Thanks for untangling that mess

Here’s a story that had me hopelessly confused: according to this one woman in the UK, she was denied essential surgery because the hospital wanted to pander to the transeses. It sounded unlikely to me, but hey, I don’t trust hospital administrators myself. Here, though, is an article that explains it all, using the woman’s own words.

It turns out she made a whole bunch of unreasonable demands, triggered by seeing someone she thought was a trans woman looking at her. So she insisted that no men be allowed anywhere near her, that she get a private room that allowed no men to enter, and that she would not agree to use pronouns or otherwise engage with such manifestations of gender ideology. She also accused men in general of having mobile phones that they use to look at sick, perverted pornography. The hospital told her that they could not meet her demands and told her to go elsewhere.

It’s all there at the link, but be warned: the complaining woman is a retired solicitor, and her complaints are lengthy and outrageous.

I may have to vote for Scott Jensen after all (no, not really)

There was a big debate between the candidates for governor of Minnesota last night. Did I watch it? No, I’ve already made up my mind that Jensen is an evil poop-flinging ape with regressive views on just about everything. I also knew what was coming after the debate: Jensen is throwing Twitter hysterics and is sounding rather desperate. He did say one thing I appreciate, though.

Minnesota’s southern border is with Iowa, and I think building a wall might be a very good idea. Perhaps an eastern wall as well, to defend against Wisconsinites. And then maybe a western wall to protect us from Dakotans.

But wait! I just remembered that winter is coming. Maybe Minnesota can instead be like a scrotum in the cold, and just contract and pull up into Canada. Cheaper all around. Never mind, I’ll cast my vote for Walz again.

By the way, the Feeding Our Future scandal has nothing to do with Walz or the Minnesota state government at all. Some grifters set up shop here, taking advantage of a federal program to provide food for families during the pandemic, sending in false invoices and getting reimbursed to the tune of $250 million. Minnesota investigators turned them over to the FBI, so blaming on Walz is just flailing.

There were two things Jensen isn’t talking about, though. One is his abortion policy: he wants to ban it altogether, but knows that won’t fly in this state, so he’s evasive about it now.

The other is that he’s an election-denier, one of a number of people running for office in this state, including these rascals:

Fischbach is my representative, and she’s probably going to coast to re-election because this region is largely populated with red-hatted gomers. None of those people should be elected to anything, though. That’s my great fear about the November election, that a swarm of anti-democratic Trumpkins get into office and begin playing games with election laws and triggering unwarranted doubts about every election, but especially ones where Democrats got elected.

It has the potential to be a colossal shit-show, thanks to those kinds of people who should be in jail rather than running for office. But, you know, we have to compete with the UK for the most spectacular political collapse ever, and we’ve got a shot at it.

What Sviggum really thinks

Steve Sviggum wrote a real purty apology, seemed sincere and contrite. He really did.

Then he got an interview with a sympathetic reporter and said what he honestly thinks.

Sviggum, who served in the Minnesota Legislature for 30 years, said he has dedicated his life to public service and will not be pressured to resign. He said he’s concerned identity politics is ruining the country.

If the far left doesn’t ruin it, identity politics will. The woke community, the liberal community, if I may be so bold as to say, has taken [my question] and jumped on it. They say it’s racist and sexist. That’s the community that says, ‘If you don’t think like me and you’re not part of the group, you don’t belong. You’re a bad guy, and we will destroy you,’ he said.

Yeah, his apology was a pretense.

It’s always projection with these guys

Look at that! American flag and everything!

Last spring, Randy Kaufman, Republican running for the governing board of the Maricopa County Community College District, was deeply concerned about those leftist perverts and just wanted to protect the children. The children! Think of the children!

In a Facebook post from May, Kaufman said he wanted “our children protected [from] the progressive left.”

Now, in October, a policeman noticed him parked near a pre-school, and approached him to see what was going on.

“[Kaufman] appeared to be looking at a cell phone in one hand,” the police report said. “I immediately became alarmed as I saw [Kaufman] had his pants down mid-thigh and was exposed showing his fully erect nude penis. [Kaufman] was manipulating his genitals in a masturbatory manner.”

He now faces a felony charge and has suspended his political campaign.

I guess he was thinking really hard about the children.

When they tell you who they are, believe them

Matt Keefer is running for the school board in Zion, Indiana. He just admitted who he is on Facebook.

Keefer responded by saying, “All Nazis weren’t ‘bad’ as you specify. They did horrible things. They were in a group frenzy in both cases you site.” He goes on to write, “Who is to say if we were both there in the same place and time, that we wouldn’t have done the same thing.”

Do you know why they say “never forget”? It’s so you don’t do the same thing if you find yourself in similar circumstances.

Just to make it even more fun, he goes on to suggest that someday people will look back on the people who responded to the pandemic with sane health measures in the same way we see Nazis today. And he’s an MD?

You know, everyone should scrutinize their local school board candidates carefully. The wackaloons all know that school boards are a great entry point to inject all kinds of lunacy into a community.

Rebel’s Pratfall

Theodore Beale AKA Vox Day is in the news again. A few years ago, sick of all those comic book movies full of good guys and liberal ideals (I’ve got news for him: most of them are violent libertarian fantasies), he decided to promote and raise money for his idea of a good comic book story: Rebel’s Run, a Confederacy-themed anti-woke superhero pissed off at a world that has made hate crimes a, well, crime. How dare they?

Then, of course, it was an idea from rabid Vox Day and his legion of frothing mad, walking talking hate crimes. There was a chance he could pull it off.

There was reason to think Beale and his fans could realize their dream of going from comic books to cinema, if only through sheer fanaticism. His devoted followers call him the “Supreme Dark Lord of the Evil Legion of Evil,” and describe themselves as his “minions.” Beale’s supporters, who frequently complain about supposed progressive “social justice warrior” influence creeping into fields like video games and science fiction, had already funded a handful of comic book issues and stirred up a controversy at science fiction’s premiere awards.

Beale’s history of racism could have made it difficult for Rebel’s Run, which stars a character sometimes depicted in a Confederate flag bustier, to find traditional financing. He has claimed that certain races are more likely to commit violence and called one of his foes in the science-fiction dispute, a Black author, a “half-savage.” Beale has affiliated himself with the Gamergate movement, opposes women’s suffrage, and once described homosexuality as a “birth defect.”

He even made a teaser trailer. They didn’t actually have any movie footage — it hadn’t been made or cast or anything — so basically it’s a clip of a woman in a convertible firing a pistol at some stock footage of cops. It’s not at all impressive but it got the conservative donors fired up.

Rebel's Run Teaser Trailer from Galatia Films on Vimeo.

He raised a million dollars from his minions, which is small potatoes in the big screen superhero world, but hey, it was seed money. He just needed to invest it somewhere safe, build on his now-demonstrated ability to raise funding, persuade some investors to grow it, and…uh, ooops.

Given that track record, he instead turned to Utah-based Ohana Capital Financial, a business aimed at customers that would struggle to get money elsewhere.

As Ohana’s promotional materials put it, according to prosecutors, the firm offered “banking [to] the unbankable.” On Nov. 5, 2020, Beale transferred the $1 million to Ohana to be held in escrow in advance of future film funding.

Ohana was the creation of James Wolfgramm, a self-described cryptocurrency billionaire who posted pictures of sports cars that supposedly belonged to him on social media. But in fact, according to a federal indictment filed last month, Wolfgramm’s wealth was a sham. The sports car pictures, for example, were pulled from other websites. Wolfgramm’s business also sold what were billed as high-tech cryptocurrency mining rigs — but those too were a hoax, according to prosecutors, with their screens just running on a loop to create the illusion of mine.

Unbeknownst to Beale and his supporters, the indictment alleges, Wolfgramm was deeply in debt to one of his business’s other clients. That client had paid Ohana more than $4 million in September 2020, several months into the Covid-19 pandemic, as part of what was meant to be a payment to a Chinese manufacturer of personal protective equipment. Instead of carrying out the transaction, prosecutors allege, Wolfgramm spent the millions on his own unrelated business issues.

Oh. He trusted a cryptocurrency grifter with his seed money. It’s gone. All of it, vanished into the pockets of con artists and conservatives…but I repeat myself. The movie is not going to be made.

But don’t you worry about Vox Day. He’s already blaming the libs. It was a conspiracy, don’t you know, to destroy his dreams.

Beale claims, without evidence, that the alleged con was carried out to disrupt his right-wing fanbase.

I strongly suspect that this whole thing was a targeted operation intended to break our community, Beale said in the video he published last week.

And he’s bouncing back with another fantastic anti-woke plan.

Beale isn’t done with movies yet, though. In a video to his fans, he told them he’s working on a script starring his friend, antisemitic former comedian Owen Benjamin. In this new movie, Beale plans to cast Benjamin—who believes the moon landing was faked—as the head of NASA.

Somewhere out there, another cryptobro is rubbing his hands in glee, anticipating another windfall of a million or more from the gullible minions of the Supreme Dark Lord of the Evil Legion of Evil.

We got a letter from the Board of Regents

This is actually the kind of letter I like to see.

Dear Chancellor Ericksen and the University of Minnesota Morris community:

Today, I want to extend my sincere apology on behalf of the Board of Regents following Regent Sviggum’s apology yesterday. As you know, last Thursday Regent Sviggum asked a question regarding Morris enrollment. We all bear responsibility for speaking up and condemning the question, whether on Thursday or in our Friday meeting. As the leader of our board, I should have done better and I am not proud of my inaction.

Our Board is committed to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and it is a central anchor of the president’s MPact 2025 strategic plan, which the Board has fully endorsed. We are inspired every day by the diversity of thought, of inquiry, of vision, and of presence that drives our institution forward.

In March of 2023, we will hold the Board of Regents meeting on the Morris campus. With the full Board on campus, we will focus on engaging with the Morris community, including students, faculty, staff, and the broader Morris region.

In addition, I am committing today to provide DEI training to the entire Board of Regents that will help us more fully understand and reaffirm the power that different perspectives bring to our shared success. Diversity is not a challenge, it is a strength that makes our institution—and Morris—one of the most highly regarded universities in the country.

Consistent with the educational mission of our great University, the Board of Regents recognizes that we must acknowledge our failings and learn from them. Hopefully, our sincere efforts to do so will serve as an acknowledgement of our responsibility and commitment as Regents to advance the University’s land grant mission of teaching and service for the benefit of all Minnesotans.

Our mission is your mission. We look forward to meeting with you in March to further discuss the importance of diversity and how we, as a Board, can support you in your efforts, as well as to listen to your stories of the many ways that the Morris campus embraces the University mission and inspires us all.

With thanks,

Ken Powell, Chair
Board of Regents

I think maybe Sviggum was chastised by the board — I don’t think he is well liked.

Although…they’re all coming out to Morris in March? We’ll still be frozen and under the snow, and we don’t have a star chamber quite as intimidating as the one they’ve got in the Twin Cities. Maybe they can meet in my lab, surrounded by spider cages instead.