Bending the map

The Wilderness Search and Rescue people have a term for the process that results in experienced outdoorsmen getting lost.

Imagine Joe and his buddy hiking to a secret fishing spot. Joe takes a short-cut and they end up on a ridge. Joe is sure that he knows where they are.

He pulls out his map and compass and takes reading.

"My compass is broken. Let me see yours" Joe says.

"Yours is broken, too. Either that, or this mountain is made of iron ore."

"That peak over there has to be Mt. Sumtalldude. If we keep it on our left we will hit Stoney Creek, then all we have to do is follow it downstream to Moldy Meat Swamp."

Five days later, Search and Rescue finds them on Bleached Bones Salt Flats. When Joe regained consciousness, he insisted that he had successfully navigated to Moldy Meat Swamp but that it had dried up.

I think many of the poor, lost-souls who buy into the Transgender nonsense follow a similar "Bending the Map" path.

They start out profoundly unhappy and it must be something external. Accepting the possibility that the problem revolves around their own, internal expectations is too painful to consider.

Somebody offers the hypothesis "You were born in the wrong body" and they swallow it with the enthusiasm of a Smallmouth Bass inhaling a softshell crawdad.

They embrace the idea that somebody owes them "the solution" of chemically and surgically changing their body to conform to the idealized cosmetic standards of the other sex.

All data that conflicts with their preferred solutions (the equivalent of the compass readings) is discarded. Even the flimsiest of data that supports their preferred solution is touted as absolute proof and they push onward.

From a detached, intellectual standpoint the interesting thing is that at every turn where "Joe" rejected objective data, he became more deeply invested in being "right" because the cost of his decisions, if they were wrong, increased exponentially. Thus we have transexual advocates who will burn the city to the ground over the most trivial of points.

I am not very optimistic about changing the minds of the ones who drank the koolaid but I think it is important that we have robust arguments that might save the ones who are still considering their options.

The upside is that the NEXT generation will learn that the best way to horrify their progressive parents and to establish their own identity separate from their parents will be to be "Based".

What oldsters like us can do is to refined "You might be BASED if..." lists.

Examples:

• You might be BASED if you believe that the bathroom scale aren't lying when you step on them (speedometer, altimeter, horizon, credit card balance...)
• You might be BASED if you believe that you get better at a skill by practicing it.
• You might be BASED if you are not afraid to make mistakes because you learn from them.
• You might be BASED when you acknowledge the possibility that the other guy might be right.
• You might be BASED if you can combined the best parts of the other guys' ways of doing things and your way of doing things. 
• You might be BASED if you believe that ignoring problems will NOT automatically make them go away.
• You might be BASED if you are prepared to do hard things even when you believe it is somebody else's job.
• You might be BASED if you can forgive people because nobody is perfect and you will end up with no friends if you cannot learn to forgive.
• You might be BASED if you believe the best girls smell like sugar and spice and everything nice while the best guys are as tough as snakes and nails and puppy-dog tails.
• You might be BASED if you dance the most with the one you brung. 
• You might be BASED if you believe that skinned knuckles are not a mortal wound but are the price of living large. 

Please feel free to add to the list in comment, provide feedback on the ones that most appeal to you and, most of all, share the list with others. 

Lifting notes

I went to the gym to day to see how much I could dead-lift. It has been 9 months since I hit the weight-room.

All of the regulation, 45 pound bars were in use. I found a shorter bar that might have weighed 25 pounds.

I warmed up with six reps at 115(?) pounds and then at 165 with five minutes of stretching between the sets. From there I added five pounds, waited a minute and then lifted a single rep. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I hit the wall at 215 pounds.

I am pleased with how it felt while I was lifting and how I felt afterward. I would have been OK with any number I ended with. It is just data. However, I am pleasantly surprised by how high it was. My PR for dead-lifting is 245 pounds so being 15% below my all-time high after not lifting for nine months is pretty cool. 

A few observations on the transgender industry

I happened to overhear a conversation where a person who favored universal, unlimited access to what he called "gender affirming healthcare" was pitching the idea to a skeptic.

Two of the lynch-pins of his arguments were that "there are no disadvantages to puberty-blocking drugs" and "trans-reversals are extremely rare and most transgenders are very happy".

Puberty-blockers

The person who favored GAH access pitched puberty-blockers claimed that they were only used to buy the unsure youth time-to-decide. Puberty is a one-way street and once started creates a cascade of biological changes.

The person pitching GAH claimed that those changes necessitated lots of expensive and dangerous surgeries to undo the skeletal changes and length of vocal cords and so on. By delaying puberty, the "correct" hormones could be administered to result in the desired post-puberty body.

Furthermore, the person pitching GAH claimed that there are absolutely no negative side-effects to puberty-blockers. 

It is necessary to exercise critical reading skills when reviewing the academic literature regarding puberty blockers because the researchers appear to be motivated by a desire to promote these kinds of treatments.

***As a side note: I was left with the impression that some of these "academic articles" were marketing brochures shilling for the medical industry that profits from creating transgenders out of angst-y young teens. Every 13 year-old they "turn" becomes a fifty year stream of revenue*** 

A quick skim of the internet suggests that it is now known that puberty-blockers vastly reduce fertility in males. That fact undermines the contention that "the only thing that they do is that they buy time for confused youths to make up their mind". That isn't they only thing they do. They also leave the male sterile.

The researchers also bury things in the body of the text, things like "It is much to soon to evaluate long-term effects like increased cancer risk". Cancer, that is a bad thing...right?

The third point is the most difficult to quantify: Puberty is a time of social growth as well as a time of physical changes. One of the things that makes the terror of the physical changes and the challenges of interacting with girls (or boys if you are a girl) is that everybody else got thrown into the deep-end of the pool at the same time. We are all in this together.

Puberty-blockers delay puberty. The pre-adolescent who takes puberty-blockers is left sitting on the bench while everybody else boards the bus and the bus pulls out of the station. They lose the protective effects of running with the herd.

All trans are happy-happy-happy

The person pitching GAH said he knew that people who chose GAH were happier because he followed this one influencer on Instagram and she is the happiest person he knows. Honest. He said that.

The data suggests otherwise.

Suicide rates 

According to this report, the suicide rate for transgenders is 18.2 per 100k while the base-rate for the US population is 1.4 per 100k*. The source for this statistic does not identify this as age-adjusted or crude death-rate so that limits its usefulness. The same report claims that the lifetime suicide-attempt rate for transgenders exceeds 40 percent versus a lifetime attempt rate of 1.6 for the general population.

I did a cross-check on the report's numbers and there are issues with them. According to the CDC the general population's death-rate due to suicide for 2023 and 2024 was 14/100k, not 1.4/100k. That kind of mismatch makes all of the data they report suspect.

Substance abuse 

Substance abuse is another marker of unhappiness. According to WebMD, transgenders are about three times more likely than the general population to have a substance abuse issue. 

Comorbidities

According to this paper, transgender people are four times more likely to have other mental health issues (primarily mood and anxiety disorders) than the general population.

The mainstream media has reported on this issue but always link the issue to "lack of care availability" and "not be accepted by society".

It is telling that the "standard of care" for transgenders includes a life-time of mental health counseling. 

Cinnéididh

The phlebby-tech who extracted my blood yesterday was raised in a family with 15 kids.

Her mother was the oldest child and the tech's maternal grandmother died very shortly after her mother married. So, her mother raised her seven sibling. Meanwhile, her mother had eight kids of her own. My tech was the youngest of the 15.

My tech was raised on a hog farm near Decatur, Michigan.

After growing up, she studied her family history and learned that her last name, in Gallic, was "Cinnéididh" which literally translates as "lumpy head".

The tech was a fine-looking lass and I assured her that her head was not the least bit lumpy.

I looked up her last name on the internet after I got home and it claims that the name refers to "A helmeted war-chief".

I guess if you had never seen a warrior wearing a helmet then you might describe him as a man with a lumpy head.

In my family's mother-tongue, my last name translates as "the peasant who chops the horse and cattle food". I guess you could say that my family has been in the transportation industry for a VERY long time.

Yesterday

The wind-chill topped out at 565 degrees Rankine yesterday. The weather-weenies predict it will be five degrees colder today. 

I gave blood yesterday. Unfortunately, I scheduled it for mid-morning so I had a big donut-hole in the center of my most productive time to work outside. That is, the time between mosquitoes and spontaneous ignition. The nice lady who was passing out treats to donors told me that they had just run out of pitchers of sangria and the chef who made the Crispy Chicken Caesar wraps had just stepped out for a smoke-break. I settled for a 0.5 ounce packet of cheese crackers (for the salt) and a bottle of water.

I cut three oatmeal canisters in half and used them for collars around filbert shoots. I filled the collars with potting soil. My hope is that they strike roots and I will have something to graft named varieties on next spring.

All of this indoor time is messing up my sleep habits.

I have a tree that is mostly Kerr apple-crab. "Apple-crabs" are apples where the fruit is too small to be properly called an apple (the cutoff is arbitrarily at 60mm or 2-3/8" in diameter) and it too big to be considered a crabapple (smaller than 30mm or 1-1/4" in diameter. Highly resistant to fireblight, hardy down to USDA Zone 2b and, very rare for a very hardy apple, the fruit stores well. Kerr was one of the parents used in developing the Vineland apple rootstocks.

USDA Zone 2b can be expected to experience a low of -45F about once every ten years. 

There are a few branches of a rootstock called Geneva 935 grafted into the canopy for pollination. At the time I put these scion into the tree, G.935 looked like the best of the free-standing rootstock but field exposure uncovered a risk of sudden-death syndrome...possibly related to a susceptibility to latent virus that doesn't bother domestic apple varieties.

If I had a chance to do it again, I would graft Geneva 214 because it has not shown the sudden-death syndrome and is better at moving calcium from the soil to the fruit than any of the other Geneva rootstocks. 

Both varieties are susceptible to bearing in alternate years. This is the first year in the ten years since I grafted in the branches when both bloomed and both varieties have a very nice fruit set.

Mental note to self: Harvest a bunch of the fruit from the G.935 branches for seeds and plant them for rootstock and wildlife plantings.

Bangstick related 

I lubricated a batch of .223 Rem brass with Motor Honey. I put a tiny dab on the palm of one hand, rub my hands together and then run my hands through the brass, rubbing the way a Kindergarten kids works a ball of clay into a snake. One dab will adequately lubricate about 300 .223 Rem brass.

I started resizing them and promptly broke the de-capping wire off of the resizing die. Dang! 

I keep hearing that Michigan finally eliminated the "Rifle Line" which prohibits certain types of firearms in the southernmost half of the Lower Peninsula. In days-of-yore, only shotguns could be used south of the Rifle Line. Then they allowed muzzleloaders. Then straight-walled cartridges that are shorter than 1.8" long.

Chronic Wasting Disease has the DNR spooked and they would deerly (pun intended) love to knock the herd back to 30% of its current level. They are pulling out the stops.

I don't think the elimination of the Rifle Line will move the needle. We will know they are serious when the DNR allows land-owners (often absentee investors) to SELL the carcasses on secondary markets the way Australia allows "wildlife control agents" to sell kangaroo carcasses.

Must have been a slow day at Amazon 

The power cord and other assorted items I purchased on-line the day before yesterday arrived yesterday. Next day delivery! I selected free, 7 day delivery but they arrived the next day.

Random picture

Chillin'

Mark-to-Market

One of the hazards of the "clean sheet of paper" approach is that historical models often have armor against rare-but-critical events that are difficult to anticipate.

For example, I once participated in the introduction of a new model of automobile that used the "clean sheet of paper" approach. One deliverable involved several systems so it was not clear which department was responsible for validating it.

When the vehicle was tested (for being compatible with the three most common forms of tow-trucks), the referee determined that it has sustained $2400 worth of damage. Imagine gently sliding your vehicle into a ditch only to have the tow-truck inflict over $2k of damage! In retrospect, many of the seemingly non-functional features on the vehicle's predecessor armored it against damage from towing.

Social Democrats

The Communists who rebranded themselves as Social Democrats are remaking America using a "clean sheet of paper" approach.

In their zeal to protect "the working class", the Communists made property owners the "bad guy" and are punishing them with increased property taxes and by freezing rents.

For the young kids who were not paying attention in school, Communists hate private property and the people who own any.

One high-profile investor, Sergey Brin, dumped the stock he owned in a Real Estate Investment Trust that owned and managed apartments in New York City. It was reported that he decided it was better to sell at seven-cents-on-the-dollar of his original investment than to stay invested and get whacked for assessments that would put him underwater.

Let that sink in for a moment. In the opinion of a guy having a net worth of about 1/4 Trillion dollars, having your name on a deed to a piece of income property in New York City is not an asset. It is a liability.

Since property tax revenues are the product of multiplying the assessed value of the property by a fixed (but rising) tax rate, any changes to the assessed value of the property will impact the revenue collected by NYC.

In the baldest possible way, Sergey Brin just told Mamdani and the other Communists that the market value of vast swaths of NYC commercial real estate is now only worth 7% of what it was circa 2019.

All of the other holders of real estate are watching. Wanna bet that there is a line of property owners at the assessor's office demanding that there assessments be adjusted to the new reality?

A secondary effect is that it will lock up credit. The book-value of the property serves as collateral for loans. Those loans are used to finance upgrades like more efficient heating and cooling, WIFI and communication infrastructure, mitigating environmental hazards like lead and asbestos and cockroach dander. The wholesale destruction of the book-value of NYC's (and Seattle and Chicago...) property will paralyze the access to the credit needed to maintain the desirability of the individual properties and ultimately the desirability of the city.

But wait, there is more...

Brin bailed out of a sinking ship. The REIT he bailed out of owns thousands of rental units. When the REIT reorganizes or liquidates, it appears likely that nobody will step-up to assume the responsibility of managing the multi-family buildings. That is, collecting the rent and to paying the taxes and utility bills and executing the basic blocking-and-tackling of doing what needs to be done. Nobody wants to take a bite out of that poisoned apple.

The REIT Brin abandoned is just first of many. 

So how is that going to work when the boiler in the cellar craps-out in January? The REIT was vaporized. Will the city suddenly open a department filled with property managers? Where will they come from? Who will pay their wages or will Mamdani expect them to work for free? Where will the budget for replacing the boiler(s) come from? Who will evict the dead-beats and the drug dealers?

How are the Communists running NYC going to handle the evisceration of their property tax revenues? Albany cannot print money. Trump is unlikely to rescue them. There was a system with checks-and-balances in place. The Communists took a wrecking ball to it. That wrecking ball also destroyed the trust investors had in institution of NYC. A glib "My bad. Come back" isn't going to cut it.

Rainbow flag report, clover, fishing and polyethylene prices

 

The main street that runs north/south through Eaton Rapids runs past two "monument" churches.

In years past, one of the churches filled their front yard with Gay Pride flags for the entirety of June. What was jarring to me, personally, is that this church also has a large daycare and all of the flags were visible from the daycare's play-yard which defines the front yard's south boundary.

My critics (and I have a few) undoubtedly consider me a bigot and that I read too much into it, but it gives the appearance that the church is:

• Exposing very young children to blatant sexuality (which is not specifically LGBTQ+). 
• Promoting life-styles that are in direct contradiction to the Bible
• Unilaterally co-opting parental authority.
• The appearance that the church is recruiting for LGBTQP+ replacement
• The most generous possible spin is that the church's management is guilty of horrible optics

This year, 2026, there was not a Gay Pride flag in sight.

Either the church read the room differently in 2026 or, perhaps, sources of funding (Federal-->NGO?) dried up and funds available from grass-roots sources was not enough to purchase new flags.

Regardless of the reasons, I am relieved that the little kids were not immersed in LGBTQP+ propaganda.

Clover

After a slow start, the clover planted in the aisles between the rows of trees on the Hill Orchard showed up. The first three weeks of June were rainy and the white clover, being a shallow rooted species, really responded.

One aisle

A second one

 

A third one. This one's bottom 3/4 (top of frame) had zero clover in it.

Zoomed in view showing a patch of the previous picture from near the bottom of the hill

I was into Management Intensive Grazing when we had animals on the Eaton Rapids property. One of the founding principles of MIG is to manage your pasture (the timing of moving animals from paddock-to-paddock, recovery times, fertilizer/liming) to favor a strong stand of white clover. If you consistently have 15%-to-40% white clover then you are on top of your game.

The white clover is an indicator species. It is also highly palatable and it fixes nitrogen. It disappears when you let the grass get too tall before moving the animals in. Tall grass is overly mature and less palatable than younger grass. The animals eat less of it and don't perform as well.

If you think about it for a second, The Promised land...the land of "milk and honey" probably meant the pastures had a lot of clover in them. Clover makes milk. Clover flowers are rich sources of nectar for bees.

I am happy when the aisles are sporting an abundance of clover.

I am going to hold off on mowing for a week to let it set a little bit more seed. 

Fishing report

No fish were caught.

Shotgun indulged in an CAO Amazon Basin cigar.

We talked about the practicality of using an electric fence charger to "discipline" the turtles that kept stealing our bait. We decided that the Department of Natural Resources would take a dim view of our inventiveness.

Polyethylene prices

Ten-year history prices of polyethylene. 

Reader Gerry commented that I was wrong when I attributed the high cost of containers to the price of polyethylene plastic.

He is right!!! It is currently lower than the running, ten-year average. If you factor in inflation, it is cheaper now than it has been at any time in the prior ten years.

I have to qualify that a bit. There are LOTS of kinds of polyethylene. Some of it is very stretchy...like the cling-wrap you use in the kitchen. Some is very not-stretchy...like grocery bags. Some is soft and pliable...like poly tubing. Some is hard and wear-resistant like UHMW. Different processes (catalysts, temperatures etc.) produce different kinds of PE. Once a process is churning out a validated product, processors are loath to shut it down and juggle the input variables to make a different kind.

Fine Art Tuesday

Robert McLellen Bateman was born in Toronto, Ontario in 1930 and is still living in Canada.

 

Famous for his paintings of wildlife which are done in amazing detail and in with believable backgrounds.

It is an unwritten rule among the better artists that seagulls always be painted in pairs. As the old saw goes, "One good tern deserves another"

 

Another tip of the hat to 10x25mm for recommending this artist

 

Note to reader, posting will be light. The power cord for my laptop is dying. A new one is ordered and is expected Monday.