What is a Woman?

For John, BLUF:  the theme iw thaat the Left has denied women has a nature given nature and it has only hurt women.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Leftist policies have driven women mad

From American Thinker, by Ms Andrea Widburg, 6 November 2022.

Here is the lede plus three:

At the forefront of the BLM riots in 2020 were women—screaming, hysterical, angry, irrational women, seemingly college-educated, and both Black and White. These women were obviously broken, and a poll now confirms that observation. The left, by denying these women their biological mission, is destroying them. However, those women who embrace that mission may save America.

For the past 60 years, especially in academia, leftists have told the vulnerable young women in their charge “You are a victim. If you are White, you’re not only victim of the patriarchy, by virtue of your skin color, you’re also a victimizer and undeserving beneficiary of systemic racism. If you are Black, no matter your ability or accomplishments, you will always be a victim, whether as a woman or as a Black person.”

It’s impossible to imagine more toxic messages, whether by creating unsustainable cognitive dissonance in young White women (“you’re both victim and victimizer”) or demeaning Black women beyond all reason (“no matter what you do, you’ll always fail”). Leftists didn’t stop there, though. They also attacked the very nature of being a woman.

For decades, young women have been taught that motherhood is devoid of meaning and purpose, erasing a woman’s natural intelligence and ability. The secret to fulfillment, young women are told, is a career. Moreover, if you want to ride that career to the top of corporate power, you’d better be all-in for abortion because those babies will get in your way.

Are we, as humans, driven by millenia-long evolution, to feel part of a process for perpetuating our existence?  It would seem so, and the Democrats are losing voters because they have taken the unnatural path and tried to bring womanhood along with it.  Are there women who feel mis-gendered?  At least as far back as Christine Jorgensen.  Today we seem to be taking the normal emotional sorting out of yooung people growing to maturity and creating permanent changes based on temporary moods.  We are ignoring the insight into the need for maturity that causes us to not give drivers licenses before sixteen or sell alcohol before twenty-one.

Yes, we have to absolutely open up opportunities for women.  It is one of the underlyiung principles of our Republic.  That said, we need to have a variety of paths, so we do noot end up stifflying the dreams and aspirations of women who would like a different path.  And we should not discourage continued repopulation of our nation and the planet.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Down Through History

For John, BLUF:  Things have been much worse than they were over the last 15 months.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Think 2020 was bad?  Historians say 536 was worst year ever to be alive

From United Press International, by Reporter Mark Puleo, 13 APRIL 2021, 1:37 PM.

Here is the lede plus four:

You wake up to a dark, dreary, glum-feeling, Monday-type of morning. For the 547th consecutive day. Just 18 months prior, you were a hard-working farmer gearing up for another bountiful crop season.

But then the skies went dark. From early 536 to 537, they stayed dark.

Across much of eastern Europe and throughout Asia, spring turned into summer and fall gave way to winter without a day of sunshine. Like a blackout curtain over the sun, millions of people across the world's most populated countries squinted through dim conditions, breathing in chokingly thick air and losing nearly every crop they were relying on to harvest.

This isn't the plot of a dystopian TV drama or a fantastical "docu-fiction" production. This was a harsh reality for the millions of people that lived through that literally dark time -- or, as some historians have declared, the very worst year ever to be alive.

"For the sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during this whole year, and it seemed exceedingly like the sun in eclipse, for the beams it shed were not clear nor such as it is accustomed to shed," was the grim account Procopius, a prominent scholar who became the principal Byzantine historian of the 6th century, gave in History of the Wars.

It reminds me of the old line, "Cheer up, things could be worse."  "So, I cheered up and things got worse.".

Here is a case of things being worse.  Much worse.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

The Amazon is Amazing

For John, BLUF:  This is in contrast to the fear the Amazon Forest is going away.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The Amazon's Tallest Trees Are Growing 50% Bigger, And Scientists Don't Know How

From Science Alert, by Scientists Tobias Jackson and Sami Rifai, 22 September 2019.

Here is the lede plus one:

Sometimes even the largest natural wonders can remain hidden from human view for centuries. The Amazon is a dense place, full of life with new species of flora and fauna being discovered every other day.

Now, using the same technology that takes driverless cars from A to B, we – led by Eric Gorgens and Diego Armando da Silva, and along with colleagues from Brazil, Swansea, Oxford and Cambridge – have discovered the tallest tree in the rainforest.

At 88 meters tall (289 feet), it dwarfs the previous record holders by almost 30 meters (98 feet).

And it's not alone either. The Guiana Shield of north-eastern Amazonia, which accounts for nearly 9 percent of the world's remaining tropical forests, may contain lots of these gigantic trees.

With each one able to hold as much carbon as an average hectare of rainforest, our discovery means that the vast jungle may be a greater carbon sink than previously thought.

We didn't just stumble upon these trees while strolling in the forest. Between 2016 and 2018, Brazil's National Institute for Space Research coordinated a project to laser scan large swaths of the Amazon.

This project scanned 850 randomly distributed patches of forest, each 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) long and 300 meters (1000 feet) wide.

Seven of these patches contained evidence of trees taller than 80 m. Most of them were located in the area surrounding the Jari river, a northern tributary of the Amazon.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Preventing Forest Fires

For John, BLUF:  I think even California Governor Jerry Brown has figured out that better forest management would have limited the damage from this year's forest fires.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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TRUMP TAKES STEPS TO PREVENT CATASTROPHIC FOREST FIRES, INCLUDING MORE LOGGING

Here is the sub-headline:

• President Trump issued an executive order allowing agencies to do more to prevent massive wildfires.
• The order came one day after Trump signed GOP-backed wildfire legislation.
• Wildfires have burned more than 8.5 million acres this year.

From The Daily Caller, by Energy Editor Michael Bastasch, 24 December 2018.

Here is the lede plus five:

President Donald Trump moved forward with policies aimed at preventing catastrophic wildfires while the media breathlessly covered the government funding battle.

Trump issued an executive order Friday to allow for active management of forest and rangelands, including thinning and removing debris from millions of acres of federal lands.

The order also calls on federal officials to streamline regulations and permitting processes to allow the harvest of at least 3.8 billion board feet from U.S. Forest Service lands and 600 million board feet from Bureau of Land Management lands.

That represents a massive increase in timber sales from federal lands.  For example, loggers harvested 2.9 billion board feet from Forest Service lands in 2017, according to federal figures.  But even Trump’s increased allowance for loggers is still about one-quarter of what was harvested in 1973.

Do you think the forest fires this year have been because of global warming?

I don't think so either.nbsp; On the other hand, advocating for reasonable, and light handed, forest management might help.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Weather Caused Deaths Down

For John, BLUF:  I think what this is saying is that a free market system across the globe, but not instantiated everywhere, means more safety for the population.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Inconvenient data: Fewer and fewer people die from climate-related natural disasters

From the blog site Watt's Up With That, by Mr Anthony Watts, 14 March 2018.

Here is the lede plus three:

Bjørn Lomborg writes on his Facebook page of a reverse hockey stick graph, one that is certainly inconvenient to the gloom and doom message of climate alarmists who try to link regular weather events to climate.  So, Lomborg plays their game, and the results are surprising.

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Fewer and fewer people die from climate-related natural disasters

This is clearly opposite of what you normally hear, but that is because we’re often just being told of one disaster after another – telling us how *many* events are happening.  The number of reported events is increasing, but that is mainly due to better reporting, lower thresholds and better accessibility (the CNN effect).  For instance, for Denmark, the database only shows events starting from 1976.

Instead, look at the number of dead per year, which is much harder to fudge.  Given that these numbers fluctuate enormously from year to year (especially in the past, with huge droughts and floods in China), they are here presented as averages of each decade (1920-29, 1930-39 etc, with last decade as 2010-17).  The data is from the most respected global database, the International Disaster Database, http://emdat.be/emdat_db/.  There is some uncertainty about complete reporting from early decades, which is why this graph starts in 1920, and if anything this uncertainly means the graph *underestimates* the reduction in deaths.

This doesn't prove that climate change doesn't exist, but it does suggest that in this more modern era we have more money and more infrastructure and more tools to aid in recovery from climate based disasters.

Hat tip to the Mr Bob Ayers.

Regards  —  Cliff

About the Birds and Bees

For John, BLUF:  Number one indicator of success in the US?  Are your natural parents still married.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Some Songbirds Have Brains Specially Designed to Find Mates for Life

From The Old Gray Ladies, by Ms Joanna Klein, 13 February 2018.

Here is the lede plus three:

If Cupid wanted to make two songbirds fall in love, he’d have better luck aiming at their brains.  That’s because songbirds, which form lifelong mating pairs, have brain systems perfectly tuned to fit together.

While you sort through the messages of admirers, deciding who to make your Valentine, consider finches.

Young males in this family of feathered crooners learn the song of their father, perfect it and perform it as adults to attract a lifelong mate.  It’s loud, elaborate and precise.  With their songs they say “chirp, chirp — my brain is healthy, and my body is strong.  That’s something you’re into, right?”

A female finch also learns the songs of her father from a young age, but she doesn’t perform.  She’s the critic.  She analyzes every detail of a potential mate’s song, compares it to her father’s example and decides if this performer is one she’d like to keep around.  If she detects a song is too simple or off in any way, she’ll have nothing to do with its performer.  She’s very picky, as she should be, because the mate she chooses will help raise their young — till death do they part.

We definitely have, as humans, free will.

My question is, do we find women (and children and men) better prospering under the institution of marriage or in a more free wheeling set of relationships?

I am betting marriage, with, of course, the sanction of separation.

Regards  —  Cliff

Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen

For John, BLUF:  It probably goes back to the Vikings.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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You Can't Have Denmark Without Danes

Here is the sub-headline:

What a small, happy country can teach a huge and fractious one. And what it can't.

From Bloomberg, by Reporter Megan McArdle, 23 February 2018.

Here is a key paragraph:

Which came first?  A trustworthy Danish government or a trusting Danish society?  Did social cohesion produce the welfare state?  Or does the welfare state provide security against things that divide a society, like inequality, corruption and crime?  It’s a question interested Americans should answer before deciding which parts of the Danish system might be successfully imported.

So, Denmark works due to a high trust level amongst Danes.  That is something that has to develop over time.  In Elementary School I lived in a small town with low mobility (low home turnover).  There was high trust, so few families locked their doors.  Trust was earned.  One night my parents found they had purchased a bad dinner item from the local grocery and my Father called the grocer to express his unhappiness.  The Grocer promptly drove the two blocks to our house to deliver his family's meal, hot out of the oven.  Because he wanted to earn trust.

I have been to Cophenhagen, once, on a Cross-Country flight out of Bitburg Air Base, around 1968.  As a recall, we were a single ship and my front seater from Bob (Boom-Boom) Smith.

As Danny Kaye sang it:

Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen
Friendly old girl of a town
'Neath her tavern light
On this merry night
Let us clink and drink one down
To wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen
Salty old queen of the sea
Once I sailed away
But I'm home today
Singing Copenhagen, wonderful, wonderful
Copenhagen for me
I sailed up the Skagerrak
And sailed down the Kattegat
Through the harbor and up to the quay
And there she stands waiting for me

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff
-1, Thur 3.05

Paying Attention

For John, BLUF:  I think Mr Trump can chew gum and walk at the same time.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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A friend of mine, perhaps echoing criticism he had heard elsewhere, complained that President Trump was going after NFL football players for kneeling during the National Anthem and ignoring Puerto Rico.  I countered with the fact that President Trump had talked to Governor Ricardo Rosselló, and the Governor said he was happy with the effort so far.

From the Associated Press, Friday, the 22nd of September of this year:

Trump speaks with Puerto Rico governor

The White House says President Donald Trump has spoken with the governors of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Trump said earlier Thursday that Puerto Rico was "absolutely obliterated" and the Virgin Islands were "flattened" by recent hurricanes Irma and Maria.

Then there is this item from The Wash Post, Reporter Ed O'Keefe, on 24 September 2017.

Puerto Rico governor:  ‘We still need some more help’ from Washington

Rosselló said he has had “great collaboration and communication” with FEMA and the Department of Health and Human Services, which have been on the island since the morning after the storm assessing damage and setting up shelters.

But after several intense days of preparation, response, rescue and cleanup, Rosselló said, local law enforcement agencies are strained and hampered in their ability to reach far-flung areas that may still need relief.  Even as he asked for more assistance from the Defense Department, he stopped short of requesting that the Trump administration declare martial law.

However,

If the situation isn't addressed in the coming weeks, there could be “massive migration to other states, which will bring a whole host of other problems to Puerto Rico and the states.  It is within everybody’s interest that we handle this situation for what it is — an unprecedented situation, where two hurricanes back-to-back hit Puerto Rico on an island that was under fiscal turmoil.  Those considerations need to be taken into consideration when Congress puts together its aid bill.”

The Governor of Puerto Rico, Mr Rosselló, is worried about Congress as well as the Executive Branch.

Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló is warning that his government needs broader assistance from the federal government, calling on the Pentagon especially to provide more aid for law enforcement and transportation.

Rosselló said he's also worried that Congress will shortchange his island once the initial wave of emergency relief is gone.

“We still need some more help.  This is clearly a critical disaster in Puerto Rico,” he said on a shaky cellphone connection Sunday night from San Juan.  “It can’t be minimized and we can’t start overlooking us now that the storm passed, because the danger lurks.”

Did you pick up on “massive migration to other states"?

What is our Commonwealth doing to prepare for a possible influx of American Citizens from Puerto Rico?  The population of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is 3.4 million.  If 1% came here it would be 34,000, who would have to be dispersed to various Cities for shelter and support.  I don't think Otis AFB, down on the Cape, is big enough to meet all the needs of these Americans.  Just think of schools alone.

Regards  —  Cliff

Relationships

For John, BLUF:  Nature suggests that gratification is not the same for all genders.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Writing in The Globe and Mail (Toronto), Ms Margaret Wente asks, "Why are young feminists so clueless about sex?".

The lede:

A few months ago, a Harvard senior named Reina Gattuso wrote a column in the school newspaper.  It described her crummy night of drunken sex with a couple of men she didn’t know.  “I have so much to drink my memory becomes dark water,” she wrote.  She freely admitted that she consented.  Enthusiastically.  And that was the problem.  She thought she would enjoy it, but instead she just felt rotten!

The rest of the piece talks about why Ms Gattuso has this from the wrong end of the stick.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff