Another Facebook Response

I have been debating with a Facebook friend (My Facebook Friend/MFF) over the past couple of days. As you might guess, it is about how our President is handling the Wuhan Virus outbreak in our great country.

This was the original post, along with the graphic.

(MFF) Still a lot of talk from the usual suspects about the pandemic being a hoax. Conspiracy theories are all fun and games until they kill people we love. Who knows where the grand total will end up unless we all start working together.

(Me) The picture you posted makes it seem, to the low info individual, that the only cause of death in the USA is war and covid-19.

Women's World Cup

This post is probably a little late in coming, and can be filed under old news, but I'm cleaning out some old bits and tidbits and thought I'd throw this up here. As you read this please remember, this just an opinion, nothing more.

They didn't move their agenda forward one inch. Those that supported her stance prior, continue to do so. Those that did not support, still don't. I would argue that she might have even done harm. For those who might have been on the fence, or like me, ambivalent, her foul language, in your face attitude, and utter disrespect for those without the same world view might have pushed them in a direction she didn't expect. Speaking strictly for myself, mind you.

Life And Loss

Our Pastor Emeritus sent this out. He is deep into his 80's so this has special meaning to him. I am also transitioning to the stage in life where we start to experience more loss than gains. My sisters and I lost our dad over three years ago. My wife lost her father a couple of years before my dad passed.

Hopefully, the words of a retired pastor can give you some comfort.

For clarification, Pastor did not author this. He passed it along from a friend.

THE WAVES OF LOSS

Alright, here goes. I'm old. What that means is that I've survived (so far) and a lot of people I've known and loved did not. I've lost friends, best friends, acquaintances, co-workers, grandparents, mom, relatives, teachers, mentors, students, neighbors, and a host of other folks. I have no children, and I can't imagine the pain it must be to lose a child. But here's my two cents.

For All the Socialist Wannabes

Venezuela Socialist Timeline

1992 Became 3rd richest country in hemisphere.

1997 became 2nd largest purchaser of F-150s

2001 Voted for Socialist president, "Income Inequality"

2004 Private healthcare is completely socialized

2007 All higher education becomes"free"

2009 Socialist banned private ownership of guns

2012 Bernie Sanders praises their "American Dream"

2014 Opposition Leaders are imprisoned

2016 Food/Healthcare shortages become wide spread

2017 Constitution and elections are suspended.

2019 Unarmed citizens massacred by own government while trying to receive humanitarian aid.

It took only one generation of progressive leadership to plunge Venezuela into civil war and a socialist hell.

Autonomous Trains

Recently, there has been public hearings regarding autonomous trains. Several railroads are attempting to get the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to approve the movement of trains without crews on board. The railroads feel that with recent implementation of Positive Train Control (PTC) and Trip Optimizer (TO) trains can be run safely with only a single person in the locomotive cab, with the desire to eventually have none.

If you ever have to chance to ask the following questions of those suggesting and possibly approving these actions, here are some suggestions.

1. Ask them if there will be "eyes on board". By this I mean is there someone or something that will be looking outside the cab. And not just forward. Currently, most locomotives have cameras that point forward. Those cameras are used during incident investigations. But they are black and white imagery. Trains run 24 hours a day. Grainy black and white just won't do it on a dark and stormy night.

Letter to President Trump

Some of you may be aware that I am a conductor on a Class 1 railroad. There are big changes happening on my railroad. Most of them are not good. But that is a post for a different day. The most impacting and troublesome will be an attempt by the large railroads to reduce crew size. Currently, on long haul freight trains there are two people in the cab of a locomotive, the engineer and the conductor. The job of the engineer is to safely operate the train from point A to point B. The role of the conductor, who is charge of the train, is to ensure operations are conducted safety and in a timely manner.

For the past several years the railroads and the unions have been at loggerheads over the crew size. The railroads feel that with recent safety features, such as Positive Train Control (PTC) and Trip Optimizer (TO) trains can be run safely with only one crew member, and possibly with none. The unions, however, don't support this, obviously. They counter that fatigue, due to our completely unpredictable duty schedule and sleep patterns, warrants the continuation of the two person crew. It is true that PTC can stop a train when necessary, but this is often the option of last resort, resulting in a very aggressive, and some violent, stop. With two people in the cab one of us always monitoring the route ahead. While sleeping in the cab is not condoned by either the railroads or the unions, fatigue can have an impact on focus. Two people in the cab negates this significantly.

Too Dang Funny

I had to link to this. It is too dang funny.

http://dailytimewaster.blogspot.com/2018/06/cruel-its-not-right-to-mock-soft-headed.html

How Does This Happen?

Today 17 kids were killed in a mass shooting in Florida. Most of the people killed haven't even been identified and the political rhetoric heated up, as it always does in these horribly tragic moments.

Invariably, calls for more restrictive gun ownership rules could be heard. Those calls ran the gamut from tighter background checks to outright ban on gun ownership. Also, those on this side of the argument tend to believe (or SAY they believe) there is a straight line connection from freedom of gun ownership to events such as Las Vegas, Sandy Hook, and Florida. To those who support the 2nd Amendment these ideas are nothing less than infringing on constitutional guaranteed rights.

Also invariably, those who support gun ownership and the 2nd Amendment push back against those ideas and suggestions. To nearly all on this side, the Constitution is the final day on this matter. There is no equivocation. To those who support tighter rules or even outright bans, this push back and philosophy is completely heartless.

The arguments for and against, in each givers eyes, are valid. Especially in times of such grave tragedy.

The solutions are perplexing and not easily attainable.

Some Thoughts on Dirty Politics

Recently a Facebook friend posted a link to a Rolling Stone (How the GOP Rigs Elections) article about the dirty politics being played by the Republican party in Wisconsin (his beloved home state) with respect to district gerrymandering, so-called dark money, and voter ID laws.

We exchanged a couple of views of opinion on the matter. But the Facebook platform isn't the best in which to respond fully. So I decided to make a more detailed response on my blog. I put the link in the comment so my friend could come a read it, and so can you, my loyal nine followers.

My original response is as follows:
--Gerrymandering is not the sole providence of Republicans. You should see how the districts are drawn in Oregon and Washington, democrat strongholds. There are a couple of districts in the suburbs of Portland that actually jump neighborhoods only to start up again a few blocks later.

And here is his response after he asked if I had read the article:

"I agree gerrymandering happens on both ends of the spectrum, GOP has been downright unlawful in their drawing. “During the 2012 elections, Democratic House candidates won 1.4 million more votes nationally than Republicans, but the GOP won 33 more seats.” And, if it were going the other way— I’d be just as up in arms. This is an argument of democracy not of partisan values. Votes should count and if you dig deep into that 538 stuff they’ll talk about packing and stacking votes.

I know it can never be perfect, even with algorithms it doesn’t evenly split. But, the majority of districts can get back to competitive elections and that my friend, along with the reduction of campaign finance and the increase ability to vote will increase the amounts of OUR freedoms."
(I highlighted one point he made as I will get back to a little further down the blog post)

He also included a link to a very interesting site (The Gerrymander Project) that discusses gerrymandering in a very balanced way. I did have a little issue viewing each video. My solution was to refresh the page prior to watching the next video.

So without further ado, here is my post:

Some Statistics to Compare

With apologies to the Motor City Madman I am posting this in its entirety. I ran across this article by Ted Nugent a few years back and have had it sitting in my blog stuff folder so I could excerpt from it for my own post. But it says nearly everything that I wanted to say. If I could find the link I would have just posted it and had my dear readers head off that direction. But since I can’t, I’ll just repost.

Mr. Nugent, if you ever happen across my tiny little corner of the blogosphere and see this and wish it removed just let me know.

There are 30,000 gun related deaths per year by firearms, and this number is not disputed. U.S. population 324,059,091 as of Wednesday, June 22, 2016. Do the math: 0.000000925% of the population dies from gun related actions each year. Statistically speaking, this is insignificant! What is never told, however, is a breakdown of those 30,000 deaths, to put them in perspective as compared to other causes of death:

• 65% of those deaths are by suicide which would never be prevented by gun laws
• 15% are by law enforcement in the line of duty and justified
• 17% are through criminal activity, gang and drug related or mentally ill persons – gun violence
• 3% are accidental discharge deaths