I am in no way responsible, however I am highly amused:
A text conversation about the most important issues of the day.
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I am in no way responsible, however I am highly amused:
A text conversation about the most important issues of the day.
Sorry if this is causing a problem for you, but there may be a problem with comments failing to appear after being submitted. Not sure what the problem is or how long it will last. More updates as events warrant.
UPDATE: Problem deciphered, appropriate measures in place. No one should have any further concerns.
A city councilor running in 3rd place in the New Mexico first congressional district has created a commercial that actually sounds like someone upset about the extravagant gun violence in the United States. The first words Pat Davis speaks in his new ad?
Fuck the NRA.
He goes on to criticize the anti-regulation/anti-legislation position of the NRA on gun ownership, possession and use as being one cause of “dead children”.
Pro-lifers have always been odd to me. On the one hand, I find it difficult to believe that they see medical abortion as anything remotely comparable to murder or even euthanasia. After all, think about what that would really mean. Wouldn’t the people who believe that shun birthdays as points for celebration in favor of conception days? Wouldn’t they have funerals after miscarriages? Why do they put off naming a child until it’s born? And yet we don’t see that – or at least we don’t see that from even 10% of the people who claim they’re pro-life.
On the other hand, if they aren’t parroting something that only vaguely represents a tribal position rather than a genuine and specific personal belief, then the consistent thing to do really is to chain oneself to the doors of clinics, to hold die-ins at the Capitol Building, and generally use every non-violent means possible to preserve life. Do they do that? No. The extremists of the “pro-life” movement bomb clinics, throw acid, and commit murder. While I can understand the rationale behind killing one to save two (or more), it’s not a rationale that holds all life to be sacred, as they claim to do.
But as hard as it is to come to grips with the behavior of the self-named “pro-life movement”, the gun control movement is equally weird. I do believe the laxity of US gun laws results in deaths that would not otherwise have occurred. So why am I not doing everything I can to stop gun sales? Part of it is explained by relevant differences between the situation: if you believe abortion is murder, then you know where and when murders are going to be carried out. That’s not the same as gun control advocates who believe that lax gun laws are legislative negligence destined to result in deaths at various unknown times in various unknown places. But it’s still a little weird that there seems to be so little urgency in the rhetoric of proponents of stricter monitoring of guns sold and stricter regulation of what guns can be sold and to whom.
That’s why I welcome this ad. Yes, it may have taken a 3rd place primary candidate to make the ad, but the ad is positively drenched in an honest embrace of what it means to say that legislative gun control negligence is causing death.
Watch it for yourself, and remember to vote, wherever you live.
I generally don’t cover trans* celebrities, even those i respect and who are doing a lot of positive work in their communities and elsewhere. Mostly because I’m not really interested in covering any celebrities, they get enough attention. On the other hand, politicians are celebrities of a sort, as are widely-read print journalists and commentators who frequently appear on TV, and I cover those folks. But if you look, most of that is when someone does something that needs criticism. That sort of coverage I can’t set aside merely because the person needing criticism is trans*. Today that means discussing Caitlyn Jenner.
Some cops in Virginia just made life harder for a huge number of other cops … by doing the right thing. WTVR has an account up of a Black woman’s interaction with an unidentified Brunswick County Sheriff’s deputy. It seems the woman, Dawn Hilton-Williams, created a facebook post with a video describing the encounter, and characterizing it as a lynching.
“I was just bullied by a racist cop, who threatened to pull me out of the car,” said Hilton-Williams in the 11-minute long Facebook video.
“This is where we got lynched. This is where we got lynched, even in today’s day.”
She goes on to explain that the cop threatened to drag her out of the car, not to kill her, but that in these times, if you’re black, when you get dragged out of a car anything might happen next:
… you get shot or you get Tased, or you get Sandra Blanded
But the cops, perhaps not realizing the consequences, immediately released the body cam video of the traffic stop to defend themselves against charges of racism. Sheriff Brian Roberts explained the thinking behind releasing the video:
So someone from the UK asked me a question about postmodernism’s relationship to metaethics. I probed a little more deeply, and the question ultimately turned on the assertion that postmodernism denies the existence of truth, including moral truth. When that was probed, it turned out that this person had been listening to reporting people had been doing lately on Aleksandr Dugin.
Right Wing Watch quotes Lou Dobbs educating Ed Rollins (both of FOX Business) on the constitution:
LOU DOBBS (HOST): It’s an obvious, overt attempt on the part of the special counsel to subvert the president of the United States. This is —
ED ROLLINS: But again —
DOBBS: it’s that simple. By the way, let me add to that. It is also clear that Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan are part of the conspiracy and the coordinated attack on this presidency because they say nothing. They stand silent in the face of a supra constitutional authority that is usurping the powers of the presidency.
So here’s a few questions for you, Dobbs: Has the special counsel nominated anyone to the cabinet? The federal judiciary? Has Mueller ordered the Joint Chiefs to send troops into combat? vetoed any bills passed by congress?
Please, tell me Mr. Dobbs: what powers of the presidency have been usurped? Because it’s looking an awful lot like the only constitutional powers that have been usurped are those listed in constitution of the FOXified States of America.
I swear I know more about the constitution of Australia than Dobbs knows about the constitution of the USA.
Maybe I’m just too dirty-minded to survive in modern society, but when I showed this headline to my best friend, she laughed herself silly as well. In all its glory, I give you
French President in ‘delicious’ faux pas on tour Down Under
Yes. Well. A-hem. Perhaps you can all tell me if I’m not the only one who thought this headline was more worthwhile than the article that accompanied it.
PZ has another post up on the failures of Jordan Peterson. It points out the irony of skeptics embracing Peterson when Peterson himself does skepticism so damn badly. As a major exemplar, PZ calls out Peterson’s embrace of Freudianism. Among other observations, he expresses surprise that Peterson, a psychologist, would embrace Freud long after he’s been discredited. Others in the comments provide other observations on just how rare it is to teach much Freud in university psychology programs.
I don’t doubt the truth of those observations, but Freud is nonetheless highly relevant today, and his relevance to today very likely explains exactly why Peterson embraces the man’s ideas.
One of the less appreciated aspects of rape culture is how rapists are demonized, literally portrayed as animals, violently and obviously deranged, or otherwise clearly outside the human norm.
Part of this is addressed through push back against the “stranger in the bushes” myth. But even where we have been successful in raising awareness that
there is still a lingering myth that these rapists are somehow disguised demons, but demonic nonetheless. There is massive resistance to the idea that there’s a continuum of violation, instead insisting that, for instance, when Rebecca Watson asked repeatedly during a conference – even during her plenary address – not to be propositioned as she wasn’t at the conference for sex, someone ignoring that “no” and propositioning her anyway is completely and utterly different from someone who ignores a “no” to sex.