Ignoring The Voters Works Wonders

Specifically, the wonder of Donald Trump, who is going to win just because of things like this.

In the wake of this month’s terrorist attack in San Bernardino, in which one of the perpetrators managed to enter the country on a K-1 “fiancée” visa without being detected, the least popular policy at the moment is increasing access to the US. Numerous polls now show confidence in the federal government plummeting when it comes to securing the nation. The big debate at the moment isn’t on whether to increase visa access, but whether it needs to get shut down for a while until we can improve scrutiny on applicants.

So what did elected representatives Congress do when it came time to pass a large omnibus bill to complete the FY2016 budget process? Sneak a large increase in foreign-worker visas into the legislation, of course....

This is clearly where the mind of the establishment is right now, both Democratic and Republican.

The voters' chief concern is a terrorism that the government has proven incapable of controlling -- let's push disarming the people, while doing nothing much about ISIS and actively helping Iran.

One of the terrorists got in on a badly-investigated visa at the same time that ISIS has proven capable of creating counterfeit Syrian passports and is promising to use the refugee crisis as a vector to infiltrate the West -- let's increase the number of Syrian refugees immediately!

The economy, the next biggest concern, is long-sluggish especially for middle- and lower-income workers for whom immigration represents a wage-suppressing mechanism -- obviously, we need many more work visas right away, especially ones that target the lower end of the American wage scale.

This is part of another major concern about a refusal to enforce border security that seems even to encourage rapid, mass immigration into the United States -- so let's allocate almost two billion dollars to resettling illegal immigrants inside the United States.

Even if you don't agree with the public, the thing about being an elected representative you are supposed to represent the public. If you don't do that, you'd better be really persuasive in accounting for your behavior and convincing the public that you were right and they were wrong. Otherwise, your performance review is coming up fast, and it sounds like the voters are looking to make a change.

Well Done

As you will doubtless recall from our previous discussions of the subject, I am a great admirer of the Sikh religion. I think this is a fine step.

Heart beats

I'm about to become the proud new owner of a pacemaker.  Apparently my heart has a curious habit of stopping now and then throughout the day--not that I ever notice a thing.  My father also had weird heart rhythms and had a pacemaker, though somewhat later in life in his case.  Well, it's a boatload of money and a little surprising, but it's a wildly low-risk procedure and won't put any restrictions on me afterwards, so who am I to complain?  The good news is that I don't have a bit of A-fib, which was the heart problem I always expected to get.  A-fib actually is rather hard to deal with, whereas a pacemaker should be a virtually 100% permanent solution to my bizarre heart rhythm.

Among other things, my heart rate drops to 34 during the night.  Lub . . . dub . . . lub . . . dub.  My father's used to drop to 40 while he was sitting up and talking, which used to confuse the doctors no end.  Likewise, my cardiologist cannot explain how my heart could stop for 10 seconds at a time, as it apparently did last week, in the middle of the day, without my even feeling faint.

All of this came about because my new doctor, who spends time with his patients a la Marcus Welby, told me to get off my butt and reduce my weight.  I'm making good progress, and this shouldn't interrupt that program at all.

Presidential Candidates as Star Wars Characters

It's interesting that our two frontrunners are both variations on Darth Vader.

Former Guardsman Facing Decades in Prison For Terror Plot

Fortunately, unlike in other cases we can see a clear causal factor here: Hasan was obviously a disgruntled veteran.

He was aiming at killing up to 150 people in an attack on his former comrades.

University of Georgia Discovers 27 Graves Beneath Baldwin Hall

As the article points out, the headline is more surprising than the story. The hall was built immediately beside the grounds of a historic cemetery, which has lovely old trees. It is mown by goats to protect the old stones from being darkened by fumes, or damage to the tree roots from mower blades.

The circa-1938 academic hall, where some 20,000 US navy cadets once learned to fly planes during the second world war, was set to receive its first major facelift in more than half a century....

According to one state estimate, the cemetery could be home to as many as 5,000 graves, including those of revolutionary war veterans, Confederate civil war soldiers, and family members of Georgia politicians. Hundreds of the graves are unmarked. Over the years, the university encroached on the six-acre plot. According to historic records, Darden said, UGA planners thought they had transferred bodies located at Baldwin Hall’s current location to the nearby Oconee Hill Cemetery.

33 Gifts for the Military Man

An article from Havok Journal. Most of these will work well for military women too, though they may want different work clothes.

I do prefer a slightly longer pocket knife than the one he recommends, but it depends on your branch of service. The USAF won't allow you to bring a pocket knife longer than 3" on base, as I recall. I usually carry one of these, which has a too-long-for-the-Air-Force blade length of 3.99". It's strong, keeps an edge well, has a serrated portion for those kind of cutting jobs, and opens easily with one hand.

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.