After that article was written, the big news is that Eliot Cohen, a Never Trumper who was on the Douthat side of the "should good people serve Trump, or not" argument has now changed his mind:
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Pretty much what you would expect with a Breitbart transition team
Career civil servants should not serve in the Trump administration.
After that article was written, the big news is that Eliot Cohen, a Never Trumper who was on the Douthat side of the "should good people serve Trump, or not" argument has now changed his mind:
After that article was written, the big news is that Eliot Cohen, a Never Trumper who was on the Douthat side of the "should good people serve Trump, or not" argument has now changed his mind:
A topical article
Can Steve Bannon and Breitbart News Be Both Pro-Israel and Anti-Semitic? - Israel – Forward.com
Short answer: yes. From the article:
Short answer: yes. From the article:
Breitbart News isn’t the only place where anti-Semitism and ZionismAnd more:
go hand in hand. Anti-Semitic attitudes abound in Poland, for example,
even as Poland has a strong diplomatic relationship with Israel.
This duality is a central component of “Trumpism,” said Yael
Sternhell, a Tel Aviv University professor of history and American
studies. Though Trump has flip-flopped on the Middle East, he has
professed an ultra-right view of Israel that would seem to outflank even
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He also has a Jewish
son-in-law, and a daughter who converted to Judaism. At the same time,
many of Trump’s followers spout anti-Semitism.
“As long as Jews are in Israel fighting the ‘good fight’ with the
Arab world as a bastion of American ideals and values in the Middle
East, then they are very useful and admirable allies,” said Sternhell.
“Once they are home demanding a multi-cultural democracy, demanding that
the country accommodate their religion, their belief and their custom
that is a different story.”
Some on the alt-right, the emerging group of racist activists who
support Trump, oppose the close U.S.-Israel relationship as part of a
broader critique of U.S. interventionism abroad. Yet they admire Israel
as a “model for white nationalism and/or Christianism,” according to the
right-wing online encyclopedia Conservapedia. Some also see Jewish
immigration to Israel as helping their cause of a Jew-free white
America.
The coexistence of anti-Semitism and right-Wing Zionism “in Trump’s world
make sense,” said Todd Gitlin, the Columbia University sociologist and
cultural commentator in an email to the Forward.
“Anti-Semitism and right-wing Zionism are varieties of ultra
nationalism, or, to put it more pejoratively (as it deserves to be put)
tribalism. They both presume that the embattled righteous ones need to
bristle at, wall off, and punish the damned outsiders. They hate and
fear cosmopolitan mixtures. They make a fetish of purity. They have the
same soul. They rhyme.”
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Yes, pretty stupid
Group of U-Va. students, faculty ‘deeply offended’ by Thomas Jefferson being quoted at school he founded - The Washington Post
Talk about playing into the hands of the Trumpian anti-political correctness overreaction. Although, as someone in comments says, the university does have 20,000 students and "only" 469 signed the letter; so is it a case of the media playing up university level immaturity? To an extent, probably; but there were faculty members signing too....
Talk about playing into the hands of the Trumpian anti-political correctness overreaction. Although, as someone in comments says, the university does have 20,000 students and "only" 469 signed the letter; so is it a case of the media playing up university level immaturity? To an extent, probably; but there were faculty members signing too....
Mary Beard on the Trump election
Her article about how she missed the late night drama of the Trump election is both witty and serious. Her last paragraphs:
Trump and Trump’s policies are truly ghastly, but you have to face the fact that a very large number of people actually voted for him. What is more, resentment at “the elite” has morphed into a proud contempt for truth, expertise and knowledge – not unlike Michael Gove’s jibe at “experts” before the Brexit vote. And in the broader context of political rhetoric, the idea that he won’t be as bad as he claimed is more, rather than less, worrying. I thought that the conciliatory speech was the worst thing I had heard all evening. The idea that he could be thanking Clinton for her service to the country (“I mean that very sincerely”) and be speaking of “binding the wounds of division” – when only the day before he’d promised to impeach her and poured salt into the very wounds he was now promising to heal – beggars belief. It has nothing to do with being “gracious” (as the television pundits had it), and everything to do with words not meaning anything. It was precisely what ancient rhetorical and political theorists feared almost more than anything else: that speech might not be true, and the corrosive effect of that on popular power.
So if we have a big job in a Trump (and Brexit) world, it is not simply to limit the damage. It is also to restore the place of knowledge as necessary for the political process, and not as something that merely reeks of privilege – and to revalue the nature of rhetoric, from “Crooked Hillary” to “taking back control”. Politicians may always have lied, but at least the Greeks and Romans worried about that. We have come almost to take it for granted.
Obama's right
I just saw a clip on the new of Obama saying regarding Trump something close to this: "I don't think he's ideological, really. He's more of a pragmatist, which can be a good thing. It depends on the people he surrounds himself with. Am I worried about his administration - of course I am."
Yes, it's Obama being generous, and assessing Trump right. I mean it's abundantly clear, the number of times Trump contradicts himself, that he has no well thought out ideological positions. He tells the audience what he thinks they need to hear in order to advance his own self interest.
To take a skerrick of "looking on the bright side" on Trump*, there is a case to be made that a Cruz presidency would have been more dangerous, because you can't imagine him ever changing a position based on pragmatism winning over ideology. He would be absolutely impervious to contrary advice.
The crucial thing with Trump, though, is that with the appointment of Bannon as adviser, and a likely cabal of ideologically driven AGW deniers/lukewarmers and economic Laffer-ites around him, there is virtually no reason to believe he will get sound advice.
* although this may end up being as fruitless an exercise as asking whether Mussolini, if he were German, would have made a better leader for pre-war Germany than Hitler.
Yes, it's Obama being generous, and assessing Trump right. I mean it's abundantly clear, the number of times Trump contradicts himself, that he has no well thought out ideological positions. He tells the audience what he thinks they need to hear in order to advance his own self interest.
To take a skerrick of "looking on the bright side" on Trump*, there is a case to be made that a Cruz presidency would have been more dangerous, because you can't imagine him ever changing a position based on pragmatism winning over ideology. He would be absolutely impervious to contrary advice.
The crucial thing with Trump, though, is that with the appointment of Bannon as adviser, and a likely cabal of ideologically driven AGW deniers/lukewarmers and economic Laffer-ites around him, there is virtually no reason to believe he will get sound advice.
* although this may end up being as fruitless an exercise as asking whether Mussolini, if he were German, would have made a better leader for pre-war Germany than Hitler.
About banking regulation
Trump Should Repeal Frank Dodd - And Replace It With Obama And Clinton's Sensible Alternative
This isn't a topic I devote time to studying, but news of soaring bank stocks due to their anticipation that they'll be less regulated under Trump should, I would have thought, make anyone with more than a goldfish memory when it comes to financial crises a tad nervous.
Tim Worstall makes a reasonable sounding suggestion here, but it involves a new tax, and what hope is there that the GOP would run with that?
Update: I was just looking at other columns by Worstall, and noticed in comments to one in which he sites a "ridiculous EU regulation" story, it is noted that he is a UKIP supporter. I had overlooked that before. His credibility just took a large hit.
This isn't a topic I devote time to studying, but news of soaring bank stocks due to their anticipation that they'll be less regulated under Trump should, I would have thought, make anyone with more than a goldfish memory when it comes to financial crises a tad nervous.
Tim Worstall makes a reasonable sounding suggestion here, but it involves a new tax, and what hope is there that the GOP would run with that?
Update: I was just looking at other columns by Worstall, and noticed in comments to one in which he sites a "ridiculous EU regulation" story, it is noted that he is a UKIP supporter. I had overlooked that before. His credibility just took a large hit.
Wow. Filipino crazy leader more reasonable than the GOP
Philippines to ratify climate pact
The Philippines will ratify a global pact aimed at taming climate change,What's it say about the Republicans that nutty and dangerous Duterte accepts this better than they seem able to?
President Rodrigo Duterte said Monday, reversing his opposition to the
historic United Nations agreement he previously dubbed "crazy".
In announcing the decision to sign up to the Paris Agreement, Duterte said he still
had misgivings but his cabinet members overwhelmingly disagreed with
him.
"After so much debate, the climate change (agreement), I will sign it because it was a unanimous vote except for one or two (in cabinet)," Duterte told reporters.
The Sun is cooler, but not the Earth
Record heat despite a cold sun - RealClimate
An important post here at Real Climate, showing how the temperature is going up despite the sun being slightly cooler.
Make sure you read to the end, where you can read of the failed predictions of Australian skeptic Archibald in 2009.
An important post here at Real Climate, showing how the temperature is going up despite the sun being slightly cooler.
Make sure you read to the end, where you can read of the failed predictions of Australian skeptic Archibald in 2009.
Reasons I find it hard to blame Hillary Clinton for her loss
It's not that I am exactly a fan of Hillary Clinton, but I couldn't really see the aged Bernie Sanders doing well in this election either; and I don't really know why the Democrats could not come up with a third, younger alternative. But all of this post election analysis makes me feel sorry for Clinton when people start pointing the finger at her, for the following reasons:
* as people now realise, the vote for Trump was not huge - it just happened in the right States;
* when it comes down to a matter of 100,000 or so votes in 3 states, then Clinton probably can plausibly site the Comey late intervention as a key factor - it clearly did influence polls close to the election; it may well have energised the turnout for the Trump vote, and suppressed the turnout for Clinton, just enough to swing it Trump's way;
* by election eve, the near universal media opinion that, despite the FBI situation, Clinton was going to win may also have suppressed her voter turnout just enough to swing the election, too. Why vote if she looks a certainty anyway?
* it's not Clinton's fault she came down with mild pneumonia, sufficient to give the Right wing conspiracists video with which to run their ridiculous "she's about to die" propaganda. The effect of Right wing media/social media information bubble is so important to where American politics are at the moment, and no one really knows how to overcome it.
* the "deplorables" comment was not as bad as it was made out to be when the full context is read. It was a mistake, but I find it hard to condemn her for it, given that the true argument is really only over the exact percent of deplorables in the Trump camp.
* as people now realise, the vote for Trump was not huge - it just happened in the right States;
* when it comes down to a matter of 100,000 or so votes in 3 states, then Clinton probably can plausibly site the Comey late intervention as a key factor - it clearly did influence polls close to the election; it may well have energised the turnout for the Trump vote, and suppressed the turnout for Clinton, just enough to swing it Trump's way;
* by election eve, the near universal media opinion that, despite the FBI situation, Clinton was going to win may also have suppressed her voter turnout just enough to swing the election, too. Why vote if she looks a certainty anyway?
* it's not Clinton's fault she came down with mild pneumonia, sufficient to give the Right wing conspiracists video with which to run their ridiculous "she's about to die" propaganda. The effect of Right wing media/social media information bubble is so important to where American politics are at the moment, and no one really knows how to overcome it.
* the "deplorables" comment was not as bad as it was made out to be when the full context is read. It was a mistake, but I find it hard to condemn her for it, given that the true argument is really only over the exact percent of deplorables in the Trump camp.
Things you probably didn't realise about the white female vote in the US
White Female Voters Continue to Support the Republican Party - The Atlantic
The flood of post-election analysis we are seeing is turning up some interesting stuff - such as the point made in this article that no one should really be surprised that white women didn't rush to support Hillary. The fact is, as a group, they've been leaning GOP for a while now.
The flood of post-election analysis we are seeing is turning up some interesting stuff - such as the point made in this article that no one should really be surprised that white women didn't rush to support Hillary. The fact is, as a group, they've been leaning GOP for a while now.
An interesting bit of activist journalism here
Do You Have Information About Abortions Trump May Have Paid For? Let Us Know.
Many people read Trump's non- answer to Maureen Dowd earlier this year as strongly indicating he has paid for a girlfriend, or wife, to have an abortion. If he has, and a huge slab of his voting base were vehement pro-lifers, I think we have a right to know whether he has or hasn't, especially in light of his policy to now assist the restriction of abortion.
I suppose his dimwit followers might just forgive him, just as they have his history of adultery and fornication. But Democrats forgive sexual indiscretion in politicians, too. Maybe both sides take hypocrisy on abortion more seriously?
Many people read Trump's non- answer to Maureen Dowd earlier this year as strongly indicating he has paid for a girlfriend, or wife, to have an abortion. If he has, and a huge slab of his voting base were vehement pro-lifers, I think we have a right to know whether he has or hasn't, especially in light of his policy to now assist the restriction of abortion.
I suppose his dimwit followers might just forgive him, just as they have his history of adultery and fornication. But Democrats forgive sexual indiscretion in politicians, too. Maybe both sides take hypocrisy on abortion more seriously?
Krugman predicts
Interesting to note that Paul Krugman warns, as he did with Brexit, that people should not expect the US economy to tank in the short term just because of the Trump election. In the long term - yes, sure, his policies are terrible in virtually all respects.
But it can take a while for bad decisions to fully kick in with their economic effects.
But it can take a while for bad decisions to fully kick in with their economic effects.
Monday, November 14, 2016
So easily swayed
What a ridiculously gullible fellow Adam Creighton proves to be. Heaps of empathy for women too, obviously. (It's not the first time I've noticed his empathy issues, too.)
He's most interested in the one about the 11 herbs and spices...
Donald Trump is about to learn all of America's 'deep secrets'
(I bet I didn't get to make that joke first.)
(I bet I didn't get to make that joke first.)
Needs more analysis
I see that Right wing sites, and conservative Catholic blogs are crowing about Trump doing well with Catholics, although the current analysis is based on exit polls which, I thought, had been shown up again as not that accurate. Anyway, this is despite evidence from before the election that Trump was not doing well with Catholics.
The Tablet provides a little bit more perspective - pointing out that Trump did well with white Catholics:
Actually, he did as well as Romney did with the white Catholic vote - something that I hadn't realised before.
But Hispanics - still a long way to go to convince a majority of them.
The Tablet also notes in another article that, when it comes to "liberal" referenda which the Church was against, they were still nearly all passed, which suggests that the power of the conservative Catholic vote is not what Conservative Catholics think it's cracked up to be.
So, there is this ongoing difficult question of whether this Catholic vote is coming from mere "cultural Catholics", or actively practising ones. There is strong evidence, of course, that a small minority of even Mass attending Catholics adhere to the Church's teaching on reproductive health; despite pockets of Conservative Catholic leadership (Cardinal Burke has announced his pleasure at Trump's win, for example), there is a pretty good case that the congregations are quite liberal. But it is not that easy to find research which differentiates between types of Catholics.
Hence, I would be interested to see more research on this topic.
And on a final note: look how consistent the Jewish vote is for Democrats in that graphic above. Jewish neighbourhoods in the States are not going to be happy at the moment.
The Tablet provides a little bit more perspective - pointing out that Trump did well with white Catholics:
Actually, he did as well as Romney did with the white Catholic vote - something that I hadn't realised before.
But Hispanics - still a long way to go to convince a majority of them.
The Tablet also notes in another article that, when it comes to "liberal" referenda which the Church was against, they were still nearly all passed, which suggests that the power of the conservative Catholic vote is not what Conservative Catholics think it's cracked up to be.
So, there is this ongoing difficult question of whether this Catholic vote is coming from mere "cultural Catholics", or actively practising ones. There is strong evidence, of course, that a small minority of even Mass attending Catholics adhere to the Church's teaching on reproductive health; despite pockets of Conservative Catholic leadership (Cardinal Burke has announced his pleasure at Trump's win, for example), there is a pretty good case that the congregations are quite liberal. But it is not that easy to find research which differentiates between types of Catholics.
Hence, I would be interested to see more research on this topic.
And on a final note: look how consistent the Jewish vote is for Democrats in that graphic above. Jewish neighbourhoods in the States are not going to be happy at the moment.
A more modest suggestion for some on the electoral college
So, some on the Left seem to think they have a chance of convincing the Electoral College to not vote in Trump. Vox explains in detail why this just won't happen - well, short of Trump doing his long mooted shooting of a person in the street, I suppose; even then, who knows? If it was a protester, his followers would probably forgive him.
Anyway, instead of trying to convince Electoral College members to refuse to vote him in, perhaps the Left should try to convince them of something less dire, but important to transparency in government. That is, withhold their vote in the college unless he has first disclosed his tax returns.
Still pie in the sky; but slightly less pie in the sky than what some want now.
Anyway, instead of trying to convince Electoral College members to refuse to vote him in, perhaps the Left should try to convince them of something less dire, but important to transparency in government. That is, withhold their vote in the college unless he has first disclosed his tax returns.
Still pie in the sky; but slightly less pie in the sky than what some want now.
Quantum consciousness, revisited
Can Quantum Physics Explain Consciousness? - The Atlantic
The shock election of Trump made me miss a pretty good article here looking at a relatively new suggestion (apart from the Penrose line) about how quantum effects could work in the brain.
The shock election of Trump made me miss a pretty good article here looking at a relatively new suggestion (apart from the Penrose line) about how quantum effects could work in the brain.
Sunday, November 13, 2016
Weekend photo 1
The explanation: I was having a beer at the Pig N Whistle yesterday, and spotted Thor at the bar. Dr Strange was also there, but I didn't get a pic.
By way of further explanation: the Supernova nerdfest was on at the Convention Centre next door.
An important point to remember
The electoral college system means that Trump actually won by the barest of margins. As the Washington Post explains:
Saturday, November 12, 2016
A tale of two movies
The election of Trump has made talking about movies seem like unimportant trivia; but I said in my 10,000th post that I wanted to write about two I saw last weekend. And I should try to distract myself. So here goes:
1. Interstellar.
Look, I admit - with Matthew McConaughey (an actor I have never liked) in the lead, there was every chance I wouldn't like it.
But I was completely unprepared for the awfulness of this movie in every respect:
a. (and this is where the main blame has to go) The Worst Script Ever Written For What Was Meant to be Serious, Adult Science Fiction. I can just imagine the actors saying to their agent "Christopher Nolan? Big budget outer space adventure? Sign me up!", and then despairing when they actually read the lines they were supposed to deliver.
The dialogue was terrible, undeliverable in an convincing fashion by any actor - but with McConaughey doing his Texas drawl turn, it was unbearable.
And look, I'm no cynic about "love talk" in movies, and emotional scenes - I'm a Spielberg fan after all, and the endings of Ghost, ET and even Shakespeare in Love reduced me to tears; but the whole relationship stuff in this movie just rang false from beginning to end.
b. apart from the lines, and clunky exposition (seriously, the old pencil through folded paper explanation for a wormhole just before they are about to enter the wormwhole? Is Nolan surrounded only by Yes men?) the whole concept of the story was so derivative and underwhelming. It's a cross between 2001: A Space Odyssey and Dr Who, but with none of the awe of the former and none of the emotional resonance of at least some of the Tennant episodes of the latter.
c. good direction? I couldn't detect anything special. Good visual effects?: I was much more impressed with Gravity than anything in this. Good music?: it was continually invasive and preaching a seriousness that the story itself was failing to hit.
d. Improbabilities in the story? Well, I want to make the point that I am not really even emphasising these - I don't usually engage in hypothetical logic challenges to movies - such as why didn't they send in more probes instead of humans; and the whole "by his bootstraps" paradox of time travel. That didn't matter to me - the movie was still bad enough on every other level that I am utterly surprised how it got any good reviews at all.
Jason Soon - didn't you make a positive comment about this movie? It's off to the cinema re-education camp for you if you did.
2. Dr Strange
Great fun.
As I expected, Cumberbatch and Swinton are just terrific.
I wanted to note in particular that I find Swinton almost mesmerising, at least in this type of role. (I haven't really seen her in any lengthy part where she plays a normal woman - but as with her White Witch in the first Narnia movie, there is just something about her elocution and the features of her smooth, alabaster face that means I can't take my eyes off her for a second.)
The script is very witty, the visuals are impressive (yes, Jason, even if Nolan first did folding cities first - he didn't do them in such an exciting fashion), and I liked how one oft-repeated effect - the portal with the residual fire sparks that would fall to the ground - was rather like how you would expect old fashioned magic to look - a bit different from the normal glowing rocks and holographic style effects.
As with Guardians of the Galaxy, parts of the movie had that retro 70's science fiction book cover palate about them, and I also liked the cleverness of the final battle being the reverse of (what I take to be) the typical ending of a Marvel movie.
The movie started very strongly in America, and around the world, although I wonder if depression at the Trump election might cause a bigger drop off in box office this week end than would otherwise happen?
And God knows, if the nation ever needed a real time bending superhero, it is now.
1. Interstellar.
Look, I admit - with Matthew McConaughey (an actor I have never liked) in the lead, there was every chance I wouldn't like it.
But I was completely unprepared for the awfulness of this movie in every respect:
a. (and this is where the main blame has to go) The Worst Script Ever Written For What Was Meant to be Serious, Adult Science Fiction. I can just imagine the actors saying to their agent "Christopher Nolan? Big budget outer space adventure? Sign me up!", and then despairing when they actually read the lines they were supposed to deliver.
The dialogue was terrible, undeliverable in an convincing fashion by any actor - but with McConaughey doing his Texas drawl turn, it was unbearable.
And look, I'm no cynic about "love talk" in movies, and emotional scenes - I'm a Spielberg fan after all, and the endings of Ghost, ET and even Shakespeare in Love reduced me to tears; but the whole relationship stuff in this movie just rang false from beginning to end.
b. apart from the lines, and clunky exposition (seriously, the old pencil through folded paper explanation for a wormhole just before they are about to enter the wormwhole? Is Nolan surrounded only by Yes men?) the whole concept of the story was so derivative and underwhelming. It's a cross between 2001: A Space Odyssey and Dr Who, but with none of the awe of the former and none of the emotional resonance of at least some of the Tennant episodes of the latter.
c. good direction? I couldn't detect anything special. Good visual effects?: I was much more impressed with Gravity than anything in this. Good music?: it was continually invasive and preaching a seriousness that the story itself was failing to hit.
d. Improbabilities in the story? Well, I want to make the point that I am not really even emphasising these - I don't usually engage in hypothetical logic challenges to movies - such as why didn't they send in more probes instead of humans; and the whole "by his bootstraps" paradox of time travel. That didn't matter to me - the movie was still bad enough on every other level that I am utterly surprised how it got any good reviews at all.
Jason Soon - didn't you make a positive comment about this movie? It's off to the cinema re-education camp for you if you did.
2. Dr Strange
Great fun.
As I expected, Cumberbatch and Swinton are just terrific.
I wanted to note in particular that I find Swinton almost mesmerising, at least in this type of role. (I haven't really seen her in any lengthy part where she plays a normal woman - but as with her White Witch in the first Narnia movie, there is just something about her elocution and the features of her smooth, alabaster face that means I can't take my eyes off her for a second.)
The script is very witty, the visuals are impressive (yes, Jason, even if Nolan first did folding cities first - he didn't do them in such an exciting fashion), and I liked how one oft-repeated effect - the portal with the residual fire sparks that would fall to the ground - was rather like how you would expect old fashioned magic to look - a bit different from the normal glowing rocks and holographic style effects.
As with Guardians of the Galaxy, parts of the movie had that retro 70's science fiction book cover palate about them, and I also liked the cleverness of the final battle being the reverse of (what I take to be) the typical ending of a Marvel movie.
The movie started very strongly in America, and around the world, although I wonder if depression at the Trump election might cause a bigger drop off in box office this week end than would otherwise happen?
And God knows, if the nation ever needed a real time bending superhero, it is now.
In an attempt to cheer me up: rat tickling, revisited
What fun to be a rat-tickle researcher, hey? As reported at NPR:
That's a part of the brain that processes touch, and when Ishiyama tickled the rats, it caused neurons in that region to fire. The rats also seemed to giggle hysterically, emitting rapid-fire, ultrasonic squeaks. Earlier research has shown rats naturally emit those squeaks during frisky social interaction, such as when they are playing with other rats.Actually, given that the research involved electrodes being stuck in their brains, I'm not sure if I should feel sorry for the rats. Now I'm feeling depressed again...
Next, Ishiyama pretend-tickled the rats by moving his hand around the cage in a playful manner. Rather than withdraw, the rats sought more contact. Again, he saw the neurons in the somatosensory cortex firing, even though the rats weren't being touched. This suggested to him that anticipation of tickling could trigger the region of the brain that responds to touch — even without the physical stimulus.
Finally, Ishiyama stimulated the somatosensory cortex directly, by sending an electrical signal directly into the brain. The rats squeaked the same way, suggesting that this region really is the tickling epicenter of a rat's brain.
Excuse me while I talk to monty, again...
Monty, has this convinced you yet that you can only talk to unpleasant fools for so long before it makes you foolish for engaging with them - at least if the engagement is on the basis that you think you have any hope of changing their minds?
Look, I know you like to see some good in everyone, and there (nearly always) is. But when pointing out their wilful foolishness is met with mere rudeness, disdain and a repetition of tribalism, there is no point. It is no accident that any Left leaning or even centrist commenter gave up on the site years ago.
I could go on and do yet another summary of how the blog is deeply offensive, if not dangerous, from the top down. But you and my handful of long time readers have heard it all before.
What prompts me to write this time is that I reckon the reaction to Trump at the place should be seen as a reason why no right minded person can in good faith engage with them further. There is, to my mind, simply no way to usefully engage with fools who, for mere tribalist reasons, are willing to overlook the character, behaviour and proposed policies of Trump. This is unforgivable foolishness of a magnitude I could not formerly imagine - particularly coming from anyone (as many at the blog do) who professes a Christian faith.
We know the American Right was divided over Trump, and we have to give credit to those columnists who are now likely just as gobsmacked as you and I. But the threads of Catallaxy are full of non-serious tribalists - long fooled on climate change; gullible on economics; sexist if not misogynistic; bigoted. They are not for turning - or engaging with - if they cannot see the danger and foolishness of Trump and his policies.
Attack them by all means in other ways - but the one on one engagement - forget it, I reckon.
Look, I know you like to see some good in everyone, and there (nearly always) is. But when pointing out their wilful foolishness is met with mere rudeness, disdain and a repetition of tribalism, there is no point. It is no accident that any Left leaning or even centrist commenter gave up on the site years ago.
I could go on and do yet another summary of how the blog is deeply offensive, if not dangerous, from the top down. But you and my handful of long time readers have heard it all before.
What prompts me to write this time is that I reckon the reaction to Trump at the place should be seen as a reason why no right minded person can in good faith engage with them further. There is, to my mind, simply no way to usefully engage with fools who, for mere tribalist reasons, are willing to overlook the character, behaviour and proposed policies of Trump. This is unforgivable foolishness of a magnitude I could not formerly imagine - particularly coming from anyone (as many at the blog do) who professes a Christian faith.
We know the American Right was divided over Trump, and we have to give credit to those columnists who are now likely just as gobsmacked as you and I. But the threads of Catallaxy are full of non-serious tribalists - long fooled on climate change; gullible on economics; sexist if not misogynistic; bigoted. They are not for turning - or engaging with - if they cannot see the danger and foolishness of Trump and his policies.
Attack them by all means in other ways - but the one on one engagement - forget it, I reckon.
Friday, November 11, 2016
A Creighton fail
Global banks back in the firing line
Adam Creighton tries here to explain an important thing US Republicans are likely to do - reform banking regulations - but I honestly think he does a really poor and jumbled job of it.
Adam Creighton tries here to explain an important thing US Republicans are likely to do - reform banking regulations - but I honestly think he does a really poor and jumbled job of it.
A genuine worry
It's really quite painful watching passionate, intelligent liberals on American TV, such as Stephen Colbert, trying to process how such an offensive man as Trump could win enough support to get over the line. (Although remember, he did not win the popular vote: especially if you take the third party vote into account, a substantial majority of those who did vote were against Trump:
Nationally, third-party candidates did relatively well in this election. With most of the ballots now counted, Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson gained over 3% of the popular vote, and the Green party’s Jill Stein got 1%. Altogether, candidates who did not represent either of the two main parties got around 4.9% of the popular vote (in 2012, third-party candidates only managed 1.7%, and in 2008, 1.4%).Anyway, I was watching this lengthy clip from Colbert's first post election show, and its clear he is emotionally upset about it all. While there are many laughs to be had (I particularly like God's cameo near the end), watching it made me feel more anxious and depressed in sympathy with Colbert, even if, by confirming that the whole of the country hasn't gone nuts, it shouldn't:
It’s easy to see why people point the finger at third-party votes. In Michigan, where the election was so close that the Associated Press still hasn’t called the result, Trump is ahead by about 12,000 votes. That’s significantly less than the 242,867 votes that went to third-party candidates in Michigan. It’s a similar story elsewhere: third-party candidates won more total votes than the Trump’s margin of victory in Wisconsin, Arizona, North Carolina and Florida. Without those states, Trump would not have won the presidency.)
Thursday, November 10, 2016
I'm not the only one who blames Fox News
Simon Wren-Lewis writes:
mainly macro: Trump: Misleading the People:
mainly macro: Trump: Misleading the People:
The story is in fact told better than I ever could by Bruce Bartlett, who worked in the Reagan White House and for George HW Bush, so I’ll just summarise it here. The story starts under Reagan, who provided pressure to withdraw the Fairness Doctrine, which was similar to what keeps UK broadcasters from being partisan. Initially that allowed the rise of talk radio, and then Fox News. Gradually being partisan at Fox meant misinforming its viewers, such that Fox viewers are clearly less well informed than viewers of other news providers. One analysis suggested over half of the facts stated on Fox are untrue: UK readers may well remember them reporting that Birmingham was a no-go area for non-Muslims.
But why is this causal, rather than simply being a mirror on the rightward drift of the Republican base? The first point is that there is clear evidence that watching Fox news is more likely to make you vote Republican. The second is that, like the tabloids in the UK, this propaganda machine can turn on party leaders and keep them from moving left. The third is that it is also a machine for keeping the base angry and fired up and believing that nothing could be worse than voting for a Democrat. It is Fox News that stops Republican voters seeing that they are voting for a demagogue, conceals that he lies openly all the time, incites hatred against other religions and ethnic groups, and makes its viewers believe that Clinton deserves to be locked up. Just as UKIP (and perhaps now the Conservative party) is the political wing of the tabloids, so Trump is a creature of Fox news.
....don't bother, they're heeeeere
I knew a columnist would soon enough write along the lines of "if, like an arrogant teenager, the American GOP voting public thinks they know what's best, sometimes it's better to let them learn for themselves that they don't." And here is that column from the Washington Post.
Of course, the thing that freaks out parents, half of Americans, and about 80% of the rest of the globe, is how much grief said teenager will cause everyone in the process.
For a solid dose of pessimism, of course we can drop in on Andrew Sullivan, whose column "The Republic Repeals Itself" is as depressed as you would expect, but even he points out the obvious:
Perhaps the biggest worry, apart from Generals having to wrestle the nuclear codes out of his tiny fingers when an Islamic President mean-tweets him, is the likely clownish quality of the advisers and administrators he surrounds himself with. But, I guess, as with Boris Johnson in the UK, give clowns actual responsibility and at least some of them have to change their rhetoric fast.
And at the end of the day (gee, how am I managing to be quasi optimistic?) what everyone has to keep reminding themselves - both the doomsayers and the gloaters - is that in terms of popular vote, pretty much exactly half of the country rejected Trump. Which doesn't seem to me to say much for fool Scott Adams - if being a "master persuader" means just influencing the small percent of the voting public that ever moves from one side to the other, it doesn't seem to be such an awe inspiring thing at all. (Oh, and Scott, your young girlfriend is going to dump you soon enough, and you can go back to the comfort of your money and 4chan pals.)
* Didn't Trump indicate he would be in charge of cyber-security in his administration?
Of course, the thing that freaks out parents, half of Americans, and about 80% of the rest of the globe, is how much grief said teenager will cause everyone in the process.
For a solid dose of pessimism, of course we can drop in on Andrew Sullivan, whose column "The Republic Repeals Itself" is as depressed as you would expect, but even he points out the obvious:
The only sliver of hope is that his promises cannot be kept. He cannot bring millions of jobs back if he triggers a trade war. He cannot build a massive new wall across the entire southern border and get Mexico to pay for it. He cannot deport millions of illegal immigrants, without massive new funding from Congress and major civil unrest. He cannot “destroy ISIS”; his very election will empower it in ways its leaders could not possibly have hoped for. He cannot both cut taxes on the rich, fund a massive new infrastructure program, boost military spending, protect entitlements, and not tip the U.S. into levels of debt even Paul Krugman might blanch at. At some point, a few timid souls in the GOP may mention the concepts of individual liberty or due process or small government or balanced budgets. At some point even his supporters may worry or balk, and his support may fade.Actually, given that you can never tell what a bullshit artist like Trump is really thinking, and that the reality of the difficulty of governing is about to hit him like a bus (I thought he even had a look of worry on his face in his victory speech - his Ritchie Rich son* looked definitely regretful), I fully expect disappointment amongst his supporters to start building very quickly. This is usually the case with politicians who are light on policy, but big on "hope and change". (Yes, OK, Obama pretty much fitted that category, but did manage to be a competent and a good president. But he was, at least, a politician who knew the ropes. There is obviously no real reason to expect that the Hollywood scenario of an accidental president turning out to be great in the role and beloved of the people could happen with this buffoon.)
Perhaps the biggest worry, apart from Generals having to wrestle the nuclear codes out of his tiny fingers when an Islamic President mean-tweets him, is the likely clownish quality of the advisers and administrators he surrounds himself with. But, I guess, as with Boris Johnson in the UK, give clowns actual responsibility and at least some of them have to change their rhetoric fast.
And at the end of the day (gee, how am I managing to be quasi optimistic?) what everyone has to keep reminding themselves - both the doomsayers and the gloaters - is that in terms of popular vote, pretty much exactly half of the country rejected Trump. Which doesn't seem to me to say much for fool Scott Adams - if being a "master persuader" means just influencing the small percent of the voting public that ever moves from one side to the other, it doesn't seem to be such an awe inspiring thing at all. (Oh, and Scott, your young girlfriend is going to dump you soon enough, and you can go back to the comfort of your money and 4chan pals.)
* Didn't Trump indicate he would be in charge of cyber-security in his administration?
Wednesday, November 09, 2016
Sounds about right
There’s no way around it: Donald Trump is going to be a disaster for the planet - Vox
The article does, in fact, contain a note of (highly qualified) optimism at the end.
The truth is, Democrats have absolutely no reason for holding back on calling out all politicians (and their followers) who deny AGW as absolute gullible fools being led up the path to destruction by a mere handful of contrarians. I mean, Clinton tried the tactic this election of "not scaring the horses" by not mentioning it, and look how that panned out.
The article does, in fact, contain a note of (highly qualified) optimism at the end.
The truth is, Democrats have absolutely no reason for holding back on calling out all politicians (and their followers) who deny AGW as absolute gullible fools being led up the path to destruction by a mere handful of contrarians. I mean, Clinton tried the tactic this election of "not scaring the horses" by not mentioning it, and look how that panned out.
Calling occupants of interplanetary craft...
I'm too scared to look over at the threads at Catallaxy - they'll be so high on the red cordial they won't come down for a month. Of course, they'll own whatever the hell happens under what (I presume) is going to be a Trump presidency. (You would have thought the dire Prime Ministership of Tony Abbott would have taught them a lesson in being careful what you wish for - and Trump is a bull in a china shop several orders of magnitude larger than Tone.)
Anyhow, there is still the possibility that Trump will not make it to the Presidency. First, the count is not finished, but hardly anyone is expecting the rest to go well for Hillary. If he does win, Mexico may invade Washington successfully just to replace him, and all other nations would cheer them on. Or perhaps Trump will announce he will not take up the job if he'll just get an Emmy for The Apprentice. The Academy would give him a whole two hour show if he was serious.
And any aliens watching the planet for the last 50 years will no doubt feel this is the right time to intervene. I would welcome our new overlords as being more predictable than Trump and his nutty, dangerous advisers.
Anyhow, there is still the possibility that Trump will not make it to the Presidency. First, the count is not finished, but hardly anyone is expecting the rest to go well for Hillary. If he does win, Mexico may invade Washington successfully just to replace him, and all other nations would cheer them on. Or perhaps Trump will announce he will not take up the job if he'll just get an Emmy for The Apprentice. The Academy would give him a whole two hour show if he was serious.
And any aliens watching the planet for the last 50 years will no doubt feel this is the right time to intervene. I would welcome our new overlords as being more predictable than Trump and his nutty, dangerous advisers.
Will they ever learn?
Some good advice to Republicans in Congress from Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post:
Tuesday evening (we hope) we will have a definitive president-elect, most likely Hillary Clinton. Republicans, especially members of Congress, should take a deep breath. Their Clinton derangement syndrome, only partially justified by her ethical malfeasance, has gotten out of control, blinding even the most thoughtful Republicans. Republican activists and party leaders will have plenty to answer for after the Donald Trump campaign ends. So, if I may suggest, Republicans should zip it for a while.Yes, when you think back over it, did they learn nothing from the failure of their pursuit of Bill Clinton over his (rather sordid) sex life? Or from watching the Obama birthers fail? Both of these targets are now in overall good standing with the American public (if you ignore conspiracy nutters, at least), yet you get the feeling many Republicans will happily try to pursue Hillary Clinton over matters which are, again, essentially nothing to do with good governance.
If Clinton wins Tuesday, the GOP would have lost a third presidential election in a row, this one in large part because of their hate-filled, irrational and extreme rhetoric and aversion to reality. They may well lose the Senate majority as well. Frankly, millions of Americans, including frustrated Republicans (whether they grudgingly voted for Trump or abandoned the GOP to vote for Clinton or a third party), don’t really want to hear Republican blather on about impeachment. They don’t want lectures from nativists and fabulists such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity about, well, anything. They don’t want to hear that the GOP is now on a search-and-destroy mission to make certain we have a failed president.Here’s a novel approach: Root for the president’s success, even if it is Hillary Clinton. We are a country at war and with deep problems; wishing her failure means wishing our country and free people misfortune. Extend her the benefit of the doubt. Look for areas of agreement. Don’t dictate the terms of debate. Keep a civil tongue. Tell their own rabble-rousers to pipe down for just a few months.
Tuesday, November 08, 2016
Election prediction
I've been playing with the Washington Post electoral college "do it yourself" map, and my guess on the election outcome would be either 308 or 323 to Clinton, depending on North Carolina. As Monty seems to be predicting 307 to Clinton, I'll take the high road and go for 323.
Update: Well, I got the last election right!
America - where witchcraft still matters to politics
If ever there was a "jumps the shark" moment in this election campaign, it was last weekend when the Washington Post felt it had to address the absurdity of Right wing culture warrior hero Drudge promoting the idea that Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman goes to occult dinners to drink blood and other unmentionables. Tweets from concerned Americans (concerned about "spirit cooking") remain a sight to behold:
Yes, America - the nation that put men on the Moon - still has a significant block of people worried that witches could take over the White House. Is there any Western nation with that level of contradiction?
As it happens, I had been going to post about witches and politics for another reason. Before Halloween, I was reading this good article from last year about two books looking again at the Salem witch hunt, and it put me in mind of Trump's campaign against Hillary because of one of the theories about how Salem could have happened:
Yes, America - the nation that put men on the Moon - still has a significant block of people worried that witches could take over the White House. Is there any Western nation with that level of contradiction?
As it happens, I had been going to post about witches and politics for another reason. Before Halloween, I was reading this good article from last year about two books looking again at the Salem witch hunt, and it put me in mind of Trump's campaign against Hillary because of one of the theories about how Salem could have happened:
In Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft (1974)—now considered a classic of interpretive social history—Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum uncovered a long-standing fissure inside the Salem community that closely aligned with opposing sides in the trials. The accused came largely from the families of well-off, market-minded, centrally positioned farmers and merchants, their accusers from poorer, tradition-bound folk living in the town’s interior. The trials, then, can be seen as a backlash phenomenon, a struggle to ward off deep-rooted social change—nothing less, in fact, than the onset of modern capitalism and the values it advanced.Substitute "globalisation" for "modern capitalism", and you have a strong parallel to why the simple minded, "blue collar billionaire's" followers are prepared to treat Hillary like a witch, with many of them now also believing it of her literally.
The best of anti-Trump
Over the last week, before the Clinton polling losses appeared to stabilise, there was a lot of passionate, if not panicky, anti-Trump writing to be found. Here are three pieces I liked:
* Andrew Sullivan (not my favourite writer, generally speaking) did do a good job at calling Trump out as an awful and dangerous proto-fascist, as I think more in the media should be prepared to say. Have a read of this:
* Adam Gopnik: always a great writer, follows a very similar path:
* Andrew Sullivan (not my favourite writer, generally speaking) did do a good job at calling Trump out as an awful and dangerous proto-fascist, as I think more in the media should be prepared to say. Have a read of this:
This is what we now know. Donald Trump is the first candidate for president who seems to have little understanding of or reverence for constitutional democracy and presents himself as a future strongman. This begins with his character — if that word could possibly be ascribed to his disturbed, unstable, and uncontrollable psyche. He has revealed himself incapable of treating other people as anything but instruments to his will. He seems to have no close friends, because he can tolerate no equals. He never appears to laugh, because that would cede a recognition to another’s fleeting power over him. He treats his wives and his children as mere extensions of his power, and those who have resisted the patriarch have been exiled, humiliated, or bought off.Wow, hey? Vicious but, I think, very accurate.
His relationship to men — from his school days to the primary campaign — is rooted entirely in dominance and mastery, through bullying, intimidation, and, if necessary, humiliation. His relationship to women is entirely a function of his relationship to men: Women are solely a means to demonstrate his superiority in the alpha-male struggle. Women are to be pursued, captured, used, assaulted, or merely displayed to other men as an indication of his superiority. His response to any difficult relationship is to end it, usually by firing or humiliating or ruining someone. His core, motivating idea is the punishment or mockery of the weak and reverence for the strong. He cannot apologize or accept responsibility for failure. He has long treated the truth as entirely instrumental to his momentary personal interests. Setbacks of any kind can only be assuaged by vindictive, manic revenge.
He has no concept of a non-zero-sum engagement, in which a deal can be beneficial for both sides. A win-win scenario is intolerable to him, because mastery of others is the only moment when he is psychically at peace. (This is one reason why he cannot understand the entire idea of free trade or, indeed, NATO, or the separation of powers.) In any conflict, he cannot ever back down; he must continue to up the ante until the danger to everyone around him is so great as to demand their surrender. From his feckless business deals and billion-dollar debts to his utter indifference to the damage he has done to those institutions unfortunate enough to engage him, he has shown no concern for the interests of other human beings. Just ask the countless people he has casually fired, or the political party he has effectively destroyed. He has violated and eroded the core norms that make liberal democracy possible — because such norms were designed precisely to guard against the kind of tyrannical impulses and pathological narcissism he personifies.
* Adam Gopnik: always a great writer, follows a very similar path:
The truth is that Trump’s “positions” on specific issues are more or less a matter of chance and whim and impulse (Of course women should be punished for having abortions! Ten minutes later: no, they shouldn’t) while his actual ideology, the song he sings every day, the one those listeners and followers gleefully vibrate to, is one anthem, and it is the sound of the authoritarian and anti-democratic impulses Americans have rejected since the founding of this country. Call them what you will—populist authoritarianism or extreme-right-wing ethno-nationalism—the active agents within a Trump speech and energizing a Trump rally are always the same: the worship of power in its most brutal and authoritarian forms (thus his admiration for Vladimir Putin and for the Chinese Communists who assaulted the protesters at Tiananmen Square); the reduction of all relations to dominance contests; the contempt for rational argument; the perpetual unashamed storm of lies; the appeal to hysterically exaggerated fears of outsiders; and, above all, the relentless sense of ethnic grievance that can be remedied only by acts of annihilating revenge. His is the ideology not of democratic patriotism but of a narrow nationalism alone—the glorification of the nation, and the exaggeration of its humiliations, with violence promised to its enemies, at home and abroad; and a promise of vengeance for those who feel themselves disempowered by history. He will “level the playing field” with the terrorist spectre of ISIS by forcing soldiers to commit war crimes; he will not merely kill our enemies but annihilate their families. His platform is resentment and his program is revenge, and that is an ideology with many faces and one name. This is fascism with an American face.* And, at a more technical level, the detailed explanation by Matthew Yglesais of the Clinton email issue, the low level security risk of which the media has never really tried to properly explain, is really good. It starts:
Because Clinton herself apologized for it and because it does not appear to be in any way important, Clinton allies, surrogates, and co-partisans have largely not familiarized themselves with the details of the matter, instead saying vaguely that it was an error of judgment and she apologized and America has bigger fish to fry.
This has had the effect of further inscribing and reinscribing the notion that Clinton did something wrong, meaning that every bit of micro-news that puts the scandal back on cable amounts to reminding people of something bad that Clinton did. In total, network newscasts have, remarkably, dedicated more airtime to coverage of Clinton’s emails than to all policy issues combined.
This is unfortunate because emailgate, like so many Clinton pseudo-scandals before it, is bullshit. The real scandal here is the way a story that was at best of modest significance came to dominate the US presidential election — overwhelming stories of much more importance, giving the American people a completely skewed impression of one of the two nominees, and creating space for the FBI to intervene in the election in favor of its apparently preferred candidate in a dangerous way.
Yes, this is the .....
Or, for the non English reader:
I think this justifies a little introspective.
Why do I do this? Obviously, back when I started this in 2005, it seemed that blogging could be an important and entertaining aspect of the internet landscape, but that hope has all but gone, with most people moving into the short sugar hit of Twitter to get an opinion out with minimal effort or analysis, or diverting into Facebook if they want to spend all day talking about themselves. All a bit of a pity, I reckon.
I've long since moved into treating the blog as a sort of open diary of thoughts and events, but one that avoids oversharing with respect to my own family and circumstances - I don't see great dignity in that. If anyone out there wants to follow what I'm interested in, that's fine; but it's not as if I'm really trying to satisfy anyone but myself. (And a good thing too, given my very modest long term hit-rate!)
It also serves a useful function as a list of handy bookmarks that is always accessible; and for noting things I may want to find again in future, such as the odd recipe I like.
And here's the thing - I never know whether I should say this here, but I can pick any old archive page on this blog, and nearly always be pleased with what I find. The range of topics covered; reviewing the ways in which my opinion has subtly changed over the years; predictions that turned out very accurate (see Rudd, K, amongst others); reminders of trips taken; the odd good photo; and finding links to stories and articles that I still find interesting, esoteric and/or well written - I think (he says immodestly) this is a great little corner of the internet. And I find I want to keep recording opinions and material on it, in the way I have for 11 years now.
As for its utility, apart from pleasing its author, I do have vague hopes that sometimes I may link to something hard to find that some Googling reader finds very useful and important. I also wonder whether my kids (and wife) will find it interesting to read in future, either in my declining years or after I'm gone. At the moment, they know about it, but rarely care to read it. (Do writers' families ever spend much time reading the writer's work?) While I will always want to avoid Facebook style disclosure, I hope they find some of my personality, and love for them, to be discernable in a future reading.
And so, onwards with the blog. I saw both Interstellar and Dr Strange on the weekend - I really want to write about them!
Friday, November 04, 2016
Friday American follies
I'm pretty busy, but a few things to observe:
* The Christian Science Monitor notes that not only Kansas has been playing with Laffer-ite tax cutting experiments, but so have Wisconsin and North Carolina:
* The Guardian ran an article about concerns in America that cannabis legalisation is leading to corporate "Big Marijuana" that will push use just as recklessly as Big Tobacco. My position - yes, it's hard to see how the American system of light regulation of this product will not lead to an unwanted increase in use by younger people, with long term detrimental consequences for educational outcomes and the economy. Americans have this way of swinging from one extreme to another - the overly punitive drug laws were bad in their own way, too, for people simply using and not trading. But legalisation with limited input into what's sold is an unnecessary extreme in the other direction.
* Just how depressed should one be at the state of America when Trump can even stand a chance of being elected? One is tempted to despair at the gullibility of humans, but I guess the modern atheist would say it has always been thus. Given the long history of bad ideas that people have proved capable of believing, I'm not sure that you can argue that they are dumber than they used to be, despite how obvious a conclusion that sometimes appears. I still think the current blame ultimately has to come down to the awful, propaganda enabling effect of Right wing media and the information bubble it creates; and to a large extent, you have to blame Rupert Murdoch for his morally bankrupt willingnessly to make money this way. People may not be fools, but their gullibility at the hands of information manipulators can certainly make them act very foolishly indeed.
* The Christian Science Monitor notes that not only Kansas has been playing with Laffer-ite tax cutting experiments, but so have Wisconsin and North Carolina:
But with a deadlocked Congress barely able to pass a budget, let alone rewrite the tax code, Republican-led states such as Wisconsin, Kansas, and North Carolina have taken the lead – all sharply reducing taxes on individuals and businesses in pursuit of growth and jobs.As I have repeatedly noted, the Kansas experiment has had terrible outcomes, but even in Wisconsin the policy has been at the cost of the education sector. Seems a long term losing proposition to me...
The results have ranged from poor to middling, suggesting that the most oft-cited success story – Texas – is more the result of the state’s energy economy than its fiscal policy.
* The Guardian ran an article about concerns in America that cannabis legalisation is leading to corporate "Big Marijuana" that will push use just as recklessly as Big Tobacco. My position - yes, it's hard to see how the American system of light regulation of this product will not lead to an unwanted increase in use by younger people, with long term detrimental consequences for educational outcomes and the economy. Americans have this way of swinging from one extreme to another - the overly punitive drug laws were bad in their own way, too, for people simply using and not trading. But legalisation with limited input into what's sold is an unnecessary extreme in the other direction.
* Just how depressed should one be at the state of America when Trump can even stand a chance of being elected? One is tempted to despair at the gullibility of humans, but I guess the modern atheist would say it has always been thus. Given the long history of bad ideas that people have proved capable of believing, I'm not sure that you can argue that they are dumber than they used to be, despite how obvious a conclusion that sometimes appears. I still think the current blame ultimately has to come down to the awful, propaganda enabling effect of Right wing media and the information bubble it creates; and to a large extent, you have to blame Rupert Murdoch for his morally bankrupt willingnessly to make money this way. People may not be fools, but their gullibility at the hands of information manipulators can certainly make them act very foolishly indeed.
Thursday, November 03, 2016
Epidemics where you don't expect them
Official: Fourth-largest city in Russia has HIV epidemic
This Russian city has a population of 1.5 million (which means, I guess, that Russian cities must be pretty small on average, if it's the fourth largest) and has 1.8% of its population with HIV. It's to do with drugs and (heterosexual) sex:
This Russian city has a population of 1.5 million (which means, I guess, that Russian cities must be pretty small on average, if it's the fourth largest) and has 1.8% of its population with HIV. It's to do with drugs and (heterosexual) sex:
While the majority of new infections are acquired through intravenous
drug use, heterosexual sex is rising as a source of transmission and
accounts for just over 40 percent of new cases.
HIV infections in Russia are concentrated in large manufacturing
cities in southern Siberia and along drug trafficking routes that begin
in Central Asia and extend to Europe. Russia's Sverdlovsk Region, of
which Yekaterinburg is the capital, is the region most heavily infected
with HIV in Russia, according to Savinova.
Wednesday, November 02, 2016
Cease all time travelling now!
The US election has been reminding me lately about the classic Ray Bradbury time travel short story "A Sound of Thunder," wherein a time traveller inadvertently (by treading on a butterfly while dinosaur hunting) causes the world's time line to swap to a tyrant being elected.
I think this is a semi-plausible explanation of how a dangerously ignorant, conspiracy mongering doofus with the worst child-like personality traits can be edging close to becoming President.*
I'm not sure which organisation may be conducting time travel experiments at the moment (I wouldn't put it past CERN at the LHC, though), but they have to call a halt till after the election.
* I still don't believe he will win, though. I would still put that at "high confidence," too.
PS: I did Google to see if anyone else has been drawing a connection between this short story and this election - surprisingly, there seems to not be many, but there was one link to a person who wrote about this in August. It's really hard these days to be the first with an idea!
I think this is a semi-plausible explanation of how a dangerously ignorant, conspiracy mongering doofus with the worst child-like personality traits can be edging close to becoming President.*
I'm not sure which organisation may be conducting time travel experiments at the moment (I wouldn't put it past CERN at the LHC, though), but they have to call a halt till after the election.
* I still don't believe he will win, though. I would still put that at "high confidence," too.
PS: I did Google to see if anyone else has been drawing a connection between this short story and this election - surprisingly, there seems to not be many, but there was one link to a person who wrote about this in August. It's really hard these days to be the first with an idea!
Questioning "broken windows" policing
How A Theory Of Crime And Policing Was Born, And Went Terribly Wrong : NPR
The consensus seems to be that it probably did contribute somewhat to less crime, but not as much as early proponents claimed it did. I hadn't heard of this research before
The consensus seems to be that it probably did contribute somewhat to less crime, but not as much as early proponents claimed it did. I hadn't heard of this research before
In Chicago, the researchers Robert Sampson and Stephen Raudenbush analyzed what makes people perceive social disorder. They found that if two neighborhoods had exactly the same amount of graffiti and litter and loitering, people saw more disorder, more broken windows, in neighborhoods with more African-Americans.
Hardly surprising
Hostility toward women is one of the strongest predictors of Trump support - Vox
You see in the Australian blogosphere, too.
You see in the Australian blogosphere, too.
Tuesday, November 01, 2016
Fair warning
There will soon be reason to dance in the streets, and/or shower me with money and thanks. {Pay attention to the money part, in particular, kind readers.*}
I've noticed that I am getting very close to making my 10,000th published post....
* I would like to think that a bit of information, from somewhere on this blog, that someone has been led to by Google has, for some reason, proved to be very useful and important to that person, somehow. No one has ever left a comment to that effect, but who knows. Of course, it might also take another 10,000 years for that to happen, too....
I've noticed that I am getting very close to making my 10,000th published post....
* I would like to think that a bit of information, from somewhere on this blog, that someone has been led to by Google has, for some reason, proved to be very useful and important to that person, somehow. No one has ever left a comment to that effect, but who knows. Of course, it might also take another 10,000 years for that to happen, too....
A click too far
It's remarkable how making just one extra click can dissuade me from checking in on the details of what Andrew Bolt, or Tim Blair, are complaining or writing about.
Since News Ltd (or News Corp, or whatever - I keep forgetting what it exactly is now) changed their blogs so that you just got a headline and one sentence, I find I just usually can't be bothered clicking further to read more. I mean, I've disagreed with them about 8 times out of 10 (9.8 times out of 10 if we're talking Bolt alone) on most issues over many years now, and particularly dislike the puffed up, multi-media, Fox News lite act that Andrew Bolt has become, but at least I used to be able to get annoyed with them with just one click from my blog. Now I can't, and I can't be bothered with the further click to confirm my annoyance.
I would be very surprised if their click rate hasn't tanked, as I've noticed some at Catallaxy saying a similar thing.
Since News Ltd (or News Corp, or whatever - I keep forgetting what it exactly is now) changed their blogs so that you just got a headline and one sentence, I find I just usually can't be bothered clicking further to read more. I mean, I've disagreed with them about 8 times out of 10 (9.8 times out of 10 if we're talking Bolt alone) on most issues over many years now, and particularly dislike the puffed up, multi-media, Fox News lite act that Andrew Bolt has become, but at least I used to be able to get annoyed with them with just one click from my blog. Now I can't, and I can't be bothered with the further click to confirm my annoyance.
I would be very surprised if their click rate hasn't tanked, as I've noticed some at Catallaxy saying a similar thing.
Sargent gets it
Greg Sargent, in the Washington Post, ends a post about the ridiculous and offensive (to reasonable people) way Trump is trying to play the latest email news with this:
...it’s remarkable that at this point, the political world just shrugs when one of the two major party nominees suggests that there is no legitimate way that our institutions can clear his political opponent of criminality. Either she is a criminal, or the FBI is corrupt to its core. That’s Trump’s actual argument, and it sometimes seems as if barely anyone raises an eyebrow anymore when he makes it.As many have observed, Trump has broken the media's outrage meter by the relentless weight of outrageous statements.
Monday, October 31, 2016
The vast Right wing conspiracy network (for real)
Alex Jones, America’s most famous conspiracy theorist, explained - Vox
Took me a couple of days to get back and read this article, but it's a good explanation of how nutjob Alex Jones was granted credibility by the likes of Drudge and hairspray conspiracist Donald Trump.
Took me a couple of days to get back and read this article, but it's a good explanation of how nutjob Alex Jones was granted credibility by the likes of Drudge and hairspray conspiracist Donald Trump.
Ouija, again, and the dead walk in Mexico
Gee, everyone's doing stories on Ouija boards this year. Is it because of that movie, which looks a bit silly to me? Anyway, there is good anecdote or two from the article in The Guardian:
As the board’s popularity, and profit, increased, most of the early investors sought to highlight their role in the creation of the Ouija board. But Helen Peters wanted nothing more to do with it after the board caused serious damage to her family.
When some civil war family heirlooms went missing from Peters’ home, Peters asked the Ouija board who had taken them. According to Peters’ grandson, the board indicated a member of the family. “Half the family believed it and half the family said ‘bullshit’, including Helen,” said Murch. The event created a conflict that was never resolved, and tore the family apart.
After the fight, Peters sold all of her stock in the company. “Until her dying day, she’s telling everyone: don’t play the Ouija board because it lies,” Murch said.I'm also rather surprised to read that Mexico City did not have an actual Day of the Dead parade until the James Bond Spectre movie invented it. But now they do. How very odd.
Sunday, October 30, 2016
More Halloween fun
Found via Happy Catholic, who I don't drop in on very often, but she really is happy, all the time, and always puts up lovely artwork. (She also demonstrates that Catholics aren't afraid of Halloween. My daughter has a couple of friends of unclear Christian denomination who go to "Light Parties" on Halloween instead of doing the more traditional dress up.) This is funny:
In time for Halloween
Vox has a good article up all about Ouija boards, and the ideomotor effect that makes them work. Well, most of the time [insert ghostly, mad laugh].
Here are a couple of parts that I found particularly interesting:
And here's another bit of information that's rather curious:
Here are a couple of parts that I found particularly interesting:
Before Ouija boards were invented, spiritualists and other would-be ghost communicators used makeshift devices called “talking boards” that served a similar purpose. Talking boards first became popular in mid-19th-century America, when millions of people suddenly gained an interest in talking to the dead following the tremendous loss of life in the Civil War. The popularity of talking boards, and their use as a tool to exploit grieving war families, meant scientists actually started studying the ideomotor effect in the mid-century, well before Ouija boards and planchettes were patented in 1890.I don't think I heard of "talking boards" before, but the internet knows all, and here's a very comprehensive (if not particularly well designed) website called The Museum of Talking Boards.
And here's another bit of information that's rather curious:
The effect might also make the Ouija board an effective tool to help you tap into your own subconscious. In one study published in 2012, scientists found that using the Ouija board allowed subjects to recall factual information with more accuracy than if they weren’t using the board. Participants were instructed to answer a series of yes/no questions and to rate whether they were confident in their answers or merely guessing. Later, they were subjected to another round of questions, but used a Ouija board to indicate “yes” or “no,” once again rating their confidence level in their answers. In cases where participants believed they didn’t know an answer, they were able to give more correct answers, more often, when using the Ouija board than when they believed they were only guessing on their own.
Well, I did post once before about ouija, and the subconscious, but it's worth following that last link for some further information.The researchers behind that study have gone on to speculate that using the Ouija board as a technique to unlock subconscious knowledge could lead to insights about the early onset of Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases.
Saturday, October 29, 2016
The transmission of a simple mistake
One Man Was Wrongly Blamed For Bringing AIDS to America - The Atlantic
The details are really surprising for their simplicity, and for illustrating how a "good" but mistaken story gets spread and takes a long, long time to correct. Ed Yong explains that, when first investigating the rise of AIDS in the US, the researchers found this:
The details are really surprising for their simplicity, and for illustrating how a "good" but mistaken story gets spread and takes a long, long time to correct. Ed Yong explains that, when first investigating the rise of AIDS in the US, the researchers found this:
One of those 40 cases was a Canadian flight attendant named Gaëtan Dugas. Having had sex with patients from both California and New York, he seemed to connect the epidemic from coast to coast. As the 57th AIDS patient to reach the CDC team’s attention, Dugas was originally billed as Case 057. But since he came from outside California, and wasn’t even a
U.S. resident, the investigators started referring to him offhandedly as the “Out-of-California patient”—or “Patient O” for short.
That was an unfortunate move. “When the study got written up and was circulated beyond the immediate team to other people within the CDC, that ambiguous oval got interpreted by some as a zero,” says Richard McKay, a medical historian at the University of Cambridge, who recently tracked down the details of the case. By the time the CDC study was published in 1984, Patient O had become Patient 0. In the paper’s sole diagram, Dugas sits at the center, like the spider in a web of disease.
Labels have power. As “Patient Zero,” with its connotations of ground zero, Dugas came across as not just the center of that particular AIDS cluster, but as the source of the entire U.S. epidemic. The CDC team did their best to naysay this misconception, but it gained steam globally in 1987, after the journalist Randy Shilts published his bestselling book And The Band Played On. Shilts identified Dugas by name, and while he never specifically claimed that the man was the source of the U.S. AIDS epidemic, reviewers and media commentators weren’t so restrained.
The idea fit with the prejudices of the day: Here was a modern Typhoid Mary, whose homosexuality and irresponsible promiscuity had brought a plague to American shores.
“Whether it’s explicit or not, there’s always a focus on the potential moral failings of the first recognized individual,” says McKay. But the concept of Patient Zero has been weakening for years, with several lines of evidence showing that HIV—the virus behind AIDS—likely arrived in the U.S. well before Dugas was ever infected.
Now, a new study exonerates Dugas once and for all. It combines McKay’s historical detective work with genetic evidence compiled by Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona. He sequenced the complete genomes of HIV taken from U.S. samples collected in the late 1970s, and showed that Dugas could not possibly have been the first AIDS patient in the U.S. Indeed, the disease likely entered the country from Haiti in 1971, flying under the radar for a decade before anyone realized what was happening.
Let's check in on the brains trust
Yesterday, a bizarre and awful killing happened in public in Brisbane. The police were very quick to say it appeared to be a random event. Over at the Australian right wing's brains trust, a long time Catholic commentator (of Irish ancestry, if I recall correctly, but I stand to be corrected) was to be found speculating:
Today:
Now, I guess Muslim outreach could be converting white, middle aged, Irish sounding men, but the photo showing the guy doesn't really indicate any religious dress:
Has the blog made any comment about this today? Not that I can see.
Today:
The lawyer for the man accused of killing a Brisbane bus driver on Friday morning has described his client as 'numb' during his appearance in court on Saturday morning.And from another report:
Anthony O'Donohue, 48, did not apply for bail when he briefly appeared in the Brisbane Arrest Court...
Outside court, Adam Magill described the matter as "very heinous" and said he did not expect his client to apply for bail.
"His major concern as far as I'm concerned at this point in time is his mental health, that needs to be assessed," he said.
Now, I guess Muslim outreach could be converting white, middle aged, Irish sounding men, but the photo showing the guy doesn't really indicate any religious dress:
Has the blog made any comment about this today? Not that I can see.
Dictator talk
I am again struck by the danger to democracy and the separation of powers that Trump represents in his continual proclamations that HC is a criminal, and that the FBI should remedy its "mistake":
I am again gobsmacked by how the Right wing commentary in the US (and here) just goes along with this, with not a hint of reservation that this is how dictators run things - telling their investigators and courts the outcome they want with respect to their political opponents.
This is all in the context of a "re-opening" of an investigation that may not be a real "re-opening" of anything significant at all, regardless of what ageing reporters may think.
Again - the public has no idea of the mess that security classifications represent; there has been no evidence of anything of significance coming to foreign power's attention due to HC's use of a private server (I think it safe to assume that would have been disclosed by now, if it happened); and Right wing pundits are playing on people's ignorance. It's no mistake that Trump does best with the lowest educated, and younger alt.right revolting culture war losing wannabe warriors.
“Hillary Clinton’s corruption is on a scale we have never seen before. We must not let her take her criminal scheme into the Oval Office," he said.
He continued: "I have great respect for the fact that the FBI and the DOJ are now willing to have the courage to right the horrible mistake that they made. This was a grave miscarriage of justice that the American people fully understand. It is everybody’s hope that it is about to be corrected."
I am again gobsmacked by how the Right wing commentary in the US (and here) just goes along with this, with not a hint of reservation that this is how dictators run things - telling their investigators and courts the outcome they want with respect to their political opponents.
This is all in the context of a "re-opening" of an investigation that may not be a real "re-opening" of anything significant at all, regardless of what ageing reporters may think.
Again - the public has no idea of the mess that security classifications represent; there has been no evidence of anything of significance coming to foreign power's attention due to HC's use of a private server (I think it safe to assume that would have been disclosed by now, if it happened); and Right wing pundits are playing on people's ignorance. It's no mistake that Trump does best with the lowest educated, and younger alt.right revolting culture war losing wannabe warriors.
Friday, October 28, 2016
Evil clowns really exist
Of course I'm repeating myself, but I am truly gobsmacked at the US national harm that Trump is leading by his continued talking up of Clinton as being a criminal who would destroy America. He's a big mouth idiot who pays no regard to the danger he is encouraging when his ratbag, heavily armed, "patriot" followers feel endorsed by his rhetoric.
Thursday, October 27, 2016
More MOND wars
I see via Bee's blog that there's a further fight going on about whether a recent paper shows MOND to be on its last legs, or not.
Amusingly, the abstract from (MOND creator) Milgrom's counter-attack begins:
Meanwhile, its fun to watch astrophysicists fighting.
Amusingly, the abstract from (MOND creator) Milgrom's counter-attack begins:
Keller and Wadsley (2016) have smugly suggested, recently, that the end of MOND may be in view.It seems that Bee also thinks that Keller and Wadsley won't hold up.
Meanwhile, its fun to watch astrophysicists fighting.
A bit of pointless cruelty
In Bioethics, Unlike Game of Thrones, Decapitation Doesn't Always Mean Death - The Atlantic
Within this article, we read of a silly, gruesome experiment from the 1990's, when I would have thought we were past the worst of pointless animal experimentation:
Within this article, we read of a silly, gruesome experiment from the 1990's, when I would have thought we were past the worst of pointless animal experimentation:
Yet some bioethicists attack this equation of death and decapitation. Prominent among these critics are Franklin Miller, at the National Institutes of Health, and Robert Truog, at Harvard University. In denying decapitation as a definition of death, they cite a 1995 experimentThis was challenged on common sense grounds:
that was so gruesome, it would make Edgar Allan Poe shudder. In the investigation, a sheep about to give birth to a lamb was beheaded. Its headless body was then connected to a breathing machine, with a tube going down its severed neck. Thirty minutes later, a caesarian section operation was performed and the headless body gave birth to a now-motherless baby lamb. To Miller and Truog, “there is no ambiguity here: the sheep remained alive during the experiment.” Therefore, they conclude, “decapitated animals are not necessarily dead.”
This critique was subsequently challenged by John Lizza, a philosophy professor at Kutztown University. “Any criterion for determining death that would count artificially sustained decapitated human bodies among the living ‘we’ is mistaken,” he argues.
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
The Trump personality under scrutiny
What Drives Donald Trump? Fear of Losing Status, Tapes Show - The New York Times
Well, it's all pretty much what I expected, and confirmation that he's temperamentally completely unsuited to the job of President.
As people in comments say, what's also disturbing is that there is such a significant slab of the American public that would vote for him.
Well, it's all pretty much what I expected, and confirmation that he's temperamentally completely unsuited to the job of President.
As people in comments say, what's also disturbing is that there is such a significant slab of the American public that would vote for him.
The Nagasaki mission
Fat Boy Blusters - Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog
Don't recall reading before about how accident prone the flight that ended up dropping the bomb on Nagasaki had been...
Don't recall reading before about how accident prone the flight that ended up dropping the bomb on Nagasaki had been...
Al Trump
I recently re-watched The Untouchables for the first time in many years, and one thing that struck me was the way de Niro's Al Capone was very Trump-like with his finger pointing and hand gestures. Such as:
Compare:
It remains a great movie, by the way. I want to write more about it, and soon will...
Compare:
And the classic:
It remains a great movie, by the way. I want to write more about it, and soon will...
This is exactly right
Obama Was Right About Republican Extremism All Along | New Republic
The truly stupid on the Right of politics, here and the US, don't comprehend this yet; probably never will.
The truly stupid on the Right of politics, here and the US, don't comprehend this yet; probably never will.
Some pretty specific rules here
Vatican bans Catholics from keeping ashes of loved ones at home | World news | The Guardian
Well, there goes my plan to have my ashes thrown into the airconditioning intake during a board meeting of the IPA...
But seriously, I am somewhat sympathetic to the idea that it's good to have a place to visit the remains of a loved one, even if it is only in ash form, rather than throwing them in the sea or scattering them around the place. Mind you, some societies can take wanting to commune physically with the deceased a bit too far: the Washington Post recently had a photo essay up about some Indonesia tribe that digs up their deceased every few years, re-dresses then, and then puts then away again. This was the most remarkable photo:
Still got all his hair, too...
Well, there goes my plan to have my ashes thrown into the airconditioning intake during a board meeting of the IPA...
But seriously, I am somewhat sympathetic to the idea that it's good to have a place to visit the remains of a loved one, even if it is only in ash form, rather than throwing them in the sea or scattering them around the place. Mind you, some societies can take wanting to commune physically with the deceased a bit too far: the Washington Post recently had a photo essay up about some Indonesia tribe that digs up their deceased every few years, re-dresses then, and then puts then away again. This was the most remarkable photo:
Still got all his hair, too...
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
What the American (and Australian) Right must accept to regain credibility
I reckon there are perhaps three key things that a re-aligned American (and Australia) Right must accept to be credible again, and they are all related:
a. that climate change is real, and a very serious long term economic and humanitarian issue that needs addressing by all governments, but especially by the US as a leading industrial and research nation. Accepting science is not being a socialist - the very nature of the problem means a globalist approach is necessary;
b. that the idea that government must be minimal government (except when it comes to Defence - where the Right always wants more) has had its day: driven not only by the need for clear government policy and intervention regarding climate change, but also by credible economic research, and simple common sense comparisons internationally, that government has a key and important role in a wide variety of areas important for maintaining a society's overall well being*;
c. that provision of adequate government services and infrastructure requires realistic levels of government income, and globally, the world has been "gamed" by a race to the bottom by the richest corporations and individuals who now pay tax at levels that would have been thought laughable last century. The Right must abandon the obsession with insisting that the only way to advance a nation's economy is to cut taxes.
* I wonder how much blame can be borne by Rand and/or Milton Friedman for the persistence of this Republican view? On the latter, as Paul Krugman wrote in 2007, he was a good and important economist, when it came to his specialised field, but on matters of the size of government and regulation, it was pretty much just ideology:
a. that climate change is real, and a very serious long term economic and humanitarian issue that needs addressing by all governments, but especially by the US as a leading industrial and research nation. Accepting science is not being a socialist - the very nature of the problem means a globalist approach is necessary;
b. that the idea that government must be minimal government (except when it comes to Defence - where the Right always wants more) has had its day: driven not only by the need for clear government policy and intervention regarding climate change, but also by credible economic research, and simple common sense comparisons internationally, that government has a key and important role in a wide variety of areas important for maintaining a society's overall well being*;
c. that provision of adequate government services and infrastructure requires realistic levels of government income, and globally, the world has been "gamed" by a race to the bottom by the richest corporations and individuals who now pay tax at levels that would have been thought laughable last century. The Right must abandon the obsession with insisting that the only way to advance a nation's economy is to cut taxes.
* I wonder how much blame can be borne by Rand and/or Milton Friedman for the persistence of this Republican view? On the latter, as Paul Krugman wrote in 2007, he was a good and important economist, when it came to his specialised field, but on matters of the size of government and regulation, it was pretty much just ideology:
In the decades ahead, this single-mindedness would become Friedman’s trademark. Again and again, he called for market solutions to problems—education, health care, the illegal drug trade—that almost everyone else thought required extensive government intervention. Some of his ideas have received widespread acceptance, like replacing rigid rules on pollution with a system of pollution permits that companies are free to buy and sell. Some, like school vouchers, are broadly supported by the conservative movement but haven’t gotten far politically. And some of his proposals, like eliminating licensing procedures for doctors and abolishing the Food and Drug Administration, are considered outlandish even by most conservatives.The lesson the Right needs to learn: "single mindedness" has had its day. Pragmatism, common sense and recognition of complexity should all trump ideology.
Trump and the expected Republican break up
I thought this piece in the Washington Post, about the Republican Party's problems (and widely anticipated break up/re-alignment after losing at the election) being more than just about Trump, was pretty convincing. I'll make another post about the Right wing's necessary re-alignments. (Although long time readers can probably guess one of them!)
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