This is for those who have tried to say that gametes are the total determination of sex. That is wrong and has been wrong for some time. Again gains in scientific medical studies shows sex is not binary. Medical understanding has evolved, knowledge has moved on from the textbooks of the 1950s. I wish some people could. What an incredible video. At the very end in a small few second clips he explains about his finger nails. Hugs
A new study has exposed the startling lack of access to sexual healthcare in the UK. After testing the healthcare resources across Great Britain, the researchers nearly half of all requests for doctor’s appointments concerning sexual health were denied.
The study was conducted by Terrence Higgins Trust, a nonprofit focused on HIV and sexual health services, with support from British Association of Sexual Health and HIV. In the UK, the National Health Service is funded by the government, and the researchers wanted to examine “the state of sexual health services after a decade of austerity.”
Under the persona of a ‘mystery shopper’ called ‘Gabriela,’ the researchers contacted 57 clinics in England, Scotland, and Wales to try to book a sexual health appointment. ‘Gabriela’ was described as being in her mid-20s, having recently had unprotected sex with both men and women, and as experiencing no symptoms. The researchers chose this persona in order to test whether clinics prioritized symptomatic patients, given that asymptomatic patients are common in STIs like chlamydia.
The Right is Using a Sneaky New Trick to Ban Gender-Affirming Care
>Like many such challenges, the case hinges on whether a gender-affirming care ban constitutes sex discrimination.
What they found was that 49% of appointment requests in all three countries were denied. The remaining 51% did offer face-to-face appointments, but with wait times averaging 13 days (19 in rural areas).
While these appointments were successfully made by telephone, online booking proved challenging. In England, only 10% of clinics offered online booking, none in Wales, 44% in Scotland.
Only 11% of clinics offered walk-in appointments without exceptions. Postal STI testing, meanwhile, varied wildly. All clinics in Wales offered mail-in testing, but only 56% in Scotland did.
In consequence, the researchers are calling on all three countries to provide free year-round postal testing, easy access to online appointment booking, and to reduce wait times to no more than 48 hours.
“The sexual health of the nation has consistently been ignored by Central Government,” said Richard Angell, Chief Executive of Terrence Higgins Trust. “A wake-up call is needed. If more than 1,000 new STIs being diagnosed each and every day does not incentivize policy change and renewed investment, it is hard to see what will.
“Ultimately, you get what you pay for – the lowest real terms spending on sexual health is matched by the highest rates of sexually transmitted infections.
“The Government should guarantee long-term funding settlements for sexual health services at a rate of inflation plus 1 percent so as to address years of consistent under-funding.”
Conservative consumers are more likely than their liberal counterparts to complain across various service contexts, according to new research published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology. The findings provide evidence for the role of entitlement in explaining ideological differences in complaining behavior.
Previous research suggested that conservatives complain less than liberals due to their higher level of system justification motivation (SJM), which involves defending institutions and perceiving policies as fair. However, this account may not apply to service contexts where self-interested motivations are prioritized over system justification. Therefore, the researchers aimed to investigate whether conservatives would complain more than liberals due to their higher sense of entitlement.
“I have always been interested in political ideology as an area of research,” said study author Steven Shepherd, an associate professor and William S. Spears Chair in Marketing and International Business at Oklahoma State University.
“Some recent research in marketing finds that liberal consumers are more inclined to complain that conservatives, and although their theorizing makes sense, a lot of political ideology theory and research suggests that conservatives might in fact complain more than liberals. So we wanted to explore that side of things and provide a more complete account of how political ideology relates to consumer complaining.”
The researchers conducted a series of three studies to explore the relationship between political ideology and complaining behavior.
In Study 1, the researchers recruited 301 American participants from Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). The participants rated their likelihood of complaining across six scenarios (e.g., “Imagine you are getting a takeout order from a restaurant and it is taking much longer than usual for it to be ready. How likely are you to give a smaller tip because of this?”). They also completed measures of political ideology, consumer entitlement, and SJM.
Political ideology was measured using a single item, where participants indicated their position on a spectrum ranging from “very liberal” to “very conservative.” This allowed the researchers to categorize participants as either liberal or conservative based on their responses.
To measure consumer entitlement, participants responded to an 11-item scale developed by Butori (2010). The scale assessed participants’ beliefs about their deservingness of special treatment or benefits as consumers. Participants indicated their level of agreement or disagreement with statements such as “I deserve better treatment than the average customer.”
Finally, participants completed an eight-item scale to measure their level of system justification motivation. The SJM scale captured participants’ tendencies to defend and view overarching institutions, organizations, and norms as fair and just. Participants rated their agreement or disagreement with statements such as “Most of the time, the system works well and is fair.”
The results showed that political ideology, consumer entitlement, SJM, and complaining intentions were positively correlated. The researchers found that conservatives had higher consumer entitlement, which predicted increased complaining intentions. This relationship held even when controlling for demographic variables.
To further explore the findings, Study 2 focused on the influence of social comparison and the perception of deservingness. The researchers recruited 791 American participants from MTurk. They presented participants with a scenario in which they overheard another customer receiving a special discount due to their status as a student or a police officer.
The researchers predicted that conservatives would feel less entitled and show lower complaining intentions when a police officer received a discount, as conservatives tend to view the police as a fair authority. The results supported this hypothesis, revealing that conservatives showed higher entitlement in the student condition and lower entitlement in the police officer condition. Moreover, conservatives exhibited higher complaining intentions in the student condition but not in the police officer condition.
In Study 3, the researchers extended their investigation to service recoveries. They recruited 594 American participants from MTurk and presented them with a scenario where they experienced a delay in a restaurant delivery. Participants were assigned to either a control condition, where they received an apology and a standard discount, or a special treatment condition, where they were told their situation was unique and received a special discount. In line with the previous studies, conservatives showed higher complaining intentions in the control condition but not in the special treatment condition.
“We consistently found that conservative consumers expressed an increased willingness to complain about various service experiences. This was due to conservatives on average being higher in consumer entitlement; that is, feeling that they are not just ‘any other customer’ and are more deserving of special treatment and consideration than other customers.”
These results contribute to a better understanding of ideological differences in complaining behavior and highlight the role of consumer entitlement as a novel mechanism and predictor in consumer political ideology research. However, the researchers note that future research utilizing behavioral data from different sources and exploring potential moderating factors can provide further insights into the relationship between ideology and complaining behavior.
“The predicted effect was quite robust across a range of different everyday service situations. Throughout the research we didn’t find evidence to the contrary; that is, that liberals complain more than conservatives. In the paper we propose a number of contextual factors, either individually or in combination, that might play a role, and future research might be able to more precisely pin down exactly when and why conservatives vs. liberals complain more vs. less.”
If you remember Der DeathSantis attacked hard anyone who disagreed with his covid denial. When the vaccines were first made available the governor made sure his wealthy friends got first chance to get them, making sure distribution sites were next to or in wealthy enclaves. Then he held a sort of lottery where the pharmacy / company that gave him the largest donation would have exclusive rights to give out the vaccine. That was the Publix chain of grocery stores, which are found by and run on “Christian” principles. When state officials challenged his views of forcing companies to violate federal guidelines, he fired them and used the state legal authorities to attack and harm the whistleblowers. When the state medical community would go along with him he fired them, and hired one of the Frontline doctors that were scamming the maga by charging $90 or more for a short video medical consultation and then charged them for an Ivermectin prescription. This was led by the “semen doctor” who claimed demons were having sex with people leaving demon semen seed in them causing all sorts of illnesses. His new quack head of the Florida health department is a complete anti-vaccine covid denying fraud who is now raking in almost $600,000 when he first took the position because Der DeathSantis forced a state university to make him their president. Not a bad gig, going from scamming random maga people to making over half a million a year just to parrot and provide pseudo-science reasons for what ever the governor proclaims. Hugs
In Florida, unlike the nation as a whole — and states like New York and California that Mr. DeSantis likes to single out — most people who died from Covid died after vaccines became available to all adults, not before. As the governor’s political positions began to shift, so did his state’s death rate, for the worse.
Mr. DeSantis and his aides have said that his opposition was to mandates, not to the vaccinations themselves. They say the governor only questioned the efficacy of the shots once it became evident that they did not necessarily prevent infection — which prompted him to criticize experts and the federal government.
Tapping into the Republican revolt against scientific authority made him a political star. But that revolt came with costs. “These were preventable deaths,” Dr. Rivkees, who resigned as Florida’s surgeon general in September 2021, said in a recent interview.
“But a close review by The New York Times of Florida’s pandemic response, including a new analysis of the data on deaths, hospitalizations and vaccination rates in the state, suggests that Mr. DeSantis’s account of his record leaves much out.” https://t.co/4LsHKr4pIW
Reminder that DeSantis was actually pro-vaccine before he was against them. He touted their effectiveness in reducing mortality rates. He changed his tune and became anti-vax because of his insane right wing base and people died as a result. A dangerous, empty suit charlatan. https://t.co/rnDZsv1lKGpic.twitter.com/k8k8xEtLOQ
Siccing the cops was even worse because they took her computer that she was using to track the true Florida COVID rate, which she had the audacity to make publicly available. DeSaster couldn’t tolerate that.
So the NYT thinks NOW this is news? By the end of 2020, anyone with half a brain knew DeathSantis was killing off his own citizens in the name of “liberty”.
It may be obvious to us that Florida did worse on COVID than DeSantis has been pretending, but it’s valuable reporting to look at the data and tell the truth, especially since there is the wide impression, if you look only at overall numbers, that FL didn’t do any worse than a number of blue states.That red states in general and Republicans specifically died in greater numbers after vaccines were approved and after their political leaders began poo-pooing their effectiveness has been underreported.
The NYT did have a number of articles about the increasing disparity between red-state and blue-state COVID deaths after the vaccines.
I haven’t read this entire NYT piece as it just came out, but my impression is that it uses data compiled over several years—it’s hard to do perfectly timely reporting on data that takes years to accumulate.
What’s the difference between the Jaws mayor and Ron DeSantis? One’s a politician who ignored warnings about an obvious danger and left the beaches open, resulting in preventable deaths, and the other’s a character in a Steven Spielberg movie.
Mr. DeSantis and his aides have said that his opposition was to mandates, not to the vaccinations themselves. They say the governor only questioned the efficacy of the shots once it became evident that they did not necessarily prevent infection — which prompted him to criticize experts and the federal government.
Something the vaccines were neither designed to do nor approved for.
Few vaccines, never mind against this kind of virus, are 100 percent effective at preventing exposure from becoming an infection, the Republicans whine that these were running around ‘only’ 90-95 percent before they bred yet more strains with their ddeniallism and disease-spreading.
This film was made to sell to high school media departments who purchased it to show to their juniors and seniors. Students in public high schools were being exposed to the concept of propaganda, especially given the context of World War II and the early Cold War. At this time there was an emphasis on educating citizens, including school children, about the role of propaganda. Would anyone make a film like this to run in schools involving media fake media or not?
Propaganda from all sides was studied including in history or social studies classes. Teachers used examples from Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy or Imperial Japan to illustrate how propaganda was used to control information and manipulate public opinion during the war.
In civics or government classes, students discussed propaganda in the context of democratic values, freedom of speech and the role of the press. This included conversations about the differences between propaganda, misinformation, and the free exchange of ideas. In English or other language arts classes propaganda was discussed as a form of rhetoric or persuasion.
The early stages of the Cold War and the 1948 presidential election were events for discussion in classrooms. Teachers used these current events to talk about the role of propaganda in politics and international relations.
High school clubs and other extracurricular activities focused on debate, journalism and politics.
Many Americans were well aware of political propaganda in 1948. Political Campaigns: Many people recognized the use of slogans, posters, and speeches during political campaigns as forms of persuasion, if not always identifying these tactics explicitly as “propaganda.”
Given the early stages of the Cold War, Americans were being exposed to constant anti-communist messaging from the government and media. Some saw this as propaganda, though others saw it as necessary information or patriotic messaging.
Newspapers, radio broadcasts, and the then relatively new medium of television would were sources of both overt and subtle propaganda. Some media outlets criticized propaganda efforts, thereby making their audiences more aware of them.
The mid-20th century was also a time when public relations and advertising were growing and becoming more sophisticated. Some people recognized that these industries used similar tactics to those found in political propaganda.
The year 1948 was especially filled with political propaganda with the presidential election and internationally with the ongoing Cold War. In 1948 President Harry S. Truman was running for re-election against Thomas E. Dewey. The now-famous “Dewey Defeats Truman” headline from the Chicago Daily Tribune was an example of premature victory claim due to inaccurate polling data which could be seen as a form of propaganda, trying to shape the narrative before the election was even over. Truman’s own campaign used the slogan “Give ‘Em Hell, Harry!” to rally the working-class vote and present Truman as a straightforward, no-nonsense candidate.
In the context of the early Cold War, both the United States & the Soviet Union used propaganda extensively to promote their respective ideologies and to denigrate the other. In the US, fear of communism was ramped up with government-sponsored propaganda, including films like “Red Nightmare” warning about the supposed dangers of communism. The government also produced numerous posters & leaflets depicting the Soviet Union as a menacing, totalitarian state that threatened American freedom.
With the establishment of Israel in 1948, there was significant propaganda on both sides of the conflict. Arab nations spread messages depicting the newly formed state of Israel as a colonial imposition, exploiting religious sentiments & framing it as a battle against Zionism. Conversely, Israeli propaganda emphasized the need for a Jewish homeland after the horrors of the Holocaust & cast their struggle as one of survival against hostile neighbors.
In 1948-1949, when the Soviet Union blocked access to West Berlin, the U.S., U.K., & their allies organized an airlift to supply the city with food, fuel, and other necessities. This event was accompanied by extensive propaganda on both sides. The West highlighted it as a humanitarian mission & an example of democratic nations stepping in to help those in need, while the Soviets depicted it as an aggressive act & an attempt to exert control over Berlin.
Organizations & companies advertise on this video clip. It is interesting to see what they are using this for. Search the words Disinformation. Public relations in business. Political advocacy. Political campaign. Public relations consulting firms. Healthcare agency. PR consultant. Best public relations. Media public relations. Political action committee.
A recent wave of book bans and curbs to educational free speech, led in part by Florida governor Ron DeSantis is hurting our children and allowing a vocal radical minority of parents and lawmakers control the narrative.
A few years old but again explains how there is neurological evidence that transgender people have the same brain scans as the gender they identify as. Even more the video explain how gender is a social construct with examples of how stereotypical female / male differs between cultures. Great short video that is both informative and easy to follow / understand. Hugs
In this episode, I discuss the neuroscience of being transgender by explaining the difference between gender identity and biology. I add studies from neuroscience and explain some fascinating findings.
Sources: Coon, D. & Mitterer, J.O. (2009). Psychology: Modules for active learning. Thomson Wadsworth. Belmont: United States. http://upload-community.kipa.co.il/17…
Veterans resign from force established as civilian disaster relief, citing concerns over ‘militaristic’ training and ‘abuse’
The state guard was created by Ron DeSantis as ‘an emergency focused, civilian defense force’ in June 2022. Photograph: Reba Saldanha/AP
A Florida state guard established by the right wing governor, Ron DeSantis, under the guise of a civilian disaster relief force is instead being trained as an armed, combat-ready militia under his personal command, according to military veteran recruits who have quit the program.
Several veterans resigned after an encampment last month having become concerned at the “militaristic” training and “abuse” one disabled veteran suffered at the hands of instructors, according to an investigation by the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times.
Promoted by DeSantis as an “emergency focused, civilian defense force” when it was established in June 2022, the state guard has quickly morphed into something quite different, the report found.
Volunteers have been trained for military combat, including the use of weapons; khaki polo shirts and pants were replaced by camouflage uniforms; and recruits were “barked at” by boot camp instructors at the joint training base who woke them before dawn and imposed lights-out by 10pm.
Additionally, DeSantis’s compliant, Republican-led state legislature has contributed to the change of direction, this year approving a massive expansion in the force’s funding, size and equipment. Its budget increased from $10m to $107.5m, and its maximum size more than tripled from 400 recruits to 1,500.
On the governor’s shopping list were helicopters, boats, police powers and reportedly even cellphone-hacking technology for a force outside of federal jurisdiction, and accountable directly to him.
“The program got hijacked and turned into something that we were trying to stay away from: a militia,” Brian Newhouse, a retired navy veteran with 20 years’ experience, told the reporters.
Newhouse was originally chosen to lead one of the state guard’s three divisions, and said he was removed from the base near Jacksonville on the first day of training after raising his concerns with national guard staff who were acting as instructors.
The abuse allegation, which was the subject of a police inquiry, relates to an incident in which a disabled retired marine captain said he was bundled into a van by national guard staff after he expressed his displeasure at how recruits were being treated.
“I don’t even think the governor knows what’s going on. I don’t think this is a fly on his radar right now,” Newhouse said, noting that DeSantis is a former navy lieutenant. “He would be appalled that a disabled veteran would be abused by other military members.”
According to Newhouse and two others who quit, who have decades of military service between them, the trainers were inexperienced and the camp “slapdash”. Volunteers were given almost no written training materials, and not tested on what they learned.
There were also no medical or physical assessments to determine recruits’ fitness levels before they embarked on a demanding obstacle course and drill, they said.
The apparent dysfunction appears reflective of the organization’s leadership as a whole. The Herald/Times reporters, who reviewed records as well as interviewing recruits, noted the state guard was seeking its third commander in eight months.
Its then director, the navy reserve captain Luis Soler, was excluded from the training camp and has since stepped down “for personal reasons”, according to DeSantis’s office, reported last week by the Florida Standard.
Newhouse said he and Soler viewed the program as an emergency management response team in line with DeSantis’s original brief, and a way for citizens to serve their communities, rather than what it had become.
The Guardian has reached out to DeSantis’s office, and state guard leadership, for comment.
The governor’s media team referred the Herald/Times to the state guard, which sent a statement from Maj Gen John D Haas, Florida’s adjutant general overseeing the state’s national guard, who said the veterans were “dismissed” from the program, and had not resigned.
“[It’s] unfortunate that some of these individuals resorted to complaints to the media,” he wrote.
“We are aware that some trainees who were removed are dissatisfied. This is to be expected with any course that demands rigor and discipline.”
Haas also seemed to confirm the veterans’ assertion that the state guard’s brief had changed. It was a “military organization”, he said, that will be used for “aiding law enforcement with riots and illegal immigration”.
Democrats expressed fear in 2021, when DeSantis first proposed to reactivate the state guard dormant since the second world war, that it would eventually become a paramilitary force beholden only to Florida’s authoritarian leader.
“No governor should have his own handpicked secret police,” said Charlie Crist, the losing Democrat candidate when DeSantis was re-elected in November.
I have not been able to get to all the news tabs I had opened, so each night I pushed them into the next morning. I had several hundreds of open tabs, at least past the beginning of the month into last June. Maybe 300+ But Ron left Sunday morning to go to NC to pick up his family and take them to see their brother in a nursing home under hospice care. He does this at least once a year, often more. This year with everything going on, it is a huge hardship drain on our finances. But it is family, so …
So with Ron gone, no distractions over the simple needed chores (feeding cats, cleaning cat boxes, doing dishes, taking out trash) I have had all the free time to work on the computer. I am now with this post caught up to Friday night / Saturday morning. I hope to finish the next few days worth quickly, so I can tell everyone what my medical tests showed. Spoiler I have minor heart damage, but seem to have a bad lung problem. The first meme is my fav. More later. Best wishes and hugs
Ron DeSantis has quietly rejected hundreds of millions of dollars in federal energy funding https://t.co/Xlm7tHGFxr
According to a green energy group, the rebates would have meant people in Florida would get “lower utility bills and healthier and more comfortable homes as well as lower greenhouse gas emissions.” Meanwhile, DeSantis has proposed millions in tax credits for people who buy gas stoves.
The "missing" Hunter Biden witness the GOP was promising for a while there was just charged by the DOJ with being a Chinese spy. https://t.co/lLiVEmfrU1
— follow @bencollins on bluesky (@oneunderscore__) July 10, 2023
Timeline:
Gal Luft was arrested for allegedly acting as an unregistered foreign agent in February.
Released on bail, he fled.
GOP Rep. Comer claimed "we can't track down the [Hunter Biden] informant" in May.
Luft put out a videos 5 days ago.
DOJ announced charges today.
— follow @bencollins on bluesky (@oneunderscore__) July 10, 2023
House Oversight Committee chair James Comer was on Laura Ingraham's Fox News show last night raising questions about whether the arrest of one of his supposed whistleblowers for serving as an unregistered agent of China may be political. pic.twitter.com/AoxnbQjYqv
Whoops. Gal Luft, the GOP's new fake Hunter Biden "whistleblower," was just indicted by the Justice Department for arms trafficking, violating U.S. sanctions against Iran, making false statements to federal agents, and being an unregistered foreign agent for China.
Gal Luft knew he was being indicted for being a foreign agent for China & charged w/arms trafficking, violating sanctions against Iran & making false statements to the feds so he decided to team-up w/corrupt Republicans and become a fake whistleblower for Hunter Biden. #DOJhttps://t.co/kUDzoOfZXjpic.twitter.com/LnwYqFKUsE
Scottie's Playtime 