Los Angeles Fires Resulted in Progressives Failing the Primary Responsibility of Governance

 In Los Angeles, if one lives in a tinderbox or even if global warming is to blame for wildfires, it is our representatives responsibility to do everything humanly possible to mitigate the fire danger/ damage. First and foremost job of government is public safety, meaning funding the most extensive firefighting infrastructure possible, massive brush removal, cutting fire breaks, build a water infrastructure capable of supporting massive fire fighting endeavors anywhere in the City/ County all year round (one of the issues is California does not fund the private fire fighting infrastructure to be on call out side fire season). And probably the most important, put the most qualified people in charge, IOW scrub DEI and return to hiring people based on merit; Los Angeles, and California has failed these responsibilities in total and the result is a failed state, that can literally do nothing as it is consumed by wildfires.

Greg Gutfeld explained this succinctly, conservatives are about practicality, where progressives are about platitudes. When you have a crisis you need practical solutions, something progressives are incapable of, so California is left in crisis of competence, which the left created by replacing competence with complexion and sexual identity. By definition progressives tend to respond emotionally in their governance, which is okay until there is an actual crisis that requires practical solutions but then they become paralyzed because they have have none, falling back on blaming political platitudes like climate change, which is nothing more than phoney virtue signalling.

And a caveat. Wouldn't it be incredible if California had leadership whose primary concern is not, it wasn't my fault or responsibility and not always pointing fingers at someone else (while simultaneously telling critics now is not the time for finger pointing). The reality is if you are the governor or mayor it is your responsibility, making it your fault. Your job is not to abrogate responsibility, but take charge, take responsibility, first stop the bleeding and then problem solve. The reason poor leaders won't accept responsibility is because by doing so, it makes them responsible for fixing the problem. Good leaders gladly take responsibility and find solutions (eg the necessary trade offs) that will save lives and property in the future. 

In other words, the message to California politicians, you had one job, keep the citizenry safe, and you failed miserably.

Genie Leaves Critical Homelink Programming Step Out of Manual

 I installed a new Genie 7055D garage door opener so I needed to reprogram the opener buttons in my cars. The cars hav Homelink that allows you to sync up garage door opener (s). The process involves clearing any other previously programmed garage openers and then programming the buttons to the new opener (the entire complete procedure is linked below) The vehicle manual and garage door opener manuals both have instructions for this; the problem is the Genie manual is missing a necessary step. Basically it uses a Genie remote already programmed to the garage door opener to program the button in your car. Then there is a  second step where you have to put the opener itself in train or learn mode, to program in the rolling code encryption but the Genie manual completely leaves this necessary part out ( I noticed this part of the manual shows in italics, "abbreviated "). Not only that it doesn't explain that the opener's "program mode", used for programming the Genie remotes and setting the travel limits, is also the "train/learn" mode for the second step of the Homelink programming procedure explained in the vehicle manual (in older Genie models there is a designated "train" or "learn" button). Anyway after several web searches and numerous people complaining about the issue, I found the solution, but it never ceases to be amazed at how poor the documentation in manuals can be.

Lowe's has this PDF manual posted on the Internet that explains this in detail in the programming section Genie Homelink Programming

Why GenZ and Millennials are so Unhappy

From my perspective, man has always been the most satisfied removing himself from the equation; IOW serving something bigger and more noble than himself. In a small way this is what a traditional family is about. When you marry you form a trusting partnership, where suddenly your wants and needs are divided with the wants and needs of someone else; this is defined by the fact that love is a choice and an action, not a feeling. When a child is introduced to such a relationship, the vast majority of parents say they reach an epoch where for the first time in their lives, they encounter something that is more important than themselves. One should also keep in mind that social norms (that are the bain of Progressive thinkers) are not arbitrary, they evolved, discarding negative trade-offs and instituting net positive positive trade-offs. When we discard social norms with limited consequential knowledge, we do so at our peril.

We now have several generations that can't understand this because social media does not demand you communicate and share ideas, rather one embraces a Nietzsche dystopian worldview, that since we killed God, I will create my own since of morality. The problem with this is we are all too selfish to even attempt such a feat. The end result is the worship of self and the constant demand for joy (and if I am not joyful all the time in my relationships or marriage, I must trash my marriage and/or relationships until I find the perpetual joy that everyone on TikTok has apparently found) but that is not how life is. Look at the result the last two generations are the most anxious and depressed generations on record; many state they literally don't know how to form relationships. I believe this is the bases for everything from fentanyl epidemic, to gender theology. The more pain you are in the more self absorbed you will become and you will forever be trying to define the cause of that pain (which will probably be wrong) and find some way to alleviate the pain.

Life is impossibly hard and we all suffer an endless succession of one unfinished circumstance after another. If you make joy your moment to moment goal you will be doomed to constant failure. Rather true enlightenment comes from toiling and caring for others and as you work, you will encounter peace and moments joy.

We are Due a Christian Revival

The US is due another Christian revival. We rely on technology to solve our problems, which is something it is not capable of doing; as Jesus said there will always be the poor. The woke theology is literally the same as Maoist theology. It wants to destroy the past by judging it by contemporary standards. Gender theology is based on the lie that if you are unhappy, there is something wrong with you, a partial byproduct of social media were people show a false life devoid of it's harsh realities. As Thoreau said, most people live a life of quite desperation, desperately seeking it's meaning (the song that is within them); the curse of being sentient is the life long search for the reason we exist. The answer can not come from human centered philosophy such a as Marxism, it can only come from recognition that life is impossibly hard and we need to seek a power greater than ours to survive it. Most psychologist will begrudgingly admit that there is a psychological need for religion, a void in our psyche that can only be filled by something greater than ourselves; this what Nietzsche meant when he described the result of eliminating God from our lives.

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?

— Nietzsche

Nietzsche describes the void of eliminating God and how we must become God's ourselves to fill it. But history has shown the impossibility of mankind creating it's own morality (the basis of Marxism) because it assumes a fantastical malubility of humanity that simply doesn't exist and ignores that mankind is too absorbed in itself to create it's own morality. God did not give us a moral code to control us (he did after all give us free will), instead it was to protect us from the wages of sin. IOW, God does not punish us for our sins, it is simply the result of our selfish behavior that causes more pain and hardship. We also live in a broken world were even those that try to live an unselfish life will suffer, but without God and fellowship we all suffer alone.

Shall we gather at the river?

Where bright angel feet have trod

With its crystal tide forever

Flowing by the throne of God…

Living in a World of Gender Dysphoria/Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy

The vast majority of what goes for transgenderism today is of course nothing of the kind. The basis of transgenderism is gender dysphoria, which is a psychosis; dysphoria meaning the psychic belief that some part or parts of your body that you were born with don't belong; as an example a person suffering from dysphoria might believe their left arm is a a foreign body and some have gone so far as amputing the limb. Also keep in mind that a symptom of dysphoria is clinical depression. However what passed as pseudo dysphoria today seems to fall under one of two categories. The first is depression (to date no study has shown that gender affirmation of any kind cures their depression or suicide ideations), and second a feeling of alienation which is usually directly related to social media; sometimes called the Facebook syndrome. With the Facebook syndrome, young people are led to believe that everyone else is joyful and leading a fulfilling life but them. This often combined with the symptoms of puberty which leads teenagers and young adults, experiencing the confusion and discomfort with their changing bodies,  creates a natural feeling of alienation. Add to that being an adolescent in a world where social media has caused chronic alienation,  results in the false belief they are experiencing something unique and there is something seriously wrong with them, and the woke zealots default diagnosis is of course gender dysphoria by proxy.

The second category is even more troublesome and that is parents that push a gender dysphoria diagnosis on their children. While I said parents, more accurately I should have said parent as the vast majority of parents that seeks gender affirmation for their children are single mothers. Further at least one study has shown the vast majority of single mothers seeing gender affirmation for their child suffer from a personality disorder*; the most common is Borderline Personality Disorder**. The point being these parents are wanting the attention that goes along with being a parent of a gender dysphoria child, a form Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy*** (something that should be of no surprise since Munchausen Syndrome by proxy is a symptom of a personality disorder). The primary problem here is the symptoms used to diagnose gender dysphoria in children are completely arbitrary and generally fall under the category on normal child behavior. Keep in mind that one of the main attributes of a child is their unending desire to please adults and their parents in particular. So significant is this desire that police investigators have to go to specialized schools to learn how to interview children. The reason the child is seeking the approval of the investigator and will agree with almost any premise if they believe that it will result win their approval. This was made remarkably clear in the McMartin preschool sexual child abuse investigation and trail in the 1980s, where the children agreed with the most outrageous accusations introduced by the investigators including underground tunnels and satanic torture chambers that existed only in the imagination of the investigators. The point being if a parent wants a child to be transgender, a child will more than likely agree with whatever premise the parent will offer up. IOW a child is just as likely to agree they are a dragon that lives in the body of a three foot tall little boy, as to agree they are a little girl with a penis, if a parent tells the child either is possible and/or the child believes it is something desirable by their parent.

*"A personality disorder is a type of mental disorder in which you have a rigid and unhealthy pattern of thinking, functioning and behaving. A person with a personality disorder has trouble perceiving and relating to situations and people. This causes significant problems and limitations in relationships, social activities, work and school."

**"People with borderline personality disorder may experience intense mood swings and feel uncertainty about how they see themselves. Their feelings for others can change quickly, and swing from extreme closeness to extreme dislike. These changing feelings can lead to unstable relationships and emotional pain...People with borderline personality disorder also tend to view things in extremes, such as all good or all bad. Their interests and values can change quickly, and they may act impulsively or recklessly."

***Munchausen by proxy -- is a psychological disorder marked by attention-seeking behavior by a caregiver through those who are in their care...  The person with MSP (usually the mother) gains attention by seeking medical help for exaggerated or made-up symptoms of a child in their care. As health care providers strive to identify what's causing the child's symptoms, the deliberate actions of the parent or caretaker can often make the symptoms worse.

There is also a third category that has nothing to do with gender dysphoria, that being transgender women (men protraying themselves as women) to compete against biological women in sports activities. The vast majority of these men appear to be frustrated they are not competitive in their chosen sport when competing against fellow men, so they announce they are actually women in men's bodies and go on to dominate women's sports. In essence this is sexual misappropriation and demonstrates that progressives have never really embraced women's rights, instead they are simply anti convention to the extreme and will latch onto any belief system (outlandish or legitimate) if it challenges the status quo. IOW, progressives only advanced women's rights until it became main stream and now they've supplanted (and are excluding) women's rights with transgender rights, pretty much eliminating 100 year fight for women's rights and simply handed those hard fought for rights over to a minority of men who can't except their physical limitations as male athletes. Almost by definition woke theology was abandoned any and all suffering of biological women, because they are seen as the enemy of transgender women (men protraying themselves as women) because they represent reality, something transgender women can not tolerate, because the reality is you can never change the sex you were born as.

Woke Theology; the End of the Morality Play

It's inaccurate to believe that love conquers all is a proper theme. Practically every thing ever written (including movies and games) are not about love, rather they are morality plays. Certainly love is a part, but the central theme is not love, it's about what love drives you to. Do you do the right thing or the wrong thing and if you do the wrong thing, do you repent (meaning change your mind) and make things right? The purveyors of woke philosophy, such as the new Disney wants to change this by presenting woke theology and transgenderism, giving up everything you know is right and pretend the world is as every person individually wants it to be, ignoring science, biology and critical thinking, because they all show the folly in such a world view where all areas of pathology are celebrated as a life choices and anything curative is viewed as hatred and labeled a phobia. In essence woke theology is just giving up on reality because it is too painful and creating a dream world to replace the harsh truths of reality and the struggle of being alive.

"We are a decade into the largest epidemic of adolescent mental illness ever recorded.

Why the Mental Health of Liberal Girls Sank First and Fastest

"We are now 11 years into the largest epidemic of adolescent mental illness ever recorded"  Interesting how this tends to also align itself with gender affirmation, especially amongst adolescent females. At first there was a denial that transgenderism was a form of mental illness (dysphoria). However that changed to gender affirmation medical intervention/ surgery as being the cure for dysphoria. However it turned out there is literally no scientific empirical evidence this is true; it was literally made up (practically every study done on transgenderism shows the vast majority suffering from transgenderism turn out to be either homosexual or will grow out it). The reality is one of the primary symptoms of dysphoria is depression and having suicidal tendencies, and while affirmation and medical intervention tends to cloud the depression temporarily, due to being caught up and distracted by the misguided belief they are curing themselves ( pushed by over zealous advocates), eventually the depression and suicidal tendencies return, often within 6 years of medical intervention, which is often exasperated by being abandoned and ridiculed by the transsexual community, if they start to question whether affirmation was the correct course to truly make their lives better. IOW transgenderism affirmation is unfortunately nothing more than a cruel trend, that is leaving devastated women permanently sterile due to hormone therapy and mutilated by surgery. What I found profoundly sad was most transgender men and women were most regretful because they realized they simply could never actually change their sex, that they were surgically altered to appear to be the opposite sex (and would have to take powerful drugs their entire life to continue the illusion), but it would forever be an illusion; and they will always remain the sex they were born as.