So does this mean….

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson May15 23 AP 640x480That reparations are off the table?

While Brandon Johnson, the mayor of Chicago was blaming white extremists for some of the problems in Chicago he said one thing that really stuck out from all the usual diatribe.

“It is abysmal and it is an affront to everything that is good about this country for the extremism in this country to use people as political tools to settle political scores for something that happened over 400 years ago. They’re still mad that a black man is free in this country,” – Brandon Johnson, Mayor of Chicago.

Is he suggesting that we should stop trying to settle scores for something that happened 400 years ago?

If so, does he mean all scores? Since reparations have been paid at least once, (40 acres and a mule) I’d take Brandon Johnson at his word and say, “Okay, The black community needs to stop asking for more reparations and those evil white extremists will stop doing whatever you’re accusing them of.”

Let’s face it, the majority of this whole white supremacy/ white extremist narrative is nothing more than a reuse of “The Monster in the closet/ Boogieman” designed to terrify black folks into voting for the Democrats. It’s a lot like the Hamas children’s shows extolling the evil of the Jews and teaching little Palestinian Children that killing Jews is a good thing.

In fact you could take one of those Hamas children shows and replace the word “Jew” with the word “White” and not have to reshoot a single frame of the show. A lot of black folks would eat that shit right up and be burning and looting inside a week. Especially if you made sure that everyone knew the show was from Palestine. (After all if it’s from Palestine it has to be “good and right” doesn’t it?)

Chicago is a shit show and has been a shit show for a very long time. I have an acquaintance who talks about driving into Chicago for a Thanksgiving gathering in the late 1970’s and getting shot in the leg, sitting inside the car after filling his tank with gas. No warning, no altercation, he just happened to be a white guy passing through South Chicago. The family was selling their home due to the rising crime and this was to be the last Thanksgiving in Illinois. The round was a .22 and had to be surgically removed. The police of course never found the shooter, and couldn’t even say if he was a target or if the round ricocheted from a gun fight happening half a block away.

The issue isn’t White Supremacy or extremists. The issue is one of law and order. If someone breaks the law and gets arrested, it doesn’t matter what the color of their skin is, or their financial circumstances, or in fact anything except that they broke the law. They should pay the price! End of discussion.

The only variation I’d offer is for children. Sometimes a kid gets caught up in something that escalates so fast they’re in the middle of a storm. I’d suggest we go back to the time when a judge could show lenience in the case of a first time offender. The judge could sentence the youthful offender to supervised public service. 

Paint buildings in the park. Pick up trash. Have the kid do something useful and make it clear that if they wanted a part time job it’s available depending on their grades, their parents permission, and how hard they work. Try to instill a sense of pride in the community.

Oh yes, that can’t work right now because there are too many people with completely different views of pride in their communities and simply too many people committing crimes.

Johnson doesn’t want to say it out loud. 

Chicago is the mess it is due to poor public policies, lack of law enforcement, lenient courts, and being a sanctuary city. Lightfoot didn’t help matters and he does have a mess to clean up, but Lightfoot is not solely to blame for that mess. Johnson needs to blame half a century of poor Democratic leadership. People who wouldn’t learn from their mistakes and who simply kept doubling down instead of discarding failed ideas.

Hmmm. Interesting, and they wonder why we don’t trust them…

REVW0406So this cold is annoying enough that I was thinking about getting some over the counter cold remedy. Then I thought about it and seemed to recall seeing something about the FDA doing a study on cold medications and discovering problems with them.

Off to the internet, Boy Wonder! CBS Reports this

Ahh, there it is:

Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration voted unanimously on Tuesday against the effectiveness of the ingredient found in popular versions of Sudafed, Allegra, Dayquil, and other medications sold on pharmacy shelves.

“Modern studies, when well-conducted, are not showing any improvement in congestion with phenylephrine,” said Dr. Mark Dykewicz, an allergy specialist at the Saint Louis University School of Medicine.

So here’s the deal, these medications use phenylephrine. They used to use pseudoephedrine. Pseudoephedrine worked but was taken out of the normal OTC medications because it was possible to convert it into Meth.

Phenylephrine was grandfathered into use without much in the way of testing for efficacy by the FDA. It should be noted that there are tons of drugs, and products that are grandfathered like this all the time. Some of these grandfathered products are later found to be, at best ineffective, and at worse harmful.

The cold medications appear to be simply useless if they’re not using Pseudoephedrine. But it does beg the question, how many other medically approved products are nothing more than Placebos or as it was said in the past “Snake Oil”. Placebos have their place in clinical testing, because they provide a baseline to determine if a drug under test is doing anything.

In the past, purveyors of  Snake Oil may have been tarred and feathered and run out of town, if they weren’t hung for hurting and swindling people. The FDA was created to provide a measure of safety to the public because of the prevalence of snake oil and quacks.

Yet here we are, the FDA having been complicit in cold remedies that don’t work, a.k.a. FRAUD! The cost of a box of these cold remedies is /was  $10 to $15 and were sold to millions of people. The fraud generated billions for drug manufacturers.

I’d like to have my money back! I looks like I’m due a refund from 1980 forward??? I’d have to find when Pseudoephedrine was swapped out.

On the plus side, we all got over our colds pretty much naturally! This also might explain the apparent conflicting data between the folks who swear by natural remedies versus Doctors recommending OTC remedies. It’s possible that the natural remedies actually performed better because these remedies survived and were handed down based on centuries of accumulated observational data.

The OTC cold remedies on the other hand were not thoroughly tested and no better than sugar pills.

I wonder about the collateral damage during COVID-19. Most people would have initially thought COVID was a cold, they would have gone to their ineffective OTC cold/flu medication. Their symptoms would have gotten worse until they were hospitalized. Then, they would have been given more ineffective treatments because the treatments that actually worked, (as shown time and again in other countries,) were forbidden. By… guess who, The FDA!

I guess my point is why should I or anyone trust the CDC or the FDA at this point? They’re not protecting us from medical quackery, or big Pharma selling snake oil.

Why should I trust a doctor, or a hospital?

Bottom line is this.

If a Doctor or a medical person can not explain something to you, or can’t produce test information showing the efficacy of a treatment, drug, or vaccine.

DON’T FUCKING TAKE IT!

Perhaps I’m being overly harsh. However as we keep finding more out about COVID, and the vaccines, and how it really looks like the medical establishment is covering up something truly evil. We shouldn’t give the medical profession the blind trust that we gave them in the past.

It’s really strange that a tattoo / body piercing shop might be a safer place than a hospital, laboratory,  or doctors office, when it comes to having needles stuck in your skin.

I keep trying to write a non political blog post, but…

I keep running across reports out of Israel. 

My God! How can humans be that monstrous? Raping the women of your enemies is something that’s been going on for centuries so it’s not terribly surprising but I’d thought we’d gotten past that stage as a species.

Apparently I gave the human race more credit than it was due.

However, murdering infants? Decapitating them? Murdering women and children in their beds? That shit is vile beyond words. It also demonstrates what fucking cowards Hamas is. 

Their, Oh so Brave ‘Freedom Fighters’ killing unarmed people is wrong on so many levels that I find myself wanting to see Gaza leveled Indiscriminately. I find myself thinking “No Mercy, No Prisoners”

My rage quickly expands to those praising Hamas and Palestines actions in other countries. Australia I’m looking at you!

How can a country with such asinine hate speech & disinformation laws that they imprison their own citizens for misgendering a gender fuck drag queen, allow such hateful things as “Gas the Jews” to be chanted in front of the Sydney Opera House? 

I can tell you this, I don’t think I’ll be visiting Australia. I’ve heard it’s beautiful, but I don’t deal well with confusion. If “Gas the Jews” is okay, I’m going to assume my telling a tranny to get away from me, or calling the COVID Vaccines ineffective, or stating the fact that COVID 19 was only fatal to about 2% of the people contracting it, is going to be okay too. 

Except… We all know that’s not true and I’d end up in jail.

Then we have our own politicians, & citizens supporting Hamas with demonstrations in the streets or flying their flags outside their offices. Our own colleges saying they support Hamas and Palestinian causes. 

And I ask myself what has happened?

If this is humanity… then maybe it’s time for God to start over. 

Even I, pointing out the horror, am willing to look the other way when I say, “no mercy, no prisoners,” and say that Gaza be leveled. I’m willing to look away knowing that hundreds of thousands of men women and children would be killed.  

That makes me just as defective as the rest of the human race.

Recognizing my own defect… I still think every single member of Hamas should be hunted down and shot in the streets like the filthy rabid dogs they are. I might even be up for torturing them a bit first.

I have no idea why I feel that way. Is it that what they’re doing is so heinous I’m almost blinded by rage? OR is it moral outrage?

I look forward to the Israeli counter offensive