Bribing Conrose in Summer

You can’t play basketball with broken fingers…

Background

I caught a few minutes of  The Sopranos the other day. The rotund Bobby Bacala made casual mention of how the recently deceased New York boss Carmine Lupertazzi “invented point shaving.” I knew that point shaving was something related to match fixing, but other than that I was clueless, so I looked it up.

When two teams are matched in a sport’s book, the odds on favourite is assigned a number of points they must win by. That statistic is called the spread. So, if The Boston Celtics stand to beat The LA Lakers, and the spread is 10, the Celtics have to win by at least 11 points in order to ‘beat the spread.’ So, if you place a bet on Celtics, they must not only the win the game, they must beat the spread for you to collect.

Points shaving is the act of manipulating the outcome of a game by the participants (and often backed by the Mob). Normally, this translates to the odds on favourite intentionally committing errors resulting in either the loss of the game, or failing to cover the spread. Basketball is particularity prone to this sort of manipulation, for it only takes two or three dishonest starting players to control the fate of their team – and it is very hard to detect.

Henry Hill (yes, that Henry Hill, from Goodfellas) wrote a fascinating, if grammatically suspicious, piece for Sports Illustrated on the 1978-79 Boston College points shaving scandal he perpetrated with James Burke (yes, De Niro’s character from Goodfellas). As an aside, why those events were not portrayed in the film is at least somewhat surprising. An elaborate plot to fix games, big money won and lost, fresh faced but cynical athletes who know they are never going to make it to the NBA, and all happening within days of the Lufthansa Heist. I suppose one must pick and choose.

A problem to solve when fixing games is how to bet large amounts of money without raising suspicion. Bookies can’t normally accept very large bets or too many small bets on single games (if they do, they will normally “lay off” some part of the wager(s) with another bookie, hence limiting risk). If betting patterns indicate an abnormal spike in wagering (especially against a favourite) the mobsters will have tipped their hand – the fix is in. The way the mob solves this, is to make very many small wagers with very many bookies across a very large geographical area, thus making it very difficult to detect the hanky panky.

The Point

Apple pie Christian family values America is a fantasy, and yet that ideal still holds great sway in both the political arena and the cultural discussion. The attitude to sports gambling is a case in point. According to a 1999 Gambling Impact Study, $2.5 billion a year is wagered legally on sports in Las Vegas casinos. Compare that to the $380 billion wagered illegally on sports across The United States, and the economic reality becomes clear. The argument to legalize sports gambling and collect the considerable taxation revenue, for gambling that will and does happen with or without government sanction, is only countered by very tenuous slippery slope arguments – impossible to prove, and rarely persuasive regardless of the context.

Fascinating is the disconnect between the idealized American and the actual American. Not so much for the Americans’ failure to live up to an unattainable ideal, but for the importance placed on the ideal. Americans would prefer a $380 billion dollar a year industry go unchecked and mob run, then to publicly acknowledge that Americans, including the average Joe with a job and a mortgage, like to put a few dollars on a game now and then.

Blame Jesus. Whether you are a biblical literalist or a wet behind the ears Christian liberal, Jesus Christ plays a role model. Even within Christian scholarship, the way to cope with the Old Testament sewn into the same leaves as The Sermon on the Mount, is to read the bible “Always with Jesus in mind.” If Jesus would have approved, then it is okay. If he wouldn’t, then it isn’t. This also serves to combat accusations of cherry picking (unsuccessfully in my mind, but that’s another topic).

Religion informs American values like no other culprit, and Jesus Christ is their number one dude. Jesus would never bet on a Knicks game, therefore, for the government to condone such a thing would be a gross transgression of values (won’t someone please think of the children!). That might seem like an oversimplification, that I am ignoring the social impact of gambling, that serious and secular arguments against legalized gambling can be made. Secular arguments against gambling are beside the point, for no secular person argues that the very act of gambling is amoral. That argument can only be made by the religious.

In conclusion, if it is political suicide for a politician to get up and say: “Let’s legislate away a $380 billion a year industry from organized crime, regulate it, make it safe, and add to the public coffer,” then we need an explanation as to why. My guess: it is the notion of the idealized American cloaked in a blanket of religiously informed values. How pathetic.

Robin Lindsay

rockrobinoff[at]gmail.com

Hitch Slap the Lefties

I can ask the question 50 times as well as you can, and answer it 50 times as comprehensively

My social group consists mainly of lefty and guilt ridden white people. Eager to recognize the crimes of the west, the sun had not yet set on Sept 11th 2001 when I heard my first what part did we play to bring this upon ourselves? The Americans had spread empire and, if I may be permitted to borrow an apposite if tired idiom to describe the attitude, their chickens were coming home to roost.

I can’t do better than Christopher (in fact, I can’t do it half as well) in dispelling the self hating fantasy of educated liberals. However, perhaps I can add something to the picture. Let’s start with the most common fallacy:

Poverty and cultural imperialism breeds terrorists. Access to education and the prospects of a decent standard of living are the way to fight terrorism.

The Sept 11th hijackers were university educated to the man, and many had PHDs. They came from wealthy Saudi families, traveled abroad and experienced the west first hand. They came from a land that can be safely described as isolated – money flows in and oil flows out being the extent of the cultural interchange between Saudi Arabia and the rest of the world. A disenfranchised young man with no future may describe the typical Palestinian suicide bomber, but does not describe the sophisticated Al-Qaeda terrorist, or inform his motivations.

Islamofascism is a neologism born of not wanting to have to say “Fascism with an Islamic face” every time. Still, its a perfect description of the world’s most dangerous death cult. Religiously motivated (what else?) and desiring to return the world to some infantilized 7th century Islamic paradise and restore the caliphate. Well funded and armed, and peopled not by the down trodden, but by well fed Saudis raised believing there is only one book.

“…we need to establish true Islamic states, implement sharia, and rid the Muslim world of any non-Muslim influences, such as concepts like socialism and nationalism.  “…we need to rid the world of treacherous Orientalists and world Jewry who plot conspiracies and wickedly oppose Islam.”

Speaking above is the founder of Qutbism and father of the Islamic revival of the 1970s, Sayyid Qutb. His writings and teachings are the philosophical backbone of Al-Qaeda. Sayyid doesn’t make mention of downtrodden Muslims needing to fight back against corporate America lest their cultural identity be squashed, but the monolithic method and goal of  “armed Jihad in the advance of Islam.”

Let’s end with this simple point. Islamic terrorism is not a response to American foreign policy. It is a response to Islam, however twisted.

Robin Lindsay

rockrobinoff[at]gmail.com

Because I Said So

Innate doesn’t have to mean always has and always will be, only that it is so right now.

Innate morality is a well grooved standard of many a secularist when faced with the equally gouged interrogative: without God, where do you get your morals from? and the corollary how can anything be called right or wrong without an outside agency setting a standard?

For a time I was satisfied with the genetic argument; that it was necessary for our species to possess predispositions toward fairness, fidelity, and  kindness to those around us (our family, group, tribe, town, city, and nation, in about that order of priority, and commonly referred to in evolutionary terms as kin selection). Without an innate desire to help your neighbour (and for he to help you) our chances of surviving the harsh prehistoric landscape would have been very grim indeed. On the surface, a perfectly cogent argument defeating any argument for the necessity for a codified and objective morality.

But but but. Let’s return to the notion of genetic, or, more precisely, evolved morality. There is a germ of implication here that my chromosonally challenged and prefontally retarded mind cannot reconcile with the notion of innate morality (or ethics, I use the terms interchangeably).

If we are evolved and evolving* hominids, then the hominids we are evolving toward may very well lack innate morality.

Innate implies genetic, and genetic implies gene, and genes are selected for. Therefore, it is conceivable at a minimum that environmental factors in the future may be such that a lack of moral intelligence will be an evolutionary advantage. It is also conceivable that due to environmental change, that a wholly foreign, radically alien, social behavior might become the moral standard of non homo sapien hominids.

Before I am accused of moral relativism, let’s make this point perfectly clear. One can argue for a universal moral standard as it applies to human beings, regardless of culture or creed or nationality, and think that same morality does not apply to, say, earthworms, spiders, rabbits, lions, or lemurs. Those species seem to want something somewhat different out of life, and so may the creatures we evolve to be.

So, here we are left with the danger, if it can be called a danger, of moving away from a species that emphasizes fairness, courage, love, kindness, etc. to a species that may no longer value those traits. Is that a problem? I think a perfectly reasonable case can be made for either side of that debate. If a conclusion is drawn that such a state of affairs is a problem, then what that species will need is a book saying what is right and what is wrong. A bible, divine or not.

*Whether or not human beings are still evolving may seem like an obvious question. Of course we are. We are animals subject to our environment. But that process may very well have slowed to a trickle. I ask you to reflect on what Darwin said about islands, and the necessity of quarantining groups within a species so the same sets of genes are not passed on endlessly. Nowadays, the Earth is one giant breeding harem.

Robin Lindsay

rockrobinoff[at]gmail.com

On The Divine Right of Kings

Atheism is an empty word. A word so completely devoid of content that it implies nothing more than it’s most basic claim: I am unconvinced.

Characterizing a worldview in the negative is fraught with unfortunate and unnecessary problems. How often do we take up a position by stating what we do not believe? It requires of the listener to make a host of assumptions and inferences in order to finally arrive at whatever the speaker is getting at – and all of this easily avoided if only the speaker had spoken in the positive.

I do not believe in the divine right of kings to rule. On the surface, such a statement seems reasonable enough, but is unfortunate in its wording for failing to imply whatever alternative system of government the speaker does support. The speaker could be a democrat, communist, anarchist, oligarchical theocrat, or simply indifferent to all forms of government other than monarchies. It should be plain, that by stating what one does believe, such as “I believe in democracy” allows for both natural and highly accurate assumptions about the balance of the speaker’s worldview. If one is a democrat, one does not believe in having a king.

I am an atheist is an unfortunate sentence construction. It spreads confusion for being a statement in the positive that contains a word which is an assertion in the negative. By claiming to be an atheist, one says very little beyond: I do not believe in God. One could possess a litany of reasons and supporting logic that lead to atheism, or one could have thought very little about the subject and simply think atheism perfectly natural. Yet again, someone could be an atheist for all sorts of very poorly thought out reasons, or for no reason whatsoever, and be an atheist arbitrarily. Finally, one may not have even been exposed to the concept of God, and might be an atheist by default.

An atheist might be a racist, astrologer, communist, utterly incapable of rational thought or a supremely talented logician. An atheist might be anything. Unlike a self identified democrat, who must reject and embrace a host of concepts in order to meaningfully call themselves a democrat. The same can be said for a Christian, Muslim, or Jew.

I believe in rational inquiry. In fact, when it comes to what I can honestly say I believe in, I only believe in rational inquiry and the natural inferences (a respect for logic, evidence, etc). Because there is no proof that one should have respect for rational inquiry (rationality cannot justify itself) I think it appropriate to call my respect a belief, much like a Christian believes in the divinity of Jesus Christ. However, what is also true, is that the Christian’s belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ, and my respect for rational inquiry are at odds, and there the conflict lies.

So, while I am an atheist, my atheism is simply a tiny component of a worldview that is rooted in a respect for rational inquiry. I reject a biblical (et al) god because such a belief does not mesh with the one leap of faith I do take. Much like a democrat probably believes in a secret ballot, I reject God. No biggie.

Robin Lindsay

rockrobinoff[at]gmail.com

The Canvas Versus The Junkyard

My universe is a junkyard full of classic cars and radioactive waste

Those of us that espouse a worldview that can be reasonably couched by the umbrella term mechanistic, are routinely assassinated by the accusation of being arrogant. Furthermore, when we are lying on the pavement and struggling for breath, our attackers stand and gawk and then raise their heel to deliver the final blow: narrow minded.

If the universe of ideas, unsifted and shaded from scrutiny, is a wide and busy canvas, then yes, for every idea rejected the canvas becomes narrower, less rich, and loses a drop of majesty. Then again, if the universe of ideas is a junkyard to be picked, where all around are wrecks, foul pools of water, and a mangy dog, and all the while there are hidden treasures to be searched for amongst the ephemera, then the very act of rejection is one of liberation, of seeking clarity, of discovering truth.

While we are at it, let’s address a paradox. The very act of rejecting a monolithic worldview, to suggest that viewing the universe through a narrow lens is square or silly or without merit, is in itself narrow minded. If we are going to be honest about the topic, there might very well be one or few accurate or meaningful ways of exploring the universe, and to dismiss that notion out of hand is to commit a great intellectual sin. An indefensible transgression if there ever was one in the realm of philosophy.

So, lets be frank stoner hippie religious apologist cosmic relativist, there is nothing inherently honest about adopting a worldview that by default bends over backwards to be inclusive. Or, as someone much smarter than I am once pointed out: there is such a thing as being so open minded that your brains fall out.

Robin Lindsay

rockrobinoff[at]gmail.com

Crazy People are Boring

So I removed him.

My attitude toward social networking has remained essentially unchanged since the days of Myspace.com (I missed out on the Friendster phenom). One is not to take net-based socializing seriously, or perhaps more to the point, not to take it any more seriously than a bit of gossip bookended by a game of Scrabble and shoe box of embarrassing photos from 1994. However, a recent event has me feeling a bit sick and longing for my halcyon days of care free networking.

Robin Lindsay thinks your philosophical outlook amounts to: what if we are all living in the matrix… dude?

Above is a status update of mine. Typical for being mostly non serious, but also for the subject matter being a favourite target of mine: flakey cosmic stoner philosophy. It quickly resulted in a few comments by those who got the joke, and then a full on and remorseless debate between myself and a routine antagonist. That debate, like most, I welcomed, and despite being a confrontation with little quarter given and no end in sight, was not a vehicle for bruised feelings or personal insults.

But in walked another. You know the type. Overly sincere. Irony is lost on them. Somewhat paranoid. This fellow from my past injected himself into a conversation above his head, and when I failed to agree with his assertion that “I should stop wasting my time with…” had this to say:

“you are controlled by emotion. you would state the opposite of what I said, no matter which, if only to be contrary. you have no control of yourself and could easily[sic]played like a fiddle.”

I gave him the chance to explain this overtly hostile and insulting remark, but he pressed on with “you always disagree with what I say” and a list of further character assassinations. For the record, we have had precisely one other conversation, very short, and unremarkable. So, I did the only thing I thought appropriate: I deleted his posts for being embarrassing to the both of us, and removed him from my friends list.

Ugh. Much like a draftee might resent his government for turning him into a killer, I now resent my former friend for making me be harsh with him – to take Facebook seriously. The situation is further complicated by what might be a real-life encounter at a NYE party, hosted by a mutual friend.

I feel compelled to write to an advice columnist. Perhaps Prudence, at Slate.

Dear Prudie,

A nutter insulted me on Facebook and then I deleted him. I might have to see him on NYE, and don’t know how to handle it. What should I do? Avert my eyes? Pretend nothing happened? Try to make peace? Prepare for hostilities to continue?

Crazy-people-are-boring-and-make-my-life-hard.

Fun and Mental Seeks Marriage of Ancient Philosophy and Nuclear Weapons

Some faiths are better than others.

The debates between religious apologists and those critical of religion often run aground for the question of fundamentalism. The secular liberal, eager to avoid even a hint of a whiff of cultural imperialism, concedes that yes, religious fundamentalists are dangerous and a problem. But always with the caveat …but as they represent a minority, we cannot condemn a religion for the acts of bad apples.

The fundamental tenet of Jainism is non violence. To arrive at this very natural conclusion about the philosophy of Jainism does not require one to cut a path through a dense intellectual jungle of contradictions, or perform acrobatics to arrive safely and well poised on the mat of moral certainty in regards to Jainism. To be a Jain is to be non violent, and no manner of twisting or interpretation will lead even the most devout Jain to blow themselves up in a Bombay market. To be a Jain extremist is to walk with your eyes focused on the ground so as to avoid squishing a bug underfoot, or to filter your water with cheese cloth so as to avoid eating same. Simply put: the more crazy the Jain, the less we have to worry about them.

Something similar can be said of Quakers and the Amish et al. Those religions are religions of passivity. No imaginable corruption of faith would permit a Quaker to reconcile their Quakerism with blowing up a school bus. Something similar can not be said of the world’s most popular religion among suicide bombers.

There is no such thing as Quaker military jurisprudence, or Amish military jurisprudence, or Jain military jurisprudence. Islamic military jurisprudence, on the other hand, is all too real and consequential. A set of laws (and not the only set) evolving from the Qur’an and the Hadith, and used not merely as justification for deadly violence, but for engaging in said violence with enthusiasm and total certainty that one is virtuous for spreading death in the name of Allah.

It should be plain that fundamentalism is not a problem per se. Fundamentalist Quakers will not turn to beheading journalists to further Quakerism, and will not be at the controls of the next airplane to hit a skyscraper at 800 kilometers an hour. The natural inference, and if you take nothing else from this please take this; it matters what the books say.

The enlightened secular liberal, full of respect for notions of cultural diversity and relative values, and readily and desperately acknowledging a so called ‘sophisticated’ faith a few of his friends espouse, views the religiously motivated terrorist as being anything but religiously motivated. He points to American imperialism. He points to economic hardship. He points to the myriad of local factors that result in disenfranchised young men turning to Islam for having nothing else… to turn to. But what is this Islam? Are we to take the specifics of this faith as incidental?

To sum: if you had to choose a religion for the country next door, and you had to choose between Wahabi Islam and The United Church, which would you choose? If you think the only appropriate means of choosing is flipping a coin, then you disagree with everything said thus far. Otherwise, you admit that some religions are preferable, and the reason they are preferable is for the literal meaning of their written philosophy.

Robin Lindsay

rockrobinoff[at]gmail.com

When Sally Met Ann

There are moral truths, or the word moral is an empty word.

In The Moral Landscape, Sam Harris asks the reader to abandon what has become a cliche in the philosophy of science; that science has nothing to say about morality.  We must first accept a premise: for something to be moral, it must foster well being in sentient creatures. To put it differently, if an action that runs counter to well being can be called moral, then morality ceases to have any purchase on the real world. To have any meaning whatsoever.

The secular world often bumps heads with the religious over this very point. If one gets their morality from God, then what is moral is mandated by the heavens, or more accurately, by an ancient semi-literate desert-dweller for whom a wheelbarrow is an emergent technology. Don’t be fooled, the marriage of morality and God is not limited to fringe elements, but is a mainstream belief held by millions of Christians and Muslims alike.

Take this utterly disgusting and disturbing piece of news brought to my attention just yesterday. The Salvation Army is threatening to withdraw its services as a charitable organization in NYC if benefits are offered to same sex employees. The Salvation Army may feed the hungry and heal the sick for their religious convictions, but will snatch it away just as quickly for same. Last March, Catholic Charities in Washington DC had a less extreme reaction to similar legislation for same sex benefits, and withdrew all employee benefits  lest they be forced into recognizing a same sex union.

The immorality of such actions threatened by the Salvation Army and perpetrated by the Catholics is obvious and extreme. To wield the downtrodden as a blunt and disposable political weapon against secular society is an unforgivable transgression of simple human values, and without justification – that is, unless one subscribes to a morality inspired by the heavens.

There exists a divide. There are those who seek practical solutions, and out of a sense of humanist solidarity, or for the simple notion that charity, welfare, and healthcare are in the best interests of everyone. Then there are those who also believe in good works, and yet require divine permission to carry them out. Those that believe what happens on this Earth is not as important as what happens in heaven. That those same good works are subordinate to the word of God.

A hypothesis: human suffering will increase if a publicly subsidized religious charity closes shop in NYC.

A yes or no question, testable, and falsifiable. Science.

Robin Lindsay

rockrobinoff[at]gmail.com

Get Over It

There is little less interesting in this world than a cry of offense.

Everyone has their own pet peeves, strongly held beliefs, personal causes, demons, family tragedies, favourite music, and hang ups. One approach to dealing with this rich tapestry of toes, is to be forever on the alert lest one inadvertently make someone else feel bad. The other, is to get over yourself, and insist others do the same.

The Golden Rule, dating back to (at the absolute latest) Confucius, is a simple mandate to treat others as you would be treated. It is core to Christianity and Judaism (though, for the overwhelming balance of their joint history, that rule applied only to other Christians and Jews respectively) and is likely innate to all of us. That said, the Judeo-Christian golden check and balance for poor behavior breaks down for assumptions.

I am not interested in not being offended. There is nothing in my makeup that insists my worldview is in the least bit deserving of respect. I may defend it with vitriolic passion and boundless energy, but in no way am I bruised for someone who might mock it, dismiss it, or demean it. I welcome the criticism when it is intelligent and well argued, and ignore it when it is presented poorly or merely ad hominem. Regardless, my panties will never twist for someone who might think I am full of it.

Be that as it may, offense should never be an end unto itself. Merely saying or doing something purely to cause grief in other humans is rude, or nothing is. However, the flip side of the responsibility of politeness, is to never assume something was said only for the purpose of causing offense. To assume the offender is causing offense for its own sake is to break an important social contract, and smacks of dreary cynicism. Apply the golden rule: would you like someone who has taken something you said poorly to assume you were only doing it to bother them, or would you rather them give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume you had good reason to say what you did?

So, I apply the golden rule, and for doing so I am uninterested in what causes offense. My advice for those easily hurt, get over yourself, it is likely a central tenet of whatever it is you believe in, often termed as “selflessness.”

Robin Lindsay

rockrobinoff[at]gmail.com

The Blair Hitch Project

Former Prime Minister and Catholic convert Tony Blair exchanged fire with famed scribbler and atheist Christopher Hitchens over: Be it resolved, religion is a force for good in the world.

Before the start of hostilities, an audience poll was taken to determine how the interested public felt about the topic at hand:

PRE-DEBATE
PRO: 22%  CON:57%
UNDECIDED:21%

A further relevant question come statistic also proved enlightening – the percentage of those open to changing their minds based on what they might hear over the next 90 minutes: 75%

I have watched many a religious debate featuring Hitch, and felt going in that Tony Blair was the open question. The PM may have a towering intellect, a fine capacity for public speaking and thinking on his feet, and would obviously come prepared or not at all. However, across from him is the preeminent professional atheist. Yes, Hitchens has his ladle in many broths, from Iraq War apologetics to literary criticism, but nobody argues faith with such style as our ailing child of Portsmouth. Years spent traveling from town to town arguing with the parties of God puts a fine edge on a debaters tongue, so I feared Blair would come off as less than fully committed to the subject.

To a limited degree my fears proved to be reality, as Tony perpetrated a (unintentional) falsehood, one often made by those who wish to make known that atheism is dangerous as well. Tony pointed to the first half of the 20th century and the role Hitler and Stalin played in spreading misery from a fascist and secular helm. Due to time constraints Hitch let that go, so I will do my best to pick up the gauntlet.

Above is the standard issue belt buckle for the German armed forces in WW2. Gott Mit Uns translates to God With Us. Say what you want about perversions of faith or the cynical application of religion for propaganda, but neither the German military nor The Nazi Party were secular.

Further evidence against claims that the Nazis were secular fascists is provided by an Austrian corporal by the name of Adolf Hitler. From Mein Kampf:

“Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.”

“My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice… And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.”

Again, a perverse and bizarre faith held by a man also aptly characterized by those adjectives, and in no way can one make the claim that religious faith was responsible for the European horror of the 30s and 40s. However, what also must be accepted as plain, is that Adolf Hitler and the doctrine of the Nazi Party were not secular.

So Tony, that’s one.

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”

Tony’s second mistake was claiming Einstein for the faithful, so lets see what else our favourite megabrain had to say on the subject.

“… the man who is thoroughly convinced of the universal operation of the law of causation cannot for a moment entertain the idea of a being who interferes in the course of events.”

At most, Einstein can be considered a deist, although even then…

“The miracle is that it all works, that there are no miracles.”

So, that’s two Tony, but we forgive you, ’cause you are a bit new at this, and many a very smart fellow falls into the Nazis were atheists and Einstein believed in God pit.

The result? People changed their minds:

Post-Debate

Pro: 32%  Con: 68%

Watch it

Robin Lindsay

rockrobinoff[at]gmail.com