The LSAT has Become an Inconvenient Truth

Wilfred Reilly is a political scientist whose research focuses on empirical testing of political claims. I've followed him for a long time. He follows the facts where they lead. This time, the topic is the extremely sudden demise of the LSAT. This time, Reilly's topic is the extremely sudden demise of the LSAT, which happened just as it became likely that the U.S. Supreme Court will clamp down on affirmative action.

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Three Reasons Why There are Two–and Only Two–Biological Sexes.

Zach Elliot is an author of two books on sex and gender and a producer of 20+ animated videos on sex differences. Here is the intro to his article: "What Are Sexes? There is much confusion in our current culture as to what sexes are and what they are not."

There is much confusion in our current culture as to what sexes are and what they are not. When biologists make a claim about the number of sexes in a species, they are not making a claim about chromosomes, body types, or personal identity; rather, they are making a claim about the number of distinct reproductive strategies in that species.

A reproductive strategy is an evolved system for propagating genes and forming a new individual. In sexually reproducing species, producing a new individual requires the combination of at least two distinct and complementary reproductive strategies. These strategies are fulfilled through the delivery of genetic material in sex cells called gametes, which have half the genetic material of the parent. When two gametes fuse, they form a genetically unique individual with a full set of chromosomes.

Some species reproduce through gametes of the same size (isogamy) and can have many unique reproductive strategies called mating types, which control what gametes can fuse with one another, but their differences do not go far beyond the molecular level. On the other hand, most species in the plant and animal kingdoms reproduce through gametes of differing size and form (anisogamy), where there is an asymmetry in size and behavior between the interacting gametes and often the individual organisms themselves.

When gamete sizes are differentiated (anisogamy), there are typically exactly two sexes, no more and no less. In such systems, the reproductive strategy that produces the smaller gametes is designated as male and the reproductive strategy that produces the larger gametes is designated as female. It is not the physical size of the gametes themselves that differentiates the male and female reproductive strategies, but rather what those size differences represent.

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The Continuing Demise of Jon Stewart

Here is Jon enamored to be sitting with some famous liars (I voted for one of them, but was not at all happy with either choice). Aaron Maté has some good advice for Stewart.

Stewart has completely lost his moorings to let these two people try to salvage their reputations at his table. Big disappointment, equal to the miserable way Stewart treated Andrew Sullivan six months ago.

Stewart used to be smarter and funny.

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Big Money’s Privacy Fence

We live in a world where successful grifters like Sam Bankman-Fried can rise to this level without a modicum of public scrutiny.

And yes, he was a self-conscious grifter. His quote yesterday after the FTX collapse:

“By this dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shiboleths and so everyone likes us,” Vox reported he said."

What else of grave importance don't we know about, thanks to the secrecy veil that one can buy with huge amounts of money?

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