Home » Open thread 8/12/23

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Open thread 8/12/23 — 52 Comments

  1. Poor Scott Simon on NPR this morning: “Bu-but what about the plea deal?” Unspoken coda: “You know, the one where Hunter got off clean, and there was no more worrisome stuff about FARA, and bank records, and we could just keep gloating about Trump?!”

    I could practically see his eyes widen in fear through the radio. He knows something just changed.

  2. And just like that, poof!, Dark Matter totally disappeared. As if it never existed.

    Next line of inquiry, the “Free Lunch.”

  3. Quick Headlines:

    1) “DeSantis, With a Subtle Maneuver, Hides His Small-Dollar Donations”

    https://news.yahoo.com/desantis-subtle-maneuver-hides-small-180548104.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/09/us/politics/desantis-small-dollar-donations.html

    2) “DeSantis signs law to cover up records of his travel and visitors ahead of anticipated 2024 presidential run”

    https://www.businessinsider.com/desantis-travel-records-will-be-hidden-under-new-law-2023-5

    https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2023/03/22/desantis-other-officials-travel-records-would-be-secret-under-florida-bill/

    3) “Ron DeSantis to bring Iowa endorsers to state fair in apparent dig at Donald Trump” ^^

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2023/08/11/ron-desantis-to-bring-iowa-endorsers-to-state-fair-to-offset-trump/70577121007/

    ^^ = = The announcement comes after Trump’s campaign told the Des Moines Register the former president would attend the state fair with nine Florida Republican members of Congress who have endorsed him over DeSantis, a fellow Floridian. There are 20 Republicans in the House from FL, and 13 have endorsed a primary candidate – 12 for Trump, and 1 for DeSantis.

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2024-election-endorsements/

  4. Mike Plaiss, thanks for the link. My astrophysics is not strong enough to understand why this evidence is “conclusive” whereas dark matter evidence is not, but this definitely seems to be a major finding. I have always been uncomfortable with dark matter theories, and had a tentative fondness for MOND, FWIW.

    Has Sabine Hossenfelder covered this yet?

  5. She has not as far as I know, but she has excellent videos on dark matter. The interesting thing about this study is that takes place on a scale where dark matter is thought to be irrelevant. Dark matter really only shows itself on very large scales. It doesn’t impact, for example, the orbit of Jupiter. Said differently, if dark matter mattered at stellar scales (even wide binaries), then its effects on galactic scales would be much larger than what we see.

  6. Polls are generally really bad for a lot of reasons. Even the very best pollsters struggle to be accurate. One of the many problems is that they have to guess as to what the appropriate splits are demographically. First, how to divide the populace accurately and then, what the average support level for each party is in that demographic slice.

    In 2000, Baris pointed out that most polls in Pennsylvania were polling only union workers in Philly and Pittsburgh to represent all the white working-class voters in the state in their polls. The reality was that rural and non-union white working class were overwhelmingly now GOP voters and especially for Trump.

    Things continue to change. Blacks and Hispanics (particularly men) are trending to the GOP and especially to Trump. This makes it nearly impossible to accurately guess the appropriate splits with which to adjust the raw totals for unrepresentative samples.

    Here is Texeira on that particular trend. https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/the-democrats-nonwhite-working-class-1dc?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

    But actually being able poll it accurately is very problematic.

    The takeaway — polls are pretty bad. We should expect them to be even worse this election cycle.

  7. I just read through the linked article from Mike Plaiss. Interesting, but one aspect hit me immediately as an experimentalist. They are claiming to be able to measure accelerations of 0.1nm/sec2 precisely. Really??? 10^-10m/sec2 level of accelerations would, to me, be a really hard measurement to make on any object in a controlled lab environment. I can’t understand how one achieves that level of precision while looking at binary stars light years distant. Nanometers are atomic scale distances.

    I know he had a large sample size and then used a Monte Carlo statistical method to tease out that number. I’m still very skeptical. Maybe an astro person here could clarify. Otherwise, I’m not too excited about this, even though we desperately need some sort of revision of GR.

    In terms of Dark Matter, that has always been an ad hoc idea to explain galactic rotation curve anomaly, but with no real evidence to support it.

  8. Very interesting link, Mike Plaiss. But frankly this questioning of dark matter and dark energy sounds racist.

  9. Just a (perhaps trivial) epiphany about the acronym “MOND”, which stands for MOdified Newtonian Dynamics. It’s about the word “Modified”.

    I had always assumed that “Modified” was just a handy way of saying “adjusted” or maybe “refined”, handy to make an acronym, that is, especially since it might be an allusion to “monde” (French for “world”).

    But as I was thinking more about the possible mechanism of MOND, I understood that it might not be that gravity was adjusted to be stronger at extremely low values, but that it was modified by ANOTHER FORCE – one that was much weaker, but of much longer range than an inverse-square relationship.

    Does that make any sense, or is it simply a distinction without a difference?

  10. For those interested, more news from Maui.
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/are-people-in-lahaina-rioting-authorities-warn-entry-to-historical-city-will-be-closed-if-people-disobey-orders-amid-maui-wildfires/ar-AA1fbn5P?ocid=socialshare&cvid=a06a154b971348dd8d227674f71585d5&ei=9

    “Authorities said in a statement, “The road to Lahaina was opened for local residents to provide medication and supplies to their families that remain in homes on the west side and in need of such assistance outside of the fire/biohazard zone.”
    ***************************************
    “Authorities said in a statement, “The road to Lahaina was opened for local residents to provide medication and supplies to their families that remain in homes on the west side and in need of such assistance outside of the fire/biohazard zone.”

    A lot of impatience with restrictions to the burned areas, which are still being searched for bodies. Also, people stuck west of Lahaina, where it didn’t burn, need medicines and other supplies. A lot of chaos and many rumors at this point.

  11. RE: Flooding in China, hiding the truth and controlling the “narrative,” and regime propaganda

    The western bloggers about China who I follow–laowhy76, and Serpentza –are reporting that the Chinese authorities diverted floodwaters from Beijing so that, instead of continuing to flood Beijing and the Forbidden City, they have been redirected to flood peasant villages in the countryside.

    Moreover that, in line with their reliance on “short cuts and facades,” and to control and present a narrative that the flooding has not been as bad as it actually was and apparently still is, these authorities have resorted to tactics like blocking people’s view of things like destroyed bridges, and they have also staged and made propaganda videos of heroic government forces conducting fake rescue efforts. *

    * See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_0IDX7aLKY

  12. physicsguy, I would guess they had to take position measurements of sufficient number and precision over a long enough time to get the variability out of the “noise”. Very statistically driven, and then must consider if there were any hidden biases in the measurements that could have skewed them.

  13. FOAF,

    Love your “racist” dark matter/ energy comment.

    Yes. They used a Monte Carlo program to get the results. The author stated he examined all sources of possible bias, but I didn’t bother to read through the rather lengthy original.

    Like the announcement of room temp SC, this will have to await independent confirmation.

  14. My personal reason in favor of DeSantis:
    ____________________________________

    The Arc of Reform: New College of Florida votes to abolish its gender studies program.

    Tonight, the New College of Florida board of trustees voted to direct the administration to abolish the university’s gender studies program, becoming the first public university in America to begin rolling back the encroachment of gender ideology and queer theory on its academic offerings.

    The decision, sure to elicit a fierce response from left-wing critics, is part of a broader transformation. In January, Florida governor Ron DeSantis appointed me and a number of other reformers to the New College board of trustees. He tasked us with a challenging mission: to revive classical liberal education and restore the founding mission of the college, which had been established with an appeal to New College at the University of Oxford.

    From the beginning, we knew that this assignment would involve more than a “rebranding” campaign; it would require an overhaul of the structure of the college and its programs. In our first months as a board, we initiated significant changes to the central administration, firing the president, replacing the provost, abolishing the DEI department, and hiring political veteran Richard Corcoran as our interim president.

    These changes have already borne fruit. Interim President Corcoran has secured millions in new funding from the state legislature, launched an ambitious campus-renovation plan, and recruited the largest incoming class in the college’s history, putting the school on its strongest financial footing in decades. Simultaneously, Corcoran has recruited a new team that is busy rebuilding the institutional capacity of the college, which had atrophied significantly under previous administrations, and designing a new core curriculum, which will begin with an immersive first-year study of Homer’s Odyssey and continue to provide a foundation based in logos (the cultivation of human reason) and techne (the cultivation of the applied arts).

    –Christopher Rufo
    https://www.city-journal.org/article/new-college-of-florida-abolishes-gender-studies

    ____________________________________

    New College is my alma mater. It was a very progressive school from the start. I was there when radical feminist Robin Morgan led the successful women’s occupation of the President’s Office. The Prez got out of town. The school acquiesced to their demand for a women’s studies program.

    And now that program and DEI are gone from New College! The first such rollback in US higher ed. That’s big news. Plus 36 professors felt obliged to quit. One professor stated he would “burn the college’s buildings to the ground” if he were “more patriotic.”

    I’m so pleased.

  15. @ huxley > Your vitae continue to surprise me; I didn’t remember if you mentioned New College before or not.

    “One professor stated he would “burn the college’s buildings to the ground” if he were “more patriotic.”

    I’m sure the FBI will investigate him any moment now.

  16. AesopFan:

    I’m fascinated by New College’s new curriculum which begins with “an immersive first-year study of Homer’s Odyssey.” My bet is that there is enough of an appetite for classical liberal education that New won’t lack for applicants or teachers to teach them.

    It’s hip to be square!

  17. Hillsdale College is directly involved in the rebirth (Phoenix) of New College. Hillsdale College is undoubtedly a high value target of the left.

  18. Perseid showers tonight and tomorrow.
    Fun facts at the link.

    https://scitechdaily.com/dont-miss-best-meteor-shower-of-the-year-peaks-this-weekend/

    The Perseid meteor shower is often considered to be the best meteor shower of the year due to its high rates and pleasant late-summer temperatures. Unlike last year’s shower, which coincided with the full moon, this year’s moon will be a waning crescent. This will allow even some of the fainter meteors to be seen.

    Expected Viewing Numbers
    So, how many can you see?

    “People in the U.S. can reasonably expect to see around 40 Perseids in the hour just before dawn on the peak nights. That’s about one every couple of minutes, which is not bad,” said Bill Cooke, who leads NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office. “However, we are assuming you are out in the country, well away from cities and suburbs.”

    The brighter skies of suburban areas greatly reduce the viewing rates, with 10 or fewer expected in an hour.

  19. The biggest problem with the MOND theories was that the adjustments were completely ad hoc, not derived from anything. It’s like they put a dimmer switch on gravity that you manually adjust until the numbers match up.

    Unknown kinds of matter have been discovered by assuming they are needed by a strongly-supported theory: positrons, neutrinos, and more than one element in the periodic table. But sometimes the theory is what has to change: for example the planet Neptune was discovered by assuming where a planet would need to be and finding it there, but the planet Vulcan (inside Mercury) was never detected and when general relativity came out, found not to be needed after all.

    Sometimes, of course, it’s the measurements that are wrong. A few years ago a team claimed to be detecting faster-than-light travel, but the effect was found to be due to the synchronization of the timing at each end of the path the particles were taking.

    But if the measurements hold up they hold up, and if they make dark matter impossible so be it. There will be a lot of new papers as a result, trying to figure out the theory from where the MOND adjustments are derived.

  20. Can’t argue with any of what Frederick says. MOND is just as as hoc, if not more so, than dark matter. But “fitting the curve” has its place in the history of science.

    Max Planck was doing nothing more than that when he precisely determined his famous constant. He himself called it a “mathematical trick” and I believe wrote to a colleague that he thought with further study the “constant” would ultimately found to be zero. Then came Einstein to explain why the constant was what it was.

    Time will tell, but it is certainly fun to think that that the table is set for the next genius to come along and explain why gravity changes at accelerations lower than 0.1 nanometer per second squared, but not 0.2 nanometers per second squared.

  21. Open Thread Sunday – Russo/Ukraine war. Something different, an interview. Hold it, this ain’t Tucker!

    Theories of Victory & Russian Political Stability – Interviewing Anders Puck Nielsen – Perun

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rBlVnc_DEw

    Timestamps:
    00:00:00 — Theories Of Victory & Russian Political Stability
    00:01:54 — What Am I Are We Talking About?
    00:02:30 — Interviewing: Anders Puck Nielsen
    00:03:02 — The War From A Russian Perspective
    00:03:42 — Putin’s War For Great Power Status
    00:07:15 — How Can This War Be Existential For Russia?
    00:09:21 — Does The War Undermine Russia’s Power?
    00:16:37 — Kick The Can Down The Road
    00:23:17 — Limited But Existential
    00:25:46 — A Ukrainian Theory Of Victory
    00:26:55 — Ukrainian Resources
    00:28:07 — Ukrainian Goals
    00:29:47 — Taking Ground (The Hard Way)
    00:34:36 — The Political Dimension
    00:38:43 — The Russian Citizenry
    00:39:24 — Liberal And/or Anti-war Russians
    00:39:53 — Ultranationalists
    00:40:35 — The Depoliticised Middle
    00:43:31 — The Division Of Power
    00:43:38 — Political Parties & Politicians
    00:44:44 — The Technocrats
    00:45:22 — The Siloviki
    00:46:11 — Alliances & Relationships
    00:47:03 — Putin & The Vertical Of Power
    00:47:58 — Indications Of Destabilisation?
    00:48:58 — Elections And Fears
    00:52:58 — What Would A Breakdown Look Like
    00:54:48 — Signals Of Instability
    00:59:00 — What Can Ukraine Do?
    01:05:06 — Conclusion
    01:07:08 — Channel Update

  22. @Mike Plaiss: Max Planck was doing nothing more than that when he precisely determined his famous constant.

    Fun fact: That constant was first used by Josiah Willard Gibbs before 1900, but he didn’t catch on that it had anything to do with quanta.

  23. Huxley:

    In the department of coincidence, I visited New College during the winter of 1969.

    I liked the small class sizes and was impressed by the professors I met. After the visit, I applied and was accepted. I almost went there, but was worried about the college’s shaky financial footings, so I went to another more established liberal arts college. At that age, I never would have guessed that New College would eventually become part of Florida’s public university system.

    Odd that we were almost classmates in such a tiny place.

  24. I visited New College during the winter of 1969.

    Cornflour:

    That is a coincidence! My first year at New College was 1970, so if you had come, we would have known each other, given the small student body, at least by sight.

    It was a beautiful campus, right on Sarasota Bay. The west side was converted from the John Ringling estate. The east side (on the other side of Highway 41) campus was designed by I.M. Pei:
    _______________________________

    Pei combined elements of cubism and natural harmony when designing the dormitories at New College of Florida in the mid-1960s.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._M._Pei

  25. Something’s happening in country music. In addition to Jason Aldean (“Try That in a Small Town”) and Luke Combs (“Fast Car”), Oliver Anthony is burning up the iTunes chart with social/political/economic anger at the current Powers That Be.

    Anthony lives in Virginia, so when he talks about the “Rich Men North of Richmond, he’s talking about Washington DC:
    _______________________________

    Livin’ in the new world
    With an old soul
    These rich men north of Richmond
    Lord knows they all just wanna have total control
    Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do
    And they don’t think you know, but I know that you do
    ‘Cause your dollar ain’t shit and it’s taxed to no end
    ‘Cause of rich men north of Richmond

    I’ve been sellin’ my soul, workin’ all day
    Overtime hours for bullshit pay

    –Oliver Anthony, “Rich Men North Of Richmond”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqSA-SY5Hro

    _______________________________

    There’s even a not-so-subtle dig at Jeffrey Epstein’s pedo-island:
    _______________________________

    I wish politicians would look out for miners
    and not just minors on an island somewhere

    _______________________________

    This song is totally stripped down like early Dylan. “Rolling Stone” magazine hates this song. The backlash, it is a-buildin’.

  26. HEADLINE ‘Woke’ education demoralizes students, teaches that their ambition is dangerous: Jordan Peterson—on Kilmeade’s weekend FNC show “One Nation”, etc.

    Employers disappointed with Gen-Z. Lack work ethic. Some employers actively abounding this group in hiring. (According to Intelligence mag report)

    Peterson says the young need disciplined envisioning. And he has studies showing that this makes a decisive difference in subsequent performance levels of the young

    LINK to BizPacReview story.

    https://www.bizpacreview.com/2023/08/13/woke-education-demoralizes-students-teaches-that-their-ambition-is-dangerous-jordan-peterson-1386478/

    BUT DO KNOW that the two videos within are better because Peterson is more passionate and vocal when needed.

    THIS IMPRESSED ME. Bookmarkable.

  27. Peterson says the young need disciplined envisioning.

    –TJ
    _______________

    Where there is no vision, the people perish…

    –Proverbs 29:18 (KJV)

  28. RE: Why would anyone want to open a new business, or run an existing business in these towns?*

    Democrat governing officials in these towns—and many more around the country–are deliberately—it seems—running these towns into the ground with their policies; officials who—I am sure—will not be the ones to suffer the consequences of their decisions, betrayals, and derelictions.

    No, it will be the ordinary law abiding citizens of these places who will suffer, as more and more businesses flee these cities, as more and more people who can afford to flee, as these towns accelerate their slide into becoming empty, hollowed out versions of what they once were; hellholes, and potential ghost towns in the making.

    * See https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/shoplifting-threatens-close-washington-dc-grocery-store-creating/

    And see also https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/video-up-100000-merchandise-stolen-los-angeles-nordstrom/ and

    https://cwbchicago.com/2023/07/store-looted-40-arrested-as-teen-trend-overruns-south-loop.html

  29. @ huxley > Remy does his thing with the Aldean song.
    Hilarious, as usual.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwGM-v3uVT0

    LYRICS:
    Open a lemonade stand on the sidewalk
    Go for a long walk in the middle of the night
    Keep schools open so that kids can keep on learning
    You think it’s cool, well act a fool if you like

    Put someone’s groceries in a bag
    That doesn’t immediately break
    Don’t bake a penis cake

    Well try that in a large town
    See how far you make it down the road
    Around here we’re punishing our own
    You cross that line, it won’t take long
    For you to find out, I recommend you don’t
    Try that in a large town

    Call the line for nonemergencies
    ‘Cuz somebody’s dropping trousers on your daisies
    That stuff might fly in the country—good luck

    Well try that in a large town
    See how far you make it down the road
    Around here we speed camera our own
    You cross that line, it won’t take long
    For you to find out, I recommend you don’t
    Try that in a large town

  30. I haven’t paid any attention to Jonah in years, despite having read him happily prior to 2016, but this is just crazy.

    https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/08/jonah_goldberg_claims_small_donors_are_a_big_problem_for_democracy.html

    “Now small donors are one of the biggest problems for democracy, for the GOP. Because small donors — large donors actually have a strategic view about moderation, who can win, who can’t. Small donors really are just venting their spleen with their credit card, and they lock candidates into positions that can hurt them in the general election.”

  31. Argentina’s lead vote getter for the next President is an Anarcho-capitalist libertarian Javier Miles.

    AP headline “ Far-right populist emerges as biggest vote-getter in Argentina’s presidential primary voting [Javier Milei]

    My source anticipating this initial outcome, October sees the final election, is Doug Casey, a fiction writer and investment councillor and columnist of the same Anarcho-capitalist libertarian stripe.

    Casey not only lives in Argentina but does a weekly podcast on YT. And so, he cheered him on a few months ago.

    But what is an AnCap political platform? What does it look like? Abolish the State as much as possible!

    Let’s see if the AP story reflects this:
    “Far-right populist Javier Milei rocked Argentina’s political establishment Sunday by emerging as the biggest vote-getter in primary elections to choose presidential candidates for the October general election in a nation battered by economic woes.

    “Milei, an admirer of former U.S. President Donald Trump, says Argentina’s Central Bank should be abolished, thinks climate change is a lie, characterizes sex education as a ploy to destroy the family, believes the sale of human organs should be legal and wants to make it easier to own handguns.

    “Votes were still being counted late Sunday, but analysts agreed that the upstart candidate who gained notoriety — and a rockstar-like following — by angrily ranting against the “political caste” did much better than expected and is a real contender for the presidency in this South American country.

    “With around 92% of polling locations reporting, Milei had around 30% of the total vote, according to official results….”
    https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4174918/posts

    Look closer:
    Milie says “Argentina’s Central Bank should be abolished, thinks climate change is a lie, characterizes sex education as a ploy to destroy the family, believes the sale of human organs should be legal and wants to make it easier to own handguns.”

    Sounds like state government abolition to me!

    We may want to pay attention to what happens there over the next few months.

  32. SOME FURTHER CONTEXT, since many will not know about Argentina.
    Ever since the Peronist “Evita” era, the country has been subject to socialist and fascist swings, sometimes with moderates heading government in between.

    The political swings have gotten more extreme over the last 30 years. But for over a century, it has never managed to embrace capitalism. Illustration? Is the Commie Pope in Rome from Argentina? Yes.

    So, perhaps after trying arrangements that have failed repeatedly, has she reached an innovative turning point?

    Inflation is over 100% per year. And for many years, the nation has cut itself off from international investment — which in LatAm is the most common scapegoat for failure.

    “Crisis” investing indeed!

    THERE’S much more to learn here for those willing to listen.

  33. huxley,

    Just listened to Oliver Anthony’s song a few minutes ago. As you said, minimalist, and powerful. The AT article I learned about the song from said he was expressing “exasperation”. Yes, but there’s quite a bit of barely restrained anger there. It may be an indication that the pressure cooker at the lower and middle class levels is becoming dangerous. My concern is that it translates into votes for Trump as he knows precisely how to tap into that anger better than the other candidates so far. I’m not a never-Trumper, but if he is the nominee I’m convinced the Democrat,who ever that may be, wins.

    You may be on to something as it reminds me of the music trend of the 60s when the first rumblings of antiwar and counter culture happened in folk music until it burst into the pop and rock music. Unfortunately, today the pop music is dominated by one, maybe two chord, non-melodic, autotuned, mass production, with little chance of actual writing appearing (see Beato for reference). Hopefully the “underground” music channels may make a breakthrough.

  34. I think cosmo was the wordsmith in that crew, but lets remember he begs for his bowl of donuts for pierre omidyar, catspaw for iranian and qatari interests,

  35. RE: My comment above about businesses fleeing Democrat run cities at 12:04 A. M.

    Looking at the development of cities, some of the chief reasons for cities to be located where they are, and for their growth, is because they serve as centers for manufacturing, commerce, and trade.

    So what happens when the factories shut down, businesses–large and small–leave, and it becomes harder and harder for routine daily commerce to be carried on?

    The sad thing is that the citizens of these cities did this to themselves, by falling for a pack of Leftist lies, and by who they then voted into office.

    I wonder, though, what percentage of eligible voters actually showed up and bothered to vote?

    Did these brain dead Leftist ideologues just get voted into office because a small, but very dedicated group of leftist voters did show up, and everyone else didn’t show up and vote?

  36. this was largely true in new york, first with deblasio and then adams (my tocayo, we share the same first name) it’s probably true elsewhere, look at los angeles or
    atlanta,

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