Brian Bauld

@newstart_2024 If I marry, I can't remain single, etcetera ad infinitum. Freedom is only of value when you give it away through action. Life is funny like that.

One line from Thomas Sowell completely rewired how Konstantin Kisin sees the world: “There are no solutions, only trade-offs.” Kisin says we’ve lost the ability to think like this. We treat every big issue — climate change, the NHS, COVID lockdowns, free speech — as if it has a perfect fix. But every policy, every choice, comes with real costs. Locking down might save some lives but costs others. More free speech means some people will get offended. Trying to “solve” complex problems usually just moves the pain around. The brutal truth? Most of our loud political shouting matches are childish because they pretend one side can magically eliminate problems that are eternal. Once you internalize “no solutions, only trade-offs,” a lot of the noise starts sounding ridiculous. What’s a trade-off you’ve had to accept recently — in politics, health, career, or relationships — that made you realise there really are no pure wins?

On the occasion of the attack by Islamic thugs in Syria on the UAE embassy, we ask again: Why do followers of Islamic jihad hate the United Arab Emirates? The answer: Because they hate its model. They hate the model of a Muslim state that welcomes all other religions and is open to all cultures and faiths. They hate the model of an Arab Muslim state where there is no discrimination based on religion or ethnicity. They hate its modernity, because their ambitions belong to the caves of the past. They hate its tolerant model, which celebrates cultural and religious pluralism. They hate the rule of order within it, because they thrive only in chaos. The UAE is their enemy because it represents the exact opposite of what they are trying to build. It is their cultural defeat because it proves false everything they attempt to promote and defend. That is why it is no surprise that the two wings of Islamic johad, (the Iranian and the Muslim Brotherhood), come together in attacking the UAE. They are attacking their real enemy: the modern model of a Muslim state. I would add (The modern model of a Muslim state that pushes Islam to the side and embrace Western values).

@rogerkimball @BillAckman @X Do it. Then run for President of USA.

@BillAckman @X I am very sorry indeed to hear about your daughter. I hope she revere quickly and completely. As to the other issue, I believe that New York is an "at-will" state.

I am reaching out to the @X community for advice with the likely risk of sharing TMI. I have been sufficiently upset about the whole matter that I have lost sleep thinking about it and I am hoping that this post will enable me to get this matter off my chest. By way of background, I started a family office called TABLE about 15 years ago and hired a friend who had previously managed a family office, and years earlier, had been my personal accountant. She is someone that I trusted implicitly and consider to be a good person. The office started small, but over the last decade, the number of personnel and the cost of the office grew massively. The growth was entirely on the operational side as the investment team has remained tiny. While my investment portfolio grew substantially, the investments I had made were almost entirely passive and TABLE simply needed to account for them and meet capital calls as they came in. While TABLE purchased additional software and other systems that were supposed to improve productivity, the team kept increasing in size at a rapid rate, and the expenses continued to grow even faster. While I would periodically question the growing expenses and high staff turnover, I stayed uninvolved with the office other than a once-a-year meeting when I briefly reviewed the operations and the financials and determined bonus compensation for the President and the CFO. I spent no time with any of the other employees or the operations. The whole idea behind TABLE was that it would handle everything other than my day job so that I would have more time for my job and my family. Over the last six years, expenses ballooned even further, employee turnover accelerated, and I became concerned that all was not well at TABLE. It was time for me to take a look at what was going on. Nearly four years ago, I recruited my nephew who had recently graduated from Harvard and put him to work at Bremont, a British watchmaker, one of my only active personal investments to figure out the issues at the company and ultimately assist in executing a turnaround. He did a superb job. When he returned from the UK late last year after a few years at Bremont, I asked him to help me figure out what was going on with TABLE. When I explained to TABLE’s president what he would be doing, she became incredibly defensive, which naturally made me more concerned. My nephew went to work by first meeting with each employee to understand their roles at the company and to learn from them what ideas they had on how things could be improved. He got an earful. Our first step in helping to turn around TABLE was a reduction in force including the president and about a third of the team, retaining excellent talent that had been desperate for new leadership. Now here is where I need your advice. All but one of the employees who were terminated acted professionally and were gracious on the way out (excluding the president who had a notice period in her contract, is currently still being paid, and with whom I have not yet had a discussion). The highest compensated terminated employee other than the president, an in-house lawyer (let’s call her Ronda), told us that three months of severance was not enough and demanded two years’ severance despite having worked at the company for only two and one half years. When I learned of Ronda's request for severance, I offered to speak with her to understand what she was thinking, but she refused to do so. A few days ago, we received a threatening letter from a Silicon Valley law firm. In the letter, Ronda’s counsel suggests that her termination is part of longstanding issues of ‘harassment and gender discrimination’ – an interesting claim in light of the fact that Ronda was in charge of workplace compliance – and that her termination was due to: “unlawful, retaliatory, and harmful conduct directed towards her. Both [Ronda] and I [Ronda’s lawyer] have spoken with you about [Ronda’s] view of what a reasonable resolution would include given the circumstances. Thus far, TABLE has refused to provide any substantive response. This letter provides the last opportunity to reach a satisfactory agreement. If we cannot do so, [Ronda] will seek all appropriate relief in a court of competent jurisdiction.” The letter goes on to explain the basis for the “unsafe work environment” claim at TABLE: “In early 2026, Pershing Square’s founder Bill Ackman installed his nephew in an unidentified role at TABLE, Ackman’s family office. [His nephew]—whose only work experience had been for TABLE where he was seconded abroad for the last four years to a UK watch company held by Ackman—began appearing at TABLE’s offices and conducting interviews of employees without a clear explanation of his role or the purposes of these interviews. During this period, he made a series of inappropriate and genderbased [sic] comments to multiple employees that created an unsafe work environment. Among other things, [his nephew] made remarks about female employees’ ages (“Tell me you are nowhere near 40”), physical appearance (“Your body does not look like you have kids”), as well as intrusive questions about family planning and sexual orientation (“Who carried your son? Who will carry your next child?”). These incidents were reported to senior leadership at TABLE and Pershing Square. Rather than being addressed appropriately, the response from senior management reflected, at best, willful blindness to the inappropriateness of [his nephew]’s remarks and, at worst, tacit endorsement.” The above allegations about my nephew had previously been brought to my attention by TABLE’s president when they occurred. When I learned of them, I told the president that I would speak to him directly and encouraged her to arrange for him to get workplace sensitivity training. The president assured me that she would do so. When I spoke to my nephew, he explained what he actually had said and how his actual remarks had been received, not at all as alleged in the legal letter from Ronda’s counsel. I have also spoken to others at the lunch table who confirmed his description of the facts. In any case, he meant no harm, was simply trying to build rapport with other employees, and no one, as far as I understand, was offended. Ironically, Ronda claims in her legal letter that TABLE didn’t take HR compliance seriously, yet Ronda was in charge of HR compliance at TABLE and the person who gave my nephew his workplace sensitivity training after the alleged incidents. In any case, Ronda, as head of compliance, should have kept a record or raised an alarm if indeed there was pervasive harassment or other such problems at the company, and there is no evidence whatsoever that this is true. So why does Ronda believe she can get me to pay her nearly $2 million, i.e., two years of severance, nearly one year of severance for each of her years at the company? Well, here is where some more background would be helpful. Over the last two months, I have been consumed with a major family medical issue – one of my older daughters had a massive brain hemorrhage on February 5th and has since been making progress on her recovery – and I am in the midst of a major transaction for my company which I am executing from a hospital room office next to her . While the latter business matter is publicly known, the details of my daughter’s situation are only known to Ronda because of her role at our family office. Now, let’s get back to the subject at hand. Unfortunately, while New York and many other states have employment-at-will, there has emerged an industry of lawyers who make a living from bringing fake gender, race, LGBTQ and other discrimination employment claims in order to extract larger severance payments for terminated employees, and it needs to stop. The fake claim system succeeds because it costs little to have a lawyer send a threatening letter and nearly all of the lawyers in this field work on contingency so there is no or minimal cash cost to bring a claim. And inevitably, nearly 100% of these claims are settled because the public relations and legal costs of defending them exceed the dollar cost of the settlement. The claims are nearly always settled with a confidentiality agreement where the employee who asserts the fake claims remains anonymous and as a result, there is no reputational cost to bringing false claims. The consequences of this sleazy system (let’s call it ‘the System’) are the increased costs of doing business which is a tax on the economy and society. There are other more serious problems due to the System. Unfortunately, the existence of an industry of plaintiff firms and terminated employees willing to make these claims makes it riskier for companies to hire employees from a protected class, i.e., LGBTQ, seniors, women, people of color etc. because it is that much more reputationally damaging and expensive to be accused of racism, sexism, and/or intolerance for sexual diversity than for firing a white male as juries generally have less sympathy for white males. The System therefore increases the risk of discrimination rather than reducing it, and the people bringing these fake claims are thereby causing enormous harm to the other members of these protected classes. So what happened here? Ronda was vastly overpaid and overqualified for the job that she did at TABLE. She was paid $1.05 million plus benefits last year for her work which was largely comprised of filling out subscription agreements and overseeing an outside law firm on closing passive investments in funds and in private and venture stage companies, some compliance work, and managing the office move from one office to another. She had a very good gig as she was highly paid, only had to go into the office three days a week, and could work from anywhere during the summer. Once my nephew showed up and started to investigate what was going on, she likely concluded that there was a reasonable possibility she would be terminated, as her job was in the too-easy-and-to-good-to-be-true category. The problem was that she was not in a protected class due to her race, age or sexual identity so she had to construct the basis for a claim. While she is female and could in theory bring a gender-based discrimination claim, she reported to the president who is female and to whom she is very close, which makes it difficult for her to bring a harassment claim against her former boss. When my nephew complimented a TABLE employee at lunch about how young she looked – in response to saying she was going to her 40-year-old sister’s birthday party, he said ‘she must be your older sister’ – Ronda immediately reported it to our external HR lawyer. She thereby began building her case. The other problem for Ronda bringing a claim is that she was terminated alongside 30% of other TABLE employees as part of a restructuring so it is very difficult for her to say that she was targeted in her termination or was retaliated against. TABLE is now hiring an external fractional general counsel as that is all the company needs to process the relatively limited amount of legal work we do internally. In short, Ronda was eminently qualified and capable and did her job. She was just too much horsepower for what is largely an administrative legal role so she had to come up with something else to bring a claim. Now Ronda knew I was a good target and it was a good time to bring a claim against me. She also knew that I was under a lot of pressure because on March 4th when Ronda was terminated, my daughter had not yet emerged from consciousness, she was not yet breathing on her own, and my daughter and we were fighting for her life. I was and remain deeply engaged in her recovery while at the same time I was working on finishing the closing for the private placement round for my upcoming IPO. Ronda also knew that publicity about supposed gender discrimination and a “hostile and unsafe work environment” are not things that a CEO of a company about to go public wants to have released into the media. And she may have thought that the nearly $2 million she was asking for would be considered small in the context of the reputational damage a lawsuit could cause, regardless of the fact that two years of severance was an absurd amount for an employee who had only worked at TABLE for 30 months. She also likely considered that I wouldn’t want to embarrass my nephew by dragging him into the klieg lights when her claims emerged publicly. So, in summary, game theory would say that I would certainly settle this case, for why would I risk negative publicity at a time when I was preparing our company to go public and also risk embarrassing my nephew. Notably, she hired a Silicon Valley law firm, rather than a typical NY employment firm. This struck me as interesting as her husband works for one of the most prominent Silicon Valley venture firms whose CEO, I am sure, has no tolerance for these kinds of fake claims that sadly many venture-backed companies also have to deal with. I mention this as I suspect her husband likely has been working with her on the strategy for squeezing me as, in addition to being a computer scientist, he is a game theorist. My only advice for him is to understand more about your opponent before you launch your first move. All of the above said, gender, race, LGBTQ and other such discrimination is a real thing. Many people have been harmed and deserve compensation for this discrimination, and these companies and individuals should be punished for engaging in such behavior. Which brings me to the advice I am seeking from the X community. I am not planning to follow the typical path and settle this ‘claim.’ Rather, I am going to fight this nonsense to the end of the earth in the hope that it inspires other CEOs to do the same so we shut down this despicable behavior that is a large tax on society, employment, and the economy and contributes to workplace discrimination rather than reducing it. Do you agree or disagree that this is the right approach?

@JayGenXer @X_lifeGail Media, homonym of Medea, Greek sorceress who murdered her own children.

@X_lifeGail I say we bring back that law Trudeau dropped allowing media to give misinformation.. THIS was the Flood gate of lies

Hey Canadians 🇨🇦 One thing that keeps coming up after Pierre Poilievre’s Diary of a CEO interview is his personal story — adopted as a baby, raised by school teachers in a humble middle-class home, his father later came out as gay, and he married Anaida, who came to Canada as a refugee from Venezuela. Yet a lot of people seem to really dislike him… while praising Justin Trudeau (raised with every advantage as the son of a former Prime Minister) and Mark Carney (the wealthy former banker). How did so many in Canada end up feeling that way? What do you think drives that difference in how people see them? Drop your honest thoughts below 👇 I’m reading every comment. #Poilievre #CanadaFirst

@ggreenwald @BobSikes A person's credibility depends on despising Israel, you say? Incredible.

@BobSikes Nobody's "credibility" depends on revering Israel. I'd say the opposite is true.

Fox News has taken the American flag and literally melded it onto the Israeli flag, as if it's just one country in the minds of its poor, old viewers. #AmericaFirst

@MattWalshBlog Canada is a grim example of what happens when lies go unchallenged. Graves hoax, land acknowledgements, pipeline blockage, slanders against residential school staff, and now property confiscation.

Here’s my full special on the real history of the American Indians. My team does incredible work on these. I’m proud to be a part of it. m.youtube.com/watch?v=mxapaX…

Evil indeed. It was many decades ago that departments of English were captured by this diabolic. I remember painfully when the second editions of the estimable Norton Critical Anthology series introduced critical theory, overwhelming the art of criticism and making mockery of the great works.

Earlier today, I explained that what we see from Tucker Carlson, et al., is ultimately Critical America Theory, which many people found clarifying. To add some depth, I want to explain that at the heart of every critical theory is a lunatic totalist conspiracy mentality. We can start where we started earlier, with Max Horkheimer's characterization of his Critical Theory. He invented Critical Theory in 1937, adapting it from the Marxist tradition of ruthless critique. He described it this way (paraphrasing): "We [neo-Marxists] developed the Critical Theory when we realized that it is not possible to describe the good or the ideal society on the terms of the existing society, but we can criticize those elements of the existing society that we wish to change." This characterization is very important because it reveals the ultimate character of all critical theories: looking for "problematics" in society that don't live up to some imagined ideal society that likely cannot even exist but can still be used as a reference point against which to complain about reality, often senselessly. Briefly, how? How can you use something that isn't real as a reference point? By believing things like "we don't know what an ideal America would look like, but it wouldn't have racism." Then you send people out looking for anything they can consider racist and get them to "problematize" it because the ideal society wouldn't have that happening. That's how. The thing is, Horkheimer's characterization also reveals the true structure of all critical theories: they're conspiracy theories. The belief in the Critical Theory is that the whole of society in every regard is so captured by the ruling classes and powerful interests that you don't even have the tools you'd need to describe an alternative. That is, powerful interests control everything, and they do so in a way where people don't realize it. In fact, they don't even have the conceptual tools to imagine an alternative. And the ruling classes benefit from that situation, so they like it that way, and they keep it that way, sometimes on purpose. The two sides of this mentality are "critical consciousness" for the people who are "Woke" to the Critical Theory and "false consciousness" for the people who aren't. The conspiracy the powerful interests in society run is alleged to be so complete that people literally misunderstand their reality. Give that a second to sink in. That's the totalist part of the lunatic conspiracy theory. The belief that Critical Theory is based on is that the powerful are so in control of society that: (1) nobody at all has the conceptual tools to imagine or articulate an alternative vision; (2) nobody BUT THEM even know this is happening. That's really important because what it means is that everyone is a dupe except the Critical Theorists. That means nobody is actually capable of understanding, much less managing, their own lives and circumstances except the Critical Theorists. Depending on the critical theory in question, different powerful interests allegedly control society (again, to such a degree that nobody except the critical theorists themselves even know it, and such that nobody can articulate an alternative). (Critical) radical feminists, for example, believe that society is totally structured by a male-dominated force called "patriarchy" that benefits men. It is enforced, they say, by another force they call "misogyny," which means hating women. Critical Race Theorists believe society is totally structured by a white-dominated force called "white supremacy" that benefits white people. It is enforced, they say, by another force they call "systemic racism," which they alone can detect (in literally everything). (Critical) Queer Theorists believe society is totally controlled and structured around people who deem themselves "normal" to the exclusion of everyone "queer." This is enforced by a wide variety of structural forces called "normativities," such as "heteronormativity," the completely made-up "cisnormativity," and "thinnormativity," which ultimately hold that there are norms and that's at least sometimes good. Critical America Theory, which I discussed earlier, has two main modes, which we could call "Left" and "Right." The "Left" mode believes that America is controlled by a conglomerate of powered interests including capitalists, nationalists (whom they call "Fascists"), and all of the "privileged" groups in the whole Intersectional pantheon of victimized identities (called "minoritized groups"). The "Right" mode believes that American is controlled by a conglomerate of powered interests including the Leftists and their Intersectional victimhood paradigm and its beneficiaries, globalists (the "managerial elite"), Jews, and, well, capitalists. Both of these modes hold out that the powerful interests completely control the social, economic, and political lives of Americans, and that Americans simply don't know it because it's not possible to talk about it because, allegedly, the powerful interests will shut you down or ruin/"cancel" you if you do. Even though they all do all the time pretty much exclusively while screaming that they can't. These two models are more or less completely diametrically opposed on all issues except Jews and capitalism. The "Left" mode is pro-Intersectional while the "Right" mode is reverse-Intersectional (same model, but privilege is good now). The "Left" mode is pro-globalist while the "Right" mode is nativist-nationalist. Both modes believe capitalism enables the whole problem and that Jews are participants in the problem (though in different ways). "Left" Critical America Theory believes capitalism restrains people in the name of making money (puts money over people) and that Jews are part of the oppressor category that allegedly harms poor Intersectional victims, including the imaginary people known as "Palestinians." Most of this blame is displaced onto Israel, not Jews directly, which is blamed for "genocide" and such, narratives that can be traced at least in part to Soviet propaganda efforts and Islamist agendas. "Right" Critical America Theory believes capitalism is too licentious in the name of making money (puts money over people) and that Jews form a shadowy cabal of powerful and all-controlling hidden interests (that advance their own "Jewish" (national) interests over those of their "host" nations). Most of this blame is displaced onto Israel, not Jews directly, which is blamed for "genocide" and such, narratives that can be traced at least in part to Soviet propaganda efforts and Islamist agendas (with plenty of Nazism mixed in). The point is that these are totalizing conspiracy theories, so in addition to everything that obviously implies, it also means that they cannot be refuted. Any attempt to refute them is merely to reassert the theory of capture and to defend the system of power that prevents people from knowing the "truth" (believing the critical theory). For instance, refuting a feminist is just another way of asserting patriarchal control and attacking women. Refuting a Critical Race Theorist is having White Fragility which is a kind of covert racism they uncovered in you. Refuting a Queer Theorist is forcing norms upon them that cause them harm and make them s-word-icidal. Refuting a "Left" Critical America Theorist is having sold out to capitalist interests or defending one's own privileged status in the system (or "supporting genocide"). Refuting a "Right" Critical America Theorist is believing making money is more important than people, being a shill, or having been bought off, captured, or blackmailed by Jews, Israel, the Jewish lobby, or the allegedly powerful interests that are controlled by these (or "supporting genocide"). I'm sure you're familiar with all this crap, but you might not have known that it's a direct consequence of the structure of the Critical Theory itself. Once Horkheimer laid out that the raison d'etre for the Critical Theory in the first place is that the "very terms of the existing society" are captured by powerful interests and ruling classes, that means that all refutation of the Critical Theory itself is just further proof that the Critical Theory is right that the whole system of sense-making permitted by the ruling classes is captured. Guys, this is idiocy. It isn't just idiocy, though; it's also evil idiocy. Very evil idiocy. Destructive idiocy. It's also easily replicable by people who are just playing in the incentive structure of the cynical logic of the Critical Theory mindset, so while some of the participants pushing us in this direction know exactly what they're doing, most either don't or, at the very least, don't have to. What should you do? Learn to recognize it. Mark it. And avoid it. And help others to do the same.

@jmasseypoet Mahyar Tousi

Where and how are you getting your news about the war? I’m genuinely curious. The wild flow of information is mind-numbing, and soul-numbing, too. I feel sick from it.

@realMaalouf I agreed 10 years ago.

CANADA: Muslims were constantly gathering to ‘pray’ in front of churches in Montreal. Now, the Quebec government has officially banned street prayers, considering them an act of provocation. Do you agree?

@MelanieBennet_ Poor William Powell, hanging on this dude's wall.

Change is going to be very difficult for lots of these teachers who've become accustomed to living in an echo chamber of their own making. They will pretend not to understand, they'll protest, and I expect--when that all fails--they'll try to subvert. None of it matters because the majority of parents are done. They just want their kids to learn math without being beaten over the head with social justice moralizing. Teachers will simply have to get used to being told "no."

@gndr_atheist There must be a bunch of sailors cursing, "not loud, but deep."

This is the Canadian navy raising the trans flag on our warships. In the description they are adamant that "transphobia" will not be tolerated & could lead to a "criminal justice process". This is what Canada has come to. Our military threatening citizens to comply with ideology.

@MarkRuffalo Give it a rest. The jig is up.

If you’re in Canada, use this link to find out how to fight back against proposed fossil fuel projects that are destroying our climate and violating the rights of Indigenous peoples. Let’s end fracking and the expansion of LNGs! linktr.ee/NotInOurNation…

@walterkirn Well, there are the rest of us who value your opinions and the way you express them. We are many.

This week in haters: I'm hiding advanced Parkinson's. I went insane when America This Week ended. I'm wasted drunk. I'm paid by Israel. I'm a CIA agent licensed to leak secret scripts of future events. Fun platform.

@JimMcMurtry01 And white males with iq over 90.

@ElectionWiz Their mantra is: "God got it wrong".

DISTURBING: Gavin Newsom’s wife on how she raises her son: “I've given our boys dolls… if I'm reading a book and the protagonist is a male, I just change the 'he' to a 'she.'”

@LarryTaunton Try Taxco Mexico. Eye-popping expressions of faith. Protestantism has lots of room for intense, self-denying expressions of faith.

As a Protestant, this is utterly lost on me. I’ll prefer another Crusaders to this.

@ezralevant Pat Buchanan was a long time mentor. That disdain for Israel goes way back

At a certain point, we have to acknowledge that Tucker 2.0 is not the same as the Tucker 1.0 we all loved. For whatever reason — money, a grudge, a religious conversion — he is now truly, fully, insanely anti-American.

@junonewscom Millions are rooting for him.

Ontario Education Minister Paul Calandra appeared at a teachers’ union event, vowing to “root out” teachers engaged in anything other than student achievement. junonews.com/p/ontario-vows…

@TristinHopper Once Trump occupied every room in their house.

I'm trying to find the exact moment the Liberals discovered they could just announce things, do literally nothing to fulfill the thing, and nobody would care.

@libsoftiktok @Georgetown I know vermin with more morality that this character.

Jonathan Brown, a Professor at @Georgetown, responded to a post calling out Islamic rape gangs in the UK, saying, "Get over it." He deleted the comment, but then DOUBLED DOWN using the SAME disgusting response when another user called him out. Do you support this @Georgetown?