A different way to look at inflation

 

Inflation hits the contraceptive market!  Reuters reports:

Malaysia's Karex Bhd, the world's top condom producer, plans to raise prices by 20% to 30% and possibly further if supply chain ​disruptions drag on due to the Iran war, its chief executive said on ‌Tuesday.

Karex is also seeing a surge in condom demand as rising freight costs and shipping delays have left many of its customers with lower stockpiles than usual, CEO Goh Miah Kiat told ​Reuters in an interview.

"The situation is definitely very fragile, prices are expensive... We ​have no choice but to transfer the costs right now to ⁠the customers," Goh said.

There's more at the link.

Well, "inflation" sort of goes with the territory of condoms, so to speak, so for prices to match reality is logical, I suppose.  The same might be said for "dragging on".  However, regarding the "very fragile" situation, I daresay that's inimical to the product!

Sometimes the jokes almost write themselves . . .

Peter

Medicine, health and gender ideology

 

I hadn't realized how endemic the gender apocalypse had become in the health care (?) industry until I read this article.

In Minton v. Dignity Health, Evan Minton, who was born female but masqueraded as a male, was scheduled by her doctor for a hysterectomy at Mercy San Juan Medical Center, a Catholic hospital near Sacramento, in August 2016. Two days before the procedure, the doctor informed the hospital that she was transgender, and the hospital canceled the surgery. The hospital’s position was that the surgery was elective, part of a “transition,” and that, as a Catholic hospital, they could not participate in sex change operations.

The ACLU filed suit under California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act. The California Court of Appeals ruled in 2019 that Minton had standing to proceed, and in 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Dignity Health’s appeal, leaving that ruling intact.

In the end, the San Francisco County Superior Court entered the following judgment: “It is adjudged that plaintiff Minton, Evan take nothing from defendant Dignity Health dba Mercy San Juan Medical Center.” Minton lost. She was awarded nothing.

In Hammons v. University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center, the ruling went the other way when a federal court subsequently ruled that the hospital’s refusal to perform a hysterectomy on a woman who dressed as a man violated the Affordable Care Act.

. . .

Jessica Simpson, a Canadian transgender activist who retains male genitalia, filed a complaint against a gynecologist who refused to treat her, claiming discrimination. The complaint was filed with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia in 2019, though no resolution has been publicly reported.

A report by Advocates for Trans Equality states, “If a transgender woman’s health care provider decides she needs a prostate exam, an insurance company can’t deny it because she is listed as female in her records. If her provider recommends gynecological care, coverage can’t be denied simply because she was identified as male at birth.”

There's more at the link.

Verily, the mind doth boggle.  How on earth is an insurance company to assess the likely costs to be incurred by a prospective member if they can't be sure whether he/she is male or female?  Women have gynecological expenses that men don't have;  men have male-specific illnesses that women don't have.  It makes a difference to risks, premiums, etc.  For that matter, how about life insurance when life expectancy is affected by biological sex?  All other things being equal, women live several years longer than men, and insurance companies take that into account when deciding on the premium for life insurance policies.  What if they can't be sure of the biological sex (and hence natural life expectancy) of the person applying for insurance?

I've got a simple proposal.  Whenever anyone applies for health insurance, life insurance, or anything else where biological sex makes a difference, insist that they have to undergo a chromosome check.  If it comes back XX, they're female, no matter what they say they are.  If it comes back XY, they're male, ditto.  Only in the vanishingly small number of so-called "intersex" cases (generally accepted by authoritative medical sources as being far less than 1%) would further testing be required.  The insurance or medical procedures the individual seeks should be awarded on the basis of this chromosome test.  If it's not appropriate for their chromosomal (i.e. biological) sex, they can't have it unless they pay for it out of their own pockets and the provider is willing to provide it.  Period (you should pardon the expression).  Biologically female?  No subsidized prostate or testicular cancer exam for you.  Biologically male?  No subsidized birth control pills or cervical cancer test for you.  Is the examination or procedure you want against the moral or ethical code of the provider?  Then you don't get it from them.  End of story.

I think that would eliminate most of the legal problems facing the health care industry, exclude a great deal of the political correctness and "wokeness" involved, and save insurers a lot of money into the bargain.  What say you, readers?

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 308

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

Sunday morning music

 

I'm not particularly sympathetic towards the environmental movement, particularly because so many of their claims have proved to be hyperbole, exaggeration and failed prophecies of doom.  Two well-known examples would be the late Paul Ehrlich's "The Population Bomb" and Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth", neither of which has been borne out by events - but both of which are still lauded by environmentalists for promoting awareness of their respective causes.

Nevertheless, I acknowledge there is empirical evidence of some environmentalist's concerns, which can be independently confirmed.  One of these is the retreat of the glaciers, which is undoubtedly caused by rising global temperatures.  What causes these temperature changes is the subject of fierce debate that is still ongoing, of course.  However, I think we can agree that it's a subject worthy of concern and further investigation.

Swiss singer/songwriter To Athena decided to highlight the issue.

Singer To Athena, accompanied by a small ensemble of musicians, staged the performance inside a glacial cave on the Morteratsch glacier in southeastern Switzerland on March 25. The group hiked through the snow before sunrise, instruments in hand, to reach the cave in time for filming. The performance was captured for a music video of her song "Collide," organized in collaboration with Greenpeace Switzerland.

The Morteratsch glacier, located near the resort town of Pontresina in the canton of Graubünden, has been shrinking for decades. Scientists estimate it is retreating by roughly 50 meters (about 164 feet) per year, with meltwater steadily carving tunnels and caverns into the ice from within.

. . .

Swiss glaciologist Giovanni Kappenberger, who was present at the site, said the cave is a stark symbol of accelerating ice loss.

"The more meltwater there is, the more caves form, and the faster the glacier disappears," he said.

Kappenberger added that the cave is unlikely to survive another summer. He noted that the glacier is losing at least 10 meters of ice from above annually, while warm air flowing through in summer simultaneously melts it from below.

There's more at the link.

Here's the video of her performance.

Regardless of our feelings about climate change and/or globular worming, I think we can agree that was a very attractive piece of music, and a great way to highlight a very real problem.

Peter

Almost beyond parody

 

When I first heard about this a few days ago, I dismissed it as a fake news gimmick.  I mean, who would be dumb enough to actually say something like this?

Turns out I was wrong.  Jim Treacher reports:

Okay, let me try this: MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+.

That stands for: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, and additional identities.

Again, that’s MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+. I find it helps to go three letters at a time. Like when you’re giving your account number to the customer service guy, who says his name is Steve but he has an Indian accent.

The speaker there is named Leah Gazan. (Oops. There’s a warning sign right there.) Who is a member of [the] Canadian Parliament. She’s in the NDP, whatever that is.

There's more at the link.

Rick Moran adds:

MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+ is an all-inclusive, all-encompassing, balls-to-the-wall, slam bang, wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am acronym for the totality of the gender bending, sexually "unique" population of Canada. 

. . .

Budgeting for each and every identity, preference, and fantasy spirit in the MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+ community would blow up the Canadian budget. 

I fondly recall when sexual preference identities were simple: LGB and maybe T, XYZ, believe you me. It was easy. It was a simpler time then. We didn't have to worry about offending someone by using the wrong pronoun. We didn't have to worry about making some poor, disturbed "T" or "Q" explode in tears from being misgendered.  

It would be so much easier (and we'd be less likely to offend) if the MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+ "community" would just walk around with name tags identifying which gender they are, what their sexual identity is, and most importantly, what pronouns they prefer to be referred to.

Yes, that's a joke. No Nazi "Star of David" references, please.

Not that I'd use them. But since misgendering is going to be an Olympic sport in 2030, it would be helpful to know who we should insult.

Again, more at the link.

And yet . . . even when they come up with absolute howlers such as the acronym above . . . the LGBWTF crowd actually expect us to take them seriously.  They (well, some of them, anyway) expect us to take the acronym seriously.

What are they smoking???  Whatever it is, where can I buy some?  If I'm going to have to read, or listen to, or endure that sort of crap any longer, I'm going to need all the help I can get!

Oy, gevalt...

Peter