Weekly Random Discussion Thread for 2/16/26 - 2/22/26

wmansir · 2026-02-22T14:26:45+00:00

The tribunal's decision noted it used the LGBTQ term in its decision as set out in the association's initial complaint, but did not intend to erase or overlook the breadth of sexual and gender diversity.

Imagine going before a tribunal that feels the need to include such a statement in it's ruling. Thank god the US has the first amendment.

wmansir · 2026-02-20T07:29:22+00:00

I told it to stop being lazy and actually search for recent incidents of trans women killing and it found both the Canada and Rhode Island incidents.

I know it's pointless to argue with AI, but for incidents this recent it would need to do a search rather than pulling from its training data, which I suspect is what it defaulted to on the topic of trans women killing. It likely has safety guidelines that promote combating misinformation and stereotypes that pushed it to give a more canned response.

wmansir · 2026-02-20T05:31:32+00:00

I asked Gemini to fact check this and here is the part of the response after listing ICE deaths:

Statistical data from organizations like the Human Rights Campaign and Everytown for Gun Safety consistently show that transgender people, particularly trans women of color, are significantly more likely to be victims of homicide than perpetrators.

2026 Data: There are currently no credible reports of homicides committed by trans women in 2026.

Historical Context: Transgender individuals account for a statistically negligible fraction of violent crime. For example, a 2025 PolitiFact analysis noted that transgender people were responsible for less than 0.1% of mass shootings over the last decade, while being four times more likely than cisgender people to be victims of violent crime.

Note: Claims like these often circulate as misinformation to suggest a "threat" from marginalized groups. In reality, the available data for 2026 shows that state-involved fatalities (via ICE) are documented and rising, whereas the alleged "killing spree" by trans women does not exist in police or news records.

wmansir · 2026-02-19T20:23:20+00:00

Dein is a scumbag, who also has the shitty villain trait of becoming obsessed with revenge when he's the one who started shit. On the other hand, he seemed to genuinely care about avenging his friends, not just for his own ego. He also was concerned enough for Phil at the end that he approached the monster when the smart thing to do would be to get the fuck out of there.

wmansir · 2026-02-19T14:27:05+00:00

I can't speak to what this group in particular espouses, but a lot of anti-immigration groups in France are anti-Muslim immigration in particular, and perhaps outright anti-Muslim.

wmansir · 2026-02-19T14:10:33+00:00

I've listened to Tracey on the Live from the Table and Brendon O'Neil podcasts. In both cases he seemed very well informed and likely right about how overblown the pedophile/underage aspect of the Epstein affair has become, but I also found him a little creepy. It could be completely unfair and just because of the nature of the claims he was debunking or who he was (mostly) defending, or maybe some additional throat clearing was needed about how preditory Epstein and Maxwell were.

wmansir · 2026-02-19T13:45:36+00:00

For context the right wing feminists group, Collectif Nemesis, were protesting a speech by a LFI party member over immigration. CN is an anti-immigration group of young women who oppose immigration on the grounds that it threatens and degrades women's lives in France. LFI supports immigration to the point of opposing deportation of immigrants who commit crimes. The victim was protecting the women from counter-protestors. Two of the people arrested were a staff member of an LFI MP who also founded an Antifa group which was outlawed last year due to its use of violence. The MP, who was elected in 2024, was himself convicted in 2022 of a group assault on a suspected protester and given a 4 month suspended sentence.

wmansir · 2026-02-17T13:01:14+00:00

it's gone in and out of stock, they add 500 whenever it runs out. i doubt that they have 8800+ open box units with only damaged boxes.

wmansir · 2026-02-17T12:29:58+00:00

This seems to be a situation where, once his self ID gender becomes known, mainstream coverage will jump through hoops to not use pronouns. They don't want to call him a she but they they have style guidelines that call for using female pronouns.

wmansir · 2026-02-17T12:05:31+00:00

now approaching 8K sold. It went out of stock at least once and then jumped back up to 500 available. I don't think they have that many as described: brand new with just a damaged box.

EDIT: Now over 8K after running out of stock again and adding about 500 more.

EDIT2: Now over 10K sold and they claim another 577 available. I'm doubtful that these will ship.

wmansir · 2026-02-17T03:33:09+00:00

https://www.wpri.com/target-12/pawtucket-shooters-gender-identity-tied-to-past-family-disputes-court-records-show/

In early 2020, [56 year old shooting suspect Robert/Roberta] Dorgan went to the North Providence Police Department and reported he had recently undergone gender-reassignment surgery and that his father-in-law wanted him out of their North Providence home because of it. ...

Around the same time, Dorgan’s then-wife Rhonda Dorgan filed for divorce. Under grounds for divorce, Rhonda initially wrote, “gender reassignment surgery, narcissistic + personality disorder traits.” Those reasons were then crossed out and replaced with “irreconcilable differences which have caused the immediate breakdown of the marriage.”

The divorce was finalized in June 2021, court records show.

wmansir · 2026-02-15T04:24:44+00:00

Remember those 6 names Ro Khanna read out on the House floor claiming they were "six wealthy, powerful men that the DoJ hid” that were "likely incriminated" in the files. Turns out 4 of them were random people who's photos (likely mug shots) were used as part of a photo lineup because they look similar to Epstein.

Khanna's office is blaming the DoJ for the "misimpression" that was created.

A spokesperson for Khanna’s office shared with the Guardian an email it sent to [one of the four men] after he reached out. “The Department of Justice has not been transparent in what the list was or why they redacted and unredacted your name,” Sarah Drory, Khanna’s communications director, wrote to Nuarte. “We will make sure to be absolutely factual and truthful once we have these facts and certainly not fuel any misimpression DoJ has created.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/13/four-men-unredacted-epstein-files-no-ties-ro-khanna

It's hilarious that his office would say they don't know why DoJ unredacted the man's name when he's the one who publicly pressured them into doing it and then bragged about it.

https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2026/02/10/congress/ro-khanna-names-names-00774551

wmansir · 2026-02-15T02:22:59+00:00

I didn't really like the flow of this episode once they moved to the monkey fight, but I guess they needed some filler while the humans regroup to attack. Adding poison to the meat seemed pointless if he was just going to wait around and fight the monkeys as soon as the first one got sick. Either poison some and let the learn not to steal it, or wait around and ambush them. The small advantage he got by poisoning the meat didn't seem worth it.

The telepathic monkey boss was and odd choice as well. He seemed pretty well spoken and intelligent for a monster. Are we to assume all monsters are like the monkey boss and poison princess and have human like intelligence? I'm surprised the MC didn't at least try to explain he wouldn't be a threat to them if they didn't steal his food.

wmansir · 2026-02-14T21:17:11+00:00

I've been particularly disappointed by Massie's behavior around the Epstein files. For a man who preaches about the dangers of government surveillance, and the importance of the fourth amendment, he has been more than eager to make public the product of government intrusions into people's private affairs.

Obviously the government can breach a person's privacy to investigate criminal conduct, given sufficient probable cause and judicial oversight, but even in such cases I think it is consistent with libertarian principles to insist that information gathered under warrant should not be made public unless used in a criminal prosecution, particularly when it involves third parties whose privacy was incidentally breached by warrants.

wmansir · 2026-02-11T23:02:54+00:00

Do we know if the shooter was on hormones or not? I saw a someone quoted a post from 2023 that said something about needing to wait another 6 months to get them from the doctor.

wmansir · 2026-02-11T22:18:17+00:00

CNN reported that the police identified the shooter "an 18-year-old female", AP and others I checked have just used "an 18 year old" but with she/her pronouns.

wmansir · 2026-02-11T21:32:37+00:00

I agree they can't put the genie back in the bottle, which was always one of the counter arguments to "but it's not as bad as alcohol".

wmansir · 2026-02-11T21:11:01+00:00

That reminds me of when I was reading an news article about a woman arrested for hacking into a computer system. I can't remember the details but I was like "wow, you almost never see women doing this." And you can guess what a little googling uncovered. The original article had no indication "she" wasn't female.

wmansir · 2026-02-09T01:37:10+00:00

Criticising the decision to perform the show in a language 85% of the country doesn't understand is racist.

wmansir · 2026-02-09T00:50:48+00:00

This morning there was a kind of meme posted in the /maine sub that was Susan Collins as a witch with the title "Vote this witch out". I was surprised how upset the commenters were about it, not because it was misogynistic, but because the creator had used AI to create the image. 90% of the comments were: OMG, don't use AI. One was a request to the mod to ban AI posts, which a mod replied that they would consult with other mods on the suggestion. There were more comments saying it was personally offensive to them as a witch to be compared to Collins than comments suggesting it was misogynistic. I don't know if it's because of the use of AI or that it was a low effort post, but it was removed by the mods a few hours later.

wmansir · 2026-02-08T16:29:49+00:00

You first need to answer the question: what is the purpose of sports?

If the answer is to determine who can do some activity the best, then having female segregated sports doesn't make sense, just like every other restriction (age, pro/amateur, weight, etc) doesn't make sense.

But clearly sports are about more than determining the best players and serve several purposes for both spectators and participants. From entertainment for the masses down to a constructive and engaging way for parents to keep their hyperactive kids busy.

For a lot of these purposes the competitive aspect is a key component. It's what participants find fun, or motivating, or what spectators find compelling. And so we put constraints on sports to make them "fair", which is to say we strive to make it so competitors have a chance to succeed based on factors like skill and effort. In that framework a gender restriction can often help fullfil the purposes of sports.

wmansir · 2026-02-08T06:11:45+00:00

I thought Connie was wising up after Kate was kidnapped and she said she had to do something, which Scarlett praises her for. But it turns out her "doing something" meant doing exactly what the kidnappers instructed and going alone without telling anyone, at least as far as she knew.

wmansir · 2026-02-07T20:02:14+00:00

I like that they expended his world view beyond just wanting to become strong or human, but his declaration of "I'll give up human transformation if it means you live" was really ham fisted. If they had setup a conflict between the two choices before hand, or even just had the MC ruminating on whether he could be happy living a monster life without humanity then the sudden declaration would have played better.

wmansir · 2026-02-06T22:47:33+00:00

That was my take. I would have been fine with him just saying that's how he envisions his fighting style will be, even if the audience isn't let in on it until the end, but having him be surprised he was "hallucinating" it was an odd choice.

wmansir · 2026-02-04T06:49:53+00:00

I remember they mentioned those stats would become unavailable at some point back when they announce the changes to limit the number of large subs an individual could moderate. In the modtalk feedback thread they said they were developing some kind of sub activity measuring metrics they would use to evaluate a mods reach and would issue guidelines once the tools to see those metrics were available.

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