Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue:
- Testimony
- Flake
- Misandry
- Chrome
- Rescue
- Wellness
- Vaping
- Testimony. Dr. Christine Ford spoke before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a couple hours Thursday morning. While there were some marked differences between her written letter and her written testimony, for the most part she told her story such as it was. She sounded like she was 12, very much giving the impression that something awful happened to her sometime in the past. I don’t know how much of that is real, focus-group tested and practiced, or fake. My guess would be a combination of all three. Her problem is that none of her named witnesses including her best friend at the time corroborate her story. The sex crime prosecutor wrote a devastating summary of her testimony and released it over the weekend, with her conclusion that it was much weaker than he said, she said. Kavanaugh led with righteous indignation and was rightfully prickly during democrat questioning. This led to the obvious conclusion by democrats that he no longer has the proper judicial temperament for a SCOTUS appointment. Apparently in their world, they can say and do whatever they feel like to you and you have to bend over, smile sweetly, thank them for their input, and ask for another round, not unlike the frat paddle initiation scene in Animal House. When Feinstein was pushed for leaking Ford’s letter to the media, she blamed it on Ford, throwing her nicely under the bus. All in all, a decent day, though wrenchingly painful for those of us on the political right. https://www.dailywire.com/news/36519/prosecutor-questioned-ford-shreds-her-case-5-page-ryan-saavedra
- Flake. The good day Thursday lasted less than 24 hours, when McCain mini-me Jeff Flake worked out a deal with Chris Coons (D, MD) to delay the full senate floor vote for a week for one last “limited” FIB background investigation. Chairman Grassley called the vote and the nomination was voted out of committee on a party-line vote. Grassley, McConnell and Trump all agreed to ask the FIB to conduct one last, limited (perhaps) background investigation into Kavanaugh. Democrats believe that they identified something on Kavanaugh’s submitted calendars from 1982 that identifies the party date and location. They believe the FIB will verify their suspicions. Ostensibly, the week delay is intended to give political cover to Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Flake himself, and a pair of red-state democrat senators up for reelection. This delay triggered all the expected, and very well-deserved reaction from this side of the political divide. Jack Kelly, writing in the Half Full Report described Flake as a Judas Goat, someone leading the democrats into disaster, which may explain both McConnell’s and Trump’s quick agreement. We will see what the rest of the week brings. Here in Alaska, Lisa Murkowski is playing this a little too cute, demanding another FIB background investigation into Judge Kavanaugh. She forgets that this is the very same FIB that worked hand in hand with (In)Justice prosecutors to falsely charge, prosecute and convict former Alaska US Senator Ted Stevens, removing him from the senate in 2008. And she trusts these guys? It has only been a decade since the FIB went after Ted. Perhaps Lisa forgot. It is this point in the festivities that perhaps it is time to follow the money, as Ford currently has $530,000 in a GoFundMe account. That number may be as high as $2 million. How many additional accusations can the democrats manufacture at half a million dollars a pop between now and Friday? I will take the over on five. We will hope Kelly is right, though I have my doubts. https://abcnews.go.com/US/gofundme-campaigns-support-ford-raise-700k/story?id=58147904
- Misandry. Perhaps the ugliest outcome from the Kavanaugh character assassination has been the larger move into man hating, misandry by media, democrats, and their propaganda arm in the media. On the one hand, the entire nation is now expected to be part of an extended group therapy session for a woman represented by a pair of lawyers recommended by Dianne Feinstein, a woman who scrubbed her social media footprint before all of this went public, and a woman who lied about not traveling on aircraft for an entire week of negotiations with Justice Committee staff. So, while is her extended therapy session my problem? Well, it does become my problem when it is used as an excuse by democrats and media to destroy the professional career of a Trump political appointee. Democrat senators, led by Mazie Hirono (D, HI) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D, NY) are pushing the notion that any accusation by a woman is to be believed instantly and completely if for no other reason that she has the right plumbing. Due process? We don’t do that anymore. Evidence? We don’t need that either. All we need is the right plumbing (and party) of the accuser. It’s a shame they didn’t apply that standard to Bill Clinton’s multiple accusers. Finally, this toxic feminism has moved to the point of chemical attacks on subways against men. This happened in St. Petersburg where a feminist activist poured a bleach – water mix on the crotches of 60 men sitting in subway cars. It is supposed to be a protest against manspreading. Nobody punched the chemical warfare assaulter out. There is something really sick out going on out there and feminists everywhere are gleefully playing along. I don’t think it will end up electing more democrats. https://www.dailywire.com/news/36316/watch-feminist-pours-bleach-over-60-mens-crotches-amanda-prestigiacomo
- Chrome. Ran across in interesting analysis of the upgraded Google Chrome browser that describes a variety of new reasons not to use it. This is mostly connected with its new forced user log-in policy. Chrome a decade ago was a welcome competitor to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Of course, that was when Google also had a corporate Code of Conduct that included the phrase “don’t be evil.” For a long time, Chrome had an optional sign-in feature which allowed Google to slurp up all your surfing data. But this was optional. Latest Chrome update changed that. Every time you log into a Google property, Chrome will automatically sign the browser into your Google account for you. It will do this without notifying you or asking you. Google developers claim this will not actually start synchronizing all your data to Google – yet. Your only notification this is going on is your Google profile picture in the upper right-hand corner of your browser window. This is called Chrome’s synch option. Bottom line? If you don’t want all your information in the Google servers, don’t use Chrome. Tor Browser would be a good place to start, as would Brave. https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2018/09/23/why-im-leaving-chrome/
- Rescue. It has long been said that no good deed goes unpunished. With that in mind, we have a story out of the aftermath of Hurricane Florence in North Carolina where a woman who had the wherewithal to rescue abandoned animals following flooding was arrested for saving abandoned animals during the flooding. She runs an animal rescue called “Crazy’s Claws ‘n Paws.” She took in and provided care for 27 dogs and cats for owners who left without taking their pets with them. She runs a donation-based animal rescue center and was using a new space to keep the animals dry. But her space was not legally registered as an animal shelter. She said an elderly couple dropped off 18 animals. Someone called local animal control who called her regarding the animals. Having nothing else to do in the aftermath of the flooding, the country animal control caller demanded she hand over the animals or he would get a warrant. She handed over the animals. A few days later they called her in for questioning and arrested her for 12 felony counts including 12 counts of practicing medicine without a vet license. Wayne County Animal Services turned the case over to the county District Attorney’s office, who also don’t have anything to do during the recovery from the hurricane, which indicted her for practicing veterinary medicine without a license. Animal control claims to try to attempt to reunite the animals with their owners. No word on what they will do with the animals should they be unable to find the owners in a reasonable period. With the entire state flooded, these self-important bozos used the power of the state to harass someone doing their job for them. Tar. Feathers. Rope. Tree. Rinse. Repeat. As of this writing, the service owner was released from jail. No word yet on the charges. https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/news/nation-world/saving-pets-without-a-permit-good-samaritan-arrested-after-helping-animals-survive-florence/507-597325667
- Wellness. Workplace wellness programs are moderately controversial, but not for the expected reasons. Most go after them on privacy grounds, as a vehicle for employers to delve into your personal lives with the excuse that these programs can help control health care outlays by helping employees live healthy lifestyles. Another argument against them is that those things start on a voluntary basis generally don’t stay that way for long (look at Item 4, Chrome above). O’BamaCare set a 30% limit on the number of financial incentives wellness programs could save employees on their health care costs. That is 30% of the health care costs the member would otherwise be paying. A federal judge in 2017 found that number arbitrary (which it is) and demanded it be eliminated or better justified by Jan. 1, 2019. With that limit now removed, employers are no longer constrained in what they may offer. How this all sorts out is anybody’s guess. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/09/22/649664555/workplace-wellness-plans-offer-big-incentives-but-may-cost-your-privacy
- Vaping. Crony capitalism once installed is very difficult to remove. Latest example comes out of the FDA which has proclaimed that e-cigarettes are now epidemic among teens and have given their manufacturers 60 days to come up with plans to control teen use of their products. If they fail, they will face civil or criminal prosecutions and / or new regulations and sales bans on the products. The crony capitalism here is the cozy relationship between tobacco companies and the FDA. Tobacco companies who used to profit by teen use of cigarettes are losing significant market share to teen vaping. And they are using the FDA, first during the O’Bama regime and now during the Trump years as their vehicle to disrupt that competition. The problem is that vaping is the solution rather than the problem. It is at least 95% less harmful than smoking actual cigarettes. Not only are e-cigs safer, they are also easier to quit than cigarettes, likely due to the lower nicotine levels delivered. E-cigarette penetration into the teen market has successfully out-competed cigarettes, with 11.7% of high schoolers vaping over the last month while 7.6% have smoked actual cigarettes. This data was taken in 2014. CDC data also shows that e-cig usage has also fallen among teens since 2014. Finally, 2.5 million American e-cig users have quit traditional cigarettes. This is why big tobacco (along with state and local governments that profit from cigarette taxes) are going the crony capitalism route as they attempt to use the FDA to use its regulatory clout to eliminate its competition. Anti-smoking activists who want total bans on vaping are salivating at the chance to sue vaping companies, most of which are small businesses, out of existence. Today, around half a million Americans die from smoking related illnesses. If the FDA is successful in their anti-vaping jihad, that number will increase. As I stated previously, vaping is not the problem. Rather, it is the solution. Contrast the big government approach to controlling smoking (total enforceable bans based on trial lawyer assaults in court) to controlling sexual activity (handing out condoms). https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2018/09/21/war_on_vaping_threatens_public_health.html
More later –
– AG