Chomsky commented somewhere that debates ate not helpful for thought or discovery.. it's a competition to win not a conversation where you might change your mind. I think Chomsky said it was stupid.
Debate is a sport, and some people are very good at it, as he was, and it is not a reliable route to truth or clarity or anything else except who is more ruthless, relentless, has more rhetorical chops, etc. I mean it's dueling by verbiage and vehemence, and just like dueling with pistols or jousting with lances, all it settlesis better at the sport. (I know there is debate with rules in high schools and colleges, and then there's the free-for-all versions....)He let college students pose questions and then (often, not always; see first comment) trounced them and somehow that was very appealing to a lot of people, which says a lot, but not that he was right or had his facts in line. Someone better than him at the sport--a top-notch courtroom lawyer, a lot of grownups--could have probably destroyed him in a debate not corrupted by interruptions and crowd roars, because he repeated a lot of MAGA nonsense. The clip I heard was him demanding his interlocutor say only yes or no to "can a man have a baby," and of course one thing I've learned in a lifetime of trying to avoid bullies is when you let them frame the argument you've already lost. Biological sex as all up-to-date people is a complex formulation, and also a number of trans men have given birth to children.
facebook.com/share/1G5R1wnvqv/
longreads.com/2018/09/18/no-i-…
#RebeccaSolint #LauraPenny #CharlieKirk #CharlieKirkDebate #Debate #Debates
... as a movement strategist, he relied upon and advanced lies and bigotry—including falsehoods that fueled violence and an assault on our national foundation. That was not a side gig for Kirk. It was a core component of his organizing. He did not practice politics the right way. He used deceit to develop his movement and to weaken the United States. His assassination is heinous and frightening and warrants widespread condemnation. It should prompt reflection on what is happening within the nation and what needs to be done to prevent further political violence. It should not protect him or others who engage in such politics of extremism from critical review.
motherjones.com/politics/2025/…
#NoEzraKlein #CharlieKirk #CharlieKirkInfluence #MotherJonesOnCharlieKirk
No, Charlie Kirk was not practicing politics the right way
His assassination deserves full condemnation; his full impact should not be sidestepped.Mother Jones
Education is, of course, in part a matter of schools and colleges and the formal information systems. That's true whether the goal of education is education for freedom and democracy, as Dewey advocated, or education for obedience and subordination and marginalization, as the dominant institutions require. The University of Chicago sociologist James Coleman, one of the main students of education and effects of experience on children's lives, concludes from many studies that "the total effect of home background is considerably greater than the total effect of school variables in determining student achievement." Actually, about twice as powerful in effect, he concludes from a lot of studies. So it's therefore important to have a look at how social policy and the dominant culture are shaping these factors, home influences
and so on.
rtraba.com/wp-content/uploads/…
#NoamChomsky #DemocracyAndEducation #JamesColeman #SchoolInfluence
>
Leading the vengeful posse is Donald Trump, blaming 'radical left political violence,' before we even know who shot Kirk, ignoring Trump’s own long history of inflamed political rhetoric. True to this history, Trump is now promising to “find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity, and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it” (who knows how wide he will cast that net). Yet, five minutes research would make clear that the vast bulk of recent political violence in America comes from the right and much of it is in Trump’s name.
>
Trump supporter Vance Luther Boelter murdered Democratic state Rep Melissa Hortman and her husband in June (incidentally, after that murder, Trump said he wouldn’t ‘waste time’ making a condolence call to “whacked out” Minnesota Governor Tim Waltz). Trump supporter Cody Balmer tried to murder Democrat governor Josh Shapiro, and his family in April. Cesar Sayoc, who sent pipe bombs to the homes of Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden was a Trump supporter. Solomon Peña, who was found guilty in March of orchestrating attacks against state Democrats, was a Trump supporter. David DePape, who tried to kidnap Nancy Pelosi and assaulted her husband with a hammer was a rightwing conspiracy theorist and Trump supporter. I can ignore the pathetically poor state of political discourse in the US because I don’t live there but I can’t ignore partisan garbage on my FB wall.
facebook.com/david.mcneill.338…
#DavidMcNeill on #CharlieKirk #CharlieKirkMurder #FarLeftViolence was it? #TrumpSupporterViolence #RIghtWingViolnece
David McNeill
The murder of Charlie Kirk, graphically shown across X and other platforms, has triggered a tsunami of rightwing bile, blaming the 'left' (whatever that means) and threatening payback (I just saw Fox...www.facebook.com
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With friends like these who needs war criminals ?
"You got gangsters in power and lawbreakers making the rules" --- Bob Dylan Wake Up
In 2019, Trump impulsively ordered Navy SEAL Team Six on a covert raid into North Korea to a listening device. Before landing, the SEAL team believed that a nearby boat had spotted them, so, naturally, they killed everyone onboard. Then they sank the boat and used knives to puncture the lungs of the Koreans' bodies so they would sink as well. Then the SEALS aborted the mission. The crew of the boat were civilians who'd been diving for shellfish. There were no weapons on board the fishing boat. Leading members of Congress were told about this entire botched affair and said nothing for four years...Members of Congress who've known about this since 2021 but never told the public:
- Chuck Schumer
- Nancy Pelosi
- Adam Schiff
- Mark Warner
- Kevin McCarthy
- Mitch McConnell
- Devin Nunes
– Marco Rubio
thedailybeast.com/donald-trump…
nytimes.com/2025/09/05/us/navy…
/HT #JeffreyStClair FB #USAWarCriminals
#NotAtWarMurderCriminals
So sick of all the cis men liars claiming to protect cis women while putting both cis amd trans women in danger.
Ansley Baker, a cis woman who was kicked out of a restroon and asked to prove she was cis
people.com/woman-says-security…
Jasmine Adams, a cisgender woman attacked at a deli because she was mistaken for a trans woman
them.us/story/jasmine-adams-st…
Michelle Peacock, a Cisgender woman killed by man who thought she was trans
thepinknews.com/2023/07/14/ind…
Dani Davis, a cisgender woman was harrassed in the bathroom at a walmart she was employed at
gomag.com/article/a-man-mistoo…
Kalaya Morton, a cisgender lesbian confronted by two sheriff's deputies in a walmart bathroom
advocate.com/news/lesbian-mist…
#transgender #transphobes #transphobia #misogny #transRights
Fruitcaketocracy: the New American Experiment Supporters must see him as a grandmother 👵 off her rocker mumbling nonsense. I mean, you don't let anyone mess with her, that I understand, but you hand her the nuclear football either. Ya know?
Just absolute madness from beginning to end. Trump: “Newsom didn't allow the water to come from the Pacific Northwest. You know they have tremendous amounts of water in California, which most people don’t know. They send the water out into the Pacific Ocean. So I demanded that to be open. If that were open during the fire, you wouldn't have had the fire because all the sprinklers would've worked in the houses. They had no water. They had no water in the fire hydrants. They wouldn’t have had the fires. They would have been put out after one house, two houses. But he stopped the water from coming in. And I had to send in the military to have that water opened, after the fires. And now that water, but he should have more, because they still restrict it. There’s something wrong with these people. There’s something really wrong.” There’s something really wrong with Trump’s brain…
facebook.com/share/1C91BBFL2h/
#JeffreyStClair #FruitCakeTocracy #TrumpsBrain #TrumpsMadness #CaliforniaWater
Weniger Hype, mehr Nutzen für AI. Wenig überraschend, China macht vor wie das gehen kann.
Kevin Dominik Korte (@kdkorte@fosstodon.org)
While the US hunts for the AGI moonshots, China is building usable and easy-to-train AI models. Perhaps we should consider need and usability before investing $7 billion in the next generation of environmentally harmful chatbots.
#AI #opensource #usability
techinasia.com/news/chinas-ope…
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Github's recent changes broke release downloads but fortunately the wget solution posted in a gh thread about this works on linux.
until wget -c <url>; do :; done
Replacing <url> with the direct link to the file you're downloading.
> 1. Ours is, above all, a *tragic* reality. Neither the most optimistic statistics nor the most ideologically contaminated explanations can disguise the situation of inhumanity and injustice in which our societies struggle. As long as we do not recognize the catastrophic state of certain societies in which the great majority of their people living if perpetual life-threatening situations, everything else, as a consequence, will be out of focus, and totally lack any semblance to reality.
--- Ignacio Martín-Baró (1974!!) in
_Towards a Society that Serves its People: The Intellectual Contributions of El Salvador's Murdered Jesuits_ (1991)
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My favorite thing about right wing liars is that they'll accidentally fool other right wing liars into exposing them.
Utah republicans 100% would've faked their report on trans youth if they knew the data wasn't actually on their side but frauds like the cass review tricked them into honesty.
If you can accept that chairs can have varying functionality and be made of different material yet still all be valid chairs you can do the same for trans women and trans men. #transgender
A consideration already made for cis people of course, it's just inconsistently applied when trans people are involved
... The pretense that we will find out whether or not Donald Trump is a sexual predator if the Epstein files are released is itself a kind of cover-up, since we already know he is – though I’m all for finding out exactly what it is he’s so frantic to hide. He was found liable for sexually assaulting E Jean Carroll in a 2023 civil trial and has been credibly accused of groping, grabbing, and assault by numerous women. His worse-than-creepy behavior around the teenage girls in beauty pageants he managed is well-documented, as is his closeness to Epstein....But in another sense the whole society is hiding something: that this violence is everywhere and it deeply shapes – or misshapes – our society. The statistics I cited above address the victims of specific crimes. But all girls and women are impacted by the reality that so many men want to harm us and these crimes could happen to any one of us. This violence affects the choices we make about where to go and when, what jobs to take, when to speak up, what to wear....
Systemic problems require systemic responses, and while I’m all for releasing the Epstein files, I want a broader conversation and deeper change.
meditationsinanemergency.com/e…
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
#RebeccaSolnit #EpsteinFiles #SystemicViolence #SystemicProblems
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> The wise parent, at the present day, is likely to choose, if he can, some method of education for his children which is not in fact universal, and for the sake of experiment it is desirable that parents should have the opportunity of trying new methods. But they ought to be such as could be made universal, if found to produce good results, not such as must from their very nature be confined to a privileged few. Fortunately, some of the best elements in modern educational theory and practice have had an extremely democratic origin; for example, Madame Montessori's work began with nursery schools in slums. In higher education exceptional opportunity for exceptional ability is indispensable, but otherwise there is no reason why any child should suffer from the adoption of systems which might be adopted by all.
> 今日の賢い親は,可能であれば,実際,一般向け（万人向き）でない教育方法をわが子のために選ぶ傾向がある。そして,実験のためには,親たちが新しい方法を試してみる機会を持つことは望ましいことである。しかし,その新しい方法は,よい結果を生み出すことがわかった場合には,'万人向き'にされうるようなものであるべきであり,その性格上,ごく少数の特権階級に限定されるものであってはならない。幸いなことに,近代の教育理論と実際（実践）の最良の要素のいくつかは,極度に'民主的な起源'を持っている。たとえば,モンテッソーリ夫人（Maria Montessori, 1870-1952：イタリアの女医,幼児教育者）の仕事は,スラム（貧民街）の保育園から始まった。高等教育においては,特別の能力には特別な機会が不可欠である。しかし,その他の場合は,万人の利用できる制度を採用することによって,子供が苦しむ理由はまったくない。
- russell-j.com/beginner/OE01-02…
#モンレッソーリ夫人 #MariaMontessori #マリアモンテソーリ #MontessoriInSlums
#RussellOnMontessori #RusselOnEducation #OnEducation
Responding to claims about Psalm 22
youtube.com/watch?v=Zc1Kx-htoX…
#psalms #theBible #biblicalScholar #BibleScholar #psalm22 #bible #religion
"Gender Critical" nurse EXPOSED over racist comments
https:/www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ks0tNKkB80
#SandiePeggie #Transphobia #racism #terfs #LGBTQ #transgender #trans #bigotry #youtube
"Gender Critical" nurse EXPOSED over racist comments
The current darling of the "Gender Critical" movement is Sandie Peggie, who is known for being absolutely vile and bigoted towards an innocent doctor she wor...YouTube
Debunked: "Trans Affirming Care is Non-Essential"
youtube.com/watch?v=pJ-yBrgNoc…
#GenderAffirmingCare #trans #lgbtq #transgender
Debunked: "Trans Affirming Care is Non-Essential"
[Quick References][1] https://youtu.be/AgYLNID4_EI [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60273z28des[3] https://youtu.be/4zok0BxqO44 [4] https://youtu.be/DFQ7k...YouTube
Responding to DHS propaganda
youtube.com/watch?v=Vg2pl-gVNS…
#BookOfIsaiah #Isaiah6 #theBible #bible #OldTestament #DHS #DepartmentOfHomelandSecurity #TrumpAdministration #UnitedStates
Nice breakdown of a biblical contradiction you probably didn't know existed
"My favorite contradiction in the Bible"
youtube.com/watch?v=fBsynf_CnG…
#KingDavid #religion #theBible #Goliath #DavidAndGoliath #1chronicles #OldTestament #Elhanan #2Samuel #BibleScholar #BiblicalScholar #bible
Why people claim the Bible has no contradictions
youtube.com/watch?v=S30arBPuo-…
#bible #theBible #BibleContradictions #BiblicalContradictions #religion #BiblicalScholar #BibleScholar
Transphobic "comedy" Lady ballers was originally going to be a documentary but the daily wire couldn't find anyone willing to meet the requirements for trans women in sports.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Bal…
#Transphobia #TransRights #TransAthletes #TheDailyWire #LGBTQ #LGBT
Did you see the Athleticus series?
Did you see the Athleticus series?
arte.tv/fr/videos/097585-001-A…
It features roos too @muse!
Athleticus - Street basket - Regarder le film complet | ARTE
Athleticus - Street basket - Regarder le film complet | ARTE
Un kangourou défie une tortue dans un concours de paniers de basket acrobatiques... Les animaux sauvages en 3D s'essaient aux sports "urbains", provoquant des situations toujours plus comiques et décalées.ARTE
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Tens of thousands of people take to streets for London Trans+ Pride 2025
Event becomes biggest of its kind as more than 100,000 turn out to support its ‘existence and resistance’ theme
Outbreak of Salmonella Typhimurium Infections Linked to Commercially Distributed Raw Milk — California and Four Other States, September 2023–March 2024
cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/74/wr/mm7…
#RawMilk #UnpasteurizedMilk #SalmonellaOutbreak #PublicHealth
“A Shameful Chapter”: How Anti-Trans Disinformation Drowned Out Science and Gripped the Mainstream
assignedmedia.org/breaking-new…
“A Shameful Chapter”: How Anti-Trans Disinformation Drowned Out Science and Gripped the Mainstream
A pipeline of pseudoscience funded by powerful right-wing hate groups has undermined medical truths with the help of big media.Assigned
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Hello#RFKjr also a Jeffrey Epstein client
newrepublic.com/post/198416/rf…
RFK Jr. Captured in Old Photos Partying With Jeffrey Epstein
It’s not just Donald Trump. Those in his inner circle were in the same orbit as Epstein too.The New Republic
“My parents very clearly do not love me”: Children of Bayswater Speak Out
"In July last year, we exposed Bayswater Support Group’s private Discord for The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, revealing evidence of child abuse and political lobbying. Bayswater describes itself as offering “parents whose children have a transgender identity somewhere to talk, share and be understood”. But posts from their private Discord forum revealed that parents exchanged conversion therapy tips, and fostered relationships with MPs to push anti-trans policies."
transsafety.network/posts/my-p…
#Transgender #LGBTQ #ConversionTherapy #TransYouth #TransKids #Transphobia #Transphobes #TransChildren #GenderCritical #Terfs
lemgandi
in reply to Darth Tiktaalik 🏳️⚧️ • • •Darth Tiktaalik 🏳️⚧️ likes this.
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