Government = Idiots

I will never understand how anyone can trust the government. They build infrastructure to nowhere. They struggle to deliver the mail. They've wasted the lives of soldiers, interned Japanese, sanctioned slavery, experimented on the unwitting, dumped poisons in neighborhoods, discriminated against whole segments of the population. They admit that have no idea who lives in the US and can't even track what they owe correctly. Their regulations are open to the highest bidder. They pass laws that get ignored right off the bat -- metrics anyone? Esperanto? They anger our friends, reward our enemies, lie as a first resort, and periodically go broke.

What moron thinks this is the gang to run our healthcare?

Anyways, I am starting a new war. Our local city of Colorado Springs is generally a decent place. But this time, some idiot got it in his head that his farts would smell just a little sweeter if he wiped out the third lane on each side of a busy street (Research) so they could turn it into a bike lane for some of the zero bikes you see in this part of town.

This is ridiculous. They've turned a busy but usable street into an angry, aggressive street where people jockey for position as they dodge the women in minivans who can't get their heads out of their asses or their phones long enough to approach the speed limits. Seriously. I have nothing against bike lanes, but what kind of asshole wipes out an entire lane on a busy street to create an unwanted bike lane?! The very kind of people who should never be allowed to make decisions. The kind of people who spend their days picking at their butts and counting to eleven on their toes. Government.

Well, hopefully, they will cancel this project after enough people die.

UN Hijinks

Just a brief issue to discuss because I am pressed for time this week. The UN General Assembly has been going on in NYC the last two weeks. It's the usual postering, but this hit the news this morning. LINK

Yeah, a UN working group of "experts" on people of African descent with chairman Ricardo A. Sunga, of the Philippines, issued a statement that the US should pay reparations for slavery. Seriously, we have children literally dying in the streets of the Middle East and drowning trying to flee the horror right now in front of the UN General Assembly, and the UN chooses to demand the US pay for the ills of our sordid past. Please can we just expel the UN from the US and force them to relocate to Aleppo where they belong?

How about a "Caption This" just for fun -

Is this really the end of civilization as we know it?

Let's discuss this or any other topic of interest...

Avoiding The Obvious

Irony day from an interesting note from the NFL. The NFL's ratings are down around 10% this year so far after the same period last year. It seems to be an across-the-board fall too. It's hard to take a three-week ratings drop as too much of a sign of anything, but people seem to be worrying. So what could be causing this? Well, so far, the leftist media has suggested the following possibilities:

(1) The evil NFL's ignoring concussions for so long has turned people off (read: the leftist media's attempt to tar the NFL over concussions has turned people off).

(2) Something something rich white owners!!

(3) Commissioner Roger Goddell's "abuses under the labor agreement" (agreed to by the players union) have finally turned people off. Outside arbitration! Outside arbitration!

Oddly, each of these things already existed for several years as the NFL's ratings kept soaring. Logic tells us that something that didn't turn people off in the past isn't the cause of turning them off today. So what has changed? Well, the black protests are new. Sure, they are only around 40 players out of 1,900, but the sports media pushes them as if there were thousands. And the networks have talked about it over and over throughout games.

But would the audience be the type to tune out because of this? Well, consider this. The NFL audience looks like this: middle class (60%) white (77%) male (55%) above the age of 35 (71%). That's the exact group for whom patriotism matters the most. Those are the people who served in the military, see war movies and vote hard right. Do you think they want to watch a tiny group of angry a-holes spew leftist, racist political statements accusing them of being evil while they're watching television? Doubt it.

Ironically, now that 10% of the audience has apparently found other pursuits, the players union which has been smearing the NFL with both barrels for a couple years now is worried. Why? Because the amount of money available for the players depends on the television revenues, which will fall if the ratings fall. Whoops. I guess they didn't think of that when they were whining about everything. The networks are worried too because their ad revenue will fall if the ratings fall -- or if their demographics switch to a less wealthy group. Probably should have thought about that before deciding to broadcast every single gesture made by a protesting player regardless of its insignificance.

Of course, irony is something the left often encounters. Take the University of Missouri. They pandered to a tiny group of nasty racist who wanted special privileges because they thought no one would do anything about it. Now their enrollment is down 8% or 2,100 students and they've lost around $30 million... money that will no longer feed the departments of the very people who pushed this crap. Hillary Clinton bragged about being the greatest debater ever and most experienced candidate ever, but couldn't even beat Trump. Shouldn't have raised expectations. As I mentioned the other day, liberals are now perplexed that after calling every Republican a racist no one listens to them when they call Trump a racist. After passing Obamacare over the extreme opposition of the American public, the Democrats are finding that the public keeps kicking them for doing it. The insurers who saw this as a great way to stick up the public now find themselves going broke and being demonized by their partners in crime, the Democrats. The leftist who gave us the safety-at-all-cost and we-are-all-victims generation are now finding themselves victimized by those they taught intolerance. The shamers are being turned on by other shamers.

And that's just the beginning. Karma's a bitch.

Thoughts?

No Matter Who Wins, We Lose...

I tried to watch the election debate, but I didn't last long. I kept turning the tv on and off. If anyone watched to the end, please let us know your thoughts and/or impressions. I know that Tryanmax watched it 'cause the best I could do was to follow the twitter-verse version. Tryanmax is a champ!

Tryanmax created a fitting poster for the occasion...

This is lame, but I only thought of doing it an hour ago. Maybe I'll do a better one for next time. #PresidentialDebate pic.twitter.com/hNeYcW50g7

— tryanmax (@tryanmax) September 27, 2016

And it's not "lame"!

Here is an Op/Ed piece from The Federalist by Greg Sorreil and it's worth a read. It might be a little over-dramatic, but he makes some good points about how we have come to a place where we are losing the one thing that makes our country unique - our ability to agree to disagree. Tell me what you think - No Matter Who Wins The Election, We All Lose

Weekend Thoughts

How about some thoughts from the weekend?

● The dancing has begun in Charlotte. Now that the police have released images showing the dead guy keeping his hand hidden and looking like he planned to draw on the cops -- plus images of the gun and the pot he had on him -- the story that he was just a normal guy, reading a book, waiting for his kids has become untenable.

The family is trying to discredit this evidence with the conspiratorial call demanding the release of every second of every video, as if there were a segment where a cop runs up to him and plants the gun in his hand before he starts his final moments. That's the same game conspiracy theorists always use when their theories implode. "Look at frame 451! Look at frame 451! You can see it's all stages!"

At the same time, they are switching from yelling "racist cops" (not sure how that works as the cop was black) to "he had mental illness and the police should have asked his wife how to deal with him." Well, when your story doesn't work, change it.

Still, ask yourself this. How do the cops know he's mentally ill in the first place? Presumably the wife, right? Ok, but where was she? She's not helping him or trying to talk to the cops as I would think most concerned wives would do. No. She's running around in the background yelling, screaming and cursing while filming parts of the encounter with her phone. And, why should they trust a woman who has already lied to them, telling them he has no gun when they've seen it? Actions have consequences and, frankly, I suspect she racketed up the tension here and added strongly to their belief he was a danger.

● The debate is Monday night and I just can't watch.

● Arnold Palmer died. Sad.

● It's funny how many "independent experts" are suddenly putting out studies and reports that say things like "22 million people will lose their healthcare if Trump gets elected." There's zero legitimacy to that. I also find it funny how many leftists are repeating the "scared to death" talking point.

There was an interesting article a few weeks back which complained that liberals had made a mistake by claiming that every Republican under the sun is racist. By doing that, no one now believes it when they really really mean it. LOL! I guess liberals don't understand fairy tales after all. Anyways, they don't seem to get that the "scares me to death" garbage is the same thing. No one believes their scares because they're idiotic and repeated so automatically that you know they're propaganda.

● It's always hard to tell if commercials really reflect what people are like, but Peyton Manning seems like an amazing person. I saw something too about how he's written letters to hundreds of people telling them how much he appreciated things they had done or wishing them well. Again, an amazing person. The world needs more people like that.

● A lot of people think the election will come down to Colorado. I doubt that, but it's possible. How will Colorado go? Ya know, I have no idea. All I can say is that I see no support for Clinton and I see little for Trump. Little likely beats none, so I think Trump wins in a mudslide.

Statistical Chicanery

Mark Twain famously said, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.” Isn’t that the truth. In fact, I ran into a great example of this the other day. It involves an article being tossed around on the left about the end of Christianity as the dominant religion in America. Wait till you see this.

The article is based on something called the American Religious Identification Survey, which gets done every so often by Pew. The key conclusion being passed around by the left is that “the percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 percentage points since 1990” and “the number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation has nearly doubled since 1990.” These then feed the conclusion that America is ceasing to be a “Christian country” as we all turn atheist and it’s time to think of a post-Christian America.

Yeah, no.

Let’s start with the unaffiliated. That “doubling” is from 8% to 15%. That’s hardly earth shattering. In fact, if I told you that 85% of the public agrees on anything other than something the left wants to believe to be true, pretty much any reasonable person would conclude that this was an overwhelming majority to the point of being nearly unanimous. In fact, think of it: 85% is essentially nine out of ten people. That’s an insanely uniform majority.

Moreover, that 15% isn’t actually atheists. This includes people like some of the people I know who think of themselves as “Christians” but don’t belong to any specific Christian church. How many are atheists? Well, the number of actual atheists is only 3.6 million (about 1% of the population) after a “fourfold increase” from one million in 1990. Of course, in that time, the US population grew from 248 million to 320 million so we’re hardly looking at an epidemic of atheism. (And almost 20 million of those are immigrants, who are less likely to be Christian.)

What’s more, what have we learned about these polls during the past few election cycles? That’s right: the outcome is by and large determined by the person who chooses the poll’s sample. If that person thinks a certain number of people exist in each religious group and then adjusts the poll to fit those numbers, then their findings will surprisingly match the numbers they originally believed to be true. Funny how that happens.

One interesting tip off in this whole poll is that while the number of “unaffiliated” people supposedly grew to 15%, the number of unaffiliated voters tracks at only 12%. In other words, the more realistic measure shows 3% less of the group that is now being touted as the surprise. That suggests that the poll overestimated the percentage to begin with when it picked its sample. Oh, and if you factor out that three percent, about 9.6 million people, then suddenly that 2.6 million growth in the atheist figure looks a tad suspect.

So the growth in “unaffiliated” is poorly defined. The atheist portion of that is suspect. And the whole thing looks manipulated. Even then, almost nine in ten Americans is a registered Christian. So how does any of this result in the end of Christian America? Wishful thinking.

Watch for this kind of false reasoning and misuse of words like “doubling.” During the Colin Kaepernick crap, the media has often said things like “the number of players participating has doubled” or “tripled” or “exploded”, and yet the real number or protestors remains around 10 out of 1900. They talk about something being ranked “number one at Amazon,” without a clue that this could be less than a few hundred sales. Remember how “Mohammed” was the most popular name in Britain (until it fell off the list the next year)? That was because it was the only Arabic name in the top 20 because all Muslim kids were named that, unlike Christians who spread their names around. Think about the 47% of Americans without job... a figure which includes kids, retired people, people between jobs, and students.

Never accept a number without understanding how it was found, and never accept a characterization of a number without knowing the number itself.

Thoughts? Examples?

Open Thread

It's just been one of those days. Anyone have anything topics to discuss today? I've got nothing...

Imagine There's No Jobs

The other day, a study was published which said that machines would take over 6% of US jobs by the year 2021. Personally, I think that's understating things, but who knows? Anyways, this raises an issue that I've been tossing around inside my head for quite some time. What happens when there are no jobs because everything can be done by machines?

From the dawn of time until the present, man has had a love-hate relationship with technology. Technology makes life better. It lets us do things faster, easier and cheaper. It extends lives and makes us healthier. It makes us richer. But at the same time, technology causes problems too. In particular, it makes things obsolete and it wipes out jobs and the need for skills that make people necessary.

To give an example, we all know that the buggy whip industry died when cars became the norm and horses vanished from the streets. But do you realize that the word processor killed the typing pool and most secretaries? The robot arm killed the autoworker. The kiosk is now killing the waitress and the store clerk.

Some day, we are going to reach a point where there is no reason to have jobs anymore. Products will be made by machines, services provided by robots. They will probably even maintain themselves. The only things left for humans to do at that point will be arts and science pretty much. So what happens then? Well, let me ask some more specific questions:

1. What do we do about people for whom there simply are no jobs? How do they get the things they need?

2. Will money still matter? If it doesn't, what happens to the money people have? Without money, how do we buy things like land? And if it does, how do you earn it?

3. Assuming there is no money, how do people get their wants satisfied rather than just their needs? If I want a bigger car, how do I get it? Can I just have one or will there be rationing? And if there is rationing, is there a way for me to earn more or will I be SOL?

4. How do we motivate people to do the handful of jobs remaining? Artists... got it. That's desire. But science? Math? Teaching? What if for some freaky reason only a human can take out the garbage? How do we pay those people?

5. What will politicians promise?

This makes the head spin. Even more interesting, perhaps, what do we do as we approach that point but aren't quite there yet? What do we do when 50% or 70% of the public has no job, but the remaining jobs are critical.

The future could be a lot of trouble. Any thoughts?

NYC/NJ Update

Wow, what a weekend, huh? You may have heard we had a bit of a kerfluffle this weekend in NYC/NJ. Let me give you a rundown of events leading up to this morning. Some things you should know right off the bat, the UN started its yearly General Assembly this morning with all the Heads of State in town including President Obama who will be making a speech today for the last time as US President.

Anyway, here is a sketchy timeline of events from the front lines:

The first pipe bomb went off in a trashcan on Saturday morning along the route of the third annual Seaside Semper Five Marine Corps Charity 5K run in Seaside Park, NJ. Fortunately, no one was hurt at all. It could have been much worse, but because the run was delayed for last-minute entries. If they had started on time, the bomb would have gone off while runners were passing.

Next was another explosion at around 8:30pm at 23rd Street and 6th Avenue in Manhattan. Again, fortunately because the pressure cooker device was placed in a large construction dumpster, the explosion was weakened enough that only 29 people were injured, but none life threatening. Our wonderful terrorist task force jumped into action and discovered another pressure-cooker device a few blocks away and it was swiftly disposed of.

But this is where it really began to get weird and scary. Sunday morning our wonderful politicians stepped in to calm us all down by pretending at first that none of this had anything to do with "international terrorism" or anything. Mayor DeBlasio went so far as to admit that the explosion "was intentional". This statement invoked a collective "Yah think?" from the citizens (me) of NYC. He went on to qualify his "intentional" with a "but that they had no reason to believe that it was not terrorist related". A few minutes later, Gov. Cuomo made his statement that, well, maybe it was terrorist related, but prolly not "International". Obama went to radio silence.

This morning I woke to radio reports of 6 pipe bombs that were found at a commuter train station in Elizabeth, NJ. The first was found by two homeless men who were going through the trashcans and found a backpack. They saw what was in it and called the cops.

Then this cellphone alert* was broadcast at around 8am:

On a personal note, when I got this alert, I decided to changed into something less "corporate comfortable" and more "run for your life"-ish.

Anyway, the NJ police found the guy this morning. He had spent the night in a bar and when the bar owner came to open up, he called the police. He didn't recognize the guy, but the police did; shots were fired and the perp was taken alive.

And now the politicians are acknowledging that maybe this was possibly a real terrorist attack with international overtones. Harry Reid started yammering on about gun control for some reason, and Pres. Obama has not weighed in at all that I know of.

Oh, yeah, there was a terrorist knife attack in a Minnesota shopping mall too. At least ISIS had the good grace to claim that one...

Questions? Comments?

*By the way, this "extreme emergency" alert system was used for the first time today.

Hmm

I got nothing tonight, folks. It's been a long weekend doing a rush project for work. I will share some thoughts though.

● The NFL player protests have peaked and now are falling apart. It never became more than a handful of players. Ho hum. The ones who did it are all trying to backtrack now, saying they never meant anything by it and that they only wanted to get people talking and whatnot (though some of the players from Filthadephia are planning something tonight). So put a fork in this.

● Trump has pulled even or ahead in most polls, especially in the battleground states. This doesn't surprise me at all. This election is about Hillary, not Trump, and she's just imploded in the past few weeks -- lies, bad health, lies, weak on terror, lies, illegality, endangering national security, assistants with disloyal husbands and hateful mothers, me-too-ism, and all the wrong friends, Hillary just keeps shooting herself in the foot. With Trump staying out of things, that has given the public time to focus on their disgust with Hillary and the result is she's bleeding voters.

● The black caucus has again disgraced themselves. This time, they attacked Trump for no longer being a birther. So it was racist to be a birther and racist to stop being a birther. Yeah, whatever. They also haven't said a word about Hillary, whose 2008 campaign started the birther movement.

● NASA claimed again that this was the hottest year on record (at least in the short time period they want to count). They must have a macro because they repeat the same crap word for word all the time. The problem is that their own data show this isn't true. It's a good thing private space companies will slowly be removing NASA from the equation.

● I've suspected for some time that the Democrats would win back the Senate, but now I'm not so sure. Over and over, the Democrats are abandoning states they once considered safe. It currently looks like a tie.

● Hollywood had another circle jerk Sunday night. As you would expect, it turned very political. I wonder why they don't realize that their whining actually hurts their cause.

● I'm not into conspiracy theories, but doesn't Hillary's skin look like she's been poisoned with whatever Putin poisoned Viktor Yushchenkho with?

● Terrorism in New York and Minnesota. Hillary blew it by trying to pander to her responsibility-free left. She's a bad candidate. Everyone knows you talk big, even if big talk doesn't change anything. Caution scares people.

What's It Like To Be Liberal?

I've been thinking about how hard it must be to be a liberal when watching a film. After all, liberals are emotional creatures who decide right and wrong according to how they feel about the people involved at that point rather than the principles involved. I imagine this inner dialog going on around me in the theater...

Oh my God, that gun owner is going to kill the misunderstood alleged criminal who ate those hate-filled nuns! Don't you dare! Every life is sacred!

Oh no, the police have come! Off the pigs!

Wait, the one officer is Africa-American. Liking him makes me special! Please, Mr. Officer, stop the gun owner from killing the misunderstood alleged criminal. I'm so amazing.

Wait, that negro said something conservative! He must be a racist! Kill him, alleged criminal!

What's that? The conservative racist black cop's mom died of cancer? Hmm. Now I feel so sorry for him, don't shoot him!

What? Her cancer was treated in a facility for rich people? She should have died! Kill him, alleged criminal!

Oh, she got in as a charity case? Well, of course, she's black. She must have been on welfare, trapped by white conservatives no doubt who no doubt want to judge her based on the color of her skin! And isn't it wrong to mention welfare and black people together? That's racist! The director should be fired! Hate crime hate crime!

I wonder if this popcorn is gluten free?

Wait! Who do I want to die now? Shoot. I'm lost. This film was too confusing. It's all because of Donald Trump!

Yeah, it's tough when your value system is more flexible than a gender-non-specific gymnast born without a spine. So what do you think it's like being a liberal? Is ignorance bliss? Is smugness the heroin of the masses? Does stupid hurt? The floor is yours.

NY Happenings With A Special 20 Questions From Hillary - UPDATED

Just a couple of issues to discuss in no special order:

1. It sounded like a such a great idea. Replace the old telephone booths in NYC with new state-of-the-art cellphone powering stations with free WiFi and internet service complete with keyboards and monitors all paid for by the taxpayers! LinkNYC was born. Cool, eh? However, it has not turn out exactly the way that Bloomberg/DiBlasio envisioned it.

The idea that some Midwestern tourist or Wall Street executives would use these kiosks to power up their cell phones in an emergency and while they were waiting they could surf the internet to find stuff, read the news, keep in touch with loved ones sounded like a great repurposing of outmoded space. Again, that is not what's been happening though. See, along with these blooming kiosks, we have a blossoming garden of "homeless" living on the street. And, they have cleverly begun to occupy many of the kiosks to host "movie nights" with their other fellow "homeless" friends. Yeah, we have provided our ever burgeoning homeless population with free internet service with video screens for their very own outdoor entertainment centers, just pull up a chair. And the indoor-living neighbors that live around these kiosks have started to complain loudly about their outdoor neighbors occupying their streets playing movies loudly late into the night and through to the early morning.

I guess someone at City Hall has heard the complaints and is finally taking some action. It is being reported that the "internet browser" portion of this new service will be disabled...LINK Oh well, it sounded like a good idea at the time. Though I guess it['s better than their other idea. That was to outfit "homeless" with mobile WiFi equipment that people could pay to hook up to for a small fee to the human WiFi connection. I am not kidding...

2. And there's this...today Hillary Clinton sent a series of tweets from her sickbed to Donald Trump with the following 20 questions. This comes at the same time that it was announced that the NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has opened an investigation into Trump's charitable foundation for suspected "pay-to-play" donations. [Side note: NY AG Schniederman is also a consultant to the...yes...Clinton campaign.].

I have to admit I did a spit-take when I read the questions and I just had to consolidate them into one long list. Amazingly, many of these are questions she has herself refused to answer honestly. Especially the ones that could relate to recently disclosed emails about her own Clinton Foundation and the special access and favors to donors (foreign and domestic) given from Hillary's State Department after making hefty donations to the Clinton Foundation.

Her answer to all those "right-wing" attacks was that "It wasn't true. There has never been any cooperation between her State Dept and the completely separate Clinton Foundation even if it might look that way in all those emails. And anyway when she is President, they will never do it again. She vowed that Bill and she would completely disconnect from the daily Foundation operation, but Chelsea would have to remain because she has absolutely no connections with government and has no access to either of her parents.

All I can say is, that she and her campaign operatives have finally become completely divorced from reality.

1. Will you sever ties with your company linked to foreign leaders, questionable organizations, and criminals if you become president?

2. How will you handle non-cancelable contractual obligations with parties whose interests conflict with those of the United States?

3. While refusing to release your tax returns, how will you confirm that you do not have dangerous financial ties to bad actors abroad?

4. If you were willing to work with Qaddafi—a known terrorist and dictator—is there anyone you aren't willing to make a deal with? Who?

5. How can you be tough on Iran, given your business partnership with someone connected to Iranian money laundering?

6. Given that you've already questioned our commitments to NATO allies, what is your answer to this?

7. To what extent would your foreign policy be dictated by potential financial benefits for your business partners?

8. Will you disclose the nature of your personal and business relationships with all of the Russian oligarchs you are “close” to?

9. Have you or your campaign discussed U.S.-Russian relations with the Russian billionaires with whom you've done business?

10. How did the Russian mob boss who ran a criminal organization out of Trump Tower get a VIP pass to your Miss Universe pageant in Moscow?

11. With business ties to politically-connected Indian developers, how can you conduct foreign policy that puts the U.S. above your profits?

12. How can we be sure you'd be willing to be tough on any nation if necessary, if it would put your interests and profits at risk?

13. How can we know you won't (again) impulsively damage relationships with crucial allies to preserve your own ego?

14. We know you engaged extensively in pay-to-play here at home. Have you bribed foreign officials or other parties abroad?

15. To what extent are you and your family currently contractually tied to payments from foreign business partners, or governments?

16. You've mentioned ~120 foreign deals, including in countries with national security implications. Where and with whom are you working?

17. Will your children disclose all of the foreign trips and business deals they've undertaken during the campaign, and with whom they met?

18. We'll let @kurteichenwald ask this one:pic.twitter.com/xnIl6JazS3

18. We'll let @kurteichenwald ask this one: pic.twitter.com/xnIl6JazS3

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 14, 2016

19. In sum, how will Trump guarantee that if forced to choose between America's security and his own bank account, he won't pick the latter?

20. It's pretty clear: Trump's spent his life unscrupulously looking out for his own wallet above all. Why would that change as president?

I particularly like the last one. All of this reminds me of the same delusional disconnect when Hillary boldly proclaimed that all rape victims should be believed and listened to...

UPDATE - There are not words to describe this. Now the Clinton campaign apparatus isn't even pretending not to lie.



Discuss.

The Danger Of The Media

The modern media is dangerous. I see evidence of this all the time in the world of sports and leftist politics. They create victims, invent outrages and fan the flames of hate. They spread misinformation, promote ignorance and invent narratives that infect the crazy, the stupid, and the weak minded. A great example of this has been the NFL stuff, where the media sells a false narrative of racism and now is trying to invent a movement out of a handful or morons and their own reporting. Another example occurred last night with the attack on Ryan Lochte at Dancing With The Starts.

Let me start with a disclaimer: I don't really like Ryan Lochte. He seems like a smug prick. But I don't judge right and wrong based on whether or not I like the person.

So here's what happened. For those who don't know, Lochte is an American swimmer who did well in the Olympics. He's Michael Phelps' friend and rival. While in Brazil, Lochte was driving along with some other swimmers when they stopped at a gas station. Lochte apparently went behind the gas station looking for a bathroom. He didn't find one and pissed on a sign. An armed security guard caught him and held him at gun point demanding that he pay for the damages. He apparently took over $100 from them. Clearly, Olympic piss doesn't just wash off. Lochte and the others then reported this as an armed robbery. It's not clear how the cops got called.

Anyways, the international media got their outrage on and called this an armed robbery until they found out it wasn't. Upset that their outrage had been misplaced, they hefted their outrage at Lochte, who they now decided was worse than Hitler. Brazil seized the opportunity to distract attention from the disaster that was their Olympics. And the media whined that Lochte had ruined the Olympics and that no one would now remember anything but Lochte. Sorry Simone Biles, Micheal Phelps, Usain Bolt, the shameful US women's soccer program, and the Russian drug cheats. All forgotten. Damn you to hell, Ryan Lochte! You stole our innocence!

And lest you think I'm being hyperbolic, I'm really not. That is the problem. The same people who excuse false rape allegations as understandable, who see cold-blooded murders as "allegedly", who spend their time telling us to stay calm in the face of Islamic terrorism, and who only grudgingly cared about the cops shot in Dallas for a day or two, were writing articles for weeks asking how Lochte can do such a horrible thing and why he wasn't drummed out of swimming. There really were articles at Yahoo and some other sports places saying that Lochte had ruined the Olympics and that his villainous behavior was all that people would remember and that he should be banned from competition.

This is the kind of crap the modern media does. They take something minor that annoys their hypersensitive butts and they blow it way out of proportion. The guy peed on a wall. Millions of Brazilians do that every day. So what? Then he overstated what happened as an armed robbery. He was stupid. Again, so what? He didn't falsely accuse anyone of rape. He didn't shoot anyone. Not one single person got hurt by what he did. Yet, the modern media turned him into a villain... a justifiable target of rage.

So Monday night, a handful of people got into Dancing With The Stars where he is a contestant and they raced up on stage and grabbed a camera to protest him. In so doing, they scared the hell out of everyone in the audience as well as Lochte and his partner and they risked people getting killed in whatever ensuing panic there was. Does anyone think this would have happened if the media hadn't elevated what was nothing more than a bit of bad judgment that 99.999% of the time would be overlooked by the cops into a second Holocaust? Hardly.

This is happening a lot. The media picks targets now and rages on them. It's an orgy of self-righteous venting of the worst caliber, and it tells the crazies and the weak-minded and the herd followers that they are justified in attacking these people one way or another. The results are startling if you pay attention. Anyone who gets on the wrong side of the news will tell you that they automatically get death threats at home and at work, and have their property vandalized. People have had bomb threats to their offices and their kids' schools. Vicious memes are made about them online that involve rape, race and violence. A lot of these people get stalkers. Lochte has now been attacked, for lack of a better word, in public.

You can say that crazy people can't be stopped and that is true, but the media is to blame for this stepped up level of danger. They fan these flames and they know they are putting bullseyes on people when they do this. They pick the targets, they stoke the flames, they offer indulgences, and then they hand out glory when it's all over by granting fame to their their dupes under the guise of trying to "understand them."

Don't kid yourselves, media. You are to blame.

'Basket Of Deplorables' Out/Health Issue In...Phew!

Phew, that was close! I don't mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist or anything, but it looks to me like there may be another conveniently-timed reason for Hillary Clinton playing the sudden "heat-stroke/fainting spell/oops, we forgot to say she was diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday" health scare card this weekend. Maybe it is just so that the viral video of her calling 50% of Trump's supporters a bunch of racist/sexist/homophobic/xenophobic/islamaphobic "basket of deplorables" would go away.

Hillary gave a speech on Friday in NYC at some LGBT fundraiser where she called Trump voters pretty much every kind of "phobic" she could think of and much to gleeful delight of her audience. However, once the video of her speech went viral, it did not go over so well with pretty much the rest of country. It was even being compared to the campaign-killing "47% of the people who vote for Obama are welfare dependent" statement made by Mitt Romney in September of 2012. Well, let's hear it from her...



You can watch the whole Fox News spin, but let's discuss the crux of her statement:

"I know there are only 60 days left to make our case -- and don't get complacent, don't see the latest outrageous, offensive, inappropriate comment and think, well, he's done this time. We are living in a volatile political environment. You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic -- you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people -- now 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks -- they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America."

Yeah, nothing wins votes like better than calling who may not be voting for you "deplorable". But the good news is that the media is taking Hillary's obvious health problems seriously now! Why, just last week, those basket of deplorables were waging a sexist war on Hillary's undisclosed health issues because she had a coughing fit after telling the FBI that the reason she didn't know what classified information looked like was because she had amnesia from a concussion after a fall from fainting for an unknown reason. There is no need to pursue the whole "basket of deplorables" gaffe, because she may really have real health issues, right?

Or this is just one more example of how Hillary Clinton and Co.'s first line of defense is to lie...discuss.

Random Thoughts

Some random thoughts.

● Let's start with the NFL. The NFL is back and the same people who spent the summer pouring hate upon the NFL are continuing right along. The NFL didn't care about Cam Newton's concussion... except they did. Yawn. The refs blew calls so the games are illegitimate! Refs have always blown calls, it's part of the game. Yawn. Some college kid who isn't eligible to play in the NFL was injured playing for free in college and that's an outrage! Disband the NFL! Yawn.

Then there's this. These same journalists want Colin Kaepernick's disloyal protest to spread to become some new race war in the US. It isn't happening, but they are pushing it. I love this quote:

"Kaepernick’s 49ers aren’t scheduled to play until Monday night. Clearly, though, the movement he’s begun, with actions, words, and his own paycheck, is starting to flower across the entire NFL."

Really? Other than Kaepernick, one Bronco kneeled, one Chief and three Titans and two Patriots gave the black power salute, and the Chiefs and Seahawks locked arms in unity during the national anthem. That leaves 26 of 32 teams with no protest at all. It also means that only 114 players out of 1696 (4%) engaged in any sort of display and only 8 out of 1696 (0.4%) engaged in a negative protest. Does that count as "starting to flower"? Only in the mind of someone who wants it to happen.

● Interestingly, I think that this is a horrible thing for Hillary, especially the guys doing the black power salute. To a lot of whites, that reeks of the Nazi salute in terms of intent and with Hillary and the Democrats playing footsie with Black Lives Matters and the false racism industry, I think that every NFL player who tosses out the black power salute sends more voters to Trump. I actually know some white female liberals (core Hillary types) who are calling BLM a "hate group" now.

● The other thing killing Hillary right now is the new season of Obamacare taking shape. This albatross hangs around the neck of Democrats like her, and attitudes are getting worse regarding Obamacare. And why not: the number of uninsureds has stopped shrinking, the insurance is ridiculously expensive, insurers are dropping out, a huge number of counties have no competition at all -- a couple have no offerings at all, hospitals have found their reimbursements falling from 80% to 60%, etc. etc. People are not at all happy.

● I really am starting to wonder about Hillary's health. She collapsed again this week and claims she was just overheated had pneumonia. I don't know if her problem is in the brain or the heart, but I know a developing disabling disease when I see one. She's in trouble.

● You know you're in trouble when you throw your friends to the wolves. That's why it's interesting that Hillary continues to attack ally Matt Lauer for his debate performance and the Democrats are attacking former ally Aetna for ruining Obamacare. Signs of impending doom.

BLM v. The Truth

I'm still suffering from Child-Induced Murderous Cold Syndrome. So today might not be the best written article ever. What I'm going to talk about is an article I saw in the New York Post which rips the Black Lives Matter movement to shreds. The article is written by Heather MacDonald and is titled "The lies told by the Black Lives Matter movement."

The article begins by noting the black celebrities, e.g. Beyonce and Colin Kaepernick, who are supporting the propaganda of the BLM movement and notes that the Democrats have been feting them and sucking up for months. Then the article dives into the meat:

"Yet the Black Lives Matter movement is based on a lie. The idea that the United States is experiencing an epidemic of racially driven police shootings is false — and dangerously so.

The facts are these: Last year, the police shot 990 people, the vast majority armed or violently resisting arrest, according to the Washington Post’s database of fatal police shootings. Whites made up 49.9 percent of those victims, blacks 26 percent. That proportion of black victims is lower than what the black violent crime rate would predict. Blacks constituted 62 percent of all robbery defendants in America’s 75 largest counties in 2009, 57 percent of all murder defendants and 45 percent of all assault defendants, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, even though blacks comprise only 15 percent of the population in those counties."

So think about that for a moment. That means that cops are statistically more likely to kill a white defendant than a black defendant. So much for racism. And don't forget, the head of the San Francisco Police Union noted that 8,000 blacks were killed by other blacks in the last two years. Compare that figure with the 990 shootings multiplied by 26% reduced for justified shootings. 8,000 versus a dozen, which is worse? So where is the real place to focus to protect black lives? Rogue cops or black on black crime? Apparently, black lives only matter in some instances.

Moreover, lets be honest about these figures. If 57% of murder defendants are black, but blacks only make up 15% of the population, then the obvious problem is black violence... not cop violence.

Consider these facts also from the article:

"In New York City, where blacks make up 23 percent of the city’s population, blacks commit three-quarters of all shootings and 70 percent of all robberies... Whites, by contrast, commit less than 2 percent of all shootings and 4 percent of all robberies, though they are nearly 34 percent of the city’s population.

In Chicago, 80 percent of all known murder suspects in 2015 were black, as were 80 percent of all known nonfatal shooting suspects, though they’re a little less than a third of the population. Whites made up 0.9 percent of known murder suspects in Chicago in 2015 and 1.4 percent of known nonfatal shooting suspects, though they are about a third of the city’s residents."

Again, an unbiased observer could draw only one conclusion here. It is ludicrous to pretend otherwise. In fact, I would argue that it promotes the very thing BLM claims to want to stop. When "whites" (Western society) have had problems in the past, western society set about changing attitudes. In the 1960s, western society told whites it was no longer acceptable to be racist or sexist. In the 1970s, we ran campaigns to stop littering. Antisemitism was fought in the 1980s. Old ageism in the 1990s. And so on. When something bad exists as a value in the community, the community works hard to change hearts and minds to eliminate it. Soon, the behavior becomes socially intollerable.

There is one exception however. For my entire life, it has been considered "racist" to offer criticisms of the black community. Point out that black ghettos are full of crime and broken families... you're a racist. Point out that black intellectuals are racists... you're a racist. Point out that all lives should matter... you're a racist. Point out the corruption of black leaders, the abuses of black teachers in Atlanta, the rapes of Bill Cosby, the dead end of Ebonics, the insanity that the University of California will let blacks have a black dorm to segregate themselves, and you are the racist. Not only that, you are the racist who oppressed the ancestors of black people and thereby is responsible for the failure of every single black person who needs an excuse.

Do you know what this does? It keeps blacks people from openly and honestly addressing their problems and fixing them. And the result is that the black community has decayed and can't fix itself because it cannot admit failure.

Now, don't get me wrong. I think any instance of police abuse must be examined, punished and stopped. And what I said above was a generalization and, as such, does not apply to everyone. But it applies to enough, and the police are not the problem. They always tell alcoholics that the first step in fixing a problem is admitting that you have a problem. Until the black community does that, nothing will change... because it can't. You can't stop 8,000 murders by shifting the blame to a handful of unrelated incidents and stifling debate.

Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016)

For those of you who may have missed this over the Labor Day weekend, Phyllis Schlafly succumbed to cancer yesterday morning at the age of 92. For those of you who may be too young to remember her, she was Gloria Steinum's polar opposite during the heyday of the modern feminist movement of the '60's and '70's. She was the anti-modern feminist and opposed the Equal Rights Amendment because she thought it did not address important issues for married women. I could list her education resume (Bachelor's Degree/Phi Beta Kappa from Washington University St. Louis in 1944, Master Degree in government from Radcliffe in 1945, married in 1949 with 6 children to follow, and a J.D. from Washington University St. Louis in 1978 at 54 yrs old), but you can read about this with simple Google search.
But let's start here -

RIP, Phyllis Schlafly. No woman ever worked so tirelessly, ventured so far on behalf of the belief that other women should do none of that.

— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) September 6, 2016

Let me be remind people/men like Glenn Trush that the modern women's movement was/is/and has always been about choice. Post-WWII feminists began the final push for women be given the opportunity to work at jobs that they proved they could handle during the war years. They wanted the choice to break with time-honored traditional housewife circuit for the boardroom circuit. But a funny thing happened on the way to the boardroom. Not every women wanted to leave the kitchen and the care of their families to outsiders. They thought what they did was much more important to the well-being of their children, their family, and to the community that they made the choice to stay in the home.

But those modern-day, boardroom-bound feminists didn't think much of these women who chose this path. The women who chose the home were told by the Gloria Steinum/N.O.W crowd that they were wasting their lives and hurting the cause of women's rights everywhere! And worse, the woman who made the choice to stay at home began to dread the question "What do you do for a living?" because the shame-filled answer was "All I am is just a housewife". Yes, these women who chose to put family need above personal advancement were shamed into believing that they were somehow "less than" real women.

I may not have agreed with everything that she stood for or spoke for or against, but there is no denying that Phyllis Schlafly fought for the dignity of the time-honored, traditional housewife/mother and gave them a much-needed voice (and alimony).

To illustrate, here are the lyrics (and recording) to "Just A Housewife" from a late '70's musical "Working" based on a book by Studs Terkel of the same name. It sums up the plight of the housewife during the rousing '70's women's movement...

LINK to the Original cast recording...

All I am is just a housewife
Nothing special, nothing great
What I do is kinda boring
If you'd rather, it can wait
All I am is someone's mother
All I am is someone's wife
All of which seems unimportant
All it is is
Just my life

Do the laundry, wash the dishes
Take the dog out, clean the house
Shop for groceries, look for specials
God it sounds so, Mickey Mouse
Drop the kids off, pick the shirts up
Try to lose weight, try again
Keep the troops fed, pick their things up
Lose your patience, count to ten

(2..3..4..5..6..7..8..9..10
4..5..6..7..8..9..)

All I am is just a housewife
Just a housewife, nothing great
What I do is "out of fashion"
What I feel is out of date
All I am is someone's mother
Right away I'm not too bright
What I do is unfulfulling
So the T.V. talk-shows tell me every night

I don't mean to complain at all
But they make you feel like you're two feet tall
When you're just a wife
(Just a housewife)
All they see are the pots and pans
And the Pepsi cans of a person's life
(My life)
You're a "whiz" if you go to work
But you're just a jerk if you say you won't
(Just a housewife)
People say that they think it's fine
If the choice is mine
But you know they don't
What I do, what I choose to do
May be dumb to you
But it's not to me
Is it dumb that they need me there?
Is it dumb to care?
Cause I do, you see
And I mean, Did ya ever think,
Really stop and think
What a job it was-
Doing all the things
That a housewife does?

I'm afraid it's unimpressive
(All I am is someone's mother
nothing special)
What I do is
(What I do is)
Unexciting
(Kinda dull)
Take the kids here,
Take the kids there
("Mommy..."
I don't mean to complain at all
(All I am is...
All I am is...)
Busy, busy...
(Everyday
All I am is...)
Like my mother...
(All I am is...)
Just a housewife

Discuss...

Happy Labor(less) Day

Happy Labor Day, everyone! Today, we're all union so sit your lazy butts down and drink some beer!

Friday's Thoughts: Hiatus

By Kit

Due to the demands of school and work I am, for the time being, no longer able to produce a weekly post on current events/whatever strikes my fancy. So, until things get settled on my end I will be going on a brief hiatus. I'll still be around and may post something from time-to-time but it just won't be a regular, weekly post for the time being.

Debunking Princeton Idiocy

Sometimes I wonder about leftists. They are not very bright at all. Check this out. There is a college professorette who wants to reinterpret the Declaration of Independence by claiming it contains a typo. She thinks this means we need to rethink how the Founders viewed the government. Good grief.

The brainiac in question is Danielle Allen, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, though I think the word “Advanced” is misplaced here. She argues that there is a “missing” comma in the Declaration of Independence which changes its meaning.

Here’s what the Declaration says now:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...”

According to Allen, the period after “Happiness” shouldn’t be there. She thinks Jefferson meant this to be a comma. Then she argues that since it should be a comma, what Jefferson (a noted slave holder the left sometimes hates) meant was that it is a self-evident truth that government is instituted to secure the above rights. Ergo, he meant that government was the key to freedom. Ergo, he meant we should worship government!

Allow me to respond.

(1) First and foremost, even if we accept that this should be a comma, her argument still fails. What the Declaration says without the comma is: “We create a government to secure these inalienable rights.” What it says with the comma is, “It’s obvious that men create governments to secure these inalienable rights.” The meanings are slightly different, but the substance is not. In both cases, the inalienable rights are the goal, and the government is the tool. Neither statement suggests that the rights are subordinate to or spring from the government.

(2) Even if she’s right, Allen doesn’t seem to get that the Declaration of Independence is not an establishing document. It has no legal effect; you can’t cite it in court. Don’t forget, it was written before the United States existed and, not only that, we had another form of government after the Declaration and before the constitution. Remember the Articles of Confederation? Allen apparently doesn’t.

(3) Even putting aside number two, her interpretation is not one that anyone has ever adopted. Just as “Born in the USA” is now seen as a patriotic song, the public made up its mind on the meaning of the Declaration regardless of what hyper-technical spins can be invented, and it has a meaning apart from its words now.

(4) From a technical standpoint, her interpretation is flawed. First, you don’t just need to change the period into a comma, you also need to lose the now-meaningless dash and eliminate the now-wrongly-capitalized “That” for her interpretation to work. Needing three changes to fix the "mistake" suggests the "mistake" was intentional.

Moreover, her interpretation changes this from being two grammatically correct sentences into one grammatically nonsensical sentence. Any interpretation that introduces nonsense or errors is automatically suspect.

(5) If this really was a mistake, then why did no one mention it at the time? There is not one article, interview or paper written by anyone at the time saying, “Wow, there’s a fricken typo in this thing! We didn’t mean there to be a comma!” No one mentions the missing comma. No one corrected the supposed misinterpretation. That's huge evidence.

With such spirited debate at the time, shouldn’t someone have said something if this was true? It would seem to be a rather fundamental mistake if Allen is to be believed, changing the meaning from being worshipful of government to making government a slave of individual rights. Yet, no one spoke up. That tells us no one saw it as a mistake.

(6) Finally, her proposed change flies in the face of history. At the time the Declaration was written, there had never been a democracy created for that purpose before. So believing this should be a comma means believing that an accurate statement – “we will form a government to do this” – should be replaced with an historically wrong statement – “yeah, dude, this is what democracies always do, duh!” Why would Jefferson have meant to include an obviously historically wrong statement?

This is what passes for scholarship on the left. Sad.

Thoughts?