So I had a quiet 4th of July at home with my wife and mother-in-law (as my wife has managed to break her tibia, she is unable to walk for about the next three-four weeks), and am just now getting caught up here at the Hall. I came across Grim's An Independence Weekend Story and was reminded of a man I knew, who perhaps never fought for the Finns or Nazis, but did serve in the US Special Forces after fleeing the Soviet Union as a boy. His name was COL Sobichevsky, and I met him in 1993 during cleanup of the Defense Language Institute of Monterrey as we were expecting a Base Realignment and Closure Committee visit. So all the lower enlisted got to edge curbs, mow grass, trim hedges... all the normal spit and polish nonsense which kept up (or so the theory goes) from plotting bloody mutiny. He came up to me and asked to speak with the NCO in charge of my detail, so I pointed out SGT Schwartz and got back to work. He told my SGT to let us all know that we were doing a good job, and to let us know why we were out there... "Because those mother****ers want to close my base."
Perhaps a little insight into the man's history would give some clarity on why he made such an impression on me 20+ years ago. Vladimir Sobichevsky fled the Soviet Union in 1943 with his mother. They emigrated from a displaced persons camp to the US in 1949. Seven years later, he enlisted in the US Army, and joined the first Special Forces group. He spent his enlisted career in Special Forces and rose to the rank of Sergeant First Class, and decided to become an officer. He then proceeded to spend almost all of his commissioned career in Special Forces. For those who know of the Army's preference to "cross pollinate" officers between different branches of service, this will come as a surprise. For those who don't, then just know that this does not happen in the US Army. Officers don't get a choice in the matter, most times, unless that choice is to resign their commission. My own father went from an Armor Officer to Quartermaster. No one asked him if he wanted to. But every time orders would come down to transfer CPT (or MAJ, or LTC) Sobichevsky to another branch, his commanders would send a request up the chain of command stating that Special Forces could not spare Sobichevsky, and so he would be left in branch. One time (so the story goes) the request went before President Reagan himself who ordered Sobichevsky left in branch.
But we (of Military Intelligence) got COL Sobichevsky in 1992 for one very specific reason. In order to advance in rank to BG and stay in Special Forces, one of the BG's in charge of Special Forces Western Hemisphere or Eastern Hemisphere had to go. And neither was due to do so. So, for the first time in his Army career of nearly 40 years, COL Sobichevsky found himself out of Special Forces. We (lower enlisted soldiers) were more than a little intimidated by him, when he first arrived. And I think he was more than a little discomfited by us and our non-SF ways. One of his first acts upon being made Commandant of the school was to hold inspections of each soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine attending his school. Since he really wasn't up on the uniform regs for the other services, they were mostly judged on the shine of their boots, while we soldiers got a full uniform inspection. As I recall, he was impressed by the Marines, horrified by the sailors, lukewarm on the airmen, and we soldiers did okay (he passed by me without remark, not all were so lucky). No official condemnation or corrective action ever came because of his inspection, but it gave us our first glimpse of the new Commandant.
In researching for this article, I found that COL Sobichevsky retired in 1995 after completing his tour as Commandant. I was a little saddened by this, as it seems an ignominious close to an otherwise epic career, but a more earned retirement (39 years of service is a LONG time) would be difficult to find. I hope the good COL (Ret) is doing well, and I wish him all the best.
Shale crash? Not so fast
The conventional wisdom was that shale production couldn't survive the lower oil prices that it brought about by its own success in flooding the market. What's happened instead is that the pressure of lower prices has wrung cost reductions out of the market:
A Bloomberg analyst suggested that the cost of drilling services have fallen between 20% and 50% with break even prices in parts of the Permian and Eagle Ford below $40 per barrel.
Director of upstream research for Wood Mackenzie, Scott Mitchell forecast that producers could add up to 100 oil rigs by the end of the year.The article also notes that increased production will require employers to go back to the labor market with their hats in their hands, which will drive up wages and therefore production costs. That's how prices work. Meanwhile, Brits (and New Yorkers) still hate fracking, while Argentina and China lead the world in shale exploration.
Earth slows down, women and minorities hardest hit
As a result of toxic CO2, the Earth is orbiting the Sun at its slowest speed in a year. Wait, actually it's the aphelion, which happens this time of year. At 2:41 p.m. Central today, we'll be the farthest we get from the Sun in our elliptical orbit. We don't notice the resulting decrease in insolation here in the Northern Hemisphere, because the effect of being tilted toward the Sun in summer overwhelms the effect of being 3 million miles farther from the Sun than we were in January.
The slow-down, a natural aspect of orbital mechanics rather than a plot between The Heartland Institute and Big Fossil Fuel, means that summer lasts 5-1/2 days longer in the Northern Hemisphere than in the Southern.
The slow-down, a natural aspect of orbital mechanics rather than a plot between The Heartland Institute and Big Fossil Fuel, means that summer lasts 5-1/2 days longer in the Northern Hemisphere than in the Southern.
It's the thought that counts
The action so far: Greece borrowed a third of a trillion dollars. It's been obvious for some time it neither would nor could pay it back. Despite the best efforts of a lot of financial and political whizzes to obscure the issue in a series of "extend and pretend" paper blizzards, the issue came more or less to a head last week as the issue suddenly became concrete and unavoidable: the Greek banks have been closed for a week. Only little trickles of cash were available from ATMs, and that perhaps not for long.* Suddenly foreign banks aren't just the guys who are demanding payments any more: they're the guys with the buckets of cash that are needed to fill the ATMs back up. Greece faces the prospect of having to consume only what it can produce locally.
The fascinating thing about the bank closure is that the issue no longer is about whether Greece will pay back its loans; of course it won't. Four or five years ago, when it became obvious no such repayment would ever happen, the private lenders mostly sold out of the Greek debt and left it to the central banks. It's now a political issue: will governments, especially Germany, soak their taxpayers for new cash to subsidize Greece's living beyond its means indefinitely?
This being an extremely uncomfortable question, not to mention one that will inspire Spain, Italy, Portugal, and perhaps France to demand similar subsidies, all efforts are now being directed to creating the illusion that the corpse of the Greek debt is still dragging itself along by its fingernails. Everyone is frantically trying to preserve the impression that they are dealing responsibly with a troubled debt instead of deciding whether to pour shiny new Euros into the international project of making Greece a permanent welfare queen. Bloomberg has laid out an impressive array of squid ink available to ECB officials in this effort:
*Update: The Fiscal Times estimated that the Greek banks have about 1 billion euros left, which is 90 Euros per Greek.
The fascinating thing about the bank closure is that the issue no longer is about whether Greece will pay back its loans; of course it won't. Four or five years ago, when it became obvious no such repayment would ever happen, the private lenders mostly sold out of the Greek debt and left it to the central banks. It's now a political issue: will governments, especially Germany, soak their taxpayers for new cash to subsidize Greece's living beyond its means indefinitely?
This being an extremely uncomfortable question, not to mention one that will inspire Spain, Italy, Portugal, and perhaps France to demand similar subsidies, all efforts are now being directed to creating the illusion that the corpse of the Greek debt is still dragging itself along by its fingernails. Everyone is frantically trying to preserve the impression that they are dealing responsibly with a troubled debt instead of deciding whether to pour shiny new Euros into the international project of making Greece a permanent welfare queen. Bloomberg has laid out an impressive array of squid ink available to ECB officials in this effort:
Greece won’t leave the euro overnight. But it may face face three or four weeks of increasing pressure to start printing its own money.
That’s because Greek banks might soon be unable to meet European Central Bank demands for the collateral needed to keep access to Emergency Liquidity Assistance [a/k/a German cash subsidies], and the Greek government would run out of cash to pay its bills and workers....
[The ECB's] bank supervision arm will decide how to value the government-backed assets held on Greek banks’ balance sheets. Meanwhile, the central bank’s monetary policy arm will consider whether to object to collateral that lenders post to gain ELA [German cash subsidy] access from the Bank of Greece.
... Then, the banks would get calls for new collateral and might come up short. Taken together, the supervisory and ELA review could show the Greek banks to be insolvent, and Greece wouldn’t have the means to use euros to prop them up again.
At some point, a default could force a decision on Greece’s euro access. For example, if the government defaults to the ECB [again, and we really mean it this time] on July 20, that could trigger margin calls on the banking system and lead to a more generalized default....
The euro area could decide to help Greece to an “orderly exit,” through a phased withdrawal of liquidity [i.e., cut off the subsidies more gradually, like over a period of several lifetimes] or some other settlement mechanism. It could also put Greece’s euro membership on temporary suspension, a prospect raised over the weekend by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.
[Central Bankers could] convert the emergency aid into a swap line, a tool that central banks use to extend liquidity to their counterparts.
Already, the ECB is preparing a facility with its Bulgarian counterpart, as a way to offer euros to the Bulgarian banking system against eligible collateral. Neither central bank would comment on the project.Meanwhile, Greece issues dire warnings about the humanitarian crisis that Europe is causing. "Give me what I want or I'll keep hurting myself."
*Update: The Fiscal Times estimated that the Greek banks have about 1 billion euros left, which is 90 Euros per Greek.
Pensions for Poppers
I'm imagining a conversation. "I am also willing not to shoot people for a thousand bucks a month. I mean, contingently. There may be the odd month where somebody really just needs shooting. But I've got a pretty good record going, so..."
"That's just why you're not eligible. Your good record is pretty uniform. We only pay people who kill people sometimes. You weren't going to shoot people anyway."
"Well, probably, but now I'm thinking that I need to get on the list of people you want to pay off..."
They say they've had good results. I'm sure they have. What I wonder about is whether this is the sort of thing that doesn't set up perverse incentives over time.
"That's just why you're not eligible. Your good record is pretty uniform. We only pay people who kill people sometimes. You weren't going to shoot people anyway."
"Well, probably, but now I'm thinking that I need to get on the list of people you want to pay off..."
They say they've had good results. I'm sure they have. What I wonder about is whether this is the sort of thing that doesn't set up perverse incentives over time.
Imposing Law Upon the World, Two of Two (Economics)
So here is what the soccer article describes as the core German philosophical position as it relates to Greece:
So from the German perspective, the article is alleging, the important thing is to enforce the lawlike relations that allow for orderly economic progress. If that causes short-term pain (and boy is it doing that), that's too bad: we must resist the urge to allow the Greeks to make exceptions arising from self-love (i.e., not starving or having their economy choked to death because they can't spend money across borders).
Of course, the other problem is Taleb's problem of antifragility: just because the laws we think we see are really in us, and not in the economic activities to which we've assigned them, we often go wrong. We think we are considering an economic system with rational laws. In fact, there's just a bunch of human activities, which is governed not by rational laws but by (often irrational) human nature. If we don't structure the risk of going wrong in the right way, we create situations of systemic collapse when things do go wrong. That's our fault.
The article doesn't really say what it thinks the Greek philosophical position would be.* The alternative it poses is described as "Anglo-Saxon," and is the utilitarian position: the right thing to do is whatever it takes to avoid pain and restore pleasure in economic relations. Utilitarianism takes pleasure and the avoidance of pain to be the basic standard for human ethics, including economic ethics. The Greek suffering is a problem that cries out, on this model, for action to put an end to the suffering.
So, let's put all this together. The economic system we've set up isn't a thing in its own right. It doesn't have a nature, and therefore it doesn't have laws of its own. Economics is just a human activity.
Thus, the relevant laws to economics seem to be our laws, that is, they are consequences of our nature. Human nature includes the danger of starvation and the suffering of pain. It also includes this dangerous incapacity to always cleanly distinguish between what our mind tells us about the world and the world itself. Where we've set up a system that is fragile instead of antifragile, systemic collapse is our fault and should be our responsibility. In this case, the Germans' outsized influence on the system suggests outsized German responsibility. They have created much of this problem by acting as if it were possible to impose laws on economics that don't take account of human nature. All economic laws are located in us.
On the other hand, human nature also includes a robust self-love that corrupts us when we try to treat each other fairly. Greeks have behaved in accord with human nature, but not wisely or well. Making exceptions for those who have behaved unwisely is a serious business. It has to be done in a way that doesn't make exception-seeking an attractive proposition for other nations (such as Portugal or Spain).
If that can't be worked out, then we should bow to human nature and let the Greeks take care of themselves -- out of the Euro, and out from under the control of its rules. The rules are unwise, and the philosophy behind them likewise. Because it mistakes the locus of the laws, it thinks you can have economic laws that are detached from human nature. That can only lead to systemic collapses such as this one. We should expect to see more, whether the Germans or the Greeks "win," unless the whole set of rules is re-examined to take account of human nature in its fullness.
* One reason he doesn't give you the Greek philosophical position is that the Ancient Greeks didn't have one. Economics is really a modern production, and its focus on laws and lawlike relations is thoroughly modern. We get only a little talk about economic problems in Plato and Aristotle. Aristotle thinks that the household is the seat of economic production, and thus he would suggest that the problem is too much specialization: no family should put itself willingly in a position in which it can't provide for its basic needs. At the present moment, that position is untenable (though it may become tenable again in a more automated future). Specialization is necessary for economics as we practice it given our current technology.
Eucken's views are now known as ordoliberalism, and they're still very popular among German economists. A skepticism of debt is central to the philosophy, which many see influencing German policy today. As The Economist has explained in a brief history of ordoliberalism:Although this is presented as an alternative to Keynesian thought, both attempt to control what is really a natural process according to what are alleged to be 'laws of economics.' They are both trying to treat something organic as if the rules of reason and logic apply to it the same way that they do to mathematical structures. As D29 was pointing out just the other day, there is an important fact about Keynes' full position that gets lost. We all know about the 'pump priming' part, but people forget (willfully, perhaps) that Keynes believed this could only work coupled with at least some protectionist policies. After all, if I'm going to deficit-spend to prime my economy, I have to make sure the money I'm taking on debt to spend is going to create activity within my economy. That requires control. Otherwise, even if Keynes' General Theory works, we're just taking on debt to prime the Chinese economy. We're only hurting our own, even in principle.
This is an offshoot of classical liberalism that sprouted during the Nazi period, when dissidents around Walter Eucken, an economist in Freiburg, dreamed of a better economic system. They reacted against the planned economies of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. But they also rejected both pure laissez-faire and Keynesian demand management.This showed up after the financial crisis of 2008. The Germans wrote a "debt brake" in their constitution, the Economist noted, that seeks to balance state and federal budgets, and they have tried to bring the philosophy to other European nations as well.
The result was a school that was close both in personal contacts and in its content to the Austrian school associated with Friedrich Hayek. The two shared a view that deficit spending for demand management was foolish. Ordoliberalism differed, however, in believing that capitalism requires a strong government to create a framework of rules which provide the order (ordo in Latin) that free markets need to function most efficiently.
From the original ordoliberals sprang one big idea for state intervention when cartels dominated the economy: a muscular antitrust policy. A second was a strict monetary policy that focused rigidly and exclusively on price stability. A third was the enforcement of Haftung, which means not just liability but also responsibility. Germany has tougher insolvency laws than America or Britain, for instance.
...the Great Thinker actually came out for stringent protectionism and economic autarky six years before he published the General Theory and for good and logical reasons that his contemporary followers choose to completely ignore. Namely, protectionism and autarky are an absolutely necessary correlate to state management of the business cycle and related efforts to improve upon the unguided results generated by business, labor and investors on the free market. Indeed, Keynes took special care to make sure that his works were always translated into German, and averred that Nazi Germany was the ideal test bed for his economic remedies.I wouldn't say it was entirely fair to suggest a necessary tie between Keynes and Nazis, but we can see that the German philosophical outlook is primed to believe in this kind of approach. They are thinking about economics in terms of lawlike relations between actors. They are thinking about it in terms of an artificial environment of economic activity in which the laws of the mind apply with full force in spite of the nature of things. An important part of keeping economics lawlike and predictable is to control the entry of non-lawlike forces. What kinds of forces are not lawlike? Self-love was Kant's great example: that force that calls us to make exceptions for ourselves from the rules.
Eighty years on from Keynes’ incomprehensible ode to statist economics and thorough-going protectionism, the idea of state management of the business cycle in one country is even more preposterous.
So from the German perspective, the article is alleging, the important thing is to enforce the lawlike relations that allow for orderly economic progress. If that causes short-term pain (and boy is it doing that), that's too bad: we must resist the urge to allow the Greeks to make exceptions arising from self-love (i.e., not starving or having their economy choked to death because they can't spend money across borders).
Of course, the other problem is Taleb's problem of antifragility: just because the laws we think we see are really in us, and not in the economic activities to which we've assigned them, we often go wrong. We think we are considering an economic system with rational laws. In fact, there's just a bunch of human activities, which is governed not by rational laws but by (often irrational) human nature. If we don't structure the risk of going wrong in the right way, we create situations of systemic collapse when things do go wrong. That's our fault.
The article doesn't really say what it thinks the Greek philosophical position would be.* The alternative it poses is described as "Anglo-Saxon," and is the utilitarian position: the right thing to do is whatever it takes to avoid pain and restore pleasure in economic relations. Utilitarianism takes pleasure and the avoidance of pain to be the basic standard for human ethics, including economic ethics. The Greek suffering is a problem that cries out, on this model, for action to put an end to the suffering.
So, let's put all this together. The economic system we've set up isn't a thing in its own right. It doesn't have a nature, and therefore it doesn't have laws of its own. Economics is just a human activity.
Thus, the relevant laws to economics seem to be our laws, that is, they are consequences of our nature. Human nature includes the danger of starvation and the suffering of pain. It also includes this dangerous incapacity to always cleanly distinguish between what our mind tells us about the world and the world itself. Where we've set up a system that is fragile instead of antifragile, systemic collapse is our fault and should be our responsibility. In this case, the Germans' outsized influence on the system suggests outsized German responsibility. They have created much of this problem by acting as if it were possible to impose laws on economics that don't take account of human nature. All economic laws are located in us.
On the other hand, human nature also includes a robust self-love that corrupts us when we try to treat each other fairly. Greeks have behaved in accord with human nature, but not wisely or well. Making exceptions for those who have behaved unwisely is a serious business. It has to be done in a way that doesn't make exception-seeking an attractive proposition for other nations (such as Portugal or Spain).
If that can't be worked out, then we should bow to human nature and let the Greeks take care of themselves -- out of the Euro, and out from under the control of its rules. The rules are unwise, and the philosophy behind them likewise. Because it mistakes the locus of the laws, it thinks you can have economic laws that are detached from human nature. That can only lead to systemic collapses such as this one. We should expect to see more, whether the Germans or the Greeks "win," unless the whole set of rules is re-examined to take account of human nature in its fullness.
* One reason he doesn't give you the Greek philosophical position is that the Ancient Greeks didn't have one. Economics is really a modern production, and its focus on laws and lawlike relations is thoroughly modern. We get only a little talk about economic problems in Plato and Aristotle. Aristotle thinks that the household is the seat of economic production, and thus he would suggest that the problem is too much specialization: no family should put itself willingly in a position in which it can't provide for its basic needs. At the present moment, that position is untenable (though it may become tenable again in a more automated future). Specialization is necessary for economics as we practice it given our current technology.
Greferendum
Early results suggest that the Greek people have issued a resounding statement: "No, you must continue sending us boatloads of money." Yay?
Taste and judgment
From C.S. Lewis, "The Seeing Eye," an essay on the difficulty of separating moral judgments from aesthetic or natural preferences:
Being fallen creatures we tend to resent offences against our taste, at least as much as, or even more than, offence against our conscience or reason; and we would dearly like to be able--if only we can find any plausible argument for doing so--to inflict upon the man whose writing (perhaps for reasons utterly unconnected with good and evil) has afflicted us like a bad smell, the same kind of condemnation which we can inflict on him who has uttered the false and the evil. The tendency is easily observed among children; friendship wavers when you discover that a hitherto trusted playmate actually likes prunes. But even for adults it is 'sweet, sweet, sweet poison' to feel able to imply 'thus saith the Lord' at the end of every expression of our pet aversions. To avoid this horrible danger we must perpetually try to distinguish, however closely they get entwined both by the subtle nature of the facts and by the secret importunity of our passions, those attitudes in a writer which we can honestly and confidently condemn as real evils, and those qualities in his writing which simply annoy and offend us as men of taste. This is difficult, beause the latter are often so much more obvious and provoke such a very violent response. The only safe course seems to me to be this: to reserve our condemnation of attitudes for attitudes univerally acknowledged to be bad by the Christian conscience speaking in agreement with Scripture and ecumenical tradition.... For our passions are always urging us in the opposite direction, and if we are not careful criticism may become a mere excuse for taking revenge on books whose smell we dislike by erecting our temperamental antipathies into pseudo-moral judgements.
Imposing Law Upon the World, One of Two (Metaphysics)
I was asked to talk about an article that tries to explain the Greek financial crisis using a Monty Python sketch about (Ancient) Greek versus (Modern) German philosophy. The Greeks are the good guys here, and the winners of the soccer match, but the author's whole point is to explain how the Germans are focused on trying to establish and enforce rules.
Unfortunately, I don't think the author correctly describes the philosophy, which is going to make it harder to understand. Here's what he says:
There is some truth to this position, as is made clear by the example of the banana. If the body were simply a physical instrument, such that the eyes were merely receiving light waves which were merely translated into images by the brain, bananas would change color with changing light conditions like other things do. That's the way this article from LiveScience describes the process, and it's what would be true if the process works the way they think it does: if the body was a machine, so to speak.
In fact, under any natural lighting condition, your mind will report it to you as banana yellow.
Now, the first thing you'll notice is that Kant isn't quite right: we have just managed to learn something about the thing itself, the thing outside of our minds. And we've managed to find, through science, an example of a place in which the apparent laws are products of the mind and not of the thing. There's this huge division in German philosophy since Kant, between those who think that lawlike ideas are real (Hegel) and those who think that ideas about the world are often totally unreliable (Wittgenstein). The science gives us a middle way.
Greek philosophy, being much older, believes the laws are in the things, and the things are real. If you kick a ball something different will happen than if you kick a dog, and the reason for the difference is that the ball and the dog have different natures. The things are different, and their natural or essential differences will produce different results.
That's more like the scientific position, oddly enough, than the Modern position is. It's why we can say that bananas aren't "really" yellow the way we think they are: we look at the thing, find out what wavelengths of light its skin are reflecting, and then see that our eyes are treating those wavelengths differently in some cases than in banana cases. Thus, we say (as the Greeks) that the nature of the banana produces skin that reflects light of a certain wavelength, but that it's our nature -- our evolved nature -- that makes us see a favored food source as brightly outlined in all the lighting conditions our ancestors would experience. Both are lawlike: the banana's genetics reliably produces skin of a certain kind, and our evolved nature reliably produces minds of a certain kind. The important question for answering the German problem is figuring out where the law is.
Unfortunately, I don't think the author correctly describes the philosophy, which is going to make it harder to understand. Here's what he says:
The basic question for all these thinkers is whether the patterns we see in the world around us really reflect patterns that exist in nature or are simply attempts by our minds to structure what we see. For many German philosophers, a key effort was to understand the principles governing societies.Kant is described as giving an account by which nothing happens except through law, and indeed he does say that in the Groundwork. However, Kant's already talking about the world as understood within the mind. What Kant argues in his first critique is that we can't understand the world as it really is, but only as it appears to us, at which it is already being filtered through what he called a "transcendental apperception." For example, your mind takes sound waves and light waves and a sensation of gravity and tactile sensations, and these are all coming in from different organs on different nerves. But it presents you a picture of a soccer game in which you are participating. Is there really a soccer game? You can't know that even in principle. You can only know about the appearances in the mind.
This is a particular issue for economists, who seek patterns in the mass of statistics coming out of stock markets and labor surveys. It's not always enough, though, to look at how markets and prices behave and describe the mathematical patterns they seem to follow. In practice, there always seem to be exceptions to the rules, sometimes catastrophic ones, which suggest that those maybe patterns have more to do with our minds than the natural world itself.
"Anglo-Saxon economists are guided by the utilitarian philosophy of John Stuart Mill or Jeremy Bentham, asking merely if a policy works," The Economist recently wrote. "Germans side with Immanuel Kant, believing that nothing works except through law, and are horrified when the [European Central Bank] strays from its narrow mandate."
There is some truth to this position, as is made clear by the example of the banana. If the body were simply a physical instrument, such that the eyes were merely receiving light waves which were merely translated into images by the brain, bananas would change color with changing light conditions like other things do. That's the way this article from LiveScience describes the process, and it's what would be true if the process works the way they think it does: if the body was a machine, so to speak.
In fact, under any natural lighting condition, your mind will report it to you as banana yellow.
What color is a banana? A banana is yellow in the sunlight and in the moonlight. It is yellow on a sunny day, on a cloudy day, on a rainy day. It is yellow at dawn and at dusk. The color of the banana appears constant to the human eye under all these conditions, despite the fact that the actual wavelengths of the light reflected by the surface of the banana under these varied conditions are different. Objectively, they are not the same color all the time. However, the human eye and color recognition system can compensate for these varied conditions because they all occurred during the course of the evolution of the human vision system, and can perceive the objectively varied colors as constantly yellow.So the law we infer -- "if it is a banana, then it is yellow" -- is actually not a product of the world, but a product of the mind. The evolved mind is coloring the fruit in a lawlike way. Once we move to kinds of lighting that our eyes didn't evolve to see, the law turns out not to be real. It was only a product of our minds.
So a banana looks yellow under all conditions, except in a parking lot at night. Under the sodium vapor lights commonly used to illuminate parking lots, a banana does not appear natural yellow. This is because the sodium vapor lights did not exist in the ancestral environment, during the course of the evolution of the human vision system, and the visual cortex is therefore incapable of compensating for them.
Now, the first thing you'll notice is that Kant isn't quite right: we have just managed to learn something about the thing itself, the thing outside of our minds. And we've managed to find, through science, an example of a place in which the apparent laws are products of the mind and not of the thing. There's this huge division in German philosophy since Kant, between those who think that lawlike ideas are real (Hegel) and those who think that ideas about the world are often totally unreliable (Wittgenstein). The science gives us a middle way.
Greek philosophy, being much older, believes the laws are in the things, and the things are real. If you kick a ball something different will happen than if you kick a dog, and the reason for the difference is that the ball and the dog have different natures. The things are different, and their natural or essential differences will produce different results.
That's more like the scientific position, oddly enough, than the Modern position is. It's why we can say that bananas aren't "really" yellow the way we think they are: we look at the thing, find out what wavelengths of light its skin are reflecting, and then see that our eyes are treating those wavelengths differently in some cases than in banana cases. Thus, we say (as the Greeks) that the nature of the banana produces skin that reflects light of a certain wavelength, but that it's our nature -- our evolved nature -- that makes us see a favored food source as brightly outlined in all the lighting conditions our ancestors would experience. Both are lawlike: the banana's genetics reliably produces skin of a certain kind, and our evolved nature reliably produces minds of a certain kind. The important question for answering the German problem is figuring out where the law is.
Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations
From ChicagoBoyz, John Adams's letter to his wife Abigail July 3, 1776:
I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.
You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. — I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. — Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.
Independence Day Storytime: You Could Learn a Lot From Julia Child
This article on women not apologizing -- but just telling people what they want, which by the way would be incredibly helpful -- ends with a citation.
We are not sorry to ask for an email that should have been sent to us weeks ago, or to expect to receive the item we paid for, or to be bumped into on the subway. Yes, we should take the shampoo commercial’s advice and weed out the word when it’s superfluous. But it’s just as important to articulate exactly what we mean in its place.Child was doubtless quoting John Wayne who said that too, fifty-five years earlier in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. Nevertheless Julia Child is a great source for inspiration, although the linked article might give you an incomplete idea of just why she was so charming.
Julia Child, a consummate charmer, said it best: “Never apologize.”
She had arrived in France in November 1948 not speaking the language or knowing how to cook. ''I had never even heard of a shallot,'' she said. ''I was there as Paul's extra baggage.'' Ten years older than Julia, he ran the visual presentation department at the United States Information Service. By the time they left for other postings six years later, Julia was fluent in French, ran a cooking school and was co-authoring a comprehensive cookbook that would later make her famous.The truth is that she had been carefully taught long before France. What she doesn't explain in this rather modest interview is that by 1948 she had been working as an American spy for six years. She joined the OSS under Wild Bill Donovan during the war and served across Asia. She met Paul doing this work, which was at an extremely high level. She wasn't her husband's baggage -- the US Information Agency was our core propaganda outfit during the Cold War -- but it was sure helpful if she could appear that way.
She learned many things in Paris, she said, one of the most important of which was how to shop like a Parisian. ''It was life-changing,'' she said, ''because shopping in France taught me about human relations.''...
With a smile, she added: ''I quickly learned how to communicate. If I wasn't willing to spend time to get to know the sellers and what they were selling, then I wouldn't go home with the freshest head of lettuce or best bit of steak in my basket. They really made me work for my supper. But what a supper -- yum! And it was such fun.''
American Comebacks
I'm not normally a fan of Buzzfeed's clickbait, but I'll make this exception for Freedom Day.
Celebrating the Rockets' Red Glare
View from the Celebration
The early rain finally broke, though it held off long enough for a good lesson in building a campfire with wet wood. Once that fire was lit it was used to start the charcoal. Andouille and firecracker brats have been cooked and eaten, basted with Yuengling lager (America's oldest brewery). Other American beers have also been drunk. Fireworks have been laid in. A cigar given me by Mr. Wolf has been assigned for fuse-lighting duty later in the evening.
Hope it looks good where you are, too.
Independence Day Celebration: Leadslingers Bourbon
If you're ever thirsty out in Indian Territory, let me recommend Leadslingers Bourbon Whiskey. It's perfectly enjoyable neat and can be found at larger liquor stores (a bit too niche for the smaller ones, I suppose).
From the back label: "Leadslingers Whiskey was founded in 2013 by seven combat veterans. When USAF TACPS, U.S. Army Rangers, Green Berets, and Paratroopers combined their love for America and fine whiskey, LSW was born."
It's crafted by Scissortail Distillery, in Moore, Oklahoma, whose bourbon I also recommend.
Continuing Our Musical Appreciation....
As usual with the Damn Few, trigger warnings include absolutely everything. You probably should pass right on without watching this.
The Spirit of Rebellion
"Going Armed To the Terror of the People"
Here's an offense I didn't know existed, but apparently in North Carolina you can be charged with a crime for doing something that is otherwise legal if it scares people.
What apparently happened was that a soldier from FT Bragg went to a local mall to have glamour shots made of himself with his body armor and rifle. The result was a complete panic, the closing of the mall, the arrest of the soldier, and his being charged with this obscure crime.
The Duffel Blog mocks the soldier for his lack of self-awareness, pointing out that this was right after a reported shooting at the Navy Yard. That story turned out to be false, of course, which suggests that a kind of public hysteria is at work. I suppose one has to be aware of the hysteria of one's fellow Americans as well, though frankly, at this time that requires a tremendous amount of awareness. America is hysterical about everything just now.
In any case, while scaring others is adequate for being arrested and charged with the crime, actual conviction will require proof that his intent was to terrify people. Assuming they don't manage to bluff him into pleading guilty, our boy ought to walk on that one.
What apparently happened was that a soldier from FT Bragg went to a local mall to have glamour shots made of himself with his body armor and rifle. The result was a complete panic, the closing of the mall, the arrest of the soldier, and his being charged with this obscure crime.
The Duffel Blog mocks the soldier for his lack of self-awareness, pointing out that this was right after a reported shooting at the Navy Yard. That story turned out to be false, of course, which suggests that a kind of public hysteria is at work. I suppose one has to be aware of the hysteria of one's fellow Americans as well, though frankly, at this time that requires a tremendous amount of awareness. America is hysterical about everything just now.
In any case, while scaring others is adequate for being arrested and charged with the crime, actual conviction will require proof that his intent was to terrify people. Assuming they don't manage to bluff him into pleading guilty, our boy ought to walk on that one.
Bikers Against Flag-Burning
Jazz Shaw has some video and commentary about a scuffle in New York this weekend, in which some bikers and veterans got together to disrupt a flag-burning. The group burning the flag looks to be an offshoot of the Black Lives Matter movement, one that claims its purposes is to disarm the NYPD. This group has put together a hoary collection of activists that makes this look just like an episode from the late 1960s, including devoted communists as you can see from their placards about capitalism.
Adding to the nostalgia, the veterans among the bikers seem to be Vietnam veterans. The largest group, though, are Hallowed Sons MC, which isn't an old group at all:
You know, these guys.
A lot of people find them embarrassing, but I love guys like this. It is important, in the right place and time, to reflect soberly on the history and be able to criticize your own where they deserve it. You might be able to analyze in a sophisticated way the history of American, and indeed of Western, policy in the Middle East and the way in which it ties in to the phenomena of terrorism and radical Islamic revival. That's important. It can even be helpful.
All the same, don't go talking about the queen on Independence Day.
UPDATE: Heh.
"Weenies burn flag to protest cops, get attacked by bikers, need cops to save their asses."
Adding to the nostalgia, the veterans among the bikers seem to be Vietnam veterans. The largest group, though, are Hallowed Sons MC, which isn't an old group at all:
I’ve been riding for almost fifty years, but I’ve only been with the Hallowed Sons for a couple years. The club is new - we started up a few years in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. We got together to help. I spent two months living on the street in New Dorp (a neighborhood of Staten Island hard hit by Sandy) serving people food, helping with mold removal, doing whatever people needed. The Hallowed Sons are hard guys and we’ll fight when we have to but we don’t have to because we stand with strength and unity and brotherhood. We put our energy into the community, supporting first responders, vets, cleaning up the neighborhood, cleaning up the highways. We’re community driven.This is the kind of guy whose conservatism and patriotism -- indeed whose presence, whose alliance -- is often found embarrassing by the well-educated Republican. Like early volunteer firefighters (who also have a very rough and tumble history entangled with a certain amount of brawling and politics), these guys put themselves together in response to a natural disaster to help their community. The kind of guys who do that have a sort of native love of home, of neighborhood, of village, of city, of country. It's not necessarily closely examined, but it is deeply felt, and they'll fight you if you insult it.
You know, these guys.
A lot of people find them embarrassing, but I love guys like this. It is important, in the right place and time, to reflect soberly on the history and be able to criticize your own where they deserve it. You might be able to analyze in a sophisticated way the history of American, and indeed of Western, policy in the Middle East and the way in which it ties in to the phenomena of terrorism and radical Islamic revival. That's important. It can even be helpful.
All the same, don't go talking about the queen on Independence Day.
UPDATE: Heh.
"Weenies burn flag to protest cops, get attacked by bikers, need cops to save their asses."
Facta Non Verba
Seen on FB:
Yeah, OK.
The Navy Cross is presented to James H. Webb, Jr., First Lieutenant, U.S. Marine Corps, for extraordinary heroism while serving as a Platoon Commander with Company D, First Battalion, Fifth Marines, First Marine Division (Reinforced), Fleet Marine Force, in connection with combat operations against the enemy in the Republic of Vietnam. On July 10, 1969, while participating in a company-sized search and destroy operation deep in hostile territory, First Lieutenant Webb's platoon discovered a well-camouflaged bunker complex that appeared to be unoccupied. Deploying his men into defensive positions, First Lieutenant Webb was advancing to the first bunker when three enemy soldiers armed with hand grenades jumped out. Reacting instantly, he grabbed the closest man and, brandishing his .45 caliber pistol at the others, apprehended all three of the soldiers. Accompanied by one of his men, he then approached the second bunker and called for the enemy to surrender. When the hostile soldiers failed to answer him and threw a grenade that detonated dangerously close to him, First Lieutenant Webb detonated a claymore mine in the bunker aperture, accounting for two enemy casualties and disclosing the entrance to a tunnel. Despite the smoke and debris from the explosion and the possibility of enemy soldiers hiding in the tunnel, he then conducted a thorough search that yielded several items of equipment and numerous documents containing valuable intelligence data. Continuing the assault, he approached a third bunker and was preparing to fire into it when the enemy threw another grenade. Observing the grenade land dangerously close to his companion, First Lieutenant Webb simultaneously fired his weapon at the enemy, pushed the Marine away from the grenade, and shielded him from the explosion with his own body. Although sustaining painful fragmentation wounds from the explosion, he managed to throw a grenade into the aperture and completely destroy the remaining bunker. By his courage, aggressive leadership, and selfless devotion to duty, First Lieutenant Webb upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and of the United States Naval Service.
Completely Missing the Point
George Takei, the actor most famous for having been Mr. Sulu, made a comment to the effect that Justice Thomas was a "clown in blackface." This occasioned some comment, as you might imagine. Mr. Takei has put out a statement on the subject.
What strikes me as more important is that he completely misses Justice Thomas' point. What does it mean to say that the slave's dignity is not harmed by the chains? It is to say that the dignity of the human soul is a high thing, so high as to be beyond the grasp of tyrants. It is to say that all the human efforts to reduce the dignity of the slaves were wasted, were foolish as much as they were wrong.
Perhaps human dignity can be surrendered, but on this account it can never be stolen. It could, perhaps, be laid down. It cannot be taken away.
That is a very positive message and a very traditional one in the Christian church, which believes the Divinely-crafted soul is the seat of dignity. Such a faith in a human dignity that could not be destroyed was the deadly message of Christianity to the slaver, the consolation of the slave, the harbinger of the abolitionist. I'm surprised to find an educated man who is deaf to Justice Thomas' message.
A few fans have written wondering whether I intended to utter a racist remark by referring to Justice Thomas as a "clown in blackface."I'll leave it to others to decide whether "blackface" is, as he suggests, not a racist term in this context. (Whether it is "a lesser known theatrical term" as well.)
"Blackface" is a lesser known theatrical term for a white actor who blackens his face to play a black buffoon. In traditional theater lingo, and in my view and intent, that is not racist. It is instead part of a racist history in this country.
I feel Justice Thomas has abdicated and abandoned his African American heritage by claiming slavery did not strip dignity from human beings. He made a similar remark about the Japanese American internment, of which I am a survivor. A sitting Justice of the Supreme Court ought to know better.
I have expressed my full thoughts on the matter here.
What strikes me as more important is that he completely misses Justice Thomas' point. What does it mean to say that the slave's dignity is not harmed by the chains? It is to say that the dignity of the human soul is a high thing, so high as to be beyond the grasp of tyrants. It is to say that all the human efforts to reduce the dignity of the slaves were wasted, were foolish as much as they were wrong.
Perhaps human dignity can be surrendered, but on this account it can never be stolen. It could, perhaps, be laid down. It cannot be taken away.
That is a very positive message and a very traditional one in the Christian church, which believes the Divinely-crafted soul is the seat of dignity. Such a faith in a human dignity that could not be destroyed was the deadly message of Christianity to the slaver, the consolation of the slave, the harbinger of the abolitionist. I'm surprised to find an educated man who is deaf to Justice Thomas' message.
War on Women! Part II (For Today)
The Secretary of the Navy has announced today that woman Marines and sailors will have 18 weeks of maternity leave, bringing the US Navy in line with Europe.
UPDATE: This policy will be even more fun once we get those new transgender rules in place.
"In the Navy and the Marine Corps, we are continually looking for ways to recruit and retain the best people," Mabus said. "We have incredibly talented women who want to serve, and they also want to be mothers and have the time to fulfill that important role the right way. We can do that for them. Meaningful maternity leave when it matters most is one of the best ways that we can support the women who serve our county. This flexibility is an investment in our people and our Services, and a safeguard against losing skilled service members."Paternity leave? Ten days. And that's only since 2008: before that, "paternity" was just a form of lawsuit for the Navy.
UPDATE: This policy will be even more fun once we get those new transgender rules in place.
War on Women!
Actual Headline: "Retired Army colonel seeks to challenge Congress's youngest woman."
The nerve of that guy!
The nerve of that guy!
An Independence Weekend Story
How about a story about an immigrant who joined the US Special Forces? A story about a man who fought the Red Army? A story about a patriot of his native land who became a patriot of his adopted America? Oh, and a story about an officer in the Waffen-SS: and these are all the same guy.
That's not the kind of story you expect, is it? But it's the story of Lauri Törni aka Larry Thorne. He appears to have been killed while on a reconnaissance mission in the mountains near Da Nang. It's a story worth reflecting on this week, as we consider issues of history, redemption, and forgiveness.
That's not the kind of story you expect, is it? But it's the story of Lauri Törni aka Larry Thorne. He appears to have been killed while on a reconnaissance mission in the mountains near Da Nang. It's a story worth reflecting on this week, as we consider issues of history, redemption, and forgiveness.
Mysterious ordnance
Per Ace: Racist, Confederate-Flag Sporting Ex-CNN Reporter's Racist, Anti-Government White Hispanic Husband Kills Innocent Home Invader in Hotel Room With Racist Gun With One of Those Parts That Goes Up.
De Caro, who was in the shower, emerged completely naked and tried talking to the gunman, who was demanding the couple fork over their money and valuables.
Naked, but he quickly clothed himself with a rakish .35 caliber gun,* which is really all the fashion a man needs. . . .
* Hey yeah I know that's a weird caliber, but that's what the article claims.
How To Speak Middle English
A four part series on the pronunciation of Middle English, with some thoughts on its regional and temporal variations.
These people are insane
The ECB has rules for the "investments" it can make. So far they've been limited to bonds issued by sovereign governments or their agencies, which is crazy enough. Many is the private bank that's gotten itself into trouble obeying rules deeming sovereign debt to be triple-A safe no matter how high an interest rate some shaky government had to pay in order to lure suckers in the door. Hey, if it's all AAA, why not buy the Italian bonds with high interest instead of those boring German bonds? If the bonds go bust, we can just say we were following orders and are entitled to a bailout. No one's job or bonus is on the line.
Now the ECB has decided to expand the list of approved bonds to include "corporate bonds." That's not such a terrible idea, in an alternative universe where people choose private-sector investments according to traditional principles like price and risk. "Senior Eurozone Economist" Frederik Ducrozet at Credit Agricole explains that the move to "quasi-corporate bonds the ECB could seek a greater transmission of QE to the real economy." Almost sounds like a dawning realization that there's such a thing as a real economy, and that it's not transfer payments by sovereign entities, but what's with the "quasi-corporate"? Turns out what they really mean is Italian utility companies. Here's the punchline:
Now the ECB has decided to expand the list of approved bonds to include "corporate bonds." That's not such a terrible idea, in an alternative universe where people choose private-sector investments according to traditional principles like price and risk. "Senior Eurozone Economist" Frederik Ducrozet at Credit Agricole explains that the move to "quasi-corporate bonds the ECB could seek a greater transmission of QE to the real economy." Almost sounds like a dawning realization that there's such a thing as a real economy, and that it's not transfer payments by sovereign entities, but what's with the "quasi-corporate"? Turns out what they really mean is Italian utility companies. Here's the punchline:
Hyung-Ja de Zeeuw, a credit strategist at ABN AMRO says she thinks they chose these specific corporate names "because it wouldn't disrupt the level playing field (competition). They have natural monopolies."So that's their idea of the "real economy": something with a natural monopoly that's immune to competitive forces. Gosh, I wonder why the EU is in crisis?
Hockey Sticks
Let's say we did a study in which we asked Americans how many of them owned a hockey stick, and then asked them whether or not they or anyone in their family participated in playing hockey. Did they belong to a hockey club? Did they play hockey with friends sometimes? Did they belong to a place with a good hockey-playing rink? Everyone who answers 'yes' to the questions after 'Do you own a hockey stick?' is said to belong to a 'hockey culture.'
What do you think the delta would be between hockey-stick-ownership rates for those who do, and do not, belong to a hockey culture?
What do you think the delta would be between hockey-stick-ownership rates for those who do, and do not, belong to a hockey culture?
Attention -- Row!
I've enjoyed rowing for several years now, so when some friends entered Oklahoma City's annual Stars and Stripes Regatta, I drove out to enjoy the day with them.
The skyline is dominated by the Devon Tower, and the boathouse to my right is the Devon Boathouse.
Here they come!
Coming up to the catch ... One of the rowers on this crew is blind.
All in all, a good summer day at the Oklahoma River. I guess it's only appropriate to finish with some home-grown red dirt country.
The skyline is dominated by the Devon Tower, and the boathouse to my right is the Devon Boathouse.
Here they come!
Coming up to the catch ... One of the rowers on this crew is blind.
I guess he's racing in the singles bracket?
A few folks brought their hounds with them, and one gentleman brought his peregrine falcon. I asked what he hunts - duck. Looking at the Wikipedia entry, I see that historically the peregrine was actually called a duck hawk in the US.
All in all, a good summer day at the Oklahoma River. I guess it's only appropriate to finish with some home-grown red dirt country.
"Support Diversity"
The guy in the picture is Mat Best. Language... well, everything warning if you go to watch his videos.
Inflation vs. haircut
When a country borrows more than it can repay, its creditors can lose their investment slowly or quickly:
It's easy to moralize Greece's feckless borrowing, weak tax collection and long history of default, and hey, go ahead; I won't stop you. But whatever the nation's moral failures, what we're witnessing now shows the dangers of trying to cure the problems of weak fiscal discipline with some sort of externally imposed currency regime. Greek creditors and Brussels were not the only people to joyously embrace the belief that the euro would finally force Greece to keep its financial house in order; you hear the same arguments right here at home from American gold bugs. During the ardent height of Ron Paul's popularity, I tried to explain why this doesn't work: "You don't get anything out of a gold standard that you didn't bring with you. If your government is a credible steward of the money supply, you don't need it; and if it isn't, it won't be able to stay on it long anyway."
This goes double for fiscal discipline. Moving to a fixed exchange rate protects bondholders from one specific sort of risk: the possibility that inflation will erode the real value of your bonds. But that doesn't remove the risk. It just transforms it. Now that the government can't inflate away its debt, you instead face the risk that they are going to run out of money to pay their bills and suddenly default. That's exactly what happened to Argentina, and many other nations on various other currency regimes, from the gold standard to a currency peg. The ability to inflate the currency had gone away, but the currency regime didn't fix any of the underlying institutional problems that previous governments had solved with inflation. So bondholders protected themselves from inflation, and instead took a catastrophic haircut.
In financial markets, it is easy to move risk around and change who is bearing it. On the other hand, it's very hard to actually get rid of the risk. The biggest problems come when we think we have -- when we mistake risk transformation for risk avoidance. That's what happened in 2008, and that's what happened with Greece....
Blackwater & Systems Theory
Erik Prince is working for China's African interests, and James Polous wonders what that means.
The American legal environment for business creates a strict and ever-changing set of rules. Many of these rules prevent business formation without great expense. Many of the changes can be existential threats to the business. They can even send you to prison. Blackwater became a political liability -- not even an enemy, just a firm the government didn't want to talk about any more -- and thus a target.
If you wanted to create an environment in which it was wise to set up American businesses for international ventures, you'd deregulate and shrink the bureaucracies that are constantly creating new regulations. You'd reduce the setup costs for a new business, and the danger that the rules might change in destructive ways. Is that what we're doing?
Whatever your politics, this is a story about the kinds of perils you can best grasp when you set aside a partisan policy lens and pick up the analytical frameworks offered by systems theory. Consider how the contours of our concern about Prince shift when we think of big government as a systems problem instead of an ideological one. It’s a truism that the bigger a system, the harder it falls.... When a system gets so large that its catastrophic threats become as marginal as possible, the nature of those threats becomes difficult to see, understand, and address....We've talked about Taleb's ideas before. I find them insightful and, generally, persuasive. Here's a place where he makes an analogy to the kinetic:
The systems-theory approach to catastrophic risk is not, of course, free from strong criticism. One of the biggest names in systems theory, Nassim Taleb, has been drawn into the political controversy surrounding the potential systemic risk created by US monetary and fiscal policy. For some, there’s a lot at stake politically in theories potentially predicting that very loose money will provoke a collapse of America’s financial system (and the world’s) — or, at least, a lot of inflation.... Rather than using systems theory as a tool for predicting painful events, we should use it as a heuristic for living what Taleb calls an “antifragile” life. Unlikely as it may at first seem, there’s a real connection between the shocking events that shake a system and our personal exercise of anti-fragile habits.
I could lay out an argument trying to persuade you of this, but I think it’s ultimately more powerful to just point back to Prince. After all, his explicit rationale for his new venture is that the US, as a system, has ceased to be anti-fragile, in both political and cultural terms.
Although I was not yet familiar with gyms, my idea of knowledge was as follows. People who build their strength using these modern expensive gym machines can lift extremely large weights, show great numbers and develop impressive-looking muscles, but fail to lift a stone; they get completely hammered in a street fight by someone trained in more disorderly settings.... I've debated many economists who claim to specialize in risk and probability: when one takes them slightly outside their narrow focus, but within the discipline of probability, they fall apart, with the disconsolate face of a gym rat in front of a gangster hit man.”There are anti-fragile ways to train the body and the mind, too. Bicep curls build big biceps, but these five exercises train main strength: the body you build will be less sculpted, but stronger throughout. Yoga builds flexibility, but jujitsu builds flexibility and fighting power. Logic, surprisingly perhaps, is highly fragile. It trains the mind to a fine degree, but strict logic turns out to be inapplicable to almost all of human life. Analogical rather than logical reasoning, rhetoric rather than analytics, this helps you grapple with life.
The American legal environment for business creates a strict and ever-changing set of rules. Many of these rules prevent business formation without great expense. Many of the changes can be existential threats to the business. They can even send you to prison. Blackwater became a political liability -- not even an enemy, just a firm the government didn't want to talk about any more -- and thus a target.
If you wanted to create an environment in which it was wise to set up American businesses for international ventures, you'd deregulate and shrink the bureaucracies that are constantly creating new regulations. You'd reduce the setup costs for a new business, and the danger that the rules might change in destructive ways. Is that what we're doing?
Love Songs, Considered
The eternal thing, the sacred thing: or, as the article puts it, the inevitable thing, the ordinary thing, the indispensable thing.
Talking About the Queen Again
Organizers said accused Charleston shooter Dylann Roof wasn’t an “isolated actor,” but a “product of a consistent pattern of state-sponsored terrorism and radicalized dehumanization in America.” The event originally was aimed at burning the Confederate flag, but later changed to focus on the stars and stripes....They're right, after a fashion. It was the stars and stripes that flew over the slave ships, which the Confederate Battle Flag never did. They were mostly American ships sailing out of Northern harbors, under the American flag, all the way up until Lincoln. Just ask Allen West.
“There will be no peace until we tear down this system of oppression...
"We do not believe the ideals of America are anything to be revered. We are building something that will be much better than America. While the so-called patriots yell that we should just leave, we instead choose to dream. We dream of what real freedom looks like: freedom from paramilitaries occupying our communities, beating and killing our sons and daughters; freedom from our communities being destroyed by the speculative capital of gentrification; freedom from mass surveillance; and freedom from systemic racism.
“So, we will burn the American flag, a symbol of oppression and genocide, and in the same action, dismantle our stunted, cynical expectations of what is possible in the world."
It's gonna be Independence Day. At some point, maybe we need some independence from old hates. It's a bad history all the way around -- the British are no better, as they were slavers before they finished building their industrial revolution, just as the North were the leading slave traders until they had built theirs. Either we have to burn it all down, and not just the flags but the whole thing: or we've got to find a way to forgive. And forgive not each other, for none of us made this. What we've got to do, somehow, is forgive our ancestors. You have to. No matter how bad your father and mother were, no matter how bad your grandparents were, if you can't forgive them you'll always end up hating a part of yourself. Hating your country and your heritage is the same way. If you can't forgive it and find the good in it, there will always be a part of yourself that you hate too. Forgive them, and you'll find that you've freed yourself.
Minimum Wage?
How about a "state-imposed Maximum Wage?"
Of $20 a month? That's setting your sights a little low, isn't it?
Of $20 a month? That's setting your sights a little low, isn't it?
"Due to the Lateness of the Hour..."
"...I don’t know that they were going to be going to church the next morning.”
A More Democratic and Considered Move on the Flag
Unlike last week's mad rush, the South Carolina legislature has been considering the issue with regard to the feelings of the people. And people, even those who see the flag as essentially about history and heritage, have been moved by the events and grace at Charleston.
The Legislature is reconvened for the debate, though early indicators suggest the votes are there.
UPDATE: On the other hand, there's always the vocal (and young) minority.
Among whites, 39 percent said the incident made them less likely to support the flag flying at the State House while 18 percent said the incident made them more likely to support it.... The Free Times/Crantford Research poll also found that South Carolina voters are optimistic about the prospects for the shooting to bring residents closer together: 41 percent believe the incident will ultimately improve race relations, compared to 16 percent who believe it will make matters worse. Black voters were somewhat less optimistic than whites; 38 percent of African-Americans and 43 percent of whites thought the incident would lead to better race relations.This, I think, is the best result we can get from such a tragedy. Not that everyone should come to agree that the flag is a symbol of (and only of) hatred and oppression, but that those who disagree can come to consider and respect the views of those for whom it cannot be otherwise.
The Legislature is reconvened for the debate, though early indicators suggest the votes are there.
College of Charleston political science professor Gibbs Knotts said he was a bit surprised at the strong support in the conservative Legislature to remove the flag. But he said it likely reflects a “big public shift” that has taken place recently in South Carolina...One hopes that, to some degree, the shift works in both directions. "Heritage, not hate" is a great concept as long as it's real. This offers some evidence that it is real, that where it cannot be perceived except as hate, supporters of the flag as heritage are prepared to compromise without surrendering their view. America could learn a lot from that.
[T]he bills are expected to be channeled through committees, potentially delaying a final vote for several weeks.
UPDATE: On the other hand, there's always the vocal (and young) minority.
Iran Deal Predictions
From Havok Journal:
5) The next US President will support the deal: H + however many days until January 2017L Despite early misgivings, courtesy of freshman senator Tom Cotton (R – Arkansas), Congress has signaled that it ultimately wants the deal to go through, as long as it gets its say. This Congress is clearly looking towards the next election and what the presumptive frontrunners will want. Instead of running interference, they’ve chosen a strategy (albeit a begrudging one) of demanding transparency in exchange for support.
Even the strong conservative holdouts who famously co-signed a letter to the Majles have backed away from the opposition camp. Interestingly, the only Senator not to affirm the transparency resolution, Tom Cotton, was one of the strongest opponents of the initial deal. The resolution also gives new Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell (R – Kentucky) an opportunity to reign in some of the rhetoric by Tea Party upstarts like Cotton. Perhaps McConnell sees a need to tone down some of the language of his fellow party members leading into 2016.
Advice for Young Men
This is not a bad piece.
I was not aware of the fedora phenomenon until I encountered the famous SlateStarCodex piece worrying over the way in which this kind of young man is being punished. Since then, I've seen a few examples of the intense mockery from young women that these young men endure. I can understand the point the author at SSC was trying to make.
That it is unkind to the young men is true, as they are as he says just trying to emulate the most courtly behaviors they have ever encountered in literature or film. Whether it is unfair to them is another question.
In any case, if you are one or know one, and don't understand the mockery, read the article. It might help you out.
I was not aware of the fedora phenomenon until I encountered the famous SlateStarCodex piece worrying over the way in which this kind of young man is being punished. Since then, I've seen a few examples of the intense mockery from young women that these young men endure. I can understand the point the author at SSC was trying to make.
That it is unkind to the young men is true, as they are as he says just trying to emulate the most courtly behaviors they have ever encountered in literature or film. Whether it is unfair to them is another question.
In any case, if you are one or know one, and don't understand the mockery, read the article. It might help you out.
Taste Test: Surströmming
A traditional Swedish dish whose name means soured herring. "As long ago as the 16th century, surströmming was supplied as army rations in the 30 years war. Swedish soldiers who did not come from the area where this was staple food, as well as foreign conscripts, refused to eat it."
If it smells so bad that people were refusing to eat it during the Thirty Years' War, it smells pretty bad.
Defiance
Sen. Cruz says that states should simply defy the Supreme Court on gay marriage. I don't see how that could possibly work out well, as it didn't even work in cases (such as segregation) in which there was intense and unified opposition to the Supreme Court's ruling among the polities of many states. The American population has responded to years of all their favorite Hollywood entertainers endorsing this, combined with years of Federal court rulings all pointing in the same direction, by shifting its opinion to support for the practice. There are probably no states that can put together the unity against gay marriage that characterized the Southern Democrats' rejection of anti-segregation rulings.
On the other hand, segregation was immoral. If this set of arguments is even close to plausible, public opinion may well shift again in the coming years. In that case, the defiant will be remembered kindly by history rather than as the bigots they are portrayed as being in the contemporary press.
Much depends on what comes next. For the moment, Sen. Cruz is taking the lead boldly down a dark road. Whether that road ends in darkness, or whether joy comes with the morning, is far from clear.
On the other hand, segregation was immoral. If this set of arguments is even close to plausible, public opinion may well shift again in the coming years. In that case, the defiant will be remembered kindly by history rather than as the bigots they are portrayed as being in the contemporary press.
Much depends on what comes next. For the moment, Sen. Cruz is taking the lead boldly down a dark road. Whether that road ends in darkness, or whether joy comes with the morning, is far from clear.
Changing Sides in the Supreme Court
In the term just ending, is it true that the liberal justices voted as a bloc, while the conservatives often voted according to their judicial philosophy instead of their party interests? Yes, according to SCOTUSblog, but only if you're talking about the most important cases:
In the 26, a Justice on the left voted with the right a total of 3 times. In 2 cases, those votes determined the outcome and produced a more conservative result, because Justice Kennedy or one of the conservatives voted for the more liberal result.
In the 26, a Justice on the right voted with the left 14 times. In 6 cases, those votes determined the outcome and produced a more liberal result, because Justice Kennedy voted for the more conservative result.
I also considered the 10 cases I consider most significant. Of those, the left prevailed in 8. Those included the first 7 of the Term. (I mention the early cases to give a sense of how the results must have appeared inside the Court as the Term went along.) The right prevailed in 2, both in the final sitting of the Term.
In the 10, no Justice on the left voted with the right; the four Justices on the left voted together in every one of those cases. A Justice on the right voted with the left 4 times. Those votes determined the outcome in 2 cases, because Justice Kennedy voted for the more conservative result.
This Is Going To Be A Problem For My Hoped-For Jim Webb Candidacy
Bernie Sanders overtaking Hillary in the Democratic primary's momentum. It's true that all my left-leaning friends are huge fans of Bernie. I've yet to find anyone else willing to consider voting for Webb: Democrats want someone farther to the left of Hillary, and Republicans want a full-time Republican.
Well, I've never picked a winner yet: why break the streak?
Well, I've never picked a winner yet: why break the streak?
This Guy Really Is A Priest
It's a trivial matter, sort of, except that the event at which this dishonorable action occurred was supposed to be all about equality of human dignity. He certainly showed some dignity, though not an equality of it.
The $100 million lesson
Noah Kagan was one of the earliest employees at Facebook, but was fired before it went public. He describes what he learned from the experience.
EPA must consider costs
Today's third opinion reverses a D.C. Circuit decision, and rules that the EPA interpreted its authorizing statute unreasonably when it concluded it need not consider costs in implementing environmental regulations concerning power plant pollutants, especially mercury. The usual suspects dissented, making it a 5-4 split. The case is captioned Michigan v. EPA but normally is referred to as "Utility Air." The EPA will still have discretion in how to consider costs; the Court ruled, for instance, that it need not conduct a formal cost/benefit analysis, whatever that means. We'll find out on remand, I guess.
Gerrymandering: voters rule
The Court's second decision today upheld the power of a state's voters over their legislature in a dispute over how gerrymandering concerns should be resolved.
Per SCOTUSblog, "In 2000, Arizona voters amended the state’s constitution to give control over redistricting of federal congressional districts to an independent commission. This case is a challenge by the state legislature to that transfer, on the ground that it violated the Elections Clause" of the U.S. Constitution. Justice Kennedy joined the four liberal Justices in a 5-4 decisionhttp://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/13-1314_kjfl.pdf, which upheld the voters' right to override the legislature's redistricting process. SCOTUSblog further noted that the Supreme Court has several times already declined to address the constitutionality of gerrymandering per se. This decision also does not address the constitutionality of gerrymandering, but only whether the voters (via state constitutional amendment) or the legislature shall have the ultimate say over the drawing of federal congressional district lines.
Scalia's dissent suggested that he didn't disagree with the voters' right to control redistricting--he would have dismissed the challenge for lack of jurisdiction--but he joined the dissent out of displeasure with the reasoning of the majority.
The four dissenting justices (led by Roberts) objected that the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives the redistricting power to state legislatures, not the state populace. The majority, in contrast, acknowledged the state voters' right to rein in their legislature's approach by amending their state constitution to require delegation of the redistricting process to an independent commission. The SCOTUSblog interpretation was that the opinion favors new legislators over incumbents, and therefore has little effect unless the state is undergoing a political shift.
Cruel and unusual death penalties
SCOTUS has issued its final opinions for the year, as well as a list of the new cases it will hear next year. The first decision upholds Oklahoma's use of an anti-anxiety drug that a lower court found was virtually certain to induce unconsciousness before the state administered a paralytic drug and a heart-stopping drug. The case arose after anti-death-penalty advocates successfully pressured drug companies to stop making barbiturates available for the death-penalty process, in response to which Oklahoma switched to an alternative method of inducing unconsciousness. The argument then shifted to whether the alternative drug was adequate; the Court ruled today that the lower court had not committed clear error in accept expert testimony to the drug's effectiveness, and that Oklahoma was not required to prove that the new drug was as effective as the ones that no longer were available.
The oral arguments had been reported to be unusually violent for this staid forum.
Justice Alito delivered the majority opinion, joined by Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas. Justices Scalia and Thomas issued a separate concurring opinion, not disagreeing with the reasoning, but responding to a dissent issued by Justices Breyer and Ginsburg, who expressed a renewed plea for the Court to take up the constitutionality of the death penalty. Justices Kagan and Sotomayor did not join in this plea, which led observers at SCOTUSblog to wonder whether they, like past liberal Justices, had grown less vehement in their opposition to the death penalty after spending some time on the Supreme bench. Instead, Kagan and Sotomayor issued a separate dissent addressing only the issues concerning Oklahoma's choice of consciousness-terminating drug.
When bad things happen to good birds
Nature, red in tooth and claw, and the webcam viewers who have to deal with it. (Don't worry, you're not going to find yourself in one of those awful TV commercials about abandoned pets.)
Truck Stop at the End of the World
A cheerful song from the end times, as they were envisioned in the Cold War.
Don't worry about the scales: they're reading megatons.
Don't worry about the scales: they're reading megatons.
The Sorrow of Schadenfreude
I can't enjoy it, because the situation is tragic. Still, I can recognize that I ought to feel it. From progressive site anongalactic:
While America was distracted by a the Confederate flag debacle, the U.S. Congress forfeited the entire economic future of the country by quietly passing so-called “fast-track authority” which will allow President Obama to approve the TPP “free trade” agreement.There's that "treason" word again. It could possibly be deserved, this time, depending on how bad the treaty really is. Since it's still secret, we can't be sure.
The TPP, as you may have heard, outright surrenders U.S. sovereignty to multinational corporations, handing them total global monopolies over labor practices, immigration, Big Pharma drug pricing, GMO food labeling, criminalization of garden seeds and much more. In all, the TPP hands over control of 80% of the U.S. economy to global monopolists, and the TPP is set up to enable those corporations to engage in virtually unlimited toxic chemical pollution, medical monopolization, the gutting of labor safety laws and much more.
Plus, did I mention the TPP will displace millions of American works as corporations outsource jobs to foreign workers? While corporations rake in the profits from new global powers, everyday American workers will lose their livelihoods and their jobs (not to mention their pensions)....
While Amazon.com was frantically deleting Confederate flag products from its website and everybody was going bat-crap insane over the 1970’s comedy TV series Dukes of Hazzard and its use of the so-called Confederate flag on a hot rod car, Republicans and the President were busy committing outright treason at the highest levels: surrendering American sovereignty and economically enslaving all of America’s future children.
And that’s the tragic irony of all this: While the political left falsely believed it was denouncing slavery by pressuring every online retailer and government entity to ban the Confederate flag, the U.S. Congress was busy enacting a whole new level of total economic enslavement for everyone, regardless of their skin color.
The Decline of an American Sport
Headlines from my father's favorite sport:
19 January 2014: NASCAR is turning off fans both old and new.
26 August 2014: As popularity, and seating, wane, NASCAR explores capacity to change
25 February 2015: What has happened to the once high-flying sport of NASCAR?
25 April 2015: Even as attendance and TV ratings drag, NASCAR still has lots of dedicated fans.
So, what you need is a way to get that dedicated hard-core of fans more committed to turning out and tuning in. That should be easy! Remember your roots! How'd stock car racing get started?
That's right: it's that old moonshiner, bootlegger spirit, fast cars racing through the hills on old dirt roads. The law might not like 'em, but they were fast and they were bold and mostly they were just looking out for their family and friends. This is a formula of proven success. Why, I think there was a wildly popular television show once on this subject. Maybe even a movie or two.
Shouldn't be hard to fix, right?
19 January 2014: NASCAR is turning off fans both old and new.
26 August 2014: As popularity, and seating, wane, NASCAR explores capacity to change
25 February 2015: What has happened to the once high-flying sport of NASCAR?
25 April 2015: Even as attendance and TV ratings drag, NASCAR still has lots of dedicated fans.
So, what you need is a way to get that dedicated hard-core of fans more committed to turning out and tuning in. That should be easy! Remember your roots! How'd stock car racing get started?
That's right: it's that old moonshiner, bootlegger spirit, fast cars racing through the hills on old dirt roads. The law might not like 'em, but they were fast and they were bold and mostly they were just looking out for their family and friends. This is a formula of proven success. Why, I think there was a wildly popular television show once on this subject. Maybe even a movie or two.
Shouldn't be hard to fix, right?
Beware
I'm awfully pleased Douglas is posting here now; I always look forward to his comments. But his first post, with its aside about "a constant stream of inanity," almost discouraged me from posting this, from Ace:
Almost.
Almost.
"The Battle of Vienna" the movie
Well this isn't a bad way to inaugurate my privileges at the Hall (Thanks, Grim!)-
Epic battle, heroic leader, Winged Hussars, it looks to have it all:
I came across this link to a new movie slated to be released in October Titled "The Battle of Vienna"- at least in Polish. Unsurprisingly, it centers on Polish King Jan Sobieski. It looks like the English title will be "September 11th, 1683", interestingly enough. No idea if/when it will be released here, or through what channels. It's nice for us though, that it's in English, with Polish subtitles.
Of course, it reminds me of past Hall favorite:
Maybe more 'diversions' like this movie can start to point us back to things that matter instead of a constant stream of inanity from our entertainment-industrial complex.
Epic battle, heroic leader, Winged Hussars, it looks to have it all:
I came across this link to a new movie slated to be released in October Titled "The Battle of Vienna"- at least in Polish. Unsurprisingly, it centers on Polish King Jan Sobieski. It looks like the English title will be "September 11th, 1683", interestingly enough. No idea if/when it will be released here, or through what channels. It's nice for us though, that it's in English, with Polish subtitles.
Maybe more 'diversions' like this movie can start to point us back to things that matter instead of a constant stream of inanity from our entertainment-industrial complex.
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