Some People Have a Hard Time Swallowing Truth Pills

Apparently someone is miffed I called out RKJ Construction for their elevator at the $1.5 million renovated Old City Hall building. They feel that just because they don’t like me using my First Amendment to voice my opinion that the City was hosed, they can accuse me of slander (it’s actually LIBEL if it is written, but it isn’t LIBEL if it is true or if it is opinion, ya dummy)

I am always METICULOUS about linking to my sources but I guess some people are too stupid or lazy to click on a link. So I will lay it all out right here – AGAIN – in a picture format more suitable for a lazy eight-year-old child to understand.

The City did NOT take the lowest bid for the elevator project. They took a bid FAR HIGHER to “keep it local”:

This is known as a FACT. Not libel.

The elevator ultimately (somehow) morphed from $119,532 into $128,400 – an increase of 7.4%:

$128,400 MINUS $96,605 = $31,795 difference in elevator prices….or about 33% HIGHER. This is known as a FACT. Not libel.

Finley said the elevator was holding up the Old City Hall project. It was supposed to be ready around March 2019. It wasn’t [link to minutes 3/25/19 page 4]:

MORE facts….not libel.

According to the September 17th, 2019 Dispatch (page 12), it STILL wasn’t complete in September:

September 17, 2019 quote in Lampasas Dispatch. Elevator NOT COMPLETED. FACT…not libel.

Since then, the elevator has broken down “about five times” in LESS THAN A YEAR. The Mayor HERSELF mentioned disappointment and unhappiness in the high cost and low quality of the elevator thus far. The City then moved to enter into a three-year, $16,920 maintenance contract:

Talbert may accept it as “normal” after asking “everybody”, but I don’t. I lived and worked in high rises for over 10 years of my life. I NEVER witnessed that frequency of breakdowns. A quick Google search confirms my suspicions. Not to mention, the elevator at Old City Hall is VERY LOW USAGE compared to the high rises I worked in (the Sears Tower in Chicago):

Given ALL of these above FACTS (not libel) I then gave my OPINION (also not libel) that if I was the City manager or on City council, I would NOT have immediately gone and wasted ANOTHER $17,000 on a maintenance contract. I would have FIRST gone to RKJ Construction with quite a bit of leverage on my side (we shelled out an extra $31,795 AND you were seven months LATE). I would have given them a chance to pay for the first two years of the maintenance contract (roughly $11,000). If they REFUSED to do this, I would have barred them from any future City contracts as punishment.

SO…explain to me where the “slander” is in this entire saga? Sometimes the truth is a bitter pill. But the sooner you swallow it, the better off you are, sweetheart.

It cracks me up that I am the ONE person in a town of 7,000 citizens who publicly calls attention to City government waste and even THAT is one too many, apparently.

Council Meeting 9/28/20 – Live Updates

Haven’t been able to do THIS in a while. Tonight the budget will be adopted. The “proposed budget” that is not available to be seen on the city website – and hasn’t been since 2016. There were also rumblings in a Radiogram issue that the Goldfish will be in “executive session” talking about “economic incentives” with a “prospect”.

Mike Cour? Guess we’ll see!

5:30pm – there are FOUR of us watching!

Chamber of Commerce chick is talking, I think.

Quick fact: the Lampasas Chamber of Commerce has about 280 current members. If they all kicked in $500 a year, that would be $140,000 to run The Chamber of Commerce, which is a nice chunk of change. Seems to me you wouldn’t need to take City money! Just a thought. I never understood why the City pays the Chamber one red cent for their operations. Of course, I feel all Chambers of Commerce are now obsolete and redundant. We have Yelp!, Google, Facebook, etc, etc. But that is a topic for another time.

5:40pm – I remember why I usually drink during these things.

5:40pm – Rickie Roy is talking!!! Ugh. Covid bullshit. I just KNOW that deep down, Rickie is the kind of guy who thinks this Covid stuff is 100% bullshit. I have no proof of this, but I’d be surprised if he was a TRUE Branch Covidian believer.

5:45pm – Finley putting all 7 of us on-line watchers to sleep. He’s going on about the $120,000 the City wasted on Halff Associates to “consult” for the City. Yeah – that is STILL going on a year later. I gotta hand it to Halff. They bleed the City $4,000 or $5,000 at a pop with small installments over a long period instead of slamming them with a $120,000 bill all at once. You can shear a sheep many times but only skin him once. Right, RKJ Construction?

5:54pm – Finley still babbling. I am seriously rethinking sitting through this. I guess when you cost the City about $175,000 in salary and benefits, you figure you better spew out a lot of words.

5:56pm – Is 3.5 points enough to take Kansas City tonight? Tough call. Maybe a tease with KC +9.5 and the under 61.

5:58pm – Chuck Williamson doing some navel gazing now. Hopefully he’ll be gone after the next election – which is quickly approaching.

6:oopm – Rickie Roy up there again! Two visits in one meeting. Listen to him purr. He’s talking about streets and waste water but it sounds almost Shakespearian when Rickie does it. Go Rickie! Rickie’s southern drawl makes “cement” sound like “semen”, by the way. I was momentarily taken aback when he talked about semen being poured all over the ground.

Falling asleep during the wastewater stuff. Sorry RR. Boring me to tears. THIS is the stuff City should spend time on. NOT wasting another $1.9 million on the “business” park.

6:30pm – I am daydreaming what it would be like inside the secret Goldfish chambers as they discuss “incentives” with their economic “prospect”:

6:51pm – Fire prevention week! Yay! Great proclamation, Misti! Only 2,800 people died in house fires in the U.S. in 2017? That’s not that many, really. Back when I was a kid, it was over twice that and the population of the US was probably HALF what it is now! I bet most of those were at Christmas time – we had those big, fat colored Christmas tree lights that got hotter than hell and we’d melt tinsel on them at age 7. Remember those? People sure have become pussies in the last 50 years.

“Keep anything that can catch fire away from stove tops”. Thank goodness the government is here to tell us these things. You should also never smash your balls with a sledgehammer.

6:58pm – Mandy Walsh PCED is talking and showing a cheesy video. Must be softening up the Goldfish for a huge request.

7:00pm – Mandy now telling us how the LEDC saved the day during Covid by reposting Facebook posts from restaurants so we’d know when they were open. I am not joking. Because restaurant owners are too stupid to do that themselves? Mandy, you should DEFINITELY open a restaurant after you pile up $300k in salary earnings from the taxpayers as Economic Director. It’ll only be a few years.

NOW she is hoping to have the goat pasture ‘business’ park EDA CARES grant done “by October”. LOL. I remember when it was going to be done on July 31st. Maybe they are still hoping for shitty sales tax numbers in two weeks to prove their “economic injury”?

Mandy tooting her horn about passing an economic development test! Hint hint: gimme a raise!

Now we get to hear how the LEDC is going to hand out free money for “life safety grants” to try and spur some of the owners of those unsightly empty buildings on the town square to develop them! Free stuff!!

She’s telling us how there is a “well known reality show” filming in town – and thus, these people are “eating in our restaurants and shopping in our stores”. Funny. I heard the opposite last week. I heard they can’t leave The Best Western and have food catered to them from one location. Because of….wait for it….Covid! So I rate that statement “very likely false”.

7:10pm – are these people not aware the biggest football game of the year is starting soon??

7:12pm – Finley back at the dais. Yawn.

7:20pm – Baltimore has the first possession. Baltimore marches down and scores a FG immediately. What idiot was thinking of taking KC +9.5 and under 61?

7:21pm – Goldfish adjourning into Executive Session to talk about their “prospect”. Seems ridiculous these meetings are hidden from the public. Not sure if they will be back. I may have to resume this tomorrow.

Raise Your Hand!

Raise your hand if you own a tiny lemonade stand (only open THREE days a week!) that appears to employ nobody but yourself and your nutty wife and was only open a few months before Wuhan Flu hit BUT you still took the MAXIMUM $3,000 in taxpayer dollars from Mandy Clause and the LEDC!

It’s important all you saps pay your taxes in FULL and don’t try to look for any deductions so that worms like Andrew Landrum can get handed money he didn’t earn.

Oh, and raise your hand if your wife is a Covid snitch ratting out local mom and pop businesses!

Also raise your hand if you think Antifa is just a bogeyman and political cudgel to demonize your opponents….and not a bonafide organization terrorizing innocent civilians!

You’re gonna need a third hand, Andrew.

You’ll be sure to pay taxes on that $3,000 grant you got from Mandy Clause, right dildo?

I’ll ask an honest question for the 50th time: if you libs want to live under a full-on libtard regime, you are free to pack up your shit and move to Portland or San Francisco or New York City. Why stay here and whine all the time? Makes no sense to me. I’ll even pay for your one-way plane ticket – first class – if you all promise to move to another state. That goes for Haywood too!

Potato-Headed Lib Dunce Stephanie Fitzharris Wrong Yet Again

Shrieking morons suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome would literally cut of their own noses if they thought it helped a tiny bit to get rid of the “racist” and “fascist” Trump.

Exhibit A is Lake Travis imbecile Stephanie Fitzharris. A potato headed clown who often sticks her bulbous melon into Lampasas County Breaking News forums. Even though she lives in Austin.

Back in April, this buffoon thought that Trump should be convicted of “crimes against humanity” for promoting hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) in the fight against Covid. She was agreeing with another shrill, hysterical liberal moron named Tavia Golonski – an Ohio state representative.

Oooohhh…this is serious! Is it? Is it serious, you clown horn? LOL. Never mind the United States isn’t even a member of the International Criminal Court. Potato Head doesn’t care about such trifles. She is ready to throw people in JAIL because she doesn’t agree with them. Typical Marxist retard.

Well, as it turns out it’s a damn good thing that Potato Head Stephanie Fitzharris is not in charge of anything besides her own sad, pathetic life. Because her actions of banning HCQ would result in the deaths of untold thousands:

Turns out HCQ IS very useful in treating Covid. It has also been around for something like 70 years and used safely during that time as a malaria treatment. But hey, Potato Head was shrieking hysterically against it, so she must be right. Here is the raw data.

They write:

“Political opponents defied longstanding scientific and medical consensus to portray HCQ as harmful and Trump as a mortal danger to public health. Flawed and even falsified studies were published and promoted by media outlets eager to discredit Trump, while positive studies were impugned or ignored.”

Potato Head doesn’t care about facts or science. She just hates Trump. Period. If a few tens of thousands of people have to die along the way…oh well. What does she care? Marxists like her have killed hundreds of millions, what are a few more. It’s a shame that morons like this get to vote.

That outfit is the real crime against humanity, Shamu

It’s not really her fault she’s so mentally challenged though. Research shows it’s probably all those cheeseburgers…

**UPDATED 10/21** – Italy provides more proof Fitzharris is a dunce:

Italy sees a 90% reduction in infection rate with HCQ compared to the rest of Italy

Oops. Asymptomatic Infections Actually Very Unlikely To Spread.

I remember back in the old days of Covid (5 months ago) the hysterical ‘experts’ were trying to convince us that probably 50% of Covid infections were asymptomatic and that THOSE clueless asymptomatic people were unwittingly going around infecting everyone and their granny.

It was part of the bullshit they used to scare gullible dummies like Melissa Johnson into becoming mask nazis who hit people with their cane or sprayed mace in people’s faces if they didn’t obey and strap on a dirty face diaper 24/7. It allowed them to spew all sorts of pious bullshit about how “we are protecting YOU” and “worrying about YOU”.

Morons like Melissa Johnson are who C. S. Lewis was talking about when he said:

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” 

Of course, the idea of the asymptomatic super spreader was all a load of crap.

NOW it turns out that only roughly 20% of infections are asymptomatic. Not 50%. Furthermore, those asymptomatic infected people are EXTREMELY unlikely to get anyone else sick:

Presently, it appears that asymptomatic (or very light symptomatic) infections have a 0.3% secondary attack rate, compared to 15% for symptomatic. This is for close contact like an extended conversation in a home setting for example. ASYMPTOMATICS ARE NOT DRIVERS OF SPREAD.

Link to data HERE.

That’s .003 for you math challenged people out there. Or about 300-1 odds.

So, much like any other cold or flu, if you feel like shit and thus KNOW you are sick, then stay home. Which most sane people do anyways since you really don’t feel like getting out of bed, now do you? The answer is NOT to strap a dirty face diaper on every single person JUST IN CASE they may be one of the very few who are infectious and don’t know it. Why? Because even THOSE people are EXTREMELY unlikely to pass anything on to you.

Unfortunately, dummies like Melissa Johnson and other members of the Branch Covidian Cult will NEVER change their minds when presented with facts. The pain of admitting they were duped is too great. Better to cling even harder to the cult and double down, as we are seeing right now in Texas.

I Emailed Texas DSHS About Their Definition Of “Active Case” – Here’s What I Found

If the mayor and the Health Authority won’t explain what’s going on, I figured I go straight to the horse’s mouth and ask the state “experts”.***

First I asked what constituted an “active case”. Here is the response:

We define active cases as “an estimate of the number of people with confirmed COVID-19 cases who may still be sick. The estimate is calculated by taking the number of active cases and subtracting fatalities and estimated recoveries. Because both active and recovered cases are estimates, they can vary from what is reported locally.”

Boy. An awful lot of “estimates” in there!

They do have some sweet charts and graphs and stuff, I will admit. The link is HERE. Feel free to go and play around with all the buttons.

Furthermore:

A confirmed case is defined as a case that is laboratory confirmed (detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in a clinical specimen using a molecular amplification detection test such as a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test).

Great. So they DO use the PCR test using molecular amplification. The next obvious question is how many times (cycles) do they amplify the genetic material and what is the cutoff for being considered “active”?

From everything I have read, a Ct (cycle threshold) of 33 is as high as you have to go when it comes to a person being infectious. If you have to amplify the sample MORE than 33 times, that means you are starting with such a low viral load, the patient is NOT actively infectious.

Find a link to this HERE. But below is a snippet of what the researchers say:

The study found a significant relationship between Ct value and culture positivity rate.

  1. Samples with Ct values of 13–17 all led to a positive culture.
  2. Culture positivity rate then decreased progressively according to Ct values to reach 12% at 33 Ct.
  3. No culture was obtained from samples with Ct > 34.
  4. The five additional isolates obtained after blind subcultures had Ct between 27 and 34 (low viable virus load).

Thus the study found a strong correlation between Ct value and sample infectivity in a cell culture model. The authors could deduce that with this system, patients with Ct values equal or above 34 do not excrete infectious viral particles.

OK. So we would HOPE that the state of Texas would use a Ct cutoff of 33 or 34 to consider a person “active” and infectious. Do they? I asked and got this response:

Table 2 of the linked document below is taken directly from the manufacturer’s instructions for use which indicates that a Ct value equal to or less than 42 for a patient sample is interpreted as containing SARS-CoV-2 RNA and would be indicative a recent infection.  The manufacturer, Perkin Elmer, has determined the performance characteristics for this PCR assay.  Our state laboratory in Austin is using this assay for testing samples from individuals suspected of having a SARS-CoV-2 infection, as determined by their healthcare provider.

Holy hell! All the way up to 42 amplifications are considered fair game! Wow. Kind of makes me wonder how many of our “current active cases” are REALLY only a super low and non-infectious viral load that has been amplified a ridiculous number of times.

Makes me also wonder if, in the future, cases start to dramatically drop they might bump that up to 44. Or higher. Anything to keep the scare going, right?

PLEASE forward this post to anyone you know who has been sucked into the Branch Covidian cult. You cannot argue with the math.

**** I use the term “experts” facetiously. I happen to come from a family of surgeons. You know – REAL doctors. Uncles, cousins, my father, my grandfather and my great-grandfather – ALL highly successful surgeons. I also happen to have several college buddies who are very successful surgeons for over 20 years now. You know what they ALL tell me about this Covid bullshit? Every single one of them? “This is all a complete overreaction to a flu-like illness. Forcing everyone to wear masks is useless. And anyone who works for the government as a “health expert” is the guy who finished in the bottom of his class in med school”

Bam. Roasted.

Oh No! Some High School Kids Caught The Sniffles!

So we all know now that Homecoming was cancelled – and some football players tested positive for Covid. Misti posted an extremely condescending and arrogant order to everyone not to speculate or pontificate about any of this. Just shut your mouth and obey. Right? We’re too ignorant to make informed and educated assessments.

Talbert sets new record for condescending twaddle on Facebook

Nah. I think I’ll swing my big, fat hairy opinion all over the place, thanks very much.

Of course, Misti and others in charge over the last handful of years have PROVED over and over that THEY are actually the ones incapable of making informed assessments on TONS of issues (*cough*Azbell* cough**cough*elevator ripoff*cough*). I’ve chronicled their stupidity, hypocrisy and dishonesty here on at least 8 issues over the last 24 months.

So there’s that.

But she IS right about us not having any information. The Powers That Be certainly see to THAT, don’t they? I’d agree with her that it’s nobody’s business if a couple kids get sick except for the fact that these morons have been forcing every kid in school to wear a dirty face diaper 40 hours a week – so it kinda IS everybody’s business now, isn’t it?

Actually, this whole thing should be a giant non-event. Some healthy young kids have Covid. So what? Better get used to it. As I have said REPEATEDLY – this virus will be with us forever. Like the flu. So you better come to terms with it. It is less of a danger than flu for those under 50. For high school kids, they’re more likely to be killed by a dog, for Christ’s sake:

I’m going to go out on another limb and predict all these kids will be fine. After all, Misti and her daughter were fine and these football boys are in FAR better shape as athletes.

What do you want to bet at least some of these kids didn’t even know they were “sick” until a test told them they were? I’m guessing they are forced to take Covid tests weekly in order to “obey” the “mandates” handed down by morons from up on high. Of course, we’ll never know if that’s the case because we aren’t privy to that data like the Very Important Talbert is. Maybe these poor kids were tested by one of those overly sensitive tests that picks up viral fragments from 12 weeks ago – meaning they are perfectly safe to play. Who knows? We certainly never will!

Oh goodness. There I go again “speculating” and “theorizing” about some hypothesis! Right after Very Important Talbert told me not to!

Shame on me.

Mandy Walsh Begs Ajinomoto To Back ‘Business Park’. Ajinomoto Offered City 200 New Jobs AND $300,000 Back In 2016. City Declined!!

I recently requested a list of businesses that were lucky enough to receive Mandy Walsh’s “the business park is AWESOME” template letter. As you recall, these businesses are supposed to “write a letter” (actually written by Mandy herself) to the U.S. government and support Mandy begging for almost a million dollars of OTHER people’s tax money so the LEDC can waste ANOTHER $1.9 million of their ‘business park’ debacle.

All the details are HERE.

One of the names on the list was Ajinomoto (Windsor) Foods. One of the biggest employers in our town. You may remember Ajinomoto Foods: back in early 2016, they offered to swap about 2 acres of land with the City near Campbell Park so they could expand their business and “add up to 200 jobs” PLUS they would hand the City $300,000!!

From the Lampasas Dispatch (3/18/16):

“The frozen-food company’s proposal, explained in a four page letter submitted March 7 to the Lampasas City Council, involves enlarging the downtown plant to create as many as 200 new jobs. In exchange for acquiring about two acres of undeveloped land on the south side of Campbell Park, Ajinomoto Windsor has offered to give the city 2.33 acres adjacent to the west side of the park “and up to $300,000 in cash for park development”

Sounds like quite a deal to me! Ajinomoto says “hey, you give us those 2 acres there, we give you a different 2.33 acres nearby (land swap) AND we will throw in $300,000 AND we will create up to 200 jobs!”

These are REAL jobs, mind you. Not complete bullshit imaginary jobs that Mike Cour and Eco-Strong are currently offering.

So what does City council do? Do they let the issue go to a vote by the people (which is required by law in any land conveyance like this)? Hell no! They vote to KEEP THE ISSUE OFF THE BALLOT!

From the Dispatch (3/18/16)

The City Council recently voted not to include the proposed land sale on
the May 7 ballot, however, so the next opportunity for the plan to be presented to voters would be in November.

Who voted against this? You may recognize some of the names: Talbert, White, Williamson and Monroe – FOUR of the current seven council members.

You cannot make shit like this up. The absolute STUPIDITY of the City knows no bounds. I love to make short summaries of the City’s retard moves, so here we go:

2014/2015 – City wastes almost a MILLION DOLLARS bringing water and electricity to 165-acre weed patch known as “business park”. Project has been going on since 2003 and has wasted WAY over $2 million at this point. The whole point of the weed patch endeavor is to “create jobs”.

Early 2016 – Ajinomot0 proposes a land swap that results in 200 new jobs AND $300,000 for park improvements. CREATING JOBS – which is EXACTLY what the LEDC has tried (and failed) to do forever with their $2 million goat pasture.

Early 2016 – City council (including current Mayor Talbert) votes 6-0 to NOT ALLOW this issue on the ballot where the citizens can decide.

The rest of 2016 – of course, the deal dies on the vine and never happens. Not mentioned in the Dispatch again.

2014 thru 2019 – weed patch garners ZERO interest from any businesses despite the wasting of a million dollars. City thoroughly embarrassed that all their predictions of “high paying jobs” have failed to materialize.

2020 – LEDC and Mandy decide that ANOTHER $2 million is needed to REALLY make it ‘developed’. They come up with idea to beg for money from Feds in the guise of “Covid relief” for their “economic injury”, even though the City is thriving by every metric (sales tax receipts, budget surplus, low unemployment numbers).

September 2020 – Mandy sends a letter to Ajinomoto begging them to cheer lead for her ‘business’ park grant submission!!!

Brilliant! Why let a company hand you $300,000 and 200 jobs for no effort when you can INSTEAD squash those jobs and waste $2 million on a weed patch pipe dream across town? Then beg the SAME company to help you out!

The LEDC and Mandy are like that loser friend you have that only calls you when they need to borrow money or bail them out of jail. Bunch of useless turds, if you ask me. I would love it if Ajinomoto told her to suck a big one, but – like all businesses in the City – they probably don’t want to be hassled in the future and signed the letter as directed.

State Health Department Doing Their Best To Hide Covid Testing Info

Our latest update looks like this:

Funny how they are right on top of things with “active cases” but the number of tests administered hasn’t been updated in TEN DAYS.

How is that even possible?? The state HAS to know that number. Are they only reporting “positive” cases and ignoring negatives? If the testing numbers are up big and the “active cases” barely budges, it PROVES the positivity rate (percentage of tests coming back positive) is falling – which wouldn’t help their “scare everyone” narrative they have been pushing.

Also, what exactly constitutes an “active case” here in our county? What are the standards of the testing companies when it comes to the ‘cycle threshold’ (Ct) number? Are they counting every test under 40 Ct as an “active case”? 35? 33? Nobody bothers to tell us these things.

[Cycles are the number of RNA amplifications needed to detect virus. Many PCR tests have a Ct cutoff of 40 to consider the test positive, allowing detection of VERY FEW RNA molecules – which makes the test OVERLY SENSITIVE to old virus fragments. Most studies agree that a Ct over 33 is NOT infectious and thus that “active case” can be safely released into the population without fear of spreading the disease]

Who is doing the testing for Lampasas County? Which testing platform is being used? Are they using one of the very sensitive platforms? Hawaii currently discovered their state was using the MOST SENSITIVE TEST on about 75% of their tests. If they had used the FAR LESS sensitive CDC standards, the number of “cases” would be far lower.

And we certainly can’t have that now, can we?

I expect bullshit like that in a liberal haven like Hawaii or New York. They have every reason to make this look as ugly as possible. I do NOT expect it in the Great Republic of Texas – which is SUPPOSED to be run by people with a brain in their head.

I can’t wait for November 2022 to vote that piece of dung Abbott out of office and watch him roll [pun intended] off into the sunset.

Branch Covidians