Tag: Government

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After two days of Snow clearing…

I can see the road in front of the house. It had about an inch of compressed ice on it.

The snow players, as anticipated made their appearance. Saturday wasn’t too bad, Sunday on the other hand was an absolute shit show.

They actually pulled up the stakes labeled “Reforestation” that marked where new trees had been planted. Obviously, the stakes were in the way of these people’s fun.

The police were up here at least 3 times running everyone out of the neighborhood, because they’d parked so that the roads were blocked. I do appreciate the police and they were ticketing and towing to beat the band.

One humorous incident came when a full sized expedition was backing into my driveway and about to hit the other half’s car. I stepped out onto the deck and yelled at them to stop. The vehicle was loaded with people, but the woman in the passenger seat told me they were locals trying to avoid the snow players.

When I pointed out that they must be new to the area because all the locals know there is no way to get to town except via Hwy 2 due to the bridge being under construction and the wash, she realized she’d been caught lying through her teeth. Then the driver of the expedition backed down the street. Where they went, I don’t know.

I can tell you that to a local it’s obvious you don’t live here. Your vehicle is too clean and if you look at other vehicles from around here, you’ll notice ice on the roof or muddy snow or splashed mud on the quarter panels and in the wheel wells.

My car is in the garage, and even it has evidence of having been driven in snowy conditions. During this time of year it’s pointless to wash your car except about once a month.

Then there was the neighbor next door who noticed an adult male trying all the doors on a house for sale across the street. When she asked him what he was doing he replied, “I’m here to fix the water heater.”

When she asked him where his truck and tools were, he disappeared behind the house and she called the police. We suspect that he was looking for a bathroom for his 3 children and wife who were playing all over the property.

Dude… This ain’t Disneyland and we don’t need to cater to your wishes or needs. Of course that means someone is going to find human poop in their yard come springtime.

Ugh! Those are just two of the incidents that stand out. The whole day was like that. So I spent most of the day shovel in hand chipping at the ice. It gave me a good excuse to keep an eye on the stupidity and generally keep folks off our street and out of our yards.

Today, has brought light showers and warmer weather it’s about 39° and thankfully the showers are more rain than sleet.

We’re expecting warmer temps and even sunshine later in the week. There was supposed to be another snow storm on Wednesday but it looks like that’s breaking up over the coast. That is a relief! All of the neighbors are tired and achy from the snow removal and none of us were looking forward to having to do it all again so soon.

We never had this kind of snow play problem before the county decided to widen the wash as part of an ill conceived flood control project. A project that over ten years has resulted in the county spending millions in overtime digging out the log flume they created, year round.

Finally a year or two ago, someone decided that replacing the bridge that had washed out was more cost effective.

Funny how the residents suggested that in the first place and also pointed out that the county solution would cost more in the long run and cause other unanticipated problems in the area.

The wash before the county messed with it, was a natural meandering space with trees and a lovely trail. The wash itself wasn’t a 50 foot deep straight gash in the landscape. It was obvious to everyone visiting the town that this was not a place to play in the snow.

After the county work, the wash looks very much like a ski run and tourists use it as such because they’re tired of sitting in line to get to the actual snow play areas or ski runs.

The first winter after the county work, everyone at this end of town knew we were screwed.

For 7 or 8 straight years we’ve watched the county dig out the wash year round, to keep the road open. Each spring the county shows up with saplings to plant in the devastation they created. Each winter, those saplings are trampled and destroyed by snow players looking for free winter fun, instead of using the appropriate and safe designated areas.

People fall and get hurt every single weekend playing in the wash because they have no idea there are rocks under the snow that they cannot see. Having to split the paramedics between both ends of town also means that skiers who are injured on the actual slopes have to wait for medical help or be airlifted out if their need is really great. Not to mention having to pay triple shifts to fire and police.

These are all things that I personally mentioned in the town meetings opposing the county’s wash project. They were only concerned with the official environmental impact statement and basically told me to shut up. They were unconcerned with the impact this would have on the property owners.

They kept telling us it was for erosion control.

Now the county is having to pay property owners whose property fronts the wash for loss of property and fences that are washed away.

If you hike up to the national forest property that was left alone, you’ll find that nature knows best. Beyond where the county boondoggle stops, the original wash is largely unchanged. Erosion is minimal and the natural habitat has naturally occurring pools of clear fresh water for the animals of the forest. It’s beautiful and doesn’t look like the lunar surface.

I think it was Reagan who said the most terrifying words every heard were, “We’re from the government and here to help you.“

I’m going to go take the dog out for a walk. He’s been cooped up in the house all weekend. I’m thinking that we’ll start picking up the trash in the wash too. I can see from the back deck, there are hundreds of surgical masks littering the landscape. Those in addition to the food wrappers and broken plastic sleds give the wash and the one remaining trail the appearance of living in a land fill.

If the dog will be more or less calm, I’ll take some pictures and update this post with them.

Sigh…

Here’s a few pictures. The cleanup is ongoing.

We’ve got a call into the Board of Supervisors.

Apparently, their phones began ringing at 8:00 AM on Monday Morning. Folks are tired of being trapped in their homes by the chaos.

However, I know a lot of people up here don’t really expect politicians to actually do anything.

This last photo is of blood in the snow. Unfortunately, the red in the photo looks more brown. In daylight, the red was more vibrant. I think this wasn’t anything more severe than a nose bleed, caused by cold dry air.

It’s probably going to take a large patch of bloody snow to get the County’s attention. Unfortunately, that means someone is going to have to really get hurt.

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Right on schedule

This is what you get if you try to access Parler today.

For those who don’t know about the why… Let me summarize.

Twitter, Facebook, and Google, have been blocking people that they deem undesirable. They’ve been doing this for years if they decided that what you said was controversial or to borrow Orwell’s term “Wrongthink”.

I myself have been in Twitter and Facebook Jail for asking questions or stating my opinion about events in politics such as, my opposition to the Russian uranium deal, or speaking out against Sharia law in America, and once for questioning why we were having all the discussion about bathrooms, I was also lamenting the loss of urinals.

This according to Twitter & Facebook is “Hate Speech“. Though I said nothing hateful in my posts. I used no derogatory language, or foul language. I simply posted my opinion and as we all know opinions are like assholes, we all have one. (Although I’m sure Twitter would ban even that statement as it might be offensive to those who are literally asshole challenged.)

Twitter and Facebook consistently banned conservative voices, they banned any voices that questioned the dominant politically correct narrative or liberal Democratic policies and these companies were blatant about it.

An Islamic American could say that a raped woman deserved what she got and should be stoned to death, An Average American could not say that those who thought the woman should be stoned had missed the point of being in America and perhaps they’d be happier in their countries of origin.

Eventually Twitter and Facebook started banning a ever increasing number of conservative politicians, then they started banning politicians who were running for office. That got the attention of Congress and the various companies executives were called to the Capitol to answer questions.

In those hearings, Twitter and Facebook told Congress that anyone could create a competitive service. Everyone shook hands and across the country several entrepreneurs did exactly that. Parler and Gab being among the two most prominent.

Gab was never allowed on the Apple App store. They existed as a web site only because Apple found fault with the basics of the Gab philosophy. Parler on the other hand was able to get Apple approval and has existed on the Apple and Google Play store until Saturday 1/9/2021. When Apple announced that they were removing Parler. Google Play beat Apple to the punch removing Parler from their app store about 24 hours ahead of Apple.

There are many articles about the reasons for Apple’s move. I’ve randomly linked one of them here. The articles all read pretty much the same. One consistent phrase seen in almost every article is “Popular with Trump Supporters”.

A.K.A. Conservatives.

I was on Parler, I guess technically I still am on Parler while the site reconfigures. There are a lot of good people there. They have values similar to my own, they are generally patriotic and at least once a day if someone’s rage about the election boiled over there were numerous kind and supportive people who would say things like, “I know you’re angry, but this is why we have the courts.”

In all cases I witnessed, having someone kindly listen and remind the angry individual about the rule of law and that conservatives peacefully protest, that our Constitution provided protections etc. would calm the angry person back to reason.

I’ve followed several threads wherein Veterans cut off from counseling services for PTSD (due to COVID lockdowns) found solace because someone would engage with them not with hateful rhetoric but with kindness. Sometimes it was Vets helping other Vets and in many cases Professional therapists freely gave of their time using direct messaging to help a Vet or anybody get through a rough patch.

This was a markedly different experience than what I witnessed on Twitter. Twitter in the last few years has become a place of pretty vile vitriol being spewed at anyone who was different. Don’t be a conservative leaning Gay person on Twitter. You’ll be canceled and labeled a pariah. Think of it as walking into the DNC and declaring you’re a Republican.

Parler provides a place of free thought, free expression, and since freedom of speech is the rule, a healthy adult outlet where people can legitimately question almost anything and generally speaking get healthy feedback, not hate filled condemnation.

The last thing someone who’s suicidal needs to hear is, “Sack up pussy!” which happens all too often on Twitter, with absolutely no pushback from anyone.

But Parler has been painted by the media as a place of hateful insurrectionists. Funny, I’ve seen calls for protests, I’ve seen Proud Boys delineating rules for attending protests. “No weapons, no aggression, no hate, no yelling at protestors counter to your views.” The adult an unspoken understanding, which is accepted in all cultures is, “defend yourself if you must.” Apparently this is what now passes for hate.

Pulling Parler off the app stores wasn’t enough for the rabid mob. Amazon Web Services which if I recall correctly is a service companies PAY for decided that Parler had to go.

So they denied their contracted services as of Midnight Sunday 1/10/2021. Effectively booting Parler from the internet. They provided Parler zero time to move the operation to alternate hosting providers.

This is nothing less than Draconian censorship and flies in the face of the Big Technology companies saying “If you don’t like our way of doing things build your own service.”

Well Parler did build a very popular alternative service which was growing rapidly, and the big tech companies Apple, Google, and Amazon colluded to take the alternative away. Surely this would be prosecuted under the rico act if we had a fair and impartial court system.

Gab is still up, but due to the shear volume of now disenfranchised users (750% uptick in new users last I read) they’re struggling mightily to bring new servers online to handle the volume. Kudos to them!

I suspect that it’s only a matter of time before they’re under siege from the technology companies.

Google will be the first I suspect to attempt to make Gab unfindable on the web. Other internet service providers will follow suit because Google will intimidate them by threatening to make them unfindable as well.

If you can’t be found on the web, you’ll have a tough time signing up new customers. So Google will be directly impacting the web hosting sites income.

The common theme here is that conservatives, and supporters of President Trump, or the Constitutional right to free speech, are in fact being targeted.

As I’ve said before in this blog, I didn’t particularly like Donald Trump when he was elected. But even then I respected the Man, and the Office of the President. As time progressed I actually came to like Trump because he was exactly what he appeared to be, for good or bad, he was consistent.

Contrary to the media, he was not a dictator. (As an aside, Dictators don’t get Censored.) He garnered support from millions of average Americans because he was straight talking and more like them, than the other politicians in Washington D.C. That’s his appeal.

He’s not asking you to like him, he didn’t overly pander to anyone and was a businessman running the largest corporation on the planet, The United States Government. Sure he made some questionable decisions, who hasn’t? We all make questionable decisions from time to time. I’d submit that even his obvious mistakes endeared him to 70 million average “work a day” Americans.

Americans who by the way would have accepted Trumps defeat in the election if their concerns about that election had been treated with seriousness instead of dismissed out of hand, like the concerns of an unruly child.

The FBI is arresting with breathtaking speed the folks who breached the Capitol. But where are the arrests of the perpetrators in Portland, Seattle, or Minneapolis? Where are the prosecutions for incitement of violence? Why have Twitter and Facebook remained beyond censorship when groups freely use their services to coordinate the violence seen in these cities?

What happened to Hunter Biden’s laptop, have we seen an investigation there? For four solid years, we heard nothing but Russia collusion over a single phone call, and a false dossier. It was Joe Biden who bragged on camera about withholding aid to the Ukraine resulting in the termination of a prosecutor looking into illegalities with Burisma.

These things are not conspiracy theories. They are facts, supported by video evidence, and congressional testimony and witnesses.

In this light, can you see how average Americans might feel that the scales of justice aren’t level anymore?

We are indeed in a dark Winter, as Joe Biden said. But that Winter is not the Fault of Trump, his followers, or conservatives.

That dark Winter is arguably the result of socialism, cancel culture, censorship, and our Constitutional rights being assaulted not from an outside force but from within.

“When all government …in little as in great things… shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power; it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.”

Thomas Jefferson

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Blog Posts Restored

I do this because of what’s happened with Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites in the past 72 hours.

I’m especially concerned about Parler being removed from the Google Play Store (Therefore the Android Platform) and the threat by Apple to remove Parler from their App store.

Both entities are accusing Parler of inciting violence. Honestly I haven’t seen such incitement but I’m particular about who I follow so it’s probable I missed these so called incitements.

That being said, Twitter and Facebook will allow calls for violence from BLM and ANTIFA. They freely allow Muslim extremists to post all manner of hate filled rhetoric. Both Twitter and Facebook are available on the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store.

Given that in the past 72 hours it appears that a full on assault on conservatives has been initiated by the Big Tech folks. I’ve decided that I will not be silenced and I refuse to be intimidated.

Hopefully, my Internet Hosting Provider (based in TX) are actually TEXANS, and will refuse to be badgered or intimidated.

However, I have a backup plan. If necessary, I can move this blog to my local server and secure a fixed IP address. It would mean that this blog would be harder to find, but I think I can solve that problem too.

When the WalkAway foundation is banned from facebook when the President and his family are banned from virtually all social media, and yet ANTIFA is using that same social media to coordinate rioting and looting in Portland something is fundamentally wrong.

It is incumbent on all of us who value our freedoms to stand up and be counted.

So here I stand!

I’ll continue to run my mouth.

I’ll try to lighten the posts with whimsy from time to time.

But make no mistake, politics are no longer off the table for me to blog about. What is happening right now to thousands of normal people across various social media platforms, is no different than the silencing of population segments in Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia, Mao’s China, and Castro’s Cuba.

After silence, comes confiscation of property, starting with guns. After that comes relocation or re-education camps. Then comes the murders of anyone who dissents or questions.

Remember that as you listen to babbling Biden.

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I’m considering…

Back on Dec 14th I was pretty angry. If only I’d know that Jan 6th would bring white hot rage, I’d have waited.

Given the way Jan 7th has gone with Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and many others silencing the Sitting President of the United States I don’t believe I can be true to myself or my core beliefs by silencing this blog…

I’m going to chew on it for a few more days and depending on how much risk I’m willing to take, I may restore all the previous posts. I’m considering opening the blog to other vetted authors as well. I’ll see about that in due time.

The other half is playing a prayer service to ask for peace and healing, tonight.

That got me thinking. The congregation is Jewish and while I applaud the basic tenet of praying for peace and healing the decidedly liberal bent of the congregation made the following questions pop to mind.

These questions I think can rightfully be asked of many congregations, regardless of their faith, holding similar prayer services tonight.

Where were you when for four solid years conservatives were canceled, harassed, called names, treated as some disease?

Where were your prayers as unthinkable hate was directed at The President and anyone associated with him?

How can you in good conscience be praying for healing and peace while you sat idly by, silently watching as people on the so called “Left” engaged in hurtful rhetoric that caused anyone not firmly with the left to duck and self censor out of fear of losing their jobs, or their homes, or sadly, in some cases their lives.

The time to have spoken out was when you saw this vile hatred spewed at people who had dissenting opinions. Your speaking out then wouldn’t have been in favor of opinions that you disagreed with, your voices would have been raised against the fundamental wrong of allowing people to be hated, hounded, and continuously wounded, because they dared question any established narrative.

The time for you to have raised your voices was when you saw rioting and looting in the name of justice and equality. Many of you did speak out to the protesters saying that the violence must stop. But few of you addressed those on the “Left” whose reporting and rhetoric continued to fan the flames of unrest.

You didn’t speak out about the suppression of free speech until your churches, synagogs, temples and mosques were closed. Even then you only spoke about how this affected your worship, you failed to look at the bigger picture.

In the case of the Jewish community, the lack of response is particularly troubling. Some of the reports I’ve seen today should be sending you to pray. Politicians & Pundits calling for trials and in some cases executions of Trump supporters.

Your elders have seen this before. Perhaps you should heed the bitter lessons they have to teach.

Look at the vengeance Nancy Pelosi is attempting to mete out. If she can’t get Trump removed via the 25th amendment, she’s going to impeach him… In the last 14 days of his presidency? What is that, except petty vengeance?

America watched as citizens entered the capital building. The news media and congress is aghast that such a thing could happen. But let me point out some very interesting points.

The building was only minimally damaged. It wasn’t burnt to the ground, or even set on fire. Pelosi’s office was a photo opportunity but again no real damage.

The left has engendered and fed the kind of anger displayed in average law-abiding Americans who just want answers to legitimate questions, of our courts, and our representatives. (It’s entirely reasonable to ask if voter fraud occurred.)

This is the first time Mail in voting has been used in our country on such a massive scale. It’s legitimate to at least question any irregularities.

Due to the dismissive attitude and childish name calling, shown to people who had legitimate concerns, I’d have expected for Pelosi’s office to have all the furniture thrown out the window, and the office itself burned. Yet that didn’t happen.

Contrast Washington D.C. yesterday with Portland, Seattle, and Minneapolis over the Summer. State houses, Police Precincts, and Federal Buildings, were breached and firebombed. Oh and just to drive the point home, acts of violence in those cities were committed by the liberal left.

Then we have the young woman who was shot and died in the building and the 3 others who died during the protest. After almost a solid year of the police standing down and standing by while much worse transgressions were being committed, why would an unarmed protestor think they’d suddenly be met with deadly force?

The FBI is requesting any photos or video footage of the protestors so that they can be brought to swift and severe justice. Really? Now the FBI is going to prosecute? After literally doing nothing to protestors in Oregon who permanently blinded officers defending the Federal Building, this is a fair and just response?

One can only hope that those officers kissed their children as they slept and can remember those innocent faces in the darkness they’ll live in for the rest of their days.

Kyle Rittenhouse, Joe Biggs, several members of Proud Boys, other faith based groups, and many other “Average Citizens” face charges because they defended their lives, but the people that they defended themselves against, face no charges. How is it that all 3 of the men that Rittenhouse shot had criminal records? Doesn’t that speak to a disparity in the system? If the innocent cannot defend themselves without being arrested then there is no justice system.

That’s what so much of this is about. Justice is supposed to be blind, yet we’re seeing that it is not. Justice exists for the rich, the powerful, the criminal, But for average people, for victims, for those who just go about their daily lives… Not so much.

Churches, Synagogs, Mosques, and Temples, you go ahead and pray for peace and healing. But remember many of you have inflicted the hurt and pain, you’ve ignored the obvious until it arrived at your door.

I submit that you’re as culpable, as you believe Donald Trump, who you hate so much, is for the violence and rage.

It’s going to take a very long time for healing. It’s probably time we won’t have.

Just FYI, I didn’t vote for Trump OR Clinton in 2016. But I came to respect Trump because he is exactly what’s written on the tin. I’d much rather have a politician who is the same in office as they are on the campaign trail.

Can you say the same of Biden/Harris, Pelosi, Schumer, Schiff, AOC, Omar, Talib, or any of our so called leaders?