Nordic Christmas Customs

Some of these far-Northern traditions may help you get into the spirit at a time when the weather outside feels more like Spring than Winter.

Also, some of you may want to give socks for Christmas.

The keeper of the ultimate naughty list, Grýla is an Icelandic giantess who comes down from her mountain at Christmastime to eat misbehaving children. Her pet, the Christmas Cat, tags along and eats anyone who didn't get new clothes for Christmas, a tradition that probably makes Icelandic children a lot more grateful for those socks from grandma.

That's right, you little punks. You'll take those socks and smile.

How To Turn A "Straight News" Story Into An Editorial

Everybody does it, but I've never seen it done harder than ABC TV News does it here.

Here's the lede from the print version of the story:

A majority of Americans oppose banning assault weapons for the first time in more than 20 years of ABC News/Washington Post polls, with the public expressing vast doubt that the authorities can prevent “lone wolf” terrorist attacks and a substantial sense that armed citizens can help.

So, the actual news is that a second poll now finds a majority opposed to an assault weapons ban for the first time since that scary term was invented out of whole cloth to sell gun control. The President has already moved on to calling these things "battlefield weapons," which they are not: the kind you take to the battlefield are automatic. But the shift in rhetoric is unlikely to be persuasive given that most Americans now doubt the government's competence to protect them from terrorist attacks of this kind. They're right, of course, to doubt it. The government can't possibly stop these sorts of attacks reliably. Even if they assume vast new surveillance powers and police powers, they just won't be everywhere all the time. The only institution that could possibly stop lone wolf attacks reliably is the militia, in the original sense of the ordinary people of the country armed for the defense of themselves as well as the common peace and lawful order. They're the only ones who will always be wherever the terrorist may pick to attack.

So, as a news story, this story is empirically opposed to the President's narrative and agenda.

Now, if you're inclined, watch the television version of the story at the link. Let us count the ways in which it bends this story into the approved form:

1) It opens with a "troubling headline" about a local news story in Albuquerque, which would normally never make national news, but which is elevated just so that ABC can link the shooting to the news story via a 'this comes at the same time as...' move.

2) The news story is built not around the poll, but around demonstrations in favor of the Second Amendment. These are described as having been organized "to push back against the President's campaign to rein in gun violence." That's right -- they're demonstrating in favor of gun violence! What they want is for gun violence to be unrestrained!

3) We still don't get the poll. First, an additional introductory feature about some accidental shootings, complete with footage of a bloody ambulance bed being moved to a hospital. We're now halfway into the story, and all we've heard is that people organized at rallies, shot each other accidentally, and "oppose the President's plans." Why? A man is allowed to explain just after the halfway point: he says that if you tell Americans they can't have something, they'll want it. So, really nothing more than childish defiance is at work -- no Constitutional principles, no concerns about government competence, no terrorism, just a kind of fit that Daddy won't let them have candy.

4) Now we get a segment about how the President is moved by the shootings at Sandy Hook. It runs for 1/6th of the length of the news story, and shows the President somber, hurt, and speaking "almost daily" about the need to "protect our children."

5) We are now 1:21 into a 2:00 story. The poll comes up: "The public agrees with the President on some of his proposals..."

6) We get specific numbers on those proposals the public agrees with.

7) "But a ban on assault weapons looks unlikely..." -- because the poll shows that public opposes it? No! "...as Republicans push back."

8) Ted Cruz is allowed literally half of a sentence in defense of whatever these "Republican" ideas might be.

9) Twenty seconds left! "The White House admits not all Democrats are on board." Do we hear from a Democrat explaining why? Of course not! No, we hear from a White House dude explaining that "We're going to twist the arms" of Democrats to get them on board.

10) They close without ever giving the numbers opposing assault weapons, never mentioning the doubts about government competence to stop attacks, and never allowing anyone to give any part of the countervailing principled arguments, nor the empirical ones either. Instead, they close with a pledge from the White House and its supporters to have a "fifty-state strategy" to get new gun control through Congress.

Television rots the brain. Sometimes, it's by design.

In December?

Someone missed the first line of The Canterbury Tales...

A former physics teacher is recreating a 700-year-old pilgrim's journey using only medieval clothing and equipment. Steven Payne, 52, set off from Southampton's Mayflower Park to Canterbury on foot with a letter of approval from the Pope. The two-week journey means he will be spending Christmas Day sleeping with just a woollen cloak for protection and a venison pie from a medieval recipe.... The clothing is based on items on a body found in peat in Scandinavia.... The pilgrim is taking medieval-style food with him, with the modern addition of a mince pie....

Mr Payne is not taking a tent and will sleep in fields under his wool cloak or in structures which would have been built in 1365. If he experiences any resistance for sleeping in churches or chapels he said he would produce the letters from either the Bishop of Portsmouth or the Pope.

Feel that Bern! No, really... feel it.

So according to the Berniementum blog (yes, that's what they chose as their name), we're all about to get to eat some crow.  Because OMG TOTALLY YU GAIZ, Bernie totally has a plan to pay for all his rainbows and unicorns!  And just wait till you hear it!

No kidding

Even Slate magazine is starting to notice the Obamacare failure.  This year's bad news, besides the failure of the non-profit coops and the news that many of them aren't even guaranteed, which is bad enough, is that PPOs are disappearing from the market.  The Slate article concentrates on New York, but the same thing is happening in Texas.  We're stuck in an HMO for 2016, which barely feels like coverage to me, considering that the time we're really going to want to depend on insurance is when we face something really scary, and that is exactly when I don't relish being confined to a puny network.  But we've also applied to one of those non-insurance healthcare cost-sharing organizations, so we'll see how that goes.

Moon Letters

In the Black Book of Carmarthen.

The explanation is easier: the writing is on vellum, which was often 'erased' by being scraped and then written over. It turns out that, with UV light, we can see the old letters and read them.

Prison 2016 Update

The intelligence community punches back at State's claims that Hillary Clinton's emails weren't TOP SECRET. Yes, they were, the IC says -- and one of them still is.

Since the emails originally were classified by the IC and not State, Secretary Clinton's original classification authority won't be available as a defense. She should have obeyed procedures according to the original classification authority who issued the classification, not treated these letters as not-so-secret even if she disagreed with their decision.

In fact, it doesn't look like she disagreed -- she just didn't care enough to obey the law when something else was more convenient.

Meanwhile, two Senators have written to Secretary Kerry and Director Clapper to ask, 'Hey, who leaked that State objected to the classification level to the press?' That kind of thing could give voters the impression that the charges weren't so serious -- not that John Kerry would put politics above national security.

UPDATE: 2016 as the year of justice long delayed? Bergdahl to face General Court Martial as commanding general sets aside recommendations.

These cases are alike in that the President is personally involved in trying to shade the rule of law for political reasons. It may be that some of those oath-bound to see justice done are growing tired of it.

50 Years Since

This article in the Jewish journal Tablet is titled "Vatican II at 50," but it is really about one subset: "a brief 'Declaration on the Relation of the Church to non-Christian Religions' titled 'Nostra Aetate,' whose fourth section deals with Judaism." It is a scholarly take on the reaction of different parts of the Jewish and Christian worlds to that document, which took several steps to formalize an understanding of how the Church related to Jews that would lead to tolerance and acceptance, and perhaps in time even friendship.

It caught my eye because I had just seen yesterday a statement from a collection of Orthodox Jewish rabbis that was framed as a reply, fifty years on.

“As did Maimonides and Yehudah Halevi, we acknowledge that Christianity is neither an accident nor an error, but the willed divine outcome and gift to the nations,” the rabbis said in their statement. “In separating Judaism and Christianity, G-d willed a separation between partners with significant theological differences, not a separation between enemies.”

“Both Jews and Christians have a common covenantal mission to perfect the world under the sovereignty of the Almighty, so that all humanity will call on His name and abominations will be removed from the earth,” they added. “We understand the hesitation of both sides to affirm this truth and we call on our communities to overcome these fears in order to establish a relationship of trust and respect.”

The Church has likewise put out a statement timed to the anniversary with language that, if anything, strengthens the commitment. One line catches my eye:

How God will save the Jews if they do not explicitly believe in Christ is "an unfathomable divine mystery," but one which must be affirmed since Catholics believe that God is faithful to his promises and therefore never revoked his covenant with the Jewish people, it says.

The ability to speak in terms of 'unfathomable divine mysteries' is a surprising strength.

Who Is Being Sacrificed?

On a piece about "Obama's Sacrifice," we learn that the President is sacrificing the peace of the West to protect American soldiers.

So — and this is the message that no President could ever tell the American people — it’s a trade-off: Dozens or perhaps hundreds of American and other Western casualties rather than thousands of killed and maimed U.S. and allied troops and billions more spent in a new ground and air war with no guarantee of success. What’s more, intensified war in the Middle East would inevitably trigger more home front attacks rather than prevent them.

Which leads Matthew Yglesias to remark, apparently approvingly, "In this way, the hardest problem in US counterterrorism policy is in some ways as much a speechwriting challenge as anything else."

"Merry Christmas" in European

A map of the many ways in which it is said, shaded by linguistic connections.

From a pretty nifty site that mostly focuses on teaching English to Europeans. They have many fun maps, and a lot of articles on proper grammar.

Air Force Abandons the 21-Gun Salute

Allegedly for budgetary reasons.

"Human-level" Concept Acquisition

In today's AI news, a probabilistic approach to learning allows machines to learn to generalize about how to draw some simple figures at a rate similar to human beings.

I finally put my finger on it

So let me preface all this with the following disclaimer.  I in no way can bring myself to support a single Democrat candidate currently in the field.  I do not think a single one of them should be put into the White House.  But I'll tell you, I honestly think that if Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination, I won't be able to bring myself to vote for him.  But for the longest time, I couldn't really pin down specifically why.

This Stamp Was Accurate, Once

Not since 2004. We beat them once. We'll beat them again.

With great thanks to Raven, and in memory of Colonel Sam Colt.

Alternative Headline: Republican Politics Much Less Corrupt Than Advertised

The boys at Vox are sad that Republican "megadonors" can't buy the election.

The same is not true in the reverse: Clinton's international megadonors have not only bought her the primary, they've kept her out of prison.

Zoroaster Lives!

The Kurds are awesome on so many levels.

A Small Irony on Religion

Sister John Paul Bauer shot a ten-point buck, and shared the meat with local hungry families. Naturally, she came under intense and obscene criticism.

Within days, the nearby Erie Diocese removed the Facebook post because of nasty comments posted by activists who apparently were offended enough by guns, God and hunting to feel justified in reacting offensively and lewdly.

God, guns and prayer have been intertwined as enemies of the political left ever since Barack Obama described Pennsylvania voters as being “bitter” over job losses and surmised that “they cling to guns or religion.”

Despite handily winning this state twice, his and the left's hatred for the very people who voted for him has never waned. As with everything else he dislikes about traditional American culture, he has sought to “correct” the behavior of those people.

Last week, that corrective zeal reached an entirely new level when the left condemned the act of offering thoughts and prayers to the grieving, treating it as code for gun ownership.

Had she been a devout Muslim, would the criticism be as loud?

Probably not. Nevertheless, if she had been, it would be the NRA and not the President defending her right to keep and bear arms. The people so hot to restrict her rights are the very ones who think themselves to be on the side of sympathy and understanding for the religious -- provided they are Muslims. The NRA is as ready to defend a Muslim's rights as a Catholic's, but they are said to be the enemies of all that is decent and good in America.

We Missed Out

James Madison's deleted Constitutional proposals were helpfully clarifying.

Another item that Madison proposed was making sure at least three of the liberties guaranteed in the Bill of Rights applied to all states.

“No State shall violate the equal rights of conscience, or the freedom of the press, or the trial by jury in criminal cases,” Madison said in the fifth part of his original Bill of Rights proposal.

The selective incorporation of parts of the Bill of Rights to the states didn’t happen until the early part of the 20th century as the Supreme Court interpreted the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause in a series of cases.

Madison also wanted to clearly spell out that each branch of government had clear, distinct roles.

“The powers delegated by this Constitution are appropriated to the departments to which they are respectively distributed: so that the Legislative Department shall never exercise the powers vested in the Executive or Judicial, nor the Executive exercise the powers vested in the Legislative or Judicial, nor the Judicial exercise the powers vested in the Legislative or Executive Departments,” he said in the last part of his proposed Bill of Rights.

The proposed incorporation would have made clear that the states and the Federal guarantees were different, and might have made unnecessary the 14th Amendment's vesting of Federal Courts with such expansive powers. They might have been given only an additional power or two to oversee, rather than reordering the relationship between the states and the central government so completely. It is my sense that most of the serious tensions in American's politics come from the fact that the Federal courts impose one-sized-fits-all solutions on a nation that does not agree about fundamental questions of right.

The proposed clarity on the separation of powers would have been helpful, too, at least potentially. The Supreme Court understood the difference until Roosevelt intimidated them into yielding place. It's been a long fall since then.

Charles Blow Visits a Gun Show

And the result is slightly positive.

I thought of how productive it would be if more people with discordant views on gun regulations could have as civil a discussion as I had with my brother — full of mutual respect, adults disagreeing but not attempting to demonize, honestly searching for solutions.

The gun lobby poisons these conversations. It pumps out and promotes a never-ending stream of worst-case scenarios until it builds a level of fear and paranoia that only profits gun makers and grinds all progress to a halt.

Indeed, the Austin Highway Gun Show itself published on its Facebook page on Dec. 9 an image of a gun and a Bible with the caption: “History has shown that these are the first two things banned by totalitarian governments.”

But, I must also say that, to a lesser degree, some proponents of better regulations also do damage by painting with too broad a brush and labeling the millions of gun hunters, collectors and people simply seeking to provide an extra layer of protections for their families — people like my brother and his gun show buddies — as deranged and deficient. Most are not. Many are simply enthusiasts like my brother and the elderly man who climbed out of an S.U.V. as we were about to leave.

My brother bellowed, as is his wont, “How you doing today?” The man responded with a smile, “Any day I can go to a gun show is a good day.”

Emphasis added. I think we can disagree about which side "poisons" the debate the most. Still, it's a more welcome tone than we've seen from the Times lately. Or, indeed, from many others.

She Had Help

Today's outrageously outrageous Trumpism: 'Hillary Clinton killed hundreds of thousands of people with her stupidity.'

Doubtless she bears part of the blame for the precipitous withdrawal from Iraq, because her State Department failed in its attempts to negotiate a Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government. They tried, and they blew it. Partly the President is to blame, too, for not getting more directly and personally involved but accepting the 2011 withdrawal as a fait accompli.

On the other hand, if the Maliki government had behaved better, perhaps Iraq would have remained stable. If Assad hadn't touched off a major civil war next door, that would really have helped. And, of course, if we'd left Saddam in place only tens of thousand of people would have been killed by his brutal regime if the history of his reign is any indication.

She bears some responsibility, and it is the quality of guilt that it can be divided without being lessened.