Tuesday, October 31, 2023

History

 

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An Insight

 

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Choosing irrelevancy and choosing untruths

Somewhat visceral, understandably, but there is a core point in Palestinian Professor on Baby in Oven: 'With or Without Baking Powder?' by David Strom.  

I frequently point out the yawning chasm between the values, behaviors and goals of mainstream journalists and the values, behaviors and goals of the American public.  It is a comparison detrimental to journalists.  Americans are generally concerned about centrist issues such as the economy, inflation, jobs, the threat of war, community safety, etc.  The issues of interest and focus of journalists such as intersectionality, critical race theory, global climate change, decolonization, etc. register at the 0-2% level of interest among the public.  

Americans are bombarded by erroneous reporting about ill-founded concerns of issues of negligible relevance.  

There is another side of the equation though, and that is what Strom is pointing out.  

There are two issues.

To what degree are mainstream media reporting on issues of relevance to the public?

To what degree are they reporting accurately on issues of relevance to the public?

In my posts I do not make a point of distinguishing the shades of difference between the two, but I think Strom is correct that there are two seperate dynamics which are worth distinguishing.  

Yes, reporters report badly on unfounded issues irrelevant to the concerns of the public.

What Strom is sort of nudging around are two realities.  

Mainstream media frequently choose to be concerned about things which are not necessarily real, material or relevant.  

Mainstream media knows that it is reporting badly and does nothing about that misreporting.  

Covid-19 shone a bright light on the misinformation and absence of critical reporting from mainstream media when serving as propaganda platforms for ill-conceived national public health actions.  October 7th in Israel is brightening the spotlight.

For more than a decade, more like two decades, we have known that Western mainstream media reporting from the West Bank and Gaza has been coopted by their hiring of Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamist sympathizing stringers.  They have know that the Public Relations news outlets of these organization are persistently lacking in integrity and accuracy.  They know that much video produced by these organizations and by the stringers are not live reporting but staged enactments to dramatize events which did not even happen.  

In the October 7th instance we have both mainstream media failures on display repeatedly.

The mainstream media is choosing to believe that the Palestinians who launched the invasion are the victims.

They are choosing to report known untruths to support their first choice.

Strom is focusing on the second issue, and it is certainly worth noting.  The mainstream media (The New York Times, the BBC, etc.) and the University of Pennsylvania have both chosen to platform and publicize the views of an hateful, vitriolic, anti-semite.  They are only backing away, not because they chose poorly or because they want to be more accurate and ethical but because they received major pushback from donors and from subscribers.  

In other words, they only made a head nod towards their failure when forced to do so, not because it was the right thing to do.  

In November 2021 The New York Times provided puffball favorable coverage to a raging anti-semite without checking its own facts and was forced by readers to acknowledge their failure in an editorial note.  

In October 2023, The New York Times is still lending credence to the same raging anti-semite, treating him as a reliable source while propagating the Hamas claim that Israel bombed a Gaza hospital which was in fact the victim of Hamas rocketry.  

They are choosing to primarily report on irrelevant things and they are choosing to report untruths on relevant things.

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I see wonderful things

 

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Offbeat Humor

 

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Data Talks

 

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Lifting Fog by William R. Davis (b. 1952)

Lifting Fog by William R. Davis (b. 1952)




















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Monday, October 30, 2023

History

 

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I see wonderful things

 

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Offbeat Humor

 

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Data Talks

 

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Autumn, 1951 by Charles Mahoney

Autumn, 1951 by Charles Mahoney












































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Sunday, October 29, 2023

“Not only is the Universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think.” Werner Heisenberg

Exhibit A:

 

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History

 

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An Insight

 

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I see wonderful things

 

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Offbeat humor

 

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Data Talks

 

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Autumn Light, 2020 by David Utiger (born 1967)

Autumn Light, 2020 by David Utiger (born 1967)



































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Saturday, October 28, 2023

77 percent of soldiers evacuated to Germany or the United States had noncombat problems that bought them a one-way ticket out of the war.

From Paradise General by Dr. Dave Hnida, Chapter 12.  A reminder that a major American hospital in a war zone provides care not only to soldiers wounded in battle but a whole range of ailments for a much larger population of support personnel.  

Though the majority of patients we’d get were the wounded, I was surprised at the number of everyday medical problems similar to what we saw day to day in the States. Overall, 77 percent of soldiers evacuated to Germany or the United States had noncombat problems that bought them a one-way ticket out of the war. Bad backs, high blood pressure, and bum knees beat shrapnel as the chief reasons combat commanders had trouble keeping their units filled with warm bodies. As a full-service hospital with an oversized welcome mat, we also took care of a lot of contractors. They also had bosses who growled when we had to pull their workers off the schedule because of an ache, pain, or something more serious.

There had been a regular flow of patients with appendicitis, several each week, as well as a steady stream of kidney stones. Both problems were probably due to the searing heat and the fact it was nearly impossible to swill the ten to fifteen big bottles of water needed to head off dehydration, especially for the soldiers who went outside the wire in full battle gear. Migraines were another big-ticket item as well as, of all things, heart attacks. It was the rare soldier who had a heart problem, usually it was overweight contractors in their forties and fifties who smoked like chimneys and ate like pigs at the trough.

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History

 

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An Insight

 

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I see wonderful things

 

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Offbeat humor

 

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Data Talks

 

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The Allotment Cat, 2019 by by Jane Dignum

 The Allotment Cat, 2019 by by Jane Dignum



































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Friday, October 27, 2023

It wouldn’t be until the first trauma case that we’d all truly find out.

Finished reading Paradise General by Dr. Dave Hnida.  He is a medical doctor who mid-life (with wife and family at home) joins the Army Reserves.  He serves two tours, one in 2004 and one in 2007 in Iraq.  The torus are short (four months) but overwhelming.  A tidal wave challenge to skills and endurance and humanity and physical and mental exhaustion.  

He is a good story-teller and it is an eye-opener in the detail to some larger picture trends of which I was aware.

One aspect is the well-established fact that the chances of survival from a wound are highly correlated to the amount of time between wounding and treatment.  Hence a tiered service provision.  There are medics in the field who provide the first and most basic treatment - tourniquets, morphine, basic splints.  

Then there are the medics who accompany the infantry from the field of engagement, usually via helicopter, to front line hospitals of which there were about a dozen in Iraq.  If the wounds are more severe, the patient is transported to one of the other eleven hospitals where there are specialists (such as neurosurgeons, burn specialists, etc.).  If so severely wounded, they are transported directly to the American base in Germany or back to the USA.

Every transport is a risk to the patient so you do it as little as possible.  But you balance that with getting them the appropriate level of treatment as soon as it is known what that level is.  

Within the forward hospital, there is an amazing coordination of skills and shifts as well, to say nothing of personalities and contingencies.  

All war is tragic and not all wounded on the field even make it to the first stage of hospital treatment, but if they do, the prospects of survival reach 90%, 95%, even 98%.  Phenomenal but at an immense cost to all the support personnel involved.  Long hours, constant hours, perpetual existential and ethical decisions to be made, doubts and disappointments, physically exhausting conditions betweens the work, the bad food, and the heat, etc.  

Recommended reading for an important aspect of the near battlefield experience.

Given that the doctors served a four month rotation, the hand off between the old team and new team was critical and hung by the thread of a couple of days shadowing and by the safety nets of the medics and the nurses (on a fifteen month rotation).  Hnida on his first day of full responsibility.  From Paradise General by Dr. Dave Hnida, Chapter 5.  

The place looked like a foreign land, and as I scanned the room, I was surprised at how young the medics were. Some of them looked like they had just been introduced to a razor. With an average age of maybe twenty-three, they had already seen enough carnage to last several lifetimes. Many had no background in medicine before being deployed; some were carpenters, some were schoolteachers, and others full-time college students. All were reservists and all had volunteered to spend fifteen months of their lives saving lives. And they were very good at it. The hospital boasted a survival rate of more than 95 percent, which meant we new docs were under some serious pressure to perform. They silently stared and tightly nodded greetings as Courage handed me my full cup of high-octane. As I nodded back, I could read their thoughts: Is this guy stupid or smart, arrogant or cool? And what about the rest of the doctors? Just who and what were they? It wouldn’t be until the first trauma case that we’d all truly find out.

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History

 

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An Insight

 

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I see wonderful things

 

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Offbeat humor

 




























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An update on the Great Revealing

Several years ago I used to occasionally post about the Great Revealing - The fact slowly, slowly, the motivations of certain individuals, groups, movements, enterprises, etc. were becoming more transparent to an always connected world.  That smart phones and the internet in combination, leading to always connected, always on, was causing a Great Revealing of truths which had previously been hidden.  That plausible deniability was slowly eroding.

For whatever reason, I haven't posted on the Great Revealing recently but the October 7th invasion of Israel by Hamas seems like a good occasion to catch up.  There has been an awful lot of revealing lately.

You are a supporter of genocide if you support Hamas.

You are an anti-Semite if you support anti-Zionism. 

You are a supporter of explicit racism if you support DEI goals.

You support censorship and reject freedom of speech if you support efforts to control misinformation and disinformation.

You are a supporter of totalitarian state control if you are a supporter of ESG. 

The fig leaf excuses behind each of these movements (Hamas, anti-Zionism, DEI, control of speech, and ESG) have been become untenable and the reality transparent.  There are an awful lot of people, especially in the NGO sector, in Academia, and in the Mainstream Media who are quite obviously anti-Semitic supporters of genocide, racism, and authoritarian suppressers of human rights (freedom of speech.)

Not always all five evils, but it is both chilling and astonishing the degree which the support of one evil is correlated with support for the others.

Most fundamentally, you cannot support anyone one of these evils and also be a Classical Liberal.

You cannot be a supporter of Hamas, anti-Zionism, DEI, Censorship, and/or ESG and also be a Classical Liberal supporter of Natural Human Rights (freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, etc.), individualism, property rights, rule of law, equality before the law, due process, trial by jury, consent of the governed, logic, reason, empiricism, and the Scientific Method. 

Almost tautologically, support for Hamas, anti-Zionism, DEI, Censorship and ESG is a rejection of modernism, prosperity, and progress.  They are the last spasms of the ancient evils of tribalism, authoritarianism, totalitarianism, emotionalism, and envy.

In an epistemic environment where all of us are overwhelmed by too many voices, too many information, too much noise and not enough signals, these three signifiers; Hamas, anti-Zionism, DEI, Censorship and ESG, are a good way to winnow out cognitive pollution and allow a focus on value-adding thought and evidence.

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Data Talks

 About 6 cows.


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The luncay of the well-meaning anti-semitic left

Heh.  Sure sounds like half the supposedly knowledgeable, well-meaning, caring, moral, and rational commentary I hear from the mainstream media and establishment left right now.  Maybe more than half.  Probably more than half.  Likely way more than half.

 

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I’ve seen single celled organisms with more advanced cognitive abilities than him.

Kind of an impressive density of vituperative criticism in a three-post thread.  "Aaron Bastani is . . ."

One of the stupidest people working in the entirety of British media. 

Genuinely the man is as thick as dog shit. 

A knuckle dragging simpleton. 

Room temperature IQ.

 Literally zero ability to critically assess it. 

Hard to believe he’s malicious enough to lie every single time. 

Just dumb as f***

I’ve seen single celled organisms with more advanced cognitive abilities than him.

I know of neither Katerji (the abuser) or Bastani (the abusee) by fact or reputation.  While the thread is uncivil, perhaps it is partially redeemed by its clarity.  No minced words here.  

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Six sources of productivity increase and wealth creation

At a particular time, in the life-cycle of an economy, where is the greatest wealth creation or productivity increase?

Builders and Manufacturers

Sellers

Growers and Extractors

Financiers

Regulators 
 
Service Providers 
 
And, separately and independently, who is most talked about in the mainstream media and the public discourse?

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Thursday, October 26, 2023

History

 

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I see wonderful things

 

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An Insight

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Supporting government censorship of speech really ought to be a permanent foul

Some journalists are not only more professional and have greater integrity than the average journalist, they can also be very explicit.  Very explicit.  Matt Taibi being an example.  He has had a lot of courage in bucking the rising censorship and authoritarianism of the traditional mainstream media.  

For example, from Amy Klobuchar, You Suck by Matt Taibbi.  The subheading is The Minnesota Senator asks Amazon to censor Substack and Rumble. How much more of this can we take? That is all  reasonably clear.  Censorship sucks and Klobuchar is a fan of government censorship of freedom of speech.  I was somewhat interested in Klobuchar as a possible national stage politician many years ago when she was just emerging.  But once the spotlight shone on her, she turned out to be just one more of the legion of unaccomplished and ethically unmoored has-beens who so litter the halls of political power.

Minnesota Senator and Hindenburg presidential candidacy Amy Klobuchar sent a letter (h/t ReclaimTheNet.org) to Jeff Bezos demanding that he enjoin Alexa from citing “unvetted sources,” specifically Substack and Rumble. No hell is hot enough for this person.

Referring to a Washington Post story complaining that Alexa cited Substack, she wrote: “When asked about the 2020 presidential election, it appears that some answers were provided by contributors instead of verified news sources.”

Amy Klobuchar is the absolute fave of the national media consensus. They love her so much, they speak in italics. “Oh, my God. She’s great. And funny, too!” gushed a cameraman to me in Winterset, Iowa, birthplace of John Wayne, four years ago. He was standing astride an AMY AMY AMY banner in a diner packed with press admirers, who are legion, everywhere. The “funny” legend came courtesy mostly of one joke she repeated everywhere she went, over and over, clinging to the one time Donald Trump bothered to mention her, tweeting about her looking like a “Snow woman.” Funny Amy’s retort?

“I wonder how your hair would fare in a blizzard,” she’d say, in a nasal voice, laugh-snorting at her own joke. In my time following her I heard the joke about five times. By the last I was ready to drive a railroad spike through my foot:

National press tried endlessly to sell the public on “funny” Amy, always emphasizing her geographic origin, as if she were the media’s running mate. The New York Times, in an interview over “dumplings” in which Klobuchar talked about how she thinks about “her own humor and power,” described her act as a “clean, ‘aw, shucks’ approach that conveys her own background as a Midwesterner.” The paper noted: Klobuchar could remember many times when people laughed at her jokes! “She laughs easily… and can recall dozens of her successful zingers.”

NPR did a segment on how “Amy Klobuchar Turns To Humor To Distinguish Herself Among Candidates,” with Mary Louise Kelly abasing herself with the intro, “In the 24-person Democratic presidential field, Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota has distinguished herself as a comedian.” U.S. News and World Report went with, “How Amy Klobuchar’s Humor Sets Her Apart,” and claimed her ability to “savagely deploy a zinger” would be a “critical element in taking on Donald Trump” (!). Barack Obama gushed that Al Franken was now Minnesota’s “second-funniest Senator,” while the hometown Minnesota Post went with “Amy Klobuchar is Hilarious,” adding — this is real — the following deck:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Amy Klobuchar can legislate, but can she tell a joke? The answer is a resounding “yes” — as in bring-down-the-house, my-stomach-hurts-from-laughing, “yes.”

Yes, they went with hilarious, for starters. It wasn’t just that campaign journalism requires every angle be done to death, killed over and over like Jason Vorhees, but that the press really thought Amy was the best choice, a truth that emerged in the New York Times all-time cop-out co-endorsement of her and Elizabeth Warren. Saying “May the best woman win,” the paper wrote that Klobuchar would be able to “connect” to voters’ “lived experiences,” especially “in the middle of the country,” as:

The senator talks, often with self-deprecating humor, about growing up the daughter of two union workers, her Uncle Dick’s deer stand, her father’s struggles with alcoholism…

In case it’s been forgotten, here’s how voters — Democratic Party voters — responded to a candidacy with such enthusiastic backing of media establishment. Amy Klobuchar got 12.2% in Iowa and 19.7% in New Hampshire (where her third-place finish, five points behind. winner Bernie Sanders, was hailed by the New York Times as the “big surprise”). Then came Nevada, where she had a volleyball-style setup for victory in the form of a shameful last-minute dirty trick. “Intelligence community” leaks led to the Times headline, “Russia Is Said to Be Interfering to Aid Sanders in Democratic Primaries.” Even with her lead opponent official denounced as Putin’s favorite, she got 7.3%, a distant fifth behind Warren (11.5%) Pete Buttigieg (17.3%), Joe Biden (18.9%), and Sanders (40.5%).

Some primary numbers that followed: 3.1, 31., 2.2, 1.4, 1.2, 5.6 (her home state!), 2.3, 2.2, 2.1, 3.4, 1.3, 0.6, 0.2, 0.7, 0.2, 0.4, etc. “At Least Amy Klobuchar Has Retired Her Twilight Jokes,” quipped New York. “Despite a strong third-place finish in New Hampshire,” lamented the New York Times when she dropped out, adding that Klobuchar “ultimately could not compete with better-funded rivals.” The paper moved on to the burning question of what she would do with all seven of her delegates.

Now this person, whose “humor” persona was surely cooked up in part to soften a rep for throwing things at aides, who scored roughly John Blutarsky’s grade-point average with the backing of the national media establishment, who managed less than 6% of Democratic voters in her own state, has the gall to push one of the world’s biggest media distributors to disallow voluntary access to “contributors instead of verified news sources.” Klobuchar wants Jeff Bezos to make sure Amazon’s home surveillance robots don’t spit out even occasional answers from a wider pool of real human beings, including thousands of independent contributors. The information landscape must be a pure monopoly of “verified news sources.”

It astonishes me that there are politicians out there who think that running on a platform for censorship is a viable strategy.  It boggles the mind.  

It reminds me of the mainstream media's waning love affair with Kamala Harris.  They still do their puff pieces, just many fewer than three or four years ago.  There is a similar disconnect between the MSM's hagiography and Harris (and Klobuchar's) actual electoral success with her own party's voters.  The less the Democratic Party base votes for them, the more enamored the mainstream media seem to become.  It is an odd, not to say unseemly, dynamic.

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Offbeat humor

 

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Data Talks

 

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Highgate Ponds, 1928 by Charles Ginner

Highgate Ponds, 1928 by Charles Ginner







































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Wednesday, October 25, 2023

History

 

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An Insight

 

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I see wonderful things

 

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It being St. Crispin's Day - We few, we happy few, we band of brothers

 From Henry V, Act IV Scene iii(3) 18–67 by William Shakespeare.  One of the more stirringly beautiful of speeches. 

Westmoreland. O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!

King. What's he that wishes so?
My cousin, Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland , through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say "To-morrow is Saint Crispian."
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say "These wounds I had on Crispin's day."
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words—
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester—
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be rememberèd—
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

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Offbeat Humor

 

















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Data Talks

 

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Morning by Eugene Grasset

Morning by Eugene Grasset











































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Tuesday, October 24, 2023

History

 

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An Insight

 

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I see wonderful things

 

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Offbeat humor





















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Data Talks

 

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Nasturtiums in Milk Pail by Val Archer

Nasturtiums in Milk Pail by Val Archer

































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Monday, October 23, 2023

History

 

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Tergiversation

noun

ter·​gi·​ver·​sa·​tion ˌtər-ˌji-vər-ˈsā-shən  -ˌgi-; ˌtər-ji-(ˌ)vər-
Synonyms of tergiversation

1: evasion of straightforward action or clear-cut statement : EQUIVOCATION

2: desertion of a cause, position, party, or faith

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An Insight

 

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I see wonderful things

 

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Under-accomplished and dyspeptic malcontents

From Trapped by Philosophy's worst features by Lorenzo Warby.  The subheading is Critical Constructivism—popularised as “wokery”—cuts off any route to what works.  Worth reading in whole.

The urge to maximise contrasts between products of a blighted past and the splendours in progressive heads leads to both cartoon history (history simplified to the point of serious distortion) and caricature history (history distorted by activist processes of selection and exaggeration). The 1619 Project of The New York Times was an exercise in cartoon and caricature history.

A purely imagined thing — without any grounding in what works, any test against the structures of reality — becomes a benchmark for judging everything that exists, or has existed, and every action people do, or have done.1 This both motivates and justifies the ruthless criticism of all that exists.

Having declared existing society oppressive — it lacks the moral perfection of the imagined future and is blighted by sins (real or alleged) in its past — anything that can be held to “support” the existing society, to be part of its history, can be declared oppressive, and so illegitimate. Science is part of existing society, so it is illegitimate. It’s a cis-heteronormative, patriarchal, hegemonic mechanism of white supremacy.

Any mechanism or methodology part of existing society becomes complicit in oppressive mechanisms. This, of course, includes any mechanism developed over the centuries for critically assessing claims, so all the exits from Philosophy. All forms of critical thinking are to be replaced by cultivation of a critical consciousness, legitimised by a commitment to the transformational future and rejection of existing society.

[snip]

The politics of the transformational future is also fundamentally committed to conflict models of society. The more society is seen as a series of fights, the more it can be de-legitimised. This sharpens the contrast with — and means the greater the moral urgency of — an imagined, harmonious future. It has great appeal for those who don’t attempt to make things work, who don’t have to wrest value from physical reality, who don’t engage in serious martial arts, who don’t provide physical goods or services. In other words, it’s for folk insulated from the consequences of their decisions.

To make things work requires an epistemic humility — a deference to the reality of structure, to the wants, wishes and perspectives of others — that is incompatible with the grandiose moral narcissism that the politics of the transformational future generates. In terms of genuine understanding — and of human flourishing — it’s a toxically useless philosophy that appeals and empowers toxically useless people: folk that modern academe, bureaucracies and non-profits give employ, thereby inflicting their toxic uselessness on the rest of us.

These people are prone to the curdled envy that Nietzsche labelled ressentiment. Or, as Peter Boghossian says, they’re under-accomplished and dyspeptic malcontents.

Expanding bureaucratisation increases the number of people who are isolated from the consequences and costs of their decisions. Managerialism applies a layer of moral arrogance to this process. The products of Theory — such as Diversity, Inclusion, Equity — given form, status and increased social leverage to the moral arrogance.

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Offbeat humor






























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Data Talks

 

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Drawing Room, 1a Holland Park, 1887 by Anna Alma Tadema

Drawing Room, 1a Holland Park, 1887 by Anna Alma Tadema



































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Sunday, October 22, 2023

The effect of man-made CO2 emissions does not appear to be strong enough to cause systematic changes in the temperature fluctuations during the last 200 years

From To what extent are temperature levels changing due to greenhouse gas emissions? by John K. Dagsvik and Sigmund H. Moen.  The AGW edifice continues to crumble.  From the Abstract:

Weather and temperatures vary in ways that are difficult to explain and predict precisely. In this article we review data on temperature variations in the past as well possible reasons for these variations. Subsequently, we review key properties of global climate models and statistical analyses conducted by others on the ability of the global climate models to track historical temperatures.  These tests show that standard climate models are rejected by time series data on global temperatures. Finally, we update and extend previous statistical analysis of temperature data (Dagsvik et al., 2020). Using theoretical arguments and statistical tests we find, as in Dagsvik et al. (2020), that the effect of man-made CO2 emissions does not appear to be strong enough to cause systematic changes in the temperature fluctuations during the last 200 years.


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History

 

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An Insight

 

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An Insight

 

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I see wonderful things

 

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Offbeat Humor

 




















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Data Talk

 

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The tragedies we choose to consider versus the ones we choose to ignore.

From Sunday West 42 by Ed West.  The subheading is The return of the War on Terror era

Christopher Caldwell on the scale of the migration crisis.

The number of migrants who arrived in the UK in boats last year – 46,000 – looks like small potatoes in comparison with refugee flows in the Mediterranean. What is going on in Lampedusa now is a civilisational rather than a conjunctural problem. It is tied up in the West’s misplaced priorities and warped threat assessments.

Lampedusa was once an imperial frontier, a place where the free world and the third world were in communication. It used to be an asset for the free world; now that is less certain. Viewed by posterity, the invasion of Libya launched by Barack Obama, Nicholas Sarkozy and David Cameron in 2011, which opened a corridor for the large-scale trafficking of migrants, will probably be seen to have posed a larger threat to the ‘European way of life’ than the invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin last year.

I’ve long come around to the idea that the overthrow of Gaddafi was a foreign-policy error of gigantic proportions, worse even than the disastrous invasion of Iraq.

The evidence of the strategic catastrophe that was the overthrow of Gaddafi has been curiously under-discussed in American news.  I don't know whether it is because the architects were Obama and Hillary Clinton, because virtually none of the negative consequences affect Americans, or because it is so far away, or some other reason, but I don't know.  

It is, however, curious because the evidence for the magnitude of the human tragedy out of Libya, for both Europe and Africa/Middle East has been accumulating for years.   Some reasonably sizable blog periodically points a sharp ironical jest at the Democrats for having restored the slave trade and slave markets in Northern Africa after having spent three centuries stamping them out.  

I occasionally wonder speculatively whether Iraq or Libya was the greater human catastrophe were one to tote up all the dead, the wounded, and the lost prosperity of a nation.  The answer would seem to obviously be Iraq.  But was it?  Immense losses no doubt, but in a somewhat constrained time frame.  Is it possible that Iraq is, at this remove, better off than it was under Hussein.  I am not certain, but possibly.  Violence and tragedy rumble along at a low level and the economic damage is still there.  But is it better?  And separately, might it in some ways have been worth it?  I don't know.  Yet.

For context, the Iraq War totaled perhaps 60,000 killed among combatants and maybe 120,000 among civilians.  Numbers which are both very infirm and eye-watering.  

But the fate of Libya is both clearer and murkier.  Murky because, since its collapse in 2011, it has remained collapsed.  There is an on-going low level civil war.  There are various catastrophes because there is essentially little or no central government.  It is a smaller country so the absolute numbers are smaller.  But the danger, and damage have been greater and for a much more sustained and prolonged period of time.  How many illegal migrants transiting the Mediterranean via Libya drown each year?  5,000?  10,000?  15,000?  

For 12 years.  Maybe a couple of hundred thousand?  And those are just the ones for whom we have some visibility.  And just at sea.  How many die en route across the desert or in the slave markets?  

We don't know and the American clerisy don't care.  But from a humanitarian perspective, it is quite possible that the overthrow of Qaddafi was a far greater strategic and humanitarian catastrophe than was the defeat of Hussein.  

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Five minutes with internet and social media versus five minutes with the mainstream media - accuracy and speed of signal

An interesting observation.  From a couple of weeks ago when Hamas invaded Israel.
Interesting, in part, because it is true.

Twitter specifically, and the internet generally, are faster at reporting anything.  But the signal strength and quality are highly variable.  You have to know how to tune the signal and refine it.  In the early days of telegraph, an antecedent of the internet, telegraph operators could famously recognize the hand of some someone sending the Morse code.  Yes, it was all dots and dashes, but the speed and cadence of an individual was recognizable.

So with Twitter and the internet (blogs and substack and specialty platforms), you know to elevate or discount some signal generators over others; you know to elevate or discount some of their individual signals based on their history, orientation and context.

You have to work harder to read the signal but ultimately you get a better signal faster from the new sources over the old mainstream media.  

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Twilight, 1950 by Edwin Holgate (Canadian, 1892-1977)

Twilight, 1950 by Edwin Holgate (Canadian, 1892-1977)























Click to enlarge.

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3 consistent requirements to achieve the status of manhood in various societies around the world

Research to follow-up on at some point.  From Understanding the Young Male Syndrome by Rob Henderson.  

Of course, there are many ways of understanding what being man is about, and there are many valid ways to be a man. However, regardless of how it is expressed, it usually has something to do with strength and toughness and productivity.

In his cross-cultural research, the psychologist Martin J. Seager has found 3 consistent requirements to achieve the status of manhood in various societies around the world.

First, the individual must be a fighter and a winner.

Second, he must be a provider and protector.

And third, he must maintain mastery and control of himself at all times.

Across cultures, there seems to be an implicit understanding of what being a man is.

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Saturday, October 21, 2023

Sweet Song For Nancy and Jane

Sweet Song For Nancy and Jane
by Vernon Scannell

This is the sweet song,
Song of all the sweets,
Caramel and butterscotch,
Bulls-eyes, raspberry treats;

Treacle toffee, acid drops, 
Pastilles, crystal fruits,
Bubble gum and liquorice sticks 
As black as new gumboots;

Peppermint creams and aniseed balls, 
Tiny sweets and whoppers,
Dolly mixtures, chocolate drops, 
Gigantic gobstoppers;

Lemon sherbets, jelly babies, 
Chocolate cream and flake, 
Nougat, fudge, and sweets that give 
You tooth and belly ache.

But the sweets I end my song with 
Could never give me pain
In tooth or tummy — anywhere. 
One’s Nancy; one is Jane.

My goodness this brings back memories of a childhood in England in the 1960s.  I could not have recalled all these delights unprompted but reading the list I recognize virtually all of them.  What a set of evoked taste memories.

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