Links - 5th November 2022 (2 - Trans Mania)

The ‘non-binary homosexuality’ trend erases gay people - "I began to notice an alarming trend of people describing themselves as “non-binary lesbians” and “non-binary gays.” Sadly, most onlookers are too afraid of facing charges of bigotry and the potential wrath of a Twitter mob to point out the absurdity of such claims, but as a gay man myself I’m happy to say it: You can’t be a non-binary homosexual. The very essence of such an identity is contradictory, and it erases the actual experience of gay people, which is rooted in a binary, biological understanding of sex. While this “non-binary lesbian” phenomenon certainly isn’t mainstream, at least not yet, it does exist outside the bubble of woke Twitter. For instance, the British LGBT media outlet Pink News, which claims to be the “world’s most read and watched LGBT+ digital media publisher,” put out an explainer video to educate us backwards bigots about the fact that you can indeed, be a non-binary lesbian, if you so please... in the ultimate bit of irony, the individuals profiled in the video complain that lesbians don’t want to date them"
Of course, we are told that homosexuals only like their own gender (which is why bisexuals don't reinforce the gender binary since heterosexuals supposedly only like other genders). But by that logic, you can't be a non-binary gay or lesbian. And non-binary homosexuals can only go for other non-binary people, and non-binary heterosexuals cannot go for other non-binary people. If the cope is that non-binary people don't have a gender, then they cannot be homosexual or heterosexual - they can't even be bisexual since they don't have a gender. So they can only be pansexual

Meme - "MOM, I WANT A MOTORCYCLE."
"THAT'S TOO DANGEROUS. YOU'LL KILL YOURSELF."
"MOM, I'M TRANS."

2 Medal-Winning Chinese Female Athletes Are Accused Of Actually Being Men - "Liao Mengxue and Tong Zhenhuan are part of the Hunan women tracking team that recently competed at the 2019 IAAF World Relays in Yokohoma, Japan... Interestingly, it was the Chinese media that initially questioned the genders of the two athletes. Chinese netizens pointed out that Liao and Tong look like men who decided to compete as females. Others also wondered if the two were taking performance-enhancing drugs that may have led to their masculine features like strong jawlines and underarm hair.  People pointed out that Liao didn’t even bother to shave her armpits."  
Clearly "transphobic"

Meme - "my bi boyfriend just came out as gay. i asked him about our relationship and he said it "won't change a thing'. i'm a trans woman."

Meme - "1980: I bet there will be flying cars in the future
2022: BRITAIN'S FIRST TRANSGENDER MUSLIM"

Meme - "When a man speaks *angry*
When a man pretending to be a woman steals a woman's place in society *placid*"

Meme - "Straight men are too predatory and weird to be gynecologists idgaf pick something else"
"what about trans men? would this also be an issue? /srs"
"I say this respectfully, I feel like im not qualified to answer that. I should've said straight cis men in my tweet."

Meme - "Dane Riley
Lives in Coldstream, British Columbia
I just wish I knew your real name so that when you get beat to death by trans peeps, I get to hear about it. You think we don't have lists? Be seeing you Nazi. On a post of 100 people responding to you, all you had to say was, "ok groomer". You are very dumb no? I almost feel bad for you then I remember how good it feels to shove my thumbs all the way into fascist eye sockets."
They're always so violent.

Meme - Transrightsarebased Ace ally | I come bring..: "As an Anarchist, I advise beating Transphobes to death with a copper pipe"
Beelzebub1331: "why copper? use a less valuable metal, maybe a wooden bat? don't those hurt more then metal bats"
Transrightsarebased: "It lasts longer. You can straighten out a copper pipe a bit easier than, say, lead or steel. You can use it on more transphobes."
Beelzebub1331: "but if I break my steel pipe I now have a second steel to give to a friend (they hate transphobes too)"
Transrightsarebased: "yes, but now the two pieces are too. short to be used effectively as bludgeons. Simply take the TERF's femur and give it to your friend to use instead."

Colin Wright on Twitter - "I know many of you can't handle hearing this, but genital preferences are transphobic."
"I know many of you gender cultists can't handle hearing this, but dismissing genital preferences is deeply homophobic."

Meme - Margaret E. Atwood: "Why can't we say 'woman' anymore?"
"handmaid's tale show was mostly good but the thing that skeeved me out to the point of stopping watching, as a trans woman, is how much it was centered around this woman's biological motherhood and birthright being the most important sacrosanct part of her identity at all costs"

Meme - *Girldick - Pizza* *Me - green-haired girl opening mouth*
"I hate this shit. Not to kink shame, but it's triggering to some. Considering I'm literally about to unalive myself because can't get the funds I need for bottom surgery. Some of us have legit gender dysphoria, and it sucks. Sorry if I'm being a bitch, but I say what feel."

Meme - "I'm trying to get swoll. Give me some testosterone."
"No. It's illegal if you use testosterone to induce physical changes to your body."
"I feel like a boy this week."
"Here's your testosterone oh wise one."

Oklahoma public schools now require student athletes to submit ‘biological sex affidavit' - "  News of the affidavits made national headlines after a photo of one of the documents was added to the athletic policy of Woodall Public Schools in eastern Oklahoma and shared on Twitter by Erin Matson, executive director Reproaction, an abortion rights group.  “This has nothing to do with encouraging girls to be athletes,” Matson wrote. “This is totalitarianism. It is the white nationalist agenda. The anti-LGBTQ agenda. The anti-abortion agenda. It is all the same agenda.”... “any change in the status of the biological sex of the student” should be reported to the school within 30 days...   This year alone, 10 states have enacted legislation that would prevent transgender athletes from competing on sports teams consistent with their gender identity. Nineteen states since 2020 have passed similar measures."
How do you change your biological sex?
I like how this is somehow linked to white nationalism and abortion. Of course it cannot be a moral panic, since that is only something the "right" does

Meme - "Nice girl bike!
Nice girl hair!
Nice girl hormone supplements!
Nice grave! *RIP Jeff. He will be missed*"

Meme - "Nice girl bike!
Nice girl hair!
Nice girl hormone supplements!
Nice."
*imagination of very obvious MTF*

Meme - Friendly Transfemme Enby: "Seems like the influx of bigots have reached me. Multiple laugh reacts on my pinned intro made it easy to swing the ban hammer."
So much for being friendly

Meme - Lucy Keogh is in Spokane, Washington.: "Yay!!! I got my psych evaluation report back today. and ya girls got Autism, ADHD, Severe Depression, PTSD, DID and Anxiety Disorder!! While it may seem to some upsetting, I am beyond giddy about this, I finally have a better bases to progress with my therapy and be medicated more accurately for my symptom's!! One step closer to organizing and managing my life properly plus my psychologist was so sweet and affirming and supportive it was such a great session!! #autism #adhd #did #ptsd #anxiety #depression #managing #symptoms #progress #growing #blooming #flourishing #loving #learning #happy"
When you have such obvious malpractice...

Meme - "Get dysphoria by having to shave your face"
"get dysphoria by not shaving your face and getting a 5 o'clock shadow"

Meme - "OH MY GOD!!! THIS IS LITERALLY ME!!! *anime girls*
"..." *anime trans women*

Meme - "How do you know you are a woman?"
"Because I like traditionally feminine things like makeup, dresses, soap operas, shoe shopping, sewing, gossiping, brunch with my besties..."
"Cool. I like women that want to have babies and stay home to raise them while taking care of the house and cooking dinner for me when I get home from work."
"THOSE ARE FUCKING STEREOTYPES"

Meme - James Esses @JamesEsses: "Gender dysphoria remains the only mental health condition I'm aware of, in which the proposed treatment is to affirm the distressing thoughts inside one's head and physically modify one's body. We don't treat anorexia with liposuction. We must safeguard children from harm."

Meme - Assigned Fabulous At Birth @HushingGyal_: "You all act like centering cisheterowomanhood is the quintessential hermeneutic for making sense of how Western class society imposes labor divisions wrt the body, reproductive potentialities, etc. When really what you need is a Transfeminist Materialism to expose that process."

Meme - "Saying "womanhood isn't a competition" tells me just how little you actually know about women."
"Womanhood isn't a competition. There isn't one woman who's more woman than another. Real women have penises, vulvas, and a whole array of parts. One woman's identity can't cancel out another's."

Meme - Keffals: "apparently j.k. rowling is tweeting about the horrors of vaginoplasty and want her to see this tweet and know that i like to get railed and i cum hard. no regrets you failed to consider that people can slam their penis into my prostate through my pussy and that my surgeon literally surpassed god's own design"
Absolutely not a fetish

'So bloody angry': J.K. Rowling criticizes gender-focused 'policies that endanger extremely vulnerable girls' - "The "Harry Potter" author earlier this week highlighted a blog post authored by the unnamed parents of a learning-disabled girl who attends a special-needs school that apparently implemented "cross-gender intimate care" instead of "same-sex intimate care."... "I know from long experience how vulnerable children are in institutions. The statistics on predation are appalling. Disabled women and children are many times more likely to be abused," she tweeted. "Predators go where there is access. Predators love victims who can't fight back or speak out. Successive studies show that 98-99% of sexual abusers are male. This validation of male feelings over disabled girls' protection is abhorrent."... In 2020, Rowling made headlines when she tweeted: "If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth.""

Harry Potter star Tom Felton praises JK Rowling - "His comments come following a wave of backlash towards the writer following her controversial comments on transgender people - with the 35-year-old actor sharing that he 'doesn't pick sides'... JK Rowling's public feud with Nicola Sturgeon over trans rights escalated today as the Harry Potter author sarcastically branded the SNP leader the 'First Feminist' – as it emerged that the party's equalities officer threatened to 'beat the f*** out of terfs'.  In a string of now deleted vile tweets, Cameron Downing, 22, threatened violence against women and using the derogatory term Terf [trans-exclusionary radical feminist] declared: 'I f****** hate terfs and transphobes with such a passion they make me want to SCREAM!'  Aspiring actor Mr Downing has been an equalities officer for the SNP's London branch since August and previously worked in the same role last year. He also worked as a contact tracer at NHS Lothian.   On Saturday Downing said in a statement he would be stepping back from his position for his mental wellbeing in the wake of the backlash.   When confronted about the Twitter posts, he said: 'I apologise for these tweets and for any offence caused to the LGBTQ+ community and have long since deleted them.' The outburst has sparked a public backlash, with Scottish Conservative MSP Rachael Hamilton thundering: 'This is abhorrent language for someone in such a position to be using in relation to this debate. Given the sensitive nature of the subject, there is an onus on everyone involved to discuss it in a respectful and civilised way – not least an equalities officer for the SNP.'  Pressure group For Women Scotland added: 'The SNP seem to actively want mindless thugs in their ranks – as long as it is only women they want to hurt.'  Miss Rowling, 57, who has faced death threats from trans activists, waded into the row today and chose to resume her ongoing war of words with Miss Sturgeon by sharing the story on Twitter and writing: 'Nicola Sturgeon's Scotland: A place where an equalities officer feels free to declare in public how much he wants to beat up non-compliant women.'"

'I read my royalty cheques' JK Rowling hits back at question asking how she sleeps at night - "“How do you sleep at night knowing you’ve lost a whole audience from buying your books?”  Rowling quickly retorted: “I read my most recent royalty cheques and find the pain goes away pretty quickly.”"

Queen LizzieLuck on Twitter - "listen, it’s not just about putting money in JK Rowling’s pocket. it’s not even about the further proliferation of her online presence and platform. if you still carry a flag for HP, wear the merch, talk about “your house” or whatever, i just don’t feel safe around you."
So much for "white fragility"

Meme - "Real women don't have to dilate to keep their hole from closing."

Meme - "Naan Binaari Beauty School Dropout: Terfs are just jealous because I get sexualize and objectify more than they do."

Meme - "Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used predominantly by non-Black people to portray a caricature of a Black person which late 19th century
Womanface is a form of makeup used predominantly by non-women to portray a caricature of a woman which became popular in the early 21st century."

Meme - "I can't live like this anymore but don't want my mom to suffer even more
CRY FOR HELP
Im a 17 year old girl with a flat chest, a deep voice, a visible Adam's apple and some facial hair. There's no reason for me to continue to live. I destroyed my life and I feel like all hope I have is stupid for me to have. I don't think any person will ever wanna date me. Before all this people were into me but I destroyed that. Now no one is ever gonna like me. There's nothing I can really do without getting reminded of my past and how much I miss it. I feel ashamed of what I did. I'm scared people will never let me do decisions on my own anymore. I was just a kid and would have needed someone to help me accept myself but my therapist didn't question my ,,transness". I can't stop thinking about the life I could have had. I also think other people will now believe that they are something better then me. I love my mom. She is an amazing mom. She stopped me the first time from transitioning but the second time she was also brainwashed and sadly thought that when all these professionals say it's the right thing to let your kid transition then it must be the right thing. She thinks it's all her fault but it isn't. I wanna kill myself but then she will feel even more miserable. How can I kill myself and let her know that I want her to be happy. Im 17 why do have to think about ending my life. It's too much for me to handle. There's no joy in my life anymore."

Meme - "How to accept that mistakes were made?
CRY FOR HELP
How can I learn to accept that I can't go back in time and undo my transition? How can I accept the fact that I made a mistake when I was 14? How can I stop being angry at the so called "professionals" that allowed me to go on hormones and have top surgery this young? I have way too many emotions in me and I can't deal with them anymore. Every time I see an item that I have used or seen before my transition or at least before my top surgery I get depressed. I remember those times and I grief what I lost. I can't go to to places I have been before transition without feeling pain. My remorse is tremendous. I can't deal with it. I can't imagine that I will ever be happy again. Any positive stories of detrans people in this sub who are able to be happy again? I don't want to always have to explain myself to people. I just want to live my life as a normal girl. I'm 17. I can't go to school as I'm mentally not able to. I miss my old voice and my old body. I see girls my age and I can't put in words how extremely jealous I am that they can just be happy in their body. Why did I have to do this mistake? I need hope. I need to hear success stories. Any detrans people here that can give me hope that one day I can be happy again?"

Meme - "1. In a sexual species, there are two sexes, MALE and FEMALE.
2. 99.93% of humans have XX or XY sex chromosomes (rest is mutation).
3. Being one sex but thinking you're the other is a psychological disorder.
4. Mandating a widespread enabling of a psychological disorder is sociopathy."

Meme - "What a cute dog!"
"Thanks, he's a rescue. Although, I'd like to think he rescued me"
"She has a dick."
"Rescued again!"

Nick Adams on Twitter - "If men are from Mars, and women are from Venus, I assume those other “genders” were pulled out of Uranus."

Meme - "I've been told by some I pass pretty well"
"Looks like an overweight man with long hair to me. Wearing a bra"
"This is how my mom treats me"
"mom is a big meanie"
"Oh what."

Meme - "I wish I was a girl"
"I can just be a girl"
"I always was a girl"
"Destroy Capitalism"
Mental illness comes together after all

‘Chinese privilege’ as shortcut in Singapore: a rejoinder

‘Chinese privilege’ as shortcut in Singapore: a rejoinder

"We disagree with Humairah Zainal and Walid Jumblatt Abdullah that Chinese privilege exists in Singapore politics and that it is perpetuated by the political hegemony of the long-ruling People’s Action Party (PAP). Consequentially, we disagree that ‘Chinese privilege’ is thus a useful concept for understanding politics in Singapore. Our rejoinder argues that ‘Chinese privilege’ is under-specified and decontextualized by the authors, used uncritically as a shortcut for the consequences of the long-ruling party’s political hegemony for ethnic relations, and is therefore a polarizing distraction to the critical analysis required to advance anti-racism discourse and understanding in Singapore. We show that the authors have mistook incumbent political privilege for Chinese privilege. We argue that ethnic majority and minority Members of Parliament from both governing and opposition parties have had to simultaneously serve as community leaders and transcend ethnic affiliations to represent national interests...

Humairah and Walid take it for granted that ‘Chinese privilege’ exists solely because there is a Chinese majority. This assumption empties the concept of any local and historical nuances such as the deep intertwining of language, education, and ethnicity. Conscientious students of politics in Singapore would know that the term cannot apply to the Chinese-educated who saw their Chinese-medium schools disappear from the landscape and replaced by English-medium schools in the early years of the country’s industrialisation. The same groups also suffered the loss of employment opportunities when English-medium education was preferred over Chinese-medium education. What about the concerns over the loss of Chinese dialects and the alienation of the older generations in the state’s drive to promote Mandarin as lingua franca of the Chinese population? Would the authors then argue that ‘Chinese privilege’ was enjoyed only by English-educated Chinese and not Chinese-educated Chinese, or only by Mandarin- speaking Chinese and not dialect-speaking Chinese? Their vaguely defined concept is akin to a poorly polished lens that fails to pick up important cultural nuances.

The fact of the matter is that, in addition to race, identity politics comprises language, ethnicity, and class, all of which have deep historical specificity in postcolonial Singapore. This fact is obscured by the authors’ simplistic application of the concept to the local. The treatment given by Humairah and Walid to the phrase ‘Chinese’ in ‘Chinese privilege’ reduces a complex ethnicity into a one-dimensional racial identity. Their homogenisation of ‘Chinese’ is arguably what the postcolonial state was trying to do with its education and cultural policies which targeted the diverse Chinese-educated and dialect- speaking groups that make up the Chinese population in Singapore. On the other hand, historians, sociologists, and anthropologists have studied and highlighted the complexities of being Chinese and becoming Singaporean, as befitting a diverse diasporic group struggling for political accommodation in the making of a multiracial, multi-ethnic, and multicultural nation-state. It would be very relevant and interesting for an article to study the interaction between the ruling party’s political hegemony and the complexities of Chinese-ness for a journal such as Asian Ethnicity. However, the concept of ‘Chinese privilege’, because of its straight-jacketed application to a complex community with a multiplicity of class, linguistic, and educational fissures, short-circuits this engagement and causes Humairah and Walid to neglect this crucial body of local scholarship.

Secondly, the authors make no distinction between ‘Chinese privilege’ and the advantages of political incumbency. Their lack of distinction blurs the conceptual contours of ‘Chinese privilege’ allowing the concept to be anything for anyone...

The bar for ‘Chinese privilege’ seems to be set rather low. Humairah and Walid argue that minority Malay or Indian parliamentarians feel the consequences of ‘Chinese privilege’ because they are expected to ‘become de facto leaders of their communities’ while ‘simultaneously expected to transcend those ethnic identifications.’ Chinese MPs, on the other hand, according to the authors, enjoy ‘Chinese privilege’ because they do not face this dilemma. Such arguments ignore the complexity of contemporary identity politics and flies against the face of evidence. Ethnic Chinese MPs too have to walk the fine line between ‘community’ and ‘national’ interests. The rise of China as an economic and geopolitical power over the last two decades has placed pressure on Chinese communities in Southeast Asia, not least Singapore. Many older and more conservative Chinese Singaporeans might feel cultu- rally connected to China and thus instinctively supportive of Beijing’s interests, while others are cognisant that such support may be at odds with their country’s interest. So too ethnic Chinese MPs, whether of the PAP or opposition variety, have to constantly balance the strong support that their constituencies might have for China with the need to advance national interests which might, from time to time, contradict Beijing’s interests. In short, the authors’ claim that ‘minority MPs are expected to go beyond ethnicity, and at times, minimize their ethnic affiliations’ should be extended to ethnic Chinese MPs too. The point here is that toggling between the interests of one’s ethnic community and those of the nation is not unique to ethnic minority MPs, and is certainly a low bar for a demonstration of ‘Chinese privilege’.

The example of the longest-serving opposition MP, Low Thia Khiang, who served from 1991 to 2020 and was WP’s leader, is instructive in this regard. He was driven to politics by the injustice of the closure of the region’s only Chinese-medium university, Nanyang University, his alma mater, by the PAP government and the discrimination faced by its Chinese-educated graduates. He won his seat amidst the PAP parliamentary monopoly in a constituency composed of tight-knit Teochew-speaking communities, with which he formed close personal relationships by speaking the dialect and assiduously attending community events such as Chinese religious and festive celebrations and funeral wakes. He was initially deemed a parochial MP representing ethnic Chinese interests. He was laughed at by the English- educated elites of the PAP for his halting command of the English language, but eventually won their grudging respect by learning to debate with them in English in a principled manner. In recent years, he also won the respect of the government leadership for calling on Singapore to carve its own multicultural Chinese identity in the context of China’s rising assertiveness in the region...

The authors misdiagnose PAP privilege for ‘Chinese privilege’... the authors make no clear attempt to demonstrate how the GRC (which guarantees minority presence in parliament) or the Reserved Presidency (which guarantees a minority president at regular intervals) perpetuate ‘Chinese privilege’ or ‘Chinese hegemony’. They fail to explain why the purportedly ‘Chinese’ ruling elite would seek to provide for more minority representation when it would be far easier to leave elections results in the hands of the Chinese voting majority. In fact, the PAP leaders acknowledged that they were expending their political capital by championing the Reserved Presidency despite public opposition because they believed this would firm up the multiracial character of the state. In other words, if political hegemony sustains ‘Chinese privilege’ as the authors claim, why would the PAP elite seek to implement mechanisms that ensure minority presence to their political cost? The more accurate explanation for GRCs and the Reserved Presidency is that they better serve PAP privilege, making it much harder for opposition politicians and anti-establishment figures to gain access to Parliament and the Presidency...

It is necessary to have conceptually clear and intellectually rigorous commentaries which seek to investigate race and race relations in Singapore. The easy borrowing of popular phrases and labels just will not do. Like Miriyam Aouragh, we think the concept of ‘white privilege’ has been increasingly exported out of the historical context of the US and deployed as a shortcut taking over the analysis of racism that is detrimental to trans- national and trans-ethnic anti-racism movements and scholarship. ‘Chinese privilege’ has appeared as an uncritically imported shortcut in Singapore in recent years, with little evidence to prove its existence other than the prescribed racial identities of those whose actions and articulations are being interpreted.

The result is that ‘Chinese privilege’ has become a pleasurable act of Foucauldian confession by some well-intentioned Singaporeans to reinforce their feelings of goodness and purity while avoiding genuine anti-racism actions, as Claire Lockard has written of ‘white privilege’ in the US. The danger then is a performative discourse by scholars and such Singaporeans alike, full of sound and fury, ultimately signifying nothing."

Links - 5th November 2022 (1)

Holloways: Roads Tunneled Into the Earth by Time - "Appearing like trenches dragged into the earth, sunken lanes, also called hollow-ways or holloways, are centuries-old thoroughfares worn down by the traffic of time. They’re one of the few examples of human-made infrastructure still serving its original purpose, although many who walk through holloways don’t realize they’re retracing ancient steps  The name “holloway” is derived from “hola weg,” meaning sunken road in Old English. You’re most likely to discover a holloway where the ground and the stone below are soft, such as places rich in sandstone or chalk. No one ever engineered a holloway — erosion by human feet, and horses or cattle driven alongside, combined with water then flowing through the embankments like a gully, molded the land into a tunneled road."

Opinion: Free interprovincial trade once and for all - "it made sense for the Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA) to see the light of day in 2017 in order to encourage trade between the provinces. After all, Canada itself was founded in good part because of the need to create an internal market to protect us from American protectionism. The CFTA was necessary because of the numerous trade barriers erected between the different provinces. Statistics Canada has estimated that in 2017, these barriers represented the equivalent of a 6.9 per cent customs tariff. Unfortunately, few provinces have taken the opportunity to improve their practices. Alberta and Manitoba have made substantial efforts to encourage interprovincial trade, but most of the other provinces have not followed suit. Worse yet, British Columbia has actually added obstacles to interprovincial trade. What is a trade barrier? It can simply be a matter of standards that differ from one province to the next regarding, for example, the tires that can be used on transport trucks. Indeed, certain high-performance tires that reduce gas consumption are not permitted in all provinces, which forces truckers to change tires mid-journey. This can seem trivial, but it increases the prices of goods.  According to in-depth economic studies, especially a 2019 IMF working paper by Jorge Alvarez and Ivo Krznar of the IMF and Trevor Tombe of the University of Alberta, it would be possible to increase Canada’s GDP per capita by 3.8 per cent simply by removing barriers to interprovincial trade. This is even truer for Atlantic Canada. Indeed, according to our own calculations, the elimination of trade barriers would go a long way toward bridging the economic gap that separates the Atlantic provinces from the rest of the country. For example, New Brunswick would see its GDP per capita increase by six per cent, Newfoundland and Labrador by 13 per cent, and Prince Edward Island by fully 16 per cent. In fact, if trade barriers had been abolished in 2000, a province like Manitoba would have caught up to Ontario by 2013 in terms of GDP per capita. This shows just how powerful a tool eliminating trade barriers is for improving the well-being of the population."

Provinces should remove trade barriers to accelerate economic recovery - "research estimates that interprovincial trade barriers add between 7.8 per cent and 14.5 per cent to the prices of goods and services Canadians purchase. Put differently, these barriers add more to your shopping bill than the GST."

TOWARDS A MORE PRODUCTIVE AND UNITED CANADA. The Case for Liberalizing Interprovincial Trade - "In Manitoba, to highlight a particularly stark example, one cannot offer legal services without maintaining a physical office in the province. Hiring an out-of-province lawyer—even if they are better suited, higher quality, or lower cost—is therefore made more difficult. Financial and securities rules also vary across provinces. Even French language laws represent a barrier.Making matters worse, such restrictions can also hinder worker mobility. If credentials from one region are not recognized by another, then Canadians will face costs of retraining or recertifying if they move from one province to another. Denturists are not free to move into Quebec without recertifying, for example, nor are podiatrists into Alberta, dental hygienists into Newfoundland & Labrador, social workers to Ontario, and so on. Fewer people will therefore relocate, even if expected wages are higher...  the gold standard to liberalize trade involves provinces moving unilaterally. Alberta, for example, moved in summer of 2019 to drop many of its self-imposed exemptions under the CFTA. It did this in exchange for nothing from any other government. It recognized the need for leader-ship, but it also recognized that most of the gains from internal trade come from making imports cheaper rather than expanding exports. I estimate that roughly two-thirds of the gains from lower internal trade costs for Alberta can be achieved by unilaterally eliminating barriers. Provinces can go further and recognize all standards, certifications, regulations, and so on, issued by any other province as automatically valid in lieu of its own. This would restrict each government’s individual power but ease internal trade substantially (and do so quickly)"

Top paid LA lifeguards earn up to $392,000 annually - "The investigation also found that high earnings weren’t necessarily linked to the most heroic employees. Many of the lifeguards who won the Medal of Valor for exhibiting bravery and saving lives were not among the county’s highest-paid...   In total, California public employees cost taxpayers $45 billion a year, according to the report."

Explaining public support for space exploration funding in America: A multivariate analysis - "Recent studies have identified the need to understand what shapes public attitudes toward space policy. I address this gap in the literature by developing a multivariate regression model explaining why many Americans support government spending on space exploration. Using pooled data from the 2006 and 2008 General Social Surveys, the study reveals that spending preferences on space exploration are largely apolitical and associated instead with knowledge and opinions about science. In particular, the odds of wanting to increase funding for space exploration are significantly higher for white, male Babyboomers with a higher socio-economic status, a fondness for organized science, and a post-secondary science education. As such, I argue that public support for NASA's spending epitomizes what Launius termed “Apollo Nostalgia” in American culture. That is, Americans benefitting most from the old social order of the 1960s developed a greater fondness for science that makes them more likely to lament the glory days of space exploration. The article concludes with suggestions for how to elaborate on these findings in future studies."

Anarchist theme backfires for Hilton hotel café | News | The Times - "Now-deleted promotional material described the bar as a “gathering place for writers, radicals, entrepreneurs and artists”. At the time Hilton said: “Freedom Café, named after Freedom Press Publishing House in Whitechapel High Street, provides the perfect place to relax, work or socialise over a craft coffee or East End-inspired cocktail at the heart of the hotel. “Guests can also enjoy daily tastings at Freedom Café, featuring appetisers and drinks from local distilleries, craft brewers and wineries.” Its menu was fashioned to resemble the Freedom journal — first published in 1886 — with the headline: “Anarchy, coffee, drinks and comfort food.” The menu cover featured a photograph of the journal’s former editor Alfred Marsh, alongside an image of the publisher’s bookshop, which is less than half a mile from the hotel. Inside the brochure, guests were offered cocktails, including the £14 “Freedom” made from tequila infused with citrus, sake and amaro. Another cocktail called “Memoirs of a revolutionist” is dedicated to the Freedom founder Peter Kropotkin, the Russian aristocrat who became a renowned anarchist theorist in exile. Those seeking a non-alcoholic drink were offered the £11 “Why work?”, named after a collection of essays looking at “the possibilities for an alternative society producing for our needs, rather than mere avarice”. When Freedom Press was made aware of the cafe’s existence on April 1, it assumed that it was the subject of an April fools’ joke. It has now accused the hotel of refusing to seek permission for the use of its name, using a post on its website to say the hotel was designed for “suited goons and coddled tourists”... Freedom Press is the oldest anarchist publishing house in the UK. Its bookshop, in an alley off Whitechapel High Street, is emblazoned with slogans including “Don’t vote it only encourages them” and “Visualise insurrection”."

Who is Cyanide Mohan? The full story - "Mohan Kumar, a former primary school teacher from Dakshina Kannada whose transformation into Karnataka’s dreaded serial killer has baffled many for years. On October 21, 2009, Kumar was arrested by the police from a village on the outskirts of Mangaluru and, during interrogation, he admitted to killing Anitha and at least 19 other women between 2004 and 2009 by poisoning them with cyanide. He also confessed to befriending them with the offer of marriage and then stealing their jewellery after killing them...   To Anitha Mulya, he was Sudhakar Kulal. To Sunanda Poojary, he was Shashidhar Poojary. To Kaveri, he was Sudhakar Acharya.  According to detailed case files accessed by indianexpress.com and accounts of investigative officers, Kumar seldom used his real name while approaching women. He would loiter mainly around bus stands and other public places, keeping an eye out for women he could befriend.   “He targeted unmarried women who belonged to poor and destitute families, especially those who looked past the age of marriage. He would introduce himself mostly as a government officer and strike conversations with them. If he got a positive response, he would move on to exchanging phone numbers and building a relationship,” said Sanjeev Purusha, an officer who was part of the probe team that arrested Kumar in 2009.  Among the things that Kumar kept in mind while approaching his victims was their caste. During initial conversations, he would enquire about their caste and then claim to be from the same himself. If the victim was an Idiga woman, he was one too. If she belonged to the Poojary community, he was too.   If the women he wooed responded positively to his romantic overtures, Kumar would then propose eloping to get married at a temple or a registration office. He would ask them to carry their finest gold jewellery and clothes for the wedding. However, he would clarify that he didn’t want dowry of any kind. He maintained very little contact with the families of the women he befriended and forbade from informing their relatives about their marriage plans... Once the date for ‘marriage’ was set, Kumar and the victim would set off on a bus from her hometown to distant cities like Mysuru, Bengaluru, Hassan and Madikeri. They would check into a lodge, always close to the main bus stand, where Kumar would enter fake names and addresses in the visitors’ register. He would then engage in sexual intercourse with the victim at night. He was so meticulous that he would even outline their fertility cycles to ensure she was ovulating at the time.  Before leaving for the temple the next day, Kumar would tell his victims to leave the gold jewellery in the lodge room. En route to the temple, officials said Kumar would stop by the ladies’ toilet at the bus stand and offer the victims a cyanide pill repackaged as a contraceptive. His justification for taking the pill inside the toilet was that the woman would feel the need to urinate immediately after consuming it. Once they collapsed inside the toilet after consuming the cyanide, Kumar would bolt for the lodge room, pick up the jewellery and leave the town immediately. On some occasions, a few days after the murder, Kumar would phone the victims’ families and assure them that they had gotten married. They were living a comfortable life and they needn’t worry about their daughters, he would say... Kumar’s overtures to women from socially and financially disempowered communities also pointed to their standing in rural Karnataka’s vicious caste realities, an officer concurred. When a man with a stable government job proposes marriage to them and declines to take dowry, that is an offer difficult to say no to... Police officials said Kumar got bolder and arrogant after each killing when he noticed that the investigations into the murders reached nowhere. When each of his victims were found in bus-stand toilets, the local police invariably would file a case of unidentified death (UDR), wait for identification by the families and then perform an autopsy. In almost all cases, they were not identified initially and the bodies promptly cremated. Similarly, photographs of the victims were always published in local dailies but not largely circulated outside district limits. Since the victims were always found far away from their hometowns, the families failed to notice such ads... After each killing, Kumar, said Jnanasekhar, would spend time between his second wife Manjula and third wife Sridevi who stayed in Kasaragod and Deralakatte, respectively. From both wives, he has two children each. He would pawn the jewellery of his victims in gold finance companies in Mangaluru and use the money to take care of his families. Until his arrest in 2009, neither wife knew about the other’s existence, or their husband’s exploits."

Fifteen-year-old girl caught teaching father how to drive - "By law learner drivers must be supervised by somebody aged at least 21 who has held a full driver's licence for at least three years."

Sex-ed teacher out at Dalton after 'masturbation' lesson for first graders - "A teacher who taught controversial sex-education classes that included cartoon videos on masturbation for first graders at the posh Dalton School has resigned...   Justine Ang Fonte, who also taught a one-day workshop on “porn literacy” to juniors at Columbia Grammar & Prep School last month that angered some parents, will not return to the school next year, according to an email Dalton’s head of school, Jim Best, sen to parents Friday. Best also will not be returning to Dalton next year... Fonte is the third high-profile Dalton staffer to leave the school this year as the school struggles with a simmering conflict between the faculty and parents over its progressive agenda.  Domonic Rollins, the school’s director of DEI, (“Diversity, Equity and Inclusion”) left in February to “pursue other opportunities,” the school said at the time.   Best, Dalton’s headmaster for the past 3 years who has been with the school a total of 16 years, announced in April he was resigning to pursue “other exciting and inspiring opportunities.”  One parent said Friday she was not impressed with the school’s statement about Fonte. “This inability to admit a mistake or acknowledge misstep is strange,” she said. “It shows a real lack of emotional intelligence and self awareness on behalf of the leadership team.”  Last fall, Dalton parents, who fork over $55,000 per year for their kids’ tuition, learned that their first-graders were being taught sex-ed lessons that included cartoons showing little kids talking about “touching themselves” for pleasure.   “Hey, how come sometimes my penis gets big sometimes and points in the air?” asks the little boy in the cartoon, leading to an explanation of what an “erection” is.  The boy nods and says, “Sometimes I touch my penis because it feels good.”  Then the little girl character chimes in: “Sometimes, when I’m in my bath or when Mom puts me to bed, I like to touch my vulva too.” The parents were initially told they had “misinterpreted” the content of the classwork.  Fonte had reassured parents that she does not use the word “masturbation” in class, and that her lessons teach kids not to touch themselves in public.  Fonte also angered parents of juniors at another elite NYC private school, Columbia Grammar & Prep, with a workshop she gave May 5.  The often-explicit slide presentation and lecture by Fonte to the 120 boys and girls included lessons on how porn takes care of “three big male vulnerabilities”; statistics on the “orgasm gap” showing straight women have far fewer orgasms with their partners than gay men or women; and photos of partially-nude women, some in bondage, to analyze “what is porn and what is art.” Fonte’s presentation, some of which was seen by The Post, included a list of the most searched pornographic terms of 2019, including “creampie,” “anal,” “gangbang,” “stepmom” and more.  One slide cited various porn genres such as “incest-themed,” consensual or “vanilla,” “barely legal,” and “kink and BDSM” (which included “waterboard electro” torture porn as an example).  One part of the porn presentation involved something called the “marketability of Only Fans,” the hot new app used mostly for sex work. One slide included a photo of a pretty young woman who appeared to be promoting OnlyFans-type work."
There is no proof that teachers are trying to sexualise and/or groom kids

Meme - "Every adult in this video should be sentenced to forced labor for the rest of their lives"
Memology 101: "Teaching them to twerk young. 'We all need this confidence'"
The cope is that twerking isn't sexual

Meme - Karlyn Borysenko, LPNH Nominee @DrKarlynB: "Conservatives are going to try to ban kids watching R rated movies in their own house, I'm calling it now."
Karlyn Borysenko's Brain Stem P... @KarlynBrainStem: "in some cultures, this practice is known as "parenting.""
Why do liberals love to expose kids to sex and other age-inappropriate material?

Meme - " Remember when the Justin Janet Jackson boob thing was a shocker? Now Christina Aguilera is on stage jerking off an enormous strap-on in front of kids and no one cares. wild"
"It was advertised as an "all-ages" event. . ."

Fury as theatre company stages naked show exploring 'sexuality, sexual pleasure and queerness' - "A theatre company has sparked fury by staging a show featuring naked bodies that explores 'love, sexuality and sexual pleasure' aimed at children as young as five. The Family Sex Show's producers boast it's a performance for families about sex and relationships - with parents encouraged to bring their children along."

Ever Given and Suez: Why Ships Keep Crashing - The Atlantic - "When a big jet airplane crashes, it almost always makes headlines around the world, and for good reason: Fatal passenger accidents are extremely rare. Right now, though, the eyes of the world are on the Ever Given, the massive container ship still stubbornly lodged between the banks of the Suez Canal.  The Ever Given’s predicament is both highly unusual and typical: Seldom does a ship get stuck in the Suez (though it does happen every few years), and seldom does a maritime disaster attract such attention. But even though the world is incredibly dependent on ships like Ever Given—a reality that pandemic-related disruptions have suddenly made visible—major maritime incidents are surprisingly common. According to the insurer Allianz, 41 large ships were lost in 2019, and 46 in 2018. Over the past decade, about 100 big vessels have been lost annually. Why does this keep happening? Every maritime accident, like every plane crash, has its own unique failures. But one key to the improvement in aviation safety was the advent of a radical new approach to safety and training, known as cockpit resource management or crew resource management. Airplane failures still occur, but they rarely become fatal catastrophes. The shipping industry has tried to learn from aviation’s success, dubbing its equivalent “bridge resource management,” but the implementation and modernization of the approach have largely failed."

Golden Dawn - "With this omnipotent wisdom our government requires that restaurants reprint their menus and post the following shocking information: "Consuming raw or undercooked meats, poultry, seafood, shellfish or eggs may increase your risk of foodborne illness, especiallsy if you have certain medical conditions." Also be warned that poking yourself in the eye with a fork may impair your vision and drinking steaming liquids could burn your tongue."

Meme - ">june 17th
>juneteenth eve
>leave tray of fried chicken and watermelon slices out for the ghost of harriet tubman
>wake up the next morning
>"Dad where did my bike go?"
>mfw its a Juneteenth miracle"

Fina on Twitter - "I called my job from jail to tell them that I wouldn't be in , and those fuckers bailed me out and made me come to work 😏😏🥺 . it's a Monday the hustle continues 💪💪"

The Myth of the Damsel on the Railroad Tracks - "Correct or not, the image of the damsel on the tracks seems like it’s here to stay, and in Kramer’s experience people don’t want to know the truth. “A pretty decent chunk of the population is convinced that screaming damsels were constantly lashed to tracks by mustachioed villains,” she says. “The fact that this trope was incredibly rare even in serials does not dissuade them.”"

Coronavirus: How NHS Nightingale was built in just nine days - "In nine days, the 87,328 square metres of double exhibition halls have been fitted out with the framework for about 80 wards, each with 42 beds. Some 500 fully-equipped beds, with oxygen and ventilators, are already in place and there is space for another 3,500."
China shills will pretend that The West is incapable of doing what China does

Barack, Bill and Dubya: How Democrats came to embrace George W Bush - "Keeping quiet on politics, combined with nostalgia viewed through Trump-coloured glasses, has reformed Mr Bush's image... While rare among American leaders today, the tradition of presidents not criticizing successors was the standard before Mr Clinton and Mr Obama left office only to sink deeper into the Democratic establishment as the party's kingmakers and most effective campaigners. When they double-downed on Mr Trump in 2020, the president tweeted "Barack Hussain Obama is the first Ex-President to ever speak against his successor, which was long tradition of decorum and decency. Should anyone really be surprised?" In the past year, Mr Bush released statements to lament the death of George Floyd and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, congratulate Mr Biden on his win and Mr Trump on his campaign, and denounce the riots at the US Capitol riots. In each case, he made no overt political manoeuvre to put points on the board for his own team... From 2000 to 2009, the presidency of "Dubya" was the left-wing's mixtape of the right-wing's most egregious failures... He was the Democrats’ big bad before their idea of bad got bigger... While Mr Trump may have been the best thing to happen to Mr Bush's legacy, the heavy lifting was done by the Obamas... Time, Trump and temperament helped. Mr Farner, however, says the simple absence from participation in policy setting or discourse is enough to heal all wounds"
Or: the demonisation is a cynical game to distract the populace

Meme - Matthew @MatthewJohn666: "Democratic Party voter outreach strategy: Gaslight people who point out that their party never improves our lives, shame anyone who even considers voting for a different party, and fearmonger about your opponent being the most dangerous person in history."

8 Strategies For Exiting The Biden Years Stronger Than The Right Went In - "1. Recognizing Corporate Media as a Propaganda Machine  
2. Crystal Clarity About the Left’s Real Goals
 3. Separation of the GOP from Big Business
4. Accelerating the Corruption Cycle
5. Targeting the Close and Local
6. Forced Deep Thinking on First Principles
7. Engage in More Conversations, Not Less
8. Persecution Purifies and Creates Solidarity"

How a simple tummy-rub can change babies' lives - "Saxena’s experience is backed by a growing body of evidence on the surprising benefits of South Asian baby massage, including for premature babies. Studies have shown that these oil massages, when done properly, can boost babies’ weight gain prevent bacterial infections, and cut infant mortality by up to 50%"

Why children with smartphones are grounding flights - "The pilot conducted the final checks, and then a number of passengers felt a light vibration in their pockets. An AirDrop request. The file came through as a preview, meaning the recipients did not have to click ‘accept’ to catch a glimpse of the content: explicit photographs of plane disasters.   One passenger had a panic attack, another fainted, and an atmosphere of unrest broke out on the plane. After the crew was informed of the situation they relayed the message to the pilot, who made the decision to return to the gate.   Police came on board the flight and arrested nine passengers, all in their late teens, who were quickly identified as the culprits. They had sent the photographs to their fellow passengers using the iPhone AirDrop function, which allows you to send files to phones in close proximity. Thankfully for the police, it also lets you track where they have come from...   It is an unsettling scenario, and a trend that appears to be on the rise. Last summer, a United Airlines plane was evacuated at San Francisco International Airport after a number of passengers received a photograph of a gun on their iPhones via AirDrop. As it turned out, the culprit was a teenager, and the image was in fact an Airsoft toy gun which shoots nonlethal plastic pellets.  In another incident in March this year, a passenger on board an Alaska Airlines flight which had just landed at Orlando International Airport received a threatening message via AirDrop, threatening to hijack the plane... In 2018, a 15-year-old girl accidentally sent out a photograph of a mock crime scene featuring a bean bag mannequin, face down on the floor. A number of passengers received the photo and perceived it to be threatening, so they alerted the flight crew who notified the pilot, who returned the aircraft to the gate. The teenager and her family were removed from the flight and re-booked onto a later service, red-faced but facing no further criminal investigation.  The problem might be more widespread than we think. This month alone there are dozens of examples of people Tweeting about sending or receiving photos via AirDrop on planes... One Twitter user, Brittney Raines, said that her flight was delayed because somebody was trying to send nudes to fellow passengers on board. This could have deeper intentions. An air steward for United Airlines told the Live and Let’s Fly blog: “I was commuting on Southwest, and a young lady was AirDropping photos to the entire plane. But she was proud of it and stood up telling the plane that they should join her Only Fans account.”...
Technology on planes: the risks and the myths
‘5G can interfere with airline safety systems’
Verdict? No known examples, despite FAA warnings...
‘Phones left off flight mode can down a plane’
Verdict? False, but interference can be a distraction for pilots"

'We Would Have Lost': Did U.S. Lend-Lease Aid Tip The Balance In Soviet Fight Against Nazi Germany? - "Soviet dictator Josef Stalin raised a toast to the Lend-Lease program at the November 1943 Tehran conference with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt.  "I want to tell you what, from the Russian point of view, the president and the United States have done for victory in this war," Stalin said. "The most important things in this war are the machines.... The United States is a country of machines. Without the machines we received through Lend-Lease, we would have lost the war."  Nikita Khrushchev offered the same opinion.  "If the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war," he wrote in his memoirs. "One-on-one against Hitler's Germany, we would not have withstood its onslaught and would have lost the war. No one talks about this officially, and Stalin never, I think, left any written traces of his opinion, but I can say that he expressed this view several times in conversations with me."... the real significance of Lend-Lease for the Soviet war effort was that it covered the "sensitive points" of Soviet production -- gasoline, explosives, aluminum, nonferrous metals, radio communications, and so on, says historian Boris Sokolov... Under Lend-Lease, the United States provided more than one-third of all the explosives used by the Soviet Union during the war. The United States and the British Commonwealth provided 55 percent of all the aluminum the Soviet Union used during the war and more than 80 percent of the copper.  Lend-Lease also sent aviation fuel equivalent to 57 percent of what the Soviet Union itself produced. Much of the American fuel was added to lower-grade Soviet fuel to produce the high-octane fuel needed by modern military aircraft. The Lend-Lease program also provided more than 35,000 radio sets and 32,000 motorcycles. When the war ended, almost 33 percent of all the Red Army's vehicles had been provided through Lend-Lease. More than 20,000 Katyusha mobile multiple-rocket launchers were mounted on the chassis of American Studebaker trucks.   In addition, the Lend-Lease program propped up the Soviet railway system, which played a fundamental role in moving and supplying troops. The program sent nearly 2,000 locomotives and innumerable boxcars to the Soviet Union. In addition, almost half of all the rails used by the Soviet Union during the war came through Lend-Lease...   "In order to really assess the significance of Lend-Lease for the Soviet victory, you only have to imagine how the Soviet Union would have had to fight if there had been no Lend-Lease aid," Sokolov wrote. "Without Lend-Lease, the Red Army would not have had about one-third of its ammunition, half of its aircraft, or half of its tanks. In addition, there would have been constant shortages of transportation and fuel. The railroads would have periodically come to a halt. And Soviet forces would have been much more poorly coordinated with a constant lack of radio equipment. And they would have been perpetually hungry without American canned meat and fats."  In 1963, KGB monitoring recorded Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov saying: "People say that the allies didn't help us. But it cannot be denied that the Americans sent us materiel without which we could not have formed our reserves or continued the war. The Americans provided vital explosives and gunpowder. And how much steel! Could we really have set up the production of our tanks without American steel? And now they are saying that we had plenty of everything on our own.""
Too bad for the tankies who claim the USSR won WWII on its own

F. D. C. Willard - Wikipedia - "A colleague, to whom he had given his paper for review, pointed out that Hetherington had used the first person plural in his text, and that the journal would reject this form on submissions with a sole author. Rather than take the time to retype the article to use the singular form, or to bring in a co-author, Hetherington decided to invent one. Hetherington had a Siamese cat named Chester, who had been sired by a Siamese named Willard. Fearing that colleagues might recognize his pet's name, he thought it better to use the pet's initial. Aware that most Americans have at least two given names, he invented two more given names based on the scientific name for a house cat, Felis domesticus, and abbreviated them accordingly as F. D. C. His article, entitled "Two-, Three-, and Four-Atom Exchange Effects in bcc ³He" and written by J. H. Hetherington and F. D. C. Willard, was accepted by the Physical Review and published in number 35 (November 1975). At the 15th International Conference on Low Temperature Physics in 1978 in Grenoble, Hetherington's co-author was exposed: Hetherington had sent some signed copies of his article to friends and colleagues and included the "signature" (paw prints) of his co-author in them. Later, another essay appeared, this time solely authored by F. D. C. Willard, entitled "L'hélium 3 solide. Un antiferromagnétique nucléaire", published (in French) in September 1980 in the French popular science magazine La Recherche"

Links - 3rd November 2022 (2 - Apple, Breastfeeding, Pornography etc)

Breast milk is conditionally perfect - "Breast milk is the universal preferred nutrition for the newborn human infant. New mother have been encouraged to exclusively breastfeed by health care professionals and consumer-advocacy forums for years, citing "breast milk is the perfect food". The benefits are numerous and include psychological, convenience, economical, ecological and nutritionally superior. Human milk is a composite of nutritional choices of the mother, commencing in the pre-conceptual era. Events influencing the eventual nutritional profile of breast milk for the neonate start with pre-conceptual dietary habits through pregnancy and finally to postpartum. Food choices do affect the nutritional profile of human breast milk. It is not known who coined the phrase "breast milk is the perfect food" but it is widely prevalent in the literature. While breast milk is highly nutritive, containing important immunological and growth factors, scientific investigation reveals a few short-falls. Overall, human breast milk has been found to be low in certain nutrients in developed countries: vitamin D, iodine, iron, and vitamin K. Additional nutrient deficiencies have been documented in resource-poor countries: vitamin A, vitamin B 12, zinc, and vitamin B 1/thiamin. Given these findings, isn't it more accurate to describe breast milk as "conditionally perfect"? Correcting the impression that breast milk is an inherently, automatically comprehensive enriched product would encourage women who plan to breastfeed an opportunity to concentrate on dietary improvement to optimizes nutrient benefits ultimately to the neonate. The more immediate result would improve pre-conceptual nutritional status. Here, we explore the nutritional status of groups of young women; some of whom will become pregnant and eventually produce breast milk. We will review the available literature profiling vitamin, mineral, protein and caloric content of breast milk. We highlight pre-existing situations needing correction to optimize conception and fetal development. While alternative forms of infant nutrition carry standard product labels of nutrient adequacy, this information does not apply universally to all breast milk. Infant formulas are fortified with various amounts of vitamins, minerals, supplemental protein concentrates, nucleic factors, omega 3 fatty acids and any important new nutritional finding. Infant formulas are manufactured to be consistent in composition and are monitored closely for quality. Not true for human breast milk. Any nutrient deficiency existing in pregnancy will ultimately be carried forward via lactation. It is a biological impossibility for a lactating woman to transfer nutrients via breast milk she does not have!"
The fetish for breastfeeding is not based on facts, so this won't make a difference - some people even claim it's child abuse if you don't breastfeed.
Some breastfeeding fetishist called formula "poison", claimed that if a woman's breast milk is nutritionally deficient it's her fault because they "eat shit, junk food, plant based, processed shit, full of refined sugars, seed oils and soy" and that those who disagreed had "zero knowledge about nutrition". He then went on to ignore all the scientific papers I posted and declared that I needed year long psychotherapy and learning basics about nutrition like "refined sugar and vegetable seed oils are the main source of civilisational diseases since at least 1970s"

Vitamin D Myths 'D'-bunked - "There are two main kinds of vitamin D—vitamin D2 and vitamin D3—which you can get from (and occur naturally in) certain foods like salmon, tuna, mackerel and beef liver and egg yolks. But because we don’t consume large enough quantities of these foods, they can’t be our sole source of vitamin D. That’s why foods like milk, cereal and some orange juices are vitamin D2- and D3-fortified. (Since the 1930s, manufacturers have voluntarily enriched these foods with vitamin D to help reduce the incidence of nutritional rickets.)  When exposed to the sun, your skin can manufacture its own vitamin D...   Another avenue to get vitamin D is by taking supplements. These come in both pill and liquid form. They are generally recommended for people with fat absorption issues, lactose intolerance, milk allergies, as well as for people with darker skin tones or with certain medical conditions that prevent them from going outdoors."It is practically impossible to get sufficient Vitamin D from your diet. Of course, I'm sure the "natural" food people view fortification and supplements as "shit"

Vitamin D supplementation of breastfed infants: a randomized dose–response trial - "Infants are at risk of vD deficiency when endogenous production of vD is limited by dark skin pigmentation or by residence at a northern latitude"
Weird. I thought it was all the fault of a shit diet
The breastfeeding fetishist proclaimed that "every Vitamin needs animal fat to be absorb... so vit D deficiency is a direct result of standard American diet"

There Is No Iron in Human Milk - "Iron stores in the full-term healthy newborn infant are assumed to last 4 to 6 months... With the assumption that iron stores are sufficient, and with the small contribution from mother’s milk, it is ‘‘believed’’ that the needs for growth are met...Human breast milk has little iron (0.4 mg/L)...To claim that human milk iron is sufficient to 6 months for all breast-fed infants is, however, stretching the evidence.Cai et al (8) have shown that the only known membrane iron transporter is not present in human mammary epithelial cells. Thus, mammary cells do not appear to secrete iron into mother’s milk. This is in keeping with the accepted dogma that body iron levels are controlled by absorption not excretion...The assumption that iron stores are adequate for 6 months can result in unnecessarily withholding iron-rich solid foods from some infants who, at 4 months of age, would benefit from earlier introduction of iron-rich solids (14). There is a greater risk of iron deficiency anemia developing in these infants the longer the period of exclusive breast-feeding is continued (1). Indeed, this author has never seen a table of iron-rich foods that includes human milkNonetheless, every attempt has been made to justify the almost nonexistent levels of iron in human milk as beneficial. It is as if low iron levels are simply a matter of ignorance on the part of researchers who just have not figured out yet how iron works. We dare not suggest that human milk alone does not meet infant iron needs as this would undermine breast-feeding. We attempt one more study, search for yet another elusive molecule/receptor, to justify why human milk must have the right amount of iron. Our rationale includes allowing (assumed) iron stores to deplete before repleting them. For no other nutrient at any time in the cycle do we use such reasoning.If we reframe the discussion around the concept that breast milk does not contain iron, alternate perspectives to infant feeding are possible: some, if not many, infants would benefit from consumption of iron-rich foods earlier than 6 months and reduce the incidence of potentially harmful iron deficiency...Iron drops at 4 months of age as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics (15) may be a more acceptable adjunct to exclusive breast-feeding particularly in vulnerable subsets of infants rather than be seen as the introduction of a new risk factor"

Everybody Calm Down About Breastfeeding - "The purported benefits of nursing (here is one list from the California Department of Public Health) extend to better mother-infant bonding, lower infant mortality, fewer infections in infancy, higher IQ, higher wages in adulthood, less cancer and on and on. If one takes the claims seriously, it is not difficult to conclude that breastfed babies are all thin, rich geniuses who love their mothers and are never sick a day in their lives while formula-fed babies become overweight, low-IQ adults who hate their parents and spend most of their lives in the hospital.  It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that many women who struggle to breastfeed (or just find it annoying and want to quit) feel ashamed and sad that they are not giving their children the “best” start in life. It wouldn’t be great to make women feel this way even if all the purported benefits of breastfeeding were real. It’s even worse because the truth is that the vast majority of these claims are way overblown...   It is not that the claims about benefits are completely made up. They are mostly based on some data. The trouble is that the evidence they are based on is often seriously biased by the fact that women who breastfeed are typically different from those who do not. Breastfeeding rates differ dramatically across income, education and race.  In the U.S. (and most developed countries), white, wealthy women with a lot of education are much, much more likely to nurse their babies than the rest of the population. But these demographic characteristics are also linked to better outcomes for infants even independent of breastfeeding. This makes it very difficult to infer the actual causal effect of breastfeeding. Sure, there is a correlation between nursing and various good outcomes — but that doesn’t mean that for an individual woman, nursing her baby would improve the child’s life."

Telegram blocks Elijah Schaffer's comment section for Apple and Google - "The comments section of BlazeTV host Elijah Schaffer’s Telegram channel has been blocked in the app store versions of Telegram on Android and iOS...   The message doesn’t explain why Schaffer’s comments section is being blocked in these mobile apps and Schaffer insists that his Telegram comments section is moderated and that his team follow all the terms of service. However, similar messages have been displayed in other channels when Telegram has been forced to block content to comply with Apple and Google’s restrictive app store rules...   The censorship of Schaffer’s comments section and the previous censorship of other Telegram channels at the behest of Apple highlights how these tech giants are able to leverage their mobile operating system and app store duopoly to censor content and discussions on mobile which is now the main way people access the internet, accounting for an estimated 55% of all internet traffic."

Jon Prosser on Twitter - "I bet my left testicle that Apple will not put USB-C in iPhones. Ever."

Apple founder's daughter mocks new iPhone - "The youngest daughter of the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs has joined the chorus of critics reviewing Apple's latest iPhone - and she is unimpressed.  In an Instagram story captioned "Me upgrading from iPhone 13 to iPhone 14", Eve Jobs shared a picture of a man proudly unwrapping a new shirt identical to the one he is wearing."

It's Official: Apple Is Turning Into IBM - "The great American philosopher Eric Hoffer wrote that "every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." If he'd been a tech journalist he might have written: "Every great tech company begins as an innovator, becomes a de facto standard, and eventually degenerates into a service provider."... Today, almost two-thirds of IBM's revenue comes from "services" and only 8 percent from hardware sales. IBM still generates a lot of patents, but when it comes to having an impact on high tech, IBM has become practically a footnote.  A similar process happened with Microsoft... Apple's new "subscription bundles" will simply serve to lock current Apple users into only buying Apple products in the future, at which point Apple can stop pretending to be innovative and instead release mediocre, overpriced products. Apple will still generate plenty of revenue, but it will become as boring and predictable as Microsoft or IBM."

Surprise: AirPods Pro Are As Unrepairable As Ever - "Just a week after the launch of Apple’s AirPod Pro 2, new owners started receiving an unusual alert: It was, apparently, time to replace their batteries soon. This is unusual, of course, both because the AirPod Pros are brand new—and because it is, for all intents and purposes, impossible to replace said battery.   In fact, the AirPods have a reputation as being one of the most famously unfixable pieces of consumer electronics of the modern era"

What the Steve Jobs Movie Won’t Tell You About Apple’s Success - "Lynn Parramore: We constantly hear that anything to do with government is incompetent and inefficient. Yet as you show, many of the industries and products that make our lives better wouldn’t exist without government-funded research. The whole process of economic growth is hugely interdependent with governmental action. What about something like the iPhone? Is it a product Silicon Valley magic and the genius of Steve Jobs? Or is there more to the story? Mariana Mazzucato: Economists have recognized that government has a role to play in markets, but only to fix failures, like monopolies, for example. Yet if we look at what governments have done around the world, they have not just stepped in to address failures. They have actually actively shaped and created markets. This is the case in IT, biotech, nanotech and in today’s emerging green economy. Public sector funds have not only supported basic research, but also applied research and even early-stage, high-risk company finance. This is important because most venture capital funds are too short-termist and exit-driven to deal with the highly uncertain and lengthy innovation process.   I often use the iPhone as an example of how governments shape markets, because what makes the iPhone ‘smart’ and not stupid is what you can do with it. And yes, everything you can do with an iPhone was government-funded. From the Internet that allows you to surf the Web, to GPS that lets you use Google Maps, to touch screen display and even the SIRI voice activated system —all of these things were funded by Uncle Sam through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), NASA, the Navy, and even the CIA!... It’s not that Steve Jobs was not a genius—of course he was! But the problem is that the narrative we tell around entrepreneurs like him, Bill Gates or Elon Musk is so unbalanced. We pretend that government at best was important for some infrastructure and basic science behind their empires. We see the new Steve Jobs film, which is based on a 600-page book where not one word mentions any of the public funding behind Apple’s empire. But the real iPhone story — or the story behind biotechnology — reveals a very different narrative in which government-funded research made the most exciting innovations possible. The same could be said of Elon Musk today —Tesla and Space X not only benefit from government-funded basic research through agencies like the DoE and NASA, but they have also, as companies, received high-risk investments by the public sector. Just one example is the $465 million guaranteed loan received by Tesla by the DoE. As recently shown by an LA Times article, the entire Musk empire has received close to $5 billion in direct and indirect support.  Do we hear about that? No. Is that ‘story’ helpful for future innovation? No... Once we admit that the public sector takes an immense amount of risk along the entire innovation chain, it becomes crucial to find ways to share both risks and rewards. This can be done through retaining a golden share of the intellectual property rights; through equity stakes or shares; through income-contingent loans (we do it with students, why not with business?); or through the price mechanism itself. Prices we pay for a product could reflect the public contribution. Some countries are more courageous about this than others. In Israel, the very successful public venture capital fund Yozma retains royalties. In Finland, the public innovation fund Sitra, which backed Nokia, retains equity. And let’s not forget the obvious way to also get a return: insist that company profits generated from such investments are reinvested into production and innovation, and not spent on share buybacks or hoarded... the narrative is so skewed toward the ‘value’ and innovation produced by Big Pharma (or small biotech), that even when the government funds the innovation, it does not have the confidence to go the whole way and strike the right deal. We socialize the risk but privatize the gains... Where did Bell Labs come from? It came from pressure by government on AT&T, which was a (government-granted) monopoly, to reinvest its profits back into the real economy — back into innovation and big innovation. And they did. Where is that pressure today?"
The libertarians and conservatives are going to be very upset

Meme - "Please take your Apple Watch off if you are wearing a dress or formal attire. You look like a spy kid"

iOS 14 stole these 8 useful features from Android
6 iOS 15 features Apple stole from Android — and one Google should steal
iOS 16: 5 features Apple ‘borrowed’ from Google’s Android OS
So much for thermonuclear war

Lufthansa Says Passengers Can’t Use Apple AirTags to Track Checked Bags - The New York Times - "It appears to be the sole airline saying that international standards don’t allow passengers to use the Bluetooth devices in the cargo hold. Apple said that regulators allow their use for all baggage.
Update: Lufthansa says Apple AirTags are once again allowed in checked bags."

Facebook - "Apple: "there's no room for a headphone jack in our phones"
Also Apple:"
"Apple swapped the SIM tray in US iPhone 14 models with a plastic block"

Apple’s Stunning $10 Billion Blow To Facebook - "Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) features—which cut down the ability to track you on your iPhone by asking for explicit permission—will cost social media firms $10 billion in lost revenue during the second half of this year... advertisers who usually use Snap, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to target iPhone users have now taken their business elsewhere—apparently to Android and even Apple’s own ad business... TikTok is becoming extremely popular “because it’s a lot cheaper from a cost per 1,000 impressions basis.” The ease in which companies such as Facebook have been able to specifically target users “would shock most people,” says Jake Moore, cybersecurity specialist at ESET"

Apple CEO Tim Cook: iPhone won't adopt RCS messaging used by Android phones - "Those green bubbles that appear around text messages you send to your friends and family with iPhones don't appear to be going away anytime soon. Apple CEO Tim Cook seemed to reject the idea of adopting a new messaging protocol on the company's devices that would make communicating with Android users smoother... When Vox Media's LiQuan Hunt complained to Cook that his mother couldn't see the videos he sent her because they had different phones, the Apple chief replied: "Buy your mom an iPhone."...   RCS is a new messaging standard used by Google and other telecom companies that supports group chats and read receipts, lets users send higher quality photos and videos and has end-to-end encryption, among other features...   Google rolled out RCS for Android users in the U.S. in 2019. The company has launched a PR campaign aimed at shaming Apple into adopting RCS, but so far the iPhone maker hasn't budged.  Internal Apple emails showed executives arguing that allowing iMessage on Android devices would "hurt us more than help us" and that restricting the app to Apple users had a "serious lock-in" effect"

SPH refuses to correct misleading articles which triggered harassment and threats : singapore - "Not only were SPH’s publications misleading in their reporting of my accident claims, they were also published without my consent."

View of Self-perceived effects of Internet pornography use, genital appearance satisfaction, and sexual self-esteem among young Scandinavian adults - "This study examined the associations among the frequency of viewing Internet pornography, beliefs about how realistically pornography portrays sex, self-perceived effects of one’s pornography use, genital appearance satisfaction, and sexual self-esteem in young adults. Online data were collected from four convenience samples of university students from Norway and Sweden, members of a queer youth organization, and readers of an erotic magazine. Because of cultural similarities and the comparable magnitude and patterns of the bivariate correlations among the samples on the study variables, they were pooled into a single sample (N = 1,274). The majority of men (81.1%) and a minority of women (18.1%) reported at least weekly use of Internet pornography on their personal computers, whereas using a mobile phone or tablet was less common. Most of the participants had sought mainstream pornographic content. Those with a stronger belief in pornographic realism were more likely to perceive the effect of pornography use positively. A hypothesized relationship between self-perceived positive effects of pornography use and a higher level of sexual self-esteem was found for men but not for women. This result was partially due to higher satisfaction with genital appearance among the men who mainly watched mainstream pornography. Genital appearance satisfaction was linked to higher sexual self-esteem for women, but it was not related to the self-perceived effect of pornography use. The results indicate that pornography may expand personal sexual scripts for both men and women, and may have a positive, although modest, influence on the sexual self-esteem of young male adults."
In other words, pornography improves self-esteem for men and has beneficial effects for women too

Does Pornography Cause Erectile Dysfunction? - "Those who decry pornography claim that in men of all ages, but particularly in young adult men, XXX-rated videos increase risk of erectile dysfunction (ED). For example, here’s what the anti-porn site, YourBrainOnPorn, says: “There is a correlation between pornography consumption and erectile dysfunction that suggests causation.”  YourBrainOnPorn is wrong. The best research shows no cause-and-effect relationship between porn watching, per se, and ED. This is a 2016 U.S. military report that blames porn for “an unprecedented increase” in ED among American soldiers. The researchers based this assertion on a quick literature review and all of three case studies of young soldiers who watched porn and reported ED.  From such a small sample, no scientifically valid conclusions are possible. In addition, the armed forces researchers were remarkably myopic. They assert that before the mid-1990s when porn began migrating to the Internet, only 5 percent of men under 40 reported ED, but that today, with porn just a tap away on phones, the figure has risen as high in some studies as 33 percent. They blamed porn without considering any other possible explanations. There are several...  The Best Study Showing That Porn Doesn’t Cause ED  It’s a 2019 study by Bowling Green (Ohio) State University investigators. They analyzed porn watching and ED risk among a reasonably representative sample of 877 American men age 18 to 60. They surveyed the men’s erection capacities using standard validated scales, and also assessed their moral feelings and religious beliefs.  A few porn-watching men reported ED, but overall, there was no link between the two. The researchers found “no evidence that mere pornography use is associated with changes in erection function. Sexually active men who also consume pornography showed very high levels of erection function. ED was rare. Our findings run counter to the popular narrative suggesting that pornography is driving an epidemic of ED.”   In the Bowling Green study, a small number of men reported both frequent porn watching and ED. They had one thing in common. They all held the most fundamentalist, conservative views about sex, and considered porn wrong, immoral, and/or sinful.  Thus, it seems that it's not porn, per se, that causes ED. The real cause may be the substantial distress some young men feel when they masturbate to porn while believing that both porn and self-sexing are tickets to Hell. That distress releases the stress hormone cortisol, which narrows the penile arteries and reduces blood flow into the penis. Less blood, bye-bye erections.   When sex therapists reassure these men that virtually all men masturbate to porn, that it’s perfectly normal and won’t harm them, men with stress-related ED usually relax. Their penile blood flow returns to normal. And they recover their erection function—even as they continue to stroke to porn... It’s not porn that’s killing your erections. You’re just trying to raise new ones before your refractory period has ended... don’t be bamboozled by the misleading studies summarized on YourBrainOnPorn. That research is as flawed as the military study. For the best, most scientifically credible information on the effects of porn, visit RealYourBrainOnPorn."

People who support a ban on pornography tend to hold more sexist views about women, study finds - "New research provides evidence that the consumption of pornography is mostly unrelated to sexist beliefs about the role of women in society. The study, published in The Journal of Sex Research, also indicates that people who believe pornography should be legal tend to hold more egalitarian gender attitudes compared to those think pornography should be banned."

Study finds couples who watch porn together have happier relationships | Toronto Sun - "The research, published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, also questions the claim – from radical feminist activists or conservative religious organizations – that being exposed to pornography is a public health crisis or moral panic that has a negative impact on romantic relationships... The research also indicated the same satisfaction when both partners do not regularly consume pornography.  However, when one partner views porn frequently and the other rarely does, there was less relational and sexual fulfillment...   One explanation for couples who are dissatisfied with their sex life may be attributed to a partner having a stronger sex drive than the other."

Yatt Hamzah chastises Malaysians for watching porn - "Local actress Yatt Hamzah has taken to Instagram to chastise Malaysians who have been spending too much time on the well-known erotic site, Pornhub... Malaysia is the fourth country in the world with the highest number of visits to the website. It is the only Asian country in the Top 5, followed by Singapore at number 8."

A grocery store was once shut down so Michael Jackson could shop like an ordinary person - "It was Michael Jackson's dream to go grocery shopping like a regular person, to experience what it was like, as he says, to "put things in a basket."  In 2003, after mentioning this desire in an interview, a friend of his who owns a mall with a supermarket closed it all down for a day to grant him his wish. To give it a feeling of authenticity, Michael's staff, family, and friends populated the grocery store. Some dressed up like the store's staff, others like shoppers. Even the muzak was customized for his experience. Then, the King of Pop put on a single yellow latex glove and pushed his cart up and down the aisles. He played around a lot in the store and likened the experience to being at Disneyland, because as he says, "I got to do something I don't normally get to do.""

Why being passionate about your job shouldn't be the expectation - "There's nothing wrong with finding fulfillment at work. But passion goes further than that. It's loaded with the expectation that you'll do whatever it takes for your career, which Cech says can lead to exploitation and inequality in the workplace...   Prioritizing passion is a relatively new concept when it comes to job searching. In the 1940s and '50s, career advice centered around stability, and workers were encouraged to land positions that would support them and their families. But during the 1970s, '80s and '90s, self-expression overtook stability as the main motivator. At the same time, Cech says, work also became "more precarious." Industries known for long-term, stable employment outsourced their labor abroad. Now, workers don't stay at one company for decades anymore. Careers are out; gigs are in. In response to the instability of the job market, college-educated workers began circling around the idea that passion should fuel workers, not job security. In 2005, Steve Jobs, then Apple's CEO, underscored the role of passion in work when he gave a commencement speech at Stanford University. "The only way to do great work is to love what you do," he said. "If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle."  Jobs, as well as many of his peers, famously followed their passions by dropping out of college and pursuing business ideas that changed their industries and made them wildly wealthy. Their stories make pursuing passion feel not just romantic, but destined.  But finding success after following your passion is hardly guaranteed. "The stories of the Mark Zuckerbergs and Steve Jobs have cultural relevance because they are success stories," Cech says. We don't hear the stories of the people who followed their passions and weren't successful.  Low-income or first-generation college students are much less likely to have the financial safety nets or the springboards from their social networks to translate the things that they love into employment that both aligns with their passion and draws a decent salary, says Cech.  Based on her research, people from wealthier families are more likely to be employed in jobs that speak to their passions and are stable, compared with people from less wealthy backgrounds. "People motivated by passion first are more likely to work harder than people who aren't personally invested in their work. But they aren't necessarily paid any more"... Sometimes, this lack of compensation is by design... People who work in education, health care, social work, journalism, nonprofits and other fields that prioritize passion are known for their long hours and their devotion to a shared mission.  But conflating passion with working overtime can lead to outcomes that erode that very mission: burnout, resentment, resignation...   Instead of drawing all your passion from one place, ask yourself: What are the things that excite me outside of paid employment? How can I invest time, energy and attention in cultivating passion in that space?"

Captains Cocoa Co. - Posts | Facebook - "Just a note:  The store will be CLOSED this SUNDAY June 5th 2022.  If you have a chocolate emergency Stop in at The Mercantile in Hustisford, Back to the Best near Iron Ridge, Posie's, in Mayville, Ava's or Artisan Market in Watertown,  Violet Blue in Oconomowoc, OR Faith n Giggles in Hartford.  All carry Captain's Chocolate.  Have a great weekend."

Meme - "When you finally thought someone liked you for your intellect but once again you found out it was all about your monster dong *Beast from X-Men and Jean Grey*"

Cost of living: New study suggests rent outpaces income - "Data released by Canadian insurance provider PolicyAdvisor suggests that New York City, Mississauga, Ont., Vancouver, Hamilton, Ont., and Toronto are the most unaffordable places to live in either country.  The study examined the 10 most populous cities in each country and compared the average cost of eight common necessities, items and services: a cinema ticket, a restaurant meal, a bottle of water, a cappuccino, a one-month gym membership, a one-way ticket on transit, a monthly pass on transit, and one month’s rent.  After comparing the costs, the study also factored in the average income of the residents of each city...  According to the study, Mississauga is the most unaffordable city in Canada, and the second-most unaffordable major metropolitan area in both Canada and the U.S.  Mississauga has the third most expensive public transit of the cities studied, following New York City and Toronto, with a monthly transit pass costing $131. It also has the third most expensive rent in Canada, after Vancouver and Toronto, at an average of $2,117 per month.  But what makes it unaffordable, according to the study, is the average net salary of its residents.  Ranking 17th out of 20 cities, Mississauga residents take home an average of $4,168.70 per month. This means a person making the average amount of money and paying the average amount of rent would be spending nearly 51 per cent of their take-home pay on the cost of housing... While the cost of essentials may be less affordable in Canada, those who do have some disposable income will find that, on average, entertainment and lifestyle costs are actually cheaper in most Canadian metropolitan cities than they are in the U.S."