Not a woman

Transsexuals may be female between the ears.  They may get the gender reassignment surgery, hormone therapy, breast implants, and grow their hair out long.  They may look like women on the outside, but their basic body structure is male.  They have more physical strength, particularly in their upper body.

They are not women where it counts when it comes to women's sports.  They will outplay and outdo any real women. 

They are men.  If they can't hack it playing with the boys, they shouldn't take their ball and go play with the girls, no matter if they would have rather been one. 

Gabrielle Ludwig, I wish you the best in finding peace and happiness in your life.  But you shouldn't be permitted to play basketball with the other girls.  You're going to outdo them because you aren't one in the very fibers of your muscles. 

Now, that's racist.

So what if the guy's got a white fiance, and may vote Republican?  How is it not racist to call this guy names because he doesn't march in lock-step with other black people?

My definition of racism is bringing up race where it's not relevant.  And most of the time, that's done by black people, and Hispanics.  Nobody else cares.

Bell ringers

Yesterday, we all went to Sam's Club.  There was a Salvation Army bell ringer right outside the exit.  He had white hair and a full, white beard, and a good-sized gut.  And glasses.  He looked like Santa Clause.  Played with the kids for a couple of minutes (and quietly called the imp a "cute little shit"--which he is, but Santa?  Don't say that where a four-year-old can hear you.), and then thanked us for letting him play with them, and wished us a Merry Christmas. 

I think he was the highlight of the kids' day. 

And UC Berkley's student government would like to boot Salvation Army volunteers from campus because "Allowing the Salvation Army to collect donations on campus is a form of financial assistance that empowers the organization to spend the money it raises here in order to discriminate and advocate discrimination against queer people." 

Okay, fine.  But if UC Berkley can ban Salvation Army bell ringers from campus, it's only fair that the Salvation Army ban those who carry a Student ID from UC Berkley from shopping at their second-hand shops. 

Just a modest proposal...

Mike Adams is back at his sarcastic best in this piece.  It's along similar lines as Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal," but does it by equating the whole bigot witch hunt going after Chick-Fil-A with the Salem Witch trials. 

It hurts to laugh that hard, especially when you have a toddler-shaped charley-horse between your shoulder blades

Chick-fil-a was swamped...

We took the kids there to eat, today for lunch.  I hadn't ever been there, before, but after Boston then Chicago telling the company that they weren't welcome to do business there, I had to go give them my vote of support. 

The food was okay, I guess.  I mean, I loved the waffle fries, but I got a grilled chicken sandwich, and I gotta tell you, I prefer the pre-cooked, frozen, Mesquite grilled chicken breasts I get by the four pound bag at Sam's Club.  Maybe the spicy chicken is better...I don't know. 

I will say this: they have an indoor play area, with a huge window from the seating area looking into it.  The imp spent lunch plastered to the window, watching the other little kids play while he ate.  After he finished, Odysseus took him in to go play...and the pixie stopped eating.  She wanted to go play, too.  And she hadn't eaten very much, maybe half a chicken nugget, two waffle fries, and a couple of pickle slices.  She usually will eat two whole chicken nuggets, and about twice that in veggies.  She was way too focused on getting down to go play.

Yeah, not going to happen.

So, she and I cleaned up the mess, and I picked her up and took her to the door of the play area, and found Odysseus already putting shoes back on a thrashing imp.  "No!  Play more!"

Yeah.  Uh-huh.  Not. 

What shut it down was getting into his face and telling him that if he didn't stop pitching a fit, like now, we would never go back. 

As it is, I think we'll probably go back sometime next month.  Not sooner, because he has not.  Stopped.  Nagging.  about it since. 

Maybe after he goes a month with dry pants while he's awake, we'll go again for a treat. 

Otherwise, the food wasn't that great for the cost, and the temper tantrum at the end really wasn't worth it.

Equality

It's a loaded word, anymore.  Just as "rights" can be.  There are so many emotional meanings tacked onto the literal one that people have started having gut reactions to simple statements.

And sometimes, they're right to.  Sometimes "equality" and "rights" mean "I'm better than you because of x" and "If you tell me no, it's because you're racist." 

Like this guy.  He claims that white people have never been anything but racist.  However, his language choices are suspect: he claims that white people have never favored "rights" for blacks.  Not equal, just "rights."

I have never opposed truly equal rights to those different from me--everyone has an equal opportunity to work their ass off and become successful.  I do, however, oppose lowering my standards to permit them to have chances that they don't deserve.  Especially when those standards include standards of civilized behavior. 

I do oppose the idea that someone else has the right to take money I've earned, or take my belongings.  I've worked damn hard to actually earn both.  I do oppose the idea that someone else has the right to tell me how to raise my kids.  Looking around, it's pretty obvious that I do a far better job of training my children to behave than the busybodies do.  I do oppose the idea that someone else has more right to my home, my car, my job, or my standard of living than I do.  We achieve that standard of living on far less than the welfare dependents spend on their shoes and cell phones. 

I believe in equal rights, not equal results.  What Bob Herbert is talking about is not the first.  He's talking about making allowances because of the color of the skin of the people involved. 

Believing that black people need special treatment and special expectations just because they're black?  That's just racist.

The problem with racism

It's not Matt Drudge.  It's not even Gwenneth Paltrow, who used the same word in a public forum that the rap culture glorifies by their own use (but damn the rest of us as racists for using).

No.  It's not conservatives.  It's not the guy that said on the news that when blacks move into a neighborhood, the neighborhood goes ghetto (that was the simple truth).  It's not heroes like Bill Cosby, who are brave enough to articulate that the majority of the problems now faced by blacks are created by blacks.

It's niggers.  Not black people in general--the majority of the ones I've met might give lip service to pop culture, but don't have a whole lot in common with the culture itself--niggers in specific.

Being a nigger isn't limited to black people.  The bastard that lost his life last week when the father of the little girl he was about to rape caught him was a Mexican nigger by choice.  Flash mobs like the ones beating people up in Oregon, and stealing iPhones on Chicago subways are composed of niggers by choice.  The Occupy movement is mostly made up of white, middle class, spoiled children who are niggers by choice.

The other problem with racism is that the rest of us are told to shut up when we have the testicular fortitude to articulate the problem.

I've been mulling this over for a while.

I don't have enough information to determine what to think of this story.  Apparently, a group of atheists paid to have a public service ad run before a movie in a theater in Texas.  The theater backed out. 

1.  Did money change hands upfront?  If so, was it returned? 

2. Is the theater a small, independently owned and operated business?

If the theater accepted the money, but didn't run the ad or return it, the atheists are completely in the right.  If the theater accepted the contract, sum to be paid monthly on running the ad, but never ran the ad, the atheists are in the right only if a bill was presented. 

If the theater is a franchise, the atheists are in the right. 

If the theater is a small, independently owned and operated business, it's a little fuzzier.  I guess the Civil Rights Act doesn't differentiate--somehow, by showing movies and being a space of public entertainment, they have fewer rights to turn down business and advertisers.  Something about disseminating public information.

I still think that an independent owner should have more rights to choose who they will and won't do business with, based on their own beliefs.  Ever seen those signs in the front of salons warning nasty-tempered customers that they will pay extra for bad attitudes?  Same goes for anything.

Yes, I will admit to saying that that clears the way for small business owners to discriminate against customers based on what color their skin is, or who they prefer to sleep with.  Dumb business owners will do that anyway.  Smart business owners discriminate by who they think can afford their goods/services, and who they think might well be prone to use their goods/services in manners that besmirch their good name. 

Sometimes, the government gets involved, and tells people who they will and won't sell to, anyway.  That never turns out well.

Again, in the case of the theater backing out of a contract to show ads touting how wonderful it is to be an atheist in a largely-Christian area...I don't have enough info to be able to determine who's in the right, even in my own mind.  I can, however, tell who's being smarter about catering to their customers' wants, and who's acting like a child throwing a "but I want it!" temper tantrum.

On another note...ever notice how much more faith an atheist has to have that there isn't a supreme being, than the rest of us need to have to believe that there is? 

Amen to that.

I've waited to weigh in on the Zimmerman/Martin thing, mostly because the first reports made it seem like cold-blooded, race-motivated murder, perpetrated by a CCW permit holder.  

Yet the cops didn't make an arrest, and the DA didn't charge.  As a CCW holder myself, that made me suspicious.  Most people in law enforcement hold us to a higher standard than they do people who do not have a concealed carry permit.  We are told--repeatedly and loudly--that we must deescalate potential conflicts, that we cannot take offense at things like we would like to, that we should not engage in arguments, because if we argue, and then someone pulls a knife, we may be justified in drawing a gun, but we're also possibly open to charges of manslaughter for inciting a fight that we end with a kill.

Was Zimmerman stupid for following a suspicious black kid after the 911 dispatcher told him not to?  Yes.  Was he even more stupid for getting out of his vehicle because he couldn't see the kid anymore?  Absolutely.  Does that take away his right to defend himself from a younger, fitter, larger, stronger, and more aggressive adversary, one that already had him down and beating him?

No.  He's going to regret his stupid decisions for the rest of his life, but he had every right to defend his life with deadly force.

So why all the frothing at the mouth?

I can see a few reasons: first, Zimmerman was portrayed as a mall-ninja cop wannabe, just waiting for his chance to kill a bad guy, rather than a concerned individual on a neighborhood watch that just happened to have a concealed carry permit.  And they're trying to paint us all with the same brush.

Second, Zimmerman was portrayed as a white man shooting a little black boy.  This could be used to flog the racial tension up to the flash over point (as it has--the New Black Panthers have put a bounty on Zimmerman).

Unfortunately for the mainstream media outlets spinning the story to try to create a crisis for our less-than-benevolent-overseers to take advantage of, we are no longer limited to the information they distort and try to spoon feed us.  We have access to, and the ability to use, the internet to find the actual facts the mainstream media try so hard to bury. 

However, there is still a preponderance of idiots that buy what the media is selling, and get outraged about it.  And that permits race baiters like the Reverend Jesse Jackson, and the Reverend Al Sharpster--er, Sharpton (sorry about that), to whip up their extralegal supporters into placing a bounty on the head of an American citizen.

That is not a good precedent.  Especially if someone takes them up on that bounty, and gets a slap on the wrist.

So, what do we do?  Simple.  Reply in kind.  An Ordinary American proposes that

a bounty be put on the head of every single active member of the New Black Panthers. And if a member of the black community itself turns one of these racist alpha-hotels in, then I propose the reward be tripled.

Never forget that such groups like the New Black Panthers, the Ku Klux Klowns, Aryan Nazikooks and other race-baiting hate-groups exist to divide--not unite.

I think he is spot on in what should be done, and why.  What he did not explicitly state, but is implicit in the proposal, is that this is spawned and reinforced by tribalism, and by the predator/prey mentality that understands nothing but retaliation in kind, with enough escalation to discourage future stupidity, as well as cash incentives to break free from that tribal mentality.

Another argument against drugging children into somnolence

Apparently, those children who are easily distracted have minds and memories that work on a higher level than their peers, according to recent studies.

So, instead of drugging them into shambling sleepwalkers, how 'bout we admit that some children need harder, faster curricula than their peers?  How about we give them that challenge, and see if we can take all (or most) of the ADD/ADHD diagnoses and turn them into the next Tolkien or Bronte or Milton.  Or possibly Tesla or Einsteins or Smith .

Hell, I'd be thrilled with another Sowell, Williams, Hanson, or Regan.

But no--that would be suggesting that some children are sub-par, and/or that some parents aren't doing right by their children.  It might well not be possible with the current trend of public education to not only cater to but actively recruit the lowest common denominator to teach our children.  I suppose it probably isn't possible for a teacher to adequately challenge a child that is far smarter than the teacher. 

Been sick and tired (literally*) and busy...

Here's a bit of a tab-clearing post of stores I found interesting enough to want to snark about:

• I fully acknowledge that the surveillance drone was over public property when it was shot down, but really.  The animal rights douchenozzles were filming private property as a way to intimidate people out of shooting feathered rats.  So what if someone "mistook" a drone for just another pest to be shot at? 

• It's all about the money, bitches.  Nobody cares that home-packed lunches of salami sandwiches on wheat buns with apple juice is healthier than chicken nuggets--that lunch box brings no money into the cafeteria.  So, shut up and let Big Brother feed your child junk food under the self-righteous cover of making sure all the food groups are covered, okay?

• Yet another religious fanatic trying to suicide bomb the Capitol.  What will those fundie Baptists think of next?  Oh...wait.  Sorry.  My bad.  Wrong religion.

*Before any of my regular readers ask, no, I'm not pregnant again.  

FFOT: grinches

I'm not the biggest fan of the Christmas season, partially because I think the commercial aspect is so overdone that the meaning behind the holiday disappears, and partially because my family overspends so horribly (when they're on fixed income and in debt over their heads), can't seem to get together without fighting, and kind of go into hyperventilating hysterics of excitement where it comes to opening presents.

That said, people who get offended by the mere mention of Christmas can f-off. I do not appreciate political correctness trying to marginalize those of us who are Christian at any time, much less during our highest holy days of Christmas and Easter. They bend over so far backwards for Muslims on their holidays that they wind up with their heads firmly inserted into someplace dark, humid, and fragrant, but choose to be "offended" by any mention of Christmas or Christ that they hyperventilate over a simple wish for a happy holiday season. They work so hard to force Christ out of the season that they've harassed cashiers into saying "Happy Holidays," and taken all references to Christmas out of Christmas plays (now called "Solstice concerts" for small children), Christmas Break (now called "Winter Break"), and even Christmas trees ("Holiday trees--the one at the White House features Obama, this year).

I'm so tired of all the political correctness that I've started going out of my way to offend those individuals. I wish people a "Merry Christmas," loudly, and with a smile that carries the glee of feeling like I've pissed somebody off.

And that, especially in this time of year, isn't right.

Argh. Papers. Students. Comp teachers other than me.

I have a bunch of people to hunt down and beat with the papers of their students. One of them is at least one, if not two, of my colleagues in the college where I work.

I have a class that started at 25, and has shrunk to 15 or so. Out of that class, I have 15 different levels of competence in writing. Most of the class is white females, but I have one male, about 19 years old, still turning in work at midterm. I have one Vietnamese girl, one from India, and one black girl from the inner cities.

My writer who was born in India speaks three languages: the local language from where she was born, Hindi (the state language), and English (learned in '03, when she and her family immigrated to the US). She's got some odd sentence structure and word-level idiosyncrasies, but she's still a far better writer than most of the class, almost all of whom are native speakers and writers in English.

One of the worst writers, but with the most potential, is the black girl. She went from doing next to nothing right on her first paper's first draft (it was double-spaced, at least) to earning an A on that paper's revisions. And it was her work--the turn of phrase was the same, and so was the thought processes her writing showed. It was just totally reorganized and expanded from one paragraph in a rambling mess into a movie review. All it took was basically outlining what she'd said in her paragraph for her. She did the work to rewrite the paper from disorganized, unfocused, underdeveloped mess to not just readable, but good.

Her second paper was eminently readable and well developed and organized, with just a bit needed to be done to fix some small problems with focus on her topic. It was single-spaced, but still quite good--a complete contrast to her first draft of her first paper. Again, still her work.

She told me that no one had ever explained to her, point by point, what went into a successful paper before. I'm guessing she never had a teacher who was a competent writer--it seems to be rarer all the time--and may not have had a teacher who was competent in anything.

She's obviously smart. There's no other way she could go from six pages of nothing to four pages of well developed, focused, and organized essay.

What I don't understand is that she passed Comp I with this kind of deficit. I understand that her public school not just dis-served but mis-served her in ways that aren't forgivable. It's the public schools in the inner city--I expect nothing different (though I wish to heaven it was). I want to know who taught her Freshman Composition I. I want to beat the thunder out of them with the two drafts of her paper and scream at them for not teaching this child how to write a paper. All I should be doing at this point is teaching her how to write a persuasive piece, and polishing the gem that she is.

This child isn't a nigger. The people who either didn't teach her, or who taught her wrong, are--no matter what their pigmentation. I suspect they're also racists, and held her to a lower standard than what they held their other students to.

Funny, I don't feel marginalized.

According to a psychologist quoted in a CNN editorial, I should: "'As we're learning more about the tremendous dangers of smoking, fewer people are willing to tolerate exposure to second-hand smoke, which leads to smokers being pushed to the periphery,' said licensed psychologist Clifford Lazarus. 'But it is a right, people can smoke just like they can drink and have guns*, it's just that the government is being a bit more controlling in terms of creating parameters in which people can engage in this marginalized behavior.'"

I have one thing to say to Mr. Lazarus: I drink (occasionally--nothing's better to ease the tight muscles in my back after a day of working and child care than a finger or two of bourbon or scotch, or maybe an Irish coffee), and I own guns. Neither does any damage to my heath or to that of my children, or anyone else around me, because I am a responsible adult. Those who believe that no one can be responsible with alcohol, tobacco, firearms, or explosives are doing something that Mr. Lazarus, as a licensed psychologist has to be familiar with: projecting their own faults onto others. In fact, the quote makes clear that he's doing it, too. And so:

Up yours, you communist, totalitarian, hippie bastard.

Via View from the Porch

*emphasis mine

Happy anniversary.

Nine years. Today. Right now, in fact.

And we're still only marginally safer now than we were then.

I've heard people whining for years, now, that the reason they hate us is because we're belligerent. That we export a culture offensive to Islam, with the nudity, sex, and alcohol routinely portrayed in the media. That we should leave them to rule their world the way they see fit.

I don't recall United States citizens hijacking full passenger planes and ramming them into office buildings full of Muslims in Saudi Arabia, with American citizens celebrating in the streets of American cities as the buildings collapsed and the death tolls rose. Seems to me it happened the other way around.

I don't recall the United States forcing our culture on other nations in the name of religious tolerance. Seems to me that we're the ones bending over backwards to accommodate an enemy ideology, welcoming it into our midst like the idiots we are.

I don't recall any attempts by radical leftists--especially feminists--to force the same standards of behavior onto Muslims that they intimidate the rest of us in the West into, such as treating women, homosexuals, and those of other colors, beliefs, and nationalities as equal members of the human race. Seems to me those same radical leftists are too busy declaring the Muslim culture, which routinely stones rape victims to death because they're unchaste women, the moral equivalent of the culture where the rape victim is seen as a victim instead of punished as a criminal.

Nine years. We've spent nine years coddling a culture that aims suicide bombers at our troops, that buries bombs on roads that as often kill their own people as ours, that wants to force the entire world back into the seventh century, and under their own sandal heels.

People are angry. Politicians seem to have forgotten that the people who elected them have longer memories, don't see the "bigger picture" (if there is one), and only see that political correctness allows terrorists to stalk our armed forces from within their own ranks. Politicians beg us, "Please, oh please, don't provoke them."

What about us? What about the victory center that Islam wants to build on the very grounds that they destroyed nine years ago? What about the bibles, rosaries, Crucifixes, and other symbols of Christianity that are against the law to own in the middle east and are routinely burned in Saudi Arabia? What about the bibles we forced our own troops to burn so that we wouldn't offend those we were sent to subjugate so that they couldn't attack us again? Isn't that provoking us?

Is it any wonder that so many are behind the crazed pastors that want to burn the Koran today?

Nine years. I suspect this is only the first nine years in the next two hundred.

God knows we're not willing to do what's necessary to end it sooner, and prevent their "civilization" from destroying ours in the process.

Contrasts

I honestly believe the FBI when they say that Muslims are going to get violent over the Koran burning coming up.

The interesting thing is that, not only was there no violence incited when the Islamofacists burn the Bible, crosses, and other Christian artifacts, but Christian soldiers were ordered to burn Bibles translated into the two most common Afghan languages (and obeyed those orders) rather than permit Islamofacists to believe that we were trying to convert their slaves to Christianity.

And the media is always far more worried about right-wing Christian violence that never materializes. Go figure.

Bitch has no rights in this country.

She doesn't have the right to stay here. She doesn't have any parental rights to her child. She doesn't have the right to use our court system to take the anchor baby away from the parents who've loved him and raised him as long as he can remember.

She needs to be sent back to Guatemala, bulk rate shipping, postage due.

That needs to happen to each and every criminal alien who pops a kid out on American soil: they get arrested and deported, with their child given to an American couple who can't have kids of their own, to love and raise.

Trust me, people, this isn't a new concept...

The FDIC is making a big deal of praising banks with free checking. Like it's a brand new thing to help poor people.

Um, guys? I've had a checking account with one bank or another for thirteen years, now, and my checking accounts have always been free. The last three banks I've done business with have had free online bill pay. Nor have I ever paid for a savings account.

The article I linked above mentioned that there's a large percentage of people who don't use bank services. Isn't that their choice? Isn't it their choices to engage in behavior (i.e., constantly bouncing checks) that discourages banks from offering them the same type of free checking I've had for darn near half my life?

And, as for the "minorities" cited by the article, isn't it a personal choice to commit the crime of jumping the border so that they don't have the identification documents most banks require to open an account?

This strikes me as just another instance of the Community Reinvestment Act, the government interference that directly caused sub-prime lending, the housing bubble, and the current economic problems caused by people defaulting on really stupid loans.

Racist idiot.

I really hate identity politics. You know, the type that says, "Since you're black/Hispanic/a woman, you must vote Democrat."

Excuse me, but that leaves the individual totally out of the equation.

Beyond that? Harry Reid most recent stupidity overlooks one of the main reasons legal residents and naturalized citizens support enforcing current immigration law, by either the federal government or the state: nobody likes someone who butts to the head of the line.

From the "All cultures are equal" files...

...I'm going to go out on a limb and make a bet, here: somehow, the left and the illegal alien lobby are going to try to explain how killing a man and drinking his blood are morally neutral because of the culture they come from.