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We now have a cover for Neal Stephenson's next novel, Polostan, which is the first book in the Bomb Light Trilogy: (Still hate the name of this book. Polostan? What is this, an independent country founded by the owners of Polo and Banana Republic?!)

Do you? There is video' you can see that technically the women better' phycically tjey arent in the same league. Do you think women that were so dedicated that they are the best in the world voluntary rolled over and let a bunch if 15 year old beat them? You are just as guilty of making assumptions to support your argument here as I am. You should refrain from that label, because it would be bullshit. There are very legitimate scuentific arguments as to why teans women should not compete with cis women. You might not agree with them, and if you value inclusively more than fairness that's fine, but the kneejerk leap to 'trans phobia' every time someone makes them is so boring.

I remember really liking the western he did (The Proposition - 2005). Very bleak. Very brutal. I don’t see anything about Pratt still being attached in the above article, so hopefully that’s not the case anymore. I saw a fan casting for The Judge of Anthony Carrigan from Barry, and now I can’t unsee it.

Agree with this. Read the first six twice and it didn't alter my opinion.

Yeah Mariko and John in the book were very much in love and because of it the ending hit hard. Here it lacked that oomph and it felt different. But then again not read it in fifteen years so memory is rusty.

Are you speaking to me? If so, I've already said I have the utmost respect for Karaddin and wish her well in all things. I always read her posts and find them to be thoughtful and well presented. I guess my primary point is it's facile and misleading to just label all folks who are wanting to know more about this complicated subject as "TERFs" and transphobic. For one thing, you run a huge risk of alienating people who could be your friends. The NYT article brings up some topics that deserve a more thoughtful consideration. Is it possible to treat both trans women and cis women with equal fairness? Maybe it's not. If not, tell me why.

I've given myself a day to think about it and I think they (for me) stumbled a bit and didn't stick the landing. The show was still really solid overall but I think the final episode continued a trend where the second half of the season wasn't as good as the first half. It felt like it languished a bit and focused on areas I didn't value, necessarily, and some of the character connections I know they wanted me to value (Mariko and Anjin) didn't come through. I don't know. Just kinda sad about it not culminating in a way I felt happy with.

Is it living, i.e. an animal? Could be ravens or crows, for example. If 'object' excludes a living thing, my hunch is a book or scroll.

It looks like Arizona AG Kris Mayes (D, formerly an R) has indicted the AZ Fake Electors and some of Trump's crew as well. The fake electors are the usual suspects of not-quite-right Republicans who jumped on the Trump bandwagon after failing at other business and political pursuits. The Trump Circle crew includes the usual suspects - Meadows, Giuliani, Eastman, Ellis, Epshteyn, etc.

Well each division of Disney is different. FX does things a bit different.

The link between interest rates and inflation is complex and depends a lot on debt and savings in the private sector. If there are a lot of savings out there higher interest rates will be net inflationary, because it's putting more money into the system. Right now the RBA is paying $billions in interest to banks because the inter-bank overnight exchange accounts (can't remember the correct name for them) for most banks are flush and the RBA is not forcing banks to buy bonds to takes liquidity out of those accounts and make banks pay interest via overnight borrowing. With the current plentifulness of cash in those accounts every interest rate increase is just RBA stuffing more money into bank's coffers. If the policy of letting banks maintain high balances in those counts continues then the only way to slow the flow of money is to lower interest rates.

She also showed more personality in the 30s clip I just saw of her calling Rishi a pint sized loser than I think I've seen in several years from Starmer.

Hard to believe this show was made by Disney+ It would be like Michael Bay making Killers of the Flower Moon.

13. Not located in a cold place above the Neck That was an oddly specific question...I don't know what you meant, but maybe first try to guess what kind of object it is.

Is Raynor a prospect to replace Starmer while Labour is in Govt in a way that won't wind up with Labour losing the subsequent election? I know very little of her or her personal politics, but the impression I get is that she's proper Labour in both the social and economic sense.

Not much to say other than I agree. I find the [over]reaction of law enforcement has been… quite telling actually.

When people put the welfare of those living dying and suffering thousands of km away who they will never meet ahead of their own education, then you actually have a movement that might achieve something. I think student strikes and protests opposing crimes against humanity and inadequate action on global warming, if prolonged and sustained, can be effective. It does mean there need to be a clear message that resonates with the wider public though.

MC and I went to our first ball game this season tonight - Doyers v Nats. Tried to get an Ohtani chant going but not enough people bought in. Ohtani, to the tune of Volare (oh oh).

You asked karaddin for her opinion, what did you think of what she said to you? Did you changed your mind?

Not really. The NYT had an article you may be interested in. (Forgive the length, but it addresses so many of the issues we've been discussing.) Simply labeling people "transphobic," and insinuating they have hidden agendas and ulterior motives doesn't address this very nuanced subject. This is a much more complicated situation than what some people in this thread are claiming. From the article: The battle over whether to let female transgender athletes compete in women’s elite sports has reached an angry pitch, a collision of competing principles: The hard-fought-for right of women to compete in high school, college and pro sports versus a swelling movement to allow transgender athletes to compete in their chosen gender identities. Although the number of transgender athletes on top teams is small — a precise count is elusive as no major athletic association collects such data — disagreements are profound. They center on science, fairness and inclusiveness, and cut to the core of distinctions between gender identity and biological sex. Echoes of those debates ripple outward from pools to weight lifting rooms and tracks, to cycling courses and rugby pitches, and to the Olympics, where officials face a fateful decision on how wide to open the door to transgender women. Sebastian Coe, the Olympic champion runner and head of World Athletics, which governs international track, speaks of biological difference as inescapable. “Gender,” he said recently, “cannot trump biology.” ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The American Civil Liberties Union offers a counterpoint. “It’s not a women’s sport if it doesn’t include ALL women athletes,” the group tweeted. “Lia Thomas belongs on the Penn swimming and diving team.” The rancor stifles dialogue. At meets, Ms. Thomas has been met by stony silence and muffled boos. College female athletes who speak of frustration and competitive disadvantage are labeled by some trans activists as transphobes and bigots, and are reluctant to talk for fear of being attacked. Image https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/05/23/us/00swimmer-trans15/merlin_204182685_458f1be0-88fc-4bad-9a4d-66f6246cda42-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscaleMs. Thomas competes in the Women’s 100 Yard freestyle preliminaries at the N.C.A.A. Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships in Atlanta, Ga.Credit...David Walter Banks for The New York Times Ms. Thomas herself has chosen silence. In March, after winning the 500-yard freestyle in the N.C.A.A. women’s championship in Atlanta, she skipped a news conference. She has of late spoken only to Sports Illustrated, saying, “I’m not a man. I’m a woman, so I belong on the women’s team.” Even nomenclature is contentious. Descriptive phrases such as “biological woman” and “biological man” might be seen as central to discussing differences in performance. Many trans rights activists say such expressions are transphobic and insist biology and gender identity are largely social constructs. Some trans activists try to silence critics, whom they derisively call TERFs, which stands for trans-exclusionary radical feminists. A spokeswoman for a gay rights group urged a reporter not to “platform” — that is not to quote — those she said held objectionable views, including Martina Navratilova, the retired tennis legend, a champion of liberal and lesbian causes. Ms. Navratilova argues that transgender female athletes possess insurmountable biological advantages. “So I’m a ‘TERF’ — OK, that’s the way you want to go?” Ms. Navratilova said in response. “I played against taller women, I played against stronger women, and I beat them all. But if I faced the male equivalent of Lia in tennis, that’s biology. I would have had no shot. And I would have been livid.” Image https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/05/23/us/00swimmer-trans08/00swimmer-trans08-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscaleMartina Navratilova said that transgender female athletes possess insurmountable advantages.Credit...Pete Kiehart for The New York Times Former allies are split so bitterly as to make reconciliation a distant prospect. Half of Ms. Thomas’s University of Pennsylvania team sent a letter to the school, released by a lawyer, saying the swimmer had “an unfair advantage.” Brooke Forde, an Olympic silver medalist with Stanford, however, supported Ms. Thomas. “Social change is always a slow and difficult process, and we rarely get it correct right away,” she stated. Griffin Maxwell Brooks, a trans nonbinary diver at Princeton who competes on the men’s team, released a TikTok video accusing “cisgender women” of leveraging “misogyny to perpetuate transphobia.” ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Not long afterward, a Princeton eating club barred a female swimmer from joining, saying her “transphobia” might bring it disrepute, according to a Princeton swimmer. Finally, inescapably, America’s hyperpartisan politics has electrified this debate. Librarians have been told to remove books with transgender themes from shelves. And Republican-dominated legislatures in 18 states have introduced restrictions on transgender participation in public school sports in recent years, according to data from the Human Rights Campaign, an L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy group. A few Republican leaders resisted crackdowns. Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah vetoed a ban on transgender girls competing in girls’ sports; the Legislature overrode his veto. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott demanded agencies investigate parents and doctors who assist children in transitioning, which he termed “child abuse.” In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis said he would “reject lies” and refused to recognize Ms. Thomas as the winner of the 500-yard freestyle championship. Governor DeSantis’s declaration carried no legal power. But it underlined that a difficult conversation is near lost to the shouting. ADVERTISEMENTImage https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/05/23/us/00swimmer-trans04/merlin_207177639_6ff79776-3daa-44f4-a6f1-28c93eeea2b1-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscaleCredit...Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times The Debate Over the Science Michael J. Joyner, a doctor at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., studies the physiology of male and female athletes. He sees in competitive swimming a petri dish. It is a century old, and the sexes follow similar practice and nutrition regimens. Since prepubescent girls grow faster than boys, they have a competitive advantage early on. Puberty washes away that advantage. “You see the divergence immediately as the testosterone surges into the boys,” Dr. Joyner said. “There are dramatic differences in performances.” The records for elite adult male swimmers are on average 10 percent to 12 percent faster than the records of elite female swimmers, an advantage that has held for decades. Little mystery attends to this. Beginning in the womb, men are bathed in testosterone and puberty accelerates that. Men on average have broader shoulders, bigger hands and longer torsos, and greater lung and heart capacity. Muscles are denser. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “There are social aspects to sport, but physiology and biology underpin it,” Dr. Joyner noted. “Testosterone is the 800-pound gorilla.” When a male athlete transitions to female, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, which governs college sports, requires a year of hormone-suppressing therapy to bring down testosterone levels. The N.C.A.A. put this in place to diminish the inherent biological advantage held by those born male. Ms. Thomas followed this regimen. But peer reviewed studies show that even after testosterone suppression, top trans women retain a substantial edge when racing against top biological women. Image https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/05/23/us/00swimmer-trans09/merlin_204182370_7969fd06-2a54-4a00-99ba-a08294348983-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscaleThe N.C.A.A. women’s swimming championships featured two trans swimmers. Credit...David Walter Banks for The New York Times When Ms. Thomas entered women’s meets, she rose substantially in national rankings. Among men, she had ranked 32nd in the 1,650-yard freestyle; among women, she ranked eighth and won a race this season by a margin of 38 seconds. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT She had ranked 554th in the men’s 200-yard freestyle; she tied for fifth place in this race in the women’s 2022 N.C.A.A championship. What you should know. The Times makes a careful decision any time it uses an anonymous source. The information the source supplies must be newsworthy and give readers genuine insight. Learn more about our process. And she ranked 65th in the men’s 500-yard freestyle but won the title as a female. “Lia Thomas is the manifestation of the scientific evidence,” said Dr. Ross Tucker, a sports physiologist who consults on world athletics. “The reduction in testosterone did not remove her biological advantage.” Testosterone levels are crucial but do not invariably predict performance in every sport. Chris Mosier is a 41-year-old elite athlete who transitioned to male in 2015 and had no testosterone-fueled developmental advantage. Yet he has beaten elite racewalking biological men. Image https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/05/27/us/00swimmer-trans20/merlin_207177627_2b9b12a2-d2df-49eb-bacb-a345da10c959-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscaleChris Mosier, a transgender elite athlete, has beaten elite racewalking men. Credit...Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times “Athletic performance depends on a lot of factors: access to coaches and nutritionists and technical skill,” Mr. Mosier said. “We are making broad generalizations about men being bigger, stronger, faster.” ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Most scientists, however, view performance differences between elite male and female athletes as near immutable. The Israeli physicist Ira S. Hammerman in 2010 examined 82 events across six sports and found women’s world record times were 10 percent slower than those of men’s records. “Activists conflate sex and gender in a way that is really confusing,” noted Dr. Carole Hooven, lecturer and co-director of undergraduate studies in human evolutionary biology at Harvard University. She wrote the book “T: The Story of Testosterone.” “There is a large performance gap between healthy normal populations of males and females, and that is driven by testosterone.” The sprinter Allyson Felix won the most world championship medals in history. Her lifetime best in the 400 meters was 49.26 seconds; in 2018, 275 high school boys ran faster. Renée Richards was a pioneer among transgender athletes. An ophthalmologist and accomplished amateur tennis player — she played in the U.S. Open and ranked 13th in the men’s 35-and-over division — she transitioned in 1975 at age 41. She joined the women’s pro tennis tour at age 43, ancient in athletic terms. Ms. Richards then made it to the doubles final at Wimbledon and ranked 19th in the world before retiring at 47. Ms. Richards has said she no longer believes it is fair for transgender women to compete at the elite level. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “I know if I’d had surgery at the age of 22, and then at 24 went on the tour, no genetic woman in the world would have been able to come close to me,” she said in an interview. “I’ve reconsidered my opinion.” Image https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/05/23/us/00swimmer-trans15/00swimmer-trans15-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscaleRenée Richards, a pioneer among transgender athletes, made it to the doubles final at Wimbledon and ranked 19th in the world before retiring at 47.Credit...Paul J. Bereswill/Newsday, via Getty Images Joanna Harper, a competitive transgender female runner and Ph.D. student studying elite transgender athletic performance at Loughborough University in Britain, agreed that testosterone gives transgender female athletes some advantage. But she spoke of inexorable emotional and psychological pressures on transgender athletes. “Is it so horrible,” she said, “if a handful of us are more successful than they were in men’s sports?” Reka Gyorgy, a 2016 Olympian and a swimmer at Virginia Tech, offered a response of sort. She placed 17th in the preliminaries for the 500-yard freestyle in the N.C.A.A. championships — a slot short of making the finals. She wrote an open letter, affirming her respect for Ms. Thomas’s work ethic. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT She was less forgiving of the N.C.A.A. “This was my last college meet ever and I feel frustrated,” she wrote. “It feels like that final spot was taken away from me because of the N.C.A.A.’s decision to let someone who is not a biological female compete.” That decision prevented her from qualifying for All-America honors. Image https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/05/23/us/00swimmer-trans06/merlin_207177633_3bee6004-678b-45d3-b1da-808a0e41b33b-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscaleCredit...Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times Title IX and the Fight for Equality To wander the stands last March at the women’s swim championships at Georgia Tech and ask about Ms. Thomas was to draw shakes of the heads from parents and grandparents, sisters and brothers of swimmers. Many emphasized that transgender people should have the same right to housing, jobs, marriage and happiness as any American. But they talked of the thousands of hours the young women put into their sport. From early childhood, they swam hundreds of laps daily, nursing injuries and watching nutrition. Why, having reached the pinnacle, should they race against a swimmer who retains many biological advantages of a male athlete? “We have a biological male taking over women’s sports,” said one mother. “I don’t understand why those on the left politically are not supporting cis women.” ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Equality for women in sports followed decades of struggle. Fifty years ago, President Nixon signed Title IX, which banned discrimination in higher education. This opened doors to previously all-male classes and led to many more female teams and scholarships. In 1972, one in 27 girls played sports; today two in five do so, according to the Women’s Sports Foundation. The 1972 U.S. Olympic team featured 90 female athletes alongside 339 male athletes. Last year’s American team in Tokyo had 284 male athletes and a record 329 female athletes. Image https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/05/23/us/00swimmer-trans16/00swimmer-trans16-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscaleAt the 1972 Olympics, women on the U.S. team were vastly outnumbered.Credit...Rolls Press/Popperfoto, via Getty Images Some trans activists are challenging aspects of Title IX, specifically its implicit acknowledgment of biological difference. And supporters, not least the Biden administration, say transgender girls should be permitted on girls’ sports teams. They have pushed for a federal Equality Act, which would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in housing, education, employment and credit. It potentially places biology and gender identity on the same footing in sport. Dr. Doriane Lambelet Coleman, a Duke University law professor and former top track runner, supports legal protections for transgender people but foresees havoc in the arena of sports. The legal rationale for keeping women’s sports sex-segregated would fall away. “We are bringing a male body into a female sport,” Dr. Coleman said. “Once you cross that line, there’s no more rationale for women’s sport.” ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Some trans activists and academics welcome that. Nathan Palmer, a lecturer at Georgia Southern University, wrote in Sociology in Focus: “Nature loves diversity, but humans love simplicity. Separating males from females may be socially useful, but when the dividing lines limit and oppress, we have to acknowledge they are social constructions.” Anna Posbergh, a doctoral candidate at the University of Maryland, is a former pole-vaulter who studies gender and athletes. She sees notions of gender disadvantage in sports as rooted in culture and an outdated view of what women can achieve. “I’m beginning to question the idea of sex segregation in sport,” she said. “We need to learn to sit with discomfort.” This strikes some feminists and scientists as a walk into strange territory. Kathleen Stock, a British philosopher whose work is often grounded in her feminist and lesbian identity, has carved out positions on transgender rights that have made her a lightning rod. She has written “Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism,” and argues against the insistence that one’s gender identity is all. That is to miss, she said, the profound importance of the lived experience of being born a biological female. “We are caught up in this fever dream,” she said in an interview. “How could it be that a social construct and not the material reality of being a woman is guiding our thoughts and our physical performance? ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “I find it incredible that we have to point this out.” Image https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/05/23/us/00swimmer-trans10/00swimmer-trans10-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscaleCredit...David Walter Banks for The New York Times Search for Solutions Lia Thomas was not the only transgender athlete to swim at the N.C.A.A. championship. Iszac Henig, a transgender man, swam the 100-yard women’s freestyle for Yale and attracted little attention. Yet his story challenges the argument that transgender athletes should swim under their gender identity. Mr. Henig finished in a tie for fifth in the 100-yard women’s race with a time of 47.32 seconds. Had he chosen to swim against men, Mr. Henig would not have qualified for the championship. Mr. Henig and Ms. Thomas swam in the race in which they had the greatest advantage. Every decision, a scientist noted, comes adorned with moral thorns. In Britain, Emily Bridges, a record-breaking male cyclist, recently declared her intent to race as a woman. This has drawn passionate objections from the top women in cycling, who fear losing races and much prize money. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Image https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/05/23/00swimmer-trans13/merlin_204182391_a5c83e69-a18e-49f0-a963-8f4e404dce22-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscaleIszac Henig, a transgender man, competed in the 100-yard freestyle in the N.C.A.A. women’s championship, and drew little attention. Credit...David Walter Banks for The New York Times By way of solution, some point to golf, where in amateur competitions, an inferior golfer can benefit from a handicap — removing strokes from her score — when competing against stronger players. Applied to swimming, a panel might examine Ms. Thomas’s race times, subtract seconds from her competitors’ results and let her swim. The Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a policy organization based in Ottawa, argues for an “open category” for men, transgender athletes and biological females, anyone who cares to try her/his/their hand. An exclusively female category would remain for biological women. This solution would forestall the need for transgender women to take hormone-suppressing drugs. Some transgender activists argue such distinctions would be insulting, notwithstanding the decision of those such as Mr. Henig to race in their former gender. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The solution, a balance of gender and biology, looks distant. And yet, no end of anguish accompanies the status quo. In Atlanta, a father, who declined to give his name, sat in the stands and watched Ms. Thomas in the 200-yard freestyle. She was, he noted, far taller than her competitors, with long legs and arms, big hands and broad shoulders. A day earlier his daughter had lost to Ms. Thomas in the 500-yard race, and nothing about that race felt fair to him or his daughter. The father was polite as Ms. Thomas was announced and clapped twice. Image https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/05/23/us/00swimmer-trans03/merlin_204182817_527b3c69-d9d1-49d4-9224-d379f81e8556-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscaleThe solution, a balance of gender and biology, looks distant.Credit...David Walter Banks for The New York Times Ms. Thomas lost by a broad margin. She slipped out of the pool, picked up a towel, sidestepped embracing swimmers and walked out, a solitary figure. The father watched and shook his head. “In fairness to Lia,” he said, “the emotional toll.” He added: “I look at her and see the pressure she’s under. And I think: She’s a 22-year-old kid.” A correction was made on June 15, 2022 : An earlier version of this article misstated the name of the athletics organization led by Sebastian Coe. It is World Athletics, not the International Association of Athletics Federations, its former name. The article also described incorrectly the application of sports handicaps. A handicap adjusts the score of an inferior golfer, not a superior one; a handicap would subtract seconds from the times of slower swimmers, not the faster one. When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at [email protected] more Michael Powell is a national reporter covering issues around free speech and expression, and stories capturing intellectual and campus debate. More about Michael Powell A version of this article appears in print on May 29, 2022, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Much Debate but Little Dialogue on Transgender Female Athletes. Enjoy unlimited access to all of The Times.

John Hillcoat who directed The Road (middling adaptation of a great McCarthy book) is set to direct I hear. This is Blood Meridian we're talking about and who is this guy exactly? And Chris Pratt as The Judge, please let this adaptation not make it. Would be cool if someone like Robert Eggers read it and convinced himself (that there was enough horror for him) to attempt.

Indeed spot on, always a bit of a roulette with each bite.

Really enjoying The Tortured Poets Department, which has some interesting production credits, including from Aaron Dessner from The National. It's perhaps a bit much at 31 tracks, and some tracks could have been dropped, but there's some clear lyrical growth on display here. The Tortured Poets Department, Clara Bow, I Look in People's Windows, Cassandra, and Peter are all terrific, and the vocals, particularly in Clara Bow, remind me a bit of Megan Washington's early material. Lots of good stuff to enjoy here.

That logic isn't even consistent, you're trying to make it sound like excluding the small minority from sport is on the same spectrum as protecting them in science. Protecting the minority groups access to sport is actually aligned with protecting access to employment.