Dwarves and Elves

Doc Crawford on Norse Mythology.

Cultural Appropriation!

No, no, that should be a good American version, like this:



Er, no, wait...

All those old Prohibition songs end up being better advertisements for a drop of the pure.



It's because they were wrong, of course. But that was an American song first, you Irish cultural appropriators!

UPDATE:

Not that cigarettes are good for you. Tex Williams is dead now, more's the pity.

The Man Who Strangled a Mountain Lion Gave an Interview

I haven't found the text yet, but it looks like he's doing all right.

What's with these crushed Asians?

(Who remembers that Gilda Radner skit?) Actually what I wanted to write about is a Department of Labor lawsuit against tech giant Oracle for discriminating against the usual suspects.  This caught my eye as a complaint about how Asian-heavy the tech jobs are at Oracle:

Some of the new claims also substitute broad statistics for refined analysis. For example, as the Wall Street Journal points out, the DOL relies for its hiring discrimination claim on evidence that 82 percent of employees hired by Oracle for technical positions are Asians, whereas Asians were “only” 75 percent of applicants.

It sounds to me like being in the ballpark if the racial quotas for applicants and hirees are within 10% or so, so I can't get too excited about the ratio of 75% to 82%. But seriously, 3/4 of the applicants are Asian? Are we not supposed to notice this? Are we supposed to think that's irrelevant to questions about what aspects of race might be important in job statistics besides allegations of racism?

And this is what the Asian statistics look like even with the Ivy League schools grinding them into the dirt as hard as they know how.

Got That Gentrification Problem Licked

I had thought that it was part of a Congressperson's job to try to obtain investment in their communities, but apparently that's wrong.

“Anything is possible: today was the day a group of dedicated, everyday New Yorkers & their neighbors defeated Amazon’s corporate greed, its worker exploitation, and the power of the richest man in the world."

Yeah, you sure showed him.

Lufthansa sues passenger

Okay, with a headline like that, you know it has to be good stupid.  Oh boy, is it.

https://www.npr.org/2019/02/13/694352593/lufthansa-airlines-sues-customer-who-skipped-part-of-his-return-flight

In short, the passenger booked a round trip flight from Oslo to Seattle (with a layover in Frankfurt) for about $741.  While returning from Seattle, he then got off in Frankfurt and thence flew to Berlin on a completely separate ticket.  Lufthansa says that the cost of his flight ought to have been about $2300 more if he had bought it "properly", and wants him to pay the difference.

So let's make this simple.  Let's say you want to get from New York to LA.  But the flights are more expensive than a flight from New York to Lake Tahoe that has a layover in LA.  So by buying the NY>LA>Tahoe ticket and just getting off in LA, you save money.  But then the airline catches wind of it and demands you to pay the difference since you really wanted a NY>LA flight.

One would hope you'd tell them to pound sand.  You took advantage of their pricing.  "But then they can't sell the seat from LA to Tahoe!"  Wrong!  That seat was sold, you paid for it.  Whether you use it or not is immaterial, it was paid for in full by you.  And this argument is doubly rich from an industry that thinks little of double-booking seats because they expect passengers to miss flights or not fly for some reason.

But what truly amuses me is that Lufthansa's argument explicitly says that if you buy a ticket you are obligated to use all parts of the ticket, or else they'll sue.  Which leads me to the idea that if they believe that missing (or not taking) a flight grants them the right to charge you for the price of a ticket from your origin to the layover city you actually stop at, then that allows them to demand money from every passenger stranded in a layover city every time there's a weather cancellation, or mechanical problem, or other flight delay.  Talk about perverse incentives!

"Demonic Males" and Morality

A piece of Darwinian theory, which I have not finished reading, and am posting here chiefly to remind me to get back to it. It may be of interest to many of you, too.

Yeah, That Makes Sense...?

Her office pushed back against the notion that it was hypocritical for Ocasio-Cortez, who has made housing affordability one of her top policy concerns, to move into a luxury building. A spokesman pointed out that her office also uses a car with an "internal combustion engine that runs on fossil fuels," even though she thinks their use should be eliminated.

Her spokesman said that.

Republicans sabotage Green New Deal... by calling for a vote?

It's true.  According to Senator Markey (co-sponsor of the Green New Deal), when Sen. McConnell called for a vote on the proposal, that's sabotaging it.

http://reason.com/blog/2019/02/13/green-new-deal-vote-markey-aoc-mcconnell

No honestly, you can't make this up.  "This is a list of things we want!"  "Okay, let's vote on it."  "You just want to avoid a national debate about it!"

No, what's more likely is that Sen. Markey realizes the same thing that Sen. McConnell has.  That it's unpassable, unworkable, and that by forcing Democrats (many of whom are running for their party's nomination for President) to vote on it, they will either have the albatross of this pile of Green dung tied around their neck, or they will be forced to repudiate it and this tick off their base.

It's not sabotage, Sen. Markey.  It's being hoist in your own petard.

Incandescent Beauty

An argument that the world is too beautiful to explained by natural selection, which begins with another bird example:

A male flame bowerbird is a creature of incandescent beauty. The hue of his plumage transitions seamlessly from molten red to sunshine yellow. But that radiance is not enough to attract a mate. When males of most bowerbird species are ready to begin courting, they set about building the structure for which they are named: an assemblage of twigs shaped into a spire, corridor or hut. They decorate their bowers with scores of colorful objects, like flowers, berries, snail shells or, if they are near an urban area, bottle caps and plastic cutlery. Some bowerbirds even arrange the items in their collection from smallest to largest, forming a walkway that makes themselves and their trinkets all the more striking to a female — an optical illusion known as forced perspective that humans did not perfect until the 15th century.

It's art, the scientists reason, and the development of such an elaborate courtship ritual is not adaptive. So why do they do it?

The way the theory works, of course, is that it's a kind of accident; natural selection doesn't necessarily mean that changes are useful, it just tends to strip away the ones that aren't via extinction. If the birds are 'good enough' at surviving in other ways, these kinds of extravagances can survive. But this is only one example; it turns out that nature seems to strive for beauty in many other ways.

It's a point Hannah Arendt made some years ago. She pointed out that animals are quite ugly internally -- intestines and the like -- but not externally. She reasoned that there was something about life that strives to be seen as beautiful. That's interesting, especially since so much of life lacks eyes that see; but even starfish are beautiful, in their way. In fact, it extends beyond life. Galaxies certainly are beautiful, and they're almost accidents. Waves on the ocean; sunsets.

Well, now that you've explained that it's economics

You all thought the Green Leap Forward was economic lunacy, but not so fast.  It turns out that it's really good economics:  the logical next step after the enemies of mankind crushed our hopes for the carbon tax. It's an "economic stimulus package for the planet." You love the planet, don't you? For you unsophisticated types, here's how it works. It's simple, just pay attention and shut up.

[T]he challenges and costs of relying solely on current technologies to address climate change are prohibitively high. We need investments in clean innovation to make it cheaper to reduce emissions in the future. . . . While carbon pricing is the most cost effective way to reduce emissions today, government subsidies are the most cost effective way to advance clean technologies tomorrow.

We know this, because government subsidies consistently produce cost-effective results. You have to spend money to make money! You can't afford NOT to buy this! We'll lose money on every transaction, but make it up in volume. A cautionary note, because, you know, these guys are serious and sober, not just snake-oil salesmen:

Of course, the effectiveness of the proposal at spurring innovation will depend on its design, the exact details of which have yet to be ironed out.

Now a nod to opposing arguments, to show we're considering all sides of the debate:

Opponents will also claim that the government is a bad venture capitalist, and that a Green New Deal will pour taxpayer dollars into clean energy boondoggles. While concerns about government waste are certainly real, they can be avoided through smart policy design.

Now that makes me sad. Who would say such mean things about the government's record as a venture capitalist? They're doing the best they can. Anyway, we're going to avoid any problems by going out right now and getting us some smart policy design. Not those old bad policy designs.

This almost makes me like the deal to avert the shutdown

"Journalist and Soros Equality Fellow" Michelle Garcia complains on CNN that Democrats "gave too much away":

If Trump signs off on the deal, he gets far less border wall funding than he initially demanded, in the immediate, but he wins critical credibility for the Republicans' unsubstantiated and false claims of a border security crisis.

I may try this

You'll say, no doubt, that it's an unconventional approach, but I'm thinking it would really liven up the next Commissioners Court meeting.

Actually it reminds me of the joke with the punchline, "You don't come here for the hunting, do you?"

Interesting comparison

Mr. Soros is a little concerned:

The European Council on Foreign Relations, an organization whose founding was sponsored by George Soros, has concluded that up to a third of the European Parliament may consist of “populists” after this spring’s elections, paralyzing decision-making in the EU. Mr. Soros warned that the EU may dissolve, like the Soviet Union.

Not much of a capitalist

Elizabeth Warren recently announced that billionaires should "stop being freeloaders." Robert Reich helpfully explained:

Anyone who has a billion dollars either exploited a monopoly that should have been broken up, got inside information unavailable to other investors, bribed some politicians, or inherited the money from their parents (who did one of the above).

AEI, not exactly a firebreathing conservative site but at least a moderately sensible one, breathed a quiet protest after pointing out that, honestly, there are lots of OK guy who get rich by the stunning and unfair move of introducing a wildly popular and valuable product:

Calling for higher tax rates doesn’t make you a socialist. Nor does arguing for a more expansive safety net. But saying all wealth is, at best, undeserved and, at worst, pilfered, pinched, pocketed, and purloined? Well, you’re probably not much of a capitalist, that’s for sure.

Rescue

The Netflix documentary series "The Horn," about Swiss helicopter rescue teams operating near the Matterhorn, is worth catching.  Beautifully filmed, without a word on toxic masculinity.

I had no idea Swiss German sounded so unlike my bit of school German.  In the Swiss dialect, the long "a" in words like zehn or geht rhymes with the English "eye." Other sound shifts are too alien and too various for me to catch.  Only when the doctor is talking does it sound like German to me.

It looks like those helicopter pilots could land on a flagpole.

Bee Swarm

Crowder's Beard Launches Solo Act

God Agrees to Spare Virginia if Just 10 Democrats Who Never Wore Blackface Can Be Found

Pelosi Reveals Favorite Bible Verse: "War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Ignorance Is Strength."

Google Celebrates Noahic Covenant

Elizabeth Warren Admits to Wearing Paleface at College Costume Party

Update: Just because

Two Views on Sex/Gender

The first one is from Minding the Campus.

[A]bout 75% of all PhDs in psychology now go to women (a trend that began in the late 1980s).

Since 2009, women have outnumbered men overall in doctoral degrees earned, and the gender imbalance in psychology is particularly marked. Moreover, in fields such as developmental and child psychology, women Ph.D. recipients outnumber men by more than five to one. According to the APA’s own documents, this has for years caused concern about the “feminization” of the field of psychology.

In a 2011 report, the APA affirmed that gender diversity is important, as is a diversity of viewpoints. But if the APA just redefines what desirable human characteristics are, perhaps they won’t have to bother with this problem or the fact that women are the vast majority of therapists in practice.

The second one is from Esquire. I won't excerpt it. It is wrong to try to extrapolate very far from a single example, which is the premise of the piece. But the piece is nevertheless interesting on many levels.

Are Animals Self-Conscious, or are Scientists not Self-Conscious Enough?

So Grim's recent post "Bird Thoughts" which looked at the questions of consciousness, how it may have developed, and where it may originate reminded me of some related news: a recently done experiment attempted the famous "mark test" that has been used on dolphins, higher apes, and Eurasian magpies to show the possession of self-awareness (by recognizing that seeing themselves in a mirror is not another animal, but is a reflection of themselves) on a *fish*- and lo and behold, they responded as though they did recognize themselves.  So it would seem then, that they are on a level of intelligence and self-awareness on the plane of dolphins, if the test is to be believed.  Now, the common sense test suggests then that perhaps the test itself isn't as good as some thought it might be (no offense to the blue streak cleaner wrasses out there).

The Blue Streak Cleaner Wrasse

I find this in line with my own inclinations- almost every time I hear about a test showing how smart some animal species is, with the obligatory implication from the scientists conducting the experiments that there is more to the animals than we know (and I infer from either the scientist directly, or the journalist reporting on it that maybe they're more like us than we'd like to admit, and we're not so special), I become highly skeptical, and find at least a thing or a few that seem to me to be interpretive suppositions and perhaps reflecting biases that call into question the reliability of the test used.  Of course, I have to also be wary of my own biases in that I think humans are different from the animals, so I try to keep an open mind.

In the end, I think this test result will do much good in forcing some self reflection of the researchers and perhaps the development of more rigorous tests less prone to interpretive bias.

As one of the interview scientists said- "If we want to understand the complexity of life, and our place within that complexity, we must ask questions in a way that avoids the inherent bias we as narcissistic humans have." 

Indeed.

Isn't That How Congress Does Work?

As readers know, I don't endorse or put up with antisemitism. However, I'm a little bemused by today's controversy over the remarks of Somali-born Representative Omar of Minnesota. She said that her fellow Congressmen are motivated principally by lobbyist money where Israel is concerned, and cited AIPAC as the source of this money. She's been forced to apologize by the Democratic leadership.

OK, I'll grant that she has a bad record, and antisemitism is likely. However, if you said on any other topic that Congressmen are motivated principally by seeking illicit personal profit, including through lobbyist dollars, would anyone bat an eye? That's why people form lobbyist groups, right? That's why most of Congress are millionaires, though not all of them were when they got there, right?

Look at the net worth of some of these Congressfolk of long service, and calculate how much of that came from their salary. This isn't a very controversial thing to say about, say, why Republicans tend to favor amnesty in spite of the fact that their constituents hotly oppose it. It's the money, right? The Chamber of Commerce and many rich industries really want to depress the price of labor, both unskilled and skilled. That's why there's always such a push for amnesty, for more H1 visas, and why eVerify never manages to get through the Republican-led houses of Congress.

Pick your topic. Does anyone doubt that Congress is being bribed in various ways, as well as being allowed to profit off prior knowledge of how they are going to legislate?

So why would it be antisemitic to assert that a Jewish lobby is behaving like every other lobby? That's treating Jews -- these particular ones -- just the same way as everyone else. It's the opposite of bias, it's genuine equality.

I have a similar concern when people cry "Antisemitism!" about complaints about George Soros' deploying his vast wealth to try to create effects in American politics. Yes, Soros is a Jew. Yes, there's an ancient trope about Foreign Jews doing things like that which has been used by actual antisemites in the past. However, Soros really is spending a lot of money on organizations designed to create effects in American politics, and he's not an American. It's not his business how we govern ourselves, and it's reasonable to object to a foreign billionaire trying to buy influence in our government. [UPDATE: Apparently at some point he became a naturalized citizen, which I did not know. Obviously an American citizen has a right to engage in our politics. See the comments.] The fact that he's Jewish is immaterial to the complaint. The existence of the trope does not alter the fact that the charge, in this case, is perfectly true and legitimately objectionable.

Now, I don't think what Omar said is actually true. My sense is that AIPAC isn't actually powerful enough to do what Omar claims they do; if they were, there would have been no Obama-era Iran deal. It's wrong to raise false charges. But it's not antisemitic, necessarily, to believe that what is true of Congress in most cases involving lobbyists is still true of Congress where there are Jewish lobbyists. It's only treating them on even terms with everyone else, which is surely fair game.