Backroom Errata

[Gilrandir]

I do not believe there are thousands of Nigerian Hitlers.

I do not believe there are a thousand French Stalins, nor a thousand Indians alike.

Believe it or not, some of them are even at power.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-55173605

[Montmorency]

Pearl Harbor 1941 attack story map.

[Gilrandir]

An unusual twist.

https://www.euronews.com/2020/12/15/...men-in-senior-

[Montmorency]

Let's memorialize our top mislaid (even if provisionally) judgements and predictions of the year.

1. Joe Biden would not win the Democratic primary.
The candidate who always polls with a high favorability, a high ceiling, and a high floor is a good structural bet.

2. The pandemic recession in the US would have a durable trough in macroeconomic terms.
Keynesianism is king, consumption recovers quickly from an external shock in our consumeristic society (debt is a problem for another day), and the economy at large is capable of tolerating increasing pain on the lower margins (non-generalized).

3. Covid19 would kill at least 1 million Americans and 50 million humans by the end of the year.
Humans and their governments overall (with many exceptions) aren't completely stupid about self-preservation, and massive global applied research, praxis, and investment can reap dramatic short-run rewards (hint hint).

4. The pop vote margin in the presidential race would be 10% and the Dems would win a Senate majority outright (with or without Georgia runoffs).
The shadow demographics I first pondered in 2016 do exist, they were concentrated among faux-Undecided voters this cycle, and turnout is only a slight advantage to Democrats in aggregate. I was wrong to emphasize from time to time that Trump hadn't gained support on net and thus couldn't increase his vote share over 2016, when I was aware - and even bruited - the consistent story starting in 2017 that Trump was comprehensively consolidating support among the mass of conservatives who disliked him in 2016. Even be it the case that this consolidation manifested more among 2016 nonvoters than 2016 third party voters.


Moreover, this has been an era of close elections, ever since Ronald Reagan's second term. 14/25 presidential elections in the 20th century were landslides, meaning the popular vote margin was ~10% or higher. In the 9 elections since 1988 (inc.), ZERO have been landslides. Joe Biden's win is actually the second-biggest since 1996 (non-inc). The closest to a landslide was Obama's 7-point margin in 2008, which was startlingly-low given Bush's Hoover-tier unpopularity and the simultaneous escalating global recession.

The last time there had been such a stretch of close elections in American politics (incidentally also featuring two EC victories by candidates who did not win a popular majority or plurality) was the late 19th-century, post-Reconstruction, where both parties were actually very similar in their consensus on white supremacy, settler-colonialism, and consolidation of business interests. That was also known as the Gilded Age. Ironically we are in a Second Gilded Age of catastrophic corporate supremacy, yet the major parties have never been more different - not even compared to 1860. Anyway, the point is that all of this was available at the beginning of the year to sedate observers.

So landslides are presumptively nonfeasible in contemporary American politics, and the polling always recapitulated that trend for this election. Biden's national polling always hovered between 48-52%, and that's where the result landed (51.3%). Same for the states, where in some cases (e.g. RCP on Florida) the aggregates prefigured Biden's vote share perfectly - and merely 'well' for the rest. So the polling didn't "fail," much of the audience just made the same mistake as in 2016 in not taking the data at face value and projecting desire onto it. Believe it or not, in liberal spaces it was often suggested that the polling this time underestimated support for Democrats! This despite the generic ballot being notably and persistently tighter than it had been in 2018, when the Democrats regained a solid majority in the House (the Democratic majority has been reduced to single digits this cycle).

Polisci modelers did fail, or at least they continued to subsist off a misleading form of engagement that provides minimal information of value; probabilistic models of the sort the 538s of the world specialize in are literally meaningless as applied to low-frequency events (this isn't sabermetrics). Continuing the hilarious parallelism of the EC results (306-232 in both 2016 and 2020), Nate Silver assigned roughly the same probability to Biden winning the same or lower EC vote that he asssigned to Trump winning the EC in 2016. Probabilities can't be "wrong" within the range of asymptotic distribution, except as statistically aggregated against themselves - which definitionally doesn't associate with single events.

In elections, the resounding TLDR is: When the polls don't align with your priors, reworking your priors is likely to be more productive than second-guessing the polls. They really do price in underlying variables.

[Crandar]

Aww, so sad.

[Montmorency]

I didn't know cruise missiles counted as sorties.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Sometimes, capitalism can be a good thing:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-crochet-doll-

After an inauguration day image of the Vermont senator went viral, showing him sitting on a folding chair, socially distanced from other guests, hunched against the cold wearing chunky knitted mittens, Tobey King in Texas got to crocheting. She turned the sensational meme that trended for days into a crochet doll.

King, 46, initially posted photos of the nine-inch doll on her Instagram account, and they garnered thousands of likes and comments. By Saturday, she posted the doll on eBay and auctioned it for $20,300, which she said will be donated to Meals on Wheels America.

[Montmorency]

Cool. (Adam Tooze did translation I believe)




Biden went and it all up. Unbelievable. Our military cannot recover from this.

[Hooahguy]

The fact that they didn't use Battle-Brother as a rank is a travesty. How else will we erase the heretics from the galaxy?

[Pannonian]

Did you know that American soldiers in WWI were extremely grateful to George Washington?

[ReluctantSamurai]

How do you like us now, Ted Cruz?

https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1296134869320380419

[Hooahguy]

Texas is a great example of why no other state has their own energy grid.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

How do you like us now, Ted Cruz?

https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1296134869320380419

At least Ted took his girls to Cancun. No "some animals" there...

[Montmorency]

How did this happen? How does an entire giant state run out of energy? How does a power grid fail so drastically? The answer is simple. Texas partitioned its own energy grid from the rest of the country so it could be free from regulation, and that independence comes with a cost. In a 2019 story for the Texas Observer, Amal Ahmed wrote that Texas’s energy grid, ERCOT, “has the lowest reserve margins, or extra supply, out of any grid system in the United States this summer. If customers had needed more electricity than predicted, there wouldn’t be much room for error, and ERCOT might have needed to initiate rolling blackouts to prevent a larger, more dangerous power outage.” The state was warned a decade ago that this might happen. And they did nothing. “The ERCOT grid has collapsed in exactly the same manner as the old Soviet Union,” an expert told the Houston Chronicle. “It limped along on underinvestment and neglect until it finally broke under predictable circumstances.” In other words, a lack of capable governing allowed an important and life-sustaining system to rust.

I'm old enough to remember that dead young Polandball Reddit/Youtube guy, brain4breakfast, his video on the geopolitics of Texas and California. One of the decisive factors enabling Texas to be relatively more successful than California in any prospective secession project was supposed to be its independent power grid.

[Hooahguy]

At least Ted took his girls to Cancun. No "some animals" there...

I think I'm more upset that Ted is coming back than I am that he left.

[ReluctantSamurai]

At least Ted took his girls to Cancun.

And now he's throwing them under the bus:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/18/u...rm-cancun.html

Photos of Mr. Cruz and his wife, Heidi, boarding the flight ricocheted quickly across social media and left both his political allies and rivals aghast at a tropical trip as a disaster unfolded at home. The blowback only intensified after Mr. Cruz, a Republican, released a statement saying he had flown to Mexico “to be a good dad” and accompany his daughters and their friends; he noted he was flying back Thursday afternoon, though he did not disclose how long he had originally intended to stay.

“The plan had been to stay through the weekend with the family,” he said, framing the decision as a parent’s attempt to placate his two daughters, ages 10 and 12, after a “tough week.” “On the one hand, all of us who are parents have a responsibility to take care of our kids, take care of our families,” Mr. Cruz said. “But I also have a responsibility that I take very seriously of fighting for the state of Texas.” “As it became a bigger and bigger firestorm, it became all the more compelling that I needed to come back,” he added.

Jeezus this guy is a scumbag...

[Hooahguy]

Also can we talk about his horrendous haircut?

Mullets havent been cool in like what, 30 years?

[Montmorency]

Wish PVC were here to read this:

The contemporary royals have no real power. They serve entirely to enshrine classism in the British nonconstitution. They live in high luxury and low autonomy, cosplaying as their ancestors, and are the subject of constant psychosocial projection from people mourning the loss of empire. They’re basically a Rorschach test that the tabloids hold up in order to gauge what level of hysterical batshittery their readers are capable of at any moment in time.

Harry and Meghan are ultimately going to win. Despite the tabloid frenzy, this was never the story of an ungrateful pauper being elevated by the monarchy. This was about the potential union of two great houses, the Windsors and Californian Celebrity. Only one of those things has a future, and it’s the one with the Netflix deal.

[ReluctantSamurai]

A Republican doing what Republicans are best at:

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/madis...es-tree-video/

And a young woman who might take down Vladimir Putin one day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvvsKEkoVYY

I can hear Treebeard stumping through the woods, at this moment.....

And Katie Porter at it again:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/20...try-doesnt-get

[Montmorency]

Apparently the country has broken its pandemic moratorium on mass shootings now (though to be precise, this was a spree shooting, differentiated from mass shootings by the killer's traveling to attack multiple targets).

On top of that, it was the worst incident of anti-Asian violence the country has witnessed since - a very long time.

Notably, all the victims were women, making it the most misogynistic act of mass violence since Eliot Rodger.

It also serves as a reminder of the lethal potential of pistols and of why the 9mm is a celebrated killing implement among criminal circles.


Speaking of cultural pathologies, here's an NYT profile of police officers who, made notable for their tolerance of the BLM protests in the summer, have gained notoriety for participating in the Capitol riot.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Apparently the country has broken its pandemic moratorium on mass shootings now (though to be precise, this was a spree shooting, differentiated from mass shootings by the killer's traveling to attack multiple targets).

On top of that, it was the worst incident of anti-Asian violence the country has witnessed since - a very long time.

Notably, all the victims were women, making it the most misogynistic act of mass violence since Eliot Rodger.

It also serves as a reminder of the lethal potential of pistols and of why the 9mm is a celebrated killing implement among criminal circles.


Speaking of cultural pathologies, here's an NYT profile of police officers who, made notable for their tolerance of the BLM protests in the summer, have gained notoriety for participating in the Capitol riot.

NPR reports that the shooter suggests the purpose was to "prevent temptation," so there is the possibility that despite the businesses being Asian-owned and the bulk of the victims of Asian descent, that this was not a racist crime. The local congress person being interviewed disagreed, asserting that it was part of the recent increase in attacks on those of Asian background.

[Hooahguy]

NPR reports that the shooter suggests the purpose was to "prevent temptation," so there is the possibility that despite the businesses being Asian-owned and the bulk of the victims of Asian descent, that this was not a racist crime. The local congress person being interviewed disagreed, asserting that it was part of the recent increase in attacks on those of Asian background.

I am actually from the general area where one of the shootings happened. There is a strip club literally across the street from one of the shootings, so his excuse is a bunch of baloney.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Speaking of cultural pathologies...

An interesting bit on the background of Capt. Baker:

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article...acist-facebook

In a Facebook post from April 2020, Cherokee County Sheriff's Capt. Jay Baker shared an image of T-shirts based off the Corona beer label that said "Covid 19 IMPORTED VIRUS FROM CHY-NA."

"Love my shirt," Baker wrote. "Get yours while they last.'"

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I am actually from the general area where one of the shootings happened. There is a strip club literally across the street from one of the shootings, so his excuse is a bunch of baloney.

Gotcha. As most of my knowledge of the Atlanta area involves Airport Terminal hallways and gates, I defer to your knowledge.


That said, this is one of the things I dislike about "hate crimes" legislation. It is often impossible to really judge intent, but for me the actions themselves merit removal from society, regardless of prompt.

[Montmorency]

"Notably, all the victims were women, making it the most misogynistic act of mass violence since Eliot Rodger."

I was wrong about this, one of the 8 dead was a man and the one survivor was also a man.

Gotcha. As most of my knowledge of the Atlanta area involves Airport Terminal hallways and gates, I defer to your knowledge.

That said, this is one of the things I dislike about "hate crimes" legislation. It is often impossible to really judge intent, but for me the actions themselves merit removal from society, regardless of prompt.

What I dislike about the topic of racism is that whenever it gets implicated there are those who insist on making it the prominent philosophical axiom that intentionality is a mysterious black box in all dimensions.

One doesn't have to be familiar with the intricate debates within philosophy of mind to remember that in everyday affairs we readily accept that intentionality is straightforwardly and ubiquitously evaluated. Heck, an alien could learn as much of our praxis watching people drive from the backseat.

Now, from the standpoint of criminal law it is well known that adjudication of intent is pervasive to a fundamental extent (cf. mens rea); intent is half the law, really. But whether or not one agrees on the specific point that demographic animus should be considered an aggravating factor to crimes, it's also criminologically useful to record such things in the study of the origin and progression of criminal behavior. This goes for reasons that need little explanation, but as an example the policy response for legislatures or police agencies may differ if a series of arsons in an area are of commercial buildings, as opposed to places of worship.

Anyway, from Wiki:

Advocates and scholars have speculated the shootings may have a racial motive due to overlapping stigmas about race, gender, migrant work, and sex work.[27] Politico and People noted the ethnicity of six of the victims, who were women of Asian descent, amidst an increase in anti-Asian hate crimes in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic, or have characterized it as a hate crime.[28][29] The Chosun Ilbo reported an eyewitness told local Atlanta Korean media that the shooter said that "I'm going to kill all Asians."[4][30] Multiple experts have said race cannot be ruled out as a motive given that Asian women have been fetishized in American society.[31][32][33] According to sociologist Nancy Wang Yuen, factors contributing to this intertwining of racism and sexism for Asian-American women include the Page Act of 1875, which effectively banned all immigration to the United States by Chinese women on the basis that they were immoral prostitutes; the widespread availability of sex work around American military bases in Asia; and the portrayal of Asian women as prostitutes in media such as Full Metal Jacket and Miss Saigon.[34]

Seems pretty obvious to me - as the saying goes, starve the (yellow) fever, feed the cold. Is anyone unaware that sexuality and race can intersect?

Speaking of which, it's still a bad thing to massacre women because you hate women regardless of whether you're also doing it because of race or national origin.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

good point about the criminological utility, regardless of animus. I do agree completely with that. Very much useful for investigation as well as for prevention (to the extend such is possible). Sadly, too many people invest too much of their sense of identity in not merely being different from the other but in considering themselves "better" than the other...and the next step of valuing them less and abusing those of perceived lower value is far too simple a step. Saddening.

[Papewaio]

Texas is a great example of why no other state has their own energy grid.

Texas was a great example of why Texas didn’t have its own energy grid.

[Montmorency]

So for some days I've been struggling to secure a vaccination appointment.

Primary care doctors basically don't have access to vaccine.

The city tracker site is full of lies and useless. Sometimes an appointment will flash into the interface around the edges of the city, but usually it will be taken within 5 seconds. For some reason the site does not allow one to view appointments beyond the current day, though I gather that it is meant to.

Calling the city hotline is not helpful because everything is always booked unless you're willing to make inoculation a full two-day excursion.

Pharmacies consistently report no availability through their websites. Attempting by phone gets you results like "there are no appointments within 25 miles of your zip code" or "...within 50 miles of your zip code."

Apparently nowhere schedules first doses beyond the next 3 days.

Frustrating as that has all been, there remained the tantalizing greenlight beacon of Walgreens pharmacy. The city tracker began claiming they had availability. I hadn't checked their availability through their website yet, because they require you to register a profile to use it; I had been calling multiple times a day as part of the multimodal pharmacy circuit, but the automated response always assured nonavailability of slots.

I finally decided to try starting an account because heck it.

...

Whaddaya know, Walgreens specifically has many hundreds of appointments available everywhere across the city and they schedule up to 5 days out, so I promptly scheduled one at a few minutes' walk from my home.

wat da facc




Trouble been cooking off in Northern Ireland this Easter week. The next Ethiopia?
https://twitter.com/trishdevlin/stat...90239716614148 [VIDEO]

New footage shows moment loyalist rioters hijack bus in west Belfast.
One man can be heard shouting, ‘Tell the driver to drive it down... where’s the driver?’
Another shouts, ‘petrol bomb it’.
Rioter in driver seat releases brake before getting off. Bus seems to have free rolled.

We're doing Mafia on the Org again if anyone is interested. Nothing too time-intensive.

[Montmorency]

Video of Iron Dome in action over Israel.
https://twitter.com/gaza_report/stat...79722747097091


How is this possible?

[Montmorency]

I can't get over what an unmitigated disaster the Iraq War was, and how the motivated, hostile, self-assurance in the probity of the Bush admin's claims (in explicit contradiction of all documented evidence) must confer a lifelong disgrace onto the proponents down to the grassroots - something that demands continuous penance and self-reflection.