In the throes of pansies

I'm lost in crochet world again. My niece will be married in six months, carrying, I hope, a crocheted-lace ribbon tied around her bouquet, possibly in this pattern, but in all-white thread:

Now my sister says she's making about a dozen chocolate-brown silk purses as guest-gifts, and would like to affix several crocheted flowers of some kind to each of them, in deep colors. I'm thinking pansies. The stylized pansies in the ribbon pattern above didn't seem right to me, so I've been trying to fashion my own pattern. These are my first experiments, done with a double strand of embroidery thread, which amounts to about a size 70. I ended up with flowers about an inch across.

Update: Another effort, closer to 2 inches across. I'm liking this pattern. I've just got to fiddle with the shape of the large pair of petals in back, and work on making the tiny, tiny stiches more regular. It's hard to see the row of stitches you're working into, even with my (seldom-used) glasses on under a bright light, but a contrasting color keeps you honest. As you can tell from the photo, the size-13 crochet hook is so small you can barely see the hook at the tip. The colors, by the way, are much more brilliant in real life than I can make them appear with my phone camera.

There's nothing like trying to crochet a flower to make you think hard about how it's structured. In the case of pansies: a radial pattern, three small petals on top, often variegated in color, and two behind, usually in a contrasting but solid color. The middle of the three-petal group is larger and usually double-lobed. Here are a number of beautiful pansies I found searching on the net:

And then I stumbled on something that made me want to drop crocheting and go learn how to work in metal. Did you ever see anything so gorgeous? Look how the pansy stems twist around the base. Follow the link to see what those crazy jewelers put inside this jade Faberge egg with pansies. For some kinds of exuberant excess, you really need an imperial family to plunder the entire country, so they can amass enough wealth to employ over-the-top jewelers.

Rep. Bachmann on Pakistan

She's good and right on the question she takes on here.  Let's review Pakistan's relationship with the United States.

Pakistan signed a mutual defense agreement with the United States in 1954.  In 1965, it fell into war with India over the Kashmir vale.  The terms of the agreement suggest we should have backed them up; we did not, but declared something like neutrality in the conflict.  Of course, we were involved in Vietnam at the time, and the Cold War, and this was a distraction from that twilight struggle; but we broke our word.

A second war in 1971 produced significant American support for Pakistan -- and also their greatest loss in their history as a nation.  The American perspective on this conflict is that we did all we could do, being constrained by the Soviet Union and China (then working with India, ironically enough).  The Pakistani perspective, I learned from listening to their liaison officer at USCENTCOM last summer, was that America let them down.  We were supposed to 'mutually defend' them, and they lost almost half their territory.

Add to that the current issues over the drone strikes -- which the US continues to execute in spite of the clear statement by Pakistan's legislature that it opposes them because of civilian casualties -- and we have a menu of complaints on offer.  We continue to carry out those strikes not with their permission (as in Yemen) but in violation of their sovereignty as a nation state.  

In other words, some of Pakistan's complaints are invalid -- but others are not entirely unfair.

There isn't a happy relationship here, but there is a relationship.  We're better off when it's stronger than otherwise.  Pakistan is divided internally between factions that support anti-US forces, and factions that oppose them for reasons of their own.  We have to play in this game.  

The lady is right, in other words; and by the way, Fallon ought to fire his band.  Go hire some of those OWS drummers; whatever else can be said for the movement, those guys have their moments.  And clearly they're unemployed, so you can probably get them for a reasonable rate.

(H/t for the video:  DL Sly.)

BZ

Here's one of the last of the old school PSYOP NCOs.  59 years young!

...And Yet, Enough Has Somehow Just Been Said

Greyhawk features a beautiful quote in his long piece today.

Chester G. Hearn, in a recent history of Harper's Ferry in the Civil War, effectively summed one aspect of the battle with an observation that likely had to wait well over a century to be made: "With roughly eleven hundred men involved in a skirmish lasting four hours, where total casualties added up to five killed and twenty wounded, enough cannot be said about poor marksmanship."

India, Hope of Humanity

I have a Russian friend who has been arguing to me for years that India represents humanity's hope.  Perhaps he's right.



You have to watch a minute or so into it before you begin to see why.

Although, in truth, I think I've seen this act before.



(H/t: BSBFB).

Ale & Dragon Ships

To my great pleasure, I see that Sierra Nevada's annual release of Celebration Ale has begun.  If you like a dry, hoppy beer of the IPA type, I've always thought it was quite good.

We shall mark this occasion with appropriate fanfare.

If you liked that, Eric Blair recommends Den Gyldne Svane ("The Golden Swan") the next time you're in Denmark.  It looks fantastic to me.

Genetic Determinism, Xenophobia

In The Corner, John Derbyshire links to a story: Caring and Trust linked to genetic variation.

Individuals homozygous for the G allele (carrying two copies of the G version of the gene) of the oxytocin receptor tend to be more "prosocial," defined by researchers as the ability to behave in a way that benefits another person. In contrast, the carriers of the A version of the gene (AG or AA genotypes) tend to have a higher risk of autism, as well as self-reported lower levels of positive emotions, empathy and parental sensitivity.

Not Exactly Rocket Science notes that the sample size for the study is very small, so it's too early to say "this gene causes this trait." But imagine we reach that point. Imagine further, we reach a point where we find a set of genes that influences not only sociability and altruism, but tribalism - the ability to be extremely caring and altruistic towards your own kind, but dehumanize the outgroup.

Regardless of how we think about it in this country, in the world's dictatorships, genetic engineering will easily make the leap from "forbidden" to "mandatory." The Chinese state, says Mr. Derbyshire elsewhere, already encourages strong tribalism through propaganda. If their state doesn't liberalize before cheap genetic engineering comes along, what's their likely use of the technology? How about the world's Islamic dictatorships, which employ tribal instincts in a different form? (And given the inborn nature of religious instincts...with those?)

Mr. Derbyshire paraphrases Trotsky: "You may not be interested in this stuff, but it's interested in you."

Rest in Peace, Larry Munson

I read today that Larry Munson, the voice of the Georgia Bulldogs, died this weekend at the age of 89.

 


When I was growing up, my father would watch the games on TV with the sound turned off so he could listen to Munson on the radio. Or he'd skip watching the game at all, and go work on his car with the radio on, because the calls were good enough that you didn't need to see the action.  Larry Munson was the man who made this joke funny:

FOOTBALL SEASON - NORTH VS SOUTH

STADIUM SIZE

Up north: College football stadiums hold 20,000.

Down south: High school football stadiums hold 20,000.

FATHERS

Up North: Expect their daughter to understand Sylvia Plath.

Down South: Expect their daughters to understand pass interference.

GETTING TO THE STADIUM

Up North: You have to ask, "Where's the stadium?" When you find it you walk right in.

Down South: When you're near it, you'll hear it. On game day, it becomes the State's third largest city.

ANNOUNCER:

Up North: Neutral and paid. 

Down South: Announcer harmonizes with the crowd in the fight song, with a tear in his eye because he is so proud of his team.

That was Larry Munson.  We all loved him for it.  Except for those Georgia Tech guys, of course -- but I think they understood.

The Soundbite Doesn't Do It Justice

Take a moment, and watch the whole thing.



 Sounds downright cruel.

When Ideologies Tackle

From Detroit:



That seems like a fair reading of Genesis 3:21.  Does PETA have a response to the gentleman?

From Massachusetts:

[R]oughly two dozen boys competing on girls teams in Massachusetts because their schools do not have boys swimming programs. They are able to do so because of the open access amendment to the state constitution, which was voted into law in the 1970s and mandates that boys and girls must be afforded equal access to athletics.... 

With every stroke they take, the boys are displacing more than water. They could knock girls off the awards podium and make it harder for girls to qualify for All-Star honors and the postseason.

There's a fairly easy solution to this, which is to honor Title IX by simply including women in all sports.  Of course, almost none of them will be able to compete in "soccer" or "swimming," as opposed to "women's soccer" or "girl's swimming."

A few will, and good for them.  It turns out that top part-of-one-percent are the ones who really get things done anyway:

The remarkable finding of their study is that, compared with the participants who were “only” in the 99.1 percentile for intellectual ability at age 12, those who were in the 99.9 percentile — the profoundly gifted — were between three and five times more likely to go on to earn a doctorate, secure a patent, publish an article in a scientific journal or publish a literary work. A high level of intellectual ability gives you an enormous real-world advantage.

If that's where all human progress is, we need to rethink our approach to education, and how we train our children for life.  If you're not in the top half-percent, you might as well take up Zen gardening:  it's a surer way to achieve internal peace.  Accept your limits:  let go.

Polyphony

You can read an interview with these ladies here.  (H/t: Medieval News).

California Police

So, let's watch the first minute or so of this clip.



Now, plainly these kids are a pain in the ass.  The cops have more important things to do, and being called out of an afternoon to cater to the desire of over-privileged university students to be arrested is an annoyance they don't need.  Furthermore, the kids are engaged in some form of something like trespass, which the police have a legitimate authority to stop.

Still and all, the cop in question is clearly out of line, is he not?  What justifies the use of pepper spray here?  Pepper spray isn't so bad, of course -- it used to be a standard part of military basic training to be exposed to similar gases -- but what was the point of it?  Have we gone so far that any American who produces a momentary annoyance for a police officer is subject to pepper spray as well as arrest?

I don't dispute the existence of a general police power; but increasingly I wonder at whether anyone in government understands the proper use of that power.  To prevent the outbreak of disease, yes, this is a genuine and crucial need of compact cities; but this is an abuse, similar to how it has become common to use SWAT teams -- once intended for "special" situations requiring "special" weapons or tactics -- for the ordinary business of serving warrants.

Is there truly no one left in government who understands how to strike a balance between preventing the outbreak of plagues, and letting a few college students punch their "I got arrested for Peace and Justice" card?

Probably Should Have Taken Them Up On It

When a group of ex-CIA operators offers to help you sort out a life-and-death situation, you might want to consider the offer carefully.

"We would expect to meet for one or two days to establish a plan for assisting the client in resolving the client in resolving the present conflict in a satisfactory way," the letter continued. "In preparation for the meeting, we will need certain travel arrangements and to know that visa requirements have been waived." The missive was signed "Sincerely, Neil C. Livingstone, Chairman and CEO," and was printed on what appears to be the letterhead of Executive Action LLC, Livingstone's former PR-strategy/lobbying shop named apparently with a wink to the euphemism for Cold War-era CIA-assassinations.

Who is Neil C. Livingstone?  Sourcewatch metions him.   Of course, they mention me too; and while the information isn't wrong, it's not exactly insightful either.

Meta-Analysis

Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational challenge: systematic review of randomised controlled trials.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a medical intervention justified by observational data must be in want of verification through a randomised controlled trial. . . .

[I]ndividuals jumping from aircraft without the help of a parachute are likely to have a high prevalence of pre-existing psychiatric morbidity. Individuals who use parachutes are likely to have less psychiatric morbidity and may also differ in key demographic factors, such as income and cigarette use. It follows, therefore, that the apparent protective effect of parachutes may be merely an example of the “healthy cohort” effect. . . .

It is often said that doctors are interfering monsters obsessed with disease and power, who will not be satisfied until they control every aspect of our lives (Journal of Social Science, pick a volume). It might be argued that the pressure exerted on individuals to use parachutes is yet another example of a natural, life enhancing experience being turned into a situation of fear and dependency.

The Hidden Strength of Gingrich

The University of Minnesota has a piece suggesting that Mr. Gingrich the only candidate in the recent debates who has come under no attacks from his fellows.  Why?

Why?  One obvious reason might be that until lately, he hasn't been worth attacking; only recently has he begun to poll seriously.  The main reason that UMN comes up with is that Mr. Gingrich has played fair on the point -- just as game theory would suggest, not attacking people is a good road to not being attacked.  Only Rep. Paul has launched fewer critiques of fellow Republicans, and on top of that Mr. Gingrich has pointedly criticized moderators who tried to draw him into attacking fellow Republicans.  Thus, he has drawn a clear standard, and he has upheld it:  and this is the sort of conduct that game theory would suggest produces a peace between players.

I think there is one more reason, though, which is that Mr. Gingrich is far and away the smartest guy on the stage.  If debates are about intellectual strength, then Mr. Gingrich benefits from our old motto:  Peace Through Superior Firepower.  It is simply wisdom from the rest of the field to recognize the disparity, and not call down his fire upon themselves.

Intelligence and knowledge aren't the only factors in choosing a nominee, of course.  There are several reasons not to prefer Mr. Gingrich, the most significant for me being his treatment of the women in his life.  Still, I suspect that one reason that Newt will continue to escape sharp criticism in the debates is that he is more than capable of collecting the heads of anyone who tries.  Since he has also offered a clear road to avoiding that rather public humiliation, I think he'll tread safely unless he proves to have lasting electoral strength.

What is likely to happen instead of a direct conflict is an attempt to stab him from a place of safety, as in his back.  Rather than attacks in the debates, Mr. Gingrich is in danger of anonymously-sourced hit pieces of the type that has so damaged the Cain campaign.

UKIP Speaks on the Euro

Now this is the kind of speech you want to hear from a democratically-elected leader.  It's a merciless assault on the un-elected technocrats of Europe, and the world they have created.

Ruins in the Woods

Here are some photos from the forest I wandered today.

Vines scale an abandoned piling.

A channel of river-worn stones where no river now runs.

Flyover

From Maggie's Farm, this time-lapse video from the International Space Station, showing the aurora borealis and a lot of lightning. It goes so fast, I could hardly tell what coastlines and cities I was seeing most of the time. It's funny how different a map looks when north isn't "up."

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

A Lesson in the Tenth

The gentlemen lawyers leading the case against Obamacare have a piece in the Wall Street Journal explaining the matter as they see it.  The core of the issue lies here:

The Constitution limits federal power by granting Congress authority in certain defined areas, such as the regulation of interstate and foreign commerce. Those powers not specifically vested in the federal government by the Constitution or, as stated in the 10th Amendment, "prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." The court will now determine whether those words still have meaning.

Our friends on the Left often seem not to understand the nature of the claim that is being made here.  This claim is often misunderstood as a claim that "government" lacks the power to do something if that something is not specifically enumerated.  In fact, it is only the Federal government that lacks the power.  The states may or may not have the power, depending on their own constitutions and a few considerations that limit what kinds of powers any government may properly exercise.  This matter is spelled out later in the piece.

Under our Constitution's system of dual sovereignty, only states have the authority to impose health and safety regulations on individuals simply because they are present. The Supreme Court has ruled many times that the Constitution denies to the federal government this type of "general police power."

So 'the government' certainly does have the power, within the general limits of natural  law and the Bill of Rights; but the Federal government does not.  The Federal government is structurally placed to be an incredibly powerful organ, and concentrated power is deadly to individual liberty.  The controls of the 10th are meant to answer that concern.  An overweening state government can be escaped by moving across the border; but a tyrannical Federal government has power throughout the United States and, indeed, global reach.

Nevertheless, the existence of a general police power is not denied by the Tea Party or the Right more broadly.  However important it is to restrain that power, there are some few cases in which it is necessary.  Consider Zucotti Park.

However sympathetic you may be, or may not be, these "occupation" protests pose a legitimate danger to public health.  The most predictable thing in the world was the outbreak of diseases in these encampments.  The danger increases when people are coming from different walks of life, bringing with them diseases to which the others may not have the same resistances.  The outbreak of tuberculosis in a similar camp in Atlanta will not be an isolated incident if steps are not taken to ensure that sanitation is preserved.

This is the lesson of every army that has marched to war in three thousand years.  For that matter, it was true in the foreign residence hall I lived in while in China, where I encountered tuberculosis (which I cured via main force application of Chinese beer -- strong medicine, for the cure was complete, though my tests showed the presence of TB antibodies for a few years afterwards).  Maintaining camp sanitation for an extended time requires proper training and something like military discipline, neither of which have been obviously present among these protests.

Balancing any first amendment right to free speech and freedom of assembly is important, to be sure.  Still, especially in a case in which the encampment is in the center of a large city, the risk to public health is tremendous.

No one from the Right denies this.  The debate is about the limits of the power, and its locus.  There are powerful advantages for all of us, Left and Right, in having an America that respects Federalist limits:  it makes it much more likely that we shall all have a country in which we can live pleasantly, and in harmony with our individual values.

The Rebel Yell

While I was doing some other research, I came across this video from Smithsonian Magazine.  It's a recording of Confederate veterans in the 1930s giving the old "Rebel Yell," as well as they still could at what was then an advanced age.



Historians have been arguing for some years about both the actual sound of the yell, and its origins.  The most popular arguments are that the South had learned to use it from fighting the Indians, which is plausible because those wars immediately preceded the generation that fought the Civil War; or that it was native to the Southerners because it was derived from the Scottish Highlander war-cry.  The latter argument is plausible because the Highlander yell is well-attested, and because of the prominence of Scots among Southern families -- although that prominence is greatest among the Appalachian Southerners, who were least likely to support the Confederacy.

Interesting to discover that there's an actual recording, then!