Links - 16th May 2021 (2)

Surprise! Your Beer And Tea Are Actually Transgenic GMOs - "Even though no one has found any evidence that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are harmful, anti-GMO activists have campaigned against them for years, with considerable success. As of this writing, 19 out of 28 countries in the European Union have voted to ban or severely restrict genetically modified plants, and many other countries impose similar bans.But all of these restrictions may be in vain, because nature got there first. It turns out that many common foods have already been genetically modified, by a bacterium called Agrobacterium... in news that should be even more frightening to the anti-GMO crowd, these foods are transgenic: they contain genetic material from completely different species. Frankenfoods!... Scientifically, claiming that GMOs are bad for you is nonsensical–it depends entirely on what the genetic modification is. Whether a food scientist modifies a tomato to taste better by traditional breeding or by using GM technology, you still end up with a tomato that has different genetic content. The only difference is that with traditional breeding, you have no idea what exactly you changed in the plant's DNA. And humans have already consumed billions of servings of GM foods with no ill effects. The GM foods we eat today are perfectly safe... every cultivated variety of sweet potato has "foreign" DNA integrated into its genome, from a bacterium called (appropriately) Agrobacterium... all the sweet potatoes we eat are GMOs, although it happened naturally... here are the natural GMO foods, all of them transgenic, with the common name followed by the formal species name in italics:
bananas (Musa acuminata)
beer (hops) (Humulus lupulus)
cranberries (Vaccinium macrocarpon)
date-plum (Diospyros lotus)
guava (Psidium guajava)
peanuts (Arachis hypogaea)
pomelo fruit (Citrus maxima)
Suriname cherry (Eugenia uniflora)
sweet potatoes (Ipomoea species)
tea (Camellia sinensis, which is used for most teas)
walnuts (Juglans species)
yams (Dioscorea alata)
That's right, beer and tea are GMOs–even if they are labelled as "organic." Keep in mind that this list is undoubtedly incomplete"

Robert De Niro’s Restaurant Chain Nobu Took Up To $28 Million In Taxpayer Loans - "The chain, which includes 46 restaurants and 13 luxury hotels across the world, was co-founded by actor Robert De Niro, celebrity chef Nobuyuki “Nobu” Matsuhisa, and film producer Meir Teper. Nobu took 14 loans totaling as much as $27.7 million... The PPP fund totals hundreds of billions of dollars and was intended to help small businesses survive the loss of revenue as COVID-19 swept the nation. But a firestorm erupted in April when it was revealed that large corporations received billions, prompting many to return the loans."
This might explain the virtue signalling

transaksi indomie - Derri Hutomo Rahmadhi - "I was living in a hostel in singapore with few students from infonesia, malaysia, china and korea. Knowing that we came from indonesia, one korean friend day visited in room bringing packages of shin ramyeon. Then, like in those drug transaction scenes gangster movies, he put all those ramyeons on my desk. "I know you brought some indomies indonesia. Heres the deal. I'll give you 2 packages of ramyeon for each package of your indomie. Deal?" I said, "ok". Then he came out happily with some indomies in his hands.'"

Meme - "My friends sister got her fiancé to tattoo a spider on her asshole so when he cums in her ass it looks like the spider is making silk for a web"

COMMENT: PAP should clarify on what it means by 'strong mandate' - "I think we can all agree that in GE2011, the PAP was not given a strong mandate. It took 60.1 per cent of the votes and 81 out of 87 seats in Parliament. (Note that this is uniquely Singapore, as political parties elsewhere would probably kill for that kind of election result.)What happened post-GE2011? The PAP became a lot more consultative. It started the Our Singapore Conversation, moved unpopular ministers to the backbench, slowed down the inflow of foreign workers and ramped up the building of HDB flats.In GE2015, we can all agree that the PAP was given a strong mandate, with 69.9 per cent of the vote. And what did it do with that mandate?Of course, the PAP continued to govern. It was also confident enough to suggest constitutional changes right from the beginning of the term of Parliament in 2016.The Prime Minister called for voting rights to be given to non-constituency MPs and a re-look of the qualifications and types of checks on an elected president. Half-way through its term, it broached the need for a law to prevent online falsehoods... Now, we can see the effects of POFMA, when we have trouble figuring out what some of the “falsehoods’’ which have been POFMAed are about.Then you have the PAP-dominant Parliament voting to give their non-elected counterparts the right to vote in Parliament. I was astounded. They have no pride in their role or what? The next time I see a PAP candidate who tries to convince me to vote PAP because got NCMP, I will reply: “So you will be my glorified contractor ah?’’ The constituency political broadcasts seem to confirm this “contractor’’ role of an MP. Except for a few opposition candidates, no PAP candidate seeking re-election saw it fit to talk about his or her contribution to lawmaking. Instead, we hear about fitness parks and covered linkways... Is the PAP saying that all its legislation is fully justified and full/fool-proof? That all soundings have been taken behind closed-doors? That Parliament cannot improve on Bills, because it isn’t as smart as the executive? That second and third readings of the Bill are simply stages of a legislative process that has been a parliamentary tradition?... over the years, with the exception of a few, PAP MPs have become more and more subdued"

Tom Woods on Twitter - "Next time we're told the universities need more money, let's get this trending: #defundthethoughtpolice"

What is the BBC playing at? - "The BBC is losing the plot. Last week it announced a cull of local radio and regional television staff – sacking one in six people working on regional programmes in England. This week, there has been huge speculation that the BBC will scrap Politics Live, one of its flagship political shows... The cuts to regional programmes are projected to save around £25million. But the week before that, the BBC pledged £100million on a new diversity initiative in response to the Black Lives Matter protests. But as I explained on spiked at the time, the BBC does not even have an ethnic-diversity problem. The proportion of both on-screen contributors to BBC programmes and BBC staff who are BAME is actually higher than the BAME population in the country as a whole. At the same time, the kinds of shows that have been targeted for the axe are the embodiment of public-service broadcasting... Programming like this enhances democratic life, and arguably offers something the private sector would not. And yet this is not what the BBC seems to value.Clearly, what the BBC values above all else is the cult of wokeness – even if it alienates the vast majority of its audience."

Virginia Woolf OnlyFans on Twitter - "Harry Potter had a massive amount of inherited wealth, never redistributed it to his ridiculously poor friend’s family, and then became a magic cop."
You either die a liberal or live long enough to see yourself become a bigot

‘Feminist geography’ professor argues tall buildings are sexist - "‘Upward-thrusting buildings ejaculating light into the night sky’... Ever see a professor accuse a building of “toxic masculinity”?That is precisely Leslie Kern’s specialty, and you can get a good sense of the Mount Allison University professor’s reasoning in a recent Guardian essay on the sexism in … city architecture.It’s not the first article from a “feminist geography” perspective – indeed, there’s an entire academic journal, Gender, Place & Culture, devoted to the subject... even the height and shape of a building reflects “patterns of gender-based discrimination,” she says, citing a female architecture professor who described skyscrapers as “rape” in 1977... One of her solutions is, oddly, sex segregation: Kern praises women-only carriages on Tokyo trains. But she wouldn’t be an intersectional scholar if she didn’t jump on the defund-the-police bandwagon"

Atheists Are Sometimes More Religious Than Christians - "“American ‘nones’ are as religious as—or even more religious than—Christians in several European countries, including France, Germany, and the U.K.”... whereas only 23 percent of European Christians say they believe in God with absolute certainty, 27 percent of American nones say this. America is a country so suffused with faith that religious attributes abound even among the secular. Consider the rise of “atheist churches,” which cater to Americans who have lost faith in supernatural deities but still crave community, enjoy singing with others, and want to think deeply about morality. It’s religion, minus all the God stuff... In April 2018, almost 1,000 people streamed into a church in San Francisco for an unprecedented event billed as “Beyoncé Mass.” Most were people of color and members of the LGBTQ community. Many were secular. They used Queen Bey’s songs, which are replete with religious symbolism, as the basis for a communal celebration—one that had all the trappings of a religious service. That seemed completely fitting to some, including one reverend who said, “Beyoncé is a better theologian than many of the pastors and priests in our church today.”... although most Western Europeans still identify as Christians, for many of them, Christianity is a cultural or ethnic identity rather than a religious one. Sahgal calls them “post-Christian Christians,” though that label may be a bit misleading: The tendency to conceptualize Christianity as an ethnic marker is at least as old as the Crusades, when non-Christian North Africans and Middle Easterners were imagined as “others” relative to white, Christian Europeans. The survey also found that 11 percent of Western Europeans now call themselves “spiritual but not religious.”... Most Western Europeans still believe in the idea of the soul... The U.S. hasn’t secularized as profoundly as Europe has, and its history is crucial to understanding why. Joseph Blankholm, a professor at UC Santa Barbara who focuses on atheism and secularism, told me the Cold War was a particularly important inflection point. “The 1950s were the most religious America has ever been,” he said. “‘In God We Trust’ becomes the official national motto. ‘Under God’ is entered into the pledge of allegiance. That identity is being consciously formed by specific actors like Truman and Eisenhower, who are promoting a Christian identity at home and abroad, over against a godless communism. It’s the Christianization of America—as a Cold War tool.”... 27 percent of Americans call themselves “spiritual but not religious.” Even though they’ve left organized religion behind, many still pray regularly and believe in God. This raises an issue for researchers, because it suggests their traditional measures of religiosity can no longer be trusted to accurately identify religious people"

Alex R Dell on Twitter - "Sources: The NBPA currently is working with the NBA and Nike to give players the option of replacing their last name on their jersey with a statement on social justice. More details to come soon."
"A child in a Nike sweatshop stitching SJW slogans into a single-use shirt worn by a millionaire is the epitome of American activism"
For all that Marxists like to go on about 'late capitalism', this sort of indulgent leftist nonsense is a far better symptom of 'late capitalism' - life is too good so you need to virtue signal and try to destroy society with your pointless 'activism', while collaborating with big corporations

Fr. John Whiteford on Twitter - "Instead of questioning whether you should be ashamed of your ancestors, consider whether your ancestors would be ashamed of you."

'I ride bike not submarine': Grab apologises to rider who was tasked to deliver food to Seletar Island - "Unless he chartered a boat ride or kayaked to the offshore island, there was no way he would be able to complete the job. Funnily enough, Ruzzy (@rxzhael) shared on Twitter yesterday (July 26) how a Grab Delivery Partner Support agent requested him to make the delivery nonetheless... The customer who made the Seletar Island order never responded to Grab’s attempts to get in touch, so there’s that."

Xiaomi Japan apologizes for using nuclear bomb in ad - "Xiaomi Japan issued a public apology today after it received backlash for a recent advertisement. The ad in question promotes the speed of the Redmi Note 9 Pro using nuclear bomb imagery as well as a “fat man” that looks like a white balloon.“Fat Man” was the codename used for the nuclear bomb dropped by the United States on the Japanese city of Nagasaki in 1945 during World War II. Black and white imagery of the bomb itself make it look like a huge white balloon."

TikTok's Jenna Phillips Says She Makes 6 Figures as OnlyFans Puppy - "A Texas woman who reportedly said she has “always acted like a puppy” is now garnering more than hundreds of thousands per month through her performance on OnlyFans, after quitting her career as an optician. Jenna Phillips from Austin, Texas, now pretends to be a dog on OnlyFans, an adult content subscription website, where she runs around fetching balls, rolls around, and takes dog treats... The 21-year-old has said that she likes to “roll around, play fetch, get head scratches, run around and play,” according to LADBible, because she always felt like a puppy at heart.Her monthly income is now 100 times more than her previous income, and she makes six figures... “I have always acted like a puppy, but not in a sexual way at first. I used to pretend I was a puppy when I was growing up,” she said. “I really love praise. I love hearing ‘good girl.’ It makes my heart melt every time.”When she started her OnlyFans account, the content was “vanilla,” but after almost two years, she began posting as “thatpuppygirl” which is what turned around her business. She said there’s a been “surge” in her following ever since.She said what made her change her mind about doing vanilla content was that there wasn’t a market for “female puppies” on OnlyFans."

Ceiling Fans Have Switches For Hot And Cold Air - "Ceiling fans spin counterclockwise to push cool air downward. But, some fans have a switch that spins the blades in the opposite direction to pull air upward and push the warm air that naturally rises back down. In short, your fan should spin counterclockwise if you want cool air and clockwise if you want warm air. You're welcome!"

If You Are Looking For Casual Sex, Tinder Will Not Help, Study Says - "When seeking casual sex, why go to a bar to get rejected when you can use an app to get rejected from the comfort of your own home? A study just published in Personality and Individual Differences suggests that people on Tinder and other such picture-based dating apps are not really doing much better at getting casual sex than those who don't use the apps. In other words, swiping left and right doesn't mean that you are "hooking up" left and right... not everyone is trying to use Tinder and similar apps as a vending machine for casual sex. The study did find that Tinder tended to be first and foremost a diversion for both men and women, something to use when they were bored and had nothing else to do. Moreover, in a finding that may shock many men in the dating world, women were more likely to use the apps to simply confirm that they are attractive rather than actually trying to find a partner, short or long-term. In a press release, Bendixen explained, "Women use dating apps to feel better about themselves more than men do.""

The American Civil War: Everything You Wanted To Know

The American Civil War: Everything You Wanted To Know | HistoryExtra Podcast - HistoryExtra

"‘What caused the American Civil War?’

‘We could definitely talk about that for 45 minutes. But I'll tell you what, if you want I can do it in one word... slavery... if you imagine a hypothetical universe in which there had been no human enslavement in the United States, so somehow rather it had been abolished in the late 18th century, when the United States came into being there would not have been a civil war. You know, it is rare that you can make a claim about an alternative history as absolutely as that but I would absolutely make that claim. There would not have been a civil war without slavery. There might have been another kind of civil war, I suppose. There might have been a civil war between the west and the east, which was one of the things that the founding generation worried about, but there would not have been a civil war between the southern states and the northern states in the way that happened in the mid 19th century…

Up until very recently, opinion polls say, most people think slavery isn't the cause of the Civil War. And if you ask them, why not? They would say, if they give you an answer, they would say, because most Northerners were not abolitionists, which is true. And most southerners did not own slaves. Most white Southerners did not own enslaved people. And that's also true. So therefore, they say, well it can’t have been about slavery? Well, that doesn't demonstrate it wasn't about slavery. What that might demonstrate is that it wasn't a war in any straightforward sense between radical abolitionists and slaveholders. But if you take slavery out of the picture, nothing can be satisfactorily explained. And if you read the ordinances of secession, so that's to say the documents issued by the southern states as they left the Union in 1861, they make this very explicit that the reason why they're leaving the union is because they can no longer guarantee the preservation of their property, their human property... Southerners themselves said that they were leaving the union in order to preserve their slave property. Now, you might think, well, why would they do that if most Northerners weren't abolitionists?

But the answer to that question very simply, is that although most Northerners were not radical abolitionists, would not describe themselves as abolitionists, they were in a broad sense, anti slavery that is, if you were to have done an opinion poll in the north in 1860, 61, and you would say, do you think slavery is right or wrong? The vast majority of people, including people who didn't vote for Abraham Lincoln, who weren't radicals, weren't Republicans, vast majority would have said slavery is wrong...

[Lincoln’s] whole campaign was predicated on preventing the expansion of slavery and on stigmatizing it as antithetical to American values, as, more than that, as a danger to the Republic, as a danger to the freedom for white people. That's the thing we've got to struggle to get our heads around. It wasn't that Lincoln or the Republican Party were campaigning on the horrific treatment of enslaved people, some of them were. But mostly what they were saying was that the institution of slavery itself is corrupting of Republican liberty. For white people. We've got to get rid of it because it's endangering the Republic, or at least we've got to contain it, because it's endangering the Republic, and that it, in and of itself was enough, was threatening enough to the south to compel them to secede...

‘By and large though, and compared to other civil wars such as the English Civil War, for example, this was actually not a war of brother against brother, relatively speaking. It was a war in which geography determined loyalty in in most cases’...

‘The union in the words of Abraham Lincoln was the last best hope earth. If what was at stake in the war was the survive of government of the people, by the people for the people. It was, if the Union was destroyed, if it was broken up, if the Confederacy was allowed to survive as a separate independent republic, then the possibility of People's Government would be eliminated forever from the whole world. I mean, it's an extraordinary thing to put it like that, but that is in terms what Northerners believed. It wasn't just Americans in fairness who said that at that time. British observers, radicals, people watching what’s happening, the great conflagration in North America watching from, from Britain and France and Germany and other places also shared that sense that there was, there were global issues at stake here. There was huge, that what would happen on the battlefields of Virginia and Pennsylvania and Mississippi and Louisiana would determine whether or not democracy, the rights of ordinary working men, would succeed, in Europe and in the rest of the world, or whether autocracy and monarchy would continue to, to dominate’...

‘How many black competence fought on both sides?’

‘It's a long standing issue, this, and the American right. The claim that there were black soldiers fighting for the Confederacy. Actually, what happened was that throughout the second half of the war, from 1863 onwards, there were increasing voices within the Confederacy saying, always in a minority, but saying, and from within the army as well, saying we should arm slaves. We're bit, we're outmanned, we're outnumbered, we're outgunned on the battlefields. We have to make use of this Human Resource. And in the very dying days of the Confederacy, when the writing was on the wall, the Confederate Congress finally, finally passed a bill, which if the Confederacy had lasted longer, would have drafted some enslaved men on the promise of their eventual emancipation. So the notion that there were large numbers of African Americans fighting for the Confederacy, or that there are any African Americans fighting for the Confederacy, in, in the full sense, in uniform, is wrong. What is true is that there were tens and tens of thousands of enslaved African American people who were in various support roles for the Confederate Army and were accompanying the army throughout the war from the beginning right to the end.’

Strange how the question of whether any blacks fought for the South suddenly becomes whether any black slaves fought for the South, as if there were no free blacks in the South - when there were more free blacks in the South than in the North. And when even The Root acknowledges that some blacks - even free ones - fought for the South...

Links - 16th May 2021 (1)

The Left is Now the Right - "In August, 2005, Rolling Stone sent me to cover a freak show. In a small Pennsylvania town called Dover, residents contrived to insert a sentence about teaching “intelligent design” into the curriculum, and fought for its right to do so in an extravagantly-covered trial in the “big city” capital of Harrisburg... Especially in 2005, which felt like the dawn of a new thousand-year reign of Bushian conservatism, liberal audiences jumped at any opportunity to re-create the magic of one of their foundational knowledge-over-superstition parables, the Scopes Monkey Trial.Fifteen years later, America is a thousand Dovers, and the press response is silence. This time it’s not a few Podunk school boards under assault by junk science and crackpot theologies, but Princeton University, the New York Times, the Smithsonian, and a hundred other institutions.When the absurdity factor rocketed past Dover levels this week, the nation’s leading press organs barely commented, much less laughed. Doing so would have meant opening the floodgates on a story most everyone in media sees but no one is allowed to comment upon: that the political right and left in America have traded villainous cultural pathologies. Things we once despised about the right have been amplified a thousand-fold on the flip. Conservatives once tried to legislate what went on in your bedroom; now it’s the left that obsesses over sexual codicils, not just for the bedroom but everywhere. Right-wingers from time to time made headlines campaigning against everything from The Last Temptation of Christ to “Fuck the Police”... Today Matt Yglesias signing a group letter with Noam Chomsky is considered threatening. Moreover a lot less than booking a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit can get you in the soup – a headline, a retweet, even likes are costing people jobs. Imagine how many movies Milos Forman would have had to make if Jerry Falwell had been able to get people fired this easily.  This is separate from the Democratic Party “moving right,” or in the case of issues like war, financial deregulation, and surveillance, having always been in lockstep with the right. This is about a change in the personality profile of the party’s most animated, engaged followers.Many who marched against Dick Cheney’s spy state in the early 2000s lost interest once Donald Trump became a target, then became full converts to the possibilities of centralized speech control after Russiagate, Charlottesville, and the de-platforming of Alex Jones, with even the ACLU wobbling. (Some of the only left media figures to be consistent on this issue work at the World Socialist Web Site, which has gone after woke icons like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over Internet censorship). Support for the “radical transparency” concept that made Wikileaks famous receded in favor of a referendum on the political and sexual iniquity of Julian Assange: many activists today are more concerned with who than what and find nuance, contradiction, and double-meaning repulsive. Bad person = bad idea!... the definitions of “whiteness” sound suspiciously like lazy suburban white stereotypes about Black America, only in reverse... Once, the right couldn’t see or comment upon its own absurdities, and instead spent most of its time whining about being frozen out of the media at the exact moment its messaging was becoming hegemonic, e.g. when we weren’t even able to watch a football game without someone trying to shove Rush Limbaugh or Dennis Miller onscreen. Now the left has adopted the same traits (the NBA restart played on a “Black Lives Matter”-emblazoned court is going to make those old Monday Night Football broadcasts seem chill), with a major difference: it has the bureaucratic juice to shut down mass media efforts to ridicule its thinking. These are the same pontificating, stereotyping busybodies Republicans used to be, only this time, they’re winning the culture war."

Why Panera’s experiment with pay-what-you-want dining failed - "In 2010, Panera’s nonprofit arm launched a new experiment: It opened a cafe in St. Louis that looked exactly like the company’s other restaurants, but customers could pay what they wanted for the items on the menu, or not pay at all. Ron Shaich, Panera’s founder and CEO at the time, had volunteered at food banks and wanted to offer a better experience for people who were struggling to eat. The new nonprofit restaurant, called Panera Cares, was designed to sustain itself by nudging middle-class consumers to pay a little extra for their meals.“In many ways, this whole experiment is ultimately a test of humanity,” Shaich said in a TEDx talk later that year. “Would people pay for it? Would people come in and value it?”In January 2018, the St. Louis location closed. A location in Dearborn, Michigan, which also opened in 2010, closed in 2016. Locations in Portland, Oregon, and Chicago also failed. Only one cafe, in Boston, is left. Though the concept was designed to be self-sustaining, the restaurant operated at a loss... many consumers didn’t want to eat next to homeless people, and complained about the atmosphere. People who were food insecure also didn’t like it... Conscious capitalism–a philosophy that Shaich and many other business leaders subscribe to–suggests that consumers will do good if given the opportunity. But that’s an unproven theory, Dobscha says, and it wasn’t borne out at the cafes. At the door, greeters explained the nonprofit concept; some consumers said they felt pressured into making donations. Others admitted that they used the restaurant to underpay even though they could afford more... Some similar restaurants have survived... Dobscha suggests that it makes sense for companies to focus on solving the social problems they directly create–Facebook should work on data privacy, for example, and the carbon footprint of its servers, among other things–but perhaps not attempt to work on peripheral social problems. “To me, it’s misplaced resources,” she says. “It’s probably not going to get you the results you want, and it lets governments off the hook, too.”"
And the last outlet has closed too

Lentil As Anything in trouble as cheapskates take advantage of restaurant’s charity - "LENTIL As Anything’s future is under threat from cheapskates taking advantage of the Newtown restaurant’s charity by paying less than $3 a meal.Since opening two years ago, the vegetarian restaurant has invited customers to pay what they can to enjoy a delicious meal, have a chat and listen to some music in a warm, safe space."
I guess the reason Annalakshmi survives isn't due to the fact that people who eat vegetarian food won't be the ones who'd stiff you

China restaurant's pay-what-you-want policy backfires as some customers pay as low as 1 yuan for meals - "A newly opened restaurant in China racked up losses of 100,000 yuan (S$20,600) during its first week of operation, after its policy of allowing customers to pay what they wanted for their meals backfired spectacularly.The music-themed eatery in Guiyang, the capital city of Guizhou province, had introduced a pay-what-you-want promotion to mark its opening on Oct 2... Some diners reportedly paid only 10 per cent of the bill, while others had no qualms leaving just 1 yuan (20 Singapore cents) on the table after eating... Mr Liu's relationship with the restaurant's two other owners have since gone sour after they argued over the decision to "believe in the inherent goodness of human beings".He added that they had been banking on the majority of diners to do the right thing and pay what was fair."
This in a country where people steal toilet paper from public toilets

Thomas Chatterton Williams on Twitter - "This is a new form of ad hominem criticism for me. This person (named Bari Williams of all things! Hello, are we in a simulation or what!?) states explicitly—not by the usual implication—that since my views are not hers they quite literally erase my ancestry and *make me white.*"
Apparently if you're not politically black, you're not black

Woman creates fake Tinder profile as a man and assumes it will be 'easy' to get dates - "An 18-year-old woman created a fake profile to go undercover on Tinder to see what it's really like for men on dating apps — and she was shocked to discover that it was not as easy as she imagined.YouTuber Alexander Grace teamed up with his friend Sada for the social experiment, providing her with photos of himself to use for her fake Tinder profile.  Sada admitted that she thought it would be 'easy peasy' to get matches with Alex's pictures, and assumed she'd be lining up dates in no time — but she was discouraged to get fewer matches than she thought, and even more frustrated to be met with radio silence when she would initiate conversation... In addition to not getting as many matches as she imagined, she was annoyed that women wouldn't reply to her messages, or they'd stop replying after one or two responses... 'If I compared the experience that a woman has on a dating app and that a man has on a dating app, it's much different. And it's weird that I struggled so much. And if I changed my picture to a woman, I don't struggle at all.'This is not very healthy,' she said. 'I'm [feeling] down now and it's not even my damn picture.'... she has rethought what it's like for guys on dating apps. 'I just feel sorry for guys and stuff. I don't think this is good for anyone, really.She added that she thought it would be especially easy for her because she herself is a woman... Men commenting on the video and on Reddit are less confused.'Yeah dating apps are probably the most depressing experience an average guy can have'... 'She kept pointing out that he is actually attractive and educated... Imagine what "average" guys experience'... 'I'm a a straight dude who has used and often been excessively frustrated with dating apps. Despite that, I completely understand why the women ghost or don't replay: They're inundated with messages and options,' wrote one, explaining that there's simply not enough time to reply to everyone"
Female privilege illustrated

Liberalism made the Western world, but now it is destroying it - "The pursuit of the common good has little place in liberalism, for liberalism is principally concerned with the maximisation of individual freedom... Also to blame is the misplaced universalism of liberalism. Partly because much of liberal thought starts with a misconceived "model" of human nature and political organisation, liberals underestimate the cultural and institutional context and history of communities and countries.They assume we are all rational freedom-seekers, the same the world over. This leads liberals to all sorts of flawed judgments about foreign policy (think Iraq), democracy (think European Union) and immigration.Viewing countries as little more than a platform, upon which anybody from anywhere in the world can live and work with only minimal obligations towards others, liberals support mass immigration.In fact, they are often maniacally in favour of it, because for many of them, borders are a restraint on freedom, and culturally diverse countries are more likely to put irrational attachments to majority culture and identity behind them.But study after academic study shows that the more diverse a society becomes, the less trust and reciprocity there is, and less willingness to pay taxes to fund universal public services and welfare systems.Liberalism attacks the institutions and traditions that bring us together, in part because they are seen as hindrances in the pursuit of freedom. But this destructiveness is also down to the problematic relationship liberalism has with the idea of inevitable progress. Because some liberal thinkers justify pluralism and tolerance on the basis that they create trial and error that leads to an increasingly perfect society, liberalism can become illiberal and intolerant: conservatives who worry that change can bring loss and not just gain, institutions and traditions that ask us to put others first, and beliefs that seek to achieve the common good are mocked, undermined and attacked.The irony is, the more we see the full extent of the crisis of Western society, it becomes clearer that liberalism has always depended on those very institutions and traditions and ways of life it attacks.Perhaps liberalism can survive without Christian virtues and stable national identities, but we cannot yet know that for sure."

An0maly - Posts - "If you vote for Donald Trump, you are a racist. You have no wiggle room"
"Blindly labeling 62,984,828 Americans as racist is everything that's wrong with contemporary political discourse."

Edward C. Yong - "Take The Cake: Do Smaller Fat People Have Privilege?"
"the loons on the left are eating their own!
tldr version: mildly overweight woman joins a forum for fat women and is made to feel privileged cos she can get sex more easily than the morbidly obese ones."

Why the silence over the Reading attack? - "It’s been five days since the Reading attack. Five days since suspected Islamist terrorist Khairi Saadallah killed three people and seriously injured three more, as they enjoyed drinks and sun with friends in a park on Saturday evening. The killer stabbed people in the neck, under the arms, and one in the eye, according to reports. He lunged at people seemingly indiscriminately. Such was his barbarism. And yet, five days later, we’re barely talking about it... conversation has quickly turned to pubs reopening and that twat who flew a ‘White Lives Matter’ banner over Burnley.Now imagine the Reading attack had been committed not by someone like Saadallah, who is suspected, it seems, of having Islamist sympathies, but by a Tommy Robinson supporter, or a fully fledged white supremacist. Five days later, we’d be talking about nothing else – and rightly so. It would have been the bloodiest far-right attack on British soil in recent memory. By contrast, Saadallah’s alleged crimes have been treated, as suspected terrorism of this kind often is, like a horrible accident – something we briefly mourn before moving on. This enthusiasm gap was glaring on Twitter in the wake of the attack. The opinion-forming set seemed more keen to express their solidarity not with the families and friends of the three slain men, who incidentally all seem to have been gay, but with TV pundit Ash Sarkar. After she posted a photo on Saturday of her eating an ice lolly, far-right trolls, ludicrously suggesting she was mocking the attack, sent her death threats. It was appalling, of course. But that the condemnation of racist tweets seemed to outweigh that of actual murders tells us something about some people’s priorities. This is all the more strange given that the threat of Islamist violence far outweighs that of far-right violence. In the past five years, excluding Reading, 37 people have been killed in Britain in Islamist attacks, while two have been killed in far-right attacks. That’s without mentioning the Parsons Green bombing in 2017, the stabbing attack at a Manchester shopping centre last year, and the stabbing attack in Streatham, south London, in February – all Islamist attacks which inflicted awful injuries but failed to claim lives... While Islamist attacks range in sophistication, there are networks and groups, both national and international, that would-be terrorists are able to access. By comparison, as Dr Paul Stott has argued, the British far right has been ‘historically too weak to sustain an enduring terrorist group’, and the threat it poses is predominantly from lone-wolf actors... Many on the liberal-left seem to care more about their pre-fashioned narratives than the bloody reality. This is why claims that the murderous far right is on the march, ginned up by Boris Johnson and tabloid newspapers, trundle on in spite of the facts. This is why they have a tendency to ignore or downplay Islamist terror – because it raises awkward questions about integration, multiculturalism and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism that they have no answer for"

laka on Twitter - "Stop adding pineapple to food and calling it “Hawaiian”. Pineapple is not from Hawaii. My grandfather worked in the pineapple fields as a child. Pineapple and it’s ties to Hawaii is a direct result from Hawaii’s colonization. Please stop perpetuating my culture’s oppression.
In many ways, capitalism and colonization worked perfectly on Hawaii. Now, when you think pineapple you think Hawaii. The whole fucking world sees a huge pineapple next to the word “Hawaii”. Educate yourself and others about multigenerational microagressions...
SO when you think about things with pineapple, and you associate that with Hawaii or anything Hawaiian, you are directly perpetuating the history of colonization and capitalism. So stop making that connection. Pineapple is NOT Hawaiian or even from Hawaii."

Officer Fired Over Facebook Post About 'Privilege' - "Critics alleged that now-former Savannah Police Department (SPD) Officer Edwin Myrick’s post was racist... “What is privilege?….Privilege is wearing $200 sneakers when you’ve never had a job,” the post read. “Privilege is wearing $300 Beats headphones while living on public assistance. Privilege is having a Smartphone with a Data plan which you receive no bill for.” “Privilege is living in public subsidized housing where you don’t have a water bill, where rising property taxes and rents and energy costs have absolutely no effect on the amount of food you can put on your table,” the post continued. “Privilege is the ability to go march against, and protest anything that triggers you, without worrying about calling out of work and the consequences that accompany such behavior.”“Privilege is having as many children as you want, regardless of your employment status, and be able to send them off to daycare or school you don’t pay for,” the message read. “Privilege is sending your kids to school early for the before school programs and breakfast, and then keeping there for the after school program…all at no cost to you….paid for by the people who DO HAVE TO DEAL WITH RISING TAXES AND COSTS!…you know, us so called ‘PRIVILEGED’ the ones who pay while you TAKE TAKE TAKE!”"
If you see this as racist, given that it doesn't mention race, you're the racist one

Links - 15th May 2021 (2)

️ on Twitter - "white fragility is white liberals going out of their way to not read fanon, angela davis, clr james, baldwin, du bois, malcolm x, etc., but instead some white woman's shitty corporate anti-bias training manual ironically the popularity among liberals of the person who coined the concept of "white fragility" and other professional white "anti-racism experts" like tim wise is a perfect example of it in practice, but of course it's never used to illuminate that. hits too close to home
and when anyone does dare point it out, these professional white liberal "anti-racism experts" reveal themselves to be the most fragile of the fragile whites. at the very least you have to appreciate the irony"

Hidden camera left in a forest snaps a naked man high on LSD in Polish forest - "A hidden camera left in a forest to snap images of animals in the wild captured pictures of a naked man who believed he was a tiger after taking LSD."

Man Sets New Record For Most Expensive Starbucks Drink Order Ever - "A guy named Andrew had a Starbucks Gold card (which gets you a free drink of your choice after you buy 12) and a single goal: to beat the previous world record for the most expensive Starbucks drink ever. As anyone who has accomplished anything in life will tell you, thorough prep is key to achieving your goals. With 128-ounce glass in hand, Andrew stepped into Starbucks and enlisted the help of his friendly local Starbucks baristas.Thus, the legend of the Sexagintuple Vanilla Bean Mocha Frappucino was born. Total cost: $54.75. But for Gold-card holding Andrew, it was free. Amazingly enough, unlike the previous world-record-holder, this concoction was actually still drinkable. For Andrew, that was really the key. Why waste a free drink, right?"

Leftwing voters lead decline in trust in UK news media - "The British public’s trust in the media has fallen off a cliff in the last five years, particularly among leftwing voters, research suggests.Just 15% of left-leaning voters now say they trust most news most of the time, down from 46% as recently as 2015, Oxford University’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found... “Trust in the news has fallen over 20 percentage points since 2015,” concluded the authors of the Reuters Institute’s annual digital news report. “Even the most trusted brands like the BBC are seen by many as pushing or suppressing agendas, especially over polarising issues like Brexit.”... Britain now ranks below the likes of the US and Hong Kong when it comes to public trust in the media... The BBC remains the most trusted national news outlet, but support among the most politically partisan consumers – on both the left and right – has fallen by 20 percentage points since 2018.The study found there was a “silent majority” of Britons who still strongly wanted the news to be presented in a “neutral and detached” manner, backing BBC news bosses who discourage their reporters from expressing personal political views on social media."
Strange. Leftists used to tell us that distrusting the media was dangerous and brought us down the road to fascism

Pakistani girl who died in Texas shooting ‘wanted to experience American culture’ - "A 17-year-old Pakistani girl was among the 10 killed in Texas after a gunman opened fired in a high school on Friday. Sabika Sheikh, who was in the US under a foreign exchange program and wanted to “experience a new culture”, had often talked about becoming a diplomat in the future."

India: Army 'mistook planets for spy drones' - "India's army reportedly spent six months watching "Chinese spy drones" violating its air space, only to find out they were actually Jupiter and Venus... The Telegraph suggests the sentry ought to be forgiven, with planets appearing brighter as a result of the different atmosphere at altitude and the increased use of surveillance drones"

Yan Neng - "The Sunday Times asks some 1,000 respondents which are the jobs that are most crucial in keeping Singapore going"
"when you place people who handles the garbage disposal next to an artist, how could I rank both as equally essential? The former, I need everyday; the latter, I love art and can enjoy the art they’ve already made everyday. In my mind, there were also a distinction between a pure artist and a designer when I was doing the survey. I thought about performance artists who sat in an exhibit holding people’s hands, or people who painted on an easel. While their work can be amazing (I’ve been touched by such art), I don’t know how essential it is right now in today’s Cov19 context... I also think there's also a difference between "essential" and "valuable". I'm a writer and I'll gladly admit I'm not essential in today's context and climate. However, I do find my work *valuable*. Whether or not my work is essential has no bearing on the value my work brings. The survey asked for "essential" and I did the survey keeping "essential" in mind. This term was defined in the survey: "we mean someone who is engaged in work deemed necessary to meet basic needs of human survival and well-being, such as food, health, safety and cleaning"."
The wave of triggered people does not speak well of the critical thinking abilities of artists and people who support the arts: conflating essential and important, ignoring what "essential" means in the covid-19 context and more It's telling HR managers and business consultants didn't get triggered

DC Comics Publisher Jim Lee Reveals 25% Of Company's Publishing Line Wasn't Breaking Even; Commits To "Diversity and Inclusivity"

DC Comics Editors Strongly Urged To Use Affirmative Action When Hiring Writers And Artists - "a greater breadth of experience within a creative team can offer a greater breath of stories and storytelling and attract a wider audience"
So much for that theory

New York Times ignores nonwhite defenders of black professor, believes his white accusers - "One of the most baffling parts of #MeToo and #BelieveAllWomen culture is its indifference to “disparate impact,” one of the most important elements of progressive advocacy... Who is more likely to be accused of sexual misconduct in any sphere of society? Certainly not white guys. And precious few progressives are willing to call it out.The white-dominated New York Times joins this selective parade of outrage by creating a deeply misleading portrait of sexual harassment allegations against a star professor at Harvard University, Roland Fryer, largely by crediting his white accusers over his nonwhite defenders... She wanted $25,000 more than Harvard was willing to offer, and she texted her friend Tanaya Devi – who remains Fryer’s loudest defender – that “I will do anything possible to make sure I get the money I deserve.”... The apparent problem is this dark-skinned Indian immigrant, who plans to leave America because of the stifling conformity of academia, contradicted the narrative the Times wanted to peddle... His lawyer, Harvard Law Prof. Ronald Sullivan, says he was “constantly portrayed as an over-sexualized black man who no one could tell no” – one witness even complained about the “intensity of his look.” Sullivan also says Harvard ignored “rampant witness coaching” of the RAs by the accuser’s lawyers.But Fryer is also not black enough to be seen as a victim of a white witch hunt. Another Ph.D. student, Alex Bell, says he lost points with black people for the “police shootings paper.”"

Wife Withholds Sex Until Husband Agrees To Adopt A Black Child: "She Called Me A Racist" - "she won't be sleeping with him until he agrees to adopt a baby with her because she doesn't want to share her body with a racist... Overall, the issue has been getting out of hands, and it wasn't just with her husband, as he revealed that she'd been cutting off people who had a different view from hers"

Michael Knowles on Twitter - "The Left controls every major institution in America: mainstream media, the academy, administrative government, Hollywood, Big Tech, etc. So if “institutional racism” really did exist, whose fault would that be?"

Please Press F - Posts - "So I made an onlyfans... my boyfriend doesn't approve and is mad... so idk what to do, I need to pay bills but I’m not trynna disrespect my man"

Andrew Gillum says being a ‘Black man in America’ led him to a drug orgy with men that fateful night - "Andrew Gillum opened up about the circumstances that led him to a drug-fueled sex orgy with two men that ended his once-promising political career.Gillum, the former Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Florida, made headlines after he was found drunk on a bathroom floor at a luxury Miami Beach hotel with a naked male escort who was suspected of overdosing on crystal meth."

Orwell & Goode - Posts (Zucced)
Meme - "Alyssa (AI) Gray ©alygraytorv: If you celebrate the 4th of July full blown without zero hesitation whatsoever you either
A) a white supremacist
B) a raging drunk/partier
C) a hillbilly redneck
D) an ignorant uneducated child or
E) all of the above"
Supposedly, liberals don't hate their countries
Addendum: The new version contrasts her mugshot with a meme character with glasses, short hair and a shaved patch on her head, and it's a stunning match

Adam Yahiya - Hello my name is Adam Yahiya and welcome to... - "Hello my name is Adam Yahiya and welcome to McMansion Hell Malaysia : Episode 1"

Doc Wolverine, Attending Fursician on Twitter - "Cookie Monster has forward facing eyes mounted high upon his head. This suggests Cookie Monster is a submerged, ambush predator. Just something to consider."

A DNA Test Told Me I’m White — Here’s Why It’s Wrong | by S. Natalie
So this is the left's fabled championing of Science

James Lindsay - Posts - "I just found out logicians at our estimable universities did "shut down logic" in the name of Critical Race Theory, and I can't stop laughing.Like, what's the message here? That Critical Race Theory and BLM are illogical? Yes. That racial minorities can't be logical? Unfortunately also yes. The Savior Caste can't even hear themselves over their own flatulence anymore."

p.e. moskowitz on Twitter - "liberals are necessary to enable fascism: you can see it happening in real time right now: they make peace with cops, make compromises with politicians, siphon off support from radicals, allowing everyone to remain in power and nothing to change while draining movements of energy"
All the Communists don't realise that they'll be shot too if the revolution ever happens

The saboteurs you can hire to end your relationship - "In Japan, you can pay private agents called ‘wakaresaseya’ to seduce your spouse or their partner... a colleague of Kuwabara’s photographed them in a love hotel, and Isohata’s husband used these photographs as evidence for a divorce. (Such evidence is needed when a Japanese divorce is contested.)... hiring a wakaresaseya helps “you avoid confrontation. It’s a way in the short term of resolving a difficult situation without conflict. And your wife is much more likely to agree to a divorce if she’s in love with someone and wants to move on.” Thus, this is especially useful when one spouse won’t agree to a divorce, which complicates proceedings. But most of Mochizuki’s clients are not married people who want help separating from their spouses, but rather those who want their spouse’s affairs broken up... As TV and radio producer Mai Nishiyama comments; “There’s a market for everything in Japan.” This includes a variety of relationship-based services like renting faux family members and the additional services offered by wakaresaseya firms, such as assistance with romantic reconciliation, separating a child from an unsuitable girlfriend or boyfriend or preventing revenge porn. Agents can also be hired to gather evidence that will help a wronged spouse collect consolation money, which is compensation for the dissolution of a relationship"

People in Japan Are Buying Air Fresheners That Smell Like ‘High School Girls’ - "In Japan, it’s no secret that there’s a sizable fetish with joshi kosei (aka JK, or high school girls)... this Twitter user’s mother actually thought that he just gave a ride to a young girl. “So that means this air freshener is really good,” he wrote... Japan is no stranger to unusual fragrances. There are cute ones like this fabric spray with the “scent of a cat’s forehead” for cat-lovers, or “virtual fragrances” that are supposed to smell like fictional characters from anime and video games. Bordering on creepy are scents modelled after the most intimate moments with women. One example is this fragrance that’s supposed to smell like “the bath towel of a woman who just dried off after a shower.” There’s also this body soap with the “scent of a young woman,” that became a hit among men. Even kinkier is fried chicken marketed to smell like either “the bottom of a young woman’s foot” or “girl’s sweat.”"

SAS: Who Dares Wins hardman Ollie Ollerton axed from show 'due to new Channel 4 diversity drive' - "Long-serving show star, military veteran Ollie Ollerton and co-star Jay Morton have been axed. Show insiders say the decision could be down to a new diversity drive from Channel 4 bosses who want the ethnic backgrounds of the Directing Staff (DS) to mirror that of the participants, which are far more varied."

Moral Lessons for a Post-Covid World

BBC Radio 4 - Moral Maze, Moral Lessons for a Post-Covid World

"‘I very much agree that there is a great deal about this Coronavirus that we all still don't know, that experts contradict each other, and that we certainly should always be skeptical or questioning about what we're being told. But given the evidence of our own eyes about the impact of this virus at the speed of its transmission, I've been appalled by some of those on the libertarian Right, who've opposed not just lockdowns, but every single restriction on the basis that it's all a plot to seize state control over people's lives. And then these people cherry pick epidemiological evidence to claim that covid isn't a serious problem at all. Now, to me, this is astonishing, because it's a mirror image of the way over many years, the left has sacrificed evidence based reality to ideological dogma. And I think that in fetishizing, individual freedom over social responsibility, the anti state libertarian right is as dangerous as the pro state social libertarian left.’...

‘I have no objection in principle to governments introducing quite stringent restrictions on our lives to fight epidemics, but if you are going to use those very powerful weapons, they've got to be used proportionately. Now, if we were in the midst of an epidemic of bubonic plague which was estimated to have killed half the people it infected, I would agree about the use of all these lockdowns and everything but I just do not feel that we are in a disease is in any way comparable to bubonic plague or in any way justifies the level of restrictions on our freedom that were being used at the height of lockdown. And I think it's very easy to frame this debate as a sort of lives versus liberty argument. But the fact is that severe restrictions on our freedom in the form of lockdown as we have, they have their own death toll and when you look at the University of Loughborough study last week, estimated that 21,000 people were killed by the effects of lockdown. People because they weren't accessing health care, emergency health care in the way that they normally would, because they, you know, they people weren't looking after them. People weren't looking in on them, you know, lonely people who might normally be out and about. And you know, there is a very much it's death versus death, lives versus lives. Ultimately, when you come to this equation... We had a pandemic plan which had been debated, which had been published, you could read it up online. But it mentioned nothing about lockdown. It mentioned nothing about having to stay at home. It mentioned nothing about them closing schools, workplaces and everything else... I wouldn't say it was a conspiracy to seize powers over our lives. What I would say is it was panic’...

'Universalism, the idea that everyone should be treated as one is perfectly okay in theory, but in practice, it means that we treat everyone with the same chilly, bureaucratic, mathematical indifference as we do a stranger'...

‘It's interesting to me that you mentioned sort of morality, I don't necessarily see a role for the state in that because over time, it just infantilizes people and I'm not sure as well. Maybe the NHS should get us to take responsibility for one bit of our body like our elbow, or knee. Maybe financially, that's-’

‘Okay. Okay, so if we just move away from food even, and let me give you the scenario, which is that the state should intervene at times, shouldn't it, because relying on people's individual acts is an ideal. If we look back at our recent history, when we look at the smoking ban, making people wear seatbelts, making that compulsory, equal opportunities legislation, including gender equality and gay rights. All these didn't come from individual common sense or concern. They came from top down legislation.’

‘Yeah, but those are, those are social issues. Eating is a very personal thing that we all do.’

‘Eating is a social issue as well’

‘Yeah, but I don't think that it's within the state's remit. I mean, you look at what's happened in schools, a lot of schools have started doing breakfast clubs for kids. And now, you know, there’s a generation of parents growing up that don't see that as their responsibility. And every time you reach into an area that things should, people should be responsible for themselves, you kind of lose that capacity to act autonomously’...

‘I don't understand why it took a global pandemic for us to address this. I mean, a lot of people must have been going to the doctors and being told that they were morbidly obese. And for some reason, that didn't scare them. And yet this sort of more abstract threat, has clearly got people out jogging and thinking about it and I don't know, was it was it doctors being too timid to actually have that conversation? I don't know why it's taken this.’...

‘Without experts to guide you on something like this, on the the likely trajectory of a virus, you can't really make informed decisions, politicians have to make informed decisions. Now, the problem that we've seen with this virus is that the experts are themselves contradicting each other because there's so much we don't know, because some of these experts are tendentious, some are rubbish. Others are correct. We don't, the public actually know who are correct’

Ironically, the same people who hysterically rail against fat-shaming also are covid hystericists

Links - 15th May 2021 (1) (BethAnn McLaughlin)

Thread by @Sturgeons_Law - "If I'm getting this right, a White woman who started a failed MeToo org for people in STEM only to be accused of racist harassment herself was exposed as having created an account where she pretended to be a nonexistent queer Native American professor at Arizona State University.
And she was exposed after trying to ditch the account by claiming the prof died of COVID and doing this bizarre eulogy thread to her.
This must have been a pretty successful run as the eulogy thread is filled with people claiming to have known the Native American prof and liked her. Some people in the eulogy thread are mentioning "Hopi talismans" she was sending them, so did she actually send out fake Hopi talismans to people? Not the most important detail, but I'd still like to know.
Seems like she was hoist by her own petard as the fake account's followers got mad that ASU didn't put out an official eulogy for her, suspecting anti-queer and anti-indigenous bias, which in turn prompted this and initiated the unraveling:
'For what it’s worth, ASU’s spokesperson said they have been looking into reports about a potential death of a person claiming to be a faculty member for the last 24 hours, and have not been able to verify any connection to the university.'
In conclusion, bring back FaceApp's "ethnicity filters" NOW"

This neuroscientist is fighting sexual harassment in science—but her own job is in peril - "BethAnn McLaughlin has no time for James Watson, especially not when the 90-year-old geneticist is peering out from a photo on the wall of her guest room at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory’s Banbury Center... McLaughlin has made bitter enemies: Last fall, she says, she was anonymously FedExed a box of feces. And her scientific career is now on the line. Her tenure process was frozen for 17 months starting in 2015 while VUMC investigated allegations that she had posted anonymous, derogatory tweets about colleagues"
On the above. I like how the article makes her seem to be a victim Liberal excesses collapse at some point under the weight of their paradoxes and contradictions

aspiring leftist academic on Twitter - "so tl;dr on the sciencing_bi thing for people that aren't scientists or do not care: it seems like Bethann, famous for botching MeTooStem, ran an account where she cosplayed an indigenous anthro prof at ASU, but incredibly was only exposed after having the account die of covid-19... this arc culminated in a (retrospectively) hilarious eulogy thread by bethann, in which she really wants to hammer home that she had a cool Hopi friend"

#MeTooSTEM group's leadership in turmoil over concerns about founder BethAnn McLaughlin - "Seven leaders of a group formed to combat sexual harassment in the science, technology, engineering and math fields have resigned in recent months after voicing concerns about the leadership of #MeTooSTEM founder BethAnn McLaughlin... The former members accused McLaughlin, a neuroscientist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville who founded the organization last year, of posting hostile tweets that alienated supporters and of a lack of transparency about how she ran the organization.McLaughlin is known for calling out scientific organizations for harboring what she calls “harassholes” on her Twitter account, @McLNeuro, demanding that National Academy of Sciences dismiss members who had been sanctioned for sexual harassment and that the National Institutes of Health stop giving grants to harassers... The only two women of color on the organization's leadership team resigned April 24 citing a perception that white leadership input was prioritized over our theirs, per BuzzFeed. Other women who left the group said they were afraid to voice their opinions and that the organization lacked policies, procedures or delineated roles, Science magazine reported."

Sciencing_Bi & BethAnn McLaughlin Twitter Accounts Suspended - "For several years, academics and activists around the country interacted with the Twitter account @Sciencing_Bi, which was supposedly run by an LGBTQ Native American Anthropology professor at Arizona State University. They reacted with tributes and grief when a controversial former professor and anti-sexual harassment #metoo crusader named BethAnn McLaughlin announced on Twitter that @Sciencing_Bi had died of COVID-19, blaming the university where @Sciencing_Bi supposedly worked for making people teach on campus during the pandemic.However, what unfolded next is a complex and bizarre tale of accusations and confusion, as academics and others on social media are now accusing McLaughlin herself of possibly being @Sciencing_Bi and masquerading as a fake Native American professor online, ASU is saying it can’t come up with a death of any professor from COVID-19 recently, and Twitter has suspended both the accounts of McLaughlin and the now mysterious @Sciencing_Bi... In a eulogy on Twitter, she spun an elaborate narrative, saying that @Sciencing_Bi wanted them to get matching tattoos in an indigenous language and texted her daily... Dr. Jacquelyn Gill, associate professor at the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute, has written extensively about the controversy. “I’m angry about the harm done to Black, indigenous, and other people of color, and LGBTQ+ folks in our community whose trust was violated. I’m angry that someone would pretend to have a disease that has killed so many, and which *disproportionately affects BIPOC,*” she tweeted... The Twitter page Aspiring Leftist Academic alleged on Twitter that “people trying to look for ASU press releases on the death found that every photo posted by sciencing_bi was a stock photo, and that the only person who communicated with them outside of twitter DMs was bethann.”... McLaughlin is well-known in academia for being the person who convinced the site RateMyProfessors.com to remove its red hot chili pepper rating for “hot” professors and who created online petitions to go after top institutions like the National Academy of Sciences on sexual harassment response. In 2019, Science Magazine described McLaughlin as “a 51-year-old neuroscientist” who “has in the last nine months exploded into view as the public face of the #MeToo movement in science.” She left Vanderbilt University Medical Center in 2019 after tenure controversies... Many People Interacted With @Sciencing_Bi Over the Years & Expressed Grief Over Her Death at First, Calling Her a “Prominent Native American Anthropologist’"

Links - 12th May 2021 (2)

He tricked me : relationship_advice - "My (18F) boyfriend (29M) said he was into BDSM so he’d have me doing burpees, planking, wall sits, and pushups (with him on my back sometimes). I was into it and he said he loves watching girls get pushed to their physical and mental limits when they submit to him.Then after a few months of this he admitted he was just trying to get me in better shape because he didn’t like having sex with me as much before at my old weight. Should I be offended?"
"Yes. This is horrible, cruel, and so many other things. This is not safe or normal behavior. Please, please rethink this relationship. This is beyond lying and not healthy."
"“Yeah im into BDSM....
Bench
Deadlift
Squats
Military press”"

Conman, 74, who weighs 28 stone, avoids jail because he's too fat for prison - "A conman has avoided being locked up because he's too fat and would cause an "enormous disruption" to the prison service.Barry Beardall pocketed cash belonging to John Ryan but was given a suspended jail term due to him weighing 28-stone.At Southampton Crown Court Judge Peter Henry said the 74-year-old would need carers to help him out of bed and give him his medication due to his size and poorly health"

James Lindsay - Posts - "The fact that everyone is constantly having to talk about race and racism all the time now isn't a bug. It's a feature of Critical Race Theory. It will bring this divisive, joyless, single-minded conversation into EVERYTHING that invites it in. Choose carefully."

Escape The Echo Chamber - Posts - "Perhaps it’s an accumulation of biases but the Roger Stone story hasn’t interested me. He’s a long term, bare knuckle unethical campaign guy. Washington mints these like quarters.He got the attention of the federales because he bragged of having inside access to the DNC-related leaked emails that appeared on WikiLeaks. So he was seen as the key in proving Trump colluded with the Russians; which we now know he didn’t.Stone didn’t commit any illegal acts for Trump. His crime was lying to Congress about how he got his information. Something that happens often in congressional hearings and is rarely charged. He also threatened a witness to not testify truthfully to Congress, which is uncommon and very illegal.The prosecutors wanted Stone to serve 9-years in prison, which was arguably excessive. When the DOJ asked that it just be up to the judge, the prosecutors resigned.This takes us to yesterday. Trump commuted Stone’s sentence. It’s cronyism and was expected by most people. Presidents have a habit of pardoning friends and large donors...  I suppose I’d be more alarmed if lying to Congress was zealously prosecuted, but it’s not. So the prosecutions seem politically motivated even when the target is completely guilty. I’d also be more alarmed if the lying was to cover up a crime or turned the investigation upside down. It didn’t.Trump shouldn’t have commuted him, but then the investigation was wrong headed as well. There’s no hero’s in this story."
TDS sufferers claim Trump is corrupt for pardoning villains, but when you dig up Obama's record...

The Cost Of Living In Malaysia Is Higher Than Singapore - "One of the things that some Singaporeans regularly complaint about, is the high cost of living in Singapore.Actually, the cost of living in Malaysia is a lot higher than Singapore, and that Malaysians have it harder."

Efficacy of Ketoprofen Vs Ibuprofen and Diclofenac: A Systematic Review of the Literature and Meta-Analysis - "Concerning the estimated efficacy outcomes, ketoprofen was superior to ibuprofen/diclofenac in all of the 13 RCTs, reaching a statistically significant difference (P < 0.05) in nine studies. The heterogeneity for the efficacy outcome was not different across the studies and this guaratees that the compared trials are homogeneous and the meta-analysis results reliable and valid. The meta-analysis showed that the effect of therapeutic doses of ketoprofen was strongly greater than the effect of therapeutic doses of ibuprofen or diclofenac"

Ketoprofen Absorption by Muscle and Tendon after Topical or Oral Administration in Patients Undergoing Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction - "following topical application in a patch, ketoprofen shows rapid and sustained delivery to the underlying tissues without a significant increase of the plasma drug concentration"

The Meaning and Evolution of the Word "Parrhesia" – Michel Foucault, Info. - "the parrhesiastes is someone who takes a risk. Of course, this risk is not always a risk of life. When, for example, you see a friend doing something wrong and you risk incurring his anger by telling him he is wrong, you are acting as a parrhesiastes. In such a case, you do not risk your life, but you may hurt him by your remarks, and your friendship may consequently suffer for it. If, in a political debate, an orator risks losing his popularity because his opinions are contrary to the majority’s opinion, or his opinions may usher in a political scandal, he uses parrhesia. Parrhesia, then, is linked to courage in the face of danger: it demands the courage to speak the truth in spite of some danger. And in its extreme form, telling the truth takes place in the “game” of life or death... the parrhesiastes risks his privilege to speak freely when he discloses a truth which threatens the majority. For it was a well-known juridical situation when Athenian leaders were exiled only because they proposed something which was opposed by the majority, or even because the assembly thought that the strong influence of certain leaders limited its own freedom. And so the assembly was, in this manner, “protected” against the truth. That, then, is the institutional background of “democratic parrhesia” which must be distinguished from that “monarchic parrhesia” where an advisor gives the sovereign honest and helpful advice. The last characteristic of parrhesia is this: in parrhesia, telling the truth is regarded as a duty... parrhesia is a verbal activity in which a speaker expresses his personal relationship to truth, and risks his life because he recognizes truth-telling as a duty to improve or help other people (as well as himself). In parrhesia, the speaker uses his freedom and chooses frankness instead of persuasion, truth instead of falsehood or silence, the risk of death instead of life and security, criticism instead of flattery, and moral duty instead of self-interest and moral apathy... parrhesia is an essential characteristic of Athenian democracy. Of course, we still have to investigate the role of parrhesia in the Athenian constitution. But we can say quite generally that parrhesia was a guideline for democracy as well as an ethical and personal attitude characteristic of the good citizen. Athenian democracy was defined very explicitly as a constitution (politeia) in which people enjoyed demokratia, isegoria (the equal right of speech), isonomia (the equal participation of all citizens in the exercise of power), and parrhesia. Parrhesia, which is a requisite for public speech, takes place between citizens as individuals, and also between citizens construed as an assembly. Moreover, the agora is the place where parrhesia appears."
Of course, many Americans think the idea of Freedom of Speech came into being with the First Amendment and only covers government reprisal

The Roma: Between a Myth and the Future - "Not all so-called Gypsies in the world today recognize themselves as Roma... Groups externally identified as "Gypsies" but not necessarily considering themselves as ethnic Roma include the Jevgjit in Albania; the Ashkaelia and Egyptians in Kosovo and Macedonia; the Travelers in Britain and Ireland; and the Rudari and Beash in Hungary, Romania, and other countries...
The older Russian stereotype of Roma is dominated by the perception of Roma as dealers in horses and horse thieves; during the Soviet era this stereotype transformed, with the Roma seen as dealers in cars and car thieves...
I would suggest interpreting anti-Gypsyism as a set of misconceptions and myths, both expressing and reproducing the sociopolitical weakness of the Romani community. Misconceptions are false ideas about the Roma as they are today, even though misconceptions may have started in the past from some elements of truth. Myths, on the other hand, are not untruths: they are practical truths one can take as assumptions and reach pragmatic results, when acting upon these assumptions. But myths are not truths either: they would cease to be truths as soon as people cease to believe them...
Crime statistics in some countries have revealed a pattern of overrepresentation of Roma in several types of crime, notably petty stealing. But it should be remembered that crime statistics necessarily contain distortions. They are based on reported crime, and do not necessarily reflect the entire picture of committed offences. Robbery is a crime that has a high degree of reporting, while many other crimes, including corruption, fraudulent financial schemes such as pyramids, or domestic violence, go unreported. An act of petty robbery typically leaves behind one victim, while an act of financial fraud can destroy hundreds. Thus the visibility of robbery and of its individual perpetrators is much higher, while other, not less dangerous forms of crime lie below the surface of society...
The Romani crime stereotype includes other elements of prejudice, especially the bizarre and thoroughly unfounded "stealing of children" legend that has metamorphosed into the current public misperception that Roma are exploiting their own children by making them engage in begging; it is a fast growing belief that Roma are involved in trafficking in children and women"
When politically correct liberals want to avoid offence and end up being non-inclusive (and this offensive)
The ideological sommersaults are amusing and are a manifestation of the liberal obsession with controlling speech and thought, thinking that will change reality since that is socially constructed, as well as trying to define problems away (and denouncing counterpoints as "misperceptions", without proof)

Eskimo - definition of Eskimo - "Usage Note: Eskimo has long been criticized as an offensive term, and many Americans either avoid it or feel uncomfortable using it. In Canada, where Eskimo is especially frowned on, the only acceptable term is Inuit, and Americans have generally come to prefer this name too, knowing it to be a term of ethnic pride. But it is not always understood that Inuit cannot substitute for Eskimo in all cases, being restricted in proper usage to the Inuit-speaking peoples of Arctic Canada and parts of Greenland. In southwest Alaska and Arctic Siberia, where Inuit is not spoken, the comparable term is Yupik, which has not gained as wide a currency in English as Inuit. While use of these more specific terms is generally preferable when speaking of the appropriate linguistic group, none of them can be used of the Eskimoan peoples as a whole; the only inclusive term remains Eskimo. · The claim that Eskimo is offensive is often supported by citing a popular etymology tracing its origin to an Abenaki word meaning "eaters of raw meat." Though modern linguists speculate that the term may actually derive from a Montagnais word referring to the manner of lacing a snowshoe, the matter remains undecided"

Jeeyon Shim, dirt goblin on Twitter - "A friend on Facebook posted about how Emily Dickinson used the common meter and so her poems can all be sung to the tune of the Pokemon theme song and —
Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.
We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility –"

Study: African-Americans More Likely to Have Bad Credit - "Caucasians earning less than $25,000 per year were likely to have better credit scores than African-Americans earning between $65,000 and $75,000 per year.Overall, the study found 27 percent of all credit reports belonging to Caucasians were poor, compared to 48 percent of those belonging to African-Americans. Only 28 percent of Hispanics were found to have bad credit. The study involved 80,000 individuals. Researchers assigned a rating of “bad” to anyone who had two bills past due by more than 30 days in the past two years, a single bill past due by 90 days or more, a judgment against them, a lien against them or a bankruptcy... Researchers speculate differing cultural attitudes, familial resources and even world views may contribute.Although credit reporting is supposed to be free of prejudice, some researchers said the system may be inherently stacked against minorities.However, no conclusive evidence has been presented to justify any of these theories or speculations."
Of course, liberals will just call this redlining and call the algorithm racist. Apparently Hispanics have "whiteness"

The Funniest Vanity Plates Rejected by the California DMV - "Applicants are required to fill out a form listing the personalized plate they desire, along with a brief explanation as to why they want it. Whether or not the plate sees the light of day falls to a panel of four beleaguered bureaucrats, who weed through the slush pile and ferret out requests that are racist, tawdry, or otherwise offensive. It’s a tougher job than you might think. Ever since vanity plates were introduced in 1972, Californians have tried sneaking all manner of sly euphemisms and overt obscenities past the department’s guardians of civility... While “box” is generally rejected as a “vagina reference,” the DMV will allow it on a plate if the customer owns “a ‘Box’ type vehicle such as a Scion or a Porsche Boxster.” Similarly, only cars built in 1969 can use the number 69 on their plates...
BEMYBAE
Applicant Explanation: In remembrance of me and my girlfriend’s anniversary. Meaning be my bae, before anyone else.
DMV Comments: Bae=Poop in Danish
Verdict: No...
SCHLAFR
Applicant Explanation: Schlafer is German for sleeper.
DMV Comments: Also means sleeper in the sense of an inactive agent or terrorist (Wikipedia)
Verdict: No
BMWHNTR
Applicant Explanation: Playful joke
DMV Comments: BMW hunter, he has an Audi. So he’s hunting down BMW drivers?
Verdict: No
ONW2BYB Applicant Explanation: On my way to bang your bitch
DMV Comments: What he said
Verdict: No
HUF4RTD
Applicant Explanation: Have unwavering faith (4) respect the Day
DMV Comments: Who farted
Verdict: No
DICKOUT
Applicant Explanation: Celebration of my son moving out of the house
DMV Comments: Dick
Verdict: No...
DCKXTSN
Applicant Explanation: I’m the extension of my dad. My father’s name is “Dick” and I was named after him
DMV Comments: Dick extension. Customer’s name is Brant
Verdict: No...
808B8D
Applicant Explanation: The lettering and numbers in this plate are the same as a chest my grama left me when she passed away.
DMV Comments: Looks similar to a text penis.
Verdict: No...
FUKTRMP
Applicant Explanation: Funky trumpet in the funk music genre
DMV Comments: Fuck Trump
Verdict: No...
TUNAFSH
Applicant Explanation: I’m a professional fisherman and I fish for tuna all over the world.
DMV Comments: I Googled him. He is and he does
Verdict: No...
S8TAN
Applicant Explanation: Saint Anne is an important historical figure, and someone who I model my life after.
DMV Comments: Satan
Verdict: Yes"

Here's the list of licence plates Ontario doesn't want on the road - "The most common rejections were related to clarity and readability, plates which the province deems too difficult to read. A large part of these rejections were related to plates using numbers to spell a phrase instead of letters... References to the pandemic were also rejected... Plates are rejected for a number of reasons from being too political, too sexual or too violent to religious grounds and derogatory slang."

ryan cooper on Twitter - "sales of mega-pickups, which have basically been deliberately designed to intimidate and kill pedestrians, are booming"
Major projection going on here

A Big Pile of Bak Chor Mee

A Big Pile of Bak Chor Mee by Tse Hao Guang

I will arise and go now, and eat my bak chor mee,
And a big chili crab meal, all served with extra buns:
Nine chwee kuehs will I have there, with space for my bubble tea;
And live alone on my ghee-soaked naan.

And I’ll slurp xiao long bao there, its zhup comes dripping slow,
Dripping from the folds of the dumpling to where my gullet gapes;
There otak dares to travel, and laksa loves to flow,
And ayam penyet cannot escape.

I will arise and go now, for I am sibei suay,
I hear old hawkers shouting their orders at my door;
While I stare at this chow mein, this fortune cookie tray,
I hear them in the fresh bak chor.

Links - 12th May 2021 (1)

The Meme Policeman - Posts - "This meme claims that the electoral college was the South’s idea and was implemented to help slave states. This is dubious at best.
-During the Constitutional Convention in 1787, there was significant division over how to elect the president. Initially, some delegates did propose a direct election by the people. This was championed by James Madison, a southerner, and two northerners (James Wilson and Gouverneur Morris).
-However, this proposal was roundly rejected by the convention, and not because of slavery. One of the most outspoken members against direct election was Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, who feared that demagoguery could result in a monarch in a direct election, a common fear at the time. Most of the delegates, north and south, preferred an indirect election of the president...
-When it first took shape, the Electoral College wouldn’t have helped the South significantly. Under the initial apportionment of the of the House, the slaveholding states would have held 39 out of 92 electoral votes, or about 42%. Based on the 1790 census, about 41% of the nation’s total white population lived in those same states, a tiny difference...
-Once decided, the Electoral College was met with general satisfaction and received little resistance from the state ratifying conventions. Northerners and anti-slavery proponents defended it, like Alexander Hamilton did in Federalist No. 68. It was, perhaps naively, held up by most as a way to ensure virtuous people made the decision instead of the mob. As Hamilton put it, the EC was “most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated negotiations.”
-Ironically, it was the anti-slavery John Quincy Adams who first benefited from the system, when he won despite losing the popular (and electoral) vote to Andrew Jackson in 1824 (the House decided the election since neither had a majority). It was pro-slavery Jackson who became one of history’s most prominent critics of the EC, lambasting it for preventing the people “to express their own will.”
-The EC made no difference in deciding the presidency during the 36 years before the Civil War. Except in 1860, Lincoln had 39.9% of the vote (in a 4 person race) but won a crushing victory in electoral votes. Many in the South ran the numbers and realized the North would be able to continually crush them with the EC and quickly stampeded to secession."
Everything liberals don't like (e.g. punctuality and politeness) is linked to "Racism" and "White Supremacy"

Tom O'Halloran - "Veteran: One Day
Man with dicks stuck on him: A whole month"
"This says so much about what is wrong with our country."

Jacobin on Twitter - "We shouldn’t fetishize mom and pops. They offer lower wages, skimpier benefits, and inferior labor protections."
Since Communists want the government to take over everything, this is consistent

Opinion | ‘Mr. Jones’ and the deadly consequences of shoddy journalism - The Washington Post - "Stalin was undoubtedly the general leading this crime against humanity, but he had lieutenants. And not all were Russian. Foremost among them was Walter Duranty (Peter Sarsgaard), the New York Times’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Man in Moscow.” Duranty was fond of saying the Soviet experiment required sacrifice — omelets and broken eggs and all that — and spent his decades-long career lying to the people of the United States about the extent of Soviet atrocities in Ukraine and elsewhere... Duranty retains the Pulitzer he won for his dishonest reporting that helped cover up the deaths of millions. Perhaps it’s time that changed"

Washington Post settles Nicholas Sandmann defamation lawsuit in Covington Catholic High School controversy - "The Washington Post is the latest news organization to settle a defamation lawsuit launched by Covington Catholic High School student Nicholas Sandmann over its botched coverage of a viral confrontation with a Native American elder that had portrayed the Kentucky teen as the aggressor... This follows the multi-million dollar settlement CNN made with the teenager back in January. Sandmann offered a not-so-subtle warning to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey... Attorney Todd McMurtry previously told Fox News that lawsuits against “as many as 13 other defendants" would be filed.Among them: ABC, CBS, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, NPR, Slate, The Hill, and Gannett which owns the Cincinnati Enquirer, as well as miscellaneous other small outfits, according to McMurtry. Separate lawsuits against the Washington Post and NBC have already been filed"

Personal news: why I’m now leaving MSNBC - "July 24th was my last day at MSNBC.  I don’t know what I’m going to do next exactly but I simply couldn’t stay there anymore.  My colleagues are very smart people with good intentions.  The problem is the job itself.  It forces skilled journalists to make bad decisions on a daily basis... It’s possible that I’m more sensitive to the editorial process due to my background in public radio, where no decision I ever witnessed was predicated on how a topic or guest would “rate.”  The longer I was at MSNBC, the more I saw such choices — it’s practically baked in to the editorial process – and those decisions affect news content every day.  Likewise, it’s taboo to discuss how the ratings scheme distorts content, or it’s simply taken for granted, because everyone in the commercial broadcast news industry is doing the exact same thing.But behind closed doors, industry leaders will admit the damage that’s being done... this cancer stokes national division, even in the middle of a civil rights crisis.  The model blocks diversity of thought and content because the networks have incentive to amplify fringe voices and events, at the expense of others… all because it pumps up the ratings.This cancer risks human lives, even in the middle of a pandemic.  The primary focus quickly became what Donald Trump was doing (poorly) to address the crisis, rather than the science itself.  As new details have become available about antibodies, a vaccine, or how COVID actually spreads, producers still want to focus on the politics.  Important facts or studies get buried... Context and factual data are often considered too cumbersome for the audience. There may be some truth to that (our education system really should improve the critical thinking skills of Americans) – but another hard truth is that it is the job of journalists to teach and inform, which means they might need to figure out a better way to do that... they use this subjective nature of the news to justify economically beneficial decisions. I’ve even heard producers deny their role as journalists. A very capable senior producer once said: “Our viewers don’t really consider us the news. They come to us for comfort.”
Libertarians would blame government regulation for the market leading to the poor quality of media coverage
Liberals will just bash Fox News and other 'conservative' media for being terrible and pretend the liberal media is great

Journalism's Death by a Thousand Tweets e - "Imagine you want to create a digital platform that will both destroy—or, at the very least, seriously enfeeble—the journalism profession, and simultaneously make you a vast amount of money. How should you do it?Well, first you should ensure that the primary goal of your platform has absolutely nothing to do with the stated goals of the journalism profession... Then you should try to get as many journalists to use your platform as much as possible... Perhaps the most necessary feature, however, is also the most subtle: This new platform should offer a veneer of journalistic utility... every conceivable step must be taken to mitigate the possibility of genuine conversation or meaningful, journalistically relevant user interaction taking place. In particular—and to give some possible examples—users should only be exposed to opinions, articles, and facts to which they want to be exposed; the rapid dissemination of “breaking news” should be encouraged, ideally without the requirement (or even the possibility) of context, fact-checking, assessment of genuine newsworthiness, or indeed any kind of editorial curation whatsoever; conversations should be fully surveilled, sometimes censored, and encouraged to take place in full view of everyone, thus limiting the possibility of the private exploration of alternative, non-mainstream viewpoints; empathy, sympathy, and face-to-face engagement should be actively discouraged, if not rendered impossible by the platform’s design interface, while hatred, tribalism, and outrage should be fostered and encouraged (this will have the added benefit of maximising user engagement, thus allowing you to sell your users even more ads); and, perhaps most importantly, the “conversations” themselves should be severely circumscribed, so as to prevent the possibility of genuine nuance and deep reflection taking place (by, for example, limiting the number of characters you’re allowed to type). Such a veneer will allow you to rebut accusations that your platform is perniciously habit-forming and seriously deleterious to the health of the individual, the journalism profession, and wider society. As the reader will undoubtedly already have guessed, such a platform—or at least something very close to it—already exists: It is called Twitter... While Twitter’s global impact and reach is undoubtedly enormous, its impact on the journalism profession has been seismic. At present, almost a quarter (24.6 percent) of Twitter’s authenticated users are journalists or news organisations; journalists are also the platform’s most active users by profession (as measured by follower ratios and number of tweets). More than a quarter (27 percent) of journalists turn to Twitter as their first source of news, and 83 percent regard it as their most valuable social media platform. A staggering 96 percent of journalists use the platform on a weekly basis, and 90 percent claim that they wish to maintain or increase their engagement with Twitter in the near future. Indeed, such has been the outsized influence of journalists on the platform that they were singled out for special mention and thanks in a series of tweets by the company’s billionaire CEO, Jack Dorsey, on Twitter’s ninth birthday... The journalist Jeff Jarvis has made the astonishing claim that refusing to use Twitter (or other social platforms like Facebook) is a reflection of one’s (journalistic) privilege and harmful to historically disenfranchised communities... What is encouraging, however, is that a growing number of journalists are becoming sceptical—even overtly hostile—to the role Twitter plays in the journalism profession... journalism as a profession now largely takes place by virtue of—and is, in fact, almost entirely mediated and governed by—a largely unaccountable corporate advertising and surveillance behemoth, the goals and values of which are antithetical to journalism, traditionally understood. All of which raises an obvious question: Why are journalists so enamoured of Twitter?"

Viral Racist Videos Gone Wild. A disturbing “Karen” clip drives home the dangers of caught-on-camera “everyday racism” exposés - "A Twitter video clip that has been retweeted over 85,000 times shows a woman cowering, whimpering and shrieking in terror while a man taunts and berates her, apparently for cutting him off in traffic and flipping him the bird. And the man, who filmed the video and put it online, is meant to be the good guy. The maker of the video, Karlos Dillard — a self-described entertainer and public speaker who is black—claimed that the woman, whom he mockingly addressed as “Karen,” had also used a racial slur... Dillard seemed to be far more concerned about the woman cutting him off and flipping him off than about the supposed racial slur. There were more red flags, such as several other videos in which Dillard accused white or Asian women of racist verbal abuse but the alleged abuse always happened off-camera. And, most damning, a video in which Dillard and his husband Kris openly discussed “laying traps for racism” by provoking confrontations and falsely accusing people of saying or doing something racist, on the assumption that those who don’t protest their innocence are essentially pleading no contest to racism because, deep down, they know they’ve been caught. (Or something like that.)... ultimately, there are two plausible scenarios. One: the entire thing was a self-promoting setup. (It’s worth noting that as soon as the video went viral, Dillard tried to literally cash in on it by selling T-shirts.) Two: the woman was a bad and rude driver, but Dillard blew up a routine and non-racial traffic spat into a racial incident. Either way, this does not look good for him...
This is far from the first viral racism video to push a false or dubious narrative. Others include:
The “MAGA hat kids” vs. the Native American elder
The “napping while black” scandal at Yale
The Chipotle “racist” who was vindicated
The mobbing of “Crosswalk Cathy”
The infamy of “Barbecue Becky”...
viral racist outrage videos have an ugly side, too. They can be used to target people who are mentally ill and hold them up for public ridicule and cruel entertainment— a modern version, one might say, of the freak shows of times past. They can be used for grift and revenge. They can promote racial polarization more than understanding, encouraging the assumption that every interracial conflict is about race. And they can causes serious harm to their targets."
Of course, to liberals only Andy Ngo counts as a grifter, since he pierces their narrative despite having multiple oppressed group identities

A Few Terms We Aren't Using Anymore (And Why) - "CNN also compiled a list of words and expressions with racist roots. Among them: cakewalk, peanut gallery, blacklist, and grandfathered in. We’re adding these to our banned words list. And a reader pointed out that using the phrase “we discovered the work of so-and-so” is problematic. You won’t hear that sort of colonialist phrasing from us anymore either."
The left, as usual, takes 1984 as an instruction manual

Lucas Lynch - "Obama refusing to endorse Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush, Paula Jean Swearengin, and the many other community organizers who are from our grassroots Democratic family says all you need to know about @DNC Establishment."
"Yes, it says that neither Obama nor the DNC are anti-Semites nor identitarian leftists, and are interested in winning an election.Good on them for not endorsing these far-left deplorables. "

ROBERT HARDMAN: Now THAT'S a royal example to follow! - "After a week she would rather forget – on the back of twelve months we would all rather forget – the Queen deserves a spot of good news. Yesterday, that walked through the Sovereign's Entrance to Windsor Castle in the form of the Duke of Edinburgh.Having spent four weeks in two hospitals, the duke was finally back in his own bed last night, much to the relief of the entire castle. For this is not just home to the Queen and the duke but to a community of around 300 – clergy, curators, military, musicians and their families. And everyone there is acutely aware of the debt this place owes to the duke.When much of it burned down in 1992, it was the duke who ran the monumental restoration scheme. Beyond the castle walls, the entire estate has been transformed by him. One of the first things the Queen did on acceding to the throne was to appoint the duke as Ranger of the Great Park. His handiwork is everywhere... We have heard a lot in recent days from two former Windsor residents who found the royal existence a burden so intolerable that they felt impelled to emigrate. Yet Prince Philip endured rather more hostility than a spat about who made who cry at a dress fitting.'They were absolutely bloody to him. They patronised him. They treated him as an outsider,' his friend, Lord Brabourne (married to the duke's cousin Patricia Mountbatten) revealed many years later. As the duke himself once acknowledged to his friend Gyles Brandreth: 'I was told 'keep out' and that was that. I tried to find useful things to do.'He got on with his primary duty of supporting his spouse – at state occasions and on royal tours – and, at the same time, threw himself into making a difference. In his case, he did it through actions rather than words. It is true that he was the first member of the family to give a television interview.In his case, though, it was not to dwell on himself. It was a discussion of 'Commonwealth technical training week' with the BBC's Richard Dimbleby. That was in 1961."
Unlike Meghan Markle he can't make unfounded allegations of racism, so too bad