James L. Paris's Blog, page 99

Email Sent to Air Force Personnel Says ���Boy��� and ���Girl��� Among Offensive Terms to Be Avoided

Umm���what?

The Christian Post has an item at its website discussing what Fox News��� Todd Starnes discovered in an email sent out by a senior officer to airmen at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.

What he found was more proof that many of those who lead the nation���s rank-and-file military members���have flat-out lost their minds.

The highlight of the email is a list of words and terms that the Air Force ��� or, at least, the folks in charge over at Lackland ��� has decided are off-limits in the present day.

A list that includes, believe it or not, the words ���boy��� and ���girl.���

That���s right: ���boy��� and ���girl��� are words to be avoided, apparently, if you���re an airman stationed at Lackland.

Those are not, however, the only words and phrases that may see a young airman end up in the doghouse should he (or she) feel compelled to utter them.

Here are the others noted in the email:

You People

Colonial

Blacklist

Blackmail

Blackball

Sounds Greek to me

Blondes have more fun

Too many chiefs, not enough Indians

���Please be cognizant that such conduct is 100 percent zero tolerance in or outside of the work climate,��� reads the email. ���Let���s capitalize on our richly diverse climate, and help others seek assistance if they are struggling with compliance.���

���Struggling with compliance?��� To avoid using the words ���boy��� and ���girl���?

Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, wasted no time condemning the absurdity, asking

in a blog post last Thursday, ���Have we come so far that simply uttering a person's sex is cause for chastisement?���

���Unfortunately, this is just another example of the kind of mess left behind by the Obama administration,��� continued Perkins in his piece. ���And while no one can undo eight years of anti-faith, anti-American P.C. overnight, the Trump team has its work cut out for it in a military decimated by ���suggestions��� like this one.���

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

New Video On Michael Brown Case Seems Pointless

Nearly two years after the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri a new video emerges - but does this video really change anything? After Snapchat's record IPO, many analysts expect the stock to crash. Not only does Snapchat have no profits, its stock offering was structured so that shareholders have no voting rights. Despite the Bitcoin ETF being denied by the SEC, the digital currency continues to skyrocket.

 

Could Rabid Sanders Followers Be the Republicans��� Best Friends for the Foreseeable Future?

It is not unusual for the party that loses a presidential election to make quality inroads in congress, as well as in state races - including always-important contests for governorships - when the mid-term elections are held two years later.

But will that be the case this time around? Not likely, if the tenor of the hard left inside the Democratic Party does not modify by even a little.

A piece over at Politico does a good job outlining the concerns of many moderate Democrats about the immediate future of the party and its political influence.

There are 27 Republican-held governors��� seats up for grabs in 2018, and while those contests present a great opportunity for the Dems to regain some national traction, the vicious ��� and worsening, apparently ��� infighting inside of the party between moderates and progressives may well see that opportunity vanish into thin air.

The last Democrat to serve as governor of South Carolina, Jim Hodges, outlines the core problem:

���Here���s the challenge in many Southern states now: You have a more liberal primary base, because the more moderate voters are less likely to participate in Southern primaries, so it makes it more dicey. That certainly presents an opportunity for candidates who want to make a point rather than win an election ��� those candidates are less likely to be successful in a general election. In Southern states, you���re going to need candidates who have more moderate stances to be successful.���

While the internal, progressive threat to the party comes in the form of a variety of factions, one particular group making a lot of noise is the post-presidential election manifestation of Bernie Sanders��� effort to win the White House, an outfit called Our Revolution.

The organization probably doesn���t need much more explaining beyond the name ��� it is what you think it is.

Anyway, according to Politico, Our Revolution is a good example of an effort that is concerning to more moderate and otherwise ���establishment��� Democrats in commonwealths where cacophonous progressive outcries don���t play well to the electorate, including ��� and especially ��� in southern states.

As Stacey Abrams, Minority Leader in the Georgia House of Representatives and prospective 2018 candidate for her state���s governorship, puts it, ���It is critical to recognize that there is a different set of policy issues in the Deep South that are not in play in the coastal areas or the West. My hope is that Our Revolution ��� or anyone else ��� will understand that purity to a progressive ideal does not [necessarily] mean purity in service of the community.���

Good luck with that, Stacey.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

A Common but Incorrect Assumption About Retirement Savings Can Be Your Undoing

Fox Business is reporting on the results of a new Retirement IQ Survey from Fidelity Investments that reveal plenty of folks in the Baby Boomer community may have a woefully inaccurate vision regarding how their Golden Years will play out. The survey cites three issues, in particular, that the generation has a demonstrated tendency to mishandle, and one, in particular, has the potential to be downright catastrophic.

One problem area for many is in the prediction of how much money they will need to cover the costs of health care as they age. Another is the long-term potential provided by the stock market, which many Boomers tend to dismiss because all they see ��� or remember ��� are the shorter-term expressions of volatility that are heavily played-up in the media and leave many afraid to tread at all in equities. The problem with that is the resulting loss of overall portfolio growth by having stayed entirely away from what remains the best-performing asset class over the long haul.

However, perhaps the most harmful misconception has to do with how much money one can safely withdraw from retirement savings each year. According to the survey, more than 10 percent of respondents believe they can withdraw 10 to 12 percent of their savings annually as retirees. Unfortunately, that is an unsustainable figure, given the long-term performance of even the most reliably-performing asset class out there, the aforementioned stock market. Withdrawing from retirement savings at a rate of 10 to 12 percent per year will very likely lead to the evaporation of your money years before your life is over (and perhaps even in less than a decade, according to Fidelity). For that matter, withdrawing at even 7 to 9 percent per year is taking a significant risk with the long-term viability of your savings.

Many experts say that one should withdraw from savings at no more than four to five percent per year in order to ensure that your retirement account remains in good shape over the course of your life. As a matter of fact, shooting for no more than a three percent-per-year rate of withdrawal is even better, given the expectations that the stock market, despite how it has been faring during the ���Trump Trade��� honeymoon period, is not likely to offer the same, consistent level of quality, positive returns it did during the years that closed out the previous decade.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

 

Pope: Day on the Horizon When Married Men Can Serve as Priests

In the estimation of Pope Francis, the day when married men will serve as priests is drawing nearer.

The pope bemoaned the current shortage of priests in comments made to German newspaper Die Zeit and reported by CNN, and said that he would be amenable to changing the existing rules of priesthood eligibility so that select married men might be admitted.

���We need to consider if ���viri probati��� could be a possibility,��� the pope said. ���If so, we would need to determine what duties they could undertake, for example, in remote communities.���

Viri probati is Latin for ���tested men.��� In the context of the Roman Catholic Church, it typically refers to married men who���ve proven themselves to be virtuous and of great faith.

The pope said flatly, ���Voluntary celibacy is not a solution.���

It should be noted that the pope is not considering allowing single priests to marry, but, rather, men who are already married to become priests.

What may be a surprise to many is that the Catholic Church already permits the ordination of married men as priests in a specific instance: married priests of the Protestant faith who convert to Catholicism may serve as Roman Catholic clergy, as long as they have the blessing of their wives.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

 

Univision TV Anchor Says Illegal Border Crossings Declining Because of ���Trump Effect���

As reported by The Washington Times, Jorge Ramos, the popular anchor of American Spanish language Univision Network���s flagship news program Noticiero Univision, said last week in an exchange with CNN���s Anderson Cooper that a significant drop in illegal crossings at the U.S. southern border is attributable to the ���Trump effect.���

Cooper interviewed Ramos in the wake of reports that illegal crossings from Mexico into the United States fell 40 percent in February.

���Let me just say that fear is stronger than any wall. What we are seeing right now is the ���Trump effect,������ said Ramos. ���It���s people calling their relatives and their friends in Latin America and saying, ���Don���t come here. This is not the right moment.��� I think it is positive, really. No one wants illegal immigration, even undocumented immigrants. It is very risky for them. It���s better to do it in a legal way.���

Ramos also took the opportunity to clarify that, in his opinion, there was clearly no effort being made by Mexicans to ���invade��� the United States.

���There is no invasion. No one is invading the United States. Mexicans are not invading the United States. The undocumented population has remained stable at about 11 million for the last decade. So those are the positive things. The negative is that this is the ���Trump effect.��� This is created because of the policies of fear, and xenophobia and cruelty.���

According to The Washington Times, Latinos voted for Donald Trump in greater numbers than they did for Mitt Romney back in 2012; exit poll results revealed that Trump managed to capture 29 percent of the Latino vote last November, compared to the 27 percent who voted for failed candidate Romney.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

Feminist Icon: Girls Should Not Read Books Written By Men

Hang on; here���s another good one.

Popular feminist Caitlin Moran, author of the apparently-necessary manual How to Be a Woman, a manifesto that declares, in part, that women are inherently feminist unless they disbelieve in personal freedom, has what many will surely see as an unusual marching order for young ladies:

Don���t read any books written by men.

In reporting by Heat Street, Moran says that girls who read works by literature���s greatest male authors are setting themselves up for a lifetime of misery, due to the chronic insecurity that will ensue as a result of having read books written by male writers.

Moran even names a handful of men whose books should be avoided by girls: J. D. Salinger, William Faulkner, Raymond Chandler, Ernest Hemingway and Philip Roth.

Here are her views on the subject, straight from the horse���s mouth (can that even be said nowadays?):

���If I had one piece of advice for young girls, and women, it would be this: girls, don���t read any books by men.

���Don���t read them. Stay away from them. Or, at least, don���t read them until you���re older, and fully-formed, and battle-ready, and are able to counter someone being rude to you, in conversation, not with silent embarrassment, or internalised, mute fury, but a calm, ���F--k you very much, and goodbye.������

What in the world?

According to Moran, novels written by men have made her feel ���unwelcome��� and ���uncomfortable,��� and have ���broken��� her heart.

All of this lunacy noted, Moran actually believes that the books written by men like these are representative of genius, but that doesn���t matter; they should remain unread by young women.

���They are not the right books to read, if you are a young girl. They are not the voices you should allow in your head. Until you are grown ��� until you can argue, with confidence, with a narrator; with a genius; with a world-view ��� girls, do not read books by old men.���

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large 

Personal Finance Writer: It���s Easier to Be ���Good with Money��� When You Have More of It

One personal finance writer, whose work appears over at CNBC, is pushing back against a lot of what we read out there nowadays about how ���easy��� it is, ultimately, to fix one���s financial woes; she says that, when it comes down to it, those who are really ���better with money��� are so because they generally have more of it.

And if you have more of it, well, then, of course it���s easier to be better with it.

In her piece, entitled ���Being ���good��� with money is easier if you have more,��� Megan Reynolds makes a bit of mincemeat of the subject of a 2015 Business Insider article hailed as ���a 25-year-old who's better with money than many people twice his age.���

Reynolds breaks down the young man���s financial profile in some detail, but the bottom line, she concludes, is that as a 25-year-old who���s making over $70,000 per year when the average salary in the U.S. in 2014 - for folks of any age - was just under $45,000 per year, the fellow is in a built-in situation where it���s easier to be ���better with money��� because he simply has more cash than so many others do.

The purpose of Reynolds��� article is to inject a dose of realism into other articles out there that marvel at the Herculean achievements of some in building substantial wealth, paying down enormous debt, and doing any of a variety of other things with their personal incomes that look, at first glance, to be truly impressive.

Beyond that, however, there is an important lesson for the rest of us that is of particular significance.

If you want to be better with money, then go make more of it���and a great way to do that is with something called a ���side hustle.���

���Side hustle��� is a term that has become a popular way to describe making extra dough for yourself by working at something you enjoy, usually in the form of a gig; something that, while still work, is slightly more entrepreneurial in nature and often done in a genuinely self-employed capacity.

���Side hustles��� have become especially popular, in part, because of the difficulty encountered by many folks in earning enough from their day jobs to do all of the things that people who are ostensibly ���better with money��� seem to accomplish.

In the end, if you feel a little unworthy because you���re apparently not as good with money as others about whom flattering articles are written, remember that their smart moves are not likely attributable to the fact that they���re smarter than you, or have better judgment than you.

It���s simply because they have more than you.

So go get more���.and join the ranks of those who are ���better with money.���

Indulge your side hustle.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

Hillary May Not Be a Voter Favorite for NYC Mayoral Contest, After All

There���s been talk for some time about the possibility of failed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton running for New York City mayor this year. The present officeholder, Bill de Blasio, has found himself to be wildly unpopular with his constituency, and is apparently far behind Republican challenger Paul Massey, Jr. when it comes to fundraising, something that���s never a good sign for incumbents. As it stands, Massey has raised about $1.6 million so far, while de Blasio has been able to gather up only $1 million.

De Blasio���s chronic weakness has been a concern for NYC Dems for some time, but, since November, some have thought Hillary might actually be their savior. Just after a surprise (to her, at any rate) loss to Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, Hillary immediately became a consideration to enter the New York City mayoral race.

It does not appear that will be happening, however, and not simply because of any expressed personal preferences on the part of Mrs. Clinton.

According to a new Rasmussen poll released earlier this week, and reported on by The Daily Caller, 58 percent of likely voters don���t want to see Hillary run for the Big Apple���s top job, while just 23 percent say it���s a good idea. 19 percent aren���t sure either way.

Although Clinton has shown some interest in getting into the contest, and there are plenty of ���Hillary for Mayor��� signs popping up around the city, she has said she would run only if de Blasio decides not to. However, there is presently no indication that the current mayor is not going to defend his seat in the upcoming election.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

New Tyson Foods CEO Says We All May Be on the Way to a Meatless Diet

The new CEO of Tyson Foods, Inc. one of the best-known names in meat processing, has a decidedly un-carnivorous take on what he suspects may be the state of everyone���s diet years from now.

As reported by Fox Business, Tom Hayes, now the head honcho at Tyson, believes that the trend toward an increasingly plant-based diet is going to continue relatively unabated.

���If you take a look at the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) stats, protein consumption is growing around the world���and it continues to grow. It���s not just hot in the U.S.; it���s hot everywhere, people want protein, so whether it���s animal-based protein or plant-based protein, they have an appetite for it. Plant-based protein is growing almost, at this point, a little faster than animal-based, so I think the migration may continue in that direction,��� Hayes said in an interview with FOX Business.

This appears to be more than merely a thoughtful prediction from an industry insider; in fact, Hayes and the company over which he now presides seem to have taken a bit of a lead in moving that way. For one thing, Tyson now owns 5% of Beyond Meat, a startup producer of meat that is entirely plant-based. Beyond Meat���s alternative to chicken, branded as Beyond Chicken, is made from a mixture that includes soy and pea proteins and fiber, while its beef alternative, Beyond Beef (what else?), is made from pea proteins, canola oil, and seasonings.

In addition to its interest in Beyond Meat, Tyson has also started a venture capital fund for the purpose of investing in new companies seeking to develop meat substitute products, according to the FOX Business report.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large