Author: VD

Scrabble converges

There is literally no activity or organization that will not be converged, unless it actively and aggressively resists convergence:

Expert Scrabble players have blasted the game’s owner as ‘virtue signalling’ and ‘woke’ after it banned 400 derogatory terms as playable moves. 

Racial slurs including the ‘n-word’, insults against the elderly and homophobic terms were removed from Scrabble’s official online words list following worldwide anti-racism protests in the wake of the death of American George Floyd.

Scrabble’s owner Mattel said it made the change to make it more relevant culturally following global unrest last year.

But Scrabble grandmaster David Webb said the move has been interpreted as ‘virtue signalling’.

Offensive terms including the ‘n-word’ were removed from Scrabble’s official online words list following worldwide anti-racism protests in the wake of the death of American George Floyd. 

The exact list of banned words has not been released.

Of course it hasn’t. The objective is to be able to administer the rules on a subjective basis, thereby granting the converged authority more power and flexibility while allowing them to avoid ever being held accountable to an objective standard.

Masks and distancing work

Or so we are told:

Influenza cases in the USA, 2016-2021
2016-2017: 29 million
2017-2018: 45 million
2018-2019: 36 million
2019-2020: 38 million
2020-2021: 0.0015 million
Masks and distancing work.

Actually, they don’t. Covid cases in the USA, 2020-2021

2020-2021: 32 million

Ignore the corrupt scientists. There is absolutely no question anymore. Covid is the freaking flu. 

Not only that, but it is considerably less lethal than historical flu viruses, including the 1889–1890 Russian flue pandemic, 1918-1919 Spanish flu pandemic, the 1957–1958 Asian flu pandemic, and the 1968-1969 Hong Kong flu pandemic.

UPDATE: It’s cute that some of you have been saying that Covid is the flu for some time now. The difference is that it was nothing but your groundless opinion at the time, and there was no reason for anyone to pay attention to that. This is logic combined with statistics being publicly reported by the same authorities who are advocating the injected mutatives, and is thus considerably more credible, to such an extent, in fact, that anyone who does not pay attention to this should not be taken seriously.

The USA breaks another agreement

I don’t know why anyone bothers even trying to make agreements with the US government. They’ve been breaking them regularly since the 18th century:

Since President Biden is breaking the US-Taliban peace deal by pushing back the May 1st withdrawal deadline to September 11th, the Taliban said it is ready to attack US troops again and turn the final months of Washington’s almost twenty-year-old war into a “nightmare.”

Mullah Salih Khan, a Taliban commander in the Helmand Province, told The Daily Beast on Wednesday that the group is prepared to strike “very much prepared to strike” US and Afghan government forces, warning that the Taliban will turn Afghanistan “into a nightmare” for them.

Mullah Mujahid Rahman, a Taliban subcommander from the Ghazni province, also said the group was ready to fight the US. He said the US has “proven they can’t be trusted after retreating from the May 1st deadline” and that the Taliban is willing to “fight till the end” of the US occupation. “We have the pride of defeating about 100,000 invaders from [different] countries in Afghanistan. A few thousand won’t be a problem at all,” he said.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid delivered a warning via Twitter on Wednesday. “If the agreement is breached and foreign forces fail to exit our country on the specified date, problems will certainly be compounded and those whom failed to comply with the agreement will be held liable,” he said.

The USA wasn’t always the Evil Empire. But it obviously is now. Although it’s more of a Retarded Evil Clown Empire Wearing a Dress Without Bothering to Shave Its Legs.

A flu by any other name

Is still the flu. The Pfizer whistleblower was correct and Pfizer’s CEO has already declared a possible need for annual covid vaccines.

Pfizer Inc’s CEO says he believes people will ‘likely’ need a third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. 

During a panel discussion hosted by CNBC in conjunction with CVS Health that aired on Thursday, Albert Bourla said a potential booster shot would be administered six to 12 months of being fully vaccinated.  

Bourla added that he thinks it is possible that people will need to be immunized against coronavirus annually.    

‘There are vaccines that are like polio that one dose is enough…and there are vaccines like flu than you need every year,’ he said.

‘The Covid virus looks more like the influenza virus than the polio virus.’  

Let’s examine the evidence in the philosophical mode of St. Thomas Aquinas:

  • It is said by scientists that 85 percent of the matter in the universe is undetectable.
  • It is said by scientists that the Arctic has been completely ice-free since 2013.
  • It is said by scientists that covid is not the flu.
I answer that: published and peer-reviewed scientody has proven to be less accurate than a coin toss and scientistry is entirely unreliable due to the manner in which it is funded. Further:

  • The number of people who have died OF covid is within the normal range of the number of people who die of the flu every year.
  • The flu has mysteriously vanished while the number of people who got covid was within the normal range of the number of people who get the flu every year.
  • The advocates of the various covid vaccines have already begun to sell the idea of annual covid vaccines to replace annual flu vaccines.
  • The neo-liberal world order is showing definite signs of collapse.
  • The covid narrative permits governments to significantly expand their powers in a way the flu narrative does not.

Therefore, I conclude: Covid is the flu repackaged and exaggerated for the globalist narrative to provide the Prometheans the ability to more easily manage the transition to the post-neoliberal world order.

The Saker is not optimistic

Even though Biden has, to a certain extent, backed down, The Saker is still concerned about the prospects of war over Ukraine:

Bad news all around today.  The US has just slammed provocative sanctions against Russia even though the US ambassador to Moscow was summoned to the Foreign Ministry and clearly told that if the US imposes more sanctions there will be no meeting between Putin and Biden.

Then there is this: the US has informed the Turkish authorities that they will not send two USN ships into the Black Sea.  This is politically a good sign, but in military terms, this is what the US should be doing if they were preparing for war.  Why?  Because any USN ship in the Black Sea at the moment of the initiation of a conflict would be sunk withing minutes: not only do the Russians have formidable missiles – Bal and Bastion – they had SIX advanced diesel-electric submarines of the 636.3 class ready to “greet” them.  Keep in mind that engaging submarines without air cover is another form of collective suicide.

So, the phone call was a deception and the US is still going down the road towards war with Russia.

In my professional opinion, what I see is a joint preparation by the Ukronazis and the USA (along with the UK and Poland) to attack the Donbass and force a conflict upon Russia.

It is very hard for me to see how a war could be avoided.

UPDATE: Biden has just declared a national emergency in the USA in response to the Russian threat.  He will make a special address to the nation tonight.

I don’t have an opinion, simply because I have no confidence about who is actually calling the shots behind the scenes of the Biden Not-Administration. If it’s China or the neoclowns, there will be war. If it is the US military, there will not be war.

Biden, of course, has no idea what is going on. The question is, who is writing his script? 

Mailvox: Sigma vs Alpha

 A reader wonders what the likely outcome is:

It’s clear that Putin is a legit Alpha….and dealing with Biden (not sure what to categorize him as, regardless of previous state/current state), Biden is getting devastated. Generally speaking, what happens when a Sigma and and Alpha go at each other? 

I do realize that part of being a Sigma is knowing when to respect the hierarchy and current status, but there are lines that a Sigma refuses to concede….I am seeing it now at my present employer, and I am curious how it will shake out, were I a betting man; Too many individual variables to post here, just a “finger in the air” how these types of altercations end up being resolved. 

Were I to be honest, I am a Venn diagram of Alpha/Beta (I look around any group and look to see if competent leadership is present or active before I start to engage, but really enjoy being a lieutenant), and I am not looking to change allegiances, but my personal scenario has the makings of tremendous collateral damage; The Sigma involved is a longtime employee, brilliant software engineer, fit, tall and handsome, and generally left to tackle big projects in a silo, with trust from the leadership he will deliver.

In the event of all-out conflict, the Sigma will vanish. This usually counts as victory from the Alpha perspective, because he retains his control over the hierarchy. However, the victory can be pyrrhic in nature if the Sigma is a valuable team member.

The wise Alpha will find a way to let the Sigma do his thing separately, but within the larger context of the team. Think skunk works, or the way IBM set up its Boca Raton group to develop the PC without the interference of the larger organization.

Since the reader is a Bravo, not an Alpha, he should probably try to find a way to back down and stay out of the Sigma’s way, or he may find that the Sigma’s talents are more important to the organization than his loyalty and leadership.

Backing down with alacrity

The neoclowns are belatedly beginning to realize that a proxy war with Russia over Ukraine is not going to end well for them or their clown-puppet regime:

Ukraine has warned Russia that it will bear ‘very painful’ consequences if it invades as Vladimir Putin continues to mass his forces in eastern Europe. Dmytro Kuleba, the country’s foreign minister, added that Moscow is ‘openly’ threatening Ukraine with ‘destruction’ by stationing 80,000 troops along its border – with more arriving every day.
He issued the warning following a meeting with the foreign ministers of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia – NATO allies in the region – saying ‘the four of us condemn the exacerbation of the situation by Russia.’ 
‘The world is on the side of Ukraine and international law, and this is one of the elements of restraining Russia from reckless actions,’ he added.
He spoke as Joe Biden prepares to slap sanctions on Russia in response to bounties put on American troops in Afghanistan, attempts to interfere in US elections, and the SolarWinds cyber attack of federal government data which US intelligence services blame on Moscow. Sanctions are likely to include the expulsion of 10 Russians from the US including diplomats, extending a ban on US banks trading Russian sovereign debt, and targeted measures against 30 Russian entities, US media reported, saying the move could happen as soon as today.
In response, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that Mosow will respond in kind to any ‘illegal’ sanctions, adding that it ‘will not help’ the prospect of talks between Biden and Putin. He added that it is ‘too early’ to talk about de-escalating tensions along the Ukraine border despite Biden’s calls for restraint earlier in the week….
In another sign that Biden is now softening his tone towards Moscow, the deployment of two US destroyers into the Black Sea was cancelled last night.
Turkey had originally confirmed that Washington had asked for permission for two warships – the USS Donald Cook and USS Roosevelt – to transit through straits which it polices and into the Black Sea in a move that was assumed to be a deterrent to Putin.
But last night Turkey said the U.S. Embassy in Ankara had notified the foreign ministry of the decision, without giving a reason. U.S. officials were not immediately available for comment. 

Once more, we see Vladimir Putin demonstrating the difference between influence and power. It’s all fun and games until someone sends 100,000 troops supported by air, armor, and artillery on your border. However, it’s important to note that the USA is now clearly in a state of cold war with both Russia and China, only this time the economic, technology, and demographic trends are not in its favor.

Mailvox: a theory about golf

 A reader has an idea about the decline of golf:

The reason golf is dying is that it no longer offers the benefit that used to make it popular.

For a generation and more, a golf course was a place a man could go to get away from his wife. Oh yes, and family, and work, but mainly wife. A place beyond her reach. A peaceful, green sanctuary.

The mobile phone changed that. Golf is never coming back. Perhaps weekend spiritual retreats – where you check your phone in at the door – might.

I’m dubious. First, it’s not that hard to turn your phone off, or simply not bring it with you in the first place. Second, if it’s harming their business, golf courses should simply ban mobile phones on the links. 

I think golf is in decline – to the extent that it actually is in decline, I don’t pay enough attention to it to actually know – is that golf is essentially a Boomer activity. Generation X and the younger generations grew up playing video games alone and with each other rather than activities with their parents, and as with so many other Boomer failures to pass things on, Boomers failed to instill a love of golf into their children.

A few of my friends back in the States golf, but none of them are anywhere nearly as serious about it as I remember my best friend’s father being. So, I suspect that as the Boomers continue to age into decrepitude, there will be fewer and fewer men on the golf courses.

It’s not me, it’s you!

Sports journalists are less willing than alcoholics to admit they have a problem:

Almost every single sport has experienced a TV ratings erosion over the past year, and dishonest people with an agenda have liked blaming the lower ratings on sports becoming more political.

Well, the least political sport on the planet just got some depressing ratings news. This weekend’s Masters on CBS generated its lowest viewership numbers in 28 years.

I don’t follow golf closely, but to my knowledge, there have not been any golfers who have kneeled during a playing of the national anthem. There have not been many golfers who have protested anything. Courses have not featured political messages.

Yet the biggest tournament of them all just pulled its worst numbers since 1993.

Have a few people here and there stopped watching sports in some ridiculous protest because of politics? Yes. Is it a significant, game-changing number? No.

The obvious and most significant reason for any and all sports TV ratings loss is cord-cutting. People are saying goodbye to cable at a rapid rate. From 2014 to 2020, 23{3549d4179a0cbfd35266a886b325f66920645bb4445f165578a9e086cbc22d08} of households cut the cord. Approximately 6.6 million households cut the cord in 2020 after 6.3 million households cut the cord in 2019.

While we have data on cord-cutting, we don’t have numbers for how the pandemic has changed the viewing habits of sports fans. But it’s obvious people’s lives are different, their schedules have changed and their priorities have shifted. We can’t quantify any of these things, but they are absolutely a factor in sports across the board losing viewers.

Actually, it’s much more likely that there is a knock-on effect. I didn’t watch the Masters, so I have no idea if it was a big diversity fest, although the fact that a Japanese golfer won it for the first time ever does tend to indicate that it might have been.

But at this point, I suspect people are beginning to assume that televised sports are all converged, and they’re actually beginning to preemptively turn them off. I haven’t not only quit watching NFL football, but I’ve quit watching Premiership and Seria A football as well, in addition to the Champions League. I assume that they’re chock full of SJW hectoring, but I don’t actually know, because I preemptively stopped watching them. 

The NCAA commits to equality

The NCAA is 100 percent committed to equality concerning the non-payment of all student-athletes, regardless of sex or sexual identity:

The National Collegiate Athletic Association Board of Governors said on Monday that it “firmly and unequivocally supports” transgender biological male athletes competing in women’s sports at the college level.

It comes amid an ongoing push by Republican-led states to enact measures that seek to protect female athletes, who are likely to have a biological disadvantage if forced to compete against male-born students.

“The NCAA Board of Governors firmly and unequivocally supports the opportunity for transgender student-athletes to compete in college sports,” the board wrote in their statement. “The NCAA has a long-standing policy that provides a more inclusive path for transgender participation in college sports.”

NCAA also addressed questions about how the association determines which states will host championship games.

“When determining where championships are held, NCAA policy directs that only locations where hosts can commit to providing an environment that is safe, healthy and free of discrimination should be selected,” the board wrote.

The states should respond to this by passing laws forbidding universities to charge for tickets or for television and merchandising rights to sporting events in which the players are not monetarily compensated.