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22 Sep - 15 Oct 2023

Oct 15, 2023

It’s time for another digest post of all the stuff I’ve been doing around the web. I am finishing something great to share here this week. Week after next I will be explaining my thesis topic to a room full of historians.

Polemology Positions

On Recent Trial Balloons And Heavenly Signs

Remember how the year started out weird? During January, Hawaiians saw these spectacular beams of light in the sky. Within a few weeks, it turned out to be a Chinese satellite, Daqi-1, launched in April 2022 and carrying LIDAR (laser imaging, detection, and ranging) “for detecting atmospheric aerosols and carbon dioxide,” according to Sascha Brodsky at…

2 months ago · 3 likes · Matt Osborne

Is This What You Did, Rob Malley?

Rob Malley, who led diplomatic efforts in Iran under the Obama administration as well as the Biden administration, worked closely with three members of what is being described as an Iranian influence network from 2014 until his suspension this April…

2 months ago · 2 likes · Matt Osborne

This article is paywalled.

Polemology Positions

Modernity: A Motte-and-Bailey Argument

In argumentation, the ‘motte-and-bailey’ fallacy is a conflation of two positions that seem similar, the motte being easily defended while the bailey is more difficult to defend. This metaphor derives from a practical reading of motte-and-bailey structures…

2 months ago · 3 likes · Matt Osborne

Show Us The Burisma Money

House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-KY) wants to show us the money. Good. At the end of yesterday’s hearing into allegations of improper financial conduct and potential obstruction of justice by then-vice president Joe Biden, Comer said he will issue subpoenas for the personal business and bank records of the president’s son, Hunter Biden, and his broth…

2 months ago · 2 likes · Matt Osborne

Federal Court Says the Puberty Blockers Lobby is 'Not a Politically Powerless Group'

There is law, and then there is ‘trans law.’ Normal law is about facts and the laws. ‘Trans law’ is about pounding the table, for there are no facts underlying it and the laws seldom mean or even say what ‘trans law’ practitioners want them to mean and say…

2 months ago · 61 likes · 3 comments · Matt Osborne

How William Lilly Rationalized the Restoration

Like the best frauds, the inventor of modern astrology often started his pitches by calling out his critics and rivals in the art of confidence to make himself seem the more reliable informant. In the opening of his pamphlet on monarchy in 1660, for example, William Lilly warns readers of a “Spirit-Mongring Mountebank-Quack” who “cheated…

2 months ago · Matt Osborne

Woke Creationism is Creationism: A Review of 'Binary: Debunking the Sex Spectrum Myth'

The popular progressive notion that ‘sex is a spectrum’ is “pseudoscience” that “fails basic scientific standards,” Zachary Elliott writes in his new book, a publication of his Paradox Institute. “Like other pseudoscience, the sex spectrum misuses scientific knowledge to make its arguments se…

2 months ago · 43 likes · 1 comment · Matt Osborne

How the Pseudoscience was Settled: Lysenko and the Art of Ideological Institutional Capture

Image curation was a major concern for the Soviets. Despite a vast censorship bureaucracy, however, truths still got out of the Soviet Union in the form of official photography. Truth could appear as informed commentary on the official caption. When Robert C. Cook published the above photo in a 1949 issue of…

2 months ago · Matt Osborne

Gender Critical Story Time: Pinocchio and the Mighty Roar of the Real Boy

Listen now (98 mins) | We had such a great time on Wednesday night. Thanks to everyone who took part or tuned in to the Twitter/X space. The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi is very different from the Disney version. In fact, during the course of our discussion we formed a consensus that Walt Disney changed…

2 months ago · 8 likes · Matt Osborne, Amy Sousa, MA Depth Psychology, and Donovan Cleckley

What 'The Left' Still Gets Wrong About Iran

In his 1993 book Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic, Ervand Abrahamian writes that what happened in 1979 was a “bourgeois revolution” all along. Shi’a clergy used leftist rhetoric to frame themselves as saviors of the people from the despotism of the Shah throughout the 1980s, leaving no room for a political left. Indeed, if there was a ‘reign o…

2 months ago · 12 likes · Matt Osborne

The Increased Cardiac Risks of 'Trans' Hormones Differ According to the Sex Binary

In a development that should surprise absolutely no one who has paid attention, a new paper shows that people taking cross-sex hormones as part of a ‘trans identity’ face “significantly higher risk” of cardiac problems. Comparing health data from 2,671 Danish ‘trans people’ in their early or mid-20s to a c…

2 months ago · 55 likes · 1 comment · Matt Osborne

Federal Court: Iowa School District Cannot Make Children 'Respect A Gender Identity'

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that an Iowa school district cannot compel children to “respect a student’s gender identity.” In a decision filed 29 September, a 2-1 majority ruled that two of the three appellant issues were superceded by legislation, therefore moot…

2 months ago · 37 likes · 3 comments · Matt Osborne

Graham Linehan in Exile

It was Welsh comedy producer Griff Rhys Jones who sentenced Father Ted to Purgatory on Craggy Isle during a creative session with Graham Linehan. “‘Every sitcom needs to have a trap,’ he told us. ‘Some reason that these incompatible characters don’t just stay as far away from each other as possible.’” Sustaining the unique chemistry of the show required…

2 months ago · 36 likes · Matt Osborne

This podcast is paywalled.

Trans American Heart Dissociation: Exulansic on the Hormone Truths and Consequences

Listen now (97 mins) | We’re offering a 72-hour flash sale discount on annual subscriptions! Many thanks to Exulansic for agreeing to be my very first solo interview guest for The Distance. You can find her Substack here. Mainstream media has begun to cover the negative health impacts of ‘gender affirming medicine,’ slowly but surely. We discussed what kinds of harm are indica…

2 months ago · 1 comment · Matt Osborne and Exulansic

Here is my response to the events of the last week.

Polemology Positions

Hamas And The One-State Solution

Avoiding hot takes on hot wars, I have let a week pass without commenting on the horrific scenes from Israel. Analysts and reporters have largely focused on questions of how Hamas achieved surprise, the level of Iranian responsibility, and the level of Wagner involvement. Cold takes from a cold war kid: of course the Revolutionary Guards supplied and eq…

2 months ago · 2 likes · 1 comment · Matt Osborne

Here is my response to the events at Avdiivka.

Polemology Positions

The Battle of Avdiivka and the Dangers of Getting High on Your Own Telegram Supply

Defense can be decisive. At first, the widespread view of the Russian effort at Avdiivka, now in its sixth day, was that they had achieved complete surprise, and thus overturned many assumptions about th…

2 months ago · Matt Osborne

Democracy Dies In Dorkness: WaPo Roasted Over Trans Sorority 'Sister' Sob Story

FLASH SALE ENDS AT MIDNIGHT! Lock in our lowest-ever rate on annual subscriptions NOW! We have exclusive content on the way! Don’t get me wrong. I am not pleased with all or even most of Elon Musk’s decisions as owner of Twitter. But he does own Twitter. He bought it, so he gets to break it. The same goes for Jeff Bezos and the…

2 months ago · Matt Osborne

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