You will never guess who is the worst (joke!).
It tells you something when Firefox has an extension to “contain” Facebook.
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Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
The MOST private browser (2021)
Posted by M. C. on November 13, 2021
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Talking About Stoicism 148 Learn When to Care
Posted by M. C. on November 13, 2021
The opinion of others.
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Watch “Surgeon General To Matthew McConaughey: Shut Up About Vaccines!” on YouTube
Posted by M. C. on November 12, 2021
The US Surgeon General sharply rebuffed actor (and possible politician) Matthew McConaughey for saying in public that he is not rushing to get his kids a covid vaccine. The top US Doc also issued a handy “tool-kit” to help stop “misleading” covid memes from spreading. Also today, Israel prepares for war…against the virus. And Europe (well most of it) sees cases rising this autumn despite mask mandates, vax mandates, vax passes, etc. How is this possible?
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Israel, Matthew McConaughey, Surgeon General, vax passes | Leave a Comment »
A Fat, Comfortable Military Is a “Woke” Military | Mises Wire
Posted by M. C. on November 12, 2021
For more astute observers of government institutions, of course, none of this will be surprising. Military and intelligence agencies are fundamentally nothing more than tax-funded bureaucratic agencies, and as such are political organizations. They will identify which way the political winds are blowing in Washington and then pander to the groups most likely to increase their budgets and privileges.
https://mises.org/wire/fat-comfortable-military-woke-military
Over the past decade federal military and intelligence agencies have increasingly embraced so-called woke campaigns and policy positions. Specifically, these government agencies have taken explicitly ideological positions in promoting “pride month” and more recruitment of larger numbers of gay and transgender personnel explicitly for purposes of increasing “diversity.” Actual military concerns appear to be receding into the background even as the US military establishment has recently lost yet another war and blown trillions of taxpayer dollars.
For example, as early as 2014, the CIA was bragging that it “has participated in the DC Capital Pride Festival for the past three years … and is active in advancing LGBT diversity and inclusion efforts throughout the Intelligence Community.” More recently, the CIA in May 2021 released a series of recruitment videos clearly focused on recruiting personnel which would allow the agency to check certain diversity boxes.
Also, in May of this year, the US Army released a recruitment video celebrating a lesbian wedding and a pride march. In November, the navy launched the USNS Harvey Milk, named after the famed gay rights activist and icon.
For more astute observers of government institutions, of course, none of this will be surprising. Military and intelligence agencies are fundamentally nothing more than tax-funded bureaucratic agencies, and as such are political organizations. They will identify which way the political winds are blowing in Washington and then pander to the groups most likely to increase their budgets and privileges.
The latest effort at “woke” politics is simply public relations designed to maximize budgets and increase influence. Moreover, because the US military establishment so rarely faces any real political scrutiny or fiscal discipline, it need not concern itself with efficiency or serving customers, as a private firm must. Instead, military and intelligence bureaucracies are free to spend time on political and ideological concerns instead.
Left versus Right on the Embrace of “Woke”
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Watch “‘What Percent Of CDC Employees Are Vaccinated?’: Cassidy Grills Walensky At Senate Hearing” on YouTube
Posted by M. C. on November 12, 2021
How to (double) talk and not answer the question. Hillary could take lessons from Walensky.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Bill Cassidy, CDC Employees, Rochelle Walensky, vaccinated | Leave a Comment »
I Read Biden’s Build Back Better Plan and…Oh, My God
Posted by M. C. on November 12, 2021
Over and over again, the bill is written expressly NOT to help the hardworking Linda, apparently because she is white. Here are just a few examples:
The White House’s official press release announcing the Build Back Better Act (BBB) pitches it as a “PLAN TO REBUILD THE MIDDLE CLASS.” It rhapsodizes about “working families” squeezed by the economy, and reminds voters that “Biden promised to rebuild the backbone of the country — the middle class.”
A cartoon illustrates the sort of person who would benefit from Biden’s Build Back Better programs: “Linda,” a white woman, who works at a manufacturing plant but struggles to raise her son, “Leo.”
One thing the White House’s official press release did not mention is that almost all of the $2 trillion doled out under BBB is expressly designated for Black, Latino, Native American, Asian American, Pacific Islander and non-English speaking individuals. White Americans will get nothing and like it. “Even provisions that don’t explicitly exclude whites, turn out, on closer examination, to exclude whites.”
Over and over again, the bill is written expressly NOT to help the hardworking Linda, apparently because she is white. Here are just a few examples:
— $1 billion to Native American, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian communities for housing “needs.”
— $500 million for minority-serving schools of medicine.
— $112 million for teacher preparation programs at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs).
— $75 million for culturally appropriate care management and services for older individuals who are racial and ethnic minorities or are underserved due to sexual orientation or gender identity.
— $75 million to study maternal health for pregnant and postpartum minority individuals.
— $50 million study maternal mortality among minorities.
— $50 million to improve behavioral health outcomes for communities of color with substance abuse.
— $75 million to increase research capacity at minority-serving institutions.
And on and on and on.
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Doug Casey on How Governments Use Global Crises to Take More Control
Posted by M. C. on November 12, 2021
It’s one of many false and horribly destructive memes stalking the earth today like specters. The increasing belief in government as a magic solution to problems acts to decrease the average person’s standard of living and creates all kinds of distortions throughout society. It’s turned the study of economics into a pseudoscience, and its incursions into science are discrediting the idea of science itself.
The good news is that it’s getting to the stage where it’s dysfunctional. Maybe the current major crises will backfire and self-destruct. Hopefully, the nation-state will be replaced by some voluntary phenomenon, like phyles, or perhaps the rise of a parallel structure within the current framework.
by Doug Casey
International Man: Throughout history, governments have used crises—real or imagined—to eliminate freedoms, expand the power of the State, and justify all sorts of things the populace would never accept in normal times.
After World War II, Winston Churchill famously said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”
This was when he and other leaders came together to form the United Nations, which they probably could not have created without the crisis of WWII.
Ever since, it seems that each new supposed crisis causes a further centralization of global power.
The War on (Some) Drugs, the War on Terror, the COVID hysteria, and the so-called climate crisis have all ratcheted up the centralization of power on a global scale.
What do you make of this trend?
Doug Casey: It makes sense that Rahm Emanuel, a sleazy Obama apparatchik, would have stolen the phrase from Churchill. But the statement is quite correct, regardless of the source. Government lives on crisis. As Randolph Bourne said, “War is the health of the State,” and there’s no crisis like a war. But any kind of crisis can work.
Whenever you have a crisis—whether it’s a military, political, economic, financial, or social crisis—the mob calls for strong leaders to kiss it and make it better.
This plays perfectly into the hands of the kind of people who work for the State. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a psychological flaw in humans, stemming from the fact that we’re pack animals.
Pack animals want leaders.
I’m not sure how we solve this problem other than delegitimizing the idea of the State and defanging it as much as possible. And stop lauding, even apotheosizing, its employees. But as long as the State exists, its basic impetus is to seek out crises. Crises benefit the State as an institution but also the people who work for it.
International Man: The COVID hysteria took the cynical concept of “never let a crisis go to waste” to a whole different level. Never before had the edicts of an unaccountable global institution like the World Health Organization (WHO) affected so many people in such drastic ways.
It seems the average person not only has to worry about local and federal bureaucrats affecting their well-being but also global ones.
What’s your take on this?
Doug Casey: Over the last century, the reach of the State has moved from a local, to a national, to now an international level. This is what the concept of globalism is all about.
The good news is that the bigger and more complex anything gets—including the movement towards globalism—the more inefficient, corrupt, and unwieldy it becomes. So perhaps the idea of globalism is getting big enough to self-destruct.
In the meantime, some of globalism’s and the State’s most effective minions are NGOs (non-governmental organizations). They are generally supported by private giving, often in estate planning. When people die, they often want to do something for the benefit of humanity. That’s an understandable emotion, although charity generally causes at least as many problems as it cures. I explain that in a previous conversation. Rich people particularly want to virtue signal since today’s society infuses them with guilt for their money. That, plus they naturally want shelter from taxes. So they give money to all kinds of NGOs. There are many thousands of them.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: control, Global Crises, Nation-State | Leave a Comment »
Property Ownership: The Ultimate Civil Liberty
Posted by M. C. on November 12, 2021
Former Congressman Ron Paul gave the tenth talk in our webinar “Restoring Our Civil Liberties.” Dr. Paul explains how without property rights, all other rights are impossible. Starting with the ultimate property right, the rights to one’s own body, to the sanctity of contracts, to the right of the people “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,” property rights are the fount from which liberty flows. View the rest of the lectures in this series here: https://www.fff.org/freedom-in-motion…
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Erie Times E-Edition Article-Millcreek Township updating its zoning code
Posted by M. C. on November 11, 2021
Government Central Planning. You follow their rules then a few years later everything changes and you get the hot poker. Those holding the government poker don’t feel the heat.
https://erietimes-pa-app.newsmemory.com/?publink=03cc45661_1345fcb
Dana Massing Erie Times-News USA TODAY NETWORK Greater flexibility and the filling of commercial vacancies in already developed areas are among the goals of an updated zoning code for Millcreek Township.
But some developers have concerns about what the ordinance could mean for retail space.
‘We’ve really looked at the entire township,’ Supervisor Dan Ouellet said Tuesday before a meeting at which the township Planning Commission was to hear public comment on the draft of the zoning ordinance.
Among proposed changes are that some commercial areas, such as along parts of West 26th Street and West Eighth Street, would become designated for multi use. Ouellet said this would allow for greater flexibility.
Supervisor Jim Bock said another goal of rewriting the ordinance was to try to find people and businesses to fill vacancies in areas that are already developed. He said, for example, that might mean something new moving into a location like the former Kmart plaza at West 26th Street and Sterrettania Road rather than expansion into undeveloped areas south of the Millcreek Mall.
But attorney Michael Agresti, who attended Tuesday’s meeting on behalf of clients who own property near Interchange Road, said the updated ordinance would ‘downzone’ those areas from commercial to multi use. He said those areas and ones along West 26th would go from greater uses to more restrictive ones and not allow for retail space unless under nonconforming status. He called the zoning ordinance ‘flawed’ and said it could be better.
Agresti said it would have an unintended consequence of lowering property values, which would affect the township tax base.
Other developers and residents also spoke at the Planning Commission meeting on topics including retail space and multi-family development, among others.
Agresti said he felt the commission was interested in hearing more about the concerns and having more discussion. He said some people think the zoning changes are being rushed and there shouldn’t be a hurry to vote on the ordinance.
‘Nothing is set in stone yet,’ Ouellet said before the meeting, adding that the process has been going on for a couple years and there is still time for members of the public to express an opinion.
The ordinance is expected to go before the Planning Commission again at its Dec. 7 meeting at 7 p.m., Ouellet and Bock said. Then it is expected to go to the supervisors for a public hearing and a vote at their Dec. 14 meeting at 7 p.m.
Information about the zoning ordinance, including links to the
211-page draft and a zoning map , can be viewed at http://www.millcreektownship.com/ 358/Zoning-Code-Update . Ouellet said the public can also submit comments there.
‘We look at all of them,’ he said.
Modernizing the township’s zoning code is part of the
Embrace Millcreek comprehensive plan . Its priority areas, according to the township website, are creating a distinctive and high-quality Gateway District to Presque Isle, strengthening neighborhood investment, positioning commercial corridors for adaptation and redevelopment, supporting business development, and promoting strong and sustainable stewardship of township infrastructure.
Contact Dana Massing at
Filling vacant properties, such as the former Kmart Plaza at West 26th Street and CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE/ERIE TIMES-NEWS
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Biden vaccine mandate needs whistleblowers – Erie Times
Posted by M. C. on November 11, 2021
East Germany reborn
“The government will rely on informers…”
https://erietimes-pa-app.newsmemory.com/?publink=187e733cb_1345fcb
Critics say informers often face retaliation
Paul Wiseman
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON – To enforce President Joe Biden’s forthcoming COVID- 19 mandate, the U.S. Labor Department is going to need a lot of help. Its Occupational Safety and Health Administration doesn’t have nearly enough workplace safety inspectors to do the job.
The government will rely on informers to identify violations of the order: employees who will presumably be concerned enough to turn in their own employers if their co-workers go unvaccinated or fail to undergo weekly tests to show they’re virus-free.
What’s not known is how many employees will be willing to accept some risk – or their job security – for blowing the whistle on their own employers. Without them, though, experts say the government would find it harder to achieve its goal of requiring tens of millions of workers at companies with 100 or more employees to be fully vaccinated by Jan. 4 or be tested weekly and wear a mask on the job.
“There is no army of OSHA inspectors that is going to be knocking on employers’ door or even calling them,” said Debbie Berkowitz, a former OSHA chief of staff who is a fellow at Georgetown University’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. “They’re going to rely on workers and their union representatives to file complaints where the company is totally flouting the law.”
Jim Frederick, the acting chief of OSHA, said his agency will focus on job sites “where workers need assistance to have a safe and healthy workplace. That typically comes through in the form of a complaint.”
Critics warn that whistleblowers have often faced retaliation from their employers and that OSHA has offered little protection when they do.
The new mandate, which Biden announced last week, is the administration’s most far-reaching step yet to prod more Americans to get a vaccine that has been widely available since early spring.
The mandate will cover an estimated 84 million employees.
Biden called the move necessary to combat an outbreak that has killed 750,000 Americans and continues to spread.
Companies that fail to comply will face fines of nearly $14,000 per “serious” violation. Employers found to be “willful” or repeat violators would be subject to fines of up to 10 times that amount.
The mandate has run into furious opposition, though, from leaders of mainly Republican-led states who have condemned the plan as an unlawful case of federal overreach and challenged the vaccine-or-test requirements in court. On Saturday, the Biden administration endured a setback when a federal appeals court in New Orleans temporarily halted the mandate, saying it posed “grave statutory and constitutional issues.”
Should the mandate survive legal challenges, the task of enforcing it would fall on OSHA, the small Labor Department agency that was established 50 years ago to police workplace safety and protect workers from such dangers as toxic chemicals, rickety ladders and cave-ins at construction sites.
OSHA has jurisdiction in 29 states. Other states, including California and Michigan, have their own federally approved workplace safety agencies. These states will have an additional month, until early February, to adopt their own version of the COVID-19 mandate, equal to or tougher than OSHA’s.
For a task as enormous as enforcing the new vaccine mandate, OSHA and its state “partners” are stretched thin.
Just 1,850 inspectors will oversee 130 million workers at 8 million job sites. So the agencies must rely on whistleblowers.
OSHA urges workers to first bring unsafe or unhealthy working conditions to the attention of their employers “if possible.”
Employees could also file a confidential safety complaint with OSHA or have a case filed by a representative, such as a lawyer, a union representative or a member of the clergy.
But they have no right to sue their employer in court for federal safety violations.
Typically, 20% to 25% of OSHA inspections originate with a complaint.
“You fill out a form or somebody fills out a form for you,” said Berkowitz, the former OSHA chief of staff. “And that’s all workers have. If OSHA decides not to inspect, that’s it. Or if OSHA inspects but decides not to cite the employer, that’s it. … So it’s a pretty weak law.”
Only OSHA can bring cases over violations of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, the law that is meant to provide safe workplaces.
The government will rely on informers to turn in their employers if their co-workers go unvaccinated or fail to undergo weekly tests. What’s not known is how many employees will be willing to accept the risk. NAM Y. HUH/AP FILE
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