Speaking As An Individual (It Sounds Kind Of NewAge-y)

Wanna see the similarity between the whole Transcendental Meditation racket, seen above, and Instapundit?  Robert Stacy McCain has an interesting observation:

"This network/community concept seems to have been lost by (or, more likely, was never known to) newer arrivals in the ‘sphere. The idea that each of us is contributing to a common project is not just some kind of “Stone Soup” idealism, but is in fact the only way to build any genuinely meaningful alternative to that pathetic exercise in groupthink we call the Mainstream Media…."

So Glenn's answer to the Mainstream Media's "groupthink" was to create a vessel for his own. And now they, too, are known for deception, manipulation, misinformation, and exploitation. Paraphrasing:

That Mitt Romney election was in-the-bag, now pay us for that marvelous insight - at, supposedly, no cost to yourself - unless you think losing the White House bore no cost.

Fools. Rush. In.

Listen to Ann spout it:

"I'm getting impatient with Tracy right now. I want to interrupt and say that blogs are a great format if you have a distinctive voice, and not just if you have idiosyncratic attributes — like gay, English, Catholic, and heretically conservative. The form — the blog — was so great, so powerful, so liberating, that many, many writers said me too, often pushed by an old-style publisher like the NYT that needed to have blogs to seem up-to-date. What made the age golden was the greatness of some blogs, like Sullivan's, not the sheer number of blogs at any given time."

Yeah, and as long as you silly, silly people - and not ideas - got there early enough to become the gatekeepers, saying who's "in" and "out". Listen to the loonie:

She actually wants us to go along with the suggestion that Andrew Sullivan - the weirdo who launched an investigation into Sarah Palin's womb - runs a blog of "greatness".

There aren't enough drugs on the planet to make that work. How can it?

Yesterday, when I was posting about gay men and NewAge, I could've been writing about Sully.

This is, specifically, why a blog about NewAge cultism focusses on the political blogosphere. They are as blind to themselves as the mainstream media is.

Point - I don't pick on Professor Jacobson.

It's a fact that Glenn Reynolds & Co. can't give me a fair shake, because I spotted - and spoke out about - their cultish nonsense from Day One. I was ranting about despising "groupthink" wherever it comes from - Left or Right - and saying I will never fit into it. 

Nor will I ever try. 

And, as Boomers,  this "community" of "groupthink" was destined to be their answer. 

In stepped Ann Althouse.

I was raising noise about their "clique," on her blog, and she told Glenn to link to TMR, probably to shut me up. People on her blog were listening to me then.

That's what big bloggers are afraid of. It has nothing to do with language or attitude - or else Ann would've gotten rid of me, long ago, instead of me leaving - it's attention going elsewhere. They can't shake down the rubes without 'em, can they?

Their mistake?

Assuming - by inviting me in - I couldn't see, and would stop saying, what they've been up to all along.

But, as Sojourner Truth said, ain't this a blog?

Henry The Ath

My so-called "fellow bloggers" are a trip.

For instance, last August, Robert Stacy McCain labelled "Scientology As A Criminal Conspiracy" - basically for having weird beliefs - saying:

"It’s hard to believe anyone with an IQ above room temperature could be suckered into believing the nonsense promulgated by Scientology — but then again, is it really more absurd than the beliefs of the Democrat Party?"

Clearly that all depends. Considering the similarities between Scientology and Mormonism - which RSMc backed and defended in the last election - I'd say yes, the American people thought there was something "more absurd than the beliefs of the Democrat Party" and it's name was Romney.

"Crack Emcee at The Macho Response doesn’t seem to care much for the theology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and I link his post not to endorse such anti-LDS views, but rather to remind you what kind of stuff is out there."

Yeah, that "kind of stuff." But since Scientology's feeling the heat (again) it seems Robert Stacy McCain wants to sit at the Big Boy Bigot Table and throw something "out there" himself - listen:

"There was a time when the cult could sue a few critics and thereby intimidate everybody else. But the Internet makes it impossible to silence the truth, and the truth is not Scientology’s friend."

Ahh, but it was Mitt's - such a friend he had to keep his cult's beliefs hidden, which still didn't work.
 

Is there a cult god to help hypocrites with their sins?

Don't answer if it's me (I like surprises,...)

 

Lincoln, Lincoln, I've Been Thinkin',....Part II

Unlike the Republican Party, if I had to sum up one of TMR's messages, it might go, "Try to have a little integrity, using facts and reason as your guide." Pretty simple stuff - doesn't require any special tools or training - just don't pick a fight with reality and you can be a pretty good person. Decent message, doesn't work.

For instance, during the last election, I wrote this on the Althouse blog:

Who will win? I don't know - they're both lame - but Romney has an uphill battle, because his nomination kicked me out of the voting booth, and I can't be the only one. 



I'm mulling over how much I despise ObamaCare - to see if it's worth compromising my values on cultism - but I doubt it:

 

The Right has simply "screwed the pooch" this time,...

Now - reality check - in light of the results, "screwed the pooch" seems pretty on-point, right-right? A little vague, but everything lined up pretty nice there. So much that, I'd think, post-election, there would be little anyone can argue with me about (I don't consider asking about cultism arguing,...) Hell, in a fair world, some might even search a black conservative Republican out to ask what went wrong - but no. I may be right, but I'm not a good person, in fact I'm crazy:

Re: Crack - he's crazy. I'll bet he's a swell guy IRL (in fact I think I met him back in the 80s, if he was in the Beatnigs at that time) but he's still crazy. Batshit, foaming-at-the-mouth, off-his-fucking-rocker crazy. If you disagree with him, you're his enemy or, at very least, one of the brain-dead masses who voluntarily dopes themselves up, rendering pure comprehension of the Gospel According To Crack Emcee incomprehensible. 

 

Crazy.

And for the record, I haven't seen anyone else who refused to vote, either. I figure, since we don't passively accept anything they say, we must all be crazy - though Robert Stacy McCain couldn't wait to see my take on Demi Moore and Deepak Chopra. (Maybe they just don't need reality in politics.) Pish-Posh:

At the beginning of Lincoln, after the opening battle scene, he's chatting with four soldiers - but one of these things is not like the others. He's not in awe of the president but sees him as an impediment to his innate freedom. And, since he's got a chance to speak to the leader man-to-man, he takes it.

Then afterwards, once satisfied he got his message across, this thoroughly modern black man saunters away.

Lincoln stares after him curiously, pondering our direction and future, prepared to do what's right.

That's not today's G.O.P.,... 

It's Still True: They DO Have Ways Of Making Me Talk,...

The Atlantic Monthly's Conor Friedersdorf recently said, "the civil war the right needs is one waged against the hucksters, whether they're in the marketplace of ideas or the marketplace itself." I guess - considering TMR's mandate is to fight hucksterism - that means I have to fire the first shot.

Here goes nothing. 

It has long been said that life was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Congratulations - through the wonders of modern technology - they've made it longer. From Glenn Reynolds' Instapundit:

MICKEY KAUS: Will MSM Guilt Start Working for Mitt? “‘Like Ali, Obama Floats Like a Butterfly’–that’s the headline Real Clear Politics gave Howard Fineman’s latest post. But even though Fineman is Editorial Director for leftish Huffington Post (and appears regularly on MSNBC) his piece isn’t what you’d expect. It’s basically a plea to the MSM to start covering Obama they way they’d cover a normal candidate. . . . An MSM veteran, Fineman, in essence, is agreeing with conservative critics of his profession: they’ve been cutting the President way too much slack, failing to take him to task in areas (the Woodward portrayal, Libya, the jobs numbers ) where they would have hammered another candidate.”

Notice there's no concern from these champions of justice that the MSM - or the conservative blogosphere - have been cutting Romney "way too much slack, failing to take him to task in areas where they would have hammered another candidate"? That it's all a one-way street with these guys who've positioned themselves as the trustworthy alternative to the biased media? Mitt Romney spouts complete nonsense? His cult punishes those who reveal their "secrets" or is practicing voter fraud? That they're behaving like delusional Pat Robertson supporters in order to win? You'll never hear it from Glenn Reynolds, Mickey Kaus, Michelle Malkin, Robert Stacey McCain, Ann Althouse, the folks at Hot Air, Ace of Spades, - or even the reporters for The Washington Examiner - but can expect to, probably, be punished by a collective cry of "bigotry" (from them and the Romney campaign) for saying so instead.

I hold to a pretty hard ethical line (which I've defined as "not goody-goody, but just good") and it gets me in a world of trouble, online, that - if I didn't know I now live in a NewAge-obsessed-and-influenced society - I wouldn't understand at all.

But I do understand the times I live in, so (despite my occasional shock at the behavior of those under NewAge's spell) the cowardly treatment I get for, both, wanting to be correct in my assessments - while also wanting to be moral - have, unfortunately, become known to me as par for the course:

I can be right, and few will champion it. 

I can be slandered, and few will come to my defense. 

 I can be ridiculously outnumbered, and I will be forced to fight alone.

In this NewAge society, these virtues - including the willingness to fight on despite overwhelming obstacles - are not appreciated. Instead, to NewAgers, they are signs of madness.

Isn't this how it was in the NewAge's Third Reich?

Don't I understand that being right doesn't matter? The law professor, NewAger - and my friend - Ann Althouse, once said that my desire to be seen as correct "all the time" was ugly - and, to prove it, she continues to promote the idea that "inaccuracies and distortions" are "what is beautiful and wonderful about human life." Really?

She and her blog partner, Glenn Reynolds, have long engaged in the practice of "punishing with traffic starvation" those they deem unworthy, while appearing to encourage the free flow of ideas and letting water find it's own level. Why? Because power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, nothing more. Their sycophants (and that's what they are) will say nothing, which - just as we saw with Adolf Hitler - allows Althouse and Reynolds not to dare reflect on their behavior. Who cares if they're distorting the flow of information? After all, "inaccuracies and distortions" are "what is beautiful and wonderful about human life," right?

Joeseph Goebbels would be proud.

Isn't it bizarre that The Wall Street Journal's blogger, James Taranto - who was once a seemingly-fair and intelligent man - will now criticize Madonna and Obama but it's left to the supposedly biased FOX News to say "Mitt Romney's Gaffes Are Needlessly Weakening Him"?

Has even an editor for The Wall Street Journal forgotten what being an American stands for?

Like Conor Friedersdorf, I Refuse to Vote for Barack Obama. But I also refuse to stand with those who lie, distort, and mistreat anyone who demands there's a role for truth - not just in our politics but in our lives. For the last four years, we - those of us who make up the right side of the blogosphere - are supposed to have been the citizens of these United States, taking back our nation, by re-affirming the values that made this country great. Well I, for one, see no evidence of that having happened. Instead (since the death of Andrew Breitbart, really) there has been an ugly switch from understanding and utilizing the Left's tactics to - and, the Mormon cult follower, Mitt Romney's nomination can be no better example of this - becoming what they've always hated.

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The Stupid Party. The Hypocrite Party. The Magic Party. The Secret's Party. 

I know something about these things.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is TMR, and I am The Crack Emcee.

And I want it to be known, here and now:

This is what I've hated. I've hated it all along. I'll always hate it. And I hate it now more than ever.

All of it.

No matter who's promoting it. 

 

Hey - Excuse Me - Did I Ever Mention I Don't Like Cults?

Several cult-watching sites, and even The Daily Beast, have picked up on the Mormon excommunication story I sent to Glenn Reynolds, Ann Althouse, and Robert Stacey McCain because - let's face it - with a Mormon headed to the White House THERE'S NO STORY THERE:

David Twede, 47, a scientist, novelist, and fifth-generation Mormon, is managing editor of MormonThink.com, an online magazine produced largely by members of the Mormon Church that welcomes scholarly debate about the religion’s history from both critics and true believers. 

A Mormon in good standing, Twede has never been disciplined by Latter Day Saints leadership. But it now appears his days as a Mormon may be numbered because of a series of articles he wrote this past week that were critical of Mitt Romney. 

On Sunday, Twede says his bishop, stake president, and two church executives brought him into Florida Mormon church offices in Orlando and interrogated him for nearly an hour about his writings, telling him, "Cease and desist, Brother Twede."

Even better, as I write my own criticisms of Mormonism, I'm constantly teased and admonished by The Althouse Hillbillies that nothing could happen to me because - let's be serious - people who don't exactly follow the dictates of "the Prophet Muhammad of North America," whose slogan was “Either al-Koran or the Sword,” have nothing to fear from the LDS, riiiight?

In an exclusive interview with The Daily Beast, Twede says that during the interrogation he felt “attacked, cornered, and very anxious." 

The four church leaders verbally chastised him, he says, for hiding his identity on MormonThink and his personal blog in order to avoid discipline. Twede, who writes using only his first name, says they kept asking him why he didn’t identify himself online if he had nothing to hide. 

“I told them I hide my name precisely because of things like this,” he says. “I said, ‘Look how fast you got to me.’ I know a lot of members don’t want their life disturbed. In the Mormon church, if you’re not part of the uniform group, you are ostracized.” 

“When they interrogated me, they denied that they were on a witch hunt, but they kept asking me, ‘Who are the other individuals you work with on MormonThink?’” he says. “They continued demanding that I tell them. But I didn’t.”

"If you’re not part of the uniform group, you are ostracized.” Now THAT'S AMERICAN! Oh, how good, honest, and wholesome it all sounds. And just the kind of influence we need in the White House, as Glenn Reynolds & Co. labor, either to pooh-pooh or cover-up everything, so as to put a nice shiny gleam on all Mitt and his cult are about - and, by extension, themselves:

Twede's situation was first publicly disclosed this week on an ex-Mormon online discussion site by Steve Benson, the Pulitzer Prize–winning editorial cartoonist for The Arizona Republic and grandson of former secretary of agriculture and Mormon prophet Ezra Taft Benson. 

Benson, who left Mormonism in 1993, the same year he won the Pulitzer, is now a vocal critic of the church and is an active voice on the ex-Mormon sites. 

“What you’re seeing with David is not atypical of what the church has done in the past, where local leadership becomes focused on riding into battle under the flag ‘out damn spot’ and ridding itself or perceived apostates,” Benson tells The Daily Beast. “I was under this kind of investigation when I left in '93. I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of an excommunication. I no longer wanted to be a member of that organization.” 

Twede insists the church shouldn’t be allowed to act in this manner and quietly get away. “This encourages them to continue with others using similar tactics,” he says. “We prefer they act responsibly with those that dissent. We believe this article will in fact halt disciplinary action against me. However, my feelings about being part of this organization are changing rapidly. Even if they proceed, it will not be considerably harmful to me anymore.”

Not even a critical word from Mitt Romney about all this, and he was just in Salt Lake a few days ago, but then I shouldn't be surprised:

Despite the unpleasant interrogation this week, Twede says he does not want to ruin the public reputation of church leaders in Florida because he believes they are “acting as agents of HQ leadership in Salt Lake.”

Yeah, just like a certain presidential candidate I know,...

 

You Don' t Have To Be A Democrat To Suck Big Donkey Dicks (Glenn Reynolds Does It Seven Days A Week,...)

A Mormon is being excommunicated from the "church" for writing naughty stuff about Mitt Romney, so I sent a link about it to the "bigotry" clique of Glenn Reynolds, Ann Althouse, and Robert Stacey McCain, but you know what?

Not one of these newly-brave free speech-in-the-face-of-religious-persecution advocates bothered to post a word about it.

That should tell us all we need to know about the snow job going on out there. None of them has said one word about any negatives surrounding Romney's cult during this entire election - and let me remind you A MORMON is being excommunicated for saying there IS something negative about it - but Reynolds is sure OBAMA SHOULD RESIGN because a religious filmmaker with warrants was brought in for questioning by the L.A.P.D..

 By the way, all you big shot know-it-all lawyers - how'd THAT work out for ya?

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And they're squandering what credibility they have for what?

Romney’s current troubles don’t stem from miscalculation or even a duff convention in Tampa but are manifestations of his own political character as heard and witnessed over the past half-decade. This is a man who has altered his positions—not modified, not tailored, not hedged, but utterly transformed—on every single issue from abortion to climate change to the health-care reform that he signed as governor in Massachusetts. Now he runs a campaign that doesn’t want to talk about his record as governor or as a financier and that refuses to put forth an economic alternative of any detail beyond building the Alaska pipeline and lowering taxes for people like himself, even as at the same time he won’t show us what he pays in taxes now or whether he pays taxes at all. His adamant hostility to revealing anything that resembles an authentic belief or credible strategy for accelerating the recovery is not only losing Romney the choice part of the election but the referendum part as well, as the Democrats succeed in making this a referendum on Romney, not Obama. Romney’s selection of Ryan was meant both to reassure the party’s base and bathe the presidential candidate in the glow of the vice-presidential candidate’s reputation as a man of integrity and candor. As evinced by the ticket’s appearances on this past Sunday morning’s news programs and Ryan’s speech at the Republican Convention, when he blamed Obama for a plant that closed during his predecessor’s term and for a Medicare cut that Ryan himself supports and for not embracing a debt-commission report that Ryan himself opposed and for the country’s credit downgrading that Ryan himself brought about as much as any single individual, it is truth-teller Ryan who bathes in the glow of Romney’s irrefutable standing as the phoniest nominee of our lifetime.

Meanwhile - four years too late - Reynolds is supposedly telling us about THE OBAMA YOU DON'T KNOW. Oh I know about him, Boy-O, and you as well - how about this Reynolds link:

 David Harsanyi: A Short Visual History of the Creepy Obama Cult.

Really? Really? I mean, REALLY? Is this man joking? Reynolds is backing a candidate with one of the biggest cults in the world and NOW he wants to go there? 

It's bad enough Reynolds was of no help on the subject of the Obama cult in 2008 - and Althouse denied it (even to herself) until AFTER OBAMA WAS ELECTED (something Reynolds never called HER on, being blogging butt buddies and not truth-tellers) - but to see it now coming from this goofy NewAge blogger who, less than four hours later, is promoting "CHI RUNNING" makes the whole thing so hypocritically ugly and hysterically stupid I can hardly figure out what to write. You know what? I won't write anything - let me show you what the great "Blogfather," PROFESSOR Glenn Reynolds "believes" in:

Ch'i or qi (pronounced "chee" and henceforth spelled "chi") is the Chinese word used to describe "the natural energy of the Universe." This energy, though called "natural," is spiritual or supernatural, and is part of a metaphysical, not an empirical, belief system. New Agers often refer to this energy as subtle energy. Chi is thought to permeate all things, including the human body. Such metaphysical systems are generally referred to as types of  vitalism. One of the key concepts related to chi is the concept of harmony. Trouble, whether in the universe or in the body, is a function of disharmony, of things being out of balance and in need of restoration to equilibrium. 

Proponents claim to prove the existence and power of chi by healing people with acupuncture or chi kung (qi gong), by doing magic tricks such as breaking a chopstick with the edge of a piece of paper or resuscitating a "dead" fly, or by martial arts stunts like breaking a brick with a bare hand or foot. When examined under controlled conditions, however, the seemingly paranormal or supernatural feats of masters of chi turn out to be quite ordinary feats of magic, deception, or natural powers. 

Vitalism is a popular philosophy in many cultures. Thus, chi has many counterparts: prana (India and therapeutic touch), ki (Japan); Wilhelm Reich's orgone, Mesmer's animal magnetism, Bergson's élan vital (vital force), to name just a few. The concept is very popular among New Age thinking, where it generally goes by the name of energy, though the concept bears no resemblance to the concept as used by physicists. 

To find out more about what believers think about chi, look at any of the advertisements on the Internet for chi products. You may be surprised at what miracles people think are possible with a few grunts and groans, and the waving of hands through the air.

Yeah, like "Chi Running." Here's as fine a demonstration of the "chi" concept as I could find:

Didn't I tell you Glenn Reynolds can't spot quackery? Well now I'm telling you something else:

He's got no integrity what-so-ever.

Want proof? Here's the latest post he's put up as I write this: 

 THE ONE CONSTANT IN GOLF: The Need For Consistency.

Face it - if he plays like he blogs - Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds HAS to stay in the rough,…

 

The Third Undressed Post: Stacy & I Are Close

Here's Stacy McCain's take on the recent embarrassment:

A couple weeks ago, there was a lot of buzz surrounding the “Dear Woman” video — hell, no, I’m not gonna embed it here ,...

I have to admit, in the name of fairness and honesty, I'm accepting this as proof Robert Stacy McCain might be smarter then me,....

I Know This Subject Like The Back Of My Hand

I've had a problem with The New York Times' David Brooks for quite a while.

For instance, after telling us "Obama and Clinton were completely irresponsible,..." he backed Obama (and his Secretary of State) based on his feelings about the crease in Obama's pants.

Later, I noted that Brooks had gone NewAge on us (funny that no one else picked up on that) just after the other smartest guy on the web - Robert Stacey McCain - agreed with me that "David Brooks is a useless son of a bitch."

Now comes a Sp!ked review of Brooks' latest book, The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement, where they, too, catch his NewAge tendencies in full flight:

Brooks’ argument against reason culminates in an attack on the Enlightenment. Following Gertrude Himmelfarb (The Roads to Modernity), he writes of a ‘French Enlightenment’ that is overly rationalist and violent and a ‘British Enlightenment’ that emphasises sentiments and is moderate. Three hundred years later, the research finds, ‘the British Enlightenment wins’.

But this is a thoroughly flawed understanding: Enlightenment thinkers on both sides of the English Channel were defenders of reason, from science to politics. Brooks quotes Edmund Burke approvingly, and cites him as a leading member of the British Enlightenment – even though Burke became the leading opponent of the Enlightenment. The concept of reason was central to the American and French revolutions: it provided the basis for widespread social cooperation and was inherently democratic, because it was considered that everyone had the capacity to act rationally and play a role as a citizen.

The implications of Brooks’ anti-rationalist views are drawn out in his recommendations for social policy. He believes that the state can mould emotions and culture for positive ends. What this means in practice is the state intruding into the most personal aspects of people’s lives. Schools need to take over from families that don’t instil the right values to learn; state policies need to inculcate ‘the habits, knowledge and mental traits’ for success. He wants to take the latest findings about the brain and use them to control people’s behaviour.

But, all this said, the problem with The Social Animal is not just that Brooks simply elevates emotions and denigrates reason. It is that (despite protests to the contrary) he sets up a false dualism between the two.

You can read the rest for yourself, but I will point out that, not only have I been reminding you of the NewAge concept - and threat - of "duality" since I started this blog, but that I choose my topics carefully.

You see, having been schooled in the NewAge belief system, I don't need to have the word "NewAge" mentioned, or the landscape explained - I spotted David Brooks as having gone over to The Dark Side a long time ago, and without him having said much - just as I know Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and all the others I cover are NewAgers.

They don't have to openly declare it - as so many, wrongly, demand Obama should about Islam - it is revealed:

Just as I knew with Jared Lee Laughner, their associates, behaviors, words (evasions, really, which are another tip-off) and political positions, say far more about their occult beliefs than they ever imagine.

But, then, it's a lack of imagination that gets people into NewAge in the first place - and why the rest of you keep listening to them.

Armed, Dangerous, And Wrong (A Law Firm)

Isn't it interesting, now that Obama's started his own Middle East war, and all this crowing has started about who the "rubes" are - that with the glowing exception of Andrew Sullivan - there's no one else being called out by name?

Kinda leaves the impression somebody plays favorites, don't it? That hardly leads to the conclusion that certain conservative bloggers shoot straight - or play fair,...but I repeat myself.

UPDATE: Stacey McCain has called out Kevin Drum. Why is it always Stacey McCain? Probably because he writes about Southern honor so much. That's gotta be it. He's even been known to get into a few online scrapes. The shit matters.

The Image Of The "NewAge" Crazy Man Finally Emerges (& Everyone's Suddenly Struck Dumb)

We know we covered this already, but we think it's worth returning to, just for clarification - from Reason.com's The New Age Assassin:

If you're trying to decipher Loughner's worldview,...The best label would probably be "New Age paranoia."

NewAge. Just as we - alone - have been saying since the very beginning. Except for Reason.com, and Robert Stacy McCain, there's no evidence anyone else is picking up this narrative yet - the only one to emerge with any truth to it.

Oh well, they must think the blood-on-Sarah-Palin's-hands thing works better. (It definitely keeps the heat off of themselves if they, too, share insane NewAge beliefs with Loughner and the rest of the world-wide Left,...)

But is any of that covering up, hiding, misdirection, etc., really what we have a news media for?

UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit readers, and thanks, Professor.