Links - 2nd December 2024 (2 - Get Woke, Go Broke: Dragon Age: The Veilguard)

Meme - Renson Seow: "The claim: "There is no ongoing attempt to uglify women in Western games".
The 1st pic: Dragon's Age Veilguard character creator side profile, glutes setting maxed.
The 2nd pic: Mexican Weather Girl Yanet Garcia, side profile."

Meme - DRAGON AGE ORIGINS: "Dragon Age"
DRAGON AGE: THE VEILGUARD: "Identifies as Dragon Age"

Meme - "SO WHAT'S NEW PETER?"
"DRAGON AGE VEILGUARD IS AN AMAZING LAUNCH ARE LOVING IT, OVER 80,000 PLAYING IT LAUNCH WEEK, A HUGE HIT"
"OH? YOU WERE BEING SERIOUS? *laughs*"
Baldur's Gate III: "875,343 all-time peak 15 months ago"

Meme - "Taash: I don't want to be that.
1. Our team is with you.
2. You're in control here.
3. You're allowed to feel things.
4. I feel like that, too."
"RPGs are all about choice"

Meme - Bioware in year 2000: "Aerie-I... I will show you my body, Dayin... and I hope it pleases you. Would you... would you stay with me this night, Davin? Will you show me what true love consists of?"
"How could I refuse such a sweet offer?"
"This isn't all love is, Acrie. Wouldn't you rather wait until the time is right?"
"Er... can't get past those huge lumps of scar tissue on your shoulders. I'm really not in the mood."
"Get lost, Aerie... I'm really not interested in being your tutor."
Bioware in year 2024: Rook: "Take a long hard look in it, kid. It'll always show the face of a hero who can get it done"
"Establishes trangender identity and unlocks new dialogue options in future conversations"
"I'm getting there"
"I love who I am"
"Feels good to see the real me"
"Scars are lessons learned."
"My scars are badges of honor."
"These scars are sexy!"

Dragon Age: The Veilguard's Lack Of Evil Player Choice Options May Be Bad News For The Next Mass Effect Game - "Unfortunately for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, its dialogue options are some of the weakest in the franchise, lacking the divisive or downright evil options from previous entries... Aside from the lack of player choice, much of the dialogue throughout Veilguard is much more lighthearted and quippy than before, feeling out of place in the gritty fantasy setting of the series... Putting Mass Effect's iconic dialogue aside, many fans like Reddit user Alternative_Fan2458 still felt past Dragon Age games have vastly superior conversation options compared to Veilguard's reportedly bland writing direction. Where these issues become most prevalent are related to Veilguard's companions, lacking in conflict or serious choices that could cause party strife or infighting, unlike in previous Dragon Age games where members would have more dynamic reactions to player choices. Overall, much of the world in Veilguard has the potential to make for interesting and impactful character stories, but it's often held back by the game's unnatural and inoffensive writing style.  Another common complaint from critical fans was Veilguard's new art style direction, which aimed for more cartoonish design choices for the characters... BioWare has different expectations on the kind of tone and overall style they want for both franchises moving forward, giving players some hope at avoiding another Mass Effect Andromeda catastrophe."

Moon Studios CEO Describes 'Dragon Age: The Veilguard' Writing As "Infantile And Terrible" - "Moon Studios CEO Thomas Mahler described the writing in BioWare’s recently released Dragon Age: The Veilguard as “infantile and terrible.” In a recent post to X, Mahler, who is currently developing No Rest for the Wicked, wrote, “I grew up in the 80s – even as a young boy back then, I always thought TV shows were low-effort trash. Because every show back then was trying to be as politically correct as possible. Every show was about happy families, always trying to paint a perfect picture, always being careful not to talk about anything that could be in the slightest controversial.”  “Then the Simpsons and Fresh Prince of Bel Air dropped and that stuff suddenly felt radical because every now and then the writers on these shows dared to approach subjects that were real. And whenever they tried that, it resulted in episodes that were memorable – I’d like to think it’s because the writers managed to put some of their own experiences in there,” he continued.  “Then, in the late 90s, The Sopranos dropped and suddenly it was clear that TV shows didn’t have to be trash,” he stated. “That the episodic format could actually be used to give even more insight into characters, their trials and tribulations, etc. And it kept going from that point on – We saw more and more TV shows that delivered excellent drama, like The Wire, Breaking Bad, etc., etc.” He then turned his attention to Dragon Age: The Veilguard and video games, “Looking at games now, it’s clear to see that we’re apparently moving back to the stone age of political correctness. I just watched a Dragon Age playthrough and it’s quite unfathomable how infantile and terrible the writing is. Everything feels sanitized and dehumanized.”  “I don’t know why we’re suddenly thinking that this is okay. Your job as a writer is to write about things that are heartfelt, interesting and true, to draw people into that world that you created and if this is the best that you can come up with, you shouldn’t be a writer in the first place,” he asserted. “I hate to sound so harsh because I’m sure these people had the best intentions in mind, but this is what happens when art is created by amateurs, when we have to walk on eggshells and don’t dare to approach difficult subjects – you end up with a bland and bad product instead of art,” he continued.   “Always approach writing from a human angle first, draw from your own experiences and dare to approach subjects that might seem risky – because often magic happens when we’re okay with making ourselves vulnerable,” Mahler concluded."

Laura Fryer (former executive producer for Microsoft) calls out games industry bubble, developer echo chamber, attacking fans. DA Veilguard as prime example (at 7:30) : r/gamingnews
Of course, the mods removed this

Moon Studios CEO Describes 'Dragon Age: The Veilguard' Writing As "Infantile And Terrible" : r/KotakuInAction - "“Mom said to eat the fruits”
“I like the cookies better!”
“Everyone likes the cookies”
“I’ll eat the fruits”
I saw that in a clip and couldn’t help but cringe, both characters looked like adults and they were speaking like a toddler and a 7 year old?"

Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s Clumsy, Preachy Political Messaging Does More Harm Than Good - "The best way to convince someone of your own point-of-view is generally not to bash them over the head with a cudgel, though that seems to be the preferred approach in modern political discourse and, alas, in entertainment. The culture, being what it is, has lost all sense of subtlety. In far too many films, TV shows and video games, we see a heavy-handed, top-down approach to the issues of the day. It’s a real shame that the developers at BioWare decided to go this route in Dragon Age: The Veilguard... I had not yet arrived at a certain section of the game that has now been making the rounds on social media, being roundly—and rightfully—mocked. Unfortunately, the scene in question will play directly into the narrative that this game is “woke”, feeding a cycle of online discourse that goes nowhere but earns lots of clicks. It will undoubtedly turn many gamers off entirely, not necessarily because they’re unsympathetic to trans rights, but because they’re tired of being preached at.  In the scene in question (below), one character misgenders another. To atone for this sin, she does a set of push-ups and then lectures the other characters on how to properly apologize. The term “nonbinary” is thrown around, despite this being a word that very few people had even heard of when Dragon Age: Inquisition came out a decade ago—let alone in a fantasy setting divorced entirely from the real world. This is immersion-breaking. Frankly, it’s written so poorly that it comes across as self-parody. The character’s performative apology is shallow and empty, as all performative apologies are. In my experience, a simple and genuine “sorry” is better than making a big show of it and then bragging about how much better your apology is. The whole scene feels freshly cut from some conversation in an undergrad gender studies class in the year 2024—the kind of conversation said undergrads will someday look back on and cringe over. Here’s the scene: Again, my problem with this scene is not the inclusion of trans or nonbinary characters in Dragon Age, but with the hamfisted way this issue is framed.  I recently wrote a review of Lev Grossman’s excellent Arthurian fantasy, The Bright Sword, and noted in that review that he includes a trans character as one of the Knights of the Round Table. The difference in approach is worth noting here. In the book, the term “trans” is never used, since it would not have been around in the Arthurian era (similar to how “nonbinary” would not be a word in Dragon Age). Instead, the character is born as one of two twins. At birth, she is a girl and her twin is a boy, but she chaffes at all things girly and the confines and restrictions placed upon her and wants nothing more than to train with a sword and become a knight...   This works because it’s never preachy. It doesn’t awkwardly adopt the terms of modern-day gender politics. Instead, Grossman tells the kind of story anyone can relate to (with beautifully written prose that never comes off as politically driven, but rather part of a grander, timeless tale)... Alas, this will undoubtedly dominate the conversation around Veilguard—and to what end? Will anyone who plays this game learn something useful because of this scene? Will people who are hostile toward social justice politics become convinced otherwise? That’s the problem with preaching to the choir. Someone not normally inclined to sympathy toward trans people might read The Bright Sword and actually walk away with more complicated feelings; nobody playing The Veilguard will. Instead, they’ll be rightfully annoyed at having this type of 21st century dialogue (hamfisted even for the modern era) foisted upon them midway through a fantasy RPG... You can see how misguided the game’s writers truly are in the scene above. The character says that a normal apology “makes it all about you” when she’s just blatantly hogged the spotlight and made it all about her. Nobody seems to spot the irony. I have to ask, has anyone ever successfully apologized while lecturing everyone at the same time? “Ah, I made a mistake, here’s my apology and here’s why my apology is so great and your apology is so bad, even though you’re not the one who made the mistake. Look at me! Look how wonderful I am!”  That’s sort of how I see BioWare in all of this. They’re making it all about them, all so they can be praised for their progressive bonafides rather than doing the hard work required to tell stories that might actually evoke in players true empathy and understanding. Tapping into that, creating something that people can relate to, requires more than a cudgel. Nobody enjoys being beaten over the head. In the parlance of our times, “Do better, Bioware.”"

Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s Clumsy, Preachy Political Messaging Does More Harm Than Good : r/gamingnews - "Mass Effect handled this issue the best that I have ever seen in a game, during one scene in ME2 or ME3 (it was so "normal" that I can barely remember it). Shepard comes down into the cargo bay to speak with a male crew member, just to see how he was holding up. The crew member replied that he was concerned about his husband, who was on a planet being threatened by Reapers. Shepard gave his condolences, the two had a moment of camaraderie, and... that's it... that was the end of the scene.  No preaching. It was just normal, like... we're all adults here, now let's get back to saving the galaxy."

Meme - "Dragon Age: The Veilguard encourages players to perform ten push ups after misgendering someone."
"My character at the start of the game *scrawny Steve Rogers*
My character five minutes later *muscular Steve Rogers*"

Meme - "I hope Bioware closes down k"
Rook: "Take a long hard look in it, kid. It'll always show the face of a hero who can get it done."
"Establishes transgender identity and unlocks new dialogue options in future conversations."
Taash: "Non-binary. I just said. And I'm going to use "they" instead of "she" from now on"

Meme - Perma Banned: "Games Journalist Jason Schreier Deleted his post gloating about Dragon Age Veilguard's supposed "success". Then he found out Veilguard in fact, was far from successful. Oof"
Jason Schreier: "Go woke, go bro- err, top the charts"
"58,958 24-hour peak"
"This Post was deleted by the Post author."

BioWare Claims 'Dragon Age: The Veilguard' Sales Have Reached 1 Million Copies as Company Hunts Down Whistleblowers - "Dragon Age: The Veilguard sales have reportedly reached 1 million copies, according to an internal memo from BioWare. However, this might not be good news for the once popular RPG studio.   Since the Halloween release of Veilguard, there have been a striking number of leaks coming out of BioWare and EA. Independent commentators like SmashJT, Endymion, and former World of Warcraft team lead Mark Kern, AKA Grummz, have been spilling the tea regarding abysmal sales numbers, horrible reviews, a shocking return rate, and plummeting resale value...   “I spoke with that original whistleblower after publishing that initial video and he put me at ease that no one there knows it was him at this time,” SmashJT said in a post on his official website. “But the reaction from the fallout of that video speaks volumes for the atmosphere at BioWare right now. They’re more concerned with silencing any ‘whistleblowers’ than addressing any actual issues within the company: Much like Firewalk Studios before their ultimate demise, the toxic positivity has taken over the workplace.” It was originally reported by both SmashJT and YouTube commentator Endymion that the game had sold only 500,000 copies with more than 30,000 refunds issued. However, BioWare is internally disputing those numbers, claiming in a memo sent out to its team that they’ve crossed the 1 million copy threshold... Even if this figure is true, after a nine year development and costs swelling to reportedly exceed $200 million, its estimated that the game will have to sell up to 5 million copies to break even.  It’s also unknown whether BioWare is referring to the number of copies sold by retailers or the number of copies they’ve shipped to retailers.   A That Park Place source that works in retail management has told this outlet that his sales region (comprised of seven stores) has seen an exchange and resale rate of 75% for the troubled title.   The trade in value for Veilguard would also support the theory that there’s plenty of copies clogging up retailer shelves.   As of this writing, the trade-in value of Dragon Age: The Veilguard on PlayStation 5 is “up to $22.”  That figure is actually the value for store credit. Players looking to return this brand new $70 game for cash will only net $14 or $15 for a pristine copy.   Concurrent players have also dropped off big time. As of this writing, the game has 27,277 players with a 24-hour peak of 31,654. At launch, the game experienced a high of 89,418. That’s A 64.6% drop before the game is even a month old.   BioWare seems to be touting the 1 million units figure internally as a success. But according to SmashJT’s source, the atmosphere within the company is grim and tense.   “Despite the reported sales, according my insider, the atmosphere at BioWare is anything but celebratory,” SmashJT said. “Morale is at an all time low, and there’s extreme tension surrounding the game’s reception and the state of internal relations. The response to The Veilguard has been weak, with YouTubers and players alike voicing concerns about its quality and perceived indoctrination, alongside a severe lack of any innovation. Amid this, internal pressures are taking a toll on BioWare’s team, adding multiple layers of stress to an already difficult launch.”"

Grummz on X - "We're winning. DAV has fallen. Dragon Age Veilguard has failed to recover it's costs. It has failed and no, holiday sales won't save it. Bioware is so angry that Dragon Age Veilguard sales numbers have leaked, that they are launching an internal investigation to find the leakers. Here's what we know from @EndymionYT, @SmashJT, @RealHypnotic1 and others:
- Concurrent players have dropped off the charts just 2 weeks in, sitting at a peak of 34,068 vs their launch weekend high of 89,418. A 62% drop before the month even closes.
- Returns are rumored to be 30,000 copies, and the game is being traded in at Gamestop so fast that used copies of the game are flooded and being discounted with a trade-in value of only $14 cash. By comparison, Stellar Blade, a much smaller IP and many months older than DAV is $16.10 cash, which shows you just how bad DAV's value has dropped. Fun fact: Star Wars Outlaws is even worse, at just $11.90 cash. Stellar Blade wins again.
- Total sales for DAV have only JUST crested 1 million copies in 2 weeks. Budget is rumored to be at 250-300M for the game, making it fall well short of breaking even. If you take most games sales profit at around 70-80% of list price (after store markups and digital platform fees), a 300M budget would need around 6-7 million copies sold. (this is where I differ from most other's estimates who say 4-5M).
Dragon Age Veilguard has failed. They will see a tiny surge in sales in Holidays but not much. Total copies will barely reach 2M by next year (unless they start just giving it away - expect heavy discounts and bundles to make this number seem bigger than it is). Gamers have rejected the heavy handed woke, preachy politics for one, and DA fans have rejected the new graphics and action oriented gameplay, which feel very alien to the franchise. You can do diversity right, without preachy HR lectures disguised as a story, and you can do it very very wrong, like DAV. We're winning. Everybody fights, everybody builds, nobody quits!
Sources: Gamestop website, Steam DB, insider leak videos from Smash and Endymion and Hypnotic retail data and my own industry experience publishing, operating and developing AAA games."

Brianna Wu on X - "I thought a lot this year about how progressivism got so far off course. This clip is a perfect example.  The culture has devolved into a mirror of the Christian fundamentalists I grew up with in Mississippi. Wield moral superiority, threaten non-believers, hijack the culture.   It’s not that you have a point of view - it’s that you cannot even conceive that other people don’t share it. It’s that you feel so moral - you feel unlimited by social etiquette.   And I feel particularly qualified to say as a trans woman, THIS DOESN’T WORK. If strangers are constantly misgendering you, you are the only one that can change this. You can’t hector the world into believing gender doesn’t exist anymore than a Christian can hector the world into accepting Jesus as their savior.  I will do my best to gender nonbinary people correctly. I always want to talk to people with respect. But, y’all have to ask yourself, “Is our strategy working?” This is not and it will never work."

Meme - "Return to form seems to be the message EA told them to get across"
"100 Checkpoint Gaming. Dragon Age: The Veliguard is a triumphant return to form..."
"95 Playstation Universe... a return to form for Bioware"
"70 Digital Trends. Dragon Age: The Veliguard is a return to form..."
"80 IGN Portugal. Dragon Age: The Veliguard is a return to form for Bioware..."
"90 Pure Xbox"

Cyael on X - "This extremely organic Dragon Age "Coming out to your parents" edit was part of the cringe compilations Bioware worked hard to remove from the internet yetsterday. They know their unpopular trans messaging strangles like..yknow what, I'll wait to give thoughts"

Meme - @Grxit: "Let's check in on who was hired to write for #DragonAgeVeilguard Oh.... *Non-binary (?) men with half-blue hair, with one having a half-shaved head*
Mr. Smiles & Hugs because you're...: "These people are so fucking gross and incompetent."

Dragon Age: The Veilguard User Reviews on Metacritic Are an Abysmal 2.6/10

Dragon Age: The Veilguard Faces 'Uphill Battle' to Match Inquisition's Launch Sales, Says Analyst

Meme - LearningTheLaw: "Dragon Age: The Veilguard collapsed with only 10k players on Steam worldwide and is still declining. It's over."

Dragon Age: The Veilguard just took its first major price cut on PS5 - "This brings it down to $54 (was $69.99) just under a month after its official release."

The Veilguard is the first Dragon Age game where my companions don't care enough about anything to argue with me - "By the end, Rook's companions are all pretty much goodie two-shoes characters with uncomplicated beliefs."

Immigrating from Siberia / Losing Wars / Fact Checking Harris's Internet Initiative / Old wine in New bottles

*American Indian chief*
"IMMIGRATED FROM SIBERIA
ACT LIKE I OWN AMERICA"

"*Confederate Flag*
>Lost the only war they ever fought
>Owned slaves
>Rural
>Revolted against the US government and lasted longer than they should have despite the massive industrial gap
>Get BTFO by Sherman and Grant using total war tactics
>held onto economically inefficient ways of life because "muh tradition"
>200 years later, still bitching and whining about how the US oppressed them and people don't respect their heritage.
Pic unrelated, I'm talking about the Native Americans."

Brendan Carr @BrendanCarrFCC: "This is a classic example of why so many “fact checkers” are as reliable as gas station sushi. They’ve undermined their credibility by turning into partisan narrative enforcers & opinion checkers. The @NYTimes labels my post below even though it states only objective facts about VP Harris’s $42 billion Internet infrastructure initiative. It is true that Georgia was allocated $1.3B of the $42B ✅ It is true that it has been 1,000+ days since the program was enacted ✅ And it is true that not one home or business has been connected with those dollars ✅ Are these inconvenient facts? Only to those interested in hiding the reality of the Administration’s $42B Internet infrastructure effort."
"5 Days With Elon Musk on X: Deepfakes, Falsehoods and Lots of Memes. Almost a third of 171 posts last week from the X owner were false, misleading or missing vital context."
Brendan Carr @BrendanCarrFCC: "Georgia alone was allocated $1.3 billion (from the VP Harris led $42 billion initiative) to provide Internet to over 315,000 unserved homes & businesses in that state. As @RepMTG notes, 1,000+ days later, not one home or business has been connected in Georgia with those dollars."

Donkey with Biden-Harris shirt: "Oh no, I've shit myself!"
*changes shirt*
Donkey with Harris-Walz shirt: "Fresh and new!"

Links - 2nd December 2024 (1 - Kamala Harris Plagiarism)

Thread by @realchrisrufo on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "EXCLUSIVE: Kamala Harris plagiarized at least a dozen sections of her criminal-justice book, Smart on Crime, according to a new investigation. The current vice president even lifted material from Wikipedia.  We have the receipts. 🧵
The investigation was conducted by Dr. Stefan Weber, a famed Austrian "plagiarism hunter" who has taken down politicians in the German-speaking world. We independently confirmed multiple violations, which are comparable in severity to the plagiarism found in former Harvard president Claudine Gay's doctoral thesis. We can begin with a passage in which Harris discusses high school graduation rates. Here, she lifted verbatim language from an uncited AP/NBC News report:
In another section of the book, Harris, without proper attribution, reproduced extensive sections from a John Jay College of Criminal Justice press release. She and her co-author passed off the language as their own, copying multiple paragraphs virtually verbatim. Here is the excerpt, with abbreviations, such as percentages and state names, treated as verbatim substitutions:
In a section about a New York court program, Harris stole long passages directly from Wikipedia—long considered an unreliable source. She not only assumes the online encyclopedia's accuracy, but copies its language nearly verbatim, without citing the source. Here is Harris's language, based on the page as it appeared in December 2008, before she published the book:
Harris also copied language from a Bureau of Justice Assistance report report, which was linked in the the Wikipedia entry. Here is the passage in Harris's book, with duplicated material in the other column:
Finally, when attempting to write a description of a nonprofit group, Harris simply lifted promotional language from an Urban Institute report, and failed to cite her source:"

Conservative Activist Seizes on Passages From Harris Book - The New York Times - "A report by Christopher Rufo says the Democratic presidential nominee copied five short passages for her 2009 book on crime. A plagiarism expert said the lapses were not serious... Mr. Rufo said that while he and his colleagues had examined mostly published work by white academics, plagiarism had shown up almost always among papers written by Black scholars, particularly Black women who work in diversity and inclusion.  “We can speculate as to why,” Mr. Rufo said, but he suggested that academic studies that lead to careers in diversity, equity and inclusion were not as rigorous as some others.  Some academics, however, have characterized the campaign as racist."
Tom Cotton on X - "A good reminder that many “journalists” are little more than left-wing activists."
Richard Hanania on X - "I like how there’s a ready made expert on every conceivable topic that pops up in the news."
I almost wish I were back in university today, so I could plagiarise freely because "experts" said it was no big deal
Criticising or exposing the failings of black people is racist

Meme - Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ @realchrisrufo: "The Washington Post went on a jihad against Melania Trump for lifting a few turns of phrase. But when Kamala Harris did this more than a dozen times, the paper explained that it was okay because Kamala didn't know how to use a computer."

Meme - Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ @realchrisrufo: "Somebody hang this in the Louvre. The New York Times claims that I "seize[d] on" Kamala Harris's serial plagiarism. Admits later in the story that it is, in fact, plagiarism. And then calls noticing that fact "racist.""
"The five passages that Mr. Rufo cited appeared to have been taken partly from other published work without quotation marks."
"Some academics, however, have characterized the campaign as racist."

Meme - John Hasson @SonofHas: "When Rand Paul is accused of plagiarizing Wikipedia   VS  When Kamala is accused of plagiarizing Wikipedia"
"Senator Rand Paul Is Accused of Plagiarizing His Lines From Wikipedia"
"Conservative Activist Seizes on Passages From Harris Book"

Aaron Sibarium on X - "EXCLUSIVE: In 2007, Kamala Harris plagiarized pages of Congressional testimony from a Republican colleague. And in 2012, she plagiarized a fictionalized story about sex trafficking—but presented it as a real case. It's not just one book; it's a career-long pattern.🧵
On April 24, 2007, Harris testified before the House Judiciary Committee in support of a student loan repayment program. Virtually her entire testimony about the program was taken from that of another district attorney, Paul Logli of Winnebago County, Illinois...
Harris has sought to portray herself as the candidate of honesty and integrity, in part by touting her record of prosecuting child sex crimes. But as California attorney general, she didn’t just copy boilerplate language without attribution. In one of the lengthier passages reviewed by Free Beacon, she lifted a fictionalized story about a victim of sex trafficking—and presented it as a real case. The story came from Polaris Project, a nonprofit that runs the National Human Trafficking Hotline. By June 2012, the project had posted vignettes on its website that were "representative of the types of calls" the hotline receives and "meant for informational purposes only."... The only detail she changed was the location. The Polaris Project described a young woman, "Kelly," who had been forced to engage in prostitution and was rescued by law enforcement in Washington, D.C. But in Harris’s telling, Kelly had conveniently been found in San Francisco. The change effectively gave Harris credit for a rescue that never occurred, at least in her state. O.H Skinner, Arizona’s former solicitor general, said the move reflected a common perception of Harris among legal officials at the time...
The story from the hotline wasn’t a one-off. In a 2010 report on organized crime, Harris copied several passages from Bill Lockyer, one of her predecessors as California attorney general, without attribution. In the 2012 report on human trafficking, she copied a paragraph from Wikipedia. And in a 2014 report on transnational gangs, she copied several sentences from Roger McDonough, a New York State judge, as well as McDonough’s footnotes.
The new examples add to the allegations of plagiarism published last week by conservative activist Christopher Rufo, which focused exclusively on Harris’s 2009 book Smart on Crime. Experts who reviewed those allegations, including Jonathan Bailey of Plagiarism Today, argued that they comprised such a small portion of Harris’s work that sloppiness—not malice—seemed like the most plausible explanation for them... But a review of Harris’s oeuvre—including books, popular articles, congressional transcripts, and reports she authored as attorney general—found a more extensive pattern of plagiarism than has been previously reported. It spans five publications, including her sworn congressional testimony. And it comes after months of criticism, from both left and right, that the Harris campaign has few ideas of its own.
The plagiarism could become a potent symbol of that critique in the last days of a dead heat. In an article about Rufo’s allegations, the New York Times noted that "none of the passages in question took the ideas or thoughts of another writer." he new examples—in which Harris lifts pages of original material from other lawyers—undermine that defense and suggest that not all the passages were copied in error. Some contain tell-tale signs of intent, such as small tweaks in punctuation and the removal of minor details.
The symbolism could be especially resonant given that Logli, who has been donating to GOP candidates since 1994, is not the only Republican Harris has been accused of parroting. She endured a different sort of plagiarism scandal in August when she promised to eliminate taxes on tips—two months after her rival, Donald Trump, had promised to do the same. "This was a TRUMP idea," Trump fumed on Truth Social at the time. "She has no ideas, she can only steal from me." Also in August, Harris proposed boosting the child tax credit to $6,000 five days after J.D Vance proposed boosting it to $5,000. Vance joked that it was only a matter of time before she put on a red tie and promised to make America great again.
Harris, who in 2019 supported taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries for detained migrants, has also promised to build a border wall... "The obvious question is, who exactly is Kamala Harris?" asked Branko Maretic in Jacobin magazine. "That’s a question she herself may have trouble answering."
Joe Biden, Rand Paul, Melania Trump, and Ben Carson have each endured their own plagiarism scandals. Like Harris, Carson was even accused of plagiarizing in Congressional testimony, though that allegation only involved two paragraphs, not 1,200 words. All of those scandals received sustained media attention and were at times framed as synecdoches for a candidate’s shortcomings. When the Trump campaign denied, in 2016, that Melania Trump had plagiarized two paragraphs from Michelle Obama’s 2008 Democratic convention speech, a Vox "explainer" said the denials were "a testament to Trump’s character." The Harris campaign has likewise denied that the allegations published last week are anything to write home about. "Rightwing operatives are getting desperate as they see the bipartisan coalition of support Vice President Harris is building to win this election," a campaign spokesman, James Singer, told media outlets last week."
There's nothing wrong with plagiarism if black women do it, and anyone who notices is sexist and racist

Melissa Chen on X - "I recall when plagiarism use to be something that ended presidential campaigns. That was 1988 though. And it happened to her current boss (remember him?)."

Vasanth Seshadri on X - ""The lapses were not serious" is today's "Only a few apartments have been taken over""

Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ on X - "BREAKING: CNN confirms my reporting that Kamala Harris plagiarized her book, Smart on Crime.  This is exactly how it worked with Claudine Gay: the NYT tried to obfuscate; CNN told the truth; other publications followed. Eventually, even the NYT admitted that it was plagiarism."

Andy Ngo 🏳️‍🌈 on X - "Read this thread. It shows how presidential candidate Kamala Harris, praised by the liberal establishment for her intelligence and eruditeness, plagiarized large sections of her book."

Thread by @realchrisrufo on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "The New York Times is lying about my plagiarism story and I have the receipts to prove it:
1. The Times claims that I only argued that Kamala Harris plagiarized "five sections" involving "about 500 words." But this isn't true. In my story, I wrote that Stefan Weber argued there are "more than a dozen" instances of "'vicious plagiarism.'" This past Saturday, I provided the Times not only with my written analysis, which argues that there are "more than a dozen," but with Weber's full dossier, which included 18 allegations of varying severity. So, the Times deliberately withheld this crucial contextual information from its readers and from the supposed plagiarism expert, who, based on this limited information, called it "not serious." They could have easily confirmed the "more than a dozen" point, but instead, lied by omission.
2. The Times claims that "none of the passages in question took the ideas or thoughts of another writer." This is preposterous. Harris not only copied multiple paragraphs of other people's work verbatim, but she often lifted those ideas directly and at face value. In one case, she came to the wrong conclusion because she copied Wikipedia—i.e., she stole a bad idea, copied the language verbatim, and got the point wrong. This is the Full Monty of plagiarism. The Times's claim doesn't hold up at all; it's just a way of downplaying the transgression of Kamala Harris, as they tried to do initially with Harvard president Claudine Gay. Their claim is not supported by the evidence:
3. The Times provides one example of the plagiarism from my story, which suggests that it was a minor copy-and-paste of two short sentences: But this is supremely misleading. The violation was not two sentences, but, rather, five sentences. Here is the actual extent of this plagiarism instance, which is much more severe than the Times suggests. She copied-and-pasted two paragraphs and simply added the word "additional":
4. The Times suggests that noticing Kamala Harris's plagiarism is somehow "racist," even though the paper has covered plagiarism by many other political figures, including conservative minorities, such as former Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke, without suggesting that doing so was "racist." This is just a way of laundering in a smear to complement the absurd headline that my reporting on plagiarism by a presidential candidate is "seiz[ing] on" a transgression that is "not serious"—in other words, framing me as the villain of the story, rather than the plagiarism by a presidential candidate.
My rule of working with journalists is simple: If you treat me fairly, I treat you fairly. After publication of the Times piece, I called the reporter and editor at the Times to ask politely for a correction. The editor, Mary Suh, had nothing but excuses. And so, we're going to fight this one out. They should issue a correction, but, even if they do not, I will correct the record in public."

Meme - Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ @realchrisrufo: "This is stunning: The New York Times "plagiarism expert" now confirms that the paper deliberately withheld the full Kamala Harris plagiarism report from him and that, after analyzing the full claims, Harris's plagiarism is "more serious" than he told the Times."
"Yesterday, Christopher Rufo published an article accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of plagiarizing her 2009 book Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer. In his article, he cited five passages in the book that bore strong similarities to earlier works.  That day, the New York Times called me and asked me to examine those five publicly available passages. I studied the passages and found that they were indicators of poor writing processes but did not make up a large portion of the work. As such, while I agree that the passages represent plagiarism and are issues that need to be addressed, they are relatively minor as far as plagiarism goes.  At the time, I was unaware of a full dossier with additional allegations, which led some to accuse the New York Times of withholding that information from me. However, the article clearly stated that it was my “initial reaction” to those allegations, not a complete analysis.  Today, I reviewed the complete dossier prepared by Dr. Stefan Weber, whom I have covered before. I also performed a peer review of one of his papers in 2018.  With this new information, while I believe the case is more serious than I commented to the New York Times, the overarching points remain. While there are problems with this"

Meme - Joe Duarte 🏜️ @ValidScience: "It's incredible how corrupt the @nytimes  is. From the Gaza hospital hoax, hiring leftist activists to be reporters, and now this:   "Jonathan Bailey, a plagiarism consultant in New Orleans and the publisher of Plagiarism Today, said on Monday that his initial reaction to Mr. Rufo’s claims was that the errors were not serious, given the size of the document.  “This amount of plagiarism amounts to an error and not an intent to defraud,” he said, adding that Mr. Rufo had taken relatively minor citation mistakes in a large amount of text and tried to “make a big deal of it.”  Given the size of the document? Yeah, that's not relevant at all. Plagiarism isn't okay because books are long.  By now, you should know that anyone leftist media cites as an "expert" is going to turn out to be a partisan leftist.   Indeed, Bailey (@plagiarismtoday ) is a partisan leftist, with ridiculous pronouns on his bio, and who previously downplayed the academic plagiarism uncovered by @realchrisrufo  and @aaronsibarium  over the past year. He even called it "bad faith", a common leftist term whose meaning is unclear. (Insincere? Or that the people so labeled are bad people?)  Bailey obviously cares much less about plagiarism, and is willing to downplay it, if the plagiarists are authoritarian leftists like himself. He's not an appropriate source on this topic.  Notably the NYT's Dylan Freedman **only cited Bailey** – just the partisan leftist, no one else. That's a common form of corruption in leftist media. They often only cite leftists.  Part of my project on media reliability and bias will capture bias in sourcing like this, and break down the use of the label "expert" in various ways, including political orientation, the subjects the media thinks we need "experts" for (should be very interesting), etc.  The NYT called these "short passages". Use of optional adjectives to downplay or highlight something is another form of bias we can measure."

Crémieux on X - "This is one of the more interesting plagiarism cases so far, because it raises the issue of what you do when you hire a ghostwriter and they commit fraud in your name. Both things are looked down upon, so do you fess up to hiring the ghostwriter or take credit for the fraud?"

Links - 1st December 2024 (2 - General Wokeness: Allison Pearson)

Kevin Bass PhD MS on X - "A journalist at @Telegraph is under investigation by British police for an alleged “hate crime”. The “hate crime” is a year-old social media post. She hasn’t been allowed to know what the post is. She hasn’t been allowed to know who her accuser—her“victim”—is. Insane."
Telegraph journalist Allison Pearson faces 'Kafkaesque' investigation over alleged hate crime (aka "Telegraph journalist faces ‘Kafkaesque’ investigation over alleged hate crime") - "“I have hundreds of black and Asian followers on X/Twitter, none of them ever suggested I’d said something bad or hateful. Besides, who decides where you set the bar for what’s offensive? This is supposed to be 2024 not 1984, yet the police officers seemed to be operating according to the George Orwell operational manual.”  When she asked the officers why she could not know what she was accused of, she said: “The two policemen exchanged glances. Clearly the Kafkaesque situation made no sense to them, either.” On Tuesday night, Mrs Braverman said: “As Home Secretary, I changed the rules on recording non-crime hate incidents to protect freedom of speech. As I repeatedly urged, the police should not be policing opinions on social media but should be arresting shoplifters and tackling anti-social behaviour.  “Non-crime hate incidents have been expanded by the police and really should be scrapped so that they stop wasting time and focus on the public’s priorities.”  Toby Young, of the Free Speech Union, said: “It’s little wonder that 93 per cent of car-related crimes went unsolved in Essex last year. The local officers are too busy policing journalists’ tweets to police their streets. “I’m sure they’d prefer to be investigating actual crimes rather than ‘non-crimes’, but their politically correct bosses are more concerned with punishing wrongthink.”"
Attacking the media is only fascism when it hurts the left wing agenda

'Elite police group' usually designated to deal with major crimes 'investigates Daily Telegraph columnist's tweet' - "Essex Police have set up an elite ‘gold group’ - usually designated to deal with major crimes - to handle the investigation into a journalist’s social media post... The complainant, who is not Muslim nor one of the people in the photo, told the Guardian: ‘Pearson tweeted something that had nothing to do with Palestine or the London protest. Her description of the two people of colour as Jew haters is racist and inflammatory."

‘Incompetent’ Essex Police set up terror-style incident group for single Allison Pearson tweet - "It came as a county councillor accused Essex Police of “institutional incompetence and dysfunction on an epic scale”, and it emerged that the force had admitted it was unable to send an emergency response to all 999 calls about drug dealing... “CC [Chief Constable Ben-Julian] Harrington is more concerned with promoting diversity than dealing with crime, indeed his divisional commander for Uttlesford and Braintree made it clear at a public meeting that they will not address active and public drug dealing due to lack of resources, Essex Police appear to have resources to chase those sending tweets on Remembrance Sunday but not for catching drug dealers in broad daylight.  “There is a bizarre set of priorities. We have a bad drug-dealing problem, we have a very under-resourced policing panel and you go on the various Twitter feeds of various officers and it’s all about the latest diversity courses they have gone to.”   Essex Police have been accused of ignoring 999 calls from concerned residents about drug deals on the streets, according to documents obtained by The Telegraph.  Documents also revealed that Essex Police would not “dispatch a patrol car” every time it received a tip-off from a concerned resident.  At a community meeting in Uttlesford in February this year, police were told residents often saw drug deals being done in public and they believed police were not doing anything about it.  “We noted the number of residents at the meeting who expressed concerns about apparent open drug dealing in various communities across the district and the seeming lack of response to those activities when reported,” according to Mr Gregory.  “It was made clear that 999 calls on overt drug dealing would not be pursued.”"

How Allison Pearson's tweet sparked a year-long police investigation - "Another senior barrister and KC who has advised the Government on sensitive legal issues said any attempt to prosecute Pearson would fail.  “She was having a go at the police, not at a particular racial group. If she had been targeting a racial group, she could be guilty of an offence but that was not what she was saying,” they said.  “She was saying it was two-tier policing and was having a go at the police irrespective of their ethnic identities. I think the police have misunderstood the legislation.”  A third barrister, who has also advised the Government, said Pearson’s tweet was not so offensive as to be inflammatory in breach of the law. “What she was saying was aimed at two-tier policing where police treat one group in one way, and another group in another way,” they said."

Police visit to journalist over social media post ‘absolutely wrong’ – Badenoch - "Kemi Badenoch has said people need to stop “wasting police time on trivial incidents” after officers visited a journalist at her home over a year-old tweet.  The Conservative Party leader said such incidents are “like children reporting each other” and that Sir Keir Starmer should review laws around them to show he believes in free speech."

No 10 confirms non-crime hate review amid Allison Pearson row - "In September, the police watchdog warned that forces were recording too many hate crime incidents and getting involved in disputes that include “hurt feelings”.  The report found officers were having to take action that “may appear to contradict common sense”, according to Andy Cooke, the chief inspector of constabulary.  He highlighted police recording a non-crime hate incident after a man reported other passengers on a bus giving him “funny looks” because of his ethnic appearance, without considering whether the matter was “trivial, irrational or malicious”.  The Telegraph also revealed in September that police are recording more non-crime hate incidents than last year despite a crackdown on the practice, according to official data."

Allison Pearson: Journalist tells Nigel Farage about how police state hunted her down - ""Because it was Remembrance Sunday I drew myself up and told them [the police officers] we are here today on a special day commemorating hundreds of men your age who laid down their lives for the country so that it could be a free country and not live under the jackboot of tyranny. "Here you are on Remembrance Sunday, coming to my house in something that I see to be against freedom."  Pearson added: "I'll tell you what, it was shocking. It was upsetting because I'm a law abiding person and I respect the police. I want to trust and respect the police... The journalist pointed out that "looking at Essex Police and forces around the country" officers have become "more interested in trying to solve thought crime than the kind of crime that normal people are interested in"... Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson also posted: "This is appalling. How can Starmer’s Britain lecture other countries about free speech when an innocent journalist gets a knock on the door - for a tweet?  "Our police have their hands full of burglaries and violent crime. They are being forced to behave like a woke Securitate - and it has to stop.""

Tackle violent crime instead of tweets, Starmer urges police after Allison Pearson row - "Police should focus on tackling violent crime and burglaries instead of questioning people over their social media posts, Sir Keir Starmer has said.  The Prime Minister urged forces to “concentrate on what matters most to their communities” amid the deepening row over a police investigation into Telegraph writer Allison Pearson’s post on X a year ago.  He said chief constables who prioritised looking into complaints about allegedly offensive tweets would be “held to account for those decisions”. Sir Keir intervened after politicians, campaigners and a former MI6 chief warned that hate crime laws were being exploited to stifle free speech.  Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said that police were using hate crime laws wrongly 90 per cent of the time, while Lord Stevens, the former Met commissioner, called for forces to focus on tackling violent crime rather than policing people’s opinions online.   Former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove suggested the investigation into Pearson was a waste of resources... Forces are supposed to weed out complaints that are “trivial, irrational or malicious” or relating to “the expression of lawfully held views”.  But a report by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in September found many forces fail to correctly apply the guidance. It uncovered evidence that confusion over the rules meant officers were taking a risk-averse approach summed up as “if in doubt, record”.  As a result, NCHIs were too often being logged for complaints that amounted to little more than people’s “hurt feelings”.  Julie Bindel, the feminist writer, revealed in The Telegraph at the weekend how officers knocked on her door following a complaint about a tweet she sent. She said detectives refused to tell her which post the allegation referred to but that the report had been made by a “transgender man” in the Netherlands. Tom Hunt, a former Tory MP, has also told how a NCHI was logged against him after a complaint was filed by a Labour activist. He had written in a local newspaper column raising concerns that “certain communities” were largely responsible for crime in Ipswich city centre.  Chris Philp, who tightened the rules on NCHIs as policing minister in the last government, said police should only be recording them “extremely rarely” where there was a “real risk of imminent criminality”... “But the majority, probably 90 per cent of these NCHIs that are being looked at don’t meet that [threshold]. The police should not be policing free speech. The police should not be policing thought.  “They should be concentrating on actual crime or behaviour that is just below the criminal threshold and might realistically and imminently lead to a crime. We want to focus on those crimes, not policing thought.”  Baron Stevens, a former Met commissioner, said forces should “prioritise things like knife crime and violence on the streets”."

The Kafkaesque thoughtpolicing of Allison Pearson - "The pursuit of Allison Pearson surely reflects the comically skewed priorities of policing today, which seems obsessed with speech crime and increasingly nonchalant about actual crime. (As Pearson points out, if she had, instead of tweeting, stolen £199 worth of goods from a supermarket, the police would have left her be, given they are advised not to attend thefts below £200.) But more than that, what a terrifying sign of the times. When you allow the state to define and police ‘hate’, this is the absurd, authoritarian world you end up in."
What anarcho-tyranny looks like

Police chief under fire for defending Essex force’s handling of Allison Pearson row - "The policing chief at the centre of the Allison Pearson row is facing a backlash after defending his force’s decision to investigate the Telegraph journalist.  Roger Hirst, policing and crime commissioner for Essex, has been branded “out of touch in every way” after he said police could not ignore alleged crimes “just because it’s politically sensitive”, noting that the normal measure of the severity of a crime was maximum sentence length... Zac Goldsmith, the former minister, attacked Mr Hirst on X, formerly known as Twitter, where he said residents of Essex would have voted for the Conservative crime commissioner believing he would be focused on crime.  He said: “The people of Essex elected a Conservative police commissioner in good faith to sort out crime in their area. Most of them would have simply ticked the blue box assuming it meant a focus on actual crime.” Mr Goldsmith added: “They ended up with someone in charge who thinks it was right for officers to police the (non-criminal) thoughts of journalists."... “The man’s a coward. They have totally bottled it. There were a dozen people here in total,” Kevin Daines, 45, said, adding that the policing boss had the wrong priorities. “He’s talking about hate crime, they say burglary is down. It’s only down because no one reports it any more.”... In December last year, police recorded a NCHI after Rachel MacLean, the deputy chairman of the Conservatives, called a trans woman a “man who wears a wig”, but it was later removed from her record.  A post by Murdo Fraser, the former deputy leader of the Scottish Conservatives, comparing non-binary people with those who “identify as a cat”, was recorded as a hate incident earlier this year.  In 2017, comments by Amber Rudd, the former home secretary, were regarded as a non-crime hate incident after she said in a speech she wanted to ensure that foreign workers “were not taking jobs British workers could do”."

Police force at centre of Allison Pearson row did not investigate controversial imam - "The police force at the centre of the Allison Pearson row has not investigated a controversial imam who called for “Zionists” to be destroyed.  Users of X, formerly Twitter, alerted Essex Police to comments by Shaykh Shams Ad-Duha Muhammad after footage of him calling for “punishment” of those who support the existence of Israel was posted... the force previously defended the same imam’s right to freedom of expression. Following a complaint including about a selection of his other comments in video footage, Chelmsford residents were told by a district commander in November 2022 that no criminal offences had taken place... The imam has made a series of controversial comments in the past, including in 2013 that Muslim girls should have children instead of careers and that homosexuality was “a vice among vices”, adding that the spread of HIV and AIDS were down to “general moral decline”.  On Monday, Roger Hirst, the police, fire and crime commissioner for Essex, cancelled a public meeting on community safety at Hamptons Sports and Leisure Centre, with his office saying it was postponed in the “interests of public safety” and it was “deeply disappointed” to move the meeting.  Residents who had turned up accused Mr Hirst of running scared of scrutiny and said they were surprised by the choice of location, noting that the leisure centre had been used by Ad-Duha Muhammad for controversial sermons."
Classic two tier policing

Essex Police have made Allison Pearson a free speech martyr instead of fighting actual crime - "As for the most sinister aspect of the case, that Miss Pearson is not allowed to know the exact nature of her offence nor who her accuser is, it will remind us all of the disagreeable excesses of the French Revolution when citizens were encouraged to accuse each other anonymously of thought crimes. I think I can guess the sort of person or group who might be responsible for this sort of charge; I think we all can. But it’s the sinister effect that the charge seems intended to have which should worry us. It is designed to intimidate; to make people like Allison Pearson think twice before they sound off about matters to do with race or religion. It is meant to have a chilling effect on free speech, which is why the Free Speech Union has provided her with a solicitor to accompany her to her voluntary police interview... Meanwhile, Mr Rowley can gloomily reflect that people will be that little bit less receptive to his plea for more police funds on account of how the force next door uses theirs."

The dystopian police investigation into Allison Pearson | The Spectator - "Here’s a tip. If you’re having trouble getting the police to promptly attend after a burglary, tell them the scumbag tweeted something mean about you as he made his escape...   The cops would do well to explain what is going on here – and fast. Most people will struggle to believe that Pearson, a popular author and columnist, suddenly – 12 months ago – began spewing racist bile. If she had, we surely would have heard about it. Given the alarming expansion of speech policing in recent years, many will suspect that this is another outrageous example of censorious over-reach. After all, we now live in a country in which people are arrested, prosecuted, even convicted, after misgendering people. Or after making offensive skits on YouTube. And this has long threatened to catch up with the more right-wing or just un-PC sections of alternative and mainstream media, given that the woke left seems to dictate what is and isn’t considered offensive these days. Back in 2020, historian David Starkey and pundit Darren Grimes were investigated over potential public-order offences, because of ill-judged comments Starkey had made about slavery on Grimes’s YouTube channel... as anyone who has been paying attention will know, the pretence that our speech laws are purely there to criminalise fascists and racists fell away a long time ago... The British experiment in policing ‘hate’ has become as farcical as it is authoritarian. It makes you long for the days when ‘PC police’ was a tongue-in-cheek tabloid zinger, not a literal description. Oh how far we’ve fallen."

Essex Police records hundreds of non-crime hate incidents but failed to answer non-emergency calls in same two year period - "In one case, a shopkeeper “suspect” was recorded on the force’s hate incident database after he refused to let someone into his shop because they had a guide dog with them. In another instance, a complaint was logged when an individual said that their bank was being difficult with them because of their “skin colour and height”.  In a separate police watchdog inspection, it was discovered that the force fails to “promptly resolve non-emergency calls”.  The investigation found that the slow response time could “contribute to a loss of confidence in the service”... Councillor Neil Gregory, a substitute member of the Essex Police, Fire and Crime Panel, accused Essex Police of “institutional incompetence and dysfunction on an epic scale”.  He told The Telegraph: “It is certainly the impression I get that they are prioritising diversity over real crime.  “Sadly the appalling treatment of Allison is merely the tip of the iceberg of an obsession with diversity, neglect of crime and institutional incompetence and dysfunction on an epic scale.”"
Hate speech is clearly the most damaging crime around

Any one of us could be next, say female journalists as they rally around Allison Pearson - "Female journalists are rallying around Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson, saying they could be next to face police investigations for their social media posts or columns.  Pearson is being investigated by three police forces over a deleted tweet...  Daily Mail columnist Sarah Vine said the visit was a “frightening moment” for female journalists who “console ourselves with the thought that the police and responsible authorities have our back”. Journalist Rachel Johnson has expressed support for Pearson and raised concerns about the safety of female journalists, saying “any one of us could be next”.  “This is the Je Suis Allison Pearson moment for anyone who makes their living from writing or speaking their mind in Starmer’s Britain,” she said.  “The Government is putting a numbing effect on discourse. We should remember we are not in Eastern Europe under the communists.  “Policing speech is complete nonsense. I feel totally aggrieved on Allison’s behalf because it’s a total waste of police time.”... “They messed with the wrong Welshwoman this time but any one of us could be next.”... Sonia Sodha, chief leader writer for The Observer, also came to Pearson’s defence, despite not sharing her political views.  She said: “That deleted Allison Pearson tweet was nasty, unwise and wrong. But that it should be the subject of a criminal investigation feels like absurd levels of police overreach.  “The police have an appalling record when it comes to policing speech. Any liberal who cares about our fundamental democratic rights should be worried about it,” she wrote.  “And there are examples of both left and right governments in the UK handing too much unqualified power over speech and protest to the police. It’s an issue across the political spectrum.” Journalist and royal biographer Angela Levin also weighed in to support Pearson. She wrote on X: “I am so angry that a top, honourable journalist like you [has] been treated so badly. The Police on the other hand are creating rules and behaviours that we must not go along with. My thoughts are with you.”... Donna Jones, the former chief police and crime commissioner, said police officers should not go to people’s homes over offensive online posts.  “The police should not be going to somebody’s home if they have not committed a crime,” said Ms Jones, former chairman of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners.  “If the police determine it’s not a crime, it’s not a hate crime, then they should not be going and knocking on someone’s door and encouraging them to come in for a voluntary interview or undertaking some kind of enhanced thinking course.  “Where I don’t agree with the current law and the process, and by the way a lot of the police are very frustrated about this as well, is that if it is a non crime, it should stop there,” she said.  “Yes, collect the data, feed it into the Home Office, that someone has reported that someone has done something that has offended them.”  Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, Ms Jones said the treatment of NCHI should “radically change”... Chris Philp, shadow home secretary, and Suella Braverman, former home secretary, have also expressed concern about the policing of NCHI.  Geoffrey Robertson KC, one of the country’s leading lawyers, has said: “the Essex investigation is a waste of public money.”"
The left doesn't care about women when they stand in the way of the left wing agenda

Allison Pearson on X - "The story so far.
1. I am not a racist.
2. I didn’t post a racist tweet.
3. My tweet did not incite violence against any protected characteristic.
4. My fairly innocuous tweet was deleted a year ago.
5. Senior lawyers say my tweet does “not come near the threshold for criminal prosecution”.
6. But Essex Police upgraded the accusation from Non-Crime Hate Incident to offence under the Public order Act. Why?
7. Essex Police visited my home but refused to specify either the accusation or the accuser.
8. Under pressure, Essex Police deployed the terrorist-fighting Gold Command to investigate a solitary Welsh journalist 5ft 4 inches who still believes in freedom of speech. Weird, I know.
9. This is all nonsense. Deeply sinister, frightening nonsense and wholly disproportionate police over-reach if you ask me.
10. Last night, I realised I no longer feel safe in my own country. A terrible moment.
As Elon Musk said, “This must stop.” It really must."

Inevitable West on X - "🚨BREAKING: Allison Pearson, who was visited by the police for an X post, will now SUE the Guardian after they made a bot account posing as her making racists comments. Reminder: they left X just 24 hrs ago due to misinformation… 👀"

Inevitable West on X - "🚨BREAKING: Hundreds of British citizens, including journalists, are reporting that they’ve been visited by the police this weekend regarding X posts. Make Orwell fiction again. 🤒"

Private Eye’s shameful attack on Allison Pearson | The Spectator - "What is the purpose of Private Eye? I know it’s supposed to be some kind of anti-establishment satirical magazine, boldly holding power to account and standing up for the little guy. But I must say I’m finding its response to the extraordinary police doorstepping of Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson rather puzzling. You would think that this supposed thorn in the side of the powerful would sally out in defence of a fellow journalist being visited by the police because of something she posted online – not out of love for the journo in particular, but for the vital principle of free speech. Sadly, however, it seems any such principles have fallen by the wayside... Pearson finds herself in the ‘Street of Shame’ column for allegedly ‘misreporting’ her encounter with police at her Essex home... wouldn’t anyone, journalist or otherwise, be pretty shocked to have police turn up at their door on a Sunday morning? Should Pearson have had a notepad stashed in her dressing gown pocket just in case the cops came calling? It seems that in its dislike of Pearson, the magazine has forgotten the human element in all this. In any case, what is Pearson supposed to have gained by wrongly claiming she’d been accused of something else? Private Eye gives much weight to a transcript released by Essex Police to dispute Pearson’s claims, which it says provides a ‘pretty comprehensive rebuttal’. The ‘transcript’ comprises just three lines spoken by an officer. Along with the force’s dubious assertion that ‘Essex Police supports free speech’, it clearly aims to present the police in a favourable light. An inquiring investigative magazine might be minded to ask why we haven’t been given the full transcript. Indeed, if the dispute is so cut and dry, why not release the bodycam footage, too? In any case, whether or not Pearson reported what happened accurately, by using this minor factual discrepancy to rubbish the entire issue, Private Eye seems to be wilfully missing the wood for the trees. Whether it was an NCHI or anything else really shouldn’t matter – no one should be visited by the police over tweets, least of all Pearson. Numerous legal professionals have said her tweet came nowhere near the threshold for criminality, as proven by Essex police dropping the case. It’s nonsense to say that Pearson’s backers should have stopped defending her when it became clear she had been investigated for the far more serious offence of inciting racial hatred, for which the maximum penalty is seven years behind bars. Indeed, this fact makes her case more chilling, not less. The Street of Shame continues to say that ‘there remains an important issue at the heart of all this’. Readers can probably think of some. Free speech, perhaps? The egregious waste of police time? The chilling effect on journalism? The fact that Essex Police upgraded Pearson’s case to a Gold Unit usually reserved for terror cases? But none of those quite makes the cut... it’s notable that Private Eye chooses an apparent instance of two-tier policing that’s three years old here. It’s almost as if it can’t bring itself to notice the more glaring recent examples of varying police priorities because it’s politically incorrect to do so. In case you thought this anti-free speech line was an isolated incident, the same edition also carries a spoof piece justifying the police’s decision to knock on Pearson’s door... In its desire to make light of Pearson’s ordeal, Private Eye manages to turn her doorstepping by the police into ‘a request for a quiet word’. It then implies, contrary to mountains of evidence, that the only people who need fear a knock on the door by the police are those who have tweeted ‘libellous drivel and lazy misinformation online’ – in other words, people who probably deserved it. It also attempts to suggest the right is only concerned about Pearson’s case for cynical reasons. In fact, Pearson’s treatment has been labelled ‘Stasi-like’ by a Labour MP, criticised by old-school lefty Suzanne Moore, and even called out by Sir Keir Starmer himself. In the end, it seems like only the ‘liberal’ left have been unable to see the Pearson case as a disturbing case of police overreach. Other to have taken aim at Pearson include ex-BBC hacks at The News Agents podcast, who have accused Pearson of a ‘persecution complex’, and the production company behind Have I Got News For You in a now-deleted tweet. A writer in the Guardian has called it a ‘non-scandal’ and cries that ‘“free speech” has been weaponised’. These establishment figures may delude themselves that they’re speaking truth to power, but they share, as Niall Gooch noted earlier this year of Ian Hislop, a ‘concept of the Establishment [that] seems to be stuck in about 1952’. And that explains a lot. Only someone so out of touch with the reality of social power today could call themselves a liberal, yet see the police being sent to a journalist’s door and cheer it on."

Essex Police taking no further action against Allison Pearson - "The investigation has been closed, but there will be an independent review of the force’s handling of the matter"

Ridiculous Zuccs: Trailer as Weapons

"brand new 6.5x10 trade for enclosed. $2,500 · KENNER, LA

This Listing Goes Against Our Rules on Weapons

It looks like this listing goes against our Commerce Policies on weapons. It has been removed and only you can see it now."

A trailer is somehow a weapon.

Links - 1st December 2024 (1 - History Extra Quoting)

History Extra podcast: Norse myths: everything you wanted to know on Apple Podcasts - "‘The nine worlds, the nine homes, they do appear or at least that term appears in I think it's at least two of the mythological poems in the poetic Edda. And I think once in Snorri’s prose Edda as well. But the problem is that that term is never followed with a nice neat list of nine worlds in any certainty. Attempts have been made to categorize them. So sort of obvious possibilities would be Asgar or Asgard which is the home of the gods. And then we have Midgard, I'm doing it with my fingers because we'll get up to nine quite quickly and still have some left over, that's the part of the problem. So Midgard is the home of the humans. Jotunheimr, which is the home of giants. Vanaheimr which is the home of a subsection of gods called the Vanir and actually the Vanir, how do I put it. There seems to be some sort of cosmic war between these two groups of Gods. The Aesir and that's the Asgard, Asgard is named for and they're like people like Odin and Thor. And then the Vanir like Freya and Frey the sibling god and goddess. So possibly there's a home there. Alfheimr, which would be the home of the elves, the light elves. Svartalfheimr, which might be the home of the Dark Elves. Nidavellir, which would be sort of the plane of the dwarves, essentially. And then we've got Muspelheimr, that realm of fire to the south of *something*. Niflheimr, which is that realm of ice but then we could also say well maybe that's another world would be hell, the realm of the dead. So then we've got up to nine quite quickly. And nine is a very important number sort of mythologically speaking, not just for the Norse, and so whether that does actually map onto what we know about mythology and the texts that are written and survive, and that's part of the thing and it's worth saying this kind of up top as it were that it's not a perfect science. We have to reconstruct our ideas of what Norse mythology are from, texts. And the really important point here is these texts are written down after, Christianity has come to Scandinavia and the sort of broadened Norse diaspora, they're written down in Iceland which is settled by the Norse predominantly in the 9th century, but they're not written down till the 13th century. So if you're using texts that were essentially created, partly, sure from oral memories that have been passed down the generations, possibly from beliefs that continue to exist in the corners and underground, you're not necessarily going to get a perfect science and you're not necessarily going to get a sense of how the people who really believed in these gods and had rituals surrounding them actually understood this mythology at the time...
[On Ragnarok] This ship… it's made from the nails of corpses and so Snorri has this point which is always cut the nails of the dead because if the nails are too long that ship will go faster because there will be more nails to build it and Ragnarok will come sooner'"

Astronomy history: everything you wanted to know | HistoryExtra - "' The signs of the zodiac, they were set 2,000 years ago by the Babylonians, adopted by the Greeks, but since then the Earth's axis has wobbled by a fair amount and that means that the position of the sun that determines your sun sign relative to the background of the stars has changed or the time of year has changed. It's changed by a few weeks actually and that means it's, if you think your sun sign is a Virgo because that's what you've always been told it's actually much more likely you're a Leo and that the sun was in a sign of Leo when you were born. I'll leave it up to you to decide what that says about the accuracy of astrology...
historians now would say that the Catholic church was both help and a hindrance to astronomy. Through much of the Middle Ages the church encouraged astronomy, it was as interested in the calendar as anybody else and astronomy was one of the subjects that was compulsory at the medieval universities, which began to be founded in the 11th century. And if you wanted to go on and do a theology degree for instance at a a university like Oxford or Paris, you first had to be an undergraduate and you had to master the basics of astronomy as they'd been inherited from the Greeks. And if you're an advanced student you had to read and understand Ptolemy although not many people managed that because it's, it's difficult stuff. And some of what we hear about the Catholic church in the Middle Ages is sort of a 19th century myth. For instance in Europe we inherited the Greek model of the universe so, during the Middle Ages no educated person thought that the Earth was flat they had the works of Aristotle they knew the evidence for the Earth being a sphere, and that was completely accepted. And actually in the 16th century Pope Gregory XIII put together a fairly crack team of astronomers in order to help reform the calendar, because they'd been using the same calendar since the Roman era and it had got out of kilter with the movements of the Sun by well 10 days...
it wasn't really until the 17th century that we start to see the Catholic Church beginning to make mistakes when it came to astronomy and obviously the biggest mistake it made was in 1616 when it banned heliocentricism, the idea that the earth goes around the sun which Copernicus had taught in his book the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres which came out in 1543'"

The Britons who rebuilt postwar Germany | HistoryExtra - "‘Would I be right in saying that the British presence in Germany contributed to the invention of Currywurst?’
‘It did. Well this is the story and there's lots of different stories. Of course it's something of such repute there's always lots of different stories about the origins but yeah the, if anyone have been to Berlin, the currywurst with the fries, the sausage, tomato ketchup and curry powder, you know, if you think about it it's very much kind of indicative of the occupation. So you've got the ketchup and the fries is very much this kind of American introduction. The the wurst or sausage is the the sort of German element. And the curry powder was of course the British kind of contribution to this. And the story goes that some British soldiers in Berlin were looking to trade their resources for some extra alcohol supplies which is a very very believable story and they traded their packs of curry powder with a woman named Herta Huewig (sic - it’s actually Herta Heuwer) and she crafted the first ever currywurst’"

The Chinese migrants chasing an American dream | HistoryExtra - "'Starting from the 17th century, every place where there's been mass migration of Chinese, there's also been mass massacres, and that's that's actually a scary thing to say. But it started in the Philippines in the 17th century, then it happened in Peru, and other countries in in South America. Then it happened in America in the United States, then it happened in Mexico and then more recently in the 20th century it happened in Southeast Asia, in places like Malaysia or or Indonesia. So everywhere there has been mass migration of Chinese those have been followed by massacres and riots. And obviously there are lots of explanations for that but it's a point worth making. The other side of the coin is obviously integration and fusion between China and the West... the founder of modern China, the founder of of the Chinese Republic is Sun Yat Sen. And Sun Yat Sen himself was an overseas Chinese'"
Every. Single. Time. Everyberg Singlestein Timeowitz. It's almost as if people get jealous of successful minorities and the Jews are not uniquely evil and conniving and subversive, which is why at the same time, it didn't happen and they deserved it

Lord Byron: life of the week | HistoryExtra - "'There are lots of accounts of Byron's funeral as being a real moment for a lot of writers particularly. That no one could really believe he'd been such a huge figure that. There was a lot of disbelief that he could have died. His body went back to England in an iron coffin and even though he had actually wanted to be buried in Greece, but there was a sense from his friends that he should be buried in England and John Cam Hobhouse his best friend tried to get him buried in Westminster Abbey but he was considered too scandalous for that honor and so he ended up being buried in Hucknall Torkard in Nottinghamshire near his family seat and there was a ticketed event to go and see his grave and before he was interred… the funeral procession should I say the streets were lined with people… it was just ordinary people wanting to pay respects to him... it's funny because you know I think not many British people can actually quote any of his poetry and he hasn't been studied in British schools. You know he hasn't been on the curriculum and so people don't know him in the way that they know for example Keats. His poetry doesn't lend itself necessarily to being studied that way because so much of it is so long, so political, often mentioning people of the time that you know don't have relevance now... the Byronic hero has become such a staple of popular culture that the misunderstood outsider, we all know that character'"

Shardlake: bringing the Tudor murder mystery to the screen | HistoryExtra - "‘What is the fascination with the codpiece?’...
‘It just strikes us as so silly. It's I think one of the few hangovers from a medieval style which we find fascinating. I do get asked a lot why are there so many Tudor dramas and not very much older medieval drama. And my theory is that the Tudor era is old enough for it to be sort of distant and fascinating and interesting. But not so old and so far away that it's really alien. So I think the codpiece strikes us as odd because it's one of the few things which is completely far removed from anything that we would have today. Back then, yeah, it was a peculiar fashion and status symbol which, yeah, I don't think we'll ever really fully appreciate’"

Forging first editions: a 1930s crime caper | HistoryExtra - "‘Some people today actively collect forgeries, some of which now are as valuable as priginals’...
‘An authentic wise forgery is now more valuable than it would have been if it was just the authentic pamphlet. The kind of romance of the story has actually pushed the prices of these pamphlets up’"

War, peace & cherry trees: finding hope after WW2 | HistoryExtra - "‘There were too many clouds and they missed the target which is the Mitusbishi Heavy Industries Factory and instead it was dropped almost directly onto the biggest cathedral in Asia and that's where all the Japanese Catholics were living. So 8,500 out of 12,000 Catholics were wiped out, and you know that's where all the former hidden Christians were living and that was all unintentional and ironically the pilot was Catholic. And they, plane and the bomb were you know, it took off from Tinian, island of Tinian in the Pacific and before taking off, the bomb and the plane were blessed by a Catholic priest’"

Invisible ink & toad poison: tools of Elizabethan spycraft | HistoryExtra - "‘This is about the control of information, it's all about who controls the flow of information and it's it's no surprise that when Cromwell inculcates the what comes the Black Chamber he calls it the general post office. So fundamentally the post office which we all think about, well I mean we used to of course not anymore, but we think about as a as, a an institution designed to deliver letters was in fact originally an institution designed to arrest them and to to surveil them. It was it was designed for surveillance not for distribution of letters’...
'One of my favorite techniques would be crossdressing. You have all this, man uh turning up in woman's clothes to escape the Tower of London or another prison because women were kind of unsuspected in this period but so some of them were better at it than others. One of them forgot to shave his beard for instance and was caught'"

How Stalin ran rings round the west | HistoryExtra - "‘The dynamics between the three are really interesting and they were a course of complete surprise to me. Actually that I'm not sure Stalin so much was driving a wedge between Churchill and Roosevelt but Roosevelt himself was driving a wedge between him and Churchill. Both Churchill and Roosevelt had this bizarre desire to be close friends of Stalin. They genuinely wanted to carve out a warm personal relationship with Stalin and they saw that the best way to do this was to show visibly to Stalin that they didn't like each other and didn't get on and didn't see eye to eye with each other. So you've got Roosevelt is making jibes about Churchill to Stalin and Churchill is making jibes about Roosevelt to Stalin and Stalin all the all the while is sort of rather enjoying this and looking on rather amused by the fact that these two partners really genuinely don't seem to get on. And you know this was quite serious to the point where Roosevelt takes Stalin aside at one point and says you know don't worry we'll deal with the question of British India just the two of us. But then Churchill himself is trying to do the same when he's dealing with Stalin. So famously or maybe infamously he travels to Moscow in the autumn of 1944 to try and carve out a separate post-war deal with Stalin without Roosevelt's involvement. He presents Stalin with what became known as the naughty document where basically on a piece of paper he scrawls out who's going to get what at the end of the war and it's entirely divided between Britain and the Soviet Union. Roosevelt and America doesn't get a look in’"

Stealing the Mona Lisa | HistoryExtra - "‘Art crime isn't just theft is it? What actually is art crime and how prevalent is it now?’
‘It's a great question and it's much more common than people realize. When most of us think of art crime we think of a few cinematic heists that we read about in newspapers from museums. But in in fact there are tens of thousands of reported art thefts every year. In Italy alone there's 10 to 20,000 reported every year and it's been ranked among the highest grossing criminal trades worldwide. You know up there with the drug and arms trades, trade in cultural heritage… most of it, the largest amount, maybe 80%, I just making up that number but something like that, is illicit trade in looted antiquities, and those antiquities usually come directly from illicit archaeological sites, so they're not even archaeological excavations but they're tomb raiders... in Italy's National stolen art database which is called Leonardo there are over 5 million objects and those are objects that are still missing... it's also a funding source for terrorist groups. We've seen that with ISIS, we've seen it with Al-Qaeda, we've seen it even with the IRA’"

The far right in Britain: history behind the headlines - History Extra podcast | Podcast on Spotify - "‘When we're using this term far right we we have to make sure that we're, we're clear that we're talking about not only a traditional racist hardcore white racial nationalist extreme right, but also a radical right as well, and that radical right may be skeptical towards or be concerned about immigration, might have deep reservations about multiculturalism, but does not subscribe to violence and would be very hostile towards those people who are engaging in violence as well. I think yes we are right to call out such activity or violence as being far right, but at the same time we need to nuance that and break it down and acknowledge that what do we mean by the far right because, the issue really that we've got is that amongst the public if you like, the far right carries a stigma and is, when we think of the far right we think of violence, neonazis. If you like the old neonazis, skinheads, boneheads etc etc right. That's still there when we use that term. And I think that's that's the problem we've got at the moment I guess. And that we what we need to do is actually say well the far right is much broader than this, it's changed’"
The "myth" of the slippery slope strikes again. The "far right" is basically everything left wingers hate and is not racist, extreme or bigoted

Marshal Pétain: Vichy France in the dock | HistoryExtra - "' The president of France Emanuel Macron reprimanded his own prime minister, a woman called Élisabeth Borne and it's interesting to know that Élisabeth Borne’s father was a Holocaust victim… she had made a a speech comparing the ideas and philosophy of the Rassemblement National which is the extreme right party in France, used to be called the the National Front, the Front National and she said that the leader of that party Marine Le Pen was a Petainist. Right, so she made the link to the war and Macron reprimanded her and said the way to fight the Front National is not through historical and moral arguments, it's it's it's fighting them on what they believe today… the issue is terribly present in French politics...
It was very difficult in 1945 to find magistrates, judges, lawyers who'd not been in some way tarred by the Vichy regime, because every single judge under Vichy had to take and most, Vichy inherited most of the judges of the prior regime. It couldn't just suddenly spit out new judges but every judge had to take an oath of personal loyalty to Petain… you can't sack every judge otherwise you just how can you carry out any kind of legal process? So necessarily all the three judges… had sworn the oath of loyalty to Petain, but that was inevitable I suppose. But the view of the liberation authorities was in itself swearing the oath to Petain was unavoidable in a way and the judges who had used the cover of continuing to be a judge to in some way mitigate the worst effects of the Vichy regime, who were not as it, were being very repressive uh could be allowed to continue. Others were purged… the public prosecutor had not sworn the oath of loyalty to Petain but only because he had taken his retirement in July 1940 just before the oath was imposed so therefore he was always boasting: I didn't take the oath of loyalty to Petain so I'm unblemished… but in fact lots of people knew that that that same man, although he'd retired from the judiciary, had sat on a commission set up by Vichy, committee, commission set up by Vichy uh in 1940, July 1940 to advise on the denaturalization of French citizens who had been naturalized French in the 1930s. What does that mean? It means Jewish refugees who arrived in France and got citizenship...
The official line of the French government since 1945, 44, 45 has been that Vichy in some sense didn't exist… the real France, the real patriotic France, the real France, the Eternal France, whatever you want to call it, was in London. With the goal that there's a continuity that runs from the Democratic Republic in 1940 through De Gaulle in London to the new Democratic Republic after 1945. So in some kind of way France is not guilty'"

Isambard Kingdom Brunel: life of the week | HistoryExtra - "'Many people have seen a conjuring trick where you can seem to bring a coin out of your ear and put it in your mouth. Brunell did that with a half sovereign except that he managed to swallow the half sovereign and it was lodged in his windpipe. Now it dropped a fair way and was not easily extractable. It took almost a month to actually get rid of this coin. Brunell invented in typical fashion a platform which he could be strapped to which meant that he could be tipped upside down and then people would tap him on the back and eventually the coin fell out and it made the national papers it was such a big event Mr Brunel the coin is gone. So again it tells you something about the the way in which Engineers were actually seen. Nowadays people have got very blasé about engineers and engineering and the wonders of it is easily forgotten, maybe we're less impressed. But in those days Engineers were heroic figures because they were changing the world. Uh when they were working on his bridge over the river Tamar at Saltash 100,000 people at least came out to watch some of the operations as they floated some of these bits of the bridge into the river. Can you imagine people now going to watch some big operation for a tunnel or a bridge?'"

Amazing Grace: a story of salvation and slavery | HistoryExtra - "'How could a man who was steeped in the violence of the slave trade in the Atlantic be a good devout Christian? The truth is of course people didn't see the kind of contrast at the time we now look back on slavery as something that is irreligious unchristian immoral wrong. That's not how 18th century people saw it. John Newton was one of tens of thousands both at sea and on land who saw nothing incongruous between being a slave trader or involved in slavery in some way and being a devout Christian... Christianity didn't turn against slavery until really quite late in the 18th century. There are Christian voices against it there's no doubt about that but they are a minority… that was true of other religions as well'"

Druids: everything you wanted to know | HistoryExtra - "‘What are some of the most popular misconceptions people have about the Druids?’
‘It's very difficult to say what are misconceptions and what's the truth about the Druids because all our information upon them doesn't come from Druids. It comes from people who are around when they were around, but generally didn't like them, mostly the Greeks and Romans. Or it comes from people whose societies had once had Druids but that was hundreds of years before. And so they were trying to remember what they were like or perhaps reinventing what they were like. So none of the information is reliable. On the whole, views of Druids stretch between two extremes. One is that of wise, kindly, peaceloving, benevolent figures who put in long periods of training and act as guides to often much less intelligent rulers. And the other extreme is of priests of a bloodthirsty, barbaric and savage religion, steeped in gloom and gore and ignorance and tyranny. And some accounts mix the two up’"

Medieval popes: everything you wanted to know | HistoryExtra - "'The Papal Dark Age... The Rule of the Harlots... The Pornocracy'...
'The whole idea... It's too good to let go of, in some ways... the popes of Rome in the 900s are probably at one of the most limited points of their influence over wider European affairs… that's when you see these popes getting put in who are really part of these power squabbles amongst these Roman aristocratic families and yeah you know that's when it gets into these popes that we might find a little questionable in terms of their qualifications for the office, having like debauched parties in in the Lateran church and assassinating their rivals or being assassinated. So everywhere in Europe is having a kind of a period of downgrading around the 10th century and the papacy's no, no exception... another famous moment is the Cadaver Synod. The, again, very late 800s, you have a pope Formosus who is elected Pope and then is tossed out right, and after he dies some of his political enemies basically who were already opposed to him when he was Pope, they exhume his body and put it on trial for a bunch of sins and crimes that he had supposedly committed and so the idea is that you have his corpse actually like in a court room in the Lateran church being put on trial and supposedly there was like a deacon behind him saying the words that the pope would be responding to questioning by the lawyers and eventually his body is like thrown in the Tiber and uh it's a sensational story but also I think is indicative right of the kind of nasty local politics that were going on at the, at the time'"

Boston Tea Party | 4. The crackdown | HistoryExtra - "One of the myths about the Boston Tea Party is that it was such a galvanizing act of Civil Disobedience that it immediately inspired American colonists throughout the Eastern Seaboard to rally toward Independence, but that's really not true. It is Parliament's reaction to the Boston Tea Party that will later galvanize a lot of Americans. Because what Parliament does is it passes a series of what are called the coercive acts. Later on in textbooks they'll be called The Intolerable Acts"

Boston Tea Party | 5. A complex legacy | HistoryExtra - "‘King George III, then. He's often characterized as a bit of a a tyrant in this story. How true is this do you think in your opinion?’
‘I think Americans actually come to that idea quite late. For most of the pre-revolutionary period the Americans’ grievances with Parliament are certain of the king's ministers who they think you know have been overly influential or who have become corrupt. And they blame you know the various placemen or Customs officials or you know and other kinds of officials that have been sent to America. They do not blame the king himself as late as 1774. But there's a transition that happens between 1774 and 1776 where the king does become their focus, I mean one of the things that the king does I believe in November of 1775 is he puts the colonies out from under his protection. So at that point, yes, okay. Now their grievance is with King George, not just Parliament. It is clear that it was not just the king getting bad advice and Parliament being corrupt but that the king actually is standing behind what the Empire has been trying to do to its colonies and so therefore the king becomes the source of protest as well and and in early 1776 you have Thomas Payne writing, hey, we don't really need monarchs. Maybe we should get rid of the whole idea of monarchs and so yeah when the Americans establish the United States they say okay we're not going to have titles of nobility, we're going to have a republic instead’"

'Madness' and the supernatural | HistoryExtra - "‘There was a big debate in in the history of Psychiatry, um history of medicine years ago, which was the whole idea that the whole idea that these asylums were some sort of police state, you know, and it was about controlling the population. It's much more ground up than that. People are using this as a as a as a Health Service for people with mental health issues. What do they expect when they go into the sun (sic) to heal? I don't think they're not quite sure what goes goes on in the Asylum, but we obviously we can read what what treatments are there, and sometimes the the best treatment was just peace and quiet, literally that was that was get them away from their environment, right... Straitjackets aren't actually used that much, it's a big icon of you know of how you represent you know 19th century asylums, but actually they were very sparingly used and often they were only on for a couple of hours. You didn't have people left for days in straitjackets here and it was only for violent patients... Early Psychiatry and the asylum movement is happening at the same time as industrialization and urbanization and and technological advance and we can see through studying Asylum patient case notes, how some people are responding to this this technology advances in technology… they're using a telephone right, they're using a telephone against me or they're they're using the telegraph against me… I'm being persecuted by these people… people are, essentially treat some of these things as though they're a new form of witchcraft these supernatural powers. This is particularly so with electricity and batteries. You get lots of cases where people are going: my neighbor is using a battery against me, I feel strange at times, I feel all all all strange and queasy and the only explanation is not a witch but it's they're using a battery, you know invisible battery down on the other farm’"

Love: a weird & wonderful history | HistoryExtra - "‘There's a really striking double page showing this array of a Georgian fashion for presenting your lover with a miniature painting of your eye that they could secretly carry around with them or wear proudly on their chest. And that supposedly started with George IV when he was Prince of Wales and obsessed with Maria Fitzherbert and he sort of pursued her and pursued her and she'd been twice married, she wasn't interested, she was older. He proposed, she fled the country and he writes her a letter and encloses his portrait, little portrait of his eye and she returns home and they marry'...
'At a sort of rural Austrian dances in the 19th century women would put a slice of apple under their armpit, dance away until it was good and moist, and then they would present it to the fellow that they had their eye on and if he reciprocated he would pop that sweaty bit of apple into his mouth, delighted at being afforded the opportunity to share in her personal fragrance and if he had no interest then back into the baster through it went for another round of dancing and she'd give it to someone else... in Hindu Balinese Society there's a tradition of when you reach marrying age you file, men and women file down several of their teeth to sort of flag that up their availability… 18th century the editor of this German paper had holidayed in Corsica and he recorded this tradition of when a husband dies a Corsican widow places his corpse on a blanket and fills it with heavy objects and tools and then she gathers the other women from the village and together they toss his body up and down on this blanket to see if it will revive him because apparently men were always faking death to get out of marriages and it did happen and if he did miraculously regain his senses then he was left to the mercy of his former widow’"