tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16009020890779185142024-03-18T12:57:46.397-07:00Owning Your ShitThis is what anti-feminism looks like.girlwriteswhathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01589256798123593486noreply@blogger.comBlogger113125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1600902089077918514.post-85722455590004122632023-03-21T09:49:00.003-07:002023-03-25T06:26:13.177-07:00My Deep Dive Into the mRNA Vaccines | "Safe and Effective"<p><b style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;"><br /></b></p><p><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Update: </b><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">I have updated this post with a link to the official <a href="https://www.tga.gov.au/sites/default/files/foi-2389-06.pdf">TGA report</a> for the Pfizer emergency use authorization. The relevant data on LNP distribution can be found on pages 40 and 44, although the summary has some interesting notes on the vaccine's lack of durability in animal subjects. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">The report also notes that Pfizer didn't bother to check and see whether the LNPs in the various organs and tissues had transfected the cells there and were expressing spike protein. Seems like something they'd want to know, but hey, that's just me.</span></span></p><p><b style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">What we were told:</b></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The mRNA vaccines work by “teaching” your cells to produce a “harmless” piece of the virus’s spike protein, a process called transfection. The cells will then “display” that protein on their surfaces, and the immune system will "generate a response to it.” This is a safe and effective way of inducing adaptive immunity.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">What was not included in any of the promotional materials I saw was a detailed description of just what that immune response entails. I will describe the rest of the story in brief.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Cytotixicity:</b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Any ordinary cell that’s been transfected <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/cdd200891#:~:text=Significance%20of%20Cell%20Death%20During%20Infection&text=The%20death%20of%20an%20infected,hampering%20microorganism%20replication%20and%20dissemination.">will die.</a> A “display” signals to the immune system that there’s something dangerous going on inside the cell that puts the whole body at risk, like infection or cancer. The cell will be killed by a cytotoxic T cell, sacrificed to protect the rest of the body.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Inflammation:</b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The T cell will also <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6929211/#:~:text=The%20release%20of%20pro%2Dinflammatory%20cytokines%20will%20lead%20to%20activation,an%20inflammatory%20process%20%5B18%5D.">release cytokines </a>to summon macrophages to the scene to assist. The cytokines also generate localized inflammation, which can in itself cause cell damage, malfunction and death. So we have collateral damage to the transfected cell’s neighbors.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Carcinogenicity, and other bad things:</b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Stem cells are so important, your immune system won’t kill them. They are “mother cells” that produce specialized “daughter cells”. Embryonic stem cells can and do make every type of cell in the body. Adult stem cells are housed in the bone marrow, and produce blood cells (red, white, platelets, etc). A malfunction in a stem cell can cause its daughter cells to be <a href="https://tinyurl.com/tu369c28">deformed, nonfunctional or cancerous</a>.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>No problem, because:</b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">…the injection goes into the deltoid muscle and the transfected cells are skeletal muscle cells. Skeletal muscle cells regenerate all the time. There aren’t any stem cells nearby. And a bit of soreness and inflammation at the injection site isn’t anything to worry about.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Except, oops:</b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The mRNA vaccines <a href="https://youtu.be/1Qhm1_n84so?t=148">do not remain at the injection site.</a> During development, Pfizer did an animal trial. They encased a phosphorescent tracking enzyme in lipid nanoparticles (LNPs). LNPs protect the vaccine mRNA strands and allow them to enter any type of cell.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">They injected their glowie LNP goo into rats and watched where it went.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><a href="https://www.tga.gov.au/sites/default/files/foi-2389-06.pdf">Turns out, it goes everywhere.</a> Within 25 minutes, it was detectable in the ovaries. At 48 hours, the concentration of LNPs in various tissues far from the injection site was double what it was at 24 hours, and roughly half the LNPs had migrated away from the injection site.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Final destinations included, but were not limited to, the heart, the liver, the brain, the eyes, the ovaries, the adrenal glands and the bone marrow.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Incidentally, 48 hours is when Pfizer ended the trial and stopped tracking the migration. Perhaps they didn’t like what they were seeing?</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><b><br /></b></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><b>So let’s review:</b><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">First, nearly every transfected cell will be killed by the immune system, and a bunch of its neighbors will become inflamed and damaged.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Second, transfected stem cells won’t be killed, but may pass their malfunction down to daughter cells.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Third, the mRNA vaccines can transfect any type of cell.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Fourth, the mRNA vaccines can and do go anywhere and everywhere, including (but not limited to)<b> </b>the heart, the brain, the eyes, the liver, the adrenal glands, the ovaries, the bone marrow.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">It’s important to note that the cytotoxicity and inflammation were the well-understood byproducts of transfection, which is an mRNA vaccine’s intended mechanism of function.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Where the cytotoxicity, inflammation, and any potential for carcinogenicity, occur would depend on where the LNPs migrate. Which, as noted, could be anywhere or everywhere.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">So, we’ve already got some major problems, regardless of any other considerations. But don’t worry, there are more.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Meet spike:</b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The spike protein (S) is the part of a coronavirus that binds to a specific cell receptor to unlock the cell and get inside.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Antibodies can do a number of things. They can all red-flag an antigen for destruction. Some can bind not just to the virus but to each other, forming clumps of several viruses that can all be destroyed at once. Still others bind directly with the virus’s binding site, which blocks it from infecting any cells while it awaits its doom.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">So of course all the vaccine manufacturers chose S as their target protein, and more specifically S1 (the segment of S that contains the binding site). S1 is what the mRNA vaccines “teach” your cells to produce and display.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">In March 2021, a preprint <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8380922/">of this article</a> was uploaded about abnormal microclots in people suffering from long COVID. The researchers took some healthy platelet-poor plasma (PPP), added some S1 and watched what happened.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Two things happened. The S1 converted healthy fibrinogen into an amyloid form, and it hyperactivated all of the available platelets. The platelets took up the amyloid fibrinogen, converted it to amyloid fibrin, then used that fibrin to form a bunch of microclots. Even in the absence of primary clotting factors like thrombin.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The microclots were resistant to fibrinolysis. That means they don’t dissolve. Which makes sense, since your body doesn’t produce any enzyme that can break down amyloid.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Now keep in mind, these were experiments done on microscope slides with tiny amounts of S1 added to plasma that was deficient in platelets. Under those conditions, you’re only going to get a few microscopic clots.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">What happens in platelet-normal blood? Hmmm… I wonder if any embalmers have been finding larger clots that don’t dissolve…</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Ninja clots:</b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Anyway, because the clots don’t dissolve, they aren’t easily detected. Normally, the tests you’d run are blood assays for elevated levels of D-dimer and FDP. Both are chemicals produced/released when clots dissolve.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Because S1-induced clots don’t dissolve, they don’t generate those chemical markers and can only be detected visually, via histopathological exam (blood smear) or scan. These procedures are not routine, and a blood smear can only reveal clots small enough to fit through a standard blood draw needle.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">I confirmed with one of the researchers that the long COVID patients in the microclot study were not investigated for larger clots. For all the researchers knew, their test subjects were crawling with clots ranging in size from coffee grounds to earthworms and they’d have had no way of knowing.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Anyway, let’s see what else there is…</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Say “amyloidosis” 7 times, really fast:</b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Some other researchers, piggybacking on the microclot study, found that S <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.2c03925#:~:text=The%20prospective%20of%20S%2Dprotein,subunit%20comprises%201273%20amino%20acids.">has seven different amyloidogenic</a> peptides that each, in isolation, can generate amyloid at normal body temperature.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Amyloid is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad protein. Not only is your body unable to break it down, it really shits up the place. A friend of mine, who’s a pathologist, described amyloid as like candle wax. It clogs up your filters and barriers, and can build up in your blood vessels.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Alzheimers and Parkinson’s are famously associated with amyloid plaques on the blood brain barrier, but amyloidosis can affect any organ/tissue in the body.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Your immune system hates amyloid so much, if it thinks your cells are making it, it will carpet bomb the whole area. And rightly so, given what amyloid does, which is kill you. Your immune system will do everything it can to stop amyloid production.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>So let’s review:</b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The mRNA vaccines are cytotoxic, inflammatory and potentially carcinogenic based on their mechanism of function (transfection).</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The mRNA vaccines can transfect any type of cell and they migrate anywhere and/or everywhere in the body.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The “harmless” piece of protein the vaccines “teach” your cells to make is not so harmless after all. It has amyloidogenic and hypercoagulant properties.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Taken all together, the above should make anyone squeamish.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>We’re not done yet, ace:</b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The ACE2 receptor is the virus's ticket inside your cells. This is the receptor exploited by S's binding site.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">What does the ACE2 receptor do? It converts angiotensin II (which raises blood pressure) to angiotensin 1-7 (which lowers blood pressure).</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">A marked increase in blood pressure is a common effect of both infection and vaccination. This is because anything that gets in between angiotensin II and the ACE2 receptor will prevent conversion and disrupt the ability to regulate blood pressure downward.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">S1 is an ACE2 receptor squatter, so it obstructs conversion.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">But let's extrapolate a little further. Both the spike protein and angiotensin II can bind with ACE2. An antibody that can attach to the S binding site <i>might</i> also be capable of attaching to the angiotensin II binding site.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">If you want to make it impossible to unlock a door, you can put the gum on the key or in the lock. S1 is angiotensin II’s gum in the ACE2 lock. Anti-S1 antibodies act like gum on S1’s key. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">But what if they <i>also</i> act as gum on angiotensin II’s key? </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">That could make your blood pressure go all fucky until all your circulating anti-S antibodies are gone.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>How quickly we forget:</b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">In July of 2020, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2550-z">a study was published</a> on SARS (2003) survivors. In one part of the study, they drew blood, challenged it with the original SARS virus and found swift and robust T cell reactivity. This means that 17 years after their infections, survivors still had adaptive immunity to SARS.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">It’s important to understand that adaptive immunity is not antibodies, it’s memory. If your immune system retains its memory of an antigen, it can start churning out antibodies the moment it sees that antigen again.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Give a man antibodies, and he’s immune for a day. Teach a man to make antibodies, and he’s immune forever. Or, as it turns out, maybe not.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">What was interesting about the study is that all the T cell reactivity they observed involved the SARS nucleocapsid (N) protein. Reactivity to S? Nada, nil, zilch, zero, goose egg, bupkis.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Vaccine proponents have noted that “immunity wanes”. Vaccine-induced immunity certainly does, within just a few months. Immunity to N appears to be persistent and robust. And while it doesn't provide perfect protection, it's still protective.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Which raises the question: Why would SARS survivors “forget” S? </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Perhaps, and this is just my speculation, it's because of what I mentioned in the last section. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">If there are peptides common to both the virus's binding site and the binding site of some protein that's necessary to your body's proper function, you wouldn't want a persistent immune memory of S. Your immune cells would keep seeing "antigen" peptides everywhere even after the infection was gone, they would keep churning out antibodies, and that would prolong the disruption of a necessary process.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Your immune system always balances short term pain against long term gain. That's why it will ruthlessly kill even valuable brain and myocardial cells when they're infected. There's a benefit that accompanies the cost.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">In the short term context of eradicating an infection, it may be worth disrupting a necessary process, such as the conversion of angiotensin II to angiotensin 1-7. Continuing that disruption in the long term would be all pain for no gain.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">So maybe our immune systems are programmed to forget S out of self-preservation. Once forgotten, anti-S antibody production would cease, and antibody titres would rapidly drop as the remaining antibodies spent themselves on angiotensin II's binding site. </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">My hypothesis may be pure conjecture, but it is consistent with both the findings in the cited article, and the rapid diminishing of vaccine-induced antibody titres that has been observed. </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I would love it if someone with the relevant expertise gave my hypothesis a glance to see if my reasoning is sound. At this point, it's only reasoning, and even if it's plausible, it would need further study to determine if it's actually what's happening.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Always something there to remind me:</b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Even if my speculation in the last section is not the reason for waning immunity to S, immunity to S, and therefore vaccine-induced immunity, wanes. Rapidly and profoundly.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">So you have to get boosted. And boosted. And boosted.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">And every time you do, you generate a metric fuck-ton of S and anti-S antibodies. Every time you do, 10 to 50 billion ordinary cells that never did anything mean to you will be sentenced to death. You’ll also get inflammation wherever the transfection occurs.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Will the vaccine transfect your bone marrow this time? Or your heart muscle? Or your liver? Or your brain? Who knows? If it’s your bone marrow, blood cancer or even immune collapse may be in your future. And any chronic immune condition, including a chronic infection (or transfection), can lead to cancer or autoimmune problems.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">And whatever cells end up transfected, they’ll be programmed to produce an amyloidogenic, hypercoagulant protein that messes with your blood pressure, which will spur a flood of short-lived antibodies that may ALSO mess with your blood pressure.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">But keep boosting. It’s the only way to not get infected.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Oh wait…</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>I’m so tired:</b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Have you ever been in a situation where you had to constantly exert yourself and there was no time to eat, no time to sleep, no time to heal?</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Me neither. But I imagine there’d be a point where you’d just throw up your hands and say, “fuck it. I give up.”</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Any infection can cause a <a href="https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentID=123&ContentTypeID=134#:~:text=Also%2C%20infections%2C%20such%20as%20the,%2C%20alcohol%2C%20and%20poor%20nutrition.">temporary weakness in your immune system.</a> Your immune system is busy with this virus over here, it doesn’t have the bandwidth to deal with that bacteria over there.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">After 5 or 10 days of fighting nonstop, it will be short on rations. A lot of its resources will also be engaged in cleanup and reconstruction. You can be immunocompromised for weeks following a viral infection. This is why serious respiratory bacterial infections are nearly always secondary to a primary viral infection. Bacteria like to prey on the weak.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Adults can expect to catch 2 or 3 respiratory viruses a year. Now add two transfections. That can tire out your immune system.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">And if it's the a chronic infection, or the same infection over and over, you can suffer <a href="https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/t-cell-exhaustion">T cell exhaustion.</a> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">And keep in mind, a transfection isn’t like a reinfection in a couple of key ways. Reinfections vary in terms of how many antigens you’ll be exposed to. A million virus particles? A billion? 50 billion? Who knows?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">mRNA transfections always deliver the same dose of LNPs, which translates to tens of billions of transfected cells and hundreds of billions or even trillions of spike proteins, all of which your immune system will have to exterminate and clean up.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">A reinfection will be recognized and reacted to immediately, maybe before more than a small number of cells are actually infiltrated, because you retain an immune memory of N. This is why reinfections tend to produce milder symptoms than the previous one.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The lipids in the nanoparticle coatings, on the other hand, don’t generate any adaptive immune response. They were <a href="https://cen.acs.org/pharmaceuticals/drug-delivery/Without-lipid-shells-mRNA-vaccines/99/i8">designed to avoid that.</a> Vector immunity is a pitfall of the adenovirus vector vaccines. If you develop immunity to the vector, it can't transfect your cells. An LNP vector solved that problem. Every mRNA transfection delivers the same amount of antigen.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>'Snot effective:</b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">And now, we must address the issue of efficacy. Dr. Anthony Fauci recently <a href="https://www.cell.com/cell-host-microbe/fulltext/S1931-3128(22)00572-8?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS1931312822005728%3Fshowall%3Dtrue">cosigned on an article</a> explaining why the vaccines didn’t work as promised.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Remember what we were told, not just by dingbats on TV like Rachel Maddow, but by our public health officials and even Fauci himself.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">"You don’t get vaccinated to protect yourself. You get vaccinated to protect others." That was the justification for the mandates, vaccine passports and restrictions. It wasn’t a matter of your own personal health, it was a matter of public health.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Now Fauci has a different story. A tale of two immune systems.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">One resides where things from outside (like air and food) need to get inside, or things from inside (like urine, faces and offspring) need to get outside—your mucosal epithelium. Your nose, mouth, throat, lungs, gut, urethra, vagina, etc. This is the mucosal immune system.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The other is the systemic immune system, which gets activated after a virus gets past your mucosal endothelium and into the true interior of your body via the blood, a condition called viremia.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">These two systems are mostly segregated from each other because a lot of mucosal infections can be taken care of right there in the mucosa, without ever turning into viremia. And because the systemic immune system generates debilitating symptoms, like fatigue, fever, chills, sweats, aches, if every bug that flew up your nose triggered a systemic immune response, you’d never get out of bed.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">These vaccines only activate your systemic immune system. That’s why people commonly get systemic effects from the vaccines, but no mucosal effects (sneezing, coughing, congestion).</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">And THAT means a vaccinee's mucosa is naive. It can be infected, and will need 5 to 7 days to develop its own adaptive immune response to eradicate that infection. During which time, the virus will be replicating in their airways and getting breathed (or coughed, or sneezed) all over the place.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">This is why these vaccines didn’t work, and <i>never could have worked,</i> to control the spread of the virus.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>What a tangled web:</b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The existence of mucosal and systemic immunity as segregated compartments was not some new discovery unearthed yesterday. It’s old news.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">They knew, or should have known, that the vaccines would not prevent infection or transmission. Yet they told people the opposite. And what they told people informed public policy in precisely the worst way.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The vaccines do not reduce your risk of infection or your capacity to infect others.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Yet there you were with a false sense of security and a vaccine passport that gave you access to everything. If you’re a bit drippy and sneezy, it can’t be COVID. It’s probably just allergies. No reason to not visit grandma.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">When health authorities identified Typhoid Mary, they quarantined her. They didn’t give her a round the world tour with a complementary free pass to all the tourist attractions, concerts, churches, sports venues and theaters.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">As an immunologist, Dr. Fauci would certainly have known beforehand that these vaccines could never control the spread of a mucosal respiratory virus, yet he led everyone to believe they would.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The policies that disinformation engendered may have increased the spread, particularly in medical and long term care settings, where the most vulnerable existed at the mercy of vaccinated, but untested, health workers.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Oh Darwin, where art thou?:</b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Mutations occur because of replication errors or genetic recombination during replication. Every viral infection presents billions of opportunities for a mutation to occur. A mutant virus will pass its mutation down to all its progeny.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Many, many (most?) mutations will be duds. The ones that are not duds will find a foothold and thrive. We all watched this happen in real time as different variants and subvariants enjoyed improvements on the previous strain and rapidly gained dominance.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">This is bound to happen during a pandemic phase. If each infection presents billions of chances for potential mutations and there are hundreds of millions of people infected, odds are, you’re going to get some mutations that randomly lead to significant improvements.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The mRNA vaccines are monoclonal. They target one protein. Which means all you'd need is an improvement in one protein to escape vaccine-induced immunity. Immune escape is a serious competitive advantage for any virus.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">If this were being purposely done in a lab, it would be called "directed evolution" or even "gain of function research". You’d set conditions that favor immune escape via S1 mutation, and voila! You’ve got new variants with mutations in S1 that can evade your vaccines. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">In the case of COVID vaccines, this was called "sound public health policy."</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">A polyclonal vaccine would require multiple significant mutations to both S and N proteins (and perhaps nonstructural proteins) to completely evade immunity. The odds of that happening in any given time frame are much lower than with a monoclonal vaccine. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The virus would still mutate, because that's what RNA viruses do. But if the perfect storm (immune evasive mutation) has multiple ingredients and not just one, you'll get fewer perfect storms.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">What this also means is that these vaccines contain an element of engineered obsolescence—one that, if not planned, was utterly predictable. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Even if they didn’t know your immune system would “forget” S so quickly, they knew that their monoclonal vaccines would provide a quick and easy route for immune escape. All the virus would have to do is tweak one protein.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">But no worries! We can have an updated mRNA vaccine out in a jiffy! And because the last one was so "safe and effective", we don't even need to test this one!</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Final exam, answer key:</b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The mRNA vaccines, by their very nature, are cytotoxic and inflammatory. Transfected cells are killed as a matter of course, and their neighbors may be damaged or killed as well.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The mRNA vaccines can transfect any type of cell, and migrate all over the body, including to places like the brain and heart where cells don’t regenerate easily or at all, and the ovaries, where a girl's lifetime supply of eggs are stored.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The mRNA vaccines can also transfect the bone marrow, which could spell future cancer or serious blood/immune cell deficiencies.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Every dose will transfect 10 to 50 billion cells. Which cells? Who knows?</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Transfected cells will be forced to produce a protein that is not harmless. It’s amyloidogenic and hypercoagulant.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">That protein, and perhaps the antibodies your body produces against it, also interfere with blood pressure regulation.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Which might be why your immune system “forgets” that protein once it’s been completely cleared from the body. Whatever the reason, vaccine-induced immunity is fleeting, necessitating multiple booster transfections.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Which can lead to immune exhaustion, leaving you susceptible to other viral, bacterial and fungal infections.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">One of which may even be COVID 2.0, because the vaccines directed the virus’s evolution toward mutations in the spike protein that in turn lead to vaccine obsolescence.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">And the mRNA vaccines were never going to control the spread of the virus anyway, because they don’t activate the mucosal immune system.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The above risks were imposed on millions of people without anything resembling informed consent, sometimes under a level of coercion tantamount to legalized extortion, all based on false premises.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>“Safe and effective”:</b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">These vaccines are not safe. A cytotoxic, inflammatory, potentially carcinogenic vaccine that does not stay exactly where it’s put every single time can <i>never</i> be described as safe.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">One that induces your own hapless cells to produce billions of copies of an amyloidogenic, hypercoagulant protein that interferes with blood pressure regulation? That’s not safe, either. That’s double plus unsafe.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">These vaccines are not effective. We were promised they would prevent transmission, and they did not, something that was entirely predictable. At best, they can reduce a vaccinee’s risk of a severe disease. But only if the timing is perfect, because…</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">These vaccines are not durable. For whatever reason, immune memory of the target antigen rapidly wanes, and antibody titres approach zero within four to six months. And even if vaccine-induced immunity WAS durable, the virus constantly mutates to escape that immunity.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Which is easy for a virus to do if the bulk of population level immunity is focussed on just one of the virus’s many proteins.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>This ain't thalidomide, baby:</b></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><br /></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Please forgive the dark pun, but the fact is, thalidomide was an open and shut case. The babies affected all had the same defect (to varying degrees), and their mothers only had one thing in common. Mothers who hadn't taken thalidomide during pregnancy had babies without these particular defects. </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">No one even needed to explain the why, because the what was so consistent and obvious.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">One of the biggest roadblocks to convincing the powers that be that these vaccines are dangerous is the sheer variety of serious adverse events. What does Sonya's thrombocytopenia have to do with Sarah's gastrointestinal amyloidosis? How could Jack's acute kidney injury be connected to Bob's myocarditis? How could Jill's irregular periods and Jane's Bell's palsy share the same cause? Or Richard's heart attack and Rebecca's inflamed liver?</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Of course, all of these problems could be caused by transfection and/or S. It's just a matter of where in the body that transfection occurs and where the S is produced. And that could differ from person to person, or even within the same person depending on other factors.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Another roadblock is the absence of any noticeable severe adverse events in so many vaccinees. For them, maybe the LNPs didn't migrate very much. Maybe the parts of their body that were transfected don't present noticeable symptoms and can easily regenerate? Maybe what migration occurred wasn't concentrated in any one place, but was diluted throughout the entire body? </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I'm very happy for those people. For the others, I am not so happy.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But I would invite everyone to ask themselves this:</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">If you were told before you got the jab, "this vaccine will kill 10 to 50 billion of your own cells as a matter of course, and there's no way to reliably predict which of your cells will be the unlucky ones," would you take it?</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And that just ONE of multiple mechanisms of potential harm.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>High apple pie in the sky:</b></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><br /></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I had high hopes. I wanted these vaccines to be safe and effective. I really did. I wasn't planning on getting vaccinated, because I'd already had COVID. And I didn't believe the natural immunity pooh-poohers.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Infection: your body is exposed to an antigen, and it develops an adaptive immune response to that antigen.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Vaccination: your body is exposed to an antigen, and it develops an adaptive immune response to that antigen.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">See the difference? Me neither.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The only difference is that natural immunity is polyclonal, not monoclonal like these vaccines. Therefore, it offers protection superior to vaccination alone. </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And I had some sequelae from my infection. Something about the virus rubbed my cardiovascular system the wrong way. If that something was the spike protein, I wasn't interested in another big helping of it. And then BOOM, before I was even eligible to be vaccinated, the microclot article appeared in preprint form. That sealed the deal for me. No vax.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">When I was told I could be even MORE more immune than the average never-infected vaccinee if I myself got vaccinated, my attitude was that even if immunity stacked like that (unlikely), why should I have to be even MORE more immune? </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In January of 2022, even the <a href="https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/113253">CDC had to admit it.</a> Natural immunity was superior to vaccination alone, and vaccination, at least in the era of delta, offered no significant benefit to the previously infected. Not that they shouted this from the rooftops or anything. I only found out about it from a video on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@Campbellteaching">Dr. John Campbell's</a> channel.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And in fact, the CDC's recommendation has remained in place. Everyone should be vaccinated, regardless of whether they've been previously infected or not. </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">A month ago, a paper <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)02465-5/fulltext">published in the Lancet</a> confirmed what the informed, sane and thoughtful already knew, and what the CDC's own data had confirmed more than a year prior. Natural immunity is at least as good as, if not better than, vaccine-induced immunity.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. Why don't you tell us all something we don't know?</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Botchulism:</b></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><br /></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">botch-u-lism</p><div class="qexShd" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-family: arial, sans-serif; padding-top: 8px;"><span class="LTKOO" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">/ˈbäCHəˌliz(ə)m/</span></div><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b><br /></b></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i>noun</i></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">a little-known<i> </i>mental disease of the ruling intellectual/expert class, characterized by hubris; recklessness; delusions of intellectual and moral superiority; tunnel vision; an inability to self-reflect, acknowledge errors and change course; and belief perseverance even in the presence of countervailing or disconfirming evidence.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Example sentences:</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">"Everything they do makes it worse but they just keep doubling down, so I'm pretty sure they have botchulism."</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">"Continuing to recommend COVID booster shots for children is clear evidence of botchulism."</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">"The entire COVID response was botched because of botchulism."</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Anyway, that's it for me for now. I look forward to feedback in the comments. Especially regarding my conjectures about the fleeting nature of immune memory of S. </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I know this was a long slog, but I hope I made it accessible and easily understood.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>girlwriteswhathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01589256798123593486noreply@blogger.com138tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1600902089077918514.post-40847713308329466402022-02-11T18:24:00.000-08:002022-02-11T18:24:03.997-08:00Freedom Convoy 2022<p><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">All I hear from the elites is, "ew, truckers! They're ignorant GED holders who don't know what's in their best interest! If they refuse to get vaccinated, then fuck them!" </span></p><p><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">OR, "ew, truckers! They're ignorant GED holders who are probably being organized by a shadowy cabal of Russians! Or Q-anon! Or Trump!"</span></p><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Imagine if you will. A pandemic hits. You're a blue collar essential worker, which means you can't work from the safety of your home. There are no vaccines, no known treatments, and the virus is actually pretty scary. We don't know much about it, but what we do know is that it's really contagious and it's killing people. </span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The country locks down, but you keep showing up for work. Maybe you don't want to, but you don't have a choice. You can't quit because you'd be quitting without cause, which means you won't get unemployment insurance.</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The government closes all nonessential businesses, then passes several relief bills in quick succession (let's collectively call them CERB). The total cost of this first round of coronavirus relief exceeds the entirety of the previous year's federal revenue. And 2019 was a GOOD year. An entire year's revenue spent in the space of a month or two, just on coronavirus relief.</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">People around you have been laid off because of closures, and they get paid exactly what they were earning at their jobs. To sit safely at home and play video games. Maybe they'd rather be working. You don't know. What you do know is there are essential job openings at your workplace. More staff are needed to deal with the new sanitization regimen, and there have been people who've quit because they didn't need to work, or who were able to take medical leave because their doctors agreed they're vulnerable. </span><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">You aren't in their position, and you're working extra shifts to take up the slack. And you aren't seeing any CERB recipients applying. Just noobs straight out of high school who have no other option.</span><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Still other people around you, most of whom earn 6 figures or close to it, can work remotely from their home offices. To them, the new normal is GREAT, because the commute is less than a minute, and they don't have to pay for dry cleaning or parking. Financial correspondents on CNN will a year later report that it was a record year in terms of median savings. </span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sure. For people who earn enough to vacation in Cancun or Paris, but had to stick that money in savings instead. And again, that ain't you. </span><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">YOUR commute is still the same hour and 10 minutes each way by bus. Except now the ratio of passengers is more meth-heads and fewer commuters. Which is super awesome. But you deal.</span><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Every day, you strap on your steel toes and take that bus to work. For a few months in the spring of 2020, public transit is free. Not for your benefit, mind you. It's because in order to pay or show your pass, you'd have to enter by the front door of the bus, and that would put the driver at risk. Still, it's better than nothing. Except for all the extra meth-heads.</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">You listen to the radio and turn on the TV, and realize the government has spent millions of those CERB dollars on ads praising and thanking essential workers like you. "We're in this together," is the constant mantra.</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well, no. Not really. Unlike those receiving government benefits, you're bearing the burden of essential work, doing what needs to be done, and paying taxes on the modest income you earn through your productivity. </span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">And unlike those who can work from home, most of whom earn 2 to 3 times what you do, you're ALSO bearing the constant risk of infection. </span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">It doesn't exactly feel like everyone's in it together.</span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">You wonder sometimes whether maybe the government could have cobbled together an essential worker coronavirus tax credit. A little bonus for people like you, who have no choice but to make society go, whether you're scared or not. But I guess it was cheaper and easier to pay a marketing company and purchase ad spots to tell you and the millions of others like you just how much you're appreciated. </span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">"We're in this together," after all.
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">And the people making the decisions? The people picking the winners and the losers, choosing who will be put at risk and who will be kept safe and financially supported? Yeah. Their paychecks, and the paychecks of those they chose to protect and provide for, are siphoned off of the incomes of workers just like you, who have to provide for themselves, and who don't enjoy any protection. </span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">But you know. At least they're willing to spend some of that money to tell you how important you are. Vital, really. If it weren't for brave people like you, who have been given no option other than to keep working and risking your health, then all these other people who aren't working and all the other ones who aren't bearing the risk, well, they wouldn't be kept safe and fed and sheltered by your labor and your tax dollars.</span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">You keep lacing up your boots and walking to the bus stop. Unloading the trucks and keeping the shelves stocked. This is a crisis, dontcha know, and no one should have to go without. Pallets of gourmet, organic dog treats, $12/pound spelt flour (WTF is spelt anyway?), and other vital "necessities" continue to arrive, and you continue to make sure they get where they need to go.
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">In early December 2021, you catch COVID. By then, your employer has a program for paid COVID leave in place. It wouldn't be fair to make the taxpayer foot the bill for your mandatory 14 day quarantine, after all. They don't even make you use your vacation pay.</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">By this point, there's no more "We thank our essential workers, and let's all remember that we're in this together" messaging on the radio. You're actually kind of glad you don't have to listen to that bullshit anymore. </span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">You continue to put your steel toes on and go to work. There still aren't enough people to fill all the shifts. The public has demanded InstaCart for all, and that means more work for everyone. Have a serf do the shopping, bag it all up, and deliver it right to the trunk of the car. No one got a raise, though. Because the company is struggling.</span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Days later, the government cancels Christmas. $1500 fines per adult for multi-household indoor gatherings. But you, your parents and brothers have now all had COVID and have immunity, so fuck it. You're having Christmas with your family, and if you get busted, you'll all tell them where they can stick their fines.</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Over the next 8 months or so, the government vacillates between opening and closing the economy. But none of that really affects you. You're an essential worker. You go to work, you come home, you pay your bills and your taxes. Your favorite local restaurant opens, closes, opens, closes, changes hours, closes, changes hours back to normal, closes, reopens... You can live without calzone night on Saturdays, I guess.</span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then the government tells nonessential businesses like restaurants that they have a choice. They can continue to operate at half capacity, or they can operate at full capacity and require customers show proof of vaccination or a $40 negative rapid antigen test less than 72 hours old. By this point, 80% of the population has been vaccinated, so every single business chooses the latter. </span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your calzone place, two blocks from your home, won't even let you pick up an order in person without paying a $40 surcharge just to enter the building. It's hard to blame them. They could get fined $10,000 for each violation of the rules. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The government has said that they're considering an "equivalent to vax" passport for the previously infected, but it might take months for them to determine whether natural immunity exists. </span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even though vaccination is just artificially induced natural immunity. And even though more than 100 different studies from all across the globe confirm that you're at least as protected as someone who's only been vaccinated. You might be blue collar, but you're not a moron. You know that if natural immunity doesn't exist, a vaccine COULDN'T exist.</span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">But the vaccinated get the keys to the kingdom. Meanwhile, you have to pay a $5 delivery fee to have someone who's officially "safe" drive your calzones one block to your house, because you're not allowed to enter the building. Why? Because if the government admits natural immunity exists, it might slow vaccine uptake. </span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Christmas comes around again. Your grandfather died about 7 weeks ago. Not from COVID, thank goodness, because that would have been really tragic. </span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your grandmother and most of your extended family have gotten on a plane and flown across the country to go celebrate together. Not you, your parents or your bothers, though. You all had it and after looking into all the research and doing a risk/benefit analysis, decided not to get vaccinated. The risks might be rare, but why take that risk when the vaccine will only make you exactly as immune as you already are?</span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">But you know. No vax, no boarding pass. Even for domestic flights. </span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">So. First Christmas without grandpa, and it's just 5 little lepers eating turkey and watching Die Hard movies 3500km away from the rest of the family. If they'd held it here, the entire family could have spent the holidays together. But why would they? You should have just gotten vaccinated like you were told. Why can't you just cooperate?</span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">So here you are. You put yourself at risk. Not by choice, but because you were essential and the essential weren't given a choice. You paid the price for that risk and it knocked you on your ass for 8 days. The moment you were better and cleared to go, you were back at work making sure rich people had an uninterrupted supply of quinoa and free range duck for confit, whatever the fuck confit is. </span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">You keep unloading the trucks. You keep stocking all the shelves. Then you do their shopping for them and put it right in the trunk of their car. You've been doing this for 20 months, except for that couple of weeks you became a filthy leper and weren't safe to be around.
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then, under extreme pressure from the government, your employer decides it's either proof of vax or $80/week out of YOUR pocket to get constantly nose-raped and prove you're not infected. Just to earn the privilege of continuing to be an essential worker. </span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">And if you refuse both</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> options? You'll be fired. With cause. So no unemployment insurance for you. </span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">And you refuse.
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">People ask you, "why don't you just comply?!" </span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your response is, "I've been doing nothing but comply for almost 2 years now. I went to work every day. I bore the risk and paid the price, all so that you could sit safely on your ass collecting a portion of MY paycheck, or work from the safety of your own home with necessities delivered to the trunk of your car or your door. I masked even though I hated it, I socially distanced and learned how not to hug people, I sanitized my hands until they were raw, I rode that nightmare of a bus every damn day while the rest of you commuted across the hall or not at all, and I ended up getting COVID because I didn't have the luxury of hiding under the bed until there was a vaccine. I didn't put myself at risk because I'm some hero who voluntarily sacrificed for the sake of others, but because I wasn't given a choice. And maybe if I had been, I'd have chosen to do that, but I wasn't offered that choice. I was told to work or starve. Because I was essential.</span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">"I've been a disposable human since this pandemic began, but at least I was an essential worker. Now I'm a disposable everything. Because, so they tell me, we're in this together."</span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Even babies raised by wolves, they know exactly when they've been used." - Gordon Downie</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Trudeau can lick my sweaty butt crack." - Karen Straughan</span></div></div></div></div>girlwriteswhathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01589256798123593486noreply@blogger.com71tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1600902089077918514.post-26636026074072949162022-01-03T14:31:00.001-08:002022-01-03T14:31:58.624-08:00How does this make any sense?<p> So. Back in early November I had to go to the ER. I was bringing in my green bin from the curb at 7:30 AM (pitch dark), and tripped over a branch that had fallen from my neighbor's tree. </p><p>My right knee hit the concrete. My left hand took the rest of the impact and saved my beautiful face and gorgeous brain. I ended up rolling over onto my ass, and it was about 10 minutes before I could even get up off the ground and get back to the house. Try getting up when opposite limbs are completely fucked. It's like Twister, only with way more pain.</p><p>My husband drove me to a full service emergency room at a local acute care clinic. Turned out I had a chip from my patella floating around inside my knee joint, and a radial head fracture of my elbow with significant soft tissue injury.</p><p>The next week or so was really fun. But that's not what I'm writing about here.</p><p>What I'm writing about is my ER visit. Before you even get to triage, you get COVID screening. Do you have any symptoms? Have you travelled out of the province or country in the last 14 days? Have you been in contact with anyone you know is COVID+? Are you vaccinated?</p><p>For me, it was nope, nope, nope and nope. </p><p>For the record, I'm not vaccinated because I caught the OG (original gangster) back in late January of 2020. I had some serious fallout from it. Long lasting cardiovascular and pulmonary injury. Over time, looking at the evidence in its totality, I decided that what little additional benefit vaccination might provide me was not worth the risk of experiencing that again. I'm satisfied with my natural, adaptive immunity.</p><p>So, nope, nope, nope and nope. And then my temperature check came out fine.</p><p>And they stuck me in the ER's COVID isolation room. By isolation, I don't mean they stuck me in a room all by myself. They stuck me in an enclosed space with COVID+ patients.</p><p>They didn't test me to see if I had COVID. All they knew was that I was unvaccinated.</p><p>This didn't particularly alarm me. If I was unfamiliar with the data, it might have, and I'd have noticed it right then and there. But I was in excruciating pain and was confident that my natural adaptive immunity would protect me, so it kind of went under my radar.</p><p>Four hours later, after all my x-rays were taken, the doctor comes in and asks if I'd be willing to be vaccinated. I said no. She asks, "are you willing to have a conversation about it?" I said no.</p><p>And then like an automaton, she starts a conversation about it. I told her I was fine with my natural immunity, since studies had shown it's 6 to 13 times more protective than vaccination alone. She tells me no, that's not true. The delta variant, she says. Also, she says, the CDC published a study proving natural immunity was inferior to vaccination. Which makes no sense at all. There is no universe in which, all other things being equal, vaccination is more protective than previous infection.</p><p>I kept refusing. So then she asks my husband (who was sitting there next to my bed, also unvaccinated, 8 feet away from a COVID+ patient) if he'd be willing to get vaccinated. </p><p>We tell her he can't because he has chemical sensitivities that can send him into anaphylaxis. The inactive ingredients could be dangerous to him. Moderna, for instance, has acetic acid, and that's one of his triggers. </p><p>She immediately changes tactics and tries to guilt me into getting vaccinated. "Don't you want to protect your husband? He CAN'T get vaccinated, so it's up to you to not get infected and expose him."</p><p>I was like, "bitch, please. We've both had it. Every study suggests that we're very unlikely to get it again, and that if we do, with very few exceptions, our reinfections will be milder than the original. I'm a housewife. He works from home. It's not like we're attending sports events where we tongue kiss strangers."</p><p>Eventually, she gave up and I took a tetanus booster because I'd fallen outdoors and it broke the skin.</p><p>It wasn't until recently that the natural versus vaccine immunity thing left my head and I really thought about what they'd done.</p><p>According to this doctor, I was extremely vulnerable to infection and severe outcomes because I was unvaccinated. Yet without ever testing me to see if I had COVID and with no indication that I did have COVID, they stuck me in an enclosed space with COVID+ patients. </p><p>They intentionally exposed a supposedly vulnerable person to COVID.</p><p>Then she tried to pressure me to get vaccinated. Even though it takes two weeks after your first dose before you have any level of protection. What good was getting vaccinated after spending 4 to 5 hours exposed to COVID going to do me at that point?</p><p>Then she tried to guilt me into getting vaccinated to protect my husband, even though they allowed his unvaccinated ass to sit with me for hours in an enclosed space with COVID+ patients.</p><p>If they cared about me avoiding contracting COVID as an unvaccinated person, why would they have stuck my unvaccinated ass in the COVID room? Why would they have let my husband's unvaccinated ass sit with me in the COVID room?</p><p>Why would they have tried to talk me into getting vaccinated WAY too late for it to prevent me from becoming infected? </p><p>For that matter, why would't they have tested me to see if I had COVID before sticking me in with COVID+ patients?</p><p>And this is policy. It wasn't a fluke. Because my husband was stuck in the ER COVID isolation room at a different hospital earlier in 2021. He had no COVID symptoms or indicators. He as just unvaccinated. They stuck him 8 feet away from some guy who was coughing up a lung. He'd eaten something that wasn't kosher, and had gone into anaphylaxis. They didn't test him for COVD, either.</p><p>Last I checked, it was "first, do no harm."</p><p>Why are our policies intentionally exposing allegedly vulnerable unvaccinated people who have no indications of COVID to COVID?</p><p>How does this make any sense at all?</p><p>You can say, "well, it's your fault because you weren't vaccinated." And again, I wasn't worried about me or my husband getting COVID because we'd already had it. </p><p>But this doctor was literally trying to tell me that natural immunity doesn't exist, only vaccination can protect you. And yet as a matter of policy, they intentionally exposed us both. For hours on end. </p><p>Because we were unvaccinated.</p>girlwriteswhathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01589256798123593486noreply@blogger.com44tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1600902089077918514.post-73401224194896121132021-08-27T19:50:00.001-07:002021-08-27T19:50:09.700-07:00Seven Months In<p> So. Let's review.</p><p>Day one: Biden cancels the Keystone XL expansion project. This pipeline, when complete, would have carried oil, natural gas and bitumen from the Hardisty tank farm in southern Alberta to as far away as Texas. 11,000 high paying construction jobs were killed in the US alone, along with thousands of jobs in Alberta. Biden's own Energy Secretary would later admit that if you're transporting fossil fuels, pipe is the best way to do it. It has a smaller carbon footprint than truck or rail, it's safer by far, and more cost effective.</p><p>Who benefits? Warren Buffet, who owns a shit-ton of rail stocks. The oil will still cross the border. It's just going on Buffet's trains, at the cost of tens of thousands of fatal wildlife collisions per year and more greenhouse gas emissions. </p><p>Meanwhile, the Biden Administration managed to piss off its biggest trading partner on day one. And they're being sued by the company building the pipeline. And hundreds of tons of already fabricated steel pipe is now being melted down for scrap, using (you guessed it) heat from fossil fuels.</p><p>Winning!</p><p><br /></p><p>Biden lifts Trump's sanctions off of the companies building Nord Stream 2 in Europe. This undersea pipeline will connect Russia directly with Germany, cutting Eastern European countries like Ukraine out of royalties. Putin's Russia (a gas station with a flag and a president) stands to make billions servicing Western Europe, while being able to turn off the taps to Eastern Europe without disrupting service to Germany, France, Italy, Greece, etc.</p><p>Putin's openly stated goal is to recreate the old Soviet Empire. He took Crimea on Obama's watch, and thanks to Biden, with Nord Stream 2, he'll be able to freeze Ukraine and other Eastern European countries into compliance with his annexation plans. </p><p>When asked why he did it? He said that the pipeline was already 95% complete. Yeah. It was 95% complete when the sanctions were imposed, and it stayed at 95% complete, which means 0% operational. So Trump (allegedly Putin's puppet) blocked the consolidation of Russia's power in Eastern Europe, but Biden (definitely no one's puppet) hands it back to Putin.</p><p>Winning!</p><p><br /></p><p>Biden supports HR-1 (The For the People Act). This bill would federalize election law in the US. It is openly unconstitutional. The US Constitution places the authority to determine how presidential electors are selected firmly in the hands of State Legislatures. The Constitution doesn't even require states to hold general presidential elections. A State Legislature could decide to choose its electors by random draw, a House vote, a UFC-style tournament, or consulting a psychic. I doubt any of them would, but there's nothing in the constitution that says they couldn't.</p><p>The only federal interest in election law supported by constitutional amendment, statute and precedent is that if and when states do hold elections, the rules apply equally to everyone, and that no rule is so onerous to one group over another that it has a significant disparate impact. </p><p>But who cares about the Constitution? Biden's butt's been wiped, and I think we all know what brand of TP he's using. It's called the US Constitution.</p><p>Winning!</p><p><br /></p><p>Biden is pushing massive spending bills. True, Trump did too, particularly after COVID. It was his comprehensive economic policy that made things so good for Americans that in September of 2020, 56% of Americans said they were better off than they were 4 years ago. No incumbent president running for reelection has broken the 50% ceiling since the poll was started.</p><p>He'd brought good jobs back in sectors Obama had declared dead. America was energy independent. The US didn't need to rely on foreign oil and gas, or on the price fixing of the cartels. And despite that, US carbon emissions were decreasing faster during his administration than they were almost any other country. People were keeping more of their paychecks, and their dollars had more spending power.</p><p>Think about that. We were 7 months into COVID, 4 months into nightly race riots, and 95% of the press coverage of Trump's administration was negative, yet he was the first incumbent president in the history of that poll to bust through that 50% ceiling. </p><p>Meanwhile, Biden is continuing to pay people to not work. It doesn't have to be more, it just has to be enough to make not working the better option. Especially if you don't have to pay your rent. 10 million job openings remain unfilled. He's allowed renters to become long term legally untouchable squatters, and mom & pop landlords are increasingly selling their rental properties off to Wall Street. Black Rock is currently the largest buyer of residential property in the US. </p><p>When the eviction moratorium ends and all that back rent comes due, tenants won't be negotiating with that kindly elderly couple down the block to try to work out a repayment plan they can afford. They'll be negotiating with a faceless company that manages $9.5 trillion in assets. You think they're gonna take your call, average Joe who rents a 1 bed + den in a 3 story walkup? Why would they? They'll just boot you out and strafe your credit rating while they're at it.</p><p>Winning!</p><p><br /></p><p>Afghanistan. Trump negotiated with the Taliban. He hammered out a conditions based deal. Meet and continue to meet our conditions, and we'll leave. In May, during the "quiet contemplation time" of Ramadan which happened to fall at the beginning of fighting season. Break the deal, and we'll bomb the fuck out of you. </p><p>And not a single US soldier was killed under Trump after that deal was signed. </p><p>His plan? Begin getting civilians out. Keep Bagram Air Base, a highly defensible quasi-city with two international flight capable air strips. If necessary, move the US Embassy to Bagram. Get the civilians out, get the equipment out, then bomb everything of value that you had to leave behind.</p><p>And if the Taliban took the country? Yeah. The US wasn't going to leave. One of the conditions was that the Taliban form a coalition government with the current US-backed government. I won't say that if Trump were still in office, the US wouldn't be out of Afghanistan. Because Trump was willing to impose costs and consequences on the Taliban. For all we know, the US would be safely out, and there'd be a shaky coalition government in place right now, destined to fall apart at some point.</p><p>I do know NONE of what's transpired in Afghanistan over the last several months would have happened.</p><p>Biden claims he had to live by Trump's policy of getting out. </p><p>First off, Biden has taken several giant shits on Trump's policies. He stopped construction on the border wall. He reversed the remain in Mexico policy. He ended COVID border restrictions. Now he's going to pull some bullshit and say this deal with the Taliban was the ONE thing he couldn't reverse?</p><p>And the insane thing is, he DID reverse it. He took the completely sane May 1, conditions-based deadline and turned it into a 9/11 unconditional deadline.</p><p>He went from "we're leaving in early spring, when you all are fasting and praying and are just coming out of your hunkering-down season, as long as you behave, " to "we're leaving no matter how you behave on the 20th anniversary of America's greatest humiliation at the hands of jihadis. On that day, America will be leaving Afghanistan no matter what you savages do."</p><p>Who thought the symbolism of this was a good idea? Afghans are 90% sunni. Sunnis believe in <i>qadar </i>(predestination). Inasmuch as free will coexists with <i>qadar, </i>it's the freedom to choose the manner of your end. If you get divorced, it was always going to happen. It was just a matter of whether he cheated or you cheated or you got into a fight over whether Ted Lasso is a good show. If you die, it was always going to happen. It was just a matter of how. The end is already written. The path is already before you. You just have to look for the signposts.</p><p>And in choosing that particular date, and in placing no conditions on it whatsoever, Biden gave both the Taliban and the Afghan Defence Force a giant signpost. It told the Taliban they'd already won, and it told the ADF they'd already lost.</p><p>Then what does Biden do? He pulls military contractors out of Afghanistan. Please understand, these are the people who service the "very formidable" air force the US taxpayers donated to the ADF. They maintain the equipment and provide all the logistical support for the air strikes the ADF were trained by the US military for the last 6+ years to rely on. HE GROUNDED THEIR AIR FORCE.</p><p>Then Biden blames the ADF for rolling over and giving up. If you believed in predestination and these were your circumstances, and your fate was assured, and all you could affect was the manner of your own end? Wouldn't you roll over? Wouldn't you give up? Biden has given you signpost after signpost telling you you're destined to lose.</p><p>And THEN what does Biden do? He turns out the lights at Bagram. He doesn't even strafe it on his way out. He just leaves tens of millions of dollars worth of weapons and equipment to be seized by the Taliban. After they'd already seized billions from the demoralized ADF in their relentless sweep across the country.</p><p>THEN he goes on FUCKING VACATION.</p><p>And then the Taliban take Kabul. Joe "that will never happen" Biden says well, it's no big deal. We'll just sign a deal with the Taliban to get our people out. And all the Afghans the Taliban views as traitors. And with our borders wide open, maybe some terrorists as well.</p><p>I mean, Trump was a horrible person for signing his conditional deal with the Taliban that resulted in 18 months of zero US casualties. But hey, I'm gonna sign an unconditional deal that puts the safety of US persons and Afghan allies in the hands of people who think they can fuck with me because I'm WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING AND REFUSE TO PUT MY FOOT DOWN.</p><p>And surprise of surprises, several Taliban checkpoints let in two bombs that killed at least 13 American soldiers, and killed and wounded dozens of others. But they're still in charge of who gets into the airport.</p><p>Also, this is Donald Trump's fault. Here, let me stand on my dead son's brain tumor and pretend I care.</p><p>It hasn't even been a goddamn year. </p><p>1) hyperinflation</p><p>2) energy crisis</p><p>3) border crisis</p><p>4) impending hostage crisis</p><p>5) impending terrorism crisis</p><p>6) Middle East, destabilized</p><p>7) gas prices through the roof</p><p>8) OPEC feels like they can tell the US to fuck themselves</p><p>9) Russia about to annex Ukraine without a shot fired. Just a tap turned off</p><p>10) Mexico's mad at you. El Salvador's mad at you. Canada's mad at you. Britain is mad at you. NATO is mad at you.</p><p>11) massive increase in violent crime in cities across the US</p><p>12) hey, let's import a million people who may or may not have COVID!</p><p>13) we should fire cops, but you know, you shouldn't be allowed to have guns. </p><p>14) have you seen these gas prices? That wasn't me. Because I don't understand the futures market.</p><p><br /></p><p>It's been 7 months, and there is no one in America whose life has gotten better. Even if you don't have less money in your pocket, you can't buy as much with it as you could last year.</p><p>My family is going to eat pork all week. Pork loin center cut roast and chops is going for $8.80/kg on special. Chicken? $15+. Beef? $29+. Ground beef? $16+. GOOD beef? Like rib steak or NY cut? $40+ per 2.2lbs. </p><p>And I'm in Canada. I just feel the ripple effects of all this. You know, except for all those pipeline jobs and the downstream jobs Biden killed. And you pulling out of Afghanistan in the worst possible way and not even letting your NATO partners know what you were doing until you'd already done it?</p><p>81 million people allegedly voted for this retard. And at this point, I can't even say he's a retard, because you can't be catastrophically wrong this consistently without it being on purpose.</p><p>America, please save yourselves. </p>girlwriteswhathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01589256798123593486noreply@blogger.com73tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1600902089077918514.post-13669454286220385592020-08-15T21:08:00.010-07:002020-08-15T21:17:28.947-07:00 Explain like I’m 5: Carter Page. Who he is and why he matters.<p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Preface: this post is about the FBI investigation Crossfire Hurricane, and it may not be of interest to many of my regular readers. </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I have been following the "Trump-Russia collusion" case very closely and in real time since it began, and am not going to include hyperlinks in this post, other than one to a letter sent by Carter Page to then FBI Director James Comey. </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">My sources are the Department of Justice (DoJ) Office of the Inspector General's (IG) December 9, 2019 report (the Horowitz Report), the congressional testimony of Michael Horowitz and Carter Page, and other easily searchable resources. Everything I will assert in this post is something you can look up yourself, and I encourage you to do so.</span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">So let's begin.</span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Who is Carter Page, and why does he matter?</span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I have seen the claim thrown around that the FBI must have had valid suspicions about Carter Page all along that had nothing to do with his involvement with the Trump campaign. The reason they believe this? </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Because Page left the campaign shortly after Yahoo News, on September 23, 2016, published an article claiming that Page was under FBI investigation for suspicious contact with sanctioned Russian officials. Page left the Trump campaign pretty much immediately after the FBI confirmed in the media that the matter was “on [their] radar,” and that they were “looking into it.”</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">So Page left the Trump campaign in late September, but the FBI didn’t even obtain its first Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to surveil Page until October 21.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Clearly, these keyboard warriors tell me, the FBI was only interested in Carter Page’s improper contacts with the Russians, and it had nothing to do with the Trump campaign. After all, he wasn’t even involved with the Trump campaign at that point. Check mate!</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">People who claim this either do not know of, or choose not to mention, a standard the FBI uses called the “two hop” rule.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">While the FBI might have had valid suspicions of Page in the very first days he came to their attention (more on this below), the “two hop” rule would enable them to “look into” not just Page, and not just Page’s immediate contacts, but Page’s immediate contacts’ immediate contacts. </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">See? Two hops. (Want confirmation? Google "two hop rule".)</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">So while Page may have left the campaign prior to the first successful FISA warrant application, there were lots of his contacts who were still involved in the campaign, and lots of THEIR contacts, as well. And if the FBI managed to hit pay dirt a second time—that is, establish sufficient probable cause to successfully apply for a FISA warrant on any of <i>those</i> individuals? Then they’d have another group of primary and secondary contacts to surveil.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">So. Carter Page gave the FBI an "in" with the Trump campaign, even after he'd quit.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">After the story broke at Yahoo, and was picked up by other news agencies, Page spent months desperately trying to tell anyone who would listen that he was working with the CIA as an informant. He claimed, publicly and vehemently, that he had regular communications with sanctioned Russian officials and other big baddies, but after each one he would debrief the CIA on what had been communicated. He had, he claimed, assisted both the CIA and the FBI for years in their pursuit of intelligence on the Russians.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Most of the media either ignored his claims altogether, or expressed the type of deadpan skepticism late night news satire hosts are known for. “Uh huh. You’re a secret agent. I totally believe you.”</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Not that this was a particularly surprising response. Page does not evoke fictional characters like Jack Ryan or James Bond. A big-eared egghead with a slight lisp and a nervous demeanor, he is hardly the stuff of Tom Clancy novels.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">But the news media were not the only people Carter Page was desperately trying to talk to.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Two days after the Yahoo News story broke, Carter Page sent then FBI Director James Comey <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/1600902089077918514/1366945428622038559#"><span class="s2" style="color: #0000e9; font-kerning: none;">a direct letter</span></a> in which he described the media allegations as spurious and outrageous, and claimed he’d had numerous interactions over the course of decades with US intelligence agencies, including the FBI and the CIA. He invited the FBI to call him so they could put the matter to rest.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Apparently, the FBI chose not to call Page to clear the matter up. Or to even look him up in their own archived files, which, if they had, would have indicated that the FBI and the DoJ had used Page as a source in the past, and that Page had actually assisted the DoJ in... wait for it... prosecuting Russians.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Does anyone think the FBI should <i>not</i> have at least performed a rudimentary search through their own existing files after receiving that letter? And maybe touched base with the DoJ or CIA? You know, perform the most cursory due diligence before doing something as drastic as obtaining a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on a US citizen? </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Yeah, me neither. </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">These were not only facts that would have explained as either innocuous, or as an asset to the US government, Page’s interactions with sanctioned Russians—interactions that are not prohibited by law, mind you. They were also exculpatory details that were <i>required by law</i> to be included in any application for a warrant to surveil Page. </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">And yet the warrant was applied for, and the application contained none of this exculpatory information—some of which existed in the FBI’s own filing cabinets.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">So. Let’s review. On or around September 25 2016, James Comey received notice that the FBI had in its possession information suggesting that Page had a history of working with and for the American government, not against them. This information was within Comey’s power to confirm or disconfirm simply by looking through existing FBI files, requesting confirmation from the CIA, and/or reaching out to the DoJ. </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Comey either did not perform this basic due diligence, <i>or he did, ignored what he found, and went ahead with the first FISA warrant application against Page anyway.</i></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">And why would he do that? Oh, I don't know. Because of the “two hop” rule, maybe? </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Carter Page was a bit player in this tragicomedy, a prologue character who’d arguably left the theater long before Act 1, Scene 1, and who remained for the rest of the story merely a subject of the soliloquies, asides and actions of the more stage-worthy characters. </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">A dorky egghead with a slight lisp who happened to be a confidential human source for the CIA, a man whose only crime was being perfectly situated to provide the FBI a pretext to apply for surveillance warrants that, because of the “two hop” rule, would give them license to spy on the Trump campaign, and later, the Trump administration.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">You know, as long as the FBI was and remained "unaware" of Page's decades of work for, and cooperation with, the US government, and all.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Page had quit the Trump campaign a month before the ink was dry on the first FISA warrant application, but there’s no “best before” date on the “two hop” rule, dontcha know.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">It would not be until after the second warrant renewal (essentially, the third warrant application) that someone on the Crossfire Hurricane team would bother to ask the CIA if Page was indeed a CIA asset. The CIA responded by email in the affirmative.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">This email is the document FBI lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith (an outspoken "Viva la Resistance!" type), would alter to say the exact opposite, in order to obtain that one last warrant renewal on June 29, 2017, well into the Trump administration. This discrepancy was discovered by IG Michael Horowitz, and is rock solid.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">And all Clinesmith did was add one word. He turned the CIA’s “is” into “is not”. Such a little thing! At least, that's what his lawyer is telling everyone right now. </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">On August 14, 2020, it was announced that Clinesmith was set to plead guilty to “making false statements” to the FISA court. </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">For those of us who’ve been following this debacle, there’s a sense of “about time!” in the air. But let's not be distracted by the fact that some low level, anti-Trump lawyer is getting his comeuppance for committing a felony in the service of trying to take down a duly elected president. </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">No one would have even heard of Clinesmith had IG Horowitz not spotted that itty bitty little “typo” during his review of Crossfire Hurricane's alleged abuse of the FISA process. Clinesmith was neither a mover nor a shaker. He's small potatoes. He was another bit player, his role in the play alluded to but never really acted out on the stage</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">And when push comes to shove, all he really did was break the law in order to aid an abet a crime <i>that was already in progress. </i></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></i></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">That is, the very first FISA warrant against Carter Page was, in my opinion, illegally obtained. Clinesmith's falsifying of evidence to obtain the fourth FISA warrant only added insult to injury. </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Again, James Comey was put on notice in late September of 2016, prior to the first warrant application to spy on Carter Page, that Page had files going back decades with the FBI and CIA. The contents of those files would have prohibited any such warrant. </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Certainly, had the FISA court been apprised of Page's record of assisting the FBI and CIA they'd have denied the request for a warrant. But more than this, under any business-as-usual circumstances, his record would have made utterly inappropriate any effort by the FBI to even obtain such a warrant. </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">That is, given Page’s readily available history, the FBI would not have been granted a warrant to spy on Page because, if they had acted legally and ethically, they would not have sought one in the first place.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">How inconvenient that must have been!</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Either Comey did not care to check, or he did check and didn’t care. As IG Horowitz noted during his testimony before the Senate, the only explanations he could think of for the “errors and omissions” made by the FBI throughout Crossfire Hurricane’s interactions with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court were either political bias or gross incompetence, neither of which reflect well on anyone involved.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">And to further complicate matters, after being fired as Director of the FBI, James Comey—the man who either did not care to check, or checked but did not care—declined to renew his security clearance. This meant he could not be questioned by IG Horowitz about ANY of these matters, because at that time they were still classified, and Comey was therefore barred from hearing or discussing them.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Slippery little sucker. I bet he just forgot to renew. The guy had a lot on his mind, after all, like collecting royalties for his book, hubristically titled "A Higher Loyalty." </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">According to media reports, Clinesmith faces a maximum of 5 years in prison for “making false statements” to the FISA court. </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">This, despite the fact that the Department of Justice had him dead to rights on tampering with evidence (18 U.S.C. § 1519), which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years. </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">That’s quite the discount, all things considered. From a guaranteed felony conviction carrying a 20 year max, down to pleading to a lesser crime with a maximum of 5? That’s like the feds having you dead to rights on premeditated murder, and they let you plead guilty to negligent homicide. </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Senator Lindsey Graham (bless his heart) could barely suppress his giggles when discussing this plea deal, and what the major players might be worrying about right now, on Fox News yesterday. </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">All things considered, I don’t think anyone involved is sleeping well at the moment.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Carter Page has never been charged with any crime regarding his alleged collusion with Russia as a member of the Trump campaign. Indeed, he's never even been charged with a process crime, such as lying to the FBI, or with any of the typical "fishing expedition" crimes that tend to stick to political movers and shakers, like tax evasion or money laundering. </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">This man appears to be squeaky clean. Either that, or (and forgive me for introducing a new metaphor) the FBI wasn't interested in removing such a useful piece from the chessboard. </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">For nearly a year, the FBI used Carter Page's contacts with certain Russian bad actors, the details of which Page dutifully reported to the CIA, as a false pretext to surveil the Trump campaign. </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The consequences for Page? Senator Lindsey Graham has repeatedly used the phrase "his life was turned upside down." I would go further than that. Carter Page's life as he knew it was effectively cancelled on September 23, 2016, when Yahoo News reported he was a person of interest to the FBI due to his suspicious and possibly nefarious contacts with "muh Russians". </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The FBI could have spared Page everything he's endured for the last four years by reviewing their own fucking files and correcting the media narrative. Instead, they misled the FISA court in order to use him as an instrument to spy on the Trump campaign. And in at least one case, the FBI falsified evidence in order to preserve their phoney pretext to renew the warrant to surveil anyone associated with Trump.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Carter Page the patriotic confidential source for the FBI and CIA, who had aided the Department of Justice in the successful prosecution of dastardly Russians in the past, was not useful to the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane "investigation". </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Carter Page, the suspected Russian collaborator, was. </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">So the FBI allowed that narrative to stand in the mainstream media and falsely presented it to the FISA court, and Page was left to twist in the wind.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Here's hoping that Clinesmith is not the only casualty of this comedy of malicious errors.</span></span></p>girlwriteswhathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01589256798123593486noreply@blogger.com204tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1600902089077918514.post-45107071625870992952020-04-27T07:58:00.002-07:002020-04-27T07:58:42.767-07:00Social Justice COVID Classism<span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Regarding SJWs and coronavirus... Has anyone else noticed that we have created two classes of people here? Those whose health and lives we deem it acceptable to risk, and those who deserve total protection at the expense of the former?</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">And that expense is not only in risk to health and life, mind you. It's also in the tax burden. </span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Health workers (except in the US, and even that is complicated) are net tax consumers, not net tax contributors, so I'm sorry, they aren't the people who will inevitably foot the financial cost of this. White collar people who can work from home? They have the privilege of earning money while staying safe. </span><br />
<span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">These groups are carrying their weight, but one is immune from the tax burden, the other immunized against the risks.
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">But it is private sector workers who are deemed essential, many of them in low-wage jobs, who are bearing a double burden right now. </span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">My daughter is one of these, paying in both risk and taxes so that others can collect tax dollars and not face that risk. Every day she puts on her steel-toed boots, rides the bus to work, and unloads trucks at Walmart. </span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">And I'm sorry, but she'd rather have mandatory hazard pay, or her income taxes waived, or even a "coronavirus essential worker tax credit" than all the blathering and virtue signalling about how much everyone appreciates the courage and sacrifice of essential workers. </span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Half our country is sitting on its asses (many of them involuntarily) being served by her labor and her tax dollars, all while the bill for this gets bigger and bigger. She's 23. She had inherited $30,000+ of government debt burden before she filled her first diaper. I shudder to think what that sum is now, or will be at the end of this. </span><br />
<span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not whining about it. I'm glad her work was deemed essential so she could remain employed, unlike my son. Honest work is good for the soul, and neither she nor I are particularly worried about her getting sick (she takes precautions, and is not in the demographics most at risk). </span><br />
<span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">But I do think it's odd that every person on social media with preferred pronouns in their profiles appears to be supporting the lockdown and resisting lifting or easing it, despite the fact that it has created an arguably exploited underclass of high-risk, often low-paid workers who are essentially (pun intended) left carrying the entire bag for the rest of us.</span><br />
<span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">To a great extent, the people in the US and Canada begging for restrictions to be eased are those who put in an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. They know there is risk, they're willing to shoulder it, and the government is telling them no.</span><br />
<span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is the elites who are telling us it's too soon, despite the fact that they've already deemed my daughter's life expendable because her work is vital in maintaining the very measures that are killing her future with a massive government debt load combined with an intentionally annihilated economy that may take decades to recover.</span><br />
<span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was mostly young, working age people who died during the Spanish flu pandemic. </span><br />
<span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">With COVID, some 75% of the deaths are in people 65 and older, 50% in people 80 and older. The disastrous, long-lasting, perhaps permanent effects on the young, on our children and grandchildren, will not be inflicted by the virus. </span><br />
<span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background: rgb(249 , 249 , 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">They will be inflicted by us.</span>girlwriteswhathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01589256798123593486noreply@blogger.com184tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1600902089077918514.post-46092232703704006942020-02-21T11:04:00.001-08:002020-02-21T11:04:47.527-08:00The legal definition of consent...According to reports, one of the first notes the jury in Harvey Weinstein's case sent to the judge, seeking clarification, was a <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2020/02/20/harvey-weinstein-jurors-ask-legal-definition-consent-deliberations-12271684/">request for the legal definition of consent.</a><br />
<br />
Is anyone else finding this weird? I mean, it's not like a jury of ordinary people would need to ask for the legal definition of "taking something that belongs to someone else" in a theft case, right?<br />
<br />
Everyone knows that even if you do it by accident (like forgetting that bag of potatoes on the bottom rack of your grocery cart) and even if you didn't realize it belonged to someone else (like taking some "junk" sitting unattended at the edge of an unfenced property), "taking something that belongs to someone else" has a specific meaning that we all understand. You might not be aware that you've taken something that belongs to someone else, and you might not realize what you're taking belongs to someone else, but everyone can understand the concept of "taking something that belongs to someone else."<br />
<br />
You can literally get a toddler to understand what "taking something that belongs to someone else" means, even before they're morally and cognitively developed enough to get why it's wrong to do it. (The little sociopaths.)<br />
<br />
The purpose of the law is not just to punish people who transgress it. It's also to put people on notice as to what behavior is acceptable and what behavior is punishable. "Taking something that belongs to someone else" is not always a crime, nor is it always unethical or morally wrong, but I think all of us can wrap our heads around what it is to take something that belongs to someone else. A thing belongs to someone else, and you take it.<br />
<br />
Consent is at the heart of sexual assault law, the way "taking something that belongs to someone else" is at the heart of the laws around theft, shoplifting, mugging, burglary, robbery, etc.<br />
<br />
<i>And a jury of 12 adults don't know what sexual consent means under the law. This is not okay.</i><br />
<br />
If 12 jurors don't know what sexual consent is under the law, it's entirely possible that any or all of them have criminally violated someone's sexual consent. If 12 jurors don't now what sexual consent is under the law, then how can we hold ANYONE punishable for violating the grey edges of it?<br />
<br />
Will Weinstein be acquitted on a technicality? Because hey, he might have violated those women's consent in practice, but not in legal theory?<br />
<br />
Or, worse by far for the ordinary person, will Weinstein end up <i>convicted</i> on a technicality? Because he should have understood something that these jurors didn't know themselves until they asked a judge to explain it to them?<br />
<br />
I have heard that politics is downstream from culture. This appears to be an example of the opposite--one situation where our legislators have enacted laws, and definitions in law, that few of us really understand. And that's not good news for those of us who have to live in the real world of mundane human interactions, who aren't schooled in the precise definitions in the laws that govern our behavior.<br />
<br />
How are any of us to know when we've crossed a line, if that line needs to be defined by a judge to the 12 adults asked to make a determination on it, who theretofore had no idea where it lay?<br />
<br />
And here's the thing. This is not like signing a mortgage agreement--something most people do only a few times in their lives, where you bring in a lawyer and everything's written down. This is an agreement to an act that, by <a href="https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/how-many-people-are-having-sex-right-now.1134383/">random internet nerd estimates</a> suggest, more than 600,000 people globally are engaging in right now, and every second of every day.<br />
<br />
Have any of them had access to a judge to ask them what the legal definition of consent is? How many of them are lawyers? And how did the most fundamental human act other than giving birth and dying become so freaking complicated?girlwriteswhathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01589256798123593486noreply@blogger.com92tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1600902089077918514.post-18888074251768778302020-02-18T11:16:00.002-08:002020-02-18T11:16:39.357-08:00RIP Christie BlatchfordWhat a loss. I didn't know her personally, but she was an inspiration to me as one of the last of the old, hard-nosed journalists.<br />
<br />
Tough, tenacious, bold, unapologetic. If she said it you knew she meant it because so much of what she said rubbed the establishment the wrong way and when they bleated, she'd just say it again. Her audacity and personal integrity were something to see, let me tell you.<br />
<br />
I'm at an age (49) where you begin losing a lot of the public figures you look up to. Actors, musicians, political and cultural icons. Not just public figures, either. As my mom once told me, "you hit a certain age, and suddenly the parties you get invited to are half weddings and half funerals."<br />
<br />
But who knew that it would be Christie Blatchford and none of the other icons we've lost over the last few years who would have me weeping on a Tuesday afternoon? She was a quiet, unassuming part of my life. I never felt any kind of fangirl enthusiasm about her. Yet what a gaping hole she's leaving behind, not only for me, but for all of us.<br />
<br />
My condolences to her family and loved ones.girlwriteswhathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01589256798123593486noreply@blogger.com72tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1600902089077918514.post-7565502587071187892019-02-07T08:54:00.000-08:002019-02-07T08:54:26.441-08:00On Mercedes Carrera...So. It has come to my attention that an erstwhile prominent figure in the #gamergate controversy who I met once in person, and who was a guest on Honey Badger Radio a couple of times back in 2015, has been charged, along with her boyfriend, with sexually abusing a child under the age of ten.<br />
<br />
I wholeheartedly despise and condemn the sexual abuse of children, no matter the gender of the child and no matter the gender of the perpetrator(s).<br />
<br />
If these allegations prove to have veracity, I will wholeheartedly condemn Ms. Carrera for an act that is always a sickening violation of the trust and innocence of a child by an adult who should never cross that line.<br />
<br />
I am revolted by these allegations.<br />
<br />
But that is exactly what they are at this point. Allegations. And as always, I will reserve judgment until a fair and just process determines that they are more than allegations. I did this with Brett Kavanaugh. I did this with Jian Ghomeshi. I did this with the Muslim men accused of an organized mass rape attack in Cologne.<br />
<br />
I will do the same for Mercedes Carrera.<br />
<br />
If she did what she's accused of doing, she deserves what's coming to her. But at this point, there is no way for me to know.<br />
<br />
The allegations are salacious, revolting and should elicit revulsion in anyone who thinks about them. But we do not yet know if they're true.<br />
<br />
Presumption of innocence applies here, just as it applies to Kavanaugh, Ghomeshi and every other person accused of a horrific act. I will watch this case with interest, and reserve judgment until the facts come out.<br />
<br />
<br />girlwriteswhathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01589256798123593486noreply@blogger.com117tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1600902089077918514.post-81215326835304274612018-12-22T16:40:00.004-08:002018-12-22T16:40:47.509-08:00Waving Goodbye to Patreon<div class="stackable mb-xs" style="background-color: white; color: #052d49; font-family: America, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0.25rem;">
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<span class="s32knxp-1 fgxzhv" data-tag="post-title" style="font-size: 1.309rem !important; font-weight: 700;">I will be quitting Patreon</span></div>
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On the 6th of January, I will be deleting my Patreon account. I am not doing this immediately because I want my patrons to have a certain amount of notice. </div>
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Given the revelations produced by Matt Christiansen regarding his conversation with the head of Patreon's "trust and safety" team Jacqueline Hart, I no longer trust Patreon, nor do I feel safe here.</div>
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Despite Subscribestar being crippled by Paypal (who dominate more than 70% of the US payment processing market and who, incidentally, Ms. Hart used to work for), I cannot continue lining the pockets of a company whose rules are not universal and which somehow prides themselves on having an "individual" manner of applying them.</div>
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In Matt's conversation with Ms. Hart, it was revealed that had Carl Benjamin only grovelled enough, had he only given a "full-throated" apology for his statements, rather than focussing on defending the context and genuine meaning of his words--which even she admitted was calling out racists on their racism--she would have reinstated him. </div>
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I'm sorry, but that's not good enough. Particularly since they never actually directly contacted Carl to either put him on notice before his account was deleted, nor afterward to let him know what particular action would get him out of the gulag. </div>
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More than this, she implied that Patreon is only complying with the requirements of payment processors and credit card companies. </div>
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Speaking as someone with unpopular opinions and a salty tongue, who sometimes describes herself as "Chief Executive Misogynist for Patriarchy Inc", I'm not safe here. </div>
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I'm also not safe at Subscribestar, since both Paypal and Stripe have indicated they're not going to do business with them. </div>
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I hold Subscribestar blameless in this, and I would encourage any American citizen reading this who cares about these issues to contact the Federal Trade Commission regarding a potential violation of anti-trust laws.</div>
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It's entirely possible that Ms. Hart, in trying to staunch the hemorrhaging of creators and patrons from this platform (some estimate Patreon has suffered a 20% loss of revenue since this unpopular decision) reached out to her old bosses at Paypal to help take down the only viable competitor to the platform she so spectacularly damaged through her actions. </div>
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It's also possible that Visa and Mastercard are engaging in an illegal "refusal to deal" with companies who give a platform to people whose political opinions or choice of words don't comply with their own.</div>
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*If* either of these is the case--Paypal and Patreon conspiring to eliminate Patreon's competition, or credit card companies that enjoy a comfortable monopoly refusing to do business with certain entities for no good reason--there is a valid anti-trust concern that merits investigation. I have written to Senator Ted Cruz, who used to be director of policy planning at the FTC, to explain the details of the case and ask him to consider applying pressure on his former colleagues to look into the situation.</div>
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Section 230 of the CDA gives these platforms blanket immunity regarding what and who they publish and what and who they remove. There is no existing law that can hold Patreon accountable for what it's done to Carl Benjamin. But there MAY BE laws that will hold Patreon, payment processors and/or credit card companies accountable for what they've done to Subscribestar, and what they will surely continue to do with any viable alternative to Patreon that offers a platform to people with unpopular opinions.</div>
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For now, my Paypal account is functional and people can support me through that either through a monthly payment or a one-time donation. The link is on my YouTube channel, and I will let everyone know immediately should that change. Anyone in Canada can support me via Interac email money transfer to the address <a href="mailto:girlwriteswhat@gmail.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; color: #f85a44; cursor: pointer; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">girlwriteswhat@gmail.com</a>. And I have a personalized tip jar at <a href="https://www.feedthebadger.com/product/tip-karen/" rel="nofollow noopener" style="background-color: transparent; color: #f85a44; cursor: pointer; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">https://www.feedthebadger.com/product/tip-karen/</a> </div>
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And as soon as a viable alternative platform is available I'll be on there like a monkey on a cupcake and will shout it from the rooftops.</div>
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For now, I hope everyone is able to have a wonderful holiday season despite all the upheaval and uncertainty. Take joy in the little things, like the sound of two dogs gnawing meaty prime rib bones instead of each other. And I'll see you all when and where I see you.</div>
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Hugs to everyone over the holidays,</div>
<div style="font-size: 1rem; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 10px !important; margin-top: 10px !important;">
Karen </div>
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girlwriteswhathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01589256798123593486noreply@blogger.com133tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1600902089077918514.post-57065447637485930092018-10-07T14:33:00.002-07:002018-10-07T14:34:12.576-07:00To the Weinsteins and Dr. Peterson,<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's not very often that I disagree with JBP, and when I do I feel a need to articulate why. Today, he said something in response to Eric and Bret Weinstein, that I vehemently disagree with, so I'm going to say so, and I'm going to try to explain why.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This position is held in varying forms by nearly everyone thoughtful with whom I’m speaking. What divides these folks is which way to break the symmetry. But honest people see deep reasons that both outcomes are not healthy or workable. We need a genius healer we just don’t have. <a href="https://t.co/0rxpRrdM6W">https://t.co/0rxpRrdM6W</a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">— Eric Weinstein (@EricRWeinstein) <a href="https://twitter.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1048290081939714048?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 5, 2018</a></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If confirmed Kavanaugh should step down. <a href="https://t.co/UwsH52ts3b">https://t.co/UwsH52ts3b</a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">— Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) <a href="https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/1048320826376740865?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 5, 2018</a></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">First off, please understand that I am not criticizing the <i>intentions</i> of anyone in this conversation (Peterson or the Weinsteins). Particularly given JBP's clarification:
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That might decrease residual alienation from the left, and make things less polarized moving forward. Of course, that has to be balanced against handing any victory to the "believe all accusers" crowd. <a href="https://t.co/xcVBcoaWWv">https://t.co/xcVBcoaWWv</a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">— Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) <a href="https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/1048643964050370560?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 6, 2018</a></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I was thinking all this whole trying to plot out a strategy that would be least damaging, on the whole. And I'm not jumping up and down claiming to be correct. Thought is experiment, not reality. <a href="https://t.co/1A6roINK5o">https://t.co/1A6roINK5o</a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">— Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) <a href="https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/1048644371178897408?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 6, 2018</a></span></blockquote>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">I don't know how closely any of them have been watching Kavanaugh's confirmation process, or whether they're getting their information from primary (the hearings and his judicial opinions) or secondary (the media) sources. I'm guessing that none of these gentlemen have the kind of time on their hands to have watched the hours and hours of live testimony after Dr. Ford's allegation was leaked, or to go back and watch a bunch of the earlier testimony, or to investigate some of the more egregious things that have been brought out in the open that have occurred since the nominee was chosen.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">And this is not to say that I have done an exhaustive investigation of Kavanaugh’s judicial record, despite the fact that I actually enjoy reading judicial opinions. (Call me crazy, but I find the nuances of the law to be very interesting.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">I had a lot of time to sit and watch and be engrossed and amazed and appalled and intrigued. I even, a week ago or so, went and looked at the votes-by-party summaries for Supreme Court Justices from Scalia (1986) onward. What is revealed there is a clear trend away from bipartisan unity and toward partisan antagonism.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">The politicization of Supreme court nominations has been 30 years in the works. Scalia—perhaps the most conservative Justice in recent memory, and the most hated by the left due to his strict adherence to the text of the law and the original intent of the Constitution—was confirmed with 98 votes in favor and 2 abstentions. Kennedy (1988) got 97 votes and 3 abstentions, and the vote was 50 Democrats and 47 Republicans in favor despite the fact that Reagan nominated him.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Clarence Thomas was the first anomaly, but even he got 11 Democrat votes, allowing him to squeak in despite the Democrats holding a majority in the Senate at that time. And while there was a return to unity afterwards, with Ginsburg and Breyer, both appointed by Bill Clinton, things started to become more distinctly partisan from that point on.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">And now here we are. Gorsuch’s confirmation saw three Democrat senators voting for Trump’s first SCOTUS nominee, primarily because their electorates were pro-Trump and they have a normal sense of self preservation.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">This time around, however, only one of these three dissidents was prepared to break ranks with the party.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Having watched hours of testimony and read thousands upon thousands of words, and listened to Senator Susan Collins (a staunch pro-choice Republican) speak for 43 minutes, I’m going to have to say, Democrat opposition to Kavanaugh is much ado about nothing.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">There is nothing in this man's judicial record that should scare anyone.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">And yet I sat on a stage in September with “Faithless Feminist” Karen Garst and heard her express her fear about Roe v Wade being overturned now that Kavanaugh was shaping up to be the next Supreme Court Justice.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">According to Senator Collins, nothing could be further from the truth. Kavanaugh appears to be a true conservative, in that he will prioritize adherence to the law, the constitution and precedent over using his position to push for sweeping changes in the absence of extraordinary circumstances, whether in a forward-looking direction or a backward-looking one, and regardless of his personal or political opinions. This includes Roe v Wade, which has been reaffirmed by SCOTUS more than once since it set precedent, decisions which add weight to the initial precedent and on which Kavanaugh has commented positively.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">When Collins spoke to him about the right to choose, his response was that it is a case of precedent on precedent on precedent, each affirmation bolstering the original, and the passage of time cementing it in place such that one would need extraordinary justification to overturn its underpinning principles.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">That's what a genuine conservative is. A keeper of things as they are, based on tradition, precedent, and durability over time.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">For a Republican appointee who is also Catholic, the Democrats couldn't ask for much better than Kavanaugh, particularly when it comes to women's reproductive rights. His entire record speaks of a man who thinks, "it's best to keep things as they are, unless there's a VERY compelling reason to change that." That includes Roe. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">As Senator Collins mentioned in her speech, special interest groups scrambled to be the first to publicly register their objection to Kavanaugh. One organization put out a press release saying as much, a document we know was written in advance of the announcement, because some PR staffer had embarrassingly forgotten to replace "XX" with Kavanaugh's name (I actually read that press release when it came out, and had a good chuckle. I'm not chuckling so much now).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">One Democrat senator, she added, vehemently stated his objection to the nominee after the announcement that a decision had been reached, but before the actual name of the nominee was known.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">This was never about Kavanaugh. It was always about “whoever Trump picks”.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">It’s not a genuine objection to Kavanaugh’s qualifications, his judicial record or his politics. It's not even a shining #MeToo moment of solidarity with a survivor. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">It’s Trump Derangement Syndrome by Proxy.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">I’m sure there are some people who believe Dr. Ford was sexually assaulted by Kavanaugh, just as I know there are people who believe Kavanaugh is innocent of the charges. To them, I say, you are making a claim to know what you cannot know.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">But one thing we DO know--Dr. Ford asked that her allegation be kept confidential. We know that the allegation could have been investigated by the FBI and Dr. Ford’s testimony given in private during the initial confirmation hearing, without revealing her name.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">We know that the allegation was in the hands of Senator Feinstein (the ranking Democrat on the committee) for more than forty days before it leaked, and that Feinstein could have taken advantage of the above measures during the initial hearing and thereby protected Dr. Ford’s privacy and dignity, and concealed her name from the press and the public.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">None of this was done. Instead, the hearing was closed after 32 hours of testimony from Kavanaugh, and more questions put to him, and more handing over of documents by him, than the last five Supreme Court Justices combined. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Everything about his career was scrutinized with a scanning electron microscope, and he came out looking like a boring boy scout. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">And then the allegation leaked. To the best of anyone’s knowledge, only three parties had knowledge and possession of the letter. Democrat Senator Feinstein and Democrat Representative Eshoo (and their staff), Dr. Ford, and Dr. Ford’s lawyers (one of whom was apparently improperly recommended to her by a Feinstein staffer).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">The leaking of the letter to the public meant that the Democrats could take another run at Kavanaugh during the run-up to the midterms, where they hope they’ll be able to secure a majority in the Senate. As Lindsey Graham (hereafter to be referred to as “Grahambo”) said during that hearing, the Democrats on the committee had their minds made up from the start, and the allegation, the testimony and the demands for an investigation amount to little more than creative filibustering until after the midterms.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">So who leaked it? I don’t know, but I’d really like to. Because the leak of that letter took the process of confirmation from the cynically partisan joke it had already become, all the way to a three ring, #MeToo, virtue signalling circus.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Bret Weinstein said both possible outcomes of the vote would be "completely unacceptable". I disagree.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> There's nothing objectionable about Kavanaugh's judicial record.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Eric Weinstein said that “everyone thoughtful” he’s spoken to about Kavanaugh agrees that both potential outcomes are unhealthy and unworkable. I disagree. The "thoughtful" people he's spoken to don't understand what's really at stake here.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Jordan Peterson responded that he thought, if confirmed Kavanaugh should step down. That is, make the big public sacrifice for the sake of fostering unity in an increasingly polarized nation.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">I disagree.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">We know from Gorsuch that anyone nominated by Trump would garner default “no” votes from the Democrats. I’m actually kind of shocked that there were three Democrat dissenters in the case of Grosuch, and a whole ONE dissenter in the case of Kavanaugh.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">I understand why a progressive like Bret Weinstein would think Kavanaugh is a poor choice for the Supreme Court. He's not. In fact, I don’t know why Bret Weinstein thinks the Dems' opposition and their collective hysteria has anything at all to do with Kavanaugh. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">It doesn’t.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">According to the Democrats, Trump has the reverse Midas touch—everything he puts his hands on turns to shit, triggering moral disgust and the urge to purge. If Trump likes something, the Democrats are morally obligated to hate it. If Trump does something positive (like, I don't know, getting North Korea to chill out a bit), the Democrats are obligated to predict the end of the world.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">I have no idea whether Eric Weinstein's belief that the reason Kavanaugh is “divisive”—that Kavanaugh would "break the political symmetry" of the Supreme Court—is correct. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">The only way it CAN be correct is if we are to accept that SCOTUS is not a legal body but a partisan political one. That it is not beholden to the law (in all its forms, from the Constitution to statute to precedent), but rather that it is a forum for partisan activism on the part of the Justices at the political whim of the president, or the majority in congress, or both.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Brett Kavanaugh strikes me as a judge who eschews activism. Who eschews "big" decisions that take us forward (or backward) by leaps rather than increments. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">But again, this isn't about Kavanaugh. It's about sticking it to Trump.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">And I have no idea whether JBP realizes that it wouldn't matter who Trump named as a nominee--the reaction from the Democrats, their media lapdogs and the pussy hat-wearing, mass-produced placard-waving, Ashley Judd-worshipping, #MeTooing leisure class of well-heeled feminist do-gooders and progressive Hollywood moral busybodies would have been the same no matter who the nominee was. Trump could have nominated a clone of Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the body of a black lesbian in a wheelchair, and they’d have found some reason to vote against her (I exaggerate, but not by much).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Just look at the media over the last few days. When it looked like Dr. Ford's spaghetti wasn't sticking to the wall, what was the next “big controversy”. OMG, one time in college at a bar, Brett Kavanaugh threw ice cubes at a guy during a heated disagreement. Surely THIS is sufficient to demonstrate Kavanaugh lacks a proper judicial temperament. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Never mind that the ONLY aspect of his judicial record—you know, the record that matters—that the Democrats don't like is his distinct lack of impulsivity.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Surely this conclusion—that nothing whatsoever was going to convince the Democrats to accept ANY nominee put forward by Trump—is supported by the two examples given by Senator Collins. Surely it's further demonstrated by declarations on the part of the Democrat members of the committee that they would vote no on Kavanaugh long before they had even held the first hearing.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">And now, with the ink on his confirmation papers still wet, Democrats and left wing political action groups are petitioning for Kavanaugh’s impeachment, if and when they gain a majority after the midterms.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">As Jordan tweeted, legal scholars warn it’s a terrible idea that if successful would set a dangerous precedent and completely undermine public perception of the stability and reliability of the highest court in the US. It would essentially turn SCOTUS from an independent and apolitical body that provides a necessary check against the potential excesses of the other two branches, into an exercise in partisan rubber stamping, with the bench politically subordinate and subservient to whatever party holds the majority.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">A petition to impeach Kavanaugh has already garnered over 125,000 signatures, all from people who have not one clue what would be destroyed in the process.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">And here we come around to Jordan’s suggestion that Kavanaugh should step down, for the sake of bringing the highly polarized American left and right back together. In a perfect world full of perfect people, sure. He should know better.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">The truth is, this isn’t a world of perfect people. When my fiance gets upset over how so many people behave, how they act on base instinct and then back-rationalize what they did (in whatever context, but particularly in those that can be characterized as “us vs them”), I tell him to imagine two troupes of chimpanzees, screeching, whooping, thumping their chests and throwing smartphones at each other. Because that’s exactly what they're doing.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">And that’s exactly why we have these institutions and their processes, regulations and procedures designed to take the chimpanzee in all of us out of the equation. It’s why we have the system of checks and balances in the first place. It’s why the law is written down, and why bad decisions can be taken to higher courts. It’s why a successful impeachment and removal of someone from public office requires a supermajority of 67 votes.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">All of these things are there to put obstacles and barriers in front of the chimpanzee that exists in every single one of us.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">If Kavanaugh steps down, it won’t bring the two sides back together.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">The right will see it as either a noble sacrifice or a betrayal. The left will call it evidence that Kavanaugh probably IS a sexual predator merely looking to avoid more and deeper investigations, and, more importantly, they’ll see it as evidence that they can get what they want by corrupting the confirmation process and making a mockery of what was once a sober, nonpartisan deterrent to mob rule.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">That those interested in corrupting that process to their own ends are on the left is immaterial. Whether you believe Dr. Ford is a victim of sexual assault, or Justice Kavanaugh the victim of a wrongful accusation, is immaterial. The real victim if he steps down will be the integrity of both the process and of the highest court in America.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Worse still, if he’s impeached and the impeachment is successful, the entire system will be destroyed by this abuse of process. A system designed to depoliticize at least one branch of the federal government, keep it beholden only to the law, and protect it from the vagaries of the partisan mob.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">This is not about the presumption of innocence. As important as that presumption is in the strict legal sense, and as a cultural value, presumption of innocence is a difficult case to make in a situation where someone has been subjected to half a dozen thorough FBI background checks just to get the job they’re applying for. Kavanaugh willingly subjected himself to an invasive process that sets aside that presumption. Seven times now. Because of the enormity of the authority he will wield and has wielded in the past.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">That is a necessary part of the vetting process if you want to do the type of work that involves the complete trust of the public. The process found NOTHING on his record as a judge suggesting he would abuse that authority or violate that trust and through the commission of his service bring the Supreme Court of the United States into disrepute. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">The process found nothing, despite the fact that even before Dr. Ford’s allegations were made public, Kavanaugh had jumped through more hoops than any SCOTUS nominee has ever been forced to, and he did so with humility and without complaint.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">“Why aren’t you calling for an investigation into Dr. Ford’s allegations, Judge Kavanaugh?” he was asked over and over again, by people who should know (at least I would <i>hope</i> they know) that it’s not his call. The nominee has no jurisdiction to call for an investigation—that’s the goddamn committee’s call. He could demand one until the cows come home, but it’s not his decision to make. All he can do is cooperate with the committee’s decisions to the best of his ability. And he has.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">The Democrats have abused this process for political ends, cynically sacrificing Dr. Ford’s privacy and violating her trust, subjecting Kavanaugh and his family to the same, for no good reason, and all of it is justified to them as necessary collateral damage in their quest to stick it to Trump by any means necessary.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">That Kavanaugh’s justifiable anger at this shit show, that his emotionality over the more ludicrous accusations made against him in the liberal press, utterly unvetted accusations presented with a drooling, fapping, titillated, eager credulity so ravenous and gross it could only be self-serving... </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">That this is now being used against him to criticize his judicial temperament and deem him unfit for the bench… Well, that’s like kicking a man in the balls and then saying he retroactively deserved it because while he was writhing in agony on the floor, cradling his battered testicles, he raised his voice and used harsh language.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">And this petition to impeach? Just this moment, my son (all of 16 years old) said, "why not just impeach everyone then?" Why not, indeed? Because that would be stupid and dangerous and would throw everything we value away. He added, "Meh, no more Supreme Court. Might as well not exist. Just impeach everyone. The mob knows best."</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">This entire process has been turned into a joke. And if the Democrats are able to get what they want out of it, whether because Kavanaugh nobly but futilely falls on his own sword, or because the Democrat mob opts to impeach—the equivalent of pulling a fire alarm to shut down a speaker they don’t like—it will open a door we do NOT want opened.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">It will invalidate the integrity of the entire process and turn the highest court in the United States into the political majority’s partisan prostitute.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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girlwriteswhathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01589256798123593486noreply@blogger.com336tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1600902089077918514.post-63017614810929283732018-08-16T06:03:00.000-07:002018-08-16T06:03:20.593-07:00My verdict of the verdict, and judging the judgment<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="s1">Okay, so, here’s the detailed analysis I was promising. For those of you who were impatient for this to happen, I can only say we were waiting on the written decision.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">As you can see from this screenshot, which I took at around 10:30AM on August 15, the decision itself hasn’t been uploaded to the publicly accessible database. So 15 days after the decision was read in court, it still wasn’t up. Alison finally ordered a transcript be produced at HBB’s expense.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Why wait for the transcript? Because going by memory and notes regarding a complicated oral decision isn’t the best way to go. No one but the court itself is allowed to video or audio record anything that goes on inside the courtroom. They create transcripts based on their recording, and do not make the recordings themselves available.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">I balked at going from memory. I don’t want to get things wrong. There were a few things I have commented on publicly, but they’re things I was VERY certain of, things that stuck out in particular, and there’s just no way a lengthy oral decision can be memorized (unless you’re some kind of savant, which I’m not).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">So. At long last, here we go.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">I’m going to go point by point, reading the judge’s reasons individually, and then commenting on them immediately thereafter. The first bit is just a general description of the basic details of the case—who’s suing whom and why. No need to get into that.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">So. Let’s get right into the reasons. (Quotes from the decision are in bold, my commentary follows in normal font.)</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Judge notes that:</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>In brief, the defendant Calgary Comic alleges the plaintiff breached the defendant’s policies and were removed as an exhibitor. The contract is comprised of an application form being submitted with appropriate fee and acknowledgement that, among other things, the plaintiff would adhere to Calgary Comic’s policies.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b></b></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>The plaintiff’s expenses in preparing for, travelling to, and setting up at the expo may be recoverable damages in whole or in part in the breach of contract action if a breach is established. The removal of the plaintiff’s booth partway through the exposition was at the defendant’s discretion subject to contractual obligations. The plaintiff had full knowledge of what she was signing and what she was signing up for. The defendant, Calgary Comic, is a private commercial operation, and perspective applicants are free to apply or not, as they wish.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b></b></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>The plaintiff asserts the notion of unequal bargaining power ought to be a consideration. The unequal bargaining power submission is not applicable in these circumstances. She applied to be an exhibitor with eyes wide open, fully knowledgeable with respect to the terms and conditions under which the defendant operated and to which she was subject.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Yet the documents attached to the contract stipulate that all complaints will be investigated and describes its investigative process (which includes getting both sides of the story); and that a step by step process of remedy will be used to remedy sustained complaints—namely that the first step will be to ask the offending party to cease the offending conduct or remove the offending materials.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Further, the policy documents describe “unwarranted accusations” as a form of harassment.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">What this means is that Alison had an obligation to abide by the terms and conditions spelled out not only in the application form, but in the policy documents attached to the application.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">So basically, what Alison was “signing up for” was spelled out in those documents, including the policies and processes Calgary Expo had outlined regarding their complaints and investigation procedures, as well as their procedures for remedy.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">The only clause in the contract relieving Calgary Expo from its own duty to abide by the terms it had laid out reads as:</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">“The CCEE shall have the full power in the interpretation and enforcement of all contract regulations contained herein, and the power to make such amendments thereto, and such further rules and regulations as shall be considered necessary and proper.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Not only is this clause arguably in violation of the Alberta Consumer Protection Act and something that should never stand up in court (and usually does not), in that it grants Calgary Expo the authority to ignore its own contractual obligations as stated by it in its own documents, it does indeed raise the issue of unequal bargaining power.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">If Party 1 to a contract is signing a contract filled with terms and conditions written entirely by Party 2, while a single clause in that contract indicates that Party 2 is effectively signing a blank piece of paper upon which it can choose to write anything it wishes, then the contract is not actually a contract.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Many contracts used as boilerplate by corporations like the Expo include such clauses, despite their dubious ability to succeed in court, because rubes and noobs who read that clause will believe they have no legal recourse and won’t file a lawsuit or a complaint with consumer protection agencies.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">What the judge seems to have done is uphold a clause that is in direct violation of consumer interests and consumer protection laws in Alberta, because that’s the only way I can see him claiming that Alison had an obligation to live up to the terms and conditions in the policy documents and the Expo did not.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>There was no misrepresentation by the defendant of any sort, and no evidence of bad faith. In fact, evidence shows the plaintiff’s application and the plaintiff were dealt with fairly and in a courteous manner, at least up to the point of expulsion.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Yeah, things were going great, until they weren’t. Calgary Expo treated Alison fairly, right up until they decided not to. My tenant paid the rent on time every month, until she stopped. My spouse was faithful to me, right up until he cheated. I paid my credit card balance, until that period of 6 months when I didn’t.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">This assertion is irrelevant and nonsensical. It has zero bearing on whether a contract was violated. That guy had no cause to complain about my behavior, at least until the point where I punched him in the face for no reason. Good grief.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>The defendant, Calgary Comic, received complaints about the plaintiff’s participation at a panel discussion and also about a banner at her booth. The defendant investigated. The investigation was not thorough in that the plaintiff had little, if any, opportunity to provide her version of events.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b></b></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">First thing, Alison didn’t have little if any opportunity to give her version of events. She had NO opportunity to do so. She even informed Calgary Expo’s chief of operations, Shayne Henkelman, that she had an exculpatory recording of the panel discussion, and he refused to even consider listening to it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I suppose, “little, if any,” might be applicable to, “but I’m innocent, and can prove it.” But at the same time, Henkelman testified that the decision was made before he even spoke to Alison that morning, with no opportunity for her to give her version.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b></b></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Secondly, how is this “not thorough” investigation sufficient to come to a decision to evict, if the contract Alison signed indicated that all complaints would be investigated by getting both sides of the story, and remedied in a gradual manner as outlined earlier?</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>The defendant said it received complaints from guests, news organizations, and from TheMarySue. It went online to learn more about the prominent Gamergate banner at the plaintiff’s booth.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">To my knowledge, Expo received no complaints from the Mary Sue (or even employees or agents of the Mary Sue), nor did Shayne Henkelman testify that they did.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Also, complaints were received from the personal accounts of media personalities, but not from official news media accounts, as far as I know. It’s kind of like the difference between saying “Tucker Carlson tweeted X,” and “Fox News tweeted X.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">This is a really strange mistake for the judge to make, since HAD the Mary Sue officially complained about us to Calgary Expo, this would have helped to implicate them in any inducing breach of contract claim, particularly if the complaint had no merit.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>The online information about Gamergate was unsavory, to say the least, and, in the view of the FBI, Gamergate is a vehicle used to disseminate hate messages among others.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Like the coverage of Alison and HBB following our expulsion? Unsavory like that?</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Anyway, his assertion about the FBI is directly contradicted by the only evidence regarding them that was presented at trial. This position attributed to the FBI could not have even been found by improper, out of court research. The FBI investigated Gamergate over accusations that it was a hate movement, and it found no actionable leads. Law enforcement identified four individuals who’d sent potentially illegal messages, one of them a minor, and chose not to prosecute any of them. One was clearly a joke (at least to anyone who’s ever spent any time online), claiming to have “over 9000 bombs” and another prescribing tea, hugs a gentle back massage and face-melting high ordinance explosives for feminists.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>With respect to the breach of policy application, in order to succeed, the plaintiff must show on a balance that the defendant Calgary Comic’s reliance on its policies was sufficiently unfounded to constitute a breach of its contractual obligations.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b></b></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>Regardless of the quality of the investigation and regardless of the fact that the defendant’s reasons for its decision may well have been debatable, it had the contractual right to remove the plaintiff’s booth subject, of course, to its contractual obligations to the plaintiff.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Wait, aren’t those obligations spelled out in the exhibitor agreement and other policy documents attached to the contract? Again, we’re back to this idea that vendors have an obligation to abide by the terms and conditions laid out by the Expo, while the Expo has no such obligation.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And again, we’re back to that sticky “we reserve the right to do whatever we want for any reason or no reason whatsoever” clause that, if legal, would certainly make unequal bargaining power a consideration.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>The plaintiff denied being disruptive at the panel discussion and provided a transcript and audio recording to support her assertion. Both the tape and transcript are somewhat supportive of the plaintiff’s position. However, the quality of the recording makes it difficult to discern what is said and by whom. I recognize the difficulty in marshalling this kind of evidence. However, I don’t know if the portions provided are the complete exchange in issue, much less whether they are the portions complained of.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">First off, the judge spent much of the trial reminding counsel and witnesses to speak up because he's hard of hearing. I would suggest that it being “difficult to discern what is said and by whom” might be owing to a disability on the part of the judge rather than on the quality of the recording.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">In addition, the judge had ruled against listening to the entire recording at trial. When asked why she wanted to play the entire thing, Alison responded that she wanted her participation to be viewed in the context of the entire discussion. Defence didn’t want to listen to the whole thing, and neither did the judge, and BOTH indicated they would take her word for it that the excerpts were satisfactory in that regard. For the judge to now complain about the incompleteness of evidence he himself ruled against hearing in full is… well. Moving on.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>While debatable, I cannot conclude on balance that there is sufficient credible evidence to conclude Calgary Comic’s assessment of the information it received and gathered and its application of that information to its policies was a sufficiently inadequate misinterpretation or a misapplication so as to constitute an improper application of its policies and thus a breach of its contractual obligations with the plaintiff. Thus, there is insufficient evidence to support the breach of contract claim against Calgary Comic, and accordingly, that claim is dismissed.</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Policies which state clearly that an investigation involves getting both sides of the story, that unwarranted accusations are a form of harassment, and which also state that remedy begins with asking the offending party to cease the offending conduct—that is, putting people on notice. The Expo acted precipitously and summarily on information it received and gathered from everyone BUT the plaintiff, and bypassed all of the steps it outlined for remedy to level the most extreme punishment available to it—not just expulsion, but a blanket ban on attendance of future conventions.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Further, Henkelman testified on the stand that even had he known that all of the allegations in the various complaints against Alison made to Calgary Expo were false, he’d have ejected her anyway.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">What we are left with is Alison’s alleged “association” with a hashtag called Gamergate, standing as the sole reason for her being evicted.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">However, there was NOTHING in the contract or the surrounding policies or exhibitor agreement putting her on notice that presenting a Gamergate logo on a banner promoting anti-censorship and pro-ethics values would be in violation of ANY of the Expo’s policies. There was nothing in the contract or policies prohibiting expressing affiliation with ANY movement, hashtag, political opinion, cause or philosophy.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Inducing breach of contract:</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Judge notes:</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>With respect to the inducing breach of contract claim regarding TheMarySue, the defendant, Calgary Comic’s representative testified he had no contact with TheMarySue apart from receiving the complaint about the events in question prior to the decision to expel the plaintiff from the exposition. There is suspicion by the plaintiff that TheMarySue and Calgary Comic may have collaborated or colluded and that TheMarySue may have slagged the plaintiff, thereby inducing Calgary Comic to act as it did, but there is insufficient credible supporting evidence in that regard, and thus the inducing breach of contract claim against TheMarySue is dismissed.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">This is not accurate. Again, Calgary Expo received no complaints from the Mary Sue, or from any agent of the Mary Sue. He may be referring to the complaint from Brittany LeBlanc, but neither Alison nor Shayne ever said there were complaints from the Mary Sue.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">As for the suspicion of collusion, yes, this was our suggestion in our initial filing. However, the scenario we presented at trial and during final submissions, after more digging and the evidence exchange, was very different. The scenario we presented was that Sam Maggs sent a photo of our booth to her friend and collaborator in Toronto, Soha Kareem, who tweeted it out. This single tweet was what led to ALL of the complaints on social media from guests and news media personalities that Henkelman cited as the ultimate reason he kicked us out (that is, the complaints led him to take other actions which led to that decision).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">In addition, our contention was that Sam Maggs spoke privately to Brittany LeBlanc and convinced her to complain to Calgary Expo about Alison’s participation at the panel (which was another reason Henkelman cited in his testimony as contributing to his decision to kick us out).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">So our contention at trial was that Sam Maggs, editor for the Mary Sue, intentionally set out to generate a social media controversy with us as the target, in order to create news for her website to then report on.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">And wouldn’t you know it? The Mary Sue scooped the story.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">We certainly had more evidence supporting our conjecture that Sam Maggs, in her position as editor of the Mary Sue, orchestrated a social media controversy through a known associate, a social media controversy that was the ultimate cause of our expulsion (according to Henkelman). Yet the judge didn’t touch on this at all, not even to say it was far fetched, or a conspiracy theory, or even that our evidence of it was insufficient.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">He just ignored it.</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Injurious falsehood, Calgary Expo:</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Judge notes:</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>There is insufficient credible evidence that the defendant Calgary Comic published anything, much less any false statements disparaging the plaintiff’s goods or property or business. Having her booth removed from the exposition for breach of the defendant’s policies, without more, does not constitute a false statement. Publication of the fact of removal of the booth for breach of policy, without more, is also not a false statement.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"><b></b></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Really? I mean, I’ll grant that it is not necessarily a false statement. That is, if the breach of policy had occurred, or if a fair investigation adhering to Calgary Expo’s contractual obligations had occurred, even if the finding was wrong. A false statement doesn’t require someone to know the statement is false. Malice, in the context of false statements, can include not taking the proper care to check.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The Expo had contractual obligations to take proper care to check, as it itself laid out in its policy documents and attached to the contract. It did not do so prior to its decision that we had violated policy, nor before its publication of that information. Henkelman’s testimony describes a rush to judgment and summary execution completely devoid of taking proper care to check.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">In fact, in his final submissions, he described this as the first and only case in which he himself ever kicked anyone out of one of the events run by Calgary Expo. Are we to believe that no one else has ever been ejected from a fan expo in western Canada? Or are we to believe Mr. Henkelman’s testimony, that he, as Expo’s chief of operations took it upon himself to unilaterally bypass all of the Expo’s dedicated personnel and procedures, and its obligations as spelled out in the policy documents to make what amounted to an executive order in violation of its contractual obligations?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"><b></b></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>Publication by others of the expulsion and the purported reasons for the expulsion are not actionable against the defendant Calgary Comic. The defendant Calgary Comic did not publish the fact of the expulsion or the reasons for it. Tweets by others posted on the Calgary Comic website about the expulsion were quickly removed by it. Alternatively, if the tweets by others could be characterized as publication by Calgary Comic, there is insufficient credible evidence that the tweets contained false statements about the plaintiff’s property, goods, or business.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">No no no. First, tweets were not published on Calgary Expo’s website. They were published on Twitter. Calgary Expo cannot remove tweets made by “others” from Twitter. It can only remove its own tweets. Further, it cannot make tweets made by “others” invisible to anyone but itself.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And secondly, in direct response to a tweeted query as to why we were kicked out, Calgary Expo’s official Twitter account tweeted the Mary Sue’s article. A tweet constitutes publication of everything contained therein, including links.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And finally, Henkelman testified ON THE STAND that he ordered the tweet deleted when he learned of its existence. His stated reason, under oath, for doing so was that the tweet was ACTIONABLE. In other words, Calgary Expo published actionable statements it knew might be false, and Henkelman ordered them deleted BECAUSE they were actionable.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">His actions in deleting the tweet, and his stated reasons for doing so, were an admission that the tweet itself WAS INDEED actionable under the law. This tweet was not made by “others”, but by Calgary Expo’s official social media account, manned by employees and agents of Calgary Expo and working under Calgary Expo’s authorization.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>If I am wrong that the defendant did not publish statements about the plaintiff’s goods, property, or business, there is insufficient credible evidence that any such purported statements were false.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">This is… bizarre, since the tweet contained a link to the Mary Sue article, in direct answer to a query as to why we were kicked out. The article describes HBB as a business run by someone who lies on her business contracts in order to clandestinely gain opportunities to cause disruption and harass people. Alison did not lie on her contract. We did NOT sneak into the convention. And while there, we harassed no one.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Of course, there is credible evidence. It’s there in the booth application. In our badges and booth decal identifying who we were. And the judge is the person who ruled we wouldn’t hear the entirety of the panel discussion that would have provided credible evidence that Alison had harassed no one.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>In the further alternative, if I am wrong about the publication and falsity of content, there 1 is no credible evidence that the defendant Calgary Comic was motivated by malice. The 2 evidence showed the defendant received complaints about the plaintiff’s conduct and about 3 a banner at her booth and after some investigation chose to have her booth closed and 4 removed from the exposition.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">He really seems to be wanting to cover all his bases. However.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Malice: a conscious, intentional wrongdoing of a civil wrong like libel, with the intention of doing harm to the victim. This intention includes ill-will, hatred, <i>or total disregard for the other's well-being.</i></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Calgary Expo’s policies, attached to their contract, clearly state that unwarranted accusations are considered a form of harassment, and that its investigation of complaints will take into account both sides of the story.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Calgary Expo’s contravention of its own stated policies and procedures in this case certainly displayed no regard for the wellbeing of Alison when it summarily ejected her despite her telling them she had exonerating evidence.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">When Calgary Expo promoted the Mary Sue article in response to questions as to the reason it had evicted Alison, it also did so with total disregard for her wellbeing. Calgary Expo's social media team did not take time to verify whether the allegations in the article were true or false, which it could have easily done at least in regard to the "misrepresentation" claim, prior to tweeting the article.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And further, when Calgary Expo deleted the tweet, it did not do so to ameliorate any unjust damage done to Alison, but merely to protect itself from what it knew were legally actionable statements on its part.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">To this day, Calgary Expo has not so much as corrected the public allegation that Alison lied on her contract with them, despite having submitted evidence to that effect to the court. Which certainly displays continued disregard for her wellbeing.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>There is no evidence of animus towards the plaintiff or bad faith in investigating the complaints, notwithstanding Calgary Comic did not obtain the plaintiff’s input prior to its decision to expel.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Except that it did not follow the investigatory protocols laid out in its own policies and agreements. It refused to listen to evidence Alison claimed was exculpatory. That's the definition of bad faith.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">That Mr. Henkelman and the Expo were nice to us right up until the moment that they weren’t is immaterial.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Expo did not follow its prescribed step by step procedure for remedy even when someone is found to be engaging in offending conduct. It skipped over all of its normal procedures, and jumped directly from accusation to summary execution.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">As to animus, Alison was informed that if her booth was not dismantled and all of us out within half an hour, Mr. Henkelman would call police and have us all arrested. He refused to provide us with tools when asked, so we could disassemble the booth without damaging it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">He testified that following our eviction he sent “spies” to infiltrate our social gatherings and report back to him. He put Stampede security on notice that we were a clear and present danger, such that Stampede security called police on our peaceful and completely innocent picnic at Reader Rock Garden.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">No animus? I call bullshit.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>Lastly, if I am wrong about publication, falsity, and malice, the plaintiff has not led sufficient credible evidence to establish special damages. Damages are not presumed, and general damages are not recoverable. The plaintiff incurred expenses to attend the exposition, but those expenses were not a result of this alleged actionable tort.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Good grief. Because being smeared in both mainstream and industry media can’t be reasonably expected to hurt your bottom line in your chosen industry?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Damages are not presumed, but a reasonable expectation of damages does not mean that the plaintiff must present an itemized list down to the penny of every loss suffered. It does not require a plaintiff to be clairvoyant and prove that, if not for the defendant’s actions, they’d have sold exactly 2113 units of merchandise.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>The plaintiff’s husband testified that she had sold about 30 comics in her entire career.</b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Therefore, there were no damages? Plaintiff’s husband also testified that he had no real idea how many comics she’d sold. A subsequent witness testified that this estimate was way off.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Regardless, a subsequent witness who was manning the booth testified that 7 copies of Alison’s comic were sold in the first four hours of the convention alone. Projecting from this, Alison could have expected to sell a total of 50 to 60 comics over the full Expo, had she been allowed to stay. That’s double the lifetime estimate given, under pressure, from her husband, and it applies just to one event.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>The plaintiff testified she experienced difficulty convincing store owners to carry her product after this event. There was insufficient evidence of the magnitude of her difficulties, much less a dollar amount to specify the amount of alleged special damages loss. Thus, the injurious falsehood claim is dismissed against Calgary Comic.</b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">This is a mischaracterization. Alison testified that a store owner in Saskatoon had not only stocked her books, but had placed them on prominent display to promote a local artist. After the incident and the media fallout, that shop owner took down the display and cut her orders by 75%.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">There is no down to the penny specificity requirement under injurious falsehood as to what determining there were special damages, nor a minimum amount necessary. If there is a reasonable expectation that Alison had lost out on the sale of just one book due to this fiasco, that would be enough to constitute special damages. The amount of the special damages only becomes relevant when deciding what, if anything, is owing to the plaintiff.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Injurious falsehood, The Mary Sue:</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Judge notes:</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><b>TheMarySue did not participate in the whole trial. It did not lead evidence nor cross- examine nor make submissions. It published an article after the expulsion. Some of the content may be false, and it may have been written maliciously. Assuming, without deciding, that there was publication, maliciousness and falsehood, I would dismiss the claim on the basis there was no credible evidence that the plaintiff suffered special damages attributable to TheMarySue publication. Thus, the injurious falsehood claim is dismissed against TheMarySue.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And again, there is no requirement for specificity regarding an exact dollar amount to prove special damages, nor a lower bound as to what is considered a pecuniary loss. A reasonable expectation of loss is sufficient to prove injurious falsehood.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Anyway, there’s so much that’s haywire with this decision, it’s not even funny. I think I counted a minimum of 16 grounds on which to appeal. And that’s not even considering some of the errors of factfinding that occurred.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The judge disregarded Henkelman’s own testimony that the Calgary Expo’s tweet was actionable.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">His finding of no animus is completely belied by the manner in which we were kicked out—Henkelman refusing to hear exculpatory evidence and even threatening to have us arrested if we weren’t gone by the time the doors opened to the public. Henkelman advising Stampede security that we were a threat to safety at the convention, and sending staff members to spy on our meet-ups. No evidence of animus there.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And perhaps the most ironic thing of all was all of that animus appears to have been based on the egregiously biased, misleading and demonizing media coverage of Gamergate that falsely painted a hashtag and a consumer revolt as something sinister and dangerous. And the result of his actions? Egregiously biased, misleading and demonizing media coverage of Honey Badger Brigade and the events of April 2015.</span></div>
<br />girlwriteswhathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01589256798123593486noreply@blogger.com58tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1600902089077918514.post-87549009454931714792018-07-13T20:10:00.001-07:002018-07-13T20:10:38.345-07:00to whom it may concern, of whom it's really none of your business...It's come to my attention that certain individuals have accused <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/jordanowen42">Jordan Owen 42</a> of sexually assaulting me at a conference on men's issues held in the fall of 2014 in Georgia.<br />
<br />
Caveat: I'm subscribed to JO42's channel, but haven't watched any of his content in probably more than a year now because he stopped reliably talking about topics I'm interested in. My interactions with him (most notably his interview of me and my colleagues for his joint project with Davis Aurini, "The Sarkeesian Effect") have been friendly, but we're not friends.<br />
<br />
I want people to know that at that event Jordan did make a pass at me that was unexpected but not alarming or upsetting, and he gracefully took my "no" for an answer. My "no" was based entirely on the fact that I was (and still am) in a long term committed relationship with someone. I'd have said no to ANYONE who'd made sexual or romantic advances at that time, including Clive Owen or Marton Csokas, my own personal "celebrity dream lays".<br />
<br />
I can only view the third parties who are making these accusations, and who are making them without my authorization, are doing so for purposes other than defending my honor or championing my sexual autonomy. If those were the reasons they were levelling these public accusations, I would suggest they'd have reached out to me to ask if I was upset or offended by my interactions with Jordan before they mounted their white horses, tipped their helmets and dipped their spears on my behalf. That they didn't certainly suggests they suspected I would not have confirmed their narrative.<br />
<br />
Jordan reached out to me with some concern to ask if I had felt upset, offended or violated by our interaction, out of a genuine worry that I might have been. I assured him, as I am assuring everyone now, that our one brief non-professional interaction at that conference was trivial and mundane, and didn't result in any negative feelings on either of our parts. He made a gentle pass. I told him I had a boyfriend. That was the end of it. Frankly, given that I was 45 at the time, the entire thing was a pleasant surprise.<br />
<br />
That there are people who don't like Jordan who are trying to stir up bad feelings in public on my behalf without my consent is... disturbing. Do these men think a woman like me is made of spun glass, that an unexpected sexual overture is going to shatter me? All I see are men using me as a way to attack another man they don't like. They are turning me into Anita Sarkeesian's cynical characterization of women's position in society--"in the game of patriarchy, women are not the opposing team, we're the ball."<br />
<br />
I'm not interested in being Davis Aurini's or Matt Forney's patriarchy damsel-ball. Anyone wanting to publicly accuse another person of sexually assaulting me had damn well better clear that with me first to ensure they know what the fuck they're talking about.<br />
<br />
And finally, false allegations of sexual misconduct are a weapon custom-fitted to a woman's hand and are wielded the vast majority of the time by women with emotional problems. So I'd gently suggest to anyone forwarding these baseless accusations that they stop behaving like mentally unstable teenage girls and try acting like men.<br />
<br />
<br />girlwriteswhathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01589256798123593486noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1600902089077918514.post-58949370820779606772018-05-31T15:19:00.001-07:002018-06-21T08:10:07.486-07:00Link round-up of my off-channel interviews and appearances:Speeches & Panels<br />
<br />
CAFE Toronto 2018 The Burden of Being Male<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwEuZ0b6Du4<br />
<br />
CAFE Toronto 2018 Growing Up Fatherless<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onWhjYc0wTc<br />
<br />
CAFE London 2018 Men's Mental Health: A Silent Crisis<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzC6sSJKoXE<br />
<br />
CAFE Grand Prairie 2018 The Red Pill Panel<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrgEMsBImfQ<br />
<br />
CAFE Edmonton 2017 SheForHe Panel 1<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIeORISqFl0<br />
<br />
CAFE Edmonton 2017 SheForHe Panel 2<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1C35LJwXRGg<br />
<br />
NCFM 20th Anniversary 2017 Bill C-51<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eGDF87zQnA<br />
<br />
CAFE Edmonton 2017 The Red Pill Panel<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYp610NWEOY<br />
<br />
ICMI Australia 2017 Evolutionary Realities<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybxba2UQSEU<br />
<br />
CAFE Ottawa 2016 Ogres, Onions & Men's Issues<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nqj52Tq4aM<br />
<br />
CAFE Ottawa 2016 Ogres, Onions & Men's Issues Q&A<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adNznU7Cz8Q<br />
<br />
CAFE Ottawa 2016 Panel<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC02bvCAo6A<br />
<br />
ICMI London 2016 Toxic Femininity<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6ltINvT3SQ<br />
<br />
Vancouver #SheForHe 2016 Panel Part 1<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5E6hvGemYU<br />
<br />
Vancouver #SheForHe 2016 Panel Part 2<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4NzBytUxEo<br />
<br />
UBC Students for Liberty 2015 Is Feminism a Friend of Liberty?<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujjry0CVOKI<br />
<br />
SFU-AMB 2015 Toxic Femininity<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0zQf5NMG8E<br />
<br />
SFU-AMB 2015 Tocic Femininity Q&A<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5sWQmMChNE<br />
<br />
The Agenda with Steve Paikin 2015 Check Your Privilege<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gx_RNrvsuns<br />
<br />
Kennesaw State University 2014 Q&A<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXrkCFWT95U<br />
<br />
Kennesaw State University 2014 Male Students in Peril<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E31dxdj9YOY<br />
<br />
ICMI Detroit 2014 Why I am an Antifeminist<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA-QP1gSYJA<br />
<br />
Ryerson University 2014 Are Men Obsolete<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaO3THnOHhA<br />
<br />
Ryerson University 2014 Are Men Obsolete Q&A<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vagVf5cf-V0<br />
<br />
Wisconsin Liberatrian Convention 2014<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v42oPQeF6M<br />
<br />
New York Libertarian Party 2014<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LkYDpQQVJ0<br />
<br />
New Hampshire Liberty Forum 2014 Feminism: Socialism in Panties<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm3FlbUf5gA<br />
<br />
New Hampshire Liberty Forum 2014 Do We Need Feminism?<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z7nteHMPJ8<br />
<br />
Essentials of Freedom 2014 Political Correctness<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRw5BxFTqrE<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Interviews, Livestreams, & Podcasts:<br />
<br />
Young Turks<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7kqqywey7g<br />
<br />
David Packman<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrE4cmClqzE<br />
<br />
Dave Rubin<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0PTjLnXmCs<br />
<br />
Sargon Livestreams<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THXCRsUMYSA<br />
<br />
Gad Saad<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DQAPrlOeFE<br />
<br />
Gregory Alan Elliot<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jye2EuyqAnY<br />
<br />
Michael Cross<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzNN42bJUkw<br />
<br />
Cassie Jaye RPRF 1<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L254KuLx-4Y<br />
<br />
Cassie Jaye RPRF 2<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA1mB9SshkA<br />
<br />
Cassie Jaye RPRF 3<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NASmBk_dZA8<br />
<br />
Steven Crowder 248<br />
https://youtu.be/KjOQvG_afuE?t=1h1m58s<br />
<br />
Steven Crowder 99<br />
https://youtu.be/_Y8As7IMRuM?t=1h11m39s<br />
<br />
Steven Crowder 85<br />
https://youtu.be/umLhj5acd54?t=1h9m40s<br />
<br />
Steven Crowder 62<br />
https://youtu.be/6TT7yDtsbp0?t=1h38m24s<br />
<br />
Steven Crowder 2015<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee_ESpTudus<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Others in order of date:<br />
<br />
Vee on IBS Drama Again 2018<br />
https://youtu.be/04t4WGoq8ow?t=1h36m34s<br />
<br />
Fireside Chat Roaming Millenial 2018<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOdvU5P66cE<br />
<br />
Paul Elam about Dean 2018<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKR34VNHHXo<br />
<br />
Vee on IBS Drama 2018<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEULEkfNLEU<br />
<br />
Jesse Lee Peterson 2018<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QA_0-9rJXo8<br />
<br />
Bettina Arndt Part 1 2018<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LT44DzC-MQ<br />
<br />
Bettina Arndt Part 2 2018<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJRG7HkCfns<br />
<br />
Bettina Arndt Part 3 2018<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz8cLEJ7S-E<br />
<br />
Tim Moen 2017<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXAIPRufvPE<br />
<br />
Starudsk on Alt-Right 2017<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lijB1pUGua8<br />
<br />
Benjamin Boyce on Evergreen 2017<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq7MxEexR0A<br />
<br />
Good Intentions 2017<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_uwmSQjCrw<br />
<br />
Matt Orchard Part 1 2017<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS6roO_m0Kk<br />
<br />
Matt Orchard Part 2 2017<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTkEQATIMwk<br />
<br />
Jerry Cox on False Allegations 2017<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI0sZB694sY<br />
<br />
James Damore 2017<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLplCBTzLHE<br />
<br />
Friended 2017 on Paternity Uncertainty<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-D_tIpTyoA<br />
<br />
Tom Woods 2017<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dzd_jirrI8<br />
<br />
Christopher Cantwell 2017<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCBH1guK96g<br />
<br />
Bettina Arndt 2017<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGbM1C_kJIc<br />
<br />
YouTube Saints 2017<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60IzzJL3mUI<br />
<br />
Rae Bonney 2017<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VImWO11YhTY<br />
<br />
Mark Latham's Outsiders 2017<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9RiQNbvZUM<br />
<br />
Tim Goldich 2017<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1r85ctvO8s<br />
<br />
Young Voices 2017<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKiZH8q_0xs<br />
<br />
Rebel Media - Feminism is not Populist 2017<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhXAQXF3OSE<br />
<br />
Fireside Chat Jordan Peterson 2016<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5pyMtp3QDA<br />
<br />
Stardusk Canada Perspectives 2016<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxHry-firkE<br />
<br />
RockingMrE 2016<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJVAaPPviRE<br />
<br />
Bernard Chapin 2016<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJsaJwpNcvE<br />
<br />
Bane Canadian Special<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk6YV8_hWpA<br />
<br />
xXToYeDXx at #GGinTO 2016<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOPPEenOAYE<br />
<br />
ICMI London 2016<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_8ygrahpOA<br />
<br />
Bane on Earl Silverman 2016<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8YBm-M_fBg<br />
<br />
Studio Brule Livestream 2016<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zf181EAa4PY<br />
<br />
Accent Overlords 2016<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DRsKX5HlLI<br />
<br />
Accent Shitlords 2016<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kljxVdmJH4<br />
<br />
Roosh V 2016<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRKixCSxUno<br />
<br />
Bane Year-End 2015<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8EJFFpogI4<br />
<br />
Fireside Chat Stardusk 2015<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gXw3cHqD3M<br />
<br />
Theryn Meyer 2015<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMPEAR2imC4<br />
<br />
Marie Claire 2015<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA3iZwcME8o<br />
<br />
Stardusk Rape 2015<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SocE2TjNd80<br />
<br />
Vee 2015<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPikCMgqrKs<br />
<br />
Stardusk Blank Slate<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwFFqGl5WYw<br />
<br />
Sardusk MGTOW and Traditionalism 2015<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSscFnaWJBc<br />
<br />
Accent Overlords 2015<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-voUOEwag-0<br />
<br />
Vee and Anna Cherry 2015<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Pnip7HbY1Q<br />
<br />
Vee on Calgary Expo 2015<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IezRRovPJQM<br />
<br />
Jesse Lee Peterson 2015<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTdKM81HaVM<br />
<br />
KSU Male Students 2014<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RIFKLRzlOo<br />
<br />
Gnostic Media 2014<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjhHd4EoK6Q<br />
<br />
BBC 2014<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guSVPtmincc<br />
<br />
Stardusk Evo-Psych 2014<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enqorzRl1nE<br />
<br />
CAFE Interview 2014<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hbj0UK1XG3g<br />
<br />
Stefan Molyneux 2014<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlKcbCszkNY<br />
<br />
Erin Pizzey 2014<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhuHTw7Ptz4<br />
<br />
Paul Elam 2014<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asIEiDCpVL0<br />
<br />
Journalism Student 2014<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kndxHx1LA6Q<br />
<br />
New Republic 2014<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7KZfsCi5iA<br />
<br />
Stardusk Feminism 2013<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV3JtC8ZTZI<br />
<br />
CAFE Interview 2013<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5N35JSsoYgc<br />
<br />
Stefan Molyneux 201<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOjmsKr2S0w<br />
<br />
CBC Interview 2013<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnJwEFQUdPs<br />
<br />
Paul Elam 2013<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2p1OvGhyFw<br />
<br />
Stardusk Junk 2013<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyQRdkoJR-o<br />
<br />
Stefan Molyneux 2013<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZlsPM0psqE<br />
<br />
Stefan Molyneux 2012<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNWFX48anikgirlwriteswhathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01589256798123593486noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1600902089077918514.post-79553915951365011072018-02-19T15:07:00.002-08:002018-02-19T15:09:50.558-08:00Open Letter to Informa<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span class="s1">Dear sir,</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I’ve been led to believe that a company owned by Informa will be launching a lawsuit for defamation against my friend and associate, Alison Tieman. The allegations of defamation are so outrageous that I find it difficult to believe a corporation with a good public image, like Informa, would initiate, authorize or even allow one of its subsidiaries to threaten such an action. As such I’m writing to ask for clarification of Informa’s official position on launching said defamation suit against Ms. Tieman.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">First, some background. A lawsuit alleging breach of contract and injurious falsehood was initiated by Ms. Tieman against Calgary Expo in the fall of 2015, and regards the eviction that occurred at the 2015 Calgary Expo.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Ms. Tieman is an independent comic creator who attended the Calgary Expo’s 2015 convention. During the event Calgary Expo expelled Ms. Tieman, without investigation, based on false allegations. This action constituted a violation of Calgary Expo’s own written codes and policies, and a breach of contract on the part of Calgary Expo. Following the eviction Calgary Expo publicly distributed defamatory false allegations made by its partner The Mary Sue against Alison Tieman. (If you wish to review all of the material supporting these facts, I would be happy to discuss it with you or provide it.)</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The sequence of events is as follows:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">False and defamatory statements about Ms. Tieman were publicly made by other parties, some of them associated with codefendant The Mary Sue (TMS), statements which Calgary Expo’s head of operations, Shayne Henkelman, then acted on without further investigation. His decision to act on these false statements resulted in Ms. Tieman’s eviction as an exhibitor, and a 10 year ban from all conventions then operated by Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo Inc.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Mr. Henkelman permitted Ms. Tieman and her colleagues so little time (approximately 20 minutes) to remove their belongings and leave the premises that substantial damage was done to Ms. Tieman’s expensive booth installation. This damage alone is in excess of $4000.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">The false and defamatory allegations were, within an hour and a half of Ms. Tieman’s eviction, repeated and expanded on in an article published by codefendant and Calgary Expo cosplay contest partner TMS, an article which remains public and uncorrected as of this date.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">This article was then cited by Calgary Expo on it’s official Twitter social media account as a public explanation as to why Ms. Tieman had been evicted and banned. In addition to citing the article as the reason for the eviction, Calgary Expo reiterated to individuals questioning the article’s account of events that The Mary Sue’s reporting was accurate. This action by Calgary Expo served to substantiate the false allegations made in the article.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Within an hour or so of the Calgary Expo’s initial tweet citing the Mary Sue’s article being published, Mr. Henkelman ordered Calgary Expo’s social media director to delete the tweet. He did so because he understood that Calgary Expo citing TMS’s article in this way was legally actionable, and would expose Calgary Expo to potential litigation. He said exactly this to Ms. Tieman during a break in the trial proceedings where I was present. The additional tweet in which the Calgary Expo asserts that the Mary Sue’s reporting was accurate remains publically available to this date.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Later that same day, after much pressure from individuals on social media and Expo attendees, Calgary Expo tweeted a vague public statement on the matter that did nothing whatsoever to refute or correct any of the false allegations in the TMS article. At this time, Mr. Henkelman had evidence both in his immediate possession and readily publicly available to him that all of said allegations were false.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Calgary Expo has maintained radio silence on the matter ever since, adding further credibility to the allegations in the eyes of the public.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Despite TMS having reached out to Calgary Expo prior to publishing their article with a request for comment, no direct comment to TMS from Calgary Expo as to the reason Ms. Tieman was evicted appears in the article. All that appears in way of explanation, appended as an update, is the general public statement published by Calgary Expo that in no way corrects the record.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Soon after the eviction, Ms. Tieman sent a letter by registered mail to Calgary Expo requesting they correct the public record or she would be forced to consider legal action. No reply from Calgary Expo was forthcoming. Had Calgary Expo merely performed a retroactive investigation into the allegations and made a public statement clearing Ms. Tieman’s name, no lawsuit would have ensued. The inaction of Calgary Expo in this matter is particularly egregious, since it had in its direct possession and available to it at that time evidence that not only were the allegations reported by The Mary Sue and repeated by other media outlets entirely false, but that Calgary Expo had wrongfully evicted Ms. Tieman in breach of its contract with her.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Mr. Henkelman, for his part as head of operations, conducted no investigation whatsoever regarding the allegations against Ms. Tieman prior to evicting her—allegations he would have discovered were wholly false had he done so. I know this because he told Ms. Tieman, in my presence, that had he taken the time to give even a cursory glance at her evidence, he would not have evicted her.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Through its direct actions and its subsequent and continued inaction, Calgary Expo and its head of operations, Shayne Henkelman, substantively contributed to the destruction of the professional reputation of a female comic book artist who had devoted seven years of her life to creating an original graphic novel series. Calgary Expo’s actions and inaction have cost Ms. Tieman sales, marketability, and professional and networking opportunities. As an example of the latter, at the previous Expo she had attended, in Saskatoon, Ms. Tieman was offered a job teaching at an art school in British Columbia.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Being banned for ten years from such events means no similar opportunities will be made available to her. In addition your employee Shayne Henklemen informed Ms. Tieman, in my presence, that her 10 year ban will be upheld at all Informa exhibitions across North America, if she does not settle with Calgary Expo.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Being banned over public allegations that she harassed people, lied on her contract and further breached said contract—allegations your employee and representative has allowed to stand as fact for almost three years despite having evidence from the beginning that they are entirely false—certainly impacts anyone’s willingness to do business with Ms. Tieman, even outside of Calgary Expo.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">In evicting Ms. Tieman without conducting an investigation, Calgary Expo breached its contract with her. In evicting her in the manner it did, Calgary Expo caused her more than $4000 in direct damage to her equipment and merchandise. In banning her for ten years with no cause whatsoever, it has impeded her ability to conduct business. In citing TMS’s article as the reason Ms. Tieman was evicted, and further, tweeting that TMS’s reporting was accurate, Calgary Expo publicly disseminated and substantiated false and defamatory statements about Ms. Tieman. This has negatively impacted Ms. Tieman’s ability to conduct business.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">And to add insult to injury, Calgary Expo reported Ms. Tieman and her associates to police two days after the eviction. Ms. Tieman’s crime? Having a picnic in a park with fans a full kilometre from the Expo site. Two police vans and four officers attended the scene to inquire as to our intentions. Our intentions being, having a picnic in a public park, eating from cold cut and vegetable platters, and taking group photos. The police report is… surreal. The police officer seemed to have a difficult time explaining to Calgary Expo and its agents that citizens simply can’t be arrested for having a picnic in a public park while holding a different political opinion.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">The trial proper began on November 28 of last year. Ms. Tieman gave direct testimony for the majority of the first two days. The morning of the third day, both defendants expressed interest in talking about a settlement, despite Ms. Tieman not even being finished giving direct testimony.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">If and when this case goes back to trial, Calgary Expo (and TMS, for that matter) will lose. I predict they will lose on the strength of Ms. Tieman’s evidence alone.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">But they will also lose because they are unable to call Mr. Henkelman, their only first-hand eyewitness to events, to the stand, as doing so will either suborn or reveal perjury on his part. Which is why, I believe, a week or two before the trial commenced, he was quietly dropped from the defence’s witness list.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Put plainly, the defendants have no defence. They have no case. Even if they had, they can’t bring a defence because their only viable witness has already perjured himself in a sworn affidavit. Shayne Henkleman is the person who made the decision to evict Ms. Tieman, and he will not be testifying. The judge is allowed by law to speculate as to why this is the case, and to draw what inferences he chooses. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">While I cannot publicly disclose the settlement terms that were discussed, Ms. Tieman was extremely generous in not only allowing Calgary Expo an opportunity to publicly correct their error and at the same time save face, but was (in my opinion) overly conciliatory on the issue of financial compensation. She has bent over backwards to come to an agreement that would paint all parties in a decent light while simultaneously compensating her for the financial toll the defendants’ actions have taken on her.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Ms. Tieman has done everything in her power to negotiate in good faith. Yet, apparently as part of their own “negotiations”, the Calgary Expo’s counsel has threatened Ms. Tieman with a SLAPP defamation lawsuit over a two word tweet made by her friend and collaborator Brian Martinez, via his personal Twitter account--a tweet made without Ms. Tieman’s knowledge, let alone her authorization. Mr. Martinez, upon hearing that the defendants were willing to discuss a settlement, tweeted “We won.” This tweet in no way constitutes defamation against either defendant, and there are multiple affirmative defences that could be successfully brought in a court of law.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Unlike Mr. Henkelman, however, when Mr. Martinez discovered people were misconstruing his tweet, he immediately and publicly corrected the record with a clarification that no, we did not win the lawsuit, we are in settlement negotiations, deleted the problematic tweet, and then continued to correct the record whenever he discovered someone had gotten the wrong idea.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">For this innocuous tweet, that was in no way defamatory but even so was immediately clarified and corrected in the interest of accuracy, your counsel is threatening a defamation litigation against a man who was undergoing chemotherapy at the time he made it, and who has since had surgery resulting in nerve damage such that he may never walk normally again.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">That’s certainly going to be a good look for Informa. It will look especially good next to Mr. Henkelman and Calgary Expo’s own public dissemination of defamation against Ms. Tieman, which he has allowed to stand uncorrected for almost three years now.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">I am aware that most of this occurred before Informa acquired Calgary Expo. Neither I nor Ms. Tieman hold Informa in any way morally responsible for actions committed by others long before Informa was associated with Calgary Expo. However, at this point Mr. Henkelman is employed by you. Calgary Expo is an asset you now own. As such Elmer Chiu is now your council. You are paying his legal fees. Informa is, I can only assume, now responsible for Calgary Expo, Shayne Henkelman, Elmer Chiu and any actions they have taken or failed to take since Informa acquired Calgary Expo. I can only assume this includes how this matter is resolved.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">At this point in time, unless you inform us otherwise, we have to assume this threat of a SLAPP defamation suit was authorized by Informa. It was made by agents on your payroll, after all.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Ms. Tieman, myself and our associates—many of whom have a massive reach online—will do everything we can to publicize this new recalcitrance and obstructionism on the part of an entity you now own and control and whose actions you apparently sanction.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Since 2015, Calgary Expo has suffered a decline in attendance of nearly 10%. While I have no hard data proving that this decline is a result of this ongoing legal issue, I have plenty of anecdotal evidence that many regular attendees were so disgusted by how Ms. Tieman was treated, and continues to be treated, by Calgary Expo they were not planning to attend future Expos.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Ms. Tieman’s company, Honey Badger Brigade, has maintained public silence over most of the developments since the trial proper began. Due to the overconfidence and incompetence of Calgary Expo’s counsel, I was present in the courtroom the whole time. I plan to publicize everything I saw. None of it will make Informa’s property, Calgary Expo, look good.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">I am, at this point, prepared to hold Informa morally immune from responsibility for this debacle should I learn that Shayne Henkleman and Elmer Chiu were acting without your direct and informed authorization. If you fail to inform me as to the accuracy of this assumption while allowing them to continue to behave in this manner, including holding the threat of a frivolous defamation lawsuit over the head of my friend, that will change.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">If Shayne Henkleman or Elmer Chiu have acted on their own autonomy without your direct and informed authorization, they apparently believe they can initiate potentially disastrous legal actions on Informa’s behalf. And they believe they can win by attrition—delay and obstruct and delay some more, and threaten a frivolous lawsuit on your behalf and in your name until Ms. Tieman is exhausted of will and resources..</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I’m writing to you to assure you that that is not going to happen. Ms. Tieman will not stop until she gets what she reasonably feels is justice. She will not run out of resources as she has the full financial backing of her community, which includes many people from Informa’s future customer base.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Calgary Expo, under the leadership of Shayne Henkelman, committed a wrongful and legally actionable act against an independent comic creator, a wrong that has cost her thousands of dollars and her professional reputation. His refusal to correct the public record has only exacerbated the damage caused by his wrongful actions. He testified to falsehoods on a sworn affidavit, and is unable to be called to the stand by his own counsel because of this. It is my belief that Mr. Henkelman is prioritizing his own reputation and his continued employment above what I must assume would be the broader interests of Informa--that is, to bring an end to this matter with as little damage to all parties as possible.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I am aware that within large corporations, often the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. I’m here to tell you what your left hand is currently doing, and to inform you of the ways his behavior and decisions may ultimately damage your reputation.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Allow me to reiterate. Calgary Expo will lose on at least one cause of action, and will almost certainly lose on both. A decision by a judge, even one that favors Calgary Expo, will itemize and detail every single wrongful act committed by Calgary Expo, and all of the legal responsibilities and contractual obligations they neglected, relating to the events material to this case.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">However this trial ends, Calgary Expo will be exposed as having acted against its own policies and guidelines in order to wrongfully expel and ban a female comic creator. It will be exposed as having allowed the false media narrative it helped create, that has besmirched Ms. Tieman’s business reputation, to stand uncorrected for THREE years. Mr. Henkelman, in settlement negotiations, has indicated that he needs approval from “higher ups” before making any offer or concession. As far as I know, he’s in charge of events across western Canada, so I can only assume the higher ups he was referring to are you, Informa.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Mr. Henkelman, during one of the breaks at trial, informed us that since Informa took over, all of the policies and codes at Calgary Expo, particularly regarding politicized speech and expression and investigative procedures into alleged harassment, have changed, in part because of what happened to Ms. Tieman, with the intent that such a thing never happen again.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">If Informa is willing to drastically change policy such that no one will ever find themselves in Ms. Tieman’s position, certainly Informa is implicitly admitting that Ms. Tieman was egregiously wronged. If she WAS wronged, then surely she is deserving of amelioration and compensation, including a public correction of the record and maybe even an apology from the individuals responsible.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Ms. Tieman’s reputation can be repaired if Calgary Expo, even three years later, is convinced to uphold its contractual obligation to thoroughly investigate this incident and make public its findings. If Calgary Expo refuses, Informa’s reputation can and will be damaged simply by your appearing to endorse and authorize the ongoing egregious and recalcitrant actions of people in your employ. I will do everything in my power to make your inaction public. And unlike the codefendants in this lawsuit, and I won’t have to utter a single false or legally actionable word to do it. You have the power to end this injustice, Informa. An injustice you had no hand in orchestrating, but which you preside over now as the owner of Calgary Expo. You will either choose to do so, which will be to your credit, or you won’t.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Best regards,</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Karen Straughan</span></div>
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girlwriteswhathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01589256798123593486noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1600902089077918514.post-60299368650162764812017-11-16T08:43:00.000-08:002017-11-16T08:43:07.063-08:00My interview with HuffPo reporter Dana Liebelson<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was contacted by a reporter for Huffington Post a few days ago, and gave her an interview by email. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/mens-rights-activists-weinstein_us_5a0c911de4b0b17ffce21306">The article is now up,</a> and I'd like to acknowledge that she was fair in her quoting of my comments. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I would, however, like to post the entire interview here, since very little of what I told her actually made it to print. Her questions/comments are in bluish, my responses are in black:</span><br />
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Hi Karen, I hope you are doing well! I'm a reporter with the Huffington Post, and I'm working on a story talking to Men's Rights Activists & some other folks about the recent wave of women coming forward with sexual harassment and abuse allegations post-Weinstein. (With, as you know, men facing serious professional and personal repercussions.) I wanted to see if you might be able to do a short interview. I'm including my questions below if you prefer email, otherwise let me now if you'd like to set up a time by phone. Thanks so much! Best, Dana </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Hi again Dana. I’m sorry if my answers here are very very long. Like I said, my views on this subject are complicated. I don’t know whether I’ve given you anything you can really work with, but I hope they make my positions clear (even when the positions themselves are muddy). This is not an easy issue. There are women who are genuinely victims of men’s sexual misconduct. There are reasons I support a presumption of innocence and a high burden of proof when people are accused of misconduct. I wish I could be more concise.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Questions: </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">What do you make of the allegations against Harvey Weinstein? Do you think he should have been fired from the Weinstein company or faced any other repercussions regarding the allegations? Why or why not? </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Many of the allegations seem credible, for sure. Certainly, the fact that there’s corroboration from witnesses other than the accusers adds to that credibility. Whether or not the allegations themselves indicate acts that rise to the level of criminal sexual assault or harassment, companies have a moral and legal responsibility to enforce ethical business practices among their employees and officers. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I’m certain there are women in Hollywood who would view the “casting couch” as being of benefit to them—a useful tool of advancement in their careers—and who might be happy extending the offer of sex in a tit for tat exchange of favours. There will be many, many women who do not feel this way. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The existence of this first group of women, and of men like Weinstein who are happy to take them up on the offer, place the latter group of women (who, I would hazard to guess, are more numerous) in the untenable position of being expected to engage in this exchange if they want to forward their careers at all. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Megalomaniacs (narcissistic sociopaths) like Weinstein appears to be seem to see no difference between the "voluntary prostitution” of women who willingly “sleep their way to the top" and “sex trafficking” of unwilling women who just want to earn their way up the ladder. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Unfortunately for everyone, megalomaniacs tend to rise to positions of power (because they actively and often ruthlessly pursue power), and they can make life a living hell for the people who are forced to interact with them. The allegations of his sexual misconduct are only one piece of a more general pattern of his abuse of power, and his abuse of those under his power. He also had a reputation for tyrannical, coercive, vindictive and even physically violent behaviour against both men and women he felt had crossed him. People of both sexes went along with it because to do otherwise would bring his wrath on them. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">As you know, there have been many women coming forward to accuse high-profile men of harassment/abuse since Weinstein, with many of the accused facing job and personal repercussions. What do you make of this trend? </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">It is, indeed, a trend. This is not to say that all of the allegations against other men are frivolous or spurious, though I believe that some of them are likely to be. The more the media sensationalizes the issue, and in particular, the more it finds its way into the outrage mill of social media, the greater the proportion of “bandwagoners” will probably be. The more praise and validation the women who have justifiably come forward receive from the public, the more likely it is that we’ll see others making false claims of victimization. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">For men who make such claims, I necessarily hold less skepticism. This is not because I believe men are more honest than women, but because there is less to be gained from coming forward. I recall Corey Feldman coming forward after Corey Haim’s death, to talk about the “casting couch” that exists for even child actors. He was accused, by Barbara Walters on national TV, of personally “destroying an entire industry” by exposing what had happened to him and others. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Why do you think these women are coming forward now, when they didn't before?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I think it was a simple cost/benefit/risk analysis, just like it was for the people who enabled Weinstein to continue. Some of the women brought legal action against him, signed non-disclosure agreements, collected their payoffs and avoided the reputation annihilation Weinstein was able to inflict. Their willingness to do so perpetuated the culture. From a broader standpoint, they did the wrong thing. From an individual standpoint, perhaps they believed they were doing the only thing they could. It’s clear Weinstein didn’t see these settlements as punitive—to someone with his money and power, they’d be viewed as little more than the cost of getting laid. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">And I suppose I can sit here and say that the victims who took a payoff in return for their silence are partly responsible for all his future victims, and yes, I do believe that’s the case. But I can also look at the position they were in and ask, “would I have been willing to sacrifice everything I’d worked for on the off chance it would end like David and Goliath, rather than with me getting squashed like a bug? Maybe a couple hundred grand in my pocket and a vow of silence is the better option.”</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I think it’s important to note that the Weinstein allegations did not emerge one at a time. Investigative journalists worked on the story for a long time, talking to lots of people (many of them off the record or anonymously), and following a bread crumb trail of sealed settlements and gag orders. The story did not break with just one victim making an accusation about just one incident. The initial story allowed the victims to disclose in safety to someone who believed them, and when public disclosure happened they had the strength of numbers behind them, and the legitimacy of a lengthy NYTimes piece. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">This very brief video, by Steven Pinker, explains why it had to happen the way it did: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLqBmpKCncw"><span class="s2">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLqBmpKCncw</span></a></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Weinstein was clearly a dictator, and he had no qualms whatsoever about picking off dissenters one at a time. You want to bring down a dictator, you need a metaphorical crowd of people assembled in a figurative public square.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">How do you define sexual harassment,</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">That depends. Between individuals of relatively equal status, I believe harassment can only happen if the sexual advances or sexualized language are both unwanted and sustained over some period of time. One unwanted sexual advance that isn’t repeated isn’t enough for me to consider it harassment in such a case. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The elements of Weinstein’s case don’t fit that general profile, but I would still call them harassment. His behaviour was clearly predatory, even if the women still technically had the option of declining his advances. He set things up in such a way as to increase their vulnerability and their perceptions of his power, and lead them to believe that declining his advances was not an option. Paltrow and Jolie were able to do so because they already had lots of credits under their belts and were part of powerful friend/family networks in Hollywood. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Orchestrating a situation in which you intentionally manipulate your victim into believing that they will suffer penalties if they don’t have sex with you, and that you are capable of inflicting those penalties, is also harassment in my mind.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">and what kind of bar do you think should be met in order for it be substantiated? </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The bar will depend on which institution is considering it. If Weinstein were to be criminally prosecuted, I would want the allegations to meet a higher burden because the penalties involved are high. That burden is rightly set lower in a civil court. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I believe companies should investigate such claims before taking punitive action, not only because some claims are spurious but because false accusations can themselves be a method of harassment (sometimes people will use false accusations of harassment to perpetrate harassment). I don’t give Weinstein’s company much credit for firing him, since there’s every indication they knew what was going on and did nothing for years. They only fired him when it became public, which shows nothing good regarding their virtues or their ethics. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">And here’s where it gets tricky. I was sexually harassed by the chef de partie at my workplace when I was a cook at age 21. The guy was, like Weinstein, just 100% toxic altogether, and abusive to LOTS of people. I eventually quit, and applied for Unemployment Insurance. The employer contested the claim, leading me into a four year process of fighting to get my benefits. Why? Because they believed that any substantiated allegation of sexual harassment at their company would reflect poorly on them. They decided it would be more expedient to bury the allegations in mounds of red tape and obstructionism than admit publicly not only that something like that had happened on their watch, but that they had promoted this guy, despite several complaints of general bad conduct (bullying, etc), into a position of authority.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">On the bright side, my daughter (she’s 22) experienced prolonged and repeated unwanted sexual advances and inappropriate touching (of her hair) from an equal status coworker at her job at Walmart. When she brought it to her manager’s attention, they jumped on it immediately. Immediate scheduling measures were undertaken to ensure that she and the guy in question were never working in the same department, and never arriving or leaving at the same time. Within a couple days, they had someone from regional HR in to interview both of them. I attended that meeting with her, and they took her concerns seriously and they also took her requests seriously—she did not want the guy to be fired (he’s an unskilled refugee who speaks little English and comes from a completely different culture), she only wanted the behaviour to stop. It’s been a year, he’s still working there, and she’s had no problems since.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Are there any of these high-profile cases in the last month where you think the accused should have faced repercussions for alleged behavior? If so, please explain when and why.</span> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I think many, if not most or all, of them have faced repercussions. I expect that some of those repercussions might not match the severity of the offence. This is the double edged sword we’re dealing with when allegations like this become a trend (or even fashionable). Weinstein was, from what I’ve ascertained, a serial sexual harasser and sexual predator, as well as a tyrant and a bully. His head should metaphorically roll, and it certainly has in terms of his career and reputation. Does this mean that every man who ever propositioned a woman for casual sex in Hollywood should face the same axe?</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The situation is complicated. Is every rock star who has sex with a groupie who threw herself at him guilty of some type of misconduct? What if the groupie who aggressively pursued a liaison last night feels used afterward? Is he somehow culpable for accepting sex that was enthusiastically on offer last night, because she feels bad about it in the morning? How do we navigate a situation where, cross-culturally, women in general are sexually attracted to powerful men? Is it NEVER okay for a powerful man to engage in sexual behaviour with a woman less powerful than him? Is it only okay if she feels good about herself afterwards? What about office romances that turn into long term relationships or even marriages? Did they all begin with sexual harassment? What about women who intentionally sexualize their appearance at work and then complain when a man looks at them or asks them for a date?</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Do you see this as any kind of culture shift?</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Weinstein’s company was as happy to bury the allegations as my employer was back in 1992, for as long as they could keep them buried. What has happened in Hollywood doesn’t represent a cultural shift in my mind—at least, not in the way my daughter’s complaint to Walmart does.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">A proper cultural shift would mean companies would do what Walmart did: take her allegations seriously when they were made, take immediate, non-punitive action toward prevention of further behaviour, investigate as fairly and expediently as possible, and when a finding was made, take measures to put the offender on notice and stop his behaviour. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">What is being perpetuated in media right now over this Weinstein thing is that the companies involved somehow didn’t realize that this kind of conduct is scummy, gross and harmful. That they thought it was okay. But that’s not the problem. The problem I see is that THEY KNOW THIS KIND OF THING IS WRONG. If they didn’t know it was wrong, they wouldn’t be interested in burying it behind a dozen closed settlements involving monetary payoffs and non-disclosure agreements, and general employee non-disparagement agreements. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The culture has always known that this kind of behaviour is the behaviour of sleaze bags. It’s why Weinstein had to threaten people’s careers to keep it all quiet and ticking along. It’s why his company paid women off to keep them quiet. It’s why the moment the allegations came out, pretty much the entirety of mainstream and social media condemned Weinstein.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The behaviour could only continue if it was hidden from the public. That is because the general culture does NOT see this behaviour as acceptable.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">What I am seeing is kind of the opposite of what many in the media are portraying it as. The sexual victimization of women, by coercion or force, is not normalized. In Hollywood, it was an open secret, but it could only continue as long as it was SOME kind of secret, or if it could be glossed over. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The cultural shift I would like to see is one where such allegations are taken seriously when they are made. By seriously, I don’t mean “believe the victim” and start the lynching. What I would like to see is less emotionality and more due process. If admitting that one of your company directors sexually harassed or coerced women didn’t evoke such public outrage, perhaps more companies would be willing to address the problem. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">There is a stigma attached to this issue that prevents disclosure and the proper and timely addressing of the problem. That stigma is not only the stigma attached to victims, but the stigma attached to perpetrators and their enablers. Considering the sexual victimization of women as a “special” offence worthy of “special” outrage, is in my mind part of the problem. No one wants to believe it happened because it’s so incredibly heinous, but then when the burden is finally met and people are convinced, their reaction is over the top and doesn’t necessarily fit the crime.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">In the United States, the rape of a woman was one of the last non-lethal offences that could get you the death penalty. The severity of the punishment is often a barrier to conviction. If you had to sit on a jury and decide whether a man would go to the gallows, I would hope you’d want to be convinced to a higher degree than if he was facing 18 months in prison. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">How do you see this impacting the movement to end sex discrimination against men and boys? </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">If this helps Corey Feldman and others like him to get media attention on the child actor casting couch and have his allegations taken seriously, I see that as positive. But I see it as more likely to turn into a witch hunt where every allegation of sexual misconduct against a man in Hollywood will require immediate and summary conviction in the court of public opinion. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Please don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful that the media has shed a light on Weinstein’s behaviour and condemned it. But those allegations were subjected to an intense scrutiny prior to publication. Allegations against other men following in Weinstein’s wake will not be subjected to the same scrutiny before being assumed to be genuine. This has been portrayed as a systemic problem in Hollywood, and I believe it is systemic. But once a “systemic” abuse has been exposed (accurately or otherwise), it becomes very easy to assume that anyone accused is by default guilty. After all, they were part of the system. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">If you want to see what I mean, you can read the history of the McMartin daycare Satanic sexual abuse scandal, and how more than a hundred people were prosecuted on no credible evidence whatsoever. The media grabbed the story and portrayed it as systemic and commonplace, an “open secret”, and innocent people were fed into a meat grinder that destroyed lives. Calls for calm, evidence and due process were met with accusations of apologia and the social and professional destruction of the individuals making them.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Do you think this trend is going to impact how men act in the workplace? Why or why not? Do you see that as problematic? </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Of course it will. Men have been taking measures in the workplace to avoid spurious allegations of sexual misconduct for a long time. I have an uncle who was a middle school teacher all his life until his retirement more than ten years ago. He initially scoffed at what I do. Then I asked him, “did you ever meet with a female student or colleague without the door open or someone else present?” He sat for a few moments and thought about it. “Well, of course I never did that. I wouldn’t want to be accused of anything. You always kind of know that’s a possibility if you can’t prove what you were doing at any given time. You always want to have someone there who can back you up.”</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">It had never really occurred to him that this was something he had to do as a man that he wouldn’t have had to do if he wasn’t a man. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Men have reason to feel vulnerable to accusations of sexual misconduct. The more men they see publicly run up a gibbet without due process, the more they will distance themselves from women in the workplace.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">And of course I see this as problematic. I wish Weinstein’s early victims had gone to the DA. I wish the DA had not been in Weinstein’s pocket. I wish that powerful, wealthy people couldn’t buy their way out of trouble. I wish I could say I don’t believe that innocent people will be caught up in the fallout from these revelations. And I wish the men, watching all of this go down and all of these heads rolling, were not correct in seeing the women around them as making them vulnerable to undeserved punishment. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Marie Heinen, defence counsel for Jian Ghomeshi in one of Canada’s most highly publicized sexual assault trials, has gone on record as saying that when we set aside due process, it never ends well for the marginalized. A “lynching culture” may take out a few deserving Harvey Weinsteins, but it will take out a LOT of men who are not deserving, and who don’t have the kind of power and money necessary to defend themselves.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">What's your take on the #MeToo campaign? </span> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">It’s a mass “nodding” session. Campaigns like this are usually well intentioned in their conception, but they turn into a big back-patting party, where no one actually has to do anything but disclose “yeah, I’m a victim too.” It raises awareness, sure, but it doesn’t solve anything. Life, and in particular sex, is more complicated than 140 characters can convey. Nuance doesn’t lend itself to hashtag campaigns. Sloganeering can’t replace rational and fair-minded policy. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">And where are you based, and how would you describe your title & views? </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I’m based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and I describe myself as an anti-feminist and men’s rights activist. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Hi Karen, thanks so much for all of this! I do think it's helpful, and I'll definitely quote from in my story. (To get at the nuance, which you point out.) </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I did have one other question, which you kind of touched upon, but do you think there's going to be any backlash to this wave of women coming forward? (Or are we already seeing it?) And if so, what do you think could spark that backlash, and what do you think it will look like? (I was thinking of the Rebecca Traistor piece today, she wrote: "“You can feel the backlash brewing. All it will take is one particularly lame allegation — and given the increasing depravity of the charges, the milder stuff looks lamer and lamer, no matter how awful the experience — to turn the tide from deep umbrage on behalf of women to pity.") </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Traistor seems somewhat prescient, as far as I’m concerned, although I would have to read her entire piece to understand that last remark (about pity). I suppose it is pitiable if women are complaining about mundane inconveniences, though that’s been around for a long time in some areas of the public discourse. And we have seen #MeToo start to get cluttered up with more trivial stories. We have seen some people in media express annoyance at this for trivializing the issue.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">But a backlash isn’t constructed out of pity, it’s constructed out of anger. There are some parts of the discussion that seem predestined to generate that anger and to justify it.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">“Toxic masculinity.” Whether intentionally or not, and whether it in the technical sense does so or not, this term is perceived to apply a collective blame on all men for the behaviour of men like Weinstein. The “patriarchy” narrative as applied by feminist pundits does nothing to reassure the average man that he is not being blamed, either. If patriarchy is a system where men hold power and women are largely excluded from it, then by extrapolation one must blame men collectively for the harms caused by the system they alone constructed and only they can change.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">“White male entitlement.” Certainly this too appears to implicate all white men in things like Weinstein’s behaviour. Like we saw with some of the pieces on James Damore, those focussing most heavily on the problem being “white guys” are often going to be white men themselves. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">These aspects of the discourse put a lot of men in the position of wasting all their energy on #NotMe rather than #HowCanIHelp, unless, of course, #HowCanIHelp involves bashing other whites guys to make oneself look virtuous and enlightened. Everyone ends up either prosecuting or defending masculinity and, again, nothing useful gets done, because it’s not “masculinity” that made Weinstein into the scumbag he is, nor was it “masculine culture” that informed his various enablers. The culture was created out of absolute power corrupting absolutely, and everyone else going along with it because to do otherwise would mean career annihilation. And as with any violation of moral boundaries, the more often you do it the easier it usually gets.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">And of course, all that needs to happen is for a handful of bandwagoning women to level accusations that turn out to be demonstrably false, and the entire edifice will collapse. If such a thing happens, you might even see a popular toxic femininity narrative born out of it (and no, I wouldn’t object to such a thing). Part of the fragility of this phenomenon is the way it’s been spun in media by people with agendas. When the “experts” assign a cause, and that cause turns out to be bogus, the entire phenomenon ends up discredited. To simplify, reductio ad absurdum: someone says, “Rape is caused by X.” People might reply, “Uh…but X doesn’t exist. And some of the people who claimed rape were lying. Therefore, maybe rape doesn’t exist.” </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">There are genuine measures that can be taken to deal with these problems and help prevent similar ones in the future. Procedural rules can be required of companies when complaints are made, with genuine, balanced investigations being undertaken. NDAs can be prohibited by law when allegations rise to the level of criminal acts. Companies can be forbidden by law to include indiscriminate non-disparagement clauses in their employee contracts that enact penalties over any negative public disclosure, true or not. It can be made functionally as well as technically illegal for any person, no matter how wealthy, to own a district attorney. Sovereign immunity can be put to a legal challenge, and limitations assigned to its protections when DAs either maliciously prosecute or knowingly and with malice look the other way when crimes are being committed.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">None of these measures necessarily involve considering sexual harassment or sexual violence to be uniquely monstrous acts. In fact, some of them depend on people looking at the problem in a calm, rational way, untainted by emotionality. They would help more than just victims of sexual harassment, but also victims of other workplace exploitations and abuses. These are genuine legal and due process fixes that do not compromise the rights of the accused or the dignity of victims. They are concrete and institutional (changes to the law), not amorphous and ephemeral (dismantling “patriarchy”). The former contributes to a culture of dignity and law. The latter contributes to a “lynching culture” where the accusation is the conviction and no one pauses to look around until the bodies have piled up.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I do believe there need to be some structural changes made. I worry that the ones that could be most effective will be overlooked in favour of those that would give angry people hungry for blood immediate satiation. You were accused? Say goodbye to your career and welcome to Social Pariahville, population growing. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">And I suppose if there’s one silver lining for men’s rights in how this has all played out, amid the “brave" Twitter bandwagon hashtag slacktivists, the genuine slime balls who’ve been ousted from their positions of untouchable power, and the petty offenders who’ll be caught up in this bid to purge Hollywood of anyone who’s ever upset a woman… I guess Corey Feldman’s allegations are finally getting some traction. Another former child actor came forward with an allegation, and after a bit of the mainstream media minimizing it, it's being taken somewhat seriously. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">It just makes me sad that it took these allegations against Weinstein regarding his sexual misconduct with adult women to open the door to the public caring about allegations that have been out there for years about the sexual abuse of children in Hollywood. That the Corey Feldmans of the world need to piggyback on the victimization of grown women before anyone was willing to take a serious look at what happened to them, and to their friends, when they were vulnerable children.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Anyway. Sorry this went long again. I’ve probably answered more than you wanted to know. </span></span></div>
girlwriteswhathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01589256798123593486noreply@blogger.com51tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1600902089077918514.post-41727973990245700712017-09-07T13:21:00.001-07:002017-09-07T13:21:44.156-07:00Open letter to Sargon of Akkad<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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So, Sargon of Akkad posted this to his channel the other day. I agree with a lot of his arguments. Yes, if alt right people want to wail about white genocide, maybe they should start having babies. That would be a start, no? On the other hand, I do have some concerns I'd love to hear Sargon's opinions on. I left the following as a comment on his video, but thought I'd put it here for posterity. The comment itself is in blue, and my further thoughts will be in normal text:</div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">My concern, and I hope Sargon will address this, is as follows.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">We have a culture in the west where every group is allowed to play identity politics based on innate characteristics, except for the following: straights, cisgenders, males and whites.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">We also have a culture in the west where every group but the above is protected by legislation, and where institutional discrimination is legally permissible against the above categories.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">We ALSO have a cultural narrative that has been institutionalized in academia, law, politics, news media, social work, education and popular culture that describes the above-named groups as 1) responsible for creating a system that oppresses all other groups; 2) complicit in this oppression not by participation in the system, but by virtue of simply being who they are and therefore benefiting unjustly from said system; 3) uniquely monstrous in historical terms (colonialism, exploitation, slavery, etc); 4) enjoying "unearned privilege" over other groups; 5) uniquely capable of inflicting harm, even when harm is not intended; and 6) in control of everything. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">More than this, group slander against these groups, and even incitement to violence against them ("all men are pigs", "men are scum", "violence has a male face", </span><a class="yt-simple-endpoint style-scope yt-formatted-string" href="https://www.youtube.com/results?q=%23KillAllWhiteMen" style="background-color: white; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none; white-space: pre-wrap;">#KillAllWhiteMen</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a class="yt-simple-endpoint style-scope yt-formatted-string" href="https://www.youtube.com/results?q=%23All" style="background-color: white; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none; white-space: pre-wrap;">#All</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I want for Christmas is White Genocide, etc) is seen as socially and legally permissible. The public discourse actively stirs up animosity and resentment against these particular groups, and promotes narratives that these groups are victimizers and that fear of them based on their biological characteristics alone is justified (m&ms anyone? How about white on black racism and police shootings?).</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The demonization narrative and the legal dehumanizing slander are cultural conditions that precede actual genocides. It doesn't matter if any of it is true. All that matters is that enough people believe it's true and that it is considered legally and socially acceptable to demonize and dehumanize the target group. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I doubt straights, cisgenders and males (as a distinct, homogenous category) are in danger here. Straights and cisgenders will never be a minority. The vast majority of males in a normal society will always have women in their lives who cannot be convinced to lump their own husbands, brothers, fathers, sons, etc, into a group slated for extermination. You just won't be able to convince the average woman to hate ALL men enough to put her OWN men in an oven.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">But whites? None of the above applies to whites. What happens if whites become a minority in their own societies if the demonization narrative and the legalized dehumanizing slander of whites is still seen as socially permissible? If the culture of racial resentment against whites and the narrative of whites being responsible for all the evils of history is still legally permissible? What if this false history that whites are uniquely monstrous and that all other groups are their victims is still taught in schools? What if it is still taught that no matter what a white person does, they can't avoid victimizing other groups because even if they don't participate in the system of white privilege and whites' oppression of everyone else, they still benefit from it and there's nothing they can do to avoid benefiting from it?</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The institutionalized narratives paint whites into a corner they can't escape. Even innocence is no defence for the individual, because they are culpable simply by existing within a system of "white supremacy" that benefits them whether they want to benefit or not. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anti-white sentiment is socially and legally allowed. Inciting hatred, resentment and even violence against whites is also allowed in ways it is forbidden against minorities. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">And then we have Standpoint Theory and Epistemic Privilege. Under this set of theories (taught in all the places you'd expect) the oppressed have the status of "people who should be listened to". The theory describes all relationships as "master/slave", and the slave has epistemic privilege. They are presumed to understand their own and their master's experiences, motivations, intentions, thoughts and beliefs better than their master understands either. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The problem is that the people who subscribe to these theories have assigned master and slave status based on something that can't be changed (skin color, gender, etc), when in reality power DOES change hands. What is to stop those who have been assigned epistemic privilege today from defending their epistemic privilege even when they find themselves in the position of master rather than slave? </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">"I'm oppressed. How do I know? Well, I'm black, therefore oppressed, therefore I have epistemic privilege. This gives me a unique insight into how things work, and using my unique insight that my status as an oppressed person gives me, I can guarantee you I'm still oppressed. Well, of course you don't believe me. You're white. You're only saying that because you want to hold onto your privilege. I know this, because my epistemic privilege puts me in a position to understand your motivations better than you do. And believe me, if I were no longer oppressed, I'd let you know. But I can assure you I am still oppressed and you are still privileged (and privilege is invisible to the person who has it, mind you), and you have to believe me because I have epistemic privilege."</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Don't get me wrong, Carl. I couldn't care less about keeping the "white race" pure. But I've been thinking about all these things, and I'm seriously concerned about what is going to happen if whites ever do find themselves to be a minority in their own countries. If someone wanted to actually orchestrate a genocide, they couldn't do much better than promoting these narratives of collective white original sin, making white-bashing and overt resentment and animosity toward whites socially acceptable (even admirable) and then arranging for whites to be displaced in their own countries by other races. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">If I wanted an actual white genocide to happen, it's what I'd do.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anyway, I honestly don't think there's a mastermind behind all of this. I just think it's the perfect storm of various conditions culminating in a situation that has me seriously worried. I have to wonder if some white nationalists are intuiting this potential state of affairs without really seeing all the dots. Whether they feel something coming that they can't articulate but feel they need to respond to and try to avert. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I know Sargon is aware of most of the stuff I talked about in my comment, and I know he believes it's inherently harmful, divisive and unjust. But I don't know if he's extrapolated the potential outcomes of the combination of all of these things if they were to be played out in previously white majority cultures where whites find themselves unprotected by law or legal precedent, and the targets of a legally and socially acceptable hate campaign. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Would leaving your entire estate to people of color, as that BLM leader he vlogged about suggested whites should do, be enough to remove the stain of original sin and spare your children? Would paying reparations be enough? Is there anything that would be enough to wash a white person clean of their unearned privilege and the blot of having benefited from a system of white supremacy that has uniquely exploited all other groups? How could it, when the system is set up so that you can't help but benefit, and cannot, because of your privilege, even appreciate how you've benefited? </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">All I know is I'm seriously worried about the world my kids are about to inherit. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>girlwriteswhathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01589256798123593486noreply@blogger.com89tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1600902089077918514.post-23641213912523760302017-08-26T15:56:00.002-07:002017-08-26T15:56:21.994-07:00For anyone who's interested...Here's the basic plan for the yard.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0c-wA7AFxnaefneWKv37tW5br6wZkm-igkUygMHXTsyS7Vj6v3d3dhnc7n9eXmPBQavBkef9AVKxftUA6BEz9_Kcwx-VrpE2oUHM0K75tg063cTUUF0xIIS96CQ_56beX4Z1ACUDmw8s/s1600/yard+plans.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1321" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0c-wA7AFxnaefneWKv37tW5br6wZkm-igkUygMHXTsyS7Vj6v3d3dhnc7n9eXmPBQavBkef9AVKxftUA6BEz9_Kcwx-VrpE2oUHM0K75tg063cTUUF0xIIS96CQ_56beX4Z1ACUDmw8s/s320/yard+plans.jpeg" width="264" /></a></div>
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To parse it, we're on a corner lot, subdivided, with no access to the back alley. Our only parking is out on the street, in front of the sidewalk. You can park along the south side (to the right in the drawing), but only if you're prepared to have an average of 2 vehicles totalled every 5 years due to thru traffic from the bar down the road.<br />
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The two trees at the top right corner shade the backyard almost entirely, and the side yard to the left of the house is permanently shaded. We've decided to install a patio throughout. No grass at all. We'll be putting in a shed where we can fit it (the side yard is almost 10 feet wide so we might stick two small sheds along the fence there).<br />
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Back and side yards will have a 6 foot privacy fence. Front yard will have a 4 foot fence that the dog won't be able to jump. A gate will connect the front yard to the back on the left front of the house, but we'll be able to seal front and back off when we want.<br />
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We'll be putting in a parking pad to the south (right). This is ideal, since that's the side of the house with flooding problems during heavy rain (we have a crack in the foundation at the corner of my sons' bedroom window). Concrete sloped away from the house will deal with that problem. Two birds, one stone.<br />
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Walkways from the back and the parking pad to the front door and then down to the sidewalk will be 3 feet wide (wheelchair accessible). We've yet to decide whether we'll do poured concrete or pavers for those. Either way, they'll probably wait until next spring.<br />
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The contractor is grading the property, and will install a base of crush to prep for pavers/concrete everywhere we want them. He's ripping out the old fence and will sink 4x6 posts for a new wooden privacy fence. We'll construct the fence from there and install the pavers ourselves, and we may pour/finish the concrete as well. Almost all of this will have to happen in the spring.<br />
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We'll put in a raised flower bed against the front of the house on the right side in front of the living room window and will probably replace the front porch (which was built by vagabonds) next year.<br />
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I'll cut the rain barrels in half and convert them into planters for herbs, tomatoes and possibly mosquito repellent plants to place on the patio. The wood piled in the corner of the yard will be aged perfectly for a fire bowl once everything is done and ready to use. By the time the backyard is done, it will be a "second living room".<br />
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Front yard will be grass turf and "dog territory". I have a patch of very nice looking, steppable, tiny purple flowers with small, scalloped leaves that I may harvest before they are demolished to augment the lawn.<br />
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Anyway, that's the basic plan for now. It will essentially take our house from the one bringing everyone's property values down to adding 3X the value to our property than we'll spend. And we'll be able to use our barbecue! And maybe enjoy the outdoors without sinking in mud or being eaten alive by mosquitoes living in unmowable grass and weeds growing on soggy, uneven ground that you can't push a lawn mower over.<br />
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And eventually, we'll be able to let our dog out just by opening the door, rather than by putting her on a leash and taking her outside.<br />
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<br />girlwriteswhathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01589256798123593486noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1600902089077918514.post-25782592207714612002017-08-16T23:20:00.000-07:002017-08-18T17:44:15.408-07:00Rex Huppke, the One White Male to Rule Them All.<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I am annoyed. The Chicago Tribune put out an opinion piece on August 11 by Rex Huppke that I just stumbled across today. I wanted to respond and went through the process of signing up and in and writing out a response, and then hit publish only to find out that only paid subscribers are permitted to comment on articles. Tribune, why would you lead people to believe they can comment, and go to the trouble of writing a comment, only to tell them at the last stage that they have to pay for your bullshit rag in order to publish their comment?</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Anyway, I don't like to invest time in nothing, so I decided to respond to the entire article here. The article is reproduced in full, minus any hyperlinks, and appears in the quote boxes.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/huppke/ct-google-diversity-memo-huppke-20170811-story.html"><br /></a></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/huppke/ct-google-diversity-memo-huppke-20170811-story.html">Google bro's diversity memo shows biological failings of white dudes</a></span></span></h4>
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<span class="s1">I've reached a very important conclusion about white men, and I'll get to that soon enough, but first, please repeat after me: Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1">Is your conclusion that white men are perfectly happy throwing other white men under the bus for the sake of mindless virtue signalling? I'm guessing not.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Anyway, as for freedom from consequences, I’m sure that your tune would change if Damore was a woman who had tweeted or written something that angered a bunch of people who then piled on her on social media demanding she be fired. You wouldn't be lecturing her that her speech is not free from consequences. You'd be saying we need to do something about the culture of abuse and harassment online.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Say it again. And again. And if you're one of those aggrieved white guys out there harboring the odd misconception that your voice is being unfairly stifled by "political correctness," say it 15 more times, because it just doesn't seem like this concept has sunk in.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1">If you’re one of those aggrieved feminists out there harboring the odd misconception that your voice is being unfairly stifled by people who disagree with you, or who tell you you suck, or who call you a feminazi, saying it 15 more times. Until you stop having the urge to testify in front of the UN’s Broadband Commission because people who say you suck are silencing you and should be themselves silenced. At least you haven’t been fired, yo. You can keep spouting your unsubstantiated bullshit and all you have to worry about is angry comments full of mean words.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Consider this week's firing of a white, male Google employee who published a 10-page memo about diversity on an internal company forum. The software engineer used 3,000-or-so wholly unnecessary words to claim that there are fewer women in the tech industry because of "biological causes" and that diversity programs "increase race and gender tensions.”</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1">Why is his whiteness and maleness an issue? Shouldn’t his assertions and arguments be the issue?</span></div>
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<span class="s1">who published a 10-page memo about diversity on an internal company forum. The software engineer used 3,000-or-so wholly unnecessary words to claim that there are fewer women in the tech industry because of "biological causes" and that diversity programs "increase race and gender tensions.”</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Those words should have been unnecessary, because they essentially replicate the findings of the psychological, neuro and evolutionary science communities and therefore should be common knowledge. Those words should have been unnecessary because they are supported by the evidence. Quillette has a post up with four scientists' responses to the memo, and none of these scientists contradict the bulk of what was presented in the memo.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">In fact, none of Damore's assertions on sex differences are considered controversial in the scientific community. There is some debate as to how large the differences are, and relevant they may be in particular contexts, but no serious debate as to whether or not they exist. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">I myself am very familiar with the work Damore was drawing on, both in terms of sex differences and in terms of the social/moral psychology involved when a given belief or worldview is politicized or moralized and therefore becomes "unquestionable". </span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">The memo is riddled with sexist stereotypes poorly supported by scientific references that are, at best, dodgy.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1">Your Masters in Journalism makes you scientifically literate enough to judge the references used, their chosen instrument/methodology, their detection of and compensation for potential confounds and biases, weighting, replicability, statistical rigor, effect sizes, etc?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">You’re intimately acquainted with the publications this research has been published in, such as the “Journal of Personality and Social Psychology” or the “British Journal of Guidance and Counselling” or the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” or the “Association for Psychological Science” or the “European Journal of Endocrinology” or the “British Journal of Psychology”?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">I’m guessing you know better than all of the highly educated people who performed and reviewed the research prior to publication. Because journalism is the epitome of scientific literacy.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">You don’t get to just say the research is dodgy. Well, I guess you <i>can </i>just say it, but that doesn’t make it true.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">The only studies I’ve seen that contradict these findings with any sort of attempt at rigor are so methodologically flawed that the methodology was found to have been designed to intentionally avoid detecting sex differences. <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/112/50/15468">Such as feminist Daphna Joel’s</a> study that found male and female brains are “a myth” because it was impossible to “type” brains by examination of their structures with a high enough degree of certainty (despite experts being able to accurately sex MRI scans of brains 70-80% of the time—the other 20-30% being the wrong answers and the “I’m not sures” lumped together).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/298590520_Joel_et_al%27s_method_systematically_fails_to_detect_large_consistent_sex_differences">Researchers criticizing her work</a> fed the morphological facial features of individuals of three species of monkey into her exact methodology, and could only accurately identify the species a given individual 1 to 5% of the time.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p3">
Despite this, Joel's work was widely reported in mainstream media as confirmation that brains are not male- or female-typed, and therefore essentially indistinguishable. Joel has since gone on record in public expressing her astonishment that anyone would be interested in finding and quantifying sex differences, declaring the entire subject "uninteresting", and suggesting that the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSIEs1ngNiU">only reason anyone would look for such differences</a> is to justify discrimination. </div>
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<span class="s1">That there are dimensions of human personality and behavior where sex differences are small, or where there is a lot of overlap, does not negate the fact that on a few key metrics men and women tend to be very, very different, and that these differences can and often do influence their preferences and decisions.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">And it contains repeated statements that the author is all for diversity, is not sexist and eschews stereotypes — statements proven false by the aforementioned poorly supported sexist stereotypes.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1">Well, that would depend on how poorly supported those particular stereotypes are. And they happen to be very well supported across large populations of men and women, and well documented in the literature.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Does this mean that we should discriminate against any individual based on them, at least in terms of employment opportunities? No. And Damore was not arguing that Google should do that, either. He was arguing that Google should be a meritocracy where all individuals are evaluated on things other than their gender, race or other similarly trivial or irrelevant characteristics.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">The reason it’s important to discuss these biological differences is to help us determine whether we are living in a just society that does NOT discriminate. He is quite correct that some of these biological differences will affect people’s interests, preferences and choices as far as occupation and career trajectory.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">And here’s an interesting thing, Rex. There’s substantial evidence that it’s not a lack of math ability that keeps women out of tech so much as a surplus of verbal ability.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1"><a href="http://www.news.pitt.edu/women_STEM">A 2013 longitudinal study</a> published in “Psychological Science” found that regardless of sex, individuals with both the high math ability required for STEM AND high verbal ability were significantly less likely to choose STEM careers than individuals who were only high in math ability. Women with high ability in both areas outnumbered men by 70%. Males were more than twice as likely to have only high math ability than females were. When controlled for the correlation of this pattern and the differences in verbal ability in male and female individuals with high math ability, the gender effect was significantly diminished.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">So basically, when men and women can math good AND can talk and write good, they’re more likely to choose careers other than STEM. (Oh, and just FYI, slower verbal development is correlated with prenatal testosterone, though I do think there are things we can do in schools to help boys learn to talk and write as good as girls, such as providing a greater variety of reading assigments.)</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The engineer is 28-year-old James Damore — reportedly a graduate of the University of Illinois who grew up in the Chicago suburbs — and his MANifesto also slams Google for not being a friendly place for conservatives, which is odd since conservatives spend a good bit of their time mocking the idea of safe spaces.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1">"MANifesto." I see what you did there. Bet you thought you were being witty or something. Perhaps Christopher Hitchens was wrong about the gender “funny” gap? Or maybe this is one of those instances of a gender overlap in unfunniness…<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Anyway, Yes, conservatives mock the idea of spaces specifically designed to exclude opposing viewpoints and maintain a safe cocoon for ideological consensus. In that respect, Damore wasn't asking for a "safe space", because he was not asking for other viewpoints to be excluded. He was asking for his viewpoint and the viewpoints of conservatives to no longer be excluded in the ideological "safe space" Google has constructed. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Not very ironic at all, really.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">He writes: "Alienating conservatives is both non-inclusive and generally bad business because conservatives tend to be higher in conscientiousness, which is require (sic) for much of the drudgery and maintenance work characteristic of a mature company.”</span><br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">So the dude who doesn't believe in stereotypes claims conservatives are more conscientious than everyone else. Perfect.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1">Certain "big five" personality traits correlate heavily with political affiliation. That isn't just "making stuff up", it's well documented in the literature.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">But you being someone who’s intellectually and morally consistent and all, I’m sure you would be just as dismissive and angry if he’d stereotyped liberals as being more open to new things, ideas, experiences, and ways of doing things than conservatives are.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Wait a minute. Damore actually did say that. Quite clearly. And somehow you didn't take issue with it as negatively stereotyping conservatives, let alone positively stereotyping liberals.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">“Well of course liberals are no more openminded regarding change and innovation than conservatives are! That's just a stereotype! Based on dodgy science! Openminded people would never be more likely to align with liberal political ideologies and closed-minded ones with more conservative politics. Stop with these awful stereotypes!” said no pompous, self-congratulatory liberal asshole anywhere.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">So you tell me why you didn't criticize his description of right-leaning people as "closed", but only took issue with him describing them as "conscientious"? Perhaps you just don't like the idea that there are positive traits associated with conservatism or that some positive traits don’t correlate with liberalism?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">If you care to read the full memo, you can find it online, though you'll likely sprain an ocular muscle rolling your eyes.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Actually, I found it to be factual, coherent, well-reasoned and well-evidenced. (Well, it was better-evidenced before left leaning editors on Wikipedia began to dismantle the pages he linked to.)</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Also, another joke fell flat. The attempt at proper grammar and terminology ruined it, and the hilarious thing is, it’s not even anatomically correct. You don’t sprain muscles, you sprain ligaments</span></div>
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<span class="s1">My take — as a white, male who, for whatever reason, is not part of the aggrieved brommunity</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Really? You’re not aggrieved? Because this article reads as more of an uninformed, knee-jerk “screed” than Damore’s “MANifesto” could even pretend to. And “brommunity”? Really? This guy strikes you as a “dudebro”?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqQsQcU_ymmSZD4If2nhCn_akPXAQJ7lk1bmxvOxuf6EOca9tgf5DfztwkZegD0yql2e1TJcsUnIRmxdUW2Yn0ijHo3l_xYeuTlx4G_lxSwn5brMMxtADlhbNt6Lq-OqpnLO7WajaSXYU/s1600/damore.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="586" data-original-width="1042" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqQsQcU_ymmSZD4If2nhCn_akPXAQJ7lk1bmxvOxuf6EOca9tgf5DfztwkZegD0yql2e1TJcsUnIRmxdUW2Yn0ijHo3l_xYeuTlx4G_lxSwn5brMMxtADlhbNt6Lq-OqpnLO7WajaSXYU/s320/damore.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">James Damore: last seen benching Hooters waitresses, shouting, “work out by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day!”</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>— is that the Google engineer's word barf is insufferable,</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Maybe this is part of that gender personality overlap thing. “Insufferable”? Do you need a fainting couch, Rex? Did his arguments give you the vapors? Were you so scandalized that a man could say such at thing that you had the sudden urge to fan yourself and hit him with your reticule? Because I didn’t find his thesis (which is what it was) to be word barf. I certainly didn’t find it insufferable.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">unquestionably insulting to women</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1">I’m a woman. I didn’t find any of it insulting. I found it thoughtful and factual. So did Dr. Debra Soh, a woman of color who writes about the politicization of sex. On the other hand, I find your insistence on taking umbrage on my behalf, and hers, and other women like us, insulting. You don’t know me. You don’t know every woman on the planet. You don’t know what any given woman is going to find insulting.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Assuming that women as a group would be insulted by this memo is more gender essentialist than anything Damore said. You are literally saying women are so essentially the same we would all react the same way to what was contained in the memo.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">(and pretty much any non-white person)</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Hmmm. <a href="http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-respond/">Debra Soh</a> isn’t white. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gad_Saad">Professor Gad Saad,</a> who would also broadly agree with the memo, is an Arab Jew.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">And frankly, Damore barely mentioned race. Race was only relevant to his memo inasmuch as diversity measures also seek to improve racial diversity at places like Google, and the methods being used—namely, implicit/unconscious bias training—have been shown in the research to not only be ineffective at that, but to have the negative effect of increasing tensions between identifiable groups.</span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">and the epitome of white, male privilege.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1">If he had any kind of effective “white male privilege” he’d be able to write an uninformed, snarky, completely unsubstantiated screed, even in a distinguished publication like the Chicago Tribune, without being lambasted, smeared and mischaracterized in the mainstream press and then fired. Instead, the opposite happened to our privileged white male dudebro.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">And I’m not even going to blame the fact that you can be this incompetent and wrong and still have a job on “white male privilege”. I’m going to blame it on ideological privilege. The current media, political and corporate culture predominantly supports an ideology that is opposed to the very notion that men and women might have some fundamental differences in personality and preference that are measurable across large populations.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">You know, you guys believe that evolution stopped at the neck. That you are wrong and bordering on batshit insane appears to be immaterial to you.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">And with all that said, he absolutely, without question, had every right in the world to write what he wrote.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1">Yes he did. So kind of you to make that observation.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">Just like Google had every right to fire his white, male butt for, I assume, violating all manner of company standards and for just being an all-around turd. (I would've fired him just for thinking anyone would want to read a 10-page memo in the first place.)</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1">You know, I just went and did a ctrl-f on your article, and found at least 16 instances of “white male”, “white man”, “white-dude”, "white guy", etc. You sure seem to have a hard on for white guys. Maybe it’s because you suffer from “one good man syndrome” and feel an impulse to bash other men (and thereby distinguish yourself as the one good one), and the only men you’re allowed to bash these days are white? You must have jizzed in your pants when it came out that Damore wasn’t of Pakistani origin.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Be that as it may, Damore has grounds to sue Google under two federal laws and at least one state law. And if I were your boss, I’d fire you for writing an opinion piece on a controversial topic that makes no effort to support said opinion with evidence or reasoning, and that broadly mischaracterizes the topic itself. But alas, I’m not your boss.</span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">There will surely be legal action, and maybe he'll wind up prevailing. But Google was right to can him, and that canning isn't an attempt to curtail his freedom of speech.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1">No. It was an attempt to keep Google’s workplace ideologically pure, and an attempt to send a very clear warning to anyone else who might have heretical ideas to keep their heads down and their mouths shut rather than offer an opinion, no matter how well reasoned and evidenced, on how to improve the company. It was also a concession to the maniacs in the press who had so vilified and smeared Damore, and so thoroughly misrepresented what he’d said to the public, that Google felt keeping him as an employee would subject the entire company to the same treatment.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">50% of Google employees responding to a poll disagreed with Google’s decision to fire Damore. That doesn’t mean they agree with what was contained in Damore’s memo, mind you. They disagree that him thinking those things, or writing them down and circulating them, was a fireable offence.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
<span class="s1">He can say or write whatever he wants. But the things he says and writes might come with consequences, particularly when he's sharing his words on an internal company forum.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1">He wrote and circulated the memo a month before he was fired. No higher-ups even took him to task for it. He wasn’t fired until after the memo leaked to the public and the press began its spin game.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">If the memo itself didn’t raise a stir until it became public, then perhaps it’s the individual who leaked the memo to the press who should be canned.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">This isn't a First Amendment issue.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Of course it’s not. Google is not the government. Yet. That doesn’t make it not a free speech issue. Just like pro-life protesters showing women photos of aborted fetuses on the steps of Planned Parenthood isn’t a “right to abortion issue”. Those women going into the clinic still have a right to abortion, right? No matter who is standing on either side of them, and what message they’re conveying via words and imagery, as those women walk up the steps.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Somehow I have the feeling you’d disagree.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">The government isn't interfering with anybody's right to free speech. Still, many white guys have rushed to the Google bro's defense, crying about how put upon they are because they're never allowed to speak their minds.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">I’d say being fired for speaking your mind in a perfectly reasonable way, and presenting scientific evidence that is perfectly non-controversial in the scientific community, in response to an official request for feedback on a topic, is kind of the definition of “put upon”.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Also, has the guy used the word “swole” while I wasn’t looking? Has he asked anyone “do you even lift, bro?”? Has he yelled, “YOLO swag!” out the window of his Camero while driving twice the speed limit through a residential neighborhood? Why do you keep characterizing him as a bro?</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">If you are a white guy in America, you are not put upon. And if you feel put upon, it's because you can't be bothered to put yourself in another person's shoes for half a minute and try to understand what being put upon actually looks like.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Oh, I know. The privileged white guy narrative is intoxicating to a lot of white guys like you at the top. I mean, it must be very comforting to think that your race and your gender protects you from bad things and gives you an edge over the competition. And it also gives you something to bash the rest of the competition with. “I’m a white guy, and I’m nothing like all those other white guys. They’re BAD. I’m GOOD.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Anyway, I seem to recall Damore saying something about men being more driven that women in terms of status seeking. What does the white male privilege narrative do for some men other than give them the illusion of high status? I mean, you have all this white male privilege, Rex. It’s almost like inheriting money instead of having to earn it, and as long as the illusion holds, as long as everyone still agrees that the currency is valid, well, you’re sitting pretty, aren’t you? Especially if you can portray yourself as spending your currency on philanthropy and all those other white males are spending theirs on racism and sexism and whining about their lot in life.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">If you're griping about political correctness, you're really saying you're annoyed because you can't be flip with your language and say things that might offend other people.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">You offend me, Mr. Huppke. Your article offends me. It insults me. If I were a feminist, I’d call it one long “mansplanation” about how I as a woman am supposed to feel, think and behave. Nothing in Damore’s memo stereotyped me personally as thin-skinned, prone to negative emotion, quick to take offence and incapable of handling difficult truths. YOU did that when you declared by some “one good man fiat from on high” that I, as a woman, was unquestionably insulted by his memo.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">The pros and cons and the implementation of diversity programs can and should certainly be discussed openly,</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Really. Really? The pros and cons of diversity programs can and should be discussed openly, as long as people who disagree with them are okay with being misrepresented and smeared in the press and then fired. Really sets the tone for an “open discussion”.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> Or is it only as long as they're not white males? Which would essentially render your opinion invalid. </span></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
<span class="s1">but a self-righteous screed that's blind to anyone else's point of view isn't a discussion.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">I would challenge anyone to read Damore’s memo and actually defend the idea that it was self-righteous or a screed. Do it. Give it the treatment I’ve given your article. Paragraph by paragraph, even line by line.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Your diatribe here fits that bill much more aptly. You haven’t provided any evidence for your opinion. You haven’t even told us why you object to his memo, other than “muh stereotypes!” and “white male, reeeeeeeee!” You haven’t refuted any of his arguments other than to say “he’s white and he’s male and he’s a “bro”, therefore he’s wrong.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">It's a white guy mansplaining to female and non-white coworkers how diversity should work,</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">As a female, I’d rather have his mansplaining than yours. His mansplaining is firmly rooted in the science. Your mansplaining is rooted in the assumption that I and all other women should be offended by reality.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">and the very existence of that kind of thinking is why companies need diversity training.</span></blockquote>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">To get bitches like me in line? The very existence of that kind of thinking? Really?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Because I think like that, Mr. Huppke. A bisexual working class woman who’s apparently more acquainted with the science than you are. Do you think I need to be reeducated? To what lengths are you willing to go to cram me back into my victim box where I belong?</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">It's not a liberal or a conservative concept. It's a human concept,</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">What’s a human concept? That all people are identical? That there are no heritable differences between individuals or groups? That people should be treated as individuals and hired based on merit rather than their membership in a given class of people defined by skin color, or genitalia, or who they like to fuck, or god forbid, whether they use edgy, made-up pronouns? That people should have equal opportunities and the freedom to decide what to do with them, and that sometimes women will choose differently from men? That evolution didn’t stop at the neck? That having a greater interest in people or aesthetics does not make a person, or even a class of people on average, inferior to people who have a greater interest in things or ideas? That equality doesn’t equal sameness? That it takes all sorts? That despite the ways we’re different, we should value each other as humans and judge each other as individuals?</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Or is it a human concept that there is only one path to value and self-actualization—the one favored by males? That the idea that people might be born different from each other must mean some have greater value and some have lesser? That we must therefore deny the idea that people are born different and punish anyone who suggests it? Is it a human concept that women are a hive mind, devoid of any opinion that doesn’t originate in our chromosomes or our vaginas, that we all think and feel the same, and that our opinions should first and foremost be that we are insulted by any HINT of a suggestion that we are not identical to men?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I mean, who's hating or devaluing women here, Mr. Huppke? A guy who acknowledges how they’re different on average from men, places positive value on many of those differences, and recommends that Google can appeal more to women by appealing to those differences? Or someone like you who claims that any suggestion that women aren’t 100% identical to men is an insult to women?</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">one that only requires the humility to acknowledge that you might not understand what it's like to be another person.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">You do realize that not even all white guys are the same, right? I mean, I suppose on some level you have to understand that, since you’re the “one good one”, while the rest are all privileged dudebro assholes. But what makes <i>you</i> an expert on other people’s experiences, Rex? You certainly don’t seem to have one clue as to how a woman like me thinks and feels. And yet you’re the one speaking on behalf of all women.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">Now let me get to the conclusion promised at the beginning of this column. This may prove controversial, but I'm sure my fellow white men will agree that I have every right in the world to share this conclusion, because white-dude thoughts are always worth sharing:</span></blockquote>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">You have every right to say stupid things, sure. But not because you’re a white dude. Because you’re a human being and you live in a country that values freedom of speech.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
<span class="s1">Some white men are not biologically suited to writing memos about diversity.</span></blockquote>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">And that white man’s name is apparently Rex Huppke.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">They are too neurotic and tend to perform better in bubbles in which their sense of dominance is reinforced by other neurotic white men. These white men also tend to be overly emotional, particularly when fired for writing diversity memos, and can become hysterical when held accountable.</span></blockquote>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Um… I would challenge you to watch all the interview footage of James Damore. He comes across as analytical and humble, and quite sanguine about the situation. There’s less hysterical emotionality in all of that footage than in this not quite 900 word article.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Your position is indefensible, Rex.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">This is not to say I am opposed to diversity in diversity memo writing. This particular subset of white men is capable of working in supporting roles, possibly supplying a company's more biologically qualified women or people of color with printer paper, or perhaps procuring coffee for them while they write sensible diversity memos.</span></blockquote>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">“Sensible” diversity memos that may or may not be backed by the scientific literature. I mean, I’m sure there are women and people of color out there who are perfectly capable of looking at the relevant science and constructing a thesis and list of suggestions that are both fair and workable. I suspect that they’d look a lot like James Damore’s memo.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Because, and I know this is going to sound weird, Rex, but not all white men think the same. Not all people of color think the same. Not all women think the same.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Here is a short list of examples of women and people of color who disagree with you, Rex.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsGOduPsjEo">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsGOduPsjEo</a></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2A9o_9BC3Q">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2A9o_9BC3Q</a></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BMt7pnmabQ">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BMt7pnmabQ</a></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwJ5_MUTU_g">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwJ5_MUTU_g</a></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu_qOCfpC6U">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu_qOCfpC6U</a></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2"><a href="https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/no-the-google-manifesto-isnt-sexist-or-anti-diversity-its-science/article35903359/?ref=https://www.theglobeandmail.com&service=mobile">https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/no-the-google-manifesto-isnt-sexist-or-anti-diversity-its-science/article35903359/?ref=https://www.theglobeandmail.com&service=mobile</a></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2"><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/08/08/googler-fired-diversity-memo-had-point-researchers-agree/548518001/">https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/08/08/googler-fired-diversity-memo-had-point-researchers-agree/548518001/</a></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd5oa-Xmztg">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd5oa-Xmztg</a></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si2noqjVBOc&t=296s">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si2noqjVBOc&t=296s</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.gurianinstitute.com/blog--newsletter/lets-use-hard-science-to-help-tech-companies-advance-women">http://www.gurianinstitute.com/blog--newsletter/lets-use-hard-science-to-help-tech-companies-advance-women</a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzaZabUUdR8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzaZabUUdR8</a></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
<span class="s1">But attempts to encourage white men to write diversity memos is clearly social engineering run amok. We must respect the differences in our DNA and the skill sets our biology have clearly predetermined.</span></blockquote>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Because white and male are excluded from the definition of diversity now. A “diverse” workplace is one that only concerns itself with women and people of color. And it certainly doesn’t concern itself with diversity of thought. That would be blasphemy, wouldn’t it?</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">Let's stay in our lanes, shall we?</span></blockquote>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Yeah, no thanks. I’m happy to choose my lane for myself, Mr. Huppke.</span></div>
girlwriteswhathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01589256798123593486noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1600902089077918514.post-26321665624786567352017-07-04T12:18:00.002-07:002017-07-04T12:33:13.077-07:00Open comment to Liana K<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "youtube noto" , "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is the text of a comment I left on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImrrqrlVRa8&lc=z12keb14uszju1f1t22og1vqoqz1fl1pg04">Liana Kerzner's video response to me.</a></span><br />
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I have been informed that the comment is not visible, despite the url linking directly to my comment. Here is what it looks like to me (note the flair "highlighted comment"):<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5me-0TOcPTfvJlYbzTuU0_pa-jAxGvqMuYOmPSkbKt6nQEu6jexE5ATAlruGcv9G6JAzrf4IJUOp9sverfOq1RIJk5e0RartBA8yDFRx2IWikkgs_EUtzP3tjpOmjXflBT43EJQDMlT4/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-07-04+at+12.40.12+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="708" data-original-width="862" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5me-0TOcPTfvJlYbzTuU0_pa-jAxGvqMuYOmPSkbKt6nQEu6jexE5ATAlruGcv9G6JAzrf4IJUOp9sverfOq1RIJk5e0RartBA8yDFRx2IWikkgs_EUtzP3tjpOmjXflBT43EJQDMlT4/s320/Screen+Shot+2017-07-04+at+12.40.12+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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Here is what the exact same url looks like to other people:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpGe3BekB0iisn8BVHvFY4Q0Ifvl_jtR0Qw-fiZzNn8GGMrfYojGCTmS8p8PwidIATCbNMfkZM-QfsyHDJO32slPAjzm0Joc3v5XZtf8PMh1OjGwCkmMy5wbBb4tghwaUZJiw6xoeKlpk/s1600/Lianaforkaren.PNG.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="1366" height="163" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpGe3BekB0iisn8BVHvFY4Q0Ifvl_jtR0Qw-fiZzNn8GGMrfYojGCTmS8p8PwidIATCbNMfkZM-QfsyHDJO32slPAjzm0Joc3v5XZtf8PMh1OjGwCkmMy5wbBb4tghwaUZJiw6xoeKlpk/s320/Lianaforkaren.PNG.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "youtube noto" , "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "youtube noto" , "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "youtube noto" , "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now, I don't know whether my comment, which contained two links, ended up in her spam filter, or whether I'm now blocked from commenting on her channel. But I will put the text of my comment here so everyone can see it:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "youtube noto" , "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "youtube noto" , "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: red;">EDIT: it has come to my attention that a different test comment I left is indeed visible to other people, so the following comment being invisible is almost certainly not due to any nefariousness on the part of Liana K. That being said, I still do want people to see this comment. </span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "youtube noto" , "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "youtube noto" , "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "youtube noto" , "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; white-space: pre-wrap;">First thing: My dog recently died while I was overseas, a horrible situation in which my 14 year old son was mostly left with the burden of dealing with her sudden illness, even more sudden death and the necessity of dealing with her remains, without me here to help him with his grief. And well, she was my dog for 10 years, and I'm also still grieving. Also, two close friends of mine have been diagnosed with cancer in the last week, and one of them has been given a month to live. And despite my best efforts to try to revive my thyroid gland and get it working properly, I'm still finding myself with almost no appetite or energy and needing sleep in the afternoons.
But please, don't anyone take this statement as me trying to engage your sympathies. :/
Liana, you did demand an apology from me, as a condition of coming on a radio show I almost certainly wouldn't have even been participating in. It was a requirement you put out, before you would even come to the table and talk with people who are NOT me. Below are some quotes from our exchange:
"I was more than willing to talk to you as long as it seemed like you were approaching it in good faith. That was the purpose of the apology. I didn't get it, Allison told me I would not be getting it, and so I didn't think any ensuing conversation would be productive for obvious reasons."
Yeah. So in order for you to be willing to talk to BRIAN on an HBR Fireside Chat in which I wouldn't even be present, you demanded an apology FROM ME over my comments about you, comments I made as myself and not as a representative of HBR. You essentially told HBR, "make her apologize, or I won't come on your show. It's either her or me."
That's a demand.
Not only this, as far as I know you didn't even tell them what I had said about you that required this apology.
To my knowledge, THIS is the comment I made for which you were demanding an apology. </span><a class="yt-uix-servicelink " data-servicelink="CNEBELZ1IhMIv7zUgqjw1AIVBNlOCh1lqACLKPgd" data-target-new-window="True" data-url="http://imgur.com/a/b9lc4" href="http://imgur.com/a/b9lc4" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #167ac6; cursor: pointer; font-family: "YouTube Noto", Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">http://imgur.com/a/b9lc4</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "youtube noto" , "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
Here is what I said about your statements on Lauren's show:
"She and I were guests on Lauren Southern's Rebel Media show about a year ago to discuss the Jian Ghomeshi case as well, and her assertions and arguments there were... astoundingly inaccurate and betrayed a stunning ignorance of the criminal justice process and how it's supposed to function. She spoke with confidence and authority while making assertions that were entirely factually inaccurate (such as claiming that in the US, unlike in Canada, the prosecutor acts as a legal representative of the complainant. Uh, no. In the Canadian system, the prosecutor represents the Crown, in the US the prosecutor represents "the people", not the complainant or victim)."
Here is what you said in response to that:
"And since that Lauren Southern episode is still behind a paywall, people can't see it for themselves. They have to take your word regarding what I said, and you're hardly an impartial judge. You're somewhat misrepresenting the nuance and context of what I was saying, which was that demands by activists for additional advocacy for victims would be redundant. The Crown is pursuing charges on behalf of the accuser. The accuser should not need protection from the Crown. I don't understand why you're picking a fight here. I believe the right verdict was reached based on how the case was tried. There's no disagreement between us here, and yet you're making it sound like there is by throwing out a reference with very little context."
Christ sake, even in your defence of what you said, claiming I misrepresented you, you get it wrong. The Crown (or the DA in the US) is pursuing charges on behalf of </span><span style="background: rgb(255 , 255 , 255); border: 0px; font-family: "youtube noto" , "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">the people,</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "youtube noto" , "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> not the accuser.
"I still think you cross the line when you attack a person's characteristics which they cannot control,"
I apologized in my video for what I said about your voice. I apologized for how I worded the one comment that someone (not you) provided so that I would know what I was supposed to be apologizing for. I clarified that I was not apologizing for saying that half the stuff you say is BS. I uploaded my critique of your appearance on Standoff for two reasons:
1) as a justification for my refusal to apologize for saying half of what you say is BS. MORE than half of what you said in that interview was misinformed, bogus, inaccurate, etc.
2) to demonstrate to people that your suggestion that I was taking you out of context thinking I could get away with it because the video was behind a paywall and people can't check for themselves, was bogus. You made a false accusation (or, I suppose, more appropriately, false </span><span style="background: rgb(255 , 255 , 255); border: 0px; font-family: "youtube noto" , "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">insinuation</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "youtube noto" , "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; white-space: pre-wrap;">) about me, and I wasn't going to allow that to stand.
"and you've said some other choice things about me that weren't just harsh."
I won't consider apologizing for them until I know what they are.
"They were assumptions about my motivations that you could not possibly know, and your "proof" of your assertions was essentially layman's psychoanalysis. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and your opinion is not evidence."
I won't consider apologizing for them until I know what they are. Show me what I said and the context in which I said it, and I will consider it.
I asked you in that thread, multiple times, for context regarding the one comment a third party had linked to. I wanted to know where I'd left that comment. What, specifically, was I commenting on. The person who'd made the video was finally kind enough to link it to me. </span><a class="yt-uix-sessionlink spf-link " data-sessionlink="itct=CNEBELZ1IhMIv7zUgqjw1AIVBNlOCh1lqACLKPgd" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJR2XCxs8Ls&t=0s" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #167ac6; cursor: pointer; font-family: "YouTube Noto", Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJR2XCxs8Ls</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "youtube noto" , "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
He'd made it unlisted because it contained more "pwnage" than he was going for with his channel overall, but has recently unlisted it because of this controversy. I would suggest people go give it a listen, and ask themselves whether my comments about your delivery were completely out of line in the context in which I was making them.
Now you are perfectly entitled to be as satisfied or dissatisfied with my apology as you wish. And you're perfectly welcome to bring to my attention, in their full context, whatever else I've said about you that you believe is worthy of an apology.
But I will not apologize for being right and pointing out how you are wrong. I will not apologize for defending myself against your insinuations regarding dishonesty on my part. I will not apologize for things I have not said (for instance, I won't apologize for calling YOU functionally retarded, because I didn't). And I will not apologize for not apologizing in the exact way you wanted me to apologize.
Like it or don't. This is the best you're ever going to get out of me. If I would not demand an apology from someone if the situation were reversed, I will not give them the apology they demand.</span>girlwriteswhathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01589256798123593486noreply@blogger.com102tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1600902089077918514.post-8658458336099014372017-04-03T09:54:00.002-07:002017-04-03T19:51:47.632-07:00To the management of the Plaza Theatre in Calgary<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1" style="color: #cc0000;">UPDATE: Success! The screening is back on. The Plaza changed its mind. Yay!</span><br />
<span class="s1"><br /></span>
<span class="s1"><br /></span>
<span class="s1"><br /></span>
<span class="s1">https://www.facebook.com/theplazacalgary/posts/10154221115476854</span><br />
<span class="s1"><br /></span>
<span class="s1"><br /></span>
<span class="s1">To the management of the Plaza Theatre,</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1">My name is Karen Straughan. I’m a men’s advocate located in Edmonton, and am featured in the movie The Red Pill, which was to be screened at your theatre tomorrow evening. I am told that you’ve changed your mind, in part because of feedback such as this comment written by Felicity Hart on Facebook.</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">To The Plaza theatre;</span></blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">As a fan and long time patron, I am concerned at the upcoming rental of your theatre to Father’s Rights Alberta for the screening of The Red Pill. The film claims to be supporting mens rights but is in fact created and promoted by Mens Rights Activist groups, which actively seek to get rid of equal rights for women and minorities, and are considered a hate group by the southern poverty law centre; an organization which tracks hate groups such as soldiers of odin, the kkk and nazi and fascist organizations in North America. </span></blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">It is deeply concerning that your venue would care more about revenue than the safety of those attending your theatre, and of women in general in Calgary. Not only can I and my friends and family not in good conscience ever attend a venue which supports hate speech, but I know I and other women cannot feel safe in a venue that plays host to men who actively advocate for rape, brutalization, and violence against women (examples of this behaviour can be found on the southern poverty law centre website, or by googling mra abuse, or Paul Elam, who is the main subject of the film you are screening).</span></blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">While I understand the group is obscure and the theatre may not have known, they are a hate group, and I doubt the theatre would host the KKK or a holocaust denier group.</span><br />
<span class="s1">I encourage you to cancel the screening instead of supporting hate and abuse against women, and look forward to being able to safely attend the theatre in the future if this is the case.</span></blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">-Thank-you!</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"></span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"></span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"></span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"></span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s1">I’m writing to you to ask you to reconsider cancelling the screening. I am unsure whether people like Ms. Hart are intentionally lying, or simply repeating falsehoods they’ve read on blogs and elsewhere with the sincere belief that they are true. I must inform you that whatever the case, a great deal of what Ms. Hart says in her comment is simply untrue.</span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s1">The Southern Poverty Law Center did indeed publish some articles pointing out examples of “misogynistic” content on several websites in what they described as the “manosphere”. However, they were forced to post a clarification after feminists and others took these articles as an official listing of these websites as “hate sites”, and the broader men’s rights community as a “hate group”. They have repeatedly indicated that 1) they made no such claim that these groups are hate groups, nor have they made any such claim in the interim; 2) that websites such as A Voice for Men, despite some objectionable content, highlight very serious issues of injustice and discrimination faced by men and boys. </span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s1">“It should be mentioned that the SPLC did not label MRAs as members of a hate movement; nor did our article claim that the grievances they air on their websites – false rape accusations, ruinous divorce settlements and the like – are all without merit. But we did call out specific examples of misogyny and the threat, overt or implicit, of violence.”</span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s1">https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2012/05/15/intelligence-report-article-provokes-fury-among-mens-rights-activists</span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s1">I have been involved in this movement since 2010, and have spoken at and attended many events hosted by various organizations and groups within the movement. Without exception, the individuals at these events are warm, kind, decent people with genuine concern for fairness and justice. </span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s1">During my tenure as a leading voice in the movement, I have seen the movement slandered in social media, on blogs and in the mainstream media, via false associations with mass murderers like Elliot Rodger or white nationalist groups. </span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s1">Rodger was described as being influenced by the men’s rights movement by a single, pseudonymous blogger/journalist at The Daily Kos, despite there being no evidence he was even aware of the movement. The rest of the mainstream media took the claim at face value and ran with it. Pretty soon, the claims being made all over social media were that Rodger was an active MRA. While this may be a case of the media being careless with fact-checking, the next example cannot be described as such. </span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s1">http://m.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/24/1301671/-Elliot-Roger-Gunman-in-California-Mass-Shooting-was-influenced-by-the-Men-s-Rights-Movement</span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s1">ABC’s 20/20, in advance of a planned in-depth expose on Paul Elam, published a “teaser article” in which a viciously misogynistic comment glorifying violence was quoted and described as “commonplace” on Elam’s website. The only problem is that the only place on Elam’s website where that comment existed at the time the article was written was in a post where Elam used it as an example of the types of comments that would not be tolerated, wherein he warned readers that any such talk on his site would get the culprit permanently banned. ABC was forced to print a clarification regarding the quoted comment. </span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s1">Please note, the only place the authors of the teaser article could have gotten that quote was from an article by Paul Elam describing it and similar comments as completely unacceptable and a bannable offence. That’s not a journalist too busy to fact-check. That’s a journalist engaging in obvious dishonesty. </span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s2"><a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/women-battle-online-anti-women-hate-manosphere/story?id=20579038">http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/women-battle-online-anti-women-hate-manosphere/story?id=20579038</a></span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s1">When Wild Rose on Campus attempted to hold a screening of The Red Pill in Calgary not long ago, the screening was cancelled amid a media furore over the phrase “feminism is cancer”. A Women’s Studies professor at UofC, Rebecca Sullivan, was invited onto a CBC Calgary news program to “inform” the public about what MRAs are really all about.</span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s2"><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/mra-political-parties-1.4016680">http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/mra-political-parties-1.4016680</a></span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s1">Some interesting quotes from her interview:</span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s1">“[Describing MRAs] ‘If only we could just have sex with whoever and whatever we want, whenever we want, then maybe we wouldn't have to rape you’… They are banking on decent Canadians not understanding what they are saying and we need to understand what is being said.”</span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s1">I certainly know that when I am arguing in favor of legally protecting boys from genital cutting the way we protect girls, or that we need to deal with the decline in educational attainment for boys, what I really mean is that I want any man who walks by to have the right to have sex with me, right then and there in the dairy section of my local Safeway if he wants to. I know when I’m arguing for shared custody following divorce, or for preserving due process in criminal courts, what I’m really saying is that any and all men deserve the right to sex with my daughter when she’s walking home from the bus stop. </span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s1">Professor Sullivan’s claims were so patently ridiculous, it would be jaw-dropping to me if I wasn’t so accustomed to it. And the fact that the interviewer never once challenged Sullivan on any of her outlandish and, frankly, slanderous assertions would have completely annihilated my trust in the mainstream media if I had a single shred of it left. That this woman is considered an “expert” on gender issues, employed by a university to teach this drivel to students is, in all honesty, horrifying to me.</span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s1">I am a mother of three children, two of them grown and one in his teens. I would never support a movement interested in oppressing or marginalizing my daughter, let alone act as a leader within such a movement. I would never support a movement advocating to take away my own rights. </span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s1">You are in a difficult position here, I realize. The men’s rights movement is controversial, and this particular film is controversial because of that. </span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s1">But if you are going to cancel a screening of a movie that received three awards, including Best in Festival, at the Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema, a film produced and directed by a feminist woman, I want you to know exactly what you are basing your decision on: lies, ignorance and blatant fear mongering. </span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s1">Oh, and just for your information, here is the director/producer discussing the film. Just so you know exactly who has these boycotters in a state of terror:</span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<br />
<div class="p3">
<span class="s1">http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/red-pill-director-cassie-jaye-1.4034578</span></div>
girlwriteswhathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01589256798123593486noreply@blogger.com123tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1600902089077918514.post-60930343361542957882017-01-14T20:09:00.002-08:002017-01-14T20:09:24.215-08:00Update: Rumors of the Badgers' Defeat Have Been Wildly ExaggeratedFirst, the good news:<br />
<br />
The Motion for Summary Dismissal brought by Calgary Expo and The Mary Sue was dismissed by a judge on Friday morning (January 13). This was the case for all four causes of action: injurious falsehood and incitement to breach of contract against The Mary Sue, and injurious falsehood and breach of contract against Calgary Expo.<br />
<br />
This case will be going forward, under all four causes of action.<br />
<br />
The bad news:<br />
<br />
It took a essentially full day in court to hear arguments for and against a Summary Judgment to dismiss the case, which left insufficient time in the schedule to actually hold the trial.<br />
<br />
The judge, after having read the Statement of claim, and reviewed the various affidavits (2 submitted by defence to support their Motion, 1 submitted by Alison in response), and having glanced over the Exhibits provided by all parties, understood this would be a complex case to hear in full. As such, he deemed it appropriate to set aside three full days for the trial itself (the trial that SHOULD have happened on the trial dates January 12 and 13). The first opening for a three-day trial is November 28, 29 and 30.<br />
<br />
We certainly could have started the trial on the 13th, if we'd chosen to. If we had, we'd be stuck with this judge, and the next two consecutive days he had free were in December. It would have been worth it, for sure, if we were able to have the witnesses we'd flown in from Illinois, Ohio, California and the UK testify that day. However, because Alison is the plaintiff and has the right to be in the courtroom during all testimony, it's highly problematic to have her listen to her witnesses give evidence prior to giving her own.<br />
<br />
Alison must be the first to take the stand if we want her testimony to be seen as untainted. Direct and cross examination (then redirect and response) of Alison may take a full day, perhaps longer. And possibly splitting up her testimony between January 13th and December 12th wasn't going to do us any good. At best it's a neutral, at worst, it will weaken the impact of her evidence. However things fell out, the trial wasn't going to be finished on January 13th.<br />
<br />
So we opted to adjourn proceedings until November 28th, at which point the case will be heard by a different judge, on three consecutive days.<br />
<br />
A new date of August 1 (if I recall correctly) has been set as a final deadline for exchange of documents (such as submitting affidavits, entering evidentiary exhibits, etc). We expect counsel for Calgary Expo and The Mary Sue will attempt to dig through every word any of us has published online to potentially use as evidence that we are, indeed, space lepers who deserved to be expelled from the Expo.<br />
<br />
They also attempted to prejudice the court by requesting a publication ban on the contact information of the defendants and their witnesses by citing a risk of harassment of said individuals by HBB and fellow space lepers #GamerGate and AVoiceforMen.<br />
<br />
Our legal dynamo, Harry Kopyto, objected to any such ban, arguing that people's names, addresses and phone numbers are a matter of public record and publication bans should be ordered with extreme caution. The judge agreed with Harry, telling defence counsel that they had not demonstrated any such risk exists. To my mind, this is significant, since the Mary Sue had alleged harassment by Alison at the panel discussion in their article and their affidavit, the affidavit filed in support of Calgary Expo repeated that allegation, and #GamerGate was described in both defence affidavits as being "notorious for harassing". Essentially, the judge said, "well, you keep telling me about all this harassment, but you haven't actually demonstrated it, yo. If and when you can show me some evidence of harassment of your clients and their agents, come talk to me and I'll change my mind."<br />
<br />
For our part at HBB, we're not interested in disseminating anyone's contact information, nor in having it dug up and disseminated by someone else, nor in contacting any of the parties involved, nor in having any of our supporters do so.<br />
<br />
As we did at Calgary Expo, we will continue to embrace an ethic of civility and non-aggression, and we hope to lead by our example. We did not harass anyone, and we will not engage in any behavior that could be regarded as harassment. We do not condone harassment, and will continue to promote calm and reasoned debate, polite disagreement, respecting the rights of others, and following the rules of a civilized society.<br />
<br />
We are the people who politely state our case and allow others to approach us and engage in a discourse, not the ones who barge into other people's events, screaming profanities while they're trying to give a speech or pulling fire alarms to shut it down. This is who we are, and who we will continue to be.<br />
<br />
I'm certain HBB will be giving more detailed updates on everything that happened the last few days, once we've all had a chance to collect our thoughts.<br />
<br />
Thank you again to everyone who supported our fundraisers, and I only wish I could reveal a verdict. But again, while this court session was a victory for us, the final verdict will have to wait until November.<br />
<br />
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<br />girlwriteswhathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01589256798123593486noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1600902089077918514.post-87651475157037976202016-11-21T09:21:00.002-08:002016-11-21T09:21:47.577-08:00Spreading awareness......of what's going on, all over the country since the election.<br />
<br />
For two weeks running, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKGLZ1K7jKfi_42bHxdCBrA">iHypocrite</a> (if you haven't subscribed to his channel, do so now. I'll wait until you get back) has focussed his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y0AoN2szLU&t=292s">"This week </a>in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X-GmZE8Cb4">social justice"</a> series on the spate of hate crime hoaxes taking place across the US.<br />
<br />
Granted, not every example he gives has been confirmed by authorities to be a hoax, but they all smell fake as fuck. Sources for his latest video can be found <a href="http://ihypocrite.net/2016/11/20/this-week-in-social-justice-november-20th-2016/">here.</a> More hoaxes and other interesting links can be found at this <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/HateCrimeHoaxes/">handy subreddit.</a><br />
<br />
Common themes running through these recent proven and likely hoaxes is that they're often made on social media, they involve white male perpetrators, MAGA hats and Trump shirts, and dialogue that is over the top ridiculous. And that the perpetrators of the hoaxes wanted to raise awareness of the hate crimes that have been rampant since Trump got elected.<br />
<br />
Claims made on social media have in some cases led to police investigating and determining the entire thing was a sham, but that's small comfort when such posts are shared thousands or tens of thousands of times before they're revealed as having been fabricated.<br />
<br />
Anyone familiar with the website Community of the Wrongly Accused will be familiar with this pattern. Pierce Harlan has written extensively on the use of false reports of rape and other sexual violence/harassment by feminist activists whose zeal to stamp out rape is frequently stymied by the unavailability of local rapes to stamp out.<br />
<br />
And of course, the universe wouldn't be right without the <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2016/11/15/update-more-400-incidents-hateful-harassment-and-intimidation-election">SPLC getting involved</a> and whipping up some good old fashioned hysteria.<br />
<br />
Here's their <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/reporthate">"report hate" form.</a><br />
<br />
A few things I noticed.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Mercury SSm A", "Mercury SSm B", serif; font-size: 20px;">"These incidents, aside from news reports, are largely anecdotal."</span></blockquote>
<br />
Uh... an "incident" that is based on one person's word and is unsubstantiated is anecdotal, even if the news reported on it.<br />
<br />
For instance, this one from iHypocrite's latest video:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LTqSY8fn61w/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LTqSY8fn61w?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
Hasn't Rolling Stone Magazine taught us anything? Hasn't it taught us that unsubstantiated anecdotal claims do not suddenly become substantiated and factual just because a journalist publishes a story about them?<br />
<br />
The SPLC's "report hate" form is every bit as easy to fill out as a Facebook post. To their credit, they indicated they've also received reports of anti-Trump harassment.<br />
<br />
This is currently the <a href="http://disq.us/p/1doyph7">top comment </a>on the SPLC's post:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWJecyQqtlOastTmxCuSzLbKrRhdW_UYyGXPsIo9zdqFwgQEKHYH96rU2Qg6dQU57v4CKCJ2QEQnIE_p0XytrO41_kP66kBuW7Bbm-CXYkkhb1NTtCVLaFAf70f4GPH4V9tJSoknXyx3c/s1600/Screen+Shot+2016-11-21+at+9.50.51+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="122" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWJecyQqtlOastTmxCuSzLbKrRhdW_UYyGXPsIo9zdqFwgQEKHYH96rU2Qg6dQU57v4CKCJ2QEQnIE_p0XytrO41_kP66kBuW7Bbm-CXYkkhb1NTtCVLaFAf70f4GPH4V9tJSoknXyx3c/s320/Screen+Shot+2016-11-21+at+9.50.51+AM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2a2e2e; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; padding: 0px;">
I've noticed a common theme in these hateful acts - the perpetrators usually run away before they can be confronted. Why? They are cowards who can't justify their own beliefs so they dump and run. Either that or they commit these acts undercover of darkness and are long gone by the time their message is received.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2a2e2e; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; padding: 0px;">
I am disgusted that there are Americans who behave like this.</blockquote>
<br />
Or, and I'm just playing devil's advocate here, the alleged perpetrators allegedly run away before they can be confronted because then the alleged victim doesn't have to provide any evidence. The evidence ran away.<br />
<br />
Or, and again, just bear with me, the alleged perpetrators commit their acts undercover of darkness and are long gone by the time their message is received because, <a href="http://williamsrecord.com/2016/11/16/two-students-admit-to-vandalizing-griffin-hall-on-saturday/">like with this story</a> out of Williams College, the acts of vandalism and racist graffiti were committed not by Trump supporters, but by overzealous anti-Trump individuals who did it to "raise awareness" of how racist and hateful Trump's America is.<br />
<br />
One thing "Madge" and I can agree on. I too am disgusted that there are Americans who behave like this.<br />
<br />
Whether they are committing hate crimes and hate-inspired harassment, or whether they're perpetrating hate crime hoaxes, I'm disgusted by them.<br />
<br />
I would strongly suggest that anyone who has genuinely felt harassed or has been assaulted (verbally or physically) because of their support for Trump, or even just for being associated with conservatism, or who has witnessed such an incident, please go fill out the SPLC's "report hate" form. Include links to news reports, video footage if available, and more importantly, police reports.<br />
<br />
The SPLC may be biased as fuck, and doing it all wrong by detailing these reports and publishing them without substantiation, but they HAVE indicated they're willing to report incidents of anti-Trump harassment.<br />
<br />
And frankly, I agree with iHypocrite when he says the Trump hate crime hoaxes are a form of politically motivated crime, and that they are perpetrated to engender public fear of a Trump presidency, public hatred of the people who supported him, and that they paint a worrying target on white men in particular.<br />
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In that sense, these hoaxes could be considered hate crimes in and of themselves.<br />
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Put the SPLC's feet to the fire. They're willing thus far to say they've received reports of incidents of anti-Trump harassment. And write to your local police and elected representatives if a verified hate crime hoax has been committed in your area. Demand that the perpetrator be charged and prosecuted.<br />
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Hate crime hoaxes, like all false accusations, are dangerous. Rolling Stone and Sabrina Rubin Erdely showed us that when the fraternity she irresponsibly libelled had bricks thrown through their windows.<br />
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But it's not just one fraternity on one campus who are being falsely accused and demonized by these hoaxes anymore.<br />
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It's white men and conservatives across America. And that's a recipe for political violence.<br />
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<br />girlwriteswhathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01589256798123593486noreply@blogger.com29tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1600902089077918514.post-24460976785442273112016-11-19T15:25:00.002-08:002016-11-30T19:15:59.607-08:00Trump's vision for American Greatness<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: roboto, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">My apologies. Every time I've gone into this goddamn blog post to fix a typo or add something, Blogger has completely fucked the formatting. I have TRIED REPEATEDLY TO FIX IT. I will try one more time, and if it doesn't work, I will consider switching to Wordpress.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">How will Trump make America great again (whatever that means)?</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Apparently, according to all the hysterical, hyperventilating lefties I've talked to, that means </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">pogroms, genocides, nuclear war with Russia, pushing disabled people into traffic for fun, "waterboarding the gay away", making grabbing women by the pussy not only legal but mandatory, and murdering undocumented immigrants from Mexico and thumbtacking their scalps onto a shiny, 80 foot high, gold-plated wall, emblazoned one end to the other with the single, repeated word "TRUMP", as a warning to any Mexican family who might consider setting foot in the US. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh, and he's going to officially rename the West Wing the Rape Wing. The East Wing will be henceforth known as the Sandwich Wing. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Pentagon will be gutted and turned into a casino, and the Capitol Building will be demolished and replaced by a special prison for Native Americans who complain about contaminated water. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mount Rushmore will be renamed Mount Trump, and the faces of the presidents will be refabricated into likenesses of His Greatness at various stages of his life. Lincoln will be replaced by Trump at age 14, and Roosevelt by Trump at age 30. He has yet to decide on the others. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Quotas will be introduced in police forces across the nation, dictating a minimum number of unarmed blacks shot per officer per year. Any officer who does not make quota will be investigated for racial bias. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">All people describing themselves as journalists will be rounded up and summarily shot. This includes those who write for Breitbart--you gotta break some eggs when you're making an omelette, after all.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Westboro Baptist Church will be declared the new official religion of the Theocratic States of America, and all school children will be required to recite the new Lord's Prayer at the start of every school day: "We love God, and god hates fags, and blacks, and women, and transfolk, and Muslims, and Mexicans, and Natives, and Asians, and Arabs, and anyone who does not glorify the cisheteronormative white supremacist capitalist patriarchy [repeat 5 times]." </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">After reciting the new Lord's Prayer, all school children will be required to sing the new national anthem, "In Trump We Trust".</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="s1" style="white-space: normal;">When there's something wrong</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="s1" style="white-space: normal;">in your great country</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="s1" style="white-space: normal;">who you gonna call?</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="s1" style="white-space: normal;">THE TRUMPSTER!</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="s1" style="white-space: normal;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="s1" style="white-space: normal;">When it's time to end</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="s1" style="white-space: normal;">your democracy</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="s1" style="white-space: normal;">who you gonna call?</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="s1" style="white-space: normal;">THE TRUMPSTER!</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="s1" style="white-space: normal;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="s1" style="white-space: normal;">I </span></span><span class="s1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ain't scared of no gays!</span><br />
<span class="s1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I ain't scared of no chicks! </span><br />
<span class="s1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="s1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When the Mexicans</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">are just too darn brown</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">who you gonna call?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">THE TRUMPSTER!</span><br />
<span class="s1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="s1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When gay wedding cakes</span><br />
<span class="s1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">are getting straight folks down</span><br />
<span class="s1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">who you gonna call?</span><br />
<span class="s1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">THE TRUMPSTER!</span><br />
<span class="s1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="s1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When the womenfolk</span><br />
<span class="s1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">are getting uppity</span><br />
<span class="s1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">who you gonna call?</span><br />
<span class="s1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">THE TRUMPSTER!</span><br />
<span class="s1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="s1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When they need to be</span><br />
<span class="s1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">grabbed by the pussy</span><br />
<span class="s1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">who you gonna call?</span><br />
<span class="s1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">THE TRUMPSTER!</span><br />
<span class="s1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="s1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">sung to the tune of "Ghostbusters")</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">A mandatory program of corporal punishment will be applied to any child who might wish to abstain from this daily prayer and singing of the new anthem. And by "corporal punishment" we really mean Gitmo, complete with waterboarding.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Women who maintain a body mass index of 23 or higher will be subjected to a "fat tax" of 18%. Women who maintain a cup size of C or lower will be subjected to a "flat tax" of 10%. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">And finally, in his second term, all restaurants will be conglomerated under the corporation known as "Taco Bell".</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">This will finally make America great again.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">Edit: Someone emailed me after reading this blog post to suggest that I'm lumping all "lefties" into the "hysterical, hyperventilating" category, and politely informed me of several good reasons to object to Trump. They'd been intending to leave that as a comment, but Google was acting up, so they expanded on it and sent it directly to me (if they give me permission, I'll post it here or in the comments, but since they expanded on their original "intended for public consumption" commentary, I don't know if they want it made public). </span></span><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anyway, it was not my intention with this post to lump everyone on the left, or everyone who dislikes or has serious concerns about a Trump presidency into one big basket of hysterics. However, I have just subjected myself to several videos and articles where allegedly intelligent people (professors, journalists, pundits, etc) have used words like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSTIP4w5nOw&t=232s">"ethnic cleansing"</a> to describe Trump's proposed immigration policy, who have Tweeted that <a href="http://politistick.com/hateful-progressive-professor-says-wants-kill-white-people-calls-political-speech/#">whites should be murdered</a> because they're to blame for electing Trump, and a billion other hysterical reactions.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">One quote from a <a href="https://medium.com/@adrianjanchondo/owning-our-shit-df551475fce7#.pnqkm543c">Medium blog post:</a> </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">"</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; letter-spacing: -0.063px; white-space: normal;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">If you would have just swallowed your pride and given Hillary half of the love you gave Obama, then we might not have woken up on November 9th worrying about families being torn apart, marriage licenses being taken way, guns getting into the wrong hands and women having to stay pregnant after getting raped."</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: -0.063px;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Fact 1) Trump clarified very soon after being elected that the approximately 3 million illegal immigrants who are engaged in crime on American soil will be targeted. Once they're either deported or incarcerated, and the border is secure, then the Administration will decide what should be done about the remaining 8 million or so otherwise law-abiding illegal immigrants. It's entirely possible that the first two stages of this policy will not even be complete until the end of his first term. The idea that innocent families will be ripped apart starting on the 20th of January, and that America will be "ethnically cleansed" is ridiculous. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: -0.063px;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Fact 2) Trump also clarified that he's not touching the Supreme Court decision on same sex marriage (not that he could). According to him, that's done, it's been decided. And frankly, he can't touch it anyway. The only way to undo a SCOTUS decision is through a constitutional amendment (never gonna happen), or for SCOTUS to change their own minds. That means someone has to file a federal case, convince SCOTUS to revisit the issue, and then convince them to change the ruling. While it's possible for that to happen, it's neither a quick process, nor guaranteed, even with a majority of conservative judges on the bench. Generally the quality of argument required to convince SCOTUS to undo one of its own decisions is extremely high.</span></span><span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: -0.063px;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Fact 3) Trump's position on guns is essentially to maintain the status quo. So guess what? As far as guns go, you woke up on November 9th in the exact same America that you went to bed in on November 8th. As far as guns go, Trump's America looks the same as Obama's America. The horror.</span></span><span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: -0.063px;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Fact 4) Please take a civics class. As with same sex marriage, abortion rights are protected by a SCOTUS decision, only with abortion that decision now has 40 years of reinforcing precedent to back it up. The burden required to overturn it is EXTREMELY high, and deeply pro-life judges have, in the past, voted to uphold Roe v. Wade based on the existing mountain of precedent, and on the higher burden regarding SCOTUS overturning its own decisions. Roe v. Wade is almost certainly not going anywhere, and any restrictions and limitations individual states place on abortion will have to comply with Roe v. Wade up until the unlikely day it is overturned (at which point Trump has said, it will become a matter of states' rights). </span></span><span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: -0.063px;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">My point being that there is a LOT of hand-wringing going on for no good reason. I wrote this blog post after watching lots of this type of hand-wringing, which culminated in a video uploaded by a transperson who said she was going to leave the US because she felt her life was now in jeopardy because of Trump.</span></span><span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: -0.063px;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Anyway. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: -0.063px;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">An old man was waiting outside the grocery store with me just before they opened this morning (Nov. 20). We got chatting, and he asked me how I feel about Trump. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: -0.063px;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">I told him I was cautiously optimistic. When he looked startled, I said I work in the larger realm of politics, and I've done a fair bit of research on him beyond what the mass media has reported. I told him about Trump moderating his policy on illegal immigrants and "the wall" since he was elected, and what that entailed, and that he's stated he's happy to leave the same sex marriage question alone. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: -0.063px;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">The guy had no idea about any of that. I told him Trump had been pretty hyperbolic and bombastic during his campaign, but the negative media spin regarding Trump was kind of unprecedented compared to any other candidate in history. And there's also the fact that not even a president, even with a majority in the House and Senate, isn't going to be able to just do whatever he wants. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: -0.063px;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">He thanked me. Told me he feels a little less afraid. As in, he seemed to have been genuinely pretty terrified the US had elected another Hitler, and he hadn't heard any of what I'd told him reported anywhere in Canadian media. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: -0.063px;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">So. Are there genuine reasons to be concerned about a Trump presidency? Sure. Just as there are with any president. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: -0.063px;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">But we should be concerned about real things, not "Trump-led 'genocides' of North Dakota native communities" that started while Obama was in office (see my previous blog post), not innocent, law abiding families being ripped apart starting on Jan. 20 when that's not what's going to happen, not the fact that gun laws tomorrow will be the same as they were yesterday. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: -0.063px;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: -0.063px;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: -0.063px;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: -0.063px;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">P. S. Blogger, fix your editing software, ffs. Holy fuck, what did you do to my blog post!!????</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: -0.063px;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: -0.063px;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.063px;">Here is the comment the person sent me by email, which I now have permission to publish:</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: -0.063px;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span><span class="s1">"Apparently, according to all the hysterical, hyperventilating lefties I've talked to,..."</span><span class="s1">That makes it awfully tempting to reply, "According to all the good-natured if incurious people I've talked to, you'd think the only response on the left to Trump's election is hysterical hyperventilation..."</span><span class="s1">How about, instead, we acknowledge that Trump’s appointments and his cabinet nominations to date, are legitimate cause for concern? That turning to a white nationalist as his closest advisor is telling indeed, and suspect. That Trump’s foreign policy advisor, Michael Flynn, called Islam “a cancer,” and that possible, even likely nominee to the position of Secretary of State John Bolton was someone so dangerously hawkish that he stepped down as George W. Bush’s interim appointment as UN ambassador because the Bush administration knew Bolton would be rejected by the Senate once his interim appointment expired. </span><span class="s1">Bolton, so you know, believes that the U.S. should be aiming for regime change in if not outright war with Iran. In addition, Trump’s CIA pick believes Edward Snowden deserves execution (after trial, of course, so there's that). </span><span class="s1">Trump can nominate whom he likes to his cabinet, of course, and select the advisors he likes, but as President he will enter office with only about 12% of the electorate having voted *for* him rather than not voting, or having voted for his major party opponent, or having cast a vote for him but primarily for the very understandable reason that they did not want Clinton in office more than they did not want Trump in office.</span><span class="s1">Trump was not even able to secure more votes than Clinton and is only ascending to the presidency thanks to the quirk that is the Electoral College. In short, Trump was liked even less than the most corrupt candidate to ever run for the presidency, a warmonger and Wall Street shill, yet his political instincts are such that he is burning rather than building bridges.</span><span class="s1">Trump also has a... let’s call it a fractious relationship with his own party, and if he wants to choose the most divisive figures he possibly can, that indeed he can do, or try to do. In theory, though, the American presidency was not intended as a spoils system where all the goodies get turned over to the winner, and screw the loser. I say that as someone who is not especially fond of bipartisanship. But Trump is treating the presidency as a winner take all proposition. That’s worth our concern and our consideration. </span><span class="s1">This behavior of his is especially dangerous given Trump’s inarguable lack of experience with foreign policy. He knows quite literally nothing. A few months back he did not only not know the difference between Hamas and Hezbollah, he did not know what they were beyond the familiar sound of those words. </span><span class="s1">The problem with someone like Trump is, they don’t know enough to know what they don’t know. And that means they don’t know who to turn to for sensible counsel. </span><span class="s1">That in turn means it’s never too soon to begin exercising what influence one has over politicians. In the case of lefties, the vast majority that are not hyperventilating and who can provide illuminated consideration of this new president, that influence will be over Trump primarily indirectly, through their Congressional representatives who vote on Trump’s cabinet and judiciary nominations. </span><span class="s1">It is never error to stiffen the spine of a Democrat, here to at least resist any end to the ability to filibuster Supreme Court nominations. We’ve also seen the extraordinary damage done by Justice Antonin Scalia. Authentic progressives should be bombarding Obama’s office with demands that he seat Merrick Garland before leaving office. Garland is a corporatist and centrist, the perfect pick of a Wall Street, pro-choice Republican like Obama and not someone the left appreciates at all, but Garland is surely better than anyone Trump is going to select based on Trump’s campaign-induced list of his preferred Justices and the inflexible ideology Trump has paraded in the last ten days. </span><span class="s1">I must add that you’ve gotten lazy, my dear. I can recall that halycon time when you were a fierce inquirer into human affairs. Let me encourage you here to rediscover that vigor and rather than point to the small handful of noisiest, fatuous bloviators passing as left-wingers, to engage the left, the actual left, on the problem of Trump. </span><span class="s1">And--I say this without hysteria--a problem Trump surely is. No one has come into the office of the presidency knowing less than Trump. This seems entirely inarguable. His few virtues include his hotelier’s distaste for physical destruction. He seems (at least until the nomination of execrable warmonger John Bolton, as bad as Clinton in this regard) averse to war. You can see the idea of it puzzles him. He’s a businessman. War breaks things into other things you cannot sell. </span><span class="s1">Then there’s Trump’s inexplicable but useful infatuation with Vladimir Putin. In their third debate, Clinton all but promised war with Russia in Syria. Trump on the other hand has the neocons in D.C. abuzz and a-tizzy over his belief that Russia and Syria might prove valuable partners in the Middle East against ISIL. </span><span class="s1">Lefties should be openly applauding Trump in this regard (Trump more than many is concerned with public opinion) and flooding John McCain’s office with angry letters telling him to stop attacking Trump on this issue. That a permanent war footing is not desirable. That a second Cold War is absurd and wasteful. The left should also be reaching out to those on other parts of the political spectrum who believe that the Project for a New American Century’s dream of a pax Americana is a blood-soaked path as we saw in Iraq then in Libya, and in Syria, Somalia, Sudan, and now Yemen. PNAC's imperial dreams compel us to ally with the house of Saud, to our enduring shame. </span><span class="s1">We have allies on this on the right and in the center. There are even professional Republicans who have interest in ending Washington's preoccupation with global domination, and in ending its 800+ overseas military bases and dramatically cutting its 1.1 trillion dollar military budget</span><span class="s1">The left caused Nixon to create OSHA and the EPA along with a dozen other important departments and initiatives. The left has called Nixon “our last liberal president” with good reason. We should be looking at Trump in this light, in how an authoritarian (I mean this as definitional, only) might be turned on occasion to pursue good purpose. </span><span class="s1">In short, permit me to encourage you to engage the best of the left in all its varied colors and intellection, and not just as has become your custom take the hysterical few percent of ridiculous posturing feminists and SJWs for the multitude of intelligent, concerned lefties. </span><span class="s1">I recall at least a couple of times in your videos that you referred to yourself as progressive. Surely you know, then, that the left is far more broad than its customary depiction in the lands of the men's human right movement. You’ll recall we’re the ones proposing a livable minimum wage, encouraging rapprochement with Russia and China, pushing for governmental transparency and an end to corporate welfare, and insisting that government promote worker cooperatives at least as much as it promotes car sales on behalf of ostensible private businesses.</span><span class="s1">I suggest it serves no one well to routinely portray the left as all but synonymous with idiot feminists, nagging critical race theorists, and crybabies. </span><span class="s1">As for who you might engage, in the event you've fallen out of touch there are left-libertarians to whom American libertarianism is an odd, anachronistic figure of fun bolted together in far right think tanks. Then there is bulk of the European middle- and working-classes on the left (perhaps two hundred million of them) that are social democrats when they are not democratic socialists and simply socialists, and for whom a great many are capable of speaking ably. </span><span class="s1">There are even small-government progressives like myself who understand the dangers of expansive government of the kind that Trump regularly proposes. I can offer a list of some hundred names of smart people on the left who do not identify as feminists and are not hysterical over Trump’s impending presidency, but rather treat it as a serious matter worth considered address and one that might be influenced in ways small and large. </span><span class="s1">A veritable cornucopia of people and thought to choose from. </span><span class="s1">Best Wishes,</span><span class="s1">Blair Schirmer </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>girlwriteswhathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01589256798123593486noreply@blogger.com40tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1600902089077918514.post-39083630303538694982016-11-18T00:11:00.002-08:002016-11-18T00:11:42.211-08:00On my way home from the bar tonight...So after tonight's episode of HBR (and after the aftershow, and after the afteraftershow), my guy asked if I'd be interested in walking to the local bar, a few blocks away, to have a quick drink and just get out of the house.<br />
<br />
We had our drink, watched the highlights of the day's hockey and basketball, and chatted with the barmaid.<br />
<br />
On our way out the door, a guy asked us for a light. He was watching a video on his phone. As I hand him my lighter, he says, "holy shit, this stuff is scary. The new president is already committing a genocide!"<br />
<br />
I was like... "uh... what?"<br />
<br />
He showed me the video he was playing, which showed an impassioned Native protester speaking into a camera. He said, "it's this thing in Dakota. Trump is putting a pipeline under a river, and it's poisoning the Natives there. It's fucking scary."<br />
<br />
So I'm standing there, flabbergasted.<br />
<br />
I said, "Trump's not actually in office yet. Obama is still the president. And the conflict over that pipeline and concerns about the water supply for the reservation has been going on for months. And it's not a federal decision where the pipeline gets built, it's a state decision. And if the pipeline leaks, it won't just poison the water of the Native band who are protesting, but everyone for a hundred miles downriver no matter what color they are. And there are already pipelines under that river."<br />
<br />
He was taken aback for about 3 seconds, then recovered. "Well, if this is how bad things are now, imagine how much worse they'll be when Trump DOES get in! It's fucking scary."<br />
<br />
This is what we've come to, people.<br />
<br />
Trump is being blamed for a "genocide" that started before he even won the presidency, because a US state approved a pipeline to be built where there are already pipelines that are older and shittier, but the new pipeline that is newer and better might leak one day and contaminate the drinking water for a Native reservation (and lots of whites, blacks and others who live downstream), and it's all Trump's fault. And even if it isn't, well, it's CERTAIN to be worse once he's inaugurated.<br />
<br />
Now don't get me wrong. I have zero idea whether the Dakota pipeline protests are for valid reasons or not. Pipeline technology is WAY better now than it was even a decade or two ago. It's safer, and it has a much smaller carbon footprint than transporting by rail. Leak detection instruments and alarm software is so precise now that a pipeline "disaster" means some communities will need to drink bottled water for a month or two. An disaster with rail transport of oil leads to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic_rail_disaster">Lac Magantic.</a><br />
<br />
I haven't seen the schematics or the environmental assessments. I can't say whether this pipeline is safe. And there are absolutely <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/10/17/protests-against-muskrat-falls-hydro-project-escalate-as-flooding-set-to-begin.html">valid protests regarding the safety of energy projects</a> where the objective is not to block the project, but to ensure that due diligence is followed regarding the safety of affected communities.<br />
<br />
So I don't know, and I can't say, whether this pipeline the guy in the parking lot was talking about is safe or not, or whether the protests against it are justified or not.<br />
<br />
All I know is it has NOTHING to do with a Trump-led genocide against Native Americans.<br />
<br />
But this is where we are. This is seriously where we are.<br />
<br />
Trump is officially the Babadook. Dook. Dook.<br />
<br />
<br />girlwriteswhathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01589256798123593486noreply@blogger.com13