In other vegetarian news

I see that McDonalds, which has badly fallen out of favour with me and my family, is bringing in a "McPlant" burger - presumably similar to the "Rebel Whopper" which I actually quite like from Hungry Jacks.   (Speaking of HJ - I only ever go to my local one, which is pretty cheap and basic in design and seems to be run by really unhappy teenagers.   I may like one of their burgers now, but the chain still has a negative feeling about it, if you ask me.  At least McDonalds tried to make their outlets look more stylish.)   

I'm not at all sure how the fancier quality imitation meat market is going.  If my local supermarkets are anything to go by, sure, there are lots of start ups trying to sell vegetarian burgers, mince, and imitation chicken meat, but it often seems to be being sold at a discount because the expiry date is about to run out.  And there is something of a price issue - they are more expensive than real meat patties that involved raising a cow, trucking it, killing it, grinding it up, making it into patties and transporting it.   I guess economies of scale have something to do with it, but you would have thought that something resembling a meat patty made from vegetable protein should be able to be made at the same price as a real meat one.  

I don't even know that HJ Rebel Whopper is a success - it was heavily promoted at the start, and was high in prominence at the drive-thru sign, but the last time I went there, it had gone to a hard to spot corner of the signage.  This does not augur well.

I should really try more of the frozen, Asian imitation meats.  But one I really liked a few years ago - a sort of fake chicken but made from mushrooms and with a pleasingly firmer texture than you usually get from such products - I have not been able to find again, last time I looked.

Anyway, I still feel I should be making more of an effort to increase the vegetarian meals at home.  I still say I am never going to feel too guilty about eating a prawn or mussel, though.

Nut roasts noted

I don't know why - perhaps it's just my general fondness for nuts as a very filling form of vegetarian snack/food - but these recipes for "nut roasts" mostly sound pretty appealing.

Vegetarians rejoice: 10 nut roast recipes that won’t let you down

Exactly

Yes. Given the state of scientific knowledge on global warming, and how they ("skeptics") have for years now clearly lost all of their last gasp arguments ("the pause", "hide the decline", "it's all urban heat island effects" etc), there's really no point in trying to convince people who are absorbed in ridiculous conspiracy belief systems - which climate change denial now is - to move out of the way.  Governments just have to move around them.    

That's not to say that they shouldn't be forthright about telling people they need to come to their senses.  It's just that it need not be done in any polite "I respect your opinion, but it's wrong" sort of way.   

Stupid watch

Some people who comment at Catallaxy are still betting on Trump:

Actually, the fact that the betting markets are still taking money on a Trump win is really strange - unethical, I would have thought.    Nate Silver complained about it the other day.  

Here's a Left wing conspiracy theory for you:  some key Right wing figures (politicians or media) who all "on board" with election fraud conspiracy theories are shareholders in the big betting houses.

Time for something more optimistic

I don't know much about Dave Borlace, who makes educational videos on climate change and energy on his Youtube channel Just Have a Think, but he seems pretty good, and reliable. 

I particularly liked this one, because I had previously read a bit about flow batteries and thought that they may have a major role in the transition to mostly renewable energy.  It seems there may be grounds for optimism:

Just asking questions, Lindsay will say

Allahpundit at Hot Air talks about the ridiculous corrupt stink around Lindsay Graham ringing his fellow Republican to chat about what he do with the Georgia re-count:

Raffensperger told WaPo this afternoon that he and his wife are getting death threats from some of Trump’s more fanatic followers because he insists on claiming that this was a fair election. He also dropped a bombshell, claiming that Lindsey Graham dialed him up and … inquired about excluding some perfectly valid ballots:

In their conversation, Graham questioned Raffensperger about the state’s signature-matching law and whether political bias could have prompted poll workers to accept ballots with nonmatching signatures, according to Raffensperger. Graham also asked whether Raffensperger had the power to toss all mail ballots in counties found to have higher rates of nonmatching signatures, Raffensperger said.

Raffspenger said he was stunned that Graham appeared to suggest that he find a way to toss legally cast ballots. Absent court intervention, Raffensperger doesn’t have the power to do what Graham suggested, as counties administer elections in Georgia.

“It sure looked like he was wanting to go down that road,” he said.

Graham has also publicly entertained the idea of state legislatures declaring their elections void and awarding their electors to Trump. This cretin really does seem willing to condone a coup against the elected incoming government on the thinnest possible pretenses, from excluding legal ballots to just ignoring the result of a state election on the theory that fraud must have occurred to taint it. There’d be nothing left of the country’s civic culture if he succeeded, but so long as Lindsey Graham gets to remain a senator and his party remains in power, that’s a detail. A question to ask yourself: Why did he call up Raffensperger in first place, especially now instead of waiting until the recount is over and speaking to him then? If he was speaking in his role as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, because the committee is investigating election procedures, there’s no reason why that can’t wait until the more important work of counting the votes is finished. The obvious suspicion is that Graham called Raffensperger this week because he really was trying to lean on him on Trump’s behalf to start throwing out ballots in hopes of changing the outcome illicitly, before the result is certified. In a better world, the DOJ would open a corruption case on him tonight.

In normal times, this would be an incredible scandal.  Now, given the bottom of the barrel standards Trump has caused the GOP to sink to, it will just be a shoulder shrug.

Oh, now that I see your jihad against ABC is based on a reasonable critique of the organisation, I see your point [sarcasm]

Sinclair Davidson, having a tantrum about the ABC for the millionth time at his blog for fools today:

We need to get away from this notion of judging the ABC by small-l liberal values. The ABC does not practice small-l liberalism. The ABC is infested by extremist left-wing progressives who use small-l liberalism as camouflage to destroy our way of life and civilisation.

Of course, allowing ageing twits like Steve Kates and Rafe Champion, and conservatives like CL, to use his blog promote all of the Right Wingnut conspiracy theorising about the Trump election is just fine, though.  No harming democracy in the US at all, those beliefs.  Not to mention his blog's promotion of climate change denialism and inaction.  That won't hurt "our way of life" at all. 

 

This seems correct

 

How's the "let's humour him, and he'll go quietly" strategy of some of the GOP politicians going?

Appallingly:

Just what a country needs:  a President yelling to his (often religiously fundamentalist) cult-like base that the side which won an election by a substantially larger popular vote is genuinely evil.

The chances that there will be a shooting by one of delusional followers, to defeat "evil", seems to be increasing daily.

Update:   the latest -

The biggest Trump suck up tries to convince Trump he can leave and come back

So, even Hugh Hewitt thinks Trump should leave "gracefully".  Fat chance.

The final volume of his memoirs can only be imagined now. When Trump leaves D.C. for Mar-a-Lago, he will launch a super PAC, build his presidential library and, yes, begin planning campaigns 2022 and 2024. Trump doesn’t need to own a cable-news network, but he should control a block of prime-time programming. He could effortlessly host his own show, probably with one or more of the Trump children, so he doesn’t have to be on set five days a week. This would allow him time for maintaining and expanding his coalition of at least 72 million.

Trump will likely oversee not just a shadow government but also a robust, ongoing campaign.

Trump and Trump loyalists will work to maintain a hold on the GOP, which is best accomplished by his proceeding smoothly toward a peaceful, graceful transition of power. Then for Trump, a period of consolidation and celebration of his achievements. Then ...

I can't help but giggle at the idea of what is going to be inside a Trump Presidential Library.  Comic books?  Remainders of all the self promotion books to come from his kids?  

I don't think Trump actually has any chance of retaining power over the Republican Party.   His cult members seem to continually project their assessment of Trump onto the GOP politicians who have had to actually deal with him.   I reckon the great majority treat him as a useful idiot.

Update: I agree with this: 

 

While we're speaking physics...

...I also liked this video from a French Youtube channel ScienceClic (of which there is also an English version), which has a different way of visualising General Relativity:

Also - this article at The Guardian last year recommends a variety of science and math Youtube channels, some of which I have already checked out.  The PBS ones are certainly all pretty good.

Update:  actually, that was the wrong video.  I meant to post this one:

Back to Maxwell's equations

A few days ago, I was musing about the complexity of Maxwell's equations, and the lack of historical context in most attempts at explaining them.

Behold, via stumbling around Youtube, I have found the Science Asylum channel and if you don't mind his cheesey sense of humour (it's harmless, and a little charming in the way it's adolescent friendly), his videos are really good.

Here is the one having a go at explaining electromagnetism:

He's like a poster child for government warnings against marijuana use

Actually, I still reckon his hyped up comments read more (what I think) cocaine users are like, but he only admits to marijuana.

And you might recall that he bet $45,000 on a Trump win.

So how is this Catallaxy tradie, who I wouldn't let do so much as change a lightbulb, dealing with the election result? These are from yesterday: 

And the cherry on top: 

She was smiling about how big of an idiot he was. 

On the upside, at least COVID 19 has killed libertarianism

This question... 

was about this... 

and out of the many tweeted suggestions that follow, this: 

Heh. 

What?

Hey, have a read of this abstract for this recent arXiv paper entitled Kant & Hegel in Physics, which has a very surprising last line:

Kant and Hegel are among the philosophers who are guiding the way in which we reason these days. It is thus of interest to see how physical theories have been developed along the line of Kant and Hegel. Einstein became interested in how things appear to moving observers. Quantum mechanics is also an observer-dependent science. The question then is whether quantum mechanics and relativity can be synthesized into one science. The present form of quantum field theory is a case in point. This theory however is based on the algorithm of the scattering matrix where all participating particles are free in the remote past and in the remote future. We thus need, in addition, a Lorentz-covariant theory of bound state which will address the question of how the hydrogen atom would look to moving observers. The question is then whether this Lorentz-covariant theory of bound states can be synthesized with the field theory into a Lorentz-covariant quantum mechanics. This article reviews the progress made along this line. This integrated Kant-Hegel process is illustrated in terms of the way in which Americans practice their democracy.

I haven't read it yet, but it seems to be by a rather old former professor.   (Got  his PhD in 1961.) 

 

Wannabe dictator and his cult base working each other into a conspiracy frenzy

Members of cults are - pretty much by definition, I guess - incredibly gullible.   And cult leaders, if not from the start, but eventually, live in a fantasy world whereby they have convinced themselves of their greatness.

And hence we have the Orange One in the White House encouraging his disturbingly large number of cult followers to believe he has been the victim of a massive conspiracy with this tweet, which I reckon has a good chance of going down in history as the most insanely damaging thing Trump has done to his country:

Of course, Steve Kates is all on board - as are the great majority of people who comment at Catallaxy.   It's hard to credit how incredibly gullible they are - and the extent to which they Dunning-Kruger their way into thinking they understand everything from voting laws in any State in the US, or arcane statistical tests, all by relying solely on what a rabidly pro-Trump numbnut has postulated.

Anyway, Allahpundit at Hot Air has a good post about this pushback:

Joint statement from DHS agency, local officials: There’s no evidence that any voting system was in any way compromised

As he writes:

Here’s the statement from the “Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council (GCC) Executive Committee,” which includes an alphabet soup of agencies at the federal and local level. The most noteworthy is the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, an arm of DHS created by Trump in 2018 and charged with protecting critical infrastructure like elections from cyberattacks. CISA has been debunking voter fraud claims on its official webpage and on social media for the past week; its director, Chris Krebs, has amplified those debunkings on social media as well, sometimes with his own comments. Earlier today, Reuters reported that the White House was pressuring CISA to remove a critique it posted of the Dominion “Hammer and Scorecard” conspiracy theory that Trump screamed about in a tweet this morning. Krebs refused, and told people around him that he expected to be fired because of it....

And what is it all for?   Just for the Orange Oaf to be able to pretend to himself and his cult base that he has to leave the White House, but it's not his fault:

The Washington Examiner is reporting that Trump’s advisors “believe he has accepted that he is unlikely to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s election victory and will begin to plot life after the White House, including a 2024 run, once his campaign had exhausted all its lawsuits.” According to one, “I suspect that once those cases are heard and adjudicated, and once we get through the Georgia recount, that the president will begin the public off-ramp.” Okay, but I’m not sure how he takes that off-ramp after he tweeted to 80 million people this morning that “Dominion deleted 2.7 million Trump votes nationwide.” His fans are going to cling to that. What’s he supposed to say, “It totally happened but literally no one can prove it but somehow I know it’s true”? For cripes sake.

Anyway, I hope Biden hires Krebs back. We need more people with integrity in government. A lot, lot, lot more.

Just incredible - as is the lack of Republican big hitters who are refusing to call him out. 

      

Tough on COVID pays off politically

Wow.  Was Labor polling this well in Victoria before the COVID crisis?:

Well I just checked Roy Morgan's website:   Labor was riding high at the last election - and they are above that level:

How heartwarming this must be for the IPA, Sinclair Davidson, and his whole ship of old fools.  And let's not forget Adam Creighton, too.

Former IMF head really goes rogue

One the most absurd claims of Right wing nuttery has long been how it's the Left  that has gone insane with unreasonable and nasty demonisation of Republicans/Trump supporters, while in fact it is their side that is home to those who believe that Democrats are literally in league with Satan and the outcome of the election is a supernatural struggle for Good to conquer Evil. 

Can you imagine the outcry from the wingnut media...

...if Obama had been 30 minutes late to a military commemoration ceremony which has been happening at 11am for a century or so?:

The president and his entourage – including first lady Melania Trump, Vice President Pence and second lady Karen Pence – did not arrive at the tomb until well after the scheduled start time of 11 a.m. ET. The president's motorcade was still driving toward the tomb as a gun salute to veterans rang out, according to the White House pool report.

It wasn't until nearly 11:25 that the president appeared on a walkway in front of the tomb, where he stood alongside Pence in a steady rain. Trump walked toward the wreath, laid a hand on it, paused and then returned to his spot. The ceremony was over soon afterwards. It was the only event listed on the president's public schedule for Wednesday.

Back to politics

A witty use of Twitter:

 

Some science (for relief from politics)

*  Nature has an interesting article updating us on the research into the question of whether infections cause Alzheimers:

Are infections seeding some cases of Alzheimer’s disease?

A fringe theory links microbes in the brain with the onset of dementia. Now, researchers are taking it seriously.

*   I've been watching many Youtube videos on physics lately, mainly regarding quantum theory and relativity, and one of them talked about how most of the mass of the proton comes not from the Higgs Boson, but via the interactions between the quarks which make up the proton.  Individually, those quarks only have a small percent of the total mass of a proton:

Protons are made up of even smaller particles known as quarks. It might seem reasonable that simply adding up the quarks’ masses would give you a proton’s mass. Yet it doesn’t. That sum is far too small to explain the proton’s bulk. New, detailed calculations show that only 9 percent of a proton’s heft comes from the mass of its quarks. The rest comes from complicated effects occurring inside the particle.

I had probably read that before, but sometimes just being told via video sticks more in the mind than reading it quickly.

This fairly recent article in Quanta gives a pretty good idea of how complicated the physics of quarks inside protons really is.   Mind you, it's pretty incredible, when you think about it, that we have the technology to be able to conduct experiments at this level of tininess at all.

*  While watching the videos on physics, I have also thought again about how it seems that Einstein's complicated theories have sort of made us loose appreciation for the innovation and complexity of Maxwell's electromagnetism equations.   I seem to recall that when doing senior high school physics, I didn't like how there was no attempt to put how Maxwell came up with his formulae in proper context, so you got the impression that they sprang out of no where.   Interestingly, when I Google the topic now, I see that Freeman Dyson  wrote an article (or gave a talk?) entitled "Why is Maxwell's Theory so Hard to Understand" - which makes me feel better about my life long gut feeling about it!   I didn't know this:

For more than twenty years, his theory of electromagnetism was largely ignored. Physicists found it hard to understand because the equations were complicated. Mathematicians found it hard to understand because Maxwell used physical language to explain it. It was regarded as an obscure speculation without much experimental evidence to support it. The physicist Michael Pupin in his autobiography “From Immigrant to Inventor” describes how he travelled from America to Europe in 1883 in search of somebody who understood Maxwell. He set out to learn the Maxwell theory like a knight in quest of the Holy Grail. 

Pupin went first to Cambridge and enrolled as a student, hoping to learn the theory from Maxwell himself. He did not know that Maxwell had died four years earlier. After learning that Maxwell was dead, he stayed on in Cambridge and was assigned to a college tutor. But his tutor knew less about the Maxwell theory than he did, and was only interested in training him to solve mathematical tripos problems. He was amazed to discover, as he says, “how few were the physicists who had caught the meaning of the theory, even twenty years after it was stated by Maxwell in 1865”.

So, the electrification of cities, which seems to have only got going in the 1880's, was proceeding before Maxwell's ideas were thoroughly or widely understood by scientists?  Huh.

Correct

 And, as far as I can tell, Rupert Murdoch knows this, but is letting a large part of his media outlets run with it anyway.  

He could encourage confidence in democracy and a rational rejection of ideologically motivated conspiracy theory, or prioritise making money by trying to not lose too much market share to even more extreme Right wing outlets .   

Pretty clear which choice he is making.  

As much as it pains me to say, but...

...Andrew Bolt appears to be more right than wrong in his opinion on the issue of denying the US election outcome:

 

He must know that this is Rupert Murdoch's opinion too;  but if he is reading the Right wing social media (including Catallaxy, which he surely follows closely), he would have to know that the Conservative base is far from agreeing with both of them.  (And, amusingly, they are apparently swearing off  Fox News and cancelling subscriptions to The Australian because they are not adequately endorsing the Trumpian denial of reality.)    

Bolt & Rupert deserve no great credit for seemingly acknowledging reality on this one issue, when they have spent a couple of decades priming the Conservative base to live in a world of denial of expert evidence, and to prefer a self serving information cocoon that leads them to think they are the smart insiders who can see what's really going on.  You know I'm talking climate change...

Sex and politics

Once again we're in the murky media ethical question of when it is newsworthy that a married politician is having an affair.   

I find it hard to get upset with the ABC running a story on it where the only figures examined were current Liberal/National Party heavyweights - they're the ones in power, it's obviously more significant than what might be going in the Opposition in the same period.   Go back 45 years and it was a Labor government's turn with Jim Cairns; 22 years ago it was that party's turn again with Gareth Evans. 

Overall, I think 4 Corners did good justification for the relevance of the reporting:  especially for the deep foolishness of Christian Porter, who I have never paid any attention to before.   How stupid to be carrying on with a woman in a public bar frequented by journalists and political staff from all sides.

Malcolm Turnbull sounded pretty reasonable to me in his explanation of why he found the behaviour so galling and inappropriate.   Sure, there is an element of revenge in talking about it now:  but he is right on the principles.  

I used to think that you could generalise that there was a difference between the Left and Right in the nature of their sex scandals, with Labor politicians being more promiscuous (hello, Bob Hawke), while Conservatives had fewer orgasms but in seedier circumstances (using prostitutes, into S&M, soliciting anonymous interactions in toilets, etc).   But perhaps that was too influenced by the impression given by British sex scandals.   Anyway, after last night's reporting, I should probably revise those presumptions.  

Just in case you were wondering ...

Graeme Bird is busy burbling away in comments in moderation that Trump won the election "in a landslide", but "the oligarchy", which has Rupert Murdoch on side - because they lent him money, or something - is busy trying to usurp the will of the people by installing Biden.  He allows that it might work, but we won't know for a few months.  

As I do not believe in being an open forum for the repetition of absurd conspiracy claims, even via the little read comments of my blog,  very few of Graeme's comments are going to be allowed through for quite a while.  (For which he will call me a Jewish c..., again, no doubt.)

  

Quite a burn, this item on the front page of the Washington Post website

 

Oh sure: nothing the US does ever affects Australia

I never trusted Adam Creighton's opinions, but his credibility this year has really been in a nosedive:

As people in tweets following this have pointed out, Trumps effect on:

a.    tariffs and relationship with China;

b.    climate change; and

c.    a general retreat from multilateral co-operation in other areas 

is meant to have no effect on Australians at all?   When China has just last week been sabre rattling on stopping or winding back a huge range of imports?
 

Movie reviewed: His House

Who knew you could make a horror/witchcraft/ghost movie an effective political one?  I kept feeling I wanted Peter Dutton to watch it.

I'm talking about the new, and apparently popular, Netflix film His House.  It's pretty good - well acted, well directed, and very sympathetic to the plight of African refugees in (in this case) England.   I think it is most effectively disturbing in the last third, when you get to see what that main characters went through.

I do think that the malevolent supernatural forces (if they exist at all) are left with ill defined motivation, though.  Why it would want the husband and wife to react that way is unclear.   (This is hard to talk about without talking complete spoilers.)   But overall, a pretty very fine effort.

A Colbert clip that has nothing to do with US politics

This is from last week, I think, and it made me laugh a lot:

 

Call out conspiracy belief on the Right

As much as I thought Biden's speech on the weekend was pretty great for what was needed at the time, I do hope he, at some point, makes this clear:   the Right in America needs to stop living in the world of conspiracy belief.   Denying climate change was their entry drug;  Qanon is the ridiculous end.   But things like believing a widespread organised system of election fraud is plausible is still, at heart, a belief in a conspiracy, and they to stop being so gullible.

People need to be told when they are being ridiculous. 

Watching Rupert

So, it seems clear Rupert wants Trump out: 

And: 

But what will Carlson and Hannity say in light of this? Not to mention the even worse opinion "stars" of the network. Judge what's-her-name? Will she comply? 

 

Update:

 

Speaking of legacy -

 

 

An extraordinarily fine victory speech

Typing this as I watch Biden  finish his victory speech and it's energetic and pitch perfect; really, it's just perfect in every sense. It's extraordinarily refreshing after the pathetic and dark rhetoric of Trump. 

This will get very postive reviews, I reckon; and it will deflate those in the Right wing media who will know they have to recalibrate how to attack him. 

A good day

At last.. waking up to the good news on the Biden win. 

Some stuff I've noticed on Twitter (the first from yesterday):

The problem is, though, the length of time it will take for the poisonous conspiracy belief system of the American Right to give up hope of changing the outcome.The Murdoch family could play an enormous role in this... But will they? 

I liked this parody of that nutjob's paintings: 

And meanwhile, over at Catallaxy, it's all: 

Yes, cokehead Tailgunner still thinks it all a Qanon play that will be revealed as a trap... Any...moment.... now. 

Actually, he has lots of support.. Their willingness to be gullible  consumers of  lies and deflection from bad faith propagandists for 20 years on climate change means they have no ability to tell when they are being played anymore.

On that serious problem, Ezra Klein's column at Vox is pretty pessimistic.. He is talking about Trump's discrediting the result: 

This is, to borrow Hungarian sociologist Bálint Magyar’s framework, “an autocratic attempt.” That’s the stage in the transition toward autocracy in which the would-be autocrat is trying to sever his power from electoral check. If he’s successful, autocratic breakthrough follows, and then autocratic consolidation occurs. In this case, the would-be autocrat stands little chance of being successful. But he will not entirely fail, either. What Trump is trying to form is something akin to an autocracy-in-exile, an alternative America in which he is the rightful leader, and he — and the public he claims to represent — has been robbed of power by corrupt elites.

“Democracy works only when losers recognize that they have lost,” writes political scientist Henry Farrell. That will not happen here.

As I say, I reckon Fox News has disproportionate power here... But what would it take for Murdoch to tell them they have to stop degitimitising democracy?Some militia shooting up Democrats?

Stupid people like those at Catallaxy think that Trump will start his own rival media network which will crush Fox, if Fox does not maintain the pro-Trump rage. This theory is based on the idea that Trump knows how to pick people with competence, and that Fox "stars"are willing to jump ship to a purely one person cult based enterprise. It won't happen, or if it does, it will fail like most of Trump's vanity projects. 

Anyway, for now, things are looking up. 

Cult members at work

For goodness sake.  The Christian participation in the Trump Cult has tarnished the reputation of the religion irreparably:

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