Abortion on the ballot

Most focus on the 2024 US election is rightfully on the Presidential election, where the is a stalk choice between Harris and Trump. A lot of focus is also given to races at the secondary – for the US congress and the US senate. But it also important to focus on the state level, where there are both elections to political positions, that are incredible important, as well as propositions on a number of issues. One of these issues in many states is abortion.

Ballot Tracker: Status of Abortion-Related State Constitutional Amendment Measures for the 2024 Election

Since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, voters in 6 states have weighed in on constitutional amendments regarding abortion, and the side favoring access to abortion prevailed in every state. In 4 of these states – California, Michigan, Ohio, and Vermont – measures amending the state constitution to protect the right to abortion were approved by voters and in the other 2 states – Kentucky and Kansas – measures seeking to curtail the right to abortion failed. In 2024, up to 10 states may have abortion measures on their ballot seeking to either affirm that the state constitution protects the right to abortion or that nothing in the constitution confers such a right.

There is a map showing the states, but here is the list as well:

  • Arizona (for abortion)
  • Colorado (for abortion)
  • Florida (for abortion)
  • Maryland (for abortion)
  • Missouri (for abortion)
  • Montana (for abortion)
  • Nebraska (one measure for and one against abortion)
  • Nevada (for abortion, first of two needed elections)
  • New York (for abortion)
  • South Dakota (for abortion)

If you are in one of these states, make sure to vote to help protect abortion

Lazy linking

A few interesting reads on the internet

Pro-Trump defamation attorney Lin Wood must pay former law partners $4.5 million after defaming them as ‘criminal’ extortionists on social media

This sounds like it started out with normal stuff happening when a company split, but clearly Lin Wood have learned from Trump and started defaming his former partners

How Black female science fiction and fantasy writers are upending the narrative

Science fiction has always been a way to envision the future. Sometimes for the optimal; sometimes as the future might be if humans do not zig toward the good and just. As the legendary science fiction author Isaac Asimov once wrote, “the saddest aspect of life right now is that science fiction gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”

Black women have always gathered knowledge faster than society writ large gathers wisdom. Thus, a Black woman science fiction — or fantasy — writer might be the most prescient writers of these genres. The field has long been run by mostly white men: the J.R.R. Tolkiens, Philip K. Dicks and George R. R. Martins of the field. But the popularity and foresight of a handful of Black female writers proves that the reading public is ready to imagine a better tomorrow, today.

What I especially love about this article is that I became aware of it because John Scalzi shared it on Threads. He is always trying to promote diversity and promote other people.

Armed and Underground: Inside the Turbulent, Secret World of an American Militia

Last February, some 20 men and their wives gathered for dinner at an upscale restaurant in Spokane, Washington, for their annual Valentine’s Day celebration. The men weren’t just friends; they did community service work together. They had been featured on local television, in khakis and baseball caps, delivering 1,200 pounds of food to an area veterans’ center; they were gearing up for their next food drive, which they called Operation Hunger Smash. A few days after the holiday, the men went camping in the snow-speckled mountains outside Spokane, where they grilled rib-eyes and bacon-wrapped asparagus over a bonfire.

They also engaged in more menacing activities. They assembled regularly — sometimes wearing night-vision goggles in the dark — to practice storming buildings together with semiautomatic rifles. Their drills included using sniper rifles to shoot targets from distances of half a mile. And they belonged to a shadowy organization whose members were debating, with ever more intensity, whether they should engage in mass-scale political violence.

They were among the thousands of members of American Patriots Three Percent, a militia that has long been one of the largest in the United States and has mostly managed to avoid scrutiny. Its ranks included cops and convicted criminals, active-duty U.S. soldiers and small-business owners, truck drivers and health care professionals. Like other militias, AP3 has a vague but militant right-wing ideology, a pronounced sense of grievance and a commitment to armed action. It has already sought to shape American life through vigilante operations: AP3 members have “rounded up” immigrants at the Texas border, assaulted Black Lives Matter protesters and attempted to crack down on people casting absentee ballots.

It is a long read, but well worth reading. It is a important view into people who are actively trying to destroy democracy by violent means.

Did Hemingway say “write drunk, edit sober”? Nope—he preferred to write sober.

Writers love to cite Ernest Hemingway’s famous advice, “write drunk, edit sober.” But not only did he not actually say that—he practically said the opposite.

It is one of those annoying quotes that goes around, and it is nice to get it debunked

Congratulations Imane Khelif

Imane Khelif won gold in boxing at the 2024 Paris Olympics. I am happy that she managed to win, even while under harassment from some of the most powerful people in the world.

I also see to my happiness that her lawyer, Nabil Boudi, has filed a complaint about her harassment: Imane Khelif files legal complaint for harassment over gender controversy

Esquire wrote a list of the 75 best sci-fi books of all time – all such lists are by nature subjective, but I think they do a fairly good job of arguing why each is worth reading.

As a sci-fi reader, who has been bad at reading much the last few years, I love such lists. It allows me to see what I have missed, and to agree or disagree with the choices.

I have copied the list below, starting with number 75 moving towards 1. I will bold the books I have read, mark books I already wanted to read with italics. Books I own will be marked with a star *. I will add occasional remarks as well.

75 The Echo wife – Sarah Gailey
74 The calculating stars – Mary Robinette Kowal *
73 Redshirts – John Scalzi *
72 Beautyland – Marie-Helene Bertino
71 The ten percent thief – Lavanya Lakshminarayan
70 Midnight robber – Nalo Hopkinson
69 Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson *
68 Star Maker – Olaf Stapledon
67 Contact – Carl Sagan
66 Under the skin – Michael Faber
65 Way station – Clifford D Simak *
64 Sea of rust – C Robert Cargill
63 What mad universe – Fredric Brown – I have read his fantastic Martians, Go Home! and his haunting short story “With Folded Hands”, both of which leads me to want to read anything he has written.
62 The book of phoenix – Nnedi Okorafor
61 Semiosis – Sue Burke
60 Excession – Iain M Banks
59 The Claw of the conciliator – Gene Wolfe * – Dark and complex, but certainly worthy on being on the list.
58 Lord of light – Roger Zelazny * – A masterpiece by a master of science fiction. I have in the past heard of Zelazny that is is probably more read by sci-fi authors than by the general sci-fi audience. If that is true, it is a pity.
57 This is how you lose the time war – Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone * – I am actually currently reading this. For me it is interesting, but a bit of a slog.
56 The Resisters – Gish Jen
55 Rosewater – Tade Thompson
54 Children of time – Adrian Tchaikovsky
53 Solaris – Stanislaw Lem
52 A Clockwork orange – Anthony Burgess
51 The Moon is a harsh mistress – Robert Heinlein *
50 A Wrinkle in Time – Madeline L’Engle – A much beloved classic which I didn’t think much off. It is one of those books that probably blows you away if you read it at the right age, but if you read it when you are older, is heavy handed, and is of dubious morality.
49 The Time Machine – HG Wells
48 The Body Scout – Lincoln Michael
47 An unkindness of ghosts – Rivers Solomon
46 The mountain in the sea – Ray Nayler
45 Neuromancer – William Gibson *
44 The stars my destination – Alfred Bester
43 The sparrow – Maria Doria Russell
42 The Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy – Douglas Adams * – I have reread this book more times than I can count.
41 A Canticle for Leibowitz – Walter M Miller Jr * – Read it as both the brilliant short story, and the novel, which was a lesser work, in my opinion.
40 Project Hail Mary – Andy Weir
39 Zone one – Colson Whitehead – I didn’t know about this book before, but after reading the description I definitely want to pick it up.
38 The long way to a small angry planet – Becky Chambers
37 Engine Summer – John Crowley
36 The Children of Men – PD James
35 Radiance – Catherynne Valente
34 The City & The City – China Mieville *
33 A memory called empire – Arkady Martine *
32 Ancillary Justice – Ann Leckie *
31 The Stand – Stephen King
30 In Ascension – Martin MacInnes
29 Dhalgren – Samuel R Delany *
28 The Forever War – Joe Haldeman *
27 1Q84 – Haruki Murakami
26 Future home of a living god – Louise Erdrich
25 Ammonite – Nicola Griffith
24 Annihilation – Jeff Vandermeer *
23 Oryx and Crake – Margaret Atwood *
22 Hyperion – Dan Simmons * – I got the book long before Dan Simmons turned out to be such rightwinged asshole. I plan on reding the book one day, but I won’t buy more of his work.
21 Red Mars – Kim Stanley Robinson *
20 Shikasta – Doris Lessing
19 The Sirens of Titan – Kurt Vonnegut
18 Roadside Picnic – Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
17 Childhood’s End – Arthur C Clarke
16 The Complete Robot – Isaac Asimov – I find these books rather dated
15 How to live safely in a science fictional universe – Charles Yu
14 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley – This one has been on my to-read list for longer than I care to admit.
13 The Employees – Olga Ravn – A, for me, new Danish author that I hear really great stuff about
12 1984 – George Orwell *
11 The Three-Body Problem – Cixin Liu *
10 Do Androids dream of electric sheep? – Philip K Dick
9 Station Eleven – Emily St John Mandel
8 Exhalation – Ted Chiang
7 Never let me go – Kazuo Ishiguro
6 The Left Hand of Darkness – Ursula K Le Guin * – I am unsure if I have read it in my youth
5 Kindred – Octavia Butler *
4 The Fifth Season – NK Jemisin *
3 The Martian Chronicles – Ray Bradbury *
2 Dune – Frank Herbert *
1 Frankenstein – Mary Shelly *

There are a lot of new books for me on the list, and I will definitely check most of them out and some stage.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/kriswager/2024/07/28/796/

Consequences, Vietnam edition

It often seems that rich people can break the law with no consequences, but once in a while, you come across a story where this isn’t the case.

Vietnam sentences real estate tycoon Truong My Lan to death in its largest-ever fraud case

Real estate tycoon Truong My Lan was sentenced Thursday to death by a court in Ho Chi Minh City in southern Vietnam in the country’s largest financial fraud case ever, state media Vietnam Net said.

I am against the Death penalty, and I think it cannot be defended in any case, least of all an economic case, but it is hard to overstate how large this case is

The 67-year-old chair of the real estate company Van Thinh Phat was formally charged with fraud amounting to $12.5 billion — nearly 3% of the country’s 2022 GDP.

Lan illegally controlled Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank between 2012 and 2022 and allowed 2,500 loans that resulted in losses of $27 billion to the bank, reported state media VnExpress. The court asked her to compensate the bank $26.9 million.

Despite mitigating circumstances — this was a first-time offense and Lan participated in charity activities — the court attributed its harsh sentence to the seriousness of the case, saying Lan was at the helm of an orchestrated and sophisticated criminal enterprise that had serious consequences with no possibility of the money being recovered, VnExpress said.

When your fraud can be measured as a percentage of the country’s GDP, you have done some serious fraud, and it will effect a lot of people, either directly or indirectly

Her actions “not only violate the property management rights of individuals and organizations but also push SCB (Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank) into a state of special control; eroding people’s trust in the leadership of the Party and State,” VnExpress quoted the judgement as saying.

I don’t care for a second if someone’s action lead people to loose trust in the leadership of Party and State, but the fraud also led to a more serious type of lack of trust

Analysts said the scale of the scam raised questions about whether other banks or businesses had similarly erred, dampening Vietnam’s economic outlook and making foreign investors jittery at a time when Vietnam has been trying to position itself as the ideal home for businesses trying to pivot their supply chains away from China.

The real estate sector in Vietnam has been hit particularly hard. An estimated 1,300 property firms withdrew from the market in 2023, developers have been offering discounts and gold as gifts to attract buyers, and despite rents for mixed-use properties known in Southeast Asia as shophouses falling by a third in Ho Chi Minh City, many in the city center are still empty, according to state media.

I think few of us will cry for the rich factory owners and property tycoons who are loosing money, but underneath them, are a lot of everyday Vietnamese whose job opportunities disappeared because of the foreign investment staying away.

This is why supplements need to be regulated as well

It is a common problem around the world that supplements are not regulated as heavily as medicine and food in general, which causes some serious problems from time to time. Here is the latest example from Japan:

5 dead, 114 hospitalized from recalled Japanese health supplements

In the week since a line of Japanese health supplements began being recalled, five people have died and more than 100 people were hospitalized as of Friday.

Osaka-based Kobayashi Pharmaceutical Co came under fire for not going public quickly with problems known internally as early as January. The first public announcement came March 22.

Company officials said 114 people were being treated in hospitals after taking products, including Benikoji Choleste Help meant to lower cholesterol, that contain an ingredient called benikoji, a red species of mold. Earlier in the week, the number of deaths stood at two people.

Some people developed kidney problems after taking the supplements, but the exact cause was still under investigation in cooperation with government laboratories, according to the manufacturer.

…

The company’s products have been recalled — as have dozens of other products that contain benikoji, including miso paste, crackers and a vinegar dressing. Japan’s health ministry put up a list on its official site of all the recalled products, including some that use benikoji for food coloring.

The ministry warned the deaths could keep growing. The supplements could be bought at drug stores without a prescription from a doctor, and some may have been purchased or exported before the recall, including by tourists who may not be aware of the health risks.

Kobayashi Pharmaceutical had been selling benikoji products for years, with a million packages sold over the past three fiscal years, but a problem crept up with the supplements produced in 2023. Kobayashi Pharmaceutical said it produced 18.5 tons of benikoji last year.

Some analysts blame the recent deregulation initiatives, which simplified and sped up approval for health products to spur economic growth.

Note the last line – there has been deregulation initiatives for “health products”. I hope they are rolled back quickly, or this will not be the last time something like this happens in Japan.

The Brony fandom

I came across this interesting video about the My Little Pony fandom (the Bronys). It is by Jenny Nicholson, who has a great long-form YouTube channel, and who was an active part of the Brony fandom, so she is a great guide.

It is not a fandom I know much about, so this was a fascinating introduction to me. What I appreciated is that Jenny Nicholson is non-judgmental but is also not afraid of pointing out negative things about the fandom.

The 2023 Hugo debacle

Most people who don’t follow science fiction fandoms and literature are probably not aware of the latest blowup related to the Hugos – one of the premier awards in the science fiction genre.

The Hugo Awards are handed out at the Worldcon, and the 2023 Worldcon was held in January in Chengdu, China. Holding a convention like Worldcon in an undemocratic country is always a bit controversial, and this years Worldcon shows why this is the case, and why organisations should avoid making conferences and conventions such places. NY Times reports on the story.

Some Authors Were Left Out of Awards Held in China. Leaked Emails Show Why

The Hugo Awards, a major literary prize for science fiction, have been engulfed in controversy over revelations that some writers may have been excluded based on their perceived criticism of China or the Chinese government.

Suspicions in the science fiction community have been building for weeks that something was amiss with last year’s awards, which rotate to a different city each year, and in 2023 were hosted in Chengdu, China. Now, newly released emails show that the awards were likely manipulated because of political concerns.

What happened was that some works were marked as not edible for an award, including the critically acclaimed Babel by R.F. Kuang and the successful Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao. This obviously raised the concern that it “was a matter of undesirability rather than ineligibility” as Kuang put it on Instagram.

This was confirmed when emails were leaked

The exclusion of popular authors of Chinese descent led to speculation that the awards’ administrators had weeded out those whose political views might prove controversial in China. Those suspicions were confirmed recently, when emails leaked by Diane Lacey, a member of last year’s Hugo administration team, were published in a report by Chris M. Barkley, a science fiction fan and journalist, and Jason Sanford, a journalist and science fiction writer.

The email correspondence published in the report showed that Dave McCarty, one of the Hugo administrators, had advised other members to vet the finalists and “highlight anything of a sensitive political nature” in China, including works that focused “on China, Taiwan, Tibet or other topics that may be an issue in China.” Such works, he added, might not be safe to put on the ballot.

“This really just cut to the core of the awards,” Sanford said. “For a genre that believes so deeply in free speech to willingly take part in doing research on political issues of awards finalists, knowing that it’s going to be used to eliminate some of those finalists, it’s outrageous.”

In an interview with The Times, Lacey confirmed that she had provided the emails, and said that she shared them publicly because she regretted her actions, and wanted to ensure that the Hugos would not be tainted again in the future. “I felt very guilty about what I did and wanted to be able to look myself in the mirror again,” she said.

It is hardly news that there is controversy around the Hugo awards – from right-winged attempts on trying to overcome “wokeness” to more or less direct accusations of writers trying to buy votes, but this is the first time where the Hugos have been affected by the wishes of a government. This is a new low for the Hugos, which by many is considered the most democratic of the science fiction awards.

Each Worldcon stands on its own, so the actions of this Worldcon should not reflect badly on the next one, which is taking place in Glasgow. Even so, the upcoming organizers of the Worldcon has apologized, and has promised that there will be transparency about the administration of the awards.

My hope is that people will continue supporting the Worldcons, but also that they won’t be in undemocratic countries in the future. Let this one dark spot be the catalyst to make sure that cons in the future happens in democracies.

Speaking of spices and science

Bharat B. Aggarwal was until recently the leading expert in the curative effects of curcumin.

Bharat B. Aggarwal is an Indian-American biochemist who worked at MD Anderson Cancer Center from 1989 to 2015. His research focused on potential anti-cancer effects and therapeutic applications of herbs and spices. Aggarwal was particularly drawn to curcumin, a non-toxic compound found in turmeric that has long been staple in Ayurvedic systems of medicine. He authored more than 120 articles about the compound from 1994 to 2020. These articles reported that curcumin had therapeutic potential for a variety of diseases, including various cancers, Alzheimer’s disease and, more recently, COVID-19. In his 2011 book Healing Spices: How to Use 50 Everyday and Exotic Spices to Boost Health and Beat Disease, Aggarwal recommends “taking a daily 500 mg curcumin supplement for general health”.

The above quote is from The King of Curcumin: a case study in the consequences of large-scale research fraud

As the title says, it turned out that Aggarwal committed research fraud

MD Anderson Cancer Center initially appeared to be fully on board with Aggarwal’s work. At one point, their website’s FAQ page recommended visitors buy curcumin wholesale from a company for which Aggarwal was a paid speaker (see “Spice Healer”, Scientific American). However, in 2012 (following observations of image manipulation raised by pseudonymous sleuth Juuichi Jigen), MD Anderson Cancer Center launched a research fraud probe against Aggarwal which eventually led to 30 of Aggarwal’s articles being retracted. Only some of these studies were about curcumin specifically, but most concerned similar natural products.

Retractions rarely number this high for a single author; according to the Retraction Watch leaderboard, only 26 other people have authored this many retracted studies. Aggarwal’s retracted articles feature dozens of instances of spliced Western blots and duplicated images, as well as several instances where mice were implanted with tumors exceeding volumes considered ethical. PubPeer commenters have noted irregularities in many publications beyond the 30 that have already been retracted. Aggarwal retired from M.D. Anderson in 2015, but has continued to author articles and appear at conferences.

I predict that more articles will be retracted in the future – not only because of Aggarwal being the author, but also because the field of study seems to be a magnet for frauds

Despite curcumin’s apparent lack of therapeutic promise, the volume of research produced on curcumin grows each year.  More than 2,000 studies involving the compound are published annually. Many of these studies bear signs of fraud and involvement of paper mills. As of 2020, the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) has spent more than 150 million USD funding projects related to curcumin. Funding increased drastically in the 2007 fiscal year, shortly after Aggarwal began to publish in earnest about the compound and the same year he declared curcumin “the Indian solid gold”.

A obvious reason for this is the big money connected to this sort of fraudulent research

This proliferation of research on curcumin has fueled its popularity as a dietary supplement. Grand View Research estimated the global market for curcumin as a pharmaceutical to be around 30 million USD in 2020. Manufacturers are routinely scolded by the United States Food and Drug Administration for making false claims about the health effects of these supplements.