Happy 4th of July Weekend

Covid4thI guess it’s a happy one.

It seems hypocritical to celebrate given that it feels like our freedoms are being curtailed with breathtaking speed.

(Notice I said “Feels”) After all we’re all about our feelings these days, not actual facts.

Celebrate? What celebrations? No friends visiting, family gatherings forbidden, beaches closed, but the Governor’s winery is Open.

You know, the guy that’s been telling us how to live our lives…

Empty beachWe’re hiding in our homes, or behind our masks, rumors abound of “Peaceful Protests” a.k.a. “riots” in public places on the 4th and for what? 

So that we survive to walk open-eyed into servitude to various philosophies that are built on lies?

COVID gonna kill us all

There are several studies from reputable publications suggesting that the PCR test to detect COVID-19 isn’t accurate and in fact can’t be accurate because to date, no lab has fully isolated the COVID-19 RNA. Therefore there is no “Gold” standard against which to measure the efficacy of the PCR test for detecting COVID-19 in the first place.

Covid 19There are other reports of Nurses sending in unused COVID-19 swabs with fictitious names  and having those swabs come back as positive.

Yet another man made an appointment to get a test, then didn’t keep the appointment. A week later he received a letter saying that he’d tested positive.

(Hello? This is the psychic testing network. What to know if you have COVID? One moment let me consult my crystal ball.)

Yet other nurses are reporting nationwide that a patient in hospital may be tested daily for COViD-19 and that each of those tests is counted as a new case rather than a diagnostic test for an existing patient.

There’s a significant uptick in “positive” cases but no data on if the people coming up “positive” are actually sick or if they just have the antigens present in their blood, for ANY coronavirus.

With the doubt cast on the validity of testing there’s no way to actually have any real statistics. Are the deaths and hospitalizations increasing at the same breakneck pace?

You’d expect those numbers to be climbing at similar rates. If they’re not, then something is seriously flawed in the data.

Hydroxycloroquine has been shown to be effective in 2 new studies, If given within 5 days of the onset of symptoms and if the full Zilinski protocol is followed. So Hydroxycloroquine is not, as the media and others have painted it, fatal when used appropriately and under proper supervision.

When reading the protocols (and I have) for several of the studies that were terminated due to poor outcomes, (a.k.a. fatalities,) the initial doses of Hydroxycloroquine were nearing toxic levels as documented by the CDC, FDA, and WHO. The patients in question were already so sick they were on ventilators, and so weak the absolute last thing the needed was a near fatal dose of Hydroxycloroquine alone. It’s my general opinion that those people were murdered by their attending physicians.

Let’s see, wait for a 3500.00 new treatment, or spend 250.00 for something that actually works? Sign me up for the latter if I get sick. I’ll put my faith in a drug that has its origins documented for 400 years, and that has a track record of safe use by America for 67 years, thank you very much.

At least one additional study reaffirms the connection between vitamin D deficiency and more severe cases of COVID-19. But you’re supposed to stay in your home where you aren’t exposed to sunlight which triggers your body to manufacture vitamin D. 

Yep, no family gatherings on the 4th cause COVID’s gonna get ya. Even though most 4th of July gatherings are held outside and UV light from the Sun tends to kill many germs / viruses while giving you a golden tan and allowing your body to make vitamin D.

If you work inside all day as part of your job, you probably should be taking a supplement anyway. This link between worse cases of COVID-19 and vitamin D deficiency was noted early on but it’s not yet clear why there’s a connection.

America is systemically racist

RacismGeorge Floyd was killed. The proper authorities immediately began an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the mans death and subsequently arrested the officers involved. 

That’s not racist. That’s justice, a little thing called due process. Something upon which our justice system is founded.

If America was as racist as portrayed then George Floyd would have been left on the pavement and the officers would have driven away and not be facing criminal charges.

Law Enforcement Today published an article on June 26, 2020 that does a good job of collecting multiple reports. LETs article is somewhat biased toward law enforcement however, if you go to the underlying links including The Washington Posts database you’ll find some interesting data.

By WaPos own statistics there are more white males killed by police than black males.

There is a disproportionate number of black male involvement with police per capita when compared to whites. That should be looked at objectively and investigated with an open mind. The question to be asked there is, why? 

Are black males more likely to commit crimes, if so then why? Is more police attention focused on black men? Are there other underlying factors such as bias or poverty driven petty crime? 

After reading several of the reports I think LETs article is mostly correct in its assessment that police are not hunting black people down.

Even the National Academy of Sciences report isn’t clear on the issue of racial bias in police interactions. 

I think that yes, racism still exists in America but I don’t think it’s systemic as portrayed. I also don’t think demonizing the police force serves any purpose except to reenforce what racism there is.

In the past weeks, I’ve come to believe that racists come in all colors. It’s time that everyone started calling it out regardless of who’s saying something racist.

BLM leaders calling for an end to racism by the slaughter of white people is just as racist as the KKK calling for the slaughter of black people. There is no difference, both statements are racist on their face. Social media platforms, or businesses censoring people who say All lives matter but allowing people of color to say kill white people is closer to systemic racism than anything I’ve seen in 40 years.

Defunding police forces isn’t the solution.

Riots

Protests are Peaceful

The video footage speaks for itself. Burning, looting, and destruction of property is not a protest, and the violence we’ve seen is anything but peaceful.

Given the coordinated pickups and drop-offs of looters during the so called peaceful protests it’s obvious that what we were witnessing was nothing more than a crime spree sanctioned by various public officials.

Masks are gonna save us

Probably not. Even N95 masks wont stop the virus. They may stop aerosolized virus in spit but only if worn properly. A loose bandana isn’t going to do shit.

See that’s the problem for me.  If you’re going to tell us masks save lives then you really need to specify which masks save lives.

Imesh.jpeg saw a guy who was allowed to wear an open mesh mask into a store with no questions asked. You could obviously see his mouth and nose and that there wasn’t a damn thing to obstruct a sneeze or cough. No-one said a word.

He was, after all, wearing a mask.

Oregon had a city that said everyone wear masks, except the black folks.

Seems that the city was worried about racial profiling so they initially exempted black folks from wearing a mask.

The city council was doubly racist. The color of your skin (white) determined that you had to wear a mask and they further demonstrated their racism in thinking that a black man wearing a mask would scare people.

GuyfawkesmaskBy the current logic, I could wear a halloween mask and be in compliance with mask ordinances. It’s not about efficacy, it’s about The Mask

If you’re sick, yeah, wear a mask. If you’re visiting immunocompromised people, the old, & infirm, or high risk groups, yeah, wear a mask. 

Conflating wearing masks as a sign of social responsibility or patriotism is manipulation.

Masks separate us, they isolate us, they’re used to silence us, they communicate to the world, that we’re not going to ask questions.

ANTIFA is Anti Fascist 

German LogoUh nope!

ANTIFA is exactly what it claims to be against. They’d do the brown shirts of 1935 NAZI Germany proud.

They are a terrorist organization and need to be imprisoned. They seek to undermine or overthrow the government of the United States of America.

They are an insurgent force and should be dealt with as such.

We’re entering a New Normal

The dumbest statement ever propagated. Every day is a new normal. 

This is a nothing statement designed to inculcate compliance with authority. The trouble is, what authority?

The authority of the mob? The “Karens” pointing at people that are not wearing masks? The doctors who keep changing their minds? The politicians that flipflop almost daily in their edicts?

The statement is more properly COMPLY!

Which by an interesting coincidence is exactly what we fought against to win our independence.

4thfireworks1.jpegRemember that, this Fourth of July.

Where are we heading? Whatever that destination is, make sure that it’s where we as a Nation want to be.

We have the choice, it’s always been ours.

We can chose to do better and walk together as a nation towards a better future for all of us, or we can allow petty divisions to destroy us.

We choose. We’re in control. 

The sooner we remember this, the better.

Happy 4th of July.

You can take your “New Normal” and shove it!

This “New Normal” as it’s called is bugging the shit out of me, and I think it’s built on nothing more than fear itself.

I’ve had a belly full of it. It’s starting to damage my calm.

All I’ve ever wanted to do is live my life in peace and unfettered by bullshit.

Now, in this “New Normal” I have bullshit aplenty.

Riots, burning, and looting are not normal.
Wearing a mask everywhere isn’t normal.
Eliminating Police isn’t normal.
Avoiding large areas of cities, towns, & parks out of fear of being caught up in violence or some protest thats roving around, isn’t normal.
Autonomous zones aren’t normal.

I refuse to submit to your version of “normal” 

So all you Media Morons & Politicians; Take your fearful NEW NORMAL and shove it up your ass sideways! Grow a pair, and bring this shit to heal.

Protests, Riots, Looting, Ever consider the police?

Dr KingProtests are people speaking out to demand redress of grievances.

A protest is folks holding signs, marching, demanding to be heard.

Dr. Martin Luther King showed us how to protest. He did it very well. Yes there were scuffles and even some riots but these were fairly contained. Civil Rights protests were demanding equality. A totally justified and reasonable demand.

Protests demanding accountability of Police Officers are also legitimate. I think that “Bad” cops should be punished and they shouldn’t be cops.

Growing up in the time and place that I did. The police were neighbors, family friends, and trusted to be the person you could get help from.

As a child, if I got lost, I looked for a blue uniform. I knew they’d help me find my parents and even knew that I could get a ride home from an officer if I was hurt. (As happened after a particularly nasty tumble on my bicycle.)

That’s the role i think most police officers would prefer to have. The role of trusted protector. And yes, there are some officers that become officers for the wrong reasons. Just as there are some doctors who become doctors for money, not to help their patients.

A riot is a protest gone wrong. Riots can be spontaneous and often appear to be an upwelling of rage that finding no other outlet leads to destruction.

As a youngster, I remember riots on the national news. I remember seeing broken windows, and damaged police cars. I remember seeing the perpetrators of the damage being hustled into police vans and being told by my elders that those people were going to jail not for protesting, but for rioting and looting.

There was a line, and those few people crossed that line. It was an easy logic. Free Speech and Freedom to Assemble were protected rights. Rioting, looting and wanton destruction were crimes and would be punished as such.

The role of the police in protest situations was to make sure there was some order and to protect the protesters. Even if the police didn’t agree with the beliefs of those protesters.

What we’ve seen over the past few days has generally been that same stance. In this case, I think the police are in a tougher situation.

I’d bet that the vast majority of the police agree with the protesters marching against police brutality and many of the officers may even be feeling shame that one of their own was so blatantly brutal.

Equally, I’d bet that officers are facing intense internal conflicts. On the one hand during the day they’re providing support to the legitimate protesters. But at night, everything changes.

Imagine briefly, what being an officer on the line might be like.

DerekChauvinYou’re ashamed of what you saw. You know that officer Chauvin was wrong.

You know that the other officers present were wrong in that they saw something that shouldn’t have been happening and they chose not to act.LA1

Even worse, there were people standing there filming the whole thing.

Those people could have stepped in too. They should have stepped in.

They could have made a difference when it counted, they could have saved a life.

But they didn’t. The question you ask yourself is why?

Those people knew what was happening was wrong. The knew it in their heart and yet were so involved in filming they did nothing. It’s obvious something was wrong with Chauvin, What the hell was wrong with those other people?

MN2And then you have to go out to protect the protesters who are rightfully angry, and you’re angry about the same thing for the same reasons.

The difference is you’re being pelted with bottles, and rocks, and spat upon, threatened, and called names.

You’re unable to speak out or to be heard when you say you’re as angry as they are. Even if you spoke out, you wouldn’t be heard because the protesters see you as the enemy.

MN1As an officer, you know that Derek Chauvin is being investigated and will face justice.

You also know that justice isn’t instant. You know that all the details will have to be investigated, written down, and the specifics of the entire event must be written formally for the court to try the case.

The reason there are laws is so that we don’t have “Frontier Justice”, As a good officer, you know that lynchings don’t lead to a stable society, they lead to anarchy.

You’re tired, you’ve been catching an hour of sleep here and there and you dread sundown.

At sundown you know that the legitimate protesters will go home, they’ll have dinner, and talk about the good work their protest did to bring attention to the problem.

You’ll still be on the line.

You’ll see the movements of the protesters for whom marching and chanting isn’t enough.

You’re there when twilight falls. The fist embers of fires blossom. Bottles shatter around you, thrown from the gathering dark. Rocks hit you, again from the dark. Nearby firecrackers sound, are they a prank, or cover for gunshots?

You check your colleagues, everyone is still standing, you exhale a sigh of relief.

The crashing of glass sounds down the block, a brick lands at your feet thrown from the top of a building. More fires, more windows breaking, you can see looters running in and out of the shops.

There are a lot of people dropping items as they run away. Your group is ordered to move forward to protect the businesses and as you start moving, more bricks, rocks, and bottles rain down in your path.

You smell gasoline in front of you, it registers that Molotov cocktails are being thrown at you.

Twilight gives way to night. Laughter and excited shouts echo from the darkened alleyways. You keep moving forward to the looters.

LootingYou know, by the time you get there, the shops will be empty, trashed, and the police will be blamed for failing to protect these businesses.

You tell yourself it’s not your fault but you feel that somehow it is.

Buildings burning in the distance now. You hear that the firefighters aren’t coming because the area isn’t secure. The buildings will continue to burn and the losses to local business owners will continue to rack up.

Finally the order comes from on high that you can fire teargas to herd the looters out of the area. Large fireworks go off in front of you. Some of your colleagues fire teargas in response.

You think, “large fireworks are essentially bombs, without the shrapnel,” as another concussion wave compresses your chest.

Other officers are firing rubber bullets in the direction that last firework came from.

This is no longer a protest, or even a riot. This is now an urban battlefield and you can’t really defend yourself as if it was Fallujah. You’re essentially unarmed.

One of your friends goes down, stumbling from a brick to the head. You stop to help them up and start scanning for the source, you see a target and fire your rubber bullets but aren’t sure that’s even the person throwing the bricks.

You think of your children and are grateful to know they’re safe. A large rock hits your helmet, followed by bottles from multiple directions. You stumble, hear laughter and taunting.

A woman comes out of the darkness screaming obscenities and spitting at you. She runs away into the dark.

“It’s not worth it,” you think. “I don’t want to do this anymore, not here.”

The night continues, in a wash, rinse, repeat, cycle of violence. Dawn reveals a scene of destruction. A testament to failure.

You tell yourself you didn’t fail, the system failed, the citizens failed, the elected officials failed, but you still feel like you personally failed.

Looking out the window of the squad car on the way back to the station you come to a decision. Typing up your report for the night you take a break and call home.

“Honey, I’m done. Call the Realtor and start packing. I’ve been at this for five years and I’ve not made any difference at all. Lets leave this city, let it burn. I don’t care anymore. If I’d wanted to be fighting urban war, I’d have stayed in the Marines. At least there I could adequately defend myself. ”

Your spouse says you’re just tired. They’re right, you are, but the tiredness you feel isn’t due to the past four days.

It’s a tiredness of the soul, a tiredness that comes from pointlessness, there will always be poor people, there will always be bad people, there will always be shitty politicians, and nothing you do will change that.

It’s pointless to keep trying because the people you help, forget in a second that you helped them. Those people will, based on the latest Twitter, News, or Facebook post, turn on you without a moment’s thought.

You turn in your report, then head to the Captain’s office to hand in your resignation. Unsurprisingly, you’re not the first one to hand in your badge, there are many others on his desk. The Captain accepts the document, your badge, and service weapon.

“I don’t suppose there’s any point in talking about this,” he asks.

You shake your head, “No”

“I can’t blame you, I’m working on my resignation too. I’ve got my twenty in. What are you planning to do?”

You shrug, “Anything, anywhere, but here.”

The Captain nods, stands, extending his hand, “It’s been a pleasure working with you. Good luck.”

“Thank you sir,” You turn and leave the office. At the door is a rookie. He’s got that same hollowed out look that you wear. He’s carrying a letter too…

Governor Newsom – I don’t think you’ve realized this, but Lockdown is over!

Screen Shot 2020 05 11 at 4 05 01 PMI know, I know, you think your orders are still being obeyed. But have you been outside lately?

Have you been on the road? 

See those little red lines? Those are traffic jams. Looks like the prisoners are making a break for it. 

Maybe you need to bring in the national guard to maintain your orders… 

I was just at Lowes. Guess what? The parking lot is full. So are a lot of other parking lots, and oh, by the way there’s a lot of traffic on the roads even out in the boondocks where I live. 

Your control is slipping. You’re going to have to make sure cops in riot gear are standing by and make sure they have real bullets. After all you want people to die right? You want people fearfully cowering in their homes don’t ya?

You can chalk bullet ridden corpses up to Covid-19 can’t you? After all, if you’re outside your home, “The Covid gonna get ya,” one way or another isn’t it? 

Governor, it’s time you opened the state. We’ve all done our time. The curve is flattened, how about something new? Maybe we need to get on with living and maybe if we’re smart about it we’ll all be just fine.

You want to do something actually constructive? How about mandating paid time off if someone has the flu or Covid-19. How about simply making it easy and the responsible thing for an employer to tell their employees “If you’re sick… STAY Home. You’ll get paid.”

Open the damn beaches and parks again. Bored, frustrated, scared, people is a recipe for disaster. Based on the driving I just saw. Folks are well past their boiling point.

Just a thought you’ll ignore, from someone who doesn’t matter at all.

Why is everything a battle?

bangheadhere.jpegLately, it feels like I’m spending all my time either fighting or preparing to fight.

I’ve been banging my head against the wall for the past 12 months attempting to find a new job. Then just as unemployment insurance ran out we’re in lockdown.

Care to guess what that does to your job search?

Then Congress and the President say they’re extending unemployment benefits and sending a stimulus check. 

Great I think. I’ll be able to go on for a little while longer. Well, you’d think that, but I’ve not gotten a stimulus check and the Unemployment people haven’t gotten their shit together yet either.

In practical terms, this means that I’ve gotten two more battles added to my plate. One is getting the IRS website to accept my banking information which they had on file and have had for years, but their site said they didn’t have any information. 

Uhhh, wrong! You fuckers know exactly where to send the bill and exactly how to harass me at a whim. Now when it comes to you having to pay… Suddenly you can’t find my information? I call Bullshit!

On the plus side, I got them sorted out this morning.

One battle won.

Next, on to the unemployment folks. Their website is even worse than the IRS. It looks like something out of the ‘70s. In truth it probably is. Although the site says that it’s implemented the changes to allow for the extension and application for the Coronavirus relief funding when you go through their merry-go-round of links you end up at the same place that tells you you’re not eligible.

Oh you have to use Chrome, to access the site.” 

Great so you’re telling me that I have to download a browser from the evil empire that Google has become, to allow being tracked, and hacked, and having 2 instances of googlesoftwareupdateagent running on my computer even when Chrome ISN’T running.

It’s also quite interesting that while these bits of software are running I see an uptick in network communication that is continuous.

Just what are these “Agents” doing? Why are there two instances sucking up my computer resources? I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask the question. I haven’t opened the code to analyze what this agent actually does, but I don’t think its what the name implies.

ReallyI have to have Chrome? Why? Could it be that your H1B1 programmers don’t know that adherence to HTML standards actually allows compatibility with multiple browsers? Or was it that they just had to use some little snippet of code that they could only get from Google? Instead of one of the myriad open source distributors

I download the wonder that is Google Chrome go back through the merry-go-round and guess what? I still can’t access the page that allows me to fill in the information to get the FEDERALLY FUNDED package. 

Gee thanks you California EDD dunderheads.

Battle number two – Lost for the moment!

Next Battle is the case of the missing check from the insurance company over the car. The check was issued and sent to the BMW Dealer. That check triggered a number of attempts on the part of the BMW dealer to reopen the insurance claim and ask for more money. WRONG! Sorry but that isn’t happening, I’ve seen to it.

Add to it that the BMW dealership underlings weren’t returning phone calls.  A strongly worded letter was sent to the one man at the dealership that runs by old world standards. I shouldn’t have had to involve him, but when all normal channels fail, you reach out to folks you know.

He responded this morning letting me know that he’d forwarded the letter to the right person over at the body shop. I’m expecting a call later in the week. It’s going to take the manager of the body shop some time to un-peel this onion. His underlings made a hell of a mess in their accounting and documentation.

Battle number three, indeterminate win/loss but it’s worth fighting because it’s over a grand that I’m owed.

Then on to battle number four.

The job search, and I’m back to banging my head against the wall.

At least it’s warm and pretty and I’m sitting on the back deck with a nice view.