“At this stage we do not yet know why this terrible event occurred,” he said.It's too bad we can't identify a common theme between this and other organized cells that carry out bomb and gun attacks in major Western cities.
“It is possible that this was terrorist-related but we don’t know. it’s also possible that this was workplace related,” he continued.
Another Dead End
The President ponders the mystery of yesterday's attack.
Consciousness vs. "Fissiparous Seething"
A reasonably good summary of the problem that consciousness poses for our physical understanding of reality. It will be familiar to most of you, but it's worth going over again because it remains one of the more interesting problems.
Happier news
The Cameroon army frees 900 Boko Haram hostages, incidentally reducing the carbon footprint of a lot of Boko Haram members while they're at it.
Monsters
Well, the title certainly applies to the San Bernadino shooters, but in this particular case, it doesn't.
You may or may not be surprised to find that it in fact applies to me. Apparently, I am a "cold-hearted monster" "indifferent to loss of life". What could I have done to earn these appellation? I objected to the President's proposal to strip citizens of their Fifth Amendment rights to due process because they're on a "No Fly List". After asserting what it is that I object to (the arbitrary removal of civil rights on the say so of an unelected bureaucrat), I was told that I must come up with an alternative solution then. Otherwise I am... I am unsure... wrong? Bad? Irresponsible? It was never made clear to me. So I gave my response. "Nothing" would be a better solution than this. And to borrow from an old joke, "that's when the fight started".*
You may or may not be surprised to find that it in fact applies to me. Apparently, I am a "cold-hearted monster" "indifferent to loss of life". What could I have done to earn these appellation? I objected to the President's proposal to strip citizens of their Fifth Amendment rights to due process because they're on a "No Fly List". After asserting what it is that I object to (the arbitrary removal of civil rights on the say so of an unelected bureaucrat), I was told that I must come up with an alternative solution then. Otherwise I am... I am unsure... wrong? Bad? Irresponsible? It was never made clear to me. So I gave my response. "Nothing" would be a better solution than this. And to borrow from an old joke, "that's when the fight started".*
Pop Culture Metaphors Don't Work For Me
Oddly placed in an article on dark matter:
If dark matter were a pop star, WIMPs would be Beyoncé. “WIMPs are the canonical candidate,” says Manoj Kaplinghat, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Irvine.What on earth is that supposed to mean?
There. Will. Be. Polka!
To paraphrase Ace, or some moron over there, it's a spectacularly silly time to be alive.
Berdoo Is The Weirdest Thing I've Ever Seen
Initial reports are never right, but today was really strange. Who are these guys?
1) It seems clear that this was a semi-professional team of guys who knew how to work together, and who had either the capacity to make pipe bombs or connections who did. They carried out their plan and managed to exfil successfully before police could arrive. Yet hours later, they're still driving around in the same car, in the same kit, a mile and a half away?
2) The target doesn't make any obvious sense as a terrorist target, except that it was a soft target with lots of people.
It's like you had a team of guys who meticulously planned out how they'd carry out a major attack, but never got further in their planning than how they'd drive away from the scene within a given response time, leaving IEDs to cover their tracks. There was apparently no "then what?" considered. There were major freeways they could have taken, and if you've got three guys you surely have access to more than one car. They could have dumped the SUV and their kit, piled into a white sedan, and been in another state by the time the police caught up to the first vehicle.
Wannabe martyrs? One of whom lost his nerve and fled on foot when the final firefight arrived? But then why bother with the exfil? You could have stayed and killed a few more people, and become martyrs where you were. The police were coming.
It's like they had everything mapped out until a minute after they drove away, and then suddenly realized they had no idea what came next (and no imagination between them that would let them plan up something better than 'drive around the neighborhood in the getaway car').
The one thing that might make sense is if they had been trained by professionals who considered them disposable. They were taught how to do the part they did right, and then... what now?
Or maybe they're just yahoos who thought this out carefully on their own, and weren't bright enough to think beyond it.
Otherwise, conflicting details in all the reports make it hard to know what to think so far.
1) It seems clear that this was a semi-professional team of guys who knew how to work together, and who had either the capacity to make pipe bombs or connections who did. They carried out their plan and managed to exfil successfully before police could arrive. Yet hours later, they're still driving around in the same car, in the same kit, a mile and a half away?
2) The target doesn't make any obvious sense as a terrorist target, except that it was a soft target with lots of people.
It's like you had a team of guys who meticulously planned out how they'd carry out a major attack, but never got further in their planning than how they'd drive away from the scene within a given response time, leaving IEDs to cover their tracks. There was apparently no "then what?" considered. There were major freeways they could have taken, and if you've got three guys you surely have access to more than one car. They could have dumped the SUV and their kit, piled into a white sedan, and been in another state by the time the police caught up to the first vehicle.
Wannabe martyrs? One of whom lost his nerve and fled on foot when the final firefight arrived? But then why bother with the exfil? You could have stayed and killed a few more people, and become martyrs where you were. The police were coming.
It's like they had everything mapped out until a minute after they drove away, and then suddenly realized they had no idea what came next (and no imagination between them that would let them plan up something better than 'drive around the neighborhood in the getaway car').
The one thing that might make sense is if they had been trained by professionals who considered them disposable. They were taught how to do the part they did right, and then... what now?
Or maybe they're just yahoos who thought this out carefully on their own, and weren't bright enough to think beyond it.
Otherwise, conflicting details in all the reports make it hard to know what to think so far.
Final IAEA Report on Iran's Nuclear Weapons Program Released
Two weeks early, too. Iran definitely had one, it lasted formally until 2003, informally continued after, and the IAEA has gotten chiefly stonewalling and obfuscation from Iran about its program since then. Iran's written answers promised under the "road map" in July were so ambiguous that the IAEA provided a list of follow up questions and held a number of technical meetings to try to get answers, but the report rather suspiciously says absolutely nothing about whether any answers were forthcoming.
Too bad we'll all be having another round of talk about how important it is to strip Americans of their weapons today instead. This will probably slide into the ether almost unnoticed.
Too bad we'll all be having another round of talk about how important it is to strip Americans of their weapons today instead. This will probably slide into the ether almost unnoticed.
Quiz: Opening Lines of Medieval Literature
Without making any use to any reference materials whatsoever, including of course search engines, I managed 9 of 10. Oddly enough, I'd read the one I missed many times -- Erec en Enide -- but somehow failed to remember the opening.
Dissent Magazine: "Beyond the Wage System"
A call for a universal basic income to address the exploitative nature of work, "under-work," "over-work," and non-work.
The author "teaches in the Women’s Studies Program at Duke University. She studies feminist theory, political theory, the critical study of work, and utopian thought."
By coincidence, I also ran across this image from an anarchist cartoonist that seems to capture the argument surprisingly well:
The author "teaches in the Women’s Studies Program at Duke University. She studies feminist theory, political theory, the critical study of work, and utopian thought."
By coincidence, I also ran across this image from an anarchist cartoonist that seems to capture the argument surprisingly well:
The American People Are Uniquely Bad
Asked about the "mass shooting" where a nut job shot three people at a Colorado abortion clinic, President Obama once again became exasperated with the American people.The author thinks it might be part of a case for his removal from office -- not by impeachment, but for cause of mental impairment according to the 25th Amendment. That of course is merely a rhetorical flourish: the 25th Amendment requires members of his cabinet or the President himself to admit that he cannot perform the functions, and the action can be undone simply by the President sending a letter to the effect that "no such disability exists" unless the Vice President anda majority of executive branch heads insist that he is not able. It was very carefully balanced so as not to be an extra tool for Congress to use against a President it didn't like.
"I say this every time we've got one of these mass shootings: This just doesn't happen in other countries."
He actually said this. In Paris.
Still it is a strange thing to have said, in Paris.
UPDATE: The Washington Post fact-checks the statement.
Is his statement true?
In one sense, the answer would be “yes.” President Obama’s statement was in the form of: “Every time X happens, I say Y.”
The Fruits of Gun Control Talk
This is probably a great time to invest in gun manufacturing stocks, given that the President claims it'll be a major focus of his final year in office. Congratulations to those who already do own such stocks: you'll probably be getting a nice dividend.
Please Refrain From Shooting Your Cab Driver
The fact that your cab driver is a Muslim does not justify the practice. If he took you where you wanted to go without heavily padding the fee by ferrying you along the "scenic route," you should tip him instead.
Unless your cab driver should try to kill you, kidnap you at gunpoint, or something similar, shooting them is always inappropriate.
Unless your cab driver should try to kill you, kidnap you at gunpoint, or something similar, shooting them is always inappropriate.
You Know What Doesn't Matter to Children? Parents.
A rather bold thesis! Let's look at the evidence.
Well, and his peer group: it turns out that the 'socialization' that really matters is the kind of kids he runs with. "As Harris notes, parents are not to blame for their children’s neuroses (beyond the genes they contribute to the manufacturing of that child), nor can they take much credit for their successful psychological adjustment."
Psychoanalysts hardest hit.
In terms of compelling evidence, let’s start with a study published recently in the prestigious journal Nature Genetics.1 Tinca Polderman and colleagues just completed the Herculean task of reviewing nearly all twin studies published by behavior geneticists over the past 50 years....So, good news for those of you who are parents: Junior is a rat because of your rotten genetics, not because of your moral failings.
Before progressing, I should note that behavioral geneticists make a finer grain distinction than most about the environment, subdividing it into shared and non-shared components.1,2,3,4 Not much is really complicated about this. The shared environment makes children raised together similar to each other.3 The term encompasses the typical parenting effects that we normally envision when we think about environmental variables. Non-shared influences capture the unique experiences of siblings raised in the same home; they make siblings different from one another. Another way of thinking about non-shared environments is that they represent the parts of your life story that are unique from the rest of your family. Importantly, this also includes all of the randomness and pure happenstance that life tends to hurl in our direction from time to time. Returning to the review of twin research, the shared environment just didn’t matter all that much (that’s on average, of course, for some traits it mattered more than others). The non-shared environment mattered consistently.
The pattern of findings mentioned above is nothing new.1,2,3,4,5 The importance of genetics and the non-shared environment (and the relatively minor importance of the shared environment) was already so entrenched in behavior genetics that years before the Polderman study was published it had been enshrined as a set of “laws.”2 The BG laws, though, are based largely (but certainly not completely) on twin studies, the meta-analysis by Polderman et al. was comprised of twin studies, and if you pay attention to this sort of thing you’ve probably heard some nasty things about twin studies lately.3 You’ve read that twin studies contain an insidious flaw that causes them to underestimate shared environmental effects (making it seem like parents matter less than they do). The assumptions of twin research, however, have been meticulously studied. The methods of twin researchers have been around for decades and have been challenged, critiqued, refined, adjusted, and (perhaps most importantly) cross validated with other techniques that rely on different assumptions entirely.3,4 They work, and they work with impressive precision.
Based on the results of classical twin studies, it just doesn’t appear that parenting—whether mom and dad are permissive or not, read to their kid or not, or whatever else—impacts development as much as we might like to think. Regarding the cross-validation that I mentioned, studies examining identical twins separated at birth and reared apart have repeatedly revealed (in shocking ways) the same thing: these individuals are remarkably similar when in fact they should be utterly different (they have completely different environments, but the same genes).3
Well, and his peer group: it turns out that the 'socialization' that really matters is the kind of kids he runs with. "As Harris notes, parents are not to blame for their children’s neuroses (beyond the genes they contribute to the manufacturing of that child), nor can they take much credit for their successful psychological adjustment."
Psychoanalysts hardest hit.
Oh, It's Even Worse Than That
Michael Ledeen writes on the Iran deal:
Guess which one?
I dare say very few people realize there is no formal deal. Countless journalists refer to something that was “signed” or “inked” in Vienna, even though no such thing took place. A handful of careful writers, notably Yigal Carmon and Amir Taheri have gotten it right, and last week the State Department admitted that nobody has signed The Deal and it is not legally binding on anybody.Oh, it's been signed by one person. Thus, it's legally binding on one country.
As I wrote in July, Iran has promised to be on good behavior, and we have promised to pay for it. We are indeed paying, as we have for more than two years ($700 million per month), and the Iranians, as is their wont, have done their worst to spread terror and jihadism all over the world, from the Middle East to Asia, Africa and South America.
Such a deal! Carmon thinks Obama will have to admit failure, and return to the negotiating table. As I predicted…
Guess which one?
I'm Big on Metaphors
Sounds like you're suggesting unions for grad students. Which, frankly, isn't that insane given the tremendous abuses they are suffering under currently: for below-poverty-line pay, you teach most of the courses the university offers. As Federal student loans vastly enrich university budgets, and as the teaching is the real value the university provides, that's the kind of imbalance that leads to people thinking that a union might not be a bad idea. Solidarity, baby! Popcorn!
Grim's Law of Wrench-Turning and Social Media
When looking for practical advice on how to repair mechanical problems with your ride, remember: YouTube is invaluable, Google is helpful, and Facebook is evil.
Don't forget to mix sugar into your gasoline to make sure it doesn't get too thin in the dry winter weather, and be sure to let all the summer air out of your tires and refill them with winter air so they don't burst in the cold.
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