Once Upon A Time in the East

Here is a collection of old photos from Shanghai, during its wild days in the 1930s. I really liked Shanghai. We had a great time there, I guess it would have been 2001: we dined on a wonderful spiced yak dish, and bought artwork in little markets to bring home after our long stay in China. I've been to the Bund, which still looks much like this (or did ten years ago). The other side of the river, though, has changed a little bit in the ensuing decades.

Terrorism Futures

I thought this was a great idea the last time around, and I still think it is. Strange to think that was nine years ago, and I have an old comment to link about it; maybe I've been blogging too long.

Runoff Day

If you're one of our Georgia companions, today is runoff day. There's still an hour to get to the polls if you have forgotten, although if you're like me you cannot possibly have forgotten because a recorded campaign announcement has called you two or three times a day every day for two weeks to remind you.

The biggest race today is the runoff in the Mighty 9th Congressional District. I'm looking forward to seeing who wins, although frankly I think we can be pretty happy either way.

UPDATE: A map of results from the 9th runoff is here. Doug Collins has an early lead, though it looks like a lot of results have yet to come in. I'll be very surprised if Union County stays in Zoller's column.

UPDATE: Looks like Zoller has conceded in the face of what looks to be roughly a 55/45 split, so Dan Collins will be our new Representative (although there is a pro forma election in November, barring a miracle the Democratic candidate might as well not be running). Union County did stay in Zoller's column, by a little under a hundred votes. I'm surprised by that -- I would have thought Zell Miller's endorsement would have carried Union County, but apparently not. Of course, only about fourteen hundred people got out to vote today, so I guess anything can happen in a low-turnout race.

A Tribute to the Land

Victor Davis Hanson has written the story of the land his ancestors worked for 140 years.  It's an interesting story, and you can see the feeling that motivates him very clearly in it.  In spite of his sense of loss, though, he has an appreciation for the marvels of new creation:

This winter I watched a new owner of the farm parcel next to mine bring in enormous Caterpillar equipment and land-levelers. He ripped out every living tree and bush. He changed the very contours of the land, flattening even the once rolling hills. Within days, arose a postmodern almond orchard of some 40 acres.

I say postmodern because the new creation is beyond modern. High-density-planted new trees are genetically designed to grow on these sandy soils. The drip system is computerized and injects precise amounts of fertilizers, while not wasting a drop of precious well water. An ancestral pond and its overflow basin have now shrunk to about an acre. The result is that the almond trees — not more than six months old — are growing so rapidly that they appear as if they were supernatural and in their second or third leaf. It is agribusiness development such as this that explains why California farmland is the most productive in the world.

Experts Wonder: Can We Make Cars Hacker-Proof?

Apparently this is a hard question. Let me provide an answer. If we're talking about 'hackers' in the computer-centric sense, as the article seems to be, yes, you can. Here are several examples of cars completely immune to computer hackers:

Ford Mustang, 1968

Dodge Charger R/T, 1970

Hot Rod Lincoln

By virtue of which, see here and here, and also below:

You know what else is hacker-proof? My motorcycles. Not a computer on the things anywhere.

So yeah, it can be done. The results look pretty good from where I sit.

The spirit of invention

These ideas don't have the grand potential of the micro-solar panel I wrote about over the weekend, but I think many of them are modestly brilliant, especially the the trainer wheels on the spike heels.  Stylish and practical!










This one is practical, too:

Akin's Fallacy

It may now be named after a likely-to-fail Senate nominee, but the error is not his alone.

But here's the thing: Akin didn't make this idea up. That women can't get pregnant when they're raped is a thing that some people actually believe. I stumbled across this several months ago while researching another story. It turns out to be an idea held and repeated by individuals who oppose abortion in any circumstance.

Not only them! I was taught a version of this as an undergraduate, in a class on Eastern (i.e., Asian) metaphysics. The professor was explaining the benefits of Kundalini meditation, one of which was allegedly that it allowed women to exert greater conscious control over their reproductive functions. This was something women could do anyway, he said, as in the example of women repelling pregnancy from rape; but with adequate meditation you could come to understand and order the flow of energy within your body, and use the same capacity simply as birth control.

I put this down as a highly unlikely claim. Still, it's not a surprising one. Fertility is one of the great mysteries of nature, and it is not at all surprising that there remain some magical ideas about it. It's a magical process, in the good sense of the term: it brings forth life and renewal. It's also a hidden process, in that the early stages of it happen out of sight and according to things we really don't consciously control. That's the kind of process where magical thinking is most likely to turn up.

So it's hard for me to blame someone for believing something like this, assuming he was -- as Akin said he was in his original remarks -- told it by doctors. Such doctors exist; the Mother Jones post just cited offers a link to "Physicians for Life," which makes the same claim. The claim isn't inexplicable, and it seems to be shared by certain pseudoscientific figures on both sides of the abortion debate (my professor was quite left-wing on reproduction issues: his whole point was that here was another wonderful way for women to take control of whether or not they got pregnant). It's important to get the facts right, and to disabuse people of claims that are demonstrably wrong: but if their reasons for holding the belief is understandable, it's not a demonstration of bad character that they happened to believe something that isn't really true.

On Traveling Dragons

Somewhere I came up with a postcard of this piece by Wendy Ellertson, although I haven't been to Boston in ages and I can't recall having seen her work when I was there.

I sent the card to Sovay with the following limerick:

Though traveling a tremendous distance,
Beware of a dragon's assistance.
He may keep his offer
Just as he did proffer --
But he may be seeking subsistence.

Chuck Schumer, Matchmaker

Come on, now, Dr. Althouse: this is surely the best thing we've ever read about the Honorable Chuck Schumer.

The man's only doing what his Jewish faith suggests to him is the most helpful thing he can do. What's wrong with that? What's wrong with an old man advising the young on how to achieve the greatest happiness that life offers, and helping them to find the path? The young find this thing very hard, even mystifying: goodness knows I did.

We've gone a long way from what makes sense if we get mad about something like this. Yes, Republicans who did it would be mistreated; but that doesn't change the fact that it is mistreatment, which those interested in justice ought to avoid rather than repeat. What does anyone look for at that age more than love? What should anyone look for more than true love? That the man has helped so many find it is a mark of an unsuspected virtue in one we more often encounter as a bare-knuckled political opponent.

Clang

Since we're talking about Kickstarter programs, here is one I particularly like. It won't revolutionize the world like maybe mini-solar panels could, but it might at least give people some renewed respect for their ancestors.



It's harder than it looks, you know. What you don't know is just how much harder!

The anti-Solyndra

"Kickstarter" is a website where inventors can try to raise money for projects.  I just plunked a little money down on two guys who have an idea for micro-solar panels that can be made locally with easily available materials and will last better than traditional solar panels.  More on them here in Popular Mechanics.  They also have an old idea for project involving membranes that vibrate in light winds and produce very small amounts of electricity without turbines.  Their focus is on wind and solar power that can be produced very cheaply for small households, using devices that can be repaired cheaply and locally:   Just the thing for the zombie apocalypse.

Send $10, and they'll have lunch on you.  Send $35, and eventually you'll receive a Solar Power Kit, though I'm afraid it may not arrive in time for putting it under the tree.  For $10,000, they'll come to your town and put on a big bash.

Just admit it . . .

. . . This makes you say "Awwwwww."  My husband, who has my number, forwards me this image, from Ace, I think.  Sort of a William Wegman* in a marshmallow key.  (*Thanks, Douglas.)

The Wylde Hunt

The use of the didgeriedoo in a Celtic composition may strike you as odd, unless you are aware that it moved into northern European roots music a decade or so ago. I think the first such group to incorporate it was Hedningarna ("The Heathens"). The primal sound of the instrument fits in well with their attempt generate an impression of something ancient.



So that's Celtic and Nordic. How about we round it out with a Saami singer? They turn up from time to time in the Norse sagas, a mysterious people from the uttermost north, possessed of strange magics.

On "Hate Groups" and the SPLC

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has a proud enough history that its current misbehavior needs to be condemned with some care. Even today, it still does good work a fair part of the time: for example, it was the SPLC that had tracked the White Supremacist who ended up attacking the Sikh temple in Wisconsin. When we see them doing something overboard, then, we want to condemn them just that far: not the whole organization or its mission, but just their particular overreach.

A Fair in Dingle

Ah, the autumn is coming. Have you had a taste of the fine air yet? And autumn means fairs.



It's coming, boys and ladies. Just bear the faith a little while longer.

Oh, Yeah, That Makes Sense

Mr. President defends his VP:

"Most folks know that's just sort of a WWF wrestling part of politics," Obama told "Entertainment Tonight." "It doesn't mean anything, just fills up a lot of airtime."

Oh, ok, no problem then. Except... if someone on the right had said anything like that, he'd be forced to resign whatever office he happened to hold. But that's just fair play in a wrestling match, and we accept the handicap because we're suckers.

I mean fair. We're just very fair about these things, considering the history and all.

Rest in Peace, Mr. Harrison

Harry Harrison wrote a number of good books, most of them more fun than serious, but good books all the same. My particular favorite of his works was The Stainless Steel Rat for President, a send-up not only of SciFi/Spy-novels, but also of politics in general. Esperanto never took off, but the Rat is forever.

Thanks for the good work, Mr. Harrison.

Expectations of privacy

In 2010, after James O'Keefe had taped his ACORN sting operation, one of his sorry victims sued him for invasion of privacy.  O'Keefe moved for summary judgment, which a federal judge in San Diego has just denied with this fascinating reasoning:

"ACORN is in the business of providing counseling and support for the community on various matters," Lorenz wrote.  "By its very nature, the organization handles personal matters with individual clients.  Defendants walked into ACORN and asked for plaintiff's help with tax forms.  . . .  Specifically, they solicited his help with setting up an illegal prostitution business with underaged girls.  . . .  Plaintiff, as a worker for an organization like ACORN, reasonably believed that the content of the conversation was sensitive enough that it would remain private." 

O'Keefe duped Vera by asking if the conversation would remain confidential, before he launched into details of the nonexistent scheme, Lorenz wrote. 

Over the course of a 40-minute conversation, Lorenz noted, the three "abruptly paused their conversation" after Vera's supervisor, David Lagstein, entered the office, and continued talking after the supervisor left. 

"Based on the surrounding circumstances, plaintiff reasonably believed that the conversation was private because it was held in his office with no one else present, and he believed that no one else was listening in on his conversation," Lorenz wrote.

Gun Control Report, by Congressional Research Service

Via Steven Aftergood of Secrecy News, it appears that the Congressional Research Service completed and published a report on Gun Control on 3 August of this year. The author is one William J. Krouse, who also authored a piece on hate crimes legislation in 2010.

The only serious problem is the very usual fact that CRS was not authorized to release this report to the public. The report itself is a good thing. Congressmen frequently make badly informed statements about firearms, and some framing of the debate with quality information is beneficial. CRS expects a debate in the next Congress on the subject, so it's trying to anticipate the need for facts. CRS is a good service, and tries to be nonpartisan. The report attempts to outline the basic arguments for and against gun control, and provides what it takes to be the best available statistics (which show, as you will see, a nearly continuous decline in gun violence, gun related deaths, and so forth in spite of an explosion of gun sales over the last twenty years).

There is a lot here that's worth reading if you intend to be involved in the debate that CRS expects the next Congress to have.

Youth Vote Swings Right?

It's a Zogby poll, so who knows if it's right, but it would make some sense. Youth unemployment has been horrid during this recession, while the trillion-plus dollar deficits will be coming out of the youth demographic's paychecks for years to come.

As the ad says, we understand. You wanted to believe. You tried. He tried. It didn't work. It's OK to make a change.