Guard Dog

He's right. What he missed was WHY that is. It was mainly due to the arrogance and condescension of the "intellectual class" so to speak that all the stupid rubes should just shut up and be grateful to do as they're told by their "betters". There is nothing virtuous in believing you are smarter than everyone else. Even if it's true.

War never changes

If you are looking for a political opinion piece that does not involve Syria, Trump (directly anyway), etc this one is pretty brilliant http://reason.com/archives/2018/04/10/americans-cant-stand-each-other-so-lets

I'm with Kapthood. Syria, like so many other similar conflicts is devolving into a proxy war between outside actors. Eventually one site will win and, as I said earlier, the mass killing will continue. Maybe just with different victims. Where Kapthood is wrong is it didn't start with intervention. That has just prolonged it. It starts when two or more differing groups of people can'r live under the same sun with someone who is different from them in some way. Or has something the other wants. If people are determined to kill each other there isn't much you can do but get out of the way. I'm hearing George Washington warning us to avoid foreign entanglements in the back of my head.

With the possible exception of Tunisia, revolutions these days seem to be about replacing one kind of tyranny with another. The only difference being the ethnicity/religion/philosophy of the next group of people to be mass murdered.

Do you know what the most awful thing about the Syrian civil war is? There is no clear answer to this question: Which scenario is worse: It goes on forever One faction now fighting actually wins When that question has no obvious answer it's not something we should be involved in. Of course I don't think we should be involved in any military actions abroad unless Congress actually declares war. But that's just me. And the Constitution.

For those who have trouble making up their minds. Or like to keep their options open: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6006554/transgender-sex-robots-curious-couples-experimenting-porn/

Now reading

I had to watch all 192 episodes of the Apprentice, back to back to back while tweeting "Best President Ever" after every contestant got fired.

Never mind

The value of a news item is entirely in the eye of the reader/viewer. As I've said many time if you believe everything you read on the internet you are a fool. Case in point: You all know I don't think too highly of Elizabeth Warren. But she never said that. That is a edited ripoff of something Josef Stalin supposedly said. And even that can't be proven. When it comes to news on the internet it's caveat emptor. If someone is stupid enough to believe everything they read then you can pity them, insult them, try to educate them, whatever. But by God you do NOT make the choice for them of what they get to see. You do not substitute your judgement for theirs, even if you know they are wrong. They need to come to the realization of what is or isn't on their own. Because it won't take long before the truth becomes only what the biases of the "fact checkers" want it to be. After that, the things you see on the internet will still be BS, but you won't have any sources to debunk it. Yes, I know that is not what this particular law, which has not even been passed yet, does. But that is the direction we are heading with it. It is insidious. Like I've said with gun control, the surest way to never reach the unthinkable end is to not take the first steps.

And just like that, California took away free speech: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB1424 So, who are these "fact checkers" going to be? It will be up to them whether or not a news story gets shared. If "they" say it isn't true then it isn't. Even if it is. Now, Obsidian is a California based company. Will this be the end of sharing news stories on WoT? Especially if the political powers that be decide they don't like what the news story says, um, I mean the news story isn't verified? Yeah, that's it. Verified? I keep coming back to a quote from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri game "Beware he who would deny you access to information. For in his heart he dreams himself your master". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UY2uw3yoIA

The Radical Freedom of Dungeons and Dragons: http://reason.com/archives/2018/04/07/the-radical-freedom-of-dungeon A little long but a very interesting and well done article.

London to introduce knife control policy: https://www.dailywire.com/news/29179/londons-mayor-declares-intense-new-knife-control-emily-zanotti Mayor Khan wants to keep these "weapon of war" out of civilian hands. Remind me again, which war was fought with knives? Was it WWI? Well, stabbing people is already illegal in most places. Not sure about London but it probably is. So I'm sure the stabbers will become fine upstanding citizens once the knives are illegal. After all, they wouldn't want to break the law would they? I swear when I saw the headline I was sure the link would lead to the Onion. Truth is stranger than fiction it seems.

Nothing to worry over here right? https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/homeland-security-searchable-database_us_5ac7f41de4b07a3485e4bb1d Every step towards tyranny seemed so small, so innocuous. George W Bush and the Republicans in Congress create the DHS to keep us "safe". Obama and the Democrats in Congress turn it into a weapon against American citizens. Now Trump is taking to first steps into a full on Orwellian dystopia. The next President will not doubt start making people "disappear". If they are not already doing it.

God helps those who help themselves I always say.

The season is a week old. The Marlins are better than I'd thought, the Rays are worse. There has been some great stuff so far. Unfortunately I've been too busy to really follow. But I had to share this:

I did my taxes tonight. One nice thing about being a regular employee rather than a business owner is I don't have to write those greedy wretched bastards in the IRS a check every year. Getting a return is nice. Not nice enough to make me less angry about giving them an interest free loan for a year. Taxation is theft.

Sorry you had to go through that again. I'm sure it brought back bad memories,.

Physics is about observing a phenomenon, inventing a mathematical framework that adequately describes it, and drawing useful conclusions based on that. A mathematician's purpose is fundamentally the same but bleeding edge math and physics are hella esoteric after 300+ years of more or less steady progress and a few super geniuses. Was Von Neumann more a physicist or a mathematician? It's an arbitrary distinction, useful mostly for curricular organization. I'm thinking the "complexity" in the group mentioned refers to the study of complex systems, in which physicists (as well as many others) are heavily involved. Don't mean to sound patronizing or anything, but a physicist is exactly the kind of scientist I'd expect to be heading something like that. Oh I was probably trying to make a joke where there just wasn't one. The group actually has a wide variety of expertise involved in it.

The garden is sprouting. That makes me very happy!

Exactly like i said earlier. Their 15 minutes were up. They had their say and their protest and their marches. Most of them seemed happy to go back to their lives. Well, not Hogg. I suspect that guy is going to overstay his welcome. But every time someone insults them, belittles or speak ill of them the media goes to them for reactions and that 15 minutes gets extended. To say nothing of the fact the one who does it looks like a jerk because they are kids. They don't know anything. If you really want something to go away you ignore it. Don't make a big thing about it. Americans have the attention span of a gnat. They will be forgotten before you know it. But if you keep them in the spot light by saying stupid s--t about them it drags on and on.

The University of Miami's Complexity Interdisciplinary Group, which is headed by a physics professor has released a study showing Americans are so polarized when it comes to news the margins have become the mean. No shocker there right? I'm more surprised that a Professor of Physics is studying such a thing. I guess the fields of mechanics, statics, and dynamics are now so thoroughly mapped as to leave him with nothing else to do! Anyway here is the link. It's interesting enough but no new ground is broken here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article207841309.html I just found the fact it's a physics guy doing it amusing. That makes as much sense as making an electronics engineer into an environmental analyst.