economy in an attempt to influence the 2020 election.  This has resulted in enormous amounts of pain and suffering as businesses all across the US close for good.

The media is going to keep the panic over Coronavirus going until the election in an attempt to cram through mail in voting everywhere and to keep the economy sputtering along so they can hammer President Trump over it. This Bloomberg headline is proof of that: Virus Surges Across U.S., Throwing Reopenings Into Disarray.

Would the recent riots that resulted in such terrible destruction have occurred if the media had not jumped to the wrong conclusions and taken them to such an extreme during the Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown incidents?  Many years of the Fake News pushing the false narrative that the US is still a systematically racist nation provided the fuel and lit the fuse of the recent riots. Fake News needs to be held accountable, not by the government, but by its viewers.

A Modest Proposal to end the National Anthem kneeling conundrum

Posted: June 18, 2020 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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It has been maintained by many of the National Anthem kneelers and many on the political left that the keeling during National Anthem has nothing to do with disrespecting our flag, our military, or our country.  This was echoed by Houston Texans defensive end J.J. Watt when he tweeted this:

if you still think it’s about disrespecting the flag or our military, you clearly haven’t been listening.

Was he right about that?  Let’s look at what Houston Texans head coach Bill O’Brien had to say about this issue:

The players have a right to protest, a right to be heard and a right to be who they are. They’re not taking a knee because they’re against our flag. They’re taking a knee because they haven’t been treated equally in this country for over 400 years.

To me the entire kneeling during the National Anthem is all about disrespecting our flag and everything associated with it.  Why else would they take this action specifically during the National Anthem?

There is no greater expert on this whole kneeling issue than Colin Kaepernick.  Here is his justification for kneeling:

I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder

I believe that whole quote is dripping with disrespect for our flag, country, and everything else.  The United States does not have a perfect record when it comes to its treatment of people of color, far from it when you examine slavery, segregation, and racism.  However this country has made enormous strides and is no longer a racist nation.  Protesting racism specifically during the National Anthem is very disrespectful to the flag, our military, and those that gave their life for our country.  It is so disrespectful it pisses me off a great deal.    I know I’m far from alone.  Based on social media and the drop in NFL viewer ship a very large segment of the country agrees with me.

Every single individual has a right to protest as they wish as long as long as they do it peacefully.  That most definitely includes kneeling during the National Anthem.  Because freedom of speech and freedom of expression are two way streets it is perfectly fine to criticize those who kneel.  Some individuals do not understand this. 

It is the timing of the protesting that pisses people off.  Since the kneelers claim that their kneeling has nothing to do with disrespecting the flag why don’t we make them prove it? 

I have just a proposal to end the anthem kneeling situation and make the kneelers prove it has nothing to do with disrespecting the flag.  The NFL, NASCAR, and all other sports associations should specifically set aside time for any athlete to protest racism and racial injustice in any manner they see fit.  The stadium announcers and TV broadcasters should announce the time to protest and the reason behind the protesting.  They should make a big deal about it.  The kneelers will find that they have far more support for their protesting and their cause if the stand during the anthem and protest during that allotted time. 

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