Happy Friday everyone, I am still getting dug out as my work did not do itself while I was onsite with a client this week. Have a safe weekend. Especially if you are in a fire zone or (perhaps as dangerously) experiencing snow and sleet where it does not normally freeze roads.

Megan McCardle posts a qualified defense of “whataboutism”. Which I hate because there is a difference between tu quoque logical fallacies and pointing out that the person you are arguing with is perfectly fine with an entirely analogous situation with different principal actors than the one they are attacking. But much of the, uh, formation of the Glibertarians.com site was based on a perception that TOS had taken to more “principals not principles” reporting.

In a story full of whataboutist attacks and defenses — Roy Moore’s original accuser admits that she added the date and location to the signature in her yearbook, but claims the comment and signature are his. Clarifying my position, I think that Moore almost certainly tried to date women under the age of 18 in his 30s. I think that his blatant disregard for both law and Constitution as a state judge should be disqualifying of anyone voting for him. I think doctored evidence weakens the case that what he did in pursuit of young women (who actually appear to be of legal age to consent at the time, as far as I know) were in any way illegal. I am glad that the attempts to destroy Moore’s candidacy with these allegations have brought to light a culture of harassment in politics and media, and hope that the culture changes.

I am unclear as to why it would be a scandal for Wikileaks to offer information to the Trump campaign. (TW: CNN) I suppose if the campaign believed that the emails were credible AND contained information that should have been confidential to approved government employees, they are probably obliged to report that those are in the wild to appropriate federal authorities. This also seems like whataboutism as both Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin seem to have lied about disclosing the same confidential information

From the not-giving-is-stealing files: Apple to reap $47B windfall in new tax plan. Yet, when you look at the article, that only happens if Apple repatriates money held overseas. In which case the Federal government gets $31.4B in taxes they are not currently able to collect. So the real headline is: Tax Plan nets $31B from Apple.