Benjamin Ryan

Alejandra Caraballo: “We need to hold people to account, we need to hold systems to account, but try to be kinder to people.”

Also Caraballo:

On a NYT reporter’s work: “absolutely disgusting.”

On me: “He seriously needs help.”

On Simon Bazelon, Deciding to Win author: “legacy student nepo baby.”

YouTube video by PBS NewsHour PBS News Hour full episode, Nov. 24, 2025

Asked about the criticisms of her social presence, trans activist Alejandra Caraballo touts the maxim: “Be brutal to systems, be kind to people.”

“We need to hold people to account, we need to hold systems to account, but try to be kinder to people,” she says.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Rhy...

YouTube video by PBS NewsHour PBS News Hour full episode, Nov. 24, 2025

“They’re overplaying their hand,” Harvard Law School clinical instructor and trans activist Alejandra Caraballo says of the Trump administration’s actions toward trans people, in a lengthy interview on PBS. www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Rhy...

Trump Administration Live Updates: Criminal Case Dismissed Against Former F.B.I. Chief Comey

NEWS: Judge Tosses Criminal Charges Against James Comey and Letitia James

A federal judge threw out the criminal charges against James Comey, the former F.B.I. director, and Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, on Monday.

www.nytimes.com/live/2025/11...

Effects of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination programmes on community rates of HPV‐related disease and harms from vaccination - Henschke, N - 2025 | Cochrane Library Select your preferred language for Cochrane reviews and other content. Sections without translation will be in English.

Effects of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination programmes on community rates of HPV-related disease and harms from vaccination www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10....

Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination for the prevention of cervical cancer and other HPV‐related diseases: a network meta‐analysis - Bergman, H - 2025 | Cochrane Library Select your preferred language for Cochrane reviews and other content. Sections without translation will be in English.

The papers: Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination for the prevention of cervical cancer and other HPV-related diseases: a network meta-analysis
www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10....

HHS sec RFK Jr has disparaged the HPV vax, calling it dangerous. This rigorous analysis of numerous studies finds considerable evidence to the contrary. The vaccine was not associated with serious adverse effects and instead was only associated with mild effects, like a sore arm after the injection.

VACCINE NEWS: A pair of Cochrane Review papers provide the strongest evidence to date that the HPV vaccine is very safe and highly effective.

Girls who are vaccinated before age 16 have an 80 percent lower risk of cervical cancer.

Hi Norm, good to hear from you. Haven’t seen you in nearly 30 years.

In his book Cis White Gay, @benappel.bsky.social , who grew up in a religious cult, was involved in an AA program that was run like a cult, and then went to Columbia and then an MFA program in his 30s, reflects on his academic experiences:

Bingo

*Caturday morning

Come back when you’ve actually read the book.

Calvin gives Diane her Saturday morning kisses.

Maintenance Phase is devoted to ripping apart research they don’t like. They like to claim that people are healthy at any size and the only reason that people claim otherwise is because of animus toward obese people.

They’re the equivalent of the right-wing’s mistrust of academia, but packaged for the left.

He’s actually a very smart guy, but he cuts corners. His shows would be intellectually honest if instead of him, Peter and Aubrey telling everyone why the experts are wrong, they brought on actual experts. But then they don’t trust experts, so maybe that contradicts the purpose of the show.

My personal favorite was the You’re Wrong About episode in which he debunked the book that debunked why Matthew Shepard was murdered—a book that he shamelessly said he’d never read.

Spurious’s Substack | Check the Facts! | Substack My personal Substack. Click to read Spurious’s Substack, by Check the Facts!, a Substack publication with thousands of subscribers.

Hobbes has made a lucrative career out of fooling people into thinking he’s an intellectual authority. There is an entire Substack devoted to fact checking the wrong things he says about nutrition. spurioussemicolon.substack.com

Also, knowing Hobbes, I would hardly take on faith that he’s right about everything he says Harari gets wrong. I’d like to see HIS footnotes.

Imagjne if Hobbes led with that instead of saying a wrong a stupid thing.

Breaking: Marjorie Taylor Greene announces she has had it and will leave Congress on Jan. 5, 2026.

“I believe in term limits and do not believe that Congress should be a lifelong career or an assisted living facility,” she says.

open.substack.com/pub/benryan/...

UK's NHS to Launch Long-Awaited Puberty Blocker Trial The trial will randomize 226 gender-incongruent youths under age 16 to receive puberty blockers immediately or on a one-year delay and will follow them for two years post-randomization.

open.substack.com/pub/benryan/...

UK's NHS to Launch Long-Awaited Puberty Blocker Trial The trial will randomize 226 gender-incongruent youths under age 16 to receive puberty blockers immediately or on a one-year delay and will follow them for two years post-randomization.

BREAKING: UK's NHS to Launch Long-Awaited Puberty Blocker Trial

The trial will randomize 226 gender-incongruent youths under age 16 to receive puberty blockers immediately or on a one-year delay and will follow them for two years post-randomization.

open.substack.com/pub/benryan/...

Footnotes denote books or articles Harari has read and referenced?

Can TX go blue?

Surgical trainees have worse dexterity these days because kids aren’t doing crafts with their hands much anymore. All those hours I spent cutting photos out of magazines could’ve set me up for quite the surgical career.

Notice that Hobbes’ wild, demonstrably false claim, was met with thunderous applause here on Bluesky. All anyone has to do is open the book to see that Hobbes is wrong.