Category: General

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Why Bother?

Gavin Newsom Biography.Newsom with his political stunt called Prop 50 “Won”.

Of course he won, Newsom and the California Democratic machine always “wins”

In one of the most gerrymandered states, Newsom gets to gerrymander it further.

The original California Redistricting commission, whose charter says something about grouping communities with similar interests and needs made our congressional representation Judy Chu who in addition to being wholly ineffective has the heart of her district in the wealthy Pasadena, Montrose, La Cañada / Flintridge, Alta Dena areas. 

Those of us living in the mountain communities and high desert have little in common with those areas. We were better off with Jay Olbernolte who actually lives in the mountain community of Big Bear. He’s also lived his whole life in and around the high desert if I recall correctly.

But the difference between La Cañada / Flintridge is astounding. They’re concerned about whether their Latte is properly mixed, the people on this side of the mountain are concerned about paying our heating bills so we don’t freeze to death.

Their interests are if the automatic gate to their community is working, our interests are is the freeway open so that we can get to work.

Our communities have very little in common. Not that it matters because the candidates that are presented from that side of the mountain literally don’t know where we are nor do they know anything about the “Fly Over” area they see from their first class window seats as they fly to Las Vegas or Lake Tahoe for the weekend.

After the census when the redistricting commission was doing their work, Jerry & I spent a lot of time on phone calls and writing letters politely explaining why some of their redistricting schemes improperly grouped us with communities that had nothing in common with us.

We managed, with our voices joining with thousands of others to prevent some of the worst ideas. But it was clear that the Commission itself was seeking to slice up Republican strongholds. The mountain communities and the high desert is unsurprisingly, heavily Republican, Libertarian, or independent conservative. There’s a lot of working class people who have little time or concern about the “Feel Good” Democrat agenda. We want low crime, were/are fighting to stop illegal pot farms that steal water from fire hydrants to water their pot harvests and enforce their will with illegal guns. We want the roads to be maintained, and a lot of us moved up here to get away from the noise, crime, and insanity of the cities. There’s a lot of folks here who escaped LA, choosing to commute 80 miles to work, so they could have peace & quiet. They wanted to live in a high trust environment and know their neighbors.

Unfortunately, a large chunk of this area got consumed by a democrat district. Oddly, the democrat district is one of 3 that cover the foothills from Glendora to Rancho Cucamonga. Even stranger, is that the district that consumed us, isn’t even the closest. 

Clearly, whatever “Logic” the California Redistricting commission used was designed to associate an extremely wealthy LA suburb with people on the completely opposite side of the financial spectrum.

It wasn’t just the congressional district. It was the state representative district too. By the time all the wrangling was done, we went from a Republican congressional district and a swing seat state representative district to solid Democrat representation all the way. Before the redistricting we could actually contact someone and get things taken care of.

Neither level of representatives have ever visited this area. Judy Chu as a photo op tried banging on an ICE detention center in Adelanto once, a few months ago demanding entrance. Adelanto is not in her district and I’m sure she didn’t have any clue where she was. She could have dropped by a community center meeting or two on that Tuesday as she headed back to the lap of luxury in her Pasadena area home.

I don’t even know the state representative’s name. He’s wholly ineffective and the few times I dialed into his “Town Hall” conferences he refused to answer any questions from folks on this side of the mountain, concentrating instead on the LA side of his district. (Truth to tell, I don’t think the guy even knew he represented those folks.)

All of this is to say, when the redistricting commission was done with us, we effectively had no real representation. It was representation in name only.

Now along comes Newsom. Not content with lots of disenfranchised people, he wants to make even more people un-represented. He wants to silence dissenting voices to his authority and even though he’s on his way out, he wants to screw over more people of California.

I suspect he’s got two goals here. 1) He’s using the California electorate to give a middle finger to President Trump. 2) He’s setting up a solid Newsom voting bloc called California to propel his Presidential Aspirations.

It should be noted that a huge chunk of California called San Bernardino County actually voted to investigate secession from the state of California to become the 51st state. In part because Newsom’s management of California state resources left the entire country without many needed resources that they pay for in taxation. San Bernardino county is larger in total square miles than some entire states on the east coast.

Newsom doesn’t care though, it won’t be his problem and the next election cycle which will put a new governor in Sacramento will cause the people of San Bernardino to pause their efforts hoping that the new governor will be a good one.

In my opinion, they’ll be pissing into the wind. The next governor of the state will in all likelihood be just as bad as Newsom.

It’s with all of this frustration as a backdrop that I voted “NO” on Prop 50 on Tuesday.

I knew going in that my time would be better spent jerking off in a truckstop toilet but I voted anyway.

Even as I was casting my vote on a single issue, (it was the only issue on the ballot,) I thought to myself why bother voting at all in California? All dissenting voices are immediately drowned out by the majority of Democrat voters. Many of whom, apparently thought they were voting to impeach President Trump.

So in addition to the one party rule the Democrat party has in California. A rather substantial portion of those Democrat voters have no clue how the government works at either a State or Federal level. They happily vote against whatever “Enemy” the Democrat party tells them to.

So I thought to myself, “Why bother?”

There is no way voting in anything to do with California politics will change the outcome. No matter how much research or effort I put into carefully considering my position on a candidate it will not matter. Nor will other people like me ever regain any kind of voice in California politics. (As an aside, I vote the candidate, not the party.)

Newsom is technically violating California Law with Proposition 50. It’s billed as a “Temporary” measure. But there’s no real expiration date on it. I suppose that the 2030 census could reset the Governor’s ability to redraw district maps. But by then, no-one will remember that the California redistricting commission actually has that control and de-facto the redistricting will remain under the direct control of the Governor’s office.

Who’s the “King”? The Dictator? This is some real 3rd world shit right here.

This realization has led me to believe that voting here is a pointless exercise and that California is lost.

I’d been contemplating moving to an all RED state. Then I thought, “That’s the exact same bullshit you have in California, just the other side of the coin.”

Now I contemplating moving to a state that is conservative leaning, but Purple. It seems that if I’m going to move, perhaps a purple state would have more people like me. Folks that are interested and engaged in exercising their right to vote for the benefit of the people of the state, not the enrichment or control of political parties. People who can have discussions and debates about ideas without fear of being cancelled or having violence done to them.

Then it occurred to me that what I’m seeking is the real American spirit. A concept of “One for all and all for one.”

Realistically, that has probably never truly existed. Humans are after all, inherently self centered and self absorbed. That concept is a dream and it has two sides. One is Communism and the other is a constitutional Republic.

In the one, it’s about government mandated compliance, in the other it’s about the willingness to compromise so that everyone “Hopefully” rises and lives the life they choose in the way that they choose.

Surprisingly Newsom may have done something good for me personally. He changed my view about what kind of state I wish to live in. So I guess I owe him thanks for broadening my perspective.

I also think that I’ll hold off buying a new house. Instead I’ll rent maybe in several places until after the 2028 election. If Newsom by hook or crook should “win” the Presidency then I’ll be able to move out of the United States and live out my days somewhere else like Poland, in peace.

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Well Damn!

Was cleaning the house today.

I moved the coffee table and a chair to vacuum. Under both were areas of the rug that looked “Odd” I didn’t think much of it until I’d run the vacuum over them. Then I was looking at the backing of the rug.

It took me a moment… then I saw a moth. I got down on my hands & knees and saw immediately what happened. Some kind of small species of moth had come in, and made themselves right at home.

The rug was made of wool.

Well shit!

The rug was 13 years old. It was the last one of a set. The first one had been destroyed when the fire sprinkler pipe in the ceiling broke. This one had survived, but it was showing signs of wear around the edges.

I wasn’t quite ready to let it go but found myself having no choice. I rolled it up and carried it outside. Now I have to figure out how to get rid of it. It’s small enough that I may be able to stuff it in a black trash bag with some plant trimmings ( as camouflage).

The rugs, were two that Jerry & I picked out when we were buying furniture after the house rebuild. Both were neat matching geometric patterns.

I had to get rid of it, but it’s still another thing in the house that we selected together. Now it’s gone.

Jesse isn’t pleased. I think he believes he was bad although I’ve been trying to reassure him. I ended up wiping the underside of all the furniture trying to make sure I got any remaining eggs or other creatures.I scrubbed the floor and put felt on the bottoms of the furniture pieces to protect the floor. In case anything slid around.

I sort of like the room without the rug. I’ll have to see how this works. If it doesn’t I’ll pick something up.

This was not what I had planned for the day, but it’s probably for the best. I went around the house checking on the cedar blocks in drawers containing wool. I should probably find some replacements, they’re not as pungent as they once were. I’ve got wool sweaters and scarves for winter. I’d prefer not to have them eaten.

I usually moved the furniture around every couple of weeks to vacuum and I remember seeing something a few weeks ago but thinking it was just that the rug was getting old. I’m amazed how much damage was done in such a short period of time.

If there’s any benefit to synthetic carpeting, I suppose it’s that moths aren’t an issue.

Between the grape vine and now the rug, it feels like things are just slipping away.

Sigh…

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Peace in the Middle East, for however long it lasts

I’m glad that President Trump managed to bring peace to the Gaza – Israel conflict. Overall it’s a good thing.

I’ve noticed that there are Democrats claiming President Trump is building on something someone did in the Biden Administration.

I don’t believe it and honestly don’t give a damn what they think. Or what lies they have to tell themselves to maintain their delusion that Biden was in any way good for the country.

I don’t think it will last, Hamas is already testing the boundaries and they are not to be trusted. They’re not going to willingly give away their control or power, and they’ve no doubt negotiated this peace as a survival tactic. I believe they should be hunted down and exterminated like the lying vermin they are. If Israel decides to do exactly that, I’m all for nobody noticing.

My only concern is that I don’t want America involved in it at all. It’s none of our concern.

That’s not being islamophobic, or genocidal, it’s recognizing an enemy that has for decades played the same game. Attack, get their asses kicked, sue for peace, rebuild their arsenal, attack again. 

It’s like the shampoo bottle instructions, “wash, rinse, repeat.”

“Oh Hamas did a terror attack in Israel? Again? Yawn!”

I’m really hoping President Trump holds the line regarding our involvement and that he’s able to keep the other Middle Eastern nations to their word about controlling the bullshit in Gaza.

Unfortunately, I don’t think this will be a lasting peace. I’m willing to enjoy Palestinian protestors being off our streets for a while.

I’ve been amused watching the media trying to acknowledge the accomplishment without choking on their own bile.

Trump’s been in office less than a year, and thus far he’s keeping campaign promises. Illegal crossings at the border are at what some reports indicate, a 50 year low.

Corporations are brining manufacturing back to America, (that’s going to be a long term improvement.) Oil drilling is allowed in US coastal waters again. I’m not sure that I’m all for that, but I am for energy independence, and if drilling is a stepping stone to that I’m good with it.

The H1B programs are under fire so maybe we’ll have the ability to call a bank, cellphone, electric, natural gas, and almost any other service oriented company and get someone that we don’t need a universal translator to understand. It would be nice to conduct business in my language without straining to understand the person.

Folks are screaming that our medical industry will be impacted. Maybe. However, since we’re deporting a substantial number of people who use hospital ERs and urgent cares like their primary care physicians because they’re getting medical services on the tax payer dime. The medical issue may sort itself out without intervention.

I for one don’t feel comfortable with the sloppy medical care that has become commonplace. Nor do I feel comfortable having to ask for a translation of the doctor’s diagnosis, then ask for a translation of the translation a nurse provided, from a janitor.

Yes, these people supposedly speak English. But it’s unintelligible.

I do enjoy the fact that when these people look at my last name, they revert to “Mr.” And my first name. 

That being said, I’ve recently had some “American” workers do the same thing because they can’t navigate saying my last name. Had our family not americanized the spelling when we came in on Ellis Island or other ports of entry, I’d probably be a whole lot more amused. Or offended… I’m not sure which.

Were it not for the expense and inconvenience, I’d consider changing my last name back to the original spelling. At least then, when someone botched it they’d have a good reason.

How is it that I, an uneducated American, can usually say someone’s first and last name from the way it is spelled? When I was answering technical support calls, I always took the time to give it a whirl, ask if I got it right, then carry on with the conversation properly using the Mr. Mrs. or Miss pronouns and the person’s last name as a sign of respect.

It’s a small thing, but I always found it made people at least more comfortable and feel that they were being heard. Referring to someone as “Mr. Steve” always felt, to me at least, disrespectful.

Then there’s the prescription pricing that President Trump is working on bringing into line. I’m super happy about that. There’s never been any excuse for being able to buy the same medication in Mexico or Canada at 1/2 or 1/4 the price just because you bought it outside the United States.

What does the drug cost to manufacture? What does it cost to package and distribute? What did it cost to develop? Add the costs up divide that by the number of people likely to use the drug during it’s patent period, add a little % of profit and that’s the freaking cost the consumer should pay no matter where they live.

If their government wants to subsidize the cost to provide the medication to the poor, that’s their business.

There’s no way that the people of the United States should have been paying higher prices for something just because someone, somewhere, decided they should pay for someone in Zimbabwe to pay less. President Trump is right in saying the American people have been ripped off for years.

I know the pharmaceutical industry is pissed off at Trump and I’m “all in” for that too. 

Even here in America, you can see the differences. Wallgreens charges 4 times the price for a generic medication I’m familiar with than Rite-Aid did. What Wallgreens charges medicare is even more.

House & Senate Democrats light their hair on fire about medicare and social security becoming insolvent but don’t have any plan except to keep pumping money into those systems, except asking why. They never get to the root cause of stopping that kind of fraud.

President Trump went to the source and attempted to put a stop to usury pricing.

The Senate Democrats are claiming that millions will lose healthcare due to the government shutdown. They neglect to say that many of those millions are getting it for free due to government subsidies. Some are flat out illegal aliens, some are people who are citizens and who truly need assistance. The latter, I’d like to see taken care of but until the former are not getting the freebies they’ll be hurt too.

Why is it better to be an illegal in America than it is to be a citizen?

I could’ve had healthcare for the previous 5 years.

I didn’t because the math just didn’t work.

Let me lay it out to you. I couldn’t pay for a bottom of the barrel Obamacare plan. It cost more than my mortgage. I could have applied for a subsidy that the state insurance folks called “Free”.

But it’s not free. It’s paid for by tax dollars, and required giving the state direct access to my banking, retirement, and pensions. Oh and since I owned a house, they’d have had the ability to put a lien on my house to cover the “Free” taxpayer subsidy.

They’d have monitored my income, so they could make sure I wasn’t getting benefits I wasn’t allowed to have. Oh, and guess what? The subsidy is taxable as earned income. 

I’d have been paying full income tax on a subsidy that did nothing but pay for a service costing $1600-$1800 a month, but over the past 5 years the actual cost of medical care cost  me a grand total of 12K out of pocket.

Plus I’d have been paying for car registration, property taxes, sales tax, gas tax, and all the wonderful little fees & taxes on my utility bills that provide “Free” utilities to people who are poorer than me.

Providing those “Free” services to the people poorer than me, in effect drives them further down the economic curve by increasing their tax burden, rather than raising them up.

Our Senate Democrats are fighting for more money to provide subsidies for a system of insurance that is clearly broken, and whether by design or implementation breaks the backs of not only the poor, but also the working individuals paying their taxes to the Federal and State governments. 

Admittedly I’m a special case. In that I have hard assets, but even a single guy in an apartment would feel the impact, if for example his employer didn’t provide health insurance.

So I’m actually all in for not raising the subsidies. I’m hoping that the Senate Democrats demand to raise more subsidies to pump into a broken system like Obamacare, casts in sharp relief just how broken and wrong Obamacare was from the start.

A functioning system shouldn’t require endless money to be poured into it in ever increasing amounts.

If you’ve got a car that costs more to maintain than the payment on a newer vehicle, you dump the broken car and buy a new one. You sure as hell don’t keep pumping money into it and at the same time let your drunken buddies keep borrowing it then returning it more broken, with an empty gas tank day after day.

That’s essentially what Obamacare is doing.

I hope that Kennedy or Trump asks how much money shows up in Politicians bank accounts or campaign funds from Obamacare insurers and pharmaceutical companies.

I think the answer would be very enlightening. Afterwards, I’d like to see those answers referred to the DOJ followed by swift indictments and punishment for any wrong doing. I don’t care how many Congressmen are utterly destroyed or which party they’re affiliated with.

Which brings me back to peace in the Middle East, and the war in Ukraine.

Trump bringing an end to the Israeli / Palestinian conflict in short order makes me question in a broader sense just how similar the flow of money is in the military industrial complex to the medical / pharmaceutical games.

For those Congressmen who’ve been feeding the conflicts through words or deeds, how much money have they made?

Could it be that’s why they hate President Trump’s policies with every fiber of their being?

I hope President Trump is able to put an end to taxation for everyone. I’d be happiest if he stopped all taxation. But I’d be willing to accept him doing away with taxation on everyone that didn’t make a million a year.

That should make the Senate Democrats happy. After all, they’ve been saying for years, “Tax the rich,” haven’t they? But they say this knowing they’re immune from taxation don’t they? Maybe the House and Senate should be taxed at 50% on every dollar they make in excess of their Congressional pay.

Yeah, I know I’ve been all over the map with this one. Sorry…

Have a great day.

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Here we go again, la de da de da.

Edison is turning off the power again.

Well, they claim they’re turning the power off. In the past, they’ve said it, then rescheduled 2 or 3 times before they finally got round to actually doing it.

When I say rescheduled, uh, what I mean is the power never gets turned off and then sometime a day or two later they send a notice out saying they didn’t turn the power off and that they’ll reschedule.

These messages are completely unnecessary since we’ve already figured out they didn’t do what they said they’re going to do.

Oh well, at the requisite time and date I’ll run around the house turning things off to make sure that none of my electronics are damaged.

This one is supposedly overnight. Okay, so I’ll wake up the next morning and not have to reset any clocks.

It wouldn’t be annoying if I had any faith in them. But Edison, like all kinds of other corporations is using contract labor and honestly that contracted labor is horribly unreliable.

We’ll see what happens.

If I’m offline for a week or so, no worries. I’ve just gone back to the 18th century for a while.

And they’ve rescheduled it to October 28th.

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As predicted the UK is implementing Digital ID, but it’s worse and faster than anticipated.

A while back I wrote a couple of pieces about digital IDs. The most recent is linked Here . An older one is linked Here. 

Logo ec en.Yesterday I ran across articles about the UK rolling out compulsory digital ID, and another article about the EU beginning a digital ID program for visitors to EU countries. There’s another article about a Swiss version, I stumbled across this morning.

I also noted that North Dakota added their digital drivers license to the Apple Wallet, (but they’re charging their residents a fee for the privilege).

The EU digital ID program is starting mid October. This system requires visitors to supply fingerprints, and submit to a facial scan for entry to EU countries. The claim is that they’ll be able to do away with passport stamps and better be able to identify people who overstay their visas. They also claim that fingerprints and facial scans will only be maintained for 3 years.

Meaning, if you only visit one of these countries and never go back to any other EU country, 3 years after your visit they’ll purge the record. I personally think they’ll never purge those records. 3 years is a long time and I’m positive that additional laws will be enacted that make those records permanent. 

After all, the UK & EU have both been pushing for backdoors into private phone data for everyone on the planet. There’s every reason to believe they’re trying to, and will succeed in building some kind of database of not only their own citizens, but also any visiting tourists.

One article suggested that if a tourist for example refused to provide this biometric data, they’d be denied entry to the country requesting the information.

Hey, a country is entitled to maintain control over their national borders. (Unless the country’s name is the United States, ahem.)

As a tourist, I don’t necessarily want to provide biometric data, so I guess any ideas I had about visiting Europe are toast once this system is fully implemented.

My passport chip contains biometrics as well and honestly, I’m not thrilled about that either. The difference is that I have control over my passport and who sees it. Once that chip is scanned though, my data is subject to being uploaded to whatever database a requester sees fit.

Fundamentally, and in a perfect world where governments could be trusted I’m good with providing this kind of information. The problem is, we don’t live in a perfect world, and no government can be trusted.

I go into it in some detail in the posts I referenced at the top of this post.

In fact I’d already decided if I ever went to Europe that I’d leave all technology stateside. My reasoning, before the UK & EU mandates was that I didn’t want to risk being detained anywhere for an offensive meme, or a comment that was deemed “Hate speech” that might be on my phone.

I figured if I didn’t carry any tech, other than my Nikon, and refused to provide any email addresses there’s be no way I could post something someone didn’t like. Without access to my online accounts, the authorities in whatever country would have no way to review my online activity to determine if I passed their purity tests.

Yes, I used the term “Purity Test” with intention. That term hearkens back to Nazi Germany, Communism, and even the old “One Drop Rules” of the white supremacists in the Old South.

The primary difference today isn’t about skin color, or religion. It’s about compliance and purity of thought. Does a particular individual represent a threat to group think? Is that person’s presence likely to cause a disruption in thought amongst our subjects? Will this person raise or ask difficult questions?

Honestly, that’s what I think these mandates are about. It’s not just being identified, or verifying that someone is overstaying their visa or has government authorization to work.

It’s about linking an individual to their social media, which is a way to get inside their head, then limiting their privileges within the society based on how compliant a person is. Just as China is doing today.

This is authoritarianism. The UK and EU are running headlong into the abyss.

I naively thought that traveling without technology would provide some level of privacy. I no longer think that is sufficient.

The UK has famously blocked speakers from other countries one of whom is a gentleman who after much study is very critical of Islam. The first time they blocked him from entering the UK they waited until he’d made the flight to the UK. They knew they were going to ban him, but chose to cost him money by making the flight, then charging him for accommodation under guard until he could pay the extra fees to take an early flight back to the US.

It’s reasonable to ask when will the UK start scouring average people’s social media accounts as a condition of entry.

The UK is, I think a petrie dish of sorts for the EU. Yes, they’ve supposedly broken away from the EU, but they’re still headed away from freedom and into authoritarianism.

When you think about it, the UK is a perfect testing ground. They’re small, easily contained via blockade, disarmed, have a liberal population, and are steeped in white guilt.

Those factors mean that experimentation about how much a population will take before they revolt is relatively safe. If crushing authoritarian control results in civil war it’s no big deal. The EU can call in the UN for “Humanitarian reasons” and put down any rebellion.

Think that’s utter bullshit? Then why are some units of the London police force wearing UN blue uniforms? Why are common rights within the UK being abridged? Why are teenagers and adults being fined or arrested for social media posts? Why is it apparently illegal to fly traditional UK flags?

I think the powers that be behind the EU are still pulling the UK government’s strings and that it’s likely what’s happening in the UK is an experiment that’s reaching its end.

Which means the EU is going to implement all the things that people in the UK allowed with a minimum amount of grumbling in all their member nations.

It also means that I’m not going to see Europe in my lifetime. I’m probably never going on a dive trip outside the United States territorial waters again. Curaçao and Bon Aire for example are part of The Netherlands, they fall under EU law. Although, their restaurants, bars, and hotels prefer any currency other than Euros.

It would be easy to say to myself, “Well, I’m only a tourist and this biometric data they’re asking for is nothing to worry about.” That is probably a true statement and as an average person 100% correct for now.

But how long before AI can scan everything I’ve ever posted, find a “crime” in any particular country I’m visiting & arrest me? I’ve been critical of Islam, I’ve been critical of the UK, the US, the transgender movement, some of my opinions could be considered radical, hurtful, or I could be deemed an “agitator”.

While those comments may be legal in my home country (at the moment), they may be considered illegal in other countries and all countries have different statutes of limitations on such things.

If authoritarian governments have biometric data, linked to my digital ID, and via my digital ID they link things I’ve said, even in anger, on social media… Then any of it can be used to legally detain me, fine me, or imprison me.

Much as I like the idea of digital ID’s I think I’m going to so my best not to use them and I’ll see what I can do about deleting my digital ID footprint.

It’s not about engaging in criminal activity, It’s about denying those who would control me the opportunity. 

As a plus, I don’t have to pay the US government for my passport every 10 years.