RongSpeakkk:

So some kids in Evanston, Illinois were at the beach....and one of them had a beach towel in the form of a Confederate Flag. 

Much controversy. 

"That flag is my Swastika". 

Odd. innit. There is Rightspeak, and Wrongspeak, and some folks symbols are sacred (like "Black Lives Matter" murals) but others are deemed "Bad". Some things are acceptable, but others are not. 

Just because a (currently) special class of people are offended, then a symbol (like the Confederate flag) is verboten. 

Of course, once the election is over, and the Dems no longer have a need for an agitated African American population (until the next election cycle) than the huhu will die down and things will go back to normal-ish...

No.

delaying the election:

Bad Idea. 

Mail in voting? Up to the states. 

I'm not a fan of the idea, and we already have enough fraud in our elections....Mostly DNC based, but some on the other side as well. 

But not voting on Nov 3 but some other, later day? I'm agin' it. Period. 

If it is safe enough to shop at your local grocery store, Wal-Mart, or Home Depot, then it is safe enough to vote. If yer afraid, then stay home, or sign up for an absentee ballot. So I see no reason to need mail in balloting either. 

I don;t care whether Trump or the DNC propose it,  both mail in ballots or postponing.......both are a Bad Idea...

ETA 7:30 pm Central: From the comments

"if high ranking officials can safely gather in close proximity for a 4 hour funeral for john lewis. ......

us common peons can stand in line for a short time to vote in person"

Cannon

Meh

Go read the folks on the sidebar. Too busy to post.

What he should have done:

When the senator castigated Bill Barr for his minions "attacking peaceful protesters" he should have thrown a rock, or a water glass, or some other fairly heavy object at the Senator and asked him just how "peaceful" that was.

Perspective:

According to the Second City Cop blog, more people have died in the city of Chicago from gunshot wounds than from Covid 19....

But we all have to hide in our homes or behind a mask because Covid.
But the Media focus is, of course, not telling the whole story.

On John Lewis:

When he was younger, he had a set of gonads. Really large ones.

That march across the Pettus Bridge? He knew that there was gonna be a good chance that the police would kick his ass....I mean, a serious tune-up. Hickory Shampoo. In fact, he could have been killed, and back then, the cops would have gotten away with it.

He and the folks who marched with him had some serious guts....unlike today's "protesters" who have no real fear of the police(or of being killed or seriously injured by them) or, for the most part, the rest of the citizens in the communities that they are terrorizing.

'Twas only later, when he got to congress, that his commitment wavered towards expediency and away from righteousness.

But he is an example of guts, or at least was. 

But I still don't think we should rename the bridge....And Lewis didn't think so either. 

I looked back, and there was but one set of tracks...

And His voice came to me:

"The minions of the State hide their numbers by walking in single file...."



So I went for a walk on the beach...(Yes, ladies, I really DO like Long Walks on the Beach).

It was a beautiful day, and while this is not my favorite portion of the beach on Lake Michigan, it is the only one where there IS a beach at this time (Lake Michigan is a near record high levels, so lots of beaches are only feet wide, rather than tens of yards)....And so I walked along the beach for about 4 miles, then turned back. MC was with me, and, as I said, the day was about as nice as one could ask for...low 80's, just enough breeze to be comfortable, sunny and bright.

We did our walk out, turned and walked back. Now, parking at the Federal Park for this beach is about a half mile from the actual beach, we were walking back to the car and we were passing a young mother with three kids...one about 6 years old, one about 5 and one about 3 years.

As we passed, the middle child reminded her "6 Feet social distance, Mommy".

I must say I was taken aback that the kids, who have not been in school for the past 120 or so days, have been conditioned so strongly already, with -out the aid of school to help program their thinking.

The Mom was embarrassed, and looked at us (from a safe distance, of course) and said "I just hope that when this is over they can forget all this"...

Think about it, these kids have been programmed to already keep their distance, likely only through TV and computer games....And it is strong enough to get them to "remind" adults.

Scary

by now the excuse is worn

Have ya noticed that many firms are still using 'The Coronavirus" as an excuse for their shitty service?

While I was willing to give allowances for shitty service at the beginning of this debacle, it has been in excess of 90 days.

Plenty of time to adapt and overcome any obstacles that "Da Covid" might have put in the way of you firm being able to provide a decent level of service.

I am now simply assuming that they simply don't wish to provide proper service, be it telephone support or in person.

'Tis interestin'

The media (perhaps to increase the panic over Coronavirus) is focusing on the number of cases of coronavirus...which is rising. (how much is from increased testing though, vs actual increased number of cases that were previously unreported because they were untested....) But the number of deaths, while slightly higher than at the end of the 2 week 90 day lockdown, is nowhere near the percentage  vs cases that were experienced in the early days....(Again, perhaps simply because of increased testing).

Were one to only get one's data from the media, one might think that the Coronavirus is running rampant through the population...which it isn't. One might think that deaths were rising exponentially...which they aren't.

The reporters continuously tell us that the hospital intensive care rooms are at risk of being overwhelmed....which, according to the media, is a risk that has been present since March....They tell us that those portions of the hospitals are at 85% capacity...which is true....The Intensive Care portions of hospitals are nearly ALWAYS at a similar percentage....If not, the hospitals lose money...(Yes, some elective surgeries that might have put patients there to recover are being deferred, but still, this is misleading reporting).
It appears to me that there is a concerted attempt to, if not lie to the public, at least mislead us as to how severe this "crisis" is.

Fuck it, I'm studying for my Instrument checkride, and, if it doesn't rain, I'm gonna go clear my mind by turning money into smoke and noise doing some precision paper punching.

Truth:

Via Irish, who took the comment on these two posts and made a really good graphic.


I hope it goes viral.

You can find the original HERE

Well done, Irish!

Because Black Lives (don't) Matter

Seems that those folks on the South Side of Chicago don't really believe that Black Lives Matter.

So there was a funeral in Auburn-Gresham......for a gang banger that had been shot a few days earlier in a nearly neighborhood (Englewood)....

And some critters drove past the funeral home and unloaded their heaters into the crowd.....Some of whom shot back.

So...lessee here: Black people shot indiscriminately into a crowd of...black people.....At least 60 shots fired...It is doubtful that any of the folks involved had legal possession of those firearms, BTW....Not in Illinois.

Attempted murder, at best. So far, due to the wonderful hospitals near the area no one has died....(the hospitals get LOTS of practice with gunshot wounds). 14 people shot, some in serious condition.

And that is but one of the many shootings of black people by other black people this year in Chicago.

Note: No cops involved in this shooting (except for cleanup and report taking afterwards)

But Black Lives Matter. Sure they do. Just not to black people when it isn't done by a white cop or a white southern man.... Black people have killed more black people in the South Side of Chicago this year than all the police in the United States this year.

We won't even discuss the 3 year old shot a few miles away later that same day...

But we gotta riot when a career criminal dies while resisting arrest (when it is a white cop, anyway).

An excellent point

And one I had not considered:

From PeteForester in the comments on the post below this one:

"the masks are an effective visual that "a crisis exists," and will most likely exist until at least Election Day, it's ultimate timeline contingent on who wins..."

So lemme see if I got this straight:

The people making policy that we should (now!) wear masks tell us that they will prevent infections from being passed from one person to another....
These are the people who told us that masks DON'T work, and actively discouraged the wearing of them in the early days of the "Covid-19 Pandemic"....Where they (IF they are effective) might have made a difference by preventing the early cases that led to other infections that led to other infections....

These are the experts that told us that hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine were unsafe drugs, dangerous to take, even though they have been in use safely in other applications in the US since 1955. Who discouraged the use of Remdesivir, even though it has been used as an antiviral drug since 2009 and is a well known drug which can be administered safely.

These are the folks who predicted 22 million deaths, in the US, then revised that downward...to 12M, then to 6,3M, then 2.6M, then 1.2M, then 600,000, then 420,000 ....when the real number is about 145,000.....Pretty big difference. (While no estimate is terribly accurate, being off by a factor of nearly one hundred is an "estimate" that is pretty bad).  And who predicted that hospitals would be overwhelmed as early as March 30....when they never even came close. Who told us we would need hundreds of thousands of additional ventilation assisting machines...when we didn't even use the ones we had already....These are the folks who told us that the disease began in this country in February...when all evidence (even then!) showed that it was likely here in Novermber of 2019.....who decided that scanning people's foreheads at airports with an infrared thermometer as they deplaned was an adequate screening in defense against travelers bringing the disease from other countries...no quarantine or other followup....

These are the folks that decided, apparently at random, that 6 feet/2 meters "Social Distancing" (with absolutely zero science or research or evidence that the chosen distance was effective, but simply picked a number) would prevent the transmission of disease (even though masks would not help) and with no regard to airflow or other environmental factors that would move the disease from one person to another....

These are the people who told us that we needed to shelter in place for 2 weeks to "Flatten the Curve"....that led to 90 days of "lockdown"...
Who then allowed the country to reopen, and were then surprised and unprepared when the rate of infection increased greatly once people began to interact again...effectively showing that the first 90 days of lockdown did nothing to stem or otherwise stop the infection, merely delay the increase for 90 days. We, under their advice, wasted the past 90 days....gaining nothing except the destruction of our economy and increased unemployment and economic ruin for a great many of our citizens.

These are the "experts" who told us we could not shop in small stores, but allowed larger retailers, like WalMart and Target and Home Depot to remain open....who told us we could not attend funerals or get our hair cut, could not attend Christian Church services (but allowed Mosques to remain open).... Who told us that eating at a restaurant 6 feet from other patrons was dangerous, but allowed convenience stores to remain open so we could stand in line 6 feet apart to buy lottery and cigarettes, and allowed car dealerships to operate with absolutely no restrictions because they were "essential". Who told us that bakeries and clothing stores and shoe stores were dangerous and should be closed, but liquor stores and marijuana dispensaries were "essential".

These are the "experts" that now tell us that wearing cloth masks will greatly reduce the spread of the Covid-19 virus in our population and threaten us with fines if we don't wear them (where were they with this information and demands that we wear masks 90 days ago...would that have not prevented many secondary and tertiary infections in our population??)....but fail to make sure that people wear them properly, negating the usefulness of those masks when they are worn on the chin or the upper lip.

I'm thinking that these experts are either incompetent or have another agenda.

If you like Reynolds Wrap as a material for your chapeau, then one might think that the agenda is more important than our economy (or the economy IS the agenda) or that Social Conditioning is more important than public health.... and that actual Public Health is secondary...

I actually prefer my "experts" to show a bit more expertise before I listen to them..... 

Mask Mandate:

So since like nearly every municipality (and/or county and/or state) is requiring that businesses require that their patrons wear a mask.....

Are they gonna go the step further and require that people wear those masks over both their nose and mouth?
Or are we just gonna go through the motions in an attempt a enforced social compliance?
I see many folks (oddly, especially folks with an african ancestry) wearing a mask....over their mouth but not their nose. Lots more wearing them on their chin, but not covering their nose OR mouth. Sadly, these folks get away with it because every one else is afraid of being called "racist" if they point the failure to wear the mask properly.
(Note: I wear a mask only under protest, but that is just me me being stubborn...I beleive they are somewhat effective at preventing people from spreading sneeze and cough borne droplets of spittle, but they really don't do much else...)

Make no mistake, I think that if a business chooses to require a mask on their property, the choice is theirs, and that is their business....It iws not the purview of the State, however.  In my state, the only person that can issue "wear a mask" orders (in public streets) that are legally enforceable is the Governor, as LaPorte County has found out.....they can make all the ordinances they wish, but they have no real force of law. (But the business is in a bind if they don't cooperate).

But if yer gonna hassle businesses and people about masks, then make people wear 'em properly...or don't do it at all. 

Folks in Chicago would do well to remember 1(9)68

Back then, folks who rioted during demonstrations got the snot whacked out of them in that city. Lessons learned....don't fuck with the police.

Today, those lessons are being learned again:

A large group of protesters at a rally to defund the police attempted to tear down the Columbus statue in the park. Fireworks were set off near the covered statue as hundreds gathered around. The rally took a violent turn with reports of some in the crowd fighting police.

A fair number of the crowd got bruises. I can't feel sorry for them.

I think the cops showed a great deal of restraint.

This ain't Portland.

And it would seem that the Media is a bit upset because their reporters embedded in the crowd did not get special treatment when told to "move Back" and were roughed up/ My heart bleeds.


Also, have you noticed that the Left is demonizing Christopher Columbus? AFAIK, he never set foot on the Continental US.

The only justification I see is that "5 Million slaves were transported from the Caribbean islands by 1700". (Hint: the big trip by Columbus was 1492).   I doubt if Chis C. was responsible.

Related: It seems that the Left is all up in arms about the "defacing" of a number of Black Lives Matter murals and other painted statements on public property....'Twould seem to me that they don't like it when the other side plays by their rules....

Car shopping update

So we found the exact same vehicle in a different color, for a few dollars more. Nearly the same miles, identical condition, better tires, and with the "Certified Chrysler Warranty"....basically an additional 5K miles on the factory warranty and the same 7/100K powertrain warranty.

No hidden fees, charges, taxes,add-ons or other irritating things.

Price
Tax
Doc Fee

Out the door price.
No other fees

And Dad seems happy, so there is that.

Phake but accurate:

HERE.

Worth the read

The first big bright double flash

So at 5:29 AM (local)  on this day (July 16) 75 years ago, the first nuclear bomb was tested (exploded) at the Trinity site in White Sands New Mexico.

22 kilotons, the experiment was a success.

An interesting side note: these scientists were geniuses.

About 40 seconds after the explosion the air blast reached me. I tried to estimate its strength by dropping from about six feet small pieces of paper before, during, and after the passage of the blast wave. Since, at the time, there was no wind I could observe very distinctly and actually measure the displacement of the pieces of paper that were in the process of falling while the blast was passing. The shift was about 2 1/2 meters, which, at the time, I estimated to correspond to the blast that would be produced by 20 thousand tons of T.N.T.
Enrico Fermi.

And from there the world had a tiger by the tail.

We declined to pay for the "experience"

So Dad needs a new vehicle to replace the '07 Town and Country minivan he's been driving for a long time (like for the past 180,000 miles).

We looked at different cars and such, and he chose to get another minivan...a Chrysler Town and Country or a Dodge Grand Caravan.

We look at some that are a few years old, and they are...tired. Very tired.

So he decided to bite the bullet and get one only a year or so old. A couple (like 7 thousand) more dollars, but ones that are not worn to death or beat to shit.

There are very few out there like that.

We find one locally, but they want a bit too much for it. A dealership 55 miles away has one nearly the exact same car, same mileage, only for $2k less. Not a huge amount of money, but 2 Grand is a lot to me and especially to Dad...I call and verify they have it in stock, and the price is as advertised...no add- ons, or other fees.

We get there, and test drive it and it is a nice minivan...low miles, clean, good condition, very little wear.

We haggle a bit, and agree on a price with the business manager. All good. Paperwork is drawn up, and a total agreed upon

He goes to the cashier and pays the agreed cash price for the vehicle, plus the doc fee and the fee for the temporary plate.....No sales tax because this dealer is in Illinois and he will be taking it back across the border to Indiana.

The dealership has to do their "Delivery Prep" and we wait for a few minutes. Dude comes up and hands us the keys and says..."We need to collect the sales tax, I was wrong."

Ok, my dad is agreeable, so we go back to the cashier and he hands them a credit card to pay the 7% sales tax on a $16,900 vehicle.

The cashier says the difference is $2833. My dad looks at her and says..."7% tax, right?" She says "yes, the difference is $2833...". My dad is pretty good at math and that doesn't seem right to him...

I ask to see the paperwork, and it now shows the $16900, plus the doc fee and the plate fee and the line for sales tax...$1183....and a new line that says "Napleton Dealer Sales Experience Fee" and the number of $1650. Odd, that wasn't there before....

When I questioned the "Experience Fee" the business manager said that it was a fee they charged to every customer for the "Experience" of purchasing a car at the dealership......I objected, pointing out that the fee had not been mentioned up to that point and that we had not negotiated that fee....He explained that EVERY customer pays that fee.

We declined to pay them an additional $1659 and requested our check back before we left...the "Business Manager" tried to tell me we had a contract and had no choice but to finalize the transaction....I suggested they give us back the check or I might have to come and take it back from the cashier..... No sale today.

We left, check in hand . We did not feel the "Experience" of buying a car was worth $1650.

I wonder how many people, especially those who finance, even realize that they are being charged this fee AFTER negotiating a final price?

I expect car dealers to be shady, and all, but damn.

Back to looking.

Have you noticed?

The Media tells us the number of CASES of coronavirus, but seldom tells us the number of TESTS that were performed to get that number.
Nor do they tell us the PERCENTAGE of POSITIVE tests.

HERE is a chart (you will have to follow the link, I am unable to embed it) showing the percentage of positive testing. Now, note that the percentage has come down. There may be a number of factors, one that might be a large cause is that people who got the testing early were those who were pretty much already showing possible symptoms and were largely getting the test to confirm an already existing diagnosis of Corona.

Having said that, note how the percentage of positive cases has fallen. from a high of 22 percent in late March to a low of about 4.5% in mid June....Right now we are a bit more than 8.5% positive. More data points gives us a much better data set. We can now see that Covid isn't the threat it was once thought to be.

But the media doesn't bother to tell you that, do they? Instead, the use the numbers to generate fear, by telling you the higher number of CASES....and telling you (lying, really) that the hospitals are in danger of being overwhelmed, when that is just not true.

Why don't they give the truth? Why enegender fear? I can only think that it is to help keep the US population afraid, and in hiding, in order to damage the economy.....For political reason that you can figure out for yourself.

Remember, we have already Flattened the Curve...for well over 2 weeks. Either they were lying to us then, or they are lying to us now.