I learned that Jennifer Lopez is white.

Yes, that Jennifer Lopez, who self-identifies as Puerto Rican and Latina, has two Puerto Rican parents, and is widely known as a highly visible and successful Latina and a role model for other Latina women – is white.

According to Tumblr, anyway.

Not a troll, apparently. Tumblr is unintentional self-parody, though.

Next I’ll learn that Samuel L. Jackson is white, I am sure.

Hell, the Tumblr clueless cabal can’t even use their usual excuse this time – that she “passes” for white so she is “really” white. Jennifer Lopez does and is a lot of things, but look white she does not.

Ah, Tumblr — methinks you are probably an NSA or CIA project to make the Left look bad. Or at least hoping that is the case.

This is heinous and appalling.

Another form of credentialism and an example of the cult of “expertise” over truth. In other words, the lesson here is that as long as your “evidence” is formatted properly, uses the right academic jargon, and features some facts and figures straight from the Heritage Foundation (and thus utter crap), it will be more likely to sway the FCC’s panjandrums – even if it is flagrantly false and completely fabricated.

And with the exception of Democrat Commissioners Copps and Adelstein, the people I spoke with at the FCC considered citizen input during the media ownership proceeding as emotional and superficial content.

One staffer explained why some comments in the record matter more than others, saying a lot of comments submitted by ordinary citizens are not “usually very deep or analytical or, you know, substantiated by evidence, documentary or otherwise. They’re usually expressions of opinion.” That means these kinds of comments are “not usually reviewed at a very high level, because they didn’t need to be.”

Of course this is really about money and who has it. Regular people do not have time to go out and conduct real studies, to run long-term analyses or to write PhD-level dissertations on media ownership or net neutrality.

Even people like me who are capable of such things and care don’t have time to do any such thing.

But who does?

Of course, large companies. Large companies have entire staffs of people cherry-picking data, paying academics who can’t get a better job to make shit up, and all sorts of other shady shenanigans.

So for the FCC commissioners and other bureaucrats it’s a way of justifying to themselves their industry-favoring decisions and the follow-on plum positions they will undoubtedly receive afterwards quid pro quo in the very industries they are supposed to be regulating.

In other words, it’s a way of telling themselves that they are honest and just bursting with integrity  — when they are in reality utterly corrupt.

So the lesson from this is if you shoot at someone in the state of Florida, shoot to kill. No warning shots or any of that other namby-pamby stuff.

Put it right between the eyes.

America, FUCK YEAH!

Apparently there is a keylogger in the Windows 10 Technical Preview that sends all data to Microsoft as you type.

I’m too busy with other things to run Wireshark and actually figure it out for myself, so for the moment I won’t be using the Tech Preview any longer, at least not until I can take measures to prevent this.

I understand why they did this, I just don’t want any part of it. Just an FYI for anyone else using it.

But won’t seem so absurd when they happen:

1) The US will invade Canada for its water within 50 years (no, I do not support this) and better post-GW farmland.

2) It will be far easier to “uplift” animal intelligence than it will be to create a real AI. This will lead to a new form of slavery before real AI happens.

3) Most children will be implanted with GPS monitoring chips “for their safety” when they are born within ~25 years.

4) Alaska will be the US’s most populous state by 2200.

5) Much of the water in Great Lakes will be drained/pipelined to support Great Plains farmland.

I have no problem believing that many people drink this much. I’ve seen it in person.

My mom routinely drank as many as 18 12oz beers in a single night, and then went to work the next day. This was a woman who while not skinny was short and couldn’t have weighed more than 180 pounds.

One weekend I remember her polishing off around 60 beers.

Yeah, she was fun to live with.

The Washington Post Wants Google to Invent a “Secure Golden Key.”

Also, they should go ahead and solve that pesky P = NP problem like tonight while they are at it.

Can we get someone who knows something about computer science up in here please? Damn.

Coincidentally, I found this piece which covers same of the ground I did – but more eloquently and with less venom — the other day about how it’s to the benefit of the existing power structures that social movements on the Left use identity politics to tear themselves apart.

I am not writing to tell you that we should all give up and hold hands and be friends, that none of the issues within social movements matter. I am not writing to say that we are all one and we should ignore the very real and present injustices within social movements in the interest of taking down the man. But I am writing to say that active policing within social movements, distinguished from legitimate concerns about equality, is harmful, and serves only one purpose: Maintaining the existing status quo.

I wonder if it is even possible for humans to stop policing so stringently who is in and/or out of the tribe? It seems built in to us.

However, much in the past has seemed innate that really was not. So I don’t know. But it is certainly doing the Left no favors at the moment.

I hardly ever play computer games, but I do like them occasionally.

But why does every damn one nearly have to require multiplayer these days? I don’t want to play no fucking multiplayer game.

Grrr. Get off my lawn and stuff.

I think people who meet me sometimes don’t know if I am crazy cornpone redneck or a history professor.

I like the confusion this engenders. When you don’t conform to any cultural narrative that people understand, it really throws them for a loop. And a barrel roll. And a flat spin.

I’ve spent a while trying to decide if people do really get offended more these days, or if it’s just an act, or perhaps a misperception on my part.

I think it’s a bit of the first two.  People really do get offended more now, and as there is a larger audience they make a much bigger show of it.

Also, as effective civic coalitions collapse, as political systems corrode and no longer serve their constituents, as incomes fall and social services deteriorate, this causes most people feel a sense of helplessness and despair.

Therefore it comes to be that there is little else to do but skirmish with what should be allies in attritional internecine conflicts that distract and prevent any sort of coalition building. It’s better that than fight an unwinnable war against unassailable elites.

If you read comments — and you never should — you’ll be astounded by the level of offence-taking. People aren’t just bridling, they’re breaking and tearing their own heads off. Childless pet owners are the most sensitive to possible insult even though pets are never offended by humans. The smaller the difference between people, the greater the narcissism. The more tinted the car window, the more easily offended the driver.

I wrote a column recently praising grand arching trees on Toronto front lawns and got hissing emails from people with tall slender trees. Write a column mocking Stephen Harper’s hair and you will hear from three kinds of people: underfed young white men with hunting rifles, the “anti-urban elitist” Angry Pajamas, and a weird new cohort, elderly women — thankfully they are never violent — calling me a “stupid stupid girl.”

The thing is, people in power love offense. It means nothing will get done. It’s a way of blowing off steam, of releasing anger harmlessly. Despite the fact that I like a lot of it and it’s great place for voices that rarely get heard to do so, the offense culture of Tumblr and the like is the definition of ineffectual. It will never achieve anything at all. Ever.

Relatedly, the reason why shows like Jon Stewart’s receive very little political pushback is that just like offense, humor is a tool to defuse anger, to defuse political action, to prevent opposition and to forestall the fomenting of political movements averse to the elites. Shows like Stewart’s are often found in countries with the most authoritarian regimes for that very reason.

In other words,  Jon Stewart – as funny as he may be – is a tool and also a member of the elites just as much as Karl Rove or George W. Bush.

But back to the offense culture.

Getting offended isn’t even a first step to change. It’s just a momentary emotion that puffs off into the wind like smoke from a match. Getting angry and then building something from that anger is how change occurs.

Most people though only care about showing how offended they are to demonstrate the right qualities to their in group, and that’s all. Out of such trifles a new world cannot be built.

Note: I am not talking about stalking, harassment or other behavior. Those are crimes and should be prosecuted in a sane world.

I’ve read nearly all of these essays.

If expanded to 15 using the same standards as those 10 choices, I’d add “The Case for Reparations” by Ta-Nehisi Coates; “Mother Earth Mother Board” by Neal Stephenson; “Green Screen: The Lack of Female Road Narratives and Why it Matters” by Vanessa Veselka; “Our Secret” by Susan Griffin; and “We Must Risk Delight After a Summer Full of Monsters” by Molly Crabapple.

If it were to add one from before 1950, I’d include “Once More to the Lake” by E.B. White.

Any to add?

Essays are my favorite form of writing, by the way, and also the most difficult in my opinion.

Actually, no, I condemn anyone who is misogynist including: Christian fucknugget misogynist theocrats, Muslim scumbag misogynist theocrats, atheist assbiscuit misogynist non-theocrats, etc.

Most of this is about the Left feeling cognitive dissonance because they have problems criticizing other cultures, and therefore are in a bind with denouncing how obviously, frighteningly misogynist 99% of Islam is – even when it’s not to the extremes of ISIS in Iraq.

I don’t need to hew to nor care about any ideology in particular, so I’ll condemn any misogynist you bring me. Let me at ‘em.

They bother someone I love enough, I’ll bury them in the woods.

Pretend I didn’t write that.