Hard Choices

I remind you, that it is not immoral to secure your oxygen mask, before helping others with theirs.

In a disaster or industrial accident, It is not immoral to save those who have a good chance of survival by providing medical resources to them, while providing pain killers, but not wasting medical resources, to those who are suffering but who will not survive.

These are admittedly stark choices. Yet we’re all familiar with them. During the COVID pandemic doctors and nurses essentially made these decisions in hospitals nationwide.

We accepted this without question.

The talking heads on our screens went so far as to say, those who did not comply with masking, vaccines, and isolation… Should be left to die.

That these “Journalists” weren’t called out on such statements and their disappointment that millions of (R) voters didn’t die is a sign of how far “Journalism” has fallen in this country.


Why, given these harsh but acceptable realities do we refuse to accept that we cannot help every single less fortunate country?

Our farming community is warning that there will likely be more food shortages in the coming months.

Yet we continue to send grain to other countries. We continue to allow people to swarm the southern border, are we condemning these poor souls to starvation?

Inflation and high fuel prices are predicted to be with us until at least 2023. It will cost more to heat our homes in the winter. It will cost more for electricity and water, year round.

Getting to, and from work, will cost more. Bus fares, taxis, or train fares, will all go up regardless of how they’re powered.

As we’ve seen, gasoline for automobiles has skyrocketed, making commuting to work more expensive, and working from home more desirable.

Median housing prices have topped $400,000 according to Consumer Affairs. This will drag rental prices up, further pricing low middle, and low income people out of decent housing.

These folks will not be able to buy a home, and as their rent increases they’ll be pushed further under water, making it hard for them to simply hold on to what they have.

Can you really work from home if you’re sharing a one bedroom apartment with 5 other people? How’s that important teleconference going to work with people coming and going in the background?

Adding millions of immigrants with varying skills, literacy, and language abilities, to the population will only increase strain on state and federal resources. Additionally, doesn’t this fuel rental scarcity and rent increases?

Would a landlord prefer to evict people already in apartments who may occasionally have trouble paying their rent on time, for a guaranteed income paid for by Government aid to house immigrants?

There is a growing scarcity of medical professionals. More skilled doctors are retiring all the time. Some cite burnout from COVID, others cite stresses imposed on them by insurance bureaucracies and lack of qualified staff.

Will newcomers to this country soon be adding to the hoards of people already waiting for care in emergency rooms? What effect does that have on already stressed medical professionals? If the burnout among medical professionals increases won’t the quality of healthcare be diminished as a result?

Will hospitals and Emergency Rooms have to add full time translators to their staff just to communicate? What will these realities, and those I can’t imagine, do to cost of medical care?

Our government’s solution to the problem is to keep taking people in, and spread them around the country. That works in the short term. But longer term, unless the inflow is stopped, all the current solution does is create desperation, ghettos, and hopelessness.

The tragedy is that many of these people have traveled thousands of miles at great personal risk, some of them taking on incredible debt to criminal organizations, only to be put right back in conditions similar to those they left.

How disheartening must it be to go through all that hardship and suffering only to end up in a place that looks exactly like where they left, their job prospects are the same or worse, everything is more expensive, and they don’t understand the culture or the language to boot.

This is why, until recently, most first world nations had very strict immigration quotas and enforced them. It wasn’t about cruelty or malice. It was the practical realization that groups of immigrants (illegal or otherwise) need time to assimilate into a new culture. Time to find productive employment, and time to move out of assisted housing to stand on their own.

That these same first world nations so vehemently criticized our nation’s attempts at curbing illegal immigration is another matter.

Now that they are being overrun themselves it would be easy to smile and tell them, “See, we told you so…” That would be counterproductive, fair, but counterproductive.

It will be interesting to see what these countries say to our nation when they start their deportation flights. At least one, maybe two EU countries are doing exactly that. They’ve seen they can’t help, and are trying to send people back to their points of origin.

A better solution would be for the United States, and these EU nations to make it known;

“DON’T COME! Your situation will be no better here. Don’t risk your lives or the lives of your family. You’ll only be deported, and what money you spent will be wasted.”

For the US, we need to complete the border wall. There are those who’ll say people find their way around and over the wall. Yep, they do. But not hundreds or thousands in a month.

The wall won’t stop the flow entirely, but it may reduce it to a manageable level. A level that allows proper hearings, proper evaluation of asylum requests, and a way for the system to work as it’s intended. This would allow those who legitimately request asylum to be housed, fed, integrated into communities, and welcomed.

The time is coming when we’ll have to accept it’s time to put our own oxygen masks on, and leave the fate of others… In their own hands.

It’s not fair.

The antelope on the African savanna doesn’t think it’s fair the lion is eating him. That doesn’t stop the lion. The lion doesn’t think it’s fair that he’s been hungry for 5 days either.

Life rarely deals out equitable outcomes. The sooner we accept that, the sooner we’ll be able to make changes that will allow us to help those we can help.

This is why I’m in favor of immigration control. I think it’s cruel to allow people to believe in a dream of The United States, strive to get here and then destroy them with the reality that they’re no better off.


Afghanistan had a major earthquake. Sorry!

The Taliban…

The Fucking Taliban! Is asking for aid, a.k.a. CASH to help with their recovery efforts.

I wish I was in a position to tell them two words via diplomatic channels.

FUCK OFF!

Clean up your own mess. That’s what a functioning government does. If you can’t take care of an earthquake, you don’t deserve to be in power.

For me, it’s that cut & dried. I’m sorry a thousand innocent people lost their lives, that’s where my largess ends.

We fought you terrorist assholes for 20 years. Biden left you 80 Billion in arms and equipment, (which is now showing up in black markets around the globe).

You assholes have more than enough assets to clean up the mess. That is, if you can take 10 minutes to write a check, or a month of black market profit and put it into your country, instead of your pockets.

Why should America or any other civilized nation prop up your failed government? It’s far simpler and cheaper to allow your people to see what kind of failures, and how corrupt you are.

Maybe someone will loan your people a bulldozer to shove all your body parts into a mass grave full of pig offal. Because when they figure out you’re stealing bread from their tables, they’re gonna rip you apart with their bare hands.

We have problems of our own. Our politicians, who may not be much better than the Taliban when it comes to corruption, will be looking to cover their own asses if shortages continue, or increase in the civilized world.

Tell you what Taliban… Call Venezuela see what they can do for you.

Until then, you Taliban jackasses better sleep alone. It will probably be the women you take to rape, that slit your throats.

Calendar Cleaning! That’s better!

Where did all these observances come from?

A while ago, I subscribed to an online Calendar that neatly stuck all the US holidays into my digital Calendar.

It was nice at first. Everything that I wanted to know was there. I could plan long weekends and knew when it was likely to be a bad day to go to the bank or post office.

As is usual for me with these things, I simply forgot about it and was content that I wouldn’t have to enter holidays that moved around from year to year depending on Fridays or Mondays closest to the actual date if the holiday fell on a Saturday or Sunday.

Years go by. There was small additions to the observances, but they were pretty mundane. One here, one there, in a month. No big deal.

A few more years go by.

Today I opened my calendar to full month view for the first time in I don’t know when.

WTF?!?!

My once simple calendar was now loaded with all kinds of observances and holidays that mean nothing to me. There were literally hundreds of Civil Servants days. Obama Day? Librarians Day? 4 different wordings of Juneteenth? Columbus Day, Indigenous Peoples Day, National Indigenous Peoples Day?

In some cases there were so many observances on a single day that the “All Day” section of the calendar was saying +9 more because it couldn’t display them all in the space provided.

There were also duplicates… So Many duplicates! (I hate duplicate data.)

Come on…

Unless it’s a national holiday and therefore a day off from work, or the banks are closed. I don’t care.

There was a time when it was nice to see “National Secretaries Day” but now, it’s become easier to find a day without some observance or another than to pay attention to all the observances.

It’s all become noise, a distraction. Is my calendar free for that day? Who can tell at a glance anymore?

After spending a few minutes trying to figure out the best way to flush all the random crap that had become meaningless. I decided instead to simply unsubscribe from what had once been a very useful service.

My calendar took 2 minutes to reconcile itself.

When it was done…

AHHHHH! Once again at a glance, I can see my schedule without having to open the day to specifically check.

My appointments, and mine alone show up. Their little green tags clearly show how much of my day they occupy. They’re not being overwritten by events and observances that don’t matter.

My historical calendar is visible again. This is a calendar that I created years ago with neat facts about the day in history. Amelia Earharts take off, the first man in space, the first woman in space, the date of the Norman invasion, that kind of thing. In each of these entries notes section I’d put detailed information about the event.

Suddenly Anniversaries, Birthdays, and my stuff is all there, with the original color coding I’d selected, instead of a muddy mess.

You know, it’s not so hard to enter “Real” Holidays into my calendar. There are some that require special treatment, but it’s a small price to pay for a clean readable schedule.

This is what happens when you pander to everyone.

Maybe we should pick just a few biggies and leave the rest to be observed by those who care?

Conservatives, It’s not enough…

It’s not enough to whinge and complain.

The question is, how will we address the issues we’re complaining about?

It’s not enough to sit behind keyboards making nasty comments about liberals or Democrats.

In doing this we’re no better than the liberals or Democrats that do the same on Twitter.

It’s not enough to boycott this company, or that.

Are we brave enough, to not only boycott the company who’s offended, but to boycott their parent company? Are we strong enough to boycott the other companies who share board members with the company we’re boycotting?

It’s not enough to say the election was stolen, or Trump 2024 or DeSantis 2024.

Have we actually done the research to validate the assertion or political choice, or simply repeating what we’ve been told, casting votes for the person the Republican Party says to?

It’s not enough to watch conservative curated snippets of the Jan 6th hearing.

Watching curated snippets that cast the hearing in a negative light, is no different than those watching the hearing and swallowing the snippets the committee has curated and says is true.

I think for myself. I’ve looked at the available information and made choices. They weren’t always the correct choices, or even the best choices. But I own them. For better or worse, they’re mine.

I look at the time and effort spent endlessly commenting on Twitter, Gab, Truth Social, Facebook, News articles, American Thinker, Breitbart, and the myriad other conservative outlets, and I have to ask.

Is this all we’ve got?

An upvote?
A snarky comment?
A meme?
An online argument?
A ‘share’ with followers?

Really?

Obviously we all have computers. How about spending all that energy, time and resource to figure a way out of this mess?

If, as so many of you say, the ship is sinking, it’s no matter who’s right and who’s wrong. The water is rising, we’ll all drown. Whatever differences we had will be settled in silence.

Will we go the route of Melville:

To the last, I grapple with thee; From Hell’s heart, I stab at thee; For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee.

Or will we put aside our differences, bridge the gap, and demonstrate what we’ve said we stand for.

Work!

Doing what needs to be done, because it needs doing.

Not for fame, not for riches, or clicks, or accolades. But because the survival of our country is in our best interest. Implicitly demonstrating that Capitalism is what ultimately drives societies forward to better futures.

So what if there will be those whose asses undeservedly get pulled from the water?

They, will stand as witnesses to the abject failure of marxism, socialism, or communism. Their survival and shame will haunt them all the days of their wretched lives. Because they will know they live by our largess, not by the sweat of their brow or the work of their own hand.

So Conservatives, and our more middle of the road friends…

Let’s get to work.

Put the phone down, push back from your keyboards, stop feeding the beast of the media, and self indulgent click bait.

Assess your skills and knowledge then direct it at the problems at hand.

How do we get this country’s supply chain moving?

Retired Truckers, Longshoremen, material handlers, shippers, planners? It’s time for you to take the stage.

How do we stop more and more people climbing onto a sinking lifeboat?

Retired diplomats, ambassadors, immigration professionals, Any thoughts?

What do we have to do to be energy independent?

Retired oil producers, roughnecks, drilling crews, coal miners, power plant workers, Nuclear engineers, This is your bailiwick.

How do we peacefully, yet undeniably make our voices heard in the halls of power?

Children of the ’50s, ’60s, 70’s 80’s. We were really good at making Washington listen. It’s time for us to decorate our walkers, dust off our signs, create easily remembered slogans, songs, and present clear and unified messages. It’s time to march once again.

(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

I know us old farts wanted to leave the issues to the young. We wanted to go fishing, put our feet up, watch the sunset, and pass peacefully from this mortal coil.

Unfortunately, our Nation, our Home isn’t done with us yet. “Once more into the breach dear friends…”

It sucks! But it is what it is.

Perhaps we can enjoy fishing and the sunset for a while after we help set things right.

Huzzah!

After 24 hours without power. We have electricity again.

The scheduled outage was only supposed to be for 12 hours.

We’re going through the Fridge and the Freezer to see just how much this cost us.

It’s funny, the worst day of the fire, we only lost power for 4 hours. The repairs left us without power for 24 hours. Obviously there was some way they were getting power to us.

Couldn’t they have replaced the poles, and lines that burned, while keeping the power on, then turned everything off for a few hours to make the final connections?

Just one of those questions that flits through my mind…

I’d already pulled the emergency solar panels out of the basement this morning. They’ve been charging my battery pack all morning. The battery pack got us through, keeping the phones and other essentials charged, but they were nearing empty this morning. I figured I’d grab all the solar energy I could, as soon as the sun came up.

The packs made it to about 50% charge using the panels. Pretty good now that I think about it. I’ll top them off using their adapters.

Still holding off restarting the server. The electric company has teased us before. I’m also leaving the solar panels handy for the same reason.

Ahhh, that first cup of coffee in the morning…


Now off to continue the battle with Federal Express. Big surprise, their website still shows the tracking number with “Delivery Estimate Pending”

But I’m going to finish a second cup of coffee before I pick up the phone!


The fire is over 80% contained, the last I checked. So perhaps we dodged a bullet this time around. Reports say no injuries, (to people, animals, or livestock,) no loss of buildings.

Those fire crews can come by my place anytime. I’ll pour them a glass of my best bourbon. If I can find some at the store I’ll cook ‘em steaks.

That’s the report from the mountain.

One plus to all of this…

I’ve been blissfully unaware of much of the news. I’d rather conserve power than doom scroll.

Did one of the networks really switch to golf while the Jan 6th hearings were being televised? WOW!

I wonder what the ratings are.

Random Stuff

Power is off, The electric company is replacing poles and lines that were burned in the fire.

Looks like it’s going to be a long outage. On the plus side we had internet for about 12 hours! Whoo Hooo. With the power down, now we don’t.

I’ve still got 5G on the phone. That’s a serious improvement from the 1 bar of LTE that I’ve had since Saturday.


Saw an article in Apple News this morning, about a pet store in Thousand Oaks, CA where the owner has made addendum to their pet adoption policy. Part of the adoption questionnaire asks about gun ownership, gun control, membership in the NRA etc. They will refuse to allow you to adopt a pet if you don’t agree with their views on the matter.

They go so far as to say if you’re a member of the NRA and lie to us on this form we’ll prosecute you for fraud. Because we will find out…

That seems a bit improbable, but whatever.

I applaud the owner for taking a stand. I think it’s partially incorrect, especially the part about the NRA. Then again that organization has been demonized for so long, then plagued with their own scandals… I supposed it makes sense that a liberal couldn’t help but see the NRA as a boogyman.

It will be interesting to see if the owner’s stance has any impact on their business, positive or negative.

I think they may find that their traffic will drop because some folks, regardless of their gun ownership or views on gun control, will look at these rules as an infringement on their privacy. That alone may be enough to drive business away. There are a lot of shelters, and breeders to select from.

Inadvertently this pet adoption place may add to the number of pets that eventually need homes if folks go the breeder route.

Nonetheless, This business owner’s policy is clearly stated and they have the right to refuse to do business with anyone they choose. (Unless it’s a member of some specially protected group.) It’s probably a good thing they’re a pet adoption business not a baker of wedding cakes…

So I support their right. I also compliment them on putting their money where their mouth is.


The insanity over the FedEx package that’s missing continues.

Yesterday I spoke with someone who seemed to think I should go back to the store where I handed the package to a person acting as their agent, who scanned the package while I watched, and start searching the place.

Frankly this rebooted my brain. This FedEx corporate moron was suggesting that I essentially perform an illegal search of a place of business where I was not an employee, nor was I law enforcement, nor was I that business owner.

When I asked the person very specifically if that was what he was suggesting he decided to back down on that completely unreasonable request.

I’m still blown away that a FedEx corporate employee would tell a customer that, the Customer should go search the premises of one of their Agent locations.

This however is demonstrative of the lack of training on the part of FedEx and may provide insight into why FedEx has become so damn unreliable.

I wonder if that’s why there are so many private bonded carriers operating in LA, Orange County, and San Diego. I was surprised recently when some documents were delivered to me via courier instead of UPS or FedEx. It was pleasant but the first time that’s happened.

I’ve got the BMW… Perhaps I could get a nice tailored suit and become “The Transporter” What are the rules? “No Names, Never open the package,” seems pretty easy to me. Gas prices on the other hand… hmmm.


Speaking of gas prices. I paid 6.79 a gallon recently. Amazing! Not in a good way. The only reason I’m not bitching up a storm about it, is that It had been more than a month since I’d last purchased gas. I figured, ehh, if I amortize it over the time since I last filled up it’s a big deal, but not world ending.

I was tinkering with going on a road trip just to blow the cobwebs out of the car and my brain. But I’m thinking that would be excessively extravagant.

I’d still like to do a road trip. I suppose if I drove straight to the California border then filled up in another state a road trip might be more reasonable.


I caught another article on Apple News I think it was originally printed in The Wall Street Journal, (I’m not too sure about that,) that reported a record number of Californians were taking up residence in Mexico. Apparently, the real estate market south of the border is booming.

Some of the reasons cited were, lower cost of living, lower cost of real estate, lower gas prices, lower food prices, and better quality of life.

One person interviewed for the article said that his family had saved 50% per month on their living expenses from their previous living arrangements in California.

He still commutes to San Diego daily for work, but in terms of better quality of life for his family, he said it was a reasonable trade off.

I’ll admit that when I first moved to San Diego, I considered renting a place south of the border. At the time I could have gotten a 2 bedroom 1 bath condo for $800 a month. The place was 2nd floor, 4 blocks from the beach, you could even see the ocean from the lanai.

Instead I settled for a 1 bedroom 1 bath for $1500 a month in Escondido. It was a choice that was about avoiding San Diego traffic. Had I done the Mexico condo, I’d have to drive through the nightmare of downtown San Diego morning and evening. In the end, I worked a goofy schedule which would have made the Mexico option viable… But that’s another story entirely.

In a twist of unintended irony. The article mentioned that with so many Californians going south of the border. It was pricing Mexican citizens out of the housing market and contributing to rising prices in other things.

Free market capitalism can be a stone bitch! I suppose the Mexican government hasn’t gone “Woke” yet and started regulating for the greater good.


For shits and giggles, I watched Atlas Shrugged I, II, & III last night. These movies are adaptations of Ayn Rand’s book of the same title. The production quality is good. The disconnect with different actors playing the key parts is a bit disconcerting moving from one movie to the other but it’s easy to get over. I prefer Grant Bowler’s portrayal of Hank Reardon over the other two actors. Not that the other actors didn’t do good jobs with the character, I simply liked Bowler the best.

I know, there are lots of people who say that Atlas Shrugged is a Republican propaganda piece and that it has no merit in today’s world. Blah Blah Blah.

To them I’d say, “Turn off your bias, read the book or watch the movies and then tell me you don’t see some parallels between what happened in the story and what our government is becoming.”

Lots of regulation, ever expanding government, lofty idealistically admirable yet unachievable goals, do nothing committees, hearings which produce nothing and go nowhere, politicians making decisions without due consideration of the effects those decisions will have. Shaming of the wealthy for their achievements, etc. etc. etc.

I’ve read some biographical information about Ayn Rand, in some cases it’s said she was just writing fiction. In other cases it’s said she based the fiction of Atlas Shrugged on things she remembered from her childhood in Russia. Still other say she was prescient.

I don’t know which, if any of these conclusions are true. What I do see is, at best life is imitating art. At worst whatever madness led Russia to communism and all the horrors that we now know happened in soviet Russia, may well have taken hold in American politics.

Perhaps it was never a matter of IF it could happen, instead it was only a matter of When.

I know I’d like to be spirited away to “Atlantis”, by someone like John Gault.