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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 11th, 2023


  • The article talks about anthropomorphism the way people did in the 1950s by treating it as humans falsely attributing human behaviors to animals without bringing up research since then that suggests we share a whole lot of traits.

    From a simple mechanical point of view, animals limp when injured, scratch when itchy, sleep when tired, yawn, stretch, eat, sneeze, and so on from the same sorts of triggers that trigger us.

    Moreover, does anyone really think humans evolved emotions entirely separate from animals? Do animals not experience fear, lust, aggression, frustration, and so on in ways similar to us? And often for similar abstracted reasons (I’m not going to fight you specifically for a a piece of bloated carrion, but we’ve seen people storm the Aid trucks bringing food to the hungry).

    Obviously, humans misinterpret animal behavior all the time and THAT is legitimate anthropomorphism. There’s a meme of a duck ‘laughing’ that anyone who studied duck behavior would recognize as a distressed animal. Don’t smile at monkeys because showing teeth is a threat and if they show THEIR teeth to you, back off. People get stuff wrong all the time, and anthropomorphize frequently, but so much of what animals do is the same as us that the mistakes are understandable.

    Instead of saying that people anthropomorphize parent animals licking/grooming their offspring as ‘a mom’s love’, I think it more appropriate to say people recognize a common trait we share. The scientist may term it as a bonding ritual, a need for cleanliness to ward off disease, and/or a method to identify their offspring’s scent and shape, BUT you could say the same thing about human moms (though we aren’t very good at scent and usually lick a napkin to get the smudge off rather than directly licking the child). We’re mostly the same. The attributions are often correct.




  • Link is part of a live feed. Here’s more:

    DHS claims Padilla ‘lunged’ toward Noem ‘without identifying himself’ – despite footage showing he identified himself

    Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, has claimed the senator Alex Padilla “lunged” toward Kristi Noem during the press conference “without identifying himself” despite being told to back away.

    She also claims that the Secret Service “thought he was an attacker”.

    In the video footage of the moment, Padilla can be heard clearly identifying himself, saying: “I’m Senator Alex Padilla” and trying to ask Noem a question.

    Not only did he identify himself, I didn’t see anything I’d call a ‘lunge’. Here’s more:

    Asked why the response was to forcibly remove Padilla, Noem deferred questions to law enforcement and doubled down on the claim that Padilla didn’t identify himself first (again, he did):

    • “But I will say that it’s – people need to identify themselves before they start lunging at people during press conferences.”

    MSNBC reminds us of Biden’s State of the Union when Bobert and Marjorie Taylor Greene started acting up and yelling and no one threw them out. Commentor wants to know why Noem didn’t call off the guards as soon as he identified himself.



  • memfree@beehaw.orgtoVegan@slrpnk.netCookware for vegan meals
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    3 months ago

    I fry tofu in a cast iron skillet with a little oil on heat just below the oil’s smoke point.

    The trick is to just let the tofu sit in place. Do NOT try to flip it. Let it sit until it gets crispy on the frying side. When it does, I use a thin metal pancake-flipping sort of spatula to turn all the pieces. If they are diced (rather than slabs), I start with pieces in the center of the pan, scooping towards an edge and flipping the first flipper-full, then scooping and flipping the sides and so on so I don’t disturb the pieces I’ve already flipped.














  • When Trump loses the coming election, a peaceful transfer of power should go from Biden to Harris, but Trump has worked to dismantle norms such that we must now expect that he will contest the results, tell his supporters he won, and worry about those angry supporters being goaded into attacks on poll workers, judges, Congress, and federal buildings.

    Vance is already feigning ignorance of how he and Trump create violence.
    Excerpt of Vance/Bash kerfuffle (page is not the full conversation):

    … You accused me of causing a bomb threat. Doesn’t that mean I should shut up about the residents of Springfield? Don’t you realize you’re engaged in basic propaganda to silence the concerns of American citizens?

    DANA BASH, CNN: I was quoting the actual mayor of Springfield, Ohio, who, after the bomb threats, was begging federal officials to stop putting negative attention on his city. I’m not talking about the policies…

    They are making a peaceful transfer more difficult by telling lies, spurring on their most violent supporters, and then denying all culpability. Sadly, doing so may spread from their fanatics to a larger population as evinced by yet-another-gunman-incident.



  • Yes. The story here is straight from Associated Press, but I looked around and found a few more details in a Telegraph article:

    But he woman’s doctor told police that the defendant had tested positive with a rapid test before telling him that she “certainly won’t let herself be locked up” after the result.

    Instead she left her apartment and talked to people without a mask, ignoring her mandatory quarantine and positive test.

    Note they say MANDATORY quarantine. At the end of the article they explain that Austria’s far right party, Freedom Party, is hyper-anti-vax, expected to win upcoming elections:

    Its manifesto has promised a pardon for anyone convicted of breaching coronavirus rules and to repay any fines imposed during the pandemic.

    The manifesto says coronavirus regulations were encroachments on fundamental rights “accompanied by unprecedented indoctrination and brainwashing.”


  • Not all Americans eat beef equally, data shows. Last year, Rose and his colleagues published a study looking at U.S. government data of the diets of more than 10,000 Americans. They found that on a given day, 12% of Americans account for half of all beef consumption. That 12% was disproportionately men.

    I’m confused by this because I want it to mean the same 12% all the time, but I suspect they mean that it is a different 12% from one day to the next.

    “Many men do reduce their meat consumption or are willing to,” says Joel Ginn, food and psychology researcher at Boston College, “but there are hurdles that they’ve had to overcome.”

    Manly men advertising meat – and Joe Rogan??? I guess all kinds of guys what to be oh so manly, but when I think of macho men, he’s just not on that list.

    Seeing someone in your close personal circle, or celebrities like athletes, make a behavior change can be an important piece of the puzzle, says Daniel Rosenfeld, psychology and food researcher at UCLA. “The way to get some people to eat less meat is to get other people to eat less meat,” he says.

    Personally, both myself and my better half enjoy the newer fake meat burgers. They really are a satisfying way to get a ‘manly’ burger.


  • Refresher on McCabe from The Guardian:

    McCabe was part of FBI leadership, briefly as acting director, during investigations of Russian interference in the 2016 election and links between Trump and Moscow. Trump fired McCabe in March 2018, two days before he was due to retire. McCabe was then the subject of a criminal investigation, for allegedly lying about a media leak. The investigation was dropped in 2020. In October 2021, McCabe settled a lawsuit against the justice department.

    I mention this because y’all know that Trumpers will immediately brush off McCabe’s comments as a known-bad-guy who was fired for being so awful and is now trying to get revenge.