Rainbow-first Retail (examples from Bozeman, Montana)

by philg

I hope that your Pride Month is going well. Let’s talk about the intersection between Pride and commerce….

In some sense it isn’t surprising that retailers would have some percentage of their stores devoted to 2SLGBTQQIA+ merchandise because at least some percentage of customers will want items that broadcast their passion for the Rainbow Flag Religion (see “Nothing against LGBTQ people, but they talk about being LGBTQ all the time.”). On the other hand, unless we think that followers of Rainbow Flagism are the majority of customers, it seems odd that 2SLGBTQQIA+ merchandise is right in the front of the store, given greater prominence than everything else that customers might want.

It wasn’t Pride Month last month, but retailers in Bozeman, Montana nonetheless were following a principle that I’m going to call Rainbow-first Retail, in which every customer will be exposed to 2SLGBTQQIA+ merchandise prior to the rest of the shopping experience.

Let’s start at Target. A shopper who comes in to get a toaster, a bottle of aspirin, or a bag of Cheetos must first walk by Pride Island, which is placed just inside the main doors:

Only haters would suggest that Rainbow Flagism is a religion rather than Science, yet Target sells a gingerbread-house-like kit labeled “celebratory offering” (bottom row below; click to enlarge):

You can “Spread the Love” with a spatula by Alice Butts:

I quickly found 2SLGBTQQIA+-themed apparel in sizes down to 3T (for three-year-olds):

What if Mindy the Crippler demands to be included in Pride Month? We can cover her unsightly golden fur with a beautiful rainbow “crop top” in the “pride pet apparel” category:

Is it then fair to say that Target has something for everyone? Perhaps not. An aircraft owner friend likes to say “I’m proud of my race and I’m proud of my sexuality” yet Target does not offer clothing celebrating white heterosexuality.

What if we’re having our 2SLGBTQQIA+ friends over for a party? Target sells 2SLGBTQQIA+ beverages:

The local merchants actually pushed Rainbow Flagism out to the storefront with flags in the windows and stickers on the glass. Customers are required to pay obeisance to the sacred flag before they can walk in and think about transacting business.

Quite a few merchants had the following signs and stickers on their front doors/windows:

Note that Muslims are lumped in with “LGBTQ community members”. We didn’t meet any recent migrants from Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, or Somalia, but I wonder if they feel “welcome here” when they must walk by a giant rainbow flag in order to get food at the downtown market:

“Everyone Welcome” is stenciled on the glass. Would Ron DeSantis be welcome? Wouldn’t that be normalizing hate?

Speaking of Ron DeSantis, notorious for banning books in a state where all 2SLGBTQQIA+ books for kids remain available for free at the public library, the principal bookstore in Bozeman proudly sells for cash those “banned books” that remain available for free at the Florida public libraries.

Maybe “asexual pride” is for married heterosexual guys? (“Only 48% of married women want regular sex after four years”).

If the bookstore window was 100% devoted to 2SLGBTQQIA+, did they have anything inside on a different topic? Pulitzer winner about the greatest American of the 21st century:

Circling back to the “immigrants welcome” theme, locals told us that Bozeman has become completely unaffordable due to skyrocketing rents and house prices. Traffic lights are being added so quickly that we stopped at several that weren’t yet in Google Maps. Apartment buildings are being constructed in what were formerly low-rise neighborhoods. Example:

Here’s data from Zillow:

Unless immigrants are going to be sheltered by say-gooders, won’t population expansion via immigration exacerbate the already-identified “housing for humans crisis”? Here’s a coffee shop that welcomes migrants, but excludes Canine-Americans:

In addition to welcoming “All Countries of Origin” they welcome “All Religions” but have a rainbow sticker on the front door as well:

How can an observant Muslim feel welcome?

Here’s a shop that features, on the outside of the building, a dark-skinned person with a substantial bulge in the panties:

We didn’t see a single person with this skin color during two days in Bozeman.

Circling back to the Rainbow-first Retail theme of this post… why is it profitable? Why does the typical customer want to be reminded to observe Rainbow Flagism when going into a store to buy something that isn’t related to the 2SLGBTQQIA+ lifestyle?

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Where can state government workers relax at Black taxpayers’ expense?

by philg

Today is Juneteenth, when the Black working class can work and pay taxes so that the white laptop class (e.g., federal government workers) can enjoy a day off. But where does the Black working class have the opportunity to pay taxes to fund leisure for white laptop class members who are state government workers? Pew offers a map:

It isn’t surprising that Deplorable Florida fails to give state workers an extra paid holiday (the same article, however, shows that Florida was the very first state (1991) to recognize Juneteenth as “an observance”). Shockingly, however, Juneteenth is merely a “personal holiday” in California that workers can choose to take on June 19 (in which case a worker would lose the opportunity to take a holiday on Eid al-Fitr or Eid al-Adha, for example).

Separately, I hope that your Juneteenth celebration is at least “mostly peaceful” (see “1 dead, at least 22 hurt in a shooting at a Juneteenth celebration in Willowbrook, Illinois, police say” (CNN): “At least 22 people were injured and one person was killed by gunfire overnight in Illinois, in a peaceful Juneteenth celebration… The incident is now one of 310 mass shootings in the US this year…”).

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Inflation for home construction and repair higher than the official number?

by philg

I hope that all white readers who are members of the laptop class and/or government employees are enjoying their paid holiday for Juneteenth. For readers (like me!) who suffer from reduced income as a consequence of reduced working hours, let’s have a look to see whether we can afford to take it easy…

We are informed that inflation is poking along at about 5 percent per year (so you’ll lose half of your wealth over 14 years if you don’t invest carefully). That shouldn’t be enough to derail an insurance company’s profitability, even with regulators limiting price increases to once per year. What are the insurance companies themselves seeing? From the Insurance Information Institute:

“You have to look at year-over-three-years replacement costs, and they’re high,” [Triple-I CEO Sean] Kevelighan said. “Personal homeowners replacement costs are up 55 percent. We’ve got personal auto replacement costs up 45 percent.

The three-year inflation rate, as perceived by insurers paying claims, is around 50 percent. Maybe the problem is behind us thanks to the muscular efforts of Joe Biden to whip inflation? “State Farm Halts Home-Insurance Sales in California” (Wall Street Journal, May 26):

State Farm is stopping the sale of new home-insurance policies in California effective Saturday, because of wildfire risk and rapid inflation in construction costs.

State Farm is the nation’s biggest car and home insurer by premium volume. It said it “made this decision due to historic increases in construction costs outpacing inflation, rapidly growing catastrophe exposure, and a challenging reinsurance market.” It posted the statement on its website and referred questions to trade groups.

I think that we can ignore the wildfire risk as the primary business reason here. The wildfires of 2023 aren’t dramatically riskier than the wildfires of 2022. Maybe State Farm is just being greedy so that they can enrich their fatcat shareholders? They’re not truly losing money on new policies, but are trying to pressure California regulators into giving them yet more profits:

State Farm is a mutual company, meaning it is owned by its policyholders, and it has deep pockets. It ended 2022 with net worth of $131.2 billion.

Why does it matter if construction costs are outpacing inflation, as State Farm says? Our grow-the-population-to-450-million-via-immigration plan will result in skyrocketing rents and miserable living conditions for most Americans unless new housing can be built at some price that is affordable to low-skill migrants (who earn below-median wages).

Let’s have a look at a newly built house just north of us in Martin County, Florida, far away from the high prices of Miami and Palm Beach. It’s only about $5,000 per square foot and comes with 2 acres of land:

Related:

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What buildings and parks have been named after George Floyd?

by philg

On this Father’s Day, let’s look at a man who has been highlighted as a great father by the elite…

President Biden says “We will never stop taking action in his honor.” regarding George Floyd:

It has been three years. What, concretely, has been done to honor Mr. Floyd? Minneapolis has George Floyd Square, but has President Biden designated a park or a building in D.C. “in his honor”? If not, why not?

What about a George Floyd Memorial on the Mall? What stops President Biden from delivering on his promise by creating one?

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Salt Lake County flies a trans-enhanced rainbow flag 3X higher and 20X larger than an American flag

by philg

A government building in Salt Lake City, Utah photographed this morning:

The sacred symbol of the official state religion flies 3X higher and is perhaps 20X larger than the American flag.

How exactly does the DA’s office worship Rainbow Flagism, though? Does the District Attorney (a Democrat) refrain from prosecuting those who identify as 2SLGBTQQIA+? Suggest lower sentences for anyone who can produce a recent photograph of themselves at a drag story hour with children?

The front of the building has no American flags at all, but instead is decorated with a Juneteenth flag and a (non-trans) rainbow flag:

Here’s the sacred symbol being installed high above the American flag:

I would love to know how government officials decide whether to use the trans-enhanced, non-trans, or trans-plus-intersex (added circle) flag. Does a committee meet and decide which version of Rainbow Flagism should be worshipped at any given time?

Related:

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New Hampshire is getting rid of its personal income tax

by philg

New Hampshire has long been wrongly considered a “tax-free” state. There was no income tax on wages and, unlike other New England states, there was no death tax. But for successful people there was always a 5% tax interest and dividends to consider. The state’s web site, however, says that this tax is being phased out by 2027:

A 5% tax is assessed on interest and dividend income. The State of New Hampshire does not have an income tax on an individual’s reported W-2 wages.

Please note, recently enacted legislation phases out the Interest and Dividends (I&D) Tax starting at 4% for taxable periods ending on or after December 31, 2023, 3% for taxable periods ending on or after December 31, 2024, 2% for taxable periods ending on or after December 31, 2025 and 1% for taxable periods ending on or after December 31, 2026. The I&D Tax is then repealed for taxable periods beginning after December 31, 2026.

Tennessee did something similar recently. Note that New Hampshire does not have a sales tax and, therefore, I think it will join Alaska as the only state that is tax-free on both income and purchases. Maybe we’re getting closer to the glorious age of a land value tax!

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Who is watching the Los Angeles Dodgers celebrate Pride Night?

by philg

There’s been some drama around what is supposed to be an event that everyone can agree on. “LA Pride pulls out of Dodgers’ Pride Night after drag nun group is disinvited” (The Guardian):

LA Pride has pulled out of an annual Pride Night hosted by the Dodgers after the team disinvited a non-profit drag group from the event.

Earlier this week, the Los Angeles Dodgers rescinded an invitation to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a well-known San Francisco order of queer and trans “nuns” that has existed since the 1970s, amid opposition from conservative Catholics. The group, which does does charitable and protest work in addition to its street drag show performances, was set to receive an award during a ceremony before a 16 June game against the San Francisco Giants.

“Given the strong feelings of people who have been offended by the sisters’ inclusion in our evening and in an effort not to distract from the great benefits that we have seen over the years of Pride Night, we are deciding to remove them from this year’s group of honorees,” the Dodgers said in a statement on Wednesday.

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence first appeared in San Francisco in 1979 in the Castro District in the form of three men wearing nun outfits. The group formed in response to the Aids crisis and was among the first to raise money to help care for people with the disease, it said in a statement. Today they fundraise hundreds of thousands of dollars each year for underserved grassroots organizations, which in 2020 included grants to legal aid clinics serving LGBTQ+ asylum seekers and an alliance empowering deaf queer people, among others.

The audience for baseball has been shrinking in the U.S. The audience for Pride-related events has been growing. Instead of hoping to get “great benefits” from a token one-night 2SLGBTQQIA+-themed event, maybe the Dodgers could celebrate Pride at every game with new uniforms. Every player could wear this top from Target, for example:

And here are the socks:

Target sells these as part of its “Pride Kids’ & Baby Clothing” collection, but I think they would work well scaled up to adult size for the uniform trousers:

Even with this updated wardrobe to admire, a lot of fans might have trouble getting through 9 innings without being plastered. Target has a beer glass that could be used at the stadium:

(To be filled with Bud Light, of course.)

Readers: Are you watching the Dodgers play this evening? Would you be inclined to watch more baseball if they extended their celebration of Pride to every game? Aside from the above modifications to the uniform and beverage sales, what else should the Dodgers do to show their commitment to Rainbow Flagism?

Related:

  • The Dodgers corrected their error within a few days. “Dodgers Reverse Course and Reinvite Group to Pride Night” (NYT, May 22): “The Los Angeles Dodgers, who faced enormous backlash over last week’s choice to disinvite the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence from their annual LGBTQ+ Pride Night, reversed course on Monday. The team apologized to the group and extended a new invitation for it to attend the festivities…”
  • “Target CEO defends LGBTQ-friendly kids clothing amid boycott calls: ‘The right thing for society’” (New York Post, May 23): Target’s top executive dismissed the social media uproar over the retailer’s new line of LGBTQ-friendly kids clothing, saying that marketing the products are good for business and “the right thing for society.” … “I think those are just good business decisions, and it’s the right thing for society, and it’s the great thing for our brand,” Cornell said. “The things we’ve done from a DE&I [diversity, equity, and inclusion] standpoint, it’s adding value,” Cornell said. “It’s helping us drive sales, it’s building greater engagement with both our teams and our guests, and those are just the right things for our business today.” … Cornell added: “I know that focus on diversity and inclusion and equity has fueled much of our growth over the last nine years.”
  • Love Wins at the Florida Walmart (pictures from 2022)
  • Is LGBTQIA the most popular social justice cause because it does not require giving money?
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Should Texas sell sponsorship rights for buses that transport asylum-seekers to sanctuary cities?

by philg

Here are a couple of neon sculptures by Eric Adams, the artist who now serves as New York City mayor, in the lobby of the Whitney museum, just above the ticket desk ($25 for an adult, though free for SNAP/EBT beneficiaries):

Our sanctuary cities are somewhat undersupplied with migrants due to a shortage of buses from the border in Texas. A neighbor who is a refugee from Gavin Newsom’s lockdowns said that he wanted to sponsor a bus, but there is no opportunity for a private citizen to do so. Is Texas leaving a lot of sponsorship money on the table? What would the donor get? His/her/zir/their name on the side of the bus? (in a digital sign so that a different sponsor could be recognized on subsequent trips) A photograph of the happy New Americans disembarking in New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, San Francisco, or some other sanctuary city?

You might think that Democrats are being left out of this offer, but migrants can also be transported with love, not just with hate by Deplorable haters. Example… “Colorado is busing migrants to New York and other major cities” (Axios):

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis is busing migrants who recently arrived in Denver from the southern U.S. border to other major cities. The Democratic governor’s move echoes actions by Republican governors in Texas and Florida that were labeled callous and cruel.

See also “Why New York City Is Buying Bus Tickets for Migrants Headed to Canada” (NYT, Feb 2023):

New York officials, who once condemned Texas leaders for busing migrants from the southern border, calling the treatment inhumane, are buying bus tickets for newcomers who want to go north and seek asylum in Canada.

New York City has been buying tickets for migrants who want to go to other cities to connect with family or friends for months, officials noted.

Roxham Road, where Canadian immigration officials greet migrants in a prefabricated barn, is a popular informal entry point for those who don’t want to be subjected to a law that requires asylum seekers to request protection in the first safe country they arrive in.

(Only one month later, the Canadians decided that they did not want to benefit from this influx of migrants. “U.S. and Canada Reach an Agreement on Diverting Asylum Seekers” (NYT, March 2023): “The deal … will allow Canada to turn back immigrants at Roxham Road”)

Readers: Would you sponsor a bus for migrants to use to reach their dream city? If so, to which city would you offer transportation and how much would you be willing to pay for the honor of sponsorship? What would you want for recognition?

Related:

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Is immigration killing native-born Americans via overcrowding in health care?

by philg

A friend’s daughter in NYC is soon to turn a disposable fetus into a precious baby. This transformation will cost her $5,000 out of pocket. She couldn’t find an ob-gyn in Manhattan without agreeing to the “concierge” plan and says that this is the direction of primary care in the city. In Maskachusetts it was difficult to find a primary care physician who was taking new patients and waiting times to see specialists were generally measured in months if not seasons. Florida is, if anything, even more stressed. Americans fleeing lockdowns have been disproportionately not doctors. A doctor who wanted to escape Andrew Cuomo would have had to get licensed in Florida, which is a complex process, and then build a practice here. Compare to a laptop-based worker who could pick up and move over a weekend.

Can waiting a few months to see a doctor result in death? Yes, concludes “Delayed Access to Health Care and Mortality” (2007):

Veterans who visited a VA medical center with facility-level wait times of 31 days or more had significantly higher odds of mortality (odds ratio = 1.21,p = 0.027) compared with veterans who visited a VA medical center with facility-level wait times of < 31 days.

“The U.S. Has Fewer Physicians and Hospital Beds Per Capita Than Italy and Other Countries Overwhelmed by COVID-19” (KFF, 2020) includes a chart with 2017 data:

Our World in Data shows that there was an upward trend from 1960 to 2004, as the U.S. became wealthier and medicine more advanced, but now we’re in a downward trend as our population expands via low-skill immigration.

Maybe the shortage of docs can be addressed via using non-doctors to do what doctors in Switzerland, Germany, and Sweden do? The trade union for docs says this doesn’t work… “3-year study of NPs in the ED: Worse outcomes, higher costs” (AMA):

Nurse practitioners (NPs) delivering emergency care without physician supervision or collaboration in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) increase lengths of stay by 11% and raise 30-day preventable hospitalizations by 20% compared with emergency physicians, says a working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Overall, the study shows that NPs increase the cost of ED care by 7%, or about $66 per patient. Increasing the number of NPs on duty to decrease wait times raised total health care spending by 15%, or $238 per case—not including the cost of additional NP salaries. In all, assigning 25% of emergency cases to NPs results in net costs of $74 million annually for the VHA.

They don’t bother to try to figure out whether the patients lived or died or what quality of life they might have experienced, but it seems safe to say that “preventable hospitalizations” are not beneficial.

Rich people can buy their way out of waiting to see primary care docs and, perhaps, a handful of specialists who are affiliated (or bribed?) by a concierge practice. A 50ish friend in Boston pays $8,000/year for this. But even the rich may experience a long wait if they need to see a specialist outside of their concierge network.

There have been some recent articles decrying a decline in U.S. life expectancy (example from the public health folks at Harvard, taking a rare break from their mask and COVID-19 vaccine advocacy). But none mention population growth combined with relative stagnation in the number of physicians.

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Why won’t Americans move away from states that they characterize as oppressive?

by philg

“NAACP Issues Travel Advisory in Florida” (NAACP):

the NAACP Board of Directors issued a formal travel advisory for the state of Florida. The travel advisory comes in direct response to Governor Ron DeSantis’ aggressive attempts to erase Black history and to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Florida schools.

The formal travel notice states, “Florida is openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals. Before traveling to Florida, please understand that the state of Florida devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by African Americans and other communities of color.”

“Let me be clear – failing to teach an accurate representation of the horrors and inequalities that Black Americans have faced and continue to face is a disservice to students and a dereliction of duty to all,” said NAACP President & CEO Derrick Johnson. “Under the leadership of Governor Desantis, the state of Florida has become hostile to Black Americans and in direct conflict with the democratic ideals that our union was founded upon. He should know that democracy will prevail because its defenders are prepared to stand up and fight. We’re not backing down, and we encourage our allies to join us in the battle for the soul of our nation.”

According to the NAACP Board members, Florida has either no soul or an evil soul. Democracy might “prevail” in the future, which implies that right now there is no democracy in Florida. Therefore, nobody should risk spending a week at Disney World or on the Miami Beach sand.

Where do the successful intelligent people who issued this advisory choose to live? Florida. The Board of Directors page lists Leon W. Russell as the Chair. Mr. Russell’s Twitter profile says that he chooses to live in Tampa, Florida. The page shows that at least some other Board members also choose to live in Florida:

In other words, the folks who said that Florida is too dangerous to visit for even a few days due to its missing and/or defective soul and its lack of democracy choose to live in Florida all-year every-year. There is no income or estate tax in Florida, but the folks who issued this warning pay sales tax to support the tyranny of Ron DeSantis (whose name they do not capitalize properly!) every time that they shop at Publix. If they keep sending money to the tyrant, shouldn’t he infer that they actually support whatever it is that he is doing?

The Republicans I know who live in Democrat-run states don’t say that they are suffering from “fascism”, but they still say that they disagree with lockdowns, school closures, mask orders, vaccine papers checks, race-based government programs, gender reassignment surgery for teenagers, etc. When I suggested to a pilot friend in Maskachusetts that he move to a state where the government would use his tax money to do things that he supports, he said that he wants to but that his wife wants to “stay and fight”. He pays about $400,000 per year in state/local taxes. I suggested that he give me $400k/year and that I would do a bunch of stuff that he disagrees with in exchange. His wife can trash talk me on Facebook and Twitter to her heart’s content. Does he think that I will be motivated to change while the $400k checks continue to roll in?

“Stay and fight” makes sense to me if the dispute is over the appropriate level of school funding or whether zoning laws should be relaxed to allow construction of massive apartment buildings to accommodate some of the 100+ million additional Americans who are going to be living here due to our mostly-open-borders immigration policy. But “stay and fight” wouldn’t have made sense against a totalitarian 20th century government. Nobody who stayed to fight Stalin or Mao had any significant positive impact. Yet it is precisely this kind of totalitarianism that Florida Democrats say they are experiencing. Some examples from the tyrant’s opponent in the 2022 general election:

After what he called “fascism” won by a landslide, did he move to a fascism-free state? I haven’t found any media stories suggesting that Crist did anything to free himself. He’s quietly living in Florida, apparently, paying taxes to keep fascism going. (See Will Democrats have to move if Republicans win in their states? for some more examples.)

Marijuana entrepreneur-partnered Nikki Fried is running the Florida Democrats right now. She chooses to live in Florida, where she says that “fascism” prevails (since we must work to “end fascism”):

Why don’t we see Democrats fleeing fascism in significant numbers? There should be plenty of room right now in the fascism-free state of New York: “NYC lost 5.3% of its population — nearly a half-million people — since COVID, with most heading South” (New York Post, May 18, 2023).

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