October 14, 2019

Help Democratic Party House of Delegates candidates in the Shenandoah Valley of

Virginia.

The candidate that pundits believe has the best chance to win in Christian Worth, she lost a special election as an unknown, winning 40% in a district that Trump won 69% in and Gillepsie won 65% in. She believes that healthcare and economic development are foremost in voter's minds in her district. The ten democrats running in the region can use donations, they are pooling resources by doing things like sharing the same strategist. They can use a money boost in the homestretch. The NRA is heavily funding their republican opponents.

The other democrats running in that red region are:

Beverly Harrison
April Moore
Jennifer Woofer
David Zilles (running for an open seat)
Jennifer Kitchen (open seat, three way race)
Brent Finnegan
Elizabeth Alcorn
Tim Hickey
Virginia Smith

I know that many on DU have looked toward Virginia and have contributed, but helping the rural democrats may help one or two spring an upset.

October 3, 2019

Bend over Boris.

UK business construction contracted the fastest in 10 years per a report out yesterday. Brexit uncertainty is the culprit. UK Businesses can't do any long term planning.

September 20, 2019

I listened to Jo Swinson's speech to the Liberal Democrats.

I understand why Labor MPs are jumping ship to join the LD. Swinson is an impressive leader, she has a clear and concise message that is achievable and she is not apologizing or giving mixed signals like Corbyn. This Yank believes that after Boris pipes you guys, Ms Swinson will be the PM that brings Great Britain back to world prominence.

September 19, 2019

2019 NFL penalties.

I read an article where Troy Aikman indicated that there were too many penalties being called in games so far this season. The statistic for this season did appear to be the highest recorded.

What I see is officials get the calls right most of the time once video review is checked, so I question Aikman's complaint, but he is a Hall of Fame player (and maybe some day, Announcer) who knows what he is seeing.

In thinking about the issue, my guess is that two things can be done. Holding penalties should be reviewed, as well as blocking from behind. I see calls for both penalties where a player is a little off on the angle, but made a clean block. The second thing would be making officials full time employees and paying them enough so that no other job appeals to them. Since they get assigned to games, their travel, reasonable meals and lodging SHOULD already be being paid for by the NFL. What officials working year around does, IMO, would be to give them time to become highly familiar with new rules and evaluate every penalty and wrong non-call from the past season, the idea is that they should become more uniform in their calls and increase their accuracy rate.

I thought about penalizing coaches that throw jackass challenge flags, but doing that may have an unintended negative effect on the game.

Do you think there are too many penalties being called? If so, what would be your solution.

September 4, 2019

English, Scotish, Wales, Northern Ireland DU members.

How many companies have left your locations for the European continent? What type of effects are happening in your economies? It seems Britain is weak and adrift at this point.

September 2, 2019

Goldielocks weather months.

As soon as we weather the hurricane season, we get to enjoy four months of mild weather before the cold snaps start. I can sense it starting now, the nights cool down considerably once the sun goes down, the gentle wind current across the peninsula. The time of year that makes living in Florida worthwhile.

August 28, 2019

Modern journalists.

I am seeing so much ink about the sudden retirement of Andrew Luck. One sportswriter even brought Rob Gronkowski into the early retirement discussion. One sportswriter even talked about a marginal NFL player who chose to retire at 24 or 25.

One name that I have not heard a peep about is Barry Sanders. Barry Sanders chose to walk away from football and never look back at the time that he was THE force in the NFL. Defenses gameplanned for him and still could not stop him on a consistent or even remotely consistent basis. I remember my reaction when Barry Sanders walked away from the game. Eventhough I was not a Detroit Lions fan, his retirement literally took the air out of my lungs. It was always great to watch NFL reports about how Barry Sanders had or was carving up a defense that had planned all week exclusively to stop him.

I just view modern sportswriters and journalists in general as completely lacking the ability to reference history when crafting reports. That shortcoming affects sports and politics, so we can't get an accurate comparison of why Luck may want to retire from football and why life won't end and may get better for him. Because journalists don't have the ability to frame today's reports in the shadow of what history has taught us, we get a mental midget in Donald Trump as President.

At times the whole affair is disgusting. It would be great to have sportswriters and political journalists that can shape their writings through the prism of what history has taught us.

August 3, 2019

What have we become.

It is estimated to up to 20 people in El Paso were shot dead earlier today. One witness described a White man in tactical clothing as the killer. Even as disturbing is how print news is treating the shooting. I can find two stories about the death of RFK's granddaughter in my news feed, not one headline story about the shooting.

Are people becoming immune? This morning I was shopping in a grocery store when I heard a yell from in front. Instantly my head wheeled and a fight or flee sensation overtook me. Apparently the person that yelled was frustrated about sonething, not a murderous psycho, in seconds things were back to normal for me.

It just seems that now everytime we step out, being part of a mass shooting should be somewhere in our heads, even if we don't think it is, it is there as I found out this morning. All that is awfully sad and it is made far worse by a president who traffics in hate and creating divisions between groups of people, all for his own benefit.

July 25, 2019

Voter petitions.

Stopped at a busy place for lunch today. Outside on the public access sidewalk I ran into two people asking for signatures on petitions to get them on the ballot. When the first one was "explained" I surmised that the whole thing was some rightwing signature shop.

The first petition was to "prevent" illegal voting. I told the guy that was a made up issue, he didn't hear me and kept trying to explain that the proposed amendment would prevent, in his words, "illegals" and other non citizens from voting. I tried not to roll my eyes, not really sure if my brain overrode itself. In Florida, to vote you have to have a state issued ID, typically a driver's license. To get that ID, you have to show proof that you are a US citizen, two pieces of ID is required. So the petition people are trying to fix a problem that does not exist.

Now, the next one takes the cake:

Once I stopped the guy and told him that I would vote against the first petition if it made it on the 2020 ballot, he flipped to the next petition. The second petition was that voters had to approve any change to the Constitution. Again I said that is properly addressed now, he disputed that. So I asked him, Do you know what the current standard is for ratification of a change to the Constitution. I could literally see the little mouse running around the flywheel that he calls a brain, so I decided not to waste more of my time and answered my own question for him. I explained that the legislatures of 3/4 of the 50 states have to approve a constitutional change, that is 38 states. Then I said 38 states is a very high standard and if you think the Florida legislature would approve a change, then protest there or vote them out of office. At that point I was done with those fools, I have some free time today and I was not going to waste more of it on them.

If you see those people as you are out and about, you may want to explain to them the reasons why they are chasing their asses.

July 25, 2019

I could not find another spot for this.

I thought that I had seen pretty much everything, but. Earlier today I was out for lunch. It is raining cats and dogs where I live in Florida right now. I have never seen ducks hiding from the rain under trees, I just saw that. Did I miss something?