DISCOURAGING: Is it moral to profit off of something that destroys people?

Wednesday, October 7, 2026

https://x.com/ClutchPoints/status/2105731381355565358?utm_campaign=october7morningnote&utm_medium=email&utm_source=iterable&utm_content=morningnote

Victor Wembanyama on if he would ever sign a deal with a sports betting company

*** begin quote ***

Why is that? How come America’s biggest sports empires are comfortable telling their consumers that gambling is a totally normal behavior, worthy of television commercials alongside movies and grocery stores? If professional athletes started becoming “PornHub Partners” or paid spokespeople for Marlboro or Camel, their leagues would immediately intervene. But when it comes to the vice of gambling, the NBA, NFL, and MLB are more than happy to sit back, stuff their pockets, and spearhead the exploitation of the very people who consume their products.

*** end quote ***

An excellent question and this highlights the “morality” question.

Is it moral to profit off of something that destroys people?

Probably not! IMHO.

— 30 —

Leave a Comment » | DISCOURAGING | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

DISCOURAGING: Assertions without evidence still linger to damage Jefferson’s reputation.

Wednesday, September 30, 2026

History by hair
Brion McClanahan
Sep 29, 2026, 2:36 PM

*** begin quote ***

The attacks on Thomas Jefferson continue.

When I wrote my The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers in 2009, I included a section on the Jefferson/Hemings myth.

I still call it that. I concluded that Jefferson could have fathered a child with Hemings. After all, DNA evidence proved that a male in the Jefferson line fathered at least one child with Sally Hemings.

In other words, it is probable, but I would argue not probable.

The historical evidence lines up against it.

But a new “study” titled History By a Hair has been hailed as “conclusive” proof that Jefferson was the father of at least two of Hemings’ children, Madison and Eston.

Except it isn’t. In fact, it doesn’t change anything. DNA evidence is traced through maternal lineage, meaning that Randolph Jefferson could still be the father of Sally’s children.

And the hair sample that the study used had to be “reconstructed.”

In other words, this study does not answer the questions nor does it “prove” anything. But it provides sensational headlines.

Of course, it has the desired effect: running Jefferson’s reputation through the mud.

This is the gateway to attacking the founding generation and all of traditional American history.

The left wants American history to begin in 1975, or it needs the proposition nation to be true.

The Jefferson/Hemings myth would solidify the proposition nation. This is all political.

Both M. Andrew Holowchak and William Hyland take apart the new “evidence.”

I also discuss it on Episode 1330 of The Brion McClanahan Show.

You can watch it here.

OR

You can listen to it here.

*** end quote ***

I think this is just YET ANOTHER example of the “LEFT”, which really should be labeled the “COMMUNISTS” trying to destroy an American icon.  Like every person, every one has some flaws.  To accuse a dead man of what today would be disgraceful conduct, and maybe it was even disgraceful then, without solid indisputable evidence, is the epitome of “character assassination”.

— 30 —

Leave a Comment » | DISCOURAGING | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

DISCOURAGING: Amazon resellers of batteries … … 

Monday, September 7, 2026

Anyone else “upset” with Amazon resellers of batteries?

It feels like they are most old and poor quality.  Often repackaged.  In different languages.

So, no more, will I buy batteries from Amazon.  Home Depot, Lowes, Target, even the Publix grocery store.

They have to be better!

Argh!

— 30 —

Leave a Comment » | DISCOURAGING | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

DISCOURAGING: “We” lost a beautiful soul

Thursday, August 27, 2026

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c0ry0yzxeyxt

Dolly Parton. 
Requiescat In Pacem

My “Dolly memory” was playing “facts in five“ in a small camper with two old friends and my first sainted wife as teams. 

It was a cutthroat competition. The object of the game was to predict your partner’s answer. So we’re down to the final question  —  neck and neck  —  and the question was “who is the smartest business person your partner admires?“. 

Frau Reinke got a huge smile on her face and said loudly: “We got this one!“ and scribbled down her answer. (I had just finished my MBA and she had suffered with me along for the ride.)  When the big reveal came my answer was Dolly Parton“ she was flabbergasted. 

She had written down “Warren Buffett“. A good answer, but not the smartest. 

She ranted and raved for at least two weeks about this bitterest loss to our best fries but arch game rivals. 

How could I pick Dolly Parton and I kept giving her the same list of reasons:

#1 She never forgot a roots;

#2 she never got full of herself with all her success; and 

#3 She was the most charitable celebrity I had ever heard of up to that time
and probably since that time. 

God bless you, Ms  Parton. 

I hope all of your journeys are now trouble free and that, sometime, we’ll meet in the ever after. I’d like you to tell me all the things that I’ve done badly, wrongly, and stupidly.

Dona Nobis Pacem

Sadly. 

p.s., FWIW Warren Buffet was my third choice.  My second choice was (I forget the fellow’s name) who owned and ran a Kentucky minor league baseball team (I forget the team’s name) that had three times the profitability of any minor league team in any sport. I had done my MBA “graduation paper” on the fellow.  But, I was always super impressed with Ms. Parton.

•• ••• 2026-Aug-25 1500

— 30 —

Leave a Comment » | DISCOURAGING | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

DISCOURAGING: All too true about NYC

Tuesday, August 18, 2026

<<FROM TWITTER / now X (but it’ll always be twitter to me)>>
<< EDITOR ADDED DATE 2026-08-18>>

*** begin quote ***

Josh Barzon
@JoshuaBarzon
Aug 17

You could move to New York City.

Rent an 852-square-foot apartment for $5,503 a month.

Blow $500 on three “first dates” a week and somehow remain single for six years.

Finally meet someone you like, then discover they’re “not really looking for anything serious right now.”

Get a master’s degree so you can qualify for an internship.

Apply to 147 jobs, get 93 automated rejections, and finally find an “entry-level” position requiring five years of experience.

Eventually land a six-figure job and still need a roommate to make rent.

Pay federal income tax, New York State income tax, AND New York City income tax because apparently living there is a three-level subscription.

Learn that a “quiet neighborhood” means the sirens only come by every 20 minutes.

Pay $27 every day for a sandwich (no sides) because the place has exposed brick and a handwritten menu.

Take the subway to work every morning and develop the useful skill of pretending not to notice absolutely anything happening around you.

Spend 45 minutes traveling three miles.

Carry your groceries home six blocks because parking near your apartment is more of a philosophical concept than an actual possibility.

Have “owning a washer and dryer” become one of your primary measures of generational wealth.

Walk past a mountain of trash bags on your way to a restaurant with a Michelin star.

Tell your friends back home you don’t need a car while spending $46 on an Uber because the subway is delayed again.

Go to Central Park when you want to remember what trees look like.

Spend your twenties telling everyone you could NEVER live anywhere else.

Then one day you visit your cousin in Iowa.

He has a house with four bedrooms, a garage, a yard, two cars, four kids, and somehow pays less than you do for the apartment where your refrigerator touches your couch.

But hey.

The NYC bagels are incredible.

*** end quote ***

Having grown up in Manhattan I can certainly agree with what he has written.

I’d say it’s “funny”. BUT, (and there is always a BIG butt), it’s not “funny” like “HA! HA!”.  More like “funny” peculiar.  Like schadenfreude!

— 30 —

Leave a Comment » | DISCOURAGING | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

DISCOURAGING: No one ever seems to have tried my idea?

Thursday, July 23, 2026

I’m a retired IT guy. I personally have always been surprised that “newspapers” didn’t figure out and implement a micropayment system.

Imagine if you were asked for 0.0001 of something (i.e., a dollar; a bitcoin; a ruble; a yen) for an article. Not some number of dollars for a year, or month, or such.

When you get on internet scale, it’s not hard to imagine getting 50k readers each paying say a penny for an article. That translates to 500$ for that one article.

The current payment technology doesn’t pay to scale that price point.

But now, a paper could collect a fraction of a bitcoin from someone’s public key and encrypt the article so that only the person’s private key could decrypt it. At that level, it wouldn’t be worth pirating it or sharing you private key to deprive the sender of the revenue.

I think that would be the way to save the “local” paper with digital distribution of content.

FWIW YMMV

— 30 —

Leave a Comment » | DISCOURAGING | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

DISCOURAGING: I don’t want my orders sent by USPS

Tuesday, July 21, 2026

A chat with amazon

*** begin quote ***

ME: USPS deliveries are inconvenient and always seem delayed. Can I specify I don’t want my orders sent by USPS?

REP: understand your concern.
I can take this as a feedback so that our team will check the details and will try our best to deliver the items directly

*** end quote ***

Have to tell Puritan’s Pride the same thing. 

If they can’t deliver with UPS or FEDEX 0r something similar, then I have to take my business elsewhere.

Argh!

— 30 —

Leave a Comment » | DISCOURAGING | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

DISCOURAGING: Jeff Jacoby is ill and I wish him a speedy recovery

Thursday, July 16, 2026

Tuesday, July 14, 2026
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Opinion columnist

*** begin quote ***

A note to readers from a longtime columnist
As some of you know, I am on medical leave from my job at The Boston Globe and have not been able to write my regular op-ed columns or my Arguable newsletter.

*** and ***

During the congressional debates on the amendment in 1866, I noted, Senator Edgar Cowan of Pennsylvania warned that birthright citizenship would undermine the ability of any state to defend itself “if it were overrun” — that word again — by immigrants of “a different race.”

*** end quote ***

Well, unfortunately, we can’t have “open borders” and a “welfare state”.  If those, that come here, contribute to society, then by all means “open the golden door”, BUT, (and there is always a BIG butt), if they are here for the dole, then we can’t admit them.

We have seen the abuses of our lax immigration policies and generous handouts. Birth tourism — pregnant women coming to the U.S. on tourism visas in order to obtain birthright U.S. citizenship for their newborn child becoming “anchor babies” is a very distinct problem.

End welfare; no problem.  End warfare; no problem.

Get well soon, my favorite liberal author. 

— 30 —

Leave a Comment » | DISCOURAGING | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

DISCOURAGING: US needs a leader that would just say “no”!

Wednesday, June 24, 2026

https://internationalman.com/articles/when-ai-driven-deflation-collides-with-americas-debt-saturated-economy/

When AI-Driven Deflation Collides With America’s Debt-Saturated Economy

by Nick Giambruno
<< EDITOR ADDED DATE 2026-06-08>>

*** begin quote ***

In other words, the US would need a leader who—at a minimum—returns the federal government to a limited Constitutional Republic, closes the 800 military bases abroad, ends entitlements, kills the welfare state, and repays a large portion of the national debt.

*** end quote ***

The current 1.2T$ budget deficit, added 121T+ national debt, and the guesstimated 200T+ in unfunded liabilities that our posterity will have to deal with is staggering.  And, all the politicians and bureaucrats just keep spending along.

“Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt.” –Herbert Hoover

“When in a hole, stop digging!” — old Wall Street maxim

— 30 —

Leave a Comment » | DISCOURAGING | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

DISCOURAGING: The “Trump” phone couldn’t get the US flag right?

Monday, June 8, 2026

https://www.cnet.com/news-live/t1-trump-mobile-phone-review/?zdee=%5BContact.email_zdee%5D

We’re Finally Testing the Trump Mobile Phone. 

  • The golden Trump phone is here, and we’re putting it through its paces to see how it matches up with other foreign-made phones on the market.

Corinne Reichert
May 24, 2026 1:51 p.m. PT

*** begin quote ***

As previously reported, we can confirm that the Trump phone features the wrong number of stripes on the American flag.

There are supposed to be 13 stripes representing the 13 original colonies of the United States, but the flag printed on the back of this golden phone has only 11.

The US flag does have the requisite 50 stars, however.

*** end quote ***

Mediocre at best.  And certainly not the “greatest”.  Like most politicians’ promises … sadly disappointing and discouraging.

I expected better.

— 30 —

Leave a Comment » | DISCOURAGING | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

« Previous Entries