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Source: @RoykoLePoyko

Speaking of SJWs, here is how they are weaponizing the combination of law and social media:

What’s believed to be the first case in Canada of alleged criminal harassment-via-Twitter is just a judge’s decision away from being over.

After hearing closing submissions Tuesday from Chris Murphy, who represents 54-year-old Greg Elliott, Ontario Court Judge Brent Knazan is expected to rule on Oct. 6.

In the balance rides enormous potential fallout for free speech online.

Elliott is charged with criminally harassing two Toronto female political activists, Steph Guthrie and Heather Reilly, in 2012.

Allegations involving a third woman were dropped.

The graphic artist and father of four lost his job shortly after his arrest, which was well-publicized online, and if convicted, could go to jail for six months.

These are astonishing repercussions given that it’s not alleged he ever threatened either woman (or any other, according to the testimony of the Toronto Police officer, Detective Jeff Bangild, who was in charge) or that he ever sexually harassed them.

Indeed, Elliott’s chief sin appears to have been that he dared to disagree with the two young feminists and political activists.

He and Guthrie, for instance, initially fell out over his refusal to endorse her plan to “sic the Internet” upon a young man in Northern Ontario who had invented a violent video game, where users could punch an image of a feminist video blogger named Anita Sarkeesian until the screen turned red.

Guthrie Tweeted at the time that she wanted the inventor’s “hatred on the Internet to impact his real-life experience” and Tweeted to prospective employers to warn them off the young man and even sent the local newspaper in his town a link to the story about the game.

Now, if a Canadian graphic artist who is sympathetic to SJWs can be successfully targeted by them for being insufficiently enthusiastic about their plans to swarm a target, do you seriously think you're beyond attack?

Coyote, in Forbes, December 2010 (excerpts):

My contention is that what drives most progressives, at a very fundamental level, is a deep conservatism.  Of course, most “progressives” would freak if they were called conservative, but what I mean by conservative in this context is not donate-to-Jesse-Helms capital-C Conservative but fearful of change and uncomfortable with uncertainty conservative.

Because capitalism is based so completely on individual decision-making, because its operation is inherently chaotic, and because its rewards can’t possibly be divided equally and still be “rewards”, progressives are hugely uncomfortable with it.  Ironically, though progressives want to posture at being “dynamic”, it turns out that capitalism is in fact too dynamic for them.  Industries rise and fall, jobs are won and lost, recessions give way to booms.  Progressives want comfort and certainty.  They want to lock things down the way they are. They want to know that such and such job will be there tomorrow and next decade, and will always pay at least X amount.  Which is why, in the end, progressives are all statists, because only a government with totalitarian powers can bring the order and certainty and control of individual decision-making that they crave..

Progressive elements in this country have always tried to freeze commerce, to lock this country’s economy down in its then-current patterns.  Progressives in the late 19th century were terrified the American economy was shifting from agriculture to industry.  They wanted to stop this, to cement in place patterns where 80-90% of Americans worked on farms.  I, for one, am glad they failed, since for all of the soft glow we have in this country around our notion of the family farmer, farming was and can still be a brutal, dawn to dusk endeavor that never really rewards the work people put into it....

I am sure, if asked, most  progressives would profess to desire iPod’s and cures for cancer.  But they want these without the incentives that drive men to invent them, and the disruption to current markets and competitors and employees that their introduction entails.  They want to end poverty without wealth creation, they want jobs without employers, they want cars without unemployment for buggy whip makers.

Hillary Clinton in July, 2015:  via Instapundit

In her first major economic policy address of the 2016 campaign, Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton raised questions about the effect that companies like Uber and Airbnb are having on American workers. . . .

Later in the speech, Clinton vowed to “crack down on bosses who exploit employees by misclassifying them as contractors” — a possible reference to something like the recent California Labor Commission decision that threatens to undermine Uber’s business model.

To be sure, Clinton does not want to destroy the sharing economy. She acknowledged that “these trends are real” and “none is going away.” But she may believe that, with the right application of political muscle, the new economy can be forced to conform with the antiquated blue social model — that is, the midcentury vision of steady, regulated, unionized employment with generous benefits.

As we have argued again and again, this notion is unrealistic. Like it or not, this 1950s model of economic organization is breaking down, and has been for several decades, thanks to globalization, demographic changes, technological innovation, and other trends that simply cannot be reversed. Measures like the California decision are futile and counterproductive. We should treat the emergence of a more entrepreneurial, dynamic landscape as an opportunity to be engaged with productively, not a danger to be henpecked by regulations better suited to the last century.

From the WSJ, an article on how politicians who tried to point out the unsustainability of Greek finances years ago where not only ignored, but villified and marginalized.  Sort of like in places like California and Illinois.

In the past quarter century, Greece has had a handful of reformist politicians who foresaw the problems that are now threatening the nation with bankruptcy.

Their reform proposals were fought by their colleagues in parliament and savaged by the media and labor unions. They invariably found themselves sidelined....

Tassos Giannitsis is no stranger to this kind of war: His tenure as labor minister was more short lived, and the battles against him even more visceral. Mr. Giannitsis in 2001, again in the Pasok government led by Mr. Simitis, put forward a comprehensive proposal to reform the pension system.

Trade unions, opposition parties and Pasok itself unleashed menace on Mr. Giannitsis.

“Giannitsis was annihilated after his pension-reform proposals. There are few precedents for this kind of universal attack on a politician,” said Loukas Tsoukalis, a prominent economics professor here.

Mr. Giannitsis’s proposals, which would have reduced the pension levels Greeks receive and made the system overall more sustainable given the country’s demographic and labor-force trends, were never taken to parliament.

“From the fridge to the bin!” said the front page of newspaper To Vima on April 28, 2001, as the frozen pension-reform plan was scrapped for good.

“When I told my colleagues in the cabinet about the reforms I was proposing—which mind you were not the toughest available—the attitude I got was that I was spoiling the party,” Mr. Giannitsis said in an interview.

“They were, like, ‘everything is going great right now, why are you bothering us with a problem that may implode in a decade?’”

There are many other examples.

 

I found this quote from an older Finem Respice article about Greek financial problems in the mid-20th-century to be pretty funny:

So hopeless was the state of Greek finances that, even as [the Nazis] routinely hung with piano wire prominent citizens and officials on the thinnest of provocations, and even given three years to do it, the Nazi's were somehow unable to compel what amounted to a totally subservient collaborator government to put its fiscal house in order.

The Axis administration soon realised it would be a waste of effort to get the Greek government to balance its accounts.

Later, in 1945, it was a British problem.  These problems from the late 1940's should sound really familiar:

Fortunately for Germany, by the time the matter came to a head the Germans had RSVP'd to Scobie and Greece was Britain's problem. It wasn't just partisans the British would end up having to fight....

What followed could only be described as a comic progression of populist pandering, the spread to the national economy of a series of parasitic labor unions and cabals, and a confidence on the part of the Allies in their own fiscal administration abilities that was as enduring as it was inflated.

At first [British Treasury Secretary] Waley sold gold to support the drachma, conditioning the sale on a series of fiscal and monetary reforms the Greeks adopted in principle and promised to implement– at some later date when it was somewhat more convenient. It was around this time Waley quipped:

...the Greek government are in effect paying doles to a large part of the population who spend all day parading in the streets in idleness with political demonstrations as their chief occupation.9

Liberation governments, fearing popular backlash were terrified of taxing the Greeks. Instead they continued to look for sources of wealth to redistribute, and were happy to resort to even the most gamey monetary policies to buy time. After raiding "punitively" the only entities with wealth of any kind (businesses) in 1945 in order to buy popular support with cheap food and wage increases, the Greeks were, again, running out of options.

The whole thing is interesting, and depressing.

(Don Boudreaux)

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One challenge that I encounter often when writing is that of finding an accurate adjective for describing the typical upper-middle-class American (and typical rich American).  A common convention is to use the adjective “privileged” – as in, for example, “A disproportionate number of minimum-wage jobs will be filled by privileged teenagers raised in affluent suburbs.”  As used in this now-conventional way, the word “privileged” describes the state of being more prosperous economically and better connected socially than is the typical working-class or poor American.  In other words, “privileged” is used here as an adjective to describe an economic and social outcome.

I resist using “privileged” in this way.  The reason is that the word “privilege” still conveys also a sense of undeserved special treatment.  And so while someone might be made economically more prosperous and socially more well-connected because he or she receives undeserved special treatment, becoming economically more prosperous and socially more well-connected does not require undeserved special treatment.  Many prosperous people (indeed, in America, still the vast majority of prosperous people) achieve their success through hard work, economic risk-taking (using their own money), prudent behavior, and honest dealings with others – in short, by practicing bourgeois virtues.  To call such successful people “privileged” is to mislabel them.  It wrongly, if subtly, suggests that they’ve been granted some unusual special treatment that accounts for their success.

Many people are tempted to assert that it is a “privilege” in modern America to be born white, or to be born into a loving two-parent family that instills bourgeois virtues, or to be born without any significant physical or mental disabilities.  It’s true that people so born are dealt a better starting hand in life than are many other people.  But such a use of “privilege” is too expansive and, hence, runs the risk of verbally papering over important distinctions that should be kept visible.  Such an expansive use of the word “privilege” has no obvious boundaries.  If we accede to this use of the word “privilege,” then we can say also that it is a privilege to have been born in the U.S. to start with – even, perhaps, regardless of one’s skin color (post-1865) or ethnic background.  Even the poorest American today is, by this expansive use of the word “privilege,” privileged in comparison to at least a couple of billion people living today throughout Africa and south and central Asia.  So, too, then is anyone born in the modern world “privileged” compared to the vast majority of people born just a few centuries ago and earlier.  Such an expansive use of the word “privilege” is misleading.

The etymology of the word “privilege” is obvious if you think about it: “privi” – private; “lege” – legislation.  Private legislation.  (“Special privileges” is, therefore, a pleonasm.)  A person who is truly privileged, therefore, is a person who benefits from a special use of government force wielded in his or her favor.  This use of force is not generalizable beyond the individual (or small, closed group) for whom the privilege is created.  A genuine privilege is a benefit that government bestows on only an individual or on a small select group with the intention of benefiting that individual or members of that small group even if such benefits come at the greater expense of the general public.

According to this correct understanding of the word “privilege,” the vast majority of upper-middle-class and rich Americans are not privileged.  While some of these people attained their wealth through favors conferred illegitimately upon them by the state (and, hence, are indeed privileged), the vast majority earned their prosperity without any such favors.

It’s important not to use words that sneak in to the conversation historical claims and policy conclusions that should be explicitly stated and proven rather than surreptitiously taken as premises.  By calling all upper-middle-class and rich Americans (and, in some conversations, even simply middle-class Americans) “privileged” wrong implies that their current economic well-being is due to special favors conferred by the state (or by the collective).  Such a use also strongly suggests (if it does not literally imply) that the best, or only, way for “underprivileged” people to become more prosperous is for them to manage to get for themselves some privileges.  That suggestion is widely mistaken, as well as one that, if accepted, creates social strife rather than encourages social cooperation.

by @uaiHebert

Pop quiz: what’s the difference between the two x-y graphs below?

The answer is that they’re same graph  — but the first picture above, we’ve zoomed in on one side of the bell curve.

In the book How Not To Be Wrong: A Guide To Mathematical Thinking, author Jordan Ellenberg points out that if you focus on a small part of a curve, it looks rather a lot like a line. Human like lines because they’re easy to understand. Plot some data and draw a line, and you have visual evidence that more of this produces more of that, or that more of this results in less of that. If the x-axis represents a span of time, you can even predict what the data will look like years from now by extending the line into the future.

The trouble is, real life tends to be more curved and less tidy than our beloved trendlines would have us believe. Two variables that were happily holding hands and running uphill together on our chart can suddenly break up and go their separate ways. So the trendline flattens out or reverses direction completely. That’s often how real life is, and if we don’t want to be wrong (as the title of the book says), we shouldn’t assume that a trendline heading in a particular direction will continue in that direction forever.

For example, you’ve probably seen headlines announcing that by the year 2040, everyone in America will be obese. Yup, every single person. Those predictions are based on charts that look something like this:

Researchers take a 25-year trendline that runs from 1990 to 2015 and simply extend it another 25 years. That is, of course, a wee bit ridiculous. Some decent-sized fraction of the population is highly resistant to becoming fat. Even if the Standard American Diet doesn’t undergo a positive shift (which I think it already is), the likely scenario is that when the actual data is plotted in 2040, it will look something like this:

Trendlines can flatten out. It happens all the time. It’s what we see when the law of diminishing returns kicks in. If I’ve been lifting weights once per month and switch to twice per month, I’ll likely become stronger. Kick it up to once per week and I’ll probably become stronger again. But at some point, more frequent workouts won’t make me stronger. There’s a limit to how quickly a body can produce new, stronger muscle cells.

Trendlines can also rise and then fall, producing a bell curve. More of this means more of that up to a point, but then even more of this leads to less of that. Interestingly (at least for those of us who enjoy reading about economics), Ellenberg introduces the concept by writing about taxes and the revenues they produce.

I’ve had debates with big-government-lovin’ acquaintances who are convinced there’s no national problem we couldn’t solve if we just had the political courage to seriously jack up taxes – especially on those darned rich people. In their minds, the relationship between tax rates and tax revenues looks like this:

Higher tax rates always produce higher revenues and therefore more government goodies for all – no matter how high the rates go.

But that’s not how it works in real life. Ellenberg doesn’t argue in favor of any particular tax rate, but he points out what any sane economist knows: at some point, higher tax rates produce less revenue, not more, because (among other reasons):

• People have less disposable income to buy goods and services, which means fewer people will be employed to provide them.
• More people decide to participate in the underground economy to avoid high taxes.
• Fewer people can save the capital to start a new business.
• People who already have the capital to start a new business decide they won’t bother if they’re taking all the risks but Uncle Sam is going to take most of the reward.
• People in the highest income brackets often quit working for the year once any additional income they earn is taxed at a rate they find unacceptable.

So the relationship between tax rates and tax revenues is a bell curve:

Again, Ellenberg doesn’t advocate for a particular tax rate. He simply points out that in any given set of economic circumstances, there’s going to be a rate far greater than 0% and far less than 100% that produces the most revenue. If we only focus on the left side of the curve, we’ll end up believing that higher rates always produce more revenue. If we only focus on the right side of the curve, we’ll end up believing that lower rates always produce more revenue. Both beliefs are wrong – and of course, the title of the book is How Not To Be Wrong.

One way to avoid being wrong is to understand that in real life, the relationship between this-and-that often takes the form of a bell curve. Starting from a low level, more of something may be good … but that doesn’t necessarily mean a LOT more is better. Starting at a high level, less of something might also be good … but that doesn’t mean zero is better.

We see the bell-curve relationship all the time in the health sciences. How much vitamin D should you get? The answer would surely look something like this:

Starting from a low level, more is better. But that doesn’t necessarily mean a LOT more is better. At some point, a LOT more is toxic.

How much protein should you eat? We know too little is bad for your health. You’ll lose muscle mass and your immune system will weaken. But too much can cause diarrhea and dehydration. So the relationship between protein and health is a bell curve.

But my bell curve probably doesn’t peak at the same point yours does. And a muscular athlete who engages in heavy workouts would need protein than I do. So the relationship between protein and health may look something like this:

Not every relationship in health is a bell curve, of course. If we’re talking about rat poison and health, the relationship probably looks like this:

Less is better, period. Sometimes that’s the reality. Chareva’s mother is highly allergic to walnuts. So for her at least, the walnut-to-health relationship would look very much like the rat poison-to-health relationship above.

But getting back to the How Not To Be Wrong theme, here’s a graphic representation of a belief I once held, but now consider wrong:

Metabolic health is the highest at close to zero carbs, then goes down from there. I believed that because I went from a high-carb diet to a low-carb diet, and my health dramatically improved. So for awhile, I figured if low is good, close to zero must be even better. It may be true for some people, but it’s clearly not true for everyone.

On the low-carb cruise, I was pleased to hear Dr. Justin Marchiagiani respond to a question about ketogenic diets by saying he doesn’t recommend them for everyone. He works with each patient to find his or her ideal carbohydrate intake, which will depend on a number of factors. For some, it’s 50 grams per day or less; others feel better and lose weight more easily at 100 grams per day or more. He said he feels at his best at between 75 and 100 grams per day. That’s about where I am now as well.

There is no level of carb intake that’s ideal for everyone. So the relationship between carbs and metabolic health looks something like this:

If we only focus on the right side of the curve, we’ll end up believing that more carbs always means worse metabolic health, so the ideal level of carb intake is close to zero.

But that ignores the left side of the curve. And that’s an easy way to be wrong.

Someone hacked the cyberweapons arms manufacturer Hacking Team and posted 400 GB of internal company data.

Hacking Team is a pretty sleazy company, selling surveillance software to all sorts of authoritarian governments around the world. Reporters Without Borders calls it one of the enemies of the Internet. Citizen Lab has published many reports about their activities.

It's a huge trove of data, including a spreadsheet listing every government client, when they first bought the surveillance software, and how much money they have paid the company to date. Not surprising, the company has been lying about who its customers are. Chris Soghoian has been going through the data and tweeting about it. More Twitter comments on the data here. Here are articles from Wired and The Guardian.

Here's the torrent, if you want to look at the data yourself. (Here's another mirror.) The source code is up on Github.

I expect we'll be sifting through all the data for a while.

Slashdot thread. Hacker News thread.

EDITED TO ADD: The Hacking Team CEO, David Vincenzetti, doesn't like me:

In another [e-mail], the Hacking Team CEO on 15 May claimed renowned cryptographer Bruce Schneier was "exploiting the Big Brother is Watching You FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) phenomenon in order to sell his books, write quite self-promoting essays, give interviews, do consulting etc. and earn his hefty money."

Meanwhile, Hacking Team has told all of its customers to shut down all uses of its software. They are in "full on emergency mode," which is perfectly understandable.

EDITED TO ADD: Hacking Team had no exploits for an un-jail-broken iPhone. Seems like the platform of choice if you want to stay secure.

EDITED TO ADD (7/14): WikiLeaks has published a huge trove of e-mails.

Hacking Team had a signed iOS certificate, which has been revoked.

Photographer Phoo Chan has seen more than his fair share of spectacular moments while photographing birds and other wildlife around his home in California, but perhaps nothing will ever top what he witnessed last spring while shooting near Kitsap, Washington: a crow riding atop a bald eagle. It only lasted for a few seconds, but Chan managed to capture the entire encounter on film. He shares about the image:

Crows are known for aggressively harassing other raptors that are much bigger in size when spotted in their territories and usually these ‘intruders’ simply retreat without much fuss. However, in this frame the crow did not seem to harass the bald eagle at such close proximity and neither did the bald eagle seem to mind the crow’s presence invading its personal space. What made it even more bizarre was that the crow even made a brief stop on the back of the eagle as if it was taking a free scenic ride and the eagle simply obliged.

You can see more of Chan’s bird photography on 500px and Flickr. (via Bored Panda, @pourmecoffee, Stellar)

(Don Boudreaux)

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… is from page 226 of the 2014 collection, The Market and Other Orders (Bruce Caldwell, ed.), of some of F.A. Hayek’s essays on spontaneous-ordering forces; specifically, this quotation is from an essay of Hayek’s that, although it is relatively unknown, has long been among my favorites – namely, his June 1962 lecture, upon taking a faculty position at the University of Freiburg, “The Economy, Science and Politics” (available on-line here):

Not because he knows so much, but because he knows how much he would have to know in order to interfere successfully, and because he knows that he will never know all the relevant circumstances, it would seem that the economist should refrain from recommending isolated acts of interference even in conditions in which the theory tells him that they may sometimes be beneficial.

Few statements from Hayek’s pen convey so succinctly and clearly the essence of his political economy as does this one.  Far too many economists, intoxicated by the abstract knowledge that their theoretical understanding gives to them, forget (or never learn) that this abstract knowledge is knowledge only of the general character and logic of complex markets rather than knowledge of the countless, ever-changing, and often unobservable details that must somehow be taken account of if millions of strangers are to cooperate and exchange with each other in ways that generate a reasonably well-working economic order that produces prosperity for the bulk of ordinary people.  The decentralized, private-property and contract-based competitive market is the only institution that humans have stumbled upon that manages to collect and use in reasonably tolerable ways the colossally large number of bits of knowledge dispersed across millions of people.  The results of this market process are, of course, not perfect – but they are far superior to the results that are produced by efforts to replace all or parts of this market process with the conscious interventions of people empowered to use force to alter market relationships.

In order to intervene successfully in markets would require not only the kind of abstract knowledge that the best economists learn by mastering their discipline but also knowledge of what Hayek elsewhere famously called “knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place.”  The very nature of this latter knowledge is that it cannot possibly be known to a single mind or agency.  Statistics, for all their value in many contexts, are not – contrary to the mistaken supposition of many people – adequate substitutes for the “knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place.”  Indeed, the very best economists understand that perhaps the principal lesson to be drawn from the abstract knowledge that they master is that the competitive market order is so complex that it is folly to imagine that conscious interventions into it will generally succeed in improving the economic well-being of ordinary people.

Such a stance in support of non-intervention is unfashionable.  Confessing honestly one’s unavoidable ignorance of what must in reality be known to intervene successfully does not get one many gigs on television and other media venues where various “solutions” are paraded about.  A path to popularity isn’t paved by consistently noting humbly that one cannot predict any details of the future but can say only that whatever is likely to emerge over time from the competition of consumers and producers each spending his and her, and only his and her, own money will likely be better than the results of this Senator’s plan, of that president’s program, or of those economists’ proposed interventions.

In short, steadfastly taking stands based upon the mature understanding that reality is both far more complex than most policy wonks, politicians, and media types think and that reality is not optional is not as fashionable as is feeding the popular delusion that smart, well-advised, and well-spoken people in government can reliably and consistently improve reality through their conscious, hubris-fueled interventions.

A couple of podcasters who interviewed me recently asked if I believe we’re at a tipping point. I do. I’m seeing a major shift in what the public at large considers a healthy diet, thanks largely to the Wisdom of Crowds effect. It seems that more and more people are rejecting the decades-old anti-fat message and embracing real food – fat and all.

I’ve sometimes wondered if I’m just experiencing the Red Toyota Effect, which works like this: While shopping for a car, you make up your mind that you want a red Toyota … and soon after, you start noticing them all over the place, which leads you to think, “Holy moly! Everyone’s buying red Toyotas all of a sudden!” In fact, the red Toyotas were always there. You’re just noticing them now because owning a red Toyota is on your mind.

Sure, I’ve got diet on my mind. I write about diet, I think often about diet, I hang out in social media sites where the subject is diet. But I don’t believe I’m experiencing the Red Toyota Effect. I think there’s a real shift happening out there.

For starters, I keep seeing more mainstream media articles declaring that – surprise! — saturated fat doesn’t cause heart disease after all. Here are some quotes from an article in the U.K. Telegraph with the headline No link found between saturated fat and heart disease:

For the health conscious reader who has been stoically swapping butter for margarine for years the next sentence could leave a bad taste in the mouth.

Scientists have discovered that saturated fat does not cause heart disease while so-called ‘healthy’ polyunsaturated fats do not prevent cardiovascular problems.

In contrast with decades old nutritional advice, researchers at Cambridge University have found that giving up fatty meat, cream or butter is unlikely to improve health.

They are calling for guidelines to be changed to reflect a growing body of evidence suggesting there is no overall association between saturated fat consumption and heart disease.

Earlier this month Dr James DiNicolantonio of Ithica College, New York, called for a new public health campaign to admit ‘we got it wrong.’ He claims carbohydrates and sugar are more responsible.

Admit we got it wrong …. Yeah, that would be awesome. Despite my optimism about a big shift within the public at large, I don’t expect a We Got It All Wrong announcement from the USDA anytime soon. They are, however, slooooowly backing away from some of the advice they’ve been handing down for the past 35 years. Here are some quotes from a Forbes article titled Fat Is Back: Time To Stop Limiting Dietary Fats, Experts Say:

The latest version of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans – the government-sanctioned recommendations about what we should and shouldn’t eat – will include a game-changing edit: There’s no longer going to be a recommended upper limit on total fat intake. This hasn’t gotten as much press as the other big change – that cholesterol will no longer be considered a “nutrient of concern,” meaning that we can now eat eggs without feeling guilty.

But as the authors of a new paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association point out, the true game-changer in the new recommendations is that we won’t have to worry so much about the total fat content of our food. And this makes a lot of sense, since in many ways, fats are much better for us than what they’ve typically been replaced with in low-fat diets – refined carbs and added sugars.

For people who lived through the low-fat/no-fat craze that started in the 80s, this is big news. The change in fats recommendations has been coming for some time now, as studies have consistently shown that low-fat diets are in no way the beacon they once seemed to be, and can in fact be quite unhealthy over the long-term.

The USDA (ahem) “experts” are willing to admit that cholesterol is no longer a “nutrient of concern,” but can’t quite bring themselves to say saturated fat is okay. However – and this is huge, since so many people get their dietary advice from registered dieticians – the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics has already jumped ahead of the USDA. The organization’s official commentary on the latest USDA guidelines first praises the USDA for its efforts, then disputes much of what the USDA has to say.

Dr. Stan De Loach (who has been recommending a high-fat, real-food diet to patients in Mexico for years) summarized the points made by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics:

1. Cholesterol contained in food items is NO LONGER a nutrient of interest or concern. That is, limiting cholesterol (egg yolks, for example) in the food plan makes no sense because there is no trustworthy scientific evidence that it may produce negative or harmful effects on the human body or cardiovascular system.

2. NO scientific consensus or concrete scientific evidence exists that could justify the recommendation that the quantity of dietary salt (sodium) be limited. This long-standing recommendation to not consume salt freely has been overturned. Moreover, the Report mentions that probably and certainly “there are persons who are NOT consuming a SUFFICIENT amount of sodium.”

3. “Not a single study included in this revision of the dietary recommendations meant to prevent cardiovascular disease was able to identify saturated fat as an element in the diet that has an unfavorable or adverse association to cardiovascular disease.” The experts recommend de-emphasizing saturated fat as a nutrient of interest or concern.

4. The lipid/lipoproteins LDL and HDL are NOT appropriate nor adequate for use as markers of the impact of diet on the risks of cardiovascular disease, for example, in the scientific studies that attempt to measure diet’s impact on the risks for cardiovascular disease.

5. “The consumption of carbohydrates carries a GREATER risk for cardiovascular disease than that of saturated fats.”

6. “It is likely that the impact of carbohydrate consumption on the risks for cardiovascular diseases is positive (that is, their consumption INCREASES the risks).”

7. “Therefore, it seems to us that the scientific evidence summarized and synthesized by the Committee suggests that the most effective simplified recommendation to reduce the incidence of cardiac disease would be a simple reduction in the consumption of carbohydrates, replacing them with polyunsaturated fats.” Polyunsaturated fats tend to reduce the levels of cholesterol in the blood. Avocados, fish (tuna, trout, herring, salmon), some varieties of nuts (peanuts, walnuts, sunflower seeds, sesame), some mayonnaises, some salad dressings, olive oil, etc., contain polyunsaturated fats.

8. “The strongest scientific evidence indicates that a reduction in the consumption of added sugars (carbohydrates) will improve the health of the American public.”

Okay, ya can’t win ‘em all, at least not right away. The dieticians want carbs replaced with polyunsaturated fats. But this is still huge. Look at the basic message: Stop worrying about cholesterol, saturated fat and salt. Start focusing on reducing sugars and refined carbohydrates. If this keeps up, people will soon believe you can eat food that tastes good and still be healthy. Dr. Ornish must be terrified.

It isn’t just that people are no longer accusing saturated fat of a crime it didn’t commit, either. There’s also been a huge rise in the demand for quality food, food that hasn’t been processed into nutritional oblivion. Food manufacturers are wondering what the bleep happened and trying to adjust, as this article in Fortune magazine online explains:

Try this simple test. Say the following out loud: Artificial colors and flavors. Pesticides. Preservatives. High-fructose corn syrup. Growth hormones. Antibiotics. Gluten. Genetically modified organisms.

If any one of these terms raised a hair on the back of your neck, left a sour taste in your mouth, or made your lips purse with disdain, you are part of Big Food’s multibillion-dollar problem. In fact, you may even belong to a growing consumer class that has some of the world’s biggest and best-known companies scrambling to change their businesses.

“Their existence is being challenged,” says Edward Jones analyst Jack Russo of the major packaged-food companies. In some ways it’s a strange turn of events. The idea of “processing”—from ancient techniques of salting and curing to the modern arsenal of artificial preservatives—arose to make sure the food we ate didn’t make us sick. Today many fear that it’s the processed food itself that’s making us unhealthy.

It’s pretty simple what people want now: simplicity. Which translates, most of the time, to less: less of the ingredients they can’t actually picture in their head.

Steve Hughes, a former ConAgra executive who co-founded and now runs natural food company Boulder Brands, believes so much change is afoot that we won’t recognize the typical grocery store in five years. “I’ve been doing this for 37 years,” he says, “and this is the most dynamic, disruptive, and transformational time that I’ve seen in my career.”

So it’s definitely not the Red Toyota Effect. This change is real, and it’s coming to a Kroger near you. In fact, I recently found – for the first time ever – dry-roasted almonds in a Kroger where the only ingredients were almonds and salt. A sign above that section of the store bragged about the lack of additives in the several varieties of nuts, which you can buy in bulk.

As the Fortune magazine article explains:

Shoppers are still shopping, but they’re often turning to brands they believe can give them less of the ingredients they don’t want—and for the first time, they can find them in their local Safeway, Wegmans, or Wal-Mart. Kroger’s Simple Truth line of natural food grew to an astonishing $1.2 billion in annual sales in just two years.

The search for authenticity has led organic food sales to more than triple over the past decade and increase 11% last year alone to $35.9 billion, according to the Organic Trade Association. Data provider Spins found that sales of natural products across nearly every category are growing in mainstream retailers, while more than half of their conventional counterparts are in decline.

Perhaps more frightening for Big Food, shoppers are doing something else as well: They’re skipping the middle aisles altogether.

The war on fat is ending, with fat emerging as the victor. Cholesterol is no longer a “nutrient of concern.” The low-salt nonsense is being abandoned by doctors, nutritionists and even the CDC. Consumers are avoiding foods with ingredients they can’t pronounce, and Big Food is both scared and scrambling to adjust.

Yes, we’re at a tipping point. Let’s hope the nation tips right over into better health.

FOR SALE: Republican presidential hopefuls introduce Adelson-backed online gambling ban...


(Second column, 17th story, link)

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This cheerfully drawn comic from the Daily Signal does an excellent job highlighting the insanity of civil asset forfeiture.  It begins with a quintessentially American premise: a young person setting out on his own, all wordly possessions in hand, to start a new life as an adult.  Far be it from me to spoil the rest:

 

 

If such stories seem unbelievable (it is a cartoon after all), be sure and check out the recent all-too-real stories of Joseph Rivers and Charles Clarke, for whom this cartoon surely hits too close to home.  Even they are only the tip of the iceberg.

New Mexico has taken the initiative to end this inherently abusive practice once and for all, and there are active reform efforts underway in California, Michigan, Montana, Oklahoma, Maryland, and others. But until every other state and the federal government join in, these incredible tales of legalized theft and policing for profit will continue.

FreedomWorks recently released a handy map accompanying their report on state forfeiture laws. How does your state stack up?  

 

 

Reporter, activity and security guy Jacob Appelbaum has been harassed by the government for years for helping with Wikileaks. We've written before about how he gets detained at the border and is ordered to hand over all of his electronic equipment. A few years ago, we wrote about the ridiculous legal fight in which the Justice Department demanded that Twitter hand over Appelbaum's messages without telling anyone, as part of the still ridiculous grand jury investigation into Wikileaks (which still isn't over!).

If you recall, as part of that discussion about the legal fight with Twitter -- in which we gave kudos to Twitter for standing up for its users' privacy -- it also came out that similar demands for information were also sent to Google and Sonic.net in trying to access Appelbaum's details. Sonic.net quickly said that it fought the request -- but Google gave no comment. We found this to be disappointing at the time.

However, late last week, it was finally revealed -- four years later -- that Google not only fought the order, but was gagged from talking about it until just recently. Reading through the full set of released documents (300 pages) is quite incredible -- as are Appelbaum's own comments as he reads through the document himself.

If you don't recall the big legal fight with Twitter, the DOJ refused to get a warrant, but instead got what's known as a 2703(d) order, which has a much lower privacy protection standard. A warrant, as you know, requires probable cause. A 2703(d) order just requires "reasonable grounds to believe that the contents [of the email] are relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation."

This whole thing started in late 2010 when the grand jury investigation sent those 2703(d) orders out -- each accompanied by a gag order. Twitter fought the gag order and was able to get a judge to unseal it in early January 2011 for the sake of alerting the users in question, to see if they would protest (which they did, though unsuccessfully). Twitter alerted a few users, including Appelbaum, that the feds had requested information. While many had assumed the feds had used a warrant or a traditional subpoena, it was quickly revealed that it was the 2703(d) process, raising many more concerns. The fact that there were also a number of mistakes in the order raised further concerns. The revelation of this order got a lot of press attention, which the DOJ hated.

In fact, that's what much of the (now revealed) argument between Google and the DOJ is discussing. Google points out that the identical order in the identical investigation was made public concerning Twitter's involvement, and thus, there is no reason not to make it public for Google too. The DOJ responds about just how incredibly harmful the press attention of the Twitter order is... though they fail to explain a single way it is harmful, other than that some online internet commenters were kinda mean to them. First, the DOJ insisted that it was important that Google be gagged, and then said that Twitter's ungagging "seriously jeopardized the investigation."

The Order should remain sealed at this time. The Order satisfies all statutory and constitutional requirements, and the [REDACTED] subscriber would not have a valid basis for challenging it even if Google did provide him with notice. Furthermore, unsealing and permitting disclosure at this time is not in the best interest of the investigation. Unsealing and permitting disclosure of the Twitter Order has already seriously jeopardized the investigation and the government believes that further disclosures at this time will exacerbate this problem.

Of course, the DOJ never actually goes into any detail about how revealing that it was digging for information jeopardized the investigation at all. It just makes these baseless claims. Later, it further argues that unsealing the Twitter order (which it had agreed to allow) was a mistake in hindsight:

Indeed, in light of the events that followed the unsealing and disclosure of the Twitter Order, had the government known then what it does now, it would not have voluntarily filed the motion to authorize it.

Why is that? Well, the only argument the government seems to make is that once the Twitter Order was public, people got mad and said not nice things about the DOJ. First, it points to this Glenn Greenwald article from 2011, in which he revealed more details of the original Twitter Order, including the name of the magistrate judge who signed off on it. The DOJ presents this as if it's harassment, though read the article and see if that's reasonable. And then it further claims that the US Attorneys were "harassed on the internet." But the only evidence it provides is this: So some kid gets angry and fires off an angry email to the DOJ with the Anonymous tagline at the end, and the DOJ gets all weak-kneed? Really?

Even more bizarre, the DOJ includes a long paragraph talking about how all of the praise that Twitter got after the Twitter Order was revealed explains why the Google Order shouldn't be revealed. That is, the DOJ is explicitly saying "man, it would suck if actually protecting the privacy of users became contagious":
That does not seem like a legitimate reason for a gag order. It sounds like the DOJ is unwilling to support due process and is afraid to actually have to defend its actions.

In response to this, Google quite reasonably points out that the government's argument cancels out its own argument. At one point, for example, the DOJ pointed to one of the people it was seeking information on Tweeting to followers not to send direct messages, and another saying that it's likely that Google and Facebook received similar orders. As Google points out, given that, the targets already suspect what is going on and thus it couldn't possibly make sense to maintain the gag order. As for the "parade of horribles" above, Google rightly points out that none of them show how revealing the Google Order will exacerbate any of the "problems" it outlined.

The fight was put on hold while the individuals in question (including Appelbaum) fought the Twitter Order. And, when that failed, the case picked up again, with the DOJ saying "look, that failed, so this case is over." Google responded, quite reasonably, that whether or not the individuals succeeded in stopping the information disclosure is a wholly separate issue from whether or not the gag order makes sense. Unfortunately, in the end, the court rejected all of Google's arguments. The court relies heavily on the fact that Appelbaum (though, bizarrely, his name is redacted here) tweeted the following: "Do not send me Direct Messages - My twitter account contents have apparently been invited to the (presumably-Grand Jury) in Alexandria." To the court, this is evidence that any disclosure will lead to a change in behavior.

Furthermore, the court ridiculously buys into the claims by the DOJ that the "public campaign" supporting Twitter for standing up for the rights of its users is a form of witness intimidation. Really: That concluding line is really incredible:

If the Google Order were unsealed, future service providers may do precisely what Google has done in this instance, namely resist compliance with a lawful §2703(d) order by bringing baseless legal challenges that have the effect of impeding the government's progress in the Wikileaks investigation.

In other words, merely challenging the legitimacy of a gag order with an associated court order to hand over someone's info -- in other words protecting a user's privacy is somehow seen as evidence of impeding an investigation. This is ridiculous.

Finally, as Lauren Weinstein points out in his own analysis of these newly released documents, this does show just how strongly Google fought the government to block the government from getting access to user info. There is this false belief out there that Google, in particular, has given the government free access to its servers (in part because of an incorrect interpretation of a Snowden document early on). Yet, this highlights how Google actually fought quite hard to protect its users' info (and this all happened more than two years before the Snowden leaks). Indeed, in my original post, about the revelation that Google had received a similar order, we were disappointed that unlike Twitter and Sonic, Google refused to comment. We had no way of knowing that the company had been gagged.

Even Appelbaum -- not exactly one to cheer on Google in most settings -- now admits that he's impressed by how strongly Google fought. A few of his tweets explaining this:



Separately, he notes that while we know about Twitter, Sonic and Google... we don't know about Facebook or Yahoo, leading him to wonder what happened there:

No matter what, this seems like yet another example of the DOJ being out of control and trying to cover up its own actions to keep them out of the public debate, rather than for any legitimate purpose.

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TECH COMPANY FINDS STOLEN GOVT LOG-INS ALL OVER WEB...


(Third column, 20th story, link)

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(Don Boudreaux)

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In this superb new video – which is just under six-minutes long – the Manhattan Institute’s Nicole Gelinas explains the relevant, bailout-bloated history behind the 2008 financial crisis.  Contrary to popular myth, the chief cause of this crisis was not banks and other financial institutions being too free of the oversight of government regulators but, rather, banks and other financial institutions operating with perverse incentives created by myopic government officials.

PAPER: Pope 'in sad world of make-believe'...


(First column, 7th story, link)

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Oskar Zapirain's photographs capture eerie forests cast in thick fog, hazy light descending upon the foliage in the same green shade that blankets the floor in moss. Zapirain has been attracted to this landscape for years because of the homogenous light as well as the way it forces the viewer directly into a mystical atmosphere.

The forest Zapirain features is a beech forest in Oiartzun, Basque Country in Northern Spain. This particular forest is unique due to the history charcoal production within the region. Instead of clearcutting like we do today, the trees were instead pruned to preserve the trees and maintain the integrity of the forest across generations. The trees have since regrown with short trunks and dramatically long limbs that shoot outward like arms from almost every angle, adding a ghostly feel to each of Zapirain’s photos. You can explore more of his work on Flickr.

Like most people, I’ve long assumed whiskey can have a negative impact on memory. The first time I drank whiskey (as a teenager, I’m sorry to say), my only memory after the fourth or fifth shot was of a glowing star dancing in front of my face. I later realized, while helping my drinking buddy clean the room where we drank the whiskey, that the dancing star was the burning end of a cigarette. Neither of us remembered smoking the cigarettes, but we sure cleaned up quite a few of them.

My belief that whiskey affects memory was strengthened during my college years. My roommate and I mostly drank beer at parties, but occasionally indulged in Jack Daniel’s. The Jack Daniel’s nights sometimes led to a series of next-day phone calls intended to ascertain, say, why my car was parked in the middle of a courtyard, and why some guy I didn’t recognize was snoring in the back seat.

So yeah, I just always figured whiskey is bad for memory, at least in the short term.

Well, I should know better than to form medical opinions based on anecdotal evidence. Turns out whiskey doesn’t affect memory. I know this because I recently conducted a careful study comparing the effects of gin and whiskey on memory, and there was no statistically significant difference. That means we don’t need to be concerned with whiskey’s effect on the brain. I could even write a news article with the headline:

STUDY QUESTIONS WHISKEY, MEMORY LOSS CONNECTION

What, you say that’s a ridiculous conclusion? Well, of course it is. But it’s no more ridiculous than the conclusions from a study that generated this headline:

STUDY QUESTIONS STATIN, MEMORY LOSS CONNECTION

Beginning treatment with a statin was associated with a nearly fourfold increased risk of developing acute memory loss within 30 days in a retrospective cohort study …

Yeah, so that would lead me to conclude statins are bad for memory.

… but a similar increase in risk was seen in patients starting non-statin lipid-lowering drugs.

WTF?!! Does that somehow exonerate statins? Let’s read on.

Compared with non-users, both statin and non-statin lipid-lowering drug (LLD) use was found to be associated with acute memory loss in the weeks following treatment initiation, but there was no difference in memory loss when statins and non-statins were compared with each other, researcher Brian L. Strom, MD, of Rutgers University in Newark, N.J., and colleagues wrote online June 8 in JAMA Internal Medicine.

I see. So Dr. Strom compared the effects of whiskey and gin on memory loss and found them to be the same. No worries about whiskey, then. Next thing you know, Dr. Strom will be suggesting people who drink whiskey and gin just think they’re experiencing more memory loss.

The observation that all LLDs were associated with memory loss suggests that either all drugs used to lower lipid levels cause acute memory loss or that the observed memory loss in the study was due to detection bias, Strom said.

Head. Bang. On. Desk.

In a telephone interview with MedPage Today, Strom said it makes sense that patients on a new drug would be more likely to notice symptoms and attribute them to the drug, and they are also more likely to report such symptoms to their physician.

Riiiiight. Statins (and other lipid-lowering drugs) don’t actually cause memory loss, ya see. It’s just that people on statins who were going to have memory issues anyway are more likely to blame the drug. Kind of like one of those next-day phone conversations in college …

“Hello? Oh, hey, Mark. What? Of course I’m alive! Why wouldn’t I be? Uh-huh … uh-huh … I said WHAT?! YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! Well, hell no, I don’t remember! Look, just do me a favor and tell her it was the Jack Daniel’s talking!”

Several previous studies have shown acute memory loss associated with the use of statins, but others have not shown the association or have even shown improved memory in long-term statin users compared with non-users.

Strom noted that without the non-statin LLD control group in his study, the findings would have shown a strong association between statin initiation and short-term memory loss.

“In the absence of this control group, the finding would have been completely misleading,” he said.

Okay, to illustrate the deep and wide stupidity of that statement, imagine this quote about my whiskey-and-gin comparison study.

Naughton noted that without the gin-only control group in his study, the findings would have shown a strong association between whiskey and short-term memory loss.

“In the absence of this gin-only control group for comparison, the finding would have been completely misleading,” he said.

Strom said the study findings should reassure both patients and physicians who prescribe statins.

Naughton said the study findings should reassure both college students who drink whiskey and the liquor-store owners who sell the whiskey.

“This whole issue of short-term memory loss with statins is really a tempest in a teapot,” he said. “Statins are very effective drugs, and people should not veer away from them for fear of a short-term memory effect, especially given the data suggesting that long-term statin use improves memory.”

“This whole issue of short-term memory loss with whiskey is really a tempest in a teapot,” Naughton said. “Whiskey is a very effective drink, and people should not veer away from it for fear of a short-term memory effect, especially given the data suggesting that long-term whiskey use improves memory.”

Strom reported receiving research funding from AstraZeneca and Bristol-Myers Squibb and serving as a consultant to Abbott, AstraZeneca, Bayer Healthcare, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Novartis and Pfizer. A co-author reported receiving research funding from AstraZeneca and Bristol-Myers Squibb and serving as a consultant to AstraZeneca, Bayer Healthcare, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Merck.

Naughton reported receiving research funding from Jack Daniel’s and Old Grand-Dad and serving as consultant to Jim Beam, Johnnie Walker and Jameson’s. A co-author reported receiving research funding from Knob Creek and Barton Reserve and serving as a consulting to Glen Morangie, Glenfiddich, Canadian Club and Bushmill’s.

Here’s the bottom line: beating down your cholesterol is bad for your brain, whether you do it with a statin or another drug. Comparing statins to non-statin LLDs doesn’t change that … any more than drinking gin instead of whiskey will explain why that strange dude is snoring in the back seat of your car.

I’m seeing this narrative pop up that Sad Puppies is calling for a boycott of Tor, but that is simply not true. Speaking as the guy who started the Sad Puppies campaign, I’m not calling for a boycott of anything. I’m not asking anyone to do anything. As far as I’m concerned this mess is between Tor and its customers. I’ve said very little about it so far, but I’ve been clear about that much.

The Sad Puppies Campaign is NOT calling for any boycotts.

But as we’ve seen time and time again, what I actually say doesn’t matter. It is just whatever narrative they can get to stick. I’m seeing lots of people on Facebook who should know better saying this is Sad Puppies declaring war on Tor. Nope. I’ll explain what it is.

Back in April when some high ranking Tor employees were making some pretty outlandish accusations, I put up a blog post asking for SP supporters not to blame Tor.

http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/04/11/last-sp-post-for-the-week-to-my-people-dont-yell-tor/ I respect Tom Doherty. I’m friends with a bunch of Tor authors. I explained how the company was a big outfit with a lot of employees. I told my supporters don’t blame them.
And in the intervening months several Tor employees had to go and make that really hard. A few Tor employees were extremely vocal with some very asinine criticisms, and still, I kept telling my supporters not to blame the whole company.

For this recent dust up, this is how I see it. Tor editor Irene Gallo posted some obviously false, slanderous nonsense, and she did it in a post representing her company’s products. It went viral.

Personally, I am used to being lied about. I volunteered for this. Lots of industry people have been insulting us, or regurgitating lies without question, since this started. It’s been a pattern for years. One of the goals of my original campaign was to expose the political bias that existed in this system, so this particular post didn’t come as a shock.

Only this time Gallo screwed up and tarred not just me or other SP leaders, but she slandered the fans who agreed with us and some unaffiliated authors (some of whom write for Tor!) with some pretty vile stuff.

For many people that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. They got angry. It turns out regular folks don’t like to give money to people who call them Nazis. They started contacting Tor and its parent company, Macmillan. Tom Doherty himself issued a statement that I personally liked. I’m glad he did that. I’ve been told that Tor has implemented a new social media policy, so that when its employees are calling its customers names, they need to make it clear they are speaking for themselves and not their employer. That is pretty standard in the rest of the corporate world.

Then Gallo issued a half assed, ‘I’m sorry you got upset when I called you all racist nazis’, pseudo apology. No retraction. Many people didn’t think that was good enough, so they continued to send emails to Tor. When it leaked that some Tor staff were dismissing all those emails as bots, and not real human fans, that riled them up.

The person who set the Friday deadline for a real apology is author Peter Grant. Let me tell you about Peter. He’s not one of the Sad Puppies organizers and wasn’t involved in the campaign, but I’ve known him for about fifteen years.

Do you know why Peter Grant took great personal affront to being labeled an unrepentantly racist, neo-nazi? That is because he literally fought and bled against neo-nazi terrorists in a blood soaked African civil war so brutal that most pampered Americans can’t even wrap their brains around it. He had many friends murdered, black and white both. He saw real terrorism. He still suffers from the physical injuries and nightmares. So he takes his culture war accusations very seriously.

Those accustomed to knee jerk bitching and bloviating about every possible outrage and trigger warning, quickly dismissed Peter’s taking umbrage against Gallo’s comments with their usual racist/sexist/homophobe accusations. Because obviously, anyone who disagrees with them is guilty of some ist or ism, evidence be damned. Their idea of social justice is forming Twitter mobs. Peter Grant got blown up protesting Apartheid.

After being a soldier, Peter hung up his guns and became a man of God. SJWs are saying that he’s a homophobe because he agreed with Sad Puppies, while in real life he volunteered at a colony for homosexuals who had been forsaken by African society, dying of AIDS. When I first met him, Peter was a prison chaplain, trying to help the fallen and broken, and victims of things you can’t even imagine. Basically, he’s an honorable man who puts his money where his mouth is, and now he’s offended.

Peter asked for a retraction from the Tor editor who flippantly dismissed thousands of fans as unrepentant racist neo-nazis. I don’t believe he’s calling for anything beyond that.

Again, this is between Tor and its readers who feel insulted, not the Sad Puppies campaign or the people who ran it. Yes, those Venn diagrams overlap, but sorry, you can’t blame this one on me. Many normal fans agreed with what Sad Puppies was trying to do, and shockingly enough, they eventually got sick and tired of employees of one of their favorite publishing houses calling them names. I’m not calling for anything, though I can certainly understand why some people are.

If any individual who felt insulted is satisfied with Tom Doherty’s statement saying that his employees don’t speak for his company, good for you. If any individual is unsatisfied and demands further action, that’s also up to you. I’m not going to tell anybody what to think.

For the other side who are saying that Gallo is the real victim here, and she was only speaking truth to power… Yeah, you guys run with that. Anybody with two brain cells to rub together can see she her comments were nonsense. The only thing she is a victim of is arrogance.

To the SJWs saying Tom Doherty is a hateful misogynist because he isn’t letting his employees libel people on the clock anymore? Double down. There might be some people left out there who haven’t realized I was right about you yet.

To the Tor authors I’m seeing post about this, the Sad Puppies campaign is not calling for a boycott. If you are upset why people are angry take it up with your art director about why she’s insulting your customers.

To the Sad Puppies supporters, do what you think is right. All I’m asking is that whatever you do, try to be as civil as possible in your disagreements. Stick with the facts. We’ve got the moral high ground, and the great moderate middle of this debate has seen we’ve been telling the truth all along.