Invisible

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Now that the USSC has decreed that discrimination on the basis of race, sex or sexual preference in the interest of advancing minorities or other supposedly benevolent purpose is just as illegal as discrimination on the same basis against minorities for supposedly malevolent purposes. This of course is obvious and should be obvious, but our government has more or less required people to ignore that.

Anyway, I was reading an article on it over at powerline, DEI Is Illegal and someone in the comments said that the people IBM passed over, never considered, didn’t advance or in other ways injured due to their DEI games should sue for millions of dollars.

In theory they’re correct. In theory. The problem is proving you were passed over. Or that you, personally, were discriminated against.

It would require intervention by government and counting of heads, which gets us back where we were. All the insanity of affirmative action and its mentally slow grandchild “DEI” came about because they assumed people were — or course, individuals being evil and needing the government to force them to behave — discriminating against minorities on the sly. So they came in, counted heads and allowed people to sue if there weren’t the exact same proportion of each race or whatever the company was found to be discriminating.

I don’t need to tell you why this is stupid. Thomas Sowell has done it. I don’t remember any quotes exactly, but I remember his going through various cases of certain groups of immigrants specializing in one thing or another, maybe because the first one got into it, or because other professions are closed to them, or whatever. My friends who used to live in South Africa for instance tell me Portuguese in South Africa used to be most of the owners of vegetable stands. Why? I don’t know and am not doing a deep dive. Beyond that, there are in a country such as the US certain accretions of ethnic characteristics coupled with culture that create a tendency to certain professions in ethnic — or sub ethnic — group.

Completely independent of discrimination, people will gravitate to professions because cousin so and so does it, and they can “see” into it and think they’ll like it. I mean, neither of my kids writes professionally at the moment, but they both have written, and writing professionally might happen in the future, because they learned an awful lot simply by watching me do my work, or hearing me discuss it. (This might actually get more so, as people work at home more.)

Head counting is not proof of discrimination, (well, unless a company or an industry is solidly one race, sex, national origin or for that matter political color) and honestly nothing much is.

DEI forbidden or not will continue, at least until and unless we have 16 years or so when the crazy race-obsessed left doesn’t get a look in. Supposing, of course, they aren’t replaced by the crazy, race obsessed right (much smaller. Like maybe 1% of the right. At least unless you discount foreigners and bots and foreign bots. BUT they do exist, and who knows what the future will bring?) Because right now they’re expecting the left to win the midterms and want to be right with the psychos when they come back in.

But I was thinking of the massive amount of damage this type of discrimination has done to the country.

Let me be clear: Hiring people for any reason other than competence will degrade competence over time. This is because when you hire less than competent people, thy know they’re not competent. And this means they won’t hire people who are more competent than they are, and the cycle degrades competence over time.

But there’s more than that. Think of all the people who were passed over, not knowing why? They will of course assume that they aren’t good enough. And if you can’t figure out why you’re not good enough, it breaks you over time.

Worse, if you know why, but you know you can’t prove it, and if you complain people will assume it’s sour grapes.

So how do we fix it?

We don’t let the race obsessed left get a look in. For this reason as well as many others, it’s very important.

How? I don’t know. Mostly cleaning the voting.

Is it possible, even? I don’t know.

If we lose, yes, we can still come back. But it’s going to cost and it’s going to hurt — more — so…

While we can we must fight in every way we can to make sure the left doesn’t win the mid terms or the general or the other midterms or the other general.

The left must be brought to the point of reforming or dying. For the sake of the republic. And civilization.

169 thoughts on “Invisible”

  1. Very true. The left, the whackos on the alt-right and the RINOs seem determined to return us to a not workable system simply because, in it, they have power and the rest of us be damned. Any grasp at that power they get they will behave as they are in Virginia recently. Trying to prevent anyone else from pushing them out. They have been losing for a while and are at their most dangerous as they flail around trying to regain what they have lost.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. The joke answer is “I feel seen”.

      More seriously, discrimination can be good, against bad examples of crazy. I may have also been discriminated against for being a straight white man who hates communists.

      Either way, it doesn’t really matter.

      2020 basically proved that the ‘fixing things’ discrimination was not actually fixing things, it was making things worse. Academia hiring preference was still getting people who cared about the stupid academic jobs more than race, and so we got a lot of cheerleading for arsons against poor black neighborhoods. Americans aren’t racist enough to make ethnic factions work, and communists effectively hate everyone.

      I passively make preference choices among employers that hurt my earning potentially. I also actively make choices that hurt my earning potential.

      Next to that, DIE hiring is not something worth worrying about. For my own individual case. The economic damage of DIE hiring may be fairly significant, but it is worth growing the economy more than fighting over the scraps of yesterday’s economy.

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  3. In theory they’re correct. In theory. The problem is proving you were passed over. Or that you, personally, were discriminated against.

    It would require intervention by government and counting of heads, which gets us back where we were. 

    Which is also why you will never be able to stop reverse discrimination / DEI / whatever the new buzzword is no matter how many laws you pass. All you can do is hope they slip up and provide concrete evidence.

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    1. Not actively requiring it is a solid first step, however. Then new organizations can start up with the possibility that it won’t take root.

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      1. Yeah, at least if you do get evidence you can take them to court….. but I wouldn’t recommend DC, MN, NY, CA, etc. as the venue. The jury pool might be a tad biased.

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        1. I wouldn’t be so sure. California passed Prop 209 – banning discrimination by race in public institutions – back in the 90s by popular vote. And it has survived *repeated* attempts by the state legislature to kill it (the legislature votes for a bill to repeal parts of 209, but then the bill has to go to the voters since it’s trying to overturn a ballot initiative that the voters voted in). There’s another attempt going on right now, which – as a post up at Instapundit notes – is the third attempt in six years.

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            1. They haven’t managed to overturn Prop 13 either — the one that limits increases in property tax. Retired folks were losing their houses to ever-rising property taxes. Now the politicians wail about how ‘unfair’ it is that long-term homeowners aren’t paying ‘their fair share’ of taxes. Not a peep that it’s unfair new buyers have to pay more, only that somebody is paying less.

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                1. They keep trying. If the “billionaires tax” asset “tax” proposition passes that will set precedent in law for confiscations based on “value” rather than “income”, and as far as I have read will let them adjust the “asset” threshold down by simple legislation, and include property valuation at whatever assessment they want to make up to get at that value outside of property sale, when current law resets the property tax assessment to market value.

                  And that’s the important point. With Prop 13 in effect, whenever a property gets sold they get to tax at the new higher current market valuation with only a few exceptions (in-family generational transfer being one). That means they eventually get the money. But no, they don’t get it NOW so they keep trying to wiggle around.

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              2. That is the beauty of Oregon’s prop 13, and follow on property taxes. New builds get hit with fair market valuation. But new to the market buyers do not have to. Anyone who buys our house is paying the same property tax we are, with the same limitations. Property value does not jump to current real market value. It stays at taxable value.

                That is the problem with selling, sure we get a huge capital gains (not sold – bought, because there are large financial maintenance costs that get deducted from sell cost too. Even if those costs are only the last re-pave driveway, flooring, roof, deck, fence, replacements, and painting). But, anything we buy, new or otherwise, will cost at least what we sold for, and no guaranty taxes are the same. New build is a given. Preexisting, when was it built? Other part, easier to determine, is it city, or not. Current house is “not”.

                Please note, this is exactly the reason why people settle on forever homes early. Our neighborhood is an example. People sell for one of two reasons, they move out of the area, or they are selling grandparents home. Latter, if it can be occupied by family (sold or not), bonus.

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            2. California is likely still majority conservative/center. The LoonLeft managed to gain enough control to rig the system.

              The founders Effed Up and thus the pooch cannot sit, because they did not mandate Electoral College structure in States, to prevent a handful of cities from ruling the larger non-city areas, just as we prevent a few large States from disenfranchising small States.

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              1. I’ve always felt that the Maine/Nebraska model for electoral voter allocation was one of the best. Each Congressional district gets its own electoral vote, and the Senatorial votes are winner take all on the state vote total. It would let areas that are red in blue states add to the total (of course conversly it lets blue areas in red states add to the democrat total as happens in one of the Nebraska Districts). Also it limits the effect of fraud. Right now if you can “juice” the totals in say Philidelphia and Pittsburgh you can get all of Pennsylvania’s 19 votes. With by district voting you at most get 3 votes, the district you “juiced” and the two senatorial votes, it thus reduces the incentive to muck at that level with voting. It also means you need to campaign more broadly. Even without cheating, focusing a campaign in Philly and Pittsburgh can enhance turnout there taking the state the return on that campaign style is also reduced. Another advantage is that state legislatures (or courts) could declare only PART of a slate (I.E. a particular district or districts) invalid not throwing whole states ballots out (which Courts and legislatures have been loathe to do lest the voting go into the House and Senate to resolve the presidency)

                The big disadvantage is that gerrymandering (A La Virginia or most of the Northeast) can isolate some populations and skew results by careful balancing of districts, although too much balancing and you fall off the edge in catastrophic switches in bad years. It does tend to make State legislatures more powerful, although at some level this is classic republican governance keeping the independence of the states.

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  4. “So how do we fix it?”

    TAX. CUTS.

    Grifters go where the money is. If there’s no money, they don’t go there. You impoverish the bureaucracy, and they don’t have 50 billion to give away at US-AID to enemies of the American people.

    DEI dies in darkness as soon as you shut off the money tap. Look at Hollywood. They went Woke and now they are BROKE.

    Because all the people that used to make TV and movies as good as they were in the 80s and 90s were replaced by DEI hires after 2010, and in 16 years the incompetence has led to the suckage we see on screen these days. I give you Star Trek Academy, the pinnacle of Wokeosity. A fiction made in a space ship that looks like a gay strip club from the 1990s in San Francisco. Because representation, you know.

    That’s DEI. But if you stop paying for it with tax dollars, those companies will be scrambling to make a buck and probably make something the audience will like out of sheer desperation. Or go bankrupt like they deserve, and be replaced by somebody trying to make a buck.

    That’s your government right there. STARVE IT.

    Liked by 8 people

    1. Tax cut? Well, my proposal could be called that.

      If Trump wants to reduce government fraud and corruption, give a massive boost to the economy, improve our quality of life, and cement his place as the greatest President of all time, there is one simple way: Eliminate income tax and abolish Infernal Ravenous. Set 140 million people free from Tax Hell.

      I finished my stint in Tax Hell over the weekend. I might be just a bit salty. ☹️

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      1. I finished my taxes mid February, and am still salty, from 3 years ago. If we have to have tax day, I want it to be changed to the LAST Tuesday of October.

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                1. What’s that Irish meme? “Ah lads, not again.”

                  On that front I think I’ve finally figured out part of my ear infections – allergies setting off TMJ, leading to eustachian tubes filling up with fluid and then getting infected by just anything out there. So… trying to handle allergies and physically massage around the joints to keep things as clear as I can.

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      3. We finished our tax heck weeks ago. Fed refund came quickly. State? Been weeks. Yes, snail mailed it in. The certified card has been back weeks. If we had owed, believe it, the money would have been pulled already.

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        2. Tax refunds result from poor planning. Back when I worked full time, I fixed the W-4 so there was about $1,000 tax due on April 15.

          They say the ‘average’ refund is $3,000. If so, that means the government takes an extra $60 a week out of your paycheck. Fix your damn W-4’s, people, and give yourselves an instant $60 a week raise.

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          1. Fair, but I do it that way (to get a large refund) because I’m compensating for the wife’s freelance book editing and Ren Faire jewelry sales. I overdid it a bit this time and so we have a sizeable refund coming. Plus because I live in one state and work in another, I always owe tax to my home state and get a small refund from where the office is, even though I’m 90%+ remote.

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            2. Neighbor uses an accountant because his base is in Oregon, not remote, and works in multiple states. Feds is easy. It is filing in multiple states that is the PIA.

              Used to be hubby’s job was strictly “state” of residence, no matter where you worked. A job where working remote is not possible. Holdover from the days when they worked log rafts. The rafts could be moved while they were being worked on. That is the union’s story, and they were sticking to it. (Like it was SAFE to move log rafts across the Columbia from Oregon to Washington, or reverse. NOT!) This stopped being true, around 2000. Now if they live in Washington, and work in Oregon, Oregon gets paid state taxes. By 2000 they hadn’t been working on rafts (or many truck ramps) for a decade.

              When hubby was transferred to Washington, he moved, but we didn’t. Our federal taxes represented our combined income. But our state taxes were only my income, and only the part of his income when he was assigned to job sites in Oregon.

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          2. “Tax refunds result from poor planning.”

            –

            When we were working, using W-4, agree. We had it dialed in so we paid < $1k to each the feds and the state. At worst, get enough refund to pay the other (which way, swung, year to year). Then came the years when one year we’d pay more, not change a thing and get a windfall back the next year. Taxes laws were seesawing that much.

            About the only way we’d set to pay now is if we paid quarterly and no withholding on any income (we don’t want to do quarterly taxes)., Hubby’s pension, and the IRA draws are set for the minimum tax percentage allowed withholding. We aren’t withholding anything from either SS. Almost hit even with the Feds, even with the extra $12k extra elderly tax cut, despite having almost the “same” income as last year. Difference was last year the account withdraw was the Roth, not the required IRA distribution (ouch, ouch, ouch). State? Half of the “refund” was the state kicker (which our lovely governor really, really wanted to kill). We’d zero the withholding on hubby’s pension, but that is a PIA, so haven’t bothered.

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          3. If you have a regular salary, that’s possible to do. If your income fluctuates month to month, as is the case for most self-employed people, then it’s harder to do that. And the penalties for owing more than $1,000 on April 15th, while not exactly harsh, are probably going to be larger than the amount of interest you would have earned having that money in your bank account.

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            1. we honestly have no clue. The number of times we suddenly get a big payout in December is…. most years. We can’t predict for it and don’t know the amount.

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              1. Don’t know the threshold, but < $10k owed. We’ve paid interest/penalty (not much, but definitely an oops penalty) in years past. One of the years when not changing payroll 10-4’s, bit us. We’d received a huge payback the prior year on the same setup. Knew there were tax changes, but figured it would just wipe out the refunds. It did, and then some. Then the next year, with again no changes, we got a huge refund.

                We’d paid taxes on all income as it came in, except the non-401(k)/IRA/Roth investment account. Same numbers the prior year. Then too, while we were paying a minor penalty to the feds, we were getting more back from the state. The next year? We paid the state, and got a lot of money back from the feds. We gave up.

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      4. Thus the Trump effort to revert us to Tarifs on imports, which have the -wonderful- advantage of being almost entirely dodge-able by careful shopping.

        We built the “great White Fleet” our first truly world-class navy, entirely on Tarif money.

        The Left -cannot- allow us to escape direct income taxation. They wont even compromise on consumption taxes -instead-. Because Marx my words, they must destroy that which they envy.

        Sure, they will -add- any tax. -Never- agree to add without removing, as the remove never happens. Well, not in multiple generations. We finally recently removed -one- “luxury tax” on long distance phone calls meant to pay debts related to ….

        The Spanish American War.

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  5. A couple of Supreme Court decisions starting with Griggs v Duke Power Co. made this nonsense the law of the land for decades. They essentially outlawed all competence testing because it had a “disparate impact”, meaning some ethnic groups did better than others statistically on the tests. That was way back in the 70’s. The race grifters have been fortifying their gold-plated latinum foxholes for over 5 decades now, and it will take a lot to dislodge them. Some successful lawsuits will help.

    As to ethnic groups and business categories…, who knows why the Vietnamese took over the nail salon business, the Irish took over the police in Boston and New York, the Koreans seem to have cornered the donut business, and the Indians now own most of the Motel 6 franchises. I do know why Indian H1-Bs took over Qualcomm, but nobody is allowed to talk about that. That last was outright racial/ethnic discrimination.

    You can read about my personal experience in Where It All Started.

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    1. At least in the 1990s, San Jose donut shops were dominated by the Hmong. Many of the non-Chinese restaurants in the area were run (or were silently owned) by Greeks.

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    2. The Vietnamese in the nail salon business is known. After the collapse of the South Vietnamese government, many Vietnamese fled to the US and ended up in refugee camps. Actress Tippi Hedron visited one of the camps, realized that the women were willing to work to support themselves, and instructed her personal manicurist to teach them the trade. Vietnamese women who learned the trade were able to go to nail salons, rent a station from the salon owner, and earn money for themselves and their families. Many of them eventually earned enough to open their own salons.

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        1. Agreed. It’s a story of how a can do attitude, and a willingness to work hard, can help people live a good life here in the US.

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      2. The “Patel Cartel” in hotel management is also known, traced back to immigrants of a certain clan/caste that specialized in the hospitality trade in the home country and carried those skills with them here…then started formal/informal financial institutions to give their own a leg up.

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        1. They also do convenience stores. General chain is Patel #1 manages to open store, makes money. Imports cousin/brother/whatever to clerk. New guy gets green card, works. Patel #1 loans him the money to open his own store. And so it goes.

          One reason my beloved’s tax business did well is he picked up a ton of Indian/Iranian businesses because a) he didn’t cheat them and b) he didn’t patronize them. He also didn’t take bribes and didn’t speak haggle, but hey, nobody’s perfect. (From their POV).

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          1. Many years ago, through a relative, I wound up armed security (heh) for a gent at a major gem show. Think “grumpy men with suits and rifles” security.

            Funny as heck. They youngest in the bunch (me) had the M1 Garand. The rest of the 20-years-olders had ARs.

            We were also a diversion. (grin) Ethnic group only trusted the (outsiders) so far.

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      3. The “ethnic => odd 1 type of job” thing usually winds up being “What did the firstcomers do to get by?” Followed by “The follow on folk got help from the firstcomers” and so on.

        “We need to arrest those oversized thugs. Go get a couple of (Irish). They like to fight. If they work out, keep them around for enforcement by hickory shampoo. We arrest enough of them. Let them clean up their own.”

        “We clean the places, and now we have enough to lease one. Find more (our tribe) newcomers to clean up. We can trust them.”

        “I cant stand them (slur), but they work harder than three (other slur). Go round up a pack for the next job. “

        You get the picture. Could just as easily been Chinese cops and Irish bricklayers.

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        1. “I cant stand them (slur), but they work harder than three (other slur). Go round up a pack for the next job.“

          There’s a saying that I can’t call to mind well enough to Google it for the precise wording. But it goes something along the lines of “Joe is racist against groups, but tolerant of individuals. While Jane is tolerant of groups, but racist against individuals.” (With Joe and Jane being stand-ins for whatever distinction one might be trying to make: the South vs the North, conservatives vs liberals, people in the 19th century vs people in the 20th century, whatever).

          You have given a perfect illustration of that saying here. The employer is racist against the group as a whole, and yet he’s willing to judge individuals of that race on their own merit. Let’s make it personal to me and say he was racist against the Irish (my grandfather was from Belfast, so that’s the type of racism my ancestors would have suffered from if they had moved to America — though the Munns were in Belfast going back several generations, according to the genealogy my great-aunt once drew up, so my direct paternal ancestors never experienced the “no Irish need apply” signs in America). But although he “can’t stand them micks”, he’s still willing to concede that they work hard and hire them for his next job. Other people might give long speeches about the plight of the Irish immigrants, and deplore the use of slurs like “mick” — but when they went to hire someone for a job, they might as well have put a discreet “No Irish need apply” notice out, because they weren’t going to hire any Irish no matter what.

          If I were an Irish immigrant of the 19th century, I would have much preferred the guy who called me a “mick” but would be willing to hire me and would give honest wages for honest work, over a condescending bleeding-heart type who would pretend to care about me but wouldn’t consider giving me a job in a hundred years.

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    3. I know why there are so many Vietnamese strawberry farms in my area. Low startup capital + work ethic (also taking over land that had been fallowed by Japanese internment). A lot—and I mean a lot—of the kids are dentists. Apparently when you have refugee history, you push your kids into high-status but mobile jobs, so dentists is one. (This is apparently why Jewish diaspora kids have so many violinists and pianists. Either a highly portable instrument or one where they don’t expect you to move your own…)

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  6. The problem with just going by a USSC decision is that it has not real enforcement technique – no teeth. Leftists in academia, etc will continue trying to use workarounds, renaming things, and any other methods they can to have their way, the law be damned. We need to start adding criminal penalties to laws preventing DEI (and that’s just one example), and they need to have long statute of limitations – otherwise a friendly admin will simply run out the clock.

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    1. But it does mean that the opposite *cannot* be enforced. Prior to the recent decision, a business that did not want to play the racial preferences game could be made to do so anyway. That’s no longer the case.

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  7. The problem with just going by a USSC decision is that it has not real enforcement technique – no teeth. Leftists in academia, etc will continue trying to use workarounds, renaming things, and any other methods they can to have their way, the law be damned. We need to start adding criminal penalties to laws preventing DEI (and that’s just one example), and they need to have long statute of limitations – otherwise a friendly admin will simply run out the clock.

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  8. protests continue in Ireland. The Dublin protest has been”cleared” so the scant chance of any MSM reporting is gone. Good riddance, but still it’s hard getting news when the purported news organizations refuse to cover it. Middle class opinion blames Trump and the Irish politicians are all making speeches about Gaza. The government actually folded by rolling back the levy temporarily, but it hasn’t been enough. They FAFO.

    SInn Fein, the Maoist party, is calling for a vote of no confidence. Of course, that’s all just infighting within Dublin 4 and is not reflective of the country outside official Dublin. Reports are that policemen are calling in sick in droves and the army is going as slow as possible. There has been violence outside Galway and there are reports that the protests in Cork are about to start up again. That last is the biggest since Cork is where the refinery is and the port where the tankers go. State media is blaming protestors for blocking ambulances but it seems that it’s the police doing so. Every word the blob says is a lie including and and the.

    There had been reports that the go slow had spread to Norway, but I’ve not been able to confirm nor follow up. There are reports that it’s spreading to the UK but again cannot confirm. The underlying issue in all cases is not fuel prices, but immigration and, well, Dublin 4, which is where the rich and powerful live. The Irish state is run entirely in their interest so it’s woke, pro immigration, anti working class, and all the rest of the Davos crowd’s enthusiasms.

    for myself I’d like to see the Irish imitate the French and dump a ton of liquid manure on Michael Martin, it’d improve the little squint.

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      1. Unfortunately, Maoism is alive and well in a parts of the US. The enforcement mechanisms of CRT are basically all techniques that Mao implemented in China (struggle sessions, etc…).

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    3. I wonder if fertilizing the little creep would be wise.

      T’would be a bad thing indeed if he should propagate uncontrollably throughout the countryside.

      May I suggest a dose of some sort of multi-spectrum herb/pest/fungicide?

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      2. This site has some coverage and isn’t pro government, but there are still active protests they’re not reporting. Reports are that all the major roads are open and I haven’t seen anything to contradict that but Letterkenny in Donegal has an active protest going with roads closed etc., admittedly, Letterkenny is the back of beyond and Lough Swilly is not a commercial port. Derry is and right next door, but Letterkenny is not located to interfere with shipping from there.

        Two interesting points. FIrst, Ireland made a decision to not concentrate on rail freight operations so almost everything goes by road, I mentioned the long standing corruption of the Irish State and it’s interesting that all the Irish ports were well served by rail connections dating back before independence but a duplicate road network was built, almost entirely built with EU money. Many of the rail lines closed and what remains is mostly passenger. Their vulnerability to road closures at a few nodes is their own fault.

        Second,

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        1. Second, the protests have been targeted at the oil distribution network. There is only one refinery and one tank farm in the country, both in Cork. There is a certain amount imported into Galway, where the police did their thing, There is a large port at Foynes in west Limerick, but the bulk of refined fuel goes into Dublin Poet. In the North, it’s Belfast and Derry port. There’s less cross border traffic in oil and gas than you’d expect because both sides have extortionate taxes increased as part of their green insanity, but there is some. Clog half a dozen road interchanges and you can shut the country down entirely. Car, truck, power the lot.

          somehow, the Canadian woman who shut down the Canadian protests is now the second in command of the Irish police so one can expect that any police response will be …. Incompetent. The current governing coalition is weak, and the state is utterly corrupt and has been almost from the start. There’s a vote of confidence tabled, but again that’s just Dublin 4 infighting about crumbs from the eu table, unless SinnFein wins, which they could and that would be a complete disaster. THe coalition exists entirely to keep them out, but individual politicians my defect because better to be first in hell than second in heaven. SIgh.

          Still, the government capitulated completely, rolling back their green levy so the proximate cause has been removed. That might make it stop. The underlying cause is immigration and contempt for “ordinary people” as they sneeringly describe everyone not them. There’s only difference between the two main parties is which side they were on in the civil war 100 years ago. There is no opposition and SinnFein is man bun, woke, Mao Mao Mao children of Dublin 4.

          They all blame Trump

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    5. As was said in International Relations class recently, “If Starmer’s poll numbers go any lower, he will rival whale waste.” And then Michael Martin said, “Oh yeah! Watch this!”

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    6. You probably know this already, BGE, but for anyone who doesn’t know: Sinn Fein is also the terrorist party. Back during The Troubles, when the IRA was actively engaged in bombings and such, Sinn Fein was the political party that gave voice to the IRA’s preferred political positions. Officially, Sinn Fein had no connection to the IRA. Unofficially, everyone knew they were the Mouth of Sauron.

      Source: my paternal grandfather grew up in Belfast, and my father followed news from Belfast very very closely during the 1980’s and 1990’s.

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  9. Followup to last night:I’m home. Endoscopy went well, doctor talked about irritated stomach, is testing for celiac (oh, please no, when I’m married to a man who makes me chocolate muffins?). So things look pretty good.

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    1. Be of good cheer. As someone diagnosed with celiac this year and married to a man for whom bread is essential, there is an experimental drug in expedited FDA tests that apparently completely suppresses celiac.
      if this is true my wheatless (and chinese food less — sobs) sojourn might be brief.

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      1. I suspect he’d do serious research on soft European flours. Meanwhile, he just made a fresh batch of double chocolate muffins. Umm.

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        1. Uh, Share? Please? Did you bring enough for everyone or are you going to just stand there eating them in front of us all?

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            1. Rude would be posting a picture of them. Though if you can persuade and magicians with the power of teleportation to fetch one for you I could leave one out.

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              1. Grumbles in younger son promised us to create a time/space teleporter when he was eight, if we bought him more k’nex. I’m starting to suspect it was just an underhanded ploy to get more k’nex. What do you think?

                Liked by 1 person

                  2. Forget AI risk, this is the nightmare scenario we need to focus on preventing.

                    No cat has a legitimate need for 60% enrichment activities.

                    Those lasers are dual-use.

                    Liked by 2 people

      2. Hmm, my pill-taking is peaking out. I’ll skip it, since $SPOUSE needs a GF household to breathe properly anyway…

        There’s also baking with non-gluten ingredients. Bette Hagman was the pioneer, and her cookbooks have some right decent dishes. FWIW, the rice based “True Yeast Bread” calls for the bowl-lift-type Kitchenaid mixer. $NIECE found that the tilt-up version is underpowered. (For those inclined, the lift-mixer is very repairable; we’ve had ours over 20 years, and I’ve had to do some repairs, mostly to the power take off gearing. (Protip: The grain grinder is good for brown rice. Buy white rice flour and the PTO will last a lot longer.) Parts are readily available: among others www dot appliancepartspros dot com is a good source.

        $SPOUSE is allergic to wheat, and I am seriously gluten intolerant. Neither one of us has been tested for celiac, though others in her family have it.

        Linkylove for the book (there are others…) https://www.amazon.com/Gluten-Free-Gourmet-Living-without-Revised/dp/0805064842

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        1. Which is one of the reasons why I do the shopping. I can walk through the bread aisle (where else are they going to put peanut butter? Not sure I want an answer.) without distress. She’s allergic, I’m intolerant. We’re pretty good at GF cooking.

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          1. I’m mostly okay as long as I don’t touch it directly or inhale flour.

            I walked into a Panera Bread once, and never again. The consequences still terrify me to this day. If I hadn’t been online when it really hit, with someone to poke me verbally, so I grabbed an emergency antihistamine….

            Yeah. Oof.

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          2. Ok, so I have a friend who has had to cut all wheat–not a wheat allergy, apparently not gluten intolerant, I’m not sure of the details. But she misses bread. I tried making donuts with rice flour, they were ok but fell apart in the oil.

            I made baked rice crackers (just rice, salt, butter) and she said they’re amazing. But again, they don’t hold together. What simple, inexpensive ingredient can I use as a binder? Egg? Another kind of oil? She’s on a limited income so anything expensive is going to be beyond her budget.

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            1. Heart doctor told me to cut all bread, rice, pasta, pizza crust, crackers, etc. Doesn’t matter what kind of flour or gluten content. “As bad as having a donut.” Weight Loss strategy. Worked for a while. Gaining weight back. (Crackers are the hardest. I do not add salt to anything. I get starved for salt.)

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          2. $SPOUSE refers to celiac as “the English disease”. (Her ancestry covers all the British Isles with a bit of Ireland thrown in.) Me, I’m 3/4s English.

            Never considered desensitization for food allergies; back when I did the series, it was for inhaled allergens (pollen & house dust mites) though the almond pollen came close.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. Oh, I am allergic to inhaled wheat dust/flour. That’s what I’m dissensitizing for.
              Officially a small genetic contribution from the Irish, technically, but really, the north of Portugal and the British isles traded since the 4th century BC. I’d be surprised if there isn’t a high commonality of genes.
              However, because it amuses me, I’m going to blame the Irish. (Hear that BGE? :) )

              Liked by 1 person

                1. My kids might be majority Irish between my bit and their dad’s contribution. Then younger son went and married a girl that’s as close to Irish (like 75%) as possible.
                  Eh. I’ll allow it.

                  Liked by 1 person

              2. the Irish legends are clear that the celts came from Galicia. So, you’re descended from the people that sent colonists to displace the native firlbog. Of course, my background is worse being mostly Norman French and Flemish so we can displace the indigenous together.

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    2. hope it works out for you. The wife makes the most amazing chocolate buns and has a gluten free version. They’re delicious, but you have to make them as cup cakes because of the lack of structure. I can supply the receipt if desired.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. It’s desired by me, since I was diagnosed as celiac this year, at 63. Okay, fine, so my 23 and me said I was celiac, but I thought it was wrong.
        And it turns out what I thought was eczema was a conjunction of psoriasis and…. celiac rash. We have solved the second. Now the first….

        Liked by 1 person

        1. I have a rash like that even after having eliminated all wheat (and wheat relatives). I dunno if it’s just inhalation allergies to everything else – suspect so, given any time I get steroids for another ear infection it tends to clear up.

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        2. talked to the wife. I can provide her recipe which is also vegan because allergies if desired but she said that the only difference between the gluten and gluten free recipe was the use of King Arthur gluten free flour. Everything else is the same. The key to it working is cupcakes because of structure and really good chocolate. She makes a plain frosting with them. Yum

          she worked this out making cupcakes for the daughter’s field hockey team in HS and they used to request them by name

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  10. In Oregon we’re flopping around to get an initiative on the ballot to kill off (almost all) Vote By Mail. We appreciate the Federal push to make Election Day back into a singe day and some voter roll cleansing has, with much wailing and gnashing, occurred.

    But cleaning voter rolls is a problem, because the folks who maintain the rolls, and allowed them to get ‘dirty’, are still in place. I have read about cases where x number of registrations were deleted, and then shortly added back in.

    Until some folks go to jail, this will remain a problem.

    Liked by 1 person

    2. I was reading an article from Alaska, pointing out the problem of “same-day absentee voting” for places that might or might not have road or postal access on election day. It seems one reason Alaska has a 10 day window for getting absentee ballots by mail is that some villages out in the sticks (or Styx?) are often unreachable in November because of crappy weather, storms, or yes. So it takes up to 10 days for their ballots to reach Anchorage.

      I’m sure there are various work-arounds that could be tried, but that struck me as one of the few legitimate arguments for allowing an extended receipt window – postmarked by/on election day, but accepted later because of transportation difficulties.

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      1. Problem is, if you allow “postmarked on election day and received up to a week later” (or whatever amount of time works for Alaska), then you open the door to all sorts of shenanigans. Anyone willing to create a false ballot to cheat in an election will have no scruples about stamping it with a false postmark. And it’s not that hard to carve a rubber stamp into the shape of a postmark, so the technical bar to forgery isn’t high either.

        No, the better solution is for people in remote areas where postal access is spotty to be told “Hey, your village’s deadline for mailing ballots in is October 15th.” (Or October 20th or whatever.) “Any later than that and we can’t guarantee that they’ll be received by Election Day so they might not get counted.”

        Even though early voting has significant problems and bringing it back to one election day is far superior, absentee ballots have always been a form of early voting (if the rule is that it must be received by election day), due to the fact that you simply can’t always get ballots delivered in a single day. And I would argue that saying “absentee ballots must be postmarked by a week before election day” is better than saying “absentee ballots must be postmarked by election day and received up to a week later”, because it makes it far, FAR harder to cheat — any would-be cheaters usually can’t know, a week ahead of time, how many false ballots will be needed to tip the election in their preferred direction. But by election night the number needed is well-known.

        Liked by 2 people

        1. Rubber is sooo 20th century. It’s dead easy to 3D print a phony postmark stamp.

          Your better solution is the correct one. “If it ain’t there on Election Day, it don’t get counted” is perfectly straightforward and nondiscriminatory. Well, I suppose it might not seem fair to inveterate procrastinators, but they’d never get around to complaining about it. 😛

          Liked by 3 people

          1. I wasn’t aware 3D printer filament would hold ink well enough, the way rubber does, to make a good stamp. Learn something new every day.

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            1. Rubber doesn’t really ‘hold’ ink, any more than the wood, stone and metal that have been used for printing down through the ages. The ‘stickyness’ is in the ink, not the printing surface. Rubber’s advantage is that it can conform to uneven printed media, making a cleaner image.

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        2. Slightly easier, have a literal box at the post office that you have to put the ballots in.

          Given the security requirements, it would basically be a “vote at the post office” where it stores the ballots.

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          1. Also, establish a positive chain of custody from the (locked, guarded) ballot box to where the ballots are publicly counted. No ballots get ‘lost’ along the way, no ‘extras’ mysteriously appear.

            Liked by 1 person

            2. Here in Iowa, in-person voting you go to your booth, fill out your paper, walk it over to the electronic box, it scans it in. That both reads the ballot and preserves it for counting, which makes it really hard to have 50 ballots all put in at one time, much less hundreds.

              Liked by 1 person

          2. However, I would add a poll watcher from each party must be present when that ballot box is receiving votes.

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        3. I would argue this is the reason for in-person voting only. For these remote villages. Or at least where remote homesteads drop their ballots before election day (mail has to be gotten to somewhere), witness voter signed and dated outer envelopes, with tracking to verify handling, whom and when. To be opened by vote counting staff on election day, counted, sealed, results phoned in. Sealed pouches/boxes, to be delivered, again with signed tracking each and every step, to the appropriate county/territorial/state office. PIA? Cost of living in a remote area.

          Liked by 1 person

  11. How? You put a monetary skeer in them, and then keep up the skeer.

    The example that comes to mind was a story from the 1990s in semiconductors which I think I have detailed here previously, when one programmer dude won a case in front of the California Labor Board where, after getting layed off, he challenged his classification as exempt (salaried) because they’d treated him as hourly (time cards, stopwatch on lunch, etc.) so he won years worth of back overtime and holiday pay plus penalties for the crazy 60-hr weeks that he worked. He was awarded a simply huge amount of money, being a highly paid technically adept individual contributor. The shockwaves went through all of CA tech, with emergency all day training sessions appearing on calendars for managers like me, making absolutely clear we could not even notice, let alone comment on or make part of anything in writing like reviews, anything more finely grained than “did they show up at all for any amount of time in any given day” for individual contributors, so as to eliminate the monetary risk.

    Something similar happened after the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, with emergency manger, and then all hands, training on any and all conceivable forms of harassment which those brought up.

    I think that was about the same time they let go all the young attractive female lobby receptionists who just completely randomly happened to regularly “date” visiting foreign executives.

    If you can make the corporate accountants and lawyers panic, the rest will follow.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. The insurance companies. Almost all corporate policy is dictated by government regulation and the insurer’s requirements. Find some way to create an insurance liability, and *everything* else falls into place.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Lawsuits and “due diligence”. After a few winning jury lotto tickets, anything is possible.

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  12. I’m feeling less black pilled than usual thanks to Trump and Vance telling Iran to fuck off, and imposing a blockade that hopefully will finish off the Islamic “Republic.”

    This also means Cuba’s Communist government’s days are numbered as well, and the long term outlook for Red China isn’t very good either.

    So, dating myself: in 1991, the US won a huge victory over Iraq in an operation known as Desert Storm. Some of the usual political establishment spokeseunuchs were calling afterwards for President George Herbert Walker Bush to introduce a Domestic Storm, by which they mainly meant more taxing and spending. They would later blame his reelection loss on his supposed failure to do so (of course, he actually did exactly that, and it resulted in a third of his voters going for Ross Perot).

    But if he had actually gone hard right and at least made an effort to do away with large parts of the Deep State, it might have shook things up sufficiently to let him win another term–although this being Bush, it probably would have looked more like his son’s second term than like Trump’s or Reagan’s.

    In any case, I have hoped that if Trump was successful in Operation Epic Fury, he ought to launch a Domestic Fury and break up the Democrats for good. But of course that’s a pipe dream…

    And suddenly, Eric Swalwell is Eric Farewell. And there are lots more Democrats in Congress who have done the same or worse, and it’s starting to get mentioned.

    …Nah. Things couldn’t go that well.

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    1. Eh. I’m hopeful in a general sense. Things will happen that suck. Things will happen that make me smile (possibly even when I shouldn’t, damned schadenfreude).

      Enough good things going in the right direction seems to take on a sort of momentum, at least in the minds of people, which creates a sort of self fulfilling prophecy. Despite the feeling of “other shoe must drop,” there are quite a few things going as they ought just now. Is it perfection? Oh heavens no.

      But for mere mortals such as we? Well, hard work tends to create better times. There’s hard work happening where it should. We voted for it. And the great Orange One is kicking over all sorts of rocks to see the vermin scurry about. They’re not used to such robust energy. They cannot adapt at the same speed.

      Thus, while they are panicking about today, four more things are in the wings with another five hidden under the table. We shall wait and see.

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      1. 20, 40, 60.

        IOW, Routhe was an embarrassment to his cohort, and to Americans.

        One sixty year old loser, maybe zero forty year olds, and mostly late teens and up to mid twenties.

        The stats are encouraging, we aren’t seeing the numbers we would see if the communists could find shooters.

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          1. From about halfway down the article: “Iran imagined it could close Hormuz to all traffic but its own. Trump has now closed it to all traffic whatsoever.”

            Looks like that article was written before the clarification went out that the U.S. Navy will not be blockading all traffic through the Strait, but rather any traffic to or from Iranian ports (only). Traffic to and from other countries such as Saudi Arabia, the U.S. will not impede.

            I don’t know how much of his analysis relies on this later-proven-false premise, because I’m not at all sure how much Hormuz traffic is/was heading to Iranian ports vs. ports from other countries. If nearly all Hormuz traffic was going to Iran, then the rest of his analysis will still hold true. But if there’s a lot of naval traffic that’s not going to/from Iran, but merely transiting Hormuz because it’s their most convenient route to whatever destination, then his analysis of global naval traffic (and resulting economic effects) will be badly damaged by its reliance on this false premise.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. US oil is currently more reliable, and as demand drives more US supply, it will get cheaper relative to dealing with Ayatollah AzzHat and his merry MadMullahs. They can go back to swapping goats.

              And two of our major rivals just lost access to the cheap sanction-dodge crude that fueled their war machines.

              LOL! And Israel now can snuff at will various Azzhats. (who should have been Texas Rule subjects decades ago.)

              I don’t mind a bit paying $5 a gallon while this sorts out.

              Liked by 1 person

            2. Well, the tracking he shows on VLCC tankers (2 million ton) into Gulf of America seems to be accurate, and those don’t turn on a dime.

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              1. That is why that supertanker map matters. Market actors are repositioning toward the United States because U.S. supply is secure. They aren’t moving ships to the Gulf of America for the scenery.

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    2. Oh, yeah, ‘inappropriate behavior’. As opposed to espionage and treason.

      Reminds me of how Granny-Killer Cuomo was removed from office for making a few women ‘feel uncomfortable’ instead of for mass murder of old folks. 😡

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      1. In fairness, the only people who have had access to the full information on Swalwell’s interactions with the Chinese spy are the FBI. All that’s been known for certain is that he had interactions of some sort with her, and that she apparently influenced at least one hiring decision. And so Speaker Johnson kicked him off of the Intelligence Committee (because Speaker Pelosi did not).

        However, Trump just recently announced that he was going to release the FBI report. Last I’d heard (a couple of weeks ago) was that the appropriate people were preparing it for release. Swalwell was not happy about that.

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        1. Fang Fang was a conduit to funnel communist Chinese money into Democrat campaigns. Swalwell warned her to get out of the country when the FBI was closing in. I’d call that close enough to treason.

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    3. Yes, the political career of Mr. Fang Fang, Eric ‘Let’s nuke recalcitrant Americans’ Swallowwell, is dead.

      Let me play a dirge on the world’s smallest violin . . .

      Liked by 1 person

    4. Looking like E Farewell is not only taking some democrats down with him, but a RINO, or two. Couldn’t happen to a better bunch. Surprised hubby, BIL, and SIL, that ES took himself off the national board all the way. Hubby’s excuse was he was golfing when it all went down. Don’t know what the other two’s excuses were. OTOH I’d have missed it too, if hadn’t been watching FOX The Five, when breaking news announced the resignation.

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      1. Tony Gonzales was already primaried.

        So it feels like someone cut a deal on ridding congress of two scumbags, and someone else delivered.

        Many happy returns of the day!

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        1. There’s more than that going on.

          Swalwell’s fall is aimed at his California gubernatorial candidacy. California uses a so-called jungle primary system, which is “the two candidates with the most votes face each other in the general election, regardless of party affiliation”. Including Swalwell, there were eight Democrats running. There are only two Republicans running. This means that there are just enough Republicans running to take both of the spots in the General Election (completely blocking the Democrats from running in the General Election), but not so many that they dilute the Republican vote in the Primary. With eight possible candidates to choose from, the Democrats risk having the Democrat vote diluted so badly that no Democrat gets the first or second highest vote. And, indeed, polls currently suggest that the two slots in the General Election might just go to the Republicans if things continue as they are. So some Democratic candidates need to be convinced to drop out to ensure that at least one Democrat is able to run in the General (and, since it’s California, that Democrat is all but guaranteed to win). But none of them want to.

          And now one has been forced out.

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          1. The polling for the California governors race primary this June was the threshold trigger, but the fact they pushed him all the way out of his House seat either means the internal polling on the Congressional midterms is going so badly for the Dems that they needed to immediately clean house now to shore things up, or that they have seen way, way worse stuff on him that has not yet come out publicly. Possibly both.

            Liked by 2 people

            1. FM I think he had already had to forgo running for his House seat to run for the Governor’s slot in California so he’s out come Jan 3 next year no matter what. I wonder if the Dem’s don’t stop his legal issues (Like I expect they promised to do) he may just stay in the race (hasn’t actually pulled his name yet) to get what he needs. If one of the charges stays being prosecuted he could be disbarred and with no political career and no legal career, he’s down to news pundit, and how’s that working out for say Anthony Weiner even 10 years later. And you can bet he has dirt on other California Dems, and will go scorched earth if he’s totally stuck, at worst getting a tell all writing gig. I sense a need for popcorn coming up.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. As far as I know he technically did not have to not run for both reelection and Governor, but said he would.

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                1. Hmm there doesn’t seem to be an obvious requirement or eligibility restriction for California governor with respect to other offices other than you may not have held the Governors office more than one time prior (i.e. there is a two term limit). Some states force you to run for at most only one statewide office, others (E.G. Texas in the past where Sen. Johnson ran for both Senate AND VP in the 1960 race) not so much.

                  Liked by 2 people

            2. A woman came out today with testimony she met him in a public place (hotel restaurant? Bar?) because he had offered her advice on her software business. She had a glass of wine. Next thing she remembers is being in his hotel room, being raped and choked, and believing she was dying.

              This matches testimony from other women, though their reasons for being with him may have been a bit less “innocent.”

              Meanwhile, Ruben Gallego is swearing up and down he knew nothing, nothing about any of this. We’ll see how far the feeding frenzy goes.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. …and there is absolutely no evidence that the other dude seen with Eric and those ladies of negotiable virtue on that video lounging on that hotel room bed was Gallegos, despite any resemblance in what is seen. No evidence at all. Not one bit.

                Liked by 1 person

      2. Another theory is he’s also being sacrificed to preserve two black female Congresscritters who have already been indicted.

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        1. “being sacrificed to preserve two black female Congresscritters who have already been indicted.“

          –

          Definitely taking the news cycle off of them. Not that the MSM is reporting on them. Won’t help. Wouldn’t be indited unless slam dunk case. Doesn’t mean they will be convicted given jurisdictions involved.

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  13. I would like to say that it is inappropriate for gormless leftist try-hards to attempt to assassinate CEOs in industries that are fashionable.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. It’s inappropriate to call for a woman to be raped for not aborting her baby with Down Syndrome.

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  14. Requiring aptitude testing and hiring in strict accordance with scores would do a lot to kill DEI. Which is why the woke react to that idea like demons to holy water.

    Liked by 1 person

  15. Merit implies personal responsibility. The Left reacts to that as a vampire to garlic, not the least because it cuts the legs out from under Grievance and Envy.

    Liked by 2 people

  16. On something that no one else noted ( and probably due to only my personal experiences, which include having grown up on a small family farm) I got to thinking about the South African Vegetable stand owners being Portuguese…

    Well, back when I was in the Navy, I had a Portuguese penpal. When we finally ported in Lisbon, I took the train to Porto for a meet up. But her Granny got sick, and she asked if I would mind riding along to visit her? Well, heck no! It was a very enlightening experience, as the very rural setting where she grew up was quite a ‘step back in time’ from the city. Farmers tilling the soil and limited electrical use (this was 1978, I believe) and despite my extremely poor command of Portuguese, I had a great time wandering about and interacting with the farmers, as only a limited number of people could fit in Granny’s bedroom at once.

    So, naturally I associate Portuguese with hard working, caring farmers who would naturally operate many fine vegetable stands. And the stories of what the South African government has done to any farmers who don’t tan REALLY deeply has been quite disturbing. And the natural consequences of getting rid of the people who really knew what they were doing, and CARED about it. Yes, I know, Commies gotta Commie, FAFO.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Be very grateful the a-hats of the prior regime handed over the (eight-ish?) working nukes before the communists took South Africa. Since the world handed SA to the communists, a certain amount of understandable ire and payback might have seen the loons armed with oh-so-saleable little-boy devices.

      The prior owners might just as easily set them all as boobytraps, locally or via freighter somewhere else. The results could have been apocalyptic.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Given there are rumors South Africa worked with Israel (C.F. the Vela Incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_incident ) those 8 were probably far more capable than a US MK I (I.E. Little Boy) perhaps more like the US Mk 7 /W-7 suitable for delivery via an SRBM or a tactical Bomber (South Africa having no B-29/Tu-4 etc class heavy bombers). That would be saleable indeed. That is also the class of hardware Iran was likely working on. The Government leaving knew exactly what it was doing to handicap any following government in that respect.

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    2. We lived about 20 miles from Porto. the second largest city in the country. And yeah. Most farmers tilled the soil with animal power, and most of the houses were barely wired for electrical.

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    3. Forrest Galante when he and his crew got a chance to tour (what was left) of the grounds (don’t remember them even trying to go into any of the buildings, including main house) of the ranch his family owned. He was run out of Zimbabwe in 2001, with his mother and siblings. Allowed to pack one bag each of clothing and < 24 hours to leave.

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