Ironhold

The controversy is that officially undergoing gender reassignment has permanent consequences. Even the hormones and other chemicals can be life-altering if someone holds to the routine for too long regardless of whether or not they actually undergo the physical surgery. Basically, it's something that there's no going back from. Because of this, quite a few individuals, including individuals who did transition, are objecting to the prospect of minors transitioning, and feel that only legal adults who have undergone psychiatric evaluation should begin the process. This is where the controversy and legal battles are coming from, whether or not minors are informed and mature enough to consent to the process.

Speaking as an MBA with marketing training? Any group, person, or organization can say whatever they want one month of the year. It's what they *do* the other 11 that you have to keep an eye out on. For example, right now there's a to-do on Twitter because the Saudi Arabian branches of several global businesses are *not* displaying the "Pride" images and statements on the official global accounts, and people are grilling these companies as to why.

Utah has a lot of issues that are restricting the amount of land that's ultimately available for developers, and that's making the cost of the land itself go up regardless of what it's being used for. Utah also has more complicated issues with distribution that can make it harder for goods produced outside of the state to circulate, further driving the price up. Throw in the surging population as people head to Utah from elsewhere (be it companies seeking regional headquarters facilities, families seeking the mountain air, or folks fleeing California), and you've got the cost of living edging ever upward. Even in 1994, when I was a kid in Utah on vacation, I noticed how much higher the prices of certain goods were. For example, most of the toys I was in to were about 20% to 25% more expensive, such as a Micro Machines play set I priced for $8 in my part of Texas going for $10 there. As far as Texas goes, it's a mix of factors. There's more land for development once you get outside of the major cities, helping to drive the cost of living down. Many areas also have economies where the bulk of the jobs pay at or slightly lower than national average, and so retailers don't charge as much and generally carry cheaper products on their shelves. Folks in a lot of these areas also tend towards doing more with less, reducing the demand for certain types of durable goods while increasing demand for others or the means to fix what they have. Throw in the lack of a state income tax and a legal climate that's overall more friendly for businesses than in many other states [1] and depending upon where in Texas you come to you can find that, overall, you can live here a little more cheaply if you're willing to do some give-and-take. [1] As an example of this? A few years ago, controversial entertainment industry critic Richard C. Meyer launched a crowd-funding campaign to produce his own comic book. He only intended an ashcan-level run so he could establish copyright and say he published something, but so many people flooded the campaign his profit margins enabled him to subsidize a full retail-level print run *on top of* what he'd need to satisfy his backers. Thus, he struck a deal with indie publisher Antarctic Press to print the book. Mark Waid, a comic book industry veteran, had been feuding with Meyer on social media and so reacted to the news of the publishing deal by posting inflammatory remarks online and declaring his intentions to contact Antarctic personally. He did in fact call them up, and within a few hours Antarctic cancelled the deal. Thing is, Antarctic is located in San Antonio, and at the time Meyer was based in Austin. This meant that their deal was subject to Texas state business law, and under Texas' hyper-strict "tortious interference" laws Waid was prima facie *guilty* since he said he was going to get the company to cancel the deal. Oh, and since Waid is a legal resident of California, that meant it was an inter-state dispute and would now be heard by a *federal* judge even though the matter would involve Texas state law. Waid's legal team drug the case out for the better part of 3 years, during which time most of his allies abandoned him lest they get caught up in matters as well. Meyer and Waid eventually settled out of court, and so far as I know Waid's never so much as mentioned Meyer again.

The church didn't decide to plunk it down in the middle of a busy district; the busy district came to the temple.

If you were to take a look at a modern (2000s-plus) marketing program at your average business college, you'd be in tears for how much of it is essentially psychological warfare. The general idea is to get inside of a person's head, see what makes them tick, and use it against them in such a fashion that they're doing what you want them to do while still thinking it's their own idea. Everything from the arrangement of elements in an advertising copy to the arrangement of products in an actual store is designed to attack your grey matter and part you from your money. This overall tendency was noted as early as the 1980s (for example, Marvel Comics writer Larry Hama, himself a military veteran, made fun of this when he introduced the G. I. Joe team's psychological warfare expert in 1987), but it's really ramped up since then. Throw in the criminal justice training I've had and my 20+ years of experience dealing with cyber-bullies and other individuals online, and yeah... let's just say there are things I don't expect to be forgiven for. A big part of what I do now as a newspaper writer is break down for my readers what sorts of games companies and other entities are playing with them and how they can turn it around. As far as the transportation sector goes, this is another unpaid bill. For several generations now, kids in the US were made to dance to the drum beat of "college is for winners, trade school is for losers". To go to a trade school, even if that's where someone's aptitude lay, was seen as "failure" and could bring shame and stigma. In fact, there are college types who won't even talk to anyone who doesn't likewise have a college degree of their same level. As a result, we're desperately short-handed when it comes to many of the skilled trades, including heavy vehicle operators. There just aren't enough truckers, train conductors, forklift operators, aircraft pilots, naval crew members, and others to keep the supply lines properly running.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ding_Dong,_Texas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence,_Texas They're both real communities.

Bear in mind that the temple was built *first*. Once the roads were installed, the church moved in, bought the site, and started construction. Everything you see surrounding the temple came *after* the temple was completed.

We currently have one in San Antonio (about an hour south of Austin, or 3 hours from where I live), and one's been announced for Austin. Fort Hood owns so much land, and there's so much in the way of poor urban planning in the area, that it's unlikely we'll have a temple any closer than that unless the church convinces a rancher to sell land.

For those who are thinking of moving to my part of Texas but working in Austin, there are three primary ways to get there - One way is to take Farm-To-Market Road 2657 west of Copperas Cove and ride it south to the city of Burnet, where you catch a state highway through to the heart of Austin. However, there's a part of 2657 where you go down a hillside and *immediately* wind up on a bridge over a valley. If your car isn't up to snuff, you're not paying attention, or the road is slick, you're going over the railing. Also, the portion of the state highway that runs through Austin has been converted into a toll road. Another way is to take State Highway 195 from Killeen south through Ding Dong & Florence before winding up at Georgetown. But parts of that route are so dangerous, especially at night, that Fort Hood once forbade its soldiers from taking that route. This is due to the numerous blind curves and elevation changes once you get south of Florence. Hence most people taking I-14 / US 190 to Belton, then taking I-35 south to Austin. It's a little more out of the way and is often crowded, but it's safer.

30 to 45? Double that. Although there are three ways to get to Austin from here, two of them are physically dangerous if you don't know what you're doing and/or there's inclement weather. So most everyone takes I-35, causing it to be jammed. That being said, depending upon what kind of work you're doing and what job skills you have, you might find something in this area anyway. While the powers-that-be in Copperas Cove *insist* upon keeping Cove as a bedroom community (I'll believe that they're serious about the Hills shopping center when I see them break ground...), Killeen, Harker Heights, Belton, and Gatesville are all plowing ahead on expansion, with Belton actually now hosting its own Comic Con each August. Failing this, you've also got Temple and Waco to the northeast, both of which are major cities in their own right. Focus on what job listings you can find for your career field, and that'll tell you where it'd be best to set up camp, especially with everyone from California and New York coming in & driving up housing prices.

It's the local economies. For example, I live in Central Texas. Find Austin on a map, follow I-35 north until you hit Belton, then follow I-14 / US Highway 190 west until you get to Fort Hood. That's the part of the state I live in. Land here has traditionally been quite cheap, and as a result housing is plentiful. Thus, there were periods where it was actually cheaper to *buy* than rent, with military service members using local real estate companies as property managers for their homes while they were deployed abroad or reassigned elsewhere. This has helped to keep the overall cost-of-living down. Not only that, remember Fort Hood. A rather large chunk of the people who live and work here are tied to the base in some fashion. They could be actual military service members (in which case they can seek on-base housing instead of living in the city), civilians who work for the military in some fashion (such as clerks or working at an on-base eatery), retirees, or private companies who have contracts to support the military. This means local wages are often tethered to Uncle Sam's wallet, and so anyone who seeks to charge what people on military wages can't afford is going to be in trouble sooner rather than later if they don't have product that is affordable. For example, if you were to look around at the vehicles everyone drives, you'll see that people tend to have vehicles like the Kia Soul, Dodge Charger, Toyota Tacoma, and Chevy Suburban. "Luxury" brands like Cadillac and Lexus are rare, but not unheard of. If you're a young hotshot you're likely driving a Dodge Challenger, although you might find yourself up against the occasional Chevy Camaro, Chevy Corvette, or Nissan 370Z depending upon which neighborhood you blunder into. I haven't seen a Lamborghini around here in over a decade, and the only Porsche I'm aware of is a vintage number from the 80s someone keeps for car shows.

Something *else* that occurred to me while sketching out a different story idea. You have a daughter. She's the light of your life. You and your spouse daydream about her wedding. It's hard for you when she first moves out. It's even harder when she indicates that she's in a relationship with someone but is somewhat vague about who it is. It turns out that she somehow wound up in a relationship with a celebrity, superhero, covert operative, or someone else in that vein, someone who is constantly under either a spotlight or a microscope. For the sake of your own daughter's safety, she and her lover cannot even admit that they are in a relationship, at least not until after they are married. ...And speaking of marriage, forget whatever plans you had for a glorious ceremony. That same need for secrecy also means that it's going to have to be a tiny wedding in some place unexpected at an unorthodox time of day (for example, a temple two states over at 8 AM) so that they can be in and out in a way that minimizes chance encounters. Their wedding can't even be announced until well after the wedding. Once it's all out of the bag you can have whatever reception(s) you want. But they'll have to be well after the event. How would you feel?

In my area, a house that size in that condition would normally only go for $85K at most because of where it's located. The housing market has gotten so hot they were asking an extra $50K for it.

I first moved to my present city in 1990 when the Army reassigned my dad to the local military base. As we moved over Winter Break, we didn't have a lot of time and so a relative agreed to put us up for the rest of the school year. My parents used the time to find a house, and we found a nice rental property about a mile or so away from where we already were. Not only was it a nice neighborhood, it meant that my brothers and I could stay in the same schools. The house itself had an odd layout (for example, since it was on an intersection, the front door faced one street but the garage another), and we had to install drainage to keep it from flooding, but there were two massive pear trees in the back yard that kept us in fresh fruit. About two years later, however, we were informed that the landlord was coming back and so we had to vacate. Thus, we moved to our present house on the other end of town. I drive past the old house when I'm running my delivery route, and noticed that after what seemed like years of being empty it was now being cleaned up and repaired. Sure enough, a for sale sign finally went up in the front yard. A sense of nostalgia caused me to look up the online real estate listings and I did a double-take. Yes, they removed a wall that was in an awkward location, a wall I honestly thought was structural. ...But the bathrooms and the kitchen were the exact same as they'd been when we lived there 30 years ago, barring the additional 30 years' wear and tear. Yet despite this the listing was for $135,500 and there was a tag reading "sale pending". Either the housing market in my part of Texas is getting super hot right now, or something screwy is going on. Anyone else have any such encounters regarding houses they once lived in?

I've been taking a look at mass shooting events since the early 2000s when I was super into politics. What I found is that the vast majority of shooters I looked at either: 1. had overt warning signs of mental instability 2. had a substance abuse issue 3. were known to the authorities, who failed to intervene 4. some combination thereof For example, the guy who shot up Virginia Tech was clearly unwell his entire life, but his family feared taking him for treatment because they presumed there would be a stigma. Or with Nidal Hassan, his co-workers at Walter Reed Army Hospital had every reason to believe he'd become unstable, but feared that since they were white and he was Middle Eastern any attempts to report him would end with *them* being flagged as "racist" and so they never spoke up. The school shooter in Florida? Numerous reports to law enforcement about erratic, unstable, and potentially dangerous behavior. No action. Sandy Hook? The shooter was *legally prohibited* from owning guns, so his mother bought them and he took them from her after killing her. Southerland Springs church shooting? The shooter was dishonorably discharged from the Air Force for domestic violence, but the Air Force failed to report this to the federal background check database and so it never turned up. Et cetra. It's this, the human element, that needs to be examined more closely.

I'm here in *Texas* and the news is flying fast & furious. Give it a few hours for the media to get the facts together.

Whenever WITSEC is in the media, it's even odds that the person being depicted is a whistleblower who is in imminent danger of physical retaliation, such as an accountant who realizes that the company they're working for is doing something funny with their money or a shipping clerk who realizes that what's being loaded on the trucks doesn't match the manifests. It's those kinds of hypothetical individuals I'm wondering about, innocent bystanders who are witness to a crime and are now in danger for having reported it.

That being said, a personal anecdote: Back when I was finishing my undergraduate work, a hurricane was projected to hit along the Texas / Mexico border. One of my brothers was living there with his family, and we agreed to host them for a few days. The catch? The college I was taking my 300 and 400 - level classes through was slowly migrating to doing examinations online so as to allow more actual in-class time for lectures and demonstrations. The same day that my brother and his family were due to arrive was the same day that my midterm in one of my capstone classes was to go online. To be more specific, the test would go live a mere hour before my brother and his family were due in. So I explained to my parents that at this time on this date, I needed to be online to do my test. Otherwise, there was no guarantee I'd be able to get it done with everyone around. Shortly before my test was supposed to start, my mom decided that the lawn needed to be mowed. So I pulled the mower out (it was a gasoline-powered mower), got it ready to go, and started it for her. I then went inside, fired up my laptop, and logged onto the college's online portal. Cue my test. Dad came home from work about 10 minutes into my test, meaning that I was still taking it and my mom was still out front mowing. He'd had a bad day at work, and so had forgotten that I said I had a test that evening. He saw my mom out front mowing the lawn, saw me on my laptop, and exploded. It took me three attempts, during which I had to repeatedly show him the screen, to explain that I was taking my midterm and that mom decided to mow the lawn despite this. For obvious reasons, although I finished my midterm I failed it miserably. Fortunately, I blew the class project out of the water and got a 90% on my final exam, so was still able to pass. Just another example of how hurricanes can affect people who don't even live near the path of one.

Also - Just because you're not close to the coastline does not mean that you'll be unaffected. I live four hours northwest of Houston, Texas, which is on the coast. You'd think that such a distance would offer protection from anything going wrong, correct? Except... 1. The sheer total area that's affected by a hurricane is so great that if something was to hit Houston, I could still reasonably expect strong storms in my area. 2. Evacuees fleeing Houston could easily come over to my part of Texas, if not further out, in order to get out of the direct area of effect. This would present an immediate need for charitable assistance, lodging, and supplies as these people have to find resources and a place to stay while they're up here. 3. Houston is a major shipping port, so anything going in or out of Houston would be delayed until the hurricane passed and the damage was cleaned up. So that's physical goods and resources tied up for the duration. If you live within 4 - 8 hours of an area that is going to get hit, you can reasonably expect local-area disruptions. Plan accordingly.

In December 2019, I had a feeling I needed to purchase a couple of cases of US military rations (and a case of low-sodium civilian equivalents) that I saw on Amazon. When the Covid lockdowns hit, we still had those cases, plus a large supply of bottled water, sitting in the house. We felt comfort in knowing that if anything ever happened to the local food supply, my parents and I had military rations for a while. When the lockdown was lifted and family decided to come up for Thanksgiving, my parents decided that the rations were now just taking up space and put them in storage. They were *still* in the storage facility when the 2021 blizzard hit Texas, leaving us without power for three days. It was only *then* that my parents understood why I'd felt so compelled to stock up, as instead of spending those three days living off of tuna sandwiches and soup we could have had actual, solid food.

Had an idea for a series premised on a couple of characters being in witness protection. This led me to wonder... What would the church do if a member wound up in witness protection? Would there be some way that they could signal church authorities of who they really are so that their membership could continue? Would they be required to join the church all over again and have their ordinances done twice?

And it's an *orange* kitty, too...

My mother's attending physician misread the ultrasound and told her that I'd be born with a terminal condition. He wanted her to abort and try again. She went to the temple and felt inspired to continue the pregnancy. My birth certificate was filed with the *pathology* department. Welcome to the wonderful world of military health care.

As I've mentioned before, I have an MBA and have been trained in what is essentially psychological warfare. This has allowed me to predict several things that have happened over the years, even if only in general terms. I've been telling everyone for some time now that we're looking at a period of great cultural, societal, and even legal upheaval as a lot of unpaid bills come due and the consequences of the last few decades' "social experiments" come about. ...And yet there are people who are *still* taken by surprise when such-and-such event happens despite my warning that such a thing could occur. It's frustrating, I agree.

In regards to Covid - When the vaccines first came out, I had a strong feeling that I needed to wait as long as humanly possible before getting my vaccines. Well, my hand was forced in the summer of 2021. I had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but it was only if vaccinated. I got both Moderna shots, and the second shot, combined with the manual labor I was doing that day, laid me flat with dangerously high blood pressure. Well, come fall 2021 the Associated Press is reporting that five different European medical boards are investigating the Moderna vaccine after allegations of it causing... cardiovascular health issues in certain populations. I have a heart condition, and so had I known about this I'd have asked for a different vaccine. I think that's why I was feeling that I needed to wait, because I needed to read about these reports so I could make a more informed choice for the sake of my health.