Other stuff

What does the economy wide staffing shortage look like?

Status of many restaurants. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

What does it look like from the customer side when businesses cannot find enough employees? My wife and I found out a few days ago.

After relaxing on Memorial Day, pondering the ultimate sacrifice by so many to provide the freedoms we enjoy, and exercising those freedoms, we decided to go out to eat. We went to Victoria Gardens, a large shopping center near our home.

Since the tradition for the day is cooking cheeseburgers on the grill but we don’t have a grill, we picked a ‘50s style café where we could get a cheeseburger and sweet potato fries. Yum!

Normally they would be open until 10 or 11 o’clock. Walking up to the restaurant we saw a paper sign taped to the door announcing they were only open until 8 PM.

Odd.

The door was locked. There were a few staff inside who appeared to be going through their end-of-day cleanup routine.

It was a few minutes after 6 p.m.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Two more settlements for religious discrimination cost the state of California $2 million in reimbursed legal fees for total of $3.5 million and counting.

What the state of California will be doing twice within the next 60 days to reimburse churches for legal fees incurred due to the state’s religious discrimination. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Well, $2,150,000 to be precise.

The state negotiated a settlement to reimburse legal fees of $1,600,000 for religious discrimination efforts against South Bay United Pentecostal Church and $550,000 for religious discrimination efforts against Father Trevor Burfitt.

Both settlements also come with a permanent injunction forbidding the state from imposing religiously discriminatory rules on any houses of worship anywhere in the state anytime in the future.

If you recall, South Bay Pentecostal had to go to the United States Supreme Court three times, three times, before the state finally realized they were not allowed to engage in blatant, intentional, irreparable religious discrimination against people of faith.

Running total of legal fees

This is on top of a permanent injunction and $1,350,000 in legal fees to attorneys for Harvest Rock Church and Harvest International Ministry.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Governor of Michigan has scored 4 points in the competitive race for Worst Hypocrite.

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Looks like Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has run up the highest score amongst the many Covid hypocrite politicians in the country.

Let’s count the number of times she has flouted the executive decrees everyone else is required to follow but from which she is exempt.

To start, let’s go back to last June: 6/9/20 – Michigan Capital Confidential – Whitmer Skirted Her Own Executive Orders Twice Before Blowing Them Up.

Article points out she was on the cover of Newsweek (yes, like you, I was also surprised to hear it is still around) featuring her efforts to save lives with strong rules.

Score in the hypocrisy race between the Michigan and California governors

In the race for biggest hypocrite, I’m embarrassed to say that my governor, Gavin Newsom, only has 1 flagrant hypocrisy on the scoreboard.

He has been far out distanced by the Michigan governor who is at 4.5 by my count. I’ll explain shortly how she only earns half credit for one incident.

So, the current score?

  • 4.5 – Michigan governor
  • 1.0 – California governor

Time is running out to even the score of 4.5-1

Governor of my state doesn’t have much time to even up the score. Several weeks ago he ordered by executive decree that the pandemic will end on June 15, 2021. On that exact date the state color-coding rules will disappear because he knows they won’t be needed anymore.

He only has two weeks to run up the count if he wants to be the hypocrisy champ.

Back to the current front runner…

Hypocrisy One

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Have masks done any good?

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

More research is emerging that suggests the answer is no, masks have not helped reduce spread of infection.

5/26/21 – Town hall – Masks Didn’t Slow Covid Spread: New Study – Study cited in the next paragraph calculates “mask mandates and use not associated with lower SARS-CoV-2 spread among US states.” In other words study finds there is no correlation between the level of mask use and infection rates. Their research does not support the idea that higher use of masks results in lower transmission rates.

5/18/21 – medRxiv – Mask mandate and use efficacy in state-level Covid-19 containment – Using proper statistical methodologies, study finds there is no difference in infection rates between states that mandated masks and states that did not require masks.

Infection rates are “comparable” for the states with early adoption of mas requirement and states with late adoption.

The research paper uses technical language, which is exactly what you would expect, so it is difficult to read. I will still quote the abstract, which says:

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Timeline of California’s unconstitutional restrictions on worship.

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Liberty Council, attorneys representing Harvest Rock Church and Harvest International Ministry, announced on 5/17/21 the permanent injunction against religious discrimination practiced by the State of California against places of worship:

CA Churches Permanently Quarantine Governor Newsom

Previous post discusses the permanent injunction. The above announcement provides more detail.

The wonderful news is summarized by Liberty Council:

“Under the settlement agreement, discriminatory restrictions on worship and religious gatherings may no longer be applied to churches and places of worship.”

For future reference, I will quote Liberty Council in their timeline of restrictions on religious worship. Their timeline, again quoting:

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Permanent injunction issued against religiously discriminatory Covid rules in California. Oh, $1.35 million legal fees also awarded.

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

People of faith gain another victory in California.

The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California has read the U.S. Constitution and a long string of Supreme Court rulings (any one of which should have long since been sufficiently clear to the State of California).

The court issued a permanent injunction against Gov. Newsom, and “all State officers, agents, employees, and all other persons in active concert or participation with him” prohibiting any of those individuals from engaging in ongoing religious discrimination against churches and other places of worship in the state of California.

I will guess that broad definition of who is covered by the permanent injunction would also include all county public health authorities.

The state’s behavior is so egregious that the court awarded $1,350,000 in legal fees to attorneys for Harvest Rock Church and Harvest International Ministry.

The harsh slap down of religious persecution includes permanent injunctions against, quoting the order:

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Still more grim news from the lockdown.

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

The bad news caused by the government imposed shut down of the economy keeps rolling in.

Merely a few recent articles:

  • The “laptop class” did well, while the working class was delivering their stuff, taking on the risks of infection.
  • Rents in New York City are in freefall.
  • Record levels in discount off the posted tuition rate for private colleges, which is an indicator of collapsing demand and indicator of future financial distress.
  • Millions are unemployed while companies can’t find enough workers.

5/20/21 – Glenn Reynolds at New York Post – The rich and powerful thrived as the rest of us suffered in the year of lockdowns – Fourteen months of the “two weeks to slow the spread” has shown that the rich and powerful did quite well while working class and poor folk suffered.

The laptop class was able to stay at home, fully employed with no loss of income. In fact, with no commuting costs and not eating out for lunch many in the laptop class were left better off.

They stayed home and the working class delivered their stuff.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

More indications of health consequences caused by economic shutdown.

How many more advanced cancer cases and how many more cancer deaths will we see because of the economic shutdown? Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

A few of the recent articles pointing to health consequences from shutting down the economy:

  • Flu bug has essentially disappeared.
  • Rapid increase in alcohol deaths in England and Wales during the lockdown.
  • One study finds being at home is more dangerous than being at work.
  • Three articles point to the harsh medical consequences of the drop in cancer screenings; people are dying because of lack of access to health care during the lockdown.

I hope someday there will be accountability for the politicians and public health officials who put us in this place.

4/29/21 – Scientific American – Flu Has Disappeared Worldwide during the Covid Pandemic – Since the Covid pandemic began the incidents of influenza have shrank to level of inconsequential. One expert is quoted as saying there is “no flu circulating.”

Tally of deaths in the United States from influenza:

  • 34,000 – 2018-2019 flu season
  • 22,000 – 2019-2020 flu season
  • 600 – 2020-2021 flu season, yes 600

Article has graph of influenza cases per week in North America. Graph of the previous eight flu seasons shows huge spike a couple months ago. The graph for the 2021 flu season is a flat line indistinguishable from zero. Looking at the graph you assume that flu has completely disappeared from North America.

“Experts” mentioned in the article unanimously attribute the disappearance to the same protocols used in an attempt to limit Covid infection – wearing masks, washing hands, frequent use of hand sanitizers, and social distancing.

Amusingly, missing from the article is even the mere possibility of considering that there might perhaps be the option of miscoding or erroneous diagnosis. There is no hint that could even possibly happen.

5/6/21 – Lockdown Skeptics – Alcohol Deaths Rise to Highest Level Since Records Began in England and Wales – Deaths from alcohol abuse have been rising for many years in England and Wales. However, there is a 20% increase in 2020 over 2019 with most of the acceleration happening after the lockdown began.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago