Game 7

The Cleveland Cavaliers won the NBA title. Steve Kerr responds:

Not Your Job

Nobody should know or care how media members feel about a speech.  Report what was said in the speech and let your readers/listeners/viewers decide if they are "horrified" by it or not. Why is this so hard?

Liar

"I opted for convenience to use my personal email account which was allowed by the State Department because I thought it would be easier to carry just one device for my work and for my personal emails instead of two," Clinton said.

In 2010 when it was suggested that she might want to move to a secure email: “Let’s get a separate address or device”.

Transgression

Making widespread accommodations for transgendered people is ludicrous. These are people that need mental help. Every time there is a mass shooting, there is an outcry about how we don’t do enough for the mentally ill in this country.  So, why is it ok to ignore the obvious mental health red flags of someone who thinks they are something they are not?

2.6% of the adult population is considered to be bipolar. There are many medications designed to treat this disorder, and most people would consider it irresponsible to go untreated.  Even rarer are those diagnosed as schizophrenic, at 1.1%. According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), Schizophrenia is a “chronic and severe mental disorder that affects how a person thinks, feels, and behaves. People with schizophrenia may seem like they have lost touch with reality.” Symptoms include: delusions and thought disorders (unusual or dysfunctional ways of thinking). Sound familiar?

So, while schizophrenia is a rare disorder, it is still nearly 4x more common than a transgendered individual.  Only 0.3% of the population is considered to be transgender. Instead of accepting this as a perfectly normal way of life, why not treat it for what it appears to be: a form of schizophrenia?

The acceptance of transgender identification is yet another example of providing little help for the mentally ill. Just because someone is not violent, doesn’t mean that they don’t need help. Placing a sign on a bathroom and welcoming them in does little to treat the underlying disorder.  There continues to be a stigma associated with mental health diagnosis/treatment.  Until we get past that, we will continue to be inundated with idiotic decisions like forcing children into a restroom or locker room with other children of the opposite sex.

Treatment is the key. The current plan appears to be worse than pretending that there is no problem at all. Embracing it as something normal would not be acceptable for someone who thinks they are a historical figure or that their neighbors are controlling their movements through magnetic waves, so why is it accepted for those with gender identity disorders?

NIMH offers this advice:

Here are some things you can do to help your loved one:

·         Get them treatment and encourage them to stay in treatment

·         Remember that their beliefs or hallucinations seem very real to them

·         Tell them that you acknowledge that everyone has the right to see things their own way

·         Be respectful, supportive, and kind without tolerating dangerous or inappropriate behavior

·         Check to see if there are any support groups in your area

That is what they recommend for schizophrenics. It appears appropriate for other situations, as well.

Trump v. Women .... Really?

According to Donald Trump, if abortions are banned, there needs to be "some form of punishment" for women who still have them.

That statement really set off a firestorm.  But what is so controversial about it? What other law in this country doesn't have some sort of punishment associated with it? You know.. besides entering the country illegally.

If alcohol were banned, there would be a punishment associated with possessing it. If green shirts were banned, there would be an associated punishment.  Without the punishment, there is no ban.

This is a completely fabricated controversy.



P.S.
I have really missed the boat on this election cycle during the past year.

Wage Inequality… A Civil Rights Issue?

Patricia Arquette accepted her Oscar Sunday night by calling for equal pay for women and claiming it is a civil rights issue.

We’ve all seen the studies that say women earn less than men, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it is the result of sexism. If you were to look further into the issue than just the raw dollar figures, you could probably find an explanation for the disparity other than a general “women are worth less than men” attitude from those doing the hiring.

For example (and these numbers are strictly hypothetical), you could take an actual job title like CEO and say that women CEOs earn only 70% as much as their male counterparts.  But if you get into the numbers, it may be that only 10% of the CEO positions in the country are held by women. And let’s say that the top 5 companies’ CEO positions were held by men. Often the bonuses they receive for company performance far exceeds their base salary. So even if a woman worked for a company with the highest percentage bonus payout and she had a higher base salary, she would still not be making as much as her male counterpart because the company simply doesn’t earn as much revenue as the others. In that scenario, the woman would still show up in a study as earning less money than a man for doing the same job even though the hiring entity gave her a higher salary and bonus percentage. Even if the bottom 5 paying CEO jobs were held by men, the average is still going to work in their favor. So the studies are true in a way, but it’s not necessarily a civil rights issue where women are being oppressed.  I’ll admit that I haven’t done the research, so I don’t know what the real reasons are, but I’m just pointing out that there could be very logical explanations for the differences other than overt sexism.

And now for some actual numbers. Looking at the highest paid models reveals that the top 20 earners are all female, with the top spot earning $47 million and #20 earning $3 million a year. The highest paid male model earns $1.5 million a year.  So, there's that.

I don’t really expect Patricia Arquette to be bothered to think about any of this, though.  And to be honest, she should get a lifetime pass based on True Romance alone.

Still, I have to say to her…

WX

Patrick Crawford, a TV meteorologist at KCEN-TV, was shot multiple times during an altercation Wednesday in the Central Texas TV station's parking lot.

The Texas Department of Public Safety says the shooting occurred around 9:15 a.m. outside the rural studio on Interstate 35 near Bruceville-Eddy, 75 miles north of Austin. No motive has been determined and it is unclear if the shooter has any ties to the station.

The shooter, described as a white male in his 30s, fled the scene and police have not yet determined a possible motive. However, the most likely cause of the encounter was that the assailant ruined a new suede jacket after wearing it on a day that there was not supposed to be any rain.

What does Maybe mean?

In Sep­tember, Cal­i­for­nia be­came the first state to en­act a “yes means yes” law man­dat­ing that stu­dents ask their part­ners for “af­fir­ma­tive, conscious and vol­un­tary agree­ment to en­gage in sexual ac­tiv­ity.” That agreement, the law notes, is “on­go­ing through­out a sex­ual ac­tiv­ity and can be re­voked at any time.”

In response to this news, the Phi Delta Theta chapter at Texas Tech Uni­ver­sity dis­play­ed a ban­ner that said “No Means Yes, Yes Means Anal” for which they were suspended, according to the Wall Street Journal. That’s right… that was actually printed in the Journal. That is not something I expect to read while having a light breakfast in the morning. They obviously realized it was the only thing in that story actually worth reading.

That agreement, the law notes, is “on­go­ing through­out a sex­ual ac­tiv­ity and can be re­voked at any time.”

While that seems absurd, if it gets revoked in the middle of the act, you're obviously doing it wrong.

And this law raises some other questions. What if right as you were about to ‘finish’ she revokes? Pull out? Could she legally defeat you in court? That could be a dirty court hearing. A real sticky situation. Couldn't you claim that you thought she was saying "know"?

This law sounds like a way to turn potential rapists into likely murderers. Don’t the people who wrote this law know that once the train gets going, it can't just be stopped on a whim?

If No really meant No, there would be no such thing as safe words. Case closed. That law is unconstitutional.

Election Day

Why does the Green party even exist? Am I really expected to  support a candidate if they can’t put any more effort into their campaign than this?

That is the official campaign website. The page was created on February 20^th and there has not been a single update since then. And when they created the page, they provided no information about their candidate. The entire campaign appears to be 5 pictures (though that one of him picking up a turtle makes a strong case).

I would wish Brandon Parmer good luck, but I am starting to question whether he even knows he is a candidate for governor of Texas.

Flesh Burger

Using testimonial information from various cannibal sources, a London chef has developed a hamburger that tastes like human flesh. Meanwhile, McDonald’s has been serving a hamburger that tastes like human spit for years.