Thirteenth Anniversary of My Blog: Blogger Pageview Report

Thirteenth Anniversary of My Blog: It has been 13 years since I launched this blog in 2008. I appreciate all of you who visit, especiall those who visit regularly. I am grateful to have this opportunity to post about liberty and representative government, good language and Christian conservative views in general, especially after the computer difficulties I have been experiencing over the last two years. As is obvious, I still am unable to ident for paragraphs. As a result, I must work around the problem and hope it does not detract too much from the content I post. Blog Pageview Report: Blogger, the host of this blog, has continued to track hundreds of pageviews a month, even during the many months when I was unable to access this blog to post anything, which was most of the last year. Although not as specific as the tracking by StatCounter, Blogger reports several thousand pageviews over the last year, with a little over half from the United States and the rest from Western Europe (especially Italy), followed by Eastern Europe and Asia, among other places. Again, thank you for visiting.

Remember the Purpose of Thanksgiving: Give Thanks to God for Blessings

I wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. This federal holiday, which is also a state holiday in every State in the Union, was established by President George Washington to give thanks to God for the blessings of America, both material, in terms of its bounty, and political, in terms of independence and liberty. It commemorates the first Thanksgiving celebration and feast given by the Pilgrims in Massachusetts in the Seventeenth Century in thanksgiving to God for the bounty of the harvest they were able to enjoy through their friendship with the local Native Americans and for their freedom to practice their religion. It is easy to focus on other aspects of the custom of celebrating this holiday and upon divisive political misinterpretations of it, but it is important to remember its original purpose because the Founding Fathers understood, as expressed in the American Creed in the Declaration of Independence, that the freedoms and rights of everyone come from God, not Man. Because faith in God is an essential safeguard for liberty, it is therefore appropriate that government acknowledge the divine source of its power, which is given to them through the People whom God created equally. Thank God for the blessings of prosperity and liberty.

Causing a Space Hazard Is the Latest Provocation by the Rogue Russian Regime

The Russian Federation under tyrant Vladimir Putin, a former Soviet intelligence agent, further reinforced its status as an international pariah by carelessly conducting an anti-satellite test that created a space junk hazard. The International Space Station was put at risk and its crew had to conduct a maneuver to avoid impact with the debris created by the Russian test. Putin is also behind the current policy of its Belorussian ally of sending refugees toward the Polish border, using people as political tools and he has massed Russian troops at the border of Ukraine, a former Soviet Republic that he has already invaded and seized territory from, in violation of a treaty recognizing Ukrainian independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. The rogue Russian regime invades neighbors; sends warplanes in a threatening manner toward the airspace of other States; kills exiles abroad, including with chemical weapons; violates arms control treaties; backs the terrorist-sponsoring Syrian regime of Bashar Assad; uses its energy supply as an instrument of intimidation; interferes in the elections of other States through propaganda, disinformation, stealing/releasing information, campaign funding and other means; spreads anti-vaccine falsehoods; hacks into the computers of governments, businesses and other organizations; and even cheats at the Olympics.

It Is Time to Eliminate Daylight Saving Time

Standard Time returns today in most of America. I usually post when Daylight Saving Time begins to propose the elimination of the bi-annual wasteful exercise of changing the clocks. I have noted how the loss of an hour of sleep and the disruption of the schedule and our circadian rhythm (our biological clocks) adversely affect health and cause more accidents, as more and more studies have shown. To avoid these problems, some people, including legislators, have proposed remaining on Standard Time and others to remain on Daylight Saving Time. I write now because a recent study observed the ongoing negative effects of Daylight Saving Time beyond the loss of an hour of sleep, particularly on students’ learning and on increasing accidents in mornings because of the loss of daylight, without providing any offsetting benefit. It is time to consider eliminating Daylight Saving Time and returning to a more natural schedule in harmony with our biological clocks.

Foreign Digest: The European Union, Japan and Nicaragua

European Union: Like Italy’s stricter program that I recently posted about, the European Union also has developed a pass for those who are vaccinated against Covid-19 or have recent negative test results to allow for travel or entry at certain locations. Member States have the option to join the program. Japan: The ruling center-right party won the Japanese parliamentary elections. Japan is an ally of the United States, particularly versus Communist North Korea and China. Nicaragua: Nicaragua’s Marxist Sandinista dictatorship reportedly engaged in a cyber disinformation campaign against political opponents. As I had also noted in a previous post, the leading opposition figures have been jailed and thus effectively barred from standing for election as Daniel Ortega seeks a fifth term today. He had come to power in 1979 in a coup with the Sandinistas, backed by the Soviets, until losing Nicaragua’s first free and fair election in 1990 and then returned to power through an election four years ago. Ortega had promised not to be as tyrannical, but has broken his promises by becoming increasingly authoritarian. I had posted about his bloody repression of protests last year. Nicaragua, with Belarus, was one of two States chided by the World Health Organization for inaction on the Coronavirus pandemic.