Why I Will Never Own a Rental In CA

It sounds great, doesn’t it?  Owning a rental?  Someone else pays your mortgage each month, you get the leftover cash.  It’s cash flow baby, how can you go wrong?  You get income each month, and if they do not pay you tack on a late fee.  They still don’t pay?  Evict their butt!  Raise the rent yearly and voila, you can buy another, and another and another.  WRONG!

Let me give you a real-world story. First, a friend of mine rented out his townhouse to a couple college kids.  He had since bought a newer, bigger house.  It worked fine for a couple years, then when move out time was happening (tenants graduating college) they proceeded to have a massive party, trashing the place to the tune of 40,000 dollars.  Yes, 40k.  Let’s just say that was equal to the amount of rent paid over the two years they rented from him but it likely was not.  I helped with repairs, but they thew a kegger, had a bunch of folks over, and flooring had to be replaced, the bathtub/shower insert was broken, the toilet bowl was missing a chunk out of it.  Yikes.  All this for a little income?  My friend sold the place at a loss, this was circa the housing bust.

If that doesn’t scare you, or you are very naïve now read, on for my personal reasons not to own one (again in CA specifically).

Rent Control Laws: They will keep getting more not less favorable to the tenet.  Try making money/keeping up with inflation and property tax hikes when you have strict limits on how much you can raise rent annually.

Property Taxes: Prop 13 is/has been under siege for the longest time, eventually prop 13 property tax protections will go away for commercial buildings, this likely will include rentals someday.  Prop 13 for those of you not familiar, limits property tax hikes to a set percentage a year, 2% I reckon.  Without prop 13, Katie bar the door.

Tenant Has all the Rights: In CA Landlord = Bad, Tenant = Good.  The laws are all on their side.  All the time.  Stove goes out?  They can withhold the rent.  AC/Heat goes out? If not fixed quickly…ditto.  And withhold means straight up not paying for the month by the way.  Trust me, I know this, as my office partner owns a rental, if it wasn’t paid for he would sell.

Eviction is HARD:  Again, like the above, the laws are all on the tenant side.  First, months upon months of payments must be missed.  Then you must file with the court, then have the Sheriff serve the tenant in person, not via email, or snail mail.  Then you will need a good lawyer, not a cheap one, because again if the “I”s are not dotted and “t”s not crossed then the process starts over.  With your tenant living for free.

“Plandemics”:  Yup, it was planned not a pandemic.  Fauci came in and made the rules, governors enacted them.  We shut down, but worse, you could not evict anyone for non-payment or any reason.  Check out that sentence again.  So, folks quit paying their rent, actually you would have been stupid to keep paying it.  Now good luck collecting that bank rent. Oh by the way, I think CA just finally allowed evictions to start to proceed, literally a year plus after the plandemic was declared over.

Utilities: See above, but the tenant likely wasn’t paying those either, but since it’s your house and you the landlord are the owner…you owe them now or face a shut off.  Again, as landlord good luck getting the state to forgive those.

Upkeep:  It’s not the tenant’s house so don’t expect much from them.  Major wet/dry rot, dead trees, water leaks, uncared for appliances will be the norm.  Don’t expect them to make you aware of the cosmetic damage either.  A client of mine had a rental with 25k of dry rot on the entire side of his rental.  The sprinkler was hitting the side of the house for probably 2 years straight causing major damage.  (Also not covered by insurance btw).

Mortgage: Whether the tenant pays rent or not, your mortgage is still due.  Just remember that.  Just like the property tax, insurance and utilities that are your responsibility.  Those entities do not give a rip that your tenant ain’t paying you.

If these have not convinced you to not buy a rental in CA, then by all means go for it.  I am sure a lot of you have wonderful stories of great tenants/experiences etc. so the obvious disclaimer, your experience may vary.  I just do not see the upside in CA or any blue state for owning a rental property.  For me there is too much risk involved.  I see way too many negatives, and I do not wish to not sleep at night due to stress or whatnot.

The Chief

Pet Pride Hypocrisy

Saw this display at the local pet store recently. It says they support gay pride and this corporation supports people being whatever gender they desire. Now they want pets to show your pride.

I took the photo and then it occurred to me what hypocrites they are, the pet store only recognizes two genders, spayed and neutered.

Satan Respects Pronouns

This is a real quote from the Satanist that designed the transgender children’s apparel currently on sale at a Target store near you.

Yep, it’s my turn to opine on this issue. Let me preface what follows with this comment, the very fact that transgenderism is even an issue in our society is an indictment on how far gone we are as a people. If reading what follows makes you angry, don’t get mad at me, I’m just the messenger. Get mad at the people preying on others by deceiving them into participating in maiming and mutilating the weaker among us.

My first observation is that transgenderism is not a valid issue among Atheists. Atheists have no room in a worldview built on “survival of the fittest” for those that do not reproduce and thus improve the gene pool. For the atheist, homosexuality and transgenderism are a burden on continuing the species and diverting resources in unproductive ways to unproductive members. Given this, it is logical and necessary for China, North Korea, and Cuba to imprison or execute such people.

Furthermore, a consistent atheist does not acknowledge the value of the life of a homosexual or transgender person. The life of an individual does not have value except as measured by what they do to benefit the group. Any person claiming that an individual life has significance or value is stealing that value from a biblical worldview—usually without attribution.

This brings up my second point. While there have always been a few people in society that have been homosexual, this has always been a tiny fraction of the population; however, the modern push to convert people to homosexual or transgender lifestyles is part of a conscience effort on the part of Marxist/humanist people to eradicate Christianity from the public square. Eradicating Western Culture and White Privilege are phrases for the same thing, tearing down Christ and the influence of His followers.

As noted previously, atheists and Christians both have a disdain for the current transgender movement. Atheists may hope that abolishing Christianity will promote a society based on science and knowledge, but the opposite is happening; the abolition of Christianity has resulted in a proliferation of various forms of neo-paganism, witchcraft, Satanism, and other false religions as well as a populace that will fall for just about anything they are told, Covid-19 being the easiest illustration. Without belief in ultimate Truth, our culture now thinks the notion that “everyone has their own truth” is a valid idea instead of a bald-faced lie and a really weak logical fallacy.

We spent a few years on Covid, then about nine months on Ukraine, and now the fad is transgenderism. Tens of thousands of people are destroyed by each fleeting idea that fascinates pop culture but sooner or later, it will lose its shock-value and then the slayers of all that is good will move on to something else. Meanwhile those harmed are ignored and discarded; left to fend for themselves.

Another way of stating this is that the sheep need to be continually agitated and scattered. With the coordination of the mainstream media and big tech the attack of the wolves has gotten much faster and more coordinated.

The Bible is clear that God made mankind male and female; as I quoted above, Satan is responsible the false notion of other genders. The Bible also says that sexual roles are to happen within a marriage relationship. One of the purposes of marriage is procreation. The Bible takes a dim view on sexual relationships that occur outside of marriage. Scripture repeatedly condemns homosexual relationships. Enough other people have written on this that I won’t waste space repeating what has already been made clear.

God made male and female. He made you the gender that you are when you were born. The notion that gender is a choice is false; with only one exception, gender selection abortion. In this case, the parents make the choice, usually to terminate female babies in utero. As stated in other posts, abortion is in fact mentioned in the Bible and condemned in the strongest terms.

The idea that you can select or change your gender is false. The best you can hope for is to mutilate your body to the point that folks can’t tell by looking at you. Sorry, but this level of deception is still deception. The irony being that you are trying to deceive yourself.

Transgender folks are saying by their actions that God is wrong, stupid, and incapable of knowing what He is doing; in essence you are calling God a fool and a liar by saying that he made you incorrectly, and it’s up to you to fix His mess. This hubris is setting yourself up as god—knowing good from evil. Aren’t those words first spoken by a reptile in The Garden?

This brings us back to the quote that I started with, “Satan Respects Pronouns.” This is just another lie from the father of lies. The ease with which the idea of transgenderism has gained traction in our society is horrifying.

Throwing Water on the “Homeless Crisis”

I was reading the latest edition of the Sacramento Bee when I stumbled across an editorial that made my blood boil.  Alvie Lindsey is her name, and her article reads like any other article you can find on the inter webs or print… we need to do something.  It talks about the Bee doing an investigation (LOL) and asking the hard questions (LOL) then being transparent with the answers given (LOL).  Since I didn’t die of laughter, I guess I’ll continue my commentary below.

First of all, Alvie, you work in a dead profession, not dying, dead, so I question your sanity.  Journalism died when you guys went all in on left wing politics and policies.  Ask yourself this, how can you possibly hold Joe Biden, Gavin Newsom, or any other elected in California/US accountable when you did nothing but pump them up while running for office?  You can’t.  Sorry, not sorry.

When I was in college 2004-2008 Gavin Newsom (yes that one) was mayor.  His reign lasted through 2011.  During that same time span, a politician named Kamala Harris (again, that one) was District Attorney, then she elevated to be Attorney General of CA. 

My point in naming these two is simple, the Bee and other publications have supported their motives for years, since 2004 to be exact.  Never have either of these two done anything to draw the ire of any news organization in CA.  In fact, you doubled, and tripled down to support them.  But on to the homeless issue to make my point.

California is very rare in that we have a massive state, home to massive corporations, also we have three very different, distinct regions.  All three, however, are very progressive, and seem to be racing each other to the bottom.

Through my time in California, I never used to witness much homelessness, even when in high school and I had to volunteer at Loaves and Fishes there were not a “ton” of homeless, more like a few hundred.  I went to college in Marin County, and the problem was substantially worse.  This was circa 2004-2008.  My time there I got introduced to San Francisco/Oakland/Bay Area this was an eye opener.  Open air drug markets (Civic Center, SF) tent cities (Oakland) and massive crime (any area with mass transit).  Things have gotten progressively worse, in all 3 phases.  Now the homeless crisis has taken over our state with Sacramento County claiming to have 10,000 homeless alone.

How did we get here?

Well, it’s a combination of things; there is no sole answer or cause.  To understand one needs to realize humanity is not perfect, but it is resourceful.  What I mean by that is while homelessness may be avoidable for some, others have chosen homelessness.  First and foremost, I would say 75-80% of most folks have zero saved up for an emergency.  Thus, when something happens (health, layoff, car/house repair) occurs they have no means to afford it.  Thus, some are pushed into homelessness due to circumstances out of their control.  I include in these folks evicted/foreclosed on, as they typically have no viable options.  Drug/alcohol abuse is also a large cause of homelessness, a friend of mine (RIP) lost his house, due to his alcohol addiction, he was foreclosed on.  Abuse leads to loss of employment that turns into loss of residence.  Others just want to live underground and avoid paying for things.

Sure, there are some who are down on their luck, lost a job, had major health scare etc., and for them I hope they are able to get into transitional housing and start work again.  I really do and I feel this blog’s staff feel the same.  California has spent millions on this type of housing, and I see zero results, the problem is actually getting worse.  Getting worse due to decisions made by left leaning elected that the news media went in the tank for.  Gavin Newsom has raised the minimum wage, built low-income housing (even sued local cities to force them to build), waived most permit and environment rules, decriminalized drugs and low-level crimes, all in the guise of “helping folks out of poverty.”  It hurt the problem.  Honestly very few of these tiny homes have been built, and when they have been, the units end up trashed, due to you guessed it drugs, alcohol, and more disturbing sex trade.  Most of these “camps” are staffed with a medic, security, and social workers… added amenities include showers, toilets, and community areas.  Yet somehow these units end up in a state of disrepair.  Who knew people who don’t have any purpose in life or have no fear of consequences will trash the place?

Here is my solution: Warning it is not constitutional and will never be allowed but understand my take. 

We round up all homeless in each county.  Yup, I said it.  You have two choices, you want to better yourself, get out of homelessness?  You go one way, board a bus and live in a tiny home compound.  You have access to social workers, but most importantly you apply for jobs, entry level, who cares, the goal here is you have a safe place to live temporarily, and getting a paycheck coming in.  This is the best, easiest and most effective way to get out of homelessness.  You have a place to live, a safe one at that, bathrooms and shower facilities, and a schedule.  There will be no, drinking, sex, or drugging at this place.  PERIOD.  The other group of folks who want to drink, drug, and have sex like crazy they get on a different bus, and go to a compound away from society.  They can live their lives out over there, away from a civilized society.

I know what folks are thinking, how can I be so cold, low hearted, and call myself a Christian?  I do, and I can.  I sleep just well at night as well by the way.  Recently I morphed into an angry white male, I took a look at the taxes I pay and I’m sick.  I’m sick because I see billions being spent on homeless liberal BS and it isn’t working.  I see/read stories of tons of trash, destroyed property, and the like, it’s my damn taxpayer money being spent on liberal BS.  And by the way the GOP supports it out here as well.  San Francisco is a wasteland; a once proud city is destroyed.  Downtown Sacramento, near where this blog is headquartered (for now) is trashed.  I was there for a Spartan Race (I’m kind of a big deal) K street and L street smelled like piss, and scat, of the human variety.  In front of our new basketball arena, which was supposed to turn the area around, they were blasting music at 6am…. yes, to ward of the homeless folks who want to camp out.

It’s time for a new idea, no more liberal BS maybe try my idea?

The Chief

Editor’s Note: In the 1980’s, it was alleged by Mitch Snyder and parroted by a willing media that there were 3 million homeless in the United States. At the time the government (U.S. Census Bureau) claimed about 300,000 homeless. Since the media (including the Sacramento Bee) are always truthful, let’s use their number of 3 million. Why is it that there were no tent cities or poop on sidewalks? In fact, sightings of homeless people were infrequent in many areas. Currently the number of homeless is allegedly 582,462. This is one sixth the number of homeless that liberals claimed existed during the Reagan Administration. Why is the problem now so much worse? Why is homelessness a crisis in areas governed almost exclusively by Democrats?

Leaving Sodom

I know that I haven’t posted much lately but life has been hectic. The wife and I have been packing up the house and parting with lots of accumulated stuff. Chief beneficiaries of this process have been the cancer society store, Goodwill, and the Kiefer landfill. We are going from about 2,100 square feet to 880.

The amount of photos, genealogy stuff, old yearbooks, and the like is ridiculous. In one room we packed six large boxes that weighed 30 to 40 pounds each. We still have to tackle one closet of photos plus the stuff currently hanging on the walls. For the sake of space, most picture frames are being discarded. Eastman Kodak had no idea what a mess they would be creating for my family.

Officially, we are whittling down the furniture to 11 pieces, half of which are for the bedroom. The rest are for sale or already sold.

Much of the rest of our stuff is books. We started with several thousand books in the house. I have parted with many that I have had for decades. A few are being packed but designated as a donation to the local church library at our new home. Our neighbor will be getting a box of vintage sci-fi stuff after the next garage sale. Goodwill will likely be getting a few hundred pounds of tomes as well.

XBOX is no longer part of our lives. The original console was traded for credit at a local store a few days ago. The 360 and One are going with my son to college–along with the remaining games in our house. I doubt they will survive to the end of the first year of college.

We are parting with more than half the clothing and linens in the house.

Two items remain in the attic, a red wagon and a dedication plaque for a bank that once existed in Elk Grove. (Update:  The plaque left us last week.)

Many of the children’s school papers that we had saved have been sent to the landfill. We saved a few plus the usual—report cards and school photos.

Reducing the amount of stuff, we have is something that is long overdue. I’m glad we are doing it now. However, my choices of what to keep or part with have been colored by the stupid decisions that my son has been making lately. This will be a topic covered elsewhere on the blog. I just want to be on record that his bad behavior has consequences now and not just in the future.

The truth is that we should have left California many years ago. Due to stupid financial decisions, we probably couldn’t have done it but … I’m glad we are getting out now. Gavin and his fellow travelers are turning this place into a third world hell hole.

Two more weeks and we’re outta here.

Donald Trump was a Necessary Evil

Speaking to the 90-day guy today I gave my thoughts on his comments about “Trump being up in the polls vs Biden.”  This is nice and wonderful I said, but I have no appetite for a rematch.  Make no mistake, I supported Trump after Scott Walker dropped out of the primary and supported him during his entire first term and re-election campaign, but I have tired of him and his act.

Make no mistake about it, Trump was the most conservative president of my lifetime so far, I am 37.  Trump did some amazing things; he singlehandedly remade the Supreme Court.  Got a tax cut done, albeit temporary (expires in 2024), we also had a thriving economy.  Covid hit, and destroyed all of this, even worse, Trump got bad advice from his inner circle and turned into a mad man.  In this blogger’s opinion, he self-destructed.  Now we have a vegetable in the White House.

Trump however will be seen in a great light by me because he exposed the charlatans and frauds in the party and media.  Lindsey Graham found his spine after being a thorn in the side of the Party for years.  McConnell got the judges through and confirmed, but Trump laid waste to him and exposed him for being a fake.  Ditto for Kevin McCarthy.  McConnell and McCarthy are two of the fakest conservatives you will meet.  Both love to say one thing on Fox News and vote a different way in DC.  However both love to lecture us about how “Democrats are going to destroy our way of life” while voting the opposite.  How many times have we raised the debt ceiling?  What’s the point of a ceiling if you keep raising it?

Trump loved using the bully pulpit with soft Republicans, he loved whacking the Democrats as well, but what he did against the GOP was a thing of legends.  The way he called out “Lyin Ted, Little Marco, Low Energy Jeb” was something no Republican had done before.  There are no scared cows with Trump, he is a piece of work, but man could he get deep into the mud.  He wouldn’t back down from anyone. 

That trait has been sorely lacking from the GOP for decades, maybe for life?  The way I see it, the GOP is good for one thing; talking tough.  That’s it.  They will shut down federal, state or local governments, only to relent and give in a certain time later.  Getting nothing by the way!  I watched this most of my adult life, the Party would hold out, and then suddenly reverse course and give the Democrats everything they wanted.  Trump was having none of it.

Trump has left office he is politically toxic, but he did do some great things as far as I am concerned.  Gone are the days of Newt Gingrich, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham leading the party.  Fox is no longer viewed as conservative.  I would say Trump is the leader in the clubhouse of the Party, it certainly is not McCarthy or McConnell.  Ted Cruz got muzzled, Marco Rubio is hardly heard from anymore.  Trump gave a playbook on how to win in the media.  The Party never acted, thus they never learned from their mistakes.  Anyone remember the massive red wave that was supposed to come in 2022?  There wasn’t one.  It’s a leaderless, rudderless ship right now and I do not see it ending.  Looks like the Republican Party has circled back to the only hope for a GOP win at the national level is for a milquetoast moderate to run…. Mittens Romney anybody?

The Chief

Covid Lockdowns:  A Democrat and Liberal Republican Wet Dream

Editor’s Note: This was written on the third year anniversary of two weeks to flatten the curve (March 2023) but somehow I missed the submission. Sorry, Chief.

Oops, I just said it.  Hate me?  I want you to get mad at me!  Get mad!  But you cannot.  You were scared, frightened.  Everyone was going to die.  We all needed to lock ourselves in our homes and smear Chick-fil-A sauce over the doorway.  El Oh El!

Oh, trust me there are/were plenty of Republicans who needed to change their undies too.  They finally showed their true colors to me.  Hence, I left the Party.

You picked winners and losers, both in business and people.  The liquor store and weed dispensary?  They needed to stay open. “Essential” were they.  Yeah, those are the most unessential businesses going… but hey I gotta buy my booze and weed!

Food places?  Close them to dine in!  But by golly shucks, let the people gather in the vestibule area to wait for their takeout order!  El Oh El!

All the dental offices in my building were closed down…. imagine that every time I used to go to the dentist, the personnel minus the front counter folks were masked up…. Oh, this was long before Covid took place.  I guess you could say they masked up before it was cool?  El Oh El!  Now no one is going to the dentist, in my building they are struggling to hire hygienists and RDA’s.

The local park had the basketball hoop removed….and playground roped off.  Thank god… I heard the covid monster was known to frequent that basketball court.  No word on the “lawsuit” likely filed by the child molester types, I heard they demanded the playgrounds for children be deemed essential!

The Indian casinos/cardrooms were allowed to be open…. thank god, see weed and liquor stores.  As a nation we have our priorities just in line, don’t we?

Workers who wanted to work; i.e.. Waiters/service folks were told stay home and given extra benefits to do so.  Yet some of the most vulnerable, including a good friend of mine who works at a grocer were told show up/no time off or consequences would be severe.  He works as a senior cashier, while the Subway Sandwich artist lays on the couch at home eating Bon-Bons making more money than my friend.  Good luck getting those folks to return to the workforce in any meaningful capacity.

Crime:  Boy howdy! Was this ever a thing to watch.  You were more than welcome to protest if you’re a BLM sympathizer, it was actually encouraged.  So much so that you were in essence given immunity from prosecution.  The jails were subsequently emptied of all “non-violent” criminals.  Yup, who would have thunk crime would be as bad as it is now?  The courts were shut down, and sweet deal plea bargains were handed out like candy on Halloween.  I know of 2 people who caused DUI car wrecks which killed people, their sentences?  Neither included any jail time. 

We pause this blog to allow the Democrats and GOP reading this blog to change your undies.

While person to person contact was discouraged, using a hook up app like Tindr was fine.  But of course, going to a strip club was not.  Artificial stimulation (weed and booze) was ok, but human touch was frowned upon?  Except in the comfort of your own bedroom?  El Oh El.  I guess I’ve been having sex wrong all these years?  Me and my girlfriend of choice were always breathing heavily, heart racing within inches of each other.  But I guess your experience may vary?  LOL

You allowed folks to not pay rent or their mortgage with no fear of eviction/foreclosure.  Smart, you just told a generation, or 2 that personal responsibilities doesn’t matter.  To date I do not think the eviction process has completely re-started yet.  The foreclosure process?  Who cares?

Ditto for telling folks they didn’t have to pay their utility bills.  I know of quite a few folks who fit this category.  Again, teaching folks they can use a service and not pay…. and thinking this is somehow ok?

But keep telling yourself you believe in limited government, the free market, and small business.  The government shut you down, if you even work.  Told you where you could and could not gather, and you listened.  No spine at all.  Churches closed, but hey that’s ok, I’ll just fire up the ole television and watch it.  They shut the schools down, and you followed.  They weaponized the police to track down folks who disobeyed their order.  This went on for years.  You obeyed…good for you. 

You got multiple shots; what you actually had put into your body you will never really know.  But its ok, the President and Governor got the shot on live TV.  You are not a conservative, you are a follower, scared of your own shadow.  You were finally confronted, and you showed your true colors for all of us to see.  Congrats on your Covid card!  I am sure you are also the one complaining about how the restaurant is understaffed and out of ingredients! 

Congrats!  You all did this.  Good luck making things right again in the world.  But hey you didn’t get Covid.  Hope you don’t suffer from the side effects of the shots you got.  And if you do?  Sorry the drug companies have full immunity.  El Oh El.  The Joke is on you.

The Chief

Search for Duke Nukem Trigged Detonation of My Family

Warning: The following post contains mature content and is not for the under 18 crowd.

The wife and I have been prepping to exit California for freedom. As part of the process, we have been selling a few potentially valuable items on eBay. I am liquidating some old computer parts as part of the purge of material goods.

One item that I possess is a vintage Duke Nukem video card. Originally it also came with a game and belt buckle.

As far as I know, the game is vaporware—we have no idea where it might be—however, the belt buckle was recently encountered but we couldn’t remember where. In an effort to find it, I searched a few drawers in my son’s room that still have things from the previous occupant—his brother. Some stuff he inherited from his brother still lives in this particular dresser.

I looked in the top drawer, just a bunch of old school notebooks. The second drawer had more miscellaneous papers and junk. About what I would expect from a teenage boy. The next drawer was disturbing. It contained stuff that I would expect for sale in your local Adam and Eve store—not that I have ever been in one, just speculating. Drawer four was the shaving kit that he got from his grandparents a few years ago. It felt very light and stuffed with paper. I was thinking, in the last few years I thought he had used this so why is it still full of paper? I opened it just to see. (I don’t like trash in drawers and was going to purge the paper to make more room in the drawer … or so I thought.) After it was unzipped, my first reaction was “oh crap” and the second was to call his mother into the room.

I found a small vial with a prescription label on it and a shaving kit crammed full of syringes. I didn’t recognize the medicine but knew immediately what it was. I also recognized the address of the place writing the prescription as being the address of Planned Parenthood. As a prolife person, I know where enemy HQ is located.

My wife looked up the drug name on the Internet and sadly, I was right. My only biological son was taking drugs to become female. This was a week ago. More has come to light in the last few days.

On Friday, I arranged for some one-on-one time with him. He said he was not attracted to males or females. I tried to tell him that many of his feelings were normal for a teen and had nothing to do with changing gender but part of growing up. Whoever was filling his head with lies had done a good job of conditioning (grooming) him. Later he also told me that he rejected the Resurrection of Christ as being an historical event.

Talk about grade A hypocrisy and heaping divine judgment upon yourself. He has taken Communion at every opportunity since he was born and recites the Lord’s Prayer and the Historic Creeds every Sunday. He is also on the worship team at school.

No wonder he is a mess. Never double dawg dare God to place his judgment on you.

For those of you not up on your Bible verses, this one is speaking of partaking in Holy Communion. The reference to sleep in these verses means physical death.

For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.

I Corinthians 11:29-30

Oh, I did follow-up on his problem with the Resurrection. I read all four accounts of Easter morning to him. After consulting his cell phone, he responded that it wasn’t true because there were slight variations in the details given of the event by the four Gospel writers. My response was that if you had four different people, on four different corners, observing the same traffic wreck, they would agree on the big details but would recall slightly different ones. It was the same way in the gospels; some authors were eyewitnesses and others were written based on interviews with eyewitnesses.

 I offered him information if he wished to research it, some of which I had given him several years ago, but of course he declined. This was just a bumper sticker excuse because he has never done any actual research on the issue. It’s easier in the Internet age to believe something that affirms your presuppositions, than to intellectually engage in any issue. (Plus, he lacks the life experience to know truth from error when dealing with such questions.)

Once my wife came home, I fired up the movie The Case for Christ on Amazon.

My son sat on the couch dithering with his phone for the whole movie. About halfway through it, this exact topic comes up. The argument against the Resurrection was almost verbatim what he had said while my response was almost the same as what the movie gave. On this at least, Holy Spirit one, dumb as dirt kid, zero.

Two days later at church, he still recited the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed but did not go to Communion. As I understand it, he thought I was stupid for crying all the way up to the front of the church, taking Communion, and then returning to my seat still weeping. He’s too self-absorbed to know that I was crying over him and not for the first or last time. He has excommunicated himself and I was crying because this was a visible sign that that he rejected the faith and is under the judgment of God.

I Corinthians 5:5 comes to mind but may not be the best reference.

To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

I wonder if he will repent or perish in his sin.

It’s even worse than all this but I must leave a few cards in my hand un-played, at least on this forum.

My wife wonders if we had banned the Internet years ago if this would have happened and sadly my answer is yes. Covid made everyone get the Internet. That genie was out of the bottle with or without any past action on our part.

Secondly, this trans mania is a marketing campaign by Planned Parenthood as the demons that control that organization regrouped after the overthrow of Roe. They are Satan’s most loyal servants. Planned Parenthood exists only to maim and kill those made in the image of God. Trans crap is their new mission field to destroy those that missed destruction in the womb. A one third kill rate is just unacceptable in the era of surgical and chemical abortion.

Lastly, I did look up the vow that my wife and I made before God when our son was baptized. We did teach him the Creed, Lord’s Prayer, Ten Commandments, and everything necessary to know the Christian Faith. I still remember the joy I felt the first time I heard him recite the Lord’s Prayer in Church. I cried that day too. But tears of joy not grief as I am now.

PS: Many years ago, I angered a family member when I wrote about other people that lost their children to “the world”. My point in writing that blog was to say that I hope I do better. Clearly using that metric, I have failed more than them all. I just want my son back.

My Take on Iraq War 20 Year Anniversary

Editor’s Note: it is my fault this post was delayed, the Chief did his part.

Today, 3/20/2023 is a day of reflection, as it marks the 20-year anniversary of the US invading Iraq.  When looking back, I was a high school sophomore at the time.  Our nation had gotten attacked on 9/11, our mission was to find those in charge, and eliminate them from earth.  In hindsight, what happened on this date set the US back as a world superpower.

US Bases in Iraq following invasion

I was all for the invasion, you do not dare invade the US and live to tell the tale.  We as a people, myself included, were gassed up by George W Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld saying we had intelligence on who did this.  First it was radical Muslims, then jihadists, etc.  John Bolton was another one of the cheerleaders for invading Iraq.   But the worst was Colin Powell, yep, the “decorated” general who aspired to be President.  He went in front of United Nations and gave a speech citing an intelligence document that Iraq had nuclear weapons and was hiding them.  We had to move now.

Move we did.  Even though Britain and Germany questioned the validity of this document, it didn’t matter.  We invoked the article of NATO and had the backing of the largest alliance with us.  We invaded Iraq.  I was fully in support, at least for a while.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell delivers his address to the UN Security Council February 5, 2003 in New York City.

Then it turned out there were no weapons.  None.  Powell lied.  Even though we rolled through Iraq and killed Saddam Hussein the worst was yet to come.  Bush termed out of office and new President Barack Obama was sworn in, Colin Powell ditched the GOP for the Dems and basically kept the same job in the White House.  Some liars get promoted or ignored, I still remember the democrats saying Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld were war criminals, somehow Powell escaped that title.  Just keep in mind the vote to go to war was 268-161 or something like that.  Those in favor included John Kerry, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton mind you.

Iraq quickly became a quagmire, who would have thought right?  We lost over 5,000 servicemen, and likely thousands of civilian contractors.  Untold are the stories of our young people who came back stateside scarred for life from what they saw.  Terrorists and those with nothing to lose do not fight fair.  Roadside bombs, IED’s, and knife attacks leave a lasting horror story. 

We did not free the Iraqi people, we just put different groups in charge of different zones.  In essence it is a lawless nation now.  Any mission we claim to have won, was pointless.  Sure, we rid the world of a horrible man (that we kept in power for many years before turning on him), but is the situation any better?  Bottom line is many in Iraq hate the US and all it stands for.  We showed our collective rear end to the world.  We feel we can just bomb any nation and rebuild it to look like ours.  It will never work in this part of the globe.  How many lives need to be lost and dollars squandered just to win a pyrrhic victory?

This reminds me so much of the situation of Russia invading Ukraine, even if Russia ultimately succeeds, Ukraine does not want to be occupied by Russia so violence and fighting will always be a thing.  Never underestimate a country’s people who do not want to be under another country’s rule.  It is for that reason I oppose our “helping” of Ukraine. 

The Chief

Two Reactions to the Same Type Disaster

The purpose of this blog is to show the affect television and internet have on people’s lives in regard to natural disasters.  These are the reactions of one man I work with.

First, we start with the Oroville Dam spillway several years ago in 2017.  The CA Dept of Water Resources, when there was first reported to be trouble, downplayed it, or put out very odd press releases to re-assure the public there were no issues.  DWR had to shut down the spillways due to damage, but continued to put out press releases that all was well.  I do not know about you guys, but I have never heard of any government organization putting out a press release essentially saying “all is ok” when something bad isn’t brewing.  When it comes to a dam, common sense says, if the spillways are closed, water is building up behind it.  Put into English, the water will need to go somewhere, and the object standing in its way is causing it to build higher.

Oroville Dam emergency spillway on Sunday, Feb. 12, 2017, the day officials warned that the spillway was in danger of failing. More than 180,000 people downstream were told to evacuate. (Gonzalo “PeeWee” Curiel/For the Chico Enterprise-Record)

I casually mentioned this to a colleague, he shouted me down saying he saw on the news all was well.  I Googled and found the clip on YouTube that he referenced.  It was a man who claimed to be in charge of emergency services, not DWR, also the interview was taking place in Sacramento, not Oroville where the dam is located.  But hey, “Honey we are fine, the man on TV says so.”  “He is from the government, and he is here to help!”

Over the next 7 days, stories would appear on my Yahoo.com feed.  The biggest was one saying “DWR was evacuating the fish from the hatchery located at the dam’s base.  But again, nothing for us to worry about, this is normal…I guess?  On February 10th crews began removing trees from around the emergency spillway.  Seems really fishy because in CA I believe cutting down a tree may make you eligible for the death penalty.  Also, the environmentalists were dead silent on this tree removal operation, telling me something was really not good.    Not to worry, Alfred E Newman at my office said he hasn’t seen anything bad reported yet.

Two days later, evacuation orders were made for the counties surrounding the area near the dam.  This happened on a workday around 10 am.  The colleague of mine took a call from his spouse, in the breakroom, said “oh my God, we need to head for safety.”  He walked out, and declared everything was ok, and he was going to work from home.  On his way out, I said “hope you survive this Armageddon predicted by me earlier.”

Keep in mind readers, Oroville is 1.4 hours away from our headquarters by car.  Moreover, the land between here and Oroville is literally flat, spread-out farmland.  I dated a girl in college who was from that area, and when I visited it was yeah, flat farmland, it could easily flood and barely anyone would notice.  Another pro tip, her father like many others in the area grew rice, a crop that quite literally can sit in flooded fields for months.  My point being by the time the water reached Sacramento, let alone my office or house, the stream would be moving at a glacial trickle pace.

He freaked out, got into a car and decided to drive.  Yup, Mr. I ain’t never scared, booked it out of town.  Nothing ever came of this situation by the way.

The second scenario involves the “atmospheric rivers” our area has experienced since New Year’s Eve.  There have been 3 in total.  Prior to the first storm, my colleague made it clear he was very scared of the storms.  As I tried to explain, the storm they are describing is mostly wind, the rain happens in large amounts very quickly, but it’s nothing our systems cannot handle.  Of course, I’m not on TV so my words were not taken at all.  Instead, he relied on meteorologists and articles written online, aka news.  The news is supposed to do 1 thing, mostly like a shock jock of yesteryear, its job is to stir people up and create panic/ratings.  If it bleeds it leads is still true today.

On all three occasions he freaked out, spouting cable news BS of the levees could fail etc. etc. etc.  Keep in mind he is about 32 years older than me, yet he reacts like a toddler who dropped his ice cream cone.  He packed his belongings, and headed to Patterson, yes as in an area that usually floods each time there is heavy rain and runoff.  But its ok, the news people on TV told him to flee.

On all three occasions, we did get rain, but not too much.  Yes, the normal areas flooded, Wilton, Discovery Park, and some other creeks in the area.  The bypass area flooded, but all these scenarios happen each time we experience significant rains.  The areas ordered to evacuate are very very rural and surprise, they have to evacuate every time this happens.  Wind damage occurred, and yes trees were toppled, fences were downed, but no massive loss of life or damage.

My point here is the same one I have made quite a few times.  Ditch cable.  Look at the two scenarios again, in the first, TV said all was well, it was not.  The second?  Made it seem like we were in Biblical times and an ark was needed to survive this.  Nothing happened.  The freak out that occurred was unfounded and unnecessary.

Keep watching TV and the next thing to freak out about will get you scared.  Anyone remember the “murder hornets” during the pandemic?  I’m still waiting for them to show up.

Johnny Does