BC SOCIETY
Saved by @ThomassRichards

In September 2020, the USPS sent American households a mailer with instructions for requesting vote-by-mail ballots, but the information was inaccurate in many states.

Records we obtained show some state officials were “absolutely apoplectic” about the mailer.

#FOIAFriday

 The mailers told voters to "request your mail in ballot... at least 15 days before Election Day." But that’s inaccurate for Americans living in the nine states and District of Columbia that automatically mail ballots to registered voters.
https://t.co/40sz60kqyF
Colorado Sec. of State Jena Griswold sued USPS, arguing the mailer attempted to disenfranchise voters with misleading information. We asked the Colorado State Dept. for emails with USPS in anticipation of widespread use of mail-in ballots in the election. https://t.co/azYr34AljY
Here’s what the records we uncovered show:

Colorado’s state election director Judd Choate told USPS Director of Election and Political Mail Justin Glass that he was “absolutely apoplectic about the pre-election postcard I just learned about...”
”How could this be sent without someone considering that several states don’t have absentee voters? How could it be sent without consulting even one election official? Please pass along that this mailing will generate literally thousands of calls, emails, and texts...”
”It will cost my election officials hours of their days convincing their voters that everything is okay. It’s embarrassingly amateurish and counterproductive for us and the USPS. I just don’t understand how this postcard could be mailed.”
After Glass said USPS was working on a response for state elections directors, Choate responded: “just a heads up that stakeholding is usually more effective when it occurs before you take an action – not after.”
We submitted records requests with the Office of the Secretary of State of Oregon seeking email communications with USPS. Oregon uses mail-in-voting exclusively. Oregon officials were also frustrated about the inaccurate mailers.
https://t.co/vOZGi4l9A2
The USPS liaison, Danny Rogers, forwarded an email to Oregon’s elections director, Steve Trout: “FOR YOUR EYES ONLY. HQ didn’t even tell us about the mailing and or ask for input and I wish they would have…”
Trout responded: “It sounds like even the folks in DC didn’t know about this and it came from a few people at the top of the organization with no coordination with election officials or even the USPS election contacts.”
The lack of coordination with states — and the suggestion that even key USPS staff didn’t know about the mailers in advance — raise further concerns about political interference by the Trump-appointed postmaster general Louis DeJoy.
Even with Trump out of power, DeJoy remains in charge of the postal service. We’re continuing to investigate the politicization of USPS under the Trump administration and the threat it posed to voting rights.
https://t.co/Czdze7Ndbh

More from Society

Noah Smith
Noah Smith
@Noahpinion
1/OK, I should really write another thread about university-centric regional development, because I think people often make some (very understandable) mistakes when thinking about this issue.

2/The biggest myth, I think, is that universities help regions by educating locals as undergraduates.

Skeptics of universities say: "But most of the people who graduate end up leaving."

3/In fact, most of what a university does for a regional economy is NOT about educating local kids.

Educating local kids is good for the nation, but doesn't help a region much.

The way a university helps a region is through

4/Undergraduates usually leave town after graduation.

But university RESEARCH pulls in OTHER smart people from other regions, and they stay there.

Here's a paper showing that this is the main way universities increase a region's human capital:

5/Research also pulls in business investment.

Companies want to partner with university labs, so they can commercialize the technologies the labs produce. So they invest in the labs, and sometimes they even put their offices in the town.
SOCIETY
Respectable Lawyer
Respectable Lawyer
@RespectableLaw
There's been a lot of talk about the missionary killed by the natives of North Sentinel Island. They're probably so aggressive because of this weirdo, Maurice Vidal Portman. So here's a big thread about this creep and some facts from my decade-long obsession with the island.


The Sentinelese are often described as “uncontacted,” but this not strictly true. They had a very significant contact in 1880 with Commander Portman.

Portman, the black sheep third son of some minor noble, was assigned by the English Royal Navy to administer and pacify the Andaman Islands, a job he pursued from 1880-1900 with the full measure of his own perversity.


Portman was erotically obsessed with the Andamanese, and he indulged his passion for photography by kidnapping members of various tribes and posing them in mock-Greek homoerotic compositions.


During his 20 years in a sexualized heart of darkness, Portman measured and cataloged every inch of his prisoner’s bodies, with an obsessive focus on genitals.
SOCIETY
Advertisement
Kirsti Miller
Kirsti Miller
@KirstiMiller30
@LaurenMurphyMMA @_Miatonin @AOC There is no no differences in strength between men and women are seen when normalized for muscle cross-sectional

@_Miatonin @AOC It is reductionist (and wrong) to suggest the performance gap is all about biology (e.g. testosterone).

@_Miatonin @AOC Based on the present evidence, it is reasonable to suggest that biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors contribute to the range of gender gaps observed across sports.

@_Miatonin @AOC Men and women exhibit similar relative responses to resistance training, with no gender-specific responses noted after 10-weeks of resistance

@_Miatonin @AOC A number of other gender-‘independent’ factors contribute to the regulation of adult muscle mass, including genetics, race, adiposity, training, diet, and birth
SOCIETY
Joshua Cypess
Joshua Cypess
@JoshuaCypess
1/ A thread of comments & observations about the death of the cackling vampire Rush Limbaugh.

My first observations in the main thread are here, but this offshoot is needed because there's been so many wise & witty things I've


2/ First, re: those who in their wayward moral obtuseness feel we "can't speak ill of the dead." I've said that this is what abuse enablers say, but I hear that some religious traditions preach this. Oy.
So there's this: https://t.co/7Ky4RA3nkZ &


3/ Drucker is another great wit, and this carries the proper mood


4/ There's definitely a Jewish Tradition angle for how to treat evil people who die: the only respect is to justice, right & wrong, and above all compassion's existence necessitates condemning cruelty


5/ We're coming up on #Purim, and that's all about how to remember evil. There may be a reason, then, that I share the attitude of many other people committed to righting
SOCIETY
\U0001f30d Scott Newgent \U0001f30d
🌍 Scott Newgent 🌍...
@ScottNewgent
A thank you to Twitter for teaching me a trans man the truth about transgenderism. I’m no longer lost!

A thread for the headships at Twitter:

What transgenderism is and what it is NOT - What I learned as a Twitter 👩‍🎓 graduate thread.

1.Abigail Shrier & JK Rowling are leaders of a world wide cult that believes woman are equal to men and must be stopped @AbigailShrier

2.I am a real man, bio is wrong; I gave birth through my penis hole that I was led to believe by evangelicals was my vaginaWICKED Christians

3.Just because I transitioned doesn’t mean I know more than a 6 year old & I should be ashamed & embarrassed to believe I know more than people or children who have never been through or witnessed or dealt with medical transition

4.Gender Dysphoria is NOT a mental illness & should never be challenged & medical transition should be administered at, “Mom/Dad I feel like a..” IMMEDIATELY NO QUESTIONS ASKED

5.Children know more than adults & understand consequences without having to go through situations, educational purposes, or have a fully developed brain for hindsight - it’s quite amazing.
SOCIETY

You May Also Like

Pat Walls
Pat Walls
@thepatwalls
And here they are...

THE WINNERS OF THE 24 HOUR STARTUP CHALLENGE

Remember, this money is just fun. If you launched a product (or even attempted a launch) - you did something worth MUCH more than $1,000.

#24hrstartup

The winners 👇

#10

Lattes For Change - Skip a latte and save a life.

https://t.co/M75RAirZzs

@frantzfries built a platform where you can see how skipping your morning latte could do for the world.

A great product for a great cause.

Congrats Chris on winning $250!


#9

Instaland - Create amazing landing pages for your followers.

https://t.co/5KkveJTAsy

A team project! @bpmct and @BaileyPumfleet built a tool for social media influencers to create simple "swipe up" landing pages for followers.

Really impressive for 24 hours. Congrats!


#8

SayHenlo - Chat without distractions

https://t.co/og0B7gmkW6

Built by @DaltonEdwards, it's a platform for combatting conversation overload. This product was also coded exclusively from an iPad 😲

Dalton is a beast. I'm so excited he placed in the top 10.


#7

CoderStory - Learn to code from developers across the globe!

https://t.co/86Ay6nF4AY

Built by @jesswallaceuk, the project is focused on highlighting the experience of developers and people learning to code.

I wish this existed when I learned to code! Congrats on $250!!
MAKERS
Steve
Steve
@braidedmanga
Ivor Cummins has been wrong (or lying) almost entirely throughout this pandemic and got paid handsomly for it.

He has been wrong (or lying) so often that it will be nearly impossible for me to track every grift, lie, deceit, manipulation he has pulled. I will use...


... other sources who have been trying to shine on light on this grifter (as I have tried to do, time and again:


Example #1: "Still not seeing Sweden signal versus Denmark really"... There it was (Images attached).
19 to 80 is an over 300% difference.

Tweet: https://t.co/36FnYnsRT9


Example #2 - "Yes, I'm comparing the Noridcs / No, you cannot compare the Nordics."

I wonder why...

Tweets: https://t.co/XLfoX4rpck / https://t.co/vjE1ctLU5x


Example #3 - "I'm only looking at what makes the data fit in my favour" a.k.a moving the goalposts.

Tweets: https://t.co/vcDpTu3qyj / https://t.co/CA3N6hC2Lq
FINANCE , ALL
Advertisement
Simon DeDeo
Simon DeDeo
@SimonDeDeo
Donna Strickland, one of this year's Nobel Laureates, was not considered "notable enough" for Wikipedia as late as this May—reported by a number of sites, including the Independent. I dug into this a little. Here's the data—


This is the first deletion, back in 2014. A bit hard to read between the lines, but the basic story that an admin had Stickland's page "speedy deleted"—i.e., deleted without debate. The method was something called Copyright Jujitsu.

In particular, the admin had the page deleted not because of notability, but because it included a photograph of Strickland that had ambiguous copyright status. This is a method that people developed to get rid of content they didn't want, but also didn't want to debate.

"Copyright Jujitsu" because it is usually used against spam from companies; a PR officer uploads promotional material to Wikipedia. Instead of debating whether it's neutral, the admin can say "we'd love to have it, but the material appears to violate your company's copyright".

Usually the PR office and the IP office are separate in a company, and the idea of releasing promotional material under public domain is such a legal nightmare that the PR person goes away.
ALL
History Of Rajputana
History Of Rajputana
@KshatriyaItihas
**Thread on Bravery of Sikhs**
(I am forced to do this due to continuous hounding of Sikh Extremists since yesterday)

Rani Jindan Kaur, wife of Maharaja Ranjit Singh had illegitimate relations with Lal Singh (PM of Ranjit Singh). Along with Lal Singh, she attacked Jammu, burnt - https://t.co/EfjAq59AyI


Hindu villages of Jasrota, caused rebellion in Jammu, attacked Kishtwar.

Ancestors of Raja Ranjit Singh, The Sansi Tribe used to give daughters as concubines to Jahangir.


The Ludhiana Political Agency (Later NW Fronties Prov) was formed by less than 4000 British soldiers who advanced from Delhi and reached Ludhiana, receiving submissions of all sikh chiefs along the way. The submission of the troops of Raja of Lahore (Ranjit Singh) at Ambala.

Dabistan a contemporary book on Sikh History tells us that Guru Hargobind broke Naina devi Idol Same source describes Guru Hargobind serving a eunuch
YarKhan. (ref was proudly shared by a sikh on twitter)
Gobind Singh followed Bahadur Shah to Deccan to fight for him.


In Zafarnama, Guru Gobind Singh states that the reason he was in conflict with the Hill Rajas was that while they were worshiping idols, while he was an idol-breaker.

And idiot Hindus place him along Maharana, Prithviraj and Shivaji as saviours of Dharma.
HISTORY
Daddy Files
Daddy Files
@DaddyFiles
This is my son, Sam. He’s 5. And today he learned how shitty and harmful #ToxicMasculinity is. My rage meter is spiking right now so excuse me if this is a little raw but there are some things I want to say about BS #gender norms (a thread)


Sam is my middle child & he’s a terror. A “boy’s boy” as so many (not me) would say. He’s rough and tumble, he’s loud, he’s always dirty, loves trucks, plays sports and knee drops me from the couch. But he also loves a lot of “girl” things.

Sam has a collection of purses because he likes to carry things around. And he also loves to have his nails painted bright colors because he thinks they “look beautiful.” And he’s right – they are beautiful…


So he proudly wore his red nail polish to kindergarten this morning because Sam has absolutely no concept of nail polish only being for girls or reason to think anyone would possibly have a problem with beautiful nails.


But his classmates did have a problem. A big one. Sam was ridiculed for being a boy with nail polish. They called him names and told him to take it off. This lasted the entire day.
ALL