Poppycock
18/04/21 07:05
What are we to think about the fact that 45% of the Marines in our armed services refuse to get vaccinated against the Covid-19 virus? What do they know that we don't? Surely, 45% of the general public is not refusing the jab so what is going on with the Marines? How would they be privy to information about a vaccine one way or another when the general public is not privy to the same information? What about the Air Force? The Army? The Navy?
Might there be information available that could serve as a useful deterrent for one or more classes of people but which is otherwise being kept under wraps so as not to "poison" the current narratives being pedaled by the government and their minions in the media? If nothing else, the continual shifting of the narratives is troubling if not dizzying. Early on, children were not at risk in the least and now they tell us that we can never reach herd immunity without immunizing everyone from the newborns to the elderly. It's just poppycock I tell you.
I get it. They don't know how long the jab will protect you so they're putting it out there that you might need a "booster" after six months. Whaaaat? Herd immunity only lasts six months? And "booster" sounds so much better than just getting a second shot. It almost sounds whimsical and a little bit reassuring and that is precisely the language that they're hoping will have everyone lining up for their 3rd, 4th, and god only knows how many shots annually, bi-annually, or whatever. Can we get back to the Marines thing for a minute?
Our soldiers get vaccinated against everything under the sun in anticipation of being sent to hell holes, or shit holes as Trump calls them, around the world. I'm guessing those shots are required. In the armed services, you do what you're told. If you're told to get a shot of this or that, you get your ass down to the infirmary and you roll up your fucking sleeves. I'm not sure why the vaccines here in the case of Covid-19 aren't required by the brass.
The vaccines are not otherwise mandated by local or federal governments so that aligns with what we're seeing when it comes to the Marines. That could change if Sleepy Joe Biden decides that he wants it to change. I don't think he has the authority to expand that mandate to the general public but it wouldn't surprise me to see him float it in the media to see if it can gets any traction. It's likely to die a slow and painful death much like the idea of vaccine passports which went absolutely nowhere.
Here we go again. The police in Minnestoa pull over a 20 year old gangbanger for a violation of sorts. The police proceed to pull him from his car and place him in handcuffs based on existing department protocols. One thing lead to another and the next thing we know the gangbanger is dead from a single gun shot to the abdomen. The officer, thinking that she was drawing her taser, drew her service weapon instead and fired the fatal shot. It was an accident. The officer was summarily dismissed without due process within hours of the incident.
It's wash, rinse, repeat, baby. The gangbanger wasn't even stiff yet and the narrative went out across the community that one of their own had lost his life at the hands of the police. Shopping lists were promptly readied, masks were pulled up to conceal identities, no-justice no-peace placards left over from the George Floyd incident were hoisted, and they spread out across the city for the now usual aftermath of looting, rioting, and mayhem. Fanning the flames of racial division were the usual suspects of Black Lives Matter and, yes, the media.
I didn't care much for the fact that Trump didn't do more to enforce the law when this happened under his watch. He could have sent in the National Guard to protect the stores but deferred to the local forces on site. I expect Biden to fan the flames of social injustice for the benefit of his political party and that is precisely what he did when he came to the defense of the gangbanger without having all the facts. "Never let a good crisis go to waste," Rahm Emanuel once said. For once, I'd like to see these bastards rounded up and jailed for their looting and thieving ways. This has to stop. Enough is enough.
None of it would have happened had the proper resources been requisitioned and put in place before nightfall. Personnel with the proper armaments should have been placed in and around businesses within the city limits in order to deter those criminal elements looking to wreak havoc upon their places of businesses. Police departments should have had a zero tolerance policy in place yet most forces were told to stand down. Maybe it's their way of offering reparations to their mostly minority constituencies. If the local businesses have to pony up a flatscreen television or more to quell the flames of a riotous mob, so be it.
If people want to take to the streets to express their feelings one way or another then that's great. That is the American way, after all. We support and applaud those who follow the rules and who want to make things better for themselves and their community. What we don't and can't condone is the utter destruction and criminality that takes place under the guise of social justice. It has nothing to do with social justice yet communities continue to tolerate it and even look the other way when it's convenient to do so. These are dangerous precedents and it's hard to see how they end well. But end they must. Without law and order, we have no country. Period.
Evan is still on the fence when it comes to the vaccines. In other words, he doesn't have strong feelings one way or another about getting the shot. He says that he doesn't want to get sick so there's that. Who does, right? Does he have co-morbidities that would make matters worse for him should he contract the virus? I'm not so sure. He has a lot of years ahead of him so he can probably take his chances with not getting the jab and just see how that works out for him. If he does get it, he'll probably be just fine. That's kind of where he is right now.
He came by yesterday afternoon to join us for dinner that we ordered from Community Roots. We never know quite what to expect when we order something from CR but we've been pleasantly surprised for the most part. This time around, we ordered stir fry for the family meal of the week. It came with a quart sized container of fried rice and it was really quite good. I don't know why but I was expecting it to be, at a minimum, warm when I picked it up. It was stone cold.
It doesn't help that they never include instructions on how to reheat it, warm it up, anything of the kind. The chef is long gone by the time we stop by to pick up the meal so we're left with a hapless clerk who knows nothing from nothing about how to get from point A to point B when we get home with our take-out. She said something about throwing it in a pan to warm it up and I'm thinking to myself that it kind of defeats the purpose of a take-out meal if I have to dirty pots and pans in the process. It just doesn't cut the mustard.
Evan liked it just fine so I was happy about that. He made himself a nice dish and commented after the fact that maybe he had made a dish a bit too large because he just couldn't eat it all. I worry a lot about his eating right so you can imagine that I was delighted to see him eating something that resembled a real meal. I know, I know. It was a take-out meal but certainly a cut above that which he might have had at McDonalds or some other similar type of place. He didn't hang around long and he was out the door before his mom was done working for the day.
We sent him away, as we usually do, with a number of things from the fridge. Knowing as I do how he is not inclined to go shopping when he needs things, I pick up a few extra things when I go shopping that I know he'll take away with him when he visits. I'm talking about things like milk, maybe a bottle of cold brew, a container or two of tomato sauce, and a few cans of this and that that I think he might find useful. If we can get it all into one bag, all the better. He lives close enough that we don't need to worry about cold things getting warm and going bad by the time he reaches home.
The missus and I have been watching this program on the telly called "The Great Canadian Baking show." They put a dozen or so contestants from various backgrounds under a large tent and task them with making any number of baked goods ranging from pretzels to Linzer cookies. I'm not sure what qualifications are required but suffice it to say all of the contestants come with a baking background of sorts that puts them in a class all their own. In other words, these bakers are a cut above. Not professional bakers, mind you, but a cut above nonetheless. The artistry on display is quite amazing and it's just a fun show to watch.
I have zero baking experience so I can't really relate to anything they're doing but I can relate to the occasional angst and ultimate satisfaction that one gets from cooking from scratch. It is true that any number of people can follow the same recipe and get very different results. Maybe that is what makes it so interesting. Some people have more flair than others when it comes to decorating and that has to count for something. One challenge the contestants had was to create a family centerpiece for their dining table. I'm thinking to myself, what the hell is that? This is supposed to be edible too? Think "gingerbread men and women seated in gingerbread chairs and living in gingerbread houses."
The contestants are an interesting cross section of people representing the great country of Canada. I don't know if it was intentional or not but it sure seems that the producers of the show went out of their way to make sure that, at least on its face, the contestants were both multicultural and diverse. Throw in a couple of illegal aliens from Nigeria and you have yourself a real melting pot. This is Trudeau's Canada for better or worse. As long as the judges keep their biases to themselves the show will continue on its merry way. So far, so good.
The governor hereabouts has now lifted the mask mandate in our state. I don't think it matters much since each town is entitled to do their own thing. I'm guessing it won't mean that I can walk into any one or more of the stores in town without a mask so don't expect to see me jumping up and down anytime soon. It may well be one more arrow in the quiver of getting back to what we think of as normal though so there's that. It might also be an admission that they think we're on the right track as far as hospitalizations, therapeutics, and jabs are concerned. It's all good.
I was telling the missus that we ought to be popping into town to see if we can't find one or more examples of the kinds of treats we watched them concoct on the Great Canadian Baking Show. We've never even heard of some of the confections they put together and we didn't get any closer to recognizing them when they were set before the judges for a final verdict. We have a couple of really good bakeries in town where they may well have some of these puppies on display. It's worth our time to take a look. I'll settle for a cannoli if nothing else. It will be my first. Anything with a creme filling, quite frankly, will have my full and undivided attention.
The missus will be heading into the city over this coming weekend to work with an old boss of hers. I know he's partial to carrot cake so I may insist that Nancy take something down from our visit to the bakery. A slice of the cake is probably more appealing to the eye so I might prefer that but a muffin will do in a pinch. I'll tell her to tell him that it's from me so she won't have to explain herself one way or another. He and his wife have been good about sending her home plenty of times with a small satchel of oatmeal cookies for me so I'll just look at this as returning the favor as it were.
It's raining cats and dogs outside. A few degrees colder and we'd be getting snow. It will be a good day to hunker down here at home. I'm not expecting that the weather will be improving over the course of the day so we'll have to plan ahead. Maybe I'll ask the missus make a nice lentil soup for dinner. Then again, a nice hot veggie pizza sounds good too. Oh, and why not pop over to see Mrs G while we're at it? She has a few computer questions that she could use our help with so we can work through whatever issues she has. It always annoys me to think that she frustrates herself to no end trying to work through something when we're just a phone call or a short drive away. Don't do that!
Fast forwarding just a tad here, Mrs G and her computer issues were imminently solvable. We need to work a little more on increasing fonts and other things on her desktop that will make her computing experience less of a chore. You should see the magnifying glass she has sitting next to her computer. I'm thinking to myself, why doesn't she put on a pair of glasses that gives her the extra magnification that she needs. The missus thinks that it might have something to do with the fact that she's already maxed out on her eyewear. The nice thing about Macs is that they provide for these types of scenarios. You just need to figure out how to do it.
I'm giving myself a bit of a dope slap this morning. The Ev man and I worked out the free year's worth of Apple TV that we can both enjoy using the family share feature on the Mac. They have the same offer for Apple Music albeit only for six months. We were going back and forth with Mrs G yesterday between trying to get Pandora to work and looking at music in YouTube and we were getting nowhere particularly fast. Had I had my wits about me I would have gotten her up and running with the 6 months of free Apple Music. Dang!
Might there be information available that could serve as a useful deterrent for one or more classes of people but which is otherwise being kept under wraps so as not to "poison" the current narratives being pedaled by the government and their minions in the media? If nothing else, the continual shifting of the narratives is troubling if not dizzying. Early on, children were not at risk in the least and now they tell us that we can never reach herd immunity without immunizing everyone from the newborns to the elderly. It's just poppycock I tell you.
I get it. They don't know how long the jab will protect you so they're putting it out there that you might need a "booster" after six months. Whaaaat? Herd immunity only lasts six months? And "booster" sounds so much better than just getting a second shot. It almost sounds whimsical and a little bit reassuring and that is precisely the language that they're hoping will have everyone lining up for their 3rd, 4th, and god only knows how many shots annually, bi-annually, or whatever. Can we get back to the Marines thing for a minute?
Our soldiers get vaccinated against everything under the sun in anticipation of being sent to hell holes, or shit holes as Trump calls them, around the world. I'm guessing those shots are required. In the armed services, you do what you're told. If you're told to get a shot of this or that, you get your ass down to the infirmary and you roll up your fucking sleeves. I'm not sure why the vaccines here in the case of Covid-19 aren't required by the brass.
The vaccines are not otherwise mandated by local or federal governments so that aligns with what we're seeing when it comes to the Marines. That could change if Sleepy Joe Biden decides that he wants it to change. I don't think he has the authority to expand that mandate to the general public but it wouldn't surprise me to see him float it in the media to see if it can gets any traction. It's likely to die a slow and painful death much like the idea of vaccine passports which went absolutely nowhere.
Here we go again. The police in Minnestoa pull over a 20 year old gangbanger for a violation of sorts. The police proceed to pull him from his car and place him in handcuffs based on existing department protocols. One thing lead to another and the next thing we know the gangbanger is dead from a single gun shot to the abdomen. The officer, thinking that she was drawing her taser, drew her service weapon instead and fired the fatal shot. It was an accident. The officer was summarily dismissed without due process within hours of the incident.
It's wash, rinse, repeat, baby. The gangbanger wasn't even stiff yet and the narrative went out across the community that one of their own had lost his life at the hands of the police. Shopping lists were promptly readied, masks were pulled up to conceal identities, no-justice no-peace placards left over from the George Floyd incident were hoisted, and they spread out across the city for the now usual aftermath of looting, rioting, and mayhem. Fanning the flames of racial division were the usual suspects of Black Lives Matter and, yes, the media.
I didn't care much for the fact that Trump didn't do more to enforce the law when this happened under his watch. He could have sent in the National Guard to protect the stores but deferred to the local forces on site. I expect Biden to fan the flames of social injustice for the benefit of his political party and that is precisely what he did when he came to the defense of the gangbanger without having all the facts. "Never let a good crisis go to waste," Rahm Emanuel once said. For once, I'd like to see these bastards rounded up and jailed for their looting and thieving ways. This has to stop. Enough is enough.
None of it would have happened had the proper resources been requisitioned and put in place before nightfall. Personnel with the proper armaments should have been placed in and around businesses within the city limits in order to deter those criminal elements looking to wreak havoc upon their places of businesses. Police departments should have had a zero tolerance policy in place yet most forces were told to stand down. Maybe it's their way of offering reparations to their mostly minority constituencies. If the local businesses have to pony up a flatscreen television or more to quell the flames of a riotous mob, so be it.
If people want to take to the streets to express their feelings one way or another then that's great. That is the American way, after all. We support and applaud those who follow the rules and who want to make things better for themselves and their community. What we don't and can't condone is the utter destruction and criminality that takes place under the guise of social justice. It has nothing to do with social justice yet communities continue to tolerate it and even look the other way when it's convenient to do so. These are dangerous precedents and it's hard to see how they end well. But end they must. Without law and order, we have no country. Period.
Evan is still on the fence when it comes to the vaccines. In other words, he doesn't have strong feelings one way or another about getting the shot. He says that he doesn't want to get sick so there's that. Who does, right? Does he have co-morbidities that would make matters worse for him should he contract the virus? I'm not so sure. He has a lot of years ahead of him so he can probably take his chances with not getting the jab and just see how that works out for him. If he does get it, he'll probably be just fine. That's kind of where he is right now.
He came by yesterday afternoon to join us for dinner that we ordered from Community Roots. We never know quite what to expect when we order something from CR but we've been pleasantly surprised for the most part. This time around, we ordered stir fry for the family meal of the week. It came with a quart sized container of fried rice and it was really quite good. I don't know why but I was expecting it to be, at a minimum, warm when I picked it up. It was stone cold.
It doesn't help that they never include instructions on how to reheat it, warm it up, anything of the kind. The chef is long gone by the time we stop by to pick up the meal so we're left with a hapless clerk who knows nothing from nothing about how to get from point A to point B when we get home with our take-out. She said something about throwing it in a pan to warm it up and I'm thinking to myself that it kind of defeats the purpose of a take-out meal if I have to dirty pots and pans in the process. It just doesn't cut the mustard.
Evan liked it just fine so I was happy about that. He made himself a nice dish and commented after the fact that maybe he had made a dish a bit too large because he just couldn't eat it all. I worry a lot about his eating right so you can imagine that I was delighted to see him eating something that resembled a real meal. I know, I know. It was a take-out meal but certainly a cut above that which he might have had at McDonalds or some other similar type of place. He didn't hang around long and he was out the door before his mom was done working for the day.
We sent him away, as we usually do, with a number of things from the fridge. Knowing as I do how he is not inclined to go shopping when he needs things, I pick up a few extra things when I go shopping that I know he'll take away with him when he visits. I'm talking about things like milk, maybe a bottle of cold brew, a container or two of tomato sauce, and a few cans of this and that that I think he might find useful. If we can get it all into one bag, all the better. He lives close enough that we don't need to worry about cold things getting warm and going bad by the time he reaches home.
The missus and I have been watching this program on the telly called "The Great Canadian Baking show." They put a dozen or so contestants from various backgrounds under a large tent and task them with making any number of baked goods ranging from pretzels to Linzer cookies. I'm not sure what qualifications are required but suffice it to say all of the contestants come with a baking background of sorts that puts them in a class all their own. In other words, these bakers are a cut above. Not professional bakers, mind you, but a cut above nonetheless. The artistry on display is quite amazing and it's just a fun show to watch.
I have zero baking experience so I can't really relate to anything they're doing but I can relate to the occasional angst and ultimate satisfaction that one gets from cooking from scratch. It is true that any number of people can follow the same recipe and get very different results. Maybe that is what makes it so interesting. Some people have more flair than others when it comes to decorating and that has to count for something. One challenge the contestants had was to create a family centerpiece for their dining table. I'm thinking to myself, what the hell is that? This is supposed to be edible too? Think "gingerbread men and women seated in gingerbread chairs and living in gingerbread houses."
The contestants are an interesting cross section of people representing the great country of Canada. I don't know if it was intentional or not but it sure seems that the producers of the show went out of their way to make sure that, at least on its face, the contestants were both multicultural and diverse. Throw in a couple of illegal aliens from Nigeria and you have yourself a real melting pot. This is Trudeau's Canada for better or worse. As long as the judges keep their biases to themselves the show will continue on its merry way. So far, so good.
The governor hereabouts has now lifted the mask mandate in our state. I don't think it matters much since each town is entitled to do their own thing. I'm guessing it won't mean that I can walk into any one or more of the stores in town without a mask so don't expect to see me jumping up and down anytime soon. It may well be one more arrow in the quiver of getting back to what we think of as normal though so there's that. It might also be an admission that they think we're on the right track as far as hospitalizations, therapeutics, and jabs are concerned. It's all good.
I was telling the missus that we ought to be popping into town to see if we can't find one or more examples of the kinds of treats we watched them concoct on the Great Canadian Baking Show. We've never even heard of some of the confections they put together and we didn't get any closer to recognizing them when they were set before the judges for a final verdict. We have a couple of really good bakeries in town where they may well have some of these puppies on display. It's worth our time to take a look. I'll settle for a cannoli if nothing else. It will be my first. Anything with a creme filling, quite frankly, will have my full and undivided attention.
The missus will be heading into the city over this coming weekend to work with an old boss of hers. I know he's partial to carrot cake so I may insist that Nancy take something down from our visit to the bakery. A slice of the cake is probably more appealing to the eye so I might prefer that but a muffin will do in a pinch. I'll tell her to tell him that it's from me so she won't have to explain herself one way or another. He and his wife have been good about sending her home plenty of times with a small satchel of oatmeal cookies for me so I'll just look at this as returning the favor as it were.
It's raining cats and dogs outside. A few degrees colder and we'd be getting snow. It will be a good day to hunker down here at home. I'm not expecting that the weather will be improving over the course of the day so we'll have to plan ahead. Maybe I'll ask the missus make a nice lentil soup for dinner. Then again, a nice hot veggie pizza sounds good too. Oh, and why not pop over to see Mrs G while we're at it? She has a few computer questions that she could use our help with so we can work through whatever issues she has. It always annoys me to think that she frustrates herself to no end trying to work through something when we're just a phone call or a short drive away. Don't do that!
Fast forwarding just a tad here, Mrs G and her computer issues were imminently solvable. We need to work a little more on increasing fonts and other things on her desktop that will make her computing experience less of a chore. You should see the magnifying glass she has sitting next to her computer. I'm thinking to myself, why doesn't she put on a pair of glasses that gives her the extra magnification that she needs. The missus thinks that it might have something to do with the fact that she's already maxed out on her eyewear. The nice thing about Macs is that they provide for these types of scenarios. You just need to figure out how to do it.
I'm giving myself a bit of a dope slap this morning. The Ev man and I worked out the free year's worth of Apple TV that we can both enjoy using the family share feature on the Mac. They have the same offer for Apple Music albeit only for six months. We were going back and forth with Mrs G yesterday between trying to get Pandora to work and looking at music in YouTube and we were getting nowhere particularly fast. Had I had my wits about me I would have gotten her up and running with the 6 months of free Apple Music. Dang!