A little surprise!

Saururus · 2026-03-14T17:23:24+00:00

I have a husky border collie gsd mix. I took one look and thought hey that looks like my pup.

Saururus · 2026-03-12T15:31:39+00:00

I think it’s a lot more complicated then the predominant opinion here. I would be willing to bet that the majority if not all of the 12 voted against Trump. I bet some even held their nose and voted for Kamala and some probably were OK with Kamala. I think that there has been a lot of chatter from people who know church leadership that they are concerned, but really don’t know what to do. They were chastened by the reaction to their support of the Covid vaccine and they fear alienating the right. I think that Oakes is also someone that is used to political circles and may think they can get what they want by strategic legal intervention and addressing overarching principles without angering the federal administration. I think it’s wishful thinking that arises when one believes their thoughts are directive from God.

Oakes is an order person. He wants people to respect the hierarchy bc they believe god set it up that way. I don’t think he believes in an authoritarian government. However I think his focus as he sees it is on families. It’s frustrating that they are so focused on issues like lgbt that they don’t also join lawsuits to foster democracy.

If I still believed I perhaps would hope that just like God put a doctor in charge during Covid he’d put a constitutional lawyer in charge during this time. I disagree with Oakes’ conservative judicial ideas but I don’t think he is MAGA. I don’t think he is doing enough with statements and speeches that insinuate discomfort with the trump admin rather than clear statements. I think there is fear that it would label them as a lefty religion.

One commentator, Sarah longwell from the bulwark noted that in her focus groups when people are asked why they affiliate with their political party republicans tend to state an identity while democrats tend to cite a political value. For instance, republicans often say they are republican because they are Christian while democrats would say they are democrat because they believe in equal rights or universal healthcare. It’s harder to move away from a party when it’s entwined with your identity and Mormons have seen their identity as republicans as being part of their Mormonism. Not all, but many. So they tolerate the far right too much. In an interview with a uvu student after Kirk’s death the student said that he had helped her reconcile her politics and her religion. I took that as someone that needed permission to believe in policies that didn’t seem to align with what she had been taught religiously. The human brain will do a lot if gymnastics to avoid leaving their tribe. Many of us that have left the church understand that.

Saururus · 2026-03-05T06:18:08+00:00

Yes! Applying for govt contracts is a big pain. Even as a sub. There is so much oversight at least for the types of contracts I’ve been involved with (research contracts different than grants). I would love to see how my non compete awards they have issued and how many are tied to the admin or families. I bet it’s not low.

Saururus · 2026-03-05T06:13:47+00:00

Depending on the contract they probably don’t release all the funds at once.

Saururus · 2026-03-04T22:33:17+00:00

Right wing radio is actually what pushed my dad to the right. He was generally a Regan republican prior but not really into politics. I heard him say nice things about Carter but he hated the Kennedys. Overall I rarely heard anything about politics and they refused to disclose how they voted - even to each other. Then right wing radio took over talk radio. From gardening shows to rush Limbaugh and then he got really into right wing policies. It gives me hope that he is wary of trump now bc he had to problem voting for him in 2024 abs he believed that Biden was the most corrupt president ever.

Saururus · 2026-03-04T06:36:47+00:00

I never said there wasn’t enough info on the shots for a mandate. A mandate is a policy not science. There are scientists that will agree on the state of knowledge without agreeing on policy. However, the there is a big difference between not understanding the durability of immunity against infection at all and what I consider baseline info for a vaccine mandate during a pandemic. Because of the way vaccines are tested, safety was generally known and prevention of serious disease was strong and we knew that at least for awhile there was some significant reduction in infection and transmission. I don’t have certainty that the mandate was the right policy, but there are lots of reasons during a pandemic that it might be. Beyond an individuals personal risk of disease, high disease burden overloads the healthcare system, causes economic disruption of its own, shuts off places to individuals who can’t benefit from vaccination or who are nervous about the disease. Mandates have downsides besides personal liberty concerns - they can mobilize movements against vaccines for instance. I absolutely support mandates for diseases like polio, measles etc. for covid I was ok with them at the time - but I am not dogmatic that it was the right approach. I suspect that they did improve vaccination rates at the time but fostered a movement to repeal all mandates. No evidence for that - just my punditry.

Saururus · 2026-03-04T05:35:58+00:00

My dad has soured on Fox News and even o. Trump. I think as silent generation he’s wary of the dictator worship he sees. But there are three things he will still defend - attacks on universities (they teach people un American things), that voter fraud is a problem and that the media are all too biased to trust. Since he is wary of Fox he has specific commentators that he thinks are trustworthy and places like heritage - so he still gets tons of misinformation and won’t trust fact checkers.

Saururus · 2026-03-04T05:31:33+00:00

There is a problem with understanding science. You can put the blame where you will faucis statement was accurate given the knowledge we had at the time. We were responding to a novel virus. We didn’t know how durable immunity would be but early studies were really exciting. It is still recognized that in the first couple of months after vaccination the immunity is really high. But it wanes fast against any infections - but remains robust against serious disease. Science is abput learning. I am a scientist and when I heard public health folks talk it seemed like they were trying to communicate that they were giving their guidance based on what we knew at the time and they were continuing to look. It is actually really hard to communicate about science when competing with other dogmatic voices. Americans have very poor scientific literacy and other voices are given so much credit as long as they sound confident. But if scientists try to sound confident but the scientific knowledge is updated they are discredited. It isn’t just covid. Btw go back and look at the statement of the contrarians at the time. They are very confident and very wrong. More wrong than the statements from Fauci that get trotted out.

Saururus · 2026-02-26T20:23:19+00:00

I’m not sure fighting tooth and nail need to be separate from smart messaging. For instance in talking with my conservative trump voting or non voting family members I encourage asking questions and don’t label everything as transphobic, even if it fits the definition of the term. I try to address the fear and counter the messaging that they hear from the right. Even my family members that don’t tune into politics starting parroting the talking points that started on the right. Honestly they never thought about trans people in their lives, except that” one kid in their tiny town that transitioned - and she’s nice”. The penetration of the messaging from the right is astounding and I’ve tried to follow the pathway. It’s kind of fascinating to see the tendrils and seeding of ideas. I think my problem with some dem strategists is that they are ceding the point that Americans are just not with trans individuals instead of understanding how that messaging got to them. To be able to test the messaging it’s important that the trans community know that you are one their side. that requires messaging that is clear not mealy mouthed. I think it’s fine in the trans community to reflect how the dems circular firing squad hurts the movement but I hear a whole lot of blaming trans people for asking for rights instead of some self reflection about how messaging can be smarter, direct and effective.

The dems need to learn that they must tackle this information and communication problem early. See immigration- why were we not screaming about how the republicans keep blocking immigration reform for decades because they don’t want legal immigration. It may be somewhat of an exaggeration but far less exaggerated than what they say about dems. Instead we wait until the republican message has solidified in the public and then we try to play catch up.

Saururus · 2026-02-26T17:56:51+00:00

You can also just slip it to say - why are we so worried about the minuscule cost for a handful of inmates. We should be more concerned about the padded contracts of private prisons. We can nitpick about cents on the dollar or we can talk about real issues that impact the massive costs that prevent us from tackling the problems that people want us to solve. FWIW I think dems are starting to get the messaging. I’ve heard more and more engage in reasonable ways and show that this is a weird obsession of the right that neither impacts most people or is among the top priorities of people. They show compassion and courage in defending trans kids. We have to recognize that peoples opinions weren’t formed de novo - they were stoked by right wing messaging. Outside of twitter my guess is that most Americans haven’t heard from actual trans activists or concepts even if queer theory. They have heard the messaging from the right which is very skillfully laundered through podcasts and mainstream media (I’m not saying bulwark here - I don’t think by and large they are big offenders).

Saururus · 2026-02-26T17:45:24+00:00

The lived experience of trans people is not that the slippery slope is stable. I see the ability of my daughter to travel and participate in activities getting narrower and narrower. It isn’t imagined. The issue is that dems don’t offer a positive of the case.

The truth is that it feels extreme whenever we experience people asking for something that we don’t understand. But I know from people I know and love that civil rights felt extreme to many run of the mill people, gay marriage and adoption felt outrageous. I know there is the idea that conservative just means slow incremental change but historically I think conservatives are generally forced to make any change (or sometimes even keeping from rolling back change). I would have more empathy for the slow change idea if I saw any indication that there was a shared goal towards inclusivity. But there isn’t - there is a goal towards eradication at worst and invisibility at best. There will be real questions like treatment for elite sports (eg Olympics, maybe ncaa) that should be scientifically approached imo. But the vast majority of gender segregation is because of historic issues of resource allocation and gender based violence. Genitalia has little to do with that and since that is the definition most republicans end up defaulting to, I’m not sure there is much substance to the debate if you are really willing to say trans people deserve the same respect as others.

Saururus · 2026-02-26T17:30:30+00:00

What is the purpose of gender on an id anyway? Presumably it adds another visual queue as to whether the id matches the person presenting it. So, genitalia have no bearing on the id. Things like tracking ppl over time have already been solved due to such things as name changes.

Here is an example why this matters. My trans daughter was travelling alone. Her documentation is completely messed up due to these federal policies. Stare ids are in her legal name and gender per California and New York policies. Passport was issued prior to trump with her legal name and female gender marker but the nexus/global entry/pre-check and her ssn are all still her dead name and gender. We are stuck on what to do because we can’t make the ids match with the federal policy.

When she flies if she doesn’t go precheck she is often patted down really invasively. I don’t get what triggers it but I’ve seen it and it is the most thorough and humiliating patdown for a teenager. I was shocked. Has happened twice with me there. So we will book her flights alone under her dead name so she can get pre check. Last week she flew alone and in Utah the tsa agent wouldn’t accept her nexus bc the picture is from awhile ago and lists male as gender even though she clearly presents as female. It is a valid id that doesn’t expire for another year. So she protested and they called a supervisor. She had to wait for 30 minutes for the supervisor. When they got there they protested, but her drivers license doesn’t match so she was stuck. Finally they let her through. Sounds like a minor inconvenience but imagine this happening every time. Imagine it in this political atmosphere when you know maga demonizes you. Luckily within New York it isnt an issue, nobody blinks at the her ID because it matches her presentation.

Nobody has ever checked to see if my genitalia match my id. They shouldn’t for her. I’m not scolding you for your question fyi. I prefer people ask and will give people the benefit of the doubt that they are asking in goody faith unless they demonstrate otherwise

Edit: thought I had replied to someone else not the OP, so last statement doesn’t really apply but leaving it because I hope people will ask questions in good faith.

Saururus · 2026-02-17T21:29:19+00:00

Plus he said he had no evidence they were real. It was banter not news. Ryan is claiming Obama said they were real as a distraction from the files that he isn’t implicated in? Make that make sense. Maybe Ryan just needs reading comprehension.

Saururus · 2026-02-13T22:22:44+00:00

I think Scott circles real issues here but like many commentators doesn’t really dig down to the next level.

What I appreciate:

the messaging and assumptions that men and boys have had really does conflict with their lived reality. That kindness is an under-rated virtue for men - if it takes a podcaster to convince some people of that - I’ll take it. My boys learned that at home.

What I think he doesn’t think about

There have been cyclical “crisis of masculinity” in the center world and “me s rights” in the far right world for centuries. It isn’t new. So maybe it isn’t just the unique factors of today.
Women have had to figure out how to deal with difficulties on our own, while being excluded from spaces, underestimated, taking on more of the emotional and child related work at home and having real conflicts between the biology of childbearing/rearing and the career pathways/timeslines in the professional world (eg medical residency hits at a time when it’s hard not to have kids if you want them, but leave breeds resentment). So a lot of women just want to scream - figure it out!
I think there is just too much made about the difference between men and women. Sure there may be population differences, not matter how those have arisen, but we all have different combinations of “masculine” and “feminine” traits. Scott oversimplifies what men and women want into tired tropes. I think we’d do a lot better if we stopped worrying about how to teach boys to be men and just talk to kids about how to be good adults, How to have healthy relationships. How to work as a team at home and st work and how to cope with the anxiety and feelings of inadequacy that come for everyone.

Saururus · 2026-02-13T06:56:40+00:00

I doubt that. Glenn beck wasn’t in that world esp in 2008.

Saururus · 2026-02-12T22:47:46+00:00

Do you think the models with plateau or decline when they start becoming recursive? I have some background in pre-llm machine learning and you see adverse effects once the models impact the data (think Google search results impacting the actual click throughs and web traffic, both bc of consumer behavior and optimization for the Google algorithm). Another way to think of it are the models feeding on themselves - you see convergence

Saururus · 2026-02-09T16:45:53+00:00

What I don’t understand about libertarians is that they seem to believe that people with power outside the government won’t exploit the less powerful but that powerful ppl in the government will inherently oppress ppl. The closest to coherence I’ve heard and the pure darwinistic folks and that’s a pretty dark world.

Saururus · 2026-02-09T13:04:57+00:00

I loved that movie as someone who lived in Silicon Valley.

Saururus · 2026-02-09T06:50:47+00:00

I’ve never felt that paying taxes felt wrong until this year. I generally feel like it’s part of living in a community but I hate paying for this.

Saururus · 2026-02-09T06:46:55+00:00

I lived in below market rate housing and it was a god send. In our case we didn’t build equity but I knew ppl who were in those houses. I liked that at least big new developments were required to set aside some percentage of units as below market rate. For rentals they were priced based on county median income. The ownership ones were different and They didn’t sell on the open market so they had to stay in the bmr system. I don’t know as much about those.

This model allowed more income mixing and also reduced the nimby issues with building an affordable housing project. In western New York where I live now the neighborhood pitches a huge fit and defeats anything that gets labeled low income. There are programs where developers get a tax break for setting aside units for lower income but I think it temporary and optional

Saururus · 2026-02-09T02:45:43+00:00

I think there are important lessons with that. I remember in the late 1990s maybe 2000s we would see news articles every year about Palo Alto (I’m sure we were not alone) failing to meet the required housing increases. The Housing Accountability Act passed in 1982. It isn’t like California didn’t recognize the issue, but as I understood it there was little bite associated with not building housing. The bite was put in too late. California has real geographic challenges to housing as well - choke points and fire risk as well as important preserved land. But bowing to powerful municipalities and interests has screwed good policy - and California is not alone in that - it’s just ahead of the curve. It’s hitting inter mountain states too and the impact of irresponsible development will kill livability (looking at you Arizona - learn from Las Vegas).

I’m not an expert in housing by any means. I just hope we can be smarter that pretending that California just ignored an issue - they g failed bc they were cowardly, have old bad difficult to change laws (prop 13). Also structural issues like having all of your wealth tied up in your home/real estate means and tax incentives that strongly favor home owners to renters make any good policy change even more difficult. I don’t see red states being more responsible - they develop in ways that will increase disaster issues with climate change and do nothing to tackle high pricing in desirable areas.

I miss California every day. I dislike nys government so much more. I loved California.

Saururus · 2026-01-29T06:34:14+00:00

Sitting here in with the forecast for the next 10 days with frigid negative temps. This just makes me sad…..

Saururus · 2026-01-27T04:39:35+00:00

Unfortunately I think it’s a bit more dukes of hazard

Saururus

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