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@sababausa.bsky.social

‘The Voyage of the Beagle’ contains some really lovely passages

He wrote sweetly both of new sights and of homesickness (and he was under 30 when he wrote this!)

monadnock.net/darwin/voyag...

Bahia, or San Salvador. Brazil, Tob. 29th.-The day has passed delightfully. Delight itself, however, is a weak term to express the feelings of a naturalist who, for the first time, has wandered by himself in a Brazilian forest. The elegance of the grasses, the novelty of the parasitical plants, the beauty of the flowers, the glossy green of the foliage, but above all the general luxuriance of the vegetation, filled me with admiration. A most paradoxical mixture of sound and silence pervades the shady parts of the wood. The noise from the insects is so loud, that it may be heard even in a vessel anchored several hundred yards from the shore; yet within the recesses of the forest a universal silence appears to reign. To a person fond of natural history, such a day as this brings with it a deeper pleasure than he can ever hope to experience again. After wandering about for some hours, I returned to the landing-place; but, before reaching it, I was overtaken by a tropical storm. I tried to find shelter under a tree, which

How beautiful Shropshire will look, if we can but cross the wide Atlantic, before the end of October. You cannot imagine how curious I am to behold some of the old views, & to compare former with new impressions. I am determined & feel sure, that the scenery of England is ten times more beautiful than any we have seen.-What reasonable person can wish for great ill proportioned mountains, two and three miles high? No, no; give me the Brythen or some such compact little hill.—And then as for your boundless plains & impenetrable forests, who would compare them with the green fields & oak woods of England?-People are pleased to talk of the ever smiling sky of the Tropics: must not this be precious nonsense? Who admires a lady's face who is always smiling? England is not one of your insipid beauties; she can cry, & frown, & smile, all by turns.—In short I am convinced it is a most ridiculous thing to go round the world, when by staying quietly, the world will go round with you.—But I will turn back to the past, for if I look forward, I lose my wits, & talk nonsense. The Beagle staid at St.
Helena five davs, duma which time I lived In

November 27, 2025 at 3:02 AM

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@sababausa.bsky.social

Darwin’s illustrator Adolphus May included helpful little drawings

www.gutenberg.org/files/1227/1...

A series of plate drawings of dogs expressing various emotions

A plate drawing of an Irish setter hound expressing affection

November 26, 2025 at 10:21 PM

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@sababausa.bsky.social

Charles Darwin briefly discussed dogs’ senses of humor in the 2nd edition of ‘The Descent of Man’ 👇 and then fleshed those ideas out further in ‘The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals’

darwin-online.org.uk/converted/pd...

Most of the more complex emotions are common to the higher animals and ourselves. Every one has seen how jealous a dog is of his master's affection, if lavished on any other creature; and I have observed the same fact with monkeys.
This shews that animals not only love, but have desire to be loved. Animals manifestly feel emulation. They love approbation or praise; and a dog carrying a basket for his master exhibits in a high degree self-complacency or pride. There can, I think, be no doubt that a dog feels shame, as distinct from fear, and something very like modesty when begging too often for food. A great dog scorns the snarling of a little dog, and this may be called magnanimity. Several observers have stated that monkeys certainly dislike being laughed at; and they sometimes invent imaginary offences. In the Zoological Gardens I saw a baboon who always got into a furious rage when his keeper took out a letter or book and read it aloud to him; and his rage was so violent that, as I witnessed on one occasion, he bit his own leg till the blood flowed. Dogs show what may be fairly called a sense of humour, as distinct from mere play; if a bit of stick or other such object be thrown to one, he will often carry it away for a short distance; and then squatting down with it on the ground close before him, will wait until his master comes quite close to take it away. The dog will then seize it and rush away in triumph, repeating the same manœuvre, and evidently enjoying the practical joke.

November 26, 2025 at 10:15 PM

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@sababausa.bsky.social

I get a sense there’s general unease with—
• how developers create & implement AI
• how businesses use AI with or w/o public knowledge
• the effects on business competition & job security

But these feelings are inchoate and there’s essentially no consensus as to what, specifically, to do about it

Optimism and pessimism about Al's impact on the economy (%)
Decrease
No difference • Increase
Productivity
23
14
62
U.S. economic growth
24
23
53
Businesses
47
34
19
Jobs
61
27
12
Note: Wordings vary by question but shown as "Increase" and "Decrease" for simplicity; due to rounding, percentages may sum to 100% $1.
Question wording: How do you think Al technology will impact productivity in the workplace?
Do you think Al technology will boost U.S. economic growth, reduce it, or have no impact?
In the next 10 years, do you think Al technology will create more businesses than it destroys, destroy more businesses than it creates, or will it be about equal?
In the next 10 years, do you think Al technology will create more jobs than it destroys, destroy more jobs than it creates, or will it be about equal?

November 26, 2025 at 9:16 PM

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@sababausa.bsky.social

This one is about “competitiveness”

I haven’t looked at a ton of these but in the few Gallup polls I looked at, the inverse age correlation appears in most questions about favorable / unfavorable attitudes

Perceptions of Al and global competitiveness by age group (%)
1 18-29 L 30-39 L 40-64
65÷|
54
67
71
64
55
40
"Strongly agree" that countries are competing to have the most advanced Al technology
40
26
% "very important" for the U.S. to have more advanced Al technology than other countries
Question wording:
Would you agree or disagree that countries are competing to have the most advanced All technologies right now?
How important is it for the U.S. to have more advanced Al technology than other countries, if at all?

November 26, 2025 at 5:51 PM

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@sababausa.bsky.social

Gallup recently ran a comprehensive poll in the spring and there is rock bottom support for deregulation, and—interestingly—there is a very strong inverse correlation between age and support for AI

www.gallup.com/workplace/69...

www.gallup.com/analytics/69...

Whether Al will make U.S. national security risks better or worse by demographics (%)
# Worse • About the same
• Better I
Total
Men
Women
18-29
30-39
40-64
65+
Republican
Democrat
Independent
Non-user
User
41
37
44
46
46
42
30
33
48
40
44
37
9
15
15
14
20
17
13
14
15
16
13
17
36
42
32
26
30
37
50
44
31
37
34
41
Note: "Don't know responses not displayed in chart, thus totals don't add up to 100%. The Use Al group includes those who use it "sometimes" or more.
Question wording: For each of the following, do you think advancing Al technology will make the US. better off or worse off?

Support for different Al-related policies (%)
Somewhat support
Strongly support
Creating or expanding workforce training and education programs that teach about how to develop or use Al
Increasing the amount of money the U.S. government spends on funding for Al research
Increasing government funding for Al research at colleges and universities so they can hire top Al researchers Allowing companies or universities
researching Al to use the government's resources for their own Al research
Creating tax incentives
for companies that develop Al
Reducing rules that regulate
how Al technology can be developed to make it easier and faster for companies to develop Al
41
31
40
16
36
19
36
13
23
8
17
6
Question wording: To what extent do you support or oppose the U.S. taking the following actions?

November 26, 2025 at 5:36 PM

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@sababausa.bsky.social

Idk on one hand the user numbers speak for themselves, but I do wonder what users are doing with their sessions and whether they’d be willing to pay, and whether ppl would really resist strong regulations

Like…these recent Gallup poll numbers are not good for AI

news.gallup.com/poll/694688/...

Gallup poll result for the question “in general, how much do you trust businesses to use artificial intelligence responsibly?”

For 2025, 28% say not at all, 41% say not much, 29% say some, and the residual 2% say a lot

Poll result for the question “In your opinion, does artificial intelligence…?”

For 2025, 31% say or does more harm than good, 57% say equal amounts harm and good, and 12% say more good than harm

November 26, 2025 at 5:25 PM

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@sababausa.bsky.social

Simpsons meme, featuring Lisa Simpson excitedly declaring: “I’ve created Lutherans!”

November 26, 2025 at 2:20 PM

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@sababausa.bsky.social

Simpsons meme, featuring Homer Simpson in the backseat of a taxi with Montgomery Burns, and Mr. Burns incredulously replying to the local cab driver: “…so you’re saying Figueiredo is gone?” (implying that Burns has not kept up with current events for several decades)

November 26, 2025 at 2:16 PM

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@sababausa.bsky.social

Anyway the changes the commission is proposing for magistrate court would bring them into line with existing systems for serious felonies, and would bring the UK to something fairly close to US criminal appeals as current constructed (see page 203)

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/686be8...

I begin by recommending that the automatic right to appeal from the magistrates' court to the Crown Court (route 1 of Flowchart 6.1) should be replaced with a requirement for a defendant to apply for permission to appeal. This would be similar to the process adopted in appeals from the Crown Court to the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) in which a more senior judge reviews applications for permission to appeal and decides either to refuse or to grant permission for a hearing on points of law, including the availability of fresh evidence, alleged failures of process and jurisdiction.
My second recommendatics to remove the requirement for a rehearing in the Crown Court, replacing it with a hearing on grounds that are identical to the grounds on which an appeal can be brought from the Crown Court to the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division).
A judge of the Crown Court would have to identify whether there was an arguable point of law in deciding whether to grant leave to appeal. The appeal itself wo d therefore be limited to challenging the
incorrect application of and/or interpretation of the law or procedural irregularity, as well as cases involving fresh evidence, rather than a re-argument of the facts of the case. In relation to sentence, the judge would determine whether it was arguable that the sentence was wrong in principle or manifestly excessive.
I envisage a similar system applied to magistrates' court appeals. The defendant who wishes to appeal a decision of the magistrates' court as to conviction or sentence would be required to seek permission to appeal from a single Circuit Judge. That judge would decide by examining the appeal papers (and only exceptionally at the discretion of the judge, with the need for an oral hearing).

November 25, 2025 at 8:15 PM

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@sababausa.bsky.social

Simpsons meme featuring C. Montgomery Burns protesting defiantly: “Ooh, you can silence me, but you can’t silence Collier’s Magazine!”

November 25, 2025 at 6:12 PM

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@sababausa.bsky.social

Polling for 2008-cycle Democratic nominee preference, taken in 2005:

A table from a February 2005 poll, polling Democrats’ preference for 2008 presidential nominee, the results showing:
Hillary Clinton – 39%
John Kerry – 21%
John Edwards – 15%
Joe Biden – 5%
Wesley Clark – 4%
Russ Feingold – 2%
Bill Richardson – 2%
Evan Bayh – 1%
Mark Warner – 1%
Tom Vilsack – <1%
Undecided – 10%

November 25, 2025 at 3:57 PM

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@sababausa.bsky.social

I cannot find one civilian case since 1969 charging 18 USC § 2387 (the intentionally urging insubordination charge that Hegseth is brandishing at Sen. Kelly), though it looks like a few courts-martial have charged it “assimilated” through Art. 92, UCMJ (disobeying orders) 👇

UNITED STATES ARMY COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS
Before
KERN, ALDYKIEWICZ, and MARTIN
Appellate Military Judges
UNITED STATES, Appellee
Specialist CHRISTOPHER L. MOYERS
United States Army, Appellant
ARMY 20110975
Headquarters, Fort Bliss
David H. Robertson, Military Judge
Colonel Francis P. King, Staff Judge Advocate
For Appellant: William E. Cassara, Esquire (argued); William E. Cassara, Esquire;
Captain John L. Schriver, JA (on brief); William E. Cassara, Esquire; Captain Brian
D. Andes, JA (on reply brief).
For Appellee: Captain T. Campbell Warner, JA (argued); Colonel John P. Carrell, JA; Lieutenant Colonel James L. Varley, JA; Major Catherine L. Brantley, JA;
Captain T. Campbell Warner, JA (on brief).
31 March 2014
MEMORANDUM OPINION
This opinion is issued as an unpublished opinion and, as such, does not serve as precedent.
KERN, Senior Judge:
A military judge sitting as a general court-martial convicted appellant, contrary to his pleas, of violating a lawful general regulation; knowingly becoming a member of, or affiliating with, a group which encouraged the violent overthrow or destruction of the United States Government; and advising, counseling and urging disloyalty and mutiny by members of the Armed Forces, in violation of Articles 92 and 134, Uniform Code of Military Justice, 10 U.S.C. $§ 892, 934 (2006) [hereinafter UCMJ].' The military judge sentenced appellant to a dishonorable
fn.1. The two Title 18 provisions assimilated under Clause 3 of Article 134, UCMJ, were 18 U.S.C. § 2385 and 18 U.S.C. § 2387.

November 25, 2025 at 2:54 PM

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@sababausa.bsky.social

Figures in a position of official power, contemplating imposition of official consequences on Donald Trump or a Trump Administration official:

Simpsons meme featuring Belle (proprietress of Le Maison Derrière), speaking to Homer Simpson about Bart’s misbehavior: “I am not going to press charges, but I assume you will want to punish the boy.”

Homer, responding to Belle dismissively: “Yeah, appreciate the suggestion, lady, but he *hates* that. And I’ve gotta live with him.”

November 24, 2025 at 4:43 PM

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@sababausa.bsky.social

It shouldn’t be funny, but this thing about the leader rejecting germ theory and deciding to not wash her hands anymore reminded my of the Simpsons

A close-up of Bart Simpson’s right hand, shortly after he decided he would never wash it again. His hand is covered in dirt, spit(?), green grime, a bandaid stuck on his little finger, a wad of old chewing gum stuck between his thumb and forefinger

November 24, 2025 at 4:31 PM

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@sababausa.bsky.social

There’s a few details in the piece about non-US customers,

and it’s like yeah I can see how anyone in any country might be susceptible but it’s still hard as someone living in the US to avoid looking a bit askance at this person 👇

Obstetrics is covered in your country! And €900 is relatively low!

Throughout 2023, Voitot listened to the FBS podcast daily. She came to see Saldaya and Norris-Clark as the big sisters she'd never had.
Growing up, Voitot did not have a close relationship with her mother, and she craved the sort of wisdom that once would have been passed down by elder women in her community.
When she got pregnant in August, Voitot found out home birth was 't covered by state insurance, meaning she'd have to pay €900 for a midwife, which felt unfair. After purchasing The Complete Guide to Freebirth, and Norris-Clark's book, she decided to freebirth.

November 24, 2025 at 4:11 PM

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@sababausa.bsky.social

Idk what legal jeopardy there might be in foreign jurisdictions (since these grifters are marketing and sometimes traveling across borders), but in the U.S. the most obvious thing that stuck out to me was operating a school that they falsely said was for midwifery

That’s like a fake med school

The first Radical Birth Keeper (RBK) school opened in 2020 and, despite its $6,000 cost, sold out. Over the next five years, it would train more than 850 "authentic midwives" from every
continent. In 2024, Sa laya and Norris-Clark
went one step further, launching the MatriBirth Midwifery Institute (MMI), a $12,000, year-long
"gold-standard online intensive midwifery school"
In reality, American midwives study for years at the feet of elder midwives, who train them in how to resolve life-threatening birth complications. Most carry drugs to stop hemorrhages, know how to assist delivery of the placenta and train in neonatal resuscitation.
FBS students, on the other hand, would learn from an online course, taught via Zoom. The RBK school was only three months long, and

Saldaya and Norris-Clark appeared to have concerns about the legal consequences of what they were doing. In May FBS posted a disclaimer on Instagram, claiming its content was for "educational and informational"
purposes and was not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any medical condition related to pregnancy or birth. "For n dical advice, consult
your healthcare provider." In a call with her remaining students after the Reddit community formed, Saldaya admitted "[we] overplayed our hand, calling this a midwifery school"

November 24, 2025 at 3:56 PM

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@sababausa.bsky.social

And then of course these profiteer cult leader grifters take zero responsibility and act flustered when people have to gall to be angry at them

“You could have read other websites” is her answer to a mother whose baby died

My god, STFU you hellbound ghoul

In December 2024, a frantic-looking Norris-Clark appeared by video call from a hotel room.
She announced to the students in the Matribirth Midwifery Institute that she was an
"international fugitive", after a freebirth she'd attended in Nicaragua had gone wrong. After the mother was unable to birth her placenta, she began to bleed heavily, before having a seizure.
Paramedics were called. Afterwards, "there was swearing and screaming and people threatening me".
', Norris-Clark said. She briefly fled the country, saying she would no longer be attending births, because she did not want to go to jail.

Norris-Clark seemed irritable, though she stayed civil. Her answer was no. "People are
respons le for their own decisions and their actions. You could have read other books. You could have gone on other websites. I am so sorry about your experience, Camille, but you are a woman that I don't know, who lives in France."

November 24, 2025 at 3:50 PM

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@sababausa.bsky.social

And man, when people say RFK Junior and his ilk are the vanguard of a death cult, sometimes that sort of criticism seems hyperbolic but then—holy shit, this celebration of death (and planning for concealing it) is brazen and explicit

Both Norris-Clark and Saldaya's children survived. But Saldaya, who taught her followers to always have a "death plan", had considered what she'd say to the authorities if a child of hers died after they yere born. She'd pretend the baby was stillborn. "I would certainly lie?" Saldaya told her students in 2023. "If my baby was born alive, then died, and then I involved the police - that baby was born dead."
If a child died in a freebirth, Saldaya also taught her students not to "kneejerk" call 911: "Dead is dead." If grieving families chose to illegally bury their children on their land, Saldaya passed on advice once given to her by an underground midwife: "Dig a little deeper."

"This idea of death being bad is not really something I believe is true," Norris-Clark said
"But that doesn't mean I think it's not a big deal." She acknowledged she'd never lost a newborn baby of her own. "It's a terrible thing, yeah," she said. "And also, not 'bad', you know?"

November 24, 2025 at 3:47 PM

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@sababausa.bsky.social

Another thing that stuck out to me was how the ”Free Birth” extremists modeled this transition from left-coded woo to far-right coded woo,

in particular it was notable that they went from identifying as “radical feminist“ to becoming sort of far-right tradwives

Friends say Saldaya often took her ideological cues from her business partner. After Norris-Clark decided she did not believe in gravity, Saldaya announced she was no longer "round Earth] committed".
When Norris-Clark said she
no longer believed in germ theory, Saldaya told friends she did not wash her hands. When Norris-Clark said she no longer identified as a feminist and wished to submit to her husband, Saldaya quietly stopped marketing the podcast as
"radical feminist"
After Norris-Clark tacked rightwards politically, Saldaya followed. She began to promote wild pregnancy, a term Norris-Clark invented, meaning pregnancy without any prenatal care, and German New Medicine, which Norris-Clark has championed, which claims that disease is caused not by pathogens but by unresolved emotional conflicts.

November 24, 2025 at 3:36 PM

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@sababausa.bsky.social

Another thing that comes across from the cult leaders is how grifty it all is, and how much it resembles multilevel marketing

They express all this florid, introspective, sort of almost revelatory ideology, but it’s all behind a wall of ostentatious profit-seeking

As the money poured in, Saldaya established what she called her "queendom". She bought three pieces of land in Hayesville, including a four-bed house in eight acres of land, an adjacent
53-acre plot and a school, set in 17 acres, that she spent tens of thousands renovating, only for it to fail a year later. She spent more than $10,000 on lawn ornaments, including giant toadstools, for the schol and festival. She bought a Range Rover. She spent over $100,000 on a swimming pool and outdoor kitchen in her back yard.
During this period, one friend recalls Saldaya asking for advice on how to get a private jet.

If it was freebirthing credibility Saldaya was looking for, Norris-Clark had it in abundance.
She was, at this point, a minor celebrity in the online birth world, due to her popular blog and the fact that a 2012 video she'd shared of her son's freebirth on YouTube had gone viral.
"I figured out," Saldaya would lar say to Norris-Clark, in a 2022 podcast, "how to make myself valuable to you ... [by making] us a bunch of money." In return, Norris-Clark would bring her experience "of being an authentic midwife"

November 24, 2025 at 3:29 PM

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@sababausa.bsky.social

Big-picture, 132k Insta followers is not a lot, but the noxious ideas are so extreme & consequential

But it’s the same pattern as across the MAHA Cinematic Universe where patients are dissatisfied with medical systems, and latch onto an even-worse alternative that fills the anti-establishment niche

Emails flooded into FBS from women who had xperienced life-affirming unassisted births.
Many had previously had traumatic births in hospital. The obstetrician-gynecologist who delivered writer and birth worker Kaitlin Pearl Coghill's second child in 2015 performed a membrane sweep, an internal procedure to induce labor, without her consent. He subsequently lost his license for having a sexual relationship with a patient. "He was a creep," says Coghill, 36, who lives in southern California, of her doctor, "and he was abusive, and it definitely felt like sexual assault."
After discovering FBS, in 2020 Coghill freebirthed her third child in a joyous four-hour labor. "It changed my life," Coghill says. "I'd never felt so much power in my body."
Soo Downe, a British midwife and professor at the University of Lancashire, says the prevalence of freebirthing, while low, appears to be increasing across the world as women lose trust

November 24, 2025 at 3:23 PM

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@sababausa.bsky.social

Always a head scratcher when I learn about these continuations-in-part where the field of invention completely changed

The earliest-filed application is this family is directed to sailing equipment (strange figure 1 there, too…)

patents.google.com/patent/US103...