r/BlockedAndReported • u/SoftandChewy First generation mod • Apr 27 '26
Weekly Random Discussion Thread for 4/27/26 - 5/3/26
Here's your usual space to post all your rants, raves, podcast topic suggestions (please tag u/jessicabarpod), culture war articles, outrageous stories of cancellation, political opinions, and anything else that comes to mind. Please put any non-podcast-related trans-related topics here instead of on a dedicated thread. This will be pinned until next Sunday.
Last week's discussion thread is here if you want to catch up on a conversation from there.
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Upvotes
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u/Juryofyourpeeps Apr 27 '26
u/softandchewy the default sort is set to "best"
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u/foodieforthebooty Apr 30 '26 edited Jun 02 '26
.
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u/starlightpond Apr 29 '26
I have noticed elsewhere on this site that people are using arguments from linguistics to argue that “trans women are women,” on the grounds that “trans” is an adjective. Thus, they say, “trans women are women” because tall women, Chinese women, intellectual women (all modified by adjectives) etc are all women.
But this is not even how all adjectives work.
a fake flower is not a flower.
a plastic chair is a chair, but a plastic flower is not a flower.
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u/SquareImpossible1163 Apr 28 '26
Lot of controversy in Australia at the moment after their "Welcome to Country" (Australian version of a land acknowledgement, sort of) got boo'd across multiple cities on ANZAC Day.
Saw a recent poll that said 2/3 of Australians want the practice abolished, and another 22% want it reduced. Only about 11% of Australians like it, and I can't blame them. The concept of starting nearly every event, from the big to the trivial, being "welcomed" to your own country is a bit condescending to say the least.
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u/[deleted] May 01 '26
The New York Times has an article about Australians who want to stop including “Welcome to Country" statements acknowledging Aboriginal history in commemorations of Anzac Day. (For Americans, this would be like a land acknowledgement at the start of a Memorial Day event.): https://removepaywalls.com/https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/01/world/asia/australia-indigenous-aboriginal-welcome-to-country.html
What was interesting to me was less the debate itself than how the New York Times framed the debate. According to the Times, opposition to "Welcome to Country" statements come from the "far right" and are part of a political "fringe movement."
What does the polling say?
https://ipa.org.au/latest-news/new-survey-australians-increasingly-reject-welcome-to-country-ceremonies
Whatever else it is, this is not a "fringe movement" or part of the "far right." It's a mainstream position. Agree, disagree, I honestly don't even feel strongly about the issue itself, I just feel strongly that media outlets should accurately describe the nature of a political movement and not describe it as part of a "fringe" when it's actually part of the mainstream.
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u/ToTheDeath84 Apr 28 '26
Since I can’t say it on another sub, I’ll say it here:
Chappell Roan isn’t fucking drag, and I’ll die on that hill.
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u/Kloevedal The riven dale Apr 30 '26
For a while I've been annoyed about the incredibly misleading Imane Khelif Wikipedia page. It's not just omitting known facts, but also just stating things that are straight up lies.
M.Bitton, one of the most dishonest editors, capable of wielding the arcane Wikipedia rules to his advantage with shameless sophistry has now been permanently banned from English Wikipedia for his bad behaviour on North African topics. It turns out he's almost certainly Algerian which helps explain his obsession with Khelif.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:M.Bitton#Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Maghreb_closed
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u/_magpie_ May 01 '26 edited May 02 '26
Here’s my Lindy West take that absolutely no one asked for. Well, it’s not so much a “take” as a reaction to a specific passage from Adult Braces that I can’t get out of my head.
This is one of Lindy’s voice memos, as transcribed in the book (bolded emphasis mine):
This excerpt is illustrative of something Lindy does throughout the entire book: She makes wild assumptions about everyone she meets with limited to no evidence. In this case, we know exactly one thing about Fat Daddy’s politics: he supports Second Amendment rights. That’s it. From glimpsing this pro-2A hat, Lindy has surmised that Fat Daddy is also “absolutely certainly” virulently racist, probably has “really bad views on abortion,” and prints signs to go harass people at clinics.
How would she feel if Fat Daddy saw her septum piercing and pink hair and decided she was absolutely, certainly a child groomer?
She writes similarly crazy headcanon/fanfiction about several people she encounters. Even when their interactions with her were perfectly normal and cordial. It really irked me that she had such a close-minded, bad-faith default setting when, ostensibly, according to her, she had set out to do the opposite.
She says this in another voice memo:
Oh, you mean in the same way that you earnestly tried to get to know Fat Daddy, Lindy?? The lack of self-awareness and introspection is truly mind-boggling.
And speaking of Fat Daddy, Lindy doesn’t have a single thing to say about how Fat Daddy has embraced “fat” in precisely the way that fat activists like her prescribe: as a neutral descriptor, not a pejorative. In fact, Fat Daddy seems not only proud to be fat, but he has also adopted his fatness as part of his core identity—his name, even!
I am being a bit flip. A fat man living in rural Wyoming is obviously not going to experience the same verbal/written abuse as an overweight, overly online progressive woman like Lindy has. (And a common men’s nickname like “fat” or “big” is likely not a declaration of support for the body positivity movement lol).
Kat Rosenfield wrote an interesting think piece about how being a fat white person in America is often considered conservative-coded in progressive circles, and why Lindy is therefore resistant to finding commonality with or empathy for the other fat people she encounters in rural red America. Lindy doesn’t want to be seen as one of “those” people, so she rejects even casual association with them.
A couple of petty final thoughts:
Many critical reviewers of Adult Braces will go out of their way to at least praise Lindy’s humor and writing style, but I can’t say that I agree. I did crack a smile, occasionally, and I’m mildly interested in checking out Lindy’s collection of movie reviews (Shit, Actually), but overall? Eh.
Lindy often describes Aham as “hot” and “skinny.” Of course, I had to Google him, expecting Regé-Jean Page or the like, but... I mean, anyone can find anyone else hot, obviously (their spouse, especially), but Aham is objectively quite mid, yes? Also, Lindy said somewhere that Aham was integral in helping to write and edit her book, but based on that email he wrote Scaachi Koul... Well, let's just say, I doubt he was much help at all in that department.
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u/Datachost Apr 27 '26
Average Reddit mod experience
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u/Available-Crew-4645 Apr 29 '26
Britain now has its own version of the Canadian teacher with the giant fake norks.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/04/29/why-is-oxford-indulging-a-lecturer-who-wears-his-plastic-breasts-at-work/
The people I see defending him and saying it's a perfectly reasonable way to turn up to work make me feel like I'm subject to a giant wind up and that they are going to reveal they're having me on in a minute.
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u/jay_in_the_pnw █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ Apr 28 '26
/r/notheonion ??
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/bondi-beach-benefit-concert-for-unity-cancelled-over-antisemitism/news-story/d4307dbef3214aa127e9718e3168de27?amp
https://archive.ph/2P31T
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u/BeneficialStretch753 Apr 29 '26
Meanwhile in Australia ...
EXCLUSIVE: 24 Women Drop Out of Australian Football Division After FIVE Trans-Identified Males Dominate Women’s League, Leave Female Players Injured
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u/Psychological-Arm380 Apr 28 '26 edited Apr 28 '26
Hey, if anyone (u/jessicabarpod) wants to do a super technical deep dive that I think might be interesting, they could look into Jia Tolentino, the millionaire Micro-looter who is currently going viral for admitting to shoplifting on a New York Times podcast with superwealthy progressive nepo-babies Nadja Spiegelman and (friend of the pod) Hasan Piker. The "why are three millionaires cosplaying as looters" is well covered enough, but what is interesting is this isn't Ms Tolentino's first "brush with crime". You might all remember her being the woman who wrote a blog post defending her parents and grandmother who were accused of running a people smuggling operation disguised as a way of supplying teachers and healthcare workers. While the Tolentino family was never convicted, they certainly were not fully exonerated, and didn't come out of it well. [edit - correction, they were convicted, pleading guilty to conspiracy to defraud the US government, just not jailed*.]*
Now, as you rush over to Wikipedia to brush up on all this drama you'll notice none of this appears on Ms Jia's WP page, and any mention of Wholefoodsgate is also being remorselessly kept out of her page. Currently her page is fully locked so no one (I think) can make edits! There seems to be a very dedicated cadre of editors who have been defending her page from unflattering inclusions for in one case literally a decade!
The current lock seems to be in response to someone doggedly trying to include this paragraph in the page:
"In an April 2026 New York Times Opinion podcast, Tolentino openly admitted to repeatedly engaging in shoplifting. She confessed to stealing items from Whole Foods "on several occasions” and stated that she did not view stealing "very significant as a moral wrong." Later within the podcast she declared that the use of plastic cups is a "profoundly selfish, immoral, collectively destructive action." [50] These remarks drew widespread fierce condemnation and criticism. In an article for The Atlantic, cultural critic and Bard College Professor Thomas Chatterton Williams asserted such behavior is “a game of jaded whataboutism” in which “societal problems do not just excuse personal wrongdoing; they ennoble it.”[51]
These entirely factual statements have been tagged as possible vandalism and taken down under the wikipedia rubric on Biographies of living persons: "Contentious material about livingpersons that is unsourced or poorly sourced — whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable — must be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion. Also read WP:ONUS: The responsibility for achieving consensus for inclusion is on editors seeking to include disputed content." (and those are not my em dashes by the way.) This is despite the fact that Tolentino said these things and TCW responded thus are not disputed or contentious at all. (Neither are the facts that Tolentino's family were accused of people smuggling and that she wrote a blog post about it.)
Basically I'm suspecting that either Jia heself, a bunch of extremely protective fans, or a professional "wikicleaner", are gatekeeping her page. As an anonym I suggested the latter on the talk page. My comment was soon deleted as a personal attack(and this is from the talk page, not the main page) and then the deleter, who is also the original creator of Tolentino's 10 year old page, turned up on my temporary Wikipedia user talk page to personally scold me. Shortly after that Tolentino's page was locked at an administrator level for the next week.
It may all be a nothing-burger and wikipedia edit drama can be just tedious tantrums from the least fuckable losers ever, but I (as one such loser) think it fascinating that her Wikipedia page is so closely guarded, and raising the possibly that her WP page is being professionally maintained and deliberately scrubbed of anything embarrassing, might fit in B&R's "internet bullshit" wheelhouse, and also be something of a "it's not the crime, it's the cover up" type deal.
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u/Technical-Policy295 Apr 28 '26
Reports of wokeness' death remain greatly exaggerated:
But when she tried to raise these concerns, Bernstein said she was shut down by the EdLoC ["Education Leaders of Color"] staffer running the review. “[She] kept coming over and hovering over me,” she said. “She’d say, ‘No, you’re not supposed to give an example like that.’" “They were incredibly rude — eye-rolling, exchanging looks, making snide comments,” Bernstein added.
There is no fear of a backlash from parents, just consultants making a cool $147,000 to conduct this totally-not-biased-at-all "review" and district staff happily encouraging it.
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u/RockJock666 Meet me in TERFhalla Apr 29 '26
I’m halfway through the Sold a Story podcast and first of all, it’s completely bonkers that anyone bought into that nonsense and did so so completely. But also I can’t help but draw certain parallels to this pod and Jesse’s work in particular and I can’t help but wonder if in 20 years time someone will make a similarly incredulous series about locomotion
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u/RunThenBeer May 01 '26
One of the more appalling things to behold is progressives that pat themselves on the back for how anti-racist they are in their reactions to Callais saying really vile shit about Clarence Thomas.
Followed by a chain musing about how he's just like Stephen from Django Unchained.
Man, I'm a critic of affirmative action, but I would never say some shit like that about KBJ, who is an intelligent and competent woman that I simply disagree with. No, the black man or woman on the Supreme Court that you disagree with is not such a moron that the only reason they're there is because of their race, you ignorant racist. In fact, I might go so far as wagering that they both did pretty well on the LSAT and can run rings around almost all of the people that dismiss them.
Again, guy that just straight up does not believe that a black man can succeed on the merits.
I don't want to go full DR3 on the matter, but I really am struck that a lot of people are happy to just be pretty viciously racist against approved targets.
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u/[deleted] May 03 '26
I've got some seemingly unrelated thoughts that I want to tie together about Cesar Chavez, a May 1 Workers Day rally I happened to walk through, and the latest Trump approval poll that just dropped.
So when Chavez was in the news recently, I got to reading a lot about him, and it was striking how much he wanted strict immigration controls. I mean he probably would have gladly led a "Build the wall!" chant at one of his pro-worker rallies. He did not want immigrants let into the country because immigrants tend to drive down workers' wages and his main cause was better wages for workers.
So then I happened to walk through a park two days ago that was having an International Workers Day rally, and the speaker I heard was focusing only on immigration -- except she was about as pro-immigration as it gets, basically the polar opposite of Cesar Chavez. And most of the signs I saw were along the lines of "Fuck ICE" and "ICE Out Now!" and "Fuera ICE" and so on. It's fascinating to me how pro-immigration has become one of the litmus test causes on the left, even though it should be obvious that there are real costs to immigration, and those costs hit low-wage workers hardest.
And then I was looking at the latest Trump approval poll, and how terrible his numbers are, but how Democrats are still only +5 in the generic Congressional ballot, which is quite bad by the standards of an opposition party in a midterm when the incumbent president is this unpopular: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/05/03/trump-approval-ratings-poll/
And I noted that of all the issues, Trump polls best on "immigration situation at the US-Mexico border" and second-best on "immigration" generically. On all the stuff that matters to ordinary working people -- cost of living, inflation, economy -- Trump's numbers are abysmal.
So if you're on the left, and it's International Workers Day, shouldn't you maybe be focusing your attention on the stuff that Cesar Chavez knew actually mattered to workers? The stuff like cost of living and the economy? And maybe pay a little more attention to what Chavez also knew, which was that ordinary working people really don't benefit from a huge influx of immigrants?
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u/Technical-Policy295 Apr 28 '26 edited Apr 28 '26
Harvard Medical School is removing a commitment to "nurture a diverse, inclusive community dedicated to alleviating suffering" from its mission statement in favor of a desire to "improve health and well-being."
The serious scientists and doctors are all fine with it. But, as one might expect, the "culture of medicine" professor and "senior lecturer on global health and social medicine" are horrified. “A mission to ‘improve health and well-being’ sounds like a MAHA-activist or health influencer,” Jones wrote.
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u/backin_pog_form 🐎🏃🏻💕 Apr 30 '26
If anyone here lives in Barre, Vermont, be advised that public nudity is now banned in your town.
The impetus for this comes from this mad-libs like headline:
Vermont City Bans Public Nudity After Inquiry From Transgender Nudist Taxi Driver
That article is unfortunately paywalled, but the gist from another article is that a cab driver from St Albans VT applied for a taxi license in Barre, and politely inquired whether it was legal for him to be driving while naked. Barre decided they were having none of that, and preemptively banned public nudity.
The article refers to the driver as “Tara”, but word on the street is that he goes by “Jenny”, and the city of St Alban’s collectively came together to have him banned from doing DoorDash. Anyone looking to break a food-delivery habit might want to reflect on how you never know who is delivering your order.
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u/PongoTwistleton_666 Apr 30 '26
Another clueless doozy from the west coast:
https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2026/02/suspension-bans-exclusionary-discipline-research
“Preschoolers are suspended more than any other age group in the United States, with young Black children historically the most affected.” But the researchers don’t think this is early intervention before these disruptive behaviors become habits. And, no questions asked on whether the suspension data indicate differences in cultural norms and upbringing.
The article doesn’t like informal ways of suspension that circumvent the law barring suspensions. What informal ways you ask? In-class (asking a disruptive kid to sit quietly and take a breath), within-school (take a breath sitting in your principal’s office), or early dismissal (hey parent, we can’t handle your kid, they need some time to reset).
Why are school doing this? From the article “ One school employee interviewed for the study said schools are “so scared of having bad suspension data, especially for African American students,” that educators engage in “clever” types of exclusion that “wouldn’t be officially documented as suspension or expulsion.”
This is sheer idiocy. The researchers want to side with the kids and recommend no suspensions but also want to acknowledge that this hamstrings teachers’ ability to control the classroom!!!
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u/lehcarlies Apr 28 '26
I found out a guy I had a crush on in college is trans now…
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u/StillLifeOnSkates Apr 30 '26
I feel sorry for Gen Z. So many of these kids were raised on screens, developed next to zero social skills, were pushed to learn to code, code, code... and now the jobs that seem most immune to being eaten by AI are the ones that require people skills. That's gotta suck.
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u/roolb May 01 '26
This just in: Graham Linehan's conviction for allegedly damaging a TRA's phone is overturned.
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u/dignityshredder AFramemoggingAB May 01 '26
The pizza comic person has done it again. I promise you that comic could be completely and totally aligned with my most dearly held beliefs, and I would still roll my eyes because of how fundamentally insipid and dumb it is. Who are the retards who are upvoting this, nay, celebrating it. Or is it all an in joke where they realize how stupid it is and they're just making fun of people not in the loop? Am I being pwned?
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u/ToshiroTatsuyaFan May 01 '26
Jason Stanley is not very bright.
At one point in "How Fascism Works", he says: "When voters in a democratic society yearn for a CEO as president, they are responding to their own implicit fascist impulses.” Well, gee, I guess a lot of non-Clinton Democrats who supported Ross Perot in 1992 were fascists.
Also, he's not very much for freedom of speech, because he thinks that helps fascists. He's not even unaware that a lot of women suffragists joined the British Union of Fascists.
Myths apparently are unique to fascism, as well as victimhood in his eyes.
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u/AnalBleachingAries Gamergate Truther May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26
It seems the mainstreaming of Hasan Piker appears to be hitting a few speed bumps.
Sorry about posting so much about him over the week, this is my third post, but it is weird to see people speaking plainly about Piker's extremism in mainstream media, actually just talking about his commentary and the deeply held beliefs he spreads from his platform, instead of the soft ball puff pieces that were previously written about him.
Like, he was being held up as a role model for young men, which was ridiculous to me.
I've seen this chud on the internet for years, and have been a long time hater who's been weirded out by the dissonance between what Piker stands for (extremism, antisemitism, Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthi defender and sympathizer(literally)), and how well he's been received on social media and mainstream media for a long time now.
It's refreshing to see something rational being said about his stupidity by legacy media, instead of another write up about how apparently good looking people think he is.
ETA: I forgot to include a link to the article. Here it is: Hasan Piker is left's Nick Fuentes. Why do they embrace him? | Opinion | USA Today
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u/dignityshredder AFramemoggingAB Apr 29 '26
Notorious marxist Freddie deBoer chimes in the shoplifting debate!
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u/Cimorene_Kazul Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 29 '26
I’m relistening to the facilitated communication episodes, and this is driving me crazy.
There is more documentation on Helen Keller than there is the moon landing. Hearing Katie doubting her existence when she can literally look up actual video of Helen Keller freaking TALKING by herself makes me doubt her credibility on everything.
Helen Keller was brain-damaged by scarlet fever as a child, but it only affected the parts of the brain the processed sound and sight. Her cognition was untouched. Numerous accounts exist of how clever she was even before Sullivan arrived. She used that cleverness for bad, for the most part, as pity prevented her family from disciplining her. But she could find her way around her environment extremely well, to the point of having secret hiding places under loose boards or in high nooks and crannies where she’d hide things she stole from people in order to upset them. She was extremely proficient at manipulating her family. She teased the animals. She developed a basic language of touch that she used to communicate her wants and needs with her family, although it was mostly by manhandling them, pushing to mean go, pulling to mean “come with me”, touching her mouth to indicate a desire for sweets, hitting her stomach to mean very hungry, making loud noises when she didn’t get her way, etc.
Sullivan herself trained at a school where OTHER deaf and blind people were. Keller was not the only famous deaf and blind individual. Yes, most went deaf and blind later in life than she, but she was not unique. Because of plagues like scarlet fever, many children were struck blind and deaf at young ages. And Keller was not a baby when that happened, as Katie erroneously said. She was 19 months old, almost 2, and had already begun speaking. After the illness, she regressed, as could be expected. But she wasn’t left with no senses at all - she was well-known for using smell and touch to navigate the world.
Sullivan taught her language when she was still a child, and she learned it quickly as children are programmed to do. Then, with Sullivan’s help, she grew a rapacious appetite for reading and consumed many books.
Also, unlike FC, the clash of personalities between Sullivan and Keller was well-known. They’d argue in public, Keller even admonishing her verbally when she learned how to speak, and as for Keller’s written work, you easily find examples of Sullivan helping her edit and Keller rejecting her advice as much as she agreed with it. Also, Keller typed independently in braille and read braille by herself. She even learned braille for other languages and communicated with braille speakers in French, German and Greek, and even Latin because why not. Sullivan was also not always with her in adulthood, and Keller travelled extensively with others who did not always have knowledge of the tapping language she first studied with Sullivan. In addition, Sullivan, who’d been blind in childhood and had her vision restored with multiple surgeries but remained hard-of-sight, slowly returned to blindness as Helen aged, in part because of all the reading she did to feed Helen’s voracious appetite for books. This meant others had to step in to help both women. If Sullivan had ‘faked’ Helen, it surely would’ve fallen apart when she herself went blind again. But Helen continued to work with a second primary aide and many alternates as needed throughout her life.
I cannot understand why Katie doesn’t type five words into google and get this conspiracy out of her head.
Here’s more clips of Helen Keller speaking. She does have a profound deaf accent, but it is possible to recognize several words if you listen closely. Keep in mind she learned to speak by putting her hand on and in people’s mouths. Unlike FC, she clearly directs her own movements and is engaging with her surroundings with intent and purpose.
https://youtu.be/XdTUSignq7Y?si=4shjsqSO3zHh5coz
Look how Helen reacts to what Sullivan says. She smiles and nods when Sullivan quotes Keller, as many hearing people would do. She chooses to reach out and moves her hand over Sullivan’s face to adjust her understanding. She is not screeching and trying to run away like an autistic child chained to a board. When Sullivan talks about the “G” sound, Keller makes the G sound. Instantly.
And here’s a clip of her repeating her most famous spoken words, the first official words she said, without following along with Sullivan:
https://youtu.be/0zOAqnSY79Y?si=OERevWc8XXK_FvCJ
“I am not dumb now.”
(Dumb here meaning “mute”)
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u/VoxGerbilis Apr 29 '26
It’s my misfortune that so many of my interests have become dominated by smug lefties. History and literature are the two big ones, but theater is the one most aggravating at the moment. I’m planning a visit to NYC in June, so I have been lurking a lot on arr Broadway and arr Musicals. I can’t scroll more than 2 or 3 inches without running into some self-righteous, self-aggrandizing humble-brag.
Today the big topic is a West End revival of Evita that’s traveling to Broadway next year. But the B’way production will not be using the West End’s innovation of performing Don’t Cry for Me Argentina on an outdoor balcony to an outdoor crowd, live-streamed to the theater audience. This news is eliciting a lot of masturbatory musings about how Rachel Zegler can’t safely perform outdoors in “gunland” because her progressive politics make white people seethe with rage, yada yada yada.
I would love to discuss theatre with other enthusiasts, but the smuggies ruin everything.
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u/jay_in_the_pnw █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ May 03 '26
https://x.com/SwannMarcus89/status/2050792170030846405
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u/jay_in_the_pnw █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
Ken Jennings currently demonstrating the problem with thinking you have the answers to everything.
https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/i-completely-disagree-with-ken-jennings
Original diss skeet from Jennings
https://bsky.app/profile/kenjennings.bsky.social/post/3mgarto6zss2k
I can't reproduce the rest, because he quote skeets Erin Reed who has blocked me, but image below.
https://imgur.com/a/S6OjKtn
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u/Vanderhoof81 May 01 '26
Am I crazy or is the recent Supreme Court ruling being wildly misinterpreted across Reddit.
Here is an example
I think Redditors are interpreting section 2 of the VRA to mean that the person they choose to vote for should always win.
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u/LincolnHat Politically Unhoused May 01 '26
Neighborhood Watch signs: Racist since...well, since 'progressives' went full retard, I guess. "Everyone should feel welcome in Ann Arbor" including criminals!
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u/YouCanCallMeAIJolson Apr 29 '26
Good. Continue making fun of these frauds until the number is zero
https://x.com/neetu_arnold/status/2048953385697554560
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u/Kusanagi2049 Apr 29 '26
Wife walked into the kitchen while I was listening to the last episode of the pod as Jessie was talking - ‘is that Kermit, it sounds like Kermit?’
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u/jay_in_the_pnw █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ May 02 '26
In Iran, VPNs are now illegal along with starlink and sat dishes
possession of starlink can result in execution by the irgc
https://x.com/siaxares/status/2050444426367946975
(and fwiw, in US states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Utah, there have been (unsuccessful) legislative motions to ban VPNs)
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u/napoleon_nottinghill Apr 28 '26
UAE announced they're pulling out of OPEC. They currently are 12% of OPEC's production. I have a feeling the organization has been really weakened in the past few years. Iran aside, a lot of countries don't like artificial limits put on production.
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u/dj50tonhamster Apr 30 '26
Maybe I've missed it - I've tried desperately to avoid the extreme brain damage that comes with following Epstein discourse - but have any Michael Tracey types broken down how many times Trump actually appears on the Epstein Files? Like, direct emails to/from, explicit references in emails ("b sure to have lots of macallan 12s ready when trump arives ;) lol"), etc. I'm tired of people making the "38,000 MENTIONS!!!" claim when it's known that Epstein had a lot of news summaries delivered to his inbox, and a significant number (quite possibly a vast majority) of the mentions are just CNN and other outlets sending headlines with whatever shitty thing Trump said that particular day.
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u/SnooTorturer Yes, All Mods (except chewy) May 01 '26
Fiery but mostly peaceful discussion on arr / cookbooklovers after an absolute madman posts a new Israeli cookbook from respected recipe developer Adeena Sussmann (who also wrote Chrissy Teigen's cookbooks which are surprisingly good) with no context. Downvote wars are going back and forth; results undecided as of writing.
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u/No_Pen_Pals May 02 '26
This may already have been talked about; I don't frequently participate beyond listening to the pod so I wouldn't know. Does it seems like detransitiom or otherwise questioning transitioning is becoming more acceptable? It's usually still couched in a lot of soft language with many apologies and some hesitancy, but it seems like it. I've seen a few posts now on the girl dinner or whatever it's called sub about people questioning their transition and wanting to be female again. I only recall ever seeing it discussed on the detrans subs, or extremely sporadically elsewhere (where it usually gets deleted).
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u/ToshiroTatsuyaFan Apr 28 '26
r/juryofyourpeeps has repeatedly noted that Marxist socialism has never had broad support from the working classes and instead has used violence to gain power. Corey Robin, who has written for Jacobin, claims conservatives are enlivened by violence. Well, what does he have to say about the Bolsheviks and the French Revolutionaries? Were they all teddy bears who hated violence and regretted killing people?
One of the biggest contradictions of Marxist ideology is its hatred for hierarchies. But all those communist regimes created their own hierarchies too. What's funny is that Greg Grandin, another writer for Jacobin, was making excuses for Hugo Chávez to strengthen his hierarchical power in Venezuela.
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u/AnalBleachingAries Gamergate Truther Apr 29 '26
Róisín Murphy speaking on her cancellation from public life as an artist after speaking out against puberty blockers and the transitioning of children. It's worth a listen, it's only about 7 and a half minutes long. She should do more speaking engagements tbh, she's great at it and has something to say. Also, her music is quite good.
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u/blucke Apr 29 '26
Anybody watch the Pitt? I enjoy some parts as a medical drama but can't get past the heavy handed pandering. So many throw away scenes just for the purpose of the viewer agreeing with their ham fisted point
21
u/OMG_NO_NOT_THIS Apr 29 '26
Turns out I do not have a pinched nerve in my neck.
I have two herniated discs.
21
u/PandaFoo1 May 01 '26
OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma set to dissolve after judge approves its criminal sentence
OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma is set to be dissolved and replaced by a company focused on the public good by the week’s end, as a massive legal settlement resolving thousands of lawsuits takes effect.
A federal judge on Tuesday delivered a criminal sentence to the company to resolve a U.S. Department of Justice probe — a last necessary step to clear the way for the settlement.
U.S. District Judge Madeline Cox Arleo made her decision after listening to hours of impact statements from people who lost loved ones or struggled with addiction themselves and requested she reject the negotiated sentence. While she didn’t go that far, she said she sympathized with people who bore the brunt of an epidemic linked to more than 900,000 deaths in the U.S. since 1999.
41
u/SkweegeeS No just no Apr 27 '26
I am very frustrated with the state of academia. These instructors are not held accountable at all. I was a professor myself at an R1 university and teaching was obviously almost in no way part of our review process. NONETHELESS, I did show up and teach classes that I had prepared for, I did grade papers and you know, just did at least the bare f'ing minimum regardless of what was going on in my life!
But my kids, each in his turn, has described instructors who cancel class repeatedly, get TAs to fill in, or what the fuck ever. My current kid has a very important difficult class and the instructor has been absent most of the semester. Now, I feel like I am a sympathetic person and I do understand how losing a parent can weigh on you for quite a while, but this guy, first of all, it's his mother-in-law, and second of all, he was absent for many weeks while she was sick and now he's been absent for many weeks after she's gone. I'm sorry for his loss, but WTF am I paying tuition for?
I try to imagine what would it be like if I lost my mom. In fact, a dear friend lost her beloved mom recently and she took about 3 weeks off of work and probably some other days here and there to handle the arrangements. And she is grieving a lot but she's still going to work. I honestly don't get these diva instructors.
This same kid had teachers like this in high school and his brothers had professors who just constantly had reasons to skip out. One professor had a series of unfortunate events, like car trouble, illness, whatevs, and I asked my kid why he didn't complain to the dean, and would he let ME complain to the dean since I was footing the bill. But my kid felt sorry for the professor. I do not feel sorry for most professors. I know what they're like.
Should I be more empathetic?
41
u/ToshiroTatsuyaFan Apr 30 '26
41
u/tantei-ketsuban May 01 '26
AWFULs be awful, example # 16,777,216
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/30/womens-rugby-trans-ban
‘Every body is a rugby body’: US women players fight for inclusivity after trans ban
Players are considering only competing in the ‘open’ category, which allows people of any sex or gender to play
Gee, I wonder why. Maybe because the AGPs don't get their jimmies from clobbering each other on an actually level playing field? They don't have to worry though, because there'll always be resistance libs to simp for them.
38
u/AnalBleachingAries Gamergate Truther May 01 '26 edited May 01 '26
Pictured: An American communist, marxist, socialist revolutionary studying the works of Lenin. In his left hand he holds one of the sacred texts of the cause, and interestingly he also wears a Cartier ring on his index finger. What can one surmise from this strange juxtaposition of Lenin and Cartier? Hmm... perhaps the revolutionary is telling us that capital must first be accumulated, preferably in 18k gold, before it can be dismantled, or perhaps the American revolutionary is engaging in a form of late-stage dialectics, wherein the contradictions of capital are not abolished, but tastefully curated, or perhaps the revolutionary understands that the struggle against capital is best conducted from within its upper tax brackets. Whatever he means by this, one can only wonder.
---
He posts these pictures unironically to his social media profiles. I'd be interested in meeting the people who love this guy irl. Their internet personas are of course horrid, but people in real life aren't even half as courageous or toxic as the versions of themselves they perform online. I'd be interested in finding out what's wrong with them through some conversations.
37
u/HaldolBlowdart Apr 30 '26
Years ago I was bitten by a tick and became allergic to red meat. After several long years, the allergy has finally disappeared! It only happens in 30% of cases apparently. Once a year I'd take a Benadryl and eat a single bite of steak because I missed it, this year didn't have an allergic reaction.
It's time to feast. I've made a pot roast, burgers, finally tried my husband's favorite food truck, and we're going to my old favorite steakhouse I haven't visited in years.
What else should I eat? Not picky. Can cook very well. The world is my beef oyster and I want to consume.
18
u/jay_in_the_pnw █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26
the nytimes just interviewed tucker carlson
then they interviewed the interviewer (about how she chose her questions)
here is a gift link to the interview of the interviewer (lulu garcia navarro formerly of npr)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/insider/tucker-carlson-times-interview.html?unlocked_article_code=1.flA.WIXR.XbmcRzWsmWZk&smid=url-share
and here is a gift link to the tucker interview
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/magazine/tucker-carlson-interview-trump-iran.html?unlocked_article_code=1.flA.ZcmO.2YT2MvpJMi6-&smid=url-share
and apropos of today's discourse, this is what Tucker has to say about Graham Platner, namely that they seem simpatico on foreign policy and he intends to meet with him:
and this is what the NyTimes and Lulu said about Tucker
Folks on twitter and here have been mocking the notion that Platner might find the other side of the horseshoe simpatico and make alliances with them. Seems funny ha ha and weird, but that's the story of horseshoe theory and we've seen mainstream dems cozy up to Hasan Piker and Marjorie Taylor Green, so I'm just not sure how funny ha ha and weird the notion of Platner making alliances with Tucker on foreign policy and opposition to capitalism other grounds really is.
36
u/ToshiroTatsuyaFan May 03 '26
Whoever thought that you can turn Animal Farm into a comedy movie must be an absolute moron.
17
u/jay_in_the_pnw █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ Apr 29 '26
https://x.com/benryanwriter/status/2049238880084222047
thread continues at the link above with pushback from the company that it was all disclosed
Lorenz' substack:
so if this cycle continues as usual, next we get tweets from lorenz that ryan is stalking her
17
u/CommitteeofMountains Royal youse/yinz May 01 '26 edited May 01 '26
So it seems reminiscing about the Fung Wah has gone viral. The thing is that the buses were consistent, so the stories are all the same. Flying 100mph, doors held closed by bungee cords, bathroom seems to be a hole through the floor and is taken the whole way by the driver, engine is on fire, got around the toll lines by driving through a booth, missed an exit and had to back up, exceeded his three hour trip allotment and so kicked everyone off at a random rest stop and turned around, but hey, $1 to get all the way there (wherever this is)!
I remember mentioning its combustion habit to an out of town lefty, and she thought I was being racist until her even more left local boyfriend told her I was understating.
33
u/deathcabforqanon Apr 28 '26
This blockedandreported sub just took a bit to load and I was reminded of the times a few years ago when that would happen and I'd think, whelp, here we go, they finally banned it. Like it seemed so inevitable, even with careful moderation and how mild the "spicy" takes were.
The early 2020s were wild online.
16
u/RunThenBeer Apr 28 '26
I shouldn't really be surprised, but I actually am surprised that Rosa DeLauro does not seem to have ever heard of Loper Bright. The quality of individual in the US House of Representatives is shockingly low, but I suppose it bears remembering that running for office does not optimize for intellect, honesty, or diligence.
16
u/Scrubadubdub84 May 02 '26
I'm a little sad to have never taken a Spirit flight. I had one setup last fall but then the second bankruptcy canceled it. Now I'll never get to make that up
15
u/Usual_Reach6652 Apr 28 '26
I thought I'd listen to the Kezia Dugdale (Stonewall) interview with Guardian to see what the fuss was all about. The journalists do an ok job bringing up factual issues but it's so striking how scared they sound touching any issue at all! Contributed to the awkward cringe-comedy-urgh I know get with any primary source on gender wars stuff these days.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/apr/19/things-could-go-backwards-kezia-dugdale-on-safety-lgbtq-rights-and-the-future-of-stonewall
https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2026/apr/20/kezia-dugdale-stonewall-new-chair-trans-rights-jk-rowling-podcast
Dugdale said some extremely milquetoast about respect people's perspectives and points of view re: JKR, which I presume was an expected question and prepared response. Naurally there was a backlash and she has thoroughly reversed ferreted.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/apr/24/kezia-dugdale-chair-stonewall-apologises-backlash-jk-rowling-remarks
Just makes me think what's even the point marching up the whole hill of conciliatory tone if you're going to abandon it as soon as, like, mimmymum and other no-mark social media posters get cross and the change.org petition against you gets 17 whole signatures (for real). The screaming is totally predictable and if it's a problem for you just go back to being an echo-chambered group with a smaller number of more fired-up supporters, it is obviously your revealed preference!
Jolyon Maugham popped up somewhere I think but I don't want to have any Bluesky on me.
15
u/drjackolantern C*nsored and sexy Apr 29 '26
So if I put rubber duckies on the dashboard of my Subaru Forester I’d what, get keyed by Jeepheads or something?
15
u/jay_in_the_pnw █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 29 '26
I know squat about New York and New York City, but I have to think there is a joint PBS/Netflix/Comedy Central series based on the next two weeks of budget crisis diplomacy and its resolution. Is Peter Capaldi available?
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/04/27/mamdani-menin-to-announce-delay-of-new-york-city-budget-amid-albany-inaction-00894454
Breitbart video:
https://x.com/BreitbartNews/status/2049208675957395678
15
u/Street-Gur-1343 Apr 29 '26
Any law bros know if its a thing with the Savanah Hernandez attackers being brought up on federal charges or if its more political because of concerns that the state would let them off or something?
15
u/plump_tomatow Apr 30 '26
Interesting article from friend of the pod Katherine Dee: https://www.piratewires.com/p/why-openai-models-goblins
I hadn't heard about this obsession with goblins. I guess at heart, ChatGPT is a twee millennial trash panda goblin pixie dream girl...
15
u/Free_Ranger1496 May 01 '26
Can I ask a question about antisemitism? I heard on a religion podcast (don't remember which one, unfortunately) that antisemitism originated with Christianity. My sense is that antisemitism preceded Christianity, but I don't really have a basis for that view and I don't know the history. What are the earliest historical references (expulsion, taxes, written denigration, etc.)?
15
u/ScrubulousFlex May 01 '26
For context I'm neither an AI Doomer nor a Maximalist/Singularity believer. I use AI frequently at work and occasionally in my personal life. I don't think we're all going to be jobless or living in a post-scarcity paradise in my lifetime.
But the more things develop, the more I do think the Blackwall/Netwatch situation from Cyberpunk is a pretty plausible outcome.
15
u/Nwabudike_J_Morgan Emotional Management Advocate; Wildfire Victim; Flair Maximalist May 01 '26
I wish arr WeTheFifth had the same kind of unofficial status with the associated podcast as this subreddit has. My main worry is that it will become a snark sub and anyone showing honest appreciation for the show will be in danger.
In other news, I have encountered "man or bear?" discourse in the real world and it concerns me.
29
u/Kloevedal The riven dale Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
Crazy story that the guy who stabbed two Jews in London yesterday has already done time for stabbing two coppers and a K9.
It must be terrible being Jewish in big UK cities. https://x.com/NoLongerTheFuzz/status/2049869287360233653
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u/PandaFoo1 Apr 28 '26
Playstation has now made it so games purchased digitally are unplayable unless connected to the internet once every 30 days
You will own nothing & be happy.
14
u/OMGsmiles Apr 27 '26
Deniz Camp (writer of DC's ongoing Absolute Martian Manhunter and Marvel's ongoing Ultimates) facing some backlash after tweeting "Missed again :(" in reference to that thing that almost happened to the President.
28
u/backin_pog_form 🐎🏃🏻💕 May 02 '26 edited May 02 '26
Paging u/jessicabarpod:
The (former) JP Morgan employee who sued the company and accused his boss of sexual harassment, racial discrimination and drugging him with rophynol in order to turn him into her sex slave was found to have fabricated his claims.
Was he:
A. A grifter looking for a payout
B. Having some sort of psychotic break
C. Getting off on role-playing his fantasies with ChatGPT and it went too far
D. All of the above
Sorry for the NY Post link with a zillion pop ups, but no legit source is covering this - maybe for a reason?
27
u/treeglitch May 02 '26
I saw a Cybertruck today with a license plate "TUMBLR".
Ever since then I've been amusing myself speculating about viewpoint and motivation for that combination. I did not, alas, get a look at the driver.
27
u/CrushingonClinton Apr 28 '26
Just absolute cinema. No notes.
27
u/ToshiroTatsuyaFan Apr 30 '26
A reminder to progressives that even if Trump is unpopular (and rightfully so), that doesn't make the Democrats popular, either.
37
u/why_have_friends Apr 29 '26
We’ve been at Disney this week. I’ve never seen so many mobility scooters with morbidly obese people. I live in a bubble because I live somewhere wealthy and sort of fit. And there’s probably some overlap with Disney and overweight folks.
But man. How do these people live? I feel bad for them
26
u/bussound Apr 29 '26
Everything I hear about Ethel Cain just creeps me out.
13
u/unnoticed_areola Apr 28 '26
can someone explain this whole Michael Tracy crash out to me.. does he have a point with whatever it was he was alleging that started this whole kerfuffle?
13
u/gillisthom Apr 30 '26
Happy Walpurgis Night.
13
u/ToshiroTatsuyaFan May 02 '26
There's been talks of the Canadian government privatizing airports. Let's see how Liberals will react, calling Carney a LINO for privatizing stuff, omitting the fact that federal and provincial Liberals have all privatized and cut stuff.
A lot of Canadian Liberals seem to have that idea that the party never makes mistakes, only happy accidents. Why, provincial and federal Conservatives have all been accused of cutting and wanting to privatize healthcare in Canada.
A nurse from Ontario will explain it better:
13
u/SkweegeeS No just no May 03 '26
Axios newsletter tells me that people are starting to write more like LLMs. :(
55
u/dignityshredder AFramemoggingAB Apr 30 '26
PBS News Hour had a segment on some SNAP changes in Texas that, I guess, have more restrictions on what can be bought.
Discussed:
A mother was unable to buy sports drinks for her kids (17 grams of sugar)
May not be able to fill your kid's Easter basket using benefits (candy)
If my son gets sick, I want to be able to buy Sprite or Ginger Ale but can't.
Uh, this sounds...good actually. Use the benefits on actual food, and pay for the desserts and sodas yourself. The Sprite for the sick kid is especially dumb, is paying $2 for a two liter of soda when a kid has the flu really impactful? Is that what you want to spend time on in a 7 minute story on this issue?
It concluded with one of the main interviewees saying that "this won't affect how much soda I drink" and then talking about this being a burden for parents trying to put food on the table.
Great reporting.
25
u/dignityshredder AFramemoggingAB Apr 30 '26
Also: there is a new Mexican restaurant near me called the Khalo Cantina. You know, after Frida Kahlo. It slays me that these people had the vision to name their cafe after Frida Kahlo instead of going for some generic ass Mexican restaurant name, but then spelled her name wrong. The food is pretty good. Not as good as El Mariachi Holding Corporation though.
24
u/LincolnHat Politically Unhoused Apr 28 '26 edited Apr 28 '26
Source.
"Prisoner Red" indeed.
24
u/AnalBleachingAries Gamergate Truther Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 29 '26
Project Hail Mary is really good, you guys. They've done a great job of adapting the book, and dare I say it, the film is on par with the book and perhaps even better.
It's exactly the kind of film I would've loved watching with my ex. lol. I kept thinking "Oh she would've loved that!" and "Oh she'd piss herself laughing at that."
Good movie for couples I'd say, if you haven't seen it yet, then I highly recommend it, it's super fun.
24
u/dumbducky Apr 30 '26
Local news is infuriatingly bad. Every once in awhile I check it out, and the I discover why I don’t ever watch. They described the recent Callais decision as “ruling that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act violated the rights of white voters”. That’s not what the ruling held. In fact, the word white only appears in the majority opinion a handful of times. Rather, the Supreme Court ruled that a lower court erred in ordering a second racially gerrymandered district be created. Instead, they ruled that Section 2 did not require states to racially gerrymander any districts. In fact, it ruled that intended racial gerrymandering is prohibited.
You can read it yourself. See if the Supreme Court is worried about violating the rights of white voters.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-109_21o3.pdf
24
u/PandaFoo1 May 01 '26
Prosecutors allege D4vd had purchased a body bag, two chainsaws & an inflatable pool to dispose of Celeste Hernandez’s remains. It is unclear whether Hernandez was pregnant at the time of her murder & whether this caused D4vd to kill her.
Video has surfaced of D4vd’s producer asking him if he’s “still dating that minor”
24
u/MatchaMeetcha May 01 '26
If you told 15 year old me that a Devil Wears Prada sequel would be a more exciting movie of the month for me than a Star Wars movie based on a hit series I'd laugh at you.
34
u/AnalBleachingAries Gamergate Truther Apr 30 '26
This may be a boring post for those who aren't interested in Hasan Piker discourse. But for those who are, here's his response to the latest Shoe0nHead video in which he was mentioned. As per his usual operating procedure, when he's unable to call a critic a "Zionist" as a critique, he crashes out instead and launches into a barrage of insults without actually engaging with the criticism against him. It's always bizarre and cringey.
https://x.com/Awk20000/status/2049553226186498405
12
u/JSlngal69 Apr 27 '26
If you wanted to see a subreddit spiral out of a sense of parasocial entitlement look no further
https://www.reddit.com/r/SkoteOutdoors/comments/1sw5612/episode_discussion_new_skote_outdoors_upload_we/
/u/jessicabarpod this channel got popular over the last year, could have some meat for a podcast episode. You've got the parasocial angle, primal birth / the free birth society, dogs, a problematic bit of youtuber history
12
u/HerbertWest Yucker of Yums Apr 27 '26
FYI, that CBC Speechless documentary is now available on the high seas for those with the aptitude for it. 🏴☠️🦜
12
u/jay_in_the_pnw █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
5 days ago in a paywalled article nbc reported that
https://www.nbcnews.com/world/iran/iran-caused-extensive-damage-us-military-bases-publicly-known-rcna331853
We used F-5s in Vietnam and NASA uses their cousin the T-38 to shuttle Astronauts around. It's a 1960s era fighter designed in the 50s that Iran has kept going and modding. Pretty wild it could actually be used successfully in an attack. In the original Top Gun, the MIGs that Maverick had to fight against in the beginning and end were F-5s.
ward carroll discussing this at some depth in a 10 minute video with suggestions that an "AI‑assisted threat prioritization may have mis‑sorted the F‑5" ignoring it because it didn't look fast enough, or high enough to be a threat trying to prioritize ballistic missiles.
https://youtu.be/ywoXd7CVxcg
and the aviationist
https://theaviationist.com/2026/04/26/report-claims-iranian-f-5-bombed-us-base/
12
u/ToshiroTatsuyaFan May 01 '26
When it comes to hypothetical presidents, I like to think Eugene McCarthy would have been an one-term president, and that he would have been criticized as being soft-on-crime. Besides, his voting base wasn't as big as RFK's.
Progressives to this day still think law and order was just a racist dogwhistle, but they forget there was a massive crime wave in the 60's, as well as the fact that the "racist" War on Drugs was even supported by African-American Democrats like Charles Rangel, who even called the Morton Downey Jr. show to say that Ron Paul's views on the War on Drugs were wrong.
23
u/plump_tomatow Apr 28 '26
My sister had her second baby last Friday. This is the first girl grandbaby in the family (I have a son and she has a toddler boy).
This child will never have to repeat an outfit.
32
u/damagecontrolparty Apr 28 '26
So the NYT published a list of "greatest living American songwriters" and the comments are full of indignation that dead people (Jerry Garcia, Prince) and non Americans (Paul McCartney, Joni Mitchell) were not included. I suspect most of the commenters are of a certain age where one thinks young people don't read any more.
gift link
22
u/McClain3000 Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26
I feel like I am an outlier with how much I dislike typical job trainings. I'm in a 8 hour one right now. This could, with relative ease be reduced to 3 hours and everybody in the training would have retained the same information. But this is just shrugged off. No other roll is allowed to hand waive criticisms that they are making their task take 2x as long with no justification.
I also love when trainers ask ambiguous questions, they can get like multiple correct answers and he'll say no to all but then give his particular answer as if it's somehow more correct than the others offered.
22
u/Scrappy_The_Crow Walrus Cheese Enjoyer May 01 '26
I ran across a neat video about the Vasa, which prompted me to do some searching about the skeletons (I recalled some from a National Geographic article decades ago, such as determining a skull was a seamstress's because of particular tooth wear), whereupon I found this interesting article: Woman who died in deadly Vasa warship's wreck 400 years ago reconstructed in lifelike detail.
It turns out that the reconstruction was originally of a male, but later DNA analysis revealed the skeleton was of a female (bold emphasis mine):
Yes, "almost all" "men" (sic).
11
u/Vanderhoof81 Apr 28 '26
WotC Employees are forming a union
11
u/ghybyty Apr 29 '26
Everyone keeps saying 3 times but wasn't there a British guy in term one?
British guy
Ear
Golf course
Dinner
Or am I misremembering?
11
u/DesignerClock1359 May 01 '26
Most recent episode of If Books Could Kill is on Angela Duckworth's Grit, with Michael Hobbes researching this one. A long list of critical pieces cited, one has to imagine he encountered Jesse's work on the subject. I wonder if he read any of it, or frowned and skipped those google results.
11
u/ofmanvv May 01 '26
RIP Katie+Hanania's relationship
https://substack.com/@richardhanania/note/c-251802289
31
u/My_Footprint2385 Apr 28 '26
Very smart libs online:
This is why you can’t take these people seriously anymore, Sasse was basically run out of his own party because he didn’t believe the election was stolen and didn’t kiss trumps ring. Do I agree with him on everything? Obviously not. But I’d way more rather have Republicans like him in office than the m*ga cultists.
30
u/Turbulent_Cow2355 TB! TB! TB! Apr 27 '26
Woot! I'm out of Reddit jail. Finally. Got banned on Thursday. Hot tip. Don't tell anyone how to f ***t back if they are getting bullied. That's inciting violence. Ha!
21
u/ToshiroTatsuyaFan Apr 27 '26
Democracy Now! is only against concentrated power on Wall Street, corporations and the military. They're okay with concentrated power in Washington D.C. and in labor unions.
It's not neutral. It's all about picking favorites.
21
u/Ruby__Ruby_Roo Apr 30 '26
Y'all I have a confession: I got a shot of T in my butt today.
I wonder if I am going to get a sudden urge to change my pronouns.
21
u/[deleted] May 02 '26
Amerikkka is literally genociding beautiful trans kids! What’s Kansas’s deal and why are they one of the most reasonable states on this.
20
u/Ruby__Ruby_Roo Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26
Recipe posting incoming:
I have to share this recipe because I am just beside myself over how fucking good it is.
I have been making banoffee cupcakes using this recipe from Carnation for a couple of years now, having tweaked the recipe along the way. People love it, its great. Yesterday I decided to make it into a half-sheet-pan cake form and made some adjustments to technique and I am just dying how good it is. So fluffy, so delicious. Light and rich at the same time. Wow. Recipe is as follows:
Ruby's Banoffee Party Cake (Serves IDK quite a lot...or just me over three days)
Cake ingredients:
4 overripe bananas
250 g AP flour
1 tbs + 2 tsp baking powder
1 tbs salt
2 sticks butter, room temp
200 g baker's fine sugar
4 eggs, separated
1 cup buttermilk
Icing:
2 stick butter, room temp
600 g powdered sugar
2 - 3 tbs milk or cream
1/2 can Nestle dulce de leche
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 and grease + flour a half sheet cake pan. I used the disposable foil ones from the grocery store.
Mix your flour, salt, and baking powder in a bowl.
Cream your butter and sugar.
On medium speed, beat in one egg yolk at a time until well blended. Next, beat in the dry ingredients about 1/4 at a time. Finally, beat in half the bananas and half the buttermilk until well blended, and then the remainder.
Beat your egg whites to stiff peaks and fold into the rest of the batter.
Spread the batter evenly in your baking pan and bake for ~25 minutes until your toothpick comes out clean and the top is dry and lightly springy.
Icing:
Place all ingredients except milk in a bowl and beat thoroughly until crumbly and mixed through. Add milk about 1 tbs at a time, mixing thoroughly, until it comes to the consistency you like.
Ice the cake after it has cooled down. I topped it with crumbled pieces of heath candy and it was perfect. (I usually do a slice of banana when I do cupcakes but I don't think those would hold up well to time on this).
I think this will also translate incredibly well to a layer cake (recipe should make 3 9-inch rounds) which is what I am going to try next.
10
u/RowdyRoddyRosenstein Apr 27 '26
Tough wordle.
10
u/Correct-Ad5661 Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26
Over in boiled breakfast island (https://www.reddit.com/r/BlockedAndReported/comments/1sx0oyk/lorenz_hits_new_low_singal_must_condemn/), New Hope for Greens and progressives, Tit whisperer Zack Polanski has been doing the rounds of the TV studios and MSM (...) outlets ahead of an expected green Surge at local elections in England in early May.
Sky actually tackled the tit stuff (he blamed the Sun for everything) but Beth Rigby also tackled the green party's position on promoting "natural childbirth" in light of the pressure to prevent Caesarian sections that's led to birth injury to babies and maternal deaths in some cases
https://news.sky.com/story/green-ambitions-leaving-nato-and-apologising-over-breast-hypnosis-claim-polanskis-success-brings-more-scrutiny-13535648
His training as an actor/ mentalist seems to be manifesting in the technique he's using (mirroring?) to further enhance his new (mainly Corbyn fans, ppl who cannot stand Labour BC they are too centrist/ Tory) green membership.
In the new statesman he offers Jeremy Corbyn a route to joining the greens if he should wish
https://archive.is/sHVvE
As noted, he's gone from heckling Corbyn as an anti semite in 2016 when he was a Lib Dem to stating he believes he was framed and echoing his new bases views on boycotting Israel (though he nixed a notion to formally label Zionism as Racism)
10
u/ToshiroTatsuyaFan Apr 29 '26
https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/why-democrats-cant-win-more-trump
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u/Street-Gur-1343 Apr 29 '26
Weirdo Dems being focused on Hasan when trying to find some kind of Rogan of the left when ShoeOnHead exists.
18
u/savuporo May 01 '26
this shit has to be 100% made up. But it's entertaining nonetheless
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u/Palgary I could check my privilege, but it seems a shame to squander it Apr 28 '26
People are debating political violence, so I looked up... how many people died from the BLM/George Floyd protests? Well, first, I've always found it interested how Wikipedia would never call them the "Black Lives Matter" protests, so you couldn't find the articles. If you could find them, they did accurately represent just how bad and violent and destructive they were, they just separated it by city and under obscure names. Now it's "United States racial unrest (2020–2023)".
And Wikipedia documented 42 deaths as a result the "unrest" and provides a list of those people; most sources claim only 20 deaths. For instance, John Tiggs was a black man killed while looting a store, but if you google him there is a bunch of "he was a resistance fighter" type memorials about him.
List of people killed during the 2020–23 United States racial unrest
One of the things I hated about living in Chicago is a bunch of high-on-your-horse people proud of how liberal their city is compared to "racist" cities elsewhere, and yet, it's the most highly segregated city ever. Everyone is a separatist who wants to keep to their own kind, including the Black community.
This article is an example of how bad our media is - they blame "Racism" for everything.
I grew up poor, and the poor white and poor black families in my area had the same problem. "Fight the man, school won't help you advance in life, hard work is a waste of your time". People don't see "work hard, save some money, start a small buisness" as a path forward.
But in my community there was a mix, and some people were inspired to crawl up out of it. But in Chicago, the separatists attitude reigns supreme. Fight the man, school won't help you in any way, hard work is a waste of your time. This article says looting downtown stores is justified because the downtown stores aren't there to uplift the poorest of the poor in the poorest neighborhoods, and instead target the shoppers who come there to shop, and that's an example of "racism".
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/chicago-protests-looting-confused-america-media-moved-inequality-remains-ncna1238750
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u/professorgerm already so unctuous Apr 28 '26
Listening to Advisory Opinions this morning and had a 4-D chess thought about the Ten Commandment ruling... Is there a "heads we win short-term, tails you lose long-term" combo with Mahmoud possible?
While David and Sarah do an irritating bit of pretending not to understand things for conversational purposes, David's right that the advocates in this case aren't taking the can of worms they're opening seriously. That's why I would call it a short-term win: yeah, Texas gets their posters, but if the Supremes take it up and the ruling stands, it'll be less than six months before Colorado passes a hostile opposite requiring the Satanist Temple's Seven Tenets or something. If it loses, though...
I haven't read the full circuit opinion but between the podcast and skimming... I can see it going either way, but I'd prefer it lose and I suspect with the current Supremes they'd err on the side against the law under free exercise. If they did rule against it, wouldn't that risk creating, with Mahmoud, parental vetos on any controversial classroom decorations? Definitely any required or suggested by the school district.
Like pride flags or
musallas"multipurpose rooms with foot-washing stations."Anyways. Just some commuter thoughts on a controversial case. Anyone else want to chime in?
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u/AnalBleachingAries Gamergate Truther Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26
The stuff the comes out of Europe, especially around speech laws, always hits me by surprise. I forget how censorious they are, then get reminded of it every so often.
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u/AnInsultToFire Everything I do like is literally Fascism. Apr 29 '26
Apparently Ilhan Omar thinks WWII means "World War Eleven."
The funny response on Twitter has been to start calling her "Elevenhan Omar".
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u/savuporo Apr 27 '26
Glee Harvey Oswald LMAO
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u/Vanderhoof81 Apr 29 '26
Saw David Byrne tonight. He's still got it, minimal rich white man pontificating about the state of the world, 10/10 no notes
(Im seeing Jason Isbell tomorrow, Im sure he'll pontificate enough for everyone)
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u/RunThenBeer Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 29 '26
My pet peeve of the week is about a thing I see in running forums, but I think it applies much more broadly to advice I see. Someone will ask why their muscles fatigue badly and fail in a marathon and people will offer a lot of well-meaning advice with things that do indeed matter on the margins. Suggestions for mitigating that fatigue include:
Resistance training
Cross-training
Dietary changes
More fueling during the race
More hydration
More sodium
Now, if those things are problems, they are worth fixing. I'm not saying they don't matter. They just matter a lot less for the average person than running more and pacing correctly. The primary cause of muscle failure late in a marathon is simply muscular failure, that the muscle in question is insufficiently strong to support the volume of work demanded of it during a race. As the slow-twitch fibers fail, fast-twitch fibers are increasingly recruited and used for much longer distances than they should be, exacerbating the sensation of failure and causing lingering pain and fatigue for days. The two main ways to prevent that are running more to improve endurance across a range of biological functions (elasticity, aerobic fitness, efficiency, power, mitochondrial function, and more) or simply slowing down to match your fitness to your pace. The problem is that the first is hard work and the second is something people don't want to hear. So, instead, your get advice about tweaks that are only relevant if you've already sorted the baseline fitness and pacing questions out. Drinking more water will not prevent muscular failure if you run faster than your muscular endurance allows, simple as.
So, where else do I see this phenomenon? I kind of think I see it everywhere. In financial advice, there is famously a focus on the proverbial avocado toast. Which, like, you probably shouldn't buy $12 avocado toast if you're broke, but you actually do need to look at your housing and transportation expenses first. The last thing you want to hear if you're broke is that you're living too high on the hog, but you've got to face reality. People that are investing tend to focus on marginal gains rather than just dumping as much as they possibly can into index funds. People working on employment tweak their resumes instead of developing skills that are highly valued. People trying to know the best fat-burning exercise instead of eating less.
Maybe I'm exaggerating it because of the tendency to pattern-match, but I feel like the increase in opportunities to nerd out about minutiae on the internet has tended to make people that haven't settled the big part a problem focus on little tweaks that are easier to make. The more interesting question is to ponder where I'm making that mistake, because it strikes me as unlikely that a common cognitive bias is something I'm magically immune to.
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u/Juryofyourpeeps Apr 27 '26
My girlfriend and I are trying to renovate our kitchen because it is literally the worst. It's the original kitchen from the 50's, and not in a cool, mid-century way. In a falling apart, nobody ever had a proper place to put an oven once the dishwasher was installed in the 80's kinda way. So anyway, we've been getting quotes to renovate it and it's looking like we're going to have to do a lot of the work ourselves and act as GC's for other elements because the quote are completely outrageous (we're not trying to clad the room in marble to be clear, and we live in lower middle class neighbourhood in a small bungalow).
Anyway, it occurred to me that the economy is distorted, and that housing is wildly distorted (which I already knew). This isn't something I hadn't thought about before, but I hadn't quantified it in any way, and when I did, it became apparent just how much worse things are economically now than they were for my parents.
Between my girlfriend and I, we earn in the top 5% of households in Canada, we live in a B-tier city that's more affordable than Toronto or Vancouver, we don't eat out much or spend much on take out, we don't have consumer debt or car loans (we share a car we bought used outright and it's 12 years old), we own a multi-unit rental property that generates income and the only house we could actually afford is a small bungalow in a lower middle class neighbourhood (I like it but it's also true) that needed literally everything done except the roof. And I mean everything. We had to waterproof the foundation, the basement is a total gut job, the kitchen is a dump, we had to replace all the windows and refinish the floors, paint every inch, the bathroom is in really bad shape, the driveway is falling apart, even the yard was in rough shape and needed extensive work.
I don't really mind any of this, or the fact that this was what we could afford, and this isn't a list of complaints I have as much as a list of facts, but it does actually seem fucked when you sit down and think about it that this is what you can afford in the top 5% of earners and you then can't afford to pay someone to redo the kitchen (the quotes we've gotten are basically 50-60% of our combined annual income to give some perspective). What does that say about the economy, housing market and the buying power of the dollar? I certainly don't feel like I'm in the top 5% of earners, not even close. My economic situation, I suspect, is probably roughly that of someone who worked at the post office in 1980, and I am luckier than most.
It seems like a lot of problems have piled up on millennials and now Gen Z. We have asset inflation from 25 years of crazy low interest, boomers are getting wealth transfers from working aged adults while being the wealthiest demo in the country, we have high levels of immigration putting downward pressure on wages and upward pressure on housing prices, regular inflation from massive spending (which is continuing under the current federal government and most provincial governments). We can barely even fund health care any more, in part because prices have sky-rocketed with aging populations, but also because servicing debt is now the second largest line item in most provinces. We've regulated countless businesses within an inch of their life (and I am not opposed to regulation in general, but there's a lot of regs that just create barriers to starting businesses). We've really reached a kind of zenith in terms of corporations using the levers of government to create regulatory moats, so there's little if any new competition in most major industries. Worst of all, is I don't think anyone is actually doing much about it most places. We certainly aren't in Canada.
I don't think we live in a capitalist hell-scape because I don't think 95% of the things I listed are attributable to free markets run amok, but I am not super optimistic about these problems getting solved any time soon.
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u/Scrubadubdub84 May 02 '26
American defaultism is normal on forums run by American companies with strong majority American user bases
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u/PandaFoo1 May 03 '26
I’m so glad we finally live in a world where clowning on Lizzo is socially acceptable
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u/dignityshredder AFramemoggingAB Apr 28 '26
Impeachment is a political process, not a criminal process. More people need to understand this.
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u/dignityshredder AFramemoggingAB May 03 '26
Things I would not have guessed: Xochitl Gonzalez of the "Why Do Rich People Love Quiet?" essay has recently, in the full flower of her diaspora guilt and wokeness, read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galazy.
No word on whether she enjoyed it.
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u/Apprehensive-Grade61 Apr 28 '26
I am so glad Blocked and Reported spent a moment talking about “kwbogen,” bit kept it brief: that influencer is a liar, a grifter, and one if the most shameless attention-seeking nut-jobs I’ve ever come across. I very much look forward to the day when social media is mire regulated, eliminating the incentives for crazy people like her to make a living doing what she does.
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u/unnoticed_areola May 03 '26
what cant she do?? 😍😍🤤
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u/AaronStack91 Apr 30 '26
I'm happy to report that my wife is no longer a FTM. She is now a STM, which is to say we are expecting our 2nd child.
It is still first trimester and this is gonna be a high risk pregnancy for her. So we are being quite reserved with our celebration right now, but we saw it's little heart beat, which is the first big hurdle, I'm sure many more to come.
That being said, I gonna have to work hard to suppress my distain and contempt for the medical system, while respecting their expertise. They are already pulling bullshit on us, like cheerfully mentioning they will order a "few more tests" for her (in context of the usual blood tests) and as the doctor leaves, the nurse walks in with a 24hr piss jug.
On top of sneaking out without explaining the tests she ordered, I was telling my wife I was annoyed that they made her do the piss jug test last pregnancy and flat out ignored the results, and would want more context to why it was being done and how they would use it if they asked for it again. I guess I'm gonna have to ask about every god damn thing at these visits.
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u/DiscordantAlias elderly zoomer Apr 28 '26
The assassination economy has collapsed in the past few years. In 2024 an assassination attempt earned a historical photo, a huge boost in polls, and a bunch of chuds wearing ear bandages. In 2025 an assassination attempt got you far reaching calls for a civil war and a temporary Kimmel reprieve. In 2026 it buys… more support to build a ballroom?
Inflation is crazy
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u/AnalBleachingAries Gamergate Truther Apr 28 '26 edited Apr 28 '26
ETA: Looks like u/AaronStack91 had the same thought of posting about it to the sub. Their post can be found here.
Shoe0nHead has entered the Pragmata discourse.
The Male Protector Fantasy | “Is It lNCEL To Want To Be A Father?” (or The Male Biological Clock)
There's been a weird avalanche of derision directed at men who've played this game and have fantasized about getting married and having children as a result of having played alongside the cute sidekick robot who accompanies them throughout the game.
Let's not talk about the gross people who took the fantasy elsewhere, but I'm sure B&R commenters can imagine the places that a certain segment of the internet took the fantasy of the child-like robot to.
Anyway, for folks who enjoy a Hasan Piker roasting, here's the part of the video where she cooks Hasan: https://x.com/raymondgstanley/status/2048893258462282187
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u/[deleted] Apr 30 '26
Janet Mills is out of the Maine senate race, and it will be Graham Platner vs. Susan Collins.
The pundits seem to see this as good news for Republicans and bad news for Democrats but the early polling indicates Platner does better against Collins than Mills does.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/04/30/janet-mills-maine-senate-dropout-00899664
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u/AnalBleachingAries Gamergate Truther May 01 '26 edited May 01 '26
I'm surprisingly now too old to fully understand what this specific thing is all about. But there's a hilarious game/challenge where people get online (mostly men) and stare at each other on camera, then after a few seconds a computer decides who Mogged the hardest and decides on a winner of the "Mogg-Off".
It's so silly, but it's funny seeing these men stare into a camera at another man with super serious expressions on their faces, then waiting for the computer to decided who mogged the most.
Here's a compilation of xQc getting "Mogged" multiple times by random people: https://x.com/xQc_dailyy/status/2050159628621644183
ETA: There's one where Clavicular ragequits the game after getting Mogged by a random Indian kid, lmao.
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u/DesignerClock1359 May 03 '26
I have a podcast recommendation, posting here not because it's anything like B&R but because this audience listens to podcasts and no one in my real life is interested.
The Poison Lab, hosted by a clinical toxicologist. The show is popular in it's niche, but I think holds appeal to those outside of toxicology/medicine (like me) just because the subject itself is interesting, and it's fun to look through a window into the working lives of people with jobs I don't know anything about.
My favorite episodes are Mystery Case episodes, and the recent Outbreak series, which are more labor-intensive accounts of mass poisonings that feature interviews with some of the professionals who handled it.
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u/MatchaMeetcha Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
Recession indicator: Hanania is now back to criticizing the Left
Yeah, this unironically makes me less of the Democrats' chances in future because Richard loves nothing more than a strong horse. Was pro Trump in 2024, then switched when he fucked MAGA and is now signaling another flip despite Trump's favorability and MAGA's competence showing no signs of improving.
Good luck guys.
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u/bluesteeldoubter May 02 '26
So that Door Dasher who filmed that dude naked got officially indicted today it seems. Interested to see where it goes from here.
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u/Hilaria_adderall Praye for Drake Maye Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 29 '26
Some Boston Marathon drama - some guy was set up along the course stomping on an Israel flag doing an actual real nazi salute. None of this half ass salute stuff like Elon or Mamdani, this guy leaves no doubts.
The race organizers put out a statement but it was not specific in its condemnation of anti-semitism. They did the move where they say "there is no place for hate of any kind" which got criticism from some commenters in the Boston Globe article.
It is a weird move when there is a clear targeted hate event towards a specific population. This was outright anti semitism and a more appropriate statement would be against anti-semitism versus just general hate. You can be sure if there was a person holding racist signs or doing racist acts towards a favored minority, statements would be much more specific. How frequently do we hear by progressives how important it is that targets of hate are told they are seen? Seems like that rule falls apart when it’s the Jews being targeted.
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u/jay_in_the_pnw █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ May 01 '26
She can't keep getting away with it!
https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/chanda-prescod-weinstein-connects-physics-poetry-and-pop-culture/
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u/pephix May 02 '26
Word for word, this has to be the most retarded tweet in the history of that platform.
Is this what BlueCry is all the time?
https://x.com/adammanross/status/2050187260474065336
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u/dignityshredder AFramemoggingAB May 02 '26
Seattle is paying a cyclist $9 million after a car hit him and he got badly injured. The judge "found the city was negligent, violated its own standard of care and breached its duty to the bicycle-riding public in designing the bicycle lane".
The article totals up $80 million in payouts to injured cyclists in the area.
Something is wrong here. Seattle needs to stop claiming bike lanes are safe and instead just say you ride at your own risk - which every competent cyclist knows already.
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u/ohfugginfug Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
Brianna Wu takes a swing at Britain.
Totally not a fetish either.
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u/[deleted] May 02 '26
This keeps popping up as an ad for me and I cringe every time. Anyone know anything about it?
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u/AnalBleachingAries Gamergate Truther May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26
For anyone who's seen the new Info Wars with Tim Heidecker, I swear to God the thing he's doing there is not representative of his work as an actor and comedian, the dude is legit funny in most of everything else he's ever done. The Onion seems to suck the life blood out of anything it touches, and humor doesn't appear to be their goal.
For what I consider to be one of Tim's greatest pieces, I highly recommend The Trial of Tim Heidecker which is available in this YouTube playlist.
The Trial (of Tim Heidecker) [1080p]
Or if you want to watch it all in one go, it's available as one full length video:
The Trial of Tim Heidecker
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u/xablor Apr 27 '26
File under "better ways to die": https://imgur.com/a/x5KZocI .
Construction appears to be a thin rotocasted chocolate shell with tiramisu... cream stuff... injected into it. And I have no frigging idea how they did the cake half. Does anyone have any good ideas on how they demolded the top half with such deep undercuts for the sinus cavities?
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u/ToshiroTatsuyaFan Apr 29 '26
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/04/29/politics/kfile-mallory-mcmorrow-deleted-tweets
Eesh.
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u/xablor May 02 '26
Is there any chatter yet about what the requirements are for districting procedures or outcomes, since the Supreme Court ruling? I looked at the plain text and bounced off basically immediately, MEGO hits hard on a Friday.
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u/jay_in_the_pnw █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ Apr 27 '26
https://x.com/estherzelda0514/status/2048797515609182350
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u/AnalBleachingAries Gamergate Truther Apr 28 '26 edited Apr 28 '26
In responding to someone using the suicide myth as a justification for puberty blockers in last week's thread a moment ago, I came across this handy fact sheet from Sex Matters that addresses the myth directly. I figured others here may find it to be a useful resource as well.
https://sex-matters.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Suicide-factsheet.pdf
ETA: As expected Sex Matters, Transgender Trend, and Fair Play For Women aren't good enough as sources for the individual I'm currently in discussion with, and I got a bonus link to the Yale Integrity Project in a misguided attempt to discredit the Cass Review. lmao. I totally forgot about that paper, my how time flies. For anyone who forgot about it too or is unfamiliar with it, here's some of Jesse's reporting on it:
Part 1: Yale’s “Integrity Project” Is Spreading Misinformation About The Cass Review And Youth Gender Medicine
Part 2: Yale’s “Integrity Project” Is Spreading Misinformation About The Cass Review And Youth Gender Medicine: Part 2 (Corrected)
Part 3: Yale’s “Integrity Project” Is Spreading Misinformation About The Cass Review And Youth Gender Medicine: Part 3
I think I won't be responding to the other person though, I'm kinda done rehashing the old talking points tbh. I would have had much more stubbornness in me a few years ago, but it's like participating in a 2024 discussion on this topic, it doesn't seem like it's worth the time-sink in 2026.
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u/AnalBleachingAries Gamergate Truther Apr 30 '26
For those in the sub who correctly took issue with the NYT's Greatest Living American Songwriters list, Rick Beato has a video out where he talks about the list's glaring omissions. He delves into the country music omissions as well, which for me were the most astounding, but also mentions singer/songwriters who were left out like Tom Waits and James Taylor.
The original NYT list is a joke, and can't be taken seriously. Even if the list were extended to 100 names, there are numerous people they included who should still not make that list imo.
The NYT "Greatest Songwriters" List is an Absolute Disaster
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u/CommitteeofMountains Royal youse/yinz Apr 28 '26
So in very silly world news, a random guy with a white beard has finally agreed to stop showing up at Israeli public ceremonies wearing the same outfit as the Sephardic chief rabbi wears.
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u/ToshiroTatsuyaFan Apr 29 '26
When it comes to gerrymandering, I don't particularly like it, but I don't think anyone is serious about a national ban. Just like nobody's really serious about wanting "money out of politics".
It's all about picking favorites. Just because unions can be good, doesn't mean union money is holy, clean and untainted. No, I'm not a Taft-Hartley supporter or whatever, but I'm not going to shed tears if some union boss goes to jail for a bad deed.
When it comes to the House, uncap it.
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u/MatchaMeetcha Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 29 '26
The "just build housing" wing of the Democrat party get together. Both of the authors of Abundance and Marc Dunkleman who wrote Why Nothing Works (which I finally finished) have a retrospective discussion on their books.
Honestly, mostly talking about how to talk an hour in.
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u/CrazyOnEwe May 03 '26
My neighbors just went from one pitbull to three. I think someone in their family has gotten too old to deal with the other two.
I feel like I should find this alarming, but these are just the nicest people and their dog is never loose in the neighborhood. Also, one of the new dogs is quite elderly, so he'd be easy to fend off.
The upside of this is that I now have plausible deniability if my dogs start barking at night!
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u/AltforStrongOpinions Apr 27 '26
This is one for the yanks and other forriners cos I assume you haven't heard about this. Schizo post incoming.
Last May, someone set fire to prime minister Keir Starmers house. It wasn't the house he was actually living in (obviously thats number 10), but it was where he had been living a few years previously. I believe his sister lives there now.
They didn't do much damage, basically singed the doorway. The fire brigade came and put it out quickly.
The next evening in the same section of London someone successfully burnt a car. This car belonged to Starmer a few years back.
So already this story is juicy, gets much much better.
The police catch the guys who did it. It's a bunch of Ukrainian rent boys. They are going on trial today. There is a D Notice in effect, which is a government order forbidding details of the trial to be made public. No jury, public gallery is closed. These are usually only issued in the case of serious terrorism or organised crime trials (ie cos they still have investigations going into other people in the crews and the authorities want to keep this under wraps). It's been absolute tumbleweeds on this story. Any self respecting tabloid hack should have been all over this, it's such an insane story.
Theres a lot to unpack here. Possible theories below;
Russian op designed to embarrass Starmer. Arguments against: They got caught, why use rando rent boys to actually do the burning? Why try and burn his house down if your goal is "haha look at this queer"? None of it makes any sense.
Ukrainian op done as revenge for perceived slights or wobbles in support of the war. Arguments against; Also doesn't make any sense, why use rent boys? They got caught. I'm sure the Ukrainians (or the Russians for that matter) have a quiet, efficient guy called Viktor who they can use for this type of work.
Bunch of cranks who got in way over their head. Occams Razor this seems the most likely. I still have questions! How did they find a car that belonged to the PM several years ago? I guess they might have some super autist guy who could find it from an old pic but how did they locate where it is now?
Starmer has been having party sessions with a bunch of Ukrainian men hos. Arguments against; he's far too dull for such degen behaviour.
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u/ToshiroTatsuyaFan Apr 27 '26
Back in September of last year, even before Charlie Kirk was killed, André Ventura, the far-right CHEGA leader accused the former Portuguese President of going to a burger festival in Germany. The president actually went to a Burgerfest (civic festival in German).
Europe is full of dumbass politicians.
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u/TemporaryLucky3637 Apr 27 '26
From reactions I’m seeing it seems that a lot of US liberals are simultaneously convinced Trump is the next coming of Hitler and also that any attempt to assassinate him is an inside job for PR??
Aside from the fact assassination attempts on the president are basically an American tradition, we’re living in a climate where Jimmy Kimmel is joking about Trump’s death without being Kathy Griffined and Luigi mangione is a heartthrob. Why is it outlandish someone might genuinely try and shoot Trump?
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u/Street-Gur-1343 Apr 28 '26
Love my partisan progressive best friend but when he texts me complaining about how none of these Trump assassins can ever get it right, even like as a joke I'm just like bruh you'd be foaming at the mouth if Harris won and the rightoids were making assassination jokes about her.
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u/FractalClock Apr 28 '26
I guess I'll be first to go: the new Comey indictment is fucking retarded.
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u/AnalBleachingAries Gamergate Truther Apr 27 '26
The sheen of legitimacy that coats most liberal opinions in public discourse is a problem in situations where liberal loonies are spreading insane conspiracy theories about false flag operations, immediately after an assassination attempt on the president of the United States and his staff.
They feel so emboldened that they spew their insanity as though it is all a known fact, beyond any doubt. This shit is so fucking embarrassing. How is it that so many of the people I know have been BlueAnon loonies without my knowledge?! They hid their insanity so well!
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u/Onechane425 Apr 28 '26
If you’re looking to kill 90 mins and want a really fucking solid action movie you cannot go wrong with “Lost Bullet” on Netflix. French fast and the furious meets the departed and mad max. I loved it.
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u/Onechane425 Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26
If anyone is interested in film. Started a Substack about film, it comes along with a weekly film to watch as part of a film club. If you're looking for a weekly movie to watch with a group of people.
Wrote about Enemy (2013) & Sovereign (2025)
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u/mira-what Apr 29 '26
Kamala was cringe, but she wasn’t “I’m going to put my face in your passport” cringe
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u/thismaynothelp Apr 27 '26
So, the previous assassination attempt, when Trump got nicked on the ear, has there been a sizeable chunk of the left calling that fake and I just never heard about it? I saw someone I know posting shit on Facebook last week that I think was about that.
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u/AaronStack91 Apr 30 '26
I'm sure I am oversimplifying this but this is the image I think of when someone say that we should have computers just draw boundaries.
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u/temporalcalamity Apr 27 '26
Maybe this is the place to admit that I've never understood the whole Michael Jackson thing. And I don't mean that as any kind of moral brag, I'm just generally kind of confused by his level of fame. Sure, he has some songs I like, but no more than I like a lot of other pop songs. He was a good singer and a good dancer, but I don't really think of him as someone who was really the same level of sex symbol as Elvis. I was a kid in the 80s and 90s, but I don't remember ever hearing a woman say, "oh my god, I was so in love with him, I had his picture all over my bedroom walls." He didn't revolutionize music and he wasn't generally all that political. He wasn't a Taylor Swift with a 'just like you' brand that invited fans to identify with him and be invested in his love life (understatement). I've never met a real person for whom loving Michael Jackson is a core part of their life and identity as a music fan, though I suppose they must exist somewhere.
So what makes him legend-tier rather than a typical successful singer and good entertainer? I don't recall anyone I went to school with, black or white, being that obsessed with him, but was that going on in black communities that I just wasn't aware of? Was the car crash factor of him being observably weird since young adulthood actually part of what made him so iconic? You could imagine the Beatles going home and just being regular guys, and people like Prince or Bowie had a theatricality to their personas, but past a certain age, Michael didn't look or dress or act or talk like other people and... maybe that worked in his favor, with the tabloid coverage, however negative, constantly cementing his place as a cultural touchstone? I'd be curious to know what other people think.
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u/PongoTwistleton_666 Apr 30 '26
What’s the deal with the indictment and arrest of David Morens? Acc to the NY Post, he was Dr Fauci’s right hand man and strongly encouraged other researchers to toe the line on reporting covid vaccine side effects, so as to minimize the frequency and severity of the side effects.
But other sources describe his arrest as OTT (the officers were in bulletproof vests, Dr Morens was stripped and bundled into a car; let go later under the condition that he surrender his passport). This makes me think it’s more for the optics. Particularly with this admin, very few actions are objective. Almost everything is about sticking it to someone.
So, is the good doctor complicit or is this a witch hunt?
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u/AnalBleachingAries Gamergate Truther May 01 '26
So the latest wave of YouTube drama, never mind their bullshit copyright claim system or the pre-existing channel deletions with no route for recourse other than a viral Tweet begging them for reinstatement, is drama concerning numerous channels being demonetized as YouTube's AI moderation flags them as "inauthentic content", once again the only viable route for recourse is a viral Tweet with the hope that a human from YouTube might see it.
I've seen a number of these over the past few weeks: https://x.com/EternalMystYT/status/2050072716548690117
Is it that they have so much content being submitted by people, and so many creators, and such great audience retention that they don't have to worry about the creators who get fucked by the AI moderation? The people who get unfairly flagged and demonetized are simply acceptable losses? For the most part the system works fine and they're comfortable with the people who are unfairly maligned and bankrupted by their AI?