The longest week

How many other Australians have been reading Twitter in bed up to midnight, and going to sleep thinking "with any luck, when I wake up in the morning, the Biden win will be confirmed" only to be disappointed at 5.45am?

Seems to me the numbers are moving in the right direction still.

I was surprised to see Andrew Bolt, of all people, saying that Trump shouldn't be promoting voter fraud claims that are not well founded because it's harmful for democracy.   My message to Andrew:   TELL THAT TO YOUR OTHER SKY NEWS HOSTS AND THEN GET ON THE PHONE TO RUPERT MURDOCH AND TELL HIM HE'S LETTING FOX NEWS RUIN DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA.   Yeah, I know:  as if.  And by today Andrew will be back to spewing something in support of Trump anyway - he does these occasional swings into momentary centrist positions before coming back to his Pauline Hanson friendly attitudes.

As I have complained before - anyone with any decency should not be playing the game of "I'm an independent thinker and working for the Murdoch media empire to provide much needed balance to the extreme right wing bias that is 90% of the rest of the commentary here".    No.  You're working for or with a company that runs a propaganda network working in the cynical interests of a money and power hungry billionaire family that is using you as a fig leaf cover to say they really provide diverse opinion.    The media empire that is the single biggest cause of the "epistemic crisis" in American (and to an extent, Australian) Right wing politics.    No one decent should do anything other than leave them and rubbish the corporate line endlessly - like the amusing Twitter feed of Tony Koch.

Anyway, back to count watch....

Rupert Murdoch and democracy

Interestingly, Vanity Fair claimed (although I really don't put much faith in this) that "a source" told them that Trump rang Rupert Murdoch directly to angrily complain when Fox News put Arizona down as a Biden win yesterday, but Rupert declined to do a Packer and ring the network to tell them to change it.

But Fox News' evening opinion line up - surely the most influential part of the network - is apparently running hard on the "unfair election/fraudulent vote counts" claims.   

I put Murdoch into the category of rich men who consider Trump a useful idiot - but doesn't he care at all about democracy?   He would know that spreading purely partisan rumour and conspiracy about election counts is bad for respect for democracy.   

Is it really worth the money and the feeling of power, Rupert?   

Update:  look at this, for example -

 and

More amusement

 Update:  how embarrassing for Joe (Hockey) -

Prediction: there will be too much analysis

Of course I haven't given up on an eventual Biden win, but the one thing I am not looking forward to is the months and months of over-analysis of why Trump (win or lose) did much better than expected.

Can't we just circumvent it all with a these observations:

a.    Trump and Republicans are the party of the rich*, and the dumb**.  Combine those two proportions of the population, and you get into "could always win" numbers.

b.    The US will not return to reasonable politics while ever the Murdoch family doesn't want it to.   We can only hope that things might improve when Rupert dies; but the population will be kept dumbed down while ever the "in it for the money" Right wing propaganda media continues to have influence.  

c.    Social media also has its role in dumbing down and polarising the population as well - but they do get at least some credit (unlike Murdoch) for their role in moderating how much misinformation and rumour were spread in the lead up to this election.   

 

*  OK, have to make allowances for some categories of the rich being more liberal than others.  But as a general rule...

**   OK, I still worry about using that as a general description of people who otherwise function normally except in their politics.   Perhaps it's more - been so propagandised into an inability to tell truth from fiction it plays like they are dumb.   

Update:   I understand people being upset that so many Americans, knowing Trumps personality and performance, still voted for him.  But it's worth remembering that voluntary voting has an effect on the total numbers who did so:

Around 239.2 million Americans were eligible to vote in 2020, according to the U.S. Elections Project. NBC News’ projected 159.8 million ballots cast in 2020 would constitute about a 66.8% voter turnout rate among eligible citizens — the highest since 1900.

Actually, I'm not sure about that number of ballots figure - the total votes counted on the election outcome pages show about 139 million votes - but other sites agree that the proportion of eligible voters figures of about 66% seems right.

So, if about 48.5% of the vote ends up going to Trump (it's closer to 49% at the moment), that's 32.4% of the eligible voters.  As I have often said before, a significant number of those likely consider him a useful idiot (he's good for their tax rate, Right wing media business, or investment in defence industries, etc).   So who knows, but maybe 20% of the voting population are true members of the Trump cult - and helped made that way by the self interested Right wing propaganda industry and cynical culture warring which has become the strategy of the Republicans for two to three decades. 

I mean, that's still bad.   Maybe just not quite as bad as it first seems.

Made me laugh

 And more:

Talking big figures (while we wait for the US election's big figures)

I've been browsing arXiv again, and turned up this recent paper The Information Catastrophe:

Currently we produce 10 to power 21 digital bits of information annually on Earth. Assuming 20 percent annual growth rate, we estimate that 350 years from now, the number of bits produced will exceed the number of all atoms on Earth, or 10 to power 50. After 250 years, the power required to sustain this digital production will exceed 18.5 TW, or the total planetary power consumption today, and 500 years from now the digital content will account for more than half of the Earths mass, according to the mass energy information equivalence principle. Besides the existing global challenges such as climate, environment, population, food, health, energy and security, our estimates here point to another singularity event for our planet, called the Information Catastrophe. 

Um, not entirely sure what to make of this.  All sounds a bit silly, really.  Here is the conclusion:

In conclusion, we established that the incredible growth of digital information production would reach a singularity point when there are more digital bits created than atoms on the planet. At the same time, the digital information production alone will consume most of the planetary power capacity, leading to ethical and environmental concerns already recognized by Floridi, who introduced the concept of “infosphere” and considered challenges posed by our digital information society [27]. These issues are valid regardless of the future developments in data storage technologies. In terms of digital data, the mass-energy-information equivalence principle formulated in 2019 has not been yet verified experimentally, but assuming this is correct, then in not a very distant future, most of the planet’s mass will be made up of bits of information. Applying the law of conservation in conjunction with the mass-energy-information equivalence principle, it means that the mass of the planet is unchanged over time. However, our technological progress inverts radically the distribution of the Earth’s matter from predominantly ordinary matter, to the fifth form of digital information matter. One could say that we are literally changing the planet bit by bit. In this context, assuming the planetary power limitations are solved, we could envisage a future World mostly computer simulated and dominated by digital bits and computer code.

 

Horses again

With this happening yesterday in the Melbourne Death Race 2020:

 ...I am reminded of my very reasonable proposal of last year for racing to change into robot horse racing, with these transitional provisions:

a. University engineering schools to develop courses devoted to robot horses, and their rechargeable batteries (the entire economy will benefit from the latter).

b. Race meetings to immediately move to having half of all races run with jockeys and trainers in pantomime horses until sufficient robotic horses start to come on track.

c. All retired thoroughbred horses to be housed in spare bedrooms of the breeders.  That should solve the over-breeding issue.

I think this is a wise and reasonable suggestion.  If there was a way retired horses could shoot injured pantomime horses I would try to factor that in too, but I am a realist.

Actually, I was thinking:  it's going to take a while to get to battery powered horses with jockeys on their back to be able to run, quickly, the sort of distance that will satisfy punters.    Ideally, as a further transitional provision, I would now add:

*   Jockeys allowed to carry robot horses on their backs over the rest of the race.

Of course, should they break their legs doing so, some real horses could probably be trained to shoot guns, couldn't they?   Even if just a tranquilliser, the imagery would be terrific.

Islamic State really hates education

News from Kabul:

At least 22 people have been killed by gunmen who stormed Kabul University before engaging security forces in an hours-long battle on Monday.

A spokesman for the Afghan interior ministry said the attack was eventually stopped when three gunmen were killed.

A regional Islamic State group claimed responsibility in a statement....

The Taliban denied involvement and condemned the attack shortly after it began on Monday. Hours later the Islamic State group issued a message on the Telegram app saying it had targeted "the graduation of judges and investigators working for the apostate Afghan government".

And last week (and going back further):

A massive suicide bombing on October 24 outside the Kawsar-e Danish educational center in west Kabul was the latest attack cruelly targeting the Hazara Shia minority. The explosion took place in a crowded, narrow street outside the center, killing 30 people and injuring more than 70, mostly children and young adults between 15 and 26 years old who were attending classes.

Since 2017, the Dasht-e Barchi neighborhood, home to a predominantly Hazara community, has seen numerous attacks on civilians. A bombing at the Imam Zaman mosque in October 2017 killed 39; an attack on a school in August 2018 killed more than 34 students; and twin bombings at a wrestling club in September 2018 killed 20, including journalists and first responders who arrived after the first explosion. In May, gunmen murdered 15 women in the maternity wing of the Dasht-e Barchi hospital, many of whom were in labor or had just given birth.

The Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISKP), the Afghan branch of the Islamic State (ISIS), claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attack.  The armed group has claimed responsibility for many such bombings and has long singled out Afghanistan’s Hazara Shia community for attack.

Nothing says "let's set things back a 1,000 years" like attacking schools and universities.  And so cowardly when targeting kids and older students.

I don't get the ideology - they want high tech when it comes to weaponry and (probably) modern communication that allows for co-ordination of attacks.   But for nothing else.  So stupid.

 

The "let's praise the narcissist and see if that works" strategy clearly didn't work

Hey, wasn't this the same person who earlier this year thought Trump was really on top of the details and believed science?  Yes, yes it was:

“He’s been so attentive to the scientific literature and the details and the data,” Birx said. “I think his ability to analyze and integrate data that comes out of his long history in business has really been a real benefit during these discussions about medical issues.”

She deserves to feel stupid.

Yes, amusing

(A reminder: I did start, but didn't stick with, The Man in the High Castle.  Too bleak, and alternative history is generally not my thing.)

Cult watch continues

Just when you thought he couldn't get any nuttier, Steve Kates at Catallaxy gives Trump credit for catching COVID:

Trump has done everything possible, including catching the disease and then recovering from it, to demonstrate his bona fides in regard to the pandemic.

That has more than a touch of messianic imagining about it - He came and risked His life for us so that He could show us the pathway out of adversity.   

Hard to believe he has lost friendships over his cult membership, isn't it?  

[American] cooking discussed

First:  for future reference - I followed this American recipe for Mongolian beef stir fry on the weekend, and it worked out pretty good.   Just did it in the big, non stick skillet on the wok burner (not the wok), and the larger area of heated surface from the skillet did make it easier to sear both the beef and vegetables.  Woks on home stovetop gas wok burners only get hot in the tiny centre, and even then not really searingly hot like the jet burner powered woks at restaurants.  I'm going with the skillet from this point on.

Second:  that recipe came from an American site where I noticed a recipe for "home made sloppy joes".  I was never 100% sure what was in them, but now that I know, it's a really unappealing way to eat mince:

And once again I say - what is it with American cooking and onion and garlic powder.  It's like they invented the stuff (maybe they did?), but you would be hard pressed to find an American meat dish that does not use one or the other, or both.  They're obsessed with it.

Third:  OK, I am being mean to American cooking, because I did start recently watching Adam Ragusea, who I see has a million subscribers on Youtube.  I like the style of his videos - the concentrating on the food and the cooking, not his face; his rapid commentary; his sense of humour.  And when he's not showing how to cook something, but does a video about the history of some food or condiment, he's pretty interesting too.  I learned a lot of stuff I didn't know about vinegar by watching this one recently:

 

I see from the net that he doesn't have a professional background in food at all.  (He used to teach journalism and is also a musician.) I guess that makes him a little like our own Adam Liaw.

As with a lot of  home made Youtube content, I reckon it mostly depends on having a likeable personality come through in the videos.   I don't mind watching, for example, the former travel vloggers who have been doing a "watch us renovate our crappy RV home over the next 8 months" series.  They're just a likeable couple.  

She's officially now "positively annoying"

I'm talking Patricia Karvelas, who was never at risk of losing her presumably high paying job as a well known ABC broadcaster, but whined endlessly during the Melbourne lockdown about how hard it was not being able to send her kids to school. Anyway, here are recent tweets that I find annoying (these and her endless stupid studio dancing tweets): 

A fair assessment

On the topic of the Queensland election:  I think everyone expected Labor to win, so it was no surprise.  Queensland politics never seem to attract politicians who I find particularly impressive, which makes it harder for me to have an interest in following its intrigues closely.   

That said, the LNP current leader Deb Frecklington I find has a quite unappealing media presence and manner.   I was surprised she didn't just resign at the concession speech on Saturday.   Probably because the LNP has had particularly talentless and charmless politicians at the State level for such a long time now.

I was actually quite rude to some LNP "how to vote" poll booth people on Saturday.   Only because they looked university student age.  They gave me a cheery greeting, and I responded by asking what was wrong with them, that they were too young to be in such a stupid party.  They took it quite well, actually - I think one of them said "I don't really have a come back for that" (and no one else was within hearing distance, it wasn't like I was trying to make a scene.)  I have never done this before, but really, Young Liberals are just hard to put up with.

Update:  Oh, so she has resigned today.  Why not say on Saturday that she'll consider her future and make a decision in a few days' time?

Good luck, I say sarcastically...

I've mentioned this always coked-up sounding MAGA tradie from Melbourne who now comments all the time at Catallaxy:

There is much excitement generally at that blog as they grasp at all and any last minute figures that they think proves Trump is about to have not just a slim victory, but a glorious, vanquishing-his-enemies-forever type of victory.   

If Trump loses, and I expect he will, Catallaxy will be an interesting place to watch.   Steve Kates, at the very least, will require sedation for a month.

Monday quantum physics

I have been watching Youtube videos on quantum physics recently, and thought that these two were very good, from the point of view of explaining how the ideas evolved.  As the guy who made them says:

More in-depth than most presentations for laypersons, but without the mathematical rigour needed by a specialist in the field.

These are 5 years old now, and unfortunately, he seems to have stopped at two.  Although I haven't watched his other videos, it would seem he got into some huge fight with both creationists and post-modernists and stopped making videos.

Anyway, so I don't lose track of them in future:

 

and

Insulting commentary from both sides of the fence

No doubt France has a serious issue with Muslim extremism - as does Britain with the random terror attacks that have gone on there over the last few years.  It is an awful problem.

However, given that the latest attack happened inside of a Catholic church, this has sent the Catholic cranks of Catallaxy over the top:

Given that the Muslim population of France is apparently 5,670,000 or so, I wonder if CL thinks all of them should be rounded up and sent on a decade's long flotilla of ships over the Med to, where exactly?, just some random bit of desert where they can be quietly dumped?   Or only the "recalcitrant" Muslims - which I assume you can assess by asking them all to fill in a survey question "Are you for or against the beheading those who insult the Prophet?"   

Anyway, CL does actually do something useful later on the blog - he points to a Twitter commentary on the matter by ageing Mahathir Mohamad, in which he brings up the low standards of the West by noting that many women there wear g-strings and people go nude on some beaches.   That is, shall we say, unhelpful.   (I particularly dislike how his criticism which reads "The killing is not an act that as a Muslim I would approve" which leaves open the suggestion that he thinks other Muslims with sterner opinions than him might not be unreasonable in approving it.*)

Time for him to ride off into the sunset, I think.

*  Oh, I see know that he did also say that Muslims have "the right" to kill millions of French based on how many Muslims the French have killed in history, but I think that tweet has been deleted.   That's even worse, I suppose, but it is more along the lines of one of those rhetorical flourishes (equivalent to the CL one) where you know he would say if pressed  "I wasn't meaning that it should be done - of course that would be terrible in reality")

All the more reason not to like sport

I was surprised by this:  

I would have guessed more Democrat donations from the NBA.   And is baseball more Democrat because it has its biggest  fans in liberal, North East states?

Anyway, I'll take it as another piece of evidence in justification of my general rule of thumb that sport is basically all bad and a waste of time and money, except for when it leads to 24 hour bar openings. 

But Mum, I don't want to control monkey brains with light

 

I underestimated the stupidity of Trump supporters/cultists

I was opining earlier in the year that the problem for Trump would be the inability to hold campaign rallies due to COVID-19.  Little did I realise that not only the intense narcissism of Trump would mean that he would insist on them, but his dumb cult followers would attend, even in the freezing cold:

At least seven people were hospitalized and 30 had to receive medical attention during and after a Tuesday evening campaign rally with President Trump in Omaha, Nebraska.

You would have to suspect that campaign induced spread of COVID is going to be a significant factor in reduced Republican turn out.

Update:  just been amusing myself on a meme generator page -