Nom de plume: Rivrdog

American commerce and shoddy goods

There was a time in this Nation's history when we could produce quality goods in any desired quantities, and we had the logistics to get them to global markets.

That time has passed, and due mostly to the "woke" banks, all subservient to the Communist Chinese, our industries produce quality goods only in small amounts, usually only for local distribution.

 

Here are two examples from MY house: Example one: I usually buy Vanity Fair brand paper table napkins. Last week, while marketing, I noticed some in HIGHLY similar packaging, picked up the two different brands and selected the "Everyday" brand, it was a dollar cheaper for the same 200-count package. I get them home and load the napkin holder on my table. The new napkins are useful only as four-folded. Doubled, they don't work, they tear when wiping the mouth.

Example two: Activia Yogurt: I've used it for years, it keeps the gut-flora on an even keel. I still use it, but I will probably change now, since the makers ultra-cheapened the packaging. The company which used to make it, Dannon, is now called "Danone US" Here's the Wiki. The serving size is the same, 113 grams, but it's now packaged in a cheaper plastic tub which cracks open easily, and the foil top of the tub can't be removed in one piece to access the contents, it is very light material now, shreds as it's being removed. The contents seem to be the same as before the package-cheapening.

Okay, a third example. Passenger cars. There is so much plastic in the bodies of them now that a minor under-hood fire, which previously could be extinguished with a small dry-powder extinguisher, now requires a fire company, and if one isn't almost on top of you when your car catches fire, your car is only a pavement scorch 5 minutes later. The auto manufacturers will tell us they have to use the flammable plastic now, it's the only way to get the weight down enough that the smaller motors can propel the cars like we want them to. I conclude that the so-called "CAFE-standards" are killing cars and some people. Those folks are dying because of a myth, that higher gas mileage in cars will save the planet from a horrible (un-specified) fate. Of course, there are those Elites (spit!) who don't want us to drive at all...

The bloom is off the EV rose

Look at these stats from car-conscious Germany: when the Federal government withdrew the huge subsidies for EVs, sales of them dropped by almost 40%.

That stat might have prompted Forbes,  a spokes-mouth for Elites, to put up this prognostication.

The skeletons are coming out of the closet for the EV industry. Lying about range, lying about recharge times, lying about battery safety, the shortage of Level 3 charge points, all those contribute to doubts. then there are EV fires to worry about.

A nail in the coffin for EVs will be the fact that the Government can sent a digital signal to make your EV refuse to charge. Can't recharge, you're grounded. If you are one of the few patriots who bought/leased an EV, that will be your fate when the balloon goes up, although to be fair, ALL vehicles built in the last 5 years or so are capable of being stopped via their satellite links to "Mother Maintenance".

"Seven Spanish Angels"

The song's provenance.

That one song that gets me right in the gut? It plays, I have to stop and overcome the tidal wave of emotion: "Seven Spanish Angels"

 

Refrain: "There were seven spanish angels at the altar of the sun...they were praying for the lovers in the Valley of the Gun."

 

Of course, the ballad is a story of violent death.

 

Of course, since the age of 25, I've been trained to deal with violent death, so why does THIS account of it affect me so?

 

"She reached down and picked the gun up,

that lay smoking in his hand,

she said, "Father please forgive me,

I can't make it without my man',

and she knew the gun was empty,

and she knew she couldn't win, but

her final prayer was answered

When their rifles fired again."

 

That's known as Suicide by Cop.

 

I was a cop for 25 years. MY gun could have dealt Death like that, on any duty-day of those 25 years.

For 25 years, I dreaded that it would.

I have not gotten OVER that dread. Put it in a box, but never got OVER it.

 

And then I hear "Seven Spanish Angels" again....

Sunday sadness scribbling

I'm from an old and prolific Portland medical family, & I'm normally highly sympathetic with the medical profession.

 

I've turned, though. The obvious fact is that most doctors have chugged the commie Kool-Aid, and keep chugging it.

 

I profile a lot. I was taught how to do it in the various police academies I attended and in follow-on LEO training courses, plus profiling is just organizing common sense.

 

My main profiling these days is to classify and categorize the political opposition to our Constitutional Republic, but you already know that if you follow me on Facebook or on this Rivrdog Blog.

 

I will now profile the medical profession, and it isn't looking good for them. Here are my profile qualifiers:

1. Do you (choose one) a. Tolerate, b. Support or c. Actively Defend and advocate for Socialized Medicine? (record answer and move on)

2. In your entire office or suite of offices in a medical comples, is there a single US Flag on display? (record answer and move on)

3. If your work is for a health maintenance org claiming a religious afiliation, do you refer low-spirit cases to practitioners of the religion? (record answer and move on)

4. As to Covid-19, do you (choose one): a. Tolerate, b. Support or c. Actively Defend the suppression of alternate views on the USA's response to the disease vector? (record answer and calculate results):

 

Perfect (good) profile (rates Zero)

Item one should be a "no" on any of the three choices.

Item two should be a "yes"

Item three should be a "yes"

Item four should be a "no" on any of the three choices.

 

Here's the bad part: I have two offspring in the medical profession. One rates between 1 and 2, the other between 3 and 4, and they are nowhere as PROFESSIONALLY antagonistic towards the Republic as some other medical providers I've encountered in the past ten years or so.

 

In conclusion, I'm going to put it all together: the two most important professions in this USA are Information movers (newsies, computer gurus, etc) and Medical Providers. Both those professions are badly compromised as to maintaining the health and vibrancy of our Constitution and governance according to it.

 

Looking for what profession DOES unilaterally support our Constitution and governance according to it, I find only Veterans. A few months ago, I would have said Veterans and LEOs (I am retired from both professions), but the LEO profession has guzzled enough commie Kool Aid to remove themselves now as saviors of the American Way, following the Information movers right over the Marxist cliff.

 

Result? Of the 8.5 million Veterans, MAYBE 5 million are fit to fight for this Republic against the communist hordes.

 

Those aren't very good odds.

The long good-byes

I wouldn't wish my situation on my worst enemy.

In the past two weeks, the medical wallahs have decided that after she heals and rehabs from her bad ulcer, my wife is in too bad a shape to come home. Ever. She has to finish out her days in a nursing facility.

I have another family member almost into end-stage cancer.

Two "long good-byes" running at the same time. We warriors understand death. Deaths happen, it's part of life and war. This, to have the two in my family I've loved the most,  taking months more to die from incurable disease is VERY hard to take.

Today, I have family and and friends coming over to this big lonely house to begin the process of emptying it out so it can be sold. Seems straightforward enough, it's just logistics, right?

Everything that must be discarded or sold has some history, some significance to me and the almost-departed ones. It's like ripping out a small piece of me with every kitchen gew-gaw I toss out. I can remember when my dear wife WORE these clothes I'm putting aside to donate, and she WAS a clothes-horse, so there is a lot of clothing. Shoes, I can't imagine having that many shoes.

A man might get by with five or six pairs, a dozen, tops, but a woman feels under-dressed if she can't select from fifty or sixty pair.

To make matters worse, my wife has a wasting disease, has had it for 25 years. She has slowly shrunken from a Size 12 down to now a Size TWO! I guess this disease led her to some anguish, because she never threw out many of the oversize clothes, and there are three walk-in closets full of them. Formal dresses for evening. We used to do a lot of that. She was a big wheel in the Officers' Wives Club at my last permanent station, KI Sawyer AFB, MI. The base closed out 25 years ago, and now she is closing out her life.

This wouldn't be so bad if I could just call some service to do it all for me, but I can't afford that, since I will probably have to pay for her nursing home life, and around here, that will be north of $6K/month.

Selling the house and spending down the proceeds will get me by for about 40 months.

I guess my dreams of moving somewhere warm and living in a villa with servants will have to wait for MY next life, but in the meanwhile, I have to take time to say another good-bye to one of my children who isn't going to out-live me now.

WTH, if Life was (a) fair, some barker would be selling tickets to see it, but it isn't fair, and now I have to see this through by myself.

I'll manage. Facebook helps with that, except they just put me in "Jail" because I used a common Spanish slang expression to describe two ugly male cross-dressers...

UPDATE: 041420 2334 PDT:

 My wife of 43 years, Blanche, passed across the Rainbow Bridge on March 30th.

Writing down the History of Civil War Two

Yes, yes, I know it hasn't started yet, but it will and within the next 400 days, too.

It's interesting. The Democrats are using the same failed playbook for "Impeachment" as they did to try to stop the confirmation of SCOTUS Associate Justice Kavanaugh: when no dirt can actually be dug up, make up some.

The "whistleblowers" have a valuable role for the GOPe. They all point out the fallacy of letting the enemy remain within your ranks after you assume command.

I see a WORSE threat to this Nation than a House Impeachment of President Trump now.

The same gaggle of commie gabbling-geese Obama left-overs that has ruined Trump's ability to control the State Department, the Office of Attorney General, and several other Federal fiefdoms, is still there, lurking in our Nation's military branches.

That cabal is collectively known as the Obama Generals and Admirals. Obama knew that he would never have complete control of the Federal Government until he got complete control of the Military, so he very quickly fired our best war-fighter Flag officers and replaced them with his own "yes-men". Over 200 perfectly patriotic and judgmentally-sound General Officers were retired and younger, less-experienced Obama-faithful officers were given their duties. You iknow the results: Social Engineering to the max; Rules of Engagement which don't allow combat-engaged soldiers to return fire; "arresting" radical Islamists instead of just killing them in combat, etc, ad nauseam. All from Obama's mind on "how to do war".

All those Obama Generals and Admirals are still there, and when the proverbial feces hits the rotating blades of the ventilation machine (in the approaching Civil War), then President Trump tries to restore order using the military, he will not be able to. Some of those Obama Generals and Admirals will work effectively at blunting and disreagarding those lawful Orders of the Commander-in-Chief.

Every GOPe President since Eisenhower made this same mistake: assuming that simply being elected and sworn in as the Chief Executive meant that they actually RAN the Nation.

None of those GOPe CEOs actually have RUN the country in detail, and the lurking, backstabbing Democrats have refined their "Resistance" to where their words in directing it sound just like a dictator's orders to his minions. Rep Tlaib of MI wants the US Marshal's Service to plan on how they are going to arrest Trump supporters when the Democrats steal the election win. She has already declared supporting Trump to be a Federal Crime, evidently without a Statute of Limitations. No such law exists, of course, but she indicates that will happen.

This Nation will see Civil War within one year and one month, and the historians chronicling it (I hope to be one of those) will note that the Democrats' power to open that War stemmed directly from the GOPe's failure to actually CONTROL the vast Federal bureaucracy politically when it had the chance to do so.

What a waste! Millions will die, the Nation will be fractured for the next 150 years, and all because the GOPes were simple dreamers, unable to accept the true level of Democrat perfidy. What a waste!

The USA vs the New World Order

(Same old conflict, different era)

Our Federal Constitution is anti-New World Order. By DESIGN.

 

When our Constitution was promulgated, there WAS a New World Order, the British Empire. Their Navy ruled the world's seas, their armies vanquished all they faced. It was His Majesty's Way or no way at all.

 

The Founders rejected the hegemony of the British Empire, formed a SEPARATE government with ELECTED, not ENTITLED leaders, and fought the King's armies to a standstill and ultimate victory at Yorktown.

 

The Founders did one more thing though. Knowing that Royalist feelings still ran high on these shores, and deducing that their new Popular government would eventually have to face Royalists again, the Founders gave that new American population the right to possess arms for DEFENSE AGAINST GOVERNMENT, should our Government try to go back to Royalism (the NWO).

 

The Second Amendment to the Constitution is NOT an anti-crime law, crime as we know it today was unknown in the Founders' day. The 2A was a check on the power of the Government, purely and simply. If that Government caved to the NWO, it was to be REMOVED. As such a bulwark, it was VERY anti-New World Order.

 

It still IS anti-NWO, and THAT is why the NWO, through all their proxies (D-Rats, Antifa, global Marxism in general), CONSTANTLY tries to weaken and remove the 2A.

 

This is just my opinion, but I do not believe we have budged the NWO on their opposition to the 2A at all. They will keep trying to remove it and grab all our guns, because they KNOW that they can't take over in this Nation until they do. Furthermore, following my logic here, the ONLY way the NWO will ever be defeated is like it was 241 years ago, on the field of battle.

 

Sorry to burst your bubble(s), but there is NO peaceful way out of this. We either face the NWO and defeat them utterly, or we accept them as our lords and masters and give up all our freedoms.

 

There is no middle ground that will work for us. It's us or them.

 

Shields up, double-front! We're going in!

War Spirit vs war psychs

Wounded Warrior Project just put up an ad claiming to "help wounded warriors forget".

 

NO! NO! NO! A thousand times, NO!

 

War changes you. A LOT! The lazy psychs who claim to deal with it lump the changes under the heading of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome). That's the way the APA (American Psychological Association) does things - sloppily. Don't believe me? Grab a DSM, 0pen it. Look at the way it organizes not-normal behaviors. Enough said.

 

Back to wounded WARRIORS (emphasis mine). The psychs TOTALLY fail to account for the Warrior's SPIRIT.

 

Warfighting is NEVER a natural human condition. You have to be trained to fight. However, it's up to the individual Warrior to strengthen his or her war-Spirit. Most Warriors do that, whether they mean to or not. It's part of focussing on war. Once your war-Spirit is strong, only Death can interrupt it. Not idiocy in leadership, not idiotic ROEs, not inferior weaponry, only YOU and Death can hurt your war-Spirit.

 

Along come the psychs telling us that PTSD-wounded warriors must be taught to obliterate their war-Spirit, to suppress it.

 

Here's news you can use, bonehead psychs, you are doing it completely ass-backwards. A Warrior with his/her head in the wrong place needs to FIND and STRENGTHEN their war-Spirit, not suppress it.

 

Your strong war-Spirit got you through your wars, got you home alive, even if damaged, and that war-Spirit will now let you come to grips with the horrors that WERE in all that fighting. It will let you heal yourself back to the level you had when you fought your best fight.

 

You are a Warrior. No one can take that away, and if they try, they are the enemy, trying to do behind your back what they couldn't do to your face on your battlefields.

 

Keep fighting, my brothers and sisters. God will relieve you of Warrior duty when it's your turn to be relieved. I have your back. You have mine. We fight together. If there is Peace to be found, we will find it together.

Christianity on the Wane?

 

What if: Increased persecution of Christians by Muslims was because Christians are adopting self-destructive behaviors? The Muslims see that as weakness, and increase their efforts to destroy Christianity, which they see as a Holy crusade (Jihad).

Examples? Sure. Bergolio, the false Pope, destroying Catholic culture in favor of godless Marxism, as fast as he can.

Example? How about OUR Protestant churches defying Civil Law for Marxist purposes (illegals invading & being sheltered by the churches).

Example? How about Christians performing/advocating for interpersonal behaviors prohibited by their own Holy Book, the Bible? Gambling, sexual perversions, greed.

Finally, Christianity has COMPLETELY failed to defend it's own faith. Where are the Christian Soldiers? We tut-tut from over here while African Christians are being slaughtered in the thousands. No we don't need to send them food and blankets, we need to send them GUNS and bullets. We need to send them proven warriors to lead Christian armies of defense.

Christianity, provided with the Gospel, the single most compelling social instruction manual ever written, has failed to read the manual.

RTFM. (A military acronym: Read The Field Manual)

Worrying about the 2A

From my Facebook Page.

Worry about the 2A? You bet. Here's why, see below:

 

1. Democrats lie a lot, but they are FAR better organizers than GOPes will ever be.

2. GOPes ARE just as devious as Democrats. To GOPes, "protecting the Constitution” NEVER has the vital two words, "as written" involved.

3. If your aim is more Government (all D efforts lead in that direction, plus about 50% of GOP efforts), a populace with the determination and MEANS (guns) to END government is your greatest worry, not what the Other Party says or does.

4. If you could take all 500+ congresscritters to a large room with tables, sit them down with blank paper and pens, and ask them to offer what THEIR changes to the Constitution might be, how many would turn in a sheet with one word, “NONE!" on it? 5%? 10%? on Independence Day, maybe 25%?

5. If you asked all those Congresscritters to list all the Amendments as to their support of them, AS WRITTEN, with ORIGINAL MEANINGS, how many would include the 2A on that list? Damn few.

6. Do YOU know the meaning of the 2A, AS WRITTEN? Start with the Federalist Papers. Read Federalist #29.

 

Nope, the Congresscritters we elect can change our Constitution the sneaky way, by writing laws that change the original Founders' meaning of Articles and Sections and Amendments. No matter the party in power, we can NEVER trust Congress to NOT change the Constitution with little pushes, and when there are enough little pushes, an original meaning gets lost.

 

BTW, the REAL meaning and Intent of the 2A is to enable the Citizens to REMOVE their Government if it becomes Tyrannical, and giving them the R2KBA does that nicely. ANY politician of either stripe who tells you that the 2A is about the structure of Militia, or about owning hunting guns (?????), or even about personal protection from armed criminals is WRONG, it is about REMOVING THE GOVERNMENT. WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMOVE OUR GOVERNMENT! Politicians don't like that, want to obfuscate that right if not remove it entirely. since our 2A has the purpose of enabling that Right, ALL politicians who value their jobs more than their Constitution (at least 80% of them) want to alter/remove the 2A. 

 

If the above words don't worry you, do NOT count yourself as a Patriot.