Just another day in the Big Top

Lex Anteinternet: How to loose friends, make enemies, make a bad arg...: Our friend here again.  As we previoulsy noted, a Morganucodon, our great, great, great. . . . . grandmother or grandfather. Really.  You&#3...

Well, hold a circus and performing elephants will appear 

And that's just what's happening at the University of Wyoming in regard to the saga of Rev. Schmidt and his poorly thought out approach to arguing on whether transgenderism is real or not.  GOP politicians, from that party that adopted the elephant to remind people that they'd seen it in the form of the Civil War, have appeared in the form of legislative members of the "Freedom Caucus" and, of course, Chuck Gray.*  The letter was written, in fact, by his successor in office, Jeanette Ward, recent arrival from Illinois.¹ 

Let's recap this a bit.

Rev. Schmidt has been maintaining a table in the UW Student Union in which he has books to the effect that evolution is a fib and that Dr. Fauci is some sort of misguided personage.

Rev. Schmidt called out a person who is undergoing some sort of "gender reassignment" by name, noting that it's contrary to how God created humanity.

That latter item is correct, even if Schmidt is wrong on the fossil record and Dr. Fauci, but the apparent approach, which is based directly and perhaps even solely on his religious views, and which was very forward, was always more likely to create a flap and repel people rather than convince them.²  A wise way to approach this would have been to argue biology and science, rather than religion, but Schmidt took the latter approach and is now preaching on campus, which perhaps he always did.

UW, faced with an issue not of its own making and certainly not of its desire, booted Schmidt out of the Student Union.³

Now members of the Freedom Caucus, that body of legislators whose name would suggest they are Libertines, but whom are not, have entered the fray, accusing UW of squelching Schmidt's right to free speech.⁴ Given their entry and the presence of such notables as youthful Stolen Election Gray and Illinoisan Ward, who presumably have real tasks to do in their elective offices, this will become all the more circus like.  Gray, of course, needs a new issue now that the Stolen Election Myth has gone down in flames and crashed all over the GOP outside of Wyoming, and Ward always campaigned from the extreme right, claiming she had to leave Illinois so that her youthful progeny didn't have to wear masks in school, among other things.

Sigh. . . 

Nobody is going to talk the science at all.

There was a time, not all that long ago, when people claiming to be transgendered here would have simply been ignored, thereby being treated exactly the way they claim they want to be.  Likewise, Rev. Schmidt would have been ignored, even at UW, of an earlier era also.  Students wearing flannel and hiking boots would have simply walked on by.⁵

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.

Prior Related Threads:

How to loose friends, make enemies, make a bad argument, and discredit everything you stand for. The Transgender issue and a minister in Laramie.

Footnotes:

*I'm going to cite the Jimmy Akin citation rule here and ask why reporters don't upload a link to what they're writing about?  Given as this is about a letter, and give that if we are reading about it, we can read, why don't they upload it so we can read it ourselves?

1. There is absolutely no way in any earlier era in which an Illinoisan who just arrived would have been elected to anything whatsoever in the state.  Yes, that's provincialism, but sometimes provincialism is warranted.

For that matter, Gray couldn't get elected at first either, and in no earlier era would he have been elected Secretary of State.

2. And indeed this has sparked a counter student reaction, as was predictable.

Students can reliably be counted on to support any left wing cause, and pretty much always have.  Communist spies of the 40s and 50s had been recruited out of campuses in the 20s and 30s.  In the 30s, British university youth, who later defended the skies over the UK, publicly declared they wouldn't fight for Britain.  People, who lament the treatment of Vietnam veterans today, protested the war in the 60s.  Shoot, when I was at UW in the 80s nobody would ever say a good word about Ronald Reagan, who is now regarded by many as a hero.

There have been all sorts of students sign petitions on this matter, and not in the way that Ward and the Libertine, um no, the Freedom. . . um no, that doesn't seem right. . . oh, whatever it is, Caucus would like.  And in a recent Trib article students proclaiming unconventional gender orientation, probably some of whom discovered that recently and will find it transitory, stated they were in fear, which if they are is probably because any hype tends to cause fear.

So Schmidt has managed not only to convince, he's done damage, as we said he was doing.

3. There might be a lesson in here in what happens when you convert a building from what was essentially offices, ancillary rooms and a bookstore into one that's a place for loitering of all types.

4.  Is there any word more misused by movements than "freedom"?

5.  A Palestinian protest at UW that occurred only shortly before I went there reportedly received that treatment.  Students simply walked around it.

I don't recall any protests at all while I was there.  While I was in law school, a big march by an out-of-state organization aimed at homosexuals resulted, fairly predictably at that time, in a big counterprotest by local residents who wanted the other group to just shut up and go away.  I recall that surprising non-natives, but not natives, as the ethos of the state at the time was "I don't care what you do, just leave me alone".  When people weren't called on to "celebrate" conduct they didn't support, or even were repelled by, they were pretty tolerant.

Sunday, December 13, 1942. A day of mourning.

Jews in the UK held a day of mourning for victims of the Holocaust.

Rommel withdrew German forces from Tunisia, thereby saving his forces while disobeying an order from Hitler.

Something perhaps Gen. Paulus later had time to contemplate.

Sinematic angst

She is a corporate Democrat who has, in fact, along with Sen. Manchin sabotaged enormously important legislation.

Bernie Sanders.

My, my.

Worth noting, Sanders isn't a Democrat either.   Kyrsten Sinema, by going independent, is taking the position that he has always occupied.  An independent who caucuses with the Democrats.  Sanders ran as a Democrat in recent Presidential elections, but he isn't one.

The reaction to this has been interesting.  Democrats in Washington, who had just been stating how great it was that they had won in Georgia in part because they no longer really had to pay attention to Sinema and Manchin, who have used their positions to extract bargains, are now backtracking noting that this really doesn't change anything. And by and large, it probably doesn't.  Sinema and Manchin retain their positions of influence for the very reason that their positions don't track with the rest of the Democratic Party.

Outside of D.C., and with people like Sanders, Sinema is under attack for being disinenguine.  But is she? She was already under attack for going her own way on things.  She still is.

By all accounts, Sinema is a really unique Senator.  She was originally a member of the Green Party, not the Democratic Party, which makes her a real outsider.  She's apparently highly introverted in a field where you wouldn't expect that, and in terms of "caucusing" with the Democrats, she really doesn't.  She apparently doesn't show up, and she doesn't socialize with other Senators.  

Right now its popular to say that Sinema is sure to go down in defeat in the next Arizona primary. This might be right, but she's had a remarkably successful career in Arizona politics so far, so the "nobody likes her" can't be true.  Undoubtedly the most photogenic Senator in American history, she has only recently drawn Democratic ire in her home state and for taking positions on bills that seem to have corporate interest at heart.  For that reason, pundits like Robert Reich can't stand her.  Prior to that, however, she was noted for her support of Obamacare at the state level, and for being the first bisexual Senator in U.S. history, something that caused the liberals that now hate her to then love her.

Sinema's independence actually isn't new, and to a huge degree she's a mystery in a very public field.  Her early life's story is disputed and the version of it she gives isn't universally supported.  The accuracy of it hasn't been cleared up and there hasn't been a need to. She was a member of the LDS church and attended BYU, but dropped out of the Mormon faith after that and has left her personal beliefs pretty much wholly unknown.  She has been married and divorced, but next to nothing is known about her ex-husband, Blake Dain, and she's refused to say anything.  As a politician, she's never voted consistently along party lines and refused an effort ot remove an Arizona legislative figure, noting that "she loved him."

Being attacked by Bernie Sanders goes a long ways, frankly, in crediting her.  In her speech she noted that most Arizonans are independents and frankly a huge percentage of Americans are.  It's now the case that independents often figure as the second-largest political group in a state, and that's likely the case in Wyoming.  A look at party politics explains why.  In one state, Alaska, the voting system has been altered to omit the party role, and in at least one other state, Nebraska, that's always been the case. 

Sinema has received the disdain of her own party in her home state for holding up bills that the Democrats wanted passed based on positions that seemed to favor corporate interests.  Arizona's Democrats censured her, just as Wyoming's Republican's censured Liz Cheney.  Now Sinema has dumped the Democrats in a state where their fortunes are waning.

Sinema may be ahead of the curve.

A cold northern wind. The Alberta Sovereignty Within A United Canada Act.

From the prospective of the self-absorbed United States, it's often hard to realize that anything else is going on elsewhere, let alone that something much like what has been occurring in the US in recent years has been.

But in Canada, it has.

We got a glimpse of populist discontent in our northern neighbor this year with the Canadian truckers protest.  Since then, the government of Justin Trudeau has further restricted firearms access in Canada, where it was already severely restricted.

None of this sits well in some of rural Canada and the Canadian West.  Now Alberta, the province most like to react to such things, has reacted and passed a sovereignty bill.

It reads:

BILL 1

2022

ALBERTA SOVEREIGNTY WITHIN A UNITED CANADA ACT

(Assented to , 2022)

Table of Contents

1 Definitions

2 Interpretation

3 Resolutions

4 Powers of the Lieutenant Governor in Council

5 Authority and orders cease

6 Effect of directives

7 Crown is bound

8 No cause of action

9 Judicial review

10 Regulations

Preamble

WHEREAS Albertans possess a unique culture and shared identity within Canada;

WHEREAS it is the role of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta and the Government of Alberta to preserve and promote this unique culture and shared identity;

WHEREAS the Constitution Act, 1867, the Constitution Act, 1930 and the Constitution Act, 1982 are foundational documents that establish the rights and freedoms of Albertans and the relationship between the provincial and federal orders of government, including the division of legislative powers between them;

WHEREAS the Province of Alberta is granted rights and powers under the Constitution Act, 1867, the Constitution Act, 1930 and the Constitution Act, 1982 and is not subordinate to the Government of Canada;

WHEREAS actions taken by the Parliament of Canada and the Government of Canada have infringed on these sovereign provincial rights and powers with increasing frequency and have unfairly prejudiced Albertans;

WHEREAS actions taken by the Parliament of Canada and the Government of Canada have infringed on the rights and freedoms of Albertans enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in an unjustified and unconstitutional manner;

WHEREAS the people of Alberta expect the Parliament of Canada and the Government of Canada to respect the Constitution Act, 1867, the Constitution Act, 1930 and the Constitution Act, 1982 as the governing documents of the relationship between Canada and

Alberta and to abide by the division of powers and other provisions set out in those documents;

WHEREAS the people of Alberta expect the Parliament of Canada and the Government of Canada to respect the rights and freedoms of Albertans enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms; and

WHEREAS it is necessary and appropriate for the Legislative Assembly of Alberta to set out measures that the Lieutenant Governor in Council should consider taking in respect of actions of the Parliament of Canada and the Government of Canada that are unconstitutional or harmful to Albertans and for Members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta to have a free vote on such measures according to their individual judgment;

THEREFORE HIS MAJESTY, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, enacts as follows:

Definitions

1 In this Act,

 (a) “aboriginal peoples of Canada” includes the Indian, Inuit and Métis peoples of Canada within the meaning of section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982; 

(b) “Constitution of Canada” includes

 (i) the Canada Act, 1982, including the Constitution Act, 1982,

 (ii) the Acts and orders referred to in the Schedule to the Constitution Act, 1982, and

(iii) any amendment to any Act or order referred to in subclause (i) or (ii);

 (c) “federal initiative” means a federal law, program, policy, agreement or action, or a proposed or anticipated federal law, program, policy, agreement or action;

 (d) “person” includes a corporation and the heirs, executors, administrators or other legal representatives of a person;

 (e) “provincial entity” means

 (i) a public agency as defined in the Alberta Public Agencies Governance Act,

 (ii) a Crown-controlled organization as defined in the Financial Administration Act,

 (iii) an entity that carries out a power, duty or function under an enactment,

 (iv) an entity that receives a grant or other public funds from the Government that are contingent on the

provision of a public service,

 (v) a regional health authority established under the Regional Health Authorities Act,

 (vi) a public post-secondary institution as defined in the Post-secondary Learning Act,

 (vii) a board as defined in the Education Act,

 (viii) a municipal authority as defined in the Municipal Government Act,

 (ix) a municipal police service as defined in the Police Act,

 (x) a regional police service as defined in the Police Act, and

 (xi) any other similar provincially regulated entity prescribed by the regulations.

Interpretation

2 Nothing in this Act is to be construed as

 (a) authorizing any order that would be contrary to the Constitution of Canada,

 (b) authorizing any directive to a person, other than a provincial entity, that would compel the person to act contrary to or otherwise in violation of any federal law, or

 (c) abrogating or derogating from any existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada that are recognized and affirmed by section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982.

Resolutions

3 If, on a motion of a member of Executive Council, the Legislative Assembly approves a resolution that

 (a) states that the resolution is made in accordance with this Act,

 (b) states that, in the opinion of the Legislative Assembly, a federal initiative

 (i) is unconstitutional on the basis that it

 (A) intrudes into an area of provincial legislative jurisdiction under the Constitution of Canada, or

 (B) violates the rights and freedoms of one or more Albertans under the Canadian Charter of Rights

and Freedoms,

 or

 (ii) causes or is anticipated to cause harm to Albertans,

 (c) sets out the nature of the harm, if the resolution states that, in the opinion of the Legislative Assembly, a federal initiative causes or is anticipated to cause harm to Albertans, and

 (d) identifies a measure or measures that the Lieutenant Governor in Council should consider taking in respect of the federal initiative, the Lieutenant Governor in Council may take the actions described in section 4.

Powers of the Lieutenant Governor in Council

4(1) If the Legislative Assembly approves a resolution described in section 3, the Lieutenant Governor in Council, to the extent that it is necessary or advisable in order to carry out a measure that is identified in the resolution, may, by order,

 (a) if the Lieutenant Governor in Council is satisfied that doing so is in the public interest, direct a Minister responsible for an enactment as designated under section 16 of the Government Organization Act to, by order,

(i) suspend or modify the application or operation of all or part of an enactment, subject to the terms and conditions that the Lieutenant Governor in Councilmay prescribe, or

 (ii) specify or set out provisions that apply in addition to,or instead of, any provision of an enactment,subject to the approval of the Lieutenant Governor in Council,

 (b) direct a Minister to exercise a power, duty or function of the Minister, including by making a regulation under an enactment for which the Minister is responsible, or

 (c) issue directives to a provincial entity and its members, officers and agents, and the Crown and its Ministers and agents, in respect of the federal initiative.

(2) A directive issued in accordance with subsection (1)(c) may be general or particular in its application.

(3) Where there is a conflict or inconsistency between

 (a) an order made or an order that is directed to be made under subsection (1), and

 (b) a provision of an enactment to which the order relates, the order prevails to the extent of the conflict or inconsistency.

(4) Nothing in this Act abrogates any authority or power vested in the Legislative Assembly or Lieutenant Governor in Council by any other enactment or by operation of law, including any authority or power of the Lieutenant Governor in Council to take action with respect to the federal initiative.

Authority and orders cease

5(1) Subject to subsection (2), the Lieutenant Governor in Council ceases to have an authority to make an order under section 4(1), and any order issued by the Lieutenant Governor in Council or a Minister under section 4(1) expires and ceases to have any force or effect, on the earliest of

 (a) the date on which the Legislative Assembly rescinds the resolution referred to in section 4(1), or

 (b) 2 years after the date on which the resolution referred to in section 4(1) was approved by the Legislative Assembly.

(2) The Lieutenant Governor in Council may extend an order issued under section 4(1) for an additional 2 years from the date on which the original order was set to expire.

(3) An extension of an order by the Lieutenant Governor in Council under subsection (2) may be made only once.

Effect of directives

6(1) A provincial entity and its members, officers and agents, and the Crown and its Ministers and agents, must comply with any directive issued by the Lieutenant Governor in Council under this Act.

(2) A directive issued under this Act must be published in The Alberta Gazette within 30 days from the date the order is made by the Lieutenant Governor in Council under section 4(1).

(3) The Regulations Act does not apply to a directive issued under this Act.

Crown is bound

7 This Act is binding on the Crown.

No cause of action

8 No cause of action lies against and no action or proceeding may be commenced against

 (a) the Crown or its Ministers, agents, appointees or employees, or against the Legislative Assembly, the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, an office of the Legislature, or any agents, appointees or employees of the Legislative Assembly or an office of the Legislature, in respect of any act or thing done or omitted to be done under or in relation to this Act or a resolution or order under this Act, including, without limitation, any failure to do something when that person has discretionary authority to do something but does not do it, or

 (b) any other person or entity in respect of any act or thing done or omitted to be done in good faith under a directive issued under this Act, including, without limitation, anyfailure to do something when that person has discretionary authority to do something but does not do it.

Judicial review

9(1) An originating application for judicial review in relation to a decision or act of a person or body under this Act must be filed and served within 30 days after the date of the decision or act.

(2) In an application for judicial review to set aside a decision or act of a person or body under this Act, the standard of review to be applied by the court is that of patent unreasonableness.

(3) Nothing in this section is to be construed as making a decision or act of the Legislative Assembly subject to judicial review.

Regulations

10 The Lieutenant Governor in Council may make regulations

 (a) prescribing provincial entities for the purposes of section 1(e);

 (b) defining any term or phrase used but not defined in this Act. 

GOVERNMENT AMENDMENT AMENDMENTS TO BILL 1

The Bill is amended as follows:

A Section 1 is amended by adding the following after clause (e): (f) “regulation” means a regulation, order, rule, form, tariff of costs or fees, proclamation, bylaw or resolution enacted

(i) in the execution of a power conferred by or under the authority of an Act, or

(ii) by or under the authority of the Lieutenant Governor in Council, but does not include an order of a court made in the course of an action or an order made by a public officer or administrative tribunal in a dispute between 2 or more  persons.

B Section 3(b)(ii) is struck out and the following is substituted: (ii) causes or is anticipated to cause harm to Albertans on the basis that it

(A) affects or interferes with an area of provincial legislative jurisdiction under the Constitution of Canada, or

(B) interferes with the rights and freedoms of one or more Albertans under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms,

C Section 4 is struck out and the following is substituted:

ALBERTA SOVEREIGNTY WITHIN A UNITED CANADA ACT

Amendment A1 agreed to December 7, 2022

Powers of the Lieutenant Governor in Council 4(1) If the Legislative Assembly approves a resolution described in section 3, the Lieutenant Governor in Council, to the extent that it is necessary or advisable in order to carry out a measure that is identified in the resolution, may, by order,

 (a) if the Lieutenant Governor in Council is satisfied that doing so is in the public interest, direct a Minister responsible for an enactment as designated under section 16 of the Government Organization Act to, by order,

 (i) suspend or modify the application or operation of all or part of a regulation authorized by that enactment, subject to the terms and conditions that the Lieutenant Governor in Council may prescribe, or

 (ii) specify or set out provisions that apply in addition to, or instead of, any provision in a regulation authorized by that enactment,  subject to the approval of the Lieutenant Governor in Council,

 (b) direct a Minister to exercise a power, duty or function of the Minister, or

 (c) issue directives to a provincial entity and its members, officers and agents, and the Crown and its Ministers and agents, in respect of the federal initiative.

(2) A directive issued in accordance with subsection (1)(c) may be general or particular in its application.

(3) Where there is a conflict or inconsistency between

 (a) an order made or an order that is directed to be made under subsection (1), and

 (b) a provision of a regulation to which the order relates, the order prevails to the extent of the conflict or inconsistency.

(4) For greater certainty, a regulation as referred to in this section does not include an Act of the Legislative Assembly.

(5) Nothing in this Act abrogates any authority or power vested in the Legislative Assembly or the Lieutenant Governor in Council by any other enactment or by operation of law, including any authority or power of the Lieutenant Governor in Council to take action with respect to the federal initiative.

What's all this mean?

Well, good luck in finding out.  The U.S. press doesn't follow Canadian politics at all, even in those regions where you would think it should.  Alberta is just north of Wyoming and many Albertans come through and work here, but the local news isn't covering it.  Canadians themselves, as part of their culture, tend to keep all of their complaints big secrets, so they'll never actually tell you what's going on.  We're more likely down here to find out about the blathering of some Pop Tart or Pop Twit, or the fastest weird tweet from Donald Trump written all in caps and featuring weird diction, than we are about something going on in Canada that really matters.

What we can say about Canada is this.  Canada has undergone massive societal and cultural shifts since the 1950s.  The country was once extremely English, save for in Quebec, and in a conservative way.  Quebec itself was extremely conservative as well, but in its own Quebecois way.  Starting in the late 1950s, Canada began to jettison its culture in this fashion and has gone the other way.  Laws regarding speech are in the books which would be unconstitutional in the US, and the country more or less has an unwritten highly liberal ethos in which things to the contrary are not culturally allowed, no matter what people may actually think.  A culture of Canadian politeness operates in this so that, at least on the surface, Canadians go along and don't interject their personal views much.  In the Canadian West, however, this meets opposition, but even there the culture of Canadian politeness operates so that you just have to know what's going on, as at least to non Canadians, Canadians aren't telling.

Canadians are also a very proud people and bristle at statements from outsiders, as a rule, that everything might not be prefect.  A claimed statistic I saw today, however, would suggest that more Canadians died of euthanasia within a referenced time frame than of COVID 19 which may be a tribune to its COVID 19 policies, but which serves to illuminate the introduction of euthanasia, which is distressing.

The trucker's convoy briefly brought out Canadians who were latent Trump supporters, oddly enough.  The difficulty of knowing what's going on in Canada from the outside, and its own culture of not really saying anything if strangers are invited to the dinner table, however, may be suppressing a bit a news story that's similar to what's been going on here for some time.

Following this act's passage, there were indications from Alberta's leadership that it might have to seek a referendum on, essentially, separation.

It'll be interesting to see how this develops.

Saturday, December 12, 1942. Winter Operations.

The Germans launched Operation Winter Storm, an offensive that aimed to break through to trapped forces at Stalingrad.

Red Army T-34s in Operation Little Saturn.

The Soviets launched Operation Little Saturn on south of the Don.

The Knights of Columbus Hostel fire occurred in St. John's Newfoundland.  The fact that many suspicious items are associated with the fire, that other fire attempts happened in the same locality within a proximate time frame, and that the Catholic hostel housed many military and shipping personnel at the time have caused it to be suspected that the fire arose due to a Nazi act of sabotage.  99 people died as a result of the fire.

Sarah Sundin notes:

Today in World War II History—December 12, 1942: M3 submachine gun enters service with US Army. UCLA football team beats USC for the first time, 14-7; a war bond drive at the game raises $2 million.

The M3 was a wartime design that made use of stamping technology. The goal was to produce a reliable submachine gun at a much lower cost than the competing machined examples that then existed, a goal which was largely achieved.

The U.S. used submachine guns in a much different way than depicted in films and different from the way it was used in many other armies.  Generally they never showed up in the TO&E's of infantry units of any kind, including airborne units.  They did end up in those units, but through unofficial routes.  Submachine guns really served as defensive weapons for armored vehicle crews, for the most part, in the U.S. Army.  The M3 occupied that role into the 1990s.

Solider armed with M3 guarding German prisoners during Operation Overlord.  The jeep is unusual in that it's had a back deck extension afixed to it.

The M3 was nicknamed the "Grease Gun" due to its resemblance to that tool by U.S. troops.

As it was a Saturday, the Saturday weekly magazines were out.

The Saturday Evening Post had an illustration of a hunting dog by tools of the trade and a photo of its owner, now in the service.

Colliers had an illustration by Polish artist Arthur Szyk in his unique style depicting the Japanese allegorically as a bat over Pearl Harbor.

Was Shakespeare Right? Should We Kill All the Lawyers? - Minding The Campus

Was Shakespeare Right? Should We Kill All the Lawyers? - Minding The Campus: I always thought that William Shakespeare was a bit too harsh when, in Henry VI, Part 2, he said “Let’s kill all the lawyers.” Given the antics of our nation’s leading law schools and the American Bar Association (ABA), however, perhaps Shakespeare was onto something when he penned those words over four centuries ago. In […]

How to loose friends, make enemies, make a bad argument, and discredit everything you stand for. The Transgender issue and a minister in Laramie.

Our friend here again.  As we previoulsy noted, a Morganucodon, our great, great, great. . . . . grandmother or grandfather. Really.  You'll have to read below to get the point.  By FunkMonk (Michael B. H.) - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15356075

I'm not going to post names, as that is what really go this thing rolling in the first place, in some ways.  What I will  note is that when I say "minister", I am referring to a protestant minister and, as will become clear, what used to sometimes be called a "fundamentalist" protestant minister.

Centuries ago, when I went to the University of Wyoming, there were no tables for people advocating things in the Student Union.  The Union was smaller than, and frankly we mostly just passed through it on the way to somewhere else.  The bookstore was in the Union, but it was actually diagonally across from the enormous book store that is now in the Union.  Current students would be shocked to see how small the union was.

On rare occasions something might happen in the union, but it would actually have to be held somewhere else in one of the various rooms in the building.  I recall going to an international students bake sale there, for instance.  And I saw the film Risky Business with a girlfriend in the ballroom once, so they obviously showed movies there on occasion.

But mostly we just passed through it on the way from the lower campus to the upper campus.

Now the much expanded union has tables in it, and various organizations will set up a display.  The times I've been in there, and I still get down to UW on occasion, it's been student organizations of one kind or another.  Most people seem to pass through ignoring them, which is predictable.

Apparently, however, groups from outside the university are allowed to set up there as well.

I frankly don't know what I think about it, but I don't think I like it in general.  This post, however, isn't really about that, but about one person whose been maintaining a booth there.

That person is the minister of a certain protestant church in Laramie.  I know where the church is, as I once had a friend who lived near there.  Oddly enough, it's not a church that I've ever posted a photo of at our Churches of the West blog.  

This has hit the press as the minister put up, amongst other things, a large at a booth he maintains in the Student Union which stated:

God created male and female

"_________________" is a Man.

Now, obviously, the "________________" had the name of a student on it.

So, apparently, the minister sought to point out that a student who apparently is in some aspect of the current "transgender" spectrum, for lack of a better way to put it, is a man, as he was born male.

Which brings us to this.  Rev. Schmidt (okay, I named him) is correct, "___________" is in fact a man.  And, yes, God created us male and female.

And this is just about the worst way to go about arguing in opposition to the transgender trend there is.  Schmidt is hurting himself, his cause, science, and Christianity in general.

Regarding science and Christianity, I'll note right away that Rev. Schmidt's table makes it clear that he's from that non-Apostolic branch of Christianity which is oddly opposed to science to start with.  Apostolic Christians endorse science, and take the position that science and Faith can always be reconciled, and science serves to illuminate the grandeur of God's creation.  We don't oppose, for example, the theory (and at this point it's a theory in name only, it's actually a fact) of evolution.  Schmidt does, based on one of the books on his table.

Schmidt's table was adorned with books taking on all sorts of things in the photos, including taking on Anthony Fauci and, as noted, evolution.  I'm pretty sure, based on that, that Schmidt would be one of the protestants who regard Catholicism and Orthodoxy, which make up the overwhelming number of Christians on Earth, in horror or at least disdain. 

I'll get back to that in a moment, but I mention it here as having a booth in a hall that tells people that something is contrary to a religious tenant works fine if you are engaging in a debate with fellow Christians.  So, for example, if this Reformed Baptists minister seeks to take on American Episcopalians, that argument makes sense, although it certainly could be done in a more articulate fashion.  But if you are engaging the public at large, and not knowing who your audience is, that argument is going to fall flat and with quite a few, actually push them away from Christianity, to the extent that objecting to the reality of the fossil record and feeling that Anthony Fauci is a bad guy isn't already achieving that.

So all it really serves to do is to make a guy who is tainting Christianity feel like he's advancing it when he's not.

Which takes us to St. Paul.

Chances are that Rev. Schmidt like St. Paul and thinks St. Paul would be in his corner here.  St. Paul was a tough guy, and he had a lot to say about improper sexual conduct, including homosexuality and men dressing like women.  St. Paul makes people today squirm and they avoid him.  One lesbian minister here in Casper actually dismissed St. Paul entirely on these matters in a radio interview, saying "well that's just St. Paul's opinion".

That's not the way that Paul presented it.  No, not at all. 

But consider this:

Paul’s Speech at the Areopagus.

Then Paul stood up at the Areopagus and said:

“You Athenians, I see that in every respect you are very religious.

For as I walked around looking carefully at your shrines, I even discovered an altar inscribed, ‘To an Unknown God.’ What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you.

The God who made the world and all that is in it, the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands because he needs anything. Rather it is he who gives to everyone life and breath and everything.

He made from one the whole human race to dwell on the entire surface of the earth, and he fixed the ordered seasons and the boundaries of their regions, so that people might seek God, even perhaps grope for him and find him, though indeed he is not far from any one of us.

For ‘In him we live and move and have our being,’ as even some of your poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’

Since therefore we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the divinity is like an image fashioned from gold, silver, or stone by human art and imagination.

God has overlooked the times of ignorance, but now he demands that all people everywhere repent because he has established a day on which he will ‘judge the world with justice’ through a man he has appointed, and he has provided confirmation for all by raising him from the dead.”

When they heard about resurrection of the dead, some began to scoff, but others said, “We should like to hear you on this some other time.”

And so Paul left them.

But some did join him, and became believers. Among them were Dionysius, a member of the Court of the Areopagus, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

Ch. 17, Acts of the Apostles. 

Now, that's interesting.  Paul entered a new area, full of non-believers who had never even heard of Christ, and what did he say:

“You Athenians, I see that in every respect you are very religious.

For as I walked around looking carefully at your shrines, I even discovered an altar inscribed, ‘To an Unknown God.’ What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you.

Well, he didn't do what Rev. Schmidt is doing.  He didn't go in and insult the unbelievers and assume they knew the entirety of the Christian message and point fingers at individuals ones of them, a la John Calvin.  No, he engaged them on common ground.

Here the common ground is science.  But chances are that Rev. Schmidt can't engage there.

The science of transgenderism is that its not supported by the science.  A person's gender is actually present in the DNA of every single cell of their body.  Humans, like all mammals, are male and female, and nothing else, right down to every single cell in your body.  Surgery and drugs aside, that remains the case.  It cannot be changed.

And hence our great grandmother and grandfather to the nth degree, the Morganucodon again.  Yes, male and female we were created, but not 4,000 years ago, but millions of years ago.  As we noted when we brought our cute little dinosaur egg eating progenitor up before:

The way it really works, of course, with mammals, which we are, is described here in Wikipedia:

A zygote (from Ancient Greek ζυγωτός (zygōtós) 'joined, yoked', from ζυγοῦν (zygoun) 'to join, to yoke')[1] is a eukaryotic cell formed by a fertilization event between two gametes. The zygote's genome is a combination of the DNA in each gamete, and contains all of the genetic information of a new individual organism.

In multicellular organisms, the zygote is the earliest developmental stage. In humans and most other anisogamous organisms, a zygote is formed when an egg cell and sperm cell come together to create a new unique organism. In single-celled organisms, the zygote can divide asexually by mitosis to produce identical offspring.

Zygote. By Nina Sesina - File:Zygote.tif, CC BY-SA 4.0,

That's how your gender is assigned.  Sperm and egg meet, zygote is formed, and your DNA starts rolling.  Your gender is determined, not assigned, by your DNA.

More particular than that, however, is that your DNA is determined by a long line of evolutionary influences going back to the first life.  Young earther's aside, you go way, way, back in evolutionary terms.

As we've noted before, our species supposedly goes back about 150,000 years, which probably means it goes back 250,000 to 500,000 years. We almost always get that wrong.  

Anyhow, we've noted this story, and this science, before:

Human beings are mammals and mammals.  Of the mammals, primates have the highest sexual dimorphism by quite some measure.  Members of the Homo genus, moreover have the highest sexual dimorphism of the primates.  It's basically off the charts in the animal kingdom.  If you were a space alien and popped down on this planet with no prior knowledge of our species, you'd assume it was two different species the way that you'd note that cattle and sheep are two different species, and one of the things you'd probably note is that one of the species had quite a different body from from the other, and that other was fascinated with it the way that cats are with catnip mice.  The dimorphism extends to our physical bodies in an off the chart fashion, and it also, like it or not, extends to our psychological makeup.

Part of that is that human beings, our species, Homo Sapien Sapien, has the highest sex drive of any member of the primates. So we are the pinnacle, for good or ill, in this category. We're extremely unusual in terms of a mammal, including a primate, in that both males and females are attracted to sexual intercourse outside of the females reproductive receptivity.  Men are, moreover, off the charts on this, and interested pretty much at any time, if the conditions arise.

Your "general assignment", it's tempting to say, was determined 210,000,000 when the first Morganucodon's, the very first known mammals, began to produce cute little babies, but even that really wouldn't completely be true.  It would be true that the path was up and running and, frankly, accelerating as an evolutionary strategy. Warm-blooded, smart, and male and female, they were off and running on raiding reptile eggs and making a general nuisance of themselves to the taxonomic order that had dominated for millennia.

Of course, even earlier than that, around 250,000,000, mammals started to evolve out of reptiles, and reptiles were also male and female, and go back over 300,000,000 years.

In other words, the male and female thing is really baked in.  It goes all the way back, and as mammals came on, "la différance" increased in fashions that matter in many mammals, and in particular in primates, and particularly in primates amongst the genus homo, of which you, dear reader, are a member of.

So there's the reality of it, which can be brought up in a scientific way to students who, at the end of the day, are just that.  Scientifically, the gender is baked in the cake and beyond actual changability. All the genetic behavior that goes along with that is baked in too. Therefore, the current transgender trend and story, which is largely confined to adolescent females who are in the ADHD scale, and who are white and from affluent families, is a sociology and psychological trend, not a biological one.  A person need not bring up God at all in this discussion.

Indeed, the evidence there is distressing in the extreme.  As noted, transgenderism is most female, not male.  It's mostly white, not black or Hispanic.  It's mostly in well-to-do sections of society, and it exhibits itself mostly amongst those female adolescents who have ADHD or something on "the spectrum".  It's appeared suddenly in White Europeans and European Americans as once one member of a clique claims it, it tends to rapidly spread in that clique.  Most of the members of the demographic cohort, moreover, have tended to have been exposed to a fair amount of pornography

And hence the most logical explanation of its spread.  It's spreading in a wealthy European culture.  Starting in the 1960s, we started to jettison the culture itself, leaving it without moorings, as we became wealthier.  Pornographers, including Hugh Hefner, were prosecuted for their actions as late as the 1970s, but that's now stopped completely, save below the age line of 18.  We've steeped children in it, and earlier this past week, a news story broke of a school official somewhere exposing grade school children to implements of what would have been regarded as deviant behaviors not long ago.  Indeed, the recent series on Playboy magazine revealed that when the young women working for Playboy clubs were exposed to the same behavior as part of after work gatherings, they were traumatized, so rare and so disgusting was it regarded as being.

In short, what the young females in the category are doing, psychologically, is fleeing from the role of female in regard to sex. They're not seeking to really change gender, they're seeking to opt out of what they think is the universal adult norm. They don't want to engage in endless sex as an object, they don't want things shoved up their butt, and the like.  

Who can blame them?

This doesn't cover all of this, of course, and it doesn't explain sexual dysmorphia as to males, . . exactly.  But what it does do is this. Scientifically, transgenderism isn't a thing.  So what we're seeing is something else that's not of biological origin.

And not once did we have to mention religion in order to engage in that discussion, now, did we?

Of course, what we did have to do is to reference evolution and biology, and in doing that we're referencing a genetic evolution that's  210,000,000 years old, long before our species, which is at least 250,000 years old, and probably twice that old, came about.  And that isn't going to be something a fellow who probably thinks the world is 5,000 years old and that evolution is some conspiracy by scientists is going to be keen on.  So instead, he's taken to the campus and is reading from the Bible.

St. Paul, in his letters, wrote a lot about Christian conduct and what barred a person from the doors of Heaven.  But he was writing to Christians when he did.  Going into Areopagus, he complimented them on their religious faith, non Christians and even non Jews that they were.

You students, I see that in every respect you are very scientific.

For as I walked around looking carefully at your buildings, I even discovered an some dedicated to biology.

Of course, you have to grasp that you aren't speaking to your own audience in the first place.  And you can't reject vast tracks of reality in order to proclaim other aspects of it either, and be convincing.  And in an era in which resources are so freely available, you might have to go back and take a look at what those early Christians were doing, including St. Paul, a Bishop in the Catholic Church.

Related Threads:

Genetics I: After all the propoganda, this is what actually matters.

Evolutionary Biology and Resources. Mysteries that aren't.

Cis

We like everything to be all natural. . . . except for us.

Friday, December 11, 1942. Large and small boats.

Today in World War II History—December 11, 1942: “Cockleshell Heroes” Raid: British commandos who had landed in France from a submarine on Dec. 7 and canoed up the Gironde River, damage six ships in Bordeaux.

From Sarah Sundin's blog.

The Italian navy sank two Allied cargo ships, and damaged three others, in a manned torpedo raid on Algiers.

All in all, the Italian raid was more successful than the Royal Marine one on the same day.

The Battle of El Agheila commenced, which saw the British launch an operation to outflank the retreating Afrika Korps, which was both invading and withdrawing into Tunisia.  

The town of El Agheila, Libya, had been the site of an Italian concentration camp earlier in the war which had confined 10,000 Bedouin in poor conditions.

Bedouins confined at El Agheila.

Waiting For A Train

The Best Posts of the Week of December 4, 2022.

The best posts of the week of December 4, 2022.

Dodging the Bullet.

How. . .

Let the duels begin?

Wars and Rumors of War, 2022. The Russo Ukrainian War Edition, Part Nine. Rout

The 2022 Election Part XIV. The Results.

Thursday, December 7, 1972. The last to be drafted, Apollo 17.

The 2024 Election, Part II. What could go wrong?

The 2023 Wyoming Legislative Session. The Waking Up Edition (Vol 1).

Sunday, December 10, 1922. War Surplus.

A Nature Party and a question. Does this comport with nature?

 

Altered from imagine done by Di (they-them) - This SVG flag includes elements that have been taken or adapted from this flag:, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=114863039

A Nature Party and a question. Does this comport with nature?

 

Altered from imagine done by Di (they-them) - This SVG flag includes elements that have been taken or adapted from this flag:, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=114863039

All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts.The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants and animals, or collectively the land.

The Land Ethic, A Sand County Almanac.  Aldo Leopold

I wish there was a political party whose first principal was a question; "does this comport with nature?"

And asked that question, as its first principal, honestly.  Not seeking to ask it in some preconceived of manner in which the answer to the question is known before the question is posed.

And not in a way that always aligns with the questioners personal interest and economics.

One that posed it honestly, and went from there.

Such a party would make nearly every political pundit and national politician today squirm.

Senators who come on Fox News every other week, or on Twitter every week, who are from the State of Extraction would disappear behind the dour looking Mitch McConnell rather than answer the question first, and go on honestly from there.

So would left wing politicians who take to the floor in Big Green Rectangle to proclaim allegiance with "gender care", having undergone "gender care" themselves, without answering this question first.

It'd be a step towards sanity in a major way.

Indeed, the very fact that such a question is not the first posed is responsible, in no small measure, for why American politics are as stupid as they currently are.  The rational middle is gone, with the irrational agenda driven extremes in control.

This is why discussions on economics and production are totally divorced from reality on the right and the left.

And this is why discussions on existential biological issues devolve into anti-scientific diatribes that are linked with ill-informed world views rather than reality.

And this is also why those same issues become attached to extremist whose world view is ground not in science, but in ideologies of all type that are of their own fantastical creations, or those whose fantastical creations match a world the way they wish to see it, causing it to become impossible to debate or discuss any issue, as all issues all end up lashed to the philosophy, rather than the science, and reality.

Primum non nocere, first do no harm, we are told, is the first and most ancient rule of medicine.  Perhaps for politics, that branch of philosophy which is applied in the same way that engineering is applied physics, should consider  An hoc pertinet ad naturam?, does this comport with nature. This should be added be added to philosophy of all types, applied and not, as the first principal.

Related Threads:

We like everything to be all natural. . . . except for us.

Thursday, December 10, 1942. Raczyński's Note

Three students of an adult crafts class doing steamed crayon work in making table clothes and wall hangings. Granada Relocation Center, Amache, Colorado

The Polish Government in Exhile isued "Raczyński's Note" an official diplomatic note to the Allied governments dealing with the German extermination of the Jews.  It stated:

The Germans unsuccessfully attacked Majaz al Bab in Tunisia.

The British and Canadian governments announced that they would unshackle German POWs on December 12.

Sunday, December 10, 1922. War Surplus.

The cover of the Casper Daily Tribune had some truly important new on its cover, including the developing crisis over German reparations.  It wasn't that reason I decided to post the paper, however.

Rather, I posted it for this big war surplus store advertisement on page 2.  This is the earliest example of this I've seen.

Surplus stores were a feature of my childhood and even young adult years in a major way.  The "War Surplus Store" on 1st Street, on the Sandbar, was a somewhat disorganized collection of stuff guaranteed to fascinate a boy for as long as the boy's parents would allow him to wonder around in it, full of stuff dating back to World War Two.  It's now closed, of course, and instead is the outdoor clothing store Gear Up.

That wasn't Casper's last surplus store, however.  Yates, outside of town, fit that description, and was again fascinating.  It probably closed fifteen or so years ago when its owner relocated to Australian with his Australian wife, figuring that, even as a younger man, that with his savings and Australian social services, he'd no longer have to work.

I hope that worked out.

Laramie had a really small surplus store when I first lived there, but it closed while I lived there in the 80s.  Examples still exist, however.  Jax in Ft. Collins keeps on keeping on, although that's only a small part of its large collection of wares, and Billings retains a good surplus store to this day.

This location is a parking lot today:

James Reeb Mural, Casper Wyoming

This is the memorial to civil rights activist James Reeb in Casper Wyoming.  I should have taken this photograph when this mural was new, as its faded considerably since first painted, and it isn't even very old.

The competing Casper newspaper had a dramatic headline:

Japan gave up Jiaozhou Bay Territory, a former German possession.

The 1922 Nobel Prizes were awarded in Stockholm. Recipients were awarded in Stockholm. Recipients were Niels Bohr of Denmark (Physics), Francis William Aston of the United Kingdom (Chemistry), Archibald Hill of the United Kingdom and Otto Fritz Meyerhof of Germany (Physiology or Medicine), Jacinto Benavente of Spain (Literature) and Fridtjof Nansen of Norway (Peace).

Blog Mirror: Locally Procured Wild Game Culinary Trends in the US: A Study of the Ruffed Grouse as Entrée and Accompanying Nutritional Analysis

 

Locally Procured Wild Game Culinary Trends in the US: A Study of the Ruffed Grouse as Entrée and Accompanying Nutritional Analysis

The Irish Canadian Breakfast?

By BiblioArchives / LibraryArchives - Flickr: Irish Free State Butter, Eggs and Bacon for our Breakfasts / Du beurre, des œufs et du bacon de l’État libre d’Irlande au déjeuner, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17283294

 

New York Times staff walks out.

They're on a 24-hour walk out, complaining that the Times isn't negotiating in good faith with its staff.

It'll be interesting to see how this goes.  Newspapers are in real trouble, and perhaps not too surprisingly this has expressed itself with discontented staff in recent years, which interestingly for a group that's fairly liberal as a rule, uses the term "guild" for its unions.