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Good neighbors
Via email from Rolf:
Idaho has the fastest growing population in the U.S. in 2021:
Idaho had a population growth of 2.12%, growing from 1,789,060 to 1,826,913. People from all over the U.S. are being drawn to Idaho for its affordability and the strong job market. Additionally, Boise has a rapidly growing tech sector. Many people migrating to Idaho are from California, most likely due to its affordability (especially compared to California) and a much lower population density. Despite the state’s rapid growth, it is the 12th-smallest state in the U.S.
Idaho residents would prefer people, especially refuges colonizers from the socialist states, stay where they are and continue to provide a bad example for the rest of the country.
Quote of the day—bumbletron @citizenobscure
Stop granting these people the intellectual charity that they are arguing in good faith. They despise you. And they are at war with you. Rules of engagement are a disadvantage when your opponents have none.
bumbletron @citizenobscure
Tweeted on November 13, 2021
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Quote of the day—T.S. Eliot
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm; but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
T. S. Eliot
“The Cocktail Party” (1949), Act 1, scene 1.
[H/T to Phssthpok.
A search for the context of this quote led me to this gold mine of quotes created by Thomas Sowell.—Joe]
Not guilty on all charges
From The Hill:
A jury on Friday acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager who fatally shot two protesters and wounded a third, of murder and other felony charges.
Update: More information here: Jury finds Rittenhouse not guilty in Kenosha shootings
Quote of the day—Paul Johnson
The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false.
Paul Johnson
1980
The Recovery of Freedom by Paul Johnson
[Via Thomas Sowell.
My web wanderings for the original source resulted in stumbling across this web page. I now have Intellectuals in my Audible library.—Joe]
Skynet smiles
I sometimes joke about the Skynet of the Terminator movies. And occasionally I get serious about it. But this is the first time I ever had a strong Skynet inspired chill engulf me when read about a new technology:
The 2.6 trillion transistors in the WSE-2 are organized into 850,000 cores. According to Cerebras Systems, the chip’s cores are optimized for the specific types of mathematical operations that neural networks use to turn raw data into insights. The WSE-2 stores the data being processed by a neural network using 40 gigabytes of speedy onboard memory.
Cerebras Systems says that the WSE-2 has 123 times more cores and 1,000 times more on-chip memory than the closest GPU.
I’m not sure why that emotional response occurred. It was as if some threshold had not just been crossed, but leaped over by such a huge margin. The potential threat became, not just real, but something much greater than that. I can’t say that I know or even really suspect that is true. It was just an emotional reaction.
However, see also what Elon Musk has to say about AI:
Never forget that a computer’s attention span is no longer than its power cord.
Prepare appropriately.
Dark lightning
“Dark lightning” has apparently been known since 1994. However, I had not heard of it until recently. Here is what NASA said about it in 2013:
Researchers studying thunderstorms have made a surprising discovery: The lightning we see with our eyes has a dark competitor that discharges storm clouds and flings antimatter into space.
Storm clouds are sometimes producing anti-matter? Wow!
Quote of the day—BioViva Science
In fiction and the popular imagination the quest for youth is associated with a bevy of unsavory characters: pharaohs, vampires, and Saturday morning villains. Yet the real face of longevity research is us, all of us. All of us who have ever had to watch a friend or family member lose everything to an age-related illness, all of us who have had to sit by while a “natural” process executed an innocent person. What sort of perverse imagination could think anyone deserves to die in this way?
BioViva Science
Email sent on November 11, 2021
[I’ve had many people tell me something to the effect of there being something wrong with wanting to live for much longer than the currently expected lifetimes. The reasons were varied and none were compelling to me. Probably the best was something to the effect that there needed to be “room” for new people with new ideas to prevent a stagnation of civilization and possibly technological advancement.
The worst was rather personal.
As my mother was sliding away with Alzheimer I had a friend cheerfully tell me I should enjoy the natural aging. As that is what she did as her grandfather as his brain failed and he could no longer recognize family and friends or speak coherently.
I didn’t accept her advice then and I don’t now.
There is evidence scientists are close to effective treatments if not outright cures for dementia. With my family history I see this as a race between scientists and time. I have a rather keen interest in this race as my life has a much higher than acceptable risk of being decided by the winner.—Joe]
The political currency of the left
I’ve written about this before but the Rittenhouse trial provides us another data point.
One could assume, and rightly so, that from all the arson, looting, and thuggery involved in the “mostly peaceful” protest Rittenhouse attended the participants were no strangers to criminal activity. Usually the participants are masked and the general public doesn’t get to know their identities or criminal histories.
Because Rittenhouse ended up shooting three out of the four participants he had the closest contact with we learned much more about them that we normally learn.
Four is a small sample but that 100% of them had a serious criminal history tells us the odds of the majority of the complete set being non-criminals is very low. In fact, if we assume the sample was random (agreed, it is not true and it is biased in favor of my hypothesis) we can actually compute those odds. Given the assumption, the odds of 50% or more of them not being convicted criminals are 0.5 x 0.5 x 0.5 x 05 => 0.0625. That is one chance out of 16.
The political currency of the left is violence. It is part of their nature. That is why there are twice as many people in prison who identify as Democrats as all other political affiliations combined. Rittenhouse inadvertently helped us verify that.
Mob based political violence has been a tool of dirtbags since mankind invented politics. Quit pretending that the left doesn’t do it now.
It’s the same reason when after a summer of their continual fiery rampages with billions of dollars in damage and many lives lost, when the right got a little uppity on January 6th, the left absolutely lost their shit. That’s their game. That’s their tool. The left don’t share. So their rioters are heroic champions.
That Rittenhouse didn’t take a beating and discouraged their continued criminal activities is intolerable to them and is why he must be punished.
Quote of the day—breadmoth
So a child diddler, a domestic abuser, and a felon all walk into a bar. And Kyle says: “shots are on me”
breadmoth
November 8, 2021
Comment to FBI surveillance video shows Rittenhouse’s actions before he shot 3 people
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Jacob Sullum
Before he was elected mayor of New York City last week, Eric Adams raised some eyebrows by saying he would carry a handgun to protect himself and any houses of worship he might visit. While those remarks were controversial, the real scandal is that ordinary New Yorkers cannot legally carry guns for self-defense — a privilege that Adams takes for granted as a former police officer.
Jacob Sullum
November 10, 2021
Supreme Court should reject law that keeps ordinary people from carrying guns for self-defense
[Of course. The most foolish mistake they could possibly make would be to allow their subjects to posses arms.
See also here for more context and commentary.—Joe]
Vigilantes in Rittenhouse case (@anniewebb64, @hammeredsicko, @MckinnisAnthony)
Judge tosses underage weapons charge
The jury in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial was hearing competing narratives in closing arguments Monday after the judge dismissed a lesser weapons charged Rittenhouse faced.
Judge Bruce Schroeder dismissed a misdemeanor count Rittenhouse faced over whether he was a minor in possession of a firearm illegally. The defense argued the charge couldn’t apply because of what they said is an exception in the law. The prosecution objected, but the judge sided with the defense’s interpretation.
Quote of the day—Let People Vote @FlipBlue2022
Those with small genitalia compensate with guns.
Let People Vote @FlipBlue2022
Tweeted on November 11, 2021
[It’s not only another Markley’s Law Monday it’s another science denier!
Via a tweet from In Chains @InChainsInJail.—Joe]
Alan Dershowitz says Rittenhouse should sue
The best legal minds seem to be in agreement. Rittenhouse is not guilty and should be acquitted. Alan Dershowitz even agrees he should sue media outlets for their claims he murdered people:
Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz says Kyle Rittenhouse “should be acquitted” of killing two men and wounding a third during riots and protests last year in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and he should file defamation lawsuits against media outlets for claiming that he’s guilty of murder.
“If I were a juror, I would vote that there was reasonable doubt [and] that he did act in self-defense,” Dershowitz told Newsmax on Nov. 13.
Rittenhouse, if acquitted, should then “bring lawsuits” against corporate news outlets for articles claiming the teen engaged in “vigilante justice,” Dershowitz said.
“It’s CNN who is involved in vigilante justice. It’s The New Yorker that’s guilty of vigilante justice,” he said.
At a minimum I would add ABC and USA Today to the list of contributors to Rittenhouse’s yachts..
A little slow to catch up
Back in September of 2020 I noted the following:
The only potential charge that kept nagging at me until late today was the one about possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under 18 (a misdemeanor).
WI law is somewhat confusing here…
941.28 is about the possession of a short-barreled shotgun or short-barreled rifle. Hence, it does not apply to Rittenhouse.
29.304 is about restrictions on hunting and use of firearms by persons under 16 years of age. While some people might claim he was hunting I can’t imagine his activities met the legal definition of hunting. Hence, this section does not apply to Rittenhouse.
29.593 is about requirements for certificate of accomplishment to obtain hunting approval. I’m certain hunting licenses are not being issued by WI fish and game for the state terrorists. Hence, there cannot be issue with any failure to acquire a certificate to get approval for a license.
Hence, the “possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under 18” charge is bogus.
I find it amazing the opinion writers, lawyers, and the judge are only recently deciphering the actual wording of the law.
He seems nice
Via Jonathan Sullivan on Facebook in November of 2016:
This must have been someone from the political party that celebrates diversity.
Prepare and respond appropriately.
Highest paid
Via “Donaldo Seamus Baldwinski” on Facebook:
There is more than a little truth to this. And this is part of the reason the courts are so important to regaining some sanity in our political environment.
Quote of the day—David Hardy
My guess: if it happens again, the judge will grant the mistrial with prejudice and a lot of findings about the prosecution motives, and how they kept screwing up even after he warned them. If it doesn’t, the judge will wait for the verdict. If not guilty, no need to rule. If guilty, he grants a new trial.
David Hardy
November 11, 2021
Still more disasters in Rittenhouse case
[Interesting hypothesis.—Joe]