So, What's Up With Candace Owens?

I used to catch the Addisons (in the linked video) on the radio when I was driving a lot more than I do now.

Lately, many people (*) are asking, "What has happened to Candace Owens?"

So, what *has* happened to Candace Owens? In a word: Catholicism. To be a bit more precise, much as leftists in general, "right-wing" Catholics tend to imbibe Jew-hatred. Obviously, not all do, but it is a general tendency. Also, as a convert to Catholicism, it's not at all surprising that she is going to start trying to equate Protestantism with Satanism.

(*) Though, Bob Parks is probably not asking that question, as he never trusted her "conversion" from leftism to conservatism was genuine.

Shock: Candace Owens believes Protestantism is rooted in Satanism

The Food Stamp [Recipients] Are Officially Out Of Control

The title of Matt Walsh's linked video is "The Food Stamp Influencers On TikTok Are Officially Out Of Control", but I like my version of it better.

At the start of my 10th grade year, so more than 50 years ago, my father was laid up for months due to a broken hip(*). Then, less than a year and a half later (**), he was laid up again with the *other* hip broken.  

SO, for a while, my family relied on Food Stamps -- and it was damned embarrassing, it was shame-inducing.  Once I was old enough to have a part-time job, when I had the money to do so, I'd buy the family groceries with my own money and return the food stamps unspent to my mother, just to avoid the embarrassment of pulling the damned things out in public.  I also planted a garden in the back yard to grow some of our food.

But, as I said, that was 50+ years ago; and my, how times have changed.  These days, people *boast* about being government dependents (***), living as wards of Big Momma Government, rather than as functioning adults; people *boast* about using their vote to install politicians and bureaucrats who loot you and me to subsidize themselves (meaning, both the voters and the voted-for).

(*) As he was crossing the street -- legally, in the cross-walk, with the crossing-light -- a young woman stopped at the intersection, distracted by arguing with her boyfriend, must have slipped her foot off the brake.  Anyway, she rolled forward, struck my father, and his hip broke.

(**) He was heading downtown on foot one winter day, As he passed the spot where a building had been demolished the previous summer, he stepped on a piece of ice-covered busted-up sidewalk that hadn't been fixed after the demolition, and down he went.

(***) I recently saw a video clip of a couple of fat lesbians (one of whom pretends to be a man), boasting about free-loading off you and me.  The one literally called herself "professionally disabled" -- that is, she's on welfare because she "can't" work to support herself -- and added that "he" (i.e. the other lesbian) is "paid to take care of me" -- that is, she is enrolled in another type of government-run welfare-scam to fleece you and me for the benefit primarily of the bureaucrats and secondarily of their clientele. 

I recently saw another clip of a woman bitching because she could no longer use the EBT card to pay to have her nails done. Horror of horrors, she had to use "her own money" to pay for the utterly useless and pointless nails.  Or, as she lamented, "Now, how am I going to pay the rent?"

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In America, "poor people" aren't "poor" primarily because they have no money, but because of their own choices: either to not work and earn money in the first place, or to frivolously waste what money they do acquire. In America, being "poor" is a choice.  In America, most "poor people" are "poor" because they are damned lazy.

Matt Walsh: The Food Stamp Influencers On TikTok Are Officially Out Of Control

"The Homeschoolers Who Proved That School Is a Waste of Time"

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"Of course, there are disadvantages to homeschooling, too. If enough people do it, tattoo artists, body-piercing parlors, drug dealers, and abortionists may go out of business."
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Also, contrary to their constant whining, teachers are NOT underpaid. Moreover, these days, even the somewhat normal ones, the ones who aren't trying to recruit you children into sexual perversion, tend to be idiots.

I wasn't home-schooled, but three years of my schooling (8th-10th grades) was comparable to home-schooling. And, if not for those three years of absence from the government-union run indoctrination centers, I know that I would not have finished high school, much less college. By the way, overnight, I went from being a "C- student" to being a "straight A student" (and this was without "grade inflation").

The final straw (*) occurred when I was in 7th grade, and the principal told my father, "We don't need students like your son in our school", and my father decided, "You know, I think I agree that my children don't need to be in your school.". You see, I had dared to fight back against a kid who bullied me daily. And worse, I had dared to "call out" a teacher who was refusing to protect an unpopular kid from a mob of "vibrant youth", a few of whom intended to beat the shit out of him (**), and the others to watch and laugh at his pain and injury.

So, my father found places for us for the next school-year in a Seventh-Day Adventist school (we are not Adventists). This wasn't cheap. Or, rather, it *was* cheap, but it was also a *huge* portion of the family income (as I recall, the first year cost $1000 for the four of us).

This is how I think that that "religious" schooling was somewhat comparable to home-schooling: Each class was actually two grades, combined (1/2, 3/4, 5/6, 7/8, 9/10). Other than the 9th and 10th grades, a single teacher taught the combined classes: sometimes the two grades received the same lesson, but usually one grade had "study hall" while the other had active instruction, all in the same room. As I mentioned, I went from being a "C- student" in 7th grade, to being a "straight A student" in 8th grade. Moreover, I not only had time -- while at school -- to do all my school-work, but I also had free time to do what interested me. What interested me was history, and without knowing what it was, during that free time I read the entire history book that would be the text in 9th grade history class.

(*) Mind you, this was 55+ years ago. The public schools have been shit for a very ling time.

(**) You've surely seen some of the recent videos of gangs of "vibrant youth" knock someone to the ground and then kick the defenseless person in the head . This behavior is not new.

Selwyn Duke: The Homeschoolers Who Proved That School Is a Waste of Time

"They" Don't Need to Keep You Down; You're Doing Fine By Your Own Efforts

Open letter to the American people --

Times are tough, everyone agrees: a person just can't get ahead. Rent, food, gass: everything is just so expensive.

That's why --

You are still smoking (of either/or sort) and drinking. Frequently.

You sit in your car -- sometimes for hours -- with the engine running, so that the A/C can be on ... as you doom-scroll on your phone.

You have the latest cell phone for every member of the family, including the children, with associated *monthly* costs. Oddly, you almost never use those phones to actually *talk* to anyone.

Every year, you spend hundreds of dollars you don't have "doing" Christmas. After all, you "deserve" it.

You also spend a small fortune to have a personal fireworks show, possibly for several nights running.

You insist on taking an expensive vacation every year.

You simply must have your "weave" and claws and spider-lashes, and the nails of your fingers and toes must be artistically painted. To say nothing of the expensive "product" with which you slather your face.

How  many hundreds or dollars, if not thousands, have you thrown away defacing your body with tattoos and piercings?

You eat "fast food", daily ... and pay someone an outrageous amount of money to deliver it to you. Someone could make a fortune offering to shovel it into your gullet for a price.

If you *do* happen to have a "home-cooked" meal, it was made of pre-packaged ultra-processed "convenience foods", rather than of basic ingredients that you could have purchased for a fraction of the cost.

I could go on and on; but the wise have already got the message, and those who haven't never will.

My point is this -- whether or not "THEY" are conspiring to "keep you down", they really don't need to: you do a fine job of that all on your own.

Is Big Organ About to Face a Reckoning?

On this dusty little blog, I've been linking for years to news reports of "dead" people "waking up" as they were about to be chopped for parts. I long ago became one of the "conspiracy theorists" who understands that Big Organ is as corrupt, if not more so, as any other "Big 'X'" industry.

I will never consent to be either an organ donor nor a recipient, for the incentive structure in Big Organ is just to perverse: I don't want to be murdered to "save" another's life, nor do I want another to murdered to "save" mine (*).

Besides which, how awful must it be to spend the rest of your life as, in effect, a drug-addict to anti-rejection drugs? Not only is the organ transplant procedure a big money-maker for Big Hospital, but so too is the life-long prescription for immune-suppression drugs -- and the drugs to fight the subsequent infections -- a big money-maker for Big Pharma.

Always remember, and never forget: Big Medicine is not in the business of curing sick people, they are in the business of "treating disease" ... and a cured patient is a missed profit.

(*) ps: My life has already been saved by the murder of Christ; that's sufficient.

Matt Walsh: Man Is Almost Sacrificed In The Name Of Organ Donation

Matt Christiansen: RFK Jr. and HHS Investigate Botched Organ Harvesting | Whoops, They’re Still Alive

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

(click on photos for a larger image)

As I mentioned in the last post, thanks to prodding by my sister, Karen -- and her active help in doing the work -- I have finally started the much-needed project of re-siding my house.  In the last post, I focused on the easiest part of the project: re-siding what remains as exterior of the east wall and gable of the original structure. This post is about the west wall of the house: half being original and half being the 1930s addition to the house.

First, a couple of photos to illustrate just why residing the house (and especially the west wall) is so necessary.

As I'd said in the last post, part of the problem is that the wood siding I had installed in about 1990 wasn't the best quality wood -- what is, these days? And part of the problem is due to a mistake I made in installing it.   We see the result here: rotted wood -- my attempt the forestall this very problem actually contributed to causing it.

This photo was taken after we had ripped off about half the siding of this "bay".  This "bay" is part of the original structure, which was three rooms at ground and two rooms above.The (barely visible) "bay" to the right is part of the 1930s addition to the house.. 

The sunburst in the gable is from a demolished house, as are the pillars on the porch (not visible in this photo). The octagonal window and cedar shingles below the sunburst are my doing from about 1990. The triple window (for the kitchen) is also my doing (as are all the windows); when I bought the house, the original window in the kitchen had been replaced with one not much larger than the octagonal window.

This photo shows the start of re-siding this "bay". The white board above the foundation is a 1x12 PVC board -- expensive, but impervious to water. I'll run a band like this all around the foundation.  To be honest, it's strictly for appearance, as a visual "base" of the walls. 

The vertical 1x12s, on the other hand, which divide the walls into "bays", are not just visual, but also serve the purpose of allowing me to cover/protect nearly all the joints in the siding from weather/water.  The siding boards are 12' long, and fit between the vertical 1x12s; then I install a vertical 1x3 at the two sides of the vertical 1x12 to cover the ends of the siding.  Only on the front room (which is 20' wide) and the south wall of the dining room and master bedroom (which are 16' wide) will I have exposed joints in the siding in the expanses below the windows.

 

This photo, taken from the south-west corner of the house, shows the west wall with the new siding and trim up, as yet unpainted. I decided to forego painting it just yet as I wanted to move the scaffolding to allow us to install siding on the south wall of the sun-room (recall, that wall is in effect on the third floor). Even with the two of us, it took several hours to raise the five levels of scaffolding necessary to work on the sun-room south wall.

 And from the north-west.

As the west wall of the house gets the worst of the weather, I decided to build "false roofs" over the kitchen and dining room windows to divert some of the rainwater away from them.

The to-do list for this side of the house is:

1) install soffits under the "false roofs";

2) build/install the window treatments for the kitchen and dining room windows;

3) decide how I'm going to finish that bedroom dormer;

4) paint it all

This photo, taken from the south-west corner, shows the south wall of the house ... or rather, of the "main" part of the house -- there is a whole house-sized extension to the north-east. To the left, at ground-level, the basement door. Above that, dining room windows. To the right, living room windows. To the right, a covered patio (I originally intended it to be open to the sky, but I eventually roofed it, fearing that freezing water in the substrate would over time destroy the retaining-wall). Above the dining room is the master bedroom -- Yes! I still use that term. And to the right of that is the sun-room.

When I bought the house, where the sun-room is now was just a flat roof above the 1930s extension of the living room. I turned what had been a small bedroom and a small bathroom and hallway into the master bedroom (12x16), and replaced a small door which had opened from the hall to that flat roof with a large sliding-glass patio-door.  I thought, "Great! I have a private patio off my bedroom!" However, water always finds a way, and a few years later, water dripping from the roof above was leaking in at the patio-door. And that is why I built the sun-room ... which also has a flat roof, but it's tied into other roofs, rather than abutting walls, as the 1930s flat roof had,

I didn't have scaffolding when I installed the old wood siding in about 1990. What I had was two ladders -- of different lengths, and thus often different angles when extended -- and ladder-jacks, with a 2x12 bridging the gap. Can you imaging how much fun it was to install the siding above the master bedroom window?

 

Maintenance-free ... Or, at any rate, Better Weather Protection

UPDATED, showing almost completed result (click on photos for a larger image)..

I'm finally re-siding my house, which I have needed to do for several years -- the wood siding I installed about 1990 wasn't good quality, and, frankly, I made mistakes in installing it. So, sections of the siding, especially the west wall, were badly deteriorated.  

The biggest drawback to starting this project sooner was that I wanted the result to look much like the house's original look, but the nearest I could get was in vinyl ,,, and I detest vinyl (*) . The house's original siding is a style/design called "Dutch lap".  After I removed the (badly deteriorated) Masonite, which had probably been installed in the 1960s, I re-sided with pine "Dutch lap". Other than the knots showing through the paint, I was pleased with the result ... for a while. But, as I said, it wasn't high-quality siding, and I had incorporated a design flaw which allowed water damage.

The siding product I have finally settled on, after much resistance, is a cement/composite clapboard siding. I was able to get a smooth version of it; that is, without the fake "cedar grain" surface such as they sell at Lowe's.  Naturally, the smooth product that what I want costs more than that with the "cedar grain". Other than the original wood soffit/fascia at the roofline, I'll replace all the trimwork with boards made of PVC. Once painted, it will look look wood.

This first photo is of what is left of the east side of the original house.  By that I mean that my "great room" addition extends to the east of the original house, leaving only this bit of the second floor gable still expose to the sky.  This gable is my favorite of all of them -- I love how the cedar shingles and window-frame I installed in 1990 turned out. But, unless one is standing on roof of the "great room", the gable really isn't visible.

One of my sisters (Karen) volunteered to help me reside the house; that's what motivated me to finally decide on a product and start the project.  She took this photo of my progress as of her arrival in Mansfield last Friday noon.  

Because of the "great room" addition, there wasn't much tear-off to do on this wall: just a bit of siding below the frieze, the frieze itself, and the window frame (except for the top treatment, as the cedar shingles were cut and installed around that).  The sort of taupe-colored siding to the left of the window is the new (unpainted) cement-board siding. The body of the house will be painted to the color of these cedar shingles; the cedar shingles in the gables will be a lighter grey (I painted these with the body's color to see what an expanse of this color would look like; the trim will be a yellow close to what it now is.

 

 

 

The first photo was taken on Friday (June 27). This second photo was taken on Sunday. I think. There is a bit more detailing to do, and of course, the painting.  The trim which is yellow in this photo is either original to the house, or, in the case of the window frame header, what I had made in 1990. The trim which is still white is the new trim made of PVC.  The still-raw wall to the left of the photo (above the original gable) is part of the "sun room" addition.

It has been terribly hot and humid (and raining!) since my sister arrived, so we're moving slowly.  With this being to the east, we could work on this area only a couple of hours in the morning and then in the afternoon once some shade had developed.

 

 

 

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(*) Why do I detest vinyl siding? It's not the fact that it's vinyl which I detest, but rather the way it's manufactured, and intended to be installed, and that it tends to provide a foothold for the growth of algae (and I have enough problem with that).

 

1) Properly maintained wood siding does not show wood-grain; but vinyl siding is made with an ugly and pointless faux "wood-grain" ... which just happens to provide a convenient home for algae to anchor itself in.  Why do you think you see so many 'nice" houses with a hideous green film down their sides?

2) Vinyl siding is hollow, and it shows from a mile away.  Now, IF they would cover a solid wood or composite substrate with a vinyl coating -- smooth, of course, no faux "wood-grain" -- I'd have no complaints about vinyl siding.

3) Because vinyl siding is hollow, separate pieces don't butt together, but rather one overlaps the other. And it shows (from a mile away).  This "feature" also provides a convenient access for high winds to rip the siding off an entire wall.

 

4) Because of the way vinyl siding is designed and intended to be installed, there is a high probability that water will get between the siding an the structure.  

 

Water is the great enemy of buildings; well, water and the myth of "maintenance-free"  When I first bought the house, I had to rebuild an entire wall because water had gotten behind the Masonite siding which had been installed at some point with the (false) promise that it would make the house "maintenance-free".

UPDATE (2025/07/14):

This is almost finished result of the re-working of the east bedroom gable, after I decided on the color to paint the gable's cedar shingles (the color in this photo isn't the best: the blue of the cedar shingles is indeed a "deep" color, but it's also "vibrant" -- Ah! The color does show better in the "expanded" view). I still need to scrape and repaint the original-to-the-house soffit and fascia; that won't get done any time soon.

Finally, here is a wider view, also showing the east wall of the sun-room addition. I still have to build the window framing/treatment for both walls of the sun-room.

We managed to install siding on both exterior walls of the sun-room.  I use the word "manage" because the (unseen) south wall is in effect on the third floor, as the basement floor is grade-level on the south side of the house.  We had to put up five levels of scaffolding to be able to work on the south wall.

Lest you think that this is all we accomplished during the two weeks my sister was here, I'll make another post showing how/where most of our time was spent.

 

The Fabulist, Gad Saad, Complains About Being Called a Fabulist

Gad Saad @6:35 mark of the video linked below ("What Science Tells Us About ..."): "... and so, evolu.. You see what I mean? And so it's [evolutionism] just incredible. And this is what frustrates me so much, by the way, about the people who hate evolutionary theory. Because the amount of exquisite scientific explanations and predictions that evolution offers is so bafflingly great; and yet people accuse us of just engaging in 'Just-So' story-telling.  It's really galling."

People accuse evolutionists of "just engaging in 'Just-So' story-telling" because that is exactly what they do. Evolutionists, especially of the Darwinist stripe, observe some fact in the world ... and then "explain" it with what literally *is* a 'Just-So' story.  It doesn't matter to the evolutionist that his "explanation" doesn't make sense in light of general human knowledge/belief; it doesn't matter to the evolutionist that his "explanation" implicitly reifies and deifies evolution, attributing foresight and planning to 'Evolution!'. Hell! It doesn't even matter to the evolutionist that his "explanation" contradicts basic premises of "evolutionary theory".

To the best of my knowledge, it was the late Australian philosopher, David Stove (died by suicide in 1994) -- and who, by the way, was at least as much an atheist as Gad Saad is -- who popularized mockery of Darwinian "explanations" as "Just-So Stories". As I recall (in the book, 'Darwinian Fairytales' ), he was especially scathing of what is now called "evolutionary psychology", that is, Gad Saad's specialty.

To paraphrase David Stove (to the best of my memory): "To the extent that Darwinian explanations are true, they are trivial; to the extent that Darwinian explanations are non-trivial, they are non-true."

I'm not convinced that psychology simpliciter even counts as 'science', given that the "results" of "psychological studies" are notoriously difficult to replicate, but at least it has an observable subject matter; to wit: living human beings. But, turn mere psychology into evolutionary psychology, and there is no subject matter at all to study: and thus, the *only* thing that evolutionary psychology can offer is 'Just-So' stories, frequently couched in terms of "cave-man days".

Rather than repeat what I said then, I direct Gentle Reader's attention to my post: "How Evolution Explains Sex Differences ... Or Not"

I link to the Alexander Grace video to give Gentle Reader a premium example the sort of 'Just-So' story-telling and ad hoc reasoning/explanation in which evolutionism, and especially evolutionary psychology, specializes. I don't recall (nor care) what Mr Grace's degree was in, nor its level (that is, whether he had enough sense to not waste further time chasing after a PhD); the point is that he always attempts to justify his observations and claims in terms of evolutionary psychology (and, he frequently makes literal reference to "cave-man days" as "explaining" today's observable reality).

Alexander Grace @3:25-4:25 "... but you can't overcome the biology of gender [sic]. Evolution has shaped male and female instincts in a very specific way. Over countless generations, it [evolution] has incentivized a talent and an aptitude in certain tasks.  Men who are good at building things, at finding and manipulating objects and using them as tools for survival were more likely to survive and therefore were more desirable as mating partners; and so women would 'shack-up' with those kind of men, who had those talents. And then, of course, over time, 'Evolution!'  reinforces this through gene-selection.  Women who have personality traits of kindness and, you know, nurturing, they're going to be good mothers, and good mothers are more likely to ensure their children survive, and pass on those genes to the next generation. And, of course, men are specifically attracted to women who are kind and nurturing, the ones that are gonna make good mothers.  And so, again, 'Evolution!' through sexual selection reinforces this.  And so you can see, over countless generations, how 'Evolution!' has incentivized men to be one particular way, and women to be another way. ... [and so on]"

As I have pointed out more than once: IF there are evolutionary "explanations" for the generally-observed differences between the psychology and behavior of men compared to women, THEN, even to BE 'evolutionary', those differences MUST be encoded in the DNA of the respective persons. BUT, the genetic difference between men and women is limited to the small number of Y-Chromosome genes which do not engage in cross-over with corresponding X-Chromosome genes.

Jordan Peterson and Gad Saad:  "What Science Tells Us About Firstborns, Middle Children, and Lastborns"

Alexander Grace (engaging in evolutionary psychology 'Just-So' story-telling):: BEWARE! There's 3 Sides To Every Woman

When Is Charity Not?

Notice the high-lighted claim this "whistleblower" makes -- the "migrant shelter" he was running was charging the tax-payers of Massachusetts $180 per room per night, even if the room was empty. *Someone* is making bank from this "charity".

Most institutional charity involves some sort of scam, and often fraud; it the very least, it is based on false premises. If there is "government money" involved, you can be sure that there is fraud involved ... and *you*, Dear Taxpayer, are on the hook for funding the scam.

I live in the middle of a city of 50K. This is an older part of the city, so the lots are on the small side, but they still average at least 50x150; that is, they are large enough that the residents could have a nice garden, did they wish to do the work to put in and maintain one.

Several years ago, the city -- at tax-payer expense -- put in a "community garden" on a vacant lot a few blocks from my house. During the summer, the city sends a water-truck around to water the "gardens". Shortly after creating the "gardens", the city -- again at tax-payer expense -- had to put a fence around the lot, to protect the "gardens" from vandalism (*). This wasn't a cheap fence; it's wrought-iron. And, it's gate is kept locked, except at posted times. So, that means that the city pays a public employee to come around to unlock the gate. I presume, but don't know, that that employee stays on the premises, at tax-payer expense, during open hours.

A few years ago, at a lot perhaps 1/2 mile from my house, a "charitable group", I presume a church, started serving a free meal once a day (at noon), regardless of weather. Because weather exists, they built a roof over the serving area. Then, due to the behavior of their clientele, they had to install ground-to-ceiling fencing around the roofed area. And, no surprise, the picnic tables are chained to weights.

I sometimes see some of the regulars "served" by this "charity". They tend to smoke, at the very least cigarettes; I've seen some of them "paper-bagging" alcohol. My point is that by indiscriminately giving people "free" food, what the "charity" is *really* doing is subsidizing their tobacco, and pot, and alcohol, and smart-phones.

(*) It's possible that what the city saw as vandalism was actually damage from deer. You see, while I live in the middle of a city of 50K, there is a family of deer who make my property their home-base. And that "community garden" is certainly close enough to be visited by them.

Every year, the matriarch doe has two fawns. Just the other day, I startled this year's twins. She seems to allow the previous year's fawns to stay with her, and I sometimes see all five together. A couple of years ago, I stepped out the front door and encountered a buck. It's not uncommon, as I'm working in my (fenced) garden, to notice one or two young deer watching me.

Believe you me, you don't want deer living in your yard: they eat nearly everything you try to grow.

Ex-Migrant Shelter Director Blows Whistle on Fraud

When Is a "Disabled" Person Not A "Disabled" Person?

Q: When Is a "Disabled" Person Not A "Disabled" Person?
A: Most of the time; and especially if there is a blue "Handicapped-On-Board" danglie on the rear-view mirror.

Diagnoses of 'Disability' -- whether in the military or in civilian life -- are in large part a scam of well-off people against the rest of us.

Consider the seemingly less contentious issue of "handicapped parking" -- When have you *ever* seen someone who is clearly "handicapped" using a "handicapped parking" spot?

No, what you almost always see played out is something I witnessed a few days ago at a home supply store. I had parked, and as I was opening the truck's door, another fellow parked near me ... and *then* affixed one of those blue "Handicapped-On-Board" danglies to his rear-view mirror Apparently, he didn't want other drivers to think he was a gimp. So, I sat in the truck to watch. He was not handicapped; I later encountered him in the store a couple of times. He was not handicapped.

Look, my mother was "handicapped" ... and I *detest* the "handicapped" mentality, and indeed the very term. To use *honest* straight-forward language, my mother was crippled. She was crippled from birth ... and her condition was made worse when she was a small child by *American* doctors and government bureaucrats using her as a human guinea-pig, much as was being done at the same time in Weimar Germany.

I can assure you, from many years experience of taking a crippled person shopping, that "handicapped parking" spots, no matter how close they are to the store entrance, are not really much of a help (*) to people who actually are "handicapped". But, they are indeed very useful to a certain type of upper-middle-class person (of either race) who wants the extra benefit of "reserved parking".

(*) It is much more helpful to your "handicapped" person to pull up to the entrance, help him or her exit the vehicle, go park it, and then meet the person. Why in the Hell would I have made my mother do all that extra walking (on crutches) just so that I had a "reserved" spot nearer the entrance?

Chicks on the Right: This Is Not What Disability Is Meant For!

Epstein Could Not Have Hanged Himself

This is how we can know -- without possibility of error -- that Epstein did not, and could not have, killed himself:

They -- the government officials -- reported to us that he was found hanging by the neck from the railing of the upper bunk, with his heals on the floor before him and his buttocks suspended in the air.

Allow me to repeat the key point: "with his heals on the floor before him".

THAT IS: regardless of his hypothetical dedication to murdering himself by suffocation, when the suffocation-panic set in, his BODY would have overridden his WILL, and he would have stood up and loosened the noose around his neck.

It is physiologically impossible to hang yourself to the point of suffocation and death so long as you can get your feet under yourself and your hands are free to remove the constriction to your breathing. Why do you think that suicides have to jump off a chair?

Stop Telling Little Girls "You can be anything you want to be!"

Women should not be cops. No woman should be a cop, but especially short, fat women, who can't even kneel, should not be cops. Once a female cop enters the "situation", the likelihood that someone is going to get shot, and generally unnecessarily, dramatically increases.

For that matter, the male deputy in this situation doesn't appear to be all that fit, either.

The insanity on view in the body-cam footage -- the female deputy's unnecessary shooting of the criminal, and her endangerment of the male deputy's life -- lies ultimately at the feet of the high-level bureaucrats and politicians who care more about their damned DEI spreadsheets, and thus their raises and promotions, than they care about the lives of the citizenry, or of the cops, or of the criminals.

EDIT:

Apparently, the criminal died. While it's true that I have no sympathy for criminals, the fact remains that his death was utterly unnecessary ... and he's dead precisely because the raises and promotions of high-level bureaucrats follow from their DEI spreadsheets.

PS:

The criminal's relatives are going to file a wrongful death suit against Harris County (Texas), and they're going to win a massive pay-out. And who is on the hook for that? As always, the taxpayers, but never the politicians and bureaucrats who are causing the problem in the first place.

PPS (2025/05/30):

To be clear: it appears in the video that the fellow was initially cooperating with the deputies. It appears that he started resisting and fighting when she tried -- recall: short, fat, can't kneel -- and failed to cuff him. It appears that she twisted his arm into an unnatural and painful position, and that that is when he started fighting. It appears that the entire escalation, and his resulting death, is due to her inability to do a job for which no woman is really qualified.

Hodge Twins: Female Cop Just Stands There While Partner Fights Suspect Alone

A Glimpse of Old South Bend, Indiana

I was born in South Bend, as was my mother, and I lived there until I left for college. I recall an old-world looking area downtown, on the river; long since demolished for "urban renewal", its interesting topography leveled ... and then left vacant for decades.

The neighborhood of interesting old houses in which my grandmother had owned several properties, one of which we owned after her death, is long gone; prey to "urban blight" and then "urban renewal" ... i.e. properties turned into "Section 8" or welfare rentals to extract as much income as quickly as possible while expending as little as possible on maintenance.

Mansfield Ohio, where I have lived since 1982, never flew as high, nor grew as large, as South Bend did. And so, oddly enough, there is still more of the "old-world look" left in Mansfield. At the same time, Mansfield did demolish its old, and beautiful, government buildings to replace them with modernist monstrosities, whereas South Bend sometimes re-purposed its old government buildings when the government "outgrew" them.

Interestingly, the now-extinct Studebaker Corporation, which fueled most of the growth of South Bend, was originally founded in Mansfield.

=====

EDIT: As I'm watching the video, especially toward the end, he keeps voicing some weird, inchoate conspiracy theory about not trusting the timeline. I suspect that he's pushing that "Tartaria" bullshit. Oh, well; it was nice seeing pictures of beautiful old buildings, some of which I recall from my youth.

PS: I attended the Studebaker Elementary School, an old photo seen at the 23:26 mark (in my time, it had extensive single-storey modern additions 'round about), in kindergarten and first grade, and then again in 6th and 7th grades. After that, my father managed to get us into a private Christian school ... because the administration of the school wanted to come down on me -- a mere kid -- for calling out, to their faces, their cowardice in the face of mob behavior by "ghetto" black students. Mind you, this was way back in the early 1970s; that is how long the people who rule us have been winking at, and indeed encouraging, the very sort of "ratchet" behavior which is destroying or civilization.

Old World South Bend Indiana

Exploding the Myth of "Three Co-Equal Branches of Government", with Stephen Miller

Please understand what Stephen Miller is saying in the linked video.

Well, the Constitution is clear. And, that [i.e. the Constitution] is. of course, the supreme law of the land. ... Look, a lot of it [i.e. suspending habeas corpus with respect to illegal aliens] depends on whether the courts do the right thing, or not. At the end of the day, Congress passed a body of law, known as the Immigration and Nationality Act, which stripped Article III courts -- that's the Judicial branch -- of jurisdiction over immigration cases.  So, Congress actually passed -- it's called 'jurisdiction stripping legislation'.  They passed a number of laws that say that the Article III courts aren't even allowed to be involved in immigration cases.  Many of you probably don't know this.  I'll give you a good example: Are you familiar with the term 'temporary protected status', or TPS, right?  So, by statute, the courts are stripped of jurisdiction from over-ruling a presidential determination, or a secretarial determination, on TPS when the Secretary of Homeland Security makes that determination. So, when Secretary Noem terminated TPS for the illegals that Biden flew into the country, when courts stepped in, they were violating explicit language that Congress had enacted saying they [i.e. Article III courts] have no jurisdiction. So, it's not just that the courts are at war with the Executive branch, the courts are at war -- these radical rogue judges -- with the Legislative branch as well, too. ...

Understand -- Article III courts are the normal courts of the federal Judiciary branch: the single superior court [i.e. so-called "THE Supreme Court" (*) ] and the various inferior courts that Congress has, from time to time, established pursuant to Article III.

Understand, what Stephen Miller is discussing here is Congress' power, under Article III, Section 2, to limit, or even strip, the jurisdiction of the federal courts (**) over all but a few specific sorts of cases as explicitly enumerated in Article III, Section 2.

Understand -- the "Three Co-Equal Branches of Government" dogma that we all were taught in high school civics class is not only a myth, but a lie, and a pernicious lie at that. The lie was invented by lawyers/judges (***) to disguise their imperialistic power-grab over the other branches, and indeed, over our very lives.

So, since the three branches of the federal government are not "co-equal", where does that leave us? It leaves us where we always were: the three branches each have explicitly enumerated powers -- and no powers not explicitly enumerated -- and the Congress is the "supreme" branch.  That the congresscritters do not want to do their jobs is another matter ... and, in the end, the fault lies with the electorate for allowing them to shirk their duty.

(*) As I have pointed out repeatedly, Article III of the US Constitution does not create "THE Supreme Court". Rather, it establishes "one supreme Court" -- one highest-level or superior court -- and as many inferior courts as Congress may decide to create.

This is the text of Article III, Section 1 (emphasis added ):

"The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office."

(**) This is the relevant text of Article III, Section 2"

"In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make."

(***) Understand -- No matter the legal system, the lawyers of that system *always* eventually seek to corrupt the law to make it serve their own interests. Also remember -- judges are just lawyers who dress funny.

Tim Pool: Stephen Miller Says Trump SERIOUSLY CONSIDERING Suspending Habeas Corpus

When is a "Refugee" not a Refugee?

Isn't this odd --

1) Illegal aliens from Central and South America (and from all across the world, actually) -- from countries which are poor, certainly, but in which people are not being murdered for political reasons -- who, were they actually "refugee", have traversed any number of "safe" countries, in which they were required by "International Law" (such as it is), flood into America ... and the leftists insist that they are "refugees" who *cannot* be sent home.

2) The Trump administration is attempting to allow Afrikaners -- white South Africans who *are* being murdered for racist political reasons, and with the connivance of the South African government -- to *legally* come to America as refugees ... and those same leftists mock their designation as "refugees".

Why, one might get the impression that leftists hate white people as much as they hate America. 

Concerning My Contention that *ALL* Atheists Are Intellectually Dishonest, With Reference to Alex O'Connor

The purpose of this post is to expand upon, or explain in more detail, something I had written on GAB. Basically, the purpose here is to reiterate my own approach to the 'Argument From Reason' and by it to defend my assertion that *all* 'atheists' and 'agnostics' can thereby be known to be intellectually dishonest.

Recently on GAB, I had said in passing that I consider Alex O'Connor -- a smarmy young Englishman to whom many 'village atheists with an ethernet cable (*)' currently look to be the salvation of their anti-rational belief-system, and whom many internet apologists for Christianity foolishly extol for his current (**) winsome approach to asserting that 'God is not' -- to be intellectually dishonest.

Someone later asked: 

I'm curious. I have watched Alex for sometime. What did you find particularly intellectually dishonest about him?

I responded in two parts, the first specifically about Alex O'Connor, and the second quickly outlining why I consider *all* 'atheists' and 'agnostics' to be intellectually dishonest.

Concerning Alex O'Connor, I said:

I'll admit that I *haven't* watched/listened to him all that much -- I have an almost physical reaction of repugnance to him. Even in his more recent/current iteration of winsomeness, as compared to his earlier stridency, he strikes me as aiming to be the next occupant of Dawkins' papal throne.

It's his more recent/current pose of "I'm just asking questions; I really want to see 'evidence' of God, but I just don't see it" that I mark as *doubly* intellectually dishonest (*) -- he's *not* just asking questions, and he's *not* looking for evidence of God: he's demanding answers which are category errors; he's refusing to acknowledge that you can't "find evidence of God" when you're insisting that God is like Zeus.

(*) His initial pugnacious iteration was also intellectually dishonest, but at least it was straight-forward attack-mode.

Concerning 'atheists' and 'agnostics' in general, I said:

My position, though I won't detail it here, is that *all* atheists, including the ones who try to hide behind the 'agnostic' label, are intellectually dishonest (*). The main difference between one atheist and another is how obnoxious or strident one is compared to another.

(*) In a nutshell -- IF God is not, that is, IF atheism/materialism is the truth about the nature of reality, THEN there can be no such things as rational beings, there can be no such activity as logical deduction from premise to conclusion, and there can be no such thing as true knowledge -- including the alleged knowledge that "atheism/materialism is the truth about the nature of reality". BUT, there *are* rational beings, and logical reasoning *is* possible, and true knowledge *does* exist and *can* be known.

Atheists and 'agnostics' -- *all of them* -- are intellectually dishonest precisely *because* they persist in their denial of the reality of God even as that denial logically entails the denial of their own natures as rational beings and free wills (**), able to reason logically and to know truth. AND, the cherry on the top is that most of them pose as paragons of reason and logic, and attempt to denigrate Christians as irrational.

(**) It's a misstatement to say that "we have free will", as though it [i.e. the reality of 'free will'] were analogous to having or not having two feet; rather, we *are* free wills.

==========
==========

So, to expand on the above --

Notwithstanding the title of a post I'd made last February ("There Is a Fourth Metaphysic", which title was in response to an attempt to get around the "Problem of Minds" by splitting the single metaphysic of atheism into three distinct metaphysics), there are two, and only two, logically possible metaphysics: that is, the truth about the nature of reality is encompassed, without remainder, either by "theism" or by atheism ... but atheism is anti-rational and indeed self-refuting, as it logically entails the denial of all manner of things we know to be true of ourselves.

Understand, the fatal flaw in atheism isn't due to materialism -- materialism is simply the primary expression of any atheism which acknowledges the reality of a physical/material world. No, the fatal flaw of atheism is that it denies -- necessarily -- the primacy of mind, and thus of free-will, as a causal explanation for events and state-changes in the world, which leaves mechanistic necessity as the *only* causal explanation for events and state-changes in the world.

To make use of an illustration by the Oxford mathematician John Lennox, if you were to ask me, "Why is that kettle of water boiling?", I might explain the boiling of the water by listing a series of facts of mechanical necessity, starting with the the fire under the kettle.  Or, I might answer, "Because I want a cup of tea". Now, while the mechanical necessity explanation isn't false, so far as it goes, it is quite incomplete: it doesn't get to the *real* reason that the kettle of water is boiling; namely that I freely initiated the series of mechanistic events and state-changes which resulted in the water boiling.

C S Lewis distinguished these two different (though not contradictory) explanations for the cause of the water boiling as cause-and-effect (the fire under the kettle and subsequent physical state-changes) on the one hand, and ground-and-consequent (my effecting of an act of will to initiate the series of  physical state-changes which result in the water boiling) on the other hand.

But, see, the problem for atheism, it's fatal flaw, is that IF atheism is the truth about the nature of reality, THEN my "decision" to initiate that series of mechanistic events and state-changes which resulted in boiling water was itself merely the mechanically necessary result of some prior set of state-changes; that is, under atheism, there are no such things as decisions, as we all intend that term, much less any such thing as free-will.

The two, and only two, logically possible metaphysics -- 

On the one hand, IF "theism" is the truth about the nature of reality, THEN the primal fact about reality is 'Mind' (***). That is, logically prior to anything else, before there are any states or events or state-changes, there is a mind, there is a rational being, there is a Who who freely chooses to act or not to act, who freely creates all else that is, who intends 'this' but not 'that'.

On the other hand, IF atheism is the truth about the nature of reality, THEN the primal fact about reality is 'Not-Mind'. That is, definitionally: however it is that states, and state-changes, initially came to be, they came to be unintentionally, and thus any and all subsequent events and state changes are, and of necessity must be, the mechanistic result of prior events and state-changes. That is, under atheism, this initial unintentionality pervades all reality and for all time: for 'not-mind' cannot yield, cannot become, 'mind'. 

If 'mind' does not exist already at the initial state of the system, then 'mind' cannot be injected into the system at some later stage of events. For, whence comes this 'mind' to inject into the system? On the one hand, if 'mind' was always "just there, somewhere", waiting in the wings, so to speak, to be injected into the system when "needed" as an explanatory force, then one is just playing disingenuous word-games: one is denying the fundamental tenet of atheism while dishonestly asserting that one is not denying it. But on the other hand, if one asserts than 'mind' just "arises" within the system itself from 'not-mind', then one is *also* just playing disingenuous word-games: but in this case, one is asserting that 'mind' and 'not-mind' are the same thing.

Here is the issue: the existence of mechanistically necessary state-changes is compatible with "theism", but the free-and-intentional initiation of novel events and state-changes is utterly incompatible with atheism. 

Thus (as I said above), to assert that atheism is the truth about the nature of reality is simultaneously to assert the denial of all manner of things which one knows to be true of oneself, including, but not limited to: the freedom of one's will; one's ability to engage in logical reasoning; one's ability to discover truth and know that it is truth; the ability to discover that one has erred in one's reasoning and to correct the error and to know that one has indeed corrected the error.

To deny that God is is ultimately to deny that one's own self is. To put it in the form of a bumper-sticker: You are the proof that God is.

And this is why I contend that *all* 'atheists' and 'agnostics' are intellectually dishonest. And I include in that assessment even the likes of Patricia Churchland, who does with one side of her mouth deny the reality of free-will, while with the other side trying to convince people to believe the proposition that they are not free-wills.

==========

==========
(*) 'village atheist with an ethernet cable' is a phrase I have long used to denote and deride the sort of 'atheist' one typically encounters on the internet.

(**) Until just a couple of years ago, Alex O'Connor was as deliberately obnoxious as Richard Darwkins or Stephen Fry, or Christopher Hitchens.

(***) Some 'atheists' try to evade this problem by appealing to some sort of woo-woo, such as 'Panpsychism'. But, as I explain time and again, there is no such thing a 'Mind' unless there is at least one actually existing mind.

A Working 1st-floor Bathroom

(now updated -- click on the photos to see a larger image)

2025/01/04:

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 trim work).  That is from a massive water-damage event several years ago when the supply-line to one of the sinks in the second-floor master bath 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.

 

EDIT 2025/04/ 12:

The downstairs bath is fully functional and is nearly complete; just a few trim pieces to cut and install, and a bit of the woodwork to stain and finish.

This photo is of the bathtub, refinished both inside and out. The outer refinishing involved striping multiple payers of old, probably lead-based, paint, and then applying primer and enamel paint.  While the directions for the refinishing kit (for the inside) say that that it can be applied with a brush, we found that we got a much better result by using small rollers, and the work went much faster.

I may someday look into finding a more decorative faucet for the tub, but for now this functional one is fine.

As mentioned above, the door into this bathroom is a "french" windowed door.  On the inside is mounted a sheet of plexiglass with a decorative film applied to it. I wish the photo did it justice. I'm really satisfied with how it turned out, especially when the door is viewed from outside the room.

In the corner, behind the door, is a cheap kitchen wall cabinet mounted atop the baseboard, for linens and such.  We continued the wainscoting around the side of the cabinet (thus hiding the "raw" particleboard of which it is constructed ... as I said, it's a cheap cabinet).  I built the cabinet's countertop from strips of oak flooring glued together.

To the right of the above photo, you can just see the edge of one of the two in-the-wall shelving units we built. They're to the same design as the open-shelf spice cabinet I built for the kitchen (as seen below).

 

This photo is from the doorway, toward the outside wall. This bathroom is a roomy 8 feet by 8 feet. My mother, who was wheel-chair bound, was still alive when I first designed the room; I wanted to be sure it would be comfortably usable for a person with limited mobility.

The wainscoting is a PVC-based product which I got from Home Depot.  It's lightweight and waterproof, of course, and can be cut with a simple utility knife. But, the ease of cutting it is also its one drawback -- it can be easily dented/deformed by localized pressure.

This photo of of the door, taken from the hallway. It's a better view of the result, but still doesn't do it justice.

I miss beautiful buildings

The linked page has pictures of the old Richland County OH courthouse and one picture of the older courthouse. Both were beautiful buildings, and both are long since demolished.

The current county courthouse is an ugly modern monstrosity, built in 1968. Similarly, the current Mansfield city hall is also an ugly modernist thing.

Come to think of it, Anderson IN, where I lived/worked straight out of college (1980-1982), had also replaced both the beautiful old court house, which was of a similar style to this one, and the old city hall with hideous modern buildings. In the case of the courthouse, it was already falling apart -- there were barricades all around the building, with covered walkways to the major entrances, to protect passers-by from bricks falling from the facade.

My hometown of South Bend IN converted the two most recent "old" courthouses to other uses, rather than demolishing them.

THE OLD RICHLAND COUNTY COURT HOUSE

Even Infinite Buckeroos Will Not Feed Us

In the linked video, Dan Tubb of LotusEaters.com discusses "Modern Monetary Theory", the insane socialistic hyper-Keynesian "economic theory" by which our rulers are destroying us.

My comment/response --

The *point* of an economy is not to "add value", but rather to generate/create wealth. Certainly, "adding value" ... well, adds value. But, if there is not an underlying and robust generation of wealth to which to "add value", then everyone dies, no matter how much "value" is being added as we all die. In the "buckeroo" pseudo-economy, no wealth at all is being generated; that "economy" is nothing more than an accounting trick. Moreover, in its interface with the real economy, it almost certainly destroys wealth, rather than creating it. For, of a certainly, whatever tasks the students do at the hospital to earn the buckeroos will be either pointless waste-of-time make-work, or something that regular employees are already being paid to do. While the "work" the students perform to earn those buckeroos may potentially be "useful" (or not), that work's relationship to the real economy of wealth-creation is no different than if they were made to dig holes one day, and fill them in the next. Now, hospitals are certainly nice things to have, and a well-run hospital "adds value" to its community. BUT, hospitals do not generate wealth; rather, they consume wealth. In that regard, hospitals are luxuries: we cannot have hospitals unless and until we have an underlying economy producing enough excess wealth to support siphoning off enough wealth to fund the hospitals.

Dan Tubb, LotusEaters: The Nonsensical Economic Theory That Affects Your Life

It's an odd world

What an odd world we find yourselves in.

According to many judges (*), including those on the highest court, we mere US citizens do not "have standing" to petition the courts (i.e. said judges) to order that the laws be faithfully enforced by the persons whose sworn duty it is to faithfully enforce the laws. BUT, according to that some gaggle sort of judges, lawyers and NGOs (often, or even exclusively, funded by monies forcefully extracted from us citizens), DO "have standing" to petition the courts (i.e. other lawyers, the ones who dress funny) to FORBID the faithful enforcement of the law.

(*) And remember, judges are just lawyers (**) who dress funny.

(**) Further remember: No matter the legal system, the lawyers of that system will *always* attempt to corrupt it to serve their own interests.

More on "Big Organ Lost One"

I have written about this case before, back in October, 2024.

The news item linked below doesn't claim such, but an early statement in the piece *might* be understood as implying that the reason the man was declared to be "brain dead" in the first place was due to malpractice.

Understand this -- (the fact isn't examined as in depth as it deserves) some of the higher ups in the Donation-Industrial Complex were insistent upon chopping this man for parts, even after it was undeniable that he was not dead.

Understand this -- the *reason* that they now sedate the "corpses" from whom they harvest organs is because they *know* that there is a strong possibility that those people are not actually dead; there have been *many* cases, all across the world, in which "dead" people "woke up" as the surgeons were cutting into them. And thus, they now sedate the "dead" people before cutting into them.

Understand this -- once you know this truth about vital organ transplant (*), it is immoral -- it is damning of your immortal soul -- to take part, in any way, in this industry. It is better to die than to have the heart transplanted into your chest of a man who was murdered to make that heart available.

(*) The one exception I can think of would be to receive a "living donation" of a kidney.

Kentucky family demands answers after organs nearly taken from living man: 'Living nightmare'