Now as you can tell, I’m back on line. I tried getting in touch with the service hosting my blog and eventually got the phone number but when I called it said they were having a problem with their phone service. I figured it was a system wide issue and figured I’d wait and see if it got resolved because there was no way I could fix it. Sure enough when I tried again my site came up with a note indicating that they had needed to update their software because WordPress had updated theirs and so were now not compatible but they upgraded and everything is good.

Now with respect to the subject of this rant, I will continue to believe that the stock market is just legalized gambling. Tell me one solid thing that is different today than was yesterday but the market lost 1700 due to speculation. There is not a single item that costs more today than yesterday. And remember that during the Magoo debacle, the market did well and the economy tanked.

Now my take is that a couple of things are going on. First the market manipulators are playing politics. They like the way things were and did their best to try to keep Trump from changing things. When he ignored them, they decided to basically sell short to try to force him to change his mind, and they will keep it up for a few days or maybe weeks to try to force Trump to blink and that ain’t gonna happen. In a few days or weeks they’ll buy the stocks back and make a tidy profit. Note that in none of this does actual profits and/or losses factor in. It’s all speculation and market manipulation.

Mixed feelings. I support the woman who took a knee and refused to fence against a man. This event had separate male and female categories and that should be respected.

However as I think I have ranted about previously, I have a son who got into fencing and went to Nationals twice. And in Nationals and Regionals men and women are separated. However in local tournaments, they are not separated. Women do just fine, although the men usually win but there is no danger because of size or strength differences. The men may benefit from being a little quicker but not by much. You’re not running a sprint so speed is not a big enough factor to make it unfair.

However if there are two different divisions you have to go to the one your genitalia dictates.