Mailvox: “we’re waiting for ISIS”

Shimshon asks about the Middle East:

i think i mentioned before. i heard word from someone who knows. the region north and west of amman, and all along the syrian border is thick with refugees. have you seen some of the pics? there’s around 600k i think. around 10% of the native population. my understanding is that king hussein is pretty terrified of the powderkeg in his midst.

Powderkeg barely begins to describe it. The refugee situation is even worse than that. I had lunch with a Lebanese Christian last week, who was visiting while on vacation. Apparently there are over a million refugees there now. I asked what the Maronites were doing and he said “we are waiting for ISIS.”

That sounded rather fatalistic, so I asked him if they would fight or if they would simply submit like the Assyrians and the Yazidi did. He smiled and said “We have always had to fight to stay alive. The difference is, this time many of those we used to fight against will be fighting with us.” It’s perhaps worth remembering that they were winning the Lebanese civil war when Syria entered and forced a settlement.

What the US and Israel should do is materially support Assad and the Alawites, the Jordanians, and the Lebanese Christians without getting involved in the fighting, and at the same time, clean house at home. Instead, they appear to be playing the same stupid game they did in Afghanistan, where they create a weaponized puppet who rapidly grows beyond their control. Too many parties appear to be too caught up in their historical concerns, such as the Turks with the Kurds, or their grand strategic vision, such as the Israelis with Iran, to focus on the actual danger at hand.

Sure, the Islamic State is no danger to Israel or the USA now, so they think they can use it to settle old scores. But just as the anti-Soviet mujahideen eventually transformed into the Taliban, Daesh is in the process of developing into a more serious and formidable force.

The Iran agreement, and the fact that Turkey, Israel, and the USA are all cooperating to hit Daesh in Syria may indicate that they’re finally beginning to rethink their previous perspectives. The one thing that is certain is that Syria is far less dangerous with Assad in control than Daesh.

PSA: the Ctrl-X-Close fix

I’ve had to look this up twice in the last three months, so I figure others have probably run into this problem on occasion.

For the past couple of months I have been coping with an incredibly frustrating problem. My files in the File Open dialog box mysteriously started appearing in order of the “Last Modified” date, instead of in alphabetical order….

Here’s what you do: go into Windows Explorer and open a folder such as My Documents. Now choose View|Details. Along the top of the file listing area, you see Name, Type, Size, Modified. If you click any one of these, it will change how your files are sorted in the list.

Now here’s the part that made Windows save this sorting information everywhere. Hold down the Ctrl key and click the X in the upper right-hand corner of the Window to close it.

It works. The crazy thing about this is that Microsoft barely lets you do anything without asking for confirmation. Do you REALLY want to quit? Are you sure? Do you REALLY want to save over that file? Are you sure? But if you happen to hit a key while you’re doing something else, well, OBVIOUSLY that is something that can never happen by accident and CLEARLY there is no reason to confirm this obscure, but universal settings change that will fundamentally alter how you interact with every file in every folder every time you want to open one.

Over the years, I have learned that assuming Apple is evil and Microsoft is stupid is a remarkably reliable metric in dealing with their operating systems.

It’s not a new problem

Politics took the prize a long time ago and the Puppies are a response to the politicization of science fiction. Compare and contrast the latest Hugo mewling by The Guardian with Mike Glyer’s count of conservative Hugo-winners:

The Hugo awards will be the losers if politics takes the prize

The controversy stirred up by science fiction’s ‘Sad Puppies’ means there will be no winners at this year’s Hugo awards

The latest furore to consume SF fandom will reach a conclusion on Friday, when voting for the Hugo awards – arguably one of the genre’s most prestigious accolades – closes. Spats around the awards are nothing new. The nominations are chosen by fans, and every year authors are accused of campaigning to get their names on the list. This year a gang of rightwing authors known as the “Sad Puppies” have taken campaigning to a whole new level. Calling on their fans to stack the nomination slate with candidates who share their political agenda, their main beef is that they believe too many genre awards go to lefty, ideological fiction, and not enough to more “swashbuckling” books. Authors and fans on both sides of the divide have written endless blogs about the controversy, big names including George RR Martin have weighed in against the Puppies, and the story has been picked up by the mainstream press.

It raises the question: who should nominate works for awards anyway? A select jury (a la the Man Booker or Clarke) or the fans who actually buy the books? Clearly there should be enough room – and integrity – for both. Yet this year’s Clarke award shortlist was almost universally praised, while, in contrast, the Hugo nominations were met with derision and incredulity (for example, so-called “rabid puppy” Vox Day, who has called women’s rights “a disease to be eradicated”, is up for two awards). You might say that this is democracy at work – the fans have spoken! – and that would be all well and good, but, tellingly, two authors recommended by the Sad Puppies have already pulled their work from the nominations, saying that they want their writing to be judged on merit and not on their assumed political affiliations. It goes without saying that all books, whatever their authors’ political stance, should be judged on whether they’re any good or not; but with some factions suggesting fans vote “No Award” on categories that they believe have been hijacked, and the Puppies urging their stormtroopers to stick to their guns, the whole thing has slipped into farce. And this is a great pity. The Hugos have always been a popularity contest, a showcase of SF fandoms’ favourite fiction, and skewing the lists for political point-scoring makes a mockery of them. Whether the Sad Puppies win the day or not, it’s the awards’ legacy that will suffer, along with the future work that would have benefited from their now damaged prestige. That’s what is truly sad.

19 of the 266 Hugo Awards that have been given out since 1996 have gone to political conservatives. And the legacy of the awards has already suffered, because they have been regularly given out to inferior work for at least the last 15 years. When Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Charles Stross, and John Scalzi have more Hugo nominations in far fewer years of professionally writing and editing than Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clarke, it is patently obvious that something is seriously wrong.

Meanwhile, women have won 65.7 Hugos in the same time. And keep in mind that conservatives outnumber liberals by a factor of 1.6 in the USA, which means that conservatives are underrepresented by a factor of 11.3, versus women being underrepresented by a factor of 2.

Now, if the SJWs in SF are to be believed, this is evidence that sexism is a serious problem but
there is absolutely no evidence of left wing ideological bias. They keep
repeating this despite the fact that the anti-right wing bias in
science fiction is observably 5.6 times worse than the purported sexism
about which they so often complain.

Of course, SJWs always lie.

Moira Greyland obliterates the rainbow

Given what she’s survived at the hands of the gay community already, I don’t think they’re going to intimidate her one little bit. The daughter of feminist icon Marion Zimmer Bradley and convicted child molester Walter Breen shines sunlight on the dark underbelly of homosexual culture and its obsession with molesting children:

My observation of my father and mother’s actual belief is this: since everyone is naturally gay, it is the straight establishment that makes everyone hung up and therefore limited.  Sex early will make people willing to have sex with everyone, which will bring about the utopia while eliminating homophobia and helping people become “who they really are.” It will also destroy the hated nuclear family with its paternalism, sexism, ageism (yes, for pedophiles, that is a thing) and all other “isms.”  If enough children are sexualized young enough, gayness will suddenly be “normal” and accepted by everyone, and the old fashioned notions about fidelity will vanish.  As sex is integrated as a natural part of every single relationship, the barriers between people will vanish, and the utopia will appear, as “straight culture” goes the way of the dinosaur.  As my mother used to say: “Children are brainwashed into believing they don’t want sex.”

I know, I know.  The stupidity of that particular thesis is boundless, and the actual consequence is forty-year-olds in therapy for sexual abuse, many, many suicides, and ruined lives for just about EVERYONE.  But someone needed to say it.  Will anyone hear it?

What sets gay culture apart from straight culture is the belief that early sex is good and beneficial, and the sure knowledge (don’t think for a second that they DON’T know) that the only way to produce another homosexual is to provide a boy with sexual experiences BEFORE he can be “ruined” by attraction to a girl.

If you’re OK with that, and you might not be, it is worth your consideration.  If you think I am wrong, that is your privilege, but watch out for the VAST number of stories of sexual abuse AND transgenderism that will come about from these gay “marriages.”  Already the statistics for sexual abuse of children of gays are astronomically high compared to that suffered by the children of straights.

Naturally my perspective is very uncomfortable to the liberal people I was raised with: I am “allowed” to be a victim of molestation by both parents, and “allowed” to be a victim of rather hideous violence. I am, incredibly, NOT ALLOWED to blame their homosexuality for their absolute willingness to accept all sex at all times between all people.

But that is not going to slow me down one bit. I am going to keep right on speaking out. I have been silent for entirely too long. Gay “marriage” is nothing but a way to make children over in the image of their “parents” and in ten to thirty years, the survivors will speak out.

I suspect that the eventual backlash against the rainbow fascists in the West is going to make ISIS look merciful. Remember, the historical pendulum ALWAYS swings back sooner or later. Once it becomes clear that acceptance of homosexuality necessarily requires the acceptance of widespread child molestation, there will be no mercy. There is a very good reason homosexuality was historically categorized among the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; it is a mental disorder that typically stems from childhood abuse of one form or another.

That doesn’t mean all homosexuals are evil individuals or are inclined to molest children. What Miss Greyland is saying makes it clear that they are, in fact, innocent victims, regardless of how proud they may claim to be of their past victimization. But the fact remains that there is an intrinsic link between the childhood abuse and the mental disorder, and if you disagree, then you can take it up with Moira Greyland. Just try to tell her she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

This also provides an obvious response to those who ask “why don’t you support gay marriage?” Because I oppose child molestation. If banning gay “marriage” will save even ONE child from being sexually abused, then it is a moral imperative.

Prior to the establishment of the federal parody of marriage, children were 10 times more likely to be molested by a parent or adult guardian if their mother was a lesbian and 3 times more often if their father was gay. As Miss Greyland predicts, imagine how that ratio is going to explode if both “parents” are gay; the math indicates it will be somewhere between 9 times and 100 times more often; given the greater access to children necessarily involved, it will probably be closer to the latter figure.

Tweaks

As you can probably tell by my use of the old Blogger template, I am not inclined to make change simply for its own sake. Few site redesigns actually improve anything; I prefer a more evolutionary approach.

With that in mind, VPIT has come up with another tweak that may, or may not, improve your VP experience. Instructions follow:

You may have noticed that the comments at Vox Popoli are now numbered sequentially.  This is useful both for remembering your stopping point in a thread and referring to individual comments when you reply.

As an additional convenience, VPIT is experimenting with a Clever Browser Trick that will convert a simple reference to the number of a previous comment into a permalink to that actual comment.  You don’t have to know any HTML to make it work; just refer to the comment number like this:

@42

This should work naturally in naturally-written text, e.g.:


Vox @137, I cannot agree that you have definitively proven that SJWs subsist solely on carrots and their toenail clippings.

Nota Bene:  Because Blogspot’s commenting system is clownishly poor in features, it is impossible to consistently number comments when some of them get spammed. That is, if comment 17 is by a troll and is sent to spam, what was previously comment 18 will become comment 17.

Hugo Recommendations 2015

This is how I am voting for the 2015 Hugo Awards. Of course, I offer this information regarding my individual ballot for no particular
reason at all, and the fact that I have done so should not be confused
in any way, shape, or form with a slate or a bloc vote, much less a
direct order by the Supreme Dark Lord of the Evil Legion of Evil to his
390 Vile Faceless Minions or anyone else.

Voting closes on July 31, so don’t procrastinate.

Best Novel

  1. The Three-Body Problem
  2. Skin Game
  3. The Goblin Emperor
  4. The Dark Between the Stars

 Best Novella

  1. “One Bright Star to Guide Them”
  2. “Big Boys Don’t Cry”
  3. “The Plural of Helen of Troy”
  4. “Pale Realms of Shade”
  5. “Flow”

Best Novelette

  1. “The Triple Sun: A Golden Age Tale”
  2. “Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, Earth to Alluvium”
  3. “The Journeyman: In the Stone House”
  4. “Championship B’Tok”
  5. “The Day the World Turned Upside Down”

Best Short Story

  1. “Turncoat”, Steve Rzasa (Riding the Red Horse, Castalia House)
  2. “The Parliament of Beasts and Birds”, John C. Wright (The Book of Feasts & Seasons, Castalia House)
  3. “On A Spiritual Plain”, Lou Antonelli (Sci Phi Journal #2, 11-2014)
  4. “A Single Samurai”, Steven Diamond (The Baen Big Book of Monsters, Baen Books)

Best Related Work

  1. “The Hot Equations: Thermodynamics and Military SF”
  2. Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth
  3. “Why Science is Never Settled”
  4. Letters from Gardner
  5. Wisdom from My Internet

Best Graphic Story

  1. No Award


 Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form)

  1. Guardians of the Galaxy
  2.  Captain America: The Winter Soldier
  3. Edge of Tomorrow
  4. Interstellar
  5. The Lego Movie

 Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form)

  1. Game of Thrones: “The Mountain and the Viper”
  2. The Flash: “Pilot”
  3. Grimm: “Once We Were Gods”
  4. Orphan Black: “By Means Which Have Never Yet Been Tried”

 Best Editor, Short Form

  1. Vox Day
  2. Jennifer Broznek
  3. Bryan Thomas Schmidt
  4. Mike Resnick

Best Editor, Long Form

  1. Toni Weisskopf
  2. Anne Sowards
  3. Jim Minz
  4. Vox Day
  5. Sheila Gilbert    

Best Professional Artist

  1. Kirk DouPonce
  2. Alan Polack
  3. Julie Dillon
  4. Nick Greenwood
  5. Carter Reid

Best Semiprozine

  1. Abyss & Apex
  2. Beneath Ceaseless Skies
  3. Strange Horizons
  4. Lightspeed Magazine
  5. Andromeda Spaceways In-Flight Magazine

Best Fanzine

  1. Black Gate
  2. Tangent Online 
  3. Elitist Book Reviews
  4. Journey Planet
  5. The Revenge of Hump Day

Best Fancast

  1. The Sci Phi Show
  2. Adventures in SciFi Publishing
  3. Galactic Suburbia Podcast
  4. Dungeon Crawlers Radio
  5. Tea and Jeopardy

Best Fan Writer

  1. Jeffro Johnson
  2. Dave Freer
  3. Amanda S. Green
  4. Cedar Sanderson
  5. Laura J. Mixon

Best Fan Artist

  1. Elizabeth Leggett
  2. Spring Schoenhuth
  3. Ninni Aalto
  4. Steve Stiles

The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer

  1. Eric S. Raymond
  2. Wesley Chu
  3. Jason Cordova
  4. Rolf Nelson

    Failing Sun Tzu

    Anti-GamerGate clearly doesn’t bother with opposition research.

    As Milo said, “We need a better class of adversary, you guys.”

    Speaking of opposition research, I’m wondering if I should apply for this job. After all, I’ve probably generated more publicity for Tor and its authors than anyone they actually pay to do it.

    Post Date7/20/2015
    TitlePublicist
    OrganizationTor Books

    Requirements         Tor/Forge Books seeks a highly-motivated and creative Publicist to join its publicity team. The ideal candidate will have three to five years publicity experience, possess excellent writing and organizational skills, be familiar with key print, broadcast and electronic media, and have a successful track record in publicizing a variety of genres. Reporting to Director of Publicity at Tor, this individual will work closely with marketing and sales efforts to implement successful campaigns while developing and strengthening media and author relationships.

    If you’re an unemployed member of the Dread Ilk, I’d encourage you to apply for jobs like this. Invade the entryists. Just remember to be a minority and talk SJW.

    GG tactics work

    It appears #PPGate is off to a good start:

    Representatives from Coca-Cola, Ford Motor Co. and Xerox say they’ve asked Planned Parenthood to remove their names as corporate donors to the embattled organization.

    The move follows a Daily Signal report revealing the names of 41 companies that Planned Parenthood listed as donors. That list, which was featured on Planned Parenthood’s website, has since been removed.

    This latest development comes in the wake of two undercover videos that showed Planned Parenthood executives talking about the sale of fetal body parts. Planned Parenthood is facing both federal and state investigations—and the possibility of losing taxpayer funding.

    Notice the language used by The Daily Signal.

    We Asked Companies About Their Donations to Planned Parenthood. Here’s How They Responded.

    Notice that all they did was ask about their donations in light of the new revelations of Planned Parenthood being ghouls profiting off the corpses of murdered infants. And those corporations that weren’t advertisers or donors were very quick to point out they weren’t.

    Now, it’s fair to ask why these tactics have been more immediately effective than the Tor boycott, and there are two reasons.

    1. Coke, Ford, and Xerox do NOT want to be associated with human organ trafficking. Tor Books doesn’t care if it happens to denigrate a few thousand of its customers.
    2. Targeting the advertisers always works better than targeting the company responsible. It’s the “Amenable Authority” problem. The Daily Signal and #PPGate would have gotten nowhere if they’d gone after Planned Parenthood directly.

    The problem is that Tor Books doesn’t really have any advertisers. And the only individual at Tor who gives a damn about the customers and is theoretically in a position to do something about Gallo is Tom Doherty, but he’s got far less juice there than his title would indicate and he wasn’t willing to let PNH storm out in a huff, which is what he would have had to do to hold Gallo accountable.

    So we can’t hit from outside, but only from upstairs. Which is why the only real question is how seriously Macmillan takes its code of conduct and if they’re willing to call PNH’s bluff.

    But regardless, the key is persistence and patience. Sam Biddle was, and is, GG’s top target and he’s still at Gawker. Does that make #GamerGate a failure? Of course not. So, relax, and be ready to go back into action next week.

    Goodbye, Dainty Flower

    Good-bye my sweet mamma dog. Thank you for watching over us and loving us. We will miss you forever. –Spacebunny

    We had to say goodbye to the Mamma Dog today. She practically raised the kids, whom she clearly regarded as her puppies, and she watched over them more closely than any human nanny. Every night when we turned in, she would go to each child’s bed, one after the other, and sniff at them until she was satisfied they were all right before returning to our room and settling down on her own bed on the floor next to Spacebunny’s side.

    She had a very sweet, but protective nature, and whenever anyone visited the house, she always had to check them out before harrumphing in mild disapproval and retiring to a corner of the room where she could keep an eye on them. You know, just in case. She had a silly side to her too, as she would pick up pieces of her food and throw it in the air just for the fun of it. If you called her on it, she would stop, stare at you, and then do it again, almost defiantly. Her eyebrows were particularly expressive, as she would raise one, then the other, in a slightly skeptical manner.

    She loved the whole family, but there was no question to whom she belonged, as she was always happiest being around her beloved mistress, with whom she even shared a birthday. She liked nothing more than to share a bowl of popcorn with Spacebunny, and when waiting for a kernel to be tossed her way, she had a funny habit of impatiently shifting her weight from one side to the other.

    She was astonishingly athletic. I’ve never seen a dog with such an incredible combination of speed and power. We couldn’t figure out how she was getting in and out of the house without our knowledge one summer, and it turned out that she was casually leaping six feet vertically and four feet horizontally in and out my office window. And yet, when a baby would crawl on top of her, she would hold herself perfectly motionless, her eyebrows moving up and down as she patiently waited for the baby to crawl far enough away that she could move without hurting it.

    She wasn’t flawless. I mean that literally, as the two whorls of her ridge were lopsided and she had an extra partial on the right side. She was literally half-price as a result, but she would have been a bargain at ten times the cost. She was also pigeon-toed, which gave her slightly unusual stance, and she was tall for her breed, bigger than many of the male Ridgebacks we encountered.

    I only heard her “serious” bark twice. It was a deep, chesty roar that sounded as if it came up from one of the pits of the lower hells. It didn’t even sound like a dog, but some sort of cross between a lion and a hellhound. And yet, for all her size and strength, she was extremely feminine, hence the Dainty Flower. But to the kids, the cats, and the other dogs, she was always the Mamma Dog.

    After my Viszla died in 2010, she went into a bit of a decline, and when she was subsequently diagnosed with cancer, we wondered how long she was going to last. But then the Prodiguously Large Puppy joined the household, she seemed to absorb some of his excessive energy, and she was visibly revitalized, going on long walks with the family and playing happily with her new responsibility out in the yard as well as inside the house.

    She made it to Christmas, and then to another Christmas, and then was less than entirely pleased when a Ridgeback in need of a new home joined the family a year ago. She seemed convinced that the poor little puppy needed to be defended from The Other Ridgeback, never mind that he was not only a full-grown Viszla, but such an oversized and muscular version of the breed that he was frequently mistaken for a Ridgeback himself. Even though she couldn’t keep up with the two other dogs as they chased each other back and forth outside, she would bark warnings at The Other Ridgeback, promising dire retribution and serious consequences if The Other Ridgeback should somehow harm her tiny, defenseless 70-pound puppy in any way.

    She lived three years longer than we expected, but the cancer finally caught up with her. Her heart was still strong, her eyes were still bright, and she would still perk up and flick her tail when she smelled espresso – she considered any cappucino placed within reach fair game for Ridgebacks – but her rear legs were withered and she was wasting away. We had the vet come out to the house to examine her, but no one knows dogs better than Spacebunny and we already knew what the verdict would be. After everyone had the chance to say their goodbyes, the vet put her to sleep for the last time in her beloved mistress’s arms.

    It may be questionable theology, but I personally cannot conceive of anything that could possibly call itself Heaven or Paradise that does not contain dogs. And I have no doubt that only a little while ago the Viszla came enthusiastically bounding up to her, his tail wagging furiously, barking, “you’re here, you’re FINALLY here! What took you so long?”

    To which I expect the Mamma Dog replied, “I had to watch over my puppies as long as I could.”

    Jeu vidéo et «suprémacisme»

    Causeur responds to Le Monde’s coverage of #GGinPAris:

    Video Games and “Supremacism”

    #Gamergate might not ring a bell with readers, but Le Monde / Pixels recently covered its recent meet-up in Paris. Concerned vigilance sums up the tone of the article. The author ventured onsite ready to ferret out any signs of Evil on the prowl. This unwittingly comic posture does not prove we should all bless #GG, even if it does incline us to consider this affair from a benevolent perspective. If you’ve read Alban Agnoux’s paper in Causeur #26, #Gamergate will seem like familiar territory: it is an online movement engaged in a cultural war to protect freedom of speech in video games. Against whom? Mainly against those #GGers denounce using the term social justice warriors (SJWs). In a nutshell, if you like Lara Croft, you are not an SJW. Does this also make you an antifeminist? It doesn’t take much to become a suspect these days.

    Ah, how the young generation sometimes leaves us scratching our heads in perplexity! The author of the Le Monde article did not evade the polychromatic aspect of the #GG phenomenon. In order to balance his depiction, as well as to avoid bewildering his readers more than was necessary, it is understandable that he also chose to take some harder lines. Did he do so in order to quiet any inner doubts about his own orthodoxy as well? I would not go so far. In any case, this is where Vox Day, one of the gamers behind #GGinParis, came in handy: not too young, easier to classify, especially if you put words in his mouth. Given the number of detractors the man has already accumulated, why not join the pack? The threat lying hidden in the shadows of #GG would thus appear to boil down to him. Him, and his ideology: supremacism.

    Perhaps it is me, but as characterizations go, this one comes across as vague, if not outright flippant. It is an accusation made in bad faith, without force and without conviction. Check out the second photo of the article, in which the alleged supremacist Vox Day appears, but which also inexplicably features the beaming smile of the black owner of the bar: how is the reader not expected to start having doubts after seeing that? If, on top of that, the readers goes off exploring the chap’s blog, well, at least all is not lost. From what I understand, accusations of supremacism sadden the accused greatly, as he never misses a chance to assert his Native American and Mexican heritages. And does he not seem a little too satisfied with the attention bestowed upon on him by Le Monde?

    Yes, why not reduce the enemy to a caricature — but one has got to put some heart into it, lest the effort prove counterproductive.  

    It’s a strong and wryly jaundiced response to the Le Monde author’s apparent determination to stick to the Narrative, and to take the occasional cheap shot. Don’t get me wrong, I was impressed to see that the journalist not only made the hitherto unseen effort to show up at the event, but spent several hours there and talked to many people there. However, it was disappointing that he elected to run with the “supremacism” line even after acknowledging that my ancestry made the claims of being a white supremacist absurd and that a response to a single attacker cannot seriously be considered a reliable indicator of one’s perspective on a group consisting of hundreds of millions of people.

    Then again, the journalist openly admitted that he did not know how to describe my actual ideology, libertarianism. And he did make an effort, as he even made reference to my attempt to put it in French terms: “Voltairean revolutionaries dedicated to liberte’ while rejecting egalite’“. But the Causeur author is correct to call him to account for taking, shall we say, liberties with the truth, as the fact that communicating a hard-to-translate perspective does not justify inventing your own version of it.