Cyberpunk 2020

More or less on schedule?

Researchers claim to have developed a simulator which can feed information directly into a person’s brain and teach them new skills in a shorter amount of time, comparing it to “life imitating art”.

They cite "The Matrix" for this, but the idea was fully formed in William Gibson's early works.

UPDATE: The splintering of cyberspace.

Project Veritas "Deep State" Videos

These are not as explosive as they'd like them to be, but they certainly are telling. Now they've gotten their first scalp, at least temporarily. I'll be surprised if 'removed from duties' translates into 'fired,' given that it's a government employee.

Wrong House

This sort of thing happens from time to time. It's a good reason not to raid people's houses unless there's suspicion of something going on there that is worth the risk of loss of innocent life -- including police life.

A View of Florence

From inside a storm-cloud as they rolled across these mountains.

Beer Hall in Seattle

Seems like a nice place.

Meanwhile, the open kitchen will be inspired by the idea of a Viking butcher shop and will feature bar bites and shared plates that explore wild flavors from the woods and sea. Imagine being at a gathering “near a roaring fire at the edge of a fjord,” said McQueen. There will be game, meat skewers, a large rotisserie for chicken, pork, and rabbit. “We’ll also have lamb and pork sausages, potato dumplings and pickled herring,” revealed McQueen[.]

Just Shut Up

All right, Senator. You got it. No more talk. We'll just get on with doing what we take to be right.

A Eulogy Fit for a Warrior - Ari Fuld, Rest in Peace.

Yesterday in Israel, Ari Fuld was killed by a knife wielding terrorist who had stabbed him in the back.  Before he collapsed, he turned, drew his weapon, climbed over a fence to chase after the attacker and fired on him hitting him multiple times, wounding him.

The Eulogy given by his wife, Miriam, was fitting for a man who was truly a warrior- and clearly she, a fitting match for him.

"When they sent you your discharge papers from the army at age 40, you tore them up. because the greatest [joy] you had was to serve in the Israeli Jewish army." - @arifuld's wife at his funeral tonight

— Bethany S. Mandel (@bethanyshondark) September 16, 2018

"No-one knew [your life] would be cut so short this morning on your way to do shopping I asked you to do. You always ran towards danger, instead of away from it and you never backed down from a fight. Because you knew you were in the right. You fought for what you believed in."

— Bethany S. Mandel (@bethanyshondark) September 16, 2018

There is more in that thread, and it's worth reading.

For Some Sad Men Among Us

Once even David Allan Coe knew what it was to be lonely. There's hope for you yet. You know who you are.

Haga of the First Water

I wish I could remember where I read the suggestion -- Dad29 only hints at it -- but sometime around Friday I read someone who suggested that the Kavanaugh accuser would turn out to have had first made the accusation in a therapy session, many years after the fact. The idea is that 'recovered' (but actually false) memories in psychology work are a known issue, and this was likely enough to turn out to be one.

Now it may be that the accusation is true, although both of the people she names as having been there deny that it or anything like it ever happened. But the psychotherapy-created-memory idea doesn't sound implausible to me given the facts. For one thing, it did in fact first come up in a therapy session in 2012, when she and her husband were having trouble and she needed a way to try to right that ship. But also:

She did tell someone about this years before Kavanaugh was nominated — but never mentioned his name. She doesn’t remember where or even when exactly the incident happened, but she does remember the names of two other people who were allegedly there. (Neither responded to WaPo’s request for comments.) She passed a polygraph test administered by a former FBI agent but her own therapist had notes saying four boys were involved, not two, which Ford blames on a misunderstanding.

All of that is explicable if the hypothesis is correct. The fuzziness on exactly where and when this happened arises from the fact that it never did happen, as does the fuzziness on just who was responsible or how many people were present at the time. But also the polygraph: she could readily pass one, per hypothesis, because she isn't lying. She's telling the truth of what she thinks she remembers.

(UPDATE: Paragraph removed due to inaccurate source. I regret the error.)

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that this was in fact the truth. Kavanaugh has passed six FBI background checks, none of which turned up anything like this; there's no pattern of behavior, as you'd expect if this accusation were true. But that doesn't mean she is lying, not in the strict sense. She is quite possibly telling the truth as she believes she understands it.

Defenders might say that a good reason for being unstable is having suffered a rape attempt in your young adulthood, and perhaps that's fair. In the end, both hypotheses are possible. We just have to decide which one is more plausible. Or maybe not even that; a 17 year old's bad behavior, even if proven at law rather than being alleged after the statute of limitations had passed seven times over, would normally be sealed in juvenile records just because we wouldn't want it to prevent them from reforming and living a responsible life as an adult. By all indications, he has led a responsible life as an adult. Maybe we don't have to decide what is true about the one allegation from 35 years ago to know the right way to proceed now.

All of that involves taking this accusation seriously. It leads us to the same place we would get to if we didn't take it seriously at all, as well we might not given the way the Democratic leadership sat on the thing for a month until they could raise it at the last minute to cause chaos. I'm open to the idea that we shouldn't given them an inch given how they've behaved; but a lot more is at stake than punishing Sen. Feinstein for her perfidy. I'm willing to take the matter seriously. All the same, I think that absent any new evidence or additional accusers, the course is clear.

BB: Interview with Ms. Chelsea Clinton

The Bee gently mocks her latest. “I’m a devout Christian, but suggesting that I need to believe Christian things that would go against my political platform is the very definition of the war on women.”

The week in pictures

PS, Our little non-hurricane mostly passed through during the night. We had 4.2 inches yesterday, bringing our September total to 15-1/2. Not a problem here at Chez Tex, of course, where we have learned that weather continues to happen.

Vote Cimmerian Party

Acceptable.

Haga Widely Available This Week

Placing the bottom line up top here: 6/ Bottom line, per source: “Amb. Haley had no choice in the location of the residence or what curtains were picked out that summer.” https://t.co/8trxACUQrD

— Rebeccah Heinrichs (@RLHeinrichs) September 14, 2018

This Better Not Be Haga

A mysterious letter semi-surfaces, occasioning a cryptic comment from a Senator, who passed it to the FBI, who passed it to the White House....

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) dismissed the controversy on Twitter.

“Let me get this straight: this is [a] statement about [a] secret letter regarding a secret matter and an unidentified person. Right."