Is big brother watching?

It's a beautiful day outside. The sun is shining, and the temperature is right around 50°F. It's a perfect day for a bike ride, if only the roads were somewhat dry. But just like last Thursday, the roads are soaking wet from last nights rain, and I refuse to subject myself to those conditions. So here I sit, bored to death (so wanting to be out on the bike) composing one of my meaningless posts, this time about Facebook.

I don't get the fascination with Facebook. Sure it's a great way to stay in contact with old friends from high school and elsewhere, who may be light years away, but what else is it good for? And what's this new craze of friends pointing out where they are at every given moment in their life? Who cares when someone checks in at the grocery store?

Anyways, yesterday we went to my niece's house in Granada Hills for Christmas dinner, and for whatever reason we were discussing the "places" app on Facebook, and I ended up "checking in at Kim's house". (Which I couldn't delete.)

What was even more surprising, when I checked my Facebook page this morning, I discovered someone actually liked it. Now I could understand someone liking it, if I had checked in at some fabulous resort in Tahiti or other exotic location, but this was just my nieces house. Why did they like that? Or did they think I was doing something more sinister? :) But I digress.

More importantly though, I have another app on my Droid which I downloaded from the "Market", also called "Places", and was testing it out as well. And what surprised me here was, it knew exactly where I was. Not just a longitude and latitude, or a general vicinity, like Granada Hills, it knew the EXACT street address?

How did it know that? And who has the ability to write the programs to accomplish this? Can you imagine how much time that must have taken? Think about it. That can't have been easy. And should I delete it? Will it do any good?

And what is really the point? Is this just some government plot to track our every move and thought. Was George Orwell just ahead of his time?

This is scary!

Vaccine Mandates, what are they good for?

Not much, that's for sure! Simply showing evidence of receiving a Covid-19 vaccine (whether fake or not), does not mean you are protected from getting Covid-19, nor spreading it, if infected. We are all different, and too many of us, i.e. people who are immunocompromised/ immunosupressed, the elderly, or others for various reasons, do not [cannot] mount an immune response as good as younger and healthier individuals. What is evidence of immunity is a quantitative antibody test showing you have developed antibodies, and to what degree, either from natural immunity or the vaccine. That is what we should be testing for. That is what is important. But for too long, many, i.e. the FDA, doctors, and other health experts discouraged people (and still are) from getting antibody tests, because there was little knowledge about what level of antibodies are needed to impart immunity to the virus. That of course is true, to some extent, but how can we ever find out [learn] the answer to that q

History IS repeating itself

I didn't grow up during the rise and fall of Hitler and Nazi Germany, so for me to claim it feels like those are the times we are living in now, must be taken with a grain of salt. But I have seen enough movies, and read enough history to know, if the times we're living in now are not akin to the rise of a Nazism and Facism in Europe in the 1930's and 1940's, then we're not far off. If you can't see the parallels with Nazi Germany, then you must be living in a different country than me. Republicans and other right wing extremists will stop at nothing to subvert the will of the majority, forcing their beliefs, that they are the superior race and have been appointed by God, to impose their will on America, while they blame all our problems on immigrants, blacks and Jews. As I speak, Mitch McConnell, and his minions are raising roadblocks to all legislation designed to help average Americans under the guise of fiscal responsibility. They condone violent and verba

Open letter to all Democrats

Stop the nonsense! Continuing to go after Trump, without any hope of getting a conviction, does nothing more than provide Republicans with an obstructionist dialogue (now that they have come up with the unconstitutional talking point) in addition to giving Trump much needed publicity, when we should be ignoring him. It's the pure definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result! Instead Democrats need to be laser focused on what is important to all Americans, i.e. healthcare, Social Security and Medicare, infrastructure reform, the Covid-19 vaccine rollout, to name just a few. And when you do talk about Trump, simply steer the conversation as to how the Trump administration botched everything, how Trump is responsible for the deaths of 400,000+ Americans, due to his inaction and the down playing of the pandemic, plus the deaths of 2 Capitol policeman during the insurrection Trump provoked and incited on January 6, 2021.

LIVING WITH MCL

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