Unsightly Mental Blemishes

Troy LaRaviere has published his resignation letter, addressed to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel. As principal of James G. Blaine Elementary School in Chicago, he had moved it into the #1 slot in the neighborhood school ratings for the city. He explains how he did it:

Behind this significant accomplishment are a series of basic concepts based on empirical evidence regarding effective school practices and thoughtful consideration of how we might apply those practices at Blaine.  One fundamental element of improving the school was ending selective access to advanced curriculum.  When I arrived, less than 30% of students had access to it; today more than 90% have access. As is the case with most CPS schools, Blaine has a talented hard working staff.  Another critical element of our success was to involve that staff in an effort to create systems, relationships, and patterns of collaborative activity that are proven to improve teacher performance, and therefore improve student achievement.  In many ways, that was the easy part.

And why get out now?

I take my profession seriously and I practice it with integrity. I did not succumb to corporate educational fads. I did not pander and I did not bend to the selfish aims of a privileged few. If an idea was not in the interests of the school as a whole, it did not happen under my watch. However, during those first two years I kept my fight behind-the-scenes and between the walls of Blaine.  Like all CPS principals at the time, I took no public stances against your incompetent and uncaring mismanagement of our school system. It was my sincere hope that internal advocacy and leading by example could and would prevail.

Instead, the achievement gap steadily increased under your mismanagement as you and your appointees at CPS made one disastrous decision after another, in defiance of the evidence and research on educational practices.  You have made it increasingly difficult for principals and teachers to provide strong academic programs for our students.

If the balance of his excellent account are true, we’re once again witness to the tensions that occur when democracy and experts clash. Our understandable insistence on keeping local control of educational institutions can make it difficult to keep the ideas of the amateur and the politician out of the loop; and while the amateur may be well-intentioned, the politician is more often looking to make a name for themselves, or to pay off a donor; in any case, the well-being of the program may be secondary to the priorities of the politician. Mr LaRaviere is now making the next move of democratically controlled education: raising the ruckus and pointing out the errors of those who are interfering in effective education.

As advocates of evidence based medicine have discovered, there are a host of methods that may be in common use, yet have little actual positive impact on the educational system. It’s good to see one of our major cities has an advocate for a reality-based approach to education – and not just using it to clamber to power, something Mr. Emmanuel has been accused of in his career.

(h/t Walter Einenkel on The Daily Kos)

Our latest Vincent Price vehicle leads me to wonder: which lead actor has starred in the highest percentage of movies which culminate in the destruction, often flaming, of a castle? In The Raven (1963), using Edgar Allan Poe’s poem of the same name as a jumping off point, Vincent Price is the wizard Erasmus Craven, the husband of the woman who is the subject of the poem and now two years gone. He’s a quiet, underconfident wizard, living with his daughter, his dead wife (preserved in her coffin), and opens the story with the appearance of a talking raven.

Eventually, the raven is returned to human form, a wizard by the name of Bedlo (Peter Lorre), who is in a fury about the transformation, saying he lost a battle with the wizard Scarabus (Boris Karloff), and he had seen Craven’s late, lamented wife, Lenore, at Scarabus’ domicile. Bestirred at the thought of Lenore, Craven decides to investigate by visiting Scarabus’ castle.

The plot continues, at first seeming a bit pedestrian but eventually including unforeseen, yet plausible, convolutions worth the time. The climactic battle is, for all that the film is a bit fluffy, fairly satisfying: leisurely, both serious and comedic; the points it makes are better than many to be found in today’s tense battle scenes.

As the issue is decided,  the castle, built of course of stone, still manages to catch alight and collapse in a fiery burst, much as do similar structures in other Price movies, such as The Haunted Palace (1963), The Tomb of Ligeia (1964), Morella (1962), House of the Seven Gables (1963), and The Fall of the House of Usher (1960) – and perhaps others that I have not yet seen.

The raven is quite remarkable for its training. The three leads are excellent in their performances, and the supporting actors, including a young Jack Nicholson, are adequate in their work. This is a pleasantly entertaining film for those viewers who are not ruffled by the extension of Poe’s famous poem into a lengthy feature film. For those who are appalled at the thought, I can only direct you to this bravura performance:

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLiXjaPqSyY

My Arts Editor draws my attention to a new pipeline under construction in North Dakota. NPR.org provides coverage:

Protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota turned violent on Saturday.

Demonstrators supporting the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe faced off with private security officers from Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners.

Video from the scene showed security officers threatening protesters with dogs.

As All Things Considered reported, hundreds of Native Americans from tribes across the country have set up a camp near the construction site in North Dakota. The Army Corps of Engineer approved the oil pipeline in July allowing it to run under the Missouri river close to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s reservation.

Protesters worry that the $3.8 billion pipeline, which is slated to run through four states, could disturb sacred sites and affect the reservation’s drinking water.

A video of the clash is also provided.

Given the constricted future of fossil fuels, it’s a little frustrating to hear of new pipelines under construction, as well as the failure to consider the concerns of local American Indian residents. It’s tempting to suggest that an alternative energy grid would not cause such uproar, but that unfortunately would not be true. Growing up in Minnesota, I recall the popular health concerns about high voltage lines (as covered in this Forbes article in their Fighting PseudoScience column) and the vandalism occasionally committed against the lines.

Over on LinkedIn, Chevron’s CEO & Chairman, John Watson, makes the case for the continued future of fossil fuels. I suspect the renewables folks would disagree, but certainly there are applications for which the energy profile of fossil fuels is far more appropriate than the electricity produced by renewables. That said, my inclination would be to believe he overstates the case.

Clerestory:

In architecture, a clerestory (/ˈklɪərstɔːri/; lit. clear storey, also clearstory, clearstorey, or overstorey) is a high section of wall that contains windows above eye level. The purpose is to admit light, fresh air, or both.

Historically, clerestory denoted an upper level of a Roman basilica or of the nave of a Romanesque or Gothic church, the walls of which rise above the rooflines of the lower aisles and are pierced with windows. [Wikipedia]

My Arts Editor claims it’s a common word, but it’s new to me, hence this entry. Also from Wikipedia comes this rather majestic example.

With The Secret Life of Pets (2016) it’s clear that Illumination Entertainment has not regained the mojo it lost with the decidedly meh Minions (2015). As in Minions, the problem lies not in the animation, nor the voice talent – but in the story, a formulaic & predictable sequence of events featuring characters who may seem interesting, even edgy in the storybook, but didn’t have it on the screen – including the power-mad bunny.

Documenting how two dogs that hate each other learn to love each other, there’s not a lot of personal growth beyond that statement. Unlike Illumination‘s Despicable Me (2010), which featured a character that gloried in his evil who is then transformed through his discovery of a love for 3 adopted waifs, the dogs don’t have far to go to overcome a personal dislike. Escaping the clutches of a gang of dumped pets bent on revenge on the human race, imprisoned by the local animal control team, while a group of their friends forms a rescue posse to find and rescue them before the owners arrive home from work, various characters are created, sketched in – and then placed firmly in the background to play their parts. Even when Gidget steps forward to take command of the group of pets hunting for their missing friends, it feels like something planned and executed, not an organic part of her character.

The characters could have been important. For example, the hawk, Tiberius, who initially must fight his predatory urges when it comes to the small animals surrounding him. He could have represented some facet of the ambiguity of primal instincts vs how civilization leads us to ignore those instincts, for the betterment of ourselves and those who we don’t attack. But after his initial inner struggle, he simply becomes another member of the pack, with little to distinguish himself.

Other opportunities are lost. Duke, the new dog who inadvertently muscles in on Max’s territory when Max’s owner adopts him, eventually, and through the urging of Max, makes it back to the house of his first owner – they became separated through Duke’s foolish chasing of a toy. But there’s a new family in his house, and the family’s cat informs Duke that the former owner is dead. Duke yells that cats are LIARS!

And then we’re on our way, back on the road.

Imagine if they had ended up at the hospital, in time for reunification as the first owner dies, knowing his Duke is OK. Such are the ties of family. Or at a nursing home, illustrating that even the tightest bonds eventually fray and disappear, that in the face of death even the bonds of love wither.

Here’s the truly sad part of this failure of a movie: it has in its plot an important moral subject of these times, the abandonment of pets, and does absolutely nothing with it. The use and abuse of pets has some predictive value as to the future behavior of children, as does the behavior of their parents, who often hold the fate of pets in their hands. This could have been explored, to illustrate to those people who think pets should be dumped when they become inconvenient that every action has an effect – and it may reflect to their discredit if they are not good keepers of those lives they choose to take under their care. Instead, the fate of the gang of abandoned pets is not explored in the least, and the power-mad bunny that leads them? A few strokes of a child’s hand is enough to soothe him back into submission.

It’s like telling someone this is a fine dark chocolate – and then handing them a wax-cake.

This is a movie of lost opportunities, and cannot be recommended (although young kids should love it). Unfortunately, it’s done quite well at the box-office, which may obscure its failings to management. However, the tension between the art sector and the private sector is a different rant, which I shall not indulge in here. Those interested in the importance of understanding the sectors of society should follow this link.

Fun with liquid nitrogen!

http://htthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfgVk0ZzwBshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfgVk0ZzwBsps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfgVk0ZzwBs

(h/t Maddowblog)

Another little crockpot of doodly came in my email the other day, and it’s time to use it as a demonstration of how not to manipulate someone’s honest actions. Let’s begin with the sage wisdom of another, earlier age:

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. – Samuel Johnson, April 7, 1775

This email attempts to decorate Mr. Kaepernick with mud for his refusal to stand for the National Anthem at the start of a recent NFL game. Unfortunately, it’s mostly done in pictures, so rather than copy the email in its entirety for this dissection, I’ll take selected parts. The interested reader may contact me for  a full copy (use the email link). We’ll start with Mr. Kaepernick’s statement explaining his decision, from Wikipedia:

I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.

Our first exhibit suggests hypocrisy. But on examination, it’s not; this is simply the mistake of believing the whole is the same as the parts. There is not the least doubt in the world that the United States has many good people in it, and Mr. Kaepernick’s obvious affection for his adoptive family in these two shots is not proof of hypocrisy, but of his own human nature to love his family. On examination of his statement, it’s apparent that he’s referencing the well-documented homicides of black men by law enforcement, and the assertions by activists that many of these are murders¹. These are just typical, wonderful family pics.

Our second exhibit is a sly double play on racism (the denigrative reference to Black Lives Matter) and religious intolerance, which is to say that the author of this pic hates the idea that there can be other religions. But it gets even worse. How? First, whoever wrote this has to lie about Mr. Kaepernick’s religious convictions, as Mr. Kaepernick is not a Muslim, according to Snopes.com. Secondly, the attentive, independent reader who refuses to be lead about by the nose will realize that, just from the written text, Mr. Kaepernick is not hypocritical nor ungrateful, but instead is putting his fortunes on the line for a group of people he believes is being treated unfairly – so unfairly, in fact, that in his view they are being murdered. And those doing the killing are official representatives of the American state. He is explicitly identifying with the ideas of justice, self-sacrifice, and the powerful and influential using their positions to do good in the world. Can the author of this piece say the same about himself? His appeal would be, “Hey, you’re comfortable – don’t make waves!”

The admirable Mr. Wilder is used in this third pic to indulge in the error of self-indulgence. As noted earlier, this suggests that Mr. Kaepernick should be grateful for what he has and not pay attention to the suffering and early deaths of others, a self-centered behavior no doubt approved of by the creator of this pic – a despicable emotion. Worse, it attempts to deny a problem which has already been shown to exist through some simple statistics – not to mention some horrific videos.

Indeed. But it helps to understand there are some subtle problems with the list on the left. From Wikipedia:

After attending OTAs minicamp, and two weeks of training camp, Coffee abruptly announced on August 13 that he would retire just before the start of the 2010 NFL preseason.^[20][21] …

Coffee planned to return to the University of Alabama to finish his degree in consumer affairs, with an eye towards graduate school. Coffee confirmed that the reason he retired was that his heart was never in football and that he believed God wanted him to take another path.^[23]

Soon after his retirement, in October 2010, Coffee was arrested for illegally carrying a pistol. He was pulled over for speeding, and when the police discovered he was driving without insurance or registration for his car, they searched it and found the weapon.^[24] The charges were subsequently dropped.

Military service

Coffee enlisted in the U.S. Army in February 2013 to become a paratrooper.^[25][26]

In June 2013, Coffee graduated from United States Army Airborne School.^[27] Coffee is currently a paratrooper at the Ranger School, and works for the 6th Ranger Training Battalion.

It’s apparent he didn’t drop out of football to join the Army, but found the Army after dropping out and getting in trouble. He had no desire to play, no love of the game. He had to find another option, and he did. The unspoken assumption is that everyone is motivated by money; perhaps Mr. Coffee, to his credit, is not.

But it leads to our final exhibit, which may be the most effective. After all, we’ve picked some American vets who happen to be black who have suffered grievous wounds. Alas for the anonymous author, this leads to uncomfortable questions, such as “Are these men who volunteered for love of their country, or did they go in, like my white father did, because he was out of money and options?” I honestly don’t know – but I suspect they suffered their wounds because of decisions made by a faction of US neoconservatives to attack Iraq, an unnecessary and unjustified war. Did they have the option of the NFL, or MLB, or were they unable to attend college because of family poverty, and hoped to use the GI Bill (like my father) to gain higher education goals? Their undeniable service to country is deeply honorable – but we do not require military service at this time (and, as the conservative Mr. Heinlein liked to say, conscription is merely slavery). so if Mr. Kaepernick chose not to serve, he is neither dishonorable nor immoral. Perhaps, to him, the way of the NFL was a safe way to make his fortune in a country in which being black is often a perilous condition.

These grievous words are not those of the true patriot, but of the immature hater who cannot stand the thought that there may be something wrong with the way he or she lives. Mr. Kaepernick has chosen to use his position to throw a light on the uncomfortable proposition that law enforcement is not succeeding in its mission, even that it may have been subverted, and that it’s been very difficult to persuade law enforcement to investigate these incidents in a proper manner. Given the questionable rates at which Black Americans are harassed by police, activists and protesters have good points that must be addressed if we are to remain a society that might be considered just and desirable².

In other words, this is a slyly worded pack of lies and implications designed to play with the emotions of the reader and manipulate them into a position they would not take if they knew the facts. Still angry that he didn’t stand for the anthem? Think of the families of those men, women, and children shot dead by the United States, citizens themselves, armed and unarmed. Think about Mr. Kaepernick putting his fortunes on the line by this simple action, in solidarity with these victims. Ask yourself what you’ve done about the situation?

¹Homicide simply means the death of a human by the actions of another human; murder means an unlawful homicide.

²If the families of law enforcement personnel were subjected to the same harassment, law enforcement would not stand for it.

Ever notice how yesterday’s urgent medical advice is today’s critical error? Kayt Sukel covers the reasons in NewScientist (27 August 2016, paywall), and this particular reason caught me by surprise:

Among them is the fact that you’re often working on a moving target. “Diseases aren’t static – they can and do change over time,” says Gerstein. “Diabetes today is not the same as it was 50 years ago.” The number of people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes has more than doubled in the past two decades, and the age of onset has dropped. He says today’s type 2 diabetes is more likely to come with additional health issues like cancer, kidney problems and heart disease, compared with 50 years ago. “We call it by the same name but it behaves differently,” says Gerstein.

Other reasons include enthusiasm for new therapies from sufferers, poor early study design, commercial influences, and unfortunate use of “surrogate outcomes”, or what I tend to call proxies, rather than actual outcomes themselves. While there has been wide encouragement that all studies be published, regardless of outcome, and that all data be published, along with methodologies of data collection and analysis, I have not noticed anyone suggesting pre-study analyses. That is, every proposed study should also be published, once it reaches a certain point in the process of doing a study. The purpose would be to give peers the opportunity to critique the study’s various facets before they are executed. The advantages would be to eliminate weak and invalid methodologies.

However, this might not fly. Researchers are already extremely busy, and being asked to critique a proposed study may end up at the bottom of the priority list; and people qualified to critique are probably mostly doing research, so it’s unlikely that there’s a cohort of highly qualified scientists and techs who could perform this work.

But it might be worth making it work.

(I’ve also wondered if grad students are taught good study design, or if they’re expected to just pick it up from their advisors. Anyone know?)

Just in case you were wondering, yep, someone in France has latched onto the idea of moving France out of the EU. Specifically, Marine Le Pen, as reported by RT:

With less than a year to go to secure the hearts of the French people, Marine Le Pen, the leader of far-right party National Front, is offering something no other politician has on their agenda – the choice of leaving the EU. She also promised to defend ‘French values’ and ban the burkini. …

“The British had the courage to choose independence despite all the prophets of doom,” she said. “This referendum on France belonging to the European Union, I will do it. Yes it is possible to change things. Look at the Brits, they chose their destiny, they chose independence,” Le Pen said. “We can again be a free, proud and independent people.”

She seems to be building that ladder to the tree fort using the idea of Frexit as a rung. The question is whether the rung will break, and if she does make it to that tree fort, will it fall out of the tree? I also noted how, like other right-wingers, she adores extreme rhetoric:

“All my opponents have contributed to the collapse of France,” Le Pen said before accusing former president Sarkozy of declaring “allegiance to the worldwide leader of Wahabbism,” claiming he is unfit to rule France following his alleged trip to Morocco in August to befriend Saudi King Salman, RFI reports.

Le Pen called the Islamic fundamentalism the “new totalitarianism of the 21st century”, suggested terrorists were hiding among migrants. “The best weapon against terrorism is the ballot,” she said.

And this just sounds Trumpian:

Promising to defend ‘French values’, Le Pen referred to the recent bans on the burkini swimsuit, commenting that women “have the same right to freedom, to respect, the same faculty to benefit from the French way of life on the beach as in the schools, on the street as at work.”

Not stopping at the seaside resorts, Le Pen promised to introduce a nationwide ban on the burkini and extend the ban on Islamic headscarves to educational institutions and places of work.

The same rights to freedom, so let’s take one away, just to prove it.

I’m hoping our oldest and arguably most steadfast ally doesn’t trip over this divot. The collapse of the EU would not be a positive outcome for the world, economically, strategically, for democracy and justice, the environment, and science.

Andray Abrahamian on 38 North gives a lesson on understanding reports about North Korea:

But in trying to distinguish truth from fiction about rumored happenings in North Korea, it is worth taking a moment to consider how news about the North is produced in South Korea and picked up by global news organizations. There are three relevant issues: South Korea is in a state of war and competition with North Korea; journalists in South Korea are very comfortable basing stories off of single, anonymous sources; and foreign media organizations are desperate for page views and thus happy to repeat dramatic rumors about the DPRK [North Korea]. In this context, one should be suspicious of rumors from this information supply chain, which encourages sensationalism at every step and offers little reward for ensuring credibility.

I wonder if the pressure in the last case would be eased if there was a substantial switch in funding from the current advertising-based model to a subscription model. His conclusion?

Consequently, as we think about rumors about North Korea, we need to take all these caveats into account and temper our conclusions appropriately. For those trying to parse which rumors are true and which aren’t, it might be best to think of them as analogous to Schrödinger’s cat. They’re probably true. But also probably not.

When scientists speculate about alien civilizations, they occasionally reference Dyson Spheres, constructs which completely encapsulate a star for the purpose of gathering its entire energy output. But to what purpose is the energy to be applied? That’s less often addressed.

But now NewScientist (27 August 2016) may have inadvertently supplied an answer.

The machine-learning boom is another problem. The amount of energy silicon-based computers use is set to soar as they crunch more of the massive data sets that algorithms in this field require. The Semiconductor Industry Association estimates that, on current trends, computing’s energy demands will outstrip the world’s total energy supply by 2040.

OK, so it’s nearly certain that we’ll find a way around to this problem, and that Dyson sphere secretly planned by the NSA? Not necessary. But it’s interesting as a way to illustrate our interest in machine learning and the associated Big Data boom. Whether the processing requirements will remain on this straight line will correlate with whether or not we find machine learning to be useful.

Another thought – if a true Artificial Intelligence (AI) was developed, what would its power requirements be? Would it simply be an assemblage of machine learning algorithms operating on an immense database? That sounds expensive in energy terms, depending on how you define an AI.

But speaking for myself, I wonder if our own constrained personal energy systems, even as profligate as we seem to be at this time (i.e., world-wide obesity rates rising), are the source of our rather odd mental processes. Our memories are hardly ever literal, but rather constructed and often confabulated. Our calculating capabilities are usually quite limited, and -ahem- we create computers to better perfect those abilities. Our reasoning is often flawed, and we’ve made a celebrity out of a fictional character known for his capabilities in the area of logic. Would a mobile AI be similarly constrained? While I’m sure these thoughts have occurred to experts in the field, I have not kept up – which either forces me to do some research, or just speculate irresponsibly.

I think I’ll go with the latter today.

NewScientist (27 August 2016) provides a picture of climate change sure to motivate. I shan’t show it here, due to copyright concerns, but I provide this link.

Yeah.

Not exactly the apocalyptic view I was expecting, either.

protophobic X boson:

They found that, to be consistent with everything we have seen in experiments designed to characterise the known forces of nature, [this hypothetical dark photon] must interact not with protons and electrons, as a conventional photon does, but with the neutrons inside the beryllium nuclei. This is a property beyond the scope of physics as we know it, which might explain how the particle slipped by unseen in previous dark matter searches. Feng’s team call the interloper a “protophobic X boson“. [NewScientist, 27 August 2016, paywall]

Possibly seen while firing protons at a thin sheaf of lithium-7 in order to make unstable beryllium-8, which then decayed with unexpected results. Only neutrons, huh? This will be interesting if it’s confirmed.

Regarding the bees’ affinity for garlic chives, a reader remarks:

Yes, they do. Especially bumble bees. We have a lot of garlic chives. Bees also seem to really like Korean mint, of which we have perhaps but one volunteer.

What might be Korean mint? That is, how does it differ from regular mint?

Button acquired at the Minnesota State Fair

Because, of course, it’s true. No doubt repeated thousands of times over the Web, but it makes me both laugh and cry at the irresponsibility of the GOP.

In case you didn’t yet read Elena Chachko’s article on Lawfare (“Gaza Aid Workers, Hamas, and the Immunity of UN Officials“) yet (I’ve referenced it here and here), I note she also quickly references a problem NGOs face when hiring local personnel – diversion of funds:

On August 4, Israel announced that it had indicted Mohammed al-Halabi, the head of the Gaza branch of the international NGO World Vision, for diverting tens of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid funds to support Hamas’ military activities (see also here). According to the indictment and the statement of the Israeli Security Agency (ISA), al-Halabi is a longtime Hamas operative, who infiltrated World Vision in 2005 with the aim of exploiting the organization’s resources to assist Hamas.

During his interrogation, al-Halabi admitted that 60% of the annual budget allocated by World Vision to the Gaza branch for humanitarian work was re-routed to Hamas’ military organs. In addition, al-Halabi has transferred a variety of goods ordered for World Vision directly to Hamas, including materials and equipment used in the construction of Hamas strongholds and underground “terror tunnels.” The indictment makes clear that al-Halabi was well aware of the fact that he was cooperating with Hamas, and mentions incidents in which he had trained with Hamas and provided information about the Israeli side of the border. According to the ISA statement, as a result of al-Halabi’s actions, the vast majority of World Vision humanitarian aid in Gaza was allocated to Hamas operatives and their families, while the rest of Gaza’s population hardly received any aid at all. Al-Halabi’s trial began on Tuesday, and it is not open to the public.

AL-Monitor  adds some concrete numbers:

This equated to $7.2 million per year, including about $1.5 million given in cash to Hamas combat un its [sic].

World Vision, which employs tens of thousands of people globally, said its programmes were subject to “regular internal and independent audits, independent evaluations” to avoid aid misuse.

According to The Days of Palestine (amongst others), World Vision disputes Israel’s story:

Funny, how could Hamas penetrate into this American organisation and plant its members deep inside and they become managers?

Believing this Israeli heresy will lead us to discover in the very near future that the UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon is a Hamas operative and he funnelled all the UN funds to this Palestinian group.

Anyway, World Vision condemned the Israeli detention of its manager in Gaza and called for all people to pray for him and his family.

It also called on the Israeli authorities to release him or allow him access to legal support. “We also call on authorities to respect the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and proceed fairly and objectively on the presumption of innocence,” World Vision said in a statement.

World Vision described Al-Halabi as “widely respected and well regarded humanitarian, field manager and trusted colleague of over a decade.”

It also said: “He has displayed compassionate leadership on behalf of the children and communities of Gaza through difficult and challenging times, and has always worked diligently and professionally in fulfilling his duties.”

Interestingly, I was unable to find any mention of this incident on the World Vision web site.

Fast forwarding my way through Alienator (1989) was my only hope for surviving this amateurish piece of garbage. From mostly wretched amateur acting (with exceptions for Jan-Michael Vincent and well-respected character actor Leo Gordon), to a story more told than shown, through an illogical plot convoluted for no reason, characters who suddenly sprout powers when it’s convenient, and terminating at special effects that are buffoonish at best (including a rip-off of a Star Wars light saber, which ends in quite the gory climax for an obscure character that, just to make it a triple-play, has a more than passing resemblance to James Doohan of Star Trek fame), the attentive viewer is left aghast at what might have been an interesting movie. Juvenile, stereotypical characters, bad segues, lapses in story logic, the best I can make of it is that someone promised a movie vehicle to Jan-Michael Vincent, and they delivered some film with some shadows on it.

And then, just for fun, the channel on which it was broadcast, Comet, found it not only necessary to cut out the nastier language, but also to blur out the hips of the female assassin sent to kill the escaped prisoner. Whatever for? She may be skimpily clad, but clad she is. And then they’d blink it on and off as she moved through shadow, which just evoked some choked laughter.

Folks, don’t bother with this one unless you’re a Jan-Michael Vincent completist. Or possibly a Fox Harris completist, who apparently appears in this film, although I have no idea which role he plays. I ran out of interest.

Looks painful.

From Elena Chachko’s article published on Lawfare:

“[t]here was no diversion of rubble from its designated location to Hamas”.

Elena Chachko considers the problem of immunity for United Nations workers in Lawfare (which is celebrating its 6th anniversary today!):

Perhaps in light of the diverging factual accounts, the UN Office of Legal Affairs intervened late last week in an attempt to block the proceedings against al-Bursh. The OLA said in a letter to Israel’s mission to the UN that al-Bursh is entitled to immunity as a UN official. According to the letter, al-Bursh “enjoys immunity from personal arrest or detention, as well as immunity from legal process in respect of words spoken or written and acts done in performance of his mission.”  The OLA therefore requested that al-Bursh be released and that all legal proceedings be suspended, to allow the UN secretary General to determine whether al-Bursh should be granted immunity. The letter also called on Israel to allow UN officials to investigate, and to provide access to al-Bursh while he remains in prison.

The UN’s demand was not well received by Israel, to say the least (see also here and here). Israel’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said that lawyers have examined the claim that al-Bursh should be granted immunity, and concluded that it was unsubstantiated. He stressed that “it is outrageous that a man assisting a terror organization could benefit from U.N. immunity”.

What are the accusations against al-Bursh?

… on August 9 Israel announced that Wahid al-Bursh, a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) worker, had been indicted for using his position at the UNDP to provide material assistance to Hamas. According to the ISA, al-Bursh was approached in 2014 by a senior Hamas operative, who directed him to carry out his responsibilities in a manner that would benefit Hamas. Subsequently, al-Bursh used his influence over the UNDP rubble removal project, which was established in the aftermath of the 2014 Gaza hostilities, to divert construction materials that helped build a military naval port for Hamas in northern Gaza. He is accused of diverting construction materials from rehabilitation projects in Gaza to Hamas sites in other cases as well.

Given the deadly enmity of Hamas for Israel, it’s easy to understand why Israel wishes to continue to press charges. At the same time, however, it’s incumbent on the United Nations to ensure proper process is followed; if it does not, the morale of its staff plummets and it risks ineffectivity – thus the letter. As less than an amateur, my guess is that Israel should agree to delay the trial, but since al-Bursh can be considered a flight risk, to leave him imprisoned, and to encourage the United Nations to expedite its investigation. So long as Israel controls al-Bursh, it may or may not pay attention to United Nations directives as it sees fit.

al-Bursh would seem to be worthy of United Nations protection in inverse correlation to the extent that he was corrupted by the alleged Hamas operative; so much is clear. Thus, if the United Nations decides to direct that immunity be stripped from al-Bursh, they are making an admission of probable guilt for al-Bursh. Can the United Nations investigation be considered authoritative? If so, can Israel use it in its subsequent prosecution?

U. N. Flag

And the larger issue is that of loyalties. How much can the United Nations, a higher level synthetic entity, count on loyalty to itself from its staff, and how much can it expect itself to be used by its staff for the ends of other entities, either at the state level or even lower? Indeed, is it even corruption when a member of the staff is attempting to benefit some other entity which has far more legitimate history behind it than the United Nations, which has only existed since shortly before the end of World War II?

As one might expect, there are more minor parties running candidates than the media talk about, so this election patter from Zoltan Istvan, found in NewScientist (27 August 2016), is new to me (although it occurs to me that I don’t get out enough):

SOME scientists question the value of mixing politics with science. Not so at the US Transhumanist Party. We’re sick and tired of seeing career politicians – nearly half of them lawyers – control national science agendas and budgets.

We want passionate pro-science politicians to determine scientific policy, spending and research ethics in our nation. So we decided to get involved ourselves.

I formed the US party, the first of its kind, in October 2014. There are now others around the globe. Our motto is: “Putting science, medicine, and technology at the forefront of US politics.” I am the party’s 2016 presidential candidate.

My campaign’s main job is to set out science and technology policy from a pro-innovation point of view – not one shaped by religion, ethnicity, culture or history. I think the world’s problems can be best solved by scientific or technological solutions. Our top pledge is to reduce the size of the US military and spend the money on science and medical research.

We are also trying to spread awareness of the increasing pace at which science and technology are changing our world – from gene editing to robots taking jobs.

Unfortunately for him, I suspect too many otherwise sympathetic voters see that it’s their duty to vote for Hillary in order to save America from Trump. Here’s the Transhumanist Party website. From its Platform page:

5) Implement policy for the phasing out of all individual taxes based on robots taking most jobs in the next 25 years. Advocate for a flat tax until we reach that point.

6) Advocate for morphological freedom (the right to do anything to your body so long as it doesn’t harm others). Defend genetic editing and other radical science that can transform healthcare.

7) Advocate for partial direct digital democracy using available new technologies.

8) End costly drug war and legalize recreational drugs

9) Create government where all politician’s original professions are represented equally (the government should not be run by 40% lawyers when lawyers represent less than 10% of the country’s jobs)

10) Significantly lessen massive incarcerated population in America by using innovative technologies to monitor criminals outside of prison. Spend saved money on education.

#9 tramples over the citizen’s right to choose, not to mention may lessen the efficiency of the elected officials since this just offers an even easier route for incompetent power-seekers to gain high office. With regard to #10, #8 would reduce the imprisoned population, and perhaps some more reforms would also be of help – not to mention working on reducing poverty and hatred.

Bees working the garlic chives.

Fedscoop takes note of an announcement:

Shawn Turskey [Executive Director for U.S. Cyber Command] told a small audience of predominantly security software vendors and government officials the command unit is looking for tools that can be definitively traced back to the United States military, diverging from the ultra-stealth exploits often used at bureaus like the National Security Agency.

“In the intelligence community you never want to be caught, you want be low and slow, you never really want to be attributed. There’s a different paradigm from where you are at in the intelligence community,” said Turskey, who leads the Department of Defense’s capability and tool development project within Cyber Command.  “But there’s another space over here, where maybe you definitely want to be louder, where attribution is important to you and you actually want the adversary to know.”

The development of “loud” offensive cyber tools, able to possibly deter future intrusions, represent a “different paradigm shift” from what the agency has used to in the past, Turskey said.

Dr. Herb Lin asks some questions, via Lawfare, with this amongst them:

4. Is enabling a national attribution marker required by the laws of war?  Fighter planes and cruise missiles carry a U.S. insignia; soldiers wear U.S. uniforms.  But bullets do not.  Is a cyber weapon more like a platform or soldier, or more like a bullet?

These cyberwarriors¹ of which they speak are soldiers, but the end result, while non-kinetic, non-explosive, is more like a bullet. Which means that branding the final attack instrument is a tactical question, not a legal question, at least in my pragmatic view. I suppose someone can make a law requiring attacks to be branded – but who will pay attention? Laws’ efficacy, particularly in war, lies to some extent in its probability of effective enforcement, and also in your fear that if you use some illegal tactic, so will your enemy. So far, I’d say the probability of enforcing such a law is low, and the fear of attack from an anonymous source, vs a known source, isn’t all that significant.

¹“Cyberwarriors” made me tired even before I read it.

While this isn’t really about tall wood, it is about wood. Treehugger‘s Lloyd Alter covers the 2015 winner of the Canadian Wood Council’s Wood Design Award – which didn’t use fire-resistant cross-laminated timber, but instead nail-laminated timber:

Whenever one builds with wood, the question of fire protection comes up. The floors here are built up out of 2×8 Douglas Fir, engineered to have a sacrificial charring layer. There are also sprinklers throughout.

There is a lot of other interesting stuff going on in this building:

The building is heated and cooled through a series of 20 geothermal wells optimized by a ground-source heat pump system. Geothermal heat pumps are located between two large thermal storage reservoirs, limiting the number of heat pumps required and reducing electrical use. Heat pumps operate during off-peak hours to cool the reservoirs, and during the day, when demand peaks, the extra energy stored in the reservoirs is transferred to the building.

Nail laminated timber is described by the ReThink Wood website:

Nail Laminated Timber (NLT or Nail-lam) is created by fastening individual dimensional lumber, stacked on edge, into one structural element with nails. In addition to being used in floors, decks and roofs, nail-lam panels have been used for timber elevator and stair shafts. NLT offers a consistent and attractive appearance for decorative and exposed to view applications. Sheathing can be added to one top side to provide a structural diaphragm and allows the product to be used as a wall panel element.