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Thursday, April 3, 2025

The Diversity Report #23

 A selection of articles showcasing the benefits of diversity, equity and inclusion: 

 Described as “apocalyptic” by William O’Neill, whom the United Nations Human Rights Council appointed its expert on Haiti, the country has suffered thousands of homicides as well as kidnappings, with rape a common occurrence. In addition to the violence, Haitians experience a constant lack of food, shelter, water, and medical services. All the necessities of a functioning state remain in disrepair. The humanitarian catastrophe has displaced more than five hundred thousand Haitians, a majority of whom are seeking entry into the United States, legally or not. More than three hundred thousand Haitians have been granted safe haven through the Temporary Protected Status program, as the Biden administration expanded program coverage last summer.

But it then argues for armed intervention involving U.S. troops lest the Haitians flee the country en masse to surrounding countries and the U.S. Or, here is a brilliant idea, rather than waste our blood and treasure trying to salvage what cannot be saved, we defend our borders and let nature take its course in Haiti. It would be cheaper to interdict boats leaving Haiti than to send troops into Haiti. 

    Austin Metcalf was attacked on Wednesday at the Kuykendall Stadium in Frisco after he told 17-year-old Karmelo Anthony he was sitting in the wrong chair, according to the late teen's family.

    Anthony was charged with murder after he allegedly stabbed Metcalf in the heart as his twin brother Hunter watched in horror and then tried to save his life.

    USA's Stephanie Turner initially lined up to face Redmond Sullivan in a tournament at the University of Maryland earlier this week, only to take a knee and remove her mask in protest at being matched against a biological male.

    As a result, she was subsequently excluded from the Cherry Blossom competition and suspended for the remainder of it after being shown a black card.  

I'm old enough to remember when women taking male hormones was enough to disqualify them from women's athletics. Now its okay for actual men to compete in women's athletics. I bet it would change, though, if it started angering Muslims because, for obvious reasons, if government officials don't respect Muslims, they at least fear them. And that is the basic problem we face in the West: our governments neither respect nor fear the citizenry. At the least they should fear to lose their jobs, which means that the primary steps to recover our democratic forms of government will require eliminating government labor unions, make government employment "at-will", and bring back the spoils system.

    Nashville police have released their final report on the Covenant School massacre – a targeted March 2023 attack on a Christian school by a transgender shooter who killed three third-graders and three adults.

    Rather than a highly anticipated manifesto, the report found that killer Audrey Hale left behind numerous notebooks, art books and computer documents about her plans to commit the attack and gain notoriety, partly inspired by the Columbine school shooting in 1999.

    Hale, the 28-year-old attacker and biological female, began “fantasizing” about and researching mass shootings as far back as 2017, according to investigators. A year later, she wrote “detailed fantasies” about shooting up the Isaac T. Creswell Middle Magnet School for the Arts, killing her father and killing her psychiatrist.

* * *

    Hale wanted people to remember her after her death, according to the document, and was partly inspired by books and documentaries on the Columbine killers. She wanted similar records of her own life and expected her guns, artwork and journals to be preserved in museums around the world.

    “Most disturbingly, she wanted the things she left behind to be shared with the world so she could inspire and teach others who were ‘mentally disordered’ like her to plan and commit an attack of their own,” investigators wrote.

Notably, Hale did not describe being bullied or harassed at the school, but recollected her time there as one of the happiest times in her life. Instead, she picked the school because it was the least likely location where anyone would be able to stop her. 

    The U.S. federal government sent an unprecedented amount of money to fraudsters and international criminal gangs through COVID-19 relief programs, according to a Friday report from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

    The government provided an estimated $872 billion in assistance through programs like the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) and the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), at least 17% of which — amounting to nearly $200 billion — was “disbursed to potentially fraudulent actors,” AEI’s Matt Weidinger wrote, quoting an after action review from the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic under the Committee on Oversight and Accountability.

The Gates Foundation, AAER says, is “intentionally discriminating against white students by excluding them from the tuition assistance and specialized support that it provides to students of every other race or ethnicity.” The foundation’s Gates Scholarship states that the program is a “highly selective, last dollar scholarship for outstanding, minority high school students” before listing acceptable racial and ethnic backgrounds in its eligibility requirements.

  • Time to call the wambulance! "Military women left fuming after US Air Force changes appearance policy"--Daily Mail. What horrible changes were made? "Now, women can only wear clear polish or have a French or American manicure. An American manicure is similar to a French, with white tips and a clear or softer skin-colored natural polish underneath instead of using start [sic] pink and white." 

    'Three options! No matter what your skin tone,' Elora exclaimed.

    'People are not happy,' Elora explained about Reddit forums where fellow military women are complaining and questioning the new rulings. 'They think that the priorities are a little bit skewed right now and nail polish is not really that serious.'

    She said people believe 'there are a lot of other things that should be focused on when it comes to military readiness and recruiting.'

One thing we can do to increase military readiness is get rid of service women who are hung up on what colors of nail polish they are allowed. 

Liberty Counsel filed a lawsuit on behalf of an Idaho Army National Guard infantry officer against Governor Brad Little and two army generals for unlawfully removing the officer from command solely due to his personal Christian expression on biblical sexuality made outside of the military environment. An investigation into the officer, which revealed no wrongdoing, nevertheless recommended a policy to monitor potential candidates for command for any “concerning ideologies” as a way of “rooting out” any “extremism” in the ranks. In this case, the decision to remove him from command on this basis shows that his superiors believe his Bible-centered beliefs on sexuality to be concerning and essentially puts an unconstitutional “No Christians in Command” policy into action.

The article relates that "Major David Worley ran for mayor of Pocatello, Idaho, and during his campaign, he spoke out against drag queen story hours, explicit material in public libraries, and transgender treatments for children. He made all of those statements outside of his duties with the Idaho Army National Guard."

    In February, as Breitbart News reported, the Trump administration paused funding for the Acacia Center for Justice — a non-governmental organization (NGO) that provides free lawyers to tens of thousands of UACs hoping to stay in the United States using millions in American taxpayer dollars.

    During the Biden administration, the Acacia Center for Justice secured $200 million in federal contracts to provide lawyers to UACs.

    Late on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez Olguin, who was born in Mexico City and was appointed by Biden, became the latest federal judge to block Trump from carrying out his “America First” agenda.

    “The irreparable harm resulting from Defendants’ actions weighs in favor of temporary injunctive relief,” Olguin wrote while issuing a temporary restraining order that will require the Trump administration to continue funneling taxpayer money to the Acacia Center for Justice.

  • "Canada Discovers True Multiculturalism"--Vox Day. Quoting from a piece about how the old-guard political alliances that help flood the country with immigrants is now discovering that the new immigrants aren't interested in the old-guard's politics but are looking out for their own. Google is proving to be its useless self, so I can't find the link to the original source, although I believe it was a from the X account of  κρῠπτός (kruptos). An excerpt:

    ... But, immigration has been promoted to the scale that that the one time client has now realized that it can form it’s own client base. So Indians, the Chinese, and to a lesser extent Middle Eastern Muslims have begun to work in concert. Each works for the benefit of their own group. ...

* * *

    As a non-Indian or a non-Chinese or a non-Middle Easterner in Canada ... one of the political calculations that has to be made is the question of containing and subverting or undermining the political influence of these groups. They are a threat to all three of the original power bases and to the nation as a whole. Why? Because they place family, clan, and ethnic loyalty ahead of other interests. It is not in their thinking culturally to look out for the nation as a whole.

    You are thinking in older terms of DEI or the “meritocracy,” hiring the best candidates, and they are looking to hire or place Indians in positions whenever possible. You cannot defeat this by emphasizing institutional neutrality. That will be used against you. The shift that is going to have to come is that you will have do as they are doing or you will lose to them because they are better organized and are better at looking after their own interests. Attach whatever negative label you want to this, but you have been warned.

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Wednesday, April 2, 2025

Gruesome Deaths and Attacks #3

 Some more macabre news stories I've come across:

    This is the horrifying moment a python's bulging stomach appeared to wriggle - before a family found their grandmother swallowed whole inside.

    The anxious family of a missing woman tracked the snake down to a patch of dense vegetation in South Sulawesi, Indonesia yesterday afternoon.

    Locals feared for the worst when they saw the 26ft serpent weighed down by a large bulge in its stomach.

    Slashing into the snake, they found the body of 66-year-old Hasia, who had vanished while walking home from her job at a rubber plantation.

    The snake is believed to have pounced from the tall grass and clamped down on her leg, causing her to fall.

    Hasia battled to escape from its grip, but was squeezed to death while being swallowed whole, it was reported locally.

    The bodies of nine students who went missing on vacation in southern Mexico last month have been found dismembered by the side of a local highway — with a bag of hands nearby.

    The group’s gruesome remains were discovered in the trunk of an abandoned vehicle and underneath a blood-covered tarp in San Jose Miahuatlan on the border of the Mexican states of Puebla and Oaxaca.

    Four of the bodies were in the trunk, while the other five corpses were left under the tarp. 

    A bag with eight pairs of hands was also found at the scene, with two more hands left in the trunk, reported Periodico Central.

    The bodies of the four women and five men, ages 19 to 30, all had bullet wounds and signs of torture, according to El Financiero.

    Two Russian divers have died in the Philippines after being swept away by strong undercurrents - with one believed to have drowned and the other mauled in a horrifying shark attack, according to officials.

    Four Russian men aged 18 to 57 were diving with a Filipino dive instructor in a popular destination near the resort area of Batangas on Thursday when they were separated by the current, coast guards said.

    While two members of the group and the instructor managed to swim back safely to their boat, two of the tourists, who were identified as Ilia Peregudin, 29, and Maksim Melekhov, 39, went missing.

    The dive instructor and other divers in the area, along with Philippine coast guard personnel, immediately launched a search, according to officials.

    The first man found by rescuers floating in the water, and was pronounced dead on arrival at a local hospital, coast guard district chief Airland Lapitan Lapitan said.

    The second missing diver was found later that evening 'being attacked by sharks', Lapitan said.

    It took the rescuers more than half an hour to prize him away from the predators, but eventually, he said, 'they somehow managed to pull him away.'

    The man lost his right arm in the vicious attack, with Lapitan saying it had been severed as the sharks pulled at him.

    New footage captured the moment a 61-year-old man lured a nine-year-old girl into his convenience store in Brazil moments before an angry mob beat him to death.

    Marco Jacob was seen standing by the exit of the shop in the southeastern city of Tramandaí when the girl followed him inside, surveillance camera showed.

    The child's family told police that she was given permission to visit a neighborhood plaza for a playdate before she failed to return home. 

    The video showed the girl walking past the store and stopping in front of a house before she walked over to Jacob.

    After speaking for about 16 seconds, the girl ran on to the street and appeared to walk away, but turned around and followed Jacob into the store.

    She was reported missing around 7 pm local time and residents joined her family in an all-out search by putting up posters and pictures of her in the neighborhood. 

* * *

    Cell phone video showed the frantic moment cops barged through the convenience store, tossing crates to the side before they located the girl locked away underground beneath a trapdoor.

    The child was eventually carried out of her makeshift dungeon by one of the cops as she shouted, 'I was abused,' while Jacob is slammed to the ground

    A person who witnessed the rescue alerted neighbors, who surrounded the store and wrestled Jacob away from the police and killed him on the spot.

    A little girl was almost dragged away by a coyote seconds after stepping outside her family's stunning $2.3 million home in a ritzy Seattle suburb.  

    Chang Tong was right behind his daughter Lena when she stepped outside their gorgeous Craftsman home and was immediately attacked by the wild dog on Tuesday.

    Tong said they thought the gray-and-white canine was a pet dog, so Lena reached out to pet it - but it responded by latching its jaws onto her palm and dragging her.

The girl's father was able to scare the animal away, but imagine if the girl had gone outside on her own.

    An ex-con strangled and decapitated a man who impregnated his wife while he was locked up in prison, authorities say.

    The victim’s hands were chopped off, too — and one was later found by a 5-year-old boy in a mail box.

    Anthony Newton, 45, is now charged in the gruesome murder of Ulisys “Cesar” Molina, whose burned, dismembered body was found in a vacant lot outside Las Vegas in 2017 after his family reported him missing, according to KLAS.

The article also observes that "Molina’s head and other hand were never found."

    Authorities in Texas have confirmed that a human rib found last December belonged to Texas A&M student Caleb Harris, whose remains were found in a wastewater well months earlier.

    The latest update into the tragic death of the college student came on Friday, March 28, when the Corpus Christi Police Department (CCPD) said a city employee at the Greenwood Water Recycling Plant found the bone on Dec. 2, 2024.

    “The Greenwood Water Recycling Plant is the same location where the contents of the Perry Place lift station were transported to in June 2024, following the discovery of Caleb Harris's remains,” authorities continued.

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Useful or Useless?

I don't know how many of you use a linear compensator on a rifle. The idea behind such compensators is to direct the blast forward of the weapon instead of to the sides as is normal for most muzzle devices. You can see where this would be a benefit for someone shooting at a range where shooters are crammed in quite close beside one another, or other situations where shooters may be operating in close proximity to each other. But what if there are times you want to also keep your standard flash hider?

    The Firearm Blog reports (announced?) that Strike Industries is releasing what they call their A2 Blast Shield which is designed to fit over the standard A2 flash hider, and act like a linear compensator "to reduce side concussion and redirect muzzle blast forward, this blast shield is geared toward both professional and civilian shooters looking to enhance comfort without replacing legacy muzzle devices." The article (press release?) continues by noting that "[r]ather than removing a functioning A2 device—which can be difficult or even damage your rifle—this new blast shield is simple and risk-free to install." Given the sometimes difficult nature of getting the timing correct when installing a flash hider, or most people lacking the equipment to hold the barrel and receiver in place while cranking down on a crush washer, I can see how this could be useful to some shooters. But what do you think? Useful or useless?

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Tuesday, April 1, 2025

Deadline: Snow Woke Will Lose Disney $115 Million

 At least that is what Deadline is predicting in its article, "‘Snow White’, Poisoned By Controversy At Box Office, Won’t Have A Happy Ending With $115M Loss: What Went Wrong." 

Snow White per our forecasts will clear $295M in revenues from $101M in global film rentals, $62M in worldwide home entertainment, $130M in streaming and TV revenues, and $2M from merchandise. Note that when Disney+ buys the title from itself for its streaming window, it’s not a quick and easy calculation of 10% of domestic box office, as was the case back in the days of Pay 1 windows. Rather, it’s a more byzantine computation based on myriad factors, I’ve been told. Counter this with $410M in feature expenses that are comprised of a $270M net production price tag (thanks to the starts and stops due to the strikes, and a fire on the UK set), a $111M global P&A and $29M in residuals and other expenses. 

"$101M in global film rentals" means that they are estimating that the total box office take will be just a little over $200M since theaters keep roughly half of the box office.

    But the article goes on to state that the movie isn't bad and it was just the negative publicity from social media that brought it down. But Rotten Tomatoes tells a different story with only 40% of critics giving it a positive rating and an audience score of 74%. But that isn't really the whole story, either. The 40% rating is among all critics. If you click on the metric, a pop-up shows that when considering "top critics" the score drops to 29%. And the audience score is even worse. The 74% is among "verified audience," which only includes those reviewers that purchased tickets to the film through Fandango. If you select "all audience", then the ratings decline to 19%.

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How Many Died Because Of Covid In China?

 A few interesting videos on China's population. The first and second videos question how many have died from the pandemic, suggesting that hundreds of millions may have died. The first video takes note of reports coming out of China seeming showing mostly empty streets, trains, and shopping malls that should have been packed, suggesting that the populations are shrinking. The second is similar, but has more video of villages that seemingly have been abandoned.

    The third video is longer. The woman who produced that video has, in the past, argued that China's population based on birth and death statistics is actually around 800 million, not the 1.4 billion cited by the government. Now she argues that the repeated pandemics have reduced the population to between 300 and 400 million. 

    I obviously have no way of verifying any of this. I don't travel to China and have no special sources of information. Perhaps we are seeing videos that are faking the scenes of mostly empty streets or malls, showing them in the early morning when there is little traffic but claiming it to be rush hour or another busy time of day. China has for years been encouraging younger workers to return to the countryside in order to fight youth unemployment in the cities, and perhaps it has finally worked. 

    Or perhaps China's economy has tanked and people simply don't have the money to be shopping or going out to eat, and factories and businesses have shut down. I would note in this regard a two-part article from George Calhoun at Forbes entitled: "The Missing Factor In Explanations Of China’s Economic Distress: COVID - Part 1: The Cover-Up" and "The Missing Factor In Explanations Of China’s Economic Distress: COVID – Part 2: Estimating The True Death Toll." He argues that Covid was, in fact, the missing factor to explain why China's economy did not come rushing back after Covid restrictions were lifted; and it was because the death toll was much larger than official statistics (but in the millions, not hundreds of millions). He indicates that "[t]he total over four years from 2019-2022 amounts to about 1.6 million excess deaths. (2023 added another 800,000 'excess deaths' above the pre-COVID baseline.)" The 800,000 figure may, itself, also be low: the CDC published a paper in October 2023 which concluded that "SARS-CoV-2 infections caused 1.41 million deaths in China during December 2022–February 2023."

    And, finally, China has seen an outbreak of human metapneumovirus (HMPV) earlier this year, so perhaps the Chinese people were self-isolating.

VIDEO: "People are discovering the truth of COVID & China’s real population"
Lei's Real Talk (15 min).


VIDEO: "Apocalypse Begins! Hundreds of Millions Disappear in China, Massive Abandoned Villages Found" -- China Observer (17 min.)


VIDEO: "The Vanishing Billion: Exposing China’s Population Myth"
Lei's Real Talk (52 min.)

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The Diversity Report #23

 A selection of articles showcasing the benefits of diversity, equity and inclusion:  " Boat crammed with 99 Haitian migrants cut off t...