GET YOUR WORD AND GRAMMAR QUESTIONS READY FOR CHARLES HARRINGTON ELSTER He's on at 2pm and he's ready to tell you whether or not your word and grammar issues are right or wrong. Find out more about Charles, converse with him directly, and buy his books at his website here.
JOIN THE DENVER BRONCOS TO RAISE MONEY FOR AN INCREDIBLE CAUSE That cause is the National Sports Center for the Disabled. It's an organization that helps people with physical disabilities get back into action and sports. I'll talk to Kim Easton, President of the NSCD about the Broncos Fit 7K Run/Walk coming up Labor Day weekend. Find out more and register by clicking here! Find out more about the NSCD by clicking here.
DOUGLAS COUNTY IS OPTING OUT OF TRI-COUNTY'S MASK MANDATE FOR KIDS At least according to social media posts by County Commissioners. They are expected to vote this morning to opt out of the mask mandate, but Douglas County Schools Superintendent Cory Wise has already adopted the standards for children 11 and under anyway. The opt out can apply to charter schools, but it looks like DougCo public school children under 12 will be masked up for the foreseeable future. There is a protest scheduled Monday morning, find out more here.
MORE KIDS ARE IN THE HOSPITAL RIGHT NOW BUT NOT PRIMARILY FOR COVID This story about more children in the hospital seems very scary and I know for the parents of these kids it has to be awful, but don't panic just yet. We, like many states, are seeing a huge uptick in RSV, a respiratory illness that normally surges in the winter when kids are inside. There are some children in the hospital with Covid, but mostly RSV. Why are we getting a breakout now? Probably because kids weren't exposed to the virus last year when they were not in school so they aren't protected against the strain circulating now. The good news is RSV isn't fatal, even though it can make kids really, really sick. Read more here.
SWEDEN WAS RIGHT And every policy maker should be looking at Sweden RIGHT NOW to understand how badly they bungled this entire pandemic. Let's review. Sweden NEVER locked down the entire country, only restricted the size of certain events, limited restaurant and bar hours, NEVER had a nationwide mask mandate (only on public transport), they have pursued a herd immunity strategy since the beginning and a vast majority of their deaths occurred in nursing homes and among the elderly. 9,771 of Sweden's 14,658 deaths were in people over the age of 80. When you add in people over 70 it goes to 13,053 of their total deaths. So how are they doing now? Let's check overall cases first.
Looks pretty good, right? Now let's check deaths.
Sweden was right. And the funny part is that there are still public health personnel in Sweden DEMANDING that Sweden adopt the failed policies of the rest of the world. It's utterly insane.
PRESIDENT BIDEN SAYS HE KNEW CHAOS WAS COMING IN AFGHANISTAN And he did it anyway. Which means he decided that those lives were expendable. Maybe just collateral damage in his mind. Whatev. And those people falling off of planes? Get over it, it was like FIVE WHOLE DAYS ago. This man is utterly incompetent.
I GOT AN EMAIL FROM A VETERAN ABOUT AFGHANISTAN And he said I could share it. He's a retired Army Officer and combat engineer. This is part of his email:
Like many Veterans, I’m all twitterpated about the Afghanistan pullout. I'd like to talk about Afghanistan and the failure of the withdrawal; and specifically the failure of the administration to go into the country and safely secure American citizens who may be outside of the cordon of Kabul and the Kabul Airport because of the extremely fast nature of the Taliban takeover of AFG. I strongly believe that we should be focused on removing/extracting/redeploying--pick a verb, our US Citizens. And I don't think that is the focus of our administration.
We should be conducting non combatant evacuation operations (NEOs) in AFG. Our SECDEF has stated that we don't have the capability to do that. I call BS, and I'm pretty pissed off about this, actually, because we (The Army & USAF) used to plan NEOs for situations like this all the time. I was part of this. And we would rehearse the interoperability process of these operations at least quarterly on a no-notice exercise. This is basically where US Forces go into an "affected area" and secure or make safe American Citizens, and transport them to a secure area for other transport to a safe location. So we basically pulled their ass out of a hot zone to safety. (I was specifically interested in these missions, because my sister was one of the crazy Americans in Africa, but again, I digress).
I served as a junior staff officer in a very high staff level of the US Army Europe in the late-90s. The Army specially trained me for computer simulations & modeling, so I got to do some pretty cool stuff. I was fortunate to be present for senior officer strategy discussions, and I would assume a lot of those concerns from that time were analogous to what I believe would be concerns in AFG. I served with the Southern European Task Force at Caserma Ederle, Vicenza, Italy, and I modeled different scenarios of noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO) concepts of operations. I could put into a model the specifications of airfields of a particular area, fixed wing or rotary specs, the number and type of rotary or fixed A/Cs in an area, the number of passengers by type of A/C, etc, and a whole lot of other info/specs, and provide the commander with an estimate of time for evacuation of a number personnel to a certain location ( given certain assumptions on fuel rate, crew rest, weather anomalies, etc). We could adjust the parameters/assumptions of each course of action and provide the commander something better than a SWAG.
But, most importantly what I want to communicate to you is that even though I believe we should have conducted NEOs across AFG, they are pretty damn complex in planning, and way more complex in execution. Even without getting all nerdy about the math of airfield capacities, fixed vs rotary wing capacities, pick up nodes, fuel usage, crew rest, etc, it was a math guy's dream job figuring it all out. Except, we get shot at. And that changes the dynamic. So I would not pretend that it would be easy.
Main point? Nothing is certain, unless you don’t try.
So if you ask me if the mission could have been done. Yes. Was it without risk? No. Could/can it save lives, most certainly yes. The overall risk/reward was on the Biden Administration. They chose. Poorly, in my opinion and so thousands of Americans will probably die in AFG.
Thank you for "listening" to me.
OH, ABOUT THOSE GAY AFGHANS They are likely going to be slaughtered by the Taliban, but I'm sure Joe Biden saw this coming as he said to George Stephanopoulos above. He just doesn't really care.
WHY DID TRI COUNTY BOTHER TAKING PUBLIC INPUT OVER SLAPPING MASKS ON KIDS? I told you the fix was in before the meeting even started and now we know exactly how much they paid attention to the people who have to live under their edicts: zero. Check out the public comments section of the meeting notes here. What do you see? I see OVERWHELMING numbers of people saying they don't want this, and yet they did the exact opposite. This is what living under authoritarianism with a thin sheen of democracy looks like. Here, let me grab this for you.
So why bother having the meeting if you're going to ignore this?
IF YOU FEEL LIKE YOU'LL NEVER LIVE WITHOUT PAIN AGAIN YOU'RE NOT ALONE I talk about this when I talk about Downtowns Healthcare and how much they have reduced my pain but now I know I am not alone! A depressingly large number of Americans say they don't expect to be pain-free ever again. And docs, they don't want more painkillers, they want solutions. Hello, Downtowns Healthcare....
MASKS DON'T WORK, EVEN WHEN YOU WEAR FIVE OF THEM
AND THOSE PLASTIC BARRIERS MAKE THINGS WORSE TOO Because aerosols are airborne and fly right over and around them, but I'm sure they make someone feel safer so okay. Read more here.
I THOUGHT ALAN DERSHOWITZ ONLY STRIPPED FOR ME But now I find out he showed Hollywood comedian and actor Larry David his "It's the Constitution, Stupid" shirt to David when he refused to speak to Dershowitz for defending the Constitution during the Trump administration. Apparently Dershowitz's former friend flipped out on him in Martha's Vineyard. Of course he did.
WHAT A FANTASTIC LIST OF ALL BIDEN'S FOREIGN POLICY BLUNDERS IN HIS CAREER And it's in The Atlantic no less. I have a theory about why the press is turning on Biden now, and it's more about saving face than doing real journalism. It is fun to watch. Check this article out and then you can go back and read his earlier works slobbering all over candidate Biden before the election. The best part is that he goes on and on about Biden's "empathy" in the earlier article. Do you think the Afghans and Americans stuck in Afghanistan feel that empathy now? Do you think the press is realizing they got duped? I sure think they are.
THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT CONDEMNED TRUMP'S TWEETS ONCE BUT I FEEL LIKE THIS IS WORSE Parliament spent seven HOURS yesterday taking turn lambasting President Joe Biden about Afghanistan. Check out some of the fun headlines here and then remember that the Democrats sold Biden to Europe as a foreign policy expert who was going to restore our relationships. They have to feel like the profile picture did NOT match reality at this point.
NOW LAWS AGAINST RIOTING AND LOOTING ARE RACIST I can't even with this. Read more about the stupidity of North Carolina's ACLU here because I can't even with this.
WOMEN'S RIGHTS IN AFGHANISTAN TO BE DECIDED BY ALL MALE COUNCIL And they are committing to adhering to "strict Islamic law" which they did last time when women weren't allowed to go to school or work and had to wear the burqa. I sure hope MSNBC follows up with the spokesman there who said women's rights would be respected just last Tuesday. They put that on the front page but not this story. So weird.
IT'S ABOUT TIME YOU SLACKER TAX AVOIDERS PAID YOUR FAIR SHARE Because the rest of us are tired of footing the bill for the whopping 61% of Americans who paid NO FEDERAL INCOME tax last year. NONE. It's a ridiculously high number that should drop next year, but FOR REAL this is insane.
AND NOW, STUDENTS CONCERNED ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE DON'T WANT TO CHANGE ANY OF THEIR ACTIONS