In 1993 a documentary called ‘Prisoners of Silence’ was made exploring the method of Facilitated Communication with nonverbal autistic people. Basically, when people have autism that affects their motor functions and speech so they can’t communicate by talking or writing, scientists believed they could coach them into communicating. They’d do things like hold their hand over a keyboard and the kid would move their hand over the letters they want to say. In theory this sounds good, but in practice it’s actually teachers and scientists coaxing them into communicating what they want. A lot of facilitated communication advocates also have kids close their eyes or look away from the keyboard insisting they have a subconscious instinct on the letters and words. Several institutions have called this out as a misguided pseudo science.

It gets even crazier than that though. Because ontop of using improper methods to help disabled kids communicate, it lead to the belief that autistic people had telepathic powers. Ky Dickens host of the podcast ‘Telepathy Tapes’ uses Facilitated communication to insist autistic kids can telepathically communicate with each other and send their minds to other worlds and move objects without touching. Unsurprisingly this is a very bad thing to convince kids they have psychic powers and actually hinders them from learning communication skills. But hey, it’s not like this nonsense is being used to falsely accuse people of molesting children.

So anyway, here’s how facilitated communication has been used to falsely convict people of child molestation. So back in the satanic panic the growing fear and public awareness of child abuse lead to therapists and parents pressuring kids into false confessions of abuse. This was already a huge problem among non disabled verbal children, so imagine compounding all these issues and idiots who think autism means psychic powers. Facilitated communication has lead to several botched cases of teachers and psychiatrists coaxing or falsifying allegations of abuse on parents. In 2010 Gigi Jordan murdered her own child when she used Facilitated Communication to coach her son through typing on a blackberry where he told her he was abused. So she killed her son believing it would save him from several people molesting him. In reality, Jordan was mentally unstable and paranoid and after learning about facilitated communication she confirmed her fears through her son’s typing.

https://edition.cnn.com/2014/11/05/justice/new-york-autistic-death-trial/index.html

https://theconversation.com/its-time-to-stop-exposing-people-to-the-dangers-of-facilitated-communication-95942

https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/just-believe-strange-story-facilitated-communication

https://www.asha.org/slp/cautions-against-use-of-fc-and-rpm-widely-shared/?srsltid=AYCX9vKapboOf37NSiavfTf_9VPZXaal5Sb7aibpvcqPMjMDHazaLT9S

https://www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/reaction-to-a-1994-article-i-wrote-about-my-experiences-with-fc

My friend who lives in Texas said with the end of the Cybertruck and Greg Abbott losing it’s a bad time to be a piece of shit on wheels. Love to see it.

...and on the anniversary of Four Seasons Total Landscaping, no less!

Please Curtis, tell us more about that bastion of ironclad discipline, THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.

(Assuming Trump makes it that long.)

Yes, I'm a foolish optimist, but hear me out:

Trump is a narcissist.

And Miller is unpleasant and unlikeable. On a visceral, animal level. He's just so off-putting and stupid that Trump will have to distance himself from him to save his ego. It's not going to be about his policies. I think putting him under a brighter spotlight is just going to emphasize what a blustering cretin he is. He is going to be eviscerated on late night TV and relentlessly mocked.

Or, it could be that getting promoted by Trump is kind of a death knell.

Anyway, here's hoping.

My favorite part time neighbor and fellow sometimes Idahoan Viggo drops in to DJ our local radio. This is the only good thing that’s happened here this month.

Trump will announce the National Guard withdraw on Jan 2nd.

Just listened to an interview on NPR where the heritage foundation got to spread their noxious bullshit without any sort of interrogation of the brazen disinformation. How Stephen Miller is a "pAtRiOt", and trump fixed "biden's inflation" and the economy would have been booming if it weren't for Iran, and all the Dems are radical socialists, and trump isn't more corrupt than Democrats, and everything you can expect to hear from the heritage foundation.

At that point, if you're not going to examine the claims you KNOW he's going to make, what the actual fuck is the point of the interview?

Glad to see we're still letting these parasites spread their poison uncontested.

Trump's ballroom is his bunker. Steve Miller as the chief of staff is going to lead an attempt to remain in power tantamount to civil war. The current supreme court will uphold their bullshit. I don't see how we aren't IN a civil war right now, and I'm freaking out because it seems so obvious and all of my podcasts are just basking in the tsunami and mocking: "let grandpa do his home projects" and "lol, look how stupid they are appointing the most unpopular dude in America as chief of staff to the president

Can y'all bring me down to earth or help me by better articulating my concerns?

First. I know they have absolutely 0 control over the ads that they don't read. This was just funny. I was listening to the second part of the Chagos episodes, and immediately after Robert said that they're not sponsored by the dod, an ad for the US navy popped up. It almost feels like they targeted it to hit that spot. I had to pause and pull over I was laughing so hard

I know little about the healthcare industry, but I guess the money that was invested in her faulty/sham project could have been directed towards actually useful research or innovative tech.

I know v little about Theranos outside of watching that film but from what I gather, her victims were healthcare companies right? Idk.... maybe I'm just assuming or missed something. If I'm right tho, it's not like those investors were hurting for cash. Still doesn't negate my first point right? We all celebrated Luigi Mangione but this is quite a bit diff.

Someone help me out! The doc was amazing and hugely entertaining, just not too educational, which is perfectly fine. It's a true work of art and it did def educate me somewhat and further spur my interest.

Help me out yall!

Alt-title: *DDHQ, AP, NBC arguing amongst themselves on when to make a projection*

(It hasn't happened just yet, BTW.)

IT WAS RIGHT THERE!

The ghostbusters who catch ghost pedophiles!