Reading, Winter 19/20.

Hate Inc.: Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another by Matt Taibbi

Walking Dead by Greg Rucka

The Rock Says... by The Rock and Joe Layden

God's Debris: A Thought Experiment by Scott Adams

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown

The Religion War by Scott Adams

House on Fire: A Novel (A Nick Heller Novel Book 4) by Joseph Finder

The Simple Path to Wealth: Your road map to financial independence and a rich, free life by JL Collins

Into the Fire: An Orphan X Novel by Gregg Hurwitz

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The Boys Omnibus Volumes 4-6 by by Garth Ennis, Darick Robertson, Russ Braun, John McCrea

Bushido: The Soul of the Samurai by Inazo Nitobe, adapted by Sean Michael Wilson and Akiko Shimojima

Luther Strode Volumes 1-3 by Justin Jordan, Tradd Moore, Felipe Sobreiro

Injection Volumes 1-3 by Warren Ellis, Declan Shalvey, Jordie Bellaire

Cover Vol. 1 by Brian Michael Bendis, David Mack

Fury MAX: My War Gone By Volume 1 by Garth Ennis , Goran Parlov

Batman: Damned by Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo
Dead Man Logan Vol. 2: Welcome Back, Logan by Mike Henderson and Ed Brisson
Fury: Peacemaker by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson

Reading - Winter 18/19

Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator by Ryan Holiday

What Remains by Ry Beville

The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman

The Killer Collective by Barry Eisler

Out of the Dark: An Orphan X Novel by Gregg Hurwitz

Gun Machine by Warren Ellis

How to Win at the Sport of Business: If I Can Do It, You Can Do It by Mark Cuban

Normal: A Novel by Warren Ellis

Super Villains of Persuasion by Ben Settle

Dead Pig Collector by Warren Ellis

Persuasion Secrets of the World’s Most Charismatic & Influential Villains by Ben Settle

Elektrograd: Rusted Blood by Warren Ellis

The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need by Daniel H. Pink and Rob Ten Pas 

(1. There is no plan. 2. Think strengths, not weaknesses. 3. It’s not about you. 4. Persistence trumps talent. 5. Make excellent mistakes. 6. Leave an imprint.)

--

Injustice: Gods Among Us: Year Two - The Complete Collection by Tom Taylor, Bruno Redondo, Mike Miller

Injustice: Gods Among Us Year Three - The Complete Collection by Tom Taylor, Brian Buccellato, Bruno Redondo, Mike S. Miller

Wolverine: Old Man Logan Vol. 9: The Hunter And The Hunted by Ed Brisson, Francesco Manna, Juan Ferreyra, Mike Deodato

The Wild Storm: Michael Cray Vol. 2 by Bryan Hill, Stephen N. Harris, Dexter Vines

Jimmy's Bastards TPB Vol. 1: Trigger Warning by Garth Ennis, Mike Marts, Russ Braun

Jimmy's Bastards Vol. 2: What Did You Just Say by Garth Ennis and Russ Braun

Indeh: A Story of the Apache Wars Kindle Edition by Ethan Hawke, Greg Ruth

Uber Volume 6 Invasion by Kieron Gillen, Daniel Gete

Batman: The Rebirth Deluxe Edition Book 1 Hardcover by Tom King, David Finch , Mikel Janin

Mister Miracle Paperback by Tom King, Mitch Gerads

Reading: July - Nov 17.

Dragon Teeth by Michael Crichton

A Complaint Free World: How to Stop Complaining and Start Enjoying the Life You Always Wanted by Will Bowen

Night School: A Jack Reacher Novel by Lee Child 

The Detachment (A John Rain Novel Book 7) by Barry Eisler

Crazy Horse: A Life by Larry McMurtry

Robert B. Parker's Bull River (Virgil Cole & Everett Hitch Book 6) by Robert Knott

The Hidden School: Return of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman

Robert B. Parker's Little White Lies by Ace Atkins

Embarrassing Confessions of a Marine Lieutenant: Operation Branding Iron by Donny O'Malley

Flight: A Novel by Sherman Alexie

Financial Peace Revisited: New Chapters on Marriage, Singles, Kids and Families by Dave Ramsey

MONEY Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom by Tony Robbins 

Unshakeable: Your Financial Freedom Playbook by Tony Robbins

The Total Money Makeover: Classic Edition: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness by Dave Ramsey

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett 

So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson

The Elephant in the Room: A Journey into the Trump Campaign and the “Alt-Right” by Jon Ronson

The Amazing Adventures of Phoenix Jones: And the Less Amazing Adventures of Some Other Real-Life Superheroes by Jon Ronson

True Allegiance by Ben Shapiro

The Kill Society: A Sandman Slim Novel by Richard Kadrey

I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi

Swing Set by Janice Weber

American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot by Craig Ferguson

The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story by Douglas Preston

The Midnight Line: A Jack Reacher Novel by Lee Child

Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don't Matter by Scott Adams

The Wild Storm Vol. 1 Paperback by Warren Ellis,‎ Jon Davis-Hunt 

Wolverine by Daniel Way: The Complete Collection Vol. 1 by Daniel Way, John McCrea, Staz Johnson , Javier Saltares , Steve Dillon, Bart Sears, Ken Knudsten 

The White Donkey: Terminal Lance by Maximilian Uriarte

Wolverine: Old Man Logan Vol. 1: Berzerker Paperback by Jeff Lemire, Andrea Sorrentino

Cow Boy Vol. 1 A Boy and His Horse Paperback by Nate Cosby and Chris Eliopoulos

Wolverine: Origin - The Complete Collection by Bill Jemas, Paul Jenkins, Joe Quesada, Kieron Gillen, Andy Kubert, Adam Kubert

Wolverine Vol. 1: The Brotherhood by Greg Rucka, Darick Robertson

Wolverine Vol. 3: Return of the Native by Greg Rucka, Darick Robertson 

Wolverine Vol. 2: Coyote Crossing Paperback by Greg Rucka, Leandro Fernandez

Atomic Robo and the Temple of Od by Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener

Wolverine: Old Man Logan Vol. 2: Bordertown by Jeff Lemire

Wolverine: Old Man Logan Vol. 3: The Last Ronin Paperback by Jeff Lemire

Injustice: Gods Among Us Year One: The Complete Collection 

Wolverine: Old Man Logan Vol. 5: Past Lives Paperback by Jeff Lemire, Filipe Andrade,‎ Eric Nguyen 

Hulk: Planet Hulk by Greg Pak,‎ Carlo Pagulayan,‎ Aaron Lopresti,‎ Gary Frank,‎ Takeshi Miyazawa

Conundrum.

What media bias?

"...beware the punditry, no matter how well-degreed they are, or well-spoken, or well-coiffed."

Did China Eat America’s Jobs? - Freakonomics: "Look at all those downstream effects from China’s manufacturing growth that David Autor identifies in the U.S.: job loss; wage depression; higher welfare spending. In another research paper, he and his colleagues found yet another downside. Many economists had suspected that greater competition with China would create incentives for American companies to invest more in research and development and become more innovative. But it hasn’t worked out that way. Instead, Autor and his colleagues found, Chinese competition has lowered profit margins for American manufacturers, leaving less money for R&D and resulting in less innovation. 

DUBNER: People like you – meaning economists, not like you David Autor necessarily – you know have been telling us for several decades now that globalization would be largely a win-win. I’m not so naive as to think that there are no losers. I get that. But that overall, we Americans should kind of sit back and relax, that it would be good for the median U.S. resident. So I don’t feel that way anymore and tell me if I’m wrong to not feel that way. And additionally if I’m wrong maybe to blame you and your cohort a little bit. 

AUTOR: I think if we had realized how traumatic the pace of change would have been, we would have at a minimum had much better policies in place to assist workers in communities that suffered these very severe and immediate consequences...

DUBNER: So David I know you’ve said that economics wasn’t entirely wrong on this prediction that global trade would kind of work out okay. But I do think a lot of people would disagree. Obviously it’s a matter of degrees. So if that’s my view and I think that you know many or most economists were wrong on something as basic and important as this, why should we ever listen to what you wonderfully educated egghead economists have to say when it comes to something as important and broad as macroeconomic issues that will affect my actual life? You can predict all you want about currency stories abroad, etc. But if it’s my life, my livelihood, my job, my family, and my ability to provide for them, you guys are supposed to be the nonpartisan, smart, apolitical cohort out there. And I trusted you and now I’m sorry I did. Because if I hadn’t, I might have changed course 15 or 20 years ago. And while I might well I might not be in great shape I’d certainly be in better shape than I am now...

This program has gone on and on about the folly of prediction. In fact, there’s a Freakonomics Radio episode from years ago called “The Folly of Prediction.” We talked about how one of the most common explanations of smart people, when their predictions turn out to be inaccurate was that “Well, we did the best we could considering the information we had at the time. If we’d had better information, we could have made a better prediction.” But you know what? If you had better information at the time, you wouldn’t have to make a prediction; the future would be obvious. But that’s the thing about the future – it’s rarely obvious. Which leaves a lot of room for all kinds of people to make all kinds of predictions that may or may not come true.

I’m not calling out David Autor here – again, I really appreciate his transparency and his doggedness. But the story of Chinese manufacturing and American labor is yet another reminder of how humble we should all be when we make a prediction, and how cautious we should all be when we hear one. Think about this: if the vast, vast majority of political pundits and TV journalists and even the most revered analytics geeks got the 2016 presidential election so wrong – and that’s a simple, binary choice, the Blue Team versus the Red Team – then how much harder is it to predict the downstream consequences as something as vast and broad as a global labor upheaval? I don’t mean to get all preachy on you; that’s not the Freakonomics way. But I will say this: beware the punditry, no matter how well-degreed they are, or well-spoken, or well-coiffed. Don’t assume they can know the future any better than you do; and don’t assume you’re such a genius either."

"...the real assumption that they bring to the news, even beyond their partisan affiliations, is an expectation of a smooth narrative."

All the News That's Fit to Fake - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "They expect news stories to look like the movies or TV shows that they're familiar with. Even if they're regular journalism consumers, the stories they remember best are these well done stories that tell a compelling narrative and make them feel like they're watching a movie or TV show. In reality, stories are messy and have real loose ends. That's the real bias that readers have to combat, and it's something that people in the media have to think about. Because, on the one hand we want to provide good, compelling narratives, but on the other hand, we don't want people to think they live in this world that's made up of these easy, compelling narratives. They don't."

"The press would be wiser to stop thinking of him as the outlier liar... and come to view him as a politician whose behavior is different only in degree, not in kind."

Put on Your Big-Boy Pants, Journos - POLITICO Magazine: "Rather than tying itself up in knots over the Trump obfuscations, the press would be wiser to stop thinking of him as the outlier liar and the worst enemy the press has ever known and come to view him as a politician whose behavior is different only in degree, not in kind. 

Consider the Obama presidency. As former Politicos Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen wrote in 2013 in a piece titled, “Obama, the Puppet Master,” he was “a master at limiting, shaping and manipulating media coverage of himself and his White House.” Obama didn’t camouflage the news with tweets or with shameless posturing in front the CIA’s wall of martyrs as Trump did on Saturday, a move that caused former CIA Director John Brennan to growl in protest. 

Obama, VandeHei and Allen explained, took “old tricks for shaping coverage (staged leaks, friendly interviews) and put them on steroids using new ones (social media, content creation, precision targeting).” In doing so, “Media across the ideological spectrum [were] left scrambling for access.” I don’t recall anybody calling for a boycott of Barack Obama or his myrmidons for his media scheming and for tipping the “balance of power between the White House and press … unmistakably toward the government,” as the Politico past-masters put it. The press mostly carried on, threading the thicket of treacheries as best it could. Governments always have and will always impede the press from doing their job, and they will use any means necessary. “All governments lie,” as journalist I.F. Stone once wrote, “but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out.” From my vantage, the Obama administration got Choom Gang stoned on their media pirouetting and the Trump administration seems to have come close to matching them in just a couple of days."

"Obama leaves a blueprint on how to suppress information and get away with it."

Reason.com: "Despite some promising open data initiatives, the executive branch under Obama was, on the whole, more secretive than ever. Since 2009, press access to the White House has been notably restricted, whistleblower prosecutions have spiked, and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits against the federal government have reached an all-time high. In 2013, the Committee to Protect Journalists published a scathing report, written by former Washington Post editor Leonard Downie Jr., on the Obama administration's obsession with controlling media coverage and burnishing its image, drawing comparisons to the pathological tendencies of one of the White House's previous occupants. "The Obama administration's aggressive war on leaks, and its determined efforts to control information that the news media needs to hold the government accountable for its actions, are without equal since the Nixon administration and in direct conflict with President Obama's often-stated goal of making his administration the most transparent in American history," Downie said when the document was released. "Parenthetically, I'm old enough that I was one of the editors on the Watergate story, so I make that comparison with knowledge," he continued. But unlike Tricky Dick, who provided future presidents with a cautionary tale about how dirty tricks can come back to bite them, Obama leaves a blueprint on how to suppress information and get away with it."

Obama promised transparency. But his administration is one of the most secretive - The Washington Post

"Fake News."

Redpanels: the alternative webcomic:

"Nearly 55 years after Silent Spring we do know [that] Carson's concerns have turned out to be way overblown."

I remember one of the English lessons in the Jr High textbook in Japan was all about Silent Spring and Rachel Carson.  [Japan, despite being covered in concrete, has a huge infatuation with nature.]  And then, having done some research into her, and discovering that she was wrong about a lot of things.  A lot of her work was fear mongering and juked stats.  And the ban on DDT likely did much more harm than good, especially for the folks who died from malaria.  But she's still venerated by the eco & political folks.  

Rachel Carson: New Documentary on PBS Tonight: "It is not an exaggeration to say that we are all still living in the intellectual and public policy world that Rachel Carson constructed in that book. "Already alarmed about the environmental damage caused by the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, Carson determined to alert the public to the dangers of pesticides and began the work that would define her legacy," explains the documentary press release...

Time has proved that Carson was right that agricultural spraying of the popular pesticide DDT did reduce the populations of hawks and eagles by thinning their eggshells. She was also right that widespread use had resulted in increasing pesticide resistance among many targeted insect species. These findings did indicate that they should be used more judiciously. Somewhat surprisingly, the documentary does not delve any more deeply into what science has discovered about the risks and benefits of synthetic pesticides in the 55 years since the publication of Carson's book. So what light does subsequent research shed on the claims made in Silent Spring? 

As an elegant and effective rhetorician Carson understood that while some Americans might be a bit worried about the health of birds and other wildlife, what would really get their attention is cancer. She was most concerned about the long-term effects of exposures to pesticides and other synthetic chemicals, but she sought to frighten readers with anecdotes about acute exposure producing cancer with months or weeks. She tells a story about a woman "who abhorred spiders" and who sprayed her basement with DDT in mid-August. She died of acute leukemia a couple of months later. In another passage, Carson cites a man embarrassed by his roach-infested office who again sprayed DDT and who "within a short time … began to bruise and bleed." He was within a month of spraying diagnosed with aplastic anemia. Again, comparing pesticides to the contamination of milk by radioactive fallout, Carson aimed to worry parents about the possibility of their kids getting cancer...

The PBS documentary shows clips of Carson interviews aired on the CBS Reports program in the spring of 1963 with Eric Severeid. "We have to remember that the children born today are exposed to these chemicals since birth; perhaps before birth," warns Carson. Now what is going to happen to them in adult life as a result of that exposure? We simply don't know because we've never had this kind of experience." Nearly 55 years after the publication of Silent Spring we do know and, fortunately, Carson's concerns have turned out to be way overblown. 

For example, in Silent Spring Carson warned, "Today, more American school children die of cancer than from any other disease [her emphasis]." That is still true today. But why had cancer emerged as the greatest killer of children in the 1950s? Not because it had significantly increased, but because far fewer were dying of the infectious diseases that had killed them in droves during earlier decades. The good news is that due to improvements in treatment the death rate from cancer for children 14 and under has fallen from 6.5 in 1969 to 2 per 100,000 now. Cancer incidence has ticked up for children under age 14 from 13 cases in 1974 to 17 cases per 100,000 now. 

As the American Cancer Society notes, a small percentage of cancer in children results from inherited genetic mutations, but otherwise, there are "few known risk factors for childhood cancer." Despite activist urgent alarms, subsequent decades of research have proved that exposure to trace amounts of all sorts of synthetic chemicals are not increasing the age-adjusted incidence of cancer. In fact, the cancer incidence rate among Americans has been falling for more than two decades. According to the latest Cancer Statistics 2017 report from the American Cancer Society, the overall cancer incidence rate (2004-2013) was stable in women and declined by approximately 2% annually in men, while the cancer death rate (2005-2014) declined by about 1.5% annually in both men and women. 

As the American Cancer Society has noted, "Exposure to carcinogenic agents in occupational, community, and other settings is thought to account for a relatively small percentage of cancer deaths – about 4 percent from occupational exposures and 2 percent from environmental pollutants (man-made and naturally occurring)." The documentary also includes a clip from CBS Reports featuring American Cyanamid biochemist Robert White-Stevens. "Miss Carson is concerned with every possibility of hazard and danger whereas the agricultural school has to concern itself with the probability, the likelihood of danger and assess that against utility," states White-Stevens. "If we had to investigate every possibility, we would never make any advances at all because this would require an infinite time for experimental work and we would never be finished." 

White-Stevens was arguing against what is now known as the precautionary principle; the idea that new technologies must be proven entirely safe before they can be deployed."

"If the way to respond to outrage culture is to be outrageous... then so much the better."

"What I do want to do is desensitize people to this offense-taking, grievance and victimhood culture."

"The First Amendment is extremely important.  It's the fundamental underpinning of American civilization."

"There's a sense in the media in America also that the range of acceptable thoughts and opinions... is becoming narrower and narrower."

"If you're not prepared to read the comedy into that statement and you think that is a literal expression, then I can't help you."

Can't imagine why no one takes the media seriously anymore.

Or political correctness, for that matter.

"...these are the stories we're sitting here covering?"

Training.

8/19 - press, chins, dips, pike pushups, stretch
8/18 - stretch
8/17 - squats, box jumps, lunge, knee raise, stretch
8/16 - stretch

Funeral For My Fat, You’ve spent months reaching your goals, or you’re...: "You’ve spent months reaching your goals, or you’re just starting your journey and now BAM. Summer is here, family trips are planned, beach weekends with your besties are booked, road trips are scheduled. You name it, vacation time is here ☀️ So what does that mean for your new found love or loath with healthy eating habits and fitness?? Well…

Like I said earlier, I’m on a strict plan right now. So I do cardio in the morning and weighs in the evening plus cardio again. I typically sleep in, but while on vacation, it’s fun to get up early and walk/jog the beach or break a sweat in the Hawaiian gardens for Body Sculpt class. In the evening, after dinner, My husband and I go lift weights+cardio for an hour. Our late evenings are free so we can walk the beach, find a fun live music spot, explore the night. For you, one workout might be enough! And that is great. Or every other day. Whatever feels right for you. Just know that fitness is part of your healthy life so you want it to be part of you vacation too.."

Guest post: Obesity re-programming – is perception being manipulated?: "Are we being re-programmed via an ever-growing press trend to not only accept obesity but laud its appearance and acceptance, as if it were an inherent and unchangeable, aesthetically pleasing characteristic, like eye color? 

In the search for romance and partners, individuals are being vilified for stating preferences for slender/fit types, which heretofore was argued as biologically driven selectivity for healthy (fertile and able to bear children) partners. Parents are being condemned for not accepting their children’s obesity and castigated when they call it out, however hard it must be on all sides, regardless of the extreme level of destruction they are witnessing in their beloved children and trying to curtail. That this calling out is now also being done for the entertainment of the masses is its own monster; the desire for one’s warholian fifteen minutes overrides tact and privacy in this media saturated culture, where attention comes at vitalized cost. 

As it sells commercial spots, it is supported by big industry, from a mass media need to fill 24/7 time slots to all weight-related industries, whose success depends on the ongoing attempts and failures of their consumers. Likewise, designers, retailers and their representatives are being attacked and boycotted when word that their demographic is not all-inclusive is viralized. Given the vast realm of physical and financial demographics, when ever was there a mandate that all clothing lines be manufactured for everyone? Fashion and wearables are material, materialistic products; this is a garment industry reality. Price point alone structures a bigger societal divider than any range of sizes and is not only accepted but celebrated. 

Additionally, online and print articles prepare readers beforehand with warnings of disturbing, so-called “triggering“ images when a photo of a corseted or over-thin body is shown, yet articles everywhere else tout the beauty in obesity and champion its integration as a personal, permanent physical reality. Image after image and story after story of overweightedness/obesity is presented by the media for purposes of mass acceptance, admiration and even congratulatory support. In contrast, witness the viralization of non-celeb, fitness-boasting mom posters, bloggers and celebrities who are attacked and denigrated far more than they are congratulated for their slender forms, even if it is about the reclaiming of women’s pre-pregnancy figures. Obesity is the result of overeating and a stagnant, sedentary lifestyle..."

"Mostly True."

"In place of a daily Two Minutes Hate directed at the Republican nominee..."

The media's foolish moralizing on Donald Trump: "The elite media is jam-packed with moralists who have collectively decided in the days since Donald Trump trained his rhetorical fire on Khizr and Ghazala Khan that any pretense of covering the presidential campaign dispassionately deserves to be thrown out the window...

Whatever the motive, the moralistic outbursts should stop. Report what Trump says. Tell us what the Clinton/Kaine campaign and other politicians say in response. And analyze what it all means. But jumping into the political fray en masse, explicitly attacking the Republican nominee, declaring his statements beyond the pale — it isn't smart, and it will do nothing to reinforce the political norms that the Trump campaign itself is actively shredding. In fact it's far more likely to deepen the already widespread distrust of elite institutions in general and the mainstream media in particular. Consider the Khan affair. Were Trump's remarks tasteless? Absolutely. But no more so — I'd actually say quite a bit less so — than countless other comments he's made over the past year. But wait: How dare I! This is a Gold Star family! A grieving father and mother whose son, Army Captain Humayan Khan, gave the ultimate sacrifice for his country! What could be more horrifying than to slander them? Here's the thing: The moment Khizr and Ghazala Khan took the stage at the DNC to deliver a speech that savaged the Republican presidential nominee and endorsed the Democratic presidential nominee, they ceased to be any old "Gold Star family." They became political actors and legitimate political targets. You can't claim immunity from political attack after you've launched an attack of your own in primetime at a political convention...

...should members of the media actively join the battle on the anti-Trump side? The answer is no. Trump was able to take over the GOP this year because millions of Republican voters felt ignored — disenfranchised — by both parties. When hundreds of journalists and other members of the country's political and intellectual elite close ranks, denouncing Trump in unison and in lockstep, attempting to excommunicate him from the political conversation, the voters who consider Trump their voice feel denounced and excommunicated, too. It often seems that a lot of the country's most prominent journalists and intellectuals would love nothing so much as to be able to make these voters vanish, or shame them back into silence. That, I'm afraid, is a fantasy. Trump is probably going to lose decisively on Nov. 8. But on Nov. 9, the millions of people who cast ballots for him, who felt heard and championed for the first time in a very long time, will still be here. They are our fellow citizens. They aren't going anywhere. The rest of us need to get used to that. And stop acting like we can somehow wish or ridicule away those with whom we profoundly disagree."

#FreeMilo

Milo Did Nothing Wrong - Breitbart: "In their email to Yiannopoulos, Twitter said he had been banned for “participating in or inciting targeted abuse of individuals.” And it’s true that Twitter’s terms of service do include a specific ban on abuse and targeted harassment. The question is – did Milo really break the rule?

Keep in mind that Twitter did nothing when Jerome Hudson, a black reporter for Breitbart News, was repeatedly called “coon” by a prominent rapper on the platform. It has also let abusive and racist tweets from Leslie Jones, the Ghostbusters actress who reported Milo to Twitter, stand.

So, either Twitter has a very high bar for what constitutes “abuse and harassment,” or it is simply enforcing its terms of service unevenly, giving some users a pass despite flagrant and shocking rule-breaking. Let’s be generous and assume, for a moment, that it has a high bar. What did Milo do to cross it?

Well, first he committed the mortal sin of criticising Leslie Jones’ comic performance in the new Ghostbusters movie, suggesting she was playing the victim instead of acknowledging criticism. “If at first you don’t succeed (because you’re work is terrible), play the victim. Everyone gets hate mail FFS.” Jones then informed Milo that he had been blocked and reported to Twitter, before going on to call one of his supporters a “racist b*tch” after he accused her of trying to limit free speech. Milo said her tweets were “barely literate.” Milo then jokes – to his followers, not to Jones – that he had been “rejected by yet another black dude” after Jones blocked him on Twitter. His final tweet on the subject included screenshots (later found to be doctored by trolls) of Jones engaging in racist abuse.

In other words, Milo has been permanently banned for little more than criticism, mild insults, and mockery. Meanwhile, Jerome Hudson’s abuser, who repeatedly called the black reporter a “coon,” is still on the platform. So is Leslie Jones, who, according to Twitter searches, has repeatedly engaged in racist rhetoric herself — as well the plain old abuse of calling her critics “b*tches,” “a**holes” and a range of other expletives."

WATCH: Leslie Jones Admits To Violating Twitter's Rules On Targeted Abuse - Breitbart: "...whilst the narrative currently being spun across many mainstream media outlets is that Jones is an innocent victim of racist online trolls, more evidence has arisen that suggests that Jones is in fact an aggressor who deliberately orders her followers to attack her “critics” on Twitter. Ironically, directing a targeted harassment campaign and ordering followers to attack another user is a violation of Twitter’s terms of service, and exactly what Yiannopoulos was accused of by Jones.

This was what Twitter eventually used as an excuse to ban Milo, even though there was no evidence whatsoever that Yiannopoulos ordered his followers to attack the actress. No major news organisation has yet picked up on Jones’ racist tweets about white people, or the fact that she was hitting back at “trolls” before Yiannopoulos ever got involved.

Appearing on Late Night with Seth Meyers back in May, Meyers noted that Jones made the decision to “engage with critics” on the social media platform.” Jones responded by triumphantly declaring that she is “not no robot [sic] that sits behind a Twitter thing and tweets out, I’m a real person. I’ve got a Twitter account and yes if you call me a name I’m going to call you a name back.” In a not so subtle boast, Jones continued, saying that she didn’t “care how famous I am or how popular I am – if you call me a gorilla I’m going to call your mama one too.” More importantly, the Ghostbusters actress pointed out that she would “blow [anyone] up” who tweeted at her that she didn’t agree with, retweeting it “so all of my followers can see it and get on your punk…” Jones then trailed off before finishing her sentence."

Milo - "A walking contradiction of modern identity politics."

"The Left doesn't like it very much when people who they thought they'd had sorted turns out to be a bit more complex."

"...do calculus at levels that make TI-89 calculators weep tears of pain."

"Well meaning"" propaganda is still propaganda.