How you look at things really depends upon which shoes you wear. We all think we know everything, and yet we actually know very little. Even those of us who have many years of advanced education know very little, and if our advanced education was any good (because nowadays the “goodness” of the education being presented is really in question), the first thing it should have taught us is that even when we’re experts we actually know very little of what there is to know.
My Doctoral adviser told me, when I first started my Doctoral studies, that none of the professors wanted to know my opinion about anything until I had the letters after my name. What he was saying, and he did articulate this directly, was that the word I should be absent in my papers, that the professors were only interested in valid research to support any thesis presented. He was careful to assert the necessity for balance at the same time. When one looks at an issue, one must look at all the research, not just one strain. When one ignores the opposing point of view and its valid research, the balance scale is tipped and the end result is often skewed if not visibly ridiculous.
So what my Doctoral Adviser was actually saying was that there are rules to research that must be followed and that when the rules are not followed the research and findings are generally not valid.
A good example of this is the climate change issue in America. When all the research is funded by the agency (the US Government) and the researchers’ funding is dependent upon findings which support the best interests of the agency’s position (in the Obama administration it was that climate change was our biggest problem and concern), there’s a good bet that all the research is going to reflect the agency’s position. Compound this with the Attorney General and many State Attorneys General literally prosecuting researchers whose findings contradicted the government’s position—yes for those of us with short memories, which our government officials count on us having, that is what happened—it becomes a really safe bet that the research, its findings and premises then being sold to us by people with political agendas is very skewed and imbalanced.
This does not mean to say that none of the research is valid or that climate change is not an issue. It is only to attest to the notion that research needs to be balanced to actually aim toward discovering truth. When people in power rewrite the rules of research to obtain the results they want and use the powers of money and litigation to suppress differing research, we’ve got a real crisis and it’s a good bet they’re not interested in truth.
A good example of balance is when Al Sharpton and Newt Gingrich went on the road together in support of supporting failing schools in the cities. Sharpton and Gingrich on the road together. Now those two don’t see eye to eye on much, but when from their differing viewpoints they come to the same conclusions, it’s a good bet that overall they were heading toward a truth. In this case it was that there is a real problem with inner-city education.
So which shoes do you wear? There are many different viewpoints in many different areas, and none of us really know anything compared to what there is to know. When we start acting like we know everything and are right about everything and we use power to demand others see it our way, we’re in real trouble.
Take a look out there. Maybe stop and think sometimes before you cut and paste something on your social media whose veracity you haven’t checked out. It’s time to get back to real research and move away from believing our politicians (on both sides) who continually spout all or nothing arguments. Anyone who knows anything about debate knows the all or nothing argument is a fallacious one.
Einstein said: “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”
By Peter Weiss
Hard to believe that we’re living in America. Hard to believe that we’ve come to here, to this point in our country’s development, the point where I can’t say what I believe or feel.
It’s nothing really new. I was a teacher in New York. In case you hadn’t noticed about New York… In case you hadn’t noticed, the UFT and AFT have been in the Democrats’ pocket forever, so there in the Bronx where I taught anyone who did not sign-on to the left-wing shenanigans had to stay quiet, to form a kind of secret society where they could speak their minds.
America?
Not really!
Here where I live now some five or six years ago I made a comment about something political that leaned toward the right. A bit afterward, one of the people in a supervisory position at the place where I made the comment approached me privately to tell me they (gender purposefully not indicated) agreed with what I said but would I please be careful not to let anyone know and to refrain from outwardly making such comments in the future.
America?
Not really!
Well, so… You can’t put a Trump sticker on your car or a sign out in front of your house without worrying about being harassed and vandalized. You can’t state any opinion other than the current mob-think ridiculousness without putting your job I jeopardy, fear of ostracism or even maybe persecution or prosecution.
America?
Not really!
Not the America I envisioned or once thought I lived in.
By Peter Weiss
I like to think we do things that are representative of us and of how we are. I like to think that our actions count for something and that our words represent rather than belie our actions.
I like to think that some things stand for other things. I’m talking about bigger metaphors than those like A=B without using like or as. I’m talking about one action standing for a whole group of actions.
Here are a few past examples. One I’ve mentioned before is Harry Reid lying and saying that Mitt Romney had not paid taxes in ten years. It was a lie but Romney could not get out from under it and other mistruths cast by those wonderful Democrat leaders we have.
Later, Mitt Romney having lost, of course, Harry Reid was called out for lying and he said, so what, he lost didn’t he?
That act of lying while pretending to tell the truth has become the overall metaphor in the Democrat playbook.
It would be pointless to go over the past four years because the sides are drawn. Nearly seventy-four million people believe the Democrats stole this election and that says it all. In fact it is a good metaphor for the division in this country.
That said, going back to Harry Reid and the Democrat lying playbook, Joe Biden said he would never take a vaccine developed under Trump and he used that to help his plight in this past election, as a tool. As he said it, as he proclaimed to the people that Trump couldn’t be trusted, he knew all the precautions and measures that had to be taken for a vaccine to be declared usable.
He was lying.
Then he was first to take that vaccine developed under President Trump.
Metaphor for the Democrats, lie as you see fit, even when you know you are lying. And then do as you do.
Metaphor.
Biden is lying all over the place and the media is covering up for him.
We deserve better. We deserve a better metaphor to live by, to be led by, maybe ones established by the likes of Jesus or Martin Luther King Jr.
By Peter Weiss
It would be insanity to think that because tonight turns this night into a new calendar year starting tomorrow morning things will be different.
I’m good at insanity. I’ve practiced it a lot in my life and still do sometimes. But I do know that tomorrow morning if we all do what we’ve all always done, nothing will change.
The notion of New Year’s is one of the hope of change. Hence we make resolutions, which I gave up on a long time ago. If I actually followed my resolutions I’d be skinny now instead of still needing to diet.
That said, I continually pray to God. I’m not an atheist, so to any atheists out there, just consider that statement as an affirmation of hopefulness. For me it is faith and more.
Overall, I have little hope for us. Man is by nature selfish and greedy. Look at our ruling class, the American Politburo. I don’t expect them to change. First reasonable sign of change coming from them will be a simple one-size-fits-all imposition of strict term limits.
Not gonna happen because man is by nature selfish and greedy, and they (as a group) exemplify in real time the worst of that.
I don’t think 2021 will be much better than 2020. In fact I think it will be considerably worse. I think Covid will only be partly, and a small part at that, the reason as to why.
The average shelf life of a democracy is about a quarter-century. The way we educate our kids these days, that’s about 250 years. Seems to me we’re doing a great job of killing ours.
One thing 2020 has done for me is given me back gratitude. I am grateful. I’m thankful for so much it’s too much to elaborate here and now. Another time.
So on New Year’s Eve if you think there’s a magic bullet out there that’s gonna make things better starting tomorrow morning, forget about it.
If you think our leaders and the world leaders are going to do better, nice thought, but forget about it.
Regardless, think good thoughts, look to the sun and keep love and gratitude in your heart.
By Peter Weiss
We’ll keep this one short too. For all you Democrat-dogma supporters, nah, nah, nah, boo boo on you. Only one thing left to say besides imploring you to think for yourselves independently and that is: be careful — you may just get what you ask for.
You/we all have choices. You can believe what Pravda USA mainstream media Democrat lapdogs want you to believe, or you can look at things independently for yourself. You can question, or you can accept. You can act like an ostrich and bury your heads in the sand or…
Once again, and straight out for the record…
In 1970 at the Ohio State University demonstration in which six hundred people were arrested, I was the first one. Six unidentified FBI agents were beating on a demonstrator, a small kid not more than 135 pounds soaking wet. I went to help him, they knocked me out, I came to in a paddy wagon. An undercover policeman led us through a conversation that was recorded and showed up verbatim at my trial.
Here was the offer: plead guilty to misdemeanor assault and battery on a police officer, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct and be allowed to graduate (not be expelled from the University), get sixty days in the workhouse and a two hundred fifty dollar fine. The trial would be held off until I finished up my last trimester and graduated.
Or:
Don’t plead guilty. Be re–arrested for a felony, rioting one. Go to trial almost immediately and be facing a year in the state penitentiary. Bail would go up so high I couldn’t post it and I’d be expelled, hence not graduate, upon being found guilty.
My lawyer refused to let me do anything other than take the plea deal. He said they would surely find me guilty in the political climate there at that time and that I wouldn’t last a week in the penn. What he actually said was a young boy like me, they’d kill me (literally) in the first week.
My lawyer also said that if I refused to take the deal he’d quit my case and he’d make sure that any other attorney I got made me take the deal.
So I lied. I didn’t lie about being innocent. I lied about being guilty. I said I did something I surely didn’t do.
Think independently. Look what they did to Flynn. Check out who did it, who lied about what they did and why they did both.
They are guilty. Not Flynn.
Flynn was the key to… We all know what the Democrat-dogma-people can’t/won’t say.
Two things to remember: be an independent thinker, and, you lefties, be careful because you may just get what you want and discover it’s not at all what you think it is or you thought it would be.
By Peter Weiss
Strip clubs, Race Tracks, Casinos, Bars, Liquor Stores, Pot Shops: all open.
Churches, Synagogues and other Religious Houses of prayer and religious institutions: all closed and/or severely limited.
Make of it what you will! You tell me why.
Left-wing protesters lauded, aided and bailed out of jail.
Small businesses, law abiding citizens and taxpayers: shut down and criticized for trying to make a living, even when following Covid guidelines.
Make of it what you will. You tell me why.
I believe the answers are quite obvious.
We deserve better than the bozos who are shoveling this crap down our throats.
By Peter Weiss
It’s actually quite simple. Anyone who has been around a good while can see it. Especially people who have lived through the civil rights era and cold war era can see it.
What you see is not what you got. Or WYSIWYG Not.
Don’t think things are quiet and all is good now that there is about to be a new administration coming in. It is clear that the Biden administration will be infused with those earning paybacks, especially tributes to people in social media and the mainstream media Pravda USA who actively censored any anti-Biden speech before the election and covered up anything having to do with Biden family impropriety.
We are sinking to a new low here in America. If you thought it was Trump who caused it, look again. If you still think at this point it is Trump who caused it and is responsible for it, apparently you haven’t looked and you don’t really care to.
This is all way beyond policy and politics.
Add a new movie scenario to the usual Hunger Games one used here often to exemplify where the Democrats are rapidly taking us, and quite unabashedly I might say. Add The Matrix. Red pill/Blue Pill. Drink the one you want.
Just remember, when you stick your head in the ground and choose not to look at what is coming at you, you get what you get, not what might want, not even what you think you might be getting.
That’s it in short, sweet, simple terms.
We deserve better than these bozos who are shoveling bullshit down our throats.
By Peter Weiss
It’s actually quite simple. Anyone who has been around a good while can see it. Especially people who have lived through the civil rights era and cold war era can see it.
What you see is not what you got. Or WYSIWYG Not.
Almost all communist/socialist governments have only two classes of people, the very rich and everyone else who is poor. Hunger Games scenario.
Almost all communist/socialist governments have a media that is controlled by the government, or in our case, pretty much parroting the part of the government whose policies allow them to do what they want. Or, in our case here in the USA the multi-billionaire media moguls control the information we get and propagandize it to present a scenario/narrative that will allow them to continually and greatly further enrich themselves.
Here in the good old USA, it’s the politburo, the career politicians, Pravda, the mainstream media that is biased and owned by multi-billionaires, and the oligarchs, the Hollywood elite and other such people of prominence like the Taylor Swifts, Madonnas, Chers, DiCaprios, etc, who advocate for the socialist policies that will allow them to live like kings and queens while the regular people are asked to sacrifice, economize and conserve energy so they, the elite, can continue to enrich themselves.
That’s it in short, sweet, simple terms. Obama buys a 16 million dollar beach house and we have to keep our homes darker and cooler to conserve energy. Well, that’s just one example. DiCaprio flies in a private jet to his energy conservation meetings. That’s another.
Theme: We deserve better than these bozos who are shoveling bullshit down our throats.
By Peter Weiss
Mostly I don’t talk about myself or my family, and I generally don’t express opinions except in the opinion pieces. That’s me. I’m not one to toot my horn or do things in a public fashion, which means to say if I have a comment for someone I generally put it out to them directly. More and more I use social media less and less. That’s because it is biased, dishonest and a real danger to our freedom.
But that’s for another time.
I mentioned once that my family had Covid. I also mentioned that I would, perhaps, talk about it more as time went on. And I will. But other things have been happening in my household too, mostly medical but some medical with our animals.
Oy vey.
I’m not going to go into detail.
Mostly what I want to say is thank you to all my friends and followers here for sticking with me. Entries have been down some, but views have remained constant and even increased. This is the only time I use social media anymore except to respond to family and for work. I would prefer it weren’t necessary for work.
One other thing to say. Well, maybe two. Despite it being a rough year, a very rough six weeks for my family and a tough time altogether for many people, my family has been fortunate, lucky, maybe. I thank God for that. Yes. I do thank God for that. I pray to God and thank Him often. In these tough times He has restored my gratitude.
Finally, once again, Covid is not like they are portraying it in the media. Less than one per cent of people under fifty die from it. Virtually no children die from it or are even affected much by it. Only five per cent of people over seventy with comorbidity, even more than one comorbidity, die from it.
From my perspective, the worst parts of it were inability to reach my doctor, difficulty getting tested, inaccuracy of testing and inability to get information that is meaningful.
The worst part of the whole ordeal is no one knows anything. You can’t get answers to questions. No one can tell you if it will get worse, if one night you’ll wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to breathe, or worse, if someone in your household will wake up that way and have to be rushed to the hospital.
So overall, my perspective is that the Covid itself was not all that bad. Of course it affects each person differently, but the percentages for survival, even for not being very sick, are good. The media portrayal of it and the system itself need a lot of work.
As I write this, I have to say it is still a day at a time. One day I feel fine, the next day I could be wiped out tired or have other maladies. But progressively, my whole family is getting better. Or so it seems. Thank God.
Thanks for sticking with me and I’m hoping to get more consistent again in adding entries.
By Peter Weiss
I say it over and over and take no credit for it. I credit my father-in-law who said to me in the early 1970s “Man is by nature selfish and greedy.”
And here we are. Now some 50 years later we are ruled by a class of politicians many of whom are career politicians. The large majority of them are millionaires, many of them multi-millionaires. They stay in their political positions for many, many terms and then pass them on to family members. Or, quite simply, we are now ruled by a political class very similar to if not the same as the Politburo was in Communist Russia.
We deserve better.
We are told by these people what to do, yet they do what they please.
We deserve better.
Examples? Do I really have to? Al Gore: he flies in a private plane and uses more electricity in a month than his whole town. Yet he tells us to conserve. We must sacrifice so he can live like a king.
Our media today is no better than Pravda is in Russia. It is biased and dishonest. Some of the print media is owned by the billionaire-owners of large corporations with strong left-wing ties. So, like the Bloomberg paradigm, they leave the lefties alone while they concentrate on destroying the Republicans, especially President Trump. They are so corrupt, dishonest and brazen that they don’t hide their bias anymore and aren’t afraid to admit it or say it openly.
We deserve better.
Our government, particularly Congress, stays home during this pandemic and gets paid while they tell people who literally need their paycheck to survive on a day-to-day basis to stay home and stay out of work and thus not get paid.
We deserve better.
If you look back to what now seems so long ago, the impeachment, we see it was plotted before Trump was inaugurated and the biased media’s not investigating it truly has allowed it to go where it has.
We deserve better. Trump deserves better.
General Flynn and Brett Kavanaugh are some good examples and metaphors for what happens if you go counter to the Darling Democrat politics. What the Democrats and their media lapdogs did to Flynn and Kavanaugh show how ruthless and destructive the Democrats are as a political party and as our media that are supposed to present unbiased truth. What happened to Flynn and Kavanaugh shows how power hungry that party is and how little they care for the people they are supposed to represent.
We all deserve better.
When the president of a country is criticized for saying that his job is to take care of the people of his country first, something is drastically wrong.
We deserve better than the politics we’ve seen from the left for the last four years. We deserve better than the government we have.
For all the taxes we pay and how rich we let our leaders get on our dime, we deserve a lot better.
