If I Had A Nickel Every Time

That a Transi committed a mass shooting in quite recent times, then I'd have 9 nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's rather weird that it's happened 9 times.

Since all of 1% if the US population self-identifies as trans (whether they actually are or not, and the methodology to get to that amount is rather suspect), they certainly are having a disproportionate showing in school shooting rankings.

Then again as Trans is practically by definition an indication of being mentally unwell, even as the woke and politically correct have removed it as a diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder this is likely not a huge surprise to most.

Oh, and boy did the New York Times really bury the lede on this one: 

The suspect: The authorities identified the attacker as Robin Westman, a 23-year-old who they believe was a former student at the school. The shooter was armed with three guns, all of which had been legally purchased. 

No mention the shooter was trans at all. Funny, that. And no idea of the motive, of course  -- even as they have the bat rastard's manifesto.

A Modest Proposal For Taiwan

Taiwan needs to learn from others how to get recognized as an independent state.

In order to get recognition from Canada, France, the United Kingdom and Australia, all of whom do not currently recognize Taiwan, it just needs to do the following:

Invade China, sack and burn the cities of Quanzhou, Putian, and Fuzhou, kill 177,600 mainland Chinese, and take 37,000 mainland Chinese as hostages to achieve the appropriate population ratio needed to get such recognition and then not surrender under any circumstances after China responds.

This seems to be the required process needed in order to get  Canada, France, the United Kingdom and Australia to grant recognition for Taiwan as an independent state, as that seems to be their current criteria for such recognition of states.

Good luck Taiwan!  

Some Internet Self-Defense Myths Refuse To Die

 

Saw this gem on Facebook yet again today.

If you don't have a gun, and even if you do, here's a way to wreck someone's evil plans for you. Did you know this? I didn't. I never really thought of it before. I guess I can get rid of the baseball bat. 

Wasp Spray -- A friend who is a receptionist in a church in a high risk area was concerned about someone coming into the office on Monday to rob them when they were counting the collection. She asked the local police department about using pepper spray and they recommended to her that she get a can of wasp spray instead. 

The wasp spray, they told her, can shoot up to twenty feet away and is a lot more accurate, while with the pepper spray, they have to get too close to you and could overpower you. The wasp spray temporarily blinds an attacker until they get to the hospital for an antidote. She keeps a can on her desk in the office and it doesn't attract attention from people like a can of pepper spray would. She also keeps one nearby at home for home protection. Thought this was interesting and might be of use. 

On the heels of a break in and beating that left an elderly woman in Toledo dead, self defense experts have a tip that could save your life. 

Val Glinka teaches self-defense to students at Sylvania Southview High School . For decades, he's suggested putting a can of wasp and hornet spray near your door or bed. 

Glinka says, "This is better than anything I can teach them." 

Glinka considers it inexpensive, easy to find, and more effective than mace or pepper spray. The cans typically shoot 20 feet; so if someone tries to break into your home, Glinka says "spray the culprit in the eyes". It's a tip he's given to students for decades. 

It's also one he wants everyone to hear If you're looking for protection, Glinka says look to the spray. "That's going to give you a chance to call the police; maybe get out." Maybe even save a life.

Please share this with all the people who are precious to your life. 

Did you also know that wasp spray will kill a snake? And a mouse! It will! Good to know, huh? It will also kill a wasp!!!
And best of all, immobilize a human.

No, no, it really will not.

 

Wasp spray is not an effective stopper against people, it does not quickly incapacitate people. 

It is not in any way as effective as pepper spray.

On top of that, it’s actually illegal to intentionally spray people with it. Whether you would actually get charged for it is an open question, assuming you survive the beat down by the now really annoyed person you just sprayed with it to even get charged.

This is, unfortunately, an internet myth that refuses to die. 

Most likely Val Glinka doesn’t exist or if Val actually does, Val. I'm reasonably sure, doesn’t teach high schoolers at a flipping high school to hit people with wasp spray for self-defense. 

 

 Now, if Val actually does do that, that's quite the commentary on teacher qualification in the school system these days.

Such A Good Thing That You Can't Legally Carry In A Hospital In Michigan

Because such prohibition clearly stops people intent on murder from carrying a firearm in there.

Or really not. 

WXYZ Detroit:  Suspect in deadly Henry Ford Hospital shooting now in custody, police say

The Detroit News: Police: Suspect in fatal shooting at Detroit's Henry Ford Hospital in custody

Yep, that prohibition worked so well that the SOB who is the focus of the story was able to waltz right into the hospital, make his way to the basement of the hospital, shoot and kill his ex-wife who worked there, and waltz on out without being intercepted and then drove away not being caught (or possibly he turned himself in - reports differ) until 12 hours after the fact

So, the ex-wife, who had twice applied for PPOs against him after he committed various hostile acts including running her off the road (first application denied, second one granted but not served) was not allowed to be armed.  It would have been illegal for her to carry at the hospital, even as she had an extremely violent ex who had demonstrated time and again that he was a major and quite dangerous threat to her.

We will note that PPO in this case sadly, yet again, stands for Paper, Piece Of.

PPOs are a useful step to document a threat against you and get the police to hopefully take the situation more seriously.  They may even cause some Mope who doesn't get that No means No to leave you alone. Then again, they may not. Against someone clearly bent on harming you, they are of extremely limited effectiveness, as is a no-carry zone. 

The prohibition on carrying in a hospital disarmed the victim only in this case, the SOB simply ignored it, along with a host of other applicable laws.

The SOB in question was also a convicted felon with previous convictions for both arson and aggravated stalking and various probation violations. 

So legally he was: 1. Not allowed to even possess the firearm that he used to kill his ex-wife; 2. Not allowed to enter the hospital with it; and, of course, 3.  Not allowed to kill her with it.

On top of that, given the impressive lack of security at the hospital, the SOB did not even need a firearm to murder his ex.  

Quite A Scientific And Twisted Concept Of Morality

There is nothing worse than someone advocating  doing something to others, against their will, on the basis that doing so is moral.

 

You can certainly twist ethics and morality around to make atrocities become moral imperatives to suit your own worldview.

 

A couple scientists are proposing to do just that in a paper published in the scholarly journal  Bioethics.

 

With a straight series of keystrokes, if not a straight face, the authors Parker Crutchfield and Blake Heret in their article Beneficial Bloodsucking  propose that infecting Americans with  alpha-gal syndrome (AGS), a condition caused by the bite of the lone star tick whose only effect is the creation of a severe but nonfatal red meat allergy would be not just good to do but should be required - because it is morally right, of course.

 

This is, per their world view, that as (per them) eating red meat is morally bad therefore a means to stop it, even if it is literally biological warfare, is not just good, but morally obligatory: 

The bite of the lone star tick spreads alpha-gal syndrome (AGS), a condition whose only effect is the creation of a severe but nonfatal red meat allergy. Public health departments warn against lone star ticks and AGS, and scientists are working to develop an inoculation to AGS. Herein, we argue that if eating meat is morally impermissible, then efforts to prevent the spread of tickborne AGS are also morally impermissible. After explaining the symptoms of AGS and how they are transmitted via ticks, we argue that tickborne AGS is a moral bioenhancer if and when it motivates people to stop eating meat. We then defend what we call the Convergence Argument: If x-ing prevents the world from becoming a significantly worse place, doesn't violate anyone's rights, and promotes virtuous action or character, then x-ing is strongly pro tanto obligatory; promoting tickborne AGS satisfies each of these conditions. Therefore, promoting tickborne AGS is strongly pro tanto obligatory. It is presently feasible to genetically edit the disease-carrying capacity of ticks. If this practice can be applied to ticks carrying AGS, then promoting the proliferation of tickborne AGS is morally obligatory.

The problem is the underlying assumptions of morality in the Convergence Argument and its “if -- then” statement.

 

Under that sort of logic, anything is permissible, if not mandatory, so long as the person making the statement deems it to be morally required. Note especially how they hand-wave away infecting people with a biological agent to stop them form eating red meat is not considered to violate anyone's rights.

 

C.S.  Lewis really knew what he was talking about when he wrote:

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”

― C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)

 

Yes, this is a published scientific paper advocating people be "cured" by being infected with an allergy in order to achieve the stated desired end to get people to stop eating red meat – for the best and most moral reasons, of course.

Ok, Who Had

From Walmart, no less.

LiveScience: FDA issues warning over possible radioactive shrimp

 The FDA is warning consumers not to eat certain frozen shrimp products sold at Walmart after other products from the same company tested positive for a radioactive substance  

The bad shrimp was imported by PT. Bahari Makmur Sejati aka BMS Foods. 

While at least one shipment contaminated with cesium-137 was caught upon insoection, the FDA is warning people not to eat BMS shrimp they may have bought from Walmart at this time.

Nope, I did not have Radioactive Indonesian Shrimp on my list of concerns for August, but  "Radioactive Indonesian Shrimp" would make a great name for a midget heavy metal band.

Yet Another Reason To Appreciate Being American

You can actually defend yourself if attacked.

Unlike say, Australia, where you can be criminally charged for pepper-spraying someone who is in the act of breaking into your home. 

 Not The Bee:  Australian man criminally charged for stopping home invader with pepper spray

 Yes, really.

Compare to a similar situation in the US but with a much happier ending for the victim in the home, in Illinois of all places:  

Daily Mail: Mom hid her baby in closet then shot and killed burglar who broke into her home in peaceful suburb late at night

The Anglosphere seems to be swiftly shrinking away from what it once was. 

A Not So Peaceful Hood, That

An event entitled "Peace in The Hood" was held in Boynton Beach, Florida.

So of course this event promoting peace was disrupted by a shooting with 4 victims and others injured in the ensuing panic.

25WPBF: Fourth suspect arrested in 'Peace in the Hood' shooting

Hardly unexpected event, that.

Carousel Acres And A Kid's Birthday

Leah's birthday celebration began, as it should, with a cherry cheesecake.  Then presents, then we piled in the car.

For Leah's birthday we took her to a petting zoo, Carousel Acres, to get some animal time in. While now a full-on young adult, she still loves hanging out with animals.

Quite an array of animals are at Carousel Acres, most are rescues and there's quite a variety.

What happens when a Donkey and a Zebra love each other very much? 

You get a Z-Donk.  I did not realize you could get a donkey/Zebra hybrid but indeed you can, and here it is.

The Z-Donk:

Certainly not a typical looking animal. Rather calm and enjoyed the kids brushing her out.

We then went to the parakeets.  The parakeets, after we entered their facility decided to swarm us like a scene from The Birds (the bird seed in our hands didn't hurt).

 

 

Much fun.  Having birds flocking to your hand and calming standing on it to eat is rather fun.

 There were reindeer (No grandmas were run over in the taking of this picture).

 There were also lots of goats to pet. Goats do indeed enjoy a good petting, and compete with each other for attention and a turn.

 

Bunnies also got pets. And there were many other animals to see, including kangaroos, wallabys, kookaburras, horses, and even pigs sloshing in the mud.

Lots of fun was had.

Then we went to a celebratory lunch at Guernsey Dairy in Northville - they have the best fried chicken anywhere and about 50 flavors of ice cream to choose from  - all made right there at the dairy. 

It was an excellent birthday celebration.