LGBTQIA+ is a popular cause with employers because it cuts parental leave costs?

Is LGBTQIA the most popular social justice cause because it does not require giving money? looked at the question of why individuals might love to wave the rainbow flag.

What about employers, though? Why is it Pride Month Every Month at employers whose businesses don’t relate to romance, sex, gender reassignment surgery, or anything else that might seem directly related to LGBTQIA+?

Let’s consider heterosexual sex acts from an employer’s point of view. These encounters regularly result in the accidental production of children whose existence then leads to (1) up to a year of paid parental leave during which time employee productivity is zero, (2) additional years or decades of reduced productivity, and (3) massive increases in costs for health insurance (or health care for the self-insured employer).

From a rational employer’s point of view, therefore, it makes sense to promote all things LGBTQIA+. From my 2016 visit to the Facebook campus (see Open-pit Coding), for example:

Another way to look at it, which of the follow individuals would you rather employ?

Related:

  • Broody hen compared to gravid human in the office: “Just as a broody hen negatively impacts a farmer’s productivity, a gravid human poses a significant inconvenience to her employer. That’s why companies like Google, Facebook, and Apple pay for female employees to extract and freeze their eggs. It’s great to see tech companies empowering women the same way that factory farms empower their battery hens!”
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Aerial Photos of Portland, Maine

Portland again!

More importantly, after borrowing a car from the good folks at MAC Jets, lobster rolls downtown:

From our Boston to Bar Harbor, Maine trip in a Robinson R44 helicopter. Tony Cammarata was in back with a door removed and a Nikon D850. Instrument student Vince Dorow and I were flying.

Also available as a streaming 8K video.

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Maine coastal aerial photographs: Westport to Portland

Running out of exciting caption ideas for this series… Westport, Maine down to Portland:

From our Boston to Bar Harbor, Maine trip in a Robinson R44 helicopter. Tony Cammarata was in back with a door removed and a Nikon D850. Instrument student Vince Dorow and I were flying.

Also available as a streaming 8K video.

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Animated and illuminated BLM yard art? (or Rainbow Flagism displays?)

Our neighborhood has gone from Bleak Maskachusetts Winter to Yet Bleaker Maskachusetts Winter due to folks having taken down their epic yard displays, e.g.,

What about cashing in on the latest trends in righteousness, and making American suburbs far more beautiful in the process, by offering animated and illuminated BLM yard art analogous to what one can buy for Christmas? The Christmas season is short, but the BLM season can last continuously for decades!

Americans have demonstrated a commitment to BLM yard displays by purchasing signs, but generally these are not illuminated. This should give us some confidence that some containers of night-time BLM yard displays would fly off the shelves.

Readers: What should the illuminated and animated displays depict? Let’s refer to the Wikipedia timeline of BLM for a few starter ideas:

  • animatronic Karen Amy Cooper with camera and image recognition software that can identify Black passersby and harangue them
  • an inflatable burning Minneapolis Target store, commemorating the mostly peaceful protests of 2020

What if we adapt the idea to the religion of Rainbow Flagism? Would would the nighttime lawn scenes look like then?

Related:

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Maine coastal aerial photos: Vinalhaven to Westport

After departing Vinalhaven towards KRKD

This photo is a favorite (steep bank in the helicopter to get the straight-down perspective):

Enough power for your Tesla, near Westport, Maine (but where does all of this power come from and what is it needed for in an apparently deserted part of the shoreline?):

Gourmet breakfast sandwich stop at Owl’s Head General Store:

From our Boston to Bar Harbor, Maine trip in a Robinson R44 helicopter. Tony Cammarata was in back with a door removed and a Nikon D850. Instrument student Vince Dorow and I were flying.

Also available as a streaming 8K video.

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Lockdown is our Vietnam War so it will end gradually?

A Facebook user posted “Canadian expert’s research finds lockdown harms are 10 times greater than benefits” (Toronto Sun) regarding an academic paper by Dr. Ari Joffe, a specialist in pediatric infectious diseases at the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton and a Clinical Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at University of Alberta (i.e., a colleague of Dr. Jill Biden, MD).

I’m not that interested in the paper because, even in March I expected that the shutdowns would kill far more people than they might save, What was interesting to me was the gloss added by the Facebooker:

Of course, we can’t actually do this reassessment because doing so would admit that the last year was madness. The lockdowns are like Vietnam, the political and media establishment have so much invested in them, only a gradual drawdown will be permitted, regardless of the “science.”

Readers: What do you think of this analogy? We decided that the Vietnam War was unwinnable in 1968, but we didn’t get out until 1975 (timeline).

MLK Memorial:

MLK’s thoughts from 1967:

I oppose the war in Viet Nam because I love America. I speak out against it not in anger but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and above all with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as a moral example of the world. I speak out against this war because I am disappointed with America. There can be no great disappointment where there is no great love … Those of us who love peace must organize as effectively as the war hawks. As they spread the propaganda of war we must spread the propaganda of peace.

Related:

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Maine aerial photos: Deer Isle Bridge and Vinalhaven

From the Bar Harbor Airport we proceeded southwest to the Deer Isle Bridge (cost $900,000 to build in 1939, $17 million in today’s mini-dollars):

And for the sailors, North Haven and Vinalhaven:

From our Boston to Bar Harbor, Maine trip in a Robinson R44 helicopter. Tony Cammarata was in back with a door removed and a Nikon D850. Instrument student Vince Dorow and I were flying.

Also available as a streaming 8K video.

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Department of Homeland Security is reading academic papers

A medical school professor friend was denied Global Entry at Logan Airport when returning to Boston from a Christmas holiday in his native European homeland (remember to listen to public health advice from the MD/PhDs regarding the covid-spreading potential of travel; don’t follow their examples!). His luggage was taken apart piece by piece, scrutinized, and repeatedly X-rayed. He presumed that the unprecedented (for him) examination was due to all of the European food that he’d packed. The agents explained, however, that he and another passenger on the same flight had been flagged due to having published journal papers on the subject of COVID-19. Someone at DHS had read these and flagged the two academics as potential carriers of forbidden “human biological samples” (Customs and Border Protection page).

My literary foray into the area of what the government might be monitoring (a few commenters seemed to think that I was serious):

We still have some of the brisket in the freezer…

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Sunrise over Bar Harbor aerial photos

Departed BHB just before sunrise, south through Somes Sound and then around the east side of Mound Desert Island:

The Jackson Laboratory, a great place to stop for mice:

And then on to the main town for this part of Maine, so to speak… (Bar Harbor itself):

And finally a fly-over of the BHB airport:

From our Boston to Bar Harbor, Maine trip in a Robinson R44 helicopter. Tony Cammarata was in back with a door removed and a Nikon D850. Instrument student Vince Dorow and I were flying.

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