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I should not drink and test.

Good news, folks. I'm moving very strongly on DRAINING THE SWAMP. Because I asked Gary Cohn to resign as my economic advisor. He's registered as a Democrat. And he has a long, sad history with Goldman Sachs, part of the global power structure, the global special interests, that have total control over Crooked Hillary, Lyin' Ted and so many of our politicians. Globalization has made the financial elite, who donate to politicians, very, very wealthy. I used to be one of them. I hate to say it, but I used to be one. But it has left millions of our workers with nothing but poverty and heartache. Gary wouldn't play ball on my beautiful new tariffs. He stood with the elites.

We allowed foreign countries to subsidize their goods, devalue their currencies, violate their agreements and cheat in every way imaginable, and our politicians did nothing about it. Trillions of our dollars and millions of our jobs flowed overseas as a result. I have visited cities and towns across this country where one-third or even half of manufacturing jobs have been wiped out in the last 20 years. Today, we import nearly $800 billion more in goods than we export. We can’t continue to do that. This is not some natural disaster, it’s a political and politician-made disaster. Very simple. And it can be corrected and we can correct it fast when we have people with the right thinking. Right up here. It is the consequence of a leadership class that worships globalism over Americanism. This is a direct affront to our founding fathers. America wanted to be strong. They wanted this country to be strong. They wanted to be independent and they wanted it to be free.

And listen to this. The first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln -- nobody knows this, but he was a Republican -- warned that "the abandonment of the protective policy by the American government will produce WANT AND RUIN among our people." He understood it much better than our current politicians, that’s why he was Abraham Lincoln, I guess. Right?

Our founding fathers understood trade much better than our current politicians, believe me. When subsidized foreign steel is dumped into our markets, threatening our factories, the politicians have proven, folks, have proven they do nothing. We need to be one team, one people, one American family. Because all the other Countries are against us. I'm getting a fair deal for the American people. Now, it’s time for the American people to take back their future. Going to take it back. The era of economic surrender is finally OVER!

Coca-Cola plans to launch its first alcoholic drink

Coca-Cola is planning to produce an alcoholic drink for the first time in the company's 125-year history - with an alcopop-style product in Japan. It is keen to cash in on the country's growing taste for Chu-Hi - canned sparkling flavoured drinks given a kick with a local spirit called shochu. The product is typically between 3% and 8% alcohol by volume.

A senior Coke executive in Japan said the move was a "modest experiment for a specific slice of our market". "We haven't experimented in the low alcohol category before, but it's an example of how we continue to explore opportunities outside our core areas," said Jorge Garduno, Coca-Cola's Japan president. It was unlikely the drink would be sold outside of Japan, he suggested.

Some BBC commenterds want to ban alcopops.

Also at NPR and CNBC.

If you've never read Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitz before, I think you might be in for quite a treat: https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2018/03/06/foreign-government-lobbying-is-an-abomination-and-should-be-eradicated-immediately-part-1/

The basic gist is that while the "resistance" is freaking out that Russia "hacked" the United States election by running ads, meanwhile foreign governments actually spend orders of magnitude more money than Russia allegedly did, influencing already elected, in power politicians, and nobody seems to care. Some choice excerpts:

Only an childish culture with a subconscious imperial collapse fantasy would discover that a Russian troll factory ran the above and conclude it represents an existential threat to the Republic

It’s ridiculous to the point of comical that we’re turning a Russian troll farm spending $100,000 on clownish Facebook ads (like the one below) into a national security issue, while the Trump and Clinton campaigns spent a combined $81 million on Facebook ads.

each time there’s a bipartisan push in Congress to stop the U.S. government from actively aiding the Saudis in their genocidal campaign in Yemen, Saudi money swoops in to line the pockets of American lobbyists in order to prevent Congress from doing the ethical and constitutional thing.

There you go. Foreign governments are paying intermediaries (lobbyists) to arrange meetings with the very people elected to serve as representatives of the American people. Every minute a Congressional member spends with a Saudi lobbyist is a minute he or she can’t spend on issues that affect the daily lives of the U.S. public. Is that Russia’s fault too?

Which VPN Services Keep You Anonymous in 2018?

Which version of XKeyscore are we running on?

This one is probably going to catch me a lot of heat from both the extremes, as it touches on that most sensitive and landmine-laden of topics: gender identity and the expressions thereof.

First, the parts which are going to piss the TERFs off: I am a proudly cisgender, XX-chromosome-having ("womyn-born-womyn" as they'd say) lesbian, with a strict policy of dating only other lesbians (after some bad experiences with bisexual women)...and I am also trans-inclusive. This is going to draw the usual predictable howls of outrage, and might even get me called "traitor to the lesbian race."

*Again.*

Because yes, that is a thing that happened once. Satire sometimes writes itself.

Incidentally, if someone knows where the lesbian race lives, please by all means send me a couple of plane tickets; I'm getting married soon and would love to have the reception there. Hopefully it's somewhere with nice beaches!

And now the parts which are going to annoy non-TERFs: some of the TERF arguments hold more water than their detractors give them credit for. In particular:

1) There are biological differences between the sexes. Note that this does *not* mean I believe transwomen and transmen are deluded or faking their lived experiences; it means that gender is not purely a "social construct," that one's brain structure and hormones play heavily into it. Incidentally, this is *not* an anti-trans argument. If anything, this is the reason I support trans* people in their transitions. Nature screwed up somewhere and put the wrong sort of mind/brain in the wrong sort of body. I can't imagine what that's like, but I can take their word for it, and having seen the real, positive changes in trans* friends of mine once they started hormones only cements this support.

Again: not being a gender essentialist here, and certainly not committing that stupid "physical sex and/or chromosome cohort *is* gender" fallacy. I'm on your side, I'm just not going to fall for the stupid, mush-headed "thinking" that attempts to reduce something as complex as gender to "just a social construct." Real data has borne out that this is not the case.

2) Trans* people do not have the lived experiences of cisgender people of the sex they are attempting to pass as. Transwomen: you do not bleed, you did not go through female puberty as a child/young teenager, you will never be pregnant, and you were not seen by society at large--this is different from "not seen by molesters and paedophiles!"--as potentially and primarily objects of convenience, sexual and otherwise, for men.

3) Expanding on 2 above, I support cisgender-women-only spaces. This does not mean I don't view you, transwomen, as "real women." Your experiences are your own, and if you feel so badly mismatched to your body that you want to change it, to me, that is enough to qualify you as "real women." Just...not cisgender women. Again, different life experiences.

So please, if some of us want *some* space that's not dealing with trans* issues, please, please, give us that. You can be in the inclusive spaces, and even start transwomen-only spaces; I will not intrude on those, because I do not have your lived experiences, and can't imagine what you've been through. I only ask that you extend us the same courtesy.

4) Having a genital preference does not make you anti-trans* or transmisogynist. I am a lesbian. I like ladybits. This means I'm not going to date a pre-operative MtF, no matter how well she passes otherwise. We can be friends, but we're never going to have sex. Of course, this one is a moot point *anyway* since I'm already taken, but even hypothetically, it's not going to happen. It's not personal, but it's also not negotiable.

5) Surgery does not change your chromosomes or your lived experiences. This is actually not anywhere near as important as TERFs make it out to be, since at least to my mind, most of gender and gender identity is performative anyway. I'm also not saying to feel invalid or less of a human because of who and what you are. But at the same time, understand that history is history, and it can't be retroactively changed.

Just understand that the social transition is going to be bigger than the physical one for you. We can spot otherwise well-passing early-stage transitioning MtFs very well based not on any physical cues, but based on behavior. It takes time to lose that male privilege, and understandably, some of you are going to be reluctant to let it go. It sucks on this side of the gender divide sometimes.

6) Please understand that much of the backlash from the TERF camp is because women have always, always, always been marginalized and shoved aside for mens' interests, and some of us feel that men are intruding *even as they become women.* There's hardly any discussion of FtM people compared to MtF, and I don't hear hardly anything about FtMs having trouble integrating into groups composed of cisgender men the way MtFs tend to kind of stomp all over womens' spaces sometimes (in my observation, mostly early in transition).

The reasons for this are probably complicated. They likely have something to do with male being the "default," so FtMs are basically going from other and different to default, if not "normal." And the MtF friends i have, both of them, both told me there was a tremendous backlash against them for abandoning being male, mostly backed up by "WHY would you want to be a chick?!" with the unspoken corollary being "womens' lives suck."

I am, again, not a TERF, and I will defend you against them in all arenas. In return, please keep the above in mind.

This all sounds reasonable enough, right? In the end, doesn't it just boil down to the golden rule, treating others as they want to be treated, taking their basic humanity (a level well below gender expression, mind you!) into account? But I'm sure this is going to catch me more flames than a California wildfire. So be it; I'm wearing my asbestos nightie. Have at it.

Exclusive: Florida Public School Teacher Has A White Nationalist Podcast

Crystal River teacher hosts white nationalist podcast, HuffPost reports

Meanwhile:

Here Are 911 Transcripts of Some of the Times Apple Employees Walked Directly Into Glass Walls

Friends, I know a lot of you have been worried about me. Some beautiful DMs. And I can almost hear your prayers, thank you for those. And I'm sure you're worried about our beautiful, beautiful White House in Washington. It wasn't beautiful, it's becoming beautiful. Because Melania and I are working very hard, fixing it up. My predecessors left it very dirty, we're cleaning up a lot of messes. And covering up so much. But I wasn't at the Washington White House today. I'm at my Southern White House, Mar-a-Lago, in beautiful Florida (why does President Putin hate Florida so much?). Not in Washington. But our thoughts & prayers are with the family of the late Shooter, RIP!!!! And with everybody who got spattered. The guy wasn't a bad dude, maybe sick. Probably sick, nobody was in danger. Can we call it suicide? Why not, right? But let me tell you, he left a terrible mess. Not as bad as the mess Obama left me with, nowhere near as bad as that one. My Secret Service, as always, did a great job! Thank you and thanks to our wonderful first responders, our Police & EMTs. And our Coroner, very tough job, you have to be a very tough cookie to do that one, am I right, folks? If Crooked Hillary had won, she'd be keeping our Coroner very busy. And maybe she is anyway. Seth Rich, so tragic, he was a true patriot. As everybody knows. I'm having a fabulous weekend and I wish the same to every American. God bless! secretservice.gov/data/press/releases/2018/18-MAR/GPA_Secret_Service_Statement_Regarding_March_3,_2018_Shooting_Incident_Near_the_White_House.pdf

I ran out of work to do

I fixed a panic only I could reproduce, tagged and built a release, rolled an installer then put it where QA was sure to find it

I marked my panic Resolved in the bugbase

I sent out an email

The VP of engineering stepped into my office to ask "Do you think this is ready for our customers?"

"Yeah"

"Cool" then he stepped back out

I hung out on the tubes for two hours. Having gotten bored with that I left work two hours early

What did I expect? A ticker tape parade?

To appear on CNN a _second_ time?

I'm finished

And quite likely unemployed. The VP said there was no market for what was to be my second project. They haven't mentioned any others

Aren't I supposed to celebrate this?

I feel strangely let down

Today Facebook sent a warning to the Babyon Bee, a Christian satirical website (think The Onion, but Christian-themed), alerting them that one of their articles had been fact-checked by Snopes.com and determined to be false. Facebook warned Babylon Bee that if they persisted in posting false content they risked having the distribution of their posts reduced and their ability to advertise removed.

You really have to see the Snopes.com "fact-checking" to believe it: https://www.snopes.com/cnn-washing-machine/.

This is a fact-checking article about a Babylon Bee article that said that CNN bought an industrial-size laundry washer so they could spin the news before reporting it.. Yes, it's that blatant. Why in the world did Snopes fact check this?

It stands out to me here that this article claims "some readers ... interpreted [the washing machine article] literally." That's got to be baloney. Either this is boiler plate that goes into every Snopes.com article about the Onion, the Babylon Bee, and other satirical websites, or this is a third-rate Snopes writer just trying to crank something out to meet a deadline. Or else it's a bold faced lie, but surely not, right? Do they actually have evidence that anyone somewhere actually made this misunderstanding. Or possibly English is not the writer's first language, as evidenced by the grammatical error in "CNN had made a significant investment in heavy machinery to assist their journalists 'spin' the news they report."

Reader who attempted to click the Babylon Bee link from Facebook were faced with a warning that they might rather go see the more factual "additional reporting" on the subject from Snopes: https://twitter.com/MrB_Loves_Jesus/status/969425733100720128/photo/1/

Here is the Babylon Bee owner's screenshot of the warning from Facebook: https://twitter.com/Adam4d/status/969405110324523008/photo/1/

And here is one of the more complete reports of the event I've seen, which includes the fact that Facebook has since corrected the error and acknowledged it was a mistake that should never have happened: http://freebeacon.com/culture/facebook-threatens-satirical-site-article-failed-snopes-fact-check/

What I don't see reported on much is that the owner of Babylon Bee has also recently (mid-January) launched his own news aggregator site based on the idea that internet giants like Facebook, Twitter, Google et al are now exercising too much control over what news people do and do not see: https://www.christiandailyreporter.com/manifesto.html