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[–]rwkastenBring on the dancing horses[S,M] [score hidden] stickied comment (0 children)

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Judge reverses 'Save James' ruling, gives mother power to transition 8-year-old son at father's expense​​

A Dallas judge has effectively reversed a previous ruling that would have granted the divorced father and mother of 8-year-old James Younger equal say in his medical and psychological care.

Now, the boy's mother, Dr. Anne Georgulas, will be able to enroll James into school as a girl named "Luna" and subject him to transition therapy and medical procedures at the expense of his father, Jeffrey Younger, the "Save James" Facebook page reported Tuesday.

"James and Jude did NOT have a victory in court today. Judge Mary Brown has condemned James and Jude to a life of therapy, confusion, and abuse without even having a hearing. There are no other words for what has happened today," a post on the page read.

"She has forced James to live as 'Luna' in a school surrounded by teachers and therapists who do not acknowledge that he has said multiple times to multiple people (without Jeff around) that he wants to be a boy and hates being forced to be a girl," the post continued.

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Is the Tavistock gender clinic failing children?

For much of GIDS’ existence, few paid it much attention. But over the past 10 years all that has changed. Not only have transgender issues become the object of fierce public controversy and mooted government legislation, but diagnoses of gender dysphoria among children and adolescents have skyrocketed. As The Sunday Times reported last year: ‘Since 2009-10… there has been an increase of more than 3,200 per cent in patients referred to GIDS, from 77 that year to 2,590 in the year to April.’ Moreover, 2019 was the first time the majority (54 per cent) of patients referred to the clinic were 14 or under – some patients were as young as four.

Unsurprisingly, GIDS’ activity at the Tavistock has been subject to increasing public attention, and, more recently, scrutiny. In 2018, an internal report, by then staff governor Dr David Bell, effectively accused GIDS of fast-tracking children and adolescents for gender transition. Featuring damning quotes from whistle-blowing clinicians and unhappy staff members, it reinforced the growing sense that GIDS has been a little too eager to encourage young people to transition and potentially undergo life-changing medical treatment. Indeed, since 2017, over 35 clinicians have quit GIDS because they are worried about ‘overdiagnoses’ of gender dysphoria. Sonia Appleby, who works at GIDS as its Named Professional for Safeguarding Children, is even bringing a case against the Tavistock on the grounds that it is failing in its duty to safeguard children, by encouraging staff not to report any child safety concerns to her.

And of course anyone who doubts a 4 year old should be chemically castrated on a whim will be thrown into the pit as a deplorable transphobe.

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Policing language, controlling thought?

Earlier this month, Dictionary.com published a new entry for the acronym ‘TERF’ (trans-exclusionary radical feminist), often used as a slur against gender-critical feminists – or for that matter, anyone who believes that there are biological differences between men and women. That Dictionary.com tweeted out a link to its definition along with the phrase ‘Beware the TERF’ leaves us in no doubt as to where the company stands on this issue. Many feminists have expressed concerns that the more extreme trans activists are seeking what is tantamount to the erasure of women, denying women’s right to single-sex spaces and even attempting to force the neologism ‘womxn’ into mainstream vocabulary – in spite of the fact that no one knows how to pronounce it. These feminists’ suspicions are certainly validated by Dictionary.com’s original choice of illustration for the TERF entry: the female symbol (a circle with a cross underneath) struck through with a red line. Nor was it particularly reassuring to see that one of Dictionary.com’s original example phrases, now deleted, was ‘punch a TERF’.

As the power and influence of the social-justice ideology grows, we can expect to see more capitulation to these efforts at social engineering through the manipulation of language. Take the Encyclopedia Britannica’s transcript of Martin Luther King’s most famous speech: ‘I have a dream that… one day right there in Alabama, little Black boys and Black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.’ The attentive reader will note that the word ‘black’ has been capitalised, but the word ‘white’ left in lower case. This follows the patently ideological decision by the Associated Press to amend its style guide – again, with capital-B for black and lower-case-w for white. Apparently this is to reflect the view that ‘white people in general have much less shared history and culture, and don’t have the experience of being discriminated against because of skin colour’.

If we're the point where our enemies control even language itself the Benedict Option may be our only option left.

[–]mo-ming-qi-miao 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Roald Dahl’s Matilda mug canceled after Twitter users say it promotes domestic violence

Celebrated British author Roald Dahl’s legacy has indirectly come under attack by Twitter activists who managed to scare a supermarket chain into removing mugs that featured a quote based on a line from his classic children’s book, “Matilda.”

Twitter campaigners who pressured Sainsbury’s into removing the mug with the words, “A brilliant idea hit her” printed on it – argued that it was “actively promoting domestic violence.”

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Mayoral candidate stages kidnapping on Facebook in ‘plot to gain votes,’

A candidate in a crowded South Carolina mayoral race is accused of orchestrating an elaborate ruse for sympathy votes using a fake kidnapping and Facebook Live.

Sabrina Belcher, 29, was arrested and charged withconspiracy and filing a false police report after Sumter police say she filmed herself being kidnapped, beaten and robbed on Facebook earlier this week.

Christopher James Eaddy, 34, was also charged with conspiracy in the case, the Sumter Police Department said in a news release.

“They staged a kidnapping and beating in order to garner publicity, sympathy and votes in the November election,” police said.

Belcher met with officers just before 11:30 p.m. Tuesday and told them she had been “assaulted and kidnapped by an unknown man during an attempted robbery,” according to police. She also said the man had knocked out the windows of her car.

Police said Belcher was taken to a nearby hospital for her injuries and was later released.

In the video, Belcher had tried to “discredit a fellow candidate,” according to police. They also said she had “ongoing plans to smear other mayoral candidates prior to the election.”

At least it isn't that tired old noose routine again.

[–]mo-ming-qi-miao 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Kamala Harris and the scourge of identity politics

Harris’s identity was the focal point of comments by the Obamas and Joe Biden, too. Barack Obama said her ‘story’ would inspire people. What about her policies? There was, bizarrely, much talk of ‘little girls’. Michelle Obama said that when she was ‘a little girl’ she got used to ‘hardly ever seeing anyone’ who looked like her in the newspapers or on TV. But now, thanks to Harris, ‘all those girls growing up today… will be able to take it for granted that someone who looks like them can grow up to lead a nation like ours’.

Is politics for adults or children? Is it about inspiring voters (adults) to support a vision for the best way to run society and organise and distribute its resources, or is it about sending a message to little girls (not little boys?) about people who look like them? The little-girls discussion, where Harris’s role is reduced to one of a kindergarten teacher keeping kids happy, was pursued by Biden too. ‘[L]ittle black and brown girls, who so often feel overlooked and undervalued in their communities… today, just maybe, they’re seeing themselves for the first time in a new way’, he said.

The strange focus on the feelings of little girls points to an infantilising dynamic in the politics of identity. For all the discussion of Harris as an empowering figure sending a message of strength to people of colour, in truth even her own impressive achievements are downplayed or pushed aside when she is reduced to a tokenistic figure whose most important value is apparently her heritage and skin colour.

From the front page of the New York Times to the world of social-media influencers, Harris has been talked about primarily as a woman of colour. Not as a former district attorney and attorney general or as a senator, but as a woman with a certain shade of skin. This is how identitarianism dehumanises people. Harris’s chief role, it seems, is to increase the visibility of non-white people. Perhaps she should be seen and not heard? No wonder the discussion of this high-achieving 55-year-old woman can so casually drift into chatter about little girls.

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Lori Lightfoot defends ban on protesters on her block, citing her right to safety

After massive street protests after the killing of George Floyd in May, Chicago police banned protests near the mayor’s home. Officers were instructed to arrest anyone protesting near her Logan Square residence.

More than 100 people have been arrested in recent weeks after looting downtown on Aug. 10 that Lightfoot characterized as a “planned attack." Officials said “car caravans full” of people stormed Chicago’s Magnificient Mile, Irving North and Gold Coast neighborhoods that Sunday night.

City officials were forced to shut down public transit and lift all bridges to downtown into the following morning.

The "protestors" are a threat to safety now? How could this have happened, the news told me they were peaceful and non-violent!

[–]rwkastenBring on the dancing horses[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Reportedly, Lightfoot walked away from the press conference with a hearty "I am Groot!"

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Donates $10 Million to Ibram X. Kendi, Who Wants To Make Racism Unconstitutional

Kendi is the author of the 2019 book How to Be An Antiracist, one of two books that attracted renewed attention following the death of George Floyd. (The other is Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility.) In a tweet, he thanked Dorsey for the grant, which came with "no strings attached."

Dorsey replied that he hoped the center's research would inform and fuel "much needed and overdue policy change."

The CEO of Twitter is more than welcome to spend his financial resources however he sees fit. He can give money to anyone he wants, for any reason. But since Kendi intends to have an impact on public policy—and since these funds presumably will help Kendi fulfill his goals—it's worth scrutinizing what kinds of policy changes he has in mind.

In a 2019 piece for POLITICO magazine, Kendi proposed a constitutional amendment that would prohibit racism. Here is his idea in full:

To fix the original sin of racism, Americans should pass an anti-racist amendment to the U.S. Constitution that enshrines two guiding anti-racist principals: Racial inequity is evidence of racist policy and the different racial groups are equals. The amendment would make unconstitutional racial inequity over a certain threshold, as well as racist ideas by public officials (with "racist ideas" and "public official" clearly defined). It would establish and permanently fund the Department of Anti-racism (DOA) comprised of formally trained experts on racism and no political appointees. The DOA would be responsible for preclearing all local, state and federal public policies to ensure they won't yield racial inequity, monitor those policies, investigate private racist policies when racial inequity surfaces, and monitor public officials for expressions of racist ideas. The DOA would be empowered with disciplinary tools to wield over and against policymakers and public officials who do not voluntarily change their racist policy and ideas.

Iran's Guardian Council, but woke!

[–]rwkastenBring on the dancing horses[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

It strikes me that this could go the other way and mark a path to government-sanctioned genocide of underprivileged groups. "Hmm - blacks only hold 3% of tenured professorships but make up 13% of the population, you say?"

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

It's one of those "leftists allergic to considering second order effects" things.

[–]the_nybbler 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

They're relying on either our decency or lack of power. Usually the former.

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Anti-racist Arguments Are Tearing People Apart: What a viral story reveals about contemporary leftist discourse

“We had over 100 parents write you a letter explaining why a member of this council was extraordinarily offensive and racist,” she said to Maron. “And you did nothing. And I did nothing. I’m ashamed … I’m sorry, I made a mistake; I didn’t speak out verbally when multiple times during a meeting one of the members on our council engaged in behavior that made me ache and hurt for the nonwhite people that were logged in.”

That was an allusion to Babygate. Wrocklage burst in with frustration.

“Robin,” he said, “I would like to directly ask you a question. You alleged racist behavior. What exactly was that racist behavior about having my friend of five years over at my house in my living room with her daughter who is best friends with my daughter and her nephew? What is racist about that?”

Broshi stated, “Proximity to color does not mean you’re not racist,” adding, “Did you read Ibram Kendi? Did you read How to Be an Antiracist? All people are capable of racist behavior. We apologize when we offend people of color and they get upset and log out of a meeting immediately because they see white people exhibiting their power over people of color. How can I convince you if you won’t even read a book about white fragility or Ibram Kendi?” Shortly after, Broshi delivered her soon-to-be-viral monologue:

It hurts people when they see a white man bouncing a brown baby on their lap and they don’t know the context! That is harmful! That makes people cry. It makes people log out of our meetings. They don’t come here. They don’t come to our meetings. And they give me a hard time. Because I’m not vocal enough. And I’m not trying to be a martyr. I am trying to illustrate to you that you think I’m a social-justice warrior. And you think I’m being patronizing. And I’m getting pressure for not being enough of an advocate. I take that to heart. That hurts me. And I have to learn how to be a better white person. Read a book. Read Ibram Kendi. Read How to Talk to White People. It is not my job to educate you. You’re an educated white male. You can read a book. And you can learn about yourself.

If a member of a civic body expressed frustration that a colleague refused to read the Bible, the Quran, The Wealth of Nations, The Communist Manifesto, Atlas Shrugged, or Dianetics, and couldn’t understand an accusation until they did, most observers would see the problem. Drawing on outside concepts is fine. But if you can’t explain your position unless everyone reads your source material, then the fault lies with you. No one in a public meeting should have to read the books you consider important, much less accept that the ideas in those books are sacrosanct.

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Rutherford County Schools Tell Parents Not to Monitor Their Child’s Virtual Classrooms

Parents of students who attend Rutherford County Schools (RCS) must agree not to monitor their child’s online classroom sessions.

Officials at all county schools are asking parents to sign forms agreeing not to watch these virtual classes.

The Tennessee Star received a copy of such a form this week.

“RCS strives to present these opportunities in a secure format that protects student privacy to the greatest extent possible, however because these meetings will occur virtually RCS is limited in its ability to fully control certain factors such as non-student observers that may be present in the home of a student participating in the virtual meeting,” according to the form.

“RCS strongly discourages non student observation of online meetings due to the potential of confidential information about a student being revealed.”

The form asks parents for their signature and warns that “violation of this agreement may result in RCS removing my child from the virtual meeting.”

To invert an old bromide, if they're this paranoid maybe we should be out to get them?

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

‘Black linguistic justice’: Professors demand end to standard English as the norm

A national professional association of writing instructors recently published a list of demands that argued the current emphasis on standard English is rooted in racism and called for a complete overhaul of how language is taught.

It was published by a subcommittee with the Conference on College Composition and Communication, part of the National Council of Teachers of English.

The statement called for an end to “White Mainstream English,” arguing such an action would “decolonize” students’ minds and the English language, as well as help students “unlearn white supremacy.”

[...]

The roughly 3,000-word statement emphasizes five main demands as solutions:

  • We demand that teachers stop using academic language and standard English as the accepted communicative norm, which reflects white mainstream English
  • We demand that teachers stop teaching black students to code-switch! Instead, we must teach black students about anti-black linguistic racism and white linguistic supremacy
  • We demand that political discussions and Praxis Center Black Language as teacher-researcher activism for classrooms and communities
  • We demand black linguistic consciousness
  • We demand that black dispositions are centered in the research and teaching of black language.

The entire statement included 33 exclamation points peppered throughout. The demands were penned by a special committee that is also calling itself the “Why We Cain’t Breathe!” committee, according to the association’s website. (The word “cain’t” is described online as a mainly southern U.S. nonstandard form of can’t.)

5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. 6 The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

8 So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel — because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

[–]Steve_Huffman 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

[–]rwkastenBring on the dancing horses[S] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I also cannot imagine incels ever winning a Super Bowl, so I have no objections to this idea.

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The Kids Are Alt-Right: When Your Star Pupil Gets Red-Pilled

Another problem when students are red-pilled is that they then attempt to convert other classmates. Red-pilled students become highly argumentative and confrontational during lessons to sway the class toward their ideas, which puts teachers in a bind. On one hand, they want to encourage the exploration of ideas in the classroom, but on the other, they don’t want class time to be endlessly derailed with debates about long-settled science and ethical norms, like racism being bad and LGBTQ+ people deserving rights.

“It’s hard because if I disregard [the manosphere students’ questions], I sometimes feel like it makes other students think, ‘Huh, she doesn’t have a good answer for that, it must be true!’” Ferderber explains. “So it doesn’t work to say, ‘I won’t dignify that with a response,’ but if you go down the rabbit hole with them, is it serving the needs of the other students?”

Of course, teachers are human too, and the emotional impact of being constantly challenged in the classroom can take a toll. “It was so frustrating,” Jennifer says about her flat-earth student perpetually derailing the classroom with his conspiracies. “He literally made me feel like I was a fraud, and it didn’t help that I was a new teacher at the time. When he’d tell me I was wrong and that these are the ‘alternative facts,’ I could feel my class lose their trust in me. It was a crazy power struggle for sure.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wY57Vn0qTiU

[–]mo-ming-qi-miao 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

[–]mo-ming-qi-miao 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The hot WAP takes are in season and ready for harvest: How sexual empowerment screws women

A cynic might wonder if it’s also important that teenage girls could watch that video and think this is how they are expected to behave in order to retain a boyfriend’s affection. Fully 40% of UK teenage girls today experience sexual coercion in relationships, a fact that correlates strongly with rising youth consumption of sexually explicit content. Even painful and risky anal sex is now normalised, along with the expectation that girls will not enjoy it.

A sexual revolution that set out to free women from unfair expectations of modesty hasn’t levelled the playing field between the sexes at all. Instead, it’s rolled out an aggressive, visual, low-intimacy, emotionally disconnected male-standard sexuality for everyone, including women — to our considerable detriment. In doing so, it’s stripped women of any vocabulary with which to pursue their own erotic interests, in the form of long-term sexual and also emotional commitment.

The pitiful trade-off women are offered for sacrificing female-centred sexuality is the opportunity to exploit their youthful beauty in pursuit of money or power. But what (predominantly young) ‘sex positive’ feminists seem to ignore is how short-lived this form of power is.

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Minneapolis lawyer wants cop client cleared, claims George Floyd ‘overdosed’ on fentanyl

The attorney for one of the four former Minneapolis police officers charged in the death of George Floyd is alleging that his client Thomas Lane should be cleared because Floyd overdosed on fentanyl while resisting arrest.

In Monday’s filing, Earl Gray said the disappearance of a white spot on Floyd’s tongue in the body camera video looks like “2 milligrams of fentanyl, a lethal dose.”

“All he had to do is sit in the police car, like every other defendant who is initially arrested. While attempting to avoid his arrest, all by himself, Mr. Floyd overdosed on Fentanyl,” the court documents read. “Given his intoxication level, breathing would have been difficult at best. Mr. Floyd’s intentional failure to obey commands, coupled with his overdosing, contributed to his own death.”

Any predictions for the scale of riots we're going to see once Chauvin gets acquitted? I'm figuring at least Watts-level.

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

A number of companies based in downtown Portland are set to vacate or sell their offices because on-going protests in the city against police brutality have led to 'unsafe' conditions in the area, reports suggest.

Standard Insurance, whose headquarters at 900 SW 5th Avenue is a key part of downtown Portland’s cityscape, have removed the last of their 2,100 employees from the center and have relocated them to their office in Hillsboro.

‘Our downtown properties have sustained significant vandalism and a number of employees and contractors have been assaulted in recent months,’ Standard Insurance's community relations senior director Bob Speltz told KGW.

[...]

While the future of Standard’s Portland buildings remain unclear, numerous business owners in the area spoke out last month about how they were losing massive amounts of money due to the demonstrations and may also have to consider relocating.

The protests, combined with the pandemic, was found to have caused several million dollars in either damage or lost revenue, a survey administered by the Portland Business Alliance found.

One of the responding businesses reported losses of more than $20 million alone. The company wasn't named in the findings, however the staggering number is said to still be growing.

'The financial consequences to the downtown corridor are a running calculation that is almost impossible to wrap your mind around. The financial impacts of physical damage is one thing, and that continues to increase,' the organization’s president and CEO, Andrew Hoan, said in July. 'Then the ongoing loss of revenue to the business community who cannot operate their places of businesses is also a number that continues to rise.'

Business owners said the continued clashes in the city, particularly in front of the federal courthouse, are affecting profits and their sense of safety.

Depending on how large a share of revenue taxes on business and commercial real estate are Portland may find itself having to defund more than just the Police next year. I'll have the popcorn ready.

[–]Steve_Huffman 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

[–]mo-ming-qi-miao 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

[–]mo-ming-qi-miao 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Google giving far-right users' data to law enforcement, documents reveal.

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

University punishes white contractor for dressing up as Bob Marley five years ago

Florida State University ended a contract with a construction company after photos from 2015 surfaced that showed its CEO dressed up as Bob Marley at a Halloween party.

The public university in Tallahassee terminated its continuing service agreement with Childers Construction in June after the photos of CEO Sam Childers, who graduated from Florida State, were brought to the attention of the university by an alumna. The photo includes Childers, who is white, with his face blackened to look like the reggae star.

The Tallahassee Democrat obtained the contract termination letter from the university and an apology letter from Childers to the university in late July in response to a public records request.

Once again apologizing does nothing.

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

So they’re finally coming for Blazing Saddles.

The literalist, humourless scolds of the woke mob finally have the Mel Brooks classic in their censorious sights. It was only a matter of time. After all, this is a movie that contains copious utterances of the n-word, and that is always bad, regardless of context, right? So smack a trigger warning on it. Surround it with yellow tape warning off the easily offended. Remind people that they watch this film at their peril.

That is what HBO Max has done. It has soiled its streaming version of Blazing Saddles with a worthy three-minute intro – three minutes! – designed to put the film in its ‘proper social context’. Just as it did with Gone with the Wind a few weeks ago when the world went completely mental and started tearing down statues, defacing war memorials and memory-holing comedy shows from the 2000s. The ‘proper social context’ is graciously provided by Jacqueline Stewart, a professor of media studies at the University of Chicago, and thus cleverer than you and me. She informs us that ‘racist language and attitudes pervade the film’. But that’s okay, everyone, because ‘those attitudes are espoused by characters who are portrayed here as explicitly small-minded, ignorant bigots’. ‘The real, and much more enlightened, perspective is provided by the main characters played by Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder’, says Stewart.

If you ever want to see it better download and archive a copy now before it goes down the memory hole.

[–]Steve_Huffman 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

If you don't want to wear a mask in Connecticut you now need a doctor's note.

[–]the_nybbler 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Connecticut data. More

Hiding under the bed because they're afraid of their own shadow (and probably it hurts Trump somehow). Until someone gets a better estimate for the false positive rate of PCR tests, it's reasonable to believe there's essentially no virus there.

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Do you have to be woke to be a police officer?

According to a report in the Sunday Telegraph, a serving police officer in her thirties (we will call her Sandra) anonymously emailed recruitment units at 26 forces who had advertised jobs for PCs. In her emails, she asked if her gender-critical views would be a barrier to her application, saying that, ‘While I am firmly against abuse and discrimination to trans people, I do not believe you can change your biological sex’. Two of the forces that replied – one, ironically, her own – said that this admission of belief would be a bar to her employment.

She challenged Norfolk Police on this, pointing out that all except a small minority thought as she did, including many police officers. A Norfolk Police spokesman responded with some mechanistic prose about inclusivity, while one of its recruitment consultants asked Sandra to give details of any officers who thought as she did so they could be ‘investigated’.

Now, it may well be true that this was a provocative probing exercise on Sandra’s part: we don’t know. Whoever read Sandra’s email probably asked their supervisor for advice, and would have been told her application had trouble written all over it – that her beliefs becoming public might not only cause reputational damage but could also create problems under the Equality Act. The episode is nevertheless an outrage.

Non cult members need not apply, it seems. If you don't believe that a balding chomo in a sundress ~stunning and brave~ woman then you'll be "investigated" right out of a job.

[–]mo-ming-qi-miao 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Penn State student gov plans to 'interrogate' members to check for 'internal biases'

According to an announcement posted to social media, the UPUA has “failed to effectively represent, advocate on the behalf of, and welcome BIPOC [black, indigenous people of color].” Therefore, the UPUA will “institutionalize a mandatory bias workshop as part of the candidate registration process” prior to every election. Students will not be eligible for the election until they complete the workshop.

In order to hold themselves “accountable to the highest standards of representation, advocacy, and anti-racism,” the UPUA is implementing other reforms, such as mandatory “anti-racism training” for all members.

This training will explore institutional racism, “interrogate” participants to check for "internal biases and prejudices," and help students become “stronger (anti-racist) allies to communities of color.” Students must complete this training by August 31.

They're really leaning into the "woke NKVD" aesthetic.

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Chicago looters smash Ronald McDonald House with terrified sick kids inside

Sick kids and their families cowered in fear inside a Chicago Ronald McDonald House as looters smashed the front door while trying to get inside this week, according to staff.

The charity says more than 30 families, as well as some sick children with them, were left “frightened” by those who smashed windows as they ransacked the Windy City during Monday’s chaotic crime spree.

“[They were] very concerned there was a lot of activity right in front of the house, people making choices that could put them at risk and put our families at risk, so the staff was frightened,” Ronald McDonald House Charities’ Lisa Mitchell told ABC7.

The attacked site houses families so they and their children can be close to Lurie Children’s Hospital, which should be an easy and safe trip just five blocks away.

I wonder what part of "reparations" trying to loot a charity constitutes.

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

BLM protestors in Portland just Reginald Denny'd a dude.

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Elementary school ‘whiteness’ lesson: Sympathizing with police is ‘racist’

An elementary school in one of the country’s wealthiest districts will require fourth and fifth graders to read a book which asserts sympathizing with law enforcement is “racist.”

Students at Gladwyne Elementary School in Pennsylvania’s Lower Merion School District will get “Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness,” which also claims it’s “racist” to not watch the news and showcases Colin Kaepernick as a hero in the fight against racial injustice.

According to The Washington Free Beacon, the same curriculum uses “A Kid’s Book About Racism” for kindergartners and first graders.

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The Fiasco of 'Go Ahead, Break Our Windows' Policing

After looters struck downtown Chicago on Sunday night, officials literally raised the bridges to prevent rioting hordes from roaming so easily. They also blocked road access and stopped public transit. So, we have come to this: a major American city is replicating the strategy of medieval castles: flood the moats and raise the drawbridges. All that is missing are crenelated battlements and Welsh longbowmen.

In Portland, officials aren’t even raising the drawbridges. After more than 70 nights of rioting, Mayor Ted Wheeler’s strategy seems to be, “If you insist on doing this, we might write a strong letter.” He has stopped short of repeating what Monty Python’s French knight told invaders at his castle, “Go away or I will taunt you a second time.” Mayor Wheeler hasn’t taunted them a first time.

Wheeler has plenty of company among Democratic mayors and governors. Months after George Floyd’s death and the rioting and looting that followed, stores remain boarded up, criminals unpunished. Nothing says, “We protest racial injustice” like burning down the corner grocery or smashing windows to grab boxes of expensive Nikes. Instead of condemning the vandalism and jailing those who committed it, many mayors and city councils are trying to mollify their demands, slash police funding, and wait it out. The appeasement approach will fail to mollify the vandals, but it will enrage ordinary citizens, who want their lives back and an end to all this moral hectoring.

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Wokeness: old religion in a new bottle

As a follow-up to The Anxious Age, I wrote an essay in 2014 in the Weekly Standard, called ‘The Spiritual Shape of Political Ideas’. The first idea I addressed was white guilt – that there is this inherent guiltiness that comes from being white. This notion has the same logical shape and the same psychological operation as Original Sin. The trouble is that, unlike Original Sin, there’s no salvation from white guilt. But the formal structure of white guilt and Original Sin is the same. How do you come to understand that you need salvation? By deeper and deeper appreciation of your sinfulness.

Similarly, there is ostracising and shunning. Cancel culture is just the latest and most virulent form of the religious notion of shunning, in which people are chased into further appreciation of their guiltiness. Two years ago, the Nation published a poem about an older panhandler giving advice to a younger one, about how to get people to give you money. The Twittermob went after that poem, on the grounds that the poet was a white man from Minnesota. And the magazine apologised, and the poet apologised for writing the poem. That’s what the shunning is looking for. If you profane, if you’re shunned outside the Temple, the only way back is to become fanatic, to convince people that you understand how guilty you are. And even then I’m not sure there’s any way back.

At the very least, one of the effects of the shunning is to frighten everyone into silence. Its purpose is to get people fired, to put people beyond the pale, to get them out of our sight. This is for a couple reasons. First, it is to ensure we are not infected by this sinfulness. And second, it is a public declaration of our power. It says, look how powerful we are, that we can do this to people.

The Twittermob is really an astonishing phenomenon. One of the latest cases is the grocery store, Trader Joe’s. The Los Angeles Times recently ran a piece saying that it was a shame that Trader Joe’s, which many of its readers identify with, wouldn’t give in to an online petition [that called for the removal of ‘racist packaging’ for products like Trader Ming’s and Trader José’s]. This was a petition started by a 17-year-old. The change.org petition against Trader Joe’s never had many signatures [about 6,000 in early August, about one month after it started]. As a columnist noted, more people attend an SEC football game than are in these Twittermobs that have companies terrified. We live in just the strangest times. But understanding the historical roots of these radicals as post-Protestant, and understanding the spiritual hunger which has no outlet for them, helps us to explain it. This is what happens when you have a Mainline outlook that is broken loose from all of its prior constraints. These ideas used to be corralled in the churches. If you let an idea like Original Sin – that’s a dangerous and powerful idea – loose from its corral, it goes to a place where it can exist, which is politics. One of the great dangers is that religious ideas are in politics. The line that I use is that, if you believe that your ordinary political opponents are not merely mistaken, but are evil, you have ceased to do politics and begun to do religion.

[–]mo-ming-qi-miao 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Twitter surveys users on their ethnicity when it warns them for wrongthink

Here’s how this feature works: Whenever users type a reply and hit the send button, Twitter will quickly analyse the reply and look for phrases or words that were frequently reported in the past and would then generate a notification accordingly. If a reply does contain language that is considered “harmful” to the company, users would be asked to reconsider their tweet reply.

While Twitter subtly refers to this as asking users to “rethink” their replies, it seems more like an effort to heavily moderate speech across the platform. With such practices in place, it isn’t an exaggeration if people would become even more closeted when it comes to expressing their views online.

It’s been a few months since users started getting this dubious notification when they post a tweet that Twitter wants to correct their thinking on and Twitter has now annoyed users further by surveying them on their ethnicity when they make a statement that Twitter finds problematic.

[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

There's been a massive leak of NYT internal documents, they had them in an open directory that was searchable via google. Offsite discussion:

https://boards.4chan.org/pol/thread/272293725

https://kiwifarms.net/threads/nyt-secure-server-leak.74777/

[–]mo-ming-qi-miao 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

U.S. Justice Department says Yale illegally discriminates against Asians, whites

The findings are the result of a two-year investigation in response to a complaint by Asian-American groups concerning Yale's conduct, the department said in a statement.

The department said it was prepared to file a lawsuit against Yale if the school, in New Haven, Connecticut, did not take "remedial measures."

A Yale spokeswoman said the university "categorically denies" the allegations but has cooperated fully with the investigation.

[–][deleted]  (3 children)

[deleted]

    [–]doxylaminator 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

    I actually don't think they will. Gorsuch's opinion on the transgender firing case looked tailor-made to end affirmative action.

    [–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    With Roberts on the court we're almost guaranteed a cop out that changes nothing.

    [–]the_nybbler 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Not going to matter when Thomas gets replaced by Sotomayor II, Ta Nehisi Coates, or Alicia Garza.

    [–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

    Syracuse to punish ‘bystanders’ of ‘bias-motivated’ incidents

    Syracuse University will now punish students for simply witnessing “bias-motivated” incidents and “acts of hate.” This comes after a radical activist student group demanded such a policy change.

    Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Keith Alford sent an email July 10 regarding how students can be “held accountable” as “bystanders and accomplices” to “bias-motivated” conduct violations.

    [–]the_nybbler 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Ah, Syracuse, home of a bunch of "hate incidents".... that were probably all hoaxes. There was a rumor of AirDropped neo-nazi propaganda that turned out to be just that, a rumor. There was racist and anti-Semitic graffiti (including a swastika drawn in snow) which no perpetrator was found for. There was other grafitti which turned out to be done by one of the progressives. And there was a "verbal assault" on an African American student which was just he-said she-said, like the Albany bus incident. Of course the accused were punished.

    [–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Turns out that the idpol fracas that led to the "cancellation" of the mayor of Holyoke was a gayop (pun intended) run by supporters of his political opponent Rep. Richard Neal and they had started planning the ratfuck almost a year ago.

    Timothy Ennis, the chief strategist for the UMass Amherst College Democrats, admitted in the chats that he was a “Neal Stan” and said he felt conflicted about involving the chapter of the College Democrats in a future attack on Morse. “But I need a job,” concluded Ennis. “Neal will give me an internship.” At the time, Ennis was president of the chapter, a post he held from April 2019 to April 2020, when he was term-limited out.

    Leaders of the College Democrats group went beyond merely plans to leak. They also explicitly discussed how they could find Morse’s dating profiles and then lead him into saying something incriminating that would then damage his campaign.

    [–]mo-ming-qi-miao 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Big Tech embeds itself in the Biden campaign

    One of Biden’s closest aides joined the campaign from Apple and “other committee members have close ties to the [Big Tech] companies, including economists and lawyers who have advised them, and officials at think tanks funded by them.”

    In any case, it’s obvious that these companies are merely acting to protect their business interests against the rage of potential future hostile legislators in Washington D.C – yet the report somehow manages to make Biden (or rather, his campaign) the potential victim here, as the giants under unprecedented pressure are said to be “seeking to co-opt a potential Biden administration.”

    [–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    The BBC’s bizarre n-word controversy

    There are a lot of problems with the BBC’s output, but anti-black racism is almost certainly not one of them. And yet, this is more or less what the corporation has been accused of in the still rumbling controversy over a BBC News report’s use of the n-word.

    More than 18,000 people have complained about the piece, which was broadcast on Points West and the BBC News channel on 29 July. BBC Radio 1Xtra dj Sideman has resigned in protest over it. A group of black female professionals has since called for a 24-hour boycott of all BBC content. And BBC staff are still busily tweeting their dismay.

    Given all this, you’d be forgiven for thinking the journalist in question, BBC social affairs correspondent Fiona Lamdin, had launched into some racist, n-word-strewn diatribe, or perhaps jokingly started singing along to a rap song in the middle of an afternoon broadcast – blithely unaware that a white woman casually using that most ugly word would be a big deal.

    Of course, she didn’t do either of those things. What she actually did was quote the word in a report on a brutal racially aggravated attack in Bristol, in which the attackers are alleged to have used it. A 21-year-old NHS worker and musician called K-Dogg was hit by a car, sustaining injuries including a broken leg, nose and cheekbone. According to the BBC, the family supported Lamdin’s use of the slur in the piece, hoping it would illustrate the full severity of the incident.

    But apparently the desire of a journalist and a victim’s family to plainly present the facts of a suspected racist attack is irrelevant. The BBC, having originally stuck by the report, has now said it was a mistake and apologised. ‘The BBC now accepts that we should have taken a different approach’, wrote director general Tony Hall in an email to staff. Inevitably, this statement has been met with outrage that he didn’t cave in sooner.

    Of course now that they've issued an unwarranted apology for reporting the news accurately the neo-hisbah will be coming at them twice as hard. When will people learn that chumming the waters doesn't calm sharks?

    [–]Steve_Huffman 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    "In the Wake of Covid-19 Lockdowns, a Troubling Surge in Homicides" proclaims the NYT. Sure, because of the lockdowns. Can't think of anything else that might be involved.

    [–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

    Masks bad

    Masks good

    Some masks bad

    The narrative has whiplash at this point.

    [–]rwkastenBring on the dancing horses[S] 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    Did they test KKK hoods? It's the only way to be sure.

    [–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    In which the Democrat running for NC-11 implies his Republican opponent is a Nazi... for following 88 people on twitter.

    [–]mo-ming-qi-miao 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

    Sexologist James Cantor has been forced out at the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality for daring to suggest that children under 12 not be allowed to "transition".

    My 27-year association with SSSS must come to an end. In the present culture war between science and popular appeal, the SSSS Board of Directors selected the latter. This is not the first time the SSSS Board abused their authority to silence science opposing their personal political views, and no valid organization can be in the name of science in name only. I am grateful to the other sexuality scientists who have resigned in sympathy, both publicly and privately.

    To acknowledge the facts: I have long posted news items and opinion pieces to SSSS’s member listserv. In July, I posted an essay of my own, When is a TERF not a TERF, challenging the extremism that has taken over public discussion of trans issues, pointing out, for example, that the unwillingness ever to recognize anyone’s transition is different from citing the research suggesting children should wait until age 12 to transition.

    A debate ensued, not focused on any argument or evidence submitted, but on whether such discussions should even be permitted. The cessation of open, critical discussion is antithetical to the purpose of a scientific society. Participating in the debate were three SSSS Board members and roughly a dozen general members, expressing a roughly 50/50 opinion [full thread downloadable here].

    Links from original.

    [–]simonp 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Something something diagonalization

    [–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Free-speech lawsuits pile up as cities put brakes on conservative street messages

    Scott LoBaido has a message for the New York City officials who told him to remove the bright blue line he painted on Hylan Boulevard in Staten Island: See you in court.

    Mr. LoBaido said Monday he will pursue legal action after the New York City Department of Transportation ordered him to remove his handiwork. He insists his pro-police message has every bit as much right to adorn the streets as the Black Lives Matter murals embraced by Mayor Bill de Blasio.

    “As an artist, I think it’s beautiful work, but [Mr. de Blasio] did not have a permit to do his street art, and that obviously means that I do not need a permit to do mine. Why should he get a pass and not me?” Mr. LoBaido said. “Obviously, they singled out me because I’m a conservative-leaning artist and I do support my military and the men and women in blue uniform.”

    Quod licet Iovi non licet bovi, as expected.

    [–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Black Lives Matter Chicago said early Monday's looting of stores was a form of 'reparations' as the group held a protest Monday night in support of the more than 100 people arrested after an evening of violence.

    [–]Steve_Huffman 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

    [–]the_nybbler 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

    Trump Considers Banning Re-entry by Citizens Who May Have Coronavirus

    Yeah, I don't think that one's going to fly. He could clearly quarantine citizens suspected of having coronavirus, but refusing them entry won't make it past a Texas judge, never mind a Hawaiian one.

    [–]simonp 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    They could always just renounce their citizenship and call themselves refugees, and they'll throw the red carpet out for them

    [–]simonp 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    He could clearly quarantine citizens suspected of having coronavirus

    He literally can't. We already tried that, and it went.... "well"

    [–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

    Matt Taibbi: The New Puritans

    The College Democrats explained that a major part of Morse’s offense was that he sought the contact information of students at their events:

    Mayor Morse came to College Democrats of Massachusetts events and got to know our membership, and then sought out students that he met at our events privately on social media, in a manner widely understood by our generation to indicate intimacy.

    If you’re wondering if it’s possible that the College Democrats seemingly just defined communicating on social media as a kind of sexual act, you’re not wrong. It got worse. In their letter to Morse, the group explained that when Morse wrote to those adult students – who, of course, gave Morse their contact info voluntarily – they lacked the free will to ignore his communications:

    We have heard ​countless​ stories of Morse adding students to his ‘Close Friends Story’ and Direct Messaging members of College Democrats on Instagram in a way that makes these students feel pressured to respond due to his status…

    American college students, it seems, are so intimidated by someone with a political job title that they lack the agency to ignore an Instagram shout-out. The College Democrats elaborated (emphasis mine):

    Mayor Morse is a widely-admired and well-connected gatekeeper to progressive politics in Massachusetts and nationally, which makes the task of refusing his advances fraught for college students who wish to enter progressive politics themselves… the Mayor’s various positions of power create a significant and undeniable power imbalance between himself and the college students he sought out… where such a lopsided power dynamic exists, consent becomes complicated.

    This is not a sexual harassment issue in the classic sense of someone who actually has power over someone else, for instance in the workplace or in a classroom. The concept here is that students who might “wish to enter progressive politics” will feel uncomfortable refusing, or even just not answering, so mighty a personage as the Mayor of Holyoke, Massachusetts, for fear of what that might do to their job prospects someday, in a field they have not even chosen yet.

    [–]rwkastenBring on the dancing horses[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    on Instagram in a way that makes these students feel pressured to respond due to his status

    Here's one tell. Through the lens of "hopelessly addicted to status attained via narcissism-enabling social media apps", these students are absolutely correct. That someone could just not be so hopelessly addicted is a foreign concept. These are the bastard children of Jack and the Zucc.

    who wish to enter progressive politics themselves

    And there's the other one. Of course every progressive is very, very interested in politics; to be seen not to be means you're a bad progressive. So you have a bunch of 21 year olds lecturing a 31 year old about his consent conduct, and in a way, they are absolutely correct to do so. In the mad maze that is the progressive religion, the youngsters are on the right side of the priests here.

    This would not be the case if Morse was fucking townies or wasn't such a bright progressive champion himself, but he chose to pursue sex in a snakepit he helped create and enable, and I think it just that the snakepit is now rejecting him.

    And Taibbi is once again trying to destroy the progressive house with liberal tools, like this has ever worked once in the past decade. Maybe someone should inject his next red pill with a drop of black.

    [–]lord-kril 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    [–]mo-ming-qi-miao 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

    Sheriff must take “Undoing Racism” course after posting news stories about black perpetrators on Facebook

    Lou Falco has been a law enforcement professional for 40 years and is currently serving his third term as Rockland sheriff – but his decision to share several news stories about violent crime perpetrated by black Americans resulted in him removing these posts and issuing an apology, and coming under pressure to step down amid accusations of racism.

    Reports don’t seem to question the veracity of these news stories – one of the more jarring ones documenting a murder case that saw two black teenagers shoot a white toddler in the face “for fun” – but the wisdom of reminding the public of such instances is obviously questionable in the time of a narrative about wide-spread police brutality.

    Wasn't the term "hate facts" supposed to be satirical? I've been living in Clown World for so long I can't remember.

    [–]the_nybbler 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

    The most violent of the white supremacists are known as "1488ers". I find I've become a "1352er", though if this "defund the police" stuff continues, maybe we'll converge on the number.

    [–]simonp 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    You're not going to believe this, but, the average of those two numbers is 1,420

    [–]mo-ming-qi-miao 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

    Prof who said doctors should be judged on merit, not race 'no longer' holds same job

    A professor at the University of Pittsburgh has been removed from his position directing a fellowship program associated with the school's hospital system amid backlash to a white paper he authored critiquing affirmative action policies in the medical field.

    UPitt Associate Professor of Medicine Norman Wang was removed from his position as Program Director of the Electrophysiology Fellowship, according to at least two academics. As of Wednesday, his biography on the School of Medicine’s website no longer shows the title. A Google cached preview version of his bio shows that the page previously listed him as "Director,

    Pennsylvania State University College of Nursing Assistant ProfessorJocelyn Anderson, whose faculty bio states that she completed her postdoctoral fellowship at UPMC, tweeted, "fyi: I reached out to some @UPMC contacts who confirmed as of 8/1 he is no longer a fellowship director as this paper is 'incompatible with our core beliefs about who we train and how we train them'"

    [...]

    This backlash, and apparent demotion, comes after Wang published a white paper in the Journal of the American Heart Association, in which he argued against affirmative action policies within the field of medicine. While many of the responses to Wang were measured and discussed the content of his paper, other responses accused Wang of racism and demanded the journal retract the piece.

    On Monday, the journal released a statement announcing that it stands for “inclusivity” and that it is re-evaluating Wang’s paper. In the paper, Wang criticized the notion that affirmative action in medicine necessarily leads to better outcomes for minority patients and asserted that merit should be the primary measure considered in medical school admissions.

    Wang wrote: “There exists no empirical evidence by accepted standards for causal inference to support the mantra that 'diversity saves lives.'" He also wrote that “ultimately, all who aspire to a profession in medicine and cardiology must be assessed as individuals on the basis of their personal merits, not their racial and ethnic identities.”

    In case you thought 2020 couldn't get any more absurd here we have a literal Chinese Cardiologist being discriminated against for insisting that people should be judged on their individual merits.

    [–]rwkastenBring on the dancing horses[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

    I'm actually willing to grant that better care may be rendered (or accepted) if the patient and doctor are of similar background. This seems like one of the stronger progressive arguments out there. Of course all the remedies proposed rely on Blank Slatism and Whig History so they're automatically junk, but the premise seems right.

    [–]mo-ming-qi-miao 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Requiring those who support affirmative action to only receive treatment from physicians who got their medical degrees because of it would be just deserts.

    [–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

    Looters descend on downtown Chicago; more than 100 arrested

    Hundreds of looters descended on downtown Chicago early Monday following a police shooting on the city's South Side, with vandals smashing the windows of dozens of businesses and making off with merchandise, cash machines and anything else they could carry, police said.

    When police shot a man after he opened fire on officers Sunday afternoon, the incident apparently prompted a social media post hours later urging looters to converge on the business district, Police Superintendent David Brown said at a news conference.

    [...]

    Videos of the vandalism showed huge crowds of people smashing their way into businesses and streaming out of the broken windows and doors loaded down with clothes and other merchandise. They loaded up vehicles and drove off, some leaving behind boxes of rocks that they had apparently brought to shatter the windows. Cash register drawers and clothes hangers were strewn about the streets, along with automatic teller machines that had been ripped from walls or pulled from inside businesses.

    Stores miles from downtown were also ransacked, their parking lots littered with glass and boxes that once contained television sets and other electronics.

    Additional info:

    https://twitter.com/BernieTafoya/status/1292776127359066112?s=20

    https://twitter.com/FrankCalabrese/status/1292738584265596929?s=20

    https://twitter.com/paigexfry/status/1292719645925965824?s=20

    https://twitter.com/djtek/status/1292704937240141825?s=20

    https://twitter.com/stefpetrop/status/1292729746825125888?s=20

    https://twitter.com/Rainey_Wright/status/1292735372141756416?s=20

    https://streamable.com/j9kwct

    https://streamable.com/n6mngx

    https://streamable.com/8ll8on

    [–]the_nybbler 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

    Apparently they went and wrecked an Amazon Go store in Seattle also (for the second time), though there's little news about that. I hope Bezos appreciates them biting one of the hands that feeds them.

    [–]mo-ming-qi-miao 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Amazon Go

    Would make an awesome nickname for the ensuing bout of white flight.

    [–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

    Target Adds “Badge” to Help Shoppers Identify Black-Owned Brands

    “We have carried a number of Black-owned brands for years and continue to listen to guests to ensure we offer a compelling and relevant assortment that supports our guests' needs,” Target said in a company statement. “Based on what our guests are searching for, we have started to implement icons online to help our guests find and support Black-owned brands and founders when they shop online.”

    This call to action isn’t new — in fact it’s the basis of a historic movement: Buy Black. Its purpose is to raise consumer awareness of Black-owned brands and thus help correct the inherent inequalities many face. For example, COVID-19 didn’t affect every business equally. Between February and April of this year, 41% of Black-owned businesses closed for good, compared to 17% of White-owned businesses. Since BLM began again in earnest, so have the efforts to highlight Black-owned products. Official Black Wall Street, an app that curates Black-owned retailers, has 686K Instagram followers. DoorDash also launched a new initiative to amplify independent Black-owned businesses and Black entrepreneurs in their app.

    Der Judenstern, but woke.

    [–]the_nybbler 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

    It's a trap. They placate the wokesters with this shit, but the now the wokesters will look around, see there's very few badges, and throw another fit.

    [–]rwkastenBring on the dancing horses[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

    I looked into it a bit more and it's online-only, fairly subtle, and something you really have to work to find. That it's down where they normally tag stuff as vegan or cruelty-free, this seems like more of a woke shit-test than anything else.

    [–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    I hadn't thought about it being online. I presume it won't be long until someone scrapes their sites and makes a list.

    [–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    Republican senators’ new bill looks to strip funds from public universities that restrict free speech

    A news release from Sen. Cotton’s office described the key goals of the legislation:

    • Establishes the sense of Congress that students should be free to express and hold their opinions on matters of religion and philosophy on college campuses; that free speech zones and restrictive speech codes are contrary to the First Amendment; and that public colleges should not restrict the First Amendment rights of their students.

    • Prohibits public colleges from restricting free speech and expression on campus, except in limited and viewpoint-neutral circumstances consistent with the First Amendment.

    • Requires private colleges and universities that receive federal funding to be transparent about their speech policies and enforce those policies in a consistent and neutral manner.

    • Creates a review process within the Department of Education’s Office of Postsecondary Education to determine whether campus speech policies infringe on the First Amendment rights of individuals on campus, on penalty of losing federal funding.

    • Creates a cause of action in federal court for the Attorney General or other parties to challenge restrictions on speech and expression on campus.

    [–]mo-ming-qi-miao 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

    An alleged rapist killed his accuser after being released from jail over concerns he and his lawyers would contract coronavirus.

    The incident in Karla Dominguez’s apartment last October was violent, and it was not consensual, she testified in Alexandria District Court in December. The man she accused was indicted on charges including rape, strangulation and abduction and jailed without bond in Alexandria.

    Then the coronavirus pandemic hit. Ibrahim E. Bouaichi’s lawyers argued that the virus was a danger to both inmates and their attorneys, and that Bouaichi should be freed awaiting trial. On April 9, over the objections of an Alexandria prosecutor, Circuit Court Judge Nolan Dawkins released Bouaichi on $25,000 bond, with the condition that he only leave his Maryland home to meet with his lawyers or pretrial services officials.

    On July 29, Alexandria police say, Bouaichi, 33, returned to Alexandria and shot and killed Dominguez outside her apartment in the city’s West End.

    What are the odds she goes into the state's records as a "Coronavirus-related death"?

    [–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    NASA to remove offensive names from planets and other heavenly bodies

    In a press release Thursday, the space agency said that all planets and heavenly bodies will be referred only to by their scientific names, the Houston Chronicle reported.

    Under the new rules, the “Eskimo Nebula,” discovered in 1787 by William Hershel, will only be referred to as NGC 2392.

    The so-called “Siamese Twins Galaxy” will likewise be known only as NGC 4567 and NGC 4568.

    “As the scientific community works to identify and address systemic discrimination and inequality in all aspects of the field, it has become clear that certain cosmic nicknames are not only insensitive but can be actively harmful,” the agency said in a news release.

    I'm sure that these pointless cosmetic changes will a long way to help people who mostly live in the rural arctic without internet or TV.

    [–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    Public university prosecutes student for using President Trump as Zoom background

    New Jersey’s Stockton University, a 20-minute drive from Atlantic City, charged a student with disruptive behavior, discrimination, harassment, creating a “hostile environment,” causing “harm” and cyberbullying. His violation? Using Trump’s image as his Zoom background during an online class July 1.

    The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is representing doctoral student Robert Dailyda, warning the public university in a letter Friday that it has no legal authority to punish a student for sharing his political views, even if they offended his classmates.

    FIRE’s summary of the factual background says there were “no disruptions to the class or other feedback about Dailyda’s choice of background during the class” other than a private chat another classmate send him. Several classmates piled on Dailyda for his Trump background in a post-class group chat, but the university admitted that this conversation was not “threatening” to anyone and that Dailayda exited the chat to “avoid continued conflict.” The student wrote a Facebook post after the pile-on, saying he was “done with the leftist agenda of BLM and the white self haters,” including his classmates:

    I’m not backing down. If we can’t get past this, ok, I’m ready to fight to the death for our county and against those that want to take it down. I believe there are also many like me.

    [–]mo-ming-qi-miao 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    Turns out that one Swedish study on MGM and mental health was bullshit. The journal that published it has issued a correction making clear that getting some quack to chop a troon's cock off will not have any "advantage of surgery in relation to subsequent mood or anxiety disorder-related health care visits or prescriptions or hospitalizations following suicide attempts in that comparison".

    This correction was issued after their statistical methodology was heavily criticized late last year.

    [–]Steve_Huffman 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    [–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

    Outsports, an LGBTQ sports and activism blog owned by Vox Media, published the names of over 300 women athletes who stood their ground by signing a letter addressed to the National College Athletic Association Board of Governors asking for the preservation of women’s sports “without permission.”

    While many of the signatories were “afraid of the backlash that they might get on social media of being labeled a transphobe or a hater” if their names were released, Outpost published screenshots of all of the names claiming that it was “in the public interest, because those who stand in favor of discrimination ought to be held accountable.”

    [...]

    Just last week, Holcomb told The Federalist that some “activist organizations” would try “telling female athletes that they need to be silent.”

    “Anytime you allow a biological male into their category and allow them to take away spots and push female athletes down in the rankings, that is discrimination against female athletes because Title IX was designed to give them those opportunities,” Holcomb said. “There’s a lot of loud activist organizations out there that are striving to tell the American public that this is the way that sports should look and telling female athletes that they need to be silent.”

    The important thing about this is that the push for biological men in women's sports is the "trans" issue that has the least support among conservative democrats and independants. If we can't even win this one then the war is lost.

    [–]rwkastenBring on the dancing horses[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

    Outsports is on SBN, no? Those blogs are independently operated by separate (groups of) people who are not direct Vox Media employees. They do share some of the ad revenue generated by their blogs, but Vox exerts little editorial influence over their content aside from a general "don't get us sued" terms of service agreement.

    The typical blogmeister on SBN will be generically big-city liberal, but that's more due to the fact that the teams they're covering are based in the same big city they are based in. That said, the vast majority of the content on the biggest SBN blogs is produced by the users, and most of them have the same "no politics unless it relates directly to the team, keep the religion to a minimum, don't be a dick" content policy as was common a decade ago. Outsports is decidedly an outlier in that regard, and last I checked, it was one of the least popular SBN blogs because of that. Turns out most sports fans are more interested in what's happening with their teams and much less interested in whatever bullshit the LGBTQ+ people want to yell about today.

    [–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Turns out most sports fans are more interested in what's happening with their teams and much less interested in whatever bullshit the LGBTQ+ people want to yell about today.

    Well yeah, I would expect that the core audience for Outsports isn't sports fans at all.

    [–]mo-ming-qi-miao 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Study confirms journalists really do live in a Twitter bubble

    The study included over 2,000 journalists’ Twitter accounts observed over two months in early 2018, taking into account their tweets, retweets and replies.

    The study by Nikki Usher and Yee Man Margaret Ng of University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, claims that this area in and around the US capital alone has spawned as many as nine insular journalistic “clusters.” These are prone, by the very nature of the arrangement, to professional groupthink. (And the very existence of groupthink – rapidly leads to unprofessionalism.)

    However, this study mostly focuses on identifying “clusters” by their share of the pie – with those dubbed elite/legacy, like the New York Times, NPR, and the Washington Post having a cozy bubble of their own that comprises about 30 percent of all area journalists.

    Reporters and media outlets covering congressional activities amount for the second bubble that has about 20 percent of what you might call “information cluster market share.”

    CNN’s bubble is considered separate – even if its ideologies align neatly with the largest one. The researchers said it was treated separately because it’s apparently a strikingly self-involved network.

    “CNN is telling a story about what is happening with CNN, and that is worrisome,” said Usher.

    [–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    In response to the trend of adult women claiming they've been "groomed" by men they had consensual relationships with comes a modest proposal: Fight for 25!

    [–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    The irresistible rise of the civilisation-state

    A spectre is haunting the liberal West: the rise of the “civilisation-state”. As America’s political power wanes and its moral authority collapses, the rising challengers of Eurasia have adopted the model of the civilisation-state to distinguish themselves from a paralysed liberal order, which lurches from crisis to crisis without ever quite dying nor yet birthing a viable successor. Summarising the civilisation-state model, the political theorist Adrian Pabst observes that “in China and Russia the ruling classes reject Western liberalism and the expansion of a global market society. They define their countries as distinctive civilisations with their own unique cultural values and political institutions.” From China to India, Russia to Turkey, the great and middling powers of Eurasia are drawing ideological succour from the pre-liberal empires from which they claim descent, remoulding their non-democratic, statist political systems as a source of strength rather than weakness, and upturning the liberal-democratic triumphalism of the late 20th century.

    [–]Steve_Huffman 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Trump has followed through on his promise to take action against TikTok, issuing 2 Executive Orders banning transactions with the company.

    [–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Mom goes undercover to investigate Planned Parenthood after daughter is prescribed testosterone

    A mother whose daughter was given a prescription for testosterone at Planned Parenthood wanted to find out why it was so easy, so she went undercover. Within a half-hour visit, she was given a six-month prescription with few questions asked.

    The 57-year-old mother, who's from the Tacoma area of Washington state and spoke with The Christian Post Monday on condition of anonymity, explained that after her troubled, trans-identifying 18-year-old daughter was prescribed testosterone by a Planned Parenthood nurse practitioner last month, she wanted to find out what the requirements were to purchase it.

    [...]

    No formal referral from a therapist or psychological assessment is required, the Planned Parenthood employee told CP, though clinicians would review medical, sexual, and mental health history during the appointment. Expectations about what one can achieve by gender-transitioning would also be discussed, she said, adding that referrals for surgery could be sent out if needed. Blood work and checking hormone levels would also be done, and ongoing follow-up appointments would be scheduled. CP also asked about the side effects of hormones, given scientific literature showing that the prefrontal cortex of the brain isn't fully developed until age 25. The Planned Parenthood representative said it sounded like "smoke coming out of nowhere," and brain development was inconsequential to starting gender transition hormones.

    Anyone else up for a Title IX suit against PP? If I could get a scrip for Test that easy I'd be hitting PR's every damn day.

    [–]mo-ming-qi-miao 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    One of those things that "never happens" just happened again: Male, Transgender, Boasts of Harassing Women in Crisis Shelter

    When these posts & behaviors were brought to the attention of the DEWC, their Twitter response was to call women’s concerns “harmful mistruths,” because Tyler is transgender, despite the numerous disturbing social media posts presented to them in which Tyler is abusive and predatory, admits to stabbing someone & being a ‘violent offender,’ discusses masturbating in the shower, and shares a recipe for making the deadly poison Ricin while mentioning the Vancouver water supply. When asked by numerous people online, DEWC never explained what ‘mistruths’ were supposedly shared.

    Hundreds of people commented on the lack of concern for the women’s safety in the shelter, which the DEWC dismissed in a formal statement on Sept 17th as ‘transphobic.’ The shelter said “we refuse to engage in a dialogue that gives a platform to transphobic groups or individuals or otherwise does damage to women who are transgender.”

    [–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Twitter Official Who Suspended Trump Campaign Account Is Former Kamala Harris Press Secretary

    Twitter on Wednesday banned President Trump’s campaign from tweeting until they delete a tweet about the Coronavirus that the tech company says violates its “rules against misinformation.”

    [...]

    Twitter hid the post and said he will not be able to tweet from his account until he deletes it, although he can appeal.

    The tech giants are working together to silence the President of the United States and his campaign.

    And now we know that the Twitter official who suspended the Trump campaign account.

    His name is Nick Pacilio.

    And who is Nick Pacilio?

    He’s the former press secretary for Liberal Democratic Presidential candidate Kamala Harris!

    [–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Next up in the ever expanding list of things that constitute "violence" in 2020: discussing a book you wrote.

    The New York Times hailed it as "a haunting tapestry of interwoven stories that inform us not just about our past but about the resentment-bred demons that are all too present in our society today," and the anti-racism scholar Ibram X. Kendi participated in a virtual discussion about it with Ball. Tulane University was slated to host another such event, featuring Ball and Lydia Pelot-Hobbs, an assistant professor of geography and African American studies.

    That event was supposed to take place tonight, but the university opted to postpone it following blinkered outrage from students who insisted that the event was "not only inappropriate but violent towards the experience of Black people in the Tulane community and our country." Other members of the Tulane community called it "harmful and offensive," and demanded its cancellation. Still others said the university should apologize and take action against whoever approved the event. (I verified that the people who made these kinds of comments were Tulane students, graduates, and employees. I chose not to name most of them in order to prevent individual harassment, though I did identify two student government officials who affixed their names to an appalling demand for censorship.)

    [–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    One of our local gyms here in SD has taken the "Iron Church" meme literally and registered itself as a religious organization in order to stay open during the latest shutdown.