I mean, I’m vegan, I don’t want her to eat fish tacos. But she was telling me the other day that her friend ordered some and she thought for a moment about trying it, but in the end she was afraid they would be too spicy. I told her they’re not, but she has it in her head that fish tacos are some strange foreign food that will fuck up her taste buds or something. A grown ass adult afraid to try fish tacos.

Then you have my dad. He is surprisingly cool with me being vegan, doesn’t really care. He’s never criticized or made fun. But he will never eat any vegan meal I prepare. Why? Because he won’t eat any entree that doesn’t have meat in it. He just refuses. Like an adult baby. My mom has asked him to just try eating a salad but he won’t. Absolutely zero interest in trying anything new that he thinks he won’t like.

Old white people are weird.

I feel like I’ve read plenty about the historical materialist understanding about how the US constitution was formed and its class characteristics, but a lot less about the actual act of declaring independence. I do know how a bunch of the founding fathers made fortunes from land speculation via genocide and stealing indigenous land; and how the Brits wouldn’t let the yanks do that because they didn’t want to start another incredibly expensive war with the native peoples. I’ve also read of Gerald Horne’s thesis about how the founding fathers were worried that GB would totally outlaw slavery. I have a lot respect for Horne, he’s great but frankly I think that theory has little to no concrete evidence supporting it. But those two are the only materialist analyses of independence that I’ve seen so far.

I just got into Major League Soccer this year. I've been loving it, I feel like I've missed out not having soccer in my life all these years. Obviously the sport isn't complicated per se - just put the ball in the goal. But I'd like to know more about the basics. Like, I don't even really know all the positions or what these formations are. Or like, how to tell if a team is doing good/bad when they aren't scoring at rhat moment. Any videos or whatever is appreciated.

Under the regulations, which a department spokeswoman said are still being finalized, health workers will need to:

•Disclose to patients that the use of puberty-blocker drugs or hormones to treat gender identity disorder or gender dysphoria is "experimental and is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration." Inform patients that the FDA has warned that puberty blockers can lead to brain swelling and blindness.

•Ensure that patients have received full psychological or psychiatric assessments of at least 15 separate hourly sessions over at least 18 months, and that such conditions have been treated and resolved.

•Adopt and follow procedures to track for 15 years any adverse effects of gender transition for all patients.

The emergency rules also require providers to screen for autism before providing treatment.

In the discussion of this on Reddit, people are pointing out that while the AG's verbal comments talk about these regulations being about trans youth, nothing in the text of the regulations specify that they are only for trans youth. So while trans youth aren't safe in Missouri (there's already an anti-GAC for youth bill approved by the Senate and will almost certainly be signed by the hillbilly GOP governor), it's very possible that Missouri is no longer safe for trans adults, either.

Not to mention the insidious stuff about mental health, basically (here's the CW for ableism - sorry it appears the "spoiler" thing isn't working):

If you are diagnosed with autism, you could be denied treatment. If you are diagnosed with any mental illnesses, you could be denied treatment. If you don't have at least 15 counseling sessions in 18 months (so puberty might have already have really kicked in) you can be denied treatment.

I have 2. The People's Republic of Walmart is one. Maybe I feel this way because I work in the industry and I'm a little familiar with central planning techniques... but I just thought it was all fluff with little substance. I felt like more than one chapter was just "Walmart and Amazon do central planning so it's possible" without getting into a lot of the details. Very little about the nuts and bolts of central planning. Throw in a good dose of anti-Stalinism when the man oversaw successful central planning... I just didn't get anything out of it. Might be OK if you want a real basic introduction behind the ideas of planning but honestly I bet like 95% of you already know more about it than you realize.

And I love Graeber but jeez, I couldn't even finish Bullshit Jobs. It felt like a good article that was blown out into a book. Maybe my expectations were too high but I felt like he spent way too many pages getting into minutiae about what is/isn't a bullshit job without actually making a broader point.

Of course the US Senate is incredibly undemocratic and was set up to cement the power of the wealthy against people wanting to do stuff. It sucks. But at least I can understand the rationale given by people who would defend it. The 13 colonies were distinct entities, and the Senate was structured (on paper) to represent the interests of these distinct entities.

But every single state other than Nebraska has a "House" and a "Senate". And as far as I can tell, the Senate district boundaries are completely arbitrary. So what's the point?! No state other than maybe ones like CA or TX could have distinct subdivisions. It's either pointlessly redundant with the state House or broken up by a weird map that only serves to gum up the works (though I guess that's the point).

There in no excuse in 2023 for a form of government other than everyone's vote counting equally (with a possible exception for overweighting the votes of marginalized peoples, but that's such a far out possibility there's not much point in bringing it up). I can explain in detail how the Cuban electoral system is way more democratic than the US to an American, and they will just shut down and insist our system is more democratic regardless.