Links - 17th June 2023 (2)

BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, British Gas boss 'horrified' by force-fitted meters - "‘Do you accept another point made by another Centrica boss which is it would be irresponsible for them to simply allow customers to rack up more and more debt? After all these prepayment meters were introduced to avoid energy companies cutting people off, which, some years ago led to the tragic death of people, who simply had no way of turning on the heating at all even though they were freezing’
‘Look I'm not saying that we should forever stop prepayment meters ever to ever being, um uh, installed but what's clear is that the system is is is just not working… think there is a a long-term question for our country about whether people should be cut off from heat and power in any circumstances. We do not cut people's water supplies off. In other countries including for EDF customers in France they will always get a minimum amount of power and I think that is a debate our country needs to have because you know we are one of the richest countries in the world’"
Bills will just go up for everyone else to cross-subsidise bills for those who refuse to pay

Iran slaps couple with 10-year prison sentences for dancing in front of landmark in Tehran - "An Iranian court has handed jail sentences of over 10 years each to a young couple for dancing in front of one of Tehran's main landmarks, activists said on Tuesday.  Astiyazh Haghighi and her fiance Amir Mohammad Ahmadi, both in their early 20s, had been arrested in early November after a video went viral of them dancing romantically in front of the Azadi Tower in Tehran. Haghighi did not wear a headscarf in defiance of the Islamic republic's strict rules for women, while women are also not allowed to dance in public in Iran, let alone with a man."

NSFW Washing Machine : Unexpected

Meme - "Mom, can sleep with you? Im scared...!"
"No, I can't risk the monster following you into my room and killing me."

Meme - "I completely changed the recipe and now it sucks!
Crissyboo86: "Carrots have waaaaaay to much sugar so replaced them with shredded kale. Cake turned out rather nasty so two stars. Unsure what went wrong but its to dry also."
Betty Crocker Brand Response: "We'd definitely recommend preparing this recipe as written, as the carrots provide much needed texture and moisture.""

BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, New powers to stop Protest - "‘My daughter is late to school. You are messing with children's education because you are selfish’
‘I've counted. There are 18 police officers on the scene now. There are currently five protesters still here. Each of them has got a hand that's glued to the floor’
‘I was actually due to be a pallbearer on my father's coffin along with my son and we both got that taken away from us’
‘I live in the area and I saw a couple of police officers that were standing above the M25, again wasting their time. They should be out patrolling streets looking after us’
‘Our government is acting completely unlawfully and has given us no other choice but to take this kind of action to even have this conversation’"

Iran sentences two women to death for 'corruption on earth' - "Two women have been sentenced to death in Iran on charges of "corruption on earth" and human trafficking over the last few days... Advocates and rights group took to social media to share pictures of the two women, saying they are LGBT rights activists and are innocent. The pictures could not be verified by Reuters.  "Contrary to news published online, the sentenced have deceived and trafficked young women and girls out of the country by promising them educational and work opportunities, thus leading to the suicide of several of their victims"... "Corruption on earth" is a term Iranian authorities use to refer to a broad range of offences, including those related to Islamic morals.  In March, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei described homosexuality as part of a "moral deprivation" widespread in Western civilisation"

BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Train cancellations and delays - "‘In the past train companies relied on drivers working overtime on their rest days. There is now no agreement to do this which is one reason, only one, but it is important, why Britain's railways are now much less reliable than those in war-torn Ukraine’"

BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Three months of protests in Iran - "[On Sahand Nourmohammadzadeh] ‘He is only charged with uh uh removing a crash barrier and also setting a bin on fire and for that he has been found guilty of enmity against God and then later on sentenced to death’"

BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Keir Starmer on reform plans, private schools and the single market - "‘Let's just recognize that the low growth in our economy has been going on for 12 years. It preceded Brexit, it preceded covid, and it preceded Ukraine. There is something fundamental about the way our economy works’...
‘You've been emphasizing your policy on private schools putting VAT on fees… that's not bold is it compared to what Labour used to want to do which was to abolish private schools…  The essential unfairness remains doesn't it? Which is that some children in the country have three times as much spent on their education as others’"
Leftist logic: achieve equality by hobbling higher achievers

When bumblebee try to steal your girlfriend - YouTube

One Of The Greatest April Fools’Day Pranks Ever Involved A Fake Volcanic Eruption - "On the morning of Monday April 1, 1974, the residents of Sitka, Alaska, noted something strange in the familiar sight of Mount Edgecumbe, a dormant volcano located at the southern end of Kruzof Island, Alaska. A menacing plume of black smoke was rising from the crater!  Concerned residents called the police and firefighters and the Coast Guard commander radioed the Admiral in Juneau who ordered a chopper be sent out to investigate. As the Coast Guard pilot approached Mt. Edgecumbe, he peered down into the crater. But there was no lava to be found anywhere. Stacked in the cone of the volcano, burning with a greasy flame, was a huge pile of old tires. And spray-painted in the snow beside the tires, in 50-foot-high black letters, were the words "APRIL FOOL."  The fake eruption of Mt. Edgecumbe was the work of a local prankster, 50-year-old Oliver "Porky" Bickar."

✨nephilim sys 💫💚💙 on Twitter - "April fools day is ableist. PERIOD. Full stop. End of story. It's manipulative. Lying to people to laugh at them is manipulative and ableist. Laughing at someone for not understanding a prank is ableist. Pranking someone is ableist. the entire thing, not just specific pranks. -🥑"

Blind hoarder discovers dead body of son 'missing' for 20 years upstairs amongst junk - "A blind hoarder who had always wondered what became of her son 20 years ago has discovered that he was lying dead upstairs the whole time.  But because there was so much junk and bad smells in the house, she apparently had no idea... The chilling discovery was made on 15 September when a relative arrived at Rita Wolfensohn’s home in Midwood.  Rita was in hospital and needed some things, and the relative was helping out...   Police asked her about her son, and she talked as if he had simply moved out."

Meme - "Babe~. I'm pregnant. And you're the father"
"SERIOUSLY BABE?"
"It's a prank HAHAHAHAJA
Happy april fool's day babe"
"You mean you're not pregnant?"
"I mean you're not the father"

Brazilian woman prays to "Lord of the Rings" elf for years, mistaking it for saint - "Religious saints are often pictured in long flowing robes. They also occasionally don crowns on their heads. Saints have that in common with medieval royalty, the Wise Men and, it seems, elves from the “Lord of the Rings” movie franchise.  So, when a Brazilian grandmother, named Dona Nely, received an Elrond figurine from her boyfriend as a gift one year, she simply assumed it was a saint -- Saint Anthony, to be exact -- and began praying to it nightly... “That’s when I saw it and asked, ‘Guys, does Saint Anthony have long hair?’” Brandão told CBS News.  As it turns out, he doesn’t. Saint Anthony of Padua -- the patron saint of lost or stolen articles -- is either depicted with very short hair or bald with a ring of hair around his head."

Meme - Sir Toppenbottom
"Pardon me good sir, I wondered whether you would appreciate assistance in achieving orgasm this evening?"
"My desire is tentative. Do you expect to be compensated for these services?"
"No sir, I act out of charity alone."
"How gallant! Verily, your assistance would be most welcome. By what means do you intend to encourage my meatus to issue forth its seed?"
"It is my desire to imbibe your turgid phallus and fellate vigorously to the point of full release, ceasing only once gratification has been enjoyed to your complete satisfaction"
"Tally ho! Proceed henceforth. I shall prepare the bedchamber and eagerly await your arrival, kind stranger!"

Meme - "When family car decals get too real... *6 men in jail, woman, 11 kids*"

Meme - "Me: Boy oh boy, i'm thinking about buying a... *Google and Facebook listening*"

Meme - "Tesla now factors late night driving Into their safety score. I drove home from the airport at 3am and that one drive dropped my safety score from 97 to 94. My monthly premium went up by $30/month a couple days later. Simply because I drove late at night once. Not a fan."

Meme - Eize Basa @PonchoRebound: "[David Attenborough voice] "Though dulled with use and soon to be discarded, the aged shears still have one last vital role to play for the kitchen it has called home for almost a decade: freeing its young replacements from their zip-tied cradle. The circle of life continues.""

Facebook - "Yesterday, CHP officers observed a Delorean exceeding the maximum speed limit. Thankfully, Officer Tolen stopped the vehicle before it could reach 88 MPH!  Upon closer inspection, it was determined the Delorean was not equipped with a Flux Capacitor.  Whether you have 1200 horsepower or 1.21 gigawatts under the hood, please slow down or you may end up going “Back to Traffic Court”."

Meme - Motorcyclist: "Wear helmet. Helmet saves life" *no helmet*

Meme - "Nazgul!"
"Oh, wow. The N-word, really? Is it really that hard to just say Ringwraith?"

Meme - Grace holland @thebiggestyee: "one time a woman with a medical alert wiener dog sat next to me on a plane and her dog kept alerting on me and she was like "not to be weird but you should get your heart checked out" and that's how i found out i had a mildly irregular heart beat"

Meme - "Do you have a source on that? Source? A source. I need a source. Sorry, I mean I need a source that explicitly states your argument. This is just tangential to the discussion. No, you can't make inferences and observations from the sources you've gathered. Any additional comments from you MUST be a subset of the information from the sources you've gathered. You can't make normative statements from empirical evidence. Do you have a degree in that field? A college degree? In that field? Then your arguments are invalid. No, it doesn't matter how close those data points are correlated. Correlation does not equal causation. Correlation does not equal causation. CORRELATION. DOES. NOT. EQUAL. CAUSATION. You still haven't provided me a valid source yet. Nope, still haven't. I just looked through all 308 pages of your user history, figures I'm debating a glormpf supporter."
This leaves out when liberals claim that sources are unreliable just because they say so, or that $1 in funding means there's a conflict of interest and the source is unreliable

Meme - "Start a business: $999 - too much
Buy a new iPhone: $999 - no problem
Healthy groceries: $100 - too much
Dinner & drinks: $100 - no problem
Watch Netflix: 2 hrs - 1 more episode
Learn a new skill: 2 hrs - no time
Life is about choices, stop blaming the "lack of opportunity."
Paul Joe McCoy: 1. You have to be extremely lucky to start a successful business for $999
2. We buy our phones on monthly installments of $27, and it's tough to afford that sometimes.
3. For a family of 4, reqular-ass groceries cost $100 or more. Healthy food is way more.
4. Folks who can regularly afford $100 for dinner and drinks are not struggling financially, They aren't the people you think you're talking to.
5. I can't speak for everyone, but I can't remember when I last had the time to watch 3 hours of television. Usually 30 minutes is pushing it.
6. If you can learn a new skill well enough to be useful in 2 hours, you either already knew how to do it, or are a child prodigy. Congratulations.
You idiots are completely delusional about the challenges poor and working class families face in America today."

Meme - Perry Noble: "Our new pens @thesecondchancechurch
'Stolen from Second Chance Church'"

A bear in Canada broke into a truck and guzzled a 'massive' amount of soda. It wouldn't drink the diet soda. - "Rosel owns a food truck and told the outlet she normally encounters bears in her remote area. Despite being diligent in never leaving food in the car overnight, she never imagined a bear would develop a sweet tooth for soda."

The Tibetan meaning of “Eat my Tongue.” {Dalai Lama} - "In Tibetan culture, it is common to see the old grandparents not only give a pop kiss to the small children, but also give a small candy or piece of food to children from their mouths – directly mouth to mouth.  This may not be the norm of your culture, but this is commonly done. After the elder gives a pop kiss and a candy, since there is nothing left in their mouth, nothing left to give, they will say the phrase “Ok, now ‘eat my tongue” (not ‘suck,’ as His Holiness misspoke due to his less proficient English). The Tibetan phrase is “Che le sa”. They say that as in “‘ve given you all my love and the candy so that’s it-all that’s left to do is eat my tongue.” And itis a playful thing that the children know. This is not really done in the Lhasa region (capital of Tibet) so much, but it is more common in the Amdo region (where HH is from). However, it is definitely a Tibetan custom."
I shared this and a virtue signaller called me a pedophile

Relationships, Pranks and Kids: Thanks, I hate it - FML - "Today, after three weeks of fighting with my husband, I found out that he really didn't create an account on a website for cheaters and charge the bill to his credit card. Our daughter did it as a prank, and only confessed because our fighting was stressing her out. FML"

Kids, Awkward and Funerals: Don't hate the player… - FML - "Today, my son is such an idiot that he forgot he invited both his girlfriends to my brother's funeral. They started a punch-up over him and everyone ended up joining in since we're a very argumentative family. People got arrested and in the end both girls agreed to share my son, who was unconscious. FML"

Google over-hired talent to do ‘fake work’ and stop them working for rivals, claims former PayPal boss, Keith Rabois - "The thousands of layoffs in Big Tech are thanks to an over-hiring spree to satisfy the "vanity" of bosses at the likes of Meta and Alphabet, according to a member of the so-called PayPal Mafia.  Speaking remotely at an event hosted by banking firm Evercore, Silicon Valley VC Keith Rabois said Meta and Google had hired thousands of people to do "fake work" to hit hiring metrics out of "vanity"... "There's nothing for these people to do —it's all fake work. Now that's being exposed, what do these people actually do, they go to meetings."... "People are watching Elon and Twitter and he's clearly setting an example — maybe it's an extreme example," Rabois said, before swiftly adding he would never bet against the Tesla mogul.  Musk has always been a critic of apparent paper pushers.  Silicon Valley veteran Marc Andreessen has previously claimed many tech firms are overstaffed, while taking to social media to criticize those in the "laptop class", which he describes as "Western upper-middle-class professionals who work through a screen and are totally abstracted from tangible physical reality and the real-world consequences of their opinions and beliefs.""
Damn Elon Musk firing people from Twitter!

Deer causes chaos after breaking into Melbourne home before becoming trapped

A Russian hiker's bid to remove a discarded fridge in Clementi Forest succeeds after a year; authorities reviewing processes - "For more than a year, a discarded refrigerator laying in the middle of Clementi Forest has vexed a Russian man with a deep love for nature, who has made it a personal crusade to rid the forest of the unsightly electronic waste.  Mr Semenov Pavel Dmitrievich, 40, first stumbled upon the refrigerator while walking along a trail in the forest in March 2022, after his leg brushed against the object and he felt a sharp pain...   During his most recent hike last week, Mr Semenov spotted the fridge again and said he felt “a bitter spiritual realisation” that he was right in realising the futility of his idea to report the issue on the OneService app."

David Kudler's answer to Why is Dumbledore bashing so common in the Harry Potter fandom? - Quora - "JK Rowling did something really, really challenging over the course of the seven-book series: she allowed the writing style of her books to shift as her point of view character matured.  The first two books of the series are written very much in a Roald Dahl-like comic mood, reflecting Harry’s black-and-white, child’s view of the world. You have the mean Dursleys, the sweet, bumbling giant Hagrid, and of course, the saintly Dumbledore, who sweeps in to save the day and explain what just happened.  Starting with Prisoner of Azkaban through Half-blood Prince, Rowling’s world follows Harry into adolescence. As he grows into his teens, Harry begins to perceive the world in more and more shades of grey. Griffindors can become Death Eaters. Slytherins (well, one Slytherin teacher) can be nice, if a bit hung up on celebrity. Nasty characters do things that evoke our sympathy (Draco in the bathroom or on the top of the Astronomy Tower) while characters we love (Sirius, the twins, Ron, Hermione, Molly, Ginny, and many more) do things that, frankly, aren’t exactly nice. By the end of the sixth book, Harry’s living in a world that’s much more John Le Carré than Roald Dahl — full of moral ambiguity.  By the seventh book, he’s casting Unforgivable curses and doing whatever is needed to beat Voldemort. Anything goes.  For Harry to be the hero of the series — not just Dumbledore’s man — he needs to do what we all do in order to grow up: he needs to see his (grand)father figure, Professor Dumbledore, for the flawed human being that he was. He needs to realize that Dumbledore wasn’t perfect — and then he needs to forgive him for it. That’s quite a lot to do in one YA book series. Not everyone learns to forgive their parents for being human. The other thing that Rowling did that created Dumbledore haters among some of the most avid Harry Potter fans is that she used him to withhold information until it was dramatically appropriate."

Meme - "Most embarrassing moment of my life"
"All players lay their phones on the table. Wait for the first person to receive a push notification. That person drinks"
"A sexual partner recently tested positive for an STD & is notifying you via our Anonymous Notification Tool to recommend you also get tested. For more..."

Rotny Ford on Twitter - "You have to come to terms with the fact that realistically in a post-apocalyptic world there's a 99% chance you'll die of diarrhea from drinking bad water and you will never get a chance to wear football armor and make a machete out of duct tape and a lawn mower blade or whatever"

'I Secretly Planted a Giant Sequoia Tree in My Mayor's Front Yard' - "In addition to claiming that he had planted dozens of redwood and sequoia trees around Redondo Beach, California, GoblinsStoleMyHouse also maintained that he was "beginning to get older" and that the vengeful planting had occurred roughly three years prior after he was engaged in a homeowner's dispute with the city. However, four months previously, he had described himself as a biology major (i.e., someone still in college), not an aging homeowner"

Meme - "I have a bot running buying and I selling for 0 target profit just to waste IRS manpower and money. I print and send the IRS all the documentation about my trades in paper form to stop them from automatizing the process with a computer program. I mix blank pages, double print, ghost print or in them just in case they have a way to scan and use some sort of recognition software. That way they have to look at thousands upon thousands of pages one by one and look and random scribblings and drawn dicks while doing their job. All the documents are numbered but I pack everything completely out of order"""" (as in the lower numbers always happen to be at the bottom of the pallet) in case the order of the trades is important. If order is important they now have to deal lift boxes and have them laying around before they can even start checking the numbers. My normal trades are also in those pages so they can't just ignore everything. This costs me thousands of dollars every year. I make sure to send the invoices of how much all the processes cost me on top of the pallet so that whoever is in charge of it knows I'm wasting the equivalent of two months of his waging in asinine shit on top of his or her time."

Meme - "When you open a restaurant with SEO optimization in mind
Thai Food Near Me"

Meme - "Dear, we need to break up"
"What? Why??"
"No time to explain. Bye."
Parking lot: "SINGLE FEMALE DRIVER"

Meme - "Have you ever been beaten by a wet spaghetti noodle because she has a twin sister and you got confused and fucked her dad?"

Meme - "Apart from their profound philosophical disagreements, German Idealists and German Materialists can also easily be distinguished by their opposing stances on facial hair."

Meme - "I keep telling you guys I'm straight. Why doesn't anyone believe me?"
"How many minutes are in a ye-"
"525,600. Why?"
"Sure, you're straight."

Meme - "I Scream
Ben & Jerry & Mao's
OUR CONES DON'T "WAFFLE." HEH HEH HEH!
Burnt flag crunch, Socialist swirl, Michael Moore's S'mores, Secular Sundae, Chunky Surrender Monkey, Ho Chi Mint, French Vanilla, Chocolate Chip Tax Hike Dough Innocent Kids
Shut up and scoop."

Queer Children's Books Author vs Drag Queens and Kids

Probably in response to this nonsensical Twitter thread (which I've featured before) 

Conflating "Drag Queens" with LGB | GenderCritical | Ovarit

"There is a meme going around picturing favorite children's books with this caption: "I bet most of the people flipping out about drag queens and kids have no idea that their favorite classic children's books were written by queer people"

This is apples and oranges. The authors may have been (I have not researched) LG or B, not likely were they drag queens, and equally not likely would they have preferred to be called queer.

It is disingenuous, and designed to mislead people into thinking "drag queen story hours" are just fine. And normalize the term "queer". I am annoyed by this, everytime I see it."

 

I note that the stupid meme's logic is that "Many children's books were written by queer people. Therefore there's nothing wrong with drag queens interacting with children". Besides the slippage between queer people and drag queens and being queer and doing queer things, there is no logical link between children's books writers being queer and exposing children to queerness.

One might as well say that since most children's books were written by straight people who had sex, there's no problem with showing kids straight porn.

Comments:

i) One, drag isn't what it used to be. Drag shows used to be female impersonators dressed as divas like Diana Ross, Judy Garland, Carol Channing. They'd wear gowns and lip-sync to the original music. They weren't lewd--the tips went into their hands, not their underwear. This is no longer the case.

Two, drag queen story hour is not just a guy in drag reading any old book to kids, it's a national organization which promotes gender identity theory. They read from TQIA+ books for kids, and they use worksheets from the "Dragtivity" book. Not every DQSH is a local franchise, but whether they are or not, they're hired to present a certain agenda. That's the whole idea.

ii) This is the only sort of drag I'd experienced before and I was initially really surprised at all the backlash. Women dressed up in glittery costumes to look like a princess or fairy or whatever seems pretty par for the course as far as children's events go. Might be neat to show kids that men can do that sort of thing too.

It took seeing stuff like the 'it won't lick itself' backdrop that made me realise they were straight up showing adult entertainment to kids, not adapting it to just be an age-appropriate performance. That is truly disgusting.

iii) This is the crux of the problem to me. I don't care about drag queens in general, and I don't even think it's terrible for drag queens to be around kids as long as their act only involves makeup and wigs and costumes and they keep it strictly G-rated. My issue is with gender ideology, and that organization is heavily invested in normalizing child transition to impressionable kids. It's not about breaking gender stereotypes. It's about telling children that if they "feel like" the opposite sex, maybe they actually are.

iv) I don't believe in gender ideology, and I don't think little kids get camp--what message are we sending to them, that a man dressed up as a woman is something to laugh at?

v) I have found out in the past week how many "normies" on my FB list (plus, of course, the woke libfems who would cancel me in a second if they knew what I really thought) suddenly think taking kids to drag shows is a wonderful idea, and also, apparently how this is how we (I'm a lesbian....a normal, "boring" one though) all are. It is so depressing.....at this point I think it's basically "if the conservatives hate it, we love it, no matter what it is!". One grandmother on my list posted a rant about how she'd be happy to take her grandchildren (ages 4-11) to a drag show over church (I'm not religious whatsoever and I get the sentiment about religious indoctrination....I also get that this is new religion indoctrination)

vi) "I'd rather take my kids to a drag show than to church!" Who even said it was a binary choice? You can choose to do neither, or to do any number of other things. Only in the American political landscape do people think they have to pick one or the other team, they are conditioned by the mindset and spread it everywhere.

vii) This. I remember Francis Foster recounting how some of his friends had reached out to him to tell him that he should change his opinions if he wanted to remain on the left.

viii) Like how about I'll just say whatever I think is right and it'll fall where it'll fall on the spectrum... And not, like, just defend things because I want to be on the side which I think is the right one even when I think the opposite of what they think?

I’m not religious at all either, but it’s worse than one religion over another. There aren’t strippers in their work lingerie giving sermons in church and twerking during Sunday school.

Children being deliberately exposed to sexualised adult entertainment is a form of sexual abuse. If the teacher invited a stripper or porn star, of either sex, into school to do their adult entertainment, police would be called.

Even if people are fine with drag for adults (I’m not) they shouldn’t be ok with children exposed to it.

ix) At least churches try to instill socially supportive moral values. Oh, like: don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal and don't kill. Honor your parents. Care for the poor.

What values are being presented at drag shows? At the least, theatrical mockery of women is ok.

x) I am in the same situation: if I responded as I wish to this meme, I would be catapulted into the ether. I keep my thoughts to myself and thank the goddess we have this forum in which I can rant.

xi) Same here. I feel much more supported here by so many anonymous women than the collection of acquaintances (some of whom I used to call friends) on facebook.

xii) These people have some major problems with logic. There are many great artists who were horrible people. Pablo Picasso for example. You may be able to appreciate one of his paintings, but he wouldn't have been someone you wanted as a father or husband.

Secondly, 'queer' as they use the term today DID NOT EXIST. Yes, there were same sex attracted people, eunuchs and social classes similar to the Hijra in many cultures. There were often complex social and political reasons these categories existed, most of them not very progressive. I don't know of too many of them who wrote children's books.

There is absolutely NO REASON whatsoever for drag queens to be reading anything to children. There is nothing good to be learned here.

xiii) Saying gay men have the right to do drag as expression is not really that different than saying white women have the right to crossdress as black men to me. Both are categories that are in an axis of oppression and not on other appropriating and mocking other unrelated category. Ministrels did drag as much as they did blackface, but misogyny is not considered having the same impact as racism, so people argue it’s different. It is not.

xiv) I was just complaining about this as I looked at pictures of a local "family friendly" drag show that had a big "love is love" sign across the stage. Yes, I agree love is love! The LGB community has all of my support! What in the world does that have to do with a bunch of men on a stage ridiculously mocking women?

xv) Libs are really reaching for the gotchas on the drag queen issue. Their whole argument for drag queens is “Oh you don’t like drag queens? Than what about this (completely unrelated thing)!?” Just yesterday there was a post on TooAfraidToAsk asking if people would be okay with drag queens coming to their child’s school. Every single no was downvoted. People were saying shit like “I wouldn’t want Uvalde cops in my kids school”, “The same people who want drag queens out of schools want guns in schools!” Truly what the fuck. How the fuck are we now equating school shootings and drag queens? Are we incapable of recognizing that two things are bad?

Obviously men with guns are a massive problem and cops are useless, as we saw recently in Uvalde. I don’t want either of those men around children. I don’t want religion around children either, for the record. I also don’t want men who dress as caricatures of women around children. We should not be capitulating our children to gun violence or sexual depravity. I see them act as if not wanting these explicit performers in schools is an affront to trans children. Why are they conflating trans with drag? I thought they always vehemently declared they are separate things?

Drag queens do not teach “tolerance” or “acceptance” or “inclusion”. They teach stereotypes, hatred of women, and male supremacy. They’re not progressive gender benders, they’re the same misogynists we’ve had all throughout history. This time the indoctrination is covered in rhinestones and sexual innuendo. They don’t need to be around children, period.

xvi) I think what this means is just the general idea that "if you don't agree with me, a self declared liberal, then that means you are a gun toting Republican", y'know. It's probably mostly that they are saying the only reason one might not want an oversexualized man in womanface around children is homophobia. And who is homophobic? Conservatives!! Conservatives who think the solution to school shootings is arming both the teachers and the kids!!!

That's some of the stupidest logic I've ever heard frankly. Typing it made my head hurt.

xvii) Redditors skew young, male and overly online. I'm betting most of the people interacting with that post don't have children.

It's a great reminder that reddit is good for manufacturing consent and not to take it too seriously.

xviii) I’m aware of Reddit demographics, but there are many young women in my life who work with children that completely support drag queens and all other TQ/non-binary garbage. Unfortunately these bad takes aren’t confined to Reddit. I just hope as they get older they realize they were wrong :/

xix) Blair White had a good tweet saying “Taking children to Drag Queen Story Hour to learn to respect gay people is like taking them to a strip clinic to learn to respect women.”

Very succinct way of putting it, and if it comes up that’s what I’m saying for sure.

xx) Yeah, one thing that I think is overlooked is how the gay male drag queen stereotype makes gay men out to be clownish spectacles.

Maybe there was once a reasonable time and a place for this “art form” when gay men were considered scary and perverted; giving them a stage to perform in a nonthreatening, whimsical way might have made people more apt to laugh at them than spit at and punch them. But shouldn’t we be well past the point that we need to laugh at gay men to be comfortable with them in normal society? Of course we should be. The shit is beyond played out, but for some reason, drag queens are still trying to be relevant despite the social gains that LGB have attained.

Which makes me think most of these drag queens are not gay men. They are “queer” men with agendas that differ from the gay men who just wanted to be fabulous on stage from time to time. Exposing themselves to kids is their interest.

xxi) I'm not like a lot of rad fems in that I actually enjoy drag. I think its entertaining to see the cool costumes and makeup and production value. Do I think its feminist and that my take is perfectly reasoned? No, it isn't and I'm not perfect but it's fun and brings me joy in this capitalist hellscape we live in.

With that, there is absolutely no reason children should be exposed to drag queens. I come from a liberal family and I knew what a drag queen was from the time I was 12 or so but I didnt go to my first drag show until I was 18. It's sexually charged by nature. It's the same thing with pole dancing. I have no problem if adults want to participate for fitness/fun but it should not be viewed by children.

xxii) I admit I liked it back when it was just gay dudes dressing as Judy Garland and impersonating her, not mocking her.

I've never been to a drag show, but I used to like the gay male impersonators on TV.

Now it's just been hijacked by pedos. That's exactly what this is. And when parents have had enough, it's gay people who will be punished.

xxiii) Several years back outlets like Slate were cranking out article after article about how the gay community owed drag queens a big apology. Respectability politics! Gay liberation was STARTED and GUIDED by drag queens! I recognized the narcissism even then, though I was still learning.

Now I understand why some early gay rights activists didn't want drag queens around, or at least didn't center them in their activism. They actually didn't contribute a lot to gay liberation. The battle was largely won by people who just wanted to live their lives between consenting adults, without trampling boundaries or being hyper sexual in public. Drag wasn't even about gay liberation like marriage. It was just a burlesque act. It was part of gay culture but as a performing art. Not a priesthood.

Nonetheless, drag artists also used to need some sort of talent to do what they do. Now you can get most of the costumes from Amazon. Most just stomp around flicking their wig hair and lip-syncing. No dancing, no comedy, nothing. Way back in like, 1981, my mother went to see a drag act in a very conservative state, in a liberal enclave. They were two guys and they were stand up comics. They were apparently hilarious. Excellent timing, great voice work, they'd written their own act.

You'd think that if you valued drag, you'd be sad about the degradation and lack of talent. I love the performing arts. I could even look past the misogyny of drag if it were really well-performed. And they swept up the anti-woman dialogue, of course. The costumes are ugly, the makeup poor or generic, and it's all....well....a drag. But not the way it should be.

xxiv) This is the key difference "normal" people do not understand. They just group us all together as deviants.

There was an episode of QaF that actually addressed the whole normal gay people vs drag queens thing, but it dropped the ball by having Micheal go at the last minute, "No! Drag queens are a part of the rainbow too!"

Male writers and male solidarity, I guess. Gay men are the only ones constantly trying to include drag queens "as normal" (they're fucking perfomers, not the face of the average gay perosn!) and giving them more credit than they deserve. You can find old gay men going on about how the drag queens built bars and clubs for them -- as if gay men don't cruise and fuck anywhere and everywhere, including back alleys.

 

From Genuine question: What's with drag and kids? | GenderCritical | Ovarit:

i) Frankly doesn’t make any sense to me - dressing up as an exaggerated stereotype of a woman isn’t “beyond stereotypes” just because it’s a man doing it.

And if “encouraging acceptance of difference” is the goal, why is it ONLY men in dresses reading to kids? Why not invite disabled people, people of other cultures/nationalities/races, elder people, neurodiverse people… so many choices. Maybe even gay people who aren’t wearing offensive costumes?

ii) Bingo. The highly sexualized nature of these performances is lost on small children anyway (hopefully). Learning that some families have two moms or two dads is really all they need to know about homosexuality. If the point is gender nonconformity, there are dozens more age-appropriate options. Bring in a female scientist to do a science show. Kids love colorful smoke and explosions. What about a female firefighter or paramedic?

This is entirely about the QT, pedos, and/or kinksters using children to validate their lifestyle.

iii) Encourage children to look beyond gender stereotypes and embrace unfettered exploration of self by portraying a very specific stereotype as the only acceptable self expression.

iv) they are pedo bait. these kids serve a very specific function. they become the unwitting aide in a masturbatory paraphiliac's fantasy,

v) Why not include other children for these kids to interact with? They can share about their lives with other kids who are on their same level.

I don't know how it is in most schools these days, but at my elementary school all of the "different" kids were in separate special ed classes. We never interacted with them, ever.

So why not have a group of diverse children who can just play and be kids together while learning tolerance and empathy for others?

vi) I honestly think the people doing this are homophobes who are trying to virtue signal that they are gay allies. If their goal was really to help normalize homosexuality, they'd just bring in a normal gay man (or lesbian woman, gasp!). Just a regular gay person who talks about their life for a bit and then mentions that they're gay, introducing kids to the fact that there are lots of gay people around and they are just like anyone else regardless of who they're attracted to. Instead, when these "wokesters" think of a gay man, their first thought is "drag queen"? Some of these kids have never, as far as they know, met a gay person before, so it seems pretty toxic that what may be their first introduction to a gay man is seeing a man doing an adult entertainment act where he's caricaturizing a woman. Why would this be how you want children to see gay people? A boy questioning if he is gay might, after "drag queen story hour," be more hesitant now that he thinks being gay involves this level of performance or "queerness," rather than knowing that whichever sex(es) he ends up being attracted to has nothing to do with his personality.

vii) This is a good point. If this is a child's first encounter with gay folks (or even the concept of homosexuality), its going to leave a VERY bizarre, bad impression on them. Instead of being taught that gay people are just like everyone else, they're being taught that all gay men are flamboyant clowns (and that lesbians apparently don't exist because being "queer" is ALL ABOUT MEN). Which will likely cause quite a bit of confusion for kids who grow up to be homosexual, but would rather stay in the closet because they want no part of "queer" clownery

viii) I think we should start showing up outside of libraries and whatnot with signs like "Misogyny is NOT progressive" or "Stop Mocking Women" or whatever. I think most people thoughtlessly assume that they're supporting LGBTQIAAMNOPQ+ people without considering that they're just watching grown men mock women.

The TRAs have done a very good job of falsely portraying anyone who opposes them as 'transphobic' and we need to start making it clear to people that it's not 'conservative v. progressive' but '(conservative/status quo + progressive) v. regressive'.

ix) "Gays against drag" "Woman is not a costume" "Drag is for adults"

x) I don't like "Drag is for adults" because misogyny shouldn't be acceptable for anyone.

xi) And a sign that says "Coulrophobia Is Not Bigotry." Make coulrophobia the new word to latch onto as a rallying cry. Coulrophobia is neither left- nor right-wing. It's not a political ideology to be fearful of clowns.

xii) Gay culture was always flanked by BDSM, self-harm and other weird sub-cultures and paraphilias, so when the ‘T’ latched on, all the gross sexual stuff oozed out as trans started leading the train into the corporate mainstream. Now we have things like gender-bending sex shows for kids (that are extremely inappropriate for kids) being held up as “LGBT progress” because, idk, whatever makes dicks hard, I guess?

xiii) My guess is because it’s a way to get a foothold to indoctrinate kids from an extremely young age by passing it off as a type of dress-up/clown/make-believe entertainment. It gets them used to the lingo and sexual suggestiveness from an early age. In other words, it’s a woke veneer for a type of grooming, being passed off as harmless. Has Jimmy Savile vibes.

Edit: who benefits by exposing (sorry, not intentional) children to an adult male, gay, subculture? Why is this deemed necessary to shove at kids, who if they grow up to be gay men, will learn about it anyway? Why can’t the library hire actors to be in character for the stories they read? This is an adult-driven agenda and is not benign. There have already been cases of pedos doing this and cases of indecent exposure.

xiv) Like most aspects to the Trans Agenda, there are layers to it. There is the cold and calculated manipulation cooked up by some truly terrifying people with money to push their agenda, and the foot soldiers doing their bidding. Those powerful men want societal-wide grooming, all over the planet. Their goal is to get sexual access to kids, make a killing financially, and to push their transhumanist agenda.

Then you have the normies acting it out because they can virtue signal how woke they are, and they hear that the chuds hate it so that makes it good. There are so many memes about how Red Hat types would eat a loaf of shit if they thought a liberal would have to smell their breath, but look at how many of The Right Side of History are willing to do almost anything to upset the "other team", even sterilize autistic kids.

Lots of people are dumb, there's no way around it. The thin arguments like "We're showing that sex stereotypes are meaningless!" are coming from the same crowd who say they have to sterilize their child and amputate their genitals because they don't perfectly match sex stereotypes. They haven't thought it through, they're virtue twerking and it's not much deeper than that from their side.

It would be good to have more radfem protests of these grooming events, because the chattering classes have bought the line that only homophobes, chuds and Christians (the horror!) oppose grooming kids into kink.

xv) It's being marketed as progressive and good family fun that also happens to "challenge" (allegedly) "old-fashioned" "stereotypes" about how men and women "should" be (except, as others have pointed out, drag actually reinforces the worst, most regressive, most old-fashioned stereotypes about women that exist).

It's being marketed as a way for children to escape from gender stereotypes while simultaneously strengthening those very same stereotypes. It's a mess.

xvi) I just emailed one local to me. Please email the ones near you! Here's what I said:

"Hi!

I’m a [redacted] County citizen. I recently became aware that you will be holding a Drag Queen Story Hour. What is your goal? To teach children that mocking women is normal and fun? Will you have a minstrel show next week? Please reconsider your choices. MISOGYNY IS WRONG and whoever organized this event should be fired for promoting hatred towards a marginalized group and spreading stereotypes. You’re on the wrong side of history."

xvii) I don't see how this helps dispell homophobia. If anything, those hideous costumes and those creepy men are going to plant the idea in these kids that "gay man = freak".

A generation of kids became terrified of clowns because of the movie "It" in the 80s. I wonder if this Drag Time For Kids bullshit will do the same for TIMs. 🤣

xviii) When I was in library school a few years ago, this was a big topic of conversation in one of my classes. Everyone except one woman was for it, and I was hesitant. I'm very against it today. I can totally see a bunch of my peers doing this ti be subversive and push back against the conservatives in my state. My classmates who work in K-12 school libraries post trans books ALL THE TIME. The American Library Association is steeped in gender ideology. You can't get out of library school nowadays without being bashed over the head with gender ideology. I can only imagine how bad it is in library programs on the coasts. It was bad enough in flyover Middle America!

xix) I remember being completely dumbfounded by the religiosity of this particular librarian: https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2020/05/01/neutrality-when-speech-isnt-free/

If I was running a surreptitious social engineering campaign and someone suggested to target the librarian association I would have replied with something like "Nah, they are all well-read, smart and really understand the importance fighting censorship. You're never going to get them..."

...

xx) Yeah it’s very “stick it to the uptight Christian bigots” but they have to keep getting more and more extreme to get a rise out of people. Like they deliberately poke the bear and then scream that they just wanna live. Stop pushing it then

Links - 17th June 2023 (1 - Diversity)

Meme - Comics MATTER w/Ya Boi Zack: "Diversity Hires are now describing THEMSELVES as "checkmarks"."
Preston Mitchum @PrestonMitchum: "It's May 23rd. If these companies haven't started contacting you about #PrideMonth events by now, I have two suggestions: 1/ Reject them when they do; or 2/ Double your ask. Triple if you're Black or brown, disabled, etc. You're their checkmark. Get paid for it."

Meme - "Disney remakes! original cartoon, live action remake
Tinkerbell
Ariel
Tarzan
Go on Disney, I dare you make a movie about a black man living in the jungle and raised by apes."

Meme - "Disney presents Snow White *Black woman*"

Meme - "Social justice warriors trying to write fiction:
Whoops! Looks like I don't know how to write story, character or plot! Guess I'll have to use something else.
Diversity!"

Eric Lander Is Not the Ideal Choice for Presidential Science Adviser - Scientific American - "Despite this slate of diverse leadership, we can’t help but notice that the recently announced nomination of presidential science adviser Eric Lander fails to meet the moment... There was certainly no shortage of options, with a deep bench of qualified women and Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) whose expertise and experience can transform the place of science as a tool for justice."
Liberals still pretend that white and male privilege means that white men get a leg up, when they actually get one deprioritised

Kumail Nanjiani: Studios Refuse to Cast Non-White Actors as Bad Guys - "Kumail Nanjiani says Hollywood is still limiting the kinds of roles that actors of color can play.  The Eternals, Big Sick and Silicon Valley actor, who is promoting his recent Hulu limited series Welcome to Chippendales, said in a new interview that decision-makers are reluctant to cast nonwhite actors in villain roles... “And that’s just as limiting as anything else,” Nanjiani said. “I want to play more bad guys.” He pointed to actor Sebastian Stan, who plays Marvel superhero the Winter Solider as well as a cannibal in the 2022 movie Fresh. “He does these big Marvel movies, and then he’ll play a psychopath,” he says. “I was told that’s going to be hard because people don’t want to cast nonwhite people as bad guys.”   In Welcome to Chippendales, Nanjiani plays the iconic strip club’s Indian founder, Somen “Steve” Banerjee, as he goes from an up-and-coming businessman in the 1980s to a vilified accessory to murder in the early ’90s. Nanjiani added that he suspects such a role would have gone to a white actor if the project wasn’t based on a true story."
Diversity means only white people can be evil

Russell T Davies lambasts diversity fixation of ‘rubbish’ new TV writers - "Doctor Who’s showrunner has criticised a new wave of “rubbish” TV screenwriters who are more interested in diversity than television.  Russell T Davies, the award-winning writer who is overseeing future episodes of the long-running sci-fi favourite planned by the BBC, has decried the quality of emerging creatives.  Many script writers are in the television industry to “increase representation”, Davies has claimed, and their work is “rubbish”.  He said: “I do a lot of mentoring, and there are voices wanting to be heard – of any gender or ethnicity – who consider themselves invisible.  “They hate the media that ignores them, and they’re trapped into wanting a job in that medium purely to increase representation. I read their scripts and they’re rubbish.  “They don’t actually love television, so they don’t know how to write for it.” Doctor Who has itself been criticised for pushing a perceived political agenda with its recent storylines, which have included a time-travelling episode taking in the bus protest of  Rosa Parks, and moves to make the main cast more diverse.  Davies, who revived the series in 2005, has returned as showrunner to oversee future episodes after the most recent run suffered a mixed reception, with a new series set to launch in 2023.  Fellow creative Mark Gatiss, speaking to The Sunday Times, also shared his concern about the quality of emerging TV creatives, saying: “Sometimes I think I’m like Pollyanna because I’ve met so many people over the years who hate making television.
Why so much Western media is shit now
We'll still be told that those who think the media has an agenda are paranoid far right conspiracy theorists spreading misinformation

Mental health consequences of minority political positions: The case of brexit - "The group density effect, where a group member's psychiatric risk is associated with the proportion of the local population their group comprises, demonstrates the importance of minority group status to mental health. Previous research, focusing on ethnicity, has been correlational, but newly-formed identities provide opportunities for natural experiments, with greater scope for causal inference. This study examines whether such a group density effect can be found for the novel Brexit identities of ‘leaver’ and ‘remainer’ following the UK's divisive 2016 referendum on EU membership. Mixed effects models were fitted to the Understanding Society panel survey series (N = 25,555, 19,767 for analyses controlling for pre-referendum mental health data), predicting mental health as a function of individual opinion on EU membership and local referendum results. These interacted such that those holding the local majority opinion had better mental health (Odds ratio (OR):875 [0.766- 0.9995]), compared to those in the minority. This result survived adjustment for individual and area-level economic circumstances (OR:866 [0.758-0.989]), and, strikingly, pre-referendum mental health (OR: 0.841 [0.709-0.998]), as well as a number of other potential confounding variables. The results provide evidence for rapidly forming group density effects based on de novo identities, and suggest that identity may be a causal mechanism for group density effects more broadly. They also speak to the extent of polarisation in the Brexit-era UK, and its public health consequences"
The original research on race suggests that diversity is bad for "minorities"

Valve's unusual corporate structure causes its problems, report suggests - "It's well-known that Valve doesn't work like other game studios. Valve's flat corporate structure means that, as its own New Employee Handbook (opens in new tab) reads, "we don’t have any management, and nobody 'reports to' anybody else. We do have a founder/president, but even he isn't your manager." The symbol of this freedom is the office's wheeled desks, which allow employees to form ad hoc teams by moving together when someone—anyone—proposes a project that interests others, then wheeling away once they decide to move on... Another effect was to reinforce Valve's lack of diversity. More than one interviewee highlighted that, even compared to the rest of the videogame industry, Valve is an extremely white and male company. While at other studios a diverse-hiring initiative would come from management, at Valve it had to come from the employees themselves... Another occasion when Valve's flat structure seems to have affected decision-making was its response to indie developers pulling their games from Steam as a criticism of Valve's silence on Black Lives Matter"
When you need to shove diversity and social justice into everything and the ground does not support it
When liberals hate democracy and egalitarianism because it means they can't push their agenda

Meme - Adaoma Okonkwo: "Portsmouth is miles better now, the more racial diversity in a society or municipality,the better, no matter what the brexit gammon might tell you. Frankly, Portsmouth in the 1930s was hideously white"
We are still told liberals don't hate white people. Imagine saying hideously (any other race)
If non-white countries don't have racial diversity, does that mean they are shitholes?

Idris Elba says he no longer calls himself a Black actor because it puts him in a ‘box’ - "Idris Elba has said he no longer calls himself a “Black actor” because the label puts him in a “box”. The Luther star said that “as humans, we are obsessed with race” and that the “obsession can really hinder people’s aspirations” and “growth”... “As you get up the ladder, you get asked what it’s like to be the first Black to do this or that,” he said. “Well it’s the same as it would be if I were white. It’s the first time for me. I don’t want to be the first Black. I’m the first Idris.” Elba said that he is aware that in “many cases, I might be the first to look like me to do a certain thing. And that’s good, to leave as part of my legacy”. He continued: “So that other people, Black kids, but also white kids growing up in circumstances I grew up in, are able to see there was a kid who came from Canning Town who ended up doing what I do. It can be done.”"

Meme - Chelsea Klukas: "A woman at another big tech company (that I won't name) told me a male leader responded to a question on diversity goals with "diversity is a luxury, right now we need to focus on people who can do the job" A lot to unpack there, & an unsurprising view we knew many had all along."
Male leaders are so evil that they don't prioritise diversity even though everyone knows it leads to better outcomes
When times are tough, the truth comes out

Cambridge planned to block white students from applying for course - "The university’s School of Arts and Humanities internally promoted “an exciting new widening participation project” that will “give an opportunity for students from under-represented groups to experience postgraduate research at Cambridge”... It said the new scheme was needed because the school “has had massive offer gaps between Oxbridge pathway and others – and most of our under-represented groups apply from outside Oxbridge”. This would “encourage more applications from candidates outside of its traditional recruitment pathways”... in the “call for supervisors” on Feb 6, lecturers were told: “The programme will be advertised for second or third year UG [undergraduate] students from Black, British Black, Pakistani, Bangladeshi or British-Pakistani, British Bangladeshi students studying at traditional research-intensive universities, who are planning to continue their studies in 2024.”... the initial plan to exclude of white working-class students has sparked concern about Cambridge’s diversity priorities. Prof David Abulafia, a leading historian at Gonville and Caius College, told The Telegraph: “It’s good that the programme has been recalibrated so that the criterion is disadvantage rather than race. The racial criterion seemed to assume non-white students are automatically disadvantaged. Isn’t that a little bit racist?”... One source claimed the original plan represented “race-based social engineering”, while another source described the broad-brush description of black and black-British people in the internal memo as a “racial stereotype”."
White privilege strikes again. It's okay, though this was pulled, they can just reject all the white people who apply so they can game diversity metrics
How are you going to distinguish Pakistanis from Indians?

CBC staff discover confidential diversity responses in online HR files - "Some CBC employees say they felt “surprised” and “betrayed” after sensitive private information, including their sexual orientation, gender identity and religion, suddenly appeared in their online human resources profiles last week after they had provided it in a “confidential” diversity survey... the Crown corporation insisted the information employees were providing was “completely confidential.” One email from Radio-Canada assured staff that the data would be used for “statistical analysis of its workforce” and as a tool to “identify involuntary systemic obstacles” in order to remove them... Nowhere in the “cultural census” emails seen by the Post was it mentioned that the data would be linked to individual employees and placed in their HR file... those explanations do not cut it for privacy and information management expert Rick Klumpenhouwer. He said there is no scenario where a specific employee’s sexual orientation or religion needs to be stored on an HR platform, namely because it’s irrelevant to their work... For one Radio-Canada employee, the employer’s “misuse” of workers’ data is “sadly ironic” at a time when the broadcaster is constantly airing stories about privacy issues and the importance of protecting personal information... Employees are also concerned that data is being stored on external Microsoft servers and not within internal CBC/Radio-Canada data centres."
If you work for a liberal organisation, don't be surprised if they practise affirmative action

Meme - "HOGWARTS LEGACY
set in 1800s Scotland
Students of every race sprinkled around the school!
Arab Professor, Trans Innkeeper, Ugandan Professor, Chinese Professor, Indian Professor, Korean Groundskeeper, Japanese Professor
Hogwarts after Dumbledore became Headmaster
*mostly white staff*
Harry did i ever explain to you why the white race is......"

Financial reporting quality effects of imposing (gender) quotas on boards of directors - "We analyze whether the passage of a Norwegian law requiring a minimum of a 40 percent of women on the boards of public firms affected financial reporting quality. Our results are consistent with a decrease in financial reporting quality for the firms that were most affected by the passage of the law, and with the effects being relatively short-lived. We also find evidence that board members characteristics, beyond gender, changed due to this law. These changes can partially explain our findings. Overall, our results show that mandating large changes to board composition over a relatively small period of time negatively affects financial reporting."

A Female Style in Corporate Leadership? Evidence from Quotas - "This paper studies the impact of gender quotas for corporate board seats on corporate decisions. We examine the introduction of Norway's 2006 quota, comparing affected firms to other Nordic companies, public and private, that are unaffected by the rule. We find that affected firms undertake fewer workforce reductions than comparison firms, increasing relative labor costs and employment levels and reducing short-term profits. The effects are strongest among firms without female board members beforehand and are present even for boards with older and more experienced members afterward. The boards appear to be affecting corporate strategy in part by selecting like-minded executives."

Do board gender quotas affect firm value? Evidence from California Senate Bill No. 826 - "We examine stock market reactions, direct costs of compliance, and board adjustments to California Senate Bill No. 826 (SB 826), the first mandated board gender diversity quota in the United States. Announcement returns average −1.2% and are robust to the use of multiple methodologies. Returns are more negative when the gap between the mandated number and the pre-SB 826 number of female directors is larger. These negative effects are less severe for firms with a greater supply of female candidates, and for those that can more easily replace male directors or attract female directors. For small firms, the annual direct cost of compliance through board expansion is non-trivial, representing 0.76% of market value. Following SB 826, firms significantly increase female board representation, and the increase is greater for firms in California than control firms in other states."

Health Secretary wants NHS quangos to consider removing diversity officers - "Steve Barclay has written to the heads of NHS quangos insisting they review membership of charities, including Stonewall, and consider removing diversity officers. The Health Secretary said bodies including NHS England should report on whether inclusion schemes were value for money, and stop employing full-time diversity and inclusion officers... “In these times of financial pressures, and wider societal concern about these issues, I would ask that you, as a member of the wider health family, now review whether your organisation is getting value for money from your diversity and inclusion memberships and, if not, consider any steps that you could take to address that, such as following the Department’s example and allowing any association/subscriptions that you have to lapse or be cancelled”... The letter comes after new guidelines were issued to NHS staff, asking them to treat all patients as gender-neutral until they have confirmed how they identify. The guidance was produced by researchers who received a £164,964 government grant from the National Institute for Health and Care Research."
Damn Tories underfunding health!

Lara Logan on Twitter - "It really is quite staggering that Elon Musk could fire all those people from Twitter & it made no difference whatsoever. What did they do all day?"
Wilfred X. Reilly, Californian on Twitter - "Nothing. It's not staggering at all, to me: the majority of middle-management and DEI/SEL/ESG/HR-style jobs contribute literally 0 to ROI (HBR, 2016). I think of many of them as a sort of upper-middle class welfare program or even daycare system."

Quinta Brunson's Solution to Increasing On-Screen Diversity Is Simple - ""The key to more diversity in television is not just sticking characters into a white world," the Abbott Elementary creator recently told Entertainment Weekly, "but actually green-lighting the stories that naturally bring those people to the forefront." With her ABC sitcom, Quinta and the writers never set out to cast more people of color, adding, "We were worried about being funny.""

Meme - "Next lets have a look at how our Tar-Miriel will look."
"Is this really faithful to how Tolkien described her?"
"Who's Tolkien?"

Facebook - "In recent years there been a trend in the entertainment industry, where established white characters are remade to be non-white. In Tolkien's universe we've seen this in Rings Of Power with Queen Tar-Míriel, and in the Tales of Middle-earth card game with Aragorn. But this is not something unique for LotR, but something that appears across a great number of different franchises. The argument for this is "representation", the idea that people cannot enjoy a piece of culture if there aren't people in it with the same skin color as themselves. This idea is nonsense. Not only because we're all more than our skin color, and can identify with other traits of a character, not only because it's impossible to have every ethnic group represented in every piece of culture, but also because of the fact that many of the supposed underrepresented peoples have no interest in this idea. Three examples of this within the Tolkien fandom is Fatal Jay (https://www.youtube.com/c/fataljay), Just Some Guy (https://www.youtube.com/@JustSomeGuy) and Young Rippa (https://www.youtube.com/@youngrippa59). Three black men who all love Tolkien, and who all have spoken out against the race swapping being done to his world by modern activists. On the other side, there are of course other people of color who strongly support the ideas of representation and race swapping. But they do not represent their respective ethnic group. They represent an idea and an ideology, which they share with other people, regardless of race. The same goes for white people calling for representation. These people like to present themselves as champions of justice, standing up for poor, oppressed minorities. This is of course a false narrative, because they care little when people from these groups disagree with their agenda. The truth is that they don't fight for anyone other than themselves. They fight for their own agendas and ideals, not anything else. This is not a conflict between non-whites and whites. It's a conflict between activists who want to force their politics on Tolkien's (or any other author's) work, and fans who want respect for the source material. If you don't like the original work, go create your own franchise, with it's own stories, that better fits your ideology. But leave Tolkien's world alone."
Ironically, the woke keep claiming that wokeness is about empathy, but they have no empathy for characters who are different from them, and think no one else does either (which is why they keep banging on about "representation")

Meme - Mickey Mouse: "OUR NEW MOVIE/SHOW IS SO DIVERSE AND INCLUSIVE"
Padme: "AND IT'S GOOD RIGHT?"
Mickey Mouse:
Padme: "IT'S GOOD RIGHT?"

Work, Food and Weird: It's literally 1987 by George Doorbell - FML - "Today, I took some leftover Indian food to work, and commented to a coworker that I loved to cook recipes from other cultures. Later, I got a hearing with HR about cultural appropriation. The HR rep said, "Stick to plain chicken and boiled potatoes." FML"
Woke foodies lose their minds over ‘cultural appropriation’
On Facebook some people were calling the FML post fake

The craft beer industry has a diversity problem - The Boston Globe - "It can be jaw-dropping to see how monochromatic its consumers are: Of craft beer and hard cider drinkers, whites account for 77 percent of the market, while Hispanics are 10.6 percent, blacks constitute 5.4 percent, and Asians are 5.1 percent... Consider this 2019 survey from Kantar, a research group: Of weekly craft beer drinkers, about 79 percent of black and Hispanic consumers agree with the statement “I am frustrated by brands that treat people like me as an afterthought.” About 73 percent of Asians also agree with that notion. Meanwhile, only 55 percent of white drinkers feel frustrated.
64% of the population accounting for 77% of the market is a huge problem, apparently
Clearly race is the only relevant demographic for a beer drinker and the majority of white drinkers feeling frustrated is evidence of pro-white racism

Sandra Bullock Gets Real About Raising Black Children: Why Being ‘Woke’ Isn’t Enough - "Bullock shared an anecdote about her daughter feeling downcast after accidentally catching a glimpse of the South Korean Netflix show, “Squid Game,” while her partner, Bryan Randall, was watching it. When Bullock inquired about her daughter’s distress over the show, she presumed it was due to the violent content. However, Bullock was taken aback by her daughter’s reply: “I don’t want Dad to watch that… because there are no Black people in it.” Bullock expressed delight in her daughter’s fervent reaction, stating, “The fact that she felt so strongly about it gave me immense joy, as it demonstrated that she was already able to voice her opinion.” She further added that she allows her children to educate her by informing her of what they need to know. Bullock admitted that despite believing she was knowledgeable and conscious, she still had much to learn... Bullock emphasized that the best way to take care of her son and daughter is by not shielding them from the harsh realities of being Black, including exposing them to everything on television and allowing them to process it."
Sandra Bullock Admits She Isn't As "Educated And Woke" As Her Daughter, Wishes Her Skin Matched The Colour Of Her Black Children - "“As a white parent who loves her children more than life itself, I’m scared of everything,” Bullock revealed. “I know I’m laying all kinds of existential anxiety on them. I have to think about what they’re going to experience leaving the home.” The Gravity actress then pondered, “They’re going to have my fear, but how can I make sure that my anxiety is accurate, protective?”... “I let them teach me and tell me what they need to know,” explained the actress regarding her children, adding, “I thought I was educated and woke. I thought I had it all, and guess what? I wasn’t.” “To say that I wish our skins matched… sometimes I do,” said Bullock, adding, “because then it would be easier on how people approach us. It’s our anxiety, it’s our fear, it’s our cross to bear the minute you become a mum.” “And I have the same feelings as a woman with brown skin and it being her babies. Or a white woman with, you know, white babies,” she explained."
Demanding black people everywhere - even in a country where they have a negligible presence - shows how mature you are, apparently
Making your children grievance mongers is the best way to take care of them. Apparently watching TV gives you an accurate view of the world
Should people only adopt children of the same race?

Pork in Australia

From Facebook:

The not-so-curious incident of the pork in Australia.

Wanna know if the Asian in front of you is an ABC or FOB?

Serve them a piece of pork.

Not charsiu, or bacon or sweet and sour pork.
Straight up pork chop from the supermarket, steamed.

–

I have two distinct memories of Australian pork.

Once, I was shooting a rustic theme wedding on a farm, far away from the city. The bride was kind enough to provide a meal, and it was buffet style. Very casual, very intimate. Otway pork was on the menu. For those out of Victoria, Otway pork was the first to break out as the 'free-range, cruelty-free' pork in the 00s. The guy carved two thick slices of meat from a giant slab of shoulder, and I was pretty excited because of all the premium hype behind it.

I sat down, stab it with my fork, took a giant bite.

–

Memory number two: Sydney, also the 00s.
Way before Ippudo, Ryo's, Rarara, there was Gumshara in Chinatown. It was legendary because back then our ramen vocabulary was in its infancy. Foodies raved about the limited 15 bowls of authentic tokontsu ramen in this underground food court in the middle of Chinatown.

I don't remember the process, but I remember the struggle to get to the store. I was gasping for air, like a fangirl: "do you .. still have... the limited .. ramen? Am I ... too late? I came all ... the way from ... Melbourne. "

The macho man behind the counter told me I was lucky and served me the final bowl of the day.

I sat down alone, gave thanks to the ramen god, stared into my bowl of awesomeness, and took a sip of the soup.

–

Now the answer to the migrant test.

The one who could chew the pork all the way through, swallow, and ask for seconds with a straight face, is most likely the locally born and bred Asian.

On the other hand, the migrant's mouth is still full. Because she is trying very hard to not have a gag reflex. She is Mr. Bean looking for a handbag, a glass of water, a vase, a cleavage, anything to hide that unbearable heaviness of being.

Australian pork, you stink.

I don't know if it's just you, maybe your big brother American pork is the same, but you stink.

That supposedly premium Otway pork tasted foul.

Gumshara's tonkotsu ramen was so revolting, it was the first time I walked out on a bowl of ramen. It's probably still there, staring out of the window, waiting for me to play catch, but I have no guilt. I have tasted and starred evil in the face. I never knew tortured souls had a physical form.

And apparently, it's a known phenomenon among migrants. A silent struggle. Your parents don't talk about it.

The reason we don't enjoy Chinese food away from home, on top of being homesick, is because - let me say it one more time - the pork stinks.

And for the longest time, I thought I was delusional. Check out the comments, while 50% of Asians I meet agree that they should warn us on the plane before we touchdown at the airport (don't bring drugs, declare your apple, and oh, watch out for the pork), the other 50% are oblivious. Like the coriander test.

'Huh? Is this true? Nah, you're just being dramatic, wanting attention. Here's a sticker.'

Funny that's also how my parents dealt with most of my problems.

Sometimes, that 50% who don't smell pork, is your wife.

–

"My hometown is the origin of ramen," my wife said, back when she wasn't my wife. Heck, I wasn't even her boy toy then. To say that to a person you met for the very first time, one has to be so, so proud of Hakata Ramen.

So the first time I visited Taroumaru ward, west of Fukuoka, her brother took us to this everyday man's ramen place.

This is it, I said to myself. Courtside seats to the OG tonkotsu ramen. None of this commercialized watered-down Ippudo / Ichiran BS. Witness me, gaijin foodies. I'm going to taste history.

Once I stepped out of the car, I wanted to go home. Someone was burning corpses.

I gave it the benefit of doubt, you know, perhaps it's like stinky tofu. If you close your eyes and chew, eventually, everything turns into glucose and fructose.

But there I was, trying to not throw up in the restaurant, breathing through my mouth while everyone was behaving like it's a Tuesday. They really couldn't smell it. The fat, the bone, the hair on the bone, the scum - they permeated through my jacket, my pores, into my nervous system via osmosis.

A bowl of white ramen appeared in front of me.

The family stared at me, using telepathic ESP to say 'EAT IT EAT IT EAT IT EAT IT EAT IT EAT IT' while my wife gave me the 'don't embarrass me' look, and I finally understood what it's like to be pressured by your partner to take it in the ass.

–

It's a sex thing.

Male pigs, once they reach puberty, release androstenone and skatole, (one from the balls, the other within the fat) which gives the meat a 'fecal flavour' according to Wikipedia.

So if you're in Victoria Market and wonder why all the Asian butchers have 'female pork' plastered all over, now you know.

Some castrate the male pigs to get rid of the boar taint. Some never made it through puberty. Suckling pigs during wedding banquets, anyone?

Some say it's just the butchering. Factories shock the pig to death in mass, unlike the 'conventional way' of killing. If you answered 'the blood didn't drain properly', you get a match in this round of Family Feud.

It's ironic because if Muslims were to eat pork and kill pigs the halal way, they'd probably taste the best.

"Some people just don't care," says Frank, my butcher, when I asked him about this.

"It's just a label, mate. Who knows if it's really female pork or not. If the customers don't care, then why would the butcher go through all that trouble to please 20% of the clientele?"

-

Surely, I'm not the first to migrate to this country, encountering this issue. I need the past ghosts of housewives, the problem-solving skill of ancestral mothers to guide me.

I typed 'why Australian pork smells' in Chinese Google and I saw solutions.

I learned new words such as 断生 , 焯水, 飞水 and 跑活水.

They translate to 'blanching' from cold water.

Apparently, the best way to do this is to place your piece of pork in a big pot of cold water, at the lowest heat possible.

Let it sit for 30-40 minutes. Think of this as an open water sous vide. The water will be pinky, scummy, stinky. Discard it, then your meat is ready to go.

If you're making soup, into boiling water for 2-3 minutes, wash the bones, and start again.

This also explains why in ramen-making youtube videos, they would boil the trotters, the bones, before starting over in a new pot.

It's a good solution, but I don't know man, what if I have pork mince? Why can't we just, you know, have nice pork to start with?

I remember the first time I had a fried pork cutlet in a Tonkatsu joint in Tokyo.

It was the opposite of my experience in Fukuoka. Like the first time, you unraveled your parents' white lie.

Pork can be juicy, and flavourful? And not stink?
What else have you been hiding from me??

Hit it, Phoebe.

Smelly pig, smelly pig. What are they feeding you?

Smelly pig, smelly pig. It's not your fault.

–

How about I turn this around?

Is the pork 'back home' really that good?
Or we just want it to be good?

Because as I crawl through my memory, our so-called 'favourite' pork dishes - charsiu, bah kut teh, wantan, pai guat, lu rou fan, charsiubao, dong po rou, sweet and sour pork, lion's head etc., are all heavily seasoned or stewed to bits. Charsiu is basically 50% sugar. Crispy pork belly (siu yok) is probably the most vanilla of all, but we also brine them and dip them in an awful lot of sauce and sodium.

If the ingredients are so great, then, why so much seasoning, as if ... there's something to hide? *doubt emoji*

The last time I went back to my childhood place and took a bite of the charsiu, it's just really dry and tiny, filled with the bittersweetness of first love, and the reality of 'but I have to move on now'.

–

I was talking to a Malaysian writer recently, and I said we should all travel more, eat more, expand our palettes so we can all be better cooks.

Now I realised, sometimes, experiencing too much can make you an ungrateful son of a bitch. Always complaining, always comparing, and never be content.

So I guess the moral of the story is to:

1. Live in the moment, accept what you have in life;
2. If you can't accept it, try blanching it in hot water;

3. Smelly pork is real, if you're suffering, please know that you're not alone. Talk to your loved ones.