Veronique de Rugy
WASHINGTON The 9/11 attacks gave us the heightened security theater now on display in all U.S. airports. Day after day for the last two decades, Transportation Security Administration agents have patted down travelers from teens to the elderly, looking for weapons that nobody expects to find. While airplane cockpit doors are now locked to prevent hijackings, the pat-downs remain.
And now we have pandemic hygiene theater to give uninformed people a false sense of control and sustain their fear of the virus.
Think of the number of hours that schools, restaurants and other businesses spend wiping down surfaces to prevent COVID-19 transmission even though we’ve known since last July that this wiping isn’t necessary. Yet Americans continue to spend untold hours and dollars wiping surfaces to provide the appearance of virus protection to their patrons.
Senate Bill 134, Authorize penalties for defrauding drug tests: Passed 33 to 1 in the Senate
To make the manufacture, advertisement, sale, or distribution of synthetic urine or another adulterant for purposes of defrauding a drug test a crime subject to one year in prison and a $1,000 fine.
Sen. Ed McBroom, R – Vulcan, Yes
Senate Bill 146, Give tax breaks to some home buyers: Passed 29 to 5 in the Senate
To give a $5,000 state income tax exemption to an individual, and $10,000 on joint returns, if an individual or couple deposits those amounts in a specialty savings account the bill would authorize for individuals who have not bought or owned a Michigan home in the past three years (dubbed by the bill a “first time home buyer”). Up to $50,000 in such deposits could be exempted from state income tax over time. A version of this proposal was vetoed by Gov. Rick Snyder in 2018.
On the Water: Inshore fishing constant despite weather
By Capt. Bill Russell - | Apr 28, 2021
With warm spring weather, snook are hungry. Dave Lewandoski caught and released this healthy 33-inch snook in Pine Island Sound near Cabbage Key fishing with Capt. Bill Russell. PHOTO PROVIDED
First rain, then came the wind, that is how the week played out on the water. Early in the week, several days of thunderstorms brought us much needed rain, then blue skies returned with windy conditions. Offshore, there wasn’t much to report due to conditions, but inshore, anglers hooked into a variety of fish.
Large seatrout were caught and released in good numbers throughout the inshore waters including Matlacha Pass, Pine Island Sound and the perimeter of Charlotte Harbor. Wade fishermen hooked into trout, plus a few snook along Bokeelia shorelines, and kayak anglers boated trout up to 23 inches in Bokeelia’s Jug Creek and Burgess Bay. Kayak anglers also caught seatrout and redfish around
Today in History
Today is Thursday, April 29, the 119th day of 2021. There are 246 days left in the year.
TodayÃs Highlight in History:
On April 29, 1992, a jury in Simi Valley, California, acquitted four Los Angeles police officers of almost all state charges in the videotaped beating of motorist Rodney King; the verdicts were followed by rioting in Los Angeles resulting in 55 deaths.
On this date:
In 1913, Swedish-born engineer Gideon Sundback of Hoboken, New Jersey, received a U.S. patent for a ìseparable fastenerî later known as the zipper.
In 1945, during World War II, American soldiers liberated the Dachau (DAHÃ-khow) concentration camp. Adolf Hitler married Eva Braun inside his ìFuhrerbunkerî and designated Adm. Karl Doenitz (DUHRÃ-nihtz) president.
Patrick Buchanan
How can America unite again to do great things if we are led by people who believe America suffers from a great sickness of the soul, an original sin that dates back to her birth as a nation?
Consider.
After his long night of prayer for “the right verdict” to be pronounced Derek Chauvin was convicted on all three counts Joe Biden stepped before the White House cameras to tell us what it all meant.
George Floyd’s death, said Biden, “was a murder in the full light of day, and it ripped the blinders off for the whole world to see the systemic racism… that is a stain on our nation’s soul the knee on the neck of justice for Black Americans.”