A little PSA

I know, You’re thinking to yourself, “what the hell could this guy have to say?”

I get it, you’re inundated with PSA type crap all day long.

What pronoun to use, don’t appropriate another culture for your halloween costume (No matter how funny it might be), don’t speak ill of any culture (unless it’s white folks), don’t speak ill of any gender (unless it’s cis male), you know…

The usual.

Well this post is not about any of that. So read on my intrepid friends.

Here’s something to think about.

Digital 1S 0S ON or OFF1If your personal devices are connected to a computer network at your place of business, any data sent from those devices is subject to monitoring. Now here’s the kicker…

Even if you aren’t looking at porn on your devices, but you’ve got your email running receiving that hot porn email list, or one of those nifty dating applications like Tender that might have naked photos, updating in the background, technically you’re downloading or attempting to download inappropriate material on the corporate network.

Yep! I know, shitty isn’t it? Guess what? The IT folks can see that data as it’s flowing over their systems. They can even localize it to your device or area of the corporate campus.

So if you’re on naked photo mailing lists, or Nudists international, or Filthy Gangbangs R Us, or whatever, even if you’re not looking at the site, your phone, or your tablet is. It’s guilt by association. Technically text messages could fall into the same category.

In other words, you could be fired because your device, sitting in your pocket, backpack, briefcase, or purse, was accessing naughty material. Your only defense is to say, “No I wasn’t” and the IT folks may have records, time and date stamped to the contrary. In other words, you’re screwed.

Oh Guru of technology how might we prevent this?”, you ask.

Simplest way;

Don’t have those apps on your phone or tablet.

Another simple way;

NEVER connect to your corporate network with personal devices. This will force your devices to use their cellular connection. Make sure you have an unlimited plan though.

A more complex method;

Gf logo horzAlways use a VPN when you’re away from home. There are some who suggest using a VPN at all times. I don’t. My VPN comes on automatically when I’m out of the house and using an external WiFi or hardline network connection.

VPNs are cheap and effective. They’re relatively easy to use and work pretty well. If you’re involved in illegal activities they’re not going to protect you from prosecution, so keep it legal okay?

I use Vypr from Golden Frog. Before you ask, I pay a yearly subscription and don’t really notice a delay (or the expense) as long as the connection I’m using is reasonably fast.

The down side to VPNs is that sometimes corporations, and public WiFi access locations will stop VPN traffic. The say it’s for the protection of their employees or clients, that’s bullshit.

They’re blocking the VPN traffic because they’re protecting themselves. Seems that there are some laws or the illusion of laws that suggest a corporation allowing “Illegal” traffic over their networks can be held accountable.

The question is, “what is illegal?” and since they can’t monitor an encrypted connection, companies often block VPNs. This is especially true on employee accessible networks.

Unless you’re familiar with what’s going on you could end up wasting a lot of time troubleshooting a non-existent problem. (I say that from experience). Since the VPN comes up automatically it’s easy to forget it’s there when you hit a Starbucks or whatever.

So it’s possible that with a VPN you’re not going to get connected to the internet while you’re at work. In which case if you’ve just gotta see that filthy picture, turn off WiFi and download it over the cell connection. I’d recommend waiting until your lunch hour or you’re off work but hey, I’m not living your life and you get to choose how your day or career goes.

The point is, keep all your personal shit… Personal!

So yesterday I was out & About…

After watching the completely thoughtless behavior of a number of people, I had to take a piss.

No not due to the thoughtlessness of the people, they were just the constant background irritation that I face every day.

One incident that really caught my attention was at the car wash:

I watched someone pull up to the change machine, get out of their car, get change, then drive 50 feet to put their car in the washing bay. Really? You lazy fuck? Oh, and you had two other people in the car with you. Why not pull into one of the 6 empty wash bays, and haul your ass 50 feet to get your change?

You thought it was okay to park in front of the machine blocking the driveway for everyone else, causing a traffic jam, preventing other people from leaving the car wash, or exiting the automated washing area. while you sat there fucking around to find your paper currency to change into coin.

I’d remind you dumbass, you’re not the only person on the fucking planet.

I did my best to ignore it.  Obviously I wasn’t successful! 

Anyhoo…

I finish drying my car and that was when I needed to take a leak. I do a quick check, there are other drying bays open so I can leave my car for a minute.

As I’m approaching the restroom, I note that the two doors are sporting nice new gender neutral signs. I think nothing of it. I head for the “Men’s room”, or the room formerly known as the men’s room.

UrinalIt’s unoccupied and I’m pretty much on auto pilot and then I notice the urinal is gone. No it’s not broken, it’s completely missing. Now there is only a toilet and a sink.

WTF?

Leave the fucking urinals in gender neutral bathrooms!

Women have been bitching for years about the length of time it takes for them to go pee. You know what ladies? It’s because men can piss in a trough, or against a wall, shoulder to shoulder.

Pulling urinals out of restrooms only slows the whole process down for everyone. If I’m in a men’s room that has a toilet and a urinal I don’t lock the door. Another dude can come in and take a leak in the toilet. That’s why there’s rarely a line at a baseball game or airport for the men’s room.

You neutrality nazis want to come into a large gender neutral restroom?

Fine… You better be prepared to see some dick! That had better not offend your delicate sensibilities.

You got some religious concerns or concerns that you’ll have to look at men? Well creampuff make a fucking decision. Gender neutrality OR your desire to not see dick.

Think about it for two seconds and incorporate your life experience.

For example:

Go to a party at someones home. Every bathroom will be full, there’s a line and nobody is going anywhere. Eventually the guys will be out in the front yard, beer in one hand and cock in the other watering the largest tree in the yard.

There’s a joke which gets modified to fit the branch of the military the teller of the joke served in.

First person:
You know, in the <Military Branch> they taught us to wash our hands after we piss.

Second Person:

In the <Military Branch> they taught us not to piss on our hands.

Men revert to our cave man nature pretty damn quick. We shouldn’t have to make apologies for it.

That’s not male privilege, it’s biological design. Ain’t nothing that you can do about it. So stop trying to make Men feel like they’re less than, or somehow wrong, for the way they were born.

If you keep the bathrooms at a party locked up too long, eventually some dude is out in the back yard digging a latrine. If you’re really lucky he’s preserving the sod in nice neat squares so that the lawn can be fixed in the morning. There’s your gender neutrality, and gender equality. All the party goers who can’t get into the bathrooms, will be using the latrine.  Perhaps that’s an idea for my next party, If you’re going to be puking your guts up… Go out back!

Just hope to god someone brings paper towels out, or your perennials are going to be stripped bare by morning.

Tell you what, how about we take the wall space used by the couches in the former ladies only bathrooms and put a nice trough right there?

Oh, now the ladies are concerned!

I swear, If I wasn’t worried about being arrested I’d just start pissing against buildings, or trees whenever I had to go.

Think of it as a rebellion against the Neutrality Nazis. I know of course that there would be some horribly offended snowflake that runs to the police to report indecent exposure. Not because they saw anything, but simply because I’m a dude and comfortable pissing while standing up. God knows that must be some kind of crime!

Truly one of the sickest things I’ve ever read.

A jury in Texas has ruled against a father in a custody battle leaving the door open for the mother of a 7 year old boy in Texas (One of a set of male twins) to pursue at her option, the transition of one twin boy to a female. 

Here is an opinion piece from The Washington Examiner

Here is a news piece from The Washington Examiner

Here is the report from KPRC in Texas

Here is a report from Lifesitenews

Here is a link to a website dedicated to the boy

Here is a link to Chad Felix Greene’s article in The Federalist

UPDATE

Judge rules that the father of James Younger will be allowed to Veto medical intervention. In other words, the father has not been stripped of all parental rights.

Read More here


Oddly, I wasn’t able to find coverage on NBC, ABC, CNN, CBS or more than the briefest mention of it in local Texas papers. It is somewhat unsurprising that only “conservative” outlets are carrying the story.

A 7 year old?

WHAT?

It’s not even clear that the child has gender dysphoria. At 7 isn’t it natural, perhaps even expected for children to be curious about what it’s like to dress up? The experts in the case say the childs gender is still fluid.

Reading through the available, and no doubt biased, information points to a bitter divorce… correction annulment. I suspect that the annulment is a farce and that there is still some kind of pitched legal battle behind the scenes ongoing. To my rather suspicious mind it begs the questions, “Is the mother trying to use the child as a weapon? Is she willing to harm a child in order to harm the father?” The truly amazing thing is that she’s not the twins biological mother.  Yes she gave birth to the boys, but the eggs were not her own. 

Add to this, several years ago there was the case, in Seattle I believe, where biological parents (who happened to be Native Americans) won custody of a child. In this case the child had been given up at birth. The child had been adopted by a white suburban family and had never known anything other than that family. But the state in it’s infinite wisdom ordered the child surrendered to the Native American parents based on the biological connection.

By that logic, in the case of James, his father Jeffery should have a greater claim to custody of the two boys. 

After all, at its heart this is a custody battle. It’s a father acting to protect one of his children from medical procedures that will have permanent, potentially negative effects. Isn’t this what custody battles are all about, or at least what they should be about?

I suppose what’s shocking to me is that the jury ruled against the father. 

My shock is not about Transphobia, this is about a child who frankly is too young to understand the hubub and for whom nature should probably be allowed to take it’s course at least until the child can specifically say, “I want to be a girl.”

I have many reservations about transitioning children’s genders because of the long term physical damage. Think about it. Hormone replacement therapy is a lifelong commitment, and potentially life shortening in the case where you’re fighting the fundamental programming of the human body. Would any parent wish that for their child who didn’t need it, or was uncertain of the child’s wishes?

I found myself nodding as I read the opinion piece (above) by Brad Polumbo

This “transgender radicalism” has gone on long enough and been allowed to go too damn far.

Let children be children. All of us need to stop putting our hangups, fears, hatred, confusion, or political statements on them. 

Our duty as adults, Straight, Gay, Transgendered, White, Black, Yellow, Red, Brown, whatever, is to protect children, any children, because they can’t protect themselves. 

That means protecting their lives, innocence, and childhood, until they are ready to make their own choices. Even then, when they make poor choices and stumble, it is our duty to pick them up, dust off their clothes, put a band-aid on their boo boos (emotional, physical, or both) and tell them to try again.

That’s what being an adult is.

It depresses the shit out of me that so many so called “Adults” have forgotten that simple duty or have been terrorized into silence.

There used to be a saying, “There’s nothing worse than an X-smoker”. That statement is often true about an X anything. X- Smokers tend to be rabid about other people smoking, X-overweight people tend to point out what others are eating as fattening. 

Perhaps X-Binary Genders are engaging in something similar? “ I’m happier now that I’ve transitioned and therefore everyone would be happier if they did too”

It’s a question that has more than once flitted through my mind.

I’m quite happy being a male. I like my body, (well except for the few creeping pounds of age). I like my genitalia and have no desire to change. (Well, larger would be nice, ahem) I recognize that may not be true of all people and your choice, is to make changes to your own bodies as you desire.

BUT, don’t you dictate my choices, or impose your beliefs about what I should feel or want, or how I should express my sexuality. 

You see I, as an adult have to personal strength and conviction to say that, and the ability to defend my statement, just as you do. 

Can the same be said of a child?