Some people’s idea of “free speech” is the right to sh*tpost and spread misinformation with zero consequences. If you want that kind of platform, go elsewhere. Please.

— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) April 14, 2022

The irony is that this itself is misinformation.

Quick reminder:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The First Amendment absolutely gives me the right to shitpost and say whatever I want on the internet.

Especially since the same First Amendment protects those mendacious lying fucks on CNN, MSNBC, etc. to also spread disinformation like Russian Collusion, pee-pee tapes, Kavanaugh the rapist, Rittenhouse the murderer, etc.

You’re just mad that you’re losing control of the disinformation monopoly.

And while we’re on the topic of spreading misinformation about Constitutional Amendments.

The Second Amendment does in face give me the right to own guns, even machine guns and explosives.

Gay couple files complaint against New York City over denying IVF coverage
The city’s policy makes accommodations for lesbian couples to receive infertility treatments, but not for gay men, the couple’s filing stated.

A gay couple filed a class-action charge of discrimination against New York City on Tuesday alleging that the city’s insurance policy is discriminatory because it does not cover in vitro fertilization, or IVF, for gay male couples.

The couple planned to pursue a two-part process to have children: First, they would pursue IVF, a process where an egg is combined with sperm in a lab. Then they planned to work with an agency to hire a surrogate who would carry the baby to term.

But those plans were interrupted in 2017, after Briskin took a job as an assistant district attorney at the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan, and the couple said they learned that the city’s insurance policy doesn’t provide IVF benefits for gay men.

The couple said without insurance coverage, IVF would cost them $70,000 to $100,000, which would make it unaffordable. They already plan to pay for surrogacy out of pocket, which, with egg donation, can cost an additional $165,000, according to documents filed with the EEOC charge.

By not providing coverage for gay men, “the City’s policy breathes life into the outdated stereotype that gay men are not fit to be parents,” the charge stated. The charge also argued that the city’s policy violates federal, state and city laws against discrimination.

I’m a dad and I love being a dad, so I completely understand the desire other men have to be fathers.  I’m not attacking that.

This case reminds me a lot of a topic Miguel and I covered a few years ago about Publix insurance paying for HIV PrEP.

The vast majority of parents, heterosexual people conceiving in the natural way, will never need this coverage.

Some percentage of heterosexual couples will need some assistance conceiving, and the insurance coverage starts low, with other less costly and lest risky forms of assistance, then works there way up.

Under the city’s policy, an individual has to be diagnosed with infertility to be eligible for coverage of IVF or other assisted reproductive technologies. The policy — like most insurance policies nationwide — defines infertility as “the inability to conceive after 12 months of unprotected intercourse” or after 12 cycles of intrauterine insemination, or IUI, over 12 months.

That makes sense.

Insurance is a risk pool, to be profitable you have to assume the risk is low, most couples don’t need fertility treatments.

Them you gradually increase coverage, drugs, then IUI, then finally if that doesn’t work, IVF as the most expensive and invasive treatment is the last option.

Very few heterosexual couples need that.

There is no amount of fertility drugs or IUI that will help a gay couple conceive.

In the process that this couple is using, getting an anonymous egg, IVF, hiring a surrogate to carry the baby, that is the maximum cost and maximum difficulty way of having a baby.

It also reminds me of the quote by Nikola Tesla, “you may live to see man-made horrors beyond your comprehension.”

So the risk pool effectively becomes a 100% guarantee that gay couples who want children are going to need the maximum coverage of the policy.  There are no lower cost, less risky, “try this and see if it works before we try IVF” options.

And that is right now.  In researching this story I’ve already seen gay rights groups say that surrogacy should be covered too because only rich people can afford that.  Watch that become the next stage of this case.  So a gay couple that wants kids will cost $250,000 per child to the insurance provider.

I find that to be ridiculous.

There is a difference between a heterosexual couple with a medical problem that is having difficulty conceiving a child in the natural way and a gay couple that wants a bespoke child in a Frankensteinien four-way (sperm donor, egg donor, surrogate, IVF technician).

If a gay couple wants IVF, here is my stipulation: find a surrogate, pop a Viagra, put some gay porn on the TV, and man up and try to conceive the natural way for a year, if that doesn’t work then you get IVF, no different than straight couples.

That’s equality, not a guaranteed designer baby through science.

In case you missed it, in the UK a group of Leftist environmental activists have been attacking and disabling oil tankers to stop the flow of oil into London to protest climate change.

They disabled the tanker’s brake cable – locking the trailer’s brakes – then climbed on top of the trailer pic.twitter.com/Ay7MNTD0iP

— Damien Gayle (@damiengayle) April 14, 2022

That’s bad.

But it gets worse (hint, go to 1:48):

All self-righteousness but not a intelligent thought in their heads.

Or he has very strange taste in partners. Being Hollywood, it could be either.

(AP) – Yet again, the U.S. is trudging into what could be another COVID-19 surge, with cases rising nationally and in most states after a two-month decline.

One big unknown? “We don’t know how high that mountain’s gonna grow,” said Dr. Stuart Campbell Ray, an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins University.

No one expects a peak nearly as high as the last one, when the contagious omicron version of the coronavirus ripped through the population.

But experts warn that the coming wave – caused by a mutant called BA.2 that’s thought to be about 30% more contagious – will wash across the nation. They worry that hospitalizations, which are already ticking up in some parts of the Northeast, will rise in a growing number of states in the coming weeks. And the case wave will be bigger than it looks, they say, because reported numbers are vast undercounts as more people test at home without reporting their infections or skip testing altogether.

It’s not over: COVID-19 cases are on the rise again in US (14news.com)

Would it be fair to say that there is only some skin and bones left to beat on this dead COVID horse?

Dr. Eric Topol, head of Scripps Research Translational Institute, said the numbers will likely keep growing until the surge reaches about a quarter the height of the last “monstrous” one. BA.2 may well have the same effect in the U.S. as it did in Israel, where it created a “bump” in the chart measuring cases, he said.

“WE MUST PANIC” say the experts. About what? Not really sure. But you need to go deeper in the article to find the “We are being balanced” disclaimer:

Joseph Wendelken, spokesperson for the Rhode Island Department of Health, said the metric they are most focused on right now is hospitalizations, which remain relatively low. About 55 COVID-19 patients are hospitalized, compared with more than 600 at one point in the pandemic.

COVID does hit a certain demographic. We have known this for over a year now: Obesity, smoking, advanced age, overall weakened state is some of the things that may cause people to fall sick and even die. But the use of “infection” as only true measure and suggesting a direct equivalence to death is plain lies spread on purpose by the same media that complains about people believing other sources rather than them. Even the latest strain of Ebola “only” kills about 50% of those infected while the survival rates for COVID are in the 99% neighborhood.

But fret not. The COVID Theater of Horror is not going anywhere. In fact, the show has been renewed and new seasons have been approved and will come to your life soon.

Vigilance is a good strategy, experts said, because the coronavirus is constantly throwing curveballs. One of the latest: even more contagious subvariants of BA.2 found in New York state, known as BA.2.12 and BA.2.12.1. And scientists warn that new and potentially dangerous variants could arise at any time.

“We shouldn’t be thinking the pandemic is over,” Topol said. “We should still keep our guard up.”

They will keep on beating the horse till they pulverize all of it or no longer is a usable political tool.

Journalists are sounding an alarm about the spread of disinformation in society and how it affects their jobs on a daily basis, along with skepticism on whether traditional methods to combat it really work.

The free speech advocates PEN America found in a survey of journalists released Thursday that 90% said their jobs have been affected by false content created with the intent to deceive.

Journalists Despair Over Toll of Disinformation on Jobs (voanews.com)

This is funny. The group that constantly has been caught deceiving the American People by taking political sides and tailoring news so they can influence electoral and other outcomes are mad because the people trust other sources, truthful/accurate or not.

Disinformation takes many forms: former President Donald Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 presidential election,

Not a single case of election’s fraud has been presented, nobody has been arrested or anything, right?

unproven COVID-19 treatments spreading online

Like never-ending booster vaccines? Oh wait, that is part of the “Trust The Science” conglomerate who happens to be financing a lot of Media parent companies with ads.

and wild QAnon theories about pedophilia.

It ceased to be a theory the moment your people actually started to loudly protest their “right” to teach kindergarteners about sex and to offer gender reassignement counseling and even theraphy to minors without the consent of the parents.

It could be as simple as a local politician lying about an opponent’s record

Newspapers lying about local pols is OK. Protected even.

or this week’s debate over whether video showed bird poop landing on President Joe Biden’s jacket during a speech.

It is OK, we all know that the poop is between Pedo Joe’s ears.

Dear Journos: What is making your life difficult can be found by simply standing in front of he nearest mirror and looking at the person being reflected. If you had not betrayed the trust with the public so many decades ago, we would not had the need to seek other sources. And what is worse, knowing well that it is your product the one that people reject, rather than retool, improve and report the news, you decided to whine, bitch and lie about other sources while doubling down on the propaganda you are already dismissed for.

You shot yourselves repeatedly on the foot. Don’t blame the gun or the people watching you.

GiveSendGo – Fundraiser for GunFreeZone Blog: The #1 Free Christian Fundraising Site.

Several people have told me to go ahead and add GiveSendGo as donation platform. And after the bullcrap GoFundMe pulled in Canada, I figured you guys were right.

Now I have to play again with the right column and leave a permanent visual access for all visitors.

And thank you everybody!