Author: Californiacontrarian

Basically what is an ultra processed food?
From Epoch Times Morning:
“Simplistically ask, ‘Can it be planted, or does it have a mother?’ If the answer is no, chances are you’re consuming a highly processed version of something that was once meant to nourish and fuel us.
As defined by the Nova classification, ultra processed foods include items like packaged snacks, soft drinks, instant noodles, and ready-made meals. These products are made from chemically altered food extracts and additives designed to improve flavor, texture, and shelf life.

What does it matter if we eat ultra-processed foods?
There are a few interesting statistics coming out of a recent British Medical Journal article concerning the effects on the general population of ultra processed foods.
The Conclusion of the article was as follows:
“This umbrella review reports a higher risk of adverse health outcomes associated with ultra-processed food exposure. The strongest available evidence pertained to direct associations between greater exposure to ultra-processed foods and higher risks of all cause mortality, cardiovascular disease related mortality, common mental disorder outcomes, overweight and obesity, and type 2 diabetes. Evidence for the associations of ultra-processed food exposure with asthma, gastrointestinal health, some cancers, and intermediate cardiometabolic risk factors remains limited and warrants further investigation.”

While I was aware of the relationship between diet and certain types of health disorders, I was not aware of a causal relationship between diet and certain mental health disorders.

Why bring this topic up now?
From a Time on 1/30/25:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), doubled down on his view that ultra-processed foods and food additives are “poisoning” Americans during two days of Senate confirmation hearings last week.
Food makers have been permitted to “mass poison American children,” Kennedy told lawmakers from the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions on Jan. 30. “That’s wrong. It needs to end. And I believe I’m the one person who’s able to end it.”

The day before, however, while appearing before the Senate Committee on Finance, Kennedy signaled that he does not intend to take ultra-processed foods off the market, only to ensure Americans are educated about their health effects.

If confirmed, Kennedy would oversee agencies including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which plays a key role in U.S. food policy.
N.B. RFKJr was just confirmed to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
2/13/25

A handful of House Democrats were barred from entering the Department of Education’s DC headquarters on Friday, 2/7/25.
Were these Democrats there to try to help kids get a better education? No! They were apparently there for a photo-op after President Trump talked up plans to bypass Congress and unilaterally close the agency down, returning its power to the states.
In actuality they played right into Trump’s plan as the National Assessment of Educational Progress 2024 Nation’s Report Card, was released on Jan. 29. The results were disastrous for the present way of educating young children.
The fact sheet noted that 70 percent of eighth graders were not proficient in reading and that 72 percent were not proficient in math.
The fact sheet noted that 40 percent of fourth graders were not even at the basic reading level.
It also said standardized test scores have been flat for 30 years despite “hundreds of billions of dollars spent on government-run education.”
As many of you are already aware, for a variety of reasons, I am a big Trump supporter. To reenforce my positive view of DJT, he responded to these horrific test scores with his latest Executive Order, “Defending Parental Rights and Educational Opportunity.” It is a real winner!
From the EpochTimes:
Under this universal school choice executive order, states will get federal money for K–12 scholarship programs that cover tuition for private schools or public schools that students elect to attend outside of their assigned neighborhood schools, including those on Indian reservations who would prefer to attend school elsewhere.
“Every child deserves the best education available, regardless of their zip code,” Trump said in a statement. “However, for generations, our government-assigned education system has failed millions of parents, students, and teachers.
“This Executive Order begins to rectify that wrong by opening up opportunities for students to attend the school that best fits their needs.”
Another right-on-the-money Trump response.
2/12/25

The other day a late-night order, issued by U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer in Manhattan, blocked most Trump administration officials—including Musk and members of his cost-cutting initiative—from accessing sensitive Treasury records for at least a week while the case proceeds in the New York court.
Now while I’m not a lawyer, and I did not stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, I do have some cursory knowledge of the law.
Before I go any further I must parenthetically ask, “Does a judge need to be a lawyer and have gone to law school ?” I ask this because early in the first year of law school the law students that I am familiar with are instructed in the concept of “standing.”

From AI Overview:
In law, standing is the requirement that a party has a sufficient connection to a case to bring a lawsuit.

How does standing work?
* To have standing, a party must show they’ve been harmed by the law or action being challenged.
* Standing is a requirement of Article III of the U.S. Constitution.
* Standing is not about the merits of the case, but rather about the parties involved.
* A party must prove standing before the court will consider the merits of the case

As background, the decision was made after 19 state attorneys general sued the Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bissent
after DOGE was given access to the Treasury records. DOGE is an advisory body tasked to identify ways to reduce government spending.

As best I can tell the case brought by the 19 state attorneys does not have standing. because as of yet there has been no harm done (see above).
Hmmm!
BTW: What law school did Judge Engelmayer attend?

2/11/25

When I was a kid, I used to dream about bidding and then winning an auction. Last night I had a similar type of dream that mixed auction bidding and the present USAID debacle. It went something like this, as this auction was about finding something more atrocious than the last expenditure.

Auctioneer: “Let the bidding start”:

$32,000 for a “transgender comic book” in Peru.

$47,000 for a “transgender opera” in Colombia,

$70,000 for a DEI musical in Ireland,

$1 million to help disabled people in Tajikistan become “climate leaders…”

$1.5 million to advance DEI in Serbia,

$2 million for sex changes in Guatemala,

4.5 million to combat disinformation in Kazakhstan

6 million to fund tourism in Egypt

20 million on a new Sesame Street show in Iraq

$60.8 million of U.S. “family planning funds,” which were used to purchase contraception and condoms abroad, shipped mainly to Africa (89 percent)

Auctioneer, “We’ve run out of time! I have a final winner. Even though the dollar amount is not the highest, the USAID audacity here is unbelievable!”
$8M that Politico received from USAID … as Politico is, without a doubt, a propaganda arm of the left.
In total, Politico has received $34.3 million from various swampy federal govt agencies.

“I’m exhausted, however I am certain that there will be more USAID to be auctioned off tomorrow!”
2/10/25

On Sundays I write about heroes or individuals that we can all look up to. Chris MacRitchie is such an individual.
From FoxWeather:
“Vermont man jumps into icy river to save struggling dog from certain death.”
For the most part, there was no hesitation, said MacRitchie.

The dramatic rescue began unexpectedly on Jan. 10 in Berlin, Vermont, along Stevens Branch. While enjoying a drive-thru snack at Dunkin’ Donuts, MacRitchie said his young son first noticed the dog in the nearby river. MacRitchie courageously jumped into the frigid Winooski River in a T-shirt to save a struggling canine from certain death.
Despite the freezing temperatures and the uncertain depth of the river, MacRitchie knew he had to help her as he bravely waded in and pulled the shivering dog to safety.
“I wasn’t overly stressing about the cold,” he told FOX Weather. “But I did not know if the water was knee-high, waist-high or over my head.”

MacRitchie urgently pulled the dog, Arizona, up the embankment. His wife, who was waiting nearby with blankets, immediately helped him get the dog into their vehicle. They soon discovered her ID tag and contacted her owner, Morgan Cerasoli, who had been frantically searching for her 7-year-old canine companion.
Cerasoli said Arizona went outside for a potty break about 1:30 p.m. the day before and just disappeared.
“Something caught her attention,” Cerasoli told FOX Weather. “I don’t really know what happened, but she went on an adventure.”
It was a 3-mile, daylong adventure, to be exact. Wind chills were near zero as temperatures plummeted to the lower teens while snow blanketed the ground.
Cerasoli said she had just finished searching for Arizona in the area near the river before she had to leave to pick up her daughter. Within five minutes, she received a call from MacRitchie.
“This man will forever be my hero,” said Cerasoli, admitting she had never expressed such profound gratitude to a stranger before. “To some, this may just be a man rescuing a dog, but to me, it’s a man rescuing an extension of my soul!”

Chris MacRitchie is indeed a true hero, as he did something that a lot of us couldn’t do!
2/9/25

A breaking story!
From RedState:
Newly-confirmed Attorney General Pam Bondi announced as one of her first acts that the Department of Justice is enacting a ban on federal funding to sanctuary jurisdictions. This includes San Diego County, where its Board of Supervisorsvoted to become a “Super Sanctuary” county, despite pleas from its citizens to control the illegal invasion and the subsequent crime and destruction that comes along with it.”
Meanwhile, also from RedState:
“Terra Lawson-Remer, acting chair of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, said that the county’s policy would not change in response to Bondi’s directive.
‘We are not going to be participating in any type of effort around mass deportations,’ Lawson-Remer told CBS 8. ‘I’m very clear that it is a terrible waste of public resources in addition to it being frankly unconscionable.’”

UC San Diego Political Science Professor Thad Kousser highlighted the potential impact of Bondi’s directive, saying, “What this means if sanctuary cities are denied funds if we don’t have judges step in and have a temporary restraining order, that could block more than a billion dollars across the country in funds that have nothing to do with immigration.”

Those of you who are familiar with my views on hyphenated female last names certainly know whose side I am on.
I guess we’ll see what Ms Hyphenated last name thinks is
unconscionable when federal funds start to be withheld from San Diego County.
2/8/25

As we are all aware Joe Biden issued pardons to many who had not been convicted of anything. In fact a lot of these last minute pardons were issued to individuals who had not even been charged with anything!
If any preemptive Presidential pardons have occurred in the past, I am not aware of them. Whether preemptive pardons are legal is a whole other issue that may be tested in the near future. I say this because of something that is going on in the California legislature, namely California Senate Bill 222, under which victims of certain disasters—including wildfires—in California would be able to sue oil and gas companies for compensation.
Here the Dems in Sacramento are playing to the crowd. Everyone in California feels bad for those that lost their homes in the recent L.A wildfires, but to blame oil and gas companies for their supposed contribution to climate change, is absurd, and it’s unclear how the very strong Santa Anna winds were related to either climate change or to the oil and gas companies. Yet CS Bill 222 , also known as the “Affordable Insurance and Climate Recovery Act,” the bill was introduced on Jan. 27 by Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener. It would allow insurers to file civil lawsuits against oil and gas companies seeking damages, if specified criteria are met, including damages of $10,000 or more.

FYI: The cost of the damage caused by the recent Los Angeles fires is estimated to be between $250 billion and $275 billion, according to a Jan. 13 report from AccuWeather.
The deadly wildfires are also expected to aggravate California’s existing insurance crisis. Insurance costs could reach $20 billion or higher, according to estimates by Wells Fargo analysts.j

What would happen if after this bill is signed into law, President Trump preemptively pardoned the oil and gas companies. The Dems would go ballistic, but they would be in quite a bind, as they would be forced to argue that preemptive Presidential pardons are not legal, despite the probable protestations of Joe Biden’s family, the J6 Committee, and Dr. Fauci.
Personally, I do not think that preemptive pardons should be legal, but I would pay to have a front row seat watching the Dems argue against policies of Joe Biden.

2/7/25

My original title for this piece was going to be something about a “woke”Delaware judge and the consequences for Joe Biden’s state of Delaware … however, the present title seemed more appropriate.

Most of what follows is from HotAir of 2/3/25:
Remember last year when an activist Delaware judge invalidated Elon Musk’s compensation package at Tesla–twice–despite it having been overwhelmingly approved by stockholders–twice?
From X:
Instead, she ordered Tesla shareholders to pay $345 million in legal fees to attorneys representing the plaintiff, who owned just nine shares of the company.
Judge McCormick previously ruled against
@elonmusk. during his acquisition of Twitter.
Before becoming the head of the Delaware Chancery Court, McCormick worked at the Delaware law firm Young Conaway. For decades, this firm and its employees have been large donors to President Joe Biden.

No wonder everybody in corporate America freaked out. If you are targeted by politicians, your entire business could be destroyed.
Yeah, well, FAFO.
Major corporations are fleeing Delaware so fast that the governor himself is squealing and looking for a way to repair the reputation of the state as the most corporate-friendly in the nation.
The Delaware Governor has responded to companies leaving Delaware:
“It’s really important we get it right for Elon Musk or whoever the litigants are in Delaware courts,”—”We’re cognizant that there may be some things that need to change. We’re going to work on them.”
– Matt Meyer, Delaware Governor
As a consequence of Judge McCormick’s outlandish ruling, here is a list of companies that have moved their corporations out of Delaware based on recent reports and posts on X:

Tesla
SpaceX
The Boring Company
Neuralink
X Corp.
Tripadvisor
Meta
Fidelity National Financial
NewsMax
Sonoma Pharmaceuticals
Bill
Dropbox
TransPerfect

Somewhere around 15%-20% of Delaware’s budget comes from corporate franchise taxes.
Delaware has long been considered a business-friendly state due to its corporate tax advantages, and is home to multiple large companies. However, backlash against the First State has intensified after Delaware Judge Kathaleen McCormick ruled that Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s record-breaking $56 billion compensation package was excessive.
Now, the opposite is the case, all due to the attack on Elon Musk as part of the vendetta a single judge had against him. 

Musk, who has become increasingly influential in both the political and corporate world, urged companies to pull out of the Democratic-led state. In February 2024, he announced that SpaceX was relocating its incorporation from Delaware to Texas, following Tesla’s corporate move from California to Texas in 2021.

This appears to be the perfect real day example of “FAFO!
(F*** Around, Find Out” … or the PG version “Fool Around, Find Out”)😉😉

2/6/25

Some might argue that pardoning individuals who haven ‘t been convicted of anything is an admission of the guilt of these individuals. Put me in that column!
Although we may never get to bottom of what actually happened on the infamous Jan 6, there was enough funny stuff to convince me that the entire thing was a set-up … a set-up to teach those Trump-backers a lesson.
As noted in a recent January article on Imprimis by John Daniel Davidson there are a number of issues that makes one ask …”Why?”

Why did the then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reject then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s two Republican appointments to the committee—Representatives Jim Jordan and Jim Banks—and instead appoint two virulently anti-Trump Republicans, Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger?

Why did the House Select Committee’s report, issued in December 2022, omit important information about January 6 and fail to address many lingering questions about the government’s role and response?

Why in some instances, did the Select Committee show a blatant disregard for facts. It claimed, for example, that Trump was aware of violence at the Capitol for more than three hours—187 minutes, to be exact—before he took action to intervene. Cheney referred to this as a “supreme dereliction of duty.” But in fact, according to a timeline of events compiled by The New York Times (and corroborated by The Washington Post), no more than 25 minutes passed between the reported breach of the Capitol at 2:13 p.m. and Trump’s first tweet addressing the situation at 2:38 p.m., when he wrote, “Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!”

More important than the report’s factual errors are the serious questions never investigated by the Select Committee.
Why did Democrat congressional leaders turn down repeated offers of National Guard troops to protect the Capitol that day? Why was security so lax outside the Capitol despite expectations of a large demonstration?
How many FBI informants and other undercover federal law enforcement officials were in the crowd? What communication did the FBI or FBI informants have with protest organizers ahead of the event?
Why wasn’t then-Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund told there were federal informants in the crowd?
Why did the U.S. Capitol Police open the doors and allow demonstrators into the building?
Why did federal law enforcement authorities demand cell phone location data for the thousands of people who were outside the Capitol but broke no laws?
Why does the FBI still have no idea who planted the pipe bombs near the headquarters of the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee on the evening of January 5?

The list of “Why” questions goes on and on . However, my ow More important than the report’s factual errors are the serious questions never investigated by the Select Committee. Why did Democrat congressional leaders turn down repeated offers of National Guard troops to protect the Capitol that day? Why was security so lax outside the Capitol despite expectations of a large demonstration? How many FBI informants and other undercover federal law enforcement officials were in the crowd? What communication did the FBI or FBI informants have with protest organizers ahead of the event? Why wasn’t then-Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund told there were federal informants in the crowd? Why did the U.S. Capitol Police open the doors and allow demonstrators into the building? Why did federal law enforcement authorities demand cell phone location data for the thousands of people who were outside the Capitol but broke no laws? Why does the FBI still have no idea who planted the pipe bombs near the headquarters of the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee on the evening of January 5?

However, my most prominent question remains, “Why pardon individuals who haven’t even been accused of anything? … unless they are guilty as sin!
2/5/25

The latest I read is that the Palisades fire was possibly caused by fireworks! Note that the top four causes of wildfires do not include fireworks, but I suppose that anything is possible even though July 4th is about six months hence from the start of the Palisades fire.
[FYI: the top four causes of wildfires include electrical, arson, lightning, and campfires.] At this point even though an electrical cause is suspected in the Altadena fire, I have not read that an electrical cause is suspected in the Palisades fire. There was no lightning at that time, and thus we ate left with arson, campfires, and … fireworks.
Meanwhile news broke that three recent brush fires in the San Diego, California area started in homeless encampments. The San Diego Metro Arson Strike Team (MAST) confirmed this news to NBC 7 on Thursday,1/30/25. That news is believable since on last Halloween another San Diego fire near San Diego State University was caused by a campfire in a homeless encampment.
Let me get this straight. Four out of four recent San Diego fires started in homeless encampments, but ninety miles to the north the Palisades fire was apparently started by … fireworks!
Hmmm!

2/4/25