Odds and Ends

Truth

Just a reminder - You don't have to be an expert on a subject at hand, but there are several ways to spot a lie even when you are not an expert.

One is to look for actions at odds with stated goals. At minimum, assuming it's not incompetence, blind pride, etc., it means there is something else on the line than what is stated.  "But I only", or similar construction, when they've done far more than was needed to achieve that goal, especially when doing things counter to that goal, is a dead giveaway.  Take Ms. Markle's recent interview with Oprah, who went ever-so-out-of-her-way to assure people the questions had not been revealed in advance, and never asked actually difficult questions. More specifically - the BPD/queen bee behavior of attacking the royals while insisting she wasn't trying to attack them, with vague accusations that cannot be denied.  I also refuse to believe a woman her age is that bloody clueless as to have not looked into what would be expected of her as a member of the nobility - and that said family hadn't fully briefed her in.

That's not even getting into the question of "if you want security and the title, perform the duties." My overall lack of care for and about the royals doesn't blind me to the fact that, unless they are idiots, are thinking at least a generation ahead, and won't leave a dilletante who's doing their own thing in a position to be a pretender to said throne. It's also not getting into how both MM and Oprah used "our truth" - a tell that they are not dealing in actual truth.

A second is to look for things that must be true, and aren't, if the statements are correct. For example - TED talks explaining to us that Brexit was a result of not communicating with the bigoted right wingers, because places like Rotherham hadn't been exposed to enough cultural diversity for them to see the benefits. Or "Women can do anything men can do."

For the last, it wasn't until 2017 that the world record for women's 100m freestyle, on a short course, beat the minimum time to even try out for the men's US swim team (the long course world record is still not good enough)

Here's screenshots from the relevant wiki (because more up to date) page:

Unsurprisingly, if you read down the page at the top 25 list, the top times for women, even on the easier short course, are nowhere near the times for men.

And here's the tryout standards for the 2020 olympic swim team:

Once you accept that there are differences, and understand that even small differences, iterated out consistently over time (the magic of compound interest) add up to huge differences, you understand why women swordsmen weren't really a general thing. But hordes of screaming banshees will insist otherwise.

Elections

The razorfist has a worthwhile rant on the recent shenanigans related to Maricopa and instituting permanent election fraud, and a good overview of all the issues, numerical, and otherwise, that hard proof of problems exists for, without fancy overseas shenanigans needed.

The death of empire

Over at DVS press, they expand upon a point made by my friend at the Dacian.

The United States is an Empire – we don’t have to get into the technical details of why this is so – but what exactly is it an empire of?

The post at the Dacian is also worth your time.

D&D

Mr Wargaming reminds us :

I love the money quote to that excellent thread (note the post 4 of three whilst discussing chaos) "If sorcerers are those who drag bits of Chaos up into the realms of man - we think of these as spells - then clerics are those men who drag bits of Law down into the realms of chaos. "

Censorship

It's hardly new news that Amazon is censoring unwelcome thoughts. Part of why I've been otherwise occupied instead of writing.

That's about it for now.