William Spittle

M&A consulting, Economics (Honors), MBA, CFA. Biking, running. Reside on Canada's west coast.

[Kite & Key Media @kiteandkeymedia]

The promise: By studying the places in the world where people live unusually long lives, we can all become healthier.

The reality: Those places just keep really bad records of people’s age. https://t.co/7FgIBj5KUR

[Eyal Yakoby @EYakoby]

Thomas Massie: “There is zero evidence that Iran was trying to build a nuclear weapon, Netanyahu is warmongering.”

The Deputy Speaker of the Iranian Parliament: “We tried to develop nuclear weapons, but couldn't keep it secret.”

[John Podhoretz @jpodhoretz]

The must-read of the year.

[William Spittle @bspittle]

@libsoftiktok To quote Bryce Harper "that's a clown question bro!" https://t.co/QE6ekCbD1H

[Brivael Le Pogam @brivael]

Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze. Trois intellectuels qui, dans les années 60, pondent des livres illisibles au fond d'amphis parisiens. Aucun n'a jamais tenu une arme. Aucun n'a jamais entendu parler de Southampton.

Et pourtant, soixante ans plus tard, c'est leur idée qui tient la main qui menotte Henry Nowak, 18 ans, pendant qu'il se vide de son sang.

Comment passe-t-on de l'un à l'autre? Il n'y a pas de hasard. Il y a une ligne droite. Je vais vous la dérouler, maillon par maillon.

Premier maillon. Ces philosophes lâchent une idée d'apparence inoffensive: la vérité ne serait jamais neutre, ce serait toujours une construction du pouvoir. Donc on pourrait, et on devrait, se méfier des faits eux-mêmes. Ils n'ont pas voulu ce qui allait suivre. Mais ils ont armé un mécanisme: le soupçon généralisé envers le réel.

Deuxième maillon. Cette idée traverse l'Atlantique et mute dans les universités américaines. Elle rencontre une impulsion noble, la repentance, reconnaître des injustices historiques réelles. Et elle la transforme en tout autre chose: une hiérarchie morale permanente. Des groupes classés selon leur degré supposé de victimité. Oppresseurs d'un côté, opprimés de l'autre. Pour toujours.

Troisième maillon, et c'est là que tout bascule. Une fois qu'on classe les gens par groupe, on cesse de les juger par leurs actes. On les juge par leur catégorie. La crédibilité n'est plus méritée, elle est assignée d'avance.

Quatrième maillon. Black Lives Matter en fut l'apogée liturgique. « I can't breathe » devient une formule sacrée. La règle implicite: croire d'office la victime désignée, soupçonner d'office l'oppresseur désigné. Avant les faits. À la place des faits.

Comprenez bien ce qu'on installe là. Pas une opinion. Un réflexe. Un automatisme cognitif gravé dans des institutions entières: l'accusation venue de la « bonne » catégorie l'emporte sur ce que vous voyez de vos propres yeux.

Et un réflexe, on sait ce que ça fait à des hommes ordinaires.

Je me suis longtemps passionné pour la psychologie, et une période m'obsède: l'après-guerre. Le moment où des chercheurs se sont posé la question la plus dérangeante du siècle. Comment l'Allemagne nazie avait-elle transformé des pères de famille ordinaires en bourreaux de camp?

La réponse, ils ne l'ont pas trouvée chez des monstres. Ils l'ont trouvée chez des hommes parfaitement banals.

Hannah Arendt a appelé ça la banalité du mal. L'historien Christopher Browning, en étudiant le bataillon de réserve 101 (des policiers d'âge mûr, des pères, des commerçants), a montré que ce ne sont pas des fanatiques qui ont fusillé des civils, mais des hommes normaux incapables de désobéir au cadre dominant.

Puis vint Milgram. À Yale, environ deux tiers de gens ordinaires ont infligé ce qu'ils croyaient être des décharges mortelles, simplement parce qu'une autorité le leur ordonnait. L'expérience de la prison de Stanford a montré la même chose sous un autre angle: donnez à quelqu'un un rôle et un cadre, et il s'y conformera jusqu'à l'inhumain.

La leçon n'est pas allemande. Elle est humaine. Le mécanisme s'active dès qu'un cadre moral dominant fait craindre la sanction sociale plus que ne compte le témoignage de ses propres yeux. L'individu cesse de voir ce qu'il voit. Il voit ce que le cadre l'autorise à voir.

Maintenant, rejouez la scène de Southampton au ralenti.

Henry Nowak, 18 ans, poignardé, allongé au sol, répète aux policiers « j'ai été poignardé », « je ne peux plus respirer ».

Réponse de l'officier: « I don't think you have, mate. »

Pendant ce temps, son meurtrier retourne la situation d'une phrase: il aurait été victime d'une agression raciste, on lui aurait arraché son turban. L'officier n'a pas vu Henry. Il a vu deux catégories. D'un côté, un homme qui dégaine le script de l'agression raciste, crédible par défaut. De l'autre, un jeune homme blanc à terre, sans grief à brandir, sans formule sacrée à réciter, suspect par défaut.

Le cadre a choisi à sa place. Il n'a même pas eu à réfléchir. C'est ça, le conditionnement: la pensée a déjà eu lieu, avant lui. Exactement le mécanisme de Milgram, de Browning. Un homme normal qui cesse de croire ses propres yeux parce qu'un cadre moral lui a appris ce qu'il devait craindre.

René Girard avait tout décrit. Le coupable détourne sa faute en désignant un bouc émissaire, et le système l'accepte d'autant plus volontiers qu'il colle au rôle attendu. Henry n'a pas été cru parce qu'il ne pouvait pas jouer la victime. Sa catégorie le lui interdisait.

Souvenez-vous. Le monde entier s'est agenouillé pour quatre mots, « I can't breathe ». Des entreprises, des gouvernements, des stades entiers. Henry a prononcé exactement les mêmes mots, en train de mourir. Il n'y aura ni genou à terre, ni hashtag, ni minute de silence. Parce que sa mort ne sert pas le cadre. Elle le contredit.

Voilà l'inversion finale, et la plus monstrueuse. Une idéologie née en promettant de protéger les vulnérables a fini par apprendre à des hommes à ignorer la personne la plus vulnérable de la pièce, celle qui agonise, parce que sa catégorie n'était pas la bonne.

Et le vrai piège, c'est de croire que l'erreur aurait été de choisir le mauvais camp. Non. L'erreur, c'est de choisir des camps. De voir des catégories là où il y a un être humain qui saigne devant soi.

De Foucault à Southampton, voilà la ligne droite. Soixante ans pour qu'une idée abstraite apprenne à un homme à ne plus voir un enfant mourir sous ses yeux.

Henry Nowak n'avait rien demandé. Il demandait juste qu'on le voie.

Personne ne l'a vu.

[Kimberly Ross @SouthernKeeks]

It’s depressing that every time Mike Pence posts, the replies fill with cries of “traitor!” and “you failed the biggest test!”

You don’t have to like the man. But he isn’t a traitor. When the Constitution was put to the test, he upheld it.

You’re just a clown and a cultist.

[Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 @ezralevant]

Mark Carney appointed Avnish Nanda to the "combatting antisemitism" committee.

He's the lawyer who sued the University of Alberta to keep the pro-Hamas encampment open, to humiliate Jewish students and celebrate the October 7 massacre.

Disgusting. https://t.co/kYhtIrOXgl

[Give A Shit About Nature @giveashitnature]

The reason we think dandelions are weeds is because of a 1950s marketing campaign.

Dandelions, native to Europe and Asia, were brought to North America in the 1600s by European colonists who grew them deliberately.

Every part is edible. The leaves are a salad green, the flowers were made into wine, and the roots were roasted as a coffee substitute and used medicinally for liver and kidney conditions for thousands of years. They were a kitchen-garden staple well into the 1800s.

The shift happened after World War II, when 2,4-D (originally developed for chemical warfare research) was approved as a residential herbicide. Companies like Scotts built the modern lawn-care industry around the idea that a perfect green lawn meant zero broadleaf plants.

Dandelions, being bright yellow and resistant to mowing, became a visible enemy, and the campaign worked. By the 1970s, "dandelion-free" was synonymous with "well-kept."

They aren't native, but they aren't doing significant ecological harm either. The herbicides used to kill them, on the other hand, kill bees, contaminate groundwater, and have been linked to non-Hodgkin lymphoma in humans.

If you hate dandelions, it's most likely due to a marketing campaign that ran before you were born.

[Aizenberg @Aizenberg55]

🧵TODAY Hamas admitted that Abdullah Breis was a commander posing as a “journalist”— it is no longer “Israel says so” evidence. Over 60% of "journalists" killed in Gaza are outed as combatants, more every week. A systematic human shield strategy. NINE recent examples below: 1/

[William Spittle @bspittle]

@shsfan475 @RoyRogers_HTMS Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert was always a highlight of any week

[Newt Gingrich @newtgingrich]

After spending this week reviewing the Iranian war I am now convinced President Trump is on the edge of an historic victory. The real breakthrough for me came as I reviewed President Trump’s decisions and maneuvers not from the standpoint of American unilateralism but from the standpoint of the leader of a remarkable historic coalition, the largest coalition ever put together in the modern Middle East. Everyone understands that Israel is an important ally. What is little discussed is the depth of support from the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region. It has to be sobering for the Iranian dictatorship to realize that it does not have a single ally willing to challenge the American naval blockade. Slowly, gradually, timidly, our European allies are lining up to help with the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. A great deal of President Trump’s maneuvers against Iran make sense once he is seen as a coalition leader and not just as a unilateral American President. I spent a lot of the last couple weeks reviewing kinetic options including wining the battle of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz and if necessary using the shocking and shattering level of force President Nixon and Secretary Kissinger used against Hanoi and Haiphong in Christmas 1972 (which both leaders believed convinced the North Vietnamese to agree to a truce and the freeing of American POWs). If this were a unilateral American campaign I could enthusiastically support a more aggressive kinetic campaign. However it is also clear it would shatter the coalition because our Arab allies are convinced Iran could still do enormous damage to their oil fields and infrastructure. Coalitions are inherently slower than unilateral campaigns. However coalitions ultimately bring vastly more power to the fight. I am as frustrated as everyone else by the pace of talking with the dictatorship but having reviewed the correlation of forces and the options available to the coalition on one side and the Iranian religiously motivated dictatorship on the other I am prepared to assert that President Trump’s coalition leadership (something almost none of his critics want to acknowledge) is within reach of an enormous historic victory. And if the Iranian dictatorship ultimately proves it is hopelessly committed to a suicidal position there will be plenty of time for a kinetic campaign of enormous power and effectiveness. Either way we are on the edge of an astonishing victory for our values and for a safer Middle East.

[Asra Nomani @AsraNomani]

BREAKING @FoxNews Digital: Hasan Piker just read aloud that the UK is denying him entry, rejecting his request for an “Electronic Travel Authorization.” Jewish groups advocated for him to be barred for his anti-semitism. The UK government didn’t respond to a request for comment.

[John Podhoretz @jpodhoretz]

THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU met box office disaster this weekend, sinking 70%. Someone could write a great book on how STAR WARS, the most valuable IP the world has ever seen, came under DIsney's ownership and was basically destroyed in less than a decade. Almost as if on purpose.

[Insurrection Barbie @DefiyantlyFree]

Israel dropped 200,000 bombs. If they wanted to commit a genocide they would have wiped every person in Gaza from existence.

They have a kill percentage of 3.2%.

WWII killed approximately 4% of the global population.

The Siege of Leningrad killed approximately 25% of the city’s population.

The atomic bomb killed approximately 30-40% of Hiroshima’s population instantly.

The firebombing of Tokyo killed approximately 5-8% of the city’s population in one night.

The bombing was not optimized for killing people. It was optimized for destroying infrastructure tunnels, weapons storage, command nodes, and the physical environment Hamas operated in.

They warned civilians before strikes documented:

They dropped leaflets, made phone calls, sent text messages telling people to evacuate (documented)

They allowed 112,000 aid trucks into Gaza during active combat

They facilitated field hospitals

They targeted Hamas commanders specifically documented kills of senior Hamas leadership including Yahya Sinwar.

No military in history has done more administrative work to avoid civilian casualties while simultaneously fighting an enemy that deliberately hides in hospitals, schools, and mosques and uses its own population as shields also documented, on Hamas’s own video.

Tucker Carlson is a moron and a coward and in a debate with someone who’s not aligned with Russian, Iranian and Chinese propaganda he wouldn’t survive one round.

Of course all these people are cowards who only invite each other to discuss this issue because anyone with half a brain would wipe the floor with them.

[Captain Allen @CptAllenHistory]

In 2005, Israel gave Palestinians exactly what the world demanded: “Land for Peace.”

They unilaterally withdrew from the entire Gaza Strip, but got no peace.

The IDF forcibly removed every last Jew — even digging up Jewish graves. Gaza was made completely Jew-free, exactly as Palestinians demanded.

Israel handed over thriving communities, farms, and hundreds of millions in infrastructure — including productive greenhouses that could have become an economic engine for a Palestinian state.

What did the Palestinians do with this gift?

They destroyed it.

Mobs looted and burned the greenhouses. They ransacked and demolished synagogues. They celebrated with Hamas flags and gunfire.

Then, in January 2006, they voted Hamas — a genocidal terrorist organization whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews — into power.

By 2007, Hamas completed a bloody coup, threw Fatah members off rooftops, and seized total control of Gaza.

The result?

- Tens of thousands of rockets fired at Israeli civilians

- More than 500 miles of underground terror tunnels

- Billions in international aid stolen for war, not welfare

- Gaza transformed into a fortified Islamic terror enclave

Land for peace was tried — and violently rejected.

Everything Israel gave away in 2005 became the launchpad for the October 7 Massacre.

This is the ultimate proof: the Palestinian movement has never wanted a state living next to Israel. Its goal has always been the destruction of the Jewish state — in any part of the Land.

Important note: The blockade only came after Hamas seized power in 2007 and turned Gaza into a launchpad for war. And when that happened, Egypt joined it too.

Disengagement didn’t bring peace.
It brought the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

[Pierre Poilievre @PierrePoilievre]

DERNIÈRE HEURE : Mark Carney est le SEUL leader du G7 à avoir conduit son économie à la RÉCESSION. Tous les autres pays du G7 sont confrontés aux mêmes problèmes avec les tarifs et aux mêmes défis mondiaux, mais aucun n’est en récession.

Les excuses, les discours, les belles paroles et les cérémonies de signature ne font pas croître l’économie.

Le Canada est le seul pays du G7 en récession parce que les libéraux de Mark Carney ont augmenté la taxe carbone industrielle, maintenu des lois anti-développement et doublé le déficit de Justin Trudeau.

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

I challenge every single person who believes minors should be enabled and even encouraged to transition to read this first person testimony to the end.

1/3

via @IWF https://t.co/3276o4tg8J

[San Francisco Chronicle @sfchronicle]

More than five years after the UC system lifted its standardized testing requirement, a coalition led by UC Berkeley math professors argues the drop in students’ math levels is “severe.” https://t.co/f7TmRT0AuA

[All American @AllAmerican202]

There is freedom within
There is freedom without
… Don’t Dream It’s Over