Filed under: Democrat Corruption, Election 2020, Environment, Free Markets, Free Speech, Freedom, Global Warming, History, Humor, Immigration, Liberalism, Media Bias, Politics, Progressives, The United States | Tags: Blame., Guilt, Your Fault!
What is it about Liberals? Why do they want us all to feel guilty? We are not supposed to be thankful on Thanksgiving, because we should feel guilty about the Native Americans. We should feel guilty if we call them Indians rather than “Native Americans”.
Some, “Antifa” or something else, have been out rioting and tearing down statues again this weekend, The statues are torn down because we should feel guilty about putting up a statue to someone currently considered unworthy. like George Washington because he once owned a few slaves. Though historically he did not like slavery and had no wish to create a plantation out of Mount Vernon. But that was 244 years ago, and statues of George Washington must be destroyed today to assuage our guilt? Makes no sense whatsoever.
George Washington, father of our country, had a few things more going for him than just the possibility that he owned a very few slaves. Many plantation owners did own slaves at the time, Society, worldwide had not yet decided that owning slaves was wrong. The young people out to riot and break windows and loot and break things seem far more interested in doing that and getting away with it because they were part of a big bunch of people all having fun doing it. Had they been promptly arrested and stuck in cells until someone bailed them out, the whole rationale for rioting might be somewhat different.
Those who choose to feel guilty about celebrating Thanksgiving because we displaced the Indians, might remember that the Native Americans did a lot of massacres as well, of the intruding Englishmen. The history of civilization is full of people being displaced by other warlike tribes, and civilizations have arisen and vanished all over the earth. Supposedly that is why we study history to understand how the world has changed in the past and will undoubtedly change more in the future. But we really don’t need to feel guilty about a past that we had nothing to do with.
If you recall, when Joe Biden decided to run for the office of the presidency, he said that he wanted a black woman as his vice president, and so chose Kamala Harris. So he wanted the credit for choosing a black woman who might become the first black and the first woman to become president rather than choosing someone for their outstanding qualifications and skills.
If you appear in public without wearing a mask, you are supposed to feel guilty. Governors have ordered people to refrain from having Thanksgiving dinners because of Covid. Wags have tacked lifesize representations of those governors to windows where people might be having a Thanksgiving dinner against governors orders. Those governors who issued orders and then had their own celebration were quickly discovered and mocked in the press, and theoretically made to feel properly guilty. Anyone departing from the conventional wisdom of the moment must be guilty, and exposed.
It was hard to choose an image, because there are so many. All the members of the House abjectly kneeling on the floor of Congress. AOC weeping as she clings to a chain-link fence staring out at what turned out to be an empty parking lot that supposedly represented imprisoned illegals at the border, Elizabeth Warren emphasizing her “Indian heritage”, once even with a Native American. All the previous presidents conferring happily with Vladimir Putin, but only Trump being accused of some kind of wrongdoing across a table from him.
Filed under: Big Tech, Capitalism, Coronavirus, Democrat Corruption, Election 2020, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Immigration, Junk Science, Progressivism, Science/Technology, Technology | Tags: Biden's Big Plans, Climate Panic, John Kerry
Reminder: There is not a “President Elect” until the Electoral College meets on December 14. But it does look like it is going to be Joe Biden, in spite of how he managed to get there. He is moving quickly to try to establish his administration, which is not encouraging. A very significant percentage of Democrat voters had never heard of the Joe and Hunter Biden scandals, and really want the matter formally investigated. That, in itself is a fairly scary note and suggests that our negativity about our news media is not far misplaced.
Joe Biden’s first big appointment is John Kerry to be the new “Climate Czar”. His qualifications rest on his being Secretary of State in the Obama Administration, and initiating the Paris Climate Accords. Uh huh. The United States provides about 14% of worldwide CO2 emissions. U.S. and European emissions have remained steady or declined significantly. Increases have come from the developing world, China, India and Africa, as they add electricity, air-conditioning and automobiles. The move to approved wind and solar energy has accounted for about 9% of our needed electricity supplies. If you stop and think for a moment about our energy needs: manufacturing, mobility, light, heat, comfort, food, only begins to touch upon our energy requirements.
I am certainly not a climate scientist, but I do have a unique outlook on the problem. I grew up on 400 acres in the mountains of Idaho at about 4,000′. We produced our own power with a small dam, a flue and our own power plant. We put up ice in the winter for summer refrigeration, warmed things with our hot springs water, fireplaces and wood stoves. We finally got Idaho power in the late 40s. Few people would have the natural assets we did. Nevertheless, I do read the science, daily.
Other than the autistic Swedish child, there’s not much evidence of a climate crisis. We have tried wind and solar energy in many forms, and found them wanting. Nuclear plants work nicely, but since Chernobyl and Fukushima, people are scared of nuclear energy. We have successful dams in our major rivers, but they don’t produce enough energy for the country as a whole. “Fracking”, simply a new way of extracting natural gas, has made us energy independent, and no longer dependent on Arab oil. Great outcry against coal-fired or natural-gas fired power plants because of the insistence that CO2, (which is a natural fertilizer for plants and is helping to feed a hungry world), is to be blamed for global warming, which is simply a natural process of warming and cooling that has gone on for centuries and centuries.
I have been following John Kerry’s career since he was a Vietnam War protester, got drafted, and had a subsequent career in government. I do not have a favorable impression of him, and would prefer that he not be in charge of anything whatsoever. He promises to fix CO2 and Covid-19 as well because they go together somehow? Both in the air? I think its an enormous amount of sheer bunk, but that seems to be what we’re stuck with. You might get in touch with your Congressmen, and study up. Good websites linked in the sidebar.
Lots of big ideas to fix society after the dreadful years of the Bad Orange Man’s successful economy, improved black lives, Middle East Peace, and successful management of the Covid Crisis. “Warp Speed” has meant that vaccine for Covid will be available in mid-December.
Here are the ten executive orders that Joe Biden says he will sign the first day he’s in office, via CNN.
Implement the already-existing Clean Air Act, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transportation by developing new fuel economy standards to ensure all new sales for light- and medium-duty vehicles will be electrified, and annual improvements for heavy-duty vehicles.
Double down on liquid fuels like advanced biofuels and make agriculture a key part of the solution to the climate crisis. Reduce emissions and cut consumer costs through new standards for appliance and building efficiency.
Other than that, he intends to end “gun violence”, which essentially means banning all guns. He will improve the abortion situation, so anybody can get an abortion any time for any reason. How that fits with his Catholic faith, I’m not sure. But if your interest is in easier abortions, Biden’s your guy. Going to offer citizenship to all the illegal aliens, and invite more in.
Interestingly, 44 states voted without any allegations of skullduggery. Election went off smoothly and almost all of the votes were counted in about six hours after the polls closed. No allegations of irregularities by Republican-governed states other than Georgia.
A Big-Tech expert says that Google’s “manipulations “Shifted” at least six million votes to Joe Biden. That might suggest a call to your congressman, at least a Republican one.
Joe Biden still may nominate Sen. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren to cabinet positions. The good website www.issuesinsights suggested a little “turnabout is fair play” with an article entitled “Impeach Joe Biden”. Made my day.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Capitalism, Coronavirus, Democrat Corruption, Election 2020, Energy, Environment, Free Markets, Free Speech, Freedom, History, Immigration, National Security, Politics, Progressivism, Regulation, Socialism, The United States | Tags: "Build Back Better", Control., The Great Reset, Totalitarianism
You don’t have to have read a lot of history to realize that every so often somebody pops up with a better idea for humanity. They want to fix us. The names in modern times are familiar, Benito Mussolini, Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse Tung , some get far enough to make it into the pages of history, some try but never catch on. It takes a certain kind of mindset to think you have the correct plan to fix humanity. We do have to admit cheerfully that we are imperfect. But very possibly we were meant to be that way.
But the events of 2020 have changed all that because COVID-19 has provided the perfect pretext for the kind of co-ordinated globalist takeover which might previously have been little more than an evil glint in Klaus Schwab’s eyes. Here’s a new name to add to the list: Klaus Schwab. He’s a bald German in his early Eighties, who in the 1970s founded what is now known as the World Economic Forum. They have an annual summit in Davos, Switzerland. James Delingpole notes “that’s where billionaires go to lecture millionaires on how ordinary people live.”
You start with believing the Autistic Swedish child that the world is going to end shortly if we don’t DO SOMETHING about climate change. If you would listen to scientists who have spent lifetimes studying climate science instead of Autistic Swedish children, it would be a good start. Dr. Roy Spencer (link in the sidebar) not only has spent a lifetime studying the science but he runs the satellites that measure the temperatures of the earth for NASA. On his website, you will find a handy essay on global warming and what it means, as well as all sorts of other valuable information. Visit Climate Depot (link in the sidebar) where you can order Climate Hustle 1 and 2 to explain the Climate Wars. Climate Hustle 2 looks at both popular scientific claims surrounding climate change and examines the motivations of those clamoring for immediate action.
Interestingly, some 30 percent of Democrats want a more thorough and official investigation of the Joe Biden/ Hunter Biden affair and all its implications.
Way back in 2015, Christiana Figueres, at the time the General Secretary of the IPCC, at a press conference, announced that “Climate Change” was our best opportunity to get rid of Capitalism, permanently. I assume that is still what they’re after. I’m rather fond of capitalism myself.
Filed under: Big Tech, Capitalism, Capitalism, China, Conservatism, Cuba, Democrat Corruption, Economics, Economy, Education, Election 2020, European Union, Freedom, History, Immigration, Law, Politics, Progressivism, Socialism, Taxes, The United States, Venezuela | Tags: Electoral "Irregularities", Electoral College, The President Elect
There is, as yet, no President-Elect, nor will there be until December 14, when the Electoral College meets. Al Gore historically had 37 days to challenge the election, and President Trump deserves as much, since there were so many “irregularities” in this one. “Irregularities” is simply a nice word for blatant fraud, massive cheating, and computerized switching of votes. The American people have a right to have confidence in an election.
I want to quote a bit from Paul Mirengoff, one of the attorneys at the Powerline blog. His piece was titled “Biden Deserves Worse During the Transition Than He’s Likely to Get.”
In 2016, Democrats, Obama administration officials and liberal media moved quickly to target President-elect Trump. Over 73 days, there were calls for impeachment, a resistance movement, attempts to infiltrate the Electoral College, false opposition research and FBI surveillance. . . .
Do read the whole thing, I’d forgotten a lot of it, and you probably have too. There was no interest in a peaceful transition, they just wanted to spoil everything about the new administration that they could.
They boycotted the Inauguration, 53 members of Congress refused to attend, accusing Trump of conspiring with Russia to top the election. After 3 years of investigation, there was no such evidence. They organized a resistance movement inside the administration, including the FBI.
Attorney General Barr summarized the Obama administration’s resistance to the president elect:
Immediately after President Trump won election, opponents inaugurated what they called ‘The Resistance,’ and they rallied around an explicit strategy of using every tool and maneuver available to sabotage the functioning of his Administration. Now, ‘resistance’ is the language used to describe insurgency against rule imposed by an occupying military power. It obviously connotes that the government is not legitimate. This is a very dangerous — indeed incendiary — notion to import into the politics of a democratic republic.
This is going way too far with partisanship. The United States of American is a big powerful country, and for that we are widely hated, no matter how kindly our intentions. There are some who want a one world government, want us to be a subsidiary of the more fashionable European Union, some are convinced that the world is in the final days of global warming, and if we don’t fix that right now, we’re done. The earth has been warming and cooling for millions of years, and there is no scientific evidence that it will not continue to do so. Some have the illusion that Socialism or Communism would at last make everybody equal, which is utter nonsense.
And then there is China, and we don’t know what their intentions are, but there is no indication of peaceful friendship. Their treatment of the Uyghurs is very revealing. Chinese of a different religion, millions of them in concentration camps, worked to death and the women used as prostitutes for the Chinese military. Look that up online.
If you find viewpoints troublesome, take the time to study up, so you know what you are talking about, and voting for. How much of the bureaucracy is useful, and how much is just making nice occupations and income for friends and relatives? That’s encompassed in the word bureaucracy. A lot of that obviously goes on. Presidents are just people, and governments are composed of people, and we’re a flawed species. Nobody’s perfect.
I am listening to Joe Biden’s ideas and proposals as we hear them, and I am not looking forward to a Biden administration. Forgiving all student loans? Nice for the young people who face them, but why should the taxpayers pay for their failure to pay them off. Nationalized health care? Britain has had national health care for years, and it is demonstrably not something to be desired. Making Puerto Rico and Washington D.C. into states so the Democrats can maintain control? Increasing the numbers of illegal aliens allowed in the country, because they are likely to vote Democrat? Socialism may look good from the outside, but there’s little difference between Socialism and Communism, and there is a reason why Cubans head for the United States with anything that will float. Listen to the Venezuelans. That used to be a beautiful prosperous country.
We are a most fortunate people. Our founders were aware of trying to make simple rules for a new country, with full recognition of what was wrong with the old one, what the reason was that they had given up on their old home in the search for something unknown, but better. If you do not have a copy of the Constitution, you can get a pocket-sized version for $4.95 from Amazon or the Cato Institute store. Cato has a 10 copy package for $10.00 so you can be sure that each member of your family has one. I’ve had that version in my desk drawer for years, and find that I refer to it more often than the dictionary.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Crime, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Free Speech, Freedom, History, Immigration, Law, Media Bias, Police, Politics, Progressives, Regulation, The Constitution, The United States | Tags: A Dependable Scholar, Facts and Statistics, Heather MacDonald
Democrats are undoubtedly studying late into the night, to find a way to disrupt President Trump’s naming of a candidate for the Supreme Court to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. They are considering a new impeachment trial or two, whether this brings back the Russian horde is not known. One supposes that Russians rate higher on the really terrifying terrorists than those from other countries. After all the Russians are known for suddenly poisoning people right on the street.
They supposedly are considering just walking out, boycotting as it were, to delay the inevitable. Speaker Pelosi apparently has a couple of impeachments up her sleeves, she clearly feels that most everything Trump has done is grounds for impeachment, and considers it an excellent way to get the nomination of anyone over and done with. Almost anything will do because what they want is delay, so that it becomes too late to advance a candidate before the election.
They speak in generalities, and of course what the Supreme Court is all about is insisting that matters of law follow the Constitution. And of course at that point what is it that they really meant when they wrote the Constitution? I assume that by this time you are as sick of all the nonsense as I am and want them to just get on with the business of the government. The Constitution is quite clear. When there is a vacancy, the President may nominate a successor, who is to be approved by the Senate. Simple and clear.
The difficult part is that Amy Comey Barrett, who seems to be the leading candidate, is a practicing Catholic. The great fear is that she might rule on Roe v. Wade, the abortion bill, passed and in effect, but could be brought before the Court again. This is an immeasurably contentious bill. Many women feel that nobody else has any right to tell them what they may or may not do with their bodies. Others see abortion as the murder of a real baby. When things are in such dramatic opposition, there is no comfortable middle ground. And of course religion has strong opinions.
In this day and age, when preventive measures are readily available, if one does not want to bear a child, it seems incumbent on them to use preventative measures. Responsibility is required. No one should have to bear a child conceived by rape, but just how you sort that out is difficult. There are a lot of couples who are unable to bear children and desperate to adopt.
There are many areas that are equally contentious matters. Look at the current furor about the police. At one end of the scale is Chicago, which seems to have some violent neighborhoods and a significant weekly death toll. Some seem to think that the police are so violent and corrupt that they must be eliminated, and others who know of too much drugs and street crime in their cities want more police protection.
Your best source for sorting things out is Heather MacDonald, a serious scholar who goes to the source and digs out the real statistics, as opposed to what is more sensational and reported on the news. You can find her at the Manhattan Institute, or City Journal, or her many valuable books : The War on Cops, The Burden of Bad Ideas, Are Cops Racist?, and The Immigration Solution: A Better Plan Than Today’s. All invaluable. Or just type her name into your search-bar.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Coronavirus, Crime, Domestic Policy, Economics, Environment, Immigration, Politics, The United States, Unemployment | Tags: Blaming and Demonizing, Democrats Day 3, Is Online Working/
Is this day three or day four? I’m losing track. I must admit I read about it, I don’t watch the hate Trump fest. They can’t really seem to make up their minds anyway. They were off on a big Post Office thingy which seemed completely unrelated to reality. But that has sort of faded, so they are back to blaming Trump for all coronavirus death. (Lets De Blasio off the hook as well).
The odd thing is that at the Democrat online convention, there has been no mention at all of the violence in Portland and Seattle, or the defunding of police, in hot spots around the nation, which commands the news. The convention is not interested. No interest in weekend killings. No interest in statue desecration, nor even in attempts to burn people alive in Portland’s federal building. But of course it is Democrat run cities and states that have the problems, so it’s awkward to mention them.
Climate has been mentioned. AOC’s “Green New Deal” assures us that we only have 12 years left. Odd. The climate has been changing for millions of years, some hot years, and some unusually cold ones. We even had a major ice age, and some little ice ages. The polar bears are just fine and multiplying nicely. Susan Crockford is the wildlife biologist who is expert on polar bears. The Left seems to prefer that polar bears be endangered.
At the convention, some Democrats were furious that they only gave AOC one minute to speak. She is very outspoken, but very ignorant. I don’t suggest that she is dumb, she is not. She just doesn’t have familiarity with a lot of rather useful facts.
If you are confused by things climate, visit Dr. Roy Spencer’s site, linked in the sidebar. He explains global warming and what we know and what we don’t know. Dr. Spencer runs the satellites that measure world temperatures for NASA at Huntsville Ala. with Dr. John Christy who measures world temperatures with weather balloons. Lots of other good sites in the sidebar, and when you arrive at any one of them, there are extensive lists of scientists at work, and their blogs, deeply informative.
California is now going through power outages and wildfires because people can’t get it through their heads that wind turbines and solar panels cannot provide the power that a modern society requires. Joe Biden is quite sure that banning fracking, banning drilling, and shutting down anything that runs on petroleum will save us from the doomsday in 12 years. That certainty should worry us all a lot.
Greta Thunberg, the Swedish child who did the world tour, did not have any science, only religion of a sort. It’s brought in all sorts of money for her and for her parents, for the world was inspired by a child attempting to save the earth.
And do not forget Christiana Figueres. She was at one time the Executive Secretary of the IPCC, and at a news conference in Brussels in early February of 2015 admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological catastrophe, but to destroy capitalism.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Coronavirus, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economics, Election 2020, Energy, Environment, Free Speech, Freedom, Immigration, Law, Politics, Progressivism, The United States | Tags: Bad Judgment, Environmental Panic, The Green New Deal
This is going to be an unusually interesting election season. Joe Biden, who has been selected as the Democrat nominee, seems to have some problems with early stage dementia. He does seem unable to remember the proper word to use, or how to adequately express himself at times, and people are concerned, although perhaps incorrectly.
Democrats are inclined to dislike Republicans, and vice versa. That’s simply the way it is, and the problems lie in the amount of dislike and the efforts to do something about it. Now that Mr. Biden has chosen Kamala Harris as his Vice Presidential partner, the campaign has instantly become about sexism.
The usual Hollywood “celebrities” (someone whose name may be recognizable and thereby attract readers) have immediately called up Hillary as an example of someone who lost an election because of sexism. Which is an error. Hillary lost because she is a compulsive liar, had performed poorly as Secretary of State, and is roundly disliked. Nothing to do with her sex. She did notify the campaign that she was anxious to help out in any way she can.
I don’t think much of Kamala Harris as a candidate, and with Joe Biden’s age and possible dementia we have to assume that Ms. Harris could very likely become president. Articles I’ve seen: “Former Obama speechwriter mocks mainstream media’s “hilarious” push to call Kamala Harris “moderate” and Tensions linger between Biden and Obama Carried throughout 2020 primary campaign: Not sure what’s going on here, the Obama group doesn’t like the Biden group?
The Biden, Harris team are going for some very radical (and ignorant) ideas about the climate, which is just fine, and cooling slightly. They are all for AOC’s “Green New Deal.” Joe Biden wants to ban fracking and the advances that have given us plentiful and cheap energy to run America’s manufacturers and cities, Kamala wants to ban plastic straws and limit access to red meat, altering the food pyramid. Harris wants to reenter us in the Paris Climate accords so “we would be carbon neutral by 2030.” Sorry. Carbon dioxide is not the control knob for the climate. The climate of the earth is determined by the actions of the sun, which is currently in a slightly cooling phase.
Why can’t people study up a little on subjects they know they don’t understand very well? You don’t have to become an expert, just learn enough to be an informed voter and an intelligent conversationalist. Dr.Roy Spencer, who measures the temperatures of the earth–running the satellites for NASA, has a short helpful explanation of “global warming” at his website, and if you look at his blog, there’s an amazing video of a lightning strike.
Growing up in the mountains of Idaho, we once had a lightning strike about 200 yards from the house. It made a remarkably loud noise, and stripped the bark in a circular pattern down the trunk of a Ponderosa Pine. It’s a Big Deal up close.
I am convinced that the Democrats depend on people’s reluctance to study up and depend on their lack of information to accuse their opposition candidates of absurd things. Democrats have tried hard for four years or more to stick President Trump with some sort of collaboration with Russia or Vladimir Putin. None there, but they just would not give up on it, and are back at it.
The other big drive is to blame President Trump for all the deaths from the Covid virus. Good grief, he not only slammed the gates shut to any flights from China immediately, but has not only dealt well the virus and medical equipment needed in this country, but helped other countries as he could as well.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Coronavirus, Crime, Domestic Policy, Economy, Education, Election 2020, England, History, Immigration, Law, Police, Politics, The United States | Tags: American Politics, Coronavirus, Riots and Protests
I have the impression, which may be false, that American companies ordinarily went to great lengths to essentially stay out of politics. They might get involved when potential legislation negatively affected their company, or when their corporate knowledge suggested that something being considered was a very bad idea, that sort of thing. At that point corporate involvement would probably be requested anyway.
Today it is a different story. It has been reported that workers in a company may inform their management that they are opposed to something that is simply a political issue and has nothing to do with their company’s business. Last I heard, a company had an executive board and a president to decide corporate positions, and the workers were not invited to participate but only to vote in local and national elections like everybody else. And the discontented would probably get canned. But there was no corporate position anyway.
When I was a worker bee, I certainly had no illusion that I had a vote in corporate business nor did I have any expectation that my personal politics were anyone else’s concern, nor that it would be acceptable to announce who I was voting for or why. But then there was never an occasion when there were riots in the streets and company policies regarding race were up for discussion. I had a black boss, and associates came from a wide variety of national heritages, like life outside of work. Nobody wore campaign buttons or gave any idea of who they were planning to vote for. So it’s weird to see groups of workers attempting to inform their management about what is acceptable and what is not.
Are the mayors who have been so prominent in the media up for reelection? I live in a Seattle suburb not Seattle itself, but Seattle is pretty far left. They voted for Mayor Jenny Durkan at some point, and Portland once voted for Mayor Wheeler, and we now have a clear understanding of how they perform under stress. and the same is true across the country. Democrats have been trying to convince Americans that the Corona virus and all accompanying problems are Trump’s fault, but the facts would indicate that he’s done a pretty good job. Governors have been grateful for prompt supplies of needed materials like ventilators and masks, and companies nationwide have started producing them to meet the needs. The Seattle area had the first cases in the country, and travel from China was halted immediately.
I expect that there will be long term changes. The big cities will lose population as residents move to places where riots are unacceptable. Businesses will move. Will working from home become the norm? Some businesses have already announced that working from home will extend into 2021 or more. Not having to maintain corporate offices would save a lot of money if a good portion of the workforce could work from home. If “daytime pajamas” become the norm rather than tailored suits, there will be vast changes in the fashion industry. What precautions will become necessary for business to avoid disruption? Things change, but the impetus is not always clear. If you know history, change will not seem so scary.
Schooling seems to be on the brink of mass disruption. States are trying to decide if schools will be open or closed. Charter schools are an extremely beneficial change for black kids, but extremely unacceptable to teacher’s unions. The unions do not want to return to the classroom, but online education is not working, partly because teachers don’t know how to make their online classes interesting and compulsive as well as get the necessary learning into student heads. So far, a lot of kids just aren’t doing the online work. Some well-to-do families are getting together to hire tutors. I don’t know how much we know about kids’ home situations. Do most parents go out to work and leave the kids home alone? There’s a recipe for disaster. Homeschooling may rise in popularity, but some families don’t really have choices. Parents need to work. So expect big changes, not all of which will be acceptable.
I live in a Seattle suburb. The area has many international businesses, some of them famous, who hire many workers from abroad. My suburb is dotted with little storefront schools that teach English, and small storefront groceries that carry the foods from worker’s home countries. Does this go on all over the country? Are international companies just situated on the coasts or are they the norm everywhere? I have no idea. Immigrants from some countries populated different parts of the country because of climate or industry there. Washington and Idaho and Montana have lots of wheat growers and lumbering. Washington, Oregon, California and Alaska have major fishing industry, and so it goes across the country. Meatpacking ended up in the Midwest. Potatoes in Idaho and Maine.
Britain’s invention of machines to make thread out of cotton led to America’s slavery, but less than 5% of African slaves were brought to America. The majority went to the sugar islands and to South America. Early on, indentured servitude was popular in the Thirteen Colonies because of a large demand for labor, and more than half of immigrants to British colonies south of New England were white servants who came under indenture, because of the high cost of transatlantic transportation which was beyond the means of European workers. Between the 1630s and the Revolution one half to two thirds of the total white immigration came under indenture.
The British Empire ended slavery in 1833, but did not prohibit the practice of indentured servitude until 1917. Somewhere between one half and two thirds of European immigrants to America came under indentures, usually as young men or women. Most went to the South where cash crops were common, for the North industrialized earlier. Remember that Australia was partly populated by prisoners who were transported. It’s all a fascinating history, probably not very familiar to today’s rioters. The movement of people and customs around the globe is not over, and will not end any time soon, and we are still making new history. We’ll have to wait a bit to see what the Space Force turns up.
Filed under: Capitalism, Crime, Immigration, Politics, Progressives, Socialism, Statism, United Kingdom | Tags: Christopher Columbus, George Floyd, Riots, Statues, The Columbian Exchange
Exactly how George Floyd’s unfortunate death led to the excesses of Black Lives Matter riots and marches and looting, is not especially clear. How things multiplied from that to attacks on statues all around the country is even less clear. They started with the generals on the losing side of the Civil War, and then included generals on both sides and Spanish Friars, founding fathers and their horses too.. Perfect frenzy of attacking bronze statues that couldn’t possibly fight back, but perhaps that was the point. They could demonstrate their rage while in attacking inanimate objects they had no opposition, and no risk.
But one statue led to another, and when they couldn’t find enough Robert E. Lee statues, they turned to Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson and, of course, Columbus. It is all simply theater. What was intended as a powerful political statement was thoroughly messed up by the historical ignorance of the perpetrators. There was some interest in destruction of the four presidents at Mt. Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota, encouraged slyly by the New York Times, which brought out Sioux Chieftains to remind everyone that the Black Hills were once sacred grounds for Native Americans.
I think the statue thing is probably over, except for Columbus. There are so many things around the country named for Columbus that it remains a tempting victim — Columbus, Ohio, Georgia, Indiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska and Texas, the Columbia River, Columbia University, and many ships and lots of wildlife and plants.
What is far more interesting is the “Columbian Exchange” — the plants and animals brought to the new world and from the new world to the old. Search for “The Columbian Exchange” and you will be astounded to find the list of species that were unknown prior to 1492, and how they changed lives. Diseases too. Horses and dogs and cats! Did residents of the new world have no pets until Columbus? And when did they decide that dogs were desirable pets?
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Economy, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, History, Humor, Immigration, Junk Science, Media Bias, Politics, Taxes, The United States | Tags: Climate Change, Complications of the News, To Blame for Everything
RECENT EARTH CLIMATE HISTORY
600 – 200 B.C.: An Unnamed Cold Period
200 BC to about AD 600: The Roman Warming
600 to 900: The Dark Ages Cold Period
900 to 1300: Medieval Warming
1300 to 1850: The Little Ice Age (two stages)
MODERN CLIMATE HISTORY
1850 – 1940: Especially between 1920-1940: Warming
1940 to 1975: Cooling Trend
1976-1978: Sudden Warming Spurt
1979 to 1998: +1º
1998 to 2011: +1º
The Medieval Warming period led to the Renaissance which began approximately in 1300 and ended approximately in 1700. A bountiful time, wine grapes grew in England, food was plentiful and there was a flowering of learning and art. Think Michelangelo, Raphael, and Copernicus among others. What I’m getting at here, is the idea that if we are facing climate doom, the world is going to die in 10 or 12 years if we don’t save it by stopping “fracking,” using oil and gasoline, and eliminating plastic bags. That’s what you get for listening to “celebrities” instead of studying up on the science.
I was an English Major, which meant that I learned how to read hard stuff, and read a lot. That does not mean that I’m always right, but I do like to think so. Christiana Figueres was quite sure that the object of “climate change” was as a tool to get rid of Capitalism. Leftists do not like capitalism, which seems a bit strange, but economics is not their strong point. Capitalists are business CEOs and owners, and the “Rich:”. The Left is simply entitled to be in charge because they are morally superior.
Conservatives have long sneered at the Left because they were the Southern slave owners in the Civil War, but the Left has ended that accusation by electing the first black president, who served for two terms, which puts them back in the morally superior category. Global Warming, plastic bags, ending fracking, and giving taxpayer money to illegal aliens adds to their superiority.
America is a nation of immigrants, as you know, which leads them to believe that immigrants are special, and just because they can’t be bothered to enter the country the legal way, shouldn’t keep them from sharing in the bounty of America. So Leftists care about illegal immigrants, which means hating I.C.E. (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and making sure that illegal immigrants get stimulus money. It is that mindset that makes them believe that if little immigrant children were kept in cages, it was obviously done by conservatives, contrary to the actual actions of the Obama administration. Once you get the “entitled to be in charge because they are morally superior” theme firmly in mind, it makes understanding all the other stuff simple. Or at least it helps.
Then there’s this: From Climate Realism and Climate Depot:
Among the top articles in a May 19 Google News search for “climate change” were a slew of articles claiming climate change causes cancer. CNBC and several other major news outlets published the claims, citing American Cancer Society (ACS) activists making the assertion. The line of reasoning is preposterous. And even if the ACS line of reasoning were sound, the line of reasoning would indicate that climate change is reducing cancer incidence and mortality.
The CNBC article is titled “Climate change is fueling extreme weather that lowers cancer survival rate and threatens prevention.” The article points out ACS line of reasoning as “[1] Climate change has triggered more frequent weather disasters like hurricanes and wildfires that [2] release deadly carcinogens into communities and [3] delay access to cancer treatment.” Each of the three prongs of the argument is ridiculous, and the three in combination give new meaning to the term “far-fetched.”
That’s a pretty good indication into how the news gets so weird, and wrong ideas seem to prevail. The fact that it is an election year means that politics rears its ugly head, and before you know it, all is confusion. Fight back.
Filed under: Capitalism, China, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economy, Free Markets, Freedom, Health Care, Heartwarming, Immigration, Politics, The United States | Tags: Americans Stepping Up, Coronavirus, science, Technology
Thursday March 26th: King County, Washington State, which includes Seattle, and an assortment of suburban communities. The population is 2.23 million. It is of particular interest because we got the first round of coronavirus or COVID-19. 31,712 people were tested, 92% negative, 2,530 or 7% were positive.
Washington state is the 13th largest state with a population of 7,797,095 (last Census). The total number of cases is 2,580 with 122 deaths. Here is the Public Health Report for Seattle and King County for March 26, Thursday. Lots of interesting data there, and a map that shows how it is spread. The blue in the middle of the orange map is Lake Washington, the surrounding light blue is Puget Sound. While we started it out in the country with the Kirkland nursing home, and way too many deaths, New York, bigger and denser is rapidly catching up.
The United States currently has the most cases of any country in the world. New York is rapidly surpassing Seattle in active cases, which is understandable as the city is so dense. There is so much that we just don’t know yet. Can you get the disease more than once, or do you develop an immunity? Are young people immune? Apparently not, but that information comes from only a very few cases. We will learn all these things in time, but we want it now.
What is even more interesting and positive is the way Americans are stepping up to contribute. Dyson, a company that makes vacuum cleaners and that sort of stuff, has designed new ventilators and will produce 15,000. Apple is turning out 10 million masks. Bodman Industries does 3D computer printing. Their 60 printers will be printing 3,000 masks a day, and they are working with their suppliers to get others involved.
China announced this month of nearly a week of no new infections in Wuhan, the city where the pandemic originated, but nobody knows whether it can be believed or not. Chinese scientists have been transparent about what they have discovered so far, shared information on the genetics and sequences of the virus and details of autopsies, clinical care and outcomes and even shared fatality rates among different age groups. On the other hand, Chinese propaganda insists that the virus originated with the American military, which is absurd, but is filled with the Communist Party’s long history of propaganda and the necessity to bury the cover-up in a happy story of triumph over the virus. Communist governments do not like news that reflects badly on the Communist government. They included a photo of empty beds in a Wuhan hospital. A Taiwan network reported that one hospital as under pressure from the central government not to admit patients so it could report no new cases. So there you go.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, China, Coronavirus, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economy, Free Markets, Free Speech, Freedom, Health Care, Immigration, National Security, Politics, Regulation, The United States, Unemployment | Tags: Coronavirus, Much We Don't Know, science, When Will it End?
The Democrats had a big idea. Big coronavirus crisis, Nation in a state of crisis, good time to get some of our ideas that we haven’t been able to get done passed. Republicans can’t turn us down because they need the coronavirus money. So they just stuffed all their ideas right into a modest 1,400 page bill. Headlines were not complimentary: “Politicians Standing in the Way of Emergency Relief”,”Cynical Power Play on Coronavirus Bill Shows Dems’ Far-Left Stripes,” “Tom Cotton Slams Democrats”, “Nancy Pelosi Coronavirus Bill Creates MultiBillion Slush Fund for Elite Liberal Causes.” “Pelosi Coronavirus Bill Creates Multibillion Slush Fund for Elite Liberal Causes,” Pelosi’s Bill Contains Return of Obama Phones”, “Pelosi’s Bill Imposes Nationwide Ballot Harvesting,”
The list goes on and on, Diversity forced on Corporate Boards, or just read Tom Cotton’ s MUST READ thread on what she has included in the bill. Wasn’t such a good idea, the outrage was prompt in arriving. Now and then the Democrats reveal just how far left they are, and the American people aren’t. The American people are justifiably frightened by this virus, we don’t know how deadly it will be. The reports from other countries like Iran and Italy are devastating, We don’t know how many Chinese have died from the Wuhan virus, nor do we know if what the Chinese claim can be trusted. Communist governments are not usually forthcoming with anything that reflects badly on them.
Even President Trump’s advisors don’t know how long the virus will last, how many people it is likely to infect, whether it will die off as warm weather comes on, it’s all guesswork. We have had corona viruses before, but each has its own schedule and invasive qualities. Many states have been only very lightly affected. People compare it to the national deaths from the flu, from traffic accidents, but that doesn’t mean much of anything. I’ll bet when the pharmacies start telling us next year to get our flu shots, more of us will pay attention.
President Trump said in his press conference today that he hopes they can relax the control of groups and meetings by Easter so people can go to church on Easter Sunday, but we don’t know. The media, of course, wanted to excoriate him for even suggesting that it would be over by Easter, but if he hadn’t they would be excoriating him for not, or for something else. The Democrat Media has exhibited an irresponsibility that is rather startling in its extent. They don’t like President Trump, and make that clear at every opportunity. No wonder he calls them Fake News.
Since we in the Seattle Area were the first ones hit in this country, perhaps our results will be the first to show when and if it is tapering off. We’ll see. In the meantime, try being a good neighbor. Help out if you can. Give blood. Try not to “stock up” to such a extent that you are leaving your neighbors without. And take care of yourselves.
American Elephants 