Friday, July 31, 2020
Landscape, Gloucestershire, 1940 by Stanley Spencer
Landscape, Gloucestershire, 1940 by Stanley Spencer
Click to enlarge.
It was sad when the great ship went down
A traditional scouting song with dozens of variations of greater or lesser good taste.
Double click to enlarge.
Double click to enlarge.
Titanic
Oh, they built the ship Titanic, to sail the ocean blue.
For they thought it was a ship that water would never go through.
It was on its maiden trip, that an iceberg hit the ship.
It was sad when the great ship went down.
Chorus:
It was sad, so sad.
It was sad, so sad.
It was sad when the great ship went down (to the bottom of the....)
Uncles and aunts, little children lost their pants.
It was sad when the great ship went down.
Oh the captain smiled and winked
As the ship began to sink
And he said "The fish are surely going to stink"
So he S.O.S.ed the Lord
And he jumped right overboard
It was sad when the great ship went down
Repeat chorus
They were not far from the shore, 'bout a thousand miles or more,
When the rich refused to associate with the poor.
So they threw them down below, where they were the first to go.
It was sad when the great ship went down.
Repeat chorus
Oh, the heroes saved the weak, as the ship began to leak.
And the band on deck played on.
With, "Nearer my God to Thee", they were swept into the sea.
It was sad when the great ship went down.
Repeat chorus
Oh they built a sister ship, Called the S.S. Kunatah
And they knew it was a ship that would never get very far.
So, they christened it with GOP,
And it sunk with a Ker-Plop!
It was glad when the sad ship went down.
Repeat chorus
Additional Verses
They threw the lifeboats over, in the dark and stormy sea.
And the band began to play "Oh Give Thy Soul To Thee."
Little children wept and cried as they left their mother's side.
Repeat chorus
Oh the moral of this story, the moral of this song,
Is that one shouldn't go where he does not belong.
For in the good Lord's eyes, you're as good as other guys,
It was sad when the great ship when down.
Repeat chorus
Oh the moral of this story, is plain as you can see.
Never trust a sailor on the high sea.
He'll call you honey-darling, and say that he'll be true,
But when the ship goes down he'll say the hell/heck with you.
Repeat chorus
After last chorus, there is an extra "so sad, too bad" spoken-sung, and this:
Kerplunk
It sunk
Hunk a junk
In the sea
without me
Luckily
Hee hee hee.
Data Talks
Animated map shows the rise and fall of Blockbuster Video stores in the US from 1986 to 2019. Fascinating to view. Source: https://t.co/WH4fY6ZBxo pic.twitter.com/ivDVVxnZMT
— Simon Kuestenmacher (@simongerman600) June 29, 2020
I see wonderful things
For nearly 200 years we knew that spiders could move through the air & "fly" but we never understood exactly how. Only a recent series of studies found that spider's ballooning relies on the Earth eletricity field, or Global atmospheric electrical circuit https://t.co/xi7c8HJCrg pic.twitter.com/r9nZY6efKb
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) June 26, 2020
Offbeat Humor
If you've never heard a fox laugh, you’re welcome!
— mollyfprince (@mollyfprince) June 29, 2020
pic.twitter.com/jOLVddXWJ1
Living Room at Night, December by Dmitri Cavander
Living Room at Night, December by Dmitri Cavander
Click to enlarge.
An Insight
"The principle that the end justifies the means is in individualist ethics regarded as the denial of all morals. In collectivist ethics it becomes necessarily the supreme rule."
— Roadtoserfdom (@roadtoserfdom3) June 18, 2020
-Friedrich Hayek
Cinema in the outskirts of Naples, Italy, 1956 by Thomas Hoepker
Cinema in the outskirts of Naples, Italy, 1956 by Thomas Hoepker
Click to enlarge.
I don't know much about history . . .
Hmmm. The adage that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it loomed large yesterday. I was three-times jarred in Obama's eulogy to John Lewis by what can only have been historical ignorance.
This was the passage:
The jarring part was the invocation of Bull Connor and George Wallace. Both lifelong Democratic politicians; segregationists; members of the Democratic National Committee; both staunch opponents of the Civil Rights legislation of the 1960s.
Why would Obama invoke his own party's racist history in order to condemn his successor's administration? No one could credibly claim that there is a single politician today as committed to segregation and institutionalized racism as Wallace and Connor.
It would seem that either Obama forgot that Wallace and Connor were influential Democratic Party leaders or, possibly, he knew it but presumed he could pass them off as Republicans to an unknowing audience.
Neither interpretation reflects well.
But for any intelligent person with a good education, there was something of a triple-whammy. To hear Connor and Wallace as Democratic leaders invoked as an indictment of America's racist past was one thing. But hearing that, you almost immediately associate into the current reality. All the charges of racism are centered on a handful of cities which have been administered by Democrats for thirty, forty, fifty years and more.
Which at the level just below the conscious kind of leads you to - America's racist past is strongly associated with the Democratic party and the diminutive presence of racism in America today is concentrated in Democratic bastions.
Finally there was a third jarring effect, again, I assume, entirely unintentional.
What does "we can witness our federal government sending agents to use tear gas and batons against peaceful demonstrators" bring to mind? Can you think of some instance in the past half century or so where a Republican President brought in the National Guard to force a Democratic Governor to comply with Federal law?
If you don't think of the desegregation of Arkansas schools in 1957 after the overturning of "separate but equal" by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education, then shame on your history teachers.
Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard in September 1957 in order to permit the safe integration of Arkansas's public schools in the face of the Democratic Governor Orval Faubus's efforts to oppose integration.
Click to enlarge.
Republican President Eisenhower used the National Guard to protect African-Americans during desgregation in Arkansas in 1957.
John Lewis would never have made these mistakes. But he was a classy, moral gentleman who called his fellow Americans to a higher standard of behavior not just because it was right but because he loved his fellow Americans.
In one paragraph, Obama reminded his audience that the most visible faces of institutionalized racism in the 1950s-1970s were leaders in the Democratic Party; reminded them that the only places with intense accusations of racism today are in the cities so long governed by Democrats; and reminded the audience that the most famous instance of an American President federalizing a State National Guard was by a Republican President to protect black citizens from segregation by a Democratic Governor and violence related to it.
I am pretty certain these were not the intended messages.
And all for an ignorance of basic history or a pridefully cavalier attitude towards it.
This was the passage:
[John Lewis] knew, from his own life, that progress is fragile, that we have to be vigilant against the darker currents of this country’s history, of our own history, with their whirlpools of violence, and hatred, and despair that can always rise again. Bull Connor may be gone, but today we witnessed with our own eyes police officers kneeling on the necks black Americans. George Wallace may be gone, but we can witness our federal government sending agents to use tear gas and batons against peaceful demonstrators.Obama transitioned from there to an indictment of the unnamed current administration. The pivot was unpleasant but not uncharacteristic. He has had a pattern of soaring rhetoric married to mean-spiritedness.
The jarring part was the invocation of Bull Connor and George Wallace. Both lifelong Democratic politicians; segregationists; members of the Democratic National Committee; both staunch opponents of the Civil Rights legislation of the 1960s.
Why would Obama invoke his own party's racist history in order to condemn his successor's administration? No one could credibly claim that there is a single politician today as committed to segregation and institutionalized racism as Wallace and Connor.
It would seem that either Obama forgot that Wallace and Connor were influential Democratic Party leaders or, possibly, he knew it but presumed he could pass them off as Republicans to an unknowing audience.
Neither interpretation reflects well.
But for any intelligent person with a good education, there was something of a triple-whammy. To hear Connor and Wallace as Democratic leaders invoked as an indictment of America's racist past was one thing. But hearing that, you almost immediately associate into the current reality. All the charges of racism are centered on a handful of cities which have been administered by Democrats for thirty, forty, fifty years and more.
Which at the level just below the conscious kind of leads you to - America's racist past is strongly associated with the Democratic party and the diminutive presence of racism in America today is concentrated in Democratic bastions.
Finally there was a third jarring effect, again, I assume, entirely unintentional.
What does "we can witness our federal government sending agents to use tear gas and batons against peaceful demonstrators" bring to mind? Can you think of some instance in the past half century or so where a Republican President brought in the National Guard to force a Democratic Governor to comply with Federal law?
If you don't think of the desegregation of Arkansas schools in 1957 after the overturning of "separate but equal" by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education, then shame on your history teachers.
Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard in September 1957 in order to permit the safe integration of Arkansas's public schools in the face of the Democratic Governor Orval Faubus's efforts to oppose integration.
Republican President Eisenhower used the National Guard to protect African-Americans during desgregation in Arkansas in 1957.
John Lewis would never have made these mistakes. But he was a classy, moral gentleman who called his fellow Americans to a higher standard of behavior not just because it was right but because he loved his fellow Americans.
In one paragraph, Obama reminded his audience that the most visible faces of institutionalized racism in the 1950s-1970s were leaders in the Democratic Party; reminded them that the only places with intense accusations of racism today are in the cities so long governed by Democrats; and reminded the audience that the most famous instance of an American President federalizing a State National Guard was by a Republican President to protect black citizens from segregation by a Democratic Governor and violence related to it.
I am pretty certain these were not the intended messages.
And all for an ignorance of basic history or a pridefully cavalier attitude towards it.
Thursday, July 30, 2020
History
The doors to the Temple of Janus were closed whenever Rome was at peace, so unsurprisingly this was a rare occurrence. At one stage the doors stayed open for 400 years straight (c.640 BC - 235 BC). pic.twitter.com/p4hKnVNhb5
— Roman History Hit (@HistoryHitRome) June 25, 2020
I see wonderful things
"Purple Phoenix" is a sculpture by Jack Storms designed using a cold-working lathe. There is no heat involved in the process: the materials used on each one of Jack Storms’ glass sculptures are 32% optical lead crystal, optical crystal and dichroic glass https://t.co/cDkVFAru0x pic.twitter.com/cmKjvq0ftc
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) June 24, 2020
Data Talks
How Americans feel about the slogan "All lives matter," by education level
— Rob Henderson (@robkhenderson) June 29, 2020
High school or less
Positive: 62%
Negative: 13%
College graduates
Positive: 48%
Negative: 31%
Postgraduates
Positive: 38%
Negative: 41%https://t.co/jVwIEfNsoM pic.twitter.com/nyqBrlllB6
Distinguishing incompetence from bias
A classic example where conservatives see malicious lying when the reality is almost certainly the overwhelming innumeracy of most journalists.
She is part of the cabal of Ben Rhodes journalists:
Further hindering her competency is her Harvard BA in Government. An institution once known for knowledge generation and transmission, now focused on information degradation and credential manufacturing for the Mandarin Class.
But her biggest weakness, almost endemic among journalists, is innumeracy.
As everyone is shouting on the internet - This is a 9.5% quarterly drop and a projected annualized 32.9% drop. She mistook a projection (32.9%) for a fact (9.5% past quarter shrinkage).
So conservatives get riled up because they see malicious fake news (32.9% quarterly drop) whereas it is simply bad reporting based on innumeracy.
BREAKING: America's economy just had its worst quarter on record. The US economy contracted by 32.9% between April and June, its worst drop on record, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said Thursday.
— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) July 30, 2020
She is part of the cabal of Ben Rhodes journalists:
The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.Abby Phillip is slightly older but otherwise, she is what Rhodes was observing.
Further hindering her competency is her Harvard BA in Government. An institution once known for knowledge generation and transmission, now focused on information degradation and credential manufacturing for the Mandarin Class.
But her biggest weakness, almost endemic among journalists, is innumeracy.
As everyone is shouting on the internet - This is a 9.5% quarterly drop and a projected annualized 32.9% drop. She mistook a projection (32.9%) for a fact (9.5% past quarter shrinkage).
So conservatives get riled up because they see malicious fake news (32.9% quarterly drop) whereas it is simply bad reporting based on innumeracy.
Why the reluctance?
I dislike the gotcha tone but it is an interesting dynamic to observe. From Google CEO Squirms as Jim Jordan Asks if Google Will 'Tailor Its Features' to Help Joe Biden by Tyler O'Neil.
Jordan sought an assurance that Google would not use its power (via search results) to deliberately sway the election; that Google would treat all candidates equally. The fact that Pichai sought repeatedly to affirm something different from that is possibly telling.
Under repeated questioning Pichai offered:
And even the concession seems oddly specific. There is some evidence that search results are already tilted. Is this just a technical commitment to not do any work to change that?
If it is a core value to remain strictly neutral, then Jordan's original question should have been easy to answer. It could have been:
One obvious answer is that Pichai is CEO of a sprawling leviathan. They have extraordinary power and 120,000 employees. Virtually no CEO can put hand on heart and confirm that their company and their employees will adhere to an articulated value such as treating all candidates equally.
Were Pichai to have answered as suggested, then he would be opening the company up to lawsuits. Among the 120,000, there are always going to be bad apples.
However, you only have to watch one of the post-2016 election results videos to see that the entirety of Google's leadership were behaving as if all employees were shattered by their loss and that the company fully empathized with them. In the attached video, (which, as far as I can tell, is not available on Google owned Youtube), one can witness a parade of Google C-suite executives lamenting the 2016 results with employees.
Pichai, at that event, offered a strong endorsement of democracy but he also observed, repeatedly, that the outcome of the election was incompatible with Google's values.
Jim Jordan was more focused on the fact that one of Google's senior executives was caught on tape discussing how they attempted to sway the Latino vote towards Clinton. All subsequently explained away by Google.
Then there was Google's brutal treatment of their employee James Dalmore for simply questioning, based on empirical data, Google's Critical Theory Social Justice orthodoxy. From the tape, from the executive's own words, and by Google's response to one of their own when challenged on their dominant Critical Theory Social Justice orthodoxy, there are good reasons to be concerned about Google, or Google employees and their capacity for neutrality.
The reality is that a CEO has much more constrained control of his or her organization than most people expect and that all CEOs tend to be reluctant to make absolute commitments. So I marginally understand why Pichai would not want to have made the simple commitment "Google will not tailor its features to help Joe Biden or any other candidate in the 2020 election!" He, as do we, know that there will be among the 120,000 in a Critical Theory Social Justice orthodox culture, some bad actors who will attempt to use their positions to influence the election.
So perhaps all we have here is a CEO being reluctant to make an obvious and easy categorical commitment to what should be a common value - treat everyone equally, because he knows that that will be difficult to deliver.
But it sure does come off as shifty, lawyer vetted, and unresponsive.
We need to trust Google (and other corporations). They should both commit to being trustworthy, fess up when there are tactical failures (as there always will be) and be seen to being delivering on their commitments. We are a long way from that right now. Particularly with all the tech company de-platforming and cancelling so rampant at this time.
Jordan's five minutes closed out with more evasion.
During a Big Tech hearing before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) asked Google CEO Sundar Pichai to promise the American people that Google would not “tailor its features” to help presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Pichai hemmed and hawed, but he ultimately offered a vague commitment to be impartial in the election.And while I dislike the characterization, when I watch the video, it is hard not to concede that Pichai was working hard not to accede to a simple request.
Jordan sought an assurance that Google would not use its power (via search results) to deliberately sway the election; that Google would treat all candidates equally. The fact that Pichai sought repeatedly to affirm something different from that is possibly telling.
Under repeated questioning Pichai offered:
“Congressman, we approach our work, we support both campaigns today. We think political ads is [sic] an important part of free speech in democratic societies, and we engage with campaigns you know according to law and we approach our work in a nonpartisan way”It was only on the third go that Jordan got some commitment to what he was seeking.
“We support work that campaigns do”
“We won’t do any work to politically tilt anything one way or the other, it’s against our core values”Representatives only have five minutes to question. There is a serious opportunity for those being questioned to attempt to run out the clock by deflection. For example, by answering different questions than were asked. That is what Pichai seems to be attempting to do.
And even the concession seems oddly specific. There is some evidence that search results are already tilted. Is this just a technical commitment to not do any work to change that?
If it is a core value to remain strictly neutral, then Jordan's original question should have been easy to answer. It could have been:
Q: Mr. Pichai, is Google going to tailor its features to help Joe Biden in the 2020 election?Asked and answered. So if it is a core value, why did he not respond with that affirmation?
A: No, Google will not tailor its features to help Joe Biden or any other candidate in the 2020 election!
One obvious answer is that Pichai is CEO of a sprawling leviathan. They have extraordinary power and 120,000 employees. Virtually no CEO can put hand on heart and confirm that their company and their employees will adhere to an articulated value such as treating all candidates equally.
Were Pichai to have answered as suggested, then he would be opening the company up to lawsuits. Among the 120,000, there are always going to be bad apples.
However, you only have to watch one of the post-2016 election results videos to see that the entirety of Google's leadership were behaving as if all employees were shattered by their loss and that the company fully empathized with them. In the attached video, (which, as far as I can tell, is not available on Google owned Youtube), one can witness a parade of Google C-suite executives lamenting the 2016 results with employees.
Pichai, at that event, offered a strong endorsement of democracy but he also observed, repeatedly, that the outcome of the election was incompatible with Google's values.
Jim Jordan was more focused on the fact that one of Google's senior executives was caught on tape discussing how they attempted to sway the Latino vote towards Clinton. All subsequently explained away by Google.
Then there was Google's brutal treatment of their employee James Dalmore for simply questioning, based on empirical data, Google's Critical Theory Social Justice orthodoxy. From the tape, from the executive's own words, and by Google's response to one of their own when challenged on their dominant Critical Theory Social Justice orthodoxy, there are good reasons to be concerned about Google, or Google employees and their capacity for neutrality.
The reality is that a CEO has much more constrained control of his or her organization than most people expect and that all CEOs tend to be reluctant to make absolute commitments. So I marginally understand why Pichai would not want to have made the simple commitment "Google will not tailor its features to help Joe Biden or any other candidate in the 2020 election!" He, as do we, know that there will be among the 120,000 in a Critical Theory Social Justice orthodox culture, some bad actors who will attempt to use their positions to influence the election.
So perhaps all we have here is a CEO being reluctant to make an obvious and easy categorical commitment to what should be a common value - treat everyone equally, because he knows that that will be difficult to deliver.
But it sure does come off as shifty, lawyer vetted, and unresponsive.
We need to trust Google (and other corporations). They should both commit to being trustworthy, fess up when there are tactical failures (as there always will be) and be seen to being delivering on their commitments. We are a long way from that right now. Particularly with all the tech company de-platforming and cancelling so rampant at this time.
Jordan's five minutes closed out with more evasion.
“I can assure you we complied with laws in 2016, as a company”Only at the end did Jordan get something like what he was looking for.
“You have my commitment, it’s always been true, and we will continue to conduct ourselves in a neutral way.”Skepticism might have still been high, but Trust took a big hit given how long it took to get to that simple and obvious commitment.
A Covid natural experiment
From A Covid Border Battle by John Hinderaker.
Natural Experiments are a wonderful thing. From the Wikipedia article.
Hinderaker is pointing out that there are some natural experiments occurring at the moment in the US relevant to Covid-19.
I have an impression of Minnesota being more urbanized and having more of a services economy than Wisconsin. A quick glance at Indexmundi supports that but the percentage differences are relatively small. Minnesota households do have about a 15% greater income than in Wisconsin but both are very close to the national average.
The only difference I can think of is that while their racial compositions are quite similar, Minnesota has 8.4% foreign born versus 5%. In addition, the Minnesotan foreign born are dominated by Somalis.
But other than that one variable, foreign born immigrants, the two states are pretty identical, so a reasonably meaningful natural experiment. With most variables being so similar, we would expect that Covid-19 would have a similar impact.
What about policies - how similar have their policies been?
Doing a mobility comparison between Wisconsin and Minnesota, we can see that Minnesotans did indeed constrict their mobility (proxy for reduced interaction) to a much greater degree than did Wisconsinites. And are still doing so. So what did the more interventionists policies of Minnesota and the much reduced mobility gain them? Back to the natural experiment.
That is similar to what has happened with two much larger states, Florida (21 million people) and New York (19 million people). New York has so far, with very interventionist policies, had a death rate of 178 deaths per million whereas as Florida has had a death rate of 28 per million.
It is too simplistic to then conclude that obviously high intervention lockdowns don't work. There are material differences between the states including latitude, average temperatures, ethnic mix, differences in countries of origin of the foreign born, economic attributes, degree of urbanization and density, etc. Two very different states, with two very different policy responses, had two very different outcomes. That could be for innumerable reasons.
But two very similar states, with two very different policy responses, and two very different outcomes. That's a natural experiment. It becomes much more likely that the different outcomes are due to the two different policy responses.
Do lockdowns work? We still don't know, but this is one more element in the increasingly populated "Probably Not" column.
And there is actually one more element of learning that could be useful. Perhaps it is more about which interventions than the degree of intervention.
The obvious contrast between Florida and New York has been that Florida has been much less interventionist. But another contrast is in specific policy. Florida in general has been low intervention but it has been high intervention around vulnerable populations. It protected its nursing homes and the elderly.
New York, in contrast, has been high intervention across the board. Except around protecting the vulnerable. In fact, this was one of the more manifest policy failures. Early in their response, New York moved contagious but low symptom Covid patients out of hospitals and into assisted living facilities in order to maintain hospital capacity for a wave that never occurred. They put the Covid contagious in with the ill and elderly.
It was a slaughter. Regrettably, as happens with more centralized and controlling governance, New York ignored the evidence of the tragedy far longer than was warranted and only very late in the game, once the worst had occurred, did they change their failed policy.
It is not just a matter of low versus high intervention but also smart and adaptive intervention versus maladroit and inflexible intervention. Florida has had low intervention policy which has been very targeted, very smart, and very adaptive. New York, not so much.
It appears that, on a smaller scale, something similar has been happening between Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Overall though, this is to me, a very interesting deepening of the simplistic Florida - New York comparison.
It is also relevant to the broader clash of world visions between those who see wisdom in crowds and always wish to default in an uncertain decision environment towards freedom and those who wish to subject themselves to the dictates of the "experts."
The latter view is often articulated as "follow the science." A simplistic, arrogant, and duplicitous stricture if there ever was. There is scarcely any science yet around Covid-19. Lots of scientists are working on it and we are beginning to learn things but in terms of meaningful science supporting consequential decisions where we can anticipate with high confidence that there will be positive outcomes? We have barely cleared the starting line.
In that environment of uncertainty, what we are really contrasting is whether you let the community decide or you let the centralized statists decide on behalf of everyone. So far, with Wisconsin and Florida, the evidence is tilting towards low intervention policy (wisdom of crowds), very targeted intervention (do a few things well rather than many things poorly), very informed intervention (go for root causes), and very adaptive (let evidence drive policy).
Natural Experiments are a wonderful thing. From the Wikipedia article.
A natural experiment is an empirical study in which individuals (or clusters of individuals) are exposed to the experimental and control conditions that are determined by nature or by other factors outside the control of the investigators. The process governing the exposures arguably resembles random assignment. Thus, natural experiments are observational studies and are not controlled in the traditional sense of a randomized experiment. Natural experiments are most useful when there has been a clearly defined exposure involving a well defined subpopulation (and the absence of exposure in a similar subpopulation) such that changes in outcomes may be plausibly attributed to the exposure. In this sense, the difference between a natural experiment and a non-experimental observational study is that the former includes a comparison of conditions that pave the way for causal inference, but the latter does not.Some of our best knowledge comes from a clever researcher who recognizes the conditions of a natural experiment and explores the outcomes. It is a special gift to recognize the conditions of a natural experiment. It is like recognizing negative space.
Natural experiments are employed as study designs when controlled experimentation is extremely difficult to implement or unethical, such as in several research areas addressed by epidemiology (like evaluating the health impact of varying degrees of exposure to ionizing radiation in people living near Hiroshima at the time of the atomic blast) and economics (like estimating the economic return on amount of schooling in US adults).
Hinderaker is pointing out that there are some natural experiments occurring at the moment in the US relevant to Covid-19.
In the ongoing debate over whether shutdowns have been useful, a comparison of Minnesota and Wisconsin is a valuable data point. These two adjoining states are of comparable population, demographics, history and geography. A Wisconsinite is basically a Minnesotan without the smugness.It would be interesting to know if there are any marked differences in addition to their many similarities. Hinderaker does not mention that there are.
I have an impression of Minnesota being more urbanized and having more of a services economy than Wisconsin. A quick glance at Indexmundi supports that but the percentage differences are relatively small. Minnesota households do have about a 15% greater income than in Wisconsin but both are very close to the national average.
The only difference I can think of is that while their racial compositions are quite similar, Minnesota has 8.4% foreign born versus 5%. In addition, the Minnesotan foreign born are dominated by Somalis.
But other than that one variable, foreign born immigrants, the two states are pretty identical, so a reasonably meaningful natural experiment. With most variables being so similar, we would expect that Covid-19 would have a similar impact.
What about policies - how similar have their policies been?
On the coronavirus, the states parted company on May 13, when the Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down that state’s “Safer at Home” order. Minnesota, meanwhile, continued under a lockdown, eventually in modified form, to the present day. To an observer, the difference is obvious: Wisconsin is open for business. Minnesotans cross the St. Croix to eat out and hang out in the restaurants and bars on the Wisconsin side of the river. Wisconsin isn’t quite South Dakota, but compared with Minnesota it is a bastion of freedom.OK. Similar populations and conditions but contrasting policy responses. This is a natural experiment we can get our teeth into.
Doing a mobility comparison between Wisconsin and Minnesota, we can see that Minnesotans did indeed constrict their mobility (proxy for reduced interaction) to a much greater degree than did Wisconsinites. And are still doing so. So what did the more interventionists policies of Minnesota and the much reduced mobility gain them? Back to the natural experiment.
Figures from the Minnesota Department of Health and Wisconsin Department of Health Services show that, from May 14th to July 27th, Wisconsin suffered 472 Covid-19 deaths and Minnesota suffered 939, as seen on Figure 1. Again, given the two state’s broadly similar populations – 5.6 million in Minnesota and 5.8 million in Wisconsin – that means a much higher rate of Covid-19 deaths in our state as well as a much higher number. Indeed, between May 14th and July 27th, Wisconsin saw 81 Covid-19 deaths per million residents. In Minnesota, we saw 167 Covid-19 deaths per million residents – a rate 2.1 times higher.The interventionist policies created a death rate more than twice that of the noninterventionist policies.
That is similar to what has happened with two much larger states, Florida (21 million people) and New York (19 million people). New York has so far, with very interventionist policies, had a death rate of 178 deaths per million whereas as Florida has had a death rate of 28 per million.
It is too simplistic to then conclude that obviously high intervention lockdowns don't work. There are material differences between the states including latitude, average temperatures, ethnic mix, differences in countries of origin of the foreign born, economic attributes, degree of urbanization and density, etc. Two very different states, with two very different policy responses, had two very different outcomes. That could be for innumerable reasons.
But two very similar states, with two very different policy responses, and two very different outcomes. That's a natural experiment. It becomes much more likely that the different outcomes are due to the two different policy responses.
Do lockdowns work? We still don't know, but this is one more element in the increasingly populated "Probably Not" column.
And there is actually one more element of learning that could be useful. Perhaps it is more about which interventions than the degree of intervention.
The obvious contrast between Florida and New York has been that Florida has been much less interventionist. But another contrast is in specific policy. Florida in general has been low intervention but it has been high intervention around vulnerable populations. It protected its nursing homes and the elderly.
New York, in contrast, has been high intervention across the board. Except around protecting the vulnerable. In fact, this was one of the more manifest policy failures. Early in their response, New York moved contagious but low symptom Covid patients out of hospitals and into assisted living facilities in order to maintain hospital capacity for a wave that never occurred. They put the Covid contagious in with the ill and elderly.
It was a slaughter. Regrettably, as happens with more centralized and controlling governance, New York ignored the evidence of the tragedy far longer than was warranted and only very late in the game, once the worst had occurred, did they change their failed policy.
It is not just a matter of low versus high intervention but also smart and adaptive intervention versus maladroit and inflexible intervention. Florida has had low intervention policy which has been very targeted, very smart, and very adaptive. New York, not so much.
It appears that, on a smaller scale, something similar has been happening between Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Minnesota’s terrible COVID performance is due mostly to the fact that nearly 80% of its fatalities have been in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Minnesota has discharged infected patients directly into such long term care facilities, a practice that Governor Walz, apparently unwilling to admit error no matter the human cost, continues to this day. (For an in-depth discussion of Minnesota’s COVID disaster, go here, or else read Scott’s multi-part series on Coronavirus In One State.)The link in article is to an hour-long discussion that is very local, very data-based and very informative.
Overall though, this is to me, a very interesting deepening of the simplistic Florida - New York comparison.
It is also relevant to the broader clash of world visions between those who see wisdom in crowds and always wish to default in an uncertain decision environment towards freedom and those who wish to subject themselves to the dictates of the "experts."
The latter view is often articulated as "follow the science." A simplistic, arrogant, and duplicitous stricture if there ever was. There is scarcely any science yet around Covid-19. Lots of scientists are working on it and we are beginning to learn things but in terms of meaningful science supporting consequential decisions where we can anticipate with high confidence that there will be positive outcomes? We have barely cleared the starting line.
In that environment of uncertainty, what we are really contrasting is whether you let the community decide or you let the centralized statists decide on behalf of everyone. So far, with Wisconsin and Florida, the evidence is tilting towards low intervention policy (wisdom of crowds), very targeted intervention (do a few things well rather than many things poorly), very informed intervention (go for root causes), and very adaptive (let evidence drive policy).
Wednesday, July 29, 2020
Man Reading at Lamplight, 1813 by Georg Friedrich Kersting
Man Reading at Lamplight, 1813 by Georg Friedrich Kersting
Click to enarge.
I see wonderful things
Elephants have their trunks; giraffes have their long necks – and human beings have their ability to do this...
— Steve Stewart-Williams (@SteveStuWill) June 24, 2020
(MRI of a person talking. Amazing!)
https://t.co/mmrTCELysN pic.twitter.com/dFsUJH7RwD
Data Talks
The wingbeats of birds, insects and mammals have a shape: discover which one in this animated infographic by Eleanor Lutz deconstructing flight [source with higher resolution: https://t.co/IMVHod6UBJ] pic.twitter.com/04fSeKnvpm
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) June 29, 2020
Tuesday, July 28, 2020
A street corner in Paterson, New Jersey by Henry Martin Gasser
A street corner in Paterson, New Jersey by Henry Martin Gasser
Click to enlarge.
I see wonderful things
The California condor is the largest North American land bird. Its 3.0 m (9.8 ft) wingspan is the widest of any North American bird, and it weighs up to 12 kg (26 lb) https://t.co/KLj5rlxsPI | https://t.co/VdiCtwPnpG pic.twitter.com/c4U809PYWw
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) June 24, 2020
Data Talks
Of brothers within the same family, the one with lower measured cognitive ability is more likely to be convicted of violent crime.
— Inquisitive Bird (@Scientific_Bird) June 28, 2020
The persistence of the effect within families suggests a substantial effect beyond merely socioeconomic factors.
Source:https://t.co/Sf69Nch6G7 pic.twitter.com/cTOj5cjKMj
Most people pay little attention to the admonitions of the most fervid.
And this is a great blessing at a time when the mainstream media subscribe to belief systems antithetical to classical liberalism. It is why I keep encouraging friends not to become despondent. What seems like an emerging national agreement to take the nation in the direction of racist, anti-semitic, autarkic, despotism is merely the reflection of a bunch of morally rootless faux intellectual elites dominating a narrow communication band.
60% never read the mainstream media, 25% only occasionally read it and all the outlandish critical theory gumph is consumed daily by a mere 9%.
Good thing too.
% of Americans who read national newspapers such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today
— Rob Henderson (@robkhenderson) July 28, 2020
Every day: 9 percent
Several days a week: 8 percent
Occasionally: 27 percent
Never: 57 percent pic.twitter.com/lKfSEwnlrE
60% never read the mainstream media, 25% only occasionally read it and all the outlandish critical theory gumph is consumed daily by a mere 9%.
Good thing too.
Simple but wrong or complex but right. The chattering class always prefer the former over the latter.
This cartoon is a powerful descriptor of a disproportionate number of situations when it comes to public policy.
Click to enlarge.
I just saw someone repurpose it to "The state of Covid-19 science."
Exactly right. I have been harping since the beginning about the poor quality of our data. Several months into this pandemic and the quality of data (and data reporting) is little improved. Not only is data collection and analysis highly variant but the core issue of definitions remains unaddressed.
Likewise, our science is highly compromised. Tons of really sloppy, and notably unreliable, research ends up in the mainstream media maw. Other information seems to be being actively suppressed.
Within the US, mainstream media and academia, primarily because of partisan obsessions, have turned against hydroxychloroquine with zinc as a treatment despite continuing, and increasingly robust research indicating its effectiveness. This is one of the larger disconnects. Many countries are using hydroxychloroquine with zinc as a primary treatment strategy and yet the Mandarin Class position in the US is that it is ineffective. Perhaps that is true.
But the fact that technology social media platforms are now suppressing research which supports hydroxychloroquine with zinc makes me pause. Why is the very evidence that it is effective such a threat?
And why are the mainstream media trumpeting the various vaccines? Yes, we all want one. But we know the history of such crash treatment programs. Occasionally there is a wonder drug. Usually it is a long trail of years of failed efforts and disappointments.
Sometimes it almost seems as if there are certain national interests in preventing cheap effective solutions.
What we usefully know has not changed much - hygiene, hand-washing, social distancing, isolation when infected, protect the elderly, the end stage of life individuals, and those with morbidities such as obesity, blood pressure, cardiac weakness, etc. Pretty basic stuff we had discovered early on.
The debate whether lockdowns "work" continues to rage but with increasing evidence that they are less effective than anticipated. The debate about school reopenings continues to rage. The debate about herd immunity rages. The debate about second waves rage. The debate about acquired immunity rages. The debate about the significance of two strands of Covid 19 (Chinese and European) and their relative lethality rages, the mystery of geographic timing of infections is unexplained, the wildly variant death rates based on locations remains debated, there is no credible estimation about timeframe for a vaccine.
Basically, our current news and talking heads continue to fixate on discussions that are at best simple but wrong and very few are discussing the really interesting issues which are complex but right.
I just saw someone repurpose it to "The state of Covid-19 science."
Exactly right. I have been harping since the beginning about the poor quality of our data. Several months into this pandemic and the quality of data (and data reporting) is little improved. Not only is data collection and analysis highly variant but the core issue of definitions remains unaddressed.
Likewise, our science is highly compromised. Tons of really sloppy, and notably unreliable, research ends up in the mainstream media maw. Other information seems to be being actively suppressed.
Within the US, mainstream media and academia, primarily because of partisan obsessions, have turned against hydroxychloroquine with zinc as a treatment despite continuing, and increasingly robust research indicating its effectiveness. This is one of the larger disconnects. Many countries are using hydroxychloroquine with zinc as a primary treatment strategy and yet the Mandarin Class position in the US is that it is ineffective. Perhaps that is true.
But the fact that technology social media platforms are now suppressing research which supports hydroxychloroquine with zinc makes me pause. Why is the very evidence that it is effective such a threat?
And why are the mainstream media trumpeting the various vaccines? Yes, we all want one. But we know the history of such crash treatment programs. Occasionally there is a wonder drug. Usually it is a long trail of years of failed efforts and disappointments.
Sometimes it almost seems as if there are certain national interests in preventing cheap effective solutions.
What we usefully know has not changed much - hygiene, hand-washing, social distancing, isolation when infected, protect the elderly, the end stage of life individuals, and those with morbidities such as obesity, blood pressure, cardiac weakness, etc. Pretty basic stuff we had discovered early on.
The debate whether lockdowns "work" continues to rage but with increasing evidence that they are less effective than anticipated. The debate about school reopenings continues to rage. The debate about herd immunity rages. The debate about second waves rage. The debate about acquired immunity rages. The debate about the significance of two strands of Covid 19 (Chinese and European) and their relative lethality rages, the mystery of geographic timing of infections is unexplained, the wildly variant death rates based on locations remains debated, there is no credible estimation about timeframe for a vaccine.
Basically, our current news and talking heads continue to fixate on discussions that are at best simple but wrong and very few are discussing the really interesting issues which are complex but right.
An Insight
The customer always gets what they want, whether it's an advertiser wanting bland lifestyle reporting and 'objective' news as a canvas for unobjectionable ad placement, or the subscriber wanting to hear their worldview echoed back at themselves. https://t.co/q6BPa6nN4S
— Antonio García Martínez (@antoniogm) June 15, 2020
Monday, July 27, 2020
The Battle of Chesme on the Night of 25/26 June 1770, 1848 by Ivan Aivazovsky
The Battle of Chesme on the Night of 25/26 June 1770, 1848 by Ivan Aivazovsky
Click to enlarge.
I see wonderful things
How photographer Jani Ylinampa brilliantly captured the beauty of a small island through all four seasons https://t.co/1KA4OOwl8k pic.twitter.com/gs0C99nfyH
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) June 24, 2020
Data Talks
43% of U.S. Coronavirus Deaths Are Linked to Nursing Homes https://t.co/HolGFJxHFw
— Charles Bayless (@CharlesBayless) June 28, 2020
Offbeat Humor
replace the entire British curriculum with this TikTok pic.twitter.com/z9xgKwUm5B
— Róisín Lanigan (@rosielanners) June 29, 2020
Not race but class and culture. And maybe more class than culture?
An interesting read from one of greatest of our great academcis, now passed, James Q. Wilson. This essay is from late in his career and probably could not be written today. From Slavery and the black family by James Q. Wilson.
It sheds light on a curious phenomenon. Jamaican emigrants to the US tend to do way better than African Americans and even to some extant than native born white, even when controlling for education and the like. The fact of superior economic performance suggests that claims about racism in the US are to some degree misplaced.
On the other hand, their success also raises interesting questions. Jamaicans gained their freedom (slavery being abolished) in 1807, nearly sixty years before African-Americans. Does the sixty extra years of freedom for Jamaicans explain the difference in outcomes between native born African-Americans versus Jamaican emigres?
That sure seems unlikely. Possible, perhaps, but not likely.
Was it simply something distinct about Jamaican culture versus African-American culture. That is what I have long ascribed it to as a working hypothesis.
Wilson supports that hypothesis but with a twist. In this essay, he is exploring the relationship between slavery and single-parenthood families.
What that means is that the US is not getting a representative group of Jamaicans. Instead we are getting the cream of the Jamaican crop, those with middle class values.
At which point, the focus shifts from slavery and history to cultural values which underpin success. Not a welcome conversation in many quarters but probably the most valuable one we could be having. Inferred racism drops away as an explainer and the old bugbear of class behaviors resurrects.
It sheds light on a curious phenomenon. Jamaican emigrants to the US tend to do way better than African Americans and even to some extant than native born white, even when controlling for education and the like. The fact of superior economic performance suggests that claims about racism in the US are to some degree misplaced.
On the other hand, their success also raises interesting questions. Jamaicans gained their freedom (slavery being abolished) in 1807, nearly sixty years before African-Americans. Does the sixty extra years of freedom for Jamaicans explain the difference in outcomes between native born African-Americans versus Jamaican emigres?
That sure seems unlikely. Possible, perhaps, but not likely.
Was it simply something distinct about Jamaican culture versus African-American culture. That is what I have long ascribed it to as a working hypothesis.
Wilson supports that hypothesis but with a twist. In this essay, he is exploring the relationship between slavery and single-parenthood families.
The ease of the West IndiesThere is a lot more discussion but the broad point is that it seems broadly that the social patterns of behavior (such as single parenthood) within Jamaica and among African-Americans are quite similar. If you were to bring a random Jamaican to America, they would fit right in with the African-American community.
In many nations in the Western Hemisphere--in Barbados, Jamaica, Antigua, Martinique, Suriname, Trinidad, as well asin the United States--black children are likely to grow up in a single-parent family. Most of these places acquired independence from an imperial ruler many decades ago (in Haiti, two centuries ago). In almost every West Indian nation, black leaders responsive to black electorates came to power. Yet the out-of-wedlock birth rate in these places is very high. In Barbados, at the time of its 1990 census, only 30 percent of mothers between the ages of 15 and 49 were married. Of the unmarried mothers, a few--roughly 3 percent--were divorced, but the vast majority had never been married. Much the same story exists in every West Indian nation where the illegitimacy rate ranges from 35 to 72 percent.
There is, of course, a convenient way to minimize the tragedy behind these statistics. Americans, especially white ones, may think marriage is decisive, but critics point out that other cultures have a different view. Some people have argued that a child can as easily be raised by an unwed mother or by a man and woman living together in a common-law union as by a married pair. A common-law marriage provides all of the benefits of a lawful marriage while being as stable as a formal one. But none of those who make this argument can demonstrate that a common-law union has the same effect as a formal marriage, and none deal with the fact that many children are raised by mothers who lack not only a husband but any consensual mate. Judith Blake, who has studied Jamaican family life in great detail, has noted that one-third of all mothers had no male partner at all, married or unmarried. In a nation as poor as Jamaica, this lack of a father must surely have produced grave child-rearing problems. There would be little money or help.
What that means is that the US is not getting a representative group of Jamaicans. Instead we are getting the cream of the Jamaican crop, those with middle class values.
At which point, the focus shifts from slavery and history to cultural values which underpin success. Not a welcome conversation in many quarters but probably the most valuable one we could be having. Inferred racism drops away as an explainer and the old bugbear of class behaviors resurrects.
That's a surprise.
Sometimes I end up being quite astonished by new data. This is an instance.
I have long assumed that some of the disparity in criminal action by race is a function of the relative availability of evidence, the low cost of that information between street crime and white collar crime.
Someone gets mugged or shot on the street (more common in black urban cores) and you often have witnesses, video, forensic evidence. Not saying that it is cheap or easy to prove the mugging or shooting. Just saying it is easier and cheaper than when dealing with a white collar crime.
The mugger gets away with a watch and $20. And is caught and convicted and jailed.
The white collar embezzler quietly defrauds another person of $20 a week for twenty years. No one sees. There often is not much of a paper trail. Frequently the distinction between a fraud and an innocent error is hard to make. The fraudster in some ways commits the more serious crime; not just for depriving another of more dollars but also for undermining societal trust upon which we are so dependent.
So if most street crime is committed by African-Americans and most white collar crime is committed by white Americans (both being crude generalizations), you are likely to see the former group being arrested and convicted at a much higher rate. Not necessarily because they are committing worse crimes (though physical violence does brings its own special considerations) but because the nature of their crimes is easier to see and convict. Nothing systemically racist because there is no intended outcome. It is just a function of costs and evidence.
As a consequence, I have long carried an unstated assumption that it is possible that white Americans may cause a greater crime burden than that which is acknowledged because of their possible propensity of committing more white collar crime than street crime.
Then I come across this from The Oxford Handbook of White-Collar Crime by Shanna Van Slyke. The data is somewhat dated (from 2005-2011). It is Federal convictions so the crime pattern is different from what state or municipal might look like.
Here is the essence of the data.
Click to enlarge.
African Americans and Hispanics are roughly 30% of the population and per these numbers committing a disproportionate share of crime. Nothing new there.
But look at the split between street crime and white collar crime. In both cases African Americans and Hispanics are committing a disproportionate volume of crime but also a slightly higher percentage of white collar crime as street crime.
That is totally unexpected. I have looked at how they define white collar and street crime and tried to assess whether the nature of federal crimes versus State and Local might account for this unexpected pattern.
I do not have a good answer. No obvious reason that I can see.
Is the data indicative of an underlying truth? No idea. I cannot assess.
But I now need to at least attach an asterisk to the lazy assumption that the relative ratio of street versus white collar crime commission might be different between groups. Looks like the rates of commission might be the same within a group, whether street or white collar.
Hmmm.
I have long assumed that some of the disparity in criminal action by race is a function of the relative availability of evidence, the low cost of that information between street crime and white collar crime.
Someone gets mugged or shot on the street (more common in black urban cores) and you often have witnesses, video, forensic evidence. Not saying that it is cheap or easy to prove the mugging or shooting. Just saying it is easier and cheaper than when dealing with a white collar crime.
The mugger gets away with a watch and $20. And is caught and convicted and jailed.
The white collar embezzler quietly defrauds another person of $20 a week for twenty years. No one sees. There often is not much of a paper trail. Frequently the distinction between a fraud and an innocent error is hard to make. The fraudster in some ways commits the more serious crime; not just for depriving another of more dollars but also for undermining societal trust upon which we are so dependent.
So if most street crime is committed by African-Americans and most white collar crime is committed by white Americans (both being crude generalizations), you are likely to see the former group being arrested and convicted at a much higher rate. Not necessarily because they are committing worse crimes (though physical violence does brings its own special considerations) but because the nature of their crimes is easier to see and convict. Nothing systemically racist because there is no intended outcome. It is just a function of costs and evidence.
As a consequence, I have long carried an unstated assumption that it is possible that white Americans may cause a greater crime burden than that which is acknowledged because of their possible propensity of committing more white collar crime than street crime.
Then I come across this from The Oxford Handbook of White-Collar Crime by Shanna Van Slyke. The data is somewhat dated (from 2005-2011). It is Federal convictions so the crime pattern is different from what state or municipal might look like.
Here is the essence of the data.
African Americans and Hispanics are roughly 30% of the population and per these numbers committing a disproportionate share of crime. Nothing new there.
But look at the split between street crime and white collar crime. In both cases African Americans and Hispanics are committing a disproportionate volume of crime but also a slightly higher percentage of white collar crime as street crime.
That is totally unexpected. I have looked at how they define white collar and street crime and tried to assess whether the nature of federal crimes versus State and Local might account for this unexpected pattern.
I do not have a good answer. No obvious reason that I can see.
Is the data indicative of an underlying truth? No idea. I cannot assess.
But I now need to at least attach an asterisk to the lazy assumption that the relative ratio of street versus white collar crime commission might be different between groups. Looks like the rates of commission might be the same within a group, whether street or white collar.
Hmmm.
Sunday, July 26, 2020
Peaceful protest - I don't think that word means what you think it means
I have to suppose that this no longer deliberate gas-lighting but instead an instance of massive cognitive dissonance on the part of the mainstream media.
They simply can't be this stupid.
Protesters in California set fire to a courthouse, damaged a police station and assaulted officers after a peaceful demonstration intensified. https://t.co/fUZTABUM21
— ABC News (@ABC) July 26, 2020
They simply can't be this stupid.
Data Talks
Wow, fascinating: How our stable personality traits help determine which environments we select for ourselves, and how those environments in turn shape our momentary personality states. (N = 2,350) https://t.co/wroT8s6V6e pic.twitter.com/UrrQnTMVqC
— Steve Stewart-Williams (@SteveStuWill) June 26, 2020
Untitled (Darjeeling by Night), 1947 by Kisory Roy
Untitled (Darjeeling by Night), 1947 by Kisory Roy
Click to enlarge.
How well do the BLM beliefs match those held by most Americans?
Critical Theory and Social Justice advocates have long been pushing a number of beliefs (outlined below) which have become topical via the Black Lives Matter riots. Many have observed that the Critical Theory and Social Justice beliefs are merely that, assertions of belief with little empirical evidence to support them.
This is quite distinct from investigations of bias and discrimination and prejudice and how those may or may not be manifested. That is a completely different topic. All humans carry assumptions about the external world which are constantly in need of updating. When I meet a complete stranger, I impute certain, often unconscious, assumptions about the individual based solely on sensory perceptions such as gender, height, ethnicity, physical fitness, attire, hair, age, etc. Typically those assumptions are the product of observation and/or statistical knowledge (explicit or implicit). From those observations I derive a set of statistical assumptions that are usefully true at a group level and are the basis for risk and opportunity assessment - how likely is this person to represent a threat to me versus how likely is it that this is a person with whom I can productively collaborate?
The accuracy of those initial impressions are independent of and almost certainly materially inconsistent with the individual's actual demonstrated history. The individual is not the group average. Initially, we simply don't know the history and behaviors of that individual. The imposed group average assessment is a poor substitute for real knowledge of the individual but it is usefully beneficial when there is otherwise no knowledge about the individual.
As long as people update their working assumptions as additional information becomes available, there usually isn't a problem. The challenge is when people hold assumptions (empirical or not) which are negative or prejudicial against the stranger and refuse to update those assumptions as actual evidence emerges as to the validity of the assumptions.
An overweight, unkempt, sloppily dressed individual with dirty hair may strike me as unreliable on first sighting. If I interact with that person for a time and discover that they are in fact highly reliable, I need to update my assumptions and ensure that I do not carry a discriminatory prejudice based solely on those shallow proxies (overweight, unkempt, sloppily dressed individual with dirty hair) and that I take into account and accord the benefits to the relevant fact that they do demonstrate reliability.
This post is not about racism per se. This is about the evidentiary basis for some of the core claims behind the Critical Theory and Social Justice movement as they are articulated via the current Black Lives Matter riots.
To that end, and entirely fortuitously, from Americans Say Blacks More Racist Than Whites, Hispanics, Asians by Rasmussen Reports.
The Mandarin Class, with a cult-like belief in Critical Theory and Social Justice (CTSJ) is insisting that Americans accept four assertions of truth made by BLM: 1) that racism is prevalent and ubiquitous in the US, that 2) all whites are inherently racist, that 3) blacks are both innocent of racism and incapable of racism, and that 4) racism is much worse in America than elsewhere in the world.
This data from Rasmussen is insufficient to completely refute those assertions but it does call them into question. While the Mandarin Class (academics, journalists, K-12 education, main-line clergy, select advocacy groups and state agencies) might believe these hypotheses to be obviously true, Rasmussen makes clear that these are views held by very few Americans. The Mandarin Class are likely less than 10 million people (3.7 million K-12 teachers, 1.5 million faculty at universities, less than 50,000 journalists, 430,000 clergy, 22 million federal, state and local employees, etc.
In total 27 million people are in professional environments where CTSJ is prevalent. As identified in The Atlantic, only 1% of Americans participate in more than 8 out of ten advocacy actions. Only 11% are involved in even 4-7 such activities. In contrast;
From the Rasmussen polling results. Indents are findings from the article.
CTSJ Hypothesis 1 - Racism is prevalent and ubiquitous in the US
There is other information not from this study which supports that the 80% of Americans who assess that most Americans are not racist are correct.
In 1967, only 3% of new marriages were interracial. In 2015 following a multi-decadal rise, 17% of new marriages were interracial. The fact that the US has many immigrant groups from different races (Jamaicans, Haitians, Nigerians, Cubans, Venezuelans, Chinese, Indians, etc.) whose socio-econometric measured successes exceed those of native born whites, suggests that race is far less determinative of outcomes than are personal choices, behavior, and culture.
Interestingly, most ethnic groups share this view that there are relatively few racists (13-18%). Surprisingly perhaps, most Americans identify racism as most prevalent among African-Americans (25%).
Hypothesis 1, that racism is prevalent and ubiquitous in the US is rejected by nearly 80% of Americans and there are empirical grounds for believing that they are correct in rejecting the hypothesis.
CTSJ Hypothesis 2 - All whites are inherently racist.
As already indicated, of all the respondents, only
Even among those who accept the Critical Theory and Social Justice precept that racism can only run from whites to blacks and minorities cannot be racist, only a minority believe that most whites are racist.
The same statistics also indicate an extremely low prevalence of racially motivated hate crimes. Only 27% of all hate crimes are constituted of racially motivated crimes against African Americans.
Finally, only 41% of all hate crimes are committed by whites.
In terms of public views of interracial marriage, 91% believe it to be a good thing or irrelevant. Only 3% of Hispanics see interracial dating as a bad thing and only 9% of whites see it as a bad thing. Strikingly, those most objecting to interracial dating are African Americans with some 18% seeing it as a bad thing. But that is still only 18%.
In the World Values Survey, only 3% of Americans identified having an objection to people of a different race as neighbors. This is not broken out by race of respondent but this statistically has to be close to the maximum possible degree of stated racism.
Hypothesis 2, All whites are inherently racist is rejected by at least 82% of Americans and there are strong empirical grounds for believing that they are correct in rejecting the hypothesis. Since 82% of all respondents do not even believe that most white Americans are racist, the percentage believing that all white Americans are racist must be markedly lower.
CTSJ Hypothesis 3 - Blacks are both incapable of racism and innocent of racism.
From Rasmussen:
Further, Americans believe racism is more prevalent among African Americans.
The 18% of African Americans mentioned above who object to interracial dating is concordant with these results.
The FBI Hate Crime Statistics also support the rejection of the hypothesis. African Americans commit a disproportionate percentage of hate crimes (19%).
Hypothesis 3, Blacks are both incapable of racism and innocent of racism is rejected by at least 85% of Americans and there are strong empirical grounds for believing that they are correct in rejecting the hypothesis.
CTSJ Hypothesis 4 - Racism is much worse in America than elsewhere in the world.
The Rasmussen results do not answer this directly. We know that only
More critically, what we really want are empirical measures of manifested racism, rather than opinions about racism. This is challenging as the definition of racism and prejudice is highly variant among countries and relatively few countries either collect the granular data necessary or conduct the relevant analyses. For some countries, class, cultural or religious discrimination is by far the greater manifestation of discrimination than is race.
Even the research that does exist is subject to data, methodology and definitional debates.
One recent effort published in 2019 and conducted by leading institutions across the US and Europe is Do Some Countries Discriminate More than Others? From their Abstract:
From the World Values Survey, in comparison to 76 other countries, only 3% of Americans would object to having a neighbor of a different race versus an average of 17% for all the other countries.
Among OECD countries to which America is usually compared unfavorably, objection rates to a neighbor of a different race are:
Hypothesis 4, Racism is much worse in America than elsewhere in the world is rejected as it seems unsupported by the paucity of empirical evidence available from FBI Hate Crimes, from the World Values Survey, and from the most relevant research conducted.
In summary, there are four important precepts held by Critical Theory Social Justice advocates such as BLM - 1) that racism is prevalent and ubiquitous in the US, that 2) all whites are inherently racist, that 3) blacks are both innocent of racism and incapable of racism, and that 4) racism is much worse in America than elsewhere in the world.
All four hypotheses are rejected by the great majority of Americans, at rates of roughly 80% to the 15% of those supporting the BLM hypotheses in some fashion. The objective grounds for the 80% of Americans rejecting the Critical Theory Social Justice beliefs seem well grounded in real world empirical evidence. BLM beliefs are not accepted by the great majority of Americans and are not supported by any empirical evidence.
This is quite distinct from investigations of bias and discrimination and prejudice and how those may or may not be manifested. That is a completely different topic. All humans carry assumptions about the external world which are constantly in need of updating. When I meet a complete stranger, I impute certain, often unconscious, assumptions about the individual based solely on sensory perceptions such as gender, height, ethnicity, physical fitness, attire, hair, age, etc. Typically those assumptions are the product of observation and/or statistical knowledge (explicit or implicit). From those observations I derive a set of statistical assumptions that are usefully true at a group level and are the basis for risk and opportunity assessment - how likely is this person to represent a threat to me versus how likely is it that this is a person with whom I can productively collaborate?
The accuracy of those initial impressions are independent of and almost certainly materially inconsistent with the individual's actual demonstrated history. The individual is not the group average. Initially, we simply don't know the history and behaviors of that individual. The imposed group average assessment is a poor substitute for real knowledge of the individual but it is usefully beneficial when there is otherwise no knowledge about the individual.
As long as people update their working assumptions as additional information becomes available, there usually isn't a problem. The challenge is when people hold assumptions (empirical or not) which are negative or prejudicial against the stranger and refuse to update those assumptions as actual evidence emerges as to the validity of the assumptions.
An overweight, unkempt, sloppily dressed individual with dirty hair may strike me as unreliable on first sighting. If I interact with that person for a time and discover that they are in fact highly reliable, I need to update my assumptions and ensure that I do not carry a discriminatory prejudice based solely on those shallow proxies (overweight, unkempt, sloppily dressed individual with dirty hair) and that I take into account and accord the benefits to the relevant fact that they do demonstrate reliability.
This post is not about racism per se. This is about the evidentiary basis for some of the core claims behind the Critical Theory and Social Justice movement as they are articulated via the current Black Lives Matter riots.
To that end, and entirely fortuitously, from Americans Say Blacks More Racist Than Whites, Hispanics, Asians by Rasmussen Reports.
The survey of 1,000 American Adults was conducted July 21-22, 2020 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.1,000 is still too small for the granular statistical analysis Rasmussen is doing but much better than most surveys. Example - Asian Americans are roughly 6% of the US population and therefore presumably 6% of the sample size, i.e. 60 respondents. 60 is too small a sample size to reliably estimate the average opinion of 20 million people (all Asian Americans in the US).
The Mandarin Class, with a cult-like belief in Critical Theory and Social Justice (CTSJ) is insisting that Americans accept four assertions of truth made by BLM: 1) that racism is prevalent and ubiquitous in the US, that 2) all whites are inherently racist, that 3) blacks are both innocent of racism and incapable of racism, and that 4) racism is much worse in America than elsewhere in the world.
This data from Rasmussen is insufficient to completely refute those assertions but it does call them into question. While the Mandarin Class (academics, journalists, K-12 education, main-line clergy, select advocacy groups and state agencies) might believe these hypotheses to be obviously true, Rasmussen makes clear that these are views held by very few Americans. The Mandarin Class are likely less than 10 million people (3.7 million K-12 teachers, 1.5 million faculty at universities, less than 50,000 journalists, 430,000 clergy, 22 million federal, state and local employees, etc.
In total 27 million people are in professional environments where CTSJ is prevalent. As identified in The Atlantic, only 1% of Americans participate in more than 8 out of ten advocacy actions. Only 11% are involved in even 4-7 such activities. In contrast;
Forty-one percent of Americans do not participate very often in any of 10 bedrock activities of American civic and political life, according to the latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor survey.Taking the results at face value only 12% of the 27 million should even remotely be considered to be advocates. One might conclude that 12% of 27 million might be considered as Critical Theory Social Justice beliefs, i.e. 3.2 million Americans. Triple that for conservative margins and you get the assumed 10 million. As for the other 320 million Americans, their views are markedly different from those purveying Critical Theory Social Justice beliefs.
From the Rasmussen polling results. Indents are findings from the article.
CTSJ Hypothesis 1 - Racism is prevalent and ubiquitous in the US
22% of all Americans think most Americans are racist.Only one out of five Americans believes most Americans are racist. 80% of Americans reject the central precept of the Critical Theory/Social Justice hypothesis.
There is other information not from this study which supports that the 80% of Americans who assess that most Americans are not racist are correct.
In 1967, only 3% of new marriages were interracial. In 2015 following a multi-decadal rise, 17% of new marriages were interracial. The fact that the US has many immigrant groups from different races (Jamaicans, Haitians, Nigerians, Cubans, Venezuelans, Chinese, Indians, etc.) whose socio-econometric measured successes exceed those of native born whites, suggests that race is far less determinative of outcomes than are personal choices, behavior, and culture.
Interestingly, most ethnic groups share this view that there are relatively few racists (13-18%). Surprisingly perhaps, most Americans identify racism as most prevalent among African-Americans (25%).
Eighteen percent (18%) say most white Americans are racist. But 25% believe most black Americans are racist. Fifteen percent (15%) think most Hispanic-Americans are racist, while nearly as many (13%) say the same of most Asian-Americans.
Hypothesis 1, that racism is prevalent and ubiquitous in the US is rejected by nearly 80% of Americans and there are empirical grounds for believing that they are correct in rejecting the hypothesis.
CTSJ Hypothesis 2 - All whites are inherently racist.
As already indicated, of all the respondents, only
Eighteen percent (18%) say most white Americans are racist.It is worth repeating - Only 18% of all Americans believe most white Americans are racist. If only 18% say that even most Americans are racist, one would expect that very few would assess all whites as inherently racist. The Critical Theory Social Justice hypothesis is not only a small minority view, it is likely a tine minority who view all whites as racist. A marked contrast to the headlines.
Even among those who accept the Critical Theory and Social Justice precept that racism can only run from whites to blacks and minorities cannot be racist, only a minority believe that most whites are racist.
Among adults who think racism refers only to discrimination by whites, 36% consider most white Americans racist.Empirical evidence from hate crimes statistics supports this majority view that racism is very rare and can occur across any ethnic group and is not manifested only in whites.
The same statistics also indicate an extremely low prevalence of racially motivated hate crimes. Only 27% of all hate crimes are constituted of racially motivated crimes against African Americans.
Finally, only 41% of all hate crimes are committed by whites.
In terms of public views of interracial marriage, 91% believe it to be a good thing or irrelevant. Only 3% of Hispanics see interracial dating as a bad thing and only 9% of whites see it as a bad thing. Strikingly, those most objecting to interracial dating are African Americans with some 18% seeing it as a bad thing. But that is still only 18%.
In the World Values Survey, only 3% of Americans identified having an objection to people of a different race as neighbors. This is not broken out by race of respondent but this statistically has to be close to the maximum possible degree of stated racism.
Hypothesis 2, All whites are inherently racist is rejected by at least 82% of Americans and there are strong empirical grounds for believing that they are correct in rejecting the hypothesis. Since 82% of all respondents do not even believe that most white Americans are racist, the percentage believing that all white Americans are racist must be markedly lower.
CTSJ Hypothesis 3 - Blacks are both incapable of racism and innocent of racism.
From Rasmussen:
75% of American Adults think the term “racism” refers to any discrimination by people of one race against another. Just 15% say it refers only to discrimination by white people against minorities.In other words, 75% of Americans believe that any race can discriminate against any other race; that African Americans can demonstrate racism just as can whites, Asian Americans and Hispanics. Only 15% support the CTSJ view that racism can only occur by whites against others.
Further, Americans believe racism is more prevalent among African Americans.
Eighteen percent (18%) say most white Americans are racist. But 25% believe most black Americans are racist. Fifteen percent (15%) think most Hispanic-Americans are racist, while nearly as many (13%) say the same of most Asian-Americans.Americans believe racism is 66% more prevalent among African Americans (25%) than the average of all other races (15%).
The 18% of African Americans mentioned above who object to interracial dating is concordant with these results.
The FBI Hate Crime Statistics also support the rejection of the hypothesis. African Americans commit a disproportionate percentage of hate crimes (19%).
Hypothesis 3, Blacks are both incapable of racism and innocent of racism is rejected by at least 85% of Americans and there are strong empirical grounds for believing that they are correct in rejecting the hypothesis.
CTSJ Hypothesis 4 - Racism is much worse in America than elsewhere in the world.
The Rasmussen results do not answer this directly. We know that only
22% of all Americans think most Americans are racist.But we do not know the degree to which other countries view themselves as racist. All we know is that a small but material minority in the US believe most other Americans to be racist.
More critically, what we really want are empirical measures of manifested racism, rather than opinions about racism. This is challenging as the definition of racism and prejudice is highly variant among countries and relatively few countries either collect the granular data necessary or conduct the relevant analyses. For some countries, class, cultural or religious discrimination is by far the greater manifestation of discrimination than is race.
Even the research that does exist is subject to data, methodology and definitional debates.
One recent effort published in 2019 and conducted by leading institutions across the US and Europe is Do Some Countries Discriminate More than Others? From their Abstract:
Comparing levels of discrimination across countries can provide a window into large-scale social and political factors often described as the root of discrimination. Because of difficulties in measurement, however, little is established about variation in hiring discrimination across countries. We address this gap through a formal meta-analysis of 97 field experiments of discrimination incorporating more than 200,000 job applications in nine countries in Europe and North America. We find significant discrimination against nonwhite natives in all countries in our analysis; discrimination against white immigrants is present but low. However, discrimination rates vary strongly by country: In high-discrimination countries, white natives receive nearly twice the callbacks of nonwhites; in low-discrimination countries, white natives receive about 25 percent more. France has the highest discrimination rates, followed by Sweden. We find smaller differences among Great Britain, Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, the United States, and Germany. These findings challenge several conventional macro-level theories of discrimination.They find that the US is among the least racist countries. Using the US as the base of 1.0, they find discrimination in Germany to be less (0.92), and Norway the same (1.00). The Netherlands (1.03) and Belgium (1.04) come in a little higher. Next in elevated discrimination are Great Britain (1.11) and Canada (also 1.11). The most discriminatory nations are France (1.43) and Sweden (1.30).
From the World Values Survey, in comparison to 76 other countries, only 3% of Americans would object to having a neighbor of a different race versus an average of 17% for all the other countries.
Among OECD countries to which America is usually compared unfavorably, objection rates to a neighbor of a different race are:
USA - 3.0%Despite being the third largest nation in the world and by far the most racially, ethnically, and religiously diverse, the objective data we have seems to indicate that the US is among the least prejudicial and discriminatory nations.
Average of all others - 8.4%
Australia - 3.9%
Austria - 7.9%
China - 18.0%
Denmark - 3.1%
Finalnd - 6.8%
France - 3.7%
Greece - 24.4%
Italy - 11.7%
Japan - 14.3%
New Zealand - 2.6%
Norway - 2.6%
South Korea - 15.2%
Spain - 12.5%
Sweden - 1.0%
Switzerland - 4.2%
United Kingdom - 2.1%
Hypothesis 4, Racism is much worse in America than elsewhere in the world is rejected as it seems unsupported by the paucity of empirical evidence available from FBI Hate Crimes, from the World Values Survey, and from the most relevant research conducted.
In summary, there are four important precepts held by Critical Theory Social Justice advocates such as BLM - 1) that racism is prevalent and ubiquitous in the US, that 2) all whites are inherently racist, that 3) blacks are both innocent of racism and incapable of racism, and that 4) racism is much worse in America than elsewhere in the world.
All four hypotheses are rejected by the great majority of Americans, at rates of roughly 80% to the 15% of those supporting the BLM hypotheses in some fashion. The objective grounds for the 80% of Americans rejecting the Critical Theory Social Justice beliefs seem well grounded in real world empirical evidence. BLM beliefs are not accepted by the great majority of Americans and are not supported by any empirical evidence.
I see wonderful things
So.... for the next chapter of “2020 is the Apocalypse”, the largest Saharan dust plume in at least 50 years is expected to hit the East Coast of the U.S. in a few days. https://t.co/AmlVG3H716
— Fr. Thomas Petri, OP (@PetriOP) June 23, 2020
The first film star to receive a pie thrown in the face
Keystone Cops - I have heard the phrase all my life. The link goes to the origins of the phrase.
And here is the very first Keystone Cops short, The Bangville Police, filmed in 1913. Fascinating.
Double click to enlarge.
The female lead in the short is the actress Mabel Normand. The Wikipedia article is well worth a read for the story of a clearly successful but also chaotically troubled woman with great accomplishments in the opening days of the movie industry. Actress, writer, director, and producer, she was there at the launch of Charlie Chaplin's career.
And here is the very first Keystone Cops short, The Bangville Police, filmed in 1913. Fascinating.
Double click to enlarge.
The female lead in the short is the actress Mabel Normand. The Wikipedia article is well worth a read for the story of a clearly successful but also chaotically troubled woman with great accomplishments in the opening days of the movie industry. Actress, writer, director, and producer, she was there at the launch of Charlie Chaplin's career.
Normand appeared with Charles Chaplin and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle in many short films. She is credited as being the first film star to receive a pie thrown in the face.
Headlines not fully anticipated.
We try to build an understanding of the world by an accumulation of facts, insights, probabilities, and an understanding of causal mechanisms.
Some facts are more surprising than others. Or at least unexpected. From DC returns to work — and online porn, up 1,600% by Paul Bedard.
Some facts are more surprising than others. Or at least unexpected. From DC returns to work — and online porn, up 1,600% by Paul Bedard.
Online porn viewing in Washington, dormant since most offices closed in March, has started to spike as more workers have returned to their cubicles in the federal city.
According to one popular website, Stripchat, weekly users have gone from about 3,000 in Washington during the coronavirus shutdown to about 55,000.
In data shared with Secrets, the “highest daily marks in traffic” beginning on July 8 were during office hours, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
“Now that people in some industries have started to return to the office — including government employees returning to Washington, D.C. from nearby suburban areas — it’s becoming apparent that old habits die hard,” said the website.
Saturday, July 25, 2020
History
Alexandria experienced a natural disaster on 21 July 365 when a huge tsunami hit the city. The Alexandrians commemorated 21 July as a ‘day of horror’ until the end of the 6th century... pic.twitter.com/MMvT47tEw0
— Roman History Hit (@HistoryHitRome) June 24, 2020
History
The Romans first faced elephants in battle at Heraclea in 280 BC against King Pyrrhus. Their inexperience against these beasts showed as they played a key role in Pyrrhus' victory, chasing away the Roman cavalry before panicking the Romans and turning them to flight. pic.twitter.com/gqpuJM1eIM
— Roman History Hit (@HistoryHitRome) June 24, 2020
I see wonderful things
I put my microphone in front of a 7 week old baby red squirrel. pic.twitter.com/JrRRvE9ngN
— Dani Connor Wild 🐺 (@DaniConnorWild) June 23, 2020
Honor to all of those who in their lives have settled on, and guard, a Thermopylae.
Complete Poems by C.P. Cavafy.
ThermopylaeLove that first line. In 2020, 70% of our people have settled on, and guard, a Thermopylae while a small minority of 5% or less have cast in their lot with the autocratic despot of the ancient east, willing to abandon the Age of Enlightenment values in return for the anticipated coin of power, bestowed by the autarch of chaos.
Honor to all of those who in their lives
have settled on, and guard, a Thermopylae.
Never stirring from their obligations;
just and equitable in all of their affairs,
but full of pity, nonetheless, and of compassion;
generous whenever they’re rich, and again
when they’re poor, generous in small things,
and helping out, again, as much as they are able;
always speaking nothing but the truth,
yet without any hatred for those who lie.
And more honor still is due to them
when they foresee (and many do foresee)
that Ephialtes will make his appearance in the end,
and that the Medes will eventually break through.
I see wonderful things
Atheris hispida is a venomous viper species endemic to Central Africa. It is known for its extremely keeled dorsal scales that give it a bristly appearance https://t.co/nrCIQEygqB pic.twitter.com/Mfp5k0YiWL
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) June 22, 2020
Data Talks
"taking out even five of the hundred and fifty or so feathers in a peacock's tail reduces his ability to attract females" https://t.co/NjFoUTVpLe pic.twitter.com/SGYclYLwYl
— Rob Henderson (@robkhenderson) June 26, 2020
Two friends on the coast of Long Island, 2009 by Devin Leonardi
Two friends on the coast of Long Island, 2009 by Devin Leonardi
Click to enlarge.
Offbeat Humor
No 16 is doing a spot-on impression of Cicero's involvement in Caesar's assassination. pic.twitter.com/5tTAU5oZGd
— Andrew James Sillett (@andrewsillett) June 29, 2020
Keystone Cops seems increasingly improbable
I have long taken the position that the appearance of coordination among the FBI, the DNC, the Justice Department, and other Deep Staters in promulgating the Russia Collusion allegation was not a conspiracy but a product of shared and probably even unspoken common interests. Still illegal and a massive betrayal of the public trust but not a conspiracy as often alleged in the more right-leaning sites of the internet.
That it was not, per se, an attempted coup. That it almost certainly did not have top-down sanction.
Once the Robert Mueller report came out with a complete evisceration of the Collusion allegations and with the increasing flow of documentation of a broader involvement of many more people in the effort to push the fake news of Trump Collusion with Russia in the past few months, my position seems increasingly in question. I am not ready to let go of it but it seems increasingly improbable that it is true.
From Meet the Steele Dossier's 'Primary Subsource': Fabulist Russian at Democrat Think Tank Whose Boozy Past the FBI Ignored by Paul Sperry. There is more reportorial besmirching by implication in this report than I would prefer, but it provides a lot more information and context.
The number of networks of common interest in undermining a non-Establishment winner seems to keep growing and the number of connections between multiple involved parties likewise.
That it was not, per se, an attempted coup. That it almost certainly did not have top-down sanction.
Once the Robert Mueller report came out with a complete evisceration of the Collusion allegations and with the increasing flow of documentation of a broader involvement of many more people in the effort to push the fake news of Trump Collusion with Russia in the past few months, my position seems increasingly in question. I am not ready to let go of it but it seems increasingly improbable that it is true.
From Meet the Steele Dossier's 'Primary Subsource': Fabulist Russian at Democrat Think Tank Whose Boozy Past the FBI Ignored by Paul Sperry. There is more reportorial besmirching by implication in this report than I would prefer, but it provides a lot more information and context.
The number of networks of common interest in undermining a non-Establishment winner seems to keep growing and the number of connections between multiple involved parties likewise.
The mysterious “Primary Subsource” that Christopher Steele has long hidden behind to defend his discredited Trump-Russia dossier is a former Brookings Institution analyst -- Igor “Iggy” Danchenko, a Russian national whose past includes criminal convictions and other personal baggage ignored by the FBI in vetting him and the information he fed to Steele, according to congressional sources and records obtained by RealClearInvestigations. Agents continued to use the dossier as grounds to investigate President Trump and put his advisers under counter-espionage surveillance.So the DNC contracted with a foreign agent (Steele) to compile a dossier of unqualified gossip from among a group of Russians, some of them working for the DNC-friendly Brookings Institution, to provide a gossamer basis for an FBI investigation led by agents with strong interlocking relationships (friendships and liaisons) to the outgoing administration. Still might be a Keystone Cops scenario but looking increasingly less likely.
The 42-year-old Danchenko, who was hired by Steele in 2016 to deploy a network of sources to dig up dirt on Trump and Russia for the Hillary Clinton campaign, was arrested, jailed and convicted years earlier on multiple public drunkenness and disorderly conduct charges in the Washington area and ordered to undergo substance-abuse and mental-health counseling, according to criminal records.
In an odd twist, a 2013 federal case against Danchenko was prosecuted by then-U.S Attorney Rod Rosenstein, who ended up signing one of the FBI’s dossier-based wiretap warrants as deputy attorney general in 2017.
Danchenko first ran into trouble with the law as he began working for Brookings — the preeminent Democratic think tank in Washington — where he struck up a friendship with Fiona Hill, the White House adviser who testified against Trump during last year's impeachment hearings. Danchenko has described Hill as a mentor, while Hill has sung his praises as a “creative” researcher.
Hill is also close to his boss Steele, who she’d known since 2006. She met with the former British intelligence officer during the 2016 campaign and later received a raw, unpublished copy of the now-debunked dossier.
It does not appear the FBI asked Danchenko about his criminal past or state of sobriety when agents interviewed him in January 2017 in a failed attempt to verify the accuracy of the dossier, which the bureau did only after agents used it to obtain a warrant to surveil Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. The opposition research was farmed out by Steele, working for Clinton's campaign, to Danchenko, who was paid for the information he provided.
A newly declassified FBI summary of the FBI-Danchenko meeting reveals agents learned that key allegations in the dossier, which claimed Trump engaged in a “well-developed conspiracy of cooperation” with the Kremlin against Clinton, were largely inspired by gossip and bar talk among Danchenko and his drinking buddies, most of whom were childhood friends from Russia.
The FBI memo is heavily redacted and blacks out the name of Steele’s Primary Subsource. But public records and congressional sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirm the identity of the source as Danchenko.
The distemper of Social Justice-Critical Theory
From I Hang My Head In Despair for My Profession by Mark Tappscott.
Mostly peaceful is such a diaphanous gesture of duplicity. It's as if they aren't even trying to report reality anymore.
It is especially galling when the "mostly peaceful" lies are back-to-back which articles such as Federal agents likely permanently blinded by Portland protesters’ lasers, White House says by Joshua Rhett Miller. Hopefully the blindings turn out to be temporary, but that is horrific. Three Federal officers blinded by a rioting mob.
The sooner we recover from this nightmare of violent Social Justice/Critical Theory distemper, the better. The casual evil being rendered by such as Jennifer Shutt is unacceptable.
So I’m reading along in Roll Call reporter Jennifer Shutt’s story today on House passage of four spending bills that have little or no chance of passage in the Senate. It’s all the usual legislative blah-blah about billions in this bill, more billions in that one, amendments accepted, amendments defeated, growing concerns, etc. etc.Indeed. This is almost industrial scale lying. Videos of mobs and riots and property destruction are everywhere. In particular cities such as Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago, New York, and Baltimore, the whole nation sees blocks burned out. In other cities such as Atlanta, de-policing has led to 50-100% increases in violence.
Then I read the last sentence: “There’s also broad frustration about the Trump administration’s decision to send federal officers, dressed in military-style uniforms, to Portland and Chicago to confront mostly peaceful protestors.” (Emphasis added).
How does such a falsehood make it into a news report presented as a credible, factual account of events on Capitol Hill?
Mostly peaceful is such a diaphanous gesture of duplicity. It's as if they aren't even trying to report reality anymore.
It is especially galling when the "mostly peaceful" lies are back-to-back which articles such as Federal agents likely permanently blinded by Portland protesters’ lasers, White House says by Joshua Rhett Miller. Hopefully the blindings turn out to be temporary, but that is horrific. Three Federal officers blinded by a rioting mob.
The sooner we recover from this nightmare of violent Social Justice/Critical Theory distemper, the better. The casual evil being rendered by such as Jennifer Shutt is unacceptable.
Friday, July 24, 2020
Data Talks
🆕NEW DATA🆕 Most Americans (59%) say that the news media do not understand people like them, while a minority – 37% – say they do feel understood. https://t.co/3C9UxzGMVl pic.twitter.com/O0GJevElHz
— Jeff Gottfried (@gottfriedjeff) June 26, 2020
Moonlit Landscape, 1849 by Arnold Böcklin
Moonlit Landscape, 1849 by Arnold Böcklin
Click to enlarge.
I see wonderful things
Wood opal is a form of petrified wood which has developed an opalescent sheen or, more rarely, where the wood has been completely replaced by opal. Considerable deposits are in Queensland, Australia https://t.co/bvwbl4X9KX pic.twitter.com/d6PuG1dDwn
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) June 22, 2020
Thursday, July 23, 2020
2020 is trying to outdo the Babyblon Bee
This is an effort to leave the Babylon Bee speechless. https://t.co/K6SaBFcA5n
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) July 23, 2020
