"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace in a continual state of alarm..."

"...and hence clamorous to be led to safety,) by menacing them with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." - H.L. Mencken


"And this is where we run."

Italy leads the way.  Italy to include sex, drugs in GDP: "Italy is changing how it calculates its gross domestic product, a measurement of the overall economy, to include black market activity — everything from prostitution to illegal drug sales to smuggling and arms trafficking. Economists predict illegal sales will add 1.3 percentage points to GDP this year."

Crowdfunding the Cosmic Trigger | The Daily Grail: "The world needs more Robert Anton Wilson. At a time when so many people take themselves and their views far too seriously, RAW's "agnostic mysticism" provides a different way forward, one in which we all understand the 'reality tunnels' we live within - and as a consequence, help us to take everything *we* say with a grain of salt. So I was excited to see the newly-created crowd-funding drive to support a stage play (and accompanying festival) based around RAW's Cosmic Trigger, which will be directed by Daisy Campbell (daughter of British theatre maven Ken Campbell, who in 1976 staged a now-legendary play based on another RAW classic, Illuminatus!)"

Cosmic Trigger Play | Indiegogo: "Daisy’s adaptation recounts the period of Bob’s life around the inspiration for, writing of and theatrical culmination of Illuminatus!, a period where he also met iconic countercultural figures like Timothy Leary, Alan Watts and William Burroughs, all of whom feature in the play. The narrative slips in and out of Illuminatus! itself and the production employs song, music, projections and stagecraft to evoke the real-life hallucinogenic trip through conspiracy, paranoia and enlightenment that transformed Bob from a simple Playboy editor into the influential countercultural figure he is today. Robert Anton Wilson sought to induce in his readers agnosticism; not just about God, but about everything; and all his work blurs the lines between truth and fiction. This will be reflected in a staging style that often breaks down theatrical conventions, with actors amidst the audience, tiny stage-sets that can pop up anywhere and cutting-edge projection trickery, allowing the very walls of the theatre to drop away at one climatic moment."

Way to kick off an eating disorder, assholes.  Brickbat: Fat, Fat the Water Rat - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "Gwendolyn Williams stands 4 feet 1 inch tall and weighs 66 pounds. According to a letter sent to her parents by the New York City school system, that makes the 9-year-old girl overweight. The school system sent some 870,000 “Fitnessgrams” home with students recently."

Is this girl overweight? Her school sent home letter saying she is… | KFOR.com: "Gwendolyn’s mom, Laura Bruij Williams, said she found out about the letters while tucking her daughter into bed.  “She said, ‘Hey, Mom, the school told me I’m overweight,’ and then she started jiggling her thighs and saying, ‘Is this what they mean?’” Laura said. “That was heartbreaking.” Laura said the next day she called the principal who she said was sympathetic but said the children were told not to open the letters.  The BMI is supported by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention but it was designed decades ago by the insurance industry as a way of assessing the health of groups of people, not individuals,  according to Chevese Turner with the Binge Eating Disorder Association."

Welcome. | "When I was about 20 years old, I met an old...: " In 1978, Astrid Lindgren received the German Book Trade Peace Prize for her literary contributions. In acceptance, she told the following story. "When I was about 20 years old, I met an old pastor's wife who told me that when she was young and had her first child, she didn't believe in striking children, although spanking kids with a switch pulled from a tree was standard punishment at the time. But one day when her son was four or five, he did something that she felt warranted a spanking - the first of his life. And she told him that he would have to go outside and find a switch for her to hit him with. The boy was gone a long time. And when he came back in, he was crying. He said to her, "Mama, I couldn't find a switch, but here's a rock that you can throw at me." All of a sudden the mother understood how the situation felt from the child's point of view: that if my mother wants to hurt me, then it makes no difference what she does it with; she might as well do it with a stone. And the mother took the boy onto her lap and they both cried. Then she laid the rock on a shelf in the kitchen to remind herself forever: never violence. And that is something I think everyone should keep in mind. Because violence begins in the nursery - one can raise children into violence." I think that too often we fail to feel situations "from the child's point of view," and that failure leads us to teach our children other than what we think we're teaching them."

Leaving 10,000 troops behind isn't a troop withdrawal, you lying bastards.  US Not Actually Leaving Afghanistan, NYPD to Start Carrying Heroin Antidote: P.M. Links - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "President Barack Obama wants to keep nearly 10,000 troops in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of forces at the end of the year. This means that we're not actually withdrawing forces, doesn't it?"

Obama to leave 9,800 U.S. troops in Afghanistan - The Washington Post: "President Obama revealed his long-awaited plan for Afghanistan on Tuesday, announcing that a residual force of 9,800 U.S. troops will remain there for one year following the end of combat operations in December. "

So a narcissistic, racist, mentally deranged sociopathic asshole, with autism/Asperger's, who's been in therapy for 14 years [and likely on psychotropic anti-depressants, which have links to the vast majority of the mass killings in the USA for the last 20 years], kills 4 men and 2 women and the media tagline and resulting shorthand for the atrocity is: misogyny.  What the ungodly fuck?  This asshole resented and hated women *and* the men he deemed "successful" with women.  He killed twice as many men than women, including stabbing three to death, a much more psychologically violent and personal way in which to kill someone. The men who died have become an inconvenient asterisk to the media narrative.  Fuck everything about this story and the way it's been reported.  This, instead, I find far more compelling.   Could Therapy Culture Help Explain Elliot Rodger's Rampage? - Reason.com: "A family friend said Rodger had been seeing a therapist since the age of eight. Apparently he had visited a therapist "virtually every day" during his high school years. By the time of the massacre and suicide at the University of Santa Barbara over the weekend, when he was 22, Rodger reportedly had "multiple therapists."

...I think Rodger's reported reliance on therapists from childhood through to adulthood deserves more analysis than it has so far received, because it potentially speaks to a dark side—a very dark side—of the modern therapy culture. There has been a mad dash to blame Rodger's actions on the misogynistic websites that he was known to visit, with some claiming these sites warped his mind and made him murderous. There has been far less focus on the therapy culture which by all accounts, and according to his family and friends, was a far more longstanding part of his life than his Internet habits.  Yes, he might have spent some late nights lurking on "men's rights" websites, but if the reports coming from those who knew him are to be believed, he spent 14 years visiting therapists. To my mind, if we are going to say that any kind of "culture" was responsible for Rodger's rampage—and that is always a dangerous thing to do, since it lessens Rodger's own moral responsibility for what he did—then we might want to examine the impact of mainstream therapy culture rather than obsessing over the fringe misogyny culture he might have dabbled with...

We know a handful of things about Rodger. One is that he visited therapists. Another is that he was full of self-regard, was incredibly self-obsessed, and was utterly outraged when people, especially women, didn't treat him with the love and respect he felt he deserved. It is possible that these two things are connected, maybe even intimately connected. For one of the main, and most terrifying, achievements of the modern cult of therapy has been to churn out a generation of people completely focused on the self and in constant need of validation from others; a generation that thinks nothing of spending hours examining and talking about their inner lives and who regard their own self-esteem as sacrosanct, something which it is unacceptable for anyone ever to dent or disrespect. Could Rodger's fury at the world for failing to flatter his self-image as a good, civilized guy be a product of the therapy industry, of the therapy world's cultivation of a new tyrannical form of narcissism where individuals demand constant genuflection at the altar of their self-esteem?

...American philosopher Jean Bethke Elshtain said, the era of therapy has created a "quivering sentimental self that gets uncomfortable very quickly, because this self has to feel good about itself all the time." We see this everywhere today. We see it in university students who want to ban everything that they think harms their self-esteem, because they've been educated to see any attack on what they think and how they feel as utterly unacceptable. We see it in the growing cult of self-revelation and the search for validation on social networks like Twitter, where individuals' frenetic tweeting and their desperate desire for that all-important retweet speaks to the reorganization of society around the need for recognition, the need for an "admiring audience" to make the self feel puffed up. And we potentially see it, in its most extreme form, in Elliot Rodger, the son of therapy, who appears to be the ultimate "quivering sentimental self" made "uncomfortable very quickly" when he didn't feel good about himself...

It is striking how therapeutic is the language used by Rodger in his videos and his murder manifesto. He talks about how people's attitudes towards him "really decreased my self-esteem." He clearly sees such assaults on his self-esteem as unacceptable, saying "if they won't accept me… then they are my enemies." In short, fail to offer recognition to this damaged creature and you will pay the price. And then he makes the key cry of our therapeutic era: "It's not fair. Life is not fair.""

More attempts to demand that others Nerf the harsh edges of the world to someone's personal liking.  Campus Trigger Warnings Threaten Speech and Treat Students Like Children - Reason.com: "...why are today's colleges moving toward implementing a paternalistic warning system for classes that include discussions of potentially sensitive topics, such as violence, sex, racism, and abuse?

...In February of this year, Oberlin College posted a Sexual Offense Resource Guide on its website that asked professors to proceed with caution when discussing topics that might distress "survivors of sexualized violence in their classrooms," in order to "ensure a welcoming and supportive environment" for them. Unsurprisingly, however, this purported effort to create a more sensitive classroom was highly politicized. Oberlin's guide stressed that "sexual misconduct is inextricably tied to issues of privilege and oppression." Faculty members were advised to "[e]ducate [themselves] about racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, cissexism, ableism, and other issues of oppression" and to be aware of how these issues could impact classroom discussions. The guide referred to such topics as "triggers," defining that term as "something that recalls a traumatic event to an individual." 

So what advice did Oberlin have for professors whose course material might contain potential "triggers"? In a section entitled "Understand triggers, avoid unnecessary triggers, and provide trigger warnings" (authors' emphasis), the guide asked professors to "remove triggering material when it does not contribute directly to the course learning goals" and to "[i]ssue a trigger warning" when such material could not be eliminated altogether. Amazingly, Oberlin also noted that "[a]nything could be a trigger—a smell, song, scene, phrase, place, person, and so on."

Oberlin professors were less than thrilled with essentially being required to read the minds of their students to determine what sounds or smells might cause them trauma. Following widespread criticism, the policy was quickly taken down...

Oberlin's policy required faculty to act as parents: Much like a mother accompanying her young child to an action film, professors were asked to determine whether the students in their classes were capable of handling certain content. The important difference, however, is that college students aren't ten years old. They're adults. As such, they need to be able to handle topics that adults encounter in daily life. While Oberlin appears to be reconsidering its trigger warning guidelines, the concept is gaining traction at other universities...

So what's the problem with being sensitive? After all, the stated intent of the UCSB resolution is to protect those who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), an acknowledged condition that affects roughly 7.7 million American adults, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Oberlin's advice doesn't mention PTSD specifically, but still attempts to prevent students from "recall[ing] a traumatic event." PTSD is a serious issue among survivors of everything from rape to terrorist attacks like 9/11. But if students are suffering from PTSD to the extent that even curricular mentions of violence (sexual or otherwise) bring on symptoms of the disorder, that's an actual mental health problem that should be addressed by medical or counseling professionals—not faculty making their best guesses at which Shakespeare play is too much for their students to handle...

Attempts to create a bubble-wrapped campus environment devoid of triggers is doomed to failure because of their unpredictable nature. Even if such an effort were to succeed, the "best" possible outcome would be to delay the diagnosis and treatment of students with PTSD for four years, rather than getting them the help they will need to deal with life after college...

Proponents of trigger warnings don't usually dwell on their costs—but they are significant. Slapping a warning label on academic speech is sure to stifle the spirit of free and open inquiry that must exist at an institution of higher learning. During their college years, students should be learning to become critical thinkers. Students develop that ability by encountering and exploring a wide range of ideas, some of which might be alien, offensive, or deeply challenging. In doing so, they test their own beliefs and the beliefs of others, discarding some and adopting new ones. The analytical skills they develop along the way will enable them to tackle important issues throughout their lives, long after they graduate...

As Conor Friedersdorf writes in his piece on trigger warnings, "Surely college students should know what's coming when they set out to plumb human civilization. A huge part of it is a horror show. To spare us upset would require morphine."

...Moreover, measures that restrict speech—particularly those as broad and vague as requested by the UCSB resolution—are easily co-opted by those who want to limit or eliminate the discussion of an idea they dislike. People who oppose certain points of view can use such policies to justify their quests to silence them. In eleven years of defending free speech on campus one of the authors of this article, Robert Shibley, has seen this happen time after time. Human nature being what it is, too many people are quick to seize any opportunity to shut down speech that offends or upsets them..."

Mike Nifong, of the bullshit Duke lacrosse case, has a clear pattern of jackassery.  N.C. judge overturns Darryl Howard conviction, finds prosecutor misconduct by Mike Nifong: "In an opinion released today, North Carolina Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson overturned Howard’s conviction. Hudson’s decision finds for the defense on every major claim. It’s a resounding repudiation of the way Nifong handled Howard’s trial...  Hudson then takes aim at Nifong, noting that Nifong not only put on materially false and misleading testimony from Dowdy, but also made a false and misleading argument to the jury...

"Hudson then adds, “Based on a review of the State’s Answer and exhibits, the state has presented no evidence that either Det. Dowdy or ADA Nifong were unaware of the informant memo; rather, the State concedes that both were aware of its existence.” He concludes that Nifong’s and Dowdy’s violation of Howard’s “Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights” was prejudicial. This is a rather thorough rebuke.

...prosecutorial misconduct is rarely a one-off phenomenon. As I documented in my initial story on Howard, there’s evidence that the Durham DA’s office has had a serious and longstanding culture of misconduct. But an eagerness to “move on” from the Duke case has prevented any thorough assessment of that culture, or any effort to look into how many innocent people may have been victimized by it and help those people get their convictions overturned. Cohan’s book — and the praise heaped upon it by media outlets like NPR, the New York Times, the Economist and the Wall Street Journal — will make this all the more difficult."

Las Vegas cop cleared after shooting unarmed man: "Officer Evans ordered Hodges to put his hands up. According to Hodges, he raised his hands, then lowered one hand to put his cellphone in his pocket. That’s when Evans shot him. Officer Evans has been cleared of wrongdoing. Note here that the burden is on the citizen, not the trained law enforcement officer. The risk of any mistake, by the cop or the citizen, is borne by the citizen. Evans could have given Hodges another warning. He could have seen that Hodges was carrying a cellphone and intuited that a nervous guy with a gun pointed at him may just wanted to have put his cellphone in his pocket. But that would have required Evans to assume some additional risk. Instead, he transferred the risk back to Hodges by shooting him. When police shoot unarmed people, the justification is often that the victim made a “furtive gesture” or “reached for his waistband.” The implication is that this isn’t something innocent, unarmed people do. But those people were innocent and unarmed. So either the police are lying about the victim’s actions (which does not seem to be the case here), or those sorts of movements are something that innocent, unarmed people may sometimes do when a gun is pointed at them, and these experiences should be accounted for and incorporated into police training. One thing seems certain: Innocent, unarmed people aren’t making furtive gestures or reaching for nonexistent guns just to trick the police into killing them...

That police are rarely punished after the incidents also reveals another unfortunate truth: Citizens must do everything right in these situations. There is no allowance for judgment altered by fear or panic. Police officers, meanwhile, are afforded a good deal of leeway in light of the perilous circumstances. (The double standard is even more glaring during forced entry drug raids, which are designed to maximize confusion and disorientation.)

This is the consequence when we put a premium on officer safety, giving it more value than the rights and safety of citizens.

When I was researching my book, I talked to Neil Franklin about this. Franklin is a former Maryland state trooper, a former narcotics cop and was once in charge of curriculum at the Maryland State Police Academy. “I think there are two critical components to policing that cops today have forgotten,” Franklin told me. “Number one, you’ve signed on to a dangerous job. That means that you’ve agreed to a certain amount of risk. You don’t get to do start stepping on others’ rights to minimize that risk you agreed to take on. And number two, your first priority is not to protect yourself, it’s to protect those you’ve sworn to protect. But I don’t know how you get police officers today to value those principles again. The ‘us and everybody else’ sentiment is strong today. It’s very, very difficult to change a culture.”"

property — There is a one sided dialogue pushed by second...:  "There is a one sided dialogue pushed by second wave feminists and their idiotic ilk that cosmetic surgery is unequivocally bad...  They will poison an aesthetic so that pursuit of that aesthetic marks you as stupid, vapid, 2 dimensional. They will characterise your desire to change as weakness, vanity and insecurity. These people are shitty and they are everywhere..  Whenever you diet, or exercise, or commit to a new regimen, when you try and change your life for the better, there’s always that friend who instantly tells you that you look great the way you are, isn’t there? It doesn’t matter if you’re overweight, unfit, or unhappy, they don’t seem to want you to change. 

The simple fact is that the majority of people are afraid of change. Cosmetic surgery, dietary, habitual, sexual; whenever a woman takes agency of her body some people find this intimidating, terrifying; intolerable. It forces them to confront the limitations of their own life, their own laziness and inertia, holding them back from the things they want. Your action frames their inaction: 

You’re not dieting, you’re just participating in a fad 

You’re not working out, you just have a poor self image 

You’re not getting cosmetic surgery, that’s just vain and stupid 

You’re not getting pierced, that’s just gross 

You’re not submitting to him are you? You can do so much better. 

It’s not that these people don’t want you to be happy. They just don’t want you to change. Which is why they’ll undermine your diets, your relationship, your choices, invite you to ditch gym and go shopping. Heaven forbid you stick with whatever positive change you have made in your life; because then they will become ‘worried about this change’ in you. 

Ugh we never see you anymore you’re always at the gym 

Ugh you’re so arrogant and cocky since you got your tits

 Ugh are you too good for pizza now I don’t even know who you are anymore freak 

You do not need to ask permission to be happy. If being happy means fake tits and worshiping cock, then pursue it. If it means sweating every ounce of bodyfat off you in the gym, then go there and get it done. Hell, If happiness can be found kicking the shit out of boys and making them, forcing them at knifepoint to call you Mistress? Get out there and get it done. Stop waiting for your friends to support you, or the new year to toll around, or that next pay raise. Happiness doesnt need permission and Happiness should not have to wait. - MT"