2025-01-26
skijoring, porn hysteria, postmodern authoritarians, segregated casino stocks, permanent records stolen, Fitbit fine, confirmations, deportation misinfo, research fraud, CIA allowed to say lab leak
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Photos of skijoring in Ridgway
Skijoring — pronounced skee-jor-ing — combines the Norwegian terms “ski” and “kjøre” (“to drive”) into a team activity that originated many hundreds of years ago as a form of winter transportation (think the Tang Dynasty in China) and depending on the country, skiers were pulled by reindeer, elk, dogs and eventually horses.
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Did a Private Equity Fire Truck Roll-Up Worsen the L.A. Fires?
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All the monkeys that escaped from a South Carolina research facility recaptured
Horseshit
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3D-printed "ghost gun" ring comes to my community–and leaves a man dead
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Mourning is human. New grief apps want to 'optimise' it for you
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Male Sexuality, Porn Consumption, and the Hysteria of Modern Feminine Discourse
Yes, they do ejaculate to a screen. Similarly, single and married women post their cleavage on social media for the world to see for likes and additional male sexual options. That seems pretty disgusting to me. If anything, it’s more repulsive to me because we are all expected to pretend this is an acceptable and unharmful sociosexual behavior when none of us have to pretend male porn consumption is an acceptable and unharmful sociosexual behavior. Women demand that we lie or face social consequences about their thirst-trapping, while men at least have the humility to be embarrassed by their porn consumption habits if confronted. Thirst trapping and posting cleavage is not an unharmful sexual behavior women perform, especially as wives and mothers. I will give single women who are husband-hunting the benefit of the doubt within reason. However, it is still worth noting how insane it is the number of women overtly obsessed with male sexual attention while flaunting subpar goods.
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Postmodern Views Are Linked to Left-Wing Authoritarianism
The study found that individuals with strong postmodern beliefs are more likely to exhibit authoritarian tendencies, particularly when their levels of psychological distress are low. The study was motivated by growing political polarization and the increasing prevalence of authoritarian tendencies across the ideological spectrum. While right-wing authoritarianism has been widely studied, left-wing authoritarianism has received comparatively little attention. The researchers aimed to address this gap by examining how psychological factors, such as distress, intersect with postmodern beliefs—characterized by skepticism of universal truths—to foster authoritarian attitudes. For their study, the researchers recruited 365 participants from diverse backgrounds
celebrity gossip
Obit
Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering
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Study links "news finds me" mindset to fake news susceptibility
A recent study conducted by researchers from Fudan University and Syracuse University, published in Computers in Human Behavior, sheds light on a troubling trend in today’s digital media landscape. The study explores how the “News-Finds-Me” perception—a belief that important news will naturally reach individuals through social media without active effort—contributes to overconfidence in identifying fake news. This mindset not only heightens susceptibility to misinformation but also encourages the sharing of false stories.
- The more people are talking about ta thing that doesn't actually affect them, the more effort someone has spent telling them why they should care.
TikTok
Musk
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Public Should Weigh in on Elon Musk's SpaceX Plans to Splash Down Near Hawaii
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Elon Musk's Air Force One Scrutiny Tests Boeing's Path to Recovery
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Fake CBC news stories on X promoting investment scam Quantum AI
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Musk's beef with Britain isn't (only) about politics. It's about tech regulation
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Wall Street banks prepare to sell up to $3B in X loans next week
Electric / Self Driving cars
Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation
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Why did I assume this was a mistake? Well, for one thing, on the face of it Bally’s has told the SEC that this offering is only available to Minorities who are also women, which does not match the intent expressed elsewhere or during their roadshow. I have immense sympathy for drafting errors. Bally’s, feel free to let the lawyers know they forgot a significant “or” on the first bullet point. [Post-publication edit: An actual lawyer, not an Internet lawyer, informs me that the first bullet point has an implied "or" in this construction. Mea maxima culpa, associate who drafted this.] The other reason I thought this was likely a mistake is that the American social, legal, and constitutional order is profoundly opposed to discrimination by race, and considers that action malum in se. Even when individual actors want to do it, they usually feel embarrassed enough about it to dissemble.
Chicago leaves itself an out for its definition of Minority, which lets it designate any individual or group as a Minority, on an ad hoc, unreported, unaccountable basis.
Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts
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Data breach hitting PowerSchool looks bad
On January 7, PowerSchool revealed that it had experienced a network intrusion two weeks earlier that resulted in the “unauthorized exportation of personal information” customers stored in PowerSchool’s Student Information System (SIS) through PowerSource, a customer support portal. Information stolen included individuals’ names, contact information, dates of birth, medical alert information, Social Security Numbers, and unspecified “other related information.” Since then, schools throughout the US and Canada have reported the devastating fallout. On Monday, for instance, the Toronto District School Board notified parents, students, and former students that the breach exposed sensitive information of all students in the district between 1985 and 2024.
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
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Frustrated YouTube viewers seek explanation for hour-long unskippable ads
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Fitbit pays Uncle Sam $12M to sprint away from claims burning-hot smartwatches
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Someone is slipping a hidden backdoor into Juniper routers across the globe
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Hacker infects 18,000 "script kiddies" with fake malware builder
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Sony ends production of Blu-ray Disc, recordable MiniDisc, and MiniDV media
TechSuck / Geek Bait
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO
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Newly discovered asteroid turns out to be Tesla Roadster launched into space
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Selling the idea that there is a problem, against evidence, is step 1; and the UN is good at that. Scientists call on UN to help solve Earth's space junk problem
Economicon / Business / Finance
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
Trump
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Trump fires at least 12 independent inspectors general in late-night purge
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Trump prohibits development of US Central Bank Digital Currency
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Interior Department Says Gulf of Mexico Is Now ‘Gulf of America’ - The New York Times
The Trump administration said on Friday that it had followed through on the president’s promises to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” and return Denali, the Alaska Native name for North America’s tallest peak, to its earlier name, Mount McKinley. Changing the name of the Gulf as it is used in the United States is within the administration’s power. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has already started using the name “Gulf of America,” putting it in a winter weather warning that an area of low pressure was moving “across the Gulf of America” toward Florida. Other countries don’t have to follow suit, though.
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Trump Pardons Pro-Life Activist Bevelyn Williams, Sentenced 3 Years Under Biden Administration.
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Trump orders release of last JFK, RFK, King assassination files
Democrats / Biden Inc
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“Correct, they punished The New York Post, that didn’t help,” Caputo went on, referring to The Post being locked out of its Twitter account due to what was later revealed as back-channel pressure from the FBI. “I was covering Biden at the time,” he added. “And I was told this came from on high at Politico: Don’t write about the laptop, don’t talk about the laptop, don’t tweet about the laptop.” “And I wrote what would have been a classic story saying, you know, ‘The former vice president’s son was slapped with a big tax lien for the period of time that he worked for this controversial Ukrainian oil concern, or natural gas concern, which is haunting his father on the campaign trail,’” Caputo said. It was scrapped without explanation, the veteran reporter vented, saying readers “don’t understand the dumb decisions of cowardly editors that are made above us.”
Left Angst
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Feeling Targeted: Executive Order Ending Wasteful DEIA Efforts
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Trump ends Fauci's security detail
- Biden failed to renew it; but what are facts vs the necessary unity of public opinion?
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Politico editor John Harris calls Trump 'greatest American figure of his era' | Fox News
the second occasion of Trump taking the oath of office also put him in an entirely new light. For the first time, he is holding power under circumstances in which reasonable people cannot deny a basic fact: He is the greatest American figure of his era.
- So much of "Trump" is the Cult of Mass Media freakout about him. The man himself is irrelevant to the ogre he's painted as.
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ICE Raids Are an Escalation of Our Long-Simmering De Facto Cold Civil War
Trump voters in red states will get to enjoy watching footage of the raids on TV and social media, but it won’t be their neighbors getting deported, not their contractors and custodians and dishwashers, and it won’t be their communities whose economies suffer as a result. It’s seemingly impractical operationally and would be ruinous economically for the Trump administration to actually try to deport all undocumented immigrants in America. What is practical operationally are targeted raids in big cities. And the deleterious economic effects will be largely contained to those cities. It’s a big “fuck you” to blue states.
I’ve altered my media diet significantly after the election, deliberately choosing to skim, rather than consume, news regarding political affairs outside my interests in the tech industry in general and, of course, Apple in particular.
- Ignorance enhances outrage.
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WHO starts cutting costs as US withdrawal date set for January 2026
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Musk Plan for Retooling Government Takes Shape, but Big Questions Loom
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Team Trump Says Mark Zuckerberg Has 'More Ass-Kissing' to Do
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DOGE Takeover of USDS Allows Them to Surveil the US Government from the Inside
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Musk Exploring Blockchain Use in US Government Efficiency Effort
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"Reign of terror over: My weird weekend partying with the triumphant tech right"
Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security
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Reported ICE visit to Chicago school was actually Secret Service, officials say.
A reported sighting of immigration agents attempting to enter an elementary school on Chicago’s Southwest Side Friday was actually Secret Service agents investigating a threat, a federal spokesperson said late Friday afternoon. This announcement came hours after leaders at Chicago Public Schools announced they blocked federal immigration officers from going into Hamline Elementary School in the New City neighborhood and talking to students, leading to swift responses from city and state leaders and immigration advocates. Principal Natasha Ortega said at a Friday afternoon news conference that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents showed up to the school, located at 1548 W. 48th St., at 11:15 a.m. She said school employees “followed the protocols that we’ve been trained and practiced and have discussed,” ensuring students’ safety. “We will not open our doors for ICE, and we are here to protect our children and make sure they have access to an excellent education,” Ortega said. “We stand in solidarity with our families and the Back of the Yards community.” An ICE spokesperson later denied in a statement that the encounter involved the agency, while Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told the Tribune it was their officers who were investigating a threat against a “protectee” in connection with TikTok.
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Killing of Border Patrol Agent Goes in a Very Strange and Unsettling Direction – RedState
Border Patrol Agent David Maland was killed Monday during a traffic stop in Coventry, Vermont, about 20 miles from the Derby Line - Rock Island Border Crossing. Initial details were sparse but strange. According to reports, the traffic stop led to a shootout in which Maland and a "German national in the country on what the FBI called a current visa was killed, and an injured suspect was taken into custody and is being treated at a local hospital." The incident was a bit out of the ordinary. One doesn't think of rural Vermont as a place where shootouts occur with federal agents and on the risk spectrum of "aliens likely to be shooters," Germans are somewhere over to the far lefthand side.
World
Russia Bad / Ukraine War
Health / Medicine
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UnitedHealth confirms 190M Americans affected by Change Healthcare data breach
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Opinion | The Long Shadow of Fraud in Alzheimer’s Research - The New York Times
Over the past 25 years, Alzheimer’s research has suffered a litany of ostensible fraud and other misconduct by world-famous researchers and obscure scientists alike, all trying to ascend in a brutally competitive field. During years of investigative reporting, I’ve uncovered many such cases, including several detailed for the first time in my forthcoming book.
Take for example the revered neuroscientist Eliezer Masliah, whose groundbreaking research has shaped the development of treatments for memory loss and Parkinson’s disease, and who in 2016 was entrusted to lead the National Institute on Aging’s expanded effort to tackle Alzheimer’s. With roughly 800 papers to his name, many of them considered highly influential, Dr. Masliah seemed a natural choice to steer the project, with billions in new funding. He hailed the moment as the dawning of “the golden era of Alzheimer’s disease research.” Last September in Science magazine, I described evidence that for decades Dr. Masliah’s research had included improperly manipulated photos of brain tissue and other technical images — a clear sign of fraud. Many of his studies contained apparently falsified western blots — scientific images that show the presence of proteins in a blood or tissue sample. Some of the same images seem to have been used repeatedly, falsely represented as original, in different papers throughout the years. (When I reached out to Dr. Masliah for the story, he declined to respond.)
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Eat the peel: Why you might be throwing away the best bit of your fruit
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Medical marijuana users can become addicted to pot, study says.
Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp
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People are allowed to say it now. C.I.A. Now Favors Lab Leak Theory to Explain Covid’s Origins - The New York Times
A new analysis that began under the Biden administration is released by the C.I.A.’s new director, John Ratcliffe, who wants the agency to get “off the sidelines” in the debate.
The C.I.A. has said for years that it did not have enough information to conclude whether the Covid pandemic emerged naturally from a wet market in Wuhan, China, or from an accidental leak at a research lab there. But the agency issued a new assessment this week, with analysts saying they now favor the lab theory. There is no new intelligence behind the agency’s shift, officials said. Rather it is based on the same evidence it has been chewing over for months. The analysis, however, is based in part on a closer look at the conditions in the high security labs in Wuhan province before the pandemic outbreak, according to people familiar with the agency’s work.
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Bird Flu mRNA Vaccines Remain Work in Progress, 4 Years After Covid-19