I have mentioned one of the best follows on Twitter, @iowahawkblog, and he had this funny tweet the other day:
I mean, c'mon, that's funny stuff. Turns out he had been in Twitter jail for a while, not for his tweets, but as he put, stupidity rather than malfeasance. The password on his email used to sign up for twitter expired, so it locked him out. I noticed, although he says no one did. :)
The comments have been great, lots of "I dunno, I'm still dead from net neutrality," or WW3 (that Trump started a few weeks ago by killing a terrorist), or Coronavirus, or the Paris Accords, or the Tax Cuts, etc, plus great jokes about how the Brits killed a lot of beers, ciders, and bitters! Humor wins.
That being said, it was a great point, good jokes so often are.
OK, next, I downgraded my website from a business to a personal site, but didn't actually save any money, because the Gsuite cost was free the first year only, as was the domain cost, and I had gotten 30% off the first year price as well. Oh, well, if I make some money with photography ever, it'll go to that.
Man, I was right with the culture vultures about the Super Bowl halftime show, I was like, "well, I guess J Lo wants us to look at her private parts" with the sliding towards the camera on her knees and all, and that's all over the internet now. Seriously, I've been complaining about how the NFL broadcasts with commercials for Two and a Half Men that had Charlie Sheen in bed with several women, etc, aren't appropriate for children (future fans) for years, and this was no different. Shakira's golden mic looked so much like a phallus when she did her uulation that I had to check to be sure it hadn't been photoshopped (and I think it had in some stills going around). Best comment I've seen so far has been another tweet that said something along the lines of "why must women be sexualized like this, we don't do that with men?" Some idiot replied that Adam Levine took his shirt off last year and no one said as much. Duh, doofus. The other idiot I saw replied that "well, your president grabs by the p*$&y, so..." as if that's at all related. Oy. People are not very smart. I'd actually suggest that it's the other way around: a culture that glorifies sexualization of performers in the way that the halftime show did leads to girls and women letting male celebrities get away with grabbing them and more. I've already written about it, but groupies exist, I've seen it, you've seen it, Kobe's seen it (too soon?), and that's what the Trump-BillyBush tape was about. Just because they were famous, women let them...fill in the blank. And the idiot commenter doesn't see the connection between celebrity worship, stripper pole shows at halftime and the casting couch? Wake up, wokesters.
Well, lastly, the Impeachment is going down in a whimper, as it should. Still, one of the best examples of the "one screen, two movies being watched" illusion I've ever seen. People calling Adam Schiff a hero are seeing a movie I've never seen.
I am mostly in the camp that says adding the motivation of a crime as additional crime is a little, uhm, problematic: is beating someone up because they are gay worse than beating someone up because they took your parking spot, or they didn't put the fries in your order, if you are already committing a crime and getting charged with it, like assault?
Twitter put this in my timeline (through the miracle of retweeting, it's how I see the Pres's tweets fairly often without following him whether I wanted to or not):
So, if you want to find the tweet, and the thread, that's fine, but I think that this was the only one of the thread that used actual numbers in addition to the percents of change.
With Gallup reporting that according to their research
Overall, 4.3% of U.S. adults identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, according to Gallup's latest estimate from its June 2016-June 2017 tracking data. That is up from 3.9% a year ago and 3.4% in Gallup's initial estimate in 2012.
I find it interesting that it's still a tiny percentage of the population that was affected by this massive media story (although it's still a largish actual number: 2015 census says 247,773,709 adults, so that's like 10.6 million people), and the subset of that number that got married in light of the Supreme Court decision is pretty small. Let's do some math.
Using the 2015 number above, and that 4.3% percentage according to Gallup, there are approximately
10,654,269 adult LGBT people in the US.
841,687 married prior to HodgesObergefell (7.9%)
1,086,735 married after two years (10.2%)
so 245,048 adults got married as a result, so far. (this is off by a little, as we are using 2015 numbers, I get that.)
That's .000989% of the adults in the US.
That doesn't break out trans people, so let's do that. Therefore, the 46% increase of 49 crimes among the 1.4+ million individuals is really not that big, is it? Yes, any increase is a bad thing, but using the change percentage so you can call it a 46% increase is alarmist.
BTW, if you did dive into the link at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) you will see that compared to the total number of crimes (and in relation to the important number of adults in the US, just under 250 million), hate crimes are actually pretty rare. This is good. Here's info from the FBI's site.
I have so much to say, but am too lazy to type it all out here. Let's start with 4chan, shall we? As has been documented, some 4chan trolls punked the media by suggesting that the OK symbol has white supremacist meaning. The media believed it (as did some white power guys), but most of us didn't even hear about it because we have lives.
A story or two appeared and they were debunked.
Not for this one couple, though, who after apparently NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO THEIR KIDS during a photo opp with Gru and a Minion, didn't notice the Circle game was being played. Later, months later, they saw the "offensive gesture" and did what anyone would do: alerted the media, somehow.
Seriously, I know people that work for local media, and it would never have occurred to me to call them.
Universal fired the character actor, and I have to wonder if they even asked him or her what was up? "Hey, we got this complaint, uh, what was that about? Are you a stupid racist ruining photos, or?" "Wait, what's the circle game? You mean "made you look?"?" "Who would believe a playful cartoon character would play a kids game with some kids...that's ridiculous!"
I mean, Occam's Razor, right?
The best part is the edited photo that doesn't show the little toddler brother also making the circle. Because, narrative, right?
And just in time the trailer for Richard Jewell dropped. Perfect timing.
I have had a Yahoo email for years, it's my first email and it's limitless, so it's unbelievably full of crap, mostly. It is and has been my main email, though.
What that means is that I suffer through the home page on a daily basis with the unbelievably bad choices of liberal bullcrap stories and editorial choices they are so filled with.
Yes, I said "unbelievably" twice. However, it's totally believable, as they do it on a daily basis. Today's example is pretty egregious:
As soon as I saw the little blurb, I thought I was seeing things, I mean, I liked him as a presidential candidate (remember when the Republicans had 2 black male candidates and the Dems were all white?) and didn't recall that part of his career. (yes, yes, I now know that was a Trump nickname for him, so shouldn't they have capitalized it if that's what they were going for? Of course not, they wanted to minimize his credentials)
It's in a prominent part of the Yahoo homepage as well, top stories and all:
I mean, they are getting roasted in the comments, but Libs don't read the comments, they only read the headlines and think they know it all. I mean, it's not like he was the Director of the Kansas City Fed or anything (narrator: He was, in the 90s).
Hey, journalists, this is why people don't like you. You are either the ones doing this crap or you let this crap happen.
Two stories of interest locally involve smoking and the Cincinnati City Council!
As a part of the national trend, the city is moving towards some marijuana legalization. Nothing final on that yet. Generally, I'm anti-drugs, so not sure about how they are planning to make this work.
You see, there's a grant involved. You know what happens when money gets dangled in front of Democrats, right? A grant for 2-3 people to enforce the 21 year age limit. That's great, right, we get the new law rolling for a few years via the grant, then it's on it's way...
Nope.
The city, which has no current enforcement of the 18 year limit, wants to continue to fund these new enforcers past the grant. Hmmmmm. Well, they've never had a permit for the sales of tobacco/smoking products (like Vaping, etc), so why not create that?
Yep. $500.
How many businesses sell this stuff? Hundreds? New income for the city!!!! Plus, there's NO WAY 2-3 staff can enforce this!!!!! ID'ing is already mandatory and standard operating procedure for any store that sells the stuff, now, why do we need any staffing of this at all when THEY ALREADY CARD EVERY BUYER?
This, my friends is why I'll never be a democrat or liberal. These thoughts would have never occurred to me. New law based on grant and new fees to cover ongoing expenses enforcing an update to an existing law that has no enforcement or budget for it.
This is a fantastic illustrative example of government creep and the difference between seeing issues from a liberal/progressive/democrat world view and a conservative/liberty/republican one.
Kudos, though, to David Mann (D) for seeing the absurdity and pointing much of this out in council, according to my non-related morning AM talk show host, Brian Thomas on 55KRC, who also hit all these points that I was making to the car radio as I listened. LOL
My only other point would be: what's the age limit for legalized pot? Hmmm? Higher? Lower? I have no idea, but you may soon be more able to smoke pot than tobacco in Cincinnati.
This morning, on my local AM Talk Radio favorite, which uses NBC news for the top of the hour bits, a story of the impending Presidential funeral was about....the seating chart.
Yes, the Hot Take was that Obama and Trump might only be one seat away from each other. Blah blah blah tradition blah blah blah GW with family blah blah blah and they haven't been getting along blah blah blah. It's the funeral of a former President and this is what you are thinking about, and you actually decide that it's worth saying out loud IN A NEWS REPORT?
Seriously, people, you need a break. Maybe a job handing out pennies to kids at Wal-Mart so they can ride the penny pony (or rocket or whatever). Step away.
***Just an update, my FB feed had a few people that fit this description. Step away, people, step away. You really need to let go the TrumpHate, it's poisoning your brain and your soul.
Look, I have no dog in this hunt, but I do want to point out that this Kavanaugh accusation has one pertinent point worth expressing.
The Democrats purposely help onto the information and accusation until it was like a dirty bomb, just like they did with the Billy Bush tape of Trump. That was true, but the timing was dirty. They dropped it at a point of the campaign where it would inflict maximum damage, even though they had had it for some time. This is how one wages war, after all.
I have no idea if Kavanaugh tried to get this girl naked, the accusation is fairly credible, actually (although the fact that she's a big Dem, donor and all), but the timing is dirty, as has been pointed out: they saved this for a bomb, instead of bringing it up when it would have made sense to bring up. During the hearings, etc, this could have been addressed and responded to, but they held on until his nomination and confirmation process was looking like a lock.
I have a moderately diverse Twitter stream. I don't follow a gazillion accounts so I can keep it manageable (like my Instagram), but I have some smart people that are libs and some smart people that are cons (and libertarians) because #facts.
I have a Disney guy in there that has decided to come out as a Trump-hater, but because I like his Disney posts, I ignore the dumb political stuff. He "liked" this post from a crazy socialist running for office in Virginia:
This was actually my 5th reply. You see, you should be more like Dave, remember? One way to be more like me is to doubt what you read and see.
For example, I saw a tweet about how Google employee emails revealed that they conspired to help Hillary in the last election. Looking at the (conservative) source, I'm like "nah, I'm going to wait to see if this is actually true" as opposed to the additional FBI texts story that says they conspired to leak bad intel to make Trump look bad, where I'm like, "yup, I buy that."
So, when I say this enticing image had been liked into my twitterfeed, I thought, "waitaminutetherefella. We spend a ton on that stuff. Other twitterers pointed out that this was an old Soviet editorial cartoon, which is interesting (and referred to in another tweet I tweeted), but I immediately started Googling to find some numbers to compare $$ spent on "War" (or as we call it, Defense) and the other poor empty tables.
Funny enough, coming from a small-time Twit like me, my posts got very little traction (the most had 55 hits), but here they are:
So, relatively politely showing the guys totally wrong, and idiots like and retweet the original post with abandon. Argh. Well, I just looked and he tweeted that he muted to conversation because it got retweeted so much. Way to stay stupid, dude. I was tempted to reply to that tweet, but I'm done here.
I like Twitter. There, I said it. I don't use it like many do, i think, which is why I like it. I actually preferred the 140 character requirement! It's more a news feed for me.
I made the mistake of checking twitter during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings yesterday and was greeted with a few conservatives calling out the crazy that was happening on the left.
I'm not even going to link to any screenshots of the now-deleted tweets about Zina Bash's hand, but I will say this:
If you saw a "sign" in this, you need to do some serious self-evaluation. It was you, not her, and you are seeing things to the point of being crazy.
If you believed, liked, or re-tweeted the crazy, you are an asshole.
You may even be a friend of mine, I know some folks that have gone crazy with politics lately. You are still my friend, as far as I am concerned, but you may be an asshole. Stop that, please.
Many of the comments, replies, and other crazy talk is how Mrs. Bash, the daughter of a legal immigrant Mom and Grandparents on her Dad's side, is still racist because of her racist immigration policies working for Trump, blah, blah, blah. It's as though they literally cannot conceptualize that someone can have a different take on immigration policy, and that a child of immigrants can think that ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IS A PROBLEM.
Granted, I have a different perspective from many, as, like her, my wife is a 1st generation American, the daughter of a Dutch man and a German woman that are US citizens and are all conservative and against ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION.
Remember that word, "illegal?" It amuses us greatly how often it gets forgotten on the news, etc, and "immigrants" are discussed as though all have attempted to become citizens, etc.
This morning I was driving to work (for a late start, luckily) and had the good fortune to hear Glenn Beck monologuing about the San Francisco Poop Crisis of 2018.
After quoting Mayor Breed, who acknowledges, “We’re spending a lot of money to address this problem,” the following San Francisco Public Works budget items are presented:
A $72.5 million-a-year street cleaning budget
$12 million a year on what essentially have become housekeeping services for homeless encampments
$2.8 million for a Hot Spots crew to wash down the camps and remove any biohazards
$2.3 million for street steam cleaners
$3.1 million for the Pit Stop portable toilets
$364,000 for a four-member needle team
An additional $700,000 set aside for a 10-member, needle cleanup squad, complete with it’s own minivan
And crucially, there's now "the new $830,977-a-year Poop Patrol to actively hunt down and clean up human waste."
The SF Chronicle casually notes in parenthesis, "By the way, the poop patrolers earn $71,760 a year, which swells to $184,678 with mandated benefits."
from ZeroHedge, linked above, but they are quoting the SF Chronicle
Again, so much to say about this, and you should just listen to what Glenn and Stu said, but let's say a few things.
Ew. San Francisco has a budget larger than many nations would envy. What in world is going on that causes that much homelessness in a city with those resources? Are we animals that we just poop anywhere? I mean, all this money to clean up and not STOP THE PROBLEM?!?!?!
That's just a start. How much to clean up poop? How much???? Why do dog-poop-picker-uppers make so much less? That's poop discrimination!!! Pretty shitty, if you ask me.
A long time ago, I went to see John Denver in concert, my first concert, actually, in-the-round at the Riverfront Coliseum, now the US Bank Arena. In addition to talking about how he assumes the pre-show dinner was great, he doesn't eat before shows so he doesn't "go BRRRAP into the microphone," he told a story (recited a poem, actually) called The Ambulance Down in the Valley.
An ambulance down in the valley”!!!!!
T’was a dangerous cliff as they freely confessed
Though to walk near its edge was quite pleasant!
But over the side had slipped a duke and a prince –
And it had fooled many a peasant!
The people had all said something had to be done.
Thought their projects did not at all tally –
Some said “Put a fence around the edge of the cliff” –
Others – “An ambulance down in the valley”!!!!!
The lament of the crowd – was profound and so loud –
As their hearts overflowed with great pity!
But the ambulance carried the cry of the day –
As it spread to the neighboring cities!
A collection was made to accumulate aid
And dwellers in highway and alley –
Gave dollars and cents - not to furnish a fence –
But an ambulance down in the valley!!
For the cliff is alright if your careful – they said!
And if folks ever trip and are dropping –
It’s not the slipping and sliding that hurts so much
As the shock – when they’re stopping!
And so on for years – as these mishaps occurred –
Quick forth with the rescuers sally –
To pick up the victims who fell from the cliff
With the ambulance down in the valley!
Said one in his plea – it’s a marvel to me –
That you’d give so much greater attention
To repairing results - than to curing the cause –
When you’d much better aim at prevention.
The mischief of course should be stopped at its source.
Come friends and good neighbors – let’s rally!
It makes far better sense to rely on a fence
Than an ambulance down in the valley!
He’s wrong in his head – the majority said –
He would end all our earnest endeavors –
He’s a man who would shirk – and would halt our good work!
But we will support it forever!
Aren’t we picking up them all – just as quick as they fall?
And treat them with care quite liberally?
A superfluous fence is of no consequence
If the ambulance works in the valley!
(Denver did not use these next 4 verses!)
But a sensible few – who are practical too –
Will not bear with such nonsense much longer!
The believe prevention is better than cure
And their party will soon be much stronger!
Encourage them then – with your purse, voice and pen –
And while other philanthropist dally –
They will scorn all pretense – and put up a fence –
On a cliff that hangs over the valley!
Better guide while they are young – then reclaim them when old
For the voice of true wisdom is calling –
To rescue the falling – is good – but tis best
To prevent other people from falling!
Better close up the source of temptation or crime
Then deliver from dudgeon or galley
Better put a strong fence at the top of the cliff –
Than an ambulance down in the valley!!!!!!!
Well this story is queer as I’ve given it hear –
Though things oft occur which are stranger?
More humane we assert – to repair all the hurt –
Than the plan of removing the danger!
Before it all ends its time to begin
To attend to these things quite rationally!
Yes – build up the fence- and let us dispense –
With the ambulance down in the valley!!!!!!
----Joseph Malins
Now, this is clearly political, as well as being a fable from which we are to clearly understand (after all, the moral is stated directly) means prevention is better than reacting to the results. I would suggest to you that John Denver (no slight to him) was aiming this at Republicans, but I suggest to you that it applies to our crappy story. Who is putting an ambulance down in the valley?
In my city, is it the advocates getting better tents or the folks saying No Tent City? Is it finding a new place to put the tents or finding shelter and services?
It was purely political, and I went to High School with one of the "players" in the fiasco. Dude has had issues in his life (which, as they are a part of the reasons he believes what he believes politically, socially, etc, he's never hidden. In fact, because of these issues, he himself was homeless for a time when he was a young adult) that for me, make him unsuitable as a candidate (and he has run for office several times). It has been a way for him to get some airtime, in addition to his actual work on the issue.
One suggestion was to move the folks to "the east side of town" which was intended to spark NIMBY responses, and my wife had the best one: leave them downtown, it's not a residential area, there's less negative impact and no neighbors to anger. But, that's what they wanted! Neighbors to anger and the publicity that would follow!
Indeed this is another (but not successful) attempt to make a scene about something so the Conservatives or Republicans over-react, so the Progs or Dems can scream "see, they hate ______!" Remember my post about trans and bathrooms? (of course you don't, no one reads this).
So, what's the solution? For San Fran, I have no clue, but paying people $71,000 plus a crapton of benefits to clean poop isn't it. For Cincinnati, the problem is a drop in the bucket, and seems to have wound down. But, hey, we have a streetcar.
I haven't touched on this in a while, and I am continually frustrated by the IRS data being so many years behind. Here's where I got the data.
Here we go:
It's hard to read, but let's focus on the last lines and do some math, as they report this information the exact opposite of how we want to see it.
In 2013:
The bottom half of wage earners account for 11.49% of the total AGI in the country and paid 2.78% of the total income taxes. Flip that and the top half paid 97.22% of the taxes.
The top 25% reported 68.1% of the AGI and paid 86.27% of the income taxes.
The top 10% reported 45.87% of the AGI and paid 69.8% of the income taxes.
The top 1% earned 19.04% of the AGI and paid 47.8% of the total income taxes.
I'm not rich, but I think there's no argument that "the rich" aren't paying their fair share of the taxes.
**** i found up to 2015, and it appears that the top 1% is paying more...
As you can see, the last column of the Total income tax share is trending downward, meaning that the top 1% must be increasing, paralleling the change in their portion of the AGI.
So, this gets retweeted or liked into my twitter stream:
He gave a very reasonable answer, that he was a little busy to be bothered with Twitter in light of the bombing.
My response was this:
That's the thing, isn't it? The media is obsessed with Trump and has been for some time. As they say, he's living in their head, rent-free. It's why he won the primaries against better conservatives and Republicans.
Now, don't get me wrong, I know they had no choice but to cover him and his, uhm, antics during the campaign, because they had to as he was running for President. See how smart he was? Free coverage because the media had no choice but to cover him. They couldn't ignore him, as critics wished they would (which would work with, say, Westboro Baptist, to make them go away), because that would be negligent as he already was news worthy. Brilliant manipulation on his part.
BTW, if you aren't aware of Scott Adams' ongoing dissection of the rhetorical and persuasion tools that the Trump Team has been using, you're missing an education on what's been going on. I don't even agree with him on all his points, but he isn't a Trump fan or defender (as the folks who hate Trump are painting him), and he is seeing the manipulation for what it is. (of course, this could be me in a moment of confirmation bias because I also thing Trump is playing the media like a fiddle).
Back to the point (and there is one).
I have long held the belief that when we've experienced something, we tend to adopt that (or those, if it's plural) experience into our lens, our perspective through which we interact with the world. A simple example of this bias I think about is the old red car metaphor. It's not just red cars, per se, it's the familiarity bias and observational selection bias working in tandem to make you think that "now that I have a red car, I see them every where. There must be more red cars being made then before." Nope, you're just paying attention to them. Indeed, what we attend to creates our reality.
Another version is the sudden appearance of pregnant women everywhere when your wife becomes pregnant. (hint: they were already there). A more serious example I think about is racism. If you are black in America, you have experienced it, and that makes you see it everywhere, even in situations where it isn't present.
All of this is to say that Trump as so successfully implanted himself into the minds of his detractors that they can't refrain from checking his Twitter feed, because, well, they have to because he's already newsworthy because he's the US President. Note: I don't follow him on twitter. I don't have to (or want to), mostly because he gets retweeted into my timeline so much. Argh.
So, we have "Trump-Glasses" wearing idiots like the reporter that thought that (because the lens/perspective through which he or she sees everything is smeared with Trump) asking the London Mayor his thoughts on a Trump tweet was a reasonable, worthy, or necessary question.
I have written and talked about my Trump thoughts, feelings, and impressions. I don't like the guy, but I have enjoyed how he has played the press, driven the leftists insane (literally, in some cases), and shone a light on our electoral processes like the primary system and electoral college. I think he's a progressive and crony capitalist at heart and that scares me. But what really scares me is the way his detractors and enemies (which includes the majority of our media types) have become so consumed by their hatred/fear/disgust that they are literally blind to their own obsession with him and things like his tweets that it's literally all they appear to think about.
I think he should keep tweeting, seriously. It's how he talks to his base without the media filter, and I guess that's why they can't help report on it, to try to control it, to shape his message like they would if they were the quote-conduit. If would serve them better to ignore the tweets and not make them into news stories, frankly, but I'm not giving them that good piece of advice. It's too much fun watching them lose their minds.
I admit it, I was "triggered" by a Facebook post of a high school friend, a clickbait headline about Science Disproving Transphobia or some similar drivel.
Are people phobic about trans people? I don't think so. I mean, that's a catch-all kind of statement in the first place. Yes, there are people who are scared of trans people, the idea of trans people, etc, just as there are people in the country (and the world) that are racist, but I believe we are no longer what any sane person can call a "racist nation."
The entire bathroom flap about trans people was started by the prog/lib/dems deciding that there was a problem for this unbelievably small number of people and THERE NEEDS TO BE A LAW to decide that THEY CAN USE WHATEVER BATHROOM I IDENTIFY WITH BECAUSE they said so.
Now, is it reasonable that people should be able to go to the bathroom? Yup.
Is it reasonable that people should not be bullied or assaulted because of this? Yup. How often was that happening? I dunno. Too often, no matter them actual number
However, when you say PAY ATTENTION TO THIS TINY ISSUE, WE ARE MAKING A LAW ABOUT IT, people pay attention.
This resulted in conservative/repub lawmakers saying YOU CAN'T MAKE US ACCEPT THIS LAW because Religion and stuff! Dems lit a fire, Repubs threw gasoline on it, like always.
So, the last POTUS signed an order about schools and bathrooms, then the new POTUS signed an order rescinding it, saying clearly "this isn't a federal issue, schools can make whatever policy suits them about bathrooms without a federal mandate." **It's worthy to note that Trump has been by far the most LGBT-friendly presidential candidate in our history, if you are paying attention.
This, I assume caused the post (and article) that "triggered" me.
So, where's the rant?
People aren't afraid of trans, they are afraid of perverts and pedophiles. That's the objection. We have been carefully taught (catch the South Pacific reference?) that ALL MEN ARE PREDATORS by the extremist lefty prog anti-rape-culture feminist pogrom for my entire time on earth and maybe longer than that. All. Men. Are. Predators.
Every class, training, sensitivity session that has taught our young men and women about harassment, rape, etc, has emphasized how bad men are, and this is the fruit of this education, folks.
We all now know beyond that shadow of doubt that men cannot be trusted with children, or women. I cannot even so much as coach my children's teams without approval from the school, archdiocese, FBI and state police. I cannot be alone with the team even after that (2 adults always!) because I still may be a predator or perv (or may still be accused of predatoring or perving if alone without a corroborating witness, who is there to protect me and my reputation just as I am there for them). When I first went through the vetting process as a M Ed student, we were carefully instructed to never being alone with students, or if conferencing, keeping the door open and alerting a colleague to the sensitive situation if no one could chaperone so that we couldn't even be accused of the unavoidable, expected sexual assaults we couldn't help but perpetrate on our students....
So, excuse us if we think giving adult-males-that-may-be-predators the legal ability to share our daughters' (and sons') bathrooms and locker rooms is a problem. We aren't afraid a trans kid is going to hurt them, we are afraid a predator is going to waltz in right in front of us instead of having to sneak in while we are trying to protect our kids.
So, it seems clear to me, at least, that words were given to all the players here by Weiner or his people. What this tells me is that we have yet another set of Democrat parents willing to sacrifice the truth, theirs and their daughters' credibility for a skeezy congressman that they "admire" and think "has done nothing wrong." Does anyone else remember all the support the parents of Chandra Levy gave Gary Condit, even though, while not a murderer, he had been engaged in an inappropriate relationship with her? Monica Lewinsky's parents? While it is much more rampant among liberals, this cult of personality isn't just for Democrats, either, as Lisa Baron saysabout sleeping with Republicans in her new book "The Life of the Party,"
"'To be able to say, 'I'm with the such-and-such campaign,' or 'I work for Senator So-and-So' is to us political junkies what "I’m with the band" is to Pamela Des Barres."
I can't speak for you, but this all disgusts me.
There were some pictures of women in t-shirts at the Trump rally last night here in Cincinnati, one was very homemade and said "Trump can grab my" with a big arrow pointing below her belt...the other read "Hey, Trump, talk dirty to me!!!" These are groupies, and they think any attention from Trump would be just dandy. Therefore, they have given consent, after a fashion.
Consent is the big buzzword over all this, I see on Twitter. It seems to me that that was what he and Billy Bush were talking about, groupies letting you do whatever because you are famous. Consent,eh?
He's a creep, but so are soooooo many people that are in any kind of public role. He's not Hilary.
It really bugs me that the kind of political, crony corruption being exposed by the wikileaks emails is going under the radar because of this perfectly timed release of Donald smearing. Typical, expected, but still frustrating. This was all known, you know it was, and the media and all made sure that he got the nomination so they could bring this out in time to get Hilary elected. At least, we have the emails to prove that, even though it won't matter.
Lastly, I am laughing at the professional sportsters that are all offended with the phrase "locker room talk" like that never happens where they are. Seriously? How many kids by how many baby mamas do our athletes have? Ever heard of Wilt Chamberlain? Here's an old baseball joke that I pull out from time to time to show my disdain for our professional entertainer class, sportsters included:
What's the hardest part about going on a road trip? Not smiling as you kiss your wife goodbye.
Let's start with me showing some restraint...a nephew of a sweet friend of mine from years ago was part of a team that won a fricking Sundance award for their documentary on serial reprobate Anthony Weiner, and I'm not going to ask on Facebook how they are all dealing with this latest news that the rest of us were right all along and HE IS A SCUMBAG!!!!
He's at it again. I am sick of the apologists. He has been able to continue being a predator because of the Democrat party and his connections to Hilary Clinton. Sick. Read the story, see how this girl actually admired him. Pathetic. Her father allowed this because he didn't want to mess with her already fragile mental state? Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. People putting politicians on pedestals allows this mentality, this idol worship, this cult of personality. It sickens me.
Politics over morals and family, I guess. Disgusting. Yet, it happens
every time. Chandra Levy's family loved Gary Condit who, while not a
murderer, was involved inappropriately with their daughter. Monica
Lewinski's parents just looooved Bill Clinton (well, at first). Yuck.
I have to tell you, every time a lib/prog on FB posts about the evil Trump, I want to scream "you are so stupid you don't even know he's a lifelong Democrat, do you?" I mean really, his donations, his policies, his statements, his votes are D, not R. You have got to be kidding me.
I just want it on the record, when he doesn't get the nomination because he's a Democrat and they finally realize it a the party level.
So, my diversions do far today have included this excellent video rant:
I love it when someone takes the media to task. Now, the media does do stuff, but they also are slaves to the need for advertising dolllars, so they do stupid stuff like telling us total bs about how horrible things are. That Cracked article provides lots of links, but here are 3 pertinent ones that make my point. The crime and murder rates are down, yet all we think it's worse. I've enjoyed many Cracked articles lately, here's another one about guns that is fairly honest about what so many people are wrong about, including the fact that it's stupid to say that you need a gun because of rising crime because crime isn't rising. (Ok, it has one of the stupid link-bait headlines that I despise, and the language is pretty strong, but it raises several excellent points).
The major drivers of what gets reported around the country are the wire services and they are horribly biased, you can google it yourself, no need for me to find examples. I will offer some thoughts, though.
The major news media are the ones that are horribly racist, sexist, bigoted, and homophobic. Seriously. At the same time, they are absolutely using racism, bigotry, homophobia, etc., to drive ratings and, therefore, what they can charge for ad time. Seriously. At the same time they are afraid of being labeled as racists, etc.
Let's start with the most recent (and what got this line of thought started on my brain this morning) example, Donald Sterling, the Clippers, and Magic Johnson. "What," you ask, "does Magic Johnson have to do with Sterling, how bleeping racist he is and his team?" I'll tell you, and others have, but you will never see it on NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, or maybe even FOX.
Why? Because if they tell the tale of Magic Johnson's work behind the scenes to get Sterling out of the league so that his group CAN BUY THE CLIPPERS, they would be accused of racism against poor old, HIV surviving Magic Johnson with his charming smile and all that. Anyway, the thing is that Magic has been angling for a while to get a share of the Clipper with his investment group, and that's one of the reasons Sterling said what he said to his lover: she was fraternizing with his economic enemy (who also happens to be black, which isn't something Sterling is in favor of, either, apparently). Mind you, the other guy in the offensive instagram photo was a Dodger, which Magic's group also owns. Can you see why he was pissed off? This Business Week article hints at this in the last paragraph.This article says it straight out:
Make no mistake: Magic's Dodgers group is angling for a Southern California sports empire. Magic Johnson and Guggenheim had been aggressive in pursuing a purchase of the Los Angeles Lakers – only to have the Buss family make clear to them the franchise isn't for sale, sources told Yahoo Sports.
Nevertheless, this is business and Magic's willing to change colors and make himself a Clipper. Between the Dodgers and Clippers, Magic Johnson could be the face of two championship contenders.
Magic could have it all.
"This is 100 percent Magic's plan," a league official intimately involved in the buying and selling of franchises told Yahoo Sports.
But now that the storyline has progressed to "Sterling said bad things about Magic," the fact that he actually had a reason to dislike him, and that Magic's business dealings are pretty aggressive (crony capitalism is on every side of the political spectrum) will never see the light of day on any major news story. Take that to the bank, folks.
But, implicit in the stories are the disdain for Sterling's "jewishness." This story also shares the opinion that Magic is not upset by the turn of events.
What does this have to do with the stated thesis of this rant?
The media. The media has a point of view that they are pushing and they aren't doing their actual job (gosh, i don't know, like playing the entire tape showing the full context of Sterling saying the dumb things he said? Maybe investigating V's relationship with Magic as some are suggesting it was all about getting him on tape so that an uproar could be caused, leading to a sale of the Clippers?) It's pretty transparent now that Magic is saying Mrs. Sterling has no place in the ownership, either, but don't expect any reporter to question him on that scary opinion. Seriously, why are they even asking him that question? Why does he get a say?
The media doesn't even think to ask questions like those, just like they aren't bothered by the things we don't know about Benghazi.
Michael Sam is gay, did you know that? He's double protected by the media because he's black and he's gay. I have said 1000 times, "if it's not supposed to matter, why are all the media telling me it should matter that he's gay?" There have been plenty of gay NFL, NBA, MLB, MLS, NHL, etc. players, and as one owner said "we all knew, and we didn't care." Why are we supposed to care so much about it now? There's an answer to that, and I don't think people will like it because it sounds all tinfoil-hat-wearing crazy. It seems to me there has been a shift from "I don't care as long as you do your job" to identity-politics finally infiltrating the NFL (and the NBA, etc.). It reminds me of the Tebow situation. Do you know how many evangelical Christians there are in the NFL? Why was his career destroyed because of his evangelism? He did a great job at Denver, why should he switch positions to kowtow to the religious bigots? He was a championship winning quarterback, not just some random drafted QB, after all. (note: he beat my college team in a bowl game, so I'm supposed to hate him, right? Take that, haters).
How many players were drafted to the NFL? Here's a case in point: I just Googled that, and the first hit was about Michael Sam kissing his boyfriend. Complete with a picture. Point made. He was number 249. How many other players names do you know? How many kissed their lovers, wives, partners? Why is he a story? His abilities on the field have been challenged, but now that he has been drafted, he will make the team, he has to in this modern media world, because if he doesn't, it will be called bias. St. Louis knew this when they picked him, so it's their albatross. I think that this is a true case of a political stance (progressive) being pushed on us via equality as a meme.
This is painful to me, by the way, to point out because I have had so many friends in my life that are gay. Not in the "oh, some of my friends are gay" defensive cliche, I'm serious. I've known that some of my friends were gay before they did. My gaydar is legendary. Good lord, I've been a singer and performer my whole life. This recent trend, though, that all things are about Gay is strange. Again, if it's 2014 and I'm not supposed to care, why are you constantly telling me how much it matters that Michael Sam is gay?
On a side note, I saw some picture of a young actress that came out recently, and thought "oh, yes, brave, as there are no gays in entertainment..."
The show Nashville has a gay character hiding because the bigoted country music fans will care! Crap. It's clearly being written by someone too old to get that music fans don't care about any kind of stuff like that: if they did, how many cds would Chris Brown sell? Country music has become pop, and the fans are all girls wearing short shorts and cowboy boots. Justin Timberlake could come out and it wouldn't hurt his sales a bit. Again, notice who I am criticizing here: the writers.
And the media, well they go for the stories that they believe will bring the biggest bang for the buck. Seriously, take some time to go to your local news stations' sites and critically take a look at what you see, then get back to me.
I think you will see white stories. Both stories that are designed to appeal to white audiences, and stories that shore up white feelings of all kinds: race guilt, fear, whatever. While calling out guys like Sterling, supporting the idea that those that merely disagree with the President's politics are racist, they live in fear of being branded racist themselves, so they don't tell all of any story. Remember Trayvon Martin? His friend that was talking to him during the events leading up to his death said publicly, on tv, that he thought the guy following him was a homo rapist and he was going to teach him a lesson and keep him away from his little brother who was home alone. I bet you didn't know that, or even the little white lie about what drink he actually bought, because if they reported the truth it might make them look racist. The "story" had been decided, so saying he might have actually started the fight (oh no, an angry black youth! watermelon drink!) would get in the way of the narrative. I bet you think I'm racist for pointing it out, but doesn't the truth matter? What drink he bought shouldn't matter, so why change that detail? (Actually, there are reasons to change that detail).
Perceptions matter, of course. But if you watched Bill Whittle's video, you might see that we agree on this: the media (Big Media, if you will) has an agenda that often makes facts and truth irrelevant to them. People will think we're racist if we tell the truth that Trayvon's drink was watermelon, so go along with the crowd calling it "tea." People will think we are homophobic if we treat Michael Sam like any other 249th pick in the NFL draft, so it's wall-to-wall gayness.
Now, Benghazi? That's another kind of bias, the kind of bias that makes calling people "teabaggers" ok in these United States of America. We can't show a story that possibly shows the First Black President as weak, foolish, or negligent (ditto for Hilary), because we might get called racist (or worse, teabaggers), so we avoid it at all costs, to the point that we don't know the basic answers to what should be basic questions asked by Trey Gowdy.
It's fear, isn't it? Rush Limbaugh made the point today that the hashtag war againt Boko Haram is silly: we (ok, Michelle and Hilary) are so afraid of terrorists and what they might do that the most they will do is take a selfie with a hashtag. God forbid we offend the people that want to kill us, steal children and convert them to provide "wives" for their fellow terrorists so they can say they didn't rape them to impregnate them to make more terrorists.
In fact, when all taxes (state, local, excise) are considered, the share of taxes
that each fifth of households pays is similar to its share of the nation’s
total income.[22]
ITEP data show that in 2011,
the bottom fifth of households received 3.4 percent of the
total income in the nation and paid 2.1 percent of the total taxes.
The middle fifth of households received 11.4 percent of
income and paid 10.3 percent of taxes.
The top 1 percent of households received 21.0 percent of
income and paid 21.6 percent of taxes. The tax system as a whole is only
mildly progressive.[23]
(don't you like how they use "received" instead of "earned?")
This is from Table 7, near the bottom of
the page. It's not apples to apples to the numbers above, as it's using something called "1979 Income Concept" Income Excluding Dependents (Finding this info is a nightmare, so go for it if you don't believe me).
Total income tax share
(percentage):
Total
Top
1 percent
Top
5 percent
Top
10 percent
Top
25 percent
Top
50 percent
2010
100.00
35.93
57.89
69.76
86.51
97.47
Income share (percentage):
Total
Top
1 percent
Top
5 percent
Top
10 percent
Top
25 percent
Top
50 percent
2010
100.00
20.10
35.94
47.33
69.00
88.57
More fully,
Descending
cumulative percentiles
Total
Top
1 percent
Top
5 percent
Top
10 percent
Top
25 percent
Top
50 percent
Income floor on percentiles
(current dollars):
2001
N/A
338,608
136,580
97,538
58,195
31,185
2002
N/A
328,275
136,465
97,466
58,491
31,065
2003
N/A
340,175
138,852
99,177
59,298
31,207
2004
N/A
377,837
147,206
104,106
61,878
32,284
2005
N/A
418,709
157,306
109,543
63,929
33,035
2006
N/A
452,917
167,342
114,981
66,401
33,971
2007
N/A
479,542
174,409
119,564
68,487
34,989
2008
N/A
444,522
171,470
119,542
68,594
34,754
2009
N/A
394,632
163,619
115,951
66,785
33,573
2010
N/A
424,734
169,181
118,957
67,412
33,800
Income floor on percentiles
(constant dollars): [1]
2001
N/A
249,895
100,797
71,984
42,948
23,015
2002
N/A
238,572
99,175
70,833
42,508
22,576
2003
N/A
241,602
98,616
70,438
42,115
22,164
2004
N/A
261,479
101,873
72,046
42,822
22,342
2005
N/A
280,260
105,292
73,322
42,790
22,112
2006
N/A
293,720
108,523
74,566
43,062
22,030
2007
N/A
302,359
109,968
75,387
43,182
22,061
2008
N/A
269,898
104,111
72,582
41,648
21,101
2009
N/A
240,483
99,707
70,659
40,698
20,459
2010
N/A
254,637
101,427
71,317
40,415
20,264
Total income tax (millions of
dollars): [2]
Total
Top
1 percent
Top
5 percent
Top
10 percent
Top
25 percent
Top
50 percent
2001
884,931
284,927
455,272
557,726
717,266
840,233
2002
794,282
253,551
411,671
507,083
652,529
759,423
2003
745,514
242,869
392,561
478,771
613,326
713,728
2004
829,096
290,915
459,555
552,298
691,364
795,814
2005
931,693
352,361
540,674
640,865
788,316
896,842
2006
1,020,438
389,673
596,816
707,802
867,486
983,924
2007
1,111,872
429,288
654,793
774,831
947,875
1,072,649
2008
1,028,669
371,962
586,042
703,879
874,955
995,045
2009
863,486
301,881
492,834
595,962
743,117
840,401
2010
949,144
341,053
549,474
662,135
821,104
925,107
Average tax rate (percentage): [3]
Total
Top
1 percent
Top
5 percent
Top
10 percent
Top
25 percent
Top
50 percent
2001
14.20
25.29
22.14
20.38
17.64
15.71
2002
12.96
24.63
21.14
19.29
16.44
14.46
2003
11.84
22.18
19.28
17.51
14.93
13.18
2004
12.01
21.50
19.20
17.57
15.02
13.30
2005
12.33
21.43
19.32
17.78
15.31
13.59
2006
12.43
20.89
19.01
17.63
15.29
13.64
2007
12.54
20.65
18.94
17.61
15.35
13.73
2008
12.21
21.02
18.94
17.46
15.05
13.36
2009
11.15
21.43
18.74
16.88
14.11
12.28
2010
11.46
20.49
18.46
16.89
14.37
12.61
Income share (percentage):
Total
Top
1 percent
Top
5 percent
Top
10 percent
Top
25 percent
Top
50 percent
2001
100.00
18.07
32.98
43.90
65.23
85.79
2002
100.00
16.80
31.77
42.90
64.75
85.73
2003
100.00
17.39
32.33
43.43
65.27
86.03
2004
100.00
19.61
34.69
45.56
66.70
86.71
2005
100.00
21.76
37.04
47.71
68.16
87.32
2006
100.00
22.73
38.24
48.91
69.13
87.89
2007
100.00
23.45
38.99
49.61
69.67
88.13
2008
100.00
21.01
36.72
47.83
69.00
88.41
2009
100.00
18.20
33.97
45.60
68.00
88.39
2010
100.00
20.10
35.94
47.33
69.00
88.57
Total income tax share
(percentage):
Total
Top
1 percent
Top
5 percent
Top
10 percent
Top
25 percent
Top
50 percent
2001
100.00
32.20
51.45
63.02
81.05
94.95
2002
100.00
31.92
51.83
63.84
82.15
95.61
2003
100.00
32.58
52.66
64.22
82.27
95.74
2004
100.00
35.09
55.43
66.61
83.39
95.99
2005
100.00
37.82
58.03
68.78
84.61
96.26
2006
100.00
38.19
58.49
69.36
85.01
96.42
2007
100.00
38.61
58.89
69.69
85.25
96.47
2008
100.00
36.16
56.97
68.43
85.06
96.73
2009
100.00
34.96
57.08
69.02
86.06
97.33
2010
100.00
35.93
57.89
69.76
86.51
97.47
Or, in a sentence, in 2010:
the top 1% earned 20.10% of the income and paid 35.93% of the taxes,
the top 5% earned 35.94% of the income and paid 57.89% of the taxes,
the top 10% earned 47.33% of the income and paid 69.76% of the taxes,
the top 25% earned 69% of the income and paid 86.51% of the taxes,
and the top 50% earned 88.57% of the income and paid 97.47% of the taxes.
