First they banned gas stoves, because the science said they were harmful. Then the science said football was racist, so we banned that too. Then the nurses came out and said Battletech was problematic, so we banned that as well. Then a data scientist came out and said Florida’s COVID data was fake, so we banned the entire state. Then the scientists said podcasts were harmful, and th—
In this (highly illegal) episode:
Jesse chains himself to his gas stove
A bizarre update on Rebekah Jones, serial grifter and former (?) media darling
Is football racist?
Drama within the Battletech community
Jesse threatens to shoot Katie
Errata & Updates
The Official Unofficial (or Unofficial Official?) BARPod Discord server, where Jesse will be playing Quiplash for charity at 7:00 PM ET on January 21st
The Paula Curtis thread mentioned
https://twitter.com/paularcurtis/status/1608146988511690753
“Whistleblower Rebekah Jones wins dismissal- at a price.”
https://www.mynwfl.com/post/rebekahjonescasedismissed
Is Football Racist?
The closest thing we could find to a video of the collapse on YouTube
Daniel Engber’s article on the topic
https://slate.com/culture/2015/12/the-truth-about-will-smiths-concussion-and-bennet-omalu.html
Tracy Canada: “Damar Hamlin’s Collapse Highlights the Violence Black Men Experience in Football”
NFL players aren’t as rich as you’d think!
The movie about the NFL concussion scandal
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3322364/
“Colin Kaepernick in Netflix series likens NFL draft to slavery”
Foolball players wanted to play during the pandemic
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/24/sports/ncaafootball/coronavirus-pac-12-restart.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/16/sports/ncaafootball/covid-big-ten-football-season.html
NCAA: “All student-athletes must be allowed to opt out of participation due to concerns about contracting COVID-19”
Football players were allowed to maintain their scholarships, even if they refused to play
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/02/sports/ncaafootball/coronavirus-college-football-pac-12.html
Scientific American: “the term ‘JEDI’ is problematic”
Laura Helmuth’s appointment to EIC at Scientific American
Her reaction to the article’s pushback
Former NFL player’s reaction to the article
Battletech
Faith introduces herself
http://acekaller.blogspot.com/2020/06/finding-your-faith.html?m=1
Faith finds Battletech
http://acekaller.blogspot.com/2020/12/faith-finds-battletech-it-dawned-on-me.html?m=1
Faith is going to be a mother
http://acekaller.blogspot.com/2021/04/musings-going-forward.html?m=1
The truth about “Faith McClosky”
https://blainepardoe.wordpress.com/2021/07/08/the-truth-about-faith-mcclosky/
“Blaine Pardoe is a f****** Liar...”
Ace denies being J, while surprisingly defending him for some reason
http://acekaller.blogspot.com/2021/07/no-you-dont-get-to-lie-and-inflate.html?m=1
“My Publisher Canceled Me in Favor of an Activist Who Threatened My Life”
Statement Regarding Blaine Lee Pardoe
Faith No More
https://acekaller.blogspot.com/2022/12/faith-no-more.html
Pardoe’s response
https://blainepardoe.wordpress.com/2023/01/01/faithless/
Image credit: Getty
If the NFL (or any other industry for that matter) was 70% white, the same people would see that as clear evidence of systemic racism and oppression.
Oh absolutely. Look at NASCAR. Or better yet NHL. Also. I am not sure how the NFL is evidence of systemic racism. At all.
NHL is all in on DEI
https://www.nhl.com/community/diversity-and-inclusion
In fairness, I'd say that hockey is the sport that needs the most intentional help to ensure that anyone who wants to participate is able to do so. It is simply impossible, as a sport requiring lots of specialized equipment that is played in a climate-controlled location, to make hockey affordable. That means that only the relatively wealthy can participate, and that hockey is missing out on potentially great talent who are getting shoved into more affordable sports for purely economic reasons.
I feel like the prevalence of hockey players with Slavic or French Canadian sounding names points to it being a more popular sport in colder climates. I don't see a lot of wealthy southern kids playing hockey.
Meh. It's not like young football players have to pay for all their gear. . . .
Do hockey players in places where hockey is both popular and has a climate that makes it easily playable have to pay for all their own gear? Or only players in areas where it'd be prohibitively expensive to run a program due to warm weather, not enough interest, etc?
Curling. Beach volleyball.
High school football is nearly 80% white!
I think you're off by a bit....in 2018 the percent of white high school football players was like 30%.
Regardless, the imbalance in pro sports is likely due to the relative lack of opportunity for the dominant demographics. If you've got solid academics and professional opportunities, you're less likely to put in the physical effort and academic sacrifices required of college and professional athletes. . . particularly because the short term and life time earning potential of that career is typically quite low. Even if you do make the cut.
https://www.aspenprojectplay.org/news/african-american-youth-more-often-play-sports-to-chase-college-pro-dreams
Did you mean 30% non-white because otherwise that makes no sense. 70% of people in the US are white, so it would be very odd indeed if they didn’t make up a majority of high school football players.
It's in the article with link to the original study.
> African-American youth are nearly three times more likely than White youth to play tackle football. That gap reflects a trend also seen in high school football. According to the New York Times, in 2006, 70% of high school football players were White and 20% were African-American; by 2018, those figures were 30% White and 40% African-American.
The article also states that the main motivation is dreams of playing pro.
Here’s the NYT article it links. It does not say that. There’s a chart about races and eyeballing it (there’s no axes), it looks more like 60% white, 20% Hispanic*, 20% black. So your article is just wildly off.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/08/sports/falling-football-participation-in-america.html
*which includes white hispanics
That's only 1/2 the link -> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/08/sports/falling-football-participation-in-america.html
It pretty clearly says black and hispanic players make up a plurality now.
> The people who play the game are changing, too, with the number of white players diminishing as black and Hispanic players increasingly make up a larger plurality of the player pool.
I don't have a subscription and don't see the chart you're referring to.
But I found this Atlantic article referencing about the same numbers...BUT phrased differently. And probably identifies where the Aspen Project reporter got it wrong
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/02/football-white-flight-racial-divide/581623/#
They say 30% of white kids play, while 44% of black kids play tackle football. Not that's a proportion that plays, not the proportion of players.
Oops, I just messed up the link. That’s the one I intended. It has the chart.
All I can say is, that quote doesn’t match the data they present, which clearly shows a majority of football players are non-Hispanic white. The 40% figure for black players is seemingly totally made up.
Your number is completely and radically off - https://www.zippia.com/football-player-jobs/demographics/
This data seems suspect. First of all, it’s *job* data, nothing to do with high school, and second of all, who is being counted as a “football player” here? It’s clearly not NFL, since the average salary is $50k, and the US doesn’t really have a semi-pro or AAA football league. Also, the average age is 39? This seems totally made up.
Those are jobs. I linked to the article that references the original study and source.
> African-American youth are nearly three times more likely than White youth to play tackle football. That gap reflects a trend also seen in high school football. According to the New York Times, in 2006, 70% of high school football players were White and 20% were African-American; by 2018, those figures were 30% White and 40% African-American.
For youth sports, tackle football in particular, 30% white, 40% african-american.
the heading is "FOOTBALL PLAYER STATISTICS" I dunno what to tell you.
Go watch any high school football. It's mostly white because students are mostly white. All this in service of stats that you *know* aren't correct?
If you want to stand by this nonsense, I can only assume you're an idiot.
The article I linked (and first read) got it wrong and I continued to dig and found the correct source. (below is paraphrased from that thread)
-------------
But I found this Atlantic article referencing about the same numbers...BUT phrased differently. And probably identifies where the Aspen Project reporter got it wrong
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/02/football-white-flight-racial-divide/581623/#
They say 30% of white kids play, while 44% of black kids play tackle football. It's the proportion of each that plays, not the proportion of players as in the first article.
*edit*
Regardless, from your response it's clear you're an asshole.
I was actually hoping that Jesse would dig into the studies about gas stoves and asthma being touted in the press—they seem to be pretty shoddy, and the supposed outcomes vastly overstated (which the media of course ran with). He often reports on how the media does a poor job in representing scientific findings, so this seems like it should be in his wheelhouse.
Agree with this. Also, they implied (mostly tongue in cheek, but still) that the people outraged think that Biden is going to come into their house and take their gas stoves. No good faith person is saying that. Stoves don't last forever, so if they ban the sales of new gas stoves, they won't have one or if their state bans new hookups, they won't be able to have one if they buy a new house. (I won't even go into Katie liking cooking on an electric stove more ;) )
The big issue that I have with this whole controversy too is that no one had heard about this issue until this last week. So when this (seemingly overstated) report came out, progressives on twitter all came out acting high and mighty as if they knew about this for years and not that same day. And there is also a great thread that someone posted tons of politicians calling for the ban of gas stoves with pictures of them using gas stoves.
Yes, it really bothered me how it felt like all of a sudden, everyone had "always known" that gas stoves were bad for health!
And Reason has written about how this cycle of legislation over things like shower heads and dishwashers is a real phenomenon that consumers hate
There really does seem to be a trend of politicians and activists doing the very things they're telling the public not to do. And then explaining that it's okay for them to do those things.
Wait until progressive Twitter hears/always knew about radon.
Me too! I have to admit I was a little disappointed when I discovered they were just doing a bit and it wasn’t a topic. Maybe Jesse will look into it, though. Both the study itself and the media coverage have been sadly lacking.
I like how gas dryers are just quietly sitting in the corner, hoping nobody notices them.
By all means, though. Switch LA to all electric appliances, run 240v lines to everyone's kitchen, ban the sale of internal combustion engines and see what the grid does.
Yeah, IIRC, these studies found an association between gas stoves and a diagnosis of asthma but not symptoms of asthma like wheezing. That suggests that there is likely a confouding factor at play.
Asthma is also one of those diseases that is included in the hygiene hypothesis. Your risk of developing asthma is lower if you grow up in a rural area or with pets. I wouldn't be surprised if people in rural areas were less likely to have gas stoves. If studies don't measure or adjust for these factors correctly, you can get inaccurate results. There was also some data showing that children of people who grew up in parts of the world with a high infectious disease burden were more likely to develop allergic diseases like asthma. I don't know what the literature says now but that could be another factor given that gas stoves are not randomly distributed.
That said it doesn't mean that gas stoves don't raise the risk of asthma. It's still a plausible hypothesis.
Shoddy is an understatement. These organisations know exactly how the media will represent their findings. The associated press releases and the endorsement quotes get the headlines.
I thiiiiiink I sort of understand the NFL-is-racist argument, in that black men are the majority of NFL players. Owners, coaches, and managers tend to be white. Except for a few players, the coaches and owners really have all the power. So in that sense, it is white men holding power over black men. And I guess the other argument is that these black men are getting hurt playing for these white men, and I guess the argument is that their, ahem, bodies matter less than if they were white men. The problem of course is that this has ALWAYS been an issue with the NFL, back when more players were white. And they were nowhere near as well compensated.
And as for earning in the mid did figures. That is HELLA good money, much more than the vast majority of us would hope to make. It is possible that so many football players go broke because they graduated with useless degrees. But I remember watching some ESPN doc about tue NFL, and it also seemed like the players spent like the money would always be there.
But also. Can we NOT with the "we have progressed a little" in terms of race? There has been so much progress. There is so much to be done. But let us keep in mind that where we are now compared to where we were in the 1960s is worlds apart. And maybe if we focus on the progress we have made and what was effective, we can continue to improve
I'd argue that, to the extent college matters for football players, the degrees they get aren't as important as the fact that most of them aren't actually learning anything in college. They don't have time, even if they have the ability. If you're playing for a Division 1 school, your day is taken up with practice and training. Players have tutors for most classes and universities will find a way to pass them if they mess up.
And I think there is something uncomfortable about how we (as a Society, man...) have decided that it's okay to take a group of young men - many of them black, probably a good amount from lower-income families - and pretend to let them go to college while making sure they don't have time to really do the work, so that a few of them can have a chance to keep playing a children's game for our entertainment. Then we get to act surprised when they run out of money a few years after retiring, when they were never really given the chance to learn how to manage their own money and plan ahead. It's a weird system and it feel vaguely unfair, but it's also hard to feel bad for people who get fame and fortune for playing the aforementioned children's game. (Okay, maybe "children's game" is unfair. But it's something that was meant to be a recreational activity, not a vehicle for social mobility.)
I think children's game is unnecessarily condescending. Athletic competition (and crazy high compensation for the best) is as old as human history. I'm not sure "supposed to be recreational" is even completely accurate.
I don't really agree with your post but I totally see where you're coming from. I will note if the article had said this, it would've been a different conversation. The problem was that the article was terrible.
It's about as childish as playing Battletech...
The other thing is that when you give a bunch of young men who have never managed their own finances a huge amount of money they don't always make the best decisions about how to spend it. They're at the peak age for risk-taking behaviour, the money feels bottomless, they're often not tied down yet to a spouse and children, old age feels like it's eons away, they want to fit in with their teammates and flex on the people back home. Why would they save when it feels so much more gratifying in the moment to buy a $60,000 watch or $200,000 car? Why would they plan for the future when they can have so much fun in the moment? There are certainly exceptions, but for a lot of pro athletes, the big paydays give a a false sense of financial invincibility.
There is a whole thing, right? If they didn't play football, would they have gotten into college? Or. If they didn't play football, would they have had the time to have good grades?
Players have agents, let's not forget. That their careers are likely to be short--average length of NFL career is 3.3 years, that their likelihood of injury is 100%, this is all well-known. Everyone thinks they will be the exception.
Another thing to remember is that while coaches may make millions, owners are almost all billionaires. They're not in the same ballpark.
Is it ethical to lead men into live a lifestyle that will slowly kill them yet provide them with glory, enjoyment and (to some extent) meaning in the process? It's a tricky enough question on its own, depending on one's ideas of freedom and the meaning of life. No way anyone viewing it through the broken lens of race can get to any interesting insights on this.
I think that is a really good question though I am not sure what that has to do with race. Except I guess the high percentage of black men in college football. .
There’s a big confounder in there though: the majority-black players are there because they earned the right to be drafted or signed by a team, and then chose to play for those coaches and owners rather than pursue other vocations. Those elements of choice and merit-based selection make any attempt to frame violence (which is inherent to the game) in football as a racial issue look exactly like what it is: sophistry and grandstanding to gain meaningless crumbs of online virtue points.
I think the racial argument is that if one is from an impoverished community, which black people are far more likely to be, then one has limited opportunities to escape poverty. So in that sense playing football is not as much of a choice.
My problem with the football is racist argument is that football is safer now than when it was a majority white sport and they are being paid a hell of a lot more.
It’s still 100% a choice though, and the percentage of Native Americans and Hispanic Americans growing up in poverty rivals the numbers for black Americans. If the financial motivation was a factor, we’d expect to see the league dominated as much by Cubans and Mohawks as black players.
Besides, if the goal is to get out of poverty, a less violent, higher-success percentage, and close to as remunerative path would be entering the tech field, so there are always options.
All of this is at-will employment fundamentally still; even if people don’t *feel* as if there are other ways to escape poverty, there are. Racially unjust systems do not provide that out-clause.
Jesus Christ Katie and Jessie, "Buffalo Bills" is word play on the famous name, "Buffalo Bill."
I'd never actually checked that fact, but: https://www.buffalobills.com/news/important-dates-in-bills-history-how-the-bills-got-their-name-16401977
Jesse is a pervert for nuance...unlessssss he’s talking about a conservatives or Republicans
✅
You know who else liked cooking with gas? ADOLF HITLER. Yeah. That’s who you monsters are aligning with. Do 👏 better 👏.
I bet they drink water just like hitler too. 👏🏽
AND DURING JEWISH PRIDE MONTH
Not wanting to go overly deep on medicine, but the difference between a “heart attack” and a “cardiac arrest” is important and not intuitive. Damar Hamlin did not have a “heart attack”.
The term “heart attack” (myocardial infarction) means that a piece of your heart died, because it lost its blood supply. Could be a big part or a small part. In a heart attack, the rest of your heart is theoretically fine and keeps beating. Obviously, if a large enough part of your heart dies, the rest of it will fail and you will die (from cardiac arrest). However, many people with smaller heart attacks are relatively okay. Sometimes they have classic crushing chest pain. Sometimes they have other symptoms (women in particular are more likely to have pain elsewhere). Sometimes they don’t notice anything at all. If you have a heart attack, you need immediate medical help to try and save as much heart tissue from dying as possible and to prevent complications. You don’t necessarily pass out, and you don’t need a defibrillator as long as you are conscious.
Conversely a cardiac arrest means that your heart is not beating. This is sometimes used as the definition of “death” (there’s some ambiguity on this). If you have a cardiac arrest, you are not getting blood to the rest of your body, you pass out in seconds, and you are gone. A heart attack is one reason to have a cardiac arrest, but there are others, so the heart muscle is not necessarily damaged, it just isn’t pumping. Sometimes, the heart can be restarted (this is what a defibrillator is for). CPR replaces the function of a beating heart, marginally and for a short time, to buy time to get the defibrillator going. Damar Hamlin had a cardiac arrest. He got CPR and defibrillation, which restarted his heart.
As far as I know, it’s still unclear what caused this incident, and the role of COVID shots in heart issues is a complex topic that is the subject of rigorous debate. Just want to clear up the basic terms here.
A Buffalo Bill is a talented entertainer with money issues and marriage problems.
So perfect for a football team.
Ha! But since he was also a US Army scout in the Indian Wars and then a massive cultural appropriator in his Wild West shows, the name must be "problematic".
The Cowboys and the Indians coming together to commodify their culture for money.
Don’t you mean the acowboys and Washington Football Team?
Commanders, thank you very much.
Some additional background on Dungy. He was the first Black head coach to win a Super Bowl (Super XLI - played against his former assistant coach Lovie Smith, another Black man). Many of the Black coaches in the NFL for a long time were former assistants of his and he has arguably has done more to bring Black men into the top coaching positions in the NFL than any other individual. After he retired, he dedicated much of his time to prison ministry (https://www.prisonfellowship.org/2013/04/thirty-minutes-tony-dungy/).
His "conservative bent" became controversial when he started funding campaigns in favor of Proposition 8 back in the aughts. LZ Gunderson, a Black gay writer who was working at ESPN at the time, had a good article about how he reconciles all the good Dungy did for Black men with the homophobia that hurts gay men.
And Jesse, didn't Julian Edelman play on the Patriots for years?
Katie, the old joke is a "NYT's headline" - "World ends tomorrow, women, blacks hit hardest"
This delightful quote from Hilary Clinton:
“Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat.”
I love football (particularly collegiate football) but I've always been deeply bothered by how the highschool-to-pro pipeline seems to be set up to just let people fail in the long term. I've watched so many kids get drafted out from the colleges I follow into the NFL without a degree or a real plan for when they won't be able to play, only to get injured and run out of money in really short order. And the introduction of the college portal is only going to make the problem worse- football is an incredibly demanding sport, but the worst part is how it just chews people up; three years isn't a career, it's a phase, and if you have comparatively few options after you're done, then what's the point? Not everyone can go into coaching or land brand deals. It's kind of a tangential point, but it especially hits players who just haven't had real money before and don't know what to do with it, and I honestly think that's the biggest disservice in the whole sport. College and the NFL fail players routinely in this way and it's just sad.
Yes I think the real issue here is the younger players in high school (and earlier) who are subjecting themselves to significant harm but not being compensated at all.
The sometimes shambolic “education” that athletes receive in the name of college sports is a problem, but they’re getting the signaling value of a degree and the experience of being in college, and if they want to they can do more than the academic minimum. J+K didn’t note that it was a Supreme Court decision that allowed players to get some money separate from the scholarship grants, though they’re correct that the number of stars getting that money is small.
Likewise the pros are getting a ton of money and lifetime benefits (more so after the CTE litigation). If they bankrupt themselves, it doesn’t strike me as that much of a tragedy.
But the kids who suffer severe injuries or CTE or who simply devote their lives to becoming part of the NFL’s pipeline rather than doing something more productive with their lives I think are the real tragedy. There might be an element of race in there, but to me the gender element is clearly bigger. No way would we let girls do this to themselves.
There are plenty of physically demanding sports though- soccer, wrestling, hockey, etc- that kids will play regardless; football gets a ton of attention because it's just big in our culture, particularly down here in the southeast. People will play them because people like sports. The question isn't "why don't people do something more productive with their lives"- it doesn't entertain everyone, but football is entertaining and has a strong element of community attached to it, it does carry value for spectators and players beyond the monetary- it's "why do we allow people to move through a rigorous system of athletics only to reach a stage in life they will likely be entirely unprepared for?", and I don't think you have to sacrifice sports or academics to turn out a well-rounded, prepared student athlete either for post-college life or a pro career.
The problem with collegiate athletics in particular right now is that it's gotten popular, and with popularity comes money, first for the schools and coaching staff and more recently for a handful of players. Most D1 schools make a *ton* of money off of these programs, and in the process collegiate football becomes detached from academics and students aren't encourage to stay at one school (like with the portal) and aren't encouraged to complete a degree that could still serve them and mean something because these are, ultimately, academically competent schools (the NFL draft). This is also, coincidentally, why money should stay out of high school football unless you want it to also become a similar cess pool.
So by the time these players reach the draft- and this pool has been significantly narrowed down, not everyone recruited by a school ends up going pro, and not everyone ends up recruited- they've gone through a program that's only barely connected to an academic one that could actually give them skills for when their money runs out because nobody has taught them how to manage it. Even with the nice health insurance and benefits, bankruptcy is bankruptcy, and that basically amounts to having someone pour their whole life into something and remain unrewarded in a very important way.
And maybe the solution to this is tweaking the play schedule so there are fewer games and creating an academic program that's focused on long-term planning and financial stability, instead of just letting these guys play a full schedule while they half-complete a hospitality degree, I don't know, but the NCAA and NFL aren't going anywhere, so maybe they should all address this.
The gender component is a non sequitur- most modern, popular sports are just set up to favor males (Roger Pielke Jr wrote a good post about this a while back, though it pertains mostly to olympic sports), and women's sports just aren't as popular and don't command as much prestige; our sports culture is still very much male-oriented. The incentives simply are not there, and in the mean time, men and boys won't stop playing football.
That Battletech scammer is a scummy, lying fantasist, but because he brought down a right-winger, it’s all okay?! And the hint of transness/not transness look like a way to avoid any criticism. Does anyone else remember that American student who pretended to be an Iranian lesbian about 10 years or so ago? He just disappeared, but nowadays he’d probably be lauded for brining attention to the plight of queer Iranians. Just so damned ridiculous!
I'm kind of amazed he's not a real troon... Definitely the worse of the two, but the Battletech author doesn't come out looking great.
I don't blame him for being mad nor do I think he should've been fired... But bitching about Confederate monuments and writing some fantasy about the People's Republic of CHAZ while being a fanboy of someone who actually tried (extremely badly) to overthrow the government isn't a good look...
Robert Heinlein he ain't and he probably should've parted ways with Catalyst before he started writing weird stuff (of his own volition).
"Hey, we've got this out of touch wackadoo on our staff that alienates more than half our market, come back our Mercenaries Kickstarter!"
The whole "they" thing in the Battletech PC game was pretty divisive but is probably less unpopular than MAGA nonsense. If he'd stayed sane he'd probably still have a place there.
Again though, he didn't deserve what he got...
Cincinnati Bagels eh Jessie? Good team!
I don't know, didn't they get shmeared the other day?
Why the glancing critique of Elon for letting Rebecca Jones back on Twitter? If it’s truly going to evolve into a royal rumble of competing ideas, then this is a sign that things are working properly.
If she’s really an obvious, easy-to-detect fraud and a grifter, then the absolute best thing to do is give her a megaphone and let her speak freely. That’s what Twitter is.
As usual, the biggest harm comes from institutional actors: the NPR journalists and others who first gave her a platform and uncritically amplified her bogus messages.
I still see people posting about the oppression of Rebekah Jones on Facebook. I think it’s just become part of the anti-DeSantis canon (people really really want to believe that DeSantis policies caused some kind of massive death wave).
Enjoying the updates on old stories!!!
I can only imagine how racist her neighbor's NBA take must have been if Katie won't even paraphrase it in front of the Primxes.
This is not a premium episode, btw.
Haha, dammit.
How to react when your small hometown is mentioned on America's best podcast (yay!) but only in the context of how your grandparents ran a black Celtics player out of town (ooooh, noooo)?
Edit: also, I don't know about any Jews currently in the NFL, but Julian Edelman was very prominent Jewish. Robert Kraft (owner of the Patriots) is very publicly Jewish and highly supportive of Israel, so Pats social media did a whole thing on Edelman going to Israel.
I also enjoyed the mention of Burlington, MA and their mall!
You’re from Reading??
Maybe!
Just on WHOIS privacy (ie using proxies in the registered WHOIS information), this is usually turned on by default when registering domains that support it (eg .com) and so is not necessarily shady. Other domains disallow such proxies (eg Italy’s .it).
Agree. When I’ve put up sites I always do that. It’s a pretty common practice, and some web hosts do it by default.
To be honest I don’t have a problem with Katie’s neighbor not watching basketball. Maybe his phrasing was racist, but he has the same instinct POC have when they say they want to see people that look like them in media.
i thought this was why we didn't like wokeness though: it's just a conservative mindset dressed up in ostensibly liberal language.
I guess I don’t see it as an either or proposition. You can acknowledge (and not be ashamed) that people’s preferences often break down on racial lines and still be fine living in a multi-ethnic democracy.
ok, but even if we're ok with some degree of in-group affinity, to not want to watch a sport because too many of the players (not all though) are of a certain race seems to me a bit ridiculous (but i am a Big Lib).
it's worth noting we don't even know why he doesn't watch basketball: is it because there are too many black people or not enough white people? would he feel better if they were mostly hispanic or asian instead? that's not racial affinity.
I think it’s very not ridiculous for most non-white people. Black people often talk about being uncomfortable in all white environments. I know a Jewish woman who will not go to a certain grocery store chain because she doesn’t feel welcome, in part because its customers are all white and rural. I myself feel uncomfortable in parts of New York where everyone around me is black. I don’t think it’s a stretch to extend these feelings to entertainment. Black people watch the NBA at 3x the rate as the NFL. I don’t think that’d be true if the league was all white.
Good point
Jesse's Biden impression sounds like the world's whitest impression of a black guy.
They really should have just cut in a Moynihan Biden voice! XD
When I heard it, I wondered why I had missed Gary Coleman’s inauguration.
Two of my family members are top Division coaches. I ask one about how this political stuff impacts the sport and team. Based on what I see and what he has said, players and coaches (from very diverse backgrounds) are very close - like family. Also, a lot of coaches are guys who have the personality and talent to lead but the body that won't play. So, isn't observing that the NFL is dominantly black acknowledging their abled-body-ness? 🤔
Presumably women coaches and officials also have to go if the off-the-field personnel has to mirror what’s on the field.
Re: the NFL being a force against racism, hasn't anyone seen Brian's Song? It's perhaps not as well known as Remember the Titans, but it's about two NFL players (one white and one black) in the 60s. The white player doesn't accept the black player at first, but they gradually bond over the course of their training, and they end up supporting each other through some difficult times.
Re: the claims about how black men getting injured shows how the NFL is racist, I think two contributing factors to this take are safetyism and the chattering classes being disconnected from their bodies/not having many physical outlets. I haven't followed all the CTE stuff closely, so I don't want to dismiss the risk. But I started playing a sport as an adult that carries a (relatively small, but still higher than something like golf) risk of serious injury or death. I actually knew someone who died while playing this sport, and though we weren't close, I was still frightened enough by his death that I was a little hesitant to jump back into it. But I get so much joy out of it, and I've made so many fond memories playing it with friends, that I made a conscious choice to continue doing it despite the risk. I imagine NFL players feel similarly; the rush a lifelong football devotee must feel his first time stepping into a field is probably incredible. (And of course, the money isn't bad either, as long as he's healthy enough to keep playing.) But I think this understanding of how rewards from risky physical activity can outweigh the risks for some people is hard to understand for someone who spends most of their life interacting with the world through a screen.
Isn't Brian's Song one of the few pieces of pop culture (along with Saving Private Ryan) that Men (TM) are officially allowed to cry from without having their manhood questioned?
Also, your comment about how chattering classes are disconnected from their bodies/not having many physical outlets explains a LOT of the culture war issues we've been experiencing over the past decade.
I have a secret guys I have read The Turner Diaries. It is rough read both to your & that it really isn’t written very well. Also the character development kind of stinks & the plot is pretty predictable. It is also part of a series. I have only read the Turner Diaries.
https://cosmotheistchurch.org/product/nvb-fiction-collection-the-turner-diaries-hunter-serpents-walk/
Females in the Battletech community: There are actually several. We just don't advertise that fact much. lol
FWIW heating your home with natural gas (ahem Katie) has a much higher carbon footprint than cooking with it. The big push to eliminate natural gas hookups really only makes sense from a global warming perspective in terms of replacing gas heaters with heat pumps, the savings on carbon emissions from gas stoves is negligible. (I just plugged some numbers in a calculator and it claims if you boil a pot of water every day for a year it works out to equivalent of something like 500 miles in a Prius).
Something I particularly appreciated being discussed in this podcast that has been omitted from even most criticisms of Canada's article on-line is the point that professional football used to be segregated. That seems like it just has to be the end of the entire discussion, especially given that professional football was arguably even more dangerous in the era when it was a whites-only sport.
I want to point out that Jesse correctly pronounced "Damar" while Kmele could not.
This was a particularly synchronous episode for me. I just played in my first Battletech tournament on Saturday (the day this dropped) and I'm eagerly anticipating listening to Pardoe's new audiobook that was delivered to my phone on Wednesday.
I was aware of the cancellation but not of the bonkers story behind it. Thank you so much for your coverage.
BTW Katie I was also skeptical of the presence of women in Battletech fandom and was surprised to see the name "Rachel" on the tournament roster. Rachel turned out to be a transwoman/enby. I didn't play against her/them, and she/they seemed perfectly nice. Just saying that your theory has yet to be disproven.
"Theorization of Flesh" would make a great band name. Something like Gojira, super-harsh but also really complex.
Good episode with a great title, though maybe it's time to start putting "scientists" in scare quotes.
woah ok the battletech stuff was great, bored losers weaponizing identity politics for idk fun? not the first, last, or most malicious example but still so very sad
I can’t tell you how much I need Jesse to tell us his favorite Slay the Spire character is and his ascension levels
I need to read Blue Dawn immediately. I’ve got a flight Monday, I’ll see if I can get it done.
Jesse's "C'mon Man" sounds like Seth Green in Can't Hardly Wait.
14 and a half known Jewish owners in the NFL out of 537,513 total owners* per what I could find out about the ownership structures of teams on Wikipedia. That works out to 0.002%. If we only count teams where the ownership structure is held by an individual or a small group of individuals (such as a family), that brings it to 14 and a half out of 53, or 27.3%.
*Green Bay Packers is owned by a publicly held non-profit corporation with 537,460 stockholders. The most recent price for a share is $300 and during their stock sales any American or Canadian resident can buy a share. Unknown how many Green Bay Packers shareholders are Jewish. Until we know that, jury's out on whether members of the tribe are overrepresented among NFL team owners.
I'm not scrolling through the comments to find out; this has probably been said. But the most problematic thing Katie has ever said is that she prefers cooking on an electric stove
Yes, Carlo Rossi is a *jug* wine. Unlike with a box wine, you can see how much wine is left. I got busted for a party in college when a cop caught a girl with a crazy straw and a bottle of Carlo Rossi outside my dorm.
Did you have the “Carlo challenge” when/where you went to college? I remember it from UMD in the aughts . . . The challenge consisted of drinking an entire jug without puking, if I recall correctly.
How did Jesse forget about Josh Rosen, very likely the highest drafted Jewish player in modern NFL history (definitely the most hyped).
Unfortunately for Josh, he completely flamed out in the NFL. Maybe that's why Jesse forgot him even though the guy is only 25 years old.
I'm more surprised he forgot Julian Edelman, who was a star player and onetime Super Bowl MVP for his Patriots.
If you want see a standup comedian show how football crosses the racial divide check out Doug Stanhope’s bit on that sport..
As a Pardo, my lived experience is that Par-DOH is the wrong pronunciation. It’s PAR-doh. Do better, Katie. 😉
Mitchel Schwartz! Great nfl Jew. Julian Edelman, I can go on.
I take issue with the brief discussion on the gas stove issue. I emailed this to barpod last night, so not in time for the latest episode, maybe they'll make an update for the next one.
In the meantime, I have some expertise in this area, so for anyone interested, I'll paste my full email here. Apologies for the length:
I'm sure you'll get tons of emails about this, but I have some expertise in this area, so I figured I'll give you my two cents:
First of all, gas stoves are unequivocally NOT "bad for the climate", and they also are not 'more polluting' in most senses of the term. Quite the contrary. In the US at least, most electricity is generated from burning coal and natural gas. Converting that fuel to electricity (by burning it to make steam, and using that steam to drive a turbine) is a very inefficient process, and once converted to electricity, a significant amount of that remaining energy is lost in transmitting it long distance over power lines. So simply piping natural gas directly to homes and burning it directly at the stove or oven, uses only a fraction of the fossil fuels, and emits only a fraction of the carbon and air pollution, as using an electric stove.
If 100% of our electricity was produced with solar, wind, nuclear, and other non-fossil fuel sources, or close to 100%, then you could say that gas stoves are more polluting and worse for the climate. Until then, that is the opposite of the truth, and electric stoves are worse. It's really odd that in this case, it is the political right which is taking the side which is better for the environment and the climate, and the left embracing the more pro-pollution and unscientific position, even if both are doing so inadvertently.
The grain of truth here is that gas stoves do produce more indoor air pollution than electric stoves, however in most cases it's relatively trivial. Like all combustion appliances, most of the combustion products are water vapor and carbon dioxide, but since combustion is never 100% efficient, there is a small amount of carbon monoxide (CO) produced, which is the main concern.
I used to work as an energy efficiency engineer, doing among other things energy audits and building inspections, and this sometimes included testing ovens in apartments for CO levels. In a clean and well maintained oven, the CO level is very low, barely detectable with our instruments (typically single digits ppm). In a very dirty oven, levels could be significantly higher, but even then, probably not enough to be a significant concern unless someone was cooking all day (or using their oven as a heat source, which happened sometimes, this was often low-income housing..). And even then, it's probably less of a concern than smoke / soot particles from the dirty oven, and the main issue is lack of ventilation. Which is a problem with an electric oven as well.
I should also note that we were testing CO levels directly in the oven itself, by inserting the probe of a combustion analyzer into the vent of the oven. When sampling the ambient air even a few feet away from the oven, the CO level was pretty much always zero, even in apartments with dirty ovens (unless there was another CO source, like a problem with a furnace etc).
I'll try to be brief and say that the bottom line is, the solution if you're concerned about air quality relating to ovens / stoves is, keep your oven clean, and ensure adequate ventilation. From a regulatory standpoint, there are two very significant areas that policy makers could and should focus on, which would be far more meaningful than banning gas stoves:
1- Require adequate mechanical ventilation in kitchens- specifically a range hood that is exhausted to the outside (not recirculated). Codes have gotten better in some areas, but there are still many loopholes, often an operable window counts as adequate ventilation (it is not), and codes typically only apply to new construction anyway. Even a dedicated kitchen exhaust isn't ideal if that is just a grille on the wall operating constantly at a low rate, rather than a range hood with a fan. (The same ventilation issue also applies to bathrooms, for different reasons..)
Incidentally, better kitchen ventilation would also solve a related problem, which is far more important in my opinion: People disabling their smoke detectors because of nuisance alarms when cooking, leaving them vulnerable to dying in house fires.
2- Update the extremely antiquated regulations for home carbon monoxide detectors. Basically the current regulations for UL-listed CO alarms were written at a time when homes commonly used fireplaces or unvented combustion heaters to heat the home, and the primary concern of these regulations was to prevent 'nuisance' alarms from the alarms going off constantly. As a result, pretty much all carbon monoxide alarms in the US at least only go off when there are very high levels, or moderate levels for very prolonged periods of time (this article has more details).
In other words, CO detectors are not very sensitive, by design- it's almost the opposite of the typical experience with smoke detectors, where they go off when you even think about cooking.. There are 'low-level' CO detectors available, but these are specialized items typically used by building inspectors, or highly health-conscious individuals, not something you'll find in any hardware store or installed in nearly any home. Some fancy UL-listed alarms do have a digital readout that shows actual CO level, or maybe that info as available through a wireless app if it's a really fancy Nest style device, but the alarm won't sound from these lower levels.
FYI If your CO alarm ever goes off (and it's not just a low battery or end-of-life alarm), you need to open some windows, evacuate, and call the fire department immediately.
So updating these obsolete regulations, so that CO alarms weren't off at much lower levels, is much needed and would go a long way towards addressing indoor air quality concerns from stoves.
- As a bonus, they could also ban gas stoves with pilot lights (as opposed to gas stoves with electric ignition). These stoves keep several flames (typically two for the range and one for the oven) constantly burning even when the stove isn't in use, which wastes gas and contributes air pollution to the home, and also presents a safety hazard if the pilot light gets blown out. (edit: There seems to already be a ban of some sort, but the stove in my Brooklyn apartment still has a pilot light [or it did before I disabled it], so 🤷♂.. I'm not sure if it's an issue of loopholes, or lack of enforcement or what, but clearly there is room for improvement)
Sorry this email was much longer than intended. Bottom line, gas stoves are not worse for climate or the environment, they are superior to electric stoves in this respect, and will be for the foreseeable future. The indoor air quality issues from gas stoves are trivial for most people, and can be addressed with adequate mechanical ventilation and by keeping stoves clean, both of which are important with electric stoves anyway- especially for fire safety reasons. And regulations for CO alarms seriously need to be updated, and if anything is going to be banned, it should be gas stoves with pilot lights.
I think most of these points are pretty straightforward, but I'm happy to provide further clarification on any of these points if you'd like. I'm not an expert on health or medicine, so perhaps there's something I'm missing, but I have spent quite a bit of time focusing on indoor air quality and combustion safety, these are pretty big topics in the world of building science and building energy efficiency. And while I'm sure there are differing opinions on the air quality aspect, certainly the climate issue is really not controversial, I doubt anyone that knows what they're talking about would disagree.
As someone who recently spent way too much time de-they-ifying the character portraits of his Battletech mercenary outfit I think it was about time for Pardoe to leave anyways... I'm sure he was a Reagan conservative back in the day but a Trump "conservative" writing his very own "Manhunt" isn't a good fit for a modern mass market brand.
Seems like he's doing better with the audience "Blue Dawn" in any case.
J, the fake troon is indeed worse...
I sm wondering though - if people were liking his storylines in the game, then how was it time for him to.leave? If his game ideas went out of style, then yes. Otherwise, seriously, who cares?
It's not so much that, but that the writing was on the wall that he was a potential liability to Catalyst. If it hadn't been an unhinged stalker it would've been someone else sabotaging their future Kickstarters.
Having unpopular politics while being a face of the brand isn't good when they're trying to drum up money for Mercenaries isn't great.
Valid point.
While Jesse rightfully dismisses the facile “NFL draft combine as slave auction” comparison, he does accurately identify that the events - full of prodding, ogling of bodies, and young men in various states of either undress or partial dress in spandex - have a somewhat salacious, meat-market feel.
You know who else noticed that? Outsports, the site that looks at amateur and pro sports through the eyes of the gay fan. A sample of their content: https://www.outsports.com/2016/10/6/13183978/nfl-week-5-hot-players-bell-matthews-kelce-edelman.
So while the slave analogy is totally overblown, there’s a very good argument to be made that the pre-draft stuff DOES have some semblance of a “cruising at a pool on Fire Island” vibe.
This might help Jesse win WWC with the pigeons. It was mentioned on the Smoke ‘Em podcast by Nancy Rommelmann for other purposes but hey, it might be worth a shot!
https://youtu.be/8zLrlDCa2LY
if Battletech is problematic, what will they think about Warhammer 40K :D
Yeah, I honestly don't understand people who such IP (WH40k) and then actively complain about it not being progressive or dont feel represented in its universe.
WTF, WH40k is interesting because it is do f*ed up and different from other SFI universes, changing it would just make it another bland SFI property. Also why would some want to be "represented" in such terrible universe, there is no good guys, galaxy is in perpetual war. Humanity is worse representation of itself (xenofobic, religious fantatic), other races are also terrible. I mean, is exterminatus really more acceptable, is humans doing it are diverse according to our standard?
In fairness the female Space Marine argument is different than it used to be... There was a sexual egalitarian version of it around twenty years ago; now it also ultimately results in male Sisters of Battle.
If you've got female Space Marines the Ecclesiarchy doesn't need the Adepta Sororitas, just set up some church sponsored Foundings.
Issue with comparing Space Marines from 35 years ago (first edition) and now, that since then game/lore has developed enormously.
Entire lore was written and made Warhammer 40k "world" that it is now. Adding them now would require changing entire setting ground up while not bringing much improvement.
Also adding female space maries would just completely kill Sisters of Battle and Sisters of Silence (that are amazing in their own right) further reducing richness of the universe. What point of having Sisters if you have same thing in Space Marines.
Easier way is simply to further improve Sisters and do more lore around them.
I am more on the side, lets grow the existing lore and expand it that way.
I'd like them to admit that Acts of Faith are psychic powers... Cuz they do fucking obviously are... That'd grow the lore.
Tony Dungy is wildly homophobic and calling him slightly conservative is just nonsense. His ugly comments about gays in sports are horrific, do better dude.
The only way I would watch golf is if it became a full contact sport.
There's an unofficial BARpod book club?!
Indeed:
https://www.reddit.com/r/BlockedAndReported/comments/zg1g3f/unofficial_bar_book_club_decemberjanuary_picks/
Hey there, the link to the Discord talked about at the beginning is here:
https://discord.gg/YRctv8Xr9M
Boring short about Carlo Rossi: When my best friend and I were in our early 20s, he used to show up to house parties with a jug of Carlo Rossi Sangria under his arm. It was a trashy Italian kid move, but it was always a hit.
Nothing but bangers this week. Great episode!
Its true, I can’t believe this is The Latest Thing being used as a wedge issue by the operatives and virtue signal by the zealots.
Though, TBF climate hysteria is all hypocrisy anyway. The “green” electric equipment is being sourced by child slaves and manufactured by sweatshop labor which is powered by, you guessed it, mostly coal.
We’re even discussing the issue on devices with the “coal and slaves plan”. Hypocrites want to feel good about themselves by calling their chosen scape goat evil while reaping the spoils of said evil. It’d be silly if it weren’t kinda sad.
No one gives a damn about state's rights, it's just a rhetorical tool. The same people would ban solar panels given the power to do so.
Still, unless you're cooking a lot I doubt the stove would have that big of an impact. Any sort of fireplace on the other hand, well...
I played tabletop Battletech, painted the old Ral Partha miniatures, but my biggest Battletech flex is that I have an original copy of the Star League Sourcebook.
I was there too in the early 90’s and I can assure you there were no geeks whatsoever. I never saw a single one.
;)
Now is a great time to come back. Alpha Strike (streamlined, no hexes) just relaunched with a spiffy new box set.