(I ran across this on currentstatus.io . Also, Mr. Musk is a bigger ass yet than I already thought he was. Vivian Wilson, on the other hand, seems well adjusted.)
Vivian Wilson is fact-checking own father after billionaire Elon Musk made bigoted comments about her gender.
The billionaire recently attacked gender-affirming care in an interview with conspiracy theorist Jordan Peterson for conservative platform the Daily Wire, claiming that the life-saving treatment “killed” his daughter while repeatedly misgendering her.
Musk said that when his daughter wanted to begin transitioning, he “was essentially tricked into signing documents” before he “had really any understanding of what was going on.” He said that doctors told him his daughter “might commit suicide” if she was prevented from receiving care.
“I lost my son. They call it ‘deadnaming’ for a reason,” Musk said. “The reason it’s called ‘deadnaming’ is because, your son is dead. So my son is dead, killed by the woke mind virus.”
Wilson has since responded to Musk’s assertions on Threads, the rival to his platform Twitter/X, saying that her biological father’s claims are so blatantly false that she’s “just started to find it funny at this point.” “
“Calling me dead on a podcast with JORDAN PETERSON of all people while basically admitting you have zero reading comprehension by saying you were “tricked” into signing documents that you read over multiple times is basically a parody of itself,” she wrote. “Like it’s honestly camp-“
Wilson then debunked some of Musk’s other assertions about her, among them several homophobic stereotypes about her youth, including that she was a fan of musical theatre (she wasn’t) and picking out clothes for Musk to wear (she didn’t). Musk also claimed that Wilson was “born slightly autistic.”
“This entire thing is completely made up and there’s a reason for this. He doesn’t know what I was like as a child because he quite simply wasn’t there, and in the little time that he was I was relentlessly harassed for my femininity and queerness,” Wilson wrote. “Obviously he can’t say that, so I’ve been reduced to a happy little stereotype f*g-ing along to use at his discretion. I think that says a lot about how he views queer people and children in general.”https://www.threads.net/@vivllainous/post/C91xDGJSUX_/embed/
Wilson, 20, is one of six children (five living) Musk had with his first wife, model Justine Wilson. She filed a petition in Los Angeles County Superior Court in April, 2022 to legally change her name and gender, citing the reason as “Gender identity and the fact that I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form.”
Wilson then shot back at her father’s claims that she is “not a girl,” telling Musk to “go touch some fucking grass.”
“As for if I’m not a woman… sure, Jan. Whatever you say. I’m legally recognized as a woman in the state of California and I don’t concern myself with the opinions of those who are below me,” she wrote. “Obviously Elon can’t say the same because in a ketamine-fueled haze, he’s desperate for attention and validation from an army of degenerate red-pilled incels and pick-mes who are quick to give it to him.”
I’ve become cynical in the last decade, but I am holding out hope that Vice President Kamala Harris can lead the country into a new chapter.
This piece first appeared in our weekly newsletter, The Fallout.
By now you’ve heard President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race on Sunday and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, which either puts the nation on a path to more progressive reform and the first woman president or catapults Donald Trump back into the White House.
As a college student, I am excited for the possibility of Harris winning the nomination at the Democratic National Convention, and I’m eager to see who she chooses as her running mate. However, I am also terrified by the chaos because it has made the results of this presidential election so unclear, and the impact of the outcome will last longer than a four-year term.
This turn of events has to be a resounding wake-up call for our country. I was worried that choosing Biden to beat Trump in 2020 was putting a placeholder president in the White House, and one that wouldn’t offer much change. But I was wrong. And with Harris as the presumptive nominee, the country gets an even stronger advocate for reproductive rights.
In 2019, co-sponsored the EACH Woman Act—repealing the Hyde Amendment, which prevented federal funds from being used to provide abortions.
By Monday evening, Harris had already amassed the endorsements of enough delegates to clinch the nomination. Delegates from more than half the states—including California, Florida, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas—have already pledged their support. The rest are expected by the end of the week.
I’ve become very cynical in the past decade, but I am holding out hope that Harris can lead us into a new chapter. I am tired of choosing the best of the worst options when I stare down a ballot, and if she wins, a little of my faith in our country will be restored.
Harris would not only be the first woman president and the first Black and Asian woman president, but would open doors for more radical change. I’ve decided that we cannot be complacent with blind trust in the Democratic Party, nor paralyzed with fear of what another four years under Trump would bring. For the first time in my lifetime, the Harris nomination presents a real choice to move forward, and I hope the country takes it.
Genetics explains bizarre echidna and platypus stomachs
July 24, 2024 Imma Perfetto
Monotremes are weird animals. They’re famously the only mammals to lay eggs instead of live young.
But did you know that they also have bizarre stomachs more akin to some fish than other mammals?
Platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) and short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus) gastric systems are abnormally small, and lack the glands for secreting enzymes and acidic juices.
Platypus even go without a pyloric sphincter – the ring of smooth muscle that acts like a valve to regulate the flow of partially digested food from the stomach to the small intestine. This makes it difficult to tell the different between the oesophagus and intestines!
Now, Australian researchers have pinpointed a single gene, the NK3 homeobox 2 (Nkx3.2), as the likely cause for all this weirdness. The gene probably became inactivated tens of millions of years ago in the most recent ancestor of modern monotremes.
“Work from our lab previously had shown that the platypus and echidna had lost the genetic instructions for proteins that break down food and secrete stomach acids, but to me this didn’t explain the drastic shift in their stomach anatomy relative to other animals,” says Jackson Dann, a PhD student at the University of Adelaide and lead author of a new study detailing the discovery in the journal Open Biology.
“Thanks to novel repositories of genetic data, and physical specimens we had at the lab, we were able to discover that Nkx3.2 wasn’t functional in monotremes and that this inactivating event contributed to the evolution of their unique body plans.”
Apart from monotremes, only some aquatic and semi-aquatic fishes have lost their stomachs over the course of their evolutionary past.
The Australian ghostshark (Callorhinchus milii), Japanese puffer (Takifugu rubripes), zebrafish (Danio rerio), and Japanese rice fish (Oryzias latipes) all lack the same hydrochloric acid and gastric enzyme genes as seen in monotremes.
Australian ghost fish (Callorhinchus milii). Credit: Hannah Smith (CC BY-NC 4.0)
“It’s likely there is some overarching ecological factor we’re missing as to why these species have lost their stomach,” says Dann.
“It’s otherwise surprising that we would see these drastic shifts in stomach anatomy in monotremes and then the next closely related species are loose groups of fish.”
Dann and co-authors suggest that if this was a trait associated with aquatic and semi-aquatic organisms, their evidence would support a semi-aquatic ancestor of the short-beaked echidna and platypus.
Subsequent adaptations to the echidna lineage would have then allowed them to become specialised for terrestrial environments.
According to Dann, the more we know about monotremes, the more we can appreciate their role in their ecosystems and celebrate their eccentricities.
He highlights ecology endeavours like EchidnaCSI, which is an Australia-wide citizen science project helping conserve wild echidnas.
“A better understanding of these unique and iconic species provides a significant contribution to Australian ecology and culture, they help us understand more about mammals, including ourselves,” says Dann.
Happy Thursday all. It sure is a new day. Got a few things for you today:
The Biden Boom Keeps Booming – We just got the 2nd quarter GDP number and it was a very good one – 2.8%. The economy has grown by an average of about 3% in each year of the Biden Presidency – remarkable stuff, and certainly much faster than any other advanced economy in the world. Right now growth is strong, the job market the best since the 1960s, the stock market keeps breaking records, inflation fell last month and is at the Fed target of 2% over the last six months, the uninsured rate is at historic lows and new business formation keeps running at record highs. Under Joe Biden America has prospered, and as the Wall Street Journal wrote recently, our economy today is “the envy of the world.” Importantly, contrary to the media rabble, Americans know things are better where they are:
Joe Biden has been a consequential and successful President. The country is far better off today. We need to be loud and proud about all this economic success, my friends, for it is true and it is really going to matter in the months to come.
President Biden’s Historic Oval Office Speech – In my Tuesday night talk and in posts this week we’ve discussed how President Biden’s decision not to run was a powerful affirmation of American democracy in a time when democracy here and everywhere is under threat. An “American Cincinnatus” I’ve been calling him, something we will be discussing more in the days ahead. I watched the speech. Have it read it over several times. I’ve included the transcript of the speech at the end of this post for you to spend time with today and in the coming days. Here’s my favorite passage:
We are a great nation because we are a good people. When you elected me to this office, I promised to always level with you, to tell you the truth. And the truth, the sacred cause of this country, is larger than any one of us. Those of us who cherry that cause cherish it so much. The cause of American democracy itself. We must unite to protect it.
In recent weeks, it has become clear to me that I need to unite my party in this critical endeavor. I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America’s future, all merited a second term. But nothing, nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition.
So I’ve decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. It’s the best way to unite our nation. I know there was a time and a place for long years of experience in public life. There’s also a time and a place for new voices, fresh voices, yes, younger voices. And that time and place is now.
One of those fresh voices released her first campaign video this morning. It is clearly a new campaign, with a new candidate, a new vibe, a new argument:
Here’s the text from the ad. Many of you ask for talking points to help make your arguments better, more compelling. Well, here they are:
In this election, we each face a question.
What kind of country do we want to live in?
There are some people who think we should be a country of chaos. Of fear. Of hate.
But us. We choose something different.
We choose freedom.
The freedom not just to get by, but get ahead. The freedom to be safe from gun violence. The freedom to make decisions about your own body.
We choose a future where no child lives in poverty. Where we all can afford health care, where no one is above the law.
We believe in the promise of America and we are ready to fight for it.
Because when we fight, we win. So join us.
Go to kamalaharris.com and let’s get to work.
I like this new language, this new narrative, this new argument. It’s very good stuff coming this early in the transition, and we should expect it to evolve as the campaign matures and road tests all this stuff. I particularly like the way the Vice President talks about the economy and opportunity. It’s simple, smart and effective:
the freedom to not just to get by, but get ahead
Here we go people. The torch has been passed.
So I’ve decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. It’s the best way to unite our nation. I know there was a time and a place for long years of experience in public life. There’s also a time and a place for new voices, fresh voices, yes, younger voices. And that time and place is now.
And yes it’s time to get to work, and go out and win this thing, together.
Donate and volunteer for our next President, Kamala Harris, today!
Fired Up, Ready To Go/My Interview With Will Rollins (CA-41) – I am excited to share a new interview with Will Rollins, one of our Hopium 12, who is running to flip a very competitive seat in Southern California. Will is a very impressive candidate. He’s smart, experienced, determined. I think you will enjoy our discussion, above, and here are ways you can help Will win – Donate to Will | Volunteer | Learn more.
This is the fifth candidate interview in our Winning The House campaign. Perhaps watch some of the others this weekend – Janelle Bynum (OR-5), George Whitesides (CA-27), Kirsten Engel (AZ-06) and Andrei Cherny (AZ-01). We have a great set of candidates running this cycle and if we do the work we can flip the House, sending the extremist, insurrectionist Mike Johnson packing. You can donate to all 12 here in a single donation, or visit our Winning The House page to donate to the candidates individually. Together, we’ve already raised over $630,000 for these intrepid twelve. Many of you are already working hard on their elections. Your response to this campaign has been incredible and inspiring.
Let’s keep working for the Hopium-endorsed candidates and state parties:
Harris For President – $730,000 raised today, $1m goal – Donate | Volunteer | Learn More. The $730,000 raised is both Biden-Harris and the $130,000 we’ve already raised for Harris for President. Note the new campaign released its first Harris for President merch this week. Stuff looks good!
Winning The House – $583,000 raised today, $600,000 goal – Donate | Volunteer | Learn More. We’ve also raised more then $50,000 into the individual House campaigns (you can either give to all 12 or each one individually)
Read a new interview with me in the NYTimes about our new election, and catch a new Deep State Radio podcast with me, David Rothkopf and Tara McGowan talking about the promise of this remarkable and hopeful moment.
Finally help me spread Hopium and grow this plucky community. Sign others up to be a Hopium subscriber at this link. Note that options for group and gift subscriptions are available to those who want to bring friends and colleagues into the Hopium community. Click on the group and gift tabs here to learn more. To update your payment information or check your renewal status follow these instructions from Substack. We are now over 95,000 strong – let’s keep the community growing and the Hopium flowing!
Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you – Simon
Imma Perfetto
Scottie's Playtime 