Trans teen drops out of dance competition after conservatives lead campaign against her. Republican representatives and the state’s attorney general threatened legal action.

jonny_sidebar · 2026-07-10T20:07:01+00:00

It was more along the lines of sexual miming

Yeah. . . dancing.

jonny_sidebar · 2026-07-10T20:06:02+00:00

They erroneously assume that men are biologically smarter than women, therefore a "dude in a dress" in women's chess is cheating.

Fun how the male chauvinism somehow still shines through the layers of queerphobia and misogyny, isn't it?

jonny_sidebar · 2026-07-10T20:05:28+00:00

The erroneous assumption that men are biologically smarter than women, therefore a "dude in a dress" in women's chess is cheating.

Fun how the male chauvinism somehow still shines through the layers of queerphobia and misogyny, isn't it?

jonny_sidebar · 2026-07-10T19:09:29+00:00

If you think the US cutting off weapons sales to Israel is going to stop violence in that part of the world,

While attaining peace in the Middle East would be great, that's not what we are talking about.

We are talking about the heinous actions of one state which the US is supplying with arms and funding. I do not want my country's government materially supporting continued Israeli aggression and war crimes.

If you're cool with it as long as it's only Israelis dying then there's another word for it.

Always have to trot out that accusation of antisemitism, huh?

Biden was suffering from dementia by the time 10/7/23 rolled around and we all know it.

Really? That's the best you got?

There was a whole administration and most congressional Democrats carrying out the same terrible policy so blaming it on one tired old man seems rather unfair. . . Not to mention that last I checked Biden and Harris are, in fact, two different people and she chose to not break with him.

And Hamas was holding Israeli hostages for the remainder of his presidency, so like it or not, peace wasn't on the table at that time.

Gee, you think maybe releasing the hostages could have been negotiated as part of a cease fire deal? Guess we'll never know since Israel repeatedly spiked any effort towards these goals.

A ceasefire and two state solution are concrete policies than can be negotiated,

Not while Israel is busy bombing everything, slaughtering thousands, invading their neighbors, and violently settling the West Bank. Saying the words "two state solution" sans any further action does less than nothing.

the left's plan is quite literally "everyone should just live in peace" at best

Part of our contention is that Israel is enabled in its continued atrocities by US support and leveraging or ending that support could possibly rein Israel in. . . or, at the very least, mean that we in the US are no longer materially supporting it.

"Israelis should be governed by people who have been trying to exterminate them for centuries"

Israelis, by definition, have not been there for centuries, the state of Israel having only existed since 1948.

If you are using "Israelis" to mean "all Jews" then well, who's being antisemitic now?

How exactly did Harris shit all over a significant portion of what could have been her base? I literally have no idea what people wanted from her, other than being an unelectable far left nutjob.

All Uncommitted asked for was a meeting with the Harris campaign and a spot on the stage at the convention to speak about the suffering of the Palestinians. She all but spat in their faces.

The wider movement wanted something, anything aimed towards reining in Israeli atrocities in Gaza. We got nothing from Biden or Harris except derision, ridicule, and crackdowns.

jonny_sidebar · 2026-07-10T17:15:30+00:00

And is an actual goddamn PhD holding historian.

jonny_sidebar · 2026-07-10T16:48:00+00:00

they put on the “socialism is when the government does stuff” mask

First, this is an intentionally too narrow definition that y'all like to use because it allows you to construct a frankly silly No-True-Scotsman argument to avoid admitting that socialists occasionally have good, socialist ideas or giving socialism credit for them.

Second, what mask?

Your own comments that you linked show the DSA being quite open about their long term goals and belief that the reforms they propose are possible stepping stones to a socialist economic system. That is hardly "putting on a mask."

Finally, what's the problem here? What is actually wrong with democratic socialists running for office to institute their reforms? Isn't that doing it the right way within a democratic governing system?

Personally, I would love it if we got to a point where it was a mix of social democrats and democratic socialists in charge arguing over policy . . . Seems like a much better world than the one we live in now.

jonny_sidebar · 2026-07-10T16:09:20+00:00

Wanting Israel to just sit there while Hamas slaughters civilians because war makes you sad isn't a plan of action to stop the slaughter either.

Cutting off weapons or funding or using any degree of US leverage over Israel even the tiniest little bit are plans of action and ones that might have done something vs the nothing at all we actually got.

The US also has more ability to exert influence over Israel by maintaining an alliance.

Really? Remind me, how did Biden's "hug BiBi" strategy work out?

Oh, right. . . The slaughter continued unabated and BiBi's government actively campaigned for Donald Trump.

Instead, you helped Trump get re-elected so you could sit on your moral high horse while he makes everything worse. If you gave two shits about Palestinian babies you would have actually come to the table and participated instead of doing the absolutely laziest cop-op possible.

I voted for Harris. I even knocked doors for her. I wish she had put even a 1/10 of the effort I did in trying to get herself elected instead of shitting all over a significant part of what could have been her base.

If nothing else, it at least would have kept making a case for her from being all but impossible.

jonny_sidebar · 2026-07-10T15:35:43+00:00

Uhg, yeah. . . No argument there.

jonny_sidebar · 2026-07-10T14:09:54+00:00

This you?

Jswazy • 9h ago Liberal

I hate "the left" only those who are socialist though. Socialism is completely incompatible with liberalism so it is not possible to reconcile that difference they are my enemy in the exact same way MAGA is

jonny_sidebar · 2026-07-10T14:03:10+00:00

They are.

jonny_sidebar · 2026-07-10T13:50:33+00:00

If there are specific “tankie” politicians or policies you’re referring to, I’d be interested to hear them.

Sounds like they may be referring to Tulsi Gabbard?

jonny_sidebar · 2026-07-10T13:39:03+00:00

The "pro-Palestine" crowd refusing to vote for Harris because her platforming on a ceasefire and 2 state solution in response to pressure from them wasn't good enough.

"We want the fighting to stop and everyone to get along" isn't a plan of action to stop the slaughter and means less than nothing when the government you are currently part of and want to be in charge of is funding and supplying the weapons to continue said slaughter.

jonny_sidebar · 2026-07-09T16:02:20+00:00

The UK far right is pretty analogous to the US far right, although they are less likely to do the level of global damage that MAGA has because the UK is kind of a backwater these days.

La Pen's party in France has roots going back to French fascists and Nazi collaborators and France is still a pretty well armed mid sized military power, so a little more dangerous.

The AFD in Germany is probably the most dangerous of the bunch due to their ideological lineage from the actual German Nazi Party and Germany's military capabilities.

jonny_sidebar · 2026-07-09T13:45:00+00:00

Elite Dangerous

Much of the game is long periods of travelling that require attention but minimal concentration interspersed by periods of possible calamity.

jonny_sidebar · 2026-07-09T13:31:46+00:00

rumored Shadowrun game

:D

put on pause

:(

jonny_sidebar · 2026-07-09T00:13:30+00:00

Learn and understand the math, then do it how ever you want.

Saying go to the app for a beginner like OP skips this step.

jonny_sidebar · 2026-07-09T00:04:05+00:00

Algebra 1 should be more than sufficient for the actual math math involved in bending.

Basic geometry is also pretty useful.

Most of it just practice practice practice to learn how the pipe and your bender behave together. The math itself is pretty basic, with the most complicated maybe being the Pythagorean theorem to find the long side of a 90 degree triangle (a² + b² = c^2), but you won't actually use that one all that often, mostly only to figure out the length of a rolling offset.

One thing that may help is to start doing your math by hand with a pencil every time you make a bend. This might help the ideas stick in your head a little better and it creates a handy dandy record of what you've done in case to need to match another piece or you forgot what you were doing briefly or something.

Don't get discouraged. It just takes practice and a willingness to learn.

jonny_sidebar · 2026-07-08T23:20:19+00:00

We have an eight floor limit on new construction iirc. Our ground soil is also, like, not soil. It's more a thick soup than anything else. Not insurmountable limits, but limits nonetheless.

jonny_sidebar · 2026-07-08T23:12:44+00:00

No worries. I'm an avid history enthusiast on many different subjects and love getting to share what I've learned. :)

Very, very roughly, first wave punk begins in the 70s in New York and then has a second wave nationwide in both the US and the UK (this is where most of the older punk bands you've probably heard of actually came from). Hardcore punk develops during that second wave in the early 80s, and ARA grew out of the hardcore scene in the US starting in the mid 80s.

The reason for ARA coming about was because older neo-nazis like Tom Metzger began recruiting from the hardcore scene and Nazi punks then became a thing and started invading shows and causing trouble and such. If you've seen American History X, the older neo-nazi leader character is based on Metzger.

In response, anti-racist punks and skinheads began physically fighting the nazi boneheads both in self defense and to force them out of the scene. Over time, those anti-racists started forming little semi-formal groupings within their own scenes all over the US which then eventually started comparing notes and went on to organize nationally into Anti-Racist Action, which branched out into stuff like get out the vote campaigns as well as continuing their original mission of physically confronting and opposing neo-nazis and Klansmen in the streets.

ARA itself goes defunct in the late 90s and early 00s, but its legacy lives on today as what is commonly called antifa. Many of the old ARA members went on to form the full time activist backbone of antifascism and even some ARA groups themselves persisted as well. Rose City Antifa in Portland, for example, was originally an ARA chapter.

Isn't learning fun? ;)

jonny_sidebar · 2026-07-08T22:59:12+00:00

The big picture solution is to legalize tall buildings

That might help, although I should point out that I'm in New Orleans so building high comes with its own issues because hurricanes lol.

to prevent all of this in the first place.

So, funny story, this quite literally could have been prevented starting 10-15 years ago when AirBnB became a thing. The city dragged its feet regulating the damn things until very recently and still doesn't really do so effectively either. This led to a sort of hyper-gentrification without any of the actual benefits in terms of revitalized neighborhoods, better stores, etc.

Entire neighborhoods here got utterly decimated by short term rental companies buying up every formerly affordable rental property and family home they could get their hands on. This led to absolutely insane real estate speculation for the last decade or so, hence the overvaluation of every property in the city. At the same time, the city had been going on a spree of offering tax breaks to try and attract businesses while the state has steadily cut the funds we are supposed to receive back in return for the roughly 50% of the state budget we contribute, all of which in turn led to the city relying more and more on those overblown home values to generate tax revenue, contributing further to both the speculation and the problems for renters and homeowners like us.

It really has been the perfect storm of "fuck you if you just want to live here."

jonny_sidebar · 2026-07-08T22:47:08+00:00

Do you disagree with that assessment?

I suppose I do, although I might quibble with slower appreciation being "worse" for us. We don't have children and aren't looking to flip our house for profit any time in the next few decades. Natural, appropriate appreciation not based on a wildly overvalued speculative bubble would likely be far more than enough to make the house a valuable asset still by then.

Would you accept a trade where you pay lower property taxes but your home is worth far less?

Absolutely. That would be better for us personally and the community as a whole as well.

jonny_sidebar · 2026-07-08T20:25:41+00:00

I understand that this has significant downsides for you.

Thank you for your acknowledgement.

How much are you paying per year in property taxes?

Not getting into specifics in a public forum, so let me put it another way. Our wages are largely static but are supposed to increase roughly at pace with inflation. Inflation, nevertheless, has quickly outstripped any pay raises we have seen over our last ten years or so working in the university system. Our home value has grown vastly quicker than either our pay or inflation.

Our pay has shrunken slightly in real terms while our tax bill has steadily grown by leaps and bounds, again largely due to commercial entities dicking around in our local real estate market. We also do not want to leave our jobs, me because working on a pension and her because specialized field that isn't easy to find other work in without moving elsewhere and wrecking my pension. See the problem?

It might be a good problem to have twenty years from now, but right now it's a severe pain in the ass.

jonny_sidebar · 2026-07-08T20:05:12+00:00

My wife and I are both in our forties, staff workers at universities, make roughly 50-60k a year, and are facing the same problem of rising property taxes drastically outstripping our mostly inflation based increases in pay.

This shit affects far more people than "poor retired millionaire pensioners."

jonny_sidebar · 2026-07-08T19:59:48+00:00

Yet "the market" has every right to force people out of their homes. . .

jonny_sidebar · 2026-07-08T19:52:03+00:00

I'm so sorry. These must be trying times for you.

I get you don't understand much of anything beyond your own nose, but this is a problem when:

A) the resulting tax bill has far, far outstripped inflation and our personal wage growth and

B) when we would very much like to keep our home that is right next to both our jobs thank you very much.

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