OH MY GOD!!! IMPEACH THIS INSANE FREAK!!!!

WHY is this idiot warmonger still in power???

WHAT on EARTH are the citizens of the US thinking!????

This man is clearly crazy and his administration is so terribly, obviously corrupt. It is ASTOUNDING that he was elected

Oh yeah, FRAUD. TWICE

DEAR U.S. of A: PLEASE IMPEACH THIS CRAZY MAN BEFORE HE LEADS YOU AND ME AND OUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN INTO A WORLD WAR!! PLEASE!

For those of you who are still hostage to the 9/11 myth: the US government staged that attack and no matter what you call it or how loudly you protest and protect the idiots that 'run' the US, there is every bit of provable, traceable evidence to show that 9/11 was orchestrated to bring you, dear uneducated US citizen, into line with your crazy 'president' and his daddy and all his freakish friends at the CFR and the TriLateral and the FED.

www.zeitgeistmovie.com
www.loosechange911.com
The Great Global Warming Swindle

Of the 19 SAUDI men who were supposed to have flown those plans, ELEVEN have been traced and are ALIVE AND WELL in Saudi.

The Guantanamo hostages know the truth. That's why they're held! Because, were they to speak, the lid would blow off!

Osama bin Ladin is DEAD.

ANYONE who can READ knows this. There are loads and loads of articles and tons of information to PROVE this.

Benazir Bhutto NAMED the man who killed bin Ladin 5 YEARS ago.

The reason the US is in such appalling turmoil and the reason everyone else detests "Americans" (such presumption! The US only makes up a PART of the Americas) is that they continue to support their country's illegal, scary, insane administration.

The US has no credibility internationally. Everyone else knows that the US administration is full-on pursuing an oil deal with their buddies in Saudi and that is why, despite the massive human rights violations that go on in that country and the rampant theft by its 'princes' and the rape and pillage of its resources by its 'princes', your idiot president is pictured holding hands and kissing those same 'princes.'

You, citizens of the US, are willing hostages in your own country. Your wonderful Patriot Act has effectively suspended your right to speak, think and make change, yet you do NOTHING about it.

There are two books you should all read (except that your educational levels are so appalling and have systematically PREVENTED you from reading and understanding what you read): Rule by Secrecy and The Terror Conspiracy, both by Jim Marrs.

Or you can keep your heads firmly planted in the poisonous sand that is your 'president's lying rhetoric.

Get OFF your obese butts and do something about this nutcase!

Robotic Sweeney Todd??

I can't exactly see how this is a good idea...

Religion does not equal morality. USA as the perfect example

I'm reading a spectacular book, which I will not name yet, because I know some of you will instantly stop reading this because of what you think you know about the book and it's author.

About 3/5ths of the way through the book is an extensive, well researched and very interesting analysis of morality and whether religion is necessary for morality. The short, provable answer is categorically no!

The book's author, who has a long career as both a researcher and author, cites several standardised studies where questions about moral actions are presented to subjects from a variety of cultures and societies and who may or may not be religious or who may be full on free of religion (atheist or completely un-introduced to religion). These results are on pages 222 - 226 of the book, which I will name shortly and NO, don't scroll down or your grandma will crack her back....

The results are clear: regardless of culture, language, religion or not, morality is a deeply ingrained human trait. With VERY high correlation, there was little difference in responses across the range of subjects.

Now about the US, where the country is described as being made of up red and blue states, with red states being the conservative/right-wing/religious states and the blue states being liberal and more inclined to humanism. Two things are notable; educational levels are much higher in the blue states although there is a larger population in the red states (and this supports my argument that some political structures prefer their constituents uneducated in order that they don't have enough understanding of processes to ask questions. In short, they like constituents who follow with little or no protest).

The second and significant detail is that in these religious states (and Christianity is the weapon of choice by a large margin), crime rates run anywhere from 35 % to 80% above those in blue states. Oh, and according to someone's research, the most 'religious' states have the highest rates of teen pregnancy. See what happens when you leave out sex ed?

So, according to my book, in a quote from another book, Letter to a Christian Nation, by Sam Harris, here's the scoop on crime in these 'religious' states - and oh, by the way, these are the guys and gals who claim that, without religion, one cannot be moral....

"While political party affiliation in the United States is not a perfect indicator of religiosity, it is no secret that the 'red (Republican) states' are primarily red due the overwhelming political influence of conservative Christians. If there were a strong correlation between Christian conservatism and societal health, we might expect to see some sign of it in red-state America.

We don't.

• Of the twenty five cities with the lowest rates of violent crime, 62 percent are in 'blue' (Democrat) states, and 38 percent are in 'red' (Republican) states.
• Of the twenty-five most dangerous cities, 76 percent are in red states, and 24 percent are in blue states.
• In fact, three of the five most dangerous cities in the U.S. are in the pious state of Texas.
• The twelve states with the highest rates of burglary are red. Twenty-four of the twenty-nine states with the highest rates of theft are red.
• Of the twenty-two states with the highest rates of murder, seventeen are red."

Einstein said "If people are good only because they fear punishment and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed."

In His book The Science of Good and Evil, Michael Shermer has a great 'debate stopper,' as he calls it, for those who claim there's no morality without god. Ask such a person whether, if (as is probable) there were no god, would they begin a life of robbery, rape and murder. Very likely, they'll say of course they wouldn't, to which you reply, "so you would continue to be a good person, even without the influence of god?? to which they'd likely say yes, thus allowing them to disprove, all by themselves, that morality does not come from religious motivation, but from human's ingrained sense of morality.

I am frightfully tired of the stupid, unresearched, knee-jerk, I-know-I'm-right-and-I-have-god-on-my-side arguments that I am bombarded with any time there's a sniff that I'm not on the 'right' page. If I could force these 'believers' to actually sit down, read and assimilate the myriad, well-written books they have full, unlimited access to, perhaps I could have a short debate with them.

But the defining characteristic of religious people and specifically those who presume themselves to be christians (as I live in a city that is rife with them) is that they are, firstly, completely blind to the realities of their religion and secondly, they prefer it that way. To quote my Ex, "don't confuse me with the facts."

As for facts, here's an interesting quote from the many that letter Letter to a Christian Nation: "Despite a full century of scientific insights attesting to the antiquity of the earth, more than half of our neighbours (assuming you're from the U.S) believe that the entire cosmos was created six thousand years ago. This is, incidentally, about a thousand years after the Sumerians created glue."

Last fact: some of you are about to utter, either out loud or in your head, a little curse over the writer and the book from whence I've taken my point of view for post. The book is The God Delusion and the very educated writer is Richard Dawkins, who holds two doctorates (philosophy and science) but doesn't use the title of doctor in his writing so as to not alienate any reader.

Some potential readers are quite happy to alienate themselves in order to avoid the truth they claim they so diligently pursue....

Osama Bin Ladin is Dead: confirmed in a November 2007 interview with Benazir Bhutto

According to the late Benazir Bhutto, Osama Bin Ladin is dead by murder/assassination.

WHY IS THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA NOT COVERING THIS??

The probability that the US government is somehow involved in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto cannot be overlooked.

Here is a page of links to the interview itself.

WHAT is going on???

Click here for more

Is THIS why Benazir was assassinated??

The Saddest Thing is...

...when a person (a parent in this case) uses religion as a shield against having relationships (in this case, with a child).

Two important details for context:
Religion is an interesting concept BUT no logical, thinking person should put stock, beyond interest, in any philosophy that is so fundamentally flawed and provably amalgamated from so many other, MUCH older philosophies.

As a sub detail specific to christianity, one cannot have any kind of "personal" relationship with a dead person. In the christian tradition, when people die, they go to 'heaven' and have no further contact with living humans. To say otherwise is to dabble in the occult and that freaks the christians out totally. Don't think so? Refer to any number of religious fanatics trying to ban the Harry Potter series because of it's so-called occult overtones.

Additionally, the probability that the person with whom christians are having the 'personal' relationship ever existed is questionable AT BEST! To believe otherwise is to simply be deluded in order to be part of a larger group of delusionals. Other than the christian bible, which is a strung-together collection of bad poetry, social control and politicial PR, there is no other historical, archival or archaeological evidence that the person in question ever existed. NONE. One cannot attempt to prove the truth of any philosophy by using the philosophy as the research document. That's called circular reasoning.

In the christian religion, the main character is certainly made up, as nearly identical characters appear in any number of other philosophies, many predating christianity by thousands of years. Same goes for Islam, which has as a central character, a person who may or may not have existed but who, if he did, was certainly afflicted with some disease, likely epilepsy.

In the case of 'virgin' birth, this is, first of all, a biological impossibility. Secondly, and this is where christians try to have it both ways, if one's 'father' is 'god', then one cannot have human ancestors on their male line. Therefore, "descended of the House of David," indicates that either this is a made up story (probably) or that 'virgin' in this case refers to 'first.' If Mary and Joseph trucked off to Bethlehem to pay taxes in the city of their ancestors (his ancestors, actually) then who's the ancestor? Pretty much sure 'god' isn't on the hook for taxes....

Second important point for context: as much as religion is mass idiocy and voluntary delusion, I defend absolutely the rights of people to have, or to have not, said delusion . You are welcome to your beliefs, views, philosophies, as am I to mine. I am not interested in bringing you over to my views and am staunchly opposed to anyone attempting to force their philosophy on me.

To the point of this post, entering into conditional relationships - unless I believe what you believe, we cannot be friends - proves two things:

• the 'believer' is essentially insecure about their beliefs;
• the 'believer' disrespects totally the rights of others.

In our case, a family member has come up against an immense, seemingly impassable wall of religion that is firmly between them and their parent. Despite almost two years of conversation between the two, the parent consciously refuses to countenance the damage being done to the relationship, nor do they allow themselves to see the ever-widening chasm into which the relationship presently teeters . This parent's "personal relationship" with a certainly dead and probably non-existent character is firmly and solidly in the way of a REAL personal relationship with a child.

To make matters worse, there is also a new spouse in the picture. Said spouse is also fanatically tied to a religion in addition to being, from all accounts, insecure and untrusting in the relationship. All this makes for a soon-to-explode keg of super volatile dependence on made up crap and fabricated 'togetherness' and 'sharing' in place of real, intimate and connected relationships.

The key element here - that somehow religion is supposed to make life nice and lovely - turns out to be far from the case; why are religious people still struggling, sad, 'sinning' (whatever that means) and incapable of acknowledging their pasts, let alone dealing with those pasts in a healthy and permanent way if religion is not their cure-all?

Seriously folks, if your deity is such a great and powerful 'guy,' what the heck is he/she/waiting for? Hmmm? It strikes me as really masochistic that this 'deity' needs such constant, world-wide adulation and that the penalty for failing (and the rules about what makes for failure being so unclear) is an eternity burning in some pit? That's just weird.

Religion was a great form of social control that worked really well way back in the day when science was in its infancy and almost nobody was able to read and when the 'religiopoliticals' were developing ways of controlling populations - necessary for economic development and profit - and we're back to the religiopoliticals and their gold-lined pockets. Modern equivalent is the modern 'church.'

In our time, however, belief in such fantasies is anachronistic.

On the micro level specific to this post, I truly cannot fathom how a parent's faith in falsehoods can so overwhelmingly blind them to reality that their flesh and blood relationships are in danger of ending.

The bottom line is this: a person has a right to believe whatever they wish; but with that right comes the responsibility to respect other's rights to believe or not; and the responsibility to UNCONDITIONALLY CHERISH real, flesh and blood human relationships above all else.

In Honour of the Writers Strike

In honour of the ongoing writers strike and in respect of reruns, I'm posting links to my favourite blogs - mine; those I wrote - from recently and from ages ago.
Oldest to newest

What's Up With Women and Shopping? Hang that up!

Untruths in Fundraising: a note about this; about 6 weeks ago, MacLean's Magazine ran a great article about breast cancer and where it is most prevalent in the world. No surprise, but in the 'civilised world' (read: Canada, US (ok, I'm including them out of pity), UK and Europe), the rates of breast cancer are astoundingly high when compared to disadvantaged countries. Interestingly, people in those 'disadvantaged' countries have limited access to processed foods and are not subject to Big Pharma, which medicalises anything that might for one second ail a person. It isn't difficult to see the link between processed everything and high rates of cancer. But hey, let's fundraise. At least we'll feel less guilty....

Bike Paths: NOT for dogs...

A Short, True Story: Ok. This story is true, but it isn't short. It's never ending I hope. It's here for Maria, who is dying for me to tell her what happened next....

Why Don't People Read: why exactly are people bothered by who sleeps with whom. And why exactly are you so bloody interested in what other people are doing in their own bedrooms? Shouldn't you be busy in your own???

Why Women's Libidos Decrease: well, they don't. But if your partner is a man who is a crappy lover and doesn't care to do anything about that, or if your partner uses your head as a means to stabilise his thrusting, then yeah, it'll reduce your y'know, involvement. Replace said idiot with a gorgeous, sexual, loves-it-all hunk? yeah. No problems. Screw Big Parma. Get a cabana boy.

Things One Remembers Whilst Brushing Teeth: 'kay, well this one's a downer but I needed to get it off my chest when I wrote it. If ever I were to meet up with this person again, I'm sure she'd do the same thing and I'm sure I'd still keep my mouth shut - but for different reasons now: she wouldn't be worth my bother. I can't fix her past.

The Falacy of Race: Just read it.

Damned Christmas Holidays

What's the New Pope Up To? I love it when an institution that pretty much makes things up and hates everyone ends up with one of its most hated at its helm. Pretty funny. Come out, come out, wherever you are.....

Fatties and How They Get That Way: Yes, I have a bias, but I think I might be on to something here....

Lies, Video Tape and Yes, Sex

Flying: Oh man, if I had the opportunity to educate the flying public.... Oh wait! This is it! Pass this on to anyone you know who flies or thinks about flying, especially if there's any possibility they're going to be on MY flight.... better they hear it from you than me. I'm sure you'll be much nicer about it.

AuntiAuntie: Yeah, and there's also a HUGE difference between a contract and a commitment. Some people get both, but usually, it's one or the other. Frankly, I can't imagine why people - women in particular - still take part in a ceremony that effectively transferred a chattle from one owner to another. Yes, that's right; until the early part of the 20th century, a woman was, by law, a chattle of her father until the marriage contract was signed, whence she became the chattle of her spouse. Go for commitment. Forget about the contract.

Sins and Sinning: Yah, this is for anyone who actually believes they know what perfection is....

Things That Get Top Billing as Stupid: Someone made a really great point the other day about the subject of this blog - hijab and adults imposing their stupid religion on kids. Muslim girls - but also girls affiliated with other religions where the women are required to follow a very distinct dress style, are being used as the poster girls for such religions. The reasons this pisses me off are myriad, but here's one of them: this week, a dad strangled his 16 year old daughter because she would not adhere to the dress trappings of HIS religion. This type of crap happens all the time - and before anyone says "Oh those Muslims," just don't: all religions have instances - many instances - of men presuming on women. Religion is a scourge. Especially for women, who are, at best, cast as dirty, shameful, manipulative and responsible for leading men astray.

The day religion recognises women as the goddesses they are and the day that religion tells men that they are fully and solely responsible for their thoughts and actions, I might consider returning. Probably not though. There's that suspension of reality thing that's tough to swallow.

Can You Become Ex-Gay? In a word, no. Read on.

Ok. That's enough self adulation for now. More in the archives.

The Pope Says (completely simplifying reality for the consumption of the sheep-like masses)

The pope says that atheism has caused the worst atrocities and crises in history... Yeah....

I remember all those history lessons we had in school on the great atheist wars....um, yeah... NOT.

Specifically, what wars, conflicts or upheaval have atheists been responsible for, assuming one is logical enough not to confuse atheism with political regimes like communism and does not confuse healthy leaders with psychopathic megalomaniacs.....

Every war happening NOW is due to people fighting over interpretations of religion - especially when religion is allowed to mix with politics - and every war ever fought has a religious base in some sense. See G. W. Bush for current reference.

As a modern society, we MUST stop believing in, running our lives through, and basing our politics on fantasy. There is no old white guy running the planet from a seat on a cloud somewhere in the sky. Such beliefs are demonstrably ridiculous and are little different in substance from belief in Santa Claus or the Easter bunny - except we usually divest our children of those beliefs before the children are scarred for life.

Healthy, logical, intelligent people spend their time learning. They do not rely on old fashioned writings done by people who had little practical understanding of the physical world and specific political agendas to attend to. Nor do they bow down to anyone, regardless of title, without a thorough prior examination of said person's credentials. The pope is case in point. Check this out by the way... if you're concered about hypocracy, you might be interested in the possible back story here....

Now. A great post from ABC New Forums. Many people are commenting today on the pope's 'insights.' The following was contributed by Louis R. Phx and includes a couple of excellent quotes from Robert Heinlein, a popular and controversial author of 'hard' science fiction.

"The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history. "

"A long and wicked life followed by five minutes of perfect grace gets you into Heaven. An equally long life of decent living and good works followed by one outburst of taking the name of the Lord in vain - then have a heart attack at that moment and be damned for eternity. Is that the system?"

"It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so...".

"When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, 'This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,' the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives."

"History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it. "

Robert Heinlein

In my opinion, the Pope has become quite full of himself. A claim to be able to speak for any deity, automatically puts [his] words under suspicion.... How exactly is he different from the Mullahs that say, 'if you are not with us you are against us'? How long before this Pope begins to preach, 'join us or be destroyed'?

Louis R. Phx

For the record, the pope is on record with such comments, which he made not three months ago.
Put "'No Salvation' Outside Catholic 'Church" into a Google search and man, will you get a does of how self-serving and egotistical the Catholic church is. Astounding!

Anyway, the pope said (and I paraphrase a lot), that anyone/any church that is outside the Roman Catholic fold does not belong to 'true Christianity.' Catholic organisations are expert ot reinterpreting those old scrambled-together writings that constitute the 'word of god' to support their postulation that they're it. They hav it all figured out and they're they only group with the 'keys' to heaven - wherever that is....

There's a reason there are so many people and organisations that fit the 'outside' description; perhaps the majority has seen the light, so to speak, and realises that religion is not only fantasy, it is destructive, false and without any provable merit.

More on this subject:
Anything by Richard Dawkins
"God is not Great," by Christopher Hitchens.

Sanity or something like it....

The most incredibly frustrating thing in the world is to stand by and watch a perfectly normal, intelligent, educated person do the same thing over and over, getting the same results again and again, all the while absolutely ignoring the obvious: If you do A and B happens and B really, really sucks, do not repeat A. Contantly repeating A will not get you better B results because B is determined by A.

There is only one worse thing than B, but B will eventually lead to that worse thing. It isn't a matter of maybe. It is a matter of WHEN.

I personally know three people who were the victims of people who believed they were so FUCKING SMART that they could engage in A and beat the odds.

They didn't beat the odds. They KILLED people.

My cousin's boyfriend, who was killed in a head on crash, with my cousin sitting right beside him, caused by an IDIOT who engaged in A, got B a LOT of times and finally killed someone.

Another person who engaged in A and then killed their own spouse because B lead to them hitting the back of a parked car - while doing 80 on a city street.

My daughter's great friend Connor, who was killed by a person who engaged in A as often as possible, getting increasingly bad B results, being prosecuted SEVEN TIMES, finally ending up, killing Connor.

Oh yeah... said FUCKING A engager also permanently maimed my daughter's other friend - including permanently preventing this friend from laughing or crying ever again.

It is the definition of INSANITY to do the same stupid, avoidable thing over and over and expect different results. If A = a shitty, life altering B result, then just STOP.

• I hearby have no sympathy


• I hearby lay to rest my respect


• I hearby lay out a broken heart and a damaged spirit


• I hearby decree that trust is fragile, easily damaged and irreparable when sacrificed

Of all the CRAP that passes for news!

OK. I am SERIOUSLY amazed that the sexual orientation of a CHARACTER in CHILDREN'S book has passed for anything even remotely resembling news but more so because this fluffy, stupid filler has had airplay for more than one second.

The US is on the verge of invading Iran and Syria and we're listening to now FIVE DAYS of 'reporting' on the sexual orientation of a made up character in a kids' book?

WE ARE FUCKED.

THIS is how the U.S. manages to lie to it's own population so badly that they believe a CONTROLLED demolition of a national icon was a terrorist attack.

THIS is how the U.S. manages to totally ruin and discredit a man who was actually a pretty darn good politician (Tony Blair).

THIS is how a barely literate, stumbling drunkard manages to 'run' a country.

Because YOU, Joe Public, suck up when ridiculous, absolutely unimportant NON news into the little, squishy brains you are obviously not using.

This madness must stop!

The lie that is Race

Some months ago, I posted two pieces on "race" as a social construct and how that construct has been very useful in the hands of those who wish to cause dissent, weaken the social fabric, cause wars and generally divide and conquer.

Yesterday, a very brilliant an educated man made a valid comment, which those who wish to maintain social control via the stupid and false definition of "race", have taken well out of context. They have, for the time being, muzzled this man.

The Nobel Prize-winning DNA pioneer James Watson has been suspended by his research institution in the US.

Both the London Science Museum and the Bristol Festival of Ideas have cancelled lectures by this brilliant man based on their complete misunderstanding of his comments. They demonstrate our ridiculous societal fear of skin colour and the propensity to instantly scream racism when there's no such thing!

"Dr Watson was a joint winner in 1962 of the Nobel Prize for discovering the structure of DNA, the molecule that lies at the heart of heredity in living organisms.

When, some 40 years later, scientists were finally able to read all of the DNA in our cells they were able to show that there was no scientific basis for the concept of race.

People from different racial groups can be more genetically similar than individuals within the same group. Genetic studies show that there is more variability in the gene pool in Africa, than outside."

The discovery of DNA and subsequent research into human DNA coding and genetics has utterly proved there is no genetic support for the concept of "race." "Dr Watson was a joint winner in 1962 of the Nobel Prize for discovering the structure of DNA, the molecule that lies at the heart of heredity in living organisms.

Dr. Watson's comments, have been purposely misunderstood.

Most people will acknowledge that certain groups of people have propensities toward certain skills and abilities. On can argue that India is a country full of engineers and China is a country of arithmeticians and musicians. This does not mean that all those who come from India will ultimately become engineers nor that those who come from Spain will never become engineers. The observation only notes an inclination. More importantly, those observations have nothing to do with skin colour and everything to do with society, education, environment, genetics and heredity.

Dr. Watson's comments were to do with human intelligence and how it expresses itself, varies vastly and is dependent on hundreds of details: environment, food, social structure, education (or lack thereof), family structure, war, religion, etc. However, intelligence has NOTHING to do with skin colour. Despite how the media and the uneducated, fearful people who've censored Dr. Watson want to spin it, that is neither what Dr. Watson said nor meant.

It has been shown over and over that standard IQ tests are only valid to a very small point and only within the society/culture where they were created: a person coming from Spain would not necessarily be familiar with or exposed to common social mores and structures found in Russian society, so would likely do very poorly on a Russian IQ test (yes, given in Spanish for those of you who will argue the language point), regardless of that person's true intelligence.

This is part of what Dr. Watson was getting at with his comments.

In comments published in The Independent newspaper on Friday, Dr Watson tries to clarify his position.

"We do not yet adequately understand the way in which the different environments in the world have selected over time the genes which determine our capacity to do different things," he is quoted as saying. "The overwhelming desire of society today is to assume that equal powers of reason are a universal heritage of humanity.

"It may well be. But simply wanting this to be the case is not enough.

This is not science. To question this is not to give in to racism. This is not a discussion about superiority or inferiority, it is about seeking to understand differences, about why some of us are great musicians and others great engineers."

To eliminate the false and nefarious concept of "race" from the arsenal of divisive practises used by the power elite is to greatly diminish their power to coral humans as if we are stupid cattle.

As such, those who seek to control humans globally have jumped at the opportunity to silence a voice that over the last 40 years had told the true, scientific story: the colour of an external organ has nothing to do with humanity or intelligence.

Dr. Watson's comments are sound and based in endless science. We must stand against censorship of Dr. Watson and people like him.