Punishment of the Innocents

Last gym day of the week, and pleasantly sparse with folks, especially boisterous educationalists. As shule winds down its session, they get fewer and fewer, which, of course, leads to the hypothesis that educationalists exercise in direct proportion to the teaching (?) of students?

Anyway, much ado about the Yankee government scandal over the Internal Revenue Service investigating special interest non-taxable groups. From my experience with the IRS, its the non-taxable part that attracts the boll, they could care less about one’s politics so long as taxes are paid with proper humility and proskynesis.

It has become evident however, from the posturing of the chief executive, that a stage of post-glitch governmental operations has been reached known as the “Punishment of the Innocents.” This usually follow the “Hiding of the Guilt” phase. At this point the YG will conduct an investigation that will – probably – determine that career civil servants acted improperly and will be severely punished by being fired or worse. This will not be what actually happened; it is only a scapegoat activity. What likely actually happened is some overzealous political appointee (and yes, I know that is redundant) will have instructed the civil servants who work for this pol to do this evil.

Why do such happen? Simply, because we have political appointees. They have no controls other than elected politicians who appointed them. And civil servants cannot talk to the elected politicians. So any improper or illegal instructions from a political appointee have to be obeyed or the civil servants will be fired or labeled whistleblowers.

This is the tyranny of modern bureaucratic democracy. We do not trust those who work for us but we do trust those who steal from us.

And we punish those who work.

government, politics, tyranny, evil

Shule Show

Two day, and the gum was relatively deserted. Must be getting close enough to summer for the denials to mount up. Science podcasts today and aside from a rather extended discussion of dark energy on one of the NPR ‘casts, not particularly sticky. So unsticky in fact that I find myself at a loss to offer comments on anything.

Except a rather naive segment on a road show aimed at exposing high shule students to climate change. The come-on is that climate change isn’t taught in public shules. Thud. Flat.

Why isn’t it taught? Probably for the same reason that evolution isn’t and mysticism is. Political pressure. It isn’t on the tests because politicians don’t want it on them. It’s one more symptom of what is wrong with the shules and our country.

But the question I want answered is why was the presentation permitted? Are there still rebels out there?

education, science, climate, politics, tyranny

Perpetuation of the Species

Ice Cream Day! And I am still desensitizing my newly exposed roots after oral surgery, so no frozen yogurt for me. There is however a promise of absence of precipitation from the weather beavers this day which is the holy day of maternity. And they also fortell a last coolness of spring before the early onset of torrid summer. 

Of all the holy days, this is one of the few that actually make sense. Never mind that it was invented by the greeting card industry to sell bad poetry and ugly paper, it still makes sense that we should acknowledge and honor the biological imperative of perpetuating the species. So while Easter and Christmas are sheer mysticism, Mother’s Day at least has some grounding in actuality.

While I’m on the azimuth of mysticism, I should mention a somewhat clumsy article [Link] arguing – that’s the clumsy part – that Android is the new “Windows”, as in the predominant OS. That’s not my criterion but I won’t quibble since the primary reason I cite the article, pointed to me by my erstwhile colleague Magnetic Inductance Force, is to quote

“When users can’t view several windows simultaneously, they must keep information from one window in short-term memory while they activate another window,” writes noted usability expert Jakob Nielsen. “This is problematic for two reasons. First, human short-term memory is notoriously weak, and second, the very task of having to manipulate a window—instead of simply glancing at one that’s already open—further taxes the user’s cognitive resources.”

This is an indictment of tile GUIs at the fundamental level of how humans operate. And it supports my independent (?) assessment that tile GUIs only work for people who work sequentially, not those who work cumulatively!

So micturate on you Unity, Gnome 3, and whatever MegaHard call Metro this week!

Next, some research from U Tel Aviv indicates that Facebook – and other social networking sites – may cause psychosis. [Link] I fear this has to be considered just official, i.e., academic, confirmation of what most nerds and geeks who use FaceBook already know, that there are a LOT of whack jobs on FB. Maybe all but one, maybe two, as in the Amish saying about weird.

Next, a study out of Nawth Carolinia State U that indicates that old coders are better than young coders. [Link] Duhhhhh! What you lose in endurance you more than make up for in guile and deceit. But it’s nice to put that to bed, or at least to strike a counter bow to young coder insecurity expressing itself. Deal with it pups, that’s how you get to be an old, good coder!

Along those same lines, a study from U Washington indicates that the dinosaurs became dominant because of opportunistic success after a major biodiversity crash. [Link] So the rise of mammals – and the demise of dinosaurs – after the Yucatan strike is fair game. And DUMB luck. Remember that homo sapiens!

On which note, a study out of U Colorado indicates that humans who hold extreme political views do so as a result of an illusion of understanding. [Link] This confirms what I have hypothesized for a long time: no one understands politics and those who think they do are wrong and deluded.

This is one of the reasons we need to do away with politics, or at least, political organizations. Firing parties for all members of such may be considered.

And lastly, an article [Link] about a rather telling argument that science and religion cannot be reconciled. Does this mean we can quit humoring the mystics?

humans, behavior, science, politics, religion

Congress the Image

Normally I can only stomach politics as the realization of democracy. But the current chaos – morass may be a better term? – in the district calls for both retching and shame. And it is fundamentally the fault, or at least, the product, of that self-same democracy.

I was just reading, if it may be called that, on FaceScroll and much of what I had to sort through was vilification of the Congress. The common theme was comments calling for dismissal or punishment of the members. This is not surprising but having just been reading a blurb on Boole it occurred to me to view the comments in that maths context. This led to some observations:

• the vast majority of people who criticize a member of congress are not constituents;
• that is, they do not reside in the congress critter’s district nor may they participate in electing (or unelecting) that member;
• by and large the ones who do reside in a member’s district are not in sufficient numbers to unelect the member;

hence we may hypothesize that people are not that dissatisfied with their member, at least enough and in sufficient fraction to replace the member.

What they are dissatisfied with is the entropy and discooperation of the congress as a whole. But that condition is at least partly caused by the very people who are complaining since they elected their representative, who is part of the condition, and are apparently unwilling to replace their member purely for the sake of obtaining more cooperation.

In effect, the chaos of the congress reflects the state of the nation. The individual members are not misrepresenting their electorates.

government, congress, politics, chaos, representation

Bribery Failure

Back to modal, I hope. At least week in and some activity.

On which note, I was a bit abashed by an article [Link] on some work at U Chicago about a practice I was unaware of and am not sure I understand. The lead paragraph states, of the study,

“More than 30 percent of high school graduates were offered state financial aid if they went to college in state, but less than 3 percent changed their decision about where to go to school or where to live once they graduated”

I think this says that of the population offered scholarships at in-state colleges, 0.1 were unmoved. But that wayward “and” is confusing.

I think I can comprehend the mechanics of offering top ranked (by whatever idiosyncratic metrics) high shule students scholarships to attend in-state colleges in hopes of retaining them. But what is not clear is whether the scholarship has a covenant requiring such. And that seems to be a critical factor in this presentation that got left out.

But leaping into a series of unjustified assumptions< let us suppose that most of these students are going to major in the employable disciplines: business; STEM; medicine; or law. Success in all of these is a matter of as good an educations as possible so if there is a perception that a better education is available elsewhere, then go there. The same goes for career.

So where’s the drama coming from? Why the wonder?

politics, college, humans, behavior

Squeezed States

It’s that time of week again. Tab hawgin’ day. So all you reads, such as you are in number, get the left-overs from the browser refrigerator.

First of all, I note in the Register [Link] that MegaHard is blaming the sales failure of Winders Ate on the computer manufacturers? Has the grand exalter cudzu of MegaHard, whoever he is now that Bill Gates has absconded, grown a toothbrush mustache and taken to wearing an arm band and jack boots? Will Jewish code writers be blamed next?

Once more the English media comes through when the Amerikan media fails spectacularly. Of course that could have to do with the superiority of English shules in teaching English bairns how to read and rite and figger and all that not covered in Amerikan shules. They may be illegitimate tyrants but at least they don’t only instruct their children on only what is on the test. And a government test at that. If we’re going to have a test for all our shule children it needs to be a FOST.[1]

Anyway we have to ask why would all those computer builders deliberately fornicate MegaHard. After all, MegaHard has been so good to them, requiring them to replace BIOS with a system that assures reduced sales and lots of overhead, and to use an OS that assures reduced sales and lots of overhead. So why would they spite themselves after such benevolent treatment?

But I did rather like the comparison of Winders Ate to Vister. Not that it’s original, which it isn’t but any mud smeared on the Sixth (Fifth?) Reich is a blow for freedom.

Coupled to this is a rather humorous article [Link] about how Winders is losing out to Linux, 2:1. Not that the argument is more than a sieve, like the articles about Linux’s next year on the desktop. With the desktop retrenching to people who actually produce information rather than just consume it, I am happy to be warm, dry, AMUSED!, and comforted by an OS that works well, is a joy to use, and doesn’t try to run my life.

OK, Android is rather a bit of a nag on my so-called smart phone, which isn’t smart except in the sense of pain. But my misgenetic (FOSS for bastard) combination of Ubuntu and KDE is good for me both productively and esthetically. Winders ceased to be either sometime around W2K. And no, I don’t think Linux is whipping Winders so much as MegaHard is self-destructing. But I don;t really care. Linux is like Switzerland, an oasis of sanity in a world of religionist/capitalist fanaticism.

Next, speaking of Switzerland, there is word [Link] of an experiment using a pseudo-hydrogen atom – a combination of a proton and a muon, the latter rather a fat, mentally unstable relative of the electron, to determine the diameter of the proton. I am a bit skeptical of this, mostly because of the muon. A bound proton should have a (slightly) different size than a “free” proton, or for that matter a proton all by itself in the universe. But what stumps me, and evidently everyone else, is why a proton bound to a muon should be smaller than when measured any other way? I am briefly entertaining the fielder’s mitt hypothesis that indicates that the baseball (proton) is a bit smaller as it is held in the fielder’s mitt (muon.) Hokey? Yes. Bad? Not necessarily, since all models are ‘wrong’ in science.

And while we’re on particles, I noted an article [Link] about the particle burst of 774 CE. Seems that Tellus got blasted that year by a burst of particles from a supernova (hypothesis) that caused all sorts of radioactive grrr brrrr. What makes this noteworthy is when it occurred. I searched my memory for what happened that year. Bupkus. hen I consulted a couple of history timetable references and an atlas of world history. More bupkus. About all that I could find in the history books is a mopping up of military action in England by Offa (reflecting how wonderfully well the English do at horribly embarrassing names,) and Charlemagne validating some donation to the Bishop of Rome. IOW, a microcosm of human activity: war; politics; and mysticism.

And lastly, I ran across an article [Link] about NASAl ressurecting old Saturn rocket engines for a test for future use. This grabbed my attention span for a couple of reasons. First of all, one of my coffee acquaintances tells the tale of how when the Yankee government canceled the Saturn program for political reasons, how he scrambled to hide a few of these engines rather than crush them and sell for scrap. What makes this interesting is he cozened the Yankee army into providing the storage facility. So chalk one up for an accidental benefit of the Yankee army. And a triumph over Amerikan political stupidity.

The second is that when these engines were originally being tested they shook Nawth Alibam. I can remember being in band class and the director cutting us off to sit and wiat during the test. All we could hear was the roar and the shaking of windows. Definitely not our off-key, off-time “music”. And we knew the next day all the egg ranchers on Sand Mountain would come down to lay damage claims against NASAl for unlaid eggs.

I think that’s why I have stayed in Alibam. It’s a wonderful place to make big noise, disrupt biology, and foil the depredations of politicians.

[1]  Free and Open Source Test.

computers, physics, politics, technology

BHH

Award for the most colossal prevarication by a politician this week: to the deputy fuhrer, herr biden, for his persistent diversion that restricting firearms will reduce violence.

Credibility as well as reality ruptured. Almost all of the data we have indicates violence is negatively correlated with gun ownership density. And yes, that doesn’t imply causality but have we ever had anything but negative causality from a politician in the last few years?

Award for the most egregious display of arrogance, incompetence, and lese majeste by a politician in a LONG time: to the minister of state, frau clinton, for her behavior and presence before the Yankee government congress.

Once more we are reminded why the current chief executive got elected. It is very easy to see this woman handing out apples. Take that metaphor as you will. The only good I saw was understanding why her husband is a philanderer.

Award for the most unexpected display of integrity and candor by a young person: to the helicopter driver/gunner and soldier, harry windsor, who demonstrated that at least one member of his family is a mentsh.

I got the first two from watching the electromagnetic audio-visual receiver; the third from a colleague, Displacement Current Magnetic Field, who emailed me an article from the Register that was so sodden with liberal stercus that my olfactory states are still saturated. So two Fs and one A. Not bad for the shape the planet is in, largely due to the damage perpetrated by politicians.

humans, behavior, government, politics, evil, tyranny, integrity, honesty

Unholy Taxonomy

Back to week in. Sorta. Today is a double holy day, being both Martin Luther King day and Robert Edward Lee day, the one federal, the other state. As is normal with such overloads, the import of the holyness is diluted and so almost everyone except those mandated to observe the holy day do not. In actuality that means government folks and those who work with them. And, of course, all those who depend on government services and support are cast adrift today.

The doubleness is still worthy of some consideration. In many ways it embodies the differences between the nation and the state. Alibam is one of the bastions of a cancerous, crumbling political party (one of two such) that is increasingly irrelevant and performing insane feats to try to retain power. The nation is largely controlled by the other.

The podcast this morning was an episode of the CBC’s “Best of Ideas”, some sort of honorary lecture on the woes and ills of multiculturalism. I quickly discovered that multiculturalism is a synonym for race in the sense of the artificial taxonomy imposed by government to permit better control of the citizenry. That view was upheld by the lecture.

But what I learned from the lecture was that taxonomy, at least in a political and/or social environment, is itself a source of evil. The problem is that no taxonomy can be accurate without having at least as many taxonomic states as people. The evil is that by developing superficially attractive but resolution inaccurate taxonomies, misrepresentation and disenfranchisement, tyranny and oligarchy even, are imposed on democracy.

This, in a nutshell, is the problem in Amerika. The taxonomy of repulsian/democrud states is woefully inadequate. It does not represent most of the people.

When I first learned of the King holy day I was aghast. I could not understand what the man had done that made him worthy of such honor. Surely this was nothing more than a political sop to multiculturalism? And then I considered the Lee holy day and I saw that holy days are not about our negatives but our positives, and seen in that light, both are worthy. And fit companions for the day.

So I am happy to observe this day honoring both men while hoping that someday soon some worthy will arise who ends the tyranny of our current partisan taxonomy.

government, society, politics,

Twinkie Politics

Nice morning. Rainy in a sort of desultory fashion. Just the right mood setter for winter. And now that we are settled down to the usual grrr brrr of politics and money and tyranny there is news, or, at least, articles, bubbling out again. One of the things that I have encountered are articles analyzing the results of the recent chief executive election.[Link] These fall into two major categories: democruds talking about how they are vindicated and validated in their feudalism of social engineering and ‘justice’, an odious mixture of the imprecise and the subjective; and repulsians admitting that they vertically copulated but asserting that they are still fundamentally right in their classic capitalist feudalism and will make cosmetic changes to recover the elections two years hence.

Neither is convincing. I still maintain that the fundamental problem is politics and parties. More than half of the American electorate is now part of the excluded middle whose ideas and desires fit neither party but because of the partisan dictatorship of the process have to pick one or the other to check the box on election day. Whether the parties realize this is unclear. There is too much posturing and maskarovka. In this case it was the democruds whose program was the lesser undesirable of the two, both in terms of burdens on the taxpayer and the so-called leadership.

On a more positive note, the church of Rome has finally taken some steps to publically admit that they stole solstice. [Link] The bishop of Rome’s latest book seems, at least according to the journalists, to admit the Joshua ben Joseph wasn’t born on the twenty-fifth of december in the year one CE. Now perhaps we can recover the real significance of winter solstice and celebrate someone whose birthday was on that date.

Oscillating back the other way, this was followed by an article about why Hostess flopped. [Link] In many ways, it is indistinguishable from the political pieces. It claims that the problem was changes in Amerikan eating habits and the obesity pogrom. Sounds altogether plausible except that it ignores the sales figures were not down by 0.5 but maybe 0.1. Another whitewash job for the capitalist pirates who gutted the company and pushed it over the edge. Rather like politicians?

politics, corporations, religion, nonsense

Election Difference

It also struck me this morning that this year’s election for chief executive is a bit different than those in recent years. Usually it is a matter of voting against the worst candidate. This year it seems to be about voting for the candidate that will do the lesser harm to the nation.

It is not often that we are confronted with two candidates whose only obvious quality is the damage they can, and likely will, do to the nation.

humans, government, politics, politicians, evil