wmw999

So I'm assuming that "oder das" is everyone who has an actual physical condition that indicates that gender isn't exactly binary across every.single.human. Can you clarify? And does one therefore just ram them into the social categories? Wendy P.

Why yes. Has it ever occurred to you that people's feelings impact their compliance with actual equality? Actual quotes: "The law says I have to interview them, but it sure doesn't say I have to hire them." Yeah, that's an equal opportunity "I can't hire you because It'd affect the camaraderie while folding newspapers." "Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work. Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities, and demoralizing competent white men." So if there's a perception, widely held, that men and white people are generally more likely to be competent, does that actually mean they're more competent? I rather doubt it. Wendy P.

When you consider the well-documented fact that placement in a “laughing academy” has been used as a weapon against people with nonconforming views of many kinds (including whom they were supposed to marry), I think it’s a pretty apt analogy for determining what truth is. And as long as gender has both social and biological components, and some of the biological components can be murky, it’s pretty clear that you, and the current administration, are trying to impose a viewpoint that doesn’t reflect what some people are seeing. But I guess you’re happy with people being shoehorned into roles that match what you think is appropriate. Which year of women’s rights do you support? How about minority rights? After all, the “gold standard” for those has most emphatically evolved over time. Generally with the sacrifice, whether intellectual, social, reputational, or literal, of many competent women and minorities Wendy P.

I have a feeling that Columbia needs all that money for the same reason that the US needs all that staffing, and nearly everyone in American thinks they need all the money they have/earn. Because they're used to it, they operate that way, and changing is hard and potentially destructive. Just sayin' Wendy P.

Interesting how you are one of few conservative posters (generally the kool-aid drinkers) who doesn’t post endless narrative videos for our edutainment. Nobody watches them, and I completely understand why you’d ignore this one. That said, do you know how “useless” is being defined? And useless to whom? Because, well, there are plenty of services I pay taxes for that I don’t use directly; drug rehab, prescription benefits, wars (what exactly was Iraq supposed to protect us from?), voter ID. But I’m not so short-sighted as to think that I have to personally benefit from today’s efforts of each and every functionary. If I were in charge, I’d start with Medicare for all, no more school vouchers, and a top-down and bottom-up AI analysis of overlapping laws and regulations, with a view to identifying redundancies, conflicts, and anachronisms. Also the ones with extremely low applicability (although in a country of hundreds of millions, there can be hundreds of thousands of “one in a thousand” cases. But it’s a start. The medical motto is “first, do no harm, not “shoot first and ask questions later.” I happen to believe that as a rule, curing isn’t as good as preventing Wendy P.

How do you define effectively? Wendy P.

Do you think government is a business? Wendy P.

What did you like about it? Wendy P.

My brother’s been saying the same thing since the inauguration. Wendy P.

That was sure my first thought. Wendy P.

When I was working, and involved with DEI, our mantra was we interviewed at a wide variety of places (including HBCU job fairs), and then picked according to our needs. People pick not only according to pure “qualifications,” but they also use more subjective criteria, like fitting with the team, and whether they dressed like white people How do I know? I was in the discussions, and my manager was the only one who even interviewed the young man from the HBCU with a straight A average with a math degree and a minor in computer science. He hired him, and subsequently did, in fact, counsel him on dressing a little less hiphop. His job performance was just fine; he was a fresh grad of barely 21, so he had some maturing to do, but who doesn’t at 21? Could I find fault? Sure. But there are faults in nearly every employee; it’s all a matter of which ones you accept, and why. Wendy P.

I'm curious -- which is it you're against -- diversity, equity, or inclusion? Because I knew a manager at the NASA contractor I worked at who would hire Texas Aggies over everyone else if given the option. Yeah, he'd had good luck with them, but good luck with getting any breadth of ideas on solving a problem. Other managers had equal or better work quality with far more diverse workers (just of university, never mind gender and ethnicity). Just because it works in a narrow context doesn't make it the right answer. As far as a national language -- enact it. It would need to be a law, not just a decree. Or is it OK for the president simply to decree things now that it's Trump? As far as the rest? Well, while I'm with you on the need to cut government, I agree with Jerry that a chainsaw isn't exactly the way to go. Just as amputating a leg isn't the best way to lose weight. The military's job isn't the same as it was 80 years ago in WW2, because war isn't the same as it was in WW2. Hand-to-hand combat is a much smaller piece of the pie, and with the increased amount of weight that soldiers now wear with body armor included (average Marine carried 60-120 lbs in Afghanistan and Iraq, over the 50-lb maximum recommended by the Army in 2001), it would seem that individual evaluation would be necessary anyway, not just "male good, female bad." But that's just me; I probably should smile more, huh. I'm not going to go point-by-point, because most of the issues are more nuanced than a one-sentence approach will provide. But it's always more fun simply to give the "easy, obvious" answer to complicated problems, forgetting that it's the very complicated nature that makes them problems. Wendy P.

But he's your guy anyway. Because there is nothing he could do that would cause you to re-think your support of him, and risk potentially having been wrong. I'm sorry, but that's bullshit. I'm assuming that means that your humanity has a price, and so does everyone else's. Wendy P.

My dad gave up driving at 77, but only because he had a sudden attack of wet macular degeneration, and lost some 60% of his usable vision. He said he drove once, and realized it was the dumbest thing he'd ever done. What I had noticed in him was a tendency before then to overestimate his reaction quickness; he'd had extremely quick reaction time, and he scared me driving a couple of times in the city after he was 70 or so. Me, I've taken the AARP class, and generally keep the RV more at 65, if nothing else because it's far more relaxing. I have the energy still (most days -- getting over the flu right now) to walk 5-10 miles without preparing for it, and I can lift 50-lb boxes off the floor if they are reasonably sized and have handles (think banana boxes). I'd love the challenge of a new job. The thing is, I no longer want the responsibility of showing up every.single.day for a new job, and of not being able to take a trip whenever I feel like it. But my earlier point about people who have a stake in the future should be largely enacting it is still my opinion. I agree that elders should be advisers, but not all of the people in power. Young people don't have as much to protect as old people do, and that changes your perspective I think. Wendy P.

I'm with you 100% on this. Even if someone is up to it, we're not part of the future, we're part of the past. Wendy P.

Zelensky probably wasn't willing to pay for a whore to suck his dick. Respect is earned or given, NOT demanded. If you have to demand it, it's not respect. Wendy P.

Two of my sisters-in-law are immigrants; the first one was during the late 80's when it was easier -- she just married an American and came up. The second one married my other brother in 2003 in Brazil. They had a child after a few years, then he was offered a transfer with his company to the US (he's an engineer). So he comes up and tries to arrange for her to come up; their daughter was about 3 months old at the time. It took 8 months for her to get a permanent visa. She'd been here before on a tourist visa, before and after after married (they "tightened that up"). Even with help from his company (GM, you may have heard of it), it took the full round of interviews, along with a separate trip to Japan, where she'd lived for a number of years in the 80's, to make sure she didn't have a criminal record there. She'd been assured she didn't have to go to Japan -- it'd been more than 8 years. But at the last interview, my brother and SIL said that the agent smugly said "oh, I've determined you have to go." They made damn good and sure NOT to fly through the US, just to make sure she wasn't accused of violating the "don't enter the US" order during that time. It was egregious enough that GM was happy to fly the two of them via anywhere else, just to make sure. Their senator was unable to help. It's a minefield that money helps; notoriety helps, and the rules are arcane and deliberately difficult. Smug assholes think that's a good thing. So when he took a new job in Brazil, they delayed until she could get her US citizenship, just so that he wouldn't miss another kid's first steps, first smile, first tooth. She votes now. I'm an American. I'm as American as every right-winger out there. I have a Palestinian immigrant in my family (married to my cousin -- he's been a citizen since the 50's or the 60's, and still can't fly without hassle -- and I know skydivers who think that's a good thing). I have Brazilian immigrants in my family. I don't think I'm unique. If there is a "conservative resurgence," and an inability to elect people who support a variety of people in the future, it'll be because the bad guys have won. Because you can't build a wall around your life and expect it to be real -- it's a walled-off life, incomplete. Just like the American people without immigration. Wendy P.

When you consider the objections Trump (and his minions) raised to Obama taking a couple of vacations in Hawaii, it’s some pretty breathtaking sycophancy. Wendy P.

Thoughts and prayers. Wendy P.

Hillary Clinton has all of that. But she's poisoned. She was Secretary of State in wartime; she was a respected senator who did work with both sides of the aisle, etc. You're looking for a governor who's also a veteran (preferably wartime) in a state that's not just a lock for one party or the other. The Vietnam era vets are generally too old. A Pew Research study showed that only 14% of candidates for governor in 2022 were veterans (as compared with 16% of the Senate, and 21% of the House). That's way down from when nearly every politician was male and a WW2 or Korea vet. Serving has become more something that people who don't have tons of resources do more than rich people, and it takes money and connections to run for office. But Wes Moore (who I know you favored) is on that list; I'm not sure he wants it, and you have to REALLY want to be president. Wendy P. Wendy P.

Frying pan

Is it her party, her gender, her color, or her cackle that makes her worse? I'm asking because she's not actively vindictive, so that eliminates a whole lot of comparisons to Trump. If Trump's going to be such a fiscal conservative, how come he wasn't in his last term -- especially during the first two years when he had control of the House and the Senate. Don't forget that he didn't have a Senate minority leader whose stated goal was to block every.single.thing that was proposed. If you'll recall, there was an actual bipartisan bill to address immigration AND the budget in 2013; it wasn't pretty, but it passed the Senate, but the Republican-controlled House, of course, refused to vote on it. Just as they refused to vote on a Supreme Court justice when Scalia died in February. Sorry, but the Republican playbook of the last 25-30 years appears to be "my way or fuck you." I don't really think that's governing, it's poisoning the well. Wendy P.

They do good work. We went to the Antarctic on one. During the pandemic, and they had everything planned well. Wendy P.

Oh well, if Tesla said it, it must be true Wendy P.

Thanks for your perspective, David. Wendy P.