A California doctor specializing in LGBTQ infectious diseases--read "things like 'human immunodeficiency virus'"--has been indicted for various types of sexual assault of his patients. Ironically, his clinic biography states that he "fell in love with all of infectious diseases.".
Well, given what he did, that sounds about right.
I've been one who's cheered against the Washington Redskins Football Team Corrupt Bureaucrats Swamp Critters "Commanders" for a while, but recently, the name is growing on me, as apparently President Biden's dog "Commander" has bitten a Secret Service agent for the 11th time. So apparently the DC Football Team is named after an aggressive dog, possibly along the lines of Old Yeller after the wolf bit him.
I can go with that.
Seriously, if I were President Biden, I'd ask myself exactly how much I wanted to tick off the Secret Service before I got rid of my dog. We might joke that the only thing keeping Biden alive is the prospect of a President Harris.
Page 3 of this document shows the relationship between six year graduation rates, SAT scores, and high school grade point average. More or less, I'd dare suggest that if a student doesn't have at least a 3.0 high school GPA and 1000 points on the SAT (20 on the ACT), they really have no business at a four year college.
As I see colleges with graduation rates well below 50% dropping the ACT and SAT for admission, it strikes me that what they're doing with their marginal students is to take their tuition money and give them nothing in return--more or less stealing the assets of vulnerable young people. They need to be reminded that community college used to be how the four year schools used to address marginal students--"get your general education at community college, and talk to us when you've passed those classes with a minimum of a 3.0 GPA", and all that.
But I guess it's somehow "racist" to not steal the assets of vulnerable black people. Sigh.
I'd probably better wait a bit to see how the renewed maps shake out, but this Supreme Court decision (or non-decision?) requiring Alabama to rewrite Congressional district maps so that there are two majority black districts bothers me a touch. I understand the history of discrimination in the state, but something rankles about a demand to create two safe districts this way. The flip side, I guess, is that it tends to be used to put Democrats in supermajority districts, so it's not that bad of news for the GOP, except for the fact that currently, the lines are drawn (in a somewhat gerrymandered fashion) that gives the Democrats one supermajority district, the GOP one barely majority district, and the GOP five supermajority districts. So the GOP stands to lose a seat from this.
Might be interesting to see how one would draw two majority black districts without totally gerrymandering the state, I think. So I'm torn between the historic discrimination against blacks in Alabama and the reality that when you're trying to cobble together a "ringer" district or two, you're almost guaranteed to get a nasty gerrymander along the lines of what the Democrats have done around Chicago.
Well, unfortunately not as much the part about unbiased reporting, attention to detail, and the like, but David Brooks of the New York Times admitted that one factor of the old time newsroom lived on when he complained about a $78 bill (he apparently left no tip) for a meal he had at the airport. Apparently that bill included only $12 in food and had $66 in drinks, meaning that the old stereotype about the hard-drinking newsroom is still in force. Same lesson as we learned when it was Jayson Blair, from the same newspaper.
In short, many journalists today seem to be retaining the worst characteristics of old time journalism, while ignoring the best, in such a way that I dare suggest that Mr. Brooks might be in a position to repeat the mistakes of my great uncle, whose career was derailed by alcoholism.
Let's learn the right lessons, journalists. Even if we weren't talking about something that's physically addictive in excess, four shots of whiskey is about 20-25% of daily caloric requirements without appreciable nutritional value. It's not something that'll keep one pounding the streets for tips.
A while back, when I was part of a search committee for a new youth pastor, one candidate noted that he did not wear ties because he claimed they gave him headaches because of the "squeeze" on the neck. My response--perhaps not quite charitable enough--was to note that if I had $200 and a couple of hours at a good men's wear store, I'd have him cheerfully wearing ties with a shirt that actually fit his neck. If you get your "dress shirts" at Target or Wal-Mart, no such luck--they don't size the shirts that way. Sometimes you get what you pay for.
Fast forward to today, and the Senate has adapted dress codes so that hoodies (and apparently bikinis for Senator Collins) will be allowed, and my response is about the same. Good quality men's wear, especially of the custom type that Senators (especially 6'8" Senators like Fetterman) wear, is actually quite comfortable.
So what's really going on? My thought is that due to his stroke, Fetterman is no longer capable of tying a tie (there ARE clip-on ties, Senator!) or buttoning his shirt. Hence he wears clothes that he can simply pull on. Voters, take notice. This isn't just an act where this Harvard graduate claims to be a "man of the people". It's a confession of his disability, a disability that impacts his ability to serve in the Senate.
For about the past seven years--since Rachael Denhollander went public with her allegations against Larry Nassar--let's just say I have not been the proudest Spartan out there. My Michigan State gear has been largely unused, and the latest news--that State's football coach is now suspended without pay for sexual harassment of a rape survivor who now works to bring better practices with regards to sexual assault--does not make this any better.
Or, rather, I am waiting to see how much grosser it gets, because I cannot for the life of me fathom why anyone would find satisfaction in the alleged acts (which the coach has now largely confessed to), or why it would take as long as it has to investigate this, or precisely what changed now--more than a month after the initial report was written, and the coach had confessed.
....that vice pays to virtue. Today's example of LaRochefoucauld's dictim is Chicago area teachers' union president Stacy Davis Gates, who, while calling advocates for private schools and vouchers "racist", has apparently enrolled her own child in a local Catholic school.
Now there is a degree where I agree with Ms. Gates, which is that since "he who pays the piper calls the tune", I think that any plan to have school vouchers paid for with tax dollars is dangerous because it opens the door to increased state control of private schools--though I'm sure that a great part of Ms. Gates' reasoning is that it takes funding away from public schools and the teachers' union. I also agree that some--though certainly not all--people who have sent their children to private schools in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education did so for (at least in part) racist reasons, and finally, I agree with Ms. Gates that if you're subjected to Chicago Public Schools, it makes a lot of sense to send your child to private school.
One funny part of the matter is that the reason Ms. Gates gave for sending her son to Catholic school is to play soccer because there aren't enough resources at the public schools. So out of curiosity, I looked up some Chicago area high schools, and every one I saw either had its own athletic fields (often with artificial turf, which ain't cheap), or was close to a park that did. Combine that with the fact that, apart from cross country, soccer is about the cheapest sport out there, and I conclude that....Ms. Gates' problem is that she and her fellow teachers are not very creative or money savvy.
An influencer is, by and large, a person who looks good in tight-fitting clothes, not necessarily someone you want to emulate, as the tragic death of Larissa Borges shows. Now obviously I don't know whether her death was due to a congenital heart defect, drugs, or something else, but at the end of the day, an "influencer" is someone who looks good in online pictures, not an expert.
(and in the same light, I am someone who looks nerdy online, not an expert.....)
One side note; I'm not a pathologist or coroner, but one thing I notice in the pictures is that she had very little abdominal fat for a woman, which indicates she was taking some pretty extraordinary measures for her appearance. Sad to say, I'd have to suggest "pay close attention to her lab results."
While my son was getting his braces tightened, I was in the lobby where "Judge Judy" was showing. Suffice it to say that I am not quite sure why any sane person would agree to air differences with another person before a TV judge who seems to have, shall we say, a rather acidic disposition. Even seeing glimpses of it was incredibly painful, and a vivid example of why most courtrooms do not allow cameras.
With due respect to my son, I think I was having a far worse time...
This article, linked here by WorldNetDaily, suggests that suppressing contrary narratives is a common way of getting published. As I've known for decades, when you talk about consensus, you are simultaneously not talking about science.
