The post Buzzfeed is Mad Jojo Siwa Esacpes LGBTQ Mafia & Comes Out Straight appeared first on SALTY.

Politics The Surprising Campaign of Zohran Mamdani A 33-year-old Muslim socialist can’t win the NYC mayor’s race—right?   It wasn’t long ago now when the political comeback of the former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo seemed all but assured. It was just this March, in fact. Cuomo held what appeared to be an insurmountable lead in a crowded Democratic primary field running to become the next mayor of New York City. In an Emerson College poll of likely voters taken between the 21st and 24th of that spring month, Cuomo garnered 38 percent of voters with New York State Rep. Zohran Mamdani and Mayor Eric Adams earning only 10 percent and 8 percent, respectively.  Despite repeated allegations against Cuomo’s character and leadership during his time in Albany, many voters in the state and its biggest city still revere the former governor. POLITICO called it the “Cuomo Paradox,” noting in May that the 67-year-old statesman is “unpopular, yet still leading the New York City mayor’s race.” After the sitting Mayor Eric Adams exited the Democratic primary competition in April, most analysts just assumed Cuomo would cakewalk to Gracie Mansion.  And so it seemed that nothing short of a Hail Mary could propel any of Cuomo’s challengers to within a puncher’s chance of slowing the former governor’s emphatic return to the New York political scene. Then, the 33-year-old Muslim socialist behind a series of sleek, street-smart TV ads promising to freeze the rent, provide no-cost childcare, and make public busing free catapulted in out of nowhere. As the Democratic establishment spends millions of dollars researching how to “connect with young men,” Mamdani has found it easy to connect with the sort of figures the establishment struggles to contain. “My political journey begins with Bernie’s 2016 run, which gave me the language to describe myself as a Democrat socialist campaign,” Mamdani explained during an interview with the Majority Report in January. In one of his first acts as an assemblyman, Mamdani rallied with the New York Taxi Workers Alliance and was arrested for disorderly conduct during a sit-down protest in the middle of Broadway. Then began Mamdani’s hunger strike in front of City Hall.  For two weeks, the man who was born in Uganda and immigrated to New York City at the age of 7 joined NYTWA members who refused to eat as pressure mounted on then-Mayor Bill de Blasio. In the end, the taxi drivers, and Mamdani, won. “I could not shake the sense that I was witnessing the doomed last stand of yet another group of working-class New Yorkers who would be crushed by the hedge-fund Bretts who run this city,” Mamdani said of the successful protests.  And so that is who Mamdani is, politically: an activist, someone who has shown a willingness to fight in ways that his establishment peers simply cannot. When Border Czar Tom Homan taunted Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) in Albany this March, Mamdani had to be held back by state troopers as he demanded to know if Homan “believed in the First Amendment.” That same fighting spirit was on display in the two most recent mayoral debates where Mamdani faced off against the field and its moderators who were all eager to know where the slick-talking son of a Bollywood filmmaker stood on the escalating situation in the Middle East.  When moderators asked the nine candidates where they would visit on their first foreign trip, every candidate except Mamdani promised to visit Israel. Without missing a beat, Mamdani answered simply: “I would stay in New York City, my plans are to address New Yorkers across the five boroughs and focus on that.” When pressed to elaborate, Mamdani promised to “stand up for Jewish New Yorkers” and said he believed that “Israel has a right to exist as a state with equal rights.”  Cuomo immediately went on the attack, noting that Mamdani won’t visit Israel and that the assemblyman refused to say Israel should exist “as a Jewish state.” The ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the sudden outbreak of war between Israel and Iran, which began less than two weeks following the debate in question, has no doubt muddied the waters of Mamdani’s ascension. Nearly 1 million Jews call New York City home, and they play an outsized role in the cultural, political, and financial realities of America’s great northern city. Carrying the primary ballot without appealing to this demographic on some level would appear to be an insurmountable obstacle.  In New York, Mamdani is known for his anti-Zionist sentiments. In 2021, he led “boycott, divestment and sanctions” protests during a pro-Palestinian rally across from the Israeli Consulate in Manhattan. He introduced a bill to ban funding for Israeli settlers and declined to support a New York Assembly resolution marking the founding of Israel. And in 2023, he introduced the “Not on our dime!” bill to target tax-exempt charities that provide money to Israeli settler organizations. Which is why in May, Mamdani responded directly to rumors that he is an antisemite. In a one-minute video posted to Twitter, Mamdani clarified his legislative support for Holocaust remembrance during his time as a state assemblyman. “I have repeatedly supported allocating millions of dollars in the state budget for Holocaust survivors and my campaign has proposed the largest fiscal commitment of any candidate to combat antisemitism,” Mamdani stated. “As mayor, I will protect Jewish New Yorkers and build a city that every person is proud to call home.”  But it’s not just Jewish New Yorkers who are concerned about Mamdani’s views on the Middle East. Nearly 1 million Muslims call New York City home and not all of them are in agreement with Mamdani’s views on Israel, which some characterize as soft. Just last week, Mamdani was confronted in a West Village church over his statement that Israel “has a right to exist.” The protester accused Mamdani of pandering to Israel and questioned the sincerity of his Muslim faith. “To call into question how I consider myself Muslim is a step too far,” Mamdani responded.  On Wednesday, Mamdani reiterated that he is not an antisemite in an emotional speech in which the 33-year-old politician responded to the verbal attacks: “I get messages that say, ‘the only good Muslim, is a dead Muslim.’ I get threats on my life.” The speech came a day after an appearance on the Bulwark Podcast during which Mamdani declined to condemn the phrase “Globalize the Intifada.” Mamdani defined the word “intifada” as “struggle” and argued that the word “has been used by the Holocaust Museum when translating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising into Arabic.” The U.S. Holocaust Museum in response denounced Mamdani on X Thursday morning. The situation is evidence of how Mamdani’s Muslim faith has been an integral and unpredictable element of his campaign, one that has forced him to repeatedly and loudly condemn what critics view as antisemitic tendencies.  According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, roughly 350,000 of the nearly 1 million Muslims that live in New York City are registered to vote. Of those 350,000 people, only about 12 percent actively participate in elections. And of those 12 percent, Mamdani has struggled to convince the more socially conservative contingent who are prone to question his progressive social values.  “It’s really hard to convince people, because obviously Zohran is representing all New Yorkers,” said Ashraf Chowdhury, a volunteer for Mr. Mamdani’s campaign. “So some of the selling points have to be: We support all the Jewish people.” The lack of registered voters in the Muslim community and Mamdani’s progressive message leaves a sizable gap in representation at the ballot box, one Mamdani will have to make up through non-Jewish, non-Muslim white voters, the demographic with which the assemblyman polls best.  Mamdani’s recent surge in polling has upended the political class in New York. Though hard data is always difficult to find in the lead-up to any election, polling released by Data for Progress in early June found Mamdani only down two points on the final ranked-choice ballot. That same poll found Mamdani well ahead of Cuomo in the favorability category.  Mamdani’s attitude explains, as much as any single thing, how the youthful politician has found himself with a fighting chance against the aging and dated Cuomo. Mamdani’s appeal on the left is not unlike how President Donald Trump found bottle-rocket momentum in 2015 against a cast of Republican neocons who were brutally and sincerely out of touch with the voting public. Riding new momentum, Mamdani secured two of the most high-profile endorsements favored by any progressive running for office in America in the last month. With his polling numbers rising, both Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) endorsed Zohran, with AOC going as far as to dance with Mamdani on a float during the Puerto Rican Day Parade in NYC.  Though Mamdani’s message of city-run grocery stores and no-cost childcare has played well among the progressive ranks who carry hard power in the New York electorate, moderates and conservatives have pointed to a checkered past that was even more liberal than the messages pitched by Mamdani today. During his time representing the 36th District of New York in June 2020, Mamdani called for the abolition of the capitalist system and the defunding of police. His softer, more polished pitch in 2025 has failed to move the opinions of editorial boardrooms in the city. “The New York Times Leads the Movement to Stop Zohran Mamdani,” shouted a critical headline from the New Yorker published on Tuesday morning. “The newspapers don’t want New Yorkers to put Zohran Mamdani on their ballots,” argued City and State. And it’s true. The New York City newspapers really don’t want Mamdani to be the next mayor of their city.  The Queens Chronicle demanded “anyone but Mamdani.” The New York Post called Mamdani “a uniquely awful menace” who “would be a disaster for New York.” amNewYork highlighted Mamdani’s stances on the Holocaust and Israel, arguing that Mamdani is “unfit to lead.” In response to the barrage of dismissals, Mamdani stated that the editorials were “the opinions of only about a dozen New Yorkers. A democracy will be decided by close to a million New Yorkers.” And while Mamdani is correct to assert that voters will have the final say, there is no doubt that the heavy-handed criticism levied against him by online critics and the city newspapers will likely play some small but not inconsequential role in how the winner of the Democratic primary field is selected on Tuesday, June 24. Worse for Mamdani, his meteoric rise may have plateaued: Prediction markets have swung back toward Cuomo as the dominant favorite in the last 72 hours. On Polymarket, Mamdani holds a 21 percent chance of winning next week’s election, a big jump from his five percent chance to win it in late May but a precipitous drop from his local high of 40 percent chance on June 12.  Even more worrying are the latest polls from Marist showing Cuomo cruising to victory. And new data from the Manhattan Institute finds Cuomo up 12 points in the final round of a hypothetical ranked-choice ballot. And while Zohran has worked recently to pivot the race toward a referendum on ICE deportations, the backdrop of war between Israel and Iran has dampened Mandani’s late surge, as renewed criticism of Mamdani’s statements on Israel and the pro-Palestine movement proliferates social media. So can a 33-year-old Muslim immigrant who styles himself as a “democratic socialist” and refuses to outright condemn the intifada actually win the New York Democratic primary race next week? It appears unlikely. But has Mamdani shown himself to be a competitive figure in the broader arena? Certainly. His people-first politics and genuine showmanship are resonating sincerely with progressive voters who have, again and again, been misled and overpowered by establishment Democratic players. Where Mamdani lands after next Tuesday’s primary election is anyone’s best guess, but in my estimation, he’s likely to feature in the new Democratic Party for years to come.  The post The Surprising Campaign of Zohran Mamdani appeared first on The American Conservative.

Foreign Affairs The Iran Strikes Will Further Encourage Nuclear Proliferation Small and middle powers will decide there is only one safeguard against the whims of great powers. Credit: PX Media/Shutterstock With the Israeli attack on Iran still unfolding as of the time of this writing, there are many questions. Was the United States planning for this all along, treating the negotiations as a distraction to unleash its latest regime change war on the Middle East? Or was the U.S. caught off guard by Israel attempting to sabotage negotiations and force it to accommodate Israel to save face in light of events? For most of the world, however, such debates have only marginal significance. What they can clearly see is that, had Iran actually possessed a viable nuclear deterrent, it would not be facing a full-scale decapitation strike by Israel. What really matters now for the majority of countries around the world is to reckon with a clear trend of the post–Cold War world: Smaller countries targeted by great powers need nuclear deterrence to survive.  Israel is the only country in the Middle East that has a nuclear arsenal. This, along with the great-power protection provided by the United States, serves as its ultimate shield to behave as a revisionist actor and regional force of destabilization in that part of the world. The fact that its neighbors lack a nuclear deterrent means they cannot effectively deter either Israel nor the United States at the conventional level. This dynamic has been made more than clear by recent history in other parts of the world as well. The ambiguous paucity, if not outright nonexistence, of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq weapons of mass destruction ironically made it an easy target for the United States to move against a country it did not like in 2003. The American invasion of that country was operating familiarly under the pretext of preventing an imminent danger from the existence of such weapons. As then–National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice stated, “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” Libya, sensing an opportunity to reintegrate with global diplomacy after a period of ostracism by handing the increasingly beleaguered Bush a win, soon after declared that it was dismantling its weapons of mass destruction programs. Gaddafi was then touted as having seen the light of working with the United States, only to be attacked and deposed by NATO a few years later during the Arab Spring. Libya has become a fractured and failed state with human trafficking networks and even slave markets in the years since. Ukraine offers another example, showing that the dynamic is not only restricted to enemies of the United States. Once a host to a large number of Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles, Ukraine agreed to hand those weapons over to Russia after the breakup of the USSR. While it is true that the centralized fire control of these missile silos was controlled by Moscow, part of the deal of handing back the weapons was in fact that Ukraine would forgo being a nuclear power in general. As such it lacked deterrence against its conventionally superior neighbor once disputes over its foreign-policy alignment and the Crimean Peninsula broke out.  The exception to this litany of beleaguered states, smaller and more precarious than their antagonists, is North Korea. In the same era as Iraq fell and Libya laid the seeds of its own eventual doom; Pyongyang doubled down on its Hermit Kingdom reputation and activated its nuclear program. Combined with its large conventional deterrence, this has meant that not only has that state avoided attack; it has also arguably increased its leverage as a sovereign power against its gigantic Chinese neighbor. Great powers have shown, time and again, that they do not respect the sovereignty of smaller countries that refuse to integrate into their visions of domination. It is therefore only rational that such states, whose primary goal is survival, will pursue deterrence through nuclear and possibly chemical weapons. Nuclear weapons became an equalizer between otherwise overmatched countries targeted by great powers. The present situation of Iran only further underscores this stark fact. As it becomes more obvious that the good graces of the world powers are not enough to provide security and sovereignty for other states, they will pursue the path of developing nuclear weapons in greater numbers, and the more nations that pursue this path at the same time the less likely it will be that they can be all be stopped by their powerful antagonists.  The post The Iran Strikes Will Further Encourage Nuclear Proliferation appeared first on The American Conservative.

Foreign Affairs What J.D. Vance Has in Common with Iran’s Foreign Minister Like many U.S. officials, Iran’s leaders learned hard lessons from war with Iraq. Credit: Horacio Villalobos/Getty Images Iran’s foreign minister, Seyyed Abbas Araghchi, was a teenager when Saddam Hussein invaded his country. The Iran–Iraq War began with airstrikes in September 1980. Saddam believed that Iran was weak—the fledgling Islamic Republic of Iran had been established just the prior year and the country remained in the throes of political revolution. The Iraqi dictator’s opportunism led to a brutal eight-year conflict that Iranians call the “imposed war.” Araghchi was among the one million young Iranian men who volunteered to defend their country, motivated by a combination of patriotism and faith. Teenagers doctored their birth certificates to enlist, and Iranian military planners turned a blind eye as they struggled to replenish ranks. The war was the formative experience for a whole generation in Iran. Like all wars, it left scars and trauma, but it also profoundly shaped the worldview of the men now leading the Islamic Republic. Araghchi’s life-long commitment to diplomacy reflects the lessons he learned during the Iran–Iraq War. After serving in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, he entered Iran’s diplomatic academy in 1985, while the war was still ongoing. Over the last two decades, Araghchi has played a central role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations with the West. Most recently, he conducted five rounds of negotiations with special envoy Steve Witkoff to reach a new nuclear deal with the United States. During his time working on the nuclear file, Araghchi has repeatedly had to defend Iran’s pursuit of diplomacy in the face of attacks from hardliners in the Iranian system. Much like in Washington, the political discourse in Tehran is dominated by hawkish voices, who believe that Iran must project strength through military action. Any other approach is viewed as a sign of weakness. To justify negotiations, especially with the United States, Araghchi has repeatedly insisted that diplomacy and military force are complementary strategies. In his view, “diplomacy moves forward relying on the power of military force, and the military force paves the way for diplomacy, which has the power to ensure national dignity.” In certain respects, Araghchi could be viewed as an Iranian “restrainer” who believes that diplomacy can keep Iran from getting embroiled in needless wars, but that the country must also retain a strong military with a defensive posture. The value of restraint is a lesson Araghchi learned in Iraq, something he shares with numerous members of the Trump administration, who likewise confronted the realities of “imposed wars” during their own deployments in the same country. Senior officials such as J.D. Vance, Pete Hegseth, and Tulsi Gabbard were part of the generation of Americans, motivated by patriotism and faith, who deployed during the long War on Terror. At first, they believed that the war had been imposed on the United States by the likes of Osama bin Laden. Later, as the U.S. got mired in aimless conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, they realized that the war had been imposed on the American people by the likes of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Much like Araghchi has had to battle the hawks in Tehran, American restrainers have had to battle hawks in DC. For a time, President Donald Trump appeared to be their ally. He was the first Republican politician to unambiguously declare that the Iraq War was “a big, fat mistake.” But today, with Israel’s offensive against Iran having scuttled the nuclear talks, Trump appears poised to make a mistake of similar magnitude. In this context, the restrainers in Tehran and Washington, weighing the legacies of two different wars in Iraq, find themselves on the same side in a critical fight. Benjamin Netanyahu has imposed a new war on Iran. Much like Saddam, he assessed that Iran was weak and saw an opportunity to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities and military assets, ensuring Israel’s outright supremacy in the Middle East for generations to come. But Netanyahu cannot truly win the war without significant U.S. support, and so he and his neoconservative allies are trying to drag Trump into the conflict. Reports suggest that Trump has been swayed by the same kinds of lies that led the U.S. into its disastrous war in Iraq. Israeli officials have claimed that their strikes on Iran were preemptive and that Iran was just weeks away from acquiring a nuclear weapon. What the Israelis presented does not accord with the assessment of the U.S. intelligence community. Director of National Intelligence Gabbard made this assessment public in late March, testifying that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon and that Supreme Leader Khamenei had not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003. In a worrying sign, Trump has said he “does not care” what Gabbard said, as though her testimony was a matter of opinion, and not the scrupulous consensus of U.S. intelligence agencies. If Netanyahu manages to drag the U.S. into war with Iran, it will be because of the same kinds of deceptions that neoconservatives used to drag the U.S. into the war in Iraq two decades ago. The goal will be similar as well—Israeli officials have spoken publicly about their intention to foment regime change in Iran.  The lessons of the two Iraq wars loom large. The lessons of the Iran–Iraq War have led Araghchi to keep the door open for diplomacy with the United States, even as Israel continues its punitive strikes. Iran has made clear it will not surrender as Trump has demanded, but American and Iranian leaders are exchanging messages through backchannels seeking some kind of diplomatic off-ramp. The lessons of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the disaster that ensued have led key figures in the administration and leading voices in the MAGA movement to attempt to steer Trump away from a war with Iran. They have criticized the enormous cost of U.S. support for Israel, warned of the risk of getting drawn into a new quagmire by invading a country key leaders “don’t know anything about,” and have noted the absurdity of American troops being expected to put their lives on the line for the sake of Netanyahu’s political survival. From different vantage points, restrainers in both Iran and the United States are warning about the dangers of imposed wars. If they can find common cause and find a way back to the negotiating table, they may finally excise the ghosts of two Iraq wars, ending a dark chapter of invasion and interventionism in the Middle East. Just as American and Iranian restrainers were once guided by patriotism and faith to prepare for war, today they can be guided to prevent it. The post What J.D. Vance Has in Common with Iran’s Foreign Minister appeared first on The American Conservative.

The reporter clearly knows a false flag could be coming.... "Will you be transparent with the American people before blaming Iran"?

The human body is complex, which is why there are dozens of medical specialities for different body parts and systems. Keep all of those parts and systems functioning optimally is what we call "health," but considering how many years of schooling doctors go through to learn about their chosen speciality, a lot of things about our bodies remain a mystery to most of us. Wouldn't it be nice to ask a doctor in every specialty for their No. 1 "hack" for better health in their specific field? Wouldn't that be a super efficient way to boost our overall knowledge of our bodies and hopefully make life a little easier on ourselves? Two doctors is better than one. Photo credit: CanvaThanks to "Doctor Mike," we've got it. Doctor Mike is a popular YouTube account run by Dr. Mikhail "Mike" Varshavski D.O., an actively practicing board certified family medicine doctor. In a video with over 5 million views, he asked 20 doctors from 20 different specialties to offer one health tip they often give their patients. The result is nearly 12 minutes of solid, expert advice.For instance, Doctor Mike shares that he tells patients never to put anything smaller than their elbow into their ear canal. "Too many people are using tools like Q-tips to pull out earwax, when in reality they're only packing earwax deeper in and even damaging the skin, potentially leading to an infection." - YouTube www.youtube.com Opthamologist Will Flanary (who goes by Dr. Glaucomflecken online) shares that if you lose a contact lens in your eye, don't worry about it migrating back to your brain. There's tissue that keeps that from happening, and your lens is most likely just stuck way up in your eyelid. Emergency room physician Ed Hope shares that it's super helpful to bring to an ER visit a list of any diagnoses you have and medications you're taking, the dates of any operations or significant illnesses you've had, and a phone charger (since the wait is often longer than one would hope). Period stains, ladies? OBGYN Danielle Jones says powdered meat tenderizer is the key to saving your underwear. Yes, really. How you hold your toothbrush makes a difference.Photo credit: CanvaDid you know you've likely been brushing your teeth wrong your whole life? Dentist and orthodontist Benjamin Winters says most people brush their teeth back and forth, with the toothbrush flat against their chompers, but the key is turning it at a 45-degree angle and going in circles. Ever dealt with a toenail fungus? Podiatrist Dana Brems says Vicks VapoRub is one of the most effective ways to treat it. "It has eucalyptus and menthol, which are both antifungal," she says.Not all medicine is about health, of course. Plastic surgery can be for purely cosmetic reasons, but according to plastic surgeon Anthony Youn, you don't have to go under the knife or even involve needles to plump up your lips. "Put a drop or two of food-grade peppermint oil into your lip gloss, and then mix it up, and then apply the gloss to your lips," he suggests. "It should create a very mild tingling sensation, and your lips will gently plump up a bit." If you don't feel the tingle, add a little more oil. If it burns instead of tingling, toss it and start over with less peppermint oil. Helping kids out with their snot might be gross, but it can make them feel better.Photo credit: CanvaDr. Alok Patel, a pediatric hospitalist, suggests that parents help our their snotty babies and toddlers with a nasal aspirator or nasal-suctioning device. "It clears their nose, helps them sleep better, eat better, improves their mood, and potentially prevents a problem from getting worse," Patel says. "It's also kinda satisfying."Gastroenterologist Austin Chiang explains that the best way to prevent colorectal cancer is by being screened with a colonoscopy. During a colonoscopy, doctors can find precancerous growths and remove them before they have a chance to become cancerous. See on Instagram Speaking of bowel health, general surgeon Karan Rajan says the the most underrated life hack for optimized bowel health is eating plenty of fiber: "Just increasing your fiber intake by 10 grams of fiber per day reduces your colon cancer by 10%. It's not a bad exchange." Ten other docs weighed in with their best advice, from a urologist telling people to drink when their thirsty (not necessarily 8 glasses a day) to a psychiatrist advocating for daily personal check-ins with our feelings. Watch the full video here: - YouTube www.youtube.com You can follow Doctor Mike on YouTube.

If you look back 30 years in the past, it’s easy to pinpoint things that were once accepted and changed for the better. Back in 1995, it was normal to discriminate against LGBTQ people, and they sure couldn't get married. It was still common for people to smoke in restaurants and bars, and in many places, you didn’t have to wear a seatbelt.Go back a few years before then; littering was so common that it wasn’t even frowned upon in many places. Kids routinely rode in the back of pickup trucks, and teen pregnancy was so common in the ‘80s that students would bring their babies to high school.Looking back on things that are embarrassing in hindsight is a great invitation to look at life in 2025 and anticipate the things we accept today as completely usual that will be very embarrassing in 30 years. A Reddit user asked the AskReddit forum for people to share the “current thing that future generations will say ‘I can't believe they used to do that’?” and the answers ranged from how we treat animals to social media etiquette. There were also many who think that, even in an environmentally conscious age, a lot of things still need to be improved upon. 17 things we accept now that future generations will find embarrassing1. Marijuana laws"'They used to send people to prison for life for having a little bit of weed?!' Overheard from a Gen Z. It's already happening.""People still do in certain US states."2. Polluting the oceans"Why we have treated our waterways and oceans as oubliettes is puzzling to me. Do people not realize, you need water to fu**ing live!""The way it was explained to me when I asked essentially this very question about 20 years ago is that it started back when people thought the oceans were so big that we puny little humans couldn't possibly have an impact on them. Now, it's just a bad habit perpetuated by the rich and powerful while the majority cry out for change." Plastic floating in the ocean.via Canva/Photos3. Dialysis"Isn't it basically running all the person's blood through a filtering machine and then back into the body, repeat every few days? Or am I missing some extra horror about it?""A filtering machine that only works as well as 10% of a functioning kidney does. It just about keeps you afloat but all sorts of chemicals aren't getting filtered properly and cause issues. It also takes a physical and mental toll on the body sitting for 5 hours 3 days a week minimum depending how bad your function is and for a lot of people they suffer from great fatigue. Not to mention the stress dialysis puts on the heart."4. Posting your entire life online"I honestly feel like it's gotten a bit better in some ways. Mid 2000s Facebook posts were WILDLY inappropriate by today's standards. A time when people were first learning that their actions on the internet can have real-world ramifications lol.""Especially political opinions. People are just now starting to realise that if they posted something stupid and offensive when they were fourteen, employers will find out about it. In a job market where employers will scan through an applicant's social media and have a strict social media policy, that's very dangerous."5. Using plastic for everything"Plastics are a symptom of shortsightedness. In theory they were a great idea. A material that can be re-used so that we don't use finite/slower replenish-able materials instead? Get rid of cotton farms and animal wool/skins/furs? And for so much cheaper?Unfortunately because of the cheapness of plastics, we made a lot more disposable materials (especially clothing) - more than any populace could possibly consume in a generation, never-mind in the ridiculously fast-paced season turnover of goods. And now we realize, plastics stick around for a long time, possible forever. Wood, plant and animal materials degrade and decompose. So you could poison the environment but not exploit some animals or not suck up all the water, or you could accept that unless we wanna be naked and live in far more limited environments, we're gonna have to use natural resources, even animals, for our clothing and goods." Plastic waste.via Canva/Photos6. Overuse of antibiotics"Not just on humans, most antibiotics are used on livestock and animal agriculture. Human use only accounts for about a third of all antibiotic use.""This is a country-specific problem. Some countries have medical systems that avoid prescribing. Some others can't get enough."7. Terrible mental health practices"The way the mental health system treats psych patients in hospitals and programs when you have severe symptoms. You’ll get drugged up and the whole experience is pretty traumatizing. It’s also quite surprising how little people in hospitals actually know about mental health. it’s not always specific people either, it’s just the system as a whole. getting sent home in the middle of a mental health crisis because your insurance cuts out. or losing a bed in a program because someone is 'worse' than you."8. Marketing overkill"The incessant inundation of marketing in our daily lives. Our technology gathers our data to tailor ads to sell us more useless trash. Your TV records you so people in an office somewhere can socially engineer ways to sell you another TV. We see something like ~5000+ advertisements a day, they’re still trying to put big ads in the night sky, it’s far too much and the future will consider us barbaric for allowing it." Billboards as far as the eye can see.via Canva/Photos9. Bottled water"Buying bottled water from another continent.""My wife and I just watched Christmas Vacation the other night, and it struck me as funny that they had the neighbor Margo with a giant bottle of Evian water. To anyone born after 1995, this part is just wardrobe, but for those who were around in the 80s, it's meant to show how yuppie and 'hip' the neighbors are. We made fun of people who carried their own personal bottle of water."10. School shootings"Hopefully, things like school shootings will become something we only talk about in past tense. We’ll look at a graph over time, and this time period is just a weird uptick amidst a big downward trend."11. 5-day workweek"I'll never understand the 'go to the office' work when you can do it just fine from home. I've been working from home for about 7 years now, been to my local office once in that time to pickup a new laptop. You're not paying my internet or other stuff while I'm working from home. You can literally downsize your office space with people working from home. Recently, my manager was discussing it with me, and she's fine with it, but there may be some push from upper management."12. Treatment of animals"I really think a long time from now we’ll view how we treat animals pretty distastefully. Elephants bury their dead and can paint, dolphins have language and some are growing thumbs. They’re clearly more sentient then we give them credit for and we use our lack of understanding of consciousness to justify it.""I fully believe that in a few hundred years, people will think that eating meat is as wrong as owning slaves. I say this as someone who eats meat." Cows in a factory farm.via Canva/Photos13. Driving your own car"Drive your own car, especially when drunk. Now, this is way, way in the future, but I can imagine a bunch of laughing drunk college students stumbling into their self-driving car and saying, 'OMG, how did they do it back in the old days? I can barely walk straight.' The correct answer would be, they died. That's how they did it in the old days, they died."14. Circumcision"My wife gave birth to my son recently and I insisted he wasn't to be circumcised. Her previous 2 boys were, because her ex just didn't care and it was done to him. I stood over my son in the warmer, saw this small, vulnerable, precious thing, and it completely baffled me how anyone could want to cut into their own child. It's such a barbaric and monstrous act that needs to stop. It only exists due to societal pressure and ignorance.""Moreover, forced sex reassignment on intersex babies. Being trans, I've met so many intersex trans/non-binary people who are extremely upset their bodies were messed with without their consent shortly after they were born."15. NFTs"Yeah, that's next year. Like in 11 days""Future generations will laugh. The current generation is laughing now, but future generations will also laugh."16. Urban design"Current Urban design in the US. Someday we will realize that we have built cities 100% for cars with no consideration of people.""I hate the term 'car brained' but the concept itself is so dam valid. It's very hard to convince people that car-centric design causes cities and towns to be laid out the way that they are. The amount of space that roads and parking take up now are going to shock future generations. Cars and roads are not going to disappear, but the alternative options will seem so much better to future generations."17. Communism"It has failed miserably dozens of times in different nations, leading to tens of millions dead , yet we still have like 50% of young people saying it's a cool idea. Why? Because communist criminals were never punished for their sins. After WW2 there were trials, there was widespread condemnation and disgust. Nothing like that ever happened to commie higher ups responsible for shooting people by hundreds of thousands. Nothing. Names like Mao and Stalin should disgust people just as much as the name Hitler, it should be unacceptable in society to express sympathy for them (like it is with Hitler)... yet it's the opposite, especially in colleges."

In the latest segment of “unhinged” TikTok trends, a NICU nurse named Victoria asked her fellow colleagues to share names that, as she wrote, “would send the Social Security office into a coma.”And honestly, who would get exposed to more baffling baby names than nurses? No one. Victoria herself shared with Today that some of her top hits include Dracula, Messiah and Bronze and Gold.So you can bet the answers were plentiful and, well, unhinged. Check below for our favorites:“Blessica.”“Ho’nasty - pronounced honesty…”“Lucifer ... Oddly enough I took care of another baby named Messiah the same night."“I work in pediatric dentistry and we have a kid named Sheep.""L&D nurse here: Phelony." Poor Phelony. Photo credit: Canva“Dietician in a behavioral speech hospital…kid with oppositional disorder named nemesis."“Arealtruemiracle. All one word.”“Candida…I BEG people to research names before giving them to children.”“Hella Shady.”“Demon (pronounced duh-mawn)”“Narwhal ... His name was Narwhal.”“Frijoles Guacamole. On my life not joking. We secretly keep a bad baby name book to remind us of all the crazy first and middle names.”“Russell, which isn’t bad except the middle name is Mania. Russell Mania.”Many of the twin names were especially outrageous: There's gotta some twins out there named Thing One and Thing Two. Poor souls. Photo credit: Canva“Twins in the NICU — one boy, one girl — named Brock Lee and Callie Flower.”“Twins: Donwanna and Doneeda…last name Mann.”“Ya’highness and Ya’majesty. Spelled exactly like that.”“Twins named Michael and Lil Michael. Mom threatened to beat me up when I laughed. I didn’t know she was serious.”“Not a nurse but worked on the postpartum floor; twins named Abracadabra and Alacazam.”“Canon and Crystal. Their last name is Ball.”And some triplet names for good measure:“Today, tomorrow, a to’yesterday”“Teacher here. I had triplets: Lincoln, Mercedes and Bentley.”As one person noted, these, ahem, unique choices are undoubtedly why some countries have stringent naming laws. Iceland, for instance, has only 4,000 pre-approved baby names. Parents who wish to use a name not on the approved list must petition a three-person naming committee. Did you know the most popular girl's name in Iceland is Emilia? Photo credit: CanvaHowever, while that kind of guidance might make sense (to protect kids from being on the receiving end of less-than-desirable monikers) some places do have rules that might seem a little outdated to modern sensibilities—forcing names that indicate matching genders, for example. Even in America, certain names, like Adolf Hitler, III, and Messiah (though clearly some folks are getting away with that last one) are illegal. Still, there are far less regulations, and therefore, stories like this one.