Sorry we missed your call, we were busy playing Pokémon.

Two Los Angeles police officers were fired for chasing Pokémon rather than fleeing robbers, court documents show.

So the robbers caught them?

No no don’t be silly, the BBC means they were chasing Pokémon rather than chasing fleeing robbers.

The pair were parked nearby when a radio call came in for officers to respond to a shop robbery.

But a review of their in-car camera footage showed they had been playing Pokémon Go and chose to pursue a nearby Snorlax – a relatively rare catch – instead of providing back-up.

Air Traffic Control to pilot: I wish I could deal with your questions but I can’t right now, there’s … Read the rest

Eric Trump, Constitutional scholar.

Eric Trump has called New York Attorney General Letitia James the “most unethical prosecutor in the history of the United States” while saying her office’s investigation[s] into his father’s business practices are unconstitutional.

No, hon. He’s not president any more. He’s just a shameless crook, and the law can touch him.

Donald Trump’s son made the remarks on Monday during an appearance on Sean Hannity‘s Fox News show more than a week after it was revealed James had subpoenaed two of the former president’s adult children, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, as part of the inquiry.

Chronologically adult. Intellectually, morally, psychologically, not so much.

James’ office is looking into allegations Donald

I don’t even recognize this world.

Yeah it’s definitely connected to white Christian nationalism even if not in the minds of every individual GC person.

— @etvpod.bsky.social (@ETVPod) January 10, 2022

https://twitter.com/mauscuba7500/status/1480579079292153858

Who are these people they’re talking about? Nobody I know.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by latsot on “Mass formation psychosis”.

Ah that word narrative – be very cautious around anyone telling you something is a “narrative” when it bears no resemblance to a story. It’s a favorite of bullshitters.

That’s partly because to many, many people ‘narrative’ is the same thing as ‘evidence’. I mean this in the most literal sense; I come across many people, especially on social media, who seem to sincerely believe that being able to tell a story about something – even if that story doesn’t really seem to explain the facts – is the same as providing huge great chunks of evidence of something being true.

In fact, they feel it gives them license to … Read the rest

We’ve only spelled out our goals eleventy billion times.

I’ve honestly never met a community less able to openly state their policy goals. Even the white nationalist are more forthcoming than this. https://t.co/IXDUcwqiRI

— @etvpod.bsky.social (@ETVPod) January 10, 2022

Policy goals – not allowing trans ideology to erode women’s rights and women’s prizes, set-asides, honors and the like. I think we’ve been very clear and very forthcoming about it. Where’s he been?

The replies are uniformly nuts.

“the genocidal” – yes sure, plus we’re vampires and that thing from Alien.… Read the rest

More brazen by the day.

Glinner tells us which women missed out because a man won Best Actress.… Read the rest

Creepy shirtsleeves guy defies the law:

The Ohio Republican Jim Jordan is the second sitting congressman to refuse a request for cooperation from the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack.

In a Sunday night letter to the committee chair, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the Trump ally accused the panel of “an outrageous abuse” of its authority.

Sure, it’s “outrageous” for the House to investigate a violent attack on the Capitol and Congress. BLM protests are of the devil, but actual violence inside the legislative building is fine.

In columns for the Guardian, the former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal has laid out Jordan’s extensive contacts with Trump before and on 6 January, throughout legalistic efforts to throw out results

Oh give it a REST.

Narcissist comes out as first openly self-involved twerp shock-surprise.

American figure skater Timothy LeDuc is set to become the first openly non-binary athlete to compete at an Olympic Winter Games.

They might as well say he’s the first openly breathing athlete to compete at an Olympic Winter Games. He’s the first openly two legs-having athlete to compete at an Olympic Winter Games. He’s the first openly anthropoid ape athlete to compete at an Olympic Winter Games.

Unfortunately he’s not the first person or athlete to seek extra attention by claiming to be the first ever something or other, even if the something or other is of absolutely no consequence or interest to anyone at … Read the rest

Our friend latsot has signed up for various wheelchair distance events in 2022 including the Leeds and Sheffield half marathons, the Middlesbrough 10k and (fingers crossed) the Great North Run.

He’s raising money for nia, a women-led, women-only, secular, rights-based registered charity which has been delivering services to women, girls and children who have been subjected to sexual and domestic violence and abuse, including prostitution, since 1975.

His crowdfunder for the Sheffield event (in March) is here.

He urges you to donate if you can and share the link if you like!… Read the rest

Liberal shmiberal – union-busting at the NY Times:

Last April, 650 tech employees at the New York Times announced that they were unionizing. Rather than applauding them and proceeding to negotiate a contract, the company instead refused to voluntarily recognize the union. This is despite its own editorial board supporting a bill that would have made it legally binding for employers to voluntarily accept union requests when they are backed by a majority of the staff.

As the paper’s own editorial explained: “Under current law, an employer can reject the majority’s signatures and insist on a secret ballot. But in a disturbingly high number of cases, the employer uses the time before the vote to pressure employees to rethink

The questions around Trump’s encouragement or otherwise of the insurrection are boiling down to: was he evil or just stupid? Did he deliberately delay telling the insurrectionists to go home, or was he just having too much fun watching them on tv to get off his ass?

Adam Kinzinger, a Republican congressman from Illinois who sits on the committee, underlined the laser-like focus of the investigation on Trump’s potential complicity.

Speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press, he said the key question now was: “What did the president know about 6 January leading up to 6 January?”

Kinzinger added that the panel wanted to know why Trump failed to take any action for almost three hours while the violence at the

Politifact has more on this Robert Malone fella:

Video of Spotify host Joe Rogan’s controversial interview with a doctor known for making false claims about the COVID-19 vaccines was removed from YouTube, just days after Twitter banned the doctor’s account for violating its COVID-19 misinformation policies.

Dr. Robert Malone, who gained hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers in recent months as he promoted anti-vaccine falsehoods, drew a comparison in the interview between COVID-19 vaccination efforts in the U.S. and the environment in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, when the Nazi party rose to power.

I’m not seeing it. Not seeing the similarity between Weimar Germany and the effort to vaccinate populations against a dangerous virus. Also not … Read the rest

Also in Y R people so dumb, a made-up mass delusion is made up.

An unfounded theory taking root online suggests millions of people have been “hypnotized” into believing mainstream ideas about COVID-19, including steps to combat it such as testing and vaccination.

In widely shared social media posts this week, efforts to combat the disease have been dismissed with just three words: “mass formation psychosis.”

Sounds technicalish and sciencey and psychologicalesque, doesn’t it. That was Freud’s way of bullshitting too.

The term gained attention after it was floated by Dr. Robert Malone on “The Joe Rogan Experience” Dec. 31 podcast. Malone is a scientist who once researched mRNA technology but is now a vocal skeptic of the COVID-19

Back in 2014 local public radio did a story on The Little Street at the Bottom of a Landslide-prone Bluff aka Y R people so dumb?

It’s no secret that Western Washington is prone to landslides. The combination of glacial soils, steep slopes and water creates a risk that’s greater than in other parts of the U.S.

And it’s not just river valleys like the one near Oso: The region’s coastal bluffs are also danger zones that have experienced large landslides in recent decades.

But that still doesn’t deter people from living in those slide-prone areas.

Because people are just that dumb.

Ruth Trail has lived in the Magnolia neighborhood of Seattle for 23 years.

She said she loves it

Just a little local story of no particular significance for once, simply because I saw some of it. I was out for a walk with a dog friend (or dog client, or something), on a boulevard that runs along the top of high bluffs at the western edge of Seattle, where Elliott Bay meets Puget Sound, and we came to a place with a lot of yellow tape between the sidewalk and the edge of the bluff. Part of the bluff there had collapsed recently, I’d noticed it some weeks or months back when walking the dog there, but it wasn’t yellow-taped then. Clearly this was new collapse, which was completely unsurprising given the record rains we’ve just had, and … Read the rest

Heh.

So the great skeptical mind has decided that we can only discern sex with 100% accuracy or with the accuracy of made up woo-woo nonsense.

Stellar critical thinking. https://t.co/8Ohjo3CklB

— Dr. Jane Clare Jones (@janeclarejones) January 8, 2022

a high degree of reliability. And it turns out, female people are better at it than males. So we'd thank you to stop telling us we can't perform a cognitive task we're much better at than you because you're a bit shit at it.https://t.co/1gPpj4qkun

— Dr. Jane Clare Jones (@janeclarejones) January 8, 2022

https://twitter.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1479859700103618561

Yes PZ, sexual maturation is just like changing sex how right you are. https://t.co/GMex2VeJxB

— Dr. Jane Clare Jones (@janeclarejones) January 8, 2022

… Read the rest

A new treat for your schedule:

“Feminist Gender Equality” – starring three men and Sally Hines talking about feminism. It doesn’t get much more equality than that.… Read the rest

Vandalism or termination of a hate crime?

THE Attorney General is considering referring the case in which four people were cleared of tearing down a statue of slave trader Edward Colston to the Court of Appeal.

Suella Braverman said the verdict is causing “confusion” and she is “carefully considering” whether to use powers which allow her to seek a review so senior judges have the chance to “clarify the law for future cases”.

…

The verdict prompted a debate about the criminal justice system after the defendants – dubbed the Colston Four – opted to stand trial in front of a jury and did not deny involvement in the incident, instead claiming the presence of the statue was a hate

He’s unhappy about the Wes Streeting interview.

I think what I found hardest to take about the interview is his framing of women's rights versus trans rights. No attempt to interrogate that proposition. From there, there is nowhere good to go.

— Jo Maugham (@JolyonMaugham) January 7, 2022

When’s the last time Jolyon Maugham “interrogated” the proposition that trans dogma takes nothing from women at all whatsoever in the least? My rough estimate is that would be never.

I was trying (a bit ineptly) to emphasise a slightly different point, which was that only some women and some feminists (a minority as I understand the evidence) feel as he describes all women and all feminists feeling.

— Jo Maugham (@JolyonMaugham)

Originally a comment by Bruce Gorton on More emp and und.

There was an essay on Forbes the other day about gatekeeping in fandoms, which I actually think is kind of relevant.

…the accusations of gatekeeping are being used to leverage access to effectively run each fandom and acquire power as a result.

I think there is a lot of truth in the complaints fans of various properties have about “wokeness” invading their spaces. A lot of the time, the issue keeping people out of specific hobbies isn’t that the hobbyists are saying “This isn’t for you” – it’s that the hobby just isn’t the “excluded” person’s bag.

Which is fine. You’re not being excluded if the thing isn’t … Read the rest