Omg.. 🤯 pic.twitter.com/CRfv4IjxNN
— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden_) August 22, 2020
Wednesday, September 30, 2020
Be easy…but not too familiar
From 1776 by David McCulough. Page 40.
As apparent to all, His Excellency was in the prime of life. A strapping man of commanding presence, he stood six feet two inches tall and weighed perhaps 190 pounds. His hair was reddish brown, his eyes gray-blue, and the bridge of his prominent nose unusually wide. The face was largely unlined, but freckled and sun-beaten and slightly scarred by smallpox. A few “defective teeth” were apparent when he smiled.
He carried himself like a soldier and sat a horse like the perfect Virginia gentleman. It was the look and bearing of a man accustomed to respect and to being obeyed. He was not austere. There was no hint of arrogance. “Amiable” and “modest” were words frequently used to describe him, and there was a softness in his eyes that people remembered. Yet he had a certain distance in manner that set him off from, or above, others."Be easy…but not too familiar,” he advised his officers, “lest you subject yourself to a want of that respect, which is necessary to support a proper command."
The ugly truth
An excellent point I am always seeking to drive home but @EPoe187 makes it much more succinctly.
When you think problems have simple solutions without trade offs, then you become convinced that those who disagree with you are not just wrong, but malignant. In truth, we’ve solved most problems that have simple solutions. Our problems have only painful trade offs.
— Bo Winegard (@EPoe187) September 30, 2020
My slightly more verbose argument is that when it comes to problem solving and policy setting, we all live within constrained circumstances. Which we frequently ignore. Specifically, resources are limited, all change involves risk, not all risk can be quantified (uncertainty), problem solving involves resources, simple problems with simple solutions are vanishingly rare, and all solutions involve trade-offs which unavoidably are differentially beneficial to those differentially circumstanced.
Agenda driven research conclusions: Advocates will find what they want, regardless of what the data says.
From Gender gap in entrepreneurship by Jorge Guzman and Aleksandra (Olenka) Kacperczyk. From the Abstract.
Using data on the entire population of businesses registered in the states of California and Massachusetts between 1995 and 2011, we decompose the well-established gender gap in entrepreneurship. We show that female-led ventures are 63 percentage points less likely than male-led ventures to obtain external funding (i.e., venture capital). The most significant portion of the gap (65 percent) stems from gender differences in initial startup orientation, with women being less likely to found ventures that signal growth potential to external investors. However, the residual gap is as much as 35 percent and much of this disparity likely reflects investors’ gendered preferences. Consistent with theories of statistical discrimination, the residual gap diminishes significantly when stronger signals of growth are available to investors for comparable female- and male-led ventures or when focal investors appear to be more sophisticated. Finally, conditional on the reception of external funds (i.e., venture capital), women and men are equally likely to achieve exit outcomes, through IPOs or acquisitions.
Intriguing. They seem to create all the data for one conclusion and then propose something else entirely.
The most powerful finding is in the last sentence. For men and women who have both passed all the venture capital tests and receive funding,
Women and men are equally likely to achieve exit outcomes, through IPOs or acquisitions.
Would have been interesting to know some of the effect size details such as:
What percentage of all those who receive funding complete an exit? - Do 100% end up exiting via IPOs or acquisitions? 50% 35%. We know it is a small percentage but what percentage?Do men and women achieve the same levels of exit valuation? - You don't just want to exit, you want to exit on the most advantageous terms. So is there an exit differential in valuation?
I cannot find answers to either question after a quick read of the study. It is a complex modeling exercise and initial expectations can often bias the outcomes through definitional issues.
Regardless, as stated in the abstract, we can start with the assumption that venture capitalists (VC) are equally good at choosing who is going to be successful as measured by the proxy of exit by IPO or acquisition, regardless of gender. Valuation would have been the better and more direct measure of success and it is curious why that was not used.
That is strong evidence that VCs are gender blind when making investment decisions.
But the researchers aren't focused on whether VCs are gender-blind in estimating success. The researchers are interested in determining why women are being disproportionately denied VC funding. Right off the bat, they rule out 65% of the potential causes as non-gender related. Women more frequently seek VC funding for ventures VCs are unwilling to fund, i.e. low or slow growth ventures. Women applicants for VC funding are disproportionately seeking funding for low growth ventures which VCs don't want to fund. The researchers acknowledge this to be a difference in choices, in female choices, not discrimination against women per se.
The researchers are left to explain 35% of the gap in funding. It is at this point that they begin imposing assumptions which determine the conclusions. What the heck does this mean?
However, the residual gap is as much as 35 percent and much of this disparity likely reflects investors’ gendered preferences.
It means that the researches simply assume into existence that that the 35% difference in outcomes must be the result of gender bias. But if actual achievement (IPO/Acquisition) is the same between men and women, that strongly suggests that at least some portion (if not all) of the 35% differential must be other factors which the researchers failed to acknowledge or understand.
The 65% which is acknowledged as non-gender is described in detail:
Our findings confirm the well-established pattern that female-led ventures are significantly less likely to obtain funding. As much as 65 percent of the total disparity in funding can be attributed to differences in startup growth potential at the time of founding. In this regard, our findings suggest that women are significantly less likely than men to found ventures that exhibit growth orientation and are appealing to external investors. Specifically, women are less likely to found and run startups that have appropriable and differentiated technology (as evidenced by patents), to found companies in sectors associated with venture capital such as biotechnology, IT, or semiconductors, and to register the company in Delaware—a jurisdiction associated with an intent to raise external financing. Women are also more likely to start firms in industries associated with a local business activity, rather than traded.
All that seems pretty robust.
Now they describe the 35% they don't understand:
The residual gap (i.e., 35 percent of the gap, or 18 percentage points) can be attributed to other factors, including, at least in part, investors’ preferences and bias. We provide evidence to link this remaining difference with investors’ biases or beliefs about gender. Specifically, we find that the gap between female and male entrepreneurs closes when signals of growth orientation become stronger (i.e., for female founders at the top of the quality distribution), or when investors are more sophisticated. Both findings are consistent with theories of statistical discrimination, suggesting that gender can be used as a cue to infer information about a new venture when signals of growth potential are weaker or when evaluators are less capable and less experienced.
Always watch for the weasel words - "The residual gap . . . can be attributed to other factors", "at least in part", and "suggesting that gender can be used." Yes, it might be gender discrimination but we cannot simply assume that into existence.
If the candidates selected by VC have equal outcomes (equal IPOs/Acquisitions) then there is something in their 35% decision-making which clearly is fulfilling the objective of picking winners. Guzman and Kacperczyk don't know what those other factors are, so they assume it must be cretinous old school discrimination. The equality of outcomes in terms of successful market exits suggest Guzman and Kacperczyk don't know what they are talking about.
Unless I am very badly misunderstanding the research, always a possibility, this seems like a prime example of cognitive pollution. It appears that the researchers really wanted to find discrimination against women.
What they are able to demonstrate is that VC backed ventures are successful regardless of gender. In other words, their successful winners are equally likely to be male or female led. The only differential in value creation comes at the funding stage. Male ventures more frequently receive funding but for readily identifiable reasons based directly observable differences in choices related to potential for value creation (high growth, expansive markets, technology, patents, etc.). That explains 65% of the difference in funding decisions.
We don't know what constitutes the reasons for the remaining 35% differential. The researchers want it to be gender discrimination and claim that they find some indicators that it might be simple prejudice but do not elaborate on that. The fact that there is no difference between genders in terms of success rates argues pretty powerfully that 1) whatever the missing decision factors are, they are strong, and 2) that they are not likely to be gender discrimination per se.
We cannot ignore that VC investors are portfolio investors just as in other industries such as consumer product companies, real estate companies and the oil industry. You don't invest in individual ventures, you invest in a portfolio of ventures: you spread your risks.
Start-ups tend to be winner-take-all and Pareto distributed. Only a few will succeed, those that succeed will account for all the value created, and no one can consistently pick who will individually succeed. Equal successful outcomes seems to indicate that VCs are successfully focusing on relevant, non-gender variables.
The researchers claim
Our results have important policy implications.
And then list out a typical range of policy interventions which are unproven. Strikingly, where those type of policies are pursued are in the very states from which they are obtaining their data, California and Massachusetts.
This is all very similar to the gender wage discrimination claim, still widely circulated but long since empirically overturned. When you take into account education choices, industry sector choices, work persistence, hours worked, etc., the nominal wage discrimination shrinks to vanishing point.
Guzman and Kacperczyk have accounted for 65% of the nominal apparent discrimination against women at the funding stage. In a few more years, if they stick with it, they will reluctantly end up finding, just as with the wage discrimination claim, that there are valid factors which they are failing to understand. All the discrimination is based on eventually identifiable measures of predicate success.
Until then, this is cognitive pollution masquerading as research.
Or so it seems.
History
1/2) Did you know the first English book written in North America was a translation of Ovid's 'Metamorphoses'? George Sandys was a traveller and poet who in 1621 became treasurer of the Virginia Company in Jamestown, where he completed his English translation of the Roman poet... pic.twitter.com/kBpJEDgzD4
— Gareth Harney (@OptimoPrincipi) August 26, 2020
I see wonderful things
Sightings of several simultaneous waterspouts churning off the states of Louisiana and Mississippi were reported on August 20, 2020 https://t.co/AWZAPTap5G [photo, by Michael Fontaine: https://t.co/OkFCjcabbv] pic.twitter.com/IRuUKb66bJ
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) August 21, 2020
Vapornews
Intellectuals as idiots. From When the great painter Edward Hopper was a teenager, he painted copies of paintings by other artists — an utterly ordinary approach to learning how to paint. by Ann Althouse.
She is responding to an article in the NYT, formerly the paper of record, now the paper of hard left urbanites of exquisite sensibilities and a ravenous hunger for power at all costs (as long as paid by others.)
But the NYT is making a weird huge deal out of this insignificant discovery: "Early Works by Edward Hopper Found to Be Copies of Other Artists/A grad student’s discovery 'cuts straight through the widely held perception of Hopper as an American original,' without a debt to others, a Whitney curator said."
Give me a break! These paintings by the teenager are not the Hopper paintings we've known and loved over the years. They're not the basis of any arguments about his Americanness and originality.
Let's look more closely at this article — by Blake Gopnik — and see what's really going on, why this inconsequential information is inflating into an exposé. Now, it is pretty cool that a scholar was able to find the exact images — the rather bad paintings — that teenaged Hopper used in his fumbling early efforts to manipulate oil paint.
Buried in the NYT article is the concession from the scholar (Louis Shadwick) that in those days "artists almost always got their start by copying." The article is marked as "updated," and I suspect that this is the updating.
So a current scholar has rediscovered what is already well and widely known - classically trained artists are usually taught in part by copying paintings by acknowledged masters. Althouse is asking, effectively, why is there this reporting given that there is no there there? No nuntium. No news.
Well apparently you have to get deep into the swamp of intellectuals and pseudo media mavens skilled in the art of press release journalism and hard left advocacy.
A Londoner, [Shadwick] especially wants to understand the notion of “Americanness” that Hopper grew up around, and that then grew up around Hopper as his reputation matured; it still rules much of the talk about him....
In our new century, when the country’s place in the world seems less sure by the day and when even Americans are split on the state of their nation — does it need to be made great again or does it need to face up to past failures? — a “national” treasure like Hopper seems to beg for a fresh approach.
So this story is important because it fits the MAGA-versus-BLM theme of 2020?! Hopper embodies sentiments and modes of thinking that need interrogating.
In the software industry we have a history of vaporware - software products which are claimed to achieve certain functionalities but which in reality have not yet even been written. The mainstream media has mastered a similar concept - vapornews. Vapornews looks like news but there is actually no there there. Not even real enough to be called fake news.
Data Talks
Are facial expressions of emotion universal or culture specific? A computational analysis of the facial expressions in non-Western, pre-contact art suggests the former. Very cool study. https://t.co/d2WqovxY33 pic.twitter.com/MBJ5OPovPQ
— Steve Stewart-Williams (@SteveStuWill) August 22, 2020
An Insight
Perception vs Reality: why are elite black Americans reporting more racial discrimination than poor African-Americans. A discussion: https://t.co/AANRwMM0ZZ pic.twitter.com/ioRDbGzAGC
— Eric Kaufmann (@epkaufm) August 23, 2020
Tuesday, September 29, 2020
History
If elected, Kamala Harris wouldn't be the first person of color to serve as Vice President. Herbert Hoover's VP from 1929 to 1933, Charles Curtis AKA "Indian Charley" was a member of the Kaw Nation. His mother was Native American. https://t.co/R3MBVOEklC pic.twitter.com/Gv1RzEZex0
— Diana S. Fleischman (@sentientist) August 20, 2020
Seeing things as they were, and not as he would wish them to be, was one of his salient strengths.
From 1776 by David McCulough. Page 40.
There were still too few tents, still a shortage of blankets and clothing, and no one had forgotten that winter was on the way. Farmers and soldiers knew about weather. Weather could be the great determiner between failure and success, the great test of one’s staying power.In truth, the situation was worse than they realized, and no one perceived this as clearly as Washington. Seeing things as they were, and not as he would wish them to be, was one of his salient strengths.
Data Talks
One way you know this isn't specific to American racial dynamics (or American levels of obesity even) is deaths +infections for UK +Swedish black immigrants were also very high; one way you know latitude is prob important is that Africa has broadly had very low deaths/infection. https://t.co/oBFpJpumbl
— Spotted Toad (@toad_spotted) August 21, 2020
An Insight
Technologies start with an "Era of Ferment" where multiple visions of how a product will operate compete with each other. At some point a single "Dominant Design" becomes established. Then innovation shifts from focusing on design to performance/value. Competition gets expensive. pic.twitter.com/O8zMAwaBt2
— Ethan Mollick (@emollick) August 24, 2020
Monday, September 28, 2020
Quote
“Intellectuals are naturally attracted by the idea of a planned society, in the belief that they will be in charge of it.”
— Bo Winegard (@EPoe187) August 25, 2020
Roger Scruton pic.twitter.com/w1goQAt6OL
Offbeat Humor
Bad duck bad duck! Whatcha gonna do when they come for you? https://t.co/GedZQLlSa6
— Phineas Fahrquar (@irishspy) August 22, 2020
Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging one's affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible.
Its a powerful tension knowing you should wait 36 hours versus seeing what a massive reliance there is on innumeracy, ignorance, non sequiturs, and category errors.
The NYT has finally published President Trump's tax returns of the past ten or fifteen years. Like Maddow's triumphant publication of his 2005 return only to discover that there was no there there, the NYT revelation appears so far to be an equally damp squib.
During Obama's administration there was a fringe group obsessed with the idea that Obama was foreign born and not eligible for the Presidency. Always a fringe belief but it seemed, after a while, as if Obama benefited by allowing the nonsense to drivel on. Once anybody of any credibility moved past it, and the mockery of knuckle draggers had played out, the birth certificate was finally produced. Much ado about nothing.
It feels like much the same dynamic now. Like the birthers, the NYT and DNC have been desperate to get their hands on Trump's tax returns. It would prove he was a swindler, in the pay of the Russians, that he was a con artist, etc.
Well . . . . About that.
The tax returns are out there in the open and so far it seems like the factual headlines are:
Trump Taxes On Display - Millions in taxes paid, no evidence of Russian relationship discovered.
A subheading might be.
Big losses from some ventures offset by gains in others.
That's not how it is being spun and perhaps with real experts digging, something will turn up.
But for the time being, those True Believers desperate to find the exposé among the tax returns which would sink him seem as much taken aback as were the Obama birthers. So far there is no there there.
So much so, that the usual Mandarin Class talking heads are immediately in misleading territory. Trying to elide tax avoidance (legal) with tax evasion (illegal). Just as Senator Blumenthal was trying the other day to claim the Barrett's nomination was unconstitutional and illegal when it is entirely constitutional, legal, and consistent with recent nominations and with plenty of precedence.
If your only argument is to lie, the quality of debate is going to be low.
Other sources of confusion to commenters which I have so far seen include:
Federal taxes vs. State taxes
Corporate taxes vs. Personal taxes
Tax avoidance vs. Tax evasion
Revenue vs. Profits (I kid you not)
Assets vs. income (I kid you not)
Compliance with the tax code vs. Tax cheating
Corporate asset management vs. wage incomes
Income statements vs. Balance sheets
So far, it sounds like Trump was compliant with the tax code and paid all the taxes he was obligated to pay. It is long and well established that the tax code has some real short-comings as a means for managing national policy. Among the principal drawbacks is that governance is obfuscated, it is an invitation to lard the code with dubious requirements, and unintended consequences proliferate because the tax code writers are never as clever or well rewarded as those paid to comply self-beneficially with all the loopholes of the code.
For example, there is an argument to be made that capital investment (which can drive economic growth) should be treated preferentially over wage income. Not only is there such an argument, it is in fact our national policy with bipartisan support for many decades. Which is one reason corporate taxes can look so different and inconsequential compared to income tax rates. Just ask any Silicon Valley titan or unicorn upshot. How many years before Amazon's growth in valuation spilled over into actual corporate profitability or material income tax reporting for Bezos?
If the objective was to force everyone to pay some minimal level of tax, that has long been within the purview of Congress. They wrote the rules and so far, Trump and his team seem to have complied with them. Perhaps not in the way his critics would have wished, but complied none-the-less.
A lawyer tweeted
Federal income taxes paid in 2017 (jointly with spouse):
Joe Biden - $3,742,974
Kamala Harris - $516,469
Bernie Sanders - $343,882
Elizabeth Warren - $268,484
Donald Trump - $750
The implied argument was that the first four were being ethical and financially successful and the fifth, Trump was not. But there is an alternate way to interpret that data. How come three career politicians and an academic are earning so much income that they have to pay so much tax? Chase that rabbit for a while and you arrive at some interesting insights which are not supportive of the lawyer's argument. And that doesn't even begin to address that income is not wealth.
All this is prompted by Althouse's very pertinent blog post, Why didn't Joe Biden work on changing the tax laws in all those decades in Congress? He's responsible for the system that Trump, as a private citizen, was forced to operate within. Biden, Warren, Haris, Sanders, et al, Senators all, are complaining about the tax rules which they set. Is this a Trump issue or a BWHS/DNC issue? Sure seems, if Trump is in compliance, then BWHS and DNC have no one to blame but themselves.
We'll see. 36 hours haven't yet passed.
And it is worthwhile recalling, as many on the left have not, the words of Learned Hand, among our greatest legal minds of the past century.
Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging one's affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everybody does so, rich or poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions. To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant.
If one accepts that as true, as I suspect most would, and if it ends up being the case that Trump was in compliance with tax law, then all the critical chatter will serve as a tribute to the cleverness of Trump's lawyers and tax planners in both adhering to the law while minimizing the tax consequences to his business dealings.
UPDATE: Making broadly the same points but in far more entertaining prose, NO, YOU IDIOTS. THAT’S NOT HOW TAXES WORK. – AN ACCOUNTANT’S GUIDE TO WHY YOU ARE A GULLIBLE MORON by Larry Correia.
I posted that last night on Facebook, and sure enough, this morning my feed is filled with people who don’t know shit about taxes retweeting the stupid opinions of other morons who also don’t know shit about taxes. This is just as annoying as last week when these same idiots all suddenly became Constitutional Scholars. Or the month before that when they were all experts on use of force laws and police tactics. Or the month before that when they suddenly got their epidemiology degrees from the University of Internet and turned into infectious disease experts.
Holy shit, you Dunning-Krugerands are annoying. Of course the comments are all about the “morality” of paying your “fair share”. Which isn’t how any of this works in real life. Just stop it with your vapid hot takes already. You clearly have a child-like grasp of a complex topic, and your words are making America dumber.
As a former accountant, please allow me to explain why all of today’s newly formed tax experts are fucking morons, and we should metaphorically put a brick in a sock and beat them over the head with it until they shut up.
[snip]
One thing that’s really unfair about our tax system is that it is rigged in favor of people who have more resources. Government meddling makes it more costly to conduct business. The more complicated the regulatory burden, the more smaller companies can’t compete. Make the laws complicated enough and the only companies that stay in business are the ones who can afford to pay for twenty guys like me. (my last regular accounting job paid extremely well, and nearly everything I did was jump through government mandated hoops, filling out government mandated paperwork which nobody in the government would probably ever read)
Trump has those resources. I bet he’s got a room full of accountants, and their leader is probably a grizzled old CPA with an eye patch and a raven who sits on his shoulder. The raven also has an eye patch and an accounting degree. This man has wrestled bears, and he’s going to take advantage of every tax break in the US Code for his client, and do so gleefully, knowing that many of those laws were signed by Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
On the other side, you know damned good and well that the IRS has sent their most fearsome auditor against him. This man sold his soul to the devil, and then fined the devil for failing to list that soul as a depreciable asset. When he shows up to audit your company, he appears a flash of fire and brimstone, as a Finnish death metal band plays his theme song. He is an auditor bereft of mercy, compassion, or pity, and beneath his leathery wings serve a legion of IRS goblins, who will crawl into every nook and cranny of the Trump Corporation’s P&L looking for errors, and if a mouse so much as shits a turd large enough to unbalance that ledger, there will be hell to pay.
[snip]
That’s how it works. On one side CPAs, and the other, hellspawn audit demons, and they’ll argue, and battle, and go to court over what is and is not owed to the government, and then the client will pay what is legally owed plus any applicable fines and penalties (and not a dime more). Both sides of this titanic eternal struggle are far smarter than anyone at the New York Times and they have access to the actual financial data, unlike all the blue check mark idiots on Twitter who are whinging on today about their feelings. Barf.
Your feelings don’t mean shit. Same as the rest of us, Trump owes what he owes. And the IRS will determine if that number is accurate or not.
History
Evidence for long distance trade in the Irish Neolithic. These beautiful green jadeite axes are from Donegal & Westmeath & are c 6000 years old. Studies have shown that the stone they are fashioned out of comes from a series of Neolithic quarries located high in the Italian alps pic.twitter.com/3udl5CQ7SO
— Irish Archaeology (@irarchaeology) August 23, 2020
Nothing to do but pick blueberries and play cricket
From 1776 by David McCulough. Page 40.
Then days would follow without incident, one day like another. An officer with a company of Pennsylvania riflemen wrote of nothing to do but pick blueberries and play cricket. “Nothing of note…. Nothing important…. All quiet,” Lieutenant Bixby of Connecticut recorded. On the other side, a British diarist drearily echoed the same refrain, writing, “Nothing extraordinary…. Nothing extraordinary,” day after day.
I see wonderful things
The skill... pic.twitter.com/5NWZOApQZ5
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) August 22, 2020
Data Talks
Monthly death per million in Sweden between 1851-2020... @FrankfurtZack @FatEmperor @pwyowell @daniellevitt22 @HaraldofW pic.twitter.com/q8OsTnuxdX
— Johan Hellström (@jhnhellstrom) August 21, 2020
An Insight
The most dangerous place to live now is anywhere with a high concentration of people who got a graduate degree that turned out to not be a good investment
— Shant Mesrobian (@ShantMM) August 24, 2020
A great agglomeration of garbage extending as far as the eye can see, effluvious waves crashing and throwing up a foul foam of p=0.049 papers.
From What's Wrong with Social Science and How to Fix It: Reflections After Reading 2578 Papers by Alvaro de Menard.
Criticizing bad science from an abstract, 10000-foot view is pleasant: you hear about some stuff that doesn't replicate, some methodologies that seem a bit silly. "They should improve their methods", "p-hacking is bad", "we must change the incentives", you declare Zeuslike from your throne in the clouds, and then go on with your day.But actually diving into the sea of trash that is social science gives you a more tangible perspective, a more visceral revulsion, and perhaps even a sense of Lovecraftian awe at the sheer magnitude of it all: a vast landfill—a great agglomeration of garbage extending as far as the eye can see, effluvious waves crashing and throwing up a foul foam of p=0.049 papers. As you walk up to the diving platform, the deformed attendant hands you a pair of flippers. Noticing your reticence, he gives a subtle nod as if to say: "come on then, jump in".
Sunday, September 27, 2020
Offbeat Humor
would you say that kierkegaard's numbers are soren https://t.co/ZixgkwZDll
— Ariel Edwards-Levy (@aedwardslevy) August 21, 2020
History
The detail in the sculpture..! pic.twitter.com/fUZdSGKGV2
— Tudor architecture (@ArchitectureTud) August 22, 2020
British deserters kept crossing the lines
From 1776 by David McCulough. Page 39.
British deserters kept crossing the lines, usually at night and alone, but sometimes three or four together. Half-starved and disgruntled, they came from both Boston and from the British ships in harbor, and nearly always with bits of news or descriptions of their travails, word of which would spread rapidly through the camps the next day. One night a lone British lighthorseman swam his horse across. Another night, fifteen men deserted the ships in the harbor.
I see wonderful things
How this machine, with the help of two people, easily replaces a railroad tie [full video: https://t.co/XtpdkrzUYi] pic.twitter.com/Nf0tQEu436
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) August 23, 2020
Data Talks
Cash-rich and time-poor? Redress the balance!
— Koenfucius (@koenfucius) August 20, 2020
Study by @ashleywhillans et al (survey in US, CA, DK and NL and field experiment) finds using money to buy time can protect people from the detrimental effects of time pressure on life satisfaction: https://t.co/QDuWcH1FML pic.twitter.com/U6ZzgRpWgo
An Insight
most liberalism is just making edge cases normative https://t.co/NH89uRQfMk
— Jeremy McLellan (@JeremyMcLellan) August 24, 2020
A politician's trifecta - A claim which is legally untrue, factually untrue, and statistically untrue.
This, I would not have expected to see. Wolf Blitzer of CNN forcing a Democratic Senator to acknowledge that his argument (the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court is illegitimate) is incorrect.
After getting called out, Blumenthal admits confirming Judge Barrett doesn’t violate the Constitution.
— Senate Republican Communications Center (@SRCC) September 27, 2020
BLUMENTHAL: It is illegitimate.
CNN: Where does it say that what Republicans are doing is illegitimate in the Constitution?
BLUMENTHAL: It may not violate the Constitution. pic.twitter.com/DwWIOJplLH
Blitzer is correct and Blumenthal simply wrong - There is nothing unusual, illegitimate, or illegal about the current approval process. Everything is constitutionally in order. Just as it was with the Merrick Garland nomination. Both nominations followed the same rules. In the Garland instance, there were insufficient votes to overcome the Senate majority delaying the nomination. In the Barrett nomination, under the same rules as before, it appears that the Senate majority will be in favor of an appointment.
Blumenthal has been a state Attorney General, a Congressman, a Senator since 2010, a Yale Law School graduate. He knows that there is nothing illegitimate about the current procedure and yet he is advancing the lie until Blitzer forces him to acknowledge that there is nothing illegal going on.
At which point Blumenthal falls back on the weaselly, but factually also incorrect, claim that the current nomination violates norms, traditions and unwritten rules. But it does not violate current norms because the current nomination policies and law have only been in place since 2013, brought into existence when Democrats controlled the Senate and only applied to three nominations since then. Hard to have norms, traditions and unwritten rules around a process which has only occurred three times in seven years.
In 2013 Senate Majority Leader Reid (D) retired the longstanding supermajority rule (60 Senate votes) to bring closure to a filibuster, thus establishing a new normal of simple majority (51 Senate votes) to bring closure to debate and to proceed to a vote. Reid established the new normal of simple majority voting on Executive branch nominations and federal judicial appointments, carving out Supreme Court Justice votes as an exception to retain the super majority rule. In 2017, the Republican Senate under McConnell extended Reid's simple majority rule to Supreme Court Justice votes. Since 2013 there have been only three nominations to the Supreme Court, all three of them following the majority voting pioneered by Reid.
In 2013, Reid was opportunistically making it faster, easier, and less embarrassing to make Executive appointments and clear a backlog of judicial appointments. It was pure political brass knuckles opportunism. Constitutional lawyers from both sides of the political aisle counseled against it. Even Democratic political operatives advised against it, knowing that once majority voting became established in the Senate, all appointments and legislation would come down to vote counting rather than the much more onerous and difficult challenge of negotiation and compromise.
It was bad governance and bad policy but it was deliberately chosen by Reid for the sake of political opportunity.
And now what was foreseen has come to pass. A simple majority Senate vote in accordance with Constitutional law is all that is required and that is what is being done. It is constitutionally legitimate.
Is it politically wise? Who knows? Reid's brass knuckles opportunism did not work out all that well for him. Reid's action on the filibuster energized Republicans who took the Senate at the next election and have held it since. Will Trump's late election cycle nomination of Barrett energize Democrats or Republicans more? I have no idea. After November we will settle on an opinion as to whether Barrett's nomination was a material contributor to the election outcome or not, but I don't think anybody has a strong case to be made right now one way or the other. Every scenario is plausible and few of them compelling.
Both Reid, and then later McConnell were guilty of political opportunism. What this really tells me is that the Senate really ought to reinstate the old filibuster rule, forcing them back into seeking common ground rather than these winner-take-all battles.
But that is not an offer on the table from our Mandarin Class. Unfortunately.
Propinquity
The word keeps echoing in my head because of its peculiar sibilance.
pro·pin·qui·ty
/prəˈpiNGkwədē/
1.
FORMAL
the state of being close to someone or something; proximity.
Saturday, September 26, 2020
Be More Kind by Frank Turner
Be More Kindby Frank TurnerHistory's been leaning on me latelyI can feel the future breathing down my neckAnd all the things I thought were trueWhen I was young, and you were tooTurned out to be brokenAnd I don't know what comes nextIn a world that has decidedThat it's going to lose its mindBe more kind, my friends, try to be more kindThey've started raising walls around the world nowLike hackles raised upon a cornered catOn the borders, in our headsBetween things that can and can't be saidWe've stopped talking to each otherAnd there's something wrong with thatSo before you go out searchingDon't decide what you will findBe more kind, my friends, try to be more kindYou should know you're not aloneAnd trouble comes, and trouble goesHow this ends, no one knowsSo hold on tight when the wind blowsThe wind blew both of us to sand and seaAnd where the dry land stands is hard to sayAs the current drags us by the shoreWe can no longer say for sureWho's drowning, or if they can be saved
And when you're out there flounderingLike a lighthouse I will shineBe more kind, my friends, try to be more kindLike a beacon reaching outTo you and yours from me and mineBe more kind, my friends, try to be more kindIn a world that has decidedThat it's going to lose its mindBe more kind, my friends, try to be more kind
Offbeat Humor
The post office hysteria is QAnon for people with master’s degrees.
— Luke Thompson (@ltthompso) August 16, 2020
History
For reference, here is the shift over time. Both sides have become more polarized, but it's rather clear one side has moved much further in terms of policies and ideology. pic.twitter.com/VN6jvEvI3R
— (((AG))) (@AGHamilton29) August 23, 2020
But the riflemen skulked about, and kept up their sharp shooting all day
From 1776 by David McCulough. Page 38.
The work parties were fired on from time to time. British and American sentries alike were fired on repeatedly. On August 2, as Lieutenant Samuel Bixby of Connecticut recorded in his diary, “One of Gen[eral] Washington’s riflemen was killed by the regulars today and then hung! up by the neck!”His comrades, seeing this, were much enraged and immediately asked leave of the Gen[eral] to go down and do as they pleased. The riflemen marched immediately and began operations. The regulars fired at them from all parts with cannon and swivels, but the riflemen skulked about, and kept up their sharp shooting all day. Many of the regulars fell, but the riflemen lost only one man.Both sides staged sporadic night raids on the other’s lines, or launched forays to capture hay and livestock from nearby harbor islands. The night of August 30, the British made a surprise breakout at the Neck, set fire to a tavern, and withdrew back to their defenses. The same night, three hundred Americans attacked Lighthouse Island, killed several of the enemy, and took twenty-three prisoners, with the loss of one American soldier.
I see wonderful things
Reindeer under the Northern Lights..
— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden_) August 21, 2020
🎥 IG: auroraborealiobservatory pic.twitter.com/VrzPUF4XAe
Data Talks
I had no idea serum Vitamin D levels dropped so dramatically from the 80s to the 2000s, and rates of deficiency increased so much. I assume this is largely obesity, but also perhaps sun exposure going considerably down? pic.twitter.com/xL3nTJ3HZU
— Spotted Toad (@toad_spotted) August 20, 2020
An Insight
Laypeople Can Predict Which Social-Science Studies Will Replicate Successfully
— Steve Stewart-Williams (@SteveStuWill) August 24, 2020
TL;DR: If a study clashes with commonsense, you should probably side with commonsense (at least till it's been properly replicated).https://t.co/drTABgeJYS pic.twitter.com/UnES7Yiv7O
Elite institution own-goals and the decline of trust
Listening yesterday to an NPR local political talk program. Supposed to be moderate, middle of the road but is really more like moderate in the sense of being between slightly left and hard left.
In this instance, they were talking to a senior figure at the CDC, discussing the decline of respect for and trust in expertise. Specifically, the participants were discussing the prospects and possible roll-out for a Covid-19 vaccine.
I think Operation Warp Speed to be an interesting public-private effort and that it was probably necessary at the beginning of the pandemic. Clearly most our public sector institutions were highly ineffective at the beginning, particularly the FDA and the CDC but not omitting WHO.
While I applaud the governance innovation and its better reliance on the private sector, I also suspect that there is a better than even chance that this might turn out to be a massively wasteful failure. Our track record for vaccines in general is pretty abysmal. We have no vaccine for the most similar virus outbreaks of the past couple of decades. It is hard to see all the regulatory corners being cut having exactly the same safety reliability as in the past.
Either the past processes were unnecessarily demanding (which is possible) or the new vaccines will have greater risk probabilities (also possible). Or both.
You don't have to be a doctor or expert to know this. Just a good memory of the past twenty years or twenty minutes access to Google search engine.
Any novel health emergency is inherently uncertain. We will get some decisions wrong in terms of the actual progression of the disease (remember Zika) or the magnitude of the impact or the real mortality risks, or the proper course of treatment, or the required resources.
From my perspective, Operation Warp Speed was as much about public reassurance at a time when we did not realize how low the mortality would be for most ages of the population as it was about an actual cure. Maybe we will get a vaccine quickly and maybe it will be safe, but past experience suggests that outcome is a low probability.
The CDC muckety muck (and the talking political commentators) were lamenting the decline in respect for science and experts and sotto voce suggesting that science had become tainted by politics and particularly by the disrespect of the Orange Man. That was the first tell that we aren't talking about science.
Anti-vaxxers are historically bi-partisan and the left leaning anti-vaxxers are actually more prominent in the media. This is neither a new issue nor a singular party one.
The CDC guy did acknowledge that dealing with a new outbreak is always challenging and that it cannot be expected that they will get everything right. But neither he nor the other commenters addressed that the CDC did not get much right. Slow to respond, contradictory instructions, bureaucratic turf-guarding, absence of the supplies which were supposed to have been stockpiled, failure to adhere to its own outbreak planning protocols - all were factors to substantiate that the experts were not competent.
Especially when such problems were also manifest at FDA, WHO and others as well. And especially when there were (and are) inconsistencies between and among them. And especially when some of their actions were transparently self-serving. "Don't need to buy masks because they are not effective" was simply an excuse or lie to protect supplies for health services since the stockpiles of mask and PPE were not available as they should have been.
The CDC expert and the chattering class were lamenting why ordinary citizens might not be as trusting of the experts as the experts might desire while not acknowledging the very failures of the experts which contributed to that loss of trust.
CDC man also did not address some of the pre-Covid policy debates which had already given rise to declining public trust.
Specifically, many on the right objected to the CDC increasingly pursuing non-medical political agendas. Among the more objected to was the effort ten or twenty years ago by the CDC to treat guns as a public health issue. On the right this was seen as an end-run around Second Amendment civil rights and as a diversion of resources from the CDC's actual authorized objectives - infectious diseases. This ultimately resulted in Congressional legislation to stop the CDC from expanding its remit into the political arena of gun control.
Pre-Covid CDC had already done a good job of eroding trust in it as an institution. Then it failed in its primary mission of disease control at the beginning of Covid-19, underperforming at both the policy and operational level.
This also was not discussed in the ostensibly open and intelligent discussion.
Finally, there was a further tell from the CDC leader. After repeatedly arguing over the course of the program that ordinary citizens should trust the CDC, trust the experts, and follow the science and after repeatedly disclaiming that the CDC was pursuing any political agenda, CDC man once again tipped his hand.
Having made some reasonable claim or plea, he then alluded to Covid in the context of America as a racist country suffering from gross inequality.
That might be a persuasive argument to the hard left but for everyone else it is an indicator that the CDC leadership is 1) distinctly ideological, 2) distinctly not expert, and 3) distinctly not to be trusted.
You don't have to be right-wing to see how significant an own-goal this was. He had one primary job to do on the show which was to demonstrate that the CDC warranted being trusted as a science-driven, non-political institution. Instead, he reinforced the perception that CDC leadership is ideological, incompetent, not science-driven and not to be trusted.
If quality decision-making, scientific integrity, and institutional trustworthiness are important goals, as I believe they are, this was a disaster of an interview.
What kind of blinkers prevent these bureaucratic experts from seeing that they are undermining their own case in real time? I don't know, but it is striking.
L'été (Ruth et Boaz) 1660 - 1664, Nicolas Poussin
L'été (Ruth et Boaz) 1660 - 1664, Nicolas Poussin
Click to enlarge.
Friday, September 25, 2020
History
In the 1920s-30s airship mooring masts were built in many countries. Without doubt the tallest mooring mast ever designed was the spire of the Empire State Building. The top pic shows British M.P.s walk onto an airship gangplank, in Cardington, England https://t.co/VyNoIqkspp pic.twitter.com/kFbYoRxdtI
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) August 23, 2020
Obstreperous to the point that Washington began to wish they had never come.
From 1776 by David McCulough. Page 38.
One Virginia company, led by Captain Daniel Morgan, had marched on a “bee-line” for Boston, covering six hundred miles in three weeks, or an average of thirty miles a day in the heat of summer.Mostly backwoodsmen of Scotch-Irish descent, they wore long, fringed hunting shirts, “rifle shirts” of homespun linen, in colors ranging from undyed tan and gray to shades of brown and even black, these tied at the waist with belts carrying tomahawks. At a review they demonstrated how, with their long-barreled rifles, a frontier weapon made in Pennsylvania and largely unknown in New England, they could hit a mark seven inches in diameter at a distance of 250 yards, while the ordinary musket was accurate at only 100 yards or so. It was “rifling”—spiraled grooves inside the long barrel—that increased the accuracy, and the new men began firing at British sentries with deadly effect, until the British caught on and kept their heads down or stayed out of range.Welcome as they were at first, the riflemen soon proved even more indifferent to discipline than the New Englanders, and obstreperous to the point that Washington began to wish they had never come.
I see wonderful things
Photographer Peter Maier captured this jaw-dropping timelapse of a cloudburst over Lake Millstatt in Carinthia, Austria [source, full video: https://t.co/6C7h0y0uno] pic.twitter.com/ZaUQHTLLqG
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) August 21, 2020
Data Talks
remember this when you consider the "excess deaths" figures in places that implemented lockdowns.
— el gato malo (@boriquagato) August 20, 2020
lockdowns kill. https://t.co/moYiXiEb6E
An Insight
It’s easy to become jaded by the constant obsession with victims, victimhood, and social justice. But there really are injustices in the world; and there really are people who quietly work to make life better for those who suffer. And it’s always good to be grateful for them🙏🏻
— Bo Winegard (@EPoe187) August 24, 2020
And so, an alcoholic stalker of ex-boyfriends, and who bases intimate relationships on revenge, has fathomed society’s problems.
I read this and chortled at the time it was written in 2018. Samizdata quoted from it today, reminding me.
From Hear The Lamentations Of Unstable Leftist Women by David Thompson in November, 2018.
Or, The Orange Man Wrecked My Marriage:
By now it’s a truism to point out that the election of Donald Trump… [has] prompted a wholesale realignment of American politics. But it’s also sent shock waves through heterosexual romance.
In the piously left-leaning New York magazine, Molly Langmuir invites us to sympathise with the inner turmoil of activist ladies who are blaming their unhappy marriages, their divorces and estrangements, and pretty much everything, on the continued existence of Donald Trump. There’s quite a bit of mental jungle to hack through, so bring a packed lunch:
29 percent of respondents to a May 2017 survey said their romantic relationship had been negatively affected by Trump’s presidency. And even people ostensibly on the same side of the issues as their partner have run into challenges, with the climate exacerbating or revealing new fault lines.
Ms Langmuir introduces us to several pseudonymous couples and singletons – people for whom the merest deviation in thought has proved too much to bear. First up, we meet Kirsten:
Growing up, my parents were very liberal. My dad’s gay, he’s been with his husband now for over 40 years. That was my normal. My mom remarried a guy who’s very liberal.
Okay, then.
In high school, I also had a major drinking problem,
No. Don’t. We mustn’t rush to judge.
I was an art major at this big university…
Though, admittedly, she’s not making it easy.
Pretty funny throughout and had we only known that the fever pitch madness would continue.
And so, an alcoholic stalker of ex-boyfriends, and who bases intimate relationships on revenge, has fathomed society’s problems.
"Mostly" now functioning as a tell that a lie is about to follow
Another example of the dramatic mismatch between what we are seeing with our own eyes and what our institutions are trying to tell us. This just happened last night and there may be a backstory that casts this in a different light but so far this looks like an unpoliced mob hunting and attempting to assassinate an ordinary citizen.
Did he refuse to raise the fist?pic.twitter.com/4y0smyWuUx
— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) September 25, 2020
Click for the thread.
This apparently happened last night in Hollywood, California. Here is what the LAPD have to say about the incident.
The LAPD is are aware of an incident in Hollywood involving several vehicles and a large group of protestors. Here is the information we can verify at this time. pic.twitter.com/ttqpnziVo8
— LAPD HQ (@LAPDHQ) September 25, 2020
It is classic excuse making and downplaying. We've just watched a trailer for The Hunger Games and now the LAPD is describing it as a minor kerfuffle from the Brady Bunch.
The mob was largely peaceful before they became violent. Militarized Germany was largely peaceful before it invaded Poland. Communism was mostly working in the Soviet Union before they started killing off the Ukrainians and prosperous peasants. Jeffrey Dahmer was mostly civil between bouts of aggressive snacking. Osama Bin Laden was a mostly peaceful religious enthusiast before his acts of terrorism.Just after 7:00 pm Thursday evening, a group of more than 300 protestors marched through Hollywood. While there were isolated reports of vandalism, the group was largely peaceful. The group eventually made its way onto Sunset Boulevard.
Thursday, September 24, 2020
Offbeat Humor
It is not enough to simply be pro black olives. One must be actively anti-kalamata pic.twitter.com/anCT9LBLhx
— Jake Coco - Free Patriot J!!💙🇺🇸🎶🐻 (@jakecoco) August 22, 2020
History
“I am from Constantinople by descent, but I was born in Alexandria – at a house on Cherif Pacha Street.”
— C.P. Cavafy (@CCavafy) August 23, 2020
– C.P. Cavafy. pic.twitter.com/bivsTMuEth
I see wonderful things
Just wow. Saw this photo of A great grey owl - taken by Alan Murphy.
— James Watson (@cyclonewatson) August 20, 2020
Is there a better example of camo? pic.twitter.com/jXXToEO107
They simply had had little experience with other people telling them what to do every hour of the day.
From 1776 by David McCulough. Page 37.
For every full-fledged deserter there were a half-dozen others inclined to stroll off on almost any pretext, to do a little clam digging perhaps, or who might vanish for several weeks to see wives and children, help with the harvest at home, or ply their trades for some much-needed “hard money.” Sometimes they requested a furlough; as often they just up and left, only to come straggling back into camp when it suited. It was not that they had no heart for soldiering, or were wanting in spirit. They simply had had little experience with other people telling them what to do every hour of the day. Having volunteered to fight, they failed to see the sense in a lot of fuss over rules and regulations.
Universal Basic Income fails its first review in 1835
Via Rob Henderson. Not certain where this text originates but almost certainly from an introduction of Alexander de Tocqueville's Memoir On Pauperism.
Tocqueville's Memoir on Pauperism was published in 1835, shortly after the first volume of Democracy in America. He had visited England, then by far the most prosperous country in Europe, if not the world. But there was a seeming paradox: a sixth of the population of England were —or had made themselves—paupers, completely reliant upon handouts from public charity. This was a proportion greater than in any other country in Europe, even in such incomparably poorer ones as Spain and Portugal. In the midst of what was then the utmost prosperity, Tocqueville found not only physical squalor but moral and emotional degradation.
Tocqueville surmised that the reason lay in the fact that England was then the one country in Europe that provided public assistance, as of right, to people who lacked the means to support themselves. The reign of Elisabeth I had conferred this right, as a way of dealing with the epidemic of begging that followed the dissolution of the monasteries. In the past, they had provided essentially private and voluntary charity to the poor, on a discretionary basis.
At first sight, remarked Tocqueville, the replacement of discretionary charity by public assistance granted as of right appeared deeply humane. What, he asked, could be nobler than the determination to ensure than no one went hungry? What could be more fair and reasonable than that the prosperous should give up a little for the welfare of those with nothing?
If men were not thinking beings who react to their circumstances by taking what they conceive to be advantage of them, this system doubtless would have had the desired effect. But instead, Tocqueville observed the voluntary idleness to which the seemingly humane system of entitlement gave rise—how it destroyed both kindness and gratitude (for what is given bureaucratically is received with resentment), how it encouraged fraud and dissimulation of various kinds, and above all how it dissolved the social bonds that protected people from the worst effects of poverty. The provision of relief by entitlement atomised society: Tocqueville cited the case of a man who, though financially able to do so, refused to support his daughter-in-law and grandchild after his son's death, precisely because public support was available to them as of right. Having paid his taxes, why should he do more? The provision of charity as of right destroyed the motive for human solidarity in the face of hardship, and undermined both ties of personal affection and the sense of duty toward close relations. Intended as an expression of social responsibility, it liberated selfishness. As Tocqueville grasped, the shift of responsibility from individual to collectivity had an enormous and deleterious effect on how people thought and felt,
Also related to pathological altruism.
This is not an indictment of social security, UBI or unemployment insurance.
It is a simple acknowledgement that all social interventions have moral hazard, unintended consequences, hidden costs which are not easily taken into account. Dux cave - decision maker beware.
Data Talks
Here's something weird. The UK, where the virus has been effectively gone for 2.5 months but the lockdowns and freak out still continue, has charts that look almost the same as never-locked-down Sweden where everyone is today maskless and happily socially closening. pic.twitter.com/4zNtN3pVlZ
— Jeffrey A Tucker (@jeffreyatucker) August 19, 2020
An Insight
We are creating a society that is totally aggrieved at the very same time it is totally unforgiving.
— Thomas Chatterton Williams 🌍 🎧 (@thomaschattwill) August 22, 2020
What are the riots demanding? Nothing beneficial to anyone.
The center pieces of most race outrage in recent years have just about all turned out to be flops. Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Rayshard Brooks, George Floyd - all of them presented as good average joes who were turning their lives around and who were cut down in their prime.
And then the real news begins to filter out, displacing the imaginary reporting done initially. News of assaults and priors and rape and theft and violence against civilians and violence against police officers. Each death a tragedy but each death seeming the culmination of bad choices and only marginally related to the police.
There are malfeasant officers just as there are malfeasant employees in all large organizations. You identify them, you retrain them or you weed them out.
The death of Breonna Taylor seemed different. The initial reporting had her as an innocent by-stander shot and killed during a botched no-knock police raid, seemingly on the wrong apartment. We should regret and acknowledge the tragedy of any death but it is far easier to summon genuine regret when the victim is young, productive, and free from responsibility of the tragedy. Taylor seemed to match that.
Additionally, many Americans, and certainly myself, are reasonably opposed to knock-warrants except under the most exceptional of circumstances. In addition, many are concerned by the expansive application of qualified immunity whereby employees of the state are given carte blanche immunity for crimes most citizens would be imprisoned for. Taylor's death seemed like it might have been the seed for reform on both those fronts.
Having parked Taylor in the truly needless tragedy category, I had not followed much since then. Foolish me for dismissing the case based on my sympathy for the victim and my bias against no-knock warrants and qualified immunity.
Last week I saw warnings about the impending announcements as to whether charges would be brought against the police officers involved.
We are a nation of laws, governed by the rule of law applied equally to all (ideally.) A lot of the Mandarin Class chatter and talking heads seemed unmoored. There were demands for prosecution with no argument for the basis of prosecution. Curious, I went to the New York Times and discovered just how much I had overlooked based on the initial and, as it turned out, still unverified reporting.
From Breonna Taylor's Life Was Changing. Then the Police Came to Her Door by Rukmini Callimachi. The NYT clearly wants to make Taylor the innocent victim she was originally portrayed as but now they had a lot more factual reporting which made their argument far more . . . , well, let's say nuanced.
An ex-boyfriend’s run-ins with the law entangled her even as she tried to move on. Interviews, documents and jailhouse recordings help explain how she landed in the middle of a deadly drug raid.Breonna Taylor had just done four overnight shifts at the hospital where she worked as an emergency room technician. To let off some steam, she and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, planned a date night: dinner at a steakhouse, followed by a movie in bed.Usually, they headed to his apartment, where he lived alone and she had left a toothbrush and a flat iron. But that night, they went to the small unit she shared with her younger sister, who was away on a trip. It was dark when the couple pulled into the parking lot, then closed the door to Apartment 4 behind them.This was the year of big plans for the 26-year-old: Her home was brimming with the Post-it notes and envelopes on which she wrote her goals. She had just bought a new car. Next on the list: buying her own home. And trying to have a baby with Mr. Walker. They had already chosen a name.She fell asleep next to him just after midnight on March 13, the movie still playing. “The last thing she said was, ‘Turn off the TV,’” he said in an interview.
That's pretty much in accord with the original reporting I recall. But from there, it is one long explication of why the police believed it was warranted to raid her apartment.
It comes down to:
Taylor had a longstanding relationship with a felon involved in drug trafficking.
Her apartment frequently received packages believed to contain drugs.
The drug dealing felon frequently visited her apartment.
She frequently visited the boyfriend at has multiple drug houses.
She had a new boyfriend while still somewhat involved with the drug-dealing boyfriend.
None of that warrants her death. But it provides a different context. Further:
The raid was initially authorized as a no-knock raid but was later modified to require police identification.
While there is dispute about whether or how effectively the police identified themselves, there is also evidence that they did indeed announce their presence.
On entry, the first shot was fired in the dark by the new boyfriend under the impression that it might have been the dangerous former boyfriend breaking in.
The first officer was dangerously wounded and returned fire, prompting the other two officers to also fire.
Finally, the raids were large, deeply planned and very successful at the other locations. Multiple arrests made at the various drug houses, multiple guns seized, large amounts of cash confiscated and drugs taken.
So this was no careless event. It was well-based on evidence, law, planning, and public policy (drug suppression.) I think most of us have deep reservation about the War on Drugs; its ancillary casualties and its effectiveness. But with 70,000 people a year dying of drug overdoses, I think everyone also agrees that there is a large and tragic problem, even if we do not, after all these years, yet know how to address it.
Seeing the more complete picture from the NYT, it is hard to detect much in terms of systemic police failure above and beyond that associated with normal policing under dangerous circumstances. Certainly no evidence of racial prejudice.
The objective the police were pursuing was good public policy (reduce the carnage of drug overdoses). The evidence was plentiful and amassed over weeks and months. The raids were well-manned. There was an evidentiary basis for raiding Taylor's apartment. The police were fired upon first. The police, other than one individual, followed department protocols.
It had a tragic outcome but it is hard to see that there was any carelessness or bad intent on the part of the police. They failed to recognized that there was a relationship transition occurring with Taylor separating from the drug felon and increasingly associating with a man who appears to have been a good citizen.
They failed to recognize that Taylor and her new beau, contrary to past pattern, had that evening both returned to Taylor's apartment. One officer, under fire and with a fellow officer down, lost discipline and fired randomly into the apartment without the target acquisition required.
This is not to argue that Taylor deserved to die or even that she contributed to her own death through a pattern of bad decisions. This is to acknowledge that there can be bad outcomes without intent or maliciousness while pursuing good public policy.
And that is the real issue here. Not so much the merits of the police or Taylor. But the question - what can or should have been done differently? It is hard, knowing the more complete facts, to identify much.
This wasn't about no-knock warrants as I had originally understood. This wasn't about qualified immunity as I suspected.
So what are the protests about? What systemic changes would makes this tragedy less likely to occur while still seeking to reduce the 70,000 drug overdoses each year?
In an article in today's NYT, the demands are articulated, emphasis added:
Ms. Taylor’s name and image have become part of the national movement over racial injustice since May, with celebrities writing open letters and erecting billboards that demanded the white officers be criminally charged. Ms. Palmer sued the city of Louisville for wrongful death and received a $12 million settlement last week. But she and her lawyers insisted that nothing short of murder charges would be enough, a demand taken up by protesters nationwide.
Ben Crump, a lawyer for the family, wrote on Twitter that the failure to charge any officer for killing Ms. Taylor was “outrageous and offensive.” Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Mayor Greg Fischer of Louisville, both Democrats, called on the attorney general, a Republican, to publish as much of the evidence as possible online so that the public could review it.
Murder charges? On what basis? We are all able to recognize that bad outcomes can occur without intent on any person's part.
Many legal experts said before the charges were announced that indictments for killing Ms. Taylor would be unlikely, given the state’s statute allowing citizens to use lethal force in self-defense. John W. Stewart, a former assistant attorney general in Kentucky, said he believed that at least Sergeant Mattingly and Detective Cosgrove were protected by that law.
“As an African-American, as someone who has been victim of police misconduct myself, getting pulled over and profiled, I know how people feel,” Mr. Stewart said. “I have been there, but I have also been a prosecutor, and emotions cannot play a part here.”
The law in Kentucky allows an occupant to defend themselves from intruders so the boyfriend is in the clear. The law requires officers to obey orders and follow procedures which they appear to have done. Both parties are innocent before the law and yet Breonna Taylor is tragically dead.
There is a limit to human perfection. There is a limit to human effectiveness. There is a limit to human understanding. There is a limit to the efficacy of the law.
What the demonstrators appear to be demanding is simply mob justice. "We want an outcome different from what the law allows" seems to be the demand.
No reform, no policy trade-off decisions (for example abandoning the war of drugs), no change in the law. Simply brute demands for mob action.
And it is horrifying how many in the Pandering Class are trading in this nonsense. Improve the law, improve police procedure and training, change public policy - by all means. But simply demand that we ignore rights and law?
No way.
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