DisruptTheNorm

This is Nancy Lefrançois and her 11-year-old son Loïc. They are dead now. They are dead because Baljeet Singh, who was driving a semi, was so engrossed in playing an online game on his cell phone that he didn't notice that the traffic ahead of him was stopped for road work. Singh mowed down 7 vehicles with his truck. 10 victims other than Nancy and Loïc miraculously survived, but were badly injured. After Singh was treated for shock, he fled the country and went on the lam. For years. Nancy's husband Benoit was unable to attend her funeral because he was in a coma for 3 weeks with serious injuries. The other child in their vehicle suffered injuries to his spine, internal bleeding, a broken nose, and facial injuries requiring plastic surgery. Singh was eventually caught by US authorities and returned to Canada. Singh is now expressing deep regret. Which seems self-serving and convenient because he had a plethora of violations prior to this catastrophic event, suggesting a pattern of reckless disregard for the lives and safety of others. According to CTV News reporter, Joe Lofaro, "A review of the truck’s dash camera showed that he committed more than 40 traffic violations during his last three trips and repeatedly used his cellphone while driving, weaved between lanes, and failed to take his mandatory rest periods, leading him to exceed the number of permitted driving hours." I am tired of writing about the avoidable slaughter of Canadians on our roads. Accidents are an unavoidable reality of driving. Well-meaning people sometimes make unintentional and catastrophic errors that end in tragedy. We all know and accept this. But these events aren't accidents. These are deaths caused by wanton recklessness. The drivers in these cases consciously disregard known risks and as a consequence, people die who would otherwise not. 11-year-old boys die. Little girls die. Moms and Dads die. Grandparents die. Lives are shattered. Innocents have catastrophic injuries that forever change their futures. None of it needs to happen. It's all a choice. Canadians will keep getting slaughtered on our roads if we don't stop mass-importing third worlders to drive semis. Only about 18% of Indians have a driver's license. India has over 150,000 road deaths per year. It is fantastical to believe that people born and raised in places where driving is unusual and recklessness on the roads is the norm will all be cultural outliers. It is pure ignorance to deny that, even for the outliers who do value safety and competence, skills like driving in snow and ice are easily acquired. Canadian driving skills are first learned through observation and experience in a small vehicle. They are not easily acquired by adult foreigners behind the wheel of a semi. It is akin to organised crime to allow companies to bring these drivers in, and it is suicidal not to shut the companies down and deport the offenders when they slaughter Canadians on the road. Elbows Up policies get Canadians killed. The willful blindness of Canadians who refuse to tell the truth and the clinging to bromides about diversity being a strength are destroying Canada.

When simulation becomes the norm, it weakens the human capacity for discernment. As a result, our social bonds close in upon themselves, forming self-referential circuits that no longer expose us to reality. We thus come to live within bubbles, impermeable to one another. Feeling threatened by anyone who is different, we grow unaccustomed to encounter and dialogue. In this way, polarization, conflict, fear and violence spread. What is at stake is not merely the risk of error, but a transformation in our very relationship with truth.

While this is a perspective worthy of debate, I think you miss the point. This is about controlling the controllables. And say what you will, there’s not many articles like @IterIntellectus that help soon-to-be parents navigate the questions of “how do I make this pregnancy better”.

A long, self congratulatory victory lap claiming that extreme optimisation creates a nearly perfect pregnancy. Sounds compelling but is biologically inaccurate? Not really, no. Good outcomes in anything are not mostly effort based. Biology doesn't work that way, including in pregnancy. Genetics dominate the nausea baseline, while the other levers give incremental gains. Morning sicknes is mainly driven by GDF15, a hormone pumped out by the fetus and placenta. How bad it gets is largely set by the mother’s genes, specifically how sensitive she naturally is to that hormone surge. Twin studies show it’s roughly 70% heritable, and the latest huge genetic study confirms GDF15 as the biggest factor in morning sickness, with the baby’s genes mattering too. The “wriggle room” for what you and your partner can actually do via diet is extremely limited. Its far more like that Andrea just had a better baseline if a bit of protein helped her to not chunder. Mechanistically, it makes sense that steady blood glucose can blunt amplifying factors like cortisol spikes. But this vastly underplays the primary driver: maternal genetics interacting with fetal/placental biology. Vittorio proudly lists everything they “did right”: protein-first rituals, choline rich eggs, StairMaster sessions, six dates a day, perineal massage, ironclad sleep, delayed cord clamping. Yet the data show each of those levers sits atop a hidden genetic script that largely sets how easy or difficult pregnancy and labour will be. Twin and family studies consistently estimate that 30–40 % of the variation in gestational length (and preterm birth risk) is genetic, with the majority coming from the mother’s genome; the largest maternal GWAS to date (195,555 women) found SNP heritability around 17 % and identified 22 loci enriched in genes expressed during labour in the myometrium. Pelvic architecture, which directly influences labour mechanics, risk of obstruction, and perineal tears, is highly heritable (32–48 % from recent UK Biobank data on 31,000+ scans) with a 2025 GWAS identifying 180 independent loci linked to pelvic proportions, birth canal width, and related outcomes like pelvic-floor disorders or osteoarthritis. Collagen strength, critical for cervical ripening, membrane integrity, and resistance to tears, is shaped by variants in genes such as COL1A1, COL3A1, and COL5A1; fetal inheritance of mutations in these pathways markedly raises the risk of preterm premature rupture of membranes and cervical insufficiency. Oxytocin signalling, which drives contractions and labour progression, is modulated by common OXTR receptor variants that alter receptor expression, desensitisation, and oxytocin dose requirements; these same variants correlate with longer labour duration and higher caesarean risk in clinical studies. It's a disappointing article. I am not knocking a loving partner’s fierce dedication. I have one of my own. Thank goodness for those people. But what is fundamentally missing is the cold, data backed reality that pregnancy outcomes are not a merit badge for conscientious effort. This is what truly vexes me. The high conscientious mind’s one quiet flaw. It is not “deranged” enough to stare at the truth. It must have control. It must have order. It cannot bear the thought that biology already wrote the script. For many reasons, I am apparently deranged. Deranged enough to see that my biology and my health carried a blueprint long before any bedtime yogurt or protein first ritual. How violently my body responds to a baby is largely decided by my genes and the child’s. A bit of yoghurt will do almost nothing against that ancient link. The biggest forces were never ours to rewrite. At least not yet. Soon though. The optimisers simply drew a kinder blueprint, then told themselves their discipline conquered nature. Thats a fib. A self delusion. I find this frustrating and very unsatisfying.

A gay man suggests that the hyper-sexualization of pride events should be toned down - especially if they are advertised as family friendly. The comments did not agree with these completely correct points. This is currently one of the most controversial threads on Reddit for the entire week.

Thank you, @Gatorade, for removing artificial FD&C colors and switching to newly @US_FDA–approved plant-based dyes from fruits and vegetables. I urge every food company to follow your lead and join us to Make America Healthy Again.

He possesses the worst faults that a human could have and nearly no redeeming qualities. A vacuous lobotomized degenerate malignant narcissist who has less knowledge than my socks. I am trying to be polite. How did I do?

Justin Trudeau and now Mark Carney have both told Canadians to boycott America. Now Justin Trudeau is spending most of his time down there and 93% of Mark Carney’s personal investments are in the United States of America. How stupid can Canadians be? This is getting sad.

Go follow @IterIntellectus y’all, he’s built different!

@IterIntellectus @IterIntellectus can’t thank you enough. My wife is pregnant with our first and had terrible nausea first trimester. I showed her your post and the yoghurt, berries and honey at night REALLY helped. Your protocols are about to become our new bible. Immensely thankful for this.

JD Vance is lecturing the Pope on Catholicism and Pierre Poilievre is lecturing Mark Carney on economics and RFK Jr is lecturing scientists about vaccines and Donald Trump is lecturing the world on tariffs and Pete Hegseth is quoting Pulp Fiction and thinking it’s the Bible

Having loser mentality is an insult to God because you were handed a singular unrepeatable flame of consciousness as a specific individual with specific gifts and chose to let it gutter out in self-pity. Feeling small is more ingratitude than humility The creator doesn’t make surplus people. The fact that the egg chooses the sperm means every cell in your body proliferated from a messianic selection. The loser mentality is on every level, (biologically, metaphysically, theologically, etc.) against the verdict of life

“Canada’s economic foundation is crumbling,” the Canadian Federation of Independent Business said. globalnews.ca/news/11804023/…

Opinion: The odd floor-crossing is one thing, but on this scale it undermines our system of government theglobeandmail.com/opinion/articl…

Gold is nearly $5k US an oz. Oil is roughly $100 US a barrel. Canada has some of the world's largest in ground gold reserves and oil deposits. We could have been as wealthy as Saudi Arabia. Instead we're as broke as Venezuela. But hey, at least we're not American, right?

The Enemy of Civilization is people who see a prosperous high trust society and think you're a fool for not defrauding it.

Backwards ass country, makes me sick to my stomach paying for these corrupt fucks @liberal_party

BREAKING: BBC has compiled evidence of more than 160 Palestinian children deliberately shot in the head by IDF soldiers and snipers in Gaza. They concluded the worst thing ever: "Israeli jews are hunting children for fun."

Italy suspends defence agreement with Israel bbc.in/4cdb9ch

İtalya Başbakanı Meloni: "İsrail'i kırmızı çizgiyi aşmakla suçluyorum, Filistinli sivillerin katliamını kınıyorum ve İtalya'nın İsrail'e karşı Avrupa yaptırımlarını destekleyeceğini açıklıyorum."

I understand it can be hard for readers halfway around the world to absorb headlines like this over & over. Fatigue for stories of faraway grief is natural. But every one of these families is shattered, possibly beyond repair. Please do read what my colleagues are documenting.