North Carolina on my mind

It's hard to know how this trifecta of tragedies will impact the 2024 election. On the surface a dock strike putting us in another inflationary period, another war in the Middle East because USA looks weak under Biden, and a Hurricane where FEMA can't get drinking water to some trapped in 5 days looks seriously bad for Harris/Walz.

But look how many people won't be able to get to the polls in NC? That's the silver lining. Americans will forget Helene in a week or so, while those unfortunate people will still be scrambling for the basics for months or longer. Hang on, my shirttail relatives in NC. 

Hurricanes are not a result of climate change, but they are fodder for politics. Remember how Democrats screamed at Bush for Katrina even though the governor of LA and the mayor of NOLA were Democrats unprepared at the local and state levels? Much of the hold up there was LA regulations preventing outsiders from coming in to help. And Trump had hurricane Maria and the complaints about bottled water not getting there on time. But FEMA had delivered; it was found out after he was demonized by the media that the local government had not delivered it.

 
Republicans blamed Obama for not getting emergency supplies to or visiting the flooded upper midwest in 2009. But he addressed the nation from Camp David, said he was monitoring it, and praised the volunteers. Didn't Kamala cut and paste that one for Helene?

 
And kudos to Tim Walz, governor of MN, who was out there filling sandbags in 2019 when there was serious Mississippi River flooding in Minnesota!

https://youtu.be/Kcld2vYXfWU?si=uvolc-PSaUiVacsT

September 30 news on Hurricane Helene | CNN

In one state, it's about bathrooms this election

In one state the election has come down to bathrooms and child abuse. North Carolina. Without any input from Congress (whom we elect) a group of unelected bureaucrats in Washington decided in 2012 transgenderism would be the next civil rights movement. There is no medical diagnosis for gender dysphoria--it's completely subjective--how a person feels. The surgery and hormone treatments are becoming a big busine$$. Doctors can administer hormone treatment based on what a child wants (or his parents). Surgery is supposed to not happen until age 18, but doctors also get around that. It's child abuse. 

Puberty blockers that are not safe for children are administered as young as 11 or 12. These affect development and fertility and no one knows the long term effects because this is the first generation to be used as lab rats in a social experiment. The puberty blockers affect their sexual development when paired with cross-hormones and may stunt their growth, bone density and brain development. There is the potential for osteoporosis, blood clots, cancer and a higher risk for heart disease and diabetes. Cross sex hormones have irreversible effects on fertility.

You see, sex is not a feeling, it's biology. You can outgrow feelings; you don't outgrow your biology. Most of these kids would grow up to be normal, and if not, let them decide after counseling if this is really what they want. Transgenderism is less than 1% of the population, and among children, most will outgrow it. For that fraction of a percent we need to traumatize normal children?

Remember the Kinsey experiments on children?

What's wrong with Adam Silver?

North Carolina is set to host the 2017 NBA All-Star game, but in a meeting with reporters today, commissioner Adam Silver said that the game will have to be moved if recently enacted anti-LGBT laws are not changed. 

• Transgenderism is far more dangerous than smoking or drinking sodas or using drugs, so why is the commissioner pushing a dangerous, high death rate life style?
• Forty-one percent of transgendered individuals attempt to take their own life, according to the Weekly Standard. That's more than 25 times the national average. 
• The average life expectancy of a transgendered individual is about 32 years of age (some sources say 35), according to the blog Transwoman Times.
• A survey found that 2.64 percent of trans people are infected with HIV — more than four times the national average rate, according to Live Science. 

I'll leave it to you to google the details. I did and it all checks out (most figures are higher), except for the far left sites which want to blame you and me for this and deny the statistics, or say the sample is just too small (the only time you'll see that from the left).

The same people who say we'd never know when a transwoman uses our restroom, also say they can't find jobs because of the gender issue and have to become street walkers and get AIDS. Yes, folks, it's not messing with biology and pumping their bodies full of hormones and chemicals, multiple surgeries, and mental co-mobidities, it's oppression by you and me.

More on the Kinston NC nanny case

More on Attorney General Holder treating southern blacks like children. Although the majority of registered voters in the town of Kinston are black, they don't vote in proportion to their registration, therefore they are considered the "minority" and apparently in deep need of nannying.

This item appears in James Taranto's column (Oct. 21).

. . . the Aug. 17 letter in which Loretta King acting assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division, informed the Kinston's lawyers of the decision:
According to the 2000 Census, the City of Kinston has a total population of 23,688 people, of whom 14,837 (62.6%) are African-American. The total voting age population is 17,906, of whom 10,525 (58.8%) are African-American. The American Community Survey for 2005-2007 estimates the total population to be 22,649, of whom 14,967 (66.6%) are African-American. As of October 31, 2008, the city has 14,799 registered voters, of whom 9,556 (64.6%) are African-American.

Although black persons comprise a majority of the city's registered voters, in three of the past four general municipal elections, African Americans comprised a minority of the electorate on election day; in the fourth , they may have been a slight majority. For that reason, they are viewed as a minority for analytical purposes. Minority turnout is relevant to determining whether a change under Section 5 [of the Voting Rights Act] is retrogressive.

Black voters have had limited success in electing candidates of choice during recent municipal elections.

The letter does not allege any effort to suppress the black vote. Assuming the absence of such efforts, the reason that "black voters have had limited success in electing candidates of choice" is that so many of them have not bothered to vote!

The Justice Department's position, then, is that the Voting Rights Act requires the department to intervene on behalf of the political preferences that it imputes to people who cannot be troubled to go to the polls. This may well be a correct reading of the law--in which case, it's a screwy law.

Also, it's quite possible that black voters in Kinston didn't go to the polls because there was no one running for whom they wished to vote. Here we are electing city council members soon, and I don't recognize a single name, haven't followed the issues, and my vote will just be a wild guess (unless I start doing my duty as an informed voter). There are many reasons for low voter turn out--youth, old age, and disinterest probably being the big three.

Why doesn't Obama trust black voters?

Al Gore was the same way in the 2000 election in Florida. Remember the hanging chads? That happened because a black district hadn't voted the straight Democrat ticket and Gore's people wanted a recount by eyeballing little bits of dangling paper to determine intent. Now Eric Holder, Obama's Attorney General, has decided black voters in Kinston NC couldn't possibly vote if the "Democrat" designation wasn't beside the name of the candidate. The story is at the Washington Times, but never you mind, I'm guessing Obama's White House doesn't approve of this one as real news either.

The Justice Department's ruling, which affects races for City Council and mayor, went so far as to say partisan elections are needed so that black voters can elect their "candidates of choice" - identified by the department as those who are Democrats and almost exclusively black.

The department ruled that white voters in Kinston will vote for blacks only if they are Democrats and that therefore the city cannot get rid of party affiliations for local elections because that would violate black voters' right to elect the candidates they want.

Now which is more serious--made up lies about Rush Limbaugh being racist, or the highest offices in the land saying blacks can't vote without the Democrats telling them how?

Another blogger gone

In my last post, I mentioned some links to women bloggers, now silent. David Durant, Heretical Librarian, also turned in his blogger keys and has left the building. Dave is the trifecta of librarianship bravery. Not only is he in a female dominated profession, but he is a conservative in a profession where liberals outnumber conservatives 223:1 (which accounts for the real banned books--the ones that never get to your library's shelves), and in addition he joined the North Carolina National Guard after the war started. He gained some fame by having one of his blogs printed in the Chronicle of Higher Education. During my last remodeling of my web page, his link fell off my list of librarians, so as an apology, I'm listing HIS very interesting list of links on terror, international affairs, and radical Islamism. I'm slowly looking through them, only some of which I've read before, so I don't know how many are still current.

The War on Terror and International Affairs

Across the Bay
American Enterprise Institute
American Footprints
Benador Associates
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Committee on the Present Danger
Council on Foreign Relations
The Counterterrorism Blog
Defend America
Foundation for the Defense of Democracies
The Jamestown Foundation
Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA)
Long War Journal
Michael Yon
The National Interest
9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong America
Small Wars Journal
StrategyPage
Threats Watch
Victor Davis Hanson's Private Papers
Winds of Change

Radical Islamism, The Middle East and Reforming Islam

Ali Eteraz
Apostasy and Islam
Arab Media & Society
Asharq Alawsat
Big Pharaoh
Center for Liberty in the Middle East
Center on Islam, Democracy, and the Future of the Muslim World
Daily Star (Lebanon)
Daniel Pipes
Faith Freedom International
Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism
Hammorabi
Healing Iraq
Initiative for an Open Arab Internet
Interfaith Strength
Iraq Blog Count
Iraq the Model
Iraq Updates
Irshad Manji
Islamist Watch
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Jihad Watch
Laura Mansfield
Martin Kramer on the Middle East
The Mesopotamian
Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI)
Middle East Times
Middle East Transparent
Secular Islam
Site Institute
Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Watch

It's not brain surgery

why Ted Kennedy didn't go to Canada or Cuba to have his tumor removed--or even to a Boston hospital or a European hospital. No, he went to Dr. Allan Friedman at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina. In 2000 and 2004 NC was solidly behind Bush; the Democrats are working hard to get her into the caretaker mindset right now. I don't know why Dr. Friedman is at Duke and not at some famous northeastern hospital in a Democratic state, or even Chicago where he was born and went to medical school, but let me guess; lower real estate taxes, lower state income taxes, lower luxury housing costs, lower crime rates, stronger ethical and moral values among the populace and the ability to lure the best talent there to assist him, despite the liberal administration and faculty at Duke. And who knows, there might even be some evil capitalist money (tobacco?) funding that tumor center. The 3.5 hour surgery has been declared a success and it will be followed up by chemo and radiation, which will probably be done closer to home.

The irony is that under socialized medicine only a wealthy government official, son and grandson of inherited, ill-gotten wealth would be able to afford such care. Even at the height of the power of Stalin and Mao, the party officials always had the best.* But more importantly, with socialized medicine, a doctor of Friedman's skill and talent, wouldn't even have been trained in the United States.

Democrats want their families to benefit from our health system (and "system" is not a good word for it), but they don't want you and me to have those benefits. They want us to wait in line for our turn, to have our health needs decided by a committee, and then be assigned to whatever hospital needs the work whether they've done 10 surgeries or 1000. It would make no difference if you elect Binky Obama or Hillary Rottie Clinton, all competition and excellence must be eradicated; everything must be dumbed down to be fair to the newest, non-citizen who doesn't speak English and the homeless guy who couldn't give up the bottle, and the exotic dancer who cried rape. Rev. Wright and Father Pfleger have already explained to you that if you're white you're a piece of trash. And let's hope that the equipment that will save your life doesn't have a petroleum base because then. . . well, sorry, that's been capped along with your life span by Lieberman-Warner.

*One of the ways I put food on the table as a grad student was translating a Russian medical newspaper, Medisinskii Rabotnik. The ordinary folks got a fel'dsher, usually female and poorly trained, not a doctor.