24 Hours In Emmetsburg, Featuring Bev Snyder

https://www.thepublicopinion.com/story/lifestyle/2021/07/09/24-hours-emmetsburg-iowa-palo-alto-county-fairgrounds/7900399002/

It speaks for itself!

We went into the Cornerstone and were enjoying a burger and a beer when the couple who owned the bike walked by. We knew they were the owners because the guy was wearing a BMW shirt. Either he was the bike’s owner or was being paid to advertise BMW in random small towns.

Not sure I'd describe her as "elderly" ... at least not if she was close by.

An elderly lady took a seat next to us, saying that she wanted to hear the next guy speak. I informed her that I was the next guy.

The lady, who introduced herself as Bev, seemed happy to meet us. Bev told us that she’s 87, has 21 great-grandchildren and manages a swine operation at Cylinder, Iowa (motto: A Well-Rounded Town). Bev mused that she’s probably one of the oldest hog operators in Iowa. It would be safe to say that she’s probably the oldest female hog operator in the Hawkeye State.

The Unbroken Thread, Discovering The Wisdom Of Tradition In The Age of Chaos

 https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2021/07/01/a-guide-for-recovering-the-wisdom-of-the-past/

The book was of course irresistible to me. While the Bible talks of the foolishness of building your "house" (life) on sand, the modern West has decided that building lives on materialism, pleasure, career, technology, etc is a worthy goal. Solomon knew this is vanity long ago, and we are just proving it yet again. (Eccl 1:2 Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.He who has eyes can see that Solomon is still right) 

If you are only going to read one of the Sohrab Ahmari books, this would be my pick. If you think you want more, or if your objective is to come to faith rather than save the culture, I'd go with "From Fire By Water" which is a prequel.  

The Chinese, even in a Communist state, respect their elders and their tradition. Even in the US, those of Asian, Indian, Korean, etc are vastly surpassing those raised in the desolation of American "culture". The fact that ivy league schools have to limit their admission of these nationalities or the schools would be primarily "minority". Such has been the case for Jews forever ... they have been discriminated against because they were successful, because they had a specific culture, passed on from generation to generation that included a tradition of reading, education and adherence to religion. I also believe they are especially blessed because they are Gods chosen people -- and time has verified that. 

On page 78 he quotes rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel: 

"He [man] must say farewell to manual work and learn to understand that the world has already been created and will survive without the help of man". Today, we must add, ANY work ... worship, study and reflection on our creator are required to be human. 

Page 97, "... rather ritual and religion are really at the core of the human matter",  As "Moral, Believing, Animals" makes clear ... we all have our morality, beliefs and religion, even though Western civilization is in tragic denial of this obvious fact, and the denial is causing painful breakage - in ourselves, in our families, in our communities, and in our cultures. 

Page 140, "Augustine provided the Catholic church with what in future centuries it would need so much: an oasis of absolute clarity in a troubled world ..."  "City of God" is a timeless treasure. 

Page 173, Related to John Henry Newman, "The individual soul was called to submit to the authority of an apostolic body tracing to Christ's first followers, and that body's judgements couldn't be wrong". 

I could spend and likely will spend a lot of text on this statement in the future. It comes down to "the Bible or the Pope"? Given the history of the church, it seems impossible to accept that the pope/church is "infallible".  Just on the issue of celibacy alone, which was not a requirement until the Second Lateran Council held in 1139, one can only assume that the church was wrong for a thousand years (Peter was married), or God changed his mind. Based on the homosexuality of priests, abuse of children, and inability to get priests, one tends to look to the Apostle Paul saying it is better to marry than to burn, than to the "infallibility" of the church.  

We need authority, and it is critical that the authority be correct and eternally reliable. As Hebrews 13:8 says "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and forever." 

So is our authority the unchanging word of God, or that of a human pope? 

The Bible is a much better foundation than even tradition. As the book makes clear, tradition is VERY important, however it is not God. 

My biggest concern with the book and with Catholicism is that "whatever the church says" is dangerously close to "whatever the culture says".  The church is seems close to approving abortion, gay "marriage", and who knows what else on that slippery slope. 

It is thorny if you are Catholic. Do you follow tradition or the Bible? 

Matthew 10:34-35 "Do not assume that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law ..." 

The Christian church, and Christians are to be "the salt of the earth". Matt 5:13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its flavor, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled on by people."

Going along to get along is really not an option. Can a pope allow Joe Biden to strongly support abortion, gay "marriage", and transgender, yet still be the salt of the earth? 

Way Back To 2016 Election Certification

 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-congress-idUSKBN14Q25R

The media does a great job of making sure we have no recollection of what happened the day before yesterday. Sometimes even yesterday.

Today, questioning the validity of an election is "the big lie", a "danger to democracy", something worthy of being suppressed because it is "counter to our basic American principles" -- whatever those might be today?  Fawning worship of the Deep State, Democrat party, Mass Media, the wealthy?

How soon we forget 2016-2017 and the level of denial of the election of Trump. 

The U.S. Congress on Friday certified the Electoral College vote that gave Republican Donald Trump his victory in the contentious 2016 presidential election after a raucous half-hour joint session punctuated by Democratic challenges.

The Deep State "Russian Interference" witch hunt was a top story and took up countless hours of legislative time,  and was slavishly covered by the MSM. "Not My President" was a common statement. The election was challenged at every level. One of my favorites was the Democrat/media push to have the election stolen in the Electoral College via "unfaithful electors". 

I understand that few Americans can remember as far back as 2000-2001, but W was considered the "appointed president", the "unelected president". 

For 200 years, Americans understood why we had an electoral college. In a nation so vast, there was a real danger of rule by city, with the clear understanding that bringing out huge numbers of "votes", many of which were fraudulent as most understood as they witnessed the "Daley Machine" in Chicago, and "Boss Tweed/Tammany Hall" in NYC. Those were just the big picture examples -- cities were Democrat for reasons of government dependence, unions, patronage, corruption, and other unseemly practice. 

Today, Democrats seek to squash any efforts to clean up the sordid urban election process as "voter suppression", when it is actually "red state vote suppression via urban vote fraud". The HR1 bill seeks to codify voter fraud into the law of the land. 

Even if HR1 can be stopped, we are likely at a point where any party opposing the Democrat, Deep State, MSM machine will be unable to win the popular "vote", since as our founders understood when the created the Electoral College, the practice of running up huge urban numbers through machine politics and outright fraud is just part of of the urban system. 

As Pelosi said at the end of the linked article: 

“That’s why people have some level of dismay today on the vote ... about the Electoral College,” Pelosi said at a news conference. “How much is known about the foreign disruption of our election?”

"Foreign disruption" is pretty much a constant -- we do it to other countries all the time as well. Interfering across a vast nation, most of it "red" is MUCH harder than "interfering" or simply carrying out outright fraud in a few key urban districts.  

The Democrats have made it clear, anything less than single party rule in concert with the Deep State, MSM, and huge corporations is "a danger to the country". That "country" is not America. 

Invalidating a Republican election victory is a "patriotic duty", going back to Nixon. The means change ... with Nixon, Reagan, and HW Bush it was "investigations" ("Iran Contra" ran until HW was defeated in '92).  

Vaccine Effectiveness on Wayward TX Legislators

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/07/two-more-texas-dems-down.php

So "5 out of 60" fully vaccinated AWOL TX legislators tested positive for Covid. The link gives the complete list of what this might mean. My guess is: 

1. Like pretty much any flu vaccine, roughly 50% effectiveness is pretty good. I totally agree with pumping up the effectiveness numbers. ANYTHING to get us out of this crazy round of massive government overreach. Hey! Biden saved us all! Great. Whatever. My level of faith in anything from the government or media (but I repeat myself) is zero.  
   
   
2. The tests are roughly 50% effective either way.  So like everything in this Covid scare, we don't really "know" much of anything beyond a coin flip. As Fauxi as told us ... either masks are not effective, or they are. Flip a coin. 
   
   

Masks are not effective. Don't wear them. 

We all know that position changed to MANDATORY masks, although real world experience showed the mandates did nothing. 

The Political Vaccine

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/07/joe-biden-and-kamala-harris-anti-vaxxers.php

If you any doubts that everything in this country is political, especially the vaccine, follow the link. 

When Trump was in office, Biden and Harris were highly suspicious of the vaccine.  I do like the honesty of Harris ... "if Trump says to take it, I'm not taking it". Biden is as clear as Biden (or probably his handers) ever are ... "there has to be complete transparency".  Well, at least if the Democrats are not in total control. 

Now that the Deep State minions and are running the circus, taking the vaccine is bordering on mandatory, and questioning anything about it is dangerous "misinformation". As cadaver in chief Biden tells us, saying anything bad about the vaccine is "killing people". 

Therefore, any studies, data, observations, etc that indicate that there are problems with this brand new first in history gigantic trial of a new technology must be censored! 

So how does one learn anything when the actual results are turned into propaganda rather than science? 

A glance at Lysenko will explain "we don't", and in his case it resulted in the deaths of millions. 

A string of skepticism from the left until they were sure the election rig had been successful. 

Trump Bad, Taliban OK

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/trump-banned-twitter-taliban-isnt/ 

Trump is banned from Twitter, but the Taliban is not. The link doesn't say why, and even tries to come up with some potential (although very thin) reasons why it could make some sense. 

Does anyone really not know the reason? Trump is a threat to the "Great Reset", massive voter fraud, media control of speech, etc, etc 

The Taliban is just a threat to Afghanis, and occasionally when they blow something up (like 9-11) to some unfortunate commoners. From the elite perspective, so what? 

The global elite doesn't fly commercial, and they have great security services. For the good of all, the global Davos, corporatist, woke elite has to be protected from Trump and his unwashed 70 million deplorables! 

Could this be anymore obvious? 

Covid Survivor Vaccinations?

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/study-people-who-have-recovered-from-covid-19-unlikely-to-benefit-from-vaccine_3850989.html

Much like the proud folks who have been double stuck, as a "survivor" of a virus with an over 99% survival rate in my age cohort, I want to think I'm protected, although the media medical complex wants to cast all the doubt they can. Delta variant? Breakthrough infection?. Did you REALLY have it? ... although both my wife and I tested positive and had the fever, lethargy, loss of taste symptoms. Did you not hear that a positive test is only like 50% accurate? 

Certainly the prudent course is to take a brand new mRNA virus vaccine and eat non-GMO organic seedless grapes! 

Research published last month indicated that people who recovered from mild COVID-19 have long-lasting antibody protection. That built on research that reached a similar finding. Previous research also indicated that people who had COVID-19 showed virus-specific T cell responses. The World Health Organization on May 10, in an updated scientific brief (pdf), said that most people who are infected with the CCP virus and recover develop “strong protective immune responses” that remain “robust and protective against reinfection for at least 6–8 months.”

Based on what the Cleveland Clinic researchers found, natural protection from infection lasts at least a year.

The Cleveland Clinic is probably due to lose any federal funding . Have they not got the proper narrative memo? 

Sowell, Knowledge And Decisions

 aei.org/articles/a-review-essay-about-knowledge-and-decisions/

The book is not an easy read, and the linked review is not that easy either. I believe it is impossible to really summarise these topics and the relationship between them because they are both deep and VERY wide!

In this age of Covid, I was especially struck by this prophetic statement near the end of the review: 

What makes this tale particularly unsettling to me is that the modern regulatory state also has supplied pathways to public influence for specialists in normally obscure scientific disciplines. One need only recall the public role of cytologists, pathologists, and geneticists, all of them claiming the halo of scientific objectivity and concern for public safety, in the debates on Love Canal, nitrates, saccharin, aspartame, and malathion (the Medfly spray).

In 1982, even "Anthropogenic Global Warming", now rebranded as "Climate Change" to cover ALL bases, had not entered the fetid relationship of pseudoscience,  bureaucracy, political mass media, etc. 

I'd recommend at least trying to make it through the linked review. 

The VERY inadequate moose summary is that the ever increasing power of intellectuals who have never done anything in the real world, wielded by  bureaucracy, aided abetted by global media and big business, causes the feedback mechanisms of profit/loss and being voted out of office to be effectively suffocated. 

While this book is great, "A Conflict of Visions" is a much more reachable way to get to essentially the same conclusions. 

Anton, Modern Machiavelli

 https://americanmind.org/salvo/the-art-of-spiritual-war/?fbclid=IwAR0412Bi_iXQ9zKBraOeWiTg23-vCzlRloalwLCyx9S9Amj8D2UecGeIWOI#null

The link is to an excellent, though maybe a little esoteric article by Michael Anton, the esteemed author of the "Flight 93 Election". 

Machiavelli has a poor reputation in Christian circles for obvious reasons, however, just because you don't agree with a lot of a person's thinking is no reason to trash all of it.  

Machiavelli faced a challenge so startlingly similar to ours that it almost seems as if history does repeat itself. To put it as succinctly possible, he sought to liberate philosophy and politics—theory and practice—from a stultifying tradition and corrupt institutions.

The following quote can be thought of as somewhat equivalent to the idea that Christians may need to use "unsavory tools" (like violence)  to protect their families, the weak, and the eternal souls of billions.  This is also dangerous, but possibly necessary. One of my mottos -- "safety first when lighting fires with gasoline"!

They had to admit in other words that in an important respect the good has to take its bearings by the practice of bad cities or that the bad impose their law on the good.

A quote directly applicable to our times; 

Our institutions are rotten. For those needing details on how, I lay it out in chapter 3 of The Stakes. For two fresher examples see, first, the way the government colluded with hedge funds to crush small online investors trying to block an all-too-typical financial sector wealth-extraction power play; second, look at Anthony Fauci’s transparently false denials of having funded COVID research in China, and the media’s (and government’s) shameless attempts to cover it all up. There is really not one institution left in America that is not corrupt in both senses: borderline incompetent, but also venal, self-serving and lawless.

Here is my review of "The Stakes".

As a conservative technologist this really hits home: 

The classics were for almost all practical purposes what now are called conservatives. In contradistinction to many present-day conservatives however, they knew that one cannot be distrustful of political or social change without being distrustful of technological change.

 The discussion of "sophistry" vs "propaganda" is illuminated in "The Ethics of Rhetoric". Basically, sophistry is "fake news", and "propaganda" is more like "long term marketing speech", normally linked with institutions once trusted, and for the uninformed, still trusted.  

Whereas sophistry is the art of persuading a particular democratic assembly on a given issue on a specific day, propaganda aims to shape public opinion broadly and, if not permanently, for as long as humanly possible. Strauss is saying that the classics’ reluctance to innovate—their dispositional conservatism—made them vulnerable to conquest via this new weapon. The conquest happened. Christianity waged a spiritual war against the classical world which the latter proved unable to resist

Machiavelli played the very long game ... which Christians likely need to play today, but with a completely different foundation. 

He proposes to do this via a popular-philosophic alliance in which the people are convinced by a new type of propaganda, disseminated by Machiavelli’s successors, to allow the philosophers to rule (indirectly) in exchange for philosophy providing what the people most want: material plenty and a modicum of security (P 25). Fat and happy, they will forget God, or at least bestow their gratitude on others. (Though there’s a lot more to it than just this.)

So philosophy begat science/technology which caused the masses to forget God and worship science.  Like most best laid plans of man, it is doubtful that Niccolo thought that philosophy, and even the concept of metaphysical truth, would be buried under the "stuff" and entertainment heaped on man in unbelieveale (at Machiavelli's time) plenty. 

A worthy read. 

mRNA Details, Who Do You Trust?

 https://www.theepochtimes.com/dr-robert-malone-mrna-vaccine-inventor-on-the-bioethics-of-experimental-vaccines-and-the-ultimate-gaslighting_3889805.html

The linked rather long article an interview with Dr Robert Malone, one of the original inventors of mRNA technology. 

I like to check my sources (unlike much of the media today). This from Novotech :

Dr Malone brings more than 20 years of management and leadership experience in academia, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology with deep expertise in regulatory and medical strategy for global clinical product development. Dr Malone is an internationally recognised physician and scientist for his work in the areas of clinical trials, vaccines, gene therapy, biodefense, and immunology and specifically as one of the original inventors of DNA vaccination and multiple non-viral gene therapy technologies (RNA and DNA).

That quote is from 2017, so no doubt Dr Malone is labeled an insane crank today. 

Dr Malone is looking at Ivermectin as a lower cost, better tested med for preventing/treating Covid. Naturally, if you google it, the NIH, CDC don't like it ... much like they originally said that Trump was xenophobic for restricting travel from Wuhan, and that masks were not effective against Covid. 

The American Journal for Therapeutics OTH says:  

Moderate-certainty evidence finds that large reductions in COVID-19 deaths are possible using ivermectin. Using ivermectin early in the clinical course may reduce numbers progressing to severe disease. The apparent safety and low cost suggest that ivermectin is likely to have a significant impact on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic globally.

Dr Malone says: 

Obviously, the RNA vaccines have gotten a lot of attention. They’re remarkable. The adenovirus vectored vaccines probably produce more protein over a longer period of time. They came out fairly early and were identified as associated with coagulation problems. Those coagulation problems are now being seen more with the RNA vaccines.

And there’s an odd spectrum of symptoms. The governments across the world have largely denied that there are any safety concerns with the RNA vaccines. Now, that’s not so tenable.

Another Malone quote:

Now I’ve had COVID. I’ve had long COVID, and it’s changed my body. I don’t have the exercise tolerance I used to have. But I didn’t die, and I’m 61. I’m in a moderate risk group, but we fear it almost like the Africans feared Ebola in the West African outbreak. It’s driving us to compromise some of our fundamentals, including this censorship initiative.

I don’t know what that looks like on the other side. Eventually, we’re going to get through this, but it’s impacting on society in profound ways. This censorship of information, those that are experiencing it, including myself, are profoundly disturbed by what we’re seeing, and the long-term meanings of it.

My wife and I had "short Covid" in December. 

My wife came down with fairly long lasting cold in early June, I picked it up after, and still have a nagging, but clearing cough. We have not been vaccinated based on "watchful waiting", the usual medical advice for something with a 99%+ survival rate, especially if you have had it, that rate even being better.  I've had long term sinus drip/nagging coughs nearly every year of my life since adolescence. Could this be a Covid re-infection? Certainly, however it has none of the original symptoms ... lethargy, loss of taste, etc. 

Of course, if you listen to much of the media (which I don't, but I'm not Amish, nor from Havana), one of the reasons for "masks forever" is that even if you have had it and are vaccinated, you can be re-infected, and your symptoms may be reduced/different - so stay fearful! 

Isn't that convenient if one of your major objectives is to maintain fear, allowing for increased power for government, CDC, etc.? And then there is the "delta variant". 

Have you renewed the extended warranty on your vehicle? You COULD have a repair costing $5K or more! Thank God you are getting this important call! 

The overarching message of the (too long) interview is that the Covid overreaction, plus the suppression of information calling that overreaction into question is reducing faith in public health and vaccinations in general. 

Well DUH! 

Perhaps we should "ask Amy"? 

 

Just finished Thomas Sowell's  "Knowledge and Decisions" (review to come shortly). An important part of a society descending into bureaucratic tyranny is to maintain fear. Crisis followed by crisis - nuclear war, running out of petroleum, climate change, terrorism, etc, etc. "Never let a "crisis" go to waste". 

Is there a basis for some level of concern on any/all of these? Certainly, however we need to all be aware of the global media, corporatist, bureaucratic "Great Reset". 

Trust no one!