Joe Slater

A long sequence of posts alternately muted for "intolerance" or "antisemitism"

Me looking at this thread:

“We are disgusted, we are frustrated,” Mr. Cohen said. “We see Netanyahu’s government as our enemy. He’s only prolonged the war so he can survive. My son Nimrod is being held in a tunnel financed by money Netanyahu pushed into Gaza.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/05/w...

Two cabbage rolls , for testing purposes.

Snap!

A juvenile possum gazing out at us while she is being assessed. She easily fits in the palm of the nurse's hand.

Wildlife Victoria advised us to bring the possum to the Ripponlea Veterinary Hospital, which we did. They told us the possum seems fine, and that she will be brought to a carer who will look after her until she can be returned to her native environment: my fruit trees.

Oh well.

I think it was overdetermined. There's the gay panic thing, corrupting our youth, living among decent people, demanding to be treated "normally"…

You see the same tropes with other forms of prejudice, but nowadays it's not acceptable to openly admit to being e.g. racist or antisemitic.

Someone cradling an impossibly sweet little possum. The possum has adorably soft fur and is gazing at the camera with deep, chocolatey eyes.

The possum is now snuggled under a sheet in a cardboard box. You can only see a little of its hindquarters.

So we were clearing out our sukkah, and my kid found a juvenile ringtail possum. We made them a little house and we're calling Wildlife Victoria's emergency line for advice.

Texas school district yanks Holocaust book ‘The Devil’s Arithmetic’ over ‘DEI content’ Decision made after Austin suburb's Leander Independent School District undertook review using AI; teacher says he suspects novel was pulled as it deals with questions of identity

Collateral damage, I guess:

’books… where a “pronoun/name change [is] central to narrative” should be pulled.

In “The Devil’s Arithmetic,” the protagonist is referred to by a different name … after she travels back in time to assume the identity of a relative who died in the Holocaust.‘

"82 percent of British Jews now consider antisemitism a “significant” problem and nearly half described it as “very big,” compared to just 11% a decade earlier."

Israel at War With Itself

Gift 🎁 article 🔗

Israel at War With Itself

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/05/w...

Hot take but I genuinely think that global Jewish attitudes on the war shifting is a stellar example of how good faith debate within communities built on relationships with shared humanity and trust at their core can in fact be an effective stage and means of change.

A momma raccoon and her two babies in the crotch of a tree. They fully look like they are posing for the camera.

Please enjoy this RACCOON FAMILY PORTRAIT my stepkid took in Central Park today

Image is several gourds and smaller pumpkins painted and arranged around a larger pumpkin covered in bumps and carved so it looks like a cycloptic grinning fanged head with gourd snakes emerging for hair

Everything reminds me of her

Truly is it said: one good tern deserves another.

A cheetah behind the shoulder of a prone wildlife photographer.

"Pssst."
"Shhh!"
"Whatcha doing?"
"Waiting."
"For what?"
"A cheetah."
"I hear those are beautiful."
"They sure are, fast too, now hush."
"Can I wait with you?"
"Only if you're quiet."

Scoop — Trump to Netanyahu on Gaza talks: "You're always so f***ing negative" "I don't know why you're always so f***ing negative. This is a win. Take it."

Netanyahu told Trump the Hamas statement was nothing to celebrate, and that it didn't mean anything, US official tells @barakravid.bsky.social Trump fired back: "I don't know why you're always so fucking negative. This is a win. Take it." www.axios.com/2025/10/05/t...

But it's not really an election, is it? It's selection by appointed councils, deliberately excluding minorities, and al-Sharaa will be appointing a third of the legislature himself.

They're doing a piss-poor job then.

cell.com Correspondence Lateralized sleeping positions in domestic cats

FINALLY some good fuckin science
www.cell.com/action/showP...

Oh! Oh! Keep going. My bingo card is almost complete.

Ah, there it is. I knew it was coming.

These crazy unhinged people — how would you characterise their beliefs?

There's no such thing as an unattached "risk of antisemitism". You mean, have antisemites been emboldened? Absolutely. And people need to ask who their enablers are.

We're talking about people at a synagogue being murdered in Manchester. That's antisemitism, right?

The man looks in the mirror and indeed, the suit fits perfectly. So he pays, and shuffles out, hunched over, one arm raised, waist at an angle, one leg stiffly extended.

A lady across the street sees him and gasps — "Oh, the poor man."

"Yes," her friend agrees, "But what a magnificent tailor." 3/3

The tailor is perfectly calm. "My dear sir. You aren't standing correctly."

He begins to adjust the man's posture, pushing him forward slightly, raising one arm, turning him at the waist, bringing one leg forward.

"You see, sir, you must stand like this. Now look."

2/3

OMG. You Are Doing The Joke.

A man comes to pick up a bespoke suit from a tailor. He tries it on and starts complaining — it's too loose here, too tight there, the arms are different lengths, the tails are too low, etc.

1/3

I'm kind of sceptical, given my own family's experience, but do go on. Explain what you mean.

I actually have the opposite problem. When I see the errors LLMs make it reminds me of e.g. optical illusions that fool my visual system. LLMs make me worry that we're not really conscious either: maybe we're just a bundle of more-or-less integrated pattern recognition systems triggering reflexes.

If that's really your motive, wouldn't it make more sense to condemn antisemites?

As for "a lot of Jewish people cozied up to the far right", that's just your prejudice speaking. Jews are nearly the most left-voting demographic there is. Not that it would be your business in any case, of course.

Do you bring up Gaza when other people are talking about the racism they experience, or is it only with Jews?