1934 BASEBALL GAME-TIGERS VERSUS YANKIES

Here is the oldest surviving full broadcast of a regular season baseball game featuring the Yankies and Tigers at the Tigers' field. It is interesting to hear the sole comentator double as PA announcer, the telegraph machine in the background, the telegraph operator catching a fowl ball, the radio spots, and of course just the game in general. 

RADIO-RELATED STUFF: LOTS OF NEWS AND COMMENT CONSIDERING ITS THE HOLIDAYS

Quite surprised to hear Dan Mellon on Moose FM Bancroft this morning. Too bad his shift is voicetracked.

"In the Key of C" would have had time to play more music today if Craig Norris had talked over the song intros.

Could have knocked me over with a feather when I heard about the deaths of "Coast to Coast" host Ian Punnett, CBS Audio news anchor Tom Foty and Fox News Audio's Matt Napolitano.

Have been enjoying the afternoon drive programming CBC Radio has had on over the holidays.

Why can't CBC Radio keep the promos for its morning shows up to date? 

TV-RELATED STUFF: MOSTLY BRITISH

Watched an episode of the BBC game show "Call My Bluff" the other day. It was interesting and cerebral.

Also watched a couple episodes of "Z-cars." I appreciate the fact that, unlike other cop shows, it focused on crimes other than murder. It is also quite entertaining to watch because of its attention to the Lancashire culture.

Really, I never got into cop shows. So many of them reveal the crime before the protagonist has had a chance to solve it. I am currently thinking in particular of an episode of "The Rookies" and "Barnaby Jones" I watched yesterday and today respectively.

WHAT IS SWATTING, THE CRIMINAL HARASSMENT HOAX THAT'S HIT THREE GOP LAWMAKERS SINCE CHRISTMAS?

Fox News

 

What is 'swatting,' the 'criminal harassment' hoax that's hit 3 GOP lawmakers since Christmas?

'This is a crime that flourishes because there is insufficient deterrent,' says GWU law professor Jonathan Turley

By Houston Keene Fox News

Published December 29, 2023 4:00am EST

 

Three Republican lawmakers have been the target of "swatting" at their homes since Christmas Day, with a legal expert calling the act "criminal harassment."

 

"Swatting" is a crime that has become prominent in recent years, gaining more steam in the social media age when people's addresses are easily accessible.

 

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley told Fox News Digital that swatting is a crime that could be "charged as a form of criminal threats."

 

"Swatting constitutes a false police report that can be criminally charged," Turley said. "Virginia recently passed a new law making swatting specifically a criminal misdemeanor. It can also be charged as a form of criminal threats."

 

"This is a crime that flourishes because there is insufficient deterrent," Turley continued. "The anonymity and rare prosecutions combine to fuel this form of criminal harassment."

 

"There is no mystery to how to address these crimes. There must be greater detection and penalties to achieve deterrence," he added.

 

The crime targets an individual by calling in a false police report for a violent crime — such as a murder, a hostage situation or other crimes that would require a greater law enforcement response — to the home of the target.

 

The goal of the false police report is to elicit a SWAT team response by the police to the target's home.

 

Consequently, swatting draws police resources away from real crimes while the state becomes the unwitting arm to terrorize a person at their own home.

 

Now, national leaders are being targeted by swatters who have sent the police to their homes.

 

Since Christmas, three Republican lawmakers — Sen. Rick Scott of Florida and Reps. Brandon Williams of New York and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia — have been victims of swatting at their homes.

 

Scott became the latest victim, announcing on Thursday that his home was swatted the night before while he and his wife were out to dinner.

 

"Last night, while at dinner with my wife, cowards ‘swatted’ my home in Naples. These criminals wasted the time & resources of our law enforcement in a sick attempt to terrorize my family," Scott wrote on X.

 

Both Williams and Greene announced on social media that their homes had been hit on Christmas Day.

 

Williams told Fox News' Kayleigh McEnany that there was "no question" the swatting incident against him was an intimidation tactic over his pro-Israel stance.

 

Greene announced Wednesday that she would introduce a bill to target swatters after her family member's house was also hit this week.

 

Fox News Digital's Ellizabeth Elkind contributed reporting.

 

Houston Keene is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.  Story tips can be sent to Houston.Keene@Fox.com and on Twitter: @HoustonKeene

WENDY'S OFFERS 1-CENT JR. BACON CHEESEBURGERS IN HONOUR OF NATIONAL BACON DAY

PEOPLE

 

Wendy’s Is Offering 1-Cent Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers in Honor of National Bacon Day

See how you can nab this delicious deal before time runs out!

By Angel Saunders  Published on December 28, 2023 10:46PM EST

 

With National Bacon Day on Saturday, the burger chain is celebrating by offering a major deal on a yummy sandwich.

 

The franchise’s 1 cent Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers promotion returned on Wednesday and ends on Jan. 2.

 

For just a penny, customers can pick up on the sandwich that includes a beefy patty, topped with applewood smoked bacon, American cheese, lettuce, tomatoes and mayo.

 

With a deal this good, some may ask, “What’s the catch?” Well, there is one minor stipulation! In order to take advantage of this limited time offer, you must download the Wendy's app or head over to the company website to create a rewards account, and then click the "Reward Store" button.

 

Once logged in, simply click on the 1 cent deal and place the item into your cart. The Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger will be added to your order as long as you are a rewards account member.

 

The last time prices were this low for the tasty burger was in September when the sandwich was also a penny for National Cheeseburger Day. That deal ran from Sept. 18 to Sept. 22.

 

But being a member has its year-round perks as Wendy’s has repeatedly offered amazing deals for its customers.

 

In April, the burger joint understood that sometimes Mercury retrograde can have some people a bit out of whack. To assist, the company offered free food for three weeks until the stars were once again aligned.

 

The "Mercury Menu" was also available through the Wendy’s app, giving patrons the chance to buy a BOGO $1 premium sandwich eligible with a purchase. The following week, customers could snag a free crispy chicken sandwich, also with a purchase.

 

Next up were crunchy bites, followed by six-piece crispy or spicy chicken nuggets that were free when bought with another menu item. To close out the three weeks of deals, Wendy's offered any size fries with a purchase.

 

Last month, the fast food chain announced that their nuggets would be free every Wednesday for the remainder of the year. Customers have to place the order through the Wendy's app and order a purchase to pick up to get the free order of nuggets.

MEANING OF AULD LANG ZYNNE

What does “auld lang syne” mean? “Auld lang syne” is the title and key phrase of a 1788 Scottish poem by Robert “Rabbie” Burns, typically sung on New Year’s Eve around the world. The phrase “auld lang syne,” which literally translates to “old long since,” basically means “days gone by” in the Scots language. Or, as Merriam-Webster explains, the “auld lang syne” meaning is “the good old times.” What is the song “Auld Lang Syne” about? If the “auld lang syne” meaning has to do with remembering days gone by, the song must reminisce about the good ol’ days, right? Sort of. It’s a bit boozier than that. The original five-verse version of the poem essentially gets people singing “let’s drink to days gone by,” an appropriate toast for the new year. That’s right: Deemed by music historians to be the most famous “song that nobody knows,” “Auld Lang Syne” is a piece of the long oral tradition of getting drunk and belting out a tune. However, it can also be used as a funeral song, where it’s played at the end of a funeral service or a graduation ceremony. Where does the term “auld lang syne” come from? Now that you know the “Auld Lang Syne” meaning, here’s where the term is from: The nostalgic phrase “auld lang syne” appeared in Scottish song as early as 1588, but it was Burns who gave us the version we prefer to butcher every Dec. 31. When Burns turned in the manuscript of his poem “Auld Lang Syne” in 1788, he was quick to cite the Scottish oral tradition as his muse. “The following song, an old song, of the olden times,” he’s said to have remarked, “has never been in print, nor even in manuscript until I took it down from an old man.” Burns embellished the old ballad with a few verses of his own, mostly adding lines about drinking, like “we’ll take a cup of kindness yet” and “we’ll take a right good-will draught.” The ballad quickly became a standard for the Scottish New Year celebration of Hogmanay. As Scots immigrated around the world, they took the song with them. Eventually, North American English speakers translated Burns’s dialect into the common lyrics we know today, made famous in part by Guy Lombardo and his band, the Royal Canadians. The group performed the song on New Year’s Eve from 1929 until about 1977. It’s this version that plays every year after the ball drops in Times Square. This year, when you refill your glass with a twinkle of nostalgia in your eye, know that you’re doing exactly what Rabbie Burns would have wanted. Rom-com enthusiasts also know the “Auld Lang Syne” meaning is a topic of conversation in the hit flick When Harry Met Sally, which features a memorable New Year’s Eve scene. Harry, baffled about the song’s meaning, says, “My whole life, I don’t know what this song means. I mean, ‘Should old acquaintance be forgot.’ Does that mean that we should forget old acquaintances? Or does it mean that if we happened to forget them, we should remember them, which is not possible because we already forgot ’em?” Sally replies, “Well, maybe it just means that … we should remember that we forgot them, or something. Anyway, it’s about old friends.” What are the “Auld Lang Syne” lyrics? New Year’s quotes can help you celebrate and reminisce, but there’s nothing like singing along with the crowd at midnight to get you in the holiday spirit. Knowing the “Auld Lang Syne” meaning will help you be better prepared to sing it on New Year’s. Here are the English lyrics to all five verses of Burns’s “Auld Lang Syne.” FIRST VERSE: Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Should old acquaintance be forgot, and old lang syne? CHORUS: For auld lang syne, my dear, For auld lang syne, We’ll take a cup of kindness yet, For auld lang syne. SECOND VERSE: And surely you’ll buy your pint cup! And surely I’ll buy mine! And we’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet, For auld lang syne. CHORUS THIRD VERSE: We two have run about the slopes, And picked the daisies fine; But we’ve wandered many a weary foot, Since auld lang syne. CHORUS FOURTH VERSE: We two have paddled in the stream, from morning sun till dine; But seas between us broad have roared since auld lang syne. CHORUS FIFTH VERSE: And there’s a hand, my trusty friend! And give me a hand o’ thine! And we’ll take a right good-will draught, For auld lang syne.  

CHORUS 

AH: If someone could email me a link to the original article that would be great.

VIETNAMESE MAN WHO DROWNED UP TO 300 CATS A MONTH TO MAKE SOUP CLOSES RESTAURANT DUE TO GUILTY CONSCIENCE

Not the Bee

 

Vietnamese man who drowned 300 cats a month (!!) to make soup closes restaurant due to guilty conscience

Wolfgang Ramsay

Dec 30, 2023 · NottheBee.com

 

Dude.

 

Like, what in the world?

 

This place drowned up to 300 cats a month to make thịt mèo soup and now I'll never look at a cat without seeing it in my mind's eye as a bowl of soup.

 

Believe it or not, cat meat is pretty popular in Vietnam (where this restaurant is located), but this owner had had enough, he just couldn't do it anymore — it wasn't moral. So he closed his restaurant, even though it was all that was keeping his family afloat. And before you go demonizing this guy, I should note that he at one point only served "normal" food, and when that wasn't bringing in enough cash he put cat on the menu.

 

(Eating cat in their culture is believed to bring good luck.)

 

Regardless, the restaurant is closed now, so y'all cat lovers can rejoice.

 

block quote

A Vietnamese restaurant that slaughtered up to 300 cats a month for a stomach-churning soup recipe has closed its doors this month after the owner voiced his moral concerns with the practice.

 

Pham Quoc Doanh, 37, dramatically tore down the sign that advertised cat meat — known as "thịt mèo" — outside his Gia Bảo restaurant in the Thịnh Đán ward of Thái Nguyên in early December, the Humane Society International (HSI) announced.

 

As a result, 20 cats and kittens set to be drowned in order to meet the eatery's demand were freed and placed for local adoption, the organization said.

block quote end

 

I am both happy for the cats and sad for this man's family. But good for him for doing what's right.

 

Real quick, I couldn't believe this when I read it so I'll share it with you:

 

block quote

About 1 million cats — mostly stolen pets and strays — are killed for meat per year in Vietnam, the HSI noted.

 

Polls show that 87% of people in Vietnam have had a pet mysteriously stolen, or know someone whose pet was taken, it added.

block quote end

 

Here's some good news for Doanh's family: When he reached out to Humane Society International they were able to offer him a one-time grant to close down his restaurant and open up a grocery store.

 

block quote

"Now that I've closed my cat slaughter business ...

 

... I feel more peaceful in my mind and feel confident and happy about my future without killing any more animals," Doanh told the outlet.

 

"I will supply a lot of products like drinks, tobacco, sweets, dry food like instant noodles, and make a living for my family that way instead," he said.

block quote end

 

Praying the new business does well so he doesn't have to go back to selling cat soup. 😰

IT'S DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION FOR THE AMERICAN COLLEGE OF SURGIONS OR BUST

National Review

 

It’s DEI or Bust for the American College of Surgeons

By RICHARD T. BOSSHARDT

December 26, 2023 6:30 AM

 

The organization has launched a diversity, equity, and inclusion tool kit to ‘help’ doctors, advocating principles that have no place in medicine.

 

America’s surgeons are not woke enough, according to the American College of Surgeons (ACS). Such is the message of the leadership to fellows of the ACS. In a previous column on this site, I described how the ACS doubled down on anti-racism and DEI at its annual Clinical Congress in Boston this October with courses in its educational program for surgeons. To underscore its ongoing commitment to anti-racism and DEI, the ACS just launched its DEI Toolkit and continues to promote this ideology as though its life depended on it.

 

To say this is puzzling is an understatement, especially given recent trends. Diversity, equity, and inclusion departments throughout the country are being shut down, DEI administrators are being handed their walking papers, and the ideologies of anti-racism and DEI are being increasingly recognized for their illiberal, divisive, and fraudulent nature. Take anti-racism. Even Ibram X. Kendi, who coined the term, is incapable of defining this in a coherent manner. When asked to define anti-racism, he offered: “Antiracism is a collection of antiracist policies leading to racial equity that are substantiated by antiracist ideas.” This is a classic circular argument that no critically thinking person would accept.

 

And, yet, the American College of Surgeons has grabbed onto the ideology of structural racism and just won’t let go. After embracing anti-racism and DEI in 2020 and promoting the ideologies at the 2023 annual Clinical Congress in October, the leadership of the ACS is seeking to further embed anti-racism and DEI in the college and into surgical practices. The tool kit is an exhaustive, some might say exhausting, compilation of everything related to pushing the narrative of systemic and structural racism as the source of disparities including minority representation within the ACS and clinical outcomes in minority surgical patients. If it promotes anti-racism and DEI, it is in the tool kit. Time and space do not permit a thorough dissection of the entire tool kit, but a few examples will suffice to demonstrate the profound ideological tone.

 

The tool kit continues to promote the unbelievably toxic concept that racism infuses surgical care and leads to worse outcomes in minority patients. It specifically references the example of a study purported to show that survival of newborn black babies is better if the doctor is black. Never mind that a critical review of this study showed it to be “catastrophically flawed.”

 

The tool kit repeatedly promotes the use of the Implicit Association Test as a means of assessing racial bias in decision-making and practice despite the fact that the test has been repeatedly and conclusively shown to be “without psychometric evidence of construct or predictive validity.”

 

The ACS has historically been at the forefront of advancing the science and practice of trauma care using time-tested, evidence-based methods of research and application. Trauma is a major source of death and disability in the U.S., with an estimated shortage of 2,400 trauma surgeons at the present time. Rather than focusing on this acute need, the ACS tool kit is expanding, and diluting, “trauma” care to include controversial practices such as appraising patients for adverse childhood experiences and engaging in trauma-informed care. Both of these are based on disputed concepts and do nothing to advance a surgeon’s ability to treat trauma patients.

 

The list of topics covered in the organization’s DEI Toolkit includes every element that supports the fiction of systemic racism: intersectionality, microaggressions, implicit bias, allyship, active bystander, white privilege, and more. Perhaps the most egregious aspect of the tool kit is its relentless persistence of referring to surgeons and patients by their identity groups. If a surgeon does not take into account a patient’s identity group in caring for them, the tool kit asserts that surgical care and outcomes will be compromised. Like all group identity–based practices, the tool kit treats each group, e.g. blacks, as though they were homogenous. All blacks, for example, are victims of oppression and systemic racism, according to this thinking. The traditional tenets of Hippocratic medicine, which focus on the individual in front of the physician, have been, for all intents and purposes, abandoned. Any disparity in outcomes of care of minorities is proof of racial discrimination.

 

One of the most troubling aspects of anti-racism and DEI is the effect on surgical education. Surgery is a very difficult, demanding profession that takes years to master. There is a finite amount of time in residency training to mold a competent surgeon from a fumble-fingered intern. To assume that we can continue to turn out excellent surgeons and simultaneously burden surgical education with the degree of time-consuming indoctrination in anti-racism and DEI demanded by the ACS tool kit is, at best, foolish and futile, and, at worst, dangerous to our patients. I have spoken to many of my surgical peers, and we agree that we are already seeing an erosion of quality in surgery, with many programs turning out surgeons who are not ready to practice independently. I have spoken to surgical residents who report a sense that they are not getting the necessary hands-on clinical and surgical experience to feel confident, while being simultaneously tasked with assimilating and regurgitating anti-racist and DEI ideology.

 

The mission of the ACS is “To Serve All With Skill and Fidelity.” In embracing anti-racism and DEI and devoting precious time and resources to such distractions as the DEI Toolkit while real-world surgical needs remain unmet, the American College of Surgeons is failing in that mission. It continues to do this at its peril.

 

RICHARD T. BOSSHARDT is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons, a senior fellow at DO NO HARM, and a founding fellow at the FOUNDATION AGAINST INTOLERANCE AND RACISM. In 2021 he was censored for life by the leadership of the ACS for opposing the installation of anti-racism and DEI in the ACS. 

A WORD FOR SHARING

I viewed the video in the previous post a few hours after being in the kitchen tonight and spotting a rather large paint drop on a bottle on the stove which must have gotten there while painting the kitchen ceiling recently.

While scraping it off and wiping down the vessel it occurred to me> "without spot (or blemish and wrinkle)".  I felt as though I was being told this as comfort (a word of knowledge and understanding) for my sufferings, as this is God's will. Praise the Lord, Halleluyah! Victory in Jesus!. Amen. 

DEREK PRINCE-WHAT WILL HAPPEN WHEN THIS AGE ENDS

This excerpt from a sermon contains much food for thought and many things Christians have either heard before and need to hear again or may be hearing for the first time. I pray in the name of Jesus Christ it will comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

CANADA FORCING EMPLOYERS TO PROVIDE MENSTRAL PRODUCTS IN GOVERNMENT-CONTROLLED MEN'S ROOMS

Townhall 

 

Canada Forcing Employers to Provide Tampons In Government-Controlled Men's Restrooms

Sarah Arnold

December 28, 2023 5:30 PM

 

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is forcing all federally regulated employers to provide feminine hygiene products to be placed in men's bathrooms in an attempt to accommodate transgender employees.

 

The Left-wing administration will also mandate the iconic Parliament Hill, federal public service departments, crown corporations, banks, airports, and train yards to provide tampons and menstrual pads in all-male restrooms.

 

The amendment was announced in May but went into effect on December 15. It states that feminine hygiene products must be placed in all restrooms regardless of gender to make transgender people more "comfortable."

 

The regulations specify that menstrual products must be in all toilet rooms, regardless of their marked gender. This means that every female-identified, male-identified, and all-gender toilet rooms will need to have menstrual products. Unrestricted access to menstrual products better protects menstruating employees and makes sure that they feel safe to use the toilet room that best reflects their gender. Employers must also make sure a covered container for the disposal of menstrual products is provided. A disposal container must be placed in each toilet room that has one toilet. In rooms with multiple toilets, a disposal container must be in each toilet stall.

 

In 2020, Rachel Ettinger, founder of Here For Her, proposed the petition-- which was later submitted to the House of Commons by her Member of Parliament.

 

"We have to look at menstrual products as a necessity item, just like toilet paper," she said. "You can't provide a truly inclusive space for your employees without providing menstrual products. Not only women or those who identify as women menstruate. Trans men, gender non-conforming, and two-spirit folks menstruate as well, and everyone who menstruates deserves to menstruate with dignity."

 

The woke Canadian government claims that feminine hygiene products are "essential" and "enable menstruating persons to take part fully in the workforce and society at large."

 

However, critics of the policy argue it will lead to unnecessary expenses and the misuse of taxpayer's dollars.

 

Former Canadian conservative Sen. Linda Frum blasted Trudeau's administration, arguing that men do not menstruate.

OBESE BODY POSITIVITY INFLUENCERS KEEP DYING YOUNG

 Washington Examiner

 

Tragic: Obese ‘body positivity’ influencers keep dying young

By Brad Polumbo

December 28, 2023 01:21 PM

 

It might sound extreme to call the “body positivity” movement, which promotes obesity as beautiful and healthy , a left -wing death cult. But a series of recent tragedies suggest that, if anything, this might be an understatement.

 

As the YouTuber Blaire White recently pointed out in a mega-viral video, prominent “body positivity” influencers who promoted and defended obesity for years keep suddenly, tragically dying at a young age.

 

The Daily Mail recently reported on this story, telling the tale of four different overweight influencers who’ve lost their lives.

 

One is a woman named Brittany Sauer, an obese influencer who recently died at the tender age of 28. Her direct cause of death is unknown, but she struggled with severe health problems related to her obesity, including Type 2 diabetes. Tragically, Sauer realized before her death that promoting obesity as healthy and beautiful was a mistake, yet this realization came too late. In one of her last TikTok videos before her death, Sauer warned others not to make the same mistakes.

 

“I ruined my life through food, binge-eating, and lack of self-care,” she said in that November 2022 video. “I just want this to be a warning for other people. … I’m hoping it’s not too late for me this time.”

 

It was.

 

Another TikTok influencer named Taylor LeJeune died in January from a “presumed heart attack,” according to the Daily Mail. He didn’t explicitly or ideologically promote obesity, but his popular videos were of him engaging in insane and extremely unhealthy eating behaviors.

 

“Fat studies” professor Cat Pause, who explicitly questioned whether obesity was even unhealthy, similarly died from unknown causes in March 2022 at just 42.

 

Another woman, Jamie Lopez, starred in a reality TV show promoting her “Super Sized Salon” dedicated to making overweight women feel beautiful, the Daily Mail reports . She did lose some weight before her death but nonetheless died from “heart complications” at age 37 in December 2022.

 

The level of tragedy here is hard to put into words. Each one of these people has loved ones and friends who will desperately mourn their loss and miss their presence in the years to come. And each one clearly had talents and charisma to offer the world, or they’d never have become so popular online. No one should glibly cite their deaths to “own” the other side or lose sight of the heartbreaking reality we’re dealing with here. In fact, it’s exactly for people like these four and their families that we need to do better and challenge the “body positivity” movement’s viral success.

 

Yes, we can’t say definitively in every one of these cases that obesity is what caused their death. But it’s fair to assume it at least played a part in some of the situations. The odds of this pattern being purely coincidental are pretty slim. And we can say with absolute certainty that the message these people conveyed, both explicitly and implicitly, was a deadly one.

 

Extreme obesity shaves 14 years off a person’s average life expectancy, according to the National Institutes of Health. And obesity is now the second-leading cause of preventable death in the United States, behind only cigarette smoking. It’s estimated that obesity-related health problems claim 280,000 lives every year in the U.S., making obesity more deadly than even the opio id epidemic.

 

So, anyone promoting obesity as healthy, and that’s what the entire “Health at Any Size” movement exists to do, is directly spreading health misinformation about something that has killed millions of people over the last several decades.

 

To be clear, bullying, mocking, insulting, or shaming overweight people for their bodies is never acceptable, and it's actually deeply counterproductive, tending to push them further toward the self-destructive behaviors causing their obesity in the first place. But we can be kind while standing firm on the factual realities of obesity and encouraging people to change their ways without being disrespectful or cruel.

 

What we can’t do is simply stand by and, out of fear of offending someone, continue to allow people to spread false, largely unchallenged messages promoting a way of life that’s killing our fellow Americans in breathtaking numbers. It’s time to recognize the “body positivity” movement for the destructive death cult it truly is — and stop encouraging people who are eating their way to an early grave.