JUST SOME POSTS

  I have been wrestling with doing a post since shortly after the last one. As I gave written here before, when I don't post it is more likely that I have too many ideas rather than none. There are many, many things that I have thought about writing on and a few I have actually "roughed out" in my head. But, then something else would come along before I got it written and take the space. So, I end up writing neither. Sigh.. So, here we go... I thought I would just do a post on a new group I am founding and am going to be soliciting for members of shortly. It is the   S top T rying to U nderstand P eople with I deas that are D ifferent  group  or the acronym -  STUPID . We spend entirely too much time trying to relate to all those other people that think differently than we do. It is time to get together to celebrate our agreement with the correct thoughts - ours.  I am still working out the details but I know the ideas we will believe in will have to be det...

  As I write this the 2020 election is 11+ days past. The news media, for the most part (there are still some that have the integrity to not call it yet) has called it a win for Biden. The issue there is, it is not over. News organizations, no matter which one, do NOT call the election results. They can REPORT election results. They use algorithms and projections along with exit polls and real vote counts to forecast a winner of each race. The State legislatures must certify the results and appoint the electors. As of this writing only eight States have certified their results. (that is not unusual, the dates for certification is still in the future for the others - I am not implying anything, just reporting) Now, I am not saying that the odds are not showing that Biden/Harris have won. It would be a long shot for President Trump to hold on to his office. But, it the race is NOT over. Some are not being reported at all, and most are not being reported widely; but as best I can find...

  As I have not done a reminder in a while, first a bit of a review: 1) There is NO government money. There are detailed explanations in other posts on this blog as well as many other sites. Just know that any time you hear something is being paid for with "federal funds", a "federal grant", "State funds'' or any other euphemism for government money, know what it really means is - taxpayer's money - either current or future. 2) Corporations DON'T pay taxes! PEOPLE PAY TAXES! You can put whatever tax rate you want to on Corporations and the taxes will be paid by their customers eventually. I have seen arguments that try to explain why the taxes will be paid by the company due to market forces or other reasons. This is not true in almost all cases. Every Corporate P&L (financial statement/planning) has a line item for taxes. It is a cost of doing business and computed into the finances like any other cost and built into the price of their wa...

There are a lot of comparisons between Trump's appointment of Amy Barrett and Obama's appointment of Merrick Garland. There is one HUGE difference that makes all the difference. The President's party is in control of the Senate at the time of the appointment. People seem to not understand that the appointments to the Federal Judiciary are at the “Advice & Consent of the Senate”. The advice and consent of the Senate of the Garland appointment was “we will not approve him”. Although I thought at the time and still think now it would have been better to have the vote and the appointment be ended that way, it is well within the Senate’s purview to say “No” prior to the vote. It is forgotten that Garland would have not been approved in all likelihood even with the vote.  The other point is this: the people have spoken and had input into the appointment of the next Supreme Court justice - in 2016 they voted in Donald Trump (I know that argument is somewhat negated by the fact...

 Somewhere among all these posts is one where I talked about how the problems that the politicians were going to fix have been the same all my life. The political ads from the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s could be used today with a small bit of "polishing".  Our elected representatives have been correcting inequities and solving the same problems for as long as I have been hearing politicians. I am sure it goes back way before me! If the politicians wanted to (or giving them the benefit of the doubt - were able to ) solve these issues - they would have - period. There are also posts here where I try to delineate the powers and responsibility of the branches of our government as outlined in the Constitution. I will not go there again (if you care - go looking), I will just say that the three branches have to work together - at least somewhat - to get anything done. As a reminder the three branches are the Executive (President), the Judicial (the federal courts headed by the Suprem...

  Dr. Malcolm Kendrick is (as he describes himself) a Scottish MD, author, speaker, and skeptic. He is one of the folks that I "follow" and read fairly regularly. His take on the Covid-19 pandemic was one that I digested as I came with my own opinions early on. This post he just did sums up where we are and how we got here: https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/ It is a long read, but well worth it if you want to know the truth. The Covid-19 pandemic has been turned into nothing more than a political tool at this point. Almost all responsible scientific and medical-type folks have come to the conclusion that the world screwed up royally and caused severe disruption of the entire economy as well as the well-being of the population.  Please read his comments at the link above. (there are many other great reads here as well) No more needs to be said.

I could not come up with any good title for this one. The subject does not lend itself to any type of levity - even sarcasm.  I should not have to say this, but in today's world, I will: this post, the facts and statements presented here in no way condone or pardon the unspeakable act of slavery. The ownership, control over, and/or forced labor of another human being is reprehensible and cannot be supported with any statements or facts.  This post came about from a "discussion" I had online with someone (as is normal online - I cannot know for certain if they were male or female nor how old they were - they presented with a traditional male name and as a college student in Ohio). They were comparing the condition of African-Americans today to slaves in the US south in the antebellum period. After "talking" some back and forth I came to realize that they truly believed the USA was the historic center of slavery in the world and the nexus of the slavery issue. Alt...

This post is prompted by the hysteria being ginned up by politicians over the United States Postal Service (hereafter to be referred to as the USPS).  First some facts and history about the USPS. The USPS (it's predecessor actually, but for all intents and purposes - the same organization) was an original part of the US Government and even before that Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first Postmaster General by the Continental Congress in 1775 to oversee the newly formed Post Office Department (he had been Postmaster General of the Colonies). It was recognized that the efficient and timely movement of the mail was critical to communication in a large and widespread land. The Post Office Department was made a Cabinet level department by President Washington in 1792 after the Postal Service Act of 1791. The Post Office remained a Cabinet level department until 1971 when the USPS was formed. It is now a semi-autonomous organization that has its own budgeting and is administered by ...

 Covid-19 and the deaths by age in the US*: No additional commentary from me. Just read the numbers. Start END Location Age Group COVID-19 Deaths  Influenza Deaths  Total Deaths  Percentage of Covid Deaths 2/1/2020 8/8/2020 US Under 1 year 16 15 9,159 0.011% 2/1/2020 8/8/2020 US 1-4 years 10 41 1,751 0.007% 2/1/2020 8/8/2020 US 5-14 years 23 51 2,714 0.015% 2/1/2020 8/8/2020 US 15-24 years 242 52 17,079 0.162% 2/1/2020 8/8/2020 US 25-34 years 1,133 150 35,456 0.759% 2/1/2020 8/8/2020 US 35-44 years ...

The definitions are based on the Merriam-Webster online dictionary and my own interpretations - some much more the latter than the former. The thoughts are all mine... Intelligence - n . the ability to learn and/or understand thoughts, concepts and ideas; the ability to reason. Knowledge - n . accumulation of facts and of knowing something through experience or association - learning. Experience - n . gaining knowledge through or being affected by observation or participation in an activity or event. Wisdom - n . the application of intelligence and knowledge with understanding, tempered with experience. I have a lot of formal as well as experiential learning. I have done many, many hours of study in classrooms, seminars, courses; and through the great schoolroom of life. In all this I have met many very intelligent young people. Many of these intelligent youth had already attained great, if limited, knowledge; at least the kind that can be learned from a book or class. Very few had...

The irresponsible reporting of the Covid-19 pandemic is getting ridiculous. If there are any of you out there that don't believe the reporting is no more than a way to generate panic and sow distrust of the government's handling of the crisis- here are some charts for you from the CDC. (taken from screenshots of the site today 7/24/20) First, the figures that all the reports are fixated on: (the growth in cases) You can see that the number of cases is growing quite a bit of late! The reporting on that number is correct. Now the one that matters: (deaths) I do my best not to participate in hyperbole, so I will mention that the deaths are not immediately reported and/or recorded. So, the figures after 7/4 on the chart will go up some for sure over the next weeks as these numbers come in. However, you can see the deaths are dropping almost exactly inversely to the cases! Even if the death rate was remaining the same, the overall number would be rising! (a percentage of a large num...

This was to be done almost a week ago, but I got sucked down the "rabbit-hole" of research. A word about that: I do not put anything in this blog that I do not do research on.  I do my best to find multiple sources documenting what I am saying.  This blog for example has at least 6-7 hours or pure research in it and another 2 writing it -as I go back and read my notes or sources while writing. I do, however, post opinion. I try (and to my knowledge have succeeded) to identify all opinion as such, and different than fact. That being said, let's go to the facts. Science today, at least as reported and published, is a far cry from science of old. Consensus, again at least among what is published and reported to the masses, seems to be the driving force versus "pure science". Unfortunately that is very, very bad for science and scientific progress. Skepticism and reproducible proof are the foundations of science. You may have taken some sort of science class where y...