It seems one of the new Cause Celebres is ranting against tall vehicles because allegedly the drivers cannot see pedestrians and may run over them.

If you truly fear this possible event, I am going to give you an advice that dates back to the days of the Model T: Look both ways before you cross the street.  And go to the eye doctor if you cannot see one of these things coming.

That you are a walking mass of insecurities is not the problem of the owner of the truck or anybody else. That is your crap to deal with, so seek mental help.

PS: Never play chicken or stupid with any moving vehicle.

Discrimination exists.  Anybody that tells you it doesn’t is lying.  Some discrimination is good, some is bad.  People telling you that all discrimination is bad are ignorant, lying, and/or evil.

You use discrimination when you pick one apple over another.  You use it when you pick one barber shop over another.  You use it when you pick one route over another.  You use it any time you choose between two or more options.

Since The Panic one of my clients left.  Because of that I no longer drive into the city.  Because of that it is now inconvenient to use my old barber.   I <b>needed</b> a haircut.  There is a newish shop in town.  I tried four times to get a haircut there.  She was booked and told me to go away and come back some other time or make an appointment.  Twice I showed up to find the shop closed.  Twice I was told she was booked and to go away.

My lady was with me for the last one.  When asked she told me her opinion, she didn’t like the lady.  I didn’t like the lady.  I didn’t like the shop.

Google is my friend and with a little looking I found another local barbershop.  It was actually a little closer.  Went there.  It was hard to find, inside a business building.  No real outside signs.  I walk in and it feels right.

There are two young men and one immediately leaps up to get his chair ready.  It is well lit and decorated with American Flags, some Vet Honors, Police Patch board, hunting stuff over one chair with fake (plastic)  rifles.  Over the other chair were car things.  Everything about the shop yelled “We Love Our Country!”

And indeed they do.

Was I discriminating against a female when I choose a male barber over her?  No.  I was discriminating over the type of shop and the difference in attitudes.  Turns out that the guy that did my hair is a “master barber” and interned under a his father-in-law, a “Master Barber Instructor”.  Didn’t know that was a thing.

Yeah, it was a good haircut.  I’ll be going back next month.

Discrimination works.

Discriminating based on inmutable external characteristics is not as good.  You might agree that discriminating over a person  in confined to a wheelchair would be bad.  Just because they are in a wheelchair doesn’t mean they can’t do the job.

These are not auditions for the next Police Academy sequel. This is an actual IRS recruiting program: pic.twitter.com/KUFqxmbDpW

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) August 16, 2022

Note that the fact checkers say this isn’t really IRS training agents. Nor is it a recruiting exercise, instead it is an opportunity for college students to pretend to be IRS CI agents to help convince these accounting students to join the IRS, NOT recruiting which is doing things with people in order to get them to join your organization.

I have no problem with working with people of other races, genders, or religions. That is because I do discriminate based on merit. If you are good at your job, I do not care what you look like, who your partner is, or what god(s) you do or do not worship.

When discrimination is because of an immutable trait, then it starts to become bad. If you refuse to hire somebody because they are black, that is a bad discrimination. If you refuse to hire somebody because the are a female or because the are a male, that is a bad discrimination.

We just watched Something the Lord Made, based on the life and work of Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas. The casual discrimination contained within was saddening. Dr. Blalock didn’t discriminate against Thomas, but he didn’t see the institutional discrimination that was taking place.

I did grow up in a time where that casual discrimination still existed. In highschool I hung out with the “smart” crowd. I already knew I was going to be going to University to study Computer Science. In preparation I took a personal typing course. I was the only male in the class.

In talking to one of my friends, also one of the smart crowd, I found that she was also going into computer science. I asked her why she didn’t take a typing class.

“If I take a typing class I will become a secretary for the rest of my life.”

That was a casual discrimination. So she showed up at University with a significant handicap for being a computer science. She couldn’t “talk” to the computers easily. If you can’t touch type at 50+ WPM including special characters, you aren’t going to be doing very well in computer science. You can certainly do ok as a copy paste person, but there is now way you can write hundreds of lines of code in a day if you can’t type.

(Nor can you write long blog entries in a timely fashion.)

Because the Democrats refused to stop discriminating against blacks we ad to pass the 13th and 14th amendments and later the Republicans pushed the Civil Rights Bill through Congress and forced LBJ to sign it into law. A good thing.

The law basically says that you can discriminate against people based on immutable characteristics.

Enter the world of word redefinition. According to the left, a person is born gay. Since they are born gay and it can’t be changed then it is an immutable characteristic and as such is protected via the anti-discrimination laws.

Well it turns out that the won that battle. Mostly because nobody was really fighting it all that hard. Yes there were some people that thought that religious tracts said that homosexuality was a sin. Yes there were people that were badly hurt because they were homosexuals. In general, unless you flaunted it in the work place nobody knew, nobody cared.

Unfortunately we ended up in a situation where “You will be forced to care.” The act of discriminating morphed from actively discriminating to not celebrating enough.

And then we ran into the issue of anti-discrimination laws vs. the rights of people to choose who their clients are.

If somebody comes to us and requests that we do work for them, we can flat out refuse. A customer came to a client, they wanted a site to facilitate getting an escort for events. If you were a successful but fat slob, you could go to them and have some eye candy on your arm when you went to the awards ceremony. Everything appeared to be on the up and up. They had both male and female escorts. Everybody seemed to be of age. Everything was strictly of a non-sexual nature.

My client almost refused this customer. One of the devs had an “ick” moment. In the end, my client excepted and that customer was a customer for a good many years, paying well. At no time did it ever appear that they did anything even approaching illegal.

We have the right to reject a client for any or no reason. Except…

In Colorado they have an Anti-Discrimination Act. This was used to attempt to drive Masterpiece Cakeshop out of business in retribution for refusing to make a custom wedding cake for a long time customer. The baker had been doing business with this gay couple for years. When they were able to get married they came to Masterpiece Cakeshop and requested a custom wedding cake.

The baker told them that he would not make them a custom cake but that they were free to choose from any of the other wedding cakes his company made. He also suggested another bakery which had no religious beliefs stopping them from making custom wedding cakes for same sex marrages.

This went all the way to the supreme court and in 2018 they issued their opinion

Held: The Commission’s actions in this case violated the Free Exercise Clause. Pp. 9–18.

(a) The laws and the Constitution can, and in some instances must, protect gay persons and gay couples in the exercise of their civil rights, but religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected views and in some instances protected forms of expression. See Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U. S. ___, ___. While it is unexceptional that Colorado law can protect gay persons in acquiring products and services on the same terms and conditions as are offered to other members of the public, the law must be applied in a manner that is neutral toward religion. To Phillips, his claim that using his artistic skills to make an expressive statement, a wedding endorsement in his own voice and of his own creation, has a significant First Amendment speech component and implicates his deep and sincere religious beliefs. His dilemma was understandable in 2012, which was before Colorado recognized the validity of gay marriages performed in the State and before this Court issued United States v.
Windsor, 570 U. S. 744, or Obergefell. Given the State’s position at the time, there is some force to Phillips’ argument that he was not unreasonable in deeming his decision lawful. State law at the time also afforded storekeepers some latitude to decline to create specific messages they considered offensive. Indeed, while the instant enforcement proceedings were pending, the State Civil Rights Division concluded in at least three cases that a baker acted lawfully in declining to create cakes with decorations that demeaned gay persons or gay marriages. Phillips too was entitled to a neutral and respectful consideration of his claims in all the circumstances of the case. Pp. 9–12.

This meant that the Supreme court said that Rights guaranteed by the Constitution could not be usurped by state laws, even if those laws were designed to stop discrimination.

So we now walk a delicate line. If you belong to a religion that hates white Christian Men, does that mean you can discriminate against white Christian Men? Likely “no” as discrimination because of race is Unconstitutional. Your right to be free of discrimination because of your race is balanced against his right to practice his religion free from government interference.

In 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis the issue is back again. In this case 303 Creative is a web designer that creates websites celebrating marriage. She is refusing to create a website to celebrate a gay marriage because her religious beliefs say that it is not a real marriage.

We know that separate but equal doesn’t work. If a employer was discriminating against a openly gay person, is that a violation of that person’s rights? What if it is a Catholic School and they have a religious requirement that all employees act in keeping with the morals of the church? Since the church believes that homosexuality is a sin this means that the school will not higher homosexuals.

Is that discrimination?

In some cases it seems simple enough. If there are 1000s of web-designers that are willing to do the web page, is there really cause to force this particular one to do the site?

And how do you force somebody to do their best work when they are doing it under duress?

I don’t think there is a simple answer.

It’s debatable: Does public-accommodation law violate First Amendment?

In this week’s “It’s Debatable,” Rick Rosen and Charles Moster debate on 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis

When I saw the news that Paul Pelosi was attacked with a hammer at his home but no details were released, I assumed, as in typical fashion about mass shooters, that the attack was carried out by someone who was inconvenient to the Leftist narrative.

At the time I thought, probably an illegal immigrant or minority criminals who didn’t know that was the Pelosi house and was engaged in one of the many robberies that has caused half of San Francisco residents to be a victim of property crime in the last few years.

It made sense.  The Left is downplaying crime as an issue and if the Speaker of the House was a victim of an armed robbery, that would hurt their narrative.  Best to make that go away.

Had it been some white guy in a MAGA hat, I’m sure the FBI would have started door-to-door raids of known Trump supporters already.

Then the details started to come out.

I was wrong, it wasn’t some dumb crook who didn’t know whose house he robbed.

But it wasn’t a Right wing attack either.

It’s weird as hell is what it is.

Paul Pelosi told attacker he needed to use the bathroom, called 911 from there

Law enforcement officials are still investigating how the alleged assailant, identified by police as 42-year-old David DePape, was able to access the speaker’s home and have not yet assessed a motive.

Paul Pelosi was able to dial 911 himself after telling the intruder he had to go use the bathroom and then calling from there, where his phone had been charging, according to a person familiar with the situation. He was hospitalized after the attack at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, where he successfully underwent surgery to repair a skull fracture and “serious injuries to right arm and hands,” Pelosi spokesperson Drew Hammill said in a statement Friday evening.

In a brief press conference Friday, San Francisco Police Chief William Scott said that police officers were dispatched to the Pelosi residence at about 2:30 a.m. for a “priority well-being check,” and arrived on the scene to find Paul Pelosi and DePape holding a hammer.

“The suspect pulled the hammer away from Mr. Pelosi and violently assaulted him with it,” Scott said. “Our officers immediately tackled the suspect, disarmed him, took him into custody, requested emergency backup and rendered medical aid.”

DePape was running around the saying “where’s Nancy?”

Paul Pelosi’s attacker shouted ‘Where is Nancy?’ looking for the House speaker during home break-in and assault, reports say

A source briefed on the attack told CNN that the intruder shouted “Where is Nancy? Where is Nancy?” at the speaker’s husband, Paul Pelosi, after breaking into the home just before 2:30 a.m. CNN reported that the attacker also tried to tie Pelosi up, saying he was waiting for the speaker.

Then things get weird.

This is from the Sacramento Bee:

Conspiracy theories, racist posts: What we know about the Nancy Pelosi home invasion suspect

A blog written under the name of DePape — with the domain ‘godisloving.wordpress.com’ and banner that reads “Welcome to Big Brothers Censorship Hell” — includes articles titled ‘pedophile normalization,’ ‘facts are racist,’ and ‘Hitler did nothing wrong.’

His posts contain right-wing conspiracy theories, QAnon beliefs and racists messages. He repeatedly railed against government officials, the media and tech companies for alleged censorship. The blog, created in 2007, was largely inactive until this summer, when he made dozens of posts in the span of just four days in August.

Another website with entries also written by a person who identifies as David DePape similarly contains antisemitic and bigoted blog posts, including denial of the Holocaust.

CNN reported that DePape’s Facebook account, which has been taken down by the social media company, contained memes and conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines, the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 attack.

According to a 2008 Oakland Tribune article, DePape has three children with Oxane “Gypsy” Taub, a prominent Bay Area nude activist who pushed conspiracy theories, including that 9/11 was an “inside job” and attempted to stage a naked wedding on the steps of San Francisco City Hall. A 2013 article in The San Francisco Chronicle identified David DePape as a “hemp jewelry maker” who was living in a Berkeley Victorian flat with Taub, their three children and Taub’s partner at that time, Jaymz Smith.

This is from Heavy.com:

David Depape, Paul Pelosi Suspect: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

An older picture of Depape, a Canadian-born resident of Berkeley, showed him alongside a prominent Berkeley nudist activist with whom he helped raise children.

Some of his posts referred to former President Donald Trump. “Either Q is Trump himself or Q is the deepstate moles within Trumps inner circle. So Q/Trump sabotaged their child trafficking operations. #2 self inflicted wound. Trumps covert id or a Deep state mole? Was Q refering to this? Did Q do this? another video,” he wrote, referring to QAnon. Some videos on his website show Pelosi.

So is he far Right, far Left, just plain fucking nuts?

He wasn’t a Trump fan.

And, of course, how did this guy get in past security?

We clearly don’t know enough but what we do know is that this is some bat shit craziness that isn’t “a Right Wing Trump supporter tried to assassinate Speaker Pelosi.”

My son wanted to be Albert Einstein for Halloween.  There is a kid’s costume parade this morning downtown.  He has the wig and the mustache.  We wanted a prop so I made him a clipboard that had the famous E = mc² on it.

I then decided to add my own flourish to the back.

590 feet per second is BB gun speed or close to.

I have become a fan of the slow rimfire cartridges. You can shoot them in your backyard from a long gun without the need for ear protection. Within a reasonable distance they are pretty accurate, and the occasional backyard pest ends up going bye-bye without too much mess.

I still need to get around and get a .22LR revolver and a bolt action or pump rifle in the same caliber. I have a rifle loaner which I have been using and it is a joy to feed it sub sonics without having to endure the partial ejections & feeding issues of shooting from a semi-auto.

Also, it seems I am not the only one who likes this type of ammo, so if you see it, grab some and “hoard” it ’cause it disappears off the shelves rather quickly.