Crank That Should Be Yanked

By now I am sure you have all seen chief moron and snake-oil salesman Glenn Beck getting the state fair crowd all riled up over Egypt.

I understand it is a bunch of ignorant blather from someone who's personal motto is "them books is wrong." Nevertheless I tried to use it as a jumping off point to figure out if their was any kind of internal logic to this thing as it obviously is untethered from reality. Of course it has been commented on to death and there really isn't much to be added to a long balloon shaped into a floating question mark by a sad clown but....

Let's just examine a tiny bit of his hypothesis. We will leave the part about the Muslim caliphate taking over Europe. We will wait on Russia rushing back from the dead to reclaim all of the satellite countries around it becoming, what exactly? The USSR II? I want to look very narrowly at Beck's contention that Australia will fall under the control of China. Maybe New Zealand. Forgive me if I misquote anything here, I can't seem to find a transcript.


Beck uses the vague word "control." China will control Australia. I hope I am not being racist when I say this is fairly insulting to Australians. How will Australia be controlled? Is this a military form of control? How would that make sense? How would it be done? Australia is a huge country. A continent in fact. It is sparsely populated and spread out. Would the Chinese army come in boats? Would a Chinese army large enough to occupy the continent of Australia, go to Australia in boats? How long would that take? They would need to be fed the whole time as well. Would they sail past Japan and the U.S. bases in Okinawa? Then they would just turn south and have clear sailing? I supposes Australia puts up no fight. That they are no match for hoards of Chinese transport vessels. Maybe there is a vanguard of....? What exactly. And while this giant Chinese invasion fleet is off to capture Australia, what happens back in China? Sure it could probably be kept out of the news, but a force big enough to occupy a continent would have to be replaced or covered for as China has huge, vast borders that need to be protected. Can China make enough food to support this force? Can they be fed while destroying then occupying Australia? What will they do when they have Australia? Govern the Australians? Isn't that, again, a little insulting? Would Paul Hogan and the ghost of Steve Irwin put up with that? Would China use their manpower pursuing rebels through desert and bush? To what end? For what benefit? Who knows?

Beck never bothered to think this through, surely. Maybe he war gamed over a Risk board. I think his next quote gives away that he was just making it up and went. Just after declaring that the continent of Australia would be under control of the Chinese, he adds, "Maybe New Zealand." Why maybe? Why? Really? If they come all the way for Australia. Take it over. Occupy it. What is stopping them from taking New Zealand too? Gandalf? Maori dancing the Haka? Jonah Lomu? Again, I think New Zealand would be a terribly difficult country to take over and then occupy, but if you can do it to Australia then can't you do it there?

I think the real tip-off is he said it because it sounded like the better way to end the sentence. It sounded more like his side-show patter to say, "Maybe New Zealand." Then to say, "If they took over Australia, one would suspect that New Zealand would follow." I think this is the key to the whole thing. He is just making up stuff that is easy to say. In fact, he is just saying it because it is easy. Beck has already made the decision to not be a serious person and to say whatever garbage gets people to look at him. It sounds better, and more threatening in a mysterious way to dangle, "Maybe New Zealand" the to think through what any of this would involve.

Maybe he meant Australia would be under the economic control of China. Ok, but what of it? China is the number two economy in the world and we buy tons of goods from them. Possibly he meant cultural? So what? More Lo Mein. He didn't mean anything except for "Give me your money suckers."

To add onto this vacuous masturbation fest, deeply hurt Glenn Beck came out a few days later and begged for a hug from mommy in this abysmal hissy fit. Again, I don't have the transcript, and I can't turn on the sound at work, but it was another eruption of stupid. Except that this time Beck said that everyone had proved him right because they said he was wrong and then reported on things that he didn't like. I don't watch much Beck, pretty much for the same reason I don't watch Full House or read Nevada prostitution brochures, so I was a little taken a back at what a horrible person he was. Beck who has never had the courage to stand up for anything, certainly never the guts to take it to the streets (for the record I don't find being a privileged millionaire and setting up a sponsored rally while wearing a bullet proof vest to be any sort of valour) ridiculing a Egyptian protester for having the audacity to be misunderstood by Glenn Beck. What a misguided person she must be for knowing that sometimes you have to work with people who don't have all of the same values as you to achieve goals that you mutually desire. How mistaken she is. That would be like Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich both being against the war. Impossible. That would almost be like the Nation of Islam and Jews both being for civil rights. Why do the Jewish people love Elijah Muhammed so much?

John Baez has a list of what constitutes a crank.

Hmmmm. If the shoe fits, take over Australia with the Chinese army.

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The Great State of.....

A list of the states with the worst eating habits was released this week. I don't think it means that they let their dogs lick their plates or that they keep their elbows on the table. See the study for the methodology. I would wager that if you guessed the top ten you would not be far off. Seven out of ten probably.

While we are on it, here is a list of states by obesity levels. Again, no real surprises. Although I will make a slight exception for Louisiana because there is so much good food to eat. However, that is probably not the root of the problem. Especially in Baton Rouge or Slidell.

And then there is this: a list of divorce rates by state. This data is from 2009. And here is a ranking of teen pregnancy rates by state. Scroll down to page 13-14.

Here are the 2009 STD rates by state. Here are the 2009 crime rankings.

Here is the chart that I really feel tells an important story.

Here is a map of the states that went Obama/Biden in 2008.

And here is a historical map.

Finally, here is one of my favorite cognitive biases.

I am not going to bother tying together the threads on this one. I think you get it. But then we should ask, who's opinions are overrepresented in the media and in the power structure? Why is that? Why do we have to give in on everything to people who seem to be wrong about everything?

One statistical note: Population is not evenly distributed and we should be careful of that because even when dealing with things on a per capita basis, it doesn't tell the whole story. Smaller states are bound to swing wild sometimes.

Given that, here is a list of states by 2007 population data. And by population density.

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Computer Canasta

As all three of you who follow this blog are well aware, I have a bit of a canasta problem. I don't mean my recent problem of losing every hand to DLB, no, a problem that predates that. A problem that began around the family dining table, carted back from somewhere out West on a dare from my Dad, the table, not the problem, and nurtured in many a borrowed dorm room. I have a mild addiction to the game of canasta. Its combination of luck and strategy of braggadocio and humbling retribution. Its symmetry of odd numbers. In Japan, outside of a small group trapped in a house during a typhoon, I have found no one to play canasta with. In comes the iPod. Now, I can play canasta whenever I want.

This brings its own issues however, it isn't the loss of conversation that a real human game brings, although that detracts from the experience, it is the absolute boneheaded way that your partner plays and the fact that their method can't be corrected through personal rebuke.

To be fair, I have noticed the same strategies from human opponents in Internet canasta; the same get the canasta and get out dash to the exit. To me the slowly building deck, the pot of soup that only one person will get to eat, is the fun of the game. Once you meet the challenge of melding and then get that deck, it is your obligation to stretch out the game and milk the other team for everything they have. Not so, says my digital teammate. The real challenge when you get up to melding 120 points is the meld itself. I can't see the logic in being roughly 1,000 points away from a victory, getting the difficult meld, getting a huge deck, having the other team in the position of every discard being a donation to your team fund, but deciding to go out after one canasta. A canasta that doesn't put you over the 5,000 point mark for the win. Now you have to struggle to meld 120 again and have no idea if you will get to pick up the deck.

Maybe it is the rule that you can go out with one canasta, natural or not. I am not a fan of that rule. I say two canastas where one must be natural is the only way to play. It makes for a more strategic game. Maybe it is just flawed programming. My teammate has been known to through a deuce on 6 eights for an unnatural and discard the eight in their hand on the same play. Or two lay down 3 sixes, which the opponent doesn't have, and then discard a Jack, which gives the other side a natural canasta.

Oh, well. That's what happens when you build robot people. Take that science!

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Kick Ass

I finally got a chance to see Kick Ass in a tiny, alternative movie theater in an upscale department store in Kyoto. I don't have many deep thoughts on it. I liked it. Natsuki's comment was, "I liked it. It was pretty shallow." I am not sure if those two quotes are connected by anything. What I did like about the movie was that it began with an interesting question and then answered it in a very real and understandable way.

The question was, "If super heroes are so popular, why don't more people try and be a super hero." The question was later answered by saying, and showing, that people don't because they find that they have people they care about and who care about them. That all of us have a responsibility to those people that would generally preclude running around and inviting death. It was no great coincidence that once the hero figured out that he like shagging his (insanely hot) girlfriend that he quickly lost the super hero bug. I thought where the movie succeeded was in showing the desire for super heroes not as a stupid fantasy, or a comical fantasy but, at its very heart, as a juvenile fantasy.

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Whither Come the Tides?

I know this has been covered to death. It has been covered like a sore knee with icey hot. It has been covered like a (reference to a Japanese genre of porn film removed by publisher.) However this give me an opportunity to reference one of my favorite blogs, Bad Astronomy, which you might or might not be familiar with, but you should be now.

Bad Astronomy on the ridiculous, ridiculous, O'Reilly argument that the tides prove God's existence. I think the worst part of his contention was how pleased he looked with it. Being content with a thought so incompletely form is a small window into how actually ignorant O'Reilly himself is.

Further, I notice that O'Reilly always uses the construction, "Never any miscommunication." Each time he makes his assertion. Is there an underlying reason for this?

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Lower the Retirement Age

If you have missed out on it for the last few months, James Galbraith has been talking up his plan to lower the retirement age. Most headlines that you can find on the subject characterize the plan as "radical." I can't see it as anything other than practical and am left scratching my head over why it is anything other than the prevailing belief. I am no genius economist, but this certainly doesn't fall into the "wow, I never thought of that category."

The central premise here is that lowering the retirement age clears off a section of the job market that young people in need of jobs can move in and fill, while older people, eager to retire can find their way out. It seems elementary to me. I don't know why it is radical and raising the age is a serious consideration. Actually, I do, it is because our dialogue can only function one way in America. Whether conscious or not, if it involves sacrifice and suffering to the middle class and below it is serious. If it requires anything of the upper classes, it is radical.

Something else important to notice in this conversation is that the "Life expectancy keeps rising" meme is only true of the white collar, upper classes. People with hard jobs and little or no medical coverage are not living longer. So they should suck it up and work two more painful years and then shut up and die with sub-standard health coverage and no end of life care discussions with their doctor.

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Total Employment

This is something to think on. I am pretty much in agreement on all counts. I think the most telling thing is the owner.manager belief that wages are paid to get you to show up and that is the obligation, not that we are in it together to create a stable society and without solid wages, their businesses will eventually suffer. They just get trained to squeeze the dry rag and complain that it isn't wet like it used to be.

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