Friday, March 15, 2024

Makes sense to me

As I contemplate the firing of head basketball coach Juwan Howard at that school in Ann Arbor, I am compelled to remember the inauspicious way he started his tenure; by suggesting that the school re-hang banners that were taken down because the school had been forced to vacate all of its wins because their athletes were taking payments from boosters.

Hail to the Cheaters, I guess.  But more seriously, Howard's tenure at Michigan was a mess, and he threw away a golden chance to rebuild their basketball program.  The alumni network and support of fans at Michigan has few rivals in the NCAA, and hence it really takes some doing to end up 8-24.  

A Dying Nation?

Apparently, the number of disabled males in Russia has risen by over half a million men, including 290 thousand men of age 18-30.  Now part of this could be ordinary industrial accidents, and part of it could be young men deliberately injuring themselves to avoid military service, but all in all, it indicates that (yikes) Ukrainian estimates of dead and maimed Russian soldiers are somewhat conservative.  

Definition of beauty


 The lovely lady above is Faye Schulman, a Jewish member of the Resistance against the Nazis during World War Two.  She apparently survived the war (with a bullet wound) and had a loving family with children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.  Want to learn more?  See here

I love the camoflage of the fur coat she's wearing, and am personally curious about how she apparently got hold of a Thompson submachine gun.  Might have been a cast-off from the Red Army, which didn't like them much.

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Definition of Chutzpah

Christine Blasey Ford, having seen all of her eyewitnesses deny her version of events, and having been found to have lied about a fear of flying under oath, and having been found to have lied about why her house has two front doors, writes a book in which she claims that Justice Brett Kavanaugh is not an honest person.  

Although obviously Anita Hill got away with about the same thing regarding Justice Thomas, I would still hesitate to accuse one of the nation's most eminent lawyers of such things when my own accusations against them had been thoroughly thrashed on national TV.  It would seem to be a quick way to end up on the left side of the courtroom in a civil or criminal libel action.

An insider speaks up

Now as a Spartan, I should either hate Nick Saban because he took his talents away from East Lansing, or perhaps I should note that the man could really have been successful if he'd stayed, but this interview by CNN is something I really like to see.  More or less, though Saban can be said to have benefited from a lot of the power politics of college football, he enunciates a traditional view of college athletics and sportsball, that it's not just about winning games, but also about developing young men into functional adults.

Lots of work to do there to achieve that, as the current system seems to be weighted on the side of big money programs more than it ever has been.  We won't be able to go back to true amateurism, and haven't been there in my lifetime, really, but we can hopefully get away from a system that all too often sends young men and women out into the world without a meaningful degree, but with Cadillac tastes and horrendously sinful habits from the experience of college sportsball.  

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Sad, but true

The newspaper of record notes that it is hard for Hamas fighters to abstain from raping infidels during Ramadan.   OK, this is technically a joke, but after last October 7, they all deserve it richly, and it reminds me of something I learned about T.E. Lawrence (a.k.a. "Lawrence of Arabia") after watching the epic movie; one of the things he noticed and experienced is that both Ottoman and Arab men were prone to homosexual activity, just as American soldiers and Marines in Afghanistan noticed a century later....

I hate to say it, but I'm seeing a pattern here.

Thursday, March 07, 2024

A modest proposal for dealing with "trans" athletes in women's sports

The sad reality is that it would still take up a roster spot that ought to be held by a woman, but the NHL tradition of the "enforcer" comes to mind when contemplating "trans-women" participating in womens' soccer, basketball, hockey, and the like.  The "enforcer", ideally a starting safety for the football team or a power forward, would stay on the JV team unless the varsity team was playing against a team with a trans player, and would only take the pitch/court when a "trans" player was out there.  His only job would be to stymie and isolate the trans player so that the girls could actually play.  

And yes, if the trans person hurt one of the ladies, the enforcer might be called upon to commit a couple of hard fouls or hard picks.  


Some study on "trans" issues

I do not have the time to go through all the footnotes and track down all of the references this paper refers to, but it's a very interesting summary of the state of transgender "medicine".  One interesting thing I learned is that a lot of the "innovators" in this area have some very troubling connections, including the fact that after performing an early sex reassignment surgery, Dr. Erwin Gohrbandt did pioneering, and criminal, hypothermia work.

In Dachau.

All in all, the sense I get from reading this is that first of all, those "doctors" engaged in this enterprise are not paying nearly enough attention to the likelihood that "trans" identity is merely a symptom of deeper underlying mental health problems.  Going a bit more broadly, I'm not sure that a  lot of mental health practicioners understand this, either. 

Other observations; the document has a fair number of reports from transition "doctors" of detransitioning, which indicates that the real numbers for regret are probably a lot higher than advocates of transition surgeries would like to admit.  The document also has a fair amount of evidence that these "doctors" are doing some "interesting" things to get things paid for by insurance (i.e. insurance fraud), that many practicioners are rubber stamping requests for surgery on minors, that many practicioners are fudging required wait times, and a lot more.

Looks like my comments about the state of psychology were, if anything, very optimistic and over-gracious to a broader scope of medical professionals, and they need to grasp a very basic principle;body parts in the specimen bag do not grow back, and they do not reattach.  So you want to make for darned sure that it's the right path before you amputate.

Wednesday, March 06, 2024

Imbecilical moments in marketing

Doritos, apparently having learned nothing from the Dylan Mulvaney/Bug Light fiasco, has hired (and gratefully fired) a trans "influencer" who has admitted in public to tendencies of pedophilia.  And who, quite frankly, has a serious case of the uglies by any (male or female) standard.

Weird me, I'd thought that it's better to do marketing with people whose lives one might like to emulate, and I would at least hope that the proportion of hideously ugly pedophiles who are willing to admit that in public is small.  

The bright side of this is that hopefully Doritos is helping traditional Spanish food culture by showing their product to be morally, as well as nutritionally, bankrupt.

Monday, March 04, 2024

A dish for Festa Della Donna; Chili Verde

    In preparation for the Festa Della Donna, I made some carne asada with a dollop of chili verde last weekend.  Let's just say it wasn't a good weekend for weight loss, and both recipes are courtesy of a coworker of mine from Sonora state.  ("Il Dioses de la carne")

The carne asada was straightforward; take chuck steak sliced 1/2-3/4" thick, marinate with salt & pepper and lime juice for about a day prior to cooking.  Grill over a smoky mesquite fire until it's done to your taste, allow to rest 10 minutes, slice, and serve.

The chili verde also involves the grill.  Take 2-4 medium tomatillos, 2 jalapeno or serrano peppers (remove seeds unless you're a glutton for punishment), half an onion, and half a bulb of garlic.  Throw vegetables on a grill, grill until lightly charred, and then blend them together with half a tsp of salt.  Enjoy the burn on your lips and in your eyes.

On the light side, with two four daughters now married, we realized that if we help our sons-in-law celebrate Festa Della Donna correctly, we could soon be celebrating Festa Della Nonna (grandmother's festival).

Friday, March 01, 2024

Festa Della Donna

Or, as it's called far less elegantly in English, "International Women's Day".  Now I'm going to say something you might not have expected; despite the apparent feminism of the day, I'm thinking that this March 8, we'd do well to celebrate it.  Let's buy the ladies in our life a mimosa (either the flower or the drink or both, really), cheer for womens' sports (Will Thomas, you're not invited), and celebrate real femininity.

And guys, don't worry about the imbalance--Pi Day and Festa Bistecca e Pompino (again using Italian for obvious reasons) are coming up on the 14th.  Or maybe, just maybe, celebrating real feminity is a way to encourage the belle donne in our lives to celebrate real masculinity.

Thursday, February 29, 2024

Great commentary on "America First" and isolationism

Jay Nordlinger notes that, as ssensible people have known for centuries, sometimes the world doesn't leave you alone, and foreign policy must go beyond a mere assertion of short term interests of a country. All the more true as more and more nations have the ability to lob a ballistic missile to the opposite end of the planet.

Which is why I donated $51.80 to Ukrainian relief in honor of Ksenia Karolina, a Russian-American ballerina imprisoned by Putin for donating that amount to Razom.  Suggest that you do the same.  Every bit of help to make Ukraine liveable and prosperous is another nail in Putin's coffin.  May he reside there soon.

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

More great moments in injustice

The city of Houston has apparently suspended 260,000 criminal cases in the past eight years because  of a lack of personnel.  Scary thing in the first regard is that this is only 10% of criminal cases in Houston in this time, meaning that about 300,000 crimes occur annually there, and scarier yet that these cases are "suspended", meaning that whichever victims (say up to thirty thousand families) are involved do not get justice, and also scary because innocent men and women still have the axe of justice hanging over their head, because the case is not dismissed, but rather suspended.

But you can always find Officer Friendly doing traffic patrol.  Priorities, I guess.

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Great moments in environmentalism

The state of Colorado is apparently banning the use of gasoline powered lawn equipment on public property, an initiative sponsored by the "environmentally mindless" people at "COPIRG".   As a former Colorado resident, I remember COPIRG well.  One day, they sent some people canvassing in a beat up Subaru with visible emissions....on a "red air quality" (smog) day when they could have simply taken the bus.  

Oh well, given that a lot of power in Colorado is generated using coal, I guess this fits what COPIRG has always done, mess up the air quality while preening about as if they're cleaning things up.  Sigh.

On another note, it makes sense that this "influencer" lives near the royal family, as I've noted for a while that the royals often lack a pleasure I get to enjoy all the time; the comfort of a well broken in piece of clothing.  Seriously, 500 pairs of shoes for over a hundred grand?  I calculated, even worse, that you'd need something like 100 linear feet of wall space to store all those shoes.  So unless one wants to look at nothing but sneakers in one's house, we're talking a bigger house just to house all those stinkies.

So my hearty "Bronx Cheer" to the environmentalists of the week, COPIRG and Miss Nyame.  

Horrors of Injustice

Here in Minnesota, we had a recent case where a man, implicated in a (statutory?) rape of a 14 year old girl, barricaded himself in a home with (his?) seven children and killed two police officers and a paramedic.  The suspect is deceased, but thankfully none of his children are physically hurt.  

That noted, what's of note in my mind is that while the suspect's record is not remarkable--a misdemeanor disorderly conduct conviction, some traffic convictions (also misdemeanors), and a 2007 felony assault conviction--there is an interesting pattern of "what was not done?" that merits discussion.  Specifically, at least two women requested protection orders after being involved with him since 2013, a reality that a judge honored when he refused to restore the man's firearm rights, but an interesting question comes to mind:

Did the judge look up the man's criminal history and ask the applicants for protection orders whether the man owned or possessed firearms, and did anyone visit afterwards if a positive answer was given?

I've done a bit of thinking about what is to be done about under-investigation of allegations, which of course benefits the guilty and hurts the innocent, and how to persuade the criminal justice system to take investigation seriously.  I can think it might have to do with:

  • Jurors might refuse to convict based on very thin investigations.
  • Defense lawyers might point out a thin investigation as evidence the prosecution hadn't done its job per Brady v. Maryland and Kyles v. Whitley.
  • Prosecutors might say the same to the police when cases are handed over.
  • Judges might rebuke prosecutors who bring thinly sourced cases to court.
  • The state might impose audits of cases to make sure cases are getting adequate investigation.
But all in all, I can hardly imagine a better argument for good investigations than this:

If the police and prosecutors do not insist on sound investigations, the failure to punish the guilty and acquit the innocent may periodically get police officers and other first responders killed.

Might be better than a law requiring audits.  I still favor periodic audits, but there might be something even better.