Pronouns and Dumpster Fires

Pronouns

Preferred: "Belongs to I AM". Optional: The name I was given when I was baptized. Unacceptable: They/Them.

The mandatory listing of "pronouns" is a mandatory declaration of ideology.

Language is holographic in that conventional grammar mutually reinforces the ideas being transmitted. Outside of technical communications, 80% of the words can be omitted (or skimmed over when reading) and the core message is still transmitted with fidelity because tense, gender, plurality and relationships are redundantly captured by the transmitter's choice of words.

Deliberately bastardizing this system with fantasy and inaccurate "pronouns" sabotages efficient communication.

The SJWs are now telling us that "They/Them" are the new, generic "Y'all" or neutral pronoun. My objection to that is that unless you are a mental health profession who is providing care to me, you do not have the authority to diagnose me as having multiple personalities or being bipolar. That is what calling me (one person, singular) "They/Them" is...it is stigmatizing me as being mentally ill. 

It also means that my evil-twin, Skippy, can murder you and you cannot hold my other personalities accountable and you cannot punish us. Are you sure you want to go down that road?

Dumpster fire

Things in D.C. are turning into a first-class dumpster fire. Just drop the Epstein files.

Darwin is probably watching the evolution of media with great interest. Mainstream Media is tracking in one direction. Social media platforms are ALL over the place.

It would be interesting to take a survey of waitresses and how many of them are aware that the Democrats in the Senate stopped the passage of legislation that will remove the Federal income tax on their tips. The irksome thing about taxes on tips is that the IRS requires that business withhold pay based on estimates of what the customers might have tipped. That is, taxes are levied on phantom income.

It would also be interesting to take a survey of people who are paid "hourly" to determine how many of them realize that the Democrats in the Senate stopped the passage of legislation that reduced the income tax they will pay on their over-time?

It is my perception that the Democrats are kicking their historical constituents squarely in the wallet. Most of those constituents are not stupid. The information is out there. It is percolating through non-MSM channels. They are going to look at Chuck Schumer (estimated family net worth of +$60 million) and think "Maybe this guy really doesn't represent my best-interests any more"

I am a "dirt" person

The man with the trencher called and said "I don't have any jobs lined-up for opening weekend of Deer Season. Do you still want me to come out and cut the roots of the walnut trees? I can do it Saturday or Sunday."

I was pierced by the horns of dilemma. I consulted with Mrs ERJ. We decided that we could attend different Masses on Sunday and I could support-and-direct the man with the trencher by attending an earliest Mass on Sunday.

The man operating the trencher. Note that he is wearing high visibility clothing. Good call during firearms deer season. The massive tree on the right is a Black Walnut. The multi-stem tree to its left is an American Basswood. The tree sprouting out of Mr Trencher's head is another Black Walnut.

Looking down, into the trench. Cut walnut roots are the strings that seem to span the 6" wide trench.

Some of the debris spit out by the trenching tool.

Looking up the length of the trench. The shifting between black-and-white photos and "color" is due to the clouds/sun which changed by-the-minute due to the high winds.

More debris.

Foreground-left is the pile of dirt beside the trench. Background-dark is where I was back-filling using a shove.

He cut 430 feet of trench in 3-1/2 hours.

Nearly all of the Black Walnut roots came from the east. The leg he cut on the south side of the Hill Orchard only had walnut roots for the most eastern, 30 feet. Then he hit clay and mulberry roots. Then sandy-loam and pine roots. 

Given the number of walnut trees surrounding the property, I could see this as a once every 10-years maintenance task. 

Mea Culpa

Through my fault,
through my fault,
Through my most grievous fault.

I was reminded that I once wrote on this blog that a "typical, Eaton County doe..." yielded 70 pounds of edible meat.

I was wrong.

If a 1400 pound steer with heavy muscling only yields 600 pounds or 40% of body-weight of meat, then there is no way a 120-to-150 pound doe will yield 70 pounds.

My error traces back to the business that processed deer. I learned that customers did not receive the same deer back that they dropped off. I learned that after a deer that I donated to a coworker served some of that venison at his daughter's wedding reception. Smitty accused me of knowingly giving him venison from a deer that had been gut-shot. The deer I had process had not been gut-shot.

Also, I saw, with my own eyes, folks at the processing place scoop packages of ground venison out of a common tub to "square out" a box. The meat had been commingled and if the customer received ground meat from the deer he had dropped off, it was only by accident.

If you have faith the size of a mustard seed...

As Christianity diffused across Europe, Asia and parts of Northern Africa, itinerant preachers memorized as much of the Holy Word as they could and pressed on-and-out.

Yellow Rocket leaf

A large number of plants in the family "Cruciferae" or "mustards" were common weeds throughout south-Asia, Europe and northern-Africa and local people frequently used the seeds for seasoning and leaves for pot-herbs. This plant-family was named for the many, narrow, oppositely-opposed leaflets that reminded the early botanists of the cross that Jesus died on.

The fact that Jesus pointed to a mustard plant while delivering his sermon on the power of faith was an inspired bit of foreshadowing. Those itinerant preachers undoubtedly exploited that foreshadowing and wove it into their sermons. It wasn't generic faith that could move mountains and hurl massive trees into the sea, it was only the faith contained in the seeds that fell from the cross.

Scamming on the rise

I walked into an auto parts store a couple days ago. The manager was informing the clerks about increased "scamming".

Lately, several people returned parts with copied receipts or with the old part in the box.

The new policy was "If the part was over $X and it is returned more than 24 hours later, tell them it has to be approved by management before the purchase price can be refunded." 

I know that many of my readers have ordered your lives so you are not severely jostled by the misfortunes of the economy. So consider this a heads-up that scammers are shifting into overdrive. What better way to learn AI than to scam senior citizens out of their savings. See? More work that was done in India and Nigeria that has returned to the US.

SNAP Fraud

One of the stories floating around is that about half of the states complied with DOGE requirements that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance benefits enrollment documentation be sent to the Feds for analysis. About half of the states chose to ignore the requirement with California, New York, Illinois and Michigan being in that number.

It comes as no surprise that some people in the states that chose to submit their enrollment documentation were receiving benefits that they were not legally entitled to. Others were receiving more benefits than they were legally entitled to.

The Trump administration is pursuing the states that ignored the request.

One possible outcome is that Trump's administration prevails in court and since the basis for the benefits that were transferred from the Federal were fraudulent, and since the states-in-question did not exercise due-diligence even after pressured by the Federal government, the fraudulently obtained benefits will be "clawed-back" by the Feds. That is, future SNAP transfers from the Federal government will be reduced by the amount of the fraud over-and-above the amount reduced to bring the rolls into compliance with the law.

It will then be incumbent upon the states to claw-back the monies in dispute...or to find other money in their budget to make up the shortfall.

It is my estimation that the states are exhibiting excessive optimism. They are hoping that Trump is bluffing and that they will be able to continue to spread Federal "loot" on their favored groups. They are also (optimistically) assuming that they will not be held accountable for (now) being accessories to criminal-fraud and being required to make the Feds "whole". That is beyond what their victimology oriented mindset can conceive.

The other possibility, one that I consider unlikely, is that the states are diligently "purifying" their SNAP benefit rolls before handing them into the Feds.

We live in interesting times. 

No animals were harmed in the making of thos blog-post

 

The wind did not do me any favors today.

I left the stand at 1:00 p.m. The stand was swaying and I wasn't even seeing very many birds.

Totals for the day:

Five deer (no antlers, no ethical shots)

One skunk

One rabbit

One feral cat. 

Countless squirrels, both Red Squirrels and Fox Squirrels. One of them was bold.

Some Blue Jays and Cardinals.

Three crows (An attempted murder? When does a group of crows become a "murder"?)

I heard geese (The proverbial Canadian Air Force fly-over).

I heard Sandhill Cranes.

One Redtailed Hawk.

One goshawk-like hawk. I am not smart enough to identify which one.

Shotgun was in the Taj. It is much more protected than the Orchard stand where I was hunting. It is in a bowl and the sides of the bowl are covered with trees. 

The Office

 

Out hunting. Read the folks on the side-bar

 

Michigan 2025 archery harvest by county. Saginaw county leads with 2200 deer harvested so far.

I hope to be in a deer stand by the time you are reading this.

Winds are predicted to be out of the southwest gusting to 30mph. Temperatures between 50F and 60F.

First legal light at 7:00 a.m. and last legal light at 5:45 p.m. (in round numbers).