Nom de plume: Rivrdog

Climate change Elitism - 1500 private jets

It doesn't get any more in-our-faces than this: 3,000 attendees to the World Economic Forum go to Davos Switzerland in 1,500 private jets. Most of the jets have luxury seats for 8 to 12 in them. Two elites per airplane this time and they are already trying to get us out of our fuel powered cars. No, not just your Earth-Thumper SUVs, now it's all fuel-driven cars, even your 57 mpg Prius'. 

I don't give a flying eff what they discussed there, for me, this is elitism at it's worst.

Facebook banning ("Jail"), part deux, UPDATED!

Facebook “hate speech”. A game of no-rules football, to be sure. The brass hats at FB admit there are NO concrete definitions of “hate speech”, they admit that they make mistakes, and they admit to employing 7,500 censors, but this is apparently their working definition of “hate speech”¹ “we define the term to mean direct and serious attacks on any protected category of people based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability or disease”. In that word-string, I consider “direct and serious attacks” to be the operative definition. The rest of it is ei-ei-Yo to me. The PeeCee world changes it’s definitions of “protected categories” at least as often as a paid nanny changes a baby’s diapers, maybe even more often.

This article² from the LA Times is informative, in a “told ya so” sort of way.

What FB needs to do is use a recognized glossary. Now, that glossary is going to vary based upon the nation the writer writes from, and that can be recognized by the use of algorithms.

Specifics: I used the word “muzzies (plural of “muzzie”). Here is a slang dictionary on that word:

 

“Muzzie n. a nickname for a Muslim. Editorial Note: This word is often, but not always, derogatory. It is not commonly used by North Americans. (Mar 11, 2005

A Way with Words | Muzzie

https://www.waywordradio.org/muzzie/” (via Google)

 

In my banned post, I connected the use of the above slang word with “Terrorism”, which is a legal and military term. Perhaps a better choice for me might have been “Islamic” and “Terrorism”, but then remember POTUS44, who REFUSED to use that word combination. This is NOT a "direct and serious attack" on anyone.

More specifics: I used the name “Junior Trudeau” as I was referring to the MOST RECENT Canadian Premier, but there is a recently-retired one by the same name, the father of the present one, hence the descriptive “Junior”. There is just no way that can be considered offensive, but since my banned post was a comment on a thread by a former Canadian friend and some of his supposed-friends, politically Liberal, all of them, they took my comments on the thread very hard, especially since I had just pointed out that Premier Trudeau seemed to be lying about the Tariff situation between Canada and the USA, AND I showed a joint Canada-USA GOVERNMENT chart proving that Canada’s tariffs on US trade are FAR more excessive than USA tariffs on Canada’s goods. Again, NOT a "direct and serious attack"  on Premier Justin Trudeau.

Further investigation: I declare that it’s appropriate, given this INAPPROPRIATE post-banning and “Facebook Jail” term, plus the THREAT of PERMANENT banning, that several things happen, and I am retaining counsel to see if I can bring these things about:

1. Facebook MUST have a glossary of banned speech and use it, ceasing ALL “hate speech” banning until it does. Failure to take this step is a violation of Free Speech as guaranteed by the First Amendment.

2. Facebook needs to stop playing political favorites, left over right. This same Canadian bunch, one of whom likely finked me out, is KNOWN for lampooning President Trump, and not always politely, either. If I can’t say “Junior Trudeau”, they shouldn’t be able to refer to Trump as an orange ape, or butcher his name (it’s NOT “Drumpf”) or cast unsupported negative personal aspersions about him.

3. Legal issues: Just like the political uses of the Clinton Foundation, there’s one of those tax-exempt funds over at Mark Zuckerberg’s empire. IRS rules for these is that they are CHARITABLE FOUNDATIONS, and cannot be used for political purposes. I’m going to bet that Zuck’s is used just like the Clinton's.

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1. ("Hate Speech" article by Facebook) https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-safety/controversial-harmful-and-hateful-speech-on-facebook/574430655911054/

2. LA Times article on Facebook banning policy: http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-facebook-guidelines-20180424-story.html

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UPDATE: 061518 1941 PDT: Facebook lies their ass off. I was informed that I was in FB Jail for 24 hours. After that posted on my timeline, I waited out the 24 hours (blogging, posting on MeWe & Twitter, mostly about Facebook perfidy). Well, even though I have Facebook's word for that on my timeline, they broke THAT contract as well, now let me READ my page, but I can't post anything for another 24 hours. Oh, well, these meglos are all Democrats, so I guess lying goes with their politics. We will see what tomorrow brings. Oh, yeah, Face-planters, tell your legal department I'm coming, and I'm bringing a whirlwind.

Friday Frustrations

Bullet-point list:

• Typepad (the blogging company which puts up with me). They have an accounting program so D.U.M.B. that it can't tell a renewed credit card, ON THE SAME ACCOUNT from an expired one, so I get nasty-grams.
• The Media: their transgressions against the lawful body politic (President Trump) are so egregious, I am not sure I have faith in Freedom of the Press any more. In fact, comes the "Un-Do", then the "Re-Do", I am not sure that the Second Constitution will even HAVE press freedom. At least there MUST be penalties for political advocacy. Media, you are permitted to report all the facts you want, and you are even permitted to opine (but opinions need to be labeled as such and not be passed off as fact). You NEVER have permission under the 1A to lie and deliberately perpetrate falsehoods DESIGNED to make the work of Government difficult or even impossible. That's PROPAGANDA, and it is NOT protected by the 1A as the Founders installed it in the Bill of Rights. Spewing those lies will be HANGING offenses in the Second Republic.
• Lear Capital, Inc: I am tired of their lying advocacy about the value of precious metals. Silver has traded narrowly between $12-16 for years, and sales are so-so, so Lear attempts to pump them up with the wild claim that silver will rise to $200 in the near future. Where is Treasury on this, where is FCC? Outrageous lying claim to sell their wares. Anyone else would be hammered for this crap, why isn't Lear Capital? Is the FIX in? BTW, you don't have to MINE silver anymore. About 90% of world silver requirements are supplied by recycling, and the rest is easily obtained by an electrolytic extraction process using seawater. The silver salts are removed from the sea water. All you need is a pipe bringing you ocean water and a large electrical supply.
• Jeff Sessions: Sessions is the biggest albatross around Trump's neck now, and he should be fired. Of all of Trump's Drain the Swamp agenda, the only part of it Sessions is keen on is Immigration. He's bearish on illegals and Sanctuary cities, but hasn't actually changed much. On everything else, the PHONY "Russiagate" the Dems conjured up to hide their own treason to sell weapons-grade uranium-ore concentrate to Putin, the attempts to steal the 2016 election by the super-snake Hillary Clinton, the HUGE and OBVIOUS money-laundering processes of the Democratic Party via the Clinton Foundation, the Pay-for-Play, etc, etc, ad nauseam, Sessions "RECUSED" himself from all of that. The FBI, Sessions' primary investigatory tool, is as corrupt as the day is long, Sessions does nothing. Fire his Deep-State ass, Mr. Trump!
• The NFL: Despite a full month of the effective Boycott, the Deep State backs the culture-destroying thugs of the NFL and their thug-tolerant owners. Congress, don't wait for Tax Reform, the Deep State is going to Deep-Six it anyway, separate out that removal of tax subsidy from pro sports and pass it as a stand-alone bill. If you do that, SOME of you worthless wankers might actually get re-elected.

I could go on, and on, and on, but these ought to give you the message, and now I need a stress-relieving nap.

Feel free to contribute YOUR Frustrations in Comments, below.

The quality factor in Investigations

In police work, "evidence" is any fact(s) which help the investigator prove that the alleged perpetrator did break the law. Some evidence is obvious: was the suspect at the scene of the crime or not? Other evidence is not as obvious: can unknown witnesses be discovered who can establish the suspect's presence at the crime scene? Finally, some evidence is obscure, such as who might know the suspect and be able to suggest if suspect might be the type to commit this crime? These three examples go to the quality of the evidence, and when the investigator turns the case in for prosecution, the legal quality of the evidence is the primary factor in deciding whether the case is prosecuted or not.

This primer on quality of evidence is taught in every police academy in the free world, because courts are required to consider the best evidence when deciding guilt or innocence, not just here in the USA, but in every Nation which has a liberty-based legal system. Note that the Best Evidence Rule covers the admission of documentary evidence, but the Court also considers the quality of other evidence, such as eyewitness testimony. You don't want to be tried for crimes in the other kind of nations where the Judge has sole discretion to use evidence or not, and how to evaluate evidence or not.

In my first Police Academy (I attended two because of a break in police service caused by being called back into the military: I was just over the five-year point when I went back to copping, and Oregon's DPSST (POST) rules say five years is the max, no waivers.), I was taught that evidence quality is determined by the concept of directness: the farther the evidence was from being totally direct (e.g.: suspect arrested at crime scene, loot in pockets), the lower it's quality, the more work had to be done to establish it for Court presentation. As a rookie, I made my first Armed Robbery case on one eyewitness account. The eyewitness had observed the suspect drive his 1963 Chevy Impala hardtop to the drive-up window of the burger joint, had observed as he presented his gun, got a bag of cash and drove away. The eyewitness wrote down the robbers description, wrote down the license plate, then as I arrived, that witness handed me his note, which I entered into evidence, along with all the other interview results. I sent my APB, attention to the hometown cops of the registered owner, and 90 minutes later, the local gendarmes there (next state over) had him in jail. I got a rare Detective Division attaboy for that one and the suspect plead guilty to Robbery First, getting ten years in prison. No plea bargain was acceptable to the DA for that case, built as it was on the highest quality of evidence.

Take the above basic lesson in criminal justice, and apply it (or, I should say try to apply it) to the case of Hillary Rodham Clinton and her illegal email server, now widely assumed to have been hacked by the Russians. Now read this article, R.T.W.T., and apply your quality of evidence evaluation to the work the FBI (under Director Comey, whose wife had just gotten an $8.5M defense contract) which Bureau then said, and has been saying ever sine, "oh, those evil Russians".

As I read the Net Right Daily article, I recognize that the FBI's claim of hacking evidence doesn't withstand the first layer of evaluation, let alone the three layers which the article's author applied to that bogus claim. You try my evaluation and see what you get.

Time to indict Hillary. Get it done, Mr. Sessions. 

Ask for the Style Book

Most news media use a code of rules known as a "Style Book". This code tells them how to write, what to include in an article and what to leave out of it. The problem is, very few of these "Style Books" have ever been published, in fact, the only one I've heard of is the one for the New York Times (no link to the Enemy).

I think I've caught my local fishwrap, the Oregonian, in a Style-Book violation in this article. The article, referring to a Left vs. Right protest scheduled this weekend, allows the Black Bloc (their chosen name before they started taking Soros Bucks) to call itself "Antifa", and then amplifies on that by letting them say that they are anti-fascist. This is a classic  propaganda trick to label the entire Right with a historically-hateful name.

Numerous articles (here is just one of many) have pointed out that "Antifa" is actually closer politically to Fascism than those who march under the US Flag, but you will NOT find that in the Oregonian article. On the other hand, you find that Patriot Prayer USA, the oppo in this protest, is referred to without the "USA" attached, but their Facebook site specifically refers to them WITH the USA attached. The editing of Patriot Prayer USA's name, while allowing Antifa not only to use THEIRS,  but to give THEIR definition of it, is nothing less than editorializing on the Front Page, a deceptive practice.

I wrote the Editors and demanded to see their Style Book:

Editors:

Have you ever published your Style Book? I am curious to see if it actually allows a Leftist faction unchallenged use of their adopted sobriquet, but not a faction from the Right. I refer to Saturday's article on changing strategies of protesters. The Black Bloc is referred to by "Antifa", but the other side, which would use some variation of "America" in their name, is not allowed to. When you do this, you have abandoned objective reportage in favor of editorializing, your privilege, but not on the front page.

Publish the Style Book please. If you refuse, we may be assured that you have violated it's rules.

I give myself a 35% chance of having the paper publish this letter.

I give the paper a zero chance of publishing their Style Book.

Tyrants never admit their errors.

Try Something New, GOP

Am I the only one who sits back, digests all the political bull-twaddle from both sides, and has to laugh? No, I'm not laughing at any content. I'm laughing at the GOP, because they are getting sucked into reacting to horribly false narratives of the Left.

There are two main Leftoid narratives:

1. The Russia-Collusion narrative.
2. The ObamaCare Narrative.

Some might posit a third narrative, that of the #DumpTrump crowd, but that's a separate case, it's really a "soft" Coup D'etat in progress, so it shouldn't be dealt with in a discussion of Left vs. Right politics, because that's NOT politics, that's revolution.

Back to the first two narratives.

Case One: The left brought this one because they didn't have much else at the time (Case Two came up well afterward). Somehow, the Asses believed that they could make this drag on into the 2018 By-Election campaign, and win votes with it. Problem is, the beauty of their Case One isn't even skin-deep. There is NOTHING to the entire narrative, except if you flip it upside-down: there was plenty of collusion between the Democrats and Russia, going back to the famous Hillary "Reset Button", then the open-mike comments of POTUS44 saying to Medvedev "I will have more flexibility after the election", meaning better under-table USA-Russia dealings were just around the corner. Then came the Uranium One deal which gave away mining rights to the Russians for 20% of US uranium reserves. The then-Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid was mixed up in that one, and I will bet my bottom dollar he wasn't the only high-ranking Ass who was. HRC brokered the deal with him. So, no, aside from maybe minor business contacts of the Trump Incorporated conglomerate (such as the silly "honeypot" fiasco being Ass-trumpeted now), the GOP has little regard to Russia, the Asses, plenty, so this entire narrative is based on a Big Lie. For those who didn't take the three-term political science course Argumentation, Discussion and Debate (undergrad at sophomore level when I took it), the Big Lie technique simply says that propagandists should always consider telling such lies, because if repeated often enough, people WILL believe them. The Asses are nothing if not propagandists.

In sum, the Russia-Collusion Narrative is a series of Big Lies, nothing more. The simple technique of always challenging the First Premise breaks Case One down immediately.

Case Two: The ObamaCare Narrative. The ObamaCare Narrative is based on two circumstances: first, it is the "signature achievement" of POTUS44, and second, there is even less to it than the Russia-Collusion Narrative. ObamaCare, as a system of managing the delivery of and payment for health-care services, is an unmitigated disaster. It has collapsed, and it's touted "cooperatives" have mostly folded, and the ones still claiming operational status are fiscal disasters close to collapse. This hasn't stopped the Asses from erecting a wall of political energy to stymie all GOP attempts to end the disaster, though. The wall holds because of GOP perfidy: the GOPes ran on "REPEAL and REPLACE", got themselves elected, and seven months into their hegemony, have totally failed to either repeal or replace. The Asses pulled an old turd of a lie out of their butt (not a "big" lie, it failed making that stature) that the Mean Old GOP wants to end Medicaid, a "safety-net" for the po'-folks. When the Asses built the mega-disaster that is ObamaCare, they made sure to TRY to tie Medicaid to it, but in fact, it is easily sever-able. All the GOPes have to do is write a stand-alone Bill to remove Medicaid from ObamaCare, and it's done. The GOPes won't do that, of course.

So, there it is: The Left's failed, illogical program in two cases, and the Right's failed program to end the Left's narrative.

This one is so simple, most grade-schoolers can figure it out. To end the Left's Case One, the Right just stops talking about it. Just stop. Cold. Full stop. The Right's attempt to bring the truth depends on people seeing the truth, and the Asses AND their followers can't do that. Just let the Left whine. To end Case Two, a choice of two paths are available: Defund ObamaCare as much as possible, but stop talking about REPEAL. The GOPe is full of #UNIPARTY filk who tend to swallow the Left's lies (along with the Left's campaign contributions), so repeal will never get the votes. Just defund Obamacare and let it die. When NO insurance cooperative is selling any policies at ANY price, it's dead and We the People will demand that it be officially buried. When that demand finally comes, it will have to be heeded. Then REPEAL will happen, not before.

Let the Left whine. We have M.A.G.A. to accomplish.

TrumpScam One - UPDATED

TrumpScam. Did #POTUS45 just pull a fast one, telling nobody?

On my Facebook page, I get targeted ads. Since I gave money to Trump's campaign 3X, I've constantly gotten requests for more. Nothing wrong with that.

Then Trump swears in, and the ads should stop, right? They didn't. Now I hear an explanation from a usually-reliable source with insider connections. If I klic, I will be redirected to the GOPe to donate $$$ to them.

Excuuuuse ME? 

If Trump made that "deal" with the GOPe, it is the WORST deal the Great Deal-maker hisself has ever made.

If Trump didn't make that deal, he is being played. 

Now we have to ask: who holds Trump's marionette-strings?

UPDATE: 032717 - It isn't trump, it's Zuckerbugger's algorithm. He has been doing this to everyone ever since he joined forces with Googe-Spooge. I finally had enough of it today and exited Facebook Stage Right. Of course, Zuckerbugger runs the place from Stage Left...

"Russia Hacked Us", and other fairy tales

Do the Democrats want to leave, as the final "legacy" of Obama, a total distrust of US Intelligence agencies? That's where they are headed. Check out this Breitbart poll, which shows only 29% of US citizens believe this fake news story. Since 52% of Democrats believe the fake news, that means that just about NOBODY but Democrats believe it.

This means two things: first, since the lead US Intelligence official, General James Clapper, head of Obama's D.N.I., swore to Congress today that the hacking happened, President-elect Trump has a LOT of damage to repair in the US Intelligence "Alphabet Soup".

How should Mr. Trump repair that damage? Try these ideas, Mr. Trump:

• Dump Clapper, and hard. I would ask that the Congress look into indicting him for Contempt of Congress for lying on no less than three separate occasions to the House.
• Appoint as Clapper's replacement a leader of impeccable integrity, not necessarily a spook and especially not necessarily a politician.
• Establish a new standard of de-politicizing US Intelligence.

Do these things, Mr. Trump, and you MIGHT repair the damage that Clapper has done at the urging of the Left.

The Pope bloviates

...and in doing so, seems to have forgotten that Socialism was invented expressly for the purpose of replacing the politics of Popes and Kings.

Reality Check, your Holiness Hollowness.

Attack Mode

The LA Slimes goes into full attack mode on the US culture, going right back to the Founders and attacking them personally. History modification doesn't get much more stark than this.

The way THIS culture warrior sees things, if they are going after the very foundation of our society to bring it down, it's time to take the culture war into the next level, say, at about 2500 feet per second.

In the Second Republic, it WILL be a crime to bring such talk using history modification. History will be accepted in the spirit of the time during which it was made, not with the hindsight of people whom the Founders wouldn't have given the time of day to. The Founders, of course, WERE upstanding men of their time. The fact that time and custom has changed (for the worse!) does not alter the fact that the Founders held the respect of their fellow men (and no, the respect of the women did not count in those days).

The days of this Republic are numbered, and so are the the stylings of today's writers who feel free to believe that they are time travellers.