We hear the phrase ad nauseam from the COVID-9 doomsayers who would vaccinate everyone and anything (watch out, Fido) every few minutes: “We’re just following the science.”

In this case the word “science” seems to be vague. More accurate would be “the pseudo-science that supports our preconceived notions.”

And that runs contrary to the basics of the scientific method. In that long-held, tried-and-true process, which now seems to have been thrown on the same ash heap as moral values, patriotism and good citizenship, there are defined steps.

Observe. Ask a question. Form a hypothesis. Test that hypothesis by gathering data. Examine the data gathered. Draw conclusions.

The doom and gloom crowd jumps to the last step and draws the conclusion that each and every COVID-19 strain is worse than what came before — we’re all going to die and we must have so many vaccinations we will come to resemble human pin cushions.

They come to their conclusions without bothering to gather data or analyze it; again unless the data confirms their dire predictions. And this becomes an infinite loop of self-serving cherry picking of data.

So, let’s follow the data from South Africa, alleged ground zero for the Omicron strain of COVID.

Scientists from South Africa (presumably those not on, or about to be on, payrolls of major pharmaceutical firms) say Omicron has been over-hyped.

Symptoms are relatively mild, an observation also shared by scientists in Norway, among other places. Case numbers are high, but serious complications are rare and deaths seem to be about non-existent.

If we follow the science, not the doom porn opportunism, Omicron is no big deal.

While we’re here, let’s examine other “science.”

Criminal science prevailed in the case of Jussie Smollett, the C-list television actor who has been convicted of concocting a story about being attacked by racist, homophobic Trump supporters in Chicago in January 2019.

Smollett apparently thought he had the thing wired considering he is both black and gay.

Social media – megaphone of morons – was rife with self-proclaimed experts weighing in immediately on how despicable the act had been. It began at the top with clueless Joe Biden and trickled down through other usual suspects eager to virtue signal their disgust at this “hate crime.”

Now that the legal system says it was all made up, like Tawana Brawley’s similarly ballyhooed 1971 fictional racial attack, we eagerly await some apologies from the experts who were dead wrong.

From the realm of economic science, perhaps you’ve heard that the “Build Back Better” social spending giveaway program the Democrats are so eager to ram through into law is supposed to be revenue neutral. That’s government-speak for it won’t cost any additional money.

But the Congressional Budget Office was out today with a report that the plan figures to add $3 TRILLION to the deficit from 2022-2031.

I know politicians spending other people’s money tend to fudge. But there’s a lot of room between zero and $3 trillion.

Lastly, we offer a doubleheader of bastardized political science.

First example: New York City will allow non-citizens to vote in its municipal elections – a number put at 800,000 by some. I’m sure the fact that these could be counted on to vote overwhelmingly Democratic has nothing to do with this. Just ignore the blatant Constitutional questions raised by it.

Second example: Facebook’s lawyers, in fighting a defamation case brought by someone who felt wronged when his video was labeled misleading by the social media site’s “fact checkers,” have argued there are no facts used in fact check, but rather just opinions.

When we’re talking opinions, it matters greatly whose opinion is being used as the basis for censorship. The fact that social media is controlled by far-left types, it’s fair to presume that their opinions would tilt far-left, too.

This tends to confirm what has long been argued by conservatives who are randomly blocked, demeaned and otherwise treated as second-class citizens on social media.

Social media needs someone along the lines of Joe “Just The Facts” Friday from the Dragnet TV series as a fact checker.

Some day, perhaps. Maybe when politicians stop misrepresenting costs of their giveaway programs, when COVID data is reported in an even-handed fashion and when race-baiters end up getting their just desserts.

Don’t hold your breath waiting.

Behold, my variation of 20 questions.

1 — Is anyone else concerned over reports that a Los Angeles school gave a 13-year-old COVID vaccine without his mother’s permission, then allegedly used a bribe of pizza in an attempt to keep him from telling her about the jab?

2– Do you agree with me (as posted here previously) and a Rabobank analyst (writing yesterday) that with each fresh national humiliation Joe Biden is looking more and more like Jimmy Carter, the last one-term Democratic U.S. President?

3 – If Omicron is a highly transmissable, yet mostly harmless COVID variant, doesn’t that help us toward herd immunity, thereby cutting back on the need for vaccines and endless booster shots?

4 – Speaking of COVID, do you find it at all heartening that un-elected, self-appointed vaccine czar Bill Gates is saying now that perhaps the “acute phase” of the virus pandemic might come to an end in 2022?

5 – Are you shocked to read that CNN, the most busted name in news, had to fire Chris Cuomo for journalistic lapses and now is facing allegations that host Don Lemon was tipping off Jussie Smollett that Chicago police weren’t necessarily buying his lynching story?

6 – Anyone else notice that White House mouthpiece DisinJenuous Psaki has the same eyes as described by the Quint character in the movie “Jaws” when he said sharks had “lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes.”?

7 – Should we be relieved by a United Kingdom assertion that the rise in heart conditions among young men is not due to COVID vaccines, but rather is “post-pandemic stress disorder”?

8 – Somehow we all should relax now that CIA chief Bill Burns says his spy network (which advised Joe Biden Afghanistan would not fall quickly to the Taliban) says there is no evidence that Iran is weaponizing its nuclear program?

9 – Are you shaking your head over news that a grocery store in San Francisco has had to install gates and fencing inside the store to make smash-and-grab looting more difficult for the looters?

10 – Can we in the U.S. be far behind the path mandated by the New Zealand prime minister who said that there would be no easing of the COVID vaccination push until all residents have been jabbed – repeatedly?

11 – Have you heard that the Quebec Maple Syrup Producers, the so-called Canadian OPEC of the stuff that tastes so good on pancakes, has had a release from its strategic reserve to cope with shortages?

12 – What does it mean when Food and Drug Administration has asked a judge to give it 75 YEARS before it must release data concerning the Pfizer COVID vaccine?

13 – Are hate crime charges in the future for the man who allegedly set fire to a Christmas tree outside the New York City offices of Fox News?

14 – Should we laugh or cry when Pfizer tells us we need only three of its jabs to neutralize the Omicron COVID variant, the one with extremely mild symptoms and few if any resulting deaths?

15 – And what should we make of over 120 children in Vietnam being hospitalized in the wake of being given a Pfizer COVID vaccine?

16 – Why did it take so long for Clueless Joe Biden’s Marxist nominee for comptroller of the currency to withdraw from consideration in view of the reality that she had no chance of confirmation due to some Democrats joining Republicans in refusing to approve?

17 – Did you know that Dec. 7 was both the anniversary of Japan’s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor and the end of the annual Medicare open enrollment period?

18 – Has anyone else noticed that New England, sans defending Super Bowl champion Tom Brady, has the best record in the NFL’s American Football Conference at 9-4?

19 – Should we be bored that the SEC once again looks poised to claim the top level college football national championship and likely it will be two SEC teams – Alabama and Georgia – who will meet in the title game?

20 – Where does everyone want to go with Brandon?

I’ve somehow missed it until today, but apparently rumors are rampant that Greater Johnstown is poised for an influx of hundreds of migrant families, presumably from south of our national border.

It’s a different slant on a familiar tale for our area.

One political candidate and frequent critic of both City Government and the Greater Johnstown School District, not that long ago counted 14 low-income housing sites within the city limits.

This doesn’t include the growth of Section 8 housing dispersed through the metropolitan area.

Many of these facilities are kept occupied by advertising campaigns designed to lure those from much larger cities who are on the public dole to come here so their freebie dollars will go further due to our lower cost of living.

The critic’s point is that the resulting influx of people from Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and other urban areas hasn’t exactly resulted in us getting the cream of the crop of those residents.

Read the crime roundup in the local liberal house organ newspaper – whenever the chief propagandist decides to run one – and note how often there are references to people formerly from out of the area and/or still living in those areas, but coming here to pursue free-enterprise ventures such as dealing drugs. That is perhaps while bunking in low-income housing units occupied by associates from the old ‘hood.

These newcomers are bringing more and more crime into an area that, when I was growing up, used to compete for the lowest crime rate in the nation.

Admittedly, critics back then suspected numbers were being massaged, sort of like current-day national election totals or COVID-19 death figures, or the local newspaper’s phone bank, pump-up-the-vote approach to getting us named Hockeyville a few years back.

Regardless, now even a thorough massage wouldn’t get us within spitting (shooting?) distance of those low-crime days.

Looking at statistics on Neighborhoodscout.com, Johnstown is safer per capita than just six percent of cities nationwide.

We should be so proud!

Predictably, our largest area school district, which produces more than its share of unprepared graduates, thinks throwing more money at the problem will solve everything.

Already blessed with more money per pupil than other area school districts due to governmental handouts, administrators are universally Oliver Twist-like with begging bowls in hand asking various governmental agencies, “Please sir, I want some more.”

This is the triumph of hope over experience.

Much was made over Joe Biden’s messy retreat from Afghanistan, an exclamation point to the loss in America’s lengthiest war. That forgets that in the mid-1960’s President Lyndon Johnson declared his War on Poverty, the gameplan being to give, give, give taxpayer dollars to the impoverished.

Almost 60 years later, that “War” rages on, with results arguably worse that those achieved in Afghanistan, both in terms of dollars wasted and limited results achieved.

Certainly the Johnstown battlefield of the War on Poverty has been lost. What once was a small industrial city long on relatively highly paid workers in steel mills and mines, has devolved to an outpost that annually is ranked the poorest town in Pennsylvania with a population under 25,000 people.

Before the crime escalation, Johnstown used to be known as The Friendly City. Due to numerous natural disasters, it also had been called The Flood City.

Now, with poverty the only growth industry locally, we should be The City On The Dole.

Or, in a nod to rampant crime activity, we could be The Crime Capital.

Either fits, unfortunately.

Last week, in a combination confessional and gambling advice post, I talked about my online sports betting.

The point then — and now — was that DraftKings provided so many promotions for things such as table games it made it possible for someone like me to be terrible betting on sports and still make money on the site.

Fast-forward to Friday and famed investor Jim Chanos was out publicly with word that he’s shorting the stock of DraftKings. To be short a stock is to be betting on a decline in its price so the shares you borrowed to sell now can be bought back later at a lower price, giving you a profit.

One downside of shorting is your potential losses are infinite, while your potential gains are limited to the price of the stock – it can only go to zero.

And DraftKings stock predictably dropped Friday on the Chanos news, closing at $28.37 a share, off $2.93 for the day. Chanos reasoned that DraftKings spends too much on its marketing and can’t be expected to make money until that changes.

I’m no genius, but I had wondered often about a business model giving away so much money. Chanos seemed to be thinking the same, but I’m doubting he came to this conclusion by eking out $10 in promotional profit dollars as I often did.

I will note that DraftKings has cut back of late on the no-brainer table games incentives, so maybe they had gotten the message prior to the Chanos declaration.

Regardless, Chanos is a bit late to the party with his short. DraftKings stock traded over $71 a share as recently as late March of this year.

Also, lest you paint Chanos as an investment genius, he publicly claimed to be short Tesla stock in May of 2016. By January of 2021, Tesla stock was up 1800. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch

DraftKings can only dream that Chanos will be as wrong on this short bet.

This whole Chanos-DraftKings matter is instructive on several levels.

First, lest you think the experts you see on TV business shows are somehow superhuman, understand they make plenty of mistakes. They just are slow to revisit them.

It also occurs to me, with regret, it’s too late for me to pursue a career as a TV weather guy, for which I seem to be qualified in terms of results.

Allow me to expand. I’m consistently hitting maybe two or three out of every 10 sports bets, which is terrible. Many of my wins are like the situation I’m currently in, an opportunity pointed out to me by my son, where DraftKings offered two betting boosts on the Alabama-Georgia SEC title game, allowing one to lock in a profit by betting both sides.

If Georgia were to win by 7 or more points, I’d get a bigger profit. But even if Alabama covers, I still make more money than I spent on betting on both Georgia and Alabama.

Should Chanos be reading this – about as likely as me running off 50 consecutive correct sports bets – you’re right, Jim, about the DraftKings marketing costs, but . . .

Back to the weather guy angle – they are lionized for being right maybe two or three times out of 10.

At our local station, the Armageddon Severe Weather Stormwatch We’re All Going To Die reports are, more often not, exercises in spewing weather doom porn.

Afterward, if they have overstated things, which is most often the case, they show up in subsequent broadcasts telling the viewers how lucky we are to have dodged a bullet.

And if they actually got it right, there is an orgy of self-congratulation that threatens to tear both rotator cuffs from excessive patting on the back.

Chanos likely will exhibit this behavior down the line. If DraftKings stock continues to tank, he’ll show up on shows to take some bows.

But, if the DK stock soars like Tesla, the Chanos short will be relegated to the dustbin of bad investment decisions and discussion of same will be avoided in pleasant company.

Unsolicited advice to disgraced CNN anchor Chris “Fredo” Cuomo: If the bosses offer you a fishing trip on a small boat, don’t go.

On second thought, do go, and take disgraced big brother Andrew Cuomo with you. Swimming with the fishes sounds like fun.

Smug and arrogant, Fredo Cuomo not inexplicably had a prime time gig with CNN, AKA Fake News. Fredo sometimes used this electronic soap box to spar verbally with, but always end up fawning over, Andrew.

The COVID-19 crisis was the pinnacle for the Brothers Cuomo. Andrew won an Emmy for his COVID-19 press conferences even as charges mounted against him — from killing elderly in nursing homes by mandating that those facilities take in COVID-infected patients, to being all hands and lips too often when females were around.

Andrew eventually got drummed out of the New York Governor’s office on the sexual misconduct allegations. Fatally mismanaging nursing homes apparently is OK.

And that same series of sexual indiscretions with females that brought down Andrew also snared Fredo, who violated just about every aspect of the so-called journalistic code, then lied about it to the public and to his bosses regarding the ways he was helping his brother combat allegations.

CNN looked the other way for a very long time, but finally has announced that Fredo is suspended “indefinitely.” Many are presuming that means he’s gone, at least from CNN.

No doubt the garbage dump of MSNBC, the same cable “news” operation that had an operative tailing the jury bus in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, will be eager to add Fredo to the Rachel Maddow misinformation stream.

But for now Fredo twists in the wind. The official CNN on-air announcement of Fredo’s suspension spoke volumes about the network. Anderson Cooper delivered the news while CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin was on the set with him.

That might provide hope for Fredo. If CNN is willing to put Toobin back on the air, after he very famously masturbated during a Zoom call, in the view of colleagues both male and female, then maybe Fredo’s lapse won’t prove fatal to his career.

But if Fredo is gone, we must pause a moment and observe that karma is, indeed, a female dog.

Now if only karma can catch up to Hunter Biden, another Fredo-like character whose chief talent is monetizing the family name.

Welcome to the era of Ready, Shoot, Aim! or its sister school of thought When In Doubt, Panic!

Thoughtful deliberation these days brands one as a dinosaur. To be measured in one’s response is to be timid, labeled a denier and, most importantly, subject to legal action by the Monday Morning Quarterbacks who now all seem to practice ambulance-chasing law.

Better to be quick and be wrong, than to wait and be proven correct, even if that can take some time.

We have another variation of COVID-19, which perhaps you have read was Nu, now updated to Omicron.

Initial reactions were to overreact as if the barbarians were at the gate and the police force had been de-funded.

Investment markets cratered on the initial news of the virus variation.

Politicians are in a mad dash to one-up each other in terms of draconian measures to limit travel and the like.

Just today there were dueling stories about where we go from here, with each claiming the high road of following “the science.”

In Germany, an expert from a biotech company advised the populace “Don’t freak out,” explaining that vaccines would work against the variation. Presumably it’s the same for herd immunity acquired from having had the illness.

Also, the guy said the Omicron symptoms should be mild, even if you become infected.

But a Moderna executive said the current vaccines likely won’t work and a new cocktail of such will be needed moving forward. It no doubt is mere coincidence that this will allow drug makers such as, say, Moderna, to sell a lot more vaccines.

Weighing against the Omicron panic is word from South Africa , the variation’s alleged epicenter, that cases declined by about 400, from 2,308 on Nov. 28 to 1,909 on Nov. 29. The total had been 700 higher two days before Nov. 29.

This is not the stuff of a raging epidemic, especially if the symptoms of the infected are relatively mild.

Also arguing against panic in general is the report from an Oxford professor that face diapers (masks) seem to make little difference regarding infection rates of COVID in general. England dropped its mask mandate in July while Scotland kept its mask mandate in force.

Remember when self-proclaimed genius Fauci said if one mask it good, two, three or more are even better?

There has been “no meaningful difference” since the policy change between the infection rates in the two countries.

Mammoth investment bank Goldman Sachs, which like Moderna also has a vested interest considering how the Omicron hysteria has punished investing markets, has come down hard on the side of this being yet more over-reaction from politicians eager for any way to push their ridiculous agendas.

Which side is correct? In the final analysis, you get to make the call.

Will you buy into yet more hype and hysteria; more doom porn?

Or, will you use your brain for more than packing to limit echoes in your cranium and wait to see what the “actual science” of real-world outcomes has to say on the matter of Omicron?

The fear merchants are betting on most choosing the former course of action. Prove them wrong.

Today’s subject is sports betting. But first there are some thoughts to be offered on the internal conflicts of life as exemplified by dueling platitudes and/or literary references.

Is it absence makes the heart grow fonder, or out of sight, out of mind?

Is it, as written by the poet Robert Browning, “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s heaven for?”

Or is it more accurate to cite the line uttered by the Dirty Harry character in the movie “Magnum Force,” that being “A man’s got to know his limitations.”

What this has to do with wagering is, for a guy who spent three decades covering sports, I’m awful at sports betting.

I’m terrible. I know it. I should avoid it – know my limitations so to speak.

Instead, I’m looking for Heaven by trying to have my reach exceed my grasp,

Today, my initial thought was Ohio State would crush Michigan in a college football showdown. But I didn’t like the 7.5-point spread — the victory margin the Buckeyes would need to surpass for me to win my bet. I also checked the weather for Ann Arbor, Mich., which was forecast to be cold and snowy, and liked the line even less.

The decision was made to avoid the game altogether. In hindsight, for the reasons cited, I should have taken Michigan and the points. Alas, I didn’t. I’m terrible at betting, remember.

Instead, I withdrew some money from my Draft Kings account to boost my mood.

How do I have money in the account if I’m so bad at betting? Glad you asked.

I employ the small-ball strategy. I look for promotions, such as bet $25 on blackjack, or roulette, or some other table game, and get incentives such as $5 of free casino credits, or a free $5 sports bet.

When I get two free bets, I bookend a game, taking both sides thereby guaranteeing one win.

Table games such as roulette or blackjack or baccarat, if played correctly in terms of decisions you make, should come out with the player winning just under 50 percent. Then you make the profit with the free credits or bets.

Net $5 here or $10 there a few times a week and it adds up. That’s if you do not give it back with poor sports bets and while I keep betting on sports, I keep it really small – talking maybe $1 a bet, $5 max.

This was turning into a nice part-time job until Draft Kings just about did away with the promotions I like.

So, I’m taking out $140 today and leaving $101.40 in the account. Pay yourself first like the financial planners say.

As I write, Michigan is up by seven points late in the fourth quarter, so even if Ohio State somehow pulls out a win, it’s virtually impossible to cover the 7.5-point spread. And now Michigan has scored again. Game over.

Just to keep life interesting, I do have $1 on the Penn State-Michigan State game, a single-game parlay. I read on ESPN, that a flu outbreak is worsening among Michigan State’s players. This raised the spread from 3.5 points to 5.5, with Penn State favored.

Although I think Penn State’s team and coach are both severely overrated, I took Penn State giving 5.5 and parlayed that with a bet on the combined points under bet of 51.5 for the game.

My $1 wagered would pay $3.60 if I got it right. Likely I didn’t, although that game has yet to start.

I also would have liked to have gotten down on Alabama vs. Auburn, but I didn’t like having to give 19.5 points to take Alabama. I’ll just watch that one and save my buck.

Now, come on Nittany Lions.

We awoke Friday to a strange, Nu world, as in another COVID variation designated Nu and the customary hysteria that this one is worse than all others, possibly immune to vaccines, etc.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Anyone else recall Delta?

I find the Nu timing striking since just yesterday I wrote in celebration of a family holiday gathering that refused to buy into the fear porn being spread about COVID in general. I also had noted how people around the world were getting fed up with restrictions and losses of freedom in the alleged pursuit of COVID protection.

Can it be coincidence that the people operating the levers behind the curtain have come out with a fresh variant to herd the sheep back into line?

Reaction to the latest scare has been predictably nonsensical. For example, gold quickly traded up markedly, to the range of $1,818 or so an ounce. Silver was up to the $23.70 an ounce range.

Precious metals tend to be canaries in the coal mine, indicating problems dead ahead. Their price rises made sense.

Your masters know this and act quickly to stem rallies. Witness today gold crashing quickly to a low of $1,780 before rebounding a bit to close just over $1,790.

Silver was bludgeoned down to $22.90 an ounce before rallying a bit to just about $23.09.

Some might think I’m paranoid about this. But the evidence is there. Just Google JP Morgan and precious metals manipulation settlements and you will find multiple entries showing the bank paying fines and admitting wrongdoing in the trading of precious metals and other assets.

Basically, bullion banks create false “spoof” sell orders and owing to their massive computing power and co-location close to exchanges, they can withdraw those orders just as you try to act. But this gets sentiment and momentum moving in the direction the bullion banks want, creating selloffs.

Another trick is to have un-Godly large amounts of paper bullion contracts sell in seconds, overwhelming the supply-demand factors and dropping the prices.

The reverse of this is the so-called Plunge Protection Team, which rushes into stock and bond markets in the midst of crashes to buy, buy, buy and stem the tide.

You can Google that one, too. Apparently the decision was made to let the stock indices founder on Friday’s shortened trading session. The boys will be watching intently market action in Asia Monday (beginning about 6 p.m. Sunday our time) and European trading that follows, as well as futures prices for our indices, to decide how much liquidity will be pumped into our markets once trading opens here

Oil was among the commodities hit Friday because of course going forward no one will ever again travel and economies will be put into yet another deep freeze in overreaction to COVID news.

It makes little sense, but panic seldom does.

Even as all this virus-related asset dumping was unfolding, a pair of interesting stories moved that likely will be ignored by the LameStream media.

In one, a New York ER has had to close because so many of its medical employees refused a mandate to get a COVID vaccination. Customarily, such refusals are blamed on uneducated conservatives. But I’m thinking nurses and the like in an ER are educated and have a fairly good feel for potential risks and general ineffectiveness of so-called vaccines, which are really gene therapy.

Also, a whistleblower has come forward with claims of fraud by Pfizer in its vaccine trials.

Recall how any supposed “whistleblower” critical of Donald Trump was to be believed without question, even lionized for bravery in going public.

I suspect the Pfizer whistleblower won’t get the same velvet glove treatment from the Lapdog media.

Bottom line: The psychological operation continues regarding COVID, an early Christmas gift to all of us that we might like to return.

Thanksgiving was particularly enjoyable this year as the extended family gave a collective middle finger to the people who would use COVID-19 to control our lives.

Members of the daughter-in-law’s family drove in from Minnesota, CROSSING STATE LINES as the Rittenhouse critics would scream, to visit for the holiday. Some arrived by plane, also from Minnesota.

A get-together was held in a rented meeting room at a hotel. Food was prepared. Much contact within six feet was observed. Masks were eschewed.

We did all the things that would horrify Clueless Joe Biden and Flipflop Fauci. At least they would express horror for public consumption regarding such get-togethers as ours, while exhibiting maximum hypocrisy by flitting about mask-less and in close proximity to others as long as they felt insulated from public view.

Media cretins, such as those at CBS, would profess horror, too. They were suggesting on the eve of the holiday that hosts should quiz guests about vaccination status and even do rapid tests before admitting visitors to the celebration.

Some members of our family are vaccinated. Some are not. Many of us have had COVID-19, so if you follow the science, we have herd immunity.

It’s both amusing and sad to think that such family gatherings are frowned upon by the powers that be and their media lapdogs. But, increasingly both here and among the traditional sheep-like populaces of Europe and elsewhere, the public is rising up to just say no to arbitrary restrictions on travel and mingling.

Take a moment now to think of all the absolute BS we’ve been fed. First there was a supposed two-week halt in intermingling to slow the spread of the virus. Then there were masks, or multiple masks.

Next up was a vaccine shot. Then two shots. Then boosters. Then papers, please, to prove vaccination to shop, travel, work at your old job.

If you think this will end any time soon, well, check yourself into the gullibility ward.

The details change, but the bottom line is your freedom is being taken from you with each more intrusive escalation of restrictions under the guise of fighting COVID-19.

As we ate, we talked. It was what used to pass for normal Middle-American conversation, but now would have us branded as racist domestic terrorists by the mouthy, radical left.

Example: There was agreement Kyle Rittenhouse deserved his exoneration in court. Also there was agreement that the killers of Ahmaud Arbery got what they deserved in the form of guilty verdicts.

In each case, we believed that the legal system had worked. Now, in one example, that hadn’t been enough and protests erupted to dispute the outcome.

In the other case , as far as we know, there has been no violence from those who would deny that justice was done.

This speaks volumes about the partisan divide of this nation, one leadership from the likes of Biden, Fauci and lapdog media only helps to widen.

Dare we dream that by next Thanksgiving these purveyors of fear porn will have been rebuffed totally by a populace fed up with their propaganda?

It is with amusement that I observe the national penchant for demonstrating bad attitude has spilled into online selling.

I am aware of this because in the past year and change I’ve bought three cars that I first saw listed online (all three on Facebook Marketplace although I also check Craigslist religiously). While my experience with these three sellers has been good, I’ve also had a run of inquiries regarding other cars that produced bizarre results.

And while I haven’t contacted directly some of the other, most moronic posters that I’ve seen, I can deduce from their listings that they would be trouble with a capital T.

A common ad from those with attitude cramps runs something like this: I’m selling the car, but don’t ask for specifics. I know what it’s worth (despite reputable online pricing sites such as Kelley Blue Book quoting a much lower price) and won’t give it away. To repeat, don’t ask me a lot of questions (Such intrusive inquires as service records, ownership history, any known problems are out of bounds.) If you message me, I might get back to you. Or I might just ignore you. But if you show up and force the money into my face, I might be willing to sell you the car.

Another variation goes like this: Yes, I’m listing the vehicle for sale, but I’m just testing the waters to see if anyone is interested and what they will pay. I don’t need to sell the vehicle. I’m just curious. Don’t lowball me. Don’t waste my time asking a lot of questions about the car. If you show up with cash and ask pretty please, I might let you sniff the exhaust. Or I might slam the door in your face. You have to take your chances.

And then there is this variation: No joy rides. Won’t even talk to you unless you have money in hand. I know what I have and what it is worth, so bring stacks of hundreds and we might talk. Did I mention you need to bring piles of cash?

I wonder, and perhaps you do, too, about someone who proposes a potential sales situation with such attitudes.

Asking questions about the car’s history and usage is perfectly reasonable in an arms-length transaction such as buying a used car. Also, insisting on someone showing up with thousands of dollars in cash to meet a total stranger demands trust from them that you are obviously not willing to reciprocate.

There also is the matter of routinely withdrawing and possibly redepositing large amounts of cash in one’s bank accounts raising the antenna of our friends at the federal government and flagging you as a potential criminal.

I missed some warning signs in trekking to the extreme southwest part of West Virginia (Nitro) to look at a Mustang. The car was listed by a female for her older parents.

The give and take over the phone with the parents was difficult, but eventually I made arrangements, rounded up my son and we drove down to look at the car. It had charging codes in the electrical system that the owner had understated, making it a coin flip as to whether we’d be able to drive it home successfully.

But the kicker was, when I eventually decided the risk was not worth taking, the guy celebrated because he hadn’t wanted to sell the car anyway and was only listing it to keep peace with his wife.

That hadn’t come up in our conversations, or I might have saved myself a considerable trip,

I’ve also inquired about car listings and had people tell me they were busy so I couldn’t come and look at the car that day, only to check back the next day and find they’d sold it the previous night.

Me being me, I found myself obliged to point out what poor form they had displayed.

I’ve also had people blatantly misrepresent the car’s history, which sometimes can be checked for free online and otherwise can be confirmed with paid services.

There have been times I’ve driven to look at cars only to find them in much worse condition than represented. I’ve also arrived only to have the seller refuse to let me drive the car.

I bought one of my Mustangs from such a guy, but only after I told him no dice on the no drive and he decided I could drive the car after all.

Only once in my life have I bought a car, new or used, without first driving it. And that was because I trusted by brother to look at and purchase a 1967 Mustang fastback for me in 1979 because I needed to work that night.

At that time, the car was listed in a newspaper classified, which meant the owner had paid to advertise it and wasn’t just checking the market or looking to placate his spouse, but not really looking to sell the car.

With each fresh search of the online ads, I find myself getting a tad nostalgic for those days.