This post is more about my ranting than about my linking, so enjoy!
People, please read this very important long article about justice for sale in US courts. This is the most important piece of investigative journalism that the NYTimes has done in a long time.
A very interesting piece on the ridiculous AA addiction model: “Neurobiological models of addiction are consistent with the privatized American healthcare system. Meanwhile, the American vision of addiction is spreading rapidly, due to proselytizing by AA advocates, the scientific claims of the NIDA and the pharmaceutical industry’s marketing. Yet our best data—including the NESARC results—show that addiction should be de-medicalized in favor of a model that encourages the advancement of psychological and environmental conditions that naturally prevent and dispel addiction.”
I read stupid, childish pieces like this one and realize that until these idiots learn to keep their idiocy to themselves we will never win back the Congress, the governorships and the White House. Who in their right mind would want to vote for the same people this kind of folks supports?
All of a sudden, Liberals are discovering that Putin is bad. This is unbelievably pathetic.
A glaring case of a strawman argument: “Vox has a very interesting report that shoots a big hole in the theory that Hillary Clinton spoke too much about “identity politics” (gay people, minorities, or immigrants) in her campaign, which blew her chances with the inhabitants of the Red State bubbles.” When people say that Hillary lost because of identity politics, it doesn’t mean that she mentioned identities in her speeches. Nobody but her followers listened to the entirety of her speeches. What people actually mean is that Democrats have allowed their freakazoid faction to scare crowds of people away with incessant screeching about privilege, segregated toilets, their imagined grievances, the sacred right to slutwalk, and idiotic stuff like that. No, Hillary didn’t mention this crap in her speeches. But she was tainted by a perceived association with these grievous fools.
This article about academia. edu is by the kind of academic I detest: smug and stupid in her smugness. Since this loser published the idiotic screed, academia.edu has revealed its for-profit model. And as anybody with an iota of intelligence could have guessed, it’s not about “mining for sale” the stupid articles of the linked idiot. It’s simply about offering extra features to those who want them. Just like any app on the planet.
I’m sure most people who read my blog are not aware, but this is another enormously important story to those who once again will not be showing up to vote for our candidates. I think it makes sense to know why people are really refusing to join your side.
Clarissa's Blog 
I checked the last link. In today’s society, for a children’s magazine with its self-described target audience being “kids under the age of 12; most of them are under the age of 8 or 9” to include same-sex families would have been a very stupid business decision.
And, may be I will be called homophobic for that, but I think that for now it’s OK not to present homosexual families in a magazine targeting 8-9 year olds. If I had children, I would not be afraid for them to discover homosexual families exist, but many other secular Israeli Jews (I even don’t mention religious) would not be OK with that. I suppose, it’s a similar situation in America.
Btw, where would one put a limit? From which age should children be shown homosexual families in cartoons and such? 8? 6? Zero? What about including transgender people too in entertainment for toddlers? It’s a serious question, or rather two questions: whom to include and from which age.
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I think that anybody who wants to start their own magazine or website or blog or Facebook page or whatever should include whomever they want. But censorship is not OK even when it masks under a good cause. I might be angry that a magazine or a newspaper don’t write about Ukraine, for instance. But I don’t want to bully them into including it if they don’t feel like it.
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The lesson I take from that story is that trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator of everyone is a loser’s game if you’re a publication. Nobody’s being censored, they’re just being batted about between two very loud and vocal groups under the pretext of “the children.”
Young children have little to no interest in their parents’ romantic lives. It’s the same stories about sitting in a big soft chair but with Mom & Mom instead of Mom & Dad. This is way more upsetting for the adults.”I want my kids to see me as a parent in this magazine! No, I don’t want my kids to see these freaks as parents in my magazine!”
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Oh, absolutely. Kids couldn’t care less.
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\ The lesson I take from that story is that trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator of everyone is a loser’s game if you’re a publication.
I do not think so. Highlights Magazine has been very successful for ages. The “two very loud and vocal groups” may be both not very numerous, if you mean LGBT families and religious fundamentalists, though the latter group is larger. However, there is also a silent majority of parents, who will vote with their wallets, if the magazine begins regularly presenting gay families.
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I believe that censorship by a crowd is the only thing at issue here. Whether the crowd tries to force a magazine to include or not to include somebody is all the same.
As for children, they don’t care about such things and won’t notice either way unless parents make an issue out of it.
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I do not think so. Highlights Magazine has been very successful for ages.
Yes, it has, in large part because it’s a very simple anodyne magazine for children.
Highlights has several versions aimed at different age groups. The version the vocal parents were warring over is aimed at infants and toddlers (0-2 years old). I don’t know if that version exists in pediatricians’ offices; I know the regular Highlights does. I would expect those subscriptions to go down, if at all.
When every little thing and consumerist decision is relentlessly politicized, the anondyne has trouble existing.
For example this commercial caused people to freak out:
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“When every little thing and consumerist decision is relentlessly politicized, the anondyne has trouble existing.”
What a great observation. It’s true, people try to make their consumerism political because the actual political space is so eroded.
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The face of Israeli Arab MKs:
Joint List MK suspected of phone smuggling to Palestinian prisoners
Basel Ghattas, who made headlines for inflammatory comments about Shimon Peres after falling into a coma, is being summoned for questioning by police and the Shin Bet on suspicion of smuggling cell phones to Palestinian security prisoners; Netanyahu: ‘If these suspicions are true, he will not be allowed to serve in the Knesset.’
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4894876,00.html
They
– cannot stop talking how they hate the state and its representatives, like the late Shimon Peres,
– are not
abovebelow working against the state (joining flotilla sails to Gaza, smuggling phones to terrorists to let them plan terror acts from jail which has happened in the past)But when some Right wing Israeli politician mentions exchange of land and populations to send them to their future Palestinian nation state, their cries are deafening. Suddenly they remember to mention being Israeli citizens.
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Sounds interesting:
“Debriefing the President: The Interrogation of Saddam Hussein” by John Nixon
written by the CIA agent who conducted the questioning…
His account is not an apology, but a sobering examination of how preconceived ideas led Washington policymakers—and Tony Blair’s government —astray. Unflinching and unprecedented, Debriefing the President exposes a fundamental misreading of one of the modern world’s most central figures and presents a new narrative that boldly counters the received account.
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1112447/debriefing-the-president/
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IDF uncovers ‘largest weapons factory ever discovered’ under Hebron home
IDF, Border Police and Shin Bet forces raid an illegal weapons factory located under a home in south Hebron overnight Sunday; 2 suspects were detained and hundreds of materials for weapons production confiscated.
IDF forces from the Judea and Samaria Brigade seized 15 lathes and other production materials used for making illegal, homemade weapons during a raid in Hebron overnight Sunday.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4895156,00.html
Of course, Leftists would rather discuss how IDF soldiers oppress innocent Palestinians by (daring to make small talk while) searching their homes.
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