This is nifty

At Science Alert, report of some interesting materials science advances.  We already knew that metallic vanadium dioxide (VO2) switches from a visually transparent insulator to an electrically conductive metal at 152 degrees F. Between 86 and 140F, it also reflects infrared light while remaining visually transparent.

Now we have learned that, when VO2 reaches the temperature at which it switches over to electrical conduction, it remains an unexpectedly bad conductor of heat. Apparently this is because its free electrons move in unison instead of primarily bouncing back and forth. Also, mixing VO2 with other materials adjusts the amount of both electricity and heat that it conducts. These characteristics together suggest that VO2 mixtures can be devised to do things like coat windows, so that they conduct heat in hot weather but insulate it in cold weather; VO2 might also begin to conduct heat away from electric motors after they have been operating long enough to build up heat.

I may have gotten this summary mixed up, particularly which parts follow from the new discoveries and which are old hat.  The linked article is short but worth reading.

Donald "Lizzie" Trump

This from Don Surber:

Donald Trump took an axe
He gave D.C. forty whacks.
When he saw what he had done
He gave another forty-one.
Donald Trump smiled away
Then he chopped off EPA.

Eric Hines

De-tribalization

Sebastian Junger, via Steve Sailer, argues that we see so much PTSD now, not because war culture is hard on the psyche, but because American civilian culture is notably lacking in the tribal cohesion and intimacy necessary to mental health.

In Junger’s rather sketchy description, tribal life sounds rather like being in the Army, although with less hierarchy, less marching, and even more gossip. Hunter-gatherers, the most intense form of tribal life, are strikingly egalitarian, constantly forming backbiting coalitions to undermine the confidence of superior hunters to keep the strongest men from monopolizing all the women.

Similarly, Junger notes, humans living under seemingly catastrophic conditions, such as London during the Blitz, his father’s hometown of Dresden under RAF raids, and the besieged Sarajevo he visited as a young reporter, seem to enjoy better overall mental health than peacetime Americans.

I recognize something like this pattern in my own life, as well as in the literature that most appeals to me, but it makes me a bit impatient. Whether people are shooting at you or not, we've been given all the opportunities to band together passionately against misfortune that any creatures could well wish for. We have only to seek the opportunities out, something we're not always so eager to do when an easy, comfortable life is within our grasp. We have no excuse to let our lives become meaningless or empty merely because we're well fed and unusually safe in the context of human history.

Saudis Back Trump's Refugee Plan

Not the immigration part, but the part where the Saudis and the Gulf States pay for Trump's proposed alternative to importing refugees: "safe zones" in Syria and Yemen. (Which, in classic Trump style, he claims the Saudis will pay for.)

How the Government Wrecked the Gas Can

I'm pretty sure we've discussed this exact issue in the past. This article is from 2012, but things have gotten worse since then.

Who Speaks for America? No One.

A significant thrust of the argumentation against Trump's immigration order is that it is in some sense un-American. Oddly the people asserting this are the same people who would tell you, accurately enough, that America has in the past responded exactly the same way to sharp spikes in immigration. This has been true from the Alien and Sedition Acts, to the Chinese Exclusion Acts, to FDR's ban on Germans and Japanese immigration (coupled with internment camps), one would think that this would properly be described as classically American. What they mean to say is that this isn't in accord with the America they want, even if it's an America that has never existed yet, but is hoped for maybe someday. This is mirrored by the occasional longing -- inherent in the cry to 'Make America Great Again' -- for an America that used to exist, but never really did.

My own sense is that America was always and is still the most immigrant-friendly nation on earth, a place where you can really become an American if you want to do so. The reason that there are periodic attempts to put the brakes on is not that America has shifted its core, but that assimilating new members of the society is an organic process that is governed by organic reactions.

You might say that, as a society, we get hungry, we gorge, and then we need to digest. It's a natural reaction by human beings to the introduction of a large amount of change and large number of strangers suddenly showing up in their lives. But it's not about ending immigration, even if that's the way people talk. It's a natural part of the process of handling immigration on the American scale. It may not be aesthetically pleasing to watch, but neither is digestion. Nevertheless, this is why America has been able to absorb all those waves of immigrants in the past, all of whose descendants are simply "Americans."

In any case, I would like to caution against either side presuming to speak for "America" on this point. Mr. Hines linked to a news story about this poll in a comments section below. A slight plurality favors Trump's order, 48/42. The recent election also went slightly for Trump, but only thanks to the Electoral College. Any Trump supporter has to take on board the fact that right at half of the country opposes him. Any Trump opponent has to take on board that right at half of the country supports him. The numbers may even be in flux, so that we can't say that it's a bit more than half for or a bit more than half against: it may be more one day than the next.

These visions of what America ought to look like, versus what it really does look like, are sharply divided. We should be cautious about painting as "un-American" the views of right at half the nation, whichever side we are on.

Otherly gendered pregnancy

Another winner from . . . wait, this isn't from The Onion, either.  The Guardian is seriously quoting the British Medical Association's serious advice about not insulting intersex men and transmen by calling pregnant women "expectant mothers."

Step (1) Men and women are so different from birth that they must inhabit rigidly segregated public spheres, without our checking first to see what any individual is good at or prefers doing.

Step (2) ???

Step (3) Men and women are so identical in every important way that we have to do backflips to avoid assuming that a pregnant human is female, while skipping the step where we ever simply observe which individuals are good at what.

Any excuse, in other words, to keep ordering people around, so people will know we're nice.

Rednecks: A Brief History

The legendary Joe Bob Briggs writes the kind of piece that you can only get away with when you are a self-identified member of the group, who also loves the group you're criticizing.

The history is a little off in places, but just go with it: he's rolling, and he doesn't mean it to be taken completely seriously. Just mostly seriously.

Who Bought 19.5% of a Russian Oil Giant?

An international mystery, so far tracked to Cayman Islands shell companies. A curious business for a number of reasons, as the article explains.

Strangling with the pursestrings

This critique of the punitive or coercive withdrawal of federal funds from cities who refuse to implement federal immigration policy might actually hold water.  If so, I look forward to the reversal of a whole swath of punitive and coercive withdrawals of federal funds from local and state entities who decline to implement federal policy on the subjects of women's football teams, transgendered bathrooms, health insurance, climate youknowwhatwemean, etc.  In fact, let's just eliminate most of the federal funds, lower the tax rates, and let the local and state authorities handle most of the crazy issues that have been vaulted onto center stage during the Silly Season that began several years back.  You know the Silly Season I mean:  the one that spawned the now popular question, "You want more Trump?  Because this is how you get more Trump."

Minorities hardest hit

Oh, no, the threats to Obamacare take on new urgency in the age of climate stuff.  The article's appearance in "The Hill" instead of "The Onion" suggests to me that's not a parody.  If it were, it would lose points for not figuring out how women, ambiguously gendered activists, and peaceful jihadist refugees suffered uniquely from rising sea levels, the spread of Zika virus, or just cognitive strain from dealing with extreme weather events.  Come on, guys, put some effort into it.

A new hope

If food scientists unlock the secret of getting tomatoes back on the market that travel reasonably well and still taste recognizably like tomatoes, I will have renewed faith in America culture (for the first time in my adult life).  I've already had my faith renewed in the ability of a free people to demand and receive commercially distributed bread that's worth eating, though I was raised to believe this was a lost cause.

The scientist in the linked article has forsworn GMO techniques in the interest of avoiding fantastic levels of controversy and therefore expense and delay, which is too bad, but it appears to be possible to achieve the same good results by old-fashioned breeding within a reasonable timeframe.  In the meantime, I rarely bother with large fresh supermarket tomatoes, but I do eat a double handful of "TreeSweet" cherry tomatoes every day, and I've been surprised to find somewhat edible hydroponic large tomatoes for sale as well.  We usually rely on canned tomatoes for cooking.

More on Immigration

Hot Air takes the anti-Trump side of the question, arguing that the Immigration Act of 1965 makes it illegal to use national origin (the Trump order doesn't, in fact, use religion) as a criterion.

However, 8 U.S. Code § 1182 -- current by an act of 2015 -- holds:

(f) Suspension of entry or imposition of restrictions by President
Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.

This is the sort of thing that courts ordinarily sort out, and I suspect the courts will chew on this one for a while. It may well be that the Congress has passed incompatible laws, which means sorting out which one overrules the other. Still, I expect a vigorous Article II defense from the Trump administration, and even the Supreme Court is only co-equal to the Presidency.

We may be living with this for a while. Good to see that the green card issue, at least, has been sorted out. General Kelly came down on the matter today, and I doubt Trump will buck one of his Marines.

UPDATE: Looks like Trump's base is in no way shocked by this move, as you'd expect given that he campaigned on this for like nine months. One expects that the Quebec mosque shooting will underline the point of wanting to check immigrants carefully -- at least one shooter was from Morocco, which isn't even on Trump's list.

With that plus the pending SCOTUS nomination, the politics of this may settle down. The courts can then do their work in peace.

UPDATE: The Intercept says that the widespread reports that the shooter was Moroccan are false.

UPDATE: The Quebec police now believe the one shooter acted alone, with what news reports are describing as 'two rifles and an AK-47.' I assume they don't know why that's a strange thing to say. Apparently he is a nationalist, which in Quebec means having an intensely French identity.

Oh No, Retaliation

Who Armed ISIS?

Obama and Clinton, says Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. She's an Iraq War vet, by the way.

Legal, But Wise?

I don't doubt that Andrew C. McCarthy is right when he says that Trump's exclusion order for terror-involved countries is legal. There is plenty of precedent, even among liberal icons like Obama (who closed the Iraqi refugee program for six months in 2011), Carter (who barred Iranians during the hostage crisis), and FDR (who used an EO to bar Japanese and German immigration to the United States). Trump is clearly within well-established Constitutional norms even for modern Democratic presidents.

On the other hand, it's striking to me that the order permits Saudis but not Lebanese. Yes, Hezbollah is from Lebanon, but al Qaeda is from Saudi Arabia if it's from anywhere. I have read that the list of countries was put together by the Obama administration, but clearly the two biggest sources of terror -- if we're honest -- are Iran and Saudi Arabia, with radicals in Iraq and Syria being largely proxies of these actors.

The opposite side of the order is that it bars people from certain countries even if they are green card holders, Kurds who have been fighting ISIS, people who have demonstrated a commitment to the United States by working with us as interpreters, and so forth.

I get that the order is quite temporary, pending better vetting methods for the most part. It's also much less radical than its opponents are suggesting. It certainly isn't a "Muslim ban," and indeed doesn't even target a number of Islamic countries with large Islamist terrorism problems (e.g., Pakistan and Turkey). Countries like Egypt and Indonesia, which have large Muslim populations and terrorist groups but also governments that are pretty committed to managing them, are also untouched.

Some of the criticism is therefore unwarranted. Still, the order is both too wide and too narrow in different respects. What is the right course of action for us as citizens at this juncture? Should we urge our representatives and Senators to push for an alteration in the policy?

UPDATE: Here is the full text of the order, for the lawyers among us.

UPDATE: Priebus walked back the green card ban today, which is the most obviously wrong part of the ban.

FedEx Declines To Shoot Own Foot

Federal Express has made a decision in the case of a driver who stopped a flag-burning. They claim that the driver in question "remains a FedEx employee" and that this will not change.

Now, among the many jobs I have held in my long life was one contract gig pressure-washing FedEx trucks, which are required to be clean and presentable in order to maintain the corporate image. As at that time, and I have not heard that this has changed, FedEx drivers were also contractors rather than employees. My guess is that the 'employee' in question probably owns his own truck, and is properly speaking a small businessman in his own right. Yeoman farmers, more or less.

"Does 'Armed' Equal Dangerous?"

Of course it does, in answer to Hot Air's question. The whole point of carrying arms is to be more dangerous.

’Dangerous?,’ cried Gandalf. ‘And so am I, very dangerous: more dangerous than anything you will ever meet. . .And Aragon is dangerous, and Legolas is dangerous. You are beset with dangers. . .for you are dangerous yourself, in your own fashion.’

Anyone carrying a weapon is dangerous. Some of us are dangerous even if you should happen to catch us without a weapon. The police cannot be chided for handling them as such. There is a reasonable question about how, in a free society that respects the right to bear arms, police should handle a dangerous but not aggressive or anti-social interaction. But of course "armed" means "dangerous." Specifically, it is a subset of the category "dangerous."

California Leavin'

A bit from a Wall Street Journal article raises a couple of rude questions in my pea brain, and a rude notice.  California is beginning a more-or-less serious effort to secede from the union. The bit is this: the US would have to approve a constitutional amendment to allow a secession.

The questions are these: what would Californians think if the required amendment passed unanimously--or perhaps only with New York, Illinois, Washington demurring?  What would Californians think if those States approving the amendment did so with enormous majorities?

The rude notice is this: California secession dreamers can begin collecting signatures to place a  nationhood proposal on the November 2018 ballot, after language for the measure was approved this week by the state’s attorney general.  Notice that: in California, the citizens are allowed to have only those referendum ballots whose political speech is approved by the California government; they don't get to vote on the things they think are important without Government oversight.  What must California citizens think of that?  Oh, wait....

Eric Hines

Hotcoldwetdry

If I'm reading this New Yorker article correctly, the same shadowy forces that once undermined a scientific consensus for nuclear winter then turned their attention to undermining a scientific consensus for global warming.  They were equally nefarious both times, either because they're very bad people or because their money comes from very bad people, or both.  The conclusion seems to acknowledge grudgingly that science is corrupted when it's in service of the nation-state's political objectives, but the lesson we're to draw is that we're not entitled to be skeptical of global warming unless we're also skeptical of claims that nuclear war would be just peachy keen for the  environment.  Well, okay then.

Honestly, I remember when The New Yorker had smarter authors and lots better editors.