How some are using the transfer portal

And this hits home, because I got my master's degree in Boulder.  "Neon Deon" Sanders has pushed 18 players into the transfer portal  because they didn't fit his model for football, and while I understand that to a degree--I was cut from the track team at MSU because I wasn't good enough--it also strikes me that I didn't have to leave Michigan State because I was no longer running, and I didn't have to re-do key classes to get my degree like these guys likely will.

Given the trouble most former college football players have--having learned Cadillac tastes while the degrees they got (if any) gave them a decidedly Chevrolet budget, all while nursing lingering injuries from the game--there is something here that is just appalling.  

It's not the only way it can be used--I've seen a number of players from Michigan use the transfer portal as a way to get graduate degrees at other schools while freeing up roster/scholarship spots at Michigan for more gifted athletes--but I think there's a point where we need to start asking coaches like "Neon Deon" what his team is primarily there for.  

Pro tip; it doesn't happen at Folsom Field.  Go Big Red!

Pure marketing genius?

Not content with Anheuser-Busch hiring "trans model" Dylan Mulvaney to promote their brand of bottled water, Maybelline has hired him to promote makeup, and Nike has hired him to promote sports bras.  One would figure that the marketing gurus at these companies would realize that those buying these product might like to see them on, say, an actual female face, or on an actual woman with real breasts, but apparently the notion of showing the products as they'd actually be used is an idea that doesn't occur to Nike or Maybelline marketing. 

And the cat is out of the bag

Sometime in the past year, I realized something very interesting about the situation in Ukraine.  Namely, despite avid FSB attempts to kill him, Vlodymyr Zelensky is still alive.  It struck me as odd, somewhat providential, and it got me to thinking.  What if a great portion of the corruption in the former Warsaw Pact countries was because the KGB (now the FSB) never really went away?  That they were, through bribes, threats, and the like, still calling the shots.

Well, it makes a lot of sense in light of the sweetheart deals on productive assets given to oligarchs, the presence of pseudo-private military groups like Wagner, and for that matter the leadership of guys like Vladimir Putin, a former (?) KGB hand.

And now,  the government of China has effectively made the case that the FSB is calling the shots by announcing that in their view, many countries liberated from the Warsaw Pact are not, in fact, independent, sovereign states.  

Now at a certain point, all that needs to be done is to summon the Chinese ambassadors and direct their attention to the treaties that did, in fact, grant independence and sovereignty to the former Soviet and Warsaw Pact nations, but that misses a big point.  China is more or less saying, as I've been suspecting, that the FSB has indeed been a quiet ruler of a lot of these countries for a while.

And it's time to cut the tentacles that they've been using to do this.  Just as freed Germans occupied Stasi headquarters and prevented the records from being destroyed, we need to pray that soon, freed Russians do the same at the FSB.  The tentacles can be cut at Russian borders, yes, but as long as they still control Russia, they'll (like the Hydra) keep regrowing.

Here's some hopeful news

Looks like the makers of Naxalone, a.k.a. Narcan, are aiming to get the over the counter 4mg version to a price point of $50.   Now the down side is certainly that some of the demand is going to be addicts who are using it as a failsafe--take your hit of fentanyl, repeatedly use Narcan to pull yourself from the Pearly Gates, rinse and repeat.  It strikes me that this kind of use--at $25-125 per hit--ironically gets the price of being an addict up to the levels it was at when I was a kid in the 1980s.

To me, it seems like trusting your ballistic vest so you can save a bit on your housing by living in Gary.  Maybe start to make some better life choices?

But for those of us who are not using, but might come into contact with those suffering from an overdose, it strikes me that it could be a good idea to carry some "just in case" in the way that many people carry first aid kits in their cars.

Vodka, the breakfast of champions

To follow Verdun-like assaults on Bakhmut, re-introduction of 1940s era tanks and 1890s era rifles into common use, the crash of an airplane taking off the wrong way on the runway towards a city center,  the failure of a basic air-air missile in an illegal attack on a British surveillance aircraft, and a whole lot more, a Russian SU-34 has dropped its payload of bombs on....the city center of Belgorod, Russia, leaving a 60 foot diameter crater and landing at least one car on its roof on the roof of a store.  For perspective, that's a similar size crater to those that shells from the U.S.S. Missouri left when shelling Lebanon.

It's not certain whether the pilot is going to be punished, or considered for a promotion, as attacking innocent civilians is of course right up their alley.

In a rare public protest, the residents of Belgorod said that while they expected Vladimir Putin to work to get them killed, like any good Russian citizens, they felt that being blown to bits was a bit too quick and painless, as they've come to expect being handed rusty, obsolete weapons, sent to the front in inadequate clothing for the cold, systematically starved while being given no training, all before being sent to attack Russia's enemies in suicidal wave attacks.  It's tradition, you know.

And with treatment like that, it's no wonder that in Russia, vodka seems to be the breakfast of champions there.  It really explains a lot. 

Slava Ukraini, and Putin delenda est!

Wish I couldn't say this....

....but "I told you so".  In Canada, multiple women have been raped in women's shelters because they chose to admit "trans" men, who went on to commit sexual assault. Keep in mind here that the very purpose of womens' shelters is to prevent this sort of thing.  

It should not surprise anyone that when men are allowed to gain access to womens' spaces simply by saying they are trans, that those who are or should be on Megan's List will sometimes take advantage of it.  It's not rocket science.

Update: in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, an 18 year old man who "identifies as trans" walks into the showers with four freshmen--he was not in their class at all and had no reason to be in the locker room--and exposes himself.

Now part of me wants to say "OK, it was 'just' someone who needs to be reminded he's candidating for Megan's List", but on the flip side, if he was presenting as trans in school consistently, this may indicate that "trans" and "should be on Megan's List" are more strongly correlated than one would initially guess.

This is almost exactly what we would infer from the statistics about murders of trans "women", which appear to be mostly centered around prostitution and singles bars--more or less men presenting as women, then learning the hard way that johns and perverts still care about whether the "girl" has factory equipment or not.  In other words, there is likely a very significant portion of "trans women" who are sexually quite promiscuous, to the point of breaking the law to satisfy their desires.

More on solar power

Ever since I saw how the power added efficiency of the power plant that largely fueled my alma mater was about 60% versus the ordinary 30% or so, and ever since I learned that 10-20% of electrical power is lost in transmission, I've been something of a fan of distributed power generation.  If a building complex has a large boiler for heating and hot water, why not get some extra out of hiring the boiler operator and get some electricity out of the deal as well?

Plus, if you have distributed transmission, it's less likely that a squirrel falling into a transformer in Quebec will bring your whole grid down.

Now with solar, it's a bit more complicated, as the estimated 25 year life of solar installations is, to put it mildly, very optimistic.  Double the price and half the lifetime is closer to the truth, if de-installations are any indication.

And along those lines, I found this interesting article about how solar power might pay for itself--or not, as is the case.  More or less, they estimate an initial cost of $25000, or $15000 after subsidies, and that you'll save about $1500 per year in electrical costs.  So you'll pay for it in ten years, right?

Well, no, because of course, the real price is $25000, and you'll be paying for the difference through your taxes, of course, so the real payoff time is about 17 years, right?  

Wrong again, because you forgot about the reality that you're going to be paying, say, 5% on the money (or foregoing gains on it) you spent to buy it, or about $1250 annually.  Payoff time; about 37 years, 12 years past the rated life of the solar panels, and about three times the realistic life, and that in optimal situations.

Now the arithmetic would change somewhat if utilities charged different rates for base and peak load (the latter is 50% more expensive or more as a rule), but the long and short of it is that, as usual, our government is throwing good money after bad with solar subsidies.

A relevant point about sports from the old harems

Those who are familiar with harem systems like those of the old Ottoman Empire know that, for some reason, the attendants were very often eunuchs.  Now part of this is understandable--the harem inmates would see other women as rivals, and the owners didn't want unauthorized testicles in there--but I would submit to you that there is another reason for eunuchs as harem attendants.

Women don't share men very well, and a male harem attendant is bigger and stronger than the harem inmates, even when castrated.  So if your job is in part to come between women who are trying to kill one another out of jealousy, it helps to be male.  (and obviously incapable of being "racked")

In other words, people have known for millenia that even castrated males are bigger and stronger than women, and hence if we want to have a level playing field for biological women, that means that "trans" women cannot be admitted.  Biology and genetics matters, whether we like it or not.

Another reality that we ought to heed is that as more and more people come out in favor of "transitioning" people at a young age without the safeguards that existed for transitioning back in the 1970s and 1980s, we ought to wonder whether some of the motivation for the advocates is the same as it was back in the days of the sheihks and sultans; less available men means more women for me.  It may or may not be the real motivation, but it's a possibility that we ought to check out.

Watch out for your kids, Gotham City

In the lovely lower Saxony town of Hameln  the rodent capital of the United States, they've just appointed a "rodent czar" to help deal with the rat problem.  I wish them well, but if I were a parent in New York, I'd keep a close eye on my kids.  Make sure you pay him!

Well, I am boycotting one kind of water

 Peter Buttigieg's husband mocks those who would boycott Bug Light, asking if they're going to boycott water, too.

Well, duh, yes, beer drinkers with functional taste buds have been boycotting Bug Light ever since it came out in 1982.  

Picture of problems with elite athletics

Top steeplechase runner from Kenya, now Kazakhstan, fails "biological passport" testing for blood cells and iron levels.   So what we have is that because the lure of gold medals and the like is so powerful, this runner was risking death by blood clots and changing her citizenship.

Now part of this is unavoidable; the lure of glory is such that, like Achilles, athletes will indeed risk an early death for a laurel wreath, but at the same time, it would be healthy for athletes if we did not provide such incentives for them to give up so much of their ordinary lives for that sake.

And as a "superannuated" distance runner who tried the steeplechase once, and who greatly respects the East African distance runners, it saddens me to see more evidence that these wonderful athletes are succumbing to this temptation.

I bet Chick-Fil-A will sue.....

....fresh from their marketing triumph (?), where Bugweiser appealed to their traditional demographics by having trans "alphabet" icon Dylan Mulvaney drinking Bug Light in a bathtub, Anheuser-Busch is now moving to replace the iconic Clydesdales with cows wearing horse heads.

Yes, it's almost certain that Chick-Fil-A will sue for trademark infringement, not to mention the heirs of Mario Puzo.

Seriously, Mulvaney advertising Bug Light is perfect; an imitation woman promoting imitation beer.  Hopefully it wakes up American drinkers to ask "why did I ever drink this swill?"

Paging Clara Peller

 ....to respond appropriately to DA Alvin Bragg's indictment of former President Trump:

How so?  Well, as expected, Mr. Bragg is mixing campaign finance law with falsifying business records law to overcome the fact that the statute of limitations expired years ago, and is doing so to prosecute actions taken after Trump was elected, and hence had nothing to do with campaign finance.

Suffice it to say that my view is that Bragg ought to be disbarred for this.  I am no fan of the former President's character, but what Bragg is doing is a grievous violation of many basic principles of the law.  Specifically; 

• The law is supposed to be understandable by ordinary people.  It's called "perspicuity".  This principle is undermined by mixing federal and state law in a novel way.
• Mixing federal and state law is a violation of the separation of powers.
• The law is supposed to be applied consistently and fairly.  So unless Bragg has a list of prosecutions where he's punished everybody who quietly hid their payoffs to mistresses, he's running afoul of this.
• To get to the crime Bragg suggests, you've got to have another crime--which Bragg never mentions in the indictment.  Read this excellent column from National Review on the matter.

And in the meantime, Bragg isn't prosecuting "little" crimes like armed robbery.   Justice for him would be being disbarred, and then being held up as he walks home from his disbarment.

Brilliance from my alma mater

As if it wasn't embarrassing enough to have gone to college at the same school that taught Larry Nassar, now Michigan State is putting forth a style guide which proscribes any number of innocent words.  

In honor of this academic "brilliance" by these demented psychos, , this Caucasian whose nickname is "Bike Bubba", not a racial minority, wishes you a blessed Easter with lots of chocolate bunnies and chicks and eggs to be a wonderful respite after your Merry Christmas, complete with wreaths, holly, jingle bells, and reindeer.

GO Green, and may these crazy insane mental invalids find a ton of Easter Bunnies and Peep Chicks at their door this Sunday.