RANT: It’s only fair that “women’s sports” is for women

Wednesday, April 9, 2025

https://www.breitbart.com/sports/2025/04/04/usa-fencing-defends-punishing-female-athlete-for-refusing-to-face-trans-opponent/

USA Fencing Defends Punishing Female Athlete for Refusing to Face Trans Opponent

Warner Todd Huston  —  4 Apr 2025

*** begin quote ***

USA Fencing is deending itself over its policy of including transgender fencers in the women’s category and for punishing a female athlete for refusing to face a trans opponent.

The fencing organization is defending itself after fencer Stephanie Turner took a knee and refused to compete during a match with transgender opponent Redmond Sullivan last weekend.

USA Fencing immediately disqualified Turner, who had kicked her out of the tournament.

*** end quote ***

I wonder who funds USA funding?  If it gets any from my taxes, then I hope it gets “DOGE-ed”.

It seems like the woke LGBTQ mafia has infiltrated all sorts of organizations.

Argh! Sigh!

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POLITICAL: The First Amendment prohibits the Gooferment … …

Tuesday, April 8, 2025

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2025/04/james-bovard/first-they-came-for-the-op-ed-writers/

First They Came for the Op-Ed Writers – LewRockwell

By James Bovard

<< EDITOR ADDED DATE 2025-04-02>>

*** begin quote ***

Few Americans would object to deporting foreign students who destroy property or physically assault other people. But Ozturk was merely guilty of using words that are detested by the current administration. Are Trump’s policymakers using the same “guilt by association” standard the Biden administration used to persecute anyone near the Capitol on January 6, 2021? Biden’s Justice Department acted like anyone who merely “paraded without a permit” near the Capitol that day was guilty of insurrection and deserved a harsh prison sentence. Is any criticism of Israeli policy now the legal and moral equivalent of insurrection?

*** end quote ***

As I read it, it doesn’t say anything about limits on who gets “free speech”.

In this case, I think that DJT47’s team is wrong in this specific case.  And, he should reign in the leash apologizing for the error.

I hope that SCOTUS will take this and the matter of “dreamers” (i.e., children brought into the USA by their illegal immigrant parents and thru no fault of their own are in a catch-22).

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JOBSEARCH: You should have an active “networking program”

Monday, April 7, 2025

“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know,” — Ralph Kramden aka Jackie Gleason in the “The Honeymooners”

# – # – # – # – # 

Wish I’d have paid more attention to the lessons on TV.  It wasn’t until later in life that I realized the value of a personal connections network.  It was when a sales guy I was nice too even though I could not buy his product, became a hiring manager in  Wall Street firm and extends due a job offer that I took.  

Now never let it be said that I was the dimmest bulb on the block.  I immediately began “collecting contacts”.  I’d read about a “Farley File” in Heinlein’s book “Double Star” so I too began my own Farley File.  I didn’t discard it until I retired sometime later. (We can debate the stupidity of doing that.)

With cloud computing, it’s so much easier than using paper like in the “Job Changing at 100K+” workbook.

When I was in my own consulting business, I had my “Sunday Morning Imaginary Board of Directors” meeting with: myself the CEO, myself the CFO, myself the CMO, myself as the CTO, myself as the Sasles Manager, myself as the Product Manager, and myself as theThe Product itself.  You might say I was full of myself.  I should have had a Chief Relationship Manager too.

Anyway, now I am a fat old white guy retired injineer who’s a poor old senior citizen on a fixed income. I have lots of time to Monday Marning Quarterback all the Shoulda, Coulda, and Woulda things that I’d do differently.  

“Nothing, to my way of thinking, is a better proof of a well ordered mind than a man’s ability to stop just where he is and pass some time in his own company.” — Seneca, Letters From a Stoic

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NOTRECOMMENDED: LASTPASS no longer recommended; Use BITWARDEN instead

Sunday, April 6, 2025

LASTPASS has dropped support for Mac OSX application.  

No appologies; just dropped.

Sigh!

I’m testing BITWARDEN and Apple’s PASSWORD app.

Not that I’m an “influencer”, but I have RECOMMENDED LASTPASS for a long time.  Removing it’s availability from a key computer platform is short sighted at best and dumb at worst.

IMHO

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GUNS: Why make guns for “good guys” hard to get?

Saturday, April 5, 2025

 

# – # – # – # – # 

Makes a lot of sense to me.  

“An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.” — Robert A. Heinlein 

*** begin quote ***

“I particularly like unlimited concealed carry. If the criminal regards the general public as sheep to be shorn, then let’s sprinkle in a few “sheepdogs” with big teeth in the flock.

Guess which gay to bash? Buzz, wrong, you picked a Pink Pistol and you’re dead!

Guess which woman to bash? Buzz, wrong, you picked a Paxton Quigly and you’re dead!

Guess which brown person to bash? Buzz, wrong, you picked a Massad Ayoob and you’re dead!”

https://reinkefaceslife.com/2006/11/02/guns-lets-sprinkle-in-a-few-sheepdogs-with-big-teeth-in-the-flock/

GUNS: Let’s sprinkle in a few “sheepdogs” with big teeth in the flock

Thursday, November 2nd, 2006 at 20:26

*** end quote ***

Still as true to me as it was then.

FAFO

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EDUCATION: Walter Williams was a rock star

Friday, April 4, 2025

https://jeffjacoby.com/28453/84-years-of-not-suffering-fools

84 years of not suffering fools
by Jeff Jacoby  — December 7, 2020

*** begin quote ***

Walter E. Williams taught economics to university students for 47 years, the last 40 of them at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. He taught his class as usual last Tuesday, then died suddenly some hours later. His death did not go unnoticed — lengthy obituaries appeared in both the New York Times and the Washington Post — but the news ricocheted with particular velocity through the world of conservatives, libertarians, and free-market economists: To us, Walter Williams was a rock star.

*** and ***

From How to Live in Peace (2017):

*** and ***

The liberty-oriented solution to the school prayer issue is simple. We should acknowledge the fact that though there is public financing of primary and secondary education, it doesn’t follow that there should be public production of education. . . .

*** end quote ***

I read Walter Williams as soon as I found out about him.  He led me to Thomas Soul.  Together they formed my opinions on Gooferment, Gooferment Skrules, politicians, and bureaucrats.

Clearly and concisely, they demolished the welfare / warfare state with its one-size fit all solutions.  Good thing the Gooferment doesn’t produce shoes.

Argh!

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DISCOURAGING: Broken homes seems to be “acceptable”; not selfishness

Thursday, April 3, 2025

https://nypost.com/2025/03/30/opinion/i-was-devastated-when-my-father-abandoned-me-yet-liberals-make-excuses-for-broken-homes/

I was devastated when my father abandoned me — yet liberals make excuses for broken homes
By Adam B. Coleman 
Published March 30, 2025, 3:54 p.m. ET

*** begin quote ***

A child growing up in a broken home automatically puts them at a disadvantage. Studies across the board show that children of two-parent families have a better chance of success in education, in business . . . in life. Yet too often, society doesn’t do enough to encourage these unions, even saying it doesn’t matter. In his new book, “The Children We Left Behind: How Western Culture Rationalizes Family Separation & Ignores The Pain Of Child Neglect,” Adam B. Coleman explains how this is a terrible mistake of selfishness. An excerpt:

Why didn’t my father love me? Why did my father abandon me? 

*** end quote ***

This really hit home.  

I can still feel the “sting” of rejection.  And, these and other questions just get suppressed.  Maybe I should have been in “therapy”?  Even though that was unheard of. 

At some point in time, one has to “grow up”, “grow a pair”, or “just accept the cards that life deals you”.  

Shut up and move on.

But especially as the “game clock” winds down, the “Shoulda, coulda, and woulda! “ thinking emerges.  How would I have been different and how would my life have evolved differently.

Unfortunately, there’s no “time” VCR to remind and rerun / retry life.

“… checked the Eternal Possibilities Machine, which generates all the possibilities for use in creating the alternative worlds. In all those probability lines …” CHURCH 10●19●62 (Vol 1) 978-0-557-08387-9 page 45

I guess every child feels this and maybe that’s why things are this way now.

One of the many many things we’ll never know.

Sigh!

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POLITICAL: Age limit for politicians and bureaucrats!

Wednesday, April 2, 2025

Here’s an original thought:

If there is a minium age for political office, why can’t we have a maximum age for it. I suggest your full benefit retirement age for Social Security.

#agelimitforpoliticians

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ENCOURAGING: Interesting heroic tale of the Polish “James Bond”

Tuesday, April 1, 2025

FROM PRIME VIDEO

The Resistance Fighter

The Resistance Fighter tells the incredible true story of the Polish “James Bond” war hero Jan Nowak-Jeziorański, a man of extraordinary courage, who served as an emissary between the commanders of Poland’s resistance movement and the Polish government in exile in London at the height of WWII.

# – # – # – # – # 

I doubt I’d ever have, or would have had, the courage to act in this fashion.

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HEALTHCARE: C-Sections, home births, and a sprinkle of medical correuption make for a complex decision

Monday, March 31, 2025

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2025/03/28/risks-of-c-sections.aspx?ui=f9839516412491bb1e06c9e47058c6fb81b9b9b6acedf03e65e93dfdb263c1b9&sd=20210317&cid_source=dnl&cid_medium=email&cid_content=art1ReadMore&cid=20250328_HL2&foDate=false&mid=DM1725282&rid=258510807

What They Don’t Tell You About C-Sections

Analysis by A Midwestern Doctor  —   March 28, 2025

*** begin quote ***

  •     For more than a century, there has been a push to medicalize childbirth and transform it from a natural life event to something requiring major interventions so nothing goes amiss
  •     Many of the standard procedures done during hospital births increase your risk of needing other invasive interventions, eventually cascading into requiring a cesarean section
  •     Like other major abdominal surgeries, C-sections expose mothers to significant risk, require a prolonged recovery, and leave large scars which can cause a wide range of chronic issues
  •     C-sections also expose infants to real risks and predispose them to a variety of chronic autoimmune and neurological issues
  •     This article will discuss the risks of C-sections, the situations where they are necessary, and some approaches that can be used to recover from them

Many traditions throughout history have come to view one’s birth as one of the most important moments in a human’s life as it sets the stage for all that follows. Unfortunately, much in the same way we desecrate the death process by over-medicalizing it (to the point research has found that doctors are less likely to seek end of life care at a medical facility1), the same issue also exists with childbirth.

Many physicians I know who are familiar with the hospital birthing process chose to skip it and give birth at home (along with many more doctors featured in a 2016 documentary2).

Conversely, a minority of childbirths do need advanced medical care. For those mothers, access to a hospital greatly benefits them, particularly if actions are taken to mitigate the most dangerous aspects of hospital birth.

As such, childbirth occupies a similar place as many other medical controversies; neither side of the issue is entirely correct. However, the data clearly shows the risk of routine C-sections outweighs their benefits so this article will attempt to expose what they aren’t tell you about them.

*** end quote ***

I was particularly interested in all the stats that were provided.  As well as the anecdotal evidence from the New Zealand Maoris, “getting a spark”, and the old practice of doctors would wack a baby’s soles to trigger a vigorous cry.  I thought it was a smack on the butt.  

In survival school, one of the mandatory lessons was about emergency child birth.  The essence was to do as little as possible until real help arrived.  Keep patient level, legs elevated, clean newspapers to keep the area as sterile as possible, get the baby crying (really), on mom’s chest, and don’t touch the cord.  And to ignore everything we’d seen on TV.  Laugh!

Came close twice, but no cigar.  In the closest case, commuting into NYC on a train, after the paramedics took her away, the old gent came up and complimented me on doing everything right.  Even mentioning the newspaper bedding and “sheets”.  He said he a was the head of obstetrics at Saint Vincents and would have intervened if I was doing anything wrong. His reticence was due to the malpractice law that rendered me immune but made him libel.  Dumb law.  I was almost pooping MY pants  that I might have to deliver.  Labor pains were a minute intervals.  But Saint Simeon the Holy Fool was with me that day.

Glad I never had to make any of these hard decisions as outlined in the article.

I would hope that the incentive structure for “health care” gets straightened out.

Argh!

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