Bulletins and News Discussion from September 2nd to September 8th, 2024 - We Love Our Trans Comrades - Chemicals of the Week: Estrogen and Testosterone
We need to kill the Mega Posting Wars meme. It wasn't very funny to start with and now I get the feeling some people are taking it way too seriously. Clogging up the news thread with bullshit just to try to out post the trans mega is just dumb and annoying.
The News Megathread is now under trans martial law:
Loving trans people on this site and elsewhere is strictly mandatory.
Posting about the "comment wars" between the trans and news megathreads is now strongly discouraged inside the news megathread. No shame in it - I also recently made jokes about it - but though they were almost always just jokes, it was unrelated to current events and was beginning to feel more like padding the comment count instead of trying to improve the quality of the thread. If you want to boost comments and engagement here, then post articles and analysis!
The COTW (Chemical of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific chemical every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied chemicals. If you've wanted to talk about the chemical or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Chemicals of the Week are Estrogen and Testosterone! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants.
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section. Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war. Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language. https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one. https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts. https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel. https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator. https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps. https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language. https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language. https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses. https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Sexist Clown Car Races On: More Trouble For Denmark's Moderates
"No responsibility should be placed. We must move forward" — this is what Henrik Frandsen, leader of the parliamentary group of Denmark's "Moderate" party blurted out when asked about the work of the occupational psychologist that the party has hired to deal with the toxic work environment it's employees are subjected to.
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The statement is emblematic of the attitude of party leadership who hopes that the hiring of a psychologist will make the stories about systematic bullying, sexual harassment and misogyny in their organisation go away. No other steps than this was announced on yesterday's press briefing where party leader Lars Løkke Rasmussen failed to give clear answers to questions about how long he has known about the toxic environment.
According to a complaint made by current and former employees it "was not uncommon for employees to have breakdowns in the hallways or go home crying" as senior employees terrorised their subordinates and targeted especially women with sexist remarks.
Party leadership has let out a litany of apologies and therapy-speak platitudes but has refused to impose any consequences on the senior employees who spearheaded the bullying in the liberal centrist party.
Not all Moderates takes the rotten culture this lightly. Refuting claims from party leadership that an "unanimous" parliamentary group is behind the plan of hiring a psychologist and doing nothing else, Moderate MP Jeppe Søe, one of the two MPs absent from yesterday's crisis meeting where the decision to do nothing was made, has called for an independent investigation into the abusive behavior. Søe, who claims to have seen evidence that "could destroy the party," has warned that the party’s future is in jeopardy if it continues to be seen as a "sexist clown car."
In response to Søe's demands party leader Lars Løkke Rasmussen, himself known for his explosive temper behind closed doors and clearly angry and the MP's perceived lack of loyalty, has made thinly veiled threats of kicking Søe out of the party if he doesn't toe the line.