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jessaustinon The Tyranny of Science over Mothers

"Bring race into it", e.g. acknowledging there is a concept called "race" and that it affects many people's opportunities and potential wealth is not "race-baiting". You would know this, if you had taken your ESL class from someone other than Bill O'Reilly, or if you had read the article I linked above discussing this very issue. I didn't say you should be ashamed of racism, because I didn't at any point accuse you of racism. You ought to be ashamed... of your poor usage of English. In an attempt to steelman your poor argument, I had offered the possibility that you maybe didn't consider the treatment of Native American women in Oklahoma to be representative of treatment of women in general in USA. Apparently I needn't have bothered, because you managed to take offense rather than taking the point. So prickly!

The prerogative of women to ingest whatever they want, at any time, just as if they were men, is precisely the topic of this discussion, in contradiction to thread parent's claim that common beliefs about pregnancy only affect women if they lack determination. If we abide sexist prosecutors' ideas about Valium and marijuana, they'll soon be convicting pregnant women for taking Tylenol.

Men are charged with assault when they assault people. Women too are charged with assault in that case, but you also want them charged with assault when they take half a Valium, because "democracy". If you think that a democracy would ever give the voters a binary choice between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, there is for sure no point in your taking part in any discussion. Also for some reason you still think we were ever discussing Dobbs ITT. I would suggest (against HN guidelines!) you read TFA, but at this point in the thread it's clear that wouldn't help.

jessaustinon I fixed a parasitic drain on my car in 408 days

It would take someone more skilled than I, or with better tools, to check current in a fuse box without removing fuses. Maybe I should watch that guy and get better...

jessaustinon I fixed a parasitic drain on my car in 408 days

Pulling fuses is a pretty reliable way to find the relevant fuse in the first place. If the battery doesn't run down while a particular group of fuses is pulled, the one you want to pull is in that group. Start with half the fuses, then narrow down.

You might have to reprogram your radio channels...

jessaustinon The ghost of Ancient Rome haunts America

If you find such an article post it; I'd like to read something about that. Maybe it could also address the idea that economies based on exploitation are inherently unstable...

jessaustinon The TikTok Hearings Inspired Little Faith in Social Media or in Congress

Full text 1A:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

There's nothing in there about foreign entities or any other authors of speech. It's about speech (and religion and assembly and petition) itself, which the state is directed to leave the fuck alone. The variety of zany things any particular entity might want to say is not even the main point. Freedom of speech is important because it means we get to hear and read and experience speech from everyone and everywhere. As soon as a line is drawn around speakers we're not allowed to hear, we no longer have the freedom of speech. Many people are confused about this because they habitually speak without listening. Those of us who mostly listen are not confused in this manner.

jessaustinon The TikTok Hearings Inspired Little Faith in Social Media or in Congress

If he had just said the widely-known-outside-USA truth, that there is no "genocide" of Uighurs, lots of people would have gotten upset. He doesn't care one way or the other about our latest fundamentalist-Christian-inspired intended casus belli, so the less he says about it the better for his firm.

jessaustinon The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

A long time ago I worked in an office like that. I usually biked to commute, so when we had one more person going than cars going to lunch, I just biked to the restaurant as well. Otherwise, I rode in someone's car. Still, none of the drivers did this "daily". Neither this nor sibling comment describe a "daily" situation. If you need a big sedan once a month and big SUV twice a year, just rent at those times and drive something more practical the rest of the year.

jessaustinon Alibaba breaks itself up in six

Don't expect rational history on HN. We regularly see e.g. comparisons of Putin to Hitler.

jessaustinon The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

All day long, every day, the news media attempts to gin up more wars. They foster ignorance, fear, and hatred. Foreign leaders who haven't been in the news for years are made the primary focus overnight, just because that's where we're supposed to bomb next. Not all of us can even imagine why we should fight people in other hemispheres who've never done anything to us, so our fear and hatred lands closer to home. That's a big reason we have such tyrannical prison sentences.

If we didn't have a gigantic military that spends over a trillion dollars a year on the purchase of armaments, our armaments manufacturers would have less money to make our news media insane.

jessaustinon The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

...I wouldn't choose that car to drive 4 adults daily.

Is this a typical thing that cars do? I'm not sure if I've seen 4 adults in a car in the last month.

jessaustinon Police relied on Clearview AI and put the wrong person in jail

No one who has read your link would then question whether the chief executive is a principal: of course not. In polities who aspire to representative government, agents are anyone in public employ. Principals are the rest of us. Our interests are not served by solving problems without oversight, as GP suggests.

jessaustinon Police relied on Clearview AI and put the wrong person in jail

Yes, that exists, obviously. However, it's perfectly valid for someone to prefer a particular site to override an OS or browser setting.

jessaustinon Police relied on Clearview AI and put the wrong person in jail

Cookies are used for things as simple as nighttime color theme preference. Someone more knowledgeable than either of us will probably point out that GDPR doesn't care about cookies like that...

jessaustinon Police relied on Clearview AI and put the wrong person in jail

This crap does not benefit any defensible purpose of government. Probably it does benefit certain government employees. The principal-agent problem appears again.

jessaustinon The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

You want USA to look worse? If so, by all means, emphasize our racial disparities.

jessaustinon An Anxious Asia Arms for a War It Hopes to Prevent

...for South China Sea dominance...

Try as I might, I can't escape the conclusion that it is totally valid for China to "dominate" a body of water called the South China Sea. In similar fashion, Thailand dominates the adjoining Gulf of Thailand. That isn't to say that neighbors like Vietnam or Indonesia don't also have interests, or indeed that shipping wouldn't be welcome under any flag, but simple straightforward reality is right there in the name. If there were some other entity called e.g. The Holy Righteous Ethical Sea Dominators, maybe they would have a case for dominating the South China Sea or any other part of the ocean. There is no such entity.

jessaustinon An Anxious Asia Arms for a War It Hopes to Prevent

As is commonly the case, Caitlin Johnstone has the most insightful analysis:

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2023/03/27/the-new-york-times-i...

jessaustinon An Anxious Asia Arms for a War It Hopes to Prevent

None of this may be enough to match China. Its own surging arsenal now includes “monster” coast guard cutters...

jessaustinon Time to end the speed limit in US airspace?

Suggestions about how Canada could improve really ought to be directed to the Canadians. They might be amenable to different policies in sparsely populated regions like Hudson Bay. Continental USA has no analogous areas.

Non-Americans who wish to complain about USA have a broad range of topics from which to choose; there's really no need to complain that USA regulates the operation of airlines in USA airspace.

jessaustinon Time to end the speed limit in US airspace?

Los Angeles is not "outside of the US". Besides, less than 20% of that trip is in USA airspace. Slow down when you hit North Dakota...

https://www.greatcirclemapper.net/en/great-circle-mapper.htm...

jessaustinon Missouri lawmakers move to strip library funding, retaliate for book ban lawsuit

Parents have some measure of authority in their homes, although sometimes the law acts in the interests of e.g. abused children. Public employees on public property don't take direction from parents, nor should they. Public school employees are managed by an elected body called the school board. Since school boards meet in the actual communities they govern, they are often somewhat democratic in nature. If parents don't like this situation, they can keep the children home where bookshelves, if they existed, would contain nothing but bibles and the "Left Behind" series. (Too bad about algebra and English...)

State legislatures are mostly not democratic. Rather than implementing the will of their constituents, state legislators spend their time campaigning and representing for those who fund their campaigning. TFA is just another example.

"...to draw the line as you say..."

To be clear, you introduced this banal cliche, and I used it once in response.

jessaustinon Missouri lawmakers move to strip library funding, retaliate for book ban lawsuit

Both of the Republicans quoted in TFA "represent" suburban districts on the Kansas border. Not rural, and only technically Missourian.

jessaustinon Missouri lawmakers move to strip library funding, retaliate for book ban lawsuit

Somehow one doubts that a new "Kindergarten is Mostly Hardcore Porn Appreciation" charter elementary would escape legislative attention in our increasingly authoritarian climate...

A "Kindergarten is Mostly Singing Songs about Jesus" charter elementary, OTOH? We may have a few hundred of those already.

jessaustinon Missouri lawmakers move to strip library funding, retaliate for book ban lawsuit

TFA contains no examples of children being shown "sexually explicit material" by educators in public employ. I've never heard of it happening in Missouri, and I have lived here for decades. Thread parent has shown no indication of bigotry. You don't seem to be discussing this issue in good faith.

jessaustinon Missouri lawmakers move to strip library funding, retaliate for book ban lawsuit

I live in one of the most rural counties in Missouri, where libraries could actually close as a result, and I doubt I could find one parent in ten among my neighbors who wants the legislature to waste time on this cynical grandstanding. The problem with our libraries is not that there is pornography there. One notes that both of the execrable politicians quoted in TFA represent suburban districts on the Kansas border. I'm sure there are people in the Ozarks who agree with them, but overall we've got different priorities.

The unwarranted assumption you make in this comment is that legislation in USA reflects the will of the population. That is very rarely the case, and this is a perfect example. No one in this state woke up this morning worried about porn in an elementary school library.

I support vouchers, because even imperfect improvements are improvements. If a child isn't being served by a school, even poor parents should be able to do something about that. We can imagine a world in which the public schools offer enough options to help every child, but we don't live there yet.

jessaustinon Missouri lawmakers move to strip library funding, retaliate for book ban lawsuit

The line should be drawn wherever parents, teachers, and librarians choose to draw it. Politicians should not be involved. Top-down meddling has destroyed public education in USA, and this is just more of that. At some point we should stop making public schools worse.

jessaustinon We updated our RSA SSH host key

In this case "not just" would have been more legible than "just not".

jessaustinon Give babies peanut butter to cut peanut allergies, study says

Tallow, from cattle and sheep, would be fine I think. Pigs are considered unclean for some reason. Benzene is just a sunscreen ingredient.

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/benzene-in-sunscreen/

jessaustinon Give babies peanut butter to cut peanut allergies, study says

If operating with the best model you have is intuitive and not logical, then everything in science it intuitive and not logical, so we might have to redefine your use of "logical" to be more useful.

When you're defending a position now known to be wrong, this sort of statement is more rude than it is enlightening (or convincing).

jessaustinon Give babies peanut butter to cut peanut allergies, study says

A relevant book, coming out next week:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/675683/poverty-by-a...