Category: Uncategorized

Wishful thinking

Someday, scientists will learn that mathematical models only predict what they are constructed to predict. At that point, they will have finally intellectually evolved to the point of a 13 year-old computer programmer. Because computer models are neither studies nor are they science:

A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers. The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation. The team’s mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one. The result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.

I think it is far more likely that one or more of the listed countries, starting with The Netherlands, will become completely Islamic than it will become completely irreligious. The key logical flaw in the study is that in addition to positing that social groups that have more members are going to be more attractive and that social groups have a social status or utility, it also posits that all social groups have equal utility.

But this isn’t the case, particularly when comparing religious groups with non-religious groups. The non-religious groups don’t provide their memberships with the same benefits as the religious groups, for the obvious reason that they are an intrinsically negative group, defined solely by what they are not. As atheists love to claim, none of them have anything in common with one another, except for the fact that they are uniformly smarter, more highly evolved, better educated, and morally superior on the basis of their non-belief. (Hey, I TOLD you they were irrational).

But even if the non-religious do have some things in common, this doesn’t mean that they will benefit from membership in the non-religious group the way that most religious individuals do. And, of course, ignoring the demographics in favor of cherry-picking one linear projection rather than another is rather unlikely to deliver a reliable predictive model. This is nothing new, it’s merely the same deluded assertion that has been repeatedly made by Enlightenment propagandists since the 18th century. They were wrong then and they’re wrong now.

UPDATE – AL notes that the “study” is even worse than it appears at first glance: “I was expecting a full demographic study. But all they have is a nonlinear model fit using datasets of nine particularly nonreligious countries (with the exception of Ireland). Even in the cases of Switzerland and Austria, they just use one canton/province — anyone with a passing knowledge of religious demographics knows that Vienna has been non-religious for a while. No data for the US either. Now, the authors claim that their model can be “perturbed” and be applied perfectly to other datasets to see similar results. I wonder what the results would be if one used the data for a Muslim country. Meanwhile, the Ikhwan just won the election for constitutional changes in Egypt and Gaddafi has vowed to pack France with immigrants if he goes down.”

Land of the scanned

I know this will come as a shock, but the TSA has been planning to expand the airport scanner program to encompass other forms of transportation for some time now:

Giving Transportation Security Administration agents a peek under your clothes may soon be a practice that goes well beyond airport checkpoints. Newly uncovered documents show that as early as 2006, the Department of Homeland Security has been planning pilot programs to deploy mobile scanning units that can be set up at public events and in train stations, along with mobile x-ray vans capable of scanning pedestrians on city streets.

The non-profit Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) on Wednesday published documents it obtained from the Department of Homeland Security showing that from 2006 to 2008 the agency planned a study of of new anti-terrorism technologies that EPIC believes raise serious privacy concerns. The projects range from what the DHS describes as “a walk through x-ray screening system that could be deployed at entrances to special events or other points of interest” to “covert inspection of moving subjects” employing the same backscatter imaging technology currently used in American airports.

By the way, I have read the TSA “denial” that was added to the linked article. Note the precise wording: ““TSA has not tested the advanced imaging technology that is currently used at airports in mass transit environments and does not have plans to do so.” Of course not. Because the advanced imaging technology that they will be using in mobile units and in fixed pedestrian locations will be a different technology, of course.

Mailvox: a failure of observation

RCA hasn’t been paying much attention since 1945:

You are wrong [in reference to my most recent WND column, The Third Bush Term.] The peoples of the world’s various nations no longer want to be ruled by dictators! Period. They want freedom. Period. The United Nations SHOULD be in the business of intervening when a dictator uses its might to kill its people.

That is my take. Where am I wrong?

Where to start? I told him the two fundamental errors he made in an email. But rather than spelling them out here, I imagine most of you can identify them rather easily.

That didn’t take long

Economic Prediction #7: The national median existing-home price will fall below 160k from the present 170,600.

The median home price dropped 5.2 percent in February from a year earlier to $156,100, the lowest since April 2002. “If the price declines persist, even with the job market recovery, that could hamper recovery in the housing market,” said NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun.

Needless to say, this doesn’t bode well.

Behind the tests

In which Susan Walsh explains the female rationale behind s-tests:

Dream Puppy got exactly what she wanted in that exchange, which was to know that her husband could stand up to her emotions. She felt comforted, even relieved when he thwarted her attempt at control.

It’s a tremendously informative post. I would merely add one caveat and note that it is most, but not all, female histrionics are designed to test your masculine stoicism. In the event the woman concerned is legitimately psychologically fragile, it is important to learn to distinguish between normal dramatic posturings and when she is genuinely in the process of going off the deep end. If there is sufficient craziness indicating a clear and imminent threat to herself or others, even the alphiest alpha should feel free to not assume she is bluffing.

Why democracy doesn’t work

One wonders how democracy is supposed to work, even in a representative form where the elected representatives actually follow through on their campaign promises to the voters they represent, when the majority of voters are completely ignorant:

When NEWSWEEK recently asked 1,000 U.S. citizens to take America’s official citizenship test, 29 percent couldn’t name the vice president. Seventy-three percent couldn’t correctly say why we fought the Cold War. Forty-four percent were unable to define the Bill of Rights. And 6 percent couldn’t even circle Independence Day on a calendar.

I’m slightly embarrassed to say that I only got 19/20 correct on the citizenship test, although perhaps that’s not too bad for someone who left the country more than a decade ago. But only slightly, since although I made a dumb mistake, I also got one correct that I didn’t think I knew.

What free market

If you needed any more evidence that Americans do not enjoy a free market, look no further:

“Attempts to undermine the legitimate currency of this country are simply a unique form of domestic terrorism,” U.S. Attorney Anne Tompkins said. “While these forms of anti-government activities do not involve violence, they are every bit as insidious and represent a clear and present danger to the economic stability of this country. We are determined to meet these threats through infiltration, disruption and dismantling of organizations which seek to challenge the legitimacy of our democratic form of government,” Tompkins said.

Von NotHaus, 67, faces up to 25 years in prison during sentencing, which hasn’t been scheduled. The government also is seeking the forfeiture of about 16,000 pounds of Liberty Dollar coins and precious metals valued at nearly $7 million.

This is insane on at least three levels. First, if anyone in the country is going to be arrested for financially-related domestic terrorism representing a clear and present danger to the economic stability of the country, it should be Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke. They, more than anyone, have put the nation on the brink of economic and political collapse. Second, if the Neo-Keynesian economic policies being pursued by the federal government are correct, then more money circulating in the system is beneficial to it regardless of whether they are Federal Reserve Notes, Liberty Dollars, or Donkey Kong’s Coconut currency since it increases the money supply. Third, our legitimate Constitutional form of government doesn’t permit the use money that is not gold and silver. Fourth, if America did have a genuinely democratic form of government, Americans would be permitted to utilize any form of currency they happened to desire.

On the other hand, it is obvious that Von Nothaus left himself vulnerable to counterfeiting charges by consciously imitating the look and feel of U.S. coinage. It would be interesting to know if they would have been able to successfully charge him with counterfeiting if he had produced silver coins shaped in triangles and rectangles that bore no similarities whatsoever to the federal ones. And on an economic note, it may amuse some of you to know that the first time I glanced over the article, I read “infiltration” as “inflation”.

WND column

The Third Bush Term

It would appear that Americans never learn. Fresh from getting bogged down in what is fast approaching a decade-long failed military occupation in Afghanistan, approaching the eight-year mark in the failed military occupation of Iraq, the Obama administration has now revealed its submission to the insane neocon foreign policy of its predecessor by preparing for military strikes on Libya. Let us be clear about this: There is no more national security interest at stake in Libya than there was in Afghanistan or Iraq. The rationalizations being cited could just as easily be used to justify an invasion of Bahrain, Yemen, North Korea or even China.

A feminist defense of spanking women

Valerie Curnow argues for the female right to initiate violence:

I have to admit: I don’t think that a woman hitting a man is the same thing as a man hitting a woman. Don’t get me wrong: I’m anti-domestic violence (physical and emotional), or any violence for that matter, but I just don’t believe that if a woman hits a man, the ramifications are the same as when the reverse happens.

Now, I’m not talking about slugging your boyfriend or husband with a brass-knuckled left hook. Or smashing him over the head with a portrait painting. Or bludgeoning him with a blunt object. Obviously these acts are wrong, violent, and possibly a felony. I don’t mean pulling a Lorena Bobbitt or a Phil Hartman’s wife or a Francine Hughes in The Burning Bed (although the latter was found not guilty by a jury of her peers). I’m not talking about drawing blood, using lethal weapons, or murder. I’m talking more about smacks and slaps to the upper-body region when a gentlemen is behaving badly: Shoulders, chest, that kind of thing.

If Curnow believes that “smacks and slaps” are acceptable when an adult is behaving badly so long as no serious physical damage is delivered, then clearly she should have no problem whatsoever endorsing men administering spankings to adult women. After all, a spanking doesn’t have the same ramifications as a punch to the jaw. What Curnow is arguing, although she clearly doesn’t realize it, is that it’s okay for a man to strike a woman so long as he doesn’t do her any actually injury.

Of course, we’ll need some sort of guideline on what sort of spankings are permissible. Perhaps a limitation on the spanking rod to about the width of the man’s thumb?

Here we go again

Somehow, I doubt that the third time will prove the charm:

U.S. and British warships have reportedly launched the opening salvo of the intervention in Libya — called Operation Odyssey Dawn — firing some 110 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Qaddafi anti-air defenses, mostly on the coast of Western Libya and extending between Tripoli and Benghazi. Word is that U.S. AFRICOM will run the first few days of the operation in an effort to “shape the battlefield” before turning over command to another member of the coalition.

The initial launch also included the launching of American electronic warfare aircraft.

Nothing spells decline and fall like a bankrupt, demographically dying empire getting entangled in one unnecessary military conflict after another.

UPDATE – This is certainly an amusing development: A hard-core group of liberal House Democrats is questioning the constitutionality of U.S. missile strikes against Libya, with one lawmaker raising the prospect of impeachment during a Democratic Caucus conference call on Saturday.

I told you that the Democratic elders want to get rid of Obama a while ago. There is absolutely no way they want him leading them into the 2012 electoral campaign. And it would be absolutely hilarious to see Democrats leading the impeachment charge against this lamest of first-term lame ducks.