CDC U.S. Deaths All Causes

 

This is a bar chart of the U.S. Deaths reported according to the weekly counts of death dataset on the CDC website. Accessed 12/26/2020. The year 2020 includes COVID-19 deaths and indicates totals through 12/12/2020. Thank you to Q (drop 4842) for pointing to this data.

https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Weekly-Counts-of-Deaths-by-State-and-Select-Causes/muzy-jte6

Covid-19 Survival Rates - CDC

 CDC Covid-19 Survival Rates in the U.S.

 

Age 0-19 — 99.997%

Age 20-49 — 99.98%

Age 50-69 — 99.5%

Age 70+ — 94.6%

 

So why are we having our businesses restricted, economy destroyed and personal rights trampled?

Also take note that the number of reported deaths from Covid-19 which is plastered on news channel screens is exaggerated and includes deaths from heart disease, cancer, flu, etc. This was reported by Johns Hopkins as total deaths in 2020 from other causes of death having decreased (i.e., deaths from heart disease and cancer showing lower numbers but attributed to Covid-19).

Most deaths in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania were in nursing homes where the governors placed senior Covid-19 patients thus infecting healthy residents with Covid-19.

The numbers of cases are also suspect as false positives are associated with the tests.

https://www.icd10monitor.com/false-positives-in-pcr-tests-for-covid-19

https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/fda-warns-of-covid-19-antigen-test-false-positives-as-report-flags-quidel-o/588507/

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wwkuac74lDg 

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/07/about-30-covid-deaths-may-not-be-classified-such

2020 Election Fraud Information

It is important that the 2020 election be investigated, litigated, and adjudicated, and wherever fraud was performed by individuals or by groups of people or by organizations that that fraud be prosecuted. If this does not happen then the American peoples' faith in the fairness and legitimacy of its elections will forever be compromised. As it is half the voters in this country will not view Joe Biden as a legitimately elected office holder. And every other elected person in this country will be suspect as being illegitimate unless the election process is determined to be clean. 

But deeper than this, the atmosphere that exists where so many Democrats and liberals thought it was okay to cheat to get rid of a president that they didn't like needs to be addressed. People who cheat or tolerate cheating have no access to moral high ground but ought to have access to Rikers Island.

 

Georgia Senate Judiciary Committee Report on 2020 Election

The Immaculate Deception - The Navarro Report  (analysis of the 2020 election irregularities)

https://youtu.be/By7yNZsa8x0

https://youtu.be/ImU5wZWnm00

https://www.wnd.com/2020/11/ballot-count-watcher-claims-130000-votes-dumped-biden/

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/11/05/lawsuit-at-least-21k-dead-people-on-pennsylvania-voter-rolls/

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/04/29/jjudicial-watch-sues-pennsylvania-for-800k-inactive-voters-on-voter-rolls/

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/11/justice-department-looking-allegations-voter-fraud-nevada-trump-legal-team-identifies-thousands-illegal-votes/

YouTube Looks to Make America Ignorant Again

YouTube will censor any video that claims that Joe Biden is not president elect. Please see my video comments regarding this issue.

 

 More YouTube Censorship

 

Reasons to Vote for Trump for President in 2020

Reuters

I'd like to talk today about President Trump's accomplishments and why I'm going to vote for him for president in 2020. 

(1.) First of all, he has pushed for an improved trade deal with Canada and Mexico and he promised that he would get rid of NAFTA and replace it. He did that and signed the treaty between the three countries.

(2.) President Trump is addressing illegal immigration. Do you know that there are 20,000,000 people in this country who should not be here, who have come here illegally? Previous presidents have promised that they would build a wall on the border between Mexico and the United States and President Trump has actually started that. I think he said the other day that they are building 10 miles of wall a week on the border right now. 

(3.) Supreme Court. President Trump has committed to appointing constitutional originalists to the Supreme Court and he has not disappointed in this respect.

(4.) President Trump pushed for federal Prison Reform. That's something other presidents have promised but President Trump delivered on. 

(5.) President Trump has pushed for "right to try" concerning drugs that are still under testing. So, pharmaceutical companies develop drugs and there's a long process to develop them and get them to market and when something looks promising and someone with a disease wants to take it, now they can try it because of this legislation. The legislation protects the companies and government from litigation and gives the patient a possible cure or relief from their deadly disease.

(6.) President Trump has overseen the lowest unemployment numbers in history through the beginning of 2020. The United States had the lowest unemployment overall in history up through February 2020. This includes the lowest minority unemployment in history and the lowest unemployment for women in decades. 

(7.) The stock market has risen almost consistently since November 2016 when President Trump was elected. Just the fact that he was elected was good for the stock market and overall since he's been elected the stock market has been going up.

(8.) President Trump has initiated a peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain and he has even received a Nobel Peace Prize nomination for this work that he and his administration have done. 

(9.) President Trump tried vigorously for a peace deal between North Korea and South Korea and North Korea and the U.S. and just because he hasn't succeeded yet doesn't mean he didn't try very hard, and because of what he's done so far I think the future looks bright for eventual peace between those two countries. 

(10.) President Trump is the only president to stand against China's unfair trade policies against the U.S. His tariffs on China (which are in response to China's tariffs on U.S. goods) have caused China to make deals with the U.S., particularly in their increased purchase of our agricultural products. U.S. steel companies have also benefitted from Trump's actions.

(11.) President Trump fights climate change extremism and the climate change hoax. He stopped the economically disastrous Paris climate accord and has been a vocal critic of this climate change lie. Do you know that the United States has reduced its carbon output (as if it matters) where countries like China and India have increased theirs. We have among the cleanest air of any industrial nation (overall). Reminder forest fires are caused by lightning, electrical sparks, and humans with lighters; hurricanes are not caused by or made worse by carbon emissions, polar bear populations are not decreasing, ocean water levels have not inundated any major coastal cities. The ice caps have not disappeared. It is all hysteria.

(12.) President Trump has put resources towards defeating ISIS and he and the military in conjunction with their military partners did defeat ISIS and that is something that President Obama did not do. 

(13.) President Trump pushed for and signed into law the tax reform bill lowering your taxes. 

(14.) President Trump beefed up the military which had become weak under Obama, even while he reduces U.S. forces presence overseas. He also loves the military and he shows it.

(15.) President Trump talks straight like a normal person and not like a politician. It's very refreshing to hear the truth that comes out of this person, saying things that politicians have never said because they were worried about being reelected.

(16.) Trump loves the United States of America and he shows it.

(17.) President Trump loves law enforcement and believes in the rule of law and keeping all Americans safe.

(18.) President Trump respects the Second Amendment and the rest of the U.S. Constitution.

(19.) President Trump is pro life (anti-abortion). 

(20.) President Trump supports religious freedom. 

(21.) President Trump mobilized the government and corporations to quickly produce needed PPE and respirators in the wake of COVID-19.

(22.) President Trump mobilized a speeded-up process for developing and testing vaccines to combat COVID-19. 

(23.) President Trump convened an economic council of leading business and economic leaders to advise the administration on how to bring the U.S. economy out of the depressive effects of COVID-19.

These are just some of the reasons that I'm voting for President Trump and I hope you will too. If you want a president who keeps his promises, a president who's all about action, a president who loves this country, a president who is a patriot in the style of Ronald Reagan, then please vote Donald Trump on election day (in person if you can because paper ballots can be so easily voided by pollworkers and lost in the mail). It would also be great for the country if you would vote for Republicans for the House of Representatives and Republicans for Senate on Election Day so that the stonewalling that goes on in the House of Representatives will come to an end. Vote Donald Trump for president on Election Day. Thank you.

It's an Elephant's Job

Vote Republican in 2020 to get the United States' economy back on track.

(cartoon political ad circa 1928)

Lockdown Lies

Tucker Carlson is so on point here. One of the best, clear-headed explanations of 2020.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-we-were-lied-to-about-coronavirus-and-the-mass-lockdowns-heres-the-proof

Global Warming Climate Change

Mars has a thin atmosphere made up of 95 percent carbon dioxide (CO2). If carbon dioxide was such an effective greenhouse gas (where on Earth it only makes up 0.04 percent of the atmosphere) it should keep Mars nice and toasty at 95 percent! However, the average temperature on Mars is -63 degrees Celsius. So if Mars is so cold, despite carbon dioxide being the most prevalent component of its atmosphere, how effective is CO2 going to be as a warmer on Earth where the percentage of CO2 in our atmosphere is 4 hundredths of 1 percent?

As an example, imagine that the atmosphere is all the people in this "Where's Waldo" image and CO2 is Waldo. Where is Waldo's ability to warm up all these other people? It doesn't seem likely does it?

References
https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/marsfact.html
https://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/earth's_atmosphere.htm

Some Coronavirus-19 Perspective - Flu Deaths Compared

Some Coronavirus-19 Perspective


According to the CDC, in the 2017-2018 flu season there were 61,099 influenza-related deaths. This averages out to 407 deaths per day in the United States if you calculate a 5-month flu season (November thru March). Most of the deaths for the "regular" flu are senior citizens. There were deaths in other age groups, but generally much less. We did not and do not shut the world down for terrible flu seasons such as the 2017-2018 epidemic. 

The reason people compare novel coronavirus to the flu is that they are both viruses, both have similar symptoms (not the same), and both result in deaths for people with weakened immune systems or other underlying problems. What is clear about coronavirus is that it is easier to catch than the regular flu. What we (the public) don't know is what the death rate for people who get it is. Italy's death rate seems to be close to 10 percent of people who get COVID-19 die. Italy has a larger senior citizen population and more smokers (per CNN). Maybe this accounts for the higher death rate. Transparency and truth from China regarding their numbers would make things clearer for the rest of the world. But they don't want to come clean. The United States mortality rate appears to be about 2 percent as of 4/1/2020. World mortality rate appears to be averaging 4 to 5 percent as of 4/1/2020.

What we do need to remember is that if this were just a bad flu season, 61,000 people (in the U.S. alone) would have died anyway. What will that thinking do to the overall COVID-19 mortality numbers? Should we have shut down our economy for this virus? Are lock-downs, which are anti-constitutional, necessary?

The good news is that hydroxychloroquine, an arthritis medicine that is also used against malaria, has shown in clinical cases to help against novel coronavirus and is undergoing trials to confirm. Work is also happening quickly for a vaccine. The vaccine won't help during this season since it won't be ready but it could be available for the next flu season if we're lucky.

Remember: Wash your hands after touching anything in public and don't touch your face until your hands are clean. Sleep is important since it allows a strong immune system. Drinking alcohol weakens your immune system, so do less of that. Smoking weakens your lungs and your immune system, so do less of that. Plenty of water and exercise also strengthen the immune system. Vitamins from natural foods or from supplements strengthen the immune system, especially Vitamin C and D.

If you pray or meditate, do it more; it will give you peace in this time of media hysteria. And if you want the peace to continue, don't watch mainstream media coverage of the pandemic 24/7. 

Grammar and Spelling: Affect/Effect

Grammar and Spelling

Proper Usage Examples of Effect and Affect

Some of the effects we will talk about can affect others around you, depending on the condition you are in.

Effects is usually more specific: One of the effects is this and this. There were two effects on the class.

Affect is usually more general: I wasn't affected by the quarantine.

Illegal Alien Driver's Licenses in New Jersey

Thanks to Governor Murphy, New Jersey has joined the ranks of the lawless states that have declared themselves sanctuaries for illegal aliens. 

In a new move to enhance this sanctuary status, Murphy and the state democrats are pushing a bill to give illegal aliens driver's licenses. So much for the rule of law, I guess.

This move, as well as sanctuary status, is in opposition to the Democrat legislators' and Governor's oaths of office to uphold the laws and constitutions of the state of New Jersey and the United States of America. I would like to see Republicans in the New Jersey legislature bring up impeachment of Governor Murphy for violating his oath of office. There is a recall movement of Murphy under way but I don't think it has gotten enough signatures to go anywhere, especially since he can be voted out of office in 2020. But he and the Democrats need to be sanctioned at the very least.

New Jersey is a heavily Democrat populated state but we have had Republican governors in the near past, so I don't think that is out of the question for 2020. I would like to see voters place Republicans in the legislature as well in 2020 so they can undo the last few years of detrimental Democrat policies. They really have overreached and the public will see that at election time.

Driver's licenses for people in New Jersey illegally would give legitimacy to these people who should not be here in the first place. And it will attract other illegal immigrants to the state straining an already strained state and increasing the population of illegals in New Jersey which already has a large illegal alien population. 

Urge your legislator to vote No on this bill when it comes up for a vote. Vote NO on S-3229 or A-4743. To find your legislator, use this interactive map
https://www.njleg.state.nj.us/districts/njmap210.html.
Please call and email the offices of Senate President Sweeney (609-847-3700; SenSweeney@njleg.org) and Assembly Speaker Coughlin (609-847-3500; AsmCoughlin@njleg.org). Thank you to NumbersUSA for this information.

Democrat Abuse of Power

With the bogus impeachment of President Trump, the Democrats in the U.S. Congress have put themselves and their desire for power (and their hatred of a man) before the United States people and before the U.S. Constitution. They have abused their power to hurt a political opponent, they have abused the impeachment clause of the U.S. constitution with their frivolous impeachment, and they have ignored their regular legislative duties.

The year 2020 will find the Democrats losing more than enough seats in the Senate and House for Republicans in the House to regain control. This because the voters, the people, want to punish that party for wasting four years of legislative time with endless investigations.

Fort Gun Free

It seems like the one place in the world that there should be no mass shootings is on a military base - you know, because everyone is a highly trained weapons capable soldier. However, in the span of two days there have been two shootings at military bases with at least six people killed and more injured - Pearl Harbor and Pensacola, Florida. Why? Because, ironically, military bases don't allow soldiers to carry their weapons on the base. They are gun-free zones. Isn't it about time that this ridiculous situation is remedied?

Microsoft Windows Keyboard Shortcut of the Day 909

Microsoft Windows Keyboard Shortcut of the Day
 
If you need to blow up a portion of your screen for easier readability or to see better what is going on in an image, open the Windows Magnifier quickly and easily using this Windows shortcut.

In Windows 10 -
 
To open the Windows Magnifier

Press the Windows logo key and +

Press Windows logo key and + again (and again) as needed to increase the size.

Press Windows logo key and - to reduce size.

Press the X to close the Magnifier.

Why Forsake the Kurds?

www.jewishpress.com/news/us-news/turkey-launches-military-offensive-against-kurds-in-syria/2019/10/09/

Dear President Trump,

Please reconsider your position regarding the abandonment of our allies the Kurds in northern Syria. These people have spilled their blood in our fights against the Taliban, against Saddam Hussein, and against ISIS. We depended on them as forces auxiliary to our own military, they were crucial in the fights that this country has fought since 2002. Fights that we may not have won without them. And now after a phone call with the bad actor in Turkey you decide to leave these allies open to attack by Erdogon and Turkey? An attack that has this very day started. The American military cots were still warm as the attacks from Turkey's army began.

But if these people are massacred, if there is a genocide or some other catastrophe for these people who have helped us and relied on us, I will NOT support you any longer nor will I vote for you. There is no conservative program implementation you could tout that would wash away the sin of betrayal. If these people die or are subjected to Turkey's hegemony then you are directly responsible for their deaths or loss of freedom. This will be the worst thing anyone could have done, the worst thing you will have done. Please reconsider and protect the Kurdish people. It is the least America can do for an outnumbered ally in the middle east.

Windows Keyboard Shortcut of the Day

Microsoft Windows Keyboard Shortcut of the Day
In Windows 10 -
 
To open the Windows Settings screen
Press the Windows logo key and i.

 The Windows Settings screen will appear.

El Paso and Dayton Shootings

God bless those people who perished in the mass shootings this past weekend and God bless and comfort their families and friends. Bless the injured that they may heal quickly. The shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, were terrible acts committed by two individuals with free will. The two young men who pulled the triggers were responsible for the heinous acts. You can try to place blame here and there, but in the end, they were responsible. 

In the case of the El Paso shooting, this man was a racist and he was very likely supported and fed in his views using the internet and social media to hate foreigners from south of the border. He thought that what was happening was a conscious invasion of people from another country. Before the internet and social media there was not as much support to be found for deviant points of view. There were deviant points of view, yes, but you can find fresh new thoughts and ideas supporting any ideology (extreme or not) literally every second of the day now.

  

If you want mass shootings to end, taking guns away from people is not going to help. Legislating access to guns is not going to help. Legislating or controlling the internet is not going to help, either. The only thing that will help is the message that we are our neighbor’s keeper. People are beings with souls, hearts, loves, dreams, and families. Not unhuman entities that it is okay to kill, to slaughter as if you’re walking through a video game and trying to increase your kill count as these mass shooters tend to do.

  

There needs to be more love taught and shown to young people. The way that these murderers view other human beings needs to change—needs to stop. That people can get to the point where they can see another human being as just a target for their gun to kill and not a living breathing member of a family of loved ones is the thing that we must fix.

  

How do you do that? More love needs to be taught from early on. The sea of media that we live in today needs to change from hate to love, needs to change from devaluing human life to valuing human life. The value of human life needs to be taught. Video games that allow the user to participate in killing people do not teach the value of human life, they devalue human life, turning what looks like a human onscreen into an animal, or less. I know people tend to blame video games and movies after mass shootings, but it is because there is truth there, there is devaluation of human life in these popular media. Pilots, doctors, fork-lift operators, ship captains, astronauts and many others are trained with video games (simulators). They are trained with them because they are an effective learning tool. They're like real-life. Aren’t killers trained to some extent too? People with a moral foundation and a strong psychological make-up are not trained as killers by video games because they know right from wrong, because they recognize the sanctity of life, because they have a moral foundation. I don't know if either of these killers played violent video games, but it is more the norm than not in today's world.

  

Killing is glorified in movies as well. Look at a hundred movie posters or DVD cases. How many of those that you see have a guy or a gal holding a gun “on the cover”. Many, if not most of them. I’m not suggesting we legislate video games or movies, just as we should not over-legislate guns. America is about freedom after all.

  

The one commandment delivered by Jesus says to love your neighbor as you love yourself. And he meant everyone, not just your proximate neighbor. All people on Earth are your neighbors. If people just followed that one commandment it would be impossible for mass killings to continue; people would value other people’s lives. This can be taught in schools. It doesn’t even need to be religious, but love does need to be taught, it needs to be displayed.

  

A mind is not right that wants to do this to his fellow human beings. It’s not the gun, or the knife, or the bomb, or the car doing the killing. It is the brain of an unhinged (or indoctrinated) individual with free will. But perhaps in an environment where there is more valuation to life, where there is more love, even unhinged people will think twice about taking such actions.

  

But after we discuss all the things which may influence a person, the responsibility for murder lies in the murderer’s hands and heart. Justice will and should come down on him here and in the hereafter. If the person is deemed crazy or mentally unstable that person needs to be detained for the rest of their life to keep the population safe. President Trump said that the trigger was pulled by mental illness and hate. Well if it was mental illness then I do not agree that the death penalty should be pursued.  

There will always be unhinged people but perhaps if the social climate is one of love (less toxic) and one where human life is valued  (and our opponents not dehumanized) these things won't happen so often.

Distracted driving PSA

Texting and driving - One LOL away from DOA 👎

Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Dash - What's Best?

I would like to share some experiences and observations with you concerning Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Dash and hopefully cryptocurrency newbies and cryptocurrency evangelists will both be able take something interesting away from this post.

Bitcoin, the original cryptocurrency is, of course, the most expensive cryptocurrency to move between wallet addresses. I have been paying around $4.00 (0.0003 btc) to send Bitcoin in a relatively timely manner recently. At this fee it seems to take about an hour or less to successfully send Bitcoin from one wallet to another. Check the transaction fee that your wallet is set at so that it is not too low or too high. If it is too low it may take hours or days to go through. If the transaction fee is set too high then you will be throwing away money but getting a fast transaction. If you're in line at the store and paying with Bitcoin, then a high transaction fee is what you would have to pay to complete the purchase in a timely manner. But I don't suggest paying for small items at the store with Bitcoin. The other coins I talk about below would be better for that. In the near future Bitcoin may be paired up with something called the Lightning Network which will make Bitcoin transactions cheaper and faster but so far this is not near implementation as they have only done testing on it, so Bitcoin in 2017 and much of 2018 is better for holding or trading as an investment or for buying big purchases or moving larger amounts of money from one place to another. (One BTC is about $15,000 on 12/8/2017)

Bitcoin Cash is a child of its parent Bitcoin, though if it were up to the Bitcoin developers Bitcoin Cash would meet an untimely death. Since the Bitcoin community could not come to terms with its problems, Bitcoin Cash was created as a fork off of the Bitcoin blockchain. Bitcoin Cash is really Bitcoin 2.0 if you ask me. It is Bitcoin improved. It has much lower fees, sends faster, and has larger blocks on the blockchain. I have been sending Bitcoin Cash using fees that are pennies and the transactions are blazing fast indeed. Bitcoin Cash is certainly a great candidate to supplant Bitcoin as the payment method for everyday purchases. It is so much cheaper and faster to use. While it has proponents pushing its use in the marketplace Bitcoin Cash has no central governance structure and so its acceptance in the marketplace is reliant on no one in particular, making its adoption as the future go-to coin kind of sketchy. (One BCH is about $1375.00 on 12/8/2017)

Dash (Digital Cash) is the other cryptocurrency that has real potential to become the cryptocurrency for everyday purchases and money transfers. Like Bitcoin Cash, Dash is very fast and very cheap to use. Not only that but it has a great smart phone app that is a multi-feature wallet which makes it extremely easy to send and receive Dash. Unlike Bitcoin Cash, Dash has sort of a corporate structure, which is funded by the coin transfer fees, that can market the coin's usefulness to consumers and businesses alike and seeks to make partnerships with businesses. This makes Dash the most likely candidate for wide marketplace adoption compared to Bitcoin Cash which does not have any single controlling entity mapping out where it will go in the future. Though decentralization is good and part of the appeal of cryptocurrencies, as we have seen with Bitcoin this leads to indecisiveness, bickering, infighting and lack of direction when it comes to adoption in the marketplace. Dash's corporate-like control will ensure a better marketplace penetration and adoption, leading, I believe, to eventual dominance as the cryptocoin for everyday transactions. (One Dash is about $700.00 on 12/8/2017)

The future is not clear at this moment as to which of these coins, or perhaps one of the other dozens of coins out there, will become the dominant cryptocurrency for everyday transactions. Maybe there is room in the marketplace for multiple players just as there is in the credit card market or the cash transfer marketplace. It is an exciting time, however, as the process evolves and plays itself out. 

Check out Crypt0's youtube channel for informative and fun videos about cryptocurrencies. Omar's take on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is definitely worth your time.

Coindesk.com is another good source of information concerning Bitcoin news and prices.

On Bitcoin Mining 8

Here we go, just another chapter in a Bitcoin mining adventure.

So, I had a perfectly good Bitmain Antminer R4 earlier this year and when I saw how much I could make selling it compared to the heat, noise, electric bill and slower return on investment I decided to sell it. What I made was almost double what I bought it for (and for a lightly used miner) that's how hot the market for Bitcoin miners in May/June 2017 was and still is. 

The Antminer R4 was my favorite Bitmain product because even though it is a powerful miner it is pretty quiet compared to other miners. Why they stopped making it is beyond me but I have a feeling that they wanted to concentrate on making, noisy but modular, Antminer S7's and S9's which they could sell to mining farms by the thousands and hence make a better profit, sort of giving up on the home-oriented miners market.

At any rate, since there was a more immediate profit to be made for me by selling Bitcoin miners as opposed to mining Bitcoin with them I decided to buy a couple Antminer S9 Bitcoin miners from Bitmain and resell them. There was a wait to receive them in June but it was only about a month or so at this time. Buying from the Bitmain company in China was (and is) not a simple process, as most people will tell you who try to buy miners from them - one of the reasons that people are willing to pay more on eBay or Amazon. It is simpler there and less of a hassle. The communication is inefficient with Bitmain, which is understaffed in their sales department. In addition, they are always changing the accepted method of payment, sometimes it is with Bitcoin, sometimes with bank transfer, and now with Bitcoin Cash.

Anyway, eventually I received the two Antminer S9's and wanted to test them to make sure they were operable before I listed them and shipped them to a paying customer. Luckily I had a 1375 watt power supply, so I hooked one up and tried to find it on the network. It seems like this is always difficult when you first turn on a miner and try to find it on your network. When I did find it and assigned a mining pool to it, the machine started mining and I was treated to the trademark Antminer "jet engine" noise that I discovered with my Antminer S7. I don't know if the S9 is louder than the S7 or if they are the same but there is no way I would be keeping either one of these loud ASIC miners since I only have a garage and not a mining farm. Both S9's operated well, hashing away at around 14.5 TH/s. After my brief testing was complete I listed these on eBay and eventually sold them for a 70% profit. Not bad.

Since this fiscal adventure was a success I decided to do it again. However, the next time I wanted to buy some S9's to sell I would have had to wait two months to receive them, so I decided to look elsewhere, if possible, for Bitcoin miners that I would receive sooner. (Apparently other people were having this idea too.) The company I settled on was another Chinese company called Canaan who were making and selling a nice miner called the Avalon 741. Unfortunately, they were just as hard to communicate with as Bitmain, also being woefully understaffed to meet customer demand. But once the back and forth about price and shipping were taken care of and the bank transfer went through, they shipped and I received the machines within two weeks of my initial contact with them. This was probably the last good experience anyone would ever have with them as the company was beset with orders because people wanted and needed miners and Bitmain became even more backlogged. Now Canaan would be backlogged too. 

But for now this first buying experience from Canaan was pretty good. They accepted bank transfer, shipping cost from China was reasonable and I received the machines fairly quickly. This time I bought five machines and controllers and tested one or two of the Bitcoin miners. Within a couple of weeks they all sold and though there was a profit it was significantly less than on the Antminers. The reason the profit was less was that these miners didn't have the same reputation in the mining world as the Antminers do. Also the Avalon 741 hashes at a slower speed than the S9 and so for these reasons it was somewhat less sought after. One of the controllers and miners I had sold did not function properly and were sent back by the customer. After refunding him I determined that one of the hashing boards was inoperable. Canaan support was very helpful and sent me a new hash board which was pretty easy to replace. I was then able to sell the refurbished miner.

The Avalon 741 runs quieter than the Antminer S9. This is because it has only one variable speed fan and because it runs at half the speed of the S9 (7.3 TH/s vs. 14.5 TH/s). It is a good, sturdy and steady Bitcoin miner with a good user interface. It uses a controller (Raspberry Pi) which you have to buy, hook up and power separately and this is unappealing compared to Antminer's onboard controller. I did run the Avalon for about a month and made some pretty good Bitcoin with it, above and beyond electricity cost, so it was a positive experience overall.

As of December 6, 2017 it is almost impossible to get a Bitcoin miner unless you want to pay at least double the price. Bitmain has a 2 to 3 month waiting period and only accepts Bitcoin Cash. Canaan doesn't even bother to sell to individuals any more and their distributors either have a waiting period, no miners to sell or sell out as soon as they put them up for sale. Jhejiang Ebang, who makes the Ebit series of miners, which I will talk about in the next blog posting, is having the same problems. They don't respond to e-mails after you make an order and apparently don't want to deal with individual buyers.

With Bitcoin's precipitous rise in price I think I am back to feeling that it is better to mine for Bitcoin if you want to make money from Bitcoin rather than selling the machines -- that is if you can get your hands on the latest version (or any version) of a Bitcoin ASIC miner. Just buying Bitcoin and holding may indeed be the wisest strategy, even at this point when it is 12,783 dollars for a single Bitcoin.
 
The next blog post will cover my Ebit E9 plus Bitcoin miner experience.

The Great Gasbag - Review

No surprise here. The Great Gasbag is another Trump-bashing book by another liberal Republican-hating media star. Nothing new and only one or two funny comments. But I do love the title of this book by the host of "The View", particularly the title page which says "Joy Behar The Great Gasbag" She couldn't have done better than to self-title this incredible waste of paper, waste of ink, waste of fuel, waste of resources, and waste of time. Thanks for adding to global warming, Joy. The book is the same Democrat rhetoric you can find every day on "The View", MSNBC, NBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, The Huffington Post, The Washington Post, etc. Save your money, save the trees and save the climate by not buying this book.

Behar starts out the whispy tome with the admitted "alternative fact" that her agent begged her to write the book and promptly proceeds to rely on alternative facts throughout the book (read: lies). She also states in the beginning of the book that she is a satirist, as if that excuses her alternative facts, her lies, her hate, her disrespect of the president of the U.S., as if being a satirist is some kind of carte blanche for spouting garbage and vitriol about another human being (eg., his shit-eating grin). In the "A" chapter she says that 65 million Americans get acid reflux whenever Trump appears on the TV. (That must be why Tums and Prilosec are selling so well. Another plus for the Trump economy!) How do you think, Ms. Behar, the rest of us felt when Mr. Petulant Crybaby came on TV for eight years? I couldn't even hear his voice on the radio but it would ruin my day. Her definition of Vitriol in the book is well applicable to her and actually moreso. The book is nothing but vitriol aimed at Donald Trump, Republicans, Tea Party members, Mormons, social conservatives, evangelical Christians, straight people, white men, etc. It is political hate speech posing as satire.

So many lefties are always promising to go to Canada or Norway or Saudi Arabia (haha, no not really) or Mars. Why don't you just go instead of lying about it over and over? Another point: Can you, Joyless Behar, and the rest of the liberals finally get it through your heads that Republicans are not against immigration? It's such a hackneyed joke to point out that Trump's relatives or anyone else's are immigrants. That's cutting edge analysis right there. Now if you pointed out that they were illegal immigrants you'd be getting somewhere. Republicans are against illegal immigration, people who break the law and the rules to get into or stay in this country. We are also against the enablers of people who break the laws and rules. We are for immigration as long as it is legal and restrained (restrained, as in we don't need a million new foreign people a year! And we don't need potential terrorists.). Behar goes on to associate neo-nazis with President Trump and Republicans but doesn't offer any proof of this. Additionally, saying that Steve Bannon runs a website for neo-Nazis is a bald-faced lie. Breitbart News is a news website that leans conservative, populist, nationalist, all of which have nothing to do with neo-Nazis even if you say it one hundred times.

Joyless Behar constantly suggests in the book that there is something improper in the relationship between Donald Trump and his daughter. Maybe that is the satire she was talking about? She also complains about Trump's golf and his vacations when President Obama golfed 170 plus times while he was president and his many vacations (with separate travel arrangements for his wife) cost the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. There's your definition of hypocrite, Ms. Behar.

Behar is transfixed on Vladimir Putin mentioning him 45 times in a short book. She says she is more afraid of Trump and Pence than ISIS. That's just brainless and this seems to be a common theme with Democrats. They are less frightened of people who burn their victims alive, drown them in cages, run them over with tanks, cut off their heads, than they are of two Republicans who will hardly be able to get their job done for all the obstruction they get from other Republicans and Democrats in congress.

For all its negativity, vitriol and hate, the best part of Gasbag Joy Behar's book is all the tweets she reprinted from The Donald's Twitter feed. #Thanks! #NotSad

Las Vegas and Other Mass Shootings - Possible Responses

The Las Vegas machine gun shooting of 10/01/2017 from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel was the carefully premeditated and inhuman murder of 59 innocent people trying to find a moment of joy in an increasingly difficult and violent world at a music concert. It was also attemped murder and wounding of hundreds of others trying to find the same moment of joy. Truly a sick and cowardly deed. How many of the couple thousand people who were there will have PTSD from this event as they go forward with their lives?

On October 23, 2017, more than three weeks after the shooting we still do not know if this guy was crazy, or whether he was radicalized by Daesh (they say he was their soldier). We don't know if perhaps violent video games and movies motivated him or dehumanized other people to him. We don't know if he hated America, or Las Vegas, or country music, or Republicans, or just hated people. Did he have a brain tumor? Did he have a drug or alcohol problem? Was his brain easily susceptible to negative manipulation? Or was he just seeking to become famous for murdering the most people in the shortest amount of time? Where is his manifesto or statement of action? Did he write the plans for his heinous act down somewhere? Did he plan to do this alone? What do the people in his life know about his actions or mental state? I hope we start hearing some answers soon. The families require it. The rest of the United States needs it too.

With love and respect to all of the victims, those who have passed and those who were injured and traumatized, I would like to suggest that in this case (Mandalay Bay shooting) and other future cases, that there is a method that may have worked at stopping or slowing the shooter and reducing the terrible damage that was done. Remember that some concert-goers, maybe many or all, eventually knew where the gunfire was coming from. Some people were able to key in on the sound to locate where the shooting was coming from. In the dark the muzzle fire may have been visible to other people. In videos from that night, people were looking up at the hotel windows and cursing the shooter. I suggest that if one or a few people had a moderately powered laser (from 5 to 500 milliwatts or above) and aimed it up toward the shooter they may have blinded (temporarily or for longer) the man and brought on some relief from the deadly situation. At any rate he would have found it impossible to shoot at targets on the ground with one or more superbright lasers shining up toward that window and his eyes. A gun from down on the concert grounds would have been almost useless unless it were a rifle in very capable hands, but the laser light would have been instant and accurate and the spread of its terminal spot of light at the distance of 300 yards or more would have been enough to cover a wider area in the window more likely flashblinding and at least frustrating the shooter. This may have worked in the Orlando night club shooting, and the Batman movie theater shooting too. In certain other mass shootings a laser will not have worked.

It is my hope that people will begin to carry commercially available lasers (of 5 to 500 milliwatts or more. Lasers of less power than 5 mW will be less effective.) with the intent of using them as defensive weapons in a case like this. And, of course concert venues and sporting events, etc., will need to allow them in if found on someone's person. Bad guys need their eyes to see what they are doing and if someone with a laser is in a life-or-death situation like this and they use their laser and it causes the shooter even just to have to close his eyes, that may make a difference which allows someone to take action. It will certainly be something unplanned for by the shooter and may cause him to make a mistake. It may save a life or lives.

I hope that we soon find out the motive behind this spineless shooter's evil murder of so many innocent people, but whatever the cause ends up being, a lesson that we can take from this is that people need to have something to else to fight back with to save their own lives. The police cannot act instantly in every situation (though they were heroic here) and even concert-goers carrying handguns would not have helped in this situation; neither would mace or a Taser. I contend that one or more moderately powered lasers would help in this sort of situation by blinding or temporarily frustrating an attacker.

Wicked Lasers sells more powerful lasers on their website but 5 milliwatt lasers are also easily available on eBay and Amazon.

Disclaimer: This suggestion is for defensive purposes only and in situations where life or limb are threatened. Any time you hurt someone else you are responsible for your actions and possibly blinding someone is a serious action which will have serious consequences unless it was done for the right defensive reasons. Lasers should never be aimed in a frivolous manner toward any plane, car, or other object where a person or people may be at or near the end of your beam. Check local laws regarding possession of laser emitting devices. Eye protection should be worn when in the presence of or when handling powerful lasers.