Interesting website. I was rather shocked by the Woman King entry - I knew that historical films like to take liberties, but did not think they had the audacity to completely reverse the roles of heroes and villains, or in that case, the pro- and anti-slavery sides.
> I think these diversity efforts are doing the exact opposite of what they intend to do.
They intend to neuter any opposition by ensuring every organization is riddled with politically-approved agents.
Prove you don't discriminate by having a chief diversity officer, then that officer makes sure only the like-minded can get/keep jobs. It is after all their job description - the not like-minded contribute to a "hostile atmosphere".
> makes it VERY clear the Federal government is in charge.
And when the federal government ignores the likewise federal laws binding it and directing its actions? In any other situation, if the executive branch ignores the legislative or judicial ones, it's called fascism.
> States have no standing in enforcing immigration laws
Think that over - states have no standing in enforcing the terms of their joining the union? On the other hand states are allowed, and even forced (by threatening to cut federal funds), to enforce federal laws and edicts, such as drinking age [1], transgender bathroom access [2], or not hiring enough minority-owned tunneling companies [3].
Only when it comes to enforcing federal laws that the federal government would rather not see enforced, do suddenly issues of standing and federal jurisdiction appear - as if states have no interest in who enters their territory.
States and their populations direct how the federal government should act by passing laws. That government then ignores those laws at their leisure, and prevents the states from enforcing them. Doesn't that sound a bit undemocratic to you? Though that accusation seems to be levied only when convenient, with little relation to its meaning.
States agreed to some written terms, limiting their own sovereignty, to join a union. That union then ignores terms it dislikes. States try to enforce those terms, but suddenly the union changes tune, finds that enforcing (some) terms actually is important, and stops those states.
But preventing laws from changing from city to city is the real tragedy.
You have nothing to apologize for, at least not to me. I just wanted to highlight what usually gets forgotten in these self-flagellating discussions - people like me who learn English as a second language to participate in the anglosphere have countries of our own, where our culture and language is the norm. English grants us access to an additional world.
That we have to do the bare minimum and learn English to access the anglosphere (or global scientific publishing, where if it wasn't English then it would be French or Latin or some other common language, and the issues would be the same) is not something you should spend an ounce of guilt, or even limited awareness, on.
And it is downright perverse that the fantastic scientific accomplishments, that drew the global scientific community to learn English to access them, get re-cast as "the world built for you", as some kind of unearned privilege.
The anglosphere, not the world. I assure you there are many parts of the world not set up for people like you. I live in one of them. We don't feel guilty about building our corner of the world for our own benefit. But we also don't see our home country as a mere economic platform open for everyone.
> humans don't vary that much. Compare with some other species (dogs are often used) where there is a wide range of size, intelligence, and any kind of thing humans might have bred dogs to do.
How does human genetic variation compare to e.g. different wild canine (sub)species, such as coyotes, red wolves, gray wolves, etc.?
The Commission argued that the American lobbyist was the "best candidate" for the job. That a group of 27 countries with one of the world's most sophisticated antitrust arsenals is unable to provide talent to rival the skills of Scott Morton is surprising, to say the least.
If the EU Commission proposed the appointment, then it's a safe bet the commission itself is captured/corrupt. Very corrupt, given how outrageous appointing a non-EU-citizen to a high-ranking EU political position is.
> The draft legislation defines misinformation as material that is unintentionally “false, misleading or deceptive” and is “reasonably likely to cause serious harm”
The usual trick of "false and harmful" lets whoever decides what is "harm" tilt the scales to their benefit. Inevitably, falsehoods that help their politics will be seen as less harmful than falsehoods that harm it. That's before it gets applied to statements of opinion, like "policy X will help/hurt our country".
That's because official translations follow the rule of “Readers in English should be able to enjoy the story without thinking about it being a translation,” - an impossible standard.
Think about what it requires - to cut out or replace any signs of the culture it came from, that would cause any friction with the target culture. To trick the reader into thinking the world is one big homogeneous mush, where works coming from the other side of the globe don't contain anything that would so much as confuse them. Nothing that would require a translator's note or explanation.
It's not translation, it's butchery. It's making a sausage come out on one end, no matter what parts come in at the other.
In Yugoslavia, a family with a single modest income (relative to Yugoslavian incomes) could afford a house with a garden, a cheap car, and to support two children, including college. That was about 60 years ago.
> Personally, I find the prospect of doing 1 day of work, and potentially having an impact on hundreds of various artistic works thrilling.
At issue is compensation. The studios don't want to share the income they gain from your "impact". They want all the benefits of this new technology to accrue to themselves. Reminds me of self-driving cars coming with EULAs that forbid commercial/taxi use of self-driving.