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You in a heap o’ trouble, boy! Just plain senseless

People tend to try to make some sense of events that seem entirely senseless, but sometimes it’s an exercise in futility. From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Nicholas Heyward-Walton, photo via Steve Keeley, Fox 29 News.

Philadelphia man arrested, charged with shooting 80-year-old man in the head on Labor Day

Police arrested Nicholas Heyward-Walton on Tuesday, after accusing him of shooting an 80-year-old man in the head and neck on Labor Day.

by Rodrigo Torrejón | Wednesday, September 6, 2023 | 2:29 PM EDT

Philadelphia police have arrested a man they say shot an 80-year-old in the head on Labor Day in what appears to have been a random attack, police said Wednesday.

The victim is now in critical condition, officials said.

Shortly after 9 a.m. Monday, police responded to the 2600 block of Tasker Street for a report of a shooting. When officers arrived, they found the 80-year-old man, whom police did not identify, unresponsive in the street, with gunshot wounds to his head and neck.

Police took him to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where he was in critical condition Wednesday, said Capt. James Kearney, head of the nonfatal shootings unit.

On Tuesday, police arrested Nicholas Heyward-Walton, 25, at his home on the 1500 block of South Bailey Street. He was charged with attempted murder and related offenses, police said.

No, of course the Inquirer didn’t include Mr Heyward-Walton’s mugshot; I got that from Steve Keeley of Fox 29 News. The left hate Fox 29, because they report all the serious crime news.

You know what else the newspaper didn’t include? Mr Heyward-Walton’s rap sheet! This fine young gentleman was already out on bond for crimes including terroristic threats, PA 18 §2706, which, depending on circumstances, is either first degree misdemeanor or third degree felony. He was released on August 14th on that one.

But the young man has previous convictions, including criminal mischief, PA 18 §3304(a)(1), a third degree felony, for which the penalty includes up to seven years in the state penitentiary, and criminal trespass, PA 18 §3503(a)(1)(ii), a second degree felony, which carries a sentence of up to ten years in prison.

So, guess to how many years Mr Heyward-Walton was sentenced. If you guessed zero, you guessed correctly. On October 6, 2021, he was sentenced to a maximum of two years probation! And yes, of course it was a plea bargain arrangement: the court record states: “Guilty plea – negotiated”.

Those two years are not quite up yet, so he could be sent straight to jail, but for only another month.

Yet, if the suspect had been sentenced to just two years in prison, and assuming he had not been released early, he would have still been in jail on Labor Day, and — assuming that he is the actual Labor Day shooter — his victim would not have been shot. If he had been sentenced to two years behind bars, he’d be looking forward to getting out of jail next month.

Instead, an 80-year-old man is in the hospital, fighting for his life, while this misunderstood 25-year-old is looking at, if his victim succumbs to his injuries, perhaps life in prison without the possibility of parole.

So, did District Attorney Larry Krasner do the suspect any real favors? Mr Krasner and his minions are very much opposed to ‘mass incarceration,’ but if Mr Heyward-Walton had been incarcerated for just those two years, he wouldn’t be looking at being incarcerated for the rest of his miserable life.

Would the suspect have learned anything had he been locked up? Would he have learned that hey, maybe prison isn’t a great place to be? Would he have been at least somewhat rehabilitated? There’s really no way of knowing. But what he did learn, by not being sent to jail, is that he could get away with stupid stuff, that Mr Krasner and his fellow travelers aren’t really interested in punishing anyone for crimes.

And here’s the kicker, the article’s final sentence:

There was no altercation between the victim and the shooter, said Kearney, and the shooting appeared to be random.

If this turns out to be the case, the shooting becomes truly senseless. Even someone with a room temperature IQ ought to know that trying to kill someone is something that would probably not be ignored.

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Did $24 million of SEPTA’s money go up in smoke?

I am wryly amused. 🙂

In the left’s rush to phase out reliable gasoline-ort-diesel-powered vehicles, sometimes the amusing happens. The City of Brotherly Love, in its desire to go green, bought 25 battery-electric buses from California manufacturer Proterra in 2016.

It didn’t turn out well:

A Proterra electric bus battery caught fire in a South Philly SEPTA depot

There have been several battery-related fires in electric buses and cars.

by Ryan W. Briggs and Thomas Fitzgerald | November 11, 2022 | 12:08 PM EST

A battery power pack in a sidelined electric bus ignited Wednesday at SEPTA’s Southern Bus Depot, occupying city fire crews for hours and delivering another possible setback to efforts to build a low-emission fleet in Philadelphia.

No injuries were reported.

The transit agency bought 25 battery-electric buses from California manufacturer Proterra in 2016, but all have been parked at the depot since 2020 after discovery of cracks in bus frames and performance problems.

That third quoted paragraph is the money line: all 25 Proterra have been parked since 2020, because they were pieces of feces had problems. A SEPTA spokeswoman confirmed that the fire’s origin was traced to lithium ion battery units inside the bus.

Further down: Continue reading →

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#COVID19: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself!”

Despite a very significant drop in serious COVID-19 cases, the fear-mongers have to ramp up the fear!

We reported, last Friday, on the actual numbers. Using statistics taken from The Philadelphia Inquirer, not exactly an evil reich-wing news source, we did the actual math:

In Pennsylvania, weekly COVID hospital admissions rose from 281 cases on Aug. 5 to 403 cases on Aug. 19, the most recent week for which data are available through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There were 1,453 weekly COVID hospital admissions reported in the same week of August last year, according to the CDC.

Naturally, the Inky didn’t do the math, but we did: 403 cases in 2023 ÷ 1,453 cases the same week last year = 0.27735719201651754989676531314522, or 27.74%. COVID cases serious enough to require hospitalization are just 27.74% of what they were last year! If “In Pennsylvania, weekly COVID hospital admissions rose from 281 cases on Aug. 5 to 403 cases on Aug. 19,” we have to ask: how many people live in Pennsylvania? According to the Census Bureau’s July 1, 2022 population guesstimate, there were 12,972,008 living in the Keystone State. 403 ÷ 12,972,008 = 3.1066894192479683947157602739684e-5. That means that 0.003107%, 3.107 people out of every 100,000, of the state’s population were sick enough with COVID-19 to be hospitalized, and most of those hospitalized will survive.

In the story noting that First Lady Jill Biden tested positive for the Fauxi Flu, we quoted CNN’s report stating that there were “four new hospital admissions for every 100,000 people nationwide in the week ending August 19,” still a pretty low number, and a gross statistic which could mean anything from a range of 3.51 to 4.49 per 100,000. That was poor journalism, and our guess is that, if the number were any significant fraction over 4, CNN would have used that. But, even if it were in the higher end of that range, it’s still a low number.

Yet, once again, we get more media fearmongering! Continue reading →

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Jill Biden has #COVID19

So, how many booster shots has she had, and on what schedule? What variant of SARS-CoV-2 did Jill Biden contract? Was Mrs Biden waiting on the mid-September release of the next variant of the booster? I guess that she should’ve masked up, the way the worry-warts and panic-stricken have been saying!

First lady Jill Biden tests positive for Covid-19

By Mary Kay Mallonee and Donald Judd, CNN | Updated 9:22 PM EDT, Labor Day, September 4, 2023 | Updated 7:26 AM EDT, Tue September 5, 2023

“First lady Jill Biden tested positive for Covid-19 on Monday and is experiencing “mild symptoms,” the White House said. President Joe Biden has tested negative.

The diagnosis has upended the first lady’s plans to begin teaching the fall semester at Northern Virginia Community College on Tuesday. She is working with the school to “ensure her classes are covered by a substitute,” Vanessa Valdivia, the first lady’s spokesperson, said. Continue reading →

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Killadelphia: Street Justice! It seems as though the neighborhood didn't wait for the Philadelphia Police to make an arrest for the murder of Hezekiah Bernard

We asked, on the last day of August, how a 12-year-old boy can just disappear in the City of Brotherly Love, and nobody noticed until his dead body showed up in the trash more than a week later.

Steve Keeley of Fox 29 News provided the map of the two murder sites. Click to enlarge.

A teen killed Saturday in West Philly was a person of interest in a 12-year-old’s murder, sources say

Hundreds of comments on social media had called for vigilante justice against Tysheer Hankinson, who was considered by police to be a person of interest in Hezekiah Bernard’s death in August.

by Vinny Vella and Ellie Rushing | Sunday, September 3, 2023 | 2:25 PM EDT

An Upper Darby teen who was a person of interest in the killing of a 12-year-old boy found dead in a dumpster in Philadelphia last month and who himself had survived a shooting in April was killed early Saturday morning, law enforcement sources said.

Tysheer Shahe Hankinson, 16, was found just after 1 a.m. shot multiple times in his neck, face, left leg, and body on Poplar Street near 55th in West Philadelphia, according to police. Medics took him to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

There was no information about a suspect Sunday, and no murder weapon was recovered.

Hankinson was considered a potential suspect and person of interest in the death of Hezekiah Bernard, whose body, wrapped in plastic and shot in the head, was found in a dumpster outside of a public housing complex in West Philadelphia on Aug. 23, according to law enforcement sources. Bernard had been dead for at least 24 hours, investigators said.

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s subtitle provided the real information: if there were “Hundreds of comments on social media had called for vigilante justice against Tysheer Hankinson,” then the people of the neighborhood knew who they believed killed young Mr Bernard. Continue reading →

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The Democrats want Mitch McConnell out! They're hoping that Governor Andy Beshear, a Democrat, can steal the seat for his party.

The Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal have noticed what everyone else knows:

Mitch McConnell Agonistes

The Beltway double standard on the health of public officials is something to behold.

by The Editorial Board | Friday, September 1, 2023 | 6:44 PM EDT

You can tell who’s loved and hated in Washington by the way they’re treated when they have a health issue. President Biden stumbles through his first term, and is tripping toward another, with nary a notice from the Democratic-media complex about his obvious physical and mental decline. But GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell freezes up twice in five weeks before the cameras and he’s supposed to resign forthwith.

Mr. McConnell, who is 81 years old, clearly isn’t the same since he fell and suffered a concussion in March. His speech has long been slow but it seems more labored now. The moments when he has frozen for 20 seconds or so, and had to be helped by colleagues or aides, are difficult to watch. Continue reading →

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The union-supporting Philadelphia Inquirer is appalled that building trades unions are mostly white Don't complain that the unions are doing the things which benefit their members and members' families while concomitantly giving that power to the unions in the first place!

A man with whom I worked in 1987-88, who owned his own plumbing company, once told me how he made so much money. It was because he was willing to stick his hands into other people’s [insert slang term for feces here]. My 5’0″ tall wife used to be a nursing assistant, and is now a registered nurse, so she has had to be willing to do the same thing, albeit not in clearing out plumbing lines.

So, I had to laugh when I saw this main editorial in The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Diversifying the building trades would be a win for Philadelphia | Editorial

Likely mayor Cherelle Parker and union chief Ryan Boyer must work together to open up good-paying jobs long denied to people of color.

by The Editorial Board | Saturday, September 2, 2023 | 5:45 AM EDT

When Labor Day 1963 was celebrated, most of organized labor in America was on the right side of history as a firm ally in the civil rights movement. A few days earlier, unions had been an important part of the broad coalition that made possible the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, organized by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

I will admit to being wryly amused that the editors of the Inquirer chose to make this editorial available to paid subscribers only, since that is going to limit its message to people who are already making enough money to be able to afford the $285.48 I waste spend every year to get the newspaper in digital form. $285.48? That’s a week’s worth of groceries for many families, and the very families that the newspaper is saying should have better jobs are the ones who can’t spend extra money on the paper! Continue reading →

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#COVID19: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself!”

My very good electronic friend, William Teach, from whom I stole borrowed the image to the right, noted on Thursday that the Usual Suspects and Fearmongers are once again calling for masking up!

Experts Start To Push Masking Again

By William Teach | Thursday, August 31, 2023 | 7:00 AM EDT

They can piss right off

Should we wear masks again? Covid guidelines experts recommend

The uptick of Covid transmissions this summer has raised questions about whether or not certain safety measures such as wearing masks should be brought back.

Several companies and schools nationwide decided to reinstate Covid mask mandates in light of the rising hospitalisations including Morris Brown College in Atlanta, Lionsgate headquarters in Los Angeles, Kaiser Permanente across all California locations, and several hospitals in the state of New York. Workers and attendees at these locations are now required to wear masks upon entry.

“It is ticking up a little bit, but it’s not something that we need to raise any alarm bells over,” Dr David Dowdy, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told the Seattle Times. Although many health experts like Dr Dowdy don’t believe people have cause to worry, some have expressed their concerns.

While many people have forgone wearing masks, UC San Francisco infectious diseases expert, Dr Peter Chin-Hong, cautioned the Los Angeles Times that swearing off masks for good would put people at higher risk of contracting the virus, elaborating: “Right now, when things are heating up all around the country with Covid, you might want to think about [masking at] public transit and airports.”

No. Just no. People aren’t buying this stuff anymore. Well, most aren’t, there’s always a few. We all know masks do not work. Study after study shows this. If the Powers That Be try this again, most will refuse.

There’s more at the original.

We noted, also on Thursday, the hypocrisy of The Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz whining that everyone should wear masks, to protect others, while she attends Hollywood tea parties maskless, with other unmasked people.

Listen to the propaganda, and you’d believe that COVID Doom is headed for us again! But what happens when you look at the actual numbers?

Philadelphia sees slight rise in COVID hospitalizations

Case counts in 2023 remain well below COVID-19 rates this time last year.

by Sarah Gantz | Thursday, August 31, 2023 | 11:45 AM EDT

The Philadelphia Department of Public Health is urging people to take precautions against COVID-19 as hospitals see a slight rise in cases.

A total of 60 people are currently hospitalized with COVID in Philadelphia, marking the first time since the spring that more than 50 people have been hospitalized with the virus, according to the health department. Case counts remain “far below” illness and hospitalization rates this time three years ago, the department said in a news release.

In Pennsylvania, weekly COVID hospital admissions rose from 281 cases on Aug. 5 to 403 cases on Aug. 19, the most recent week for which data are available through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There were 1,453 weekly COVID hospital admissions reported in the same week of August last year, according to the CDC.

There’s more at the original.

President Biden was among the Fearmongers before the winter of 2021-22, when he said:

We are looking at a winter of severe illness and death for the unvaccinated – for themselves, their families and the hospitals they’ll soon overwhelm. But there’s good news: If you’re vaccinated and you have your booster shot, you’re protected from severe illness and death.

Well, we didn’t have that “winter of severe illness and death” in 2021-22, or in the winter of 2022-23. And now, as The Philadelphia Inquirer reported, at least in Pennsylvania, despite a small uptick, hospital admissions due to COVID-19 are not just down, but way down, from the same period last year.

Naturally, the Inky didn’t do the math, but I will: 403 cases in 2023 ÷ 1,453 cases the same week last year = 0.27735719201651754989676531314522, or 27.74%. COVID cases serious enough to require hospitalization are just 27.74% of what they were last year!

Glenn Greenwald wasn’t talking about the virus when he made the statement:

Fear is crucial for state authority. When the population is filled with it, they will acquiesce to virtually any power the government seeks to acquire in the name of keeping them safe. But when fear is lacking, citizens will crave liberty more than control, and that is when they question official claims and actions. When that starts to happen, when the public feels too secure, institutions of authority will reflexively find new ways to ensure they stay engulfed by fear and thus quiescent.

but it applies anyway. The government are pushing fear, when there is no indication that there is anything reasonable to fear. Yes, COVID-19 cases have ticked up, but they’ve done so very slightly, and are still at much lower levels than they were even as the country was getting back to normal from the panicdemic.

More math: if “In Pennsylvania, weekly COVID hospital admissions rose from 281 cases on Aug. 5 to 403 cases on Aug. 19,” we have to ask: how many people live in Pennsylvania? According to the Census Bureau’s July 1, 2022 population guesstimate, there were 12,972,008 living in the Keystone State. 403 ÷ 12,972,008 = 3.1066894192479683947157602739684e-5. That means that 0.003107%, three people out of every 100,000, of the state’s population were sick enough with COVID-19 to be hospitalized, and most of those hospitalized will survive.

Feel free to check my math, because I already have!

President Franklin Roosevelt, in his inaugural address in 1933, in the depths of the Depression, said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself!” Well, fear is what so many on the left, what so many in the government, is trying to instill in all of us. We must resist that fear, we must resist those attempts, not only because they are unreasoning, but because they are a means by which the government is trying to control the people.

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Killadelphia: How does a 12-year-old boy go missing for over a week, and nobody noticed?

Body of 12-year-old boy, shot in the back of the head, discovered in the trash, after a Philadelphia Housing Authority worker had already collected the garbage bin and taken it to another PHA facility. The boy’s body fell out during the process.

The body of a 12-year-old boy was found in a dumpster in West Philadelphia, police say

Hezekiah Bernard, 12, was found dead in West Philadelphia last week.

by Ellie Rushing and Chris Palmer | Thursday, August 31, 2023 | 11:32 AM EDT | Updated: 3:54 PM EDT

The body found in a dumpster in West Philadelphia last week has been identified as a 12-year-old boy, police said Thursday.

Hezekiah Bernard

Police had said they recovered the body of a young man on the morning of Aug. 23 inside a trash can at a public housing complex at 55th and Cherry Streets.

But for nearly a week, they did not know who he was — or that he was a child.

On Tuesday, he was identified as Hezekiah Bernard, according to Staff Inspector Ernest Ransom, head of the Philadelphia Police Department’s Homicide Unit.

Surprisingly enough, The Philadelphia Inquirer printed young Mr Bernard’s photo.

Bernard’s death has been ruled a homicide. He was shot once in the back of the head and his body was wrapped in plastic, said Ransom. It was not yet known when he was killed, or how long he had been in the dumpster before police recovered his body.

Really? Wouldn’t the police have a good guess due to the missing person report?

Ransom said Bernard had not been reported missing in recent weeks.

So, a 12-year-old boy goes missing, for over a week, and it wasn’t reported?

Who were his parents? Who was the adult responsible for young Mr Bernard?

An autopsy was conducted, but investigators weren’t able to figure out who the victim was, Ransom said. Detectives distributed fliers in West Philadelphia, and on Aug. 29, Bernard’s relatives reached out to the Medical Examiner’s Office and were able to confirm that Bernard was the victim.

“Relatives” may not have been the people actually responsible for the child’s care, so we can’t automatically blame them. But shouldn’t someone have noticed that he was missing? Yeah, my mind is good at speculating what could have happened, but there are too many possibilities, none of them good.