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I've had a lot of background checks, in my lifetime. In my teens, twenties, and early thirties, the Navy did a bunch of them. In my thirties and forties, employers did a number of them. I've never actually thought about them much, they're just part of life, ya know?

Now, guns. When I was fourteen, I bought my first gun - a private purchase from an individual, with no licensed firearms dealers involved. So, of course no background check, not even in today's world.

Second gun, I was fifteen. Walked into the sporting goods store, and told them I wanted a 30-30 for deer hunting. Guy took a Winchester model 94 off the shelf, showed it to me, I liked it, and handed over $75 + tax, and got a receipt for it. Manager asks me how old I am, I say fifteen, and he picks the rifle up, and says I have to have my dad approve of the sale before I can have my Winchester. Hell, I wasn't even sure my dad WOULD approve.

Got the old man to come in to town with me, and give my purchase his aproval. He asks, "Where in the hell did you get $75?" I told him "I earned it, what did you think I was mowing lawns for?" We walked into the store together, the manager says "Hi", dad asks, "Did my kid pay you for a rifle?" Manager says "Yes, paid cash for it." Dad says, "Well, let him have it." That was all the "background check" that it took to buy a rifle back then.

Today? Well, I don't need or want a nice gun. The kids would just haul it off, and I might see it sometimes. I walked into the store, and asked for their cheapest .22 rifle. Dude says he has an automatic for a hundred bucks. I ask "That's NEW, for a hundred bucks?" Yep. Savage Arms, model 62. Good enough - it may not be highly accurate, but as long as it doesn't blow up (I'm remembering a Japanese made .22 that blew up in my kid brother's face decades ago) it's good enough.

"You'll have to do a background check, Sir." "Well, Okay, how long does that take?" "About half an hour." "And then, I have to wait for five days?" "Only if the computer rejects your application is there any wait."

So, he sits me in front of a computer, and I start answering questions.
"Are you a felon?" "no"
"Are you loony toons?" "no"
"Have you killed anyone lately?" "no"
"Are you an illegal alien?" "no"
"If a veteran, were you dishonorably discharged?" "no"
"Please rate the following people's performance, on a percentage scale, and add a one or two sentence explantion to each rating"
"1. Bill Clinton" "55% - might have been a good president if he weren't a draft dodging crook."
"2. George W. Bush" "60% - just too damned dumb to be any better."
"3. Barrack H. Obama" "50% - he should have run for office in a Muslim country."
"4. Donald H. Trump" "56% - he's a slightly classier crook than Clinton, but not as intelligent, and he has good looking women around him."

I'm waiting for the results of my background check, when people started gathering around. I'm feeling conspicuous, like maybe I've not only failed, but they are waiting for the SWAT team to come get me. The manager finishes his entries on the computer, and turns to me, with a tear in his eye.

"Mister, we haven't had anyone pass this background check with such a high score. Your score is so high, we want to give you this gun."
Everyone applauded, I got my gun, and walked out of the store with it. It's just that painless!

It's just awesome, people. Now I wish I had asked about a nicer, more expensive rifle.

Statement festival: 'Man-free' event found guilty of discrimination

Statement, a women-only festival in Sweden, has been found guilty of discrimination by Sweden's Discrimination Ombudsman (DO).

The DO said that describing an event as "male-free" breached the country's anti-discrimination laws.

The publicity issued in the run up to the event "discouraged a certain group from attending", the regulator added.

The event's organisers said in a Facebook post that they are "too busy changing the world" to respond.

"It's sad that what 5,000 women, non-binaries and transgender experienced as a life-changing festival made a few cis [cisgender] men lose it completely," the post added.

[...] The DO's ruling acknowledged the man-free rule was not enforced at the festival, held earlier this year, adding that "no differentiation based on sex was made between visitors at entry".

As nobody suffered damage from the festival's restrictions, it added, no financial penalties would be imposed.

Journal for K.

So, I should be really happy and excited: tomorrow I start as a pharmacy technician at a fairly prestigious institute in Madison, Wi. No, not going to tell you where. I've wanted to do this for so, so long, and really--considering I can look at a molecule and give you at least a decent approximation of what effects it will have, this is an excellent fit. But I'm still nervous, if only because so many horrible things have happened to me and the idea of stability and a long-term career seems alien, like something I'm not "allowed" to have if that makes sense. So I'm afraid it'll be taken away from me like so many other things have been.

Wish me luck. I want to get PTCB certified as soon as possible and make a lifelong career out of this, slowly working my way up the ladder and making a positive contribution to the lives of many people. Maybe, though I don't dare to dream, this could even include going back to school and getting involved in the drug-discovery process, especially for new antibiotics or non-addictive painkillers. Other interests include changing hospital spaces to reduce infection and increase patient well-being--think "copper alloy railings, enclosed UVC-light air pumps, and lots and lots of sunlight" and so on--and nutrition, though I fear my low-carb lifestyle is sufficiently against current medical orthodoxy to make this a non-starter and even politically dangerous.

But whatever happens, for the first time in ages, it feels like time has begun to flow for me again. That feeling of being a sort of solid ghost is disappearing. And that can only be a good thing, right? I just hope it doesn't all go to hell...

She lost her school job after refusing to sign a pro-Israel pledge. Now, she’s filing a lawsuit. (archive)

Bahia Amawi, a speech pathologist who has worked as a contractor in a Texas school district for nine years, received a new contract agreement to sign in September for the upcoming school year. The agreement asked her to affirm that she did not boycott Israel and assert that she would not while working for the school. She declined to sign it. Amawi, an American citizen of Palestinian descent who was born in Austria, said the statements infringed on her principles: her stance on Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and her belief in the First Amendment. So she was forced to stop working with the district.

The contract, which stems from a 2017 law passed by the state’s Republican-held legislature and governor that prohibited state agencies from contracting with companies boycotting Israel, is the subject of a lawsuit filed this week by Amawi in federal district court in Austin.

Amawi says the state’s enforcement of the law violates her right to free speech. “My first reaction was shock,” Amawi told reporters Monday. “Why is the government restricting me from boycotting a certain entity?”

Amawi started working for the Pflugerville Independent School District outside Austin in 2009. Her work entails doing evaluations of Arabic-speaking children, according to the complaint she filed. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and the school district are named in the lawsuit. [...] Glenn Greenwald, a columnist and co-founding editor of the Intercept who writes frequently about Israeli politics as they intersect with those of the United States, wrote harshly of the contract. “The language of the affirmation Amawi was told she must sign reads like Orwellian — or McCarthyite — self-parody, the classic political loyalty oath that every American should instinctively shudder upon reading,” he wrote. “In order to continue to work, Amawi would be perfectly free to engage in any political activism against her own country, participate in an economic boycott of any state or city within the U.S., or work against the policies of any other government in the world — except Israel.”

Also at The Hill and The Daily Beast.

Meanwhile, Congresstards are trying to add Israel anti-boycott legislation into a spending bill that prevents a government shutdown:

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is scrambling at the eleventh hour to include controversial language in a year-end spending bill prohibiting U.S. companies from joining boycotts of Israel launched by the United Nations or similar groups.

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and other members are pressing congressional leaders to attach his Israel anti-boycott legislation to a sweeping omnibus spending package — a move that could complicate efforts to prevent a government shutdown.

“There is bipartisan interest in this issue, but everything is still being negotiated and nothing has been decided,” said one senior House Republican aide.

[...] “This bill sets a precedent for penalizing First Amendment actions because they’re unpopular or because the government doesn’t agree with them,” said Manar Waheed, senior legislative and advocacy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). “This is a step on a road to the erosion of First Amendment rights in a way that will impact movements and viewpoints for the future.”

See also: How Democrats are helping the right stifle debate on Israel

President Trump has agreed to shut down his embattled personal charity and give away its remaining funds amid allegations that he used it for his personal and political benefit, the New York attorney general announced Tuesday.

New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood announced that the Donald J. Trump Foundation is dissolving as her office pursues its lawsuit against the charity, Trump and his three eldest children.

The attorney general’s suit, filed in June, alleged “persistently illegal conduct” at the charity and sought to have the foundation shut down. Underwood is continuing to seek more than $2.8 million in restitution and has asked a judge to ban the Trumps temporarily from serving on the boards of other New York nonprofits.

Underwood said Tuesday that her investigation found “a shocking pattern of illegality involving the Trump Foundation — including unlawful coordination with the Trump presidential campaign, repeated and willful self-dealing, and much more.”

“This is an important victory for the rule of law, making clear that there is one set of rules for everyone,” she added in a statement.

Trump agrees to shut down his charity amid allegations he used it for personal and political benefit

Thursday I posted a journal entry asking for serious discussion of an issue rather than trolling or shit flinging. I got about what I expected. One solitary AC willing to seriously discuss the issue and every other participant either unwilling or uninterested in engaging in such.

That's fucking sad, folks.

World's First 'Performance Enhancing Gaming Glove' Funded on Kickstarter

As gaming becomes increasingly mainstream through the younger generations, entirely new lines of accessories are being designed and produced for this ever-growing audience.

The latest one is the Flashe Gaming Glove, which according to the makers will enhance your gaming performance on PC. It will also reduce your potential for injuries and increase your comfort while generally using a mouse. Oskar "Dodde" Ödmark came with the original concept, after suffering a shoulder injury in 2014. Being a mechanical engineer, he eventually came up with a solution that has been patented in Sweden earlier this year.

The Flashe gaming glove is now on a Kickstarter campaign for crowdfunding. With thirteen days to go, it already got over four times the minimum goal. The estimated delivery for backers is February 2019.

I say: remove the arms. Then you won't feel arm discomfort during gameplay.

Uuuuugh. Just a small mini-rant today. I got bounced from a social circle online elsewhere earlier today because, *apparently,* having a genital preference is transmisogyny. It's not enough that I support transwomen through their struggles and transition and suffering; no, the fact that I am a strict vagitarian and flatly refuse to date or have sex with a transwoman who still has male equipment makes me A Bad Person (TM).

This is how you get TERFs. I wish these people understood how much it reeks of male privilege--yes, MALE privilege, even though they were always women mentally and are on their way physically--to demand that a gay but cisgender women open herself, in the most literal, intimate, and deep sense, to the body parts she is not attracted to because the mind matches.

Look, I'm not going to date Buck Angel or another FtM who still has a vagina either: I'm a lesbian. I like women. I don't demand they be "womyn-born-womyn," but boy bits are verboten. What is unreasonable about this?! Isn't the entire point of someone going MtF to get a woman's exterior to match her interior?

I'm never going to become a TERF, but stuff like this is almost guaranteed to create more of them. I am having less and less sympathy for transwomen the older I get, and that worries me, because we're still all humans at the end of the day. I just wish some of them would pull their heads out of their asses about this.

America's perfect blonde überwaifu for the Trump Age:

Miss USA accused of mocking Asian contestants' English: 'Miss Universe should not be an ambassador of bullying'

In a now-expired Instagram Live video, Miss USA Sarah Rose Summers can be heard joking to Miss Australia and Miss Colombia about how Miss Vietnam speaks.

“What do you think about Miss Vietnam?” she asks her friends, before laughing, “… and she pretends to know so much English, and you ask her a question after having a whole conversation with her and she … [smiles and nods].”

Popular Instagram page Diet Prada posted the footage with another two videos of Miss USA, this time speaking about Miss Cambodia.

In the first she showers her fellow contestant with praise while thanking her own Cambodian fans for their support.

But in the second, she’s seen pitying Miss Cambodia to the same two friends.

“Miss Cambodia is here and doesn’t speak any English, and not a single other person speaks her language,” she says, adding, “Poor Cambodia.”

Y u no speak American tho?

Also at People.com.

So, I'm sitting on my reading chair this morning, getting my daily dose of Uncle John and I come across a story about Tommy Douglas. He's a Canadian feller who arguably was the primary mover behind universal healthcare up there. It's an interesting story but that's not what I feel like talking about today. Today I want to get into one sentence out of the article:

Douglas came to believe that medical care was a basic human right and should be available to everyone.

That sentence annoys me. I dislike inaccurate or imprecise speech on important topics and that most certainly qualifies as such, so let's clarify first.

A right is something you refuse to surrender the ability to do (generally to be able to live around other people without too much strife). They have no need of justification. They need only your refusal to surrender them for whatever reason. Drawing a line in the sand on an unpopular one may get you disinvited from the Christmas party or thrown in prison but that is another matter entirely. Rights aren't very special.

A constitutional right is a right of yours that your nation has decided as a whole that the government shall not interfere with. Constitutional rights are a just an explicitly protected subset of rights in general. We in the US find that the ability to speak your mind is a good one to protect while the ability to shoot someone in the face without a good reason is not, for example. Protected rights are special.

An entitlement is something that you do not innately possess the ability to do, it must be given to you. Entitlements do require justification because they by definition are not something you have a right to. Generally they infringe upon the rights of others, though there are a small minority of situations where this is not the case. For this reason, societies must (hopefully carefully) debate among themselves what entitlements they want to create.

A Human Right is a bullshit term as it includes examples of all of the above and gets redefined all the fucking time.

There, important terms clearly defined.

Now that that's out of the way, it's extremely clear that free as-in-speech access to already existing medical care is most certainly a right but free as-in-beer access to medical care is an entitlement.

So, lets have a real discussion as to why my paying for someone I've never met's healthcare should be an entitlement. Without muddying the waters with imprecise, outright wrong, or just plain bullshit terminology.

Free as-in-beer healthcare infringes upon the rights of medical practitioners to charge what they feel is fair for their services. It also infringes upon the rights of everyone who is forced (which literally means threatened with the use of force in this context) to pay for services they neither requested nor received the benefits of. What justifications do you offer for the infringement of your fellow citizens' rights in such a manner?

I'm open to rational arguments here but bullshit rhetoric and tugs at my heartstrings are getting routed straight to /dev/null.