Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

[–]rwkastenBring on the dancing horses[S,M] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

And for the one-year anniversary of this thread, I made a new one:

https://saidit.net/s/CultureWarRoundup/comments/bp17/offtopic_and_loweffort_cw_thread_for_october_24/

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2023 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Per user suggestion, until traffic on this sub picks up a bit, I'm going to create a single thread that may correlate to several weeks' worth of threads in the subreddit. We have this option because saidit's automoderator doesn't appear to have the "auto-post new threads" feature. There is no cutoff that will generate a new OT/LE thread, but speaking practically, it will probably be somewhere in the 2-3 weeks/100 comments range. We have flexibility at the expense of a small amount of convenience.

That said, here is the cross-link to the current OT/LE on reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/CultureWarRoundup/comments/1bhitr8/march_18_2024_weekly_offtopic_and_loweffort_cw/

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Texas mother who blamed son's life-threatening injuries on 'white couple' arrested for lying to police

A Texas mother was arrested on Saturday for allegedly making false statements to police about her two-year-old son's life-threatening injuries sustained in February, in which he had suffered internal injuries, burns, and a lacerated liver.

Shelby Martinez, 30, was arrested on Saturday at her apartment complex where her son was injured and has been charged with making false statements to police, according to KFDX Wichita Falls.

Authorities say Martinez and the boy's father, Thomas Gates, tried to cover up how their child received life-threatening injuries.

Their two-year-old son was allegedly run over by Gates when he was backing out with his vehicle, but the couple blamed it on an "unknown white couple," according to police. Martinez and Gates are both black.

Gates was arrested in February, several days after the incident, for the same charge after coming clean to the police about how the incident played out.

Demand continues to exceed supply.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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9-year-old schoolgirl scolded for intolerance after complaining about having to change in front of biological boy in girls’ changing room: The girl’s parents were accused of “undermining the school’s gender inclusivity policy” when they told the principal their daughter was afraid to go to gym class

Jessica Kakiay-Yavuz, the mother of a 9-year-old student at the Roman Catholic primary school De Tweemaster in Huizen, told the De Telegraaf newspaper how her daughter no longer feels comfortable attending gym class because she is forced to change in the presence of a boy.

“My daughter came to me because she thought it was strange that a boy came into the dressing room,” Kakiay-Yavuz told the newspaper. “I have requested a meeting with the school to find a solution. The director was initially open to that.”

She explained that after informing the school of her daughter’s concerns, she received a “very humiliating” response in which she was asked to accept the situation and was accused of “undermining the school’s gender inclusivity policy.”

“If I wanted, I could receive information so that I could understand the ‘difficult situation that gender and sex diverse people face,'” the mother was told.

“She doesn’t feel comfortable having to change in front of a boy. This is of course not a situation you want to be in as parents. We have been upset for weeks, I cannot let go of the issue,” she said of her daughter’s predicament.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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California Community Colleges system sued for imposing DEI standards on profs

Represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), six Fresno-area community college professors are challenging the legality of newly implemented teaching guidelines by the California Community Colleges (CCC) system that require its more than 54,000 faculty members to profess anti-racist and DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility) ideologies in their classrooms.

FIRE filed the lawsuit on Aug. 17 on behalf of James Druley, Linda de Morales, Loren Palsgaard, and David Richardson of Madera Community College, Bill Blanken of Reedley College, and Michael Stannard of Clovis Community College. The plaintiffs argue that the community college system forcing them to teach questionable views they do not agree with is a violation of their First Amendment rights, such as mandating professors inform students that “cultural and social identities are diverse, fluid, and intersectional.”

“These regulations are a totalitarian triple-whammy,” lead attorney Daniel Ortner said in a FIRE press release. “The government is forcing professors to teach and preach a politicized viewpoint they do not share, imposing incomprehensible guidelines, and threatening to punish professors when they cross an arbitrary, indiscernible line.”

The CCC first formally proposed implementing mandatory DEI classroom standards in March 2022. The following month, FIRE notified the community college system that implementing such required teaching regulations in public institutions would be contrary to the First Amendment and academic freedom.

The new regulations include DEIA standards by which faculty will be evaluated and reviewed for tenure. Schools will be required to “include DEIA competencies and criteria as a minimum standard for evaluating the performance of all employees” in an effort to “advance DEIA principles in community college employment.”

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Teachers union to teachers: Destroy evidence of student gender identity surveys

CBS Colorado notes that while the JeffCo Public Schools district says it is “unclear” whether surveys about “preferred pronouns” are in violation of state law, it advised teachers against using them as lawsuits are ongoing.

Federal and state law forbid mandatory surveys that ask about kids’ “protected information,” and voluntary surveys must include a parent opt-out.

But an email from the Jefferson County Education Association told teachers that if they give such surveys, to make sure to they are pencil and paper … because “any digital records are more permanent and may be requested under federal law.”

The email also “encouraged” teachers to “make […] notations about students and not hold on to the documents.”

[...]

JeffCo parents claim that since the union’s guidance, “dozens” of district teachers have made use of gender identity surveys. Parents say they’re not opposed to students using preferred pronouns and respect transgender students’ right not to be “outed,” just to the union telling teachers “to break the law and hide the evidence.”

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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UK politician arrested for hate crimes after retweeting posts defending free speech: Cllr Anthony Stevens is out on bail after being arrested for retweeting a post criticizing the police’s wrongful arrest of a Christian preacher

A Conservative local politician in the U.K. has revealed he was arrested at his home earlier this month on suspicion of distributing written material to stir up racial hatred after retweeting a social media post that criticized the police’s treatment of a Christian street preacher.

Cllr Anthony Stevens, a member of Wellingborough Town Council in the English county of Northamptonshire, was questioned by officers at his local police station over allegations of hate crimes and presented with three social media posts published on his personal Twitter account.

Stevens retweeted to a grand total of 76 followers a post that compared the treatment of two religious preachers, a Christian named Oluwole Ilisanmi who was arrested by police in Southgate, London, back in 2019 for suspected Islamophobia, and an unknown Muslim preacher who was allowed to walk free despite shouting expletives and displaying considerable provocation in a confrontation with officers.

[...]

Lastly, police questioned the Conservative politician about a retweet of a video showing a man burning a copy of the Quran, a post that Stevens insists is aligned with his view that such an act remains a citizen’s right “in a free society.”

It is Stevens’ understanding he was reported to the police by a local member of the opposition Labour Party. He is currently out on bail as authorities conduct further investigations.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Activist behind US affirmative action cases sues major law firms

The American Alliance for Equal Rights sued Perkins Coie in Dallas and Morrison & Foerster in Miami two months after the Supreme Court sided with another group founded by activist Edward Blum and rejected affirmative action policies used by many colleges to increase enrollment of racial minorities.

The lawsuits, brought in federal courts, accused both law firms of unlawfully discriminating against white candidates by limiting which law students could be considered for paid fellowships geared toward promoting greater diversity within the legal sector.

[...]

Perkins Coie, founded in Seattle, offers "diversity fellowships" that provide stipends of $15,000 to $25,000 and paid positions as summer associates, a position that at major law firms can lead to full-time jobs upon graduation.

Applicants must belong to "a group historically underrepresented in the legal profession, including students of color, students who identify as LGBTQ+, and students with disabilities," according to Perkins Coie, which employs more than 1,200 lawyers in the United States and Asia.

Morrison & Foerster, a corporate law firm founded in San Francisco that has more than 1,000 lawyers worldwide, has a similar program that is open to applicants who are Black, Hispanic, Native American or members of the LGBT community.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Trigger warning added to EM Forster’s A Passage to India by US publisher: Disclaimer cautions that the 1924 novel contains ‘offensive’ language and ‘attitudes of this time’

Readers opening A Passage to India are confronted with a note warning them of the “offensive“ language and “cultural representations” contained in the book.

The disclaimer adds that publishing Forster’s work in an unedited form does not constitute “an endorsement” of the writer, who is often regarded as one of the greats of the 20th century.

The warning printed in the book has raised concerns that canonical works by British writers are being dragged into “febrile” American cultural conflicts, and unfairly deemed offensive by publishers swayed by “United States sensibilities”.

The warning printed in the opening pages of the 2021 US edition of A Passage to India states: “This book was published in 1924 and reflects the attitudes of its time. The publisher’s decision to present it as it was originally published is not an endorsement of any offensive cultural representations or language.”

The novel concerns a school mistress visiting the fictional city of Chandrapore and the nearby Marabar Caves, where she is allegedly sexually assaulted by an Indian doctor, bringing about a reckoning with racial tensions.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Feds: Woman who said her landlord was racist made it all up

A woman who publicly accused her landlord of racism to fight an eviction is now facing federal charges. Investigators say she made it all up.

Dermisha Pickett was going through the eviction process in February when she went public with a voicemail and text messages, supposedly from her landlord, stating she was being evicted due to her race.

Pickett claimed her landlord, Sergey Briskman, told her he would "not rent to African Americans" and that he would "rather put a white family in the unit."

Pickett and her attorney, Fanon Rucker, filed a counterclaim of discrimination, then investigators from Housing and Urban Development launched an investigation.

According to court documents, Pickett faked the text messages using a separate phone and made false statements to investigators.

Demand continues to exceed supply.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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UCSF professor: Trans kids who ID as ‘Minotaurs’ merely part of ‘gender revolution’

In a recently unearthed presentation, a professor from the University of California San Francisco claimed that children can identify as “gender hybrids” such a Minotaur — the half-man, half bull creature from Greek mythology.

So said Diane Ehrensaft, because a seven-year-old child once told her that he was a “Prius” — a “boy in the front [and] a girl in the back.”

Ehrensaft (pictured), the mental health director of the Child and Adolescent Gender Center at UCSF’s Benioff Children’s Hospitals, also claimed in the 2018 San Francisco Public Library discussion that kids “can change their genders by season and can have different identities depending on their location.”

“I totally agree we are in the midst of a gender revolution and the children are leading it,” Ehresaft said according to Fox News. “And it’s a wonderful thing to see. And it’s also humbling to know [children] know more than we do about this topic of being gender expansive.”

Ehrensaft believes transgenderism is the “next phase of the 60s feminist movement,” the report notes. She also introduced terminology such “genderfluid,” “non-binary” and “gender expansive.”

📯🤡

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Taxpayer-funded ‘inclusive science’ fellowship excludes white faculty

White faculty are excluded from a National Science Foundation-funded “inclusive science” fellowship, in what one legal group calls a “blatant violation” of federal law.

The “Inclusive Science Communication Fellowship” is “supported by a $2.8 million collaborative National Science Foundation grant” and run by the University of Rhode Island Metcalf Institute, Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism and the University of Rhode Island Science and Story Lab.

The fellowship “will address a significant gap in science communication research and training by centering the motivations, experiences, and priorities of racial and ethnic minority scientists,” according to its description.

A requirement is that applicants “[s]elf-identify as Black or African American, Indigenous or Native American, Hispanic or Latina/e/o/x, Asian or Asian American, Middle Eastern or North African.”

This raises legal issues according to the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Skittles' new packaging has some calling to boycott candy company

Skittles candy, which has the slogan, "Taste the rainbow," is the latest company to take heat from consumers because of new packaging that has the phrase, "Black Trans Lives Matter."

Some consumers are now calling to boycott the candy company for its "woke" approach to support the LGBTQ community.

[...]

One of the new package designs has the sun and the moon walking on a rainbow while holding hands, and another has the word "PRIDE" in multiple colors, a mouth with the rainbow pouring out of it, and the words, "bi, ace, lesbian, queer, trans and gay."

But the packaging raising the biggest concern has a few kids on skateboards riding on a halfpipe with the phrases "skate & live," "joy is resistance," and "black trans lives matter" written on it.

"@Skittles is trying to turn your kids into BLM & LGBTQ+ activists," one online user wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Libs of TikTok. "Their packaging also features a drag queen."

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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California bill would make questioning school board members a crime

Senate Bill 596, introduced by Democratic State Senator Anthony Portantino in February and dubbed the “School Employees: Protection” act, expands an existing law “which makes it a misdemeanor for any ‘person’ to threaten or harass a school employee during the ‘course of [their] duties,'” according to the California Globe.

This expansion adds a penalty for creating a “substantial disorder” at any meeting of a public school board, charter school board, county board of education, and the California State Board of Education.

Although “substantial disorder” is not precisely defined, the bill notes that “course of conduct” is “a pattern of conduct composed of two or more acts over a period of time, however short … evidencing a continuity of purpose.”

Gone from the definition of “harassment” is “unlawful violence” and “credible threat of violence,” and in its place is “torments, or terrorizes.”

It’s not difficult to figure out what’s happening here. A concerned parent at a school board meeting asks a board member a question and reiterates it (thereby establishing a “course of conduct”) … and if the board member feels “tormented” the parent can be arrested and charged with a fine between $500 and $1,000 and face up to a year in jail.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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[Christopher F. Rufo] The Arc of Reform: New College of Florida votes to abolish its gender studies program.

Tonight, the New College of Florida board of trustees voted to direct the administration to abolish the university’s gender studies program, becoming the first public university in America to begin rolling back the encroachment of gender ideology and queer theory on its academic offerings.

The decision, sure to elicit a fierce response from left-wing critics, is part of a broader transformation. In January, Florida governor Ron DeSantis appointed me and a number of other reformers to the New College board of trustees. He tasked us with a challenging mission: to revive classical liberal education and restore the founding mission of the college, which had been established with an appeal to New College at the University of Oxford.

From the beginning, we knew that this assignment would involve more than a “rebranding” campaign; it would require an overhaul of the structure of the college and its programs. In our first months as a board, we initiated significant changes to the central administration, firing the president, replacing the provost, abolishing the DEI department, and hiring political veteran Richard Corcoran as our interim president. We got pushback—student protests, media condemnation, a disapproving visit from California governor Gavin Newsom—but we patiently continued the work, deliberating over questions of governance and making hard choices about the college’s future.

These changes have already borne fruit. Interim President Corcoran has secured millions in new funding from the state legislature, launched an ambitious campus-renovation plan, and recruited the largest incoming class in the college’s history, putting the school on its strongest financial footing in decades. Simultaneously, Corcoran has recruited a new team that is busy rebuilding the institutional capacity of the college, which had atrophied significantly under previous administrations, and designing a new core curriculum, which will begin with an immersive first-year study of Homer’s Odyssey and continue to provide a foundation based in logos (the cultivation of human reason) and techne (the cultivation of the applied arts).

The faculty has changed, too. Through a combination of cultural incentives and good fortune, many of the most ideological, left-wing faculty members, who presided over the old orthodoxy and expressed strong opposition to the classical liberal arts, have left the university. Aaron Hillegass, a professor who said that he would “burn the college’s buildings to the ground” if he were “more patriotic,” resigned. Nicolas Delon, a professor who justified a violent protest against the new administration, left the college. Liz Leininger, a professor who spread baseless accusations of “McCarthyism” at New College, departed on her own accord.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Illegal migrants should “f**k off back to France,” says deputy chair of UK governing party

If illegal migrants aren’t content with the conditions on Britain’s new migrant barges, they can “f**k off back to France,” the deputy chairman of the U.K.’s governing Conservative party has claimed.

Lee Anderson, the Conservative MP for Ashfield, made the incendiary remark to the Express newspaper, in which he added: “I think people have just had enough.

“These people come across the Channel in small boats, if they don’t like the conditions they are housed in here then they should go back to France, or better, not come at all in the first place.”

Anderson, who has been a deputy chairman of the governing party since February 2023, was commenting on the ongoing migration crisis on England’s southern border, which resulted in a record 45,755 migrant crossings last year, the majority of whom subsequently claim asylum.

His blunt remark was defended by Justice Secretary Alex Chalk, who admitted that Anderson’s language was “salty” but his point “not unreasonable.”

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Ninth Circuit rules Calif. community college suppressed conservative students’ protected speech

In what is being billed as a win for free speech, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday ruled in favor of a group of Clovis Community College conservative students suing the school over what they contend is an unconstitutional speech policy that bans inappropriate or offensive content.

The students, members of the Young American’s for Freedom group, had sued the school in August 2022 after campus leaders removed their posters criticizing socialism and highlighting its death toll.

The appeals court this week sided with a district judge’s ruling from October 2022 that administrators cannot prevent students from posting flyers with themes some find objectionable.

“The district court did not abuse its discretion when it concluded that [the students] were likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that the ‘inappropriate or offens[ive] language or themes’ provision was facially overbroad,” the appeals court ruling states.

Leading up to Thursday’s ruling, Clovis Community College rescinded its vague flyer policy.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Inside the online world of people who think they can change their race: Practitioners of “race change to another,” or RCTA, purport to be able to manifest physical changes in their appearance and even their genetics to truly become a different race.

Since before she hit double digits, Alisa, 15, said she has felt a special connection with Japan. The high school student, who asked to be anonymous for fear of being doxxed online, was born in Ukraine and lives in Maryland, but she now goes by the Japanese name Miyuki and listens to “subliminals” that promise she will wake up and be Japanese. So far, she believes that by listening to YouTube videos with lo-fi music and photos of East Asian facial features while she sleeps, her vision has cleared, her eyelids have become smaller and her hair is just a bit darker.

Practitioners of what they call “race change to another,” or RCTA, purport to be able to manifest physical changes in their appearance and even their genetics to become a different race. They tune in to subliminal videos that claim can give them an “East Asian appearance” or “Korean DNA.”

But experts underscore that it is simply impossible to change your race.

“It’s just belief,” said Jamie Cohen, an assistant professor of cultural and media studies at Queens College, City University of New York. “It doesn’t ever really work, because it’s not doing anything, but they have convinced themselves that it works because there’s other people who have convinced themselves, as well.”

Though they do not constitute a full-blown trend, a number of racial subliminal creators have popped up on YouTube in recent years, with videos racking up on average over a half-million views apiece. On TikTok, dozens of accounts have emerged in recent weeks sharing similar goals and aesthetics and documenting what people describe as their race-change journeys.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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End of the Encampments? Americans have lost patience with homeless advocates’ arguments that letting vulnerable people sleep on sidewalks and in parks is an acceptable part of urban life.

The West Coast has seen the worst of the encampment crisis, thanks to the 2018 Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Martin v. City of Boise, which said that cities under its jurisdiction could not enforce camping bans unless sufficient shelter space was available. Though many cities made the ruling another excuse for inaction, especially during Covid, other local governments have found alternatives. Las Vegas passed a law aimed, in the city’s phrasing, “at helping to connect the city’s homeless population with services” by making it a misdemeanor to camp or sleep downtown or in residential districts’ sidewalks and streets. In 2022, to ensure that enough shelter was available to enforce the law under terms set by Boise, the city expanded its open-air Courtyard Homeless Resource Center, which now provides space for 800 people to sleep. Las Vegas keeps a constant count to ensure that open spaces are at hand in the courtyard or at other shelters, making it possible to enforce the camping law.

Portland, Oregon, which has become an international symbol of America’s homeless crisis, voted last November to ban camping in the city by 2024. Mayor Ted Wheeler has begun creating sanctioned camping sites to provide alternatives to those removed from illegal encampments. Last year, Sacramento implemented new laws to limit camps and increase enforcement. Even Los Angeles, despite fevered protests from activists, voted to ban camps within 500 feet of schools or day-care centers.

Some citizens are using the courts to fight back against Boise and its results. In Phoenix, citizens filed a lawsuit against the city’s decision to crowd the homeless into a notorious area known as “the Zone.” In March of this year, a state judge declared the Zone a public nuisance and ordered it cleaned up. Disabled plaintiffs in Portland and Sacramento have sued to demand that the cities clean up their illegal camps. They argue, justifiably, that the camps make it impossible for those in wheelchairs to use sidewalks. Portland settled with the plaintiffs and promised to start removing tents.

Neither these disabled individuals nor the many residents of America’s cities are willing to wait indefinitely for some utopian future in which every homeless individual gets a free house. They know the costs of waiting are too high, especially for the homeless themselves. Last year, Phoenix and its surrounding county saw more than 700 homeless deaths, and Los Angeles County more than 2,000. One reason for these high (and rising) numbers is drug abuse inside the encampments; in some cities, overdoses make up the majority of all homeless deaths. Another reason is violence. Recent statistics show that 15 percent of the violent crime in Los Angeles involves the 1 percent of the population who are homeless, and that 24 percent of the city’s murder victims are homeless. The idea that L.A. or other cities should do nothing to remove these deadly camps until sufficient subsidized housing is available is absurd.

Americans understand that the homeless deserve compassion and dignity, but they also know that nothing is less compassionate or dignified than letting people die slowly in illegal encampments. They refuse to accept that these camps, almost unknown to American cities as recently as two decades ago, are an inevitable part of urban life—and they are pushing back.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Civil rights complaint filed against med school programs that gave preferential admissions to non-whites

The complaint was filed July 25 by the Legal Insurrection Foundation’s Equal Protection Project. It argues the University at Buffalo Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences offered two programs that gave unlawful admissions preferences to students who are either “economically disadvantaged or historically underrepresented,” citing screenshots the program’s website.

“The discrimination is apparent: if applicants are black, African American, American Indian, Alaskan Native or Hispanic, they are automatically eligible for the program. Applicants who do not fall into one of those racial and ethnic categories are automatically excluded from consideration unless they can show that they meet the guidelines for being ‘economically disadvantaged.’ The ‘historically underrepresented minorities’ are not required to prove any economic need,” alleges the complaint, filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.

At issue is a year-round Medical Science Technology Entry Program, or STEP, for high school students, and another summer program for middle school students.

The programs’ website states it is specifically designed to “increase the number of historically underrepresented and economically disadvantaged students prepared to enter college, and improve their participation rate in mathematics, science, technology, health-related fields, and the licensed professions.”

The complaint argues “UB makes clear that students who are ‘Asian,’ ‘Caucasian/White’ or ‘Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander’ are excluded from consideration for STEP unless they meet the low-income criteria – something that students who are ‘African American/Black,’ ‘Hispanic/Latino’ or ‘Native American/Alaskan Native’ never have to demonstrate.”

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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‘Anger and radicalization’: rising number of Americans say political violence is justified

The university’s Chicago Project on Security & Threats (CPost) research center has been conducting Dangers to Democracy surveys of American adults on political violence and attitudes towards democracy since shortly after the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.

The most recent report marks the first increase in radical, violent support for Trump since April 2022, according to Pape, who directs CPost.

“The public is more radicalized than it was in April and it’s really quite significant,” he said. “We’ve been tracking this quite a while, and this is a really big bump.”

Still, a radicalized public isn’t enough for actual violence to occur, Pape said. He compared the support to kindling, but said Trump would have to give a speech or rally inciting people to act at a certain time to light the fire, as he did in Washington DC on 6 January 2021.

Democrats, however, expressed support for political violence for a different purpose. The survey found support for the use of force to coerce members of Congress to “do the right thing” grew from 9% in January to 17% – an estimated 44 million Americans – at the end of June, with the sharpest rise among Democrats. Support for violence to restore the federal right to an abortion also increased during this time.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Kentucky requires nurses to take training on 'structural racism' and 'white-splaining'

The Kentucky Board of Nursing mandated nurses to take an " implicit bias " course to "recognize the history of racism in healthcare" and threatened "discipline" for failure to do so.

The ultimatum to complete the "mandatory continuing education" training, which was developed by the Kentucky Nurses Association , forced nurses to complete the training by July 1.

"They pretty much said we're all guilty of being racist, and we need to examine the way that we take care of patients and change our behaviors because we are giving substandard care," Rebecca Wall, a Kentucky certified registered nurse anesthetist with 40 years experience, told the Washington Examiner.

The training , presented by KNA Board of Directors Treasurer Arica Brandford and KNA CEO Delanor Manson, told nurses that "best intentions will not solve implicit bias in healthcare."

[...]

Laura Morgan, a nurse of 39 years and program manager at the medical advocacy group Do No Harm, told the Washington Examiner that "discipline" could mean the non-renewal of a license.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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DC United: US sports trainer fired for 'discriminatory' hand gesture

An athletic trainer for DC United, the MLS football club in Washington DC, has been fired for making a gesture that is considered by some to be a hate symbol.

The decision comes after the discovery of the "discriminatory hand gesture" in a post published on social media on Thursday, the team said in a statement.

The team did not identify the trainer.

The now-deleted post showed the staff posing on the National Mall. One man is seen making the "OK" symbol, which has sometimes been used as a racist sign.

The trainer's termination is "effective immediately" and following an internal review, the team said in a short statement on Friday.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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French riots show that decades of mass ‘colonizing immigration’ could lead to ‘collapse,’ says former head of French counter-intelligence agency: After mass riots during the past week shocked France and the world, the former head of France’s powerful DGSE intelligence agency says the root cause of his country’s tragic situation is above all “the dominant ideology, which has justified and even glorified the massive colonizing immigration that has been taking place over the last half-century.”

Together with the immigration of workers, France began to experience what increasingly became an immigration of settlers (Brochand uses the French term “immigration de peuplement”, which can also be translated as “colonizing immigration”). The transition to a society of individuals has created what he calls a scissor effect. Hence, in Brochand’s eyes, internal partition is the natural inclination of the multicultural societies of Western Europe.

This is not new, as Pierre Brochand said that he remembers when he was the French ambassador to Hungary in the years 1989-93, just after the fall of communism in that part of Europe, he would often hear from his Hungarian interlocutors: “We are lucky we can see first-hand the damage that non-European immigration is causing in your country, and we certainly don’t want to imitate you.”

“In everyone’s eyes, we are now the ‘sick man’ of the continent, the Security Council, the G7, and the G20,” laments the former head of France’s counter-intelligence, as France is indeed the country with the highest proportion of inhabitants with a non-European immigrant background, and immigration figures have been beating new historic records under President Emmanuel Macron.

[...]

Meanwhile, a large majority of French people are strongly opposed to what increasingly appears to be a dangerous social engineering experiment by the liberal elites, something Éric Zemmour has called a Ribbentrop-Molotov pact between Western liberals and Islam against the White, heterosexual, Catholic French man. Indeed, 74 percent of French people now think there are too many immigrants in their country and 62 percent would want France to disobey EU treaties and EU law to stop immigration.

The latter is an important point, in particular in light of the ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) against Switzerland that was delivered just a few days ago, which extends the right to family reunification even to refugees who have only obtained a temporary residence permit and not asylum. Let us not forget that EU member states have the obligation, as per the EU treaties, to abide by the rulings of the ECHR.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Parents slam woke Massachusetts school district for axing advanced math classes to boost 'equity', after they attracted too many white and Asian students - with families now forced to hire private tutors instead

Cambridge Public Schools began phasing out advanced math courses in grades six through eight around 2017, when district officials noticed sharp racial disparities in the program.

Students who were being placed in the advanced math track were overwhelmingly white and Asian, while the lower-level courses were filled primarily with black and Latino students, the Boston Globe reported on Friday.

As a result of the change, and following further complications from the pandemic, none of the district's four middle schools offer Algebra I, which some parents say is actually exacerbating inequality by limiting advanced math to those who can afford private tutors.

'The students who are able to jump into a higher level math class [in high school] are students from better-resourced backgrounds,' Jacob Barandes, a district parent and a Harvard physicist, told the Globe.

'They're shortchanging a significant number of students, overwhelmingly students from less-resourced backgrounds, which is deeply inequitable.'

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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In NYC, companies will have to prove their AI hiring software isn't sexist or racist: AI-infused hiring programs have drawn scrutiny, most notably over whether they end up exhibiting biases based on the data they’re trained on.

A new law, which takes effect Wednesday, is believed to be the first of its kind in the world. Under New York’s new rule, hiring software that relies on machine learning or artificial intelligence to help employers choose preferred candidates or weed out bad ones — called an automatic employment decision tool, or AEDT — must pass an audit by a third-party company to show it’s free of racist or sexist bias.

Companies that run AI hiring software must also publish those results. Businesses that use third-party AEDT software can no longer legally use such programs if they haven’t been audited.

Companies are increasingly using automated tools in their hiring processes. Cathy O’Neil, the CEO of Orcaa, a consulting firm that has been running audits of hiring tools for companies that want to be in good standing with New York’s new law, said the rise in tools that automatically judge job candidates has become necessary because job seekers are also using tools that send out huge numbers of applications.

[...]

Jake Metcalf, a researcher specializing in AI for Data & Society, a nonprofit group that studies the effects of technology on society, said the wording of the law — it defines AEDT as technology that will “substantially assist or replace discretionary decision making” — has led lawyers that advise large companies not to take it seriously.

“There are quite a few employment law firms in New York that are advising their clients that they don’t have to comply, given the letter of the law, even though the spirit of the law would seem to apply to them,” Metcalf said.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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A Battle for Cultural Survival: In the face of the Left’s hyper-aggressive transgender ideology, conservatives must reassert the legitimacy of bourgeois norms.

Anyone with even a glancing exposure to the media over the past several years knows that conservatives are waging a “culture war.” Republicans have been advocating and all too often implementing hurtful changes to settled social arrangements, proclaim the New York Times, Washington Post, and other outlets on a near-daily basis. This culture war arises primarily out of “hate and fear,” according to President Joe Biden, but pecuniary motives play a role as well, as GOP operatives try to stir up the base and shake it down for donations.

Coverage of this alleged culture war demonstrates the Left’s most important power: the ability to set the default. The Left engineers disruption after disruption to longstanding social practices, each more sweeping than the last. And as soon as those changes are in place, they become the norm, treated as having existed from time immemorial. Questioning that new default is painted as churlish and radical. The Left never has to meet a burden of proof to implement its changes; the burden falls exclusively on conservatives seeking to restore a once-uncontroversial tradition. Though conservatives are portrayed as the aggressors, in reality they are always on the defensive, fighting a rearguard action.

Default-setting shows up across the cultural landscape, whether regarding the requirement that college faculty swear fealty to racial preferences (a.k.a. “diversity”) as a condition of employment, or regarding the introduction of politicized concepts such as “intersectionality” and white privilege into the K-12 curriculum. Its most stunning instantiation, however, is transgender ideology.

The trans revolution has unfolded in a micro percentage of a nanosecond in the context of millions of years of human development. It has introduced ideas that would have been incomprehensible to every previous generation of humanity, whether they found themselves on the African, Asian, American, or European continents. As recently as the 1980s, “trans issues” had not surfaced even among gender theorists themselves, according to the field’s progenitor, Judith Butler.

But now that academic gender theorists have managed to infiltrate their startling creed into virtually every mainstream American institution, contradicting millennia of human experience and centuries of scientific confirmation of that experience, any dissent from the new default is portrayed as a war against the natural order of things, branding the dissenters as hateful and even homicidal. In the 2000s, some feminists—at least those not cowed by the charge of Islamophobia—were expressing opposition to clitorectomies. Now, medical procedures that make genital cutting look therapeutic have been rebranded as “health care,” and opposition to the disembowelment of a youth’s reproductive apparatus is branded as barbaric.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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New York State’s Directive to Schools: Lie to Parents - Secret gender transition is now the default policy for the state’s public schools.

Earlier this week, the New York State Department of Education (NYSED) published a “legal update and best practice” document for how schools should serve “transgender and gender expansive” students. The key takeaway: if your child decides that he or she wants to socially transition to the opposite gender, it is now a “best practice” for the school to lie to you about it.

“Only the student,” the NYSED declares, “knows whether it is safe to share their identity with a caregiver.” The baseline assumption, then, is that “unaffirming” parents are dangerous to their children. If Kevin wants to go by “Kimi” but doesn’t want his parents to know, the best practice, according to NYSED, is as follows: “The teachers call her Kimi and use she/her pronouns at school. When calling home for any reason, teachers use the name Kevin and he/him pronouns.”

Leading experts like Hilary Cass, a medical doctor who documented rampant malpractice in England’s Tavistock child gender clinic, have explained that social transition is not a neutral act but rather an active psychosocial and arguably even medical intervention. Finnish medical authorities have discouraged gender self-identification for children, recognizing its potential to disrupt healthy development and result in unnecessary medicalization. While activists believe that transition is beneficial to mental health, a new study in the U.K. finds no improvement for socially transitioned kids relative to control groups. Evidence suggests that treating children as if they are the opposite sex can cause their feelings of gender dysphoria to persist and increase the likelihood that they will seek experimental hormonal intervention.

If the NYSED has its way, schools will also effectively market experimental hormonal interventions. Its new policy recommends that all schools, at a minimum, adhere to the guidelines of the National Sex Education Standards, which state that children should learn about puberty blockers by fifth grade. It may be doubted whether schools would provide the full medical picture concerning the use of puberty blockers, including the lack of evidence for their benefits, the serious long-term side effects, and the near-certain progression to cross-sex hormones that can cause permanent sexual dysfunction and sterility.

The National Sex Education Standards also recommend introducing children to the concept of “gender identity” starting in kindergarten. As a next step, NYSED recommends that staff actively solicit sexual and gender information by “ask[ing] students which terms they use and generally us[ing] the term the student uses to describe themselves.” (This includes terms such as “agender,” which “refers to a person who does not identify with or experience any gender, [and] is different from nonbinary because many nonbinary people do experience gender.”) In New York, schools now apparently stand ready to tell five-year-olds that they might have been born in the wrong body, socially transition them behind their parents’ backs, and steer them toward experimental hormonal interventions.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Black county staff claim ‘harm’ over woke Juneteenth email

A group of black King County Metro employees says they’re livid over a woke email celebrating Juneteenth. They’re now demanding race-based hiring and reeducation around diversity issues.

[...]

O’Claire said that staff must “recognize” that “racism is still at the forefront of our nation.” She asked that Juneteenth be an “opportunity to recognize the injustices still being waged against Black and Indigenous people and reflect on how we can disrupt business as usual and replace it with something better.” She did not offer any specific examples of injustices or what to do about it but offered a link to Equity and Social Justice training, paid for by the county.

It’s the kind of pandering email you’d expect from a white “ally” hoping to make black friends. And it didn’t go over so well with some black employees.

[...]

The open letter, which was signed “The Black staff that you lead,” calls O’Claire’s woke Juneteenth newsletter “disrespectful and offensive” because it “furthers the anti-Black culture here in the County.” The employees take issue with O’Claire, including Indigenous people in referencing Juneteenth.

“It supports the erasure of Black Americans, the descendants of those enslaved during chattel slavery, by showing that Black American struggles, efforts, and contributions can only be acknowledged when paired with other people of color,” the letter states. “It also highlights the lack of Black American representation in the Director’s office, your office, and the danger of using the acronym BIPOC. Our struggles continue to be conflated with one another.”

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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No whammy, no whammy, no whammy...

Major medical group declares Body Mass Index ‘racist’

A national medical group declared that the Body Mass Index is “racist” and medical professionals should be educated on its dark history.

“Delegates at the Annual Meeting of the American Medical Association (AMA) House of Delegates adopted [a] policy aimed at clarifying how body mass index (BMI) can be used as a measure in medicine,” the group announced. A council within the AMA researched the “problematic history with BMI.”

“The report also outlined the harms and benefits of using BMI and pointed to BMI as an imperfect way to measure body fat in multiple groups given that it does not account for differences across race/ethnic groups, sexes, genders, and age-span, the AMA stated. It did not link to a copy of the report. “Given the report’s findings, the new policy supports AMA in educating physicians on the issues with BMI and alternative measures for diagnosing obesity.”

The group announced:

Under the newly adopted policy, the AMA recognizes issues with using BMI as a measurement due to its historical harm, its use for racist exclusion, and because BMI is based primarily on data collected from previous generations of non-Hispanic white populations. Due to significant limitations associated with the widespread use of BMI in clinical settings, the AMA suggests that it be used in conjunction with other valid measures of risk such as, but not limited to, measurements of visceral fat, body adiposity index, body composition, relative fat mass, waist circumference and genetic/metabolic factors.

[...]

Some medical professionals have previously called BMI “racist” and linked it to “body terrorism.”

Ironically if fatties spent as much time doing actual gymnastics as they do mental gymnastics they wouldn't be fat any more.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Stop Defending Yourselves, New Yorkers! The city prosecutes another case of subway self-defense.

Last week, while riding a northbound J train through once-posh Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 20-year-old Jordan Williams and his girlfriend were accosted by Devictor Ouedraogo, a 36-year-old ex-con who had served three and a half years in prison for an attempted robbery. After completing his term, Ouedraogo was released to the custody of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), suggesting that he is or was an illegal immigrant.

According to eyewitnesses, Ouedraogo was verbally and physically harassing other passengers in the subway car before approaching Williams and his girlfriend, who remains unnamed and has not commented on the incident. After Ouedraogo propositioned his girlfriend, Williams verbally warned him to back off. Ouedraogo allegedly responded by punching both Williams and his girlfriend in the face.

In what sounds like a legal exercise of the right to self-defense under New York law, Williams then reportedly rose to protect himself, his girlfriend, and others from Ouedraogo, who fought back. During the altercation, Williams pulled out a pocketknife and stabbed Ouedraogo, who stumbled out of the subway at the next stop. He received medical attention but later died at a hospital. As with Jordan Neely, the homeless drug addict with a criminal record who died after being restrained in a chokehold by Daniel Penny last month, no autopsy of Ouedraogo has been released, fanning speculation that the results could indicate serious drug abuse.

Williams and his girlfriend continued their subway ride, but NYPD officers apprehended them at a station down the line shortly afterward. Williams was arrested and charged with manslaughter and “criminal possession of a weapon.” (Knives are forbidden on city transit, though this has not stopped knife incidents from increasing 126 percent over last year.)

The Brooklyn district attorney’s office wanted Williams held at Riker’s Island on $100,000 bail, an impossible sum for him and his family to pay, but last Thursday a judge released him from custody without bail, in part because his employment record at FedEx suggested that he was neither a career criminal nor a flight risk. Unfortunately, FedEx fired Williams the next day, showing little interest in the facts of the case or in now-quaint notions about the presumption of innocence.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Auckland surgeons must now consider ethnicity in prioritising patients for operations - some are not happy

Auckland surgeons are now being required to consider a patient’s ethnicity alongside other factors when deciding who should get an operation first.

Several surgeons say they are upset by the policy, which was introduced in Auckland in February and gave priority to Māori and Pacific Island patients - on the grounds that they have historically had unequal access to healthcare.

Health officials stress that ethnicity is just one of five factors considered in deciding when a person gets surgery, and that it is an important step in addressing poor health outcomes within Māori and Pacific populations.

Te Whatu Ora - Health New Zealand has introduced an Equity Adjustor Score, which aims to reduce inequity in the system by using an algorithm to prioritise patients according to clinical priority, time spent on the waitlist, geographic location (isolated areas), ethnicity, and deprivation level.

In the ethnicity category, Māori and Pasifika are top of the list, while European New Zealanders and other ethnicities, like Indian and Chinese, are lower-ranked.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Johns Hopkins pulls definition of lesbian as ‘non-man attracted to non-men’ after backlash

“Upon becoming aware of the language in question, we have begun working to determine the origin and context of the glossary’s definitions. We have removed the page from our website while we gather more information,” Jill Rosen, director of media relations at the school, told The Messenger in an emailed statement.

As of Wednesday, the glossary page appears removed from the website and campus leaders distanced themselves from the controversial definition, leaving a short explanation on the scrubbed page that “the definitions were not reviewed or approved by ODI leadership and the language in question has been removed pending review.”

Previously, under “lesbian,” the school stated as a definition: “A non-man attracted to non-men.”

“While past definitions refer to ‘lesbian’ as a woman who is emotionally, romantically, and/or sexually attracted to other women, this updated definition includes non-binary people who may also identify with the label,” the definition continued.

A gay man, however, was still defined as “a man who is . . . attracted to other men, or who identifies as a member of the gay community,” National Review reported yesterday.

🤡🌎🚂

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Anatomy of a Scientific Scandal: Under pressure, a journal once notable for its courage retracts a major paper on the social roots of gender-related distress—all over a minor, inconsistently applied technicality.

On April 18, only weeks after the paper was published, Bailey received a list of questions from the executive committee of the International Academy of Sex Research (IASR) about the Institutional Review Board (IRB) ethics-approval process at Northwestern University, where Bailey works. The following day, a message from IASR’s Executive Committee began circulating on its listserv notifying recipients of “significant concerns about the ethical conduct and integrity of the editorial process” at ASB. Members were told that IASR was consulting with the journal’s editor and its publisher, Springer Nature, to address these concerns.

Springer Nature reached out to Bailey on April 28. “Some questions have been raised about the article,” the publisher wrote, “and we are investigating them together with our Research Integrity Group.” The email’s focus was entirely on the IRB ethics approval process obtained before publication, which is a formal procedure that applies to all proposed research on human subjects to ensure it is conducted ethically and that participants are properly safeguarded. Springer asked Bailey to “provide details regarding the protocol you submitted to your IRB for evaluation and any relevant documentation regarding the evaluation process.”

Two weeks later, on May 5, an open letter addressed to both the IASR and Springer Nature was published. The letter called for the removal of Kenneth Zucker from his position as editor-in-chief at ASB in response to his decision to publish Diaz and Bailey’s study. The letter had 100 main signatories, including Marci Bowers, president of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, and a slew of other academics and medical professionals. All threatened that they would “no longer submit to the journal, act as peer reviewers, or serve in an editorial capacity until Dr Zucker is replaced with an editor who has a demonstrated record of integrity on LGBTQ+ matters and, especially, trans matters.” Specifically, the letter asserted that Zucker’s decision to publish the study “threatens the foundations of research ethics” because the paper’s authors had not obtained IRB ethics approval before data collection and publication.

Bailey promptly addressed the concerns regarding IRB ethics approval. The initial survey data used in the study, he explained, was gathered by the paper’s lead author, the pseudonymous Diaz, who is not affiliated with an institution that requires IRB approval for such a project. Moreover, Northwestern’s IRB representative informed Bailey that, though the IRB could not retrospectively approve the pre-collected data, it would permit him to coauthor a paper on those data provided they were expunged of all personal identifiable information. Significantly, Springer’s own policy explicitly states that in situations where “a study has not been granted ethics committee approval prior to commencing. . . . The decision on whether to proceed to peer review in such cases is at the Editor’s discretion.” Thus, all efforts to undermine the study or discredit Zucker’s decision to review and publish it on the grounds of IRB considerations appeared futile.

[...]

The activist playbook here was simple: get the Diaz and Bailey paper retracted over a technicality, then spin the retraction as an invalidation of the study’s main findings. Such a tactic was successfully used on Littman’s 2018 ROGD paper; the journal’s decision to re-review the paper and issue a “correction” has been repeatedly and disingenuously leveraged by proponents of “gender-affirming” care to declare the study “debunked.”

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Kids subjected to bizarre nude performance at 'all ages' Oregon State drag event

The drag performance—called “Illegal Drag Show”—openly encouraged LGBTQ members to “Be Gay. Do Crime." An Instagram post advertised the event to "all ages," alongside a note that it would contain "adult themes."

Rebecca Lang, Students for Life President at Oregon State, told Campus Reform on June 6 that “The show consisted of extremely explicit sexual content including sexually provocative performances by men and women in drag and costumes.” She also noted that minors were present at the show.

Multiple eyewitness sources confirmed to Campus Reform that at least four small children were present during the entire show. “Two who were so small two adults had to sit them on their laps so they could see,” Lang said.

In exclusive footage, one performer—who appears to be a biological woman—fully exposes her breasts for the audience by stripping off all upper body clothing. The performer then tries to hold various objects under them, such as a wooden sword and "five pound" weights. Footage shows the individual eventually bringing out a ladder, as a "trans-masc" associate joins her to assist with the "titty weight lifting" feat.

Footage also shows one of the drag queens leading a child on stage to be interviewed in front of the cheering audience. As the performer interviews, the child responds to a question with, "He's a full grown man.".

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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‘Mass immigration and poor integration does not work!’ – Swedish PM calls for strictest migration policy in the EU: Reforms to Sweden’s migration policy will see a stronger focus on language proficiency and an appreciation of the country’s cultural heritage and customs

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson has called for a radical shift in the country’s migration policy, insisting it is too easy for foreign nationals to acquire Swedish citizenship and claiming many newcomers to the country do not understand the Swedish language or its laws.

Writing in the Aftonbladet newspaper on Tuesday to mark the National Day of Sweden, the leader of the center-right Moderate Party said that his government would ensure new arrivals have not committed crimes in their home countries, and appreciate and respect Sweden’s cultural heritage.

“Let me be clear: Massive immigration and poor integration just doesn’t work. That is why we are now changing Sweden’s migration policy and making it the strictest in the EU,” Kristersson wrote.

“A ‘no’ to asylum means ‘no’ and you have to leave the country. That should be obvious, but it’s not,” Kristersson noted. “Equally important, a ‘yes’ should mean that you really get involved in Swedish society,” he added.

The Swedish prime minister outlined several aspects of the country’s current migration policy he intends to reform, and said it is “high time for us to build Sweden together and bridge the exclusion.”

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Parched Earth: ANC introduces Race Quotas for water use

Hot on the heels of newly-gazetted draft Race Quotas designed to ban entire groups of South Africans from employment in certain sectors and provinces, the ANC government has now also gazetted race quotas that will determine access to water on the basis of skin colour.

The draft regulations, published by Minister of Water Senzo Mchunu on 19 May, introduce race quotas for the allocation of water use licences, which are vital to the survival of businesses in sectors such as agriculture, forestry and mining.

Under the ANC’s new water race quotas, applicants that use more than 250 000 m3 or withdraw more than a set minimum amount from streams need to meet strict racial quotas in order to get access to water – the single most critical resource required for life, livestock, agriculture and industry. Depending on the size of their water need, farmers or companies that have not “allocated” between 25% and 75% of its shares to what the regulations call “blacks,” will be denied access to water.

The consequences will be particularly devastating for the farmers who feed us all. 60% of South Africa’s water resources are currently used by agriculture to grow the food we all eat.

Under these water race quotas, livestock will be left to die from thirst because a farmer has the “wrong” skin colour. Fields will go fallow because those who till it are “undesirable.” Hundreds of thousands of workers, from all backgrounds, will lose their jobs as the parched agriculture and mining industries wither and die.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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TikTok teen 'Mizzy' claims 'uproar' over his 'pranks' is because he is a 'black male': A teenage TikTok 'content-creator' who shared videos of himself apparently snatching a dog from a woman, entering strangers' homes and tearing up books in a library reportedly said the "uproar" over his activities is because he is a "black male doing these things."

Bacari Ogarro, 18, made the claim in an interview that was published just hours after it was reported that police had visited his family home in London. Ogarro is believed to go by the name of ‘Mizzy’ on TikTok.

Mizzy's videos have sparked outrage this week - with MPs and ministers among those calling for police action. In one video, 'Mizzy' was seen startling a young family, the mother of whom had been in the front patio sweeping and left their front door open.

The video opened with 'Mizzy' and two friends saying: “Walking into random houses, let’s go”. He then entered the house, attracting the attention of a woman in the front garden, before brazenly entering the hallway while young children were heard shouting: “Daddy”.

Another video uploaded to the Mizzy TikTok account shows him approaching an elderly woman on a park bench. He then picks up dog and runs off with it. And, in another video, 'Mizzy' approaches random young women at Stoke Newington overground station and asks them if they want to die.

Ogarro has previously been arrested over a 'prank' which involved 'leapfrogging' orthodox Jews at a bus stop. He claimed he was held by police for 36 hours over the incident.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Republicans Advance Bill to Defund House Office of Diversity and Inclusion

The House Appropriations Legislative Branch Subcommittee held its markup for the Fiscal Year 2024 bill, which would defund the House Office of Diversity and Inclusion.

The House Office of Diversity and Inclusion was established in the 116th Congress when then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Democrats took over Congress’s lower chamber.

The office seeks to:

… foster diversity among House employing offices, so that the House workforce reflects the diversity of America.

Additionally, the office will develop and conduct a survey to evaluate diversity in House employing offices.

The 116th Congress is the most diverse class of members in the history of Congress. More than one-in-five voting members, 22%, of the House and Senate are racial or ethnic minorities. A key component to ensuring the House celebrates and retains diversity is to promote policies which assist member offices in hiring and retaining a diverse workforce. Congressional staffers make a direct impact on the lives and wellbeing of millions of Americans, these staffers should reflect our rich diversity.

“DEI offices have no place in Congress or the rest of the federal government,” Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) said in a written statement. “I’m glad that Republicans on the Legislative Branch Subcommittee agreed with our letter and defunded House Office of Diversity and Inclusion. It is a good start, and the Anti-Woke Caucus is calling on all Republicans appropriators to follow their lead and defund DEI programs in every federal agency.”

“Congress should not be funding racist and divisive programs that further split our nation only to advance woke, left-wing propaganda,” Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) said in a written statement.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Student banned from wearing ‘There are only two genders’ T-shirt sues school

A 12-year-old honor roll student filed a First Amendment lawsuit on Wednesday against his middle school for its officials’ refusal to allow him to wear a T-Shirt that states: “There are only two genders.”

Seventh-grader Liam Morrison, in his lawsuit against those who oversee Nichols Middle School in Middleborough, Mass., argues that its speech policy is unconstitutional because it’s overly broad, infringes on his First Amendment rights, and allows campus leaders to enforce viewpoint discrimination.

The federal lawsuit repeatedly points out how the school celebrates LGBTQ themes, including during “Pride Month,” when students are encouraged to express themselves, yet Morrison’s belief there are only two sexes, male and female, is deemed a violation of the school’s speech policy.

“This isn’t about a T-shirt; this is about a public school telling a seventh grader that he isn’t allowed to hold a view that differs from the school’s preferred orthodoxy,” said Tyson Langhofer, an attorney with Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents Morrison along with the Massachusetts Family Institute.

Langhofer, in a news release, added: “Public school officials can’t censor Liam’s speech by forcing him to remove a shirt that states a scientific fact. Doing so is a gross violation of the First Amendment.”

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Muslim students attack LGBTQ sensitivity training in Belgium, spit on LGBT flag, chant ‘Allah Akbar’

A large group of Muslim students attacked an LGBTQIA+ association’s stand promoting diversity in society during the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHOT), with the incident taking place outside the Atlas College of Science and Innovation in the city of Genk in Belgium

During the incident, the two city municipal organizers and one volunteer from the LGBTQIA+ association OGWA (Ook Genks Wel Anders) had to flee, leaving their LGBT flag behind. One of the organizers said that more and more students arrived, and at one point, there were 100 students there.

“They kept yelling, throwing bottles and spitting on the rainbow hearts. We were helped by the teachers on the playground, who supported us until the bell rang. At that point, most of the kids went back to class and calm was restored,” said the unnamed organizer, according to French newspaper Le Figaro.

A video of the incident went viral on social media, which showed the students chanting, “Allah Akbar,” as they crowded the stand.

[...]

Belgium’s Muslim population has propagated extreme violence against gay and lesbian people for years. In 2020, a gang called “Criminal Justice” released numerous videos of their members beating LGBT people and releasing them on Telegram. Participants in the gang called for homosexuals to be slaughtered.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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[Christopher F. Rufo] DEI Swallows Texas A&M: The university has adopted radical politics in order to “dismantle systemic racism.”

The new DEI orthodoxy has been replicated throughout the system, with administrators placing heavy-handed “diversity accountability” requirements on all departments—not only in the humanities but also in hard sciences such as agriculture, engineering, and medicine.

The priorities are both ideological and administrative. A&M’s departments aggressively promote DEI ideology through trainings, programs, lectures, reports, committees, and multimedia, involving hundreds of faculty and staff.

The content of these programs is unadulterated left-wing activism. The School of Dentistry, for example, hosted a guest lecture by University of Texas professor emeritus Robert Jensen, who told the audience that the United States is “appropriately called a white supremacist society.” The School of Veterinary Medicine promoted a “21-Day Anti-Racism Challenge” so that white students could address their “white privilege” and “white fragility.” The College of Geosciences promised to “embed discussion of DEI and anti-racism throughout the undergraduate curriculum.” And within the College of Arts and Science, the sociology department was tasked with implementing a “land acknowledgement statement,” the history department received funding to develop “anti-racist and inclusive pedagogies,” and the English department was asked to develop a “Black Lives Matter special topics course.”

Administratively, the new DEI orthodoxy has resulted in a policy of widespread racial discrimination and segregation. The leadership has made it clear that administrators should pursue “structural diversity,” in which the demographics of the university become “representative of the demographic diversity of the State of Texas.”

To achieve this objective at the faculty level, A&M has created a hiring process that effectively discriminates on the basis of race and sexuality. In its official Handbook for Faculty Search Committee Members, the university has stated that “all members of a search committee should be advocates for diversity” and instructs committees to “take steps that are likely to increase the number of semi-finalists and finalists from groups that are underrepresented in your department,” such as including DEI activists in the hiring process and soliciting DEI statements from potential faculty.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Ex-England athletics chief banned after saying black athletes are good runners ‘because they have to escape burglaries’

Starkey, 62, was accused of making the comment last November at a Sporting Equals Leadership event.

The subsequent investigation found that he had made the alleged comments after being asked about the drop off in participation rates among ethnically diverse athletes.

He is claimed to have responded: "Usually when athletes start to be more specific in events, most black athletes tend to edge towards sprinting and hurdling … the blacks are all good at running because they have to get away from their burglaries."

The case was brought to a disciplinary panel, who found Starkey to have admitted making the comments - albeit "subject to the caveat that there was a gap between the first sentence and the second sentence".

Starkey claimed to have been facing "mental issues challenges" when he made the comments.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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A CRT Mandate? How the University of California could enshrine critical race theory in the state’s public and private high schools

Every high school student in California is familiar with the “A-G requirements” for admission to the University of California. These requirements codify what almost anyone would list if asked to describe the contents of an academically oriented high school curriculum: two years of history or civics, four years of English, three or four years of math, two or three years of science, two or three years of foreign language, a year of art, and a year of an elective. Or at least that’s the current standard. Depending on how a faculty committee of the University of California rules, beginning in 2030, students applying to the University of California as freshmen would also have to have completed a semester of ethnic studies, taught from a theoretically and politically radical perspective.

Since October 2020, the University of California faculty senate Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools (UC BOARS) has been considering a proposal for modifying the entrance requirements from A-G to A-H. The “H” requirement would be one semester of ethnic studies taught concurrently with existing requirements. While that sounds as though high schools could fulfill the requirement by allocating one semester of English to reading the works of, say, Zora Neale Hurston and Amy Tan—or, even more mischievously, by having a semester of social studies based on reading Wesley Yang and John McWhorter—these approaches would not count as ethnic studies, since the proposed requirement mandates not only a substantive focus on ethnically diverse populations but also a specific theoretical and political approach.

The November 5, 2021, UC BOARS memo has to be read in full to appreciate it fully, but its essence is to require a highly contentious approach often referred to as critical race theory (a term that does not appear in the memo, though two of the memos’ authors have “critical race” in their job titles). The memo requires that qualifying high school courses would have to emphasize antiracism and antiracist solidarity. “Claims of objectivity” are to be critically examined and indigenous epistemologies cultivated.

Other requirements mandate more mainstream social-scientific concepts, such as understanding how race is socially constructed, but it is debatable whether that concept is important enough to be a prerequisite for college education, and it is extremely dubious to expect that the perspective implied by the rest of the memo would give this question the nuance that it deserves. The guidelines also require that courses include land acknowledgments, “honor anti-colonial and liberatory movements” locally and globally, associate “present-day ideologies” with imperialism and genocide, and engage in antiracist practice. That is, in order to enter the University of California (where I am a professor), high school students would had to have taken the kind of polemical course or courses that just a few years ago most faculty would have been embarrassed to see offered at the university level as an elective.

The University of California proposal would, in effect, set the curriculum for every high school in California. The California state legislature already mandates ethnic studies for public high schools, but the UC BOARS proposal goes beyond that. (The original version of the state legislature bill had CRT language, as well as support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement against Israel, but Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed it on those grounds.) The UC BOARS proposal would effectively mandate this curriculum for private schools as well as public ones. Organizations generally follow the imperatives and hints offered by their cultural and professional environment, and the most relevant actors for private schools are colleges—in particular, college-admissions departments. A California private high school would no sooner offer a curriculum that violated the University of California’s admissions requirements than an aerospace company would manufacture fighter jets that violate federal procurement guidelines or a stockyard would grow beef contrary to McDonald’s standards. If a California parent in the next decade is dissatisfied with the woke curriculum offered in public schools, he would no longer have the option to exit to a private school, unless he finds the rare one willing to forgo sending graduates to colleges in the state university system.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Schools Are Ditching Homework, Deadlines in Favor of ‘Equitable Grading’

In Las Vegas, some teachers and students say the changes have led to gaming the system and a lack of accountability.

“If you go to a job in real life, you can’t pick and choose what tasks you want to do and only do the quote big ones,” said Alyson Henderson, a high-school English teacher there. Lessons drag on now, she said, because students can turn in work until right before grades are due.

“We’re really setting students up for a false sense of reality,” Ms. Henderson said.

Equitable grading still typically awards As through Fs, but the criteria are overhauled. Homework, in-class discussions and other practice work, called formative assessments, are weighted at between 10% and 30%. The bulk of a grade is earned through what are known as summative assessments, such as tests or essays.

Extra credit is banned—no more points for bringing in school supplies—as is grading for behavior, which includes habits such as attendance.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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HBCUs overwhelmingly lack DEI departments, research shows

Amid the push by prominent Democrats and many in academia for the expansion of diversity, equity and inclusion departments in colleges and universities, research shows that the vast majority of historically black colleges and universities do not have them.

Of the 80 HBCUs that The College Fix researched, just 16 have an official DEI department. While many more of those HBCUs have put out statements endorsing DEI initiatives, the vast majority have not established such departments, unlike other prominent universities in their respective states.

It’s “a curious feature of America’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) that they rarely have any diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) administrators or policies on their campuses, beyond what federal law requires,” Boise State University professor and Claremont Institute fellow Scott Yenor argued in an April 12 piece in City Journal.

“Given the importance of diversity to excellence (as we are told), it would seem like HBCUs are suffering badly from a critical lack of it. But HBCUs do not act like they lack diversity, equity, or inclusion, or that they need to act rapidly to make their campuses ‘look like America.’ Quite the contrary,” Yenor wrote.

The Fix’s research found Florida A&M University, a historically black university in Tallahassee, has a statement touting “diversity and inclusion” on its website, but no DEI department. However, mainstream institutions such as Florida State University and Florida International University have offices devoted to DEI on campus.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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School Board cuts music class over ‘white supremacy,’ ‘institutional violence’

School Board Director Scott Clifthorne told concerned parents that music courses aren’t offered equitably across the district. He said some schools provide the courses at times that would require some students to miss “core instruction,” whereas others don’t. Rather than address this reasonable concern, he launched into a monologue to claim music classes are examples of “white supremacy” culture.

“We also know that there are other folks in the community that experience things like a tradition of excellence as exclusionary. And I don’t think that there are just one or two or 10 or 20 people that think that. But that’s not unique to elementary instrumental music. We’re a school district that lives in … is entrenched in … is surrounded by white supremacy culture. And that’s a real thing,” Clifthorne said.

Clifthorne explained that string and wind instrumental music isn’t “intrinsically white supremacist.” But in the next sentence, he said it is, in fact, “white supremacist.”

“There’s nothing about strings or wind instrumental music that is intrinsically white supremacist. However, the ways in which it is and the ways in which all of our institutions, not just schools — local government, state government, churches, or neighborhoods — inculcate and allow white supremacy culture to continue to be propagated and cause significant institutional violence are things that we have to think about carefully as a community. And I think that we have to do that interrogation. And we have to address the ways in which it creates challenges for administering the educational day for our elementary learners while we retain the program,” he said.

What does any of this mean beyond stringing together progressive buzzwords and phrases? Clifthorne did not respond to two requests for comment.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Germany’s green energy delusion has an enormous environmental and economic price tag

For a long time, nuclear energy has been one of the most divisive areas of energy policy in the EU’s supply. The technology offers stable energy supplies and has positive environmental and economic indicators, but the radical Green parties of Europe have worked hard to convince many that these plants should be closed.

This has been achieved mainly in Germany and Austria. Downsizing has begun and further investment has become impossible. Reality, however, has shown that this ideology-driven energy policy comes at a heavy price. It was not by chance that energy policy expert Oliver Hortay recently recalled an estimate by a Berkeley University researcher that the social cost of German nuclear plant closures had already reached $12 billion a year.

The threat of energy shortages in Europe has led to a change in the perception of nuclear power among EU citizens. In Germany, for example, the percentage of people who oppose nuclear power has fallen from 65 to 20 percent. But it seems that the will of the electorate does not matter.

[...]

It is hard to talk about a green transition when carbon emissions are rising. The huge expansion of solar and wind capacity in Germany is no guarantee of security of supply. The country is increasingly using coal instead of Russian gas. In fact, mines that had previously been closed down have had to be reopened, and a German energy company has even started to dismantle a wind farm to allow for the expansion of a neighboring coal mine.

[...]

The Greens went after gas boilers, too. They will now be banned in German homes from 2024. Greens say they cannot meet their climate commitments otherwise. However, it is coal-fired power stations, not residential gas boilers, that threaten climate targets.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Netflix Sued for Depicting Cleopatra as Black

An Egyptian lawyer on Sunday filed a lawsuit over Netflix's upcoming Queen Cleopatra, accusing the streaming service of "erasing the Egyptian identity" for depicting the ruler as a Black woman.

Mahmoud al-Semary submitted the legal complaint with Egypt's public prosecutor following the recent release of a trailer for the docudrama series, which premieres May 10. His filing not only requested legal action be taken against the makers of the show but for Netflix to be shut down in Egypt.

"Most of what Netflix platform displays do not conform to Islamic and societal values and principles, especially Egyptian ones," Mahmoud al-Semary said in his complaint, according to the Egypt Independent.

Adele James, a British actress who is of mixed race, stars as the queen in the upcoming Netflix production. Jada Pinkett Smith serves as executive producer of the series, and she is quoted in promotional material from Netflix as saying, "We don't often get to see or hear stories about Black queens, and that was really important for me, as well as for my daughter, and just for my community to be able to know those stories because there are tons of them!"

However, many historians and experts on ancient Egypt disagree with Pinkett Smith, instead saying Cleopatra was of Macedonian heritage and likely fair-skinned. But not everyone shares this view. Other scholars have argued that the monarch may have had additional ancestries, and her complexion may have not been fair.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Remember a few months ago when I posted about a woman in Canada who found a man in the womans' locker room creeping on kids and when she reported it to the gym staff they threatened to have her arrested for transphobia? You'll never guess what exciting new details have emerged!

....

... drumroll please ...

...

Transgender Convicted Pedophile Had Been Watching Girls Undress In Locker Room Of Canadian Pool, Claimed It Was His “Human Right” To Access Women’s Spaces

*HONK*

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Illinois state senator defends Chicago teens' rioting, looting: 'It's a mass protest'

An Illinois state senator defended the Chicago "Teen Takeover" that unfolded Saturday night and left multiple boys shot, claiming it was simply "a mass protest against poverty and segregation."

Robert Peters, who represents parts of Chicago, responded to the chaotic scene that saw hundreds of local youth smashing car windows, jumping on surrounding vehicles, and firing guns in the streets.

Rather than condemn the chaos that left tourists running in fear, Peters suggested it was a "mass protest."

"Since I’m a glutton for punishment and I’m sure I’m gonna get the most unhinged, crime weirdo replies but: I would look at the behavior of young people as a political act and statement," Peters wrote in a Twitter post Sunday. "It’s a mass protest against poverty and segregation. Rest in peace to my mentions."

Hundreds of police officers were called to the scene, arresting nine adults and six juveniles in connection to the riot.

According to Fox 32, a man was taken to the hospital after being beaten by a group of teenagers after they jumped on and smashed his windshield while he and his wife sat inside.

All discussion of it on the local subreddit was quickly jannied, naturally.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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*rolls dice*

Is Bitcoin racist? SEC claims ‘unsophisticated’ minority investors losing large amounts of money: Critics say the SEC is actually racist for labeling minorities as “unsophisticated investors”

United States regulators such as the Securities Exchange Commission have long warned against Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, but now there is another reason to crack down on the investments. According to a new letter sent to SEC chairman Gary Gensler, cryptocurrencies have led “unsophisticated investors,” including “many minorities,” to lose significant amounts of money.

“As a result of targeted marketing, a significant amount of these losses have been borne by unsophisticated investors, including many minority investors seeking rapid investment growth without the knowledge or information to assess the risks associated with such investments,” read a letter from the SEC’s Investor Advisory Committee (IAC) to Gensler.

The letter attacks Bitcoin and crypto assets, arguing: “Many investors recently have suffered significant losses as a result of their investments in crypto assets. It is estimated that these losses have been more than $2 trillion In addition to unilaterally appropriating jurisdiction over digital assets.”

[...]

The letter further argues for enhanced oversight of crypto markets, stating the SEC should “aggressively continue to assert authority over crypto assets that are securities and over trading platforms that list or transact in such crypto asset securities.” In addition, the agency should “seek appropriate additional appropriations from Congress where needed to adequately oversee the crypto securities industry.”

Recent reporting has shown that the SEC is launching a crackdown on cryptocurrencies. Politico writes: “The SEC’s campaign for compliance could cement the regulator’s authority over crypto — ushering in a new age of policing in a market that Gensler has called the ‘Wild West.’ It would also assuage concerns from progressive advocates and lawmakers who want the agency to move faster and more aggressively to protect consumers and investors.”

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Medical Reparations Have Arrived: Changes designed to increase black patients’ access to kidney transplants pervert good medicine and punish white patients to right nonexistent wrongs.

If racism doesn’t explain the discrepancy, what does? The list of reasons is extensive, reflecting disheartening, stubborn problems that physicians and policymakers have long tried to address. One is the advanced age and complex medical conditions of many black patients with diabetes-related kidney failure; many of these patients are also relatively satisfied with dialysis treatments and unwilling to undergo extensive evaluation for transplant suitability. Others include insufficient health literacy, concern about the surgical procedures associated with transplantation, and lack of a support system for post-operative patients—an especially important factor in transplant suitability. Black families are also less likely to supply kidney donors from relatives.

UNOS and OPTN ignore these facts to advance a race-based agenda. They are forcing transplant centers to rework the waitlist for cadaveric kidneys in such a way that favors black patients. The rationale is that the longstanding formula used to estimate kidney function, which was race-conscious and required a second calculation for black patients, was racist.

Yet this second calculation was necessary to produce an accurate value for kidney function in black patients. Without it, the measure would be highly inaccurate, dramatically underestimating kidney function. (Research shows that people of African-American descent tend to have higher levels of muscle mass compared with other population groups, which can affect the levels of creatinine, a waste product produced by muscles, in their blood. Creatinine is used as a marker to estimate kidney function in GFR equations, including the MDRD equation; however, African Americans may have higher creatinine levels even if their kidney function is normal.)

Validated in multiple studies involving hundreds of patients, the old approach was long criticized yet never shown to be inaccurate. Nonetheless, activists demanded a new formula, officially rolled out in 2021. Less accurate than the previous method, the new one lowers kidney-function assessment for black patients to the point that some who did not qualify for placement on the transplant list now meet the requirement. It is a case study in politicized manipulation of data to achieve a predetermined goal.

OPTN isn’t just using this new assessment going forward. It is retroactively applying the new formula—potentially tracing back decades—to previous assessments of kidney function in black patients. Many black patients previously regarded as ineligible for the transplantation waitlist will now be listed, and some will even be moved ahead of others already on the waiting list. How many patients waiting for years for a transplant will be forced to wait still longer? Some estimates say that roughly 70,000 black patients could potentially benefit. That’s a huge number, considering that the current kidney waiting list stands at about 90,000 patients.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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[Ted Cruz] Southern Poverty Law Center’s Self-Serving Double Standard

Two lawyers with the notorious Southern Poverty Law Center have been in the news in recent weeks. One is facing domestic terrorism charges; the other is votes away from a lifetime appointment to the federal bench.

The SPLC fully supports both lawyers: Thomas Webb Jurgens, a suspected Antifa terrorist arrested and charged for his involvement in a violent riot against the police in Atlanta, Ga., and Nancy Abudu, the SPLC’s director for strategic litigation, whose job involves overseeing all of the SPLC’s legal work – including its special litigation related to “hate groups.” Abudu is currently a nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit awaiting a confirmation vote by the U.S. Senate.

Most organizations would, at a minimum, suspend an employee engaged in potentially criminal behavior, as Jurgens was during the violent attack in Atlanta in early March. But not only has the SPLC allowed him to retain his position, it has failed to condemn the horrific violence.

Within hours of Jurgens’ arrest, the SPLC released a joint statement with another radical group, the National Lawyers Guild. Instead of condemning the violence against police officers that took place, the SPLC denounced Jurgens’ arrest as “part of ongoing state repression and violence” and urged the “de-escalation of violence … against Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities.” The statement is ironic, given that Jurgens was engaged in terroristic and violent behavior toward those who risk their lives daily for public safety, including those from black, brown, and indigenous communities.

Unfortunately, such egregious and violence-inducing actions are par for the course when it comes to the SPLC, which has a long track record of smearing its political opponents and putting them in harm’s way. In 2012, a gunman entered the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the conservative Family Research Council looking to kill as many FRC employees as possible, and shot a security guard. The gunman later told the FBI that he had targeted the Family Research Council because the SPLC had labeled it a “hate group.” Similarly, the gunman who opened fire on Republican lawmakers and nearly killed now-House Majority Leader Steve Scalise in 2017 also followed the SPLC’s work.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Furious viewers complain en masse about new UK TV show with adult men stripping naked for children

A British television show aiming to promote body positivity showed adult men stripping naked in front of children. The program has been the subject of hundreds of complaints to the U.K.’s communications watchdog following the airing of its first episode last Tuesday.

“Naked Education,” which is broadcast on Channel 4, features adults who take their clothes off in front of underage teenagers who are then required to give feedback on the body parts they see in front of them.

“I’ve never seen, like, a full, naked man before,” one teenager told producers during the first episode.

“It’s just a lot to process. Naked men in real life. We’ve never really seen it,” added another young girl after four adult men stood in front of the group of children and dropped their bathrobes to bare all.

Its host, Anna Richardson, said ahead of the first episode last week, “If you’re curious about your body, and your life’s journey (whatever that may be), then tune in.” She described the program as “educational, emotional, joyous.”

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Feds create race, gender speech codes for scientists to direct report language

The National Institute of Standards and Technology, a federal and science technology office, has made race and gender speech codes for its scientists a top priority.

The guidance, for example, tells federal employees not to use the words "blacklist" or "whitelist" because of the racial connotations and also cautions against "using terms that assign a gender to inanimate objects, such as male/female connectors."

The NIST is a little-known government agency tasked with helping the U.S., among other things, stay technologically ahead of rivals like China. Congress appropriated about $1.65 billion for the group for 2023.

Lawmakers recently hammered the Pentagon for investing heavily in critical race theory and gender ideology. The National Institutes of Health has done so as well, along with other agencies.

The NIST is one of many federal agencies putting its attention and taxpayer funds into these efforts as it struggles to keep pace with its key mission. The NIST sparked controversy for its "Inclusive Language Guidance," which tells scientists which words or phrases they can or cannot use in reports.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Conservative Social Media Influencer Douglass Mackey Convicted of Election Interference

Conservative social media influencer Douglass Mackey, also known as Ricky Vaughn, was convicted of election interference in the 2016 presidential race after posting a satirical meme on Twitter.

Mackey, who is being accused of trying to “deprive individuals of their constitutional right to vote,” was convicted on Friday by a federal jury in Brooklyn of the charge of “Conspiracy Against Rights,” the federal government announced.

The conservative meme maker is now facing a maximum of 10 years in prison.

“Mackey has been found guilty by a jury of his peers of attempting to deprive individuals from exercising their sacred right to vote for the candidate of their choice in the 2016 Presidential Election,” United States Attorney Breon Peace said on Friday.

“Today’s verdict proves that the defendant’s fraudulent actions crossed a line into criminality and flatly rejects his cynical attempt to use the constitutional right of free speech as a shield for his scheme to subvert the ballot box and suppress the vote,” Peace added.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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First Arabic street sign in Germany vandalized within days of installation

The sign, which had recently been praised by local Islamic associations and the Green Party as a symbol of diversity, was covered up by stickers renaming it Karl-Martell-Straße, a nod to the Frankish leader often portrayed as the savior of Christian Europe from a full-scale Islamic invasion by the Umayyad Caliphate back in the eighth century.

A sticker depicting a horsed knight driving people away with a lance was also used to cover up the Arabic-language sign.

Revolte Rheinland, a right-wing group has claimed responsibility for the vandalism. In a social media post on Telegram, they wrote: “So that this distortion of history and gesture of submission does not go unanswered, activists not only covered the sign of shame last night, but also renamed the entire street after a great European who, almost 1,300 years ago stopped the Islamic land grab.”

In addition to the stickers, the activist group attached a poster to the street sign which read: “Remigration over submission.”

After its praise for Charles Martel, the group wrote: “But unlike then, this time there is no need for an armed invasion. Our politicians have willingly given up our cities. This street sign is symbolic of this process of submission, which is why we renamed it after a great European who we need more than ever today. Then the lance, today the deportation aircraft.”

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Theologian fired, called ‘terrorist’ by Bible college for tweet against homosexuality

Aaron Edwards, a theologian at Cliff College in England, was removed from his position after sending the tweet, Fox News reported.

“Homosexuality is invading the church. Evangelicals no longer see the severity of this [because] they’re busy apologizing for their apparently barbaric homophobia, whether or not it’s true,” Edwards posted to Twitter in February.

“…If sin is no longer sin, we no longer need a Saviour,” he added in the post.

According to Edwards, he was told to take down the tweet by Cliff College, but refused, he said in an interview with CBN News on March 21.

Instead, Edwards said he doubled down, noting that he’s been “speaking about” the issue “for the past few years.”

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Long Island University suspends American Club for declaring men are not women

On March 13, the American Club at Long Island University (LIU) was notified via email that it had been suspended pending the outcome of an investigation being conducted by the university.

Campus Reform obtained access to this notice, which was addressed to LIU American Club President Matthew Cairo, who is also a Campus Reform Correspondent.

The notice begins, “It has come to our [the University’s] attention that at least four Instagram stories connected to International Women’s Day were shared from the liu_americanclub account on or around March 8, 2023," claiming that the stories constitute "potential violations of the LIU Student Code of Conduct and LIU Internet and Social Media Policy." The notice goes on to cite the school's "verbal or physical harassment" policy.

As a result, the notice states that "all American Club operations and activities are suspended on and off-campus pending the outcome of an investigation. Members of your organization may not represent the American Club as a recognized organization in any way, including on social media platforms, until otherwise directed.”

The American Club is a joint university organization composed of the Turning Point USA, Young America’s Foundation, Young Americans for Liberty, and Students for Life chapters at LIU.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Polish pro-life activist sentenced and fined for report that tied homosexuality to pedophilia and HIV: Mariusz Dzierżawski lamented the fact that a court in Gdansk had ruled to be slander what he considers to be medical warnings about homosexuality

Mariusz Dzierżąwski, a member of the board of the Right to Life foundation, was sentenced on Wednesday by a court in Gdańsk to one year of community service and a fine of 15,000 Polish złoty (€3,204).

The case involved a publicity campaign by the foundation against the WHO guidelines on LGBT sex education. The publicity included details concerning HIV infections and scientific research on the relationship between homosexuality and pedophilia. According to the court judgment, public information on these matters represented slander against LGBT activists.

The indictment, which covers three issues, was the product of accusations against the Right to Life foundation by the Tolerado association. First, the Right To Life foundation was accused of publishing scientific data alleging that homosexuals were more likely to commit acts of pedophilia. Second, the foundation allegedly published information that homosexuals were more likely to be infected with HIV. Third, the foundation accused LGBT campaigners of engaging in pro-LGBT sex education that encouraged children to engage in homosexual practices.

The court accepted the assertion of the LGBT activists that the foundation’s publications were in effect defamation against people of a homosexual orientation, lowering their reputation and thereby affecting their educational activities. The court sentenced Mariusz Dzierżawski, the board member responsible for the campaign, to one year’s community service and a fine of 15,000 Polish złoty (€3,204).

Commenting on the outcome of the court case, Dzierżawski said that “today’s verdict is reminiscent of mechanisms in totalitarian times” and represents nothing less than preemptive censorship with the assistance of fines and constraints on the freedom to publish facts. He said the foundation would not allow itself to be cowed by such “judicial persecution,” that it would appeal against this verdict and would continue its information campaigns against pedophilia. The information the foundation had put into the public domain was scientific data about the consequences of homosexual practices and the LGBT lobby’s designs with regard to sex education of children, he added.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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‘Woke’ DOD official Kelisa Wing reassigned after GOP highlights anti-white tweets

Self-described “woke” Defense Department schools official Kelisa Wing, whose anti-white social media comments garnered national attention last fall, has been reassigned to an unrelated role, The Post has learned.

The Defense Department in October launched a 30-day review of Wing — the now-former education activity chief diversity equity and inclusion officer — after her Twitter posts with disparaging comments about white people resurfaced.

“I’m so exhausted at these white folx in these [professional development] sessions this lady actually had the CAUdacity to say black people can be racist too,” she wrote in one post from June 2020, using a portmanteau for “Caucasian audacity.”

While Wing’s job change came after the DoD completed its review, Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Gilbert Cisneros Jr. said it took place not as a “disciplinary action” but rather “as part of a headquarters restructuring.”

But at a House Military Personnel Subcommittee hearing on the impacts of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” in the DoD and military, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) said she was skeptical that the job change was made purely for reorganizational reasons.

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for October 24, 2022 by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses in CultureWarRoundup

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French mayor in support of new asylum center in seaside town has his house burned down: Initial findings suggest a Molotov cocktail could have started the blaze that left the mayor’s house and cars in ruins

The house of a left-wing mayor in France, who supports a controversial plan to establish an asylum center in the small seaside town of Saint-Brevin-les-Pins, has been burned down in a suspected arson attack.

Police were called to the residence of Yannick Morez early on Wednesday morning after his home and two vehicles were destroyed in the blaze.

The left-wing mayor, who described the attack as “cowardly and unacceptable,” expressed his gratitude to neighbors for alerting him to the fire, which he said could have had “more dramatic consequences.”

An initial investigation suggested the fire was not accidental, and Sylvie Canovas-Lagarde, the prosecutor for Saint-Nazaire, confirmed a criminal inquiry was now underway after fire experts ruled the attack to be subject to the “intervention of third parties.”

Investigative sources cited by the Ouest France news outlet suggested the fire could have been started by a Molotov cocktail.

Insert Sam Hyde quote here.