And it’s a beautiful day…
1. Probably the last Boston Red Sox baseball ethics note of the 2019 season…In yesterdays’ meaningless afternoon game with the Texas Rangers, the Sox, who will finish the season an incredible 24 wins or more worse than last season’s championship team despite essentially the same squad and no major injuries, faced starter Mike Minor, who was seeking to end his season with 200 strikeouts, a milestone that might earn the free-agent-to-be an extra million or so on the open market this winter.
Minor entered his last start of the season at 191 strikeouts, and began the top of the ninth inning with 199 and a solid lead. Sox catcher Sandy León flied out to left field for the first out, bringing up sub-.200 hitter Chris Owings.
[Notice of Correction: Apologies to Chris Owings fans, if there are any, for originally misstating that Owings was a minor league call-up. In fact, he had been a journeyman infielder with the NL Diamondbacks. for six seasons until landing in the AL this season.Thanks to Other Bill for setting me straight. ]
With a 1-1 count, Owings popped up a pitch halfway down the first base line in foul territory. Rangers first baseman Ronald Guzmán appeared to let it drop, trading out #2 for strike #2, and thus giving Minor a shot at his 200th strikeout. Minor got it when routinely incompetent home plate umpire CB Bucknor called strike three on a ball well out of the strike zone.
Manipulating the game’s results so a player can fatten his stats is unethical and hurts the integrity of the game. Guzmán and the Rangers should be fined by MLB.
2. Our unprofessional, biased and untrustworthy public schools. Watson B. Duncan Middle School in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida is investigating a teacher who included this question on a test:
For some reason a parent was upset by this. The school’s principal sent this letter to parents:
“Hello Duncan Middle School Parents, this is Principal Philip D’Amico. A question on a quiz given by your child’s Computer Applications teacher yesterday was brought to my attention this morning. The question was inappropriate and demonstrated an unacceptable lack of good judgment on the part of the teacher. An investigation is now underway, and the teacher has been reassigned during this process. Because this is an open inquiry, I am not at liberty to share any additional details with you at this point. I apologize for this incident, and for the offensive verbiage used in the question. Thank you for your patience, and your continued support of Watson B. Duncan Middle School.
The issue isn’t “offensive verbiage,” it’s a teacher pushing her own political opinion on students as fact. What is there to investigate? The teacher should be fired, and parents, even those who think the President is an idiot, should accept no other result. They should also demand a training session for all teachers to ensure they understand that it is not their role to dictate ideological conformity.
3. What a surprise! A computer dating service is a scam! In a lawsuit, the FTC claims that the dating site Match.com duped hundreds of thousands of consumers into buying dating subscriptions. The complaint against Match Group Inc.alleges that it has employed “five deceptive or unfair practices” since 2013 to get consumers to subscribe to the site or to keep them subscribed, as well as making false promises, failing to provide recourse for consumers who were dissatisfied, and making it difficult for consumers to cancel subscriptions, according to the lawsuit. Match Group is a dating conglomerate, owning Tinder, OkCupid and other dating sites in addition toMatch.com.
Match gives consumers free profiles on Match.com, but its a trap: they can’t respond to messages from alleged soul mates without getting a paid subscription. Match.com sends emails to consumers with free accounts the suggesting that a special someone was interested in them. One such notice reads, “He just emailed you! You caught his eye and now he’s expressed interest in you … Could he be the one?” To see the identity of the “one,” a Miss Lonelyhearts has to pay up.
5. This kind of thing is already surfacing, and the desperate Democratic impeachment Hail Mary isn’t even in the air yet:
Last May, three Democratic senators — Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), and Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) — sent a letter to Ukranian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko expressing their “great concern about reports” that his office had taken steps to inhibit former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian election interference. The group of senators wrote that Ukraine “has made significant progress” in their process of building up their “accountable democratic institutions” in spite of the geopolitical pressure from Russia.
“We have supported that capacity-building process and are disappointed that some in Kyiv appear to have cast aside these principles in order to avoid the ire of President Trump,” continued the senators. “If these reports are true, we strongly encourage you to reverse course and halt any efforts to impede cooperation with this important investigation.”
The senators concluded the letter by asking Lutsenko to answer three questions: Did his office “take steps” to impede “cooperation” with Mueller’s investigation, if anyone in the president’s administration or “acting on its behalf” push Ukranian officials not to work with Mueller, and if Mueller’s probe was brought up in conversations between U.S. officials, including when Trump met former Ukranian President Petro Poroshenko in 2017.
No American should be pleased to see a major political party disgrace itself like this…and there is so much more to come.
Morons.
Ethics Alarms 
4. https://www.npr.org/2019/09/25/764363013/mattel-launches-new-gender-neutral-dolls
5. Aren’t we, even now, being told that asking for information from a foreign government is election interference and an impeachable offense?
Not only did I post about the Mattel idiocy yesterday, I had pictures!
Well, I knew I’d seen that somewhere good! 😉
I’m reading a book now about WWI German spy rings in the United States made up of marooned German sailors and Anglophobic Irish stevedores whose hatred of England meant more than innocent lives.
The Democrat Party practically announces to the world that it’s willing to sacrifice the US just to get Donald Trump on something…anything.
4. Lupron is also prescribed for endometriosis. A quick search online will show multiple links describing women having severe adverse side effects from the drug. I am one of those women and it’s been heartbreaking to know that kids are being put on this stuff. I wouldn’t wish Lupron on my enemies and hope parents of dysphoric kids and trans allies do their research.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128012383980334
I suggest you use bioidentical gonadotrophin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonist rather than synthetic analogs. If you can afford them.
These synthetic molecules are far more effective than the bioidentical molecules your body produces, and are usually easier and cheaper to manufacture. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that the reason they are 10-20 times more effective than the natural molecules is that they don’t have the same molecular structure, they are different chemically, and as the result, the liver isn’t as efficient at breaking them down, requiring multiple passes through to metabolise them completely.
And that in turn means the metabolites, the molecules produced as the result of the breakdown, are substances not found in your body, and the effects of those have been less well studied than they might be, and should be.
Pediatric use of Lupron has mainly been confined to preventing precocious puberty – which has really bad effects on 7 year olds – for the last 30 years, and in that cohort, does not appear to have the same pernicious side effects as on adult patients being treated for prostatic cancer, endometriosis and uterine leiomyoma .
I’d be happier with more data, but the pediatric patient cohort for precocious puberty is too small, and the one for adolescent trans kids even smaller, with shorter times for followup, one decade rather than three. My own opinion is that we should be conservative, and only use substances already found in the human body rather than synthetic “frankenmolecules” unless they have been better studied.
But I’m not an endocrinologist.
Looking at the FDA site regarding adverse reactions to Lupron – they include all deaths of prostate cancer patients who were given lupron as part of a palliative (not curative) therapy to slow the progress of a terminal disease in its final stages.
It is not immediately clear from the FAES database whether the adverse reaction in such cases was an insufficient delay of death, or any death whatsoever.
Cyproterone Acetate is the medication of choice in such cases, but approximately 1 in 3 patients cannot tolerate it, and so unlike Lupron, it is not FDA approved. It is widely used in Europe, as the liver and muscular damage from it in such cases is easily detected by simple blood tests, and discontinuation of use results in complete healing within 2 months.
I happen to know about this as I have to take it , unlike post operative trans women. So I get blood tests every 6 months to make sure no adverse reaction has started.
I see NBC has written a rather sensationalist “debunking” of the Christian Post article.
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/viral-fake-news-story-linked-trans-healthcare-thousands-deaths-n1059831
While I would not have used the words “hoax” or “fake news”, they do have their facts right.
Moral of the story, if there is one – don’t rely on ideological sites such as Lifesite News or Christian Post for factual material. And discard the breathless rhetoric in NBC pieces, sifting out and retaining the rather more humdrum facts, if as in this case, they are stated accurately.
I see insufficient evidence of a deliberate hoax, just someone with a predetermined agenda and no knowledge of what the numbers in the reported adverse reactions database mean.
If the Christian Post interpretation – that such a report indicates the drug alone was causative of death – was correct, then by adding up all the reports of all fatal adverse reactions of all drugs put together, we would have to conclude that everyone in the US has been killed several times over every year. This strongly suggests that such an interpretaion is flawed, even though it does support their ideological position.
To see the dangers of such misleading implications of factually correct data, I go back 20 years to a satirical article on the dangers of DHMO. Here, as with the Christian Post, the numbers are correct, but the (implied)interpretation is clearly balderdash, expressed with the same breathless sincerity as in the NBC article.
https://web.archive.org/web/20010418124102/http://www2.dynamite.com.au/aebrain/DHMO.HTM
2. The election was in October, 2016 and the EC voted on November 8th, 2016. Is it normal to refer to Trump’s presidency as starting in 2017, or was the question incorrect as well as politically biased?
The election was Nov. 8, and the EC met on December 19, 2016. Until his inauguration and swearing in, he’s a President-Elect. So the date was right.
My bad, Canadian elections are in October, I think I got them mixed up. Regardless… It’s common to refer to Trump as being in office starting in 2016, right?
No. He’s definite not President until he’s sworn in. Presidential terms are always listed as beginning the year AFTER the election.
”It’s common to refer to Trump as being in office starting in 2016, right?”
IMO, another event is super-glued to the year 2016.
It, in conjunction with the date of November 8th, is when Lefties (most, not all) began embracing a dangerous immersion into a catatonic, apoplectic, pillow-biting, pants $#!tting, bed wetting, wind-sucking, chest palpitating, vital sign triggering, mouth-breathing, weenie-whiny, simpering-whimpering, complete metaphysical, emotional, existential, psychological, philosophical, full-throated, freaking out, melting down, totally collapsing free-fall.
I am impressed. Well done
I told them, d_d, I TOLD them; I wouldn’t be this paranoid if they weren’t all out to get me…
Well, to be fair, progressives have come right out and STATED their desire to get you, and your little deplorable cow too…
Great, now the image of Dorothy tripping down the Yellow Brick Road with a COW in tow is stuck in my mind…“Toto too?” “Toto too!” Toto: “MOO!”
You’re welcome
Beginning with the word catatonic this is, to use a contraction of a Trump word, Total BS! And cheating at golf is signature Significance.
(What?)
2. Don’t blame the principal or the school district. They have done all that they can do at this point. The teachers’ union contract requires an investigation followed by written notice to the employee, an opportunity for the employee to present written defenses, and then an appeals procedure before any disciplinary action can be taken.
4. A very large percentage of the people who decide as adults to undergo sex-change therapy come to regret it in later life. I have no doubt that the number of people who regret the permanently life-altering decisions that were made on their behalf as 7-year-old children will be even higher. I confidently predict that in the future, there will be thousands of adults whose lives have been ruined by puberty-suppressing drugs and sex-change procedures performed on them as minors and thousands of lawsuits against the doctors responsible.
” A very large percentage of the people who decide as adults to undergo sex-change therapy come to regret it in later life. ”
<3%
See https://www.scribd.com/document/227212239/DAB-No-2576-NCD-140-3-Transsexual-Surgery
I’ve oft believed that the regretters and detransitioners should have statues like the lost jedi. Lead the trans kids down into the archives, tell them they shal spend the morning dusting the statues and thinking about their commitment, then afternoon lightsaber lessons.
I like the padawan reference, since I am in official mourning over the demise of the Star Wars franchise.
Disney bought it and killed it. Fear the Mouse.
Studies like this that show incredibly low frequencies of regret always involve exceedingly narrow definitions. The lowest frequencies are obtained in studies where “regret” is defined as “seeking reversal surgery.” The rates that I have seen quoted there range from 1% to 3%. But that’s not a good proxy for regret in the conventional sense since reversal surgery is costly, medically complicated and does not work. Once the sexual organs are removed, they are gone and reversal surgery is essentially a cosmetic exercise. Many if not most people who regret their transition in the conventional sense of wishing that they had not done it will still see no point in undergoing reversal surgery.
The largest-scale survey of transgender individuals ever conducted in the United States showed that 8% had detransitioned at some point in their lives. https://www.transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/USTS-Full-Report-FINAL.PDF. Since the survey was of people who still considered themselves transgender and mostly had transitioned back, it stands to reason that there were a very substantial number (not included in the survey) who had detransitioned and not transitioned back. Detransitioning is a way of showing one’s regret for having transitioned in the first place, and detransitioning is going to be difficult for a person whose body has been permanently and significantly altered by childhood medical interventions.
Most disturbingly, the same survey showed that:
* Forty-eight percent (48%) of respondents had seriously thought about killing themselves in the past year.
* Twenty-four percent (24%) of respondents had made plans to kill themselves in the past year.
* Seven percent (7%) of respondents had attempted suicide in the past year.
* The rate of attempted varied by age, with younger respondents being significantly more likely to have attempted suicide in the past year.
Suicide is another way of expressing regret.
Thanks for doing the footwork on this, Greg…I assumed as much, and recalled seeing some studies float by. The >3% number just doesn’t seem plausible. These are people who have lived with, and are living with, a very physically and emotionally disruptive condition; they are stressed, confused, and often ostracized and discriminated against. People regret getting divorced, having breast implants, taking jobs, not having children or having them a lot more frequently than 3%, and a sex change is a far more extreme decision.
You can lay your money down and get put right on the schedule for breast implants. They don’t make you wear a pair of fake tits for a year and require a shrink to sign off at the end of it.
Might could be that sex reassignment surgery requires jumping through a hoop or two that eliminate the less than dedicated.
There was a hilarious episode of Designing Women where Annie Potts was considering breast enhancement and her doctor recommended that she wear various sizes of falsies to acclimate herself to the change. The largest size made her into a monster. “These things are POWER!!!’ she exclaims at one point.
I pegged you as more of the Peaky Blinders type than the Designing Women type.
Ah, how wrong you are!
1) Stipulating that two wrongs don’t make a right, but there is another layer to this story. With Mike Minor having 199 strikeouts going into the 8th yesterday, the Red Sox apparently decided to thwart his bid for 200 strikeouts. They all swung at the first pitch — it was a 3 pitch inning. The Ranger manager was annoyed enough that he send Minor back out in the 9th, rather than our closer (pulling him after the 200th strikeout).
The Rangers are certain that this was done deliberately to deprive Minor of the chance for 200 Ks — despite the fact that this was a close game going into the 8th inning (7-5 Rangers). It also puts a different perspective on the Red Sox manager’s comment that they played the game to win.
As I said, one wrong doesn’t justify a second. But we’ve seen enough baseball to know that, when provoked, teams will respond in some fashion.
Why would the Red Sox care whether of not Minor got his 200 strikeouts?
Minor point. Chris Owings has been in the majors since 2013, with Diamondbacks for most of that time, albeit up and down to and from Triple A not infrequently. His appearance didn’t involve any coffee.
I’ll fix that; I should have checked it. He has not been impressive in his short hitch with the Sox.I must confess that by the time Chris arrived I had mentally checked out on the Sox this season, and viewed their playing him as all as more or less a white flag….which it is, cup of coffee or not. Thanks for the correction though. I may get ethics wrong sometimes, but I should never have bad baseball information.
“I should never have bad baseball information.”
So let it be written, so let it be done.
Beats the heck out of me. Maybe they had just checked out for the season (after being eliminated) and were looking for other things to amuse themselves. Not smart, true, but maybe. Maybe they just have a grudge against teams from Texas, but if they can’t tell the difference between the Rangers and Astros….
I have no clue, but………a 3 pitch inning? You have to admit that is damn peculiar. Maybe it was just a coincidence — do we still believe in coincidences?
The only other uses for blocking children’s puberty are in cases of precocious puberty, and idiopathic short stature, and when the physical development of puberty would be life threatening.
Neurosicence confirmed what humanity had presumed for thousands of years- juveniles are on average less mature than adults. And yet, these people want to block puberty on people with still-developing brains, simply because they happen to feel that they are of the wrong sex. Would not puberty cure transgenderism in many cases? Why block puberty when it could allow them to recover from transgenderism?
Think about all these bans on conversion therapy, including conversion therapy for transgenders. So it is wrong for psychologists and therapists to help transgenders (let alone transgender youth) become normal, while it is okay to block the normal process of puberty for transgender youth?
” The teacher should be fired, and parents, even those who think the President is an idiot, should accept no other result ”
Boiling in oil or drawing and quartering being out of the question, yes.
Concur. Withdrawal of licence to teach too, pending a medical exam which might provide mitigating circumstances.