Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Things are not always what they seem.

There was an article in Sky News about large numbers of young people seeking to reverse their decision to "transgender" themselves. Turns out changing their gender didn't make them as happy as they were promised it would do. Maybe their gender wasn't the problem.

My father was an alcoholic, as am I. Neither of us never lost our family or career, but we drank and lost our sense of self. When my father got sober and, nine years later I did likewise, I found out that feelings are often not what they seem.

My Dad and I both suffered from a great deal of anger. We did not beat our wives or anything like that. I got in bar fights for a while, but that phase didn't last long. But anger was always there for both of us. Anger management courses did nothing. You know that thing about expressing or "ventilating" your anger? Not only didn't work, it made things worse.

Then one time after I'd been sober a while I was talking with a psychologist about depression. This was not treatment, we were just chatting socially. He commented that I would never describe myself as depressed even if I was. I said that would be dangerous, to be depressed and not know it. I remember his response word for word. "Oh, no, you would manifest it as anger."

That social conversation started me on a journey. Was my anger actually something else manifested as anger? The answer, of course, turned out to be not just "yes," but "oh hell yes."

It wasn't depression as it turns out. What it was is not really pertinent to my point. I no longer have to deal with anger, though and I never actually dealt with anger. I worked until I found out what my problem was, I dealt with that problem, and the anger melted away.

How many of these poor lost souls who "transgender" would be saved a lot of pain if they had the good fortune to run across someone who helped them find out that the nature of their sexual organs was not what was causing them to feel weird?

Monday, October 21, 2019

What Kind of Star?, Take 2

Melvin Gordon wanted to be paid $13 million per year to be a running back for the Los Angeles Chargers. He carried the ball 16 times this past weekend, for 32 yards. At his desired pay rate he would be getting paid $25,390.63 per yard.

He ran twice from the one-yard line, gained zero yards and fumbled the ball once. I have no idea how to calculate the pay rate for that.

Thursday, October 17, 2019

What Kind of Star?

In reporting her endorsement of Bernie Sanders, NBC News anchor Lester Holt referred to Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez as a "Democratic rising star." Abandon hope all ye who are members of the Democratic Party.

Friday, October 11, 2019

Voodoo Economics Again

Dean Baker is back at it again with his insane theories about the reason and need for taxes. He tells us again yesterday that, “the federal government doesn’t need revenue to spend, it prints money.”

You don’t need income when you can print money. The deficit and federal debt are meaningless, which would lead a person with an IQ higher than room temperature to wonder why we keep track of that debt, and why Congress imposes spending limits.

Adding to the spending limit mystery, of course, is that every time we reach that limit Congress raises it, which would lead a thinking person to wonder why it exists. Not to worry, though, as there aren’t any thinking persons in this nation.

So why do we have taxes? We have them, according to Dean Baker, “to reduce consumption, so as to create the economic space for spending.”

Okay, think about that for a moment. No one does, because thinking is extinct in this nation. Taxes exist purely to prevent you from spending your own money on what you want to buy, which is what “consumption” is, so as to “create economic space for spending.”

Spending by whom? They are taking money from us to prevent us from spending it in order to “create space for spending.” How is that anything more than mere gibberish?

And, if Baker’s argument is valid, why are all of the Democratic candidates talking about the new forms of taxes they are going to create, given that today’s problem is an inability to keep inflation up to the target of 2% as desired by the Federal Reserve, and that the purpose of taxes is to hold down inflation?