Monthly Archives: August 2017

In NewScientist (5 August 2017, paywall) Jessica Hamzelou reports doubts about the most basic of medical advice – taking your meds for a week or two:

In fact, it is the longer courses that cause problems. In 2010, an analysis of 24 studies, which included thousands of patients with respiratory and urinary tract infections, found that people on longer courses of antibiotics were more likely to develop antibiotic-resistant infections. …

So why do many prescriptions tend to last one or two weeks? When Martin Llewelyn at Brighton and Sussex Medical School in the UK tried to find the origin of antibiotic prescription lengths, he struggled. “It appeared that people working in the 1950s arrived at these, probably because they were worried that people would otherwise skimp on treatment, or because they were afraid of resistance,” he says.

Antibiotics are often prescribed in multiples of five or seven days. This is probably because these numbers correspond to the number of fingers on a hand and the number of days in a week, but there’s no medical basis, says Llewelyn, who co-authored a letter on the subject published last week (BMJ, doi.org/b9z8). In fact, it might be a better idea to stop taking antibiotics once you feel better and symptoms are resolved, he says.

Well, that’s a bit disturbing. And after all that urging about not cutting your meds short, too.

The Baptisia before toweling off.

Greg Fallis discusses the differences between statues and memorials:

So then, let’s go ahead and talk about war and statues of Confederate generals and war memorials and what should be done with them. Let’s start with this: when it comes to war, there are essentially three groups of people involved. There are the politicians who declare war, who develop the policies of war, who determine the political goals of war. There are the officer classes, who are in charge of actually prosecuting the war based on the politician’s policies and goals, who determine the strategies used by the armies and the broad range of tactics to fight the battles. And then there are the poor bastards who fight the war — the ordinary people who have nothing to do with strategies, who have little or no voice in the politics, but who do the fighting and the killing and the dying. This is true of all wars in all the nations of the world over the entire scope of history.

Why is that important? Because it’s important to distinguish between statues and memorials. Statues are built to honor the specific politicians and the senior officers who start the wars and prosecute them. Memorials, on the other hand, are generally built to honor the nameless mass of soldiers who get mutilated or killed fighting those wars.

For the last several years there’s been a movement to remove and/or destroy statues honoring Confederate politicians and military officers. Over the last few days we’ve seen that notion expand to include essentially all symbols of the Confederacy. Statues, memorials, flags — get rid of them all.

I totally understand that feeling. I just disagree with it. Well, I disagree with chunks of it. I have no problem with removing the statues of Confederate leaders. I don’t want to see them destroyed, but I think it’s a fine idea to remove them from public land and place them either in storage or in museums. Destroying statues of people we dislike or whose beliefs we disagree with — that’s what ISIS does. It’s vengeful, it’s small-minded, and at heart it’s an attempt to color over the past. Remove them, and if they must be displayed, display them with context.

Removal into storage and destruction are more or less the same thing – if done in totality. Putting representative statues in museums, with explanations of the side they represented and why they are no longer displayed, seems most appropriate.

Professor Philip Zelikow explains that private armies are not legal in Virginia, via Lawfare:

The Second Amendment arguments can be—and have been—overcome. Individuals may have a right to bear arms for self-defense, but they do not have a right to organize and train as a private military group. In 1886 the Supreme Court laid the groundwork for controlling what the Second Amendment calls a “well-regulated Militia,” when it held that “[m]ilitary operations and military drill are subjects especially under the control of the government of every country. They cannot be claimed as a right independent of law.” A New York appellate court noted in 1944: “The inherent potential danger of any organized private militia is obvious. Its existence would be sufficient, without more, to prevent a democratic form of government, such as ours, from functioning freely, without coercion.” That language seems awfully resonant today.

The language of Virginia’s Constitution is clear. While “a well regulated militia” is valued, including what state law calls the “unorganized militia,” the Constitution stresses that, “in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.”

Well, when truckloads of organized groups of heavily armed men drive into my town—or your town—it is time to uphold the civil power. Virginia, like most states, has the legal power to stop them. And the precedents are on the books.

This strikes me as one of those boundary cases found in systems. If you’re a revolutionary, this is one of those oppressive laws which puts you more under the thumb of the detested government. If you’re the government, this is a common-sense law which not only protects the government (a sentiment that falls apart under examination), but also criminalizes gangs that are sufficiently militaristic.

All that said, I have to wonder if Minnesota has such a law.

Sorry about the anachronistic reference for the younger readers. Trump, or at least his Justice Department, evidently wants to run the clock back quite a ways, as they insert themselves into a lawsuit, as reported by Professor Andrew Koppelman in Fortune:

The opposing arguments by Justice and EEOC center on a case now before a federal appeals court, involving a sky-diving instructor, Donald Zarda, who was fired by his employer in 2010 after telling a female client he was gay. Zarda reportedly said this in order to prevent any awkwardness for the woman who would be tightly strapped to him during the sky-diving jump.

And what is the DOJ argument?

The Trump Justice Department argues in its brief that antigay discrimination is permissible because women and men are treated the same, even though it causes differential treatment of gay and straight employees. This is the same kind of reasoning that the Supreme Court rejected in 1967 when it struck down laws banning miscegenation and interracial marriage. That ruling struck down an 1883 decision in which the Court held that a law against interracial marriage did not discriminate against either race. The 1883 case argued that blacks and whites were barred equally from marrying members of other races. But the Court eventually understood that these laws relied on racial classifications. The same logic is likely to prevail with antigay discrimination: It flunks the test, laid down by the Court in 1978, of “treatment of a person in a manner which but for that person’s sex would be different.”

Revanche:

the policy of a state intent on regaining areas of its original territory that have been lost to other states as a result of war, a treaty signed under duress, etc. [Dictionary.com]

A related word noted in “Condemn the White Supremacists, Mr. President,” National Review:

This is somewhat awkward for President Trump because the cracked and malevolent young men raging about “white genocide” are his people, whether he wants them or not. Let us be clear about what we mean by that: President Trump obviously has defects and shortcomings as a political leader, but we do not believe for a second that those failures include a sneaking anti-Semitism or a secret taste for neo-Confederate revanchism. At the same time, he has made common cause with those who have flirted with those elements for political and financial gain.

Kevin Drum interprets the latest Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report on the financial results if Trump does, in fact, trash the Cost Sharing Reductions (CSRs)  in an effort to discredit the ACA:

This comes from a new CBO report on the likely effects of eliminating Obamacare’s CSR subsidies. Basically, the federal government would save money by not paying the CSR subsidies but lose money by paying more in tax credits to poor families. The net result would be more spending on Obamacare.

There’s a couple of fascinating facets to this. First of all, the CBO constitutes an expert agency, a thing to which President Trump has become quite allergic over the last year. After all, sometimes experts bring unwanted results, and we can’t have that damaging the fragile Presidential ego, now can we?

So perhaps he’ll disregard this report, trash the CSRs, and then we’ll find out – are the experts worth their pay?

The other fascinating part is how the the more regular care facilitated by the ACA leads to a national cost-savings. I mean, we shouldn’t be surprised at this, it was, no doubt, even predicted, but still the decline in the growth of spending rates has outpaced even that predicted by the CBO.

In a bit of related news, The New York Times is reporting another prediction is not coming true – a shortage of GPs:

Studies published just before the 2014 coverage expansion predicted a demand for millions more annual primary care appointments, requiring thousands of new primary care providers just to keep up. But a more recent study suggests primary care appointment availability may not have suffered as much as expected.

The study, published in April in JAMA Internal Medicine, found that across 10 states, primary care appointment availability for Medicaid enrollees increased since the Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansions went into effect. For privately insured patients, appointment availability held steady. All of the gains in access to care for Medicaid enrollees were concentrated in states that expanded Medicaid coverage. For instance, in Illinois 20 percent more primary care physicians accepted Medicaid after expansion than before it. Gains in Iowa and Pennsylvania were lower, but still substantial: 8 percent and 7 percent.

Though these findings are consistent with other research, including a study of Medicaid expansion in Michigan, they are contrary to intuition. In places where coverage gains were larger — in Medicaid expansion states — primary care appointment availability grew more.

Clouds on the horizon if you don’t take care of yourself.

Intuition is simply short-cut thinking, reasoning without considering nearly any hidden factors. So – keeping in mind this is quite the limited study, since it only covers 10 states – what might be some of these factors? The article cites better compensation rates for Medicaid patients. In fact, I wonder if, as more patients sport the Medicaid badge, they become a desirable patient, especially with the rise in compensation – so more docs decided to accept Medicaid.

But I’d like to pursue the benefits of regular checkups a little further. Think of a car – if you get the oil changed on the manufacturers schedule, you have a better than even chance that you’ll never encounter a serious problem with the engine for at least a decade. Neglect changing the oil for five years, on the other hand, results in an expensive engine rebuild or replacement, as a friend of mine found out a while back.

Same goes for people. Regular checkups means the doc can move quickly through his checklist of things, but if you haven’t been in for a decade, then he or she must be more thorough, maybe prescribe more vaccines, etc etc.

All this and no Sarah Palin death panels, either. Imagine that.

Ecology has way too many variables, but examples are instructive. Melissa Breyer on Treehugger.com covers more research relevant to my own interest in Lyme Disease, which is already alarming, specifically on how small rodent predators suppress the presence of illness in mice:

In Alabama a GOP primary is coming up tonight to select a Republican candidate for the Senate seat formerly held by current United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Luther Strange, former Alabama Attorney General, was appointed to the seat by Governor Robert Bentley, who Strange was investigating at the time; Bentley resigned a short time later in a sex scandal, and his successor called for an early special election, rendering Strange a short incumbent, whose story remains fresh in the mind of voters.

Also in the race is former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, who was boosted out of the Alabama Supreme Court twice, once for refusing to remove a Ten Commandments monument, and once for refusing to enforce the SCOTUS decision legalizing same sex marriage.

And least offensive is current US Representative Mo Brooks.

But what has my attention is their apparent tone-deafness, as CNN is reporting:

On Alabama’s airwaves, the candidates’ ads have largely focused on the candidates’ support for Trump.

And, to be sure, Trump has injected himself into the race — recording a robo-call on Strange’s behalf Monday after twice tweeting his endorsement.

On the campaign trail, though, the three major candidates have all taken pains to never cross Trump — including Monday, when none would criticize Trump’s initial comments on the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

If and when the President goes down in humiliation and disgrace, those who are associating him will certainly be singed by the blowback. I am aware that Trump remains fairly popular among Republicans, although even that is notably lower than normal.

But it should be clear that Trump is not a horse to be ridden to victory, and that this primary should have been an opportunity for one of these candidates to step up and claim the mantle of leadership, not indentured servitude. To say, “Hey, no, I think Trump is inappropriate as President, and as your Senator I will hold him to the highest standard, and if he doesn’t meet those standards, and the opportunity presents itself, I will vote to replace him.”

But these candidates seem to not be aware of their world crumbling around them. While I expect this Senate seat to remain in Republican hands, it could be a very interesting special election come November.

Asseverate:

To declare seriously or positively; affirm. [The Free Dictionary]

I ran into this in Jack Vance’s The Blue World, but shan’t reproduce the passage here. I’ve always enjoyed Jack Vance as he’s unafraid to use unusual vocabulary, giving his novels an exotic feel integral to the novels.

The results of watching this movie.

Scream and Scream Again (1970) is a bait and switch flick – advertising Vincent Price, Peter Cushing, and Christopher Lee as the leads, yet collectively the three are on screen for less than fifteen minutes. Add in dramatis personæ devoid of sympathetic characters, a scattershot approach to movie making that damn near gave me whiplash, and apparently random actions which might have had hidden motivations, but didn’t convince me, bad bad bad special effects, and this is one shoddy piece of junk. I could only approve of the use of the Vulcan death pinch, which had some satisfyingly bloody results.

The makeup is clumsy, but who can resist the charm?

Or, as my Arts Editor put it, this movie would have been vastly improved by the presence of a Holstein in galoshes.

I think I’ll agree.

Since Senator McCain voted against the Senate’s replacement for the ACA, he’s come under fire from the right-fringe, and recently one of live rounds came through as an email. This time I’m going to forego quoting the thing, because, quite frankly, I don’t know much about the subject on a factual basis, but I will summarize: in 1967, a terrible accident befell the American aircraft carrier USS Forrestal. The official report was that an electrical surge in an F-4 Phantom caused it to inadvertently fire a rocket while on the flight deck; it hit an A-4 Skyhawk without exploding. At this point, it’s not clear whose A-4 it hit, as then Lieutenant Commander McCain noted immediately following the incident, a not unsurprising admission given how human memory can be damaged by stress. I’ll let Wikipedia summarize the incident:

In July 1967, a fire broke out on board the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal. An electrical anomaly had caused the discharge of a Zuni rocket on the flight deck, triggering a chain-reaction of explosions that killed 134 sailors and injured 161. At the time, Forrestal was engaged in combat operations in the Gulf of Tonkin, during the Vietnam War. The ship survived, but with damage exceeding US$72 million, not including the damage to aircraft.^[2][3] Future United States Senator John McCain and future four-star admiral and US Pacific Fleet Commander Ronald J. Zlatoper were among the survivors.

A representative character assassination piece, not identical to my email, but quite similar, has been published online at The Burning Platform, no doubt a reference to the Forrestal.

As a piece of assassination mail, it bears many of the earmarks which should have the big red flag in the air – it comes after a specific incident in which the victim did not follow the script, the writers insist that some vast conspiracy has covered up the victim’s culpability, as in this:

You see his grandfather was a famous FOUR STAR Navy admiral and his dad was at the time of the incident was a powerful Navy FOUR STAR admiral and McCain graduated from the Navy Academy. So the old boy Navy tradition cover his ass network went into high gear immediately; and make no mistake, it does exist and it did for him.

There is no objective evidence presented; indeed, this is almost not a red flag, as most such pieces will strenuously try to portray themselves as objective reporters in their efforts to be convincing. The assertion is one of those ugly little pieces that can never be disproven by anyone other than the actual author. In fact, this piece comes across as little more than a slimy shot at the Senator. This doesn’t mean it’s ineffective, because McCain is known to treasure his honor, and when someone accuses him and his family of engaging in such a dishonorable act, well, it must be infuriating.

Now, like I said, I know very little about this incident. I’m going down a different, if familiar to long time readers, path, and note how sad it is to see the rigid discipline of the Party come down on one of the last honorable members of the GOP currently holding office. This discipline, these demands to play team politics and bedamned to anyone who dares to use their judgment to evaluate some legislation, continues even in the face of the disaster befalling the nation and the GOP. A responsible legislature would be seriously evaluating Trump’s judicial nominees, and not just grumbling about them, but actually rejecting them. I could go on in this vein, but I shan’t.

What I shall say is that this is the black, pulsating, Satanic underbelly of team politics, where either you’re a yes-man – or you’re out on your ear. Doesn’t matter what you know, or how wise you are, or anything else of real value – all that is of value is your vote, and how you cast it.

Someone else is doing the thinking. And making an example out of McCain.

How much longer will the GOP survive with this horrible rule in place? Keep an eye on the news, because it’ll just get worse until they implode.

For more information on the Forrestal besides the link to the above, here is a link to FactCheck.org’s check into the situation. Here’s another link to a site unfamiliar to me, PunditFact, also rejecting the slander.

Addendum: it would be interesting to trace all these mail and web sites and see if they actually lead back to one person or organization, out to discredit McCain. Beyond my resources, though.

The fallout of the tragedy in Charlottesville includes the opening of eyes of more of the citizenry.

As we watch the President’s incredible failures of leadership grow, with the sad tragedy in Charlottesville being just the latest, his pecuniary preoccupations, his intemperance, what may be a generally racist attitude, and his general incompetence, I think this article in Politico should be taken very seriously by all the Senators.

President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees are ignoring key Senate Democrats as they vie for lifetime appointments to the bench, according to documents and senators — a break from longstanding practice that diminishes the minority’s power to provide a check against ideologically extreme judges.

The brewing tension between the White House and the Senate over filling an unusually high number of judicial vacancies is impeding the pace at which Trump installs lifetime appointees to the federal bench — so far one of the president’s few major victories, with his legislative agenda largely stymied in Congress.

Given the fact these are lifetime appointments, this is one of the most important responsibilities of a sitting US Senator, and I would hope – although I’ve been proven wrong so far – that GOP Senators would put country before Party.

Especially when the Party is being led by a man as deeply incompetent as Trump, a man who, I must remind my readers, holds odd beliefs and has engaged in frankly unethical behaviors. These behaviors cast deep doubt upon any person nominated by him, or his advisors, to the Federal bench.

As a citizen of the United States, I call upon the Senate to suspend all movement on judicial appointees until the situation with President Trump has been resolved. It is clear we approaching a national crisis; it is also becoming clear that President Trump has a hidden agenda, given his reluctance to condemn the traitors in Charlottesville immediately. Given these obvious facts, all movement on his judicial nominees should be stilled, as it’s impossible to trust, or even believe, that he has selected the best available to occupy these lifetime positions. Indeed, the GOP has admitted as much during the hearings, as noted by NPR:

“Mr. Bush, I’ve read your blogs,” [Senator John Kennedy (R-LA)] said as he stared at the nominee. “I’m not impressed.”

This was after Senator Franken (D-MN) pressed Mr. Bush concerning his citation of non-credible sources in a blog post concerning birtherism. Sadly, despite these admissions, Mr. Bush was confirmed in his position. This should not be permitted any longer for nominees from a President of such low quality.

I’ll be drafting letters to my Senators, who are Franken and Klobuchar, although both being Democrats, it’ll have a limited impact. I hope you’ll do the same with your Senators.

Now that the dead person in Charlottesville has been identified as Heather Haeyer, I hope she’ll be recognized as someone who fought against those who would betray the United States, and is buried with full honors, preferably at Arlington National Cemetery. It’s little comfort to those who knew her, but such a burial would put an exclamation point on the rejection of the values of those who were complicit in this murder, not to mention the entire ghastly mess of the Confederacy.

A colleague recently clued me in on a post-WW II weapon of which I’d never heard – The Flying Crowbar. Oddly Historical’s Andrew Kincaid covered it in an undated post (which seems peculiarly apropos given the blog’s title):

Source: NationStates

At the core of this ultra-durable doomsday weapon was a simple concept: the ramjet. It has been the working concept behind jet engines sine the first prototypes in the 1930s. Air is sucked into a nozzle, where it is then heated. the air expands, and blows out the rear nozzle of the craft, thus providing propulsion. In most jets, the heating is achieved by burning hydrocarbon fuels. In The Flying Crowbar, an unshielded nuclear reactor would provide the heat. This gave the advantage of an almost limitless operational lifespan. As long as the nuclear core could undergo fission, the Flying Crowbar could sow death and destruction.

One distinct disadvantage of the system was the very thing that gave it its advantage–the nuclear reactor. Most nuclear reactors are quite sanely tucked behind layers and layers of concrete, because they have a tendency to spew a lot of radiation. The Flying Crowbar’s reactor would be housed in a missile the size of a locomotive, flying at a low altitude over friend and enemy alike. Planners predicted that the shockwave from the weapon passing overhead might be enough to kill people on the ground. If that didn’t do it, radiation spewing out of the reactor would finish the job.

And then combine this with a psychotic artificial intelligence with a grudge against its creators? Ex Machina (2015) would have nothing on this demon from hell.

NationStates also has some information.

Quinta Jurecic on Lawfare surveys the Web to see how the various American political factions are reacting to the ongoing attempts to discredit the American intelligence community, which is prima facie odd given that traditionally the intelligence community has been trusted by the right wing and distrusted by the left – but now Comey and Mueller are attracting admiration from at least some on the left. But what does it all mean for the future?

Alternately, perhaps the center-left’s realignment will hold through the rest of the Trump administration as the Russia investigation continues and as the left and center-left dig in on their newly different approaches to opposing the president. Policy concerns may play second fiddle to “resistance” understood more broadly; in fact, that’s exactly what concerns those on the left who criticize the center-left’s new bedfellows. After the Trump presidency draws to a close, those closer to the center may drift back closer to those on the further left in terms of their distaste for the language of patriotism and the county’s hard-power agencies.

The final possibility, however, is that this is a more lasting shift with implications beyond Trump and his presidency: a sea change in how the center-left relates to the intelligence community and a deeper cleavage between the hard left and center-left on national security. This strikes me as the least likely scenario but also the most interesting. It would, of course, be one of the great ironies of Trump’s tenure if one of its lasting intellectual impacts were a rediscovery on the part of the mainstream left of the dangers posed byRussia and the need for strong and capable intelligence agencies.

But there is something troubling to this possibility as well. Several times, Lawfare’s own “handmaiden of power” Benjamin Wittes has cautioned his newfound admirers on the left that they will find plenty to dislike about him for once the sturm und drang of the Trump administration has passed. There’s solace in this idea: the notion that this, too, shall pass and we’ll return to the world we knew before, when our main disagreements were about things like the appropriate scope of surveillance authorities and the Authorization for the Use of Military Force. On the other hand, if this shift in alignment of the center-left endures and those disageements fail to reemerge, then our previous world—whatever its irrationalities and failures—will be gone, in some small way, for good. Whatever the merits of a permanent change in the center-left’s attitude toward the intelligence community, it is also discomfiting to think that Trump’s most egregious excesses might have such lasting power over the intellectual life of the nation.

Sure wish I knew – or knew of – a historian specializing in security matters. Lacking that, I’ll have to take a ham-handed swing at it myself. If you start giggling, at least I’ll have been entertaining.

Briefly, I think Quinta needs to consider that things change, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly – but they do. Historically, my impression is that intelligence communities have sprung from the ruling elites as instruments for securing their positions atop the hill. Dating from the days of kings, kaisers, and czars, they were the embodiment of partisan instruments, fashioned for the blunt and old fashioned grab for power. This was from the time when the putative excuse for holding onto that position was the blessing of God.

But with the rise of the democracies of the West, there has come a slow change in the nature of government, and a slow reverberation through the government services to the intelligence community. Democracy is, among other things, about treating the citizens of the democracy justly, which means fairly and without regard to partisanship. This may not have been clear at the beginning – not being a historian or even a reader of that area, I don’t know – but I think intelligence communities sprang up as ad hoc agencies created by the exigencies of the moment, with little thought to the broader implications. Thus, we have the existence of that execrable creature, J. Edgar Hoover, who abused his knowledge to keep his position for 37 years, and who was well known to pursue anyone he even suspected might be harbor political inclinations of which he disapproved.

But as the ideas of fair and just dealing seeped into the intelligence communities, the leftists, ever out of power in America, have developed a not-unearned distaste for the intelligence communities. After all, the latter are just one instrument of those seeking stasis – that is, retaining power and a static culture. The leftists, on the other hand, are the agents of change, and as convinced as they are of the goodness of that change, the right wingers are convinced they are the footsteps of doom.

But, at least for some lefties, as Quinta documents, the modern notion of a non-partisan intelligence community, preoccupied with preserving the nation as a whole, and the government system which has proven relatively successful, will suddenly have an appeal when faced with a right wing threat. The left would like to think it exists in a sea of objective facts and reasoning, and while this is inevitably a bit of a delusion, it will explain the outrage that occurs when the very instruments of objective observation are suddenly under threat of discreditation and even an existential threat.

Assuming the threat recedes as Trump is either removed or  reaches the end of his term, I think the left will also recede a little bit in their trust level, but retain a certain gain with respect to the intelligence community. A modicum of knowledge will be retained, because the intelligence communities have changed slowly over time from being mere instruments of the partisan status quo to the more prestigious, useful, and trustworthy instruments of the non-partisan status quo.

And if the right-wing, deprived of a long held tool, doesn’t like it, they can eat bricks.

Caught at the ol’ watering hole. Hope none of them fell prey to the Crocs.

Here they look a little restless. Maybe there’s a theater hook in the bushes?

psychographic targeting:

At the heart of the debate is psychographic targeting – the directing of political campaigns at people via social media based on their personality and political interests. It is aided by vast amounts of data filtered by artificial intelligence. [“Dark ads pick you out,” Timothy Revell, NewScientist (5 August 2017)]

A practice I find disturbing. We should be given the same political messages in order to have coherent debates about the politics and qualifications of our candidates. And I like the title of the article. Although I also note that NewScientist uses different titles for the same article in print and digital,which is a faint echo of what I regard as a problem.

The “right to be forgotten” is a European legal right in which Europeans may request that information concerning themselves be deleted from web sites and search engines, and the providers must comply. This is going to lead to some interesting situations, as Retraction Watch observes:

A subject in a documentary film about the psychology of religious ideation has pushed the BMJ to take down its review of the film, based on a complaint citing a European internet privacy rule.

On July 3, BMJ posted a retraction notice for an article that barely said anything:

This article has been retracted by the journal following a complaint.

The 2002 article is a review of a documentary film entitled “Those Who Are Jesus,” directed by Steven Eastwood, a British filmmaker. The review has been removed from the BMJ site, as well as PubMed.

BMJ told Retraction Watch that it took down the film review in response to a European citizen exercising his or her “right to be forgotten,” an internet privacy idea that, according to the European Union, ensures:

A person can ask for personal data to be deleted once that data is no longer necessary.

The journal declined to comment, beyond saying:

This review was taken down following a request based on the European Court of Justice’s ruling in the 2014 Google Spain case about the right to be forgotten.

Barely any information about this film exists anywhere on the internet. The only description we could find was from a 2015 post on the blog Boing Boing, which says the film is about:

Three people who have true delusions of grandeur based on “profoundly religious or revalatory (sic) experiences.”

That blog post once contained an embedded video of the documentary, but that has been removed as well. It’s unclear if these disappearances are related.

I have concerns about this sort of thing happening in science journals, because, while perhaps a film review doesn’t necessarily participate, most publications are part of chains of evidence and reasoning concerning diseases, syndromes, and other such conditions affecting humans. By removing a link in that chain, the chain may be shattered absent duplicating confirmatory evidence – and what then?

Regarding that “right”, in my opinion, if you did it, you own it. Either affirm or apologize, but just ripping it away as if it never happens is profoundly wrong. It begs the question of taking responsibility. Begs hard.

Elon Musk, techie and founder of Tesla, SolarCity, and SpaceX, is wary of artificial intelligence, as Nathaniel Scharping notes on D-brief. Elon is looking for proactive regulation of artificial intelligence systems, for he fears that otherwise killer robots may be cruising down Main Street before we know it. Nathaniel helpfully interviews some artificial intelligence experts concerning Mr. Musk’s worries. Most thought it was premature, but I found Martin Ford’s response unsettling:

Calls to immediately regulate or restrict AI development are misplaced for a number of reasons, perhaps most importantly because the U.S. is currently engaged in active competition with other countries, especially China. We cannot afford to fall behind in this critical race.

This is the sort of response built on a false assumption – that regulation, even the discussion of regulation, will slow down the development of the product^[1]. The fact of the matter is that regulation, at its best, should be an attempt to amalgamate the judgment of multiple experts in independent mutually non-communicative contexts into a coherent set of rules which will help increase the safety factor^[2] in our work. Martin characterizes China as pulling ahead if we work within a regulatory framework while China does not; why doesn’t he characterize it as China taking greater chances by not regulating this work, of perhaps losing an entire city to a wayward AI system?

All that said, several of the other researchers seemed to feel it wasn’t a big deal. Researcher Toby Walsh:

And I’m not too worried about what happens when we get to super-intelligence, as there’s a healthy research community working on ensuring that these machines won’t pose an existential threat to humanity. I expect they’ll have worked out precisely what safeguards are needed by then.

Apparently he hasn’t paid attention to what intelligent entities have done to each other throughout history – despite all those safeguards. Hell, I’ll bet the first dozen “kill switches” used as a preventative against rogue AIs fail because the AIs figure out how to disable them.

No matter how smart the kill switch inventors consider themselves.

¹I find the idea of equating artificial intelligence with a “product” to be unsettling, but that’s irrelevant to the topic.

²I deliberately avoid such misleading words and phrases as “assure”, “ensure,” or “optimize” as implying some end point beyond which no more improvement can be made. Of course improvement can be made; our language is imprecise.

Joseph DeThomas on 38 North evaluates the North Korean sanctions resolution passed by the UN Security Council recently:

As the sad drama involving Nazis, White Supremacists, and counter protesters in Charlottesville, VA plays to its heart-breaking end, it’s worth taking a moment to consider the plight of the American conservative.

First, let’s consider, first and foremost, the “American” Nazi, by contrasting this critter with a Republican and a Democrat. The two latter are members of political parties within the context of the American constitutional system. This means they accept the primary tenets of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, such as All Men^[1] Are Created Equal, periodic and fair elections, yada yada yada. They may disagree on how to run the joint, but when it comes to the central tenets of the Republic, there’s little discord.

They are Parties.

The Nazis, on the other hand, have proven to be a system of government. Once in power, their will to retain power is not constrained by the system of government which they’ve invaded; that structure is twisted or ignored in their relentless gathering of power. They despise the thought that all people are created equal, as that clashes with their central tenet that the Aryan race is superior to all others. And they are a Party of raw power, or, as the Wikipedia page says,

Nazism subscribed to theories of racial hierarchy and Social Darwinism, identifying the Germans as a part of what the Nazis regarded as an Aryan or Nordic master race.

Social Darwinism, the biological observation of the “survival of the fittest” grafted on to human society, is often implemented as Eugenics, which is the extinguishment of the reproductive function in those deemed inferior for physical, social, or racial reasons (read: they lop your nuts off with a garden shears and dig out your ovaries with a spade), is a prominent part of their philosophy, because they see their racial purity as imperiled by the inferior who compete with, and often beat, them. But their Social Darwinism even applies within their governmental structure; there is little interest in Justice, merely with accruing and using petty power to advance their personal interests. These are all observations from their one real-world experience.

No more exposition is necessary to make my point, and that is this: the “American” Nazi is no more than a traitor to the United States of America. His “party” isn’t a party, it’s a competing system of government repugnant to the governmental principles of the United States, as made explicit in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, the Anti-Federalist Papers^[2], and many other documents of the Founders and other great politicians of the ages, from Washington to Lincoln to Roosevelt to, yes, Obama.

I condemn the movement and its constituent ideas as a system inherently unstable and vulnerable to the worst sort of power-seeker, but, in the great American tradition of redemption, I leave the rancid followers of it, yes, even those invading Charlottesville, the opportunity to reconsider, to abandon these discredited ideas and their fool’s quest. To return to the enduring experiment in justice we call the American system.

The murderer will, of course, face Justice. And if he does not rue that day, then he is an unsalvageable fool.

The careful reader will note I mentioned White Supremacists as well as Nazis, but have not discussed them since. The general reasoning applied to the Nazis works as well for the Supremacists, as they, too, have central tenets at desperate odds with those already enumerated in this post; the White Supremacist cannot, by explicit reason, apply faithfully the tenets by which government is executed and applied. If they do not bring an explicit system of government to the table, their central tenet is repugnant and incongruous in an industrious people.

But let’s move on to the most important point of this post, and in doing so I’d like to point out that my mention of Presidents from Washington to Obama was not a mere rhetorical device. Does that line of politicians of varying capabilities but undoubted loyalties stop with the accession of Trump to the Oval Office?

Consider his condemnation of the violence:

“We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence, on many sides. On many sides. It’s been going on for a long time in our country. Not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. This has been going on for a long, long time.” [CNN]

On many sides. As if those who protested the invasion of Charlottesville on behalf of the United States were merely the moral equivalent of those Nazis and White Supremacists, those who would overturn the American government and replace it with one riddled with violence and oppression. Does President Trump truly believe such a remarkable equivalence?

It’s tempting to indulge in incendiary rhetoric, perhaps suggesting that Trump, urged on by his advisors Miller and Bannon, works to destroy the very system of Government which has kept us successful for 200+ years, but this would probably be inaccurate. My common sense tells me that this self-proclaimed “smart” guy probably doesn’t understand, care about, or perhaps even know of, the historical incidents which define these various movements – even the American governmental system which has so benefited him. He is, after all, an incurious man who has buried himself in private sector pursuits for his entire life.

His statement may be charitably read as simply attempting to establish a middle ground. However, the President, for all of his electoral success, is truly an amateur politician who has exhibited mastery only in that single facet of politics; his failures in office have reached a magnitude that makes enumeration meaningless – and damn near impossible. Keeping in mind his known popularity with the far-right fringe population, including the Nazis and supremacists, and the clues that indicate he is aware of that popularity, it’s relatively simple to see that this statement is his attempt to keep that part of his base happy with him, while still attempting to be Presidential to the rest of the country.

Judging from the condemnations rattling in country-wide, his attempt is a failure. The attempt is transparent, and many have seen through it and are sickened.

So, for the Trump voter appalled by the Charlottesville violence, they now face a quandary: how to proceed politically in the future. Continue to embrace Trump, who has moved from Trump the Bully, to Trump the Greedy, to Trump the Incompetent, to now Trump the Fool? Does he move on to Trump the Fuhrer?

And, of course, similar questions apply to every member of the House of Representatives who supports President Trump, beginning with Speaker Ryan. Or, more directly, when, Speaker Ryan, will you repress your urge to power, and bring to the fore the need for someone else to be the Executive of this Nation?

¹Yes, yes, gender-neutral; do not become distracted by the single poison ivy plant while trekking through the forest.

²These papers debate the positives and negatives of a strong central government, but neither is in itself a subversive affair; discussion and debate is an integral part of the American experiment.

Source: Horrorpedia. Although it should have been Stupidpedia.

Ah, The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant (1977). The recipe, you ask? Take one large body (the late John Bloom, one of the tallest actors to ever grace the screen at 7’4″) named Danny, a simpleton. Add the, ah, head of a psychopathic killer (well-played by Albert Cole), and watch him shake off the restraints and drugs plied to him by the scientists. Shake thoroughly and then just throw it in the garbage, because, despite the efforts of a fair cast, including Bruce Dern, this is a real stinker. Bad title, bad use of women, bad treatment of experimental subjects, bad depiction of bikers. Bad, bad, bad^[1]. OK, the special effect of a two headed man actually wasn’t awful.

And you have to appreciate the movie poster, as it really embodies the entire exploitation movie making regime of the time. I mean, really, to quote my Arts Editor. Uff-da.

¹“But Lord, it wasn’t good.” – Opus, Bloom County Beacon.

With respect, Berke Breathed

I’ve lost track of the Israeli news lately, but it appears that Donald the Savior has not made the grand appearance, nor fulfilled the promises attributed to him by the far right in Israel, and thus the end of Netanyahu appears to be on the horizon – and that horizon may not be far away. Akiva Eldar of AL Monitor is clearly relieved to see him go, but is concerned about what he’s leaving behind:

Even if Netanyahu wakes up tomorrow morning with a song of peace on his lips, he would likely be unable to uproot the Israeli hatred, fear and mistrust toward the Palestinians that he has nurtured for eight years. The Aug. 2 Peace Index, the periodic survey conducted by Tel Aviv University and the Israel Democracy Institute, provides cutting proof. It indicates that a sizable majority (77%) of Israeli Jews do not believe there is a connection between the current wave of terror attacks and Palestinian despair over the impasse in talks on a peace agreement. Under Netanyahu’s rule and with his encouragement, more than 70% of Israel’s Jews support Netanyahu’s proposal to execute the terrorist who stabbed to death three family members in the settlement of Halamish on July 21. About two-thirds of respondents support the death penalty for murderers of Israeli soldiers.

When Netanyahu disappears from public view, he will leave behind a scorched democracy. With his unusual gift for demagogic rhetoric, Netanyahu has managed to destroy everything that’s good about the system of checks and balances in Israeli society. Channel 10 poll results aired on Aug. 6 (after recent publications about Netanyahu’s criminal investigation) show the Likud running well ahead of all other parties, reflecting the extent to which Netanyahu has managed to undermine public trust in law enforcement. His systematic reiteration of the lie that police investigators and state prosecutors, and of course “leftist” journalists, are “hunters” who only want to unseat an incumbent prime minister has clearly reached broad swathes of the public. But these people ignore the ridiculousness of this claim: Israel’s attorney general and police chief were both appointed on Netanyahu’s recommendations.

From what Akiva says in the article, as well as what I’ve read over the years, it seems every time the Prime Minister was faced with a choice between advancing the cause of peace for Israel, or destroying a political opponent or otherwise advance his own personal survival in the political arena, he picked the latter, gambling that Israel could continue to survive using force and the formidable backing of the United States, rather than negotiating for long-standing peace with neighbors. Because of these choices, we see an Israel with a poor international reputation borne of their own choices, rather than propaganda of enemies. Would the modern founders of Israel, Ben-Gurion and all the others, be proud of what Netanyahu has wrought, between the corruption investigations engulfing his family and the dubious position of Israel?

But can he serve as a personal example to the Americans and their choice of Trump? There is little evidence that Trump is willing to make sacrifices to safeguard the United States; rather, he and his family appear to be using the office of the President for pecuniary gain, and his management of the American government has been marked by chaos, mendacity, and a careless lack of nominations to important positions throughout the government.

The problem in using the Prime Minister as an instructive example is the distance of Israel from the United States. If Israeli democracy were to collapse tomorrow, I doubt a majority of Americans would do more than shake their heads and then wonder just where the hell Saudi Arabia or Iran is in relation to Israel.

Just as importantly, though, is the current era’s distrust of expertise in combination with the many defenders Netanyahu will retain even as he goes down in flames. Much like the United States, as a democracy the final responsibility for the choice of leadership lies with the people. If a substantial percentage of the people refuse to consider seriously the advice of experts, of people who have studied subjects for decades, then how can a credible examination of the failure, near or total, of the Israeli democracy take place, and the necessary lessons be learned? The cacophony of voices enabled by the Web makes it that much harder, as Joe Blow, a guy with a grudge, an elegant voice, and little else can go head to head with former ambassadors to Israel. Sounds like a blowout? All it takes is an ambassador who understands the nuances of the issues to attempt to convey them, and the audience will reject the expert in favor of Joe Blow. Because Joe makes it sound simple and easy.

But as H. L. Mencken pointed out long ago …

… there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.

And that’s why we have experts, experts who can avoid that little sand trap on the way to the goal. But I fear experts in such soft subjects as diplomacy and international relations may not find their services desired for a little while, until the people find their fingers burned, their children dead, and their taxes raised to pay for some fool leader’s easy little war. And all for the same reason – because the Party winning, or even some individual winning, was far more important than securing the future of Israel.

Or the United States.