Scattershots – 28apr20 (updated 2may20)

George Rebane

501c3 bets to co-locate money and mouth.  RR’s commenters have over the years made assertions and predictions with such deeply held convictions as to draw more than a smile from the rest of us.  So here’s a proposal (again) – offer odds and a material dollar bet that your measurable assertion will come true.  The bet may be taken up to a specified dollar amount by challengers.  The loser must remit his lost amount to the bona fide 501c3 charity chosen by the winner.  Say, one of our lefties and true believers in Bumblebrain’s November victory offers 2:1 odds for a maximum of $500.  Then if I take a $100 of that and lose, I have to mail a check to the 501c3 that he specified.  If I win, then the leftie has to mail a $200 check to my 501c3.  The bettors will confirm and adjudicate their own bets – honorable behavior is paramount. The comment streams will become the indelible archive of such bets, and I will keep an updated post of all such pending bets similar to how I ran the Dropout Derby.  The aim here is to sanitize RR comment streams from the reams of unmitigated bullshit posted by commenters, some who have the courage to use their real names, and the sackheads who don’t have any perceivable courage of their convictions as they continue spouting anonymous crap in these pages.  I have labeled these as ‘501c3 bets’, and a commenter can challenge the veracity of another commenter with such a bet, that if refused will communicate to all the level of conviction.  My own prediction is that most commenters will be happy to continue just passing hot air anonymously.

Socialist scumbags want others to pay off their perfidious vote buying debts.  For the last few decades our progressives have bought the votes of public sector employees – police, first responders, teachers, pencil pushing bureaucrats, … - through thug-like union negotiations for lavish pension plans that are now unfunded to the tune of trillions.  Today the evil Dems in Congress are attempting to attach to C19 relief legislation pension bailouts for the various Dem run states.  In short, they want future, say, Floridians to pay for the retirements of, say, Illinois state employees.  As Sen Rick Scott (R-FL) points out (here), federal bailouts like these are a very bad policy to begin with, but more so because they reward the continuance of blatantly corrupt and cunning incompetence by liberal politicians in such state governments.

‘You can never, ever trust the Communists.’ is a wise exhortation memorialized by William McGurn writing (here) about an elderly Hong Kong lawyer and democracy activist recently arrested by the Chinese communists for his role in illuminating the illegal conversion to totalitarianism of the former British colony.  The takeaway here is that today communism sports a broad halo of similar ideologies embraced by the greater Left who range from kitchen table communists, through practicing progressive academics, to legions of liberal politicians, media personalities, and entertainers, all abetted by a solid phalanx of leftwing government employees embedded in countless agencies and bureaus across the country.  Their common denominator is the Alinsky Almanac of public propaganda which was first institutionalized by V. Lenin who held that “Communists have only contempt for the ‘bourgeois’ idea of objective truth, replacing it with a morality that holds ‘truth’ to be whatever is expedient for the party at that moment. “  We see that replicated daily in our lamestream media.

Nevada County government is turning out to be a toady when it comes to asserting the obvious fact that rural counties are not the same as urban counties, and should therefore not be forced to adhere to the one-size-fits-all lockdown mandates from Sacramento.  Absent our county, six northern California counties have joined in a publicized protest (here) of the governor’s wrong-headed program to fight the C19 virus at great cost to the state’s private and public sectors.  Gavin Newsom, along with other Dem governors, sees this as another opportunity to ratchet up the state’s power over citizens, power once institutionalized that will be hard for citizens to walk back once the crisis is over.  ‘How Louisiana Reopened After Hurricane Katrina’ is only a recent example of how the government takes and keeps.  Closer to home, Nevada County has now issued a formal legal lockdown order that is to stay in force until 15 May 2020 (here).  The document is beyond byzantine government-speak with detailed exceptions that continue for pages and can be gratuitously interpreted 20 ways from Sunday.  Reading such prolific verbiage always makes me wonder again what happens to otherwise normal and reasonable people after they enter politics.  To various degrees they all become tainted personages who confirm their obvious blemishes by posturing themselves as being exalted by their positions of power.

[29apr20 update]  Anti-C19 drugs are on a rollercoaster ride of acceptability.  First we heard good things about re-purposing hydroxychloroquine (HCL) plus additives as being both a C19 prophylactic and a curative, then the lamestream screamed at Trump for suggesting its use and studies were dug up to show that it didn’t work.  The same happened to Gilead’s Remdesivir, first it was good (here), then it was totally ineffective according to the lamestream.  Now it looks like both HCL and Remdesivir are back up on the C19 Pharma Hit Parade.  As of 1030 29apr20 the Dow is up 609 (2.55%) on news of a most comprehensive study showing that Remdesivir works (here and here), and also other studies coming in showing that HCL also works (here).  A kicker for this news is that several pharma companies developing C19 vaccines report progress is being made much faster than the experts anticipated with at least two candidates going into early human trials.

[30apr20 update]  C19 mortality rates.  A correspondent sent me a link to a website (here) that specializes in collecting data and making information out of it.  Of current interest are the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.  This posting covers the age and health factors on C19 deaths.  Analysis of the data delivers the punchline – “both aging and being unhealthy, separately, contribute to a greater risk of dying from Covid.  The risk from being unhealthy, though, is far greater.”  This important finding is backed up by numerous clearly laid out charts and tables from which I lifted the one below.  (Actually, TypePad is partially up right now, but won't accept graphics for posting.  1may20 - and now it will.)

[1may20 update]  More C19 data to assuage the TDS sufferers who can read.

[2may20 update]  The mentality of the Nevada County BoS.  The Supes shut down our local ‘transfer station’ (aka county dump) for a week before wholesale public uproar made them rescind their dictum.  What haunts me about their action, as the most recent and locally accessible decision by government politicians, is how could they possibly have come to such a conclusion to limit the hours and number of vehicles that the Waste Management dump could, should, and would service in a day.  When some county staffer laid such a proposal before the Board, why was it not unanimously rejected in the first, say, 3 to 5 milliseconds?  Cleaning up junk from your household and land during an imposed lengthy quarantine is an extremely useful, rewarding, timely, and safe activity.  Packing your vehicle or trailer with junk and taking it to the dump exposes no one to unnecessary risk of infection, including to Waste Management’s workers who need their hours in this time of economic distress.  All that became obvious to our Supes only after they were overwhelmed with the public pushback that they had acted with blatant and palpable idiocy to compliantly place yet another such unreasonable restriction upon the citizenry.  The item of enduring interest is what went through their collective minds when they issued that edict.  The record shows that not a single supervisor stood to publicly oppose it.  Understanding this same process, as it is historically practiced by politically powerful assemblies at all levels across the land, is important for us as a free people, so that we can be vigilant and work hard to reduce and/or eliminate its effects on our lives.

 

Comments

[L]

Your 3rd paragraph quote from the original Vlad made my blood run cold. Easily restated for the 21st C, the essence of this statement remains pure evil. The sackheads hereabouts need to ask themselves if that's really what they want for the American people.

It's what the people of China have today, who among you- Bertie, Paul & Mary, and KEACH (in case I missed him) should ask themselves if that is what progressivism really wants our future to look like?

That's a real problem with Communism, it is ever in need of killing, impervious to learning from history (of earlier failed polities premised on the same pseudo scientific notion of human nature) It has been the #1 killer of humans in the last 103 years, and still refuses to see the results of its own failures in every place it's ever been tried.

It may even be a bigger killer than heart disease, cancer and medical accidents. And this is what our political opponents propose?

Looking forward to hearing our leftists add to my thought...

[Walt]

Here is that Proggy favorite line again.
"Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that the coronavirus pandemic “would be a terrible crisis to waste” by not creating “universal health care.” "
https://www.breitbart.com/health/2020/04/28/hillary-clinton-coronavirus-would-be-a-terrible-crisis-to-waste-need-universal-health-care/

Nope,, Never EVER let a good crisis go to waste.
They want to use it to bend America over, and give us the high hard one like never before.

Who wants a LIB running this crisis?? Raise your hand,, then tell us just who that should be,, and why.
Tell us how they can do a better job than Trump.
Which Lefty has more balls than GOD gave a lizard to speak up?

[L]

Just as an aside, Lenin has the most devil-like, sinister visage of any human face I've viewed, almost a portrait of Satan. Surprised more people haven't commented on this...

[Bill Tozer]

Dr. Rebane’s last words from his post above:
“Reading such prolific verbiage always makes me wonder again what happens to otherwise normal and reasonable people after they enter politics. To various degrees they all become tainted personages who confirm their obvious blemishes by posturing themselves as being exalted by their positions of power.”

TIME TO WAKE UP
by Pierre Manent

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2020/04/time-to-wake-up

Who holds the keys to life and death?

[scenes]

re: BillT@9:04PM

Now that was a surprisingly good interview. Manent gets double bonus points for being a foreign national and thus not caught up in the morass of obscuring political detail that a local would generate.

[Todd Juvinall]

I have a friend trying to get a project approved for over ten years. County Counsel is making a mess of it. If an asteroid was going to hit and wipe us out it appears the local government wouuld sue it for upsetting the zoning.

[Paul Emery]

L refers to a "portrait of Satan" in his 6:45 post. Is there a universally accepted portrait that you refer to L and where did it come from?

[Bill Tozer]

“L refers to a "portrait of Satan" in his 6:45 post”

It is a portrait of the snake...the serpent...evil. St Paddy did not drive snakes out of Ireland since the Isle did not have serpents. He drove the diabolical Druids out of Ireland who had as their symbol the snake.

I reckon the portrait of evil would look like a neanderthal character out of the cartoon BC or the Hobbit holding up a rubber snake walking down Board Street and no one giving him hugs no more. Alas.

Opps. Way off topic.

[Bill Tozer]

Opps

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/308848486924403279/

Now back on topic.

[scenes]

GR: "For the last few decades our progressives have bought the votes of public sector employees – police, first responders, teachers, pencil pushing bureaucrats, … - through thug-like union negotiations for lavish pension plans that are now unfunded to the tune of trillions. "

(it's funny how 'thug' morphed from strangling people for religious reasons to petty strong-arm crime, neither here nor there).

I can't say that lack of long term planning is a new thing. The modern era is filled with corporate chieftains and .gov bureaucrats who just need to keep the system aloft while they're still in office. It's the kind of thing that family-owned companies and smaller pro-balanced books governments used to be agin', plus you can assume that any major metropolitan era is chockablock filled with corrupt government doings. That perhaps is the Democrats' main dirty little (not so) secret given their over-representation in larger cities.

I saw this one (https://reason.org/commentary/states-want-federal-assistance-for-debt-riddled-public-pension-plans/)

"... Ironically, New Jersey itself is currently doing a version of this with the New Jersey Lottery, which it transferred to the pension fund as an asset a few years ago, immediately lowering the required annual contributions to the pension system."

Which is an interesting alternative to simply increasing federal debt, somehow selling more state bonds, or bankruptcy and debt discharge. We could simply give title to assets to CalPERS/CalSTRS. State parks, commercially valuable state land, the lottery (but it's for the CHILDREN!), highways can become union-owned toll roads, ownership of fishing/mineral rights. NJ might have something here. Maybe we could simply eminent domain a bunch of homes and give them to the public employees unions. Turn them into rentals for favored groups.

Designing a utopia is tough, but someone has got to do it.

[scenes]

PaulE "L refers to a "portrait of Satan" in his 6:45 post. Is there a universally accepted portrait that you refer to L and where did it come from?"

Well, that vacation didn't last long.

I suspect it's Lenin's little beard, although the jaunty working guy hat helps back it off a bit. In modern times, you can pretty much count on jaunty little hats implying a lack of work of course, an ironic thing. I admit that Lenin in the prototypical Soviet propaganda profile view does look rather like a Disney devil.

To be fair, Lenin doesn't appear any more ruthless than Hitler (aka: Gröfaz) or some Ottoman Sultans. After all, making a social utopia omelette takes a lot of egg breaking.

Quotes of the day, use google translate if needed of course.

http://www.izbrannoe.com/news/lyudi/tsitaty-lenina-ot-kotorykh-stynet-krov/

“The war is not for life, but for the deaths of the rich and the henchmen, the bourgeois intellectuals ... they need to be dealt with, with the slightest violation ... In one place they will be sent to prison ... In another they will put them to clean toilets. In the third, they will be provided with yellow tickets upon serving the punishment cell ... In the fourth, they will be shot on the spot ... The more diverse, the better, the richer the general experience ... ”

[Bill Tozer]

Kentucky Orders All Churchgoers To Wear Yellow Cross

https://babylonbee.com/news/kentucky-orders-all-churchgoers-to-wear-yellow-cross

[Bill Tozer]

re: 29 Apr update

htps://www.nationalreview.com/news/fda-fast-tracks-remdesivir-for-emergency-use-following-positive-coronavirus-trial-results/

[Bonnie]

The Snake is the accepted symbol of evil. The Roman Catholic church of Europe destroyed the ancient world religion Empire of the Sun in Ireland. All the priest Kings of the world, from Peru to Egypt were Sons of the Sun. Those who know ancient history (like our Founders) know why they didn’t want a tax supported national church. When you look at the medical snake symbol on a sword you think about it saving lives. Very powerfull depending on the morals involved, but you wonder have to wonder when you look at what was done to people in Russia, Germany, China, and Africa using the medical profession...to create the perfect race, or do away with political enemies as Stalin’s daughter wrote about in her book “Twenty Letters to a Friend.” Beware...

[Bill Tozet]

From Doug LaMalfa this morning

,"Yesterday afternoon, the California Congressional Delegation was briefed by Governor Newsom. During that call, I asked the question that Northern CA cities, counties, individuals and businesses have been asking me. They all want to know when we can begin to responsibly reopen parts of our region?

Much of the North State has already surpassed the guidelines Governor Newsom previously laid out. Butte County hasn’t had a new case in 16 days and many northern counties haven’t had a single case. In consultation with local health departments and County Boards of Supervisors, there is a responsible way to begin reopening large parts of Northern California.

We shouldn’t have to wait for Los Angeles or San Francisco to meet the goals we already have surpassed. If the reverse was true, we certainly wouldn’t see the state waiting on us to reopen major cities.

My discussion with the Governor was to recognize the reality that if he didn’t move to reopen, the counties and local communities would likely open without approval."

[Mary Wanna]

George: "Socialist scumbags want others to pay off their perfidious vote buying debts" Yes, better to allow states, and for that matter the country, to just declare bankruptcy and wipe all those debts off the books.

Easy Peasey.

[L]

MW @ 12:34- And exactly why do you think the residents of Arizona (via Federal bailouts) should subsidize the retired bureaucrats of Cali where the crooked dems purchased their perpetual hold on power by buying the votes of government employees? Pay for you own lifer useless eaters; I'm pretty sure we have more than enough of our own.

For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure that neither the States nor the Fed even can declare bankruptcy, but can only default and 'negotiate with creditors'. This means the govt retirees can only accept a lower payout than was promised. The wages of greed, public union style...

[Squid throw crow]

George... the accepted three character abbrieviation for hydroxychloroquine is HCQ. HCL is generally hydrochlorine.

[George Rebane]

MaryW 1234pm - Apparently you don't see the other obvious alternative for resolution.

Squid 256pm - I've seen HCL used also, but HCQ seems to be a better TLA.

[Bill Tozer]

Good read, IMHO

'California’s Pandemic Response Will Further Enrich Its Elites At The Expense Of The Working And Middle Class'

In California, the pandemic seems likely to give the state’s political and corporate elites a new license to increase their dominion while continuing to keep the middle and working classes down

https://thefederalist.com/2020/04/29/californias-pandemic-response-will-further-enrich-its-elites-at-the-expense-of-the-working-and-middle-class/

[L]

Squid @ 2;56. Where I learned, HCl (lower case L) is the designation for hydrogen chloride
which is dissolved in H2O to make hydrochloric acid. Never heard of HCL or hydrochlorine, either one. Can you tell me more about this substance and what it's uses may be? Or, maybe Gregory took more chemistry than I and can supply the requested information. Thanks!

[George Rebane]

L 609pm - There is no "hydrochlorine"; as you point out, HCl is hydrogen chloride. The use of HCL or HCQ as TLAs for hydroxichloroquine are equally valid. Squid was swimming in uncharted waters.

[L]

Uncharted perhaps, but still safely alkaline...so it's all good.

[Cliche Guevara]

The uncharted waters squid was swimming in with the hydrochloride misspelling were the same waters George was wading in with his misspelling HCQ as 'hydroxichloroquine'.

HydroxyChloroQuine vs
HydroxyCHloroquine

In other waters, Crabby has gotten ugly
http://www.rlcrabb.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Asshole-One302-1536x1148.jpg

[scenes]

"In other waters, Crabby has gotten ugly"

Good Lord. Poor drawing *and* a ponderous gag.

You'd think that a little more O'Neill would have rubbed off on him.

[George Rebane]

Cliche 1202pm - When they tested you, it sure looks like you didn't do well on 'This is like that' questions.

[Cliche Guevara]

It sure looks like George 123pm will frantically grasp for any straw to hold onto.

[George Rebane]

Cliche 333pm - what straw? With your posts, under various sackhead labels, you've amply demonstrated that you would do poorly on almost every test that ascertains the 'g level' of intelligence. You really are out of your depth in these comment streams. I just hope that the regular residents of these pages would quit toying with you; it's simply not fair. They are ignoring the ADA of 1990.

[Cliche Guevara]

Wow, George, you divined all that from your spelling error?

[Walt]

In his case Another Dumbshit Academic.

[L]

Actually, CG, I think he 'divined' it simply from knowing who you actually are. Does that make any sense?

[Cliche Guevara]

l 912pm

Well,GR should be able to figure it out but so far, he's not getting it right.

What "various sackhead labels" does GR think I've used here?

[Cliche Guevara]

OK times up... I've also been the aforementioned Squid and one other.

Who could that be?

[L]

Who will be first to breach confidentiality? Fortunately, it doesn't matter all that much; the center of opposition on this blog has no acceptable name. If I held the same set of beliefs, I'd also hesitate to use my real name, out of shame.

It's now even difficult to know how many (if any) of you are actual people, although the philosophy expressed seems relentlessly Marxist and anti-human. I've been hearing it since undergrad days and it never learns from experience, even recent experienced (See Venezuela).

Still, this blog wouldn't be much fun without you assholes!

[Cliche Guevara]

L 1104om

So, pointing out George's spelling error is part of my relentless Marxist and anti-human farting?

You *are* a loony.

[Bill Tozer]

“OK times up...”
Another high maintenance control freak. Stop what you are doing and answer me, me, me, now. I am waiting, I am waiting, and I am growing impatient, lol.
————————-
re: the dump. What a bonehead idea to limit the vehicles going to the dump. 200 cars a day, then close up shop? What is the difference between 200 cars or 400 cars or 600 cars per days the dump is open?
IF the dump operators/employees are not exercising best practices, then 5 cars is too many. No difference between 200 vehicles and 800/day if safeguards are put in place. It’d hard to imagine what those could be at the dump since human contact is minimal.
Restrictions do not affect the fleet Waste Management drivers, does not affect the guy on the heavy equipment, does not affect the guy directing folks into an open unloading space. The only one who could have brief contact with humans is the guy or gal in the weigh/payment booth.

What a bunch of airheads. What, limit the dump so the traffic is backed down McCourtney to Thoroughbred, so the CHP is called in to direct the mess? So, it’s ok to hunker down and avoid close contact with humans, but then it’s all ok if everyone runs out and meets at Supermarkets, Big Box stores, and Lowe’s? Wal-Mart is safe, but small businesses aren’t? Lucky us. Only place safe to go is crowded retail giants. They must have cornered the safe place market.

Boneheads. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to gleam that the BOS just wants to restrict movement of people in our county. Whether there is a likelihood of spread the King Flu or not is of secondary importance.

I am just waiting for some Supervisor or Mayor to say, “This will hurt me more than you. It’s for your own good.”

[George Rebane]

Spelling error??

[L]

CG @ 11:32, please don't think you're being singled out, others are far more obnoxious. Your 10:46 posses a challenge...squid = Guevara = RL?

What's wrong with using the same nom de guerre on all your remarks? Is it to make yourselves appear more numerous than the census suggests or what? The problem here is that Dr. Rebane presumably knows who you are due to the e-mail address requirement but as an unspoken rule hereabouts doesn't blow your cover; it's annoying when you taunt him for it.

[Bill Tozer]

re: ‘You can never, ever trust the Communists.’ ....or the Left.

‘How The Left Enables Communist China’s Inhumanity’

A recent tweet and article by Politico shows just how the leftist agenda has empowered a new evil empire.

https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/05/how-the-left-enables-communist-chinas-inhumanity/