Get In Line

I missed Mutt Day due to the 4th of July part deux. To make up for that oversight I’ve decided to add another animal to the must-celebrate list; thus I hereby pronounce that Taco Tuesday shall henceforth serve as Chinchilla Day as well.

Since chinchillas are so darned cute it does beg the question:

“Are chinchillas even real?”

Technically yes, they are rodents native to the Andes mountains of South America. They appear to be a cross between a rat, ground squirrels and rabbits.

They purportedly make good pets…but unfortunately like all cute things south of the border one must be vigilant as they can also be quite destructive if left to their own devices. Also, like all rodents, they can replicate surprisingly quickly -  to the point you might find yourself with more than you expected, or know what to do with.

Also, please note, they come in many different shades.

But beware of the white ones – they’re privileged.

And likely to cause more trouble by virtue of this fact.

So if you must have a chinchilla, might I suggest a coat?

No, of course not; that would be offensive. And insensitive. Perhaps we should just leave the chinchillas to fend for themselves right where they are. Until such time as they are able to fill out an immigration form and get in line.

Does that make me a privileged racist? (rhetorical)

Liberty: It’s A Bonus

Bonus: as my calendar indicates today is the “observed” 4th of July I guess it’s technically a holiday. So yay, again, America: long may you run.

We’re going to need a lot bigger flag

It’s going to be in the low 90s here and the current humidity is 86% so I can tell you what’s going to be going on around here: nothing.

No holiday baking.

Not today, pie

No holiday cooking in anything other than the microwave – it’s even too hot to “man the grill” – a sexist term considered “triggering” in Leftist America today.

Ummm! That’s a manly looking meal.

Fortunately I have leftovers from yesterday’s real 4th of July holiday: macaroni salad, baked beans and grilled hot dogs.

I don’t intend to spend anytime today catching up on the laundry, cleaning the floor…or anything. I’m on holiday! So I’m thinking root beer floats, a good book - the end.

I’ll always be grateful for having been born in the greatest country on planet earth.

 

I can’t help but wonder though why “progressives” – so interested in the sustainability of everything else – are so unconcerned about the sustainability of our liberty.

So happy bonus holiday – Sustainable Liberty Day.

Happy Birthday America!

Happy Birthday America!

The Declaration of Independence gave birth to the only country on earth founded on the twinned principles of individual freedom and limited government.

From that date forward “progressives” have attempted to flip the dynamic of limited government and individual freedom. They see our Constitution, in the words of Barack Hussein Obama, as “a charter of negative liberties” that is free to be changed to reflect what they believe is a better vision of governance – founding principles be hanged.

Certainly there are wrinkles and pitfalls with liberty, human nature being what it is. But they pale in comparison to the pitfalls associated with tyranny – just ask anyone who’s ever lived under it. Raised to understand and value the twin principles of America’s founding I cannot understand how anyone could, or would, so thoughtlessly throw them away as many are willingly doing today.

We find ourselves this July 4th, 2021, in a land of “woke” zombies seemingly content to sacrifice freedom and liberty for…serfdom. So, yes, I admit to longing for the nostalgic version of America where there were still some things that everyone agreed on and celebrated: freedom, liberty and justice in an unjust world.

Somebody asked the other day if there ever were better times. I find it sad that we have to ask that; of course there were, despite problems. The real question is will there be better times ahead? I hope so, but it will require a great deal of work, and prayer.

I leave you with this reminder of what America and American Independence is about. It’s excerpted from Thomas Jefferson’s 1826 letter to Roger Chew Weightman on the 50th Anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

…our fellow citizens, after half a century of experience and prosperity, continue to approve the choice we made. May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the Signal of arousing men to burst the chains, under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings & security of self-government.

That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view.

The palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them…

 

Now get out there and enjoy the freedom of the Fourth of July with parades, barbeques, ice cream, sparklers and fireworks. Celebrate the birth of the greatest country on earth while we still have it.

 

Joey Does Number Bonds – Close Enough For Government Work!

Buildings keep falling down in America. What the heck’s going on?

Is it bad science?

Champlain Towers South, for example, was erected in 1981. These buildings may face loads and other threats that designers did not anticipate, including those linked to climate change.

…what are you going to do with an area that never had high snow loads before, and suddenly, one winter, there’s a storm in the South like one you’d normally get in Boston? We design roofs based on historical records for snow, but those rare events aren’t so rare anymore. We have bigger hurricanes. We have longer heat waves. It’s a challenge for us, as structural engineers, to keep up with those changing demands. – Scientific American

Or maybe bad math? What if building engineers used the kind of modeling/statistics that Professor Neil Ferguson, who led the COVID-19 modeling team at Imperial College in London, used to develop the public policy of lockdown in Britain and America?

We now know the model was so highly flawed it never should have been relied upon for policy decisions to begin with.

As we learn more about the new coronavirus, it is imperative to continue to update the assumptions used in these models. - Heritage

Or maybe the failing infrastructure is partially the result of bad social engineering?

Workplace diversity and inclusion is a top priority.

To attract more female candidates, avoid using too many “masculine-type” words (e.g., ambitious, dominate, challenging) in your job posting. Check out if your job posting might be turning off female candidates using this nifty tool here.

Please note: I’m aware that it’s considered both racist and sexist of me to even think there may be a connection between diversity hiring and reduced performance. But having done a corporate training rotation in HR as Employment Manager for a year way back in the early 80s, I know about such things. While I’m quite certain methods and measurements have changed, I’m likewise assured that human nature hasn’t. If your job performance is based on how well you meet diversity goals you will meet them, no matter how. If knowing that and saying it makes me a white supremacist, so be it: like racism itself the words no longer mean anything.

But back to the problem at hand, it’s so bad that Putin has declared “the age of American Dominance” to be over. Perhaps that’s because he sees how we are educating the youth of this country. And I’m not just talking about the cultural brainwashing of anti-Western, anti-American sentiment, I’m talking about the basic skills of reading, writing and, most importantly, arithmetic.

Case in point: when Raj was at therapy earlier this week his Physical Therapist (PT) – a young white male - came over while he was working with one of the Physical Therapy Assistants (PTA) – young white female - and asked him “are you good at math?” Because he is, Raj responded “yeah, pretty good,” thinking that he was going to get an interesting problem to solve. But the PT proceeded to explain: they had done a patient survey the day before and he was trying to figure out how to calculate the percent of people (7)  out of the total (38) that responded positively to a question. Yes, you understood me correctly: he needed help calculating a percentage, despite having a cell phone in his pocket with a built in calculator 100 times more powerful than the first one I owned, and likewise having access to the Google machine that contains how-to resources on everything from baking a cake to building a backyard rocket. And still he wanted help performing a simple, basic life skill. No wonder they now have tips automatically calculated and printed for you right on the check now.

At this point I feel compelled to mention that getting your PT certification in Michigan requires not just a 4 year degree, but a 7 year degree. That’s right, 3 years post-graduate training. And PTAs are required to have a two year degree (that includes a course in statistics, I checked) and pass a state board certification test. Nor am I saying that all, or even most, PTs and PTAs can’t do simple percentages. In fact Raj and I have several nieces in the field all of whom I will guarantee could do that calculation blindfolded and tied up. Nor am I saying that Raj’s PT couldn’t have eventually figured it out on his own.  I’m just surprised that, rather than do so, he just took the easy route and asked somebody he was pretty sure would know how – with no apparent sign of embarrassment whatsoever.

What I’m saying is that the gap between ‘education,’ skills, and the ability to think and solve problems is growing faster than the infamous “income inequality gap” and is far more worrisome. I wonder if there’s any statistical correlation between the Common Core Curriculum and the new-found dumbness of our younger citizens? Not that there’s anyone left around that would be able to calculate it if there was.

And not that it matters, what with the new standards of performance we’re developing.

Joey B does number bonds. Close enough for government work!

It All Looks Quite Shady

I forgot that today is FLOTUS Friday, and what with Dr. Jilly hitting the Vogue cover (photography by none other than the legendary Lefty Annie Liebowitz!) my little math story will have to wait another day.

I didn’t bother to read the article until the Jerusalem Post took time out of their busy day to mock America’s fawning media coverage of the FLOTUS: Why did ‘Vogue’ call Dr. Jill Biden a ‘goddess in stilettos?’

The real reason God created hosiery

I would say Dr. Jilly looks more like an aging school marm than a goddess given these feet, legs and hands but what do I know compared to America’s leading fashion rag mag. Aided and abetted by some of the world’s largest, most expensive fashion houses – not that the media is interested in that aspect of FLOTUS fashion now that we have a reasonable Democrat in office again – Dr. Jilly certainly turns heads these days.

From the Dolce and Gabbana collection: dots and flowers and stripes, left, butterflies are free to fly, right, and zebras and lemons, below.

And more lemons and florals from Oscar de la Renta.

Then there’s this lady-like pink ensemble from Lele Sadoughi.

Too bad it didn’t fit

But allow The Jerusalem Post to describe Vogue’s obsequious coverage:

As if the title of its cover story – “A First Lady for All of Us: On the Road with Dr. Jill Biden” – wasn’t sufficiently sycophantic, its accompanying content reads like a parody of a totalitarian regime’s propaganda sheet.

Those observing the current Orwellian climate in the United States no longer gasp at each new move by “progressives” to control society’s collective mind, but some take occasional breaks from tearing their hair out to laugh at the more egregious examples…Not that he was trying to be funny. On the contrary, he was clearly proud of praising Jill Biden, in all seriousness, for the “several degrees” that earned her the “title [of doctor] that she has every right to.”

To stress that she’s not just a teacher in girlie garb, he said that during her many trips around the country, “the role she’s fulfilling is, in many ways, neither first lady nor professor but a key player in her husband’s administration, a West Wing surrogate and policy advocate.”

The perfect “West Wing surrogate and policy advocate” outfit

…Yes, he wrote, “Joe Biden is boring – and that’s not a complaint.”

Of Dr. Jill, on the other hand, he said, “You generally hear her before you see her because she is often laughing. She is, quite simply, a joy multiplier.” [ed. – “joy multiplier” is no doubt part of the new Common Core math, of which we’ll explore a bit more tomorrow.]

THE SACCHARINE language doesn’t end there. “Part of what makes the Bidens’ right-out-of-the-gate successes so extraordinary is that they seem to have perfectly read the room,” he asserted. “We have been through this enormous, collective trauma, and here’s a calm, experienced, empathetic president, and here’s a first lady who is driven, tireless, effortlessly popular, but also someone who reminds us of ourselves.

She’s selling a new vision for how our most fundamental institutions ought to work – infrastructure, education, public health – even as she goes to extraordinary lengths to keep a real-world job, to stay in touch with what makes her human and what matters most.”

Whatever it is she’s selling I’d suggest you not buy it; not from her or anyone else shoveling it.

It all looks quite shady.

For Every Action…

Today we’re doing the science of cause and effect, aimed primarily at Liberals who don’t seem to grasp even the basics of this concept.

Let’s start with a simple, real world, example, in reverse order:

Effect:

Cause:

 “Indian Point Energy Center (I.P.E.C.) was a three-unit nuclear power plant station located in Buchanan, New York, just south of Peekskill. It sits on the east bank of the Hudson River, about 36 miles (58 km) north of Midtown Manhattan. The facility has permanently ceased power operations as of April 30, 2021.”  - via Instapundit

Not a difficult concept: if you decommission electricity generation plants without replacing their capacity you generate less total energy. Ergo, when it gets really hot, or cold - I’m talking to you Texas, but it could be anywhere – you will not have enough electricity to meet peak demand. Keep it up and soon you won’t have enough energy to meet minimal demand. Especially if you add the recharging of electric vehicles to the load.

Fact check: California didn't require electric car owners to stop charging during the heat wave. No, they simply told people when to charge. But hey, if things go really critical they’ll simply cut your power so you can’t charge your car – or run the AC.

Still not convinced? Let’s do another one.

Effect:

Murder, crime rates soared across American cities last year and YTD 2021 is making 2020 look good by comparison. 

Cause:

In 2020, Seattle diverted almost 20 percent from its police budget and saw a 61 percent increase in homicides, the highest number in 26 years

New York City slashed a massive $1 billion from its police budget and saw a 97 percent increase in shootings. Portland took a $16 million slice out of its police budget and so far in 2021 has seen the homicide rate soar by a whopping 1,900 percent compared with the same period in 2020. Portlanders have become increasingly frustrated by slow and unreliable responses to 911 calls – The Federalist

Despite the left’s insistence that the crime increase, like everything else, is due to the pandemic, the answer is really much simpler: defund police and you get…more crime.

Decommission power plants and you get less energy.

See how simple science is?

Newton’s Third Law: for every action (force) in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction.

This Pepperidge Farm Memory Was Brought To You By The “Big Guy”

 

*I don’t spell the memes I simply post them

Wow! And that was way back when Old Joe was just a lecherous old Gingerman,

Rather than the half-baked Snickerdoodle he is today

This Pepperidge Farm memory was brought to you by the Candy Man.

AKA the “Big Guy”

White Guilt and the Tyranny of the Minority

Joe Biden said he “respects” Gwen Berry’s Childish Olympic Protest. 

Berry called the playing of the National Anthem  a “setup” – in that I guess she believes everything is about her, the third place winner in the Olympic tryouts hammer throw competition.

“I feel like it was a setup, and they did it on purpose,” Berry said of when the anthem played. “I was pissed, to be honest.”

“They had enough opportunities to play the national anthem before we got up there,” Berry said in Oregon, where the Olympic trials are being hosted. “I was thinking about what I should do. Eventually I stayed there and I swayed, I put my shirt over my head. It was real disrespectful.

I’d agree that it was a setup, but I question who set it up. Seriously, do all the female (regardless of the preferred pronoun) Olympic hammer throwers wear 6 inch eyelash crawlers for the competition? And carry their “Activist Athlete” t-shirt with them just in case they feel the need to protest the offensive playing of the national anthem of the country they’ve freely chosen to represent?

Probably not. But whereas we live in America, the (formerly) land of free speech I, like Joey, can “respect” Gwen’s decision to act like a petulant child. However that by no means requires me to refrain from excoriating her for her inappropriate anti-American diatribe (uh-oh, “tribe” - a word I’m not supposed to use anymore). It doesn’t mean she shouldn’t face consequences for her behavior; I’m in favor of throwing her off Team USA as she clearly hates the USA. Why would we want her representing us?

But no. As we are currently living not in the land of the free but rather in the land of the tyrannical minority, Little Miss-it’s-all-about-me will instead get a huge contract with somebody - most likely Nike: we’re-all-about-China - to hawk their shoes and become a millionaire – which has always been Gwen’s real objective.

“I don’t need to do anything sport-wise,” she said. “What I need to do is speak for my community, to represent my community and to help my community. Because that’s more important than sports.”

Let’s be clear: the “community” that she represents is a community of one.

As it is for the lot of these BLM, ANTIFA, Take-a-Knee Anti-American exhibitionists; i.e. “believe in something, even if it costs you everything” Kaepernick. The hypocrisy drips from these characters like condensation from an AC unit on a 101 degree day.

Mostly what the athletes believe in these days is white guilt and the tyranny of the minority