October 31, 2017

Another cryptic Trump tweet: "NOT IN THE U.S.A.!" (What?)

"In NYC, looks like another attack by a very sick and deranged person. Law enforcement is following this closely. NOT IN THE U.S.A.!"

October 31, 2017

I wonder if "Fake News weak!" was supposed to be "Fake News week!"

I wonder if "Fake News weak!" means "Fake News week!"

Trump's latest tweet:

...earth shattering. He and his brother could Drain The Swamp, which would be yet another campaign promise fulfilled. Fake News weak!

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump

October 29, 2017

Christie: Mueller's targets should be concerned

"I think anybody who's been advised by the special counsel's office that they're a target of the investigation -- which I'm sure he has done to those people who are -- should be concerned," Christie said in interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union."

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/29/politics/chris-christie-robert-mueller-cnntv/index.html

October 27, 2017

Help! Does anyone know what "15 times less energy" means?

Here's a paragraph from a CNN article posted today about sugar and cancer:

Fermentation of sugar to lactic acid produces about 15 times less energy than respiration of sugar, Thevelein noted. Yet cancer cells "grow much more rapidly than normal cells, and yeast actually grows the fastest when they ferment," he noted.

I can't figure out what that means. It seems to me that if something produces one unit of energy then something that produces 15 times less energy produces 14 units of negative energy, whatever that is.

October 24, 2017

Ari Melber just echoed a point I made last Friday about police cameras.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029733070

For seven months, just over a thousand Washington, D.C., police officers were randomly assigned cameras — and another thousand were not. Researchers tracked use-of-force incidents, civilian complaints, charging decisions and other outcomes to see if the cameras changed behavior. But on every metric, the effects were too small to be statistically significant. Officers with cameras used force and faced civilian complaints at about the same rates as officers without cameras.

This test completely misses the point. We all know that there are corrupt police officers, but the purpose of body cameras shouldn't be to somehow transform them into law-abiding, civil rights-respecting, enforcers of the law, it should be to catch them in the act, prosecute them, and convict them. With that in mind the fact that these officers aren't dissuaded by body cameras could actually be good news. It should make it easier to catch them and deal with them.

Maybe the reason the cameras don't seem to make a difference is that those corrupt officers know they'll get away with what they do, camera or no camera. Prosecutors won't prosecute them, juries won't convict them, and above all, they have the backing of our nation's president.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/upshot/a-big-test-of-police-body-cameras-defies-expectations.html

October 20, 2017

Test of police body cameras reveals that they don't magically cure police corruption.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/upshot/a-big-test-of-police-body-cameras-defies-expectations.html

For seven months, just over a thousand Washington, D.C., police officers were randomly assigned cameras — and another thousand were not. Researchers tracked use-of-force incidents, civilian complaints, charging decisions and other outcomes to see if the cameras changed behavior. But on every metric, the effects were too small to be statistically significant. Officers with cameras used force and faced civilian complaints at about the same rates as officers without cameras.

This test completely misses the point. We all know that there are corrupt police officers, but the purpose of body cameras shouldn't be to somehow transform them into law-abiding, civil rights-respecting, enforcers of the law, it should be to catch them in the act, prosecute them, and convict them. With that in mind the fact that these officers aren't dissuaded by body cameras could actually be good news. It should make it easier to catch them and deal with them.

Maybe the reason the cameras don't seem to make a difference is that those corrupt officers know they'll get away with what they do, camera or no camera. Prosecutors won't prosecute them, juries won't convict them, and above all, they have the backing of our nation's president.

October 18, 2017

An ironic Trump quote:

“I had a very nice conversation with the woman, with the wife who was — sounded like a lovely woman. Did not say what the congresswoman said, and most people aren’t too surprised to hear that.”

It's true, most people aren’t too surprised to hear that. I'm certainly not. I don't believe a word of it but I'm not surprised to hear it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/10/18/totally-fabricated-trump-disputes-congresswomans-depiction-of-his-exchange-with-soldiers-widow/?utm_term=.9ba4c231a916

October 17, 2017

RE: John McCain - There are no conservatives in foxholes.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/17/politics/john-mccain-trump-spurious-nationalism/index.html

There's a popular claim among Christians that "there are no atheists in foxholes", implying that an atheist near death will begin to worry about an afterlife and embrace Pascal's long-debunked "wager."

I don't grant any credibility to that but it could be that a similar principle applies to religious conservatives, or at least to John McCain, who presumably does believe in an afterlife and wants to distance himself from the evil nature of conservatism in order to redeem his soul while he has time.

October 16, 2017

Shower thought: Trump is a lot like Cave Johnson.

He hires advisors and ignores their advice.

"The lab boys just informed me that I should not have mentioned the control group. They're telling me I oughtta stop making these pre-recorded messages (Tweets). That gave me an idea: make more pre-recorded messages! I pay the bills here, I can talk about the control group all damn day."

https://theportalwiki.com/wiki/Cave_Johnson_voice_lines

October 11, 2017

Announcers should never say "Ladies and gentlemen, please stand for our national anthem."

They should say "Ladies and gentlemen, our national anthem."

In that case, if you choose to stand then you're showing respect. But you stand because the announcer told you to then you're not showing respect for anything, except maybe for the announcer. All you're really doing is just following instructions.

Towlie