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April 3, 2020
Blame Where Blame is Due
BEWARE    
All too many in the mainstream media are casting blame on President Trump for the Chinese Wuhan Coronavirus COVID-19.

When assigning a scapegoat it is usual and customary to choose individuals with culpability. This is not the case with The President.

These morons of CNN, MSNBC, and numerous others like to focus their fear mongering on the public while casting undeserved blame upon the President.

History will record that jurisdiction responsible for loosing this plague upon the world ...

That being China.

We're going to take the blame game out on the mainstream media who so richly deserve the label liars and enemies of the state.

Then there are those jurisdictions who have taken martial law upon themselves stepping on the civil rights of their citizens as though ruling by devine right decree.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought out the best in many and the worst in too many.

There will be repercussions for those misguided media members as well as leaderships of jurisdictions who overstep their authority over the taxpayers.

Too much has been stirred up for the leftist liberal survival in the body politic.

Too many understand the stupidity imposed on The Republic by Pelosi, Schumer, Schiff, et al and their decline continues with increasing velocity.

Tags: politics, weapons
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April 2, 2020
International Children's Book Day 2020
    childrens books
When I was a kid there were books. I grew into a voracious reader and the information overload has been a good thing in my education and ability to do what I do as well as I am able.

Later in life I find those reading choices less beckoning. The authors have diverged from fiction, poetry, and history to purely technical, jargon, flow charts, and schematics.

International Children's Book Day (ICBD) happens annually and is sponsored by the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY). They are an international non-profit founded in 1967.

Their Chidrens Book Day is held to coincide with the birthday of Hans Christian Andersen's which is the second of Apirl.

It is a day for writing competitions, announcements of book awards and events with authors of children's literature
.
There are international sections of the IBBY and each year one of those is given the opportunity to sponsor ICBD.

I have always been a proponent of children's books due to those benefits I gleaned from reading as a child. I hope that you cultivate similar interest if it's not already there and as usual, have a happy ICBD !

Tags: people, places, things
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April 1, 2020
April Fools Day 2020
choose your bomb    

Today is April Fools Day, aka All Fools Day and is our yearly day for practical jokes and hoaxes.

It's not really a 'holiday' anywhere. Just a fairly universal day for playing pranks on your fellows which will be more or less well received but sometimes poorly reacted to depending on the personality of your recipient.

There are even elaborate kits obtainable from joke shops to aid and abet your efforts at invoking that mirthful mayhem you seek.

If you find yourself in Odessa, Ukraine there it is an official city holiday.

If you miss the day entirely (which I sometimes do) there are other yearly opportunities for playing various jokes on others.

Some of us don't even need a special day at all. Yes, I am a joker and a hoaxer and I make it a point to give people this crap at least once yearly, but often induge myself even more frequently. So if you hear me shout April Fools at you rest assured you have been pranked even if you you haven't noticed what I did ... yet.

Happy April Fools Day to you !
 

Tags: people, things, holidays
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March 31, 2020
World Backup Day 2020
    SAN Appliances Rack Mount
I spent a long time in college teaching computers. Sometimes I would teach adults. Other times I found myself teaching curriculum to various classes enrolled in departments. It was a dismal existence that I did for 20 years to pay the bills. I made good money, but gave up a life in the trade.

One of those courses I taught was "Intro to PC". The college stole my notes and had the audicity to put their copyright on my work WITHOUT my permission. That's because the director, the assistant director, and the receptionist who THOUGHT she was a director and the senior teaching staff were predominately idiots who could present a script but were unable to correlate the technical information being presented to practical examples in the workplace.

During the course of Intro to PC I always dwelled on backups for at least an hour. We needed to understand why you need backups. How to execute backups. The importance of rotating your backup sets to keep them fresh. This was done along with various operating system and proprietary solutions toward that end.

My selling point for backups was "if your life is contained on a floppy and that floppy is destroyed your only protection is a spare copy of that floppy. Back then floppies were envogue and nowadays they don't even install floppy drives on machines anymore.

HOWEVER, there are other media like usb drives, optical disks, and the like which make excellent backup copies of those things you'd really rather not lose. Disk based, tape based, optical media based ... whatever. If you maintain a fresh viable copy of anything important you can keep your hands on it in the even of major catastrophe.

Cloud backups consist of your stuff on someone else's machine. This means you are incapable of managing your own existence but for those of you dumbasses out there I suppose it is a viable option. You sniveling no skill having weenie.

So today is World Backup Day. It is a day reserved to drive the importance of regular backups home. For example I back up data files on my servers each week and have restored twice in my career with total recovery.

Had I not had backups this would not have been possible.

Tags: technology
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March 30, 2020
National Doctors Day 2020
Monster Doctor    
Physicians and I have not been doing too well of late. I was seeing a PA who decided she wanted to place me on bleeding edge diabetes meds that had just been released in pill form.

She kept him-hawing around the price answering my "how much" questions with "your benefits will coordinate with their discount program" and it won't be much.

Now, when you get a $730 a month prescription after SPECIFICALLY saying how you want trusted, tried, and true GENERICS in an effort to CONTAIN COSTS there is a fundamental flaw in your relationship and it all smacks of kickback payola from some drug company IMHO.

Anyway, I tried the Veteran's Administration Hospital in Columbia as an alternative with high hopes and they are utterly incompetent allowing many of my drugs to lapse after episodes of pleading and I still don't have one of the medications of which I take three pills daily. Can you say "institutional license" ?

Needless to say we are done as well.

So now we come to National Doctors Day and we're supposed to celebrate those contributions of physicians to our lives and communities regardless of how shoddily they "treat" us.

It's about as bad as having to follow a physician to ten different practices because he keeps getting fired from every one he joins.

So no, won't be doing too much celebrating of National Doctors Day lest I load my pistol and try popping a few caps in some worthless medical professionals populating my area.

They want you to submit to their every whim and practice contrary to your needs and leave you in the lerch at every turn.

Tags: health, people, places
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March 29, 2020
National Vietnam War Veterans Day 2020
    A moment from the Tet Offensive of the Vietnam conflict
My late stepfather was wounded in the Tet Offensive in the Viet Nam Conflict while serving as a journalist with The Stars and Stripes.

The Tet Offensive was a series of North Vietnamese attacks on more than 100 cities and outposts in South Vietnam.

Upon his return to the United States he was abused by the west coast hippie movement who cursed him for his service, called him unspeakable names, and threw rocks and other things at him as he tried to make his way through the airport with two broken collarbones and both arms trussed up in slings.

Such is the leftist idiocy and unfortunately much of it remains to this day.

The offensive was an attempt to spur rebellion among the South Vietnamese population and adversely influence the US participation therein.

Today is National Vietnam War Veterans Day. This is an annual holiday in the US recognizing US military veterans who served during the Vietnam War.

March 29 was chosen as National Vietnam War Veterans Day because on March 29, 1973, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) was disbanded and the last US combat troops departed the Republic of Vietnam.

The last unit consisted of elements of MACV's Infantry Security Force who were in actuality special couriers.

My step father was a highly decorated hero of the United States of America. He did not deserve the rude welcome and attempts to harm him he received upon his return from Vietnam from the hostile idiot hippie movement of that era.

Tags: people, places, weapons
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March 28, 2020
Reba McEntire's Birthday 2020
The Charming and Beautiful Ms Reba McEntire    
So it's one of my favorite artist's birthdays today ...

Ms Reba Nell McEntire.

She is an American singer and songwriter primarily in the Country genre as well as a recent branch into Gospel music and she is an accomplished actress and record producer as well.

I must admit that I wasn't in love with her at first ...

But all that red and that voice and those musical numbers just reached out and grabbed me.

Her television program was something I enjoyed as well and likely contributed to that allure which was cultivated in my heart over time.

Anyway, today is her birthday.

She is a scant two weeks younger than I am and I hope she outlives me by a 100 or so years because she has so much to offer the world.

Tags: people
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March 27, 2020
International Whiskey Day 2020
    Glenlivet XXV
Never was one for the taste of liquor. I had a friend in the Navy who preferred it to all other alcoholic beverages.

I could drink beer for a while with no difficulty but found the taste of mixed drinks generally revolting ...

Except for vodka which I really became interested in while at the Naval Training Center in Orlando. It would seem that I drank for effect while some of my companions actually enjoyed the taste of their drinks.

Today is International Whiskey Day. It is a day to support those who make Scottish Canadian, Japanese, Irish, and American whiskey ... and also includes support for the sufferers of Parkinson's disease and the research thereof.

Very appropriate as my friend Steve is a proponent of whiskey and a sufferer of Parkinson's disease.

The spelling of the day utilizes an embedded e or not depending on the local spelling traditions of the area from which a whiskey is produced.

Over the years I have acquired some very valuable bottles of whiskey which have come and gone, primarily at the hands of friends and I don't really begrudge any of those losses because it's never been a product I coveted.

There are other products which I have begrudged giving to others — but that's another story.

Tags: people, places, things
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March 26, 2020
Hale Bopp, Heaven's Gate, and Me
Hale Bopp - Heaven's Gate    

The date was Wednesday March 26, 1997 and I was watching the sky from the top of White Knoll in Lexington pursuing the comet Hale Bopp because it had recently become highly visible, hanging in the lower half of the night surrounding me.

I was amazed at the consistency from day to day over time and don't recall getting tired of watching it though I was out there for hours at a time.

This was back in my old Marlboro Medium and Mountain Dew days so perhaps I was merely loaded down with the stimulus barrier of that reduced nicotine and jacked up on all the caffeine ...

With no binoculars, telescope, or anything else.

I recall the news announcement stating that thirty-nine bodies were found in the rented property occupied by the Heaven's Gate cult due to mass suicide.

I remembered seeing the interview of the weirdo 'Doe' (sic) aka Marshall Applewhite earlier who would call himself a religious leader speaking spurious ideation when in fact he was just another West coast crazy cult leader who organized and orchestrated the mass suicide of those "vehicles" of innocent followers over whom he held dominance and influence.

So yeah ... the lack of significant connections at that phase of my life likely clouded my usually sharp perception of impending doom but when that slug was on television talking about going to the mothership in space I failed to make the connection that he was speaking in terms of souls only and not physicial bodies.

I had called so many tragedies before the fact both prior and after that time.

So as for me, Hale Bopp came and went. Heaven's Gate came and died. It's left me wondering about the wherefore and the why of intervention and how this mess escaped everyone during that tragic timeframe.

So much for my interest in earth bound astronomy.
 

Heavens Gate Suicide

 

Tags: people, places, things
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March 25, 2020
Medal of Honor Day 2020
    Medal of Honor Navy/Marines
I was once acquainted with a Medal of Honor recipient.

We had friends in common and I would sit at the bar and watch him ring the bicycle bell attached to his large beer mug at a joint called "Golden Nugget" which was located on US 378 across the street from the end of Leaphart Road ...

Until the local authorities shut it down for being too "las vegas like" or so I was told. This was in the video poker heyday and I can see the over reaction. The few times I had visited the bar it was pretty innocuous as far as such 'dens of inquity' go. I had experienced much worse many times before.

Speedy Wilson was a friendly regular guy who was not one to project airs or pretentiousness and spoke of regular every day things and I enjoyed our very few and brief interactions prior to his passing on March 29, 1998.

My dear compadre Dewitt Casey who was our mutual friend had passed a scant 90 days before on December 30, 1997 leaving me to my own devices and pursuit of both company and entertainment choices ... and they were both mighty entertaining as I recall.

Today is Medal of Honor Day. It is a United States Federal Holiday observed each March 25 to honor the "heroism and sacrifice of Medal of Honor recipients in the United States.

So if you are so honored this is your day. You join the ranks of Harold E "Speedy" Wilson and as such are deserving of the utmost respect of everyone you meet.

I personally view the decline in public awareness of the just how important the Medal of Honor — our highest military decoration — is to be a travesty of United States History due to the lack of pertinent individuals who choose to pursue some false revisionist history instead of the true past of the Republic.

Tags: health, people, places, things, politics
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March 24, 2020
Checking the News Lately
Liz Wheeler OAN Tipping Point    
The news is almost all about corona virus.

You get the pertinent other information if you catch the news on OAN with Liz Wheeler and the other fine journalists presenting the complete picture.

OTHERWISE, there is a sparse smattering of various other items between the virus stuff but by and large there is little else besides the developing financial ruin, false flag lamers blaming everything on The President, and OF COURSE constant bickering of various political figures and MSM reporters in the mix.

So, the aftermath of this is somewhat disconcerting given the bare shelves I've encountered in the grocery store and the angst secondary to everything going on otherwise that I'm somewhat apprehensive for the future.

I have a handle on the virus — what it is and how to combat it. I understand the nature of viral load avoidance and have gone so far as to list vectors and countermeasures.

All that remains is to wait it out and see how things go.

I wish China had kept it's weaponization of viral packages a more minimal ... or had at least practiced containment that worked. They were trying to create a weapon to spring on us and their stupid people loosed it on themselves.

In the end result we still don't know just how morbid the portends will be.

We need to stop outsourcing to China. They have nothing but ill will for us and they need to be taught a lesson in international economics and moral character.

Tags: health, people, places, things, politics
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March 23, 2020
My Diminishing Neighborhood
    Empty Grocery Shelves
We are experiencing an absence of humans in the neighborhood. I "thought" I was going to the grocery store to pick up a few items I neglected to get during yesterday evening's shopping.

As I approached the store they told me it was "closed" (4 hours early) and that I could return another time.

So I walked away and took a drive to the chinese takeout place five stores down to a place devoid of customers, six or so take out orders ready to go, and all the employees sporting seafoam colored face masks.

We spoke briefly of the greatly diminished business lately and how the staff would likely take a week or two off in an effort to simply get away from the pandemic.

I have been taking a conservative course of colloidal silver nose drops in an effort to curtail acquiring the disease. My thoughts concerning this revolve around remembering not to be smug and bragging should I dodge the bullet and by the same token ... not going ballistic if I do contract the virus despite all my efforts at prophylaxis.

So I am not able to go to work unless it is a "true" emergency. I am told that catching up on work that has been precluded by other work simply does not qualify. I must say it chapped me for an hour or so but life is about getting past things so I let it all go.

It would seem that the COVID-19 pandemic is quite the disruptive affair courtesy of a country who would just as soon kill it's own people and us at their whim then send some idiot so-called "diplomat" to say how hurtful it is to state the truth on the public stage.

The Chinese would spin something they can't touch because it's out of their hands. At least the President understands the folly of all the outsourcing we've been doing to China and intends to put a stop to a lot of it.

I can't believe how stupid the legislative branch has been in this scenario.

Tags: things, people, places
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March 22, 2020
Kenny Rogers RIP
Kenneth Ray Rogers
Kenneth Ray Rogers
August 21, 1938 – March 20, 2020
    
My "Kenny Rogers Days" surrounded the era of his television show called Rollin with his late 1960s - early 1970s band The First Edition when I was a kid.

He and his ensemble would do various numbers and it was a happy singalong style environment which naturally appealed to my 'top 40' tastes at that young, unevolved period in my life.

I followed him briefly during his stint with Dolly Parton and must admit that I grew a bit tired of what I saw as an over use of theatrical vehicle films like The Gambler ...

And if I never hear the song Islands in the Stream again it will be too soon for me.

Be all of this as it may I was sorry for his botched cosmetic surgery and admit that I poked fun at his attempt to go somewhere via surgery which was "less" than he already was.

Mr Rogers was an American singer and songwriter who delved into acting, record producing, and entrepreneurship.

He had escaped me for most of those subsequent years until yesterday and I read of his passing at 81 years of age from what was characterized as natural causes.

I had just never heard of a person dying from 'natural causes' requiring hospice care.

He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2013.

On March 20, 2020 Kenny Rogers died under hospice care at his home in Sandy Springs, Georgia.

He leaves his wife and two young sons as well as a number of children from his previous marriages. Services will be private in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rest in peace.

Tags: people, endings
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March 21, 2020
International Colour Day 2020
    COLOR
My interest in color stems from my flamboyant youth.

I was a creature of of odd tastes and a child of the horrid fashions of the 1970s and therefore found myself immersed in those vivid colors which evolved from the 1960s paisley and psychedelic prints.

Garish though they were by subsequent evolving standards, it was the style back then and I recall a certain tackish remnant through the 1980s with all the hair that went with it.

Not really the fashion conscious human being there is something about colors and combinations thereof which mark you as part of an era ... or even territory.

International Colour Day was proposed by the Portuguese Color Association as presented to the International Colour Association and was approved by the 30 country membership in 2009.

The day corresponds to the vernal equinox with those equalities of light and dark it imposes across the spectrum when it occurs.

Color is considered an influential phenomenon due to those dynamics of visual perception it imposes and therefore enhances reality.

It is a day for art, exhibititons, architecture, design, decoration, fashion, science identity, and all other aspects which utilize coloration in production.

Tags: world, things
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