Dwain Northey (Gen X)

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/naacp-travel-advisory-florida-says-state-hostile-to-black-americans/

Remember the good old days when there were only travel advisories and or ban for, what some would call, third word countries? Well now because of the vile vitriol of one Governor Ron DeSantis the state of Florida, a vacation destination, has received a travel advisory by the NAACP.

The wannabe future President has made the climate so venomous in Florida the anyone who is a part of any minority group does not feel safe in the state. Black, Brown, LGTBQ+, these are all groups that are under attack in the Sunshine State. The majority Republican legislature and their fearful leader has passed laws that make almost everything a jailable offence and the fact that the state has very loose gun laws and a stand your ground law makes it more dangerous than being a blonde female in central America.

Florida residents are able to carry concealed guns without a permit under a bill signed into law by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. The law, which goes into effect on July 1, means that anyone who can legally own a gun in Florida can carry a concealed gun in public without any training or background check. This with their ridiculous stand your ground law, ‘Florida’s “Stand-Your-Ground” law was passed in 2005. The law allows those who feel a reasonable threat of death or bodily injury to “meet force with force” rather than retreat. Similar “Castle Doctrine” laws assert that a person does not need to retreat if their home is attacked.’ Makes it really sketchy to go there.

This in top of the don’t say gay rule and the new trans ruling that just passed.

“Florida lawmakers have no shame. This discriminatory bill is extraordinarily desperate and extreme in a year full of extreme, discriminatory legislation. It is a cruel effort to stigmatize, marginalize and erase the LGBTQ+ community, particularly transgender youth. Let me be clear: gender-affirming care saves lives. Every mainstream American medical and mental health organization – representing millions of providers in the United States – call for age-appropriate, gender-affirming care for transgender and non-binary people.

“These politicians have no place inserting themselves in conversations between doctors, parents, and transgender youth about gender-affirming care. And at the same time that Florida lawmakers crow about protecting parental rights they make an extra-constitutional attempt to strip parents of – you guessed it! – their parental rights. The Human Rights Campaign strongly condemns this bill and will continue to fight for LGBTQ+ youth and their families who deserve better from their elected leaders.”

This law makes it possible for anyone to just accuse someone of gender affirming care to have their child taken from them this would include someone traveling from out of state. This alone justifies a travel ban to the Magic Kingdom for families.

Oh, and I haven’t even mentioned DeSantis holy war with Disney, the largest employer in the state. I really hope the Mouse eats this ass holes lunch.

Well that’s enough bitching, thanks again for suffering though my rant.

  • The battle is REAL

    What is the biggest challenge you will face in the next six months?

    6 minutes, 6 hours, 6 days, or 6 months it really doesn’t change… maintain my sanity, financially keep my head above water, try and maintain my health.

  • Embryos are People (?)

    Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

    Yet another person talking about embryos being babies. This is as logical as an acorn being an oak tree but we will run with it.
    So all this nonsense seems to be taking hold, we know that a woman in the south went to jail for losing a baby because she got shot in the stomach and the baby died. Child endangerment, the other person found not guilty, go figure. We know that there seems to be no problem with the idea that women die to save the unborn, again how wise is this, the lady could possibly earn a living, pay taxes and vote, but don’t let common sense get in the way of your bias.
    Take this a step further and a bright eyed insurance agent says “We could put a rule in that if we have to save an unborn that a sex needs to be declared and if it turns out to be they got it wrong we can sue to get our money back”. A lawyer asks that a name be provided for the unborn, and that provisions be made for care till adulthood, again with a gender escape clause so they can make more money.
    Is this too far out to be believed? We all know the car salesman that you shake hands with and then count your fingers afterwards, so no it is not in the realm of impossible. Why are we at a stage where this is common? That is pretty simple really, the people that are putting all these dumb things in place reside in Republican run states. The way things have been going election wise for quite some time is that a President usually gets two terms.
    This time around it did not happen. Trump did not get the popular vote in 2016 but he won the electoral vote, did not happen in 2020 even with cheating. So we did not get to chose the Boss 2 times in a row and do things our way so we are going to be the biggest horses asses we can possibly be and come up with the dumbest crap we can think of.
    Bussing and flying immigrants to major cities in the north, stringing razor wire on the border, defining federal law, changing state laws to defy federal law. Does any of it prove anything, not really. We just have a bunch of naughty little boys on the playground that kicked a hole in the last ball they had and now all they can do is fight and call one another names.
    Every elected official that has violated the oath of office should resign and go sit in a corner at least the next 4 years. The people that elected you deserve better than that and you have no right to any compensation for the time spent.

  • Photos by Michelle

  • Polls or Poles

    Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

    There is a survey out that is taking the point of view that socialism is not just bad but one of the worst things to ever happen. Terms like Marxis and all that sort of thing are thrown in just to make it sound worse than it really is.
    The viewpoint is that nothing good comes from socialism and yet we have social security that takes care of a lot of people in this country that would have nothing without it. Why, because big business likes to keep profits high and wages low and the little guy at the bottom can fend the best he can. Beyond that corporations would still take the position that if you can not work you have no need to live.
    Many countries across Europe have social medicine, education, and a social attitude toward all the citizens of their nation. No one goes hungry or sleeps in the street, older people have free transport on public buses and trains, help with rent and utilities and all seem to be very content with the situation.
    Our system puts personal wealth and power before humanity. There are no limits on what the rich and powerful can get away with and it is okay to use others to fill the voids or pay the price for whatever comes.
    Are there short falls with socialist systems, of course just as there are with any system. The right has no more lock on what is good or evil than the left. As mentioned before many believe religion is an answer to problems and it is just another problem to add to a problem.
    The ideal mix may never be achieved but liberal and conservative have parts to play in the program that keeps our world moving along. Balance is the issue that needs to be addressed not panic and fear that the sky will fall if a bit more of this is applied than a bit more of that. Nothing is in balance at present, everywhere we look we have discord. War, fighting, decisions being made for no reason other than it is counter to what others see as reasonable, and out and out stupidity being the watchword on a constant basis.
    We have cycled through some really major events and attitudes. People became politically correct, whatever that was, and then we did away with violent cartoons only to replace American made ones with Japanese made ones that are even more violent. How we spoke in classrooms and address gender issues and the list goes on with one group saying understand and the other saying it is against God’s will.
    The problem is that neither side of this debate will open a window to attempt to understand anything because if they do they may actually listen and learn something, God forbid, It is very possible that both sides of this debate will rot in hell for a very long time before they ever get around to discussing it.

  • Shits going to change

    What advice would you give to your teenage self?

    I would tell my younger self to listen and pay attention and to not focus on the outcomes that didn’t turn out the way I wanted. My father always said this is no failure if you learn from it, I would tell my younger self that there are no truer words spoken. There is no failure only opportunity to learn.

  • Why Zebras have Stripes

    Zebra Stripes Could Be Pest Control

    Wild Zebras socialising in Africa.
    Credit: Jamen Percy/ Shutterstock

    It can be tricky to pin down just why an animal’s coat looks a certain way, and scientists have a few ideas about why zebras evolved to have their trademark black and white stripes — they might act as thermoregulation, or as a unique, confusion-based kind of camouflage, to name just a couple of examples. But one of the more promising, consistent theories — although scientists are still ultimately divided — is that the striped pattern keeps dangerous flies away.

    After finding that zebra stripes are more pronounced in areas of Africa with more horseflies and tsetse flies (which can transmit deadly diseases among equines), an evolutionary biologist assembled a team for a new experiment. They observed horses, some dressed up in zebra-striped coats, next to some especially tame zebras, and found that while flies hovered around all of them, they rarely landed on zebras or the striped horses compared to the horses without coats. When flies would approach zebra-striped surfaces, they would behave as if they couldn’t find a good spot to land.

  • Values

    Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

    Do we have a value system? What is of value to us? Can we describe or identify that which has value?
    Great questions, what are the answers? Last weekend a good percentage of the nation watched the Super Bowl. What were your thoughts when you drove past the homeless encampment on the way to the store for chips and beer?
    We send millions of dollars worth of munitions to our allies to use against their enemies and find justification for withholding $40.00 per month per child during the summer for school lunches. There are families of 3 or 4 that are living in mansions that cost millions and just down the street we have other families living in tents.
    It is normal to enjoy the fruit of your labor, the point is that sometimes we need to be aware of our surroundings and share our good fortune. The disparity between labor and management in many businesses today is beyond belief. It is like we have gone back to the days when we had royals and serfs and nothing in between.
    This country was not founded on that theory. We had an upper class that owned property and had the vote. We had a separation of church and state, as the founders knew that tying religion to any civic entity is a recipe for disaster as religion of any flavor is toxic to individual freedom.
    There have been struggles with privilege based on status for centuries and we still put up with the problem. Laws are enacted and yet some constantly claim that they are somehow immune from this or that because of the color of their skin or their shit doesn’t stink. Will we ever get beyond that issue? It may come to pass when we have AI enforcing and administering the law.
    Other nations have overcome the majority of things that seem to plague us, homelessness, hunger, housing the elderly and education and health care. Why we can not do this is simply a case of everything has to be for profit not good will.
    Double standards are the norm, businesses that close on Sunday and claim their faith exempts them from paying for birth control insurance have no problem using other businesses that are open on Sunday to advertise their business. Just a way to get out of paying for insurance.
    Most rules are made for the benefit of those that made the rule. Take the one that says there can be no autopsy performed in the Vatican. Won’t explain it as it seems obvious without explanation.
    Today most of the dysfunction is in the lack of cooperation between the political parties. Working together to overcome the disparities is how we achieve advancement and gain unity. Today’s world view is not to let that happen but rather to burn the bridge before anyone can get on it rather than cooperatively resolve the issue in advance.

  • Ignorance

    What bores you?

    Having to listen to self-absorbed, ignorant individuals espouse their opinions about things they know nothing about.

  • Words of Wisdom

  • American Horror Story

    Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

    There are concerns being voiced that violence will be the consequence of any legal action against Trump that produces a guilty verdict and a jail sentence. If that is the case then we are living with domestic terrorism and we need to put a stop to it.
    If the results of the Jan 6 effort are any indication of where this will get you, nearly 1000 people so far have been found guilty of felony charges and are serving time in jail. One man’s ego is surely not worth that many people’s freedom. It is hard to believe that a person of such limited public notoriety has made this big of an impression on so many.
    We know from history that some of the most well known characters were in fact some of the least noteworthy people. These individuals were the ones that dragged their countries into unnecessary wars and caused pain and suffering among the citizens of the nations they represented. We all know the names like Hitler and Mussolini just to name two of them. They ranted and raved about conditions that existed after WWI and ultimately caused WWII.
    Hopefully we are not headed into either Civil War or WWIII because Mr. Trump is being prosecuted for the crimes he has been getting away with for most of his life. Committing fraud, assaulting women, trying to steal classified documents and overturning and election are not the most common of crimes and the perpetrators of such crimes should not have public approval. Yet it seems, this is the case where the Robin Hood syndrome seems to have taken over, take from the rich to give to the poor even though this case is rob from the poor to give the rich more.
    There have been suggestions that he be pardoned and that seems like a slap in the face to every person in the country that obeys the laws and tries to be a decent citizen. On the other hand a pardon with conditions might just put the idiot brigade out of business. If the pardon required that he removes himself from politics, ceases his hourly incitement to insurrection and retires to some faraway place where he can live as he pleases, say Saudi Arabia. His attitudes and moral codes fit very well with the royalty of that nation. His value system would indicate that even if he were pardoned and allowed to stay in this country he would not honor any deal he made, because he is above the law. Isn’t that what he is trying to claim to get out of responsibility on current charges.P