Author: Californiacontrarian

Before you read the following, lest you have any doubt, let me be perfectly clear … I do not listen to PBS radio. However, my friend, Jerry, sent this from PBS Morning Edition of 12/25/24, and I felt that a lot of it was worth passing on, especially during this holiday season.
The title of this Morning Edition piece was:
When kindness becomes a habit, it improves our health
(What follows are a few snippets from the Morning Edition show.)

Research shows that people who volunteer regularly have a lower risk of mortality and better physical health as they age.

It’s that time of year when it’s customary to be a little kinder and do nice things for others. Research suggests that when we make acts of kindness a habit, it’s also good for our health. Whether it’s volunteering at a local food bank, or taking soup to a sick neighbor, there’s lots of evidence that when we help others, it can boost our own happiness and psychological well-being. But there’s also growing research that it boosts our physical health too, says Tara Gruenewald, a social and health psychologist at Chapman University.

Most of the evidence comes from observational studies of people who volunteer regularly. But there is also experimental evidence.
Other research has found that people who volunteer regularly have a lower risk of mortality and have better physical function as they age. “People are able to walk longer at older ages and have better balance and so forth,” says Laura Kubzansky, a professor of social and behavioral sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Kubzansky studies the interplay between physical and mental health. Her research has found that people who engage in more volunteering and charitable donations have lower levels of physical pain.
She says researchers still don’t know the exact mechanisms by which volunteering and acts of kindness improve people’s health, but it is likely that multiple processes are at play.

Most of the research in this field has looked at middle-age and older adults.
But one study that really stands out involved high schoolers who were randomly assigned to volunteer for 10 weeks with elementary school kids. Compared to students in the trial who were put on a waitlist, the teen volunteers had improvements in several markers of cardiovascular health.
“Those students who were engaged in volunteering activities with younger students showed healthier body mass index, healthier inflammatory markers and healthier total cholesterol,” Boehm says. And the students who increased the most in empathy and altruistic behaviors, and who decreased the most in negative mood, also showed the greatest decreases in cardiovascular risk over time.

Given the findings so far, Kubzansky says she’d like to see health officials make research into the health benefits of volunteering and other acts of kindness a public health priority.

For what it’s worth I think that Kubzansky is right on, and I hope someone in the new Trump administration will follow up on this.

[On a completely different subject with no segue except for the title of this blog, “Good Morning,” I have a new book on Amazon, titled,”Good Mourning.”]

1/6/25

Initially, here I was going to repeat the title from my previous blog from 1/10/23 entitled … “Will the ‘Woke’ Ever Learn?” However, rather than again stating the obvious, I have chosen to give praise to Vivian Geraghty.
Most of the following is taken from The Daily Wire.
Two years ago, Vivian Geraghty was unceremoniously fired by Jackson Memorial Middle School when two students asked Geraghty to use new names that aligned “with their new gender identities rather than their legal names.” One of the students also requested that teachers use a preferred pronoun that did not reflect the student’s biological sex.

Geraghty went to the principal in hopes of reaching a solution, but the principal and his superior, the director of curriculum, instruction, and assessment, told her “she would be required to put her beliefs aside as a public servant.” She was allegedly accused of insubordination and told that continuing to teach without participating in the students’ gender transitions would “not work in a district like Jackson.”
She was informed that if she would not participate, she must resign immediately. She was then forced to resign after she said she could not use trans-identifying students’ new names and pronouns due to her Christian faith.

Geraghty said she attempted to tell the principal that forcing her to resign was a violation of her right to free speech, but the principal repeated that as a public servant, she must “set [her] religious convictions aside” or resign. The principal’s superior then handed her a laptop and told her to draft her letter of resignation immediately,
That was two years ago.
Earlier last month a court decided that Geraghty’s former Ohio school district will pay nearly half a million dollars to Geraghty, the English teacher, who was forced to resign after she said she could not use trans-identifying students’ new names and pronouns due to her Christian faith.
“No school official can force a teacher to set her religious beliefs aside in order to keep her job,” Alliance Defending Freedom Legal Counsel Logan Spena said in a statement.
“The school tried to force Vivian to accept and repeat the school’s viewpoint on issues that go to the foundation of morality and human identity, like what makes us male or female, by ordering her to personally participate in the social transition of her students,” Spena said.

Kudos to Vivian Geraghty who stuck up for her religious principles.
1/5/25

Even though it was almost fifty years ago that I lived in Florida, I remember that hurricanes were a big deal. However back then we did not have google and the weather channel with the up to the minute forecasts that we have now. Back then we had paper ‘hurricane tracking maps’ on which we could mark the daily latitude and longitude of the upcoming storm and foresee in which direction the hurricane was headed. As I recall these somewhat primitive ‘hurricane tracking maps,’ were not that precise, at forecasting exactly where landfall would occur, but we could see the storm coming.
As I look at some aspects of today’s economy I sense that a big storm is coming. Now while I can see what is coming, in a way this is similar to my antiquated somewhat imprecise ‘hurricane tracking map’ in that my forecast is imprecise. Here I am referring to the economy and what is coming.
First off the present state of credit card debt is very concerning. From Hot Air:
“Defaults on US credit card loans have hit the highest level since the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, in a sign that lower-income consumers’ financial health is waning after years of high inflation.
Credit card lenders wrote off $46bn in seriously delinquent loan balances in the first nine months of 2024, up 50 per cent from the same period in the year prior and the highest level in 14 years, according to industry data collated by BankRegData. Write-offs, which occur when lenders decide it is unlikely a borrower will make good on their debts, are a closely watched measure of significant loan distress.
“High-income households are fine, but the bottom third of US consumers are tapped out,” said Mark Zandi, the head of Moody’s Analytics. “Their savings rate right now is zero.”
The sharp rise in defaults is a sign of how consumers’ personal finances are becoming increasingly stretched after years of high inflation, and as the Federal Reserve has left borrowing costs at elevated levels.
“The share of consumers carrying at least some card debt is pervasive, at 74.5%, per PYMNTS Intelligence research. While that percentage is more or less static across income levels, it leaps to more than 90% for consumers living paycheck to paycheck and having trouble paying their bills.”
This certainly cannot be good for the economy.
But there is more.
Janet Yellen at Treasury has been busy draining the cash reserves even as she warns about an imminent and critical debt ceiling event.
From EJAntoni PhD:
“The federal debt has fallen $77 billion over the last 2 days, but only b/c Treasury has simultaneously drained $104 billion from its cash account; sure seems like Yellen is trying to set up her replacement at Treasury for failure.
Debt limit kicks in Jan 1 and will almost immediately bite b/c the gov’t is constantly borrowing to pay its bills; an artificially low debt on that date (fed by draining Treasury cash) also sets the borrowing limit artificially low, so extraordinary measures won’t last as long.

According to Jim Rickards:
A recession is likely. Trump’s policies will be good for the economy over the next two to four years, but the next six to nine months will likely be the legacy of Biden’s inflation, excess spending, deficits and regulatory burdens that are pointing to a recession now. This may resemble Reagan’s first term when he had a recession (1981-1982) in the beginning of his administration but had awesome growth (1983-1986) coming out of it. Recessions happen. Politically it’s good to get them out of the way at the start of your term so you can finish strong.

So while Yellen is busy making herself look good, her manipulation of the debt can only lead to trouble in the near future. When? … like my old ‘hurricane tracking map’ I can see the big storm coming, but cannot be precise as to when.
1/4/25

As I have previously said, the first part will be easy, but the longer it goes the harder it will get. Here I am talking about the challenge ahead for Tom Homan, the incoming border-czar for President-elect Trump, who has said that “Homan will be in charge of all deportation of illegal aliens back to their country of origin.”
As I have said before the initial part of Homan’s plan to deport the estimated 12.5 million illegal aliens will be straightforward. After first completely closing off the border, he will first target those who have a criminal record and those in Tren de Aragua. No one except the most ardent pro-illegal immigration folks will object to rounding up and deporting those groups. Even the NY Times and the WaPo will be silent when these criminals are corralled. However there will be innocent bystanders caught up in this process … by innocent bystanders I am referring to mainly women, children, and young families who have illegally crossed the border with the hope of gaining access to a better life. Here Homan and ICE are going to have a problem with “perception,” as many in the general public will not be sympathetic to deporting a young family and their children solely because they are here illegally.
As I have written before, I actually do not have much of a problem with this group. I have been to Honduras and have a vivid picture of the poverty that they are attempting to escape from. I get it! Does this group actually realize that they are breaking the law by coming across the border illegally? For many, I doubt it. Keep in mind that for the most part, this is not a well-educated group, and their lives back home are ones of true poverty. Here I have somewhat of a moral dilemma. Other than Homan being able to boast that he has done what he promised … “deporting all illegals,” what will really be accomplished? Many of these individuals are working and thus contributing to our society. Perhaps those who are not presently contributing can be given an arbitrary period of time to get a job and thus pay taxes … i.e. to contribute. However, these individuals should not be able to become citizens. They should never be allowed to vote.
As I have said before perhaps a solution to this impasse is the compromise establishment of a national voter ID. This group of illegals can stay put in exchange for the establishment of a nationwide voter ID by the 2028 election. In order to get a valid voter ID, one must be a citizen. For me, the problem is thus solved.
Stay; produce; but do not vote.
Other options? As pointed out by Jeff Davidson on Townhall another possible solution to this predicament for someone whose goal is to become a true US citizen, is for him/her to voluntarily deport themselves and get in a queue to become legal immigrants on a first-come first-serve basis. Those awaiting their turn can actually become citizens in the future after legal immigration.

I predict that this issue could become a real tear-jerker in the not too distant future. Why not get ahead of it now?

1/3/25

With all the hoopla about recent election and some of the bizarre and disingenuous things that Joe Biden is rushing to do before his term expires, there has been a dearth of any propaganda on ‘climate change,’ and how the libs want to save us from some unspecified future thing. In perusing some of the things I have written in the past, I came across my blog from 11/15/22, titled “embodied emissions.”

The following is a reprint of that blog:
Prior to reading an article from “tech crunch.com” by Mark Mills, I had never heard of “embodied emissions.” After reading a few salient points from that Mills piece, it becomes clear why “embodied emissions” is a dirty word that is, by necessity, stricken from from the Go Green EV Bible.
(If you should desire to read this long but very informative article go to:
“https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/22/the-tough-calculus-of-emissions-and-the-future-of-evs/“)

Here are but a few of some important things you need to know about “embodied emissions” from that Mills article:
“A growing body of research points to the likelihood that widespread replacement of conventional cars with EVs would likely have a relatively small impact on global emissions. And it’s even possible that the outcome would increase emissions.

The issue is not primarily about the emissions resulting from producing electricity. Instead, it’s what we know and don’t know about what happens before an EV is delivered to a customer, namely, the “embodied” emissions arising from the labyrinthine supply chains to obtain and process all the materials needed to fabricate batteries.

All products entail embodied emissions that are “hidden” upstream in production processes, whether it’s a hamburger, a house, a smartphone or a battery. To see the implications at the macro level, credit France’s High Climate Council for a study issued last year. The analysis found that France’s claim of achieving a national decline in carbon dioxide emissions was illusory. Emissions had in fact increased and were some 70% higher than reported once the embodied emissions inherent in the country’s imports were counted.

One review of 50 academic studies found estimates for embodied emissions to fabricate a single EV battery ranged from a low of about eight tons to as high as 20 tons of CO2. Another recent technical analysis put the range at about four to 14 tons. The high end of those ranges is nearly as much CO2 as is produced by the lifetime of fuel burned by an efficient conventional car. Again, that’s before the EV is delivered to a customer and driven its first mile.
Embodied emissions can be devilishly difficult to accurately quantify, and nowhere are there more complexities and uncertainties than with EVs. While an EV self-evidently emits nothing while driving, about 80% of its total lifetime emissions arise from the combination of the embodied energy in fabricating the battery and then in “fabricating” electricity to power the vehicle. The remaining comes from manufacturing the non-fuel parts of the car. That ratio is inverted for a conventional car where about 80% of lifecycle emissions come I directly from fuel burned while driving, and the rest comes from the embodied energy to make the car and fabricate gasoline.”

To me, until there is some mention of the “embodied emissions” in the discussions of EVs, any conclusions about the CO2 benefits of EVs is like playing Three-card Monte, a classic “short con” in which the mark has no chance whatsoever of winning, at any point in the game.
11/15/22

After the upcoming Trump inauguration on 1/20/25, I doubt that there will be any pushing of EVs on the general public, who have little interest in them. Whatever happens with the EV craze, do not forget about embodied emissions.
1/1/25

President Trump’s vision behind appointing Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The mission of DOGE is to “dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.”

What follows are some of the things that DOGE will be able to cut without as much as a whimper from anybody.
Elon Musk believes they can cut a minimum of $2 trillion in wasteful spending, some recent examples of which include:
* $1.7 billion to maintain 77,000 empty federal buildings
* $250 million to construct border walls in the Middle East and North Africa
* $168 million to help illegal immigrants avoid deportation
* $477,121 to make lab monkeys transgender
* $100,000 to study if tequila or gin makes sunfish more aggressive
* $1 million to study if cocaine makes Japanese quail more promiscuous
* $6 million to boost Egyptian tourism
* $2.1 million to encourage Ethiopians to wear shoes
* $1.3 million to verify that hearing bad news decreases happiness levels
* $750,000 to study if the moon landing line was “One small step for Man” or “One small step for ‘a’ man” (the study was inconclusive)

The above could well be a part of a comedy routine except they are so far out that they are not funny … laughable, but not funny! To me these cuts are all slam dunks!
12/31/24

After witnessing the shenanigans the Democrats used in covering up Joe Biden’s mental decline for years, do the Democrats bear any responsibility for Biden’s recent actions?
On 12/23/24 President Biden commuted the sentences of nearly all the inmates on federal death row, a move that comes not even two weeks after he went through with the “largest single-day grant of clemency” in American history.
The men being resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole are convicted of various murderous acts against one person or multiple. Among the victims of the 37 men are law enforcement officers, children and other inmates.
Do those Democrats who covered up Biden’s apparent early dementia bear any responsibility for what Joe Biden did here?

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo said the following:
“It’s important, as a former prosecutor myself, I think it’s important to talk about the victims here. Lexis Roberts went on a camping trip with her mother and Thomas Sanders. Thomas Sanders, on the way back, took her mother out and executed her in cold blood in front of Lexis, then slit Lexis Roberts’ throat and let her die in the woods. This is someone that Joe Biden, on the eve of Christmas, decided to commute his sentence. This is nuts. This is totally nuts. And so, the outrage is real, it’s justified. And again, Joe Biden, on his way out, is again cementing his status as one of our worst presidents.”

Do those Democrats who covered up Biden’s apparent early dementia bear any responsibility for what Biden did with the sentence of Thomas Sanders?
IMO, Yes!

Surveillance video from the 2017 double murder shows Brandon Council walking into CresCom Bank in Conway, South Carolina, approach Major and speak to her briefly before pulling out a gun and shooting her multiple times.
He then leapt over the counter and opened fire on 36-year-old teller Kathryn Skeen, killing her as well.
Do the Democrats who knowingly ignored Biden’s early dementia bear any responsibility for what Biden did with the sentence of Brandon Council?
IMO, yes!

Among the convicts Biden has spared from the accountability sought by judges and juries is Jorge Avila-Torrez, a “serial killer of the highest degree” who kidnapped, raped, and brutally murdered two little girls, Laura Hobbs, 8, and Krystal Tobias, 9, in 2005. The beneficiary of Biden’s commutation not only subjected the girls to nightmarish sexual torture but stabbed them repeatedly — Hobbs 20 times, including in her eyes, and Tobias 11 times.
Avila-Torrez also murdered 20-year-old U.S. Navy Petty Officer Amanda Jean Snell in 2009 and raped and nearly killed another woman in 2009.

Do the Democrats who knowingly ignored Biden’s early dementia bear any responsibility for what Biden did with the sentence of Jorge Avila-Torrez?
IMO, Yes!

IMO. In a civilized society those who covered for Biden’s early dementia certainly should bear responsibility for all of his recent actions!
12/30/24

Jaci Obayon was devastated. She was an immigration attorney who had just lost an asylum case that she was convinced that she was going to win, and she then suffered an ectopic pregnancy miscarriage.
From Epoch Bright:
“My hair fell out from the shot that they gave me to terminate the pregnancy,” Ohayon said. “I was just so heartbroken and so devastated. My hair was coming out in my hands, and I was bleeding heavily. I felt like my whole world was breaking apart. I just didn’t know what to do.”
In a bid to heal and figure it all out, Ohayon planned a family trip to the Dominican Republic with her husband and two children. That’s when they met a Haitian boy named Jonas.
“It was a really incredible experience. I went down grieving the loss of my baby, and I still got to love another child. He’s not my baby, but I get to love him,” she said.

Not long after arriving on an island in the Dominican Republic, the family was having pizza at a beach café when a teenage boy caught their attention. He walked past the family’s table, so they invited him to sit down and share their lunch. He didn’t understand their Spanish, so they tried French, and their new friend understood everything. It turned out he was from Haiti, and his name was Jonas.
Over the next month, the family spent time with Jonas, developing firm friendships.”

To make a long story short, Jaci Obayon aided by a missionary friend with a church in the Dominican Republic that had connections to Haiti, began the lengthy process of applying for the boy’s passport and visa. Ultimately, Ohayon bought Jonas’s plane ticket. He arrived in the USA nervous and scared.
That first weekend, Jonas, unaccustomed to acceptance and often chased away throughout his life, simply chose to hide.
“He would hide behind the curtain; he would hide under the table,” Ohayon said.
Today, after six years in the United States, the once painfully self-conscious teen has blossomed.

Now 20 and in his second year of college, Jonas speaks, reads, and writes English fluently.
“He’s working so hard,” Ohayon says, beaming with love and pride. “If he can get his college degree and ends up getting the career he’s going for, then he gets to change his life and his family’s life.”
“It’s the American dream that I automatically get access to because I was born in the United States. I didn’t choose to be born there; I just was. So I get access to this dream that people in other countries dream about or run towards or flee to, based on where they were born and their circumstances.
“You know, you can’t help everybody, but you can help some people.”
Kudos to Jaci Obayon who turned her life around and at the same time turned around the life of Jonas, a poor boy from Haiti.
12/29/24

Joe Biden recently, on his last Christmas Eve in the Oval Office, signed 50 bills into law. No, I did not review all of these 50 bills. However, despite the fact that I do not often agree with Joe Biden, one of the signed bills struck me as very apropos. Namely, the one that would preclude members of Congress from collecting pensions if convicted of crimes. Right on, JB!

Also serendipitously on that same day Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) released on Dec. 24 his annual “Festivus” list of wasteful government spending in the past year.
“Last Festivus, we bemoaned the national debt nearing $34 trillion. In just a year, Washington’s career politicians and bureaucrats have managed to push it beyond $36 trillion—unsurprisingly, with hardly a second thought,” said Paul in the report.
Realizing that Joe Biden is liberal and Rand Paul is conservative, I think that both have merit. Additionally, I have another proposal that to me makes sense.
In general, almost all members of Congress leave office much more affluent than when they first arrived in Washington.
In 2002, the average congressional pension payment ranged from $41,000 to $55,000. As of November 2014, senior Members of Congress who have been in office for at least 32 years can earn about $139,000 a year.

I would propose that if a retired Congressman’s net value is more than X, he/she should not receive a pension. While I am happy that these retired individuals have achieved a significant amount of wealth while ‘serving’ the people, enough is enough.
In addition as long as there is a budget deficit higher than Y, no retirees should receive any pension. Granted that this means that the some retirees would be at the mercy of those in Congress at the time, it would be a strong incentive for active Congressmen to keep the deficit at a minimum.
BTW: I am available (with no pay) to help Musk and Ramaswamy with DOGE!
12/28/24

Granted there are a lot of things we do not know about what will happen in California after Donald Trump is sworn in as the 47th President. Here specifically I am speaking about the illegal immigrants now residing in this state and how to deal with them as far as any interaction with ICE is concerned.
The following are excerpts from the SanDiego Union on 12/22/24:
“Here locally the San Diego Board of supervisors voted 3-1 on a policy that would prohibit the Sheriff’s office from assisting in the transfer of an inmate into immigration custody without a warrant or a court order.
But County Sheriff Kelly Martinez said that she would not comply and would continue to follow state law, which still allows some level of cooperation.
Under state law the Sheriff’s office can share the release dates for people in custody if they have qualifying convictions for certain violent or sex crimes.
An official said the following:
‘Immigration officials then decide whether or not they will be present when the individual is released from custody. The Sheriff’s Office does not coordinate with, nor will it delay an individual’s release to accommodate immigration officials.’
In 2023, 25 inmates were transferred from San Diego County jails to ICE custody according to a sheriff’s report. The inmates had been jailed locally on felony convictions that included murder, assault with a deadly weapon, DUI, drug possession, burglary, and participation in a street gang.”

Personally, I cannot quite comprehend why anyone would not realize that turning these types of individuals over to ICE could only be a good thing for the entire San Diego community. Why would the three Democrats on the County Board of Supervisors want to protect murderers, or others on a felony convictions? Here we are not talking about illegal grandmas but dangerous criminals. Since it is very likely that none of these three Democrats on the County Board of Supervisors voted for Donald Trump, is their behavior merely a reflection of their Trump Derangement Syndrome? Certainly it is not a reflection of common sense.
12/27/24