Open Thread

What’s on your mind?

Comments

[Mr. Bumble]

Paging not guilty.

[not guilty]

The anti-vaccination crazies are finding purchase in the Trump administration, now including in the Center for Disease control as well, it appears.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/12/aligning-united-states-core-childhood-vaccine-recommendations-with-best-practices-from-peer-developed-countries/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/12/06/cdc-acip-anti-vaccine-rhetoric/

Curtailing childhood immunizations against potentially fatal diseases?? When will we hear even a syllable of protest from the blastocystophile busybodies who have the chutzpah to call themselves "pro-life"?

Rep. Barney Frank was on target when he observed that those folks' concern for life begins at conception and ends at birth.

[Commenter_XY]

Yes, Denmark, Germany and Japan are full of anti-vax crazies, NG. We shouldn't use these countries as a benchmark. Good catch!

Have you contacted the consulates of each country to tell them they have a bunch of anti-vax crazies making their child vax policy? Do let us know how that turns out.

[not guilty]

XY, I don't claim to be an expert on childhood immunizations. That is why I followed my daughter's pediatrician's recommendations -- not those of some lawyer who makes a living suing vaccine manufacturers.

But then, I don't have the hubris it takes brag to others about how "pro-life" I am.

[Commenter_XY]

NG, you implied that Denmark, Germany and Japan childhood immunization policies are the product of a bunch of anti-vax crazies simply b/c we are investigating using them as a benchmark for our childhood vax recommendations.

NG, it was bovine feces. Stick to law and legal interpretation. 😉

[Dr. Ed 2]

And if your daughter was born after 1970-75, she probably was NOT vaccinated for smallpox. Again, your pediatrician's recommendation -- why is it so wrong to leave this to parents and their pediatricians?

After Covid, it will be two generations before the CDC has the authority it once did -- thank Dr. Faucci the Draft Dodger for that.

[Dr. Ed 2]

"Curtailing childhood immunizations against potentially fatal diseases??

And I thought they taught logic in law school.

First, have you been missing the "parents should discuss vaccinations with their children's pediatrician?"

Let me put this in a context you can understand --- you do know that there is a difference between saying that a woman can have an abortion and saying that she MUST have an abortion -- right?

This is empowering parents, who love their children, to do what they think is best for them. And instead of bribing a government bureaucrat, vaccine manufacturers now will have to make their case to the American public. Heaven forbid that they will have to justify the use of their products.

You sound insecure in their ability to do so. Should that not be making you wonder why?

It was 15 degrees Fahrenheit the other morning, did we have the mitten police out ensuring that all the children were wearing mittens, or did we trust their parents to do that?

When will we hear even a syllable of protest from the blastocystophile busybodies who have the chutzpah to call themselves "pro-life"?

Do you not understand the difference between the deliberate murder of a child and making your own decision as to what is best for the child?

Many of these vaccines involve balancing a small risk against a small benefit. Take the Hep B vaccine -- exactly how many 1-year-old babies are shooting heroin or engaging in promiscuous sex? If the mother tests negative for it, why NOT wait until the child is 2 years old?

Let me rephrase that -- why not give parents the option to do so if they want to...

Why must you be fascist?

[not guilty]

No one compels parents to vaccinate children.

But (although I claim no expertise here) I suspect that for a physician not to recommend the full range of available vaccines would amount to malpractice, in the absence of a contraindication based on evidence.

And for a parent to disregard the pediatrician's recommendation could well amount to child neglect.

But the point of my comment above was directed more to the conspicuous silence and lack of concern of the self-styled "pro-life" blastocystophiles about anything that happens to a child after it has left the mother's body. Those busybodies simply don't give a damn about anything not involving the regulation of other people's sex lives.

[Dr. Ed 2]

"No one compels parents to vaccinate children. "

Are you really a licensed lawyer?

[not guilty]

The status of my law license is disability inactive. Thank you for asking.

No law compels a parent to vaccinate a child. A parent who declines to do so, however, should be prepared to live with the consequences of that choice, which may include arranging for home schooling or attendance at a private school which accepts unvaccinated students.

[RedheadedPharoh]

Mental disability, surely.

How did a legally designated retard get a license to begin with?

[DDHarriman]

Answer the question 'Tard.

How did an officially designated retard get a law license to begin with?

[Michael P]

No one compels parents to vaccinate children.

This is true only in a dishonest sense. Public schools in every state require students to be vaccinated, subject to inconsistent and often narrow exemptions. https://www.reuters.com/graphics/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS/BIDEN/zgpombrajpd/

I suspect that for a physician not to recommend the full range of available vaccines would amount to malpractice, in the absence of a contraindication based on evidence.

Your inclusion of "suspect" was wise, because your suspicion is based on sheet ignorance. Many vaccines are only recommended in narrow circumstances. The rabies vaccine is a good example: it is recommended only after (certain) potential exposure to bats or similar potential exposure to infection. Other vaccines are only recommended when traveling to places where the corresponding disease is endemic.

[not guilty]

"Many vaccines are only recommended in narrow circumstances. The rabies vaccine is a good example: it is recommended only after (certain) potential exposure to bats or similar potential exposure to infection. Other vaccines are only recommended when traveling to places where the corresponding disease is endemic."

I was of course talking about vaccinations which are routinely prescribed in the ordinary course of medical practice on a widespread basis, not about outlier cases. That is what is meant by the standard of care.

A pediatrician who failed to recommend a routinely prescribed and readily available vaccine for a child, who then became seriously ill or died from the disease that the vaccine was intended to prevent, would likely have to explain that failure to a civil jury. Or even face criminal prosecution for reckless endangerment or, in the event of a fatality, reckless or criminally negligent homicide.

[Michael P]

Of course: you only meant that it would be malpractice for a physician to not recommend a vaccine that it would be malpractice for a physician to not recommend.

[Frank Drackman]

You only need the Hepatitis B Vaccine if you're an IV Drug User, have Sex with IV Drug Users, or
OK, if you're a "First Responder" or Medical Provider who comes in contact with IV Drug users, it's a good idea.
NOT, for every newborn, and especially in their first 24 hours upon this Moral Coral.

Frank

[Frank Drackman]

"would amount to malpractice"
You representing anyone in a Legal matter would be Legal Malpractice if your (lack of) knowledge of what constitutes Medical Malpractice is any indication.
Let me explain it to with small words, like you're "afflicted"
We don't like people killing unborn Babies, you do.
Be the Ball Danny,

Frank

[not guilty]

Garry Trudeau, as he often does, makes a good point here: https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury

[Dr. Ed 2]

Has it ever occurred to you that ICE is the way that it is BECAUSE OF people like you?!?

If they were not being harassed and abused the way they are on a daily basis, maybe they wouldn't have to be the way they are. Personally, I'd like to see them be a bit MORE aggressive -- we wouldn't ask people running an abortion clinic to put up with the crap that ICE does on a daily basis.

Interfering with a Federal official doing is job is a crime and let's start having wholesale arrests for that. Or maybe -- and I really would prefer it not come to this -- let ICE just shoot anyone interfering with them doing their job. We didn't have a problem with Ashley Babbit being shot, now did we?

What's the difference?

[not guilty]

"Has it ever occurred to you that ICE is the way that it is BECAUSE OF people like you?!?"

What interaction with ICE do you surmise that I have had, Dr. Ed 2?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Merely posting Dunesbury comes to mind.

[not guilty]

Are you drunk this early in the morning?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Speaking of drunk, please explain the difference between a bunch of drunken college students rioting to prevent the enforcement of alcohol laws and Communists rioting to prevent the enforcement of immigration laws.

[Joe_dallas]

Ed - Is law license is on disability status, most likely due whiplash from the radical double standards he employs
.

[Dr. Ed 2]

🙂

[Joe_dallas]

Dr. Ed 2 3 hours ago
Ed's comment in reply to NG "Has it ever occurred to you that ICE is the way that it is BECAUSE OF people like you?!?"

NG and his fellow compatriots applauded Biden's open border policy until it became a political liability.

[hobie]

"We didn't have a problem with Ashley Babbit being shot, now did we?
What's the difference?"

No difference. Both were attacking police and both are getting shot. Babbitt and her fellow travelers were lucky the Capitol Police didn't fire a cruise missile to take out the stairs they were on. Stairs they were using to gain them and their lethal weapons entry into the nation of Congressmen. They would have been regrettable side casualties, alas.

[Frank Drackman]

ICE is only enforcing the Immigration Laws 12 years of Barry Hussein and Parkinsonian Joe didn't repeal (just didn't enforce)
Try that Shit outside Barry Hussein or PJ's house, see what happens, you'll get shot, and not with a Pepperball.

Farnk

[Malika la Maize]

It isn’t just basic English Frankie about which Frankie is ignorant.

“Between 2009 and 2015 his administration has removed more than 2.5 million people through immigration orders, which doesn’t include the number of people who "self-deported" or were turned away and/or returned to their home country at the border by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).”

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obamas-deportation-policy-numbers/story?id=41715661#:~:text=How%20many%20people%20have%20been,and%20Border%20Protection%20(CBP).

[Commenter_XY]

Digital Services Act (DSA)

How much of a threat to 1A is the DSA; does DSA eviscerate our 1A?

[not guilty]

I'm not up to speed on the Digital Services Act, but I do know a bit about the First Amendment. So I don't understand your question.

How do you surmise that a body of law enacted by the Council of the European Union could arguably threaten this nation's First Amendment, XY?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Isn't there something about treaties and the Constitution being on equal footing, both taking precedent over Federal law?

[not guilty]

"Isn't there something about treaties and the Constitution being on equal footing, both taking precedent over Federal law?"

Uh, no.

But if there were, how would that be germane to this discussion?
The Digital Services Act is not a treaty, nor is the United States bound by it.

[Commenter_XY]

NG, the reason I ask is a recent column by Jonathan Turley.
https://jonathanturley.org/2025/12/06/so-it-begins-the-european-union-unleashes-the-dsa-on-x-with-initial-140-million-fine/

From the article This is the first fine under the DSA and the EU officials acknowledged that it will lay the foundation for additional penalties to come to force companies to comply with EU “values” on free speech.

The way I read it, if some Eurotrash bureaucrat doesn't like the way we say things, they fine the American platform. That is BS (to me). We have 1A for a reason, there is no '1A, except when some Eurotrash bureaucritter takes exception to it' clause that I know of.

What do you think. Is 1A being eviscerated by the EU via DSA?

[Malika la Maize]

The EU doesn’t have a First Amendment. Given we have plenty of exceptions to our First Amendment it seems weird to think any and every country that has different approaches to speech is an Orwellian speech dystopia.

The DSA objections to X seem based largely on disclosure requirements.

[Commenter_XY]

The EU does not have a 1A. Correct. But we do, Queenie. It is our protection.

I see DSA the same way I saw the ironically named Patriot Act. The Patriot Act did away with 4A. The DSA will do away with 1A.

This is where POTUS Trump needs to step up and quash DSA, once and for all.

[Malika la Maize]

I’m not a fan of the Patriot Act (I’d bet money you defended it at the time, remember it was pitched as a way to get those bad Muslim terrorists), but it’s hyperbole to say it did away with the 4th Amendment.

Likewise I don’t think a European regulation will get rid of our speech protections in the US. Musk’s X regularly complies with requests for local censorship by countries it operates, where was all your concern then?

[Brett Bellmore]

The demands here go rather beyond simply complying with EU censorship laws for users in the EU, don't they? They'd require X to alter how it operates world-wide.

[Nelson]

No, as long as X complies with the EU laws regarding EU citizens and EU countries, it is free to do whatever it wants elsewhere. That’s how sovereignty works.

[Malika la Maize]

I’m not sure about that, but they could always give up that market, as you note. The flip side is the EU can’t have their own regulations within their own territory, which seems wrong.

[Sarcastr0]

Live and let live. Protect national sovereignty.

Nah fuck that lets bomb Latin Americans and hector longstanding allies standing against Russia.

Ever notice that the free speech you claim to be defending only comes up for European white nationalists? Certainly not for American schools or immigrants or federal workers.

[Frank Drackman]

I don't like the Patriots either (that whole "LI 28-3" thing still hurts) but you gotta admit they're a good organization.

[Nelson]

The DSA doesn’t fine companies for violations in the US. It fines companies for violations in the EU. That is their sovereign right.

You would be rightly outraged if another country tried to enforce their laws on things that happen inside the US.

Companies have an obligation to follow the laws of the countries (or in this case the commercial alliance) that they operate in. What X legally has to do in Europe, they can choose not to do in the US because we don’t have the same laws.

No other country or alliance has the ability to “eviscerate” the First Amendment. It is literally impossible for them to do so.

[Krayt]

I'm fine breaking the backs of neo-tyrannies even inside their own countries. There's nothing noble there. Nothing deserving of respect. Whipping up a transient majority to grab powers of tyrants, like censorship, is the stock in trade for charismatic demagogues.

Do you disagree? "We don't need no stinking First Amendment!", brazenly vomited forth by people in lands dominated by dictatorship and rolling tanks in living memory.

Do you feel proud, democracy is so great it can safely wield the power of tyrants? You have no reason to think that whatsoever.

And yes, I realize the irony.

[hobie]

They are fining X's European 'platform' operating in Europe...not the American parent.

For example, the entity Facebook uses for its European platform is 'Facebook Ireland Limited'. It is strictly a European business operating under EU laws. Capiche?

[Brett Bellmore]

And, "The EU doesn't have a First amendment" is an argument for letting them censor at home.

But the moment they try censoring our platforms, it's war. They don't like that their censorship laws don't apply to US platforms, let them build a Great Wall of EU, and make use of foreign platforms a crime for their own subjects.

[Malika la Maize]

That’s a bit facile, X operates in the EU too. It’s not like they’re fining them for posts that exist entirely within the US.

[Michael P]

"The DSA objections to X seem based largely on disclosure requirements."

To be clear, you mean that the EU wants X to dox people who say things that the EU doesn't like, to create (for purposes of public disclosure) information it doesn't have about ads, and allow randos to scrape the entire site.

[Malika la Maize]

Requiring people who purport to be a person to verify they are (as opposed to paying for the right to say they are) isn’t doxxing imo and ad disclosure isn’t censorship at all (we just had an election, the “I’m so and so and I endorsed this message” requirement doesn’t censor anything).

[Bwaaah]

Be a good person and tell us your real name, Malicia. And in the interest of full transparency, where do you live? Try to take full responsibility for the effects of your opinions, like a good world citizen.

[Malika la Maize]

This is especially funny from a guy whose gimmick was pretending to be something he clearly wasn’t on this site.

I’m not on X for many reasons, and I also make no claims to be some specific person, but nice try!

[Michael P]

"I also make no claims to be some specific person."

Of course not: you only claim to be Maryland Dad and maize and two different queens (or maybe one queen with dyslexia).

[Malika la Maize]

Confusing handles and specific persons.

And you think there’s one specific dad in Maryland?

I guess you’re all Michael’s whose last name starts with P?

[Brett Bellmore]

Then perhaps Musk should respond by shutting down all physical infrastructure in the EU, and requiring EU users to access the service from servers outside the EU.

[Malika la Maize]

Sure, if he wants. But he being required to play by the rules of the places he operates in is hardly worth all this sudden frothing. You think the whole world should have to operate under US rules?

[Brett Bellmore]

To the extent I think they're good rules, (And in the case of the 1st amendment, I think they are.) yeah, I think the whole world should operate under them. How many people think, "This is the best way to do things, but nobody else should do it that way!"?

Now, it seems the EU would rather emulate China. I think they should do so properly. Great firewall, criminal penalties for using VPNs, all that stuff. Not just fining foreign companies that don't play along.

[Malika la Maize]

Should we be pushing against the UK defamation laws which are different than ours and have been applied to US companies? Where have you registered your outrage about that?

[Michael P]

I'm pretty sure "digital sovereignty" laws -- where you're only allowed to engage in businesses that involve processing data from a country (including its subjects) if you subject yourself to its laws about that data -- would mean that X would also have to stop providing services to users in the EU.

[Brett Bellmore]

"would mean that X would also have to stop providing services to users in the EU."

I think he's more likely to just withdraw his physical infrastructure from those countries, and then tell them to go pound sand.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Brett, the interesting thing here is that the EU state-owned telecom companies are *so* bureaucratic and *so* parochial that the only realistic way to run a dedicated line from, say, Spain to Portugal is to run a line from each country to the US and connect it here.

So a lot of the EU internet traffic physically travels through the USA.

[Michael P]

the only realistic way to run a dedicated line from, say, Spain to Portugal is to run a line from each country to the US and connect it here.

Considering the cost and effort required to run a trans-Atlantic cable, I very much disbelieve this.

[not guilty]

Nothing in Mr. Turley's column suggests any First Amendment issue.

The First Amendment obviously does not bind the European Union.

A speaker or writer has First Amendment rights vis-a-vis the United States federal government and vis-a-vis every State government in this country. A sanction imposed by a European government or a combination of European governments is not that.

As the Sesame Street jingle goes, one of these things is not like the others. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsRjQDrDnY8&list=RDrsRjQDrDnY8&start_radio=1

[Krayt]

Conceptually, you have these rights inherent to you, by right of your beating heart. Others can only violate them, like the EU is doing.

They don't disappear because local censorious thuglings say so.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Krayt — Especially conceptually, you are mistaken.

What meaning can it possibly have to own a right against government abuse, in the absence of any government?

More generally, what is to a libertarian to claim a personal right against government, while denying any claim to sovereignty except personal sovereignty.

Your paradoxical thinking seems to be getting in the way of your conceptual thinking.

[Malika la Maize]

Kate Rogers didn’t know it at the time, but Oct. 13 would mark the beginning of the end of her four-year tenure leading the $550 million renovation of the Alamo.

On that day, two posts appeared on the X account of the famous San Antonio historic site. One celebrated Columbus Day. The other, which has since been deleted, celebrated Indigenous Peoples’ Day, a holiday recognized by President Joe Biden in 2021 that honors Indigenous populations in the United States.

It was the latter that caught the eye of powerful state Republicans. The next morning, Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham (R) decried the post as “woke” and announced that her office, which oversees the Alamo, would be launching an investigation…

Eight days later, Rogers received a call from Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R): He had received a copy of her 2023 EdD dissertation about how museums can influence how history is taught in schools.

“Personally, I would love to see the Alamo become a beacon for historical reconciliation and a place that brings people together versus tearing them apart, but politically that may not be possible at this time,” she wrote on Page 80.

According to Rogers, after reading that section aloud, Patrick asked her to resign as CEO of the Alamo Trust, which is overseeing the Alamo renovation project…

Earlier this week, Rogers sued Patrick, Buckingham, and the Alamo Trust and its leadership, alleging wrongful termination. Forcing her to resign for what she wrote in her dissertation was a violation of her free speech rights, according to the lawsuit filed in federal court in the Western District of Texas.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/11/20/alamo-kate-rogers-trump/

[Mr. Bumble]

Boo fucking hoo.

[Malika la Maize]

The anti-woke crusade is as pervasively censorious as the woke one and Bumble cheers. Every comment ever uttered must be combed through and even the most anodyne statements that might even seem somewhat adjacent to wrong-think must be punished.

[Brett Bellmore]

The perpetual cry of the left: "Just because we do that doesn't mean YOU can!"

[Malika la Maize]

The perpetual cry of the ostensible libertarian but actual authoritarian like Brett: we have to destroy liberty to save it from those who will destroy it!

[Brett Bellmore]

Seriously, did you actually think this sort of behavior would remain a monopoly of the left forever?

[Malika la Maize]

You’re just doubling down on my point.

[Brett Bellmore]

My point is whether you like this, whether I like this, the right were, inevitably, going to eventually adopt the left's tactics, rather than just politely lose. Rioting at political demonstrations, firing people who are discovered to have expressed the wrong opinions years ago, lawfare; These were never going to remain one side's monopoly.

So, welcome to the world you made.

[Malika la Maize]

The right has become what they decried is a pretty terrible defense of the right!

[Joe_dallas]

yet you dont condemn the woke lefts behavior. Getting the same whiplash from you double standards.

[Malika la Maize]

Wokesters at least didn’t pretend to be free speech champions, they were pretty up front about being Marcusian prigs.

What’s your excuse?

[Bwaaah]

Yes, Malicia. The right leans quite toward the illiberal.

What you missed is the left, following the Democratic party's vote-getting strategy of exploiting our ethnic, racial and religious differences, became a GIANT ILLIBERAL COUNTER-FACTION.

Nurse your illiberal Democratic "values" Malicia. They're not values. They're vote-getting strategies. And especially, cultivate the hateful sentiments of the left (and right) as an answer to the hateful sentiments of the right (and left).

And don't dare stand up straight for liberal values, Malicia. That's not your bag. (Was it ever?) It's a war of hateful cultures, and you're right in there fighting the good fight.

Values.

[Nelson]

I believe her point is that “the left” (a false conflation, but that’s par for the course for fringe politics) doesn’t decry that behavior. It is consistent with their values, albeit their fringe’s values.

The right previously (and, ironically, presently) said it is a bad thing to be “woke”, but then acts in the exact same manner.

Hypocrisy is when you condemn something done by others while defending the same thing when done by you.

Hypocrisy is a core value of conservatives.

“ the right were, inevitably, going to eventually adopt the left's tactics”

This is as pure a distillation of complete lack of integrity and principles as there is. “We had to stop acting in accordance with our principles because people wouldn’t agree with us” is about as transactional as it gets.

For what it’s worth, I agree with you that heckler’s veto/rush to judgment/guilty before proven innocent tactics are awful. The hot take culture of social media and the knee-jerk reaction of employers is a bad thing. But the idea that the right has never engaged in such behavior until now is laughable.

Granted, the right has made “woke” a joke by applying it to literally everything up to and including walking your dog on the left side of the street. But the hypocrisy and false narrative of the hard right is pretty pathetic (and transparently disingenuous).

[Malika la Maize]

“ Yes, Malicia. The right leans quite toward the illiberal.

What you missed is the left, following the Democratic party's vote-getting strategy of exploiting our ethnic, racial and religious differences, became a GIANT ILLIBERAL COUNTERFACTION”

The problem with your tiresome Bari Weiss/Glenn Greenwald impression is it’s the right that is in charge of all levels of federal government right now, so your constant “well yes Trump is not great but let’s talk about the left and the Democrats for several paragraphs is transparent phoniness.” There’s also the phony hand wringing over the left’s “divisiveness” when the right’s current leader goes on and on about “Democrat cities,” treating “Democrats programs” differently and literally posts about him shitting on the American people he doesn’t like. You’d think someone pretending to be a recently disaffected liberal would want to point out that divisiveness a bit.

[Bwaaah]

Tell me what liberal values you hold, Malicia, that you think I deny.

[Malika la Maize]

You’re just deflecting because your transparent phoniness has been pointed out.

[Bwaaah]

Never an answer from you. It's your go-to smear followed by your non-answer.

You use quotes to denote things I never said. More notably, they denote things I never felt.

I'm actually beginning to doubt whether you ever were, in spirit, a liberal person. I hope that's not true, and that it's just an aberration of online argument.

[Malika la Maize]

I’m not going to give an answer about my values to someone who is so transparently phony about theirs. Unlike you, my values and my presentation here are the same.

[Bwaaah]

Indeed, you appear to be quite an illiberal shrew.

"Democrat" does not equal "liberal." Not now, especially.

[Malika la Maize]

I’m sure I make too many criticisms of MAGA to suit you but that you want to brand that as illiberalism demonstrates the weird, though transparent, game you’re trying to play.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore — The left's political tactics have included just politely losing elections for decades. That process has included meekly accepting getting pushed around by a partisan Supreme Court intent on gutting the VRA.

Trump/MAGA invented prolonged election denial, along with Capitol insurrection to stop election processes.

It is one thing to perform the role of a demanding minoritarian. It is another altogether to try to deny a role for majoritarianism. The former take does not justify violence in response. The latter might.

For those of us who think violence an almost-always unwise and desperate measure in politics, do expect us to demand that you meekly surrender to majoritarian counter-measures if we can assemble legitimate political power necessary to impose them peacefully. And do not expect us to honor attempts on your minoritarian side to initiate violence as politically justifiable. Those should rightly be countered with force and criminal sentences.

[ducksalad]

[Warning - R rated content]
The Rule of Goats

If you fuck a goat, you are a goatfucker.
If you fuck a goat because the other guy did, you are goatfucker.
If you fuck a goat as ironic commentary, you are a goatfucker.
If you fuck a goat because you're upset, you are a goatfucker.
If you fuck a goat to teach that goatfucking is bad, you are a goatfucker.
If you support censorship for any of those reasons, you are pro-censorship.

[Brett Bellmore]

Anyway, this seems definitionally job related speech, and it seems perfectly reasonable to treat it as indicative of how she'd perform her job: Not in a way her employer would approve of.

[Malika la Maize]

What’s objectionable about a tweet saying Happy Indigenous People’s Day alongside one saying Happy Columbus Day? I can see the argument that replacing the latter with the former is wokeness, but noting both is verboten? And what’s wrong with the anodyne statement from her dissertation? The Alamo and other major historical sites shouldn’t ideally be places of historical reconciliation?

Anti-wokeness is as thin skinned as wokeness.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Anti-wokeness is as thin skinned as wokeness."

Yay, he finally starts to get the point!

The left demonstrated, over the course of years, that being thin skinned works. It gets the job done, you can win by being persistently thin skinned.

So the right is giving up and adopting the left's tactics.

[Malika la Maize]

It’s increasingly interesting that you think this refuted rather than confirms my point: The anti-woke crusade is as pervasively censorious as the woke one

[Joe_dallas]

Continuing with your inability to understand what censorship

[Malika la Maize]

Continuing with your inability to write complete sentences?

A government agency firing someone for their speech outside of their employment has a very good claim to being censorship.

[Joe_dallas]

[Joe_dallas]

Malika la Maize 2 hours ago
"A Government agency firing someone for their speech outside of their employment has a very good claim to being censorship."

A - your are not grasping censorship or 1A
B - The X posts were on the Alamo's organization's X account - that is directly employment related
C - Her dissertation comments were directly contrary to the Organizations goals which directly relate to her fitness for the position.

Her posts on X were sufficient to show she did not share the Organization's goals and thus were sufficient for her termination.

[Malika la Maize]

1. I am, government firing for speech outside employment has been found to be a first amendment violation before.

2. It’s not certain she operated that account. Anyways, simply posting Happy Indigenous Day while also acknowledging Columbus Day should only anger the most thin skinned.

3. The organization would not like to see the Alamo appeal to more people?

[Joe_dallas]

Malika
Again you are displaying a complete lack of comprehension

A -The X account which she posted on belonged to the organization and therefore it is directly employment related. Period
B - Many organizations dont want their core program highjacked for other laudable goals. Therefore , the organization has full right to control what she does on company time and on company property.
C - While her dissertation was not job related and therefore protected by 1A, it does go to show her fitness for the position. It does show she is okay with altering the organizations stated mission. The organization has the full right to fire anyone who is not on board with maintaining the organizations mission.

Malika - inform us where there is a statute or case law that prohibits a company from terminating an employee who wants to deviate from the company/business/organization's stated or core mission, irrespective of how laudable that goal may be.

[not guilty]

"Anyway, this seems definitionally job related speech, and it seems perfectly reasonable to treat it as indicative of how she'd perform her job: Not in a way her employer would approve of."

Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006), which held that when public employees make statements pursuant to their official duties, they are not speaking as citizens for First Amendment purposes, and the Constitution does not insulate their communications from employer discipline, is a horrid decision, but it has no applicability to an adverse action taken in retaliation for what Ms. Rogers wrote in her 2023 EdD dissertation about how museums can influence how history is taught in schools. She was not then writing in her capacity as a government employee.

Neiter does Garcetti apply to the Alamo Trust revocation of her severance offer after she spoke to Texas Monthly about her termination. That was commentary by a citizen on a matter of public concern, fully protected by the First Amendment.

[Dr. Ed 2]

"Forcing her to resign for what she wrote in her dissertation"

Someone should have read that dissertation before hiring her.

That said, is it free speech or an indication of intent?

Say she's written how the Alamo should be White-only, that Hispanics should be excluded. And the state fired her for creating a museum unfriendly to Hispanics. Couldn't they cite her dissertation?

[Malika la Maize]

Everyone should have the good sense to not think her comment warranted firing. What is wrong with “Personally, I would love to see the Alamo become a beacon for historical reconciliation and a place that brings people together versus tearing them apart?”

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, it's just that I'm not sure that's actually the function of history exhibits concerning wars. I thought the point of them was learning about the history that occurred there, not achieving some political goal today.

[Malika la Maize]

If she had said the same thing about Gettysburg you’d be defending it.

[Brett Bellmore]

At Gettysburg she'd have had a point. The Gettysburg address was on the occasion of opening a cemetery that held BOTH side's dead.

[Malika la Maize]

It was also a battlefield, much of the current park is about that, not the address.

Think of the Vietnam War Memorial, part of its power was it was a powerful means of reconciliation for our country which was sadly often divided about our efforts in that conflict.

But even if you don’t think that’s the best goal for the Alamo, you think suggesting it years ago is so unreasonably “woke” it should have cost her her job?

[Michael P]

So in your interpretation to support both-sidesing this at the Alamo, do you think the Indigenous People were the ones led by James Bowie & William Travis or the ones led by Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón?

[Malika la Maize]

lol! They weren’t Italians so why aren’t you up in arms about the Columbus Day post?

[Michael P]

Columbus Day is an actual federal holiday. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/6103

[Malika la Maize]

Holy crap, whoosh!

[Frank Drackman]

Four Score and 7 Years ago, Malika (AKA Maryland Dad, Queenie I, Queenie II, Mr. Wrestling #1) had an interesting comment.

[Mr. Bumble]

So many identities, how does Qualika keep track?

[Malika la Maize]

As usual, confusing handles with “identities” while people here literally concede to performing characters.

[Nelson]

“ Well, it's just that I'm not sure that's actually the function of history exhibits concerning wars.”

Let’s be honest about the Alamo. It was a bunch of dumbasses who chose to get slaughtered by refusing an offer by the opposing force to leave.

They were some of the dumbest, least admirable people in history. Winners of the Darwin Award, still the undefeated lifetime champions.

[Malika la Maize]

I think you can point out their courage and loftier goals as well as their contradictions thereby humanizing them and this could, to the apparent horror of MAGAns here, lead to at least a more widespread appreciation of them at the least and maybe a reconciliation at best.

[Dr. Ed 2]

We have monuments to historical reconciliation with Japan -- but the wreck of the USS Arizona ain't one!

This is like putting the British flag on the top of Bunker Hill (Breed's Hill, actually) or on Lexington Green.

And I want to know how her EdD qualified her for this job.

[Malika la Maize]

“This is like putting the British flag on the top of Bunker Hill”

Or a Confederate monument at Arlington National? Anyways, that line doesn’t mean the equivalent of that, it doesn’t say how it could be presented to invoke reconciliation.

Also her dissertation was clearly about the Alamo, monuments can be teaching tools, so there’s no reason to doubt her ED was relevant.

[hobie]

Also this week...because I guess the Alamo, like Chicago, is a little too woke...the Texas legislature passed a bill forcing the Daughters of the Alamo to replace their private security force they've used for a century (The Alamo Rangers) with actual Texas Rangers. Kinda like Il Duce seizing the Vatican and it's Swiss Guard. Are you hayseeds sure you don't see creeping militarization?

[Dr. Ed 2]

In the modern world, there are reasons to want real police there.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Sam Houston, the first elected president of the Republic of Texas, opposed the state's secession from the Union in 1861.

The process took place Jan-March 1861. Houston warned people that the whole thing would fail and, if anything, be counterproductive regarding protecting slavery. He himself owned slaves until he died in the middle of the war.

The secession process had several interesting components, including the federal commander of Texas relinquishing control of the state's federal forts without a fight.

No Fort Sumter business there. President Buchanan was not happy when he found out. The commander was dismissed as a traitor. He served as a Confederate commander for a brief period but soon resigned due to health reasons. He died in 1862.

Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee, a few months before, filled in as commander of Texas (his main job at the time was chasing a Mexican bandit and dealing with Indian attacks in the area), leading one to consider what he would have done if he still was serving that role when Texas declared independence.

Lee left Texas and went back to D.C. for new orders after the commander surrendered the forts. He was promoted to a full colonel and swore an oath to uphold the Constitution.

Good thing he left quickly. The new Confederate government soon detained the federal troops remaining in Texas, only releasing them much later.

Thus, leaving open the possibility of Robert E. Lee becoming a Union POW if he was still in Texas at the time.

Lee only resigned from the U.S. Army when his home state of Virginia seceded in April 1861.

[Krenn]

It's kind of annoying to me how all the news articles about the EU-X $140 million dollar fine just keep saying "Elon Musk has been fined", without specifying basic details like "Has the EU already collected the fine, is Elon Musk actually going to pay that fine, and what happens next if Musk simply tells the EU to pound sand, which, knowing Musk, is a real possibility?"

[Malika la Maize]

X now has 60 days to inform the commission of specific steps it plans to take to resolve the European’s complaints about its check-mark system, and 90 days to submit an action plan sketching its vision for renewing transparency and access to its ad repository and public data.

Noncompliance with the fine could lead to “periodic penalty payments,” the commission said in its decision.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/05/an-attack-on-all-american-tech-platforms-trump-admin-decries-eus-fine-on-musks-x-00678891

[Krenn]

Yeah, I saw that, but that really doesn't answer the question of how much in the way of liquid or seizable assets X actually has inside of europe, how difficult it would be to extract those assets before anyone tried to stop him from doing so, and what happens if Elon Musk simply says "I will not pay this fine, I will not inform any European commission of anything, I will not file an appeal, I will submit an action plan, I will not pay future fines, I will not accept that the EU has any jurisdiction over me once I pull my remaining servers out of EU countries, and I'm pulling them out now."

Someone REALLY should have taken that hard-line stance 20 years ago, and right now we're living in a really strange go-along-to-get-along world based around the fact that nobody ever really did.

[Bwaaah]

"Someone REALLY should have taken that hard-line stance 20 years ago, and right now we're living in a really strange go-along-to-get-along world based around the fact that nobody ever really did."

15 years ago, the U.S. Department of Energy gave Tesla $465 million in loan guarantees to kick off the Democrats' fever dream of electric cars. Elon Musk was their darling. Their plan worked.

I wish Paul Harvey were still alive to tell the rest of the story. He wouldn't though. Because he was a nice guy who only told nice stories.

[Malika la Maize]

Interesting for you to interject the Democrats into this story about the EU!

Recently disaffected liberal, indeed!

Phony baloney.

[Bwaaah]

Tell me about your liberal values, Malicia. Tell me the liberal values you hold that you think I deny.

Reach deep inside Malicia. It appears there's nothing there but vacuous insult.

[Malika la Maize]

I haven’t said I’m a liberal. You have said you were, but you’re either 1. Doing the sad Bari Weiss/Glenn Greenwald/Jon Turley routine or 2. Are using liberal in the non-American context. Either way the constant re-routing of everything illiberal to the US Democrat Party is more than passingly odd.

[Davy C]

Sometimes I wonder if that's actually the EU's goal - to convince large American companies to pull out so large European companies can take their place.

[Malika la Maize]

They have a history of protectionism. If they want to deny their people a service or product that is wanted that’s their problem.

[Malika la Maize]

Have you seen Ken Burns’s series “The American Revolution” on PBS? Even if you haven’t, you might have seen the commentary that accompanied it: a scorching string of articles accusing Burns of drenching the series in wokeness…

The overarching message of this series is the founders’ pioneering anti-monarchical ideology and the horrors endured by those who fought for these ideals. Burns regularly reminds us of the contradiction between the founders’ insistence on their liberty and their comfort in keeping Black people in bondage. But anyone who concludes that he does it to shame the nation or perform his own moral superiority came in spoiling to see it that way.

“The American Revolution” is intelligently self-critical history of a kind most people worldwide are deprived of. Showing us what the era entailed for all different kinds of early Americans isn’t woke; it’s accurate.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/opinion/revolutionary-war-ken-burns.html

[Commenter_XY]

Queenie, you'll forgive us if we take whatever The Old Grey Hag publishes with a huge helping of salt (not just a grain).

I thought his Civil War series was outstanding; I loved it. Baseball was excellent, also.

I do plan to see the series.

[Malika la Maize]

It’s John McWhorter’s article FWIW.

[Mr. Bumble]

“The American Revolution” is intelligently self-critical history of a kind most people worldwide are deprived of. Showing us what the era entailed for all different kinds of early Americans isn’t woke; it’s accurate.
The master has been edited to correct a few parts that were not in fact accurate.
All in all I thought it was pretty good and brought out the complexities of the whole affair.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Ken Burns went to Hampshire College -- need I really say more?

[Malika la Maize]

Yes, that’s a stupid ad hominem.

[Frank Drackman]

Well Ed's a Stupid Homo

[Michael P]

Is the "sapiens" part in doubt?

[Nelson]

It’s Dr. Ed. Stupid is all he does, although he sometimes mixes in ignorance, bigotry, and a fetish for civil war to spice things up.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Malika, ever set foot on the Hampshire campus???

[ThePublius]

Here's Matt Walsh's scathing review of the documentary. I have to agree with him on the points he makes, the lies told in the documentary. It is indeed quite woke, and both promulgates and perpetuates several false narratives. The most striking to me was the story that if it wasn't for the women of the colonies the revolution may well have never happened - because they supposedly stopped buying stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMsJGnn-h_4

[Malika la Maize]

From the McWhorter article:

But anyone who concludes that he does it to shame the nation or perform his own moral superiority came in spoiling to see it that way.

[Michael P]

McWhorter must have a very powerful mind-reading tool, that can read not only Ken Burns's mind but that of everyone who has yet to speak on the subject.

[Mr. Bumble]

It's a special power reserved to only a few.

[Malika la Maize]

Yes, any assumption or observation about how people think is mind reading. That’s why they have to haul in Professor X to prove mens rea in all criminal cases!

[Mr. Bumble]

They "prove" nothing, only offer their opinion which may be contradicted by Professor Y's opinion.

[Malika la Maize]

Not a pop culture guy I see.

[Michael P]

Not even Charles Xavier claims to be able to read minds into the future.

[Sarcastr0]

The posters here are absolutely proving the ‘spoiling for a fight’ thing 100% correct.

Next is where you tell us you aren’t really looking to get mad, or angry at all.

[Michael P]

Malicia and you seem to be the ones spoiling for a fight. I merely pointed out the fallacy of the argument offered as part of that.

[Dr. Ed 2]

"it wasn't for the women of the colonies the revolution may well have never happened - because they supposedly stopped buying stuff"

Do you realize how little stuff anyone bought back then? Or how little actual cash there was -- that's what led to Shay's Rebellion.

The British bought firewood and food, paying cash for both, but most people were subsistence farmers with side gigs. A few weren't, e.g. Franklin (printer), Hancock (smuggler), and Revere (silver/copper smith), but most were farmers.

[ThePublius]

I still hate how you don't use quotation marks when you are quoting articles. How are we to know when words are yours, or those of some article's author?

[Michael P]

You're not supposed to know. You're supposed to get it wrong so Malicia can play some kind of retarded "gotcha".

[Malika la Maize]

Of course that kind of explanation comes to mind because that’s how you’d operate. Every accusation is a confession and all that.

I mean, it couldn’t be that a lot of excerpts have quoted in them and I got tired of going in to add ‘ to “”s.

[Michael P]

Unlike you, I am pretty careful to quote what I include from other people, and to indicate when I put a paraphrase or sarcastic attribution in quotes. Your gussied-up version of "I know you are but what am I" only shows your childish mindset and does not reflect on me.

One can use <blockquote> when quoting something long or with embedded quotation marks.

[Malika la Maize]

So a person not wanting to use html must be playing gotcha. This from the guy who complains about mindreading above!

[Michael P]

Go yell at a cloud or something if you're too lazy to use either punctuation or markup like a normal person does when writing.

[Malika la Maize]

Don’t like your hypocrisy pointed out, do you?

[Michael P]

There's no hypocrisy. I merely know what punctuation signifies, and bother to use it to communicate effectively. I realize those are hard for you, but they are required for serious discourse.

[Malika la Maize]

No, you concluded my motivation based on my way of presenting quotes. Mindreading of the sort you decry below. Hoisted on your own petard.

[Michael P]

To be complete, I considered your motivation based on your general comment history of being toxic in combination with your way of presenting quotes.

I made no universal claim like "But anyone who [abbreviates punctuation around quotes] came in spoiling [for a gotcha]." I did not even make such a claim about a random individual, only about one who has been commenting here for a very long time.

(For those new to punctuation, the square brackets indicate changes from the original text being quoted.)

[Davy C]

>So a person not wanting to use html must be playing gotcha. This from the guy who complains about mindreading above!

You could also just do this. This indicates a quote, and doesn't require HTML or reformatting quotation marks.

[Malika la Maize]

Maybe I will in the future, but given it’s only ideologically motivated people complaining maybe not.

[Malika la Maize]

Click on the link supplied?

[Sarcastr0]

This remains a fake grievance.

No one is confused, including you.

Insisting everyone follow your personal convention or else they’re posting immorally or whatever is a super dumb hill to die on.

Police your own posts, and don’t be a whiney shitlord,

[Michael P]

"The posters here are absolutely proving the ‘spoiling for a fight’ thing 100% correct."

For example, by pretending to read minds after complaining that someone else pointed out that people cannot actually read minds.

"Police your own posts, and don’t be a whiney shitlord,"

Take your own advice.

[Malika la Maize]

So it’s not the reading into the future you were objecting to but the mind reading at all?

Look, since you’re all about normal people, normal people “mind read” other people all the time. They know something about psychology and have had general human experiences and can make very good guesses about common motivations. This is why juries can decide if a person had the requisite mindset to be guilty of a crime. It’s why most human interactions are orderly. It’s also why someone can look at something and say “there’s really nothing very woke here so knowing some extremists’ tendency to look for and find it in anything if someone says it’s here it’s probably because of that tendency.”

Your “I’m just pointing out a fallacy” isn’t just niggling picking a fight as Sarc says it’s a demonstration of the naive reliance on formal logic while ignoring (or being ignorant of) informal logic.

[Michael P]

Quoting a naked assertion is informal logic, sure. It also makes you look like a retard, because it's not going to convince anyone, and complaining that I pointed that out emphasizes that.

It's also really dumb to complain that I first pointed out that John McWhorter can't read minds in the future, and then I pointed out that people cannot read minds more generally. The specific is included in the general, and I was more specific in the first case because it combined two kinds of fiction (seeing the future and reading minds) rather than just one.

[Malika la Maize]

How autistic are you? Neither are fictions, both are predictions of the kind that make institutions from our justice system, marriage, friendship, heck human relations in general possible. If people had no ability to predict what other people were thinking (from their past experiences with other people and their own introspections) none of that would be possible.

[Michael P]

I'm not autistic at all. You're the one who is wasting lots and lots of words drawing totally unsupportable analogies with the McWhorter quote. He wasn't writing about a specific case where evidence was reviewed for admissibility and then weighed by a trier of fact. He wasn't talking about a marriage, or a friendship, or human relations in general -- he was prejudging everyone who might ever make a certain argument. Those are not similar relationships or inferences.

The Dude provided the immortal rebuttal to what you quoted from McWhorter: "Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man." To elaborate: Someone who trusts you generally might trust your inference of your spouse's thinking, and not label it mind-reading. But if I asserted the same conclusion about your spouse, while knowing neither your spouse nor other facts underlying the inference, it would be entirely fair to criticize that as mind-reading. Your quote of McWhorter offers no facts underlying the inference; it relies on an appeal to authority, which is why Mr. Bumble pointed out that Professor Y might provide a perfectly adequate rebuttal.

[Sarcastr0]

Doesn’t seem like you have an issue other than wanting to fight. Or at least you spin off one grievance to another mighty easily.

Doing a collateral attack because you can’t come at the content and is a truly pathetic attempt at changing the subject to just personal attacks.

Ugh this is just sad.
I’m off to go touch grass; maybe consider doing the same rather than backing up TPublius in his latest dumb slapfight.

[Michael P]

You and Malicia are sad, yes, but in your case only because you try so hard to police the tone here -- and do it pathetically one-sidedly.

It's also grotesque that you complain about my content-based criticism with prolonged bitching about tone and supposed personal attacks. Again, take your own advice.

[ThePublius]

Once again, like clockwork, Sarcastr0 knows what's in my mind when I read posts.

I am often confused reading Malika's posts. I get part way into them and then say to myself, 'wait a minute, he doesn't write this well;' and then I scan to the bottom and see the link pointing to the unattributed quote he made. It's maddening.

I'm not "insisting everyone follow your personal convention;" it's not my convention, it's convention - correct punctuation and attribution.

[Malika la Maize]

Actually, your initial complaint about this a couple weeks back said it was plagiarism because it wasn’t in quotes. But if you want to be pedantic about it, as Mikie Q points out above, scholarly citation styles often require such long selections to be indented instead (I don’t know or care to know html so I don’t do that. So if I wanted to be equally pedantic you don’t know what you’re talking about.

If I’m using my own words and then quote a source I do use “” as I did above in this comment section. Some people simply do some like this:

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much-Oscar Wilde

[Sarcastr0]

No one is going to follow your rigid personal convention due to your whining how you are easily confused until you aren’t.

If you are often confused by such trivialities then maybe this isn’t the website for you.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Malika, I do agree Burns intended to be accurate, not woke. I just do not think he knew enough to carry it off. What I saw struck me as point-by-point grade school history and civics, circa 1960s, with later-emphasized moral correctives added in. A great deal of founding era historical insight has been added since, but there was little sign that Burns was aware of it.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

I did not watch the series, though I enjoyed his Civil War series.

An American history teacher told me a few years ago that her class was not impressed with the Civil War miniseries. Maybe its style did not meet the standards of the current generation.

A gay rights program's hosts were annoyed that the documentary didn't reference that an influential figure was gay or, at best, dropped a dubious reference about it. Tangetically, Vicious and Immoral: Homosexuality, the American Revolution, and the Trials of Robert Newburgh by John Gilbert McCurdy was interesting.

[ThePublius]

December 7th, 1941, a date that will live in infamy.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/watch-oldest-pearl-harbor-survivor-reflect-on-attack/vi-AA1RJKiW?ocid=BingNewsVerp#

[Dr. Ed 2]

Roosevelt should have been impeached.

[ThePublius]

What? Why?

[Davy C]

In this context, I assume because of the conspiracy theory that says he knew about the attacks in advance and allowed them to happen so we could join the war. (I take no position on whether or not that is true, I haven't ever researched it seriously.)

[hobie]

I remember in 2001 we, of course had 9/11, then the anthrax chaos. And then when all that started to settle...here comes the DC Sniper. To me, it felt like the world was unravelling.

I was in San Diego at the time. In the federal courthouse there I saw large numbers of Muslim prisoners literally being carted around. They were done up exactly like Hannibal Lector: strapped to large dollies, in straight jackets and hockey masks. Muslims were so toxic and scary at the time that no one seemed to know what to do with them.

I had chances to speak to a lot of them. None were in for any particular crime, rather they were detained because they were attendants of mosques that had been attended by or associated with 9/11 attackers.

Basically it was shades of Japanese internment camps, which is why I mention it here.

[Michael P]

Your memory is as heavily based on fiction as ever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remarks_at_the_Islamic_Center_of_Washington
https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/17/us/white-house-letter-a-new-inclusive-era-of-the-holiday-party.html
Etc.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The BOY Gap:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Differences_in_Average_Scale_Scores_for_Girls_and_Boys.jpg

I pulled this up for a parent the other day -- it may be cherrypicking but it's from the NAEP data. We've had 50 years of the War On Boys and it's time for boys to start fighting back.

Boston's "Duck Pond" on the Common -- no, it originally was the "Dunking Pond." Let's use it again.

[Stephen Lathrop]

A bit more for glyphosate boosters. Nieporent and others argue that it is better than traditional herbicides and pesticides because it is less toxic to humans, and especially because it works so well to boost yields that less land must be cultivated. The latter claim is spurious. It sounds reasonable,. but does not happen in practice. Why not?

It does not happen because agriculture is an activity with uncertain returns. Hence, all the players in the agricultural marketplace maneuver to put on someone else whatever economic burdens attend uncertainty, That has adversely affected farmers more than any of the others, including even consumers.

Typically, any producer expecting an economically significant crop sells it to a middleman before the crop is even planted. The producer gets a contracted price which reflects expected market conditions somewhat more favorable to the buyer than of the seller. That difference can be interpreted as a cost useful to make the producer economically secure against unforeseeable price fluctuations at harvest time.

That way at least, a substandard yield where the farmer operates—perhaps caused by local weather, crop damage, or international market fluctuations—will not combine during a bumper year elsewhere to hit the farmer with a double whammy: too little produce to sell, combined with too low a price caused by general abundance elsewhere. When things like that happen, only a producer who owns nearly every farming asset outright, and who has cash reserves on top of that, is likely able to take it in stride. And such things do happen, all too often to be comfortably compatible with investments in assets equal to the requirements of long-term agricultural practice on today's scale.

Even the best-situated producers become vulnerable to multi-year-long intervals of adverse production conditions, combined with adverse market conditions. During one of those all-too-frequent intervals, one hailstorm affecting just a small fraction of a county can spell ruin for whichever producers are unlucky to suffer the hit.

So with the market pre-cast by contract, and crop yields subject to local happenstance, what can a producer control to increase economic security? There is some choice of which crops to plant in which years. That choice is constrained of course by need to keep soils viable, but in a factory farming situation, with money enough on hand to buy access to fertilizers and specialized equipment, it is an option which can still seem a useful choice. Problem is, it is about as likely to prove successful as market-timing the stock market. And whatever deviations from husbandry ideals it forces come with their own long-term economic downsides.

Another choice, however, remains reliable to the extent it is available. It always remains a positive choice so long as the year-to-year costs of inputs to deliver a crop do not exceed yield increase multiplied by the contracted market price. That choice is to do everything under the producer's control to get maximal yield out of every square foot of potentially productive land.

Compared to every other kind of production input—pesticide, herbicide, or other purchasable production enhancer—glyphosate has for the present proved the best lever to enable a producer to profit from expanding whatever area he can put under cultivation. Simply put, for lands under a producer's control which formerly did not justify costly production inputs, glyphosate transforms them into lands which do justify those inputs.

But glyphosate does that at the same time it increases general abundance in the marketplace. For the producer, that has an opposite effect. It drives down the contracted prices for farm produce, thus making a choice to expand cultivation more useful as an offset. That double goad has proved incentive enough not only to get producers to develop for production every removable fence row, boggy spot, or marginal wood lot, but also to buy up where they are available all other such lands.

Producers, it turns out, do not take it upon themselves to be market regulators. They merely try to maximize with factors they can control, whatever returns market conditions controlled by others force upon them. And glyphosate has forced adverse changes in contracted prices on them, while enabling producers to somewhat counter that with activity to increase land under production.

While glyphosate continues effective and available, that dynamic will only increase. The trend will be toward more development of marginal lands, not less. Toward ever more abundant produce, not less. And thus produce prices will continue to decline, which everyone but producers will celebrate, even the middlemen and retailers. Idealists will also continue to praise the population increases that trend can support.

Too bad, of course, that such an uncontrolled engine of production also happens to impose as a cost the annual killing of nearly every living thing in the total area under cultivation. Except the produce engineered to withstand the method, of course.

Alas, the method itself is destined to fail at some point. Both general evolutionary theory—and experience derived from the method itself—show that evolutionary selection to thwart the glyphosate method will happen. When it does, what means will be available to replace the produce needed by a human population grown to a size reliant on a failed method for supply?

Beyond that, what will have been the extent of the ecological wreckage all that killing inflicted?

An impoverished future ecology will not likely prove as equal to such an emergency as our present experience has taught us to suppose. The future condition will be characterized by system-wide genetic resources which will be less various and abundant than they were previously, or are now.

Whatever wild ecological systems remain still in existence will increasingly be degraded and threatened. There is zero reason to suppose otherwise. That process of natural degradation has been ongoing steadily for more than a century. Thus far, a near-lock-step consensus has ruled the policy world—that ecological degradation is not a problem to be concerned about. Technology will fix it. On this blog, look to comments offered in response to my own to see examples. Reassurance tends to sell better than reflection and critique.

And maybe technology could fix it at that. After technology has advanced far enough to put erasers on the ends of ecological planners' pencils. And thus gets power to restore to full existence and ecological effect all the evolved-over-eons characteristics of all the organisms present policy so heedlessly destroys.

For those too ecologically uninformed to understand the scope of such an ambition, an example can make it more concrete: A swallow is made out of bugs. When an ecological policy planner gains genetic expertise sufficient to begin with a few ounces of bugs, and genetic power to deliver from scratch a fully functional pair of swallows capable to forage, nest, reproduce, migrate, and evolve independently, then even after that the the first step to answer that challenge will remain undone. We do not yet know even which bugs to use. Only our present swallows know that. If they were gone, we would lack all means to discover which bugs were needed. And if we did know, we would have to begin from scratch to build replacements for the bugs—which is to say to gain insight bug-by-bug what survival conditions each swallow-necessary bug species required. And then to make certain those conditions could be restored, in context of impediments exactly similar in each case to those which bar insight into the swallow case.

Eons of evolution have gifted this world with but one ecological system suitable for the needs of every organism required to keep it going. Humans will never learn enough to reconstruct, or even to repair, such an outlandishly costly gift. Our choice is preservation of that gift insofar as possible, or a natural future unmoored from all predictability. Those who side with unpredictability need at least to consider something of the implications of such a choice.

[Michael P]

Get a blog. Or a room -- it's likely that nobody wants to see you engaging in this particular form of mental ... manipulation.

[Mr. Bumble]

Does anyone slog through his dissertations?

[Bwaaah]

I didn't get past the first line:

"Nieporent and others argue that it is better than traditional herbicides and pesticides because it is less toxic to humans"

I don't think anybody said it was less toxic to humans. Did I miss that?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Yes you missed that.

It has been the most effective argument offered in favor of glyphosate. It has the obvious merit of being correct in comparison to some of the other chemical horrors from the past.

It remains to be seen whether that influence will continue given proof that it was an argument authored under a pretense of independent research, but actually created by Monsanto.

[Michael P]

Even the most anti-glyphosate studies show that it's much safer than traditional herbicides. The question is more whether it's fair to call it entirely non-toxic, plus maybe whether the productized blend has different effects than the active ingredient alone.

[Michael P]

Probably. Glyphosate is hugely less toxic than traditional herbicides and pesticides (glyphosate itself is a herbicide and dessicant, with no direct pesticidal effects, and pesticides tend to be more dangerous for people than herbicides because we're not plants). The question is essentially whether drinking or bathing in Round-Up -- which is glyphosate plus other stuff -- is appreciably riskier than doing the same with water.

https://www.weld.gov/files/sharedassets/public/v/4/departments/public-works/documents/2024/tinas-weed-stuff/herbicide-control-page/organic-vs-traditional-pest-control-methods-2025.pdf lists some "organic" and natural-sounding herbicides that one could easily call "traditional". It doesn't address glyphosate, but the ones with toxicity notes seem worse than glyphosate. (I say "seem" because some of them are mentioned as only problematic for aquatic life, and I think that's not true of glyphosate but I'm not sure.)

More narrowly "traditional" herbicides are things like sea salt (ask Carthaginians about that one), sulfates and nitrates of iron or copper, and sulfuric acid. These are definitely more toxic to animals than glyphosate is.

[Mr. Bumble]

Posted this yesterday in regard to this subject:

Mr. Bumble 1 day ago

"A History of Pesticides from Sumerian to DDT

Civilizations have used pesticides for thousands of years. With the development of agriculture and permanent settlements also came agricultural and household pests. With pests came the need for pest control. The earliest known use of pesticides was by the ancient Sumerians, who used powdered sulfur to control insects and related pests more than 4,500 years ago. Early Chinese also developed pesticides, using mercury and arsenic compounds around 1100 BCE or earlier to combat pests."

https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/US/en/technical-documents/technical-article/food-and-beverage-testing-and-manufacturing/flavor-and-fragrance-formulation/pesticides-and-residuals-history-and-food-safety

[Bwaaah]

Short version: Modernity is a scourge. Twenty-first century humanity needs to retreat and reclaim its more healthful ways of yore.

The sky is falling.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bwaaah — As above:

Thus far, a near-lock-step consensus has ruled the policy world—that ecological degradation is not a problem to be concerned about. Technology will fix it. On this blog, look to comments offered in response to my own to see examples.

You. Anticipated.

Why not try to respond substantively instead?

[Bwaaah]

I responded substantively yesterday. For example, I responded to your claim about the "major declines in insect pollinators." (I note your contemporary political term of art for "bees"). You did not answer.

What was your basis for that assertion?

[DDHarriman]

>Nieporent and others argue that it is better than traditional herbicides and pesticides because it is less toxic to humans

Of course that fucker would bootlick Monsanto, especially since they've captured the agency that regulates them.

That's a Democrat's greatest dream come true. It's right there in the Fascist Manifesto where corporate & state interests intertwine.

[Frank Drackman]

My Playoff Selections (can't believe I'm not on the committee)
1: Indiana
2: Georgia
3: Ohio State
4: Texas Tech
5: Oregon
6: Texas A&M,
7: Ole Miss
8: Miami
9: Fisheaters (not this year)
10: Oklahoma
11: Tulane (Mandatory Selection)
12: James Madison (Mandatory Selection)

and don't give me any of this (Whiny Liberal Voice) "A team shouldn't be penalized for losing their Conference Title Game!"

Not Penalized???? This is Foo-bawl, you can get a Penalty for clapping your hands, for running out of bounds, shouting "Confusing" signals.
You get your Ass run out of MBS like the Marx Brothers in "A Day at the Races" you're gonna get penalized.

Frank

[Malika la Maize]

Miami should be in 1. especially if ND is since they beat them and 2. because each major conference should have representation.

[hobie]

I don't think anyone wants to play my Texas Tech. They got the best team money can buy, and they look dangerous as shit.

[Malika la Maize]

They look good, but I’m not sure waxing BYU proves that much.

[Mr. Bumble]

“Turns out I’m really good at killing people. Didn’t know that was gonna be a strong suit of mine,”
Who said this?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Don Regan said something similar to this at his first interview on Wall Street -- hr was a returning WWII vet.

[Bwaaah]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/17/smooth-compromise-obama-iconography-obscured-omissions-pete-souza

[jb]

"because each major conference should have representation"

Seems pretty fair that if you can't muster a conference champion at least add good as JMU then you don't get in.

[Malika la Maize]

Do you know what conference the team that gave JMU its loss is in?

[Frank Drackman]

One of the minor ones.

[Malika la Maize]

That makes my point.

[Dr. Ed 2]

A leftist diatribe about nuclear war said that observers would briefly see a "second horizon" in the immediate aftermath of the flash.

Anyone have any idea what they were talking about and if this would happen, why it would?

It's a very large source of light, yes -- but it still will follow the laws of physics regarding light, won't it? The horizon is light bouncing back (not exactly in a straight line, but with predictable bending) to me.

What am I missing?

[hobie]

Gravitational Lensing?

[Davy C]

Pretty sure that's not a consideration here; there's no more or less gravity while a nuke is going off than before or after.

[ducksalad]

(Wild ass guessing here)

There's strong pressure wave of denser air with a higher index of refraction. The graphs show that the blast wave lasts about 100ms which would indicate the moving wall of denser air is fairly thick.

So it could act roughly like putting a (weak) fisheye lens over the explosion and looking at it from the side. Not really a second horizon, maybe more like a distorted arc-like image if you were far enough back to see the whole half-sphere.

It doesn't move at the speed of light. If you see something like that there's still time to lie flat and try to remember the good things in your life.

[Davy C]

Ever see a mirage over a hot road? Differences in heat can bend light. It wouldn't be particularly surprising to see an effect like a second horizon with the amount of heat a nuclear weapon would produce.

[Michael P]

I think that's usually called Fata Morgana rather than a second horizon, and it would depend on the right atmospheric conditions being in place at the time of the explosion. The explosion itself wouldn't create those conditions and then be affected by them.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The World's Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistantby Liza Tully appears to be the opening novel in a new mystery series. I overall enjoyed it.

I don't read too much mystery fiction, but from time to time enjoy it. I enjoyed Sue Grafton's alphabet series until the books became too long and convoluted. She died before she wrote "Z."

I did not know about this author (who has written various books under different names) before seeing the appealing title at the library. The enthusiastic, if still raw, assistant narrates.

The book probably could have been shorter, including without some of the usual background detail these books often have (I guess people like that sort of thing), but I quickly finished it.

[hobie]

From a more innocent time [re Trump v. US]:

Politico 07/02/2024:
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/02/trump-immunity-murder-navy-sotomayor-00166385

"“Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival?” she [Sotomayor] wrote. “Immune.”

As extraordinary as that prospect might sound, constitutional law experts say she’s right: The court’s decision in Trump v. United States really does appear to immunize a hypothetical president who directed the military to commit murder, though a president might be hard-pressed to find someone to carry out such an order...

So the fact that Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion on Monday did not attempt to directly carve out such extreme examples immediately raised alarm among some experts. Roberts’ opinion appeared to address the matter only obliquely.

He accused Sotomayor and the other two dissenters of “fear mongering on the basis of extreme hypotheticals.”

The biggest challenge for a president ordering an assassination would be finding military personnel willing to carry out the order, legal experts explained. While the president himself would have the protection of immunity, others involved would remain vulnerable to prosecution because the Supreme Court’s decision doesn’t make the underlying act legal.

“If they are given an illegal order by the president or by someone who is directly answering the president, they may be in a position that they are subject to court martial in either direction,” said Claire Finkelstein, a professor of national security law at the University of Pennsylvania.

A lawless president, however, could get around that problem by promising to pardon anyone who carried out his orders.

Finkelstein, who submitted an amicus brief in Trump’s case alongside 14 other national security professionals, warned that such a Catch-22 would create dangerous confusion within the military’s chain of command, undermining its necessary discipline and order...

A former senior Department of Defense official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said the military won’t obey illegal orders. “It doesn’t matter where it comes from.”

With the president’s core constitutional powers — and their guaranteed absolute immunity — extending beyond the military and its potential exploitation, Finkelstein cautioned that tensions between the president and personnel could permeate the entire executive branch and the Justice Department in particular, creating “a situation where we’re really about to descend into a state of chaos.”"

[DDHarriman]

Y'all are legit retarded.

No, the SCOTUS did not rule that President Trump could order the military to assassinate a US politician whose only guilt is being a politician.

Now, given what we know about Democrats and their evil, vile nature -- I really wish it did. But it doesn't.

It simply does not.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Trump v. U.S. notes:

"once it is determined that the President acted within the scope of his exclusive authority, his discretion in exercising such authority cannot be subject to further judicial examination"

Trump would sensibly not say he was ordering the assassination of someone merely for being a politician.

Let's say he claims Senator Mark Kelly is a clear and present danger to his ability to be commander-in-chief.

That isn't merely being a politician. It is at some point in the "scope of [Trump's] exclusive authority."

The opinion says it should not be second-guessed in court.

 Congress cannot act on, and courts cannot examine, the President’s actions on subjects within his “conclusive and preclusive” constitutional authority. It follows that an Act of Congress—either a specific one targeted at the President or a generally applicable one—may not criminalize the President’s actions within his exclusive constitutional power. Neither may the courts adjudicate a criminal prosecution that examines such Presidential actions. We thus conclude that the President is absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for conduct within his exclusive sphere of constitutional authority.

This rule does not apply when a power is "shared with Congress," but various executive powers are not shared with Congress.

One power specifically cited as the president's alone is ...

The President’s power to remove—and thus supervise—those who wield executive power on his behalf,”

Let's say Trump decides to "remove" a troublesome Cabinet member by means of assassination, the favored approach of certain foreign leaders. He argues the person is interfering with Trump's ability to faithfully execute the law. It is part of his "official conduct" to deal with such an individual the right way.

[DDHarriman]

>Let's say he claims Senator Mark Kelly is a clear and present danger to his ability to be commander-in-chief.

Well, frankly, he would be right. Kelly is part of a destablization campaign.

Does a US President have unilateral constitutional authority to assassinate a US citizen on US soil for any reason whatsoever? Do you think SCOTUS affirmed a right like that?

[hobie]

The court didn't affirm or disaffirm any such right. They just said POTUS cannot be prosecuted if he did murder someone.

[DDHarriman]

You think a president has an exclusive constitutional authority to murder a US citizen?

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Well, frankly, he would be right. Kelly is part of a destablization campaign.

So, does he have the power to order Kelly to be killed for this reason without "his discretion" being second-guessed in court?

for any reason whatsoever

No. The very first word in the quote in my original comment, which I'll assume you read completely, is "once."

But the power is rather open-ended, as long as it is within his official acts.

[hobie]

The rubes think all this above-the-law power is insignificant because we can just impeach. But I think it is obvious to every sonofabitch and his brother that impeachment is now a largely impossible exercise. One might as well say we can just go out and win the lottery whenever we feel like it.

[DDHarriman]

Haha that's what I did. I was born White, Male, Normal sexual orientation, and a Christian.

That's winning the lottery right there. I could've been born some big-nosed Satanist homo.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

I question that.

The apparent rule is that going against Trump in any realistic way is unconstitutional. It was a game of keep-away.

Impeachment is left open as an alleged alternative.

You can't investigate unless it's an impeachment investigation. No, you are doing that the wrong way. No, you are impeaching for unconstitutional reasons, or the trial is otherwise illicit.

Impeachment or criminal trials, overall, were alleged to be a wrongful interference with the people's right to vote for him. Okay, so he had his two terms, will trials be allowed?

Charlie will surely be able to kick the football now!

[DDHarriman]

Birthright Citizenship was proposed by Senator Jacob Howard of Michigan who stated that, “every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons.”

https://www.gibsondunn.com/wp-content/uploads/documents/publications/Ho-DefiningAmerican.pdf

---
I can't wait to hear what the Living Constitutionalists say about this after all their teeth gnashing over Trump's Living Rule of Law.

[Josh R]

The article's author (Judge James Ho) explains on page 372 (page 7 of the pdf document) why Howard's remarks go against Trump's EO.

[DDHarriman]

So, I cited that document for the source of the quote, not Ho's argument. Did you catch the little semantic sidestep Ho does to support his argument on page 372?

He cherry picks the quote he is accusing others of cherry picking.

His parse - separating "aliens, who belong to..."

His structure implies "who belong to..." is describing "aliens".

"foreigners, aliens, who belong to.." is clearly part of a list of three different classes of people.

Foreigners were those subject to the Crown.
Aliens were those who were not subject to the Crown.

He also ignores very important colonial context: rights did flow from allegiance in pre-Revolutionary times.

[Josh R]

In the 1860s it was understood that the phrase "foreigners" were those subject to "the Crown" (the British Crown?) and "aliens" were those not subject to the Crown?

Even under that dubious claim (necessary to make the first in the list distinct classes), the third alleged sperate class is always a subset of one of the two prior classes.

[DDHarriman]

https://www.jstor.org/stable/846284

This demonstrated that "aliens" referenced those not subject to the English Crown. There's even a Ben Franklin quote clearly juxtaposing "English" with "aliens".

https://www.archives.nysed.gov/research/res_topics_gen_naturalization_col

Note this:

(It should be noted that immigrants from England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland were not considered aliens, because they were already subjects of the British crown.)

---
>Even under that dubious claim (necessary to make the first in the list distinct classes), the third alleged sperate class is always a subset of one of the two prior classes.

Diplomats have always had some special status, no?

[hobie]

Coast Guard sniper disables drug boat engine. 20,000lbs of cocaine seized.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15358221/Coast-Guard-sniper-drug-boat-cocaine.html

I'm calling bullshit. There is no way a little boat like that can hold 20,000lbs of anything.