Linx

 Busy day -- aside from the usual work-related issue with the automatic reboot and subsequent log in -- and it was good; got a lot of little stuff done, work-wise, which is always good, as then I can concentrate on other things (which are growing in number, which is also good).  After work I went to the volunteer appreciation dinner for the Polish Festival, which was not as well-attended as I thought it would be.  Not sure why....anyways, the general impression was that the Festival was quite profitable and that the crowds were quite sizable each day.  Funny; only by talking with some of the volunteers was I able to find out what is happening elsewhere at the Festival -- bakery booth, bar, upstairs, that sort of thing.  Un faut cultivate notre jardins, to quote Voltaire.  With all the pizza, salad, and cake floating around, I decided to hit the gym for a double, and despite it being 10 at night... there were like 15 people there.  I was impressed.

What If Men Could Make Their Own Egg Cells? - WSJ
As a feminist, this cannot happen soon enough; I mean, for all the talk of women not needing men -- yet forcing them to participate in reproduction -- this would be ideal.  I suspect of course that your local female feminist is not fully aware of the consequences of this decision, but... won't they be surprised?

How conservatives are waging a coordinated, anti-LGBTQ+ culture war in California schools (msn.com)
We Don’t Talk About Leonard: The Man Behind the Right’s Supreme Court Supermajority — ProPublica
I marked these articles for two main reasons.  One, the general tenor of these articles is that any sort of conservatism activism is bad (for reasons) and thus the people who are engaged in it are something worse than Illinois Nazis and need to be called out prior to eradication.  This is especially suspect in the first article, where parents -- God forbid -- who object to what is going on in their local public schools and trying to do something about are given the degree.  As I am so found of telling my teacher friends, you cannot for years complain that parents aren't involved enough in their kids' schools, and then complain when they get involved.

The other thing that troubles me is that the whole process is viewed as suspect, when in actuality both are brilliant, be it Leo's work in creating a deep and multi-pronged bench of conservatives judges who can affect policy for generations, or a bunch of parents getting together to protect policies they see as unjust... this is how democracy is supposed to work (especially if Dems want to use the judiciary as a mechanism of political change), like it or not.  Oi.

NCAA Announced Major Changes to the NIT and College Hoops Fans Are Not Happy - Sports Illustrated
This is a shitty change (for many reasons) and while nothing is going to make them change, I am glad to see that they are being raked over the coals for this.  Now, if we had a real NCAA that actually cared about student athletes, they would deep-six this, or maybe even expand the NIT to make sure these teams keep their bids.  Hell, if Fox had brains they would announce a tournament with these bids intact; I could imagine Murdoch or some other bomb-thrower doing it a generation ago, but not now, sadly...  I would also be vastly amused if some governor or other politico got involved and decided to join the fracas by holding hearings and poking around the money.  That might get a policy change, and it's not like we are actually doing anything else useful in Ohio, so...