Still trying
Still trying to parse out the possible connection between magnetic changes, bacteria, and weather patterns.



This GIF is made from the maps available here, showing magnetic declination from 1900 to 2000. Overall nothing dramatic; the two poles of the magnet are gradually moving, carrying the lines with them. The lines over USA move one way then the other, ending in 2000 about where they were in 1900. This agrees with a lot of weather patterns. Only one area seems to be moving steadily and comparatively fast: the south Atlantic between Brazil and Africa. This is where the Gulf Stream gets organized, and the Gulf Stream is definitely changing.

= = = = =

Here's a more meaningful graph. I took a NOAA overall temperature graph and added total magnetic field intensity on the same years.



To show the close match in PHASE between the two, I flipped the temp graph:



No doubt about it. These two measurements are speeding up and slowing down at the same times. They are in phase.

Good old 1974. Inflection point for everything.

This reinforces the magnetosphere connection, but complicates the Svensmark mechanism for the magnetosphere connection. Svensmark says that decreasing magnetic field lets in more cosmic rays, which nucleate more clouds and rain, which cool the surface. However, if we note that much of the warming is in the form of warmer nights, not warmer days, Svensmark is back in the running. (More cloud = more blanket.)

Simpler mechanism: Mag strength is decreasing because the iron core is getting hotter. More wiggles in the iron molecules = less alignment. Hotter core also = hotter surface, and also = more volcanic and seismic activity.

Labels: Carbon Cult

  ¶ 10:23 AM

  Godwin and Graybill
Boris started a tempest in a twitpot by stating that the EU is the latest in a LONG series of projects to unify Europe, all of which ultimately failed. He's right.

Naturally his opponents immediately turned his correct statement into EU IS HITLER, and started pointing out alleged differences between the 4th and 3rd Reichs.

One of the differences is partly valid: EU didn't bomb London yet. Didn't use violence in the early stages of its unification. It's only now getting around to violence, using the Dreamer Migrants as an army of occupation.

Another commonly cited difference is stupid: EU "enshrines human rights". This is actually identical to Hitler, because "human rights" means "kill the unfashionable". Hitler was just more honest.

Other opponents note that Churchill was working toward a united Europe. This is TRUE. Can't argue with it. The US government and most commentators after WW2 were also seeking a new united Europe. They believed FALSELY that Hitler gained power BECAUSE of nationalism. HItler was a neocon, the exact opposite of a nationalist. Like Lincoln or Bush or Obama or Cameron, Hitler believed that his way of thinking was universal and good, therefore all people on Earth must be forced to comply.

Those commentators also forgot the other side of the equation: Hitler's opponents were able to resist him BECAUSE of nationalism. England and Russia wanted to remain independent nations, didn't want to adopt Hitler's way of thinking.

When Europe is already unified BEFORE the Kraut dictator takes over, there's no way to resist the Kraut dictator. Hungary and Slovakia and Greece have already figured this out. It looks like other EU citizens are starting to reach the same conclusion.

And here we drop back to the item just below this one. Most mergers fail.

I asked:

Leaving aside LBOs which are MEANT to destroy the target, why does company X want to buy company Y?

We can stop right there. Mergers at the country level are always LBOs. The victim is drained of resources and geographical utility, and is made to pay for the takeover with debt and death. The buyer gains a brief advantage, but quickly uses up the resources and realizes the cost of keeping an unwilling population enslaved. Nobody wins.

The other reasons I listed for company mergers, centered on good management or patents, are null for countries.

So in the big picture: Mergers and unifications are lethal. Collaborations and LOOSE connections can work. A bilateral CONTRACT, drawn for the best advantage of BOTH sides, works nicely. Such contracts can only be maintained when BOTH sides are fully independent and willing to defend their SKILLS ferociously.

Labels: defensible spaces, skill-estate

  ¶ 7:34 AM

  Well then, why?
Couple days ago I heard a surprising assertion on some radio program, maybe BBC. I was working on graphics at the time and didn't stop to think about it.

Assertion: Mergers are almost always a bad idea. Most of the time the two companies would do better on their own.

Never heard that before. Certainly true of all the mergers I've seen directly as employee or customer, but my experience tends to be atypical. If this is a general rule, why do companies keep doing it?

Leaving aside LBOs which are MEANT to destroy the target, why does company X want to buy company Y?

Three reasons.

(1) X sees Y as prosperous and successful, and wants to get some.

(2) X sees Y as failing because of bad management, and thinks X could manage it better.

(3) Y is not really a company. Y is a patent packaged as a company, and X wants the patent.

= = = = =

(1) and (2) are clear recipes for failure, with occasional exceptions in (2). If Y is doing well under its current management, it will do worse after X fires its current management. If Y is doing poorly, there are usually problems other than management, and changing management won't solve those problems.

(3) is a modern phenomenon. Patents no longer protect new ideas. Patents only serve to stifle new ideas. A patent troll writes a patent on "existence" or "things made of substance" or "doing business", and then sues** everyone (with deep pockets) who exists or makes things or does business. The best way to protect a real idea is to form a company that can exert NDA pressure on its employees. Use the real idea to make something for a while, always shaping your publicity and style toward getting bought by Google or Apple or Pfizer. Get bought, take the money and run, after CAREFULLY insuring that the real inventor will get exactly nothing for the idea.

Mergers formed by (3) tend to work some of the time, but they aren't real mergers between two real companies.

The question remains. Why do mergers happen if the odds are so bad?

= = = = =

**Footnote: The perfect troll-patent would be a patent on "having great wealth and having a firm policy of settling lawsuits instead of fighting them." Guaranteed to succeed every time. I'm sure the trolls are working on this as we speak.

Labels: Asked and unanswered

  ¶ 5:03 AM

  Come here Mr Huxley. We need you.
The Chosen have made their intentions clear. They are currently killing the Negative Externalities, by war in areas close to Israel and by starvation and despair elsewhere. After the NegEx are gone, the Chosen will design robots to do the grunt work.

Terraforming Terra.

But it's also clear that robots won't be ready to perform some necessary functions, especially those involving pattern recognition. How do you get wetware slaves without the inconvenience of all those non-Chosen characteristics like morality and common sense?

Build them.

Over 130 scientists, lawyers, entrepreneurs, and government officials from five continents gathered at Harvard this week for an “exploratory” meeting to discuss the topic of creating genomes from scratch — including, but not limited to, those of humans, said George Church, Harvard geneticist and co-organizer of the meeting.

The meeting was closed to the press, which drew the ire of prominent academics.

I'm sure those prominent academics can be de-ired by grant money. Give them a few million and they'll get with the program.

Labels: Ethics, Natural law = Sharia law

  ¶ 3:42 AM

  Positive cascade
Last November's windstorm, followed by a week of shivery darkness, left me with a stark need for coziness and comfort. After losing about 6 pounds in the previous year, I started eating more and gained the weight back. Recently I decided to resume the losing. Found that I could eliminate 'second breakfast' without any trouble. Start first breakfast later and endure the hungry feeling.

This morning the growling was a bit too loud just before a store walk, so I gobbled a piece of bread to keep the stomach busy. The bread left a nasty day-long aftertaste, which is exactly the same aftertaste I'd had during the power outage.

Aha! I had ass-u-me-d that the aftertaste was from food spoiled by the warm refrigerator. Nope. Today's bread is new, has never been in the fridge. It's just bad bread. Mold or yeast or chemicals.

So: Normally my midday meal is an omelet with toast, formed as egg sandwiches instead of an omelet. Because the bread is unusable today, I left off the toast and made the omelet in proper form. Nice! One more calorie-generating item removed from daily diet and shopping list. No harm done.

This is sort of like the positive cascade that happens when you switch from debt to saving. One paid-off debt allows the next paid-off debt. One removed food item leads to another removed food item. Obviously there's a limit to the removal, and I've probably hit the limit. Stick to this pattern for a while and see if the scale starts turning downward again.

Update 6/1: After a month of eating less, I've taken off 4 of the 6 pounds gained since November. Astonishing! Eating less is One Weird Trick to lose weight! Whoda thunk it? Maybe I should patent this unprecedented idea!

Labels: TMI, Zero Problems

  ¶ 5:54 PM

  Life is feedback
Mediasatans seem to be missing the point on Brazil. Mediasatans disapprove of the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff because she is a wymmyns. Dilma calls it a coup, so mediasatans agree that it's a coup. You can't remove a wymmyns.

We should be cheering that a country with a long history of REAL VIOLENT COUPS is performing properly and sanely.

Life depends on feedback.

In an organization or nation, feedback means replacing an incompetent leader. A nation that can remove a bad leader cleanly and quickly, without killing him or jailing his followers**, can then get on with improving things.

Before Rousseff, Brazil had been on the upswing; under Rousseff it was starting to run down again. Proper solution: Change leaders and see what happens. EXPERIMENT.



Bravo to Brazil.

Compare with Venezuela and USA where the leader is unremovable and experiment is unthinkable. Venezuela and USA are descending into total chaos.

= = = = =

** Punishing a bad leader is a bad idea. The current trend of UN-sponsored "human rights trials" against former dictators is a lethal idea, like all other UN-sponsored ideas. It drives dictators to stay in office for life. If a bad leader can foresee a prosperous and powerless retirement, he will be more likely to leave quietly.

Labels: Grand Blueprint

  ¶ 4:14 AM

  Thanks, Ralph 386 (and probably a bunch more)
The good part of Obama's latest "guidance" is that many school systems and states are openly and publicly REBELLING. We can also be sure that many more parents will seek private schools or home-schooling arrangements, though that won't make the news.

Most schools should have seceded from Federal control a LONG time ago. Since the '50s Federal subsidies have forced huge piles of evil and destructive nonsense. The cost/benefit has been negative since the '70s, but most schools were unwilling to say NO. The heaviest load came with the IEP crap for "learning disabled" (ie nasty) kids. Schools often spend over 100k for each nasty kid, hiring individual tutors and individual administrators instead of spanking the nasty kid once or twice.

In other words, the Feds have been running an LBO on schools. We steal your soul, force you to serve Satan instead of serving your own community, and in return we make you bear most of the cost.

In the big picture the latest atrocity is no worse than previous atrocities, but if this is what it takes to reach the point of secession, I'm deeply thankful.

Labels: Emersonian justice

  ¶ 2:01 AM

  This is fun!
Currently 'building' a second Poser set related to interurbans. First one was a Healing Springs resort with an interurban line leading to it. This second set is focused on the power aspect of interurbans. Typically a street railway brought both transportation and electricity to a city.

Destinations were often designed to show off electricity itself, along with recreation, food and fun. I'm copying a building from Dellwood Park in Joliet.



The tower had an appealing light pattern. Not much info remains, so I can't tell if the light display was animated... but animation was possible with technology of the time. Basically a player piano with electric contacts reading the roll and energizing banks of relays.

The technology COULD have done something like this, using May Aufderheide's Dusty Rag for an equally plausible player roll:



Damn, this is FUN!

= = = = =

Tech note: Getting the embedded video to play was NOT fun. Blogspot now requires https for embeds, and most browsers now require WEBM format for html5 video. Had to move the video to my Dropbox to get an https on the source, and then had to convert it from MP4 to WEBM using ffmpeg.

Labels: Alternate universe, Zero Problems

  ¶ 12:53 PM

  No, that's not right.
At the end of previous item I said that our milifairy has been killing millions of innocent Muslims instead of attacking the country that attacked us on 9/11.

I was obviously talking about Saudi, but the question is getting more complicated. Who is most ferociously opposed to releasing the famous 28 pages? It's NOT the Saudi government.

From Saudi news sites:

"Our position, since 2002 when the report first came out, was ‘release the pages’,” Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir told reporters in Geneva last week. “We know from other senior U.S. officials that charges made in the 28 pages do not stand up to inquiry. Therefore, yes, release the 28 pages.”

“We can’t rebut charges if we’re being charged by ghosts in the form of 28 pages,” Jubeir said. “Yet, every four or five years this issue comes up and it is like a sword over our head. Release it.”

Sounds like a man who knows the facts.

Who wants to keep it secret?

CIA Director John Brennan on Sunday said the 28 classified pages of the Sept. 11 Commission Report, which are said to describe Saudi Arabia's involvement, contain information that is inaccurate, uncorroborated and unvetted.

CIA and State Dept.

Therefore: "the country that actually attacked us" is DC.
  ¶ 7:19 AM

  The final purge roars ahead
Today's pogrom news:

The Obama administration is planning to issue a sweeping directive telling every public school district in the country to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms that match their gender identity.

When businesses and agencies are forced to take specific steps to "accomodate" ENTITIES THAT DO NOT EXIST, we're talking about religion. Trans things DO NOT EXIST. Some people are deluded into believing that they can change their gender. They are factually and scientifically and biologically wrong.

This is a direct enforcement of an ESTABLISHED RELIGION. Secular people should be fighting this just as hard as Christians, but secular people are fucking idiots.

If the government required all schools to build a special reception hall for Jesus when he returns in glory, secular people would properly resist. Because the new Established Religion is COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL, secular fuckheads cheer it.

The post-1989 illegitimate illegal criminal alleged "government" of USA STRONG has been running a wildly ANTI-SCIENTIFIC AND ANTI-FACTUAL THEOCRACY. Economists have smashed a formerly functioning economy with the counterfactual fantasies of "Free Trade" and QE and ZIRP. Environmentalists have smashed farms and dams and cities with the counterfactual fantasies of "global warming" and "endangered species". The military has been killing millions of foreigners to serve a counterfactual fantasy of "Islamic terrorism" instead of attacking the country that actually attacked us on 9/11.

Labels: 20th century Dark Age, Blinded by Stats, Carbon Cult, swishover

  ¶ 2:29 AM

  Got over it
Obama is visiting Hiroshima (or Hee Dawsh Mar, as BBC pronounces it) and announcing his Vision Of A World Without Nuclear Weapons.

I had that disease when I was 18. Got over it.

Simple logic. The atomic genie is entirely out of the bottle, the knowledge is widespread. Building a usable weapon is not a task for an amateur "terrorist"; it takes a serious long-term government effort; but it's easy and straightforward for a government willing to spend the money.

Given that basic fact, there is simply no way to achieve a World Without Nuclear Weapons.

Consider North Korea, the worst case and the only case. How do we get them to give up their nukes?

Not by sanctions. We've been doing that for 50 years and it only strengthened the Kim dynasty.

Apparently not by spying and secret ops. I have to assume we've been trying that for the same 50 years, and our "hikers" and "missionaries" and "tourists" have all been caught and jailed. The Kims are EFFICIENT dictators.

The only remaining option is to nuke the whole country. We can't do that because the net result will be an immediate discharge of all NK weapons into SK, which will then be devastated AGAIN by the fallout from OUR weapons. Not a desirable result.

No way to get from point A to point B without destroying everything. Normally that doesn't stop USA STRONG, but for some reason it seems to be restraining us in this particular case.

Nukes are like lawyers. If lawyers didn't exist we wouldn't need lawyers. Since lawyers do exist we need lawyers to defend us against other lawyers.

Labels: defensible spaces

  ¶ 9:10 AM

  Thanks, Ralph 385
A classic example of reliance on PROCESS instead of FACTS. The author notes the obvious fact that pundits are fucked. The Trump thing brought it out in living color. How do you improve the accountability of pundits?

The author thinks that bets will help.

The problem with bets like these is that they are far too simple to settle the complex debates that underlie them. A handful of metal prices cannot settle a sprawling Malthus vs. Cornucopia argument, just as a single data point for unemployment cannot be the final word in the dispute between Cowen and Caplan.

And yet it would be a shame to abandon bets altogether. Doing so would leave only the squalid food fights into which so many important debates devolve. The solution is to take bets far more seriously, to expand them, and to design them to be capable of settling debates to the satisfaction of most reasonable observers.

MOAR PROCESS! MOAR COMPLEXITY!

Shit. Totally irrelevant. Only Parkinson matters.

No amount of added PROCESS will improve accuracy because the people who pay and publish pundits do not want accuracy. The people who pay and publish pundits want to reinforce the power and status of the people who pay and publish pundits.

This is a good thing, because it means that readers who understand the real world can DISMISS ALL PAID PUNDITS. No need to waste time and blood pressure. Just observe the world and draw your own conclusions. Trust yourself. You'll be right most of the time. Guaranteed.

Labels: Emersonian justice

  ¶ 1:05 AM

  Nature's supreme court
An article in Catholic Register tried to analyze the consequences of Trump for serious Romans but missed the important point. I wrote a short comment at the article.

The comment deserves more detail.....

Moral people who want to restore some degree of morality and sanity in government shouldn't be focusing on ideology and judge appointments. The court system is rotten from top to bottom, and the law schools are the rottenest part. Any judge who can make it through the appointment process will be rotten. Even if you could miraculously force a sane man into the position, one judge makes exactly zero difference.

Better to think about populations instead of ideology, because Nature enforces natural law at the level of populations, not ideology. Nature uses natural means. Birth and death. A population that breaks natural law dies out.

Visible at a large scale by comparing Africa with Europe. Africans are powerfully moral. Euros are breaking natural law in every possible way. Euros are dying and Afros are moving in to replace them. Natural law, enforced by nature.

Visible in a smaller way with churches. Churches that stick with natural law are growing. Churches that follow Satan are dying. [Incidentally, I wonder how long USA STRONG will allow this to continue? How long before attendance in Episcopal "churches" is made mandatory, or Baptist churches are abolished? We're already abolishing Islam. Why not Baptists?]

MORALITY IS ANOTHER NAME FOR SURVIVAL.

This year's election could have a meaningful effect on populations, on the movement of cultural masses. USA STRONG is INTENTIONALLY killing all of the populations who carry the Morality gene. Working-class whites and religious blacks are getting the shaft in different ways. Working-class whites are losing usefulness and skills, leading to alcohol and suicide. Religious blacks are getting shot in the crossfire between fashionably Cool gangs.

If Trump is serious** about controlling immigration and outsourcing and rebuilding industry, we could reverse both of those trends. Working-class whites will regain security, and young black men will be able to make money by working instead of gangbanging.

The natural-law gene will then be more able to build solid families, and will be more willing to have children.

= = = = =

** Footnote or disclaimer: This is still a big IF. Trump's words are on the side of truth, and the exdorsements by those who stand to lose power lend force to his words, but I'm still not sure that he will carry out any of his promises. The meeting with Ryan this morning raises the IFness rating much higher.

Labels: Grand Blueprint, Natural law = Sharia law, skill-estate

  ¶ 3:55 PM

  The opposite of Ivison
Got thinking again about the fantastic Ivison cursive that was simply the way their invoice clerk wrote things, then became a trademark of the store, then became the store's specialty. They switched from books to cursive guides and pens.

I never learned Palmer or Spencer. We were trained in an awful squarish form that may have descended illegitimately from Palmer. A lot of people in my generation stayed with the ugly cursive. I departed from it in 7th grade. Miss Collins, a young and beautiful history teacher, used an Italic form that fitted a left-hander better. So I spent 4 years using the ugly square form then imitated Miss Collins and never went back.

Just for fun I tried to bring it back:



Amazingly this system that I used from 1959 to 1962 is still immediately available. Didn't even have to transition into it. Just decided to write that way and it worked. Makes me wonder: has this ugly system been living in my nerves for 53 years like chickenpox, always forming the base for my scribbles, getting 'transposed' into the Collins Italic form?

Later: Looking at this sample objectively, it's prettier and MORE LEGIBLE than my current scratching. Maybe I should switch back!


Much later: A news feature on reintroducing cursive in schools showed the exact same script we learned, with a caption "Zaner-Bloser Cursive Alphabet". An appropriately ugly name for an ugly script. Google shows that Zaner-Bloser is a school supply company making good money from spreading this ugly script through books and study guides. An exact parallel to Ivison & Phinney!

Labels: skill-estate, TMI

  ¶ 11:16 AM

  Nullification
Thinking about juries. One thing I noticed repeatedly in my three jury calls: A cocky young punk decides to go for a jury trial. I can bulldoze those weak old squares easily, and get off without any jail time. He struts into the courtroom and sees a hundred dull squares waiting to be picked or unpicked for his jury. These squares are already pissed because their lives have been interrupted by jury service. Most of them have been robbed or raped or threatened by young punks at one time or another, and they have ZERO PATIENCE with young punks. Young punk looks into a hundred implacable hostile faces. Suddenly his hormones leak away. He confers with lawyer. Go for the plea, take the short sentence instead of hard time.

The Deep State loves PROCESS because PROCESS makes Deepstate look legit. Ideally all processes are reduced to lifeless zombie mechanisms, which is of course how Deepstate sees humans.

In some situations the zombie process is finalized and unrecoverable, like the stock market or the media. HFTs running code. Precisely zero chance of reanimation.

Juries aren't fully reduced. Each jury is infused with life and purpose, and its mechanism uniquely allows ONE purposeful life to NULLIFY the mechanism. The brand of Jury Nullification™ has been invented by Deepstate to make Purpose look awful, but in fact most juries nullify in one way or another. Among 12 normal live humans there's at least one, and often 12, who can't stomach some or all of the charges. The nullifier doesn't have to file a special appeal, doesn't have to state his purpose on a government form. He just has to say NO to a charge, and the jury will be unable to press that charge. This is objectively indistinguishable from the brand of Jury Nullification™.

Presidential elections have been reduced to a process which NORMALLY runs the way Young Punk expects. Predetermine the result two years in advance, go through the motions of primaries and caucuses and conventions, make lots of team-based noise to bamboozle the squares. Get off scot-free. Another eight years of smooth mechanical coasting for the punk, another eight years of raw evil and pure crime and bloody slaughter for the squares.

Trump shocked the punk by nullifying the process. Instead of obeying Sheldon Adelson, instead of chanting the correct mechanical Goldman and Netanyahu slogans, Trump said true things. Living squares, hearing truth in a political context for the first time ever, realized they could say NO to the punk. And they did.

The subparts of the election machine, the operatives and pundits and press, were slower to respond than my real-life punk. They didn't take the plea, didn't let Trump be the automatic nominee after two or three primaries. They didn't realize that their pet zombie had come back to FULL LIFE; instead, they only saw a strange glitch or virus in the machine. They continued pushing harder and harder on their various levers and buttons. Some tried to unplug the machine and plug it in again. Most of them are still dumbfounded, still slamming their fists through the keyboard.



Nullification.

= = = = =

Now the GUTSY governor of NC is attempting to NULLIFY a Federal crime. In this case the word is literal. Since 1861 the Feds have reduced the original confederation to a machine with parts that look different but obey smoothly and identically. Some of the gears are brass, some are stainless steel, all mesh perfOOPS WHAT'S HAPPENING ONE OF MY GEARS IS TURNING BACKWARDS DOES NOT COMPUTE DOES NOT COMPUTE DOES N

= = = = =

At this point we can't tell what will happen next. One of the standard punk tactics is gone: can't blackmail this governor with funding. He's ALIVE. Most likely the Feds will resort to raw brutal force. Send in the troops, occupy the state, kill the governor, kill a million implacable squares.

Is Obama up for that? Does he want his "legacy" to be Civil War 2? I truly don't know, but that's the best bet.

Labels: swishover

  ¶ 6:01 AM

  It's not a moral issue, dammit.
The discussion of 'bathroom laws' seems to be missing the basic point.

There have always been cross-dressers. Some of them manage to look quite convincing. If a convincingly female cross-dresser uses a Ladies restroom with proper privacy, and does nothing untoward or unexpected, practically nothing has happened. There was no reason to make laws against this nonevent because it wasn't noticed and did no harm.

The problem begins with the Dolezal Delusion, the idea that you can DECIDE AT WILL which sex or race you belong to. When an actual physical male DECLARES VERBALLY that he is a female, or vice versa, there is NO LOGICAL WAY TO HANDLE THE SITUATION. An actual male can get into a Ladies restroom for all sorts of nefarious purposes while declaring verbally that he is a female. With the new Satanic definitions, there is no legal way to tell him NO.

This is NOT A MORAL OR RELIGIOUS ISSUE. It is simply a matter of facts and logic and law. Law has to deal with OBSERVABLE BEHAVIOR.

If you try to make law based on internal thoughts, EVERYTHING COMES LOOSE and tyranny is guaranteed.

All laws based on defined characteristics are gone now.

A teenager can walk into Target and buy cigarettes or beer simply by saying "I'm 21." Cop catches you driving without a license? Just say "I'm licensed." Want to practice medicine? No need for all that tiresome medical school. Just say "I'm a doctor." Want to kill people any time for any purpose? Just say "I'm an official executioner."

When you open the doors to self-declaration, all of this shit is instantly possible. It will happen. Guaranteed. No way to stop it.

Labels: swishover

  ¶ 4:54 AM

  Happy V-day, Russia!
As Russia continues to STAND UP AND RESIST the western satans in its part of the world...



...Polistra LOUDLY salutes Russia and Putin.



In 1945 we had the sense to resist Kraut ideology and aggression. We were on the same side as Russia. Now we are the ideological monsters and Russia is the Allies.


THANKS, PUTIN!

Labels: 20th century Dark Age, Гром победы

  ¶ 4:24 PM

  About fucking time.
As the federal hypersatan continues to accelerate, slaughtering facts and logic and science and souls and non-Chosens at an almost unprecedented rate [only Lincoln did better] .... the Repooflican "governors" have been bending over, opening their useless little asses, and saying "YES LORD SATAN! FUCK ME UP THE ASS! I WANT YOUR INFINITELY LONG REDHOT COCK TO PENETRATE MY VISCERA AND BURN MY SOUL! MORE! MORE! MORE!"

Finally finally finally FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY we have an actual MAN governor who faces forward, stands up, stands straight, and says NO. NO. NO. YOU WILL NOT FUCK ME. YOU WILL NOT FUCK MY PEOPLE.

The governor of North Carolina has refused to obey Satan's command. He has countersued, which won't go anywhere, but RESISTANCE IS THE MAIN POINT.

Satan doesn't expect resistance. Bullies never do. Low-level bullies will generally back off and find an easier rape when a victim stands up and resists. It's not clear what the Federal Satan will do, but at least it will have trouble figuring out the next step.

Labels: swishover

  ¶ 3:45 PM

  Sounds familiar
Test Kitchen again. Interesting interview with Bee Wilson on how food habits are developed and changed. The part about individual tastes is unsurprising: genetic tendencies plus learning through the mother's blood while in the uterus. Genes and epigenes. Grandma was right as usual.

The part about cultural tendencies was surprising. I ass-u-med that local or national tastes change slowly and gradually. Can't be forced. Nope, wrong assumption. Generally true but not universally. The Jap emperor changed national diet forcibly and abruptly when he wanted to build an empire.

Checking the truth: Here's a view through the eyes of missionaries as of 1901, right in the middle of the transition. Page 114 in this PDF.

Beef, pork and mutton were introduced a short time ago. A report from the Home Office shows a rapid increase in the slaughtering of beeves. Fish, served with soy**, is served raw or boiled, from slices of whale down to those who can scarcely afford a good mouthful.

Anything that can be washed down with o cha "honorable tea" or o sake "honorable whisky" is food. The bulbs of lilies and chrysanthemums, cherry blossoms, and bamboo sprouts are delicacies. All vegetables that grow in the US and many that do not, are common here. One too honorable to be omitted is the diakoy.

This is daikon, not diakoy. Odd error. Not a mishearing, more likely a mistranscription from someone's handwritten notes.

It corresponds to our radish. It is about two feet long and two inches in diameter. In color it is a clear white. The foreigner considers it an open foe. Three months decomposition in brine, with rice bran and ginger leaves, makes the house where it is used proof against foreign intrusion.

The missionary thought he was being snotty but he wasn't.

Many vegs are considered to be improved by being pickled a few months. A pickle shop is best viewed at a distance, for Japan is noted as much for its strange smells as for its queer sights.

Note the casual contempt, which may explain why Japs didn't take up Christianity.

Here's the most important bit:

Boiling is the common method of Japanese cookery. Cooking utensils are very modest: a large knife, three or four kettles, and a hibachi or fire box. The food is clean and beautifully arranged, but this is the most that can be said of it.

The lack of nutrition in the diet of the Japanese is sapping their power of endurance. If history is based on diet, and conquering nations have been noted for their simple habits, where is the people with vigor bred by simple habits to succeed Japan?

Though seen through a dim mirror of withering contempt, the emperor's project was well underway. Clearly the emperor had observed his weak non-vigorous people and decided to imitate the best empire-builder of the time, England. Skip the veg. Lots of beeves and other red meat, all fried. His project obviously worked. Just a few years later the expansion began, brutally snatching most of Asia and part of Russia.

= = = = =

The withering contempt sounds familiar for some reason. Resonates with something more modern.... Hmm. What is this something?

Aha.

Headline:

Why Do Some People Respond to Trump? It’s Biology 101 It’s no mystery. Social science has been telling us for years. Conservatives respond to fear-inducing stimuli more than liberals do.

Or 100,000 other examples of bizarre shit containing bizarre vile blindly bigoted malassumptions about racism or birthers, written by infinitely evil monsters who live in their own tiny missionary bubble and never encounter an American. Totally missing every single fact and event of the last 30 years, casually assuming that the American "proof against foreign intrusion" is just our natural ickiness.

No, we're not icky, but we're glad that you contemptuous missionaries see us as icky. We hate you because you have been intentionally slaughtering us and grinding our souls and skills into the dust for 50 years. We hate you. We hate you. We hate you. We want to see you DEAD. DEAD. DEAD. Preferably soon and preferably in extreme pain.


= = = = =

** Footnote: Was soy really so unfamiliar and foreign in 1901? Yes. From a 1907 USDA bulletin on forage crops:

In China and Japan the soy bean has been under cultivation for many centuries and has long occupied and important place ... supplying a large proportion of easily digested nitrogenous matter and largely taking the place of meat. The soy bean was first brought to this country some decades ago and received more or less attention in the warmer latitudes, being used in various ways as feed for livestock.

When did the mysterious oriental soy become naturalized as soy? Surprisingly recent and sudden, verifying Bee Wilson's point yet again:



I'm suspicious of this Ngram curve because soy sauce was thoroughly familiar in the '50s. Most middle-class families had it on the table, and it was in ordinary grocery stores, not just special Oriental stores. I'd guess the real change came just after WW2, when "Chinese-style" restaurants spread through USA. But I can't think of a way to check this.

Labels: defensible spaces, skill-estate

  ¶ 1:37 AM

  The Eful tower
When reading old documents about mineral waters I noticed an odd spelling convention. Chemical names ending in ite, ide and ine were eless. Chlorid, bromin, dioxid, Thermit. (Thermit was a brand-ish name for an explosive.)

I ass-u-me-d that the eless version had been constant until sometime in the 20th century, when some sort of academic agreement put the e's in.

Google's ngram pins it down, with an obvious explanation for the return of e's, but a non-obvious picture at the other end.

Here are the eless versions:



(Thermit lasted longer, presumably because it was a trademark.)

No doubt about the endpoint. The eless versions were Kraut spellings. American academia was madly in love with all things German, including the spellings of chemicals. WW1 ended the love affair. The end was visible in all sorts of publications. In 1917 streetcar companies and electronic experimenters and carmakers were looking to Berlin for advice. In 1918 they were ready to obliterate Berlin, even though Berlin hadn't actually bothered or bombed us.

But what about the startpoint?

This ngram shows that the eful versions, the more natural forms, were dominant BEFORE the eless Kraut versions and remained dominant all the way through. They weren't replaced by the eless.



English normally follows French when it brings in Latin or Greek, so Latin itus or itum becomes ite. Why did part of academia switch to German forms around 1890? Germany united for the first time in 1870 and became powerful thereafter, but 1870 wasn't a major event for Americans overall. Not an obvious explanation.

Oddly, the Kraut de-e-ification did NOT affect -ate compounds.



Chlorids and sulphates in this 1906 USDA publication.

Labels: Asked and answered

  ¶ 5:16 PM