Our mission, as God-fearing and God-loving patriots, is to defend this Constitutional Republic and to increase its greatness, in all good things and ways, by using our voices in free but courteous speech, by discussing the happenings of the world and coming to a profound understanding of those things, and by sharing and promulgating these Truths on both this platform and others.
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
Our various sister sites, listed in the Blogroll in the sidebar
Our beloved country is under Occupation by hostile forces.
Daily outrage and epic phuckery abound.
We can give in to despair…or we can be defiant and fight back in any way that we can.
Joe Biden didn’t win.
And we will keep saying Joe Biden didn’t win until we get His Fraudulency out of our White House.
Word of The Week:
instigate
verb
To initiate or bring about, often by inciting.
To urge on; goad.
To goad or urge forward; to set on; to provoke; to incite; — used chiefly with reference to evil actions.
Used in a picture (h/t Barb)
Used in a picture (as the associated noun)
Music time!
Beginning with some classical (your mileage may vary on the “sadness”)….
But check out these social media-driven “fiddle girls” – very interesting phenomenon!
To make it more commercial, just add some MTV….
So let’s finish with a string quartet of sorts!
AHHH – what the heck – I need some boy music. A song that cthulhu played Friday that takes me back. Mmmmmm, mmmmmm.
System Report
The system is back up, as of the writing of this post.
What a fight.
On the subject of “war is hell”, let the following video (set to Wheatie’s favorite music) be a reminder of why peace matters. (You have to go to the link – it’s pretty graphic.)
Wasn’t Gail saying something about Prussia? I seem to recall…..
As for the present….
Has the UFO propaganda got you scared? AS IF!
No, it has you bored and dismissive. Interesting psychology – isn’t it? So why did we get all of THIS stuff first?
Enjoy the epic music set to alien invasions – or something like that.
The plugin “nonce” problem got fixed, as well as some security issues.
The fact is, we’re dependent on “plugins” that are often weak links in WordPress security AND functionality. The team fixing our commenting system seems to be small and subject to competing duties.
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
Our various sister sites, listed in the Blogroll in the sidebar
Our beloved country is under Occupation by hostile forces.
Daily outrage and epic phuckery abound.
We can give in to despair…or we can be defiant and fight back in any way that we can.
Joe Biden didn’t win.
And we will keep saying Joe Biden didn’t win until we get His Fraudulency out of our White House.
Word of The Week:
trinitite
noun
Trinitite, also known as atomsite or Alamogordo glass, is the glassy residue left on the desert floor after the plutonium-based Trinity nuclear bomb test on July 16, 1945, near Alamogordo, New Mexico. The glass is primarily composed of arkosic sand composed of quartz grains and feldspar that was melted by the atomic blast.
You’ll see why I chose trinitite later in this post.
OK – here is the epic orchestral Wheatie music I was looking for….
Maybe some “Celtic mystique” music?
How about “Viking folk music”? No guarantees of authenticity here.
But let’s finish with some orchestral-backed vocals…..
OK – that was inspiring!
Carl was back on Sunday! Praise God!!!
I know it has been a while since I said “Trust The Plan”, but every once in a while I realize that it’s there.
Some very interesting posts (and replies) on X. Let me give you a guided tour.
This is an oldie but goodie on an old QAnon account that does indeed put time frames in perspective.
Now That We Have Confirmation From Dr. Jan Halper-Hayes That There Is In Fact A Military Intelligence Plan In Place Playing Out, This Timeline Puts Things Into Perspective. pic.twitter.com/dNOPGzlz5j
I found the reply here terribly interesting. It’s worth looking at Brian’s full tweet.
You have an enduring spirit—and always keep in mind, in prayer we are saved, even though we cannot see what it is (that’s called faith). With reason, we can see and test it because we can see and touch it…faith and hope are things that you cannot see, you need to trust that one…
This is also going to be big – Lara Logan’s new production on January Sixth.
Trennis Evans pled guilty to one misdemeanor charge of entering a restricted building & he is forced to serve out his sentence in jail where he is held in solitary confinement for a few days at a time. The cell where he is housed is where they put prisoners to punish them. All… https://t.co/OhCoMlGpXn
Now – check this out – a long train of tweets to some fascinating references.
First – UGH – the photo on the right.
Munchausen by proxy (MBP), also known as factitious disorder imposed on another (FDIA), is a mental health disorder in which a caregiver, often a parent or guardian, intentionally fabricates or exaggerates physical or psychological symptoms in someone under their care. This could… pic.twitter.com/QbahOR55cn
That post notes the prior self-cutting by the young woman, visible in the photo. A pro-trans poster excuses the cutting as a result of gender dysphoria thereby requiring the surgery, while I might see the surgery as the ultimate form of “cutting”.
As an aside, I think the mom may be relieved of some guilt here. She was likely ready to believe anything that the doctors and trans activists told her. Thus, it is to some extent likely to be a kind of “Stockholm syndrome X Munchausen by proxy syndrome”.
The original poster responds with an excellent old article questioning trans surgeries.
Jest to zwyczajnie nieprawda: nawet lewicowe publikacje były wielokrotnie zmuszone przyznać, że "tranzycja" nie pomaga:https://t.co/4GIbkxsUfj
New Data Show “Gender-Affirming” Surgery Doesn’t Really Improve Mental Health. So Why Are the Study’s Authors Saying It Does?
This is an absolutely fascinating example of “agenda science” and intentional misrepresentation of data. Check out the summary of the article:
Data from a new study show that the beneficial effect of surgery for transgender people is so small that a clinic may have to perform as many as 49 gender-affirming surgeries before they could expect to prevent one additional person from seeking subsequent mental health treatment. Yet that’s not what the authors say. That the authors corrupted otherwise-excellent data and analyses with a skewed interpretation signals an abandonment of scientific rigor and reason in favor of complicity with activist groups seeking to normalize infertility-inducing and permanently disfiguring surgeries.
This is EXACTLY what is wrong with science all over the place now. COVID science is just like this. Mask science, too. This dishonesty of interpretation is everywhere. AGENDA SCIENCE.
Here is the full text of the article, saved from censorship.
A new study appearing last month in the American Journal of Psychiatry concluded that “gender-affirming” surgery is associated with reduced demand for subsequent mental health treatment in a sample of persons diagnosed with “gender incongruence.” Predictably, such news received wide media interest and coverage. And yet even a cursory reading of the study itself tells a far less optimistic story than the media narratives—as well as the authors’ own inexplicable confidence—have offered. Indeed, the analyses would seem to suggest the benefit of a hormonal or surgical course does not outweigh the demonstrable physical and financial costs of such treatments. Future studies might suggest otherwise, but not this one.
The study’s shortcomings have nothing to do with the data, nor the methods employed by its authors (and public health researchers) Richard Bränström and John Pachankis. The data come from the Swedish Total Population Register, a massive, longitudinal survey effort that collected information from over 9.7 million Swedes, or about 95 percent of the country. No complaints there. The analyses are high-quality: the authors tracked respondents over time and assessed their use of mental health treatment (for a mood or anxiety disorder) in 2015, as well as other related measures (such as hospitalization after a suicide attempt), as a function of time since gender-affirming hormone and surgical treatment. Its measurement precision is excellent, and would satisfy most methodological purists. So far, all good news. But then come the scholarly interpretations of the study’s results, which are remarkably out of step with the far more modest conclusions they merit.
The study found no mental health benefits for hormonal interventions in this population. There is no effect of time since initiating hormone treatment on the likelihood of subsequently receiving mental health treatment.
First, a word about the hormones: the study found no mental health benefits for hormonal interventions in this population. There is no effect of time since initiating hormone treatment on the likelihood of subsequently receiving mental health treatment. Given the surge in interest, demand, and supply of hormonal therapies to self-identified transgender persons today, you would think that it is a solution that pays obvious benefits in reduced subsequent need—over time—for treatment of mood or anxiety disorder, or hospitalization after a suicide attempt. Yet there was no statistically significant effect. In fact, the confidence intervals actually reveal a nearly significant aggravating effect of hormonal treatment on subsequent mental health needs.
It is the surgical effect, however, that has grabbed all the attention. Bränström and Pachankis detected a statistically significant effect of time since last “gender-affirming” surgery on reduced mental health treatment. The adjusted (for controls) odds ratio for this was 0.92, meaning that, among respondents diagnosed with “gender incongruence” who then received gender-affirming surgical treatment, the odds of being treated for a mood or anxiety disorder (in 2015) were reduced by about 8 percent for each year since the last surgery. In other words, it would appear that the surgery—or more typically, the series of surgeries—benefited their mental health.
But the authors discuss a “linear decrease” in seeking subsequent mental health care that is simply not visible in the study’s graphs, where post-surgical mental health treatment hovers stably around 35 percent among those in their first nine years after surgery, and then drops to only 21 percent of those patients who are in their tenth (or higher) year since their last surgery. However, only 19 total respondents reported their last surgery as having been completed 10 or more years ago. By contrast, 574 (out of 1,018 total) reported their last surgery as having been conducted less than two years ago. (Surgical treatment is clearly surging.) This means that the apparently helpful overall effect of surgery is driven by this comparatively steep drop in mood/anxiety treatment among only 19 patients. By the math, that would seem to indicate that four out of these 19 Swedes (i.e., 21 percent) sought help in 2015 for mood/anxiety problems.
While the study reports the adjusted odds ratio of the overall effect of time since surgery (0.92), which I cannot replicate without having data access, you don’t need the data to calculate an unadjusted odds ratio from the information presented there. This can tell us the baseline effect of time since surgery on receiving mood and anxiety treatment, only without the controls (like age, income, etc.). Doing this reveals the fragility of the study’s key finding: if a mere three additional cases among these 19 had sought mental health treatment in 2015, there would appear to be no discernible overall effect of surgery on subsequent mental health. The study’s trumpeted conclusion may hinge on as few as three people in a data collection effort reaching 9.7 million Swedes, 2,679 of whom were diagnosed with gender incongruence and just over 1,000 of whom had gender-affirming surgery.
The study’s trumpeted conclusion may hinge on as few as three people in a data collection effort reaching 9.7 million Swedes, 2,679 of whom were diagnosed with gender incongruence and just over 1,000 of whom had gender-affirming surgery.
An increase of just three treated individuals (from 4 to 7 of 19) brings the overall effect to zero. On the other hand, a decrease of just three treated individuals (from 4 to 1 out of 19) yields an (unadjusted) odds ratio of 0.88, which would enable a claim of a 12-percent reduction in mental health assistance from getting the surgery. These large swings in estimates are due to very small adjustments in the data. As is often the case with small samples, tiny changes lead to large fluctuations in estimated effects. But, for this patient population, you are not going to find larger data collection projects than the Swedish data. This is as good as it gets when it comes to studying transgender medical experiences and outcomes.
Another helpful statistic I calculated is called the NNT, or “Number Needed to Treat.” It’s a measure of clinical impact. In this study, the NNT appears to be a staggering 49, meaning the beneficial effect of surgery is so small that a clinic may have to perform 49 gender-affirming surgeries before they could expect to prevent one additional person from seeking subsequent mental health assistance [ref] In this case, the NNT = -1 * [1/[(OR-1)UER] + OR/[(OR-1)(1-UER)]]. Using an adjusted odds ratio (OR) of 0.92 and an unexposed event rate (UER) = 0.453, I get NNT = 49 cases. The UER I employ here comes from the mood/anxiety treatment rate for “perioperative” individuals with gender incongruence, as reported in the study’s Figure 1. The term “perioperative,” however, is vague and not defined by the authors. (It could mean right before or right after surgery.) It is not, however, a control group (that is, of Swedes diagnosed with gender incongruence who have not pursued surgical treatment). However, even such a control group would have limitations, including selection bias (e.g., screening for co-occurring mental illness or a lower level of gender dysphoria). Indeed, a prospective randomized controlled trial is not possible with this population. Nevertheless, the number employed offers a reasonable baseline UER, given the available data. NNTs below 10 “usually denote a worthwhile difference when comparing one intervention with another,” notes Leslie Citrome in “Quantifying Clinical Relevance.”[/ref]. If no other treatment was available, or the treatment was not invasive and the hazards were insignificant, clinics might consider surgery a low-risk but low-payoff approach. But none of those applies here. Conducting 49 surgeries to secure one additional patient who benefits? Unheard of.
The authors are nevertheless quick to declare that “this study provides timely support for policies that ensure coverage of gender-affirming treatments.” I cannot see how such confidence is merited. Time since hormonal treatment yielded no discernible effect on subsequent use of mental health treatment, while the modest effect of surgery hinges on a handful of cases from an earlier era (10 or more years ago) when very few gender dysphoric patients pursued surgery at all. And it’s not a leap to wonder whether those who did so a decade ago are a different kind of group than those who do so today. Moreover, suicide—the threat that seems to prompt all the urgency in doing something radical to alleviate psychological distress in these patients—may well have claimed an unknown number of Swedes who had had gender-affirming surgery ten or more years ago. We just don’t know, because the study does not track completed suicides for this sample.
If this were a clinical trial seeking to establish the efficacy of a particularly invasive medical treatment in comparison with a non-invasive standard protocol, there is no way that these published results would favor the invasive treatment—in this case, “gender affirming” surgery—when the statistical difference in outcomes was so tiny and fragile. This is not, contrary to what Bränström told ABC News, an evidence-informed treatment. That the authors corrupted otherwise excellent data and analyses with a skewed interpretation signals an abandonment of scientific rigor and reason in favor of complicity with activist groups seeking to normalize infertility-inducing and permanently disfiguring surgeries.
Physicians should not be pushed to prescribe such profoundly consequential treatment by threat of call-out, malpractice suits, patient demand, or—in this case—the overreaching interpretations of quality data. Clinicians are being bullied into writing a radical prescription based on fear, not on sensible conclusions from empirical data.
But this reasonable position is getting more difficult to defend. Less than two months after another team of activist psychiatrists landed a weak study on “conversion” therapy in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, its lead author has commenced a movement aimed at a wholesale ban on such a notion. This is alarming, especially since the idea itself—“converting” from having become convinced you are born in the wrong body to concluding that you can live with the body you have—is nonsensical. There is no defined psychotherapeutic method for treating gender dysphoria that can be widely characterized and consistently identified as “conversion therapy” in order to be banned. Nor has there been a clinical trial evaluating specific psychotherapeutic methods of counseling gender dysphoria that could potentially demonstrate whether such methods are helpful or harmful.
This is not how normal medical research works.
Can’t end this discussion without some interesting discussion of trinitite.
Right, there was probably a meteor strike. No way something like that doesn’t get the “why did this happen” treatment from generations to follow. Here’s the Forbes article.https://t.co/6WVj4kxPzs
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
Our various sister sites, listed in the Blogroll in the sidebar
Our beloved country is under Occupation by hostile forces.
Daily outrage and epic phuckery abound.
We can give in to despair…or we can be defiant and fight back in any way that we can.
Joe Biden didn’t win.
And we will keep saying Joe Biden didn’t win until we get His Fraudulency out of our White House.
Word of The Week:
Brix
unit of measurement
Degrees Brix (symbol °Bx) is a measure of the dissolved solids in a liquid, and is commonly used to measure dissolved sugar content of an aqueous solution. One degree Brix is 1 gram of sucrose in 100 grams of solution and represents the strength of the solution as percentage by mass. If the solution contains dissolved solids other than pure sucrose, then the °Bx only approximates the dissolved solid content. For example, when one adds equal amounts of salt and sugar to equal amounts of water, the degrees of refraction (BRIX) of the salt solution rises faster than the sugar solution. The °Bx is traditionally used in the wine, sugar, carbonated beverage, fruit juice, fresh produce, maple syrup and honey industries. The °Bx is also used for measuring the concentration of a cutting fluid mixed in water for metalworking processes.
As opposed to
Birx
Scarf Wench
Have not read her book, I must admit. Nice scarf.
YouTube says “violins” while I’m looking for “Wheatie epic music”, so let’s go with that….
Hey – what about the cellos?
Yeah! You remember last week…..
But we simply have to finish with the cellos!
Yeah, I’m spending far too much time in the near vicinity of Marxists and their downstream effects, and it shows. But still, kinda fun.
Continuing to pray for Carl. Thank you to DePat for helping out with a perfect Sunday message about Sunday itself!
And now for some useful scoop from the front lines.
TL;DR – Ohio has a sneaky “children’s sexual rights amendment” on the ballot.
In the course of our political work, I’ve come into contact with an interesting assortment of people representing a wide variety of political interests. There is often some “adjacency” and “intersectionality” as the other side loves to say, and in particular we run into specific candidates, issues or causes which matter to our group.
You may or may not have been following the August “Issue 1” vote in Ohio, which was designed to make it harder to amend the Ohio constitution – meaning a 60% vote for passage of amendments instead of just 50%. The proposal had other features that weakened it, but the main factor leading to its defeat was the fact that the Ohio Dems had an abortion amendment coming in November, and that amendment was unlikely to get 60%+ support. The Demmunists got out the vote to defeat fundamental improvement of the Ohio constitution, using abortion. It worked like crazy.
The new abortion amendment is likely to pass in November, ironically as “Issue 1”, but worried Dem operatives have confided that the proposal has two weaknesses which give them a bad feeling. Some have even called these two problems “poison pills” in the amendment.
One is that the amendment leaves open the option for abortion due to “mental health of the mother” until birth, despite otherwise making abortion restrictable once the baby is viable (which is not well-defined). Pro-life forces can usually get voters out to the polls on this.
The other weakness is that the amendment implicitly removes parental rights regarding one’s own children, because the “reproductive rights” are granted to “individuals”, not adults. The term “individuals” is designed to include teens, and even logically includes younger children. So the right-to-life people are focused on the problem of abortion without the consent of the parents. This is also something that can bring pro-life voters to the polls.
But THESE are not the worst aspects of the bill.
The part of the amendment which grants this right to all individuals, which necessarily includes children of unspecified age, covers not just abortion, but anything of a reproductive nature. The amendment uses specific language to say that it is not limited to the examples listed, which include abortion and fertility, but which curiously do not include sex change or “gender affirming care” – and yet these things and more would clearly be covered as reproductive.
In other words, this amendment is a sneaky way to take away all parental rights regarding sex change of children – or indeed, anything else touching on reproduction.
I repeat – this amendment allows children to submit themselves to “gender change”, and takes away all parental rights to oppose it.
The amendment MAY even take away parental rights regarding sex education, or anything where the “individual” has “reproductive rights”.
Do you see what they’re doing here?
The amendment uses tricky lawfare wording to distract and deceive voters, implying that it is mainly about abortion, when it is dangerously relevant to transgender issues.
An overt sexual rights amendment for children could never pass, but an abortion amendment might.
It’s very interesting to note that Ballotpediavery deceptively HIDES the sneaky “not limited to” wording of the amendment in their description of it, except when they are forced to quote the amendment verbatim.
Et tu, Ballotpedia?
The Dems are getting ahead of the storm on the REAL sneakiness by making sure the controversy is all about Republicans changing the term “fetus” to “unborn child” on the text of the ballot issue, which generally clarifies the abortion part without changing the meaning in any significant way, in my opinion. Thankfully, the Republicans did NOT try to conceal the “not limited to” part, so we can still make that case without contradiction.
Very typical Dem behavior – distract to a smaller, winnable controversy. And, of course, the leftist media is helping. And very typical RINO idiot behavior, following the left’s laser pointer focus on minor stupidity instead of WINNING on the fact that this is exactly what the Democrats call it: Ohio Issue 1, Right to Make Reproductive Decisions Including Abortion Initiative. The trick is, this amendment should really be called Ohio Issue 1, Children’s Right to Make Reproductive Decisions Including But Not Limited To Abortion, Sex Education, Gender Reassignment, and Sex with Adults Initiative.
Are you seeing how bad this is, and how stupid the Republicans are?
They should be printing up yard signs in big bold letters:
SAY NO TO CHILDREN’S SEXUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT
This bill for an amendment, if it passes, will destroy public education in Ohio. [Admittedly, some conservatives are actually rubbing their hands in glee at this possibility!] Teacher’s unions will be utterly free to “trans your kids” and even more, under the color of an “individual’s reproductive rights”. Whether the bill destroys education completely depends on whether private schooling can lock out transgender ideologues from their teaching staff. Nobody can trust left-wing teachers once this passes.
So watch out for this CHILDREN’S SEXUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT – which is definitely a DEMS CAN TRANS YOUR KIDS AMENDMENT – and see if the national conservative media catches on to its insidious nature RE spreading the trans agenda to red states using abortion. If they don’t, Ohio will join Michigan and California as a “fleeing resident” state starting next year.
Note how the “pro-choice” side and the old feminists (including TERFs) were THROWN UNDER THE BUS by the Pritzker transgender males to get their much bigger agenda into law. “You want to protect abortion, ladies? Here, try this amendment!” The Pritzkeroids don’t care if people catch on and abortion is defeated, because their number one fundraising issue is still preserved if they lose. A simple 12-week bill (Robert Kennedy Jr. gets this) would PASS and WIN in Ohio, satisfying everybody on their bottom lines, but NO, we can’t have THAT!
Does the amendment do anything to protect pedophiles and sexual consent by minors? With the lunatic leftists on the Ohio Supreme Court, I am certain that it does. These goofballs actually decided that bail increases based on danger of the accused individual to the public were illegal, until an amendment to allow higher bails for dangerous criminals was passed over Demmunist objections.
Remember – THIS BILL ENSHRINES REPRODUCTIVE/SEXUAL RIGHTS FOR MINORS.
The left always goes too far. The trick is catching them early.
And here I thought this was an exciting election already!
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
Our various sister sites, listed in the Blogroll in the sidebar
Our beloved country is under Occupation by hostile forces.
Daily outrage and epic phuckery abound.
We can give in to despair…or we can be defiant and fight back in any way that we can.
Joe Biden didn’t win.
And we will keep saying Joe Biden didn’t win until we get His Fraudulency out of our White House.
Word of The Week:
muster
verb, noun
To call (troops) together, as for inspection.
To cause to come together; gather; assemble.
To bring into existence or readiness; summon up: synonym: call.
A gathering, especially of troops, for service, inspection, review, or roll call.
The persons assembled for such a gathering.
A muster roll.
A gathering or collection.
A flock of peacocks.
idiom (pass muster) To be judged as acceptable.
Etymology (2)
Middle English mustren, from Old French moustrer, from Latin mōnstrāre, to show, from mōnstrum, sign, portent, from monēre, to warn; see men- in Indo-European roots.
Middle English, from Anglo-Norman monstrer, to show etc. and Middle French mostrer, moustrer (whence the noun monstre, which gave the English noun), from Latin mōnstrāre (“to show”), from monere (“to admonish”).
Used in sentences
She managed to muster the courage to ask him to the movies. The team will need all the strength they can muster to win this game. Opponents are unlikely to be able to muster enough votes to override the veto. They can be removed from store shelves if they don’t pass muster with the agency. That was the method of accounting for passenger attendance at musters both for training and in the event of an actual emergency.
Time for some Keith Urban with a video that goes weirdly well with the small-town urban cowboying of my new local political activist lifestyle.
Check out the big band CMA live version, too!
https://youtu.be/wWNAQYaLadI
And just in honor of all the old guys who still rock!
Praying for Carl to get through this bout of Captain Corona unscathed.
Thank you all for putting up with my absence. Big thanks to Valerie for subbing for Carl on short notice.
We’re not even out of summer and it’s basically 10 weeks until the election. Not sure I can keep up this pace all the way to the end – and this is an OFF-YEAR election! How do these people do it? I cannot keep up with them.
I’m learning so much I never knew. But they created millions of “new baby Trumps” when they went after Trump, and I’m one of them. They created people who decided that the only way to fight these commies is to get out in real life and ENGAGE.
And we WILL. The political response that you FEEL as they go after Trump is coming back at them from 1000 directions, and WE are one of them.
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
Our various sister sites, listed in the Blogroll in the sidebar
Our beloved country is under Occupation by hostile forces.
Daily outrage and epic phuckery abound.
We can give in to despair…or we can be defiant and fight back in any way that we can.
Joe Biden didn’t win.
And we will keep saying Joe Biden didn’t win until we get His Fraudulency out of our White House.
Word of The Week:
Dunning–Kruger effect
noun
The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias whereby people with low ability, expertise, or experience regarding a type of task or area of knowledge tend to overestimate their ability or knowledge. Some researchers also include the opposite effect for high performers: their tendency to underestimate their skills. In popular culture, the Dunning–Kruger effect is often misunderstood as a claim about general overconfidence of people with low intelligence instead of specific overconfidence of people unskilled at a particular task.
People are actually fairly good at estimating relative abilities, but they are not as good at estimating actual abilities – and the fit is increasingly bad at lower abilities, where people overestimate their own competence.
The effect is commonly used as a justification of authoritarianism by leftists and elitists, and as an argument in favor of the anti-popular positions of scientism.
In words
“The more you know, the more you know that you don’t know.”
“The less you know, the less you know that you don’t know.”
Relevance
There is a fake news site that exists for the purpose of fooling conservatives, and thereby discrediting them in the eyes of everybody else. As a form of insult to its victims, this website calls itself the “Dunning-Kruger Times”.
While the Dunning-Kruger Times (DKT) website claims that its stories are satire, the stories are always remarkably unfunny, and IMO are clearly not intended to be funny.
They are intended to be believable.
True satire sites of a similar nature typically run stories which slowly increase the level of absurdity until the reader recognizes hyperbole and begins to get the joke. These sites can be incredibly (no pun intended) funny, and have often had me breathless with laughter.
DKT never crafts funny satire. The goal appears to be to get reasonable people to see the story and recognize that the story is reasonable, likely to have occurred, and affirming of conservative values. The stories are easily posted to social media. The trouble is, the stories are never true.
As I have said, the stories are discrediting of whoever posts them, and many famous conservatives (Gov. Greg Abbott and Juanita Broaderick, most recently) have been fooled.
The stories are ALMOST libelous, but under the cover of satire, they remain protected and legal speech. Moreover, because the false allegations are very plausible, the accusations anticipate likely real positions by the people who are libeled, and are thus unlikely to be argued against.
It is my belief that these sites and stories are the work of the 3-letter agencies and/or the DNC, both as a psychological operation against Americans, and in particular as a way of discrediting those who would be expected to post or “like” the stories on social media.
For example, Juanita Broaddrick posted this valid tweet, showing significant public sentiment in favor of country music artist Jason Aldean.
Personally, I think that the DKT needs to be investigated all the way back to their (IMO) CIA, big tech, or DNC roots.
DKT is a discreditation site – a psy-op – and NOT a regular satire site.
Hey @elonmusk! Should @Twitter do something about "fake satire sites" that are designed to discredit target groups under the undeserved protection of "parody"? The very unfunny nature of DKT stories gives away their game of psy-op and plausibility.https://t.co/pu0tenqmhl
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
Norgestrel is a synthetic progestin comprising a 50% racemic mixture, in which levonorgestrel is the biologically active form. Levonorgestrel’s most common use is as a contraceptive agent either alone or in combination with the synthetic estrogen ethinyl estradiol.
For your enjoyment, some country music!
As the election season approaches, I will be getting more and more involved in local politics. I may do some more placeholders, particularly for the final weeks before the election. I’ll just have to see how much time I have. My top priority on this site will be interacting with people, and reading the content that people bring here, rather than bringing my own content.
I just want to make sure people know that I’m not losing interest in this site, by my not being here or by my not doing more analytical posts. Between necessary time for health, family, and local politics, something has to give, and it will typically be posting my own content on this site.
But like Wheatie always said. We WILL get through it!
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
I have decided to be short, blunt, and to the point.
Here it is, very simply.
I was part of the cover-up of the early failure of Affirmative Action.
And when I say EARLY, I mean it failed during the alleged TESTING – meaning the very first year they put AA students on campus, which was supposed to be a test, but was really an unstoppable, unchangeable, unarguable implementation, that was going to happen, no matter what.
Let me be crystal clear.
Affirmative Action failed RIGHT OUT OF THE GATE.
I was there, and was an integral part of the disaster and the cover-up. And, quite frankly, I’m lucky I’m still alive. But I learned to keep my mouth shut for a very long time, and how to stay ahead of the people who needed me “gone” in some legal, plausible, and useful fashion.
Here is a bullet list of what happened. It’s long, but it gets the point across quickly, how the failure of Affirmative Action became known, and was then covered up.
I was working on an advanced science degree at a very fancy university
The university was informed that we would be getting Affirmative Action students
There were only a few of these students
This was supposed to be some kind of test, but it really was more of a “done deal”
I was warned by a friendly superior to steer clear of these students, and I did, but I didn’t realize why
One AA student in my professor’s class was caught cheating
I got the scoop from the teacher involved – the cheating was stupid and desperate – it was almost a cry for help
The student was clearly out of their depth
The failure was likely to mean the student would fail the course
AT THIS POINT, AFFIRMATIVE ACTION WAS IN TROUBLE – if this was really a “test”
It was obvious to me that Affirmative Action would require a “fix” to actually work
I was an idiot and thought I could help Affirmative Action work
I suggested the idea of a remedial program, which had worked for unprepared math students at my previous university
That was it – I just mentioned this to the professor
TIME GOES BY – we hear nothing
The next thing I know, this same student was placed into our research laboratory, as an undergraduate researcher, by orders from the university
This was absolutely insane, dangerous, and utterly backwards to all common sense – only the BEST students are normally allowed into undergrad research in any university
The professor could not stop this – it came from too high up the chain
As one might predict, there was a DISASTER involving this student.
The disaster resulted in a lawsuit
The next five parts are very important – it’s about LAWFARE
(1) The lawsuit conveniently prevented the university from reporting anything about the student to the government, due to “conflict of interest”
(2) The lawsuit therefore prevented the university from reporting anything bad for Affirmative Action
(3) The lawsuit prevented the university from taking any public position regarding Affirmative Action
(4) The lawsuit created leverage on everybody involved, to hide what happened
(5) The lawsuit resulted in NDAs on everybody involved, to silence them on what happened
Bottom line, the “forced disaster” protected the truth about Affirmative Action from ever being known
However, that’s just the superficial, top-level view.
I was close enough on this sucker, and paying enough attention, that I realized things were EVEN WORSE THAN THAT.
This disaster didn’t just happen because putting a deficient student in a dangerous place is a dangerous idea.
SOMEBODY MADE SURE THERE WAS A PROBLEM.
Yes. This was a scam – an engineered accident. And the technology used to pull it off was astounding. So much so, that it was unbelievable, and I had to hide it. I simply could not testify to something that people could not believe.
For a long time I thought that the money of the lawsuit was the driving force behind SOMEBODY deciding to use cutting-edge technology, but the economics just were not there. Nope – it was the millions, and then billions, and eventually TRILLIONS of dollars at stake.
Once I realized that this was really a deep-state thing for billions and trillions of dollars, and not just a lawsuit for measly low millions, it all started making sense.
Now, I don’t want to get any deeper into how they pulled this off, than what I’ve already revealed, because I like keeping a few nukes handy, in case somebody wants to make this into a big deal. They want to go there, I can REALLY make this a big deal.
If you want to know more details than that, just read this earlier post I wrote about the topic.
This post is rather long, and it ultimately leads to VALIDATE what Q said about MK. And beyond. WAY beyond. I’m choosing to spill enough now that no matter what happens, or what happens to me, they will no longer be able to keep using MK for murders and getting away clean. People will SPOT …
Now, let me be clear – I’m not saying that all Affirmative Action students can’t handle the rigor of the universities they are pumped into, over more qualified students. But we are lying to ourselves to think that there is no downside to lowering standards of admission. I encountered that downside in the very first Affirmative Action student to come through our department’s classes.
An interesting debate on the topic is this one, which involves Michelle Obama. She was, if I’m dating things properly, admitted in the second year of Affirmative Action.
As a fellow Princeton student at the time Michelle Robinson was there, I have to make a few comments. Her claim that she was one of the "few" Black students is ridiculous. Affirmative action was in full force, and the Third World Center was a popular campus destination for… https://t.co/Zc2Zd0e8Cl
In my opinion, both sides arguing in the linked article are “right and wrong” about things. There were definitely VERY FEW Affirmative Action students in the first year, and not that many in the second year, if I remember things correctly. Bear in mind – not all black students were Affirmative Action cases. Eventually, though, the effect on the student population was very noticeable. The timing, IMO, isn’t all that important.
Nevertheless, I would not be surprised if Michelle Obama really felt isolated on campus, despite likely being among perhaps a few hundred other AA-admitted students.
But much of what the rabbi is saying is quite right. Students who are not qualified to enter these schools were being prioritized over students who were qualified, due to race, and it was eventually a very big deal, that caused a LOT of problems.
So what’s the point, in the end? We know the Deep State does what it wants. They make their money in the name of some good thing that they inevitably lie about and FAKE.
The Deep State can and will roll over anybody that they need to roll over. We’ve seen what they did to Trump.
But yet, all that is not what matters.
Thanks to all this stuff, I found God. I mean, not like I did when I was a kid. I mean deeply, and in a big way, and as an adult.
It’s DIFFERENT when you walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and you LEARN the hard way that GOD is your only real ally. And it’s not just magic, or the belief in magic, but the reality of how one deals with the universe, and how the universe deals back. God is a very “complex” thing, with both “real” and “imaginary” components. I am grateful for ending up with the understanding that I eventually got.
I lost a lot of things IN THIS WORLD, but in many ways that was purifying. I was stripped of much corruption and my worldly idols, and was left with GOD and the best teacher of all, the LORD JESUS CHRIST, the carpenter who dared to speak truth in a world of lies.
Affirmative Action was a noble cause, for those who believed in its truth, just as the response to 9/11 was a noble cause, for those who believed in its truth.
The problem is, neither one was completely true. Affirmative Action was never meant to be a logical reality. It was Hollywood. It was a story. It was Potemkin. It was fake. It was a societal version of “fake it until you make it”. They had no intention of doing it right.
I still believe in the “ends” of Affirmative Action – that Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream can and will be achieved. But that end will NOT be achieved through these means – through deception and lies. It can only be achieved through truths. Sometimes those truths will be painful. Sometimes they will be joyous. But in the end, they will be part of the story – the TRUE story – that makes America great.
This week, we begin a new half-year of Monday posts.
I am returning the post format to “Wheatie-style brevity” while sometimes adding short topics or notifications.
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
For your enjoyment, some epic heroic orchestral music in Wheatie’s favorite style.
I will soon be publishing a statement on the end of Affirmative Action in university admissions. I thought that I might include that statement with this open thread, but I wish to do a better job and not rush it into print. Please bear with me.
Thank you, and God bless you all! -W
ENJOY THE SHOW
Have a great week!
W
Thanks to Valerie for this and other images.
PS – may you have a very, very patriotic Fourth of July!
Next week, we will start a new half-year of Monday posts.
I may take some liberties with the format! Be brave!
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
And yes, it’s Monday…again.
But we WILL get through it!
‘Cuz Wheatie Sez!
Just like Trump!
So HOLD ON for the ride of your life!
Dedication
WHEATIE – OUR WARRIOR ANGEL
by Duchess01
Please forgive us, Wheatie, we did not know That you had left us with armor in tow We had no idea with what you dealt We did not know the pain you felt And now we can only imagine With you what really did happen Cause rarely did you complain And/or share your personal pain Of one thing we are most certain You are flying high behind the curtain Watching over us above the crowds Our Warrior Angel above the clouds Thank You, Wheatie, for caring for us While you were here among the fuss We miss you dear you have no idea Since time began in the pangaea With you there was no time In your wisdom you would chime To clarify and magnify The what where how and why We did not question when you left We were not slightly bereft But over time we wondered why You did not at least stop by Now we know where you have gone With the break of this new dawn We could be angry but are not Tho with an arrow we’ve been shot Rest peacefully Warrior Angel dear Send us a sign that you are near A butterfly a flower a kiss of rain From your love do not refrain God sends Angels to watch over us And now we have an Angel Plus A Warrior Angel of Magnificence From today and forward hence
Boilerplate, more or less, but worth reading again and again, if only for the minor changes, and to stay out of moderation.
MINOR CHANGE NUMBER 1
Now shortened.
Give them nothing.
Play smart. Every minute, the COUPISTS who stole the election – who lied – who deserve to be at the business end of the very same laws they are using so wrongly against the January Sixth defendants – are trying to set you up. Don’t be a chump. Turn everything back against THEM. Every day, every hour, every minute, every second.
YOU are responsible for your own comments, if they come knocking. YOUR choice. Just remember this…..
For an updated version…..
And for a version that includes your having righteously defended yourself…..
OTHER THAN THAT…….
The bottom line is Free Speech. Theories and ideas you don’t agree with must be WELCOME here, and you must be part of that welcoming. But you do NOT need to be part of any agreement.
Bottom line – respect other people’s FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS.
Our only additional requirement is that you do so NICELY. Or at least try to make some effort in that direction.
SO….. [ENGAGE BOILERPLATE…..]
We must endeavor to persevere to love our frenemies – even here.
Those who cannot deal with this easy requirement will be forced to jump the hoops of moderation, so that specific comments impugning other posters and violating the minimal rules can be sorted out and tossed in the trash.
In Wheatie’s words, “We’re on the same side here so let’s not engage in friendly fire.”
That includes the life skill of just ignoring certain other posters.
We do have a site – The U Tree – where civility is not a requirement. Interestingly, people don’t really go there much. Nevertheless, if you find yourself in an “argument” that can’t really stay civil, please feel free to “take it to the U Tree”. The U Tree is also a good place to report any technical difficulties, if you’re unable to report them here. Please post your comment there on one of Wolf’s posts, or in reply to one of Wolf’s comments, to make sure he sees it (though it may take a few hours).
We also have a backup site, called The Q Tree as well, which is really The Q Tree 579486807. You might call it “Second Tree”. The URL for that site is https://theqtree579486807.wordpress.com/. If this site (theqtree.com) ever goes down, please reassemble at the Second Tree.
If the Second Tree goes down, please go to The U Tree, or to our Gab Group, which is located at https://gab.com/groups/4178.
We also have some “old rules” and important guidelines, outlined here, in a very early post, on our first New Year’s Day, in 2019. The main point is not to make violent threats against people, which then have to be taken seriously by law enforcement, and which can be used as a PRETEXT by enemies of this site.
In the words of Wheatie, “Let’s not give the odious Internet Censors a reason to shut down this precious haven that Wolf has created for us.”
A Moment of Prayer
Our policy on extreme religious freedom on this site is discussed HERE. Please feel free to pray and praise God anytime and anywhere.
Thus, please pray for our real President, the one who actually won TWO elections.
By grace you have been saved through faith; not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Ephesians 2:8-9
You expect me to believe that Ben Brody a political science student at UCR, a liberal college in California who was unmasked at a protest event is a member of the “far right” organization Patriot Front? Yea right, this guy is an Antifa crisis actor hired by the Feds. pic.twitter.com/BkBNJsO4Jf
— Only God can save us (@godoverpolitics) June 25, 2023
I’m proud to say that Peter Hotez has blocked me. 🤣🤣🤣 Given that he has a PhD in propaganda, I’m going to take this moment to reflect on what I did that was so effective. I will then do more of the exact same thing. Tyrants might be liars, but at least they’re cowards too. pic.twitter.com/pYnsE4m7dk
What is an implosion, and what would it have been like for the Titan sub passengers?
The Titan submersible was so deep, experts told NBC News, that the forces crushing it would have been equivalent to the weight of the Eiffel Tower.
The deep-sea water pressure that appears to have crushed the 22-foot craft would have been roughly equivalent in weight to the 10,000-ton, wrought-iron Eiffel Tower, experts told NBC News on Friday. The colossal forces would have acted so quickly that it would be like the vehicle’s carbon-fiber hull “suddenly vanishing” before anyone inside knew what was happening, one expert said.
“They would have known nothing — the minute this body of water hit them, they would have been dead,” said Paul White, a professor at England’s University of Southampton, who specializes in underwater acoustics and forces.
…
“The air inside would compress down to a point, and the forces of the water rushing in and the collapse would be enormous,” he said. “Structurally,” he added, it would be equivalent of the capsule housing the crew “suddenly vanishing.”
“This whole process from start to finish is happening in the blink of an eyelid, the click of a finger,” he said. “I don’t think there would have been any suffering or any knowledge of what happened.”
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