What they been sayin

The press seems more impressed with the information in the Mueller indictments than they did when it came out in a Nunes report.

It's worse than we thought

The Babylon Bee discovers the real scandal.

Pfft

What do fathers do for their children? Hardly anything, we’ve learned.

Children with involved fathers are less likely to break the law and drop out of school. Guided by close relationships with their dads, these kids disproportionately grow up to avoid risky sex, pursue healthy relationships, and hold down high-paying jobs. They’re unlikely to become homeless or rely on welfare and more likely to have higher IQ scores than their peers by age three. Longer term, they suffer from fewer psychological problems and may be less prone to obesity.

It’s like these masculine hangers-on in the childrearing process don’t appreciate that they are useless. Can’t they just make way?

A Child Beheaded by the Sinaloa Cartel — in Norcross, GA

Norcross. I’ve been to Norcross many times. It’s a nice little suburb. On Friday nights in the fall, they like to watch their kids play football. The local high school football stadium has an air raid siren it blows when they score a touchdown.

We need to send a message on this one that the cartels will understand.

No King but the Law

Adam of Bremen described the Vikings out of Iceland as having "no king but the law." So too we. The Trumps raise hackles among monarchists at the Washington Post. As the fellow says, we are not her subjects. There's a story about that some us were remembering long about, oh, ten days ago. Maybe you missed it.

Any American is the equal of the Queen of England, formally. She is a sovereign; we are, collectively, sovereign. We have no masters, and no laws but our own.

All the same, if you meet Queen Elizabeth you should be nice to her, not because she is the Queen of England but because, as the Queen of England, she had her Coldstream Guards play the Star Spangled Banner after 9/11 -- and sang along. Such an act of honor and friendship deserves to be remembered.

A Song of the Sea

Not one I've heard before, either.

Further Thoughts on a Proper Upbringing

Since I was just mentioning John Wayne, Cahill, US Marshal is on this weekend according to his fan club. They include a clip to help you decide if you might want to watch this movie, one in which he expresses a certain sentiment about the virtues that attain to a proper upbringing.

Two on Bayesian Probability

Bayesian probability holds, among other things, that probability is sticky: once the probability of an event rises to 1 or drops to 0, it stays there forever. Your weather forecaster defies this when they tell you that the probability of rain is 95% when it is already raining. But there is a lot more to Bayes, whose theories underlie much of our contemporary algorithms and science. Here's an introduction to his life:

For most of the two and a half centuries since the Reverend Thomas Bayes first made his pioneering contributions to probability theory, his ideas were side-lined. The high priests of statistical thinking condemned them as dangerously subjective and Bayesian theorists were regarded as little better than cranks. It is only over the past couple of decades that the tide has turned. What tradition long dismissed as unhealthy speculation is now generally regarded as sound judgement.

And here is a piece on application.

Bayesian statistics is two things: a useful technology and a bundle of mythology. A Bayesian data analyst almost never, and I mean almost never, inquires as to her degrees of belief: she makes mathematically convenient and not absurd assumptions and goes on. She tests the resilience of the outcomes she obtains by varying those assumptions—the prior probabilities, the penalties in a model score, etc.. Essentially, her “prior probabilities” are just a measure to guide through a search space of alternative possible values for parameters in a model or models. The measure is adaptive, in the sense that it alters (by Bayes Rule) as data are acquired. It is subjective, in the sense that there is no best adaptive measure for guiding search, but there are better and worse adaptive measures. Generally, the measures are nobody’s degrees of belief.

Rodents Eating Cars

Paul Ryan's Suburban was eaten by woodchucks. According to a Chevy mechanic I was talking with a while ago, this is an increasingly common occurrence. The reason (he said) is that the EPA has instituted regulations that require a certain number of car parts to be made out of organic materials rather than plastics. These smell like food to rodents because, in fact, they are food for rodents.

His recommendation to me was to make cheesecloth baggies full of mothballs, and attach them around your engine compartment with wire twist-ties where they won't cause problems with engine function. I don't know if this actually works, but it sounded plausible at the time he said it. You might give it a try.

Espionage is Illegal

At least, it breaks somebody's laws. The NSA and CIA do worse to the Russians every day than the stuff announced today by the Deputy Attorney General, in plain violation of Russian laws.

But OK, it's formally still a crime, and I suppose it's fine to charge people even though you can't actually arrest or try them. So, do these guys get to send lawyers and demand a day in court like the Russian firm that was indicted? Or do they have to appear in person to demand a day in court?

UPDATE: An interesting catch -- possibly a US citizen who might end up charged after all?

A Song for George Will

This apparently refers to a famous diatribe George Will wrote against blue jeans. It ends:

This is not complicated. For men, sartorial good taste can be reduced to one rule: If Fred Astaire would not have worn it, don't wear it. For women, substitute Grace Kelly.

Edmund Burke -- what he would have thought of the denimization of America can be inferred from his lament that the French Revolution assaulted "the decent drapery of life"; it is a straight line from the fall of the Bastille to the rise of denim -- said: "To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely." Ours would be much more so if supposed grown-ups would heed St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, and St. Barack's inaugural sermon to the Americans, by putting away childish things, starting with denim.

(A confession: The author owns one pair of jeans. Wore them once. Had to. Such was the dress code for former Sen. Jack Danforth's 70th birthday party, where Jerry Jeff Walker sang his classic "Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother." Music for a jeans-wearing crowd.)

First of all, John Wayne wore a lot of things that Fred Astaire never did, including denim, and these are perfectly fit things for an American man to wear.

Secondly, I love that song. It's one of those songs for those of us from the country who enjoy laughing at ourselves sometimes.



Such a sense of humor never hurt anybody.

A Brutal Attack in London

Two teenagers, a young man and woman, are under arrest after the brutal beating of Sir Christopher Meyer. Meyer is a former ambassador to the United States, and has been talking up the need to get along with President Trump during the run-up to the state visit there. Police say this does not look like a robbery.

Of Course It Does

The Democratic bill to #AbolishICE contains this provision:

Pocan’s bill explicitly requires the commission to “[i]dentify appropriate means of ensuring that total Federal employment is not reduced with the abolition of ICE.”

CNN Report: Millions of American Voters May Have Colluded to Elect Trump

Babylon Bee, of course

A Christian's Job Interview

Tracy Ullman does something I didn't expect.

Silly Twitchy, Who Wouldn't Swim with Nurse Sharks?

Some fellow going by Greg P. over on Twitchy is making fun of a woman who got bit while swimming with nurse sharks:

PHOTOS: Instagram model thought it would be fun to swim with nurse sharks in the Bahamas and YOU’LL TOTALLY BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED NEXT

Well, this is also a common tourist thing, and most do not get bit. I have fond memories of swimming with nurse sharks, as it happens. Their skin feels a bit like fine sandpaper.

Yeah, she'll have a scar on her arm, and how cool is that? "Oh, that? Shark bite," will begin a number of interesting conversations.

Beware That, When Punching Nazis ...

Chris Ray Gun, of "Ain't No Rest for the Triggered" fame, gives us "Punch a Nazi."

Travel News You Can Use

A list of the oldest bar in every state. I have eaten (and drunk) at the Pirate's House in Savannah. It's a first class restaurant, especially if you like the local sea food.

Masks and Street Violence

The South has anti-masking laws already because of its attempt to limit the power of the Ku Klux Klan. A Federal law that proposes to do the same thing is drawing fire from Antifa, which resents the comparison between themselves and the Klan. Well, anyone would resent such a comparison. However, the state's interest in prosecuting those who organize for the purpose of violence and political intimidation is the same, even allowing for all relevant differences in ideology.

All the same, they have a novel defense.

In the current political climate, antifascists who speak out against fascism, racism, xenophobia, etc. are routinely harassed, threatened, and attacked by the far right, often supported by the police, who are notably exempted here. Families and friends of antifascists also become targets of far right violence. The wearing of a mask is an act of self-defense often necessary to ensure one's right to free speech.

I accept the validity of the claim that the police should not be allowed to mask themselves either. Just as with badge numbers, police officers should be identifiable in order to hold them responsible for the manner in which they use the power entrusted to them by the public. We should always be allowed to film the police, to know their names and ranks and offices, and to hold them accountable for any misuse of the authority they bear.

Is it really the case, though, that America is such a place that one must wear a mask to be able to exercise free speech? That is surely not true. No one is stopping either these or the far right from organizing rallies or marching. They are free to make their points, in person or in writing as they prefer. If they elect to make their points by punching people, say, or setting fire to cars, say, then there might be some legal consequences. But the state is unlikely to recognize a legitimate self-defense right for speech acts of this kind.

Still, there is a sense in which anonymity or pseudonymity is indeed defensively useful and can encourage better and fuller speech. It can also encourage abuse, and that needs to be robustly handled in order for it to remain worthy. But it's the same sort of idea as is at work here, where most of us communicate through a pseudonym in order to speak our minds freely in the age of Google. It's not obviously a ridiculous argument for public speech acts like rallies either. I wonder if there is a way to address it without empowering groups like the Klan.

Adventures in Obstructing Oversight

Congressional Democrats appear determined to ensure that Peter Strzok does not have to answer questions. Why would that be?

UPDATE: Contempt of Congress for Strzok. Well, many of us hold Congress in contempt, at least informally. The question is whether or not there are any consequences for doing so formally. Eric Holder was held in contempt; so what?

If Congress does not wish to be held in contempt they will have to learn to uphold their honor. As long as they do not, contempt of them will flourish.