Murder Thoughts

With several murders making the news, I thought I would wade into this.

● A 58 year old attorney/father shot two partners at the firm that just fired him. I'm not surprised. Firing a 58 year old is a career death sentence -- the man would likely lose everything. Law firms are sweat shops too. Most likely, this guy worked 60 hour weeks for years at that firm before he was fired. Breaking bonds of loyalty is always dangerous. Don't get me wrong, I certainly don't condone what he did, but I understand it and I'm surprised more don't do it.

● That said, I don't understand what drives "people" like the two shits in New York to kill two women and two children. They even tied the women up before they slit their throats. Why kill someone who is helpless? Why kill them at all? This I don't understand. Ditto on the sicko "father" who got custody of his daughter apparently despite evidence of him being a nut, and he killed his daughter this weekend the first chance he got. Or how about the four kids (this is the second set of four in a month) who dropped a heavy object off an overpass and killed a father who was just driving along. What in the world makes someone think this is something a human should do? Or how about the asshole who made a fake SWAT call because he was angry over a videogame and got a father killed? What is wrong with these people? They should all be buried alive.

● Speaking of the SWATing, how did the cops end up killing the victim? I've seen the video. The guy comes out onto his porch. There is no gun, no weapon, no evidence of wrongdoing. How is the next instinct of the cops: "kill him!" I do not understand. Seems like murder to me.

● Disney is changing their policy to require an employee to go into each room each day. This is apparently a policy meant to stop another Vegas-style sniper from collecting guns or bombs or whatnot. I think it's a smart, if sad, change.

● Now the good news. The papers are full of the stuff above and they sensationalize the crap out of it. They want this to seem common. But the statistics tell a different story. A recent study found there aren't more mass killings now than in the past. Department of Justice statistics say that violent crime is at a decades low, with some things like murder at a level not seen since the 1950's. Name the last black guy killed by a cop, and then do the math: how many black guys have been killed by cops this compared to the millions arrested last year? Is it really an epidemic? Hardly.

Merry Christmas and (a belated) Happy Hanukkah!

Peace be with you and your family.

Luke 2:8-14 “And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

And even though Hanukkah (Chanukkah, Chanukah, or Hannukah), the Jewish Festival of Lights began December 12 and ended December 19. I hope everyone had a wonderful celebration The Story of Chanukah (Hanukkah)

Have a Happy and Healthy Holiday Season!

More Observations

I hope you're all getting ready for Christmas? Better hurry, my friends. Anyways, here are more observations from recent events.

● There was an interesting twisting of reality which may soon change the way lawyers/big business work. On ESPN, some of the talking heads were discussing the allegations against the owner of the Panthers. For those who have not heard, Jerry Richardson, the owner of the Carolina Panthers, harassed three women and made some racist comment to a black employee. All three issues were settled. For some reason, the Panthers decided to dig this up again. The NFL learned about this and decided to take over the Panther's investigation. Richardson immediately announced that he was selling the team. The facts behind this remain hidden.

So anyways, quarterback Cam Newton was asked about this and he said he disagreed with Richardson selling because these are just allegations... "things people said happened." He even pointed out how allegations against him almost took him out of college football and they proved to be false. Very reasonable perspective.

Yet, the ESPN host said, "But these are beyond allegations because they've been settled." And the other three knuckleheads nodded their heads. Here's the thing, as any lawyer can tell you, there are dozens of reasons you settle something even when you are not guilty. Examples included: ending the publicity, the claim is smaller than the cost of fighting it, you know you're innocent but you worry that the jury won't believe you, the claim is a distraction and you have bigger things you are working on, etc. So what you do is settle the claim with no admission of guilt and it goes away.

But these ESPN types just made it clear that they won't let a settlement make a claim go away, and they see a settlement as an admission of guilt. Interesting. If this is how settlements of claims of harassment will be seen, then there is now far less benefit to settling. I will be curious to see how lawyers respond. Perhaps the future of settlements will require an admission by the accuser that they were wrong? Perhaps many more will fight.

● Hillary's approval is down to 36% versus 61% with a negative view. Trump's approval is at 41%. So he's actually more popular than Hillary. Interesting.

● So the tax bill will pass. I find this fascinating. This one could really disrupt a handful of liberal states. What do I mean?

I mentioned this a long time ago... but the federal income tax deduction has actually been a gift for liberal states. What it does is it allows those states to raise their own income/property taxes because the people paying them can deduct them from their federal taxes at a rate between 20% and 30%. In effect, this means that the federal government (you and I) was paying to subsidize the overtaxing practices in places like New York and California (13+%). Now these people will either pay the extra 10% or their states will need to back off. That's something a 2% tax revenue drop in California. It also means that California and New York and other high tax states will now be around 2% less competitive at attracting and keeping businesses.

It will be interesting to see how this shakes out. Already there are some billionaires who are whining that New York better lower its rates or they will leave.

Thoughts?

Some Observations

Have you noticed that every week they run headlines claiming that Trump's approval has dropped to the lowest level ever? Or how about how they've run this headline dozens of times: "Trump is now the most unpopular President ever!" Since that can only happen once by definition, I wonder how they can make the claim over and over? I'm calling bullship on the whole polling bit.

Have you noticed that the only sexual predator that all the little chickies agree is a genuine monster is Roy Moore? Ironically, the claims against Moore aren't even proven, as they are against many others, nor do they seem to involve much in the way of forced sexual conduct. This tells us that the #Iwontbesilentunlesstheresajobinitforme "movement" remains politicized.

Have you noticed the massive number of female teachers sleeping with students and how this epidemic goes unmentioned by feminists?

Have you noticed that any attempt by people like Matt Damon to bring some sanity to the #metoo witch hunt is being met with intense anger? Matt's crime was to suggest that not all harassment is the same and that we should not be punishing people who simply did something in a young victim-wannabe's dream the same as we should be punishing serial rapists. This suggestion of shades of misconduct angered the girls, who apparently think that anything any woman thinks was harassment deserves the same punishment. That should just about be the end of this silliness.

Have you noticed that the coverage of this year's LA fire has grown exponentially now that it's attacking celebrities' homes? Odd, isn't it, that a tragedy matters more when it happens to someone famous.

Have you noticed a commercial for a cologne called Sauvage (or is it Sausage?) starring Johhny Depp. Is it just me, or are you also pretty sure that Depp smells like week old rum, weeks of cigarettes and probably mule urine? Sausage is in stores now... if you dare.

Finally, I need to tell you all about our trip to Disney, which was both fantastic and interesting. I also need to tell you about this argument I had with a black former-friend of my wife. Fascinating stuff. I'll talk about both soon.

Putting a Finger On What Is Wrong

Today I'm spontaneously starting a new series. In this series, I'm going to point out "thinking" that is simply wrong and which is ruining the world by twisting the way people see it. Let us begin with an attack on Taylor Swift.

To be clear, I am no Swift fan. Her work is obnoxious, amoral and full of messages that should themselves make this series. But tonight, I'm going to point out something that just happened to her which really highlights a problem with modern society. What happened was this...

Swift gave a concert to her fans in New York in which she celebrated her 28th birthday. For most people, birthdays are a happy occasion where we reflect briefly on the prior year and we consider the future. Add to this that concerts are generally meant to be uplifting for fans, who often feel part of the star's life. Hence, Swift thanked her fans and posted on Instagram that she "couldn’t have asked for a better year."

Internet trolls immediately descended:

"I mean, yeah there were Nazi's (sic) and white supremacy marches, and families are being town (sic) apart, and there were mass shootings and people are losing health care, but none of that affects me, so 2017 was great!"

Forget the fact that several of these items were BS; whether true or not, this troll has lapped this up and believes it. What matters here is not if any of this is true, but the idea that somehow because this idiot thinks these bad things happened, this idiot has the right to just Swift as immoral for telling people she had a good year. This is heinously wrong on several levels:

(1) The idea that someone has the right to judge whether someone else is insufficiently angry/outraged.
(2) The idea that the geopolitical must (or even should) outweigh the personal.
(3) The herd mindset that everyone must think and feel the same.

Seriously trolls, you have no right to judge another person's personal priorities, and that fact that you and your sickly fellow travelers do shows us what is wrong with you. Live your own damn lives. Stop trying to live through others. And stop trying to control others. Stop trying to spread your diseased mental states to other people. You suck. Go f* yourselves... the human race does not need you or want you.

Indeed, the very idea that geopolitical events should control your happiness and should trump personal events is mentally deranged. That makes you ISIS, Hitler and every other sick bastard who tried to evade their own failures by casting blame on geopolitical events that truly did not affect them. And the fact the things you point to as ruining you are BS makes it even worse. You are a rebel without a clue looking for an outrage to let you unleash your hate... you are nothing more.

Finally, your herd instinct is the very thing that drives the human race off the cliff time and again. People left to their own opinions and beliefs built this world, herd creatures like you periodically try to destroy it. Turd. I wish you a long, lonely life of intense unhappiness.

That's how I see it. You?

Cognitive Dissonance

I am often amazed at liberals. Their hypocrisy knows no bounds.

Liberals are awash in racist impulses. They see the world defined by race and they clearly view minorities as inferior. No? Then what else are we to make of (1) their films using the Magic Negro trope over and over or the White Man's Burden trope? Apparently, black and brown people can't learn unless some honkey teaches them, (2) Them making minorities into cute little castrated mascots who dance in the streets for their entertainment, (3) The "intellectual" idea behind desegregation, which is basically that black kids can't learn unless they are surrounded by whites, or (4) the way they are unwilling to speak truth to minorities for fear the little dears can't handle the truth. And yet, they call everyone else a racist.

They see women the same way. While they pay lip service to women being "strong," their policy statements tell us they see women as infinitely delicate little creatures that need to be protected from criticism, sexual situations, and the hardships of the real world. They even worry about the language itself oppressing these delicate flowers. And yet, the accuse everyone else of sexism.

How about the harsh way they suppress speech they don't like in the name of free speech? The way everything must be defined by and counted by race to create a color blind society? The way they bully bullies? How their principles apply according to whom they like and whom they don't. And so on.

But now we see a whoooooole 'nother level to this.

Now we have seen an army of liberal/progressive sexual predators who've spent the past decade whaling about protecting women from people they arbitrarily label as predators because they disagree with them ideologically. Think about this. As every one of these bastards screamed and pointed fingers at innocent conservatives, they were hiding rapes, druggings, threats, unwanted touching, unwanted kissing, and God knows what else.

What's more, all these strong liberal women and the good liberal friends of these bastards knew all about it and said nothing even as they too smeared conservatives with false allegations of the very things their own friends and allies were doing. This is beyond perverse. It is beyond despicable.

The more I think about it, the more shocked I become honestly. This isn't like someone holding other people to a slightly higher standard than they manage to achieve themselves. This isn't even standard hypocrisy. This is a gaggle of predators hiding their own crimes while falsely accusing the world of their own conduct. This is villainy. Even worse, it's a conspiracy of silence where the predators, the victims and the friends and partners of the predators all stayed silent so they could smear people they disagree with. This is evil.

Thoughts?

Ha ha ha ha ha wrong.

So screamed the headline at Yahoo: Doug Jones's victory in Alabama is an ominous sign for Republicans. Uh, no.

Democrat Doug Jones shocked this state, and the country, by defeating Republican Roy Moore in Alabama’s Senate special election Tuesday, a victory that sounds a loud warning to the White House and the Republican Party.

Jones’s victory is a shot in the arm for Democrats, who are hoping that anger at Trump and congressional Republicans will fuel a “wave” election in 2018, flipping the U.S. House of Representatives, and perhaps even the Senate, blue.

Nope. So much nope. Not shocking. No warning. Says nothing about other races.

Moore’s defeat means that Trump has now suffered three consecutive losses. He first backed Moore’s opponent, Luther Strange, in the Republican primary only to see him lose to Moore. Then, last month, voters in Virginia turned out in historic numbers to deliver a massive rebuke to Trump in the elections for governor and state legislature.

So Trump's first loss was within a Republican primary? How does that help Democrats? As for Virginia, it's a reliably blue state. Trump should lose there. Yet, it came down to the wire and the legislature wasn't decided for weeks after the election because it was that close. That's hardly "a massive rebuke." To the contrary, it should be freaking Democrats out.

As for this Roy Moore thing having meaning, that's obviously wrong. Moore is an historically detestable candidate. Moore is a fringer even among the fringe. He is a rotten grandstander and self-promoter who abused the state supreme court, flowed with hate, apparently liked to diddle teenage girls, and whose wife was oddly uncomfortable with Jews. He is exactly the type of man the GOP needs to be driving out of their ranks. And unless the GOP starts running guys like this in other states, then this election has no lesson attached except that even Alabama will vote against a frothy fringer when they become too embarrassing. Trying to read this as some sort of ominous sign for the GOP is a joke. It is idiocy in action. It is to misunderstand what has happened so fundamentally as to make the proponent grossly negligent in their analysis. Said differently, it makes them a Yahoo employee.

The only real takeaway from Moore is that some chunk of the GOP remains blind to reality and prefers to see themselves as martyrs rather than Americans. That's it.

Get Paid To Get Arrested in NYC!

I was reading the NY Post this morning as I always do, right before I got on the train to be met with an alert that a bomb had gone off in Times Square right near my next stop. Yeah, just another typical Monday morning in NYC.

but, as if we don't have enough trouble in NYC, this is the newest stupidity to come our way.




{{Warning: What you are about to read is not a parody from The Onion.}}

City Offers Gift Cards To Criminal Suspect Who Complete Survey!

Yeah, if you get arrested and have to appear in front of a judge, they want to know how your experience has been. If the perp fills out a questionaire, they'll get a $15 Dunkin' Donuts gift card! I mean, you cannot make this crap up!

Here's just a few of the questions to answer and all they have to do is check the box "Disagree", "Neutral", "Agree", and "N/A".
[There's a link in the article with a .pdf of the questionaire]

Please tell me if agree, disagree or are neutral on the following statements about the building.

27) Signs outside the building helped me know what to expect today.

28) The security procedures for entering the building were clear.

29) I was treated respectfully by the security officers as I entered the building.

30) Court staff seemed happy to answer any questions I had.

31) The bathrooms were clean.

32) I found my way around the courthouse easily.

33) I knew where to get water if I was thirsty.

34) The building was clean and well maintained.

35) Signs inside the building were confusing.

36) The temperature inside the building was comfortable.

37) I knew who to ask if I needed assistance finding my way around the building.

38) What would have made the process of navigating the courthouse easier for you today

Well, hey, it's only costing $800K and who wouldn't want the criminal court system to be more user-friendly. I especially like the idea that judges, clerks, etc are going to have to take courtesy training because being arrested and having to appear before a judge should be a positive, friendly experience.

Anyway, there is just one of many issues to discuss...like the Alabama special election today.

Whoops...

Heap 'um bad weekend for our friends on the left.

So Friday, CNN ran with a story which said that Wikileaks had offered Team Trump access to certain information on September 4th, ten days before Wikileaks went public with it. If true, CNN would see this as proof that Wikileaks and Trump were working together and therefore Trump and Russia were working together. Here are the problems:

1. It wasn't offered to Trump and there is no evidence Trump people accepted it... it was an unsolicited email.
2. The email didn't come from a person CNN could actually identify as being connected to Wikileaks.
3. There is no proof that Wikileaks is actually connected to Russia. US intelligence only thinks this when they want to blame the Russians for something. Otherwise, they treat them as separate people.

So basically, some unknown dude sent an email to Trump Jr., with no evidence Trump Jr. responded... and CNN saw this as the smoking gun of some deal between Trump and Russia. Many other media outlets then ran with this because they want to believe that Trump is guilty of something or other.

Then the big problem came out. CNN misread the date. Instead of being September 4th, the email was sent September 14th, after Wikileaks released the information. Hence, CNN's take is impossible, and CNN should have known it. People are now shocked at how bad the media has been in reporting on this. Of course, this is the same media that repeatedly reported anti-Trump propaganda as truth when it wasn't. They are also confusing rumor and even wishful thinking with truth. Basically, our media has shown themselves to be paid liars for the left. What a disgrace.

I Will Not Be Silent... As Often

This harassment thing is the gift that keeps on giving. This time, some Hollywood chickies have put together a video because nothing changes the world like a video. This group includes Jennifer Lawrence, Nicole Kidman, Emma Stone, Gal Gadot, Margot Robbie, Jessica Chastain, Mary J. Blige and beatch Jake Gyllenhaal. In this video these women bravely tell us "I will not be silent."

Uh... ok.

Of course, if we're being honest, what they are really saying is "I will not be silent another 30 years as I let known predators rape other women."

But hey, that's still cool.

Um... wait. If we're being completely honest, then I think we also need to mention that they all seemed to claim that many men had harassed them and yet they only identified Harvey Weinstein. So really what they are saying is: "I will not be silent another 30 years as I let known predators rape other women unless you're talking about men other than Harvey Weinstein, in which event I shall indeed remain silent."

Ya know, this might not be so brave after all.

Snippets

From the news...

● Megahn Markle (rhymes with Sparkle) revealed that she struggled with insecurities because she was told that she was too husky and too bf ugly to be a model/actress. I am so, so sad. Yep, I'm sad because this is horse crap. This is the new inoculation for women who got famous for their looks. It's like the flu shot. Apparently, we are supposed to feel bad for all they suffered and now we don't judge them too harshly for their lives of privilege (for those playing along at home: too fat/ugly cures privileged Barbie... bullied cures asshole... sexual abuse cures major f*uck up).

Here is my response to Miss Marple and all the other models who make this claim:

(1) Bullshit.
(2) Everyone is told this growing up... often by people like you. This doesn't make you special.
(3) You picked a business that judges you on looks and weight, so you were asking for it. They don't say these things to garbage men or lawyers. This is self-inflicted.
(4) If you want people to stop judging women by looks, then stop trying to get jobs based on your looks and stop making your pretend lack of looks into something that defines you. I kid you not, airhead, in the 1970s, there were ugly actresses and they were amazing! I'd trade a thousand of you for one of them these days.

● Why do I keep seeing stories about Rodrigo Alves? He's a freak who is trying to make himself look like Ken/Barbie through massive amounts of surgery. Seriously, stop writing these articles. Let him die in obscurity.

● You know what is so telling about teaser headlines? They almost always link to an "article" in which the only bit of interesting information is the one word withheld from the headline. "Doing this can make your d**k fall right off!" If people writing these "articles" were any good, the article itself would be interest beyond the missing word, but they never are.

● Russia has been barred from the 2017 Olympics. Sounds like it's going to be 1984 all over again... let's go to McDonald's! Seriously though, this is an overdue punishment for Russia, but it doesn't go very far in terms of cleaning up sports. From the little I've seen, dozens of sports are awash in performance enhancing drugs and cheating (biking, swimming) and abuse (women's soccer). Add in the politicization of the NFL and NBA (and the crime wave that is the rosters of both sports), the nuclear bomb the feds dropped in college basketball (say hello to my little indictment), and the insanity that is the NCAA's football coaching hop ("I had to destroy the program to save it so I could get another job!"), and this isn't a great time for sports.

● John Conyers is going to resign. Not because he's a serial molester mind you -- Democrats don't resign for misconduct -- but because he's old (88 years young!) and he wants to pass his seat to his son just in case he gets forced out. What a way to go out... nepotism. They sure don't make "icons" like they used to.

Thoughts?

News Nuggets

Here are my thoughts on a couple of news nuggets from the weekend:

● Trump has endorsed Roy Moore. I'm not a fan of that because Moore is the kind of cliche that kills conservatism. On the other hand, I do find it interesting that Trump is playing out of the Democratic playbook: support your side even if they are worse than Hitler. It's an interesting change for conservatives. Not sure if I like it. What do you think?

● Sheryl Sandberg, of Facebook fame, has raised an obvious point that the media has to date ignored. She's worried that the me-too list (also known as the sexual harassment scandal) will ultimately hurt women because men won't want to hire women as they will be seen as too much trouble. Well duh. Actions have consequences. And when millions of women whine about being "sexually assaulted" and think they should be able to bring this up YEARS later to destroy men's careers... often after following them from job to job... and when their "sexual assault" complaint is "He asked me out" or "I could just tell he was having impure thoughts about me" or "I consented at the time, but I changed my mind later," and there is a presumption of guilt, then what rational person would want to take on that kind of trouble?

I have personally witnessed the extreme vetting that law firms go to before hiring blacks for this very reason and I have zero doubt that this issue will do the same for women. The natural response of employers will be to avoid women who display slutty traits, who whine/complain, and who seem litigious. I can also see "The Pence Rule" kicking in with employers making sure never to meet with women without witnesses. The result won't be an end to female advancement, but it will be slowed and will come only with higher security.

● I'm kind of chuckling about college football. The obsession with figuring out which team is the best is an irony wrapped in idiocy. For one thing, you will never truly know who is best because it's just not possible. Given the ambiguity of picking who gets a chance to play, the interference of weather conditions or other uneven factors, and the ability of any team to win randomly on any given day, it is simply impossible to know who is the best. Nevertheless, the people needing to know have imposed a system that they claimed would solve this issue and make all the games even more important.

But of course, the opposite is true. The sad truth is that the media has done exactly what you would expect: they've redefined college football through the prism of the playoff system. In the process, they've changed the bowl games from prizes for great seasons into consolation prizes for those forgotten by the playoffs. And now it's been pointed out that many of the conference championships are meaningless as well, with winners like Ohio State this year and Penn State last year not making the playoffs either. Then there's Central Florida who went undefeated and weren't even considered for the playoffs, making all their games meaningless and showing that most teams will always be seen as ineligible for the playoffs no matter what they do.

To solve these problems, the idiots who caused it are now suggesting expanding the playoffs to eight games, which solves none of these problems. Oh well.

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.

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 .

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.

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!

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.

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.

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?

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.

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?

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?

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.

No Contradiction There!

Whiners whiners everywhere and I can't give a crap.

● If the “strong” women who couldn’t report being repeatedly raped and harassed by Weinstein for decades really want to be taken seriously, then stop posing in your damn underwear. You can’t sell your body and then whine when people treat you as a sex object.

● Blake Lively (and others) whined about being discriminated against because reporters asked which designer they were wearing when they attended some women’s conference. The next week, she announced that she would be the spokeschickie for some fashion designer/makeup company. See a contradiction there?

● Amber Tamblyn claims that the only reason Harvey Weinstein went down was that Hillary lost and women decided to stand up for themselves. Such idiocy. So she's saying that if we had elected Hillary, Amber and friends would have let predator Weinstein keep molesting young women? That’s nice. How does that make electing Hillary a good thing?

Notice also that the response to evil Trump being elected is that a group of women finally told the truth about something they’d been covering up to protect their careers. So Trump made honest women of them.

Or, said differently, to get even with the public for the election of Trump, a group of leftist Hollywood starlets destroyed one man... the biggest Hollywood bundler for Democratic causes. Does that make sense to anyone? Maybe it would make more sense if they were wearing hats shaped like genitalia on their heads? Idiots.

● Terry Richards is a pervert. This has long been known with the fashion industry and even among the public. I knew it and I barely know who this guy is. He all but molests models. So this week, the fashion industry decided to blacklist him for his sexual crimes. My question is this: why was his well-known behavior considered acceptable for 30 years?

● The Houston Texans should change their logo to a snowflake... or a moron. Apparently, the playas are upset because the owner said, “We can’t let the inmates run the prison.” Putting aside any anger they feel for him getting the saying wrong, these coddled millionaire delicates apparently don’t realize that this is a common expression used by millions of people to say that management can’t let the people they manage make the decisions. It’s not racist. It does not imply that the employees are “inmates.” Yet, the Texans are moron victim-wannabes, so they’re all butthurt about it. Waaaaah!

Let’s be real about this for a moment, shall we? Why in the world would white managers want to hire black people when the public experience with them is this? Would you hire someone who will misconstrue everything to be racism and then stage protests about it? The answer seems pretty obvious. So while it may be fun to whine like a bitch about being fake-victimized, the damage these delicate millionaires are doing to the cause of black people is immense.

Ditto on the sexual harassment thing. Right now, you have women claiming harassment that is decades old and based on things that should never be considered harassment: “He asked me out! He looked at me! He complimented me on my clothing! I felt uncomfortable around him! He told a joke involving women/sex/something I don’t like!” Would you hire someone who might decide to become a victim 20 years down the road. That’s like hiring a booby trap... no pun intended. Again, how does this help the women who aren't idiots?

● Ford’s new slogan is “Always Unstoppable.” Does that sound like a great slogan for a car company?

Interesting Times

Things are definitely going wrong for the left.

1. In the last couple days, it has been revealed that Clinton paid for the fake dossier created to embarrass Trump and then lied about funding it for over a year. The MSM is pissed, and this story is making Clinton look really bad while vindicating Trump.

2. Clinton's dirty deal letting the Russians take over American uranium mines in exchange for two million dollars in "donations" has killed the Trump-was-in-league-with-Russia industry, something the left was counting on very much to unseat Trump. Suddenly, no one on the left wants to talk about Russia.

3. The left seems to be getting worse at organizing day by day. Instead of a useless pussy-head rally or a counter-productive BLM riot, they're now planning to all scream helplessly to the sky (God?) on the anniversary of the election... because that will achieve nothing. It also makes them look even more like idiots.

4. I think this Hollywood thing is starting to implode. First, you have a bad guy (Matt Damon) pretend to be a leader of the good guys and no one speaks up. Ben Affleck escaped to rehab. Only two names have been tossed out even as these women claim to have been harassed by thousands of different men. Corey Feldman is exploiting the crisis for fund raising. The SJW's are apparently worried about the lack of blacks being harassed. And try as they might, they can't seem to find harassers beyond the (leftist) entertainment industry. At this point, this all has the feel of having switched from substance to circus, which is usually the end of the matter.

Don't Panic!

Okay, I don't want to start a panic, but this could be really bad.

Interesting fact: Because earth's rotation is slowing down, today is about 0.00000002 seconds longer than yesterday pic.twitter.com/vwSDBJwocd

— World and Science (@WorldAndScience) October 24, 2017

Okay, okay, okay, calm down! Don't worry, I have a plan that just might work to save us! Stay with me here. Here's my plan. If we could get every person, animal, and moving object to just run in the westwardly direction at the same time for about an hour or so, maybe, just maybe, we could get the Earth moving faster again. It would be just like a giant NordicTrak!

Now, I haven't done the exact math mainly because I am not good at math, but I figure it might just work give or take an hour or two..maybe a week? Oh, we can work out those kinds of minor details later. That's what we have all those mathemeticians, physicists, and NASA for anyway!

And here is another net positive to this obviously feasible plan - every single person on Earth would be so occupied with working together getting those steps in, no one would be warring, no one would be harassing, and most importatntly, all the politicians, pundits, and prevaricators would be so out of breath, they would finally shut up for an hour or so! Brilliant, huh?

Anyway, that's my plan to save Earth. Other than that, I've got nothing. Any of you have any other ideas?

Turn On The News Machine!!

News Glut, Day 311...

● We have our second (recently) exposed pervert in Hollywood. This is a director named James Toback. I don’t really know his career, but he seems minor enough to sacrifice. He’s been accused by 38 women of generally tricking them into going somewhere private and then jerking off in front of them. Weinstein did that too. I guess it’s a Hollywood thing to jerk yourself off in front of someone. Weirdos. Anyways, I’m still waiting for a real purge in Hollywood.

● Is it just me or does Matthew McConnaughey seem more and more like a pedophile in his ads? My daughters think of him as “gross” (greasy hair and bad skin). I guess that makes him a good spokesman for Wild Turkey though.

● Patton Oswalt, a small time Hollywood comedian, is exploiting his wife’s death (drugs, heart condition) to help his career. He claims to have “found” a letter from his dead wife in which she smeared Donald Trump in 2004. Yeah, no sale. That said, I’m sure the late night fools with lap this up.

● This Gold Star thing is idiotic. It’s just a bunch of the usual suspects pretending to freak out about something that never would have upset them if someone else had said it. There is nothing insensitive about saying, “He knew what he was signing up for, but when it happens is hurts anyway.” And the fact they need to cut the quote short to make it sound insensitive proves it. Now the mother has produced a tape recording. Hmm. What’s that about? Does she just record all her conversations or only those that might prove useful? This reeks of that Code Pink chick, Cindy something, who exploited the death of her son to attack Bush.

● I’m sad I don’t get to see Dodgers v. Yankees in the World Series. That would have been a cool reminder of my childhood.

Thoughts?

Mindfulness To Mindlessness

So have you heard about the new movement called "Mindfulness"? Well, it's actually not new as it has been around since the 1970's, but let me explain. Basically it's meditation to center oneself in the here and now, or as Wikipedia states:

“Mindfulness is the psychological process of bringing one’s attention to the internal and external experiences occurring in the present moment, which can be developed through the practice of meditation and other training.”

The NYC public school system is beginning to institute this practice in our public schools to help promote calm, focused children and even setting aside special spaces for the daily meditations. Now I only bring this up because, well, I started grade school in those way-back times when we still had prayer in school. At the beginning of every day, we would say the Pledge of Allegience in unison, and either sit or stand quietly and have our daily devotional. Then our day would begin with each child now calm and ready to listen to our lessons and focused as a group.

I think this is great idea, but I am also just a little confused. Meditation is an ancient religious practice in Buddhism and Hinduism and let me be honest, it is just prayer. Basically, the NY public school system is reintroducing this kind of practice back in the school system, but how is this any different from prayer which was banned decades ago for being unconstitutional. I reiterate that I think this is a great idea to have this devoted moment of focused calm, but...it's just reintroducing the ancient religious practice of prayer which we got rid of because it was...oh nevermind. Let's just say that maybe there was some method to our previous generations' madness afterall.

And moving on, now for some mindlessness. So, our Governor Cuomo has approved a plan for General Motors to road test their new experimental driverless cars in Lower Manhattan next year - LINK. First let me say this, I don't trust GM to make a car with a driver that will not fall apart, so how on Earth will GM make driverless cars that will? Don't get me started on my long running issues with GM cars!

Secondly, why on God's Green Earth, are they approved to test this out in THE most congested, chaotic place on Earth with a car that has no driver. I'm not just talking crazy cab drivers and maniacal trucks weaving unexpectedly through traffic. We're talking buses, pedestrians including thousands of tourist who run amok, and cyclists who I rarely if ever see one actually stop for a red light I would faint dead away. I forsee death, destruction, and more mayhem than usual. But what makes this even better is Gov. Cuomo didn't even bother to consult with Mayor de Blasio or even the Dept of Transporation in NYC before the public announcement. If nothing else, it should be entertaining to witness.

Okay, do your stuff.

More Thoughts

We are in a dessert of genuine of news... the sound of one hand clapping. But here goes. Some thoughts.

● I am Spartacus. That's kind of how Hollywood feels right now. If you are an actress, you better report being molested asap before the ride closes. Was that flippant? See, it's not that I don't believe you... well, actually it is. I don't believe you, especially if you won't name names. "Strong women" my ass.

As an aside, Reece Witherspoon's story about being made to do a naked lineup as a way to be made to lose weight was a woman director, not a man. The media seems to keep skipping little details like that. Where is Algore to give us 'Inconvenient Truths PART 3'?

The #metoo people seem to have stopped reporting numbers... probably because it's truly underwhelming.

● There have been some horrific child killings in the news lately. A mother put her toddlers in the oven to kill them. A 19 year old stabbed his two younger siblings to death locally so he would be alone. Some dude claimed he made his daughter stand by a tree at 3 am because she wouldn't drink milk and she vanished, but the evidence is showing he killed her. BTW, she was 22 pounds at one point as a child. What is wrong with people?

● Meanwhile, it turns out that opioids killed more people in 2016 (64,070) than died in Vietnam (58,000). People are now going into a tizzy. Of course, let us put this in perspective. Few of those 64,070 will be missed. Moreover, 92 million Americans have been prescribed opioids this year alone. That means a death rate of 0.00007%. That's hardly an epidemic. Yet, people aren't smart and they hear a big number and panic. So now it will become nearly impossible to get very useful pain pills because a few thousand hillbillies overdosed. Wonderful.

● Have you seen this idiot who went to Afghanistan with his wife to missionary to people behind enemy lines? Surprise, they were captured and tortured and one of their kids was killed... and now they're acting shocked. Stick your head in a lion's mouth and you will suffer. Duh.

● Finally, my daughter has managed to put Greek Mythology into perspective in one evil swoop: "their real problem was Zeus and his junk." Oy vey.

Open Thread

I got nothing. Seriously, nuthin'. The Harvey Weinstein scandal is proceeding as expected with the herd striking out with blind rage at those who don't conform to the collective's position. Trump gave Obamacare a death blow and only the Democratic leadership seems to get it. The GOP keeps attacking Trump because they are Hillary in drag. Hillary is having to deny that Bill Clinton told her the truth about her book and campaign. That's really about it.

So let me leave you with this. We are all made of atoms that are essentially immortal. Does that make us immortal in a sense? What do you think this means for the existence of the human soul?

There Is Evil... Then There Are Democrats

Just a thought. You know all the things liberals claim are beyond evil, right? And how they love to blame them on everyone else? Like how they are acting like the Harvey Weinstein thing is part of some "epidemic" and therefore attacking Weinstein's crimes and Hollywood's hypocrisy is "politicizing" things. Well, consider this:

Democrat Thomas Jefferson... slave owner

Democrat Andrew Jackson... trail of tears

The Democratic South... slavery, fought Civil War to keep slaves, imposed slavery in other form in Reformation Era, segregation until the 1960s.

Democrat Woodrow Wilson... racist... lied to get country into World War I

Democrat FDR... interned Japanese-American citizens

Democrat Harry Truman... only human to drop atomic bomb on civilian populations

Democrat JFK... tried to assassinate foreign leaders, illegal invasion of Cuba, started Vietnam War

Democrat LB Johnson... lied to escalate Vietnam War including ground troops and systematic bombing of North Vietnam (leftist Bertrand Russell attacked Johnson's policy as "a barbaric aggressive war of conquest"), surveillance of MLK and Civil Right leaders

Democrat Clinton... rapist, serial sexual harasser. Democrat Hillary Clinton... covered up and defended Clinton by smearing victims

Democrat Obama... Kept Gitmo open and tried to declare the prisoners as non-persons with no rights, expanded use of drones including against American citizens without court oversight, expanded wars in Middle East and Africa

K-12 Schools... under Democrats control since 1950s, yet were segregated, accused of systematic racism and sexism

Progressive Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes... endorsed compulsory sterilization of the intellectually disabled (eugenics) in 1927 case Buck v. Bell. "Three generations of imbeciles are enough."

Just to name a few. Maybe we should be getting rid of the statues and monuments to these monsters and war criminals after all?

Matriarchy Heal Thyself and other stupid stuff

With all of the stuff coming out about Harvey Weinstein, this is one issue that has gotten lost in the furor. Our former First Lady Michelle Obama stepped in it a couple of weeks ago when making a speech at some organization. Well, she had this to say about women who didn't vote for Hillary Clinton:

“Any woman who voted against Hillary Clinton voted against their own voice,”

Seriously, I am getting so tired of women tell other women what they are supposed to think and do. My response to this was this:

Listen up! I did not fight for equality with "the Patriarchy" only to be told I must swear total loyalty to "the Matriarchy".

Yeah, that is exactly what I think about all of this "if you didn't vote for Hillary, you are traitor to women" crap. Really, how on earth do these idiots think this is going to win women over? Again, I didn't fight for equality all of these years only to be told that I must kiss the ring of the matriarchy! I have a voice and it's mine! I own it! MATRIARCHY HEAL THYSELF!!

And that the Obama's awarded their daughter Malia with a cushy internship along side Harvey Weinsstein, well, enough said. Oh, wait, they had no idea he was a perve and are appalled! Not appalled enough to give all the money back that he has given them over the years, but appalled just the same. And as for all that money being returned, that's not exactly what is happening. All these Dems that lived large off his donation are making a big show of giving the cash to other Dem-affiliated "women's" charities only to get it laundered right back into their campaign coffers.

Okay, now on a couple a issue in New York City:

I know that Columbus Day is over, but Columbus Day is a huge deal in NYC. And an issue in the "Take Down Those Evil Statues" has taken a new twist here too. Yeah, in NYC because, let's be honest, there aren't many statues of Confederate generals around and the statue-haters in NYC didn't want to be left out, so they've shifted their focus to...Christopher Columbus. Not a great idea. You see, first and formost Christopher Columbus was Italian and the Italian-American community in NYC is very large and very proud of the fact that Christopher Columbus was Italian. Many, many things in NYC are named after him at the behest of the Italian-American community like Columbus Avenue, Columbus Circle, Columbia University, and many parades including the big one down 5th Avenue every year, and many, many Italian-American social clubs.

And these same Italian-Americans are very miffed at all the rhetorical and physical attacks on their beloved Christopher Columbus especially from someone whose has taken the Italian name of "DeBlasio" [real name: Warren Wilhelm Jr.]. In fact it has gotten so bad that the famous (and newly renovated) statue of Christopher Columbus in the equally famous Columbus Circle at Broadway and 59th Street now has a 24/7 armed guard to curtail growing vandalism directed at Columbus.

As you may remember from an earlier post, DeBlasio made a big splash during the "Robert E. Lee statue removal of 2017" controversy (there's no controversy to great in an election year) by appointing a special panel in NYC to discuss and decide what statues in NYC might not meet the very new, very stringent rules of what statues should get to stay and which ones should go 'cause it's a thing now. I mean, he is up for reelection in just a few weeks and the committee is meeting "out of the public eye and input" to decide these things and their mayor-imposed deadline for a proposal just happens to conveniently fall after the election in November. Pretty much every statue is up for grabs because, well, there is literally no person who can pass this new purity test of time and hindsight. No one, not even Theodore Roosevelt who is the newest target of our "New Puritans". Oh, and for obvious reasons, the Italian-American community is pobably not a group that you want to "miff", if you know what I mean.

Oh, not that, I mean they are a huge voting bloc. What did you think I meant??

And then there's this:
The famous Solomon Guggenheim Museum in NYC forced to remove art from show 'cause this is what we do now. The museum was going to exhibit some photographs in a group called "Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World" by various artists. However some activists took umbrage with at least 3 of the works being presented - 'Dogs That Cannot Touch Each Other' (2003), 'Theater of the World' (1993), and 'A Case Study of Transference' (1994) - because they showed animals being abused in some way. Unlike the whole Pissed Christ, Mapplethorpe, or Elephant Dung Virgin Mary issue, this isn't about public funding. This particular issue is about pure and simple censorship. Animal rights activist were going to violently (how ironic) protest the display, so the museum decided to pull them "out of concern for the saftety of its staff, visitors, and participating artists". Seriously, if we are going to start censoring artists who maybe could teach us about the bad things that humans do to animal then how are we supposed to learn about them?

Again this isn't about Henry Hyde-style public funding. The issue with the NEA in the '90's was never about censorship, it was who was going to pay for it. Even Rudy Giuliani when he wanted the dung-strewn Madonna removed from the publicly-funded Brooklyn Museum never once said it should be banned. Any private gallery that wanted to pick up that gaunlet was free to do so. None did, by the way. And it's not like there aren't hundreds of private galleries in NYC who couldn't have either. And if it only takes some nebulous threat of violence to get something banned these days, I have a list of a few sculptures I would like removed just 'cause they are ugly and pointless.

Okay, do your commenting stuff...

Thought Updates

Howdy folks. I got nothing... except some random thoughts. Avante!

● Hillary. Hillary is an idiot. Rather than just donating some of the Weinstein money to some leftist woman's group, like the other Democrats are doing, she's maintaining radio silence, drawing attention to her failure to do the right thing. Even worse, she let her stupid daughter defend her by posting on Twitter that those meanie Republicans were trying to politicize this terrible thing! Dumbass. Hillary taking money for her political campaign which was based on slandering the GOP with women from a known sex criminal and not giving it back is inherently political, retard.

● Widespread. So liberal Matt Damon may have done his best to intimidate/sway various news outlets not to cover Weinstein's earlier assaults. That's actually a crime. At the least, it's called a conspiracy. Donna Karan just blamed the victims by saying this wasn't entirely Weinstein's fault because the women might have been provocatively dressed. Up to now, the left has condemned blaming the victim as victimizing the victim a second time. I guess it's cool now though.

● In a bizarre moment, Gayle King -- sitting in for Nora O'Donnell -- defended the Obamas from the Weinstein issue by claiming they didn't know about the harassment, which is why they haven't given back the money he gave them. Ok. That still doesn't explain Obama's failure to condemn it now or why he hasn't given back the money he took from Weinstein now that he knows. Even more interesting though, it's not clear where O'Donnell got this idea because no one has explained what Obama knew or didn't. So basically, she invented an excuse to protect Obama. Shocking, right?

● Arch-feminist Emma Watson has failed to condemn her friend Weinstein. So have arch-liberals Scarlett Johansson, Gwyneth Paltro, Jennifer Lawrence, and others. Rob Reiner and others, including the DNC, are trying to deflect this by attacking Trump.

● Post season baseball is interesting to me. This year, it's actually more interesting that football. I'm sick of the politicization.

● Why do I need to know that "Hot Felon" Jeremy Meeks's ex-wife had plastic surgery to tighter her uh... lower girl parts. Seriously, how does this end up in the news? Why does she want the world knowing this? I feel dirty just knowing this.

● So Dove did a commercial in which a black chick uses Dove to become a white chick. /snicker snicker I don't knew who thought that was a good idea. Mucho whining online about this.

● OJ is free and yet I don't feel less safe.

● So the Democrats are pissed at Trump for not exempting Puerto Rico from the Jones Act, a 1920's law which requires the use of US flag carriers for shipping and thereby adding a ton to the cost of each item. Said differently, they are upset Trump won't protect Puerto Rico from stupid Democratic laws. Typical Democrats... how dare you not save people from the stupid thing we did!

● Apple Air... Amazon Fire... Google Earth... ___ Water.

● Why are we supposed to change Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day? What exactly did the IP do that I should care about or that we should celebrate? Besides, aren't we supposed to be extinguishing them from our culture? That's what they say every time they force some sports team called the Indians to change their name to something like the Non-Offensives.

● Emily Ratajkowski is naked... and the sky is blue.

Harvey Weinstein

It's always fascinating when things blow up to see how they turn out, especially when you can compare how people act to other recent events. Let's talk about Harvey Weinstein.

For those who don't know, Harvey Weinstein is a film producer of some repute. He's been behind a massive number of films and he has considerable sway in Hollywood. Indeed, Weinstein is one of the biggest contributors to Democrats, including Clinton and Obama, and he is what is called a "bundler," meaning he throws parties for A-list Hollywood types who also contribute at these parties. Over the years, he has funneled millions to the Democrats.

Well, the other day, allegations starting coming out, led by Ashley Judd, that Harvey is a serial sexual harasser and probably a sex criminal. Apparently, he used his position to demand massages, that women watch him shower, and that at least one (a reporter) watch him masturbate (which is how they say "Hi" in West Virginia). More will come out soon I'm sure.

So how is Harvey being treated?

Well, let me start with this. When sexual harassment allegations began being raised at Fox News, the left lost their minds and demanded immediate termination plus more. Essentially, they wanted all of Fox's management canned and the network sent to re-education camp. They tried to get the accused fired and ostracized. And they wanted everyone to have to agree that this was as evil as you can get without rounding up Jews.

Heck, Cam Newton found himself condemned and his sponsors dumping him just for a quasi-sexist remark... he didn't even get the chance to masturbate in front of anyone!

So what about Harvey? Well, his company has put him on administrative leave so they can investigate. That's fair. But then it gets a little iffy. None of the A-list actress types who routinely make sexual harassment a sisterhood issue and demand automatic guilt by allegation have spoken up... not a one. They haven't even condemned these acts in principle "if true." Crickets. A couple minor actresses have piled on, but that's about it.

The Democrats who want to run for President have all agreed to give the money they got from him to charity. Hillary and Obama haven't said a word, though. Apparently, they like the tainted money too much to give it back. On the other hand, the Democratic National Committee is giving up the money... sort of. They're giving it to liberal groups dedicated to getting (Democratic) women elected. That's a bit like giving it to your own PAC.

It's interesting how hesitant the left is to really condemn this when they don't even wait for the allegation to be known before they usually condemn these things. So maybe this isn't as big an issue for them as they would normally have you believe. In fact, let me ask how this could have gone on for two decades with out a single Democrat revealing what was going on? Add this to Clinton's misconduct and Weiner's child-sex texting and a bevy of other allegations and I'm starting to think the Democrats only care about sex-crime when they can lob the allegation, but they are pretty indifferent when it's their own people doing it. So much for being the party that protects women.

Thoughts?