Why Do They Hate Us?
It's a little late, but KSM has an answer for us. His letter to former President Obama is now available to be read by all.
Déclassé
Apparently Trump doesn't spell well, when engaged in midnight "tweets." Journalists, who think of themselves as part of the elite and for whom words are bread and butter, are appalled.
In spite of his wealth and formal education, Donald Trump most reminds me of the ordinary blue-collar guys I know. His approach to politics comes under a similar sort of criticism: he doesn't care very much about facts, and journalists are also all about facts. So they think he's an ignorant ass, as they think the blue collar guys are ignorant asses too. They're wrong on the merits about so many particular facts, demonstrably wrong.
What people miss is that guys like this are principled in a way that is sturdy and reliable. They don't care about the particular facts because they care about the universal principles. They have a principle that manufacturing jobs are what made America great, and therefore they want more of them. All the particular facts about a particular case you can muster aren't going to undermine that principle. ("The Carrier deal was not that great!") Their principles are what they believe in, and they're going to do what their principles tell them is right.
Given that principles are pre-judgments about cases of a certain type, they are in a literal sense prejudices. But when we say that someone is "principled," we don't mean anything negative as we do when we say that someone is "prejudiced." Normally it's taken to be quite a positive thing.
Nevertheless, it does present difficulties. You can't talk them out of doing what they think is right in a given case, even if it's not the ideal solution in that case, because they're not interested in particular facts about particular cases. They're governed by universals that stand above any particulars. Telling them that they're wrong about the particulars won't bother them because they don't care about the particulars at all. They have lasting ideas about the world and what right looks like, and that's where they put their faith.
It's a very different world from the one that journalists live in.
In spite of his wealth and formal education, Donald Trump most reminds me of the ordinary blue-collar guys I know. His approach to politics comes under a similar sort of criticism: he doesn't care very much about facts, and journalists are also all about facts. So they think he's an ignorant ass, as they think the blue collar guys are ignorant asses too. They're wrong on the merits about so many particular facts, demonstrably wrong.
What people miss is that guys like this are principled in a way that is sturdy and reliable. They don't care about the particular facts because they care about the universal principles. They have a principle that manufacturing jobs are what made America great, and therefore they want more of them. All the particular facts about a particular case you can muster aren't going to undermine that principle. ("The Carrier deal was not that great!") Their principles are what they believe in, and they're going to do what their principles tell them is right.
Given that principles are pre-judgments about cases of a certain type, they are in a literal sense prejudices. But when we say that someone is "principled," we don't mean anything negative as we do when we say that someone is "prejudiced." Normally it's taken to be quite a positive thing.
Nevertheless, it does present difficulties. You can't talk them out of doing what they think is right in a given case, even if it's not the ideal solution in that case, because they're not interested in particular facts about particular cases. They're governed by universals that stand above any particulars. Telling them that they're wrong about the particulars won't bother them because they don't care about the particulars at all. They have lasting ideas about the world and what right looks like, and that's where they put their faith.
It's a very different world from the one that journalists live in.
And the Right Doesn't Seem to Care Much for My Company Either
Col. Schlichter says the left hates me, but these days, the right isn't looking that friendly, either.
Here's our new Republican president on Bush, lies, and Iraq:
Of course, it turns out we did find WMDs, but whatever. The facts have almost reached the point of irrelevance, it seems. Time for the historians to take over.
Here's Rand Paul, who says a lot of sensible things, and then at 5:50 or so begins a slow slide into the "Dick Cheney pushed the Iraq invasion for Halliburton profits" shuffle.
That was back in 2009, but here's "Spengler" (David P. Goldman) at PJMedia a couple of days ago:
Here's our new Republican president on Bush, lies, and Iraq:
Of course, it turns out we did find WMDs, but whatever. The facts have almost reached the point of irrelevance, it seems. Time for the historians to take over.
Here's Rand Paul, who says a lot of sensible things, and then at 5:50 or so begins a slow slide into the "Dick Cheney pushed the Iraq invasion for Halliburton profits" shuffle.
That was back in 2009, but here's "Spengler" (David P. Goldman) at PJMedia a couple of days ago:
Trump said it best: the Iraq War was one of the dumbest things America ever did in foreign policy, the equivalent of "throwing rocks into a hornet's nest."
Grandiose blunders of this kind are not made out by stupidity, though, but by insanity. The American conservative movement was infected by a cult that eroded the common sense of its victims and instilled a messianic, fanatical commitment to nation-building and democracy promotion. What are broadly (and sometimes inaccurately) referred to as the "neo-conservatives" are a cult that succeeded in persuading the unfortunate George W. Bush to spend trillions in treasure and tens of thousands of casualties for the mirage of democracy in Iraq. Such was their influence that an entire generation of Republican foreign policy officials was vetted for cult loyalty.
Messianic? Yeah, whatever. Apparently he's been doing a whole series on this theme. And I'm seeing more commenters at right-wing sites spouting this kind of stuff.
I don't know what to say about all this. I disagree with all three of them, but I don't know that I'm right, and I don't have time to sort it out right now. Since I don't have time to figure it out, this just leaves me with the taste of being betrayed.
I like a lot of what Trump is doing, but I still don't like Trump. Paul has some very good ideas, but he always seems to end up in conspiracy theories. I'm sure Goldman is a smart, educated guy, but I know a lot of smart, educated guys who are blind when it comes to politics, so I'm not really impressed.
What I do know is, a lot of people apparently hate me, and it increasingly doesn't seem to have much to do with right or left, conservative or liberal.
Who's to Blame?
This guy thinks he knows.
President Obama either bombed, sanctioned or sent American soldiers to the seven nations on President Trump’s travel ban. Thus, the precedent for Trump’s stance on refugees correlates directly to policies from the Bush and Obama years. These policies helped create the refugee crisis that Trump has so awkwardly addressed with his draconian executive order.The article is titled, "Enjoying President Trump? Then Blame Democrats For Cheating Bernie Sanders." There's a lot more. Some of you, who really are enjoying President Trump to a greater or lesser degree, may find it light reading.
From Trump’s travel ban of Muslim majority nations to allegedly belligerent phone calls with world leaders, media and Democrats have reacted with outrage and disbelief. It’s as if the Democratic Party and loyal “lesser evil” voters didn’t think cheating Bernie Sanders would lead to such political turmoil. When Debbie Wasserman Shultz resigned from the DNC and friendly journalists covered-up the crime, it was too late; Bernie was forced out of the primary. The only chance for Democrats to defeat a populist Republican nominee, during an anti-establishment year in American politics, was destroyed along with Hillary’s yoga emails and Anthony Weiner’s self-portraits.
92% of Left-Wing Activists Live with their Parents
These findings are limited to Berlin, please note. I'm sure it's totally different here.
DeVos Confirmed, Opening Path for Sessions
This bit of Senate Kabuki theater really got the hopes up of several left-leaning people I know, who thought they had a chance of beating DeVos just because the Republican leadership chose to protect the maximal number of their Senators from the consequences of voting for her.
Nope. Lucy & the football.
Now that Jeff Session's vote is no longer needed immediately, I guess he'll be confirmed soon too.
Nope. Lucy & the football.
Now that Jeff Session's vote is no longer needed immediately, I guess he'll be confirmed soon too.
ATF White Paper
The second-highest-ranking official at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has written a proposal to reduce gun regulations, including examining a possible end to the ban on importing assault weapons into the United States....Well, repealing the ban on imported rifles is hardly a 'giveaway to the gun industry.' The American gun industry flourishes in part because of the artificial scarcity created by the ban.
“Restriction on imports serves questionable public safety interests, as these rifles are already generally legally available for manufacture and ownership in the United States,” Turk wrote of the ban on imported AR-15s and AK-style weapons.
“This white paper offers a disturbing series of giveaways to the gun industry that would weaken regulatory oversight of the gun industry without adequate consideration of the impact on public safety,” said Chelsea Parsons, vice president of guns and crime policy at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.
Cf.
Right-wing pundit Kurt Schlichter:
They hate you.Tucker FitzGerald, self-described as "deeply curious about justice and equality":
Leftists don’t merely disagree with you. They don’t merely feel you are misguided. They don’t think you are merely wrong. They hate you.
Universities aren’t bereft of conservatives and Evangelicals because of a vast left-wing conspiracy. They’re bereft of those people because people committed to those world views so rarely have anything to offer to an open-minded, inquiring, growing community. Universities are lacking in conservatives and fundamentalist Christians because the amount of education that it takes to become a professor is likely to expose Evangelicals and conservatives to enough good ideas that they’re no longer fundamentalist or conservative.Ah, yes. If only I'd been exposed to more left-wing -- I mean, "good" -- ideas in my education. That's probably what's holding me back. Lack of exposure.
Morons
Republican hawks took to Twitter and the Sunday political shows to attack President Donald Trump for his latest comments defending Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brutal regime.This O'Reilly guy is talking to a man who ordered a hit on al Qaeda just days earlier. He sent a team of highly-trained commandos who killed 14 Qaeda fighters on purpose. They also apparently killed at least one little girl not on purpose, and she was the sister of a 16-year-old American citizen Barack Obama killed with a drone strike. Obama also killed their father, an al Qaeda honcho with ties to terrorist attacks inside the United States, in the same way.
Pressed by Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly about how Trump could respect a “killer” like Putin, Trump said, “We got a lot of killers [too]. What, you think our country is so innocent?”
“I don’t know of any government leaders that are killers in America,” O’Reilly retorted.
Both Presidents are killers in a sense, the same sense in which the President of Russia is a killer: they order killing done. The SEALs are killers in a more direct sense. The separation from the gun doesn't make the Presidents better people than the SEALs -- I would wager any sum, based on the SEALs I've known, that the opposite would prove true if the SEALs' identities were known for comparison.
Do these media jockeys think their world would survive without killers? Are they so blind that they can sit down and talk with one and not even know it?
Manifestly.
For Readers in Washington State
I can't remember if Raven is currently living in Washington state or not, and it may be that others of you are. Your legislature is considering a bill, HB 1553, that could make life a little bit easier for bikers.
The law is supported on a bipartisan basis. It simply forbids using the wearing of "motorcycle-related" clothing and gear as part of a profiling decision by police. Thus, while engaging in unlawful activity would still make you subject to being stopped, questioned, and so forth, merely wearing a biker shirt or a club vest (or something that could be mistaken for a club vest) would not.
If you're a Washington state resident, you can consider the text of the bill and inform your representatives of your opinion on it.
The law is supported on a bipartisan basis. It simply forbids using the wearing of "motorcycle-related" clothing and gear as part of a profiling decision by police. Thus, while engaging in unlawful activity would still make you subject to being stopped, questioned, and so forth, merely wearing a biker shirt or a club vest (or something that could be mistaken for a club vest) would not.
If you're a Washington state resident, you can consider the text of the bill and inform your representatives of your opinion on it.
The Dubliners' Guide to Dublin
Ran across this this evening. Haven't watched it all, but it seems interesting.
So, Atlanta Had A Good First Half
Brother-in-law is a huge Pats fan, so I'm enjoying the affair more than usual.
So far.
UPDATE:
Turns out that scoring 21 unanswered points in the first half won't save you if you give up 31 unanswered points in the second half plus Sudden Death overtime.
So far.
UPDATE:
Turns out that scoring 21 unanswered points in the first half won't save you if you give up 31 unanswered points in the second half plus Sudden Death overtime.
Problems with Statistics on Refugees
Matt Y. over at Ricochet makes the argument that American Christians should welcome the refugees from the Middle East instead of opposing their resettlement here. He does make some good points, but he also uses the following statistic, which seems irrelevant to this argument:
I think there are three problems here, and this is the second article I've seen these same three problems show up in, so I'd like to address it.
First, there is no real opposition to "refugees," but rather "Muslim refugees from nations with Muslim terror problems." In fact, among Americans who oppose taking in more Muslim refugees, I suspect there would be a strong willingness to take in Christian and Yazidi refugees from these same regions. The conflation of terms here implies a general xenophobia rather than specific concerns about a specific population, and although I don't think it is intentional, it is insulting.
Second, limiting the geographical area to the United States is also problematic because most of the Muslim refugees from nations with Muslim terror problems have gone to other places, such as Europe. So, to be relevant, one should include all nations that have accepted these refugees.
Third, the fear of taking large numbers of these particular refugees is not limited to terrorism. When Europe began taking in large numbers of these refugees, there were immediate problems with sexual assault and other crimes.
Because of these factors, it seems to me that the only really meaningful statistic would cover the particular refugee populations in question regardless of geographic area of resettlement and it would include all crimes, not just terrorism. If that statistic were used, I suspect the argument would look very different.
All that said, I have yet to see anyone arguing for bringing in 100,000 Muslim refugees from nations with Muslim terror problems address some of the deeper concerns of their opponents, including issues of long-term assimilation and the radicalization of second and third generation Muslims in Western nations. These are also important issues, and if someone wanted to change my mind about bringing in tens of thousands of Muslim refugees from nations with Muslim terror problems, they would have to address them as well.
The likelihood of being killed by a terrorist attack from a refugee in the United States has been calculated at 1 in 3.6 billion.
I think there are three problems here, and this is the second article I've seen these same three problems show up in, so I'd like to address it.
First, there is no real opposition to "refugees," but rather "Muslim refugees from nations with Muslim terror problems." In fact, among Americans who oppose taking in more Muslim refugees, I suspect there would be a strong willingness to take in Christian and Yazidi refugees from these same regions. The conflation of terms here implies a general xenophobia rather than specific concerns about a specific population, and although I don't think it is intentional, it is insulting.
Second, limiting the geographical area to the United States is also problematic because most of the Muslim refugees from nations with Muslim terror problems have gone to other places, such as Europe. So, to be relevant, one should include all nations that have accepted these refugees.
Third, the fear of taking large numbers of these particular refugees is not limited to terrorism. When Europe began taking in large numbers of these refugees, there were immediate problems with sexual assault and other crimes.
Because of these factors, it seems to me that the only really meaningful statistic would cover the particular refugee populations in question regardless of geographic area of resettlement and it would include all crimes, not just terrorism. If that statistic were used, I suspect the argument would look very different.
All that said, I have yet to see anyone arguing for bringing in 100,000 Muslim refugees from nations with Muslim terror problems address some of the deeper concerns of their opponents, including issues of long-term assimilation and the radicalization of second and third generation Muslims in Western nations. These are also important issues, and if someone wanted to change my mind about bringing in tens of thousands of Muslim refugees from nations with Muslim terror problems, they would have to address them as well.
Frog spit
Frog tongues are incredibly soft, which helps them glom onto prey. Apparently, though, the saliva is even more ingenious:
A mixture of cornstarch and water becomes solid if you hit it. Ketchup becomes runnier if you shake the bottle. Saliva is like ketchup: Forces makes it less viscous. But while human saliva becomes around ten times less viscous if you apply force to it, frog saliva becomes a hundred times less viscous.
So when a frog tongue strikes an insect, its saliva flows freely and readily seeps into every crack and gap. When the tongue slows down and starts retracting, the saliva thickens again into a paste, the equivalent of a closed fist grasping the insect for the journey back.
“The analysis helps to explain many bizarre observations, like why frogs use the backs of their eyeballs to push prey down their throats,” says Kiisa Nishikawa from Northern Arizona University. When the insect’s in the frog’s mouth, the frog has to get it off its tongue. Fortunately, all of its adhesive tricks work best in the perpendicular direction—it may be really hard to pull the insect off, but it’s comparably easy to slide it off. The frog just needs something to push against the insect—so it uses its eyeballs. Twelve years ago, Robert Levine used X-ray videos to show that a frog swallows, it retracts its eyeballs inwards, and uses these to push victims off its tongue.Cat tongues are another kettle of fish.
MS treatment advance
A new treatment for multiple sclerosis, using the patient's own stem cells from the bone marrow, shows surprising promise.
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