Thursday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[Zarniwoop]

Place your bets!

I think the S.Ct. will stay the mifepristone ruling while the 5th Cir. hears the appeal on an expedited briefing schedule.

6-3: Sotomayor, Kagan, Jackson, Roberts, Kavanaugh, Barrett.

Gorsuch possibly votes for the stay. Alito unlikely, Thomas a hard nope.

[John F. Carr]

I think so too, with a dissent that is being circulated today.

As a justice my temptation would be to let the stay expire until I read and considered every one of the pointless amicus briefs opposing the decisions below. As a lesson to others not to waste the court's time. Is there really anything for amici to add? The pro-pill position is actively being defended on the important grounds. This is not a case the government is hoping to lose. This is not a case where amici will turn over an interesting new stone. As Danco put it in the company's reply brief

If this litigation involved any other drug, there would be no debate that a group of doctors who [1] do not prescribe it and [2] rely on a statistical possibility of encountering a patient in need of follow up care would be found to lack standing.

Either the court agrees or we get into the mirror world of Blackman's epicycles of abortion.

[Martinned]

Don't you need permission from the Court to file an amicus brief? If so, they should be much stricter on that.

[John F. Carr]

The rules for amicus briefs changed in January to remove the requirement that the parties or the court consent to filing.

The new rule says in cases like this "the filing of these briefs is discouraged, and an amicus curiae brief should be filed only if it brings to the attention of the Court relevant matter not already presented by the parties that will be of considerable help to the Court."

[Procyon Mustelid]

It's a shame that as hard as it is to keep amici from duplicating a party's arguments, it's even harder to keep amici from duplicating each other's.

[David Nieporent]

The problem is that most amicus briefs in high-profile cases are about fundraising for the amici themselves. If it's an ERISA case, an amicus brief might provide useful insight about the operations of the law from professionals in that field.

But that's not this scenario. This is about Americans For Abortion or Americans Against Drugs or whatever group sending out a letter saying, "We just filed a brief with the Supreme Court on this important issue, and we need your support!" and then, of course, asking for money.

[DonP]

Should we just accept that, considering the "leaker" hasn't been caught yet, the decision will just be leaked later today?

Just amazing ain't it, with such a small universe to interview, they still can't identify the source after all this time. But the FBI can find a frustrated parent, somewhere in Oklahoma, that mumbled something about children and sexual orientation in a diner.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's hardly amazing, since with even a modicum of care, the only way the leaker would have been discovered is if they'd confessed.

[Longtobefree]

Just because they don't admit it doesn't mean they don't know.

[SRG]

There are only 9 people who cannot be subjected to the kind of interrogation which might lead investigators to the source of the leak.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, I'm pretty sure not one of them can be subjected to drug assisted interrogation, which is the only sort of interrogation which would identify the leaker if they weren't in a mood to out themselves.

[Nige]

'drug assisted interrogation'

Maybe they could be renditioned to a black site for some Scalia-approved enhanced interrogation.

[Gandydancer]

We live in the world where a university in Hawaii was granted standing to oppose Trump's "Muslim Ban" on the grounds that it would make it more difficult to score full-price tuition from some foreigners, so I don't want to hear about "standing" until that sort of crap is fixed.

[Nelson]

Until all of my personal grievances,no matter how petty, are addressed, no one gets to have theirs considered!

-Gandydancer

[Gandydancer]

Your whining about standing is noble and my objections are petty. According to you. Go fuck yourself.

[Nelson]

When did I ever talk about standing? You need to keep track of who you are launching ad hominem attacks against.

I suggest keeping a journal, since personal attacks comprise a majority of your posts.

[Gandydancer]

First, you stupid jackass, saying “Go fuck yourself” is not a “personal attack”. It’s cursing you out for your impertinence, which is a different category of speech altogether.

On the other hand, saying you are a stupid jackass is absolutely a “personal attack”, albeit a fully merited one, as to reply to me as you did after I wrote ” a university in Hawaii was granted standing” makes utter nonsense of your moronic question “When did I ever talk about standing?” If I write about standing and you reply then we, including you, are talking about my opinions about standing, you egregious cretin.

[Nelson]

I didn't address standing at all. I observed that you were listing grievances about an unrelated topic (the Muslim ban) and pretending that until your position was vindicated, no one else's cases should be addressed.

Do you really think that the legal system should grind to a halt until they go back and change some ruling in the past to your preferred outcome? You really think your opinion is that important?

You are operating under the mistaken belief that there is one true belief (yours) and that the rest of the world must stop until they accept it. You're a legend in your own mind.

[loki13]

If this was reality ... in the sense that I still trusted the Federal Judiciary, this would be the case most likely to lead to a summary reversal.

But I don't. I just don't trust the Federal Judiciary or the Supreme Court to bother with little niceties like, "precedent," or "consistency," or "ethics," or any of the other values I used to ascribe to them.

So I suppose the best you can hope for is a stay pending appeal, and SCOTUS will be shocked (shocked!) when the 5th Cir. renders a terrible decision after full briefing.

[Lee Moore]

It is rather shocking, I agree, that maybe 20% of the GOP appointed judges are now as goal-oriented as 95% of the Dem appointed judges. The GOP, we can all agree, is veeeryyy slooooww, but they do eventually catch on.

[Bob from Ohio]

Zarniwoop above speculated on the vote but there is zero doubt about the first three names, only the GOP judges are capable of departing from ideology. Ludicrous pearl clutching by Loki and others about how different the current Supreme Court decides cases from the angels who used to do so.

[Martinned]

You do realise that there is no reason why ideological cases would come to the Court at the moment unless one or more of the GOP votes were up for grabs? It takes four votes to grant cert, for one thing.

[Bob from Ohio]

My statement was still true when it was only 5 GOPers.

[Martinned]

You mean when the GOP was also in the majority on the Court?

[not guilty]

The last time a majority of SCOTUS justices had been nominated by Democratic presidents was before Abe Fortas resigned in 1969. (Black, Douglas, White, Fortas and Thurgood Marshall.)

[Martinned]

That should tell you something about the incentives of different justices to vote for cert, the kinds of cases that come before the Court, and the priors you should have about the odds of different justices "breaking rank".

[not guilty]

Justice Brennan was a liberal Democrat, and Justice Powell was a conservative Democrat, both appointed by Republican presidents.

[Martinned]

@ng: Yes, which is why back then people there were more ideological cases before the Court that might expose disagreements among the left-leaning Justices.

[loki13]

Spoken like someone who doesn't do any litigation, let alone federal litigation.

Bang your stupid partisan drum all you want. When judges can't even be bothered to get basic things like injunctions correct, and start messing up the stable areas of the law ... you know, contract, business-to-business litigation, that kind of thing ... that creates a problem.

And you're probably not someone who has to deal with this crud coming down the pipeline, since all you do is DERP in the comments section. But it does have an effect. Because when you're trying to advise clients on black-letter law, it doesn't help to just shrug and say, "Yeah, except who knows, right?"

The federal judiciary is not supposed to be like a box of chocolates.

[Bob from Ohio]

Be grateful, you can charge more.

[Life of Brian]

Because when you’re trying to advise clients on black-letter law, it doesn’t help to just shrug and say, “Yeah, except who knows, right?”

I understand you're mainly emoting, but since you're purporting to school non-litigators I'll just gently point out that if you've been in the business of guaranteeing outcomes to your clients in areas of supposedly settled law, you probably have some sorely pissed-off clients in your rear-view mirror.

And that holds even more true in a situation where your client is taking a controversial position that you as a no doubt worldly-wise lawyer have good reason to expect the judge(s) in the selected forum will be looking for a reason to rule against. Like this one, just for example.

So no, even if this particular ruling is edgy, it ain't exactly gonna lead to the fall of western civilization any more than any number of prior edgy rulings. This one is just getting a lot more airtime because it's a hot-button topic.

[Lee Moore]

Because when you’re trying to advise clients on black-letter law, it doesn’t help to just shrug and say, “Yeah, except who knows, right?”

As Bob explained on a different thread, not all cases are political. It's nice that you approve of following the text and the precedents in non political cases.

I believe in following the text and the precedent in all cases. 95% of Dem judges and 20% of GOP judges do not.

Your beef with "bad" GOP judges is what we have had to put up with from "bad" Dem judges for decades. Suck it up.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

I love how you throw around these percentages, as if you actually know what you are talking about.

[Lee Moore]

De nada

[Sarcastr0]

Naw dude, it's bullshit.

There's actual factual bad behavior going on and your response is 'libs bad too, look at these numbers from outta my ass.'

That'll rationalize all evil one could imagine.

Don't lean on bullshit to rationalize bad things.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

He's correct, though. It is literally de nada.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Bang your stupid partisan drum all you want.

Physician, heal thyself.

[Sarcastr0]

So this was a criticism of a comment, and you switch to criticism of a commenter.

Typical of you to get very personal, but in the end it's empty of argumentation.

[Kazinski]

You are preaching to the choir. The fact they let an incoherent mess like Roe stand for 50 years, and then the wailing when it was finally put out of its misery by judges that know better was disgraceful.

I'm pro-choice myself, and I don't totally foreclose the possibility of a constitutional right to abortion, but Roe wasn't a horseshoe, or even a hand grenade.

[Sarcastr0]

Roe didn't stand. Casey did.

I do love those saying they are pro choice but cheering on Dobbs. Dude, Dobbs is at least as bad.

[Gandydancer]

If you're only just starting to say “Yeah, except who knows, right?”, where have you been?

[hoppy025]

Here's the difference. The Democrat judges are fundamentally moral, progressive people. So it's acceptable for them to be goal-oriented, because their goals are noble and just.

Republican judges are evil, bigoted, white men (except for Uncle Toms like Clarence Thomas, so their goals are obviously bad. So it's not okay for them to be results-oriented.

[Davedave]

"Uncle Toms like Clarence Thomas"

Do keep up. He's not an Uncle Tom. He's tacitly admitted he has been doing it for money.

[hoppy025]

Is it okay for Bill and Killary to accept lavish gifts from the Soroses of the world?

[not guilty]

Davedave, do you think that Clarence Thomas got to the D.C. Circuit and later to the Supreme Court on his own merit? His prior legal experience was a brief stint as an assistant state attorney general, plus two administrative sinecures in the Reagan Administration.

[Davedave]

I'd have thought he probably did, but I don't see the relevance. The focus is on his quid pro quo with a billionaire who has openly admitted his relationship with Thomas was 'transactional', and which Thomas has himself tacitly admitted was corrupt.

[Kazinski]

Have to agree with you there.

Clarence Thomas had the thinnest resume for a Supreme Court Justice since William O. Douglas.

Of course I'd like to see this on more judges resumes:
"[Douglas] traveled to New York taking a job tending sheep on a Chicago-bound train, in return for free passage, with hopes to attend the Columbia Law School".

[hoppy025]

What about Kagan? Had she ever been a judge? Or does she get a pass because she's a female Jewish lesbian?

[Kazinski]

Whoooosh.

[Frank Drackman]

as opposed to a male-Jewish-Lesbian??
OK, I've always joked I'm a Lesbian locked in a Man's body

Frank

[Gandydancer]

"Davedave, do you think that Clarence Thomas got to the D.C. Circuit and later to the Supreme Court on his own merit?"

Why would you ask DAVEDAVE, of all people, that?

"Think" and "davedave" are not words that belong in the same sentence. Every sentence he vomits onto this page is a foul-smelling partisan spew.

But, yeah, you're not likely to object to that. Tell us what you REALLY think about "Uncle Tom".

OF COURSE Thomas was the beneficiary of demonstrative discrimination.

So was Ketanji Jackson.

What’s your point?

[Nelson]

KJB was highly qualified. That isn’t really in dispute. From what I read above, there is a valid argument that Thomas wasn’t.

[Gandydancer]

Bullshit. Ketanji Brown isn't qualified to carry Thomas' jock. She's a total hack, picked for her sex and color and partisanship.

[Nelson]

One of them sat the bench for over 9 years before they became a justice, one of them sat for 19 months. Guess which one was Thomas.

Your bias is showing.

[Gandydancer]

Your obtunded grasp of the word “qualfied” is what is showing. Brown could have been a partisan pustule disgracing the appeals bench for decades and she would still never be qualified to carry Thomas’ jock.

[Nelson]

Thomas is a partisan, and apparently a corrupt one at that. He isn't a Scalia or Ginsberg. He's an intellectual lightweight.

Which is fine, but he isn't a paragon of intellect and accomplishment compared to KBJ.

[Kazinski]

Ok, but she isn’t the whole universe of Supreme Court Justices. And not a great comp for Thomas because she was 51, 8 years older thus 8 years more experienced.

William Douglas is a better comp, he was 40, compared to Thomas’s 43. Both had experience as sub cabinet level appointed officials.
Thomas was a judge on the US DC court of appeals for a year and a half.
Douglas had no bench experience.

Douglas was the longest serving Justice at 36 years, he retired just 6 years before Thomas was nominated. Thomas is the 12th longest serving justice just 5 years fewer than Douglas.

And both are civil rights champions and both famous for frequent dissents.

Sounds like a great comp to me.

[Gandydancer]

“…Uncle Tom [has] tacitly admitted he has been doing it for money.”

"The focus is on his quid pro quo with a billionaire who has openly admitted his relationship with Thomas was ‘transactional’, and which Thomas has himself tacitly admitted was corrupt."

Thanks for proving hoppy’s point: There’s no reason not to give it to you good and hard.

[Davedave]

So you don't know what 'uncle Tom' means. Got it. I'd ask you to let us know what other common phrases you don't understand the basic meaning of, but I expect everyone here has a dictionary already.

[Nelson]

When you're a Russian troll, the idioms usually trip you up.

[Gandydancer]

Your brain is broken, and stupid liar is not as good a look as you imagine it to be.

[Nelson]

What do you do with your life when you aren't making ad hominem attacks online?

Oops, sorry. I forgot that this is why the Russians pay you. Carry on.

[Kazinski]

Thats hilarious Nelson.

Are you seriously saying you didn’t know that we are all Russian trolls?

You better sit down pour yourself a drink, and read this:https://reason.com/2023/02/14/global-disinformation-index-state-department-list-risk-reason/

Now you better find a site to tell you how to scrub your email account before they trace it back to your safe house.

[Nelson]

I don't think anyone else is a paid troll, either the ones on the left like Mike or Tony or the ones on the right like ... well, there's a good number of you.

But Gandy is an insult-spewing, pro-authoritarian edgelord. I can't imagine anyone taking joy in constant insults and ad hominem attacks unless they were getting paid to do it.

[QuantumBoxCat]

My bet is that after the decision is announced Kerr and/or Adler will write a post directing readers to Adam Unikowsky’s substack. The rest of Conspirators will continue to avoid the subject. Blackman’s “epicycles of abortion” will never be mentioned again.

I'm also going to say that Thomas authors an opinion that includes the term "unborn child" and some variation of the word "eugenics."

[Bob from Ohio]

Adam Unikowsky's firm represents Planned Parenthood. Maybe someone sould have pointed that out.

[not guilty]

Bob, do you dispute the correctness of Mr. Unikowsky´s substantive analysis? If so, based on what authorities? Please show your work.

[hoppy025]

Okay cool, so then you're okay with studies from GOA and the NRA about gun violence? Can Focus on the Family provide you with substantive analysis on how men who like to peg other men are more likely to abuse drugs and be depressed?

[not guilty]

Where do get that from my challenge to another commenter, who has heretofore demonstrated no acumen in legal analysis, to respond on the merits to Mr. Unikowsky´s substantive critiques?

[Gandydancer]

Where's YOUR refutation of the opinion Unikowsky criticizes? I'm not in the slightest interested in an argument with someone who isn't here.

[not guilty]

Why do you feign interest in what I have to say, Gandydancer? Why should I cast pearls before swine? (Matthew 7:6)

[Gandydancer]

You will never know a pearl from a loose turd no matter how many of the latter you shit out and wallow in.

You of course are making no actual arguments to anyone, not just none to me.

[Bob from Ohio]

"do you dispute the correctness"

I have no idea, but potential bias or conflicts is always important to know.

[not guilty]

Admitting that you have no idea is one of the rare truthful things you have said, Bob.

[Gandydancer]

Past time for you to do so.

[not guilty]

Justice Clarence Thomas yesterday opined in dissent in a death penalty case:

The Constitution limits the federal courts’ jurisdiction to “Cases” and “Controversies,” Art. III, §2, cl. 1, constraining judicial power to “the determination of real, earnest and vital controversies between” contending litigants. . . . “An essential and unchanging part of [this] case-or-controversy requirement” is the doctrine of Article III standing. . . . Under that doctrine, any party requesting relief from a federal court must assert “an injury” that is “concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent,” and he must show that his injury is both “fairly traceable to the challenged action” and “redressable by a favorable ruling.” . . .

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-442_e1p3.pdf [citations omitted.]

We will see tomorrow whether Justice Thomas applies these stringent criteria to The Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine’s fanciful and attenuated claims of standing to seek relief from the FDA. Or will he instead quote that icon of jurisprudence, Emily Litella: “Never mind!”?

[Davedave]

What's happening with Thomas, anyway? Is he really not going to resign, having tacitly admitted the corruption allegations are true? Assuming he is either successfully impeached or resigns to avoid impeachment, what happens to cases he has been involved in?

[Bob from Ohio]

The GOP House is never going to impeach him and even if it did 15 GOP senators aren't going to vote to convict.

[John F. Carr]

My governor has called for his resignation, which I see simply as a request to allow Biden to replace a conservative with a liberal. Will the left be so eager to see Thomas go if Republicans are in charge in 2025? If the objections to Thomas are principled, they will take the risk of a young conservative replacement. Like successful impeachments of Clinton and Trump would have made it likely that Gore and Pence would win as incumbents.

[hoppy025]

Hopefully they do a better job picking a replacement than Barrett and Kavanagh.

[Voize]

Even if the objections aren't principled progressives would likely be happy to see Thomas replaced with another Gorsuch or Kavanaugh.

[Kazinski]

I think Thomas will resign when DeSantis comes in if there is a GOP Senate, otherwise he will wait 2 years.

If there is a democratic majority might be interesting if he does what Breyer did and announce his intention to resign effective with the confirmation of his successor. If they confirm DeSantis' pick then fine, if not then rescind his intention to resign, and wait two years.

[shawn_dude]

You've framed this as "replacement with a more liberal justice" or "get an equally conservative and much younger justice." That is certainly a variable in the larger equation. But might it also be that Democrats would prefer a young, conservative, ethical justice to Thomas? Whatever else one can say about Thomas, he's basically shown that he doesn't have to follow any real ethical standards and there's not a darned thing anyone can do about it. That's going to hurt the court's reputation--deeply.

[hoppy025]

Unlike Ruth Bader Ginsburg who admitted that she didn't care about the Constitution, but only about her visions for the world?

[Gandydancer]

“Assuming he is either successfully impeached or resigns to avoid impeachment…”

I assume pigs fly on your world. Most freely in wide open empty spaces between your ears.

[Gandydancer]

"Under that doctrine, any party requesting relief from a federal court must assert 'an injury” that is “concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent'.”

The district court opinion goes to considerable lengths to demonstrate that the plaintiffs have done exactly that, under the relevant precedents. You have'nt previously complained about equally "fanciful and attenuated claims of standing" and no one is obliged to pay attention to you now just because it's your ox being gored.

[not guilty]

¨I think the S.Ct. will stay the mifepristone ruling while the 5th Cir. hears the appeal on an expedited briefing schedule.¨

Predicting what the current Supreme Court will do can be a fool´s errand.

The proper threshold inquiry should be whether the plaintiffs´ pleadings show Article III standing, without which no federal court has subject matter jurisdiction. If not, the remedy would be a remand to the district court with instructions to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

The district court and the Fifth Circuit have each made hash of long settled Article III standing rules. Are five justices willing to graft an anti-abortion rights exception onto those rules? I wouldn´t bet against it.

[Zarniwoop]

well, at least the stakes are low here.

c'mon, make a guess. it's a guess! you know, for fun!

[Zarniwoop]

How about that SpaceX rapid unplanned disassembly?

Sort of like when Musk took over Twitter.

[Brett Bellmore]

Actually, that wasn't too bad: It cleared the launch pad, so the repair costs will be minor, and they collected a lot of useful data.

Most space launch companies view failure as not an option, (But reality insists that is will forever remain one.) and over-invest in preventing it. SpaceX views failure as a learning experience, and tries to optimize for learning as fast as possible, rather than minimizing failures.

So they've already got the next test articles lined up, they can be ready to try again in weeks. The biggest drag on their schedule isn't rockets blowing up, it's the FAA being informally tasked with making Musk's life hell on account of the current administration viewing him as an internal enemy of the state.

[Martinned]

If your head was any further up Elon's ass you could chew his lunch for him.

[Brett Bellmore]

Oh, so you're launching better than half the world traffic to orbit, then, and know where Musk is doing it wrong?

[Martinned]

What you said may well be right, but you wouldn't have said it if it was anyone but Elon, even though his approach to management basically relies on him having a half dozen handlers around him at all time to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid.

[Martinned]

...most importantly this guy: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-06/elon-musk-trusts-billions-in-net-worth-to-this-secretive-family-man?sref=SCKvL4TY

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

What you said may well be right, but you wouldn’t have said it if it was anyone but Elon

You just get more pathetic with every post.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Amazingly, you've reached the measurable limit. Your only accomplishment in life, I'm sure.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

You're "sure" of a lot of bullshit.

[Armchair Lawyer]

yep

[Gandydancer]

nope

[OtisAH]

Brett is our only officially recognize telepath and knower of all things he knows near nothing about.

[Gandydancer]

BB is WAY more impressive than YOU are, dipshit.

[grb]

Martinned : “If your head was any further up Elon’s… (etc)”

All sides are right here to a degree, but Brett more so :

1. SpaceX fanboys – which I’m confident Brett will own to – can be fingernails across a chalkboard. Before the Artemis I launch there were a group of them on the Ars Technica site cheering for that rocket to explode. Many of them gush about everything SpaceX does, think the answer to any space question is SpaceX, and denigrate every other player in the industry.

2. That said, Starship will probably revolutionize space travel, the rocket system has progressed incredibly fast for such a radically new vision, and SpaceX innovates quicker than any other space firm. They will learn from this and be back in a few months. Part of their success has been aggressive testing that is not afraid of failure.

3. Of course that doesn’t change the fact Musk is a childish lying troll.

[Davedave]

"the rocket system has progressed incredibly fast for such a radically new vision"

That's because it's almost entirely uninnovative, half-century-old tech.

While they're so far less successful, at least the Virgin efforts are trying to do things differently.

[Brett Bellmore]

Oh, come on, that's not actually true. It's actually a rather clever combination of old and new. And being willing to use old tech where it makes sense is a LOT better than NASA's determination to use bleeding edge bespoke technology for everything, at the cost of not actually getting much done.

The Raptor is the first actually flying Methane/LOX engine, and a radical advance in engines in multiple ways. Pulling off full flow turbopumps on both sides of the engine was pretty spectacular, and required some serious metallurgical advances on the oxidizer pump side.

Sure, use of steel for making rockets is old compared to carbon composites, (The Saturn V was made of maraging steel, for instance.) but enables rapid prototyping; Abandoning the carbon composite approach was a key developmental step, and it's to Musk's credit that he doesn't get trapped by sunk costs.

Contrast that with Virgin Galactic. Sure, an air breathing first stage that takes off horizontally would be a game changer, but the fundamental rocketry equations make it clear that's only the case if it were a VERY high performance air breathing stage, capable of hypersonic flight. You need to split the delta V down the middle to get the gains from staging!

But Branson was more comfortable with his fiber composites, which absolutely guaranteed his first stage would be at best low supersonic, rendering it pointless. In the end, all he had was a gimmick for expensive tourist flights to the edge of space, not a usable system.

Blue Origin is a sad case, in the they had the resources to do fantastic things, but never the urgency, and so they STILL haven't launched anything to orbit, despite starting before SpaceX.

[David Nieporent]

I'm not sure, "At least this company bankrupted itself while trying something different" is much of an endorsement.

[Davedave]

A particular subsidiary was bankrupted as part of the funding game. The main Virgin space corp is still in business.

[Gandydancer]

Somehow Trump never got that defense from you.

[Mr. Bumble]

It's Davedave. Be gentle.

[Gandydancer]

It’s Davedave. Get out the DDT.

[grb]

Davedave : “That’s because it’s almost entirely uninnovative, half-century-old tech”

Compared to what? Compared to warp drives, sure, but they only exist in the movies. In the meantime, Starship is within shouting distance of these benchmarks :

1. A rocket system much cheaper than anything comparable. 2. A rocket system than is practically mass-produced.
3. And every component is reusable.
4. And can land, restack, refuel & relaunch quickly.
5. And is the most powerful rocket ever created.

Two caveats : The ultimate value of Starship is dependent on refueling in space, which has only been done at a very small scale up to this point. But combine the ability of a fleet of spacecrafts (including fuel tankers) that can regularly take-off, land, and re-take-off, and you open up a whole new world of possibilities.

The second thing is caution : Starship offers what the space shuttle promised (albeit on a grander scale). But the shuttle only delivered on a fraction of its promise because space is really, really hard. Starship will have problems delivering on its most rosy predictions as well.

[Davedave]

"Compared to what?"

The competition, obviously.

Of your points, 1 isn't true, even by SpaceX's own numbers. 2 Is ludicrous, and SpaceX don't claim anything of the sort. 3 Is arguably an aim, although overstated by you, but no different to any other system currently in development. 4 and 5 are pretty accurate.

Point is, SpaceX's system is just incremental development of old tech. Nothing wrong with that, but it isn't a radical departure from the norm, as the fanboys are claiming.

Anyone who is actually hoping for more space development rather than fanboying SpaceX should obviously also be hoping Virgin pulls it off, because that would give us a major step forward (or outward).

[Armchair Lawyer]

SpaceX is more successful than all of it's commercial competitors...combined.

[Brett Bellmore]

1. Having much lower costs than your nearest competitor doesn't mean you're going to be stupid enough to charge much lower prices than your nearest competitor, and leave all that lovely money on the table.
2. He's literally got a factory mass producing the engines, and the rockets they go into are only sorta one off because he's in the middle of a development program, he's been building a factory to manufacture those, too, once they have a good design.

[Davedave]

1) We know SpaceX's launch costs.
2) By literally, you apparently mean 'not literally'. Or maybe you just don't know what 'mass production' means.
3) The more important point I made was about applauding all space development unless you're just here to fanboy Elon. Thanks for demonstrating.

[grb]

Davedave : Or maybe you just don’t know what ‘mass production’ means.

Seems like you don’t know very much about the topic at hand. If ‘mass production’ referred to putting out Coke cans, you’d have a point. Instead, we’re taking about an industry where NASA contracted with Rocketdyne for eighteen additional RS-25 engines for their SLS rocket system, for a cost of $1.79 billion. Delivery on that order is ongoing. Meanwhile, SpaceX has a production line of their Raptor engine producing scores of their engines now and aiming towards a goal of up to 500 Raptors per year, each costing under $250,000.

That is beyond anything else seen in the space business. Blue Origin has created a similarly advanced engine with their BE-7 & BE-4s but they are still trying to get an initial approved / functional product out the door.

Likewise, with the rocket itself. Brett may disparage stainless steel as a rocket shell material, but it replaced expensive and time-consuming carbon-fiber technology. SpaceX spent over a year working out fabrication and welding issues, focusing on streamlining the production process itself. The company has produced two dozen prototypes of Starship to various stages of completion over the last fifteen months and anticipates a production line manufacturing scores of finished rockets each year once the design is finalized.

I am not an Elon fanboy, thinking him Trump-level loathsome in terms of honesty and character. And I’m not a SpaceX fanboy, since that seems to require hating on every alternative and abandoning all skepticism. On the other hand, I’m not as deeply ignorant about the current space industry as you are.

[VinniUSMC]

Don't bother. Davedave is a dumbdumb.

[Davedave]

grb:

You'd think people would check the definition before commenting on the subject, but apparently not.

Mass prod requires quantities of identical items made out of interchangeable components. Musk/SpaceX do not make that claim, because that is not what they are doing. You have fallen for a line of puff from the fanboys.

Here, you might enjoy this: https://www.waterstones.com/book/exactly/simon-winchester/9780008241780

Other than that, I think you have confused me refuting a self-confessed fanboy's fanatical and incorrect claims with me saying bad things about Elon. Which, I note, is actually a sign of the kind of Elon fanboy who swears blind they are no such thing.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yup, SpaceX fanboy here, and unapologetically so. And I'm quite impressed with Musk's approach to rocketry development. He's proven that launching and learning from experience IS superior to trying to get everything categorically right before you do your first launch.

That's not to say I'm all that enthusiastic about the drug use, giving his kids weird names, or stupidly initially trying to use 301 stainless steel for rockets welded near the sea. (Sure, it facially has great properties, but it's subject to chlorine induced delayed stress cracking, for goodness sake! And he was going to weld it in a sea breeze?)

I think, even allowing for his many flaws, he's one of those historically critical characters who comes along once in a generation, if you're even that lucky. Expecting that such a person also be a perfectly level headed paragon in every way is unrealistic.

[Sarcastr0]

He’s proven that launching and learning from experience IS superior to trying to get everything categorically right before you do your first launch.

I'll cop to NASA's issues since Apollo, but what do you think Gemini was?

[Gandydancer]

Before institutional arthritis.

[BrotherMovesOn]

Sarcastr0, have you watched the Apple TV series 'For All Mankind'?
Great stuff.

[Sarcastr0]

I've heard somewhat mixed reviews, but with it's premise it's absolutely on my list.

[Don Nico]

It started in an interesting fashion but has degenerated into soap in space.

[BrotherMovesOn]

Maybe, Don Nico. I am looking forward to the new season. I get the ‘soap opera’ crit but to me it was minimal and there are multiple action scenarios ahead. Remember the season ended in a 123 minute finale. I think these are serious people and season 4, which wrapped February 10, according to Collider, will go in unpredictable places. A North Korean on Mars first? Molly’s or Karen’s death in the terrorist attack? I urge Don Nico and Sarcastr0 to keep watching.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

3. Of course that doesn’t change the fact Musk is a childish lying troll.

Why did you omit antisocial, autistic, mean-spirited, and reckless?

[Gandydancer]

Because he's only half as tedious and repetitive and predictable as you are.

[Nige]

'Autistic' isn't an insult or a character flaw.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

It is a useful descriptor with respect to Musk. It explains, to some degree, his unusual, antisocial conduct and odd, awkward nature.

[Gandydancer]

Actually it's your repetitive posting that's diagnostic.
https://www.verywellhealth.com/repetitive-behaviors-in-autism-260582

[Kazinski]

NASA probably feels itself in competition with SpaceX but they also see it as an absolutely essential partner for its own efforts

"As of January 2023, Crew Dragon is the only U.S. human-rated orbital transport spacecraft, the only reusable orbital crewed spacecraft and the only reusable orbital cargo spacecraft currently in operation."

So right now its Elon or the Russians to get people to or from the space station or space at all, well there's also the Chinese.

I don't have any inside information but my Brother in law was the Manager of the Orian space craft program, and deputy director of the Artemis program before he retired and went to work for Blue Origin. My daughter was at the first Artemis Launch that was scheduled in September and scrubbed but finally went off in November.

Heh, my brother in law and I have never been close, but my kids follow it with interest and talk to me about it, and they used to occasionally get behind the scenes looks and insights.

[Davedave]

"NASA probably feels itself in competition with SpaceX"

Why would they? Would you feel like you're in competition with the gardener you employ to take care of chores like mowing the lawns and raking leaves while you get on with the real gardening?

[Brett Bellmore]

NASA is more of a clearing house for funds than a rocketry agency, at this point. They're not in competition with the companies they hire to do the actual work.

[Davedave]

The point is that they're a space agency, not a rocket builder, so it's not like their prestige is negatively affected by one of their contractors doing well - particularly since one of NASA's stated aims has been to encourage the development of private rocket/spacecraft builders, so any success of their contractor reflects well on their choices.

[Brett Bellmore]

I think they potentially are in competition with SpaceX, to the extent that SpaceX's Mars ambitions look an awful lot like a private space program, not just a vendor for the government's program.

But SpaceX won't have the cash flow to pursue those Mars missions until Starship is flying regular paying flights, and even then I expect Musk will try to get the government to foot part of the bill as a private/public venture.

[OtisAH]

“Repair costs”?

[Martinned]

Of the stuff on the ground, presumably. They did total someone's car, if I understood the videos on Twitter correctly, but I can see how an explosion - sorry, rapid disassembly - close to the ground would be more expensive.

[Brett Bellmore]

Rocket exhaust excavated a pretty big crater under the launch mount. Flung pieces of concrete went a long ways.

[Mr. Bumble]

Secret test for the Boring Company?

[Brett Bellmore]

Sometimes SpaceX has to relearn the lessons of the past, surprisingly. Like that explosion they had a while back during a spinup test was due to not having a sparker system on the launch pad to ignite unburnt propellant before it accumulated to an explosive mix.

In this case, I suspect explosive spalling of concrete when exposed to intense heat. There's a reason people have been putting steel diverters with ablative coatings under rocket launch pads since the 50's.

Sometimes being a rocket company not run by old time rocketeers is a plus, sometimes it's a minus...

[Armchair Lawyer]

Indeed. Elon previously predicted on twitter there would just be 50/50 odds of success. That's why there was no cargo.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

It destroyed the launch pad, you dolt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8q24QLXixo

[Martinned]

Spontaneous Massive Existence Failure

[Aunt Teefah]

Great timing for the right wing commenter who was arguing in last week's thread that Musk was being oppressed by big government bureaucrats for delaying the launch date for one of his rockets.

The real-life Roman Roy simply cannot stop taking Ls.

[Gandydancer]

To even know who :"Roman Roy" is you have to be a loser almost as sad as Artie demonstrates he is by spending so much time here repeating himself.

I don't, but I gather you mean Musk. Yeah, "taking L's" really summarizes the guy. At lest in the "mind" (I use the word loosely) of Lefty AFTER he bought Twitter and starting raining on Lefty's parade.

[Aunt Teefah]

"spending so much time here repeating himself."

Unlike Gandydancer, whose comments on here are always so original and clever. Lmao.

Musk has always been a conman and a scam artist, long before he bought Twitter. Plenty of people have been able to see that for years, long before he started pandering to culture-war imbeciles like yourself. You guys can keep riding his dick if you want, but that isn't going to keep his rockets from exploding, his cars from continuing to malfunction, or Twitter from continuing to shed value.

[Gandydancer]

You can keep pretending that your butthurt didn't start when he took over Twitter from the most egregious of Wokesters, but the rest of us notice that the "Plenty of people" on his case didn't include you until he did.

[Aunt Teefah]

How the hell could you possibly pretend to know what I - an anonymous commenter on an internet forum - thought and said about Elon Musk prior to him buying twitter? What an incredibly stupid (not to mention totally irrelevant) thing to say. In fact, him buying twitter, if manages to fully destroy it, would be the only worthwhile thing he's ever done.

If you're capable of forming a coherent argument instead of just pathetic insults, why don't you try your hand at actually defending your daddy? Tell us why his pump-and-dump schemes makes him such a business genius. Explain why Teslas aren't poorly-made death traps. Don't forget to work the balls while you're at it.

[Gandydancer]

Go ahead, link to yourself attacking Musk before he weas on the Left Enemies list.

But you can't because you're lying.

I've seen many posts by you and I know who and what you are.

[Frank Drackman]

Obviously a "Major Malfunction"
of course fitting that a launch on 4-20 would go out "Blazing"

Frank

[Life of Brian]

How about that SpaceX rapid unplanned disassembly?

Yeah, I would have gone with "mostly successful launch."

[shawn_dude]

This was a direct quote from one of the official announcers with SpaceX--"rapid unplanned disassembly." I thought it was funny.

[Zarniwoop]

RUD is a term with a good pedigree in the aerospace biz ... in part because it is funny!

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rapid_unplanned_disassembly

[shawn_dude]

The more you know!

[Life of Brian]

This was a direct quote from one of the official announcers with SpaceX–“rapid unplanned disassembly.” I thought it was funny.

Yeah, I know. I briefly chuckled at mine too.

[Nige]

It's honestly a masterful and majestic use of language.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

How about that SpaceX rapid unplanned disassembly?

Yeah, that sort of thing just never happened with NASA.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

FDA removed authorization for the original COVID vaxes and has started paying out injury claims.

Your son gets myocardial and a cool $1000.

Meanwhile bureaucrats get millions in IP royalties and Big Pharma gets billions in profits.

Sounds like a win-win for the State and it's bootlickers.

[Davedave]

"FDA removed authorization for the original COVID vaxes and has started paying out injury claims."

No, they didn't. You're lying through your teeth again.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Why is it always the statist bootlickers the ones who are the most ignorant?

Vaxx Victim Payouts
https://www.theepochtimes.com/us-compensates-people-injured-by-covid-19-vaccines-for-first-time_5200854.html

Vaxx withdrawal, No Refunds
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/fda-simplifies-covid-vaccine-schedules-withdraws-authorization-older/story?id=98662516

[Davedave]

"I'm not lying, here are sources that... prove I'm lying."

Come on, even for you that's pathetic.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Are you stupid?

I said they are paying out vaxx injury claims and gave you a link to support it.

I said they removed authorization and gave you a link to support it.

You vaxxholes are something else.

[Davedave]

Lying harder isn't going to help. No-one believes you, especially after you posted sources that show you were lying to start with. Lying that they don't show that just destroys... Well, you didn't have any credibility remaining. It just destroys any notion you are self aware.

It appears you are some sort of vegetation. Remarkable.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

You're an idiot. Go get BOOSTED TO THE MAXX!

Make sure you VAXX MAXX your kids too.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Virus-flouting bigots are among my favorite culture war casualties . . . and the preferred audience of a white, male, right-wing blog with a vanishingly thin academic veneer.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Vaxxed Maxxed Vaxxholes are my favorite vaxx victims.

It really warms my heart seeing all these vaxxholes/Democrats suffer the consequences of their horrible life choices.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You enjoy that, while I enjoy watching you comply with my preferences until you and your bigoted, stale, right-wing thinking are replaced. By your betters.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

My betters were out there cutting my grass for $20 today.

lol, why are they so short?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You should try to be nicer. I might instruct my children not to hire your children to mow the lawn, wash the vehicles, and shovel snow.

And then where would your family get the handfuls of street pills needed to get through another desolate day in America's deplorable backwaters?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

My kids aren't illegals.

And since you're a homo, you don't have any kids.

[Davedave]

Come on, Rev, be honest. We aren't going to let his sort's kids out of the quarantine camps even to perform cheap manual labour in chain gangs. Those who play silly games, etc.

[Gandydancer]

If the articles don't say what BCD says they say you ought to be able to quote them saying something that contradicts him.
For some reason it seems you can't.
But of course we already know that you're a shameless liar, so that's no surprise.

[Josh R]

FFS. A newer vaccine (bivalent) that includes components of the old one (monovalent) is now authorized.

[Gandydancer]

The real question is whether it's still only the EUA versions that are available.

Because letting the EUA "vaccines" still be distributed very long after "replacements" (supposedly the same) have been apperoved is corrupt.

[David Nieporent]

The real question is whether it’s still only the EUA versions that are available.

"Still"? That hasn't been true for almost two years now.

[Gandydancer]

https://www.fda.gov/emergency-preparedness-and-response/mcm-legal-regulatory-and-policy-framework/faqs-what-happens-euas-when-public-health-emergency-ends

As I noted, AFAIK it is still only the liability-free EUA versions of the “vaccines” that are actually generally available. No, that hadn’t changed as of two years ago. So you are a truly determined ignoramus with delusions.

If this situation has changed you ought to be able to find some mention of that fact somewhere.

[Gandydancer]

Also see https://www.hoover.org/research/vaccines-and-liability-0

[Life of Brian]

https://www.fda.gov/emergency-preparedness-and-response/mcm-legal-regulatory-and-policy-framework/faqs-what-happens-euas-when-public-health-emergency-ends

Ah, thanks for that. I was wondering what the specific mechanism was for gleefully continuing to issue EUAs now that by law there's no longer an E. The administrative state really is its own little kingdom.

[Gandydancer]

yw

[Josh R]

Ron DeSantis endorses indoctrinating kids:

“It’s wrong for a teacher to tell a student that they may have been born in the wrong body or that their gender is a choice and so we don’t let that happen in Florida.”

[Brett Bellmore]

You don't want kids indoctrinated, get rid of government run schools; They've been indoctrination camps as long as they've been around. Their PURPOSE is to be indoctrination camps!

But if the government is going to run indoctrination camps in a democracy, you'd better expect that, sooner or later, they'll be teaching popular doctrine, not doctrine that most people think is insane or evil.

[Josh R]

It sounds like you believe education, public or private, inherently indoctrinates kids rather than facilitating discussion and debate of ideas. Thanks for being honest about it, Now if only faux-populist politicians would be honest about their supposed opposition to indoctrination.

[Lee Moore]

Education begins with stuffing information into kids heads, usually against their will.

This is because "facilitating discussion and debate of ideas" is a waste of time - indeed a confusing backward step - until the participants know something.

If you wish to discuss things in, say, Russian, first you need to learn Russian. If you wish to discuss the Civil War, first you need to know something about what happened.

You'd need to know quite a lot about developmental biology before you could participate in a sensible discussion about being "born in the wrong body." As to the psychological and neuroscience aspects of gender, well that's something that is still in its Ur-stage, so you'd hardly expect schoolteachers, never mind schoolchildren, to have anything useful to contribute.

[Josh R]

I'll buy some of that for very young kids. But no, for middle and high school kids you don't need courses in developmental biology to discuss the political, societal and many personal aspects of gender identity.

But you missed my point: DeSantis is a phony when he rails against indoctrination kids.

[Lee Moore]

How do you discuss the "political, societal and many personal aspects of gender identity" without an understanding of what "gender identity" is ?

And why would you even want to discuss the ""political, societal and many personal aspects of gender identity" in school? Surely there are a thousand things more important to the lives of 99% of the children than that ?

[Josh R]

We all, especially including phony DeSantis and other politicians who use it as a wedge issue, discuss gender identity without courses in developmental biology. Moreover, we do so even though there are a thousand things more important in 99% of our lives.

[Lee Moore]

We - that is to say those of us who have no interest in gender identity, except when we find ourselves being coshed with it, by those that are interested - have little option but to cosh back, with whatever knowledge we can assemble.

I assure you that de Santis would not have a word to say about gender identity - since he would never have heard of it - unless it had first become the left's lutta du jour.

[Martinned]

If you have no interest in gender identity, why do you keep bringing it up?

More generally, all trans people want is to live their lives in peace. It's conservatives who keep using them as a wedge issue.

[Lee Moore]

1. Josh brought it up. RTQ.

2. You may be right about what trans people want. Alas it is not what trans activists want. They want to scream and shout at people who continue to use words in their original, common sense, way; get them cancelled from jobs, colleges or contracts; and get boys into girls sports teams and bathrooms.

Peaceful co-existence would be great. Call off the dogs.

[Mr. Bumble]

Would that be transvestites, transsexuals or transgenders or all of them?

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

If you have no interest in gender identity, why do you keep bringing it up?

He didn't, you illiterate dipshit.

[Josh R]

DeSantis brought it up because he wants to indoctrinate kids to his point of view.

[Lee Moore]

You brought it here, Josh.

And as I note below, "indoctrintion" consists in "teaching or inculcating a doctrine, principle, or ideology, especially one with a specific point of view"

it does not consist in not teaching or inculcating a doctrine etc.

de Santis does not insist that teachers teach or inculcate the doctrine that there is no such thing as gender, or that we are all very definitely born in the "right" body. He - or the Florida government - simply instructs Florida teachers to eschew teaching the contrary.

[Nige]

On the one hand some trans people assert themselves, as is their right. On the other, people want to eradicate transgenderism from public life.

[Randal]

Peaceful co-existence would be great.

You're full of shit. Peaceful co-existence requires acknowledging each other's existence, which you're unwilling to do.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"More generally, all trans people want is to live their lives in peace."

Except the ones checking in to women's shelters and assaulting the residents, going to women's prisons and doing the same, stealing accolades from real women in women's sports, and insisting that lesbians fellate them, sure.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Peaceful co-existence requires acknowledging each other’s existence, which you’re unwilling to do."

Huh? Everyone acknowledges that there are men who want to be women, and women how want to be men.

[Lee Moore]

TIP : Huh? Everyone acknowledges that there are men who want to be women, and women how want to be men.

You are imagining that Randal is writing English. He/she/it is not. They are writing Newspeak.

"acknowledging each other’s existence" does not mean "acknowledging each other’s existence" it means "accepting each other's presentation of themself."

Thus if a 24 year old "trans man" claims to have served in the Marines with distinction in WW2, you take "him" at "his" word. And in turn, "he" is duty bound to accept that you are what you claim by way of, ah, length.

[Randal]

If you recognized the existence of transgender people and you desired peaceful co-existence then you wouldn’t say things like

get boys into girls bathrooms

That just means you either don’t recognize that trans women exist and they’re not boys, or you think they should be subjugated. Subjugating people is not peaceful co-existence. It might be from your perspective, but certainly not from theirs.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Similarly, if you don’t believe that Jews are God’s chosen people, you can’t peacefully coexist with Jewish people, because you don’t believe that Jewish people exist!

[Lee Moore]

Randal : That just means you either don’t recognize that trans women exist and they’re not boys, or you think they should be subjugated.

I’m familiar with the traditional Genghis Khan style meaning of “subjugated” but the Newspeak version escapes me.

As to the first bit, is “and they’re not boys” an editorial comment from you ? Or is it in some way connected to “That just means you either don’t recognize that trans women exist” ?

Which brings us back round to the Newspeak version of “exist”.

Anyway, I’ll stick to English. Yes of course I accept that “trans women” exist. As I understand it, a “trans woman” is a human of male sex who claims a female “gender identity.” Precisely what a “gender identity” is, remains undefined – or rather it is defined at various times in various different and conflicting ways. But the general idea is supposed to be a mental self image that the person has whereby they identify themselves in some way as having, or being associated with, or “feeling”, a particular sex. A “trans woman”‘s self image is that of a female, and thus opposite to his sex. Hence the “trans.”

I am confident that there are people who falsely claim such self images, and I am confident that there are people who genuinely believe their claims. So as to existence – trans women exist as humans, and, at least in some cases, their thoughts about their “gender identity” are not invented. The thoughts exist.

But they are not, in fact, women. Because “woman” denotes an adult human female (ie human of the reproductive type that, if healthy, produces eggs.) And a “trans woman” is, reproductively, the type of human which, if healthy, produces sperm, and is therefore described – in English – as a “man.”

If stating these obvious, long and universally known biological facts is Newspeak “subjugation” then I must plead guilty. But I don’t feel bad about it. But if it was the English version, then I would.

[Randal]

Similarly, if you don’t believe that Jews are God’s chosen people, you can’t peacefully coexist with Jewish people

Well, this is (unfortunately) a very common view. https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/338704/yes-anti-zionism-is-antisemitism/

I must plead guilty. But I don’t feel bad about it.

That's fine. But then don't say you're all for peaceful co-existence. That's like the slaveowner pleading for peaceful co-existence with his slaves by pointing to the "biological fact" of white supremacy.

[Josh R]

“woman” denotes an adult human female (ie human of the reproductive type that, if healthy, produces eggs.)

You are begging the question.

[Gandydancer]

@Randal: It’s really tedious for YOU to pretend that you favor “peaceful coexistence” when your irreducible demand for granting it is that others agree with you that men with nutty delusions are women.

If that’s your position then, no, I’m NOT in favor of peaceful coexistence with you.

[Randal]

I never said I was in favor of peaceful co-existence. I'm just calling bullshit on Lee.

[Lee Moore]

I'm aware that you can converse in Newspeak too, Josh.

[Lee Moore]

That’s like the slaveowner pleading for peaceful co-existence with his slaves by pointing to the “biological fact” of white supremacy.

1. I don't own any slaves. Nor do I own any trans folk. What I say about trans folk does not "subjugate" them. In English that is. In Newspeak, who can say ?

2. Sex is a biological fact. White Supremacy is not.

What this boils down to, I think, is that the Newspeak version of "subjugation" consists in declining to take someone at his own valuation. Trump must feel very subjugated.

The Newspeak version of "peaceful coexistence" seems to consist in agreeing with the person you're peacefully coexisting with . Though it seems not to be reciprocal, else they would have to agree with me. The English version accepts that "peaceful coexistence" is entirely consistent with disagreement, so long as the disagreement does not develop into biting, scratching or fisticuffs. In short, so long as it is peaceful.

[Randal]

Lee, if it were just the language issue, fine. You can be an asshole and call trans women "men." Everyone should be able to peacefully coexist with assholes.

But you want to go further and pass laws targeting trans people, restricting their behavior and medical options. That's the subjugation.

[Gandydancer]

Randal: "I never said I was in favor of peaceful co-existence. I’m just calling bullshit on Lee."

And I'M calling bullshit on YOU. Lee said peaceful coexistence would be "great", not that he was interested in surrendering to you to get your version of it.

Your lying is positively Soviet in scale.

[Randal]

Mr. Dancer! I'd like to accept your compliment, but I'm afraid you've totally lost me. What is it that you're accusing me of lying about?

Is this some version of lying where everything I said was true, faithful, and complete, but it made you think about the topic in a new way that disturbed you, creating confusion, and you're blaming me for that confusion, accusing me of inflicting it intentionally, and your best name for using truth to intentionally inflict confusion is "lying?" That would be soviet-level!

[Gandydancer]

In claiming to "call bullshit" on Lee Moore you lied about what he actually said.

I've already been completely clear about that, and pretending that I wasn't it just as cretinous as I already knew you were.

[Randal]

Hm? Can you point to where I mischaracterized Lee's position? I only see "If you desire peaceful co-existence..." which suggests he does desire it I suppose... are you saying he actually doesn't? He says it "would be great." That seems like "desire" to me...

I also said I thought it was bullshit, but that doesn't mean I lied about what he said. That's just, like, my opinion, man.

[Randal]

Do you think kids don't know what gender identity is? You've obviously never seen a kid. If you put a bunch of kids together, they'll naturally tend to self-sort by gender. That's gender identity. They know about mommies and daddies. That's gender identity. It's an unbelievably basic concept. Trying to ban teachers from talking about it would be like banning them from talking about the weather. "We're having recess inside because... well I'm not allowed to talk about it so let's just say it's because there's a stork-front coming through bringing thunderstorks, 40 mile-per-hour stork gusts, and even some intermittent golf-ball size storks."

[Lee Moore]

They self sort by sex.

[Randal]

Wrong.

[Life of Brian]

Compelling!

[Randal]

Hey, don't blame me if you don't know any kids.

[Life of Brian]

I know quite a large number, including mine. That's why I know you're playing some sort of guess-what-I'm-thinking word game.

[Randal]

I pretty clearly said kids sort by gender identity as opposed to genetic sex. How are you confused?

[Life of Brian]

I’m not confused at all. You’re either using a different definition of “gender identity” than the trans community and their supporters, or you’re FOS.

[Randal]

You've never seen the sort of effeminate boy who gravitates towards hanging out with the girls, or the rough-and-tumble tomboy who prefers the other boys?

[Gandydancer]

“…or the rough-and-tumble tomboy who prefers the other boys?”

Never. Tomboys may like, e.g., sports, but I have never encountered one who thought she was a boy.

And I’ve never encountered a sissy boy who thought he was a girl.

Now I’ve encountered a couple post-op adult males, and that was in both cases very sad, but that’s not the usual result for sissy boys. Most of the latter turn into flaming fags, I suppose, though I can’t say that I’ve followed one through the process of growing up. But both sissy boys and tomboys are much more common than trannys, and that fact speaks for itself.

[Randal]

I don't think tomboys think they're boys. But I agree with you (and David N) that I'm not using all the right language here and mixing and matching some different concepts (gender identity, gender presentation, gender roles).

The high-level point is this: kids understand gender just fine, and their understanding of gender is more nuanced than XX vs XY.

[Gandydancer]

You, now: "I don’t think tomboys think they’re boys."
You, before: "You’ve never seen the sort of... rough-and-tumble tomboy who prefers the other boys?"

What tomboys think is not the issue. The idea that tomboys are boys was YOUR claim.

Don't attempt to make "high level points" until you've learned to say accurately what you mean.

[Randal]

I grant you, the word "other" makes that quote confusing. My deepest apologies.

[David Nieporent]

Do you think kids don’t know what gender identity is? You’ve obviously never seen a kid. If you put a bunch of kids together, they’ll naturally tend to self-sort by gender. That’s gender identity.

It's not. Gender identity is defined in transgender ideology as an internal, 100% subjective thing. The person purports to feel like a member of the opposite sex. You're talking about gender presentation (sometimes called gender expression), which is something different.

[Randal]

Is your point that DeSantis banned discussion of gender identity but not gender presentation? If not, do you have a point?

[David Nieporent]

My point is that I don't think you yourself understand the concept of gender identity, and are misapplying it. I am not making any point about DeSantis.

[Nige]

'The person purports to feel like a member of the opposite sex. '

And this feeling is strong enough to cause distress, and is a recognised medcial condition with a proven treatment.

[David Nieporent]

But what does "feel like a member of the opposite sex" mean? What does being a woman "feel like"? What does being a man "feel like"? And how can someone even know that?

I understand the statement, "I don't like my body" or "I wish that I had female/male anatomy instead of the male/female anatomy I have." I don't have those feelings myself, but they're comprehensible. But a man saying "My gender identity is woman" (or vice versa) makes no sense at all.

It could mean, I suppose, "I like to do things that women stereotypically do," but claiming that this makes one a woman is sexist and anti-feminist. The corollary would be that a woman who likes to do stereotypically male things ceases to be a woman, which pretty much sets back the feminist movement several centuries. (It's also homophobic, in a sense — as some gay activists have noted. It implies that men who are attracted to men are actually in a sense women, and vice versa.)

Or it could mean, "Internally I feel like what 'cis' women feel like inside," but how could a man possibly know that? (Indeed, how would even a woman know what other women feel like inside?) It would actually be, "I feel internally like what I imagine that 'cis' women feel like internally." But, still, there is no possible way for a person to know what that is, which means it can't actually have any meaning.

It's just not a coherent concept. There's no way to non-circularly define gender identity.

[Nige]

I expect it’s one of those things you have to experience to truly understand. The next best thing is to go find things written by trans people which conveys it.

Trans women, of course, are in no way responsible for how femininity is expressed through dress or behaviour in any given society, it’s ludicrous to demand they conform to any expression of femininity other than whichever it is they’re most comfortable with. A woman remains a woman if she dresses in what are traditionally viewed as mens’ clothes; so does a trans woman.

Since both gay men and lesbians present in terms of dress and behaviour across the entire spectrum of femininity and masculinity, singling out the existence of trans women that present in any particular way, or who are dealing with their dysphoria, as somehow homophobic is, well, self-defeating when done by gay men.

If you find it difficult to grasp imagine what it must be like growing up with that condition, particularly if it’s treated as some sort of delusion or stigmatised and supressed so it has to be done in secrecy and ingorance.

[Randal]

But what does “feel like a member of the opposite sex” mean?

You need to meet some trans people! They'll answer this question for you.

The other thing you could do is... try it!

I had the brilliant idea of going as a woman for Halloween one year. I didn't get very far, just did my hair up and got some accessories, but that was enough to make me almost physically ill, looking in the mirror. I was surprised by my reaction because you know, I don't care, consciously, in fact I thought it was brilliant. But something deep down was like, nope. Man.

So I always imagine trans people feeling something along those lines, except all the time. Gender is deeply ingrained in the human psyche. You're keenly aware of other people's gender, why shouldn't you be aware of your own? I think normal people just don't notice, like, you can't have the sensation of a phantom limb until you've gotten one cut off.

[David Nieporent]

You need to meet some trans people! They’ll answer this question for you.

They won't. I have tried. All I get is something vague and circular. (I have tried reading up on it, too; same problem.)

You’re keenly aware of other people’s gender, why shouldn’t you be aware of your own?

No; I'm aware of other people's sex. I couldn’t be aware of their gender because that's something entirely internal. (I can be aware of their gender presentation, but see below.)
​
​
Your Halloween story — besides being weird — is inapplicable because it conflates (stereotypes about) gender presentation with gender identity. A 'trans' man need not start putting on dresses and makeup to be a woman, in trans ideology; similarly (but in reverse, obviously) for 'trans' women.

It's (typically) about their bodies, not their presentation. (But not even necessarily that, because there are people who identify as trans who have no interest in surgery! Which just further illustrates the lack of coherence of the entire concept.) (To be clear, I'm not talking about people who can't afford the surgery or are just scared of it; I'm talking about people who don't want it.) But trans ideology says that a trans man/woman is a man/woman regardless of how the person presents him/herself and regardless of his/her actual physical attributes. It's entirely a psychological thing.

[Randal]

I'll say it was weird! Have you ever attempted to cross-dress? Don't knock knocking it until you've tried it.

But you keep dodging the substantive questions by retreating to semantics. I don't really care about semantics. Let me try again.

Male vs. female classifications are deeply ingrained in the human psyche. You’re keenly aware of how you instinctively classify other people, why shouldn’t you instinctively classify yourself?

[Nige]

I don't find it incoherent, nor do I find it difficult to understood that there are degrees of severity and as many ways of expressing identity as there are people, as in all things. We've moved past the point where people with, eg, mental illness are obliged to justify themselves or adjust themselves to the demands of others or be subjected to tirades as to the supposed incoherence of their illness; trans people should be treated no differently.

[Randal]

Oh this went to the wrong place. Oh well.

DN: You still haven’t answered my question. Do you have a point here? Am I misapplying the concept of gender identity in some meaningful way, or am I just not using the precise vocabulary that you prefer?

[Gandydancer]

You think "tomboys" are "boys". So you are a nut.

[Ben_]

“Surely there are a thousand things more important to the lives of 99% of the children than that ?”

But what about when they don’t care about “the lives of … the children” and are only interested in using the children for their own personal aims?

Topics that are relevant to the children’s lives won’t get leftists into wokeness heaven. No wokeness points are scored teaching math. No special people are exalted learning aerodynamics. They can’t congratulate themselves as intersectional heroes and saviors for mundane lessons in supply and demand.

They can’t declare themselves superior without dividing people so people who aren’t like them can be labeled inferior, can they? Informative lessons just don’t accomplish that.

[Randal]

Oh please. And then in the next post you complain that all the teachers in the world are leftists.

[Gandydancer]

Too damn many of them are, for sure.

[Ben_]

The ones who push their personal agenda mostly are leftists.

But I was talking about people like you. Topics that are useful and relevant to students aren't what you guys are into -- you want to use the students for your own personal agenda.

[Randal]

People like me! What is that, like, internet commentators? Yeah, I fully agree, internet commentators are not in it for the children. (That's you, too.) What a brilliant mind you have, to figure that one out!

[Davedave]

Education is about teaching people how to learn. Unsurprising this is a difficult concept to grasp for so many round here.

[Lee Moore]

And you learn how to learn, by acquring concrete knowledge. The meta-knowledge of learning how to learn comes from gradually generalising the process you go through in acquiring specific items of knowledge.

Even when you're an adult, a purely abstract explanation is seldom absorbed. You need to stud your explnation with concrete examples.

Which is why 90% of business and management training is a waste of time. The 10% that isn't is the bit that, by happenstance, you get to use in practice the next week.

Humans are not evolved to think abstractly. We think concretely. And then, with great effort, we learn to abstract from the concrete.

[Davedave]

"And you learn how to learn, by acquring concrete knowledge."

No. That notion was ridiculed (and widely understood to be ridiculous) about 170 years ago. Even for someone of your persuasion, that's rather an out of date attitude.

"'Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in mouth.' Thus (and much more) Bitzer.

"'Now girl number twenty,' said Mr. Gradgrind. 'You know what a horse is.'"

Obviously that quote will be totally wasted on you, since you were plainly ineducable and therefore never learnt to acquire understanding from the usual inputs.

[Lee Moore]

Clearly parody is one of those abstractions which has escaped you.

[Davedave]

Oh, the irony.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Davedave,

Thank you. LMFAOO.

Lee,

OMG. Seriously?

I hope on all things sacred you were never an instructor of any type whatsoever.

[Randal]

Today's self-immolation! I love it.

[Sarcastr0]

Lee, check out how they do AI nowadays. Concrete concrete knowledge is neither necessary nor sufficient.

[Gandydancer]

Davedave "Education is about teaching people how to learn. Unsurprising this is a difficult concept to grasp for so many round here."

Examples of what Davedave has learned o "learn":
"Clarence Thomas [is] not an Uncle Tom. He’s tacitly admitted he has been doing it for money." [fake "fact"]
"The focus is on his quid pro quo with a billionaire who has openly admitted his relationship with Thomas was ‘transactional’, and which Thomas has himself tacitly admitted was corrupt." [fake "fact"]
"Woman and man have never referred to sex." [bizarre lie]
"Surely [FOX wasn't] gambling on being the preferred/state broadcaster after a successful coup..." [As if a "coup" was attempted.]
"You do realise Fox have(sic) admitted the claims were untrue and defamatory, right?" [No, they didn't.]
"[after "Sarcastro claimed... that anti-free speech student protests were hardly ever violent. Here’s two in the last two weeks...[Michael Knowles, Riley Gaines]] DD: "Sites [TruibLive,NY Post] that do ‘I was abducted by aliens’ nonsense reporting that one person claims something that no-one could take seriously does not prove that point." [If it's in the NY Post it is so clearly a lie that no other source need be checked.]

Etc., etc. Just on this page.

And THIS guy is the advocate for "how to learn"?

Tell me another.

[Brett Bellmore]

Actually, what I believe is that, just as a matter of history, the government started running schools itself in order to indoctrinate.

If all the government wanted was an educated populace, and wasn't determined to indoctrinate, it would approach education the way it does food and housing, facilitating, and only being an absolute last ditch supplier.

[Stephen Lathrop]

On the basis of an observable record, the most accurate approximation of the aim of public school indoctrination has been to create and habituate a docile workforce for the convenience of industrialist entrepreneurs. No rival interpretation is even in the running, compared to that one, even today, with American industrialism in near collapse.

[Brett Bellmore]

Docile towards government, too, Lathrop.

[Nige]

This is something you have completely made up. They got *rid* of the Pledge of Allegiance, didn't they?

[Randal]

Well, and, today’s employers are looking for something different. They want diverse creative thinkers with interpersonal awareness and leadership skills. I feel like that’s what the right is actually reacting to. They’re like Lee above: stop trying to teach our kids how to think, especially about each other! Teach them the minimal amount they need to survive in a minimum wage job. Anything beyond that would be too great a threat to the status quo.

[Gandydancer]

"...today’s employers are looking for ... diverse creative thinkers with interpersonal awareness and leadership skills."

Bullshit.

[Nelson]

I understand your connection to mindless drones, since they're your people, but I have hired hundreds of people over the years and a minimal education in the basics with a desire to mindlessly follow orders doesn't cut it in a job interview.

Unless part of your job involves asking if you want fries with your Big Mac, creative problem solving, interpersonal skills, and leadership potential are the bare minimum requirements for a good job.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Actually, what I believe is that, just as a matter of history, the government started running schools itself in order to indoctrinate.

Brett Bellmore believes public schools are a bad thing.

Other things Brett Bellmore believes:

1. Barack Obama was born in Kenya and is a Muslim socialist.

2. Brett Bellmore's autism is no reason for Brett Bellmore to opine confidently about human interactions.

3. The Republican Party is not influenced or infected by bigotry.

4. Democrats steal elections.

5. Donald Trump is a successful businessman who flies straight, is trustworthy, and did not evade taxes, lie to lenders and insurers, or fleece customers and charity.

6. America was a better place before blacks, women, gays, and others became uppity.

[Gandydancer]

BB believes what he said he believes: "I believe is that, just as a matter of history, the government started running schools itself in order to indoctrinate."

Instead of arguing against this you start making irrelevant claims about his supposed motives for saying this. Because you are too stupid and ignorant to make any better arguments than the usual crap you shit onto these pages.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

People who hate America's public schools are un-American, antisocial, deplorable, fringe losers.

[Nige]

Except historically if a government wanted an educated populace stepping in and doing most of it themselves, which included the training and supplying of teachers, was exactly what they had to do. Except where they farmed it out to religious organisations, and what a fucking catastrophe that was.

[Gandydancer]

YOU aren't honest about being in favor of nutty lefty indoctrination, so I'm damned if I can see a reason to care about whether anyone else is.

[Nelson]

Depends on how you define "lefty". Since your definition is 'anything to the left of Liz Cheney', your definition is severely deficient.

[Nige]

All education can be termed indoctrination of some sort, so it's the usual breaking of words and definitions until they're no longer of any practical use.

Personally I prefer education to be correct rather than popular, but you do you.

[Ed Grinberg]

"Men menstruate" is neither correct nor popular.
You can "do you" on your own dime -- start your own private school, teach "men menstruate" and "gender fluidity" and any other crap you can come up with. Good luck!

[Nige]

The right hate trans people therefore girls must not be taught about, or allowed to discuss, menstruation.

[Frank Drackman]

you obviously never had teenage daughters, thats (Literally) 90% of what they talk about

[Nige]

Edgebot eavesdrops on girls' conversations.

[Zarniwoop]

I have two daughters, currently teens. They talked to their mom and grandmom, and most definitely not me. I consulted with mom and them to figure out what sanitary products to have around my house (the mom and I are divorced). And for years it's just a thing, they don't talk about it much at all. I get occasional hints, mainly because it's a migraine trigger for both mom and them, which sucks.

thats (Literally) 90% of what they talk about

as far as I'm concerned, that's pretty solid evidence you don't have actual daughters.

[Bob from Ohio]

Girls usually have mothers to teach them. Or their friends' mothers if not.

The basics aren't even complicated, even gay men can know them.

[Nige]

And yet a law must be passed banning it from schools.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Only in half-educated, superstition-addled, bigoted, backwater jurisdictions.

[Gandydancer]

"The right hate trans people therefore girls must not be taught about, or allowed to discuss, menstruation."

Pretty hard to avoid SOMEone mentioning menstruation to actual girls who actually menstruate. But I am curious as to in what classes you think this ought to be taught where it won't be? Cite the law, please, instead of your "feels".

[Nige]

Are you suggesting there's a law mandating the discussion of mestruation in classes? What's fucking stupid and theocratic is the idea that if it comes up at all, a teacher has to say 'I can't discuss this, it's against the law.' (As opposed to 'let's not discuss this right now, it would be inappropriate.')

[Gandydancer]

What’s really stupid is that you are now pretending to be in favor of teachers saying things like “let’s not discuss this right now, it would be inappropriate” when your whining is all about Desantis blocking teachers from telling students that they may have been born in the wrong body or that their gender is a choice You wouldn’t recognize “inappropriate” if it bit you on the ass.

[Davedave]

Are you hoping that if you make up enough lies, someone might read one and not realise you're lying?

Would it help any to tell you that credibility works precisely the other way around?

[Gandydancer]

Asserting without even an example that I've lied has zero credibility.

Especially coming from someone whose lies I have pointed out in detail up and down this page.

Crawl back under your rock.

[Nige]

Yeah, I'm whining about laws aimed at a minority in order to criminalise even talking about them.

[Mr. Hook]

Between sounding like the ghost of Louis Althusser here and previously claiming historical research and writing can be done objectively, are you sure you're not a Marxist?

[Gandydancer]

"Sounding like" is something that happens in YOUR head.

[Longtobefree]

Really? citing CN? About "indoctrination"?

"When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's off with her head . . . "

[Josh R]

CNN’s quote is accurate.

[Stephen Lathrop]

I think it’s an attack on merit. I think it’s an attack on achievement,

I want to see him asked what legal definition he proposes for, "merit."

[Gandydancer]

The one used by colleges when admitting students is racist trash, but apparently that's "legal". Desantis should have no problem doing better.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Gandydancer, can you see any difference between a private party defining merit for its own purposes, and government defining merit, with an eye to settling legally who has it and who doesn't?

[Gandydancer]

The University of, say, California is not a "private party".

[Stephen Lathrop]

Gandydancer, I take it you think the University of California follows practices you disapprove. I might or might not agree, depending on specific practices.

I am at a loss to understand anyone who supposes the University of California has power to define merit legally, and by government power to force on everyone whatever that definition decrees. To do that would force legal use of meritocracy everywhere, all the time. Meritocracy would come to be the legal antithesis of equality, in every instance which puts in question decisions about employment, wealth, access to public amenities, office, honors, social status, public reputation, or safety.

That is what a government-defined legal standard for merit would do. That is why the nation should never see the notion of meritocracy imposed by law or regulation, or enforced in court.

Defenders of meritocracy may suppose they speak for idealism and mere justice. Absent legal entanglement, meritocracy might be socially beneficial, as a social norm, or it might not, depending on cases, specifics, and voluntary acceptance by the public.

Add legal enforcement, and what would-be meritocrats want would prove an abomination. To make it workable would require endorsement by the majority that they are less meritorious, and acceptance that the less-meritorious are to be ruled by a more-meritorious minority. How do you think the politics would work out on that?

You would be wise to cultivate a habit to exclude the notion of meritocracy from every judgment you make about how government should regulate society, or about what principles courts should defend.

[Gandydancer]

What a tedious shitty way to pretend to respond to what I said. The subject isn't some vague undefined "practices" I "disapprove" of, it's UC's revealed definition of "merit".

No point in reading the rest of that wall of crap until you get that straight.

[Stephen Lathrop]

I get that your subject is a contorted attempt to turn UC into a government policy maker for society as a whole. Even if I concede your point, the rest of my comment still applies, and you don't get to ignore it except in bad faith.

Meritocracy as legally enforceable government policy is politically unworkable, and fatal to the notion of political equality. It cannot be made constitutional. It cannot even be publicly defined.

If you think otherwise, defend it on those bases, or explain what ulterior motive compels you to advocate so unreflectively.

[Nige]

He also wants to ban discussion of menstruation below sixth grade for some reason.

[Gandydancer]

What is this fifth grade class (or kindergarten class?) in which you want menstruation “discussed”?

If a girl below 6th grade starts unexpectedly leaking on her seat maybe the first discussion should be with the school nurse.

[Nige]

I mean fucking duh, but the teacher should not then have to cover it up like the JFK assasination because talking about what just happened with a bunch of kids who might be confused, scared, embarrassed or prone to make fun of the girl is against the fucking law.

[Gandydancer]

Nobody is requiring that anything be covered up. And that situation is NOT when the Wokesters want to be able to talk about menstruation. What they WAN’T to talk about is nutty ideas along the lines of “some boys menstruate” when no one is leaking anywhere. And we don’t trust them to do it responsibly. Nor should we, based on past performance.

[Nige]

That's certainly sounds like the crappy pretext underlying this, at least in part. If anything it makes the proposed legislation dumber and even more dangerous.

[Davedave]

It's ironic that deSantis, despite being born a man, identifies as a cunt.

[grb]

Ouch!

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Watch it! Using language like that to disparage a conservative could get you banned by the Volokh Conspiracy's Board of Censors.

[Zarniwoop]

well played, sir, well played.

[Gandydancer]

Whereas you identify successfully and repeatedly as an asshole.

[Bored Lawyer]

That's like saying not teaching about religion indoctrinates students in atheism.
Any more silliness on your part.

[Josh R]

DeSantis didn't just say schools should be silent (*) on gender identity. He said it would be wrong for schooling to even consider one particular viewpoint.

With respect to religion, public schools are silent because they need to remain neutral because of the Establishment Clause. Don't kid yourself, the text of the law which requires silence on gender identity endorses that gender identity is not legitimate.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

With respect to religion, public schools are silent because they need to remain neutral because of the Establishment Clause.

Regardless of the reason behind it, is the effect that kids are indoctrinated into atheism by it? Yes or no.

[Josh R]

No. Neither the motivation nor the effect of remaining silent on religion indoctrinates kids into atheism.

But for gender identity, the motivation is to indoctrinate (DeSantis not remaining silent, and it's clear what the law hopes the effect of silence is). And, I suspect the effect will be to indoctrinate across most of Florida since it will implicitly reenforce the prevailing view in those places that matches DeSantis' viewpoint.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

But for gender identity, the motivation is to indoctrinate (DeSantis not remaining silent, and it’s clear what the law hopes the effect of silence is).

Wait...so laws are now sentient beings with the ability to hope? As for DeSantis "not remaining silent", the founders who authored 1A weren't silent either...because it's pretty damned difficult to formulate and get passed any sort of law by being silent. And what you might "suspect" is worth precisely what is being paid for it.

[Josh R]

Laws take on the motivations of the people who voted for them. You are kidding yourself if you don't think the motivation was to censor the viewpoint that "it’s [not] wrong for a teacher to tell a student that they may have been born in the wrong body."

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Laws take on the motivations of the people who voted for them.

That's one of the most childishly simple-minded things I've read this week...and that's no mean feat on the internet. But then again, that appears to be about all you're capable of.

[Gandydancer]

Fact: “it’s [indeed] wrong for a teacher to tell a student that they may have been born in the wrong body”, particularly when all except the most lunatic left of the parents disagree with that claim.

[Nige]

It's wrong for anyone who hasn't a medical degree to make that kind of diagnosis; it's wrong to make it illegal to mention or acknowledge that such a condition exists.

[Gandydancer]

The "condition" of being "born in the wrong body” does NOT exist, and no cabal of Wokeist doctors can summon it into existence.

[Nige]

It is a recognised medical condition, your paranoid bigoted ignorance notwithstanding.

[David Nieporent]

No.

[Gandydancer]

But simply NOT teaching tranny nonsense is propaganda against tranny nonsense?

[Nige]

Making the subject itself illegal is propaganda.

[Gandydancer]

That claim is as dumb as a box of rocks, and proving once again that you are too is utterly superfluous.

[Nige]

It's Ministry Of Truth stuff.

[Nelson]

Hey! When cultural conservatives do it, it's good. When anyone to the left of Jim Jordan does it, it's bad.

[Nelson]

"Regardless of the reason behind it, is the effect that kids are indoctrinated into atheism by it? Yes or no."

No. That's a simple question to answer.

[M L]

I guess if you want to look at it that way, you can. 2 plus 2 is 4, or 2 plus 2 is 5. Either way is indoctrination.

[Josh R]

Tis true. But, social studies ain’t math. The former is opinion, the latter is fact-based.

[M L]

Biology is fact-based, too. I think that's the primary subject at issue here.

The proposition of being "born in the wrong body" - what subject is that? I'd start with biology there, too. Beyond that, what is this, philosophy? Or the enticing subject of Science Fiction perhaps.

[Josh R]

No, biology is not the issue per se. It's whether the concepts of "man" and "woman" should be based solely on chromosomes and genitalia, or perhaps one's identity should play a role as well. The latter is psychology (for which biology is a big part of).

[M L]

You can't be born in the wrong body. Your body is who you are.

[Josh R]

We've been here before. It's appropriate to use "man" for a trans man in many contexts because it is literally what the doctor ordered.

[M L]

I understand your position I think: we should change the meaning of the words "man" and "woman" because that is what's best for the mental health of people who suffer from gender dysphoria. I disagree of course, if you suffer from thinking you are the opposite sex then you are really just suffering from a misunderstanding of what sex is, or reality in general, which should be corrected with a right understanding.

But moving beyond that, it's interesting to reflect. A short few years ago, transgenders weren't a problem. Just people dressing up as the opposite sex, and it was all kind of a cute harmless funny joke. Nobody cared about bathrooms or anything like that in the slightest. In an alternate universe, maybe it could have stayed like that. Instead it was turned into wedge social issue, another political football that distracts people from more substantial political realities, like the federal government ramping up spending and printing trillions. What kicked it all off was when Charlotte, NC passed a law saying that you must allow men in women's bathrooms.

But the political is pretty superficial. At a deeper level, the ideology of transgenderism is I think an attack on what it means to be a human. The idea that you are something distinct from your body, is harkening back to dualism and Gnosticism, or the proposition of a stark division between a physical realm and a spiritual realm, together with the belief that the former is bad and evil while the latter is good. The coming frontier of this line of thinking is transhumanism. This seems to be accelerating now that we have so-called "Artificial Intelligence" things like ChatGPT. There will be all kinds of biotech augmentation, like screen interfaces projected onto your eyeball, Bill Gates'/MIT's vaccine ID implantations, etc. You know, all that good science fiction stuff we've been waiting or clamoring for. Of course, some worry that such things might be forced on you (who could imagine?) But transhumanism isn't just excited about using these technologies for their own sake, as an "-ism" it is infusing it with ideology, philosophy, and religion. Particularly the idea is to question what it means to be human, and to "trans"form or "trans"ition to a new conception. So for example maybe you will be able to create an AI that is just like you, talks like you etc, and "transfer" your "consciousness" to it and live forever. After all if "you" are separate from your body then maybe it's possible.

[Nige]

'At a deeper level, the ideology of transgenderism is I think an attack on what it means to be a human.'

Transgender people are, in fact, human and want to remain human, u r dumb.

[bernard11]

What kicked it all off was when Charlotte, NC passed a law saying that you must allow men in women’s bathrooms.

No.

What kicked it all off was the discovery by the right that the issue could be used to rouse the base and collect money. One more option for demagogues.

[M L]

No, both sides lean into the issue, but the Charlotte law is what kicked it off.

[Nige]

One side tries to eradicate it, the other side support the rights of a minority under threat from political idelogues. 'Both sides.'

[Randal]

The Charlotte law didn't spring forth from nowhere. It was a response to threats from the right to force trans women to use the men's bathroom. (Let's be honest, no one cares about women using the men's room. That right there should tell you something.) Trans women had been using the women's restroom with no problem for decades. But all the sudden conservatives got "concerned" I mean figured out that anti-trans rhetoric worked well as a wedge issue.

I gotta tell you, I kind of wish I were a trans man. I would so be hamming it up in the women's room at every opportunity in these biological-bathroom jurisdictions. Eliciting screams upon entry, waiting for the tinkling to just start in the stall next to me and then busting out with a gruff "Well hello there, my dear!", coming in with a bunch of my trans male friends for a restroom confab (as women seem wont to do) except we'd be wearing wifebeaters over our hairy chests. Oh, I hope that's what's happening out there in red hell.

[Randal]

Maybe we need to switch from men's and women's restrooms to "Non-Hispanic White XX Christian Straight Women" and "Other."

[Randal]

I think this rant is exactly right. The best way to understand you lot (conservatives) is that you're driven by fear. In this case it's fear of AI, fear of the "spiritual realm," fear of Bill Gates (as a personification of technology, I assume), not to mention a basic fear of anything unusual.

Progressives are driven by, well, progress, but I think it's more appropriate to say that hope is the fundamental emotion, which then results in a desire for progress. The hope here is that we can have a fuller understanding of humans by looking at dimensions other than their raw genitalia.

Do you refer to Alexa as her or as it?

[hobie]

Randal - You are correct. Racism is fear (fear of the other), religion (fear of mortality). In my view, all things are fear, even love (fear of rejection, being alone). Notice how 'real' love doesn't kick in until the breakup

[M L]

No, I’m not “afraid” of any of those things. I just think it’s interesting and worthwhile to consider the logical implications and philosophical underpinnings. Meanwhile, you claim that a man can be a woman and vice versa, which is just plain nonsense as even a 5 year old can understand.

[Randal]

a man can be a woman and vice versa, which is just plain nonsense as even a 5 year old can understand.

Huh? Five-year-olds understand this better than anyone. Haven't you ever seen kids "play house" and one of the boys says "I'll be the mommy?" Kids happen to be pretty open-minded and imaginative you know. Their minds aren't yet overwhelmed by fear, like fear of violating social taboos.

[David Nieporent]

Even by five there aren't many boys who would say, "I'll be the mommy," but setting that aside, what does it have to do with anything? Five year olds certainly understand let's-pretend; they can play house, or cops and robbers (back in my day there was cowboys and Indians, but I'm guessing that's no longer socially acceptable) or any other roleplaying scenario. But they don't think that doing so makes a boy into a girl any more than it makes him into a police officer.

[Randal]

Just refuting M L's assertion that kids have this rigid conceptualization of gender.

I think it's telling that different kids have more or less propensity to play around with gender-swapping. I'm not saying every boy who plays mommy is trans! Just that gender and concepts of gender are well-understood very early, without any instruction, almost as if they were gasp! innate.

[M L]

"Just refuting M L’s assertion that kids have this rigid conceptualization of gender."

No, I was talking about sex (which means largely same thing as gender in traditional usage and many still use it that way today).

Everyone knows that a man (an adult human male) can't be a woman (an adult human female). Even a small child can understand this, if an adult doesn't come along trying to confuse them.

Now, accepting for the sake of argument the new revised Orwellian definition of "man" and "woman" or "gender" to mean some variable set of behaviors, roles, identities, etc typically associated with the corresponding sex, then, of course, you can be either just by putting a dress or getting a haircut. But there's no point or coherence at all to such a definition, it's just nuking the words.

Far from a social taboo, questioning, bending, or reversing traditional gender roles/norms has been a mainstay of US mainstream media and culture for decades. The real social taboo in most places today is expressing any sort of support or sympathy for traditional gender roles. That was the case even 20 years ago. But the sudden new sharp rise in transgenderism among US high schoolers is very new.

[Josh R]

I understand your position I think: we should change the meaning of the words “man” and “woman” because that is what’s best for the mental health of people who suffer from gender dysphoria.

The meaning needs to be changed based on new knowledge: 1) gender identity is a trait, and 2) the most effective treatment is gender-affirming care including referring to a trans man as a man.

the ideology of transgenderism is I think an attack on what it means to be a human. The idea that you are something distinct from your body.

Your gender identity is part of your body. We now understand there are people whose bodies give us conflicting ideas of who is a man or woman.

[David Nieporent]

Gender identity — to the extent that it is not mere sex stereotyping — is an incoherent, undefinable concept, not a trait. Gender dysphoria is a real thing, but different.

[Josh R]

It’s no more incoherent than sexual orientation.

[David Nieporent]

It’s no more incoherent than sexual orientation.

No. Sexual orientation can be concretely measured and defined. Gender identity cannot be defined in any non-circular way.

[Josh R]

How do you define and measure sexual orientation?

[David Nieporent]

By looking at who one is sexually attracted to/aroused by. (There are actually ways to measure that, if one wants it to be more rigorous.)

[Josh R]

Looking at? Don't you have to ask them?

[Lee Moore]

"Asking them" is one method, but it is sometimes contradicted by physiological evidence.

I'm sure you are familiar, from practical experience, with what happens when a man or woman is sexually aroused - blood flow and consequent swelling in various parts of the body, increased heart rate, moistening here and there, maybe quicker breathing and so on.

In early stages there's also stuff like direction of gaze.

There are ways to measure these things, and there is always a stock of student volunteers with nothing better to do than be tested by whichever Prof is offering the best cookies that day.

So - sexual arousal is measurable. Like all measurable things, there is room for error in measurement, but as far as sexual arousal goes, we do not have to rely on self report. We can compare self report with other evidence.

I am also sure you are familiar, from experience, with you or your partner just not being interested. Your mind is not aroused. But before long you can find that your body disagrees and drags the unwilling mind into action.

[Josh R]

OK. It's a subjective measure that can be somewhat verified by objective measures. Ditto for gender identity which can be somewhat verified by the stress one experiences when forced to express the gender that conflicts with your identity.

[Don Nico]

Josh,
What new knowledge? My small dog has known that she was a girl dog since she was a puppy. She always squatted to pee. I never saw her lift her lag to pee. We don't need new definitions.

If you are telling me that we should have a charitable disposition toward people with gender dysphoria, I can agree with you.

But don't tell me that the 99.9% people have to change their definitions of a man and woman.

[Josh R]

Does a "charitable disposition" include supporting gender-affirming care?

[Sarcastr0]

Society changes, ML. In the modern era that has included realizing a lot of concepts have a social component.

You want radical changes to society, as I recall.

[M L]

Sure. I tend to have a soft spot for freedom and liberty. But I recognize that people disagree about things and I’m tolerant of different perspectives, even acknowledging that views about policy/morality might be considered subjective rather than absolute truth, and therefore I think about “who decides” and conclude that peoples should decide for themselves in a generally decentralized structure.

[Sarcastr0]

I mean, you're a neoconfederate. So much for your soft spot for freedom and liberty.

You're also not for the devolution of power - you're down with state usurping local control of libraries and schools.

You're basically like a Communist - advocating for radical a utopian ideal that requires massive ignorance of human nature and history to support.

[M L]

I mean, I could just call you names and make up false things too. But I'm not incredibly ignorant like you are.

[Gandydancer]

" I think: we should change the meaning of the words “man” and “woman” because that is what’s best for the mental health of people who suffer from gender dysphoria."

Nuts to that.

You're free to advocate it, but if you try to force it down peoples' childrens' throats in their schools you should be tarred and feathered.

And, no, with that crap to start off with I saw no reason to read the rest of your wall of shit.

[M L]

You should read better.

I was paraphrasing Josh R's position, which I disagree with.

[Nige]

It's a medically recognised condition.

[Gandydancer]

Illness should be cured, if possible.

[Nige]

Yes, there's a treament and everything.

[Gandydancer]

Not encouraging it is a start. Search this page for "matriarchal" for proof that the prevalence of this sick condition grows when encouraged.

[Nige]

You mean when not stigmatised, people will come forward for treatment, yes.

[Lee Moore]

It’s whether the concepts of “man” and “woman” should be based solely on chromosomes and genitalia, or perhaps one’s identity should play a role as well

There's more than one concept here. It's not obvious why it makes sense to use the same word for different concepts.

Or rather it is obvious. Trans activists want "man" , "woman" etc, to be used as a reference to gender (however defined) precisely to make the traditional usage of "woman", "man" etc, as a reference to sex, confusing. They wish to sow semantic confusion, and ideally 1984-style, to make the expression of the original concept first difficult, then forbidden, and finally unthinkable.

If t'were just an honest exploration of the interaction of biology, sex and psychology it would have been easy enough to select a new word to connote "man" in the sense of gender, which would have avoided confusion. After all, it's not like academics and social scientists have ever struggled to come up with new words.

But we've seen the movie before. What activists do is to try to reframe the terms of debate by inventing new usages for existing words, precisely so as to make debate harder rather than easier.

[Davedave]

Woman and man have never referred to sex. Male and female, masculine and feminine, different things.

[Lee Moore]

Sure. Oceania has ALWAYS been at war with Eastasia.

[M L]

They really say this stuff with a straight face, lol.

Of course, man means adult human male and woman means adult human female.

[Davedave]

Man goes with masculine, woman with feminine. You are confusing those with male and female. The history of the words is demonstrably other than you claim.

[M L]

Demonstrate it then.

[Davedave]

I mean, it's not really my job to teach you English language, history, and culture in one comment. Let's just go with the established etymology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_(word)

Of course, you actually acknowledged the difference 3 comments above.

"man means adult human male and woman means adult human female."

That would be utterly meaningless if they didn't mean different things. As it is, it's wrong, not meaningless.

[M L]

Non-responsive.

[Lee Moore]

ML “man means adult human male and woman means adult human female.”

davedave : That would be utterly meaningless if they didn’t mean different things. As it is, it’s wrong, not meaningless.

They do mean different things. A "man" is an :

1. adult
2. human
3. male

So you can be a male human without being a man. You can be a boy. You can be an adult male without being a man. You can be a giraffe.

As a noun "male" denotes anything of male sex - ie any spermy creature. As an adjective "male" denotes those things or qualities that are typical of males (of whatever species you happen to be discussing, or generally across all or many species.)

"Man" is much narrower and refers only to spermy creatures who are also adult and human. Though as the wiki notes, "man" can be used as a reference to humans as a whole. Though this would probably be regarded as borderline archaic, and certainly unwise in the social circles in which, no doubt, you move.

Obviously the use of "male" as an adjective allows it to be applied to women - as in "she has male interests", "she has a male voice" etc.

And you can certainly apply "man" to a woman by way of simile. "She chugs her beer like a man", "she looks like a man."

I'm a little surprised you don't know this.

[Josh R]

As a noun “male” denotes anything of male sex – ie any spermy creature.

Stop begging the question (and no, the proposition that gender identity should be a factor, among others depending on the context, in determining who is "male" is not Newspeak).

[Nige]

'They wish to sow semantic confusion,'

What an amazing aim for activists. I thought they were busy dealing with efforts to criminalise them in red states, but no, they're actually just confusing people ever so slightly.

[Lee Moore]

You are a very long way behind the times. Activists are always preparing the linguistic battlefield. Have you not read 1984 ?

Here's a famous example from 1959 - an activist prepares the linguistic battlefield for the abortion wars :

"At the 1959 Planned Parenthood/Population Council symposium, Dr. Bent Boving argued for changing the definition by moving the date of conception from when fertilization occurs to when implantation occurs. He said that “the social advantage of [birth control] being considered to prevent conception rather than to destroy an established pregnancy could depend upon something so simple as a prudent habit of speech.”

[bernard11]

Is that you, Lee?

You sound like Brett.

[Randal]

If t’were just an honest exploration of the interaction of biology, sex and psychology it would have been easy enough to select a new word to connote “man” in the sense of gender, which would have avoided confusion. What activists do is to try to reframe the terms of debate by inventing new usages for existing words

This is a really simple situation. All trans women want is to be treated like women. I don't get the pushback.

You think if trans women had said "hey everyone, we want to be treated like women, but since we aren't women, we want everyone to stop using the word 'woman' entirely and instead call us all 'gynopeds' in order to avoid confusion" that it would've worked? You're an idiot.

So no, it's not about reframing the debate. It's just saying "you look like a woman and quack like a woman so sure, you're a woman" as the obvious solution to the problem.

https://imgflip.com/i/2pup1v

Everyone calls Alexa "she." Alert Ron DeSantis! Someone is using "she" for a non-genetic-female! Y'all are transparently retarded on this one. You're willing to give a corporate automaton the courtesy of a female pronoun, but not an actual fellow human who you would never even know was a genetic male without a medical exam.

[Gandydancer]

"All All trans women want is to be treated like women. I don’t get the pushback. want is to be treated like women. I don’t get the pushback."

That's because you're a jackass.

"Ttrans women" AREN'T women and no one is obliged to pretend they are.

And we don't take kindly to your ordering us to act as if up were down. Go fuck yourself.

[Nige]

Nobody is obliged, but it's weird to hate them so thoroughly just for wanting something so relatively harmless.

[Gandydancer]

This sickness is not harmless.

What's weird is that you assert it is in the teeth of the evidence.

[Nige]

Well of course, you have to pretend they're dangerous in some indefinable way in order to hate them so irrationally.

[Lee Moore]

You think if trans women had said “hey everyone, we want to be treated like women, but since we aren’t women, we want everyone to stop using the word ‘woman’ entirely and instead call us all ‘gynopeds’ in order to avoid confusion” that it would’ve worked?

I think you're deliberately misunderstanding me, but I'm not quite sure. My suggestion was that the linguistic confusion would be avoided by not using "woman" for male folk who identify as female, but instead using a different word. "Gynoped" would not be my first choice.

But I think you're pretending that I am suggesting that it would be a good idea to abandon using the word "woman" altogether. No - I favor keeping "woman" in the meaning understood by a billion or so English speakers, and just using a new word for "trans women."

However, this would obviously not be acceptable to trans activists, because as I mentioned, the whole point of the semantic exercise is to insist on the use of the same word to describe actual women, and wannabe women. So that we are linguistically required not to distinguish the two.

Not gonna happen. There are four fingers, not five.

[Randal]

You and DN (and, to be fair, others) keep hiding behind language and semantics, when your true aims are more sinister I feel.

Imagine, hard as it may be, that you got your way, and trans women were called "gynopeds," such that the language debate shifted to where trans people want all women to be called "gynopeds" for equality reasons, and anti-trans activists (that's you) want to keep calling biological females "women."

Ok fine. But then what about the substantive questions? Once gynopeds are recognized, will you be good with "women and gynopeds" restrooms? Sports teams? Medically appropriate treatments for minor gynopeds?

[Lee Moore]

As I see it, there are three different sorts of question :

1. Semantic 2. Conceptual 3. Practical

On 1. I think, as you have spotted, that co-opting the word “giraffe” to refer to the-animals-formerly-known-as-warthogs as well as to actual giraffes is (a) silly, (b) confusing and (c ) only done to try to get us all to think that giraffes and warthogs are the same. Which they’re not.

But people can use whatever words they like and if they choose deliberately confusing ones, then fine, we’ll see how it goes. But I am – obviously – not too keen on any coercion being deployed (either coercion to try to enforce the proposed new usage, or to prevent it.)

2. As to the conceptual angle, I’m far from convinced that “gender identity” is a coherent concept. I wouldn’t go so far as DN in saying outright that it’s not one, it’s just that there’s an array of more or less vague and cloudy suggestions as to what it is, which mostly contradict each other, and which are often defined in a circle and are hence meaningless ab initio. So I should like to see some clearer outlines of this will-o-the-wisp. And so, when it comes to 3. I’m sceptical about practical measures in pursuit of what may be a phantom.

3. Practical includes things like – rest rooms, sports, prisons and “gender affirming care” which seem to me to be nuanced and fact intensive.

Rest rooms – owner of premises decides seems a good rule. Though government rest rooms probably need their own rule. If I owned premises with rest rooms I’d be going for sex specific restrooms. But you’re welcome to do gender specific or unisex as you please.

Sports – kinda similar, it’s up to whoever is organising the sports. To me it’s pretty obvious that most – but not all – sports should be sex segregated because otherwise you’re just letting mediocre “trans women” wreck the sport for actual women. But if people want to organise sports on that basis, then fine. (So long as they don’t prevent other people organising otherwise.)

But the risk of injury does complicate things. Even without any explicit government regulation, the government is bound to have a role – eg when trans woman squishes actual woman causing serious injuries, has the trans woman and the organiser been reckless or not ? The courts are going to have to decide.

Prisons – well you’re in prison because the courts have decided some of your rights need to be suspended for a while, so this doesn’t seem like a hard one. Trans women in women’s prisons may or may not be dangerous, but male sex offenders pretending to be trans women certainly are. And trans men in men’s prisons are rapes waiting to happen. So – sex segregation for prison.

“Gender affirming care” strikes me as a bad idea, notwithstanding Josh’s enthusiasm for it. But between consenting adults, OK if you want. But children ? Basically no. I suppose if everyone is in favor – kid, Mom, Dad, the docs and the government (in the shape of its interested agents) are OK with it, then who am I to say no ? But any dissent from any of the above should be enough to nix it. (And by dissent, I mean absence of affirmative consent – no sneaking round behind the parents’ backs.)

[Randal]

I’ll note only that I got you to consistently use the phrase “trans women” over the course of this short dialogue. I don’t think it’ll be that hard for the language to move from “trans women” to simply “women.”

[Lee Moore]

When speaking to a Frenchman, who does not, or pretends not to, speak English, I speak French. But poorly, without enthusiasm, and expending much more effort than I would wish.

And no, the next step is not using “woman” for “trans woman.” Because that entirely erases the distinction between the two different things. It’s back to giraffes and warthogs. At least with “trans woman” the “trans” alerts you to flip the sex sign, so long as you’re paying attention.

“Gynoped”, though it is an unattractive word, would certainly be better than “trans woman” since most people don’t think in Ancient Greek. Perhaps it’s a reasonable effort after all, as the gyno will whizz over most people’s heads, and not cause confusion with “woman”, while the trans community can cheerfully pat itself on the back and claim a win for getting the normies to say “woman” without realising it.

The “ped” bit might need further work though, as I can see normies making an unfortunate etymological connection there. Perhaps we should just tack on “ego”, denoting “me” or “myself”, to arrive at a rough meaning of “woman according to me”

So – “gynego”. It has a ring to it, don’t you think ?

[grb]

Lee Moore : “They wish to sow semantic confusion, and ideally 1984-style….. (etc)”

Meanwhile – back on Planet Earth – here are the simplest of facts :

(1) A tiny number of people today are transsexual. The same number were trans ten years ago, twenty years ago, fifty years ago. The only difference is the Right’s sheep were getting bored & restless, and needed a new entertainment to stir their blood. I guess CRT in the public schools got old (mainly because it didn’t exist) and normal everyday gay bashing is too passé. But there’s good news for trans folk: The Right’s hive mind is getting twitchy again, so a new boogieman being prepped for their mass hysteria: DEI.

(2) There’s never been the slightest confusion about man, woman, sex and gender, despite the Right’s performance art of shrieking, howling, wailing / gnashing of teeth. Sex is firstmost those delightful physical differences we all know and love, but also traits hardwired in the brain as well. In the vast majority of people those two things are in perfect synch, but with a small number of folks they are. It’s been that way in every human culture throughout history. It’s that way in the natural world, with other animals very non-human.

(3.) Of course Right-types know that. They’re not stupid – at least a sizable percent aren’t. Hell, I’ll go so far as to say Lee Moore isn’t stupid, despite his gasbag bloviating above. So why the frenzied phony rhetoric? A tiny number of people are trans. Why not just treat them with the same courtesy as anyone else? Sure, you want your pro-wrestling-style culture war spectacle, but is it worth this tinhorn jihad against a small sliver of the population?

[Gandydancer]

There you go, lying again.

No, the number claiming to be "trans" today is NOT unchanged. A random search on your claim turns up, "As attested by current controversies, rates of transgender identity appear to be on the rise, particularly among young people... Transgender identity is now reported among young natal females at rates that clearly exceed all known statistics to date."
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/culture-mind-and-brain/201811/why-is-transgender-identity-the-rise-among-teens

Earlier in the article a disproportional number of male-to-bogus "female" trannys turn up in a weirdly matriarchal society, and if it can be programmed then it can be de-programmed. And only crazy people (i.e., Lefty) want the former.

[Nige]

The numbers are the same. The numbers of people open about it are not, despite the best efforts of hate-merchants.

[Gandydancer]

The evidence the article quotes about the consequences of societal encouragement prove otherwise.

Your assertion on the other hand is entirely evidence-free.

[Nige]

Yes, societal encouragement that existing trans people no longer have to hide, despite your best efforts.

[Lee Moore]

I'll skip past the excitable handwaving and just comment on this :

Sex is firstmost those delightful physical differences we all know and love,

No, it isn't. Sex is first and foremost a reproductive mechanism involving genetic mixing. In anisogamous species - which is nearly universal in multicellular eukaryotes - sex takes the form of two different types of gamete, and sexual reproduction requires a contribution of one of each.

Those "delightful physical differences" that you mention are not firstmost, they are secondmost. The sexual differentiation of phenotype is always and necessarily an evolutionary adaptation to assist the organism's reproduction, using the type of gamete it has. Because males and females have different gamete types, the best strategy for reproducing if you are female does not always match the best strategy for reproducing if you are male. Hence the sex differentiation of secondary features.

Lest the point escape anyone, I'll repeat. Those "delightful physical differences" exist only because of anisogamy. Isogamous species are not sexually differentiated. Different gamete types are not just one among many interesting and amusing sex differences. They are the origin of the whole cascade of sex differentiation, and the whole point of it.

In humans (and other animals), these secondary adaptations extend
throughout the phenotype, including, as you note, the brain :

but also traits hardwired in the brain as well. In the vast majority of people those two things are in perfect synch, but with a small number of folks they are.

And as you note (I assume "are" s/b "aren't") sometimes something goes wrong with the syncing of (a) the primary, and defining, sex characteristics (gamete type, as evidenced by gonad type) and (b) the secondary sexually differentiated characteristics - from genitals to pelvic shape to size of voice box to brains.

Nobody anywhere disputes that these development errors can and do happen. The disputes relate to :

1. the erroneous claim that errors in the secondary sexual characteristics imply that the sex categorisation based on gamete type is other than conclusive

2. whether "gender identity" is a coherent concept in the first place, and if it is whether it is reflected in the brain, and if it is whether and to what extent it is genetic/environmental; and if it is, whether and to what extent it is plastic

3. how society should treat people with gender dysphoria, including the linguistic questions of what words like man, woman, male, female should be used, and what degree of coercion should be deployed to enforce the aforementioned "should."

[Nelson]

"No, it isn’t. Sex is first and foremost a reproductive mechanism involving genetic mixing. In anisogamous species"

Do you really not know that the word "sex" has more than one meaning?

"sex takes the form of two different types of gamete"

No, sex (the definition you are using) doesn't require two gametes. Sex just requires two consenting adults. Sexual reproduction requires two gametes, but sex doesn't.

"Those “delightful physical differences” that you mention are not firstmost, they are secondmost."

Why? Because you say? There isn't any reason one definition is always the first. That's how words with multiple definitions work.

"the best strategy for reproducing if you are female does not always match the best strategy for reproducing if you are male"

True. A woman's DNA can already be used to fertilize another woman's egg, so in the near future the woman's strategy will be, "If a guy seems worth it, sure. Otherwise I'll do it without one" and the man's strategy will be, "Wow, I'm not necessary to reproduction, so maybe I need to figure out how to be relevant to the process.".

"1. the erroneous claim that errors in the secondary sexual characteristics imply that the sex categorisation based on gamete type is other than conclusive"

Erroneous according to you, not thise un the field.

"2. whether “gender identity” is a coherent concept in the first place"

It is, as the DSM and numerous psychology books would tell you.

"how society should treat people with gender dysphoria"

The same as someone without it, unless you are trying to be an asshole.

"including the linguistic questions of what words like man, woman, male, female should be used"

Socially or scientifically? Socially, unless you are trying to be an asshole, you adress people the way they ask. Scientifically? I'll leave it up to people who speak svientifically for a living. I personally see man, woman, trans man, and trans woman as pretty simple differentiations. It's not hard to understand. Add "cisgender" if you want to be equitable, but pretending a trans man thinks they were born male is intentionally dishonest.

"what degree of coercion should be deployed to enforce the aforementioned “should.”"

That's easy. None.

[Lee Moore]

No, sex (the definition you are using) doesn’t require two gametes. Sex just requires two consenting adults. Sexual reproduction requires two gametes, but sex doesn’t.

Do you seriously imagine I'm discussing sexual intercourse ?

Moving on, you ask why the "delightful physical differences" are secondmost. If only you had managed to read on just one more sentence :

The sexual differentiation of phenotype is always and necessarily an evolutionary adaptation to assist the organism’s reproduction, using the type of gamete it has.

and a bit further on :

Lest the point escape anyone, I’ll repeat. Those “delightful physical differences” exist only because of anisogamy.

That's why they're secondmost. Anisogamy is the cause of sexually differentiated phenotypes. Effects are secondmost to causes.

[Don Nico]

Lee, “Trans activists want “man” , “woman” etc, to be used as a reference to gender (however defined) precisely to make the traditional usage of “woman”, “man” etc, as a reference to sex, confusing. They wish to sow semantic confusion."

You have hit the nail precisely on the head.

[Nelson]

It's not hard to understand. It's only confusing if you are actively trying to be confused. And even then, it's so simple to understand only an idiot would succeed at being confused.

[Commenter_XY]

Sorry, biology IS the issue: XY for male, XX for female. What confused little Johnny and dazed little Janey think about their gender is irrelevant. Gender is what you became at conception (XX, XY). I don't care how you want to dress this up Josh R, but the genetics are not alterable (currently).

From my perspective, they (trans) need help. I mean that in a positive way. One cannot mock the poor. The poor did not ask to be poor. It is their condition. These trans people feel in their minds that they are the opposite sex, regardless of the genetic truth. Clearly, something is not right, and they do need help. It seems pretty obvious. I want them to get the psychological help they need to alleviate the mental suffering and anguish they must have.

I cannot begin to imagine what it is like to live an entire life convinced you're actually the opposite sex. Easy to see why mental health issues, substance abuse issues, suicide is higher with trans. They really do need help.

As for this FL law. Let's see the final signed bill. Nothing really counts until the law becomes active.

[NOVA Lawyer]

You do realize there are XX males and XY females, don't you?

[Commenter_XY]

Yeah, in their minds.

[NOVA Lawyer]

There are XX males with penises, from birth. There are XY females with vaginas. You are entirely scientifically illiterate, aren't you?

[David Nieporent]

If they're XX, then by definition they're not males. There are very rare cases in which a genetic disorder causes their external genitalia to appear penis-like, but that doesn't make them males. They produce larger gametes, not smaller. Same, mutatis mutandis, for XY people.

[Sarcastr0]

You may want to do some research before coming in that hot, Commenter.

[Gandydancer]

When you actually have something to say, which I doubt happens with any noticeable frequency, learn to actually say it. The bogus implications -- a tic with you -- that you know something that others do not and that they will learn it if they do unspecified homework is REALLY, really tedious.

[Don Nico]

You may want to take trendy politics out of your understanding of biology.
Indeed, there are abnormalities at the <0.01% level. That does not mean that the science is changed but only that human hearts should not be so hard.

We don't need the snide insults of NOVA lawyer to realize that his ilk are just kissing up to the present DIE ideolgy

[David Nieporent]

I mean, that's the entire issue at bar.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Seriously?

I expected CommenterXY not to know basic facts on a topic he was arguing. I expected better from you.

For the entire history of humanity, people born with penises who identified as male were considered male. Some of them have XX chromosomes.

Likewise, people born with vaginas who identified as female have always been considered female. Some of them have XY chromosomes.

There isn't a genetic test that is perfectly accurate in identifying "biologically" male or female humans. At least, it isn't checking for X and Y chromosomes.

So, no, that isn't the debate. Only scientifically illiterate people think that's the debate.

[Gandydancer]

But now we do know about chromosomes and we don’t have to rely on dark-age misclassifications of those with screwed up genitalia.

[Don Nico]

NOVA
You points are IRRELEVANT.
we do not define the species, by genetic abnormalities. I am afraid you are the one ignorant of science and of rational communication

[Sarcastr0]

DMN, there's a radiolab on this.

Sports haven't used that definition for a long time.
Turns out there's enough people whose phenotype doesn't line up with their chronozones it'd mess with sports at least as bad as trans stuff.

[Gandydancer]

Actually, it would just clean sports up if the spoofs didn't get to pretend they were women.

[Sarcastr0]

Ignorant and angry is no way to go through life, Gandy.

https://radiolab.org/podcast/dutee

[Gandydancer]

Don't try to assign readings of your propaganda.
If you have an argument to make make it here.

[Lee Moore]

XX and XY is a simplification. in humans sex differentiation is triggered by the action of the SRY gene, which is usually parked on the Y chromosome, but can very occasionally - maybe 1 time in 100,000 live births - be parked on the X chromosome. The SRY gene actually works as an off switch to an off switch. ie Gene A is the switch that tells the gonads to turn into testes, Gene B tells Gene A to shut up and do nothing, and the SRY gene turns off Gene B. So theoretically a fault in Gene B could cause masculinisation even with no SRY gene - though I don't know if any such malfunction has ever been found.

Anyway the point is that your genotype is instrumental in flicking the sex differentiation switch, but it is not the same as your sex. Your sex is phenotype, not genotype, and it defined by your gamete type.

Trans folk are almost always perfectly normal males or females (in terms of their reproductive parts.)

There is an interesting, extremely unresolved question as to the extent to which a trans gender identity might be reflected in actual neurological architecture, which includes a question as to - if it is so reflected - whether it is influenced by genes, or by development and environment, or both. This is nested in the larger, but related questions about male and female brains, and the brains of homosexuals. All fascinating stuff.

I believe Josh's point is not to deny that biology has something to do with sex, and might have something to do with gender, but is more to do with the psychological and social implications of trans identity.
ie - if a man claims he is a woman, let us leave aside the question of whether he actually is, and worry about how society should treat him. Including perhaps referring to him as "her" and letting him use the women's rest room.

[Commenter_XY]

You call it simplification; I call it genetic truth (XX, XY). For the 0.001% of births where there might be a genetic abnormality with the X or Y chromosome, these are people who will need help (psychological certainly, and possibly medical).

Look, these trans people believe what they believe. I do not mock them for that. Genetically, they are either male or female, but their personal beliefs don't align with genetic truth. To me, it creates a huge psychological problem. Their mental anguish must be tremendous. Just look at the stats for mental/emotional issues, substance abuse, and suicide. They are human beings, and they need psychological help. There is no shame in them asking for help, or for the rest of us to help them.

[Lee Moore]

I don't disagree that those with unfortunate genetic abnormalities usually need medical help. Nevertheless, if your biology is "mostly right" rather than "actually right" not only will you be "actually wrong" from time to time, but you lay yourself open to sniping from NOVA and pals. Why get it wrong when you can get it right ?

There's nothing about getting it right that contradicts the conclusion that men and womwn are biologically discrete - ie there are two and only two sexes that humans can be, and that a gamete contribution from one of each type is necessary for reproduction. We have only found out about genes quite recently, but fascinating as they are, they haven't changed the conclusion noted above, which has been known forever, and which applies across the whole anisogamous Animal Kingdom. (And ditto the Plant Kingdom.)

Your genotype is

(a) a very good proxy for, and predictor of, your sex, and
(b) a key element in the process of sex differentiation (in most but not all animals)

But it's not what defines your sex. Sex is part of your phenotype. It is defined by your gamete type. If you're XX, hot for guys, identify as a woman and look great in high heels, but you make sperm, not eggs, you're a guy.

[Commenter_XY]

Mostly right? Try 99.999% right. Your numbers (1/100,000). 🙂

[NOVA Lawyer]

Commenter XY,

Listen to Lee. He at least understands what the debate is and the role of genes in determining sex.

Given your trouble with this subject, and desire to oversimplify everything, best not to worry about gender.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Do you believe that adults so gullible, delusional, and misguided that they claim to believe that silly fucking fairy tales — pure childish nonsense— are true need psychological help? People who can’t distinguish fact from fiction, the reality- based world from delusion?

[Commenter_XY]

Arthur, let me ask you this, since you mention fairy tales and delusion. Are the writings of Audrey Hale too dangerous for you to be exposed to? Why would the FBI state that large sections of her writings will never be released? What was so dangerous?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

First, I am unfamiliar with Audrey Hale. In general, I have no idea why the FBI would control access to an author's work but dislike the concept.

Second, thank you for answering my question by avoiding it. Your partisan, bigoted standards with respect to beliefs, truth, and a need for psychological help are noted and disdained.

[Josh R]

if a man claims he is a woman, let us leave aside the question of whether he actually is, and worry about how society should treat him. Including perhaps referring to him as “her” and letting him use the women’s rest room

That is not my argument. I instead argue that gender identity is a trait. As such, the definition of man and woman needs to take into account chromosomes, genitalia and gender identity.

[Gandydancer]

Let's not fuck with normal sex classification to deal with 1 time in 100,000 genetic screwups.

[Commenter_XY]

That is where my head is.

[Josh R]

XY for male, XX for female.

You are begging the question on what the definition of male and female is.

I want them to get the psychological help they need to alleviate the mental suffering and anguish they must have.

The overwhelming majority of professional medical organizations conclude that gender-affirming care is the most effective treatment (while realizing each person's treatment will vary). That conclusion should inform us that the definitions of male and female should not be based on chromosomes alone (leaving aside the issue of when chromosomes don't match genitalia).

[Gandydancer]

No, we should NOT let lefty pressure groups get away with telling us that up is down.

[Nige]

Your grip on reality must be pretty thin if the existence of trans people is such a threat to it.

[Gandydancer]

The existence of lunatics doesn't challenge my grip on reality at all.

You, on the other had, imagine that boys are girls and girls are boys. Your grip on reality is nonexistent.

[Nige]

See? You can't even handle that they exist without melting down.

[Nige]

'Nothing really counts'

Oh I think we can get a pretty good idea of their general intentions and attitudes even from bills that don't pass, and that certainly counts.

[Randal]

Biology is fact-based, too.

Gender dysmorphia is also a fact. Why shouldn't schools be able to talk about it?

[Randal]

Wow, that's been up for three hours and no one called me out! It's my lucky day.

DN I'm looking at you.

[Gandydancer]

You're proposing this be "talked about" WHEN?

Calves are born with two heads, but talking about that doesn't need to be part of any grade school curriculum because nature's capacity for producing damaged individuals isn't worth much attention at that point.

[Nige]

Yeah, but they're not passing laws where if some kid comes in with an article about a two-headed calf for the teacher to show the class they're not allowed to do so, if they think it's appropriate.

[Gandydancer]

The "teachers" have forfeited the assumption that they have any clue about what is appropriate.

[Nige]

No, they haven't. You and DeSantis sure as hell have, though.

[Lee Moore]

indoctrination
[ in-dok-truh-ney-shuhn ]
"the act of indoctrinating, or teaching or inculcating a doctrine, principle, or ideology, especially one with a specific point of view"

I don't think you are "indoctrinating" children if you don't teach them something.

[Josh R]

See my reply to WuzYoungOnceToo above.

But you keep missing my point: DeSantis could have said something like "Gender identity is not an appropriate topic for K-12." But instead he said, "it’s wrong for a teacher to tell a student that they may have been born in the wrong body." So regardless of the effect, it's not silence he is advocating for, it's a particular viewpoint he we wants to make sure is censored. That is, he forgot about the talking points and told the truth.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

But instead he said, “it’s wrong for a teacher to tell a student that they may have been born in the wrong body.”

Because it is wrong, because public school teachers have no business telling students any such thing. If students were telling students that they're going to hell for not adopting Christian beliefs, wouldn't you object even if 1A did not forbid such a thing?

[Josh R]

You just endorsed indoctrination (kids should not be told certain things). And you have a point that I too support some indoctrination such as teachers should not say, "you are going to hell if you are not a Christian." We all support some level of indoctrination.

Everyone keeps missing my point: a talking point for many has been they are neutral and merely oppose indoctrinating kids. That's BS and DeSantis accidentally unveiled the truth.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

You just endorsed indoctrination (kids should not be told certain things).

Your grasp of English just plain sucks.

[Commenter_XY]

Josh R: Is there anything that is 'not' indoctrination?

Your comment reads like: if you say X, for whatever reason, it is indoctrination. If you don't say X, for whatever reason, it is indoctrination.

[Josh R]

If you say only one viewpoint is preferred that is indoctrination.

[TwelveInchPianist]

“You just endorsed indoctrination (kids should not be told certain things).”

Is it indoctrination to not tell kids that they will go to hell if they don’t accept Jesus as their savior?

[Josh R]

Maybe, maybe not. Assume the official policy is not to say anything to kids about hell.

If the intent of the policy is to keep kids from hearing the moral wrong that they will go to hell for not accepting Jesus, then the intent is to indoctrinate (whether the policy has that effect is a separate issue).

If on the other hand, the intent is kids should not hear anything about hell without any value judgment on any particular statement, then the intent is not to indoctrinate.

[Gandydancer]

Nonsense.

Nobody is going to stop parents from telling their kids about Hell if they want to.

If teachers don't tell their students about Hell (as if it were a fact) then no one is being indoctrinated about it by the teachers, full stop. Whether indoctrination takes place is a fact independent of intent.

[Josh R]

Whether indoctrination takes place is a fact independent of intent.

Indeed. I said, "whether the policy has that effect is a separate issue." But, DeSantis' latest comment demonstrates his intent for the law is to indoctrinate, which destroys his argument he is fighting against indoctrination.

[Gandydancer]

AS has been pointed out to you already several tines DeSantis’ comment shows no such thing, and it's extremely tedious of you to keep asserting otherwise. Again, forbidding indoctrination (a) is not the same as mandating indoctrination (b).

[Gandydancer]

No, DeSantis DID NOT say that "A teacher should tell his students that their genitalia ought determine everything about their sex lives.” Maybe he ought say that, but he didn't.

[Nige]

It's a medically recognised condition.

[Gandydancer]

Organizations of doctors promote all sorts of political crap.

[Nige]

Yeah, they don't even consult you first, the nerve of them.

[Gandydancer]

No one is asking them to consult me. But no one should pretend that their political crap has authority it doesn't have.

[Nige]

Damn right no-one's consulting you, you'd make medical decisions based purely on your politics of rage and resentment.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Ron DeSantis endorses indoctrinating kids:"

Sounds like your quote says the opposite.

[Josh R]

DeSantis' comments favor one viewpoint over another which he believes this law advances.

[Gandydancer]

No, it doesn't. "It's wrong to say (A)" is not "It's right to say (B)".

You keep insisting the contrary, but it remains shit-brained.

[Josh R]

"It's wrong to say A may be correct" without also adding "It's wrong to say A may be incorrect" strongly implies the belief that A is incorrect.

[Gandydancer]

And he's absolutely right about that. But his noticing it is not the same as saying it to the kids., no matter how often you attempt to conflate these two things.

[Josh R]

You are confusing intent and effect. DeSantis' words reveal his intent. What the effect is on the kids is a separate issue.

[Don Nico]

His comment favor the viewpoint that the teacher in overstepping its boundaries. It has no business telling a child which gender it may or may not be. That if for the kid's parents and its doctors.
The claim under debate actually viewpoint neutral.

[Josh R]

DeSantis didn't say teachers should have a blanket ban on telling a child about their gender identity. He said that teachers should only be prohibited from saying they may be transgender. That's taking sides in the debate.

[Nelson]

That's not what the law says. It forbids discussing gender identity and sexual orientation. Even if it is relevant to the subject at hand.

It is censorship based on political and personal ideology. It is threatening a teacher with not just termination, but losing their license if they teach their students about things that are real in the world.

The only good thing is that the anti-trans stuff is turning voters off as much or more than the anti-abortion stuff. If they keep this up, the lunatic wing of the Republican party will alienate so many voters that the vast majority of Republicans, who are sane, will regain control of their party for decades.

Having a choice between two sane candidates who disagree on policy will be nice to go back to after the culture-war-on-steroids insanity we have been living through

[Armchair Lawyer]

“It’s wrong for a teacher to tell a student that they may have been born in the faith or that their choice of god is a choice and so we don’t let that happen in Florida.”

Discuss. Explain how such a dictate isn't actually preventing indoctrination, as opposed to endorsing it.

[Josh R]

I don't understand your analogy. What does "born in the faith" mean? How can it be anything but a tautology that one's choice of god is a choice and why would anyone prevent a teacher from saying so?

[Gandydancer]

AL's formulation is confusing, but exactly no one who believes in God believes that his existence is any choice of yours.

[Davedave]

So, who's here for the Fox/Dominion thing? Come on, cultists, show us your copium so we can have a laugh.

[Bored Lawyer]

I will make a comment that is orthogonal to that topic. There was a major patent dispute between Apple and Samsung. At one point, Apple got a $ 1 billion judgment against Samsung (later reduced). At that point, the Chairman of Samsung said, "we consider that the cost of doing business."

I suspect that Rupert Murdoch has similar thoughts.

[Nige]

A relatively cheap way to exert influence on the world's richest country.

[Davedave]

I'm not sure about that. It would be true if they were facing an existential crisis if they didn't push the election fraud conspiracy, but not if it just lost them a few viewers briefly.

It appears that Fox management mistakenly thought that breaking with Trump by not pushing his conspiracy was a problem for them rather than Trump. Surely they weren't gambling on being the preferred/state broadcaster after a successful coup, given their views of the conspirators and the absolutely minimal chance of success?

[John F. Carr]

One of the articles on the last minute mediation suggested Murdoch thinks the same way. But Dominion wasn't just in it for the money. Dominion wanted to win in the court of public opinion and resisted a purely monetary settlement.

[Davedave]

"Dominion wanted to win in the court of public opinion"

No, they wanted to bring the true facts into the light.

[Bob from Ohio]

The election claims are the best thing that's ever happened to Dominion, they made years [perhaps decades] of profits in one lawsuit.

[Davedave]

If that were true, it would make telling those lies an incredibly stupid thing for Fox to have done, and it'd make the people fooled by an incredibly stupid tv channel even stupider.

I'm pretty sure I've eaten blue cheese that approaches sentience more closely than you do.

[Gandydancer]

I'm sure that every time you eat blue cheese your average IQ goes up because of the presence in your gut of the bacteria.

[Martinned]

So you're saying that Fox overpaid, relative to any plausible damages award Dominio might have got in court?

[Kenneth Almquist]

Either that, or he's saying that Fox's behavior was so egregious that the jury would have awarded huge punitive damages.

[Martinned]

Fair enough, though that's a separate conversation. It has long been my view that punishing people is what the criminal justice system is for.

[Bob from Ohio]

I'm not saying either.

I'm saying Dominion got a windfall, that they actually benefited from the election claims by getting years of net profit all at once. Its not a criticism of Fox nor a prediction of what the judgment might have been.

[bernard11]

I’m saying Dominion got a windfall, that they actually benefited from the election claims by getting years of net profit all at once.

I think Dominion is privately held. Are you saying you've seen their financials?

[Gandydancer]

He didn't say anything remotely like that, so why are you asking such a dumb question in such a dumb way?

[Martinned]

For those with access the FT just published an interesting article about the PE firm that controls Dominion: https://www.ft.com/content/5d4bfeb1-7ae5-4da1-9efe-0501373be4c6?desktop=true&segmentId=7c8f09b9-9b61-4fbb-9430-9208a9e233c8

Apparently they paid $38m for a majority stake.

[Mr. Bumble]

Yes.
https://www.axios.com/2023/04/19/fox-news-settlement-turns-dominion-into-private-equity-gold

Hard to imagine $1.6 billion claim.

[hoppy025]

I am saying that they overpaid relative to damages, just like Minneapolis overpaid by giving the "family" of the thug George Floyd $27 million. He was ghetto trash who is better off in the ground.

[hoppy025]

Not to mention that they are commies who probably preferred Pedo Joe in the White House.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

No, they wanted to bring the true facts into the light.

By settling the case without a trial?

[David Nieporent]

Yes. Dominion already won on the issue of falsity. The only issues remaining to be resolved at trial were (a) whether Fox acted with actual malice; and (b) the extent of Dominion's damages.

[Zarniwoop]

yep, there’s a court ruling that Fox was spreading blatantly false statements, and now they can’t challenge it. That’s sufficient for me.

[Davedave]

You do realise Fox have admitted the claims were untrue and defamatory, right?

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

ou do realise Fox have admitted the claims were untrue and defamatory, right?

Well, not quite. What they said was,

"We acknowledge the court's rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false. The settlement reflects FOX's continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards."

Now, granted, those are weasel-words that could certainly be interpreted as a veiled admission of sorts...but they fall quite a bit short of an actual explicit admission of guilt.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You are ignoring the information revealed. — and the admissions made — during discovery.

why?

[Gandydancer]

It’s not an admission of guilt at all. It’s an admission that they lost in court, and might have to pay more in damages than they did in the settlement.

Davedave is simply lying, as usual,.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Several Foxers acknowledged -- repeatedly, vividly, and without qualification -- that the claims were false (and that Fox knew they were false).

Are you a lawyer?

Do you have a college degree (backwater religious schooling doesn't count).

[Gandydancer]

Are you? Can you prove it?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I suspect that Rupert Murdoch has similar thoughts.

Maybe, if the business is spewing lies craved by a carefully cultivated audience of uneducated, gullible, superstitious, right-wing bigots and gun nuts.

[Don Nico]

I expect that you are correct.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Fox/Dominion thing"

I don't care. Its a large corporation paying a smaller corporation a lot of money, its not my money.

Fox made his bet, lost, and life will go on.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

lmao you sound vaxxed

[Gandydancer]

No one here ever gave a damn about Kraken that I ever saw.
The election was stolen with bogus absentee ballots, to the extent it was.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I think they've dropped the paywall on this, so I'll share Conor Casey and Adrian Vermeule's take on the Comstock Act:

https://postliberalorder.substack.com/p/natural-administrative-law

[Lee Moore]

Sarcastro claimed in a thread a few days ago that anti-free speech student protests were hardly ever violent. Here’s two in the past couple of weeks :

https://triblive.com/local/pitt-police-report-public-safety-emergency-during-michael-knowles-protest/

https://nypost.com/2023/04/09/riley-gaines-slams-sf-state-for-praising-peaceful-protest-where-she-claims-she-was-assaulted/

[Davedave]

Sites that do 'I was abducted by aliens' nonsense reporting that one person claims something that no-one could take seriously does not prove that point.

Honestly now, even you didn't think that it did, did you?

[Lee Moore]

Pretty pathetic. Five seconds googling will find you other reports of these incidents.

[Davedave]

Really? Then why did you post those National Enquirer level sources?

[Frank Drackman]

National Enquirers right about stuff more often than the Fake News. (See Edwards, John, and the whole Monica Lewinsky debacle)
And don't bring up stories about "Elephant Boys" and Extra-Terrestrial Anal Probes, those are from the National Examiner, and other disreputable sources, like CNN and PMS-NBC.

[Gandydancer]

Only a moron thinks the NY Post is a "National Enquirer level source", and you're doubly a moron if you think you can get away with pretending it didn't happen because you'd prefer different sources and can't be bothered to check THOSE.

But, yeah, "doubly a moron" describes you perfectly.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

The NY Post is just one step above the National Enquirer. That's not really something to crow about.

[Gandydancer]

You're welcome to your opinion, but it's totally beside the point. Davedave -- or you -- are perfectly welcome to search your preferred sources for the same incidents. But you make total asses of yourself if you pretend it didn't happen because the link you were given was to the Post.

Jeez, how stupid are you that you think you can get away with pretending that I wasn't completely clear about the point I was making?

[Don Nico]

But its headlines are more amusing.

[jb]

First one:

The university closed buildings and reported a “public safety emergency” as a protest crowd grew and an “incendiary device” went off. Police later described the device as a smoke bomb and firework. There were no reported injuries.

Second one sounds like there's still an investigation into the facts, but if the facts are as Ms. Gaines suggests, that does indeed sound violent.

Even assuming that's true, though, I'm not sure how you extrapolate from one violent incident to thinking that contradict's the claim that the events are hardly ever violent.

[Lee Moore]

You missed the first act. I posted an example of a violent student protest and Sarcastro said what you're saying - meh, one ! So I posted another - which he ignored. so I posted a couple more here.

If we came back in six months, there's be a few more. it's not a daily occurrence. But it's not "hardly ever."

Most student protests against undesired speakers are intimidatory and/or physically obstructive. It's not surprising if from time to tme the intimidaton and obstruction goes over the edge into violence. It is the nature of the beast - these protests are 'hardly ever" intended actually to express a contrary opinion - they are aimed at making it difficult and uncomfortable to speak unwelcome thoughts, or to go to listen to speakers expressing such thoughts.

The intention is to impose a cost, and sometimes the cost is physical. Time was, most liberals would have been perturbed by such things. Now, not so much.

Look at the reaction from the Queen and davedave.

"It never happened."

[Davedave]

You claim to have posted something proving something, but you didn't.

The thing about recorded history is that it's recorded, and it's history. So you don't have to wait 6 months for more protests. You can point to a lengthy string of them from the past which fit the bill. Or, you can't, because your claim is not supported by facts.

[shawn_dude]

So we've moved from "free speech" means you can have your say and the government (a public school in this case) cannot stop you to "free speech" means you can have your say, intentionally upset people, and claim "intimidation" when people express their opposition to the speaker's initial position? Since when does freedom of speech mean freedom of consequences, including angry counter-speech, for that speech? Protest is speech and a "contrary opinion." Riley didn't engage with the larger topic of whether trans women actually represent a real threat to CIS women in sports; she refers to them as "men in dresses." Why would you require that the protesters come armed with any more detailed of an opinion of the matter than Riley herself?

[Gandydancer]

You are so full of bullshit.

No one is criticizing the trannys for angry speech or insufficiently detailed argument. They shouted her down, threatened her, chased her and the campus cops down the hall, and attacked her physically, trapping her in her room on campus for hours while the campus police cowered in her room with her until the SF cops showed up to escort her away from there, then the university President said how hurtful her words were to the “community”.

And “Men in dresses” is what the men competing as pretended women ARE. No one is obliged to pretend differently.

[Lee Moore]

And another :

https://www.kcra.com/article/2-arrested-building-vandalized-uc-davis-event-conservative-activist/43326784#

[shawn_dude]

I can speak to the Riley Gaines claim. I'd recommend viewing the associated videos and read the SF State University student newspaper's articles on the matter. If you do this, you'll likely see that Riley's claims are hyperbolic. Here are the facts as can be determined:
1) The room the event was held in held 75 people, of which roughly 2/3rds were flagging support for trans persons.
2) The people in the room let Riley go through her entire presentation without any real interruption (some coughing and snickering aside) and they were respectful most of the way through the Q&A, though tempers started to rise near the end.
3) There were many, many more protesters outside the room, crammed into the narrow hallways in the classroom building. An associate dean was there keeping the protesters peaceful.

So at this point, both Riley and her protesters were peaceful.

4) Campus police surrounded Riley to help her leave. She had wall-to-wall police protection.
5) A number of people crowded close to Riley, some of whom appear to reporters or other people using phones to capture video.
6) Riley didn't feel safe and the police took her to another room.
7) At some point during that move to the room, Riley claims one person hit her twice. It doesn't really show up well on any of the videos I've seen. The police don't appear to have responded.
8) The police waited roughly three hours before ordering the crowd to leave.
9) The crowd left quickly when asked.
10) Riley left and was late for her flight.

You appear to claim that one student who struck Riley (and it may have been a reporter that got shoved into her, hard to say given how weak the attack was assuming it was intentional) is evidence of student protests being violent. So if one single student does something potentially violent at a protest, that makes it a "violent student protest?"

You also appear to claim that a peaceful protest and respectful listening of Riley's presentation represents an "anti-free speech student protest" without explaining how this is the case in this example you cite. All the evidence shows that there was no attempt to prevent her from speaking.

Riley and TPUSA are making hyperbolic claims while trolling the university, which is what TPUSA does. Taking her claims at face value without reviewing the significant amount of video and first person reporting that contradicts TPUSA's marketing blitz seems intentional. Surely you could find actual examples of students preventing free speech while being violent?

(As a side observation... who in their right mind came up with "TP USA" for the group's name? It's apt, for sure, given when they do, but not a particularly smart marketing choice. Toiletpaper USA?)

[Lee Moore]

And so, in concusion, Your Honor, the defense's case is that there was not much violence.

[Commenter_XY]

It was a mostly peaceful protest, Lee. 😉

[Magister]

That's kind of what "hardly ever" means, isn't it?

[Lee Moore]

No.

"Hardly ever" is a reference to how frequently protests with some amount of violence occur.

"Not much" is a reference to how much violence occurred at one particular protest.

Different ideas.

[Magister]

If you can only find two protests with not much violence, then "hardly ever" seems accurate.

[shawn_dude]

Is this the "one drop" rule for political opponents? If just one individual in a large group of peaceful individuals commits a crime, everyone is to be defined by that one, single person's choice?

And this is what you're citing as an example of "violent student protest." This is your exhibit A, as it were. A single, potentially violent person among many, many peaceful student protesters is the best you can do.

[Lee Moore]

Well, I have a certain sympathy, that from the point of view of the protestors, they can hardly be held responsible for the actions of a few, or just one, violent protestor in their midst. (Except to the extent, if any, that they are responsible.)

But from the point of view of the protested against, and their audience, getting punched is getting punched - even just by one guy. Indeed not getting punched, but reasonably fearing that someone from a hostile crowd might punch you, is also liable to deter.

All in all, I think we can reasonably conclude that a protest at which some violence occurs can be described as "violent", though one might - if one were writing for a lefty publication try "mostly peaceful." Personally, I don't think "mostly peaceful" quite cuts it even in the absence of actual violence, as peaceful is not really an antonym for violent - peaceful has an air of tranquility about it. Sitting in the room and occasionally snickering would be peaceful, but post meeting melees, shouting and obstructing - probably not.

[Lee Moore]

Like shooting fish in a barrel

https://reason.com/2023/04/20/college-debate-team-comes-out-against-debate/

“The lecture, which has already had to move location due to security concerns”

Mostly peacefully, of course.

[Nige]

You said 'violence.' So far, there's one unconfirmed incident and the rest is just a big crowd, and you resorting to empty sarcasm every time this is pointed out.

[shawn_dude]

This is disingenuous. We know that Riley is claiming she was struck but it wasn’t sufficient for the police standing next to her to respond to, so there is an open question as to whether she was punched. But let’s take that as a given for now. According to your framing, it would be truthful to say that any of the students at the protest participated in a violent protest. And this is because, according to your framing, even the slightest act of violence, even one that doesn’t result in any police action, pollutes the entire protest and associates every attendee with that violence. The difference, then, between a protest where a significant number of participants become violent and a protest where one protester engages in unwanted touch that causes no physical harm and results in no arrest is, effectively, zero in your framework.

This lowers the bar for defining a “violent protest” to the point where it becomes meaningless to even distinguish the difference. Riley only needed to claim that she “felt threatened” in order to claim assault and from there describe the protest as violent. This is all great propaganda in the name of her cause, though.

[Davedave]

I think we should go with their definition. By the same token, every one of the Trump-scum can now be executed for their part in his attempted coup. Overall, it's a win.

[Don Nico]

Shawn,
If on leaving the speaker was so intimated and fearful of violence against her person for multiple hours, then I'd consider that action harassment under the definition on nearly every campus.
In other words, protest speech transformed in to physical harassment of a person.
By the present "believe the woman" standard, I'd consider that sufficient justification for punishment of participating students.

[Sarcastr0]

And so, in concussion, Your Honor, the defense’s case is that there was not much violence.

Nice new goalposts.

I do love to get my name dropped, but if you're going to come after my point, *come after my point*, which was about how anecdotal your evidence is for a general thesis.

Looks like you've not managed to even understand what that means.

[Lee Moore]

Actually you said, IIRC, "one in six years."

[Sarcastr0]

Link to that; I would want to see the context.

Maybe I did say something so concrete and easily counterexample, but that doesn't sound like me.

Also, as shawn points out, your sources are not known for their credibility.

[Randal]

In other words, neither of Lee's examples actually involved violence.

I mean, that was obvious when he pointed out that all the non-rightwing-tabloid coverage of the incidents somehow didn't mention any violence.

But it's good to have confirmation.

[Gandydancer]

TP-USA stands for Turning Point – USA.

Nobody gives a fuck about your snark.

“Surely you could find actual examples of students preventing free speech while being violent?”

Lee Moore did, and why are you trying to ignore that?

No one said the attack on Gaines was the worst. The multiple-instances-of-bicycle-lock-to-the-head assailant (a college lecturer) in Berkeley is probably still the worst.

Nor does anyone believe your account or that of the fellow travelers at the Gator about what happened at SFSU. We all can recognize a crazed mob when we see one, and that’s what the video shows. Gaines wasn’t trapped until the city cops showed up because she wanted at better story for TPUSA.

[not guilty]

GenBioPro, the manufacturer of generic mifepristone, has filed suit in federal district court in Maryland against the FDA, its Commissioner of Food and Drugs, and other federal agencies and officials seeking declaratory and injunctive relief in order to continue marketing its lawful product and prevent deprivation of its liberty and property interests without due process of law. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23783762-genbiopro-v-fda-hhs-et-al

GenBioPro is not a party to or otherwise involved in the litigation arising out of Texas regarding mifepristone. (The manufacturer of the brand name Mifeprex is an intervening party to that litigation.) GenBioPro, however, is on the cusp of its product being labeled "misbranded" by FDA and the Department of Health and Human Services and "without an effective drug approval," which would force it out of the marketplace, without a whit of due process. That is outrageous.

[John F. Carr]

The company is asking the court to order the FDA not to comply with another court's order. It should intervene in the Texas case instead.

[not guilty]

There is no way that the FDA can fully comply with the Texas district court order and that of the district court in Washington.

The FDA and its Food and Drug Commissioner are based in Silver Spring, Maryland. Why on earth would the company want to appear before the result-oriented clowns in Amarillo and on the Fifth Circuit? A drug company lawyer seeking to intervene before Judge Kacsmaryk would possibly face a malpractice claim.

[Gandydancer]

There is zero evidence for your bogus slur against Kacsmaryk.

As to, “without a whit of due process”, this company has not been denied any due process. THAT is what the FDA did to the TX plaintiffs with its snail-walking its responses to their petitions, in blatant and shameless disregard of the law.

So sad when you have any difficulty getting your cases heard only in the venues you would like to restrict them to.

[not guilty]

Procedural due process boils down to an opportunity to be heard at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner. Who do you contend has afforded GenBioPro due process? The district court in Texas? The Fifth Circuit? The FDA? The DOJ?

No, GenBioPro faces imminent removal of its ability to market a lawful product without having been heard or afforded the opportunity to be heard at any stage of other parties´ litigation or the ensuing implementation of court orders.

[Gandydancer]

Bullshit. They can file their objection in Texas where the case is being heard. Who's stopping them?

[not guilty]

Unlike Danco (the maker of brand name Mifeprex), GenBioPro is not a litigant in Texas. The company arguably could have sought permissive intervention under Fed.R.Civ.P. 24(b), but would that discretionary procedure have satisfied due process? I don´t think so. Judge Kacsmaryk and the Fifth Circuit have shown themselves unwilling to afford what Edmund Burke characterized as the cold neutrality of an impartial judge.

[Gandydancer]

Neither you nor GenBioPro get to claim a failure to provide due process if GenBioPro fails to attempt to get any. And, no, whining about alleged partiality of the judge doesn't show any lack of due process either. If you don't like the findings or rulings you can appeal, just like everyone else has to.

[John F. Carr]

Here is the docket on courtlistener: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67222806/genbiopro-inc-v-us-food-and-drug-administration/

[not guilty]

It looks like the district judge who has drawn the case was initially nominated by President Obama after having served as a U. S. Magistrate. Her nomination lapsed with the end of the 114th Congress, and President Trump thereafter renominated her. The Senate confirmed her by voice vote.

[Ed Grinberg]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/national-public-radios-twitter-fight-with-elon-musk-d1bcd4b8
If NPR lies about its funding, why would we trust its news reporting?!

[Magister]

If Clarence Thomas lies in his financial disclosures, why should we trust his judgements?

[John F. Carr]

You don't need to trust them. They are self-executing. Like you don't have to trust Bill Clinton to accept that Mark Rich has been pardoned.

[Martinned]

The holding of the Court is, but the reasoning isn't. It would be good if we could trust judges and justices to honestly explain why they reached the conclusion(s) that they did, so that we can predict what they will do the next time they are presented with a similar issue.

[Gandydancer]

Yet you complain so much more about Thomas than Roberts.
It's impossible to take your complaints about "honest explanations" seriously.
Or maybe you think Roberts thought Obamacare was a tax? And still is?

[Martinned]

I don't complain very much about either. I think Justice Thomas is more principles-driven than most other Justices, although maybe less so now that the GOP has conclusively taken over the Court. And I agree that Roberts decided to uphold Obamacare first and worked out the way to get there second.

[Gandydancer]

On your assurance, then, I w/d my claim. I can't keep detailed track of exactly which way each of the crazies here are crazy. But if you don't subscribe to Magister's nonsense that's a point in your favor.

[Magister]

You don't think that Clarence Thomas's issues have had any effect on confidence in the Supreme Court? I'm perfectly willing to agree that Roberts's partisan rulings, Kavanaugh's lack of judicial demeanor and the general overreach of the conservative majority have done as much or more.

[Gandydancer]

None whatsoever. The yammering partisan hacks lying about Thomas are yammering now just like they were before.

[Magister]

Trust in Supreme Court has declined steadily, but there's always room to go down more, so you'll have to deny even harder with every new revelation.

[Gandydancer]

"New revelations" not in evidence are not in evidence.

[Gandydancer]

Because we can read them, and there is not the slightest indication that he's ever done anything for Crow. Plus he's generally more right than his colleagues, some of whom are execrable.

[Martinned]

Well, he voted to abolish the right to abortion.

[Gandydancer]

No, he voted to return regulation of abortion to the States. There never was a Constitutional “right to abortion”.

Guess what? The world hasn't ended after all.

[Nelson]

Ah, the "humanity hasn't ceased to exist, so everything's just fine" standard. How ... Russian.

Of course, the privacy and bodily autonomy rights of pregnant women are being violated in red states, but no biggie. Everyone hasn't died, after all.

[Gandydancer]

You morons are the ones who claimed the sky would fall if Casey was trashed, so don’t imagine that everyone is going to be persuaded to not notice that the only injuries in evidence are those from your setting your hair on fire.

[Nelson]

No one is claiming the sky is falling. A lot of people are pointing out that the decision has been taken away from citizens and put into the hands of the government. Who is clearly not representing their constituents very well, given the support for legal abortion in this country.

[Martinned]

Yes, that's what the absence of a "right" means: everything up to the whims of a majority (or however many voters it takes to win a majority in the legislature).

[Davedave]

"there is not the slightest indication that he’s ever done anything for Crow."

Except Crow's own statements that he expected a quid pro quo for everything he has given Thomas, and Thomas's overt admissions that he has accepted large undeclared payments, and tacit admission that he is corrupt.

As I've pointed out already here at least once, Thomas has standing to sue for libel in the notoriously plaintiff-friendly English courts, where anything other than outright proof of his corruption would give him an incontestible, easy win and huge damages. He isn't taking action. Why not? Because, obviously, the outright proof exists. He might as well have taken out an ad in the NYT admitting guilt, at this stage. We know, without any wriggle room, that he has taken secret payments from a strongly political billionaire in return for giving dishonest judgements.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Except Crow’s own statements that he expected a quid pro quo for everything he has given Thomas,"

You should be able to quote those statements, then.

[Davedave]

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2023/04/17/harlan-crow-theres-nothing-wrong-with-my-friendship-with-clarence-thomas/

"“Every single relationship — a baby’s relationship to his mom — has some kind of reciprocity,“ he said."

"would Crow be friends with Thomas if he weren’t a Supreme Court justice?

"“It’s an interesting, good question. I don’t know how to answer that. Maybe not. Maybe yes. I don’t know.”"

In other words, he expects something in return for even basic friendship, let alone for providing large financial considerations.

(As a side note, how pathetic is Crow? The man doesn't even know what an actual friend is, let alone have one.)

[Ben_]

Biden DOJ indicted four Americsns for speaking against Ukraine.

'The grand jury alleges that the aforementioned Ionov “directed” these Americans to “publish pro-Russian propaganda” and “information designed to cause dissention in the United States,” …'

No free speech allowed under the Biden regime.

[Nige]

The actual indictment which mentions, as I'm sure Ben meant to, them meeting with and working with FSB officers.

https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22123394/ionov-indictment.pdf

[Ben_]

Conspiracy to commit free speech.

[Nige]

That's just what they did while allegedly acting as illegal agents for a foreign power. Being an agent for a foreign power is illegal.

[Gandydancer]

"Being an agent for a foreign power is illegal."

No. It isn't. If you're a Biden it's not even required that you register even if you lobby.

[Nige]

Guess this indictment's going nowhere, then.

[Gandydancer]

Why not? Just because the FBI is corrupt doesn’t mean it can’t get away with shit. And these Marxist Joggers aren't Bidens.

[Nelson]

I really want to get on the gravy train you're riding. How much does Russia pay you?

Is it a salary or per-post? Does it come with medical? Dental? Vision?

[Gandydancer]

You are a clown.

[Davedave]

It's not unusual for traitors to defend treason.

[Ben_]

Treason against Ukraine? You may be loyal to Ukraine, but everyone else in the discussion, and the four people indicted, are all Americans.

[Bored Lawyer]

Who is the enemy here? You do know that is a Constitutional requirement for treason, right?

[Davedave]

"a Constitutional requirement for treason"

You appear to be conflating the US crime of treason with all treason, which is something only defenders of treason have reason to do.

[Bored Lawyer]

So in your view, all dissent from the current government position is treason. Got it.
Sounds like a certain bald-headed ex-KGB man who now heads the only third-world country with nukes.

[Davedave]

"So in your view"

I know lying through your teeth is habitual for you at this point, but surely even you can see that lying to me about what I think isn't going to work?

[Bored Lawyer]

I am characterizing your position. Which seems to be, if the Administration wants to drag us into a war with Russia, it is treason to oppose it.

And by the way, saying someone committed treason is accusing them of a crime. Same as saying someone committed murder. If you then say, nah, by murder I mean he was rude to someone in the supermarket, then you are a disingenuous fool.

[Davedave]

No, you're making something about me up out of thin air, and expecting me to believe it.

Forget blue cheese, you're not even as intelligent as burger cheese.

[Bored Lawyer]

I detest blue cheese.
And as for my intelligence, my Ivy-league degrees, honors at law school, and numerous published opinions with my name on it say otherwise.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Wow. You went there.

[Gandydancer]

@Davedave: No one gives a fuck what you claim to believe. We're deriding the stupid things you say, like ~"Only traitors have any reason to point out that Davedave is calling things treason that are not, in fact, treason."

[Ben_]

All the people who aren't wholeheartedly on Israel's side -- Israel being a longtime US ally -- are now called "defenders of treason".

[Ed Grinberg]

I think I'm getting whiplash -- how did we get from Ukraine to Israel?
(And, for the record: no, I don't think you're a "defender of treason" if you "aren't wholeheartedly on Israel's side.")

[Ben_]

davedave says it's treason to not be wholeheartedly on Ukraine's side. Why wouldn't it be the same offense to not be wholeheartedly on Israel's side?

[Ed Grinberg]

I see.
What if, in addition to "not being wholeheartedly on Israel's side," you actually take money from the agents of some foreign state that seeks to harm Israel. And then proceed to:
- spread anti-Israel propaganda
- raise funds / recruit people to participate in anti-Israel terrorist / military activities
- participate in such activities yourself
Don't you think that, at some point, the U.S. government can (constitutionally) put a stop to your activities?

[Gandydancer]

Ed Grinberg, earlier: "I think I’m getting whiplash — how did we get from Ukraine to Israel?"

Ed Grinberg, now: "What if, in addition to “not being wholeheartedly on Israel’s side,” you actually take money from the agents of some foreign state that seeks to harm Israel. And then proceed to:
– spread anti-Israel propaganda"

How did we get from anything charged in the indictment to "rais[ing] funds / recruit[ing] people to participate in anti-Israel terrorist / military activities [and] participate in such activities yourself"? Are the Black Marxist Nutters charged with anything akin to that?

[Ben_]

Propaganda is free speech, so that doesn’t seem to belong on such a list.

If someone actually did those other things, and if it were possible to prove it instead of making vague allegations, then you’d expect charges on such offenses instead of talk pretending free speech activities are actionable.

[Nige]

No, it's 'treasonous' for a citizen to be an illegal agent for a foreign power, as alleged here.

[Gandydancer]

Did you put "treasonous" in quotes because you know what the Constitution of the United States says about "treason" and you don't want to be caught lying, or are you just ignorant?

[Nige]

Yes, I wanted to indicate the broader usage of the word not the legal one. To avoid confusion. Well done on spotting that. I was worried it was too subtle, but you glommed it right away.

[Bored Lawyer]

It's not "treasonous." The statute that they are charged with violating requires registration with the Attorney General (and conspiracy to violate same). If you do so, it's perfectly legal.
The notion that a traitor gets out of treason by just filing a paper with the government is laughable.
That law has a legitimate purpose, and may have been violated. But treason it ain't.
Not to mention we are not at war with Russia, although its current government is odious in the extreme (as is China's).

[Davedave]

"The notion that a traitor gets out of treason by just filing a paper with the government is laughable."

This, from a Trump fanatic!

[Gandydancer]

You’re no doubt too stupid to grasp that moronic ad hom “arguments” don’t play well outside of your silo full of brainless toxic morons like you.

No, putting “treason” in scare quotes doesn’t give you leave to redefine the word to mean anything that is convenient for your slurs.

[Nige]

I'm not sure 'working with the intelligence agency of a nation hostile to your own' is a redifinition of 'treasonous.' Or ad hom, since the latter is what they're being indicted for, or a slur. But it's a weird thing for conservatives, who once upon a time accused journalists of being a fifth column for not cheerleading a war sufficiently, to get narky about.

[Gandydancer]

It's not remotely unusual for you to be a full-fledged gibbering idiot.

But, no, no one is charged with treason. Read the damn article.

[Bob from Ohio]

How is taking money from Russia "defrauding the United States"?

[Gandydancer]

I remember that charge from the RussiaRussiaRussia hoax.
Maybe searching for “defrauding the United States”"Meuller" will be illuminating.

[Gandydancer]

Ben_ linked to the Caitlyn Johnson article, which linked to the WaPo, which I presume didn't omit any details you think are damning.

American citizens are free to believe FSB sources in preference to the Biden regime. Or have you forgotten how "Putin blew up his own pipeline!" turned into "Some Ukrainians did it, but we don't know who they were."

[Nige]

Of course they're free to believe FSB sources, Trump relies on it heavily.

[Gandydancer]

Do you think that is clever?

You are a really tedious liar, and stupid besides.

[Nige]

No, I think it's stupid, but that's Trump and his supporters for you.

[Krayt]

Do foreign belligerent countries have some kind of right to speak in the US, while hiding this behind a proxy?

This doesn't sound like idiots seduced by RU state patter planted on sketchy web sites.

[Ben_]

Americans have free speech rights. And America is not at war.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Do foreign belligerent countries have some kind of right to speak in the US, while hiding this behind a proxy?

First off, no...countries do not have any rights. But I don't know what that has to do with this issue, which involved charges against four American citizens.

[Kazinski]

Whatever your answer to that question is, legally Russia is not a belligerent.

[Nelson]

Of course not. They just tripped and fell into Ukraine.

[Gandydancer]

Again with the "sounds like" asininity.

You and a lot of jerks here decide what you'd prefer it to be and announce that it "sounds like" that based on no evidence whatsoever.

I haven't read the indictment* and I suspect that neither have you or you'd presumably have an actual reason for your leaped-to conclusion.

*If someone turns up a version that I can copy into a .txt file I'll have Panopreter read it to me while I'm doing other things, but so far both versions that I've seen don't allow that

[M L]

This is sketchy.

[Bored Lawyer]

The Secretary of HHS has been found by the US Office of Special Counsel to have violated the Hatch Act.

https://osc.gov/Documents/Hatch%20Act/Reports/Report%20of%20Prohibited%20Political%20Activity,%20Xavier%20Becerra%20(HA-22-000223).pdf

I expect all of the "no one is above the law" crowd to call for his resignation.

(Actually, I expect to hear crickets chirping.)

[Martinned]

What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Way too few US politicians resign for lawbreaking and/or screw-ups anyway. Has there been anyone since Al Franken?

[Ben_]

Cuomo.

[Martinned]

True. Any Republicans in the last 10 years or so?

[Mr. Bumble]

Now do Europe. Start with Macaroon.

[Martinned]

European politicians resign for screwing up and/or breaking the law all the time. I’m not sure why you asked about Macron, whose main sin seems to be that he’s trying to adopt sensible but unpopular legislation.

If you want an example of a resignation that would never happen in the US, Christine Lambrecht resigned as Germany's Defence Minister after posting a somewhat embarrassing video on Twitter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Lambrecht#Federal_Minister_of_Defence,_2021%E2%80%932023

[Gandydancer]

Defense Minister isn’t an elected position. Flynn resigned, though maybe before he was officially appointed. Petraeus was something or other. And, going further down the totem pole, our nuclear waste asst. secty. went to jail for stealing women’s clothes in airports..

Internationally, there's this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_resignations_from_government

[Gandydancer]

Wikipedia has this but not Biden or Obama. Motivation counts. Or, knowing Wikipedia as I do, the partisan deletionists may have been at work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Trump_administration_dismissals_and_resignations

[Ben_]

Gary Cohn quit. Not an elected official and not because anyone did anything wrong though.

Have there been any genuine Republican violations of anything? Lots of fake bullshit and double standards but I can’t remember anything substantial involving a prominent Republican in the last several years.

[OtisAH]

The entire Turnip administration wiped its ass with The Hatch Act on a weekly basis. So nobody is going to give a shit about this except dumbass MAGA who only give a shit in that it’s an opportunity to sneer and neener.

[Bored Lawyer]

Chirp-chirp.

[Bob from Ohio]

"wiped its ass with The Hatch Act on a weekly basis"

As should the current one.

The idea that a cabinet officer can't be political is beyond stupid. Its a political position!

[Jason Cavanaugh]

You’re too stupid to comprehend the obvious, so I’ll help:

The government has no business telling people for whom they should be voting.

[Bored Lawyer]

Which begs the question. When a political officer tweets something, does anyone think that's "the government" telling them something, or they just think that's a politician being a politician.

Particularly a high-level, appointed position like a member of cabinet.

But, ok, given your position, I expect you to call for this Secretary's resignation, amirite?

[Martinned]

That's not actually the rationale for the Hatch Act, as far as I know, but it does remind me of a recent mess in Germany (where they have much stricter rules about all sorts of things) when a government minister took the Twitter account she originally set up privately but had since used as her official channel and turned it (back) into her campaign account.

https://verfassungsblog.de/einmal-amtlich-immer-amtlich/

[David Nieporent]

A cabinet position is not a "political officer."

[Bored Lawyer]

It sure is under Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347 (1976).

[not guilty]

Where do you get that from Elrod, a case brought by low level county sheriff´s department personnel?

The controlling opinion in Elrod is that of Justice Stewart, joined by Justice Blackmun, concurring in the judgment. ¨The single substantive question involved in this case is whether a nonpolicymaking, nonconfidential government employee can be discharged or threatened with discharge from a job that he is satisfactorily performing upon the sole ground of his political beliefs. I agree with the plurality that he cannot.¨ 427 U.S. 347, 375 (1976).

[Bored Lawyer]

From Elrod:

A second interest advanced in support of patronage is the need for political loyalty of employees, not to the end that effectiveness and efficiency be insured, but to the end that representative government not be undercut by tactics obstructing the implementation of policies of the new administration, policies presumably sanctioned by the electorate. The justification is not without force, but is nevertheless inadequate to validate patronage wholesale. Limiting patronage dismissals to policymaking positions is sufficient to achieve this governmental end. Nonpolicymaking individuals usually have only limited responsibility and are therefore not in a position to thwart the goals of the in-party.
No clear line can be drawn between policymaking and nonpolicymaking positions. While nonpolicymaking individuals usually have limited responsibility, that is not to say that one with a number of responsibilities is necessarily in a policymaking position. The nature of the responsibilities is critical. Employee supervisors, for
Page 427 U. S. 368
example, may have many responsibilities, but those responsibilities may have only limited and well defined objectives. An employee with responsibilities that are not well defined or are of broad scope more likely functions in a policymaking position. In determining whether an employee occupies a policymaking position, consideration should also be given to whether the employee acts as an adviser or formulates plans for the implementation of broad goals. Thus, the political loyalty "justification is a matter of proof, or at least argument, directed at particular kinds of jobs." Illinois State Employees Union v. Lewis, 473 F.2d at 574. Since, as we have noted, it is the government's burden to demonstrate an overriding interest in order to validate an encroachment on protected interests, the burden of establishing this justification as to any particular respondent will rest on the petitioners on remand, cases of doubt being resolved in favor of the particular respondent.

Now tell me how the Secty. of HHS is not a policy-maker under that case. And there are quite a few lower court decisions that state as an example that a cabinet-level secretary falls into that exception.

[Commenter_XY]

You and not guilty are giving me a free law class. 🙂

I had never heard of Elrod. Now I'll know it when I see (with kudos to Justice Stewart).

[not guilty]

Your lengthy obiter dictum quotations are from Justice Brennan´s plurality opinion, which having been joined by only two other justices, is not the opinion of the Court. When a fragmented Court decides a case and no single rationale explaining the result enjoys the assent of five Justices, the holding of the Court may be viewed as that position taken by those Members who concurred in the judgments on the narrowest grounds. Marks v. United States, 430 U.S. 188, 193 (1977).

In Elrod v. Burns, that is the opinion of Justice Stewart, joined by Justice Blackmun, concurring in the judgment, which I quoted above. Stewart specifically declined to join the plurality opinion. 427 U.S. at 434.

[Bored Lawyer]

NG, none of which addresses the point. Elrod is followed throughout the country. You can't fire a government employee for belonging to the wrong party. Unless the person is in a "policy making" position.

Positions much lower than a cabinet level position have been held to be within that exception. Opinions occassionally opine that a cabinet level position is clearly within the exception. One moment of thought would reveal that the notion that the President has to treat appointments to his cabinet as a civil-service position is legally absurd.

Try reading this Sixth Circuit case: https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/15a0016p-06.pdf

[David Nieporent]

NG, none of which addresses the point. Elrod is followed throughout the country. You can’t fire a government employee for belonging to the wrong party. Unless the person is in a “policy making” position.

Yes, but policy-making and political are not the same thing.

[Gandydancer]

Find an example of a cabinet secretary ruled exempt from the Hatch Act and maybe you can persuade me that your head isn’t determinedly up your partisan ass.

I'm not holding my breath, but maybe you should get a snorkel.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

If that is considered to be the appropriate punishment, then yes.

I could argue that multiple Trump sycophants broke the same law with, if I recall correctly, absolutely no punishment whatsoever, and therefore Biden people should get away with it too.

That would be a pretty common opinion from most of the assclowns around here, but that isn't how I roll. I expect politicians to face punishment for their misbehavior the same as anyone else would.

[Gandydancer]

" I expect politicians to face punishment for their misbehavior the same as anyone else would."

Expect? I assume that's a wish rather than an prediction.

[Kazinski]

Well remember well when Al Gore was making fund raising calls from his office in clear violation of the Hatch Act.

He gave a press conference and he repeated the phrase " no controlling legal authority" several times which basically meant since he was VP, they either had to impeach him or pound sand.

I was outraged at the time, well about as outraged as I get about business as usual, but really now I see the point, nobody really thinks Senators, Reps, VPs, and cabinet officials arent all politics all the time, including asking for money at any opportunity.

To put in more contemporary context if Clarence Thomas, who has not violated the Hatch act, gives a press conference and says "no controlling legal authority" then Google Translate should render that from washintonese as "impeach me or pound sand".

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

The government has no business telling people for whom they should be voting.

Yeah, I recall all of those instances of you complaining when Democrat elected officials endorse/stump for Democrat candidates, or advice not voting for non-Democrat candidates, etc.

Oh, wait...no I don't.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

What I choose to comment on is my business, but since I enjoy proving your dipshit insinuations to be false:

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-government-watchdog-health-chief-becerra-violated-hatch-act-2023-04-18/

Everyone should be held to the same standard, and I hope that he is held to account more than the Trump assholes were.

Your unwillingness to realize that I don't have a political party affiliation or preference is because of your endless stupidity and your own belief that nobody could possibly be anything other than the partisan asshole you repeatedly demonstrate yourself to be.

You may go now.

[Kazinski]

You are just making his point for him:

"The report was sent to Biden, a Democrat, for "appropriate action.""

What was the appropriate action? Probably "Heck of a job Becky".

I don't remember any fines suspensions, public admonitions.

"See! Nobody cares!!"

[Jason Cavanaugh]

No, I am not, as his 'point' is attempting to portray me as having outrage only based on political viewpoint.

Unfortunately for him, I don't have any affiliation with any political party, I think they are inherently bad for the country, and I despise every last one of them.

[Bob from Ohio]

"The government has no business telling people for whom they should be voting."

Good thing it didn't. It was just some politician holding a political position.

[Martinned]

He can be, just not using resources that taxpayers paid for. Which is why all those Congresscritters spend half their time across the street from the Capitol begging people for money, instead of making those calls from their taxpayer-funded offices.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

I don't have a problem with what people do in their unofficial capacity as an individual, and I don't believe most other people do either.

I do care when it's done with the implication that it is a statement on behalf of the government.

[Martinned]

As others have observed, it's ridiculous to claim that when an (elected) politician asks you to vote for them, you think that's "a statement on behalf of the government".

[Gandydancer]

That's not remotely the issue.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

This conversation was not about someone asking for your vote for their own election.

Even that should be only acceptable when it does not involve any taxpayer money whatsoever. Otherwise it's unethical and improperly influencing an election.

[Gandydancer]

"So nobody is going to give a shit about this except dumbass MAGA who only give a shit in that it’s an opportunity to sneer and neener."

And this guy complains that the only folks interested in the legal things Thomas did that he didn’t disclose are rabid partisans like him.

Self-awareness is not his thing.

[Kenneth Almquist]

I don't call for his resignation because his conduct doesn't warrant it. Here is a link to a 2018 OSC report on Kellyanne Conway. (You will have to cut and paste the link due to a bug in Reason's software.) Conway's comments are clearly worse than the HHS Secretary's two off the cuff statements, yet the OSC did not recommend termination.

https://osc.gov/Documents/Hatch%20Act/Reports/Report%20of%20Prohibited%20Political%20Activity,%20Kellyanne%20Conway%20(HA-18-0966).pdf

Instead, OSC only recommended termination of Conway's government employment in 2019, for a much more serious sequence of violations.

https://osc.gov/Documents/Hatch%20Act/Reports/Report%20of%20Prohibited%20Political%20Activity,%20Kellyanne%20Conway%20(HA-19-0631%20&%20HA-19-3395).pdf

The final page of the report, which explains why Conway's behavior merited removal from public service, gives an idea of the level of violations that have to occur before removal from public service is warranted. Your suggestion that the HHS Secretary should be removed for two off the cuff sentences, which he has acknowledged he should not have said, is ridiculous.

[Bob from Ohio]

Bureaucrats have no business telling the President who he can have as advisors. He rightfully ignored it, as Biden should here.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

It seems that you're unaware as to what the problem is, and instead think it's about who can advise the President.

As usual, you are incorrect. Perhaps you should start over at the top of the thread and try again.

[Bob from Ohio]

Thee is no "problem", cabinet officers and White House staff are in political positions, political conduct is to be expected. I utterly don't care about the Hatch Act regarding those positions.

"OSC only recommended termination of Conway’s government employment"

That seems to be about "who can advise the President".

[Jason Cavanaugh]

"That seems to be about “who can advise the President”."

No, child. It's about a recommended punishment for someone who deliberately and repeatedly broke the law.

It is fitting that someone with your pitiful sense of ethics wouldn't care about a law pertaining to ethical behavior being enforced.

[Gandydancer]

DEAD link.

But try https://www.govexec.com/management/2023/04/hhs-secretary-violated-hatch-act-office-special-counsel-determines/385317/

[Michael P]

Larry Summers: "Somebody from a developing country said to me, 'What we get from China is an airport. What we get from the United States is a lecture. We like your values better than we like theirs, but we like airports more than we like lectures.'"

Biden is pushing countries to de-dollarize in multiple ways.

[Ben_]

"What we get from the United States is a lecture."

That's what Americans get from our decrepit zombie ruling class too: lectures and money-laundering schemes to enrich elites.

[Gandydancer]

Our rulers aren't by any stretch of the imagination "elite" at anything except impunity for corruption.

[Aunt Teefah]

Hey, we'll get you an airport too, all you gotta do is sign up for one of these beautiful IMF loans! No, no need to read the fine print, nothing to see there...

[Nige]

Yeah, no poison chalices there, which, in fairness, the US has served more than its fair share of.

[Don Nico]

Larry was ofetn an asshole, but he was not stupid even then

[Frank Drackman]

OK, been hearing all about the "Teenager Shot in KC for ringing doorbell!!!"
Just found out he wasn't killed, don't they teach marksmanship in this country anymore??? And shot with a 32?? where do you even find ammo for that worthless round??

Frank

[Nige]

WHO'S an edgy edgebot? That's right YOU'RE and edgy edgebot! GOOD edgy edgebot! So edgy!

[Michael P]

Last year, the US Senate had evidence that COVID-19 was spreading in Wuhan well before the outbreak at the Huanan Seafood Market -- and that China might have been working on two different Covid vaccines in November 2019: https://www.axios.com/2023/04/17/senate-covid-origins-report-details-lab-leak-theory

[M L]

Is this for real?? What sort of evidence I wonder.

"there's evidence the virus was circulating in Wuhan before the first known cases connected to the wet market were reported."

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

What sort of evidence I wonder.

“there’s evidence the virus was circulating in Wuhan before the first known cases connected to the wet market were reported.”

From the abbreviated version of the report linked to by the Axios piece:

Moreover, the genetic similarity between the environmental samples and human viral samples supports the likelihood that the virus found at the Huanan Seafood Market was shed by infected humans, rather than by infected animals.

And not as direct, but of interest:

It is also noteworthy that the earliest variants of SARSCoV-2 were well-adapted for human-to-human transmission.4

Also,

The PRC has reported finding no retrospective evidence of COVID-19 cases in October or November 2019. However, retrospective case searches by PRC public health authorities were limited to individuals requiring medical treatment. As a result, the PRC’s retrospective case search likely missed between 80 to 95 percent of all COVID-19 cases, which were asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic. Undercounting of early COVID-19 cases is also likely due to China’s restrictive case definitions which initially required not only severe COVID-19 symptoms, but a link to the Huanan Seafood Market. It is estimated that during the period from mid-January to early March 2020, China’s case definitions did not
account for approximately 200,000 COVID-19 cases.

There's more, but that's what I found in an initial quick skim of the report.

[Gandydancer]

But Burr hasn’t reviewed it! Science!

[John F. Carr]

The Justice Department has issued a "dear colleague" letter to state courts to remind them that judges shouldn't impose excessive fines or bail or lock people up for being poor. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-issues-dear-colleague-letter-courts-regarding-fines-and-fees-youth-and

“The unfettered imposition of fines and fees across the country has entrapped poor people, too many of whom are people of color, in a cycle of escalating debt, unnecessary incarceration and debilitating entanglement in our justice system,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “By confronting the harms that can result from aggressive imposition of fines and fees, we can bring an end to debtors’ prisons and promote equal justice under law for all. The Justice Department stands ready to help courts and juvenile justice agencies put in place reforms and practices that address public safety needs while protecting civil and constitutional rights.”

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Unless you're a J6'er. Then fuck you and your rights.

[Nelson]

Well, if you're a J6er you're a delusional fool, and if you broke into the Capitol you're a criminal as well. So yeah, fuck them.

But they haven't been denied any rights, so I'm not sure what that's about.

[Krayt]

"Continue profiteering through property seizure, though, to make up for cutbacks."

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Why is a death penalty law for child rapists law in FL being construed as an attack on LGBTQP?

[Brett Bellmore]

It's in the plus sign...

[Longtobefree]

Wait; a plus sign? I thought math was racist.

[Gandydancer]

For the innumerate a plus sign has nothing to do with arithmetic.

[Krayt]

The P for pedophile is a cynical addition by conservatives to poison the well against gays, and is not by them.

[not guilty]

Right. This fact check may be of interest. https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-lgbtq-community-p-acronym/factcheck-thelgbtq-community-isnotadding-p-to-their-acronym-idUSKBN2352J8

[Gandydancer]

As if fags weren't disproportionately boy-hunters.

[Nige]

Because anti-semitic racist fucks like yourselves have made it clear that your main political goal is their eradication, facilitated by satanic panicking about child abuse, while every day some Republican official and a Christian pastor gets indicted for child abuse.

[not guilty]

There is a desperate need in some circles for a despised minority group to look down on. Overt racism has long been unacceptable in polite society. Hatred of gays and lesbians, qua gays and lesbians, has more recently become unacceptable. As a result, the hatemongers have focused on transgendered folks and conflating gay orientation with child sex abuse.

Then-Senator Lyndon Johnson understood the appeal of race baiting. Bill Moyers relates that LBJ explained:

"I'll tell you what's at the bottom of it," he said. "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1988/11/13/what-a-real-president-was-like/d483c1be-d0da-43b7-bde6-04e10106ff6c/

[Gandydancer]

“very day some Republican official… gets indicted for child abuse.”

Then you ought to be able to name one for every day this week. Proceed.

[not guilty]

¨Why is a death penalty law for child rapists law in FL being construed as an attack on LGBTQP?¨

Who is construing it that way?

[Gandydancer]

The “TQ+ community”, apparently. Is that different than "LGBTQP¨?

“…there are growing concerns in the TQ+ community stating that the law is discriminating against them.”https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/new-florida-law-introduces-death-penalty-for-child-abusers/ar-AA1a9DEW

[Dr. Ed 2]

An interesting tranny case coming out of Lincoln County, Maine:
https://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Lavigne-Complaint-and-Exhibits.pdf

Seems that the school not only let she consider herself a "he" but also gave her a breast binder which her mother found.

Mother was upset and pulled the kid out of school -- community also upset and school blames mother for bomb threats on school. And also tries to drag in child protective.

It's an interesting district from an interesting part of Maine that was largely undeveloped until recently because the railroad cartel bankrupted the narrow gauge railroad by preventing any narrow gauge railroad from crossing standard gauge tracks -- they couldn't go over, under, or across them. And as there was one railroad along the shore and another that essentially follows where I-95 does today, they couldn't get timber out.

The district is 5 different elementary (K-8) schools serving 8 different towns -- with high school students given a tuition voucher that they can use wherever they desire, most go to Lincoln Academy.

[Estragon]

“Largely undeveloped until recently”

By maine standards? Not even close. Even been to wiscasset on a summer Saturday?

[Estragon]

I mean, if you haven’t been to T6-R8 have you even really ever been to maine?

[grb]

I thru-hiked the AT starting in Maine back in 2010 (being unemployed & facing divorce. The woods looked pretty good) By memory, I did about 280 miles in the state and remember this:

From the moment I climbed Katahdin until I crossed the border into Gorham, NH, I didn't see a single chain store or fast food joint. Every town I visited had mom&pop restaurants, grocers and hardware stores. Obviously they had to be there somewhere because they're everywhere, but the fact I never saw one is still pretty amazing. I wouldn't think it even possible these days.

(That said, I hit a McDonalds very soon after reaching Gorham. Hikers are very prone to food fetishes, and I longed for the fries)

[Estragon]

Yeah but did you sleep in panarchy while you were in Hanover? Speaking of nice independent grocery stores. If you didn’t walk out of town without a pie from Lou’s you really fucked up!

[Estragon]

My memory from ‘05 is similar to yours. As luck would have it, I’m about three weeks off from a little trip to maine myself, what a treat! No Baxter this time I’m afraid

[grb]

If you mean Hanover, NH, I tented in the woods just alongside some athletic fields on the outskirts of town. That’s what folk up-trail said to do, though it felt illicit even with a butch of us scattered about the small area. I was there three luxurious days resolving my health insurance which - being unemployed - had just run out.

Don’t remember Lou’s (I fucked up many times on my hike), but do recall a luscious baked goods store in Delaware Water Gap. I was there a few days too, this time with foot problems. Then I stayed at Church of the Mountain hostel, presided over by a very handsome lady pastor who fussed over by foot ailments, talked about the area’s jazz tradition, and preached against yellow-blazing with real venom.

One of my hostel-mates was a section-hiking lawyer from Indiana. His shtick was those class-action lawsuits you see advertised on late-night TV, but his firm only organized the background stuff as a subcontractor to the frontline firms. Per his description, it sounded like a unique & profitable niche. But I think I saw the pastor’s mouth purse in a moue of distain as he described this angle. Not as bad as yellow-blazing but…..

[Estragon]

Quite so, I stopped reading carefully at “thru”.

Yes the food co-op in Hanover and then the short walk up to the lean to (velvet rocks) is about the best near zero (nearo) you could ever desire. Lou’s is a gem though. Recently got some shine in the NYTimes I believe.

[Ridgeway]

Lou's, the old-fashioned luncheonette? I always thought it was kind of cool as an institution, but it was (like everything in Hanover) expensive, and nothing special food-wise. Have they hired a new chef in the 30 yrs since I graduated?

[Dr. Ed 2]

I believe that T2-R5 is the first one you come to on I-95 -- T6-R8 sounds like it's up beyond Millinocket.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The problem with Wiscasset is that is the location of the original Route 1 — the King’s Highway from before the American Revolution.

There were ferries across both rivers (even the railroad went across the Kennebec on a ferry until something like 1912), but if you go straight up the hill heading south, instead of curving to the right as Route 1 now does, you will come up to the 19th Century downtown, with the historic courthouse and the rest. (They’ve got it blocked off so you can’t do that heading north, and you have to make a left turn against traffic to do this.)

As long as Route 1 has had a bridge over the river, it has been right there — see: https://www.mainememory.net/artifact/103988 and while the MDOT had built up the road over the years, as late as the early ’80s the road north of the bridge was still on wooden pilings.

What happened was that Bath got the elevated bypass in the 1950s which also avoided a lot of railroad tracks underneath, both the main line going north and all the sidings going into BIW, which were quite busy then. But the elevated highway really killed downtown Bath, both in redirecting the traffic around the downtown and in being an ugly green thing choking out the sunshine.

Damriscotta was then bypassed by a road built to the west, and while the town has now recovered (and is much better off with the bypass) it was hurt badly in the ’60s and ’70s from the traffic which no longer went through (or stopped) downtown.

So Wiscasset sees this happening on both sides of it and — somehow — successfully fought the state’s plan to build a new bridge upriver and while I don’t know if the depicted circa 1920 bridge is the one that was still there circa 1970, it was on wooden pilings, which were rotting, and really couldn't be easily replaced.

NB: All the road on the far side of the bridge, through Edgecomb, are also built on pilings that were rotting in the ’70s, but the state deals with that by digging them out and replacing them with massive amounts of gravel, something which wasn’t possible to do in the 1920s — and probably wouldn’t be possible now because of rules regarding the filling of wetlands….

Anyway, circa 1976 or so, the state realizes that the Wiscasset bridge is starting to be really unsafe and posts it down to 11 tons and starts talking replacement. But the state doesn’t have the money for *two* new bridges and they can’t not have a bridge where the current one is. Hence they built a new one a few feet downriver of the old one, and that’s why all the traffic heading to Knox County (Rockland) has to go through Wiscasset.

My point is (a) most of the traffic *in* Wiscasset isn’t going *to* Wiscasset (or even Lincoln County) and (b) you’re not considering the 20-30 miles either side of Route 1.

[Estragon]

“(b) you’re not considering the 20-30 miles either side of Route 1.”

I absolutely am, having spent a lot of time in Lincoln county. To call this area “largely undeveloped until recently” as compared to large swaths of the state even today is so ridiculous it makes me wonder if you’ve ever actually been there. I’ll tell you what, you meet me for a lobster in castine, maine next month and I’ll buy that you’re really a janitor and not chatbot. What’s your favorite round top flavor?

[Dr. Ed 2]

"Until recently" means "since 1980" and for an area that was settled before the Revolution, it didn't develop the way that Bath or Rockland or Belfast did.

It wasn't my favorite flavor, but I will never forget how they bested an obnoxious lawyer. One of their flavors was "M&M" and some lawyer noticed this, and sent the inevitable cease & desist letter. Instead of using the convoluted and obtuse name the lawyer demanded, they simply discontinued the flavor -- and posted his letter for all to read.

As to how much recent development there has been, back in the day I used to head out of Round Top on my motorcycle with an ice cream cone, take a bypass road that isn't still open, and go down Route 129 to the point.

[Estragon]

Well they worked it out I guess because M and M is a flavor today and almond joy has been one since at least 1989

[Aunt Teefah]

Broken clock, worst person you know, etc. etc. Donald Trump is attacking Mickey Mouse Governor LeRon for abandoning his state during a massive flooding disaster to traipse across the country to suck up to donors.

“First Ron DeSanctimonious got outplayed, outsmarted, and embarrassed by Mickey Mouse and Disney. Now, while Fort Lauderdale is facing the worst flooding in 100 years, DeSanctus is on tour with his ‘shadow’ campaign for president, instead of taking care of the people of Florida.”

[Martinned]

Ron DeSanctimonious

Not his best work

[Estragon]

I agree— this one isn’t nearly on the level of “little” marco or “low energy” jeb. I think the ideal moniker includes some kind of reference to the shoe lifts

[Aunt Teefah]

Agreed, although "outplayed, outsmarted, and embarrassed by Mickey Mouse" is a pretty good line.

In terms of nicknames, if he starts calling him "Rhonda Santis" or "Miss Florida" and just posting this picture constantly (https://patch.com/img/cdn20/users/714975/20221006/053708/styles/patch_image/public/desantis-1___06173623707.jpg?width=1200), he'll win the primary by 70%.

[shawn_dude]

Ever notice that his vest has his name embroidered on it? Just in case someone might not know who he is?

[grb]

Martinned : “Not his best work”

I was checking out the comments on a Fox News story (a sordid pleasure kinda like ogling a gruesome car wreck), and noticed people repeatedly calling him “Meatball Ron”. I was surprised and pleased. Can the Fox News readership be coming around?

Nope. They were hardcore MAGA-types, and the moniker came from their hero Trump. There is a great deal of hate building up between the camps, so grab your popcorn and sit back.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I must admit that this reminds me of Governor Michael Dukakis -- he ignored growing problems in Massachusetts while he was running for President and then things got really interesting in Massachusetts circa 1989....

[Estragon]

I think I found out what happened to Jimmy the Dane:

“Neighbors said that his wife was recently moved to a nursing home, leaving [Mr. Lester] alone in his house. He spent considerable time at home in a living room chair, watching conservative news programs at high volume, a relative said… Klint Ludwig, a grandson, said in an interview that he and his grandfather used to be close. The two had become estranged in part, Mr. Ludwig said, because Mr. Lester had embraced right-wing conspiracy theories… at a family gathering during the coronavirus pandemic, Mr. Ludwig said, Mr. Lester began sharing a conspiracy theory involving Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the infectious disease expert…. Mr. Ludwig, who lives in a suburb of Kansas City, described his grandfather as prone to making remarks that he considered disparaging about Black people, gay people and immigrants.”

Which huckleberry denizen does this most closely resemble?

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/19/us/yarl-gillis-shooting-missouri-ny.html

[NOVA Lawyer]

Hard to say, but Jimmy the Dane is definitely on the list.

[M L]

Here's a screenshot of my political "compass." Apparently I'm pretty much a CENTRIST, according to this test, skewed toward libertarian instead of authoritarian, but pretty middle between left and right.

https://i.imgur.com/wJ3qXJ8.jpg
Economic Left/Right: 0.13
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.33

Take the test and post your results!!

https://www.politicalcompass.org/test

[Martinned]

I have many questions about that test, but I'll play along:

Economic Left/Right: -3.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.13

[M L]

Yeah, it’s kind of limited. I could have gone either way on some prompts. For some, I wanted to demand a definition for a word used. For others, I thought it was a bit of a false dichotomy. I also thought it was limited in terms of addressing an issue in the abstract rather than asking who should decide for who. Overall, a bit lacking in detail. Conservatives will usually agree to things like “some form of regulation is necessary somewhere” but the devil’s always in the details.

[VinniUSMC]

Martin, how many times did you retake the test in order to not show up as +1000 Authoritarian?

[Life of Brian]

Interesting -- thanks for sharing. Centrist leaning libertarian here too:

Economic Left/Right: 0.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.05

[M L]

I got it from this twitter thread, which I thought was a good read.

https://twitter.com/TheRabbitHole84/status/1604654901375574016

[Bored Lawyer]

Don't like many of the questions, as they use words like "never," "always," "some" in a misleading way.

[M L]

To be fair, they say: Please note that this isn’t a survey, and these aren’t questions. They’re propositions. To question the logic of individual ones that irritate you is to miss the point. Some propositions are extreme, and some are moderate. That’s how we can show you whether you lean towards extremism or moderation on the Compass. Your responses should not be overthought. Some of them are intentionally vague. Their purpose is to trigger reactions in the mind, measuring feelings and prejudices rather than detailed opinions on policy.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

“Your responses should not be overthought. Some of them are intentionally vague. Their purpose is to trigger reactions in the mind, measuring feelings and prejudices rather than detailed opinions on policy.”

Surveys conducted in this manner really suck – the last thing we need is to encourage more knee-jerk, ill-thought-out answers.

X_ Strongly Agree __ Agree __ Disagree __ Strongly Disagree

[bevis the lumberjack]

Economic left/right +0.13
Social libertarian/authoritarian -4.87

All of y’all trying to brand me a severe rightist can pound sand.

[Commenter_XY]

Your Political Compass: Not sure WTF this means...

Economic Left/Right: 3.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.82

[Martinned]

You're 4 points more rightist and 2.5 points more authoritarian than me, which tracks.

[Brett Bellmore]

"To question the logic of individual ones that irritate you is to miss the point. "

Yeah, the point is to force you to pick one side after another of a series of false dichotomies. Nobody with an actual well thought out personal philosophy could honestly answer most of those questions.

Economic Left/Right: 3.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.82

I don't think that says anything about my views. At points I was basically just flipping a coin for "These answers aren't even wrong!" questions.

[Martinned]

Still, that's you losing some serious libertarian street cred...

[Brett Bellmore]

If it were on the original Nolan chart, maybe.

[Lee Moore]

it's useful to bear in mind what the point of this Political Compass is. It's a lib/prog self congratulation machine, designed to confirm lefties in their belief that they are "libertarian" - ie freedom lovers, and the enemy (the right) is horribly authoritarian.

Thus the dual axis, the whole point of which is to abstract economic authoritarianism from the rest of authoritarianism, thus allowing all the authoritarian points that lefties would otherwise score for their economic and commercial authoritarianism, to be left out of the count, and marked instead as leftiness.

But fear not, it's easy enough to correct this deliberate design fault.
If you have a negative score on the Left/Right axis (ie you are Left) reverse the negative sign on your leftiness score, and then add it to your score on the Authoritarian/Libertarian Axis. If you have a positive score on the Left/Right Axis, then reverse the sign (ie make it negative) and then add it to your score on the Authoritarian/Libertarian Axis.

This will give you a much clearer idea of where you really stand on the Authoritarian/Libertarian Axis.

That is not, of course, the end of the deliberate design problems. Leaving aside the silliness of many of the propositions, which as some have already pointed out, could attract any of the four answers according to what you had for breakfast, there is an obvious avoidance of topics on which lefties, if they answered truthfully, would struggle to avoid scoring authoritarian plus points.

Such as - pretty much anything on Covid emergency measures, the suppression of "hate speech", homeschooling, animal welfare, anti-discrimination laws and so on.

Still it's mostly harmless, so long as you accept that allowing lefties to bask in their delusions of freedom-loving is harmless.

If you are bored one wet weekend, you could construct your own second axis - say Godliness / Devilry. Park all the propositions on which Deuteronomy has an opinion on that axis, and put all the rest, including the economics, on the Authoritarian/Libertarian axis. This would allow Rick Santorum types to come out as super-libertarians.

[VinniUSMC]

Economic Left/Right: 0.5
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.97

[Nelson]

This was an interesting way to measure both attutude and amplitude. I also caught myself thinking, “well, that’s awfully extreme” several times.

I ended up: Economic Left/Right: 0.5 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.85

Thanks, M L. That was interesting.

[Estragon]

Mad Bum DFAd??? Paging uncle Steve!

[Ben_]

Democrats threaten to imprison another journalist to protect their censorship project:

https://democrats-judiciary.house.gov/uploadedfiles/2023-04-13_sep_to_taibbi_redacted.pdf

[David Nieporent]

There is no "censorship project," nor is there a "threat to imprison" any journalist. Or Taibbi, either.

[Ben_]

You would deny the existence of the sun.

[Krayt]

"Dear sir, you appear to have contradicted your testimony to us. Can you clear this up?"

That a politician may do this in the context of lying to Congress is separate.

[Ben_]

A tweet is not testimony and a typo is not lying.

https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1645879241471557633?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1645879241471557633%7Ctwgr%5Ef001edad1db9d64a42315d4c2277ce4ea3e8f0fe%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitchy.com%2Fsarahd-313035%2F2023%2F04%2F20%2Finspired-by-mehdi-hasan-dem-rep-threatens-matt-taibbi-with-prison-time-over-twitterfiles-testimony%2F

[Life of Brian]

“Dear sir, you appear to have contradicted your testimony to us. Can you clear this up?”

Oh, yeah, that was precisely the message and tone, particularly in the final paragraphs:

Prior to your appearance before the subcommittee on March 9, you signed the Judiciary Committee’s Truth in Testimony form, certifying that you understood that “[k]knowingly providing material false information to this committee/subcommittee, or knowingly concealing material information from this committee/subcommittee, is a crime (18 U.S.C. § 1001).” In
addition, at the beginning of the March 9 hearing, you swore “under penalty of perjury that the testimony you [were] about to give [was] true and correct to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief.” Under the federal perjury statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1621, providing false information is punishable by up to five years imprisonment.

For all of these reasons, I am sure you understand the importance of ensuring that your testimony is true and accurate. I look forward to your prompt response.

[Nige]

So... if he perjured himself he faces prosecution? How unusual!

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Fauci perjured himself, no one will do anything about it

[Nige]

Ok, so you accept that this is a standard warning about the consequences of committing perjury?

[Moderation4ever]

I always find it amusing that people are willing to talk about all the crime Dr. Fauci committed but no one is really willing to charge him with a crime. This leads me to believe it is really all talk.

[Brett Bellmore]

Leads me to believe that the DOJ is currently under the control of Democrats.

[Nige]

That's because you accept that Republicans cover up for their own, like Barr did for Trump, so you insist Democrats must be doing the same.

[Gandydancer]

Barr "covered up" nothing for Trump.

[Nelson]

"the DOJ is currently under the control of Democrats."

Didn't Fauci testify while Trump was in office? We know Trump had no compunctions about politicizing the DoJ, so why didn't they charge or prosecute him?

[Gandydancer]

",,,people are willing to talk about all the crime Dr. Fauci committed but no one is really willing to charge him with a crime."

Don't be ridiculous. The people who talk about the crimes Fauci committed and the people unwilling to charge him with those crimes are not the same people.

[Nige]

They're the same sorts of people who claimed thay had proof the election was stolen and that was great until they were actually called on to produce that proof in a court of law.

[Don Nico]

Not as amusing as the NIH classifying its strategic plan

[Mr. Bumble]

From Instapundit: BUT WHAT IS A WOMAN?

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) highlights the vital work that Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is doing to ensure that “female dummies” are used in vehicle crash testing “to fight the gender inequity among…crash victims.” pic.twitter.com/sZj5TqWrnp

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) April 20, 2023

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll

Will trans dummies be next?

[Ben_]

He also says roads hate black people:

https://hotair.com/david-strom/2023/04/17/buttigieg-roads-designed-to-kill-black-people-n544303

But leftists will say anything and then say the exact opposite in the next breath.

[bernard11]

Instapundit. Townhall.

I guess it never occurred to those morons that women are generally significantly smaller than men, and have, err, differently shaped bodies.

So maybe crash tests should include dummies that resemble both women's bodies and men's, rather than using one-size-fits all.

I mean that's a guess by me but it sure looks like a plausible explanation. Better than the juvenile snickering you cite.

[Michael P]

It's very sexist and transphobic of you to claim that women have smaller, differently shaped bodies than men. Not all (wo-)men!

[Sarcastr0]

Look up what the word 'generally' means, and do better trolling next time.

[Michael P]

When I want lessons on trolling, I definitely look to you.

[Nige]

If they needed dummies made of straw they'd know who to ask.

[Life of Brian]

I guess it never occurred to those morons that women are generally significantly smaller than men, and have, err, differently shaped bodies.

Um, that sort of misses the entire point referenced in all caps right at the beginning of the Instapundit quote. We've been... well, transplained for some time now that there's no longer any basis whatsoever to make the sort of statement you just did, and that you can't know whether anyone on the face of the earth is a man or a woman until that person tells you the personal belief/opinion/conviction they hold in their head.

[Randal]

Nobody ever said anything of the sort. That's not even a good strawman because it's not standing up. It's a strawcorpse.

[Life of Brian]

Nobody ever said anything of the sort.

And you wonder why I think you play word games. You cannot occupy this planet and truly believe that.

[Randal]

Ok big guy, point me to where anyone seriously put forward the claim that due to transgenderism, there's "no longer any basis whatsoever" to distinguish between the typical physical characteristics of men and women.

And this

you can’t know whether anyone on the face of the earth is a man or a woman until that person tells you the personal belief/opinion/conviction they hold in their head

is exactly the opposite of what the trans community is saying. They're saying, trust your eyes. If I present as a woman then I'm a woman. Stop trying to poke around in my jeans and in my genes to try to prove otherwise.

[Michael P]

The trans community wants to deplatform Twits who look at Rachel Levine, trust their eyes, and say "that's a man, baby!"

[Nige]

This would hit close to home if the same dickheads weren't saying it about Michelle Obama, too.

[Frank Drackman]

Well she is more muscular than her husband

[Brett Bellmore]

I think we can be pretty sure she actually is a woman, given that the Obamas have children.

I sometimes think the notion that she's actually a guy is something the left came up with in order to discredit gullible right-wingers.

[Nige]

Sometimes you think things that discredit the right must always be the fault of the left. And by sometimes, I mean always.

[Nige]

Edgebot confused by human biology.

[Gandydancer]

@Brett: The Buttigiegs have children, too.
Dunno how they got them.
But, yes, Michelle Obama is a mental dwarf, not a man.
Does "Rachel" Levine have children?

[Life of Brian]

They’re saying, trust your eyes. If I present as a woman then I’m a woman.

No, they're not saying they're magically transformed into a woman by how they present themselves -- quite the opposite. Those that choose to present as women (whatever that means anymore) say they choose to do so because of what they've internally decided about their gender. Others don't choose to change their outward appearance, but still consider themselves women.

And rewind to bernard11's now apparently abandoned comment: "women are generally significantly smaller than men, and have, err, differently shaped bodies." Those aren't presentation choices -- they're immutable characteristics. And because of the above "you are what you feel" worldview being crammed down our throats, immutable characteristics -- including genitalia! -- now have zero relevance since they're subject to override by the whims of the individual possessing them.

Ergo, as the trans community would have it, you simply cannot look at anyone on the face of the earth and draw any conclusions about their gender without hearing from them directly what they (today!) feel it is.

[Nelson]

I experienced the difference. I was in a bad car accident in January. We both had a bunch of broken ribs from the seatbelt, but I had a broken sternum and a broken collarbone as well. Apparently she was protected by what the doctor referred to as "nature's air bags". Yet another reason for me to love boobs!

[Kazinski]

All the trillions being committed to net zero there has been zero progress in reducing carbon emissions.

Here is the Moana Loa data by decade 1962-2022 by CO2 percentage of the Atmosphere, and CO2% increase by decade.

% of Atm % incr decade
1962 0.031845
1972 0.032746 2.83%
1982 0.034148 4.28%
1992 0.035654 4.41%
2002 0.037345 4.74%
2012 0.039406 5.52%
2022 0.041856 6.22%

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

zero progress in reducing carbon emissions

Or even slowing their acceleration, it would seem.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Absent a baseline comparison to show expected carbon levels if no carbon-reduction effort had occurred, that is a question-begging presentation. You cannot use it to suggest effort to curb carbon emissions is pointless.

By the way, why do you think the interval 1982–2002 showed slower increases?

[Davedave]

What 'trillions spent', anyway? We've barely scratched the surface of investing in alternatives.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Absent a baseline comparison to show expected carbon levels if no carbon-reduction effort had occurred

Apparently you don't know what "net zero" means. Hint: It doesn't mean "Continuing to accelerate, but just not as much as it might otherwise have done".

By the way, why do you think the interval 1982–2002 showed slower increases?

Slower than what? The single preceding data point? Why do you think the growth since 2002 has accelerated?

[shawn_dude]

According to the UN: "To meet these goals, global carbon dioxide emissions need to be reduced by 45 per cent by 2030 from 2010 levels, and reach net-zero emissions by 2050."

The current target is a 45% reduction of emissions based on 2010 levels. That is "continuing to accelerate" where "accelerate" means adding net positive emissions to the atmosphere but more slowly.
Slower than what, you ask? Slower than 44.9% of 2010 levels is the answer.

[Kazinski]

Part of the problem is most of the efforts at “Carbon Reduction” are theater for the rubes.

As an example in the UK the largest source of “renewables” is biomass, they just converted coal to burn wood pellets, and even worse replaced gas plants which have less than 50% of the CO2 emissions, and less than 5% of other pollutants, because methane is just carbon and hydrogen.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/articles/aburningissuebiomassisthebiggestsourceofrenewableenergyconsumedintheuk/2019-08-30

And as Germany transitions to “net zero” its actually increased its use of coal the last 3 years as it needs baseload power that used to be supplied by lower emissions gas and no emissions nuclear.

[Nige]

This is true. There's a lot of greenwashing bullshit thrown out by governments and corporations.

[shawn_dude]

Methane is a more active global warming gas than CO2. Natural gas has a great deal of emissions prior to the point where it's burned. If companies and cities could prevent leaks, then you'd have a valid point. Coal and natural gas both represent captured carbon buried underground. Wood pellets represent living trees. While it's not ideal (and greenwashing to some extent), burning wood doesn't create a net increase in available carbon on the surface of the planet if one makes the effort to plant another tree or two.

Germany is burning coal because of Russia not because of the movement to reduce carbon. And the concept of "baseload power" is likely on the way out with the advent of effective and affordable battery technology for time-shifting power generation and consumption.

[Kazinski]

No methane is not a more active greenhouse gas than CO2.

Each molecule is more active, but methane is 1/200th of the percentage of CO2, which is also just a trace gas at 4/100ths of a percent of the atmosphere. That’s why they use parts per million for measuring CO2 (415) and Parts per Billion (1800ppb, 1.8ppm) for measuring methane.

And Water vapor the most potent and plentiful GHG is 1-2%, which is of course over a thousand times the concentration of Methane.

Then you need to look at the IR wavelengths that Methane absorbs, 3.3-7.5 microns and the ranges absorbed by H2O and CO2 which also absorb most of the IR radiation in that range.

Then add to that that only 20% of the methane in the atmospheric comes from fossil fuels, it’s really no more than a rounding error in GHG forcings, perhaps about 2/10 of 1 watt per meter. There are other sources of human generated methane of course, but the portion in the atmosphere due to natural gas isn’t just significant and less than the margin of error in calculating greenhouse gas forcings.

[Nige]

Methane is way more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2; there's less of it and it doesn't last as long, but with more going into the atmosphere at this particular time, it's a disaster. There's debate about the exact effects of water vapour, but part of the problem there is a feedback loop caused by a warming atmosphere generating more water vapour, increasing warming, making even more water vapour. These are the sorts of complex inter-related systems threatening to go into overdrive that scientists are trying to warn about.

[Brett Bellmore]

" but part of the problem there is a feedback loop caused by a warming atmosphere generating more water vapour, increasing warming, making even more water vapour."

You do know that, if it was as simple as that, one humid day would cause runaway heating, right? In fact, there are negative feedbacks as well as positive.

[Nige]

The whole point is it’s not simple. Normally a comment like this shows the person arguing strenuously that climate change isn't real doesn’t understand the basic theories they’re arguing against. This is a rare example that suggests you don’t know how climate or weather work at all.

[Voize]

Stability doesn't require negative feedback, only that the loop gain is less than 1.

[Brett Bellmore]

Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

"Greenhouse gases like methane exert their strongest effects by absorbing infrared “longwave” radiation emitted from the planet’s surface. Earth emits this longwave radiation when it is struck by “shortwave” radiation coming directly from the sun. Most studies of greenhouse gases focus on longwave absorption.

But scientists are learning that greenhouse gases, including methane, also absorb some of the sun’s shortwave radiation. Recent estimates suggested that methane might contribute up to 15 percent more thermal energy to the atmosphere than previously thought, due to this additional shortwave absorption.

However, the new study reveals that methane’s shortwave absorption has the opposite effect. This finding is based on a detailed analysis of the gas’s absorption at various wavelengths."

I think this kind of underscores just how tentative climate modeling is at this point. To the point where they're still actually getting the signs of some of the effects backwards!

[Nige]

That would actually be good news, but 'less' doesn't mean 'none,' and that study doesn't even try to quantify the effect. More study required, as they say.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, I'm just commenting on how up in the air all of this is, that they're still getting the direction wrong on effects sometimes, not just magnitude.

The planet is an enormously complex system, and the models are still rather simplistic. And the more they get refined, the smaller the projected warming seems to get.

[Nige]

It certainly shows study is ongoing and there's still a lot to learn, but if you're anticipating the entire edifice of the climate change consesnsus to start crumbing, you're fantasising. This is like thinking detecting unexpected behaviour in sub-atomic particles will render nuclear weapons ineffective.

[shawn_dude]

According to the EPA "Methane is the second most abundant anthropogenic GHG after carbon dioxide (CO2), accounting for about 20 percent of global emissions. Methane is more than 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. Over the last two centuries, methane concentrations in the atmosphere have more than doubled, largely due to human-related activities."

[Kazinski]

Methane is 25 times as potent on molecule by molecule basis, and is 1/230th the molecular concentration. So that means at current concentrations that's 11% of the effect of CO2.

But 40% of methane is natural emissions, and the largest source of human emissions is agriculture not fossil fuels.

So 18% of methane emissions are due to fossil fuels, most of which is coal and Oil production not natural gas, but let's ascribe all 18% to natural gas, it's still just 1.95% of warming which is rounding error territory.

But even that does not take into account the spectrum absorbtion overlap of both CO2 and H2O which reduces that fraction even further.

All in all claiming any meaningful reduction in warming due to curtailing methane release due to banning natural gas is ridiculous.

[shawn_dude]

Methane has a shorter life in the atmosphere though an outsized impact on global warming in comparison to CO2. CO2 lasts for hundreds to thousands of years in the atmosphere. Focusing on methane provides more short-term impact. Depending on the numbers, I've seen estimates for fossils fuels at 29% and livestock at 25%, the two sources are very close in size. Together, they're more than half of US methane emissions. Removing those emissions will reduce the speed at which the planet warms faster than removing an equivalent amount of emitted CO2.

[Kazinski]

"CO2 lasts for hundreds to thousands of years in the atmosphere."

You don't have cite for that because it's not true.

There's a robust natural carbon cycle constantly adding and removing carbon. Some of it short term some long term. Every plant or algae cell is sucking carbon out of the atmosphere or ocean as fast as they can, then some of it decays or is consumed and goes back in the air.

There are whole mountain ranges made of limestone which was sucked out of the atmosphere, millions of square miles of peat bogs, once it gets in it may never come out unless it's subducted into magma and spewed out by a volcano or mid ocean vent.

[Nige]

The ocean was a fantastic carbon sink. Not so much any more, and they're getting warmer and less hospitable. Forests were a great carbon sink. They're being burned down. Grasslands were a great carbon sink. They're dwindling. Marshes and bogs were a great carbon sink. They've been drained and built on. It's unlikely these natural processes could have kept up with human carbon output even if we weren't busily destroying them bit by bit, but restoring them and conserving them and developing more would help a lot.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Do not forget that there is methane naturally venting in the Atlantic and elsewhere. My personal explanation for the Bermuda Triangle is that a rapidly-expanding bubble of methane underneath a ship would take it out before it could even radio a mayday (VHF radio waves don't go through water).

[Brett Bellmore]

My personal explanation for the Bermuda Triangle is that it didn't actually have any more ship disappearances than anywhere else, once you adjusted for the amount of ship traffic going through it.

[Don Nico]

"Methane is a more active global warming gas than CO2."
That is a lie by being not the whole truth. On molecule by molecule basis with respect to IR re-emission of absorbed sunlight the statement is correct with respect the climate the statement is incorrect and maybe even irrelevant.

[Don Nico]

SL,
Cute, SL.
Deny evidence that you do not like by "citing" data that do not and cannot exist.

[Nige]

Probably because trillions haven’t actually been spent on achieving net zero while trillions are still being spent on fossil fuels. You kind of have to actually reduce fossil fuel consumption to reduce CO2 emissions. And stop yielding control of the species' continuing well being to a suicide cult of the extremely wealthy and powerful.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

You bootlick the wealthy and powerful every single day Nige. You worship the State.

[Nige]

You're a racist anti-semite anti-vaxxer and serial liar.

[Davedave]

"stop yielding control of the species’ continuing well being to a suicide cult of the extremely wealthy and powerful."

This is just as denialist as the loony above. You should have a look at the IPCC chapter on mitigation vs adaptation. We're not way off the right path at the moment - Greta and the Extinction Rebellion loonies are not advocating something supported by science, unless their intention is to do what the science says will effectively be genocide.

[Nige]

CO2 emissions aren't just going up, the rate of emissions have been accelerating insanely since the turn of the century. Who, exactly, is dead set on genocide?

[Davedave]

A euphemism the far right uses for 'the Jews', according to you. What have you got yourself into?

The science always expected emissions to continue to rise, at an increasing rate, until well after this point. We are doing better than expected on that front, not worse.

The worrying part is that potentially the established science underestimated the effects of those emissions, but that's unclear, to say the least, at this point, and I will stick with the established scientific consensus until it changes, as should our policymakers.

Either way, the balance between mitigation and growth prior to adaptation is crucial. Denying that is, the science says, genocidal. For any given level of warming, doing too much now leads to millions or even billions of extra deaths, almost entirely of the poorest people in Africa and Asia. You know, people with the sort of skin colour that commenters round here think makes someone fair game to be shot if they ring your doorbell.

[Nige]

I've got to say, I've never heard anyone suggest 'the fossil fuel industry' is a euphemism for Jews before. Depressing, if true.

'The science always expected emissions to continue to rise'

They didn't 'expect' it, they warned that it would if steps weren't taken to address it.

'The worrying part is that potentially the established science underestimated the effects of those emissions,'

They tend to lowball it to avoid being called alarmists. They still get called alarmists, of course.

'almost entirely of the poorest people in Africa and Asia. '

There's been drought-realted famine in the Horn of Africa for a few years now and most of Asia is currently sweltering under a record heatwave. Over a thousand people in Pakistan died last year from floods that came after another record heatwave and millions were displaced. But it's good that you're worrying that doing too much to mitigate or reverse the effects of climate change would affect brown people in Asia and Africa badly.

[Davedave]

"I’ve never heard anyone suggest ‘the fossil fuel industry’ is a euphemism for Jews before."

That isn't the group you blamed. Your actual words were:

"the extremely wealthy and powerful"

When you present that as a group with a secret agenda to harm the 'common man', it's not very far from far right conspiracy theories, is it? If it came from one of the other commenters here, you'd know exactly who they meant, wouldn't you?

The undeniable fact is that the far right has used the green movement ever since the 1930s, and that one has to be careful not to be taken in by them. One of the key early campaigners against climate change was quietly brushed off to one side when he turned out to be a Holocaust denier.

"They didn’t ‘expect’ it, they warned that it would if steps weren’t taken to address it."

No, that is just wrong. The IPCC gave various scenarios. Even in the best case scenarios, they expected emissions would still be rising at this point.

"They tend to lowball it to avoid being called alarmists. They still get called alarmists, of course."

Science-denying nonsense. Alarmists got called alarmists and debunked by the IPCC if they weren't credible. The IPCC gave the best scientific estimates of the effects of CO2 on climate change.

"it’s good that you’re worrying that doing too much to mitigate or reverse the effects of climate change would affect brown people in Asia and Africa badly."

I'm telling you what the scientific consensus says. You have presented examples of why adaptation rather than mitigation is sometimes important, as if they're counter examples.

The simple fact is, you are every bit as much a climate science denier as the idiots above, also having been fooled by the far right; you just don't realise what you're doing.

[Nige]

“the extremely wealthy and powerful”

You're right, I tend to use terms like this interchangeably with 'the fossil fuel industry' in this context, even as I'm aware others use that kind of language as a proxy for Jews. Apologies for the carelessness. However, there's no secret about their agenda and their behaviour and their activites, there's plenty on the record for everyone to see, and I don't know how you could credibly deny that they have power and influence in the political sphere. There's no 'theory' about what they do and its effects.

'The undeniable fact is that the far right has used the green movement ever since the 1930s,'

That 'fact' is extremely deniable, I think you'll find.

Well of course they show emissions rising - the efforts to curb them have been woefully insufficent. You get that this is bad, right?

Scientists projecting future emissions and their effects have worst-case and best-case scenarios. Even the best-case are mostly grim at this point.

'Adaptation' is that thing you do when you know disaster is coming and nobody is doing anything about it so you'd better get ready. Adaptation is necessary because some minimal level of disaster is already locked in. It's locked in because nobody has taken mitigation seriously, let alone prevention.

You've mentioned 'the far right' twice now, and I've no idea why. I've certainly seen people claim the climate change movement is secretly the tool of the fossil fuel industry because they want everyone to stay at home and eat bugs. I think this is stupid, I suspect what you're trying to convey might be just as stupid.

[Kazinski]

Well how about you Nige?

How many years has it been since you flew?

When did sell your car and use 100% public transit.

I'm pretty sure you wouldn't use AC because you're so virtuous, and of course set your thermostat to 55 in the winter.

[Nige]

I'm not virtuous. This has nothing to do with virtue. It's to do with decisions made on national and international levels that threaten the stability and safety of most of the people who live on the planet. My personal lifestyle choices are all very well, but mean fuck-all without actual political, economic and societal changes.

[Brett Bellmore]

Relax, nobody here thinks you're virtuous. "decisions made on national and international levels that threaten the stability and safety of most of the people who live on the planet." is a pretty good description of what's going on, but you don't seem to quite understand that you're describing YOUR side in this fight.

You know, the people who shut down farms and rave about starvation, shut down nuclear powerplants and rave about CO2, insist that everything be switched over to electricity while shutting down all the reliable sources of it? The side that's working hard to make sure people are hungry while shivering in the dark?

[Nige]

Thank goodness, I know how much you guys despise virtue.

So, my side of the fight is against climate change, and your side is for climate change, which explains the straw-man speciousness of your version of what ‘my side’ does. ‘My side’ have mostly been pointing out that we needed to start changing decades ago, and that the longer we leave it the tougher the changes are going to be. That’s remains exactly true – it’s only going to get tougher and tougher and worse and worse, and there’s exactly zero good reason why it has to be this way.

[Kazinski]

You are semi-right about it only dependent on national and international decisions.

China, India, the rest of Asia, Africa, South America are not going to live in an imposed energy poverty just when it's finally looking like abject poverty for the worlds masses isn't an immutable law.

I just got back from a month in Cambodia so I see how the other two third lives. No hot water in houses is common, cause an 80 degree shower actually feels pretty good when it's 95. But more and more all the new houses have point of use water heaters, microwaves and universally use propane stoves.

In the countryside it's wood or charcoal or propane.

[Nige]

Yeah, imagine if we'd actually developed sustainable sources of energy back when climate change was still on the horizon and that technology was available to those countries instead of relying on coal and gas. Many of those countries are going to be hardest hit by climate change, it's happening right now, so it's in their interests to mitigate or reverse it, but that's going to be tricky if the countries responsible for putting the bulk of CO2 into the atmopshere and causing climate change prefer to point at them as an excuse not to do anything. That's a feedback loop of suicidal stupidity.

[Brett Bellmore]

Nuclear is perfectly sustainable, Nige. We could have gone down that road, but there was an unfortunate overlap between people making a fuss about global warming, and anti-nuke fanatics. There have been some late changes to that on the margins, but too little, too late.

Sadly, I think nuclear power's day has passed, and don't anticipate any 'nuclear renaissance'; We're no longer the sort of high trust society where people can make long term investments, you can't build a powerplant that will pay for itself in a couple decades when you're always one election away from having it arbitrarily shut down, as they're doing in Germany. Investments today have to pay back in just a few years, or they won't happen.

I'm kind of hoping SPS can fill the gap, assuming the same neo-Luddites don't switch their focus to blocking that as soon as it become feasible.

[Nige]

If the global warming/anti-nuke fantatics had the power to stymie the development of an industry that's had trillions invested in it and which was literally the symbol of a bright clean future in the post-war years, I don't think they'd be struggling now to get a few more windmills put up here and there. I suspect you're just unwilling to examine the deepr reasons for the failure of a nuclear renaissance to materialise, whatever they might be.

[Davedave]

A pressure group that has been successful in influencing public opinion in one area may not be successful in another. But that's beside the point.

If someone isn't capable of understanding grown up concepts like compromise and least-worst options, they don't have a place in a discussion about real life. A lot of people demonstrate they are engaging in wishful thinking and fantasy when they hold ideas that if not directly contradictory cannot both become reality.

Many greens have fallen into the trap of opposing all forms of electricity generation. It makes them easy to ignore, since not generating electricity at all isn't desirable except to complete loons. Most of them aren't even that loony, they just aren't very good at thinking, and have demonstrated as much in a way that's easy to laugh at.

[Nige]

'A pressure group that has been successful in influencing public opinion in one area may not be successful in another.'

Or they may not have been succesful in that area at all, or they may serve as useful scapegoats for more fundamental and widespread failings.

I know greens who are anti-nuke. I know greens who are pro-nuke. I know greens in between who view nuclear power as a viable way to transition away from fossil fuels. I don't know a single green who opposes all forms of electricity generation. I have never heard of anyone of any stripe who opposes all forms of electricity generation.

[Gandydancer]

Any " trillions ... spent on achieving net zero" go down a rathole and produce nothing of value. Whereas "trillions,,, spent on fossil fuels" produce the energy that keeps the human race alive. Things so radically different in what you get out of them are not remotely the same, but there you go, lying again.

[Nige]

Also produces global warming, which a lot of the human race are going to find very difficult.

[Kazinski]

I'm going to repost this about the dangers of sea level rise in Berkeley as a justification of a natural gas hookup ban from the thread earlier in the week about the Ninth circuit tossing Berkeley's ban:

Let’s examine that ocean front city thing a little bit, cause it’s ridiculous. First of all the original shoreline in Berkeley, on the bay not the ocean, was 2nd Street and that’s 1000′ inland from the current shore, so that 1000′ is stolen from Gaia and she has every right to take it back. Second, 2nd Street the original shoreline is 15′ elevation. SF Bay tidal gauges show a 64mm per CENTURY trend. So that is going to be 475 years before even 1 foot of that 15 foot elevation is lost to sea level rise, that has been rising since the end of the last ice age.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329702234_San_Francisco_Bay_Tidal_Datums_and_Extreme_Tides_Study_Final_Report

[shawn_dude]

Let's start here with NOAA.

If you look at the basic function of tides, because of the rotation of the earth, you're going to find that sea level is higher on the east coast than the west. The effects of sea level rise will be felt first in places like Florida. Eventually, it will be seen everywhere. Notice that NOAA is saying sunny day flooding is accelerating?

Also from CA.gov: "Sea level has risen by about 180 millimeters (mm) (7 inches) since the year 1900 at San Francisco and by about 150 mm (6 inches) since 1924 at La Jolla. Sea levels show year-to-year variability, but are rising overall at these and almost all other tide gauge locations in California." This contradicts your 64mm per century number.

[Kazinski]

Sure there are different measurements, I linked the study I was quoting.

But let's use the NOAA number, it's still going to be 200 years for it to rise 1 ft, and 3000 years before the original coastline is underwater.

Then I might also point out the Alexandria library (built ~300BC) is now 59 feet below sea level, so it might be pretty hard to blame even 1 foot of the 15 on global warming when and if Berkeley's original coastline ever does get subsumed.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Kazinski, do you live in a house located on a tidal coastline?

Reason I ask is that plenty of folks who do, in the Northeast, for instance, have already been notably affected by sea level rise. Much of that occurred since their homes were built—in New England that includes many houses built 150 years or more in the past, and not a few built since 1700.

Around those areas, you will not have much luck arguing that problems lie centuries in the future. The real estate industry has during the last few years started to tag properties with flood risk assessments, published right in the listings.

Long before actual effects are felt of a 1-foot sea level rise, many of those homes will lose most of their value. And even before that happens, the insurance industry will dragoon massive premium hikes from every coastal community nationwide, to cover higher losses in the worst-affected places nationally.

Coastal dwellers in Seattle will get extortionate insurance bills, boosted to keep solvent insurance companies on the hook for losses in Florida. That will be done indiscriminately, without reference to the actual risks of carefully sited properties—including properties which could withstand with perfect safety even a 50-foot rise. It will be more like, if you live within 5 miles of the coast, pay up. That has already begun happening too, and it will predictably get worse.

Those trends can only go so far before politics forces self-reliance on at-risk homeowners, leaving them with nearly valueless property. Foreseeable market effects will arrive many decades ahead of foreseeable climate effects.

In fact, the market effects have arrived now. Your counter-advocacy is already too late.

[Brett Bellmore]

"That will be done indiscriminately, without reference to the actual risks of carefully sited properties"

Which kind of underscores that the rate changes aren't being driven by a rational evaluation of risk, now, doesn't it? That instead the insurance companies have been pressured to boost coastal rates to reenforce the narrative. Because if it were just the companies responding to risk, they'd care about siting.

Why, you might as well assume that a good credit rating was evidence somebody was likely to default on their mortgage, just because having a good credit rating gets penalized.

That's the thing about living in an increasingly fascist economy: You can no longer assume that price shifts and policy changes by businesses are in response to actual risks and costs. Because the businesses increasingly don't get to call the shots on their own policies.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Because if it were just the companies responding to risk, they’d care about siting.

Anything is possible, if it happens. What I described is happening.

You may think it irrational. I may think it irrational, as policy. But at least I understand that insurance companies want opportunity to recoup losses caused today, by previous deficient policies (in both senses) they relied on until recently. To do that, their best bet is to ignore detailed flood risk assessments, declare maximally extensive zones regulators will let them get away with, and start plundering as hard and fast as possible, before politics can put a stop to it. Regulators, concerned about insurance company bankruptcies, are of course inclined to help them out.

For what it is worth, the real estate industry which has begun sticking flood risk labels on properties one at a time, uses detailed elevation mapping and prior loss histories to define where the labels go. That is a rational system, and in time has potential to affect where people will try to build and live in a sensible way—but it will work much better if insurance regulators insist their charges abide by the detailed data, instead of using irrational criteria to raise rates.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, the problem is that you can't assume that the regulators actually WANT the insurers to abide by the detailed data. The regulators are getting increasingly politicized.

Like I said, do you think the new regulations forcing people with good credit ratings to pay more for their mortgages make any sense from a financial standpoint? No, of course not. It's just regulators using their power to force private companies to implement the government's own political goals.

[shawn_dude]

Stephen, as a former Florida resident and insurance customer, I don't believe Florida's insurance issues have that much of an impact in places like Seattle. This is largely due to two factors: 1) the majority of major insurance providers have either left Florida entirely (State Farm) or they've been dramatically reducing exposure there. I know this because I was dropped by insurance companies an average of once per year--and my home was in a non-flood, non-evacuation zone on high ground miles from any coastline. 2) Citizens Insurance, the Florida state-run homeowner's insurance provider of last resort, now covers nearly 15% of all homes in the state and its customer base has been rising by double-digit percentages each year despite attempts by the state legislature to discourage exactly that. One of the methods it uses is having Citizens guarantee smaller, private insurance companies. However, this is largely a numbers game as Citizens is still bearing much of the risk. In the event of a major insurance collapse in Florida (something that could easily happen), the only wide impact I can see is the resulting Federal bailout and its effect on the wider Federal budget.

[shawn_dude]

You appear to be making the assumption that sea level rise happens at a constant rate. (Please correct me if that is incorrect and you're using another assumption to reach a similar result.) Yet the warmer the oceans get, the faster glaciers and other deposits of frozen water will melt and add to the oceans.

Using the NOAA numbers, sea level rise across the US will average 12" by 2050 not, as you suggest, by 2223.

"...NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the U.S. Geological Survey – expect significant sea level rise over the next 30 years by region. They projected 10 to 14 inches (25 to 35 centimeters) of rise on average for the East Coast, 14 to 18 inches (35 to 45 centimeters) for the Gulf Coast, and 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters) for the West Coast."

When considering the rise in sea level, note that this accentuates damage from high tides and storm events as well as increases issues related to saltwater intrusion into freshwater reservoirs (especially in places like Florida and the Gulf Coast) and increases erosion. Warming oceans also accelerate and intensify major storms.

I'm not sure why you're stuck on Berkeley's "original" coastline. What does it matter what the coastline was before infill? The point of planning for sea level rise is to protect people, water, crops, and financial resources. If they're built on infill, it's still an issue.

[Don Nico]

Shawn,
Let's look at the facts. The level of the water in SF BAY has risen annually at a constant level for the past 100 years.
Why Berkeley worried now?
And why does Gavin think that he can change the global oceans with his puny actions?

[Sarcastr0]

zero progress in reducing carbon emissions.

Unless you have access to the counterfactual, this is not a provable statement.

[Kazinski]

You do know what reduce means right? It means use less, there are't any less fossil fuels being used there is more, as in the opposite of net zero.

Now I do realize that in some fever swamps they claim most of the increase in CO2 is natural not manmade, as the evidence is clear natural increases in CO2 emissions certainly are normal, but it's certainly not what I expect you are asserting, whatever it may be.

Ironically it may be efforts of western countries to make hydrocarbons more expensive that is driving a lot of the second and third world to coal.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Kazinski, what nation on earth do you suppose is investing the most to develop green technology? Probably China. American environmental consulting firms have been doing land-office business there for more than 10 years that I know of. Politics might have cooled that piece off recently, but I don't think it has slowed China's commitment.

You think the Chinese don't know that fossil fuel emissions are killing them? Take a satellite-view look at northeastern China sometime. The extent of high-rise development there is mind boggling. There are physical limits, and the Chinese know they are up against them. They do not intend to succumb.

[Don Nico]

And still they are the world leaders in building coal fired power plants.

[Nige]

‘as the evidence is clear natural increases in CO2 emissions certainly are normal’

Maybe a meteor strike or a supervolcano would match or top CO2 levels since the industrial revolution, but they’re not normal either.

[shawn_dude]

"Ironically it may be efforts of western countries to make hydrocarbons more expensive that is driving a lot of the second and third world to coal."

Currently, the US subsidizes fossil fuels to the tune of over $10 billion per year. That doesn't sound like an effort to make fossil fuels more expensive. All one would have to do to make those fuels more expensive is stop selling oil leases and reduce corporate subsidies. And yet, the Biden administration is selling oil leases left and right, including in Alaska. There's the price cap on Russian oil, which is an attempt to keep Russian fuel cheap to reduce their profit.

Russia and Saudi Arabia are having the larger impact on fuel prices right now as are refineries that close often and drive gasoline prices higher.

Industrializing countries use the fuel they have and can afford. Natural gas is expensive compared to coal, which is why, even in the US, natural gas is normally used for peaker plants and coal for baseload power.

[Brett Bellmore]

"And yet, the Biden administration is selling oil leases left and right, including in Alaska."

As a result of a court order; They'd been illegally refusing to.

[Don Nico]

Natural gas is used for peaking plants because those plants are more adept act accommodating highly variable loads.

[Frank Drackman]

Funny, almost like the increasing world population has something to do with it

[not guilty]

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is seeking to disqualify Kimberly Burroughs Debrow, a defense attorney who simultaneously represents ten individuals who are alleged to have been part of the Trump bogus elector scheme. https://www.fultonclerk.org/DocumentCenter/View/1905/SPGJ-MOTION-TO-DISQUALIFY-ATTY-KIMBERLY-BOURROUGHS-DEBROW The motion to disqualify alleges in substance that some, but not all, of Ms. Debrow´s clients were offered immunity, but prosecutors recently learned that these offers were not communicated to the bogus electors.

Simultaneous representation of multiple clients requires an informed waiver by the clients of the potential for conflicts of interests. An offer of immunity to a prospective defendant is ordinarily conditioned on cooperation with the prosecution, often including testimony on behalf of the government. A conflict between immune and non-immune clients is likely unwaivable, in that that situation would likely involve the attorney having to cross-examine her own client. An attorney´s failure to communicate an offer of immunity to a client is serious misconduct.

I am encouraged to see that the prosecution in Atlanta is pursuing the bogus elector scheme. I am curious to see how close to Donald Trump that scheme ran.

[John F. Carr]

The motion was made of her behalf by "Nathan Wade, Special Prosecutor." The motion follows a previous ruling preventing presumed ringleader David Shafer from sharing counsel with the other electors who were likely to blame the whole mess on him.

I am puzzled by a procedural aspect of this motion. It was filed as "in re: special purpose grand jury". That appears to refer to the grand jury that wrapped up its work months ago.

[hobie]

I'll be miffed if no one gets charged in the elector scheme. It's the strongest felony out of everything from 2020

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

I was fascinated with the whole "Prove Mike Wrong" case with Mike Lindell refusing to pay Robert Zeidman for apparently proving him wrong, and then Zeidman winning an arbitration case for the five million dollars. Just by announcing the challenge, Lindell basically entered into a contract that could then be enforced through an arbitration decision? Is that what happened?

[Kenneth Almquist]

According to the news report I read, Lindell put the challenge in writing, and one of the rules for the challenge specified that disputes would go to arbitration.

The challenge creates a contract, just like retaining a lawyer on a contingency fee creates a contract. Zeidman and a bunch of people working with him expended time and effort to analyze the data, and he has a contractual right to be compensated as specified by the rules of the challenge. The fact that the rules specify that would have received nothing if the analysis has shown that the data was genuine doesn't change that.

[John F. Carr]

There was a case where a tax protester on a live radio show offered a reward if anybody could prove people had to pay income tax. Somebody heard a rebroadcast, claimed to have proof that the IRS is allowed to collect income tax, and demanded the reward. While such an offer is enforceable, and people do have to pay income tax, the court ruled that the offer expired at the end of the original broadcast.

[NOVA Lawyer]

That's not what happened. It was a written offer with well-defined rules made at a "Cyber Symposium" organized by Lindell. The winner was one of the attendees who took him up on the offer. From the arbitrator's decision:

As part of the Cyber Symposium, Lindell LLC also announced a contest called the “Prove Mike Wrong Challenge” (“the Contest”). The announcement said that the participants “have one goal. Find proof that this cyber data is not valid data from the November Election. For the people who find the evidence, 5 million is their reward.”

The Washington Post article has mages of the flyer with the rules.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/04/20/mike-lindell-prove-wrong-contest/

That'll be $5M less he has to pay the defamation judgment he'll soon be facing.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Okay, thank you. That makes more sense.

[Estragon]

I read a case like this in 1L contracts. Enforceable even without the lack of what one would typically think of as consideration. I remember finding it confusing at the time

[David Nieporent]

Part performance is consideration.

[Estragon]

Yes indeed. It confused me at first. Don’t even get me started on the carbolic smoke ball.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"Carbolic smoke ball" would be a good name for a rock band.

[Sarcastr0]

My mind remembers cases with good stories.

The unilateral contract concept will always be with me in the story of the catching of Diamond Jim Rockfish III, and the taxability of the subsequent prize.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY

This white, male, right-wing blog
has now operated for

ONE (1) DAY

without publishing a
vile racial slur and
has published vile racial
slurs on at least

ELEVEN (11)

different dates this year
and has operated for

THREE (3) YEARS

without imposing hypocritical,
viewpoint-driven censorship.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

3 years ago you were naughty and swatted like a bad puppy and you've been carrying that torch ever since. lol that's pretty fucked up

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

No comment about the dozens of vile racial slurs -- from 11 different exchanges -- published by this bigotty blog in less than four months?

Does a single Volokh Conspirator -- just one -- have the courage or character to address the level of bigotry that is among the most prominent attributes of the Volokh Conspiracy?

I doubt it.

Cowards.

Hypocrites.

Bigots (or, at least, bigot-huggers).

Good luck in the culture war, clingers.

[MoreCurious]

Oh dear, Reverend, I can already see the gears turning in “Doctor” Drackman’s adolescent brain. Even as we speak he’s checking his mom’s thesaurus to see how many nasty words he can fit into one comment. For some reason he seems to thrive on knowing that (1) no one on this blog believes he has more than a middle-school education,(2) his pathetic cries for attention only confirm that everything he knows he learned from Wikipedia, and (3) he’s a despicable bigot.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Being a despicable bigot doesn't stand out much at this blog.

Racists, gay-bashers, misogynists, antisemites, white nationalists, Islamophobes, immigrant-haters, white supremacists, Christian dominionists, Asian-haters . . . all are welcome and well-represented here.

Why?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I suppose the Asian-haters and antisemites come here to praise racial-preference policies at universities.

[MoreCurious]

Does a line exist that Professor Volokh and his colleagues will not let the commenters cross? Will they ever say no to the vulgar, racist, homophobic, misogynistic, hateful comments that have infected what used to be a fairly useful and insightful legal blog?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Will they ever say no to the vulgar, racist, homophobic, misogynistic, hateful comments that have infected what used to be a fairly useful and insightful legal blog?

The record on that point is vivid.

You can get banned or censored for making fun of or criticizing conservatives at this blog, but everything else -- overt bigotry, calling for liberals to be gassed or raped, vulgarity -- is welcomed by the Volokh Conspiracy.

[MoreCurious]

Why? Seriously, why? What are they proving by ignoring the hurtful comments? I understand the importance of free speech when engaging in debate. But what these childish morons are engaged in is not debate. In fact, it's detracting from debate and adds no value to civil discourse.

[Stephen Lathrop]

MoreCurious, the free-expression fundamentalist view is that the value of civil discourse is never in question—which means in practice that it is a subject either to ignore, or to use as a ready-to-hand bludgeon against folks who do value civility. I don't think that is a wise way to consider the question, but it seems to be the way the VC treats it.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

That could explain the matador approach to rampant bigotry, but seems difficult to square with the record of censorship of non-conservative comments by this blog.

[Theendoftheleft]

You HATE middle American culture and deem it to be inferior. Yet you think other cultures and non-Christian religions that exhibit IDENTICAL norms and practices aren’t just equal to you, but that any criticism thereof is simply the product of a ‘phobia’. It’s a con and the whole world sees through your lies. You’re just a bullshitting American moron who simply assumes (or CLAIMS) that these various groups and cultures are equal because of your own patent inferiority and your desire to destroy the mainstream culture. You are nothing more than a parasite destroying yourself and the host.

Further, if you’re like the typical American law prof, then you’re also COMPLETELY unqualified to work as an academic. You would never secure an academic position in a good university in a more civilized country.

As your country loses its grip over the world, your identity rights and equality claims will die too. Literally the entire world, from the secular and religious left of the Global South, to the secular and religious right of the entire globe, is sick of your American progressive-liberal bullshit. You are FINISHED. Now hurry the fuck up and die off.

[Theendoftheleft]

Rev, you are on the record on this site stating, repeatedly, that religion is just superstition, that belief in religion is inferior, and that society will be better off without it.

What, pray tell, will you do when a fatwa is called on your head?

[BrotherMovesOn]

I can't speak for the Rev but I expect he might have a chuckle and get on with his day.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Rev, you are on the record on this site stating, repeatedly, that religion is just superstition,

Do you disagree? Do you have pointers on how to respond to such a fatwa? Or are you just another flailing, disaffected clinger with delusions of adequacy in the culture war and at the modern marketplace of ideas?

[Theendoftheleft]

Do you think you don’t look like a fool when insisting that criticism of Islam is just a matter of a ‘phobia’ or that it’s fully compatible with Western norms and American values, whilst simultaneously claiming religion to be mere superstition? YOU are the proponent of the multicult, not me. YOU are the one always blathering on about bigotry, when you’re clearly one yourself.

Further, there can be instrumentally rational reasons for subscribing to a religion.

More importantly, moral equality is a vestigial norm of the Semitic cults — one you leftists and “liberals” (which includes the GOP) irrationally cling to, despite your efforts to purge society of religion. As if ‘common sense’ or a fully rational understanding of normativity necessarily yields such a norm…

More than that, you retain an essentialist notion of equality as the bedrock of your superficial ethico-political ideologies. That’s JUST AS MUCH superstitious nonsense. You also never overcome the binaries between equality and inequality, eg, to see homosexuals as evolutionary duds whose relationships AREN’T equal to that of heteros. You furthermore never deconstruct the concepts of equality, social justice, multiculturalism, dignity, care, etc. You’re just complete hypocrites with a stupid belief system.

Indeed, your gays, feminists, trans, multicultist, and non-breeding ‘progressives’ aren’t merely unequal; your entire ‘progressive’ culture is CLEARLY an evolutionarily inferior meme. You need mass immigration precisely because the immigrants DON’T believe what you believe about the basic ways of living, ie, in terms of breeding. You are patently inferior to them. Indeed, you ‘libtards’ are a death cult.

Dumping millions of unskilled illiterate labourers into your country (to exploit as cheap labour) won’t be enough to save you, however. You are going to completely lose everything, and, unfortunately, you’re probably going to crash the rest of the West with you. Your whole value system is going to lose out to a Global South that not only rejects your superficial, bullshit value system, but is also going to outbreed you, develop stronger economies than yours, gain more political power, etc.

You’re not only going to lose this (now) GLOBAL culture war, it’s also why the American right is going to turn you into Soylent Green (even if that’s too little too late). It’s not rational for them to permit you parasites to even live in their settler colony, let alone to allow you to co-opt all of the country’s institutions in order to push the USA into your global ‘social justice’, imperialist jihad to impose your — doomed — gender and sexual ideologies upon the world.

As for fatwas, you American leftists academics should no get used to regularly getting killed when you go abroad — to the extent that you even you do — and get used to acts of jihad happening on your university campuses. You can try to rationalize these things as the product of ‘Islamists’ or of mentally ill outliers, but that’s not going to protect you (and more and more people will disbelieve you anyway — especially the Islamic world).

Why do you repeatedly use the term ‘clinger’? Don’t you think it’s odd for someone like you to employ, given that it appears you have spent YEARS trolling this site? (Not that an American buffoon like yourself can even be reasoned with, of course…)

[Frank Drackman]

Whoa There Cowboy!!
Way more Bytes used than needed,
The "Reverend" is Convicted Child Rapist Jerry Sandusky, once you understand that the rest is clear.
You'd be "Bitter" too if you were locked up in a rural PA State Prison with a fellow Rapist

Frank

[Frank Drackman]

Wasn't that a Plot on "Curb Your Enthusiasm"??

[Frank Drackman]

Sorry, was in the OR late yesterday, Amputation Day in OR#13 (why do Hospitals insist on tempting fate) BKA's, AKA's, TMA's, all the ravages of Diabetes/Peripheral Vascular Disease,
of course I could be a 16 year old kid, and just happen to know alot about medicine and MLB players of the 70's

Frank "As Sally Lay Frigid Oscar's Penis Slipped In" No, Oscar isn't a Sex Criminal, like Jerry Sandusky, it's a memory advice any real doctor would know, so blow me.

[Theendoftheleft]

Do you ever stop, for even one second, to try to understand how you’re perceived by others globally? You parochial, hypocritical, petulant, bigoted, duplicitous, evolutionary dud?

How are the people here cowards and not YOU?

Moreover, all of your values are going to die in the coming generation as America loses hegemonic status, the West shrinks, and the Global South dismantles your progressive-liberal imperialist legal and cultural architecture.

What happens when your country’s culture war turns hot, Yankee Doodle dipshit?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

When do you think the FBI is gonna get around to Epsteins client list, lol?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Why do Democrats only care about the handful of White on black gun crimes but seemingly ignore the tens of thousands black on White gun crimes?

[Moderation4ever]

Tens of thousands black on white gun crimes? Where did you pull that shit from?

[grb]

Ya know, I bet that’s what Andrew Lester was thinking about when he shot thru the door. The addlebrained fool had probably just watched Fox News and was convinced he was under attack by those “tens of thousands black on white gun crimes”…..

I bet the confused old codger would get along peachy with BCD….

[hoppy025]

From the FBI statistics you moron.

[Frank Drackman]

Life

[grb]

Frank Drackman : “Life”

Ya know, I bet that’s what Andrew Lester was thinking when he shot an innocent kid thru the door. Of course “Life” has a much different meaning to the mentally ill than it does to normal people.

Seen a doctor recently?

[Frank Drackman]

Every time I admire my gorgeous bod in the mirror (No Homo, but I do look good for 60)

[Gandydancer]

“Tens of thousands black on white gun crimes? Where did you pull that shit from?”

A quick duckduckgo turns up, “About 74% of the nearly 95,000 homicides that took place between 2015 and 2019 were committed using guns, according to the CDC.” And blacks commit 60-odd% of murders when the race of the perp is identified. And of course there are far more “gun crimes” than murders, Yeah, I could come up with better numbers, but “Tens of thousands [of] black on white gun crimes” isn’t even remotely controversial.

[hobie]

There's nothing extraordinary about whites shooting whites or blacks shooting blacks. As a white guy that identifies as black, we don't typically target whites

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Will someone tell Soros and his Democrat DA flunkies that six years is past the statute of limitations for the made up crime of “carrying a tiki torch with the intent to intimidate”?

[David Nieporent]

Would someone tell BCD that the statute of limitations for practicing law without a license just started to run on his post?

[Gandydancer]

The tiki-torch charges are absurd.

[David Nieporent]

Agree with them or not, there's no statute of limitations issue.

[Gandydancer]

Carrying the tiki torches was not a crime so the statute of limitations for the crime charged is irrelevant.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

When conservatives are begging the liberal-libertarian mainstream to be magnanimous in victory as the culture war continues, better Americans will and should remember things like this, and, I hope, decline to be lenient toward those on the wrong side of history and the losing end at the marketplace of ideas.

When will we learn that Cleta Mitchell, a reprehensible and discredited liar, is a great friend of the Thomases, several Volokh Conspirators, and a Nazi artifact collector or two?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Either the Federalist Society or Ron DeSantis has instructed the Volokh Conspirators to stay away from the Fox News-Dominion Systems defamation case, and Fox News doesn't have much to say about it (those assholes wouldn't even report the amount of the payment, saying instead 'some sources are reporting a figure, but we have been unable to confirm it'), so right-wingers might have missed important developments in the clingerverse.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

No one cares, that's why they don't write about it.

[Randal]

Eugene writes ten articles a day about defamation, and yet he has no interest in the defamation case of the century? Strange!

[hobie]

True dat

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Let's be fair.

Prof. Volokh (and the other Conspirators) may have plenty of interest in Fox -Dominion, Fox -Smartmatic, Dominion-individual defendants, DeSantis-Disney, DeSantis-transgender children, DeSantis-race, Trump-Carroll, Trump-People of New York, mass shootings, racist shootings, cheerleader shootings, driveway shootings, and similar issues.

They may be eager to comment.

They may wish the Federalist Society and or Gov. DeSantis would let them comment.

[Gandydancer]

"the defamation case of the century"?

You are a loon.

[ReaderY]

I have to say, given Professor Volokh’s professional interest in libel law and the fact that this is the largest and perhaps the most sensational libel case of recent years, I find it rather astonishing that Professor Volokh in particular has had nothing to say about it.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

It's unfortunate, since there's a virtual media blackout on this case. /sarc

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Here's a feel-good story:

In the immediate wake of the revelations and $787 million settlement deriving from Fox News' knowing, un-American lying, the network has announced it will stop broadcasting the right-wing nuttery of MAGA-QAnon mouthpiece Dan Bongino.

Who's Next?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Fox News is six months away from hiring that dude Rachel Maddow.

No one cares but you bootlicking morons.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I believe that Bongino has cancer and that may be part of this.

[Gandydancer]

How much of Fox's audience is Carlson?

I don't feel any interest in anyone else there.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

How many of you vaxxholes applied for your injury payout?

Isn't that a neat system the Democrats and Big Pharma created? They can experiment on you all they want and they have zero liability! Classic Democrat Socialism. Big Pharma and bureacrats rake in the profits, taxpayers take all the risk.

[David Nieporent]

What injury? What risk?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

lol you poor poor ignorant vaxxhole.

Deadly myocarditis is only worth $1500.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/covid-19-vaccine-claims-yield-small-payouts-us-government-2023-04-18/

Fauci banked millions so your son can get myocarditis. lol suck it, no refunds

[David Nieporent]

Note: that article doesn't say anything about "deadly" anything, and of course COVID itself causes much more serious myocarditis than the vaccines do.

Anyone can be allergic to anything — my brother is allergic to certain antibiotics to a life-threatening degree — but that's a problem with him; it doesn't mean that antibiotics are bad.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

https://twitter.com/michaelpsenger/status/1648748890789920769

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky tells Congress that vaccinated individuals can, in fact, spread COVID, contrary to her earlier statements, attributing this change to “an evolution of science.”

lmao no refunds, vaxxholes, but hey at least Big Pharma Execs got super rich and so did some Federal Bureaucrats. That’s what’s really important.

[David Nieporent]

I see you're reprising all the greatest hits of scientific illiteracy, but that's not in any way responsive to what I wrote.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

She just confessed to that today. lol

You probably still believe the COVID vaxxes "stopped the spread".

[Randal]

What a weirdo! The very article you linked to talks about how great the vaccines were at stopping the spread, saving millions of hospitalizations and lives. And the tweet you linked says that the virus is what changed, with the original, pre-Alpha virus behaving differently than Omicron. Which we already knew. It's not even the same vaccine.

I do like your "vaxxhole" "jab" but that's the only thing of value in these posts.

[hobie]

Ahh this brings back memories of 2020. I used to victimize kooks like Charlie over the myocarditis rants. Their conviction only ran as far as your dismantling of the reference they cited...then...they just slink away

[Gandydancer]

"COVID itself causes much more serious myocarditis than the vaccines do."

Feel free to provide a link to support this claim.

My guess is that you're full of shit.

[Estragon]

Mr. Andrew Lester is that you??? In addition to the 200k bond you’re supposed to avoid alcohol and stay off the internet! Cmon now… your attorney has a tough enough road ahead without you violating your release conditions

[BravoCharlieDelta]

As far as you know are the first COVID vaxxes still approved by the FDA?

As far as you know have they paid any COVId vaxx injury claims?

[Randal]

Do you even read these things you link to? First of all, the FDA has not paid any COVID vaccine injury claims.

The CICP has paid some claims, but when you look at the data that you linked, the COVID vaccine looks ridiculously safe. They've paid over 100 times more to sufferers of myocarditis caused by the smallpox vaccine than the COVID vaccine. Who even gets the smallpox vaccine anymore? If you scale that by doses given, COVID must be unbelievably safe in comparison. And they've paid out tens of thousands times more in H1N1 vaccine compensation than COVID. Again, that's in absolute terms. I don't know about you but I've never gotten an H1N1 vaccine. COVID is looking like the safest vaccine ever produced by a long long way.

[hoppy025]

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/semi-automatic-rifle-ban-passes-washington-legislature-98709036

There needs to be criminal penalties for passing laws like this.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

How many of you woke dim bulbs now believe Cleopatra was really black and everyone always thought so?

[Frank Drackman]

Cleopatra Jones was black as shit, are you blind?

[ReaderY]

In the AHA mifepristone case, I think there’s a decent chance the Supreme Court will make the stay long-term or just throw the case out altogether for lack of apparent standing. I suspect there will be at least 6 votes for a stay and possibly a majority to throw the case out outright.

There are cases perculating in the lower courts that may result in the Supreme Court giving an opinion on the legality of mifepristone. But this just isn’t that case. There is no standing.

[Estragon]

“Perculating”

Percolating. Like coffee.

I suspect you are correct in your substantive supposition, I am not at all surprised that it was not dismissed per curiam, no matter how richly this garbage lawsuit deserves it.

[ReaderY]

I notice that nobody in the Conspiracy has said a word about the Fox/Dominion settlement.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

What about the Trump criminal charges?

The Smartmatic-Fox case.

The Trump "did he rape her" defamation case?

The Dominion-individual defendants cases.

The various trigger-happiness issues.

DeSantis' various antics in Florida?

Perhaps one of the Conspirators could explain -- or guess -- why those topics appear to be off-limits for the Volokh Conspiracy -- while a stream of low-grade transgender-Muslim-drag queen-lesbian content is featured daily.

[Gandydancer]

No one is stopping you from saying anything you want, yet you have nothing to say.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

SHOCK: Last week Biden made an unusual announcement that he was sending a nuclear submarine into the Persian Gulf as a warning to Iran. This week Iran intercepted the submarine and forced it to surface in the Strait of Hormuz humiliating the president.

lmao wE'Re bAcK

[Estragon]

You know you could have just quoted the revolutionary guard’s statement directly

[BravoCharlieDelta]

They personally sent me the message in one of those 3000 humvee’s Biden and the Democrat military gave the Taliban.

Hey do you think the Iranians let those sailors finish their all-hands LGBTQP Poetry Slam before forcing them to surface?

[Estragon]

Anyone else notice how much less the huckleberries are throwing out “groomer” today? Ali Alexander has done this comment section a solid service!

[BravoCharlieDelta]

It hasn't been in the news, numb nuts. The people who love their kids have already pulled them from Groomer Central government schools.

[Estragon]

“Groomer central”

Oh BravoLesterDelta, you never disappoint

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Hey, serious question. Why do you think the LGBTQ types are freaking out over FL's new child sex crimes law?

Grooming, perchance?

[Estragon]

“Why do you think the LGBTQ types are freaking out“

Well I don’t know about the LGBTQ types but you know who was REALLY freaking out about grooming? Mr. Kent Stermon

[BravoCharlieDelta]

"criminalizing sex crimes against children is inherently anti-trans"

https://media.patriots.win/post/Ee1AkiPrp2rG.jpeg

you ppl are so gross

[David Nieporent]

Um, that was written by a MAGA person, not an "LGBTQ type." Who do you think you're fooling?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

You're genuinely delusional.

I bet you still wear a mask. lol

[Gandydancer]

“that was written by a MAGA person, not an “LGBTQ type.” Who do you think you’re fooling?”

You lose:
"…there are growing concerns in the TQ+ community stating that the law is discriminating against them."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/new-florida-law-introduces-death-penalty-for-child-abusers/ar-AA1a9DEW

[David Nieporent]

What is it with you people googling to find some crazy source and then triumphantly posting it even when it doesn't help?

That is from some Singapore publication called "Independent News," and cites exactly zero people in the TQ+ community stating that the law is discriminating against them.

[Gandydancer]

Whatever. It's a LGBTQP-friendly source making exactly the complaint that you claimed was being fabricated by "MAGA persons".

That I could immediately disprove your nonsense is a problem of your laziness, not mine.

Are tranny activists in Singapore notably different than the ones in the US? Show your work.

You've lost. Stop embarrassing yourself.

[David Nieporent]

It is not a "LGBTQP-friendly source," and it is not making any such complaint. Why are you lying?

[hobie]

You have to admit his/her mediocrity is consistent

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Garland apparently committed perjury in front of Congress.

Remember when Congressional Perjury harmed our Sacred Democracies so severely every Republican was getting swatted with 30 armed FBI agents, CNN crews, and thrown in jail?

Let's all hold our breaths until he's held accountable...

[Brett Bellmore]

Meanwhile, the top Democrat on the media 'weaponization' committee is threatening Matt Taibbi with criminal perjury charges.

Given who's running the DOJ, Taibbi, unlike Garland, is facing real jeopardy.

[Sarcastr0]

Or, you could lay off the paranoid speculation and wait until someone actually does the thing you're yelling about.

[Brett Bellmore]

The thing I'm yelling about is a Democrat on the committee threatening Tabbi with criminal perjury charges. And he actually did it.

[Nige]

Did what? Commit perjury?

[David Nieporent]

You know that members of Congress can't prosecute people, right?

[Brett Bellmore]

I know that they can make threats, which is all I said he did.

[Martinned]

And I can threaten to hit you with thunderbolts. But why would you care?

[Brett Bellmore]

I suppose if you were of the same party as Zeus, I might care.

[Martinned]

Now you're making it sound as if electing prosecutors in partisan elections is a bad idea...

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

And I can threaten to hit you with thunderbolts. But why would you care?

Many conservatives believe in stuff like that, from Jewish space lasers and the Bible to Italygate and miracles.

[David Nieporent]

A "threat" that one literally has no power to carry out isn't really a threat, now is it?

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, actually it is.

[David Nieporent]

If you don't acknowledge me as king of the U.S., Brett, I'm going to zap you with the Jewish space laser.

[Life of Brian]

A “threat” that one literally has no power to carry out

"Now, of course I'm not going to actually beat you up even though it looks to me like you really deserve it, but keep in mind I talk to my crazy cousin David O. Jones all the time and once he hears about how you wronged me it's hard telling what HE might do...."

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Weird, that looks more like tone policing than it does policy debate.

[Nige]

Now you're mad and paranoid because someone gets invited to correct the record after they made an intentional or unintentional error.

[ReaderY]

Mute user requires a confirmation, but flag comment doesn’t. Scrolling down the comments, it’s very easy to just hit flag comment by accident.

[Martinned]

That's OK. I don't think flagging a comment has any consequence.

[Brett Bellmore]

Still, it would be nice if there was some way to avoid accidentally flagging comments, or undo it if your finger slipped.

[Gandydancer]

Davedave: "[BCD:] 'FDA removed authorization for the original COVID vaxes and has started paying out injury claims.'
No, they didn’t. You’re lying through your teeth again."

BCD: "Your son gets myocardial and a cool $1000."

From BCD's link: "One person who suffered heart inflammation, or myocarditis, received $1,582."

BCD: "Vaxx withdrawal, No Refunds."

From BCD's link: "The Food and Drug Administration... is withdrawing authorization for those older COVID-19 vaccines targeting the original strain of the virus."

Yeah, it's not hard to demonstrate who the liar is.
Looking at you, davedave.

[Davedave]

It's nice of you to post the thread again so everyone can see that he was lying. And then tag it with your dada-ist surreal comment.

[Randal]

Even just looking at this biased summary, it’s clear BCD is the liar here.

[Gandydancer]

Had BCD lied all you'd have to match what I did: Provide quotes and offer evidence. But all you've got is more content-free slime.

[Randal]

"FDA... started paying out injury claims." That's not true, I'm not sure if he even said that or you misquoted him, but one of you got it wrong.

It's not that big of a deal, probably an honest mistake, just funny that you keep doubling down rather than own up.

[Randal]

But even if it is an honest mistake, it still matters. “FDA starts paying out injury claims” would be pretty shocking and nefarious, suggesting something went uniquely wrong with the COVID vaccine and the FDA is to blame.

“The CICP, one of the federal government’s long-standing vaccine injury compensation programs of last resort, pays first COVID claims, miniscule in comparison to those of other vaccines” sacrifices some punchiness for the virtue of being true.

[Randal]

The moral of the story is, don't throw in with trolls like BCD. You remind me of Trump's lawyers, always the ones left behind holding the sanctions. Now you're responsible for his lie.

[Stephen Lathrop]

When you think of a UCLA law professor with second amendment expertise, who comes to mind? Adam Winkler, right? Were you thinking of someone else?

I was surprised to discover Winkler exists, when he showed up on Lawrence O'Donnell's nightly MSNBC segment. Turns out Winkler has done considerable work on firearms history, and gun control. He insisted that gun control was commonplace in frontier towns across the American West during the post-Civil War 19th century.

A particularly striking example Winkler mentioned was the infamous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Winkler pointed out that it began as an effort by Virgil Earp, a town and federal marshal, to enforce gun control. Wikipedia: "Virgil made the decision to enforce a city ordinance prohibiting carrying weapons in town and to disarm the Cowboys."

Also from Wikipedia:

The shootout has come to represent a period of the Old West when the frontier was virtually an open range for outlaws, largely unopposed by lawmen who were spread thin over vast territories. It was not well known to the American public until 1931, when Stuart Lake published the initially well-received biography Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal two years after Earp's death.[4] The book was the basis for the 1939 film Frontier Marshal, with Randolph Scott and Cesar Romero, the 1946 film My Darling Clementine, directed by John Ford,[4] and the 1957 film Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, after which the shootout became known by that name. Since then, the conflict has been portrayed with varying degrees of accuracy in numerous Western films and books, and has become an archetype for much of the popular imagery associated with the Old West.

Winkler commented on the irony that the events in Tombstone have come to be seen as a celebration of American gun culture—and actually are celebrated that way in multiple daily reenactments in Tombstone. Anyway, it is American history and tradition writ large—except in the Bruen decision.

I suggest EV should reach out to his law-professor colleague, for some guest commentary here.

[Michael P]

The brothers James, Virgil, Wyatt, Morgan, and Warren Earp were a tight-knit family, working together as lawmen, pimps, and saloon owners in several frontier towns, among other occupations, and had moved together from one town to another.

An American tradition, indeed, kept alive today by the Biden family!

[apedad]

An American tradition, indeed, kept alive today by the Trump family!

FTFY

[Theendoftheleft]

As far as we in the rest of the globe can see, the thoroughly corrupt nature of your government is far greater represented by the (evil, incompetent, sub-moronic) Biden family.

Never mind, though. Keep making excuses for the corporate money made in Ukraine and China and Hunter's sinecures, for the laptop, etc. And keep trying to rationalize what was done vis-a-vis Hillary Clinton and your repeated abuses of power vis-a-vis Trump, including the latest farce in New York. It only helps everyone in the rest of the world to crystalize their view of the USA as a banana republic.

[Martinned]

What Biden *family*? Are you confused with the guy who hired all of his children to work for the government? Because last I checked Biden didn't do that.

[Theendoftheleft]

You mean the Kennedy family?

No, I clearly mean the Bidens, whose crackhead, unqualified son was SOMEHOW given board roles in Ukrainian and Chinese companies. The former in Burisma, which is owned by Zlochevsky, a pro-Russian oligarch. You can hate the Trumps all you want, they’ve got nothing on your Bidens.

Now go back to your regular activity of rationalizing your government’s evil actions.

[Frank Drackman]

You're actually correct for a change. Biden's family is just a typical Mid-west North-east umm, "Klinger" fambily, with Sleepy J being fortunate enough to get to finish law school instead of being expelled for Plagiarism, and luck into a Senate seat occupied by a Senile Octogenarian, ah, the cycle of life!

Frank

[Don Nico]

Come on, apedad. Trump? Now if you said Bush, or Kennedy, I could understand

[Brett Bellmore]

Winkler's no Saul Cornell, anyway. You might call him a sane gun control advocate; He wants to minimize 2nd amendment rights, but he's not out to utterly extinguish them. He's willing to admit that gun control actually has a nasty history in the US, as a component of Jim Crow. And that the courts have been rather dishonest in how they approached implementing Heller.

You can see that in this discussion of Bruen. "I personally think that the lower Courts were most of them acting in a quite disingenuous way by applying, in fact, the lowest standard of review, which is the rational basis test, while pretending to apply a heightened form of scrutiny, intermediate scrutiny but not being honest about the fact that they really were, in most cases, applying rational basis review. I think those days are over and I think that is good."

This would actually be a much more civil debate if most of the opposition were more like Winkler, and less like Cornell.

[apedad]

You can't hold a debate (civil or otherwise), when one side refuses to debate anything.

[Brett Bellmore]

Right, and Winkler really is different in that regard.

Now, to some extent he's a reasonable face for an unreasonable movement, but he IS personally reasonable.

I don't agree with him a lot of the time, but he's not a dishonest hack, like so many of the gun control advocates.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore, if gun advocates are not willing to take the chance that Winkler is more representative of mainstream gun control advocacy than selected fringe figures are, then gun advocates take the risk of radicalizing Winkler-types. Whatever extreme political power must be assembled to overcome counter-parties who negotiate on nothing, will be power sufficient to enable extremist measures in return. It is unwise to force the gun control issue to extremes.

[Brett Bellmore]

Winkler himself knows that the 'mainstream' gun control advocates are unreasonable.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore, I see no evidence of that, and I don't think you understand Winkler.

Meanwhile, this by Neily from your link is about perfect to tell us what history and tradition mean in the Bruen context:

And anybody who's ever seen a Western movie, right, would, would really question whether a, a law broadly preventing people from carrying guns, for example, on a cattle drive was being enforced in a place like Texas in the late 1800s.

Who cares if there is historical evidence to the contrary? If you saw it in the movies, that's how it was, right?

Actually the remark is worse than that; it is really fallacy of incredulity, based on what he saw in the movies. And that is exactly where way too much gun advocacy about American history and tradition has been coming from—a logical fallacy, based on commercially-motivated cinema fantasy, borrowed from a romantic tradition in popular literature, mostly written by authors who never saw any of it—plus a little bit of self-glorification by actual participants, who took their writing cues retrospectively, from other people's fictional literature.

You know who was by far the most successful author about American gun culture and the Old West? He was a guy named Karl May—a German who never came to America, but claimed he had. He wrote more than 80 Western novels, and sold more than 100 million copies, mainly in Germany. The alleged history and tradition you find in Bruen is no more reliable than Karl May.

[Brett Bellmore]

On the one hand you've got May, on the other you've got Belesilles. Obviously neither side should rely on fraudulent history.

But it remains that Winkler is willing to admit that, historically, an awful lot of historical gun control laws were Jim Crow laws that literally set out to deprive a certain fraction of the population of their rights. As such, they provide no guide to what those rights were.

That makes him much more reasonable than your average gun control advocate, who typically will be perfectly willing to claim Jim Crow laws as precedent for modern gun control.

[Stephen Lathrop]

But it remains that Winkler is willing to admit that, historically, an awful lot of historical gun control laws were Jim Crow laws that literally set out to deprive a certain fraction of the population of their rights. As such, they provide no guide to what those rights were.

No. Those laws were clear evidence that classes judged disreputable, dangerous, or under servile constraint were subject to deprivation of gun rights. We can choose not to repeat such horrifically bad policy, without denying for other bad faith reasons the legal foundation on which the former bad policy stood.

There is no getting around the indefensible outcome in Bruen. Vast evidence to refute the Court's interpretation of history and tradition was swept aside (and purportedly ruled perpetually out of bounds) by an illegitimate lunge for power by the most corrupt justice in the history of the Supreme Court.

That means the Court has reached the limit of its power. The entire question has become purely political. When the opposition to the Bruen decision assembles political power sufficient to overturn it, do not expect consequences to end there.

In the meantime, expect open defiance. That will be encouraged by political presumption that any attempt by the Court to back its most notorious justice will simply weaken public standing for the decision, while further eroding the legitimacy of the Court as a whole.

That erosion will not be a fair weather phenomenon. It will occur mainly during storms which lash America's populace with repeated mass killings of innocents. Unless such storms miraculously abate, expect the Bruen decision to be undermined repeatedly, until it topples.

[Brett Bellmore]

"That makes him much more reasonable than your average gun control advocate, who typically will be perfectly willing to claim Jim Crow laws as precedent for modern gun control."

QED.

[Brett Bellmore]

I expect open defiance, much as Brown faced it. I expect it to be overcome.

I also expect that, just as the gun control maniacs' predictions of "blood in the streets' proved wrong for concealed carry reform, they'll prove wrong today. It has to be remembered that we're not venturing into uncharted territory here, we're restoring rights that were widely respected until the middle of the 20th century.

A lot of people today are simply unaware of how little of modern gun control was around even 60-70 years ago, that the nation got by, and just fine, with practically none of today's gun laws.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore, this week idiot gun owners have shot multiple children, for no reason except incapacity of the shooter. Today's victim was a 6-year-old who went into a neighbor's yard to retrieve an errant ball.

Shootings of that sort are all gun prevalence-related, and frankly, gun-prevalence caused. If you have a policy to arm everyone, then you end up arming nuts, malicious racists, elderly incapacitated people deranged by Fox conspiracy talk, drunks, and the actually insane. Extreme gun prevalence will deliver extreme violence. It is already happening. Please get a conscience, and then shut up.

[Brett Bellmore]

This week people also committed fraud, extortion, and defamation. And yet the 1st amendment survives.

You seem to be treating this as the only right where a small minority abusing the right means everybody needs to be deprived of it.

Well, screw that.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I don’t agree with him a lot of the time, but he’s not a dishonest hack

Conservatives should probably try to avoid that term in the immediate wake of the dismantling of Fox (and the Thomas revelations).

[Martinned]

That's going well...

Public schools would have to display Ten Commandments under bill passed by Texas Senate

The Senate also passed a bill that would set prayer and Bible reading times during the school day. (...)
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said in a statement that both bills are wins for religious freedom in Texas.
“I believe that you cannot change the culture of the country until you change the culture of mankind,” he said. “Bringing the Ten Commandments and prayer back to our public schools will enable our students to become better Texans.”

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Just one more log on the bonfire the disingenuous partisans at the Volokh Conspiracy pretend not to notice.

[John F. Carr]

The Easthampton, Massachusetts school committee is back in the news. A couple weeks ago the committee rejected a candidate for superintendent who used the word "ladies" to address two women on the committee. This week a candidate withdrew because the committee had concerns over her past statement that boys shouldn't play girls' sports. The expression "dodged a bullet" comes to mind.

[Martinned]

Given how long Title IX has been around, that latter candidate doesn't seem entirely ideal...

[David Nieporent]

Um, that's consistent with Title IX.

[Martinned]

I took the reference to "girls' sport" to mean things like, I don't know, figure skating or gymnastics. Do you think this person meant something else?

[David Nieporent]

Yes. It was a reference to "trans" girls competing against biological girls.

[Martinned]

Ah, OK, so I misread. Based on that clarification, this person was definitely not an appropriate hire.

[SRG]

A couple weeks ago the committee rejected a candidate for superintendent who used the word “ladies” to address two women on the committee

If I were rejected on those grounds I would sue, on the grounds that as I am British by origin, the term "ladies" in my usage is not merely neutral but courteous and so I am being discriminated against!

[David Nieporent]

Apparently one of the two women who were so addressed was absolutely fine with it. But the other had a tantrum.

[shawn_dude]

DeSantis's anti-drag law is being used to cancel pride parades in Florida. At least one has been cancelled so far and others are being debated in places like Naples.

Given Eugene's past positions on LGBTQ rights and his focus on freedom of speech issues, I'd have expected to see something on this growing trend.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm reminded of this from the Onion, when they were still dependably funny.

[shawn_dude]

So not pro-free speech if you dislike the speakers, then.

Here's the humor.

[Brett Bellmore]

The Supreme court has not, so far as I'm aware, gotten so far as declaring public obscenity constitutionally protected.

[not guilty]

The administrative stay in the mifepristone case expired nearly three hours ago. I wonder why we don´t yet have a ruling from SCOTUS.

[Randal]

IT IS ORDERED that the stay issued on April 14, 2023, is hereby
extended until 11:59 p.m. (EDT) on Friday, April 21, 2023.

Beware the emphasis mine.

[not guilty]

Sorry. I indeed confused a.m. and p.m.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Friday’s mifepristone ruling. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/9448e000-0ac3-4d9d-962f-85bb3e78194d.pdf?itid=lk_inline_manual_8)

From Alito’s dissent:

“the Government has not dispelled legitimate doubts that it would even obey an unfavorable order in these cases”

So now Alito believes the Court, when ruling on a stay, should assume the Government won’t obey the Court’s order if it denies the stay? Isn’t that rigging the game just a bit much?

“You can’t show irreparable harm because we think the government will just ignore an unfavorable ruling, so the ruling won’t harm you because it will be ignored.”

Alito was never the brightest bulb, but this is incredibly circular reasoning.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

So the next government brief to SCOTUS should include the following:

"Justice Alito has not dispelled legitimate doubts that he can apply the law evenly when the result would otherwise be unfavorable to his personal beliefs."

[Randal]

Justice Thomas has not dispelled legitimate doubts that his judgement would not be clouded by concerns over the continued largesse of his personal benefactor(s).

[NOVA Lawyer]

Both of those.

[not guilty]

It is disappointing that SCOTUS did not address the glaring defects in the plaintiffs’ claims to Article III standing. The case should have been remanded to the district court with instructions to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

Perhaps kicking the can down the road on standing issues was the price of Justices Kavanaugh and Bear It agreeing to the stay. I suspect that SCOTUS is hoping that a more enlightened Fifth Circuit panel hearing the merits of the appeal will bounce the case and thereby save Republicans from the electoral consequences of further restricting the availability of abortion, as well as saving SCOTUS from needing to modify established standing rules.

[NOVA Lawyer]

I agree, it is disappointing.

But as long as there is a stay and expedited briefing and the standing issue is ultimately resolved sensibly, I'm not too upset. It generally is better to allow cases, even stupid cases, to be developed below and dealt with accordingly, so long as the stupidity isn't allowed to extend beyond that particular case, which the stay achieves. At least for now.

[not guilty]

The stay order means that the lawsuit filed in Maryland by GenBioPro against the FDA and other federal agencies and officials can proceed at a more deliberate pace. That suit does not have procedural hurdles to overcome in order to get to a merits ruling, and the Fourth Circuit may be friendlier to abortion providers than the Fifth Circuit.

[Davedave]

"the elites"

It's a codeword for 'Jews'. They don't want the Musky one getting at those Jewish Space Lasers...

[Lee Moore]

The question is - how often are student protests violent ? Not how many schools there are in the country. And the answer is that it is not unusual for student protests to be violent. It happens regularly.

[Bob from Ohio]

A majority of your compatriots believe a man can become a woman just by thinking he is one. People believe dumb things, that the election was stolen might be true, cheating has happened before, the trans thing never can be true.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Because he's not a search engine, numb nuts.

[Lee Moore]

Because if you search for "violent" in connection with student protests, you get the sites that use the word "violent." Once you've found the incident, you usually also find other sites listed below that prefer to use different words.

So for example CNN tells the same Riley Gaines story, but it's not what comes up first. Fox tells the Michael Knowles story, but again it's not first.

[Davedave]

ROFL. So you there are other sources that say the same thing, but they don't say the same thing?

Hey, at least after the talking vegetation and the sachet of processed cheese, you're only the third stupidest poster here today. But still demonstrably stupider than the man who thinks the National Enquirer is right on a lot of stuff.

[Brett Bellmore]

Cynical, yes. Nonsense? Regrettably, no.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

ROFL. So you there are other sources that say the same thing, but they don’t say the same thing?

Yes, because if I say, "Joe is taller than Sam" and you say, "Joe has greater height than Sam" we're saying totally different things!

[David Nieporent]

CaitlynJohnstone.com

Johnstone is a true tankie. Most try to hide it to an extent; she'll openly state — check out her Twitter feed — ( twitter.com/caitoz ) that Russia and China are great and the U.S. is evil.

[Gandydancer]

“Well, if CaitlynJohnstone.com reports it!”

I guess that means you didn’t bother to follow the link, Caitlyn Johnson being such a bad person and all.

She copies an article from the Washington Post.

You might not like her commentary, but you have little excuse for pretending that what she’s reporting on didn’t happen.

‘Course, that didn’t stop Davedave from denying, upthread, that a campus Woke Attack happened because the link he was given was to the NY Post.

Do you have enough sense of self respect to be ashamed that you have been caught out behaving no better than him?

[Ben_]

^ Always on patrol to attack messengers and defend censors.

[Artifex]

Johnstone is a true tankie.

Interesting repurposing of a word. She strikes me as more unabashed Russian Nationalist instead of a hardcore International Socialist.

[Commenter_XY]

Wait David....True Tankie?

Ok, that is a new one. What the hell is a Tankie?

[Nige]

On is a medically accepted condition. The other is a lie.

[hoppy025]

They also believe that a man pegging another man to completion is in engaging in a "loving, marital act."

[Nige]

What's nonsense was when the right wanted to include creationism on curriculums to present 'both sides' of the argument.

[Sarcastr0]

As usual, Brett, your source is your ass plus your certainty.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

What's nonsense is the nonsense (rather than science, history, and the reality-based world) taught in conservative-controlled schools.

[Nelson]

To be fair, it is both sides. The factual, accurate, and provable side and the mythological, single-source, and faith-based side.

But it absolutely has no place in a classroom.

[Commenter_XY]

Can you explain what you mean by this? = The trans thing is about the presenting aspect of gender.

What on earth is the presenting aspect of gender?

[Gandydancer]

How did your broken brain translate "that the election was stolen might be true" into "you concede the election stuff is nonsense"?

[NOVA Lawyer]

You don’t even understand basic biology, including that neither XX nor XY are conclusive of biological sex development, so, though I thought “presenting aspect of gender” was pretty self-explanatory to any native English speaker, it’s going to be a concept beyond your ken.

Don't worry about it.

[Zarniwoop]

this argument does seem pretty strange. Dominion had about 800 million good reasons to settle, and now folks are using that to claim they weren't really sincere?

How do GQP apologists pretend they understand business and keep a straight face at the same time?

[David Nieporent]

The word was originally coined to describe Western communist sympathizers who defended the Soviet tanks rolling into Hungary in 1954. (You can probably work out the etymology there.)

It has subsequently become used to refer to any leftist Westerner who is on the Russian/Chinese side of world affairs. To be clear, I don't mean people critical of the U.S. or NATO; I mean people who defend the Russians/Chinese as being justified in their acts. You know, the Chinese are actually helping the Uyghurs; Russia is liberating Ukraine from NATO imperialism, etc.

[Magister]

Recently, it seems more often used with respect to those, generally looking to score points against the Biden administration, who oppose supporting Ukraine against the Russian invasion.

[Commenter_XY]

I learn new stuff every day here. You're a part of that. Thanks for that. 🙂

[David Nieporent]

Yeah, but one can oppose support for Ukraine out of principled isolationism, or fear of nuclear war, or whatever. (Or, yes, just to express hatred for Biden.) To be a true tankie, one must actively support Russia, not merely oppose support for Ukraine.

[Gandydancer]

"'the elites' [is] a codeword for 'Jews'"

"Raaaaycist!"

But in fact I don't like the word. It implies those spoken about have good qualities they don't actually possess. What's your suggested alternative?

[Gandydancer]

He’s right. You're wrong.

[Gandydancer]

"The school directs guides and controls the inborn propensities of the child in socially desirable channels." -- John Dewey

"Guides and controls" is what?

[Gandydancer]

Davedave:

“Dominion wanted to win in the court of public opinion”
No, they wanted to bring the true facts into the light.

Silly argument. Dominion sincerely wanted a payday, and Fox gifted them with one.

[Gandydancer]

It is not a "medically accepted condition" that a man with "gender dysphoria" is a woman.

[Gandydancer]

Your presentation of the relevant math is grotesque. What counts is not the number of schools, but the frequency of violent response relative to how often the Wokeist hegemony is challenged.

[Nige]

How curricula work.

[Gandydancer]

In this case we’re talking about the African People’s Socialist Party and similar, so crazy Black Leftys even crazier than most. But were they really operating at the direction of someone in Moscow or just in accord with their crazy beliefs? Speaking of Florida, does anyone remember the Hilary-Clinton-in-a-cage float in 2016?

[Nige]

Sure it is. It's part of the treatment for somone with the condition to affirm their gender.

[Davedave]

'Fox gifted them one' isn't an argument, it's an assertion. One that doesn't make any sense.

Are you now asserting that Fox was really part of the anti-Trump conspiracy all along?

Go on, keep thrashing about, this is what I came for.

[Gandydancer]

Yeah, I'm sure Burr could do a better job of suppressing inconvenient facts than his staff did, Review away, Burr! The Chinks didn't donate to your campaign and McConnell's without expecting anything in return!

[Davedave]

Woosh!

Anyway, clearly I think the best alternative would be 'Jews'. Admit what you mean, see if anyone will still give it any attention when you aren't hiding behind dog whistles.

[Gandydancer]

I’m not surprised that the wind blowing between your ears sounds like “Whoosh!” to you (even if you misspell it) but, nah, since my mother was Ashkenazi and she was never part of any “elite” the idea that I think “elite” could be a codeword for Jews is as stupid as every other idiocy you come up with.

Elsewhere on this page I list quite a few of those. A remarkable collection. What cesspit did YOU crawl out of?

[Gandydancer]

Yeah. As indoctrination.

[Gandydancer]

I said what I said. That you claim to imagine that I said something different is just you lying again.

[Gandydancer]

You may be too stupid to understand that the two claims (“It is a medically accepted condition that a man with gender dysphoria is a woman” and “It’s part of “the” treatment for som[e]one with the condition to affirm their gender”) are not the same, but no one is obliged to be as stupid as you are.

[Gandydancer]

Way to show how brain-dead you are.

Nothing in Summers' quote refers to the US and China communicating with each other at all.

[Nelson]

That's what the people who say "Don't Say Gay" is inaccurate would claim.

Apparently because the text only says 'sexual orientation', which they claim has nothing to do with the word 'gay', calling it "Don't Say Gay" is a lie.

[Nelson]

OK, we'll use your math. How many times was "the Wokeist hegemony" challenged in the last year? And of those, how many were violent?

How long will we have to wait for you to present these simple figures? Does it rhyme with 'schmorever'?

[Don Nico]

Nelson,
Having seen your biases, I predict that any evidence presented by anyone will be rejected as not germane.

[Nige]

No wonder you're so threatened by gender-affirming care.

[Nige]

Removing guidance and control from the classroom is some hippy dippy shit. Make every school a Steiner School? I’m not against it.