Dawkins says he is a Cultural Christian

Richard Dawkins is probably the worlds most famous living atheist, but he concedes:

I want to make a three-way distinction. You can be a Cultural Christian, a Political Christian, a Believing Christian, or any combination of the three. People may disagree about which of these constitutes being “A Christian”. For me it has to be Believing Chistian.

I am a Cultural Christian, specifically a Cultural Anglican. I was educated in Christian schools. The history of my people is heavily influenced by Christian tradition. I like singing Christmas Carols, and am deeply moved by the sacred music of Bach and Handel. My head is full of Biblical phrases and quotations. And hymn tunes, which I regularly play by ear on my electronic clarinet. ...

Believing Christians believe that there is a supernatural creator at the base of the universe called God. They believe a First Century Jew called Jesus is the son of God. They believe Jesus’s mother was a virgin when she gave birth to him. They believe that Jesus came alive again three days after he died. ...

If I were American I would vote Democrat because, in spite of their idiotic stance on the male/female distinction, they are hugely preferable to the Republican alternative. Similarly, if I were forced to vote for either Christianity or Islam as alternative influences on the world, I would unhesitatingly vote Christian. If that make me a Political Christian, so be it.

Who appointed him to decide who qualifies as a Christian?

Dawkins likes to play the role of a hard-headed materialist scientist, but I don't think he is. He has written a whole essay on making a distinction based on unmeasurable abstraction. Nobody can objectively determine whether someone else truly believes that Jesus rose from the dead.

There are saints who privately expressed doubts about their faith. I guess Dawkins would deny that they are true Christians.

We can look at Dawkins and see that he is living a Christian life, and not a Moslem or Hindoo life. He is a product of Christian culture and values. He has mostly accepted Christian morals and ideals. He has rejected aspects of Christianity, but as you see, he very much prefers it to Islam. I think that makes him a Christian. Christianity is not an exclusive club.

You could argue that members of the Anglican Church have traditionally announced support for the Nicene Creed, and Dawkins does not. Okay, but they also have traditionally be able to explain why Christianity is better than Islam. Dawking can do that, but the current Archbishop of Canterbury, the church leader, cannot. Not only that, he appears to be abandoning Englishmen in favor of recruiting new African members.

And Pres. Biden, who claims to be a practicing Catholic, has just redefined Easter Sunday as Transgender Day:

Transgender Americans are part of the fabric of our Nation. ...

I am proud that my Administration has stood for justice from the start, working to ensure that the LGBTQI+ community can live openly, in safety, with dignity and respect. I am proud to have appointed transgender leaders ...

NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim March 31, 2024, as Transgender Day of Visibility.

No, there is no dignity in this. Biden has also banned religious symbols from the White House Easter Egg hunt.

Happy Easter.

Texas Bans College Criticism of Jews

Texas issued this Executive Order:

WHEREAS, Texas will continue to stand with Israel and support our Jewish neighbors in Texas; ...

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Greg Abbott, Governor of Texas, by virtue of the power and authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the State of Texas, hereby direct all Texas higher education institutions to do the following:

1 . Review and update free speech policies to address the sharp rise in antisemitic speech and acts on university campuses and establish appropriate punishments, including expulsion from the institution.

2. Ensure that these policies are being enforced on campuses and that groups such as the Palestine Solidarity Committee and Students for Justice in Palestine are disciplined for violating these policies.

3. Include the definition of antisemitism, adopted by the State of Texas in Section 448.001 of the Texas Government Code, in university free speech policies to guide university personnel and students on what constitutes antisemitic speech

That refers to this definition of antisemitism:

Contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere could, taking into account the overall context, include, but are not limited to: ...

especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions. ...

Accusing the Jews ... of ... exaggerating the Holocaust.

claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor. ...

Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.

There probably is a sharp rise in Texas students comparing Israel to the Nazis. Aren't the students entitled to their opinions?

Why would the Texas governor do this? Texas Jews do not vote Republican. Neither do Texas Rrabs. Apparently the Jews have a lot of power over the governor's office. Except that saying that could get this blog banned at Texas colleges.

The Jews do not need this. They can defend Israel's war in Gaza on the merits.

White, heteropatriarchal supremacy in America

New academic paper:

Theorizing White heteropatriarchal supremacy, marriage fundamentalism, and the mechanisms that maintain family inequality
Bethany L. Letiecq

In this article, I draw upon critical feminist and intersectional frameworks to delineate an overarching orientation to structural oppression and unequal power relations that advantages White heteropatriarchal nuclear families (WHNFs) and marginalizes others as a function of family structure and relationship status. Specifically, I theorize that marriage fundamentalism, like structural racism, is a key structuring element of White heteropatriarchal supremacy. Marriage fundamentalism can be understood as an ideological and cultural phenomenon, where adherents espouse the superiority of the two-parent married family. But it is also a hidden or unacknowledged structural mechanism of White heteropatriarchal family supremacy that is essential to the reproduction and maintenance of family inequality in the United States. Through several examples, I demonstrate how — since colonization — marriage fundamentalism has been instantiated through laws, policies, and practices to unduly advantage WHNFs while simultaneously marginalizing Black, Indigenous, immigrant, mother-headed, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning (LGBTQ+) families, among others.

I agree with this. The WHNFs are superior to the alternatives, and the paper cites many studies finding that conclusion. Most people respond to this by enouraging nuclear families for others. Not this paper. She says that White people have figured out a good system, so it must be dismantled.

I conclude with a call for family scientists to further interrogate how marriage fundamentalism reproduces family inequality in American family life and to work toward its dismantling. A deeper understanding of how these complex and often covert mechanisms of structural oppression operate in family life is needed to disrupt these mechanisms and advance family equality and justice. ...

I define marriage fundamentalism in narrower terms: it is the belief that a family composed of a cisgender heterosexual married couple (i.e., a man and a woman as husband and wife) is the ideal family form for rearing children, is the foundation of civilization, and is necessary for ensuring White, heteropatriarchal supremacy in America.

This brand of marriage fundamentalism is fomented by White Christian fundamentalism and patriarchal politics

Yes, WHNFs are the foundation of Western Civilization. If she doesn't like it, she can move to any of the 100+ countries where they do not have WHNFs.

Although marriage fundamentalism is an ideology, it is also a structural feature of American family life. As many family scholars have documented, there are a vast array of laws, policies, and practices that have systematically protected, enriched, and unduly privileged WHNFs to the disadvantaging, marginalization, and exclusion of others

That used to be true. Now a lot of the benefits go to single moms and others causing a breakdown in civilization.

The Deep State is Dangerous

The NY Times just released: The Deep State Is Kind of Awesome | NYT Opinion.

As America closes in on a major election, mistrust is brewing around the mysterious government entity that’s now denounced in scary-sounding terms — “the deep state” and “the swamp.” What do those words even mean? Who exactly do they describe?

We went on a road trip to find out. As we met the Americans who are being dismissed as public enemies, we discovered that they are … us. They like Taylor Swift. They dance bachata. They go to bed at night watching “Star Trek” reruns. They go to work and do their jobs: saving us from Armageddon.

Sure, our tax dollars pay them, but as you’ll see in the video above, what a return on our investment we get!

When we hear “deep state,” instead of recoiling, we should rally. We should think about the workers otherwise known as our public servants, the everyday superheroes who wake up ready to dedicate their careers and their lives to serving us. These are the Americans we employ. Even though their work is often invisible, it makes our lives better.

But if Donald Trump is re-elected and enacts Schedule F, that could change. He would have the power to eviscerate the so-called deep state and replace our public servants with people who work for him, not us.

In the video above, you’ll meet a few of our hard-working American public servants, and we hope you’ll agree that they’re not scary at all. In fact, they’re kind of awesome.

According to this video, the Deep State saved the world by developing the technology to deflect an errant asteroid! Plus, it shut down some meat packers using child labor, and has some Black woman working on clean water.

It says Trump is going to fire these people, and we will all die.

No, these people are not the Deep State that Trump is targeting.

Here is a much better video: The Deep State is Real, Here's Why it Matters

With all the allegations about a group of unelected men making decisions that impact the rest of the country, we wanted to dig into the documents and talk to experts to find the truth. Is there a Deep State? And if so, how deep does it go?

Neither video is willing to explain that the Deep State is controlled by the Jews.

Here is a Secular Jewish Atheist American professor, with an Israeli wife, posting a long rant in support of the Israel war against Gaza. He says, rightfully I think, that the one-state and two-state solutions are not viable, and that Israel will fight to maintain its territory. So is he unhappy with Biden's sellout of Israel? He writes:

I unhesitatingly vote for Biden over Trump ...

As it’s done in the past, Israel can survive without American support—just not as easily, and (alas) probably at the cost of much more violence inflicted on the Palestinians. But the US as we’ve known it can’t survive if our elections come to mean no more than Russian elections.

If you wanted me to vote Trump, you’d need to invent an opposing candidate who literally wanted to put my family into an internment camp, or something of the kind.

Trump's opponent, Pres. Biden, is literally putting Trump and his supporters in jail.

I also do not see the point of Israel destroying Gaza, if there is no hope of a one-state or two-state solution anyway.

Update: When the above blogger is confronted with the fact that he is firmly opposed to current Biden administration policy, he gives this lame defense:

I suspect that Biden simply got worn down by all the protesters screaming that he’s a genocidal monster, plus all the woke staffers in his administration, plus (yes) the very real possibility that he’ll lose Michigan and hence the election to an authoritarian conman if he sticks to his original principles. Honestly, I might’ve been worn down too in his situation. Or maybe Biden simply felt like he already stuck his neck far out to give Israel half a year to destroy Hamas, and if they haven’t managed to do it in that time then that’s on them.

I do not think Biden has any original principles. He just goes along with whatever most of the Democrat Party wants. And currently the Party is split over Israel.

New Book says Biden is like Hitler

The New Yorker reports:

new book, “Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power” (Knopf), an aggressively specific chronicle of a single year, 1932, seems a wise, even an inspired one. Ryback details, week by week, day by day, and sometimes hour by hour, how a country with a functional, if flawed, democratic machinery handed absolute power over to someone who could never claim a majority in an actual election and whom the entire conservative political class regarded as a chaotic clown with a violent following. Ryback shows how major players thought they could find some ulterior advantage in managing him. ...

Ryback’s story begins soon after Hitler’s very incomplete victory in the Weimar Republic’s parliamentary elections of July, 1932. Hitler’s party, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (its German initials were N.S.D.A.P.), emerged with thirty-seven per cent of the vote,

The parallel to today is that Pres. Biden also stole an election, and has only about 37% approval ratings, and gains support from groups who believe they can manage him to favor their interests. Also Hitler ran as a Socialist, and got his support from the Left.

But the bigger parallel is that Hitler used lawfare to aggressively prosecute his political enemies.

The USA can survive stolen elections and incompetent leaders. It has many times before. But it cannot survive the Justice Dept. being weaponized to jail enemies. Biden is the new Hitler.

Here is a Jewish podcast complaint about Trump, by Sam Harris and Jonathan Rauch. Rauch gives a step-by-step explanation of how Trump could end Democracy. He does it by getting popularly elected, and then emulating Victor Orban of Hungary!

Trump was not able to accomplish much in his 2017-2020 term, because the DC civil servants were always sabotaging his policy. But Trump could issue an executive order to make his appointments more loyal to him. The Supreme Court could intervene, but will probably back down when it sees that Trump's actions are reasonable and popular.

Apparently Democracy is a code word for Jewish control.

Stark Differences in Behavior of Women

The London Daily Mail reports:

UC Berkeley professor forced to issue groveling apology after telling students to 'get out of the Bay Area if you want a girlfriend' - claiming EVERYWHERE else on the planet is better 'for that' ...

'If you want a girlfriend, get out of the Bay Area. Almost everywhere else on the planet is better for that,' he wrote.

'I'm not kidding at all. You'll be shocked by the stark differences in behavior of women in places where women are plentiful versus their behavior within artillery distance of San Jose and San Francisco,' he added. ...

'We want to be absolutely clear that the offensive content of the original post goes against the values and Principles of Community we adhere to at UC Berkeley,' said Roqua Montez.

The comments mostly say that the negative reaction proved him right. Note that no one says what he said that was incorrect. Just they were offended, and wanted an apology.

A professor ought to be able to give some friendly advice to his students.

Woke Science Journal Declares Sex Incoherent

The journal Cell, perhaps the top Biology scientific journal, has a special issue:

Landmark Cell focus issue centers the voices of sex and gender minorities ...

Building on last year’s Juneteenth focus issue ...

The focus issue centers around the idea that a more precise, inclusive, and interdisciplinary approach to understanding sex and gender will create better science.

No, there are no sex minorities. Half the population is male, and half female.

One article complains that that biologists define sex as binary, based on gamete size, but different opinions come from non-biologist scholars:

Scholars in the history of science and science and technology studies (STS) have identified many models of sex. ...

The answer to the question “What is sex?” is, in both theory and practice, just about everything, and therefore also nearly nothing. This exercise demonstrates that sex is an incoherent category, one that has perhaps outlived its use. ...

This kind of cross-disciplinary work is hard. ... In the case of sex, we know equally important but separate things about it: I have not been trained in the intricacies of the SRY gene,

The SRY gene is the one on the XY chromosome that triggers a fetus to become male. The author, Beans (they), does not understand any of that, but wants us all to believe that sex is an incoherent category.

Jerry Coyne elaborates on the errors in this paper.

Another paper: Rigorous science demands support of transgender scientists.

Trans liberation interacts with and builds upon the accomplishments of the women’s liberation, Black liberation, antiracist, anticolonial, class liberation, and disability justice movements. All assert that a person’s identity should not determine what opportunities they have access to and that it is each person’s right to control what happens to their body (i.e., bodily autonomy). Today’s movements for trans liberation continue this progress by upholding the simple fact that one’s assigned sex does not determine who one is. ...

Most authors self-identified as trans or transgender, transsexual, genderqueer, or genderf∗ck, with one author identifying as cisgender. The author list includes men and transmasculine persons, women and transfeminine persons, non-binary persons, and the parent of a transgender child.

If sex is not determinitive, then why are they so eager to use preferred pronouns?

This is all garbage that does not belong in a scientific journal. It says sex is incoherent, even though it has as good a definition as anything in biology, and uses terms like "queer" that really are incoherent. I cannot even guess what it means for a scientist to identify as "genderf∗ck". I am pretty sure it has no coherent definition.

This is all so crazy that it is hard to believe anyone is sincere with this. Maybe someday they will announce that they mocked us all with hoax papers.

Inflation is Up, but CPI is Doctored

Democrat campaigners say that the USA economy is much better than Pres. biden gets credit for.

Mark Hulbert writes:

Consumer borrowing costs in the U.S. have skyrocketed, but the CPI doesn't count this. ...

A new study takes exception to this anti-consumer narrative, finding that consumers are entirely justified in their gloominess. If inflation were measured correctly, the researchers argue, then it would be evident just how much consumers are hurting.

Entitled "The Cost of Money is Part of the Cost of Living: New Evidence on the Consumer Sentiment Anomaly," the study was conducted by Marijn Bolhuis of the International Money Fund and Judd Cramer, Karl Oskar Schulz, and Lawrence Summers, all of Harvard University, the latter the former Treasury secretary. The "anomaly" in their title is the unusually gloomy consumer.

Had the CPI fully reflected higher borrowing costs, it would have peaked at 18% in November 2022 and still be around 8%.

So inflation is only down because the changed the way the official figures are computed.

Woke is a Mental Illness

News:

A study out of Finland has found that people who believe in “woke” ideas of social justice are more likely to be anxious, miserable, and depressed.

The study, entitled “Construction and validation of a scale for assessing critical social justice attitudes,” was carried out by Oskari Lahtinen, a senior researcher at the INVEST Research Flagship Centre at the University of Turku. It sought to establish the prevalence of the “woke” worldview and the kinds of people who hold it.

This is an example of stereotypes being correct.

Woke people are concerned about bizarre stuff like George Floyd, pronouns, and Ukraine. They are detached from reality. These things have no bearing on their lives.

Transgender people are obviously mentally ill, but so are those who play along with their perversions, such as Pres. Biden.

The paper gives some wokeness definitions:

Theoretically, critical social justice propositions derive in part from various academic disciplines dealing with forms of oppression, for example, intersectional feminism and critical race theory (Bell, 1995; Crenshaw, 1990; Delgado & Stefancic, 2013). These disciplines derive a portion of their underlying epistemology from critical theory, postmodernism, and post-colonialism (Delgado & Stefancic, 2013; Mounk, 2023). A broader scope of relevant fields would also encompass, but not be limited to, black feminism, queer theory, and transgender studies (Butler, 1990; Collins, 2020; Combahee River Collective, 2014). Ideas deriving from these theoretical continuums come together in the perception component of critical social justice attitudes.

Previously esoteric ideas in the mentioned fields have made it into the mainstream recently, aided by best-selling authors (e.g., DiAngelo, 2018; Kendi, 2019). These disciplines point out varieties of oppression that cause privileged people (e.g., male, white, heterosexual, cisgender) to benefit over marginalized people (e.g., woman, black, gay, transgender). In critical race theory, some of the core tenets include that: (1) white supremacy and racism are omnipresent and “colorblind” policies are not enough to tackle them; (2) people of color have their own unique standpoint; and (3) races are social constructs (Delgado & Stefancic, 2013).

Queer theory on the other hand can be roughly summarized as a mechanism for problematizing boundaries of concepts and categories like “man,” “woman,” “straight,” “gay,” etc. (Butler, 1990; McCann & Monaghan, 2019). This process is called “queering,” and results, for example, in beliefs that there are no real boundaries between men and women and that gender, and possibly even sex, are social constructs. Queer theory and its offshoot transgender studies influence, and are influenced by, trans activism (McCann & Monaghan, 2019). They also often go hand in hand with current race activism: the critical race theory-influenced black identity movement Black Lives Matter (BLM), for instance, explicitly state their aims to include “to dismantle cisgender privilege” and “to foster a queer-affirming network”, even though BLM is best known for its activism against racist policing (Mathews & Jones, 2022).

Intersectionality thus ties together different kinds of oppression-related identity politics. Post-colonial theory derives from post-modernism and aims at opposing colonialism in all aspects of culture (Mishra & Hodge, 1991). Its most visible manifestations in contemporary culture have included, for example, attempts to “decolonize” university reading lists, that is, make them less white and European in favor of marginalized identities and attempts to get rid of statues of persons deemed controversial (e.g., slave-owning founding fathers in the US) and combating cultural appropriation (a privileged group adopting, e.g., traditions or dress from an oppressed group).

Believing all this entails life is inherently unfair and oppressive, based on skin color, microaggressions, and other trivialities. It denies your true identity and defines you by social expectations and the pronouns that others use.

The Effort to Abolish Whiteness

A blogger quotes:

If you are a white male, you don’t deserve to live. You are a cancer, you’re a disease, white males have never contributed anything positive to the world!

The goal of abolishing the white race is on its face so desirable that some may find it hard to believe that it could incur any opposition other than from committed white supremacists.

He backs off these, but argues:

Therefore, abolishing whiteness in this thought experiment doesn’t entail abolishing white people. It instead involves dismantling the social constructs and structures which have historically been associated with the concept of whiteness. ...

As can be seen from this discussion, abolishing whiteness doesn’t entail abolishing white people. Such delusions comes from white nationalists and reading into “Abolish whiteness” and inferring that it must mean “Abolishing white people.” This then can be likened with the so-called “great replacement theory“, where abolishing whiteness is being carried out through, great replacement.

Got that? Only someone delusional would take offense at efforts to abolish his kind.

The constructs associated with with whiteness can be collectively called Western Civilization. Or Christendom.

Saying you want to abolish that is wanting to exterminate the best culture on Earth. Maybe not killing white, but wiping out their culture.

More Doubt about George Floyd's Death

I posted arguments for and against the guilt of the George Floyd cops, and now the authors have had an online debate over it. It is three Whites ganging up on one Black man.

The anti-cop threesome aggressively accused the Black guy of getting the facts wrong, but they never showed any facts were wrong.

In shprt, there was no proof that the cops caused Floyd's death, and there are plausible explanations that do not involve neck or chest compression.

It is funny how much resistance there is to anyone questioning the official narrative. Even if the cops did contribute to Floyd's death, there is no evidence that they tried to kill him, or acted out of malice or racist, or out of systemic racism.

They go on to discuss the Ferguson Effect, where faulty accusations of police misconduct have led to huge increases in Black murders, and reduced policing of Black neighborhoods.

The Black guy just wants the truth, and to undermine faulty arguments that led to a lot of Black murders and other crimes. But why do the Whites so doggedly try to uphold the narrative that cops murdered Floyd?

I think the Whites are suffering from a mental illness. They want to believe that Whites have some collective guilt for some poor Black junkie dying.

California Governor tries to undo an Election

Politico reports:

SACRAMENTO, California — Gov. Gavin Newsom is embarking on a last-minute scramble to correct rejected ballots as his prized $6.4 billion mental health and housing bond maintains a razor-thin lead.

The governor’s federal PAC, Campaign for Democracy, sent an urgent volunteer request to supporters Thursday night, asking them to help reach out to Democrats who have had their ballots rejected — for reasons like forgetting to include a signature — in an effort to get their ballots counted.

“This ballot initiative is SO CLOSE that your commitment to volunteer could mean the difference between people getting off the streets and into the treatment they need... or not,” the governor’s email read. “Truly. It is that close.”

The most recent update showed Proposition 1 with 50.2 percent of the vote, leading by about 21,000 votes with a half-million ballots left to be counted statewide.

What? The election was a couple of weeks ago. And yet a half million ballots are uncounded, and the governor is trying to manipulate the tally of what has been counted.

American elections are rigged. The outcomes should not be trusted, unless all votes are cast and counted in front of observers on election day, as is done by other civilized countries.

Democrqats say they stand for election integrity. It is all a lie. Only Trump promises fair elections. Democrats are openly stealing the California election right now.

Ireland Reaffirms Motherhood

Ireland just rejected proposals to amend these constitutional clauses:

In Article 41.1.1° “The State recognises the Family as the natural primary and fundamental unit group of Society, and as a moral institution possessing inalienable and imprescriptible rights, antecedent and superior to all positive law.”

In Article 41.3.1° “The State pledges itself to guard with special care the institution of Marriage, on which the Family is founded, and to protect it against attack.”

Article 41.2.1° “In particular, the State recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved.”

Article 41.2.2° “The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.”

Ireland has been taken over by non-Irish people, and they object to this recognition of the family and motherhood.

In most of the West now, "mother" has become an offensive word.

Migrant Measles Outbreak in Chicago

Measles was once eradicated in the USA, but we have occasional outbreaks. The officials always blame vaccine hesitancy.

There is an outbreak in Chicago. Most of the cases are at the Pilsen migrant shelter.

Trying to debunk the Racialist Hypothesis

News:

The NAACP called on Black student athletes to boycott Florida universities in light of the Sunshine State’s crackdown on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

NAACP leader Derrick Johnson on Monday announced that they told Black NCAA prospects via a letter to reconsider playing for "PWI" public colleges and universities in Florida. PWI is typically referred to as a "predominantly White institution."

Black athletes have been overrepresented in Florida college scholarships, compared to the population. If Blacks really want racial equity, then Florida should play White athletes at those PWIs.

The idea that Blacks might be better at some athletic skills is called the racialist hypothesis, and is attacked in a new academic paper:

In this manuscript we have analyzed the last twenty years of race data for the 100m and 1500m and found it in conflict with the dominant racialist models that suggest regional African ancestry has a role in determining running ability. With respect to the 100m, the emergence of South African and East Asian sprinters challenge the argument that West African ancestry rather than culture is what underlies Caribbean success in sprinting. Cataloguing the morphological diversity and biomechanical variation across elite 100m sprinters, ...

We propose a psycho-cultural framework that considers multiple sources of psychological impact that occur within and between races. This framework allows us to quantify and validate what many athletes have frequently expressed, that belief is paramount.

So Jamaicans are not really naturally talented sprinters; they do well because they believe they can.

As you can see from the above link, the fastest sprinters are overwhelmingly West African, and the fastest long distance runners East Africa. Maybe that is just coincidence, or belief.

To substantiate this, they point to progress in video game scores!

, the psychocultural framework that we have developed is by no means exclusive to sports. ..., and observe the recent developments in Tetris a classic video game known for being simple, yet cognitively challenging [93]. Despite being out since 1989, and maintaining a large enough cult following to support yearly championships since 2010, it was finally completed for the first time at the beginning of 2024 [94]. And then twice more in the next month [95] - suggesting that even without the strictures of scientific racism, limits are subconsciously set far below the pinnacle of human achievement across many different domains.

Tetris is supposed to follow the example of the four minute mile:

When progress appeared to plateau after the second world war, scientists declared it may be physiologically impossible to break that "four minute barrier" [47], perhaps further delaying the event - which finally occurred in 1954 when Roger Bannister of England ran 3:59.4 [48]. The "barrier" now broken, another sub four clocking occurred again only 46 days later, eight more times over the next three years, and the following decade saw the largest improvement since records were first recorded (see Figure 3-b).

This is a widely-believed misconception. People say that no one could run a 4-minute mile before 1954 because no one thought it was possible, and then, once it was shown possible, everyone could do it.

No, that is nonsense. What really happened was that modern polyurethane/rubber tracks replaced the old cinder tracks, and everyone ran about 2% faster. The elite runners who ran 4:02 on cinder suddenly did 3:58 on synthetic. Nobody got faster on the same track.

In Tetris, someone recently figured out a winning strategy that a highly skilled gamer could execute. Yes, revealing the strategy allowed others to mimic it. Not like running at all.

AAAS Science goes Woke on Genetics

AAAS Science magazine reports:

For as long as the concept of race has existed, racial prejudice has been justified on hereditary grounds (1, 2). Justifications of prejudice often misappropriate the work of Mendel, who first expounded a scientific model of inheritance by breeding peas (3). Today, our understanding of inheritance has moved far beyond Mendel, and insights from genomics refute the prejudiced idea that racial inequality is determined by genes (1). Even so, many believe that inequality is genetic because they are biased by an inaccurate conception of race called “genetic essentialism” (1, 2, 4). We present data from a randomized trial to argue that if teachers move genetics instruction beyond Mendel and toward more complex genomics concepts—what we call “humane genomics education”—they can protect students from believing in unscientific notions of genetic essentialism and support their scientifically accurate understanding of race as a social construction. ...

If teachers move beyond Mendel to instruct students about the complexities of contemporary genomics concepts for the purpose of refuting genetic essentialism, they can help students understand that racial disparities are not unreal, unimportant, or the product of genes. Rather, they are socially constructed.

It goes on to explain that many students learn that Blacks are susceptible to sickle cell anemia. It argues that this leads to a false belief in racial essentialism, as some non-blacks have the disease, and some Blacks do not carry the faulty gene.

It is a stupid point because sickle-cell anemia is a predominantly Black disease, and is explained by African ancestry.

We contend that genetics education needs to move beyond Mendel and toward the complexity of human genomics if it is to prevent the development of genetic essentialism (1). To understand why, consider the following three genomics concepts (D to F): (D) Roughly 0.1% of the human genome varies between individuals, and when population geneticists partition this variable DNA, they find that most variation occurs within geographic populations (~95%) and much of the genetic variation that occurs across such populations (~5%) consists of common alleles that vary in frequency (10). If “races” are defined as geographic populations, then the essentialist assumption that there is little to no genetic variation among individuals of the same race — and thus that most genetic variation is between races — is wrong.

No, this is a straw man. No one denies genetic variation within a race. There are smart Whites and dumb Whites. There is huge genetic variation within Africa. And there are many genetic differences between Whites and Black Africans.

(E) Also, social disparities between races involve differences in complex traits. Because complex traits are multifactorial and influenced by interactions between genes and environments (12), it is not scientifically accurate to claim that racial inequality is determined by genetic variation alone (1). (F) Indeed, humans inherit their genomes along with their environments, and scientists have not yet developed convincing or ethical methods to disentangle gene-environment covariance (1).

There are 100s of convincing and ethical papers disentangling genes and environments. Many find traits that are maybe 50% genetic, with the remaining covariance being environment or something else.

They want you to believe that differences between the races is attributable to racism. But that is false. A great many differences have been proved to be genetic, or maybe 50% genetic.

Another Science article:

Sample textbook passages that illustrate essentialist codes

“You might be surprised to learn that the ability to roll your tongue is an inherited trait. Being able to roll the tongue is likely to be dominant over not being able to roll it. Characteristics such as tongue rolling are called discrete, because they tend to fall into distinct, or discrete, categories. Either you can roll your tongue or you cannot. Either you are male or female. Either you have dimples or you do not.”

Apparently this analogy is misleading, as tongue-rolling is not completely binary, as sex is. And while your sex is either male or female, you may choose a gender identity that is not binary.

This is our leading science journal. It has gone woke. There is very little scientific content in these articles, and much of it is wrong.

There really are genetic differences between the sexes and the races. Science research should be illuminating those differences, both qualitatively and quantitively. Instead, they teach the lie that the differences are socially constructed.

It is appalling to see a science journal trying to say there is no truth in a general statement, because of contrived exceptions. Science would never get anywhere with that attitude. Consider an accepted statement like "CO2 emissions cause global warming." It is not refuted by finding some place on Earth that got colder.

Or "the Earth is round" is mostly true, even though there are mountains. Even statements that seem absolutely true, like "energy is conserved" have exceptions, if not carefully interpreted.

When someone says human races do not exist because some people are of mixed race, he is just displaying a kindergarten ignorance of how science can make qualitative statements.

Poor Things is a Trash Movie

Emma Stone just got an Oscar for starring in Poor Things, so I watched it.

I was expecting a feminist role, but it was the most misogynist movie I have seen. I guess it was trying to show that a woman could escape Victorian morality by exploring her sexuality. Actually, Stone's character is given the mind of child, and she behaves very badly and is promiscuous. It is quite explicit, and much of it is a porn movie.

I am trying to figure out why this movie got such high praise. Stone portrays a stupid slut. She is so childlike that it is debatable whether she is capable of consenting to what this doing. The movie is essentially a porn movie featuring a series of men raping a mentally retarded girl.

Is this the message the movie makers were trying to send? No, I get the impression that they were trying to make a statement of female empowerment. Stone is discovering her sexuality while repudiating Victorian expectations.

The mainstream theaters and streaming services do not usually show hard-core porn, so you might think that this movie is an opportunity to see some, but i do not recommended it. Not unless you enjoy pedophile, violent, degrading, interracial, homosexual, prostitute porn.

Supposedly the movie is also a comedy, but I never laughed. I could not even tell what was supposed to be funny. The movie is sick. Also, be warned that all the dialog has a thick accent, and is hard to understand.

An Oscar was given for a Holocaust movie, with a bizarre Jewish acceptance speech:

“The Zone of Interest” writer/director Jonathan Glazer addressed the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict head-on during the 2024 Oscars.

“Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It’s shaped all of our past and present,” Glazer said in his acceptance speech for Best International Feature. “Right now we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people.” ...

Glazer continued, “Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza — all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?”

The World War II period piece is set against the backdrop of Auschwitz as a German Nazi commandant (Christian Friedel) and his emotionless wife (Sandra Hüller) condone the mass-murders of Jews.

I do not know what this means. Some kind of weird leftist self-hating Jew-speak, I guess. He is not refuting his Jewishness. He is still a Jew. He is against Jewishness being hijacked.

Apple Bans Epic Games

Apple Computer became the world's most valuable brand name by delievering phones that people like, but not everyone likes them.

Apple has now banned Epic Games, maker of Fortnite, because one of its executive criticized Apple in this tweet:

Apple leadership faces some massive decisions in the coming weeks as the contradictions between their stated principles and the intended and actual consequences of their present policies are reckoned with: the app store monopoly, the digital goods payments monopoly, the tax, the…

Seems mild to me. It did not even reference the Apple CEO's sexual preference!

Apple has confirmed this, and responded:

“Epic’s egregious breach of its contractual obligations to Apple led courts to determine that Apple has the right to terminate ‘any or all of Epic Games’ wholly owned subsidiaries, affiliates, and/or other entities under Epic Games’ control at any time and at Apple’s sole discretion.’ In light of Epic’s past and ongoing behavior, Apple chose to exercise that right.”

The big tech companies have so much power that they can control what people say.

Here is a famous computer science professor who got locked out of Facebook, and only got back in when an employee noticed a gripe on the professor's blog. This may have been a mistake, but it may have also been punishment for his views. He has made some enemies by only going along with 98% of today's liberal orthodoxy.

My problem with Apple devices is that they are too confining. With them, your apps may be blocked. You cannot use standard chargers, earphones, and data cables. Their messaging apps do not work well with non-Apple devices. Their computers cannot run the best games or AI, because they block Nvidia chips. Their products cost twice as much as the competition.

Apple just released a $4000 goggles product. It is supposed to run a great demo, but few are buying.

Apple now says that it will reinstate the Epic Games account. We should not be slaves to the whims and bugs of these big tech companies.

Oscars so Black

The NY Times page 1 top left side column story is this

The Oscars Now Have D.E.I. Rules, but Some Say It’s Just a Performance

How “Oppenheimer,” a movie about the men who developed the atomic bomb, met the new standards.

The national reckoning over racial justice after the killing of George Floyd ...

The article is a long complaint that George Floyd hysteria is not stopping a movie about WWII atomic scientists from winning Oscars.

Google AI turned the Nazis into Blacks, and I guess Hollywood was supposed to do the same with the atomic scientists.

The movie did credit a bunch of Jews, but some of them turned out to be Commies.

It is funny to see the NY Times directly say that we should be subjected to Blacks all over our movie screen, just because some Minnesota criminal junkie died of an overdose.

Just a couple of years ago, the Oscars featured a Black fistfight on stage. Isn't that enough?

Musk: Never Went to Therapy

Business Insider reports:

Elon Musk doesn't see a therapist and he wants you to know about it.

The billionaire Tesla cofounder wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday: "Put 'Never Went to Therapy' on my gravestone."

It's not the first time Musk has brushed off therapy — or discussed his hypothetical grave marker. In the past two months, on January 8 and January 29, he posted some variation of the same line, urging future stonemasons to make it clear the SpaceX CEO never sought mental health counseling.

The January 29 post was in response to a video of German filmmaker Werner Herzog, who said that psychoanalysis was "one of the "greatest stupidities, the greatest mistakes of the 20th century."

I agree with him, except I would have to say "Never Went to Psycho Therapy", as I have gotten physical therapy.

The single biggest thing wrong with the younger generation is that they are damaged by psychotherapy. I believe that it is harmful in most cases, if not all.

Tucker Carlson interviewed Putin

Quillette publishes some worthwile essay, but not it posts an unhigned rant:

Carlson is the latest in a long line of credulous partisans so fixated on domestic political vendettas that they wind up as a humiliated mouthpiece for vicious propaganda. In this case, Carlson’s attempts to secure endorsement of his parochial obsessions with a series of leading questions went nowhere.

By all appearances, Putin had prepared to give an eccentric lecture about the world-historical importance of Yaroslav the Wise, Grand Prince of Kyiv in 1019.

Okay, the guy hates Carlson and Putin, but is there any other point to this?

I thought that it would explain Putin's historical, or provide other info I did not know. Nope. It has no substantive disagreement with anything Putin or Tucker said.

The author's main complaint is that Carlson did a straight interview, and allowed Putin to give his own explanation for the Ukraine War. Seems like a public service to me. Whether you agree with the war or not, it is useful to understand what led to war.

Putin says Ukraine is important to Russian history, and he does not want the USA putting NATO missiles there.

Putin is a bad guy. He prosecutes his political enemdies, and maybe even kills them. He is worse than Pres. Biden, but Biden also prosecutes his political enemies. If Biden gets his way, Trump will die in prison. Zelensky also prosecutes his enemies.

I don't think the USA Deep State has any desire to eliminate Putin. What they really want is perpetual war. To them, the Ukraine War is a big success. It has expanded NATO, wrecked Germany's economy, put Europe more under USA control, generated a lot of business for defense contractors, given renewed purpose to DoD and CIA projects,burned a lot of Russian military resources, got Ukrainians behind a horrible US puppet, got Americans to hate Russia, etc. What's not to like?

Pres. Biden opened his State of the Union with:

Hitler was on the march. War was raging in Europe.

President Roosevelt’s purpose was to wake up the Congress and alert the American people that this was no ordinary moment.

Freedom and democracy were under assault in the world.

Tonight I come to the same chamber to address the nation.

Now it is we who face an unprecedented moment in the history of the Union. ...

Overseas, Putin of Russia is on the march, invading Ukraine and sowing chaos throughout Europe and beyond. ...

History is watching, just like history watched three years ago on January 6th.

Insurrectionists stormed this very Capitol and placed a dagger at the throat of American democracy.

Many of you were here on that darkest of days.

We all saw with our own eyes these insurrectionists were not patriots.

They had come to stop the peaceful transfer of power and to overturn the will of the people.

January 6th and the lies about the 2020 election, and the plots to steal the election, posed the gravest threat to our democracy since the Civil War.

But they failed. America stood strong and democracy prevailed.

No, this is the rant of a senile lunatic.

The 2020 election was rigged, and the Jan. 6 protest was a mostly peaceful attempt to get a valid count of the ballots. For that, Biden is imprisoning his political enemies. No one attempted to stop the peaceful transfer of power.

Did anyone really think that the transfer of power would be controlled by a bunch of rioters who walked into the Capitol building unarmed? Of course not. They merely wanted to voice their objections to faulty vote counts.

Yes, Biden must be stopped. He is the one trying to stay in office by prosecuting his rival.

Update:

JUST IN: Tucker Carlson calls President Biden's SOTU speech the most un-American speech in U.S. history.

"That was possibly the darkest, most un-American speech ever given by an American president. In fact, it wasn't a speech, it was a rant, entirely lacking in decency or…

More here. It was amazing to see a USA President try to justify himself by how much he hates Trump, and his 70 million supporters. And how we need to fight a war in Ukraine. And soldiers in Gaza.

Mark Cuban Endorses Biden

Business Insider reports:

"I don't want a snake oil salesperson as president. I'm voting for Biden/Harris over Trump all day every day," Cuban told Axios on Tuesday.

Cuban responded to Axios' questions after he voiced support for President Joe Biden's reelection campaign. Cuban told Bloomberg on Monday that he'd still vote for Biden even if the president "was being given last rites."

Cuban told Axios that when it came to Trump and Biden, it was a match-up between "the snake oil salesperson vs the incumbent, traditional politician."

"One will tell you his snake oil will cure everything that ails you. The other will show you the details of his policies through charts, graphs, and statements," Cuban said. ...

Cuban's Biden endorsement earned him a jab from Elon Musk. Musk mocked Cuban on Monday and said Cuban would vote for Biden even if the president "were a flesh-eating zombie."

Mark Cuban is the con man. He got rich by sell Broadcast.com to Yahoo at the peak of the dot-com bubble in 1999 for $5.7 billion. It was shut down as a total loss in 2002.

It is widely considered to be one of the worst investments any company ever made. Around the same time, Yahoo turned down offers to buy Google, and later Facebook for a lot less money.

Obviously Cuban is lying when he says Biden will show you the details of his policies with charts. Biden barely knows what his policies are, and could not explain anything with a chart.

Cuban is Jewish. A common thread among prominent Jews today is that they passionately hate Trump, and refuse to explain why. This is particularly true among supposedly secular Jews, and they do not want to admit that the Judaism religion drives their political views.

This podcast is another example: What a Second Trump Term Could Mean for America | Sam Harris and Jonathan Rauch. They seem like intelligent men, but this is the babbling of paranoid schizophrenics. I would conclude that they were mentally ill, if not Jewish.

They say they are worried about an authoritarian populist Trump Presidency, but Pres. Biden is the one who is jailing his political enemies. Trump was President for 4 years, and did not.

Harris and Rauch say they are Jewish Atheists, and would deny being religious bigots.

Canada is in a Population Trap

Canada news:

Much has been written of the negative impacts of rapidly rising immigration on the housing and the affordability crises and on essential services like healthcare. Now, the negative effect on the economy is being analyzed, and a previously unfamiliar term is appearing to describe it – “population trap”.

Appropriately, two economists from the National Bank of Canada (NBC) begin a report on the topic with Oxford’s definition: “Population trap: A situation where no increase in living standards is possible, because the population is growing so fast that all available savings are needed to maintain the existing capital-labour ratio.” (The capital-labour ratio is the ratio of capital employed to labour employed.)

Predictably, if the machinery and equipment employed grows relative to the labour employed, the labour productivity or efficiency of the economy increases and living standards typically rise. But when the capital-labour ratio fails to keep pace with a rapidly rising population, living standards or GDP per capita cannot improve. That is the “trap”. In Canada currently, as immigration surges, the capital-labour ratio has actually been declining, and living standards have been following. ...

The 2022 and 2023 surges are unprecedented. The NBC report observes “current population growth appears extreme” in relation to the absorptive capacity of Canada’s economy and considering our demographics are similar to the OECD average. The report says the absorption challenge is most evident in housing, where the housing supply deficit in 2023 more than doubled the historic average.

The NBC notes that population is growing so fast, we don’t have enough savings to stabilize the capital-labour ratio or to grow GDP per capita. “Simply put, Canada is in a population trap for the first time in modern history.”

Canada is destroying itself with massive immigration.

CDC say Covid is just the Flu

Ever wonder why covid was treated any differently from the annual flu? It turns that they were functionally the same, and public policy could have just considered covid to be the flu.

The CDC announces:

CDC released today updated recommendations for how people can protect themselves and their communities from respiratory viruses, including COVID-19. The new guidance brings a unified approach to addressing risks from a range of common respiratory viral illnesses, such as COVID-19, flu, and RSV, ...

The recommendations suggest returning to normal activities when, for at least 24 hours, symptoms are improving overall, and if a fever was present, it has been gone without use of a fever-reducing medication.

Once people resume normal activities, they are encouraged to take additional prevention strategies for the next 5 days to curb disease spread, such as taking more steps for cleaner air, enhancing hygiene practices, wearing a well-fitting mask, keeping a distance from others, and/or getting tested for respiratory viruses.

So for all practical purposes, covid is just a variant of the flu.

Jews attack Christian nationalism

Here is a Jewish magazine reporting on a Hollywood treatment of Christianity:

Rob Reiner, best known for his acting role in the 1970s sitcom All in the Family and for directing a series of beloved comedies — including This is Spinal Tap, The Princess Bride and When Harry Met Sally — is getting serious in his latest project.

God and Country, which hits theaters this week, examines what Reiner sees as the troubling rise of Christian nationalism. The Jewish filmmaker produced the documentary, along with his wife Michele and his friend Steve Okin, with Dan Partland as director. The film follows the history, and the more recent activities, of Christian nationalism, from the 1950s Cold War to the fight over abortion rights to the rise of televangelist Jerry Falwell to the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6.

“For decades, I was aware of… what we call now Christian nationalism,” Reiner told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in a recent interview. “It’s a political movement, really, certainly not a spiritual or religious movement, and it started gaining more and more strength.”

The article goes on to say the movie interviews a bunch a Trump-haters who trace their hatred to either Christianity or nationalism.

Christian Nationalism just got this defintion on MSNBC:

Politico correspondent Heidi Przybyla offered a mea culpa for what she calls "clumsy" remarks she made last week knocking "Christian nationalists."

Przybyla went viral following her MSNBC appearance when she said "Christian nationalists" believed the rights of Americans "come from God" rather than government institutions like Congress and the Supreme Court, facing accusations of demonizing Christians and of being ignorant of US civics.

Her complaint is with America's founding principles.

I am not sure what Christian Nationalism is, except that Jews think that it is some sort of synonuym for Trump. Trump is not even particularly overtly Christian, and the whole thing is a symptom of Jewish paranoia and hatred of Christianity.

New Diverse DNA Database draws Criticism

Genetics professor Lior Pachter complains that his fellows geneticists write papers about race.

The All of Us Research Program, whose mission is to “to accelerate health research and medical breakthroughs, enabling individualized prevention, treatment, and care for all of us”, recently published a flagship paper in Nature on “Genomic Data in the All of Us Research Program“.

All of Us has collected data on diverse racial groups, so health research can be directed to underrepresented minorities. What could be wrong with that? Plenty, he says.

The misuse of the concepts of race, ethnicity and genetic ancestry, and the misrepresentation of genetic data to create a false narrative, is a serious matter. I say this because such misrepresentations have been linked to terror. The Buffalo terrorist who murdered 10 black people in a racist rampage in 2022 wrote that "Jews cannot be considered European" ...

The pseudoscientific belief that humans can be genetically separated into distinct racial groups is part of scientific racism. Such pseudoscience, and its spawn of racist policy, has roots in many places, but it must be acknowledged that some of them are in academia.

He complains that DNA evidence can identify Ashkenazi Jews. Pachter himself identifies as a South African Jew who moved to the USA, so it is not clear why he would be offended by this.

This idea for this post arose during a DEI meeting of my research group organized

So these professors are subjected to DEI meetings where they says race is not real, and complain about scientific papers proving that race is real.

Not just him. Berkeley geneticist Michael Eisen has demanded that the Nature paper be retracted. Eisen is a Jewish name. I see from Wikipedia that he was wrongly fired for a satirical tweet about tue Gaza War.

This is the objection. Wokeness requires denying the biology of race. DNA data show racial differences. Such data must be considered to ensure that medical databases are diverse. The datasets are huge, and are oversimplified when reduced to 2-dimensional plots for publication in print journals. The woke scientists make technical objections to the 2D plots, as a way of undermining racial biology.

There is something strange about Jews making all these high-handed racial pronouncements, and then demanding that a scientific chart be retracted because of obscure technical criticisms.

Judaism is the most ethnocentric of the world's religions. Jews call people racists more than anyone else. Jews have a bunch of rules for genetic qualifications to be a Jew. They do not like it when others identify them as Jews. They scream scientific racism if non-Jewing groups talk about how they can be genetically identified.

How to make sense of this? Jews believe that they are God's Chosen People, and that all others are sub-human animals that are not worthy of being distinguished. Even Atheist Jews recite leftist political opinions, and rush to put down ethnic pride in all non-Jewish groups, especially White Christians.

Pachter is an example of this. See the glee he takes in arguing that The perfect human is Puerto Rican. Jews have contempt for most of humanity. We non-Jews are no better than Puerto Ricans. He particularly hates James Watson, of DNA discovery fame.

This appears to be a Jewish religious belief. We see the same thing in prominent Jewish intellectuals, such as the late Stephen Jay Gould, and many others. They adamantly argue that there is no such thing as human races, even though they can be identified by DNA. Non-Jews must have nothing to distinguish them from each other. There can only be one Chosen People.

Maybe I am reading too much into this, but why else would Pachter get so excited by an obscure figure in a scientific paper? Why else would he hate Watson so much? Why do the vast majority of academic Jews say the same thing?

They have influenced the scientific establishment in reciting this nonsense. The leading journal, AAAS Science, just published this:

The sociopolitical in human genetics education

Education must go beyond only countering essentialist and deterministic views of genetics

Biological and genetics research has established that racial categories have no biological or genetic basis. Social sciences have established that race is a socially and politically constructed categorization that undergirds racism, which has devastating consequences for racially oppressed groups.

The authors are not even scientists, and most have jobs in Education departments. This paper was not accepted on its scientific merits. It was published because those who do control AAAS wanted that political-religious message. Some of the paper's problems are explained here.

The Gaza War has changed the public perception of Jews. If the Gazans could demonstrate Jewish DNA and acceptance of Jewish ideologies, they would be welcomed into Israel. They cannot, and the Israelis are exterminating them like subhuman animals.

Reuters reports:

Health authorities in Gaza said on Thursday Israeli fire on people waiting for aid near Gaza City had killed 104 Palestinians and wounded 280, with one hospital saying it had received 10 bodies and dozens of injured patients.

I am not necessarily saying Israel is wrong. After all, Hamas is still holding Israeli hostages. I am just pointing out how the world is wising up to how Jews view non-Jews. R

California opens Transgender Voting Center

KNX News reports:

If you are transgender or non-binary, you can cast your vote in the March 5th primary election at the Connie Norman Transgender Empowerment Center near West Hollywood.

As KNX News' Margaret Carrero reports, this first-of-its-kind voting center in the nation accommodates all people but will serve as a safe space for those who identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community to vote without fear.

During remarks at the center, Queen Victoria Ortega said, "Many of the times we are either misgendered or looked at up and down or just intimidated when we go and cast our vote. So, being able to have a place where you can see people like you that are going to respect you, that are going to use the correct pronoun - We go through arduous processes to change our name and gender. Why should we go through arduous processes to cast our votes?"

Bad Therapy Hijacked Our Nation’s Schools

Abigail Shrier writes:

Most American kids today are not in therapy. But the vast majority are in school, where therapists and non-therapists diagnose kids liberally, and offer in-school counseling and mental health and wellness instruction. By 2022, 96 percent of public schools offered mental health services to students. Many of these interventions constitute what I call “bad therapy”: they target the healthy, inadvertently exacerbating kids’ worry, sadness, and feelings of incapacity. ...

Forget the Pledge of Allegiance. Today’s teachers are more likely to inaugurate the school day with an “emotions check-in.”

School counselor Natalie Sedano advised our assembled conference room of teachers to ask kids: “How are you feeling today? Are you daisy-bright, happy and friendly? Or am I a ladybug? Will I fly away if we get too close?”

This prompted great excitement in the audience, and teachers jumped up to share their own “emotions check-ins.” One teacher said every day, she asks her kids if they feel it’s a “bones” or “no bones” kind of a day, borrowing the verbiage from a viral TikTok video in which a pug owner shares the mood of his 13-year-old pug, Noodle. If Noodle sits upright, it’s a bones day! If he collapses, it’s a no-bones day.

“That is so fun!” Sedano enthused. “Love it! Thank you!” ...

“To avoid an ethical breach known as a dual relationship, I can’t treat or receive treatment from any person in my orbit—not a parent of a kid in my son’s class, not the sister of coworkers, not a friend’s mom, not my neighbor.” This ethical guardrail exists to protect a patient from exploitation. ...

Except that school counselors, school psychologists, and social workers enjoy a dual relationship with every kid who comes to see them. They know all of a kid’s best friends; they may even treat a few of them with therapy. They know a kid’s parents and their friends’ parents. They know the boy a girl has a crush on, what romantically transpired between them, and how the relationship ended. They know a kid’s teammates and coaches and the teacher who’s giving him a hard time. And they report, not to a kid’s parents, but to the school administration. It’s a wonder we allow these in-school relationships at all.

Update: Reason magazine reports:

Public schools have a mental health crisis and only thousands of new support staff can save them. That's the narrative being pushed nationwide at a time when enrollment has crashed by nearly 1.3 million students and $190 billion in federal K-12 COVID-19 relief aid is set to expire later this year.

"It would take 77,000 more school counselors, 63,000 more school psychologists and probably tens of thousands of school social workers to reach levels recommended by professional groups before the pandemic hit," reports The Washington Post.

Now legislators in states such as Minnesota, New York, and Virginia are introducing bills aimed at getting schools closer to meeting the 250-to-1 student-to-counselor ratio recommended by the American School Counselor Association (ASCA). ...

The real problem isn't that there aren't enough school counselors, but that many states already have laws on the books advancing ASCA's flawed recommendation.

Yes, too many counselors, not too few.