Every crisis becomes a religion if it lasts long enough.

One factor in that transformation is the Beautiful Theory phenomenon: the power elite insists its remedies are logical and politically correct so they MUST work, even if the actual evidence shows they obviously don't.

A Biden win would decisively hand the 21st Century to China. I think it's very important to prevent a fascist superpower from ruling the world. Funny how so many self-professed "anti-fascists" seem untroubled by the prospect.

It's entirely reasonable to say Trump's election lawyers need to produce hard evidence to back up their sweeping allegations, PDQ.

It's absurd to expect them to do it live on a talk show, as if they were carrying Marsellus Wallace's magic glowing briefcase from Pulp Fiction.

Host: You say thousands of votes were switched by corrupt computer software. You need to prove it.

Sidney Powell: Of course. I have the proof right here.

[opens briefcase, golden light spills out]

Host: Is that...?

Powell: Yes.

Host: Wow. OK, you win. I'm sold.

There is no way the "evidence" of the most serious claims is something that can be dangled in front of cameras. There is no way that attempting to do so would convince anyone, nor should it. The evidence will be extensively evaluated by experts and presented to judges.

It's perfectly appropriate to say the clock is ticking and this evidence needs to be correctly presented in the proper venue very quickly. Treating it like prop comedy on a talk-show set or at a press conference isn't exactly going to make it look more serious and credible.

It's possible Trump's team sincerely believes they have ironclad evidence, but it doesn't pass muster with court analysts. In other words, they're not trying to scam anyone, but they're mistaken about the value of what they have. Their reputations would survive in that case.

Minimum wage hikes are an easy pander - thank politicians for "giving you a raise," and don't think about all the jobs they destroyed! - but they're also an important weapon in the Left's war on the middle class.

The coming year will see Biden Democrats walking slowly through a vast field of small businesses exhausted by the battle with the coronavirus, shooting any who can still move. Big Tech will hold a pillow over the faces of those who cry out too loudly.

The destruction of the independent American middle class is one of the highest policy goals of the hard Left. It is finally at hand, thanks to the coronavirus and its political aftershocks. A year ago, they could not have dreamed they would get such a perfect kill shot.

A true middle class has economic interests that run counter to command economics, confiscatory taxation, centralized power, and other features of socialism. It also has the numbers to protect those interests at the ballot box. Of COURSE the Left hates it and wants to subdue it.

Small business is the vital engine of middle class prosperity, and the specific enemy the Left hates the most. Small business owners - and their sharpest, most ambitious employees - place a high value on capitalist freedom and competitiveness. They know the value of a dollar.

The small business experience is defined by the atmosphere of competitiveness that statism and socialism are sworn to destroy. Local enterprises appear quickly in response to demand that cannot easily be seen by distant central planners. Entrepreneurship requires agility.

Political violence is always wrong and should never be tolerated from anyone. Once "protesters" threaten lives and property, their grievances and ideology should become absolutely irrelevant to the situation.

That is, obviously, not the country we live in.

Long ago, we had an attitude of zero tolerance for terrorism, "we do not negotiate with terrorists," etc. One reason for this was the implicit understanding that negotiating with terrorism legitimizes it. Violence becomes an instrument of politics.

Some of us warned all last year that treating violence as acceptable, even laudable, from SOME people would mainstream it and touch off an arms race. Everyone would start getting the idea that only groups with a demonstrated capacity for violence are taken seriously.

When violence becomes acceptable from one party and its clients, one ideology, it becomes an instrument of authoritarianism. That's why authoritarian regimes frequently have violent vigilante groups roaming the streets in addition to their vast security and military forces.

Iran, for example, has all sorts of heavily armed police and security forces, working for both its secular and theocratic governments, but it ALSO has ultra-violent "vigilante" groups indulged by the State whose "grievances" supposedly justify vandalism and murder.

1/14 How do e-cigarettes (ECs) affect cigarette smoking among youth? My new paper with @FloeFoxon simulates each scenario and finds out which one best matches actual trends... https://t.co/dBB7kcnTls @jgitchell @mikepesko @SwitchFinder @jkelovuori @TobPolicy @Clive_Bates

2/14 First, let's talk about why this question is so difficult to answer: COUNTERFACTUALS. We can't know the alternate-reality answers, like which smokers would have never started in a world without ECs, and which nonsmokers would now be smoking without ECs as an option.

3/14 So, the best we can do is use fancy/sophisticated methodologies to estimate what would have happened to youth smoking rates in the absence of ECs. In our case, simulation modeling

4/14 First, we look at the declining smoking trends *that were already happening* before ECs came (~2010), and project them into the present. This is our BASE-CASE SCENARIO about what smoking trends would be if ECs were never invented. Actual trends were LOWER than this base-case

5/14 Side note about terminology: We use the term “catalyst” instead of “gateway,” because “catalyst” is more precise about the claim we are modeling (that ECs are used first, and then causally lead to smoking). Whereas "gateway" can include other mechanisms like renormalization.

Count Giancarlo Cicogna was a member of the Ciga hotels clan. He was with Ghislaine Maxwell for 4 years. He was 'the man who moulded the Ghislaine we now see. He told her where to get her hair cut, and what to wear.'
https://t.co/XorCl9VKW6

There is a very Ghislaine like character named Madam Anais in the movie La Belle De Jour who runs a Brothel. The film was produced by Marina Cicogna.

Private View of 'Once Upon Time' an Exhibition of Photographs by Marina Cicogna Sponsored by Fiat at the Little Black Gallery,

My view Marina Cicogna looks like Dottie in the Disney Channel series WandaVision.

NY Times covered a story of Countess Marina Cicogna, a woman with a very intetesting life. I am sure she knows many secrets and that gives her power over people of influence.

Since a lot of my fellow Texans are going to apply for aid through @FEMA let’s talk about the agency and some of the barriers disaster survivors encounter and persisting program flaws.

First things first, @FEMA is part of the Department of Homeland Security. Here’s a blog I wrote about its history and shortcomings in how the agency is funded:

Many people will be applying for Individual Assistance (IA), but past disasters have shown us that help isn’t evenly distributed and frequently struggles to reach those in deepest need. This unpacks some of the class bias in accepted/rejected apps:

Of course, there are racial dimensions to this as well:

Documentation is seen as helping reduce fraud, but after a disaster many docs are destroyed. People who are denied assistance and appeal are often told to make small changes to the documents they provide or provide updated documentation b/c of how long the aid process takes.

We live in a society that misunderstands boundaries and consent. Most people think the former is about just saying no, and the latter is about sex. And while that’s a part of it, they are about agency, autonomy, respect and interpersonal relationships.

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Unsolicited advice without consent is crossing a person’s boundaries. Even if the advice is good advice, even if the person giving the advice is a pastor or a parent, even if the advice is important. Most people aren’t talking about their life so that we may solve it.

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It is an honor to be trusted with someone’s life story*, with their thoughts and their challenges, with their struggles and their musings. But it is not an open invitation to try and solve their problems, control their behavior, tell them what to do.

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For a group of people that speak often of free will and claim to follow Jesus, Christians are some of the worst at boundaries and consent in general, and advice giving in particular. Think about how many sermons are not sharing spiritual truths, but just giving advice.

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Think about how much pastoral counseling is just advice giving. Think about the many books that tell you how to parent, how to be a good wife, how to be a good Christian, how to... and how much of it is general advice as though our lives were interchangeable?

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