Some Thoughts

So I'm back from Disney and the world is still doing what it does... sadly. Anyways, here are some thoughts on recent events.

(1) The harassment thing is just about played out. The Matt Lauer firing kind of proves it to me. For as long as I can remember, there has been a steady current of "Matt Lauer is a sh*t" articles. He's been behind a bunch of nasty things done to other employees, he's rotten to staff, and he's a sexual turd. It's no surprise that he got swept up in this harassment thing or that he was fired. What should surprise people is the outpouring of love for him from his female coworkers. Even worse, there is a strong effort to pin this on Ann Curry, even though there should be nothing to "pin" on anyone except Lauer and the source is known not to be Curry.

What does this tell us? Women will pick and choose whose harassment to tolerate based on whether or not they like the harasser more than the harassee. That's the end of any legitimacy in this debate. Add the ever-growing list of Democrats who are shocked and horrified at their own conduct but won't step down and this all becomes an exercise in pretending to care.

(2) College football has entered the silly season. They are now hiring coaches. The problem is that they are all hiring guys who stunk up the place at their last job or the job before that. It's amazing how many losers get second, third and fourth shots.

(3) Did Cyber Monday seem like a waste of time to anyone else? I saw nothing that looked like a good deal to me.

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Happy Thanksgiving To All!

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

It has pleased Almighty God to prolong our national life another year, defending us with His guardian care against unfriendly designs from abroad and vouchsafing to us in His mercy many and signal victories over the enemy, who is of our own household. It has also pleased our Heavenly Father to favor as well our citizens in their homes as our soldiers in their camps and our sailors on the rivers and seas with unusual health. He has largely augmented our free population by emancipation and by immigration, while He has opened to us new sources of wealth and has crowned the labor of our workingmen in every department of industry with abundant rewards. Moreover, He has been pleased to animate and inspire our minds and hearts with fortitude, courage, and resolution sufficient for the great trial of civil war into which we have been brought by our adherence as a nation to the cause of freedom and humanity, and to afford to us reasonable hopes of an ultimate and happy deliverance from all our dangers and afflictions:

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby appoint and set apart the last Thursday in November next as a day which I desire to be observed by all my fellow-citizens, wherever they may then be, as a day of thanksgiving and praise to Almighty God, the beneficent Creator and Ruler of the Universe. And I do further recommend to my fellow-citizens aforesaid that on that occasion they do reverently humble themselves in the dust and from thence offer up penitent and fervent prayers and supplications to the Great Disposer of Events for a return of the inestimable blessings of peace, union, and harmony throughout the land which it has pleased Him to assign as a dwelling place for ourselves and for our posterity throughout all generations.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this 20th day of October, A.D. 1864, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-ninth.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:

WILLIAM H. SEWARD,
Secretary of State .

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Nothing Will Change

It was suggested the other day that the sexual harassment scandal has changed the environment on harassment. I don't see that happening. Here's why:

1. The things feminists think are true aren't. The law criminalizes rape and makes sexual harassment a legal claim. Corporations have strict rules in place already. Juries do punish defendants. Claims to the contrary are delusional. So when they claim that this is what they want, they aren't actually asking for anything that isn't already there. Hence, nothing will change.

2. Maybe this will swing things in their favor, right? Wrong. First, look at what has actually come from this scandal. The only guys to lose their jobs are people who self-reported their misconduct to their boards of directors and a handful of super predators (Weinstein, Spacey, Ratner). The rest got away without punishment. And even with those punished, there are no criminal actions and civil actions will be paid by insurance. Even then, industry people are falling over themselves to lament what has happened to these "good" men and to talk about ways they can get back in the system's good graces. This signals that after a handful of scapegoats are pretend punished, the rest will have their sins washed away, and then the scapegoats will be forgiven.

3. Or consider how corporations will respond. They will talk about having zero tolerance, but there is nothing for corporations to gain from a PR perspective from stamping this out. If a corporation aggressively tries to stamp this out, they will constantly be in the news as having a problem. In effect, they will look worse than their competitors who sweep the issue under the rug. It will also destroy moral as the corporation becomes a land of witch hunts. So why go harder than they currently do?

4. But more women will now come forward. Really? The failure of these women to name more than a handful of men shows there is no will to pursue this. It's the pussy-head rally all over again: "I am woman, hear me whine and then go home... hopefully someone will fix this." Seriously, think about what has happened. A handful of men have been identified who raped multiple women and yet (1) there are no rallies, no boycotts -- to the contrary, there are people talking about how these men can be rehabilitated, (2) law enforcement attempts to do anything have been feeble to nonexistent, and (3) they haven't even outed the men they claim did this. All of this signals a willingness to let this continue.

5. Women won't change the behavior that makes them targets for these men and which protects the men. They will still happily let these things happen in exchange for a film career or modeling career or advancement. And if they won't name men in this ideal environment, when will they?

6. The victims have put together no list of changes they want. That's the end right there. It also allows everyone else to escape through virtue signalling. Moreover, they have overplayed their hand by trying to claim that all men everywhere are doing this. It makes them Chicken Little. Chicken Little gets ignored.

7. If laws or policies were changed to be more aggressive, gays and women will be caught in the net as much as men. Feminists know this and know they need to avoid that or their whole cause, which is built upon the idea that men are evil and women are naive helpless victims, will collapse.

8. The attempts to ignore or downplay the men who were harassed, women who have done the harassing, and gay harassment turn this from a moral outrage to a political cause, and as such, it is a minority cause. The rise of really dubious claims and the Democratic failure to deal with Franken (while obsessing over the two Republicans named) turn this into a political issue rather than a moral crisis. That's the end.

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Vacation

Howdy, everyone! I know this is short notice, but I'm taking a week long vacation. We're going to Disney World. I will try to put out something during the week and I'll check in now and then, but if it takes a while for me to answer, that's why. Happy Thanksgiving week!

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Statistics Prove You Wrong

Let's dispel some wishful thinking masquerading as logic.

The 'Epidemic' of Sexual Harassment: Victimhood wanting women have concluded that because sexual harassment in Hollywood is so much in the news now that they have proven that there is an epidemic/culture of this nationwide. Forget that they've lodged almost no allegations against men who aren't in the entertainment industry or leftist media, so the idea of a nationwide issue is an evasion. But lets look at Hollywood only. Is there even an epidemic in Hollywood? Hardly.

By my count, a grand total of around 20 men have been accused of harassment against women, with about half being in Hollywood. Yet, according to the Bureau of Labor, there are roughly 65,000 working actors and there 135,000 working producers and directors. No doubt there are many more unemployed. Still, just going with those means there are 200,000 actors, producers and directors. A grand total of 20ish have been accused of harassment. That works out to 0.01%. That's not an epidemic. To the contrary, that's evidence that things are going quite well.

If we were being honest, the real story here would be:

(1) How little harassment there is in Hollywood.
(2) How all these men are liberals who have attacked conservatives for hating women and who often disguise themselves as feminists.
(3) How many actresses sold their silence for economic gain.
(4) How many women were raped because the "strong" women under (2) kept their silence.
(5) How many women continue to play the game of claiming to be harassed but refusing to provide details even in an environment where disclose will be without punishment and the damage from failing to disclose is obvious. That's a definite sign of deceit.
(6) How these liberals are now asserting defenses they denied to conservatives.

Essentially, feminists are hoping to create a "movement" to fight this "epidemic" even though it is nothing more than a handful of idiosyncratic predators who were aided by the very feminists who now want to smear innocent people. Shameful.

BTW, this is why this is becoming about gays.


Football and CTE: From the Chicago Tribune:

"At this point, a heavy burden of proof lies on those defending the game. A study of the brains of 202 deceased football players by neurologists at Boston University found markers of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in 99 percent of NFL veterans and 91 percent of those who played only through college.

Skeptics scoff that the brains are unrepresentative because they were donated by those who suspected something was wrong. But the number of documented victims is too large to be dismissed."

The skeptics are right. This is called Adverse Selection, when people with a particular issue all flock to something creating a false impression of what the general population looks like. Each year, there are 1,696 players are on NFL teams (not counting extras). Around 2,880 are on teams in the off-season. So if all of these 202 people came from one year, then yes, that would be big. But we're talking about people who played from over 70 years of football. Conservatively, that means the population is over 60,000 players. 200 divided by 60,000 makes them 0.3% of the population of players. That's statistically insignificant and it's made even less trustworthy because of the adverse selection issue. These 202 players are people who thought they had problems.

If 202 of these 60,000 went to see the doctor because they had butt pain, and each turned out to have rectal cancer, would you conclude that football causes rectal cancer? If you would, then you'd be an idiot. But the number is too large to dismiss... right? Wrong. Again, these people selected themselves out of the population. You cannot draw conclusions about the larger group from this sample.

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Thought For The Day

Liberals like to claim that we are all alike. You hear it in songs ("People are the same wherever we go"), you hear it as a smear whenever there is a war ("they're just like us!"), and you hear it as self-righteous verbal-bation all the time in the immigration debate. Everyone is fundamentally the same. Got it.

Yet, we're told to celebrate diversity. But how can there be anything more than superficial diversity if we are all fundamentally the same? And if diversity is only superficial, what is the point in protecting it? That's like protecting the difference between Cubs fans and Pacers fans. It is a chosen veneer only that can hardly be considered worthy of legal protection. Heck, what is there even to learn from something so superficial?

On the other hand, if there is more than superficial differences between cultures and peoples of color and peoples of gender, then shouldn't we be allowed to examine those differences and act accordingly rather than pretending they don't exist? For example, if black culture endorses something stupid that keeps their kids from getting the education they need, shouldn't we be allowed to point that out and fix it rather than needing to pretend that there is no difference between whites and black while we celebrate the difference?

Honestly, only a liberal can hold all these contradictory thoughts at the same time because they don't think.

And let me toss this out there... if we really do "celebrate diversity," then why are we told that blacks, gays and women are all monolithic collectives with lock-step views? Last I looked, Africa was made up of hundreds of different cultures, just as women come from thousands of cultures and religions. How can they all be the same? Is there no diversity? Apparently, not.

And the left dares to complain about our culture being made bland and uniform by corporate America?! Ha!

One more thing, since we're told all the time that men can never know the pain of being women and whites will never understand the suffering of blacks, why bother celebrating any of this crap? If someone cannot learn X, then there's no point in trying to teach them X. Or perhaps, if you can't explain X, then you just suck as a teacher. Or maybe you can't explain X because X isn't really real, is it?

Bonus Round: Evolution is real and causes species to develop special traits whenever they are isolated from each other. People evolved in relative isolation everywhere. Yet, we are told that people identical. Good luck figuring that one out.

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The Idiot View of the Constitution

During this whole anthem controversy, the kneelers and their supporters have really proved just how dumb leftists are when it comes to the laws of the United States and the Constitution – keep in mind the irony that it is our laws they are protesting. In particular, they don’t seem to understand what the First Amendment to the Constitution is or is not. At various times, they have claimed that the First Amendment:

1. Should protect them from their employers retaliating for what they said.

2. Should force their employers to give them a platform to speak their minds.

3. Prevents others from criticizing them.

Of course, the First Amendment does no such thing. It prevents the GOVERNMENT from criminalizing speech. That’s it. It doesn’t even stop the government from limiting that speech or where it may be spoken, and it has no application whatsoever to private employers. Hence, the kneelers are wrong on all three parts.

A similar ignorance has arisen with a woman named Briskman, who got herself photographed flipping off the Presidential motorcade. After she warned her company that this picture had gone viral, they fired her. Now social media is freaking out that she could be fired for “expressing her free speech rights on her own time.” Yep, except those “free speech rights” only restrict the government from punishing her, not her employer or anyone else. Whine all you want leftist, but this is a valid consequence of what she did.

Other are also learning this week that the horribly oppressive laws they thought the US had aren’t so bad after all:

(1) Speaking of Free Speech, a US journalist in Zimbabwe sent out a tweet that “insulted” local dictator Robert Mugabe. She called him a “sick man.” That's protected speech in the US... not in Zimbabwe. She’s facing 20 years in prison. I guess not being punished after kneeling for the national anthem isn’t so oppressive after all, is it whiners?

(2) A woman brought 250 pain pills into Egypt for her husband, who happens to be in jail there. If you brought 250 pills into the US, obtained with your own prescription, customs doesn’t even look at you. Leave the "oppressive" US, however, and things are different. She’s now facing the death penalty. Whoops. Wanna bet she's wishing she had been oppressed here instead?

(3) Three UCLA basketball players in China for an exhibition game may have shoplifted. In the US, this is barely a crime. If they charge you, it’s typically with a 90 day sentence that the judge will suspend for good conduct. But they aren’t in the US, and once you leave the "oppressive" US, you are treated a little differently. Unless a deal is cut, they are facing four months of being held before bail is set and then they face 3-10 years in prison depending on the amount they took. I guess the US ain’t so oppressive after all! BTW, China has a 99.2% conviction rate of those charged.

Leftists and idiots love to whine about how bad the US is, but they are usually ignorant. They have no idea that the rights and protections that exist here don’t overseas and that the punishments they face here are insignificant compared to those overseas. At the same time, they invent "rights" here that oppress the people they oppose and they never grant those same rights to the people they don’t like.

Thoughts?

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NYC Mayoral Election Day!

So today it election day in NYC. His main competition is Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican, who represents part of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn and East Shore, Staten Island in the New York State Assembly. She certainly has shown up more than our last Republican, Joe Lhota, who ran against De Blasio. Most likely De Blasio will win a 2nd term, but I am not sure he will serve all four years. There is mounting evidence of his pay-for-play issues and the main defendant who has been implicated in political bribery is singing like a nightingale. More on that another day.

But wait, there's more! We have three issues for proposals on the ballot that are making politicians very nervous:

Prop 1 asks voters whether they want to hold a state constitutional convention. If this passes, then maybe we can get some ethics reform written into our constitution.

Prop 2 would give judges the right to trim or revoke pensions of elected officials and other public employees if they’re convicted of felonies related to their official positions. And seeing how we've had at least 25 elected officials jailed since 2010, this just seems like a no=brainer. If elected officials steal from the taxpayers and are jailed for it, the taxpayers should not have to fund their retirement post-incarceration. As of now, these criminals serve their time and get to keep their pensions including our former Assembly Speaker and Senate Majority leader who were both convicted of crimes against the taxpayer - appeals are pending.

Prop 3 asks voters whether they want to give local governments the right to use 250 acres of forest preserve for local projects. This would "amend the Constitution’s “forever wild” clause to let towns use small parcels of the Adirondacks and Catskills “forest preserve” for vital projects, like laying electric lines, digging wells or eliminating roadway hazards. In exchange, the state would buy 250 acres of private land to add to the preserve. If towns need more later, the state could buy more. In the past, towns have had to work out individual deals and present them, one by one, as ballot proposals making tiny changes to the Constitution — which takes years. Prop 3 paves the way for vital projects to get done sooner and at lower cost, without shrinking the size of the forest preserve. The only losers are the fixers who profit from the current crazy system." - NY Post

Anyway, I will keep you posted.

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Back In My Day...

It has become a click bait world. I wonder if people of the past would have fallen for this?

● How George Washington looks now will amaze you!

● Someone says something stupid and the Internet loses its mind!

● Founding Fathers who are now broke!

● FDR has perfect two minute response to Twitter troll!

● A new super leach doctors don't want you to know about!

● Did Nazis influence election of FDR?

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Commentarama Car Buyer's Guide

It’s time for the annual Commentarama Car Buyer's guide to help you pick out a car. A car is an expression of who we are. They are our alter egos. They are our pride and joys. They are how most of us take unreasonable risks with our lives. What could be sweeter?! With that in mind, hopefully, this will help you make that all important decision.

● Looking for somewhere to put those COEXIST and STOP RACISM and DOWN WITH WHITE PEOPLE bumper stickers? Do you need a rack on which to store your bike? Get a Subaru. Show your environmental credential by belching black smoke as you lecture others on the need to stop Global Warming and saving the snipes. How does it drive? Slow. But who cares, the slower you go, the more people can read your bumper stickers.

● Ladies! Are you confused by the numbers on a dash board? Are you only vaguely aware of other drivers? Did you fail an IQ test? Do you automatically retreat to your cell phone when you drive? Then the minivan is for you. Wrap yourself in oblivious comfort as you ignore all the distractions the road has to offer... other cars, street lights, kids in crosswalks. (NOTE: Car may not be driven by men without first being medically castrated.)

● Gents. Are you a little slow on the uptake? Are your reflexes twice as slow as the other guys? Do you feel the need to be able to carry something at a moments notice even if you never will? Do you want to blot out the sun? Then buy a pickup truck bigger than a school bus! Soon you’ll be blocking the view of other drivers everywhere as you struggle to stay in one lane or park your vehicle in four spots. Heck, your engine will be so loud you need to turn the thing off to place your order at the drive through. Trust us, no one will ever question the size of your d*ck again!

● Ladies. How’s that job at the strip club working for you? Did you know that not all sun blotting pickup trucks are bought by your customers? You can buy one too. Just don’t expect to have any ability to grasp where the thing sits on the road as you have no sense of spatial relationship. Who cares though, right? Curbs were meant to be crushed beneath your giant tires.

● Are you f**cking angry as hell? Would you destroy the world if you could? Does Starbucks not get your goddamn order right? How f**cking stupid are those people!! I said skinny latte! Then a cross-over/mid-size SUV is for you. Drive people off the road. You are the only one that matters! And always remember, it’s not a f***cking minivan!!

● Is your sister hot? Get it jacked up. Any old pick up truck or SUV will do so long as your car’s center of gravity is higher than your head. And if you’re too lazy to jack it up (or too high on ganja), then get yourself an old 1970’s style Econoline Van.

● Does your scrotum hang to your knees? It’s sport scar time Mr. Boomer. Trust us. Buy yourself a sleek speed machine and the chicks will beat a path to your door. You still have it, my friend. Also available in extra posh for men who need people to know they have money.

● Hello, sexy but aging ladies. Do you want to feel young and cute again? How about a mini Cooper or aVW Bug? No one will notice the gray. You go girl!

● Do you live in a cult? Do you operate a day care center? Or are you just on the prowl for a special little “friend” to kidnap and take to Kevin Spacey’s house? Then you are required to own a white van. Sorry, no substitutions.

● Are you better than everyone else? Buy an Audi A8 or A6. Don’t have the money to prove that you’re better? Buy an Audi A4. Don’t have that much money? Get a VW. The new Audi/VW comes with smug sensing crumple zones and a three year scandal guarantee.

● Does Allah speak to you? Does he ask you to touch yourself? Then go rental.

Can you tell what's been on my mind?

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A Pattern?

It seems to me there is a pattern in this whole sexual assaultapolooza. Maybe you can help me spot it. Here’s what we know so far:

Hard-Core Liberals:

Harvey Weinstein
James Toback
Kevin Spacey
Jeremy Pivon
Andy Dick
Ben Affleck
Matt Damon (cover-up)
Nickelodeon Producer
Head of Amazon Studios
TV Chef John Besh
Journalist Marc Halperin
NPR Editor/NYT Executive
New Republic Editor
Editorial Director of Vox

Conservatives:

GW Bush (senile)

There must be some pattern there. I just can’t see it. How about this: “Strong” women who kept silent and let these well-known predators go after unsuspecting actresses: 290+ so far. And don’t forget, there are still dozens out there apparently, who these “strong” women won’t name... for no legitimate reason whatsoever.

You know, this looks like the kind of cess in which liberalism swims. It was sexy when JFK had an affair. Bill Clinton’s rapes turned liberal women on. Hillary set out to destroy the women who accused him. For thirty years hundreds of liberal women let their sisters get assaulted by these predators without a word. Even now, they won’t name the predators who are still out there. And all the while, all of these people were whining about an invented “war on women” by conservatives.

Are you seeing my point?

Every once in a while, a conservatives gets caught doing something asinine: the televangelists, Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly, and they go down in flames with conservatives taking them down. Liberals? Liberals give their ideological fellow travelers a pass until they the stench become too high to deny. Let’s hope this scandal keeps going and going and going.

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