Arguments were heard by the Supreme Court about who controls the bureaucracies. It doesn’t sound good for the forth branch of government.
Washington state just can’t keep politics out of sports.
And Jasmine Crockett has decided to end her political career.
Taking the Power Back
According to the Daily Wire:
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday in a case that could change the way presidents interact with the massive federal bureaucracy.
At issue in the case, Trump v. Slaughter, is whether a president has the authority to fire officials from independent agencies. Rebecca Slaughter, a former Federal Trade Commissioner, sued the president for removing her from the commission in March. Over the day’s three-hour proceeding, the court’s six conservative justices seemed inclined to side with President Donald Trump. Doing so would upend the way the federal bureaucracy interacts with the executive branch — a win not just for Trump, but for small-government conservatives anxious to claw back power from the “deep state.”
Slaughter’s team argues that independent agencies like the FTC have long-standing statutory protections allowing commissioners to be removed only “for cause” rather than “at will.” The team also insisted that these protections are essential for preserving agency independence, preventing partisan interference, and maintaining the separation of powers.
Keep It Out of Sports!
According to Outkick:
When Seattle was announced as one of the many host cities for the 2026 World Cup, it was inevitable that the city and its leaders would use it as an opportunity to remind the world that it is one of the most liberal, woke places in North America.
And that’s exactly what it’s planning to do when Group Stage matches make their way to Seattle in June, which just so happens to also be Pride Month. The World Cup draw, though, has created a rather complicated situation for the city.
Seattle intends to kick off Pride weekend with a ‘Pride Match’ at Lumen Field on June 26 featuring Egypt and Iran, two countries with very strong anti-LBGTQ laws. How strong? Egypt criminalizes gay relationships while capital punishment is the maximum penalty under Iranian law. So much pride!
This presents what could be a bizarre setting in Seattle, with fans celebrating Pride both inside and outside the stadium, but the players on the field representing homelands that do not stand for any of it. You can not come up with a more contrasting situation.
The planned Pride celebrations for the match do not directly involve FIFA, but instead Seattle organizers and a Pride Match Advisory Committee (PMAC) that they have put together. Those organizers are not planning to deviate from the ‘Pride Match’ despite it featuring Egypt and Iran. Maybe the teams are the point?
“It is a Host City–led expression of Seattle and Washington State’s commitment to creating a welcoming and inclusive environment where everyone belongs: players, fans, residents, and visitors alike,” a spokesperson for the PMAC told OutSports.
“Soccer has a unique power to unite people across borders, cultures, and beliefs. We are honored to host a Pride Match and to celebrate Pride as part of a global football community. This match reflects our ongoing commitment to respect, dignity, and unity for all.”
https://www.outkick.com/sports/world-cup-seattle-pride-match-iran-egypt-anti-gay-laws
Oh My God!
The Wrong Side of Everything
This Means Nothing
According to the Daily Wire:
Actress Sydney Sweeney just addressed the viral backlash against her following the American Eagle jeans campaign, not explicitly admitting to being woke but instead saying she is “against hate.”
Mostly, the 28-year-old star just expressed confusion about why everyone was up in arms over the ad campaign.
“I was honestly surprised by the reaction,” Sweeney told People in an interview published over the weekend. “I did it because I love the jeans and love the brand. I don’t support the views some people chose to connect to the campaign. Many have assigned motives and labels to me that just aren’t true.”
“Anyone who knows me knows that I’m always trying to bring people together. I’m against hate and divisiveness,” she continued. “In the past my stance has been to never respond to negative or positive press but recently I have come to realize that my silence regarding this issue has only widened the divide, not closed it. So I hope this new year brings more focus on what connects us instead of what divides us.”
I Knew It!
According to the New York Post:
On average, humans fart up to 23 times a day, but not all of those toots are created equal. Research shows that women’s gas smells worse than men’s, and there’s a scientific reason why.
But next time you catch a whiff of your wife’s wind, take comfort — that stink could be a sign that she’s less likely to develop Alzheimer’s.
Back in 1998, Dr. Michael Levitt, a gastroenterologist and prolific researcher known as the “King of Farts,” set out to figure out which gases give flatulence its signature funk.
He recruited 16 healthy adults with no history of gastrointestinal issues and had each of them strap on a “flatus collection system,” which was essentially a rectal tube connected to a bag.
After the participants chowed down on pinto beans and took a laxative, the researchers collected their subsequent farts.
Next, Levitt and his colleagues ran a gas chromatographic–mass spectroscopic analysis to break down exactly what was inside those bags.
They also put the samples to a sniff test.
Two judges were brought in to rate each fart on a scale of 0 to 8, with 8 being “very offensive.” They were unaware that they were smelling human flatulence.
The researchers found that the main gasses responsible for the odor of human farts are sulfur-containing compounds, most notably hydrogen sulfide — the chemical behind that classic “rotten egg” smell.
And while men tended to pass larger volumes of gas, the study found that female flatulence contained a “significantly higher concentration” of hydrogen sulfide than that of their male peers.
The judges agreed, rating women’s farts as having a “greater odor intensity” than men’s.
While hydrogen sulfide is highly toxic in large amounts, small doses — like those found abundantly in women’s gas — may help protect aging brain cells against Alzheimer’s disease.
In the body, hydrogen sulfide plays a role in many functions, including helping brain cells communicate by chemically tweaking proteins in a process called sulfhydration.
Studies show that sulfhydration levels decline with age, a trend that is even more pronounced in patients with Alzheimer’s.
An Oldie but a Goodie
The teenagers tucked their hands into their sweatshirt pockets as they shuffled to form a circle. Some gazed at the asphalt, trying to avoid the game they had been drafted to play.
“It’s like hot potato/musical chairs, but with a penis,” said the girl leading the group.
The kids gathered on a spring morning in South Los Angeles were about to get a hands-on lesson in sex education.
Many health experts say that public health problems are best tackled outside the doctor’s office — that fixing the culture that perpetuates them is more effective than changing a single patient’s behavior. For sexual health, that means combating the stigma around sex.
This is part of the problem. Teenagers need their urges curbed. They need to learn to control themselves and not cave into every whim. In other words, we must civilize them. One way to do this is through taboo, stigma, and shame.
They should learn that sex is Important and that there are consequences when engaging in it. That’s why it is important to be with one person.
The teenagers, the girl explained, would pass a plastic, life-size penis around the circle. Whoever was holding it when the music stopped would have to unroll a condom onto it, completing each of the eight steps they had been taught a few minutes earlier.
The music started, and the teens looked up.
The recent all-day event, called Spring Into Love, was intended to get high schoolers more comfortable talking about sex. The hope is that an open dialogue will make them more likely to seek out condoms and STD testing, and eventually reduce the spread of disease.
This sounds like indoctrination.
The focus on stigma is just one of many ways Los Angeles County health officials are trying to think outside the box as they struggle to curb rising STD rates. It’s clear that the traditional ways of preventing disease — patients seeing a doctor regularly to get screened and treated — have not been working, said Dr. Jeffrey Gunzenhauser, L.A. County’s interim health officer.
“If that really happened, this problem could be taken care of,” he said.
The county recently created a Center for Health Equity to evaluate the way certain public health issues are intertwined with social factors such as income and education, as well as racial discrimination.
High STD rates are at the top of the center’s list of priorities. In just the past five years, the number of gonorrhea cases in Los Angeles County doubled, with minorities suffering more than most.
“The numbers are only going up,” Gunzenhauser said. “What’s going on is unacceptable.”
Or maybe they shouldn’t be having sex. Notice the educators are worried about treatment instead of prevention.
“All I heard was ‘Don’t get pregnant’”
The church auditorium was decked out in streamers and balloons. Kids chatted around tables with piles of Mardi Gras beads and condoms at the center.
Spring Into Love, which began five years ago, is the brainchild of a coalition of L.A. County health advocates trying to bring down STD rates. This year’s event, held in late March, included workshops on healthy relationships and body image, as well as free STD testing.
Ashley Deras, 18, showed a group of students how to safely open a condom wrapper. She said her family almost never talked to her about sex.
“Sexual health was something in my household that was taboo,” Deras, a high school senior, said in an interview. “All I heard was, ‘Don’t get pregnant.’”
Other teens at Spring Into Love sought practical information they hadn’t learned in health class. One boy said he hadn’t known he could get STDs from anal sex. Many said their parents would be mad at them for asking questions about sex at all.
Where are these parents? Are these dead beat parents? This should be discussed within the family. Maybe that’s another behavior that needs to be changed?
“This is such a natural human interaction, and yet it’s so stigmatized,” said Valerie Coachman-Moore, who oversees WeCanStopSTDsLA, the coalition of advocates that put on the event. “People are having sex? Yeah.”
Many say the silence around sex plays a big role in young people’s high rates of STDs. Many feel uncomfortable walking into an STD clinic or talking to their partners about safe practices.
In L.A. County, half of chlamydia cases and a third of gonorrhea cases diagnosed each year are among people between the ages of 15 and 24.
“The one thing I never do, and I hope others don’t as well, is blame these young people for not taking care of themselves,” said Barbara Ferrer, head of L.A. County’s Department of Public Health.
Researchers increasingly view public health problems as shaped by the environments in which people live. Neighborhoods where people of color reside, for example, are more likely to be pollution-ridden and have fewer parks and doctors — factors that directly affect people’s health.
”This is not just their problem, it’s a community problem,” said Jim Rhyne of WeCanStopSTDsLA.
It’s not a community problem! It’s a personal problem and a family problem!
Is systemic racism to blame?
Los Angeles County launched a Center for Health Equity in October to address the idea that “health predominantly happens outside the health care setting,” said its director, Heather Jue Northover, at a recent meeting. “It happens where we live, work, play and pray.”
The problem with any governmental “health equity” departments is they always look to find racism. They are trying to justify their jobs. Would you ever think to hear an equity department to say there is no racism, sexism, homophobia and what every else? Of course not.
The center will target five health disparities, including high rates of STDs among certain minority groups.
Nationwide, STD rates have been climbing for the past five years. More people were diagnosed with syphilis, chlamydia or gonorrhea in 2016 than ever before.
Some blame underfunding of STD prevention programs, as well as falling condom usage. There’s also speculation that people are having sex with more partners because of hookup apps.
Underfunding? A condom costs about $0.50. This is just another bureaucracy begging for money.
But the picture is more complicated when it comes to the high STD rates among minorities. Gay and bisexual men make up the vast majority of new syphilis cases. In L.A. County, syphilis rates among African American women are six times higher than white women and three times higher than Latina women.
Northover said that officials need to evaluate what’s called structural or systemic racism, the way housing or education policies may negatively impact people and their health. Studies have found, for example, that people with HIV who had low levels of literacy were less likely to follow their treatment, and that poorer Americans were more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior, increasing their risk of STDs.
Or maybe we should take a look at the culture within the black communities. Listen to a rap song. Don’t tell me uninhibited sex is not part of the black culture. Pregnancy rates among single, black women is astronomical. There is something sick in the culture. It has nothing to do with systemic racism (which doesn’t really exist against black people).
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a white paper in 2010 saying the country could not close disparities in STD rates without addressing “the interpersonal, network, community, and societal influences of disease transmission and health.”
But that’s a tall order given how entrenched many social problems are.
Yes, there are a lot of problems within the black culture. That’s what needs to be talked about.
Poverty or a lack of opportunity may be forcing women to exchange sex for resources, leading to the spread of STDs, Northover said. There also tends to be a mistrust of the medical system among African Americans, making them reluctant to seek care. Certain neighborhoods may be excluded from access to healthcare because of geography or finances, she said.
“We need to take a wider lens,” said Northover, who added that she’s still trying to get to the bottom of what’s driving STD rates.
County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, who represents South Los Angeles, convened several community groups in 2012 to try to bring down STD rates through collaboration. But the still-growing case numbers suggest the approach needs to be reimagined, said Dr. Michael Hochman, a senior health deputy for the supervisor.
“If you keep doing the same thing and expect a different result, then that’s insanity,” Hochman said.
https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-ln-std-stigma-20180507-htmlstory.html
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/what-are-the-cities-with-the-h-zZ1J009JRCy61OsITDXMCw
