Politics

These Legs Don't Break

A dude nearly broke a biking record but instead broke a bone. Also, America loves a good war crime, Tennessee's trans care ban may happen after all, Canada finds that emoji are legally binding, and one man who just won't die.

Endeavorance

Jul 10, 2023 — 4 min read

Okay but This Dude's Dreams Were Crushed and Its Killing My Heart

The Tour de France is happening right now. You know, where they do the bikes around France real good. A man named Mark Cavendish is one of the people who does the bikes real good, and specifically, he does them real real good. Like, tied for the world record of number of race segments won.

He was going for the next one. One more segment win and he would have broken the record rather than tied. But on his way, he took a fall that at first seemed not so bad, but whoops… he broke his collarbone.

He's out for the rest of the race, and had previously announced that this would be his last Tour de France as he would be retiring afterwards. He is, understandably, quite bummed. But yo: nice biking, dude.

America Refuses to Be Outdone on War Crimes

Joe "the most progressive president to ever sit in the Oval Office" Biden has approved a military package to send to Ukraine which includes cluster bombs. If you have never played the "Worms" series of games by Team 17, you may not be aware of how messed up cluster bombs are. Also, good game series.

Cluster bombs are considered like, real not good by most of our allies. Most of the world, really. They are big bombs that explode into a bunch of small bombs, and are essentially designed to maximize collateral damage. They often lead to a ton of civilian casualties, hence, war crimes.

Notably, the reasoning for sending over these munitions is because Russia is reportedly using them as well. We can't let them one up us like that.

We love fighting fire with fire. It's very profitable.

US Courts Reaffirm That if You're Not a White Cis Male, You Can Just Eat Shit

The US 6th Court of Appeals has overturned a lower court's decision which stopped an anti-trans bill in Tennessee from going into effect. The bill would do the thing that all the fascists are currently foaming at the mouth for: stopping trans minors from receiving gender affirming care.

As always, whenever this term comes up, I would like to clarify: gender affirming care for minors is not surgery. Surgery virtually never happens for minors outside of significant physical complications. Those scenarios are so incredibly rare that it should of course be handled by actual medical professionals, not old white men casting votes.

To make it shittier, the opinion passed down by the court cited Dobbs, the Supreme Court ruling that stripped women of the right to reproductive healthcare. They cited it several times. So here's a court saying "trans people don't deserve rights" while citing the Supreme Court saying "women don't deserve rights."

Really cool and good; I love it when the state makes unilateral medical decisions and uses the threat of violence behind laws to determine what citizens are allowed to do with their own bodies and lives.

REAL FUCKIN' NEATO.

Erin in the Morning did an Actual Analysis of the situation rather than me just spewing some tidbits and being mad about it. I encourage you to read it because she is Very Great.

Legally Binding Emoji

A court in Canada has ruled that the "thumbs up" emoji (👍) in the right circumstances can be considered a replacement for a signature on a contract, citing that we gotta keep up with the times, y'know?

Here's what happened: some dude wanted to buy some flax (imo just go to Seer's Village and pick it yourself but whatever) so he texted a bunch of farmers a contract seeking flax. One of the farmers saw it and was like "👍"

The court has determined that to be an acceptance of the contract and similar to a signature.

NOW, of course this is a very silly story but I'mma be real: signatures are meaningless bullshit in the first place and have absolutely no business carrying contractual weight. Especially in the era of e-signatures, I literally just say "hey, yeah this computer generated stamp is my signature I swear" and it auto-applies it for me. At that point lemme just use an obscure emoji, which would at least carry some kind of memetic weight.

On This day…

Jack "Legs" Diamond was born on this day in 1897. As bootlegger and gangster in Philly and NYC during prohibition, Diamond attracted many-a-foe.

So many attempts to kill him failed that he became known as the "clay pigeon of the underworld". His own rival is quoted in saying "Ain't there nobody that can shoot this guy so he don't bounce back?"

Anyway, someone did indeed shoot that guy so he don't bounce back, as he was murdered in 1931 while drunk in his hotel room.