Let It Burn!

Firefighters (Shutterstock www.shutterstock.com).

Firefighters (Shutterstock).

A decision by newly elected President Trump to freeze all federal government hiring has Forest Service employees wondering if they will be able to bring in emergency help during fire-fighting season, reports the Missoulian.

On Monday, Trump issued an order stating, “no vacant positions existing at noon on January 22, 2017, may be filled and no new positions may be created, except in limited circumstances.”

“The Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) may grant exemptions from this freeze where those exemptions are otherwise necessary,” the order continued.

According to National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE) Council President Melissa Baumann, Trump’s decision may make the Forest Service’s job tough with hiring for permanent firefighting positions beginning next week at job fairs.

“We all had a hard time just trying to get hold of the executive order itself yesterday,” Baumann explained. “We’re waiting to see where the chips fall.”

Baumann added that the Forest Service hired about 11,000 seasonal workers in 2015, with at least 6,200 of those being firefighters or having firefighting-related duties. Additionally, many were hired as trail maintenance workers and forest rangers.

[…]

“By the time you get your undersecretary and all those people in place, you’re 60 to 90 days behind the scene and off schedule,” Duran explained. “I’m pretty sure they’ll give a (public safety) exemption, but you still won’t be able to staff up in a timely manner. In California, firefighting is already year-round. And in most other places, it’s getting year-round, too.”

According to Wildfire Today, “from the mid-1980s through 2015 the average number of acres burned has grown from about 2  million acres a year to around 8 million.”

This bit of governmental idiocy will not only put the populace, land, and wildlife at risk, it will put firefighters at risk as well. I have no doubt this will have a very negative and potentially dangerous effect on other important public sector jobs. Places all over are being ravaged by weather, and the additional disasters they bring, and that fucking idiot Donny can’t deal with those, either, as Mississippi is still waiting for emergency relief and assistance from the Twaddler-in-Chief, having been hit by severe storms, tornadoes, and floods. Naturally, Donny promised to “expedite the recovery process”, but so far, hasn’t done shit. You’re on your own, people.

Via Raw Story, one, two.

Voter Fraud? No. Updated.

President Donald Trump talks with reporters n the Oval Office of the White House on Tuesday. CREDIT: AP Photo/Evan Vucci.

President Donald Trump talks with reporters n the Oval Office of the White House on Tuesday. CREDIT: AP Photo/Evan Vucci.

There was no voter fraud. This is simply more smoke out of Donny’s arse, in an attempt to ameliorate his wounded ego over having lost the popular vote. This obsession is unfortunately not slowing down the ongoing shredding of the government, but Donny is prepared to waste a considerable amount of money nursing his fixation.

Two days after he told congressional leaders that he would have won the popular vote if it were not for three to five million illegal votes, President Trump announced on Wednesday morning that he’ll push for a “major investigation into VOTER FRAUD.” [Tweets at the link.]

Trump’s tweets conflate registration lists with fraud. There are innocuous reasons why a state’s voter rolls might be less than totally accurate. People move to another state without informing their former secretary of state’s office, and hence might be registered in more than one place. Others people die but don’t get removed from the rolls. Neither of those occurrences constitute fraud, however. Fraud is casting a ballot illegally either by voting more than once or impersonating another voter.

The notion that voter fraud exists on a significant scale is one of the Trump administration’s “alternative facts.” According to a Washington Post analysis, out of the more than 135 million voters cast in the 2016 presidential election, just four cases of voter fraud were found — and three of the culprits voted Republican.

Trump’s tweets conflate registration lists with fraud. There are innocuous reasons why a state’s voter rolls might be less than totally accurate. People move to another state without informing their former secretary of state’s office, and hence might be registered in more than one place. Others people die but don’t get removed from the rolls. Neither of those occurrences constitute fraud, however. Fraud is casting a ballot illegally either by voting more than once or impersonating another voter.

The notion that voter fraud exists on a significant scale is one of the Trump administration’s “alternative facts.” According to a Washington Post analysis, out of the more than 135 million voters cast in the 2016 presidential election, just four cases of voter fraud were found — and three of the culprits voted Republican.

[…]

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said:

“I would urge the President to knock this off; this is the greatest democracy on Earth, we’re the leader of the free world, and people are going to start doubting you as a person if you keep making accusations against our electoral system without justification,” Graham said, according to CNN. “This is going to erode his ability to govern this country if he does not stop it.”

Erode his ability to govern? He doesn’t have any ability to govern in the first place. He has no knowledge, is not interested in acquiring any, no attention span, and is mostly concerned with watching television and twitter. His only concern has been, and remains his ego. At the very least, people should be concerned about the mass amounts of money this idiot is going to spend chasing phantoms so he can make himself feel better.

Full story at Think Progress.

In what can only be described as a Trumpian twist, Donny was angrily tweeting about the so-called voter fraud, in which, he specifically called out being registered in more than one location:

As it turns out, The Angry Tweeter’s chief nazi, Bannon, is registered to vote in two different places. I guess that will be declared okay now.

Oh FFS Roundup.

President-elect Donald Trump speaking to reporters at Mar-a-Lago on Wednesday. CREDIT: AP Photo/Evan Vucci.

 CREDIT: AP Photo/Evan Vucci.

Trump’s team is worried. Seems they finally figured out they won’t be able to focus Donny at all. Instead of even pretending to do anything presidential, the Angry Tweeter in Chief spent most of his first weekend in office angrily tweeting, and siccing Spicer on the press, to present those alternative facts.

[Read more…]

Just the Alternative Facts, Ma’am.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer speaks in the press briefing room at the White House, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2017 in Washington. CREDIT: AP Photo/Alex Brandon.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer speaks in the press briefing room at the White House, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2017 in Washington. CREDIT: AP Photo/Alex Brandon.

During his first appearance before the press as President Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer attacked the media for accurately reporting that Trump’s inauguration was attended by a relatively small crowd. […] In the latest sign that the Trump administration plans to wage war on reality, Spicer refused to accept that attendance for Trump’s inauguration was smaller than for President Obama’s in 2009.

“This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration. Period,” Spicer said. “Both in person and around the globe.”

He blamed “floor coverings [that] were used to protect the grass on the mall” for making it look like there was lots of empty space. In fact, there was just lots of empty space.

“These attempts to lessen the enthusiasm of the inauguration are shameful and wrong,” Spicer said of the reporting.

It’s official – reality is shameful and wrong, oh my yes! I’m starting to think we’d be better off with Nixon’s head in a jar.

Neither Trump nor Spicer said a word about the fact that earlier Saturday, about 500,000 people were marching in the streets of D.C. in response to Trump’s inauguration, or about twice as many as turned out for Trump’s ceremony the day before .

I like reality. Reality is good. This slice of reality is excellent! It is shameful Pendejo Trump refuses to face it. As Spicer was close to a full tantrum over this, Stepford Kellyanne came to the rescue, with alternative facts:

During an interview on Meet the Press, Chuck Todd asked Conway why Spicer felt the need to berate the press over the weekend for accurately reporting that Trump’s crowd sizes were dwarfed by the attendance at President Barack Obama’s 2008 inauguration.

“Don’t be so overly dramatic about it, Chuck,” Conway scoffed. “They’re saying it’s a falsehood and our press secretary, Sean Spicer, gave alternative facts to that.”

I don’t think the people who prefer facts, truth, and reality are the ones being dramatic. Melodramatic is a good descriptor of Pendejo Trump, and his supporting soap opera.

“Wait a minute,” Todd interrupted. “Alternative facts! Four of the five facts that he uttered were just not true. Alternative facts are not facts, they’re falsehoods.”

Conway tried to deflect, but the host pressed on: “You sent the press secretary out there to utter a falsehood on the smallest, pettiest thing. And I don’t understand why you did it.”

“I don’t think you can prove those numbers one way or the other,” the Trump aide opined. “You can laugh at me all you want. You are, and I think it’s actually symbolic of the way we’re treated by the press. I’ll just ignore it. I’m bigger than that. I’m a kind and gracious person.”

Actually, you can estimate those numbers very well, and Pendejo Trump knows that all too well, which is why he shut down the people who do those estimates every year. This isn’t about proof or absolute numbers. It is very much about just how thin and tender Pendejo Trump’s skin is, and it doesn’t bode well.

Additionally, Spicer tried to claim that floor coverings and magnometers were to blame for the poor turn out:

“This was the first time in our nation’s history that floor coverings have been used to protect the grass on the [National] Mall,” Spicer said. “That had the effect of highlighting any areas where people were not standing, while in years past the grass eliminated this visual. This was also the first time that fencing and magnetometers went as far back on the Mall, preventing hundreds of thousands of people from being able to access the Mall as quickly as they had in inaugurations past.”

This is not true, either, and so easily refuted. It was the U.S. Secret Service who put paid to the magnometer story, but I guess they are all liars too, you betcha!

Via Think Progress and Raw Story. Also see .

Nazi theory indeed specifically denies that such a thing as “the truth” exists. … The implied objective of this line of thought is a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but the past. If the Leader says of such and such an event, “It never happened” – well, it never happened. If he says that two and two are five – well, two and two are five. This prospect frightens me much more than bombs. – George Orwell, 1943.

Sunday Facepalm.

facepalm_estatua1

All of life has become one gargantuan facepalm, ennit? Here are a few of them, adding to the whole:

Corey Lewandowski is now on record saying that no republicans ever questioned the legitimacy of Barack Obama’s presidency, no, not those holy rethugs. That’s just so baldfaced, it’s hard to say it qualifies only as a facepalm.

“You’ve seen that the Democrats are trying to say that he’s not a legitimate candidate,” he said. “Can you imagine just for a second if a Republican congressman would have gone out and said this about Barack Obama and continued that narrative? It would be an uproar in the mainstream media.”

Right, because there wasn’t round the clock, constant coverage of all the rethugs screaming for birth certificates and the like.

highlights-magazine-2Kevin Swanson, who is rabid in his hatred for all things queer, is now raging about…Highlights. It’s just as bad as ISIS, did you know? Oh yes, just as evil, and maybe more evil. What brought on this irrational tirade of abuse? Inclusivity, natch. Inclusiveness of any kind is always to be found right at the top of the most evil list the Religious Reich has in their pocket.

Highlights Magazine announced they will be featuring same sex parents in future editions. That’s nice, isn’t it? Well, it’s nice for people who aren’t terrified by inclusiveness, and think it’s a good thing for the children of same sex parents to see themselves and their families represented. That helps to establish healthy, stable children, and a healthy, stable society, things which Christian Republicans are fanatically against. None of that inclusive wholesomeness for them, oh no!

Swanson said that while ISIS is releasing videos showing young children killing prisoners, Highlights is just as evil because it will “encourage the support for the sin of homosexuality among kids.”

It will encourage acceptance, yes. That’s a good thing, at least if you’re a decent, ethical person. I guess we know where that places Mr. Swanson.

“So now, here’s Highlights magazine, an American kids’ magazine promoting homosexuality amongst kids,” Swanson fumed, “and now ISIS is teaching kids how to kill people. Now, I got to thinking: Which sin is worse? Homosexuality or murder? Which is worse? Are we really that much better than ISIS?”

No, Highlights is not promoting homosexuality, anymore than it promotes heterosexuality. It’s simply reflecting their readership, and society as a whole. As for which sin is worse, can we just count Christianity as one big evil stain of a sin? It would save time. There are times I wish the xian hell did exist, because some people definitely deserve an extended dip in it, like Mr. Swanson. Even I’m not nasty enough to think he deserves such for eternity though. I’m simply not evil enough to be a good christian.

Okay everyone, hang onto those hats…

POTUS-Shield-800x458

Yeah. Are you impressed? I think we’re supposed to be impressed.

We reported earlier this week that a group of Trump-supporting dominionists has launched a POTUS Shield project to protect Trump and his presidency from his enemies. They’ve now posted video [warning: autoplay] from last week’s prayer gathering at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. In addition to prayers of gratitude for Trump’s “anointing” and his having “surrounded himself with evangelical people” and “magnified Christianity,” the group prayed individually for each member of the Trump family, as someone came forward to act as a sort of Hollywood-style stand-in for each of them.

Lance Wallnau, who had repeatedly declared that Trump was anointed by God, prayed for Donald Jr., declaring that God would give him a personal heads-up—“a word of knowledge ahead of time”—when the media is trying to trip up or embarrass the family.

Sure, why not get to the really important stuff right away? I’m sure there couldn’t possibly be anything more urgent than embarrassment, given that Trump is sort of the living embodiment of embarrassment.

Frank Amedia, who served the Trump campaign as a voluntary “liaison for Christian policy,” prayed for Eric, saying that he too has “an anointing on him” and that Eric’s “humility for you is already beyond natural.” Amedia prayed that God would “bless his seed and the seed of his seed.”

Eeeuuuw. Seriously, christians, just start fucking more, maybe it will take care of this constant need to shove your noses into crotches, and stop concerning yourself with people’s semen.  As for humility, Eric. Really. Guess they didn’t see those disgusting hunting photos.

Leigh Valentine, a beauty-industry entrepreneur associated with John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel, thanked God for “the anointing” he had placed on Melania to walk alongside her husband. The “wisdom of God”, she said, will be upon Melania, who will “astound the women of her nation.”

What nation are we talking here? Astounded. By what? Her penchant for plagiarism? The fact that she was hawking her QVC crap on the whitehouse.gov site before someone hastily yanked it? Her standing silently by when her husband is busy drooling all over his daughter? Standing by her man when he talks about grabbing women by the pussy?

Mark Gonzalez prayed that young Barron would be given wisdom beyond his years and asked that God protect his heart when he sees “evil” being “launched at his family.”

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen such a blank looking kid. Either he’s so overwhelmed he’s close to paralysis, or he’s simply not affected by anything. I think he should be protected too, but that’s a tough call when he’s in the bosom of his family.

Clarence McClendon, a Los Angeles-based preacher who said in post-election Twitter messages to “the Prophetic Community” that the election was “supernatural” and a “Re-Set” for the country, prayed for Mike Pence has his wife, saying that God had told him Pence was “a covenant man.” Pence, he said, is “malleable and pliable” in God’s hand, and prayed that Pence would speak wisdom into Trump’s ears.

I wouldn’t describe Pence as malleable and pliable in the least. Rigid, cold, uncaring, devoid of empathy, and a willing toady, yes. There’s more at Right Wing Watch.

Reality Check.

Credit: Bigstock.

Credit: Bigstock.

The inaugural speech was dark, ominous, painting a picture of a disintegrated America. The inaugural speech was also a lie. All of it. This should not come as a surprise; if there has been any consistency about Trump, it’s been that he lies, constantly. It’s in Trump’s interest to paint such a picture, and it’s also necessary for his plans for fascism – reality is not his friend. Fortunately for us, Think Progress has a nice point by point refutation of all Trump’s inaugural claims.

During his inaugural address on Friday, President Donald Trump painted a bleak picture of an America beset by violent crime, drugs, and lack of education. He presented himself as a savior who will “fight for you with every breath in my body and I will never ever let you down.”

[…]

But as was the case during Trump’s similarly dire Republican National Convention speech, many of the claims he used to paint his picture of “American carnage” were false. In other instances, Trump referred to real problems, but didn’t mention that he has no plan to fix them.

[…]

Here are some of the ways in which Trump tried to deceive the American people about the state of their country during his first speech as president.

Jobs

“Politicians prospered, but the jobs left and the factories closed… We will bring back our jobs,” Trump said.

But during the Obama years, the economy has actually been adding jobs each month at a steady pace: it added jobs for 75 straight months, the longest streak on record. There were 2,157,000 more jobs added over the last year, and 11,250,000 created over Obama’s presidency.

Head over to Think Progress for the full reality check.

Just The Facts, Ma’am.

facts

Handy dandy help for everyone, from FactCheck.org – How to spot fake news. An article to bookmark and refer to when needed, and I imagine it might be needed a lot in the coming years.

…Those all still hold true, but fake stories — as in, completely made-up “news” — has grown more sophisticated, often presented on a site designed to look (sort of) like a legitimate news organization. Still, we find it’s easy to figure out what’s real and what’s imaginary if you’re armed with some critical thinking and fact-checking tools of the trade.

Here’s our advice on how to spot a fake:

Good, solid advice. Click on over to read the whole article.

And, here’s a good way to sharpen up those bullshit detection skills, learning that correlation does not imply causation. While most people know this, at least hazily so, that’s one fact that tends to get kicked out in favour of “hmmm, that’s interesting, ennit?” and “that’s some coincidence!” and so forth. We’re all prone to veering off into the more magical type of thinking, and the correlation/causation bit is an oft used trick to manipulate people. Being much smarter than that, of course you want to make sure you don’t fall for such shit. Head on over to Tyler Vigen’s Spurious Correlations, and you can enjoy learning all about it. Spurious Correlations is now a ridiculous and wonderful book, and I highly recommend it.

Budget Slasher Horror.

Pennywise

© Jorgel007, via http://welcome2creepshow.tumblr.com/

Trump is preparing his own slasher flick, featuring The Budget. Most Trumpoids won’t care, they will most likely cheer this massacre on, but those of us who cherish things like art, social justice, education, the environment, because our earth sustains us, and other commie hippie stuff are in for a very bad ride. As per usual in the rethug agenda, anyone who isn’t rich is gonna get screwed.

Incoming President Donald Trump’s administration is already working on preparing his budget. And it looks like it will be far more extreme than anything the Republican Party has proposed so far.

The blueprint Trump’s team is working with as it crafts the plan would cut federal government spending by $10.5 trillion over a decade, according to The Hill’s sources.

[…]

To get such deep cuts, the Trump budget contemplates completely eliminating a number of programs, particularly at the Departments of Energy, Justice, State, Commerce, and Transportation.

On the chopping block, according to The Hill, would be the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting; the Department of Justice’s Legal Services Corporation and Violence Against Women Grants; funding for the Paris Climate Change Agreement and the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; and the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Office of Electricity, and Office of Fossil Energy, among others.

It’s likely many other programs will be cut as well, even if they aren’t eliminated entirely. […] But if the House Republican budget is any guide, programs that serve the most needy are likely to be in danger. That proposal derived 62 percent of its cuts from low-income programs, such as food stamps and Pell grants, even though those programs account for just 28 percent of non-defense spending.

Think Progress has the full story.

All The Promises.

Prom

CREDIT: AP Photos/Graphic by Adam Peck.

Trump made promises about every five to ten seconds. It didn’t matter what he was talking about, false promises fell from his lips like water tumbling over a cliff. He also made many promises about promises, of the “I promise we’ll keep our promises!” variety. Oh yes, he’s not going to be like every other politician in the world, no. This bit of bullshit most people see through, or at least they should. It seems that Trumpoids actually expect him to make good on all the promises. Silly Trumpoids, promises aren’t for politicians! Or narcissistic, filthy rich despots, either.

Think Progress has put an enormous amount of work into tracking all the promises. They discarded all the vague, general ones, like “I promise to make the country great again”, because that doesn’t actually mean anything. Even limiting themselves to concrete promises, they counted 663 promises to date, and counting. That’s a whole lot of promises. The full article is in-depth, and a very good, if depressing read. This is an ongoing program, naturally, tracking the life of these promises. Most politicians are savvy enough to limit the amount of promises they make; the really smart ones talk more about efforts needed, and possible programs. The savvy and smart do that because they know just how much hot water they can land in for breaking promises, voters tend to be a bit weird in that regard. Perhaps most voters don’t believe the promises, but they’ll still hold a politician’s feet to the fire if they don’t come through. It’s a bit different with Trumpoids, they believe the promises, and they want them kept. It’s going to be interesting, to say the least.

Donald Trump will take the Oath of Office 583 days after he first announced his improbable run for the White House.

Along the way, he made 663 promises (and counting), according to a ThinkProgress analysis of Trump’s public statements that examined well over 4 million words from his media interviews, his policy position papers, and his speeches to supporters, interest groups, and national television audiences.

These promises matter. Trump’s voters expect him to deliver. As Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) pointed out two weeks ago on the Senate floor regarding Trump’s pledge to not cut entitlement programs like Medicare, “This was a central part of his campaign… This is what he asked millions of elderly people and working class people to vote for him on.”

Yet attention spans are shorter than ever, and Trump himself is skilled at distracting attention from policy or scandal with tweets and endless varieties of incendiary remarks. It’s easy to forget what he told voters he would do.

So starting the week after the election, ThinkProgress undertook a two-month research project to document every promise Trump made, from the golden escalator ride to the inauguration. They are housed here in ThinkProgress’ searchable, interactive Trump Promises Database.

I clicked on ‘Promised by Day One’ (sourced quotes not included):

Hiring freeze on all federal employees to reduce workforce size.

Instruct Treasury Secretary to label China a currency manipulator on day one.

Stop losing jobs on day one from Florida and nationwide.

Announce plans to renegotiate NAFTA day one.

Pursue requirement that for every new regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated on day one.

Announce withdrawal from TPP on day one.

Direct Commerce Secretary and USTR to identify foreign trading abuses that affect the American worker, and begin ending those abuses immediately, on day one.

Begin cancelling billions in climate change spending for the United Nations on day one.

Lift restrictions on production of fossil fuels on day one.

Lift environmental roadblocks to “energy infrastructure projects” to move forward on day one.

Turn around EPA “killing your companies” and losing jobs on day one.

Propose constitutional amendment for term limits.

Propose ethics reforms on day one to end government corruption.

Pursue a complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising campaign dollars on day one.

Pursue five-year ban on White House and congressional officials becoming lobbyists on day one.

Pursue lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government on day one.

Ask Congress for bill repealing Obamacare and replacing with “reforms that expand choice, freedom, affordability.”

Get all criminal immigrants out.

Get rid of “international gangs of thugs and drug cartels” before anything else, first piece of paper he signs.

Begin moving 2 million “criminal aliens” out of country on day one.

Issue mandate to everyone, including police to get the bad illegal immigrants out of the country in first hour.

Put strong language in first day in office that when illegal immigrants first get caught they get jail time.

All illegal immigrants out day one.

Repeal Obama’s Immigration executive orders.

Ask Congress to pass “Kate’s Law”.

Cancel all federal funding of sanctuary cities on day one.

Ask DoS, DHS, DoJ to comprehensively review terror immigration cases for extreme vetting as soon as he enters office.

Suspend immigration from “terror-prone regions” on day one.

Immediately suspend admission of Syrian refugees.

Begin working on impenetrable physical wall with latest technology on day one.

Build impenetrable physical wall.

Get rid of gun-free zones in schools.

End gun free zones on military bases on the first day.

Issue temporary moratorium on new agency regulations.

Order review of every regulation issued over last 10 years, cancelling “needless” ones.

Cancel every unconstitutional Obama admin executive action, memo, and order on day one.

Unsign executive orders.

Knock out ISIS oil day after he’s president.

As we now know, Donny isn’t going to work on Day one at all, because hey, weekend! Jesus fuck, I thought that list was never going to end. Obviously, it’s incredibly unrealistic, and it goes to show that Trump will say anything at any time, to any one. Lots of words, no thought. Have a wander over to Think Progress for the full story.

The Fine Art of Calling Bullshit.

Carl T. Bergstrom (left) and Jevin West, of the U. of Washington, want to teach students how to survive the avalanche of false or misleading data shaken loose by shifts in media, technology, and politics.

Carl T. Bergstrom (left) and Jevin West, of the U. of Washington, want to teach students how to survive the avalanche of false or misleading data shaken loose by shifts in media, technology, and politics.

Facts and figures are like cow pastures. Unless you squint, you can’t always tell how full of bullshit they are.

Carl T. Bergstrom and Jevin West, a pair of scientists at the University of Washington, think it’s time to arm students with boots and shovels. They have published the outline of a course, titled “Calling Bullshit,” which would try to teach how to spot bad data and misleading graphs at a time when bending statistics has become a popular art form.

“Pending approval from the administrative powers-that-be at the University of Washington, we hope to offer the seminar in the near future,” they wrote on a website they built for the course. “In the meantime, connoisseurs of bullshit may enjoy the course syllabus, readings, and case studies that we have lovingly curated.”

The Chronicle caught up with Mr. Bergstrom, a biologist, and Mr. West, an information scientist, to talk about their course.

The full interview is here. All I can say is that we need these courses everywhere. On street corners, even.

I notice a poster of a squid over the door – this must be a Cthulhuian plot!

Defining Diversity, Whitesplaining Edition.

Who, me? I'm diverse, I swear!via YouTube.

Who, me? I’m diverse, I swear! via YouTube.

On Saturday, two days before the national celebration of Martin Luther King Jr., Knoxville state Rep. Roger Kane opined that just because the Tennessee General Assembly is mostly white and male, that does not mean it’s not diverse.

Sigh. Here we go. Again.

“Women have actually gone down and minorities have gone up,” Kane said, talking about UTK enrollment. “Well, that’s just trading spaces. It’s really not creating diversity.”

Right. Women and minorities have absolutely nothing at all to do with diversity, no. It’s all about the white guys.

“If you look at this panel, that’s in front of you, we look rather homogeneous. But we’re incredibly diverse! We really are,” Kane said of the 12-person panel that consisted of 10 white men, one white woman (Sen. Becky Duncan Massey), and one African-American man (Rep. Rick Staples).

Insert a slight, nervous laugh here. Kane continues on in his diversity definition.

“You see me as a white, middle-aged man. But my mother’s Jewish, my father’s Catholic, and I’m a Baptist. Does that not make diversity?” Kane asked. 

Not really. It means you have a mixed religion background.

“I grew up in Houston, probably one of the most diverse towns you will ever see,” Kane said, accurately, mentioning the city’s large Chinese, Vietnamese, gay and black populations. “And that’s the school I went to. Does that not add to my diversity? But you see me as a white, middle-aged man, that’s all you see. But we’re so much more than that!”

People see a white, middle aged man because that’s what is there. Living in a high diversity town and going to a high diversity school doesn’t change the fact that you’re a white man. Diversity is not about personality or character traits.

Kane continued digging his hole, saying that UTK’s diversity office — which the Legislature defunded last session — doesn’t really show the true diversity on campus, because a lesbian Filipina only defined herself as that and not also as “a woman, she’s college-educated, she’s funny, she has black hair — those are all diversity things.”

“She had forgotten all of those things because in her strive to be diverse, she had honed in on two things, and that’s it,” Kane ended bitterly.

Oh for…yeah, no. Being a woman, a lesbian, and Filipino all matter when it comes to diversity. Once again, this is not about personality or character traits. I’m pretty sure you don’t get to count hair colour as a “diversity thing”.

These are the conservative white men who are in charge of education all over.

Via Nashville Scene.

“Jade Eggs”

JAde-bag

A gynecologist, Dr. Jen Gunter, is taking Gwyneth Paltrow to task for hawking yet more crap at inflated prices. In this case, it’s ‘jade eggs’, which are claimed to do so much more than provide exercises of the kegel kind, oh yes! Goodness, there’s an intuition factory down there, and it requires feeding and care. This nonsense made me think back decades ago to a joke Roseanne Barr did about men thinking a uterus was a magical tracking device.

I read the post on GOOP and all I can tell you is it is the biggest load of garbage I have read on your site since vaginal steaming. It’s even worse than claiming bras cause cancer. But hey, you aren’t one to let facts get in the way of profiting from snake oil.

My issue begins with the very start of your post on jade eggs specifically that “queens and concubines used them to stay in shape for emperors.” Nothing says female empowerment more than the only reason to do this is for your man! And then the claim that they can balance hormones is, quite simply, biologically impossible. Pelvic floor exercises can help with incontinence and even give stronger orgasms for some women, but they cannot change hormones. As for female energy? I’m a gynecologist and I don’t know what that is!? How does one test for it? Organically sourced, fair trade urine pH sticks coming soon to GOOP for $77 I presume?

Queens and concubines, eh? Why would a queen need (or want) to impress an emperor? Besides getting her political classes all mixed up, citing concubines is on the really fucked up side. Perhaps Ms. Paltrow’s friends could chip in and purchase a dictionary for her, or some history books.

From the blather about jade eggs on Goop:

practice – there was not as much information about it then as there is now. But it made intuitive sense to me: The word for our womb, yoni, translates as “sacred place”, and it is a sacred place – it’s where many women access their intuition, their power, and their wisdom.

:Stifles scream: Oh gods, I can’t even say how much I loathe this sort of nonsense. No. No, no, no. I have a uterus, yes. It is by no means sacred, there’s no little altar in there, and it is not possible to access intuition, power, or wisdom from it. Pushing this absolute bullshit is not helpful, it’s not empowering, it’s simply reducing women down to parts, and misogyny and sexism already do that well enough. Dr. Gunter wasn’t impressed, either:

If the word for womb is yoni I hate to break it to you, but the uterus and vagina are different structures. If you are using the Sanskrit, while I admit I am no language scholar, it seems that yoni means the entire female reproductive tract and you should say that. Terminology aside, the vulva, vagina, cervix, and uterus are not intuition repositories and neither are they sources of “power” or “wisdom.” If fact, I find that assertion insulting. Do you really mean a woman who does not have a uterus is less effective? Is a woman without a vagina less intelligent?  Is a woman who had a vulvectomy due to cancer less creative?

Dr. Gunter also takes on some of the very real physical problems involved:

As for the recommendation that women sleep with a jade egg in their vaginas I would like to point out that jade is porous which could allow bacteria to get inside and so the egg could act like a fomite. This is not good, in case you were wondering. It could be a risk factor for bacterial vaginosis or even the potentially deadly toxic shock syndrome.

Regarding the suggestion to wear the jade egg while walking around, well, I would like to point out that your pelvic floor muscles are not meant to contract continuously. In fact, it is quite difficult to isolate your pelvic floor while walking so many women could actually clench other muscles to keep the egg inside. It is possible the pained expression of clenching your butt all day could be what is leading people to stare, not some energy glow.

Overenthusiastic Kegel exercises or incorrectly done Kegel exercises are a cause of pelvic pain and pain with sex in my practice. Imagine how your biceps muscle (and then your shoulders and then your back) might feel if you walked around all day flexed holding a barbell? Right, now imagine your pelvic floor muscles doing this.

Good advice, and people should keep in mind that Ms. Paltrow’s first concern is making money, regardless of what she says. She isn’t going to come rushing to the side of women who end up seriously ill because of the crap she hawks.

Dr. Gunter’s full post is here.