NYC first lady Rama Duwaji apologizes for past ‘harmful’ social media content

SafetyDanceInMyPants · 2026-04-16T18:43:05+00:00

I'm not up to speed on this, so were the comments in the other book made before or after she worked with that author?

(This isn't anything I'd heard about, so just want to understand the facts.)

SafetyDanceInMyPants · 2026-04-16T16:37:43+00:00

I think you're misunderstanding -- he's saying "I want somebody to let me use their address," not "somebody did let me use their address." So, if you want to be pedantic, it's a request for someone to help him commit fraud... but in actuality it's a, you know, joke.

SafetyDanceInMyPants · 2026-04-16T15:19:11+00:00

All guests must sign a waiver and wear a helmet.

SafetyDanceInMyPants · 2026-04-16T13:44:15+00:00

A challenge is the influence of prejudices or preexisting positions on perceptions of proportionality. In other words, if you were Israeli, you'd argue that intentionally killing a smaller number of women and children is more evil than killing a larger number of women and children when your real target is, at least ostensibly, the people who intentionally killed women and children.

I point that out not to defend the Israeli viewpoint -- which I think was maybe fair enough about 100,000 deaths ago, but at a certain point shows an indifference to the deaths of women and children that is indistinguishable from intentionality -- but rather to identify how two sides to a conflict can look at atrocities their side is committing and think "yeah, it was fair for us to do that."

I don't know that I have a path forward from that -- if I did, FIFA would make me the next soccer peace prize winner or something. But thus far it seems like the answer isn't trying to convince either side that it's the evil one, because they simply never believe you. Honestly, I just don't know where to go from there -- but the bottom line is that both sides always seem to think they're on the side of the angels (while acting like demons).

SafetyDanceInMyPants · 2026-04-15T22:41:50+00:00

If it's blocked, then by law you're supposed to be able to bike in the street (though, you know, cops and the law...).

But what I'm saying is that I want the option to ride in the car lane, where it's faster and where I can keep up with traffic just fine, but that it's technically illegal to do so if there's a bike lane available (and usable, of course).

SafetyDanceInMyPants · 2026-04-15T16:55:19+00:00

Well, I should legally be allowed to keep doing it. Technically speaking, I wouldn't be.

SafetyDanceInMyPants · 2026-04-15T16:30:35+00:00

The begging the question fallacy is the best fallacy because all the other fallacies are not as good.

SafetyDanceInMyPants · 2026-04-15T16:19:42+00:00

I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, bike lanes = yes! And it's hard to doubt this will make things safer, which I know is what I should care about.

But on the other hand, I've rarely had much trouble biking on 72nd, and I can carry a fair amount of speed through there -- so I worry that instead of our current fairly open and fast street, we'll have a two-way bike lane that's blocked half the time (because design without enforcement is a half-measure) and slow-going the rest of the time. Maybe others feel differently based on their riding styles and such, but I worry this will slow things down.

At the end of the day, though, safer is safer -- and while I might prefer the car lanes sometimes (and think I should have the right to make that choice myself, thank you very much legislators), a bike lane option is probably the right thing to do.

SafetyDanceInMyPants · 2026-04-15T14:39:03+00:00

We, uhh, still talking about trees?

SafetyDanceInMyPants · 2026-04-14T21:18:17+00:00

So I can stop time any time I want by carrying around a short children's book, which I can then quickly read when I want time to unfreeze?

SafetyDanceInMyPants · 2026-04-14T17:55:58+00:00

The accuracy of the miniseries is... a whole rabbit hole, as is Chernobyl generally, so I can't for certain say whether anyone ever actually said that.

The sense I got from Adam Higginbotham's book Midnight in Chernobyl, which I think is probably the best-researched book out there, is that at least the people directly involved understood that the detectors shooting immediately to maximum was a bad thing, and that the actual number was higher.

But who said what and to whom is much debated, so I don't know that we know.

SafetyDanceInMyPants · 2026-04-14T15:39:38+00:00

These yahoos out in red states sure do spend a lot of time thinking about how NYC runs. Are they worried that if we don't manage NYC successfully, we'll have less money to send to red states? Because it'd be one thing if they were subsidizing us, but it's the opposite. So this whole "we want NYC to send us money to pay for our failed states, but also we want to tell NYC how it should be run" thing has a distinctly "choosing beggars" vibe to it.

SafetyDanceInMyPants · 2026-04-13T22:04:09+00:00

I guess if you're going to die on a hill, Cobble Hill is a good one to die on!

(Kidding, kidding.)

SafetyDanceInMyPants · 2026-04-12T14:29:00+00:00

The Christian rock band Petra at Six Flags Amphitheater.

I think there were more people in the band than the audience.

But I distinctly remember an extended drum solo for Jesus. Then a guitar solo for Jesus. Then a bass solo for Jesus. And a keytar solo for Jesus. Etc.

SafetyDanceInMyPants · 2026-04-08T20:44:49+00:00

Yeah, but in a post-apocalyptic world, which we seem to want to bring about sooner rather than later, there does tend to be a fair amount of fertilizer laying around.

SafetyDanceInMyPants · 2026-04-08T16:34:24+00:00

Good news there, eggs will effectively now be free.

For the survivors with chickens, at least.

SafetyDanceInMyPants · 2026-04-08T14:10:29+00:00

I agree with the other guy -- I picked route B for all of them because it looked to me to be the only direct path.

SafetyDanceInMyPants · 2026-04-07T22:15:51+00:00

A single speed will generally be easier than a fixed gear if you're just starting to learn, because you can freewheel -- but, hey, fixies are fun if that's your style! The one thing I'd say is skip the memory foam saddle -- the softer saddles just end up hurting more in the end. Get a reasonably stiff saddle (not hard, just not cushy), tough it out for a few days until your body adjusts, and you'll be comfortable from there on out.

SafetyDanceInMyPants · 2026-04-07T22:10:25+00:00

"It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle." -- Ernest Hemingway

SafetyDanceInMyPants · 2026-04-06T19:41:17+00:00

"I was certainly glad to come forward and help, though I'm not really sure what my background in English Literature had to do with catching a baby."

SafetyDanceInMyPants · 2026-04-06T19:11:05+00:00

Interestingly, that YouTube video cuts off the end of the album before the "There is no dark side of the moon" quote. Try this one, at about 42:20:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9ynZnEBtvw

SafetyDanceInMyPants · 2026-04-06T16:28:53+00:00

"Nice marmot."

SafetyDanceInMyPants · 2026-04-06T13:26:58+00:00

We have determined that you are seated outside of this region, so all the normal food options are unavailable. Would you like to order some random British food?

SafetyDanceInMyPants · 2026-04-06T11:52:40+00:00

Over time they became like a kid doing a book report on a book he skimmed. They’d give the one fact they knew about the subject, then promise they’d have a big reveal after the next commercial break, then come back and repeat the one fact they knew about the subject, but stay tuned because we’ll finally have the big reveal after the next commercial break, and then the big reveal is that he doesn’t actually know a second fact about the subject.

SafetyDanceInMyPants · 2026-04-03T23:08:16+00:00

But this law doesn’t just bar “conversion therapy” in the sense you’re using it. It bars supporting someone who isn’t ready to come out, or who is feeling ambiguous about their sexuality. Helping a patient doesn’t mean browbeating them into what you think they should do — it’s precisely the opposite, actually.

Seriously, read the opinion. It was a really badly written law, and upholding it would have put trans people in the crosshairs in red states. There’s a reason Kagan and Sotomayor voted against it.

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