Last night.
Emboldened
Aug 12th, 2017 9:00 am | By Ophelia BensonWhite supremacists are holding rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Last night it was a torchlight parade.
Hate USED TO hide its face. #Charlottesville pic.twitter.com/PUa3WXn6rp
— Lawyers' Committee (@LawyersComm) August 12, 2017
Embarrassed to Be White!
My Grandfather fought against the Nazi's. He knew what our Flag Stood For. These Morons Don't#Charlottesville pic.twitter.com/8OHJmurMPJ
— Impeach Donald Trump (@Impeach_D_Trump) August 12, 2017
Trump is spending his 67th day at a Trump property.
So far, no condemnation of Nazi Ken in #Charlottesville.#SaturdayMorning#AMJoy pic.twitter.com/LiGBkiN8al— Holly O'Reilly (@AynRandPaulRyan) August 12, 2017
In daylight they skip the torches.
Emblematic indeed#Charlottesville pic.twitter.com/qTvTB3BpSa
— Andy Campbell (@AndyBCampbell) August 12, 2017
… Read the restLatest Trump rally. For coal mining jobs obviously. #Charlottesville pic.twitter.com/VRZntyF6Pl
— Baratunde (@baratunde)
You have become extremely famous all over the world
Aug 12th, 2017 8:18 am | By Ophelia BensonI think Trump is getting stupider every day – noticeably stupider, strikingly stupider.
He called up the governor of Guam to tell him the North Korea thing is just wonderful for him and for Guam, because it’s making them famous. They’re celebrities! Tourism will soar!
You think I’m exaggerating for sarcastic effect as usual. I wish I were.
… Read the restThe threat by North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, to create “an enveloping fire” around the tiny United States territory in the Western Pacific will boost Guam tourism “tenfold,” Mr. Trump is heard saying in the recorded conversation with Gov. Eddie Calvo.
The recording was put on the Republican governor’s Facebook page and other social media accounts.
Mr. Trump said: “I
Her own child
Aug 12th, 2017 7:51 am | By Ophelia BensonAlabama’s Attorney General is appealing a ruling by US Magistrate Judge Susan Russ Walker that blocked aspects of a state law requiring minors to get written permission from a parent or guardian before they could legally end a pregnancy.
… Read the rest“We’re disappointed that the state of Alabama has chosen to continue defending this reprehensible law,” Andrew Beck, senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Reproductive Freedom Project, said in a statement. The ACLU brought the original lawsuit against the Alabama law, resulting in Walker’s ruling.
“While many teens turn to their parents when faced with an unintended pregnancy, others — particularly those with abusive parents — just can’t,” Beck continued. “Forcing a teenager to go on trial to get
Tuff
Aug 11th, 2017 4:25 pm | By Ophelia BensonChilde Pinhead has been making yet more threats at North Korea. It’s worked beautifully so far, so why would he stop?
… Read the restPresident Trump made fresh threats of force Friday against North Korea, writing on Twitter that the U.S. military is “locked and loaded” and later telling reporters that the isolated country would “truly regret it” if it attacks Guam or any other U.S. territory.
“This man will not get away with what he’s doing, believe me,” Trump said of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, whose nation, in open defiance of the United Nations, has been developing nuclear weapons capable of reaching the United States. “I hope that they are going to fully understand the gravity of what I
Guest post: How the cake got burned
Aug 11th, 2017 3:51 pm | By Ophelia BensonOriginally a comment by Screechy Monkey on Let’s debate his points, so his bad ideas can be defeated.
Pastry Chef: So, I see the cake got burned. Weren’t you supposed to take it out of the oven when the timer went off?
Assistant: Well, I agree that the cake is burned. But I believe that we need to investigate the role of sugar in this.
Do we really?
Oh, absolutely. You see, this cake recipe uses a full cup of sugar, but I found a couple of recipes on the internet that only use 11/12ths of a cup. Sugar tends to burn. That’s just science.
What time were you supposed to take the cake out of the oven?
2 … Read the rest
The GI tract is not a clean place
Aug 11th, 2017 11:41 am | By Ophelia BensonI don’t think I’d heard of “clean eating” before. Apparently it’s a thing.
… Read the restIn the spring of 2014, Jordan Younger noticed that her hair was falling out in clumps. “Not cool” was her reaction. At the time, Younger, 23, believed herself to be eating the healthiest of all possible diets. She was a “gluten-free, sugar-free, oil-free, grain-free, legume-free, plant-based raw vegan”. As The Blonde Vegan, Younger was a “wellness” blogger in New York City, one of thousands on Instagram (where she had 70,000 followers) rallying under the hashtag #eatclean. Although she had no qualifications as a nutritionist, Younger had sold more than 40,000 copies of her own $25, five-day “cleanse” programme – a formula for an all-raw, plant-based diet
Women are supposed to take care of Wally and the Beaver
Aug 11th, 2017 11:14 am | By Ophelia BensonOne or two comments on Brooks’s dopy gurlz R diffrunt frum Us piece.
LT:
… Read the restMr Brooks, as someone paid to express opinions instead of say, writing software, you may be surprised to learn that most companies are not interested in providing a platform for employees to express controversial opinions outside of their job scope.
When such opinions interfere with the employees ability to effectively perform their job they are often asked to leave.
Mr. Damore expressed his thoughts in a way that made leading and working with a diverse team of engineers who may not share his opinion, difficult if not impossible.
You may feel Damore made several good points but Google is not a debating club and Pichai
David Brooks being clueless again
Aug 11th, 2017 10:23 am | By Ophelia BensonOh good. Superb. David Brooks has weighed in, as usual with an air of omniscient authority as if he were au fait with all the relevant research as well as all the arguments, and he comes down with a thud on the side of poor oppressed James Damore. And his piece is at the top of the Times’s trending links.
… Read the restThere are many actors in the whole Google/diversity drama, but I’d say the one who’s behaved the worst is the C.E.O., Sundar Pichai.
The first actor is James Damore, who wrote the memo. In it, he was trying to explain why 80 percent of Google’s tech employees are male. He agreed that there are large cultural biases but
A fresh smack in the face
Aug 11th, 2017 9:34 am | By Ophelia BensonAnna Wiener on James Damore as part of Silicon Valley culture.
… Read the restAs soon as news of the memo broke, tech workers took to the Internet. (Ours is a privileged moment: never before has it been so easy to gain access to the errant musings, rapid-fire opinions, and random proclivities of venture capitalists and others we enrich.) There were calls for Damore to be blacklisted from the industry; nuanced analyses of the memo’s underlying assumptions and ripple effects; facile analyses of the same; message-board debates about sexual harassment, affirmative action, evolutionary biology, eugenics, and “wrongthink”; and disagreements about the appropriateness of Google’s response. (“Firing people for their ideas should be opposed,” Jeet Heer, a self-described “Twitter Essayist” and an editor
Maybe not? Possibly not?
Aug 11th, 2017 8:37 am | By Ophelia BensonBrilliant, the headline says “Are we on the brink of nuclear war with North Korea? Probably not.” but the people quoted say the opposite. To be precise they say well if they keep shouting at each other things could get out of hand – so we could be, yes. Seeing as how there’s a raging moron in the driver’s seat over here and the other guy isn’t a genius either…
…it’s not looking good.
… Read the restThe Washington Post asked a range of experts in both the United States and South Korea if this time was any different. How worried should we be about conflict breaking out, accidental or otherwise?
Here are their replies.
Duyeon Kim, visiting senior fellow
Let’s debate his points, so his bad ideas can be defeated
Aug 10th, 2017 5:48 pm | By Ophelia BensonWilliam Pietri wrote a thing that resonates strongly with me (and a lot of other people).
… Read the restSome people are having a hard time understanding why the Google engineer was fired. “Let’s debate his points,” they say, “so his bad ideas can be defeated.” That sounds reasonable, but it isn’t. To understand why, let’s conduct a thought experiment.
Imagine that tomorrow, your least-favorite work colleague reveals that he is a literal Nazi. At your company all hands, he would like to debate a proposition with you. His proposition is: “Inferior races like the n****** and the k**** should be immediately executed; women should return to their status as property of men and be executed if they object.” You ask why he
Darling dear
Aug 10th, 2017 5:15 pm | By Ophelia BensonI posted on Facebook earlier today:
Argument on a thread. A man replies to a woman, beginning with “My dear lady”; in her reply she tells him not to call her that.
I, out of my profound generosity and kindness, seek to help him by telling him that “my dear lady” is patronizing at best. He informs me that “patronizing” is in the eye of the beholder.
Sigh.
Now I read Athene Donald’s blog.
… Read the restIt is perhaps the case that I am on a short fuse at the moment. I realised this when, a day or two later I had an altercation with a taxi driver. I had cycled back to my home – the Master’s Lodge at Churchill
Easier to vote in Republican areas, harder in Democratic ones
Aug 10th, 2017 4:02 pm | By Ophelia BensonState and local Republicans have expanded early voting in GOP-dominated areas and restricted it in Democratic areas, an IndyStar investigation has found, prompting a significant change in Central Indiana voting patterns.
From 2008 to 2016, GOP officials expanded early voting stations in Republican dominated Hamilton County, IndyStar’s analysis found, and decreased them in the state’s biggest Democratic hotbed, Marion County.
That made voting more convenient in GOP areas for people with transportation issues or busy schedules. And the results were immediate.
And correspondingly less convenient in Democratic Party areas.
… Read the restMost telling, Hamilton County saw a 63 percent increase in absentee voting from 2008 to 2016, while Marion County saw a 26 percent decline. Absentee ballots
Because now we have a smaller payroll
Aug 10th, 2017 3:42 pm | By Ophelia BensonOh no. Come on.
POTUS response to Putin expelling 755 U.S. diplomats & personnel as response to new sanctions (from pool report) pic.twitter.com/0epCAVy6kF
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) August 10, 2017
… Read the restBEDMINSTER, N.J. — President Trump said here Thursday that he is “very thankful” to Russian President Vladimir Putin for expelling hundreds of U.S. diplomats from Russia, because he said it helps him cut the U.S. government’s payroll.
Addressing for the first time Putin’s decision late last month that the U.S. Embassy and consulates in Russia would have to cut 775 diplomatic and technical staffers, Trump told reporters that he sees no reason for them to continue working in Russia.
“I want to
Newcastle’s turn
Aug 10th, 2017 11:13 am | By Ophelia BensonAnother sex grooming case concludes with multiple convictions.
… Read the restSeventeen men and one woman have been found guilty of involvement in a sex grooming network in Newcastle upon Tyne that plied vulnerable women and girls with drink and drugs before assaulting them.
In a series of four trials at Newcastle crown court, juries found the men guilty of a catalogue of nearly 100 offences – including rape, human trafficking, conspiracy to incite prostitution and drug supply – between 2011 and 2014.
The men befriended more than 20 victims and invited them to “sessions” at properties, mostly in the west end of the city. The girls were lured by the offer of alcohol and drugs, in particular mephedrone (“Mkat”) and cannabis,
The slights that come with that question
Aug 10th, 2017 9:07 am | By Ophelia BensonYouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has thoughts on Damore’s memo. She starts with her daughter asking her if it’s true that there are biological reasons why there are fewer women in tech and leadership. Thanks, James Damore, for re-planting that seed of doubt in millions of girls and women. Nice job, 28-year-old dude – no doubt you eliminated a lot of competition with your memo.
… Read the restThat question, whether it’s been asked outright, whispered quietly, or simply lingered in the back of someone’s mind, has weighed heavily on me throughout my career in technology. Though I’ve been lucky to work at a company where I’ve received a lot of support—from leaders like Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt, and Jonathan Rosenberg
The structural differences that create inequality
Aug 9th, 2017 5:42 pm | By Ophelia BensonLara Williams at New Scientist points out James Damore’s neglect of the social aspect of perceived differences between women and men.
… Read the restOne truth though is that biological determinism has a history of being trotted out to justify sexism and it is problematic for a number of reasons. Damore’s manifesto portrays women as a product of inherited traits; understanding womanhood as an expressly anatomical concept without social and cultural influence. He needs to heed French intellectual and feminist Simone de Beauvoir’s famous line, “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”.
Feminist identity politics are, broadly speaking, concerned with the ways female identity and prescriptive modes of femininity are shaped and constructed. Damore’s assertions presume gender identity happens in a
James Damore: the celebrity years
Aug 9th, 2017 4:54 pm | By Ophelia BensonAh, of course he did. James Damore turned down interview requests from professional journalists and instead shared his wisdom with two right-wing anti-feminist YouTubers, Stefan Molyneux and Jordan Peterson.
… Read the restThe videos posted Tuesday, which quickly racked up hundreds of thousands of views, come as Damore has threatened to take legal action against Google over his termination, making him an overnight celebrity amongst the “alt-right” and other conservatives in Silicon Valley.
The podcasters provided a sympathetic audience for Damore, who also argued that Google is intolerant of rightwing viewpoints and that companies discriminate against white men with diversity and inclusion initiatives. (Google remains overwhelmingly white and male, with women occupying just 20% of the technical workforce and African Americans
Prejudice masquerading as fact
Aug 9th, 2017 4:44 pm | By Ophelia BensonAngela Saini, author of Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong, on that memo.
… Read the restA portion of his argument is indeed based on published science. In particular, there is a school of neuroscience that tries to popularise the notion that male and female brains are distinct. It claims that female brains are typically hardwired for empathy, while male brains are built to analyse systems, such as computers and cars. This all hinges on the idea that autism represents an extreme form of the male brain, caused by exposure to higher than usual testosterone levels in the womb. Yet recent experiments have repeatedly failed to find a direct link between foetal testosterone levels alone and autism.
Indeed, psychological studies
