Time for an open thread, I think. In which to share links and bicker.

What?

Oh yes, Batwoman. 

It occurs to me that it’s been a while since we marvelled at the mind of Laurie Penny. We must correct that immediately:  

She “earned that pronoun with a lot of hard work,” you know. While also, rather suddenly, becoming a being of indeterminate gender. A they, depending on who’s nearby, and how fashionable they are.

Update, via the comments:

Actual science, people. || Ladder commercial of note. || Lab research of note. || Meanwhile, in Roswell, New Mexico, the visitors are contained. || Today’s word is excavation. || Uncle Tom. || The caring kind. || Consequences. (h/t, Jeff) || I learned a new word today. || Plant nuggets. They taste like chicken, apparently. || GoPro inside a car tyre. || Harry Potter – but with guns. || Musically speaking, a partial success. || Mercedes in peril. || Heh. (h/t, Damian) || Dinnertime negotiation of note. Our place in the food chain is safe, for now. || And how was your day? || She does this better than you. || Often-filmed rock formations. || And finally, a job done, though perhaps not quite as smoothly as one might have hoped.

Heather Mac Donald on post-watershed facts: 

YouTube’s age-restriction policy lists vulgar language, violence and disturbing imagery, nudity and sexually suggestive content, and portrayal of harmful or dangerous ­activities as factors that could lead to an age restriction. None of those categories has any bearing on my talk. I used federal data to show that the claim that police are wantonly killing black men is a product of selective coverage by a politicised press and an elite establishment dedicated to the idea that racism is America’s defining trait. There was nothing racy or ­incendiary about the talk — unless you find criminological ­research titillating — unlike the soft-pornographic and anarchist videos that YouTube allows on its site without age restriction.

Ms Mac Donald’s apparently scandalous video – which was promptly deleted by YouTube and only restored, for consenting adults, following appeals by the talk’s organisers – can be viewed in full here. As Larry Elder adds, 

Not only does [your evidence] give perspective, it’s uplifting. Isn’t it good to know that whatever is going on is nothing to do with “institutional, systemic, structural” racism? Isn’t that good news?

And not entirely unrelated, Coleman Hughes on the life and work of Thomas Sowell: 

Sowell has encountered countless smears, though the usual avenues of attack—accusations of racism, privilege, and all the rest—have not been available. Someone should have told Aidan Byrne, who reviewed one of Sowell’s books for the London School of Economics blog. Doubtless convinced that he was delivering a devastating blow, Byrne quipped: “easy for a rich white man to say.” It’s hard not to laugh at this hapless reviewer’s expense, but many mainstream commentators differ from Byrne only in that they usually remember to check Google Images before launching their ad hominems. The prevailing notion today is that your skin colour, your chromosomes, your sexual orientation, and other markers of identity determine how you think. And it is generally those who see themselves as the most freethinking—“woke,” while the rest of us are asleep—who apply the strictest and most backward formulas.

A selection of videos featuring Dr Sowell can be found here, here, here, and here. 

As usual, feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.

I have chores; therefore, you have an open thread.

You may enthuse when ready.

Oh, and scenes. Sound recommended. A fuller, longer version can be experienced here.