Links - 20th December 2022 (1 - George Floyd Unrest: Derek Chauvin Trial)

Prof: High court’s denial of public defender for Derek Chauvin could add fuel to his appeal - "The fact that the Minnesota Supreme Court on Wednesday denied Derek Chauvin’s request for a public defender could become the basis for yet another appeal question, according to a law professor.  “If he has to get the case all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, this will become one of the issues in addition to any other appeal questions he tries to preserve,” said University of Minnesota Law School professor David Schultz. “He may allege that he couldn't get a fair appeal because they didn't provide a public defender.”  Schulz was responding to a critic's post on Twitter stating that ‘The Boston Bomber had 5 public defenders.’   “The Boston bomber was a death penalty case and I wonder if they gave him more public defenders because of the death penalty,” Schultz told Legal Newsline. “Second, maybe the Minnesota courts are turning their back on Derek Chauvin, which may eventually factor into an appeal.”"

Derek Chauvin Jurors Say It Was What He ‘Didn’t Do’ That Led To Guilty Verdict - "The jury in the Derek Chauvin trial was initially divided on whether to find him guilty of murdering George Floyd, but was ultimately persuaded by what he “didn’t do” during the arrest--as opposed to the now-infamous images of the former cop kneeling on Floyd’s neck... Juror Nicole Deters said four or five people were leaning toward “not guilty” or undecided for the third-degree murder charge until fellow juror Jodi Doud highlighted that its requirement of intended harm could come from Chauvin not providing life support instead of his restraint of Floyd during the arrest... "I brought up the fact that this is not what he did but more or less what he didn’t do,” Doud recalled. “He didn’t provide life saving measures for George Floyd when he knew that the guy was in pain or needed medical attention.”"

George Floyd killing: defense rests case after Derek Chauvin declines to testify - "the defence’s leading medical expert, Dr David Fowler, also introduced the idea that carbon monoxide from vehicle exhaust contributed to Floyd’s death.  And on Thursday, the judge allowed the prosecution to recall one of its key witnesses, Dr Martin Tobin, to rebut Fowler’s testimony.  Tobin challenged Fowler’s assertion that the level of carboxyhemoglobin in Floyd’s blood – carbon monoxide attached to protein which displaces oxygen – was between 10% and 18% which would have contributed to heart failure.  “I believe it is not reliable,” said Tobin.  Tobin said tests showed Floyd’s blood oxygen saturation was 98%, leaving just 2% for “everything else”.  Last week, Tobin, a pulmonologist, told the trial that Chauvin and the other officers caused Floyd’s death by cutting his oxygen supply which caused brain damage and his heart to stop"
98% blood oxygen means he can't have died from carbon monoxide poisoning, but it also means he died from a lack of oxygen

George Floyd Trial: Final State Witnesses Give Testimony as Trial Nears End - "“Hypothetically, there are undoubtedly people who have died from coronary events with 90% blockages, or without blockages. In a hypothetical case, somebody who has any extent of coronary heart disease including the descriptions you just gave could actually die.”
Referring to methamphetamine, Nelson asked Dr Rich if the drug was a vaso-constrictor. Dr Rich agreed, stating that methamphetamine “narrows the [vessels] down more” and he would never recommend anybody taking the drug recreationally. Additionally, Nelson directed Dr Rich to elaborate on a number of other topics. On the effects of adrenaline, Dr Rich stated:
    “Adrenaline, which is the lay term for catecholamines, gets the heart to pump more blood. When we go and exercise, the purpose of adrenaline is so we can run and we can jump, and we ask the heart to allow us to do that.”
On Mr Floyd’s resistance to being placed in the squad car, Dr Rich conceded:
    “Had he not been restrained in the way in which he was, I think he would have survived that day.”
However, Dr Rich agreed with Nelson that “in an ordinary individual,” the prone position is not inherently dangerous."

At the heart of Derek Chauvin’s trial is this question: What killed George Floyd? - The Washington Post - "According to notes of a meeting between Baker and prosecutors that have been filed as evidence in the case, the medical examiner told them that if Floyd had been “found dead at home alone and no other apparent causes,” it would have been “acceptable” to call his death an overdose. But, Baker added, “I am not saying this killed him.”... Baker also told prosecutors he found “no bruising” on Floyd’s neck or damage to muscles or the structure around the neck, a detail the defense cites as proof Chauvin had not intended to “inflict harm” on Floyd.  “Mr. Chauvin was cautious about the amount of pressure he used to restrain Mr. Floyd — cautious enough to prevent bruising,” his attorney wrote."

Medical examiner who performed George Floyd's autopsy is NOT in line with experts' testimony - "The Chief Medical Examiner who carried out George Floyd's autopsy has stated that he did not find the cause of death to be asphyxia or low oxygen levels and that he did not believe that Chauvin's knee was on Floyd's neck for 'the majority' of the time.  In a massive departure from the prosecution's contention Hennepin County Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Andrew Baker said, 'In my impression from the video it would appear that Mr. Chauvin's knee was primarily on the back, on the side or the area in between Mr. Floyd's neck (and back).' Under cross examination Friday afternoon Dr. Baker told the court that asphyxia was 'a very common cause' of the deaths that he had seen across 2,900 to 3,000 autopsies but it was not the conclusion that he came to before, or after, having seen the videos of the incident on May 25, 2020. In a startlingly brief direct questioning by Jerry Blackwell, Dr. Baker told the court that Floyd died because being pinned down on the ground with his neck compressed was, 'just more than he could take,' given his severe underlying heart disease. Asked if, in his opinion, the positioning of Chauvin's knee would cut off Floyd's oxygen supply, Dr. Baker said, 'In my opinion it would not.'  In his view, he said, 'It was the stress of that interaction that tipped him over the edge given his underlying heart disease and his toxicological status... As to toxicology, Dr. Baker said that in other circumstances he would consider the levels of fentanyl in Floyd's bloodstream to be 'lethal.'  As for methamphetamine Dr. Baker said, 'All other things being equal methamphetamine is not good if you have bad coronary arteries.'  It was not, he said, something that he would want to see in the blood of someone who had heart disease"

Derek Chauvin Defense Shows Video Clip To Suggest Officer Knelt On George Floyd’s Shoulder—Not His Neck

Chelsea Handler Blasted for Suggesting Derek Chauvin Trial Be Skipped - "Handler described the trial as “pathetic” before suggesting a video of the event should suffice to prove his guilt... Handler suggested all murder trials be “skipped” when a video is available... “Handler is a reminder of how the Constitution protects the individuals from the masses as well as from the government,” wrote yet another Twitter user.  “So she defends to her death racist bigot Louis Farrakhan. But doesn’t want a police officer accused of a major crime to have full exercise his Constitutional rights as an American. Yup, that’s Chelsea Handler in a nutshell,” attorney and political commentator Debbie Schlussel tweeted...   “A major problem with wokeness is that performative woke whites become so addicted to the narrative that it creates a spiral of virtue signaling, leading to insane stuff like this,” Senior Research Analyst for The Club for Growth Andrew Follett wrote.  “I’m honestly not sure what’s more disturbing, if Handler really has gone full ‘people whom I think are guilty don’t deserve trials’ or if she’s ‘just’ feels compelled to say that to maintain woke ‘street cred’ with her fellow deranged Libs in a race to the bottom,” he added.  Handler has a history of irresponsible and inflammatory statements.  In October, Handler stoked anti-law enforcement sentiment by claiming black men and women are “regularly murdered by police” in the United States.  In May, Handler blamed “the racist right” for rising extremism and hate by leftists, saying those who “think … murder is reasonable” should “vote Republican.”  Last February, Handler was criticized after falsely suggesting former President Donald Trump only exonerates or pardons white people, despite him having chosen blacks and Native Americans for clemency."
Of course, if someone were to suggest convicting black men based on video footage without a trial...

BLM activist: 'All hell' will break loose and buildings will burn 'if George Floyd's murderer is not sentenced' - "A Black Lives Matter activist with roughly a half-million followers on social media warned that “all hell” will break loose if former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is not convicted of killing George Floyd.  "If George Floyd's murderer is not sentenced, just know that all hell is gonna break loose," model and social media influencer Maya Nichols posted on TikTok this week. "Don't be surprised when buildings are on fire. Just sayin'.""
Trying to subvert the legal process to obtain the Correct(TM) result is good

Chauvin Trial: Witness Defends Former Officer's Restraint Of George Floyd : Live Updates: Trial Over George Floyd's Killing - "  Brodd described the position in which Floyd was restrained — facedown on the ground — as being safest for officers and suspect. And he added that holding a person in that position does not make it more dangerous.  "If the officer is justified in using the prone control, the maintaining of the prone control is not a use of force. It's a control technique," he testified.  "It doesn't hurt."... Brodd said it is a safe position for suspects who may be in danger of vomiting because they are already facedown so nothing can obstruct the airway.  Officers, he said, are often told that if a person can vocalize that they can't breathe, they often can."
Somehow NPR is taking on the role of the prosecution, dedicating most of the article to questioning the witness

Derek Chauvin trial: Ex-cop did NOT use deadly force against George Floyd, police says - "Brodd said that he taught officers to keep suspects who are under the influence of drugs handcuffed at all times because they can be unpredictable, going almost instantaneously from compliant to non-compliant, may have super-human strength and may not respond to normal control techniques.  He said that under such circumstances an officer can 'find themselves in a fight for their life in a heartbeat'.  Given Floyd's level of resistance, Brodd said that in his view the officers could have justifiably used higher levels of force than they did in their efforts to get him into the back of the squad. He was the second witness to express this view. The state's use of force expert Sgt Stiger said that at that stage he thought they could have reached for their tazers... the jury was shown new footage of Floyd's friends watching his fatal arrest outside the Cup Foods store on May 25, 2020.   The video was recorded by a body-camera worn by Minneapolis Park Police Officer Peter Chang, who arrived on the scene after fellow officers had already confronted Floyd.    It showed for the first time the reaction of Floyd's friends Morries Hall and Shawanda Hill, who were both in the car with him that day.   Chang kept and eye on Hall and Hill as they watched officers struggle to get Floyd into a squad car from across the street.    Hill can be clearly heard saying: 'Damn he still won't get into the car. Just sit down man!...they got to fight him.'  Hall responds: 'That's fing resistance man.'... Minneapolis Police Department Medical Support Coordinator Nicole MacKenzie made her second appearance on the stand directly before the court broke for lunch.  When appearing as a state witness last week, MacKenzie gave her opinion that treating a person under the eyes of a crowd, hostile or otherwise, 'is incredibly difficult'. She also told the court about 'excited delirium', saying that it could give a person, 'super-human' strength... a potential gap in prosecutors' case appeared Friday when Hennepin County's chief medical examiner, Dr Andrew Baker, stated that he did not find the cause of death to be asphyxia or low oxygen levels and that he did not believe that Chauvin's knee was on Floyd's neck for 'the majority' of the time.    In a massive departure from the prosecution's contention, Baker said: 'In my impression from the video it would appear that Mr. Chauvin's knee was primarily on the back, on the side or the area in between Mr. Floyd's neck (and back).'   The medical examiner told the court that Floyd died because being pinned down on the ground with his neck compressed was, 'just more than he could take,' given his severe underlying heart disease.   Nelson was at pains to challenge the medical experts findings that the drug amounts detected in Floyd either were small or that people had survived significantly higher levels.   He also frequently framed questions to include the phrase 'illicit drugs', pointed out there's no legal reason for a person to have methamphetamine in their system, and asked one witness whether he agreed that the number of deaths of people mixing meth and fentanyl had risen. The drug issue came to the forefront of the case when the prosecution called its first 'spark of life' witness, Floyd's girlfriend Courteney Ross. Ross testified that both she and Floyd were hooked on opioids and fought hard to get clean together, but that Floyd slipped back into the habit around two months before his death. The second 'spark of life' witness, Floyd's younger brother Philonise Floyd, took the stand on Monday and described the man he knew as a son, a sibling and a father. Philonise broke down in tears as the jury was shown photos of Floyd in various stages of his life"
Liberals mock those who point out how criminal behavior leads to thugs getting shot, yet they gush about tributes to the same thugs (which is totally irrelevant to whether police use of force was unjustified)

Derek Chauvin defense begins case with video of 2019 arrest - "defense attorney Eric Nelson called a now-retired Minneapolis police officer and asked him to describe his interaction with Floyd on May 6, 2019 — a move aimed at showing Floyd’s evasive behavior and compare his actions to what transpired in May 2020."

Chauvin defense argues George Floyd swallowed drugs as police approached. - "The Chauvin defense contends that Floyd overdosed after hurriedly ingesting the pills he had on him when he was approached by Chauvin and other officers on May 25th because he had a history of doing just that. The defense is simultaneously trying to sow doubt about different technical aspects of the arrest that resulted in Chauvin kneeling on Floyd for more than nine minutes. The defense asserts: Chauvin was, in fact, following police procedure during the arrest and that his use of force was appropriate because it was prolonged by a hostile crowd surrounding the scene; that Chauvin could have reasonably believed Floyd was not in respiratory distress because he was able to speak; and that it’s not totally clear Chauvin actually did apply pressure to Floyd’s neck for the full nine-and-a-half minutes, rather that a closer reading of the footage indicates neck constriction was sporadic during the arrest. Floyd’s drug use, and thus the potential to argue that he overdosed, was at the heart of the testimony of McKenzie Anderson, a forensic scientist who processed the squad car that Floyd was briefly held in the night he died. A second search of the vehicle, requested by Chauvin’s defense lawyers in January, eight months after Floyd’s death, turned up fragments of pills that Anderson had not found in the initial search the night of Floyd’s death. The pills had DNA on them that matched Floyd’s. A toxicology report done after Floyd’s death found there was methamphetamine and fentanyl in his system, both of which tests showed were in the recovered pills"

Defense Attorney Predicts Chauvin Will Be Acquitted After Jurors Learn George Floyd Died Of Fentanyl Overdose - "Woodson began by noting that, in a last minute move, the prosecution is now charging Chauvin with third degree murder. They brought back the third degree murder charge because the second degree was imploding,” said Woodson. “It’s a Hail Mary, they knew that the case wasn’t supporting the facts.”...   “It’s interesting because if you look at Minneapolis and their manual, he was following textbook, exactly how they’re trained,” said Woodson. Peters, who spent years apprehending dangerous fugitives in partnership with law enforcement in Minneapolis, elaborated on the tactics used by Chauvin.  “This is part of Minneapolis procedures, use of force training, it’s in their policy. This is a lateral neck restraint, commonly referred to as an LNR, LVNR, or VNR, a lateral vascular neck restraint, which in this case was more of just a straight vascular neck restraint,” Peters explained. “It restricts blood flow to the brain, but does not commonly result in death. As a matter of fact, there are no cases where it’s proven that this restraint has caused any death.”...   Woodson went on to suggest that the Minneapolis prosecutors likely felt political pressure from the media and local elected officials to “over charge” in the case, regardless of the reality of Floyd’s death.  “With these very high profile cases, where you see, a lot of times the prosecution will over charge, because they have to politically,” said Woodson. “This whole country changed because of, supposedly, because of George Floyd. The whole country.”  “We’ve gone through this whole metamorphosis now, where we’re embroiled in the French Revolution.” Woodson elaborated, “If the premise of this, ie the murder of George Floyd, isn’t a murder, and it is an actual overdose, then you’ve got that whole narrative now flipped, and we’ve got to question, now, the last year.”"

Alternate juror on Chauvin trial was 'concerned about people' coming to her house 'if they were not happy with the verdict' - "Lisa Christensen, a resident of the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center, took to an interview on Thursday to discuss her role as an alternate juror in the trial of Derek Chauvin, as well as her general thoughts on the trial and verdict... she did not want Minneapolis "to go through rioting and destruction again.""
Clearly an unbiased verdict

REVEALED: Chauvin juror who promised judge impartiality now says people should join juries ‘to spark some change', wore BLM shirt in 2020 - "A juror on the Derek Chauvin trial who told the court that he had no prior knowledge of the George Floyd civil case was photographed last August wearing a shirt that read “Get your knee off our necks” and “BLM.” He stated last week that he saw jury duty as a means to “spark some change.” Juror #52, now identified as Brandon Mitchell, reportedly told Judge Cahill on March 15 that he had no prior knowledge of the case prior to being summoned for jury duty... In a Facebook post dated August 31, 2020, Brandon Mitchell was pictured (seen below) wearing a shirt with the words “Get your knee off our necks” and “BLM,” which is short for Black Lives Matter. This would directly contradict his claim that he had no prior knowledge of the case."

Photo of Chauvin juror wearing BLM T-shirt at march raises doubts over impartiality, experts say - "Mitchell said he responded “no” to the question if he, or anyone close to him, had ever participated in protests about police use of force or police brutality."

Liberals melt down on social media after mainstream media reports on Chauvin juror's bias - "Author David Steele was among those who didn't think Mitchell's lack of impartiality was a concern. The account of a self-described life-long Democrat had words for WaPo that they basically shouldn't have published the story at all. Hundreds of comments flooded in saying that Mitchell's apparent bias was "truth." Others seemed to think that a fair trial is not as important as other concerns, such as saying that calling out a juror's bias is actually white supremacist. The Washington Post picked up a story from conservative press that a juror in the Derek Chauvin trial likely had a previous bias toward ruling in the state's favor, and triggered liberals couldn't hold back their horror. Advertisement  Author David Steele was among those who didn't think Mitchell's lack of impartiality was a concern. The account of a self-described life-long Democrat had words for WaPo that they basically shouldn't have published the story at all. Hundreds of comments flooded in saying that Mitchell's apparent bias was "truth."  Others seemed to think that a fair trial is not as important as other concerns, such as saying that calling out a juror's bias is actually white supremacist. Some seemed to think that the very notion that a person could be impartial was just silly anyway, so it hardly matters if a juror says they are impartial or not. Still others seemed to believe that the evidence was do damning a fair trial wasn't in order in the first place."

3 women arrested after pig's blood strewn on Chauvin defense witness old home - "Three women have been arrested for allegedly vandalizing the one-time Northern California home of a former police officer who testified on behalf of the officer convicted of killing George Floyd by splashing pig blood on it and leaving a pig’s head near the front porch.  Rowan Dalbey, 20, Kristen Aumoithe, 34, and Amber Lucas, 35, all of Santa Rosa, were arrested Tuesday on felony vandalism and conspiracy charges... After targeting home on April 17, the women also allegedly smeared pig blood on a large hand statue in Santa Rosa Plaza and left a picture of a pig reading "Oink Oink."...   The home in the city north of San Francisco once belonged to Barry Brodd, a retired police officer who was on the stand in the murder trial against former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin."
I'm sure the jurors felt safe too

Corporate America Virtue Signaling After Chauvin Murder Conviction

Nolte: Biden and Waters Deliberately Sought Mistrial in Derek Chauvin Case - "After it became obvious former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin would be convicted of murdering George Floyd, Democrats Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) and His Fraudulency Joe Biden timed their respective outbursts hoping there would be a mistrial, which would usher in a new wave of Black Lives Matter riots.   Just as the case was about to go to the jury, Waters stood at Ground Zero — Brooklyn Center, Minnesota — and said there must be more intense violence — even more intense than the endless riots we saw last year after Floyd’s murder — if Chauvin was not convicted of first-degree murder. Chauvin was not even charged with first-degree murder.  Then, a few days later, while the jury was deliberating, His Fraudulency used the bully pulpit of the presidency to demand a guilty verdict... You see, the worst thing that can happen to the racial arsonists that have captured the Democrat Party is the system working, and Biden, Waters, and the vile corporate media that palace guard both, knew that if Chauvin was convicted it would be a shining example of the system actually working…. So they attempted to sabotage the system, to rig the trial, to deliberately behave in such an irresponsible and outrageous way a mistrial would be declared. Naturally, a mistrial would “prove” the system is rigged and justify an unholy wave of left-wing political terrorism across every Democrat-run city in the country.  Sadly, this is still not over…  Thanks to Biden and Waters, Chauvin’s convictions might very well be overturned on appeal and a new trial ordered. If that happens, the left-wing terrorists in Black Lives Matter and Antifa will burn down Blue City after Blue City, while monsters like Biden, Waters, and the corporate media demagogue the effect of their own wicked handiwork to death...   The only good news in all this is that the only power Democrats and the corporate media have left is to burn down their own Deep Blue neighborhoods, which makes for pretty good TV out here in Rural MAGA Land — where the air and water are clean, where people of all races live together in harmony, where we all own guns and there’s no gun violence crisis or racial tensions.  If there’s a long, hot summer in America, it will only be in those Democrat-run cities getting exactly what they voted for."

Links - 18th December 2022 (2 - CBC Media Bias)

Canada's establishment media reveals its bias again | The Post Millennial - "The Canadian Press Gallery has revealed its partisanship again today. They refused to create a mandatory disclosure for their federal grants and subsidies that they sought from the Trudeau government. Blacklock's Reporter sponsored the motion that would've forced these outlets to become more transparent with the Canadian people, but they naturally rejected this. Democracy may die in darkness, but our establishment media thrives... Before the invention of the internet, the Canadian Press Gallery would become misty-eyed at the mere thought of journalistic independence. Yet, as soon as Canadians could get their news from elsewhere, they saw no issue in taking millions from a program that only the Liberal Party supports. In other words, Canada's mainstream media now has a direct conflict of interest when they report on Canadian politics. Their jobs may not survive a Conservative victory."

CBC Watch: Anti-Israel activists masquerading as journalists should get off the tax-funded payroll - "Watch out, Al Jazeera, the CBC is on your turf. When it comes to presenting a particularly one-sided view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the controversial Qatari network will have to work to keep up with the platoon of CBC activis… er, journalists, who think their taxpayer-funded network (and all news organizations) must become even more negative toward Israel than they already are... Beyond the shrill and direct attacks on Israel for being guilty of “violence against innocent civilians and children” and Palestinian “dispossession”, along with a wild stab at trying to make a Semitic conflict into something about “state sanctioned racism,” the letter is about what you would expect from the wokest activists working in journalism today: nods to diversity, the “impact of colonialism,” and the obligatory Newspeak.   On covering “issues of human rights” with more “diversity and nuance” in the wake of George Floyd and other racial issues, the Young Pioneers assert, “The work has just started.” Clearly. And while claiming that the Middle East situation is not, and should not be presented as “complicated” — since it’s plain to see how guilty Israel is — the letter-signers also demand “historical and social context.” But how much? Do we start with the 1917 Balfour Declaration, where Britain first supported renewed Jewish statehood in Palestine? The 1920 Jerusalem riots? The 1929 Hebron Massacre? Or perhaps the Arab League’s 1967 Khartoum Declaration, with its emphatic Three Nos: “no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it”? Rather than nuance, the text smacks of sophomoric simplicity.   These casual observers, steeped in the percolating leftism of journalism faculties, apply the Marx-lite, oppressor-oppressed narrative as easily to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as they do to everything else. Of course, to be fair, if you have upwards of 8,000 employees, as the CBC does, some are bound to do or say some wacky things. Amongst several notable cases, long-time radio host Michael Enright once referred to the Catholic Church as “the greatest criminal organization outside the mafia.” Little nuance there. And CBC Radio One news was always good for a few items on Nicaraguan agricultural yields or the zany antics of the Castro brothers... CBC employees who signed the open letter eventually complained to Vice news that they “were advised that they could no longer cover the (Israeli-Palestinian) issue because they signed it.” One asserted that they had signed to protest “a concerted effort within Canadian media to ‘both sides’ the conflict, despite the disproportionate power dynamics favouring Israel.” Telling both sides of a story is simply not the way it’s done in the new world of activist-journalism.   To the chagrin of some CBC staff, management appears to have been stirred into action by the kerfuffle. Vice quoted a CBC spokesman as saying that “confidential conversations” occurred with staff who signed the open letter “better (to) understand their thinking and to help them understand the impact and implications of their actions.” The CBC apparently recognizes that the journalists took “a public stand” that “has created the perception of a conflict of interest among some members of our audience.” No kidding. Despite the talking to, letter signers were reportedly not disciplined. Sources within the CBC alleged to the National Post that a couple of letter-signers even continued to be involved in overseeing coverage of Gaza afterward, despite what Vice reported...   As Gaza violence flares up again, CBC’s coverage may again be under the microscope. If their staff can’t take the heat, maybe Al Jazeera is hiring. Activist-journalists fully liberated to go after Israel, and shrinking the tax-funded payroll: That’s a win-win."

CBC journalist appears to celebrate news that Trudeau's Liberals are in 'majority territory' thanks to pandemic | The Post Millennial - "In a bizarre tweet on Thursday, CBC journalist Rosemary Barton exclaimed "Huzzah!" in response to the news that Trudeau's Liberal Party has surged in polls due to the coronavirus pandemic... Barton has  been at the centre of other controversies regarding her bias. She famously took a selfie with Justin Trudeau that was roundly mocked around the country, and she was a plaintiff in a lawsuit by the CBC against the Conservative Party during the last election."

CBC features author who writes about blowing up and gassing white people during 'race war' | The Post Millennial - "Ben Philippe appeared on Q where he discussed his newest book and racial issues in North America."

CBC cancels Alexander Graham Bell for teaching deaf kids how to communicate - "The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) published an article on Sunday accusing Alexander Graham Bell of trying to "assimilate" deaf kids by teaching oralism, a method which looks to teach deaf people to communicate with lip-reading and speaking rather than sign language... The great-great-grandson of Bell, Jim Grosvenor Watson, who works as an auditory-verbal therapist in the field of deaf education, slammed Booth for "cherry picking" facts from historical documents to back circulating theories on Bell... Watson advocated for the success of those that learned spoken language with the aid of cochlear implants, which are implanted into the inner ear and require extensive training to interpret spoken language. The group that used the implants and learned spoken language "had not only greater speech recognition and skill with spoken language, but also reading, compared to the group who solely used sign language""

CBC embarrasses itself with bizarre column by woman afraid of white voters | The Post Millennial - "An article written by an Elections Canada info officer was edited by the CBC in wake of receiving massive backlash, after author Zeahaa Rehman wrote that she lived in fear of white voters potentially hating her because she is of Muslim faith. In the article, Rehman writes that she had an interaction with an elderly white woman with a walker, with whom she had a pleasant experience with—but was struck by fear when she remembered that this old woman could, potentially, be a vehement racist... Rehman continues on to acknowledge that though this view of the world is "unhealthy," the fact that she is a visible Muslim and a South Asian woman means she sometimes needs to worry about being hated... Later, the article would be stealth edited, with Rehman's comments tweaked by the CBC"

Tara Henley: Why I quit the CBC - "For months now, I’ve been getting complaints about the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, where I’ve worked as a TV and radio producer, and occasional on-air columnist, for much of the past decade. People want to know why, for example, non-binary Filipinos concerned about a lack of LGBT terms in Tagalog is an editorial priority for the CBC, when local issues of broad concern go unreported. Or why our pop culture radio show’s coverage of the Dave Chappelle Netflix special failed to include any of the legions of fans, or comics, that did not find it offensive. Or why, exactly, taxpayers should be funding articles that scold Canadians for using words such as “brainstorm” and “lame.” Everyone asks the same thing: What is going on at the CBC?  When I started at the national public broadcaster in 2013, the network produced some of the best journalism in the country. By the time I resigned last month, it embodied some of the worst trends in mainstream media. In a short period of time, the CBC went from being a trusted source of news to churning out clickbait that reads like a parody of the student press. Those of us on the inside know just how swiftly — and how dramatically — the politics of the public broadcaster have shifted. It used to be that I was the one furthest to the left in any newsroom, occasionally causing strain in story meetings with my views on issues like the housing crisis. I am now easily the most conservative, frequently sparking tension by questioning identity politics. This happened in the span of about 18 months. My own politics did not change. To work at the CBC in the current climate is to embrace cognitive dissonance and to abandon journalistic integrity.   It is to sign on, enthusiastically, to a radical political agenda that originated on Ivy League campuses in the United States and spread through American social media platforms that monetize outrage and stoke societal divisions. It is to pretend that the “woke” worldview is near universal — even if it is far from popular with those you know, and speak to, and interview, and read. To work at the CBC now is to accept the idea that race is the most significant thing about a person, and that some races are more relevant to the public conversation than others. It is, in my newsroom, to fill out racial profile forms for every guest you book; to actively book more people of some races and less of others. To work at the CBC is to submit to job interviews that are not about qualifications or experience — but instead demand the parroting of orthodoxies, the demonstration of fealty to dogma.  It is to become less adversarial to government and corporations and more hostile to ordinary people with ideas that Twitter doesn’t like. It is to endlessly document microaggressions but pay little attention to evictions; to spotlight company’s political platitudes but have little interest in wages or working conditions. It is to allow sweeping societal changes like lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and school closures to roll out — with little debate. To see billionaires amass extraordinary wealth and bureaucrats amass enormous power — with little scrutiny. And to watch the most vulnerable among us die of drug overdoses — with little comment.  It is to consent to the idea that a growing list of subjects are off the table, that dialogue itself can be harmful. That the big issues of our time are all already settled.  It is to capitulate to certainty, to shut down critical thinking, to stamp out curiosity. To keep one’s mouth shut, to not ask questions, to not rock the boat. This, while the world burns.  How could good journalism possibly be done under such conditions? How could any of this possibly be healthy for society?  All of this raises larger questions about the direction that North America is headed...   I have been a journalist for 20 years"
Another whistleblower the left hates

GOLDSTEIN: Former CBC journalist lowers boom on its 'radical agenda' | Toronto Sun - "Henley’s complaints about the CBC have been made by conservative critics for decades. What’s different is a former CBC employee who says she’s on the political left is saying it...   Many CBC critics will not agree with Henley’s argument that when she joined it in 2013, “the network produced some of the best journalism in the country” and only recently has gone from being, “a trusted source of news, to churning out clickbait that reads like a parody for the student press.” Many would argue the CBC has been biased in favour of the federal Liberals for decades."

BREAKING: CBC producer quits, slams woke broadcaster for failing to cover issues important to Canadians | The Post Millennial - "Henley isn't the only one who has sounded the alarms over CBC's content. In an October interview with The Globe and Mail, longtime broadcaster Peter Mansbridge gave insight on where his old network has fallen short in recent times."

Jesse Kline: CBC's 18 words you can't say is the dumbest thing I've ever heard - "Top of the list: anything that includes the root word “black.” According to the CBC’s “readers and some of our journalists who are Black, Indigenous and people of colour,” words like “blackmail” and phrases like “black sheep” should be placed on the proverbial blacklist — except we can’t use that term, either. Never mind that the origins of these words don’t have anything to do with Black people. “Blackmail,” for example, originated in 16th-century Scotland, when those living on the border with England were often forced to pay money in order to avoid being raided and pillaged. Legitimate rent was paid in silver, also referred to as “white rent” or “white money,” whereas the bribes were often paid in goods or services, hence the opposite term “black rent.”  Likewise, the phrase “black sheep” simply refers to the less-common sheep with black wool, which stick out in a herd of white ones. It has nothing to do with Black people and no one who uses it in common parlance is intending to disparage those with darker skin. But none of that matters. According to professional anti-racism trainer Joseph Smith, black is more than just a shade; it “connotes evil, distrust, lack of intelligence, ignorance, a lack of beauty — the absence of white.”...   Even terms that were once staples of the left-wing lexicon are now lingua non grata. Like “first-world problem,” a phrase commonly used on the left to imply that none of our problems really matter because there are people starving in Africa and being slaughtered in the Middle East. It’s “classist,” so it has to go. So does “spirit animal,” something I’ve only ever heard come out of the mouths of hippies, and which was common among progressives just a few years ago. Turns out it’s cultural appropriation, so it’s out, too. As is anything else that could refer to Indigenous cultures. Like “lowest on the totem pole.” That’s “culturally appropriating the totem pole,” you see. Or “savage,” a word that was used to describe the Indigenous peoples of the Americas by European settlers, but means something completely different when I say that Teofimo Lopez took a savage beating in the boxing ring last weekend.  Even the word “tribe” is on the list, even though it’s part of the official names of many Indigenous bands, and was used to describe the Twelve Tribes of Israel long before Christopher Columbus set foot in the Americas. As a Jew, I guess I should be offended by this term"

CBC-TV a 'make-work project' that taxpayers 'don't take to,' Senator says | Toronto Sun - "CBC-TV has become a $1.3-billion-a year “make-work project,” producing programming Canadian taxpayers are not watching and don’t want, according to a senator. The remarks from Senator Leo Housakos were made to the Senate chamber Wednesday after reports emerged the national broadcaster was facing program cuts due to a plunge in TV ad revenues. A second quarter financial report showed ad revenues dropped 19% in six months... "At the same time, the Trudeau government is siphoning out of the pockets of taxpayers billions of dollars and showering it into that corporation"... “The role of government is to fill voids and not take taxpayers’ money and put it into make-work projects that clearly, when you look at the ratings and the ad revenue, Canadian taxpayers and the Canadian public don’t take to,” Housakos said, as reported by Blacklock’s Reporter.  “Will the government agree it’s high time and critical in the spirit of transparency to call a parliamentary inquiry and a review of CBC operations?”"

CBC objects to classic children's songs as 'racist' and 'harmful' | The Post Millennial - "A CBC provincial affairs reporter based in Edmonton has attacked the government's planned music curriculum for second grade students, asserting that many of the songs included are "racist" and "harmful."  Janet French published an article in which she asserted that "1 in 5 songs has 'racially-charged content.'" She later took to Twitter to defend her position that songs such as "Jingle Bells," "I've Been Working on the Railroad," and "Do Your Ears Hang Low" are "Eurocentric, exclude other cultures, sexist, outdated, and divorced from research." The journalist even expressed that the song "Kumbaya," a song originating from enslaved African-Americans in the antebellum South about God's salvation, may "sound harmless now" but "can be potentially harmful."... French suggested that "I've Been Working on the Railroad" should be removed from the curriculum due to its association with minstrel performances, whereby white actors would dress up in blackface to mock African-Americans, over 120 years ago. She cited an article from self-posting blog site Medium which explains that the original lyrics of the song were making fun of African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) at a time when African-Americans lacked basic rights.  The article also asserts that African-Americans "arguably still lack basic rights as Americans today." The lyrics have changed since the song's original composition, and all Americans are equal under the law.  French asserted that the song "Do Your Ears Hang Low" is also racist because it's melody, although not the lyrics, originates from the 1838 minstrel song "Zip Coon." She also claimed the nursery rhyme "A Tisket, A Tasket" is racist because one early iteration of the song included a reference to a "little darky," a derogatory reference to African-Americans. Similar to "I've Been Working on the Railroad," the racially charged lyrics are not used in modern iterations of the song. Lastly she claimed that the song "Clementine" is racist, citing a Blogspot post which alleges that it has origins in minstrel music.  The CBC journalist praised the government's removal of the song "Dixie," which she falsely described as the "anthem of the Confederacy." The Confederate States of America had no official national anthem, and the song Dixie was a popular tune on both sides of the battlefield. The song, in fact, was a favourite of President Abraham Lincoln, who played it at political events as well as at the official surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.  It is unclear why French took issue with the songs "Jingle Bells" and "Kumbaya" as "potentially harmful," although it may have to do with their religious themes... French also complained that most of the songs are English and American in origin, and that there are no Indigenous songs on the curriculum list."

Rex Murphy: CBC loses farcical lawsuit against the Conservatives, but secular moralizing will continue - "CBC management and their chief correspondent (named in the suit originally, but after very predictable embarrassments, her name was removed) sued one of Canada’s two main parties. To end your suspense, it was the Conservatives. Startling, I know.  They sued, even more startling, and this time I’m not being sarcastic, during a federal election... You do not send out your reporters in the morning to cover a politician, and then send out your lawyers in the afternoon to harass him in court. It goes against — what is that term? — the doctrine of impartiality in news coverage. They sued because the Conservatives used a fragment of a news item in one of their election ads. Political parties have been using quotes and film clips almost as long as they have been making promises and breaking them...   The main argument CBC put up, and argument in this context is a charity word, was that they launched the suit “to protect the trust Canadians have in the independence of their public broadcaster?”  Well, that’s a whole lot of icing for very little cake. If trust can be measured by ratings, Canadians are not nearly as saturated by trust in the independence of their public broadcaster as that statement presupposes. Indeed, to choose a neutral term, very many Canadians see the CBC as tendentious, absorbed in social justice issues to the exclusion of other equal concerns, as too focussed on the centre of the country, and in particular Toronto-centric to an unfathomable degree. In particular, I would argue the CBC in these latter days seems to think its “mission” is not to report on Canada, but to improve it. There is a high degree of what I’ll call secular moralizing that drives their news selection, and that moralizing enters the reporting itself... leave all the American political stories, from judicial nominations, to the “insurrection” in Washington, and anything wildly anti-Trump (recall the interviews with the one-time, Trump-slayer Michael Avenatti’) — leave all those stories to the Americans."

CBC quietly deletes interview with author who wrote about bombing and gassing white people in a race war | The Post Millennial - "CBC Radio's Q has quietly deleted their interview with Canadian author Ben Philippe, whose newest book "Sure, I'll Be Your Black Friend" contains a half-page description of the author's vision of gassing and bombing white people during a race war... "When this race war hits its crescendo, I'll gather you all into a beautifully decorated room under the pretense of unity. I'll give a speech to civility and all the good times we share; I'll smile as we raise glasses to your good, white health, while the detonator blinks under the table, knowing the exits are locked and the air vents filled with gas."  Schlanger then tells Philippe that she is Jewish, and apologized to Philippe that his experience made him feel that way... Philippe also told the interviewer that his race war fantasies were originally much longer, saying, "fun fact: that section used to be so much longer, so thank you to my editor for, like, condensing it.""

CBC defends Pride's call for censorship of local library over book on gender dysphoria | The Post Millennial - "Halifax Pride severed its ties with the Halifax Public Library because the library would not bend to demands to remove a book from their shelves. The book is Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters by Abigail Shrier, and a petition was circulated to have it removed from the library. The library refused... The CBC spoke to activists with Halifax Pride, but they did not reach out to Shrier. They did, however, include a tweet in their original story that compared Shrier's book to a book by notorious racist and KKK member David Duke. "The original CBC article compared me to neo-Nazi David Duke," Shrier told The Post Millennial, "without ever having asked me for comment. Then they quietly edited that part out without even noting the change. This is the opposite of journalistic integrity or truthfulness."... Activists who spoke against the book include trans-identified individuals who go by the monikers Poison Ivy and Neovagina Evangelion on Twitter. They say that the presence of a book on a shelf makes them "no longer feel fully safe" using the local library. Just to be clear, they feel they are personally harmed by a book... "The notion that a grown adult wouldn't 'feel safe' in a library of tens of thousands of books because of a single book is just ludicrous," Shrier told The Post Millennial. The CBC fell into the same trap that so many trans rights activists and their acolytes have: They assume that any question of the trans narrative is bigoted, that any debate about what makes a human being, any concern over trans ideology positing fully that there is a split between mind and body, any worry broached about the effect of what's called "trans affirming" medical procedures, such as voluntary and cosmetic mastectomies and castrations, calls into question a trans person's "right to exist."  Chris Cochrane, identified as the vice-chair of Pride's board of directors and transgender and non-binary committee lead, told CBC that "(As a) trans person, I'm not going to debate my existence, and this book is definitely debating the existence of trans people."... Vice reported that McKay, "who identifies as transgender and non-binary," said that "When it comes to the library, they don't have an obligation and they don't have the space to house every book in the world. They especially don't have the obligation to house a book that contains debunked science and very politically charged hateful content." Shrier's book has come under attack by trans rights activists since it was released. After a few complaints on Twitter, Target pulled the book. Amazon employees made a stink and tried to get the book pulled, but eventually the massive online bookseller declined to give in to those demands."
Weird. Liberals like to bash the "right" for "banning" books. But of course the books that they want to ban are "harmful" and so they should be banned

Jamie Sarkonak: CRTC diversity quotas trample journalistic independence at CBC - "Diversity quotas are coming to the CBC’s programming budget in 2023, thanks to a decision by Canada’s broadcast regulator to give itself the green light to intrude on journalistic independence — as long as it’s in the name of identity politics. New requirements imposed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) mandate the CBC to dedicate at least 30 per cent of its spending on independent English programming (television shows and documentaries commissioned by the network) to producers who self-identify as Indigenous, official language minorities, visible minorities, disabled or LGBT. This will rise to 35 per cent in 2026.  The CBC’s French side will have lower diversity spending thresholds, starting at 6.7 per cent in 2023 and scaling up to 15 per cent in 2026.  The CRTC is also requiring that the CBC track the identities of new hires and promotions of staff. Demographics of showrunners, producers, directors, writers, cinematographers and editors will have to be tallied. Community groups for the above identities will also have to be consulted for programming feedback. If the CBC doesn’t appeal this decision successfully, it will be bound by the new conditions for five years, ending in 2027.   The changes are happening because the CRTC modified the conditions of CBC’s broadcast licence when it was renewed in June to have programming “reflect contemporary Canada.”  In the past, questions of reflecting “diversity” in broadcasting focused on geography and language. In 2013, the regulator decided to not impose regional quotas on news programs because this would violate the CBC’s journalistic independence — as well as the freedom of expression protections protected by the Broadcasting Act... the word “diversity” was mentioned 10 times in the 2013 decision to renew the CBC’s licence. In 2022, it was mentioned 114 times. The Broadcasting Act does say that one of the CBC’s duties is to “reflect the multicultural and multiracial nature of Canada,” but this wasn’t the foundation for an identity-based spending quota until CRTC’s radical move in June. Now, the CRTC implies that minimum program expenditures are a way to reflect contemporary Canada, and that programming should reflect the census and — invoking critical theory — take intersectional identities into account.  The CRTC’s own diversity policy doesn’t suggest that identity-based program spending quotas be included in broadcast licences... It would have been helpful to clarify why regional quotas unlawfully infringe on journalistic integrity, while setting funding programming according to demographics does not.  Canadians shouldn’t take solace in the fact that these changes are at least limited to the CBC. For private broadcasters, Bill C-11 (the Online Streaming Act) would bring in a number of specific identity-focused goals for employment and providing programming for certain groups. It’s a bit of a slippery slope between the two, but given the CRTC’s eagerness to use the census to design budgets and quotas, it’s possible that a similar approach would be taken with private broadcasters in addition to the CBC. Forced DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) budgeting is a logistical nightmare. Between report writing, dealing with potentially fraudulent self-identifiers, committee meetings and possible executive bonuses, overhead costs are likely to add up.  It’s unclear if these requirements will cause much change beyond the extra overhead. The CBC has used census data to inform programming and hiring decisions since at least 2018, according to corporate plans, but whether this offered any improvement to program quality is hard to say. Impacts could even be negative: A report card system was also in the works to show teams “how they scored on diversity of guests, key creative roles, experts, host, location of the story, topic and reporters,” echoing reports by former CBC staffer Tara Henley of identity accounting in the newsroom. Henley’s report gave fuel to critics who believed the CBC had embraced identity politics too tightly; additional requirements from the CRTC could do the same.   A new swath of DEI goals is now in the works at the CBC, including community advisory boards for certain groups and a database that sorts experts by identity. If its dedication to DEI hasn’t worked to engage audiences yet, I doubt that even more budgetary constraints will help the cause... Mandated funding for self-identified diversity candidates places immutable characteristics before ideas and merit — and in media, the latter needs to come first."

Rex Murphy: On climate change, the CBC has crossed the line from news agency to PMO mouthpiece - "The statement is a perfect mirror image of the Liberal government’s climate change position, which is as all know Trudeau’s very No. 1 issue, higher than all else — more than feminism or reconciliation — and the one on which he has spoken more frequently and more intensely than any other. Prime Minister Trudeau however did not write the document or have it written. It is from the publicly financed national news organization, CBC, and was issued by its chief reporting authority, its editor in chief and executive director of daily news. It is meant as an illumination on its reporting on climate change, and particularly the upcoming mass convocation in mandate-exempting Glasgow.  My first question about it is: if it cannot be distinguished from the government’s own position, if it could very easily be seen as a bulletin from any activist, global warming advocacy or activist group, how can it seriously be considered a statement about “journalism” or proper news coverage? Indeed it is so intimately close to the current government’s position, and the government the source of CBC funding, it could without much stress of mind be said to be, at least, an apparent conflict of interest. CBC is all in, not to the hips, but to the shoulders and ears, on one side of this multi-variant, contested, massively disrupting and potentially economically ruinous internationalist issue. It “out-Herods Herod;” it is more IPCC than the IPCC.  Another easy question is whether the editor in chief of the CBC, or its management or its board of directors can, or care to distinguish between pure and confessed advocacy and activism from its news division. If the CBC wishes to be a branch of the Sierra Club, or a sub-partner of 350.org, or an ally of Extinction Rebellion, then it should clearly say so. This statement is not a statement of journalistic practice: it is a statement of doctrine, a proclamation, with all the air of infallibility and the impossibility of error that the churches, in the days when they held sway, proclaimed their doctrines. Will it be necessary for any new hires at the CBC to sign a declaration of their full belief in global warming? Will the CBC ever interview anyone, anyone at all, who might offer counter-arguments to this tendentious issue? Will they encourage counter-voices, of authority and expertise, to express the requisite hesitation and alternative understandings of this extremely complex subject?  Why have a news service spouting without the slightest questioning everything the government of the day espouses? Would it not simply be cheaper to have the news anchors provide dramatic readings of PMO press releases every day and night?... Has the CBC abandoned both curiosity and the responsibility to question, which are the very essence of journalism? For emphasis, let me make the absolutely simple point — the first duty of journalism is to ask questions, to inquire, to challenge. Where in that statement above is there even a breath of the need to question, inquire or challenge?  On global warming the CBC is acting far more like a Vatican Council attempting to ward off heretics than a news agency. It is so deeply imprisoned in the woke, or progressive, or social warrior mentality that it has forgotten its function. And lost the Canadian public it still fantasizes it serves."

FUREY: Chinese Canadian dissidents are under attack, and the CBC has joined the pile-on | Toronto Sun - "Some of the first voices to sound the alarm about the coronavirus coming to Canada were people of Chinese descent living in Markham, a northern GTA city with a significant ethnic Chinese population... Parents in Markham were so worried that they circulated a petition asking the York Region district school board to require students returning from Wuhan to quarantine at home for 14 days. Looking back, it all seems rather quaint. Of course that’s what the students should have done then and it’s what everybody returning from another country is doing now. Yet that didn’t stop others from twisting their words and claiming the many signatories to the petition, mostly Chinese names, were somehow motivated by racism. “Situations such as these can regrettably give rise to discrimination based on perceptions, stereotypes and hate,” wrote Juanita Nathan, trustee chair of the York Region district school board, and Louise Sirisko, director of education, in an open letter.  Now, a similar scenario is playing out, where those of Chinese heritage are being maligned for daring to warn their fellow Canadians about looming danger.  “’Racist and inflammatory’: Canadians upset by Epoch Times claim China behind virus, made it as a bioweapon” is the headline CBC Twitter accounts used on Wednesday to promote their mess of a story that caused a stir online and was in turn denounced by its subject matter... Those unfamiliar with the publication would be forgiven for thinking, based on this description, that it is some sort of white nationalist publication peddling anti-Asian sentiment. It’s not. The Epoch Times is run by Chinese immigrants... That the paper has an editorial position that is opposed to the Chinese Communist party leadership in Beijing is undeniable, but to malign it as racist and conspiracy-theorist is just ignorance of the facts. But despite the sensationalist headline, the story — a version of which was made into a segment on CBC’s flagship news show The National — only cites two people who claim to find it offensive... Epoch Times publisher Cindy Gu has written a detailed response to the article and what she explains are its “simple factual errors” and has included her original correspondence with CBC reporters prior to the story going live.  “The headline focuses on a small part of our eight-page special edition, a commentary article that discusses the history of top CCP officials talking about developing bioweapons,” Gu writes. “But this opinion article did not state that the Wuhan lab was developing bioweapons, contrary to the claim in the headline.”  Gu adds that the “CBC purposefully omitted that our media organization was founded by Chinese immigrants, which was stated in the email to the reporter.”   There are three credited authors behind this story and one of them, Katie Nicholson, is described as CBC’s “COVID-19 fact-checker”. So much for that.  “We began to report on the Wuhan virus on Dec. 31 and reported on the coverup of the real numbers in early February,” Gu writes. “If more people had been reading the Epoch Times, our country could have been prepared. In our opinion, there is not enough truthful reporting about China and the nature of its ruling communist regime.”  What’s even worse is it looks like when Chinese Canadians do step forward to report on the regime in Beijing with anything other than praise, they get attacked."

How Feminism Paved the Way for Transgenderism

An argument for how feminists/women can't complain about trans mania because feminists/women support it and paved the way to it:

 

How Feminism Paved the Way for Transgenderism

"Who has led this “men’s rights’ movement”?

Let us list the major players in Britain. Former Prime Minister Theresa May announced that “being trans is not a mental illness.” “As an ardent, passionate feminist,” Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland, wants to eliminate sex segregation. Conservative MP Maria Miller headed the Committee for Women and Equalities, a select committee of the House of Commons, which proposed reforming the Gender Recognition Act to make it easier for people to change their legal sex; she derided critics of this proposal as “women who purport to be feminists.” Dawn Butler, Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities in the Labour Party, insists that “trans women are women” and arranged for them to enter the party’s all-women’s shortlists for parliamentary seats. Ruth Hunt transformed Stonewall from a charity that campaigned for homosexual rights to one devoted to transgender rights, even at the expense of lesbians. Mermaids, which advocates for the transgendering of children, is run by Susie Green. Polly Carmichael, director of the NHS Gender Identity Development Service, lowered the age at which puberty-blocking drugs could be administered to children who identify as trans—now disproportionately girls. Katharine Viner is chief executive of the Guardian newspaper which has championed the transgender cause for many years.

Virtually the entire feminist establishment has embraced transgenderism, from celebrated feminist Members of Parliament like Jess Phillips (Labour Party) and Mhairi Black (Scottish National Party) to organizations like the Fawcett Society, Engender (the feminist group funded by the Scottish government), the Women’s Equality Party, and Women’s Aid. Transgender doctrines are enforced by the burgeoning diversity-industrial complex which was created by feminists and is disproportionately staffed by women. It was a woman employed as a university Equality Projects Officer who started a petition to transfer a violent transwoman to a women’s prison; the petition was so successful that it persuaded the government to divide prisons by gender identity rather than sex. In universities, transgender doctrine is promoted by feminist academics like Sally Hines and Alison Phipps. Because radical feminism has almost disappeared from universities, academic opponents of transgenderism—now labelled as “gender-critical”—are, for the most part, women whose scholarship isn’t directly linked to contemporary feminism. Kathleen Stock, for example, worked on the philosophy of aesthetics. But there are some gender-critical voices within the feminist establishment. Joanna Cherry (Scottish National Party) is one of only two Members of Parliament who publicly question transgender orthodoxy. Karen Ingala Smith’s charity NiA runs women’s shelters in the old-fashioned sense, restricted to females. Such exceptions are rare.

Male politicians on the left have echoed the mantras of transgenderism. When asked whether transwomen are women, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn answered affirmatively, albeit without enthusiasm. He has since ignored the issue. The website Pink News, run by Benjamin Cohen, aggressively promotes the transgender cause. Overall, though, powerful men have done rather less than powerful women to institutionalize gender identity.

When we look at public opinion, we find the same difference between the sexes. The 2016 British Social Attitudes survey asked whether a transwoman—defined as “a man who has gone through all or part of a process to become a woman”—could enter a women’s refuge: 55 percent of male respondents were “very” or “quite comfortable,” compared to 64 percent of females. (The difference is statistically significant, p = .002; n = 974.) Respondents conceivably envisaged an old-style transsexual who had undergone genital surgery. Fortunately, rank-and-file gender-critical feminists (led by Helen Staniland) crowd-funded a survey that asked explicitly about “a person who was born male and has male genitalia but who identifies as a woman.” Acceptance is much reduced, but the disparity remains: 11 percent of men would admit this person into women’s changing rooms, compared to 17 percent of women. (The difference is statistically significant, p < .001; n = 2,074.) Just as women are more likely to accept the claims of transgenderism, they are more likely to silence gender-critical feminists. A YouGov survey asked British students last year whether their university should allow a speech by “someone who believes that transgender women are not ‘real’ women.” Half the male students would allow such a speech, but only a quarter of the females. (The difference is statistically significant, p < .001; n = 1,004.)

The evidence is overwhelming. Transgenderism—a “men’s rights movement”—has greater support from women than from men, and its success has depended on women in power who brandish their feminist credentials. This paradox has gone unremarked by the small but growing band of gender-critical feminists. When the paradox is noted, it is explained away as the result of “female socialization”: women are socialized to be kind to men, and therefore they prioritize ostensibly vulnerable males—transwomen—over their own needs. This explanation might have some validity for ordinary women. But it cannot be plausibly applied to ambitious and successful politicians and their counterparts in charities, public services, and universities. It is also hard to reconcile with the fact that young people with a university degree are the most likely demographic to embrace transgenderism; young women with degrees are also most likely to call themselves feminists. Could there be something about mainstream feminism which prepared the way for transgenderism?

The foundational premise for feminism is that every difference between males and females in attitudes and behavior is due to socialization: there are no socially relevant biological differences above the neck. Thus the same feminists who denounce male violence and sexual objectification also endorse Cordelia Fine and Gina Rippon for arguing that there are no differences between female and male brains. There are some obvious problems with the premise. Why are humans the only mammalian species where evolution did not produce sexual differences in behavior? Why are some sex differences remarkably uniform across different cultures? For example, men commit more violence than women—as feminists themselves rightly emphasize—even though the overall level of violence varies greatly from one society to another. Leaving aside the validity of this premise, though, my interest is in how this premise paved the way for transgenderism.

If you ground the justification for sex segregation (in prisons, changing rooms, and so on) on socialization rather than biology, then it is much harder to argue for the exclusion of transwomen from women’s spaces. Your argument depends crucially on the proposition that trans-identified people have been socialized into sex roles corresponding to their birth sex. Needless to say, transgender people reject this proposition. To quote transfeminine activist Florence Ashley, “We can’t be socialized into a gender we don’t have.” In some cases their claims may seem implausible, as when a man in his seventies declares himself a woman. Nevertheless, socialization can fail, as is demonstrated by the fact that gays and lesbians exist despite the inculcation of heterosexuality. The argument for socialization is further weakened by the transitioning of children at younger and younger ages. If parents raise their son as a girl from the age of three, on what grounds can biology-denying feminists assert that this child is being socialized as male? If you really believe that observed behavioral differences between the sexes are due entirely to socialization, then you should readily accept the new generation of transkids in their acquired gender.

Because socialization provides only a fragile foundation for sex segregation, it was easily undermined by transgender activism. Why did this vulnerability become apparent only in the last decade or so? In the 1970s, when feminism resurged, the insistence that all differences between men and women were socially constructed was balanced by conventional opinion which then exaggerated biological differences. More importantly, society was structured so that men’s and women’s experiences differed in almost every respect. In 1970, women comprised just 19 percent of undergraduates at the University of Oxford, and almost all of them belonged to female-only colleges. A female Prime Minister was then hard to imagine, there having been only three female elected heads of government in the world. Differences between the sexes were reinforced by innumerable everyday rituals: men would be expected to hold open a door for a woman and to help her on with her coat. Enid Blyton’s Famous Five stories for children are riddled with sexist stereotypes, and yet the tomboy—Georgina who insisted on being called George—is portrayed fondly. She rebelled against the imposition of femininity, but did not imagine that she was not female. (Female-to-male transsexuals in this era were vanishingly rare.)

Half a century later, many of the social differences between men and women have been eradicated or at least attenuated—thanks in good measure to feminism. Gender roles are not rigidly enforced, at least for adults. (Children’s toys are more gendered than they were in the 1970s, which might be another instance of the gender-equality paradox—in more sexually egalitarian societies, men and women’s personalities and career choices differ more.) Experiences of men and women still diverge with the birth of children, of course, but this event now comes much later in life. It is telling that young women with university degrees are most likely to assert that transwomen are women; they are also the least likely to have experienced the exigencies of reproduction. The insistence that there are no biological differences in attitudes and behavior between the sexes is no longer a radical dissenting view; it is established orthodoxy. To question it might even lead you to lose your job, as we saw with James Damore.

If society denies biological differences and does not rigidly enforce gender roles, then the way is cleared for transgenderism. Being a man or woman—or neither—becomes a matter of subjective feeling. Toxic masculinity is to be deplored for licensing violence and sexual predation, but transwomen should be welcomed into women’s refuges. If testosterone has no effect on the brain, then why should it affect athletic ability?

My argument, in short, is that since the 1970s feminists have been sawing off the branch on which they perched. By denying biological differences they inadvertently eroded the distinction between male and female, which now licenses a social movement that undermines the interests of women and girls. Radical feminists were relatively immune because they had a much greater appreciation of sexual differences. There are indeed similarities between radical feminism and evolutionary psychology. Both view heterosexual relationships as inherently conflictual, for example, due to divergent sexual preferences and men’s ability to exercise violence.

One objection to my account is that some transgender advocates have attempted to ground subjective gender identity on a biological foundation. There is some evidence that an individual’s proclivity towards masculinity or femininity has a biological basis. (The evidence that sexual orientation has a biological basis is well-established.) Prenatal exposure to androgens, for example, helps predict gendered behavior in adulthood. But this does not prove the possibility of a male having a female brain or vice versa. Consider height as an analogy. On average, men are taller than women, and this fact is primarily biological. (In poor societies the disparity will be increased if sons are favoured over daughters, because the latter will receive less nutrition and medical care.) Notwithstanding this overall difference, some individual women are taller than the average man, and their exceptional height also has some genetic basis. It would be absurd, however, to treat such a woman as having a man’s height trapped in a woman’s body. Recognizing the overlap of the physical and mental corollaries of sex does not obviate the binary distinction. It is telling that transgender activists have never proposed any objective physical test for gender identity: their reference to biology is, at this point, purely rhetorical.

If my argument is correct, then feminists need to rethink their premise that all observed differences in behaviour between women and men are due to socialization—that humans are blank slates."

Links - 18th December 2022 (1)

Dozens of major cancer studies can't be replicated - "After eight years, a project that tried to reproduce the results of key cancer biology studies has finally concluded. And its findings suggest that like research in the social sciences, cancer research has a replication problem.  Researchers with the Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology aimed to replicate 193 experiments from 53 top cancer papers published from 2010 to 2012. But only a quarter of those experiments were able to be reproduced... The researchers couldn’t complete the majority of experiments because the team couldn’t gather enough information from the original papers or their authors about methods used, or obtain the necessary materials needed to attempt replication. What’s more, of the 50 experiments from 23 papers that were reproduced, effect sizes were, on average, 85 percent lower than those reported in the original experiments...   Some researchers were outright hostile to the idea that independent scientists wanted to attempt to replicate their work, says Brian Nosek, executive director at the Center for Open Science and a coauthor on both studies. That attitude is a product of a research culture that values innovation over replication, and that prizes the academic publish-or-perish system over cooperation and data sharing...   Even authors who wanted to help couldn’t always share their data for various reasons, including lost hard drives or intellectual property restrictions or data that only former graduate students had.  Calls from some experts about science’s “reproducibility crisis” have been growing for years, perhaps most notably in psychology (SN: 8/27/18). Then in 2011 and 2012, pharmaceutical companies Bayer and Amgen reported difficulties in replicating findings from preclinical biomedical research...   Ultimately, if science is to be a self-correcting discipline, there needs to be plenty of opportunities not only for making mistakes but also for discovering those mistakes, including by replicating experiments"
Addendum: Trust the Science!

Jet suit paramedic tested in the Lake District 'could save lives' - "A jet suit for paramedics which would see patients reached in minutes by a "flying" medic has been tested by the Great North Air Ambulance Service... He said it meant a paramedic could "fly" to a fell top in 90 seconds rather than taking 30 minutes on foot"

Expats in Singapore opt for co-living as ‘red hot’ rents rise by up to 40 per cent - "In co-living spaces, multiple unrelated people share common facilities but have their own bedrooms"

Polish institute classifies cats as alien invasive species - "A respected Polish scientific institute has classified domestic cats as an “invasive alien species,” citing the damage they cause to birds and other wildlife.  Some cat lovers have reacted emotionally to this month’s decision and put the key scientist behind it on the defensive.  Wojciech Solarz, a biologist at the state-run Polish Academy of Sciences, wasn’t prepared for the disapproving public response when he entered “Felis catus,” the scientific name for the common house cat, into a national database run by the academy’s Institute of Nature Conservation.  The database already had 1,786 other species listed with no objections... Solarz described the growing scientific consensus that domestic cats have a harmful impact on biodiversity given the number of birds and mammals they hunt and kill... As far as categorizing cats as “alien,” the institute noted that “Felis catus” was domesticated probably around 10,000 years ago in the cradle of the great civilizations of the ancient Middle East, making the species alien to Europe from a strictly scientific point of view."
Some anti-woke guy was very upset about the fact that cats harm native wildlife, and had some marvelous cope about it, and almost everyone else was bashing him for his ignorance

A Dad Took Photos of His Naked Toddler for the Doctor. Google Flagged Him as a Criminal. - The New York Times - "Mark noticed something amiss with his toddler. His son’s penis looked swollen and was hurting him. Mark, a stay-at-home dad in San Francisco, grabbed his Android smartphone and took photos to document the problem so he could track its progression... With help from the photos, the doctor diagnosed the issue and prescribed antibiotics, which quickly cleared it up. But the episode left Mark with a much larger problem, one that would cost him more than a decade of contacts, emails and photos, and make him the target of a police investigation. Mark, who asked to be identified only by his first name for fear of potential reputational harm, had been caught in an algorithmic net designed to snare people exchanging child sexual abuse material... “There could be tens, hundreds, thousands more of these”... He filled out a form requesting a review of Google’s decision, explaining his son’s infection. At the same time, he discovered the domino effect of Google’s rejection. Not only did he lose emails, contact information for friends and former colleagues, and documentation of his son’s first years of life, his Google Fi account shut down, meaning he had to get a new phone number with another carrier. Without access to his old phone number and email address, he couldn’t get the security codes he needed to sign in to other internet accounts, locking him out of much of his digital life.  “The more eggs you have in one basket, the more likely the basket is to break,” he said... A few days after Mark filed the appeal, Google responded that it would not reinstate the account, with no further explanation.  Mark didn’t know it, but Google’s review team had also flagged a video he made and the San Francisco Police Department had already started to investigate him. The day after Mark’s troubles started, the same scenario was playing out in Texas. A toddler in Houston had an infection in his “intimal parts,” wrote his father in an online post that I stumbled upon while reporting out Mark’s story. At the pediatrician’s request, Cassio, who also asked to be identified only by his first name, used an Android to take photos, which were backed up automatically to Google Photos. He then sent them to his wife via Google’s chat service. Cassio was in the middle of buying a house, and signing countless digital documents, when his Gmail account was disabled. He asked his mortgage broker to switch his email address, which made the broker suspicious until Cassio’s real estate agent vouched for him.  “It was a headache”... When Mark’s and Cassio’s photos were automatically uploaded from their phones to Google’s servers, this technology flagged them. Jon Callas of the E.F.F. called the scanning intrusive, saying a family photo album on someone’s personal device should be a “private sphere.” (A Google spokeswoman said the company scans only when an “affirmative action” is taken by a user; that includes when the user’s phone backs up photos to the company’s cloud.)  “This is precisely the nightmare that we are all concerned about,” Mr. Callas said. “They’re going to scan my family album, and then I’m going to get into trouble.”... In 2021, the CyberTipline reported that it had alerted authorities to “over 4,260 potential new child victims.” The sons of Mark and Cassio were counted among them... “I determined that the incident did not meet the elements of a crime and that no crime occurred,” Mr. Hillard wrote in his report. The police had access to all the information Google had on Mark and decided it did not constitute child abuse or exploitation.  Mark asked if Mr. Hillard could tell Google that he was innocent so he could get his account back.  “You have to talk to Google,” Mr. Hillard said, according to Mark. “There’s nothing I can do.”  Mark appealed his case to Google again, providing the police report, but to no avail. After getting a notice two months ago that his account was being permanently deleted, Mark spoke with a lawyer about suing Google and how much it might cost.  “I decided it was probably not worth $7,000”... It could have been worse, she said, with a parent potentially losing custody of a child... After Cassio showed the detective his communications with the pediatrician, he was quickly cleared. But he, too, was unable to get his decade-old Google account back, despite being a paying user of Google’s web services. He now uses a Hotmail address for email, which people mock him for, and makes multiple backups of his data... A Google spokeswoman said the company stands by its decisions, even though law enforcement cleared the two men... “From Google’s perspective, it’s easier to just deny these people the use of their services,” she speculated. Otherwise, the company would have to resolve more difficult questions about “what’s appropriate behavior with kids and then what’s appropriate to photograph or not.”  Mark still has hope that he can get his information back. The San Francisco police have the contents of his Google account preserved on a thumb drive. Mark is now trying to get a copy. A police spokesman said the department is eager to help him."

Meme - northside Dairy Haven: "NOW HIRING NO WEIRDOS"
northside Dairy Haven: "NOW HIRING WEIRDOS OK NO CRYBABIES"

That's what he needs. : FunnyAnimals - *Orang Utan groping women's breasts*

Meme - "Yesterday I asked my 12-year-old son what other kids at school think about him having 2 dads. His response: They don't care but they don't like how I'm immune to "Yo Mama" jokes."
"Yo mama so ugly yo dad had to get a husband"

How TikTok users designed a better pill bottle for people with Parkinson's - "Choi's TikTok video, which shows his shaking hands trying to pluck a tiny pill from its bottle, has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times. And it inspired an online community of tinkerers and designers to work together on a 3D-printed solution — an accessible, Parkinson's-friendly pill bottle."

Randi Weingarten admits to sharing fake list of 'banned' books: 'My bad' - "American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten admitted to sharing a false tweet claiming that certain books were banned in Florida on Sunday.   "I should have double checked before I retweeted this list. My bad. Looks like some of the books weren’t banned. Book bans are very real & dangerous," she said on Sunday. Weingarten included a screenshot of her original tweet, which said, "Books we have taught for generations!!!!!" The list, posted by an account called "Freesus Patriot," claimed that Florida has banned books such as, "To Kill a Mockingbird," and "A Wrinkle in Time." The account also tweeted that they would not reveal the source of the list."
Of course, only conservatives are uneducated and spread fake news, and teachers have no political agenda (despite loudly proclaiming that they do)

Bryan Griffin on Twitter - "The State of Florida has not banned To Kill a Mockingbird. In fact, Florida RECOMMENDS the book in 8th grade. (FL Standards linked, page 160). However, the book was banned by a progressive district in California, along with other classics, in 2020)... The best the left can do nowadays is try to make people think their own failures belong to someone else."

Meme - Abigail Howard @AbigalHoward: "So in my algebra class there was a student that decided to put an alt right meme on his assignment. This enraged me, I am looking to get him suspended" *Two Soyjaks Pointing*

Count Dankula on Twitter - "In discussions of reducing car dependency, one often hears, "What about people in remote rural areas?" And my gut instinct is -- people shouldn't be living there in the first place. The solution is to give them generous grants to relocate among other humans."
"I live in the countryside because I want to avoid people like this."
Addendum: Time to mock conservative men who are afraid of cities
Of course left wingers who want to force everyone to live in cities don't mean anything.

MPD whistleblower details alleged crime underreporting in the first interview - "A whistleblower from the D.C. Police Department is talking openly about the crime underreporting she says she’s witnessed inside the Metropolitan Police Department.  “I was surprised,” said MPD Sergeant Charlotte Djossou. “I didn’t want to believe it.”...   She claims D.C. police supervisors are ordering investigators to downgrade crime classifications form more serious crimes to less serious ones to make the city’s crime stats look better.   “The commanders and the captains get promoted, and they get awards, when the crime stats are low,” Djossou said...   At the time, Committee Chairman Charles Allen told the officers he was going to investigate their claims.  “My staff right here we’re going to make sure we get connected as well, so that we can follow up and get some information that you have, and we will have further conversations,” Councilmember Allen told Djossou at that meeting.  But almost two months later, Djossou said she hasn’t heard a word from Allen, or his office... Djossou says she first went to her supervisors to complain about crime underreporting in 2015 and claims she faced retaliation for coming forward, including poor reviews, longer shifts and missed promotions."
How to "prove" crime is going down

HBO’s ‘House of the Dragon:’ The One True King Wears a Cap, Not a Crown - WSJ - "Can George R.R. Martin help restore “Game of Thrones” to glory?   HBO is betting on the author as a guiding force as it finally launches a follow-up series to its biggest hit. The new show “House of the Dragon” is a test of the network’s high-stakes effort to establish its first bonafide franchise.   Mr. Martin, whose fantasy books established a mythology on par with J.R.R. Tolkien’s, is reasserting control of his material in the TV realm. Though he had a close hand in the formative seasons of “Game of Thrones,” people involved in the show said he grew frustrated by a lack of involvement in its final stretch. That’s when the plot of HBO’s eight-season adaptation passed the events published in his books, and headed toward a 2019 finale that left many viewers feeling as burned as Daenerys Targaryen’s victims in King’s Landing... The search for a “Game of Thrones” spinoff started in 2016 after the sixth season, when Messrs. Benioff and Weiss decided to close out the series, citing their plan to end it before the show passed its prime. HBO urged the showrunners to keep the blockbuster series rolling, but eventually agreed to finish with eight seasons. Mr. Martin, too, had fought the producers’ decision. “I was saying it needs to be 10 seasons at least and maybe 12, 13. I lost that one”...   “House of the Dragon” is derived from Mr. Martin’s 2018 book “Fire & Blood,” which is different from the main novels in his series. It’s an epoch-spanning history of the Targaryens, as recounted by various scribes.   That chronicle format gave “House of the Dragon” writers a detailed plot blueprint but with leeway to invent scenes and dialogue"

Woke Critics Don't Like New 'Game of Thrones,' 'House of the Dragon' - "The first season of the “Game of Thrones” prequel series “House of Dragon” earned a 68 out of 100 on Metacritic, an aggregator of film reviews.  For comparison, the panned final season of “Thrones” scored a 75. And the floor for a show of this magnitude is around 50. So, a 68 is every bit the D+ you received in high school.  There had been a time this poorest score would suggest a disappointing series. That’s hardly the case today. Aside from sports writers, no media group has a more prevalent disconnect with its audience than film/TV critics.  Reviewers allow their biases to blind them to the quality of a story. They rate a show based on the whiteness of the characters and subtle nods to modern American politics. “Yellowstone” is the most popular show on television, but critics say it’s not any good. These same critics rave about “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” a show that’s not any good...   A far-left outlet called Slant gave the season a failing grade of 38. The only positive Slant found is that the showrunners “[understood] that a prequel to Game of Thrones must be about the ruin that comes from following the sexist customs of male-led succession.”  How loathsome is that blurb?... An increased presence of Martin ensures less pandering to social media and focuses on historical fantasy tropes and patriarchy. Martin also serves as the EP of the series and handpicked showrunner, Ryan Condal, to follow his lead. “Thrones” showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss — the true antagonist of “Game of Thrones” — aren’t around to tone down Martin’s vision this time.  There had been some signs HBO would woke up “House of the Dragon” by declaring disapproval of supposedly sexist scenes and recasting Martin’s characters to cut down on whiteness. But the shade from critics suggests the show kept the wokeness to a minimum."

This is what happened when an Australian city gave trees email addresses - "They provide shade and air to breathe. Not to mention an undeniable sense of grandeur. But would you ever write a letter to a tree?   Officials in Melbourne, Australia have discovered that for many, the answer is a resounding yes.   The Guardian's Oliver Milman reported that when they rolled out a program that assigned email addresses to trees. This was in a bid to help identify damage and issues. But what was discovered was that city residents preferred to write them love letters instead... instead of damage reports, people wrote fan mail to trees. The writers complimented their looks and leaves. Some told tales of how they'd helped them survive during inclement weather. Some trees even wrote back"

Why the Left can't meme : copypasta - "It's not the Left can't meme per se, it's that their viewpoints rely on a carefully constructed denial of reality, to a far greater extent than any of the cults or religions they seek to supplant. This doesn't lend itself to simple, easily conveyed messages, because if you rely on your viewers to see things as they are, without providing several layers of carefully selected context, they'll interpret it the wrong way. The left can't meme because memes are the antithesis of how they communicate."

Facebook - "Not sure why but I've been thinking about the "seven sins" popularized by Mahatma Ghandi, and how so many of these have been built into almost every foundation of modern life. Wealth without work. Pleasure without conscience. Knowledge without character. Commerce without morality. Science without humanity. Worship without sacrifice. Politics without principles. Later, his grandson would add to the list: Rights without responsibilities. Conservatives hail pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character as liberal sins. Liberals hit back with wealth without work and commerce without morality. Everyone scrambles for rights without responsibility. Somehow our public discourse has become dominated by binary, either-or approaches. If you complain about commerce without morality, you are accused of being against commerce. Suggest bringing humanity back into science, and you're anti-scientific. Attack the notion of wealth without work, and you are classist, pining for a revolution to overthrow capitalism. Murmur that worship might require sacrifice, and a segment of the faithful for whom belief alone is salvation, a get-out-of-hell-free card, pegs you as an enemy of religion. There is no better time than today, under these circumstances, to rethink our adherence to outworn shibboleths."

Nightclubs are hell. What's cool or fun about a thumping, sweaty dungeon full of posing idiots?

The Ramsey Loft — Let’s take a moment to talk Shit. - "You can tell a lot about the health of a pet by its poop.  Changes in its color or consistency are among the first warning signs that a pet may not be feeling well.  In birds, you will usually see changes in poop long before the changes in behavior that indicate illness, like irritability or lethargy.  When most people think of pigeon poop, This is what usually comes to mind... But this is what poop from a healthy, well fed pigeon looks like: A small, compact ball of the indigestible fiber left over from the hulls of the seeds they eat whole, with a tiny white cap of urate... That wet mess of solids on mostly urate, with a mucus-y shine and slimy texture, is indicative of a heavy gut load of intestinal parasites.   Not just most ferals, but most racing, performing, and exhibition pigeons (since there are often housed out doors) are infested with the nematode Capillaria, the round worm Strongyloides, or the protozoan Coccidia... Nearly all feral pigeons perpetually teeter on the brink of starvation, and it shows in their poop.  They are strict granivores, meaning that they can only digest seeds: the embryonic tissue of plants.  With cities being so carefully landscaped, often with the only plant life available being in the form of flower beds and trees, with grasses only in public parks and mowed too short to bloom and seed, the food they can actually digest is mighty hard for the average feral pigeon to find.  Barn ferals tend to be much more healthy for access to seed and animal feed.  But spilled garbage and the hand outs of the people that like them enough to feed them are literally all the food city ferals have access to.  Most of that is bread.  And while bread is made from grain, milling that grain and baking it into bread breaks it down, making it easier for a HUMAN to digest, but HARDER for a pigeon... I am all for wild animals living free in the environment for which they were adapted.  But pigeons are not wild life, and they were not adapted to cities.  ESPECIALLY not on the continent of North America... The pigeons that were brought here as military messengers, meat, and entertainment had been domesticated for thousands of years already.  When homers were no longer faster and more reliable messengers than phone lines or radio waves, they were no longer profitable to keep, pigeons were released... in Europe, Africa, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, where Rock Doves are native, there WAS natural habitat for the exclusively cliff nesting birds to relocate to, as well as open lofts that would welcome the boon of free livestock.   But there is nothing like their actual habitat: A high cliff near the sea, between desert and grass land, in north America... The problem of feral pigeon mess, from the structural damage caused by the pure uric acid they excrete on an empty stomach to their potential as vectors for zoonotic disease is one of our own making... We have done pigeons a terrible disservice by having entirely forgotten that they are domestic livestock.  And any one that calls a pigeon in north America a “wind animal that should be free” perpetuates and encourages that abandonment of responsibility."

Singaporean track and field athlete does backflip onto her starting block
"High lvl flexing"

All 25,000 candidates fail Liberian university entrance exam - "The University of Liberia. Number of applicants this year: nearly 25,000. Number gaining admission: zero.  The "epic fail" of every single candidate in the admission exam provoked bafflement, consternation and heated debate on Tuesday, with some convinced that flaws in Liberia's education system had been brutally exposed. A government minister likened it to "mass murder"... an intervention by president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf forced the university to back down and give places to a lucky 1,800.  According to university officials, the applicants lacked enthusiasm and did not have a basic grasp of English. Spokesman Momodu Getaweh told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme that the university stood by its decision and would not be swayed by emotion. "In English, the mechanics of the language, they didn't know anything about it. So the government has to do something.""
Must be the fault of structural racism and/or colonialism

Nacho Vidal, Spanish porn star, charged with reckless homicide after toad venom death - "Spanish porn star Nacho Vidal has been charged with reckless homicide after a man died during a ceremony involving toad venom. Vidal, whose real name is Ignacio Jordà González, was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter... the victim, a photographer, died after participating in a "spiritual or mystical" ceremony in July 2019 in the town of Enguera, near Valencia... The ritual, which took place in Vidal's home, involved inhaling venomous vapors from the burning of scales from a Bufo alvarius toad... Also known as the Colorado River toad or the Sonoran Desert toad, the amphibian releases a venom called 5-MeO-DMT, which is known to have hallucinogenic effects, according to the Addiction Center website. It is about four to six times more powerful than the better-known DMT or dimethyltryptamine, which "stimulates the production of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that causes feelings of happiness"... Vidal was "the director" of the ritual and had experience in taking the drug in question. He allegedly supplied the drug and failed to control properly the amount the victim inhaled"

Spain porn star held after man dies in toad venom ritual - "Investigators said they had discovered such rituals were being carried regularly on grounds they offered medicinal benefits.  But in reality, this "apparently harmless ancestral ritual" posed a "serious health risk", luring people who were "easily influenced, vulnerable or who were seeking help for illnesses or addictions using alternative methods"."

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

Not Good Enough for Paul - ""If I told you that I work for a primarily Microsoft coding shop that hires on non-Microsoft developers, you'd think that it would be an unending, seething mass of WTF code," writes Hank, "but really, it isn't."  "The new hires that the company brings on are usually eager to learn and their diverse backgrounds and experiences make our team more well-rounded overall."  "Usually."  "From a technical perspective, Paul was alright. He came from a 'Jack of All Trades' background with a heavy lean toward Java and Oracle technologies, but that didn't make him stand out among his peers. I cut my post-college teeth on a J2EE system before jumping ship to my current employer."  "What set him apart from everybody else though was his attitude. Basically, if something wasn't perfect, it was a disaster. Also, he failed to mention his anti-Microsoft tendencies."  "Case in point: After he finally 'gave up' and left the company, I was given the task to review his most recent check-ins and the one below is representative of his final contributions, edited to make more safe for work.""

Brianna Wu To Helm New Gamergate TV Series Aimed At Showing "How The Tactics Of Gamergate Led To Christchurch and January 6th”
Imagine being so obsessed with beating the dead horse even after 7 years

Federalist Perspectives - Posts | Facebook - "We're at the "who wants to buy that anyway" stage of cope. Just 3 days ago we were at the "yes there are shortages and it's your fault" stage. Last week was "there are no shortages, just delays in fulfillment." How long before "akshulky, shortages are a good thing?""

Check Out these Costumes from Kyoto University’s Cosplay-themed Graduation - "  This trend began in the 80s and has its roots in students performing in costumes or drag at their commencement. Now, it has become a tradition at Kyoto University for graduating students to dress up as fun characters."
Facebook - "Kyoto University Graduation Ceremony"

Amazon changes app logo that 'resembles Adolf Hitler'/a> - "Hitler's face is so recognisable many people claim to "see" it in inanimate objects.  In 2011, an image of a Swansea house that resembled the dictator went viral.  A few years later, a man was "completely horrified" to find his new passport photo made him look like Hitler.  And brand errors related to the Nazis are also not unheard of.  In 2002, sports brand Umbro was criticised after one of its trainers was found to have the same name as the toxic gas the Nazis used to murder millions of people across Europe."
When you're primed to take offence...

Design firm takes responsibility for CPAC stage - "The company that was hired to set up the stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida last weekend has taken full responsibility for the design of the stage that resembled a Nazi insignia... According to the terms of the contract signed with Design Foundry, and shared with the Forward, the ACU approved the design but had no rights to change the design or dismantle the stage. “The designs, renderings, drawings, specifications, materials and other documents used or created as part of the proposal are owned by Design Foundry,” the contract reads. Design Foundry has worked with CPAC for several years and has provided services to MSNBC and major corporations – including Google, Citibank and Target."

Hillary Clinton called 'war criminal' as she becomes Chancellor of Queen's University - "Hillary Clinton, the former US diplomat, has been chosen as the Chancellor of Northern Ireland’s Queen’s University in Belfast.  However, her entrance during her installation ceremony saw cheers, applause and chants of "war criminal"."

Meme - "Me: "I don't think 2021 could get any more weird"
2021: *Hillary Clinton walking in chancellor's robes of Queen's University Belfast, gesturing and with weird facial expression, while amused young boy carries train*

Health campaign in western Romania: 20 squats for a free bus ride - "The residents of Cluj-Napoca, a city in western Romania, can get a free bus ride by doing twenty squats as part of a health campaign initiated by sports event Sports Festival."

Humphrey the pet hippo kills owner in South Africa - "A farmer in South Africa has been killed by his pet hippopotamus, after repeated warnings that it was a wild animal that could never be tamed.  Marius Els, 40, an army major, was bitten to death by the 1.2 tonne hippo he christened Humphrey and tried to domesticate on a farm in Free State province.  Els's savaged body was found submerged in the river where, years earlier, the hippo had been rescued from a flood. It grew too big for the people who adopted it and was bought by Els at the age of five months, becoming a pet on his 400-acre farm and learning to swim with humans.  Earlier this year, Els was photographed riding on the five-year-old hippo's back. "Humphrey's like a son to me, he's just like a human," he said. "There's a relationship between me and Humphrey and that's what some people don't understand. "They think you can only have a relationship with dogs, cats and domestic animals. But I have a relationship with the most dangerous animal in Africa."  But Els's wife, Louise, a pharmacist, expressed misgivings, and the hippo had caused trouble before. South African media reported earlier this year that a 52-year-old man and his seven-year-old grandson spent two hours in a tree after being chased by Humphrey while canoeing on the river that passes through the farm. Els finally tempted the hippo away with an apple while the pair were rescued by paramedics. Humphrey was also blamed for killing calves belonging to Els's business partner. The animal also frequently broke out of its enclosure and chased golfers at a local golf club. Els, who also kept giraffe and rhino, claimed the sound of his voice would lure Humphrey back home. He regarded the hippo as "loveable" and a "gentle giant".  Armed with giant canine teeth, hippos are said to kill more people each year than lions, elephants, leopards, buffalo and rhinos combined. They can move at speeds of up to 30mph despite weighing up to three tonnes."