2024

The most active thread over the weekend was titled, "Kamala Harris Says Anyone Who Breaks Into Her House Is ‘Getting Shot’" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster quoted from a Huffington Post article describing Vice President Kamala Harris' interview with Oprah Winfrey that took place during an event in Michigan. While the discussion was wide-ranging and touched on a number of topics, the original poster focused on a portion dealing with guns. Harris repeated a statement made during her debate with former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump that both she and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the Democratic nominee for Vice President, own guns. Winfrey expressed surprise about that statement and Harris, while laughing, went on to say that "If somebody breaks into my house, they’re getting shot." The original poster seems to approve of this sentiment and calls it a "very strong statement". Once again, this thread highlights that the phenomenon of Republicans believing their own lies and then ending up perplexed when they don't align with reality. To hear Republicans tell it, Harris — like all liberals — hates guns and plans to take them away if she wins the presidency. Therefore, Harris claiming to not only be a gun owner, but prepared to use one for self-protection is viewed by conservatives as either an outright lie or hypocrisy. Liberal posters point out that Democrats generally favor common sense gun control but almost nobody proposes banning all guns. Conservatives tend to view guns as a culture war issue and struggle with nuance on the topic. They often interpret support for an assault weapons ban as being roughly the same as the government knocking down doors to seize hunting rifles. Other posters view Harris' statement more in terms of messaging. They say that she is signaling to moderate Republicans and independents that she is not a radical liberal hellbent on taking their guns from them. Some posters agree that this is the intent of the statement, but they consider it pandering and have doubts about the authenticity of the sentiment. Many posters view Harris' statement in traditional gun control terms. To them, this is not a legal or cultural issue, but rather a question of gun safety. They cite statistics showing that a gun in the home is more likely to be a danger to the inhabitants of the house rather than a means of self-defense. These posters are disappointed by Harris, though not enough to drop their support for her. In addition, several posters questioned Harris need for self-defense. She currently lives at the United States Naval Observatory surrounded by U.S. Secret Service protection. There is almost no chance of someone breaking into her house in current circumstances (though at least one poster suggested that recent USSS failures mean that a break-in is possible). Others argued that as a prosecutor, Harris probably faced a number of threats which justified owning a gun for self-protection.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "SFFA doesn't like the Asian American %" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster quoted from an article in the New York Times discussing the group, "Students for Fair Admissions". This organization successfully sued Harvard University over race-based admissions preferences resulting in a Supreme Court ruling that ended affirmative action in college admissions. This academic year is the first in which incoming students were admitted under the new rules and the diversity mixes of the freshman classes of top universities have been watched closely. Students for Fair Admissions represented Asian students in its case against Harvard and expected that the Supreme Court ruling would lead to an increase of Asian students among the leading schools. However, three prominent universities — Princeton, Yale and Duke — actually saw declines in Asian American enrollment. As a result, the organization is threatening to investigate whether those institutions are correctly following the law and to sue them if they are not. I have discussed multiple threads on the topic of race and college admissions in this blog as many such threads have been among the most active. The topic has been discussed so frequently that I'd expect the forum's posters to be sick and tired of the topic by now. Indeed, several posters demonstrated considerable fatigue with the topic. But as this thread's position as the most active thread shows, there is stil considerable capacity among posters to debate the topic. Most of the attention in this thread is focused on two groups, Asian-Americans and Black Americans. The primary argument is whether there are too many, the correct amount, or too few of each group. That argument is complicated by the fact that there is little agreement about the correct numbers, let alone whether colleges acting legally to reach that number. Fundamentally this is a dispute between whether universities should seek to admit the "most qualified" students or a "diverse" group of students. Those who favor admitting the most qualified students are not always able to agree on which metrics should determine who is most qualified, but often settle on tests scores. As such, they generally oppose any situation in which a student is accepted with a lower test score than a student who is turned down. Those who value diversity normally take a broader view and argue that diversity strengthens the student body. In their view, a diverse group of students which might include a few with lower test scores is, overall, stronger than a homogenous class consisting only of those with top stats. Colleges themselves have generally taken the second view and, the Supreme Court ruling notwithstanding, have tried to recruit diverse student bodies. The issue up for debate, therefore, is whether those efforts are legal. Posters in this thread obviously have various views. One thing I noticed in this thread that I hadn't noticed in previous threads on similar topics is self-described Asian and White posters arguing strongly in favor of diversity. But that may be the only welcome development in this otherwise tiresome thread.

The two most active threads yesterday were the thread about the apparent assassination attempt of former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump and the thread about Taylor Swift. Because I discussed both of these threads yesterday, I'll skip them today. The next most active thread was titled, "Overweight boys- constructive help only, please" and posted in the "Elementary School-Aged Kids" forum. The original poster says that she has 8 and 10 year old sons who are both overweight. She says the boys are active and that the family eats healthy foods and has no junk food in the house. But the boys just eat a lot. The original poster is seeking advice about how to help her sons control their weight while not causing "some disordered eating craziness". Most of those responding feel that the original poster is already doing most of the right things. Therefore, several posters suggest that this might be a phase in which the boys are "growing out" instead of "growing up", meaning that they have gained weight quicker than they have gained height and that this will likely change when the boys hit spurts of growth in height. Posters also question whether any family members, even extended ones, have larger body types which could mean that the boys' weight is simply genetic. The original poster does have a brother who went through a chubby phase and has a larger build then she does. Anything involving weight is of course controversial on DCUM. One reason for this is that many posters have very strong opinions which conflict with the equally strong opinions of other posters. One common division involves limiting eating as a means to control weight. For some posters, the sole answer to every question about how to lose weight is "eat less". No surprise then that several posters immediately began advising the original poster to limit her sons' eating. The original poster has cut back snacks based on advice from the kids' pediatrician. However, other posters argue almost the exact opposite. They suggest providing more, but different, types of snacks and food. They contend that if the boys are hungry, they will eat more when the opportunity presents itself. They suggest that a better strategy is to provide healthy snacks, especially those high in protein, more frequently so that the boys don't feel starved when they sit down for a meal. Some posters believe that since the original poster seems to have diet and exercise covered, the problem might be hormonal. They suggest that the original poster have blood panels done to see if anything is affecting the boys' metabolism. Some posters argue the boys weight should not be much of a concern if they are active and eating good diets. Being healthy is more important than their weight, these posters suggest.

The most active thread over the weekend was one that was just created yesterday. Titled, "Shooting at Trump’s FL golf course while he was there" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum, the thread was created just after reports that there had been a shooting in the vicinity of former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump. The first news of this shooting came from a report by Trump's communications director who simply said that there had been shooting near Trump but that Trump was safe and unhurt. A New York Post tweet soon circulated saying that the shooting occurred outside Trump's Florida golf course and involved two individuals shooting at each other and was unrelated to Trump. This caused a number of the early posters to suggest that Trump was attempting to milk an unrelated situation to generate sympathy and redirect attention from his anti-immigrant remarks involving Haitians in Springfield, Ohio. However, officials soon held a press conference in which they described what had happened as a planned assassination of Trump. A U.S. secret service agent had discovered an individual hiding in bushes with a rifle aimed toward the golf course at which Trump was golfing and opened fire. An individual had later been arrested and a semi-automatic rifle had been found at the scene. Once the name of the individual arrested was publicized, posters engaged in a desparate contest to determine his political leanings and blame the opposite political party. In the case of the earlier shooting of Trump, the shooter had unclear political leanings and had researched the whereabouts of political figures across the political spectrum. Trump appears to have been nothing more than a target of opportunity with no particular partisan political significance to the shooter. The individual involved in this incident has a similarly confusing political identity, though one that was much more public. The attempted assassin previously tweeted that he had voted for Trump but then become disenchanted with him. He also tweeted support for former Republican presidential candidates Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley. But, reports showed that he is a registered Democrat. The earlier shooter was a registered Republican but posters devoted pages of posts insisting that party registration was meaningless and that, in fact, people register for a party they don't support all the time. However, in this case, posters insisted that party registration was definitive. The individual in the lastest incident clearly is obsessed with Ukraine, having traveled there and attempted to recruit foreign volunteers to fight against Russia. If he has any political motivation to shoot Trump, it is probably related to Ukraine and its conflict with Russia. However, it is most likely that the man who was arrested suffers from mental health issues. As such, it may be difficult to find logic in his actions. Regardless, posters of all political persuasions in this thread seem entirely uninterested in facts other than using them to support their personal political arguments, even if that meant twisting them or ignoring unwanted information. Very few posters are willing to wait to see what the facts reveal but, instead, simply want to score political points. The result is the thread getting bogged down in disputes over meaningless minutiae such as whether liberals or conservatives are more likely to build sheds for the homeless.

Just as most days last week, the most active topics over the weekend were political. The first of those was titled, "ABC News interview TONIGHT with Biden" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster started this thread in the late morning on Friday in anticipation of the recorded interview of President Joe Biden that ABC News was going to broadcast that evening. The original poster expressed his opinion that the interview would be too short and the fact that it was pre-recorded would be insufficient to demonstrate Biden's cognitive fitness. The interview was scheduled to be recorded in the afternoon which the original poster described as Biden's "functional" window and would be conducted by George Stephanopoulos, a former Bill Clinton White House staffer. None of this was reassuring to the original poster. Others were even more strident in their criticism. Several posters were certain that a conspiracy was in the works. Biden would be provided the questions in advanced, they said. The interview would be edited, they claimed. There is no evidence of the first and ABC News explicitly denied the the interview would be edited. One poster even predicted that artificial intelligence would be used to fake or enhance the interview. The thread was already 15 pages long before the interview even aired. Once ABC News started the broadcast, posters posted their reactions as they watched. Most were not impressed. Once again Biden's voice sounded off and every stumble over a word resulted in a rash of posts. Biden's skin tone which had taken on an orange hue reminiscent of former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump's, was also the subject of many remarks. There is very little indication that the interview had successfully achieved its goal of assuring the public that Biden has the cognitive ability to run the country. The problem that Biden faces is that he is not currently a good communicator. His critics are assuming, or at least arguing, that Biden's communications struggles reflect problems with other skills necessary to serve as President. I am not sure that this is a good assumption, but Biden and his team are doing little to convince the public otherwise. This thread is currently 55 pages long and I am unable to read it all. But shortly after the interview ended it appears that the thread started going off topic and simply turned in to a presidential campaign free-for-all thread. In a way that is fitting. There is nothing that Biden can do to convince diehard Republicans that he is fit for office. Similarly, plenty of Democrats are willing to vote for Biden even if he has to be propped up like Bernie in "Weekend at Bernie's". As such, Biden's performance in the interview is of little matter to these folks. As for those who are basing their vote on Biden's fitness for office, based on the little evidence they provided in this thread, they want to see more of Biden in order to better make a decision.

The three most active threads yesterday were all posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. However, one of those was a thread that I discussed yesterday and will skip today. Still, half of the topics I will discuss today are political. The first of those was titled, "It is insulting to us American voters that we have to choose between a senile old man and a criminal". The original poster says that she is furious and cannot vote for either President Joe Biden or former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump. She says that it is completely unacceptable that American voters have been put in this position and that the whole world is watching in horror. The worst part about our current conundrum is that it was not caused by our political system breaking down, but rather our political system working exactly as it should, at least in terms of selecting candidates. The Republican Party had a hard-fought primary with a number of credible candidates. Those candidates included several sitting or former governors, a U.S. Senator, and a former Vice President. Trump, as a former President — as well as a cult leader — always had an advantage. But the other candidates had a fair opportunity to defeat him and simply failed. Trump is clearly his party's preferred candidate. The Democrats' situation was somewhat different. It is rare that sitting Presidents face contested primary elections with anything other than token opposition, especially when the President has been successful as it can be argued that Biden has been. The stiffest opposition from Biden was from "uncommitted". But while the system functioned as designed, the institutions within that system have been weakened and/or are dysfunctional. Trump was twice impeached but each time the Senate, acting mostly along partisan lines, refused to convict. In the case of Trump's January 6 related impeachment, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell even agreed with the impeachment, but argued that Trump, as a former rather than sitting President, should be dealt with by the courts rather than Congress. It was the same McConnell who had previously engineered the appointment of three Supreme Court justices selected by Trump, once by refusing to confirm a nominee and once by rushing to confirm a nominee in record speed. The judicial system has simply not been up to the task of handling Trump and his Supreme Court picks are further assuring that he will not face legal consequences. On the Democratic side, most voters likely believed that Biden was going to be a one-term President. A bridge candidate who would defeat Trump, get the country back on track, and then prepare the ground for the younger generation. But somewhere along the way Biden, if he had ever agreed to this in the first place, changed his mind. Again, the institutions that could have played a role in easing him out failed. Mechanisms are grinding away now that may result in Biden's replacement, but whether that comes to pass is still an open question. The real challenge facing us is how we can strengthen the institutions that are fundamental to our democracy but which have simply not been functioning adequately. I don't really have an answer to that question.

Yesterday's most active threads were again dominated by political topics, even when the topics were not in the political forum. The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Biden weighing whether to drop out", and was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster linked to a New York Times article that currently reports that President Joe Biden has told allies that he understands that he must quickly convince voters that he is up to the job if he is to salvage his presidential campaign. This article originally said that Biden had talked to these allies about dropping out. While the current version of the article contains a quote from Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, denying that claim, the claim itself is missing. The article provides no information about why the original claim was removed or even any notice that it has been dropped from the article. After New York Times reporters tweeted out the claim that Biden had discussed dropping out, Biden campaign officials strongly pushed back saying that they had only been given 7 minutes to respond to the report and would have denied it then if they had had time. The upshot is that this thread is based on an allegation that has been removed by the newspaper and rejected by both campaign and White House officials. The discussion in the thread is mostly about who would take Biden's position at the top of the ticket. The most obvious choice is Vice President Kamala Harris. Legally, the campaign money raised by the Biden-Harris campaign can only be used by Biden or Harris. Nevertheless, in this thread, there is strong opposition to Harris. Posters are concerned that she is not popular and that her weaknesses can easily be exploited. Some posters argue that she should be removed as the vice presidential candidate, but that would mean that another campaign would have to start from zero in terms of money. Other posters suggest that she remain as the vice presidential candidate, but someone else be selected to run for the presidency. According to campaign finance experts, that arrangement would legally be a new campaign and could not access the current Biden-Harris money. Realistically, Biden and Harris are the only two candidates. Personally, I don't understand the opposition to Harris. Yes, we can all think of our dream candidates, but none of those are realistic options (unless either Biden or Harris is your dream candidate). Biden and Harris are both currently polling about the same against former president, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump. I would think that Harris has a much bigger upside. Moreover, Harris's writ as candidate would be fairly simple. She would only need to support reproductive rights, support gun control, demand that corporations lower prices, and attack Trump on a long list of topics. Beating Trump does not require sophistication. It mostly requires demonstrating that you are not Trump and that you still maintain significant cognitive capability. What would be really damaging to Democrats is a long, drawn-out, process to determine whether Biden will stay or go. If he is going to step down, he needs to do it quickly. If he is not going to, all the Democrats calling for him to move aside need to shut up. Democratic infighting at this point is really not needed.

The most active thread yesterday was the Gaza war thread which is back on top after interest in the war was renewed due to Israel's repeated drone strikes on a convoy of World Central Kitchen aid workers, killing seven. Since I have already discussed that thread, I will move on to the next which was titled "UT Austin lays off DEI employees" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster linked to an article in "The Hill" saying that in order to comply with a Texas law that bans Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives at public universities, the University of Texas at Austin has laid off 60 employees that were involved with DEI. The original poster, who is a proponent of DEI programs, asks if anyone is removing the university from their list of colleges to pursue. DEI is the lastest in a series of right-wing bugaboos following affirmative action and critical race theory (CRT) that have been hijacked by right-wingers to promote the idea that White people are the true victims of racism. There is a well-funded political infrastructure devoted to "exposing" DEI and generating opposition to it. That effort seems to have had considerable success in convincing White people, and to an extent Asians, that they are being discriminated against in favor of less qualified minorities. As such, a number of those responding express happiness that the DEI program is being eliminated and claim that they will move UT higher on their lists. To be sure, many DEI efforts are deserving of criticism. In many cases, especially in the corporate world, such programs are little more than window dressing that have no real impact other than to create frustration. Such programs are seen as a waste of money, which is one of the primary criticisms voiced in this thread. Similarly, many DEI programs are so poorly implemented that they have little positive impact. However, proponents argue that the response to poor DEI programs should be better DEI programs rather than the elimination of them. Moreover, because of the constant politically-motivated attacks on such programs, they are often misunderstood. As the original poster of the thread writes in a follow-up post, "Funny how the people so against DEI don’t seem to have an elementary understanding of the concepts." One of the most common complaints about DEI is about the large budgets often devoted to it. In addition, despite the often lucrative funding, the programs are not seen as contributing to the schools' academic mission. As a poster who is a college professor writes, "They hire consultants, have their own staff, host expensive events, and get paid probably twice what I get paid as a tenured professor." Ironically, even the successes of DEI programs are often used to disparage them. For instance, if a DEI program succeeds in increasing the percentage of minority students at a university, many will claim that these students are unqualified and that they took places from more deserving White students, regardless of whether that is true or not.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "I disconnected my direct deposit" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster, who appears to be highly stressed at the moment, doesn't do the best job of explaining her circumstances which, I think, leads to a somewhat negative tone for this thread. Essentially, the original poster works in a high-pressure job that pays well while her husband works as a professor, earning less than half that she does. They have a three-year-old child and the original poster is currently 32 weeks pregnant. She appears to have had a somewhat long-running resentment due to what she sees as her subsidizing her husband's lifestyle while also trying to be a mother. With a second child on the way, these feelings have come to a boil. The original poster's husband is about to start a year-long sabbatical and they have enough liquid savings to cover two years of their living expenses. Therefore, the original poster has chosen this time to take steps to force the issue of his refusal to increase his earnings. She says that she will "quiet quit" her job with the expectation that she will eventually be pushed out. In addition, she has switched the direct deposit of her paycheck from their joint bank account to her personal account. The bottom line is that she wants financial support of their family to be more evenly divided, something that can be achieved either through her husband increasing his earnings or by downsizing their lifestyle. Since her husband has not been willing to do either, the original poster essentially wants to create a financial crunch for him. I think that it is fair to say that the most common response to the original poster was one of confusion. Posters didn't understand what she meant by "disconnecting" her direct deposit and they were not sure if her problem was with her job or with her husband. Several question why in these circumstances the original poster would choose to have another child. They also are doubtful that changing her direct deposit arrangement will have any real effect. Many posters are concerned that this strategy might simply lead to financial insecurity or divorce. The original poster is willing to accept divorce if her husband continues to refuse to find a higher paying job and doesn't seem very worried about their financial situation. Many of those responding suggest that the original poster switch to job that has less pressure rather than risking getting fired at her current job, but the original poster insists that her skills are only suited for her current job. The most amazing part of this thread is that someone managed to dig up two threads that appear to have been created by the same original poster four years ago. I am simply dumbfounded that someone could remember the two threads sufficiently to connect them to this poster and was able to find the threads now. For what it is worth, despite the many allegations in the thread that the poster is a troll, the two old threads actually support the latest thread being authentic.

The most active thread since my last blog post on Friday was titled, "Let us pick for you…list acceptances" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. For months I've joked about a group of users in the college forum who approach college admissions with the obsessiveness of dedicated sports fans, analyzing the most minute of statistics and debating various rankings and top college lists. I refer to this group as the Fantasy College Admissions League. This thread is the culmination of this phenomenon, the college admissions playoffs if you will. The original poster invites the parents of undecided college applicants to list their options as well as factors influencing their decision and allow others to weigh in. Just in case you doubt the enthusiasm of the College Admissions Fantasy League participants, consider that this thread reach nearly 40 pages in just three days. To be sure, there are some very knowledgeable posters in this forum whose advice is worth considering. But, there are others who appear to be primarily motivated by personal biases rather than the strength of their analysis. The problem is telling which is which. In some cases this is made easier by the amount of effort posters put into their responses. At least in my opinion, the replies that consisted of nothing but the name of the school were not particularly helpful because they didn't explain the reasoning behind the opinion. In contrast, posters who supported their response with substantive reasons for their choice tended to be more persuasive. On the other hand, those posters often opened themselves up to challenges from others who disagreed with their reasoning. Even so, debate between posters was discouraged in the thread with a Northeastern University booster being shutdown when she went a bit far in her advocacy. It is clear that the thread was meant to be lighthearted and mostly for entertainment. That is not meant to disparage the seriousness with which many of the thread's participants approached the topic, but I don't think many final college decisions were made as a result of a DCUM post. I think the highlight of the thread for me had nothing to do with the substance of the topic but rather with a poster who chose to respond with snark to the original poster, "thanking" the original poster for providing instructions because the responder would otherwise not know what to do. This response was on page 34, so clearly a number of posters had found the thread engaging by that point and the snark was not necessary. But the icing on the cake was that the poster messed up the formatting of their post and ended up including their response within the quoted content. The inability of this poster to quote properly suggests that they actually do require instruction. Snark kind of falls flat when it provides evidence of the author's incompetence.