I have always been fascinated by terry cloth, for obvious reasons. But for a long time, I really didn’t know what terry cloth meant. If you read the definition, it is a fabric covered in tiny loops designed to be both highly absorbent and soft to the touch. What the heck does that mean?

https://profadeapparel.com/history-and-production-of-terry-towels/

Some people consider terry cloth to be almost the same as towel. It does appear most, but not all, towels are made from terry cloth. The name “terry” allegedly comes from the French word “tirer” which means to pull out, referring to the pile loops that were pulled out by hand to make traditional Turkish toweling. Some think terry cloth was invented by accident when a weaving machine malfunction. My mother used to reflect on my childhood behavior as motivating her to shrieking and pulling her hair out, so maybe there is something to this.

The modern version of terry cloth, although the real thing still exists, is happening in Virginia. Terry McAuliffe, former Governor of Virginia, is running again. McAuliffe is famous for being an FOB (Friend of Bill) and has enormous support among the Democratic establishment. But recent polls show that he may lose this election and that is terrifying a lot of people. Joe Biden even showed up to offer support and according to some reports literally spit on at least one of the two known McAuliffe supporters. Even Barack Obama showed up and he promptly doubled down on insanity. Both McAuliffe and Obama have tried to paint this as similar to the California recall election, which was described as a Republican recall power grab organized by irrational Trump supporters. Governor Newsom was also running scared, until the early mail-in voting seemed to come solely from Democratic districts, assuring him of victory. Frankly that may be more indicative of the problems with wide-spread mail-in voting than actual support for gruesome Newsom. Since Newsom beat the recall, he has quickly reverted to the left-wing jerk that convinced so many people he needed to go in the first place. This is unlikely to end well. In my opinion it is mostly evidence of the pathetic inability of the Republican Party in California to do anything right.

But the Democratic scare tactic may not work as well in Virginia, hence the panic. Oh, we can be certain that the usual suspect votes are already being collected in the usual suspect places, but there may not be enough. Traditionally Democrats have always piled up votes in big cities, which is why every major metropolitan area in the country is run by Democrats. They then blame Republicans for the problems they create. But if Republicans can round up enough votes, in the rest of a state, they can actually win elections. I do not know who will win in Virginia, but I sure know who is showing signs of pure panic. Still, I am reminded that Republicans haven’t won a state-wide race there since 2009, so it is hard to be overly optimistic.

One thing is certain, if McAuliffe loses, the impact will extend far beyond Virginia. Whether correctly or not, a lot of people will believe this means Democrats are heading toward a world-class meltdown in the 2022 election. If Republicans win in both Virginia and New Jersey, then the DNC establishment will start experiencing serious bouts with night sweat. Even if these elections are close, it will have a major impact. This is easy to understand. Suppose you are a member of the DNC establishment. These people have their obvious faults, but they are not actually stupid.  They don’t really buy the nonsense they spew during campaigns; they just think this is necessary to appeal to the insane segment of their base. But most of all they like winning and they absolutely hate losing.

Hence the problem. One must question the mental capacity of anyone who thinks Joe Biden is remotely capable of being a good President. Some think Trump would be worse, but few pretend Joe is doing great. Things have deteriorated to the point that each public appearance by Joe shows signs of rapid mental decline. Joe was never all that bright and he has been famous for telling ridiculous lies from day one, so in reality there are limited grounds for optimism.

The hate Trump movement, while still delicious, doesn’t solve the problem. Even some in the MSM have noticed that while they still hate Trump, he isn’t President anymore. One would say that the world is “heading to hell on a handbasket,” but thanks to the brilliance of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, we have already run out of handbaskets.  By the way, if you are wondering where “going to hell in a handbasket” originated it was France, where they would capture the heads of guillotine victims in a basket, assuming that these “criminals” were headed toward a guaranteed red hot reception on the other side.

In other words, it is all about terry cloth. One will note that terry cloth is never used on coat tails. If even someone as connected as Terry McAuliffe goes down in flames, then no one is safe. Nothing, and I do mean nothing, will motivate the DNC more than the prospect of losing power. There have been times when this has terrified them to the extent, they actually pretended to propose things that made sense and backed candidates who were not certifiably insane. But there the rub. It is almost impossible for a Democrat to win a primary election because the inmates have taken over the institution. Perhaps terry cloth is the appropriate way to describe this because it sure looks like Democrats about to get soaked.

TDM

They were predicting a big storm yesterday. Instead, we got a real whopper.  Sacramento got over 5.28 inches of rain in 24 hours, breaking a record set back in 1880. Folsom got over 7 inches of rain and Auburn reportedly got over 15.9 inches. But in a time when everyone is worried about climate change, it is important to put this in perspective.  Here is a list of the previous major storms, along with the date. This is from the National Weather Service records in Sacramento.

Rank  Amount of rain        Date

1        5.28    4-20-1880

2        3.63    10-13-1962

3        3.35    4-07-1935

4        3.34    12-31-1890

5        3.21    2-17-1986

6        3.14    1-21-1943

7        3.14    9-13-1918

8        3.11    1-24-2000

9        3.10    1-04-1982

10      3.09    4-21-1880

One notes that three of the top ten storms happened in the 1880s. That obviously was long before the industrial revolution. While this storm was a record, it wasn’t actually that unique. Only one other storm hit this early in the season, that was 1918. Ironically, that was the year of the Spanish Flu.  Coincidence? Probably.  We can expect a lot of scary predictions all blaming climate change (global warming), all ignoring the fact that these kinds of storms have been happening since anyone started keeping records.

Study suggests that flooding could reach never-before-levels in Sacramento, Central valleys (fox40.com)

This article was written on October 21, 2021, and it doesn’t even mention the rainstorm we just received. Oops, missed that. It should have been obvious. I wrote “CRY ME A RIVER” because a lot of smart people were predicting this. He was obviously more concerned about the drought. This, predictably, predictably, blames everything on global warming. This quotes a University of California Professor, Nicholas Pinter, who says: “We’re getting larger floods and bigger, more frequent droughts.” Pretty interesting when you see all those major storms that obviously were long before the industrial revolution. Sea level has been increasing, by about 1/8^th of an inch per year. One will note that none of the places predicted to be underwater, are actually going underwater, but IF climate change (global warming) increases our great, great, great grandchildren may notice. My person opinion is that God doesn’t actually pay much attention to the predictions of college professors. He is certainly not impressed with people who ignore history. Sacramento gets a lot of rain, at regular intervals, and this has gone on and on since they started keep records in 1880. The ocean water this year is not warmer, it is colder. La Nina anyone.

The article, unfortunately, is correct is saying that our flood infrastructure is not up to the task. Folsom Lake, for example, currently has about 250,000 acre feet of water. But in a normal year, that can approach 1,000,000 acre feet. Actually, that is all the water Folsom Lake can hold, so they will release water to prevent that. This is something that actually happens quite often. The question is not really how much water we get, but rather how much we save. The people who operate the dam know that.  Folsom Lake rose 9 feet yesterday, and we haven’t even begun to receive the water runoff from this storm. My hunch is that sooner, rather than later, we will see the gates open, again, to release water, to prepare for winter, when we usually, but not always, get a lot of rain. They spent about a billion dollars building an emergency bypass for Folsom Dam. That is designed to release even more water, to prevent the lake from overflowing. In other words, the same people warning you about global warming and endless drought spent a billion dollars  to build that emergency bypass to protect Folsom Dams from storms, like this.

But what they don’t discuss is what happens if they release too much water at once. Folsom Dam can release close to 800 cubic feet of water per second. The levees on the American River can handle about 120 cubic feet of water per second. Anything above that and Sacramento has the potential to look a lot like Lake Sacramento.

If you live anywhere near a lake, pond, levee, creek, or river, seriously consider buying flood insurance. Flood Insurance is cheap, but there is a 30 day waiting period. If you wait until the next storm is forecast, you may have waited too long. Don’t sell your raincoat.

TDM.

According to weather.com “Climate Change Driving Tuna From Regular Habitats Toward Colder Waters.”

Climate Change Driving Tuna From Regular Habitats Towards Cooler Waters | The Weather Channel – Articles from The Weather Channel | weather.com

This is from April 2019

“On average, tuna habitat distribution limits have shifted poleward 6.5 km (4 miles) per decade in the Northern Hemisphere and 5.5 km (3.1 miles) per decade in the Southern Hemisphere,” the researchers wrote. “Larger tuna distribution shifts and changes in abundance are expected in the future, especially by the end of the century.”

Big Apple anglers are landing ‘monster’ tuna close to shore (nypost.com)

Whoops. It turns out that the Tuna aren’t moving north, they are moving south. So, what changed, the tuna? Or did the temperature of the water off Long Island change. Perhaps it’s just me, but this sure looks like a sign of the ocean getting COOLER. How is that possible, when so many people are warning us, that death is imminent because of climate change (global warming). Oops, I  forgot. Anything that happens, including colder weather is evidence of climate change. That is why it is so much better than global warming.  I know, when this other article talked about climate change it only talked about the water getting warmer and the tune moving closer to Canada. But, never let the facts get in the way of a good story, otherwise people won’t buy the need to heat their homes with electricity powered solely by solar panels and wind farms. Why the next thing you know, people will even argue about the need for getting a vaccine and wearing worthless masks.

Hmmm. Antarctica has record cold temperatures. The Arctic has more ice this time of year then any time since 2014. We are having a “La Nina” for the second year in a row. “La Nina” is defined by cold water. This year the “La Nina” appears to be delivering cold weather and rain. If this continues, people are not going to be all that terrified by climate change (global warming.) So, I predict that within days, if not hours, some genius will explain why the cold water off Long Island and the cold wet weather in California is further evidence of climate change (global warming) make it even important to get your COVID vaccine booster shot, AND WEAR A MASK!

Perhaps it’s time to TUNA those people out.

TDM

Not only is the storm door open, but we also officially have an atmospheric river aimed right at California. This is not new, this happens quite often, but the number of times this happens during a year varies significantly.  While our politicians are focused on reducing HO2 emissions to stop climate change (global warming) they are ignoring far more serious threats. No one living in Northern California has seen a really wet winter. We have had some whoppers. In 1999 my wife and I decided to take the kids skiing. We were living in Novato at the time. We had rented a condo in Incline Village. While driving on Hwy 80 by the time we got to Sacramento it started to rain, buckets. I told everyone that rain here means snow in the mountain, so I sped up to try and beat the storm. By the time we got to Donner summit there had been about a foot of snow. Just as we came down from Donner Pass, the radio announced that Hwy 80 was now closed. We got more snow before we picked up the keys to the condo in Truckee and even more snow before we got to the condo in Incline Village.  We had a Ford Expedition with 4 wheel drive, but the first time I also had to put on chains. We were shoveling snow off the deck at the condo every couple of hours, so it wouldn’t collapse, and I would drive the Expedition out the driveway every couple of hours, so we could get out in the morning. We went to the ski resort in the morning, and they literally laughed at us.  They told us they were still digging out the ski lifts. We thought this was a world record, but it wasn’t even close. Sugar Bowl reported  a mere 168 inches of snow or 14 feet during the period from February 6 – 9, 1999. The real record happened in happened in 1921 at Silver Lake, Colorado when they got 76 inches in 24 hours. Coming in a close second, was in 1982 when Echo Summit got 67 inches of snow in 24 hours.

You might be interested to know that in 1906-07, Tamarack, California, got 884 inches of snow (73.7 ft) in just one winter one winter.  As recently as the winter of 2018 to 2019 Sierra at Tahoe reported getting over 500 inches of snow. Few remember that because the geniuses in charge of our reservoirs did not save that water. Instead, they tried, unsuccessfully, to save a handful of salmon and the threatened delta smelt.

The point being that it would be foolish to underestimate the potential for very wet winters in Northern California. What makes this storm remarkable is that it is happening in October. Most of the big storms seem to happen in January, February, or March. So, this could be the start of something big, or it could be nothing more than an early storm.

I do not pretend to know what will happen this year, but I do know that one of these years we are going to get a very wet winter. It happens more than you think, but as far as I can tell, the last time really big storm occurred during the winter of 1861-62. Between the period between November 11, 1862, and January 14, 1862, Sonora got 72 inches of RAIN. The entire central valley of Sacramento and San Joaquin was reportedly flooded for a distance of 250 to 300 miles long and 20 miles wide.

This is from the Journal of William Brewer who wrote about this in San Francisco in 1862.

California Rains Winter 1861 – 62 from the Journal of William H. Brewer (socminco.com)

Here is another report of the Great Flood of 1862 in Wikipedia:

Great Flood of 1862 – Wikipedia

One will note that it was a series of atmospheric rivers that caused this mess.

The weather pattern that caused this flood was not from an El Niño type event, and from the existing Army and private weather records, it has been determined that the polar jet stream was to the north as the Pacific Northwest experienced a mild rainy pattern for the first half of December 1861. In 2012, hydrologists and meteorologists concluded that the precipitation was likely caused by a series of atmospheric rivers that hit the Western United States along the entire West Coast, from Oregon to Southern California.

It is interesting to note that the Indian story tellers have stories about floods much bigger than this:

“Native Americans knew that the Sacramento Valley could become an inland sea when the rains came. Their storytellers described water filling the valley from the Coast Range to the Sierra.”

I have talked to many experts very familiar with our existing flood control structures. None of them even hint that the existing structures are remotely capable of handling this much water. It will happen again, sometime, hopefully not this year. When it does imagine being in a home, high and dry, surrounded by water, with no electricity to keep your new green deal all electric home warm. No one can possibly predict these kind of events. They are by definition, very rare. But they have happened before, and they will happen again. And when it does happen, few people will be overly concerned about CO2 emissions.  Sometimes, when it rains, it pours. Cry me a river.

TDM

It rained last night. For people living in Northern California, rain is a really big deal. This is because for much of the year we don’t get any rain at all. There is this handy dandy high pressure cell that parks just offshore from San Francisco that conveniently pushes all the summer weather events up to places like Washington & Oregon. In most years we don’t get any rain between April and October. The weather announcers here typically talk about heat waves and weather in other parts of the country. But they get excited when “the storm door” opens and they can talk about rain. Well, last night, one of the local meteorologists said the magic words: “The storm door is open.”

The change is remarkable and fast. Two weeks ago, I was playing golf with the weather in the high 90’s, wearing shorts and drinking lots of water. Today the high is 63 and the high this week will be 69, on Thursday. They are also predicting rain on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday.  Since we are in a drought and literally subject to mandatory water rationing, this is received as good news by most people.

What makes this ironic is that we just saw a report, from scientists, that Lake Tahoe is dry and warning of dire consequences. For the record, it is snowing in Lake Tahoe. The LA Times wrote a report saying this was the driest water year in more than a century and experts fear the coming 12 months could be worse.

California records driest year in a century (msn.com)

The good news is that experts are very good at getting things very wrong. One will note that the last time the state reported so little rain and snowfall was in 1924. Perhaps it is just me, but my first reaction was: “oh, it was really hot in 1924, long before ‘global warming’, excuse me, ‘climate change’, was threatening our very existence.” Thank goodness we switched to all electric cars back in 1924 or we would probably all be dead! Oops, that didn’t actually happen. Instead, we built all those freeways and purchased lots of gas guzzling SUVs.

If you read the entire article, you will note that:

“The history of California has been written in long droughts,” said Bill Patzert, a retired climatologist who worked for decades at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory studying the effects of climate change. “There’s a lot of water, but it comes down to how it’s used.”

Bingo. There’s a lot of water, what matters is how it is used. Two years ago, in 2019, Folsom Lake was over 100% of normal and we were told this was enough water to last through five years of drought. This summer, Folsom Lake has very little water. So where did it go. It sure didn’t all evaporate. What happened was that water was released to try and save about 1,000 salmon.

This is not a new problem that requires a new solution. The story of Joseph is recorded in Genesis, chapters 37-50. To make a long story short, Joseph convinced Pharoah that there would be seven years of plenty and seven years of drought. He suggested building warehouses to store up the excess grain during the good years, so there would be more than enough grain in the bad years. Pharoah listened and it worked brilliantly.

People from other areas, who did not figure this out, had serious problems. Many of them fled to Egypt because it was the only place with food. Among them was the sons of Abraham, Joseph’s brothers.

But no one appears to have learned anything from Joseph. Instead of doing the obvious, like finding ways to STORE water, we have people recommending extremely expensive strategies, guaranteed to not work, in a desperate attempt to save mankind. It is literally insane, but incredibly popular. I am sure that we should all want to live in a cleaner world with less pollution, but there is little if any evidence that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has much impact. Currently the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is estimated as 415 parts per million or .0415% of the atmosphere. It is a trace element. Some really smart people are terrified by this.  Here is one example from bloomberg.com:

How Much Carbon Dioxide Is in the Atmosphere (bloomberg.com)

They aren’t even pretending this anything they are proposing will work anytime soon, even if we miraculously manage to eliminate all new CO2 emissions. No one expert predicts that, regardless of what we do, because there are other countries who are unlikely to do squat.

If new greenhouse-gas emissions ended tomorrow, CO₂ in the atmosphere would begin washing into the ocean, rolling the parts-per-million count backwards outside of the seasonal up-down cycle. This would start a very long process. Getting it back to pre-industrial levels would take thousands of years—unless we deploy technologies that can suck up vast quantities of CO₂ from the air.

So, this extremely expensive green new deal could reduce CO2 levels below the industrial levels in just a few thousand years, unless we deploy technologies that can suck up vast quantities of CO2 from the air. What? Even if we cut all new CO2 levels nothing will change for over 1,000 years.

We need something that sucks CO2 out of the air. Wait, don’t plant(s) suck CO2 from the air? Maybe, just maybe, instead of focusing on reducing the amount of CO2 emissions, we just grow more plants. What is the downside? People eating healthier food?

In the meantime, God is obviously not listening. Is it just me or it just seems that whenever someone starts talking about switching to electric cars to cut CO2 emissions, God responds by opening the storm door?

DON’T SELL YOUR RAINCOAT!

TDM

Today, on my way to work, I noticed a car driving exactly the speed limit resulting in a rather significant traffic jam. As I passed this car, I noticed a bumper sticker that said: “Vehicle speed monitored by GPS.” Then I reflected on other recent developments. As an insurance agent, I know that many companies now offer significant discounts if you agree to having your vehicle monitored. Here is one example of how this works. This is from American Family Insurance:

Car Insurance Monitoring Devices | American Family Insurance (amfam.com)

How Do Car Monitoring Devices & Apps Work?

We all would love to know that we’re driving as safe as we can. With car monitoring systems, or telematic devices, that’s actually possible now. Vehicle monitoring devices work through an app on your smartphone that gathers and analyzes key data about the way you drive. Details like your GPS location and driving speed are all fed into a database that records your performance on the road every time you’re driving. After a period of time, your auto insurance may reduce your premium if your driving habits are found to be safe.

Now this sounds great, but then I remembered that slow moving vehicle. I couldn’t help but notice that your smart phone can now track you every place you go and provide details like: “Your GPS location and driving speed.” In theory, this would just feed data into a database, to evaluate your driving. That is bad enough, but what if we get another Jimmy Carter who decides it would be wonderful if everyone drove 55 mph. Those of you too young to remember those days would be wise to pay attention. Imagine driving from Sacramento to Los Angeles on I-5 at 55 mph. First of all, when Carter did this, the speed limit was ignored, but it did significantly lower the speed at which you got a ticket. For example, now if you drive 80 mph on I-5 odds are a lot of cars will be passing you and you are unlikely to get a speeding ticket. But when the speed limit was 55, if drove 80 mph you would definitely get a ticket.

The push back against this was so severe that the 55 mph speed limit left along with Jimmy. But now, with these new devices, someone like, say, Joe Biden, could decide to lower the speed limit to 55 mph to reduce global warming. What’s more, he could actually enforce it by just monitoring your cell phone. In addition, don’t be surprised if cars already are capable of providing this information. If your GPS can tell you where to go, it can report where you are and how fast you are moving. The technology already exists, it is probably already installed in your vehicle, and it is only a matter of time before someone decides to use this to stop global warming.

In case you doubt this, the Governor of California just signed a bill banning gas lawn mowers and weed whackers by 2024, to reduce global warming. We currently have a whole class of politicians, we call them Democrats, who definitely want to micromanage your life. You can also be sure that they will create exemptions for themselves. This reminds me of a time I was in Manhattan on business. Suddenly a whole squad of motorcycle cops showed up. They quickly blocked every side street. Then, about five minutes later, a black limousine, surrounded by other motorcycles, went by at a high rate of speed. This was followed by another squad of motorcycles, forcing following traffic to slow down. I don’t really know who was in that vehicle, but suspect it was the mayor, because the President was definitely not in Manhattan. It was certainly someone unwilling to be slowed down by the notorious Manhattan traffic jams.

The point being that people in power are very good at making exceptions for themselves. They don’t ever try to hide it. That is why they fly all over the place, in private jets, so they can lecture the rest of us regarding our carbon footprint. Now previously this was somewhat tolerable because we still had our freedom and especially our own vehicles. We could drive anywhere we want, and we could even ignore the speed limit with little risk of consequences.

There is now risk that this will change, and sooner than you think. The same people who feel they can require you to get vaccinated, whether you want it or not and whether you need it or not, will not hesitate to force you to drive slower. They may also limit where you can go. It would be so easy, just use that handy dandy GPS to stop people from traveling too far. Then they will use the same argument for mandatory vaccines, that making everyone, other than them, move slower and travel less, will save lives, and do wonders for the environment.

So, while some people saw a car, moving slowing, with a weird bumper sticker this morning, I saw a glimpse of the future and it is a very dark picture. A very sad sign of the times.

There are, however, other things that really matter. The pilots for Southwest Airlines decided enough was enough so they are fighting back against the vaccine mandate. Southwest had to cancel over 1800 flights and left people stranded all over the country. The lucky ones could drive to their next location by just renting a car and driving for about 12 hours. But others don’t have that option. Southwest blamed this on the weather and air traffic control, but miraculously this didn’t appear to impact other airlines. Newsweek bought this nonsense, but then that is hardly a surprise.

So while that bumper sticker is a sign of the times, so are all those stranded Southwest Airlines passengers. Freedom is the most contagious disease of all, and it appears to be spreading rapidly.

TDM

The Daily Mail (UK) is not exactly a conservative rag. But they are more willing that American media outlets to report inconvenient facts. The following article should go off like a bomb, but will probably be ignored by the MSM:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10070677/No-cases-influenza-RSV-detected-Ohio-2020-21-season-just-2-cases-B-strain.html

“during the 2020-21 season, no cases of influenza A were detected and just two cases of influenza B were found”

Here is the graph.  It is beyond obvious:

This of course was explained away by the experts saying that mask mandates and social distancing instituted to protect from COVID-19 may have inadvertently stopped flu transmission.

I know Kaiser Permanente is not buying this, because they are sending me notices to get my flu shot.

One will note that there are numerous reports of false positive COVID-19 tests. At least some of these people had, RSV or the flu. The question is did the flu disappear or was it camouflaged as COVID-19, which is more useful in scaring people.

The doctor interviewed viewed this as evidence about the great effect of wearing masks, proper hygiene, and isolation. Then he says: “‘It can be a simple non-medicinal way to save lives.”

The following article from Health Impact News published in 2014, is very interesting because it claims the CDC was over stating the number of deaths from the flu because it wanted to sell the necessity for flu shots.

CDC Inflates Flu Death Stats to Sell More Flu Vaccines (healthimpactnews.com)

Did 80,000 People Really Die from the Flu Last Year? Inflating Flu Death Estimates to Sell Flu Shots (healthimpactnews.com)

Reading these now, in view of how the CDC has handled COVID, definitely raises some very important questions.

The attempt to scare people into fearing the flu did not work. This concerned people like Dr. Fauci who thinks it would be wonderful if every one got a flu shot and he complained that people didn’t understand the danger from flu.

The following article is from the Gateway Pundit, which sometimes exaggerates things but, in this case, they published a transcript that seems to be verified by multiple sources:

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/explosive-video-emerges-fauci-hhs-officials-plotting-new-avian-flu-virus-enforce-universal-flu-vaccination-video/

Incredibly, this shows that Fauci and others “WANTED” a COVID-19 kind of illness because people weren’t scared enough by the flu.

The follow excerpt from the transcript is mind-blowing:

Fauci: In order to make the transition from getting out of the tried-and-true egg growing which we know gives us results that can be beneficial, I mean we’ve done well with that. There must be something that has to be much better. You have to prove that this works and then you’ve got to go through all of the clinical trials: phase 1, phase 2, phase 3, and then show that this particular product is going to be good over a period of years. That alone, if it works perfectly, it’s going to take a decade.

Bright: There might be a need or even an urgent call for an entity of excitement out there that’s completely disruptive, that’s not beholden to bureaucratic strings and processes.

Fauci: So we really do have a problem of how the world perceives influenza and it’s going to be very difficult to change that unless you do it from within and say, I don’t care what your perception is, we’re going to address the problem in a disruptive and in an iterative way because she does need both.

Bright: But it is not too crazy to think that an outbreak of novel avian virus could occur in China somewhere. We could get the RNA sequence from that.. to a number of regional centers if not local, if not even in your home at some point, and print those vaccines on a patch of self-administer.

The MSM is ignoring this. But one way or the other, this screams for investigation. This appears to show intent to overstate the danger from the flu, (consistent with the previous report) and Rick Bright, Director of HHS Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) literally dreamed about an outbreak of a novel avian virus, from someplace like China, that would create the opportunity for a brave new vaccinated world.

In addition, it appears as though at least one Democrat is thoroughly disgusted with the extreme partisanship in his own party.

Manchin Shakes And Holds Head As Schumer Blasts Republicans After Debt Limit Pass – Bing video

Shortly after hearing this Manchin literally got up and walked out. The comments by Manchin later seem to confirm his disgust with Chuck Schumer.

Then, today, Joe Biden declared victory after a shockingly bad jobs report was issued. This report was so bad that even CNN shuddered. We expect politicians to lie about things, it is in their DNA. But lying is one thing, trying to present a totally false reality is something else. If Joe Biden believes this, he is totally delusional. Sadly, that appears to be the most likely explanation. But I am reminded that these are the same people who argue that both extremely cold weather and extremely hot weather is caused by man-made climate change, by which they mean global warming.

The best way I could think of to describe this mess is to create a new word. “Fluey”

TDM

In 1968, David Clayton-Thomas wrote a song for Blood Sweat & Tears called spinning wheel.  The first line of that song is:

“What goes up, must come down, Spinnin’ wheel got to go round.”

spinning wheel lyrics – Bing

I was flying combat missions in Vietnam at the time. I underestimated how much things were destined to change.

Everything on this planet moves in cycles. We sometimes forget that, when we feel we are on top of the world. We also forget it during times of trouble. Today a lot of supposedly smart people are shrieking about climate change. Some are proposing taking insane action to save us from global warming. President Biden and John Kerry refer to climate change as an existential threat to humanity. They say climate change, but they always mean global warming. The cold hard truth is that it doesn’t look like the earth is actually getting warmer. For example, on September 16^th, the Arctic Sea ice reached its annual minimum of 4.72 million square kilometers. Now one will note that 4.72 million square kilometers of ice is quite a bit larger than the ice free arctic predicted by that eminent scientific scholar, Al Gore. But this is also the most ice we have seen in the arctic, at this time of year, since 2014.

Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis | Sea ice data updated daily with one-day lag (nsidc.org)

Just in case you were wondering, the Antarctic is not exactly experiencing a heat wave either. The following article from the Seattle Times explains why the South Pole is experiencing record cold, which is an anomaly in a warming world:

South Pole posts most severe cold season on record, an anomaly in a warming world | The Seattle Times

The average temperature at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station between April and September, a frigid minus-78 degrees (minus-61 Celsius), was the coldest on record, dating back to 1957. This was 4.5 degrees lower than the most recent 30-year average.

And, by the way, there is more ice there too!

The extreme cold over Antarctica helped push sea ice levels surrounding the continent to their fifth-highest level on record in August, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

So, the best evidence of climate change (global warming) is that both poles are getting significantly colder. You probably don’t know this because CNN is not covering the story.

This type of logic explains why Joe Biden is shutting down pipelines in the U.S., encouraging pipelines in Europe, discouraging drilling for oil in the U.S. and demanding we switch to electric vehicles that will be serviced by a grid using far fewer fossil fuels. If this seems insane, it is because it is insane.

It is also insane to demand everyone get vaccinated, because vaccinations protect vaccinated people from getting terribly sick from COVID, but they must still wear a mask so that vaccinated people don’t spread COVID to unvaccinated people. This, of course, includes people who have already had COVID and have at least 20 times more immunity that people who have merely been vaccinated. This is all necessary to continue following the science.

The same logic is used to demand that all school age children, get vaccinated, before they can go back to school where they will still need to wear masks, to protect the teachers. This is because the only people exempt from getting vaccinated are teachers who are members of the teachers union.

Our healthcare system is improving daily by requiring all health care works to get vaccinated. This has resulted in numerous healthcare workers getting fired or quitting. This has resulted in some healthcare systems rationing care. This, of course, is all designed to help us end the pandemic and return to normal life. Once again, following the science.

This same logic is used to demand that all future elections be conducted only with mail-in ballots, which both Democrats and Republicans agree are a recipe for fraud, so that we can all have more confidence in our elections.

The good news is that spinnin’ wheel keeps on spinnin’ and no amount of false logic changes that. Democrats were publicly humiliated when they couldn’t stop spitting at each other long enough to pass the “Biden Agenda.” Every time Biden tries to show why he is President, and everyone should listen to him, he only provides more evidence of his own senility and incompetence. A level of incompetence exceeded only by his designated replacement, Kamala Harris.

The San Francisco Giants, predicted to win, perhaps 72 games this year, if they were lucky, just finished the season with 107 wins, the most in franchise history. That would be 1 win more than the Los Angeles Dodgers, who also had their best year in franchise history, winning 106 games, only to come in second. They now face a one day sudden death playoff game with the hottest team in baseball, the St. Louis Cardinals. The Giants only exceeded expectations by a mere 35 games, proving once again that many of the people we rely on to predict things have zero credibility. They are guessing and one reason they are often very wrong is that they forget about that “spinnin’ wheel.”

“What goes up, must come down. Spinnin’ wheel got to go ‘round.” True about the weather. Also true about politics. No amount of spin by the MSM can stop that wheel from going “round.” Don’t sell your coat.

TDM

Anyone remotely familiar with the NFL is all too familiar with the “prevent defense.” This is where a team suddenly decides, typically during the last two minutes of a game, to dramatically change the way they run their defense. They drop their cornerbacks and safeties way back to prevent the other team from making a long play. Wise announcers often say that the “prevent defense” only prevents the team deploying this from winning. We saw a classic example of that last Sunday night. The Packers were playing the 49ers and went ahead with 37 seconds on the clock. The 49ers kicked off and immediately went into the “prevent defense.” The result was what anyone remotely familiar with Aaron Rodgers expected. He threw a couple of 20 yards passes. That took Green Bay from their own 25 yard line to the 49er 32 yard line. Then they kicked a field goal as time ran out, winning the game.

The 49ers had made life difficult for Aaron Rodgers all game. Perhaps I am wrong, but I suspect if they had run their traditional defense that would have made it much harder for Aaron Rodgers to beat them. One should note that I did not care who won that game, so this is just an observation, not a gripe.

Today we are seeing the political version of “prevent defense” and odds are it will have similar results. Democrats have been promising to pass a $1.5 trillion bi-partisan infrastructure bill, which isn’t actually bi-partisan and then a $3.5 trillion social justice bill which they hope to pass through reconciliation. They need to do this through reconciliation because no Republican, even RINOs like Mitt Romney, will vote for this disaster. But there is trouble in River or should I say Capital City. It turns out Democrats can’t even pass the $1.5 trillion bi-partisan infrastructure bill, because it isn’t actually bi-partisan and progressives in the Senate are on a mission for all or nothing. Nancy Pelosi dropped this down to $500 billion, and still couldn’t get it passed. In the meantime, if progressives can’t get their $3.5 trillion play toy, they are going to take the ball and go home. Meanwhile moderate Democrats, a term used extremely lightly, in the Senate like Manchin and Sinema, are opposed to the “Big Deal.” Krysten Sinema has already left Washington, so there already are not enough Democratic votes in the Senate.

Nancy Pelosi delayed the bill because she knew it could not pass. Joe Biden is on the way over to congress ready to put his incredible personal leadership and communication skills on full display to push this over the line. I doubt that this will impress anyone. This is a hot mess, for Democrats, but great news for the rest of us. The reason I called this the “prevent defense” is that Democrats already know they are on their way to a historical drubbing next fall. Everything Joe Biden has touched, and I do mean everything, has turned out to be a complete disaster. The economy is tanking, inflation is soaring, and even the MSM is concerned about the potential for 400,000 plus new future star citizens to cross our open borders, without bothering to pass goal and certainly without getting vaccinated or tested for COVID. So, in order to prevent getting hammered next year, Democrats decided they must pass something, anything, so they can at least pretend an accomplishment only to prove that they can’t even get enough support within their own party to do anything.

No one in the Democratic Party is going to be happy about this. Perhaps the person who will get the most blame is Nancy Pelosi, but Chuck Schumer won’t be far behind. Everyone already blames Biden, so he won’t feel much impact. Incredibly Progressive Democrats are planning on Kamala Harris taking center stage and leading their base to victory in November 22. What could possibly go wrong with that brilliant strategy?

Like I wrote in the first paragraph, the “prevent defense” primarily prevents winning. In this case the good news is that if Democrats keep up this brilliant path to glory, November 2022 is likely to result in a world class day of Thanksgiving.

TDM

It appears that the first time “SOS” was used when after the Titanic struck an iceberg. It was Morse Code for Save Our Ship. Now one could argue that “SOS” stands for “Stuck on Stupid.” The Democratic Party is officially stuck on stupid, with predictable results. Democrats were forced to choose Joe Biden as their nominee for President, even though he was clearly unqualified for the job. Biden has a long history of telling ridiculous lies and being wrong on almost every major foreign policy decision. His family appears to be hopelessly corrupt, and he has a personal history of creepy behavior. He has zero public speaking ability and is absolutely incapable of reading a room.  In his previous attempts to run for President he was basically laughed out of the contest with about 5% of the vote. In fact, during the 2020 primary season, the same thing was happening to Biden until the South Carolina Primary. Everybody in both parties knew he was a loser. Ultimately Democrats were forced to choose between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. They reluctantly chose Biden. Incredibly, he was still better than all the other Democrats who ran for President. Astonishing when you think about it.

Compare that to the Republicans who ran for President in 2016.  John Kasich, Gov of Ohio; Ted Cruz, Sen from Texas; Marco Rubio, Sen from Florida; Ben Carson, Neurosurgeon; Jeb Bush, Gov of Florida; Jim Gilmore, Gov of Virginia, Chris Christie, Gov of New Jersey; Carly Fiorina, CEO of Hewlett-Packard; Rick Santorum, Sen from Pennsylvania; Rand Paul, Sen from Kentucky; and Mike Huckabee, Gov of Arkansas. Any of them far superior to Joe Biden. They lost because Donald Trump beat them.

In addition, Republican candidates who withdrew before the primaries included George Pataki, Gov of New York; Lindsey Graham, Sen from South Carolina; Bobby Jindal, Gov of Louisiana; Scott Walker, Gov of Wisconsin; and Rick Perry, Gov of Texas.  Even these guys, none of whom came close, are all better than Joe Biden.

The result is that even though Democrats control the House, the Senate, and the Presidency, they have not been able to accomplish ANYTHING. Instead, Joe Biden made a bunch of idiotic executive decisions, all of which made everything worse. I cannot think of a single thing that has improved since the 2020 election. But we have achieved the worst military defeat and diplomatic fiasco in American History. The whole world is either throwing up or laughing at us. Unemployment is skyrocketing, crime is skyrocketing, gas prices are skyrocketing. Heck, the cost of everything is skyrocketing and due to worldwide supply problems, even with the higher costs, businesses have trouble even getting product. These are just some of the problems and Joe’s only plan is to force everyone, except illegal aliens, to get vaccinated. Democrats still desperately try to blame everything on Donald Trump, but that ship has sailed.

For months we heard about the bi-partisan infrastructure bill and the $3.5 trillion mega deal. Both of them went completely down in flames. Democrats didn’t come close to passing either. Instead, as I predicted, Democrats and Republicans united on the one thing that always unites them, kicking the debt ceiling limit a little farther down the road.

Think about this for a minute and allow yourself a tiny little smile. Joe Biden is obviously a disaster, but if he were to be replaced, what Democrat is available to do the job? Joe Manchin would have zero chance of getting support from the Democratic Party. Gov Cuomo has resigned and Gov Newsom was nearly recalled. Name the Democratic Governor with nationwide name recognition. Don’t bother, there are none. The somewhat well-known names, like Gretchen Witmer from Michigan and Phil Murphy from New Jersey have serious problems in their own states. Democrats literally have no bench. Instead, they have “leaders” like AOC, who are actually neither talented nor smart.

Mitch McConnell just destroyed Chuck Schumer by agreeing only to suspend the debt limit and doing nothing else. He didn’t even agree to raise the debt limit, instead he said that was the Democrats job. The problem for Democrats is that their margin in the House is razor thin and they have zero margin in the Senate. The progressives are demanding huge spending bills and the moderates are saying no way.  There are about 48 progressives in the House, so it will be extremely difficult for Democrats to pass something they oppose. Yet any legislation acceptable to progressives will not be acceptable to moderates. The result is that while Democrats have a majority, they have no leadership, and they are bitterly divided. The Republican party, on the other hand, appears to be very united and even RINO Republicans are sniffing the air, sensing the sweet, sweet smell of victory.

The few remaining smart Democrats have to be looking at Biden’s polling results and experiencing night sweats just thinking about the 2022 election. Many feared that Biden would be a puppet president, but it is clear he is making his own decisions. Even Obama has started to trash Biden. He only listens when someone reminds him to put on his mask, refuse to answer questions and where to locate the ice cream.

No one in either party is expressing any confidence that Democrats will do well in the 2022 elections. An off year election is historically bad for the party in power. When you combine this with the disastrous performance by the Biden administration, a perfect storm is brewing. Democrats know they are in serious trouble, but the biggest problem is not the polling, it is the increasing evidence that they are stuck on stupid.

TDM