Putin's Nukes ... and Appeasement

Concerning the fear-mongering and spirit of appeasement toward Putin based on Russia's nuclear stockpile and Putin's continuing threats to use them --

Why do you imagine/assume that Russia is capable of nuking *anyone*? Considering the atrocious maintenance of their conventional arms, does it really make rational sense that they did any better with the more expensive and more technical maintenance required for the nukes?

Assume that the Russian military have somehow managed to maintain 3/4 of their nukes in operational order. That's still a lot of nukes ... and thus really scary, right?

Well, maybe. WHICH 3/4 are operational? Unless the decision to let 1/4 become dudes was intentional, the Russian generals have no idea which ones are not dudes.

But, which is more likely -- that the Russian government intentionally scaled down maintenance to a select minority of the USSR's nukes, or that the Russian government *assumed* that the resources allocated to maintaining the entire stockpile were thus spent without corrupt "diversions" into the bank accounts of high-level officials?  That is, how likely is it that the corruption rampant in their conventional military is not also rampant on the nuclear side?

Now, we shouldn't be caviler about Putin's threats to use nukes, but neither should we cower or appease.

American Christianity ... and Current Year

When I hopped in the car to drive to the grocery store, I turned on the radio. It was tuned to a local "Christian" station, and the song linked below was playing.

This song is a perfect example of what is wrong with "Christianity" in present-day America. And, incidentally, if you understand what is wrong with this song, you may get a glimpse of why so many men won't go to church -- most churches in modern America are not preaching Life to the dying, but rather are aimed at endorsing the emotionalism of, and flattering the solipsism of, junior-high girls.

Listen to the words of this song, analyze the message being taught via this song -- whose ever gospel is bring preached, it isn't the Gospel of Christ.

Megan Woods - The Truth (Official Music Video)

Mossad ... and Equal Measures

You will see people asserting, with great pretense of knowledge, that Jeffery Epstein was a Mossad "asset", and that his criminal and immoral activities were done in furtherance of the interests of the State of Israel and in contradistinction to the interests of America.

Maybe this is so, I don't know either way. But, I *do* know, as a matter of reason, that Epstein could not have done what he did, nor for as long as he did, without the active protection of *American* "intelligence services".

So, here is my point -- when you see people blaming *Israel* for Epstein, and before any real evidence is in, but excusing America on the grounds that the CIA has "gone rogue", you can be assured that you are dealing with a Jew-hater, not a seeker of truth. And certainly not a Christian, for God requires us to judge with the same measure.

EDIT (2025/03/04):

Douglas Wilson: So Jeffrey Epstein Was a Jew . . .

Trump ... and His Ego

Look, I despise this corrupt little Ukrainian Ogre more than I can express. But, Trump is wrong (**) here (@ 3:20 mark in the first video) -- and the foolish Americans who are cheering Trump's behavior and/or accusing the little Ogre of threatening the US are ... well, fools (*).

Also, it's *really* rich of Trump ("This war would never have started had I been in office") to say to the Ogrette, "You don't know that". Hell! Anyone who knows anything about human beings "knows that".

The Buy-den maladministration *intentionally* gave Ukraine just enough military aid to drag out the war -- and to open up the sluice-gates of graft and corruption -- but not enough to win it. But now, rather than cleaning up the graft and corruption, and giving Ukraine the necessary aid, the Trump administration has decided to ratify the Putin regime's aggression ... and the end of the "post-war world order". The future is going to be bloody and ugly.

Maybe it already is too late for Ukraine ... but that case hasn't been made.

On the one hand, Trump is just doing what the fickle/bored American populace wants him to do. On the other, he *claims* to be a leader.

But, we all will pay a price for it, just as the Orge was trying to warn.

When the bill for this farce comes due, not one of the fools now cheering and laughing at Zelensky's humiliation is going to admit his own culpability in the horror then unleashed on us.

(*) 'fool' doesn't mean 'stupid', it means to behave *as though* one were stupid.  To call someone a 'fool' is to make a moral judgement about that person

(**) EDIT (2025/0303): At the time I saw the linked video and wrote this post, I hadn't seen what preceded Trump's reaction -- shame on me for falling for MSM selective "reporting".  Good night, but the nasty little Ogre was disrespectful!  Now, it's still true that Trump misinterpreted the Ogre's particular statement at that moment, but it's also true that by that point Trump was addressing the Ogre's performance of the entire past several minutes.

EDIT (2025/03/02): Here is a comment I saw elsewhere; I can agree with this --

"Zelensky essentially tried to guilt-trip Trump into taking the blame for what Obama and Biden did (or didn't do) in the past. Imagine trying to negotiate with this kind of attitude. Trump and Vance were having none of it."

DeVoryDarkins: Zelenskyy KICKED OUT of the White House after shouting match erupts

History Debumked: Why President Trump is determined to abandon Ukraine, and even withdraw from NATO

Commies ... and "Christian Nationalism"

Someone whom I have known for most of my life sent me a video clip of an advertisement for the leftist mockumentary "God and Country" with the assessment "ominous".  Below is my response; pray that it reaches his heart.
=====
I watched the clip, and my previous response was based on only what I heard the commie pretending to be a Christian say.  However, I had no idea what you thought is "ominous".  

But, after googling "God and Country", I think I understand -- you watch too much MSDNC, and they have you in a tizzy over something they are calling "Christian Nationalism" (*).  To put it another way, they have you in a tizzy over ... me.

If you'd care to *learn* something about what "Christian Nationalists" *really* say and aim for, might I suggest paying attention to Douglas Wilson.  He's a Calvinist and a pedobaptist, both of which I believe to be erroneous, but other than that, he's sound. 

"Blog & Mablog" is him reading the text of posts he writes for his "old-fashioned" written blog (also called "Blog and Mablog") -- YouTube search "Blog and Mablog"

"Cannon Press" is more a podcast, with guests and so forth -- Cannon Press (YouTube)

Also, Voddie Baucham is in the "Christian Nationalism" orbit -- Voddie Baucham SPEAKS UP About Trump, Wokeism, Growing Up Fatherless

(*) As best I understand it, it was the leftists/atheists who came up with the term "Christian Nationalism" -- both of which are boo-words to commies, and so doubly scary when paired -- and the people whom they were seeking to smear thereby decided that one name is as good as another, and so adopted it.

Oh SNAP! Yes, the Food Stamps program is corrupt

At the linked video timestamp, Matt Walsh is talking about the food stamp program, and specifically the recent Trump administration proposal to no longer allow junk food to be purchased with food stamps.  I'll bet you didn't know, Mr/Mrs Taxpayer, that *you* were being forced to pay for the junk food of "poor" people.

Here is a comment left below the video; it's utterly credible to me --
===

I’m a Veteran, disabled and a SNAP recipient. I clip cyber coupons and pay close attention to sales to stretch my SNAP allotments. I no longer have full use of my arms and hands and can’t stand up unassisted. I can purchase all of the candy, cakes and sodas as I desire but I can’t purchase a Rotisserie chicken because it’s cooked.
===

Here is another comment, and it accords with my experience delivering pizzas after I retired --

====

Matt, I do DoorDash on the side while I’m working towards my housing inspector license, and the overwhelming majority of the orders are coming in from housing projects and just the most dilapidated trailers in West Virginia that you can imagine. I decided to look it up today into my shock and horror found out that DoorDash does except snap and EBT cards as forms of payment. It’s not as if these people are ordering from the grocery store and having me deliver them a rotisserie chicken and bags of vegetables. I am delivering to them KFC or Pizza Hut and just about every type of crap food you can imagine. I feel more like a drug dealer than a food delivery driver.

====

And here is a personal anecdote from me --

As I may have mentioned a time or two, for about a year and a half (until I couldn't take any more of the Covid-19[84] bullshit) after I retired from IT, I took a low-paying job driving a wheel-chair van for a "medical transportation" company.  Most of the trips I made were to take very old, or very fat, wheel-chair bound people to their medical appointments.  

However, depending on which organization or program was paying for the service, some of the people were allowed two (or even more) non-medical trips per month.  So, I also frequently took people to church or to the grocery store.

Now, on some of those grocery store runs, one time for sure, after I had loaded the fellow and his purchase into the van, he called someone to *sell* that person the remainder of his food stamps.  I expect this happened at other times, but I directly overheard it that time.

Girlbossing the Airline Industry… Straight Into the Ground | Ep. 1540

Surrendering to Inflation (i.e "Rehome The Dollar")

According to the internet, US inflation since 1793 is such that the 1793 dollar is worth $31.88 in today's dollars. Or, put the other way, today's dollar is worth $0.031367 in 1793 dollars.

Important Message: Inflation is always and everywhere caused by governments.  The inexorable rise in prices for all goods and services does not cause inflation, but rather is the inescapable effect of inflation. It is the money supply that inflates (i.e. swells), not the prices.  

Governments cause inflation by creating money from nothing.  In prior ages, this was done by diluting the purity of the precious metals coinage, while insisting by deadly force that the populace treat the new coins as having the same monetary value as the old coins. In the modern world, this is done by printing more fiat notes ... or by flipping digital/virtual switches.

The reason that governments cause inflation is that they want to "live above their means" ... and because they control lethal force, they are able to do it. For a time (Hint: inflation eventually undermines, and then destroys, the governments causing it.)

(I know of only one historical exception to inflation being intentionally caused by government. And that is the 17th century inflation in Spain, and eventually all or Europe, caused by the massive and sudden influx of New World gold and silver into the European economy.)

You young'uns won't have experienced this, but at one time, our dimes, quarters and silver dollars were actually made of solid silver.  And, get this: our pennies were actually made of solid copper.  

Ah, the good old days! But, now to the point of this post.

It's in the news recently that the DOGE team are recommending cessation of minting pennies, as now it costs more than two cents to mint each cent.  This sort of recommendation is not new: it has periodically been floated for most of my adult life. The reason that the penny is no longer made of copper was to put this day off, to "kick the can down the road."

Because -- due to the nature of governments -- inflation is inexorable, it is inevitable that all US coinage will eventually be eliminated.  And, truth be understood, the world-wide push by the globalists to implement CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) is aimed at eliminating all physical money... and, importantly, at better controlling the tax milch-cows.

But, I have a radically different suggestion: rather than eliminating the penny (and eventually all the coinage), why not "rehome" the dollar?  Since our US currency is decimal, rather than surrendering to inflation in the typical manner, why not manage the surrender in the opposite direction, by shifting the decimal point?  That is, why not spend 2025 preparing for January 1, 2026 (*), at which time all physical dollar bills and digital dollars will be re-valued as $0.10 in "new" dollars?  The way I envision this, we'll "save the coinage" by maintaining the current nominal value for all then existing coins. 

Yes, this would mean that if someone happened to have coins with a nominal of $1000 lying around the house, those coins would then be worth $10,000 in terms of today's money. But, remember that we have already surrendered to inflation: trying to "solve" the problem is going to be messy, and is going to benefit some people more than others, no matter what we do.  The "typical" way of dealing with inflation always benefits the politically-connected, intentionally.  If my suggestion benefits anyone, it's unintentional/undirected, and is generally a relatively minor benefit ... and mostly will go to the non-rich for a change. 

By the way, Israel did something similar in 1986, but at the ratio of 1000:1, rather than 10:1 as I suggest.

(*) Or, for the symbolic value of it, and to allow more time to prepare, on July 4, 2026.

There Is No "THE Supreme Court"

Sean Davis is off to a good start ... but hasn't yet freed his mind of the judicial supremacy (*) lies we all were taught in civic class.

1) There is no such thing as "THE Supreme Court" --

The Constitution uses the adjectives "supreme" and "inferior"(Note: capitalization as per the Constitution) to distinguish the singular highest-level court from the multiplicity of lower-level courts which the Congress may establish from time to time;

1a) That is, what we mistakenly call "THE Supreme Court" is "supreme" only with respect to the lower/inferior courts;

2) Except for some explicitly enumerated sorts of cases reserved to the high court, the jurisdiction of *all* the federal courts, including the high court, can be expanded, or curtailed, as the Congress sees fit;

2a) Far from establishing "3 co-equal branches of government" (*), the Constitution *actually* establishes the federal courts as creatures of Congress.

(*) The "3 co-equal branches of government" claim is a lie invented by lawyers to disguise their judicial supremacy power-grab.

There is a Fourth Metaphysic

 It's amazing, or at least amusing, the lengths to which people will go to try to hide from God, to avoid admitting: "God is god, and I am not."

Quoting the beginning of the video: "If you look at the three main metaphysical option on the table today, all three of them have a problem. In two of them, that problem is insoluble; in one of them, you can solve it, if you understand time. ..."

So, it seems to me that *his* "solution" to the "hard problem of consciousness" is to assert, "I am God."

Yet, there is at least a fourth "main metaphysical option", which he leaves unmentioned and unexamined, and it doesn't have the problems he needs to solve: it is commonly called "theism", and it is fundamental to Christianity and Judaism. Also, it does not require us to contradict our own direct experience. Under "theism", the "fundamental mind" creates other, distinct minds. Thus, under "theism": you are you and not I; I am I and not you; and neither of us is God.

EDIT:

Understand, there is no such thing as 'consciousness' unless there is at least one actually existing entity which is conscious. That is, there is no such thing as free-floating 'consciousness'.

Moreover, the 'consciousness' which is the "hard problem of consciousness" is *human* consciousness, that is, personhood. Consider: a banana slug is 'conscious', but the consciousness of banana slugs doesn't even begin to explain the reality of persons.

Materialism, Panpsychism and Idealism ALL Have a Problem

A Counterfactual: US Citizenship, according to the Democrats --

An alternate history thought-experiment:

On December 8, 1941, the Empire of Japan invaded and occupied the US territory of Hawaii. During the following months, Japan stationed 100,000 soldiers and sailors in the islands, along with 5,000 Japanese civilian administrators.

At the time of the hard-fought US Liberation of Hawaii on July 4, 1944, there were living in Hawaii:
- 33,000 Japanese POWs;
- 4,000 Japanese civilian former administrators;

- 6,000 dependents of those civilian former administrators;

- including 1,000 who had been born in Hawaii.

According to the logic of the Democrats concerning the 14th Amendment, those 1000 Japanese children born in Hawaii are US citizens, and are not merely US citizens, but are indeed natural born US citizens, and thus eligible to be US President in about 35 years. And, moreover, they and their parents cannot be repatriated to Japan, For, after all, they were born in the de jure territory of the USA, irrespective of the illegality of their mothers being in US territory at the times of their births.

Obviously, this is absurd.

Likewise, the Democrats' assertion about "birthright citizenship" for "anchor babies" is absurd.

"No" to Civil War 2.0

Look, if California Dems want to secede from the Union, and they are able to convince the citizens (and not to be forgotten: the non-citizen voters) to go along with that suicidal move, it is their right to do so, despite the lie we all were taught in civics class since the falsely-named Civil War.

California Dems like to boast that if California were an independent nation-state, they would have the 5th-largest economy in the world. What they overlook is that California's economy is as large as it *precisely* because California is a State in the USA. As an independent nation-state, their economy would quickly contract.

Also -- and I'd bet you that the Dems haven't thought of this -- IF California were to secede from the US ... which is the state's right to do ... THEN the USA no longer has an obligation to send Colorado River water to California. And, without that water, California's economy would collapse.

California Woman Sent to Prison Over Chinese Birth Tourism Scheme

I have written about "Chinese Birth Tourism" (i.e. Communist Chinese "anchor babies") as it relates to natural born citizenship before, noting that the US federal government prosecutes and imprisons persons who organize or facilitate such "birth tourism".  This post will focus on the absurdity of the leftist pretense that "anchor babies" are indeed US citizens.

The linked article reports that a "California woman" and her husband, who had "helped pregnant Chinese women travel to the United States to give birth so that their children would have automatic United States citizenship", were "both convicted of conspiracy and money laundering".  

Obviously -- definitionally -- if the US federal government is prosecuting, convicting, and imprisoning the organizers of "birth tourism" schemes on conspiracy charges, then it is the "birth tourism" itself which is the underlying crime at issue.  I mean, really! Literally everyone knows that only Donald Trump can be prosecuted for "conspiracy" to not commit a crime.

Think about this -- the (pregnant) Chinese women who make use of these (illegal) "birth tourism" schemes are in the US legally when they give birth.  Is giving birth in the US illegal?  Is giving birth in the US when one is not a US citizen illegal?  Obviously, the answer to both questions is a resounding "No".  So then, where is the illegality?  It is in trying to steal US citizenship for one's child (and thereby benefit oneself in the future). IF -- as the Democrats and other leftists assert -- the 14th Amendment mandates that *all* persons born in US territory (*) are by that mere fact US citizens, irrespective of the citizenship and legal status of the parent(s), THEN prosecuting the persons who facilitate those births is absurd.

As explained below (*), despite the 14th Amendment, until 1924, and even though born in US territory, and even though born to parents who likewise had been born in US territory, most American Indians were not US citizens because their parents were not citizens/subjects of the US sovereignty, but rather were citizens/subjects of different sovereignties; to wit: their tribal nations.

Now, IF the US Constitution did not extend US citizenship to American Indians or the children of American Indians -- to a class of persons who had for many generations been resident within the territory of the USA -- due to the fact that their parents were not already US citizens, THEN how can the Democrat/leftist assertion that the Constitution automatically confers US citizenship on the child of someone who had crossed the border five minutes ago possibly be true?  It is absurd!

Consider what is more typically meant by the term "anchor baby". There are two classes --

1) Those born to non-citizen parents who are in the US legally. This includes such persons as Barack Obama -- allegedly born in the US, with no real proof given, to a non-citizen father -- and Marco Rubio, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Kamala Harris;

2) Those born to non-citizen parents who are on the US illegally. This is currently the more numerous class, and the more contentious, as the Democrats and other leftists aim to use them to cheapen the value of US citizenship, and hope to use them to cement in permanent leftist control of the US government;

The Democrats and other leftists assert that the US Constitution confers US citizenship on the two classes of persons noted above. And moreover, they assert that the Constitution confers not mere citizenship, but natural born citizenship (which, as Mrs Olson says of Folger's Coffee, is "the richest kind").

But, as the examples of both the prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment of those who facilitate "birth tourism", and of the citizenship status of American Indians show, the leftists are wrong. They are, in fact, lying.

If, despite the criminal prosecutions of those who facilitated such "birth tourism" births, the children born in the US to "citizens" of Communist China are indeed US citizens, why does the US government allow their mothers to take them back to China, to a life of slavery in-all-but-name and life-long indoctrination in hatred of America?

Or what? Does the act of trying to steal US citizenship for one's child (and thus to benefit oneself in the future) become a crime only if one has "conspired" with and paid money to a third party, such that those who "free-lance" it to drop an "anchor baby" get a pass (and get the citizenship)?

=======

(*) I have also mentioned this fact before (though perhaps not in a post on this blog) -- 

After ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868, and after the US supreme (**) Court's 1898 Kim Wong Ark ruling (which Democrats and leftists love to misrepresent), most American Indians *still* were not US citizens until passage of the "Indian Citizenship Act of 1924".

This is the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment --

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

Notice that the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment does not explicitly deny US citizenship to (most) American Indians.  And yet, they were not extended US citizenship either by the 14th Amendment itself nor by the supreme Court's Kim Wong Ark ruling.

Clearly, the 14th Amendment's Citizenship Clause does not mean what the Democrats and other leftists like to assert that it means.  Here is the Wickedpedia article's introductory paragraph on the Act --

The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, (43 Stat. 253, enacted June 2, 1924) was an Act of the United States Congress that declared Indigenous persons born within the United States are US citizens. Although the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that any person born in the United States is a citizen, there is an exception for persons not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the federal government. This language was generally taken to mean members of various tribes that were treated as separate sovereignties: they were citizens of their tribal nations.

Attend to this: (most) American Indians -- even if born in US territory and even 56 years after ratification of the 14th Amendment -- were not US citizens because their parents were not citizens/subjects of the US sovereignty, but rather were citizens/subjects of different sovereignties.

So, since the US Constitution did not extend US citizenship to (most) American Indians, how is it that they became US citizens in 1924 by a mere Act of Congress? By the fact that the Constitution reserves to Congress the power to "establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization". That is, the "Indian Citizenship Act of 1924" is a naturalization law: the US Congress enacted a law stating that all non-citizen American Indians were thenceforth naturalized US citizens, and thus that their (US-born) descendants would be natural born US citizens.

Clearly, the right to claim US citizenship is not merely a matter of 'jus soli' ("right of soil"). That is, it isn't merely the fact of being born on US soil which confers US citizenship. 

Similarly, the right to claim US citizenship is not merely a matter of 'jus sanguinis' ("right of blood"). That is, one is not a US citizen merely because one's parents (note the plural) are US citizens -- it is for this reason that children born overseas to US citizen parents are not accorded US citizenship unless their parent(s) with US citizenship submit requisite paperwork as established by US naturalization law before the child's 18th birthday.

(**) "supreme Court" capitalization as per the US Constitution.

California Woman Sent to Prison Over Chinese Birth Tourism Scheme

Yes, The 19th Amendment Was a Mistake

The *reason* that some of the Western frontier States enacted female suffrage years/decades before the (evil) so-called Progressives convinced the country as a whole to enact female suffrage was that those frontier States had a lot of unmarried men ... who sometimes had political interests divergent from the interests of married men. THAT IS, female suffrage was initially enacted to double the political power of married men *as a class* over and against the political power of single man *as a class*.

And, of course, once the (evil) Progressives got their mitts on the levers of political power, the purpose of female suffrage became to convince women *as a class* that their interests diverged from the interests of men, and specifically from the interests of those men who have a vested interest in the *individual* welfare of those women: their fathers and husbands.

EDIT: At the same time, the 17th Amendment -- direct election of US Senators -- was a worse mistake than the 19th. And the 16th Amendment -- i.e. the one which established the principle that the US government *owns* your income (and thus owns you) -- was worse yet. Essentially, *all* the "Progressive Era" amendments had the effect of shrinking the citizen while growing the government.

The 19th Amendment Was A MISTAKE, Timcast Crew DEBATES Women Voting

On "Political Capital" ... and Self-Fulfilling Prophesies

So many political careers become ensnared by the concept -- probably invented by "political consultants" (*) -- of "political capital", often to the point of fecklessness: "I dare not do anything the voters really want, if powerful interests don't want it, lest it cost me 'political capital' and leave me unable to do something the voters really want/"  The zero-sum nature of  "political capital" becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Now, while Trump 1.0 *did* do some of the important things Trump ran on doing, in the end, that administration was stymied by a combination of traitors within and the fear of expending  "political capital".

But, so far at least, Trump 2.0 is showing us that "political capital" doesn't have merely to be expended in a zero-sum exercise, but that it can also be invested, so as to increase one's "political capital".

(*) Political consultant -- an expert at siphoning money from political campaigns into his own bank account.

About that fat, lesbian DEI assistant fire chief in LA

The first part of her now-viral self-celebration is standard-issue leftist "woke" and DEI identity politics bullshit.

The second part -- "[To] which my response is, 'He [i.e. your husband] got himself in the wrong place, if I have to carry him out of a fire.'" -- is what I want to focus on.

While many people on the internet are rightly outraged at her clear admission that she *knows* she cannot even hope to perform the most important part of the job, what everyone seems to be missing is that it goes deeper than that: into the differences between the psychology of women in contrast to that of men. Sure, she's a short, fat "butch" lesbian ... but she's still a woman, and the attitude she expresses -- "It ain't my problem, Jack!" -- is standard-issue female mindset.

Aside from the physical fact that women are smaller and weaker than men, and thus cannot meet the physical requirements to successfully perform the duties of police, firefighter, or military, is the psychological fact that women do not have the mindset necessary for those functions.

TimPool: INSANE Firefighter DEI Video GOES VIRAL Amid LA Wildfire Scandal

Corporate Hypocrisy ... and Cowardice

Background: 

I used to spend a lot of money every year (*) at Menard's, but now I go there *only* as a last resort, when I can't find what I want at Lowe's or Home Depot, despite that I know I can often find better prices at Menard's.  In just December of 2024, I spent at least $3000 between Lowe's and Home Depot ... this is money that at one time would have gone almost exclusively to Menard's.

And the *reason* that Menard's no loner gets my custom is because they went full covid-nazi during the Covid-19[84] plandemic -- at both the store in Mansfield and South Bend, employees followed me around and harassed me because I wasn't wearing a face-diaper, and one threatened to "call security".

Today:

Today, I went to Menard's (in part, because my hatred of that corporation *was* weakening ... but, it's back in full force, now).  Now, it says right on the front door: "No pets allowed / Service Animals Welcome", and yet, there were people inside dragging around dogs that clearly are not service animals.

So, I asked to speak to the manager to express my frustration at the discrepant treatment of actual human beings compared to animals which don't even belong in public spaces.

The manager's rationale was: 

1) "This is private property, so we can require you to wear a [euphemism for 'face-diaper]."

2) "Following the HIPAA law, I can ask if it's a service animal, and if the person says 'Yes', I can't further enquire, lest I get sued."

Dewd! What about my HIPAA right to not be suffocated because you're too cowardly and/or lazy to apply your mind to biological knowledge you ought to have understood by the time you were 12 years old?

Now, one will also see idiots bringing dogs into Lowe's, but Lowe's doesn't pretend to prohibit "non-service animal pets" on the premises.

(*) Based only on what I charged explicitly to the Menard's credit card, in the years 2017-2020, I spent an average of $1733 per year there.  The average would have been higher had not 2020 been the year I stopped shopping there.   Since then, I doubt that I spend an average of $100 per year with that corporation..

A Working 1st-floor Bathroom

My sister, Karen, came over from Indiana for a week to goad me into getting some work done on my house.  One of our projects was getting the downstairs bath operational again.  I still have some detail finish work to do, including re-surfacing the tub. This is what the room looked like as of New Year's Day -- 

This bathroom had been a "junk room" for many years, ever since one winter day when a cold draft coming through gaps in the old dry-stone foundation froze the supply line to the toilet and caused the shut-off valve to disconnect from the line. Fortunately, I was home when it thawed, and so I was able to shut off the water in the basement before too much flooding occurred.

Yes, I used a windowed door for this room -- I wanted more natural light to be able to reach the interior/central hall from which one accesses the foyer, the living room, this bath, the "front room", and the stairway.

You might notice the two rust-stains on the door-jamb to the left (fortunately, they will be hidden under the door-stop trimwork).  That is from a massive water-damage event several years ago when the supply-line to one of the sinks in the second-floor masterbath froze and burst due to raccoons getting into the lower attic and ripping out a lot of insulation.  I was out of town when it thawed (at the time, I worked a 2+ hour drive from home) -- every room in the house, but two, suffered water damage.