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Muda69

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Posts posted by Muda69

  1. Founder of Pizza King dies, leaving behind an Indiana legacy

    https://www.jconline.com/story/news/local/2024/02/03/wendell-swartz-founder-of-pizza-king-dies-leaving-behind-an-indiana-legacy/72454120007/?fbclid=IwAR0-TDr2klsB_hzlbR0WqUNLtLmF47XkUqTI6ZkaHYrGoo_eFSm0VBoLeAU_aem_AaHhPM7RTM0kQFtOi9_3PJ4a_9WzHdCyU8gND4e0X2jbzGDhC51mnsRVcTYK-sllk-w#ls6k9wuboht0k3lsge

    Quote

    LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Wendell Swartz, founder of Pizza King and creator of an Indiana tradition, died on Jan. 24 "after a long and colorful life of nearly 99 years," according to his obituary.

    Born on May 26,1925, Swartz was a World War II veteran, trained as a tail gunner on a B-24 bomber in the Central Europe theater, flying more than 30 missions, his obituary described. He was honorably discharged in October 1945, receiving 4 Bronze Stars.

    Before founding the Indiana legacy to be known as "Pizza King," Swartz earned a degree from Purdue University in 1952 and was a soloist for the Purdue Glee Club, according to his obituary. His love for music led Swartz to forming his own traveling dance band, singing on daytime TV, his obituary said, with a winning appearance on the Arthur Godfrey Talent Scouts.

    Upon returning to the Lafayette area, Swartz and his wife, Barbara, opened the first Pizza King restaurant in 1956 on South Street near the Mar Jean Village, which no longer stands. The success of Swartz's first store led to the founding of Pizza King of Indiana, Inc., with the family's second store opening in Muncie just sixth months later.

    "Timing was good and the product even better," Swartz's obituary said of his decision to sell the pizza making business in 1966. In the company's sale to bookkeeper, Don Schutz, the company's stores were divvied up between the two businessmen and their families, leading to the two Indiana Pizza King companies and logos Hoosiers are familiar with today.

    Moving his family to Key Biscayne, Florida, after the sale of his Indiana Pizza Kings, Swartz decided to come out of semiretirement, his obituary said, when he decided to open a Pizza King in the sunshine state, which he would later rename "Sir Pizza" in 1969. According to his obituary, Sir Pizza became and is today an "institution" on Key Biscayne, like Swartz created in Indiana, still operating after 55 years, now under the ownership of Swartz's son, Barry.

    Swartz will be laid to rest next to his wife, Barbara, in the Mariner Sands Memorial Garden in Stuart, Florida, according to his obituary.

    Truly an Indiana Icon.  Many of my relatives who do not live in Indiana love to have a Pizza King pizza when they come and visit.

     

    • Sad 1
  2. https://deadline.com/2024/02/carl-weathers-dead-1235812684/

    Quote

    Carl Weathers, who starred as Apollo Creed in the first four Rocky films and appeared in Predator, The Mandalorian, Happy Gilmore, Action Jackson and dozens of other films and TV shows, died Tuesday, his family announced. He was 76.

    “We are deeply saddened to announce the passing of Carl Weathers,” his family said in a statement. “He died peacefully in his sleep on Thursday, February 1st, 2024. … Carl was an exceptional human being who lived an extraordinary life. Through his contributions to film, television, the arts and sports, he has left an indelible mark and is recognized worldwide and across generations. He was a beloved brother, father, grandfather, partner, and friend.”

    A sad day.  Mr. Weathers was truly an American Icon.  He will be missed.

     

  3. He Was Arrested for Making a Joke on Facebook. A Jury Just Awarded Him $205,000 in Damages.

    https://reason.com/2024/02/01/he-was-arrested-for-making-a-joke-on-facebook-a-jury-just-awarded-him-205000-in-damages/

    Quote

    On a Friday in March 2020, a dozen or so sheriff's deputies wearing bulletproof vests descended upon Waylon Bailey's garage at his home in Forest Hill, Louisiana, with their guns drawn, ordered him onto his knees with his hands "on your fucking head," and arrested him for a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison. The SWAT-style raid was provoked by a Facebook post in which Bailey had made a zombie-themed joke about COVID-19. Recognizing the harm inflicted by that flagrantly unconstitutional arrest, a federal jury last week awarded Bailey $205,000 in compensatory and punitive damages.

    "I feel vindicated that the jury agreed that my post was satire and that no reasonable police officer should have arrested me for my speech," Bailey said in a press release from the Institute for Justice, which helped represent him in his lawsuit against the Rapides Parish Sheriff's Office and Detective Randell Iles, who led the investigation that tarred Bailey as a terrorist based on constitutionally protected speech. "This verdict is a clear signal that the government can't just arrest someone because the officers didn't like what they said."

    On March 20, 2020, four days after several California counties issued the nation's first "stay-at-home" orders in response to an emerging pandemic, Bailey let off some steam with a Facebook post that alluded to the Brad Pitt movie World War Z. "RAPIDES PARISH SHERIFFS OFFICE HAVE ISSUED THE ORDER," he wrote, that "IF DEPUTIES COME INTO CONTACT WITH 'THE INFECTED,'" they should "SHOOT ON SIGHT." He added: "Lord have mercy on us all. #Covid9teen #weneedyoubradpitt."

    The Rapides Parish Sheriff's Office snapped into action, assigning Iles to investigate what he perceived as "an attempt to get someone hurt." According to a local press report, the authorities were alarmed by "a social media post that promoted false information related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic." In response, "detectives immediately initiated an investigation," and as a result, Bailey, then 27, was "arrested for terrorism."

    Another news story reported that Bailey "was booked into the Rapides Parish Detention Center on one count of terrorizing." William Earl Hilton, the sheriff at the time, explained why, saying he wanted to "impress upon everyone that we are all in this together, as well as remind everyone that communicating false information to alarm or cause other serious disruptions to the general public will not be tolerated."

    Bailey's joke was deemed to pose such a grave and imminent threat that Iles did not bother to obtain an arrest warrant before nabbing him, just a few hours after Bailey's facetious appeal to Brad Pitt. But in a probable cause affidavit that Iles completed after the arrest, the detective claimed that Bailey had violated a state law against "terrorizing," defined as "the intentional communication of information that the commission of a crime of violence is imminent or in progress or that a circumstance dangerous to human life exists or is about to exist, with the intent of causing members of the general public to be in sustained fear for their safety; or causing evacuation of a building, a public structure, or a facility of transportation; or causing other serious disruption to the general public."

     

    Bailey was apologetic when the sheriff's deputies confronted him, saying he had "no ill will towards the Sheriff's Office" and "only meant it as a joke." He agreed to delete the offending post after Iles said he otherwise would ask Facebook to take it down. But that was not good enough for Iles, who hauled Bailey off to jail anyway.

    For very good legal reasons, the Rapides Parish District Attorney's Office declined to prosecute Bailey. But when Bailey sued Iles for violating his constitutional rights and making a false arrest, U.S. District Judge David C. Joseph dismissed his claims with prejudice, concluding that his joke was not covered by the First Amendment, that the arrest was based on probable cause, and that Iles was protected by qualified immunity.

    That doctrine allows civil rights claims against government officials only when their alleged misconduct violated "clearly established" law. Joseph thought arresting someone for a Facebook gag did not meet that test. "Publishing misinformation during the very early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and [a] time of national crisis," he averred, "was remarkably similar in nature to falsely shouting fire in a crowded theatre."

    That was a reference to Schenck v. United States, a 1919 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld the Espionage Act convictions of two socialists who had distributed anti-draft leaflets during World War I. Writing for the Court, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. said, "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic."

    Holmes' much-abused analogy, which had nothing to do with the facts of the case, was not legally binding. And in the 1969 case Brandenburg v. Ohio, the Supreme Court modified the "clear and present danger" test it had applied in Schenck—a point that Joseph somehow overlooked. Under Brandenburg, even advocacy of criminal conduct is constitutionally protected unless it is "directed" at inciting "imminent lawless action" and "likely" to do so—an exception to the First Amendment that plainly did not cover Bailey's joke.

    With help from the Institute for Justice, Bailey asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to overrule Joseph, which it did last August. Writing for a unanimous 5th Circuit panel, Judge Dana M. Douglas said Joseph "applied the wrong legal standard," ignoring the Brandenburg test in favor of the Supreme Court's earlier, less speech-friendly approach.

    "At most, Bailey 'advocated' that people share his post by writing 'SHARE SHARE
    SHARE,'" Douglas wrote. "But his post did not advocate 'lawless' and 'imminent' action, nor was it 'likely' to produce such action. The post did not direct any person or group to take any unlawful action immediately or in the near future, nobody took any such actions because of the post, and no such actions were likely to result because the post was clearly intended to be a joke. Nor did Bailey have the requisite intent to incite; at worst, his post was a joke in poor taste, but it cannot be read as intentionally directed to incitement."

    Another possibly relevant exception to the First Amendment was the one for "true threats," defined as "statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals." In a deposition, Iles claimed to view Bailey's post as threatening because it was "meant to get police officers hurt." The joke was especially dangerous, he said, because there were "a lot of protests at the time in reference to law enforcement."

    As Douglas noted, that claim was patently implausible "because Bailey was arrested in March 2020, while widespread protests concerning law enforcement did not begin until after George Floyd's murder in May 2020." In any case, Bailey's joke clearly did not amount to a true threat.

    "On its face, Bailey's post is not a threat," Douglas writes. "But to the extent it could
    possibly be considered a 'threat' directed to either the public—that RPSO deputies would shoot them if they were 'infected'—or to RPSO deputies—that the 'infected' would shoot back—it was not a 'true threat' based on context because it lacked believability and was not serious, as evidenced clearly by calls for rescue by Brad Pitt. For the same reason, Bailey did not have the requisite intent to make a 'true threat.'"

    Furthermore, the 5th Circuit held, Iles should have known that Bailey's post was protected speech. "Based on decades of Supreme Court precedent," Douglas said, "it was clearly established that Bailey's Facebook post did not fit within one of the narrow categories of unprotected speech, like incitement or true threats." Iles therefore could not find refuge in qualified immunity.

    The appeals court rejected Iles' claim that he had probable cause to arrest Bailey, whose conduct clearly did not fit the elements of the crime with which he was charged. "Iles is not entitled to qualified immunity," Douglas wrote, "because no reasonable officer could have found probable cause to arrest Bailey for violating the Louisiana terrorizing statute in light of the facts, the text of the statute, and the state case law interpreting it."

    The 5th Circuit also thought Bailey plausibly claimed that Iles had retaliated against him for exercising his First Amendment rights. As Douglas noted, "Iles admitted that he arrested Bailey at least in part because of the content of his Facebook post, rather than for some other conduct." And it was clear that Bailey's speech was chilled, since he agreed to delete the post after Iles told him the sheriff's office otherwise "would contact Facebook to remove it."

    That decision did not assure Bailey of victory. It merely gave him the opportunity to persuade a jury that Iles had violated his First Amendment rights and the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of "unreasonable searches and seizures." The 5th Circuit said he also could pursue a state claim based on false arrest.

    Last week's verdict against Iles and the sheriff's office validated all of those claims. "It is telling that it took less than two hours for a jury of Mr. Bailey's peers in Western Louisiana to rule in his favor on all issues," said Andrew Bizer, Bailey's trial attorney. "The jury clearly understood that the Facebook post was constitutionally protected speech. The jury's award of significant damages shows that they understood how Mr. Bailey's world was turned upside down when the police wrongly branded him a terrorist."

    Institute for Justice attorney Ben Field noted that "our First Amendment rights aren't worth anything if courts won't hold the government responsible for violating them." Bailey's case, he said, "now stands as a warning for government officials and as a precedent that others can use to defend their rights."

    The First Amendment wins in the end. 

  4. https://www.indystar.com/story/news/2024/01/31/indiana-rep-jim-lucas-republican-gun-laws-statehouse-general-assembly-2024-seymour/72422259007/

    Quote

    An Indiana lawmaker flashed a holstered handgun during a conversation Tuesday with students who were visiting the Statehouse seeking legislative action to curb gun violence.

    The moment was caught on video by a student and shared on X, formerly Twitter. It was first reported by The Statehouse File, which operates out of Franklin College's Pulliam School of Journalism

    Indiana state Rep. Jim Lucas, R-Seymour, can be seen in the video having a conversation about firearms with students from the Burris Laboratory School in Muncie, The Statehouse File reports. A student asks Lucas if he carries a gun, which prompts the representative to open his blazer.

    "I'm carrying one right now," Lucas said.

    "Nothing about that makes me feel safe," replied the student.

    A longer video of the 10-minute exchange can be found at TheStateHouseFile.com.

    On Tuesday, Muncie high school students affiliated with Students Demand Action, a national organization committed to ending gun violence, encountered Lucas in an elevator at the Statehouse. The representative struck up a conversation with the students, which resulted in a discussion about gun laws and school shootings, according to The Statehouse File.

     

    Makynna Fivecoats, a 17-year-old student at Burris Laboratory School, recorded the exchange between Lucas, the students and a parent chaperone, Alison Case, The Statehouse File reports. During their discussion, Lucas flashed his gun to the teenagers.

    “My heart sank to my stomach,” Fivecoats later told The Statehouse File. “I genuinely felt very unsafe in that moment. And I really just wanted the conversation to kind of end after that.”

    A student next told Lucas that people carrying firearms do not make them feel safe but rather threatened, prompting the following exchange:

    "OK, those are feelings," Lucas responded. "I'm talking facts."

    "That's what this is about; this is about feelings," replied the student.

    "People who want to kill you don't care about your feelings," Lucas said.

     

    Lawmakers are allowed to carry guns at the Statehouse, and, since the passing of a 2017 Senate bill, their staff members have that right, too.

    The bill, which Lucas helped sponsor, was introduced to allow employees of the Senate and House, as well as those who work for the Legislative Services Agency, to be armed partially out of consideration to the late hours many of them work during the annual legislative session when armed law enforcement has gone for the day.

    Elected in 2012, Lucas represents House District 69 in southern Indiana. The district includes portions of Bartholomew, Jackson, Washington and Scott counties. Lucas serves on Veterans Affairs and Public Safety committee, Local Government committee and the committee for Public Policy.

    Last year, Lucas avoided jail time after pleading guilty to operating a vehicle while intoxicated and leaving the scene of a crash. He was arrested after crashing his vehicle at State Road 11 and Interstate 65 just north of Seymour around midnight, according to the Indiana State Police.

    Lucas later apologized for his behavior on WIBC's The Hammer and Nigel Show

    This isn't the first time Lucas' behavior has stirred controversy around firearms and students.

    During the 2020 legislative session, he told a group of Columbus students that gun control laws wouldn't prevent school shootings and that training teachers to use firearms can make schools safer, according to the Columbus Republic. A federal court has ruled “police do not have a duty to protect children while they are being slaughtered,” he said, the newspaper reported at the time.

     

    “Do you believe that more guns that are being carried, including in this room, would make my classmates and I safer?” a 12-year-old student asked.

    Lucas said, “Absolutely,” then told the audience of almost 60 at a Columbus location: “I’m carrying right now. Does that scare anybody?”

    According to the Republic, around 20 people — roughly a third of the room — raised their hands to signal that it did scare them. Others said “yes,” and a few people said “no.”

     

    Of course certain members of the media and punditry are going ballistic over this.   Who here believes Mr. Lucas did something wrong?

     

  5. 23 hours ago, Bobref said:

     I also understand the difference in compensation between the No. 1 team and the No. 2 is pretty substantial.

    Reportedly 7 million dollars: https://deadspin.com/greg-olsen-tom-brady-fox-sports-nfl-1851215797

    Quote

    Greg Olsen joined the Dan Patrick Show yesterday, and he was pretty honest about not feeling great that Tom Brady is going to bump him from the No. 1 slot on Fox broadcasts of the NFL. There’s also the little nugget that slotting down the No. 2 team is going to cost Olsen some $7 million a year. Hard to take lying down.

    It wouldn’t be surprising if Brady is acceptable or better at the job. On the rare occasions he’s been left to just speak about the ins and outs of the game he’s pretty good at spelling things out clearly. That doesn’t mean he needs to be automatic in the role, or why Fox thinks they need the biggest name possible when their ratings are already through the roof and pay him a ridiculous amount of money to do so when Olsen is already doing the job as well as possible.
     
    This has become something of an arms race between the networks, though it’s unclear why. People are going to tune into the NFL if Statler and Waldorf were doing the game (and that’s an experiment worth trying). But once CBS got the recently retired Tony Romo, and everyone seemed to ignore how awful he was at the job, and then ESPN chased down Buck and Aikman, and Amazon had to have Al Michaels, everyone’s gotta have a toy. Olsen is merely good at the job, really good, but that doesn’t move the needle, even if that needle only exists in Fox executives’ heads.
     
    Olsen is certainly getting screwed, and he’s far better at the job than Romo and likely to be better than Brady. Like many people, he’s getting beaten out by someone with greater name recognition and that’s it simply for the sake of it. But hey, that’s showbiz. 

    Mr. Romo truly is awful in the broadcast booth.  I don't know how a consummate pro like Jim Nantz stands him.

     

    • Like 1
  6. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10107309-tom-brady-to-replace-greg-olsen-as-foxs-no-1-game-analyst-for-2024-nfl-season

    Quote

    Tom Brady will officially step into the broadcasting booth in 2024, but he will be replacing a fan-favorite.

    Per Michael McCarthy of Front Office Sports, Brady confirmed he will join Fox as the network's lead NFL game analyst for the 2024 season. Former tight end Greg Olsen, who excelled in the role this season, will drop down to the No. 2 crew.

    Brady will be working alongside Fox's No. 1 play-by-play announcer Kevin Burkhardt. The expectation is that Olsen will call games with Joe Davis.

    "I believe I can provide a pretty unique perspective that I think a lot of people will really like. It's going to be a lot of hard work. It's going to be a lot of fun," Brady told McCarthy. "It's always about challenging yourself to grow in different areas. And this is certainly one way that I'm doing it."

    The legendary quarterback signed a 10-year, $375 million contract with Fox in May 2022, but there was a lack of clarity as to when he would be ready to join the network as its top color commentator. He took a "gap year" after his retirement to prepare for the position.

    A crappy deal for Mr. Olsen, I kind of like him in the broadcast booth.    But a big break for Tom, he was struggling to make ends meet there for a bit. *sarcasm*

     

    • Like 2
    • Haha 1
  7. Portland Requires Homeowners Get Permits To Remove Trees Knocked on Their Homes by Winter Storm: https://reason.com/2024/01/30/portland-requires-homeowners-get-permits-to-remove-trees-knocked-on-their-homes-by-winter-storm/

    Quote

    If you need more evidence that America has become a "permission-slip" society, look no further than the City of Portland, Oregon, requiring homeowners to get permits to remove trees that've fallen on their houses during recent winter storms.

    Portland alt-weekly Willamette Week published a story last week about Joel and Sarah Bonds, who had a large Douglas Fir in the backyard squash their house after it became weighed down with ice. The tree barely missed the Bonds' young daughter and cat.

    As it turns out, the couple were not unaware of the danger posed by the tree. In 2021, they'd applied for a necessary city permit to cut down the tree and another in their backyard. The city's Urban Forestry division turned them down, citing the trees' apparent health and the damage their removal would do to the "neighborhood character."

    That decision rankles the Bonds now. Making them even more mad is the fact that the city is requiring them to obtain a $100 retroactive removal permit for the one tree that fell on their house and plant a new one in its place at their own expense.

    A Forestry Department employee also advised them to hire an arborist to chop down the second, still-standing tree, but that they should take care to document the work in case they'd need to apply for another removal permit. According to the Willamette Week story, the couple could risk daily $1,000 fines for removing the tree without a permit.

    The Bonds aren't the only homeowners being required to get retroactive removal permits for trees knocked down by the weather. This fact has provoked local outrage and calls for a change in policy.

    A recent Oregonian editorial argues that the city should suspend the need to get retroactive removal permits for weather-downed trees, noting that neighboring cities in the area are not requiring such permits. One lawyer who spoke to the paper argued that the city code doesn't obviously apply to trees felled by bad weather.

    The city maintains that the removal permits are required by the city code and that city council action is needed to waive those permitting requirements.

    The whole episode is an illustration of how property rights have been turned on their head in America's cities. The city regulates tree removal to protect surrounding property owners' interest in the shade and character of the neighborhood. Homeowners' interests in doing what they please on their land are of secondary concern, even though they have to bear all costs and liabilities associated with keeping these trees on their properties.

    Complete bullshit.  It's clear in Portland home "owners" don't really own anything.

     

  8. Something special is happening with Indiana State basketball, and Terre Haute is in love.

    https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/columnists/gregg-doyel/2024/01/27/indiana-state-basketball-beats-bradley-continues-mvc-surge-under-coach-josh-schertz-robbie-avila/72303003007/

    Quote

    TERRE HAUTE – The game is over and nobody is leaving because something special has just happened here — because something special is happening here. Indiana State basketball just happened, all over Bradley. Indiana State basketball is happening all over the Missouri Valley Conference, and don’t be surprised if Indiana State basketball happens to somebody in the 2024 NCAA tournament.

    Right now, Robbie Avila and Jayson Kent and Ryan Conwell are celebrating this 95-86 victory against Bradley on Saturday evening with a slow tour around the Hulman Center, slapping palms with fans on the front row and waving to fans higher up the recently remodeled basketball arena that was home to Larry Bird.

    Nobody’s leaving because this is too much fun at the Hulman Center, where the Sycamores are running an NBA offense with speed, skill and explosion. The team has some imperfections, depth being one of them — the starting five played the entire second half, and would’ve played the entire overtime had one not fouled out — but Indiana State is the kind of team, all that shooting and guard play and coaching, you won’t want your favorite team to see at the NCAA tournament.

    ....

    Yeah, it's special until some major program snatches up Josh Schertz.  Enjoy it for the short period it lasts.

     

  9. 2 hours ago, Impartial_Observer said:

    Everyone knows your position, you don’t need to remind us every time someone makes a post in this thread, that’s kinda trolling. 

    This particular thread had only existed since 1/23/24 at 10:58am.  And I posted my position exactly once in it so far. 

    Not trolling.

     

  10. 1 hour ago, Cloudy14 said:

    @Muda69 While he doesn't say it explicitly, here are a couple of quotes below that appear to encourage it. I see the quote at the bottom of the article stating it is a local matter, but he still qualifies it with the "unpleasant" quote.  It's also hard to deny the entire tone of the article is set toward consolidation.  

    So, if you have low educational attainment that’s keeping your local economy from growing, or if you face a local nursing shortage, it is time to connect the dots to local school corporations.

    Still, our research, and that of many scholars before us tells a clear story. Very small school corporations, with roughly 2,000 or fewer students, are shortchanging the educational outcomes of a substantial share of their students.

    Yes, I believe Mr. Hick's tone is set toward consolidation.   But he also states that such consolidation should come from the people, and not government coercion.  A stance I support.

     

  11. 5 hours ago, swordfish said:

    https://nypost.com/2024/01/23/news/transgender-man-found-to-be-pregnant-during-sex-change/

    A transgender man who underwent a mastectomy while transitioning in Italy was found to be five months pregnant — joining a rare group of so-called “seahorse dads.”

    The parent-to-be, referred to only as “Marco” in Italian media, already had a breast removal op and was preparing to get rid of the uterus when the pregnancy was discovered at a hospital in Rome, the Telegraph reported.

    “Having discovered the pregnancy, the first thing to do is to suspend [hormone] therapy immediately,” Dr. Giulia Senofonte, an endocrinologist, told La Repubblica, the news outlet that first reported it.

    The expert on gender therapy warned that the fetus could be at risk.

    “If the halting of the therapy is not immediate, there could be consequences, especially in the first trimester of pregnancy, which is an important time for the development of the baby’s organs,” Senofonte said.

    “It’s difficult to talk about it in abstract terms, but it all depends on the timing of the suspension of the dosages of testosterone that the person is taking,” she added.The Italian transgender man was in the process of transitioning when found to be five months pregnant.Ermolaev Alexandr – stock.adobe.com

    High levels of male and female hormones in the parent’s body carry cardiological risk because of possible blood pressure and coagulation problems, Senofonte said, according to the Times of London.

    “Hormone therapy blocks the menstrual cycle but it is not a contraceptive. The person can continue to ovulate and, consequently, runs the risk of pregnancy,” she said.

    “People dealing with transition usually recommend contraceptive pills that can be used during hormone therapy,” the expert added.

    Marco, who is expected to go through with the pregnancy, will be the child’s biological mom but will be registered legally as the dad, according to La Repubblica.

    The unusual case — believed to be the first of its kind in Italy — makes him a member of a tiny group of people known as “seahorse dads,” transgender men who carry babies, the Telegraph reported.

    The term is derived from the fact that among seahorses, the males carry and give birth to their young.

    Italian law permits abortion after 90 days only in the case of serious fetal defects or a significant health risk for the mother — but psychological stress from the unusual maternity could justify a therapeutic abortion, said Matilde Vigneri, a consultant at a gender dysphoria clinic in Palermo.

    “If Marco’s pregnancy goes ahead, Marco will find himself to be both a biological mother and legal father,” she said, the Times of London reported.

    “It will be a shock. Here same-sex families are still without rights, just imagine a child born in such special circumstances,” Vigneri said.

    Toni Brandi, president of Pro Vita e Famiglia, a conservative Catholic foundation, said he hoped Marco would decide to halt his therapy permanently.

    “The gender fluidity theory is total madness. It’s against science and against nature,” Brandi said. “This case is a challenge for gender theories because it shows a woman is a woman.

    “If I perceive myself to be a woman tomorrow, it doesn’t make me capable of bearing a child,” he added.

    Several transgender males have given birth in the US, but the case is believed to be unprecedented in Italy.

    So many levels of craziness in this story.....

    1)  Only a Female (or woman) can become pregnant.  (Fact)  Referring to this person as a "pregnant dad" is false or pretend.

    2)  Why not have an abortion? - Because Italy (like most of the rest of the world) sets limits on abortion (in Italy, not 90 days unless extreme health risks)......Wait, I thought only the US was abortion intolerant.

    3)  After birth and after transition, this person will be both a biological mother AND a legal father.......

    Literally cannot wrap my head around this one except to say - crazy....

    So a woman got pregnant.    

    And water is wet.

     

  12. 22 hours ago, JustRules said:

    Second, the crew he's working with in the playoffs is different than the crew he's working with in the regular season. 

    What?  I've been told on this very forum that this kind of thing is anathema, working with different crews.  Blasphemy!

     

  13. 56 minutes ago, First_Backer_Inside said:

    If less than 2,000 students in 162 of the 290 schools in our state is what makes you feel unpleasant and keeps you up at night, I'd love to have your life.

    Where did I say such facts keep me up at night?  Anyway, I assure you that they do not.

     

    17 minutes ago, Cloudy14 said:

      I think my main point is that I would caution consolidation based on aggregate data and leave this up to the communities where the children and their parents live.

    And where has Mr. Hicks said anything different?

     

  14. 41 minutes ago, Impartial_Observer said:

    I believe every public school board in the state must face voters every four years, so……I’m guessing they don’t really give a shit what you think Muda. 

    I'll never vote for a government school board candidate who champions artificial surfaces for football fields, or for most any outdoor extracurricular activity.

     

  15. 2 hours ago, Cloudy14 said:

    @Muda69 what are the unpleasant facts? 

    Did you read Mr. Hick's piece?  Here are some of the unpleasant facts:

    Quote

    Here in Indiana, 162 out of 290 school corporations enroll fewer than 2,000 students, and none close to 50,000. For Hoosiers, small school corporations are the issue. The challenge is exacerbated by continued shrinking of school corporations. Of the small schools, 120 are smaller now than they were a decade ago. 

    The simple fact is that there are almost no organically growing school corporations under 2,000 students and many more that will shrink to fewer than 2,000 in the coming decade.

    This is worrisome because smaller school corporations do worse on the most important metrics of performance than larger schools. Small corporations have substantially lower pass rates for the IREAD and ILEARN tests, lower SAT scores, a smaller share of students graduating with honors diplomas and a smaller share heading to college. 

    Among the most worrisome figures is that about 60 of the state’s smallest school corporations offer no Advanced Placement classes in the STEM fields of calculus, biology or chemistry. 

    Very small school corporations, with roughly 2,000 or fewer students, are shortchanging the educational outcomes of a substantial share of their students.

    The challenge with small schools is simply the age-old problem of economies of scale. It is a dollars and cents problem, that managed poorly will exacerbate the challenges facing many of Indiana’s most vulnerable communities

     

    • Like 1
  16. 11 minutes ago, Cloudy14 said:

    The ISBA and Indiana Small and Rural Schools Association are both hardly non-partisan voices in this argument. 

    From the statement:

    Quote

    From our perspective, there is nothing wrong with school consolidation or re-organization if it is initiated by the people in the communities affected.

    And Mr. Hicks pretty much said the same.  He did not call for state-forced consolidation:

    Quote

    Finally, like many others in the debate, I doubt the efficacy of state mandates on corporation size. These are inherently local matters, with local solutions. Indiana needs many more vibrant, growing communities, with superb schools that draw new residents. For well over half of school corporations, that means facing unpleasant facts and a difficult set of options about the future.

    Organization like the ISBA simply don't want to face the unpleasant facts, because less school corporations equals less school boards,

     

     

  17. More wasted taxpayer dollars.  And increased serious injury opportunities for the children playing on such a surface (this is well documented, I will not get into another discussion concerning this proven point again.) 

    All so somebody doesn't have to mow the grass, paint some lines, and sometimes wash muddy uniforms.

     

     

    • Haha 6
  18. 1 hour ago, Coach Nowlin said:

    Vegas has had it Baltimore vs SF since las Feb, the minute the superbowl was completed.....don't see how that changes. 

    https://nypost.com/2024/01/23/sports/nfls-referee-decision-opens-themselves-up-to-taylor-swift-theories/

    Quote

    With Shawn Smith set to be an official at the AFC Championship Game, the odds appear to be in favor of the Chiefs and the Swifties beating the Ravens to advance to the Super Bowl.

    From a business standpoint, that outcome is likely music to the NFL’s ears.

    Since the assignment was given to Smith, who has a tendency to favor the team on the road, it has been pointed out that the NFL is opening itself up to Taylor Swift conspiracy theories.

    “And it certainly doesn’t help with conspiracy theories that the NFL would like nothing more than to see new Chiefs #1 fan Taylor Swift and her legendary fan base of the Swifties in the Super Bowl and buying up all the Super Bowl merchandise,” NFL analyst Warren Sharp wrote on his website.

    The Ravens are favored by 3 points for the game in Baltimore on Sunday afternoon.

    However, according to Sharp’s data, the numbers change with Smith on the field.

    The home team’s win rate drops from 55.9% to 40.8% and the home team goes from covering the spread 50.1% to 37% of the time.

    The referee analyst for Sharp’s website also noted that the NFL could have chosen from eight different referees for the game.

    ...

     

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