Counterintuitive works again
Sometimes intuition is wrong.

Every now and then I'll get water in one ear while showering. Usually the water will bubble out fairly soon, aided by head-shaking. Last night it didn't pop out on its own; it stayed there and made life miserable. Bone-conduction effects made everything sound clangy and bongy.

Still there in the morning. Tried intuitive solutions like poking rolled-up toilet paper into the ear. The paper came out wet, but the eardrum was still firmly stopped.

Well, what the hell. My intuition about bodily stuff is usually wrong, so let's go the other way. Instead of removing water, INSERT water.

Tipped my head sideways and used a washcloth to splash some hot** water directly into the stopped ear. Instant result! Didn't have to toss the new water out; didn't take time to dissolve some kind of blockage; just returned to normal NOW.

Aaahhh. Great relief. The world has two sides again!



**Footnote on hot water: Never put lukewarm water in your ear. You'll get dizzy!

Labels: TMI

  ¶ 4:29 PM

  Securitized strangers
Along with millions of others, I've been ranting and raving about Romneycare forcing me to pay $200 extra each month for "benefits" that I physically CANNOT EVER USE.

Yesterday I heard that one of my graphics-world acquaintances was more or less begging for help to avoid bankruptcy, because his wife had gall-bladder surgery and they were uninsured. My response was instant and basically unemotional. I paid them some money.

Later I noticed the comparison. Mutual aid is automatic and dutiful, requiring very little thought or emotion, when there's a real mutual connection. I know these folks; they're not exactly friends, but they're members of the tribe. They've been quietly providing a service to the community for a long time, keeping old material for sale while the big vendors practice planned obsolescence. Sort of like the graphics-world equivalent of a Studebaker Parts Dealer.

When helpful members of the tribe need help, help is given automatically. When securitized strangers need help, you'd better make a fucking good case for it. And Obama hasn't made the case.

As always, the MOST infuriating thing is that Obama had a FUCKING GOOD OPPORTUNITY to FIX THE FUCKING SYSTEM. He could have switched to the French system, where everyone contributes 13% of their income, everyone gets the same service, and insurance companies are NOT INVOLVED AT ALL. Instead he kept the horrible American system and made it twice as horrible. If he had gone French, my health insurance would have gone DOWN from 32% of income to 13% of income. Under Romneycare, my health insurance is going UP from 32% of income to 42% of income, with absolutely no improvement in service.
  ¶ 2:07 AM

  Special language update!!!! Breaking!!!! Urgent!!!!


Professor Polistra is BELEAGUERED and EMBATTLED by BELEAGUERED and EMBATTLED!!!!

These words are suddenly ubiquitous. Crack mayor Rob Ford is BELEAGUERED and EMBATTLED!!!! Obamacare is BELEAGUERED and EMBATTLED!!!! The Oregon state healthcare website, which hasn't even started to work, is BELEAGUERED and EMBATTLED!!!!

What did these words originally mean? They imply that an innocent person or organization or country is being attacked on all sides by vicious enemies armed with spears and catapults and crossbows.

What do they mean in current usage? They mean publicly exposed, by its own actions, as a total failure.

The original connotation is sneakily imported along with the words, to infect the public with a sense that these complete failures are innocent little bystanders being overrun by filthy Visigoth hordes.

Labels: Language update

  ¶ 5:30 PM

  Break those grids!
Poland has taken a major step to protect its own industries from wacked-out Krauts. They have installed phase-changing systems at the link points between the Polish and Kraut electric grid, so the Polish operators can avoid enforced purchase of Kraut power.

Changing phase on one branch of a circuit is a way of decreasing flow by adding reactance, without the heat and waste of adding resistance. I don't know how this particular grid is built, but presumably the Polish grid operator can restrict current coming from Kraut loops that are mainly sourced by unreliable solar and wind subsidy-suckers.

I was surprised to find that modern phase changers are still analog devices, involving a multi-tap transformer that effectively 'rotates' the secondary by changing the active part of the coil. I figured it would be done with digital wave regeneration, but obviously it's not.


Poland has spent the last millenium trying to fend off the manic phases of Kraut insanity, often unsuccessfully. Remains to be seen whether this new reactive phase-damper will work; it's a bit late in this century's Kraut manic phase, and the symptoms are pathologically advanced. Krauts have already built the usual debt-slavery tentacles into the Balkans, and have already implemented the usual wild-eyed Environmental Purity rules.

Nevertheless, Polistra salutes Poland!



Decoupling power grids is a necessary part of breaking EU and other TBTF monstrosities. Power systems worked better when they were smaller. Banking systems worked better when they were smaller. Trade worked better when it was strictly bilateral. Clearly there's a lower limit on size as well, but we're far beyond the upper limit now, and a whole lot of shrinking is needed before we approach the lower limit.
  ¶ 4:11 AM

  Canadian cues
I like to look at Canadian pictures and figure out what makes them Canadian. In architecture it's simple. Everything is the same except the windows. Streets, lawns, siding, house forms, colors, roofs, all the same on both sides of the border; but Canada has some British windows mixed with the American styles. T-shaped or asymmetrical casements.

This picture of Toronto's official crackhead Rob Ford in the middle of a football crowd shows the difference in people. Again it's subtle. Hair, clothes, body forms, colors, hats, all the same; but Canada has Scottish lips. Even at a ball game, all lips are frugally pursed. (And again some British-style windows, i.e. eyeglasses.)
  ¶ 5:39 PM

  Contractual legislation
Idiot "governor" Inslee talked the idiot "legislature" into approving a huge set of tax exemptions for Boeing, as an inducement to keep production of the latest airplane here. Then the IAM union thugs rejected Boeing's contract offer, which means Boeing will likely move production elsewhere regardless of the state's efforts.

Now the innocent state taxpayers are stuck with the bill for a bet that didn't pan out.

This is purely wrong. The problem is obvious. States have to make permanent laws as bargaining chips in a game where the other parties are conducting normal contract negotiations.

It's like a real estate deal where one party has to amputate his legs to make an offer, while the other party can just name his price.

Solution is simple. Empower the state gov't to make law contracts or conditional laws. These would take effect instantly when the other party fulfills its side of the contract, and would be erased if the other party decides not to fulfill.
  ¶ 5:04 PM

  Mobius award
Well, I thought the American partisans were unbeatably twisted, but you just can't get ahead of the current Brit politicians in the infinite-dimensional Mobius department.

The UK Independence Party is “unpatriotic” and guilty of a “betrayal of the national interest” for wanting to leave the European Union, Nick Clegg has said.

Wanting to HAVE A NATION is "unpatriotic".

Wanting to HAVE A NATION is "betrayal of the NATIONAL interest".

Eagerly submitting to the Kraut jackboot is "patriotic".

Nope, can't beat Clegg.
  ¶ 8:12 AM

  Blob specification
A regional misunderstanding showed up in a local news segment this morning. KXLY, the local ABC station, was taking their assigned slice of a national reporter's time, discussing the Peoria tornado. National man was pointing out that Illinois TV stations do a good job of warning people. He went on to make a sensible-sounding comparison: "I'm sure your local weathercasters have the same ability. They can show the big red blob advancing toward each neighborhood, and they can specify exactly when it hits each street."

Well, he's right about the technology. It's been around since the early '80s, and Midwestern TV has been using it since the early '80s. (Bless you, Gary England!)

The bad part: He assumed that the Midwestern level of competence applied everywhere. Wrong. Some of our weathercasters can't even read radar, and none of them use the hi-tech stuff he described.

The good part: Our weathercasters don't really need to use the tech, because we very rarely have red blobs. Lots of green blobs and blue blobs, but only three or four red blobs in a typical year. Blue blobs (i.e. snowstorms) are the main problem here.
  ¶ 6:33 AM

  MMT missionary
Midmorning, from about 8 to 11, has always been my best time for programming and graphics work. During heavy brainwork I like to have semi-interesting talk radio running in the background, to mask tinnitus and provide a sense of fake companionship. Among the available choices I've settled on the local Money-Talk station. Unlike NPR or ClearChannel, the Money-Talk yakkers are not obtrusively partisan and don't raise my blood pressure. They have a sensibly cynical attitude toward The Market, as in "It's a fraudulent mess, but you can make money if you follow our advice." Since I don't gamble, I don't need to think about buying their advice, so it's a pure spectator sport.

Recently the Ray Lucia show split off into two segments. Ray kept the first hour, and his younger sidekicks picked up the second and third hours with a livelier show. The sidekicks have been quietly pulling away from Ray's pro-Market and generally Repooflican attitude, but I didn't realize until Friday how far they intended to pull!

They spent one full hour happily interviewing Stephanie Kelton, one of the UMKC economists who are trying to restart economics on a more factual** basis. The Lucia sidekicks showed that they've been following the Bill Black / Kelton viewpoint for a while. Kelton did a good job of explaining the UMKC slant on money and deficits.

This could get interesting. Until now the UMKC brand has been known in academic and leftist circles but has never been introduced to a 'regular' mass audience.

= = = = =

**Footnote on Factual: UMKC economics may be a slight improvement over the infinitely evil mass-murdering satanic Bernanke/Krugman version of econ, but it's unnecessary. The Islamic version has been around for 1300 years and is the only factual and scientific system. No new theories needed. Just open it and use it.

And a footnote on Money-talk: Though this format doesn't get my blood boiling, it does sometimes interfere numerically with work. I'm testing and debugging, trying to remember "On line 413, Vpx needs to go down by .03 and Vpy needs to go up by 3.2" ------ and at the same time the radio is saying "On futures at 4/13, EPX is down by 1.4 and ETY is up by 3.7".

  ¶ 7:22 PM

  Ha ha? No.
I was thinking about the unspeakably bizarre and long-lasting crossover in American politics, whereby both JFK and Obama are heroes to the Left and villains to the Right.

JFK, the first president to oppose the USSR, an out-of-control heterosexual who used and tossed women like toilet paper, a great tax-cutting friend of big business. JFK, Hero of the Left.

Obama, an old-fashioned husband and father, the greatest protector of fraudulent and monopolistic banks and insurers since Harding, a great expander of oil drilling and nuclear power after years of Gaian restriction by Bush. Obama, Hero of the Left.

Why isn't this the funniest joke ever written? It fits strictly into the 'exploded incongruity' category of humor, which involves building a little world, then seducing the listener into occupying the world, then exploding the world.

Trying to explore this, I bumped into something that doesn't solve the problem but maybe illustrates it better than I could.

This PDF about PDQ is a scholarly disquisition on Peter Schickele's musical humor. Sample paragraph:

Interestingly, the transgression does not arise by introducing some musically bizarre deviation. In fact, Schickele's succession from supertonic to tonic in a weak-to-strong metrical context is musically banal. The supertonic to tonic transition is the most frequently occuring melodic movement from supertonic with a probability of 0.33. By contrast, Beethoven's original melodic movement to the raised dominant is the rarest continuation from supertonic in Western music with a probability less than 0.0007.

It's EXACTLY the same humorless soulless analysis of music that Schickele set out to parody in the first place. Except this humorless soulless analysis is applied humorlessly and soullessly to Schickele's parody of humorless and soulless analysis.

Why is this hugely annoying instead of funny? Because it's never resolved. Not into the supertonic or into the raised dominant with 0.0007 nonBayesian correlation. The author never realizes what he's doing. The dissonance just hangs in the air.

Same with American politics. The wildly dissonant convoluted multi-layered inversion just hangs there, consuming our thoughts and souls for 50 years.



= = = = =

Sidenote: The opposite side of this twist, the leftist hatred of Comrade Nixon and Comrade Bush, is even stranger. I wanted to focus on the humor aspect here, so kept it simple.

Labels: Danbo, Loughnerian Logic

  ¶ 7:00 AM

  Squalls? OK!
I was checking the Weather Bureau to see if any serious snow was expected. My eye got snagged on this:



Presumably an instrument problem caused the 89. Maybe rain caused a power blink, or maybe someone bumped the anemometer.

I can imagine the software calmly analyzing this: "Hmm. I see 89 MPH. That's a SQUALL. Does ConditionName == Number? Yes. Quality control: OK!"

NWS does apply human checking sooner or later, so I'm sure this bit of amusement will be fixed.
  ¶ 6:00 PM

  Neat trick.
Now Obama has "promised" to extend the deadline on switching or cancelling old LOUSY (i.e. good enough) health plans. This "promise" is just as false and disingenuous as the original promise.

Here in Wash, Insurance Commissioner Satan Kreidler has already ordered insurers to continue steaming toward the iceberg. Lash down that wheel, boys! More coal! More coal! More steam!

The order is redundant because the insurers LOVE the idea of offering NONEXISTENT extra "benefits" for double the price.

Put it into a different context. Let's say you're looking for a new sofa. You find that all the furniture stores are suddenly charging double for sofas because the new sofas are all child-size. They're two feet tall, built to fit toddlers. The salesman tells you this is is a "benefit." The old LOUSY sofas were too big for toddlers and lacked seatbelts and rollbars and airbags. You walk out and try to buy a regular adult-size sofa, but you find it's impossible. All the regular sofas have been scrapped. You go home, sit on your old threadbare but comfortable sofa and drink a beer to soothe your anger, but not for long. The Sofa Police break down your door to confiscate and scrap your old LOUSY sofa. They bring in a new baby sofa and force you to pay for it. No comfort allowed in Wall Street's New America!



From the viewpoint of the furniture makers, this is Heaven. Make smaller products, charge twice as much, force everyone to buy. Sheer perfection!
  ¶ 3:24 AM

  What comes after
I suppose it should be humorous, all these Wizards still shouting orders to the masses after Toto has pulled back the curtain. I can't see the humor.



We have the intel types like Clapper in US and Lobban in UK, still claiming that NSA and GCHQ are fine law-abiding cautious underfunded agencies. Some of us have known better for 40 years. Now everyone knows.

We have the Obama loyalists still spouting the company line about LOUSY and CRUMMY health plans, even while millions of Americans know perfectly well that our plans were perfectly satisfactory before the rules were changed by Romneycare. (We also understood that the whole system was broken, and that Romneycare was guaranteed to break it even more, but that's not a wizards-and-curtains issue.)

We have defenders of Free Trade constantly claiming that all sides benefit, even while average Americans have known for 40 years that Free Trade is evil.

And of course we still have Gaian wackos pleading for more money money money money money to feed the infinite appetites of Jew stockbrokers and Asian dictators, even after several major governments!!!!! have pulled out of the Gaian maelstrom. (Thank God for that!)

= = = = =

Sorry, wizards. You've been decurtained.

40 years ago you could safely spout your satanic nonsense because the sane people were safely coated with tinfoil. Now the tinfoilers, assisted by heroes like Manning and Snowden and the still-anonymous Mr Foia of Climategate, have thrown off our foil chains.

What comes after decurtained? Defenestrated. It's time.
  ¶ 2:22 AM

  HM / PY
From an article on a competition to find the most efficient wood-burning stove.

Wood and pellet stoves hold tremendous potential as a carbon-neutral, renewable energy resource, according to the Alliance for Green Heat.

Wood releases carbon dioxide when it’s burned, but most U.S. firewood comes from trees that are already dead, Ackerly said. Removing the dead wood allows new tree growth to occur, which will absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

“Burning wood is 70 to 80 percent energy efficient with these modern stoves,” he said. “Even if you don’t accept it as carbon-neutral, you come out very carbon-positive.”

Removing dead wood absorbs carbon by allowing new trees to grow???? Huh? I suppose this calculation makes sense to a Gaian, just as the calculation of HailMarys per PurgatoryYear makes sense to a Papist. It's religion. Or maybe it's economics, like the "logic" of Quantitative Easing, in which moving counterfeit money from one column to another supposedly creates jobs. In either case it's utterly crazy.

Why not simply talk about avoiding waste? You're burning trees that otherwise wouldn't be turned into anything useful. Would you rather heat a house or feed termites? That's logical.

If we're going to talk about real pollution, woodstoves are unquestionably dirty and noisy. The smell is usually nice, but most high-tech woodburners emit a siren-like sound that I can hear from 500 feet away, even with my dull elderly ears.

Labels: Carbon Cult

  ¶ 4:08 AM

  Zoning
We tend to think of zoning codes as minor annoyances. Serious mistake. Zoning codes and building codes are probably the most important laws.

This realization started with a WUWT article on the likely replacement of "global warming" pseudoscience by water usage as fashionable tyranny. Most of the WUWT commenters recommended More Libertarianism. More Hayek. Let The Market Clear. NO! Exactly wrong! Water usage has been the subject of laws for thousands of years, and the data is complete and definitive. You can't let "the market" handle water. When you allow Las Vegas and Phoenix to expand without limit, you get tremendous problems.

Then I read a Then vs Now feature in the local paper. Featured a small informal settlement under the Monroe Bridge, which had become a semi-permanent neighborhood in the 1940s even though it was on public land and had no streets or utilities. My first thought was that it was a nice piece of spontaneous organization, and shouldn't have been torn down. Then I expanded the notion and realized why it had to go. If you allow spontaneous settlements to grow without limit, you end up with favelas.

We think of zoning and building codes solely in neighborhood terms. When they work properly they prevent situations like this:



which is a good thing or a bad thing, depending on which structure you own!

In fact zoning codes are genomes. They are descriptions of the various purposes that must be served by the parts of a civic 'organism', sometimes accompanied by specific descriptions of the structures. They are at least as important as other kinds of laws, maybe the most important laws of all. Good zoning can solve many problems, and bad zoning can create unnecessary disasters.

Good zoning isn't necessarily strict zoning. In some cases the law should stand back and let Nature work or Let The Markets Clear; in other cases the law should firmly restrain Nature and Markets.

Examples:

School massacres. Gun-free zones. Lethally bad zoning.

"Endangered" "species" actions that reinsert predators like wolves and grizzlies. Civilization depends on zoning the predators far away from livestock and humans. Cows here, wolves there. Forcing wolves into cow zones is Satanic sabotage of civilization.

Free trade. Intentional sabotage of natural economic zoning. People and countries have sorted themselves by skill and preference into industrial and professional and agricultural zones. Free trade arbitrarily moves entire zones into cheaper countries, leaving poor people in rich countries with no zone where their skills are usable.

Die-Versity laws. Also intentional sabotage. Die-Versity arbitrarily forces people into workplaces and neighborhoods where they will fail, causing tragedy for both the intruders and the intrudees. Without the forcing, these things tend to sort themselves out. They don't sort into the categories required by Betty Friedan's theories or Derrick Bell's theories, but that's good because those theories are Satan. Natural sorting moves toward an optimal situation, with most people doing what they do best. (Obviously it never reaches optimum, because life never does.)

Insane folks on the streets. 'Patient rights' and deinstitutionalization are bad zoning. Asylums are good zoning. When crazies are in asylums, everyone is safer and happier.

Natural disasters. Many are pure zoning problems because their boundaries are perfectly well known IN ADVANCE. If you build below sea level, you WILL get whomped by typhoons. If you build in a flood plain, you WILL get flooded by rivers or downpours. If you avoid those places, you WILL NOT get flooded.

Increased forest fires: Predictable zoning problem. Build inside forests, guaranteed destruction. Keep forests and houses separate, and the forests are free to do their own thing.

Other natural disasters are less geographically predictable, but good building codes can still help. Proper construction can save your life in a tornado or earthquake.

Crime: Partly solvable by zoning and codes. Note the Bratton approach to policing, the Broken Window Effect. By filling the streets with good people and filling intact lighted windows with watching faces, you can make a neighborhood nearly immune to crime.

With all of that in mind, it's amazing that we pay so little political attention to zoning. We should pay more... WAIT! NOOOOO!!!! Zoning often works pretty well. It works well EXACTLY WHEN it happens quietly. It works BECAUSE we don't shout about it in terms of R-label and D-label slogans. Leave it alone!

Labels: Grand Blueprint

  ¶ 3:37 AM

  The API doesn't hold
Since my publisher finally provided clear guidance, I've been working on the new 'platform-independent' version of my courseware.

It's a different universe.

When building an EXE for use in Windows, you can count on a consistent set of API rules. The native Win functions are well defined, and the workings of C++ are well defined. Provided you understand both of these rule sets and use them correctly, you can predict what will happen when you write something like

MoveToEx(this->hdc,NewPt.x,NewPt.y,NULL);

When you put all those pieces together into a self-contained EXE, you know it will run on the Win versions that were specified in the rules. If there are problems, you can be 99% sure the problems are your own fault, even though you'll always waste time by blaming Windows first.

In the new world of HTML5 and CSS and SVG and JS, none of those certainties exist. All of those standards are only partly standardized and constantly changing, and you can't count on a package running on all common platforms. If it runs today, a version change by Firefox or Chrome may blow it up tomorrow.

In other words, 'platform-independent' really means 'excruciatingly platform-dependent.'

The platform-makers obviously love this, because they have finally reclaimed the power they lost when Windows owned the universe.

= = = = =

Comes down to this pair:

When the rules are stable, ordinary people can function.

When the rules are changing all the time, only the rulemakers can function.

= = = = =

I've already discussed this in the context of behavior, in my tribute to math prof Lysle Mason. Ideas are fragile. They can only thrive when decorum stops intellectual bullies. Leninists gave us the hippie era to break down decorum so Leninist bullies could censor all other ideas.

Same thing in art and technology. Creativity functions best when you can count on the platform or medium to hold still. You can't paint on the wind with a cat.

Same thing in economics. You can't run a business, you can't save for the future, and you can't count on working for a stable business, when Bugsy Bernanke and Jamie Dimon are doing everything possible to void the basic rules of economics.

Same thing in every conceivable field of life. All of the central controllers are busily engaged in breaking the ground, moving the goal posts, and snatching away the horizon.

If you have a health plan you like, you can keep it. PeriodHAHAHAHAHAJUSTKIDDING!
If you have a religion you like, you can keep it. PeriodHAHAHAHAHAJUSTKIDDING!
If you have a job you like, you can keep it. PeriodHAHAHAHAHAJUSTKIDDING!
If you have a house you like, you can keep it. PeriodHAHAHAHAHAJUSTKIDDING!
If you have money you like, you can keep it. PeriodHAHAHAHAHAJUSTKIDDING!
If you have life, you can keep it. PeriodHAHAHAHAHAJUSTKIDDING!


= = = = =

I was going to write this on the basis of central vs decentral, but it doesn't really match those categories. Some of these disasters result from lack of central control and others result from trusting the central control too much. I'm still inclined to think the problem reduces to centrality vs subsidiarity, but I don't see how it fits.

Here's the only thing that fits: Whatever it takes to infinitely enrich the Chosen Ones and kill everyone else, that's what we'll do.
  ¶ 7:06 AM

  Unbreakable template
When looking at historical technology, I always use a template about prerequisites. I always assume that mechanical stuff was invented before electrical stuff, and more complex electrical stuff came after simpler electrical stuff.

This assumption is almost always wrong, but I never surrender it!

Nice example:

A military portable radio set from WW1. My template is puzzled! Why does the generator have a V-shaped padded thing between its parts? How does that fit on a car or truck?

Oh. It fits on a horse.
  ¶ 4:08 AM

  Parody is impossible
Gonzaga "University", a festering pustule of unspeakable infinite Satanic evil and hyper-Maoist genocide, has outdone itself yet again.

When a Gonzaga University student chased a belligerent homeless man from his front door at gunpoint, he and his roommate didn’t imagine the incident might result in their expulsion.

But seniors Erik Fagan and Daniel McIntosh may both be kicked out of school after they were found in violation of the school’s weapons policy, which prohibits students from having guns in any university-owned building. The students live in student housing at 207 E. Sinto Ave., apartments owned by the university even though they’re considered to be off campus.

... Fagan opened the door to see an apparently homeless man demanding money. Fagan offered the man a blanket and a can of food but refused to hand over any cash, he said. The man became agitated and combative, showing Fagan what appeared to be an ankle bracelet around his foot. “He told me, ‘You don’t want to do this,’ ” Fagan said.

The man kept coming toward him, shouting at him, Fagan said. The narrow entryway prevented him from shutting the door without injuring himself. He shouted for McIntosh, who came running downstairs holding a loaded 10 mm Glock pistol. ... “I draw on him,” McIntosh said, lifting his arms into the air to demonstrate. “As soon as he sees me, he decides he doesn’t want to deal with me. So he takes off.”

The men called police and campus security; both arrived within minutes. McIntosh told the police officer he’d chased the man off with the pistol, for which he has a concealed weapons permit, he said.

And now the students are facing expulsion and possible criminal charges for defending themselves.

Not really surprising for any "Catholic" "university" under the evil misrule of Antichrist Francine. Gonzaga is among the most ferociously Satanic, harboring a "Department of Hate Studies". No, I didn't make it up. They have a specific department where students can learn how to be Satanist Inquisitors persecuting normal Christians and censoring "hate speech", i.e. all normal Christian and human activities.

Any Christian parent who sends his kid to Gonzaga "University" is equally Satanic. Any alumnus who sends any money to Gonzaga "University" is equally Satanic. Ignorance is inexcusable for those two categories.
  ¶ 2:51 AM

  Self-extinguishing sentence
In today's news:

“Stop carping about this,” Reid scolded GOP senators on Thursday. “Get over it. It’s the law. It’s the legacy of Barack Obama and always will be. Let’s get over this and stop the mischievous, misfortunate speeches out here every day about how bad it is.”

Idiot Harry. He thinks he's defending His Lord And Savior Barack Romney. Doesn't even realize that he's done far more than the Repooflicans to damage His Lord And Savior.

In the first place, Dems who wanted their own party to have a proper and successful legacy should have read the fucking law and realized it was the worst of all possible worlds, designed to amplify all the evils of American health care to infinity.

In the first place, Dems who wanted a legacy should have totally rejected Mitt Romney's health plan written by the Heritage Foundation and supported by Wall Street. Dems who wanted a legacy should have stubbornly insisted on Medicare For All, which was and still is the best available solution.

Now they're stuck with Romneycare, because America never repeals, never revises, never changes course. Steer toward the iceberg, helmsman! Full speed ahead! More steam! More steam! More national suicide! More trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions for Goldman! More! More! More! More! More! USA! USA! USA! We're EXCEPTIONAL!

Now Exceptional Idiot Harry explicitly declares this absolute debacle is the "legacy of Barack Obama and always will be."

Yes. For once you're exactly right, Exceptional Idiot Harry.


= = = = =

Meanwhile in Australia, PM Abbott is showing dramatically that an old-fashioned Parliamentary system CAN change course by 180 degrees. No piddling around, no tiny .0000001% adjustments and epicycles! Abbott is REMOVING ALL expensive self-destructive scams and frauds and mass-murdering monstrosities from his government. ZERO PROBLEMS! BRAVO!

1776 delenda est!
  ¶ 3:17 AM

  The wonders of Romneycare
Just for fun, showing the effect that Romneycare will have on my monthly budget. (Excel here.)



Health insurance was already the biggest item in the budget at 32% of monthly total. Now it becomes even more elephantine at 42%.

I've been paying $314 a month for a LOUSY plan that covers only the boring dull LOUSY stuff I actually need. Under new improved wonderful miraculous Romneycare, I will have the privilege of paying $505 a month for all sorts of holy marvelous SWELL stuff like pregnancy and drug rehab and child dental and vision care that SOME CRACK WHORE needs.

I wouldn't mind paying 200 SWELL dollars per month toward the support of a crack whore if I got a few SWELL fucks in return. Fucks for bucks is fair. This isn't fair.

Punchline: In France, a similar citizen would be paying 13% of his income (in tax) for a very similar health plan with deductibles and copays, instead of 42% of his income. Fucking idiot Obama had the fucking OPPORTUNITY to enact a fucking French system in 2010. He chose instead to enact this fucking Wall Street monstrosity, making everything even more costly and even more complicated. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools. I told you so, you fucking fools.

  ¶ 5:35 PM

  You didn't build that.
Tim Berners-Lee, who gets the credit for "inventing" the web, is complaining that NSA shouldn't break encryption.

Silly boy, you didn't invent the web. NSA invented the web. The web was actively used for all sorts of academic and commercial purposes between 1970 and 1993. You invented a very good protocol that made the web easier for non-professionals to use.

NSA invented the web so they could see everything. You can't blame them for continuing to use their invention to see everything. And since decryption is the basic job of any spy agency, no matter what kind of communication, you can't blame them for decrypting what they see.

Timmy, you're a spoiled brat.



Basic rule, true for thousands of years: If you want communications to be private, don't communicate in public. Don't use systems that are controlled by others. Everyone who needs secrecy ... spies, illicit lovers, criminals, revolutionaries, armies, scientists, inventors ... has always understood this.
  ¶ 2:59 AM

  Self-explanatory stupor
Polistra hasn't been able to collect any new self-explanatory sentences lately. Mayor Ford of Toronto has finally given us a goodie:

"Yes, I have smoked crack cocaine .... in one of my drunken stupors."

A complete life elegantly contained in a few words. Self-explanatory sentence.

Ford's appearance is also self-explanatory. He looks like a 300-pound aneurysm that's ready to pop any second. Men who look like heart attacks were common in public life before 1980, but rare now.

We have a lot more 300-pounders now, but the apoplectic type has nearly disappeared. Compare Ford with Chris Christie, who is about the same size and looks generally healthy and solid, not overpressurized.

Alcohol is probably the main factor. Before 1980 the boss typically consumed prodigious amounts of alcohol and tobacco and pills. Now he may eat too much but he doesn't drink or smoke.
  ¶ 5:07 PM

  Demand-side
As stunningly tiny numbers continue to emerge from Romneycare, maybe it's time to ask a non-technical question.

Murkowski announced today that the Alaska version of the Romneycare Connector has so far enrolled EXACTLY THREE customers.

The federal version is still successfully enrolling DOZENS of people toward a presumed goal of 47 million.

Is this a technical problem? Supply restricted by website problems? Or is it simply that NOBODY WANTS THIS WHOLE FUCKING MESS?

Romneycare was NOT passed in response to popular demand. I had assumed that the insurers wanted it, but more recent info shows that they weren't excited about the idea. Only Joe Lieberman wanted it, and he doesn't need it.


Somewhat parallel to the criminal justification for QE and TARP and all that. Supposedly those counterfeiting projects were meant to loosen up credit, but borrowing for business investment hasn't increased despite zero interest rates.

Among the many absurd assumptions of economics is the notion that "everything will sell at the right price." This is obviously untrue in real life. Some houses and cars and jobs and employees and spouses remain untaken regardless of price or inducements.

ZIRP and Romneycare are good examples of the failed assumption. Even at zero interest, businesses don't want to borrow. Even with LOW! LOW! LOW! subsidized rates for "the right customers", people don't want this type of insurance. I sure as fucking shit don't want my ENTIRE FUCKING MONTHLY EXPENSES TO INCREASE BY 20 FUCKING PERCENT FOR EXACTLY NO FUCKING BENEFIT.
  ¶ 5:13 AM

  Dumbest idea of the century
A French scientist with the unlikely name of Herve This is pushing the stupidest idea of the century. He's synthesizing food from raw elements, mixing all sorts of things together to create the nutrition, flavor, and consistency of something more or less edible.

I'm going to call him Soylent Green because his actual name is too grammatically confusing in English.

Mr Green claims his food is the solution to an overpopulated world.

Incorrect from 4 different angles, Mr Green.

(1) In the big picture, the world can't be overpopulated. It's physically impossible. When the population in one area exceeds the food available in that area, people will die or move until pop = food again. Harsh but logical.

(2) Those areas where pop > food are extremely poor areas where technology hasn't reached 1920 yet. They don't have plumbing or tractors or kitchens or electricity or blenders or DNA replicators. Therefore your super-high-tech compounding is light years away from their comprehension or capacity. Your products would have to be shipped in, but there's no road system or storage system or retail store system for such products, so you'd have to build those systems first. Before you could build those systems you'd have to build electrical and water infrastructure and keep it away from the poor people so your electric trucks and stores and compounding facilities could use Just Enough Resources. And then you'd have to create a private army to protect the electrical and water infrastructure.

(3) By definition, poor people don't have money. How would your vast industry be funded? Would you allow the poor people to barter real chickens and real bananas for your fake chickens and fake bananas? Why in the fuck would they want to do that?

(4) In richer areas, ordinary REAL food is overabundant and wasted. Most people enjoy ordinary REAL food, and the richest people are the fussiest about avoiding GMOs and Gluten and anything that sounds artificial to their delicate ears.

In short, Soylent Green wouldn't solve any problems for the poor and it wouldn't be attractive to the rich, except maybe a handful of super-tech-fetish types like Elon Musk.
  ¶ 3:33 AM

  522 loses solidly
The only moderately important item in this year's Wash election came out right. GMO labeling loses.

Somewhat surprising, but not entirely. Commie Seattle always dominates statewide elections, but even Commie Seattle has both Libertarian tendencies and Gaian wacko tendencies. In this case the Libertarian dislike of any new gov't requirement beat the Gaian bloodthirsty psychopathic hunger for total destruction of all living things.

Seattle's mayor choice shows the same tendency: they rejected a Commie who had emphasized his genocidal Gaian orthodoxy, and replaced him with a Commie who has emphasized his sodomite credentials. Good luck with that, comrades. Spokane already tried the fagboy route with Gayor West about 10 years ago. Didn't work.
  ¶ 1:19 AM

  SNOW!

We got SNOW! Big-ass flakes.

This has been a pure step-function year. No transitions, no teasers, no trailers, no overtures, no encores.

Pure summer.

CLICK!

Pure autumn.

CLICK!

Pure winter.

= = = = =

Next day: Total snow was 2 inches, slightly unusual for this early in the season. Some kids near Shadle squeezed the maximum fun value from 2 inches of snow, making four kid-sized snowmen with proper faces and clothing. I suspect they raided neighboring yards to acquire enough snow.

Labels: Heimatkunde

  ¶ 7:03 AM

  Bravo Nethercutt!
Nethercutt writes that the 'pork-busters' and their unceasing campaign against earmarks have led us into the current total gridlock.

I've made the same point plenty of times. When you remove commerce from politics the only thing that remains is pointless symbols and words. A politician who gives actual value in return for votes and contributions is engaging in a direct transaction with the voter. He is providing a custom-made service or product, creating two-way respect.

When you can't make those transactions, you have to spout centralized and standardized and absolutely meaningless phrases about ZERO TAXES or BENGHAZI or COLLECTIVE BARGAINING or WAR CRIMINAL BUSHITLER. You're no longer talking to the local hearts of your own voters; you're only talking to the TV and radio networks, and via them to the securitized ears and eyes of voters everywhere.
  ¶ 6:21 AM

  Seemed like a good idea
I've got my life nicely arranged at this late stage: sleeping, dumping, diet, exercise, mood, art "work" and real work all fitting together into a virtuous circle. When the idiot DST change comes along, it throws off my nice narrow little life. At the last two seasonal switchovers my sleep pattern somehow switched the wrong way and took a few weeks to realign.

This time I decided to simply ignore the change. Only one piece of my life needs to sync up with the outer world's clocks: bus trips to Safeway. The rest is strictly independent. So I left all my clocks on Old Time and allowed the computer's screen clock to switch into New Time for bus reference.

But I forgot about non-clock cues. Though I don't plan my life around certain radio programs, I found that the radio and the comings and goings of the nearby school had become unconscious signals. Hunger and sleep patterns had been phase-locked to those audio inputs, and they pulled against my attempted stable oscillator.

Now I've switched the wrong damn way yet again!

Labels: TMI

  ¶ 6:06 PM

  Constants and variables 6
Alan Massie in UK Tel makes the drearily predictable argument against regulating the media....

In the present argument about control, or regulation, of the press, philanthropy is represented by the Hacked Off campaigners, disgusted, with reason, by the behaviour of newspapers. Let us admit that some of the behaviour of which they complain has indeed been disgusting. Yet the door they have opened in search of a remedy leads into territory which is more dangerous for the public good, territory where the ability of the press to call to account the excesses of officials, politicians and the state may be first threatened, then curtailed. Bring the press to heel and the power of the official is enhanced. Is this desirable?

We have a nice balanced experiment. Compare US and UK.

British press has traditionally been more firmly regulated, with stiffer libel laws and a semi-official Commission to watch for lies. American press fiercely guards its supposed "1st amendment rights".

Which press has been more effective? British, by a long shot and for a long time. UK press has several active sides, which means there's always one major side available to oppose the current government. US press is rigidly uniform and perfectly Soviet, with 100.000000% of newspapers sharing the same set of perfect lies. US press does "call to account" governmental officials when the officials have an R on their shirt. US press blindly follows and religiously praises governmental officials when the officials have a D on their shirt.

Which press is supinely enslaved to The Party? The less regulated press.
  ¶ 3:06 AM

  Language update for fall


Professor Polistra, regretting the low frequency of these updates, nevertheless perseveres. She brings us another bucket of linguistic shit, some old and some new.

= = = = =

Efit:

New Brit term for computer-generated police 'sketches'. A good coinage, but demonstrates that e-xxxxx works better when xxxxx is a longer word. When the part after e is one short syllable, it's harder to feel the e as a prefix.

= = = = =

Olfactive:

Refers to the use of smell for commercial purposes. Interesting because the coiners correctly distinguished it from olfactory, which refers to the sense itself. Humans don't pay much attention to smell, and we're extremely short on words in this area. Any new addition, even if it's only a suffix, is welcome!

"Olfactive branding is a natural and powerful extension of the brand’s existing marketing strategy. If the brand has a strong, unified vision, it becomes much easier to translate the brand’s identity into a scent. ... The key is to know what your brand represents aesthetically, emotionally and commercially within your market space."

Lots of jargon there, but gets the point across.

= = = = =

Sequacious:

A fine old word that's worth reviving.

From a 1902 essay on fashion: "At a distance they look so much alike that it is quite amazing. ... Even if it's only due to the sequaciousness of the human being, especially the female, it is a phenomenon worth study."

= = = = =

Transparent / transparency:

Tiring and meaningless. Not a worthwhile goal, and always a perfect lie. Still, the correct syntactic use is surprisingly subtle. A recent radio ad by a candidate for Coeur d'Alene mayor showed exactly how it shouldn't be used:

"If you want a transparent and truly accountable mayor, vote for me!"

No, no, no! I don't want The Shadow! An accountable mayor has to be a visible mayor!

= = = = =

Backslash:

This has been developing for quite a while, and has reached completion. Now the distinction between [forward] slash and backslash has fully disappeared. Both symbols are read as backslash 100% of the time, even though 98% of the actual symbols are forward slashes.

It's a Pyrrhic victory for the name, because the actual backslash is fading fast. Old Mr Backslash is still hanging around in Windows filepaths, but normal users haven't needed to type or read a real backslash for many years. If they bother to navigate their files at all, they navigate via the lists and buttons of Explorer. No typing.

Though annoying, this is still better than the early British pronunciation of web symbols. Ten years ago, BBC was reading its web address like this: "H T T P Colon Forward Oblique Forward Oblique B B C Full Stop C O Full Stop U K Forward Oblique N E W S."

= = = = =

Untooled:

Heard from a financial education specialist:

"Financial literacy is important and many people are untooled for that."

He used the word three times in five minutes. Seems to like the word!

= = = = =

Loadal:

From City of Spokane notice about annual leaf pickup:

Loadal Crews 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Packer Crews 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Hand Pick Crews after 10 p.m. to 9:30 a.m.


Unnecessary. Loading already exists.

= = = = =

LOUSY:

A 1940's word that has come back into Orwellian style among the defenders of Romneycare. They blindly quote their Lord And Savior Barack Romney in describing perfectly decent medical plans as LOUSY. A policy that was good enough, covering likely events with appropriate deductibles, suddenly becomes LOUSY because it doesn't cover events that WILL NEVER HAPPEN.

I will never become pregnant, and I will never get into a situation where I need to pay for pregnancy. I will never use "mental health" care because I know it's crap. I will never need to cover child dental care because I will never become pregnant. My old LOUSY policy covered ONLY the problems I may actually encounter, and had a high deductible for routine stuff because I can afford routine stuff.

You can't reclaim a word after Satan sinks his bloody claws into it, but we can always try:

LOUSY = Leaves Out Unneeded Services for You.
LOUSY = Less Overhead, Uniquely Suited to You.

Labels: Language update

  ¶ 4:45 AM

  Point of diminishing Eyman
Tim Eyman has been generating referenda here in Wash for a long time. A few of his measures have made good sense, but like any other NGO or agency, he keeps running and running after the ideas and missions are gone.

Now he's passed the point of negative return. One of his earlier referenda will end up ruining all future referenda.

There are no high-powered campaigns for or against the nonbinding Advisory Votes 3 through 7. No statements pro or con in the state Voters’ Pamphlet. No websites with videos or lists of endorsers.

Tim Eyman, whose 2007 initiative set up the process of giving voters a chance to express an opinion on taxes the Legislature approves, said the measures give voters quick information on what taxes were raised, how much they cost and which legislators voted for or against.

The measures – costing an estimated $240,000 for the printing of extra pages in this year’s Voters’ Pamphlet – are an inexpensive way to provide legislators with public feedback, he said.

Wrong. Lack of information outside the ballot isn't the problem. Too much meaningless information on the face of the ballot is the problem. This year's ballot was 1/3 candidates, 1/3 real referenda and 1/3 "advisory votes". The substantial referenda, including an important one on labeling GMO foods, are diminished and devalued by these empty-calorie snack votes that have zero effect.

I'm generally well informed and a careful reader. I pay no attention to candidates because they are meaningless. I do try to vote thoughtfully on referenda, because some of them can make a real and permanent change. This time it was difficult to separate the real refs from the fake "advisory" thingamajigs. Presumably a less careful reader will have even more trouble sifting out the important bits.
  ¶ 2:41 AM

  Post-glasnostial Rebound
While US and UK subside deeper and deeper into unnameable levels of hyperhyperhyperhyperinsanity where no logic, no justice, no truth, no facts are remotely imaginable, Russia continues to pop up into the blue sky of plain facts and plain logic.

Piracy charges brought against 30 Greenpeace activists, including an Australian man, being detained in a Russian prison have not been dropped despite pledges to downgrade them to hooliganism, Greenpeace says.

But Greenpeace spokesman Reece Turner says the activists appeared before the committee this week and the piracy charges remain.

Greenpeace says the piracy charge was "not withdrawn", but "instead each of them was simply served with the additional charge of hooliganism".

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

You been SERVED, assholes.


  ¶ 2:03 AM

  Nature will take its course
The city courts have accepted a guilty plea from the lawyers of a subhuman entity named Avondre Graham. Last year Entity Graham laid in wait and killed a middle-aged woman who was out jogging. A few months later it tried to kill a second middle-aged woman who was out jogging. In that case a heroic man stopped the Entity before it could complete the kill, and the city (which had already identified the Entity as responsible for the first murder) was reluctantly forced to arrest the Entity.

Normally I'd join the outrage at the short 10-year sentence, but in this case I understand the constraints of the nonfunctional court system and I trust Nature to be functional.

First, a full trial would cost a huge amount of money with no meaningful result.

Second, a death penalty trial wouldn't work because Entity Graham is not human and does not have an IQ. Aside from newer illegitimate "rulings" on the subject of IQ, this Thing would fit strictly into the oldest rules of competence. The M'Naghten Rule was designed specifically for decerebrate entities like this, not for clever psychopaths and sociopaths. Entity Graham does not have a mind or a moral code. Killing it would be the correct course, but there's no way the court system can do anything remotely approaching correct.

Third, Entity Graham is black, so a full trial would bring in Satan Sharpton and Satan Jackson and all their Satanic media circus hangers-on. The city would never be the same. The iron hand of Satan would be fully and severely and harshly in charge of all aspects of the government and culture forever. CNN would create a massive new network to watch every citizen of Spokane 24/7 and report our "racist" breathing and "racist" eating and "racist" sleeping habits.

Fourth, I understand how things work in jail, and I'm pretty sure Nature will do the job that the court system can't do. Entity Graham will not understand the written and unwritten rules in the walls. Because it kills whatever it's pointed at, smart prisoners will use it as a weapon. Result: death or permanent storage. Either way, it will not return to the streets.
  ¶ 5:50 PM

  Two small victories
The basic structure of federalism gained two small and temporary victories yesterday.

(1) A fed appeals court countermanded a lower fed Satan who had pre-emptively halted the new Texas abortion law. Appeals court says the law can take effect pending Satan's usual smashing. This means that many abortuaries will have to close today, making it harder for Satan to bring baby-murder back to its previous numbers. (A closed business of any sort is hard to restore.)

(2) Similar pattern. A lower Satan put a halt to NYC's stop and frisk policy, which is the cornerstone of a low-crime city. Again an appeals court removed the halt. This one went further, disqualifying Lower Satan Shira Scheindlin from further action on the case.

Satan will win in both locations sooner or later, but it's always good to see one or two federal employees who have the guts to oppose Satan for a moment.
  ¶ 3:44 AM

  Paging Dr Percy 2
When I wrote this earlier today ...

Every electron, photon, wave and molecule that moves information from one place to another is susceptible to NSA.

... I was thinking about air molecules moving as part of a sound wave, since NSA uses IR laser reflections to detect the sound from conversations inside a building.

I was NOT thinking about this type of molecule and this type of movement....

Israel has so far identified 42 people shedding poliovirus in their faeces. ... Israel’s effective sewage-surveillance systems were able to detect the virus before any clinical cases occurred, but in Europe, only a handful of countries monitor sewage.

No, this is not from TheOnion, and it's not from Spotlight or Stormfront. It's from Nature, and I have no reason to doubt it. Sounds like EU and NSA are falling behind and need to get their respective asses, or ass-surveillance systems, in gear. Israel beats the pants off everyone else in advanced tyranny. As usual.

Dead serious: This is an evil landmark. Western governments passed beyond the imaginings of 'political paranoia' at least 25 years ago. No matter how hard you try to develop a semi-rational conspiracy theory, you'll quickly find that reality is vastly worse than you imagined. This development has finally passed beyond the imaginings of true schizophrenics. If you walked around saying "The Jews are capturing and analyzing my poop", you'd be slammed in the nuthouse. But you'd be right.
  ¶ 5:58 PM

  See what happens when you LISTEN?
This is hugely interesting!!

Ashlee Lillis, an NC State Ph.D. candidate in marine sciences, wondered how the tiny oysters knew when to drop down and start looking for a home. Scientists know that larval oysters and other bivalves, like clams, respond to some chemical and physical signals in seawater, but Lillis wondered if the sound of the reef played a role.

“When you’re as small as these larvae, even if you’re only 10 or 15 feet up in a water column you wouldn’t have any real sense of where you were in terms of the seafloor beneath you,” Lillis says. “But an ocean reef has very loud, distinct sounds associated with it. They’re noisy enough to be heard by scuba divers and snorkelers. Even though oysters don’t have ears and hear like we do, they might be able to sense the vibration from the sounds of the reef.”

...The team first made underwater sound recordings of oyster reefs and the open seafloor. Then they tested larval oysters in the wild and in the lab to determine if the settlement rates increased when they were exposed to reef sounds versus those from further out. The team found an increased settlement rate in both the lab and the wild when the larvae were exposed to reef sounds.

Molluscs are extremely strong in the vision department; cephalopod eyes and visual processing systems are at least as good as mammalian. But they don't have anything like ears, and until now there's been no indication that they take any sort of auditory input. The fact that oyster larvae prefer a recording of the "right" sound to other recordings shows that they're not just picking up crude amplitude of vibration; they must be hearing in some fairly sophisticated way and processing the vibrations.

Grand blueprint time! Genes determine goals, not structures. It's already clear that vision is one of the universal purposes; now hearing moves closer to universality.

Labels: Grand Blueprint

  ¶ 12:14 PM

  Expensive and unusable
Local radio mentioned that the 'Montlake Spite House' in Seattle is for sale at about $400k. I hadn't heard of it, so looked it up. Turns out to be only one example of a rare but geographically widespread species.

Most spite houses are built when Landowner A refuses to buy a small strip of land held by Landowner B. Landowner B then puts up an expensive and unusable building that blocks the frontage or view of Landowner A. The Montlake Spite House is atypical: skinny at one end but wide at the other, and clearly meant to be livable. More likely whimsical than spiteful.

At the same time I happened to be reading a Collectible Automobile article on DeSoto, which was probably a Spite Car. By the usual story, Walter Chrysler was trying to get Dillon Read to sell him the Dodge Brothers company. He created two new brands calculated to bracket the Dodge price range, Plymouth just below and DeSoto just above. Dillon Read saw the threat and sold out.

Spite Houses and Spite Cars are fairly rare, but Spite Laws are universal. The Fed gov't functions on pure spite. Omnibus bills and poison pills are the opposite of old-fashioned logrolling. Under logrolling, you get your milk subsidy and I get my bridge. Under spiterolling, you can't have your milk subsidy and I can't have my bridge. Occasionally one of these blocking devices accidentally pops out of Congress like a parasite wasp popping out of an unfortunate cicada, and we get a Spite Law.

I've been trying to make sense of Romneycare. It doesn't make sense as a left-wing effort to help the poor, and it doesn't make sense as a right-wing attempt to help the rich. Neither faction wanted it. It only makes sense as a Spite Law built by Joe Lieberman. Somebody dared to oppose him, so the parasite wasp pops out of Congress and eats the country.
  ¶ 8:24 AM

  Wrong question
As the histrionics about NSA spying continue, the important question remains untouched.

Tech types have been aware for decades that NSA monitors everything. Everything means everything. Every fucking thing. Not everything legally permissible. Don't be silly. NSA doesn't use laws. Just everything.

Every electron, photon, wave and molecule that moves information from one place to another is susceptible to NSA. They may not succeed in catching everything, and they don't have the time or manpower to decipher or analyze everything, but they are making a thorough and exhaustive effort to catch everything.

This is parallel to the idiocy surrounding human genetics. We have an endless series of "studies" claiming to indicate that some particular skill or tendency is innate or learned. None of these "studies" are needed, and most are flat wrong. The separated twins studies back in the '50s already gave us all the info we need. Every human taste, talent and tendency is partly innate. Every single one, from strong legs to weak math skills to preferring red-haired females with slightly crossed eyes to hating clocks that represent 4 as IIII instead of IV. No need to "study" tiny pieces of a broad and simple fact that has already been determined.

In both cases the MEANINGFUL question is elsewhere.

With genetics, the MEANINGFUL question is how we USE these tastes and talents to maintain a strong civilization. We can deal with destructive tendencies or deficient skills more effectively and efficiently if we understand DEEPLY AND FIRMLY that they are mainly innate. We shouldn't waste time on "education" that can't possibly educate. We shouldn't waste time on "punishment" that can't possibly punish.

With spying, the MEANINGFUL question is how government USES its unlimited knowledge. Does it use the information to catch terrorists? No. Does it use the information to help citizens? No. (Quick example: the Romneycare website wouldn't have any problems if it could pick up the NSA's data stream. You wouldn't need to enter any facts about your life or health or income.) Does it use the information to assist local police in catching criminals? Obviously not. Local police are still on their own.

Strikes me that we can learn from the old video of a Brazilian pianist that UK Telegraph has been mysteriously presenting this week. After realizing that the orchestra is not playing the same concerto she had prepared to play, she goes through all sorts of dramatics and hysterics..... then at the moment where the piano enters, her HANDS know exactly what to do. Her HANDS hit the keyboard and proceed through a flawless performance because her HANDS were not participating in the weeping and gnashing of teeth.



Stop the histrionics. Don't worry about facts and epistemology. Just let your HANDS do what they're ready to do. You might be surprised.

Labels: epistemology, Experiential education

  ¶ 3:45 AM

  Unique and positive
Looks like the Repooflicans are finally starting** to notice the real problems with Romneycare. They're picking up the situation AFTER all major news media have already hit the story accurately and severely. CBS, NBC, even the New York Times!!!!! have soundly whipped the administration.

This is unique in two ways.

First the obvious violation of Team Spirit. When those D-team media attack a D-team president, it's serious.

Second, I can't remember a previous instance when Satan's media agreed precisely with my own experience. As an old white male with frugal habits, I'm way outside their target demo. I don't borrow, gamble, drive, fly, watch TV, or use a cellphone. Thus very few "news" stories even touch my life. When a story does intersect my experience, it's either ancient news (like the Snowden NSA "revelations") or absurdly wrong (all "science" stories.)


**Note on Finally Starting: At least the Rs in Congress are hitting the subject delicately and cautiously. However, the local and state Repoofs still haven't caught on. I got an email from the state Rs this morning with subject line "A salute to Republican women", and snail mail from them on ZERO TAXES as tiresomely usual. A state legislator hosted a talk show today, concentrating solely on the website glitches. Not very convincing. I have to conclude that the professional Rs are completely disconnected from the self-employed constituency, and can't hear or empathize with our problems. Why? Because the professional Rs all WORK FOR THE FUCKING GOVERNMENT, that's why.
  ¶ 7:03 AM

  Chuckie chimes in
Well, Chuckie the Microwit has thrown a frustrating mixture of common sense and Gaian wackism.

Wackism:

The Prince of Wales used his keynote speech at the 9th World Islamic Economic Forum in London this evening to warn of the political and economic dangers of climate change...

"The tragic conflict in Syria provides a terrifyingly graphic example, where a severe drought for the last seven years has decimated Syria's rural economy. Driving many farmers off their fields and into cities where, already, food was in short supply.

Hey microwit! Ever hear of Seven Lean Years and Seven Fat Years? Those folks HAVE heard of it, and they're accustomed to living it. They've been thinking about it and writing about it since 2800 fucking BC. Britain doesn't know about drought cycles because it's always more or less rainy, and of course Chuckie's Gaian faith declares that all knowledge of natural CYCLES is deadly heresy. For a Gaian, AND for a Goldman-style capitalist, everything is unidirectional and exponential, everything moves inexorably toward infinity or zero.


Common sense:

"This depletion of natural capital, inexplicably, little reported in the media, was a significant contributor to the social tension that exploded with such desperate results."

He said Islamic banking, or alternative banking, could provide the answers where conventional banking could not, given Islam's emphasis on the "moral economy".

Exactly right.

Note, however, that Chuckie focuses on NATURAL CAPITAL and omits HUMAN CAPITAL, which is THE big problem in Britain and America. Our capitalists have turned exclusively to manipulating currency and pure numbers, and have completely lost the human part of the picture. Our businesses have returned to plain old slavery, with the slaves conveniently placed in China and Bangladesh. Islamic economics focuses powerfully on human labor as the creator of value. That's the whole point of prohibiting interest: to insure that return on an investment is solely based on real value.

Labels: Carbon Cult, Natural law = Sharia law

  ¶ 3:25 AM

  Now squeeze.
Interesting move by British treasury:

Britain is set to become the first non-Muslim country to sell a bond that can be bought by Islamic investors in a bid to encourage massive new investment into the City. David Cameron will say in a speech on Tuesday at the World Islamic Economic Forum in London that the Treasury is drawing up plans to issue a £200m Sukuk, a form of debt that complies with Islamic financial law. The new sharia-compliant gilt will enable Britain to become the first non-Muslim country to tap the growing pool of Islamic investments that is forecast to top £1.3 trillion by next year.

(1) Tapping new investors is only a small part of the advantage. The big part is the plain fact that Islamic economics works, while the US/UK/EU Goldman System fails. (Of course Goldman economics succeeds magnificently for Goldman. The parasite destroys the host country to enrich itself.)

(2) When you disconnect the bond's return from LIBOR and those other Goldman-invented measurements and derivatives and options and futures and indexes and puts and calls, you also disconnect the power of Goldman. LIBOR was invented solely to provide a single control knob for the entire banking system, a knob that Goldman turns.

(3) When you treat government more like a business with the goal of producing a natural profit, you end up with a government that can do its proper job. When you keep a reserve and stay on the savings side of the ledger, you're not vulnerable to Goldman's crashes and commands. Failed governments operate solely on the borrowing side, which means they must obey their creditors instead of their people. Polistra has discussed this in detail before.



Islam requires investments to be based on real profit or increase from a real enterprise, not on abstract counterfeit numbers that Goldman can dial up or down. I can't find details on the nature of the 'enterprise' for this sukuk; it could be just a gimmick so the big Qatar sultan types can give lip service to sharia. Unfortunately there's a lot of gimmickry in these things. But if this sukUK isn't fake, it's an interesting start toward a sane economic system in one of the craziest countries on Earth. Now let's have MORE SANITY, PLEASE.

Labels: Natural law = Sharia law

  ¶ 3:55 AM

  Another comparison
Few days ago I compared the productivity of the Romneycare website to a small (government-owned) business where I worked many years ago. Basically the R-care website is turning out as many completed forms per day as a small hotel.

Another comparison. According to one of the corporate spokesmen interrogated by Congress, the final end-to-end test of the R-care website involved 200 users. The test failed, but they went ahead and released the system. You don't need a comparison to see how violently absurd this is, but let's make one anyway.

Poser graphics is a tiny piece of the overall graphics industry. Lots of people [including me] make a little bit of money, and a few people make a full-time living at it. These 'big players' work in teams via email, turning out complicated human figures or clothing items. Each released item will typically sell a few thousand copies at somewhere around $10 each. How do these 'big players' run their testing? They have a stable of enrolled testers who agree to perform detailed testing and reporting on new products, in return for a free copy of the final item. How big is the stable? About 200 testers.

So these artists, engaged in esthetically satisfying but absolutely frivolous work that cannot possibly save lives or kill people, have the same number of testers as Romneycare, which is an absolutely critical smashing of an already broken health care system of an entire nation, affecting 300 million people in various ways, with life-and-death consequences for the millions of people who can no longer afford health care after their policies were smashed by the so-called alleged accused reputed "AFFORDABLE" so-called alleged accused reputed "CARE" unquote Act of 2010. Not proportionally the same number of testers, but exactly the same number of testers.

Lesus.
  ¶ 9:39 AM

  Wonder if that was a microburst?
Pretty good windstorm last night. I slept through the whole thing for once. Why? Because wind came from an unusual direction.

99% of big winds around Spokane are from WSW, and this neighborhood is wide open to WSW winds. Last night's storm was from ENE, and this neighborhood is behind a hill from that direction.

Avista's outage map shows who was not protected, and it's a highly unusual pattern:



The north-facing side of the rich South Hill got intensely whacked. So intense that I wonder if they had something quasi-tornadic in that spot.

Labels: Heimatkunde

  ¶ 5:00 AM

  Worth reading!
This article by a Connecticut insider answers many of the big puzzles about Romneycare. It's a little hard to read because ,of ;weird punctuation ,but if you "sort" of squint ,past ,the ,strang,e , ...comma's and ,apo'strophe's ;you'll find "it sat"isfying.

Basic point: Why didn't Obama do Medicare For All? It wasn't because of pressure from the insurers. They liked the idea of an infinite monopoly but they also saw big problems in the details. So they were lukewarm. Who was red-hot? Joe Lieberman. And if Lieberman is for you, nothing can be against you.

It's all about raw imperial personal ego. Nothing more, nothing less. Joe wanted Romneycare. Therefore Romneycare happened.



After a bit of thinking: No, the basic question about Obama still remains. He had the country with him in 2010, and Lieberman had only Lieberman on his side. He didn't have either party's machinery backing him up, because he had pissed off both parties. No matter how formidable the senator, a President can always run over a senator. Why didn't Obama call out Lieberman and use public force and party force to do the right thing?

A bit more thinking: Got it. No mystery. Joe is a Jew. Jews Never Lose.
  ¶ 4:10 AM

  Fuck you up the ass, Comrade Satan Kreidler.
Unusually accurate story by a usually loyal leftist news source.

Hundreds of thousands of people in Washington state are receiving letters in the mail from their insurers, informing them "your health insurance plan will no longer be available" under the Affordable Care Act.

This is despite a promise President Obama repeated campaigning for his health care reform plan, where he stated, "if you like your plan, you can keep it."

Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler admits the promise was broken, but for good reason.

"It's a bit of a trade off," said Kreidler. "Yeah, you're not going to be able to keep this plan that was probably inadequate and maybe a lousy plan, and now you're going to have a new plan that is much more robust in its coverage."

Kreidler explains that part of the Affordable Care Act forced insurance companies to raise standards for their policies, requiring coverage for so-called essential benefits, like prescriptions, emergency services, and maternity.

Lesus, what a fucking snide-ass monster.

Probably inadequate? No, I had a perfectly adequate plan that I could afford. Now you've forced me to take a plan that costs $200 more. You have increased my living expenses by TWENTY PERCENT. You are STEALING MONEY FROM MY POCKET to finance a pile of ratshit that I WILL NEVER USE.

Maybe a lousy plan? No, it was fine. It's a plan from Group Health, where you, Comrade Satan Shithead Kreidler, allegedly "worked" as an optometrist for 20 years. You're insulting your old employer, satanic dickhead asshole.

Much more robust? It covers MATERNITY AND CHILD DENTAL SERVICES, which I can't possibly ever need under any possible conceivable circumstances. The old "non-robust" "lousy" plan covered exactly the events I'm likely to need, and it was affordable.

Fuck you up the ass, you snide sniveling sneering contemptuous fuckhead bully. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. I will piss on your fucking grave. I will dance on your fucking grave.

= = = = =

Later, after a LONG HARD WALK cooled me down slightly: Why aren't the Repooflicans taking advantage of this wild rage? About 200,000 people in Wash are in the same position, and similar proportions in other states. Everyone who has been paying for individual coverage is getting royally fucked. This demographic group, and the subject of the rage, should be Repooflican home territory. National Repoofs, terminally stupid as always, are continuing to focus on the website problems, which are temporary and don't really affect a natural Repoof constituency.
  ¶ 7:46 AM

  Lustralism
Rather amazing bit of statistical streakiness:



The Romans, who saw the numerical world in terms of 5 and 2, would have appreciated this. We've dropped the factors, keeping only the decadal product as a marker.
  ¶ 4:40 AM

 

RED LETTER DAY!

This CENTURY'S best news:

The Aussie government has staunchly rejected arguments that climate change is causing the wildfires ravaging eastern parts of the country following a record hot start to the spring season.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott described the link as 'complete hogwash' in an interview with News Corp's Australian newspapers.

Abbott argues that Australia has experienced wildfires for more than 200 years of European settlement and had suffered worse fires in the past.

This week, he accused Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, of ‘talking through her hat’ when she referred to the Australian wildfires as the world ‘paying the price of carbon’ in the atmosphere.

‘They are desperate to find anything that they think might pass as ammunition for their cause,’ Abbott said, referring to people who link the fires to global warming and who criticize his government's climate change policies.

FINALLY, FINALLY, FINALLY, FINALLY!

A NATIONAL LEADER who is fully sane, and willing to speak truth to the wackos!!!! We have a few other leaders who seem to be embracing sanity in a quiet practical way, but without renouncing the Official Religion of Genocide.

This is the 95 Theses moment that all fact-loving people have been waiting for.

Labels: Carbon Cult

  ¶ 2:57 AM

  Aptronym alert!
This story is especially neat because it's not the aptronym you'd expect.... but it's an even better aptronym.

Holly VanVoorhis was 7 when she asked her dad, landscape architect and Park Board member Ken VanVoorhis, if she could help him design a park. He let his daughter tinker in his drafting software until she’d designed a heart-shaped tree park.

“Immediately she said, ‘Where can we plant this in Spokane?’ ” said Holly’s mother, Mitzi VanVoorhis.

She begged and begged her parents to let her build her park, even asking a neighbor if she could plant the trees in their backyard.

Finally, after a few weeks of Holly bothering her parents, her dad called then-Mayor Mary Verner to set up an appointment. ...

Verner encouraged Holly to pursue the project and introduced her to the city Urban Forester,

Aha! City forester must be Myrtle Birch or Jack Pine, right?

Wrong.

Verner encouraged Holly to pursue the project and introduced her to the city Urban Forester, Angel Spell.

See what I mean?

... and on Tuesday the Urban Forestry Program will plant the 10th tree in the heart to mark the 10th anniversary of the first tree planted in the Susie Forest. A group of Boy Scouts started Tuesday’s task on Saturday, digging a hole where the last tree will go. “These are the projects and these are the events that make my job so amazing,” Spell said. “It gives all these people here connection to each other, connection to these trees, connection to nature, and it’s all because of Holly’s idea.”

Labels: Aptronym Alert

  ¶ 2:36 AM

  Do LED bulbs protect incandescent bulbs?
Thoroughly random and probably invalid thought.

I sternly resisted the replacement of incandescents by CFLs because it was done by official force. Incandescents were STOLEN and replaced by poison pods that could kill you.

I don't have a problem with efficiency and energy-saving, as long as it's not commanded at gunpoint. So when LED bulbs came down to a reasonable price (and claimed to be at least partly American-made) I bought two of them. Their real appeal for an old coot is not the slight increase in efficiency but the huge decrease in replacement. As I get older, the process of standing on a chair, taking off delicate glass shades and unscrewing bulbs becomes more accident-prone.

I bought them in March, seven months ago. One LED went in the kitchen and one in the living room ceiling fixture.

Here's the odd part: Since March I haven't needed to replace any bulbs at all. One incandescent is still in the living-room fixture along with the LED, because the LED is directional and the incandescent 'fills out' the room. Previously, the bulbs in that fixture needed replacing every 3 months or so, because it's on 16 hrs/day. Another incandescent in a lamp at the other end of the living room also needed replacing every 4 months, because that lamp is my 'night light'. By now I should have replaced each of those bulbs at least once.



The separate 'night-light' lamp has to be just an unrelated statistical stretch; it's only on when the LEDs are off. But I can imagine a ballast-like action for the incandescent that shares a socket with the LED. Maybe the LED is surging before the incandescent starts to draw current, dropping the voltage briefly.

= = = = =

Update Jan 6, 2014: Still no replacement. That's 9 months for a pair of bulbs that typically lasted 3 or 4 months before the LEDs were added to the mix.

= = = = =

Update May 17, 2014: The 40-w bulb that shares a socket with the LED finally burned out today. That's 14 months, turned on 16 hrs/day, totalling about 7000 hours. The desk lamp 40 still hasn't failed.

Update Oct 25: the bulb that shares with LED burned again. 5 months, back to the old pattern. So the hypothesis is also burned out. I just happened to install two extremely good bulbs at about the same time that I switched to the LED!

Labels: coot-proofing, Danbo

  ¶ 6:04 AM

  11, 17, 33
Polistra was thinking about life cycles of the annoying aphids, and decided to examine a more obvious life cycle. Why do cicadas pick 17? Assuming the cicada had already decided on a multi-year larval stage, there must have been some 'tuning' on the epigenes to hit 17 as an optimum. But optimum by what standard?

Obvious first guess: it's about halfway between 11 and 22. 17 should be the point of least synchrony with 11-year sunspot cycles, providing the best rotation among weather conditions, and the best rotation among predators whose populations respond directly to weather conditions.



The graph shows the rotation fairly well but not dramatically. Green (static) graph represents a century of 11-year sunspot cycles. Red (changing) graph represents red-eyed cicada cycles of various lengths, labeled in the upper corner of the picture.

Complicating the hypothesis: 17 is also half of 34, which is a stronger weather cycle than 11. This could put the emergence of cicadas in permanent sync with big storms, or in permanent sync with just-right seasons. Is that good or bad?
  ¶ 5:47 AM

  Aphid day!
[Annual feature. This is the fourth time I've noted it here. Aphid Day in 2010 was the first of Oct; in 2011 it was the end of Oct; in 2012 the first of Oct; now in 2013 it's the last part of Oct. More or less periodic in those four years. Makes me wonder if we're seeing alternate populations of a critter with a two-year life cycle. Looked it up; probably not. Aphids are poorly understood. They do all sorts of complicated and strange things, including two-layer birthing and cloning a male from a female in order to mate! But this particular aphid doesn't wait two years between matings.]

= = = = =

Every year in Spokane the end of summer is marked by the swarming of tiny white-winged flies.

Insects don't waste much time in adulthood; lots of bugs live several years as larvae and only a few days as adults.

These flies take it to an extreme. Adults are minimally equipped to get in the air and reproduce. They don't have as much brain power as other flies, nor do they have hard shells. Instead of flying purposefully, they drift with the wind like seeds, and die as soon as they bump into anything even at near-zero drifting speed. Result: for a couple of days, your face and clothes are covered with semi-liquid insects.

Despite their lack of navigation, they must have some kind of superior instinct or 'community intelligence', because picking the last warm day is much harder than picking the first warm day of spring. Termites and ants don't need to calculate their swarming day; they only need a simple neuron to detect when temperature rises past a certain threshold, plus an emitted pheromone to trigger the avalanche.

But how do these flies determine that today is not just warm, but the last warmth for their generation? They must be sensing something besides temperature.

At any rate, they serve as a reliable sign for us, even if our supercomputers can't match their calculations.



Polistra has put it into folk-wisdom format:

White flies swarming, no more warming.

= = = = =

[Artistic note: the swarm in the animation turned out nicely, but Polistra's head looks steroid-swollen and South-Park-ish for unknown reasons. Maybe she's allergic to the bugs.]

[Technical note: According to some sources, these bugs are smoky-winged ash aphids, Prociphilus americanus.]

Labels: Heimatkunde

  ¶ 5:23 PM

  Why scandal?
Latest NSA 'scandal' is listening to the calls of Reichsführerin Merkel. Why is this a 'scandal'? Much as I enjoy the piling on, and much as I've been waiting for 30 years to see if anyone else in the world would FUCKING NOTICE what NSA does, I can't join the pile this time.

Look. If you started a spy agency from scratch in a supposedly non-dictatorial country, you'd ferociously avoid spying on your own people, because that's the quickest way to lose your credibility. You'd also avoid spying on ordinary people in other countries.

You'd focus on the LEADERS OF HOSTILE COUNTRIES, and the LEADERS OF COUNTRIES THAT HAD HISTORICALLY MADE TROUBLE. This is EXACTLY WHAT SPIES ARE SUPPOSED TO WATCH.

And your list of COUNTRIES THAT HISTORICALLY MADE TROUBLE would start with Germany. You'd observe that every time the Krauts unite in one nation they start stomping stomping stomping stomping stomping stomping stomping stomping to take over the world by extreme force. You'd observe that Krauts reunited in 1990, and since then they've been stomping all over the rest of Europe. Therefore you'd want to keep a VERY SHARP EYE on Kraut leaders. You'd want to tap Reichsführerin Merkel's phone.
  ¶ 5:02 PM

  Productivity
Watching C-Span hearings on Romneycare website failures. One of the witnesses said that they have handled about 4000 paper applications, which are the only for-sure applications.

4000 in 24 days. That's about 160 people per day.

We've paid over a billion dollars for this mess, and it yields 160 forms per day.

160 paper registrations per day is the same scale of activity as a small hotel. When I worked in a hotel-like facility on the OU campus, we checked in and out a similar number, generally between 100 and 200 per day. We had 6 people working the desk (2 per shift) and another 6 back-office employees to file the cards, send out bills, etc. This check-in process took only a small part of our work time. We had plenty of time to chat, study and watch TV. Our wages in modern dollars were about 20k per person: 12 people * 20k = 240,000 per year.

So Romneycare is producing at the same rate as the OU conference center, and costing 4000 times as much.

Amazing. But that's only part of the amazingness. If this super-fast productivity continues, we'll be able to insure all of those famous "47 million uninsured" in a mere 677 years. So we just have to wait till 2690 AD, and all our health care problems will be solved.
  ¶ 10:38 AM