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

Thoughts After Seeing Jesus Revolution

I saw the movie on Sunday. It was a real treat to see. The short version, 10/10 Go see it.

Seeing the movie brought to mind the following:

Some of the background was a great touch. Yep, they had Janice Joplin and Timothy Leary at a beach concert and a host of period music in the soundtrack, some of which you will recognize.

The movie was grounded and a blast from the past. Just a few short years after this movie was set was when many people on my mom’s side of the family gave their lives the Christ (1974-1975). I think religious faith was portrayed as a struggle and not an end.

I knew of Chuck Smith and the many music groups that began at his church, but the origin of his youth-oriented church was fun to watch. Talk about the ungrateful death (his congregation) being given life… From what I recall of the 60’s, the counter-culture movement was a bunch of rebels without a clue. After many years of trying stupid stuff (drugs, sex, and rock-n-roll), many finally found what they were looking for, a lively faith to fill the God-shaped vacuum in their soul.

Not everything coming out of the Jesus Revolution was orthodox but some great theologians did come to prominence during this time period. If you can dig up some sermons by David Chilton, on a few recordings, he discusses some of the abuses on the fringes of this movement.

The other comment about the Jesus Revolution that I heard recently from Gary DeMar was that it was a movement that emphasized an internal transformation as opposed to previous revivals which were also culturally transformative.

One result of this period is what I call the franchise church: Calvary Chapel, Vineyard, LifePoint, Hillsong, etc.

Another and different version of Christianity coming out of this movement was Jesus People USA. They are still around today. They are a cooperative community—think baptized commune—that specializes in ministering to the poor in urban communities. I don’t know how many locations they are in, but Chicago and Milwaukee were ones that I remember.

Kelsey Grammar was really good as Chuck Smith and Jonathan Roumie did a great job as Lonnie Frisbee. I guess Jonathan plays Jesus in The Chosen; sorry, I’ve never seen the show. There is a line in the movie about him trying really hard to look like Jesus, guess that has more than one meaning.

Final thought, I’d see it again and plan to buy DVD once it goes on sale.

Jorge Riley (Drunken Jedi) Cops a Plea

by The Chief

Jorge Riley, a local Sacramento GOP activist, pled guilty last week to charges relating to his storming of the Capital to “Stop the Steal” a couple years ago.  In exchange for pleading guilty, he will only have 1 count on his record, the other 4 will be dismissed.

This comeuppance has been a long time coming for Riley, he has been on a destructive path for years.  Riley has a rap sheet that makes career criminals jealous.  I know of at least 1 DUI, likely more, and a slew of charges related to unpaid child support.  I am not sure of the number of kids and how many women they are by.  Riley also is a heavy drinker, I refuse to say he has a problem, because he never has a problem finding the bottle.

Riley was arrested a couple months after the “Stop the Steal” rally at the Capital.  Not due to anyone ratting him out, he ratted out himself.  Riley is a Grade A braggart when it comes to his Facebook and other social media.  He posted over 150 messages and videos according to the complaint against him.  Worst yet, the man has never had an unspoken thought; his rantings (likely fueled by booze) target minorities, Democrats, women and other groups.  His comments are typically vile in nature making even this single male blogger cringe.  One may ask why no one tried to stop his behavior…that’s because those around him and in power supported it.  I literally saw him countless times at GOP meetings and conventions literally walking around with a backpack filled with vodka that he was drinking through a siphon.  He reeked of hard liquor, so much so I could barely tell what brand it was.  My understanding is his use of drugs and alcohol was to cope with PTSD or some type of condition he got while in the military.  My issue?  During a hearing, his attorney admitted Riley has never been outside the US.  I’m trying to be sensitive to mental health, but I just think Riley is an addict.

I have a source who claims Riley had numerous outbursts at his initial hearings here in Sacramento at the federal courthouse.  So much so he was ordered held on no-bail.  Annoying a judge isn’t the best move when that person is likely to sentence you.  NOTE:  The venue was moved to DC so it will be a different judge who heard the guilty plea and will handle sentencing.  Riley was also far from the model prisoner at Sac County jail, having to be moved multiple times due to being a Grade A dickhead.  AKA normal behavior for Riley.

Riley is still in a lot of trouble, preliminary reports are a federal lockup of 41-51 months, another report said maximum of around 20 years, a different report had a line about judge Amit Mehta considering “enhancements.”  I would bet he is looking at around 6 years in jail, his behavior, plus his bragging and some of his comments online will hang him.  The judge is seeing that Riley is not sorry or repentant at all.  Problem for Riley is that he is facing federal not state time. The feds typically do not do good time credits for behavior, he will serve his entire sentence.  (Riley’s indictment and plea can be found in this article.)

My hot take:  Riley is a clown and piece of work, more so it’s his enablers that made this happen, he was never reigned in.  Sue Blake, Terry Mast (RIP), Craig DeLuz, Bill Cardoza and others routinely looked the other way or supported him.  In the case of Cardoza, he was even stupid enough to post to Facebook the local CRA chapter giving Riley a lifetime achievement award.  DUMB

Riley is going away for a while, but the CRA and other groups should not be left unscathed.  Sorry, not sorry.  They needed to remove Riley as a member and put pressure on the local group to do the same.  Riley is a net negative, not a single redeeming quality about him.  Yet several of the members attacked my conservative credentials.  Yup they chose a drunken moron over me.

The irony in this whole bit?  Riley was a never Trump guy, like most of the rest of the CRA.  It’s sad.    

Catholic Church Circles the Drain

Blogger note: At this point I consider myself barely catholic, I have been lied too so much about the Catholic Church priest abuse scandal.

About a week ago I was watching my nightly local news program, I was killing time before bed yet what I saw caused nightmares.  A very somber Northern CA Bishop Jaime Soto was giving an interview about how the diocese (ruling group for an area of churches) is out of insurance money to pay liability claims arising from the sex abuse scandal.  They will be needing to monetize (sell) assets and liquidate funds to cover costs.  This interview was in response to a change in the law regarding the statute of limitations regarding the church sex abuse scandal.

The Statute of Limitations (SOL) has to do with how far back you can go to bring claims against someone/corporation.  Typically the time frame is about 3-5 years.  This is to prevent lawsuits decades later/after the perpetrator is dead.  Note:  If any sexual abuse happened to a victim under the age of 18 there is no statute, the suit can be brought forward at any time.

The legislative change to throw out the statute of limitations only applies to the Catholic Church, not the Mormon Church or any other religious order, even though they are having their own sex scandals.  This failed to surprise me, this state, and our current governor are hostile to religion, even more so after the overturning of Roe V. Wade.  This is his turn to exact revenge.  He won.  The diocese of Northern California will likely be filing for bankruptcy.  I hear San Francisco, and San Diego are even further toward filing BK.

The dirty little secret is the Bishop and his team were all aware of this change, yet failed to alert any of the congregation. (Typically, the bishop instructs the priest, who in turn give a sermon/homily on the subject.)  They did nothing, head in the ground ostrich style.  I guess they prayed the issue would resolve itself, now the flood gates are open and the lawsuits have been flying.  I hear ads on the radio on my way to work, and have heard folks saying there are commercials airing on the tv. You know the ones, “If you have been a victim, call Dewey, Screwum, and Howe…”. 

Bigger problem: most of these new lawsuits are against priests who have fled the country, or have passed away.  This makes the claims impossible to defend.  (Not that you would want to anyway.)  I will quote the famous McDonald’s quality control manager Chris Appleton “this number of injuries was insufficient to cause the company to evaluate its practices.”  That’s corporate speak for its easier to pay a lawsuit then to change your practice.  The Catholic Church is finding out this same lesson.  Lawsuits are flying and now the church will be put on trial (figuratively and via the media) about their practices.

What the Catholic Church hierarchy doesn’t want to hear is the truth. They keep whistling past the graveyard.  I can tell you the first mistake the church made was “covering up the abuse.”  It appears to me the accused were moved to different churches, then shuffled again, and if it got to be too large a problem moved to a different state/diocese entirely.  The public school system has a term for this its called “passing the trash”; in essence you trade one set of problems for another in hope the accused never gets formally caught.  Another ploy they tried was the “Father so and so will spend the remainder of his life in silent meditation/prayer for his sins to be forgiven.  Notice the accused were never fired (defrocked) and still were allowed to preach.  This shows a lack of institutional control.  When you prove time and again you cannot handle the issue internally, eventually the government takes over.  Rarely do they actually help.

The issue continued to grow and gain steam.  This was initially blamed on a couple of rogue priests taking advantage of the flock, instead the problem grew exponentially.  We were told time and again the issue is small, and resolved.  Turns out there are not just priests and bishops, but cardinals also under scrutiny.  Meaning the issue goes almost the whole way to the top, it’s a generation of folks looking the other way. SAD!

The dirty little secret is the flock is about to see just how mismanaged the church is, this time at the diocese level.  We hear all the time about assets owned by the church, be it buildings, land, schools, money etc, and how it’s protected from certain uses.  They call this “restricted money” we will see just how restricted it was/is.  It’s all going to come out folks.  As Warren Buffett once said “only when the tide goes out do you learn who is swimming naked.”  We as Catholics are in for a rude awakening.

My solution?  Actually it’s not difficult. 

Any priest accused should be turned over to the local authorities, and suspended from clergy immediately.  Let the legal process actually play out.  The accused can defend themselves, the church may still be on the hook, but it starts a healing process.  No more hiding behind the collar.  Purge! 

Allow priests to marry.  They have to keep the family/other issues out of church business, but it is time.  The old guard won’t like it, but the secret is the old guard hates that most priests in the USA are English as a second language types.

Recruit folks from here.  I know it sounds bad or racist, but when you recruit folks from war torn/drug infested/crime ridden area’s, you get what you get.  Sadly that’s a lot of folks who flee just for an opportunity.

Get your popcorn ready this could be good.

Upgrading Dell Alienware m17 R5 Laptop Hard Drive

I bought a nice laptop that will end up going to college with my son.

Here are a few of the features of the Alienware m17 R5 AMD:

  • CPU: AMD Ryzen (TM) 9 6900HX (8-Core /16 Thread, 20MB Cache, up to 4.9 GHz max boost)
  • RAM: 32 GB (2) 16 GB DIMM, DDR5
  • Video: AMD Radeon (TM) RX 6850M XT 12 GB GDDR6
  • Hard Drive: 1TB M.2 PCIe NVMe Solid State Drive

The specifications are good except for the Hard Drive which is puny by today’s standards. I decided to upgrade it. The laptop motherboard supports the 4th generation NVMe type hard drives. These little guys are smaller than a stick of Wrigley’s chewing gum, measuring about three inches long by one inch wide and about as thick as a nickel.

NVME Hard Drive

They are 48 times as fast as a standard mechanical hard drive. What’s the old saying about dynamite and small packages?

Anyway, what I discovered is that the laptop will support two hard drives; however, the documentation says that drive one can be up to 4 TB while the second drive can only be 2 TB. As a result, I opted to get a 4 TB drive by Western Digital. I bought it on Amazon before I got too mad at them for not refunding the money I had spent on my electric razor—which by the way has still not been refunded yet.

WD_BLACK 4TB SN850X NVMe Internal Gaming SSD Solid State Drive – Gen4 PCIe, M.2 2280, Up to 7,300 MB/s – WDS400T2X0E

M.2 is the slot size on the motherboard and 2280 is the size of the hard drive circuit board.

These drives cost over $1,200 from Dell but are $399.99 from Amazon and Newegg and similar places.

What I am slowly learning is buy lower specifications from Dell and then upgrade them to your heart’s delight. At least with their Alienware computers, upgrading them yourself does not void the manufacturer warrant.

One purpose of this blog is to document a few things missing in many of the instructions-written or on video—that are necessary to do this upgrade.

One reason to get the Western Digital drive is for the software. Which I will start to explain now.

Before upgrading the drive, it needs to be cloned otherwise you will need to do a full install of Windows and all other software. Alienware software is a royal pain to install.

Western Digital provides a free copy of Acronis software, the caveat of course is that it can detect at least one Western Digital drive in the computer. As a result, you need an enclosure to house your M.2 drive so it can be cloned. The one I bought connects via USB-C. There just so happens to be a USB-C port on the back of the Alienware PC. Once attached, you must partition or initialize the drive and/or format it.

Then install the Acronis software and clone the drive. In my case, this took about 8 minutes to clone the 1 TB drive. (Please note that my drive was not full so your mileage may vary.) Then shut off the computer.

One of the unique things about this laptop is that it never truly shuts off. Furthermore, the battery is not removable.

In the old days, you typically just opened a small cover on the bottom of a laptop to upgrade RAM or hard drives. These designs often had a quick release to remove the battery. Neither is the case with the Alienware laptop. No, you have to remove the entire bottom of the laptop.

Please note when doing this that many of the screws remain attached to the bottom cover and are not fully removed from the cover.

Second, the cover will not willingly come off once screws are removed.

When working on the laptop, I had the vented area at the bottom and the area near the touch pad at the top. There are eight screws that must be loosened. Four across the top, two in the middle, and two on the bottom. Circled in red in my photos.

Screws 1, 4, 5, and 6 will loosen but not be removed from the cover while screws 2, 3, 7, and 8 will come completely out.

At this point the cover will still not come loose. This next step is not shown on videos or in written instructions. You need a small flat head or standard jeweler sized screw driver. You must gently separate the cover from the rest of the laptop.

Be gentle or you will scratch the plastic cover. Start on the sides near the openings for USB or HDMI cables. Once these begin to separate work in both directions until cover is loose. Again, be gentle. You only need the halves to separate slightly. Once you have worked all the way around the outside edges of the cover, pull and it should come apart.

Once cover is off, gentle disconnect the battery from the motherboard. This connector (labelled MB) is circled in green. It slides toward battery to remove. Failure to do this step may result in destroying the hard drive or other components in the computer.

Oh, another undocumented thing is that both M.2 slots come with their own heatsink. So don’t fret about buying one either with the drive (only available for 2 TB model) or from a third party vendor.

The drive slot on the right is the C Drive. Again, the new drive can be up to 4 TB.

Remove the cloned drive from the enclosure and replace the factory drive with your new one.

Due to the heatsink, you must remove two screws instead of the customary one on the NVMe M.2 drive. Seat the drive and replace the screws.

Reconnect the battery and then close the cover.

When booting the new drive, I was taken to the BIOS program and asked to set the time before it would boot. After that it should behave normally.

Lastly, Western Digital also has another program (Western Digital Dashboard) that you can install to help with the drive once it is running. I recommend installing that.

Amazon Getting Fat, Dumb, and Lazy

I guess it’s natural that once you get to the top of the heap that you lose your edge. Amazon has really lost their edge in the last year or so. They have more warehouses in more locations but their service is becoming subpar. Often utilizing their competitors, I can match or beat their price, and sometimes their deliver schedule.

Even when they have a good price on something, their delivery is terrible or nonexistent. Here’s some recent examples.

I don’t appreciate buying a $700 lens for my camera and having it sent to me in a plastic bag. Yeah, no packing material or box, just a plastic bag with a note printed on it that they are saving the environment. Sorry guys, first, I don’t give a crap about the environment and second, if I spend that kind of money, I think I deserve the respect of having something I worked hard to purchase packaged well enough to have a reasonable expectation to arrive safely.

I bought an electric razor on Amazon on February 20th. It scanned out of a warehouse in Maryland and then disappeared. OK, first why does it ship from Maryland? Does nobody this side of the Rockies shave? Second, how did they lose it? Third, where’s my refund? My wife is not a fan of facial hair and Amazon is causing me disruptions in my marital bliss with there incompetence.

Some prices of stuff that I buy regularly for my family have literally doubled in the last six months. Sometimes its cheaper in the grocery store than on Amazon but some things that we purchase aren’t carried by the local grocery stores any more. Covid wiped a lot of items from grocery store shelves that we may never see again. Thus, we are often forced to buy grocery items online.

Amazon’s delivery is also taking much longer that it used to. Many types of items that used to be next day are taking up to two weeks between ordering and delivery and as mentioned earlier, they are selling at much higher prices.

The bottom line is that Amazon is forcing me to shop elsewhere to get the price and service that they used to offer. I have a much longer mental list of things I won’t ever buy from them anymore. Amazon is moving to become my last resort to buy something instead of my “go to” retailer.

However, I have found at least one exception to the above complaints and that is a shop vac that I recently bought at Lowe’s. The shop vac needs vacuum bags when fine dust such as that from drywall is cleaned. The manufacturer has a “marketplace” on Amazon and their Amazon prices are less than buying the exact same item on the manufacturer website. I think thy would rather let Amazon take care of all the paperwork than having their own list of customers. My recollection is that the shipping was significantly less from Amazon for the same item.

In conclusion, a decline in Amazon’s service is an opportunity for other enterprising folks to exploit. I’m just surprised that Amazon is making it easy to let others be competitive.