I will be gone for a few days, perhaps a week.
This should be interesting
Several House members have just filed a resolution to direct the sergeant-at-arms to arrest Lois Lerner for contempt of Congress.
The Coolest
I like Kickstarter. This guy is raising money for a cooler with a built-in blender, handheld device recharger, music system, and lot of other gizmos.
Battle of Northampton
Today marks the anniversary of the Battle of Northampton in the Wars of the Roses. This battle was a significant York victory, resulting in the capture of King Henry VI. Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, led the forces that captured Henry on this day. Warwick would five years later join with Henry's wife -- Queen Margret -- in restoring the king to the throne.
On a related subject, I came across a book by Christina Hardyment titled Malory: The Knight Who Became Arthur's Chronicler. Sir Thomas Malory, in addition to writing Le Morte Darthur, was a partisan of Warwick's during the wars.
Ms. Hardyment has compiled a substantial book! My sense of the historians' opinions has always been that not much could be said for certain about Sir Thomas Malory, not even exactly who he was. This book undertakes to prove that reading quite false. I had thought Ms. Hardyment must be a professional historian given her careful readings especially of English medieval law, but she seems not to be. She has a degree in history but not a doctorate, and is a journalist rather than a practicing historian.
Well done, ma'am.
On a related subject, I came across a book by Christina Hardyment titled Malory: The Knight Who Became Arthur's Chronicler. Sir Thomas Malory, in addition to writing Le Morte Darthur, was a partisan of Warwick's during the wars.
Ms. Hardyment has compiled a substantial book! My sense of the historians' opinions has always been that not much could be said for certain about Sir Thomas Malory, not even exactly who he was. This book undertakes to prove that reading quite false. I had thought Ms. Hardyment must be a professional historian given her careful readings especially of English medieval law, but she seems not to be. She has a degree in history but not a doctorate, and is a journalist rather than a practicing historian.
Well done, ma'am.
Border spending
Does the President think "border security" means letting everyone over the border and then finding the money to feed, house, and transport them to other locations within the U.S.? No wonder he'll have trouble getting a few more billion dollars.
(1) Wide-open borders.
(2) Welfare state.
Pick one.
(1) Wide-open borders.
(2) Welfare state.
Pick one.
Catholicism and capitalism
From a 1999 article by Michael Novak, dredged up by AEI in a retrospective of Wall Street Journal pieces on its 125th birthday:
The people of the high Middle Ages (1100-1300) were agog with wonder at great mechanical clocks, new forms of gears for windmills and water mills, improvements in wagons and carts, shoulder harnesses for beasts of burden, the ocean-going ship rudder, eyeglasses and magnifying glasses, iron smelting and ironwork, stone cutting and new architectural principles. So many new types of machines were invented and put to use by 1300 that historian Jean Gimpel wrote a book in 1976 called "The Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages."
Without the growth of capitalism, however, such technological discoveries would have been idle novelties. They would seldom have been put in the hands of ordinary human beings through swift and easy exchange. They would not have been studied and rapidly copied and improved by eager competitors. All this was made possible by freedom for enterprise, markets and competition -- and that in turn was provided by the Catholic Church.
The church owned nearly a third of all the land of Europe. To administer those vast holdings, it established a continentwide system of canon law that tied together multiple jurisdictions of empire, nation, barony, bishopric, religious order, chartered city, guild, confraternity, merchants, entrepreneurs, traders, etc. It also provided local and regional administrative bureaucracies of arbitrators, jurists, negotiators and judges, along with an international language, "canon law Latin."
Even the new emphasis on clerical celibacy played an important capitalist role. Its clean separation between office and person in the church broke the traditional tie between family and property that had been fostered by feudalism and its carefully plotted marriages. It also provided Europe with an extraordinarily highly motivated, literate, specialized and mobile labor force.
The Cistercians, who eschewed the aristocratic and sedentary ways of the Benedictines and consequently broke farther away from feudalism, became famous as entrepreneurs. They mastered rational cost accounting, plowed all profits back into new ventures, and moved capital around from one venue to another, cutting losses where necessary, and pursuing new opportunities when feasible. They dominated iron production in central France and wool production (for export) in England. They were cheerful and energetic. "They had," Mr. Collins writes, "the Protestant ethic without Protestantism."
Eric Blair Is Holding Out On Us
This is your home state, is it not?
According to the criminal complaint, Chad Workman told police that Tyson took out a sword in a bamboo case....Well, that's what George Silver said.
Workman grabbed some nearby barbecue equipment – a grill brush/spatula that he used to defend himself.
“I’m thinking, what am I going to do?” he said. “The only thing I grabbed is a spatula.”
Tyson allegedly took the sword out of its case and struck Chad Workman.
Workman says he had to get a dozen stitches and was beaten pretty badly. However, he said he had one shot and he took it.
“Once across the head,” Workman said. “That’s all it took.”
He says God brought him through and in this case, the brush is mightier than the sword.
Set two unskillful men together at the rapier and dagger, being valiant, and you shall see, that once in two bouts there shall either one or both of them be hurt. Then set two skillful men together, being valiant at the rapier and dagger, and they shall do the like. Then set a skillful rapier and dagger man, the best that can be had, and valiant man having no skill together at rapier & dagger, and once in two bouts upon my credit in all the experience I have in fight, the unskillful man, do the other what he can for his life for the contrary, shall hurt him, and most commonly if it were in continuance of fight, you shall see the unskillful man to have the advantage. And if I should choose a valiant man for service of the prince, or to take part with me or any friend of mine in a good quarrel, I would chose the unskillful man, because unencumbered with false fights, because such a man stands free in his valor with strength and agility of body, freely takes the benefit of nature, fights most brave, by loosing no opportunity, either soundly to hurt his enemy, or defend himself.Sometimes you can get too fancy. Always bet on the man with the scars on his knuckles, even if he's armed with a barbecue brush.
Dying Ideas
A host of scholars and scientists discuss their favorite candidate for a (usually scientific) theory that should be abandoned. Some of them are ideas we talk about here from time to time.
Opacity and unaccountability
When a charitable organization starts talking about trade secrets, it may be time to find another charity to support. The Red Cross has begun to pick up the depressing habits of governments. I wonder whether it's possible for any useful charity work to get done by a very large organization. The advantages of scale and coordination may simply be swamped by the evils of arrogance and disconnection.
Oil boom
Texas and North Dakota now produce nearly half of all the oil in the United States, and would rank number five worldwide if they were a single country. Guess who would shut down all this production if he could possibly figure out how. One reason he can't figure out how is that none of it is happening on federal land, which is a good reason to think carefully about how much federal land there is.
CDRUSSOUTHCOM on Border Security
Marine Corps General John Kelly leads the combatant command tasked with providing military resources -- among other missions -- to border security along our southern border. He addressed Congress to complain, and to warn.
One might wonder if the Republicans in Congress really oppose mass immigration at all, given their frequent and repeated noises about amnesty; whereas there is no reason to doubt that the President has political reasons to favor the idea. In any case, their intense opposition is one of the most effective political strategies possible for preventing an effective response.
“In comparison to other global threats, the near collapse of societies in the hemisphere with the associated drug and [undocumented immigrant] flow are frequently viewed to be of low importance,” Kelly told Defense One. “Many argue these threats are not existential and do not challenge our national security. I disagree.”Who's to blame? Well...
...
Kelly said that budgets cuts are “severely degrading” the military’s ability to defend southern approaches to the U.S border. Last year, he said, his task force was unable to act on nearly 75 percent of illicit trafficking events.
The Democratic coalition wants increased funding and resources for SOUTHCOM and the State Department’s Central American Regional Security Initiative. For fiscal 2015, the Obama administration requested $130 million for the program, which covers seven countries, but that ask is a decrease of $30 million from the current year, the senators noted. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson has said an additional $161.5 million will be provided for CARSI programs to “respond to the region’s most pressing security and governance challenges” – but the administration has made no mention of additional resources for the U.S. military....Some of the problem is the usual problem: an inability to agree on what policies are right, especially in terms of admitting massive numbers of new immigrants (or waving away the fact that millions and millions are already here). The administration wants to increase foreign aid to the failing states as a mechanism for helping resolve the crisis; the Republicans in Congress want to eliminate that aid as a forcing mechanism to drive foreign action. The administration here as elsewhere has a preference for civilian resources, such as police and State department aid programs, over military action. The Republican response, to secure the border with National Guard forces while eliminating this foreign aid, is 100% opposed to the President's preferred strategy.
Many Republicans who have effectively blocked reform efforts blame Obama, saying his “amnesty” immigration policies have incentivized the mass migration from Central America. In a letter dated June 20, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, called on the president to send the National Guard to the border. On Monday, freshman Rep. Randy Weber, R-Texas, introduced legislation to stop all aid to Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
One might wonder if the Republicans in Congress really oppose mass immigration at all, given their frequent and repeated noises about amnesty; whereas there is no reason to doubt that the President has political reasons to favor the idea. In any case, their intense opposition is one of the most effective political strategies possible for preventing an effective response.
Beer music
Apropos of Grim's interest in beer, I wonder if these guys are available to perform at wedding receptions? (Don't worry: despite the name of the site, it's all SFW.)
H/t my neighbors.
H/t my neighbors.
Virtue and Opinion
An inchoate thought of mine, which I am throwing out for discussion.
A recurring theme in some of Cassandra's posts and arguments -- and a healthy thing to examine, whether or not she's right in each particular case -- is conservatives and libertarians falling into the same argumentative vices as their leftist opponents. It's comforting to think the other fellows are less honest, so that "the evidence of [the right side] is to be accepted against [the wrong side] in every case." But, as she's right to watch for, people sharing the true, correct opinions can and do fall into the same intellectual vices as those who oppose them.
Knowing that leaves me no less convinced that my opinions are true and correct (that's what having opinions means), but...I haven't seen strong evidence that people holding one opinion are more virtuous than people holding another, or that I can tell who's a better neighbor by what his ideology is.
(This is a moral problem I have with some world religions, incidentally, since they doom your soul based on your opinions...about whether God exists, for example, or how many of him there are. But that is another story.)
Experience and pop-psychology books convince me that it isn't really right to think of a human mind as a unified whole, with a single "virtue" statistic, but more like a set of subroutines that run simultaneously and don't always cohere. People don't think their way into being virtuous, at least most of them don't ("high-functioning sociopaths" may be an exception) and I don't see why evolution would select for logical consistency. And so perhaps it isn't surprising that a lawyer who'd go to the wall for his clients, or a soldier who'd fall on a grenade for his countrymen, can be an absolute beast to his wife. Broadly speaking it's about being concerned toward your fellowman...but it's unevenly applied. Likewise I can't help but admire a sincere patriot...but if you've served, or even if you haven't, I bet you've known a few who were "decency challenged."
Now, what's interesting to me is this -- can our experiences test the idea, about whether ideas relate to virtue? You know that Phineas Gage had much of his morality torn out by a piece of iron (though per that link, he was able to grow it back; a message of hope too often ignored). A base where I used to work went joint...so that the Air Force took over basic police functions while I was there...and one of them told me how surprised he was at how many domestic violence reports he got from the Warrior Transition Unit. I wasn't very surprised....without going too far, I had to deal with TBI soldiers on occasion, and some of them (and only some of them) really did seem to have their self-control and related virtues shaken a little loose.
None of the articles I've read about Phineas Gage relate whether his political views, his religion, or his ideology changed at all. And the nature of my duties -- and the way I prefer to conduct them -- is such that I almost never learned a soldier's ideology. I have a notion, which I can't prove, that none of these fellows took a sharp turn Left or Right, or High Church or Pentecostal, when they lost some brain functioning and some moral restraint with it...but I was wondering whether anyone here has knowledge, or experience, or thoughts, suggesting a link?
(I have one relative who made an enormous "moral leap upward" when she got religion, and her political views changed at the same time, but I think her changed opinions came as a package deal with the religious experience rather than a result of being more virtuous per se.)
A recurring theme in some of Cassandra's posts and arguments -- and a healthy thing to examine, whether or not she's right in each particular case -- is conservatives and libertarians falling into the same argumentative vices as their leftist opponents. It's comforting to think the other fellows are less honest, so that "the evidence of [the right side] is to be accepted against [the wrong side] in every case." But, as she's right to watch for, people sharing the true, correct opinions can and do fall into the same intellectual vices as those who oppose them.
Knowing that leaves me no less convinced that my opinions are true and correct (that's what having opinions means), but...I haven't seen strong evidence that people holding one opinion are more virtuous than people holding another, or that I can tell who's a better neighbor by what his ideology is.
(This is a moral problem I have with some world religions, incidentally, since they doom your soul based on your opinions...about whether God exists, for example, or how many of him there are. But that is another story.)
Experience and pop-psychology books convince me that it isn't really right to think of a human mind as a unified whole, with a single "virtue" statistic, but more like a set of subroutines that run simultaneously and don't always cohere. People don't think their way into being virtuous, at least most of them don't ("high-functioning sociopaths" may be an exception) and I don't see why evolution would select for logical consistency. And so perhaps it isn't surprising that a lawyer who'd go to the wall for his clients, or a soldier who'd fall on a grenade for his countrymen, can be an absolute beast to his wife. Broadly speaking it's about being concerned toward your fellowman...but it's unevenly applied. Likewise I can't help but admire a sincere patriot...but if you've served, or even if you haven't, I bet you've known a few who were "decency challenged."
Now, what's interesting to me is this -- can our experiences test the idea, about whether ideas relate to virtue? You know that Phineas Gage had much of his morality torn out by a piece of iron (though per that link, he was able to grow it back; a message of hope too often ignored). A base where I used to work went joint...so that the Air Force took over basic police functions while I was there...and one of them told me how surprised he was at how many domestic violence reports he got from the Warrior Transition Unit. I wasn't very surprised....without going too far, I had to deal with TBI soldiers on occasion, and some of them (and only some of them) really did seem to have their self-control and related virtues shaken a little loose.
None of the articles I've read about Phineas Gage relate whether his political views, his religion, or his ideology changed at all. And the nature of my duties -- and the way I prefer to conduct them -- is such that I almost never learned a soldier's ideology. I have a notion, which I can't prove, that none of these fellows took a sharp turn Left or Right, or High Church or Pentecostal, when they lost some brain functioning and some moral restraint with it...but I was wondering whether anyone here has knowledge, or experience, or thoughts, suggesting a link?
(I have one relative who made an enormous "moral leap upward" when she got religion, and her political views changed at the same time, but I think her changed opinions came as a package deal with the religious experience rather than a result of being more virtuous per se.)
The difficulty of testing cognition
With all the fuss lately about high-stakes testing and the seeming inability to make judgments of any kind about whether schools are worth the price of admission, I found this study of age-related cognition decline interesting. The blog is entitled "The Importance of Being Wrong," apparently in honor of the author's interest in the process of learning not only by association but by elimination. (In other words, why a really effective dog trainer--not me--not only rewards the right action but, perhaps even more important, never fails to discourage the wrong one, even when tired or bored.)
The linked post focuses on tests designed to discover whether the ability to recall words alters with age. The author makes an interesting case that there is a stronger association of poor performance with the size of the sample than with age. Among the possible explanations are the greater difficulty of excluding specific cognitive diseases from a large sample, or the greater difficulty of ensuring consistent evaluation techniques with a larger research staff. It's also possible that older research subjects are more anxious being tested by youngsters, or in a university setting, than are younger subjects.
It's a tricky process, determining whether cognitive declines exist and, if so, what causes. Nevertheless, though testing is fraught with challenges, I remain skeptical that it should be all that hard to get a rough idea whether a group of youngsters is noticeably less ignorant and untrained after a year of publicly funded instruction than before, though I suppose it can be quite tricky to compare two such sets of youngsters, taught by different people or methods, and obtain any certainty about which techniques were more effective.
Another post by the same author explores the difficulty in teaching children to recognize color apart from the objects conventionally associated with it. Very young children may know that bananas are yellow and apples are red without gaining much skill in assigning colors to neutral objects in the laboratory. I thought that was interesting in light of our discussion a few weeks ago about the oddly indeterminate use of color in Homer, and the differences in color language across cultures. Anyone who's ever tried to paint in color knows how surprisingly hard it is to choose a color from a palette that will genuinely recreate the impression of a colored object in the real world. It's not necessarily a natural skill to tell what combinations of frequencies correspond to what we carelessly call "red" or "blue" in various objects.
The linked post focuses on tests designed to discover whether the ability to recall words alters with age. The author makes an interesting case that there is a stronger association of poor performance with the size of the sample than with age. Among the possible explanations are the greater difficulty of excluding specific cognitive diseases from a large sample, or the greater difficulty of ensuring consistent evaluation techniques with a larger research staff. It's also possible that older research subjects are more anxious being tested by youngsters, or in a university setting, than are younger subjects.
It's a tricky process, determining whether cognitive declines exist and, if so, what causes. Nevertheless, though testing is fraught with challenges, I remain skeptical that it should be all that hard to get a rough idea whether a group of youngsters is noticeably less ignorant and untrained after a year of publicly funded instruction than before, though I suppose it can be quite tricky to compare two such sets of youngsters, taught by different people or methods, and obtain any certainty about which techniques were more effective.
Another post by the same author explores the difficulty in teaching children to recognize color apart from the objects conventionally associated with it. Very young children may know that bananas are yellow and apples are red without gaining much skill in assigning colors to neutral objects in the laboratory. I thought that was interesting in light of our discussion a few weeks ago about the oddly indeterminate use of color in Homer, and the differences in color language across cultures. Anyone who's ever tried to paint in color knows how surprisingly hard it is to choose a color from a palette that will genuinely recreate the impression of a colored object in the real world. It's not necessarily a natural skill to tell what combinations of frequencies correspond to what we carelessly call "red" or "blue" in various objects.
Contracting Movement
On January 29th of this year, the federal government posted an advertisement seeking bids for a vendor contract to handle “Unaccompanied Alien Children“.The contract posting is listed at the General Services Administration's contract website, FBO.gov, and looks legitimate. The claim that 5,000 was the previous maximal total, however, looks to be false, if we judge from this UNHCR report. The figure hasn't been that low since 2011; it doubled in 2012 and doubled again in 2013. So a 65,000 estimate is assuming a rate of increase that falls rather than continues steady. If the UN report is right, all the states bordering Mexico are seeing such immigration attempts up by about 400%.
Not just any contract mind you, but a very specific contract – for a very specific number of unaccompanied minors: 65,000.
• Why would DHS and ICE be claiming “surprise” by the current influx of unaccompanied minors on the border in June, when they were taking bids for an exact contract to handle the exact situation in January?
• Secondly, how could they possibly anticipate 65,000 unaccompanied minors would be showing up at the border, when the most ever encountered in a previous year was 5,000 total ?
So DHS is guilty of good planning, I guess.
Gene Hackman on Independence Day
My other favorite cowboy sentiment on the holiday:
In honor of which, today's beer is one I haven't tried before. It's from a company tagged "Lonerider: Ales for Outlaws."
I'll let you know how they turn out.
In honor of which, today's beer is one I haven't tried before. It's from a company tagged "Lonerider: Ales for Outlaws."
I'll let you know how they turn out.
John Wayne on America
It's an interesting list of reasons, and easy to support: one of the crowning glories of America is the freedom to move at will across this beautiful continent, on vast highways or country blacktops, on the rails or in the air. Political systems aside, the thing itself is beautiful, and lovable, as is the freedom to go out and see it.
Happy Birthday, Revolutionaries.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)