Irrelevant observation
After doing snow work (shoveling path, raking roof) my shoes and pants are completely snow-covered. I take off shoes and turn them upside-down to melt and drain better. This accomplishes the intended purpose; the inside of the shoe is dry the next time I put it on. It also has another effect that I can't figure out. After sitting upside-down, the inside of the shoe is noticeably warmer than the floor. Feels like at least 10 degrees above 'usual'. The shoes aren't near a baseboard heater, so it can't be from that source.

New Years Resolution: Before next winter I'm getting a metal roof. This ice-dam fight is ridiculous and unnecessary. Good exercise, but I'm too old for the risk.

Labels: Shack people - Cottage people

  ¶ 7:12 AM

  Who's smarter?
Another sciency item. A live look at the neurons of the 'lab rat' nematode C. Elegans. The accompanying video is moderately interesting, but the comments are vastly more interesting in a grimly clinical way.

In the video the worm's 300 neurons seem to be responding in a simple way, which is understandable. More or less rhythmic, and pretty much the same areas flashing all the time. Some areas flash more at certain times. Presumably these variations are responses to sensory inputs and motor actions of the worm. (The small changes would be more readable if the researchers had done some video editing to rotate the brain image to a constant position.)

What’s less understandable is the super-simple response of the commenters, who are presumably human and presumably possess a trillion neurons.

Only one neuron lights up. It’s totally unrelated to the task at hand. It lights up in a perfectly predictable and rhythmic way, flashing TRUMP IS FASCIST BUFFOON : TRUMP IS FASCIST BUFFOON : TRUMP IS FASCIST BUFFOON : TRUMP IS FASCIST BUFFOON ... ad infinitum.

Who's smarter? The worm with its task-related response, or the humans with their rigid inorganic clockwork response to every event and action?

  ¶ 2:03 AM

  Constants and variables 34
Typically stupid article on culture.

Main point of article:

The congressmen with facial hair were thought to be more masculine, less feminist, and less likely to support women’s rights, Herrick wrote in a blog post about her work. As a consequence, women and self-identified feminists in the group said they were less likely to vote for them.

Totally confused. Probably some truth in the observation, but the article jumbles up every possible constant and variable in discussing causation.

Unpacking.....

Start with one constant rule: Attractive people hold fashionable beliefs.

Like most rules of behavior, this is far from absolute. Circumstances and random shit can get in the way. Still, it's a fairly valid generality. Why is it mainly true?

Attractive people get most of what they want. Jobs, mates, status.

For obvious reasons, culture tells us that the way to get jobs, mates and status is to follow the currently fashionable beliefs and behaviors. Culture also makes it easier to follow fashionable beliefs and behaviors.

Therefore, most people start out doing the "right" things. Attractive people get good results, so they have no reason to change. They continue doing the "right" things and believing the "right" beliefs. Unattractive people get poor results, so they lose faith in the fashionable beliefs and start doing unconventional things.

The rest is temporary variables. The permissibility of beards is strongly variable. In 1850 every man had a beard unless forbidden by religion or occupational necessity. In 1950 every man was clean-shaven unless forbidden by religion. At those points in fashion history you couldn't use beards as an indicator.

Since 1960 whiskers are openly optional. Thus owning a beard is a pretty fair indicator that a man is unattractive and wants to improve his appearance.

So we have the basic causation. Variable: Beard means unattractive. Constant: Unattractive men have been forced to examine fashionable beliefs closely, because adhering to fashion doesn't work.

One more variable: Currently fashionable beliefs about human characteristics and behavior are wildly delusional, which means that unfashionable beliefs are inevitably closer to reality. This wasn't always the case. Before 1960, the beliefs you'd pick up from books and schools and media were reasonably close to the facts of Nature, so unattractive people were more likely to hold delusional views like feminism. Since 1960 the Correct Line has been steadily accelerating toward an unimaginable set of bizarre psychotic hyperdelusions. As late as 1990, any human who held today's LEGALLY REQUIRED beliefs would have been considered dangerously insane.


Professor Polistra attempts to illustrate. The range of fashionable views in 1950 was clustered near truth. Unconventional views thus had to move away from truth. In 2015 the range of fashionable views is literally off the chart, beyond all measurable lines of falsehood. Unconventional views have to move closer to truth.

Labels: Constants and Variables

  ¶ 1:35 AM

  Dogs own Heaven
More proof.
  ¶ 6:29 PM

  Finally, maybe
After a remarkably persistent snow pattern, El Nino is finally starting to kick in. Probably shouldn't say it. Superstition. Still, all the credible experts agree, and we've had 12 whole hours with nothing falling from the sky.

Persistent? Here's a pasted-up list of the last several days on the Weather Bureau's 'local observation' column. Nearly solid -SN.



Persistent. Didn't amount to much, which is fortunate. I guess.

Later in the day: Yup, it's actually stopped. Nothing on the radar, nothing in the sky. A brief moment of sun. And even more amazingly, Copkiller Condon allowed the city street crews to dribble a few grains of SAND on the streets. Roughly two grains per square foot. Too little and too late, but it's the thought that counts. I guess.

Labels: Heimatkunde

  ¶ 5:30 AM

  Who are the heroes?
Who are the heroes of 2015? Measured by consequences, not intentions.

If I made a list with 100 slots, Putin would take the top 96. He finally broke USA STRONG. I didn't think it was possible, but it's happening.

After all of those Putins, we have the growing group of Populist and Nationalist leaders who actually won elections, took power, and got SERIOUS about serving and PROTECTING their own people. 97 = Orban in Hungary. 98 = Kaczynski in Poland. 99 = People's Party in Switzerland. (I've probably missed a few smaller countries.)

Other Populist leaders and parties are gaining ground but not yet in power. LePen will continue to advance. Farage in England seems to have lost his will. Trump in USA is still a question-mark. He says all the right things and proposes all the right solutions, but his record of seriousness leaves me wondering. Is he simply negotiating toward a deal?

Slot #100, which could just as well be #1, goes to JURIES. Over and over, in cases involving self-defense by citizens and self-defense by cops, JURIES have bravely and sanely resisted the pressure of blackmailing lawyers and rioting Vibrants and murderous media. JURIES have maintained truth and law. Their actions have real consequences, because the Federal black-robed satans don't have the time or money to undo ALL of those decisions.

= = = = =

I'm conflicted by CMP/Daleiden. Unquestionably brave and independent. Exposed an infinite evil to video view, which is the only view that matters. More importantly, exerted a blackmail-style force against evil, which is the only thing that sometimes works when you don't own more nukes than USA STRONG. But I'm not sure if his efforts have led to any consequences. Mediasatans managed to Rectify the truth with 100% murderous efficiency. Absolutely none of the truth escaped into 'normal' channels. USA STRONG government will not change its habits until 500 megatons remove DC from the surface of the earth. (I continue to pray hard for this consummation.) Some charities and corporations appear to be temporarily embarrassed, but it's not clear that they have actually decreased their funding for PP. A couple of states have written some words that would decrease funding if the words were allowed to become "law", but USA STRONG will not allow that.

A few hours later: Yup. Toldja so.

Labels: defensible spaces, Гром победы

  ¶ 3:32 PM

  Darwin^2
News:

A man has died after apparently trying to blow up a condom vending machine in Germany. The 29-year-old was brought into hospital with a head injury by two other men who first told doctors their colleague injured himself falling downstairs.

Multi-level Darwin. Instead of buying and using the condoms to prevent his gene line from continuing, he blew up the condom vending machine. Nature begged to differ and restored the correct decision.
  ¶ 7:07 AM

  Needs better Rectification
There are two different PSAs running on radio right now, both designed to raise awareness of the fake "disorder" of autism. One of them quotes the "odds" of autism as 1 in 68, the other gives the "odds" as 1 in 112.

If you're going to broaden the definition of a "disorder" every month, you need to Rectify the earlier definitions.
  ¶ 5:01 AM

  Complete mystery
Last night Spokane cops shot (but only slightly wounded) a professional criminal who was standing on the highway shooting at people.

Well! This must be national news by now! National news consists of SMASHING cops who are doing their jobs, protecting normal people from criminals and crazies. That's the whole point of having a "free" press. To kill cops. It's right there in the Constitution:

Congress shall make no Law abridging the right of the Press to slaughter Constables.



WHAT? The item isn't in national news!!!!! National news is slaughtering SOME OTHER COP in SOME OTHER CITY who was also doing his job correctly and courageously!!!!

I wonder why the Spokane incident doesn't count? Can't figure it out. No possible explanation.
  ¶ 3:01 AM

  Just for silly
Curbside Classic is reprinting some of its best items of the year, including a magnificent set of photoshopped mods: a '55 Plymouth as trimmed by various artists. The photoshop artist is a genuine genius.

One of the commenters suggested that Picasso's Chicago bird might make a good hood ornament. My '52 Crosley has a stylized eagle, so I tried converting it:



Polistra and Happystar provide critical commentary.

Actually this could have been practical. The wing part would serve as a bug deflector, which was a common aftermarket accessory in the '50s. The head part would be the hood latch and handle. Ideally the eyes would be lighted.

= = = = =

Just for even more silly, I tried out this online thingamajig that supposedly finds the 'memorable' parts of a picture. Memorability has something to do with faces, understandably enough. This picture has four face-like things: Polistra, Happystar, the Crosley's own face, and the Picasso bird. The algorithm favored Polistra's face and ignored the others ... except that it noticed the bug on Crosley's left headlight. (Not an intentional part of the model, apparently a Poser render artifact.) But what's memorable about the sidewalk next to Polistra's foot? It's just a rough surface.


For a constants and variables test, tried a picture with nearly identical ingredients, from this blog entry on the head-tail qualities of cars. Polistra and Happystar and a car and a long-faced horse. Same set of face types, by my judgment.



Completely different response. Now the algo likes all of the critters, but really loves the Bantam. Why is the Bantam more memorable than the Crosley? Is it just the big round white shape on the side, with a render-artifact bug on the door? Can it be that simple?
  ¶ 5:41 PM

  Two related puzzles
Two tech puzzles, both involving long-distance communications infrastructure and aircraft.

(1) This winter's snow is annoyingly persistent but basically normal. Last winter was nearly snowless and the winter before was below average, so our expectations had to be readjusted. Objectively this is nothing special, certainly not a super-winter or 'snowpocalypse'.

But for some reason this snow is causing major power outages in rural areas east of Spokane. Inland Power is struggling to get 5000 people out of the dark. They're using helicopters to blow snow off their power lines. What's the difference? Have they been neglecting normal maintenance, or is there something new and special about the snow in that area? Did they use low-quality wire for quick repairs after the Nov windstorm?

(2) NYC satans are spending huge amounts of money to build faster faster faster ways of counterfeiting and stealing and mass-murdering. The latest is a laser-based communication system duplicating the existing fiberoptic system. High-speed "trading" is never fast enough for Satan; there's always a way to trim a few more milliseconds when you need to kill more poor people and enrich more Chosen.

But a laser-based system in open air is just begging to be disrupted. Anywhere along the 30-mile path, a drone or a balloon or a kite could block the beam. Near any of the rural relay stations, you could even use a simple aluminum tripod to hold an obstacle firmly in place. You can't guard all 30 miles of an open-air path. Beyond simple obstacles, hackers working for competitors could place a distorted repeater into the path, changing the code for "BUY 10000 SHARES OF UNIVERSAL CONSOLIDATED" into "SELL ALL SHARES OF UNIVERSAL CONSOLIDATED."
  ¶ 6:01 AM

  That's where the streetlight is
This article pointed by RealClearScience caught my attention. It's a close look at the gene mechanisms that plants use when trying to seek maximum light. Plants can distinguish between permanent shade (from trees or buildings) versus a cloudy day. They don't bother to grow in new directions when the shade is temporary. This basic fact should lead to more exploration of intelligence and memory. Judging temporariness requires a considerable amount of pattern-recognition and sorting ability.

Unfortunately the study didn't go there, didn't seem to find anything new. Except at the end, where the researchers exhibited their own light-seeking behavior in a competitive environment.

This revelation could help researchers learn how to modify plant genes to optimize growth to, for example, coerce soy or tomato crops (which are notoriously fickle) grow more aggressively and give a greater yield even in a crowded, shady field. “Shade avoidance and the response of plants to increases in temperature look similar and in fact share many common molecular components. Therefore, studying shade avoidance will not only lead to increases in yield in shaded environments, but may explain how to increase yield in a warming climate.”

Got GMO? Check. Got Global Warming? Check.

That's where the streetlight is.   ¶ 2:24 AM

  Sums up the year
Idiot climbs cliffs to see sunset, then pays attention to his cellular portable telephonic device instead of sunset. Falls. Dies. Darwin laughs.

If you were going to see the sunset on your cellular portable telephonic device anyway, you should have stayed in your living room. Pick one.

Or, as our old shimmering multi-gendral friend USA STRONG might put it:


Hmm. We seem to have a definite cliff theme going today.

Labels: STRONG!

  ¶ 5:11 AM

  Another positive
A small but important positive development this year is the mounting pressure toward real value. Iceland has already outlawed bank-level counterfeiting, and Switzerland is preparing a referendum on the subject. It was easy in Iceland because there are essentially zero counterfeiters. Probably won't be quite as easy in Switzerland.

The goal is to place all control of the money supply in the hands of the government. This obviously has flaws as well, but it's better than the current fractional-reserve crime.

When banks and speculators can create new fake "value" simply by making a loan, you're guaranteeing a pure bubble economy and discouraging real saving and investment.

When banks have to POSSESS THE FULL AMOUNT before making a loan, banks will have to bring in much more ACTUAL DEPOSITS. At some point they will find it necessary to invent the strange notion of paying savers an annual "rent" for their money. Sounds radical and weird and sci-fi, but it could happen. Maybe 30,000,000,000,000 years from now.

Later correction: Apparently Iceland hasn't yet adopted the "own what you loan" system. Still considering it, just as Switzerland is still considering it.

Labels: Asked and answered

  ¶ 3:11 AM

  Poor old Satan 2
SurpriseSurpriseShockShockShock.

The study establishes a new method to date all the previous landslides at a particular location. The method shows that the slopes in the area around Oso have collapsed on average once every 500 years, and at a higher rate of about once every 140 years over the past 2,000 years.

WHAT? You mean to say that a steep cliff undercut by a river collapses often? You mean it has collapsed within human memory, but fucking idiots still built a town at the base of it, even though any normal human could SEE that a steep cliff near a river will collapse?

Nah. Can't be simple physics. Has to be Climate Change.

YOU FUCKING TOLD US IT WAS CLIMATE CHANGE. And you're never wrong.

Therefore we need to start looking for evidence of SUVs and Republicans and Denialists among the Sacreds Ruinses of Firstses Nationses Peopleseseses. They must have had SUVs and Republicans and Denialists, because everyone knows that Climate Change is caused by SUVs and Republicans and Denialists.



Fucking hyperevil hypermonsters. Grotesque alien fiends beyond all imagining.

Labels: Carbon Cult, Pluponents, STRONG!

  ¶ 1:41 AM

  Year-end whatever
Realized that I should maintain the tradition of a year-end or Xmas entry.

This was a complicated and tiring year. First two months were spent completing the latest (and LAST) courseware version. After that I delved into electronics for a few months, which was fun but not highly productive. Summer was too hot to think. Then November brought a windstorm and an 8-day power outage, which stole some of my 'gumption'. Now my tropism is more toward coziness and comfort food than thinking or building. Other residents of the 8-day zone seem to have suffered a similar loss, based on one observable symptom .... For several years Xmas lighting had been multiplying rapidly. This year most of the formerly bright houses are undecorated. Too busy surviving and recovering and shoveling to worry about lights.

Atypically, the most positive developments this year were external: the rise of Trump as a genuine Populist, and Putin's decision to fight the USA STRONG monstrosity. We still don't know how the Trump thing will turn out, but he has demonstrated FIRMLY that Populist sentiment is widespread in this fully fucked former so-called "nation". We can predict the outcome of Putin's resistance with more certainty, since the USA STRONG monstrosity is already starting to back down in Syria. FINALLY.

Instead of a winter scene, I'll show this warm summer scene, bringing Mr Sun back into the picture for the first time in many months.

Closer up:


I described this place earlier. It was a gas station built into a cave in the 20s, active through the 40s. I explored it in '65, when it was just about ready to collapse. The cave itself was presumably older; before the 1908 flood it would have been facing the Kaw directly, not far upstream from the junction of Wildcat. History indicates that the original Polistra (or Poliska) townsite was near the junction of Wildcat and Kaw, and mentions that a cave was one of the dwellings. Was this it? Possible but unlikely. Other historians seem to agree that the "townsite" consisted of Colonel Park's cabin, which he abandoned shortly after building it. His cabin was on the east side of Wildcat, north of the Kaw, roughly where current Poliska Lane runs.

= = = = =

Later update: In previous year-end whatevers, I tried to list one or two things I'd written during the year that made sense. This year I couldn't think of any, but one item AFTER this year-end thingamajig probably qualifies. This item on fashionable beliefs is solid and moderately original.


= = = = =

Later again: The Kansas Historical Society website includes an 1859 letter from Colonel Park to Isaac Goodnow, in which he gives up all claim to his unsuccessful townsite. Park had returned to Parkville, the city that he successfully founded. Note the old-style fs in 'pressed'.

Transcribed closely:

Parkville Mo June 7/59

Yours from St Louis was received. I regret that I did not see you.

It will be entirely out of my power to pay much of any thing this season. I cannot collect enough to meet my present liabilities here. Times are so hard & this section have not benefitted by Pikes Peak emigration. I am willing to sell any of my Manhattan property at a fair price to pay my subscription.

That Manhattan property has been a continual drain on me from the begginning. I am getting tired particularly when prefsed at home. I think you are too fast. That country hardly wants a college yet. We perhaps had better have waited untill times are better. Yet under the circumstances, if you can financier it through, you will certainly be entitled to great Credit. It is a noble enterprise and where sure foundation ought to be laid for the future. The future is of Great promise. I shall be happy to aid you as soon as I am able for I have confidence. Respectfully Geo S. Park.

Why was Goodnow more successful than Park? Both were pioneers with an anti-slavery vision. Has to be a difference in talent. Goodnow had a unique way of 'financiering' rich backers and smaller donors. After he had enough visible money-force behind him, he was able to persuade both buyers and politicians that his venture would survive. And it did.

Labels: Heimatkunde, Make or break, Гром победы

  ¶ 5:46 PM

  1000 words
Meanwhile in Rome, Antichrist Francine shows us the whole point and purpose of Catholicism. One picture does it all. No words possible or printable.
  ¶ 4:07 AM

  Classic point-missing
In 2002 the Wash state penal system installed new software to calculate 'good time' or 'time served' for sentences with such provisions. The software failed to account for sentencing enhancements, so it underestimated the resultant release date for about 3000 prisoners. The error was a few months in most cases.

Needless to say, none of the prisoners complained. One victim, who had calculated the time properly, complained in 2012, but nobody listened. Finally an official noticed the problem earlier this year.

The alleged governor, Satan dba "Inslee", is all weeweed up about this inconsequential error. S/he promises quick action and long investigations, which is easy because it was someone else's error.

Now it appears that several of the released prisoners have committed new crimes. Shock! Shock! Shock! Criminals committing crimes! Who could have expected that? Nobody predicted it! Must have happened because they were out of prison two months early! If only we'd kept them in jail two more months, they would have been fully reformed and re-educated!

Shit.

= = = = =

Afternote for clarity: Precise timing of prison is an irrelevant variable. Prison is not linear. If a criminal is innate, he needs to be stored permanently or executed quickly. By 'quickly' I mean as soon as the crime is committed. If a non-criminal or a very young criminal breaks a law, we need to do something other than prison. Restitution is often appropriate. Required work (preferably real and useful work, not 'chain gang' stuff) with part of wages going to the victim of the theft. Sometimes a simple public humiliation will do the job. The 'stocks' were a good idea. Leave the dumbshit out in public for a day, allowing people to spit on him or throw harmless objects.

In other words, there should only be two prison intervals. Life and zero. Binary. No calculation needed.

Labels: Natural law = Sharia law

  ¶ 3:35 AM

  Herod sees God as Herod

Predictable, I suppose. Herod aka Miss Justine Welby makes a blasphemous "Christmas" speech. S/he speaks, of course, in the Royal Tense of 'is expected to':

In his sermon Archbishop Welby is expected to describe Isil as “a Herod of today”. Using the word “apocalypse” in the original Greek meaning - as an unveiling or revelation – he contrasts the message of hope summed up by the angels announcing the birth of Jesus with the deadly vision put forward by Jihadists and other religious extremists.

“Today, across the Middle East, close to the area in which the angels announced God’s apocalypse, Isis and others claim that this is the time of an apocalypse - an unveiling created of their own terrible ideas, one which is igniting a trail of fear, violence, hatred and determined oppression.

Who was Herod? A governor of a Roman colony. Who is Miss Justine? A governor of a Roman colony, totally obedient to EU, the new Rome.

If you read the actual laws of God and Nature as documented in the Old Testament, there's no doubt that ISIS is acting as God's Hand. The reference manual gives us several helpful illustrations of God's Hand destroying evil nations. We were supposed to learn from those examples.

ISIS wasn't intended as God's Hand; it was designed by USA STRONG as an agent provocateur to make Islam look horrible. But it cut loose from the original remit, and started enforcing Natural Law with extreme force. The only problem is that ISIS is mainly acting in places that are still fairly close to Natural Law. It hasn't yet penetrated deeply into places where the extremity of evil would require an extremity of restoration.

You want to talk about slaughtering innocents, Herod? You started it. And I started it too, since I was an active part of the neocon horde in 2001. (I've tried to reform, not that it matters. The blood is still on my hands.) You and I, Welby, have helped to slaughter at least a million Muslims. ISIS hasn't come REMOTELY close to matching our record in response.

When ISIS attacks the lands of Satan, it's appropriate to defend the land. Self-defense is always appropriate. But we need to KNOW WHAT WE'RE DEFENDING before we try to invoke religious metaphors. We shouldn't compound our evils by reading the text backwards.

Or, putting the whole mess in simple secular terms: When an evil empire starts to fall apart, radical violence is one of the symptoms. USA STRONG sees the violence as justification for even STRONGER evil.

A sane man sees fever and puking and DT's as Nature's feedback, telling him to stop drinking.

A STRONG man sees fever and puking and DT's as an instruction to drink even more. We'll switch from whiskey to Everclear, by God! Then wood alcohol! Then antifreeze! That'll cure it!

Labels: Natural law = Sharia law, STRONG!

  ¶ 2:44 AM

  Tornados convicted without trial?
News:

"Seven people have been killed in storms and tornadoes across the South late Wednesday, with at least 40 people injured, according to officials."

All the articles are consistent. There are no SUSPECTED tornados, no ACCUSED tornados, no ALLEGED tornados, no POSSIBLE tornados. We don't need to wait for the NWS investigation and trial this time.

Oh, I understand. These are SOUTHERN tornados. DIXIE tornados. SELMA tornados. KKK tornados. BULL CONNOR tornados. HONKY tornados. FUNDY tornados. FASCIST HOMOPHOBE SEXIST tornados.

No trial needed. Southern honkies are automatically guilty of everything.
  ¶ 5:23 AM

  Two bits of real knowledge!
Always interesting when people who ACTUALLY KNOW SOMETHING get into the media.

Shoveling the big clunky mess left by the snowplow is a hot topic right now. The city is allegedly testing out a "new" device that was actually INVENTED BY THE CITY STREETS WORKERS 50 YEARS AGO AND THEN FORGOTTEN BY THE IDIOT GOVERNMENT. The idea was re-imported from elsewhere.

Today KXLY did a brief interview with a retired city streets worker who said that the plow drivers formerly used a technique instead of a device: they simply straightened the plow for a moment so it would hold the snow while passing a driveway. They called the technique "carrying the berm".

Real SKILL knowledge, complete with its own little jargon. Refreshing.

KXLY checked with Copkiller Condon's official spokesidiot, who said the method never existed. Of course. Every useful method, every actual fact, goes into the Memory Hole.

I tried googling "carry the berm" with no success. Unsurprising. Real jargon of real people never gets into the dictionary. Old lexicographers only knew the jargon of fashionable assholes. Google's algorithms continue the tradition.

While searching I bumped into an even more interesting suggestion by a plow driver in some unnamed town. Simple and clever. You can minimize the blockage by thinking ahead. Shovel the part of the street that will end up across your drive. Clear out a four-foot strip, starting about four feet upstream of your driveway, and continuing across your drive. It seems like extra work, but it's actually less labor. You're going to lift that snow anyway! Better to lift it when it's soft and powdery. By the time the plow moves that section into your drive, it's granitic and heavy.

= = = = =

Sidenote: As of 12/24 evening, we officially have 21.8 inches. That's exactly half of the long-term average for entire winters. Next week should be a welcome dry break, as the jet stream is finally moving down into Calif.

Labels: defensible spaces, Experiential education

  ¶ 4:15 AM

  Actually,
Headline #1:

U.S. Plans Mass Deportation of Illegal Central American Migrants

Headline #2:

Revealed: 20 British Muslim families 'stopped' from entering US

Wait! Hold on! Didn't you just finish telling us that both of those actions were UNTHINKABLE UNACCEPTABLE UNAMERICAN NOT US NOT OUR VALUES?

Oh. Yes, I understand. Those actions are UNTHINKABLE UNACCEPTABLE UNAMERICAN NOT US NOT OUR VALUES when Trump proposes them. They are NECESSARY AND PERFECT EXPRESSIONS OF OUR HIGHEST AND BEST VALUES when Obama does them.

Just like monkey cartoons.

Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. You unimaginably hyperevil hypermonsters DARE TO WONDER why people want SOMETHING DIFFERENT, to put it indescribably gently?

Actually, here's what I want for Christmas.

Labels: Asked and answered

  ¶ 3:08 AM

  Annoying as usual
Watching my blog stats is a source of amusement and annoyance. Mainly futility.

I've written about 5600 items. Maybe a dozen are worthwhile in my own judgment, but those dozen ALMOST NEVER get read. Exactly three items show up reliably and regularly in the blogspot stats. The first one is probably the only 'public service' this blog renders. I haven't seen it in a few months; the last time it got read was by the IRS, which MAY account for the lack of new references. Probably not, though. That assumption would make sense, and nothing makes sense now. The other two reliable regular items are just stupid, which explains why they're comparatively popular.



Right now the three reliables are not showing up. For some reason the above TEN-YEAR-OLD item has become popular. It shouldn't be. At that time there were no recordings of FDR's D-Day prayer online, so I pulled a poor clip from an OTR cassette tape and transcribed it. Now there are MANY better recordings online. It's easy to find. So there's no reason to use the one I made.

Why are so many people hitting that item now? Who knows. Maybe it's become a subject of bullying and ridicule on some Facebook page.

= = = = =


A similar annoyance in email. I'm constantly getting notices of new updated software from stuff that I bought only once and haven't used for 15 or 20 years. I didn't even know DivX still existed; it was a poor format and deserved to fade. But I NEVER get update notices for software I bought recently and still use.
  ¶ 2:28 AM

  Best picture of the season
Spokane-News often invites readers to take pics of current weather. Today's pics are appropriately miserable, but one breaks out of the mold. Literally. Young engineer cleverly making an igloo from molded snow bricks, with dog guarding the worksite. This is why life exists.
  ¶ 1:53 PM

  Ockham and cults
BBC has an interview with a former cult member who has made a career out of analyzing cults. The BBC interview doesn't name the cult, but it's named and fully described elsewhere. It was an unexpectedly small operation that lasted at least 20 years, centered mainly in the Minneapolis area. Cult members received memos from the nameless leader, telling them which jobs to take, what to eat, where to shop, who to marry, when to have kids, how to raise the kids ... essentially all the details of life.

Supposedly the cult was running a revolution based on Maoist ideology. It began with a violent takeover of food coops, but after that it did nothing at all. Members lived rigidly middle-class lives in middle-class neighborhoods, doing the same things as other middle-class parents. The only difference: these middle-class parents were living their ordinary middle-class lives under specific direct orders from the Leader, while other middle-class parents were living their ordinary middle-class lives under broad indirect orders from the TV.

What was the purpose? Unanswered in the various narratives. The only possible answer is simple raw power and money for the Leader. He got a more direct dose of powerjuice than the management of BBC or NPR or Fox or Apple or Google or USA STRONG. Those larger cult leaders know that their orders are being obeyed by millions, but they don't have direct personal feedback to WATCH the robots obeying them. They have to rely on polls and "elections" and NSA monitoring, which must be less satisfying than personal spies.

Non-cult observers tend to overthink the purposes of power, always seeing a complicated chain of ulterior purposes. Nice example in ZeroHedge today: "Our foreign policy is designed to perpetuate the failing petrodollar system." Nope. Just raw psychopathic genocidal powerlust.
  ¶ 5:08 AM

  Det Snow at work
Good old Detective Sergeant Snow. No need for dogs or helicopters when criminals forget about Nature.
  ¶ 3:50 AM

  First interesting idea. Won't happen.
Hillary's proposal to close failing public schools is the FIRST interesting idea by a non-Trump politician in 12 years. Trump has been producing plenty of specific solutions to real problems. Until today, all non-Trumps in "both" "parties" have been simply replaying one standard sentence.



The main advantage of charter schools is that they can be shut down when they fail. This motivates the admins to do the right thing. Public schools, partly by inertia and partly by Parkinson's Laws, have become permanent landmarks. Admins know this and perform accordingly.

If Hillary means what she says, there would be no real reason for separate charter schools. All educrats would be under pressure to perform.

I'm pretty sure she'll back off quickly. Union thugs will NOT allow this proposal. Here in Wash, the union thugs ordered their employees in the "supreme" "court" to get rid of charters, specifically because charters require teachers to get results. Intolerable, unacceptable, all options on the table, all options implemented.
  ¶ 5:34 PM

  Frum GETS IT.
Amid the huge ocean of pundits and politicians who completely misunderstand the Trump thing, only two or three pundits get it. The best is Frum, writing in The Atlantic.

He pins the facts and the emotions EXACTLY. I'd only quibble with one point. The following paragraph is 'numerically' accurate, but Frum doesn't see the inappropriate use of terms......

The Great Recession ended in the summer of 2009. Since then, the U.S. economy has been growing, but most incomes have not grown comparably. In 2014, real median household income remained almost $4,000 below the pre-recession level, and well below the level in 1999. The country has recovered from the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression. Most of its people have not.

When most incomes have not grown comparably, you can't say the economy is growing. When most people have not recovered, you can't say the country has recovered.

These inappropriate terms are universal, and they show the problem perfectly. It's a question of metrology, a question of which variable we choose to measure. We no longer pay ANY attention to the condition of the people. We only measure Goldman. When Goldman is growing, the country is growing.

Labels: Metrology, STRONG!

  ¶ 3:06 PM

  Storm mode 2
Interesting snowstorm yesterday. For most of the day the temp was around 35 here, which meant that the snow stayed on places that were already snow-covered but melted on open cement and grass. Nominal total was 6 inches, but the 'shovelable' amount was more like 3 inches.

The Weather Bureau missed this, and most of the TV/radio "meteorologists" mindlessly went along with the Weather Bureau. Mark Peterson of KXLY predicted it right. Snow in the morning, rain-snow mix in the afternoon. Peterson has a good record of accurately describing reality instead of quoting the Official Version.

Note from the Weather Bureau, by their measurements: "With yesterday's storm, Spokane has now had more snowfall so far this season than all of last winter! This year so far: 18.5 inches. Last year (total): 17.6 inches."



I did some intensive raking, adding the third section to the rake pole for the first time and reaching higher on the roof. Cleaned the outer half of both sides, making ice dams impossible.

Oddly, it seems like I'm the only 'raker' in town, at least on the streets I normally see when walking or busing. In previous years a few other raked roofs were starting to appear at this point in the season.

One welcome difference from previous snowy years: More people with snow-blowers are clearing the sidewalk on their entire block. Previously, each homeowner cleared his own frontage and maybe one or two lots beyond it. There are always non-shovelers in each block, which means that everyone's work is useless. It's like vaccination. When the blower owners catch the unshoveled lots, everyone's work is worth doing. Thanks, blower owners!

The sidewalks are especially welcome because the alleged "city" is doing a bad job on the streets. Copkiller Condon, Bloomberg's best bitchboy, is too busy sulking about the police rejection of his NYC "husband" Copkiller Straub. No time or energy for optional hobby-type activities like PLOWING AND SANDING THE FUCKING STREETS.


= = = = =

12/25 update: Now I see two other rakers. One is familiar from previous years and sort of minimal, clearing only the first foot above the eave. The other is fresh. A nearly new house, a block west of me, and he seems to have emulated my technique of baring the bottom half. Are we starting a trend? Raking up with the Joneses? Probably not, but I can pretend.


1/1 update: Now we have two more rakers along my street. Still none visible on other streets. We got a Convoy!

1/2 update: One more. Total of 5 rakers, all within about one block of my house. Still none visible elsewhere.

Labels: Heimatkunde

  ¶ 3:13 AM

  Really dumb idea
Krauts are thinking about analyzing Mein Kampf in schools, supposedly to 'inoculate' kids against Hitler's approach. Exactly wrong. Terrible idea.

When you've ALREADY CREATED the conditions for a new dictator to emerge, you DON'T WANT to have the students reading the instruction manual for building a new dictatorship. Some of them will read it anyway; can't do anything about that.

The best way to avoid a revolution is to STOP DOING all the things that GUARANTEE a revolution. Stop forcing people to accept millions of criminal migrants. Stop wasting money and soldiers on pointless invasions that create more migrants. Remove the central banks from all control of the economy. Start 'trust-busting' to break up monopolies. Delete the EU entirely. Stop forcing totally suicidal cultural insanity into our minds.

All of these factors lead SANE people to want an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT form of government. This desire is SANE AND PROPER AND NORMAL.

What happens AFTER the revolution is the problem. Revolutions always lead to even worse situations. No amount of reading will control the course of a revolution; reading can only IGNITE the revolution faster.

Labels: Asked and answered, defensible spaces, Natural law = Sharia law

  ¶ 2:52 AM

  Better understanding
After listening to lots of old radio shows about scams and rackets, I've come to understand the Carbon Scam in a more refined way. It's a two-part racket with a typical form. Setup and Payoff.

Setup is a fortunetelling scheme.

Payoff is blackmail by the parasitic parts of society against the productive parts.

A fortunetelling racket typically persuades the mark that her money is cursed, and requires her to turn over all of her money to the scammer for purification. (Historically the most successful instance of this racket was Catholicism.)

The carbon racketeers have mobilized the media, schools, government, army and churches to persuade all suckers that all productive activities are cursed. Making things is a Mortal Sin, because making things always generates Waste and Carbon. (Again the Catholic racket is a major player because of its superior experience.)

The priests (scientists) get lots of money (grants) for establishing this delusion in "scientific" form, but that's NOT the payoff. Priests are a necessary expense for the scammers.

Rackets are never something for nothing; on average the ratio of payoff to effort is within the same range as a regular investment. Scammers run scams because they are criminals. Doing things dishonestly brings them intrinsic pleasure. You can see this clearly in the 2009 Climategate emails. A few of the "scientists" are honest men who don't quite know what's happening; most are criminals who get their kicks from stacking the deck and lying.

The payoff starts AFTER the priests (scientists) have firmly established the delusion. After everyone 'knows' that all bad events are caused by Carbon Curses, the parasites (reinsurers, lawyers, bankers, speculators, journalists, EPA) can blackmail all producers. Give me your money and I'll remove the curse. (Curse = bad publicity, legal troubles, protesters.)

As with any blackmail, the amounts are carefully chosen. Big suckers can be milked for a long time; small marks are simply killed with the first lawsuit or fine.

Labels: Carbon Cult, Make or break

  ¶ 2:11 AM

  Spain wins, EU loses!

Polistra and friends do a quick salute to Spain, where the anti-EU parties just won a firm majority. It's split between Podemos and Socialists, but they should be able to get along.

Later, quote from Podemos leader:

"Our message to Europe is clear. Spain will never again be the periphery of Germany. We will strive to restore the meaning of the word sovereignty to our country."

I hope they can hold firm. The allegedly anti-EU leaders of Greece started with equally harsh language, then wilted under Kraut pressure. We shall see.
  ¶ 4:00 PM

  Best comment of the year
A surprisingly good article in Wired. Normally Wired is pure tech-tyrant propaganda and anti-Christian bigotry.

This author sets out a solid framework for thinking about cybersecurity, based on three main goals: Confidentiality, Availability and Integrity. Unfortunately the author fails his own standard of Integrity, and the first commenter NAILS IT. Best laugh I've had in many moons.
  ¶ 5:19 AM

  Why do they bother?
Constant theme lately. Why do monopolistic elites even bother to say this crap? When you own everything, it doesn't matter what you say. Might as well be honest.

A little personal example: I've been using Group Health for about 6 years now. I had been on an individual plan for $300/month, which was tolerable. When Romneycare went into effect in 2012, the plan instantly jumped to $500 "to cover pregnancy services". I couldn't afford that amount for long, but tolerated it for a couple years because I was close to Medicare. After 65, the Group Health basic Medicare B plan was only $50. Extremely tolerable.

Last month GHC was bought by Kaiser Permanente. Everyone knows what happens when a bigger monopoly takes over a smaller one. Prices go up, services get worse.

Nevertheless, GHC sent out a letter claiming the opposite. Everything will be the same but better.

Well, except that prices have already gone up. The Medicare B plan jumped from $50 to $79 per month, and I'm sure more increases are on the way, followed by severe cuts in service, then complete wipeout of the entire enterprise. Count on it.

This is, of course, the total and exact purpose of Romneycare. Obvious from the start. Infinite monopoly, infinite riches for the rich, zero service to the proles.

Labels: STRONG!

  ¶ 2:57 AM

  Miss Gödel 2015
From UK Telegraph coverage:

Mireia Lalaguna, 23-year-old Spanish Model won after winning Top Model and giving an impressive speech in which she said "Just because I am beautiful on the outside does not mean I am not beautiful on the inside, too."

Self-disproving sentence. The usual notion of 'beautiful on the inside' specifically excludes saying "I'm beautiful on the inside." As soon as you say it, you're not it.

The usual notion is pointless and meaningless, of course. There's no such thing as internal beauty. Only external beauty matters, and it matters more than all other human qualities put together. Internal modesty and nobility get you spat on, shat on, and starved.
  ¶ 4:57 PM

  Good try, won't work
This is genuinely unprecedented. The few remaining sane "scientists" called a conference to see if they could bring their crazy colleagues back into reality.

Too soon to predict what will happen. I'd give 95% probability to pure status quo. Modern physics and cosmology will continue to roar beyond all bounds of sanity. 5% probability to a minor twiddling, perhaps a required disclaimer on physics articles saying that "Deniers, who need to be tortured and killed NOW, deny this theory because they are deniers."

Crazy is really an understatement. I've known some genuine schizies and some manic bipolars. Those folks are nowhere near as crazy as "scientists", because their theories are intended to explain reality. The schizy will construct a hugely complex pattern involving all sorts of organizations and spiritual powers. When you follow all of its connections and convolutions, you'll see that his theory WORKS. It EXPLAINS why the authorities are reading his mind, or why he needs to stand on top of the bus wearing 37 beer cans on his head.

The theories of "scientists" are even more complex and they DON'T WORK**. They DO NOT EXPLAIN reality and they ARE NOT INTENDED to explain reality.

Crazier than a schizy.

= = = = =

**Footnote: Well, of course the theories DO WORK for their ACTUAL purpose and intention, which is to bring trillions in grants. It's an addiction. A hunger that can't be satisfied requires infinite input. A theory that will never be proved requires infinite research.

Labels: Blinded by Stats, Carbon Cult

  ¶ 8:31 AM

  Unthink in action
The crime committed by a hypersatanic "school" "board" in Virginia illustrates how totally we've been Unthinked.

The syllabus (not just the teacher) required students to write Allahu Akbar in Arabic. This was not "just some calligraphy" as the teacher claimed.

Hypersatanic "school" "board" responded in the drably predictable way. Christians were talking, so it was necessary to SHUT DOWN THE WORLD FOREVER to prevent Christians from talking. It's just fine to require an Islamic credo for a grade, but any expression of any sort by Christians anywhere in the universe requires EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE.

Every sane human is asking: "What would happen if a teacher required students to write


The question fails ab initio because NO teacher would require that. It wouldn't even ENTER A TEACHER'S MIND, and it would NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER be contemplated as a written exercise IN THE OFFICIAL CURRICULUM.

So it's meaningless to ask what would happen. It's like asking "What would happen if the students were required to travel backwards in time?" or "What would happen if the students had to transform themselves into broccoli plants and start growing florets?"

Labels: STRONG!

  ¶ 6:01 AM

  Pigment vs mechanism
Humans have developed two ways of recording and playing sensory impressions.

For each sense, two-dimensional pigment application or 'writing' came first, and mechanical methods came VASTLY later or not at all.

Cave paintings are about 30k years old. Representing phonemes with symbols is nominally about 5k years old, but that's a fine distinction. We were really painting stories for future reference. Why did Og bother to paint an elk? Not to deconstruct neomaterialist pansexuality. He was expressing a sentence that could also be spoken. "I killed this elk here."

So cave paintings count as a simultaneous development for both vision and speech. Though we can't get into the heads of those ancients, I expect a cave painting was meant to call up the entire sensory picture of the elk or waterhole or tree, including smell and taste and the action of hunting or drinking or picking. Distinctions came later.

= = = = =

On the mechanical side, output devices came first, followed by input.

Output of vision: Magic lanterns or phantasmagoria, around 1600. Projected paintings or drawings.

Input of vision: Photography, 1840s.

Output of sound: Signal drums and bells, extremely old. Maybe older than painting.

Input of sound: Phonograph, 1877. As I've noted, this is the ONLY major invention that happened exactly once without any gradual buildup of ideas.

= = = = =

Well, where are the other senses? Specifically, where is smell? We don't even have a 'writing' for smell. We have a dozen words that can be applied loosely, but without any precision or validity. We can name the emitters of a few smells validly: skunk, marijuana, rose.

If our visual representations were as poor as our olfactory, we wouldn't be able to name colors or intensities; we'd only be able to say "Draw a house" or "Draw an elk". As with smell, this would only work for animals and plants, because human products are non-standardized.

Mechanical playing of arbitrarily chosen smells, parallel to the magic lantern, has been around for a long time. It began with incense in religious ceremonies, and branched off to the rare and brief Smell-O-Vision in movies around 1930. Some computer-based smell generators have been advertised, but none have become commercially available. It's not clear that they even exist. (Try to find actual reviews by people who have actually tried the gadgets!)

Mechanical recording of smell is supposedly in development, but it's solely in the hands of tyrants who will use it to spot bombs or other illegal chemicals. Dogs perform this job so beautifully that there's no major pressure to develop electronic devices.

= = = = =

Beyond smell, we have a few other well-defined senses. Taste doesn't really count; most of what we call 'taste' is just smell. Skin can detect light, heat, pressure, and 'presence', but those are so localized that there's no good reason to record them.

Kinesthesia is the most important. Position, velocity, acceleration. There are systems of 'writing' for kinesthetic variables like Labanotation. We can record these variables accurately with photocells and accelerometers, and we can replay them directly with big expensive flight simulators. We can also replay them with magnetic stimulation of the cochlea, but this is so invasive that it's not likely to become commercial, and probably shouldn't. A similar method can invoke smells, but again could be too dangerous for common use.

Labels: Grand Blueprint

  ¶ 5:29 AM

  Putin did it.
Looks like the Syrian war is getting wrapped up. Kerry has basically allowed Russia to do the right thing, and the right thing has done what the right thing always does. No surprise. As I wrote in October:

Clearly Bush/Obama LEARNED THE LESSON OF HISTORY. Bush's puppetmasters studied how Wilson built a slipshod tyranny that lasted only a couple of years, and FIGURED OUT HOW TO MAKE IT PERMANENT. Remember all that talk about "long twilight struggle" and "bitter-enders" and "generational struggle"? They knew what they were doing.

Lesson #1 was: Don't let foreigners start wars. Foreigners may have an actual goal in mind, which will lead to a quick end and firm victory. Always start wars before anyone else has the chance.

Lesson #2: DON'T LET A WAR END. Start a war, then do whatever is necessary to prevent either side from winning. Keep it running and running and running.

Now: What happens when a foreigner surprisingly intervenes to STOP a war? Clearly this wasn't part of the plan. We had Syria set up to run forever, and this horrible Putin roars in to UNCONFUSEDLY support ONE SIDE. That's a recipe for disaster. Peace is disaster.

Amazingly, Obama/Kerry has decided to STOP committing the Wilson crime in Syria. Even infinitely evil bullies surrender to the cop when the cop has more guns. It's clear that Officer Putin has more nukes.

Obama is trying to save face by attributing this change to his own actions, but it doesn't work. USA STRONG has been acting in Syria for a couple of years with NO sign of an end, because we were fighting FOR our employees and agents al-Qaeda and ISIS. Now that we have quietly decided to follow Russia's guidance and leave Assad in power, we are helping to end the war. An EXTREMELY UNCOMFORTABLE position for USA STRONG, since our sole purpose for existence is to destroy everything. I'm sure this discomfort will lead to an identity crisis and more internal tyranny, but it's worth the trouble if it ultimately leads to total collapse of USA STRONG.

Constants and variables, fuckhead.

THANKS, PUTIN! THANKS, RUSSIA!

Labels: STRONG!, Гром победы

  ¶ 3:11 AM

  Polarizing
Trump is polarizing the world.

All Repooflicans and all Democrats and all EU politicians are against him. Good.

All media, including both Fox and NPR, are ferociously against him. Good.

Now we hear that the satanic Pentagon generals who have been turning the military into a fairy bathhouse are against Trump, while the front-line soldiers are mostly for him. Good.

Putin respects Trump, and Trump had already expressed respect for Putin. Good.

You couldn't get a more perfect alignment. Evil wackos hate him, sane normal humans respect him. Literally polarizing, like an electromagnet.
  ¶ 3:32 AM

  Storm Mode
More snow, another 4" or so. (Smooth this time, not all lumpy and cicatrixy like previous snow.) This winter is looking normal despite the El Nino crap. Sort of annoying, but sufficient snow is critical for agriculture and hydropower, so I mute my annoyance and rake the roof.

Local TV website makes a big deal of switching into 'storm mode' when weather is tricky.... but maybe they should choose a different background for their 'storm mode' announcement.



Snow White and the Three Freezing Rains? Which one is Freezy and which one is Rainy? I never remember the third one (Snizzly?), so I guess it doesn't matter.

= = = = =

Vaguely related and equally stupid observation: One neighbor (thankfully not very close to me) goes all out for Xmas decorations every year, with lights AND music AND animated figures. As I walked by yesterday, the music was playing Jingle Bells in a MIDI chime arrangement, and dogs inside the house were barking in rhythm. Yes, it sounded exactly like this. Saints preserve us.


= = = = =

And a NON-stupid thought... TV stations properly pay lots of attention to driving conditions. Which mountain pass is closed, which major arterials are plowed, etc. They NEVER pay attention to walking conditions. Correlation is mainly negative. Freezing fog is often OK for cars but totally impassable for walkers.


Two or three inches of fresh snow can be nasty for cars but wonderful for walkers. Good traction, cushioned steps. If we're trying to make cities more walkable, a walking condition update would help.
  ¶ 2:56 AM

  Tech note on 'Exploit SWF_C'
Last night I started getting this warning from AVG antivirus. AVG was catching several types of Trojans, mainly from Googleapis. All of them reduce to Exploit SWF_C, according to AVG's info. Seems to be a common problem, reported by lots of people in lots of forums yesterday and today.

AVG gives reports like this:

"Trojan horse Exploit.SWF_c.APS, imasdk.googleapis.com/flash/core/3.220.0/adsapi.swf";"Secured";"12/17/2015, 4:31:13 AM";"URL"

After searching a bit more, I could see that this stuff is part of AdBlock Plus. Removed AdBlock Plus from Firefox, and now I'm not getting the virus warnings.

Correlation isn't causation, but it's working so far. I hope the AdBlock people get it fixed soon. I'm willing to turn off AdBlock selectively for websites that have 'polite' ads, but a few websites (eg ZeroHedge) are totally unusable without AdBlock.

Few hours later: Nope, spoke too soon. Still getting the imasdk shit from UK Telegraph.

24 hours later: All of the shit is gone. Turned AdBlock on again, tried all the sites that had been throwing trojans before. Nothing now. Points to a single source that fixed the problem. Was it in Googleapis itself? We'll never know.
  ¶ 5:26 AM

  Ruling with consent
Watching Putin's year-end press conf on RT.

He knows how his country works. Details about how oil moves from pipelines to railroads, how nuclear plants are constructed....

Thanks the engineers who have made this possible ....

Thanks the pensioners who endured hardships during WW2 and during the 90s. Endurance is patriotic....

Yamal is our oil treasury, our gas treasury...

Defense spending will need to be frozen because of oil revenue problems, but projects that have been started will be completed. It's more expensive to halt a project, because you have to keep engineers and others on the payroll to avoid losing their talents.

= = = = =

Catch the pattern? He's talking to ALL the people of Russia, trying to bring ALL of them along with his intentions.

No USA STRONG president would ever do that. No USA STRONG president would thank Oklahoma for being our "oil treasury", or thank the engineers, or thank the pensioners. USA STRONG presidents always give the following speech:

MY PARTY GOOD.
OTHER PARTY BAD.
MY PARTY GOOD.
OTHER PARTY BAD.
MY PARTY GOOD.
OTHER PARTY BAD.
MY PARTY GOOD.
OTHER PARTY BAD.
MY PARTY GOOD.
OTHER PARTY BAD.
MY PARTY GOOD.
OTHER PARTY BAD.
MY PARTY GOOD.
OTHER PARTY BAD.
MY PARTY GOOD.
OTHER PARTY BAD.
MY PARTY GOOD.
OTHER PARTY BAD.
MY PARTY GOOD.
OTHER PARTY BAD.
MY PARTY GOOD.
OTHER PARTY BAD.
MY PARTY GOOD.
OTHER PARTY BAD.
MY PARTY GOOD.
OTHER PARTY BAD.
MY PARTY GOOD.
OTHER PARTY BAD.
MY PARTY GOOD.
OTHER PARTY BAD.

Labels: STRONG!, Гром победы

  ¶ 4:20 AM

  Mother-in-law, Caddy, cliff
Or better, "with friends like these ...."

The quasi-female professor at Wheaton who has been wearing a hijab and emphasizing the shared points of Christianity and Islam, has now been fired for violating basic rules.

I would LOVE to see Christians and Muslims putting aside theology and working together against secular satanist monsters. I've been pushing this point for a while. Theory is evil, and theory includes theology.

On the surface that's exactly what this quasi-female prof is doing. Unfortunately, after reading some of what s/he is saying, it's clear that s/he is NOT a Christian. S/he is NOT trying to reunite Christians and Muslims; it's just feminist shit. It's ALL about the wyymmmynseseses.

In other words, s/he is pure Satan.

So no mixed feelings about the firing, but still ... rueful? ... feelings that the only public move in this necessary direction is coming from a destroyer.

Labels: Natural law = Sharia law

  ¶ 11:27 AM

  Cicatrix snow
First proper snow of the season this morning. About 3" here. Snow is mid-heavy but oddly turbulent. Rough surface everywhere. Weirdest part: Every expansion joint in the street, and every little crack in the sidewalk, grew a huge mound or cicatrix. About 1" extra height, about 4" wide. The mounds aren't harder or softer than the regular snow; feels the same underfoot.



Picture is non-ideal, taken after the snow has settled for a few hours. Still, it shows one good mound formed over a line between older pavement and a newer patch. The crack itself is not a gap or a bump; it's just a very slight offset.

What's happening?

Conditions are strictly normal. 32/20 for several days, no wind. (Thank God!) The only variable I can imagine is the heavy rain about 9 days ago. Maybe the cracks and joints are still full of warm moisture, which sort of soufflés the snow above them?

Labels: Heimatkunde

  ¶ 8:08 AM

  Not so silly 2
Local news:

Homeowners in Spokane Valley are pleading for drivers to slow down after a beloved neighborhood animal was run over. A pair of resident ducks, Rufus and Mable, used to visit them almost every day until the male duck was killed in early December. Now, it is just Mable. Rufus was found run over on the side of the road.

“She just wanders around, like she's lost without him," said neighbor Monica Maynard.

Neighbors on Mission just off of Baker have had problems with speeders for years. "The problem is getting out of control. We did lower it to 30, and nobody seems to do it," said Maynard.

Trivial? Silly? I suppose you could call it that.

I'm more inclined to say that this is why life was created, and why humans were given superior intelligence. We know that male and female were made separate for a purpose, and we know that we've destroyed the purpose. Birds remind us of the correct purpose, so we get especially pissed when some dickhead ruins the reminder.

Labels: Grand Blueprint, Natural law = Sharia law

  ¶ 3:56 AM

  Waaaay out of character but RIGHT.
This little quote just popped up on newsfeeds:

Lindsey Graham on potential terrorists: "We have to offer a hopeful life to compete with a glorious death."

Graham has been universally wrong on everything. I can't think of a single major politician (well, except McCain) who manages to be so totally wrong.

And yet.... unless the quote is entirely misleading and out of context, this one statement is POWERFULLY RIGHT and CONCISE and COMPLETE. If we IMPLEMENT THIS, carefully targeting young males who have no hope of useful work or loyal wives, we'd massively diminish all of our mass-violence problems. Gangs, school shootings, "terrorism". All the same problem masquerading under different superficial ideologies.

Unfortunately, Graham is also proposing a whole bunch of wrong stuff along with this one BIG right policy.

Labels: Make or break

  ¶ 4:30 PM

  And yet again....
Yet again the country gets all weeweed up about a "threat" that didn't exist.

Everything we get excited about is totally fictional.

That's a rule.

In this specific situation there's a more specific rule. It should be perfectly obvious by now that all threats are hoaxes. Real school shootings, like real 'major' terrorist acts, occur without a threat.

A real perpetrator of real violence wants total surprise. He doesn't want to see his bombs or bullets stopped before they can do the requisite amount of harm. What's the point of that?

Simple logic. If there is an advance warning, it's a hoax.

PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT.

If you want to run a life or government or culture properly, you have to start by understanding the different TYPES of people. If you don't understand professional criminals you shouldn't be running courts and police departments. If you don't understand what makes some students smarter than others, you shouldn't be running a school. If you don't understand why Trump is popular, you shouldn't be in politics.


  ¶ 3:58 PM

  Not so silly
New Zealand, mainly known as a haven for tax evaders, is choosing a new flag for unknown reasons. Up till now they've been using a version of the Union Jack, like most Commonwealth countries. A referendum will choose between the Union Jack and ONLY ONE new alternative, which was personally chosen by the prime minister.

The alternate choice is hopelessly boring, and the referendum itself is boring, but some of the 'silly' proposals in social media are NOT boring. This one features a kiwi shooting laser beams from its eyes.

Non-silly point: Flags continue to use heraldic traditions dating from the 1100s. Lion rampant has a specific meaning, three crossed swords have a specific meaning, etc.

Now, for the first time since 1100, we have a NEW heraldic language via emoji and anigifs. Kiwi shooting laser beams has a specific meaning, speaker with a slash has a specific meaning, trash barrel, eraser, pencil.....

Most of these icons can be still or moving, which alters the meaning just as soaring vs volant alters the meaning of an eagle. Why not an aniflag?

Let's give the Rouge Dragon Pursuivant and the Clarenceux King of Arms some real work to do! (Come to think of it, the typical anime dragon strongly resembles the old Rouge Dragon. Maybe the new isn't all that new.)
  ¶ 2:51 AM

  Workarounds
Every single aspect of our "legal" and "political" system and our "culture" is pure infinite evil, pure infinite crime beyond all previous imaginings.

Truth is illegal, normal life is illegal, breathing is explicitly illegal. Normal decent activities must operate outside the "law". This is obvious.

Occasionally it may be possible FOR A FEW MOMENTS to operate within the WRITTEN "laws" for a while, via some kind of workaround.

Earlier this year, the nine maximally evil Mafia thugs who criminally occupy the building known for arcane historical reasons as the "state" "supreme" "court" committed a crime against both the voters and the children of this unfortunate fucked "state". The nine maximally evil thugs overturned a referendum that made charter schools possible, because charter schools take money away from the mass-murdering Union Thugs who pay the "supreme" thugs. This crime was committed AFTER several charter schools, mistakenly and delusionally believing that "law" existed, had started their school year.

Now the charter schools have found a rather peculiar workaround, which may hold up for a day or two.

The Mary Walker school district in the small town of Springdale in Stevens County raised its hand and volunteered to host these schools. This does not mean kids will have to move, it just makes these schools part of the Alternative Learning Experience model. This new model just means these charter schools can stay open and running as public schools.

Washington State Charter Association leaders said this is still just a temporary fix for a long-term problem. Association leaders said it expects to hear a decision from the lower court within these next couple of days.

BRAVO to the Springdale board. It has courageously volunteered to be shut down, bankrupted and imprisoned by the "supreme" genocidists, but at least the charter schools will have a nominally official path to continue their good work for a few minutes.
  ¶ 12:34 AM

  New toy: windup shaver
After the 8-day power outage, I decided to buy some stuff for better preparation next time. Most urgent was more propane; got that easily at WalMart. Next was some extra towels to extend time before laundry, so I could take one or two showers without having to walk to a coin laundry. Got those from LLBean.

Finally, for preparation AND for fun, I wanted to try one of those Soviet mechanical shavers. Call it a birthday present to self.

Shaving isn't nearly as important as cooking, but even for a semi-retired coot who no longer works in an office, the sense of being 'normally neat' makes a difference in morale.

I've never learned to use a blade-type razor. Or more precisely, I did learn when I was in prison in 1969, and swore never to do it again. Part of the old Don't Look Back superstition. Worked so far, no reason to stop.

There are lots of modern portable shavers, but all are indirect with a generator and a rechargeable battery, which is NOT reliable. I've used a cranked radio and a cranked light; the batts in both devices failed just when they were needed. Exactly the wrong quality for a gadget that needs to be READY after a long wait.

The only purely mechanical shaver available is this old Soviet windup rig.

So I ordered one from an Ebay merchant in Moldova. Doing the unboxing or review thing.......



Must admit I enjoy receiving mail from those countries: they have an old-fashioned level of bureaucracy with stamps and signatures everywhere. Full employment. Maybe I've got some stamp collector genes.



Removing the wrap reveals the original box... Mechanical razor SPUTNIK ...



containing the usual OTK approval and a little 4-page manual and the shaver in its pouch. The pouch is heavy 'pleather'.



Scan of the OTK approval slip and the manual. Date on OTK is June 1980.


The shaver from the back, with windup key:



And from the front, with cutting head.



Note on ruggedness: I don't know how much this razor was used before it was sold, but I know it got one good hard knock just before I opened the box. The postman, apparently disgruntled at working on Sunday, opened the screen door and literally SPIKED the box into the room. BLAM! I wasn't sure if the shaver would be intact, but it was just fine.

Notes on action: The cutting head comes off easily for cleaning, with a bayonet-style twist. The windup key doesn't turn while the head is running, so it doesn't bother your hand. Must be a ratchet inside. You start and stop the cutter with a little thumbwheel on the side. Seems to need two windings for one full shave.


And here's a narrated audio clip made with my Campbell's Condensed/r Microphone.

Conclusion: Works VERY NICELY. Cuts closer than my Norelco, but not as fast. That's okay. This is solely for emergency use, and the direct mechanism will insure that it's ALWAYS ready for emergency use.

= = = = =

Irrelevant sidenote: Windup is the greenest way to shave. Disposable plastic razors are the worst, requiring weekly inputs of petroleum and metals and electric power to manufacture, plus shaving cream generally in an aerosol can. Electric rotaries are vastly greener than disposables. The shaver is more complex but requires new manufacture only once per decade versus once per week. The electricity consumed for one shave is insignificant. Windup is the same as electric in terms of rare manufacture and zero aerosol cans; zero current per shave makes it marginally greener.

Relevant: Seems like an opportunity for a Made-In-America entrepreneur. Hit both the 'prepper' market and the 'greenie' market. And while you're at it, how about a little windup refrigerator?

Labels: defensible spaces, new toy, Patient things, TMI, Гром победы

  ¶ 2:56 AM

  'Scalable'?
More piddling with old maps.

BBC has an interesting article on totally planned cities. Verdict: They usually fail. They're built to satisfy a private delusion by an Emperor or by an avant-garde murderous sadist (aka "architect"). Nobody wants to live in a murderous vision.

Commenters bring up an alternate view: Small totally planned cities often work. It's a question of scalability.

Thinking about it... I'm not sure what scalability means in this context, but I can see a definite distinction among American cities. I'd call it extensibility instead of scalability. An extensible city should hold some basic element of its original texture as it grows. The original pattern should express the terrain and culture so well that new developers can't help but follow it whether they intend to or not.

Manhattan fails this test. The original townsite plan paid NO attention to geography or terrain. It would have been nicely extensible in a flat riverless spot, but failed in the actual situation. Rivers on two sides, bluffs on the other two sides. The most noble and elegant parts of the original plan, the market squares, failed to extend at all. They were never actually built.

Here's a blinkyGIF that attempts to illustrate the failure to extend. Starts with the original townsite as of 1885. Note that the meandering rivers had already spoiled the E and S sides, and the steep bluffs were about to mess up the N and W. The GIF gradually fades into 1950 then 1965, showing how the bluffs required a more curvy and twisty street pattern. Entirely separate from the original grid. Strictly modular.


= = = = =

Spokane, by contrast, is highly extensible. I've used only the NW quarter, partly because I know it best and partly because the whole city is too big for clear mapping at blog-size. Starts with 1912, fades into 1960 or so. Note how newer additions extend (or extrude?) smoothly from existing patterns. Also note the area I've shaded purply-gray. This is a steep hillside, which was platted with appropriate curves in 1912 when curves were NOT the normal way to plat a city. Didn't need any change when it was actually built much later.


Why was Spokane set up appropriately from the start? Not any grand vision for damn sure. No Brasilia or DC. More like a lack of grand vision. Do what works. Maybe because the railroads were here at the start, which forced platters to pay attention to terrain.


Non-humble artistic note: Both of these blinkies came out a lot better than I hoped! They actually illustrate what I wanted them to illustrate.

Humble artistic note: Thanks to excellent old cartographers. I expect the USGS maps to be good; they were made with aerial photos and a large surveying staff. But I didn't expect the 1885 and 1912 maps to line up so perfectly with the USGS. Those early mapmakers didn't have airplanes and big budgets.

Labels: Grand Blueprint, Heimatkunde, infill

  ¶ 9:27 AM

  Why no Babylonian amplifiers?
Following on this.

Despite the universality of valves and diodes in Nature, the valve didn't get no respect from historians. It's not on any of the Big Lists Of Major Inventions that I can find. This long list by Encyclopedia Britannica includes a number of Babylonian and Roman inventions, but not the valve.

Early humans mastered the art of diverting flow in the context of irrigation and dams. Babylon had mechanical wells and pipes but apparently didn't use valves. Rome had checkvalves on pumps (diodes) and controllable faucets. So 'real' valves have certainly been familiar for 2300 years, maybe longer.

Well then. Why did it take so long for humans to figure out the principle of the amplifier? Why did it have to wait until the early experiments with electricity?

The engineers who developed those fantastic water clocks around 1100 AD must have noticed the power of valves. A small hand force can create a massive change in flow, which can move just about anything. With enough flow, you can move a house with your little finger. In fact water clocks used digital fluidics (eg flip-flop) but not analog fluidics.

Amplifying sound wouldn't work well with water-based fluidics, but the Romans could have developed a servomechanism to power a construction crane or stone-lifter. Control a big strong arm with your little weak arm. They could have adapted their existing catapult:



Hmph. I thought this was going to show how Romans could use analog fluidics to advantage, but it shows the opposite. If the lever arm was properly balanced, Polistra could control it easily with a rope tied to the long end. No water needed! Or for more precision, she could use a cranked winch to regulate the rope.

In other words, the catapult as originally designed was sufficient for this job. Lever, crank, windlass. Classic machines solved classic problems.

The idea of the amplifier was first imagined in 1840, as part of the huge burst of electrical invention. By bringing a static field near a wire, could you repel part of the charges in the wire and thus 'pinch off' the flow gradually? The idea didn't work with a wire because the charges move too easily. It was like trying to restrict a deep river with a single tree. The idea had to wait until we could run the whole river through a gravel bed, making it harder for the flow to reunite behind the tree. Semiconductors finally provided the gravel bed.

But why was the amplifier necessary (thus imaginable) for electricity when it hadn't been needed before? The answer pops out. When you're trying to control fast precise movements in an intangible medium, levers are useless. You need amplifiers. The first amplifier was digital: the telegraph relay. After the signal has weakened over miles of wire, the relay uses the faint ons and offs to switch current from a 'new' local battery. Much later, after the telephone introduced analog signals, the triode tube finally used the original 'pinch valve' idea with vacuum as the gravel bed. Better materials led later to the field-effect transistor, which is an EXACT implementation of the 'pinch valve' with silicon as the gravel bed.

Labels: Asked and answered, Danbo

  ¶ 3:22 AM

  Thanks, Ralph 19
In Central Wash a real estate developer tried to ruin a competitor's development by poisoning trees. He was fined for malicious mischief, which is appropriate but not the real justice.

Real Emersonian justice: By removing KILLERS from the competing subdivision, he was actually improving it. People who buy lots in the OTHER development will now be more secure. They will have more electricity, less damage and less death.

Meanwhile here in NW Spokane, people are finally figuring out that trees are KILLERS, and are removing the KILLERS as fast as possible.

I can't be hard on them ... I was only a little bit faster. I managed to get my KILLERS removed in 2011 before they had a chance to kill me or my neighbors. Should have done it MUCH earlier. Dumb.

Labels: Emersonian justice

  ¶ 6:47 AM

  GOOD, BY FUCKING GOD.
Trump hasn't spoken to this point before. Now he's on it, and gets it EXACTLY GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING RIGHT.

Donald Trump vowed on Thursday to issue an executive order mandating the death penalty for anyone who kills a police officer. Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner, made the promise while speaking in Portsmouth, New Hampshire alongside the New England Police Benevolent Association, which announced its endorsement of Mr. Trump at the event.

“Anybody killing police officers, the death penalty is going to happen,” Mr. Trump said.

  ¶ 6:00 AM

  Constants and variables 33
Another convective thought on Trump vs the elites...

The political, cultural and "scientific" elites will sacrifice anything, including millions of lives, to preserve the leftist lie that humans are identical and all differences are ideology.

On the surface the elite vs populist conflict looks like an ideological battle. Nationalism is not just a heresy, it's inconceivable to the satanic mind. Borders and tariffs and Natural Law are Unideas that can't be imagined by Satans. Anyone who advocates against outsourcing and Die-Versity is an Unperson.

Down deep, it's not ideology at all. It's PURELY genes.

Why? Because the Satans are perfectly capable of adopting nationalist views when it suits them. Even after adopting sane views, they continue to shun and banish Real Nationalists.

Look at Orban in Hungary. Even after Merkel finally started imposing her own border controls, Orban's border controls are still UNTHINKABLE INTOLERABLE ALL OPTIONS ON THE TABLE. Orban is the wrong sort of person. Not one of us. His ideas are still absolute heresy even after we're doing the exact same thing.

We have a PERFECT controlled experiment with Trump and Sheldon Adelson. Trump and Adelson are direct opponents in the Vegas casino industry, so they should be equivalent in terms of meritocracy. Both are hugely rich, both are capable of moving lots of money around; both hire and fire lots of people.

All the other Repooflican candidates have shaped their agendas to obey Adelson. Adelson is the only voter who counts. 310 million residents of this fucked former country do not exist. Only Adelson exists.

Trump is paying attention to the 310 million residents, appealing to what we know is true, offering solutions that will actually work. Therefore he's a fascist buffoon.

Another experiment: Eric Schmidt and Donald Trump are proposing the exact same type of Internet censorship to filter out ISIS.

Eric Schmidt is obviously correct because he is the right sort of person. Trump is a dumb fascist buffoon for proposing the same thing because he is not one of us.

Here as everywhere else, ideology is just a cover for good old-fashioned caste. Blood-borne aristocracy.

Labels: Asked and answered, Constants and Variables

  ¶ 2:46 AM

  Failure of careerism
Convective thought as I watch the endless parade of politicians and countries loudly disowning and banishing Trump.

This isn't normal behavior among the powerful. Normally countries and politicians are cautious when dealing with people who may become their boss. These idiots are ABSOLUTELY CONFIDENT that Trump couldn't POSSIBLY get elected, so they feel free to create grudges.

A few pundits seem to be catching on, dimly starting to realize just how delusional they've been, how utterly removed from the reality of normal Americans. Until now they've always managed to halt populists and nationalists at the starting gate. Ross Perot got slightly past the gate, but the Bush family neutered him with some weird stuff about their daughter's wedding, and Perot gave way to the neutering. Trump hasn't consented to be fixed, and (so far!) shows no signs that he ever will.

If he does get elected, there will be a WHOLE BUNCH of Repooflican Congressmonsters, and a WHOLE BUNCH of countries, who find they need something from a President. They will be faced with a President who holds grudges and remembers insults.

Could get interesting.
  ¶ 4:20 PM

  Why do they keep it up?
Why do evil monsters continue to say such obvious nonsense? Don't they realize the curtains are open?

Volkswagen investigators have determined that engineers cheated U.S. emissions tests in part because they could not figure out how to meet the standards, the company said today. Volkswagen Group chairman Hans-Dieter Potsch told reporters that engineers erred by developing manipulative software to fool regulators because they "quite simply could not find a way to meet the tougher" limits for nitrogen oxide pollutants in the U.S. Potsch said engineers should have persevered until they found a solution. He said the company has suspended nine managers who were "possibly involved in the manipulations" and he pledged to assign.... etc, etc, etc

Jesus. Even before the Web started to open new channels of info, this was OBVIOUS RATSHIT. Engineers ALWAYS persevere until they find a solution, and Kraut engineers MORE THAN ALWAYS. The only thing that stops an engineer or a Kraut is a SPECIFIC COMMAND FROM ABOVE.

Couldn't find a way? More ratshit. There's always a way to solve a problem like this. There may not be a cost-effective way; the solution may cost .0000005 cents per vehicle. Corporate bean-counters can't find a way to spend an extra .0000005 cents because spending an extra .0000005 cents may cause the CEO's bonus to slow down its annual acceleration by .0000005%, which is UNACCEPTABLE INTOLERABLE ALL OPTIONS ON THE TABLE. There's your fucking couldn't find a way, in every fucking case.

Presumably Potsch is counting on another characteristic of both Krauts and engineers. Discretion, enforced by careerism and NDAs. He knows that any VW engineer who brings out facts or lab records to contradict his nonsense will be permanently unemployable.

We see similar nonsense in connection with Trump's attempts to break up the usual Robust Debate with a little bit of truth. After he said that some Brit cities are 'no-go' zones for cops, the Brit establishment came down on him with a lead weight, as seen in UK Telegraph. Impossible! No such thing! Meanwhile, other Brit papers were quoting British police officials who had already said the exact same thing. Does the Telegraph assume nobody reads the Express?

  ¶ 6:00 AM

  WPA abides
Now that I'm on a Manhattan history kick again, I started looking for web refs. Unsurprisingly the Kansas State Historical Society is still the best source of heavy documents and articles. The Riley County Museum has a moderately active page with occasional articles.

Sunset Zoo is highly active. The zoo has used social media to create a serious fanbase that knows all the animals by name. Smart! Built-in lobby for city funding.

Sunset Park, like most of Manhattan's visible infrastructure, was built by WPA. When I lived near there in the '60s, the zoo was badly maintained and deteriorating. Nobody would have bothered to name those raggedy animals. A family lived in a cottage on the grounds, taking care of the park and feeding the animals, with occasional intervention by the K-State vet med school. In the '70s K-State took more control, turning the zoo into more of a practicum site, and the city modernized the rest of the park. Even after lots of remodeling, the original WPA cages are still in use, unchanged since the '30s.

Probably for litigious reasons, the cleanup also removed the part of the zoo that was most interesting to kids:



The rides!

Kiwanis maintained this little amusement park and ran the rides on weekends in summer. There was no fence around the area, so I was always wandering and climbing when it wasn't in use. Mysteriously, I somehow survived and didn't feel the need to sue anyone. Obviously this was impossible. No kid could survive such a horrible experience.

Labels: Danbo

  ¶ 5:22 AM