Odds and Ends

For those who had idiots for CWP instructors, or idiots giving advice at the local gun store, Cataline has an excellent post on how to deal with the aftermath of a shooting.

Now the lights have gone out of his eyes. You have just killed a man in the comfort of your own home.

Your life has changed for-ev-er. You will never be the same man you were before you pulled that trigger. Old you is as dead as the now cooling lump of meat at your feet.

You have called the cops. They will be there any minute. What you do next will chart the course of the rest of your life. It all depends on what you are about the tell the officer, that is about enter your house.

Anyone familiar with Massad Ayoob's work, such as the book "The Gravest Extreme", will find this somewhat familiar advice. I'm remiss on one both Cataline and Massad stress - have a lawyer already lined up, and need to fix that forthwith.

Meanwhile, Men of the West inexplicably takes the time to review Mortal Engines. In case you didn't figure out the feminist, anti-colonial, class-warfare themes from the trailers, then yup, it's confirmed.

Devon over at BlackPilled covers an instance of propaganda as Logos.

The grooming behavior shown is exactly that described by Moira Greyland regarding her own father and others who sexually abused children around the Berkely SF/RenFaire community.

The responses are predictable. Despite Devon repeatedly stating that a minority of gay men were predators, and that in knowing over a hundred gay people in the entertainment industry, all but maybe one were abused, we get comments like:

makes a statement. all gays were molested or had a feminine childhood. based on your own clearly right wing circle of communication

anticipates a response from people saying. there are gays who aren't molested or are feminine. then says that examples of people who were molested being gay doesn't matter.

no. this is the point where you accept that homosexuality is not linked to molestation or childhood. clearly it's just how some people are.

"Clearly right wing circle of communication?" Call him a liar if you must, but someone's brain shut off before hearing where Devon met these people. Nor did he say the latter.

And it's only one example of utterly dishonest reframing of what was actually said.

It's especially dishonest because, sure, maybe Devon ran into fewer than normal gay people who were not abused. Nevertheless, the litany of popular media personalities who are gay and have discussed their experiences - Milo, George Takei, etc., are rife with stories of being taken advantage of at a young age.

Meanwhile, Peter Grant covers the increasing scope and spread of Ebola. More surprising, yet filed under "obvious when you think about it", he discusses the spread of disease from touch-screen kiosks at fast food restaurants.

Senior lecturer in microbiology at London Metropolitan University Dr Paul Matewele said: ‘We were all surprised how much gut and faecal bacteria there was on the touchscreen machines. These cause the kind of infections that people pick up in hospitals.

As Peter points out, when you have people from different cultures with different standards of cleanliness, well... Wherever you have a bunch of third worlders with third world attitudes, you get third world diseases and standards.