Sunday, May 22, 2022

 

BILL MAHER “REAL TIME” TRANS KIDS, LGBTQ

Bill Maher should have known that he would create a furor, something that helps ratings, when he had the temerity to discuss the recent rapid increase in LGBTQ and trans people. In a nut shell, here you go:

Generation born before 1946                                                        Less than 1%   “identify” as LGBTQ

Boomers I born 1946-1954
Boomer II born 1954-1964
  Broken up as the latter did not get drafted                                                 2.6%        

 
Gen X born 1965-1980, age 42-57                                                              4.2%         
 
Millennials born 1981-1996, age 26-41                                                    10.5%         
 
Gen Z born 1997-2012, age 10-25                                                             20.8%         
 
Roughly double every generation. He joked that by 2054, we would all be gay.
 
The facts and the joke fell flat among the true believers, of course. There are other pieces of his talk, and it can be reached at “Real Time” closing comments for Friday, May 20, 2022 and then go to the usual suspects, The Hill, Salon, to get the criticism.
 
Just look at that growth! Has all this been suppressed over lo these many years?? They criticized his questioning that. You are not supposed to question trending stuff these days. One of the problems with being “woke” is that you can never be woke enough, there is always someone else who is more woke. Seems ‘trendy” to me. The phrase “follow the science” has been bastardized to mean “don’t question my latest version of science” while the essence of science is experimentation and questioning. If you can’t question it, it isn’t science. Just go back to Obama’s claim about 98% of scientists agree…you should never find 98% of real scientists agreeing on virtually anything.
 
I don’t have followers, and the recipients of this either agree or don’t care, so I won’t get myself in too much hot water, but like so much that we see these days, it all seems suspect. 

I want to emphasize this: The people I know and have known who are gay are authentic. They have known, I have known, since they were young that they were not interested in the opposite sex, and most of my friends have tried that more typical route and rejected it to be honest to themselves. As far as most of us are concerned, they are just people and some are amazing and some are jerks.
 
On the other hand, there are people who I have known who have determined that they are gay, but just don’t present themselves that way. Makes you wonder. Some have reverted to “maybe the opposite sex will hurt me, but I’m still hetero.”
 
This whole thing about “identifying” leads to men competing against women in sports. America has spent billions and successfully changed the landscape for athletic women, especially Title IX. There is no place for a man in a women’s event or in their prison or in their bathroom. Isn’t it obvious?
 
After all, “identifying” really means “pretending” in many instances.
                 
Source of the statistics, Gallup poll.

Saturday, May 21, 2022

TESLA again

Take a look at my post from July 2, 2020, about two years ago. I admitted that my many posts about Tesla have been wrong.

Never have been a fan of Elon Musk, but you have to admit that he has amassed an amazing string of financial and engineering successes. Now, my attitude about him might be changing as I see ultra-lib heads exploding as they contemplate their purchase of his cars and his stock as financing his takeover of Twitter (if it happens) and allowing “free speech” (OMG!).

After all, free speech is reserved for those who agree with you. That is why Twitter and Facebook blocked the accounts of the New York Post (the oldest paper in the US) on October 14, 2020, days before the election that would have exposed Joe Biden’s involvement in the antics of his son.

Turns out, that article was true. Despite the NYT saying it was not. Well, the NYT has a history of being wrong about a lot of things, like the atrocities of Stalin.

Back to Tesla stock: it is down nearly 50% from its high, and just about flat with the price when I published that blog July 2020.

I still think the embrace of Tesla by the California elite and the nation’s liberals has been an extraordinary exercise of human nature, much like the Tulip Bulb mania of the 1630’s. Nothing wrong with Tesla being more valuable than Honda, Ferrari, BMW, GM, Nikola and Nissan…combined. Tesla’s production has tripled to about 300,000 vehicles in the first quarter. Toyota made 10.6 million vehicles in the year ended March 31, 2022 (note year vs quarter) and made profits of $24.5 Billion. Meanwhile, Tesla’s ANNUAL REVENUE (Total sales!!) was $19 Billion for the year ended 2021.

Oh, well. I’m rooting for free speech. But I do wish that people would recognize the horrible economic cost of electric cars.

SCAM ALERT

 Two days ago, I received an email that had a whole bunch of authentic information and said that they were going to charge my credit card for $498.50 to renew my annual membership at Best Buy.

That was way too much, but I have had Best Buy’s guarantee program that will fix my computers, so that much was ok.

They wanted me to call a number, which I did. I had trouble understanding the person who answered due to thick accent, but they finally said they thought it was an error and that they would transfer me to Best Buy. The person who answered at “Best Buy” sounded like—accent and background noise—like they were three desks down from the first person.

The key request was when they wanted to have me take the steps so they could “see” my computer. No, No, a thousand times No.

I hung up, never found out what the next step was going to be. Called Best Buy’s authentic number and was told that the fee was about $100 and it was not set to expire until August.

How did they get my email and connection with Best Buy? Simply firing out millions of automated emails? Why don’t we have these people trying to perform legitimate work?

BEWARE the scam that indicates that they are trying to correct a problem or transfer you to Amazon or Best Buy, etc. They have busted some of the call centers in India, but not all.