Whose Side?

Whose Side Are You On?

Democrats cut funding for food stamps, to provide money for government employees to stay on payroll. The pose of being on the side of the poor -- instead of being on the side of the government -- wears thinner all the time.

Death and Survival

Death and Survival:

Is it really true, what the author says?

The flesh would shrink and go, the blood would dry, but no one believes in his mind of minds or heart of hearts that the pictures do stop.

All the theories surveyed do not approach my own sense of the thing, unless it is the last warning:

There is, of course, a counterpossibility: If we do in fact perdure, perhaps we transit into a realm beyond good and evil—a realm so radically other that science, theology, and philosophy cannot fathom its contours.

But this is only what is well known, to poets. The question is whether that realm is the Hades of Homer, the Purgatory of Dante, or the Otherworld of Celtic myth, or Elfland. Or something else!

Five for Six

Five for Six:

Mrs. Palin's effort to swing the race for governor in Georgia appears to have failed. With 86% reporting, there is a very narrow 50.4% margin for Nathan Deal. It is mostly absentee and "early" ballots that remain to be counted.

I have nothing against Mrs. Palin, as will be clear to those who have read these pages for a long while. I want to support her, and indeed I do believe that she is well positioned to be a positive force in American politics.

Nevertheless, this time she was wrong. She entered this race without taking due care to understand it. She supported a woman who had no obvious qualifications, and while it is easy to understand how she might have felt some sympathy -- how many said just that about her? -- the fact is that she was vastly more qualified for the Vice Presidency than Mrs. Handel was to be governor. It is unwise to internalize your enemy's critique of you: there was nothing wrong with Sarah Palin of 2008, and nothing right with Barack Obama of 2008. It just wasn't the year, all things considered.

Assuming the result holds, Nathan Deal should be a fine governor. He was one of the few who managed to be a good congressman; and the pressures at the state house are much less.

Congratulations to the victor.

UPDATE: With 99% reporting, the margin has narrowed to 50.2%. No final winner will be called until military votes are counted. In Georgia, we still do count them.

Useful furniture.

Because, you never know.

A Natural Nuclear Reactor

A Natural Nuclear Reactor

Almost forty years ago, analysts at a French nuclear fuel-processing plant stumbled on startling evidence from the Oklo uranium deposit in Gabon, West Africa. What they found, in effect, was a natural geological repository of spent reactor fuel.

In the modern world, uranium isotopes appear in very stable proportions, whether they're found in the Earth's crust, on the Moon, or in meteorites: we expect to see mostly U-238, a tiny trace of U-234, and a uniform 0.720 percent of U-235, the fissile material that will sustain a nuclear chain reaction. If the proportion of U-235 is short, alarms go off. The Gabon proportion was only 0.717 percent, which seems like a small discrepancy, but that made the total shortfall 200 kilograms (440 pounds), enough to make six or so bombs.

After some excitement, the analysts realized that conditions in the distant past had been just right to permit the uranium ore to undergo spontaneous self-sustained fission, which used up some of the U-235 that should have been there. One required condition is a uranium ore deposit at least several feet thick; this ensures that the emitted neutrons, which travel no more than a couple of feet on average, will be absorbed by other uranium atoms before escaping the vein of ore. Another requirement is the presence of groundwater, which acts as a neutron moderator (it slows the bouncing particles down). A third requirement is the absence of neutron-absorbing impurities such as boron or lithium.

Lest we panic at the notion of natural China Syndromes popping up all over the Earth, it's comforting to learn that one additional required condition no longer obtains anywhere we know of in the Solar System: the proportion of U-235 must be around 3 percent, as it is in the kind of enriched uranium that fuels power stations. These days the natural proportion of U-235 is always under 1 percent, but the same was not true two billion years ago.

Examination of the fissile products at Gabon shows that this ancient reactor was active for several hundred thousand years, during which time it produced more than two tons of plutonium, some of which itself underwent fission to form lighter elements. Intermediate fissile products included iodine and tellurium and, finally, stable xenon gas, which was trapped in nearby minerals and preserved throughout geological ages for study by fascinated physicists today. Not every bit of the heavier elements decayed, but what stayed behind stayed put to a surprising degree. The remaining plutonium, for instance, has moved less than ten feet in 2 billion years.

The energy rate of the natural reactor was not high -- perhaps 100 kilowatts, or about nine times the size of my household's emergency generator -- but it went on long enough to produce 15 gigawatt-years before winding down. There is no evidence of an explosion, only a long, slow simmer at perhaps 300 degrees Celsius (500 degrees Fahrenheit) until the proportion of fissile U-235 dropped too low to sustain any further reaction.

Sources: Scientific American; ecolo.org; Wikipedia

South Carolina

A Lady from South Carolina:

My father sends.



It's true what she says.

Out East

Out East:

A man's got to go somewhere.

...in the 1820s young Benjamin Disraeli found The Arabian Nights an enchanting alternative to his life as a London law clerk — and he wanted out. Escaping from Swain, Stevens, Maples, Pearce and Hunt, and inspired by tales of Scheherazade, this dandified young man headed east where he dressed up as a pirate in “blood-red shirt, with silver studs as big as shillings,” and a sash stuffed with pistols and daggers. That was on a boat sailing from Malta to Corfu.

Then in 1839 Austen Henry Layard followed Disraeli’s example...

Puzzles and Perfect Beauty

Puzzles, and Perfect Beauty:

That is the name of this group's album. Here is a piece that starts with a two minute percussion solo, and then gets interesting:



Try this too, with vocals.

Njal Five

Njal's Saga, Week Five:

Image from a Clan McLeod piper's webpage.

I should begin by noting that Lars Walker had a post up earlier this week on Norse Law.

This week's reading is here, and next week's is here.

So let's start with this:

The day after he gets ready early for his journey to the ship,
and told all his people that he would ride away for good and all,
and men took that much to heart, but still they said that they
looked to his coming back afterwards.

Gunnar threw his arms round each of the household when he was
"boun," and every one of them went out of doors with him; he
leans on the butt of his spear and leaps into the saddle, and he
and Kolskegg ride away.

They ride down along Markfleet, and just then Gunnar's horse
tripped and threw him off. He turned with his face up towards
the Lithe and the homestead at Lithend, and said:

"Fair is the Lithe; so fair that it has never seemed to me so fair;
the corn fields are white to harvest and the home mead is mown;
and now I will ride back home, and not fare abroad at all."

We have all been there -- looking last on home, and with a long deployment ahead before our beloved family and friends will be seen again. We know how much the heart longs not to go!

Gunnar does not go. For the sake of the story, Njal has foresight and has told him truthfully what the consequences of his choice will be. Yet we can think on what it might be like for a brave man, who really has no wish to leave home -- and one who has often known success in battle -- to decide to dare outlawry instead of leaving everything he loves.

And indeed, for a time it works.

It is said that Gunnar rode to all meetings of men, and to all lawful Things, and his foes never dared to fall on him.

And so some time went on that he went about as a free and guiltless man.

Note that he is not defying the law: this is the law. The law does not compel anyone to attack him, or to drive him away from Things. It merely has removed its protection from him. Had he gone abroad for three years, he would have come home to its restored protection. Because instead he remains, anyone may attack him blamelessly under the law: but no one dares.

At last, though, the shame of having their enemy break his atonement with them -- and now go about free and careless -- drives his foes to a sneak attack in force.

Gunnar's hall was made all of wood, and roofed with beams above,
and there were window-slits under the beams that carried the
roof, and they were fitted with shutters.

Gunnar slept in a loft above the hall, and so did Hallgerda and
his mother.

Now when they were come near to the house they knew not whether
Gunnar were at home, and bade that some one would go straight up
to the house and see if he could find out. But the rest sat them
down on the ground.

Thorgrim the Easterling went and began to climb up on the hall;
Gunnar sees that a red kirtle passed before the windowslit, and
thrusts out the bill, and smote him on the middle. Thorgrim's
feet slipped from under him, and he dropped his shield, and down
he toppled from the roof.

Then he goes to Gizur and his band as they sat on the ground.

Gizur looked at him and said, "Well, is Gunnar at home?

"Find that out for yourselves," said Thorgrim; "but this I am
sure of, that his bill is at home," and with that he fell down
dead.

Hallgerda, it proves, has long remembered the time her husband struck her for a misdeed. She refuses him a braid of her hair to use as a bowstring when his breaks, with which he might have held off her attackers. He does not make any attempt to force her, but instead meets his death in battle.

Of this defence of his, Thorkell the Skald of Gota-Elf sang in
the verses which follow --

"We have heard how south in Iceland
Gunnar guarded well himself,
Boldly battle's thunder wielding,
Fiercest foeman on the wave;
Hero of the golden collar,
Sixteen with the sword he wounded;
In the shock that Odin loveth,
Two before him tasted death."

But this is what Thormod Olaf's son sang --

"None that scattered sea's bright sunbeams,
Won more glorious fame than Gunnar,
So runs fame of old in Iceland,
Fitting fame of heathen men;
Lord of fight when helms were crashing,
Lives of foeman twain he took,
Wielding bitter steel he sorely
Wounded twelve, and four besides."

And this is only the beginning of this week's story!

Bel m'es qu'eu chant

Bel M'es Qu'eu Chant:

Farewell to the Chief

Farewell to the Chief

Our small town said goodbye today to its Assistant Fire Chief (and former longtime Chief), who died at the age of only 55. The funeral ceremony did things up right. All the fire trucks were there at the high school auditorium. Two trucks extended their ladders over the entrance with an enormous American flag hanging down between them. A nearby city's fire department band, two bagpipes and three drums, led in a procession of many dozens of area volunteer firemen in their dress blues. An honor guard before the casket changed out every 15 minutes with formal salutes, and took care of folding and delivering the casket flag to the Chief's son. At the end of the service, the county emergency coordinator called up the dispatch operator, who came on the fire radio and announced "Fireman 227, 10-7, Out of Service. He's going home," while the bagpipes broke into "Going Home" for the recessional.

At the reception afterward, we learned that a neighboring county's volunteer fire department had teamed up with the local Methodist Church to pile many serving tables full of food -- and while the Chief's department was at the funeral, they went and cleaned the fire station from top to bottom.

New Header

New Header:

Some of you may have noticed that I've been playing with the header this weekend. Eric in particular noticed, since it must have broken his display. So, I finally went to the trouble -- only seven years plus into this affair -- of designing an actual header graphic. It is actually something of a return to roots, for those of you with the Papyrus font on your machines, since the original "Grim's Hall" design put in Papyrus until I figured out that only a few machines would be able to display that font. Now, since it's a jpeg, you can all see what it was supposed to look like from the beginning.

If you have any suggestions for further improvements, let me know and -- in another four or five years -- I'll get to them.

Sinister, Dextrous Science

Sinister, Dextrous Science

Something else from the Anchoress: I'll bet you didn't know that five of the last seven Presidents have been left-handed, which is quite a statistical anomaly considering that only something like 10% of all people are. The rest of the LiveScience article that the Anchoress links to struck me as the usual twaddle, so I went off in search of articles that, if no better grounded in research, were at least more entertaining.

Wikipedia reinforces the common knowledge that most languages include a strong bias against left-handers, such as the association of the left with evil ("sinister") and of the right with skill or virtue ("dextrous"). Among Incas, however, southpaws were thought to have special magic and healing powers. Other useful Wiki bits include the fact that, although European knives are usually ground symmetrically, Japanese knives (especially sushi knives) are biased toward right-handed use, and left-handed versions are rare and expensive.

Jimi Hendrix famously flipped his guitar upsidedown in order to play it left-handed. While French horns are made to be played with the left hand, a piano must be specially constructed backwards for that purpose. That makes my head hurt, but here's a video of the impressive results:

Hydrofoils

The Water Bird

I wanted to post not only this video (h/t Anchoress) but some more detailed information about how the thing works, but I'm striking out. All I can find out is that it's a hydrofoil. It seems to be manufactured in China. Here's one for sale on eBay for about $300-- from Australia.

An Anchoress commenter supplied this:

I saw a show on the TV just the other day that featured this twin wing design. US Special Forces (Seals) are testing a small underwater version that seems to require something like one third the energy of swim fins. It straps on below the knees and the swimmer uses (what looked like) a dolphin kick to move the apparatus. A three-way race against submerged swimmers with this design vs flippers vs barefoot had this design far far ahead and arriving much less tired.

And that sounded interesting, too, but I couldn't find anything with a net search.

On Social Science

On Social Science:

This piece has some interesting harmonies with our discussion, below, on infinity and mysticism.

Prior to the launch of the stimulus program, the only thing that anyone could conclude with high confidence was that several Nobelists would be wrong about it.

But the situation was even worse: it was clear that we wouldn’t know which economists were right even after the fact....

The rest of the piece will not shock you, because we've talked about all these problems before. Still, it's a good brief examination of just what the problems are, especially the difficulty of conducting controlled experiments in what they are still pleased to call the "social sciences."

The article ends on a cautionary note, though, which may seem odd given its heretofore focused insistence on the importance of experimentation. "Social sciences" are in fact conducting more experiments, but the author doesn't really expect things to get any better.

The experimental revolution is like a huge wave that has lost power as it has moved through topics of increasing complexity. Physics was entirely transformed. Therapeutic biology had higher causal density, but it could often rely on the assumption of uniform biological response to generalize findings reliably from randomized trials. The even higher causal densities in social sciences make generalization from even properly randomized experiments hazardous. It would likely require the reduction of social science to biology to accomplish a true revolution in our understanding of human society—and that remains, as yet, beyond the grasp of science.

That is the great temptation of Hard Determinism to those who want to believe in it -- not just to reduce human society to biology, but indeed to then reduce biology to physics. You can understand the temptation, because after all, we do physics fairly well by comparison! Wouldn't it be nice if we could just reduce the problem from a complicated social issue to a physics problem?

Well, actually, no it wouldn't. I expect there will always be a push to try, though, for just this reason. It's much easier to look for my car keys over here.

Wishful Thinking

"The Ruins of Viking Boston"

A great line from the Boston Globe, in a story on how their city got so many Viking flourishes.

At Memorial Drive and Fresh Pond Parkway in Cambridge, behind Mount Auburn Hospital, there’s an official-looking granite historical marker inscribed with a claim so wishful that it probably qualifies as a lie: “On this spot in the year 1000 Leif Erikson built his house in Vineland.’’

No, he almost certainly did not. The guy who put up the marker, though, held a chair at Harvard. Did he really want to believe it so badly that he did believe it?

The Mead Hall

The Mead Hall:

Mary Sevelli's Tastes of Anglo-Saxon England has a recipe for mead. It requires three pounds of honey, so for a long time I never tried it on account of never remembering to buy so formidable a quantity at once. I usually only eat honey on pancakes, which means that a jar of honey could readily last me a year or two.

Or it could have done; now I think I may have to start setting up beehives. I've got three batches working their way through fermentation at this point, because the taste of the first batch at its first racking was so good that it justified the additional experiments. It's some good stuff, especially if (as she recommends) you take the trouble to find Champagne yeast. I did the first batch with baker's yeast, and it still came out good.

There's little involved in making a batch, and it makes the house smell like cinnamon and honey; then you put it away for a while, rack it a couple of times, and after a few months drink it. You can store it in old milk or water jugs (suitably cleaned) with balloons on top, if you don't have the fancy equipment that professionals like. If you wanted clarity you could run it through a coffee filter instead of cheesecloth, but there are quite a few beneficial qualities to honey, so you might want it just like this.

If you wanted something more authentically ancient, you might dispense with the cinnamon and black tea that she advises, and use instead different flavors like grains of paradise, cloves or nutmeg (or just honey!). There are many other mead recipes online as well (for example, see here).

Sweden Rockabilly

Swedish Rockabilly:

Apparently... yes.



Gotta watch twenty-two seconds into this one.

If you don't like Sweden, how about Singapore?

Good news bad news

I've Got Good News and Bad News:

Apparently asking for advice is really, really bad. Fortunately, I never do that.

Among the findings:

Talkative youngsters tended to show interest in intellectual matters, speak fluently, try to control situations, and exhibit a high degree of intelligence as adults. Children who rated low in verbal fluency were observed as adults to seek advice, give up when faced with obstacles, and exhibit an awkward interpersonal style.

Children rated as highly adaptable tended, as middle-age adults, to behave cheerfully, speak fluently and show interest in intellectual matters. Those who rated low in adaptability as children were observed as adults to say negative things about themselves, seek advice and exhibit an awkward interpersonal style.

Now, you might say, "But caring what people think is extremely important for adaptive function in social animals like humanity!" Not so! Let me tell you what a drill sergeant once said to me and a whole group of other people. He said:

"I've got good news and bad news for you. The good news is, Sergeant Smith loves ya'll."

When you hear that, you can be pretty sure you're not going to be asked for your advice.

More Constitutional Makeupery

Making The Constitution Up As We Go Along:

So the other day we noticed Rep. Stark saying that the Constitution contained no meaningful restrictions on Federal power...



...except for those unconstitutional programs that might prevent illegal aliens from getting a job.



Now, the woman's point about the 13th Amendment is preposterous. Saying that the Federal Government has an obligation to provide a service is coherent with the 5th Amendment's provision that the Feds can seize property for the public interest, provided they pay a fair market price. There's no reason they can't require your labor of you for some similar public interest, provided they likewise pay what's fair. (Which may not be what you think you deserve, or could be earning in another line of work, but only what is fair for the particular type of labor they force you to provide: see, inter alia, the draft.)

However, the 10th Amendment provides a very clear division between Federal and State powers; and the 14th Amendment, which brings many state issues under the jurisdiction of the Federal courts, does not thereby bring those issues under the jurisdiction of Congress. Congress still has only its Article I powers. All the 14th is supposed to do is ensure that the states may not tread on the normal rights of Americans.

What are those rights? The 14th Amendment spells out one of them plainly:

But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime…

So, the same amendment that defines the power of the Federal courts to serve as enforcer of 'equal protection' rights defers to tradition in ideas of what those rights may be. Women did not gain the right to vote in the 14th Amendment. "Equal protection" clearly did not intend to mean that every person was to be given precisely equal rights and privileges. Rather, they were to be given rights and privileges equal to others of their status: men for men, women for women, felons for felons, citizens for citizens, non-citizens for non-citizens, etc.

Women do, of course, now have the right to vote. That is because of the 19th Amendment, which was passed according to the normal Article V process. What that means is that those who wanted women to vote -- both men and women wanted this -- constructed an argument and took it to the people. In time, they convinced Americans of the rightness of this position. The majority of states ratified a proposition that had been passed by supermajorities of both houses of Congress.

As a result, although it was a massive change in our social structure to grant women the right to vote, we have made that change with great stability and without noteworthy friction. Compare with the voting rights issue the 14th sought to protect, which was being imposed by force instead of argument: a hundred and sixty years later, and we still have some disputes about it.

Prop 8 opponents believe they have made an argument, of course; but they have so far convinced only the court.

I think they’ve made a needless mistake in pushing this in the courts instead of doing it legislatively state-by-state. The optics are uniquely bad — a federal judge imperiously tossing out a public referendum enacted by citizens of one of the bluest states in America on the shoulders of a multi-racial coalition.

The thing is, a legislative victory probably could have been achieved without even the time required to build the 19th Amendment coalition. The culture appeared to be moving that way. Imposing a settlement by force in this area is an unwise maneuver. I leave aside the oddness of the court's finding that there is no rational basis for thinking that sex has something to do with marriage. The broader point is that, win or lose on that argument, the court has decided to make up the Constitution instead of enforcing it. They have done so in a way that does not adhere to the will of the People -- even a 'diverse,' and blue-state People -- but that slaps it aside.

There will be consequences to choosing that road. For one thing, it ties their movement tighter to that faction in our government that refuses to abide by what the Constitution actually says about restrictions on their power; but which offers ever-more inventive arguments about its restrictions on the People. That is the wrong side, even if their cause is the right cause.

About the latter question I disagree with them, but only mildly. About the former question I have a great and unshakable conviction.