Author Archives: Hue White

Many news outlets are reporting on the National Hockey League’s plan to expand. Here’s ABC News:

The NHL is ready to roll the dice on Las Vegas.

A person with direct knowledge of the NHL’s decision says the league has settled on Las Vegas as the home for its next expansion franchise, provided organizers can come up with a $500 million fee.

That’s right. $500,000,000 to start a new franchise in what is arguably a struggling sport. Consider: the State of Hockey, Minnesota itself, is losing high school teams, as reported by CBS local station WCCO:

State-wide, participation in boys hockey is down 12 percent from where it was 10 years ago. Girls hockey is down 7 percent. Over that same period of time, total participation in Minnesota high school sports is up.

That means the kids aren’t leaving sports. They’re just leaving hockey.

In a state where the sport is so important to our identity – what high school football is to Texas, and high school basketball is to Indiana – it begs the question: Can we still call Minnesota the State of Hockey?

Perhaps I’m just a little old, but this sounds insane. Of course, they may just be taking advantage of a businessman’s pecadillo. But if they truly expect to make that much money from every expansion, they’d better be able to show incredible potential viewership numbers. And maybe have a plan for that little windfall.

Picking up on this thread is really too easy, in view of Representative Ryan’s remark that experts are unnecessary when it comes to solving problems in the government domain. Some of his colleagues seem to have taken him at his word, according to AL Monitor:

Three American congressmen, all staunchly opposed to the Iran nuclear deal, have been denied their bid to visit Tehran to inspect the country’s nuclear sites, a job that is typically reserved for individuals with expertise in the area. …

Iran’s Foreign Ministry responded to the request June 7 with an open letter. The letter called the congressmen’s request a “publicity stunt” and said, “Bearn [sic] in mind that as members of the US Congress you are not a global authority.”

The article is actually a study in quiet snark, with a final paragraph of this:

A reader remarks on my assertion concerning common sense in political communiqués:

I don’t believe there’s any correlation between commonsense and simple at all. I see the usage as a counter to the GOPs well-worn BS memes in the counter direction (it’s too hard, nobody agrees, there’s no sense, freedom baby, guns!, 2nd amendment, many code words for racism, etc.). Americans appear to be stupid mostly — a meme is all they can digest.

However, another long running GOP theme has been the decentralization of power aka the States are the laboratories of democracy, and I think it’s fairly easy to argue that this is similar and associated with my assertion – that there’s a line of thinking that most problems should be solvable at the local level, if indeed they’re problems at all. Join that with the recent Rep. Ryan assertion that experts are unnecessary and that common folks can fix just about anything….

Because we believe that all of us are equal, we believe there is no problem that all of us – working together – cannot solve. We believe every person has a piece of this puzzle, and only when we work together do we get the whole picture.

Finally, a defense of Americans: I think, on average, we’re just too busy:

By the time we’re done with everything else, we’re too exhausted to understand the issues. Which leaves me to wonder if this trend towards over work is on purpose…

Ever wonder how some of these ruins last so long?

(Y.Shishido/Wikimedia Commons via archaeology.org)

In some cases, such as India’s Ellora Caves, they’re built using hempcrete, a mixture of hemp and plaster. From another article, this one not yet online but in Archaeology (July/August 2016, p 25):

They’ve survived more than 1,500 years in part, the authors of a new study believe, because hemp – cannabis, known as bhang in India – was mixed with the plaster. The composite material, called hempcrete, can provide strength, thermal insulation, fire resistance, pest resistance, and sound absorption.

Here is a link to a modern version of hempcrete.

From a press release in 2013:

Today, after President Barack Obama delivered remarks calling on Congress to pass commonsense, comprehensive immigration reform, Congressman Xavier Becerra (CA-34), Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, released the following statement:

“Congress will pass a commonsense, comprehensive reform of our broken immigration system. The question is not if, but when. When will the House Republican leadership allow a vote for a real fix to our immigration laws? The Senate has already acted — with a bipartisan 68 to 32 vote. When will the House Republican leadership realize this is good for our economy, our security and our families — in short, for our American values?

Or how about this?

To prove that the vast majority of Americans, even if our voices aren’t always the loudest or most extreme, care enough about a little boy like Daniel to come together and take common-sense steps to save lives and protect more of our children.

Now, I want to be absolutely clear at the start — and I’ve said this over and over again, this also becomes routine, there is a ritual about this whole thing that I have to do — I believe in the Second Amendment.

Commonsense is the common theme.

This, I suspect, is a meme being pushed by the left-wing, that there are solutions that are simple, commonsense actions we can take to fix X. I would guess that this phraseology is selected because it’s thought to appeal to the conservative segment of our population – a segment that has become hostile towards government and the idea that some problems are so hard to solve they require the government to solve. By connecting solution X to the concept that it’s just common sense, they’re pushing the idea this solution is obvious, and only vile stonewalling by their opponents is stopping these obvious solutions.

And it’s starting to get under my skin. These little red lights start shining in my eyes every time I see that phrase, and my distrust level is going up. Why? Because national-scale problems are rarely that simple. Because they often require in-depth analysis, and I have little faith that either side has indulged in that analysis – or, sometimes, that the expertise to perform that analysis even exists.

Let’s end my little tirade against semantic propaganda with an appropriate quote from someone I should study more.

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.  –H. L. Mencken

A reader comments on the latest model sensitivities of climate change:

4.5ºC is 8.1ºF. That might not seem big, but imagine how many Joules of energy that is. Wikipedia says the total mass of the atmosphere is 5 x 10**18 kilograms. The number Joules to raise 1 kilogram of air by 1 degree Celsius is 1005. Of course, when we warm the atmosphere down here near the surface by 1.5ºC or as much as 4.5ºC, we’re not warming the entire 5E18 kilograms of it, though 80% of the gasses are in the bottom 10 miles. So just for grins, let’s estimate how much energy it takes just to raise the bottom one-fifth of the troposphere, the layer of the atmosphere closest to the earth and where weather occurs. The the troposphere is roughly 7 to 20 kilometers thick (thicker at equator), or about 4.3 to 12.4 miles. Let’s take an average of 7 miles just to be on the conservative side, and estimate that it contains 7 miles divided by 10 miles times 80% of gas mass, which is probably low as the bottom is thicker than the top at any altitude. But it gives us 2.814 x 10**21 Joules. How big is that? About 36 times all of the electricity generated world wide per year (or 36 years worth at 2015 production levels). Or like about 13,400 of the largest-ever tested atomic bombs (USSR Tsar Bomba at 50,000 kilotons or 220,000 terrajoules — much larger than the average nuke, 3+ times larger than largest USA nuke test). That much energy is bound to do something. And the above is for just 1ºC increase, grossly underestimating the mass parameter of the atmosphere.

In “Light Relief,” by Timothy Revell (NewScientist, 28 May 2016, paywall):

Bulky copper cables remained the status quo for over a century. And then along came optical fibres: glass cylinders the width of a human hair. Capable of transmitting information over vast distances using laser light, they enabled our modern connected world. Today, more than 2 billion kilometres of optical fibres criss-cross the globe, with more rolling off the production line at a rate nearly 20 times the speed of sound.

I would have been happier if he’d said 20 times the speed of light.

The dreadful true tale of the Roman Emperor Caligula is slightly modified in the Victor Mature vehicle Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954), wherein the tale of a man exalted beyond all reason, to the stature of a God, and his subsequent removal from power and life, is augmented by the addition of an institution renowned for its early humility and tangible poverty: Christianity. Demetrius (Mature) is a Christian, a former soldier and former slave, now freeman, who, in defending the honor of Lucia, a Christian woman who he may love, strikes a Roman guard. He is sentenced to gladiator school, but immediately earns the displeasure of the master of the gladiator school (Ernest Borgnine), and is consigned to the arena the next day.

In the arena, his opponent, Glycon (William Marshall), a former King, admires his spirit and they attempt to fight such a fight that they’ll both be freed, but they are not up to the task. The injured Glycon is removed and tigers are released to finish off Demetrius, but he emerges victorious from their brutal attacks (it was amusing to see the stunt double wrestling with the juvenile tigers, stabbing them repeatedly without bringing any blood, and eventually walking away from tiger-dummies).

Messalina (Susan Hayward), wife of an uncle of the Emperor, takes a shine to Demetrius, and when she discovers that the woman who saved him, Lucia, has infiltrated the school as a whore available to men who may die the next day in the arena, she commands that Demetrius will not fight the next day – and therefore is separated from Lucia. He is locked in a cell, from where he sees Lucia killed by one of the other gladiators, Dardanius, who is forcing himself upon her.

Thus his faith is broken. His descent through the valley of despair is long and dark in spiritual terms, even if in tangible terms it becomes bright and successful, for he destroys Dardanius in the arena, followed by several more gladiators who attack him en masse; for this feat, he is inducted into the Emperor’s guard at a high rank, and earns the amorous advances of Messalina. But he becomes short-tempered, impetuous, and intemperate in both sex and drink, a man without an inner compass.

Meanwhile, Caligula (gloriously played by Jay Robinson), grows madder and more paranoid as time passes, and eventually discovers the trysts of Messalina and Demetrius. In order to deflect his suspicions, Messalina owns up to the reappearance of the Apostle Peter in Rome, and Caligula is reminded of the Robe of Jesus, which had been the original goal of the soldier struck by Demetrius. Demetrius (and others) are sent in search of Peter and robe, and of course Demetrius knows where to go: the Christian sector.

There he finds Peter (performed by an excellent face by the name of Michael Rennie) and demands the Robe. Peter denies him not, conducting him to the robe, where it’s clutched by …

Lucia.

Yes, that Lucia who had died. In a bit of dramatic subterfuge, it turns out she was badly hurt, but not dead, and even in her coma will not let go of the robe. Demetrius collapses in tears, finding his love saved from both ravishment and death (but why should death be so fearful in these circumstances?), and begs forgiveness. In that moment, all the worldly success melts away and his heart is once again filled with humility and goodness, and Lucia awakens. But the fun’s not over!

As a tribune, he returns the robe to the Emperor, who bids him to stay where he is. Caligul takes it to the dungeon, has a prisoner killed, and then tries to raise him from the dead using the power of the robe. Sadly for the prisoner, whatever power the robe might have is not a tangible power, and the prisoner remains a corpse.

Caligula returns and accuses Demetrius of defrauding him, to which Demetrius says, “No one said it was magic!” But now he is returned to the arena, to fight the finest gladiator ever, the master of the gladiator school. With the Emperor’s Guard as the audience, as a Christian (Reformed), the Big D refuses to fight and is clunked on the head by his opponent. The Guard infuriates the Emperor by protesting the punishment to be meted out, and eventually both the master of the school and the Emperor are killed by thrown spears.

Mature is a fine actor, but in this sweaty little number he’s out-acted by those filling the roles of Caligula, Messalina, Peter, and Glycon; Mature simply does not emote at the levels called for. But he is surely at least adequate, and the film is not a failure for it. The action is sometimes not believable, in particular the spear throws and the tiger battle, but on the other hand the stage combat is admirably well done – particularly when Mature must battle several gladiators at once, he really does have to move quickly and parry twice as fast as his attackers must, and if the others perhaps fall over too easily, what of it? This is a difficult choreography for the 1950s, and it goes over well.

For all that, I was not particularly moved, perhaps because we watched it over several days. It’s very competent, and no doubt moving to those more disposed towards its lessons. And I have failed to draw any parallels between Caligula and any of our current Presidential contenders, which may be just as well.

Which is not the same as hostages.. so many of them they lose focus and wander off.

Some brilliant lilies.  Gotta love orange.

The dianthus guarding the strawberries is vying for the red flower award.

And finally that blasted weed…

This site is a fascinating bit of history I had not heard about until now.

The Human Computers at NASA project is a student/faculty collaborative project at the Macalester College’s American Studies Department that seeks to shed light on the buried stories of African American women with math and science degrees who began working at NACA (now NASA) in 1943 in secret, segregated facilities. Dozens of African American women worked for NASA as expert mathematicians from the 1940’s to the 1960’s and no one knows about it. These well-educated African American women performed calculations and data analysis that was crucial to flight test and space exploration.

The African American women are often referred to as the hidden Human Computers. With their contributions at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, the hidden human computers paved a path for black women in the fields of STEM. This website is for the general public to learn about the untold story of when African American women were computers. In digging for their stories, The Human Computers at NASA project serves to educate the public about a part of the national history that is absent in our memory of NASA.

Macalester College is in St. Paul, MN, where I currently reside.

Ben Caspit, an Israeli journalist and columnist, contributed an opinion piece to AL Monitor about a month ago on the Clinton/Trump matchup. If accurate, it’s fascinating for someone like me – not living in the Middle East:

The anticipated race between Trump and Clinton is likely to place [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu in a bizarre situation: He will not have a clue which candidate to support, or which is the lesser evil. Everyone agrees that it’s an impressive matchup.

The Clintons have a tradition of animosity toward Netanyahu. Netanyahu views Clinton as a sworn enemy, worse than Obama, for a simple reason: It will be very hard for him to set Israeli public opinion against her.  …

The last thing that Netanyahu wants is an American president who knows her stuff and has well-formulated opinions. Clinton is viewed as a supporter of Israel, but one that does not like Netanyahu. “We think that she won’t allow herself not to renew the diplomatic process between Israel and the Palestinians,” a source close to Netanyahu told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. This is bad news for the prime minister, who has succeeded in freezing the process and totally keeping it from the international agenda, at almost no cost to himself.

Clinton was secretary of state; she managed the contacts with Netanyahu and was party to the demand to freeze Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank. In retrospect, this emerged as one of the salient mistakes of the Obama administration in his first term of office. With regard to this aspect, Netanyahu has some faint hopes. “We believe that Clinton understands the enormity of the error of that [settlement construction] freeze,” said a senior diplomatic source, quoting words of another associate of Netanyahu who spoke to the premier. “Hopefully, she’ll draw the [correct] conclusions.”

The Israeli paper Haaretz reprinted an article from Jewish Insider wherein a poll indicates Israelis think Clinton would be better for Israel than Trump:

According to the poll conducted by TNS/Teleseker for Channel 1/Mabat, 42 percent of Israelis believe Netanyahu would get along much better with a President Trump, while 32 percent think the prime minister would have a better working relationship with a President Clinton. The remaining 26 percent did not know or had no opinion.

Politico has a report that also must nettle Netanyahu:

The real estate mogul does not have a coherent position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, except to break with decades of Republican orthodoxy and announce that he would be “neutral.” His GOP rivals repeated that line endlessly, hoping it would blunt Trump’s rise in the polls. It didn’t. …

All of this presents a major dilemma for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has worked for years to align Israel with the GOP. The party’s presumptive nominee is now being spurned by the same establishment figures, men like Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who make up Netanyahu’s “base” in Washington. Trump has no emotional attachment to Israel. And his success has upended the long-held belief that Republican voters care deeply about a candidate’s position on Israel.

Not being a superpower must lead to different mindsets and worries than those of American citizens. More attention is paid to foreign politicians whose dyspepsia may cause chaos in your country. With Netanyahu’s GOP strategy beginning to back-fire on him (you can look at it as Trump not swearing unconditional allegiance to Israel, or the GOP losing the upcoming election), he must be looking for backup plans that will both safeguard the allegiance with the United States, and not nettle his constituents too much.

Michael LePage reports an update on climate change modeling in NewScientist (28 May 2016, paywall):

The bottom line is that low values for the immediate warming in response to a doubling of CO₂ can now be ruled out. Similarly, low values for the warming in the decades following a doubling of CO₂ can also be ruled out.

In its last report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) changed its estimate of warming after a doubling of CO₂ from between 2 and 4.5 °C to between 1.5 and 4.5 °C, based on studies like Forster’s. This relatively minor change was seized upon by climate-change deniers as proof that the dangers of global warming had been exaggerated.

The next IPCC report will be revised back upwards, Shindell thinks. But the IPCC was right to lower it when it did, he says: its reports have to be based on the evidence available at the time.

While we can now rule out low estimates of climate sensitivity, Shindell says, we can’t rule out high estimates. “There’s a long tail of very high sensitivity that should dominate our thinking,” he says. When we buy house insurance, we take the worst-case scenarios – fires and floods – into account, Shindell points out. With climate change, we should also act based on the worst case scenarios.

MIT’s latest report on Climate Change, ENERGY & CLIMATE OUTLOOK PERSPECTIVES FROM 2015:

With emissions stable and falling in Developed countries, on the assumption that the Paris pledges made at COP21 are met and retained in the post-2030 period, future emissions growth will come from the Other G20 and developing countries.

Growth in global emissions results in 64 gigatons (Gt) CO₂-eq emissions in 2050, rising to 78 Gt by 2100 (a 63% increase in emissions relative to 2010). By 2050 the Developed countries account for about 15% of global emissions, down from 30% in 2010.

CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels remain the largest source of GHGs, but other greenhouse gas emissions and non-fossil energy sources of CO₂ account for almost 1/3 of total global GHG emissions by 2100, slightly down from the 35% in 2010.

Emissions from electricity and transportation will together account for about 51% of global CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel use in 2050, decreasing slightly from the 56% in 2010.

Energy from fossil fuels continues to account for about 75% of primary energy by 2050, despite rapid growth in renewables and nuclear, in part because the natural gas share of primary energy also increases.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) contributes this time series on CO₂ advancement.

Meanwhile, at Mauna Koa’s NOAA station:

The march upward continues.

This is interesting, from CNN:

Britain’s £1bn ($1.4bn) warships are losing power in the Persian Gulf because they cannot cope with the warm waters, MPs have been told.

Six Type 45 destroyers have repeatedly experienced power outages because of the temperatures, leaving servicemen in complete darkness.

During the Defence Committee hearing on Tuesday, MPs questioned company executives about the warship failures.

It’s not clear if this can be cleared up with a software fix, or if this is a hardware fix.

The obvious question is whether or not US warships are at risk. Less obviously, what’s the long term implications as the world continues to warm, resulting in higher ambient operating temperatures world-wide? Will we see American carrier groups floating helplessly in the Pacific? Or will our defense contractors be frantically patching ships? And on whose penny?

CNN:

Nearly 20% of large U.S. corporations that reported a profit on their financial statements in 2012 ended up paying exactly nothing in U.S. corporate income taxes, according to a recent report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which conducted its analysis at the behest of Sanders.

That’s well below the 35% top corporate income tax rate.

Thanks for pointing that out.

Switzerland voted to decisively defeat the institution of UBI. TechCrunch reports on the failure and a proposal on funding the failed initiative:

The people of Switzerland have rejected a proposal to give a universal basic income (UBI) to every citizen, with almost 77 per cent saying ‘no’ vs 23 per cent in favor. …

The obvious question for any universal basic income is how to fund it, with critics suggesting large tax hikes would be required. In the Swiss example authorities had estimated the costs of funding the proposal at an additional 25 billion francs, according to AFP.

However the Swiss non-profit behind the referendum believes funding could easily be achieved by placing a micro-tax on all electronic transactions.

Given there are some 100,000 billion Swiss francs worth of electronic transactions annually in Switzerland, a tax that takes 0.2 per cent would generate 200 billion; more than enough to fund the basic income proposal — and more than enough to replace all other taxes, according to Marc Chesney, a professor at the University of Zurich, who was interviewed by Bien-CH (in the below video [go to the link if you wish to see the video – Hue]) ahead of the referendum vote.

SWI (swissinfo.ch) has a nifty interactive map of the vote. Business Insider supplies some of the Swiss political wisdom on the subject prior to the vote:

politicians in Switzerland have described the ballot measure using language like “cocked hand grenade that threatens to tear the whole system to pieces” and “the most dangerous and harmful initiative that has ever been submitted.”

One liberal party politician called it a “bomb in the heart of our society and our economy.”

The UK’s Independent supplies one more – perhaps more pertinent:

A key argument believed to be swaying voters had been put forward by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP) that the UBI will cause widescale immigration due to Switzerland’s agreement to the free movement of people with all 28 EU member states.

SVP spokeswoman Luis Stamm told the BBC: “Theoretically if Switzerland were an island [basic income] would be possible.

“You could cut down on existing social payments and instead pay a certain amount of money to every individual.

“But with open borders it’s a total impossibility. If you would offer every individual a Swiss amount of money you would have billions of people who would try to move into Switzerland.”

James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute manages to get his feet on both sides of the question:

Finland and the Netherlands are planning limited experiments, as is the American startup accelerator Y Combinator. If you believe automation fears have driven renewed interest in the basic income, then the idea should have some staying power. It has proponents both on the left (“Yay, redistribution!”) and the right (“Yay, no more intrusive welfare state!”). In that way, the basic income has an edge over another policy also offering an appealing elegance and simplicity, at least in theory: the flat tax. Then again, the basic income also has opponents on the left and right.

But as I recently wrote in The Week, the basic income is a disruptive and risky policy choice lacking a truly compelling rationale. A big answer needs a big question. And widespread technological unemployment might be just that.

Yet, if the past is a good guide to the future, such fears are overblown. Then again, given what’s happening in artificial intelligence and robotics, maybe the past isn’t such a good guide this time. Perhaps my AEI colleague Charles Murray is right when he argues, “We are approaching a labor market in which entire trades and professions will be mere shadows of what they once were.” I wouldn’t bet against it, at least not much.

To my eye, it’s hard to be optimistic about the future when you can’t see how it’s going to play out. The standard Libertarian (big L or little l) line concerning the advance of technology is that the more jobs are automated, the more it frees up humans to do something else that no one had time to do before. And, without a doubt, there are many jobs which are, or were, real soul-killers, from coal-mining to fast foods to, well, just think of which job you hated the most. Maybe being a shoe salesman.

QZ’s take on the purpose of the referendum matches mine:

As awareness of basic income grows, so does support. The main goal of the Swiss campaign has been to educate the public. The campaign has increased support for basic income in Switzerland and has sparked conversations around the world.

A recent poll done by DemoScope, in January 2016, showed 59% of people under 35 (link in German) believe basic income will become reality in Switzerland. Young people seem to overwhelmingly support a universal basic income–making it a political likelihood in the decades to come.

As income inequality becomes more and more extreme, fewer people have money to buy things. But we need a broad consumer base to ensure jobs and keep businesses afloat. Economists and business leaders who support basic income argue it combats poverty while also ensuring a strong middle class, because everyone gets an income boost.

So the failure is not a failure, just a strategic step. And the point about 59% of people under age 35 are in favor is very interesting. It appears that, at least in the West, the younger generations have a different view of how the world should be run vs most of us oldsters.

Continuing an old discussion under a more apropos name, quantum physicist Nicolas Gisin writes a summary of his position on free will in NewScientist (21 May 2016, paywall):

But are the mathematical real numbers physically real? Certainly not! Most real numbers are never-ending strings of digits. They can be thought of as containing an infinite amount of information – they could, for example, encode the answers to all possible questions that can be formulated in any human language. Yet a finite volume of space-time can only hold a finite amount of information. So the position of a particle, or the value of any field or quantum state in a finite volume, cannot be a real number. Real numbers are non-physical monsters.

That’s a bit puzzling. Sure, they can be thought of containing an infinite amount of information, but that’s just one interpretation, one amongst many. He’s posted a longer paper to the academic pre-print server arxiv:

The use of real numbers in physics, and other sciences, is an extremely efficient and useful idealization, e.g. to allow for differential equations. But one should not make the confusion of believing that this idealization implies that nature is deterministic. A deterministic theoretical model of physics doesn’t imply that nature is deterministic. Again, real numbers are extremely useful to do theoretical physics and calculations, but they are not physically real.

The fact that so-called real numbers have in fact random digits, after the few first ones, has especially important consequences in chaotic dynamical systems. After a pretty short time, the future evolution would depend on the thousandth digit of the initial condition. But that
digit doesn’t really exist. Consequently, the future of classical chaotic systems is open and Newtonian dynam-ics is not deterministic. Actually most classical systems are chaotic, at least the interesting ones, i.e. all those that are not equivalent to a bunch of harmonic oscillators. Hence, classical mechanics is not deterministic, contrary to standard claims and widely held beliefs.

Discerning the difference between reality and modeling is interesting, but I can’t help but notice the argument is merely symmetrically applicable, i.e., you also can’t use the argument to disprove the suggestion the Universe is deterministic. The rest of his argument is either way beyond me, or gibberish – I can’t tell.

On an unrelated note, he also gives the reason for the name real numbers, which I thought was interesting. From the NewScientist article:

It took me a long time to identify what I believe is the key to the problem: a crucial detail of the mathematics we use to describe the world. Fittingly, it goes back again to Descartes. He gave the name “real” to the numbers commonly used in science: 1, 2, ¾, 1.797546… His point was to distinguish them from the imaginary numbers based on the square root of -1, numbers that intuitively cannot exist in the real world.

A few days ago Steve Benen noted on Maddowblog that Trump has international boosters:

Russian President Vladimir Putin, for example, doesn’t care for President Obama, though the Russian autocrat seems to have more of a bond with Donald Trump. And North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un not surprisingly has no use for President Obama, though he too seems rather fond of the Republican Party’s would-be successor.

Two weeks ago, the GOP candidate raised a few eyebrows when asked whether he’s open to talking to the North Korean dictator. “I would speak to him, I would have no problem speaking to him,” Trump told Reuters. This led to yesterday’s developments, in which the North Korean government made clear how much it likes the presumptive Republican nominee.

Gordon Chang at The Daily Beast also contributes a report including China’s Xi Jinping endorsement of Trump.

I’ve been musing on the motivations of these  leaders. Surely they realize that any influence they may wield in an American election would be diffuse and complex, i.e., hard to predict. Would the electorate move in a contrarian way? Ignore them? Surely not gravely consider their advice & endorsements.

But perhaps they just can’t restrain themselves. NK News notes,

Referring to the Trump’s speech in March to potentially withdraw the U.S. military forces from Seoul if it does not pay more for its defense costs, the North Korean editorial welcomed the policy with open arms.

“Yes do it, now … Who knew that the slogan ‘Yankee Go Home’ would come true like this? The day when the ‘Yankee Go Home’ slogan becomes real would be the day of Korean Unification.”

The same story contains an interview with an unnamed researcher:

A researcher said the odd editorial indicates Pyongyang’s wish to break through Washington’s strategic patience policy.

“He’s the Dennis Rodman of American politics — quirky, flamboyant, risk-taking. At the moment he’s also an outsider,” John Feffer, director of Foreign Policy In Focus told NK News.

“But Pyongyang is hoping that either he’ll be elected (and follows through on his pledges) or that his pronouncements will change the political game in the United States and influence how the Democratic party and mainstream Republicans view Korean issues.”

At The National they talk to an analyst:

Jeung Sang Wook of Korean Business News Daily has been following this developing story and adds that, “Kim Jong-Un is not in favor of Donald Trump’s policies on guns as, obviously, he’d like to see an America that is weaker militarily. However, he does apparently feel that of all of the potential United States candidates, Trump has the closest mindset to himself.”

Jeung Sang Wook continues, “Surprisingly, Kim Jong-Un was nearly ready to endorse Jim Webb as the official DPRK backed candidate, but he felt that Jim Webb’s showing at the recent Democrat political debate was lacking. His (Kim Jong-Un’s) overall support of Trump’s immigration policy, combined with Webb’s inability to conduct himself on the world stage helped solidify the decision.”

Perhaps the most cataclysmic is the aforementioned Gordon Chang report:

Our main Baptisia.

I forget the name of this, sheltering from the horrid elements ‘neath a friendly rhododendron.

The University suggests this is dames rocket, with honeysuckle in the background.

The clematis is hidden in the above picture, so we’ll show it in its precursor to greatness phase:

And tomorrow’s dinner.

Before we knew him as a pre-teen, now he’s a raucous teen.

I worry that he may want to throw parties of his own.

Or the beginning of elegance.

Just a little odd.

Our garden tends to start out in purples and then move to reds. First, dianthus.

And then two shots of the rose bush, safe in its cage.

Today my Arts Editor and I attended Transatlantic Love Affair’s production of The Ballad of the Pale Fisherman, a play that originates with Artistic Director and performer Isabel Nelson and was TLA’s very first production in 2010.

This production features TLA’s signature technical approaches: a complete lack of stage scenery and props; the use of a physical approach to the production in which the ensemble itself, onstage, provides special audio and visual cues to the audience, such as the wind whistling over the water (although this time augmented with an accordion’s wheeze), and the ensemble swiftly, but not frantically, switch from one character to a tree to another character; and a tendency to have two, or even three, centers of activity simultaneously on the stage, leaving it to the audience to deduce which may be important and which may not. A challenge to the audience is not an improper choice when working with subtle material, as it may emphasize, in an ulterior manner, the very problems faced by the characters: a multitude of choices, but which are correct, and which are not?

Once we move beyond the technical choices of the production, however, the less certain we were of the result. Briefly, this tale has to do with selkies, mythological creatures that are seals when in the sea, but able to shed their skin and become humans on the land. In this version, a young man, discouraged at his limited choice of maidens on their island, finds a seal in his fishnet, who sheds her skin and then loses it overboard. With no other choice, she accompanies the young man back to the island, gradually falls in love with him and marries, and becomes pregnant. At this juncture, her skin is recovered.

It ruins nothing to admit her now-husband conceals her skin, rather than returning it, and that begins the moral question of the story, with their shared happiness soon to be the line. But what of her husband? He is written and portrayed as being, perhaps, a trifle simple; not terribly so, but lacking both cleverness and self-awareness. Because this lead character seems to be little more than a good-hearted doofus who is stumbling through life, rather than trying to live it properly, we lose a little bit of precious focus on the moral question which should enliven the piece, not to mention the empathy that might have developed with a more self-aware character.

Other irrelevant questions nevertheless come to mind to confuse the issue. What is the significance of a “pale fisherman”? Another character, possibly in the throes of dementa, betrays physical symptoms of being a selkie, and yet the point is not developed really any further. I appreciate that a subtle touch may be appropriate, but I have to wonder if a little more development could have brought more focus to the various questions that must associate with the entire moral tone of the play.

Which is not to say the play is a wreck. The three old ladies are a delight, and the old retired fisherman who provides the occasional narrative and wheezing accordion brings a good touch, while the selkie gains an unnatural touch in this portrayal. But the men are just stereotypical young men: looking for a girl. The last time they crossed the stage may be the last time I’ll think of them, because … they were just men.

And perhaps that’s what I found dissatisfying about this play. Some of the  characters were people, and some were just there to provide a body. Some have lives in the world, and some only exist for the plot. It feels like a production, or play, that is only half finished.

But don’t let that discourage you from attending this, or any other production by TLA. The physical aspects of their effort are fascinating, and we’ve greatly enjoyed other productions, such as Red Resurrected and 105 Proof. The link to their web site is above – go see their efforts!

Our honeysuckle is blooming for the first time. It’s a bit sparse compared to some honeysuckle concentrations, but charming: