Monthly Archives: July 2016

Sally Adee throws some cold water on the fears of Elon Musk, et al, in the pages of NewScientist (16 July 2016, paywall), suggesting that even the phrase “artificial intelligence” is misleading – because the computers aren’t really thinking:

“The black magic seduction of neural networks has always been that by some occult way, they will learn from data so they can understand things they have never seen before,” says Mark Bishop at Goldsmiths University of London. Their complexity (157 layers in one case) helps people suspend disbelief and imagine that the algorithms will converge to form some kind of emergent intelligence. But it’s still just a machine built on rule-based mathematical systems, says Schank.

In 2014, a paper that could be seen as the successor to the Lighthill report punctured holes in the belief that neural networks do anything even remotely akin to actual understanding.

Instead, they recognise patterns, finding relationships in data sets that are so complex that no human can see them. This matters because it disproves the idea that they could develop an understanding of the world. A neural network can say a cat is a cat, but it has no concept of what a cat is. It cannot differentiate between a real cat or a picture of one.

The paper isn’t the only thing giving people deja vu. Schank and others see money pouring into deep learning and the funnelling of academic talent.

“When the field focuses too heavily on short-term progress by only exploring the strength of a single technique, this can lead to a long-term dead end,” says Kenneth Friedman, a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who adds that the AI and computer science students around him are flocking to deep learning.

So the suggestion is that the AI field may be pursuing another dead-end approach to discovering actual thinking machines. While not everyone agrees on this point, Roger Schrank at Northwestern University says:

“The beginning and the end of the problem is the term AI,” says Schank. “Can we just call it ‘cool things we do with computers’?”

In other news, also from NewScientist, comes word of new EU regulations which will impact the more mysterious computing systems:

Soon, you may have the right to ask the inscrutable algorithms involved to explain themselves.

In April this year, the European parliament approved the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a new set of rules governing personal data. Due to go into effect in 2018, it introduces a “right to explanation”: the opportunity for European Union citizens to question the logic of an algorithmic decision – and contest the results.

In life some things can be controlled and some cannot, and a key to sanity is having at least some control. The more we are at the mercy of the unfeeling vortex, the less happy we become, and the more bad decisions we make. The software engineers may whine about it, but I’ll happily applaud this decision and hope this idea may make its way over the Atlantic.

Steve Benen @ Maddowblog notes the Trump campaign has decided to question the honesty of various government agencies:

Late last week, as Donald Trump made claims about the U.S. crime rate that were demonstrably untrue, many began to wonder why the campaign was presenting fiction as fact. Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chairman, said the FBI’s data may show a steady decline in the crime rate, but Americans shouldn’t necessarily trust the FBI. Federal law enforcement, Manafort argued, is “suspect these days.”

Three days later, Don Trump Jr. appeared on CNN in his official capacity as a campaign surrogate, and Jake Tapper reminded him that not only has the crime rate improved, but “unemployment is much, much lower than when President Obama took office. Trump Jr. wasn’t impressed.

“These are artificial numbers, Jake. These are numbers that are massaged to make the existing economy look good and make the administration look good when in fact it’s a total disaster.”

It prompted the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein to note, “So, to be clear, the Trump campaign trusts the National Enquirer but not the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”

So – I know the Trump campaign surrogates are focused on winning the election and aren’t thinking beyond that – what happens a year after winning and they try to claim some achievement based on, say, the Bureau of Labor Statistics? Everyone just sneers and returns the same accusations?

This is a very divisive situation. The institutions that deliver stability and trustable information are crucial in today’s data-heavy society, and by implying, without solid information, that the numbers are not trustworthy is to drive another wedge between Americans. Now if they had some solid evidence then they’d be worth listening to, but if all they have are complaints that the numbers don’t match those predicted by ideology, as Steve reports, then perhaps your ideology isn’t sacred.

By assuming the government agencies which reported the terrible statistics of the Bush Administration are now handmaidens to the current Administration betrays a mindset similar to the Communists at their worst. Either put up the evidence, boys, or shut up.

For those of us who pay attention to quantum mechanics comes a possible solution to the conundrum of observation. Speaking as a simple software engineer, it has never made sense to say that for some (very small) entity, its various attributes do not have set values until it comes under observation. This is known as the Copenhagen interpretation:

… it says that a particle’s state before observation is fundamentally, intrinsically, insurmountably uncertain. If the wave function says a particle could be here and there, then it really is here and there, however hard that is to fathom in terms of everyday experience. Only the act of looking at a quantum object “collapses” its wave function, jolting it from a shadowy netherworld into definite reality.

Not only is it intuitively puzzling, it also leaves open important questions concerning how the Universe ever got started. I’ve given some thought to the possibility that, if true, it might constitute a clue as to whether we’re in a computer simulation, and this is an artifact of late resolution of “reality”, but it’s hard to see my way to really believing that.

And now perhaps that won’t be necessary. From NewScientist (16 July 2016, paywall) comes a longish article on the work of Daniel Sudarsky of National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), who is extending a theory from the 1970s:

… Sudarsky began with a third option: that wave functions are real things and do indeed collapse – but randomly, by themselves. “Something like a measurement occurs, but without anybody actually measuring,” says Sudarsky. It doesn’t need a human observer, so this process is known as an objective collapse.

Objective collapse would be rare, but catching. Wait for a single particle’s wave function to collapse and you could be waiting longer than the age of the universe. Group many particles together, however, and the chance swiftly escalates. With a few billion particles, you might only have to wait a few seconds for one wave function to collapse – and for that to set the rest off.

Objective collapse theory was first put forward in the 1970s by Philip Pearle at Hamilton College in New York, and later refined by Giancarlo Ghirardi and Tulio Weber at the University of Trieste and Alberto Rimini at the University of Pavia, Italy. Their goal was to tweak Schrödinger’s equation so that the wave function evolves naturally, without an observer, from a mix of states into a single, well-defined state. To do so, they added a couple of extra mathematical terms: a non-linear term, which rapidly promotes one state at the expense of others, and a stochastic term, which makes that happen at random.

At least superficially, these tweaks can explain quite a lot that’s inexplicable about quantum theory. We never see ghostly quantum effects in large objects such as cats or the moon because, with so many interacting particles, their wave functions readily collapse or else never form. And in the early universe, as Sudarsky and physicist-philosopher Elias Okon, also at UNAM, showed a decade ago, it was only a matter of time before the wave functions of matter collapsed into an uneven distribution from which stars and galaxies could form, God or no God.

All still tentative, but it’s good to see someone takes my intuitive unease seriously and is investigating an alternative to one of the most successful scientific theories ever.

Katherine Martinko on Treehugger.com reports on the new mayor of Turin, Italy, and her primary focus:

It is into this firmly entrenched culinary tradition that Chiara Appendino has stepped. She is the controversial new mayor of Turin, a large city of over 870,000 people in the industrial northwest region of Piedmont that is famous for its food, primarily cured meats, and for being the birthplace of the Slow Food movement.

Appendino has announced her intention to promote vegetarianism and veganism in Turin. In a document outlining her plan for the city in 2016-2021, Appendino states that her government will prioritize

“The promotion of vegetarian and vegan diets throughout the municipality as an fundamental act that will protect the environment, health, and animals through awareness-building actions on the ground.”

The statement is consistent with Appendino’s strong stance on animal rights. Her Manifesto promises to “promote a culture of respect that recognizes all animals as having rights”and to make curricular changes in schools that include educating kids about “protection and respect for animals and proper nutrition in collaboration with animal welfare organizations and nutritionists.”

As Katherine notes, meat is a central part of the cuisine of Turin and Italy, and I would not expect a mass conversion of the citizenry to veganism nor vegetarianism. In my view, the philosophical defenses of vegetarianism are defective in that they ignore the biological requirements given to use by evolution. However, I will grant that it seems as if humanity is often at its best when it is defying the dictates of evolution; and Social Darwinism, the imposition of the perceived dictates of evolution on human society in the form of condemning the poor for the sin of being poor, without ever following the logic of justice in the implementation of same (and that would be such things as banning inheritance and any other activity, outside of the control of the newborn, which might give one newborn an advantage over another), is a repugnant mechanism to those who realize that society doesn’t exist to encapsulate cut-throat competition, but for the age-old exigencies: to safeguard all those who choose to join and are willing to contribute.

A little off-course.

The point being, evolution is a natural mechanism, not an idol to be adored, so it’s worth exploring the variants; and, in any case, we eat too much meat (& fish), so I expect the mayor’s campaign should have a positive effect, regardless of how close she comes to her nominative goal.

And I’m not talking World War II aircraft carriers …

Creeping up behind you

Now in its clutches!

And now back in hiding, no doubt digesting that innocent lettuce.

dicotyledonous:

The dicotyledons, also known as dicots (or more rarely dicotyls^[2]), were one of the two groups into which all the flowering plants or angiosperms were formerly divided. The name refers to one of the typical characteristics of the group, namely that the seed has two embryonic leaves or cotyledons.

Heard from my Uncle Lester today in conversation, as he recalled it from his botany class 60+ years ago.

The royal purples cling to existence…

NewScientist (16 July 2016) comes up with a summary of new British PM Theresa May:

Despite the UK being way off course on its target of an 80 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, May has generally voted against measures to fight climate change, as well as against environmental regulation for UK fracking.

Uh oh. She also sponsored a national security bill:

The bill also appears to ask online service providers to reveal encrypted messages for which they don’t have the key – a mathematical impossibility. With May as prime minister, it seems likely the bill will pass unhindered.

Well. This should be interesting. Will math trump politics, or the reverse? She seems to have a problem with reality.

Skirting the edges of respectability….

A bit of echinacea.

Lettuce please you…

And for the fun of basil sins.

Due to other commitments, I was unable to watch the fourth and final night of the RNC. Not wishing to suffer through 2-3 hours of speechifying, I chose the easy alternative of reading the Andrew Sullivan live blog, which featured Andrew freaking out after reading the speech, and then his gradual return to normalcy as he realized Trump has not yet learned how to deliver a competent speech.

I think that Andrew, as a British immigrant of a true conservative bent, despite having been here for years, doesn’t understand that sometimes we Americans tend to have emotional surges and often forget that our personal experiences simply do not translate to this huge country of ours. For example, me getting mugged in downtown St. Paul doesn’t mean we’re in a crime wave and that chaos is about to descend upon the head of every Tom, Dick, and Harry. We need to be reminded of our immense size and activity from time to time, and then we start thinking again.

And that really leads me onto the important question of the day: What would I do if I were confronted with a Trump supporter today (and was actually articulate, rather than, like my wife, an “irrepressible wallflower”)?

I’d say, “Look, if you love your country, don’t yell at me about Hillary and all her alleged crimes. Take not 1, not 2, but 3 of Donald Trump’s claims, at random, and research them, and I mean really get down with them. Check the government reports, the neutral web sites – don’t take Donald’s word for it, don’t take the GOP’s, don’t take the Democrats’ word for it, and certainly don’t take Fox News’ word for it (because of this – summary: Fox makes you stupid, according to a long-time conservative’s objective research) – but the government non-partisan agencies are required to give truthful information. So, for instance, take Donald’s claim that crime is running rampant – and go get the stats. They’re online – so go find them. (Don’t expect me to help – of course!)

Do the damn research!

Did Donald lie? On all of them? Did he manage to be for something before he was against it before he was for it? Think about that. And you’re excited by him?

Finally, you say you want to shake things up in Washington? Here, show me your car. OK, would you let a thirteen year old with no experience fixing cars work on your beauty? No? Donald has no applicable experience – and, no, being a businessman simply doesn’t cut it. Why are you supporting him? Is your government not as important as your car? He can destroy civilization if he’s the President; in your case, you could have a car accident and get hurt, maybe even hurt a few other people, but that’s it. I know Paul Ryan and a few other GOPers think experts are unnecessary, but tell that to your car. Think about it. What possible good will come of this?”

And I’m not talking about the RNC. We have purple and white phlox in the background (oh so invasive), with a steadily creeping lamb’s ear in the foreground. Hollyhocks and daisies look on….

University of Minnesota researchers have used an electron microscope to see heat propagation:

“As soon as we saw the waves, we knew it was an extremely exciting observation,” said lead researcher David Flannigan, an assistant professor of chemical engineering and materials science at the University of Minnesota. “Actually watching this process happen at the nanoscale is a dream come true.”

Flannigan said the movement of heat through the material looks like ripples on a pond after a pebble is dropped in the water. The videos show waves of energy moving at about 6 nanometers (0.000000006 meters) per picosecond (0.000000000001 second). Mapping the oscillations of energy, called phonons, at the nanoscale is critical to developing a detailed understanding of the fundamentals of thermal-energy motion.

I had no idea electron microscopes were so capable!

The straw flowers are humble.

The lilies are bright and daring!

A bit of live-blogging…

8:15 Tonight’s chant appears to be “Because America Deserves Better!” if Governor Walker of Wisconsin is following the script. Which, oddly enough, happens to coincide with a trend in advertising of the last few years of telling consumers that they deserve this product or that product, with an intimation that what they’re getting is inferior.

So … what’s this deserve word? What has this target group done to deserve this upgrade?

OK, so it’s a thought we’ve all had, and we all know it’s just an advertising ploy, right? But here’s the flip side – it’s a victimization ploy. You know, someone has withheld something you deserve and, well, doesn’t that make you a victim? Of someone?

And resentful? Because your problems are someone else’s fault, someone’s intentional action has made your situation worse and it’s not your fault!

And ready to do something out of the ordinary to get it back?

Now I know why I loathe that particular advertising ploy. It virtually begs for supinity, for the strongman to take over and make it all better. The opposite of American self-sufficiency, no?

8:35 Now Senator Ted Cruz, who reportedly is maneuvering for the 2020 Presidential nomination even now, is giving his speech. Cloying, as he uses the recent tragedies. “We the people constrain government.” Now he’s telling us that “I want to be free” are the five most important words. How about “No more religious government“? (His father wishes to institute a theocracy.) Now we’re off to the lying races … too much to type … “choose your own doctor without Obamacare” … that is, if you can afford it at all. Does he know what health care prices were doing before Obamacare? And how rates of growth have dropped, while rates of insured have risen?

Now “don’t give it away to Russia!” He does know the Donald thinks Putin is great?

“States should be able to choose policies that reflect local values” … careful, Ted, isn’t that how the Civil War started? Not that my response is nuanced 🙂 Now to tar Hillary – she wants to control speech, even, according to him? Now a transition to Brexit … is he calling for secession? I hope he knows what Lawrence Wilkerson thinks of such an action.

8:51 Now he talks about the AME murderer, and I notice the applause is muted when he says the survivors forgave their attacker. What does that mean?

8:52 A desperate plea for voters to show up in November. Down-ballot fearfulness.

8:55 The audience sure sounds upset as Cruz wraps up a speech about some little girl. Cruz is about 4 steps above most of the other speakers, but his voice makes me cringe, and his willingness to lie makes it hard to take him – a Senator – seriously. And, according to Andrew Sullivan, who must be watching (I’m only listening):

Now, open war is breaking out, as the crowd is beginning to shout Cruz down. Watching Cruz get booed at this event is quite something. He’s being heckled and jeered – as Trump appears at the side of the stage as if to distract attention. Cruz leaves to a massive wall of hostile noise.

Well, well, well. Or is that part of Cruz’s master plan? He was definitely the most intellectually impressive of the 17 GOP candidates this season. I could see him making this part of his long game. Although upon reading earlier today that he’s already planning for 2020, it occurred to me that he might not be far enough right for the 2020 GOP – if it even exists.

9:30 I return to hear Newt is employing the shameful but traditional tactics of fear-mongering. He throws his net wide, leaning on some alleged historical expertise.

Too busy tonight for the rest, and tomorrow will be busy again. Apparently the folks in the donor suite are enraged at Cruz:

From @DanaBashCNN: Some people on donor suite level so angry at @tedcruz they called him disgrace to his face; one man had to be restrained…

— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) July 21, 2016

Via Andrew, again.

Much like the GOP, the Iranian hardliners cannot believe they are not in power, as Ali Omidi makes clear in this AL Monitor article:

As the faction most opposed to the government, Iran’s hard-liners have made it their goal to make Hassan Rouhani the first Iranian president not to be re-elected for a second term. In fact, this objective was sought since their loss of the executive branch back in 2013. They simply cannot fathom being barred from the presidency for another five years until the 2021 presidential election. Thus, they’re determined to seize back control of the executive branch as soon as possible. …

At present, there are five key economic and political variables that can play an important role in determining whether Rouhani will get a second term.

First is the scapegoating of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for all current economic problems. Rouhani and his Cabinet look to the previous administration as the cause of the current economic dire straits. This is a line of reasoning that, even if valid, does not satisfy average — and particularly vulnerable — Iranians. In the Rouhani administration’s telling, even the most popular policies of the previous administration were wrong and problematic. Indeed, Minister of Roads and Urban Development Abbas Akhoundi has called the Mehr Housing Project a “disaster.”

Comments such as these are seen by the lower classes as a sign that the government does not represent them. These citizens question what Rouhani has done for them, since many of them were able to own homes and were also given a monthly income in the form of cash subsidies as a result of Ahmadinejad’s populist programs. Though the cash payments were disastrous for the economy, Rouhani has been unable to convince the poor that these kinds of policies are problematic.

The other four reasons have to do with the age and conduct of Rouhani’s Cabinet, the recession, the blocking of banking operations, and the conduct of certain domestic institutions over which he has no control, yet receives the blame. He clearly sees challenges for Rouhani. J. Matthew McInnis at AEI agrees there are headwinds, but Rouhani also has made some progress:

The new parliament may also help. There was never much hope for a moderate or reformist legislature after most of the moderate or reformist candidates were disqualified from running in the first place. But Rouhani, along with former president and ally Rafsanjani, was able to successfully target and oust many of his most difficult opponents in the February elections. With conservative Ali Larijani re-elected as speaker — with whom Rouhani has a strong working relationship — and even some reformists in deputy speaker roles, it will be a somewhat more manageable body. The key will be watching how the hardliners behave during this session. If they are able organize themselves into a coherent opposition (which has eluded them for years), that could spell trouble for Rouhani’s legislative agenda and the potential for a viable rival to emerge for the presidency.

Foreign Policy’s Special Correspondent thinks Rouhani has a good shot:

There is good reason, however, to think that Rouhani will be more adept at countering his rivals than Khatami ever was. Unlike the former reformist president, the incumbent has held some of the most senior security posts in the Islamic Republic. His recent election victory, on the heels of the nuclear deal, helps him prove that he is not a one-trick pony, but a canny operator whose deeper links within the elite can yield results. It won’t be easy to change how the Islamic Republic operates, but Rouhani is better positioned than any of his predecessors to give it a shot.

Some plump succulents for your delectation.

… I was fortunately busy with other matters and only caught part of the very end of RNC-2, where Dr. Carson seemed to think referencing “In God We Trust” on our currency has some sort of relevance to our successes – and failures – as a nation. I’m also curious why such a brilliant surgeon finds it so urgent to credit God with the successes of Man. Are the most reverent the most successful? There’s little correlation; and it’s disrespectful to those who’ve worked so hard to achieve so much. He’s basically telling them that all the time, effort, and discipline is irrelevant, since God really does it all. For those who can think clearly, and yet accept such an assertion, it must be quite the blow to one’s faith in the virtues of working hard.

And reading Andrew Sullivan’s second night of live-blogging, I must admit to feeling pity for him. He’s clearly feeling a lot of pain at watching the GOP melting into irrelevance. Read it backwards:

9:31 p.m. In the last few seconds, Paul Ryan got his mojo back in a call for unity. But the speech was painfully devoid of any praise for the nominee, and framed around supporting a “conservative governing majority,” rather than a president. Again, it’s pretty amazing for the speaker of the House not to mention in more than a cursory way the actual nominee of his own party. Beyond Awkward. I bet you Trump is pissed.

9:27 p.m. Ryan is dying up there. A reader writes:

Paul Ryan’s speech would be very good in 1988 or thereabouts. Today, it’s just pathetic and utterly detached from the Trumpers who don’t know whether to clap or not.

He’s now all but apologizing for speaking: “Last. Last point …” Jesus this is depressing.

9:26 p.m. A speaker actually mentioned “liberties”. Ryan is just offering some somewhat lame anti-progressive clichés. The crowd is talking among themselves.

9:20 p.m. Ryan is trying to make a change election argument. So far, awkward. No mention of any policies proposed by Trump.

9:19 p.m. Ryan invokes Lincoln. Graves spin.

While it may be enjoyable in a creepy sort of way, I’m dismayed that the best analogy for the RNC is to Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, who made her name through, let us say, excess cleavage. Given the lies and appeals to the “fever swamps right” emotions, its really base nature and disdain for facts and truth, it’s really how it all seems to be. A vast orgasmic week for the resentful.

A number of GOP officials have avoided this year’s RNC, supposedly because of concerns about violence, although the idea of riots seems to have faded. I think that was just an excuse, and that most of them were so embarrassed at the thought of associating with Trump that they just decided to find a reason not to be present. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out now that he’s the official nominee. Will they support him? Subtly chip away at him while trying to retain their elective seats? The drama continues.

On Lawfare, John Bellinger notes the ratification of two more treaties (extradition treaties with Chile and the Dominican Republic), and notes this sets a record for a new low:

This brings to six the number of treaties approved by the Senate in the Obama Administration’s second term. (In 2014, the Senate approved four fisheries treaties.)  The Senate approved nine treaties in the Obama Administration’s first term, bringing to 15 the number of treaties approved by the Senate during the Obama Administration.  This is the fewest number of treaties approved by the Senate in a four-year period or eight-year period at least since World War II (and probably much longer — some intrepid law student will need to check).

In contrast, the Senate approved 163 treaties during the eight years of the Bush administration, including a record 90 treaties during the last two years of the Administration. Ironically, under a President who most Europeans and many international law professors are convinced did not believe in international law, the United States may have become party to more new treaty law than during any other eight-year period in U.S. history.

Perhaps I’m naive, but counting the number of ratified treaties and declaring this to be akin to a crisis because not enough law is being passed seems wildly inappropriate.

First, treaties come in wildly differing sizes. One treaty may cover an enormous subject, another a very slender subject. Would we equate an extradition treaty with,say, a treaty divvying up the Antarctica resources?

Second, as a metric it fails to account for the potential slothfulness of the Administration.

Third, it also fails to account for the potential spitefulness of the Senate. Or, to be polite, honest differences of opinion, as some would insist.

Fourth, it also fails to account for the need for new laws. I certainly have no idea how much need there is for more international law, although the Internet and software in general no doubt remain fertile areas.

To some extent, I have my doubts as to the worthiness of whipping out a tape measure how much law we currently have and need. However, since there is some worth in actually pointing fingers, probably the best measure is how many treaties are stuck in the pipeline, and even better, for how long? While companies often love backlogs as they show how popular their products have become, for the government sector it’s indicative of inefficiencies and even dangers. Numbers measuring these treaties, perhaps with risks attached or even modifying the numbers, might be far more useful than simply counting pieces of signed papers.

My Arts Editor adores a good sunflower, and while this season is not as successful as last season, she has a couple of specimens to work with. However, these are nothing like her very first batch from 9 years ago. They lined her secondary parking space at her old house as impossibly attentuated guards, warding against everything but the squirrels that ate them.

Anyway, here they are!

The Huffington Post reports the Green Restaurant Association has found tremendous food waste in the United States – enough to drop my jaw:

A single restaurant in the U.S. wastes about 100,000 pounds of food a year, according to the Green Restaurant Association, making them auspicious donors for hunger relief groups. But many restaurants are reluctant to give away their edible leftovers, citing fears of getting sued.

But they shouldn’t be so worried about backlash, experts say.

Because no such lawsuit has ever been waged.

Just a bit more of numbers…

Bon Appetit has 650 cafes nationwide and donated more than 286,000 pounds of food last year. Cummings said that’s a “low-ball” estimate though.

Restaurants are uniquely positioned to simultaneously tackle the country’s food waste and hunger issues.

In the U.S., up to 40 percent of food goes uneaten. Last year, one in six households didn’t have enough money for food.

Yet, even with the protections in place and the vast number of groups that pick up and deliver excess food, many restaurants will still rifle off a host of reasons that keep them from participating in the rescue effort.

The article goes on to explore the legalities of and obstacles to more efficient food use in the USA. I wonder if I should wander over to the fast food joint a block and a half away and ask if they know how much food they discard in a day …

Last time we discussed country actions in terms of climate change, it was the positive move of the Australians of electing Malcolm Turnbull. Now we may have what is being widely viewed as a setback, as new British PM Theresa May closes the Department for Energy and Climate Change. From CommonDreams:

May shuttered the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) on Thursday and moved responsibility for the environment to a new Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy. The decision comes the same week as the U.K. government’s own advisers warned in a report that the nation was not ready for the inevitable consequences of climate change, including deadly heat waves and food and water shortages.

“This is shocking news. Less than a day into the job and it appears that the new prime minister has already downgraded action to tackle climate change, one of the biggest threats we face,” said Craig Bennett, CEO of the environmental group Friends of the Earth. “This week the government’s own advisors warned of ever growing risks to our businesses, homes and food if we don’t do more to cut fossil fuel pollution.”

CommonDreams may be dedicated to the Progressive movement, but actions such as this affect everyone, conservative and liberal, communist and anarchist, from London to Shanghai to San Francisco. The question is the direction of the affect, as it’s not clear to me the purpose of this new Department within the British government – the Climate Change section may be entirely subsumed by the Energy and Business sections and become ineffective, or (on the positive end) it may influence future regulations of companies doing business in the UK. I poked around but did not find an explanation of the change.

May’s views on climate change are not entirely clear.

…. can, unsurprisingly, really hurt those who happen to be neither God nor in Power. AL Monitor‘s Mohannad Sabry reports in September of 2013 on the plight of St. Catherine’s monastery in the Sinai region of Egypt, which was ordered, with little reason and no compensation, to shut down by security officials:

“Despite having more time to pray and practice, our priests live without crowds of visitors, we are suffering a major financial crisis, and we cannot cover the monastery’s expenses and dozens of families that we constantly support,” said Paolos, who wore his farming clothes covered in mud.

St. Catherine’s Monastery employs 400 workers from the surrounding community at its olive groves, grape farms, honey bee farms and several processing facilities including an olive oil press. As of the beginning of September, the monastery reserves decreased to a level that is barely enough to cover two months of expenditure.

“We respect the Egyptian government, and we will continue to close if they require the closure,” said Paolos, “But we will have to drastically cut down salaries and other expenditures. We are saddened to lose the income we shared with the Bedouin community.”

Meanwhile, the state authorities haven’t moved to help rescue the ailing community despite generating millions of dollars in revenues from hundreds of thousands of tourists who have visited St. Catherine’s over the past two decades.

One example of the income generated by the state is the entrance tickets imposed by the Ministry of Environment in 2004. Since then, every single tourist is required to pay $5 to enter the town of St. Catherine’s.

The monastery’s administration told Al-Monitor that it operated at full capacity between 2004 and 2011, receiving 4,000 visitors — mostly foreign tourists — five days a week. And even on the monastery’s days off, the town received hundreds of tourists climbing Mount Sinai and venturing around the mountains on Bedouin safari trips.

The local Bedouins offered camel rides and other camel based services, and were selling their camels to feed their camels – which they acknowledge was a disaster and, when the closedown would be lifted, would leave them without the ability to generate their former incomes.

Credit: Wikipedia

I wonder who benefited from it – at the ruinous expense of the occupants of St. Catherine’s. I have not tried to discover if the security-ordered shutdown was ever lifted, because I find this oddly to be an object lesson of what happens when man, rather than law, is in charge. With strength can easily come corruption, and Trump’s history with “justice” is such that I don’t doubt he’d immediately be manipulating the system for his betterment.

Oh, hurry up, election. I want to stop thinking about this bad joke of a nominee. “Presumptive nominee.”

I’ll confess I couldn’t stomach watching this first night in any detail (and I wonder just how many engineers could), but Andrew Sullivan, among many others, live-blogged it here if you like your convention coverage with an informed side helping of incredulity and even mourning, and a sprinkling of snark. Here’s his summary:

11:09 p.m [EDT]. Just mulling over the events tonight, there’s one obvious stand-out. I didn’t hear any specific policy proposals to tackle clearly stated public problems. It is almost as if governing, for the Republican right, is fundamentally about an attitude, rather than about experience or practicality or reasoning. The degeneracy of conservatism – its descent into literally mindless appeals to tribalism and fear and hatred – was on full display. You might also say the same about the religious right, the members of whom have eagerly embraced a racist, a nativist, a believer in war crimes, and a lover of the tyrants that conservatism once defined itself against. Their movement long lost any claim to a serious Christian conscience. But that they would so readily embrace such an unreconstructed pagan is indeed a revelation.

Which strikes me, honestly, as the results of third- and fourth-raters at work. While Colbert ridicules them on the television, I think this is just a continuation in theme of the entire primary season, because hardly anyone in the Republican race really came off as a competent politician. Maybe Kasich. Trump simply beat everyone by claiming he’d do this and do that, louder and more effectively than the rest – without saying how. By avoiding the “how” question, he lets the primary voters avoid doing anything hard, such as analysis and discussion.

And this is how much of the convention proceeded this evening – I did see parts of speeches by several mourning mothers, who blamed either Obama or Hillary for the deaths of their loved ones, and parts of other speeches proclaiming how Trump give America backbone once again, unlike Obama, who only killed Osama bin Laden, who took the nation into the overthrow of Libya, and thus gains some of the credit for the killing of the man responsible for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, etc. It’s thought-free, emotion-laden, and often devoid of facts.

The nation should really go into mourning for the loss of the party of Lincoln. A man of careful thought, it’s impossible to connect the two without incoherent laughter.

A bit of lawn watering yields this:

The following is not as aesthetic but does show what we believe to be the spider’s tunnel.