RIP Burt Reynolds

We're only here for a little while, and you've got to have some fun, right?  I don't take myself seriously, and I think the ones that do, there's some sickness with people like that.

-- Burton Leon "Burt" Reynolds (11 February 1936 - 6 September 2018), American actor, director and producer, "Burt Reynolds Has Made Mistakes. But He Regrets Nothing" in The New York Times (23 March 2018)

A Spark

We have been through much darker times than these.  And somehow each generation of Americans carried us through to the other side.  Not by sitting around and waiting for something to happen, not by leaving it to others to do something, but by leading that movement for change themselves.  And if you do that, if you get involved and you get engaged and you knock on some doors and you talk with your friends and you argue with your family members and you change some minds and you vote, something powerful happens.  Change happens.  Hope happens.  Not perfection, not every bit of cruelty and sadness and poverty and disease suddenly stricken from the Earth.  There will still be problems, but with each new candidate that surprises you with a victory that you supported, a spark of hope happens.

-- Former president Barack Obama, in a speech at Foellinger Hall on the campus of the University of Illinois in Urbana, 7 September 2018

Resistance

President Trump is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader.

It's not just that the special counsel looms large.  Or that the country is bitterly divided over Mr. Trump's leadership.  Or even that his party might well lose the House to an opposition hellbent on his downfall.

The dilemma -- which he does not fully grasp -- is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.

I would know.  I am one of them.

-- New York Times Op-Ed by a senior official in the Trump administration, published anonymously, 5 September 2018

2018 Mindset List

The 2018 Mindset list For the Class of 2022

* Human beings have always been living -- not just traveling -- in space.  The United States has always been in Afghanistan.  Same-sex marriage has always been legal somewhere and the once revolutionary "You've got mail" is almost forgotten.

* They have always been able to refer to Wikipedia.

* People loudly conversing with themselves in public are no longer thought to be talking to imaginary friends.

* They’ve grown up with stories about where their grandparents were on 11/22/63 and where their parents were on 9/11.

* There have always been space tourists willing to pay the price.

* There have always been more than a billion people in India.

* Films have always been distributed on the Internet.

http://themindsetlist.com

My Takeaway

My takeaway on this is there are a lot of idiots on the internet who come to conclusions over no factual evidence.

-- Reddit user Ravenchamps, after his account was incorrectly identified by far-right websites, including Infowars and Gateway Pundit, as belonging to the Jacksonville, FL video game tournament shooter who sometimes used the handle Ravens2012champs, NBC News, 28 August 2018

RIP John McCain

On the banks of the Ho Truc Bach Lake in downtown Hanoi.  Monument A stone sculpture of a person with arms raised and head lowered.  To the right of the person is USA and a star.  To the left of the person is the text in Vietnamese.

Approximate translation: "On 26 October 1967 near Truc Bach Lake in the capital, Hanoi, the citizens and military caught Pilot John Sidney McCain.  The US Navy Air Force Aviator was flying aircraft A4, which crashed near Yen Phu power station.  This was one of ten aircraft shot down that same day."

-- Description of the Vietnamese memorial to Senator John Sidney McCain III (29 August 1936 - 25 August 2018) at his Vietnam War crash site, courtesy of uswarmemorials.org

Murdered Your Best Friend

One reason why we Christians argue so much about which hymn to sing, which liturgy to follow, which way to worship is that the commandments teach us to believe that bad liturgy eventually leads to bad ethics.  You begin by singing some sappy, sentimental hymn, then you pray some pointless prayer, and the next thing you know you have murdered your best friend.

-- Stanley Hauerwas (24 July 1940-), Christian theologian and ethicist, currently the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School with a joint appointment at the Duke University School of Law, from The Truth About God: The Ten Commandments in Christian Life (1999, with William H. Willimon). Page: 89

Life Is

Life is a long lesson in humility.

-- Sir James Matthew Barrie (1860 - 1937), Scottish novelist and dramatist, more commonly known as J. M. Barrie; author of the play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up;  in The Little Minister (1891), Ch. 3 : The Night-Watchers

Billionaires

$126 on opening day

Kevin Spacey’s latest film, "Billionaire Boys Club," earned $126 at the box office on its opening day this past weekend.  And no, there are no digits or words missing from that sentence.  Spacey has been mired in accusations of sexual assault since the fall.  The film opened in eight theaters, for an average of $15.75 per theater, or less than the price of a single small popcorn (give or take).

-- The Hollywood Reporter, via FiveThirtyEight's Significant Digits newsletter, 20 August 2018

Because I Had To Use It

Truth isn't truth.

-- Presidential attorney Rudy Giuliani, in a from-the-hip effort to explain the risks of a perjury charge in a he-said / he-said dispute, NBC's Meet The Press with Chuck Todd, 19 August 2018

RIP Aretha Franklin

R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Find out what it means to me

-- Aretha Louise Franklin (25 March 1942 - 16 August 2018), American singer, songwriter, and pianist, known as The Queen of Soul

Unleashing Demons

Programming is like magic.  You write very specific instructions in arcane languages to invoke commands, and if you get it even a little bit wrong you risk unleashing demons and destroying everything.

-- Diana Carrier, writing on Twitter as @artemis_134, 23 June 2018

Deny Myself

I try to deny myself any illusions or delusions, and I think that this perhaps entitles me to try and deny the same to others, at least as long as they refuse to keep their fantasies to themselves.

-- Christopher Hitchens, (1949-2011), Anglo-American author, essayist, and social critic, Hitch-22: A Memoir (1976)

Every 10 Seconds

Pay-television subscriptions are down to 93.7 million from just shy of 101 million in 2011.  About 6 Americans cancel their paid television every single minute.

-- Gerry Smith, Bloomberg, via Walt Hickey's NumLock News, 10 August 2018

Tendency To Miss Lunch

Anyone who has lost track of time when using a computer knows the propensity to dream, the urge to make dreams come true and the tendency to miss lunch.

-- Tim Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955), inventor of the World Wide Web and director of the World Wide Web Consortium, which oversees its continued development, in an interview by Kris Herbst for Internet World (June 1994)

Not For Itself

The truth is, that most men want knowledge, not for itself, but for the superiority which knowledge confers; and the means they employ to secure this superiority, are as wrong as the ultimate object, for no man can ever end with being superior, who will not begin with being inferior.   

-- Sydney Smith (1771 - 1845), English clergyman, critic, philosopher, and wit, Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy (1849)

Wisdom And Efficiency

A country is considered the more civilised the more the wisdom and efficiency of its laws hinder a weak man from becoming too weak and a powerful one too powerful.

-- Primo Levi (1919 - 1987), Italian chemist and author of memoirs, short stories, poems, and novels; he joined an anti-Fascist group at the start of The Second World War but was captured and taken to the German concentration camp at Auschwitz.  Levi survived the Holocaust and returned to Italy, If This Is a Man (1947)

This Shit Is Expensive

My health is good.  And I've just reached a milestone or two. 

As many of you know, in late 2015 I was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and since I drew the short straw, I received multiple modalities of treatment.  First there was surgery, then radiation, and finally hormone therapy, which is slated to end after 6 more months.  The first milestone is 2 years of zeroes on tests where I hope to score zero (knock wood).

But this isn't really a post about my health, it's more about the cost of treatment.  I maintain a spreadsheet breaking down the costs for my treatment as submitted to insurance (not necessarily as paid).  This shit is expensive.  Here are some totals, by category:

Diagnosis   :  $16,000
Surgery     :  $79,000
Radiation   : $236,000
Hormone Tx  : $174,000

The final category, hormone treatment, will continue to accrue at ~$5500 per month for another 6 months.  With my most recent treatment, I hit my second milestone, the half million dollar mark.

Grand Total : $504,930.64

Apple Hits $1,000,000,000,000

How do you like them apples?

Apple just became the first American public company to cross $1 trillion in value.

The iPhone maker achieved that big number on Thursday when the stock passed $207.04 a share.  Its new all-time high is $208.38.  Apple is now up more than 20% this year.

-- CNN Money, 2 August 2018

Improbity

Origin of improbity (wickedness or dishonesty)

The English noun improbity comes from Latin improbitās (stem improbitāt-) "dishonesty, unscrupulousness," a derivative of improbus "inferior, improper."  The parts of improbus break down fairly easily: the prefix im- is a variant of the Latin negative prefix in- used before labial consonants (e.g., b, p) from the same Proto-Indo-European source as Germanic (English) un-, Greek a-, an-, and Sanskrit a-, an-.  The element pro- is from the very common (and complicated) Proto-Indo-European prefix and preposition per "forward, through, in front of, early, first."  The -bus is the same ending as in the Latin adjective superbus "proud, haughty" (the ultimate source of English superb) from the Proto-Indo-European root bheu- "to be, exist, grow," source of Germanic (English) be, Latin fuï "I was, have been" (the perfect of esse "to be"), and Slavic (Polish) być "to be."  The original sense of probus would be "going well, growing well," and improbus "not going well."  Improbity entered English in the late 16th century.

-- From dictionary.com

Fixed Stick

In the same way that a stick shift is a theft control device for a car, being fixed gear is a theft control device for a bicycle.

Good Tests

Good tests kill flawed theories; we remain alive to guess again.

-- Sir Karl Raimund Popper (1902 - 1994), Austrian and British social and political philosopher, as quoted in My Universe : A Transcendent Reality (2011) by Alex Vary, Part II

The Life That I Intended

I believe that the pursuit of truth and right ideas through honest debate and rigorous argument is a noble undertaking.  I am grateful to have played a small role in the conversations that have helped guide this extraordinary nation's destiny.  I leave this life with no regrets.  It was a wonderful life -- full and complete with the great loves and great endeavors that make it worth living.  I am sad to leave, but I leave with the knowledge that I lived the life that I intended.

-- Charles Krauthammer (13 March 1950 - 21 June 2018), American Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and political commentator, in his last column, announcing that he was dying of cancer, "A note to readers" in The Washington Post (8 June 2018)

Inversely

The intelligence of the driver is inversely proportional to the height of the vehicle.

-- Appleman's Law of Driver Intelligence, ca 1982

Wonderful Day

I wanted to win for my people in Colombia, after months of hard work.  All the support I've had from everyone, as well as my family and friends, really helped me today.  We were a bit down in the last days, so we needed this win.  It's a wonderful day today.

-- Nairo Quintana (Movistar), after winning Stage 17 of the 2018 Tour de France, Eurosport, 25 July 2018

Endangered

I think the Endangered Species Act is endangered.  They haven't been able to do this for 20 years, but this looks like their one chance.

-- Andrew Rosenberg, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists, referring to a flurry of measures in the last two weeks by Republican lawmakers determined to weaken the 45-year-old legislation, New York Times, 23 July 2018

Votaries

Hatred, as well as love, renders its votaries credulous.

-- Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 - 1778), Franco-Swiss philosopher of Enlightenment whose political ideas influenced the French Revolution, the development of socialist theory, and the growth of nationalism, Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1765-1770; published 1782), Book V

Reaction

[I]t is not the actions of an individual that define a group.  Rather, it is the group's reaction to those individual actions that define the group.

-- Unattributed, from a non-political discussion about group behavior, May 2018

15 Largest States

David Birdsell, dean of the school of public and international affairs at Baruch College, notes that by 2040, about 70% of Americans are expected to live in the 15 largest states.  They will have only 30 senators representing them, while the remaining 30% of Americans will have 70 senators representing them.

-- From "The Varied -- and Global -- Threats Confronting Democracy", Gerald Seib, Wall Street Journal, 21 November 2017

Strong And Powerful

... My people came to me, Dan Coates, came to me and some others they said they think it's Russia.  I have President Putin.  He just said it's not Russia.

I will say this: I don't see any reason why it would be.  But I really do want to see the server but I have, I have confidence in both parties. ...

I have great confidence in my intelligence people but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today and what he did is an incredible offer.

He offered to have the people working on the case come and work with their investigators, with respect to the 12 people.  I think that's an incredible offer.  Ok?  Thank you.

-- President Donald Trump, when asked, "President Putin denied having anything to do with the election interference in 2016.  Every U.S. intelligence agency has concluded that Russia did.  My first question for you sir is, who do you believe?", Helsinki, Finland, 16 July 2018

Avoid Thinking Politically

In my remarks, I have not identified the victims.  When we confront foreign interference in American elections, it is important for us to avoid thinking politically as Republicans or Democrats and instead to think patriotically as Americans.  Our response must not depend on which side was victimized.

The Internet allows foreign adversaries to attack America in new and unexpected ways.  Free and fair elections are always hard-fought and contentious.  There will always be adversaries who seek to exacerbate our divisions and try to confuse, divide, and conquer us.  So long as we are united in our commitment to the values enshrined in the Constitution, they will not succeed.

-- Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, in a statement announcing indictments against 12 Russian intelligence officers for election hacking, 13 July 2018

Woodchucks

My car was eaten by animals.

-- Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI), who recently discovered that woodchucks destroyed the wiring in the car he hasn't used since getting a security detail in 2015, at the Economic Club of Washington, 12 July 2018

Wild Boars

We are not sure if this is a miracle, a science, or what.  All the thirteen Wild Boars are now out of the cave.

-- Post on a Thai Navy SEAL Facebook page announcing the successful rescue of a group of Thai youths and their soccer coach from a flooded cave after 17 days, 10 July 2018

Set Aside Those Views

What matters is not a judge's political views, but whether they can set aside those views to do what the law and the Constitution require.

-- President Donald Trump, announcing Brett Kavanaugh as his nominee to the Supreme Court, 9 July 2018

Outstanding

I have accepted the resignation of Scott Pruitt as the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.  Within the Agency Scott has done an outstanding job, and I will always be thankful to him for this.  The Senate confirmed Deputy at EPA, Andrew Wheeler, will...

...on Monday assume duties as the acting Administrator of the EPA.  I have no doubt that Andy will continue on with our great and lasting EPA agenda.  We have made tremendous progress and the future of the EPA is very bright!

-- President Donald J. Trump on Twitter as @realDonaldTrump, 5 July 2018

Terrifying

There is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you're under your desk and then hear the gunman reload

-- @PhilDavis_CG on Twitter, Courts/Crime reporter Phil Davis for the Capital Gazette newspaper, describing a shooting at the newspaper that killed 5, 2:46 PM 28 June 2018

Notification Of My Decision

My dear Mr. President,

This letter is a respectful and formal notification of my decision, effective July 31 of this year, to end my regular active status as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, while continuing to serve in a senior status, as provided in 28 U.S.C 371 (b).

For a member of the legal profession it is the highest of honors to serve on this Court.  Please permit me by this letter to express my profound gratitude for having had the privilege to seek in each case how best to know, interpret, and defend the Constitution and the laws that must always conform to its mandates and promises.

Respectfully and sincerely,
Anthony M Kennedy

-- Resignation letter of Supreme Court Justice Anthony M Kennedy, 27 June 2018

Animus Rex

Taking all the relevant evidence together, a reasonable observer would conclude that the Proclamation was driven primarily by anti-Muslim animus, rather than by the Government's asserted national-security justifications.  Even before being sworn into office, then-candidate Trump stated that "Islam hates us," warned that "[w]e're having problems with the Muslims, and we're having problems with Muslims coming into the country," promised to enact a "total and complete shut down of Muslims entering the United States," and instructed one of his advisers to find a "lega[l]" way to enact a Muslim ban.  The President continued to make similar statements well after his inauguration, as detailed above. ...

Unlike in Masterpiece, where the majority consid­ered the state commissioners' statements about religion to be persuasive evidence of unconstitutional government, the majority here completely sets aside the President’s charged statements about Muslims as irrelevant.  That holding erodes the foundational principles of religious tolerance that the Court elsewhere has so emphatically protected, and it tells members of minority religions in our country "that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community." ...

I dissent.

-- Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Sonia Sotomayor, in her dissent to the majority opinion upholding President Trump's travel ban in Trump v Hawaii, 26 June 2018

Epidiolex

This is an important medical advance.  Because of the adequate and well-controlled clinical studies that supported this approval, prescribers can have confidence in the drug's uniform strength and consistent delivery.

-- FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb in a statement accompanying FDA approval of Epidiolex, a treatment for some forms of epilepsy, and the first FDA approved treatment derived from marijuana, CNN, 25 June 2018

Progress Of Science

As Justice Brandeis explained in his famous dissent, the Court is obligated -- as "[s]ubtler and more far-reaching means of invading privacy have become available to the Government" -- to ensure that the "progress of science" does not erode Fourth Amendment protections.  Here the progress of science has afforded law enforcement a powerful new tool to carry out its important responsibilities.  At the same time, this tool risks Government encroachment of the sort the Framers, "after consulting the lessons of history," drafted the Fourth Amendment to prevent.

We decline to grant the state unrestricted access to a wireless carrier's database of physical location information.  In light of the deeply revealing nature of CSLI, its depth, breadth, and comprehensive reach, and the inescapable and automatic nature of its collection, the fact that such information is gathered by a third party does not make it any less deserving of Fourth Amendment protection.

-- Chief Justice Roberts in the Supreme Court's majority opinion in Carpenter v US asserting that law enforcement needs a warrant to obtain cell phone location data, 22 June 2018

RIP Koko

The Gorilla Foundation is sad to announce the passing of our beloved Koko

Woodside, CA Koko -- the gorilla known for her extraordinary mastery of sign language, and as the primary ambassador for her endangered species -- passed away yesterday morning in her sleep at the age of 46.

Koko touched the lives of millions as an ambassador for all gorillas and an icon for interspecies communication and empathy.  She was beloved and will be deeply missed. ...

The foundation will continue to honor Koko’s legacy and advance our mission with ongoing projects including conservation efforts in Africa, the great ape sanctuary on Maui, and a sign language application featuring Koko for the benefit of both gorillas and children. ...

-- Press release from The Gorilla Foundation, 20 June 2018

Cheese Lover

Origin of turophile

Turophile a rare word not only in meaning but also in its spelling.  The combining form -phile is very common in English, but the combining form turo- is unique: it comes from the Greek noun tȳrós, which is nearly always Romanized as tyro-, as in the technical term tyrosine (an amino acid).  Tȳrós comes from a complicated Proto-Indo-European root tēu, tewe, teu, tū "to swell, coagulate, be or become thick": for the Greeks cheese was "thickened milk."  The Latin word būtȳrum "butter" is a borrowing from Greek boútyron "butter," literally "cow cheese."  Būtȳrum "butter" was adopted by the West Germanic languages, e.g., Old English butere, English butter, Dutch boter, Old High German butera, and German Butter.  Turophile entered English in the 20th century.

-- From Diciontary.com's Word of the Day for 19 June 2018

Most Important

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.

-- Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894 - 1963), British author, most famous for his novel Brave New World; grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley and younger brother of Julian Huxley, "A Case of Voluntary Ignorance" in Collected Essays (1959)

He Lived

My father didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.

-- Clarence Budington "Bud" Kelland (11 July 1881 - 18 February 1964), prolific American writer who once described himself as "the best second-rate writer in America"

13,000 Projects

Microsoft has purchased GitHub.  It cost the multinational behemoth $7.5 billion in stock to acquire the free code and data hosting service that had become the "de facto home of open source software development." More than 13,000 projects left GitHub within an hour of the news, migrating to its competitor, GitLab.

-- Motherboard, by way of FiveThirtyEight's Significant Digits newsletter, 5 June 2018

Joint Statement

President Donald J. Trump of the United States and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea have committed to cooperate for the development of new U.S.-DPRK relations and for the promotion of peace, prosperity, and security of the Korean Peninsula and of the world.

-- Closing paragraph of the Joint Statement of President Donald J. Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea at the Singapore Summit, 12 June 2018

Chief Deficiency

The chief deficiency I see in the skeptical movement is its polarization: Us vs. Them -- the sense that we have a monopoly on the truth; that those other people who believe in all these stupid doctrines are morons; that if you're sensible, you'll listen to us; and if not, to hell with you.  This is nonconstructive.  It does not get our message across.  It condemns us to permanent minority status.

-- Carl Sagan, in The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1996), p. 300

Thoughts On Anything

I don't believe Mrs. Trump has ever discussed her thoughts on anything with Mr. Giuliani.

-- Melania Trump's communications director Stephanie Grisham, in a statement after Rudy Giuliani said, "She believes her husband.  And she knows it's untrue," regarding President Trump's alleged tryst with Stormy Daniels, 7 June 2018

In One Place

What if we could get every one in the world together to record what they know in one place?

-- Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales (1966-), when recruiting Larry Sanger in January 2000, The early history of Wikipedia (part 1) (1:48), Larry Sanger, YouTube, 7 May 2010

Big Mac Diplomacy

No two countries that both have a McDonald's have ever fought a war against each other.

-- Thomas L. Friedman (1953-), American journalist, author, and three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, "Foreign Affairs Big Mac I", New York Times, 8 December 1996