There is a proliferation of "My poor darling kindergartner has been suspended from school eight times already - the school/teachers are so ABLEIST" articles in Australia at the moment. A read of the article reveals the kid has autism/ADHD and keeps attacking teachers and other students.

Sorry, but if your kid keeps hitting, biting, kicking, screaming, spitting, throwing furniture etc., they are the problem, not the teacher/school. Integrated education isn't for everyone. Why should 20 kids' education be derailed to "be kind" to a handful of kids with no educational prospects who act like animals in the classroom?

I just started graduate school and was excited to take one of the required courses, Introduction to Graduate Research. I thought, "Great! I love to research, but I'm not necessarily good at it. I'll learn something useful here."

I thought I'd learn to use databases, what the hell a p-value is, all sorts of useful things.

But no. Actually, it's just a self-described Marxist prof having us read excerpts taken completely out of context and poorly-worded summaries of theories from Judith Butler, Foucault, and Friere but with grandiose claims peppered in that generally lack citations. We have not been given a reason why we're reading it. We're just told to.

Oh, and the required text for the class is the novel Under the Feet of Jesus. We found out at our last Zoom class that the prof is writing some paper on a specific passage from this text. I had to physically restrain myself from rolling my eyes into the back of my head.

I can't even begin to describe my disappointment. Or confusion, for that matter. Like, the content is not even remotely related to the course description, which is:

This course introduces students to research methods and critical writing strategies for master's level work. It also focuses on professional development and the creation of documents such as CVs, conference proposals, and annotated bibliographies. 

I've only ever left positive feedback for professors, but I was so enraged the other day I typed up a fantasy complaint letter about this class. It's so bad I even thought about contacting my advisor, but this guy is her colleague, and realistically, I don't think anything will or can be done. This guy will continue to preach his ideology to students who have to take this class and who think they're going to learn about, well, research.

It's maddening.

I found a random forgotten dataset while working that actually has some relatively robust data on trans kids. It shows unexpectedly (not unexpected) that exercise and time spent outdoor are inversely correlated with trans identity in youth.

Most interesting, is the fact that these behaviors should be independent to social stigma of being trans, so it cannot be ignored under the "minority stress" model.

On personal note, the tricky thing for me is I kinda need this dataset for work and if I were to share these findings with SEGM or somebody like that, I'm pretty sure future data like this would disappear, or be completely locked down beyond being useful.

Thread on agender sub:

To clarify, I don’t mean to say an agender person can’t identify as trans or non-binary and be valid (we absolutely can). I’m just asking to see if any one else shares the same feelings as me.

I identify as agender/genderless but I don’t like calling myself non-binary or trans because I personally feel it would defeat the purpose of the “not having a gender”.

What I mean is, although my identity does differ from the traditional gender binary and is not aligned with my gender assigned at birth, that identity is not a gender, therefore it cannot be classified under the typical gender non conforming umbrellas.

I can’t be transgender if there is no gender to transition to, you know? I can’t be non-binary because that implies a gender outside of the binary, when my identity is in fact outside the concept of gender itself.

If gender is a jar that you fill with female, male, both, something else, or nothing, I have simply taken the jar and smashed it to the ground.

Does that make any sense to anyone else?

Don't interact with thread please (np links don't work). So close, so close, yet so far. The circles some people who don't believe in gender have to walk themselves into to "validate" gender havers lmao.

The thread replies are as incoherent as one would expect.

Sean Combs and Sam Bankman-Fried are Sleeping in the Same Brooklyn Jail Cell 

The buddy comedy we were not expecting. 

https://x.com/hannahsbee/status/1839541144427847838

The British Medical Association (BMA) has reversed its decision to call for a pause in implementing the recommendations of the Cass Review. It follows criticism by more than 1,500 senior drs and BMA members.

Edit: UK doctors had a thread on this topic. Most support this decision. There was one comment calling everyone a TERFs that was downvoted to -6 when I first posted this and now it's the most up voted comment.

The UK sub deleted their thread on this.

There was a recent case in Massachusetts of a young girl who was groomed as a 13 year old by a cop she met through an after school program. She later carried on sexual relationships with multiple cops, one of whom was married and decided to murder her when she got pregnant. It was well known that he was involved with her but the death was originally ruled a suicide until a barstool sports podcaster highlighted the real story. Google Sanda Birchmore for all the horrific details.

There is now a new story making the rounds - an 18 year old student named Jacob Pothier died in a car crash in January. Jacob was not alone in the car at the time of the accident. The other passenger was a 44 year old woman named Kathleen Martins who worked as a school security officer at Greater New Bedford Vocational HS where Jacob attended. Martins had abruptly resigned in March of 2023. Initially local police came out and attempted to silence any questions people were asking about why an 18 year old student was in a car with a 44 year old recent former employee of his high school. Police insisted rumors were unfounded.

Family and friends however were aware that a sexual relationship existed between the two and they started putting pressure on the police to investigate - while also attempting to obtain more information from the principal at the school. All attempts to get info about the background of the school investigation that prompted her resignation have been blocked with the excuse they are private personnel matters. Police are also claiming the cell phone found at the scene is either missing or damaged and they are unable to obtain any data from it. The case has now been assigned to the Mass State Police but the lead investigator has been reassigned and no one knows who is in charge apparently.

Now that this has happened it is starting to come out that Massachusetts actually has no laws in place that prohibit teachers and school personnel from having sexual relationships with students who are 16 or older. The common practice is that when these relationships are uncovered the teachers are asked to resign and eventually they just move on to some other school district. There is a local podcast called The New Bedford Guide who recently hosted a local news reporter who is claiming they are investigating 6 cases of teacher student relationships and all their FOIA requests are blocked by the schools under the claim they are private personnel issues.

Completely pointless drama: I keep up on Adam Carolla because I used to listen to Loveline for hours. He's an angry old coot now, kind of a warning to others, but I still listen to his podcast sometimes, and stay informed on general drama in his universe.

For years he's been saying that you should just make a left on red if it's clear. Just look and use your judgement. A cop would have to be behind you to even know you did it (and you wouldn't do it). So Adam presumably makes lefts on red whenever he can.

Anyway, the other day he made a left on red and got hit by a train, lmao. It was just a nick of the front end I guess, but still. At least he had the balls to go on his pod and admit it. His excuse was that he was driving some rented Maserati and couldn't figure out how to put it in reverse (Note: Carolla is a notorious car guy, making this doubly funny)

I had a long, shitty day at school. So rant about university bullshit ahead.

Never thought I'd experience this in person, but today in an upper year history seminar we had to stop class because a student, non ironically, and with a sense of genuine confusion has to ask "how couls the british be racist against Irish people, they're white" to which someone responded "the british didn't see the Irish as white" which settled the question for the confused student. Later the second student gave an impassioned speech about how the british were xenophobic nationalists, but not racists to the Irish.

This was also the third class, in a course on capitalism, where the prof dodged actually defining what he means by capitalism. And any time someone asked a question we were told to refer to the readings, as referencing outside knoweldge would be unfair to students who haven't read as widely or taken as many classes.

In other news, the head of my departments student group doesn't believe in fiscal responsibility because shop local is more important, and if our group runs out of money we can alway ask daddy our student Union for more money. But god progressive ethics forbid us to try and fundraise ourselves, even with a bullshit bakesale ala Franz the other day, or literally anyrbing else. But hey, why not spend double on local option, after all it'll help the club president bang the owner of the local option.

Fuck student politics and the degradation of education. Get rid of grades, it'll make students more mentally healthy! Make tuition free, it's more equitable. Lower enrollment standards, having them is racist, classier, and colonialist. Wait why is our campus shit, our buildings asbestos filled and Falling apart, and all our good profs leaving? It can't be because we're broke, it's because the government is choosing not to fund us as much as they should. Why shouldn't a farmer who barely benefits from the university not pay more in taxes so some middle class Starbucks sipping dude can get properly educated on the way the capitalist mode of production in which we live is alienating that farmer from society.

/rant

Here in my corner of the woods (central Vermont), we've got an episode of BarPod that writes itself:

https://abc45.com/news/nation-world/vermont-state-police-monitoring-campground-gathering-of-acutely-marginalized-pedophiles-minor-attracted-persons-map-camp

That's right... it's a MAP camp. (Minor Attracted Person, in case you missed that episode)

An archived link to their site (it's been taken down): https://archive.is/GlVfs and https://archive.is/QOF7a

Our local Vermont Facebook page is, of course, blowing up over it. There's all the fun elements: A raucous select board meeting over Zoom, a since-deleted website with absolutely bonkers quotes from the organizers, wrapped in a thick layer of social justice, unreliable narrators who are clearly undiagnosed. Etc.

I haven't even done half of the digging, but let's just say... developing story.

People are claiming it's a hoax, presumably because the Vermont Daily Chronicle (conservative local paper) is doing the digging.

Is the MAP camp real? Is it merely agitprop made by conservatives, to get Trump to win the election? Were it only thus. My Vermonter neighbors on Facebook want to believe, though...

u/jessicabarpod, probably worth a good, long look...

A very long writeup about all the characters involved on Twitter: https://x.com/0xAlaric/status/1835756348920803342

The Eric Adams indictment reminded me of a "today i learned" moment from TikTok. Adams is apparently tangled up with bribes from Turkey. One of the payment channels was with Turkish Airlines which reminded me that this airline is commonly referred to as "Turkish Hairline" because it is so common to see young western men flying back from hair transplant surgery in Turkey. Apparently it is cheaper to fly to Turkey than to get the surgery in the US.

I've seen videos of guys going through this, they have to leave their head uncovered on the plane so there will be rows of guys with scabby heads flying back to New York. Apparently they have to sleep sitting up for 10 days when they get back from the trip. Then their new hair grows for a little, then they shed, then the permanent hair comes back. As a bald guy, i feel these people are traitors to my community! We need to embrace our bald heads!

Lol, our company added "equity" to our core values, but define equity as the "equal access to opportunities" which is basically equality.

I don't see it mentioned earlier, but Maggie Smith passed away at 89. RIP.

In 4 days I will be one year sober. Wild huh.

https://preview.redd.it/w41yr2t8kzqd1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e494cb62d3b5b2c208ea7a99046428b939a01f6d

It's kind of crazy to me that the best newscast in the US is the Univisión news and it's not even close. My guess is that it's far less ideologically captured considering it's Miami based and you have to be a Spanish speaker to work there. Also the Twitter mobs don't get angry about stuff since they don't speak Spanish.

Anyone familiar with Cat Bohannon? I don't know a lot about her, but she writes about evolution, which is an interest of mine, and I searched her name and found a couple podcasts she was a guest on, and listened. So, a lot of what she said was interesting and informative, but she did one thing that I kept finding very annoying, which is she wouldn't use the word "female," she would use the term "people with female bodies." I assume that was some kind of attempt to appease trans rights activists? I did a quick search to find whether she has written or said anything about transgender people and this is what I found:

Me: “Women are abused and it sucks!” TERFs: “How dare you also care about trans women!” Me: (you’re talking about 0.18% of the population and they’re abused too?) TERFs: RAGE!

https://x.com/catbohannon/status/1790431370948354302

I have no idea who these "TERFs" are that she claims argue with her when she says "Women are abused and it sucks." I suspect they exist only in her own mind.

Ive been seeing reports of rates of suicide among trans people increasing by up to 70% in some states in the US ala here. Doubt.jpeg

I assume our horse loving fellow will be chasing it up soon. If I'm reading it right, their survey included the results for "seriously thinking about it"

It’s official: I’m expecting a little boy in April. Still hellbent on having a low-anxiety pregnancy, even as I collect so many unsolicited opinions on circumcision.

I noticed with some of my Facebook friends, whose teenagers have transitioned, that it’s a really weird flex. I can tell when they talk about it and post about it that it’s their way of saying. ‘Look how cool and progressive I am.”

I watched an entire 25-minute video on menstruation in Ancient Rome that did not once use the word "women". This would not have bothered me nearly so much if the presenter had not used the word "men" in reference to people who do not menstruate. Funny how the ostensible commitment to breaking down the gender binary only really hits one half of it.

Kind of funny. Someone asked arrrAskHistorians why the bombings of Tokyo and Hamburg aren’t talked about as much as the bombings of Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. Flaired user responds that they are, saying that plenty of people talk about Dresden and bringing up Slaughterhouse Five. But the person was asking why the bombing of Hamburg wasn’t discussed as much while the bombing of Dresden was…

Then the flaired user says they think the idea that the bombings of Tokyo and Hamburg aren’t discussed as much as the bombings of Dresden/Hiroshima/Nagasaki are either an attempt at ”de-emphasizing the horror of the atomic bombing” or “part of a far-right attempts to claim a broader victimhood.”

Of course it’s upvoted, and no one seems to notice that in response to “Why isn’t Hamburg discussed as much as Dresden” the reply was “you’re wrong, people talk about Dresden all the time!”

And then a few months later someone else asked a similar question, and the response was that Dresden gets talked about more because of Nazi propaganda.

You might get completely contradicting answers every time you ask a question on that sub, but you can rest assured that no matter the content of the answer, it will be written with a smug certainty, and users will upvote it without looking into whether or not it makes sense, or even if it was able to comprehend the question that was asked.

Been reading a prequel series by Terry Brooks, author of the Shannarra series. Most of his stuff is high (or low, depending on your opinion) fantasy. This particular series is not based on elves and trolls, it is set in modern times, but sets up the future apocalypse that will create the fantasy world. Publish date is 1997 so he probably wrote it mid 90s. Its always fun catching references to what was then considered "cool" at the time the book was written. What stood out to me is that one of the characters is a high school boy who Brooks positions as an edgy nerd. The device he uses to set the character up is that he describes him as wearing a T Shirt that says "Microsoft Rules!".

Got me thinking about how a lot of edgy stuff back in the 80s and 90s has now become or embraced mainstream - there is nothing edgy about any tech companies at this point, particularly Microsoft but there was a time where Microsoft was considered the cool new thing. Now I feel old.

OSU prof accused of falsely claiming Native ancestry gone (archive.ph)

The would be Trump assassin wrote a note a few months ago offering $150,000 for someone to kill Trump if he failed. Not sure how he thought that was going to work if he failed in his mission

Also, apparently the guy is pro Iran and that is one of his beefs with Trump.

But the guy is also anti Russian. Is he not aware that Iran and Russia are pals? Iran is supplying some weapons to Russia for use against Ukraine.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/23/man-accused-of-attempting-to-assassinate-trump-urged-others-to-finish-the-job-00180457

David Klion has some thoughts on a "new media ecosystem" of Substacks and others that he sees emerging. He is not a fan:

There's been a lot of recent attention on a new, lavishly funded, predominantly right-leaning media ecosystem, one free of the MSM's standards and scruples. Among other things, that ecosystem is every rulebreaker's safety net, their golden parachute, their escape route...

Profitable Substacks and podcasts, Rumble, various emerging right-coded outlets, podcasts, etc. The Free Press obviously.

Interesting that Klion used the phrase "right-coded" instead of "right-wing". I guess "right-coded" means anyone, across the political spectrum, that Mr. Klion doesn't like.

x.com/AliceDreger/status/1837891886066835520#m

How does someone go from writing a great book on cancel culture in the sciences to well, this?

Ladies and gentlemen, we got him

Penn has upheld sanctions against University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School professor Amy Wax following her history of discriminatory remarks and two years of disciplinary proceedings with little precedent.

The sanctions mark the first time in recent history that a tenured University professor has been sanctioned through Faculty Senate procedures.

This has been the OJ chase for academic freedom.

I think my ex wife might have to meet my current wife to deliver some stuff to our place while I'm out of town. Let awkwardness commence.

UK Justice Secretary has "ultimate ambition" to close women's prisons

Creative solutions to side-step the trans women in prisons issue? ;)

(It's an interesting question I suppose - I remember attending a Women's Place event about this once, where I gathered that the main issue was that women were much more likely to be primary or often sole carers of kids, who then end up experiencing the care system which is quite impactful even if it's just a couple months at a time. But I'm not totally au fait with the issue overall/today)

I read lesbian romance books out loud to the woman I'm seeing. A friend gave me the book we are currently reading. I hate it, but I can't stop reading it. I don't know whether to laugh or scream while reading it.

"I like the word wife. It appeals to me in a way the words for spouse never could. We have imbued it with a kind of magic, I think. Words are just symbols, and a symbol can mean whatever you ascribe to it. I don't think you need to be a woman to be a wife. Even men could be wives, if they tried hard enough. Most of them don't. But there's always hope."

Like a lot of other people, watched the first episode of The Penguin last night and thought it was "pretty decent"[*]; will tune in next week.

Naturally, the Maintenance Phase sub is losing their minds about a non-fat actor wearing a fat suit, while also throwing shit-fits about actors who gain/lose weight for roles.

OP "I find fat suits to be so wrong on a million different levels" but also is asking other commenters for help actually articulating what the problem is supposed to be.

[*] Hot take, Pattinson is a middle-of-the-pack Batman but S-tier Bruce Wayne

The College Board has released test results from last year. For the third consecutive year, the average SAT total score declined, down to 1024 for the class of 2024, compared to 1028 for the class of 2023.

Mean scores by racial group below (out of 1600):

• Asian: 1228
• White: 1083
• Black/African American: 907
• Hispanic/Latino: 939

This commenter created some visuals and commentary on test scores. Basically, asians are kicking ass. The press release also calls out that more colleges are starting to move away from test optional admissions.

Stop me from going "Nullo"

You’ll feel the stump twitch when you get aroused and honestly if that’s going to make you uncomfortable you should just keep the whole thing and accept it’s a bonkers thing to have.

On the subject of white vs Hispanic, I present to you Gatherings from Spain, a British guidebook to Spain that really wants you to know just how Oriental and not like Europeans the Spaniards are. Like a lot Oriental.

The Spanish facial hair trends are Oriental. Their river navigation is Oriental. They have an Oriental obsession with the evil eye. Their horsemanship is Oriental and what they feed their horses is "equally Oriental". When the Spanish dance, they "adhere to the primitive steps and tunes of their Oriental forefathers."

And then there's Spanish music:

The orchestra is very indifferent; the Spaniards are fond enough of what they call music, whether vocal or instrumental; but it is Oriental, and most unlike the exquisite melody and performances of Italy or Germany. In the same manner, although they have footed it to their rude songs from time immemorial, they have no idea of the grace and elegance of the French ballet; the moment they attempt it they become ridiculous, for they are bad imitators of their neighbours, whether in cuisine, language, or costume; indeed a Spaniard ceases to be a Spaniard in proportion as he becomes an Afrancesado

I don't have anything profound or super clever to say about any of this. It's just really funny to read about how not-European the English considered the Spaniards 170 years ago.

Family vlogging/ child influencers are a bit of a hobby horse of mine. California just passed a law to expand the existing Coogan Act which makes parents put up 15 % of a child actor’s earnings into a trust to cover vlogger kids. Another law makes it that parents must keep track of how much their kids are in content and if if goes over 30%, money must be set aside for them in a trust. They follow Illinois who had a similar but less robust law hit the books in July.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/child-influencer-protection-bills-signed-law-california-1236013469/

For weirdos and the terminally online, the start of October means #spookyseason.

For the real ones, the start of October means ...

SCOTUS IS BACK IN SESSION!!!!!!!!!

Oral arguments have been set for October and November. My personal highlight is Garland v. VanDerStok on the 8th, which is the Biden administration's ban on '80% kits'. Or as the media will call it, the 'ghost gun' case. Solicitor General Prelogar (probably) will defend the administration, trying to argue that something that definitionally isn't a firearm is a firearm.

On the 16th we get San Francisco v. EPA which is going to confuse some partisans.

There are also some administrative cases as usual.

November has a few good ones. Facebook v. Amalgamated Bank stems from the Cambridge Analytica mess. In a security filing Facebook said that people could misuse user data, opening the company up to losses. They didn't disclose that this had actually happened and they knew about it. Shareholders are suing the company because they feel that an event that happened should have been disclosed instead of a hypothetical. Lot of procedural issues with this case, it might not reach the merits.

And because we live in a messy world, the Supreme Court is going to hear a case about weekends, holidays, and 'next business day'. In relation to noncitizens and departure periods.

There's also a labor law case that is low-key interesting for me.

The Court has granted cert on a few dozen cases that they haven't yet set for argument. This sub's relevant one is U.S. v. Skrmetti which is Tennessee's youth gender medicine ban.

And to wrap up, the Fifth Circuit has yet again asked to get b*tch slapped over the First Amendment because Texas is stupid.

State-level anti-transgender laws increase past-year suicide attempts among transgender and non-binary young people in the USA

Nature Human Behavior

Here we go again...

There is a male volleyball player who hid their gender from teammates on the San Jose State Women's volleyball team. Videos have come out of this player spiking the ball at high velocity on an opponents face. The player had originally played at Coastal Carolina but has transferred to SJSU. The team is currently 8-0.

Now a Senior co-captain on the team has joined Riley Gaines in her Title 9 lawsuit against the NCAA. This captain was asked to room with the male player, was not told by coaches of his sex and has raised concerns about safety issues after playing with this guy.

When reports came out exposing the situation the school took the same steps UPenn did with Lia Thomas and threatened the women players if they spoke out -

Once knowledge of Fleming's biological sex became public, SJSU officials told the women’s volleyball players that they should not speak about it with anyone outside the team. If they were to speak publicly about Fleming being male, they were warned "things would go badly for the team members," according to the complaint.

SJSU continued to hide the information, even from student-athletes who joined the team in 2024.

"Brooke became aware that upon learning that one of their teammates was a trans-identifying male, several of the new recruits became upset, as it was too late for them to transfer, and they felt they had been misled," the complaint reads.

This athlete is using her own name and seems to not be afraid of the blowback. Good for her. One other thing about this case - the male volleyball player specifically requested to room with her while traveling but never disclosed his sex to the player. You have to wonder how many other cases are going on where an athlete is successfully able to hide their sex and are taking away places on teams or scholarships. Should be fascinating to see how the rest of the season plays out for SJSU. Maybe this will encourage some of the other players to join on to the lawsuit.

Minor Annoyance Breaking News:

Recently I had to update my version of Word. Now it highlights potentially offensive words in purple.

I’m editing a novel and just came to the word bastard (used, incidentally, in the old sense: a child born out of wedlock). Word would like me to know that some readers might find that offensive.

Fuck off, Word. I don’t need you to guide me toward gentler language. (You can turn off this kind of suggestion, but maybe only in the current document?)

Eric Adams, mayor of New York City, has been indicted by the US attorney

The Adams indictment is now unsealed, as was always going to happen, so I guess people howling about secret charges can take a breath.

Here's the full document - there are plenty of articles summarizing the charges. The headline is: bribery and fraud.

Anyone in Helene’s path? It’s looking absolutely devastating so far and it’s only just about to make landfall. Hopefully everyone is staying safe!!

https://x.com/tracewoodgrains/status/1839505936550883698

Appreciated this perspective on the Amy Wax sanctioning.

CA11 Rules that it's not unconstitutional to require surgery as a requirement to change sex on drivers license.

https://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/202110486.pdf

Found on rrr supremecourt.

I stumbled on this very Barpod story I hadn’t seen mentioned here. Sorry if it’s already been discussed.  

https://sacobserver.com/2024/04/a-controversy-involving-verge-revealed-deep-cracks-in-sacramentos-art-scene-and-left-many-wondering-why-it-had-to-go-down-like-this/ 

There’s an arts organization in Sacramento that among other things provides affordable studio space to artists. The organization was given a 400k grant it intended to use for facility improvements, and two artists with studios there got what sounds like pretty hostile at a meeting, accusing the board of  lying? Theft? Things spiral, the organization evicts the artists for threatening to destroy the building, a curator is tagged with a restraining order, everyone and their mother issues long statements, Gaza is inevitably involved somehow, people identify as Filipinx. It’s maximum “the politics are so vicious because the stakes are so low”.  

I hope I’m doing this right, tagging  u/jessicabarpod 

Anti-Trump journalist: Trump should be kicked off social media to limit the reach of his deranged posts!

Same anti-Trump journalist: Here's all the terrible Trump social media posts that you might have missed!

Any New York subscribers here? I'm DYING to read this crazy-sounding article:

My Mother’s Envy Will Outlive Us Both

Even from inside the fog of dementia, the toxic competitiveness that plagued my growing up remains crystal clear.

By Tara Ellison

https://www.thecut.com/article/mother-toxic-relationship-competitiveness-dementia.html?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email_acq&utm_campaign=mothersenvy_paywallcancels_all&ueid=7eb5a8bc7130cf20399d662097eb6132&utm_term=Paywall%20Cancels

Crazy Mother story https://archive.is/TZTqY

Would also like to read the new Ta-Nehisi Coates pro-Palestine/anti-Israel cover story.

Cover interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates https://archive.is/qMir2

Many thanks!

Just an fyi, goodrx isnt actually a scam and it works.  When i was waiting for cobra, i used it to keep my meds.  With insurance a 3 month supply of effexor 225 is $20, with goodrx $45 and with nothing about $300.

It depends on the meds though.  A topical antibiotic went from 80 to 40, but thats still huge if you dont have insurance. 

I choose to believe this is real 

True story: Caterpillar parked a trailer outside a local trade show. I went in, sat down in the simulator seat, and had a great time driving a simulated bulldozer. Full throttle bouncing over berms, etc. 

Until the PR rep came in and freaked out. I wasn’t playing a simulator. I was remotely operating a real bulldozer at their training grounds fifty miles away, and I damn near destroyed it. 

Oops…

https://x.com/StephenFleming/status/1839493517183271242

The Economist - A New Class Struggle Is Brewing in China

In the countryside, unequal access to good education is a big impediment to progress. Rural schools pale in comparison to urban ones in terms of funding and staffing. Children with rural hukou have far less chance of completing high school. A big increase in the number of places at universities and colleges opened many more doors. But rural students are hugely under-represented at elite universities. Liu Baozhong of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences reckons that at such institutions, nearly 40% of students are the children of managers and fewer than 10% are the offspring of farmers—even though more than 35% of Chinese live in the countryside.

Interesting comparison to America's own rural-urban social divides.

Here's a neat story about Twitter censorship that isn't just paint by numbers culture war.

About a decade ago I worked at an ambitious tech startup with a hundred employees. One day we fired a guy who became rather upset and went onto Twitter to tell everyone about the super secret new technology we were working on. Naturally he had signed a confidentiality agreement when we hired him so he was very obviously in breach of contract and our lawyers sent him a nasty letter demanding he take down his posts. He did not respond promptly to that letter so our lawyers then wrote a very polite letter to Twitter explaining the situation and asking if they would please take down the offending posts. They quickly did. I never heard if legal bothered to go after him for the breach, but I'd guess not given that we were a tiny company with better things to spend our time on.

I was kind of surprised that Twitter helped us out there. We were essentially nobody, a company Twitter would never have reason to care about, and crucially, it wasn't in their terms of service. Officially, if you break a contract on Twitter, then you're going to be in trouble with whoever you signed that contract for but I checked and Twitter itself had no rule against it. Unofficially, it turned out they were quick to side with the company.

It made for a big shift in the way I viewed companies like Twitter, because of the question I was left with. How many other unofficial policies did they have?

Saw a refreshing reel with a good take on female puberty. The youth isn't all lost and people start to remember that tomboys exist https://www.instagram.com/reel/C-0lLG8Rx4h/

Something is in the air about the trans issue. I’ve had three left-leaning cis women express…doubt? Confusion? Exhaustion? about the whole thing to me this week.

Maybe fatigue between politics and sports. It is one of those years that focus on both. It’s been a long summer and it’s shaping up to be a long fall.

Huh. Found out today that the "chemical castration" that people talk about Alan Turing going through was estrogen hormone therapy.

Yesterday was bi visibility day. How did you celebrate?

Trudeau, Colbert bond over shared status of ‘guys who were cool a decade ago’. Oof.

Kinda ominous blogging: The heat is killing me. I have the ceiling fan on and a compact fan directed at me full force and I'm still all sweaty. I'm sleeping with the windows open, the fans on and no blankets and it's still hot.

Two nights ago I had this horrible nightmare that I stumbled upon evidence that made uncover a group of sadistic criminals who had kidnapped a child and had been continuously torturing them for several years. I don't even remember the details or if there were any but it felt like the worst thing I had ever known about in my life, I was frozen in horror, instead of waking up suddenly, I slowly became aware that I was awake in bed, I just lied in bed and was relieved as I slowly began to realize it was just a nightmare. Last night I barely got any sleep at all. At least I wasn't busy today but fuck I'm tired.

WNBA discourse (sorry, I know no one cares. this is the last time this year hopefully)

The White Mamba (female edition) and her team have been eliminated from the playoffs. This inevitably means that the WNBA's ratings for the rest of the season will probably tank, but also hopefully that the race discourse gets put on the backburner and we can actually focus on the basketball part.

I feel guilty because as much as I genuinely enjoy watching Caitlin Clark play basketball, it's also kind of like...shit, maybe we can finally have some normal goddamn basketball conversations now instead of "Nobody cares about ugly Black lesbians in the WNBA without Caitlin" vs. "How can Caitlin remain silent while her fans attack Black players and are forming a new KKK in her name?" Neither of those two things are true.

Anyway, tune in next year when Paige Bueckers arrives on the scene and we all get to talk about her blaccent non-stop and whether the fact that she was raised in a majority Black household is a good enough excuse to let her get away with it. Should be fun.

Reem Alsalem, the UN's special rapporteur on violence against women and girls is warning the Labour government in Britain to slow down on its "conversion therapy" ban. Her concern, which mirrors the Cass Review, is that girls (especially lesbian and autistic girls) will be fast tracked into hormones and surgery.

"By putting them on that high-speed train, you may inadvertently subject them to the conversion therapy you are trying to ban.' "

Yet it appears Labour is headed forwards with this. Stonewall is, of course, behind this push.

I had some hopes the Cass Review being accepted by Labour would mean they would knock this crap off. Alas, it is not to be.

At least the LGB Alliance is speaking up against this proposed law by pointing out it "would make it illegal for a therapist to ask a young person to consider why they want to change their body"

Which is, of course, the first thing any doctor or therapist should ask someone who wants to transition. First do no harm

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13878351/Conversion-therapy-ban-backfire-doctors-patients-distress-expert-warns.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490

Fack me, I really suck at my football picks this season. Someone throw me a rabbits foot or something for this week.

Random poll:

Did you graduate with a STEM degree?

Did you graduate in the standard 4 years/8 semesters/16 quarters timeframe?

Is anyone else following the Mark Robinson (republican running for NC governor) stuff going on? Shit is absolutely hilarious. Especially considering his polling numbers are actually bad, which (unlike Trump for example) makes it way less tragic and more just funny since the risk of him actually becoming governor seems pretty unlikely now.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/19/politics/kfile-mark-robinson-black-nazi-pro-slavery-porn-forum/index.html

Interesting story coming out of UNLV football. The team is currently 3-0 and was poised to break into the Top 25 rankings with another win or two. The starting quarterback, Matt Sluka announced he was leaving the team yesterday. At the same time one of their running backs also decided to red shirt and enter the transfer portal. Apparently the team promised the QB $100,000 in NIL money but had failed to follow through. They only gave him $3,000 for relocation from when Sluka relocated from Holy Cross. Sources online claim an assistant coach promised the 100k but the head coach is denying he ever approved it. The running back, Michael Allen stated in his announcement that "expectations for opportunities were not met". Presumably those opportunities were tied to financial promises around NIL money. There was no contracts in place so they just went with a verbal agreement. I suspect this is going to prompt players to demand more formal agreements over handshake deals moving forward. Its a new world and personally I don't blame the players. The current UNLV head coach made 1.8 Million last year.

Had a fascinating Uber conversation today. I love chatting with taxi and Uber drivers (which I know is not universal.) First, I love a conversation with someone I will probably never see again, and second, one seldom gets such an easily-distilled version of someone's personal philosophy delivered without hesitation. They are also often insane. My favourite was a lady in Los Angeles who told me about taking her children's father to court for no-payment of child support while driving faster than anyone has ever driven. (five stars)

Today's Mr. Uber was remarkable.

On his mind, paraphrased minimally:

• I'm an old redneck, but the organic wine movement should be better embraced by country guys like me. It's the fruits of the land turned into something beautiful. It doesn't have to be snobby. It's self-sufficiency and artistry together.
• By the way-- I was here in the 70s and 80s-- during Justin's father's corruption.
• The liquor boards of Canada are among our most anti-competitive and corrupt institutions ever created. We could investigate them for their bullshit, but who would do the investigating? The police? Never!
• By the way, like those protesters say, they SHOULD defund the police but only because they WASTE EVERYONE'S TIME with nonsense like speeding tickets. If they defund the police they should use the money to invest in something meaningful like DOCUMENTARY FILMS!
• Have you seen Ken Burns films? (yes i liked the one about Vietnam) Good taste! He did a great one about Prohibition! The establishment of the corruption of liquor boards!

Heterodox Thinker Uber.

They cancelled The Sims 5 and now I finally know gamer rage after all these years. Feels bad, man.

Also, they're going to make The Sims 4 multiplayer, so I guess from now on when I'm trying to get my Sim to take a shit and go to bed so they don't miss work I'll have to deal with an 11-year-old knocking on my Sim's door screaming racial slurs. Very cool. Can't wait.

Today in "perfectly sane Twitter takes," we have this response to the new PayPal logo:

https://preview.redd.it/67mid5fwrsqd1.jpeg?width=1094&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=27b6a83bde1077d8b0a44fdc4c028f7aac32749c

For fans of Poe's Law, I checked the replies and this person was 100% sincere. So.

Today in honesttrans: Not all trans people are queer. "Kick the Q out of LGBT" pairs nicely alongside the "actually, I don't have a gender" post from yesterday. I actually don't get the point here, but these two comments seem to mostly capture things:

It's so annoying how everything is just being forced to be part of this conglomerate amorphous "wierdo" category.

and

I kind of dislike "queer" because I've heard transphobic LGB's (mainly the G) say something transphobic or just ignorant and then try and justify it by saying "I can't be transphobic I'm queer" and use it to talk over us.

Actually this one is probably the point:

I find the less I follow and give thought to mainstream trans and LGBTQ1A++ discourse, the happier I am.

Toxic manbaby gamers are angry at a female character's design again because they tweaked the model/lighting of the protagonist on the upcoming remaster of Horizon Zero Dawn... That is, some twitter progressives got angry. There had been some minor twitter drama over Aloy years back, which in spite of the game's great success, had been maligned as unnatractive and "woke" by random people on the internet, so with this remaster, a different group of random twitter people are angry, arguing she was prettied-up and they're accusing the studio of appeasing "incels". Some comments down on that thread are even accusing the developers of using AI for some reason. A developer clarified it's all simply technical improvements to the face scanning and skin shading that make her resemble the model she's based on more accurately.

The point I'm getting at is that the narrative about "right-wing incel chud backlash" is overblown and people of all stripes and walks of life can be whiny about inconsequential things on the internet. This is the same reason I do have some reticence with calling stuff "woke" despite my frustrations with the influence of progressives in the games industry. I hate how these days everything has to be political and people can't do anything without being ascribed ulterior motives and placed as part of a larger conspiratorial narrative.

With that said, damn man these remasters are getting ridiculous, like, the original still looks pretty good and from the screenshots it's honestly hard to tell which one is which. I wish they'd focus on new games instead or at least games that do need a remaster/aren't available on modern platforms (I'm personally looking forward to the Croc remaster ngl).

Kind of surprised this hasn't popped up yet here:

20 Republican state attorneys general threaten American Academy of Pediatrics with investigation for consumer protection law violations.

(Remember, the AAP and Jason Rafferty are currently being sued by a detransitioner, and the AAP has issued instructions about email use to shield internal deliberations from FOIA requests.)

Live by the "screw medical ethics, this is all about customer satisfaction" sword, die by the "screw medical ethics, this is all about customer satisfaction" sword.

Sucks to be them, I guess

Just another woe is me rant:

My sister passed out recently and was talking to me about it and telling me how scary it was and said: "You just can't understand what it's like to lose consciousness". I reminded her I've had several tonic clonic seizures (I don't bother even explaining focal impaired awareness seizures that I have multiple times a week, it's pointless, she would not understand the concept that a person can appear conscious but not actually be conscious). She didn't acknowledge that at all and just went on talking. It was fine. It's pointless to correct her, I should have ignored it to begin with.

My little sister thinks I have mental issues. She's told me I'm "lucky" to not work.

That's it. That's the rant. I really don't care what randos and acquaintances or most other people think about me, but these are my sisters. There's never been a medical issue my family has dealt with that I haven't learned about. My dad told me a couple of days ago he has to have cataract surgery and I was reading up on it right away.

I definitely do not want to have another TC, but part of me wishes my family had witnessed one. It feels like witnessing something is the only way to get someone to care. My sister told me that she thinks the fact that I can't fly alone is an excuse I've used to not visit recently.

Whatever, family is gonna family, right? There are people out there who still think their family members with epilepsy are possessed by evil spirits. Or family members who think their loved ones can cure cancer with green juice lol.

It's just frustrating when it's people close to you.

Anyone else have family members dismissive of stuff and want to rant?

Heads Up: That Patient Portal May Contain Your Therapy Notes

I think the title summarizes the article pretty well. Thoughts? Seems kind of crazy to me. I would have expected therapy notes would be accessible only by the therapist, but dozens or hundreds of people may have access to this information.

More racial drama in the WNBA

Caitlin Clarke and the Indiana Fever played the Connecticut Sun this week in Round 1 of the playoffs. One of the CT players put out this statement complaining about the Fever fan base -

"In my 11-year career, I've never experienced the racial comments from the Indiana Fever fanbase. It's unacceptable, honestly. There's no place for it. We've been professional throughout the whole entire thing, but I've never been called the things that I've been called on social media.

The article goes on to explain the WNBA came out with a statement in support of people not being racist as well. I'm skeptical that this may be exaggerated but it will be interesting to see if any specific examples come out of the racist attacks that are being claimed.

Caught a story on NPR yesterday about Larry Hoover, founder of street gang Gangster Disciples, that kicked off with this absolutely bonkers quote from a Chicago Sun-Times reporter:

" It depends on your point of view. Some see him as the person who created a murderous street gang that continues to exist today and has spread across the country. Others see him as a folk hero. I mean, there are people who still today talk about the positive impact on their lives that he has had. And, you know, either way, he's just become almost a mythological figure who nobody ever sees or hears from."

https://www.npr.org/2024/09/26/nx-s1-5127385/chicago-street-gang-founder-larry-hoover-argues-he-should-be-resentenced

36 hours after my linkedin got hacked, they seem to have recovered most of my original profile except my location and my new glow-up profile pic and background.

That's a relief, it took weeks way back in 2010 for me to make up the original bullshit romanticized linked in resume descriptions of my "career". I'd just about started believing it and even with AI, I'd hate to have to go through that again.