Next step: compulsory pregnancy

Elon Musk thinks voting rights out to be tied to parenthood. You will pump out offspring, or risk losing your citizenship.

datahazard: Democracy is probably unworkable long term without limiting suffrage to parents.
Helps solve the procreation problem, too.
Musk: The childless have little stake in the future

Fantastic fascist dystopia he wants to build here.

Also, what procreation problem? There’s only a problem if you have a prior belief that procreation is necessary to be a worthy human being.

Minnesota makes North Dakota sad

I’m sorry (not sorry). Minnesota’s new progressive surge might actually hurt universities in regressive states. We just passed some significant laws to help Minnesota students.

Minnesota this year passed the North Star Promise scholarship program, which will pay college tuition and fees for in-state residents whose families earn $80,000 a year or less. The program, set to launch in the fall of 2024, is projected to cost $117 million and would help about 15,000 to 20,000 students, according to the state’s office of higher education.

Wow, I wish we’d had that when my kids were going to college — I would have qualified, and it would have been a big help. Better late then never, though, and I’m happy to see a new generation benefit. The state to our West is not happy about it, though.

Minnesota’s ambitious plan to give lower-income residents free college has created a “crisis” in neighboring North Dakota, where higher education officials worry about a drop in enrollment from Minnesota students who can get a better deal at home.

North Dakota college leaders spoke at a meeting this week of the State Board of Higher Education, whose members brainstormed ways to prevent a flood of Minnesota students leaving North Dakota schools.

“This has catastrophic implications. This is a very serious situation for us,” David Cook, president of North Dakota State University, said at the meeting.

But why should North Dakota care about a benefit given to Minnesota residents? I was surprised to learn this:

More than half of North Dakota State University’s incoming class, and 45% of its undergraduate student body, consists of students from Minnesota, according to estimates presented at the meeting. Minnesota natives make up 24% undergraduates at North Dakota State College of Science, and 28% at the University of North Dakota.

NDSU and UND are both right on the state border — you can live in Minnesota and easily commute to either of those schools. There’s nothing wrong with those universities, and I can see how they might panic at the thought of a quarter to half their students suddenly transferring out. We’re all suffering with the effects of the pandemic, I sympathize with any university taking an additional hit.

It’s easily fixed, though. Just pass some progressive legislation in your legislature, Dakotans, and give students free tuition and spend money to improve your schools. Oh, your legislature is packed with Republicans, and your governor is a Trumpian entrepreneur who seems to be distracted by a futile attempt at a presidential run?

I am so sorry! Sincerely. You are so screwed.

No cheese, no tomato sauce? That’s not a pizza

But it still looks delicious. This is a fresco found in the ruins of Pompeii.

I stared at that image trying to figure out what’s in it: focaccio bread, was easy enough, seasoned with pesto, but what’s on it? Is it all dried fruit, which would make it rather sweeter than I’d like, or are there onions and mushrooms in there? There’s not enough information in the picture, I’d have to free wheel it.

The more I stared, the hungrier I got. I could probably make the focaccio, since I won’t find it in the markets around here, and I make pesto all the time. But what to top it with? I’d want something more savory, with dried fruit on the side, and of course I’d need a cup of red wine. This could be an all day project.

Twitter: The End

This morning, I discovered that my Twitter account is “rate-limited”. Actually, everyone’s account is rate-limited.

So I’m only allowed to read 600 tweets per day. What that means in practical terms, since I follow about 800 people, when I first log in Twitter will access all the tweets made by those people overnight, and then…I’ve reached my limit within minutes, and I’m done. That’s all it takes, Twitter is over for me before I take my first sip of coffee.

I pity all those people who are paying $8 a month to get privileged access — now nobody is going to read their prioritized tweets, except other blue check users, and even then, only until they finish their breakfast, and then they’ll be done, too.

Brilliant move, Elon. Just shut it down.

Meanwhile, I’m on @[email protected].

I don’t follow Elon Musk, but does he even realize that he’s just effectively blocked people who do? Probably not.

No porn for you, Virginia

The unfortunate residents of Virginia have been denied access to Pornhub. They might not notice in a state named after a Virgin Queen that is just maintaining their puritanical tradition.

The President Pro tempore of the Senate of Virginia, State Sen. L. Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth), called out Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin after an age-verification law lead to Pornhub blocking access for everyone in the state.

The law requires pornography websites operating in the state to work more aggressively to find out whether a visitor is 18 or older to gain access to the site. One of the approved methods of verification includes requiring users to upload copies government-issued identification.

Brilliant scheme that I’m sure will be effective in preventing under-age kids from witnessing perversions.

Even easier: grab Dad’s wallet while he’s taking a shower. You can also get his credit card while you’re at it.

Infectious disease is not a threat, says famous idiot

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called all of his friends together and opened his mouth. It’s helpful to assemble a gang of like-minded people to encourage everyone to say exactly what they think without reservation, and oh boy, the stupidity flowed like water. Here are Kennedy’s colleagues: frauds, quacks, and morons, every one.

The panelists Kennedy included were, by anyone’s standards, heavy hitters in the world of anti-vaccine activism and health freedom (a movement which advocates for non-traditional cures and fewer regulations in medicine). They included Dr. Joseph Mercola, an osteopathic physician and an extremely influential natural health figure who’s also a major funder of the anti-vaccine movement; Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, another osteopath and a longtime anti-vaccine activist best known for going viral when she falsely claimed COVID vaccines make one “magnetic”; Dr. Pierre Kory, a major promoter of ivermectin as an unproven and highly contested treatment for COVID; Sayer Ji, another major health freedom figure who often traffics in anti-vaccine claims on his site GreenMedInfo; Mikki Willis, the maker of the viral faux documentary Plandemic; Maureen McDonnell, a pediatric nurse turned anti-vaccine activist; and Patrick Gentempo, a former chiropractor and health freedom figure. The moderator was Charles Eisenstein, an author and lightly New Age-flavored motivational speaker who said he’s paused his career and is “working closely with Kennedy on policy,” while the ending remarks were delivered by anti-vaccine activist and filmmaker Del Bigtree.

Even when the panelists disagreed, it was for stupid reasons and both sides got everything wrong.

There was one notable point of semi-disagreement: Mikki Willis of Plandemic fame asked Kennedy if he believed the “climate change narrative has been exaggerated,” a loaded question for someone best known for many years as an environmental lawyer and activist. Kennedy responded that he believes climate change is real, but that he does not believe “carbon” is to blame. He added that climate science is not his strong suit.

“With vaccine science I know the science,” he added, citing his experience litigating those cases. “I know the science back and forward. Climate science is so complex and knows so many disciplines” that he’s not as strong on it, he added, especially because it requires “mathematical modeling” and “chemistry.” That said, he added, “I think the climate narrative has been hijacked by the World Economic Forum and Bill Gates” and, like other crises, is being used by “elites to consolidate their power.” (Kennedy is a celebrity and part of the Democratic Party’s most durably powerful political family, the nephew of a former president and the son of a U.S. senator.)

Keep that claim that he knows the science back and forward in mind when you read the rest. Does he? Does he really?

During the discussion, Kennedy made several unfounded claims regarding the origins of infectious diseases and their relationships to vaccines. At one point, he baselessly asserted that vaccine research had been responsible for the creation of some of the deadliest diseases in human history, including HIV, the Spanish flu, and Lyme disease.

“I will end all gain-of-function research [as president],” Kennedy said. “It’s just a disaster, it’s given us no benefits. It’s given us everything from Lyme disease to Covid, and many many other diseases. RSV, which is now one of the biggest killers of children, came out of a vaccine lab.”

“We can go down the whole list of diseases,” he added. “There’s even good evidence that even Spanish flu came from vaccine research.”

Kennedy then claimed that “the medical research on these diseases and vaccine research has actually created some of the worst plagues in our history. Anybody who reads The River will come away pretty much convinced that HIV also came from a vaccine program, there’s plenty of evidence on that as well.”

Kennedy has previously claimed, without evidence, that AIDS was not caused by HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) but “a gay lifestyle” and the use of alkyl nitrites, or poppers. His 2021 book The Real Anthony Fauci included similar AIDS denialism — including the falsehood that the disease is not caused by HIV — views that he repeated this month on Joe Rogan’s podcast, which commands an audience of millions.

He is basically claiming that every disease ever is the product of mad scientist-style experimentation. He forgot polio, tuberculosis, syphilis, gonorrhea, smallpox, cholera, rabies, pertussis, leprosy, measles, and the Black Death. Those 14th century epidemiologists were incredibly sophisticated, being able to cobble up a plague that killed a few hundred million people without even any knowledge of germ theory is impressive. It’s unclear why physicians throughout history have been interested in killing people slowly and agonizingly; it probably has something to do with kickbacks from Big Pharma, the Illuminati, and the Fuggers. Oh, and the Pope, and probably the Jews, the usual scapegoats.

Oh yeah, he definitely knows the science backwards. Forwards, not so much.

He’s also not particularly sharp about history, or he wouldn’t make this claim:

“I do not believe that infectious disease is an enormous threat to human health,” Kennedy added. The presidential hopeful stated that if he assumed office, he would target medical journals and redirect funding grants away from epidemiology.

That could be true, if he ignores climate change — everyone will die of the heat, or of starvation, or drown in floods, or get killed by storms, before they have an opportunity to die of infectious disease. Nah, I take that back — climate disasters will probably kill more people with cholera after the storm/flood/heat wave ends.

Clever move, though, planning to end all the research that would show that Kennedy is an asshat. Maybe even more people will die of ignorance before the viruses and bacteria get them.

Learn something about Steatoda!

Here you go, an excellent introduction to the spiders I work on, the false widows.

I should probably require all my students to watch it, because it strikes a good balance on something I struggle with: venom. I tell my students it’s medically significant, a bite can hurt, and the venom can make you sick, but at the same time I tell them I’ve never been bitten, I handle them all the time, and as long as you’re gentle, there’s no real danger.

Also interesting is the geographical difference. I’ve never seen Steatoda grossa or S. nobilis around here — it’s all Parasteatoda (I know, different genus), with some S. triangulosa and rare S. borealis in specific habitats. McEnery makes the interesting hypothesis that it may be the venom, that Steatoda generally makes a venom that’s significantly more potent against invertebrates than the venoms of native species, allowing them to thrive and take over.

The toxic man-children want to fight

This is so childish and ridiculous — Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are going to stage a fight. The Italian government has offered to host it in the Colosseum. If it happens, it’s only going to be good for comic effect.

I don’t think it will demonstrate their competence at running their bloated, broken businesses — quite the opposite. I wouldn’t watch it.

Unless, that is, they bring in a Minnesota Man to hurl Skittles at them while they wrestle. That’s the extra oomph of absurdity I’m gonna need here.