Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

The Most Interesting Fact that Americans are Missing in Polling

Posted: September 28, 2022 by datechguy in culture, Uncategorized

Daniel Webster: What are you looking for, Colonel? What’s your name?

Martin Van Buren Aldrich: Martin Van Buren Aldrich. My pa is the only Democrat in Cross Corners. He said you had horns and a tail, Mr. Webster, but I ain’t seen them yet.

Daniel Webster: [laughs] You see, Martin, I only wear them when I’m in Washington. That’s the trouble. But if you ever get down there, I’ll be glad to show them to you.

Martin Van Buren Aldrich: Gee, would you, Mr. Webster? Honest?

Daniel Webster: Of course! And you tell your father for me, that we may be on opposite sides of the fence, but I’m always glad to hear of a man who holds to his own opinion. As long as the people do that, this country is all right.

All That Money Can Buy (also known as The Devil & Daniel Webster) 1941

Every day when I get up and look at the next I see multiple pieces on polling. Trump is up by four over Biden, Abbot up four or eight over Beto, the generic ballot favors democrats by one, or republicans by three or DeSantis is up over trump by five or Fetterman is up over Doc Oz by six etc etc etc

You can find polling on almost every race, almost every opinion, in fact on just about everything and there is one fairly consistent fact that is very easy to miss if you don’t take a moment to think about it.

No matter what side of the fence you are on, no matter what candidate you support, at least 40% of your fellow citizens think you are wrong.

You might find an odd issue or candidate where that number drops to as low as 35% in fact once in a great while you might find an issue where you might get even lower and of course regional differences might make the number as few as three in ten but the bottom line is this: As a general rule it’s safe to say two out of every five people who pass you on the street don’t hold the opinions you do.

Now for most of the history of this county this hasn’t been that big of a problem. People disagreed and were willing to let it go today this is not the case. There is a key line in the movie I quoted above when Daniel Webster challenges the contract the Devil uses to claim his clients soul on the grounds that an American can’t be made to serve a foreign prince

Mr. Scratch: It’s true the North claims me for a Southerner and the South for a Northerner, but I’m neither.

In the end we’re all men, we share a common humanity and one of the basic rights of a man is the right to be wrong sometimes. Some may be wrong more frequently than others but in the end everybody gets some things wrong.

The danger is that when you criminalize disagreement and furthermore criminalize the attempt to hear the other side of an argument that’s when the Robespierres of the world arise.

There are those who may not object to this, and might fancy themselves the one who shall decide who gets the chop and who does not, but never forget that in the end every Robespierre ends up under his own guillotine.

Let’s see if we can avoid this fate for our country.

Report from Louisiana: Hurricane Season

Posted: September 26, 2022 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
Tags: , , , ,

By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – Here we are, all the way at the end of September and there has been no Gulf hurricane. The weather-alarmists are in a panic.

And then.

And then, just like that there are now two named storms and areas of low pressure, tropical depression, and my social media feed is filled with spaghetti models and dire predictions of a possible Cat 4 hurricane coming to … where?  Who knows?

But weather-alarmists are happy now, and in full alert mode.

What is it that causes this fascination with storms? Nobody wants a devastating storm. Some of this frenzy goes beyond mere interest-for-preparation-purposes.  It’s very strange.

At any rate, it looks like Florida may be in the crosshairs this time with Ian, and not that I want anything to happen to Florida, but Louisiana is breathing a little sigh of relief. We all know things can change, but at least we don’t see terror right at the moment.

On a related note, you might be interest in checking out my friend Rob Gaudet’s new book: Cajun Navy Ground Force: Citizen-Led Disaster Response. Rob and I became friends back in 2012 when he was working with C.L. Bryant promoting C.L.’s documentary Runaway Slave. The story of the Cajun Navy is amazing and it is probably impossible to count how many lives they’ve saved, homes repaired, or people they’ve helped in various ways. Coordinating this effort is an exhaustive job and Rob does a great job. Get the book!

You don’t ever want to need the help of the Cajun Navy but thank goodness they exist if you do.

As much as I scoff at the weather-alarmists, in Louisiana we are within reason to worry about these storms: our coastline is vanishing at an alarming rate, and a lot of the reason is storm surge made so much worse by human factors. For decades we cut canals through the marsh for energy exploration and as a result the saltwater has encroached and contributed to erosion. It’s much more complicated than that, but the fact remains that we have a problem.

At any rate, as we move on into the hurricane season we keep our eyes to the radar, to the spaghetti models, and we pray. That’s about our best line of defense, it seems.

Transgender safety equipment

Posted: September 24, 2022 by navygrade36bureaucrat in Uncategorized
Tags: , , ,

The news about the Canadian transgender teacher teaching shop class with ridiculously large, fake breasts has already made the rounds in the news. Plenty of people have expressed outrage, or snickered at the over-the-top photos, or smacked their forehead in disgust.

What hasn’t been discussed is safety equipment. I’ve worked in plenty of industrial environments, from shipyards to metal shops, and have had my share of flying metal objects that cracked safety helmets, broke safety glasses, and in general tried to kill me in a variety of unique and interesting ways. If Tik-Tok is any indication of the trajectory of our society (and one shudders at THAT thought), we should be teaching teenagers how to properly use safety equipment.

And yet, this Canadian teacher is not doing any of that.

Let’s start with the skirt. Unless you are a secretary, nobody in a shop wears a skirt. Even most secretaries in shops wear a long maxi skirt, especially if they have to walk out of the office for any reason. If you’ve ever had a burning piece of metal touch your skin, or brushed up against something sharp, you’ll only do that once or twice before you become best friends with your jeans. Let’s be honest, you can wear some pretty sexy jeans if you want, all while still protecting your legs from being impaled by the splinters flying out from a nearby cutting saw.

The other reason skirts aren’t a good choice is because rotating machinery tends to grab loose items, and having your skirt violently ripped off your body by lathe is just not appealing. Jewelry, especially necklaces and earrings, are also at risk of being forcibly ripped from your body. Hair is the same way. This Canadian teacher should have her hair (wig?) up in a bun, or at least in a ponytail secured with a hat, and most certainly not in her face. Not only is it at risk of being ripped out of her head, but it impedes her ability to see what she is working on.

Speaking of seeing things, I see no gloves or safety glasses.

Seriously, WTF?

Gloves and glasses are an absolute necessity when running a saw. I can’t tell you the number of times my miter saw has kicked up a chunk of wood that smacked me in the hand or the face. It sucks when it happens, but at least I can STILL SEE OUT OF EACH EYEBALL in the end. If you open any user manual, the first section will tell you to wear gloves and eye protection. Heck, the company that provides insurance for the school should be calling and complaining that this teacher is placing them at significant risk for an insurance claim.

All this makes me view this as a dumb, attention-grabbing prank. If this teacher cared about her students and also happened to be transgender, she would be dressing appropriately for class, teaching her students how to properly run saws and other equipment. As a teacher, she should dress appropriately anyway, and if she had large breasts like that (and some women do), she should at least wear a bra.

Which brings up my final point, and that is if the transgender community wants to be taken seriously, they are going to have to divorce themselves from these attention-grabbing idiots. It’s not dissimilar from the Westboro Baptist Church, a very small community that doesn’t represent anything close to mainstream Christian theology. Plenty of transgender individuals want us to believe that they are normal members of society, and truth be told, plenty of them are. But just like the Westboro Baptist Church, people should call out bad behavior when they see it, and most transgender people should join them in saying “This behavior isn’t normal.” Just because a teacher is transgender doesn’t mean we should allow that person to run roughshod over basic safety protocol and dress codes. Until we see more pushback on these people, its going to be harder for most people to normalize transgender individuals in society.

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. If you liked this article, you should purchase a book from the author for you or a friend, or drop a tip for DaTechGuy.

Odd Ime Udoka Thoughts Under the Fedora

Posted: September 23, 2022 by datechguy in Uncategorized

The fall of the Celtics Coach now suspended for a year is a great example of how fast a person can fall.

Mark Twain famously said:

Of all the delights of this world man cares most for sexual intercourse. He will go any length for it-risk fortune, character, reputation, life itself.

While there is always the odd exception for the most part he was spot on.

We still don’t know most of the story here but it would seem to me that a man like Ime Udoka, the head coach of a major team would not have a hard time finding women willing to put out. That he was either unable to do so outside the organization or was unwilling to hold himself back within it is rather amazing to me.

Of course to some who think such a situation is their divine right any bit of restraint is unwelcome.

I must confess I’m not feeling a lot of sympathy for Nia Long his “longtime partner” and finance who was reportedly “blindsided” by this.

According to this story, she’s been with Udoka since 2010, had a son with him in 2011 and they’ve been engaged since 2015.

Since 2015?

It seems to me that it would take a lot of effort to ignore what was going on and based on the Celtics reaction this doesn’t seem like a new problem but there is almost no limit to what a person will delude themselves when they wish to.

If this guy was really seriously he would have married her before the kid was born, on the plus side at least (to our knowledge) he didn’t push for an abortion.

Udoka players are not pleased with the situation. Given that he brought them within 2 wins of a title I can’t say as I blame them, but it’s Udoka’s own fault.

Given the reputations of athletes and women it will be interesting to see how much blame they assign to him vs the team or the staff or even to the woman or women involved.

Finally I’m shocked that this is a one year suspension. If this is as bad as I think it is, then it’s unlikely they will be bringing him back

I’d like to have had a listening device in the room when that security company made its report. It would be interesting to know why they didn’t decide to just cut bait.

I suspect there will be a lot of leaks over the next year , if that doesn’t cause them to dump him I don’t know what will be.

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