Tag: Things that make you say hmmm?

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Really… How can a company be this out of touch with their clients?

I didn’t know who the fuck Dylan Mulvaney was.

Here’s the short version. He, and I do mean “He” is a dude who thinks he’s a woman and has achieved some fame on the Tic Tok application. He’s been calling himself a woman for a year.

Big Deal, SO WHAT?

There have been a lot of little blurbs about his partnership with Bud Light which I’ve mostly ignored because it’s just another Trans whatsit bunch of crap. Today there’s an article about some kind of backlash brewing over his partnership with Bud Light.

There’s an old saying that any publicity is good publicity and maybe that’s true, but a couple of decades ago, it was all the rage that Coors beer wouldn’t be served in Gay bars. I forget now what the deal was, I thought it was silly at the time, and quickly lost interest. Generally thinking, I doubt that the gay boycott of Coors had much of an effect on their bottom line.

Although at the time there may have been men ordering Coors in straight bars just to flip off the gays, perhaps that improved Coors bottom line. I kinda doubt it, most men didn’t spend more than a couple of seconds thinking about their beverage choices.

Today on the other hand, a non-trans boycott of Bud Light and Anheuser-Busch products will likely hurt the Busch bottom line. (Note to self, make sure that my broker sells any Anheuser-Busch holdings immediately.) On the plus side in six months to a year Anheuser-Busch stock may be available at rock bottom prices.

I have a feeling that the majority of our country and the world is sick and tired of hearing about all this Trans bullshit. I know I am. It’s no problem for me to avoid Anheuser-Busch products. I prefer Blue Moon, or Corona.

If I’m indicative of the rest of the country. I suspect we’ll see Dylan Mulvaney whining on Tic Tok that he’s not in a partnership with Anheuser-Busch anymore because of Trans Hate. Then we’ll hear of Anheuser-Busch’s executives being quietly shown the door. Perhaps then we’ll be having less of the Trans shit in our daily lives.

For your reference, Anheuser-Busch products include:

Budweiser, Bud Light, Stella Artois, Shock Top, Kona Brewing Co., Michelob Ultra, and Busch Beer.

If you’re of a mind to send a financial message to Anheuser-Busch.

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Oh Whoopie! You really need to stop.

Whoopie Goldberg (Cultural Appropriation Much,) has once again described The Holocaust as not racial but instead White on White Violence. In an interview with the The Times UK Whoopie said the same kind of thing that got her banned from the screech fest TV show The View for a couple of weeks

Okay Whoopie, by your logic then no-one should care that Sunni’s and Shia are killing each other in Iraq. Or for that matter that Russians are killing off Ukrainians and vice versa. It’s Iraq on Iraq violence or White people killing White people in the Ukraine/ Russia conflict.

Both groups are from the same ethnic stock and so any war crimes that are committed are of no concern, ideological differences be damned right?

Cool, now that we know the rules. Why are we dumping a shit ton of money into the Ukraine/ Russia conflict?

I know now, I don’t have to give a runny shit about Crips & Bloods killing each other in cities across America. It’s black on black crime that is ideologically based, great! No worries.

Me being evil in that I’m white, I think my next career will be selling guns and ammo to both sides. Hey if I’m damned because I’m white I might as well have plenty of the root of all evil in my pocket too. OH! Maybe that’s why we’re dumping a shit ton of money into the Ukraine / Russia conflict. Our government is funding weapons sales and making some gunrunners somewhere filthy fucking rich.  D’Uh!

Technically Whoopie, you’re kinda being a Holocaust denier. You know, like Kanye West, I don’t understand the part of the rulebook where you get to say this kind of crap and get away with it, and Kanye says similar stuff and he’s the bad guy. I’m obviously missing the nuance. Is the difference that you’re rabidly Democrat and Kanye had dinner with Trump?

I’m just asking because with the rules changing so damn fast these days, I cannot seem to find a Rosetta Stone to keep up.

I hope this time ABC fires you. Maybe if we’re really lucky, they’ll cancel The View entirely. It would be a welcome relief to never read the opinions of those harridans in the print media. You’d think not watching that dumpster fire show would insulate me from the idiocy portrayed there daily. Alas no, for some reason national print media think The View is legitimate or relevant.

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This is one definition of irony!

According to the Associated Press:

Mexico is using images and video of a Philadelphia Street to warn children in Mexico about the ills of drug abuse.

The actual article is linked below:

Mexico depicts Philadelphia street scenes in anti-drug ads

I’d laugh but this is so fucking sad, I almost can’t believe it. At first I thought it was a satire article from The Babylon Bee.

Unfortunately as is the often the case these days, much of what should be satire is entirely true.

The real kicker for me personally is that the folks from Philadelphia are more concerned that the videos and images of homeless drug addicts shambling around the city, may have been used without permission of the people appearing in them.

Uhh… Maybe you should be more concerned with the drug problem, crime, and violence in your city than whether the addicts gave their permission to be filmed. Odds are good that even if they’d given permission in exchange for their next fix, they wouldn’t remember it. 

Good God almighty! Where the hell are our priorities?

Here is the article for your convenience.

From The Associated Press

Mexico depicts Philadelphia street scenes in anti-drug ads

By MARK STEVENSON and MARYCLAIRE DALE
November 11, 2022

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Mexican government is using video of homeless people and open-air drug users in Philadelphia’s embattled Kensington neighborhood in a national ad campaign to try to scare young people away from drugs.

The spots never identify the city or neighborhood shown. But just how or why the Mexican government decided to use street scenes from the U.S. to scare Mexicans — who have their own drug problems — is not clear. Critics say the ads recycle scare tactics about drugs rather than offer help or treatment.

Jesús Ramírez, the spokesman for President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, proudly presented the ad series Tuesday. But Ramírez did not respond to repeated requests for comment as to where the government got the Philadelphia videos or why they used them.

The use of the videos, apart from sparking concern over Philadelphia’s image, or whether those filmed had given their consent, raised questions, in part because Mexico is the source of most of the fentanyl being sold in the United States.

In one spot presented Tuesday entitled “Crystal” (meth), a Spanish-speaking narrator says, in a voice-over above scenes of drug users shaking or contorting along trash-strewn Kensington Avenue, “Crystal (meth) finishes you off quickly, it takes away hunger and tiredness and causes hallucinations and psychosis. It damages the body and mind.”

The Philadelphia Mayor’s Office acknowledged the drug problem but said it is not limited to one city or neighborhood, and noted that all people are capable of “hope, healing, and resilience.”

“The opioid and overdose crisis in Philadelphia is part of a national and even international epidemic, and we agree it is important for everyone to understand, as this video notes, that all street drugs now present an elevated risk of overdose because of fentanyl’s extreme prevalence,” a spokesperson for Mayor Jim Kenney said.

“Having said that, it is always hard to see our city’s people and neighborhoods portrayed in a limited and negative light. No neighborhood, and no person, should be defined by this tragic and widespread crisis,” they said.

Philadelphia is debating solutions to the overdose crisis — Kenney supports proposals for supervised injection sites — while the number of overdose deaths continues to climb, reaching 1,276 deaths last year.

Another Mexican spot depicts scenes of drug users or homeless people slumped or standing unsteadily in Kensington, which can be identified by transit signs in the videos.

“Now the narcos are adding fentanyl to hook you from the first time you use. Fentanyl kills,” the narrator says in Spanish. “It is 50 times more potent than heroin. Two hundred people die every day from using it. Don’t risk it!”

However fentanyl use remains relatively low in Mexico — almost all is exported to the United States — while there are plenty of meth and crack users.

Only one of the government anti-drug ads — one focusing on glue-sniffing — used recognizably Mexican street footage. Other scenes show people wearing sweatshirts that say “California” and “Barcelona.”

“These are terrible ads; they’re truly terrible,” said Mexico security analyst Alejandro Hope. “They are badly thought out, badly produced, and they are the result of bad public policy. There is no public health message there.”

Instead of offering help, hotlines, advice or treatment options — which in the public sector are almost non-existent in Mexico — Hope said they repeated the most aggressive U.S. drug-scare tactics of the 1980s.

“I don’t think these ads are aimed at users, at youths at risk,” said Hope. “I think these are aimed at a wider and much more conservative audience that viscerally rejects any kind of drug use and whose moral buttons you want to push, to generate a moral terror.”

López Obrador, while he projects himself as a leftist, has actually been “deeply conservative” on issues like drugs, abortion, the family and women’s rights, Hope said.

Quetcy Lozada, elected Tuesday to represent the Philadelphia City Council district that includes Kensington, said the area includes many hard-working families who want to stay and make things better. But the ads and frequent media attention only draw more users and curiosity-seekers to the streets — and more problems, she said.

“Philadelphia has so many amazing places and so many amazing people, it embarrasses me that this is the type of footage that is being used,” Lozada said. “(It’s) just not acceptable.”

In a TV ad entitled “Crack,” the narrator says, in a voice-over with street scenes in Kensington. “Taking crack cocaine damages your brain and heart and causes anxiety and paranoia.” The ad quickly segues into scenes of homeless people, apparently filmed at a nearby park.

Kelly Garant, a peer care coordinator in Philadelphia for a nonprofit organization, helps people struggling with addiction, as she once did, get medical and other services.

“They are actually in a state of crisis, and to be exploited when they’re that vulnerable, it’s just not acceptable,” Garant said. “You don’t know whose mother or father or brother that is.”

Years from now, she said, they may have their lives back on track, but the images could still be out there — for their children, friends and work colleagues to see.

Addiction, she said, “doesn’t discriminate.” It’s just less visible in other neighborhoods.

“In other parts of the city, people overdose in their homes,” she noted. “If they’re talking about anti-drug campaigns, there are people doing drugs inside their homes and we can’t get to them.”

___

Dale reported from Philadelphia

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I was updating my calendar today, when I remembered new gas car sales in California would be banned in 2035.

As a lark, I thought, “Well I should probably put that in the calendar.”

After pressing “save” I wondered two things.

1 Would I be around to give a crap?
2 What will the world look like then?

It’s possible I could still be around, It’s unlikely that I’ll give a crap about it. This is potentially a two fold issue. It’s likely that I’ll be in an old folks home griping about the consistency of my pudding. It’s also likely that I’ll not be in California. In either situation, I doubt I’ll give a crap.

That leaves the second question, what will the world look like in 2035? I’ll be somewhere in my mid 70’s. It’s possible that I might still have my mind in more or less working order. Being a male at that age would be a bit of a rarity in my family so I might be well on the way to checking out for the long dirt nap.

In the 1960’s there was an optimism about the new modern wonders of science and technology. I remember magazines telling us we’d all have flying cars in 20 years. I’m glad I didn’t hold my breath on that one. When I moved to Los Angeles in my 20s and saw how messed up the traffic was, I knew we weren’t going to have flying cars.

People were incapable of driving on a wide, well maintained road, without hitting each other. The thought of those same people flying overhead was truly terrifying. Flaming wrecks raining down on unsuspecting neighborhoods is not something I’d sign up for.

This observation was made well before the distractions of cell phones, and text messages. As those devices became more ubiquitous the accident rate went up, even though the average speeds on the freeways went down. Honestly, how can you have accidents on a roadway where everyone is creeping along at 20mph?

Barrel Racing

If the California freeways get much slower, horses will become the preferred method of travel again. At least then, people will be able to text and play games on their cellphones without worry. Horses aren’t likely to run into each other because they’re paying attention.

I suppose there would have to be horse sex insurance policies though. I’m not sure how copulation of your transportation would affect your morning commute. However, it might settle the question of just how many genders there are, an added bonus would be that nobody would have to be a biologist to get the picture.

Funny thing about it, is that might be the best case scenario.

The way things are going, I’m actually beginning to wonder if Mad Max, Escape from New York, The Omega Man, or Book of Eli, is a more likely scenario. It’s possible that gas powered vehicles and electric vehicles may end up being moot points.

If WWIII happens, humanity if it survives at all, might be knocked back to hunter gatherers sitting around a fire pit burning books that no-one remembers how to read or bits of furniture that nobody wants to carry around.

190620 Nuclear test iStock 936338912

We might not even need WWIII to get there.

It could all go the way of Atlas Shrugged. Inconvenient science and / or truths could simply be placed under some overarching government control and suppressed.

Why would people keep working, innovating, and making discoveries if they knew the government and over-regulation would create hurdles so high they personally couldn’t profit from their efforts?

In a way, I wonder if we’re not already on the leading edge of this sort of thing. We’ve heard of quiet quitting in businesses. Is it possible that all the people who are not participating in the workforce are engaging in some unseen herd mentality, a.k.a quiet quitting?

Why should people continue to seek employment in a system that keeps taxing income at ever increasing rates to fund wars, or government entities that they have no control over, and no say in? Why bother to open businesses or create something new, if the state or federal government is just going to take a substantial chunk because the government believes they’re entitled to it?

Isn’t this, at least in part, what happened in the old USSR?

I find the Atlas Shrugged scenario far more disturbing than WWIII. In a nuclear war, it would all be over pretty fast. In Atlas Shrugged it took along time to crush the human spirit into the dust. It was brutal, systematic, and normal.

Good ideas were nationalized, or legislated out of existence. The powerful people in control continued rearranging the deck chairs on The Titanic until everything completely broke down. They’d dis-incentivized knowledge to the point that even when the stole the patents on Reardon Steel, they had no-one who could take over the foundry, and no raw materials to use even if they’d had skilled people.

The politicians in the story, all believed they were doing the right thing. The believed they were the good guys right up to the end, and had no clue why everything broke. In should be noted that Hitler, Stalin, and Chairman Mao all thought they were the good guys… Just Sayin.

That to me is far more frightening.

In that scenario, there were still large populations in cities who were suddenly plunged into the dark. The story of the morning after would be very interesting. I’ll have to check if Ayn Rand wrote a follow on.

I see the morning after as a period of shock and confusion. Then when water stops running from the tap, sewage backs up, and enough people are hungry, looting starts. At first it will be all the bright shiny things that average people couldn’t afford. That would happen because they’d be hoping things would return to normal and all those luxuries would once again have value.

Lomaprietaquake

Then as hunger became more intense, practical things would be looted from grocery stores. When the stores were empty, the populations in the cities would turn on each other. As the resources dried up, the survivors would spread out. The most brutal of these would be on top as full anarchy and tribal warfare blossomed. After that, it’s anybody’s guess how society would change.

I suspect we all saw what it might look like when Seattle allowed the autonomous zone called CHOP, or CHAZ, (whatever,) to come into being.

There are those who flippantly say, “Well I’ll be fine, I’ve got food, I’ve got water,” them I ask, “how many bullets do you have and how good a shot are you?”

The implied question is, “how many people are you ready to kill?” This doesn’t even address the fact that bullets are a finite resource. When you run out, what do you do then?

This is why the Atlas Shrugged scenario is more scary to me personally.

It’s also why, if I were offered a way off this planet I’d take it in a heartbeat. I’d prefer to live out my days quietly even if it was among an alien race. I don’t want to watch or participate in my own species destroying itself.

Alliance carrier tereshkova class by euderion d9i88m2

In the second or two after I had these thoughts, I closed the calendar application.

Somewhere on a server 500 miles or so, away from me, a notation has been made that sale of new gas vehicles will be illegal in California in 2035. I’m curious if I or anyone will care when that notification pops up.

It’s possible we’ll all have far more immediate concerns on Jan 1, 2035. Alternatively, I could be dead by then and not care about it in the least.

Funny how I get sidetracked from the simplest of things. At least this time, I’d updated my calendar before I thought about the 2035 deadline.

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Ya know, It’s time to end PayPal.

I long ago closed my PayPal Account. I’ve avoided them like the plague since. Thinking about it, I must’ve closed that account 10 years or so ago.

I closed it because they sent out a notice telling their account holders that they’d decline to process any purchases that could be related to firearms.

I didn’t own any firearms but them telling me, the customer, that they would have final say on how I spent my money didn’t sit right. They also had some other things they’d decline to process, specifically adult oriented purchases.

To be clear, the PayPal Account I had was not a credit account. This was PayPal getting between me and the cash assets I’d deposited into their financial system.

So I thought about it for a while then pulled my cash out of their system. When the account was closed I never looked back.

PayPal hasn’t crossed my mind until yesterday.

There was an AUP (Acceptable Use Policy) released from PayPal stating that they would take $2500.00 from a user’s account if PayPal determined that the user spread “Misinformation”

There’s an article from MSN Here, and another article from Breitbart Here.

Prohibited activities include:

the sending, posting, or publication of any messages, content, or materials that, in PayPal’s sole discretion, (a) are harmful, obscene, harassing, or objectionable, (b) depict or appear to depict nudity, sexual or other intimate activities, (c) depict or promote illegal drug use, (d) depict or promote violence,  criminal activity, cruelty, or self-harm (e) depict, promote, or incite hatred or discrimination of protected groups or of individuals or groups based on protected characteristics (e.g. race, religion, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, etc.) (f) present a risk to user safety or wellbeing, (g) are fraudulent, promote misinformation, or are unlawful, (h) infringe the privacy, intellectual property rights, or other proprietary rights of any party, or (i) are otherwise unfit for publication.

That’s a pretty broad brush they’re painting with. Essentially anything that you might say which someone might take offense at could cost you 2500.00 per incident.

They can’t directly attack the First Amendment, so they’re going to silence you with fines. Imagine, you getting into a Twitter exchange where 50 Trans or Abortion activists were offended.

With this policy in place, the perpetually aggrieved could report you to PayPal and use PayPal to financially ruin you if you had an account.

People like Jordan Peterson, Kanye West, Marjorie Taylor Green, Dave Rubin, or any other conservative voice, could literally be run into bankruptcy in less than 24 hours. Hey, it’s all automatic isn’t it? All it takes is some person in a cubical hitting a “FINE” button based on every complaint lodged against someone, verified or not. Hell it could even be done with an algorithm.

The really evil part of this scheme is that the people complaining don’t get the cash. PayPal keeps it.

There’s no checks or balances.

If a person complaining could get $2500 for their complaint, but stood to loose that money if the complaint was found to be invalid, then at least the complaints might have a chance of being ‘real’. But PayPal was trying to create a completely open ended system where they cashed in with no accountability.

PayPal must be ended! I think everyone should close their accounts immediately. Don’t use PayPal even to process a credit card. Why give them any possible leverage to destroy your financial stability?

This form of manipulation must be stopped. It’s not just PayPal, banks all over the world are starting to engage in social justice instead of doing what they’re paid to do, which is hold client money and process payments.

PayPal is walking this whole thing back today. But it’s only because of the blowback. This was not a mistake, as PayPal is claiming today. This was their intention, they just didn’t anticipate that people would actually read their AUP.

Make no mistake, banks, and payment processors, particularly those in the sphere of technology are rabid social justice warriors, they’re leftists, and this may be part of the so called “Conspiracy” to make every human being subject to ESG scores.

Choose your financial institutions wisely. Don’t comply with this kind of bullshit.

Banks hold money, it is not up to them to be your parents, approving of how you spend your hard earned money.