Links - 28th April 2024 (2 - George Floyd Unrest)

Eric Kaufmann: Media, Dems Ignore Facts And Logic As They Push Racial Division - "I asked the question in my survey to both black and white respondents, what is more, which is the more likely cause of death for a young black man in America? Is it a car accident or is it to be shot by the police? It is a clear fact that it is about 10-1 with car accidents over a police bullet, and yet eight-in-ten African-American Biden voters and seven-in-ten whites who believe... white Republicans are racist actually said it was police that were more likely to be the cause of death for young black men. So this is leading people to have a distorted picture of reality. And that feeds into a whole series of political attitudes... if you look at what Biden says, he could have brought the nation together by talking about Tony Timpe, the white man whose life was pressed out of him in 2016 by Dallas police officers. You could talk about the fact that as many white people are killed as black people.  But no, instead, choosing to turn this into a conversation about systemic racism and racialize what is not clearly a racist issue. This is an issue of police brutality, perhaps, but it is not obviously a racist issue and racializing that fuels this diversion of perception away from statistical reality... in a way there are two problems. One, it introduces divisiveness, when you have sweeping generalizations about whole categories of people, like Americans and police officers and white people and so on.  But secondly, in terms of helping African-Americans themselves. One of the questions I put to black survey respondents -- I had half of them read some Ta-Nahesi Coates, a critical race theory-inspired author, and half of them read nothing. Those who read Coates, their belief that they can make their life plans work out dropped 15 points.  And you see those cities that had BLM marches and protests, there was a 20% increase in the murder rate between 2014-2019. Some awareness of the downstream cost of this on the black community and on the United States as a whole surely is necessary to inject a bit of context and a bit more rationality into what has kind of become, what John McWhorter said, almost as a religion of anti-racism, as a symbolic crusade rather than one grounded in facts and logic."

Kids Get Schooled on Radical Politics - "Children at a Brooklyn public elementary school are being taught revolutionary politics and communist terms from a Black Lives Matter coloring book... teachers at PS 321—the kindergarten through fifth grade school in Park Slope—supplied students with the coloring book, What We Believe, as part of a lesson for Black History Month. The book uses drawings and worksheets to promote the 13 tenets of the Black Lives Matter movement, under titles like “Queer Affirming,” “Transgender Affirming,” and “Restorative Justice.” Principle number 2, “Empathy,” is described as “engaging comrades with the intent to learn about and connect with their contexts.”  The coloring book also lists Black Lives Matter’s “national demands,” including “mandate black history & ethnic studies,” “hire more black teachers,” and “fund counselors not cops.” One parent of a PS 321 fourth grader, whose grandparents fled Communist China before moving to the U.S., said she and her husband were “shocked” that the book used the word comrade—and that it appeared to promote political propaganda.  “Using the word comrades comes from Communist times,” said the parent, whose 10-year-old daughter attends the school, also known as William Penn. “They are using words that I don’t think are appropriate for elementary school.” She said she first discovered the coloring book on Tuesday, February 13, when a snow day forced her daughter to learn from home.  “This is classwork, not homework,” the parent said. “If it weren’t for the snow, we wouldn’t have known.”   Lessons in the coloring book tell children to reflect on Black Lives Matter’s 13 principles. Some of the exercises, parents said, appear innocuous; a page about “Restorative Justice,” for example, asks students: “Why is it important to offer to forgive someone?” But another, entitled “Transgender Affirming,” instructs students to read the book When Aidan Became a Brother about a girl who transitions to a boy, and then answer questions on a worksheet like, “How do you feel when someone tells you what you can or can’t do based on your gender?”Another principle, “Black Villages,” is described as “disrupting the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement.” Another, called “Intergenerational,” encourages a “communal network free from ageism.” Another public school parent whose family left the Soviet Union when she was a teenager said the language in the book reminds her “of the songs we were made to sing as elementary school children. ‘Dismantling’ and ‘comrade’ and everything—it really reminds me of the word salad that was a part of those songs.”  She compared the Black Lives Matter movement to communism, saying: “same salad, different dressing.” Brandy Shufutinksy, the director of education at the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values, who is black and holds a doctorate in international multicultural education, said she was “offended” that the curriculum “demonizes the nuclear family.”  “They frame it as some form of white supremacy,” Shufutinksy said. “There are a number of people beside myself who are deeply offended by the idea that black Americans should not strive for something that was denied to our ancestors for so long.”  The educational materials used by PS 321 are created by Black Lives Matter at School, an organization founded in 2016 by a group of Seattle teachers to educate students from pre-K to 12th grade about BLM’s ideology. In 2018, Black Lives Matter at School launched a national Week of Action in February to teach “lessons on structural racism, Black history, intersectional Black identities, and anti-racist movements.” According to the group’s website, the curriculum is now taught at a total of 50 schools across 21 states and six countries... Several parents who spoke to The Free Press said they were upset that the coloring book failed to teach their children about black history... The fourth-grade mother said her daughter’s teacher told her the coloring book was the only lesson planned for Black History Month, other than a schoolwide project to make a quilt honoring famous black figures. She added that, after the Week of Action, her daughter still had never heard of civil rights hero Rosa Parks and didn’t know what Martin Luther King Jr. had achieved to make him famous.   Furthermore, she said, the coloring book presents controversial ideas “as fact.” But, “it’s not necessarily true. It’s not like every black person believes in these principles.”   Shufutinsky agrees: “There is nothing in these principles that talks about honoring greats in black American history. There is nothing in here that is actual scholarship. It doesn’t speak to education. It speaks to ideology.”"

Meme - Lelee Anne: "Mixed children are some of the most beautiful children *brown hand in a white woman's hand in a black man's hand*"
Lelee Anne: "This is what I am hungry for!! *Snickers Bars: 'Arrest Myles COsgrove The Cops Who Killed Brett Hankison Breonna Jonathan Mattingly Taylor'*
"Pregnant woman, 22, is decapitated as her family planned baby shower: Horror as head is found in a dumpster outside house as police charge her 'savage monster' ex-boyfriend, 22, with murdering her and unborn child"
*Black man and white woman*

Meme - "Black progressives crying over white men who were trying to set fires in a black neighborhood:"

Antifa militant who shot first at Kyle Rittenhouse sentenced to 3 years over Kenosha robbery - "This week a court sentenced Joshua and Kelly Ziminski to 20 months in prison for burglary and robbery with threat of force charges that they pleaded guilty to in May. Other charges were dropped in exchange for a plea deal...   In the heat of the 2020 riots in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Joshua Ziminski fired a "warning shot" just before Kyle Rittenhouse shot three men in self-defense. Ziminski was out of bail for his involvement in the riots when he and his wife went on the crime spree that earned them 7 felony charges...   During the riots, Joshua Ziminski was captured on video firing his gun into the air just before Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed Joseph Rosenbaum in what was ultimately ruled as self-defense. All charges in connection to the 2020 riots against Ziminski were eventually dropped."
Too bad Rittenhouse got away with murder!

Meme - ">I never chased Kyle Rittenhouse
>okay, I mean I chased after people about to harm Kyle Rittenhouse
>okay, I did chase Kyle Rittenhouse
>but I didn't have a gun
>but I didn't mention the gun
>okay, I had a gun but it fell out
>okay, I had a gun but it fell out into my hand
>okay, I had a gun but it fell out into my hand but I didn't do anything with it
>okay, I had a gun but I pulled it out on purpose and chased Kyle Ritten house and pointed it at him
>okay, I had a gun that I pulled out and chased Kyle Rittenhouse with and pointed at him and it was illegal for me to have
ALL OF THIS HAPPENED IN 30 MINUTES"

Meme - "ACTUALLY, THE LEFT SUPPORTS WORKERS' RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS."
"PHEW... SO, YOU'D UNDERSTAND"
"UNDERSTAND WHAT?"
*Kyle Rittenhouse shoots Gaige Grosskreutz, who was about to shoot him*

Some Protests Against Police Brutality Take a More Confrontational Approach - The New York Times - "Terrance Moses was watching protesters against police brutality march down his quiet residential street one recent evening when some in the group of a few hundred suddenly stopped and started yelling.  Mr. Moses was initially not sure what the protesters were upset about, but as he got closer, he saw it: His neighbors had an American flag on display.  “It went from a peaceful march, calling out the names, to all of a sudden, bang, ‘How dare you fly the American flag?’” said Mr. Moses, who is Black and runs a nonprofit group in the Portland, Ore., area. “They said take it down. They wouldn’t leave. They said they’re going to come back and burn the house down.”... The marches in Portland are increasingly moving to residential and largely white neighborhoods, where demonstrators with bullhorns shout for people to come “out of your house and into the street” and demonstrate their support. These more aggressive protests target ordinary people going about their lives, especially those who decline to demonstrate allegiance to the cause. That includes a diner in Washington who refused to raise her fist to show support for Black Lives Matter, or, in several cities, confused drivers who happened upon the protests... [Some] frustrated that little has changed since Mr. Floyd was killed, say that sitting idly and watching a protest without participating nowadays is to show tacit support for racism.  “We don’t need allies anymore,” said Stephen Green, an investor and entrepreneur in Portland who is Black. “We need accomplices.” In Rochester, N.Y., protesters have confronted people at outdoor restaurants, shaking dinner tables. Marchers in Washington also accosted people eating outside, urging everyone to raise their fists to show their allegiance to the movement.  The more personal tactics echo those being used against elected officials, with activists showing up not only outside mayor’s offices but their homes as well. The apartment building where the mayor of Portland lives has been vandalized. Protesters lit fires outside, ignited fireworks and broke into one of the businesses in the building on his birthday. In San Jose, Calif., demonstrators graffitied and egged the mayor’s house and lit an American flag in front of it, according to the police. In Rochester, people have recently posted police officers’ home addresses and information about their families, according to a police spokeswoman... Mr. Green argued that the tactics were working, even as they inconvenienced him and his family. He described the smell of tear gas and wail of sirens as the marches came to his neighborhood, which he said kept his 7-year-old daughter awake.  “It’s one thing if you can see something on TV, but if you can hear it and you can smell it in your house, that brings it home,” said Mr. Green, who grew up in Portland. “We need people willing to say, ‘I’m down to lose this friend because stuff needs to change. I’m down to make my neighbor uncomfortable.’ Being nice wasn’t changing anything.”... “The crowd was — I won’t even say mostly white — I’ll say it was an almost exclusively white crowd marching through the whitest neighborhood in Portland shouting ‘Black lives matter’ and ‘Black lives are magic,’” said Ms. Murphy, who is Black and hosts an educational children’s YouTube series. “What I was witnessing was a lamenting prayer, a cry of remorse and shame among the white people. That’s what I saw. It was healing.”... The same night the protesters came to the couple’s door last month, they marched into Kenton’s commercial district and used restaurant picnic tables as fuel for fires. They collected the colorful wooden dividers the neighbors had recently built for outdoor dining and set those ablaze as well. Mr. Moses and others in the community ran into the protests with fire extinguishers.  Protesters that night broke into the Portland Police Association building and set it on fire. A man was later seen scrubbing the sidewalk graffiti — a popular message was “PPB = KKK,” meaning that the Portland Police Bureau is the Ku Klux Klan. Mr. Green said that he opposed the destruction of property, but that he also understood it. And he believes, generally, that the more direct protest tactics in residential areas are working because they make the movement more personal, and reveal who truly supports change. If someone is against the movement, they keep their lights off or refuse to raise their fist, he said, adding that taking the debate into homes and to families is essential. Some residents in Portland say the tactics are escalating as the protests become increasingly dominated by white people, including anarchists and supporters of antifa, the diffuse collection of militant left-wing activists that has a strong presence in the region.  The movement is splintered in Portland between more mainstream Black Lives Matter marches and the more aggressive, sometimes chaotic antifa or black bloc protests, where demonstrators dress in black and wear motorcycle helmets or ski masks to make it difficult to identify — or later prosecute — them... A small free literature selection was set up on the grass and overseen by three people in ski masks. It was a popular offering, and people crowded around, craning to see the pamphlets.  Titles included “Why Break Windows”; “I Want To Kill Cops Until I’m Dead”; “Piece Now, Peace Later: An Anarchist Introduction to Firearms”; “In Defense of Smashing Cameras”; and “Three-Way Fight: Revolutionary Anti-Fascism and Armed Self Defense.”... One white man stepped onto his patio clapping and hollering in support of the passing march. The group called for him to join. He smiled and waved them on, still clapping. They began to chant that he was spineless. He looked worried. But the march moved along, and he went back into his house.  “You’ll never sleep tight, we do this every night,” the protesters chanted."
From 2020's Cultural Revolution. We're still that told left wingers don't hate their countries
As usual, what starts as a gesture of solidarity quickly becomes compulsory

Meme - The Other 98%: "Many of you think this is praying... You pray in private-this is marketing. *Democrats taking a knee while wearing Kente cloth with links to slavery*"
This is mocking The Other 98% for using this text with a Christian praying in public

Meme - "TRUMP NEEDS TO STOP STAGING RIDICULOUS PHOTO OPS TO PANDER TO HIS BASE *Democrats wearing Kente cloth with links to slavery*""

Meme - The Rabbit Hole @TheRabbitHole84: "After George Floyd:
- White offenders were mentioned more.
- Black offenders were mentioned less.
In other words: White-on-Black homicides get more focus than Black- on-White homicides. In 2020, there were:
- 876 White-on-Black homicides
- 1,877 Black-on-White homicides
Clear bias in which types of interracial homicides Legacy Media likes to cover."

Andy Ngô 🏳️‍🌈 on X - "“Get him! Get him!” In scenes reminiscent of Kenosha, BLM militants at @uofmemphis chase and pursue attendees of the Kyle Rittenhouse @ThisIsKyleR student event. Video by @Julio_Rosas11:"

Chicago police shooting: 96 shots fired in a fatal traffic stop. Here’s what the bodycam footage shows - "While a preliminary investigation suggests the driver opened fire on officers first, his family and attorneys question why plain-clothed officers swarmed Dexter Reed’s car with guns drawn and fired dozens of shots at him."
Clashes break out after release of Dexter Reed shooting video - Chicago Sun-Times - "One person was hospitalized when a clash erupted at a protest Tuesday evening where community activists and family members of Dexter Reed demanded the firing of officers who fatally shot the 26-year-old during a traffic stop."
The police are not allowed to defend themselves when black men attack them, even if the black men shoot at them

Jesse Singal on X - "This is very strange reporting from the AP. I only dip into these issues sporadically, but even I know that once police open fire, they keep shooting until they are sure the "threat is neutralized." The number of shots fired doesn't really mean much -- it's the decision to open fire in the first place that matters most."

Jesse Singal on X - "This article is written in a truly astonishing manner given that the available evidence, including on the video, suggests the young man in question opened fire at police before any of them shot at him (you can see cops fleeing in the video). You have to read the article with a fine-tooth comb to even come away with that absolutely crucial fact. The headline is "Police fire 96 shots in 41 seconds, killing Black man during traffic stop," with no mention of how the shooting started. Journalism is in such serious trouble right now."
Dexter Reed shot, killed by Chicago police after traffic stop - The Washington Post (aka "Police fire 96 shots in 41 seconds, killing Black man during traffic stop")

wanye on X - "There is no other word for running the graduation picture of a criminal killed in a violent altercation with police than “propaganda” I mean, this is just the laziest, most obvious kind of cheap propaganda and it’s embarrassing that it works"
AT on X - "Despite all this, persisting on the internet of course is the belief that mainstream news will go out of its way to find the least flattering photo of a black subject."
Sprat on X - "Remembering when all the networks used George Zimmerman's haggard mugshot next to a beaming school photo of a 12 year-old Trayvon Martin"
BRAD 🇺🇲🇮🇱🇻🇪 on X - "Any Black person shot by the police is made into a kind of religious figure. It's so weird."

wanye on X - "There is no other word for running the graduation picture of a criminal killed in a violent altercation with police than “propaganda”"
Thread by @DanFriedman81 on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "The reason they use graduation photos is forgotten internet lore. When Mike Brown was shot in 2014, media went to his Facebook to get pictures of him. In every photo, he was smoking blunts, fanning money or throwing gang signs. So they used photos of him looking like a thug. Black Twitter reacted angrily. They said that the media was using images of Brown that stereotyped him. There was a trending hashtag #iftheygunnedmedown of college students or professionals posting pictures of themselves looking like thugs in solidarity with Brown. Media outlets, thoroughly shamed, went to Brown’s family to get a picture that did not make him look like a stereotypical thug. They provided a photo of him in graduation regalia. From then on, media started using graduation photos of men who died while being arrested. Here is a contemporaneous article about the hashtag."
If you use photos of himself that a black man has uploaded for public view, you're racist

Wilfred Reilly on X - "Virtually every BLM martyr was a scumbag criminal. I used to put this more politely, but enough. The George Floyd case was at least a very real one in legal terms, whoever the man was - but just run your mind back through Jacob Blake, Rayshard Brooks, Michael Brown in reality, Alton Sterling, Joseph Rosenbaum, etc etc.  These are the Civil Rights heroes of today because there aren't any genuine race wars still going on - certainly not in a W-on-B direction, and in reality not in any direction. No better symbols exist."
scott moore on X - "It is almost like a 1984 thing.  I know there must, sometimes, be legitimate victims of police misconduct out there.  But it seems like BLM ignores those cases and intentionally goes for bad actors to make into heroes/martyrs.  It is like a power play or something.  An act of dominance.   Must give them a feeling of god-like power to make a hundred million people believe an obvious lie."
Just Kansas Things on X - "I still think this is in fact that reason the martyrs get popular. It can't be someone that everybody finds sympathetic. It has to be someone who is flawed enough for the conservatives to say "eh more where that came from," which then causes the left to double-down and spiral."
Or, BLM loves and glorifies criminals. There's a reason "fuck the police" sentiment is rife

Wilfred Reilly on X - "Looking through actual murder patterns in the areas where the last two twitter-trending fights/killings (Wisconsin, Wyoming) and most recent viral cop shooting (Chicago) took place, I realize something deeply depressing.   There must be actual human people looking through literally tens of thousands of murders involving Black or poor white men with same-race killers, ignoring them all, picking out the tiny bloc of incidents that could polarize citizens and make the cash register ring, and publicizing every single one of them. Number of unarmed Black men with white police killers last year? Ten. Number of cookies-off Google results for "unarmed Black man shot by cops 2023?" 1,140,000.   There are better ways to make money, gang."
JL on X - "Cop I knew who left Seattle early said there was a group that went through old case files trying to find officer involved shootings to do this exact thing. And this was about 5-7yrs"
Dbag Detector on X - "I've been telling my 17 yo son that you should not fuck around with cops they have guns, since he was about 13 yo"
Randy Tinfow on X - "I got pulled over for speeding yesterday. As has been my practice for 40+ years, put my hands on the steering wheel and asked for permission to open the glove compartment. Everyone stays calm."
AV8R on X - "I owe my Dad. He said “make it to the precinct alive and we’ll straighten it out together.”"

Swann Marcus on X - "The all-time funniest fake outrage over a police shooting was when Tyree Moorehead - a local activist in Baltimore - was literally on top of a woman while holding a knife to her throat when a police officer shot him and they still tried to turn him into a BLM cause celebre"

Will Ireland survive the Woke Wave? - "Talk to an educated Irish person in a global city today, and you will quickly discover that they hold the twin ideologies of post-Celtic Tiger Ireland: a vague sentimental remnant of the Irish ethno-nationalism of the revolutionary period and the internationalist and multicultural open society values of Google.  Point out that these are contradictory in any way, like mentioning Ireland’s role as an international tax haven or asking why there are so many Irish nationalists living in London, Berlin and San Francisco and so few living in Dublin, and you will be met with defensive anger.  As a former colony, historically unsullied by the sins of slavery and imperialism, Ireland’s national identity has been largely free of the culture of pathological self-hatred found across most of the liberal West today. An uncomplicated sense of national pride has remained the default, even and sometimes especially on the political Left. But all of that is about to change. “Toppling statues is just the beginning”, ran a recent Irish Times headline, if the goal is “How to make Irish culture less racist.” As self-flagellating stories about the Irish public’s racism are set to now become a daily part of life, Ireland’s elites can breathe a sigh of relief. Any populist pressure they sensed brewing while overseeing a deeply economically unequal society with skyrocketing homelessness, rents and outward youth migration can now be replaced with an imported moral narrative that turns the spotlight around on the reactionary masses who must, in the name of equality, learn to think of themselves as privileged.   While educated Irish young people in Dublin copied the Black Lives Matter protests from America, our culturally progressive and economically Thatcherite Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, recently singled out the statue of Irish Republican Sean Russell as a problematic target. Russell fought in the War of Independence and died trying to secure arms from Germany in 1940. Wrongly thinking that historical facts could ever stand a chance against the wrecking ball of the current international woke cultural revolution, some Republicans correctly pointed out that he was not doing so out of any allegiance to Nazism, having tried to secure arms from any nations that might give them. Protesters still vandalised the statue anyway, painting it with the gay pride rainbow flag with added black and brown to mark their support for Black Lives Matter. Having uncritically adopted the fashions of American academia, Ireland’s new young educated elite have started parroting the imported language of “white privilege” versus “people of colour”, and the dangers of nationalism versus the superior multinational capitalism-friendly values of openness.  There is little reason to think the cultural revolution sweeping across Europe from America will stop and listen to the “but we’re on your side!” pleas offered by Irish Republicans about how they supported the anti-apartheid movement in the Eighties or how our nationalist heroes were anti-imperialists or that our Republicans today are economically left-leaning and pro-immigration. Anyone who thinks these details will matter, and that any remnant of Irish cultural nationhood will be immune, is simply not paying attention to the unstoppable internal logic of the current cultural revolution underway. This new generation of elite aspirants are already showing that they make no such distinction and simply recast the native Irish as “white people” whose privilege needs to be checked and ultimately dismantled.   It is worth asking why the woke cultural revolution sweeping Irish society would spare a single one of our national statues, monuments or heroes. One could go through the entire list of signatories of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic and find cancellable and problematic thoughts uttered by each of them in different contexts... Why wouldn’t our literary heroes also be wiped from the canon and from the public space?... What about the special place given to the Irish language in state institutions, which it could be easily argued excludes and discriminates against foreigners? What about the explicitly ethnocentric Irish right of return policy, which grants people with Irish grandparents the right to citizenship? Irish liberal media used to love showcasing the young children of immigrants playing hurling or speaking Irish, which offered a vision of the future in which anyone could be Irish through adoption of the national culture, but what happens when those young people are filled with poison in the indoctrination camps of university and taught to fear and resent the native population as white racists? Surely they’ll let us keep the Marxist James Connolly, one might think, who could be spared due to some often cited quotes that liberals love about the limitations of nationalism without economic equality or against the oppression of women. In fact, the Connolly statue was defaced by anarchists years ago. On May Day 2005, the statue of James Connolly in Dublin was graffitied, and a black bloc hood and mask — the kind associated with antifa today — placed on its head, supposedly in the name of “appropriating” and “reclaiming” the figure; and that was back when the anarchist cultural project was not yet indistinguishable from every elite institution, from academia to the NGO sector to the international capitalist class... Unlike the republics that can claim to be founded on abstract and universalist principles, sooner or later there is simply no getting around the brick wall of truth that the Irish nationhood envisioned by our revolutionary founders was fundamentally ethno-nationalist... Nationalists will no longer be dealing with a few scattered genteel revisionist intellectuals like Conor Cruise O’Brien, but the full tidal ideological force of the American Empire, with its sophisticated cold war psychological warfare tactics, its world dominating oligarchy and every elite institution at home and abroad on its side.   Ireland is uniquely vulnerable to all of this as a nation without a national economic base, wholly reliant on the whim and will of aggressively ideological multinationals temporarily parked there for tax purposes... It is a tragic irony of Irish history that, having fought a globe-spanning empire to build an independent Irish nation, and having fought the imperial landlords through agrarian peasant movements before that, giving the world the very word boycott, it stands today as a tax colony of American tech in which the native young leave because of its unchecked speculative landlordism.   While its subservient relationship to the British Empire brought famine and hardship, Ireland’s subservient relationship to an American progressive tech oligarchy brought about the Celtic Tiger and as a consequence we were happy to ignore the truth of the arrangement: that we were simply passing from one form of colony to another."
From 2020. Prescient

From Banana Slugs to Human Beings, There Are Just Two Sexes

From Banana Slugs to Human Beings, There Are Just Two Sexes
An examination of 18 supposedly ‘trans animals’ disproves activist claims that we all live on a non-binary gender ‘spectrum.’

Pity the poor clownfish—a brightly coloured creature, once made famous by the 2003 animated film Finding Nemo, which has now been reduced to a prop in the ongoing debate about sex and gender identity. That’s because, unlike mammals (including humans), clownfish are what scientists call “sequential hermaphrodites” of the protandrous variety. What this means is that while every clownfish starts out as male, some switch sexes if a female is needed by the school.

 Anyone who’s followed the debate about transgender rights will immediately understand why this type of fish now has a starring role in advocacy materials designed to convince the broad public that sex-switching is a common feature in the natural kingdom, including among humans. In Canada, for instance, the publicly funded CBC is airing a documentary titled Fluid: Life Beyond the Binary, in which the self-described “non-binary” host, Mae Martin, invokes the existence of clownfish, and various other creatures, to argue that “each of us are on the gender spectrum.” Not surprisingly, Martin is explicitly promoting the documentary as a paean to social justice, and as a rebuke to anyone seeking to put limits on “gender-affirming health care” (such as the double mastectomy that Martin publicly announced in 2021).

This week, British human-rights campaigner Peter Tatchell tried to advance similar arguments in a widely read tweet referencing—as the linked Gay Times article put it—“18 animals you didn’t know were biologically trans.”

“These animals show that gender is not a simplistic binary, male and female,” Tatchell gushed. “Trans and intersex are real. Get used to it!”

Indeed, the article that Tatchell cited goes further, denouncing the very idea of “biology” as a “pseudo-intellectual” fixation of “lesbian separatists” and “right-wing lobbyists.” The author, one Fran Tirado, warns that even mentioning terms such as “biological sex,” “biological male,” and “biological female” is a problematic affront to the supposedly non-binary, gender-bending nature of life—which, the author claims, has been in evidence since “the earliest recorded histories of the earth.”

Then comes the promised 18-point catalogue of “animals you didn’t know were biologically trans”—starting with the above-pictured clownfish (often described by scientists as anemonefish).

So let’s take a look at the list. Are these really examples of animals that are “biologically trans”? And what do they tell us—if anything—about the associated activist claims that sexual dimorphism in humans is just a myth created by transphobic bigots?

Clownfish

As indicated above, some male clownfish (typically, the most dominant specimens within a school) change their sex to female. We know they’ve switched sex because they’ve change their gonad tissue, and so start making eggs instead of sperm (which is to say that their gonads are now ovaries instead of testes). As with humans, there are only two gonad types in clownfish, and two gamete types—one male and one female—and nothing in between.

• Sexes? Two.
• Sex change? Yes, because clownfish are sequential hermaphrodites.
• Could I be a hermaphodite trapped in a mammalian body? Very doubtful.

Ruff

This is a highly polyandrous wading bird found across much of Eurasia. It got included on the Gay Times list because some male ruffs mimic female traits as a means to covertly gain mating opportunities with lady ruffs. But this ruse doesn’t change the fact that these ruffs are still male. We know this because they make sperm, not eggs. Their misleading form of “self-identification” doesn’t alter their bird biology any more than putting on a dress turns a man into a woman.

• Sexes? Two.
• Sex change? No.

  Swallowtail butterfly

In the case of swallowtail butterflies, it’s the female that has the power of mimicry. But they don’t mimic male Swallowtail butterflies. Rather, they mimic the traits of completely different butterfly species, so as to fool predators into thinking they’re toxic. And so it’s not entirely clear how this winged insect got on to the Gay Times list. (At this point, it might be instructive to note that the author of that Gay Times article, the aforementioned Tirado, seems to have no relevant scientific expertise, but rather is known for articles with titles such as We Should All Do Relationships Like Polyamorists, and How Getting Drawn Nude Helped Me Learn to Love My Body). Perhaps the publication was taken in by the fact that this sex-linked swallowtail trait is associated with a gene called doublesex, which admittedly sounds vaguely queer.

• Sexes? Two.
• Sex change? No

Seahorse

The male seahorse carries up to a thousand babies while his female mate—to use the technical scientific term—fucks around. We know it’s the male carrying the babies because he’s the one who made the sperm that fertilizes the eggs that the absent mother produced and then lodged inside his body. So it’s the same old boring story of sperm and egg, just with the twist that it’s dad who gets big and bloated instead of mom.

• Sexes? Two.
• Sex change? No.
• Girls night out? Every day of the week.

Spotted hyena

The female spotted hyena has a long, retractable clitoris. This anatomical feature makes sex a matter of hope for the male, and birth quite dangerous for her babies. We know clitoromegaly (scientists have a name for everything) is a feature of female hyenas because they’re the ones with the ovaries and the eggs. A large clit doesn’t change them into males any more than a strap-on sex toy changes a woman into a man.  

• Sexes? Two.
• Sex change? No.

Skink

These are lizards whose development is affected by temperature, with some skinks possessing XX chromosomes (a type that is typically associated with females) undergoing an in utero transition that causes them to develop as males. We know these XX skinks are male because they make sperm when they become older.

• Sexes? Two.
• Sex change? Yes—though only during gestation.

Boyd’s Forest Dragon

This is an arboreal lizard that made the list because at least one specimen—an aquarium-housed female in Australia—appears to have changed sex following the death of a male companion, switching up its testes for ovaries.

• Sexes? Two.
• Sex change? Yes.
• Non-binary? No.

Komodo dragon

This enormous lizard uses a ZW (not XY) chromosomal determination system; females are ZW, males are ZZ. There is no evidence that they change sexes, but the fact that males possess a pair of the same type of sex chromosomes (like human females) seems to have qualified them for the Gay Times list.

Also, the females can reproduce asexually via a process known as parthenogenesis, whereby an embryo is produced without the egg being fertilized with sperm. But that’s an exclusively female trait (not just in komodo dragons, but in all creatures capable of parthenogenesis). So it certainly doesn’t make them trans.

• Sexes? Two.
• Sex change? No.
• Family pet suitability: Low.

Jellyfish

Gelatinous zooplankton are far too squishy to wear pronoun pins. But jellyfish do tend to get namechecked on this sort of list due to their status as both sequential hermaphrodites (like clownfish) and simultaneous hermaphrodites. (In the former case, an organism switches from one sex to the other. In the latter case, it can exhibit both sexes simultaneously.) We know this because jellyfish, being translucent, aren’t very good at hiding their private parts from researchers.

• Sexes? Two.
• Sex change? Yes.
• Trans “gender identity”? No, because they don’t have brains.

Starfish

Starfish reproduction is a complex topic. But for our purposes, suffice it to say that many of these star-shaped echinoderms have the charming habit of spraying sperm around by waving their many arms (usually five). They also can reproduce by splitting in half, which does indeed sound “queer,” though not in the LGBT sense of the word.

• Sexes? Two.
• Sex change? No.
• Trans “gender identity”? Again, no brain. 

Oyster

These salt-water bivalves combine the hermaphroditic nature of jellyfish with the unsettling sperm-spigot sex techniques of starfish—meaning that they release a big sperm cloud that then serves to allow self-impregnation.

• Sexes? Two.
• Sex change? Yes.
• Sexual autonomy level: Extreme.

Black sea bass

Another sequential hermaphrodite, the black sea bass starts as an egg-making female and—by now, you know how this works—can then switch gonad type to testes, which allows the (now male) fish to start making sperm.

• Sexes? Two.
• Sex change? Yes.
• Boldly defies the settler-colonial heteronormative construct known as the sex binary? Nope. 

  Banana slug

Exactly what it says on the tin: a slug that looks like a banana. Here we get another simultaneous hermaphrodite, whose banana-esque body possesses both male and female reproductive capabilities. We won’t get too much into the unsettling BDSM details of banana-slug sex, except to note that the banana slug doing the male role (i.e., providing sperm) will sometimes have its penis gnawed off by the banana slug performing the female role (providing eggs).

• Sexes? Two.
• Sex change? No.
• Queer? Only in the sense that the penis comes out of its head.

Marsh harrier

The marsh harrier puts more sneaky bird behaviour on display, with some males pretending to be females. However, unlike the above-referenced ruff, which performs this mimicry as a means to trick females into mating, these male harriers are refugees from harrier-on-harrier violence, which can apparently be quite vicious. As usual, we know these are males pretending to be females, due to the tell-tale sperm.

• Sexes? Two.
• Sex change? No.
• Toxic masculinity level: Problematic.

Green honeycreeper

These birds can, in rare cases, be half-male and half-female. We can tell which half is male by the testes and which half is female by the ovaries. In effect, these are birds with disorders of sexual development (sometimes referred to as DSDs or “intersex” conditions). As with humans afflicted with DSDs, there is no intermediate form of gonad or gamete—just the two varieties associated with males and females.

• Sexes? Two.
• Sex change? No.

Mandarin duck

Females ducks of this type have one functional (i.e., egg-producing) ovary and another gonad they keep as a spare. If a female loses the functioning ovary due to illness or injury, the other gonad can activate. And here we get to the bit that interested the Gay Times: At least one Mandarin female is known to have activated her “sleeper ovary” into a testicle and made sperm (thereby transitioning from female to male in the process).

• Sexes? Two.
• Sex change? Yes.
• Do humans come with spare gonads? Alas, no. 

Whiptails

Back to the lizard world. These reptiles perform parthenogenesis (much like the Komodo dragon, which we’ve already met), whereby an unfertilized egg can develop into healthy offspring. This means that female whiptails don’t need males to reproduce—which is why male whiptails, as in some feminist science-fiction tale, no longer exist.

• Sexes? Just one.
• Sex change? No.
• Non-binary? Only in the sense that one is half of two.

Slipper limpet

This sea snail has a special kind of shell that, once inverted, looks like a slipper. They’re male-to-female sequential hermaphrodites, which you’re already no doubt quite bored of hearing about.

• Sexes? Two.
• Sex change? Yes.
• Queer? No, but their sex lives are quite interesting—some might even say, orgiastic—as described by biologist Susan Pike:

If [a slipper limpet] is the only [one] around, it will develop into a female and send out chemical signals to attract other slipper shells to come settle on her, forming a stack of slipper shells with the oldest female on the bottom and younger males on top of it…The males are able to directly fertilize the female beneath, even if separated by four or five other males! Adult slipper limpets can live in stacks of up to 20 individuals.

  Summary

Do some creatures change sex? Absolutely. But this isn’t new information. It’s a fact that biologists have known about for a long time.

What is also well-known is that none of these sex-changing creatures are mammals, much less human. Rather, they’re insects, fish, lizards, and marine invertebrates whose biology is different from our own in countless (fascinating) ways.

What’s more, in every single case described above, there are always (at most) just two distinct sexes at play—no matter how those two sexes may switch or combine. One of those sexes is male, a sex associated with gonads that produce sperm (testes); and the other is female, with gonads that produce eggs (ovaries). There’s nothing else on the menu. It’s just M and F.

Yes, there’s a “spectrum.” But it’s not the imaginary sex spectrum that activists such as Martin, Tatchell, and Tirado are trying to conjure. Rather, it’s the extraordinary spectrum of traits, behaviors, and evolutionary adaptations that all of these creatures exhibit as part of nature’s grand pageant.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Links - 28th April 2024 (1 - Indigenous Peoples)

Meme - Jonathan Kay: "It would be fun to send these people back in time, so we could watch what happens when they lecture Algonquin warriors on the Ottawa River about how they're not really "men," but actually a genderwang mashup of ladypenis and homovulva"
Cosmin Dzsurdzsa @cosminDZsS: "Watch this gender ideologue from SafeLink Alberta say that the male/female binary is a "colonial genocide" and that all homophobia is a "European import." This is the same group that gave out brochures to high school students about how to use a crack pipe."
"In the Spirit of Reconciliation. We would like to acknowledge that what we know as gender. or the binary today is a European colonial construct. Indigenous people who occupied turtle istand pre-contact acknowledged and valued what we call gender diversity today. This means that all homophobia or transphobia is also a European import"

Ontario First Nations get $10-billion windfall - "The money, set to flow early in the new year, is the biggest treaty settlement in Canada’s history. Understandably, there is excitement in the communities that stand to benefit, but also rumours and tension. Some members want a cheque, also known as per capital distribution (PCD): about $286,000 for each of the roughly 35,000 Indigenous people. But many local leaders believe a smarter path would be to invest the proceeds for the long-term benefit of the community and its future generations... A one-time handover may also not be good for those it intends to benefit. Other First Nations communities have seen what happens when a big sudden influx of cash is paid out to each band member.  “We worked with (First) Nations where they decided to do a PCD,” one person with knowledge of these matters said. “There was a huge spike in alcoholism and drug addiction. The community goes through hell for a short period of time and then the money is gone.”  In some cases, community members have sued the chief and council over such deals, essentially saying “you didn’t fulfil your duty to the long-term benefit of the community.” In other cases, a bank has negotiated a deal with a First Nation to set up a trust, but then the band holds an election, and a new slate of councillors wins on a campaign pledge to dole out settlement cash on a per-capita basis... Plans to invest settlement money in community facilities, however, slam up against a fundamental issue: many band members live off reserve.  “Those people could say, ‘What are you going to do for me, chief?’” said Jamieson, whose company has helped Indigenous communities with financial literacy since 1997. “The member might say, ‘Gee, I might prefer a per-capita distribution because I am living off reserve.’ That is always the biggest tug of war on settlement money.”"
Clearly, both individual indigenous people and the community should get tons of money, and if anything goes wrong, it will be because they didn't get enough money, because the left wing solution is always more money

Supreme Court confirms that the Charter applies to Indigenous governments—except when it doesn't - "It is perhaps not a coincidence that the dissent, which is co-authored by the Court’s only Indigenous member, candidly acknowledges the elephant in the room: the “discriminatory nature of some Indigenous governance structures” and the need for Indigenous persons to have robust recourse to individual rights claims.    Litigation brought by Indigenous plaintiffs, for example, has successfully challenged membership rules excluding some women and their children and the exclusion of women from debating constitutional reforms. Indigenous governance structures are no more or less prone to discriminatory policies and abuses of power than any other governance structure, and the notion that they should have special insulation from those whom they govern is morally repugnant. The dissent soberly advises against applying “Indigenous difference” so widely that discriminatory practices are treated as being sacrosanct."

Voice to parliament: Yes campaign received millions more than No vote - "The movement to create an Indigenous Voice to parliament was backed by tens of millions of dollars from Australia’s biggest corporations but eclipsed by opponents who had about five times less money to spend on the bitterly fought referendum."
Voice to parliament: Yes campaign received millions more than No vote : australian - "We should never forget that the Yes campaign had practically everything going for it. Overt support and rallying from basically every major corporation and media network (except Sky News), vocal support from basically every respected Australian celebrity, sportsperson and media figure, support from the governing political party, and unbelievable financial backing. And it failed spectacularly. They got utterly annihilated in one of the most humiliating upsets in Australian political history. It was over in an hour, and it wasn't even close. Every single person involved in the Yes campaign should've stepped back and taken a long hard look at themselves, the quality of their ideas, and their messaging to the Australian people. I don't think much of that self-reflection has been done though. I think they believe that they're the English cricket team and still secured a moral victory or something."
"Maybe if they had called everyone racist a few more time it would have worked"
Weird. I thought money controlled politics
Money in politics is only a problem when it threatens the left wing agenda

Senator Jacinta Price reveals racist mobile phone messages after number was leaked | The Australian - "In one message, a man calls her an Uncle Tom and a ‘Coconut’, a racist trope meaning a person is allegedly brown on the outside but white on the inside.  “Hate your own people. You know, what a disgrace. Absolutely disgraceful, disgusting human being you are. Uncle Tom, coconut,” the man says.  In other messages, a man tells her to “f--k off” while another man says: “You’re a f--king b--ch, woman”.  Senator Price said the messages weren’t the “worst” she had received.  “It’s just remarkable how human beings feel they have the right to be aggressive and abusive and disgusting and horrible,” she said.  She called out the use of the term ‘coconut’ and said she and other No supporters, including Nyunggai Warren Mundine AO, had been targeted by the abusive racial term.  “We can’t just be seen as human beings in our own right, people like to look at us in terms of colour, and there’s no place for it,” she said."
The left hate indigenous people who don't push the left wing agenda

Malcolm Harris on X - "Is there some cure for that part of the left that hears "Indigenous" and starts scoffing and rolling their eyes? Like a serum?"
Leonard P Cover on X - "Yeah - it’s called not frequently saying incredibly sophomoric nonsense either side of the word “indigenous” cos you think that some noble savage narrative or ethno-essentialism has literally the first fucking thing to do with actual leftist thought or policy."
Matt Lichti on X - "The way it's currently used is often just repackaged far-right soil and blood nationalism."
Roy on X - "Maybe purge it of all the baggage of Rousseau and latent ideas of the Garden of Eden and then look at the sprcific indigenous community in question, note the singular here. But most of all recognize that you are applying an ahistorical term."
will the real victim please stand up on X - "Stop using it like it's a trump card that makes one side automatically right?"
Harrison Bergeron on X - "Yes, I would rather seek answers from cultures that have discovered metalworking and the wheel."
Dan D 🌎🌍🌏 on X - "Like "authentic" and "natural", "indigenous" is too often used for emotive conjugation rather than true description. You're just supposed to like it more. Also, biology would say that H Sapiens is only truly *indigenous* to the Ethiopian Rift Valley. Maybe the rest is narrative?"

Thread by @Tyler_A_Harper on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "The reason people scoff is that, at least in academia, "indigeneity" has become a magic word that is evacuated of both historical and cultural specificity, flattens all differences between indigenous groups, and is accompanied by exoticizing appeals to pre-rational "wisdom". Indigenous people are reduced to vehicles for timeless, pre-historical knowledge – wish fulfillment for white progressives dreaming of a prelapsarian age before capital and industry – a form of sentimental racism that excludes indigenous people from both history and modernity. I've been in the environmental humanities for a decade, and in the last five years I've seen a HUGE shift in how (mostly white) people talk about/teach indigenous texts/ideas. It's not just "land acknowledgement" nonsense. It's magical negro bullshit but for native people. We spend endless amounts of time talking about "indigenous wisdom" and pretending that it's a magic bullet that will solve capitalism, climate change, and everything else. Just like the magical negro, magical indigenous people will be our spiritual guides in a time of crisis.The focus is rarely on indigenous communities, their cultures or their homes or their problems. Instead, the question always seems to be how can indigenous ideas – ripped out of context, cobbled together from a hodgepodge of different tribes and traditions – solve OUR problems. I think traditional ecological knowledge should be taken seriously and deserves a place in higher education or left politics. But in my experience it rarely is taken seriously. So yeah, I often roll my eyes at the people who invoke "indigeneity" because they often deserve it."

The Amazon Rainforest Was Profoundly Changed by Ancient Humans - The Atlantic - "For more than a quarter-century, scientists and the general public have updated their view of the Americas before European contact. The plains and the Eastern forests were not a wilderness, but a patchwork of gardens, they’ve found. The continents were not vast uninhabited expanses but a bustling network of towns and cities. Indigenous people, we’ve learned, altered the ecology of the Americas as surely as the European invaders did.  Now, an expansive new study, published Thursday in Science and bearing the names of more than 40 co-authors, suggests that the human fingerprint can even be seen across one of the most biodiverse yet unexplored regions in the world, the Amazon rainforest. For more than 8,000 years, people lived in the Amazon and farmed it to make it more productive. They favored certain trees over others, effectively creating crops that we now call the cocoa bean and the brazil nut, and they eventually domesticated them... That cultivation eventually altered entire regions of the Amazon, the study argues. Levis and her colleagues found that some of these species domesticated by indigenous people—including the brazil nut, the rubber tree, the maripa palm, and the cocoa tree—still dominate vast swaths of the forest, especially in the southwest section of the Amazon basin... Though conservationists still speak of the Amazon as a “pristine” region, Levis says that its environmental allies should talk about it differently. We can look to it, she says, as an example of how human influence can enrich the Amazon... Some geographers, anthropologists, and indigenous people have all rejected the idea that the Americas were an untouched wilderness—“the pristine myth,” as they call this tale—since the early 1990s."

I am a First Nations politician. Our chiefs and leaders must be held more accountable - "Effective governance is critical for our communities, where overcoming challenges like addiction, poverty, housing shortages, crime, and unemployment hinges on strong leadership and administrative integrity. Yet, many First Nation communities face serious issues of corruption, nepotism, and collusion.   In 2022, the chief of Westbank First Nation stepped down over corruption concerns within his band. At Seabird Island First Nation, a finance department employee was sent to jail after embezzling $2.3 million between 2005 and 2013. In Peters First Nation, an investigation into leadership revealed nepotism and prompted an RCMP inquiry into the misappropriation of funds. Similarly, concerns arose in Frog Lake First Nation when $120 million in net assets went missing.  First Nation struggles are complex, with roots in historical injustices. Yet, as leaders, we must also look within and recognize our role. We are not just caretakers of the land but agents of change, tasked with the sacred duty of uplifting our people. Unfortunately, the silence around the fulfillment of our own electoral promises is deafening. As leaders, we should be starting conversations about our progress and actively seeking feedback...   We all know the critical role journalism plays in local government. In one well-known Brookings study, researchers found newspaper closures had a direct causal impact on local government public finance. A loss of local newspapers meant a loss of accountability. The study showed that when newspapers folded, it led to an increase in government waste, corruption, and less informed voters. With 630 First Nation communities in Canada and journalism on the decline, one wonders how many investigative stories are simply being missed...   I hear from members of other First Nation communities in my region who say their political leaders are not doing enough to address staffing issues or improve housing conditions. They add that some leaders are merely acting in their family’s own best interest. First Nations’ socio-economic success stories are celebrated because they are still the exception rather than the norm.   An Indigenous cultural shift is overdue. We need an environment where media scrutiny is routine, where community engagement is vigorous, and where stakeholders are held accountable. Leaders should welcome this shift, as it strengthens our strategies and reinforces our commitment.  I envision a culture of accountability, where leaders don’t just lead but also answer to the community. Where success is not just celebrated but also measured. Where every community member feels empowered to question and demand answers.   Increased accountability and community engagement can lay the groundwork for First Nation communities to share their wisdom and culture, enriching Canadian society."
Expecting accountability of indigenous peoples is racist, ethnocentric and ignores the history of white supremacy and colonialism

Indigenizing Mount Royal's Curricula: The Threat to Academic Freedom, Freedom of Inquiry and Academic Standards - "The ill-conceived nature of “Indigenizing Mount Royal’s Curricula” is shown in the section “Why Indigenize?”. MRU should Indigenize, we are told, because “Indigenous people remain underrepresented among postsecondary students, staff and faculty, and indigenous content remains marginalized”. Indigenization is also necessary, the document asserts, to respond to the demands for Indigenization that were made by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.  These reasons are political in nature, and are a distraction from examining the academic implications of the initiative. The reference to “Indigenous underrepresentation” just assumes that there should be proportionality without considering the qualifications of applicants. It is well known that educational levels in the indigenous population are lower than the Canadian average, and so discussions about artificially increasing indigenous representation should consider this.  Furthermore, it is not clear what is meant by increasing “Indigenous content”. Does this concern subjects that include indigenous people, such as indigenous history and indigenous politics? Or is it a plea to include “indigenous perspectives” regardless of whether or not they have been shown to increase empirical knowledge and theoretical understanding?  Finally, should anything that the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the UN Declaration says be accepted? For example, the document states that the TRC asserts that universities should “ensure all Canadians have a basic understanding of…this country’s history of cultural genocide”, when many would question this interpretation of the past. Should we not be analyzing the claims being made, rather than assuming that these political bodies created sacred texts that must be obeyed?...   Although it could be argued that individual professors don’t have to participate in these Indigenization initiatives, and therefore it is not a threat to academic freedom, this ignores how Indigenization processes are creating a hostile climate for open inquiry. This has been a problem from the beginning, as is shown by the Indigenous Strategic Plan’s directive that the university “honour Indigenous experiences and identities.” As a result, “territorial acknowledgement” statements pretend to be factual, when their content is contested and a matter for academic investigation. It is noted in “Indigenizing Mount Royal’s Curricula”, for example, that Treaty 7 “included a commitment to crosscultural education that has not been honoured”, when there is no evidence that this is the case.  These kinds of statements, apparently handed down from the university’s “Ministry of Truth”, indicate that the Indigenous Strategic Plan is intent on building a “culture of celebration” at MRU rather than one that encourages critical thinking and rigorous methods. Even worse, it is tacitly assumed that anyone who has reservations about Indigenization is not an “ally” of indigenous people. This has created huge difficulties for faculty who question the hype. My criticisms of Indigenization, for example, have resulted in accusations that I am a “pathetic racist” with a “hateful perspective” who is damaging Mount Royal University’s reputation... On January 18, 2018, one of the Office of Academic Indigenization’s Co-Directors, Renae Watchman, invited Robert Curley, a Diné elder, to give a presentation on “Western Medicine vs. Traditional Healing Medicine”. This elder was asked a question from the audience as to what he recommended for the “gut problems” her child was experiencing. In response, the elder stated: “Rub corn pollen on his feet and do a sunrise ceremony”. Is this the kind of “indigenous knowledge” that should be incorporated into our nursing program?  The second example concerns an indigenized course that was developed at MRU. When a non-indigenous professor attempted to teach the course, the indigenous students enrolled said that a non-indigenous professor could not talk about indigenous spirituality, which was perceived to be an essential part of the course. As a result of student opposition, the course was transferred to an indigenous professor. Does Indigenization mean that some courses cannot be taught by non-indigenous professors? A third example concerns the biology program. At General Faculties Council on May 17, 2018, it was noted that the biology degree would have an indigenous component. This component consisted of the department “working with numerous community Elders and Knowledge Keepers” to ensure that biology students would obtain “a diverse knowledge base that includes the traditional Indigenous knowledge.” As Paul Johnston, an MRU professor in Earth Sciences, stated at the time:  “[t]he difficulty here is that we are asking students to accept or at least be exposed to what I suspect is largely non-peer reviewed information or ideas in the science classroom. We don’t do that with any other ideas about biology from around the globe, for example ‘scientific creationism’, an idea espoused by millions, and so I am not sure why we would do it here. It may be that the Biology Program IS incorporating peer-reviewed traditional Indigenous knowledge, and if so that needs to be clearly stated in the letter. But, the statement I read, as it now stands, sends the wrong message to students, whether indigenous or non-indigenous, that some information presented in the biology curriculum at this university is exempt from scientific rigor and scrutiny as practiced in science globally. I suggest that this can be somewhat remedied with a modification to at least the third sentence in this paragraph to read: ‘By including this course as a core requirement for the BSc Biology, all students will get an awareness of how Indigenous knowledge, as subject to systematic observational testing and/or experimental verification, helps to inform our understanding in biology.’”  Dr. Johnston’s attempt to ensure scientific rigour in the biology degree was defeated, and this was due to the fact that Indigenization has encouraged the view that faculty should unconditionally support “indigenous knowledge” and “ways of knowing”."
No wonder she got fired despite having tenure. Defying the left wing agenda is dangerous

The Problem With ‘Indigenizing the University’ - "it has become clear that different academics mean different things by the word “Indigenization.” In some cases, advocates for Indigenization have evaded the question of how their initiatives will further the development and dissemination of knowledge in a way that is consistent with a university’s academic mission. Moreover, some Indigenization initiatives may actually hinder the creation of knowledge by stigmatizing certain areas of inquiry or prioritizing political objectives over rigorous scholarship. Such outcomes would not only have a negative impact on academia overall, they would also specifically harm the Indigenous population by encouraging Indigenous scholars to apply themselves toward projects that are narrow, and sometimes even anti-scientific. In its invitation to participate in an Indigenization workshop, the Canadian Political Science Association’s Call for Proposals noted that there are at least three different meanings of the term “Indigenization,” as it’s applied to universities: 1) symbolic recognition of Indigenous cultures; 2) greater inclusion of Indigenous peoples and content in existing university structures; and 3) a top-to-bottom “anti-colonial, antiracist reconstruction of education through revision of curriculum and institutional processes.”... symbolic commitments have sometimes generated controversy, as at the University of Winnipeg in 2015, when presiding Indigenous elders declared that it was in keeping with their traditions that women in attendance should wear long skirts. (Two years earlier, at the University of Saskatchewan, a poster promoting a similar event instructed women to skip the ceremony if they were menstruating.) It also has become common for these symbolic ceremonies to be used to promote contested political claims in regard to Indigenous land rights and historical treaties... At Laurentian University in the northern Ontario city of Sudbury, for example, Indigenization ran up against academic freedom when the decision of a Geography-department hiring committee was overridden to ensure that a (less qualified) Indigenous candidate was appointed. Because the process created acrimony, there were fears that the imposed candidate would not be treated collegially, and so departmental members were actually directed to sign a statement asserting that they would work co-operatively with the hired candidate... Some Indigenization activists even suggest that less radical Indigenization measures can actually harm Indigenous groups because “when Indigenous people participate in efforts to make Indigenous thought coherent for university scholars, and consequently the colonial state, they spend less time engaged with institutions of knowledge in their communities.” And so the only solution, they conclude, is to overhaul university curricula entirely so as to prioritize Indigenous pedagogical methods in a way that properly reflects their status as “heirs to vast legacies of knowledge about this continent and the universe that had been ignored in the larger picture of European invasion and education.” Under this conception, which often blurs into broader doctrines connected with anti-colonialism and anti-racism, it is simply impossible for many Indigenous people to be culturally and intellectually authentic while suffering under “elite western canons and with institutional mechanisms [that] function to erase the radical transformative potential of indigenous thinkers in universities.”... In its most expansive conception, the drive to Indigenize universities is linked to a global campaign against oppressive white values... In some cases, it is argued that the very idea of a universal conception of knowledge is incompatible with the anti-colonialist mission... it is difficult to see how a system of knowledge built on unfalsifiable faith-based assertions about the universe can be accommodated within the modern secular intellectual tradition. Indeed, even published academic defences of Indigenous epistemologies often make claims that are either explicitly religious appeals to a “Creator,” or are indistinguishable from the somewhat vague claims about human interconnection and binding forces in the cosmos that have long been a mainstay of popular non-Indigenous spiritual movements... when I attended an “Empowering Indigenization Symposium” a few months later, an elder said that his “knowledge” included the belief that trees come out of dormancy in the spring because birds sing to them... What is even more of a problem is the idea, which has gained considerable currency in Canadian academic circles, that critiquing Indigenous epistemologies as anti-scientific is itself an offensive act that reinforces racist power relationships. Kuokkanen, in fact, explicitly challenges the idea of academic freedom on the grounds that it may serve to permit “racist remarks and colonial attitudes toward indigenous people,” and “has become a tool for some to plunder indigenous knowledge.” Historian J.R. Miller has noted that, even as early as the 1980s, self-censorship had become a fact of life for academics working on issues connected to Indigenous history or culture in Canada, and that “among some native organizations, there is a strongly held view that scholars are like politicians: those that are not with them are against them.” The political scientist Alan Cairns, likewise, has written that the pressure on academics to present themselves as opponents of colonialism has caused them to take on the role of “academic missionary.”... Everyone, Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike, is free to explore their own spiritual beliefs, of course. But the university is not the place for such exercises. And to imagine otherwise will hurt Indigenous peoples more than anyone, because educational achievement can be improved only if people are able to refine their understanding of the world around them. And such an understanding cannot emerge if ideologically and spiritually encoded forms of obscurantism are celebrated for political reasons. No good engineer or doctor imagines that revelation supersedes a scientific understanding of biology or physics. And so Indigenous scholars who are encouraged to prioritize the spiritual beliefs connected to their identity will inevitably be shunted to disciplines where such conceits may be protected—which is to say, intellectual ghettoes. This not only denies them the opportunity they deserve, but deprives the rest of us of the contributions they can make to intellectual life. Many harms have been done to Indigenous peoples over the centuries. This should not be compounded by preventing them from joining as full members in the project of knowledge production that will always remain one of the keys to human progress."
When the left demand that religion be kept out of education, they mean Christianity

Links - 27th April 2024 (2)

• ᗰISᑕᕼIᗴᖴ ™ • on X - "Citizens at a Chicago City Council meeting chant “Go Red, No More Blue, No Matter Who”"

Why this Italian dairy plant only hires employees over 60 - "When launching a new project to market more specialized gourmet butter products, Brazzale was looking to set up a dedicated team. But the handful of 30-somethings who came for a trial period all turned out to lack drive and energy, he says. So he ended up giving the jobs to a couple of friends - all of whom are over 60 years old, creating a new team that he now describes as a gold mine. "To me, they are all young in a way, because age counts for nothing compared to the energy and enthusiasm you can still have when you're over 60," he tells dpa."

The Early Years - "According to popular lore, Albert Einstein was a poor student. It is true that he did not earn top grades in every subject, but he excelled at math and science, even though he skipped classes and had to cram for exams"

Was Napoleon Short? - "Napoleon was called Le Petit Caporal, but the nickname, translated as “The Little Corporal,” was not meant as a reflection of his stature. It was intended as a term of affection by his soldiers. Indeed, many contemporary French paintings, including David’s equestrian portrait, suggest that the general was not short but of average stature. In that painting he at least seems to be in proportion to his horse—but there are no other human figures nearby to which the viewer can refer. David’s other portraits of Napoleon don’t offer much by way of comparison either: in the majestic Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon and the Coronation of Empress Joséphine on December 2, 1804 (1806–07), the stepped platform from which Napoleon crowns his wife challenges any comparison with other figures, while The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries (1812) represents the subject standing alone at a desk. Works by contemporary artists show him similarly alone or sitting. One work by David’s student, Antoine-Jean Gros, however, offers a group of figures on the same plane with which to compare the general. Napoleon Bonaparte Visiting the Plague-Stricken in Jaffa, March 11, 1799 (1804), commissioned by Napoleon, represents an episode from his Egyptian campaign in which he visited his plague-stricken troops in a makeshift hospital. By touching one of the victims, Napoleon defies the men around him, who hold handkerchiefs to their faces. He appears not only heroic but also average! All the men standing near him seem to be about the same height. The English, however, were not so generous: their artists depicted Napoleon as diminutive. Around 1803 the celebrated cartoonist James Gillray introduced the character of “Little Boney,” who resembled a childish Napoleon. At first, Gillray seemingly emphasized brattiness: in “Maniac ravings—or—Little Boney in a Strong fit,” Napoleon is shown in the midst of a tantrum, flipping furniture, wailing about the “British Nation” and “London Newspapers,” and shouting “Oh Oh Oh. Revenge! Revenge!” Gillray then played up juvenility through smallness, whereby Napoleon was represented wearing huge boots and, as one source put it, “trying to talk tough beneath an enormous bicorne hat dwarfing his entire body. Or struggling to pull a sword from an unwieldy scabbard that dragged along the ground as he walked.” Soon Napoleon was just depicted as being short. In “The Empress’s wish or Boney Puzzled!!” another cartoonist, Isaac Cruikshank, depicted a peevish Napoleon at about half the height of his wife and troops. A wee Bonaparte thus became the standard for representing the emperor in English newspapers. Though it’s hard to say if and why the British invented the short Napoleon trope, there is some truth in Cruikshank’s representation: Napoleon was probably significantly shorter than his troops. Several sources note that his elite guards were taller than most Frenchmen, and thus Napoleon had the appearance of being shorter than he really was. Yet interpretations of Napoleon’s death certificate estimate that his height when he died was between 5’2” and 5’7” (1.58 and 1.7 meters). The discrepancy is often explained by the disparity between the 19th-century French inch, which was 2.71 cm, and the current inch measurement, which is 2.54 cm. Sources consequently estimate that Napoleon was probably closer to 5’6” or 5’7” (1.68 or 1.7 meters) than to 5’2”. Although the range may seem short by 21st-century standards, it was typical in the 19th century, when most Frenchmen stood between 5’2” and 5’6” (1.58 and 1.68 meters) tall. Napoleon was thus average or taller, no matter the interpretation."

Did brokers really throw themselves out of office windows in the Wall Street crash? - "J. K. GALBRAITH, in his classic study of the 1929 Wall Street crash, wrote: 'In the United States, the suicide wave that followed the stock market crash is also part of the legend of 1929. In fact, there were none."

being a pepper plant has to be so weird. Imagine... - "being a pepper plant has to be so weird.      Imagine evolving capsaicin specifically to stop mammals from eating your fruits, and then a mammal comes along that not only will eat your fruits, but likes them specifically because of the capsaicin, so much that it starts using its weird paws to distribute and care for your seeds, which turns into a strong selective force that literally starts evolving you into producing MORE capsaicin and makes you a WAY more successful and wider ranged species than you ever were before      simply because this mammal LOVES Pain Chemical. that evolved specifically to produce pain in mammals. It’s not that the capsaicin isn’t WORKING. It’s just that these freaks like it."
"This is the same mammal with social instincts so goddamn strong that they literally try to form social bonds with their predators, and end up evolving the predators into a new species that fits into their social communities as a form of mutualistic symbiosis, and exists in several different forms with unique morphology and behaviors based on the function they perform.  Instead of, I don’t know, EVOLVING TO BE FASTER, this animal finds a faster animal and sits on it. Which shouldn’t even work because the faster animal is a prey animal and this animal is a predator, but SOMEHOW they FORM A SOCIAL BOND WITH THE PREY. So they can sit on it while it runs fast. And somehow the prey animal?? is cool with this?? and benefits from this relationship???  Literally how can you hate humans. Humans are possibly the most hilarious thing evolution has ever done."
"other things humans have done
eat poison plants, decide they like getting poisoned, and evolve the plants to poison them more
evolve to not have hair, but they find mammals with thick fluffy hair and put the hair on themselves, and evolve the mammals to produce extra hair so they can both have a warm coat of hair
split up their parasitic lice species into two separate species because they start taking other animals’ hair and putting it on themselves so much
learn how to set things on fire on purpose. maintain body temperature by just standing beside some wood that’s on fire instead of literally any normal option
figure out that their prey tastes better and is easier to digest when they hold it over a fire after killing it. get smarter because they digest food so good after it’s been held over a fire.
find a poisonous plant and try washing it in boiling water until they don’t die when they eat it anymore
go across the ocean by making a floating nest despite not being able to breathe underwater, drink ocean water, or even swim naturally
drink milk from other mammals even though they can’t digest it and it makes them sick. Evolve those mammals to produce more milk than their babies can drink so they can drink the milk. Some members of the species evolve to be able to digest milk because they were so hellbent on drinking it.
find flowers, bugs and minerals that are nice colors and crush them up to try to turn other things that color
eat mushrooms that make their nervous systems malfunction because they like malfunctioning their nervous systems"

8-hour time-restricted eating linked to a 91% higher risk of cardiovascular death | American Heart Association - "A study of over 20,000 adults found that those who followed an 8-hour time-restricted eating schedule, a type of intermittent fasting, had a 91% higher risk of death from cardiovascular disease."
A screenshot of this made a lot of people very upset, and many tried to claim this was misquoting the study, or fake

Meme - Harpreet Kaur Kandola @panthsprincess: "Formula 1 is a 'sport' for scumbags. @McLarenF1 are employing Oscar Piastri, a mu'derer who shot his girlfriend."
Readers added context they thought people might want to know: "She is confused with Oscar Pistorius who shot his girlfriend in 2013. Article about Oscar Pistorius:... Oscar Piastri is a F1 driver from Australia and driving for McLaren:"

Your Smartphone Photos Take up Too Much Space. Here’s How to Downsize Them. - "It’s all about balancing compression with quality."

Panu Höglund's answer to Why can't Irish speakers (many who have been using English all their lives) pronounce the English 'th' sound correctly? - Quora - "Because that sound didn’t and doesn’t exist in the Irish language. When a whole population switches language so speedily and so completely as in Ireland, that is bound to leave some influence in the newly acquired language. This is how the Irish accent was created. Even after generations, they still speak English with some trace of their original native language.  You ask why this influence didn’t fade and disappear yet? Well, the point is that Irish children pick up their English from Irish parents, who still have this accent."

How our brains cope with speaking more than one language - "I'm standing in line at my local bakery in Paris, apologising to an incredibly confused shopkeeper. He's just asked how many pastries I would like, and completely inadvertently, I responded in Mandarin instead of French. I'm equally baffled: I'm a dominant English speaker, and haven't used Mandarin properly in years. And yet, here in this most Parisian of settings, it somehow decided to reassert itself.  Multilinguals commonly juggle the languages they know with ease. But sometimes, accidental slip-ups can occur. And the science behind why this happens is revealing surprising insights into how our brains work... If you think about it, the ability of bilingual and multilingual speakers to separate the languages they have learned is remarkable. How they do this is commonly explained through the concept of inhibition – a suppression of the non-relevant languages. When a bilingual volunteer is asked to name a colour shown on a screen in one language and then the next colour in their other language, it is possible to measure spikes in electrical activity in parts of the brain that deal with language and attentional awareness... When he used to work in Germany, a regular train journey home to Belgium could encompass multiple different language zones – and a substantial workout for his language-switching skills.  "The first part was in German and I'd step on a Belgian train where the second part was in French," he says. "And then when you pass Brussels, they change the language to Dutch, which is my native language. So in that span of like three hours, every time the conductor came over, I had to switch languages.  "I always responded in the wrong language, somehow. It was just impossible to keep up with it."... "I think maybe one of the most unique things that we've seen in bilinguals when they're mixing languages is that sometimes, it seems like they inhibit the dominant language so much that they actually are slower to speak in certain contexts," she says."

High-fat keto diet may help those with bipolar, schizophrenia, study finds - The Washington Post - "A clinical trial, led by researchers at Stanford Medicine, recruited 23 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder and instructed them to follow a diet consisting of 10 percent carbohydrates, 30 percent protein and about 60 percent fat. The medications prescribed to treat serious mental illness can cause “major metabolic side effects,” such as insulin resistance and weight gain, researchers say, and all of the patients studied suffered from at least one of these conditions."

Cuckolding can be positive for some couples, study says - "For his forthcoming book, “Tell Me What You Want: The Science of Sexual Desire and How It Can Help Improve Your Sex Life,” Lehmiller surveyed thousands of Americans and found that 58% of men and about a third of women had fantasized about cuckolding."

More Women Are Pumping, but Research Is Lacking - The Atlantic - "The number seems small, but gets larger and larger as you contemplate it: 6 percent. That is the estimated share of breastfeeding mothers who exclusively pump and bottle their milk for their infants, never directly nursing. It is a number that was functionally zero less than a generation ago... Women have become, in Jill Lepore’s evocative phrasing, their own wet nurses. When pumping, their breast milk becomes a commodity; they become producers and their infants consumers, the dyadic experience of breastfeeding unnecessary or secondary. Maybe this is a good thing, if pumping helps babies receive more breast milk, or if it enables mother and child to sustain a desired, direct breastfeeding relationship for longer. Maybe pumping helps women have it all—a full-time career and a breastfed baby. But there’s just one hitch, or two, or three. This “quiet revolution” is built on a foundation of surprisingly scant research and social support... “Does it matter to the woman?” she asks. “Does it matter to the baby’s health? Does it matter to the baby’s development? We really can’t say.”... time with the baby gets supplanted by time with the pump, leaving many women stressed out and exhausted—something that may have an effect on the quantity of milk produced, as well as the mother’s health and the overall stress level of the family."

Why Eating Meat Is Unhealthy - The Atlantic - "the findings of the studies were, overall, predictable: High intake of meat and processed meat was associated with an elevated risk of heart disease, diabetes, and cancers—though the authors said they had “low certainty” in their own findings.  The news alerts came down to the sixth article, which was the set of “clinical guidelines.” In it, the researchers concluded that because of the “low quality evidence,” adults should continue eating meat as they do... People like eating meat... Gordon Guyatt, a member of NutriRECS and one of the guidelines’ authors, says he wanted to send the message to the public that there are many things science knows very little about. A distinguished professor at McMaster University, Guyatt has had an enormous impact on medicine. He coined the term evidence-based medicine, now taught in medical schools around the world, which urges doctors to do only what is clearly proven to work. The model prizes randomized controlled trials for testing drugs and clinical interventions."
The article tries to link meat to climate change to say that's why it's bad. Good luck getting the Chinese to stop eating meat

Men with premature ejaculation seem to hold negative attitudes toward masturbating before sex as a way of increasing sexual stamina, often because they have negative views about masturbation. However, they will often engage in sex multiple times per day as a compensatory strategy instead. : psychologyofsex

Meme - "Friend: are u a boob guy or a booty guy
Me: If one is to understand the great mystery, one must study all its aspects."

Meme - "- God's punishment upon the iniquities of ancient Rome was turning them into Italians"

'I called for my wife but there was no response': 3 die in China after strong winds blow them out of apartment building - "One moment, they were asleep. The next, they were falling to their deaths.  Three people in China died in the early hours of Sunday (March 31) morning, after strong winds swept them out of their apartments, reported Chinese media.  Residents of a high-rise apartment building in Nanchang, Jiangxi province, were jolted awake when the thunderstorm struck at around 3am, bringing strong winds and heavy rain to the city...   When he went to the room the pair was sleeping in, he discovered that they had gone missing, and the window and mattress had been blown away.  Xu and his other family members took refuge in their bathroom till the strong winds subsided."

Why Rich People Don’t Cover Their Windows - The Atlantic - "Americans who earn more than $150,000 are almost twice as likely to leave windows uncovered as those making $20,000 to $29,000, according to a large 2013 study for the U.S. Department of Energy—nearly 20 percent of the first group compared with just over 10 percent of the second... Ditching shades has a lot of upsides regardless of who you are. Uncovered windows bring in natural light, boost well-being, and offer a view of the world outside. The trade-off, of course, is that they also put those inside on display to passersby, and in the summer, they channel heat. For many, the concerns about privacy and finances outweigh the aesthetic and mental health benefits. But for those in the highest income brackets, the calculus is different: People with a big home can more easily get natural light and privacy, and they don’t need to worry so much about heating and cooling costs. Slowly, uncovered windows have become a status symbol. Forgoing curtains wasn’t always so appealing... “Close your curtains when you leave the house” so you “don’t tempt burglars,” one paper cautioned urban residents in 1985. The police often complained that people who forgot to cover their windows were “putting valuable goods on display.” Although city dwellers might have needed to draw their curtains, suburban homeowners, with their big open windows, were declaring that they had nothing to fear... n dense neighborhoods, people tend “to want more privacy, because you’re right on top of each other,” Kevin Van Den Wymelenberg, an architecture professor at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln who studies window light, told me. But these factors are less pressing for rich city dwellers, who likely have more rooms and, therefore, more windows... Although allowing a view into your home can seem vulnerable, it is actually a statement of security. Dutch people, for example, rarely cover their windows at night, letting their neighbors see inside as an act of faith. Similarly, in rural Denmark, drawn curtains are treated with suspicion, especially when newly arrived immigrants are the people keeping their blinds down."

Study: Putting religion on your résumé hurts your job chances — unless you’re Jewish - The Washington Post - "Researchers Michael Wallace, Bradley R.E. Wright and Allan Hyde of the University of Connecticut sent 3,200 fake applications to 800 jobs within 150 miles of two major Southern cities...  The explanation that researchers found most convincing is that people are partial to those who are culturally similar to themselves. That would explain why groups least similar to the culturally dominant evangelicals – atheists, Muslims, pagans and Wallonians – faced the most discrimination. Catholics, while Christian, are a small minority in the South and are not considered true Christians by many evangelicals, one explanation for their unpopularity.   Jews, on the other hand, do not seem so different to Southerners, the study suggests."
Religious Affiliation and Hiring Discrimination in the American South: A Field Experiment

Meme - Flower: "Damn I really wanna fuck this girl.."
"Bee: *psst* BRO LEAVE IT TO ME.BRO CUM ON MY FACE I'LL GO AND BUMP INTO HER"

Dani on X - "Can we talk about how cute motorcycle gangs are?
-inseparable friends
-matching outfits
-going on adventures together
What wholesome adorable fun."

Meme - "When you don't use a meme template the way it should be used
You know, i'm something of a scientist myself. *Oh Fuck You're Gonna Make Me Cum template*"

Kids: Today, my daughter-in-law taught my 4-year-old grandson to burst... - FML - "Today, my daughter-in-law taught my 4-year-old grandson to burst into tears and yell, "Am I not good enough for you?" whenever I ask her if she's going to have any more children. FML"

Meme - "Most people rejected His message.
'If you don't like pineapple or fruit on your pizza why tf do you use tomato sauce'
'Shut up!'
They hated Jesus because He told them the truth. Gal. 4:16"

Chris Selley: The war on vaping is a war on public health - "Fact: Vaping is less dangerous than smoking. This is one of those facts that doesn’t really need research attached to it. Cigarette smoke contains “carbon monoxide, ammonia, dimethylnitrosamine, formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide and acrolein,” a British anti-smoking charity explains. Vapour from an e-cigarette contains water and either glycerin or propylene glycol. While it’s true the long-term effects of consuming the latter two in e-cig form have not extensively been studied, crucially, they are not smoke. In every context other than smoking, we human beings have always tried to avoid smoke. Even considering the addictive wonders of nicotine, it’s incredible we ever believed it was safe. If you need research to back up the vaping-better-than-smoking hypothesis, it’s out there. A 2013 study modelled various scenarios of e-cigarette uptake in the Russian Federation and estimated they might save 3.3 million to 38.5 million life-years over 80 years — as much as 19 per cent of the life-years currently lost to smoking... Just as common sense tells you vaping is preferable to smoking, it should tell you that it would be preferable not to inhale anything recreationally. Nicotine addiction is nothing compared to the ravages of smoking, but it’s not desirable. And there’ s plenty of mounting evidence that vaping isn’t harmless (though I’m not sure anyone ever confidently said it was). There are scientists, public-health officials and researchers who can wrap their minds around this not-very complicated concept: A and B are both undesirable, but A is more undesirable, and thus should be preferred over B if eradicating A and B isn’t on the table. Recent research from the University of East Anglia in England found that providing National Health Service patients with e-cigarettes, in addition to other help quitting smoking, boosted the quit rate six months later among their test group from 4.1 per cent to 7.2 per cent. (Both figures are depressing, but one is a heck of a lot better than the other.) And then there are scientists, public-health officials and researchers who cannot or will not wrap their minds around that very simple concept. On British television network GB News last week, University of Galway medical professor Sherif Sultan nearly blew his top at the idea of e-cigarettes as a harm-reduction tool. “We are witnessing a troubling conversion of public health objectives and corporate interests,” Sultan fumed. “The problem is … the lobbying … trying to show that vaping is much safer doesn’t have any scientific evidence. The World Health Organization (WHO) said it’s not true, and it’s a trap.”... Highly paid communications professionals come up with insulting crap like that all the time, not least in the field of public health, because they think their target audience is idiots. This was never clearer than during the pandemic, and the WHO was among the worst offenders... A recent poll of more than 28,000 British smokers, conducted for a University College London study, found 57 per cent believed vaping was equally or more harmful than their current habit, and that attitudes toward e-cigarettes were in fact worsening. Even allowing for smokers’ motivated reasoning, that is a wretched public-health failure by the WHO and its like-minded British organizations. If public-health officials wonder why their messaging on measles vaccination struggles to take hold, even amid alarming outbreaks in several countries, it should begin with a thorough post-mortem of their disastrous efforts at mind-changing throughout the COVID-19 nightmare — not just on vaccination, but on everything else besides."

Who are Canada’s ‘four screen’ Anglophones? - "35% of Anglophone Internet users are hooked up to a computer, smartphone, tablet and/or internet-connected TV. Of those connected, 35% have three screens, 21% have two, and 8% have one internet-capable screen. While smartphones were the first and second-most popular screens among the demographic, televisions were still the chosen device for watching content and computers remained the most commonly owned device among internet users. The main factor contributing to an Anglophone owning four screens is Netflix, according to the report, which shows it is twice as likely for a “Four Screen Anglophone” to watch the service on a television than any other device."
From 2018

Scientists Create Shapeshifting Robot That Can Liquify And Regain Shape

Meme - "Godzilla in the 20th Century
*Movie* A serious metaphor for nuclear destruction and scientific hubris
*Movie 2* LoL giant monsters go brrrrrr
Godzilla in the 21st Century
*Movie 3* A serious metaphor for the trauma of war and survivor's guilt
*Movie 4* Lol giant monsters go brrrrrr"