Archive for December, 2023

Litmus Testa, Keeping the Base Happy, Dead American Hostages Wrong Perps, The choice of Agonies, and the Real Danger to California is Ohtani Under The Fedora

Posted: December 24, 2023 by datechguy in baseball, Israel, Israel vs Hamas, middle east, under the fedora
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Q: How can you tell if President Trump has a Chance of winning a state with a Democrat Governor?

A: If said governor publicly opposes the move in Colorado, odds are Trump would have zero chance of carrying their state.

Although in fairness in Gavin Newsom’s case, the voting process in California is so corrupt that even if Trump was polling in the 60’s the chances of him winning would be under 50-50

RFK Jr. has been denied Secret Service Protection for the 3rd time by the Biden Administration, or whoever is actually making those decisions in the administration.

I suspect that it’s a question of keeping the left’s violent base happy because after this video

They would be really pissed if old Joe didn’t let them get a crack at him.

Oh and we’ve had the first American Hostage held by Hamas who has died offically

Biden was in office when American Hostages were taken once before but neither those hostages nor the dozens of Americans killed by Hamas on Oct 7th are newsworthy to the left or a source of outrage for the Media/left.

Of course for the left/media American lives don’t matter unless their deaths can be blamed on the right people do they?

It hit me today that I have a few Jewish relatives as one of my nephews married a nice Jewish girl and have a fair sized family.

Haven’t seen him in years and the kids are now grown but I’m hoping they aren’t getting trouble where they are. 

Of course if anyone decided to harm any of them the real question would not be what would happen to such people, it would be a question of which grandparent on my nephew’s side would take vengeance, the special forces one or the Sicilian one. I suspect the special forces one would be quicker but the Sicilian one would be more memorable and lasting.

As a devout Catholic I of course could not condone either but if it did happen the Sicilian in me would be nodding. Personally I don’t think vengeance is worth losing one’s soul over.

And finally on a financial note a lot of folks in LA are celebrating the signing of Ohtani to his $700 million dollar deal but I suspect the folks in Sacramento are horrified at the deal’s structure because of the precedent it might set:

Ohtani this month agreed to play for the Dodgers for a decade at $70 million per season, but from 2024-33, he’ll draw just $2 million per season. Ohtani is deferring $680 million — more than 97 percent of his earnings — until after his 10-year deal with the Dodgers expires, when that money comes back to him in equal annual payments from 2034-43.

When Ohtani receives the bulk of the money, he’ll no longer be under contract with the Dodgers; experts say that the structure of the contract appears likely to save Ohtani between $90 and $100 million in state taxes, so long as he lives outside of California when the deferred money is paid out.

Another key component in potential tax savings is how he has timed the deferral payments, spanning a decade. A 1996 federal law forbids states from taxing retirement income on out-of-state residents when payments are made in “substantially equal periodic” amounts over at least 10 years

Athletes playing on California teams are the one set of millionaires not in a position to leave the state, but if they go the Ohtani route, not only will they wisely have funds to live on when their playing days are done but will keep the state from taking the bulk of their cash when they do.

Couldn’t happen to a nicer state.

Blocking military nominations is bipartisan

Posted: December 23, 2023 by navygrade36bureaucrat in Uncategorized
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Senator Tuberville is 100% correct to be concerned that the DoD is spending taxpayer money, in violation of the law, to allow women birthing people to travel across state lines to pursue an abortion.

Sadly, he recently caved from RINO pressure on this point. If you don’t know history you’d think it was only the eeeevil Republicans that stopped nominations. And you’d be wrong.

What about Democrat Senator Tammy Duckworth, blocking over 1,000 promotions in 2020? Why is that conveniently left out of every article?

Or the curious case of Democrat Senator Claire McCaskill blocking General Susan Helms, an Obama nominee, from her fourth star? General Helms was a female astronaut and selected to be the vice commander of Air Force Space Command. Senator McCaskill didn’t like that General Helms overturned a sexual assault charge on an appeal, so she simply blocked the general until she retired.

Now, personally I think Susan Helms made the right call and overturned a case that was lacking evidence. But Senator McCaskill was on a “believe all women claiming sexual assault” intifada, so that was never going to fly. Susan Helms was more than qualified to lead Space Command, but politics got in the way. That is Senator McCaskill’s right to do so. My issue is that if I search for “senator blocked nomination,” every link on Google is about Tuberville. Even adding “Democrat” and “2013” to my search doesn’t bring up McCaskill’s blocked nomination. I just happen to remember it at the time, and was able to dig it back up.

I don’t want to hear anymore about Senator’s “playing politics” with military nominations until I see references to Claire McCaskill and Tammy Duckworth at the end of those articles.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

The Single Most Important Bit of the Douglas Murray Cenk Uygur Bit

Posted: December 23, 2023 by datechguy in Israel vs Hamas, middle east
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There are plenty of stories in conservative media celebrating Douglas Murray taking apart Cenk Uygur in their discussion on the Israel/Hamas war (and full credit to Uygur for having the guts to have the discussion). That Murray could do this was no surprise as he does tend to do shoe leather reporting and such work regardless of the quality of sources always superior from pontificating from afar.

But the real news here wasn’t that debate or even that it took place, the news was an assertion Murray made during the exchange that I think is the single most important fact concerning the Palestinians in the west bank of the Jordan. To wit:

If there was an election tomorrow in the West Bank, Hamas would win. 

emphasis mine

Run that through your head for a second.

Hamas has committed one of the worst and most barbaric attacks on civilians that we have seen in decades including the mass rape of women, the desecrations of corpus and the kidnap, murder and even baking of babies. The video of the livestreams of these events have left people who have seen this video, even seasoned reporters and those experienced in dealing with trauma visibly shaken.

Furthermore the actions of Hamas has led to the Jewish state invading Gaza and putting the residents in such a state due to it being a war zone that they have an issue with basic supplies, their economy such as it is, is crushed and their future prospects for anything resembling a normal life are shaky at best and non-existent at worst.

Yet despite these facts Murray, an experienced reporter who has direct experience of the area asserts that Palestinians in the west bank would, not a year ago, not before Oct 7th, not before seeing the end result that it has led to for Palestinians in Gaza, TODAY despite everything choose to vote for Hamas to lead them.

In fairness the kleptocracy of the Palestinian Authority does deserve some credit here but even so the idea that they would vote Hamas seems insane. But if we are to believe Murray consider:

  • The murder of the Jews doesn’t bother them
  • The kidnapping, atrocities against woman and babies doesn’t bother them
  • The risk of their own areas being flattened in response to a potential Hamas attack bothers them

All that matters to them is that Hamas is willing to attack and kill Jews. That willingness to do so overrides all other considerations.

You can’t make peace with such people, the only thing you can do short of destroying them, expelling them or ruling them with an iron fist, is contain them which seems to be the goal of Israel. It involves risk and will cost lives but is the only way to avoid the other unacceptable choices.

The sooner the world learns that the better.

Update: Been gone all day to the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette which in addition to being an awesome Catholic shrine with mass, confession and a large collection of Christmas Creches from all over the world has a rather more famous Christmas light display so I didn’t have any idea that I’d been Instalanched till my son mentioned it in passing as we were getting ready to leave for home. Thanks Ed and welcome all, take a look around. Be aware that our first fundraiser in a couple of years will be kicking off after Christmas. The goal is $3k overall with 5 new subs at $20 a month. If you want to get us started toward that goal it would be much appreciated.

My Suggestion to St. Mary’s Fire the Board, Fire the President

Posted: December 22, 2023 by datechguy in catholic, catholic devotions
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It is a good thing that St. Mary’s Catholic College for Women in Indiana has reversed their decision to admit men who identify as women to their college after huge pressure from alumni and their Bishop who noted that both Pope Benedict XVI:

No doubt Saint Mary’s College desires to promote love, inclusion, and acceptance within the community. But it does not do so authentically when it separates love from truth. In his encyclical Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth), Pope Benedict XVI wrote: “Only in truth does charity shine forth, only in truth can charity be authentically lived. Truth is the light that gives meaning and value to charity… Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. In a culture without truth, this is the fatal risk facing love. It falls prey to contingent subjective emotions and opinions, the word ‘love’ is abused and distorted, to the point where it comes to mean the opposite” (#3).

And Pope Francis

Pope Francis also teaches about the intimate connection between truth and love in his first encyclical, Lumen Fidei (The Light of Faith). He writes: “Love requires truth. Only to the extent that love is grounded in truth can it endure over time, can it transcend the passing moment and be sufficiently solid to sustain a shared journey. If love is not tied to truth, it falls prey to fickle emotions and cannot stand the test of time. True love, on the other hand, unifies all the elements of our person and becomes a new light pointing the way to a great and fulfilled life” (#27).

note that you can’t separate “love” and “Truth”.

Despite this reversal I recommend asking for the resignation of both the President of the college and the current board of trusties and if they don’t resign, their dismissal.

Why, well despite the Bishops charitable description of their initial decision’s motives let’s look at the initial announcement of their now reversed policy.

Conboy said in the email that the Board “fully supports” the new policy.

“This confidence from our Board underscores their commitment that as an employer, Saint Mary’s must stand firm in its position as an inclusive community leader, and that as educators, we should continue to create an environment where all women belong and thrive,” Conboy wrote.

By definition the president of a Catholic college and such a college’s board should be both defenders of the faith and examples of how the faith should be practiced and imparted to young people who are to be educated at their school.

Yet not only did the president of said college celebrate this change but noted that the board “fully supported” it. No sign of dissenters, no sign of objections, no members of the board threatening to resign or making a public declaration that this is contrary to the faith. None of those things moved them.

But the backlash sure did:

As this last month unfolded, we lost people’s trust and unintentionally created division where we had hoped for unity. For this, we are deeply sorry.

Forgive me for saying this but I submit and suggest this is a lie, I think the truth is more like what this member of the Alumni said about the reversal:

“When this admissions decision became public hundreds of alumni banded together to stand for the Church and her teachings,” said Clare Ath, who graduated from the college in 2018. “While I would hope the reversal is because administrators realized we must teach the truth with love, my guess is the reversal is because alumni banded together, pulled their donations, notified their diocese and media, and said we will not let Our Lady’s college be corrupted by secular gender ideology.”

Put simply they’re not sorry they did it, they’re sorry that they received pushback and faced the loss of donation and support.

This suggests that if some time in the future a less vigilant Bishop is in place they will try something like this again. My thought is “why take a chance?” There are no shortage of faithful Catholics who actually believe what the Church teaches who are qualified for both the board and the presidency.

So I humbly suggest for the good of the future of the college that the president and the board resign en masse to make room for people who will be dedicated to keeping this particular Catholic college Catholic.

Closing thought: This post gave me Anna Maria College Visit flashbacks. I suspect his decision to not go there is a contributing factor for him remaining a devout #catholic into his 30’s.

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