Tag: Musings

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Wow! Just Wow.

Obviously I must have misunderstood the Democratic reconciliation message.

Governor Abbott of Texas has decided to lift all the COVID restrictions… Pundits, politicians, and Hollywood Elites are losing their minds. (Uh, last I checked neither Pundits or Hollywood’s elite had access to the same information that Governor Abbott has access to from his state health services.)

For those that may have missed the subtext… that means “Shut the hell up!”

The President described lifting the lockdowns as Neanderthal thinking.

Well Mr. President, you would know all about that, given that it appears your thought processes have devolved to a sub-neanderthal level. At least it appears Neanderthals could string two sentences together.

They were tool users, had command of fire, structurally their bodies may have supported more muscle making them stronger, and their bones were built a tad stronger than ours. Their brain size was also not too different.

It may simply have been a fluke that we survived and they didn’t. Although evidence does suggest that there was interbreeding between the species. So you might want to speak kindly of Neanderthals, after all, you never know who’s lineage you might be insulting.

They, unlike you and your staff appear to have disregarded things that didn’t definitively work. While you and Dr. Doom & Gloom Fauci on the other hand, continue to cast the bones, chant, and wave your arms around, about masks.

Next, one of your staff will be saying that we should use Oni masks to scare away the evil spirits released upon the world by China.

The next day though your administration would be scolding us for cultural appropriation and calling us all racists.

Who knows? The Oni mask might actually work, the Japanese have been dealing with China a lot longer than we have.

One of the best of the many screaming about Abbott’s decision, was Keith Olbermann. Let’s see, a washed up sportscaster who blindly Hated Trump and now has to content himself with just hating Republicans came out with this:

Why are we wasting vaccinations on Texas if Texas has decided to join the side of the virus? https://t.co/Yn2i7zT8KL

— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) March 3, 2021

Say what?

Let me get this straight Mr. Olbermann, are you saying that because the Governor of the state of Texas does something that you disagree with, you’re in favor of denying the vaccine to ALL THE PEOPLE OF TEXAS?

NICE! Very forgiving, how very enlightened!

Last time I checked it didn’t take much more than a big mouth, and the ability to watch sports to be a sportscaster. Keith, do you have a medical degree you’ve not mentioned?

How about this? Just floating the idea here, maybe we should deny the entire state of New York access to birth control, since Governor Cuomo obviously can’t be trusted not to sexually harass women?

That would make about as much sense as what you’ve suggested.

(And don’t even get me started about Como’s nipple rings… Yeah, that’s a thing, look it up.)

Then we have the perennial favorite AOC, declaring that re-opening Texas endangers The whole country.

This endangers the entire country and beyond. We are in a pandemic. We know that COVID spread isn’t neatly contained by state borders, and explosions in COVID cases can increase the likelihood of new COVID variants to develop or spread to new places. It’s dangerous.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 2, 2021

This hyperbole is what we’ve come to expect from AOC. At this point, I think she’s being kept around for nothing but comic relief, or perhaps she’s just serving as an example of how not to be a village idiot.

“Now Johnny, if you don’t work hard and study, you’ll be just like AOC. You don’t want to be that stupid do you? Don’t you want to be at least a ditch digger and not a politician?“

AOC also demonstrated her profound stupidity this weekend by saying that NYPD sending in a robotic “dog” to assess a possible hostage situation was racist.

I tried to wrap my head around that one and found that I couldn’t.

The “Dog” costs 75K it was not armed, and couldn’t really escalate a situation in the same way that sending a human into harm’s way could have.

I found that I wasn’t willing to undergo a lobotomy to understand how she came up with racism from that one. Especially since the perpetrators had been holding two men hostage, while torturing them, and demanding money.

AOC can expect a lot more of this kind of racism going forward. Just wait, it will probably get more interesting when robots are armed, and bring a situation under control by shooting first and asking questions later.

Can you really accuse a robot of being racist? Of course, killer robots as police would save the state a ton of money in trials, juries, and prison expenses. I’m fairly sure that we’d see a lot more homeless lawyers too.

The body cam footage from a robot would be priceless. Robot orders perp to stop or be fired upon. The perpetrator takes a shot at the robot, the robot blows the perps brains all over the place. Simple, dispassionate, efficient, and brings a whole new meaning to “Death by cop”.

I can imagine hostage negotiations; “Okay, let the hostages go or we’ll send the ‘bot in… ” The hostages come running out and the perps handcuff themselves. Just like RoboCop, I just hope we don’t get to the Gort version. What would happen to a city like Chicago with 100 Gorts running around? I’d imagine there would be one really bad weekend, and then Chicago might be a super nice place to live.

The courts would be hard pressed to say the robots are racist. Robots could simply hate all humans equally.

I’ve digressed.

I keep looking for this reconciliation the Democrats keep talking about, all I see is vengeance.

Democrats … You won! How about you stop beating dead horses and get to work making good on all the promises you made about how much better things will be under your benevolent, loving rule?

Orange man bad… Democrats good. Remember????

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Deleted Parler Today…

Update: 3/5/2021

While Parler is indeed back. Apparently they’re Hotel California. I checked the site today to answer the question, “Why haven’t I gotten an email saying your account is canceled.” The answer to that question is that my account hasn’t been cancelled.

Turns out that going through the “Delete your account” isn’t working for me. I click on the button, enter the password and … nothing. The site just loops back to the page you were on. This isn’t unusual because lots of pages on the site do that right now but even though you’re on the same page with apparently no changes having been made if you exit the page and come back in, you’ll see the changes.

Evidently, the same is not true for the “Delete my account page”

So, for the time being, I’m still on Parler. I still have the same number of followers I had but all of my messages have been deleted. Sigh…

What I really want is for the entire account to be gone. I’m trying to be completely done with social media and all that encompasses. For now, I can check out of Parler, but I can’t leave.

Looks like they’re finally back.

Good for them.

Since Parler was the last of my social media accounts, when Amazon, and the Democratic Party (make no mistake, they too were complicit) took Parler away I was suddenly without any Social media.

After the initial shock and withdrawal, I found I was fine. After a week I didn’t care anymore, Whether by hook or crook, the Democratic Party won the day. Bitching about it, or reading others bitching about it, serves no purpose.

I don’t fear being labeled a conservative anymore. If the government wants to harm you, they’ll find a way. The people in power have demonstrated the lengths to which they’ll go to remove anything or anyone they find disagreeable. They’ve amply demonstrated that no abuse of power is too much.

At this point I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if the DOJ assaulted Trump’s home in Florida in full on Waco or Ruby Ridge style. That is the legacy of the 2020 election for me. While I’ve always harbored a certain mistrust of the government. Now, I don’t trust our government or electoral processes at all.

The line, “Follow the money,” is more true today than ever before.

Couple corruption with the almost unbelievable stupidity of so many Americans and well… what you get, is plainly evident.

I’m not just speaking of the stupidity of America when it comes to questioning voting results, but the stupidity of well educated Americans in basic things like knowing how or why things work, (or don’t as the case may be).

Elements of our technology might as well be magic and fairy dust for far too many people. Apparently even the use of fire is beyond some people, as is evidenced by so many people suffocating in their homes across the South during this very cold series of storms.

Fire is not new, it’s been around since we lived in caves. We decry second hand smoke, but don’t think open a window? Uhh yeah, right! There’s gonna be a ton of “Darwin Awards” come springtime. Perhaps that will ultimately be for the best.

I’ve lost interest in Washington. For that matter I’ve lost interest in COVID, politics, social justice, cancel culture, sports, entertainment, and anything else that is not directly putting cash in my pocket, gas in my car, or food on my table.

I suppose, this is the new reality of many people. We’re all just tired of the bullshit. I know, I’ve got better and more important things to do.

Social Media doesn’t rank in the top 100 for me anymore.

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The Storm

So the storm was everything the National Weather Service claimed it would be.

Wind, rain/sleet, and snow. Lots of snow. About 16 inches at my elevation.

The front deck 1/29/2021

It’s not all that unusual to get snows like this here. What is unusual is that we’ve had essentially 3 back to back over the course of a few days.

The street. which was clear down to the pavement on 1/28/2021 and is buried again on 1/29/2021

The problem with our street is that it’s not county maintained. Meaning the residents have to clear it ourselves.

So we all pull out shovels, snow blowers, and one of the neighbors has an ATV with a snow blade on the front. Unfortunately, in the last snow he broke a shear pin and is waiting for the replacement which is on it’s way from MN via the USPS. He’s thinking that he won’t get it until spring.

The snow mound that is my front yard.

So after a full day of working, resting, & working again I can see most of the driveway again. One of the neighbors is at the far end of the street running his snow blower. What usually happens is all the neighbors fire up their snow blowers at the same time and the begin a carefully choreographed series of passes on the street.

That doesn’t begin until driveways are cleared otherwise we end up losing track of the driveways and have to do more work to find ’em and clear ’em. Something you don’t find out until you’ve regularly used a snow blower is, after you’ve blown the snow with a snow blower, it tends to compress into ice. So if you bury someones driveway sometimes the only solution is a pick and standard shovel instead of the traditional snow shovel.

One other really nice thing is that if one of the neighbors is away, and there’s a snow storm those of us who are home clear their driveway so they have a place to park when they get back. It’s not something any of us have talked about or agreed upon. It’s just a nice unwritten rule of kindness.

The other rule is that if the storm was really bad and your driveway isn’t cleared yet, you park in one of the neighbors drives until we get to yours. That rule is also unwritten and one of the nice things about our street.

We also have a common bag of various sized snowblower shear pins, unfortunately, none of us had anything big enough for the neighbors ATV snow blade. Dang IT!!!!

A shot of the house after clearing the road

In the picture above, the dark streaks are where the new guy on the block ingested some of the dirt from my yard. Ooops! No matter, the yard will be fine, but his snow blower was very unhappy for a couple of minutes. This picture isn’t super pretty but it gives a good reference of ground level and the relative depth of the snow.

Fortunately, we haven’t had to contend with snowplayers today. They have a bad habit of turning onto our road then freaking out when the realize 2 important things. 1) It’s a dead end. 2) It’s very narrow and there isn’t anyplace to turn around unless there happens to be an open driveway.

Usually they end up having to back down out onto the wider county maintained road. Which is also full of snowplayers trying to get up that road to its dead end, or it’s full of those who have found out that there is no way through and turned around.

This is why we don’t like snowplayers up in the neighborhoods. There are lots of little roads that dead end. Lots of these people come up here thinking the whole town is a snow/ski area, and they refuse to read signs that are clearly posted saying that a road is a dead end, or following the larger and equally clear signs that point to the designated play areas, and ski resorts.

They get tired of crawling along on the main, and well maintained road and tend to turn onto the first side road they see. Then the police get involved and start running them out of the neighborhoods, writing tickets, and towing vehicles.

Us locals, stop with a smile and present our drivers licenses (to prove our address and get waved on through police checkpoints). Sometimes we’ll provide thermos refills for the officer on duty. Especially if we notice an officer who hasn’t had a break in many hours working in the cold.

I’m afraid that tomorrow (Saturday) will bring a ton of rude, giddy, idiots, which will make all of the neighbors weekends a pain in the ass. We tend to take turns shooing the idiots off our lawns, out of the streets, and out of the reforestation project(s).

Then we spend Monday and Tuesday picking up all the trash. Broken plastic sleds, paper, dirty diapers, gloves, shoes, face masks, and the amazing detritus of human beings.

I am amused by the irony as well. These are the same people who would scream at the top of their lungs against pulling out of the Paris climate accords, but think nothing of trashing a pristine mountain town.

After all, they don’t have to actually clean up the mess. They don’t have to call the forestry service to help sick wildlife. They don’t have to worry about anything do they? It’s someone else’s problem when they drive back down the mountain.

Following are some pictures that illustrate the point really well.

A local creek about 10 miles from home. This picture was taken 15 year ago before the road to the creek was paved.
The same area about 4 years ago.
There is a creek under these uprooted trees. People were climbing the trees and then using their weight to pull them over. Seems the people wanted a bridge so they could cross a creek that has at best 10 inches of water in it during the Summer.
Filthy Humans!

If I sound harsh about people. It’s because I see the kind of wanton destruction and disregard all too many people have for the “Natural” surroundings that I live in and appreciate.

Ironically, lots of these people come to these wilder places to, “Get away from the city,” Unfortunately, they bring all their bad habits with them and just expect it to be magically cleaned up every night.

Before anyone talks to me about Climate change, the Green New Deal, Carbon taxes, or my gas powered car. They better have a simple appreciation of what’s happening every day in their local wilderness.

Cause if they don’t… I’m going to eat them for lunch!

Sorry, I digressed…

I’m not a traditional tree hugging Eco-Warrior. I’m just a guy who likes nature and gets really mad about the hypocrisy of people who are willing to pay stupid taxes and force everyone else to do the same, terrorizing us with dire warnings about Climate Change.

Too many of these people have never in their lives spent a day carrying a big trash bag through a forest picking up other people’s trash. Or tending a trampled sapling, or scrubbing graffiti off of rocks, or looking after an animal that ingested something left behind by a thoughtless person.

I do all of these things, and for the record, I’m not part of any organization. There’s no-one taking pictures. The big garbage bag ends up in my trash or recycling bin which ever is appropriate. I do this because I believe it’s the right thing to do, and should be done for no other reason. I’m the human walking in the forest seeing all the mess. Rather than tut-tut about it, I’ve got two hands, and a backpack with at least one trash bag inside.

Leave no trace. Leave a place better than you found it. That way the next person on the trail can appreciate the beauty and hopefully they’re operating on the same philosophy.

I’m a big believer that until you tend to the local issues you can’t really address the global ones. I also believe that if everyone simply tended to their own local issues, the world would be a lot prettier and healthier.

After all anyone can write a check, or click “Like” and feel smug about it. Put some skin in the game if you’re really serious.

Just my two cents. What I’ve said may not be right. It may not be right for you in particular. But It’s right for me and given that I do have skin in the game I’m not going to apologize if what I’ve said offends anyone.