Coffee In The News

Coffee is in the news again.  The Epoch Times is reporting that Researchers Dump Tons of Coffee Waste on Degraded Land, 2 Years Later It's Transformed.

Researchers have witnessed incredible results after dumping 30 truckloads of coffee pulp, a waste product of the coffee industry, onto an area of degraded former farmland in Costa Rica. Marking out a control area of a similar size, they were astounded by the change over the next two years.

Dr. Rebecca Cole, lead author of the study—which was published in the British Ecological Society journal Ecological Solutions and Evidence—described the change as “dramatic.”

“The area treated with a thick layer of coffee pulp turned into a small forest in only two years,” Cole said, according to a press release, “while the control plot remained dominated by nonnative pasture grasses.”

I save my coffee grounds after they have been used, and spread these on my garden. So I get a twofer from my beans. But I don't quite have enough for attempting this experiment.

David Chipman is a Dangerous Gun Grabber Who The Senate Should Reject

 Andrea Widburg at the American Thinker notes that If Biden's Pick To Head the ATF Gets the Nod, We're All In Trouble. Biden has nominated David Chipman, a problematic figure who is a virulently anti-gun former member of the ATF, and now is with the eponymously named Giffords, which despite the name change is still just a gun grabbing organization.

Biden’s nominee to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, David Chipman, is a long-time gun control advocate. Putting him in charge of the ATF is a guaranteed attack on American’s Second Amendment rights. As Wednesday’s Senate hearing showed, the guy is also a crackpot and a liar.

...snip...

On Wednesday, in response to Ted Cruz’s questioning, Chipman admitted what those “particularly lethal” firearms are: AR-15s. As Sen. Tom Cotton noted, Chipman defined AR-15s so broadly that it “would basically cover every single modern sporting rifle in America today.” And when it comes to those AR-15s, Chipman wants to ban them all

...snip...

The AR-15 is America’s most popular rifle. In 2019, before the world went crazy with COVID and BLM, causing millions of Americans to become first-time gun owners, a good guess was that there were about 18 million AR-15s in America. There are undoubtedly many, many more now.

AR-15s are popular because they are lovely weapons: easy to use and easy to customize. At the end of the day, though, they are still the classic American rifle, and they don’t fire a particularly lethal round. They are almost never used to commit crimes. But Chipman, given power, would seize them.

Chipman’s not only an anti-gun fanatic, he’s also a liar. Perhaps to justify the government’s mass slaughter at Waco in 1993, he’s claimed that Branch Davidian members “used 2.50 caliber Barretts to shoot down two Texas Air National Guard helicopters.” In fact, while the Branch Davidians shot at helicopters, they failed – and there were no Barretts later discovered at the scene. Chipman wasn’t misinformed; he lied, because, as a case agent in the Branch Davidian trial, he knew better.

Look, David Chipman hopes to get the authority to hurt you and me. The American Left has been held at bay because we have the Second Amendment, and a great number of Americans have exercised that right. Otherwise, America would look like Pol Pot's Cambodia. And if Biden and Chipman have their way, it still will.  The Senate must not approve this nominee.

A world of sociopaths and psychopaths

Today at the American Thinker David Culver Brenner tells secular liberals and atheists to Kindly Stop Stealing My Worldview. Most people who claim atheism haven't really thought it through. Most of them are angry with God, and like little children, turn their backs on him and cross their arms. One expects they will now try to hold their breath until they get what they want. But the truth is that without God, the Creator of everything that is and everything that is not, there is no morality; there is no love. As Dostoyevsky said, “Without God all things are permitted.”  But before you celebrate, you perhaps should read the entire article, and clearly think that through.

One of the more interesting contradictions in our public debate today is the tendency of fully secular folk to speak of the virtues of love and compassion, almost as if they invented them. Political liberals often criticize conservative Christians because they consider their religious and political beliefs woefully lacking in love. The funny thing is that, apart from a loving God, an ethical system based on "love" is as insubstantial as styrofoam peanuts or pixie dust. To reject God is to reject objective morality completely. Secular liberals are simply stealing from Christianity — and thus breaking the Seventh Commandment! — when they insist we love our neighbors and even our enemies.

I'm thinking primarily of secular liberals who dismiss the Christian God as a loving and lawgiving father and who embrace a purely materialistic cosmos. But we might also include religious liberals, who acknowledge God's existence but reject the authority and inspiration of Scripture. Such folk are practical atheists, since although they affirm God, they doubt his ability to communicate unequivocally with fallen humanity, thus leaving them no better off than an ardent atheist — stuck in a mass of moral confusion.

The recent calls by Leftists and liberals to defund the police, to release criminals from jail, and to not prosecute those who commit crimes makes perfect sense for people who believe in a strictly material origin to life on earth.  And, of course, if the the world is really just material, if there is no God, or as Nietzche said, if God is dead, then abortion makes sense, or at least isn't wrong.  But then, anything that one wishes to impose on another because one can, is right.  One finds oneself living in a world of sociopaths and psychopaths.

If the cosmos consists merely of atoms ("materialism" or "naturalism"), and life on Earth is merely the result of a radically improbable string of random events, moral language has zero validity. To assess one kind of behavior (caring for an orphan, for instance) as superior to another kind of behavior (beating an orphan, on the other hand) is nonsensical. In the neo-Darwinian view, each behavior was precipitated by molecular reactions in the brain, governed by the laws of physics.

How can you blame the orphan-beater for acting in ways controlled by chemistry and physics, as opposed to a rational mind and moral conscience that were gifted to him supernaturally? Or why is the one who loves and cares for the orphan deserving of praise if such love is only the product a "lucky" series of chemical events in the brain? In short, materialism eviscerates human blame and credit.

Brenner goes on to smash the idea that humans are capable of love if there is no God. These things, love, morality, the idea that man owes his fellows love, respect, indeed that we are our neighbor's keepers, can only exist when we acknowledge God is, and that we can only love because He first loved us.

Christianity, on the other hand, tells us that love is true, because the God of love is also the God of truth. The three-personal God not only defines and embodies love, but models love relationally — something unique among all religions. Jesus, by His life and especially in His death, showed us what love is, through His own loving obedience to the Father.

Years ago I was debating with a woman who clained that one could be "good" without believing in God. I had not thought through that position myself. But the only reason she had any idea of the "good" was because we live in a country founded as a Christian nation. Our laws are based on the 10 Commandments, as given to mankind by the Finger of God. If not for the love of God, we would live in a world where each seeks his own wants and fulfills his own appetites at the expense of everyone else.  but then, no one would survive long in such a world.

As conservatives, we must insist on telling the truth

 Gabe Kaminski makes the point that Conservatives Who Call Caitlyn Jenner "She" Forfeit the Truth. He is absolutely right. Perhaps I may seem to hard on this. After all, doesn't everybody tell the occasional little white lie? Perhaps so, but in this day when society seems to be going insane, and so many people insist that things that simply are not true are in fact the new truths, we must insist on reality.  And you know that this is a concerted effort to break society, so we, as conservatives can not afford to call a man who has been in the public eye for decades a woman.

Some on the political right, particularly those who are more fond of fusionism or libertarianism, are quick to pump the brakes on using a biological pronoun. It is rude to the person and it is important to be friendly, the person will often plead. If they wish to be called by a false pronoun, I will honor that request. It’s a free country! One conservative I spoke with said using inaccurate pronouns for transgender identifying people is being “respectful” and “every single conservative” ought to do so.

This could not be further from the truth. In actuality, it is disrespectful to both you and the transgender person to use the anti-science pronoun. It demeans your knowledge of reality and perpetuates lies harmful to you and the transgender person, as well as to the rest of society.

Jenner is running as a Republican. This means many conservatives who determine that there are two sexes, and most do, could punch the ticket for his female name in 2022. Yet these voters should not feel obliged to forfeit their intrinsic and prescriptive understanding of sex in order to accommodate another person’s feelings about what sex he or she claims to feel like.

If a person knows Jenner can only be a male or a female, and that he is in fact a biological male, that person is contradicting his own knowledge by referring to the candidate as “she.” One should not have to abandon one’s morals and sanity to appease gender activists, those who have been brainwashed by such ideology, and those struggling with gender dysphoria. Being manipulated into telling what you know to be a lie is not good for anyone.

As conservatives, we must insist on the truth and on reality. It is the only thing worth conserving.

So, the Chinese Communist Party Committed Biowarfare On The World

 So, I am not crazy after all. Andrea Widburg at the American Thinker is reporting that It looks as if China did create and unleash Covid on the world Widburg in turn points to a Tucker Carlson Tonight monologue.

1. The video above does not include Tucker’s most recent interview with Dr. Yan. She again makes it clear that China created this virus in the lab. Then, she says something very ominous: That the virus, because it’s been weaponized, almost certainly has dangerous effects on humans that go beyond the obvious first phrase sickness.

2. To the extent that Dr. Fauci used taxpayer money to illegally fund gain of function research in China, allowing the Chinese communist party and its military to weaponize viruses, including COVID, firing is not good enough. He needs to be criminally charged for what he’s done.

3. Again, f China deliberately released COVID, that’s a clear act of biological warfare. However, even if China’s deplorably sloppy habits resulted in the virus being only accidentally released, China became culpable when it (a) failed to take timely steps to quarantine the virus within its own borders by stopping, rather than encouraging, foreign travel and (b) failed to give the world information it possessed about the virus. Again, this is an act of war.

4. Currently, while Joe Biden likes to talk a little bit tough about China, his actions have been anything but tough. One of Biden’s first acts was to suspend Trump’s Executive Order 13920, which stopped anything that might allow a foreign adversary (e.g., China) from getting near America’s electric grid. And while Biden is holding surprisingly strong on trade, he just allowed his government to end Trump’s ban on U.S. investment in Chinese technology. Biden even banned federal workers from saying “China virus.” It’s also clear that Secretary of State Blinken is out of his league in dealing with the Chinese.

When will our government take the Chinese Communist Party seriously? When will they realize that even if they don't want to fight, the CCP does.  Indeed, they have to.  We do not get to determine if we are in a war, the enemy does.  Oh, and this is not to say that the people of China are our enemies. Just as the people of the Soviet Union were, and are a great people, so are the Chinese. Our fight is with the ideology, and those infected with it.

The Left Accuses the Right of Doing What the Left is Actually Doing...Again

Today, at Townhall.com Kurt Schlichter has a piece today entitled People Are Getting Tired of Woke Nonsense In it he describes a situation in which a physician was shopping in the same store with another woman who mistook her for an employee of the store. This happens all the time. I have mistaken people as employees, and it doesn't matter if that person is black, or purple, or indeed white. We have a number of white employees working in our stores, doncha know. But here is the point. When a white person asks another white person for information, thinking they are an employee and might know, only to discover they are not, it is no big deal. But when a white person asks a black person the same thing in the same circumstances, it is suddenly a Federal Case, and burning, looting and murder must immediately commence.

But this sort of thing isn't racism, and if you feel the need to feel victimized, perhaps you should re-evaluate your life.  Because these are luxury problems.  If this is what you have to get excited about...well, there are people who haven't eaten in a week and wonder where their next meal is coming from, or worse.

Now, the tale is as tiresome as you can imagine – apparently a “middle aged white woman” heir to Bull Connor – who was a Democrat – dared to ask the finicky physician if Her Medical Majesty worked at the store they were both shopping in and thereby assumed that Dr. Brittani James was a mere retail worker. I know, right?

No, it could not have been an innocent mistake – Occam’s Razor is racist too, apparently. Instead, this was clearly a hate crime that harkened back to the olden days, when bands of hooded Democrats with torches would ride the countryside, terrorizing black folks by asking them if they could supersize the Klansmen’s happy meals. Move over, Harriet Tubman, Fussy James has a real tale of racial oppression to tell. I bet a movie chronicling her trauma would win Best Picture; acting legend Nick Searcy could appear as the therapist who helps her move past the pain.

...snip...

First, all of us should be on our knees thanking God that we live in a country where intramural hate manifests as not detecting one’s medical license or failing to be a linguist fluent in each of the world’s myriad tongues. I served in Kosovo, where people burned their neighbor’ homes and buried the murdered in mass graves, and I think those folks would be thrilled beyond measure to dwell in a place where the greatest challenge to ethnic harmony would be issuing occasional corrections about one’s employment status and name pronunciation. We are blessed to live in a nation that is so generally peaceful that the best these drama queens can do to peg the oppression-o-meter and redline the oppression they so desperately want with this kind of frivolous nonsense.

Go and read Schlichter's piece, as it is so true.

The second article I bring up today may therefore surprise you, but they do indeed go together. The second article comes from The Federalist by Kevin Portteus entitled Here Is When The Founders Thought Revolution Was Justified. In the article, Portteus describes at length the philosophy behind the Declaration of Independence, and contrasts the American Revolution with that of both France and Russia. In each the cases of the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution, the revolutions resulted in far worse tyrannies than the ones they replaced. The American Revolution is different, and deserves consideration as to why. In fact, Portteus claims at one point that the American Revolution wasn't a revolution at all, but a restoration of the rights of Englishmen. But first go and read the whole article.

Read it? Good. Now to discuss

Here is why I think these to articles go together.

What is happening now in our country can, as in 1776, be seen as a usurpation of our traditional rights, privileges, and legal traditions. We, as Americans have prided ourselves on the law binding all. Yes, it has been abused, but not so badly, and bald facedly as today. Today we can clearly see a two tier justice system, in which people with the "right" beliefs can get away with seemingly anything. Think James Comey, Brennan, the people involved in Fast and Furious, and there are too many others to mention.  Think how Kyle Rittenhouse is being railroaded for protecting himself.  Think about how Antifa and BLM rioted throughout Democrat run cities, burning, looting, and murdering people and businesses. None of them will be held accountable. Meanwhile people who entered the Capitol, where nobody rioted, and where not a single gun was collected by the FBI, in a so-called "insurrection," are being held in solitary confinement on charges such as misdemeanor trespassing.  How is this be equal protection under the law?

People who happen to currently be in the minority in terms of their skin color and national origin, have been led to believe that they are being constantly discriminated against.  But like the doctor in Kurt Schlichter's article above, they often have to scrutinize with a microscope, to find anything at all to complain about.  But why do they all run so hard from the fact that they have been blessed?  Yes, blessed to have been born in this country, to which people all over the World aspire to come?  And believe me, people like this doctor deserve the Kurt Schlichter treatment.

On the Left we hear much talk of insurrection, and insurrectionists on the right.  But we on the right have not been talking about revolution.  Much as in 1776, we have been concerned how to stop the Left from revolution.  Our concern has been, not to transform the country, but to restore it.

What do you think "transforming" our country means?  The insurrectionists are on the Left.  As always, they use the language to somehow paint themselves as the white knights.  They are not.  They are the true revolutionaries, and just like in Russia, the end result will be tyranny and dictatorship.

Disparaging God's Creation

 A number of years ago, I left the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) for a number of reasons, but the final straw was when the decision was made to (prayerfully they said) ordain gay pastors.  At the time I noted that for the time being they wouldn't put gay pastors in normal congregations, but it was coming.  Well, now The Federalist is reporting that In Ordaining A Trans Bishop, Leftist Denomination Calls God a Liar. It is interesting that in the beginning, God created all of the creatures, including mankind, male and female. And God doesn't make mistakes. Note that he didn't make white people, and black people, and Asian people. No, just mankind. What that tells me is that if one places his identity in one of these artificial subdivisions, including a different gender that the one you are born with, one is disparaging God's creation. Who are you to do so?

Megan expresses the central focus of her ministry this way, “I think the most important thing I can say as a queer pastor is ‘I’m sorry, using faith to tear other people down is not good news,’” adding, “We need to all be as loud and angry as the people who want to declare there are types of people that God can’t love.”

That’s quite a statement — one that should compel us to ask precisely who are these Christians she is speaking of who don’t believe the simple words of John 3:16? Of course, the question is not whether God loves everyone, but what He calls us to in His boundless love for us. That’s a core question any pastor should be in the business of helping people figure out.

Exactly so. I don't doubt that there are some Christians who have trouble with gays. But I think most Christians understand that God loves all his creatures, and that God does not make mistakes. But people do, all the time. In fact Martin Luther was so aware of this that he said that a Christians whole life should be one of repentance. At the same time, this person, who has been elevated for her trans identity should not even be a pastor, for she makes an idol of her sexual identity. And of course, the ELCA should not be engaging in Leftist politics. God is neither a conservative, nor a Leftist. He is...period. It is up to us to accommodate ourselves to Him, not the other way around. If we would walk with Him, we must be prepared to go where He wants us to go, because He ain't going where we want.

Speaking of Coffee

 I have mentioned on occasion that I really like coffee, especially espresso.  Hence, I have a 20 year old Krups espresso machine.  I also have a French Press, a stove top espresso machine,  and a standard drip coffee maker.  As a special treat, I occasionally purchase a "black eye" at a coffee shop.  A black eye is two shots of espresso and then fill the rest of the cup with cafe Americano.  Did I say I like coffee?

Elle Reynolds has a piece at The Federalist that tells us How To Stop Spending Your Money At Starbucks And Get Better Coffee.

The first thing she suggests is that you invest in an espresso machine. The math is compelling, as it would pay for itself isice of a year. It is also true that your coffee tastes better when you freshly grind it.

Yes, owning an espresso maker is extravagant. But so is dropping five or six dollars on a mediocre frappuccino that’s mostly ice, especially if you do so regularly. If you spend $5 on coffee every morning before work, that’s $25 in a week and around $100 in a month. In a year, you’ve spent over $1,200 on coffee, and that’s not even counting weekends. Not every espresso maker is equal, but you can get a good-quality machine for between $150 and $300. That’s paid for itself in a few months if you’re a daily drinker. Plus, you don’t have to deal with a long morning drive-thru line, or have to worry about the barista using too much sugar or too little cream.

She also suggests that if possible you find a local coffee shop. We are fortunate to have two in our suburb and of course there are several around NC State. Reynolds points out that while Starbucks provides consistent quality, they can not provide the best quality, nor can they provide that uniqueness that local shops can bring.

But prioritizing consistency can sometimes force a business to use a lower-quality product that’s more widely available. According to their website, Starbucks buys 3 percent of the world’s coffee. If you’re a corporation buying 3 percent of the world’s coffee supply, it’s statistically impossible for all of your coffee to fall into the top 1 percent on the quality spectrum. But if you buy the top 1 percent and then supplement it with a slightly lower-quality product, your quality won’t be consistent across storefronts.

That doesn’t mean Starbucks’ quality is bad, but it also won’t have the originality of lots of local places. The family-owned store can select its signature beans and roasts with more creativity and intentionality than store managers taking directions from corporate. As a result, local places will often take more pride in their product and treat it as art, offering a signature drink or detailing designs in the coffee foam.

Finally, Reynolds suggests that one also should consider where their coffee money is going. It used to be that the money spent on things like cell phones and coffee went to the company and to the shareholders. Now, in the age of "woke" it goes to Leftist causes. I have switched to Patriot Mobil for my cell phone, and I buy Black Rifle Coffee at least once a month. They are small things, but every dollar not paid to a "woke" corporation is a good thing.

Sullivan: Masks don't prevent the spread of Covid-19

 Now that the CDC is dropping mask mandates, at least for those who are fully vaccinated, I hope this will be the last thing I write on masks.  William Sullivan has a piece today at the American Thinker entitled Time For Modern Masking Madness to be Cast in the Dustbin of History. Sullivan makes a pretty compelling case that masks have done nothing to stop the spread of the virus. He points out that the "elites" who have imposed masks on the public can hardly back down now. But the evidence is pretty clear.

And we have been here before.  One hundred years ago, the Spanish Flu (back then it was ok to name it the Spanish flu becase thats where it was thought to originate) was a real pandemic, with millions dying from (as opposed to just with) the disease.

Long before Fauci’s ridiculous reversal from consensus toward the limits of absurdity, uncountable numbers of American scientists correctly concluded, having the benefit of decades of data mounting for over a century, that wearing a mask for the benefit of feeling safe from viral spread was useless.

As John M. Barry writes in The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, there were attempts to normalize mask wearing back in 1918, with masks “positioned at stores alongside everyday things” like “tobacco” and “mustache grooming” supplies. But “the grim truth persisted,” he concludes, which is that “the masks worn by millions were useless as designed and could not prevent influenza,” because “only preventing exposure to the virus” could do that.

While we might be seeing new developments today that didn’t exist during the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, such as a corporate, technocratic oligarchy working hand-in-hand with politburos to suppress any information contrary to what are deemed the politically acceptable “scientific” conclusions, much of what we’re witnessing is just a bit of history repeating.

Needless to say, masks didn't work to prevent the spread of Spanish Flu and it doesn't work today to stop the spread of the Chinese Flu. Sullivan shows us graph after graph that show the uselessness of masks in preventing the spread of the disease. And to those who say we must "do something," sometimes the only thing we can do is pray, which is alsays a good idea anyway. Keeping your distance when reasonable, washing your hands, these are also always a good idea. Beyond that, we just have to pray, and have faith.

Supreme Court to Take Up Abortion Case

 The Supreme Court as agreed to take up an abortion case, as reported at Townhall.com by Reagan McCarthy entitled Breaking: Supreme Court to Take Up Major Abortion Case.

The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to hear a major abortion case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health, from Mississippi. The law in question, the Gestational Age Act, bans abortion after 15 weeks gestation, and the court will decide if these restrictions on pre-viability on elective abortions are unconstitutional. The high court will review a lower court decision that blocked the law from being enforced.

Note that this contrasts with Texas's bill, where a fetal heartbeat rather than a strict time limit is the criteria for limiting abortion.  I doubt we will ever see an absolute ban again, but it is nonetheless important to limit it as much as possible.

And so it begins...

 According to the Epoch Times Delta Air Lines to Force New Employees to Get Covid-19 Vaccines. Again, this is a disease that kills 0.15% of those infected, so forcing people to get vaccinated seems a little extreme. This looks like the real reason is control, and Delta is showing is "woke" bona fides. But only requiring vaccination for new employees avoids telling someone that must get it or be fired. Interesting. I am sure this will get more pressing with time.

Texas Governor Expected to Sign Bill Banning Abortion when Fetal Heartbeat is Detected

 At the Epoch Times today, we find that the Texas Governor Expected to Sign Bill Banning Abortions When Fetal Heartbeat is Detected. Good. It is a compromise, but one in the right direction. I will no doubt get to the Supreme Court, where we will see if they have the guts to rule in its favor, or if they will insist on murdering infants.

The Need for Vocational Training

 My grand daughter has wanted to be a podiatrist since she was 5 years old.  I remember asking her, really just to see if she was thinking about it, what she wanted to be.  With her answer, you could have knocked me over with a feather.  "You know what a podiatrist is, right?" I asked.  She was insistent that she did indeed.  She is now 15, and still wants to be a podiatrist.  Clearly she will need a lot of education to achieve her goal,  and one wishes the best for her.  My grandson has no idea what he wants to be, which is fine too.  But for him, I think a vocational training may be in order.  As much as college education is necessary, it is also true that we need craftsmen, a lot of them.

Over at the American Thinker Brian Parsons has an interesting article entitled Skills Not Schools: Lessons From the Renaissance. He discusses the philosophy of the "Renaissance Man." in the context of Christian thought.

Renaissance education is the foundation of the modern university system. It was based on the concept of the Universal Man or Uomo Universale. As mankind was the ultimate creation of God, it was man’s job to reach his maximum by continual self-improvement. This idea led to the notion that men should try to embrace all knowledge and develop their own capacities as fully as possible. To be a Renaissance man, one must develop his knowledge base as well as his craft. Perhaps no person embodies this concept more than Renaissance artist, scientist, and inventor Leonardo da Vinci. In Leonardo, a duality of the mind and hands is found. Out of this ideal, the university and the journeyman education are born. Yet, rather than striving for this unity of the mind and the body, the education system has juxtaposed these two disciplines in competition with one another.

We have become an over credentialed society. As Parsons points out, you practically can't get a job at a gas station without a degree. And colleges have been accommodating by providing "degrees" in various "studies." How many film majors does the World really need? And what does a
"Feminism Studies" major actually do? The problem with these relatively new degree programs is that they are not grounded in reality, and thus are not rigorous.  But what these "studies" programs lack in academic rigor and real World grounding, they make up with the evangelical fervor of there students.  Self important stuffed shirts like Ibrihim X. Kendi or Cornell West may seem loony tunes to you and me, but the gullible press takes these guys seriously.

On the other hand, a craft, whatever it is, takes place in the real World. You can not wire up a building with imaginary wires and theoretical wiring devices and have it actually work. There are physical constraints, and sometimes one must consider things like, say, friction. If friction did not exist, we couldn't move about. Every time you take a step, you are relying on the friction between the soles of your shoes and the earth. At the same time, friction inhibits motion, imposing a need to expend energy to move an object from here to there.  This is what I mean by physical constraints.  You have to have imagination, but it has to be within the realm of the possible.

But there is something more than simply turning out quantities of items. Perhaps the best way to understand our work is as Martin Luther did: that there is dignity in any work that serves humanity. The farmer as much as the physician, the sewage treatment operator as much as the artist or musician. Or, as Parsons puts it:

Tangible benefits like wages and demand are not the only attractive qualities of skilled labor. There are very real and intangible benefits of it, such as the value of personal production. Renaissance philosophers believed that men were made in the mold of a creative God; we create because God Created. There is a very real fulfillment that arises from the act of creation, and it is no coincidence that the Bible begins with Creation. Observe craftsmen upon completion of a project as they scrutinize their work and you will witness the picture of a Creative God, who on the seventh day marveled in fulfillment of His Creation. Vocational training is neither lesser than a college degree nor contrary to a fulfilling career. There is a valid argument to be made that skilled labor is the perfection of a whole person, and our Renaissance predecessors believed that.

“Everything that is responsible for creating something out of nothing is a kind of poetry; and so all the creations of every craft and profession are themselves a kind of poetry, and everyone who practices a craft is a poet.” -- Plato

Fighting Fire with Fire: Conservatives Need to Take Over the Democrat Party

 You may be wondering what the Left must be thinking by proposing...seriously...to defund the police.  Historically, we have not had a police force.  Thus, while, say, robbery was illegal, people had to enforce that themselves.  Wells Fargo had to hire the Pinkerton Agency to track down the criminals robbing their payrolls on trains.  Yes, we had Federal Marshals, and county Sheriffs, and some towns had town marshals and such, but over all, policing was seen as part of a citizens duties.  Thus the innovation of a paid police force that is tasked with enforcing the law was a great innovation.  We have come to rely on the police, such that most people do not carry a weapon!  But the truth is that while the police do a surprisingly good job, the citizen is still his own first responder.

So, again, what must the Left be thinking?  Gary Gindler has the answer at the American Thinker yesterday entitled The Left's Long Love Affair with Criminals. And it should come as no surprise that his analysis is true.

One shouldn't think the Democratic Party militants — formerly the KKK (by now a marginal group with almost nothing behind the website) and now the exhumed Antifa and BLM — are some kind of anomaly. Recall other leftists. Recall the Soviet Union, where criminals were viewed as "socially close elements." In contrast, politics-related people (dissidents, nonconformists, "undesirable," and other "unreliables") were viewed as "socially dangerous" or "socially alien." Who is always the first to sincerely and enthusiastically respond to the socialist slogan "rob the loot"? That's right — those who have experience in robbery and looting.

Before the left came to power, criminals were helpful to the Bolsheviks in creating chaos (read: "prerequisites for revolution"). After the left came to power, it became clear that criminals, as a rule, never intended to overthrow the existing government. As a result of this cooperation, in Russia in the 20th century, the leftists created political banditry — i.e., using criminals against "class enemies" and "politically unreliable" ones — and the American left successfully adopted the idea of using malefactors. (Should we say femalefactors or personfactors in Newspeak?)

In addition, the prevailing theory of "social Darwinism" among the left provided a simple answer to the question of where, in fact, criminals come from. It turns out that criminals arise from "unfavorable conditions." It's known that few of the Antifa and BLM mayhem participants were imprisoned — and those who were, for the most part, were released. The fact is that, according to social Darwinism, one should not punish the criminal, not put him in prison, but simply place him in other, more favorable conditions. And then — lo and behold! — the criminal will be corrected, "re-educated."

If you are one of the law abiding gun owners, you know the ones who take their concealed weapon out of the holsters to put it in a gun safe in your vehicle so you can enter a gun free zone several times a day, the acendency of the Left should concern you. And if you are a Christian who believes that the 10 Commandments were graciously carved in stone by the finger of God, Himself, and given to mankind, you can not vote for Leftists. Because Leftists look upon criminals as their friends. What is the term..."socially close?"

Another postulate of the "progressive" left is that the overwhelming majority of crimes are committed either against "capitalist society" or against "owners of private property." The conclusion the left draws from this is unambiguous: criminals are natural allies, simply because they have a common capitalist enemy. In the literature of the left, you can find many examples of the praise, glorification, and romanticization of criminals. Recall Robin Hood, pirates, Vito Corleone, and numerous friends of Danny Ocean.

...snip...

Since bandits, marauders, pogrom-mongers, and other criminals are "socially close" to the left, what should the left demand? That's right: they should demand the dissolution of the police or at least a reduction in police funding. Since the police oppose the "socially close" folks, they immediately become "socially dangerous." Leftists in Russia had dissolved police successfully. The left in America demands either the dissolution or, as a compromise, the neutralization of the police force.

The fact is that the Democrat party fits the very definition of a racketeer influenced and corrupt organization as defined by our RICO act. They should be prosecuted under the RICO act. But that will never happen. So here's an idea. Conservatives certainly need to retake the Republican party, but we also need to take over the Democrat party. Yes, we need to sign up as if we were real Democrats, become precinct chairmen and slowly take over the Democrat party. Fight fire with fire. It is what they have done to us, we need to do it right back.

The CDC claims authority it doesn't have

 The CDC will allow us to not wear a mask if you are fully vaccinated. Really? You are going to "allow us" to go without a mask? The CDC has no such authority. The Federal government doesn't have that authority. The governors of states don't have that authority. What the governors can do is threaten business licenses if they don't obey their mandates. I have been avoiding masking wherever possible. But that's me. This pretending that they have authority that they don't have really sets the blood to boiling.  And the people going along with this is incredibly annoying.  There should have been immediate pushback 

Liz Cheney is Wrong

 So Liz Cheney has been voted out of her leadership position within the Republican caucus.  Republicans generally tolerate views of members that diverge from the majority of Republicans.  So, for instance, while most Republicans believe that abortion should not be allowed under most circumstances, we have many who in favor of more relaxed stance on abortion.  There are even pro-abortion Republicans.  Not so with the Democrats, who enforce a line one can not cross.  But the problem with Liz Cheney was that she insisted that there was no electoral fraud, much less that President Trump's claim of a stolen election was true.  But we have evidence that in fact it is true.  And I for one insist on living in Realville.

Liz Cheney may not like President Trump.  But whether she likes him or not is hardly the point.  This isn't high school.  The reality of voter fraud, electoral fraud, and stolen elections should put every state on high alert to ensure the next election has real integrity, and that those of flout those laws will pay a high price.  And Cheney should back up states' efforts. 

Which brings me to Mollie Hemingway of the Federalist Society who is writing a book detailing the many ways the Democrats stole the 2020 election. And unless we do something about it, they will keep doing it.

Even with the Electoral College in place, for example, the Democrats have shown that they only need fraud in a few cities in a few swing states to win a Presidential election. The Democrat candidate sat in his basement and ran his campaign with a bunch of TV ads. The Democrats have proved why we need the electoral college. Democrats have also proved why we need to severely limit mail in balloting, and where we allow it, have strict requirements to prove that the person who requested the ballot is the one who actually voted. The Democrats have proved that we need voter ID, and that it needs to be checked before a person actually votes. Now the Democrats who proved why we need election integrity are claiming that these laws are "Jim Eagle" or something.

I urge you to read Mollie Hemingway's article, and order her book, Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, the Democrats Siezed Our Election. It comes out on September 21st.

120 Flag Officers: It is almost too late.

 If you haven't heard yet, and I doubt if you watch the MSM that you have, 120 Retired US Flag Officers have signed a letter warning of conflict between Marxism and Constitutional Freedom according to the Epoch Times. For those who are not familiar, the term "flag officer" refers to both Admirals and Generals. Particularly in the Navy, an Admiral has a flag flying on any ship that he may be on to show the other ships' Captains where the command and control of the task force is located. You should read that article in preparation for J. B. Shurk's article at the American Thinker entitled Are Retired French and American Generals Standing Up to Tyranny?

According to Shurk:

Now we have a letter in the United States from 124 retired generals and admirals warning Americans in a strikingly similar tone: "Our nation is in deep peril. We are in a fight for our survival as a Constitutional Republic like no other time since our founding in 1776. The conflict is between supporters of Socialism and Marxism vs. supporters of Constitutional freedom and liberty."

The flag officers take aim at the Democrats' "tyrannical government," their "full-blown assault on our Constitutional rights in a dictatorial manner," and their "population control actions," including "censorship of written and verbal expression." After enumerating what can only be called "a long train of abuses," including the government's intentional creation of a crisis at the southern border and intentional destruction of America's newly won energy independence, the administration's decision to give aid and comfort to Iran's regime of terror, and the Democrats' use of the military as "pawns" to intimidate conservatives while coddling Antifa and Black Lives Matter insurrectionists, the retired U.S. generals and admirals warn Americans as bluntly as the French generals warned France: "The survival of our Nation and its cherished freedoms, liberty, and historic values are at stake."

While the American letter ends with an exhortation for citizens to get involved in local, state, and national politics in order to "Save America" and "hold those currently in office accountable," it is clearly asking Americans to do more than simply vote responsibly. Only four words are underlined in the whole text: "all," as in "all Americans," is underlined once, and "act" is underlined three separate times. This is not a run-of-the-mill letter reminding Americans about the importance of elections; this is a modern version of Thomas Paine's Common Sense urging Americans to action.

Shurk is issuing a wake up call to the conservatives that we are at the 11th hour. Conservatives need to get involved. It is almost too late.

My theory of government

I have expressed here several times my theory of government, haven't I? Well, in case you have missed it, my theory of government resembles that of George Washington: like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearsome master. The first government was the tribal chieftain, usually the most ruthless and fearsome thug in the tribe. Of course, that evolved into tyrants, into regional kings, to emperors and so on. The point is that at the start, there is nothing more to legitimize these tyrant's rule over anyone else than money and power.

Eventually, certain things were established as "things a national government should do." These included defending the border against enemies who might invade, coining money, judging breeches of the peace between individuals, law enforcement and tracking down outlaws, and, of course, collecting taxes. Our founders came the closest of any group to putting into practice a well reasoned government with defined purposes. Even so, as Chris Chantrill says at the American Thinker in Government Equals Piracy Equals Loot and Plunder, things haven't changed, despite our Constitution:

In my view, all government, everywhere, is a loot and plunder operation, and always has been. Back in the day, governments celebrated this, as when victorious Roman generals paraded their soldiers and their loot and their slaves through downtown Rome in a Triumph. The innovation of Marx and the socialists was to gussie up a moral justification for their looting. Then Horace Mann justified his free gubmint “common schools” by asserting that they would reduce crime by 90 percent. Social Security was sold as an insurance program.

Even ObamaCare had a penumbra and an emanation of the arc of history about it. Our First Black President at least made a pretense that nobody would pay, for “if you like your health plan, you’ll be able to keep your health plan.” And, of course, Obamacare would cut premiums by $2,500 per year. But really, he was just rewarding his supporters, and they knew it.

In the post-Trump era, the gloves are off, and you Commoners are gonna pay reparations, you racists.

I am not sure who said it, but one wag claimed that politics is the system by which we decide who gets what. Hmmm

Gordon Chang: China Has Committed 'Mass Murder' of Americans

 Watch Gordon Chang: Communist China Has Committed 'Mass Murder' of Americans at the Epoch Times.

Thoughts on Covid-19

 Dennis Prager who writes a weekly column for Townhall.com has made a point on several occasions that a substantial portion of the population does not want to be free. Instead, they want someone to take care of them. And he has the best of evidence. In the book of Exodus in the Bible, the people of Israel had been in bondage to Egypt for 400 years. God brought them out of Egypt. They were free. While they didn't have much meat, they were also not starving. But, they complained, "Why did you bring us out to this desert to starve to death." God was not pleased, to put it mildly.

Yesterday, I met a person I had not seen in a year because the place where I met her was closed. After noting that each of us were doing well, I mentioned that the place where we met with others was opening up again. Which led her to state that whe though it was fear that had both closed our meetings down, and that drove the mask mandates. I have said the same thing. It is an irrational fear, in light of the data. One should always distinguish between things are real, and things that are not. If someone is pointing a gun at your head, that is cause for actual fear. If you are not afraid, there is something wrong with you. On the other hand, this virus has a 99.987% over all survival rate. It makes sense that some people should take rational precautions, but others who are healthy should not be worried. The healthy and the young should go about their lives as normal. But even the older people should be allowed to make their own evaluation of risks. My wife would be devastated if she couldn't see her grand children.

As for masks, the size of the SARS-CoV2 virus, which causes Covid-19 is 0.125 microns. On the other hand, the pore size of a typical cloth mask is 80 microns. 0.125 is much less than 80, so as you can see, even if you have a well fitting mask, that mask is not preventing the spread of Covid-19. In his article at Townhall.com today, Jeff Courere makes the point here that mask mandates have not been about the facts, but about enforcing control.

The left has more than an affinity for masks, they have a true love affair. A mask shows your obedience to the government. It creates faceless Americans, devoid of personality, following orders from all-knowing health officials.

In our country, too many leftists are quite willing to submit to government authorities, while conservatives are more independent minded, enjoy their freedoms and have a tradition of questioning authority.

Meanwhile, Leftists are trying to implement vaccine passports. This is a horrible idea, and in fact, is totally illegal. The Nuremburg Code grew out of the trial of Nazi doctors who conducted inhuman reseach on Jewish subjects during the Nazi era and World War II. To demand that a person have taken a vaccine or he or she can not work, can not go into a store, a restaurant or other business is to coerce that person into taking the vaccine, against the Nuremburg Code. New York state already demands this paperwork, and I wonder if New York wants to be known as no different that the Nazis?

Finally, I have been asking what the hysterical push for everyone to get the vaccine is all about. After all, if someone has had the virus and survived, they have better immunity that the vaccines can give. That is at least 20% of the population. And of course, very few people under the age of 30 should take an experimental vaccine. But, there could be a reason for the hard sell. Today, at the American Thinker Monica Showalter has a post entitled PLA dossie shows that China is running a Dr. Evil lab in Wuhan. If the government believes that SARS-Cov2 is a bioweapon, then it makes sense that they would want to try to develop a way to keep as many people as possible alive. It would also explain why the unspoken need to have everyone on board with the chosen defense. Thing is, this seems to be an undeclared war on both sides. Our Constitution doesn't have provisions for giving up liberties in times of war, much less other times.

An Interview With Marjorie Taylor Greene

Andrea Widburg has a post at the American Thinker entitled If all politicians were Marjorie Taylor Greene, American could be a better place. Really, I like Ms. Widburg more and more. No, I do not know her, never met her, but her ideas expressed at the American Thinker have impressed me. Widburg in turn references a Tucker Carlson interview with Marjorie Taylor Greene. I am a recent convert to Tucker Carlson as well. It may be that Carlson is a good actor, but I am impressed with his gratitude to each of his guests. I am also impressed with his smart interview style. In any case, nobody else could get me to spend money on a pay news service, but I signed up to get Tucker Carlson Today.

Widburg writes: Greene is a remarkably self-assured woman with a business background. About Congress, she says what we've long suspected: most congresspeople have accomplished nothing practical in life. They've worked for the government or as employees. They've never managed anything.

Worse, the Republicans have as their goal to be liked and to get re-elected, while the Democrats have victory as their goal. Greene is not intimidated by either Republicans or Democrats, although she admires Democrat tactics — especially Nancy Pelosi's and AOC's.

One of Greene's most interesting points is that she keeps being told not to bring up controversial bills because they won't pass. As a businesswoman, she says that's idiotic. You start selling the bills now so that when you do regain power, you've already seeded the ground. Of course, Republicans, once elected, invariably bail on their prior promises.

I urge you to read Widburg, and watch Greene's interview. You have probably heard every nasty thing written about her. but the actual Marjorie Taylor Greene is a smart woman. We need more of her.

Filed Under "I Don't Recognize My Country Anymore"

 Andrea Widburg has a piece at the American Thinker that should be filed under "I don't recognize my country any more." Actually, I started to not recognize my country during the Bush II years.  And that really strengthened under Obama, when so much of the Federal government was weaponized against conservatives.  I had some hope under Trump, but he proved to be too little too late.  In any case, Widburg's article can be found at Dr. Joseph Mercola provides a case study in how censorship works in America. As she points out, she is not taking sides in the debate. Rather, what she is objecting to is that one side seems determined to not allow the other to speak.

And that’s only the beginning, in paragraph after paragraph, Dr. Mercola details the effort to shut him down. A doctor from an institution that Bill Gates funds has even demanded that cyber warfare tactics be used against Mercola and others who advocate alternatives to vaccination.

...snip...

Note, please, that I’m not using this post to advocate for Dr. Mercola’s position when it comes to general health and dealing with COVID. Instead, I’m pointing out that we are living in a totalitarian era that sees woke mobs, billionaires, and corporations control public discourse. Drunk with power, they unhesitatingly hurt people’s reputations or even threaten them, silencing all voices that challenge their narrative.

I have always believed that the answer to incorrect speech is more speech. Interestingly, though, the people who believe Dr. Mercola is providing "disinformation" seem unwilling to debate him, instead preferring to threaten him and shut him down. This seems to me to be a distinct weakness on the part of the censors. It, to me, strengthens Dr. Mercola's position. If you don't have confidence in your own position, why should anyone else?

It Should Be Called Out Wherever It Is Found

 Katie Pavlich has an article today at Townhall.com in which she points out an Ivy League Professor Slams Identity Politics Education as Useless and 'Criminal'. And the beauty of her article is that it is Brown University professor Glenn Loury who is saying it. This is old fashioned, Democrat KKK style racism. It is not so called 'systemic racism,' a term invented to address the fact that there is no real racism, but race hustlers desperately want there to be. But I especially like Loury's take on his job as a teacher:

"To teach people they are this, is criminal in my opinion, okay? We are to challenge them. They come in telling me that they are this or they are genitalia. That's how they get to me at 18-years-old. They think they are these things. They haven't read anything. They haven't been anywhere. They haven't done anything. I'm a teacher. My job is not to reaffirm them and their preconceptions. It's to challenge them to outgrow them, their preconceptions," Loury said. "We are entrusted to shepherd young minds into their maturity and to jump on a bandwagon and to fill their heads with slogans rather than challenging them with the best that human beings of any color have thought through the ages is a criminal abdication."

...snip...

"The presumption that someone who happens to be brown should be exempted from the expectation of performance, patted on the head, rather than guided to the challenge, is racism!" Loury said. "So you want to bandy about the label racism, well then let's get serious about who are the actual racists here. Very few of them are wearing pointy hats and holding bonfires. Most of them, many of them are on the Left."

Loury is saying what I am thinking here. As a white man, there are certain things that can not be rationally discussed. You get the "but you don't understand" treatment. Really? If I get pulled over by the cops, it's because I deserved it but if you get pulled over it's because your are black? If I don't get a promotion it's because the other guy was more qualified, but if you don't get a promotion it's because you are black?  If you think this way, you are a racist too.  These are not situations unique to racial minorities. And no white person, with the exception of Hunter Biden and Hilary Clinton views himself as privileged, and there for can get away with anything, because of being white. This is all ginned up balderdash dressed up in fancy words to make it sound plausible. But it is really just plain old racism.

It should be called out wherever it is found.

Why The Hard Sell?

 Over at the American Thinker, Alex Hamilton explains why masks are still mandatory. According to Hamilton, if our overlords "allowed" us to doff the masks, few would get the vaccines. I get it. But the question still remains, why are they pushing so hard?  What aren't the telling us?

 It seems fairly clear that our garbage elites could not give a fig about us. So there must be something else that they are not telling us. Certainly, statistics indicate that over all, the Chinese virus has a survival rate of 99.987%. Even for us older than dirt folks, survival is fairly high, 95.5%. So again, why the hard sell to get everybody in the World vaccinated?  Why can't I make the decision for me myself, based on informed opinion, and not because I am being coerced into it; not because I am being officially shunned if I don't?  Pardon me for being cynical, but...

The Answer To Gun Violence Is Not To Be Found In Guns

Bob Barr has a piece of reality at Full Mag News entitled The Answer to 'Police Shootings' Is Not To Be Found in Police Shootings that makes the case that police shootings, or mass shootings, or even criminal acts with guns can not be found in the guns themselves. Guns, after all, are just inanimate objects, tools that are either protective or offensive because of the needs of the user. They have no will of their own.  The fact is that the answer lies not with the tools, or in the case of the police, with the police themselves. Instead, the problem lies with the within the culture.

As police-involved shootings have come to dominate headlines, the question nobody wants to ask is perhaps the most obvious: Why are we seeing the need for police shootings in the first place? The answer to this question is neither easy nor comfortable, which is why most people, especially on the Left, do not ask it but consistently keep the focus on the police and not the broader and deeper issues.

Every police-involved shooting represents a failure of some sort. Certainly, in some cases, they are the product of poor training or shoddy investigation, other times simply the result of circumstances beyond the officer’s control.

Far more important than police shootings being considered as the result of specific circumstances at the time of the shooting, however, they are indicative of a community failure — a breakdown of the normal safety nets that keep people from hitting rock bottom where, in the midst of crisis, their irrational behavior spills into public view and becomes a threat to others.

The teenage girl shot by a police officer just last month in Columbus, Ohio who was a split second away from stabbing another girl, or the 13-year-old gang member who had a handgun he was firing just prior to being chased and shot by a police officer, represent tragedies birthed not by the police, but by society.

It always is the person, or the people, and it never is the tool. There are few things I will say the work "always" about, but this is one of the few. And it isn't just police shootings. It is every instance of what is called "gun violence." Because, again, the gun is just the tool. It could be a knife, a screw driver, a hammer, a rock... The common denominator in all these kinds of violence is the human heart, which occasionally harbors evil.

Please read the whole article. Bob Barr is unusually to the point.

The Earth's Ideal Temperature

 Jonathon Moseley has an article today at the American Thinker that asks the question Do We Know the Earth's Global Temperature? Moseley sounds like he is an either a statistician, or and experimental scientist. But he is just a writer who has applied what the so-called climate scientists should have applied.  He has applied statistics and logic to a field very much lacking these things.  And the popular culture seems to not even understand these seeming simple ideas.

Back in the 1970s, we were headed for climate doom because the Earth was cooling and we would all freeze to death"!" Then in the 1990s we were headed for climate doom because the Earth was warming and we would all burn up in 12 years"!"  30 years later people who weren't even born in the 1990s are still predicting the end of the Earth in 12 years"!" And now, because the Earth keeps changing, the latest scare porn is "Climate Change!" But what each of these scare tactics have never told us is what is the ideal temperature of the global climate? Or, even, the average global climate temperature?

Humans have survived through both cooler and warmer climates. We were around for the ice age, where great glaciers covered the northern part of the whole World. It was miles thick, and extended in the United States down to Southern Ohio. People from both Europe and Asia made there way to the American continent over these frozen glaciers, hunting seals and fish for food along the way. During the Roman period it was so warm that grapes grew in England. During the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), the average person's diet was grain based. But during the subsequent Little Ice Age, the diet of the average person changed to relatives of the cabbage and root vegetables. The Danes settled Greenland during the MWP, when it truly was a green land, and farmed it. Then had to abandon it when the LIA struck.

So, while we don't really have any idea what past climates temperatures have been, and so speculating that we are headed for doom unless we change our ways is useless scare mongering, perhaps it would be a good idea to actually collect the World's temperature now. But, as it turns out, that is more difficult than it might seem if we wanted to do it right.

Scientist Richard Courtney points out (including to the UK Parliament Select Committee) that there is no agreed definition of a global temperature. Furthermore, we would have to calibrate the measurement method against a standard which really isn’t possible. The modern world has forgotten that measurement instruments must be calibrated. You can’t just grab an instrument and measure something. It must be validated for quality and calibrated to a standard.

...snip...

How could we measure the planet? Politicians and journalists understand that statistics require random sampling, which is commonly used in public opinion surveys. We cannot predict how roughly 153 million registered voters are going to vote in an election by sampling only about 1,000 to 1,500 people unless the sample is truly random. We must follow strict statistical methodologies for taking samples smaller than the total population.

Temperature measurements at fixed locations cannot predict the Earth as a whole. The Earth’s surface is 196.9 million square miles. It is a sphere 24,901 miles in circumference. The surface is 70% oceans and lakes and vast, mostly untraveled oceans like the Pacific or Southern Atlantic or the Arctic Sea. Fatal flaw number one is that people cannot grasp how truly gigantic Earth is.

Moseley goes on to describe how we could actually measure the temperature of the World. Amazingly, it would cost a lot less than what the World spends on climate change scare tactics. But then, the climate change agenda has never been about keeping the global temperature stable. If it were, the supposed solution would not be the same whether the temperature was rising or falling, would it?

The whole program of climate fear mongering, coupled with the appearance of collecting actual data, has been about scaring us into accepting a socialist regime, with, of course, our "elites" in charge. The whoe thing is total hogwash.