Bits & Bytes

BABYLON BEE: Warning … this is not for children and it’s not even remotely funny. It is, however, accurate and well done. So your choice or not to CLICK https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNj7FYV7nmM [3:46] to see the Bee’s Mulan parody of “I’ll Make a Man Out of You.”

BORDER: The Archdiocese of Mexico has warned that the huge increase in migrants has overwhelmed the shelters run by the Roman Catholic Church, creating “a true humanitarian crisis.”

• https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/255605/archdiocese-of-mexico-warns-migrant-reception-centers-are-overwhelmed

CANNABIS: Currently, 23 states, three U.S. territories, and Washington, D.C., have legalized marijuana use, with another eight decriminalizing it. Recent studies are showing disturbing side effects from recreational use of THC. One survey of more than 2,500 teens and found that 70% of THC users experience anxiety symptoms compared to 40% of non-users. Another study found that teens using cannabis recreationally are two to four times as likely to develop psychiatric disorders, including depression and suicidality, compared to teens who don’t use cannabis.

• https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/money-in-cannabis-industry-is-overshadowing-mental-damage-to-kids-expert-5507364

CATHOLIC: A new survey of 1,000 Catholics found that 95% of those who attend Mass at least once a week believe in the true presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. Among self-identified Catholics who only attend Mass a few times a year, that number drops to 51%. Only 3% of the respondents said they attend daily Mass at least some of the time; this is too small of a sample to be statistically significant, but I’m betting if you surveyed 1,000 of those (us), the number who believe that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist would approach 100%.

• https://catholicvote.org/survey-9-10-mass-attendees-believe-real-presence-jesus-eucharist/
• https://polination.blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/90b45-eucharistpollseptember23.pdf

DISINFORMATION: Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, NBC News, Associated Press, and others marked today with tributes to Matthew Shepard, who was pistol whipped, tied to a fence in freezing conditions, then set on fire in 1998 by two men who allegedly were gay-hating rednecks.

But according to The Book of Matt, the motivation behind these heinous acts was not homophobia, but drugs. The book’s author, investigative journalist Stephen Jimenez, spent 13 years interviewing more than 100 people with a connection to the case. His conclusion is that, far from being a gay martyr, Matthew Shepard was actually an intelligent and once promising young man who ruined his life with drugs and promiscuity.

At the time of his death, he was an HIV-positive, meth-addicted, homosexual prostitute who suffered from bouts of depression. He also bought and sold crystal meth. The two men who tortured and killed him didn’t care that he was gay; they wanted to steal his meth stash, which was valued at $10K. In fact, one of Shepard’s killers was his pimp, with whom he’d had occasional sexual encounters.

IMO, the worst thing to come out of the Shepard homophobia myth was hate crime legislation, which set the deeply dangerous precedent of criminalizing thoughts. Crime is supposed to be about what a person has done, not about why they did it. Motive may be important in helping a jury discern guilt and it should certainly factor into sentencing, but it should never be labeled as a crime in and of itself.

• https://notthebee.com/article/the-left-is-still-going-with-the-narrative-that-matthew-shepard-was-killed-for-being-gay-instead-of-the-fact-that-he-was-a-meth-head-who-got-into-an-argument-with-an-ex-lover-over-drugs-
• https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/26/the-truth-behind-americas-most-famous-gay-hate-murder-matthew-shepard
• https://www.amazon.com/Book-Matt-Hidden-Matthew-Shepard/dp/1586422146

E-BIKES: CLICK https://twitter.com/FRNSW/status/1709421543749824646 [:26] to see scary footage of two young men barely escaping the explosion of a lithium battery in their hotel room.

• https://nypost.com/2023/10/04/backpackers-barely-escape-lithium-battery-blast-in-shocking-video/
• https://www.fire.nsw.gov.au/page.php?id=9426

EDUCATION: Critics of school choice often say it leads to higher tuition at private schools, but a new study shows the opposite is true. Over the past 10 years, states that adopted school choice policies had lower rates of tuition increases than states that never had school choice policies. States without school choice had an average 27.6% increase in tuition, while states with school choice saw a 15.4% increase.

• https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/10/07/critics-school-choice-proven-wrong/

FENTANYL: Between 2019 and 2021, fentanyl-related adolescent overdose deaths nearly tripled. A quarter of those deaths involved counterfeit drugs — pills purporting to be Valium, Xanax, or Percocet that the teens got from friends or bought online. Mama Buzz was just telling me about a talk she heard about the rise in dangerous counterfeit drugs that may contain no active ingredients or may contain enough fentanyl in a single pill to kill you. Point being … you should only use drugs that your doctor has prescribed and that you have filled at a reputable pharmacy. If the bottle does not have your name and the doctor’s name on it, don’t trust what’s inside. Drug counterfeiters gotten very good at making their pills look like the real things.

• https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/fentanyl-related-teen-deaths-triple-in-3-years-5505214

HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE: A new study entitled “Efficacy and safety of in-hospital treatment of Covid-19 infection with low-dose hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin in hospitalized patients: A retrospective controlled cohort study” has been published in the October 2023 edition of New Microbes and New Infections. It found that COVID-19 patients treated with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin were more likely to survive than those treated with the standard protocol.

• https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/hydroxychloroquine-reduces-covid-19-mortality-study-finds-5506543
• https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/hydroxychloroquine-reduces-covid-19-mortality-study-finds-5506543
• https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2052297523000914

INSANITY: Click the link below to read about Dylan Mulvaney being named Woman of the Year by the British gay magazine, Attitude. Or don’t, because really, why would you want to after I did it for you?

• https://www.attitude.co.uk/

NORTH CAROLINA: Earlier this year, North Carolina’s legislature overrode their governor’s veto to ban abortions after 12 weeks. Since then, the overall abortion rate in the state has gone down 31% from this time last year. That adds up to about 15,000 lives saved over a year!

Twelve weeks is the end of the first trimester. At this point, the fetus is about the size of a lime. Most of its bodily structures have formed and are beginning to operate, including the heart, digestive system, pituitary gland, and bone marrow.

• https://notthebee.com/article/abortion-rates-cratered-by-31-in-north-carolina-after-the-state-enacted-a-12-week-ban-
• https://www.whattoexpect.com/pregnancy/week-by-week/week-12.aspx

RFK Jr: The lifelong Democrat and presidential hopeful has announced he’s decided to run as an Independent. CLICK https://twitter.com/RobertKennedyJr/status/1712147082037842416 [:30] to see his first tv advert.

• https://www.foxnews.com/politics/rfk-jr-announces-independent-run-president-against-biden

GRAMMY NOTES: I have a crystal clear memory of my parents showing me an article in the paper and pointing to the photo and saying, “This man says if you don’t stop sucking your thumb, your adult teeth will grow in crooked.” Appalled, I went cold turkey; I was decades old before I realized, I couldn’t read at the time, so that article could have been about anything! LOL

SHORTS:

CLICK https://www.youtube.com/shorts/HnBS9dTh_fg to see a fabulous football play.