The Most Important Thing: Bell pepper sucks (but I'm eating it anyway)
Bell pepper is not the worst food in the world but if you take the badness of a food multiplied by how commonly it seems to be distributed in what is otherwise supposed to be edible material, its ubiquity makes it one of the very worst. Yet today on the show, somewhere around 11:45 AM on KOA's Facebook Live page (http://facebook.com/koacolorado) I will take a big bite of an orange bell pepper in return for which Producer Dragon must watch a video sent by "the other Ross" (iHeart engineer and all-around good dude) of a generator at our sister station KHOW's broadcast tower location. The fact that I'm willing to essentially coerce Dragon to watch the video and that he's willing to do so if he coerces me to eat one of the worst foods shows just how stupid and cruel we both are. So, now, on with the show...
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One More Thing: One of the world's best apps?
Well, this has to be on the list for one of the world’s best apps. Axios reports that in 2019, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky campaigned on “putting the state in a smartphone.”
He created a new government position, naming one of his deputies, 32-year-old Mykhailo Fedorov, as Minister for Digital Transformation.
The new app, called Diia, partially funded with $25 million from the United States, is quite amazing, and is now on 70% of smartphones in the country, used by 19 million Ukrainians. Some features: a digital ID, registering a business without being asked to pay a bribe, formerly commonplace in Ukraine, filing a claim if a home is damaged by Russian shelling, purchasing war bonds, and reporting Russian troop movements. I guess it’s not surprising that a nation with so many expert programmers could do it, but still, that’s one heck of an app.
App lets Ukrainians pay their taxes... or report Russian troops (Axios)
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And, yes, one MORE thing: Target's blunder
A few weeks ago my wife came home from shopping and said to me, "You have to go to Target and see how aggressively they're promoting 'Pride' clothing including for kids and babies." She described it to me, so I didn't go. But for my wife, who is exceptionally "socially liberal" (went to art school, huge % of male friends were gay, close relatives who are gay, etc) to notice and dislike Target's decision really struck me. And, as usual, my wife was ahead of the curve because in the couple of weeks since there has been a national outcry against Target. The CEO has put out a note trying to explain why he decided to move some of the stuff away from the front of stores and remove some of the most offensive products. And in the last 8 trading days or so, TGT stock is down 12.4% with Walmart down 3.8% and the S&P 500 up 0.4% (tech stocks have been very strong in recent days.) That's a loss of about $9 billion in Target's stock market valuation aka "market cap".
The video below (which has a couple of swear words) gives you a sense of what folks are objecting to. And I'm among those folks. "Light binding effect" on a swimsuit for a young child? (A "binder" is a piece of clothing that can resemble a very tight t-shirt or loop of slightly elasticized material designed to compress females' breasts so they can pass as male.) And "tuck-friendly" for a young child? No freakin' way.
Target has always been fairly "progressive." The problem with these companies isn't "supporting pride". It's aggressively shoving significant cultural changes in Americans' faces far before Americans are ready. Furthermore, it's doing so on behalf of groups that 1) represent a small fraction of the nation and 2) are mostly already treated quite well. ("Mostly" does a lot of work there because there are certainly some folks who range from disapproval to hatred of LGBT folks, the latter of which is absolutely unacceptable. But still, there is broad acceptance of, for example, gay marriage, in America now while acceptance of transgender folks is in a much earlier stage and may not ever reach the same levels.) Differentiating, for example, from blacks coming out of the 1860s or 1960s, who were a much larger part of the population and were treated much worse. Also, this particular current culture war has an aspect of intentionally antagonizing evangelical Christians that seems ill-considered but, I repeat, intentional.
As usual, companies seem to be driving into this debate thinking there's an easy turnaround area where they can just spin and go out the way they came in. But when they get there they realized the bridge has collapsed behind them and the only way out is through a minefield: Newsom knocks Target CEO for pulling LGBTQ merchandise from stores (yahoo.com)
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Today's Guests
PK Kaiser is Arapahoe County Assessor. We'll answer listener questions about appealing your property tax valuation.
PK's bio: https://www.arapahoegov.com/DocumentCenter/View/8131/PK_Kaiser_Bio-2022?bidId=
Assessor's website: Assessor | Arapahoe County, CO - Official Website
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Chris Boyer is a retired US Marine and Executive Director of the Honor Bell Foundation, to which I am a donor. We'll talk about your opportunities to see and hear the Honor Bell this Memorial Day weekend. More info here: Events — Honor Bell Foundation: a Colorado Veteran Non Profit Organization
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Darrell Watson is running against communist Candi CdeBaca for Denver City Council. Let's do everything we can to help him win. I made a small financial contribution to his campaign yesterday. https://watsonfordenver.com/
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Other Stuff
This is an incredible story, well worth your time: The Billion-Dollar Ponzi Scheme That Hooked Wall Street, Warren Buffett, and the U.S. Treasury - The Atlantic
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A story for Producer Dragon: Weather Radar Picks Up Miller Moth Migration in Colorado (k99.com)
UPDATE: OMG, a listener just sent me this: Tasty Moth Recipes (trygve.com)
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THIS: Overprotection Is a Guarantee for Unhappiness - The American Spectator
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Another example of "pride" and LGBT stuff being pushed WAY too far: https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/05/25/lawmakers-blast-no-parents-allowed-lgbtq-pride-youth-carnival
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Who's been driving massive growth in sales of luxury goods? To a large degree, it's been the folks who probably shouldn't be spending/wasting their money that way: Dior, Tiffany, Le Creuset: Why we’re buying luxury goods like crazy - Vox
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A remarkable advance in medical science: Brain and Spine Implants Allow Paralyzed Man to Walk Naturally Again (original at NY Times)
Brain–spine interface allows paralysed man to walk using his thoughts (nature.com)
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18 years in prison for Oath Keepers leader due to his actions on and leading up to January 6, 2021: ‘Peril to our democracy’: Chilling lines from the judge who sentenced the Oath Keepers’ leader (msn.com)
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Now that's a mad whale: Orcas attacking boats off European coast, scientists say - The Washington Post
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Must-read piece by Robert Bryce about why the massive electrical grid expansion necessary to achieve the wild dreams of "electrify everything" environmentalists and renewable-energy grifters is not just unlikely; it's impossible on any time scale that matters today. https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/47300-gigawatt-miles-from-nowhere.
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This is good news. It's insane how many able-bodied people without kids to take care of don't have to work in order to be able to receive other people's money. How Medicaid work requirements might impact Colorado (coloradosun.com)
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Biblical history: Ultraviolet light reveals to scientists a hidden Bible passage 1,500 years later | Fox News
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Today's Videos
Coming out as straight to your liberal parents
Are you sure you want to know?
And now for something completely different: A calm, if slightly odd with the music, send-off into our holiday weekend