Sex is the Answer to the Catholic Church's Sex Problem. Really.

On screen: The Shame of the Church
Also: The Catholic Church’s Rotherham


Here we go again...

The Church—and clearly not just in Pennsylvania—has descended into a nest of predatory perverts, largely but not exclusively homosexual, but child-molesters all. Even worse, its upper administrative reaches, the bishops, have conducted a cover-up under the guise of “compassion” and “protecting the Church,” denying, obfuscating, and lying about the extent of the problem—even as some of them were charter members of the racket. Their sanctimony is even more sickening than the sins they concealed, if such a thing is possible.

A grand jury in Pennsylvania has completed and published the findings of their investigation into 70+ years of child sexual abuse in dioceses in the state. It's brutal reading, which, when combined with a steady stream of past revelations about clergy raping and abusing children around the US and the world, demands reforms. Real ones.

Let's start with a disclaimer: I'm not Catholic, though I have many relatives who are, or who grew up in the church. I recognize no Papal authority. I'm unaffected by how the Roman Catholic Church conducts its affairs, except in the general sense of being horrified by its continuing descent into evil, and the trail of broken lives and severed relationships with God that result. But God damn it (literally), isn't it about time the assholes that run the institution actually do something about this?

I think we can start with two facts that are simply not open to debate:

1. The Catholic Church's priesthood and leadership has a severe and longstanding problem with sexual perversion. This can be taken as a given. Read the Pennsylvania grand jury report, if you can, and remember that it's just one example. It's not the first, and won't be the last that we hear of these awful crimes. Pretending otherwise is simply willful ignorance and accommodation with evil.
2. Men who are willing to live a celibate life are, by definition, sexual deviants. Given a large population of deviants, some degree of criminal deviancy is inevitable. 

By deviants, I mean it in the scientific sense rather than the criminal sense. Not all deviants are criminals, although the word does carry that stigma in common use. I simply mean that they are well outside the behavioral norm. But... men who attempt to suppress their sex drive are fighting against their very natures, and are indeed abnormal. Sexuality is a powerful force that will break through all attempts to suppress it, for the vast majority of men (and women). This is what Paul means in 1 Corinthians 7:8-9:

Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. ⁹ But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

I won't speak for women, but I think I can speak for men when I say the overwhelming percentage of men cannot control themselves. The sex drive is going to seek an outlet. For a disturbing percentage of the Catholic priesthood, that outlet is little boys and young male teens (with them making up about 80% of all victims). Worse, the leadership of the organization obviously sympathizes more with the abusers than the victims, which makes them even worse deviants. They were probably raping little boys when they were younger, so of course they protect the next generation of abusers.

I like to play video games. Doom is one of my favorites, and the levels where our hero goes into Hell are very interesting from a graphical point of view and game play. But it's just a harmless game designer's vision of Hell. For a glimpse of the real thing, read this from the second link:

The Pennsylvania grand-jury report names hundreds of predator priests across seven decades of life in six Catholic diocese in the state. Some of the details in the report are so vile and lurid they would have been rejected from the writer’s room of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. They include priests “marking” their preferred boy-victims with special crosses, priests trading and compiling their own homemade child pornography. At one point in the report, a large redaction is made over what appears to be, in context, a ritualized and satanic gang-rape of a young boy by four priests.

Giving special crosses to compliant boys so other deviant priests would know who to rape. Holy. Fuck. This might be the single most perverted and evil detail I've ever heard of related to this whole scandal, and that's saying something.

Some will say that as bad is this all is, it's only a tiny percentage of the Catholic priesthood, and that all that is needed is to do away with the bad apples. Sorry, but no. That's a bullshit defense. 

My advice, for what it's worth: burn it all down. Start over. Here's how: 

1. Defrock any priest or bishop with even a hint of exposure to these behaviors. No counseling. No treatment. Get them out of the church - or alternately, offer them the chance to live their lives out in a monastic setting well away from the laity. 
2. Those whose crimes are within the statutes of limitations, where sufficient evidence exists, should be prosecuted, with the church's enthusiastic cooperation, from the laity if the church leadership does not provide it.
3. Immediate end to the use of settlements and NDA's by the church. Pass laws as needed to remove NDA protection for criminal behavior.
4. Establish a lay council to run the local dioceses and take bishops out of the organizational management of the churches, allowing them to minister to their flocks. The priestly hierarchy have proven themselves incapable of managing their own church. The laity needs to step in.
5. In other words, turn the hierarchy upside down, so the clergy serves the flock and not the other way around. 
6. Finally: allow priests to marry. Let young men pursue their vocation without having to put away their normal natures and desires. Paul is right. Listen to him.

The Catholic Church's denial of the negative effect of priestly celibacy is tiresome. The whole concept is a failure, and they need to admit that it has served them and their congregations poorly (to say the least). Men and women who want to serve that way are welcome to pursue a monastic life, if they wish. Most men won't choose it. Don't make them. Otherwise, this (from the first link): 

But as vocations cratered—if the Church could so lightly cast off centuries of rite and dogma, why should novitiates bother to sign up?—and the priestly ranks thinned out, new recruits had to come from somewhere. And an all-male order with easy access to children of both sexes was tailor-made for the molesters, who realized there was no point in hanging around schoolyards when the schoolyards would hang around you.

The best prescription to fix an organization run by sexual deviants is to remove the deviants and open the doors to people with NORMAL sexual behavior and values. Married clergy is the norm in almost all faiths. Sure, Paul praises the idea of celibate service to God, but remember, Paul is a saint. Few others are. Certainly too few to staff the clergy.

The alternative is to destroy your church. How any of the Catholic hierarchy can stand the thought of facing God after doing that is beyond my comprehension. 

Postscript: I wasn't going to bring this up, but since a Cardinal has, I'll link to it. Make of it what you will. The solution is the same as far as I'm concerned.

It was clear after the studies following the 2002 sexual abuse crisis that most of the acts of abuse were in fact homosexual acts committed with adolescent young men. There was a studied attempt to either overlook or to deny this. Now it seems clear in light of these recent terrible scandals that indeed there is a homosexual culture, not only among the clergy but even within the hierarchy, which needs to be purified at the root. It is of course a tendency that is disordered.

Again, just some friendly advice to my Catholic friends: clean it out and rebuild the clergy with normal family men. 

Doing stupid things in stupid places with stupid people...

On screen: Florida Parking Lot ‘Stand Your Ground’ Shooter Won’t Be Charged

Yesterday I mentioned one of the key maxims of self defense: don't do stupid things in stupid places with stupid people. At least two, and probably all three are on display here. All handgun carriers need to think about this sort of thing and how it went down. This didn't have to happen: it was a completely preventable shooting that could have been stopped, had either party involved applied even the smallest degree of conflict deescalation.

I'll refer to the parties as victim and shooter for now, without necessarily making a judgement on who was right in this incident. Arguably, the shooter was the real victim.

Go watch the video at the link. I'll wait.It's only 25 seconds or so. Then we'll go over it.

Back? Good. So... is this a righteous shooting or not? The local sheriff declined to file charges, but threw the whole thing over the fence to the prosecutor's office. Given that, and the fact that the shooter is white and the victim is black, it's now political, and you can bet this one will wind up in a jury's hands.

Let's review the whole sequence:

1. Prior to the start of the security video, the victim parks his car in a handicap spot. This is a dick move at any time (I'm assuming he was not disabled). The victim goes in the store to buy something, leaving his family behind.
2. Shooter confronts the family about parking in the handicap spot. He's involved in an animated discussion with the wife/girlfriend. 
3. Shooter is a known customer of the store (and all around jerk), and frequently harangues people who park in the handicap spot. His behavior here is rude and uncalled for. He's escalated the situation far beyond what is appropriate. 
4. If I were going to guess, I'd say that the wife/girlfriend responded in kind. Fighting words were likely exchanged. No deescalation there.
5. At the 5 second mark, the victim comes out of the store, sees what is happening and strides towards the shooter. The shooter does not appear to notice him coming. At the 10 second mark, he issues a full body shove to the shooter, literally knocking him on his ass in a surprise attack. Note that he did not peacefully confront the shooter, nor attempt to get his attention or verbally engage the him to get him to back off. He went straight to violent assault. 
6. Important: between the time the shooter hits the ground and the time he looks up at the victim, the victim is still moving towards the shooter. Watch what happens between the 10-12 second mark. The shooter could legitimately conclude that the victim is about to beat him down further. We now have a real imminent danger situation for the shooter. He has no idea what the victim's intentions are, and has to assume the worst. 
7. The shooter draws his gun at the 13 second mark. Only at this time does the victim move back. We have no way to know his intentions, but it's highly likely that he stopped his attack ONLY because he realized he was facing an armed opponent.
8. The shooter fires at the 14 second mark, fatally wounding the victim. He's had less than 1 second to decide whether the attack was over.

Should the shooter have held back? There's no way to know. I wasn't there, and neither were any of us. If someone had done that to me and even gave a hint that more was to come, I'd have shot the guy too - but it would never have been an issue because it would never have escalated like that if I was involved. I don't blame the shooter for defending himself, but I do blame him for his part in creating the situation.

And the victim was simply asking to get shot. I'm convinced he was about to further assault the shooter, and would have if he didn't see a gun pointed at him. So what's the argument? It's OK to beat down someone who is rude to your wife, but it's not OK for him to shoot you in self defense? That it's OK to start a fight, but it's not OK for the other person to decide when it ends - by using force to end it?

No easy answers here. I'm glad I won't be on this jury.

The world is full of assholes, and unfortunately, these two ran into each other. One's dead, and the other has likely ruined his life. The lesson for the rest of us is that if you carry a gun, the next most important skills after gun safety and basic marksmanship are conflict avoidance and deescalation. You might save more than your own life.

Carrying Like an Olde Skule Dick

A private detective, that is. Like in the old black and white movies.

So I've been carrying a little .380 semi-auto mouse gun for a couple of years now. I knew it wasn't the long term answer, but I already had it, and it fit in my back pocket - until it didn't. Over time, sitting on a gun in a wallet holster was causing problems with my back and butt. Seinfeld fans will recall the episode with George's exploding wallet. Same thing.

Besides, the .380 is barely enough for self defense. I'm not sure it would do more than piss an attacker off, if it came down to it. I wanted something with a bit more punch.

I spent a lot of time reading and looking, and I decided that the right option for me was to carry a compact revolver. So I got one of these*:

Ruger LCR, 38 Special +P

First, the drawbacks:

1. Five rounds. Make 'em count. 
2. Reloading under pressure. I'd go with plan B - cardio. Run!

If you follow the Rule of Three, however, you'll know that nearly all defensive gun uses are over in three rounds, three yards and three seconds. If five shots isn't enough, you've probably broken one of the key self-defense rules: don't do stupid things in stupid places with stupid people.

If you can live with those drawbacks, revolvers have advantages over modern semi-auto pistols. Among them (in approximately my order of importance):

1. Reliability. You pull the trigger and it goes bang. There's no slide to work. There's no chance of a failure to eject or failure to load. It won't go out of battery even if you push it up against an attacker. You can also fire them from inside of a pocket, as there's no slide to get caught on clothing. And if you get a dud round, pull the trigger again and the next one will go bang. To be fair about it, malfunctions in modern semi-autos are rare, but in revolvers, they're virtually non-existent. If the shit hits the fan, you only have to remember to do two things: point it and pull the trigger. It'll fire.
2. Conceal-ability. While they're not much smaller than modern single stack 9mm semi-autos, their shape makes them easier to hide under your clothes. There aren't as many straight edges and angles to print through your shirt - or dig into your side. While some folks are OK with carrying openly (and it's perfectly legal here in OK), I prefer that nobody knows I'm strapped. Even here, it makes some people nervous, and besides, I don't want a bad guy to whack me first because he can tell I'm armed. 
3. Safety. Small personal defense revolvers normally have shrouded hammers and use a long double-action trigger pull, which means that you really have to mean it when you pull the trigger. Accidental discharges are rare with this configuration. The thought of putting a striker-fired semi-auto with a short trigger pull in my pants gives me unpleasant vibes in my nether regions.
4. Power. A 38 Special +P self-defense round is the equal of any 9mm. Someone getting shot with it is going to have a very bad day. Then there's .357 Magnum. It's no fun to be on either end of that round when it goes off. 
5. Shoot-ability. They're easier to hold because the grip can be shaped like your hand, and not the magazine that has to fit into it. You can get soft grips that absorb recoil. They have a consistent trigger pull. They manage recoil well. To me, they feel like an extension of your hand. 
6. Simplicity. Time tested design. No safeties or other fiddly bits. Easy to safety check. Easy to clean. No disassembly needed.
7. Style. Revolvers are cool. If you don't think so, then we can't be friends anymore.

Hey, thousands of old time cops and private detectives can't be wrong. It might be the right option for you too.


* I found mine at a pawn shop for $340 in very good condition! If you want something, look on Armslist and see if a local pawn shop has what you're looking for. I saved $160 off the price of a new one.

Dinosaurs, birds and England

On screen: Swift Injustice: The Case of Tommy Robinson

There's nothing about this situation that isn't revolting: 

• For nearly 30 years, British Pakistani Muslim gangs perpetuated a child rape ring in Rotherham, grooming and sexually abusing hundreds of mostly white English lower class underage girls. 
• Police and local government knew about it and covered it up. 
• Prominent Islam critic, independent journalist and all around provocateur Tommy Robinson attempts to cover the proceedings outside the court at a trial for suspects in the grooming and abuse ring. He's arrested, convicted, sentenced and dumped into prison in a matter of hours. 
• The media is ordered by the court not to report on the affair. 

From the linked article:

A kangaroo court, then a gag order. In the United Kingdom, where rapists enjoy the right to a full and fair trial, the right to the legal representation of their choice, the right to have sufficient time to prepare their cases, and the right to go home on bail between sessions of their trial. No such rights were offered, however, to Tommy Robinson.

The swiftness with which injustice was meted out to Robinson is stunning. No, more than that: it is terrifying. On various occasions over the years, I have been subjected in person to an immediate threat of Islamic violence: I have had a knife pulled on me by a young gang member, and been encircled by a crowd of belligerent men in djellabas outside a radical mosque. But that was not frightening. This is frightening -- this utter violation of fundamental British freedoms.

We have the Bill of Rights because of our English heritage and English common law. Having inspired our Founders to create those things, the English seem to have utterly rejected any semblance of recognition of individual rights. What in God's name is wrong with the Brits?

I've said on occasion that although the dinosaurs are long extinct, we can at least see a shadow of what they were by observing their closest descendants: birds. In the same way, I think it's safe to say that England - the real England - is dead and gone, and the closest we'll see to its glory is the USA, while it lasts. We're the birds.

An afterthought: if the Royal Family over there serves any purpose; if there is any justification for even having a king or queen - wouldn't it be appropriate for them to open their mouths, at least in private, to the political leaders of their country about where things are heading over there?

Number Four

On screen: Apple's iOS 11.4 update with 'USB Restricted Mode' may defeat tools like GrayKey

Here's a pretty flower to remind you of the danger (image from quozio.com)

If I could sit down and talk to a sitting Supreme Court Justice, I'd ask them if they thought this had any meaning left:

Amendment IV: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

It appears law enforcement has a new toy to break into your phone, and Apple has responded with changes to the lightning cable sync rules.

"To improve security, for a locked iOS device to communicate with USB accessories you must connect an accessory via Lightning connector to the device while unlocked — or enter your device passcode while connected — at least once a week," reads Apple documentation highlighted by security firm ElcomSoft. The feature actually made an appearance in iOS 11.3 betas, but like AirPlay 2 was removed from the finished code.

The change blocks use of the Lightning port for anything but charging if a device is left untouched for seven days. An iPhone or iPad will even refuse to sync with computer running iTunes until iOS is unlocked with a passcode.

Personally, I'd prefer a mode where the lightning port is unusable unless the phone is unlocked at the time of connection. Once a week is seven days too long. Make it a setting that I can change.

In our modern age, our phones and devices ARE our "persons, houses, papers and effects". Law enforcement and the courts have tried to play a game with this issue and pretend that our smartphones are some sort of exception to this. I think the courts need to come down hard on the state over this. I'm not unlocking my phone without a warrant. 

BTW, powering your phone off would be the smart thing to do if the law shows up - that way they can't make you unlock it with a fingerprint. Or just disable Touch ID.

I don't like the idea of mobsters, drug runners, creeps and terrorists being able to hide their misdeeds, but if that's the price of keeping the government out of my personal data, I'm willing to pay it. Unethical prosecutors make any trust in the justice system unwarranted. We've seen cops and courts come after people for sport, money or political reasons. The Bill of Rights exists precisely because of this potential for abuse. It's time to bring our personal technology under the Constitution's protection.

Is a Puzzlement

On screen: Berkeley student government proposes giving College Republican funds to Black Student Union

Puzzlement: not just for the King of Siam

There's rarely an idea, good or bad, that doesn't come back into style eventually:

The student government of the University of California, Berkeley, will vote today on whether to defund Berkeley’s chapter of the College Republicans and reallocate those funds to the Black Student Union.

As the king would say, "is a puzzlement". To wit: 

1. Why are there College Republicans in Berkeley? Wouldn't sensible people stay clear of that place? 
2. Why is there a Black Student Union? Is there a White Student Union?
3. When did "separate but equal" come back into style? Did someone decide segregation was a good idea again and not tell me? 
4. Who decided to let a bunch of leftist children decide how the university would allocate funding?

What dastardly thing did the CR's do, anyway?

Senator Rizza Estacio, a member of the Associated Students of the University of California, proposed the reallocation of funding on the grounds that the College Republicans’ behavior during campus events was in violation of school policy.

“Some of what this organization has done has broken regulations that we uphold to every registered student organization,”  Estacio told the student newspaper The Daily Californian. “I want to make it clear that if you break these rules, you are no longer eligible for our funding.”

Ah, I see. They broke "rules". I'm not sure which ones, because they didn't say, but they must have been serious rules. Probably worse than the ones against wearing black masks and rioting, though I can't imagine what. Evidently, no one else can either:

It is unclear which policies Estacio believes the group violated. Eugene Volokh, a lawyer and law professor at UCLA, told The College Fix via email that, according to Supreme Court precedent, a “content-neutral application of generally applicable and enforced rules is generally allowed; targeting a group because of its viewpoint is not.” The student government did not respond to requests for clarification on which policies the College Republicans may have broken.

At least they have one adult out there:

Reached via email, campus spokesman Dan Mogulof told The College Fix that “the Student Unions on University of California campuses are separate legal entities from the campus and therefore act with full autonomy and independence.”

“By the same token, senate decisions are not binding on the campus, so regardless of any decisions the ASUC senate may or may not take, UC Berkeley’s administration will continue to treat every single one of our 1000+ student organizations in an equitable fashion without regard for their perspectives or politics,” Mogulof added.

 
The more time passes, the more I agree with Mike Rowe: Dirty Jobs' Mike Rowe on the High Cost of College. The cost is more than just money - it's sanity.

On the other hand, it's so cute to see these children act like they're in charge of anything. They might as well enjoy the role playing now, because when I order my Starbucks, I get to call the shots (if you'll pardon the expression).

Want More Government? Here's More Government.

On screen: Just When You Thought Broward County's Failures Concerning The Parkland Shooting Can't Get Any Worse, They Do

And: An Investigation Into Broward County’s School Board & Superintendent

And this Twitter thread, from the author of the second link, a Parkland student

Background: Stoneman Douglas High School shooting


The gist of this post can be summarized almost completely by this excerpt from the first link:

1. The School Board after a $100 million dollar appropriation for school security in 2014, they failed to spend it, including a failure to modify the fire alarms to turn off if there is not a real fire, which would likely have saved lives along with other enhancements.

2. The School Board had a policy to keep students out of jail, going so far as to instruct school resource officers that when a felony is committed by a student that they could consider arresting them, not that they should arrest them, but they should just consider it as an option.

3. Cruz "was never arrested despite threatening to kill students, bringing bullets to school, and being involved in multiple fights."

4. No school board member or other administrative officials have been fired or required to resign for their malfeasance and disastrous policies to date.

Again, the mainstream media and professional journalists didn't pick up on this, it took a student journalist to be interested and persistent enough to dig this up, and it again destroys the blame the NRA narrative.

...

The sheer amount of fail before, during, and after the shooting is rather staggering. Verily, it takes a village to mess this up this consistently over and over again. So of course, instead of blaming themselves for this causal chain of events a mile long and years in the making, they decided to blame the NRA. 

While the media and gun grabbers have been using that reprehensible little douchebag David Hogg (he of the Nazi salute and armband fame) to advance their disarmament agenda, another Parkland student did the homework on the real fault(s) for the shooting. Read his Twitter thread above, and Medium article, if you can stand it.

If anyone want to know why I think less policing, less taxes and less government would be a good thing, have a close look at this situation and see how much throwing money and government management behind school security helped. If your answer is "not at all", then you and I just might be on the same side.

And of course, this is just another data point for how completely useless the news media is. It took a kid to do what they couldn't do. Or wouldn't. I'm not sure which makes them look worse.


Coda: then there's this, if you're not pissed enough: Parkland student ‘interrogated’ for shooting AR-15 at gun range

So get this - the school and police can't or won't lift a finger to stop a monster, but they're all over this guy for exercising his Constitutional rights in a safe and legal setting. Pretty typical, actually. Policing criminals and dangerous people is too much work. It's much easier to hassle the law-abiding.

And there's nothing the police and authorities can do that pisses me off more than that.

He’s a Seoul Man...

On screen: Trump's Seoul Train 

Let's start with this: 

Democratic expert on negotiations schools us deplorables

The Diplomad points out the irony of how the swell people failed with the Norks: 

We are now seeing the leaders of the two Koreas meeting, vowing to formalize the end of the war and to seek a way to denuclearize the peninsula. Huh? What happened? It must have been some tweet from Hillary or Obama, or some wise statement by Pelosi or Corbyn that did it. Gotta be. Or that Kim Jung-un, he's really just a pussy cat who loves his people and peace. Can't possibly be the man in the White House, because we all just KNOW that he's a clown and a loudmouth who doesn't know what he's doing, and thank God, that at least Putin controls him, or who knows what would happen, eh? 

Sorry, scoffers. Trump gets the credit.

It’s amazing what a president can accomplish when he stands on his feet instead of his knees. 

As James Woods pointed out, Trump will deserve the Nobel Peace Prize if this goes off, but they’ll probably give it to Kim Jong Un, because, well it’s Donald Trump, and they can’t even... 

I’m betting Iran begins to get much more reasonable sometime soon. 

The Future is Stranger Than We Can Imagine

On screen: Bill Cosby retrial verdict: Guilty on all 3 counts of aggravated indecent assault

Imagine if you could time travel back to about 1985 or so and tell people:

I have seen the future, and in it:

•  Olympic decathlon gold medalist Bruce Jenner will become a male-to-female transexual
• OJ Simpson will kill his estranged wife and someone who just happened to be with her with a knife, and get away with it. Sometime after, he'll be convicted of armed robbery to steal back his own memorabilia and go to prison for eight years. 
• Donald Trump will become president of the US 
• Bill Cosby will be convicted of rape.

People would think you were a complete mental case.

Kind of a shame about Cos. He was sort of a childhood hero, until it came out that he was drugging women and raping them.

A quality rant. Not my own.

On screen: Fucking Leftist Bullshit

Kim DuToit is pissed, and I can't argue with him (language alert):

One of Obama’s more telling pronouncements (as opposed to his bald-faced lies) was “Punch back twice as hard.” Well, that’s what I’m going to do in future. I’m not going to let some asshole Leftist get away with behavior that as few as twenty years ago would have been unthinkable to the Left itself. If they attempt to suppress my speech because it’s “hateful” or “hurtful” or “threatening” or any one of their little masquerades which all mean “Shut Up!”, I’m just going to ratchet up the venom quotient.

If they think that I’m “hateful” now, just wait: I haven’t yet begun to hate.

Also this about the most extreme and vocal of the left:

But if the NeverTrumpers irritate me, the pillars of the American Left (academia, the Press, the Democrats and so on) have a different effect. Where before I looked on them with scorn and some amusement — FFS, do they actually believe that bullshit they’re spouting? — I now look on them as I would a rabid dog or a black mamba: they really do believe that crap, and they are that fucking dangerous.

[Emphasis mine]

I'm with him. I think there are a lot of others who are. Maybe the left is overplaying their hand and waking people up. We can only hope.

Read the whole thing, and remember that they're the people that want us all disarmed too.

Girl Boy Scouts? Or is it Boy Girl Scouts?

On screen: Visible in Absence
Links to: Thousands of girls joining boys as Cub Scouts
And just for fun: Girl Scouts slam Boy Scouts' decision to accept girls: 'The Boy Scouts' house is on fire'

It’s been about six months since Boy Scouts decided to give up on their mission and let girls into Boy Scouts. Apparently some Cub packs have decided to start early and get the girls in before the official program start. Sooners, to coin a phrase. Time to see if my opinion has evolved on this.

Nope. The idea hasn’t gotten any better with time.

I've been involved with Scouting as an adult leader for over 20 years. Hilda and I raised two Eagle Scouts. We know the program and have seen how it works. It's been a very good thing for us and our sons (and a shitload of work too). So what about the "girls in Boy Scouts issue"? It's been a while since the announcement, and I've had time to ponder it. What now?

I still think the Boy Scouts executive leadership have lost their fucking minds. I also find it ironic that the leaders of the Girl Scouts have the clearest picture on this issue:

The girls have gotten an enthusiastic welcome from Scout leaders and the boys themselves, he said. Some of the new members are friends the boys recommended, while others are sisters of Scouts. BSA officials have said the changes are aimed, in part, at making things more convenient for busy families, though that notion doesn't sit well with some leaders at the Girl Scouts of the USA.

"To me, a daughter is not a matter of convenience. You've made the choice for your son based on what you thought was best for him, and the daughter should be getting a similar decision. We know facts prove that the Girl Scout program is the better program for the girls and young women we serve," said Patricia Mellor, CEO of the Girl Scouts of the Green and White Mountains, which serves Vermont and New Hampshire.

"I welcome opportunity for girls, but for years, I've been reading the cases and the information coming out from Boy Scouts that their program was specifically designed for boys, only for boys," she said. "I see that they're not changing their programming and wonder why they believe a program designed by men for boys is going to meet the needs of today's girls."

Emphasis mine. First of all, she's right - but only temporarily. The program won't be "designed by men for boys" much longer. I also find the first paragraph above amusing. With a very few exceptions, the idea of girls in the program has gotten far less than an "enthusiastic welcome" from the adults and boys in Scouting that I come in contact with. The key thing, though, is the last sentence above, which I believe Ms. Mellor has wrong ("I see that they're not changing their programming"). I think big changes are coming. Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but Boy Scouting won't be recognizable in a few years. This is how I think it's going to go down. 

1. The national office's promise to not force units to be coed will be broken as soon as the girl cubs start crossing over into Boy Scout troops. Moms who are feminist troublemakers (some redundancy) will make a general nuisance of themselves and claim their daughters are getting a second class experience if they are not right there with the boys, and the national office will cave in and order ALL troops to take both girls and boys.
2. This is going to cause major problems, because, duh, girls and boys are different. For one thing, girls mature sooner. A fifteen year old boy is a slobbering hormone-driven moron. A fifteen year old girl is a young woman. The level of potential distraction is off the charts, to say nothing of the variation in attention span, organization and compliance.
3. Girls mature sooner, part 2: because girls of the same age are more mature, they will begin to take over leadership positions in coed troops. Even if they don't win elections for top positions, they will swell the ranks of appointed ones, and if the boys vote them down, the adults will override the troop's preferences in the name of diversity, or something. They will likely outpace the boys in achievement and rank advancement as well, because they are more mature and organized (again, compared to boys of the same age). This will have the effect of discouraging the boys and and making them second class citizens in their own organization.
4. Organizations tend to like girls more because they are COMPLIANT (again, at least compared to boys). Just like in schools, leaders will eventually like the fact that girls are better at sitting still and listening than boys (go to a troop meeting sometime), and this will have the unintended effect of making the program change to suit the girls and not the boys - just like classrooms. Adult leaders will subtly change the program format to cater to girls and not boys, because boys are just harder to deal with. And that's why it's BOY Scouting to begin with, so the program can be tailored to their learning style and needs, and accommodate the chaos that comes from a room with several dozen boys milling around in it.
5. In today's Scouting units, there are many female adult leaders, and all of the ones I've worked with have been outstanding leaders who buy into the program and do their jobs well. This is because they are there FOR THEIR SONS. When the Cub Scout moms (dads too) start coming into the troops with their daughters, you can count on this changing. They will be interested in how the program serves the girls, because they are looking out for their daughters. This is going to accelerate the problems in items 3 and 4 above.
6. And, the masculine aspects of the Scouting program will begin to be downplayed. I fully expect the outdoor program to get watered down considerably. The outdoors can be uncomfortable and, well, icky. Can't have that.
7. The boys will lose their safe space. Instead of an all-boy environment where they can indulge their crudeness, poor hygiene, immaturity, curiosity and pyromania, they'll have to be on their best behavior. This will take a lot of the fun out of it.
8. The boys and their parents will grow tired of the political correctness that will inevitably come from all of this. When the BSA starts requiring anti-sexism training, we'll know we've arrived.
9. The boys will start to drop out. 
10. One thing that keeps the organization going is long time adult leaders who stay involved after their boys move on. The dedication and experience of these people is invaluable. Many of them (mostly men, but a fair share of women leaders as well) will grow disgusted with all of this and quit volunteering. I can attest to this personally, as I know some of these folks.
11. Boys who need male role models will lose them, and be surrounded by girls and women. This will hurt the boys who need the program, in its intended form, the most.

RE: the last point. Dalrock quotes a single mom in his article:

Since women don’t have to be chivalrous, the mothers of boys are the only ones who can point out that the girls are being petty by invading all male spaces.  In the comments to the article single mother ClaireW laments what girls are taking away from her son:

This is heart breaking to me. As a single mom to a young boy I know he desperately needs strong male role models guiding him. He’s just turned 8, this is the time he needs these men most of all, but now it’s not going to happen. Why can’t the girls have these activities in Girl Scouts? Girls and boys are equal, but that doesn’t mean they are the same. And why would we all want to be?

Emphasis mine again. I promise you there are a very large number of moms who feel exactly like this. I've seen many single moms bring their boys to Scouting because it's the only contact their sons have with adult males. If anyone thinks that all women are on board with this, I assure you they aren't. Many of them are PISSED.

If history tells us anything, it's that boys can only be civilized and mentored into high quality young men BY OTHER MEN. Women have a role, but they cannot finish the job. Only a man can be a male role model. Our society is crippled by young men who have never grown up to be real men because of missing fathers and lack of male mentors and role models. Many either become girls with male parts, or feral pack animals. Take your pick. Society suffers from it tremendously, and ironically, young women will pay the biggest price ("where are all the good men?").

Boy Scouting is no panacea for this problem, but at least the organization was, until recently, fighting the good fight. Now they've been kneecapped. By themselves.

But I'll let the Girl Scouts have the last word (last link above):

"Girl Scouts is the best girl leadership organization in the world, created with and for girls," the organization wrote in the post. "We believe strongly in the importance of the all-girl, girl-led, and girl-friendly environment that Girl Scouts provides, which creates a free space for girls to learn and thrive."

It continued, "The benefit of the single-gender environment has been well-documented by educators, scholars, other girl- and youth-serving organizations, and Girl Scouts and their families. Girl Scouts offers a one-of-a-kind experience for girls with a program tailored specifically to their unique developmental needs."

Well stated, ladies. I couldn't have said it better. Respect for standing on your principles. Change "girl" to "boy" above, and it exactly states my position. Good for the goose, good for the gander. Maybe we could send it to the BOY Scouts to remind them of their purpose.


And if any feminists have somehow found their way here, read to the bottom, and think I'm a sexist monster, my response is this: Piss off, and should you have children, I hope you have nothing but boys. That'll be a bitch of an eye-opener! 

One Does Not Simply Walk into Science

On screen: Puritans and Progressives

I started writing something on IQ and its effect on society and race relations in general, and it kept growing. I’m not sure I’ll post it. But I thought this quote from the Z-Man would serve as an appetizer: 

This is a good place to note that a generation ago, Progressives smugly put Darwin fish on their Subaru. Today, they shake their fist at the “scientific racists” using new finding in genetics to reveal the origins of modern people. Because unity is the promised land, anything that divides people is the work of Satan. It’s why racism is the great bogeyman of the Left. The growing mountain of scientific data revealing the diversity of modern humans, is seen as a gathering storm, threatening the righteous. Science is now Mordor. 

People are different. IQ is part of that. Science is confirming it. Now what? 

NYU Actually Has Some Adults on Staff

On screen: How to Rein In Student Mobs
This too: Long After Protests, Students Shun the University of Missouri

It's nice to see a college that is run by the adults in charge and not the kids. There was a student sit-in to occupy the NYU student center for the usual basket of progressive causes, and they figured they'd get concessions from the admin. They did get a response...

The extent of student fortitude was mapped out in a natural experiment conducted at New York University last week, when students vowed to occupy a student center around the clock (it normally closes at 11 p.m.) until their demands for a meeting with the board of trustees were met. A photo in the Village Voice showed seated students blocking access by taking up most of the space on a stairway. The underlying ideals appeared to be the usual dog’s breakfast of progressive fancies — something about divesting from fossil fuels, and also allegations of unfair labor practices.

NYU administrators showed little patience for the activists disrupting the proceedings at the Kimmel Center for University Life. But how to dissolve the protest? It turned out that there was no need to bring in the police. Ringing up the students’ parents was all it took. The phone calls advised parents that students who interfered with campus functions could be suspended, and that suspensions can carry penalties of revoked financial aid or housing. The students “initially planned to stay indefinitely,” notes the Voice’s report. “Instead, the students departed within forty hours.”

Emphasis mine. Forty hours seems a bit long to allow a mob to linger, but otherwise, I approve. Further:

Flustered NYU students, unfamiliar with the proposition that open hostility to the university could be repaid in kind, reeled. A Puerto Rican student, Carlos Matos, told the Voice he didn’t expect administrators to call his father on him. “I don’t believe it is appropriate for NYU to use emergency contacts in this way,” he said.

NYU spokesman John Beckman told the paper that the tactic used by the school was “in line with our long-standing practice.” He insisted that the administration did not “threaten students about their housing or other financial aid, but it is simply the case that certain possible disciplinary outcomes — such as suspension — would have an impact on those matters.”

I suppose Beckman and I will have to agree to disagree on whether to inform a parent, “If your son doesn’t vacate the premises, it might blow up his financial aid” constitutes a threat. The point is: It worked! Order returned, unimpeded access to the student hangout was restored, and students were generously freed from their monotonous sit-in and pointed back in the general direction of the classroom.

Again, emphasis mine. In other words, "nice college experience you're having - it would be a shame if anything were to happen to it".

You'd have to have a heart of stone to not laugh at this. But maybe the people in charge have been paying attention to what's been going on at Mizzou (second link):

Freshman enrollment at the Columbia campus, the system’s flagship, has fallen by more than 35 percent in the two years since.

The university administration acknowledges that the main reason is a backlash from the events of 2015, as the campus has been shunned by students and families put off by, depending on their viewpoint, a culture of racism or one where protesters run amok.

Before the protests, the university, fondly known as Mizzou, was experiencing steady growth and building new dormitories. Now, with budget cuts due to lost tuition and a decline in state funding, the university is temporarily closing seven dormitories and cutting more than 400 positions, including those of some nontenured faculty members, through layoffs and by leaving open jobs unfilled.

Few areas have been spared: The library is even begging for books.

I'm amused by this article, because it appears to emphasize the idea that minority students are staying away in droves because of racism or something. But the numbers don't lie. 

Students of all races have shunned Missouri, but the drop in freshman enrollment last fall was strikingly higher among blacks, at 42 percent, than among whites, at 21 percent. (A racial breakdown was not yet available for this fall’s freshman class.)

Black students were already a small minority. They made up 10 percent of the freshman class in 2012, a proportion that fell to just 6 percent last fall.

In other words, look to the 90% for the actual story. The drop in enrollment is almost entirely due to normal families (all races) who don't want to send their kids into a place where social justice nonsense threatens their kids' education, freedom of speech and, quite likely, their physical safety. 

If nothing else, the admins and students at NYU may have taught the rest of academia a potent lesson in how the real world works. 

Yo, New Theme, Yo.

It's different. Earthy. Crude. In an elegant sort of way.

Update: and it has birbs. 

Xe Puts the Lotion on Xir Skin...

... or else xe gets the hose again.

On screen: He says freedom, they say hate. The pronoun fight is back

Jame Gumb: gender-neutral pronoun pioneer

Ever wonder whether the the whole gender ambiguity issue, with its special pronouns and men in the ladies room, is really less about advocating for the rights and respect of a tiny minority of people, and more about annoying, manipulating and humiliating normal people? Jordon Peterson certainly has: 

Peterson has continued to state publicly he won’t use non-gendered pronouns — especially ones that have been created like “ze” and “zir” — which he said “compel the use of a particular kind of ideological language.”

“For me, personally, that’s the sticking point,” Peterson told the Star in a December interview in his west-end home. “I think that’s dangerous language. I don’t trust the people who formulated it. And I’m not going to be their mouthpiece because I know what they’re like.

“They’re power-mad people who use compassion as a disguise.”

(Emphasis mine)

Let's do some math to see what the picture really is, because the media and leftists (redundancy alert) would have you think the victims are everywhere. An internet search will yield more surveys and studies on the topic than you can digest, but after a dozen or so, the numbers start to converge. I won't link to all of them, but this one is pretty typical. 

Approximately 95% of Americans are straight, which means that 1) they believe in binary male/female gender 2) identify their gender with their genitalia and 3) are sexually attracted to people with the opposite genitalia. I'll call these people "normal", because, well, they are. A characteristic shared by 95% of ANY population is considered the norm in any reasonable context. 

Figures for homosexuals vary depending on methods and how they count bisexuals, but 4% looks like a good average. Overwhelmingly, gay and lesbian people match straight people in characteristics 1 and 2. They differ in the third, as they are attracted to people who have the same genitalia. Gay men, for instance, have male parts, consider themselves to be men, and like men.

For those keeping score, the ratio of binary to non-binary gender folks is 99-0 so far.

Surveys vary on the transgender population, but for this exercise, we'll round it to .5%, and assume that the whole of that group is genuinely gender dysphoric. These people are as gender-binary as straight people, because they are convinced that 1) there's only male and female and 2) they were born in the body of the wrong one. They came out wearing the wrong team's uniform, as it were. My own exposure to to transgender people is that they want nothing more than to be thought of and addressed as the gender they identify with. So, for example, no male to female transsexual would dream of going into a female bathroom or locker room and exposing themselves as a biological male, or wish to be addressed as anything other than "her" or "she".

For the record, in case anyone thinks I'm transphobic: I believe this condition is real, rare and often tragic. I wish every transgender person success in their transition, and peace and happiness at every stage of their journey.

We're now at 99.5% of the population who believe there's male and female, and know what side they're on. When you have that kind of consensus, society doesn't really have a problem. So why are we being told there is one? What's special about the last .5%?

The other half of a percent is made up of

• Asexuals
• Gender-queer (whatever the hell that means)
• Gender fluid (make up your minds) 
• Pains in the ass
• Drama queens
• Rounding error

Note: some overlap between categories. 

This .5% are the ones jerking the rest of us around. Their voices are amplified somewhat by the LGBT folks, who see them as fellow travelers, and side with them because normal folks haven't always treated any of them with respect. But if pressed on the issue, they'd probably admit they don't agree with the non-binary folks on most issues.

But the real problem is with progressives, who see this as yet another way to piss off the normals, and exercise power over them. Their goal is to make everyone speak and think total lies as though they were the truth, because that's the ultimate power to have over anyone. They're halfway there if they can force you to address people as "xe" or "zir" and threaten your freedom and livelihood if you don't. If you have that power, you can force them to do anything. Orwell knew, and tried to warn us: 

“He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother”

And that's what it's all about. Jordon Peterson is smart enough to recognize it and ornery enough to call it out for the bullshit that it is. The thing is, that bullshit is on the heel of the boot that would stamp on your face forever. Don't let it.

Working From Home (Mostly) Kicks Ass

On screen: 5 varieties of remote working in companies

I went up to my office cubicle yesterday to retrieve a personal monitor I had there, and decided to bring a bunch of my other stuff home with me. I'll get the rest over the coming week or two. It's time to move out. I don't work there anymore. My trips to the actual office have gotten so infrequent that they've become non-existent. There's no sense in pretending I have a workplace there. I've been a de facto remote worker for a long time. Might as well make it official. 

My real office

Note - working from home is not like this: 

 

Or this:  

 

It's more like this:

I started working from home about four years ago, after a medical incident. It didn't take long to realize that I should have been doing it long before. If there's one thing good about what happened to me, it's that it blunted all management resistance to me doing it for an extended period, and after a year of success at it, there simply wasn't any management resistance at all.

I had proposed it to my managers as a part-time thing a couple of years before, but they rejected it. They said that they wanted us to be visible to the customer. My mistake was asking permission: there were plenty of people who never came in, working remotely discreetly. Ironically, my principle customer contact had her office about 100 feet from my desk, and we never saw each other. She was always busy with her door closed, and instant messenger and phone worked out fine for our interactions. So every day I would drive to the office, spend all day facing my my computer screen, talking to my client and team over conference calls and instant messenger. Why not do that from somewhere more convenient?

It makes sense. I'm a software architect and Agile team coach. I'm in OKC. My team is remote, much of it in India. My closest US associates are in the New York area. My HR manager is in New Jersey, my operational manager is in North Carolina, and my client is in Florida (with a small group left here in OKC). In the linked article, our team is closest to "4 - a world wide remote team spread across numerous time zones". And, as it turns out, the customer's own changes to their office locations means that all of my US team works from home offices now.

My arrangement obviously won't work for every job, particularly those in retail, trades or manufacturing. Still, in an internet world, there are many jobs that do fit this model really well, and more employers need to investigate it. Here's an example of why:

To get a good job, knowledge workers still have to live in even larger cities where pollution, over-population, traffic, and cost of living are all increasingly (de)pressing issues. The rising cost of living — particularly for housing — in urban centers like New York, Beijing, London, and San Francisco mean that many people can’t afford a good quality of life. To add insult to injury, it’s not uncommon to spend over 2 hours a day just traveling to and from work. In an article called A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 AM, the New York Times chronicled the brutal commute of one San Francisco office worker who could no longer afford to live anywhere near her workplace.

And an added benefit:

As remote-first work becomes more and more common, people like Enric can choose to stay in their hometowns without giving up access to fulfilling, stable jobs. In that way, remote work has the potential to keep dollars and young people in communities and countries that have been left behind in the information age. A more equal geographic distribution of wealth would have widespread political, economic, and social impacts that we can only begin to imagine.

I can live anywhere I want, as long as a decent airport is within driving distance. And that means big savings from living in a lower cost-of-living location, as well as the little stuff: Working from home can save you thousands of dollars every year

A lot of businesses and managers are uncomfortable with remote work, but I believe this is the direction that the knowledge workforce is heading, and they need to adapt. I suspect we'll see a lot of corporate downsizing in office space, as they realize how expensive it is to maintain a matrix-like environment to house teams that really don't need to be there. I know that I don't want to go back.

I'll close with some personal observations on remote work:

1. I've never put in so many hours as I have in the last four years.
2. Some people may like to work in pajamas or gym clothes, but I hate it. I try to get cleaned up and dressed as early as possible, before the workday gets really going.
3. Establishing boundaries on your work hours can be tough, and I haven't mastered it yet (nor have my managers). Being connected and having your workspace RIGHT THERE is a terrible temptation for all parties. 
4. Even worse is when you stay connected on your iOS devices as well. I have to force myself to leave e-mails unanswered at bedtime, and remind myself that just because someone on my team has decided to work after 10 PM, it doesn't mean that I have to also. 
5. But it's nice to be able to pick when you want to work. I do some things in the evening because I know I'll be less interrupted then. 
6. Early morning conference calls are a fact of life with offshore teams. It's nice to eliminate the commute before or after them. 
7. By the way - that time you save by not commuting? You're probably working during that time.
8. You also can use time during the day for personal obligations when needed, because you can stay connected, or make the time up later.
9. It's nice to be able to pick up your laptop or tablet and head elsewhere, and know you can stay available if you need to. Staying on the job does not mean staying in one place. 
10. I have no guilt in taking a DOOM or web-surfing break in the middle of the afternoon, because I frequently get pulled into something that keeps me at my desk until 7 or 8 in the evening. They'll get their hours. 
11. Your time is your own, but you have to manage it - or it'll manage you. 
12. Having a home office makes you more willing to invest in nice gear, like an ultrawide monitor or high-end desktop speakers. I wouldn't buy anything like that and leave it at the office.
13. Remote connection, screen sharing and conference tools are actually better than gathering everyone around a screen in person. 
14. Conference calls can be unproductive, though, because you can't tell if people are engaged or not. 
15. Webcams are overrated. But it's sometimes nice to be able to see people's faces. Teams have to work this sort of thing out. 
16. Face-to-face interaction is still critical, which is why I like to be at my client's site every month or two. But that's usually enough: once the relationship is established and nourished in person occasionally, things work out just fine over the phone and teleconference. You don't need to see your team or customer every day.
17. Agile is a challenge in this environment, because a lot of the team communication protocols are intended for small groups working face to face. 
18. Introverted people are probably more suited to this arrangement. It would drive some people crazy, so it isn't for everyone. 
19. Those times when you are giving a web presentation to a bunch of important people on the client side? That's when the dog is absolutely, positively, going to wet his pants if you don't get up and deal with him right that freaking second.

Expulsion is How Adults Would Handle This...

On screen: Organized Heckling at CUNY School of Law of Prof. Josh Blackman Talk on Free Speech

... but adults in leadership positions at our universities are in short supply:

The protest, I think, shows a narrow-mindedness on the students' part, and an unwillingness to listen to substantive argument. But the heckling, which seems like an organized attempt to keep Blackman from speaking, is something much worse -- something that universities ought to punish, and that I would think many universities would indeed punish, at least in other situations. (The protesters' standing on the same stage as the speaker, I think, would also not be tolerated for other events; leaving the podium to the speaker and other invited panel members is, I think, the standard content-neutral practice in such cases.)

Heckling and de-platforming anyone you disagree with is the height of immaturity and ignorance. The students taking part in this activity need to be expelled after (maybe) one warning.

It's a shame the adults in academia are barely more grown up than the students.

Update: same day, second article:  Black conservative shouted down for speaking ‘against own people’

In one case, after questioning Owens on his views of police brutality and the school-to-prison pipeline, both of which are issues Owens deals with in his work with the One Heart Project, the audience member proceeded to ask him “what was your name again?”
“Burgess Owens,” he replied, to which the student commented that she “thought it was Tom,” in reference to Uncle Tom, before storming out of the auditorium while Owens quipped that “there goes our biggest problem.”

“The minute you start calling names, you’ve already stopped the debate,” he continued. “You’re not looking for answers. You’re looking for ways of insulting, and that’s not how Americans do it.”

The next questioner proceeded to aggressively rip the microphone from the moderator’s hands, shouting at him while he attempted to hold on to it. 

“I had the mic. You took the mic away from me. I’m talking. I’m asking a question,” the student complained as other demonstrators loudly backed him up.

He then proceeded to condemn Student Affairs for going “two-for-two” on bringing “xenophobic” people to campus who apparently speak against their own beliefs, saying that in addition to Owens, a Muslim woman came to campus and spoke “against her Islamic beliefs.”

When the moderator attempted to interrupt the student’s rant, the audience began shouting him down, with one woman screaming “let him finish!”

Owens attempted to address the audience member, but was repeatedly interrupted as the student protested that the mic was taken away from him. 

Such charming people. Employers should definitely hire them.

Not in My Back Yard, Hell No

On screen:  How about housing some homeless in your backyard?

Since the good people of California don't seem to have a problem with them camping on the sidewalk and shitting in the streets, I can't see that they would have any issues with this:

But this is California and more specifically, Los Angeles. So, local government is moving ahead with a plan to move some of the county’s exploding homeless populations off the streets and — wait for it — into your backyard.

The idea is to build little homes or large huts, depending on your scale, in the backyard of willing homeowners. A kind of YIMBY — Yes In My Backyard.

According to the county’s pilot program, rents to homeowners would be covered by government low-income housing vouchers with homeless tenants contributing 30 percent of their income, assuming they have some. If they don’t, well, who are you to question the wisdom of well-intentioned government spending more of your money to fix an intractable problem?

 How big of a mess is this? This big:

They’re already launching design competitions and exploring low-cost construction materials and financing options. LA voters previously okayed taxing themselves $4.6 billion (as in $4,600,000,000) to build homeless housing.

While the newest proposed solution is very la-la-land, the county’s homeless predicament is very real — an estimated 58,000 people living on the streets, in cars, tents and lean-to’s. Downtown residents walk out of their high-priced condos to wade through garbage, cardboard beds and human waste.

For a while some mayors placed portable toilets downtown, but they were removed after becoming sites for stand-up prostitution.

Emphasis mine. Also, Eww eww eww....

Hey, look, I don't have a solution for this, aside from reinstating a mental hospital system and rounding them up (most of them are druggies or crazy). Personally, I'll take a hard pass on the homeless hut in the back yard. Apparently most Angelinos feel the same:

To gauge interest in the idea, the county reached out to 500 homeowners. Less than one-in-five expressed interest. County officials pronounced that overwhelming. So, as you can see, the program is moving ahead, whether it’s realistic or not.

California always sets an example for the country. Whether it's a good example is open to debate. 

Invasion by Invitation

On screen: The Insanity of Open Borders

Bruce Bawer’s on to something here:

But facts are facts. Look through the State Department reports on the hundred or so poorest countries in the world and read a few at random, and you'll soon recognize that inviting their citizens to move next door to you is to put out the welcome mat for people to whom the world is a far different place than it is to you: a place marked by murderous hatreds between tribal and religious groups; a place where virtually every economic transaction involves some kind of corruption; a place where men take for granted their right to brutally abuse their wives and children; a place where due process is unheard of, where police officers and soldiers can beat, torture, and even kill with impunity, and where judges know nothing of justice; a place where sanitation and medical care are primitive; and a place where the rare soul who refuses to cheat and steal on a daily basis is not viewed as a paragon of virtue but as a fool.

Now, people can be easily removed from such cultures, but they cannot easily be liberated from what those cultures have done to them. Some people living under tyranny and barbarism genuinely long for honest employment and for freedom, and have skills and work ethics that would be of value to any country; surely a reliable way should be found to identify such persons and give them a new life. But most people from such places are hard-wired with that tyranny and barbarism, and take it with them wherever they go.

Everybody wants to come to America. But if we let them, it won’t be America any more. A nation is its people. If you replace Americans with someone else, we become something else. An invasion does not require soldiers in military formation.

Say it with me again: Culture Matters.

And as a reminder, remember this:

Speaking of New Year's Eve: recall what happened in Cologne and other cities on New Year's Eve 2015-16, when thousands of ethnic German women were sexually assaulted by foreigners – most of them part of the nearly one million-strong flood of so-called refugees whom Angela Merkel had allowed into the country during the previous year. In these New Year's Eve incidents, civilization, of which such large-scale, peaceful celebratory events form an integral part, was instantly reduced to savagery.

The Germans have lost their fucking minds, along with most of Europe. We’d best keep our wits about us before the shit-for-brains “open borders” advocates allow it to happen here.