Nobody Cares: PRS

[Innula Zenovka]

I don't think the question is that simple though, because you can accept that excessive sugar consumption over the long term is unhealthful, but how does that translate when you're talking about an individual food item? Because Dunkin Donuts sells its drinks one at a time, and one excessively sugary drink isn't provably bad for you.

Put another way, if the amount of sugar in it is reason enough to ban Dunkin Donuts from selling coffee, then it's reason enough to ban any product with the same or greater amount of sugar in it from being sold by anyone else, because there's no way the local bakery knows you're not eating ten macaroons a day every day either. So suddenly you're not just talking about iced coffee, you're also talking about pies, jams and jellies, cakes, ice creams, tiramisu - practically any kind of sweet or confectionery.

I don't think anyone's suggested banning them from selling coffee, have they? As I understand it, they've been asked to explain how on earth it's a good idea that

Flavored iced coffees at Dunkin’ can have between 18 and 67 grams of sugar, while the chain’s frozen beverages can range from 100 to 180 grams.

when the recommended maximum daily sugar intake for adults is 30 grams.

In the UK we have a sugar tax on pre-packaged soft drinks, to encourage companies to find lower sugar alternatives. It doesn't apply to freshly served drinks (like freshly-prepared iced coffees in the coffee shop rather than prepackaged ones in the coffee shop), though maybe it should. While, as you say, one excessively sugary drink isn't provably bad for you, that's not Dunkin Donuts' business model, is it? Or maybe they do price and promote these drinks as an occasional treat rather than something to enjoy every day or so?

Sugar tax: What you need to know

Milkshakes and lattes to be included in UK sugar tax scheme for the first time.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

I don't think anyone's suggested banning them from selling coffee, have they? As I understand it, they've been asked to explain how on earth it's a good idea that

when the recommended maximum daily sugar intake for adults is 30 grams.

Whether it's a ban or something like a special sin-tax or something, it's still true that it has to be applied to everything with that much sugar in it.

I don't think there's such a thing, in the US anyways, as any restaurant or food vendor specifically marketing a particular product as something you're only supposed to have once in a while, as opposed to something it's safe to eat every day. That kind of knowledge is a personal or cultural education thing. I would contend that nobody in the US is under any kind of mistaken impression that anything being sold at Dunkin Donuts is going to be particularly healthful to eat habitually. But even if there's any question, many restaurants, especially major chain restaurants including Dunkin Donuts, offer nutrition information about all of their foods both in-store and on their websites. If someone is getting an ultra-sweet iced coffee from Dunkin daily, that's not a person who has been misled by the restaurant to think it's probably fine, that is a person who knows and is making a positive decision to not care about the quality of their diet.

So if the whole thing is, "well people are refusing to make good decisions for themselves so we need to regulate the restaurants to force those good decisions on them" I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad way to go, I'm just saying, you can't stop at restaurants if you're going to do that. Because again, someone can also go to the grocery store and just buy and eat two boxes of chocolate chip cookies every single day too, and suffer from the same health effects.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

We are talking about Democrats here. They're often prepared to forgive an opponent for killing their pet parakeet at the drop of a hat. Ro Khanna has aligned himself with her on this vote, and praised her in committee. And he's been rabidly anti-Mace for a long while.

There's also the issue that, even if they were basing their votes on doubting Mace's intentions, etc., there was no need to weigh it down so deeply just to block it. Several dozen votes would have been enough. 182 votes out of a total of 209 Dems on the floor is pretty damn lopsided.

I dunno. It seems to me that there's more to this story than meets the eye:

Nancy Mace under House investigation over alleged improper reimbursement requests

Nancy Mace accuses ex-fiance and associates of rape and abuse in House speech

Statement from Attorney General’s Office on Rep. Mace's comments on U.S. House floor - South Carolina Attorney General

I'm also, I have to say, dubious about a proposal

to make public all reports on allegations of congressional lawmakers and aides engaging in sexual misconduct or harassment

apparently before any investigation has taken place and without the complainant's agreement to publicising the allegations.

I think this raises concerns:

The Ethics Committee had encouraged members to vote to refer the resolution. In a joint statement, the Republican and Democratic leaders of the committee argued it "could chill victim cooperation and witness participation in ongoing and future investigations" and would make it harder for the committee "to investigate and eliminate sexual misconduct in the House."

“Here and elsewhere, perpetrators of sexual misconduct should never be shielded from responsibility for their misdeeds,” Chairman Michael Guest, R-Miss., and ranking member Mark DeSaulnier, D-Calif., said.

But, they added, “victims may be retraumatized by public disclosures of interim work product, excerpts of interview transcripts, and certain exhibits. And witnesses, who often only speak to the Committee confidentially or on condition of future anonymity, could fear retaliation if their cooperation is made public.”

 

[Isabeau]

A can of cola has about 40 grams of sugar. A Big Gulp (7/11) 91 grams (32 teaspoons of sugar).

Starbucks is based in Seattle, Dunkin’ Donuts in Massachusetts I think, and were recently being boycotted because the ceo wouldn’t advertise on conservative media or something.


You want to know why the quack right is where it is now? They throw out some stupid shit with maybe just a grain of truth and talk about making laws about banning or making it illegal without any actual nuance, study, or research, and leave the “left” to argue about the minutiae.

Who the hell cares about sugar right now. Robert Fuck Kennedy Jr doesn’t know anything about health and couldn’t care less about Americans’ well being. He and this administration are so much more dangerous to our health.

 

[Free]

I dunno.

I don't like who was leading this effort, but the worst people can sometimes do the right thing. Ron DeSantis of all people, back when he was in the House pushed to have Congress disclose just the settlements of sexual harassment cases. That effort, as one can expect, went nowhere.

I suspect the reasoning behind Mace's decision to force a release of all information was the sexual misconduct allegations against Rep. Tony Gonzales, who she's been demanding resign.

I think this raises concerns:

It doesn't seem to matter how much or how little information is requested to be made public. Congress has long had a distinct lack of interest in doing so.

 

[Free]

Hmm...

Cuba files terrorism charges against suspects over fatal US boat shooting

Cuba said it has filed terrorism charges against six suspects it says were aboard a Florida-flagged speedboat that allegedly opened fire on soldiers in waters off the island’s north coast.

apnews.com

Cuba said Wednesday it has filed terrorism charges against six suspects it claims were aboard a Florida-flagged speedboat that is alleged to have opened fire on soldiers in waters off the island’s north coast.

The Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement that the suspects of Cuban origin remain in pretrial detention, adding that it will ensure “due process” as it continues to act “in defense of our people and the country’s institutions.”

The government has said 10 heavily armed Cubans from the U.S. who were on board the boat opened fire as they tried to infiltrate the island to commit acts of terrorism. It said that Cuban soldiers returned fire, killing four suspects.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I don't like who was leading this effort, but the worst people can sometimes do the right thing. Ron DeSantis of all people, back when he was in the House pushed to have Congress disclose just the settlements of sexual harassment cases. That effort, as one can expect, went nowhere.

I suspect the reasoning behind Mace's decision to force a release of all information was the sexual misconduct allegations against Rep. Tony Gonzales, who she's been demanding resign.



It doesn't seem to matter how much or how little information is requested to be made public. Congress has long had a distinct lack of interest in doing so.

I take your point, but the idea still worries me. Would you support a statutory duty on the HR departments of all publicly funded organisations (or private corporations, come to that) to publish all details of complaints about sexual harassment and assault within the organisation, especially if they included enough information potentially to identify both the subject of the complaint and the complainant, before the complaint had been investigated?

I wouldn't, out of concerns for the privacy of all concerned and because I wouldn't want to discourage complainants from coming forward any more than I'd want to make anyone the potential target of malicious complaints.

If in the future I'm arrested and charged, whether or not I'm guilty of anything, that information typically becomes a matter of public record. I'll likely be able to read about it in a newspaper or two - if they're still around - the very next day.

I'm never provided the option of having that information kept secret.

Yes, but that's not what the bill proposed, is it? If I properly understand the reports, it mandates that details of all complaints be published, regardless of their outcome (and possibly before investigations are complete?).

How would you feel about being publicly identified simply as having been questioned by the police in relation to a complaint that went nowhere because the police found no reason to charge you with anything?

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I don't think the question is that simple though, because you can accept that excessive sugar consumption over the long term is unhealthful, but how does that translate when you're talking about an individual food item? Because Dunkin Donuts sells its drinks one at a time, and one excessively sugary drink isn't provably bad for you.

Put another way, if the amount of sugar in it is reason enough to ban Dunkin Donuts from selling coffee, then it's reason enough to ban any product with the same or greater amount of sugar in it from being sold by anyone else, because there's no way the local bakery knows you're not eating ten macaroons a day every day either. So suddenly you're not just talking about iced coffee, you're also talking about pies, jams and jellies, cakes, ice creams, tiramisu - practically any kind of sweet or confectionery.

Is anyone talking about banning the sale of such drinks? I thought the idea was simply to draw attention to the alarming amounts of sugar in these drinks and to ask the manufacturers to explain why they thought it's a good idea put so much sugar in them.

As a result of this discussion, I took a look at the sugar content of various items on sale at the supermarket I normally use. This is a large chocolate chip cookie I sometimes buy:

https://www.ocado.com/products/new-york-bakery-chocolate-chip-cookies/670467011

They're enormous, and I struggle to finish one at a sitting. They contain 27.5 grams of sugar each (that is, almost a whole day's recommended maximum sugar intake) and are, quite rightly, marketed as an occasional treat

Perfect pairing for your hot drink!
Heat me up for an ooey gooey indulgent treat!

(they are delicious, but only in moderation).

I can't imagine anyone wanting to eat three or four of them at a sitting, which is how many they'd need to get the same amount of sugar as some of these iced lattes apparently contain.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

You are all getting sugar taxes wrong about what it should do and why.

There are enough studies around, looking at America and other countries, which clearly indicate that there is a strong correlation between poverty and obesity. The poorer a household/family is, the bigger is the probability of them having obese people. Simple as that.

Why is that? Because if you are poor you often cannot afford more healthy food alternatives, so you are eating the mass produced industrial trash in which the food industry often uses excessive amounts of sugar and fat as cheap filler.

The tax is there to mitigate demand by these people, and in consequence to force the food industry to stop using these excessive amounts of sugar replacing it with other, less energy loaded stuff.

The thing is in America with its unhealthy fixation on fatty bacon and monster sized food portions this alone will not be enough to make a dent in obesity rates, far from it.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

You are all getting sugar taxes wrong about what it should do and why.

There are enough studies around, looking at America and other countries, which clearly indicate that there is a strong correlation between poverty and obesity. The poorer a household/family is, the bigger is the probability of them having obese people. Simple as that.

Why is that? Because if you are poor you often cannot afford more healthy food alternatives, so you are eating the mass produced industrial trash in which the food industry often uses excessive amounts of sugar and fat as cheap filler.

The tax is there to mitigate demand by these people, and in consequence to force the food industry to stop using these excessive amounts of sugar replacing it with other, less energy loaded stuff.

The thing is in America with its unhealthy fixation on fatty bacon and monster sized food portions this alone will not be enough to make a dent in obesity rates, far from it.

Exactly. Sugar taxes aren't like (at least in the UK) tobacco taxes, which the government keeps on raising not in order to increase revenue but to encourage people to stop smoking by making the products too expensive.

Sugar taxes, in contrast, are there to provide manufacturers to find healthier recipes for their sugar-heavy products by making sugar an unattractive ingredient to use because of its price and to encourage them to find alternative recipes.

Manufacturers can continue to use their original sugar-heavy recipes if they wish, but they risk losing market share (at least if they're competing on price) to competitors who have reduced the amount of sugar they use by switching to more healthy, and less expensive, ingredients.

 

[Free]

I take your point, but the idea still worries me. Would you support a statutory duty on the HR departments of all publicly funded organisations (or private corporations, come to that) to publish all details of complaints about sexual harassment and assault within the organisation, especially if they included enough information potentially to identify both the subject of the complaint and the complainant, before the complaint had been investigated?

I'm not a fan of the scope of this last effort, but you know resolutions can be amended. No one took up such an effort. Congress continually resists any attempt to report harassment with any level of public transparency.

 

[Free]

The A.I. slopification of journalism continues.

It’s bots vs. reporters at the AP

One of The Associated Press’ leaders on AI had a blunt message for the publication’s staff: Resistance to AI is “futile.”

Last month, the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s editor wrote that a recent job applicant withdrew from consideration for a reporting fellowship after discovering the position included filing notes to an AI writing tool instead of actually writing stories, touching off a heated debate in media circles.

One AP higher-up crystallized many media managers’ views on the debate: “Because local newsrooms are so strapped, they are turning for assistance on the news making process in every direction. Advance Publications got there first, others will follow,” AP Senior Product Manager for AI Aimee Rinehart wrote in internal company Slack messages first shared with Semafor, referring to the Plain Dealer’s parent company. “Resistance is futile.”

So very Borg of her.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

NYC's mayor Zohran Mamdani had a breaking fast together with Mahmoud Khalil. Khalil is a well known Israel critic and the Trump administration claims he's also a Hamas supporter.

Since there are more jews living in NYC then in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem combined, the local community is not quite happy about that.

Mahmoud Khalil quotes slain Al Jazeera correspondent allegedly aligned with Hamas at ‘March for Humanity’ protest

“The time is now, the bridges towards liberation start with us. Let’s build them,” Khalil concluded.

nypost.com

 

[Free]

the Trump administration claims

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Viral 'Quittr' Porn Addiction App Exposed the Masturbation Habits of Hundreds of Thousands of Users

Evernote Link

Quittr, an app that promises to help men stop watching pornography, leaked intimate data on hundreds of thousands of its users, including their masturbation habits, and lied about its security issues, 404 Media can now reveal.

I first reported about Quittr exposing user data in January, but was unable to name Quittr in the story because its creators, Alex Slater and Connor McLaren, did not fix its security issues despite multiple requests and an offer from an independent researcher to help them fix the problem. Naming the app while hackers were still able to easily steal Quittr’s user data would have endangered their privacy and put them at risk of extortion from hackers, which is very common today. Some of the data exposed includes the users’ age, how often they masturbate, and how viewing pornography makes them feel. According to the data, many of them are minors.

 

[Essence Lumin]

Viral 'Quittr' Porn Addiction App Exposed the Masturbation Habits of Hundreds of Thousands of Users

Some reactions to this story:

I was speaking with my doctor recently. He said to me "You have to stop masturbating". I asked him why, and he replied, "because I'm trying to examine you".

They've been working long and hard to solve this. Long and hard!

The article says
yet, the idea of "porn addiction" persists in the U.S., which lacks comprehensive sex education requirements in many states; only 37 percent of states require sex education to be medically accurate, according to Boston University.
There are exactly 50 states so one would think 36% or 38% would require something, not 37%. Though one person notes the math works out if you include the States of Canada, Greenland, Venezuela and Cuba.

One person asks how it works? Pictures of Kristi Noem?

Another says It's like grandpa used to say: "A dick in a hand is worth two in a bush."

Welll, enough quotes I suppose.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Viral 'Quittr' Porn Addiction App Exposed the Masturbation Habits of Hundreds of Thousands of Users

This is just really sad to me. These people have, or at least *think* they have, a problem and they're trying to fix it. I don't know exactly what the app is supposed to do, but part of it obviously is entering this confidential information about themselves, and they did that because the people who made the app promised that information would be safe, and clearly that was a lie.

It reminds me of when states started banning abortion, and it came out that state governments were able to subpoena or even some cases even just commercially buy information about individual women's menstrual cycles and missed periods from period-tracker apps that so many women are voluntarily using - again, based on the same promise or presumption that this private information would be treated confidentially when it reality it was insecure at best, and just more data to be mined and sold at worst because health information freely entered into phone apps and websites that aren't an actual doctor's or hospital's website isn't protected by HIPAA, or anything else.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Payment processors deciding what you’re allowed to wank to is financial domination. Good luck changing my mind. :smug:

 

[Free]

We're back to this shit again.

Passenger removed from flight to FLL had set timer to pray for Ramadan, Southwest Airlines says

A Southwest Airlines flight that was heading to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on Friday night was diverted to Georgia after a passenger misunderstanding, airline officials said.

www.nbcmiami.com

A Southwest Airlines flight that was heading to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on Friday night was diverted to Georgia after what the company called a passenger "misunderstanding" over a phone timer for Ramadan prayer.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Southwest Airlines flight 2094 had left Nashville and was going to South Florida when it had to land at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport following a disturbance.

Southwest Airlines later said in a statement: "The Southwest Airlines Crew of Flight 2094 on Friday made the decision to divert to Atlanta out of an abundance of caution due to what turned out to be a misunderstanding of a Customer’s behavior. We sincerely apologize to our Customers for the misunderstanding and the significant delay. Nothing is more important to Southwest than the Safety of our Customers."

LAWSUIT.

 

[Casey Pelous]

Viral 'Quittr' Porn Addiction App Exposed the Masturbation Habits of Hundreds of Thousands of Users

Evernote Link

Dayum.

I gotta figure out a disease that doesn't exist then charge people $44.99 a year to tell them how to control it.