Fake News Friday: Part II

Writing Fake News is dangerous!

"Fake News" guru found dead at age 38.  Natural causes ruled out as cause-of-death.

Fake News Friday

They claim that because we're white, we are inherently racist and are born that way.

The same liberals say that transgenders, gays and lesbians are born that way and can't help it and it's not their choice or fault.

Does that mean they also think it's not the white person's fault that they were born racist? 

From RyanTX at 24hourcampfire.com

Fanatasy Football is a redundant term

I work a couple of part-time gigs.

The boss at my Monday gig was aghast at what the athletes in the NFL are doing.

His take is that watching football is escapism.  Football is a parallel universe that allows viewers to escape the messy, cluttered, compromised, dirty gold-fish bowl that is the world of reality.

Some people watch soap operas.  Others listen to NPR.  Many watch the NFL.  Same-same-same.

His belief is that the NFL will lose its unique marketing proposition if it lets too much "reality" leak in.  The players are actors playing a role.  They can spout off at awards ceremonies but need to stay in-character within the theater called the football stadium.

The players and coaches don't give up their Constitutionally guaranteed rights on the playing field any more than an actor gives up his rights when playing a character in a Shakespeare play. 

There is a term for actors who cannot remember their lines:

Unemployed.

Kubota deals with an unruly passenger

Kubota got his driver's license about ten days ago.

Last night he borrowed Mrs ERJ's minivan to go hang out with some friends.

Details are sketchy.  I was not there and Kubota is not saying a lot about it.

Kubota picked up one friend and a friend-of-the-friend.

The FOTF was sitting behind Kubota and became verbally abusive.

Then the FOTF started hitting Kubota in the back of the head while Kubota was driving.

Kubota pulled off the road.

Kubota told the unruly passenger that he was no longer welcome in the minivan and had to leave.

The temperature was a balmy 65F and it was not raining.  The young man had a cell phone and was in no danger of freezing to death or being eaten by large carnivores.

The passenger refused to exit the van.

Kubota "helped" him exit the van and then proceeded on his way.

Kubota was concerned that he would be reported to the cops because he ejected the miscreant with vigor. 

I told him that as long as he did not break any of the young man's bones he was going to be OK.  Police would probably give him a metal because they would much rather deal with the fall-out from how he handled the situation rather than a two-vehicle accident with possible fatalities.

Political Correctness

Super article HERE.  Warning, a long read.

Don't read it if you value a "happy face" over flinty reality.  Political Correctness is the dogma of Secular Humanism and the author, Gail Tverberg pokes a few holes into it.

Key points
Myth One:  Diminishing supply will always "telegraph" with higher prices.
Author's response: Sagging wages and the resulting destruction in buying power can destroy demand more quickly than supply shrinks, at least in the short term.

Myth Four: Wind and solar can save us.
Author's response:  The numbers don't pencil out.  Nomadic hunter/gatherers needed 100 "Watts" in the form of food and another 200 "Watts" of firewood and of energy embodied in their artifacts per capita.  Pre-industrial agriculture required 2000 "Watts" but much of that was invested in traction animals.

Even if we could get all 7.5 billion humans to coast along at 300 Watts, the perfect allocation of all of the earth's solar and wind power would only provide about 10% of the supplemental energy needed over-and-above food.

Suppose we created some kind of "fusion" agriculture using herbicides instead of traction animals and were able to survive on 1000 Watts per capita?  In that case all of the installed wind and solar power would only provide 2% of the required supplemental energy humans need to survive.

Even if we could scale up 50 times the current installation base, there are still major issues of intermittency and distribution.

Myth Six:  Peer reviewed articles give correct findings.
Author's response:  The splintering of knowledge causes "findings" to be untethered to the macro context.  Political considerations lead to omissions or overly generous "findings" so papers will be accepted and published.

Myth Eight:  We don't need religion.  Our human leaders are all knowing and all powerful.
Author's response:  As a society we need an over-arching structure to bring us into alignment and coherence.  Think of the drum beat in a Sousa march.  Human leaders are a very slender reed upon which to thrust this task.

A few more pictures

The camera was tilted.  The land is essentially level.

The menagerie also includes a couple of Welsh Corgis, an unspecified number of cats and variable numbers of other species.

Guest post by a progressive with skin in the game

Expanding the garden back in 2009.  First, burn off the brush.

Try to not burn down the house.

This has been our 10th year with the garden. 

Bust up the clods, pull the stumps.

We had 46 families this year. 

Planting onions

Every year many local greenhouses contribute excess plants to the garden.

Planting tomatoes

Most of these folks work jobs that many Americans would never consider working; even though they were teachers, nurses, and other professionals in their home countries. Their kids work hard in school and they want to be American! They study hard for their citizenship and frequently know more about America than many who are born and raised here. They are law abiding and very patriotic. 

Fun for the whole family!

One nice thing about gardening is that you can look behind you and see progress.

These folks know what it means to have little or no freedom! Religious freedom is very important to them. They actively live their Christian faith and truly feel God has blessed each of them in there life journeys. 

It is 10:30 AM on Saturday.  Do you know where YOUR teenager is?

ERJ note:  Many of these refugees were pushed out by Boko Haram at the Moslem-Christian skirmish line and by rebels attempting to overthrow the government.

Canning lessons with the first of the tomato crop.

Lessons in making pickles.

Quality control is a very, very important job.  (Busted!)

My husband and I like helping these gardeners help themselves. It would definitely be easier and cheaper for us to just write a check to an agency that gives handouts, but our community garden allows folks to be active in their own success. It's not necessarily Lutheran teaching, but my mom always told us kids, "God helps those who help themselves!" 

Harvest party.  The younger contingent.

The mature contingent.

The can't stop moving contingent.

One's dignity is strengthened when one actively participates in creating the life one aspires to achieve.  We offer Americans born here free garden spots too, but if and when they do garden with us, they do not stick with it until harvest. Most just say they "can't" garden or don't have "time". We figure most Americans do not really know what it means to be hungry. Or, they think if they are hungry, it's someone else's responsibility to make sure they are fed. The gardeners that garden with us usually work two or three minimum wage jobs and still find time to garden!  

Main season canning.  The time for "lessons" is past.  This is about production.

From the winter garden

Most of our gardeners only receive assistance for their first 6 months after arriving in America. They are required to become self sufficient after six months plus they must pay back the price of the airfare that brought them and their family to this country over the next couple years.

My husband and I really admire their strength and fortitude in their efforts to be "good" Americans! The vetting process serves to bring over refugees likely to succeed, not cost the US more money. They are working and paying taxes shortly after arrival in the States. They also share generously what little they have with their church and community.

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