Like many of you, I’ve been watching the Olympics this week. Only the primetime stuff, and I’m not squeamish about spoilers. I know, for instance SPOILER ALERT that Simone Biles killed it today, and the women’s gymnastics team won the gold. I mean, if I wanted to be surprised I wouldn’t be on the internet all day. I’ll watch anyway.
In the course of it, I may see this commercial, called “Dear Sydney.” In it, a father asks Google’s AI function to help his daughter write a fan letter to a track star. “She wants to show Sydney some love, and I’m pretty good with words, but this has to be just right,” he says.
I hate this fucking thing. As the New York story points out:
What? Why would a dad who is “pretty good with words” need an AI model to help his daughter write a heartfelt message to her favorite athlete? Aren’t these moments what parenthood is all about? What sort of lesson is this? Not only does it imply to your kid that it’s okay to offload writing assignments to AI, it also suggests it’s a good idea to let the computer express feelings for you, which may be a troubling precedent.
Troubling? When your kid gets caught using AI to write a term paper in high school, don’t cry about unequal treatment, dad. You started her down this path. Weird, too, that I had almost this exact thought, too:
Brand strategist Michael Miraflor wrote that the ad was quite similar to the Apple iPad commercial from May that was widely reviled. “They both give the same feeling that something is very off, a sort of tone-deafness to the valid concerns and fears of the majority,” he wrote, adding that both were developed in-house.
Yeah. What tf is going on in Silicon Valley? I want AI to do the boring shit so I can concentrate on stuff I want to do, not the other way around. Sydney should return Google’s money and tell that little pixie to leave time in her life for English class.
In other news at this hour, Kamala Harris has texted me 9,000 times to inform me she’s running for president. (You’re kidding, I hadn’t heard.) Then she asks for money. I sent her some. But I have yet to see a significant attack ad on Trump, and I’m ready for it. You have money, Democrats! You’re raising millions and millions! The “weird” thing is fine, but it’ll be played in about 5 minutes, and I expect to see a LOT of advertising talking about what a threat Trump is. Yes, a threat to democracy, and I don’t care if these weird right-wing pundits blame that line for the shooting in Pennsylvania. It doesn’t make it any less true, so lean in! Get going!
And that is all for a muggy Tuesday.
Jeff Borden said on July 30, 2024 at 7:40 pm
I donated more to Harris than any pol not named Obama, but I remain terrified. It’s almost impossible to deal with zealots and cultists. Rational arguments are dismissed. Data and analysis are ignored.
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Sherri said on July 30, 2024 at 8:08 pm
Silicon Valley doesn’t want to make cool shit any more, they want to make obscene amounts of money. Generative AI isn’t being thrown at us because its cool and solves any problem we have, it’s being thrown at us because it sounded like it had the potential to be a humongous money maker if it worked. Never mind that it doesn’t really work, what if it did?
That’s the same way Theranos got a shit ton of funding for a product that was impossible. This is Theranos times a zillion.
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Ann said on July 30, 2024 at 8:19 pm
As I think I’ve mentioned, I’ve been on these fundraising calls with Focus4Democracy. Their focus, 100%, is on what does and doesn’t move voters. By and large, negative ads about Trump and the threat to democracy don’t. It’s just not a top issue for those precious undecided or apathetic voters. (Top issues, IIRC, are inflation, the border, and reproductive rights). But some of the 2025 stuff is getting traction. I think we can rest assured there will be negative ads, but all I care about is whether the ads get people up and voting.
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Cheez Whiz said on July 30, 2024 at 8:22 pm
Its impossible to overstate how detatched from everyday American life is your average upper-tier Silicon Valley creative type, the kind who approves ads. They REALLY REALLY need AI to be a world-changing thing embedded in peoples’ lives like a cell phone or web browser, and that ad is a clear view of their desire. Of course dad tells his daughter to use “AI” to write a fan letter, she should pull out a fountain pen and some foolscap, seal the envelope with wax and hand it to the postman?
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Joe Kobiela said on July 30, 2024 at 10:10 pm
Womans7’s Rugby, USA vs Australia for the bronze, USA down by a try with no time on the clock and Alex Sedrick steps out of a tackle and goes the length of the field for the tying score, U.S converts the extra point and we win a metal in Rugby for the first time since the men won gold in 1924.
Pilot Joe
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Deborah said on July 30, 2024 at 10:16 pm
I remember in the mid 80s when we started using Apple McIntoshes for graphic design, we were all blown away by it. And the architects in the firm I worked for had started using computer aided design and it completely changed our professions making all kinds of things so much more accessible and allowed us to do amazing things so much more efficiently and allowed for creative breakthroughs. I don’t see that with AI. Admittedly I’m not out in the world practicing design the way I did then, but I really don’t get it. It’s not crap but it sure doesn’t seem to be everything it’s cracked up to be. I’ll be patient and watch and see. Maybe I’m just too old to get it?
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Sherri said on July 30, 2024 at 10:30 pm
I don’t think weird will be played out quite that quickly.
At least since Nixon’s Silent Majority, Republicans have believed that they represented the normal people in America, the “real” Americans. As they’ve wound themselves tighter and tighter into a swirl of reality-denying media, they continue to believe it. But responses like “I’m not weird, you’re weird” indicate that maybe they sense that people really do think they’re weird, and it’s a problem.
I mean, you can call the left weird, and they’ll shrug their shoulders and say, what’s wrong with weird? The Right has to be normal.
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Dexter Friend said on July 31, 2024 at 4:03 am
11 days in and the crescendo is increasing. That rally in Atlanta yesterday was something.
The suspense for the VP pick is killing me here.
Harris is surging, except in Pennsylvania where Trump is gaining. This is just one reason why I want Shapiro as VP.
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David C said on July 31, 2024 at 6:12 am
I still work in design. Mechanical, not architectural but similar enough. Both of the softwares I use, Catia and Creo, are touting all of the AI in their latest releases. As far as I can tell, there’s no difference at all in how they function from the previous versions. For years, they’ve been trying to anticipate what I want to do and usually get it wrong. The new versions just do the same thing in more places. So, the AI in them looks like marketing BS to me.
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Dorothy said on July 31, 2024 at 9:01 am
i think we’ll see more ads than we ever wanted to see once she picks a running mate. I’m all in for Kamala. I’m going to make a quilted sign out of cotton fabrics spelling out KAMALA HARRIS and hang it in the front windows of the office in my house – inside – so the HOA can have a hissy fit and they can’t tell me to take it down.
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alex said on July 31, 2024 at 9:48 am
I pledged a monthly donation and now the Dems are blowing up my phone with texts requesting more, more, more. But I’m elated enough about our prospects at this point that it doesn’t annoy me too much.
First they called us woke. Then we called them weird. And suddenly the polls pulled even. Coincidence?
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Mark P said on July 31, 2024 at 9:57 am
I still remember the “Daisy”campaign ad from 60 years ago, where a little girl holds a flower in a field, and then a nuclear bomb goes off. That’s what Harris needs, an ad that shows the threat of a Trump presidency so dramatically that people remember it 60 years from now. “Threat to democracy” is too abstract. Show an old couple looking at past due bills — “Social Security, gone.” Show an old couple looking at a medical bill for $10,000 — “Medicare, gone.” Show empty grocery store shelves, crops rotting in the fields, maybe an apple for $5 — “No farm workers because Trump deported them all.” Show a farmer selling his farm — “Foreign markets closed because of Trump tariffs.” Show a montage of absurdly high-prices goods — “Most of your purchases doubled in price because of Trump tariffs.” Show LA before environmental regulations, show a truck spewing black smoke, show chemical waste pouring out a pipe into a river — “Clean water, gone, clean air, gone.” Show the real damage he will do. Exaggerate, lie, anything, show the shithole country that Trump wants.
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Peter said on July 31, 2024 at 11:09 am
Oh Deborah, I’m showing my age – in the mid and late ’80’s, we would do wire frame perspectives of trading floors – what the view would look like from a particular spot.
The CAD operator would get everything ready, and at 5:00 pm hit the print button, the idea being that the computer would be able to produce a print file by next morning.
For several months, I started work at 5:30 AM by checking the printers to see if the perspective was saved and printed out. It never happened.
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Peter said on July 31, 2024 at 11:15 am
And on another matter: I don’t want to jinx anything, but I know who I would want as Kamala’s running mate.
Sorry I can’t link it, but there’s a video of Tim Walz on White Guys for Harris where he says: “How often in 100 days do you get to change the trajectory of the world? And how often in the world do you make that bastard wake up afterwards and know that a Black woman kicked his ass and sent him on the road? Because you know he’ll have to live with that for the rest of his life.”
YES. HE GETS IT. Besides, he was a high school football coach whose team won the state championship. That alone could turn Texas blue.
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Julie Robinson said on July 31, 2024 at 11:57 am
Mark, I love your idea. I feel strongly we need to throw everything at them, no more taking the high ground. Get under their skin, whatever it takes. Start calling Vance by all his previous names.
I may have mentioned that our house had to be repiped, so we’re at an AirBnb for the next two days. So far, it’s been a festival of pooping! First, the new kitten let loose about two blocks into the trip, then complained about sitting in his own shit all the rest of the way. He did the same thing when he went to get his shots, so it seems as if there’s a pattern being established here, yay.
Last night the big cat pouted under the sofa growling for the whole evening. This morning the dog pooped on two different rugs, then stood at the door barking at all the other dogs walking by. It’s been soooo much fun.
Even more fun will be writing the check. After that we can finally move forward with the bathrooms and kitchen. I am starting to understand why people tear down and rebuild the homes around here.
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Sherri said on July 31, 2024 at 12:03 pm
I like Walz for a number of reasons. He was a football coach who was also a geography teacher, and before all the talk about VP started, he was giving the keynote at a GIS conference about the importance of that data and how Minnesota uses it to help people. You know, government working to help ordinary people, explaining that clearly.
With only a slim majority, he also got free lunches for school kids passed. As I read somewhere on social media, Dems want 4th graders to have free lunch at school, Republicans want them to be forced to give birth.
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Suzanne said on July 31, 2024 at 12:06 pm
I hear you Julie! Yesterday our internet stopped working and after trying all the normal fixes,we realized that the outlet that the receiver (or whatever it’s called) was plugged into in the garage wasn’t working. So we called an electrician. $1,000 later, after discovering water in outdoor outlet that the garage indoor outlet was connected to, and that the circuit breaker box had loose connections and no surge protection, all was well! The longer we live in the house, the more we realize that very little routine maintenance was done in the past 10-15 years. Sigh.
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Scout said on July 31, 2024 at 12:38 pm
Mark P @ 12 ftw. Those would be excellent ads. Ads need to be specific and hit people where they live. Vague and undefined ‘protect democracy’ ads won’t move the needle, unfortunately.
The veepstakes has been oddly enjoyable. What a deep bench. Any of those candidates would be great, and of course, being in AZ I love Mark Kelly. But I’m really feeling the Tim Walz energy and think he’d be a great asset to Kamala, so he’s my favorite of the moment.
J’adore le Olympics this year. I didn’t love Paris when I visited there, but that city has put on the best show I’ve ever seen. Most host cities just build a Disneyland. Paris has incorporated so many beautiful and iconic landmarks of their city into the games and it’s so cool. I’m also really enjoying the commentary on Peacock. There is much joy and humor mixed in with the usual sportsy reporting stuff. Snoop Dogg has been a big part of that.
The Simone Biles story is the epitome of these games and I’m loving her and the whole squad. They more than earned their gold.
Life in general seems so much lighter lately. I know we have a long 98 days ahead of us, but it’s nice to be able to hopescroll for a change.
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Dexter Friend said on July 31, 2024 at 12:49 pm
Walz has a resume that is perfect for a Veep, no question.
I want Shapiro because Pennsylvania is up for grabs and Shapiro could swing it left.
Kelly was on Morning Joe Show today, freshly groomed in a new beautiful suit, crisp new shirt, and a stylish tie with a perfect knot. He is hungry for the shoulder tap. Believe it. He looked presidential, bald and mean. Bald as a goddam egg! Like me. 🙂
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Sherri said on July 31, 2024 at 1:49 pm
Optimistic news out of Boeing today: the new CEO is an engineer, not a bean-counter, and he’s going to be based in Seattle. When Jack Welch disciple Harry Stonecipher became CEO of Boeing after the McDonnell Douglas merger, he moved the headquarters to Chicago (and eventually to Arlington, VA), and tried to move as much production as possible away from union shops in the Puget Sound. It’s been a steady decline ever since.
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Brandon said on July 31, 2024 at 2:53 pm
When Jack Welch disciple Harry Stonecipher
That name is Dickensian.
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Sherri said on July 31, 2024 at 3:17 pm
Harry Stonecipher and I have something in common: we both have BS in Physics from Tennessee Tech. I didn’t use mine to destroy a major aerospace company though (or get fired for having an affair with someone who worked for me.)
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David C said on July 31, 2024 at 4:20 pm
I hope Ortberg starts on a good note and Boeing brings the Starliner back home with the astronauts. They had a successful test firing of its thrusters today, so that’s good news. I know it a pretty messed up capsule but I want it to succeed and I’m sick of hearing the Musk stans saying SpaceX is going to have to rescue them. Space.com says there’s not a bit of truth to the astronauts needing rescue. There are just certain tests that can’t be run in the atmosphere.
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Jeff Borden said on July 31, 2024 at 4:22 pm
Walz also is a legit country boy who grew up in a village of 400. Unlike Peter Thiel’s sock puppet from Middletown. He’s a terrific speaker…quick on his feet and very funny.
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jcburns said on July 31, 2024 at 4:37 pm
Deborah: Apple Macintoshes. Not McIntoshes.
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Sherri said on July 31, 2024 at 4:47 pm
Another Tennessee Tech shoutout: one of the astronauts waiting to return on the Starliner is Tech alum Barry Wilmore.
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alex said on July 31, 2024 at 4:53 pm
Delighted to report that the Orange Turd had a big meltdown today at his sit-down with the National Association of Black Journalists (gift article):
https://wapo.st/4d9t9SL
He’s as clueless as he is graceless and I’m so glad he was willing to take this stupid gambit.
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Sherri said on July 31, 2024 at 7:25 pm
Word was, the NABJ event with Trump started late because he and his team were fighting over the NABJ’s desire to do real-time fact-checking. The NABJ must have given in, because Trump spent a big chunk of his time blaming the female Black reporter for the delay because he claimed she couldn’t get her equipment set up correctly.
His team cut it off when there was a question about Project 2025.
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tajalli said on July 31, 2024 at 8:22 pm
Thanks for the link, Alex. Give him enough rope and he’ll hang himself.
As for AI and creativity: AI gives the average while creativity and humor rely on elements of surprise that occur at the tails of the bell curve, not its center.
And now for something different
https://youtu.be/gW2SEpWWqXM
(This link is being placed in the comments sections on FB to avoid having accts put in the doghouse.)
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Mark P said on July 31, 2024 at 9:41 pm
Well, now we know how the Trump campaign will adjust to not having Biden to run against. I just saw a bunch of Trump ads, and they are simply saying Harris is responsible for everything they were going to blame Biden for. Harris’s ad was ok, but I still think they need to go all out on attack ads. Positivity is too weak.
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Deborah said on August 1, 2024 at 3:46 am
Peter, you gave me a nightmare I just woke up from. Working all night on a presentation and then checking it after it came off of the large scale printer and finding a typo like misspelling Macintosh.
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Peter said on August 1, 2024 at 6:53 am
Deborah, I’ve had those.
Back in the day, a draftsman would run a check print and the project architect would mark it up. I can’t tell you how many times I got a plot, started marking it up, saying “Oh my gosh I just marked up the original” and the CAD guy saying “No Peter, the original is in the hard drive”.
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Peter said on August 1, 2024 at 7:01 am
I’m having a hard time putting into words how angry I am about yesterday’s NABJ event with Trump, because, once again, he bullied and bluffed and got his way.
I’m sure the event’s organizers had the best intentions: to hold a candidate accountable for his past statements and actions, to ask questions on what his administration specifically will implement to reach out to their community, and what does he do? He complains that they’re late, that the mike doesn’t work, and that he’s the best friend of Blacks since Abraham Lincoln.
It’s obvious that the only reason he appeared was so that right wing media could record the event and show how he put them in their place.
It’s disgusting.
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Suzanne said on August 1, 2024 at 7:36 am
And, Peter, Trump is back in the news cycle. He doesn’t care what kind of publicity he gets as long as he gets publicity. He’s like a toddler who throws a tantrum when he isn’t getting enough attention.
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Sherri said on August 1, 2024 at 12:57 pm
So, while Biden was recovering from Covid and deciding to drop out of the presidential race, he was also calling the prime minister of Slovenia to secure a pardon as part of a complicated prisoner swap? Yeah, the man’s totally washed up.
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Sherri said on August 1, 2024 at 1:31 pm
Along with what Suzanne said, I know people here want attack ads. Attack ads are very satisfying, for supporters. But they keep the campaign focused on the opponent, which means the opponent is setting the terms of the debate. Especially with a candidate like Trump, who will say anything and swerve all over the place, this is a bad thing.
I’d rather Harris keep focused on abortion and what Dobbs has done to us, like how it’s killing mothers and babies, not just people who want to have abortions, but people who want to have healthy pregnancies. Idaho has lost a quarter of its OBs because of its extreme abortion ban.
Attack Project 2025, don’t attack Trump. Try as much as possible to ignore what comes out of Trump’s mouth, except to point out how weird it is.
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Sherri said on August 1, 2024 at 3:35 pm
All the episodes of Tested, a podcast about gender policing and testing in sport, are now available and highly recommended: https://www.tested-podcast.com/
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Julie Robinson said on August 1, 2024 at 4:10 pm
Great news on the release of the hostages, and a major foreign policy win for the administration.
If you learn that your slab house has to be repiped, my advice would be to walk away. Maybe throw a lit match on the way out.
There are 60, yes 60 large holes in our walls after the repipe, and dust everywhere. The drywallers patched this morning and a cleaning team is there while the patches dry. Then almost the entire house has to be repainted. Oy veh.
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Deborah said on August 1, 2024 at 4:59 pm
I read on Threads that one of Trump’s biggest apologists said that Trump shit the bed yesterday and the question is will he change the sheets or roll around in it. What’s your guess? He’ll certainly never admit he was wrong.
We had a huge thunderstorm here in Santa Fe just now that was totally not forecast even a few hours ago. We can hear the river rushing, it’s about a block away but is usually barely a trickle.
It’s called male rain here by the native Americans, not the best kind, the best kind is female, gentle and long lasting. Kind of like our current political system don’t you think? The male kind is ferocious, plant stripping, destructive, causes floods and damage, lots of lightning and noisy thunder. The female kind is calm, gentle, nurturing, helpful and productive.
We had pea sized hail covering the condo yard so that it looked like snow. And the temperature dropped considerably, 91º was the expected high but when I looked at the outdoor thermometer it was lower than 60º, thank goodness. Yes, that’s helpful but fleeting because when this is over it will be hot again. Kind of like shortsighted political solutions that Republicans are famous for, not long term solutions for problems that take time and thoughtful negotiations, not to mention compromise.
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Deborah said on August 1, 2024 at 5:45 pm
Rightwingers criticizing the release of the journalist etc from Russian prisons today is puzzling to me. How can that be patriotic to bad mouth it? Sure there were painstaking negotiations over time, but it worked, we got them out. Did Putin get anything? Of course, that’s the way negotiations work, compromises are made and it results in action. Will Putin take advantage of it in the future, no doubt but that would have happened anyway. Being whiney nay sayers is not a good look to me. Plus Putin must think Trump isn’t going to win, otherwise he would have held out. But what do I know.
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David C said on August 1, 2024 at 6:04 pm
I couldn’t believe that asshat reporter who asked Biden about Trump saying he could have gotten them out without concessions. I hope the families are asked about what Trump did to help while he was President to get them released and hear them say that he didn’t do jack shit.
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Jeff Gill said on August 1, 2024 at 7:49 pm
Note on the “Daisy” ad: it only ran once. Late at night on NBC, one time. It got saturation coverage (or “earned media”) after the fact, on TV such as it was and in print, but technically a single airing.
With the closing line which far outlived that one night: “The stakes are too high for you to stay home.”
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Dave said on August 1, 2024 at 8:27 pm
Completely off topic but Jeff Gill, I see the golf course is pulling out entirely.
https://www.newarkadvocate.com/story/news/local/2024/08/01/moundbuilders-country-club-settles-octagon-earthworks-lawsuit-public-access-coming/74622732007/
Also, Vance says that Trump’s remarks about Kamala Harris are completely reasonable, talk about someone who is willing to back any lie, say any falsehood, change his entire belief system: https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/01/politics/chameleon-trump-vance-harris-ethnicity/index.html
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Jeff Gill said on August 1, 2024 at 8:34 pm
Um, yeah; my inbox and messaging have been blowing up since the word went around town last night and the official word was made public at 11 am this morning. For the most part, I still am being asked to be chaste and restrained in my public posts, as I have for the last six freakin’ years. My day to speak freely will come.
When I got called by someone quoted in the story who wanted to put me in the picture before the formal announcement, I was having breakfast at the Pink Pony in the Chippewa Inn on Mackinac Island. The waiter came over worried later because I was crying. I assured him they were happy tears. It’s a good day: twenty-five years of effort come to a successful conclusion, and like all such things . . . now the hard work starts! But I’m still very emotional about the whole thing. (And I don’t think the country club is done scoring some points where they can on their way out the door, but the day they walk out the door is now set in stone. I see local GOP fundraisers are already being venued at the Trout Club in the coming months, as the club de-activates at their current location.)
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Deborah said on August 1, 2024 at 8:55 pm
Good for you Jeff G, and congratulations.
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susan said on August 1, 2024 at 9:41 pm
Yay, Jeff! I just read about that on a LOCAL news site, in Warshington State, and was going to post it here. Very cool your hard work and passion carried through.
Damn golf courses, anyway. I really despise them, especially in arid climes. Our annual precipitation, which includes snow, is 8-9 inches a year. Where we are in drought conditions on top of that. And fire. And yet there are eight of them in the area. EIGHT. They also wreck less obvious (to lay people, anyway) archaeological sites around here.
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alex said on August 1, 2024 at 11:13 pm
Right-wingers will make political hay out of anything that gives them an opening to call a Democratic president weak, and because diplomacy is not well understood by the raging pitchfork brigade it’s a ripe subject for exploitation. On ads for News Nation, an upstart Fox imitator where Bill O’Reilly and Chris Cuomo hold court, tonight they’re going to talk about people pissed off that their relatives imprisoned in Russia didn’t get released today.
ON EDIT: I wrote this about 6 PM and forgot to submit. Yay to Jeff G and the Newark Earthrworks!
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Deborah said on August 2, 2024 at 6:17 am
Just think how frustrating this process of releasing the hostages must have been for Biden. All the time he was involved in the hugely complex problem of getting the hostages out of Russia and he was being criticized and belittled about how he performed at a debate with a know nothing nut case like Trump.
Meanwhile the hair trigger Republicans are running around with their hair on fire trying to figure out how they can keep what power they have and get more so they can placate their billionaire overlords.
It’s 4am and I’ve been up since 2:30. Anxiety is a bitch.
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Jeff Borden said on August 2, 2024 at 12:01 pm
Simone Biles got a clever little dig on the Orange King in a post proclaiming “I love my black job!” And her Olympic heroics also revived the graceless, ugly comments of JD Vance, who criticized her “weakness” when she cited mental issues when she dropped out of the Tokyo Olympics. Man, American right-wingers are such assholes.
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David C said on August 2, 2024 at 1:09 pm
Right-wingers the world over are assholes. Imane Khelif has been beaten something like 9 times by other woman boxers. But the other boxer left herself wide open to getting one in the noggin. She whines, incorrectly, that her opponent is transgendered and all of wingnuttia piles on. If I was her, I’d sue that fucking loon J.K. Rowling and de-billionaire her. I understand British libel laws are a bitch.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/boxing/who-is-imane-khelif-and-why-is-her-olympic-boxing-win-marred-by-controversy/ar-BB1r60v8
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Sherri said on August 2, 2024 at 4:23 pm
Our political media seems to be struggling with how to characterize Trump’s questioning Harris’s Blackness. Maybe we need more media members who didn’t grow up in privileged families and go to Ivies, because I sure recognized what it was: racism. I heard “oh, they’re only Black when it suits them” regularly growing up, about people never welcome in white spaces.
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Sherri said on August 2, 2024 at 5:31 pm
On the Olympic boxers whose gender is being questioned: https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/olympics-boxer-imane-khelif-anti-trans-rcna164721
Again, I recommend the Tested podcast by Rose Eveleth, which discusses the long sordid history of gender policing in sports. From the moment women finally were allowed to participate in sports, there have been people concerned about men pretending to women, even though there’s never been a case of that. There even used to be concern that sports would turn women into men. Of course, there’s the persistent concern that strength training will make women “bulky” (read man-like).
The women who get forced out are typically women of color who, once they start winning, are tested and discovered to have differences of sex development, or intersex. There’s very little evidence that being intersex is an advantage, and intersex covers a wide variety of conditions, but more and more sports are making it impossible for intersex athletes to compete.
If you want to learn more about intersex, I recommend this glossary: https://interactadvocates.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Intersex-Variations-Glossary.pdf
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Jeff Borden said on August 2, 2024 at 5:41 pm
Liberal radio host Thom Hartmann has nailed it: tRump is now in the “fat Elvis” stage of his career.
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David C said on August 2, 2024 at 5:57 pm
When we’re at the point that any time some Karen or Chad’s little snowflake is beaten in a sport by another little girl they go nuclear and accuse them of being trans. It’s hard enough being a girl without someone throwing that garbage.
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alex said on August 2, 2024 at 6:28 pm
So now we’re learning that U.S. intelligence had evidence of the Orange Turd pocketing a $10 million dollar bribe from the president of Egypt and Bill Barr killed the investigation (gift article): https://wapo.st/3SxAkvO
Considering how much unseemliness and grift went on right out in the open, this must be some serious shit. I’m amazed anyone gives Trump the benefit of the doubt that he wasn’t selling state secrets out of his bathroom and Aileen Cannon should be charged for aiding and abetting it.
We have to win and he and his enablers have to get what’s coming. Rock the vote!
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Sherri said on August 2, 2024 at 7:42 pm
Another podcast recommendation is Let The Kids Dance: https://www.kuow.org/podcasts/let-the-kids-dance
Even as grunge was making Seattle famous, Seattle was really the heart of grunge, because Seattle had a Teen Dance Ordinance, which made it impossible to hold all ages concerts. So music in Seattle was inaccessible to under-21 for almost 20 years, while the city of Redmond created and supported a space for teens to create and hear music. So for a little while in the 90’s, the Old Firehouse Teen Center in Redmond is where bands got their starts.
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brian stouder said on August 2, 2024 at 9:24 pm
Sherri – good stuff!; and thanks. Back in the ‘90’s I was immediately struck by Pearl Jam, and remain smitten to this day! And, some number of years ago a colleague at work won free tickets to see Pearl Jam (at Deer Creek, here in Indiana), and gave them to me (it was on a week-night, and he didn’t wanna do that) Needless to say, the show was magnificent….I’d rate it a 10 (pardon the pun!)
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Deborah said on August 2, 2024 at 9:27 pm
Oh that’s good “Fat Elvis Trump”, I’m going to have a hard time not thinking of that every time I think of him, which is unfortunately way too often.
Also someone referred to Vance as Pucker Face and I can’t think of anything except that when I see him either. He grew a beard to try to make it better but it didn’t work.
I read that article about the Egyptian $10 million investigation that probably lined Trump’s pocket that was squashed by Barr. It seems to me that Barr is turning up in all kinds of ways that seem interesting. Like Rupert Murdoch is trying to change his irrevocable trust which is an extremely hard and expensive thing to do, and guess who his attorney is?
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Jeff Gill said on August 2, 2024 at 10:46 pm
I saw Gretchen Whitmer today, and listened to her explaining to some interviewer or possibly friend/ally/acquaintance why she did not want to join the ticket. She was on her cell phone on the porch of the Michigan summer governor’s residence, and I was where tourists should be, but I think she was enjoying the view over the Straits of Mackinac and had been pacing her broad front porch (not the Grand Hotel’s, but not too shabby). When her increasingly audible voice rounded the corner just above us, she looked startled a moment and pivoted back out of sight (but still audible). My sympathy is with her: having seen a dozen Trump hats already on the island, why assume two tourists are friendly, let alone supporters. I hope her weekend is refreshing, but it looked like she was already leaving on this fine Friday afternoon.
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Jeff Gill said on August 2, 2024 at 10:56 pm
Context: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/09/gretchen-whitmer-profile/
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Sherri said on August 3, 2024 at 12:15 am
It’s certainly tiring and frustrating to have all the transphobes blather about how they’re protecting women’s sports when they don’t give a shit about women’s sports, they just hate transgender women, but it’s also a little frustrating dealing with people on the other end who also don’t understand that yes, there really are performance differences between men and women and sports that can’t just be waved away in weight classes. I had a discussion with someone on social media today who advocated just eliminating the man/woman distinction and just using weight classes. I told her that testosterone really does have an impact, that for a given body weight, there was a substantial difference in body composition between a man and a woman (a man is going to have more lean body mass, i.e. muscle), and you can’t just make that up with training.
Her answer? Then just take testosterone! Which, I guess, is a reasonable answer if every woman who wants to participate in sports wants to transition to being a man, but I’m not really interested in growing facial hair in order to be competitive with male lifters.
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David C said on August 3, 2024 at 6:14 am
I wonder if anyone has looked at the health of East German woman athletes from back in the 70s and 80s when they were given who knows what but testosterone was certainly in the mix. I bet even now 40+ years later that their health is messed up. Why repeat that mistake?
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ROGirl said on August 3, 2024 at 8:16 am
David C, I remembered an article from a number of years ago about what happened to some of those female East German athletes.
https://apnews.com/former-east-german-athlete-testifies-to-the-evils-of-doping-9667bb19663d413e8a65d265b5012dba
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Icarus said on August 3, 2024 at 12:22 pm
Sherri, I believe part of the problem is a not insignificant number of people who are complaining are Incels and they haven’t seen a vagina since coming out of their momther’s.
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Dexter Friend said on August 3, 2024 at 2:58 pm
I am calling it: Shapiro. He’s a former AG like Harris, he rose through the ranks time-wise with her, he’s a solid winner, and this: while Whitmer’s people have gotten Harris an 11+ lead in Michigan, Harris is steadily trailing in Pennsylvania, now -4. They can talk of other swing states until they force us to turn down the volume, but Harris MUST win Pennsylvania, and she is choosing her VP hours from now, and she is very needy of Shapiro. Muslim leaders are not against Shapiro at all because they say he is fair. Of course, all American successful politicians in the high exalted pool for veep-pick must vow to support Israel, no matter what religion or non-religion they adhere to. Shapiro being a Jew will not hurt Harris. It was not Lieberman who caused the catastrophic outcome of 2000. It was the crooked SCOTUS.
Huzzas to Remco Evenepoel! What a tremendous victory in the road race this morning, USA Eastern time. I just ain’t much into Olympics anymore , so this was my one and likely thrill, with 30-deep fans at the finishing lines screaming like hell erupted in cheers. What a show! Not even a flatted tire near the end could deter him as he grabbed a new bicycle and was off again, to glorious victory.
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Sherri said on August 3, 2024 at 3:46 pm
The true mystery to me is why JK Rowling has decided that being a very public transphobe is what she wants to be most remembered for. She could have just quietly gone about her business writing books, being obscenely wealthy, and being remembered as the author of a beloved childhood book series, but instead, she’s actively spreading hate.
The Silicon Valley tech billionaires acting like assholes isn’t surprising, because they were assholes long before they were billionaires. Maybe she was too.
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Deborah said on August 3, 2024 at 5:00 pm
I don’t pay a lot of attention to the JK Rowling stuff but I am surprised about a friend of ours in Chicago who is very liberal but very transphobic. She’s actually liberal to a fault, she always seems to take the most extreme liberal side on most things which I find unproductive for what she ultimately wants accomplished politically. She’s married to a man who puts up with her, bless him, he’s a saint. He’s liberal too but not nearly as extreme, thank goodness.
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FDChief said on August 3, 2024 at 5:03 pm
My recollection re: the East German doping was that a pretty big number of the people who were instrumental in the doping that spread thru professional sports (and became pervasive in some, like cycling) in the 80s and 90s got started there. Lots of the stuff – not just testosterone but HGH, steroids, EPO – that was cooked up was first imagined in the East.
So I imagine the German subjects of those early experiments are…not in a good way…
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Sherri said on August 3, 2024 at 5:58 pm
As I’m watching the Olympics is a variety of ways, from watching individual sports to Gold Zone on Peacock to even sometimes watching NBC, I’m reminded that it was only 14 years ago that the only way I could watch the Vancouver Olympics was tape-delayed on NBC, even though the events were happening live in my time zone just a couple of hours drive away. And CBC didn’t have the Canadian rights that year, so I didn’t have that option, either.
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Deborah said on August 3, 2024 at 7:00 pm
Wait? The right wing is making a stink about Doug Emhoff having an affair when he was married to his first wife, that supposedly caused the end of that marriage. Have they ever looked at the marital infidelities of their own presidential nominee? Weird.
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Dexter Friend said on August 4, 2024 at 12:06 am
CNN is now showing the putrid tale of John Edwards and Rielle Hunter. Perfect timing that the twisted soap opera is airing just hours after we learn Doug Emhoff also was a philandering marriage cheater.
In “Blue Velvet”, Frank Booth screams “the one fucken thing I can’t fucken stand is warm fucken BEER !”
And I can’t stand marriage cheaters. I have my personal reasons, and I am extremely prejudiced against people like John Edwards, and now, Doug Emhoff. Lying fucking cheating bastards, and women who do that shit are …… ….
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Deborah said on August 4, 2024 at 5:17 pm
Just think how much money insurance companies could make if gun ownership required insurance and the government required it like they do car insurance. Am I wrong? You would think insurance companies would be lobbying for it.
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David C said on August 4, 2024 at 5:44 pm
I saw my first Cybertruck today. It’s easy to see why raccoons are mistaking them for dumpsters. They’re not stupid. They know garbage when they see it.
https://autos.yahoo.com/racoons-mistake-cybertruck-trash-123000087.html
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