Herd Immunity

Today I did my bit to contribute to herd immunity.  I'm happy to report that I got my first dose of the covid vaccine today.  It was Moderna, administered by the department of public health in Piatt County, where I reside.  I qualified with Illinois' expanded criteria as a 61-year-old with a history of cancer.  They have what seems to be a very efficient operation, with 72 injections per hour, for 3.5 hours per day, for 3 days this week (just over 750).  We have a population of only 16,000, and this is one among many vaccine drives.  The inoculation itself was unremarkable.

This Optimism Is Countered

Capitalism is a mode of socio-economic organization in which a class of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial institutions provide the capital with which businesses produce goods and services and employ workers.  In return the capitalist extracts profits from the goods created.  Capitalism is frequently seen as the embodiment of the market economy, and hence may result in the optimum distribution of scarce resources, with a resulting improvement for all; this optimism is countered by pointing to the opportunity for exploitation inherent in the system.

-- Simon Blackburn (1944 -), British academic philosopher known for his work in quasi-realism and his efforts to popularise philosophy, editor Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Lemma "Capitalism" (1996)

What You Choose

You are what you choose to defend.

-- Actor Don Cheadle, in the PBS series African-American Lives (2008)

No Successful Appeal

Our popular Government has often been called an experiment.  Two points in it our people have already settled -- the successful establishing and the successful administering of it.  One still remains -- its successful maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to overthrow it.  It is now for them to demonstrate to the world that those who can fairly carry an election can also suppress a rebellion; that ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors of bullets, and that when ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided there can be no successful appeal back to bullets; that there can be no successful appeal except to ballots themselves at succeeding elections.  Such will be a great lesson of peace, teaching men that what they can not take by an election neither can they take it by a war; teaching all the folly of being the beginners of a war.

-- Abraham Lincoln (12 February 1809 - 15 April 1865), 16th President of the United States, Address to Congress (4 July 1861)

Frighteningly Confused

Notwithstanding that his beliefs were not rationally based; defendant was not acting out of criminal intent.  Defendant sought no personal nor pecuniary gain.  Rather defendant acted out of the delusional belief that he was a "patriot" protecting his country.  Defendant is former military who is sworn to protect his country.  He was responding to the entreaties of the then commander in chief, President Trump.  The President maintained that the election had been stolen and it was the duty of loyal citizens to "stop the steal."  Admittedly there was no rational basis for the claim, but it is apparent defendant was one of millions of Americans who were misled by the President's deception.  Defendant did not act out of criminal intent but out of conscience, albeit a frighteningly confused and distorted sense of conscience.  Hopefully, as a result of this experience he has learned not be so gullible and will not be so easily duped again.  

Press accounts of the underlying event are rampant with the universal claim by all protesters that they were acting at the behest of President Trump to save the country from a stolen election.  Many of those who heeded his call will be spending substantial portions if not the remainder of their lives in prison as a consequence.  Meanwhile Donald Trump resumes his life of luxury and privilege.

-- Defendant's Motion for Modification of Bond in the case of United States v Dominic Pezzola, 10 February 2021 (h/t Politico)

Rendered Himself Obnoxious

History furnishes one example only of a first Magistrate being formally brought to public Justice.  Every body cried out against this as unconstitutional.  What was the practice before this in cases where the chief Magistrate rendered himself obnoxious?  Why recourse was had to assassination in which he was not only deprived of his life but of the opportunity of vindicating his character.  It would be the best way therefore to provide in the Constitution for the regular punishment of the Executive when his misconduct should deserve it, and for his honorable acquittal when he should be unjustly accused.

-- Benjamin Franklin, arguing in favor of an impeachment clause, Record of the Federal Constitutional Convention of 1787, at 65, edited by Max Farrand (h/t John Dickerson)

Differently Right

Philosophical Aside 

In its OO [Object-Oriented] programming, Perl gives you a lot of freedom: the ability to do things more than one way (you can bless any data type to make an object), to inspect and modify classes you didn't write (adding functions to their packages), and to use these to write tangled pits of misery -- if that's really what you want to do.  

Less flexible programming languages are usually more restrictive.  Many are fanatically devoted to enforced privacy, compile-time type checking, complex function signatures, and a smorgasbord of other features.  Perl doesn't provide these things with objects because it doesn't provide them anywhere else, either.  Keep this in mind if you find Perl's object-oriented implementation weird.  You only think it's weird because you're used to another language's philosophy.  Perl's treatment of OO is perfectly sensible -- if you think in Perl.  For every problem that you can't solve by writing Perl as though it were Java or C++, there is a native Perl solution that works perfectly.  

Perl's objects are not wrong; they're differently right.

-- Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington in "Perl Cookbook", Chapter 13. "Classes, Objects, and Ties", O'Reilly (1998)

Dishonest Force

It strikes me that the mistake, the original sin for many in Washington, was in pretending that the Campaign Trump of 2016 was not the true Trump, when in reality they knew there was never going to be a governing Trump, never going to be a Presidential Trump.  What he said in all those rallies and tweets was his authentic self: foul-mouthed, bullying, self-obsessed, casually racist, and capable not only of breathtaking lies but of repeating them over and over until they became a strategy unto themselves. ...  The lies were the metastatic cancer of his Presidency. Many in his Republican base believed them; his party leadership succumbed to their dishonest force.

-- Susan B. Glasser, "Obituary for a Failed Presidency", The New Yorker, 20 January 2021

Attention

Attention is a limited resource, so pay attention to where you pay attention.  

-- Howard Rheingold (1947 -), American critic, writer, and teacher known for his specialties on the cultural, social, and political implications of modern communication media such as the Internet, mobile telephony, and virtual communities (a term he is credited with inventing), "The Virtual Community" (1993)

An Invitation

Dear President Trump,

Two days ago, you filed an Answer in which you denied many factual allegations set forth in the article of impeachment. You have thus attempted to put critical facts at issue notwithstanding the clear and overwhelming evidence of your constitutional offense. In light of your disputing these factual allegations, I write to invite you to provide testimony under oath, either before or during the Senate impeachment trial, concerning your conduct on January 6, 2021. ... We would be pleased to arrange such testimony at a mutually convenient time and place.

[T]he Supreme Court held just last year that you were not immune from legal process while serving as President -- so there is no doubt that you can testify in these proceedings. Indeed, whereas a sitting President might raise concerns about distraction from their official duties, that concern is obviously inapplicable here. We therefore anticipate your availability to testify.

If you decline this invitation, we reserve any and all rights, including the right to establish at trial that your refusal to testify supports a strong adverse inference regarding your actions (and inaction) on January 6, 2021.

-- Invitation from House impeachment managers for former President Trump to testify at his Senate trial, 4 February 2021

Perfect Alignment

It's remarkable how fast science can happen when everyone is focused on the same problem.  This devastating pandemic, with all its worldwide chaos and horror, has at the same time created a perfect alignment of technology, science, need, and opportunity.  The global impact of Covid-19 could change science forever.

-- Jane Metcalfe, co-founder and former president of Wired Ventures, creator and original publisher of the magazine Wired, Covid-19 Is Accelerating Human Transformation -- Let's Not Waste It, Wired (5 July 2020)

Student Pathway

We all have to be students, who are often wrong and always in doubt, while a professor is sometimes wrong and never in doubt.  Please join me on my student pathway.

-- Gerald Buckberg (1935 - 2018), Distinguished Professor of Surgery, Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery Vol. 124, No. 5, "Basic science review: The helix and the heart" (November 2002)

Youthful Folly

It is not I who seek the young fool;

The young fool seeks me.

-- I Ching, also known as the Book of Changes, a Chinese classical text believed to have been written by Fu Xi (c. 2800 BCE)

Busiest People

The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time.  It is on the contrary born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life.  When we do not do the one thing that we ought to do, we have no time for anything else -- we are the busiest people in the world.

-- Eric Hoffer (1902 - 1983), American writer on social and political philosophy, Reflections on the Human Condition (1973), section 156

GameStop

The banks have given us 25% interest rates on credit cards.  They have screwed us on student loans that we can never get out from under.  Then this guy walks into my office and says those same banks got greedy, they lost track of the market, and I can profit off of their stupidity?  Fuck yeah, I want him to be right!

-- Steve Carell, as Mark Baum in the film The Big Short (2015), based on the book by Michael Lewis

Individuals Frustrated

The Acting Secretary of Homeland Security has issued a National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS) Bulletin today after consultation with the intelligence community and law enforcement partners.  There is currently a heightened threat environment across the United States that is likely to persist over the coming weeks.  DHS does not have any information to indicate a specific, credible plot; however, violent riots have continued in recent days and we remain concerned that individuals frustrated with the exercise of governmental authority and the presidential transition, as well as other perceived grievances and ideological causes fueled by false narratives, could continue to mobilize a broad range of ideologically-motivated actors to incite or commit violence.

-- National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin issued by the Department of Homeland Security, 27 January 2021

Responsibleness

Freedom, however, is not the last word.  Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth.  Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness.  In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness.

-- Viktor Emil Frankl (1905 - 1997), Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, and philosopher, (1956) Man's Search for Meaning, p. 209-210

To Say Of What Is That It Is

To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false; while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true.

-- Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC), Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece, Definition of Truth, Metaphysics 1011b25, as quoted by David, Marion "Correspondence Theory of Truth" in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2005)

RIP Henry Aaron

The way I see it, it's a great thing to be the man who hit the most home runs, but it's a greater thing to be the man who did the most with the home runs he hit.  So as long as there's a chance that maybe I can hammer out a little justice now and then, or a little opportunity here and there, I intend to do as I always have -- keep swinging.

-- Henry Louis "Hank" Aaron (5 February 1934 - 22 January 2021), American Major League Baseball (MLB) right fielder for 21 seasons for the Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves in the National League (NL) and two seasons for the Milwaukee Brewers in the American League (AL), from 1954 through 1976.  At Atlanta's Fulton-County Stadium on Monday 8 April 1974, Aaron hit his 715th career home run, putting him in first place on the all-time list ahead of Babe Ruth.  He held the MLB record for career home runs for 33 years, and still held several MLB offensive records at the time of his death.  He hit 24 or more home runs every year from 1955 through 1973, and was one of only two players to hit 30 or more home runs in a season at least fifteen times, I Had a Hammer : The Hank Aaron Story (1990), Ch. 1

Work Of Noble Note

[Y]ou and I are old; 

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;

Death closes all: but something ere the end, 

Some work of noble note, may yet be done

-- James Joyce (1882 - 1941), Irish novelist, short story writer, poet, teacher, and literary critic, Ulysses (1922), h/t Clare Malone

The Hill We Climb

When day comes we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?  The loss we carry, a sea we must wade.  We've braved the belly of the beast, we've learned that quiet isn't always peace and the norms and notions of what just is, isn't always justice.  And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it, somehow we do it, somehow we've weathered and witnessed a nation that isn't broken but simply unfinished. ...

So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left, with every breath from my bronze, pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one, we will rise from the golden hills of the West, we will rise from the windswept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution, we will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the Midwestern states, we will rise from the sunbaked South, we will rebuild, reconcile, and recover in every known nook of our nation in every corner called our country our people diverse and beautiful will emerge battered and beautiful, when the day comes we step out of the shade aflame and unafraid, the new dawn blooms as we free it, for there is always light if only we're brave enough to see it, if only we're brave enough to be it.

-- Amanda Gorman (1998-), America's first Youth Poet Laureate, "The Hill We Climb", read by Gorman at the inauguration of President Joseph R Biden, Jr as 46th President of the United States, 20 January 2021

Beginning

The White Rabbit put on his spectacles.  "Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?" he asked.

"Begin at the beginning," the King said gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop."

-- Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832 - 1898), British author, mathematician, and Anglican clergyman, writing under the pen name Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)

Majestic Shores

Before we reach the majestic shores of the Promised Land, there is a frustrating and bewildering wilderness ahead.  We must still face prodigious hilltops of opposition and gigantic mountains of resistance.  But with patient and firm determination we will press on until every valley of despair is exalted to new peaks of hope, until every mountain of pride and irrationality is made low by the leveling process of humility and compassion; until the rough places of injustice are transformed into a smooth plane of equality of opportunity; and until the crooked places of prejudice are transformed by the straightening process of bright-eyed wisdom.

-- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (15 January 1929 - 4 April 1968), American Baptist minister, doctor, civil rights activist, and 1964 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, "The Quest for Peace and Justice", Nobel Lecture delivered in the Auditorium of the University of Oslo (11 December 1964)

Full Import

We received a lengthy letter from Dominion's defamation lawyers explaining why they believe that their client has been the victim of defamatory statements.  Having considered the full import of the letter, we have agreed to their request that we publish the following statement:

American Thinker and contributors published pieces that falsely accuse Dominion Voting Systems of conspiring to steal the November 2020 election from Donald Trump.  These pieces rely on discredited sources who have peddled debunked theories about Dominion's supposed ties to Venezuela, fraud on Dominion's machines that resulted in massive vote switching or weighted votes, and other claims falsely stating that there is credible evidence that Dominion acted fraudulently.

These statements are completely false and have no basis in fact.  

It was wrong for us to publish these false statements.  We apologize to Dominion for all of the harm this caused them and their employees.  We also apologize to our readers for abandoning 9 journalistic principles and misrepresenting Dominion's track record and its limited role in tabulating votes for the November 2020 election.  We regret this grave error. 

-- Thomas Lifson, Editor and Publisher at AmericanThinker.com, in a statement of abject capitulation to Dominion's lawyers, who must have a pretty good case for defamation, 15 January 2021

Dared To Doubt

We should never believe anything we have not dared to doubt.

-- Christina (1626 - 1689), Queen of Sweden from 1632 until her abdication in 1654, Maxims of a Queen, selected and translated by Una Birch (London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1907), p. 27

Queens Man Impeached -- Again

A Queens-born real estate developer made history Wednesday when he became the first U.S. president ever impeached twice by the House of Representatives.

Donald Trump, a 74-year-old lame duck Republican, is accused of inciting a lethal mob of far-right supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol in order to prevent Congress from certifying the results of his resounding loss in the November 2020 election.  President-elect Joe Biden, a Democrat, recorded 306 electoral votes to Trump's 232.

With Trump's encouragement, Confederate-flag bearing white supremacists and fascist agitators besieged the Capitol, threatening to kill Vice President Mike Pence, breaking into lawmakers' offices, stealing public property and smearing feces on the wall.

Ten Republican members of Congress joined the Democratic majority in voting to impeach the Jamaica Estates native for the second time.

In December 2019, Trump became the third president impeached by Congress -- and the first from Queens. 

-- David Brand, "Queens man impeached -- again", Queens Daily Eagle, 13 January 2021

Please Wear A Mask Redux

Here's the trvth I posted on 24 November (just 7 weeks ago today), updated with new numbers.  Parenthetical old numbers remain for (frightening) comparison.  It's hard to believe this isn't the top news story, until one considers the actual top news story.

In the last week (604,800 seconds), through this morning at midnight, the United States saw 1,762,903 (1,221,179) new covid cases.  For a little perspective, that's 2.91 (2.02) positive cases *per second* for a week.

Over the same period, there was a covid death in the United States every 27.55 (55.90) seconds.

Last Friday 8 January (20 November), there were 303,022 (204,580) new cases and 3893 (1968) new deaths.  That works out to 3.5 (2.4) new cases per second over a 24-hour period, with a death every 22 (44) seconds.

I see the weekly death rate has doubled (10,833 to 21,950 deaths), while the new-case rate has increased only ~50% (1,221,179 to 1,762,903 cases).  That doesn't sound good either.

Please wear a mask around others.

Absurdities And Atrocities

Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.  If you do not use the intelligence with which God endowed your mind to resist believing impossibilities, you will not be able to use the sense of injustice which God planted in your heart to resist a command to do evil.  Once a single faculty of your soul has been tyrannized, all the other faculties will submit to the same fate.

-- François-Marie Arouet (1694 - 1778), most famous under his pen name Voltaire, French writer and philosopher, Questions sur les miracles (1765)

Basic Bargain Of Democracy

In concise summary, on Wednesday the leader of the executive branch incited a crowd to march on the legislative branch.  The express goal was to demand that Congress and Vice President Mike Pence reject electors from enough states to deny Mr. Biden an Electoral College victory.  When some in the crowd turned violent and occupied the Capitol, the President caviled and declined for far too long to call them off.  When he did speak, he hedged his plea with election complaint.

If Mr. Trump wants to avoid a second impeachment, his best path would be to take personal responsibility and resign.  This would be the cleanest solution since it would immediately turn presidential duties over to Mr. Pence.  And it would give Mr. Trump agency, a la Richard Nixon, over his own fate.

We know an act of grace by Mr. Trump isn’t likely.  In any case this week has probably finished him as a serious political figure.  He has cost Republicans the House, the White House, and now the Senate.  Worse, he has betrayed his loyal supporters by lying to them about the election and the ability of Congress and Mr. Pence to overturn it.  He has refused to accept the basic bargain of democracy, which is to accept the result, win or lose.

It is best for everyone, himself included, if he goes away quietly.

-- Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal, "Donald Trump's Final Days" (no pay wall - they want you to read it), 7 January 2021

Seditious Conspiracy

18 U.S.C. § 2384 - U.S. Code - Unannotated Title 18.  Crimes and Criminal Procedure, section 2384.  Seditious conspiracy

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

-- Formal definition of "Seditious Conspiracy" in the federal criminal code, courtesy of findlaw

Sedition

[I]f Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election.  All he has to do.  This is from the number one or certainly one of the top constitutional lawyers in our country.  He has the absolute right to do it.  We're supposed to protect our country, support our country, support our constitution, and protect our constitution.  States want to revote.  The States got defrauded.  They were given false information.  They voted on it.  Now they want to recertify.  They want it back.  All Vice-President Pence has to do is send it back to the States to recertify, and we become president, and you are the happiest people. ...

We're going to have to fight much harder and Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us.  If he doesn't, that will be a sad day for our country because you're sworn to uphold our constitution.  Now it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy.  After this, we're going to walk down and I'll be there with you.  We're going to walk down.  We're going to walk down any one you want, but I think right here.  We're going walk down to the Capitol, and we're going to cheer on our brave senators, and congressmen and women.  We're probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you'll never take back our country with weakness.  You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.

-- Outgoing president Donald Trump, in a speech (rev.com) that was followed by a march on the Capitol by thousands of rioters who interrupted Congress, vandalized property, and engaged in violence that resulted in injuries and at least one death, 6 January 2021

Oath Of Office

Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation: -- "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

-- Presidential oath of office, from the Constitution of the United States, Article II, Section 1

This oath differs from the oath of office used since 1884 by the vice president, senators, representatives, and other federal employees, including your humble editor 4 decades past, to wit, "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God."

Give Me A Break

And the people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry.  And there's nothing wrong with saying that, you know, that you've recalculated. ...  So what are we going to do here, folks?  I only need 11,000 votes.  Fellas, I need 11,000 votes.  Give me a break.  You know, we have that in spades already.  Or we can keep it going, but that's not fair to the voters of Georgia because they're going to see what happened, and they're going to see what happened.

-- Another perfect phone call from Donald Trump, this time to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, asking the latter to fraudulently overturn results of the November presidential election, 2 January 2021

Let's Go Exploring

It's a magical world, Hobbes, ol' buddy. ...  Let's go exploring! 

-- William B. "Bill" Watterson II (5 July 1958 -), final strip of Calvin and Hobbes, published 31 December 1995

Happy New Year!

The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year.  It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes.  Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions.  Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective.

-- Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874 - 1936), British writer, A Chesterton Calendar Compiled from the Writings of G.K.C. (1911)

Scramble For Money

Let's put a limit to the scramble for money. ...  Having got what you wanted, you ought to begin to bring that struggle to an end.

-- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65 - 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace, Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus, Satires, Book I, Satire i, N. Rudd, trans. (2005), v. 92-94.

At A Standstill

Every optimist moves along with progress and hastens it, while every pessimist would keep the world at a standstill.  The consequence of pessimism in the life of a nation is the same as in the life of the individual.  Pessimism kills the instinct that urges men to struggle against poverty, ignorance, and crime, and dries up all the fountains of joy in the world.

-- Helen Adams Keller (1880 - 1968), American writer and social activist, Optimism (1903)

Moment Of Reflection

Most of the time man does not do what he wills, but what he has willed.  Through his decisions, he always gives himself only a certain direction, in which he then moves until the next moment of reflection.  We do not will continuously, we only will intermittently, piece by piece.  We thus save ourselves from willing: principle of the economy of the will.  But the higher man always experiences this as thoroughly immoral.

-- Otto Weininger (1880 - 1903), Austrian philosopher, Collected Aphorisms, as translated by Martin Dudaniec & Kevin Solway

Happy Christmas

So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
A new one just begun

And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear ones
The old and the young

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fears

-- John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Happy Christmas (War Is Over), Imagine (1971)

Ideal Christmas

There is no ideal Christmas; only the one Christmas you decide to make as a reflection of your values, desires, affections, traditions.

-- Bill McKibben (1960 -), American environmentalist and writer on global warming, alternative energy, and more localized economies, in Hundred Dollar Holiday: The Case For a More Joyful Christmas

[Tonight there are 23 stockings hanging above the fireplace. My five daughters aren't here, but I've spoken with them all in the last 24 hours. Likely I'll speak to them all again in the next 24 hours. Likewise, my three brothers. This Christmas is sufficiently ideal. Merry Christmas.]

Lights, Please

"Lights, please."

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

[Linus picks up his blanket and shuffles off-stage.]

-- Christopher Shea as Linus van Pelt, sharing the true meaning of Christmas in "A Charlie Brown Christmas" (1965)

I Heard A Bird Sing

I heard a bird sing

  In the dark of December.

A magical thing

  And sweet to remember.

"We are nearer to Spring

  Than we were in September,"

I heard a bird sing

  In the dark of December.

-- Oliver Herford (1863 - 1935), American humorous poet and illustrator, "I Heard a Bird Sing" from Welcome Christmas! A Garland of Poems (Viking Press, 1955)

We Need Bridges

Christmas is a bridge.  We need bridges as the river of time flows past.  Today's Christmas should mean creating happy hours for tomorrow and reliving those of yesterday.

-- Gladys Taber (1899 - 1980), American author, Still Cove Journal (1981)

Strict And Liberal

People understand instinctively that the best way for computer programs to communicate with each other is for each of the them to be strict in what they emit, and liberal in what they accept.  The odd thing is that people themselves are not willing to be strict in how they speak, and liberal in how they listen.  You'd think that would also be obvious. 

-- Larry Wall (1954 -), programmer, best known as the creator of the Perl programming language, "2nd State of the Onion", on Jon Postel's Robustness Principle applied to human communication

Compromised

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is aware of compromises of U.S. government agencies, critical infrastructure entities, and private sector organizations by an advanced persistent threat (APT) actor beginning in at least March 2020.  This APT actor has demonstrated patience, operational security, and complex tradecraft in these intrusions.  CISA expects that removing this threat actor from compromised environments will be highly complex and challenging for organizations.

CISA has determined that this threat poses a grave risk to the Federal Government and state, local, tribal, and territorial governments as well as critical infrastructure entities and other private sector organizations.  CISA advises stakeholders to read this Alert and review the enclosed indicators.

-- The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Alert (AA20-352A) Advanced Persistent Threat Compromise of Government Agencies, Critical Infrastructure, and Private Sector Organizations, 17 December 2020

Major Leaguers

Commissioner of Baseball Robert D. Manfred, Jr. announced today that Major League Baseball is correcting a longtime oversight in the game's history by officially elevating the Negro Leagues to "Major League" status.  During this year's centennial celebration of the founding of the Negro Leagues, MLB is proud to highlight the contributions of the pioneers who played in these seven distinct leagues from 1920-1948.  With this action, MLB seeks to ensure that future generations will remember the approximately 3,400 players of the Negro Leagues during this time period as Major League-caliber ballplayers.  Accordingly, the statistics and records of these players will become a part of Major League Baseball's history.

All of us who love baseball have long known that the Negro Leagues produced many of our game's best players, innovations and triumphs against a backdrop of injustice.  We are now grateful to count the players of the Negro Leagues where they belong: as Major Leaguers within the official historical record.

-- Commissioner of Baseball Robert D. Manfred, Jr. in an official statement, "MLB to Elevate the Negro Leagues to Major League Status", 16 December 2020

Force Your Way In

Do not merely practice your art, but force your way into its secrets; it deserves that, for only art and science can exalt man to divinity.

-- Ludwig van Beethoven (baptized 17 December 1770, died 26 March 1827), German composer and pianist who lived predominantly in Vienna, Austria, Letter to Emilie, 17 July 1812, Quoted in Musical news, Vol. 3 (1892), p. 627

Operation Warp Speed

Congratulations to President Donald Trump who recognized at the outset that Operation Warp Speed was a necessary, though tragically not by itself sufficient, response to the pandemic.  Today, that effort paid off with the first inoculations of Americans with a new vaccine, developed in under a year.  Science and technology came together to make this happen, and I'm impressed.

Mockery

I object, Your Honor!  This trial is a travesty!  It's a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham!

-- Woody Allen (1 December 1935 -), American film director, writer, and actor, as Fielding Mellish in Bananas (1971)

Science And Magic

While science and technology play critical roles in sustaining modern civilization, they are not part of our culture in the sense that they are not commonly studied or well comprehended.  Neither the potential nor the limitations of science are understood so that what can be achieved and what is beyond reach are not comprehended.  The line between science and magic becomes blurred so that public judgements on technical issues can be erratic or badly flawed.  It frequently appears that some people will believe almost anything.  Thus judgements can be manipulated or warped by unscrupulous groups.  Distortions or outright falsehoods can come to be accepted as fact.

-- Henry Way Kendall (1926 - 1999), American particle physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1990 jointly with Jerome Isaac Friedman and Richard E. Taylor, A Distant Light : Scientists and Public Policy (2000) Introduction, p. 4