A caterpillar,
this deep in fall –
still not a butterfly.
— Basho
My Boyhood Sports Icons Are Dying: Willis Reed
Willis Reed is best remembered for Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals against the Los Angeles Lakers in Madison Square Garden, not for his performance on the court (he scored only four points), but for limping gamely onto the court during warmups. Reed hadn’t played in Game 6 because of a torn thigh muscle and was considered unlikely to play in Game 7.
Even as a Laker fan, I have to admit it was an all-time iconic moment, so much so that no one (except Frazier himself) remembers that Walt Frazier had one of the greatest Game 7 performances in NBA playoff history: 36 points, 7 rebounds, 19 assists and 6 steals. That game is always remembered as “the Willis Reed game.”
RIP Willis Reed
The NRA is a Red Herring
Every time some gun-related tragedy occurs, we get to hear from innumerable people who know nothing about guns other than everything is the NRA’s fault. And everything they think they know about the NRA is wrong. In other words, they think they know one thing but the one thing they know is wrong.
The thing they think they know is that the NRA pays off (Republican) politicians to vote against gun control bills.
I asked ChatGPT “How much does the NRA donate annually to politicians?” And I got this answer:
The National Rifle Association (NRA) is a powerful lobbying organization that has donated millions of dollars to political candidates and causes over the years. However, the organization is not required to disclose its exact political contributions, and the amount it donates can vary widely from year to year and election cycle to election cycle.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money in politics, the NRA’s political action committee (PAC) spent more than $10 million on the 2020 election cycle.
Keep that number in mind: $10 million.
Then I asked ChatGPT “Who were the top 50 contributors in the 2020 election cycle?” Here’s the answer:
The following information is based on data from the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money in politics. Here are the top 50 contributors in the 2020 election cycle:
- Bloomberg LP – $1.7 billion
- Future Forward USA – $436 million
- Democratic Party of Wisconsin – $381 million
- Senate Majority PAC – $373 million
- Presidential Action Fund – $313 million
- American Bridge 21st Century – $297 million
- Senate Leadership Fund – $279 million
- Conservative Solutions PAC – $277 million
- National Republican Senatorial Committee – $257 million
- Congressional Leadership Fund – $256 million
- Senate Conservatives Action – $225 million
- Fair Fight PAC – $208 million
- Service Employees International Union – $203 million
- Priorities USA Action – $192 million
- WinRed – $187 million
- National Republican Congressional Committee – $176 million
- American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees – $175 million
- Laborers’ International Union of North America – $163 million
- American Crossroads – $161 million
- House Majority PAC – $159 million
- UNITE HERE – $156 million
- Democratic Governors Association – $155 million
- Republican National Committee – $153 million
- New York State Democratic Committee – $149 million
- 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East – $143 million
- American Federation of Teachers – $135 million
- SEIU Committee on Political Education – $134 million
- National Education Association – $133 million
- American Medical Association – $132 million
- Laborers’ Political League Education Fund – $130 million
- United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners – $129 million
- Carpenters & Joiners Union – $128 million
- American Association for Justice – $126 million
- Center for American Progress Action Fund – $124 million
- Sixteen Thirty Fund – $122 million
- National Association of Realtors – $118 million
- Senate Majority PAC – Reid – $117 million
- Northrop Grumman – $115 million
- Operating Engineers Union – $114 million
- National Education Association Advocacy Fund – $111 million
- Everytown for Gun Safety Victory Fund – $110 million
- United Steelworkers – $109 million
- Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee – $108 million
- Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund – $106 million
- Club for Growth – $105 million
- American Postal Workers Union – $104 million
- United Auto Workers – $103 million
- National Beer Wholesalers Association – $102 million
- Republican Governors Association – $100 million
- The Lincoln Project – $99 million
It’s worth noting that this list includes a mix of political parties, PACs, labor unions, and other organizations.
A couple that jumped out at me here are the Everytown for Gun Safety Victory Fund (at #41) and the Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund (at #44), neither of which I’ve ever heard of, but which contributed a combined $216 million, more than 20 times the $10 million contributed by the NRA. In fact the NRA’s paltry $10 million puts it a full order of magnitude outside the top 50 contributors.
The “NRA buys everyone off” myth is one of the biggest red herrings in American politics. It’s a stroke of genius, I suppose, to have embedded it so deeply in our collective psyche that anyone who’s so inclined can throw it into a conversation about guns at a moment’s notice, even though it’s completely 100% false.
Believing Children’s Gender Identities
The woman above is Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan of the state of Minnesota, who said at a press conference, “When our children tell us who they are, it is our job as grown-ups to listen and to believe them. That’s what it means to be a good parent.”
If it wasn’t already obvious from the way she’s dressed, this woman needs to be institutionalized.
My son, when he was much younger, told me he was Thor, he told me he was a gorilla, he told me he was a dinosaur . . . I didn’t believe him in any of those cases. Am I a bad parent?
He never said he was a girl, but at that time he wouldn’t have been continually propagandized on the topic by “grown-ups.”
If God Coached Basketball
Vermont Christian School Barred from Future Competition for Refusing to Play against Male Athlete — nationalreview.com
Mid-Vermont Christian School (MVCS) has been excluded from competing in future tournaments sanctioned by the Vermont Principals’ Association after its girls basketball team forfeited a match against an opposing team that includes a male player who identifies as a girl.
It’s a human rights violation! Vermont law permits transgender females to compete in the group corresponding to their gender identity and prohibits so-called discrimination based on sex.
Since the school in question is a Christian school, let’s ask ourselves what would Jesus do if Jesus were a basketball coach? Better yet, what would God do? Because God is wrathful and doesn’t put up with nonsense.
I will carry out great vengeance on them and punish them in my wrath. Then they will know that I am the LORD, when I take vengeance on them. (Ezekiel 25:17)
If I were God, I’d take the MVCS boys team and girls team combined as my girls team, and inform the opposition that even though some of the players look like boys, they all identify as girls.
And if that breaks some rule about having too many players on a team, the girls could cheer from the stands.
And while I wouldn’t specifically direct my players to injure the other team’s male player, I would tell them to employ a very physical style of basketball against him.
Amen.
Ukraine Needs Missiles!
More Words and Phrases I’m Sick Unto Death Of: Gender-Affirming Care
Is gender-affirming care the same thing as gender-affirming therapy? I’m sick of both phrases but it seems like gender-affirming therapy obviously involves a therapist. I thought the job of a therapist is to get at the true cause of whatever is keeping the patient from moving forward in life, not to give patients a pat on the head and affirm whatever self-diagnosis they present with.
And I’ve always taken gender-affirming care to mean that a doctor is involved. When I visit a doctor, I expect the doctor to gather the evidence and provide a diagnosis. I don’t expect to have my intestines removed because I “feel” like I have colon cancer.
What does affirmation have to do with the job of a doctor?
Inclusive or Exclusive?
I saw this as part of a job posting:
Highly inclusive culture, with more than 90% of our workforce coming from historically underrepresented backgrounds in Tech
If you relegate the majority of your industry to a single-digit percentage of your workforce, is that highly inclusive or highly exclusive?
If it were up to me as a lover of freedom, companies could hire whoever they want to, but my understanding is that my opinion does not align with the laws of the United States, which prohibit companies from hiring based on race, sex, etc., etc., etc.
Given that the numbers above couldn’t have been achieved by accident, is that even legal? The fact that the company advertises it suggests that maybe it is, but everything I know about employment law (i.e., not much) suggests that it isn’t.
Thus spoke The Programmer.
My Boyhood Sports Icons Are Dying: Dick Fosbury
For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them. — Aristotle
Who Is Deserving of Dignity and Respect?
The Independent reports that the White House has called for Mike Pence to apologize for what it called a “homophobic” joke about Pete Buttigieg’s decision to take paternity leave when his twins were born.
Pence said Buttigieg, who is the first openly gay Cabinet secretary, took “maternity leave” while airline problems happened in 2021.
“Pete is the only person in human history to have a child and everyone else gets postpartum depression,” Pence said at the annual Gridiron Club dinner in Washington on Saturday.
That’s a good joke. What a nation of whiny crybabies we have become.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “He should apologize to women and LGBTQ people, who are entitled to be treated with dignity and respect.”
The White House recently gave a “Women of Courage” award to a man so they have no moral standing to talk about treating women with dignity and respect.
And why would being gay entitle anyone to be treated with dignity and respect? Jeffrey Dahmer was gay, right? And John Wayne Gacy? How much dignity and respect are they entitled to?
If you’re gay, you’re gay. Not everyone is going to shower you with dignity and respect. Why do you care anyway?
I’m not saying gay people shouldn’t be treated with dignity and respect, I’m saying they shouldn’t be treated with any more dignity and respect than anyone else just because they’re gay.
Why Must Differences Between Persons Be Justified?
Often writers state a presumption in favor of equality in a form such as the following: “Differences in treatment of persons need to be justified.” . . . But if I go to one movie theater rather than to another adjacent to it, need I justify my different treatment of the two theater owners? Isn’t it enough that I felt like going to one of them? . . . It is not clear why the maxim that differences in treatment must be justified should be thought to have extensive application. Why must differences between persons be justified? Why think that we must change, or remedy, or compensate for any inequality which can be changed, remedied, or compensated for?
There Are Only Individual People
Why not . . . hold that some persons have to bear some costs that benefit other persons more, for the sake of the overall social good? But there is no social entity with a good that undergoes some sacrifice for its own good. There are only individual people, different individual people, with their own individual lives. Using one of these people for the benefit of others, uses him and benefits the others. Nothing more. What happens is that something is done to him for the sake of the others. Talk of an overall social good covers this up. (Intentionally?) To use a person in this way does not sufficiently respect and take account of the fact that he is a separate person, that his is the only life he has. He does not get some overbalancing good from his sacrifice, and no one is entitled to force this upon him — least of all a state or government that claims his allegiance (as other individuals do not) and that therefore scrupulously must be neutral between its citizens.
Mirrors and Mirror Holders
Inviting Chaya Raichik, the woman behind #LibsofTikTok, to CPAC is "a gesture of contempt towards every teacher, every medical provider, and every other American who cares about making the world a kinder and safer place,” @AriDrennen told me.https://t.co/4ZzMJXEm8T
— David Gilbert (@daithaigilbert) March 1, 2023
Doesn’t LibsOfTikTok just repost other people’s videos? It holds a mirror up to people who don’t like what they see and all they can think of to do is to hate mirrors and the people who hold them.
As I post this, the tweet is getting ratioed at more than a 10-1 clip.
I’d like to think this means that many people are getting as sick as I am of this “I hate you because you’re not as kind as I am” mental malfunction.
Also sick of “People who cannot be expected to parrot opinions I hold myself should not be allowed to speak.”
Now try to make sense of the first sentence of the story. Why does being queer require help from a doctor? Why does it require help from a teacher?
I knew some queers in high school. They weren’t treated any differently than anyone else and as far as I know didn’t expect to be.
Unintended Consequences of DEI
Scott Yenor’s recent report on the rise of the equity regime at Texas A&M (TAMU) provides a glimpse into the gap between DEI’s public claims and its real, material meaning. Formally, Yenor notes, “diversity” is portrayed as the principle that “everyone and every group should be valued” by “embracing and celebrating the rich dimensions of difference”; in practice, it represents “an identity-based approach to society,” intended to box out “now-disfavored groups like whites and males through ‘political quotas.’” Formally, “equity” is allegedly aimed at “overcoming challenges and bias to achieve equal opportunity”; in practice, it redounds to “equality of outcomes plus reparations.” Formally, “inclusion” means “bringing the formerly excluded into activities and decision-making so as to share power”; in practice, it’s “enforced segregation of people by race” and “restrictions on speech” for disfavored groups.
Yenor substantiates those claims with a startling statistic: As the DEI regime advanced through TAMU — to the tune of well over $11 million, and an array of new programs, departments and salaried sinecures for diversity czars — white, black, and Hispanic students all began to feel more alienated from the university. From 2015 to 2020, the percentage of white students “who agreed or strongly agreed that they belonged at A&M” declined by 10 points. Over the same period, the percentage of Hispanic students who said they belonged declined by 12 points. For black students, the percentage declined by a whopping 27 points.
And That’s the Truth: Learn to Read!
[And That’s the Truth is a feature by our guest blogger, Sojourner Truth– PE]
Chicago Democrat sounds alarm as 55 schools report no proficiency in math or reading: ‘Very serious’ — foxnews.com
“No proficiency” means there ain’t one kid can read or do math in the whole school. Not one.
A Illinois state senator named Willie Preston says
“I think that we have to reengage parents, have parents actively take a role inside the schools when they can be, but in addition, we need to make certain that we … spend our money in the right way as it pertains to our children’s education.”
You gotta engage parents, I don’t see why you gotta reengage em. Damn schools were closed for two years. Parents had to school their own kids. If there ain’t one kid in the whole school that can read or do math, you tellin me the parents were engaged? They ain’t never been engaged.
And the money ain’t the problem either. People always blame money for bad schools. Illinois this year sent $9.4 billion to Chicago Public Schools and the U.S. government sent another $1.8 billion. Check my math (if you didn’t go to a Chicago public school) but that’s $11.2 billion
Look at this:
Not a single student can do math at grade level in 53 #Illinois schools. For reading, it’s 30 schools. Not 1 single student. Education data from @ISBEnews
It's yet another indictment of the state’s educational system. Via @Wirepointshttps://t.co/rMZlnHjcgK #twill #SchoolChoice… pic.twitter.com/meKyUDo7sk
— Wirepoints (@Wirepoints) February 14, 2023
These schools gettin 5 figures per student. Some get $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, $50,000. I ain’t kiddin! Some schools get $50,000 per student.
Even if you got $10,000 per student and you got 30 kids in a class, that’s $300,000. Take out the teacher’s salary and the price of some chalk and you still got a lotta money. Where in the hell is that money goin? Probly they payin 10 levels of administrators in the district office who ain’t teachin nobody.
And in case you’re gonna say that COVID lockdowns caused this problem, well for your information, the current scores are not much worse than they were in 2019.
Sen. Preston adds “A lot of these children are coming from poverty-stricken communities.”
Oh, bullshit. There’s a lot of low-income Asians in this country too but I guarantee you they can read.
The governor of Illinois will make it a national priority to teach black queer history for some goddamn reason but nobody wants to teach black kids to read.
And that’s the Truth!
Have You Seen Anyone in the US Flying a Ukrainian Flag?
Profile icons don’t count.
I've never seen one, you incoherent mumbling toad. https://t.co/uFeTvy5o1p
— Catturd ™ (@catturd2) February 21, 2023
That is a Load of Educational Malarkey!
I think every kid, in every zip code, in every state should have access to every education opportunity possible.
I guess, for some, that isn’t the consensus view. https://t.co/d1FAeWwKv1
— President Biden (@POTUS) February 17, 2023
That is a load of malarkey! I mean, the bullshit meter just totally pegged.
That is not what he thinks and anyone who knows even a little about politics knows that is not what he thinks.
What he thinks is that every kid in every zip code should attend the public schools that they’re assigned to based on where they live. And if those schools are hopeless trash fires, the kids should attend those schools anyway.
Teachers unions and the Democratic party are co-dependent. The unions, in addition to providing financial support, are the foot soldiers of the party. In exchange, no Democrat will ever — and I mean never ever — support school choice, i.e., every kid having access to every education opportunity possible.
P.S. Whoever wrote this tweet is definitely a graduate of the public schools Biden thinks every kid should attend. Shouldn’t the phrase “education opportunity” be “educational opportunity”? “Education” is a noun, not an adjective.
Now try to figure out the last sentence. How can one person have a consensus view?
Don’t Believe Your Eyes, the Economy is Strong!
BREAKING
Spokesperson for Hell disputes Biden’s claim that the U.S. economy is “strong as hell”
Quote: “Data shows Hell’s economy is currently much stronger than America’s” pic.twitter.com/czwnQAMGCn
— News That Matters (@ThatmattersNews) October 17, 2022
According to LinkedIn, here are some of the companies doing layoffs so far in February:
- Convoy
- Tackle
- DocuSign
- KPMG
- Wix
- The RealReal
- DigitalOcean
- Bank of America
- Criteo
- Sprinklr
- PICO
- ServiceTitan
- Vicarious Surgical
- Betterment
- Divvy Homes
- Neiman Marcus Group
- Udemy
- iRobot
- Terminus
- Showtime
- HackerEarth
- Channel Advisor
- United Talent Agency
- Electric
- Collective Health
- TripleLift
- Rigetti Computing
- Twilio
- Daily Harvest
- Dandy
- Bark
- Olive AI
- News Corp
- Yahoo
- GitHub
- GitLab
- Disney
- GoDaddy
- JPMorgan Chase
- Affirm
- Medly
- Gusto
- Nomad Health
- Zoom
- Magic Eden
- Protocol Labs
- Bittrex
- Chainalysis
- Prime Trust
- CoinTracker
- VinFast
- Gong
- EBay
- Secureworks
- Boeing
- Dell Technologies
- Clari
- Workato
- Drift
- Kyruus
- Desktop Metal
- Getir
- Salesforce
- Highspot
- Getaround
- Autodesk
- Tilting Point
- Mindstrong
- Athenahealth
- Genesys
- Replica
- Sendoso
- Articulate
- MediaMath
- Dialpad
- Wheel
- Cyren
- Okta
- Miro
- REI
- FedEx
- DraftKings
- Rivian
- Splunk
- Match Group
- Bustle Digital Group
- Wish
I’m Shocked — SHOCKED — to Find That My Letter Was Distorted
Clapper says letter about Russian links to Hunter Biden laptop saga was 'distorted' https://t.co/DFdQGXXS7f
— Paul Epps (@paulepps) February 17, 2023
Wow! It took him more than two years to figure that out?!
“All we were doing was raising a yellow flag that this could be Russian disinformation. Politico deliberately distorted what we said,” Clapper recently told the Washington Post.
“The intent of the letter was that this could be Russian disinformation — emphasis on could,” Clapper told the outlet. “It’s a very important nuance … a distinction that people are always ignoring.”
Well, he’s right. If you read the letter carefully, it does say — I’m paraphrasing here — we have no idea if the laptop is Russian disinformation, we have no evidence that it is, but it does have the classic earmarks of Russian spycraft.
Why would 50 former high-ranking intel officials get together to write and sign a letter saying, basically, we have no idea what we’re talking about? Answer: because they knew it would be distorted. They wanted it to be distorted.
Intel guys — FBI, CIA, DHS — didn’t and don’t like Donald Trump, didn’t want him re-elected because he treats them with the contempt they deserve.
Journalists are a) left-leaning, and b) not too smart, but just to be sure it gets distorted, let’s put the letter in the hands of Natasha Bertrand (then at Politico), one of the biggest liars in the profession.
Then after the election, when a suitable amount of time has passed, like maybe two years from now, we can — correctly! — say that our words were distorted.