I’m going to Orlando. I hope to beat people who are better than me. All events at the US Dance Championships are live streamed, but you have to pay. You would be crazy to live stream the heats I’m in. Only the pro-pro heats are worth it. Heat lists are here. I’m only dancing smooth. I would have danced Rhythm, but things happened. (They involve an air conditioner breaking, a land lord not being willing to fix for the studio owner who had a month to month lease, the studio owner deciding she might as well find a new place… so my Rhythm pro and have a gap in our ability to train. Smooth pro and I train elsewhere. )
The results will be posted– but the link won’t be available for a while.
Tomorrow some people will be dancing, but I’ll be flying down to “the house of the mouse”.
Open Thread.
From Google AI:
Here are the cases since 2000 in which a mass shooter was identified as transgender or non-binary:
Robin Westman (Minneapolis, Minnesota; August 2025): The shooter at Annunciation Catholic School, who killed two children and injured 18 other people before dying by suicide, was a transgender woman named Robin Westman. Court records showed a legal name change in 2020 from Robert to Robin, a petition filed by Westman’s mother to reflect her daughter’s female identity.
Aiden Hale (Nashville, Tennessee; March 2023): Aiden Hale, a transgender man, killed three children and three adults at The Covenant School. Police stated that Hale was a former student at the school, and authorities had varied in how they referred to Hale’s gender identity and pronouns. Hale was killed by police.
Anderson Lee Aldrich (Colorado Springs, Colorado; November 2022): The shooter at Club Q, an LGBTQ+ nightclub, killed five people and injured 19. During legal proceedings, Aldrich’s defense lawyers claimed the attacker was non-binary and used they/them pronouns, but many experts and some court testimony viewed this as disingenuous. Aldrich had a history of anti-LGBTQ+ remarks and was charged with hate crimes.
Alec McKinney (Highlands Ranch, Colorado; May 2019): Alec McKinney, a transgender male, was one of two perpetrators in a shooting at STEM School Highlands Ranch. The attack left one student dead and eight wounded.
They didn’t have a fake Dem primary in Florida, they literally didn’t have one at all. The primary ballot had no Dem candidates on it.
Both parties more or less squash dissent on an incumbent run but this was pretty explicit. Saving their money and showing unity. What is particularly galling and outright funny was all the moralizing about the “danger to democracy” along the way. What?
Trump had to run a gauntlet of competition on his 3rd run in the primary and it likely strengthened his candidacy. The legacy media was arguing with themselves over whether they should cover him at all. It was so weird.
SteveF,
But then they need to see that. Right now everyone can grumble and imagine they’d win if only their faction had been picked by the big wigs. I mean, the know that’s how their candidates are being picked!
Tom,
I think they often skip the primary when they have a sitting president? Or…not?
But they had ” 775 unpledged delegates (commonly known as superdelegates”
“Unpledged delegates represented about 16% of the overall convention votes (4,754 delegates, 4,750 votes), though reforms severely restricted their ability to vote on a first ballot,[4] and came from several categories of prominent Democratic Party members:[note 1]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automatic_delegates_at_the_2020_Democratic_National_Convention
Having 16% superdelegates is a lot. They evidently now don’t vote on the first vote. Still…
By the way guys, Joshua still wants to debate
“Lucia –
The main issue, contrary to your claim that ‘we simply don’t know numbers,’ is that we know enough about the numbers to confirm the sample sizes of transgender individuals and mass shooters are extremely small. ….”
As far as I’m concerned, he can discuss it elsewhere. He can tell us what his null is, what power he thinks we must have, what the “correct sample” is, what the true % of trans in the population is yada, yada….
I really don’t understand how commenting here can simultaneously be so desirable that Joshua can’t leave it alone and at the same time so worthless that he can’t bring himself to abide with reasonable respect towards our hostess and exercising reasonable self restraint. I get that it sounds kooky when I speculate that there are people out there who just want to destroy stuff, believe me. It sounds kooky to me too. It’s behavior like this though that leaves me groping for explanation.
I will say it reminds me of this Hamas satire a little. Whatever.
I have a pretty high tolerance for opposing views and can somewhat tolerate dimwits, but I refuse to communicate with Joshua. I thank Lucia for keeping him out.
(I’m breaking Mikes rule here…. Don’t feed the troll.)
mark
Ditto.
On the subject of relative numbers, I came across this article. A [Republican] guest apparently had been trying to establish a connection to trans, and the CNN anchor “point[ed] out that of the 32 school mass shootings that have occurred in the country since 2020, only two others were carried out by perpetrators who identified as transgender or gender-diverse.” Followed by “It’s simple math. Two of 32”.
I’m not endorsing a link (or lack thereof) between gun violence and trans, but I think (1) an interviewer should be able to go from “2 others” to “3, including this one” without any cue cards, and (2) 3 of 32 (maybe 33?) is likely above the general-population proportion of trans, so it’s not exactly a rebuttal of any link. Just say, “it’s not an overwhelming percentage”, discount any positive or negative correlation from such small numbers, and move on.
Well I’m just really confused about the recent dramatic increase in female school shooters. What does this say about the stereotype of all school shooters being white males? I don’t know why this angle is uninteresting to the experts.
Educated, dare I say credentialed, people, might suggest that the almost exclusive domain of school shootings being male doesn’t stop if you declare yourself a female. This could lend credence to this being a biological phenomena, not social, that discriminates males from females. But that would be crazy talk.
I look forward to seeing the CNN panel or NPR discuss it.
Harold
32? And Dave JR got this
I guess both can be true if fewer than 2 were killed in 20 of the shootings. But rarely do people call something with 1 death a mass shooting.
Lucia,
Good hunting!
Hunting? I’ll be dancing!!
Harold
Two others? So two others plus 1 is 3…. right?
Even if it were 3 of 33, that is still a much higher than expected incidence for “gender confused” individuals, even if the gender confused represent 3% of the entire population….. something that seems implausible. Possible it is just random chance? Sure. It is also possible to roll 12 with two dice 3 times in a row….. just not likely.
My guess is that mentally ill people do most of the mass school shootings, and the gender-confused are probably a little over-represented among the mentally ill. YMMV.
LOL. Good dancing is what I meant to say. I have Tourette Syndrome or something.
Hunting for trophies?
OMG Joshua! Hahahaha!!!! I’m dying here.
Mark Bofill,
There have to be human inputs (guard rails? prejudices?) that are messing things up, or you would never get images of black founding fathers and black nazis.
I am sure part of the issue is that the LLMs read the internet, and there is for certain a leans-left bias or a “don’t use these sources” bias.
My vague understanding is the black Nazi failures were due to some clumsy “prompt engineering”. This was adding something to the effect of “and be diverse in your response” to LLM prompts. IIRC at some point somebody found a hack to force the LLM to show the actual prompt sent to the LLM and the humans involved added this stuff to try to prevent it from putting out some outputs with all the usual ‘isms and ‘ics.
Steve,
For sure LLMs will reflect all sorts of biases, mostly the biases contained in the training data. I’m sure these aren’t the only sources. I mostly remarked because I objected to agnech’s summary pronouncement of ‘coder bias’ as if some programmer was clearly responsible when it’s not clear at all that such was the case.
[As Tom points out, what’s coming to be called ‘prompt engineering’ might be responsible. But again, this is hardly coder bias. The prompt isn’t code, it’s just a little instruction or clarification or pattern example text usually.]
Mark
Thanks
Being several levels down on computers compared to Lucia and you guys I was unaware of some of the nomenclature.
Internet -A large language model (LLM) is a type of artificial intelligence that can understand and generate human language by analyzing vast amounts of text data. They are commonly used in applications like chatbots, text generation, and language translation.
Wiki-A large language model (LLM) is a language model trained with self-supervised machine learning on a vast amount of text, designed for natural language processing tasks, especially language generation.
The largest and most capable LLMs are generative pretrained transformers (GPTs), based on a transformer architecture, which are largely used in generative chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude. LLMs can be fine-tuned for specific tasks or guided by prompt engineering.[1] These models acquire predictive power regarding syntax, semantics, and ontologies[2] inherent in human language corpora, but they also inherit inaccuracies and biases present in the data they are trained on.
–
I now understand that there is a difference, as you point out between straight programming instructions (Code or Coder) .
And the way the program is instructed and further by the data that it is allowed to collect as distinct from the type of data it is allowed to use when it is GPTing.
Would programmer bias be more correct and acceptable as a term?
–
Enjoy the dancing,L,
–
I did not know that a blackboard could live rent free in an empty space up til now but the concept has grown wings aided by my reading of Carl, the Dungeon Crawler ( Matt Dinnivan too light, young and game inspired). also the Hydrogen Sonata Ian M Banks ( too heavy and depressing for most readers here) which both lend themselves to such imaginings.
I know, too cryptic, but just had to post this comment for Voldemort.
Will explain if arm twisted.
angech,
You got this:
So why call it programmer bias? As you say, the biases arise from the biases present in the data they are trained on. I don’t see what that has to do with programmers specifically.
ChatGPT is sort of falling down on telling us the number of school murders. It first told me 6 since 2020. Then I asked “what about X”? Oh… yeah…. “what about Y”.
I don’t know about Grok. But I don’t think ChatGPT is reliable on numbers.
Lucia –
So there are what, 1 milliion trans people in the country? 2 million? 3 million. And maybe 6 that have shot up a church or a school? Maybe 8? Maybe 10? Maybe 12? Again, we could be off by 100 percent, or 200 percent on how many trans people there are. We don’t need to know the precise numbers to understand the *core* issue. It’s very clear even with a very wide uncertainty range. What difference would it make? None. But by all means, let’s express our hatred of trans people by associating being trans with shooting up schools, since maybe 0.002% or 0.004% or 0.006% of them are school shooters.
LLMs suck when they have to guess at something that would require humans to follow an iterative procedure to figure out.
The exception to this is something called ‘tool use’. It’s where LLMs can directly call ‘tools’ or functions from libraries to compute stuff for them, count stuff, perform calculations, etc. before they formulate their answers.
For example:
For someone’s edification, these are the probabilities for observing k or less shootings shootings by “purple” people if there are 50 shootings, and and the fraction of “purple” people is 1%
> signif(pbinom(c(0,1,2,3,4), 50, .01),3)
[1] 0.605 0.911 0.986 0.998 1.000
If you want R to subtract those from 1.
> signif(1-pbinom(c(0,1,2,3,4), 50, .01),3)
[1] 0.395000 0.089400 0.013800 0.001600 0.000146
A couple years ago, someone asked a LLM to tell him about the oldest and youngest governors of North Dakota. It got both wrong. One was an actual governor of ND, but neither the oldest or youngest. The other was made up, including a fictional biography.
For a human, it is easy to find all the info needed to answer the question, but tedious to do the calculations to calculate each governor’s age. But, lacking an online list of governors by age, I doubt the LLM had any concept of what info it could feed into its tools to answer the question.
That is not artificial intelligence. It is merely simulated intelligence. Admittedly, the simulations can be scary good.
Lucia –
Your R code is noise in a tiny sample. With 500,000 trans people, 4 shooters is 0.0008%—statistically meaningless. 250k, 0.0016%. This isn’t complicated.
Have a good dance trip.
Someone,
Noisy sample? I’m just giving you the correct values for the cummulative distribution function to replace the wrong ones in that dogs breakfast of a comment you gave me!
Your comment:
No. The correct numbers are for k=2,
> signif(1-pbinom(2, 50, .01),3)
[1] 0.0138
not 0.264.
If you think what you were doing is irrelevant or misleading, well hey. But at least I’m giving you the correct values for the cumulative distribution function!!
Not 0.264. Notably, 0.0138<0.05 while 0.264 is not!
I have no idea how you managed to misuse GROK so badly. But if I ask it Grok gives -- using the poisson approximation-- Grok gives me this:
Note: this is close to the value from R. (Grok used the poisson approximation.)
OK. Have it your way. 0.0008% (or 0.0016%) of trans are shooters, but it’s not noise. Lol.
MikeM,
I had an interaction with ChatGPT where it clearly made mistakes, admitted, found some mistakes on it’s own…
The it asked me:
Maybe I should have said yes!
Instead I said:
ChatGPT, ever the flatter wrote
Then it told me I’d hit my limit of questions for the day. 🙂
I fly out tomorrow.
Joshua,
You really don’t get numbers, do you? Like… at all? Look, if you are going to send me a dogs breakfast comment that supposedly contains results from calculations of the binomial distribution, get your numbers remotely right.
If we used your “example”– with corrected numbers, then we would conclude that 2 trans killers out of 32 (the CNN ‘data’) means that we reject the null hypothesis that trans kill at the same rate or lesser as cis at the 5% confidence level and accept the alternate hypothesis that they kill at a greater rate.
2/32 is over 3% which exceeds the expected rate for a population of trans of 1%. Other than the 32 (which is CNN’s number for total events) those were your choices for test and so on.
And
> signif(1-pbinom(2, 32, .01),3)
[1] 0.00399
We reject the null and accept “trans kill at a higher rate” because 0.00399 < 0.05.
Note: The above is the correct probability 3 or more shootings by trans shootings out of 32, which is actually the number Brianna Keillar’s states early in her interview.
The correct value for two or more is
> signif(1-pbinom(2-1, 32, .01),3)
[1] 0.0407
Joshua has suggested a one tailed test with confidence of 5% and proportion of trans = 1%. So this is also statistically significant according to the analysis he suggested.
This is the result of the analysis you suggested. You just made a dogs breakfast of your numbers!
I think the data in general are crap. Where there 32 school mass shootings? Dunno; that’s what the CNN person said. Where 2 or 3 of those shooters Trans? Dunno. That’s what the CNN person said. Is the “right” thing to use “mass shootings at schools”? Why not attempts?
The data are crud. But you want to insist something… else…
Keep ducking, Lucia. It’s noise. You know it, even if for some odd reason you don’t want to say so. No matter how you slice it, 0.0016%? What, you you want to double it? Triple it? Still noise. You really don’t understand numbers, do you?
Speaking of which, you never gave me your answer about your toy model? Did you try and found the numbers didn’t work out?
I read one of the Carl Dungeon Crawler books. It was pretty funny but I’m not sure I was in for the whole series.
Sample size and quality is everything. Have we learned nothing from the climate conversation?
I do not know if Joshua is essentially innumerate, but I am certain Lucia is not innumerate. The weird thing: you don’t even have to know how to use the binomial distribution; it is obvious by inspection from the numbers claimed by a CNN propagandist (for certainly innumerate) that trans shooters seem too frequent to happen by chance.
SteveF,
I had to get up early to apply more fake tanner. ( This a ballroom aesthetic thing. I am not sufficiently powerful to buck the notion. Judges frown on pale as a flounders belly white. One black ballroom dancer put it this way, “They don’t want you to be Black. But they don’t want your skin to look white.” )
Anyway: 2/32 would not reach statistical significance to reject the null at the 0.05 confidence level if someone wanted a two tailed test. It does reach a 0.05 confidence level for a 1 tailed test where the alternative is “trans kill at a higher rate”. However 3/33 would. 2/12 also would.
Joshua is going on and on about “too small of samples” . It is too smal to test some hypotheses someone might find interesting. But it’s not too small to test the one his dog’s breakfast comment relates to.
I tested GROK and it can do the binomial distribution. It’s values match R’s. What I don’t know is how in the world Joshua got it go go astray.
I’ll be able to post more about this when I get back. But I want to be able to discuss it and I won’t be able to while I am in Orlando. The cats will be safe and secure here with Jim who is not yet ready to compete at the “USChampionships”. (We hope to do it next year when we can do 9 dance.)
Lucia,
I was considering 3/33 as implausible by random chance if gender confused people make up 3% of the population….. and I expect it is actually lower than 3%. Maybe at 5% or 6% of the population it becomes plausible.
I could do a simple spreadsheet calculation that would be very close to correct in about a minute if I were motivated to….. I’m not.
So you and the Donald will be similar in color for a while! 😉
SteveF,
“Implausible” is different from “statistically significant” at some particular confidence interval.
We aren’t going Bayesian here….
Yes. I’m already a deep dark tan. I put the first layer on last night. It has color in it– to help you detect even spread. Then you wash it off and put another layer. Multiple layers results in a more even tan.
My pro says the correct color is “tootsie roll”. I disagree, but I comply.
He doesn’t wear the tanner. There’s a guy/gal thing. We gals also wear so much make up. Blonde guys with tanner have invisible eyebrows. We use eyebrow pencil.
I’ll let you work or put with Grok:
.
Lucia’s math error significantly overstates the satistical significance of 2 trans shooters in 32 shootings. She calculated P(X > 2 | n = 32, p = 0.01) = 0.00399, implying a very low probability of observing more than 2 trans shooters by chance.
———– lucia’s insertion shown in blockquotes because WordPress is stripping the blue.
blue?
———– Back to Joshua
The correct calculation is P(X ? 2) = 0.0362, which includes the probability of exactly 2 shooters.
———– lucia
Back to Joshua.
This makes the result less extreme—about 9 times less significant (0.0362 / 0.00399 ? 9). While still significant (p < 0.05), it’s closer to the threshold, weakening her claim that 2/32 (6.25%) strongly rejects the null hypothesis. In simple terms, her error makes the data seem far more unusual than it is,
.
Meanwhile, you still duck the *core* issue – the samples are too small to be meaningfull. 0.0008%? 0.0016? 0.0032? 0.0064%. Which one do you want to use to characterize trans people?
.
These are outliers of outliers. You say it can't be by chance but only because you ignore the overrepresentation of mental illness:
.
Grok again:
.
Assuming 250,000 trans people (0.076% of 330 million), and 2 trans shooters in 32 school/church shootings (6.25%), we account for mental illness as the driver. About 80% of shooters are mentally unstable (National Institute of Justice). Trans people have 60% distress vs. 10% for cisgender adults (2022 U.S. Transgender Survey), making them 6x more likely to be distressed (0.6 / 0.1). This adjusts the expected trans shooter proportion to 0.46% (0.6 × 0.00076 / 0.1). In 32 shootings, with 80% (26) unstable, we expect ~0.12 trans shooters (26 × 0.0046), or 1–2 with noise (3–6%). Binomial test: P(X ? 2 | n = 32, p = 0.0046) ? 0.013, plausible within chance. Implication: 2/32 (6.25%) is within the expected range for mental health disparities, suggesting no trans-specific pattern, just noise in a tiny sample.
Thomas,
The data quality is even worse here. ChatGPT identifies many or the problems above. August 31, 2025 at 9:25 pm .
Maybe someone can pull together a database with the “correct” numbers for trans/ fluid/ cis whatever that did mass murders. Identify by type of mass murder. Maybe get shootings and attempts… Then someone can do all the numbers on various combinations.
Joshua continues to comment. I guess he “liked” his analysis when he thought his numbers were right. Now he wants to change the subject to “why didn’t I continue with the stuff for the Greek guy”? It bugs him I don’t answer. You know what? I don’t remember why I stopped. I’d have to hunt through. I don’t think it was when mom broker her hip. Might have given up because I can’t get Latex to work here? So write ups are “Arghh..”
Don’t remember…
As a former card-carrying member of both the Steelworkers and Ironworkers unions, I wish myself happy Labor Day.
Thomas,
We have learned from the climate wars that with China’s, India’s and Africa’s ever growing CO2 emissions (much from coal fired power plants!), US milage rules won’t make a pinch of difference in global temperatures in 2100. But would cost the USA a fortune if implemented.
For now at least, they won’t be.
Numbers!
I took a statistics course as an elective in undergraduate school. It’s the last time I performed a statistical analysis on anything.
I worked 50 years years in the engineering profession (35 as a registered professional engineer) and never once came across a situation where I could use my statistics training.
I am not saying that’s the situation for every engineering career, but it never came up in mine.
For one thing, we almost never had good enough data to do statistical analysis, when you’re winging it, precision and accuracy suffer.
Ciao guys!!
good luck, Lucia
I am not sure that a binomial distribution is appropriate. Let’s say we have an interval in which the expectation values for school shootings are 1 and 30 for trans and normal, respectively. Then the probability of 3 shootings by trans individuals in that interval is given by a Poisson distribution. p=1/(3*2*e) = 0.061. More like 0.07 if you make it the probability of 3 or more such shootings. Unlikely but hardly impossible.
But the real problem is whether 3% is appropriate for the fraction of trans individuals. I suspect that the trans school shooters have gone much farther down that road than the large majority of those who might self-identify as trans on a survey.
Read all of Bank’s sci-fi and, funnily enough, started the first Carl book a few days ago. Wasn’t sure what to expect but it’s turned out to be some entertaining light reading so far!
Texas is still ranked number one. I don’t get it.
https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/rankings/
Russell,
Look at the dates when the polls were updated. Maybe not updated yet because of the holiday?
someone earlier suggested that self identification of trans-ness might be more prevalent in up-scale suburbs. Could be an “all-the-rage” phenomenon or maybe a realization only possible in a leisure environment.
Or it’s something like peanut allergy which was little known until the ’70s.
I’m suggesting that finding oneself in the wrong body can be real, but the choice of how to deal with it particularly surgically should be very carefully considered.
What is missing is stated intent. The claim that the shooter was “randomly trans” can be offered up in the same way red heads might have a short period of random school shooter stardom.
There is implied intent that a trans shooter might hold a grudge against a Catholic school that they see as oppressing them and their tribe. Both the Nashville and Minneapolis shooters left a lot of writing but apparently never went down the “I’m doing it because I’m trans” route. One would expect they would.
For the most part this is a cultural exercise in making the alleged experts squirm because they will offer up these theories of unstated and suppressed ideologies when the narrative fits. Homophobic bias for the Orlando Pulse shooting. Anti-Asian bias for the Atlanta spa shooting, etc.
The right makes a big deal out of it to force the experts to show their bias, and they dutifully comply and reduce their credibility yet another notch.
If you can’t even bring up the trans identity of a Catholic school shooter (twice now), even to casually dismiss it, then something very odd is going on in expert town.
Test again . Tell me if you see this
Good catch Mike
Lucia, I saw it
John,
I’ve never understood how this could be so, unless we postulate a ‘self’ that is separate from one’s physical body. A soul?
Most secular types think that the mind is tied pretty closely to the brain and thereby the physical (I do as well in fact) and so [I at least] conclude that if one’s mental view of one’s sex is disharmonious with one’s physical reality, that this is necessarily then a mental disorder. However, if one wishes to argue that there is something more than this, there’s ground to stand on over where the Christians are.
lucia, I see it.
I would say without evidence that trans people likely have a higher rate of various mental illnesses. I would also say without evidence that men-to-women trans would likely have less violent episodes. When your feminist side is taking over that implies a lower rate of violence then men. Perhaps all the social pressure and anxiety might make them more violent.
I don’t think sexual identity is cataloged in crime statistics so the answers are probably unknowable for now.
John,
But seriously. If there is no soul and it is merely a matter of one’s internal mental view of what [biological sex, sorry] one should be vs the physical reality, it boggles my mind to think what sort of arrogance is involved in saying ‘the objective Universe is wrong, and my subjective personal viewpoint is correct. I am not crazy, I am in the wrong body.’
I mean, that’s satanic level belief in one’s self-superiority and infallibility as far as I can see.
There are people who decide that they are “really” amputees or paralyzed. I think it is called body dysphoria. Some even try to make their physical body conform to how they self-identify. I don’t think many people dispute that those people are mentally ill or advocate that surgeons should amputate healthy limbs or deliberately sever spinal cords.
It seems to me that trans people are suffering from a form of body dysphoria.
Russell,
The polls haven’t been updated yet. These early season polls are worthless. The CFP rankings starting late in the season was very wise. It removes the bias that historically powerhouse teams receive in polling. Teams like Ohio State, Alabama, Michigan tend to always be the highest ranked teams with their number of losses.
Mike,
Yes. I think the disorders are probably related. I think they are disorders. I don’t feel like I’m saying it very well, but what I am trying to articulate is that there is a modern exaltation of the subjective that elevates a crazy person’s delusion up to the level of ‘just as good as anything else’, just as valid.
This is part of the crazy, that we culturally do this. We didn’t used to. We ought to quit doing this, as a people.
Mark
I’m on a bus in Maine Hard to type but you raise interesting questions that I’d like to discuss. Later
John
The Twitter mob is experiencing roid rage.
A Polish tennis star gave a kid in the stands a signed visor and a big lug next to him ripped it out of the kids hand and gave it to his wife.
It was captured on live TV, video:
https://x.com/richsementa/status/1961877559433392169?s=61&t=7w4bCW3a8ve2DqoeniQatQ
He was outed of course and now it’s ‘Tallyho’:
“His name is Piotr Szczerek, CEO of a Polish paving company called Drogbruk.”
This post dissing his threat to sue has 24 million hits in a day:
https://x.com/fearedbuck/status/1962172456707191144?s=61&t=7w4bCW3a8ve2DqoeniQatQ
The tennis player is named Kamil Majchrzak. he’s a big star in Poland. He saw the video contacted the kid and gave him a whole bag of swag.
This video of him and the kid has 2.4 million views:
https://x.com/thetennisletter/status/1961840408956485867?s=61&t=7w4bCW3a8ve2DqoeniQatQ
Grok said the CEO’s company has taken some hits:
“The incident did lead to significant reputational damage, with Drogbruk facing a wave of negative reviews on platforms like GoWork and Trustpilot, where its rating dropped to 1.4 stars due to thousands of critical comments. Calls for boycotts and harsh criticism on social media, including platforms like X, amplified the backlash, potentially affecting the company’s public image and customer trust. However, no concrete financial data, such as stock value declines or revenue losses, has been substantiated in available reports.”
mark bofill wrote: “there is a modern exaltation of the subjective that elevates a crazy person’s delusion up to the level of ‘just as good as anything else’, just as valid.”
Indeed. It started with the denial that there was such a thing as objective good and evil then went on to saying that ‘my truth’ was as valid as any other form of truth and has now reached the point of denying physical reality. I guess that all flows from post-modernism, although I don’t claim to understand post-modernism.
I don’t think all that many people really believe that nonsense. But there are power crazy people on the Left who know that if you get to define reality, then you have absolute power. And they are willing to bully people into going along.
mark,
A little over 50 years ago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn discussed this in his essay “Live Not by Lies”.
https://www.solzhenitsyncenter.org/live-not-by-lies
——–
——–
Mike,
Yes. I’m a big fan of Solzhenitsyn. And yes, I think a lot of these problems flowed from post modernism / post structuralism. I don’t get too wrapped around the axle with precise labels, because writers and thinkers in these philosophical schools of thought were strangely shy of being pigeon holed and the [categorizing] endeavor can quickly turn into a ‘whack a mole’ exercise. A lot of it is recycled Marxism, poured out of the economic bottle and into more general vessels.
I think part of the problem is that Hollywood keeps parading their trans kids out to the media. It’s like having a designer trans. Kid is a good thing in Hollywood.
https://www.pride.com/culture/celebrities/celebrities-with-trans-kids
so all the little kids in the country wanna be like Hollywood and have trans kids it’s really trendy.
The high incidence of peanut allergy in the US (and nowhere else) was caused by the ‘expert’ recomendation that children should not start eating peanut products until they were over six months old. Yes, wait until the immune system is more or less fully formed before challenging it with proteins that were known to cause some usually minor problems. Idiots.
I don’t really care that much if people want to be trans. I may think it is odd but that is my prerogative.
It crosses the line when I am being socially compelled to celebrate it or when my taxpayer dollars are being used to support it medically or teach it in schools. At that point it deserves, as the SC might say, strict scrutiny.
No, I don’t really want to see these political ideologies painted on the streets. If private companies want to fly the flags I don’t care, the government shouldn’t. If St. Pete wants to have Pride Month and big parades I don’t care as long as other points of view are treated equally. If people with nothing better to do want to sit on a corner and counter-protest Pride parades then that is fine by me. I doubt we will have a CIS parade soon but they should obviously allow that.
Well, I used to say I don’t care. I used to say that about drug use too. Don’t care, not my problem. Except when your cultural motto is ‘tolerate because nobody cares what anybody does’, you end up with rampant homeless drug users crapping all over the streets.
It might be that our society would be better served with a little less indifferent tolerance. This said, personally I don’t care either. There’s only so many hours in the day and I’ve got things to do, and I hate to have to take the time to care about my fellow man either way. I’ve always been a little antisocial that way, I don’t think of it as a virtue.
I used to be tolerant of what people do in their own homes. But it does not stay there. Some people think that they have the right to impose their aberrant behavior on others: public drug use, turning streets and parks into toilets, men using women’s locker rooms, etc. I see no need, other than fear, to tolerate that. And more and more we are told that we must not just tolerate, we must approve of the aberrant behavior. No. Just no.
So I have now concluded that we need a lot more intolerance in our society. Otherwise, we will no longer have a civilized society.
In the UK, people are being told to tolerate the sexual abuse of minor girls. They are badly in need of a revolution and it will probably have to be violent.
Postulate: Civilization requires intolerance.
Oddly, the Leftists get this better than the Libertarians. It’s not often I can say I’m closer to the leftists position than the libertarian position on something. But leftists ‘get’ the utility and importance of cultural intolerance.
Kinda makes me think I need to sit down and carefully think through where I find myself, honestly. Heh.
It’s easier for me in Alabama, because the Religious Right also well understands and practices cultural intolerance.
People should also be free to be intolerant IMO, it’s all about what the government does and what it allows / disallows. I’m not going to berate people on the street but I’m also not going to vote for requiring gender neutral bathrooms or safe ideological spaces.
Drug use and camping on the streets is already illegal most everywhere. SF and some places allow it and they are quickly coming around to the error.
The harm reduction folks have lost their minds and that experiment is kind of closing. The activists had their chance with this experiment and it failed. I don’t know how many people died of fentanyl overdoses while their harm was being reduced but that number is way greater than zero.
Mark Bofill wrote: “But leftists ‘get’ the utility and importance of cultural intolerance.”
True, in a way. But Leftists are always preaching tolerance and are highly tolerant of behavior that undermines society. They are intolerant of the things that preserve society. That is because they want to destroy the society we have and replace it with a “better” one that they plan to control. And boy will that society be intolerant.
The fact that Libertarians don’t understand the need for rules (i.e., intolerance) is why I don’t have much use for that philosophy. It can not work in the real world any more than “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”. But I am not at all close to the Left on this subject either.
Political thinkers, at least classical liberals (i.e. conservatives) used to distinguish between liberty and license. I think that is a valuable distinction. Libertarians don’t understand that license undermines liberty. Leftists understand that all too well and use license as a tool to undermine liberty.
Mike M.
“Civilization requires Intolerance”
Brilliant and no sarc on my part. I never woud have realized it on my own,
Mike,
Yeah, some of them, for sure. Some just hate all hierarchy (as far as I can tell anyway, don’t ask me how anyone rationalizes that into a consistent worldview) and want it all torn down period paragraph. Some are naïve and deluded and just don’t understand human nature and/or the real world very well. So on and so forth.
I think your observation about license and liberty is a good one.
Tom,
I have often thought that one of the downsides of doing away with cultural strictures (intolerance) is that we are then left with the necessity of government strictures (laws) which tend to be far worse or more severe. I mean, I’d rather live with people tut-tutting at me than be locked up. So I’m with you there.
I mean, within reason. Some things are serious enough that there should be criminal penalties for them (and indeed there generally already are by and large for things that need criminal penalties), but if we had a culture that recognized right from wrong and up from down and actually frowned at people doing wrong and smiled at people doing right (so to speak), maybe we wouldn’t need as much criminal law.
Maybe I kid myself. Heh.
Mike M,
“Civilization requires intolerance.”
Well, that is obvious, at least in the sense of behaviors which are directly harmful to others (murder, assault, theft, rape, etc) can’t be tolerated. Allowing insane people to live on the street, allowing drug use/abuse that destroys lives, and more, need to be strongly discouraged. But it is maybe a slippery slope, and society needs to be very careful about constitutionally protected rights.
Mark Bofill wrote: “I’d rather live with people tut-tutting at me than be locked up.”
Indeed. Laws are a formalized form of intolerance. But there are advantages to cultural strictures. They are less oppressive and more easily changed since change can occur by people gradually deciding not to respond to violations of norms.
The Left wants more and more laws and less and less enforcement of the laws on the books. The combination is, of course, destructive of the rule of law.
“The Left wants more and more laws and less and less enforcement of the laws on the books.”
Sure, but there is a distinction: The left wants laws and regulations (and rigid enforcement!) which restrict individual liberty, individual action, individual success, and minimize required individual responsibility. They want to ignore (and not enforce) existing laws that encourage or reward those same things. For the Left, it is always about twisting laws (and civilization itself) to ensure equal outcomes for very different levels of effort, responsibility, capability, and contribution. So it has always been. A mid-wit former bartender in the US House is as good an example or the mindset as you might find.
Steve,
One of my ongoing areas of interest is the question of: how old is this evil you are referring to above? I’m pretty sure it predates Marx, although we tend to assign the blame to him in our age. The way Jordan Peterson tells it (as I understand it anyway) this is as old as the biblical story of Genesis and is the essential meaning of the story of Cain and Abel [Well. Approximately anyway]. I wonder about how it manifested in other eras of history and how else it might manifest in our future.
MikeM
Binomial is the correct distribution of the mass shooting are independent.
Analogy: a mass shooting is an event like a coin flip.
When the event there are two possible outcomes. For a coin flip this is heads or ‘not heads’, which happens to be tails.
When the mass shooting happens the shooter is (X) or (notX). X can be anything: XY chromosome, Trans, Martian whatever. Not X then has to exist.
If X has probability p, not X has probability 1-p. Both are binomially distributed.
Poison can be an approximation for binomoial
Mark Bofill,
For sure leftist thinking predates Marx and his contemporaries (the Pilgrims almost starved to death because of “a communal organization” that discouraged work). Marx et al just packaged the “everyone equal” sentiment for the specifics of the industrial revolution and the resultant rapid growth in wealth.
There has always been and will always be a tendency for people to be envious, and I suspect that is the biggest motivation for supporting the left. I suspect another part is observing that people who are poor ‘suffer’ relative to wealthier people, and don’t ‘deserve’ that suffering. Hence the support for allowing poor illegal immigrants to enter and stay, in spite of them violating the law, and support for confiscation of both income and wealth for distribution to poorer people.
Lucia,
Could you not generate the same results with a Monte-Carlo simulation? I am sure it would take a lot of numbers, but I think a properly constructed Monte-Carlo simulation should generate the correct probabilities.
SteveF
You could simulate a binomial process using Monte Carlo. But since the closed form solution for the probability distribution function is know few are going to bother.
Lucia wrote: “Binomial is the correct distribution of the mass shooting are independent.”
No, it is correct for a sequence of N independent events. N is a fixed number. No mass shooter has ever said “This year’s quota of mass shootings has been reached. I guess I will have to wait until next year. N is not fixed. That removes a constraint and allows a wider range of values.
If you say that N is fixed, then a mass shooting by a trans person makes a mass shooting by a non-trans person less likely. That is not so. Mass shootings by non-trans and trans people are independent. Well, unless there are copycat effects or some such, but you are assuming there are not.
Mark Bofill wrote: “One of my ongoing areas of interest is the question of: how old is this evil you are referring to above?”
What is “this evil”? Envy? That has been around forever. People using their power to take from others? Ditto. Leveling as a political philosophy? I think that political philosophy is a fairly new thing; maybe since Locke? I think the Jacobins were pretty Marxist.
Mike m
I don’t think you need a quota on events Yes they need to be independent from each other. I think for the most part, mass murder a. Is independent from mass murder b. But you might have to interview the two murderers to see if they colluded
I don’t know why you’d say X is fixed. It doesn’t have to be for coin flips. It could be however many a drunk guy flipped in an hour
Mark Bofill,
I think there are two other issues with the left:
1) Like many totalitarians, there is a constant desire to coerce, including with any level of violence required to achieve their goals. “You WILL do what we say!” is their mantra.
2) In all government by the left; nothing is off limits, and every aspect of personal choice and personal action is subject to government control. The old joke “that which is not explicitly allowed is implicitly prohibited” (thinking included!) has more than a grain of truth in it.
This combination leads to the monstrous, nightmare like outcomes that government by the left inevitably leads to. Suffocating anyone who disagrees with the left using plastic bags (as in Cambodia) is one of the most obvious examples. But political purges take place everywhere the left takes control. Hellish places like Venezuela and Cuba are hellish only because of the left; the level of violence against dissent by those regimes will increase… without limit…. as needed to maintain power.
President Trump is planning in an announcement from the oval office today at 2 PM.
There is much speculation about what he’s going to announce, but no actual evidence. Stay tuned.
https://rollcall.com/factbase/trump/topic/calendar/
Trump, one hour ago…
“ At least 54 people were shot in Chicago over the weekend, 8 people were killed. The last two weekends were similar. Chicago is the worst and most dangerous city in the World, by far. Pritzker needs help badly, he just doesn’t know it yet. I will solve the crime problem fast, just like I did in DC. Chicago will be safe again, and soon. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
I don’t know if this foreshadows is 2 PM announcement or not, I think probably not.
Sounds like Pfizer and Moderna are not going to sell as many mRNA vaccine doses as they hoped:
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/why-the-fda-doesnt-support-covid-boosters-forever-11065625
The “emergency approval” which allowed all the draconian vaccine rules has been withdrawn. The emergency is officially over. The new FDA ‘framework’ makes mRNA covid vaccine mandates anywhere in the USA effectively unlawful. College students and employees, regardless of employer, will no longer be require to receive them.
The FDA now recommends booster doses only for people over 65 and those over 6 months with compromised immune systems. I am sure insurance companies will refused to pay for any use outside these new FDA guidelines (AKA off-label use).
Interesting also that the FDA is now going to require true randomized placebo-controlled studies to justify any claimed performance for the mRNA vaccines.
What I would like to see are placebo controlled trials among the cohort over 65; do annual doses actually make any difference? It seems data is thin.
Mike,
Well, I was responding to Steve’s quoted text:
I think there is more than envy here actually. I would prefer not to start to descend the rabbit hole of exactly what this is as I’ve got work to do this morning. 🙂
I broke down and did a 100,000 instance monte-carlo simulation of the random chance of 3 or more out of of 33 “mass school shooters” being trans-sexual, assuming there are 1%, 2% and 3% transsexuals in the population, and the null hypothesis that there is no causal connection between being a transsexual and shooting up schools.
Results:
if 1% transsexuals => ~0.5% chance of 3 or more out of 33 being transsexual
if 2% transsexuals => ~3% chance of 3 or more out of 33 being transsexual
if 3% transsexuals => ~8% chance of 3 or more out of 33 being transsexual
Very exact numbers would require simulating a couple million or more instances.
Conclusion: we can reject the null hypothesis (5% cut-off) if transexuals are less than ~2% of the population, but not if transsexuals are more than ~2.5% of the population.
lucia,
Fixing the number of events matters.
Let’s say that the expectation value for the number of radioactive decay events in a certain time is 500. The expected standard deviation about that value is sqrt(500).
Now consider 1000 flips of a fair coin. The expectation value for the number of heads is 500. The expected standard deviation is sqrt(250).
Same expectation value for the number of events. Different standard deviations. Different probabilities of a given deviation from expectation. Constraints matter.
john ferguson
“I’m suggesting that finding oneself in the wrong body can be real, but the choice of how to deal with it particularly surgically should be very carefully considered.”
–
Interesting trope , John..
–
I always assumed my body was my own.
I thought as I grew up hat I could be any desirable body, weight lifter, boxer, runner, footy player that I wanted to be if I just tried hard enough.
Always thought I looked good (normal) except for a bit of the old Alfred E ears, but that settled when the Beatles made short hair cuts obsolete.
Never wanted to be a girl though I wanted to have a girlfriend.
Did not understand about or know gay people until I went to University.
As an aside being a bookworm and shortsighted and absent mindedI have found myself in the wrong house on a couple of occasions, now that is truly scary. Lucky not America or South Africa!
–
I guess what I am trying to say is that you probably cannot find yourself in the wrong body.
–
What happens possibly is that the person, due to their desire to be different or “better “ than what they actually are, only blame some parts of the true body they have for destroying the illusion that they crave for?
They know they have a male body but reject the bits that do not fit in with their fantasy.
The interesting part is that I have not heard any trans person speak about wanting to have babies, the one thing that would mean they truly have a full woman’s perspective on life.
Dylan, the swimmer guy, the boxer, where’s the pram and baby clothes part? No, they only want the glam part of pretending to be a woman.
Angech and Mark,
I worked in a profession with maybe a higher proportion of gays and lesbians than other pursuits. Over the years I came to have sufficiently comfortable realtionships with two of them to disucsss where their life came from. Neither suggested there was any choice, more or less “I realized that this was the way I was in early teen years and had to face decision of how I was going to deal with it” Their teen years would have been in late ’50s when this situation was not generally understood but both of my closest friends had single parents who were able to deal with it.
One did confide that the idea that anyone would “choose” homosexuality was nonsense. Anyone who understood the circumstances of a life led out of the closet could readily see that it was not the easier way to go if the choice was non-homosexual, not needing the closet.
I assumed that having tran tendencies was similar although If I’ve known anyone who might have considered living as the other than “birth appearance” I’ve never heard it.
As to increase in peanut allergy, the theory I liked was that kids are now being raised in cleaner environments then we were, no playing in the streets, no exposure to animals etc. The other theories such as on DeWitt mentions also seem plausible to me.
John,
That’s nice. I have known bisexual people as well however, people for whom the heterosexual / homosexual question is certainly optional. The existence of these people, IMO, demonstrates that this canard that ‘nobody would chose homosexuality’ is rubbish. In fact, I have known all sorts of sexually deviant people, and I assure you; you will find people who voluntarily pursue every imaginable kink if you look long enough.
Also, it is not my original claim that gender fluid people exist. This is a claim of trans activists. Perhaps you should explain to them that nobody would choose to be gender fluid; I don’t think they got that memo.
Further, I don’t think that the concept of sexual preference can casually be swapped with gender dysphoria. They aren’t even a little bit similar IMO.
Finally, don’t lump me together with angech unless you’re trying to annoy me.
Thanks John.
angech,
I didn’t know any gay men until I went to college. I actually had a gay room mate (but didn’t know he was gay); the only indication was no girlfriend and no talk of girls….. ever. He later moved to Miami beach , ‘came out’ and was in multiple gay relationships. He died from aids when he was in his late 30s, when there were few (no?) effective treatments.
I think the natural progression and incentives for all groups once they obtain power is to retain and consolidate it. After they consolidate the power they then move to increasingly exploit it and reward their peers at the expense of others. Ultimately they view challenges to leadership as existential threats and leverage their power to crush dissent.
This seems universal throughout history. It is also universal that people believe their tribe is benevolent and the opposition is not. Power tends to corrupt …
Even if you listen to the rhetoric from our two parties it is hyper focused on obtaining and retaining power. Supporting policy X is a strategy, a tactic, to obtain power. Not a deeply held moral belief when viewed as a whole.
If this is true then the most important aspect of government design is protecting it from the natural impulses of all tribal leadership, not just the other guys.
With that out of the way, let me clarify in case there is any doubt that I don’t believe sexual preference is a mental disorder. Some learn to like the taste of coffee, which I’m under the impression is one of the most bitter substances we can consume. I like strong black coffee. It’s just a preference, not a mental disorder.
I really think that to address the question of gender dysphoria, one must take up the gage on the question of whether or not there is more to ‘self’ than the physical. If there is nothing further to the matter than chemistry and biology, then I think it is fairly straightforward to see that gender dysphoria must be a mental disorder. If there is a mismatch between what one’s physical sex actually is and what one believes one’s sex is and all there is is the physical, there is nothing else to appeal to. One’s mental intuition is obviously, directly contradicted by reality. This is clearly mental illness.
“Sounds like Pfizer and Moderna are not going to sell as many mRNA vaccine doses as they hoped”
The performance is bad. As the variants continue to evolve it has been getting worse. What is VERY frustrating to me is effectiveness was once shouted from the rooftops as “follow the science” is now intentionally hidden from view.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/74/wr/mm7406a1.htm
“Vaccine effectiveness (VE) of 2024–2025 COVID-19 vaccine was 33% against COVID-19–associated emergency department (ED) or urgent care (UC) visits among adults aged ?18 years and 45%–46% against hospitalizations among immunocompetent adults aged ?65 years, compared with not receiving a 2024–2025 vaccine dose. VE against hospitalizations in immunocompromised adults aged ?65 years was 40%.”
To be clear this is still better than nothing, but I find the media and science communicator silence deafening.
MikeM
Knowing the number of events matters to doing an analysis. ‘Fixing’ it is irrelevant to whether it is binomially distributed.
Yes, the expected value of n events wigg th h probability p is np. And for 2n events it’s 2np. But that’s not what dictates whether the distribution is binomial.
I don’t think people chose what they are sexually. I also think people don’t choose things like psychosis, cancer etc. there are very real questions of what to do about some situations.
John Ferguson wrote: “One did confide that the idea that anyone would “choose” homosexuality was nonsense.”
That is far more plausible for the 1950’s than today. As Mark points out, there are definitely people who have the option. In the 1950’s such people might have almost always chosen to conform; but that is not the case today. Indeed, the opposite might be true in some cases.
Similarly, in today’s world it seems that some young people choose gender dysphoria. In many cases, the education and medical establishments then encourage them to proceed down a very destructive path.
lucia,
I am skeptical of your claim about binomial distributions. Suppose I have two samples of radioactive material. The sum of decay events in the two samples is irrelevant to analyzing the statistics of either sample.
Mark
Sorry about the thoughtless linkage. The bit about not choosing was a quote even if it may be a canard. I see it as a biological variation certainly not a mental disorder.
That people’s can have a wonderful life as a variation seems more an expression of making the best of it than choosing the gay life over a straight life
Does this make sense to you
Mike m.
First, radioactive decay is not binomial. It’s poison. Poison can be used to approximate binomial in some instances, but they are different distributions.
Second, if you flip coins 50 times that’s binomial distributed with sample size 50. If you susewueny flip it 75 times that’s binomially distributed with sample size 75.
You could collect both sets righters and that’s binomially distributed with sample size 125.
Of course the expected means and sd are different. You need to use the correct sample size in any analysis. But the are all biminially distributed.
Only the beginning. This is going to be exceedingly nasty as the technology develops.
AI-Powered Drone Swarms Have Now Entered the Battlefield
https://www.wsj.com/world/ai-powered-drone-swarms-have-now-entered-the-battlefield-2cab0f05?st=nbEaT8&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
“Military experts say the so-called swarm technology represents the next frontier for drone warfare because of its potential to allow tens or even thousands of drones—or swarms—to be deployed at once to overwhelm the defenses of a target, be that a city or an individual military asset.”
All the AI ethicists and doomsters out there can wax poetical about the dark side of this tech but they will change their minds instantly when they start losing a war and the drones come for them.
It would be nice if everyone unilaterally disarmed from this tech but that isn’t going to happen.
John,
What is the ‘it’ you are referring to? Homosexuality or transgenderism?
Mike,
It occurs to me you may be thinking of the number of mass murders that happen in some time period. Thats not binomial. In contrast whether individual murederd that DO happen are committed by X or notX is.
These are different things
Lucia,
Well, do you disagree that at least some sexual preferences can be acquired? If not preference for a partner of a particular sex, other preferences?
I don’t see what makes ‘partner of a particular sex’ off limits. Sure, I think most people have a predisposition. In fact, I think most people have a heterosexual predisposition and I think evolution had a lot to do with that. But I don’t think that means preferences can’t also be acquired.
I understand that you’re remote and in a sense I feel I should apologize for trying to engage you in conversation. I hate commenting from my phone, personally.
Mark,
Possibly. How preferences arise is a bit of a mystery. But active choice? Like ordering chocolate ice cream vs cake on the menu? No
Mark,
Perhaps. How preferences are formed can be mysterious. But I don’t think it’s like ordering cake vs ice cream
Before this goes any further off into the weeds, I’d like to clarify that while I believe preferences can be acquired, essentially nobody chooses what turns them on. Sexuality doesn’t work that way in general, it plays out at lower levels than explicit conciousness and volition I think.
Cross posted
Mark,
I think we agree more than we disagree on this
Mark
Btw I have similar thought on mental issues like PTSD. Circumstances affect it for sure. But under similar circumstances, some people get it. Others don’t.
It’s not a choice in the ‘ I want ice cream’ way. But it’s not fully genetic. Circumstances matter.
Usually people don’t blame people for their PTSD. But the know it has effects.
“I think most people have a heterosexual predisposition and I think evolution had a lot to do with that.”
Inherited active homosexuality would (obviously) be bred out very quickly. This implies homosexuality is not genetic but acquired through the environment. Perhaps random genetic anomalies can cause it.
The recent increase in reported homosexuality and transgenderism supports that it is socially acquired or the argument can be made it was always there and socially suppressed.
I imagine that there is some level of performative gender fluidity going on now because this increases your social capital in some groups but I have no idea what that number would be.
Tom Scharf,
This seems to me ~100% designed to obscure the data needed for a rational evaluation of the worth of the mRNA vaccines to people under 65. Why would they not separate elderly (>65) from the rest of adults on emergency room/urgent care visits? My wild-assed guess: The frequency of emergency room/urgent care visits among the over 65 population represents the vast majority of those visits. Why not just state the frequency of emergency room/urgent care visits as a function of age? This is not even hard to do. I can make a stab at it: younger people very rarely need that care with covid, and are likely better off not being vaccinated. Should they actually get covid, their immune response will be much stronger than what they get from the vaccines.
7 to 119 days of weak protection? Is this a joke? Or are they really suggesting that for weak protection everyone should get an mRNA vaccine 3 times a year? If so, that is ridiculous.
It is clear to me why the new management at FDA has pulled the plug on this fiasco.
I think lots of preferences aren’t strictly voluntary now that I consider it. I wish I preferred vegetables to chocolate, that’d be highly convenient. Alas.
BTW, that covid data is from 2023 and part of 2024, and may not be representative of current rates of hospitalization or emergency room/urgent care visits.
Lucia,
I think so too, we probably don’t disagree all that much, if at all regarding this.
Lucia wrote: “radioactive decay is not binomial. It’s poison.”
That is my point. Binomial is not always appropriate.
The number of school shootings in a given time period is Poisson. The number of school shootings by trans people in a given time period is Poisson. The number of school shootings by non-trans people in a given time period is Poisson.
It is not at all obvious to me that you can combine two Poisson distributions to get a binomial distribution.
SteveF,
Team Science has chosen silence. They are memory holing their previous vaccine evangelism.
They could explain that the original vaccine against the original strain was very effective and then things changed but they have so little respect for their audience that they can’t even do that.
When you behave like this then you might well end up with RFK Jr. heading your agency.
Tom Scharf,
It wasn’t even Kennedy (obviously a technical incompetent) who pulled the plug, it was FDA Commissioner Makary, who is most certainly technically competent.
I suspect the refusal by ‘Team Science’ to publicly back-track on foolish vaccine recommendations is mostly normal human resistance to admit error. It is the same as the after-the-fact refusal by ‘Team Science’ (and team teachers’ union) to admit error on school closures and remote learning.
Having ‘progressives’ in charge at FDA, CDC, etc, people who adore control, combined with public panic over covid, was the perfect storm of circumstances for bad government policies. The results speak for themselves. I hope the public has learned from this.
I suspect the recent departures from the CDC were mostly ‘progressives’.
I think both homosexuality and transgender tendencies are built in but may be expresssed or realized or suppressed depending on how the individual chooses to deal with it.
SteveF: “I suspect the refusal by ‘Team Science’ to publicly back-track on foolish vaccine recommendations is mostly normal human resistance to admit error.”
I agree. But the willingness to admit error is what makes science self-correcting. So it seems that ‘Team Science’ has little to do with actual science.
John,
Fair enough. Yet consider – there’s a gene that controls whether or not we find the taste of cilanto to be soapy (olfactory receptor OR6A2). This affects our preference, but different preferences are generally considered variation within the bounds of sanity. We wouldn’t say that a person needed to be treated for this, they just won’t like cilantro very much very probably.
There are probably genes that contribute to insanity as well; maybe C4 in schizophrenia, maybe CACNA1C for bipolar. But we wouldn’t say that somebody with the appropriate genetic abnormality who exhibited the disorder wasn’t suffering from a mental disorder. We wouldn’t say that person shouldn’t be treated if possible.
I honestly believe this is a fundamental difference between transgenderism and homosexuality. (Disclaimer, I think we are talking about a teeny, maybe an insignificant fraction of what passes for ‘transgender’ in our society today anyway. I think that fraction has always existed and has always been vanishingly small, and remains so today.)
For the month of August 2025, covid hospitalization are 17 per million population….. 1/3 of the 2024 rate for the same month.
This amounts to ~8,000 hospitalizations per week
Number of hospitals in the USA: ~6000
~1.333 hospitalizations per week per hospital.
Expected/projected covid related deaths: 200 per week. Total deaths: 58,000 per week, so 1 covid versus 290 deaths from other causes.. 200 covid related deaths vs ~800 auto accident deaths per week. This is not a public health emergency, nor even a significant public health issue.
Mike M,
” So it seems that ‘Team Science’ has little to do with actual science.”
I am sure they would claim they made ‘very difficult decisions’ faced with ‘uncertain data’. Of course, that ignores the sorry reality: ‘progressives’ always select public policy on the side of diminishing individual freedom. Even a hard-headed conservative like DeSantos initially adopted policies that infringed on personal liberties guaranteed by the Constitution. But at least conservatives are rational; he quickly changed direction when more information about the risks of covid became available. Progressives? Not so much.
Mike
I have have no intention of analyzing the number per unit time!!
Look, suppose you create a poissom process got a bell that goes ‘ din g. ‘. That’s poison. Now when the bell goes ding you flip a coin. You d this for a while. You get some number of coin flips.
The coin flips are binomial. The fact that that the timing between the is poison makes no difference.
For some reason you seem focused on the timing or the rate. You don’t need that to analyze whether the coin flips are biased.
If the bias in the coin is not changing with time you ignore the underlying passion process when analyzing the bias in the coin. It doesn’t matter at all
( by the way I googled. The sum of two poisson processes is poisson. I already knew the sum of two Gaussian is Gaussian. Sometimes that happens. )
I’m only interested in the coin flip. Not the arrival time. Someone else might be interested in the arrival time. But you don’t need to know that to analyze whether the flips are biased.
MikeM
Anyway, I agree not everything is binomial. You can only treat binomial things as binomial. Arrival time is not. But I don’t care one bit about the arrival time or the uncertainty in arrival time. I only care about GIVEN that it happened, was it X or Not X. That is binomial because it has only two possible outcomes.
Trump announcement is that Space Force is moving to Huntsville, Alabama
Looking back: I had guessed that my risk of death from covid in 2020 was on the order of ~6% if I caught it, while the risk of death was near zero for people under 40. That was based on Florida’s published data on incidence, hospitalizations, and deaths at different ages. In hindsight, it is clear than many (most?!?) cases of covid in early-mid 2020 were never even identified, and the true risk was far lower than I estimated across all age ranges. By late 2020/early 2021, it was obvious the risks for otherwise healthy people below 70 YO were very low, and for healthy children, indistinguishable from zero.
Why was this information not being shouted from the rooftops in Washington DC? I can speculate, but all my speculations are damning for those officials involved.
Lucia,
Do my Monte-Carlo numbers look about right? I am reasonably sure the calculation represents the probability. I can re-do for 2 in 32 if that helps.
SteveF.
I haven’t seen them. I’m on my phone. I need to scroll!
“I think both homosexuality and transgender tendencies are built in but may be expresssed or realized or suppressed depending on how the individual chooses to deal with it.”
Built-in how?
If it’s genetic and they are now acting on it more often (and thus having less children with the genetic component) then the genetic component will get reduced and we will have less of it. Ironically more expression leads to less of it eventually.
One can argue that there just isn’t much genetic push for attraction to the opposite sex but I very much doubt that.
One could also examine this in other animals but quite frankly I could not trust the social sciences to do that today, ha ha. The standard for when a chimpanzee is displaying homosexual tendencies would be expanded to meet the desired result.
I don’t really care that much but I don’t think when people say they were born that way that it passes rudimentary logic and needs further explanation beyond arm waving.
Men hunt together, women gather together. The sexes bond in their own groups mostly. Men have men friends, women have women friends.
Could be bro-mances supercharged and gone genetically wrong. You can’t have one without the other and it is still a net positive.
There could be a very weak built in desire to mate with the opposite sex combined with the usual or stronger same sex friendship bonding.
Lucia,
No need to search.
“I broke down and did a 100,000 instance monte-carlo simulation of the random chance of 3 or more out of of 33 “mass school shooters” being trans-sexual, assuming there are 1%, 2% and 3% transsexuals in the population, and the null hypothesis that there is no causal connection between being a transsexual and shooting up schools.
Results:
if 1% transsexuals => ~0.5% chance of 3 or more out of 33 being transsexual
if 2% transsexuals => ~3% chance of 3 or more out of 33 being transsexual
if 3% transsexuals => ~8% chance of 3 or more out of 33 being transsexual
Very exact numbers would require simulating a couple million or more instances.
Conclusion: we can reject the null hypothesis (5% cut-off) if transexuals are less than ~2% of the population, but not if transsexuals are more than ~2.5% of the population.”
Tom,
I think you alluded to this before, but it could be genetic as in a gene (or set of genes) flipped the wrong way for a particular sex in a particular individual. DNA isn’t perfect, errors happen. So long as this only happens to a relatively small number of people, no evolutionary problem (and possibly even some evolutionary advantage, actually, see also ‘Kin Selection’).
Mark,
I mostly agree that real transgenderism in the population is probabluy vanishingly small. I suspect that transgenderism isn’t a lateral or even an extension of the combination of genetic and birth process related variations which lead to homosexuality. I think it is now understood that neither is entirely or maybe even partially genetic but more due to abberations in the development process mostly in the womb or shortly after birth. And these abberations are not likely to be due to any preventable or avoidable influences or at least any that are now known.
While we’re at it there seems to be a connection between PTSD and exposure to very loud noises, or impacts such that the brain bounces off the inside of the skull. There was a very convincing piece on this theory on 60 minutes a few weeks ago. Friend who was a doctor in a VHA hospital outside Washington who specialized in PTSD cases thought this a major, but not the only contributor.
John,
Fine, but take Down Syndrome. There’s no known preventable or avoidable influences there either (AFAIK anyway, I’ll go google this) but we still call it a disorder, even though there’s nothing that can be done for it. We don’t just pretend it’s part of some normal spectrum.
I’m not saying people shouldn’t be treated with respect or valued or any of that. I’m just saying, when one believes something about reality that plainly isn’t so, that’s a mental disorder, and gender dysphoria fits that bill.
[Edit Down Syndrome can’t be cured or prevented or avoided, but it can be treated to help children developmentally who have it.]
Mark, I think the public has an interest in how abberations are handled, disorders that they may be. I don’t think the public should pay for sex-change surgery, or for that matter much beyond how to get along if you do have one of these conditions.
Whereer it’s possible, I think it would be better if these things could be ignored. And Yes, I do resent having my peace of mind assaulted by someone with a problem that he or she thinks I’m not sufficiently concerend about.
I doubt they will find a “gay gene” but that doesn’t mean it isn’t genetically expressed. Most traits are not traceable to small numbers of genes.
Are identical twins more prone to homosexuality?
AI:
“Higher Concordance in Identical Twins: If an identical twin is homosexual, there is a significantly higher chance that their co-twin is also homosexual, compared to fraternal twins or adoptive siblings. The exact percentages vary by study, but they are always substantially higher for identical twins.”
Interesting. It didn’t give exact numbers.
Mark: “Down Syndrome can’t be cured or prevented or avoided, but it can be treated to help children developmentally who have it.”
Not yet, but maybe soon
CRISPR Breakthrough: Down Syndrome Chromosome Removed
https://engineerine.com/down-syndrome-breakthrough/
Then we get to debate whether “genociding” Downs Syndrome people is the right thing to do!
SteveF,
If I’m not mistaken, you numbers are matching the numbers from R? I can’t check them all from my phone on Orlando.
But yeah when you run out to infinity, the value for 1% trans in the population should be 0. 4%. You say you got 0.5%. You need a lot of cases to converge that Monte Carlo. So that’s close
Mark,
Genociding Down’s syndrome people? Well I know several women who were encouraged strongly to have early prenatal test to detect it. One was encouraged to abort. She didn’t. That Baby is Jim’s dance teacher!
So I’m not entirely certain there isn’t already some tendency to ‘genocide’ them. With crispr they live!
lucia wrote: “The coin flips are binomial. The fact that that the timing between the is poison makes no difference.”
I agree. But you have not changed my mind. In your example case, the timing between events is completely independent of the events. But that is not the case with school shooters. Whether or not an event occurs is under the control of the shooter. It should be a Poisson process. If you have two different classes of shooters, then you have two independent Poisson processes.
I think CRISPR has a ways to go before it can cure Down Syndrome, but technological progress is generally a good thing and it sounds like they’ve pulled off quite the impressive accomplishment there.
It may be that some homosexuals were born that way. But in classical Greece, it was normal for men to have homosexual relationships. I very much doubt they were all born that way.
Mike, You previously said the shooting events were poisson. That requires the timing of events to be independent of each other!
Also: customer arrival time problems treat arrivals of customers at a counters as independent of each other. But customers still each totally decide when to arrive! The fact humans make decisions doesn’t mean a process isn’t poisson.
I mean, if you are objecting to the timing not being independent, you should be saying the are not poisson! It doesn’t affect whether or not they are binomial!
Mike,
I can’t Monte Carlo this from here to convince you.
But you could. Run two Monte Carlo process. One is X. Another is ‘not X’.
Pick a number— say 10.
Pick two different rates.
Run the two processes in parallel starting from time zero. When the total hits 10, record how many were X. This will be a number between 0 and 10.
Don’t pay any attention to time. Just record the number of X.
Do this a whole bunch of times. Look at the distribution of the number that were X. It’s going to be binomial. You can do a chi square test!
I can’t do this from here. I also can’t do it until at least Monday because I’ll visit mom after this. But you can Monte Carlo too!
Mike:
We agree the TIMES for the two processes are poisson. We’ve been agreeing on that for some time now
There is absolutely nothing about that that prevents the series of (X, notX) stripped of times being binomial. Nothing.
I really think you should do the Monte Carlo to see this. Because I seriously think you are fixated on TIME series. Time is only parametric for the binomial part
Lucia,
“You need a lot of cases to converge that Monte Carlo. So that’s close”
My experience is that Monte Carlo never lies… it just takes a lot of numbers to get past its fibs. 😉
Yes, it would take several tens of millions of simulations to settle on a much more exact number. I could write code to do that in half an hour or so, but really, it doesn’t matter much. If transsexual individuals are present at more than ~2.5% of the population, then we can’t say, based on 3 of 33 shootings, if transsexuals are more likely to shoot up schools. If they are more like 1% of the population, then we can be pretty sure they are in fact more likely to shoot up schools.
How many individuals are transsexual? Donno. Don’t much care.
Good luck dancin’ in Orlando.
Lucia –
.
Could you please point out to Tom that the reduced efficacy of the COVID vaccines is against a background of high levels of immunity from infections.
.
Thanks in advance.
Steve
We also don’t know if the CnN guys 32 is the right number of school shooting of some sort. But if his numbers are right, then base on that sample and the 1% estimate….
That doesnt mean we do much of anything though.
lucia,
I don’t care about the time series. Not one little bit. It is not relevant.
lucia,
Your comments about timing got me worried that I might be screwing up big time, so I checked with Wikipedia.
Yeah, that is how I was using it.
lucia,
I don’t think that the Monte Carlo test you propose will convince me. I can think of a test that would convince me, but I would need a case that produces a real difference between the two ways to do the calculation. This is not it.
I thought that you said that 3 out of 30 when we expect 1 out of 30 was well less than 5%. My Poisson calculation said 6.1%. I just did the binomial calculation and got 6.2%. So as far as this case is concerned, the difference is insignificant and I see no point in trying to distinguish between them using Monte Carlo.
Mike,
That has nothing to do with our disagreement. You are fixated on TIME.
The binomial think has to do with a fixed NUMBER of event. The times to get that number of events is irrelevant.
Might I suggest you run the Monte Carlo proceeds I suggested?
I can’t from my hotel room in Florida.
But you presumably can.
Or maybe someone else can
Pick two rates, lambdaX and lambdsY. ( say 1 and 3)
Pick a total number of shooting, N. ( you can start with four)
Inside a loop of 1000 repetitions:
Generate a set of N poisson distributed time for process A. Do the same for B
Put all the times in an array, sort and find the the time of the Nth event. These are N shooting that occurred in that time. (We don’t care about the time)
Then count how many ‘A’ events occurred in that time. Record that for this iteration.
Repeat this 1000 times.
You now have 1000 numbers between 0 and N ( I suggested 4 for N )
Plot the distribution. Compared to the binomial distribution.
Or don’t do it and keep telling me the individual shooting processes are poisson. Yes we agree.
Mike, the Poisson distribution can be an approximation for binomial. So getting the same number only means you are using an approximation that works for a binomial distribution. It doesn’t mean it’s not binomial!
Mike,
SteveF ran the Monte Carlo and gets the number I got. R gets the number I got. Grok gets the number Steve and I got.
Tom
Identical twins get the same ride in the womb so the sexual complexity could be introduced there without gene variations of the sort you suggest.
This has been an interesting discussion
Thanks all
Mike: Also, I didn’t say what you said I said. SteveF understood exactly what I said so it can’t be that opaque!
What time frame does the 3/30 fall into?
Mike this is what I said
—-//
> signif(1-pbinom(2, 32, .01),3)
[1] 0.00399
We reject the null and accept “trans kill at a higher rate” because 0.00399 < 0.005. Thi
—-
The 0.005 is a typo. I meant 0 .05 ( for the confidence level. )
You in perpetration of this is not what I said SteveF interpreted it correctly.
Of course you number don’t mine because you ran an entirely different set of numbers!
I can explain better when I’m at home on my desk top.
( I don’t understand why seeing a process IS binomially distributed would convince you it’s binomially distributed. That will remain a mystery to me. )
DaveJR,
To see time frame use your search tool and look for Harold. 2/32 was some number someone said a cnn guy tossed out in an interview. But evidently that was also ‘before this one’. I quoted Harold who brought up that quote.
I can’t help you more because I’m on my phone with a little screen. Searching, cutting, pasting is a PITA.
OTC nasal spray seemed to cut COVID infections by 67% in mid-sized trial
https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/09/otc-nasal-spray-seemed-to-cut-covid-infections-by-67-in-mid-sized-trial/
“Daily squirts of a safe, over-the-counter allergy nasal spray may prevent COVID-19 infections from taking hold, according to results published Tuesday in JAMA Internal Medicine. In a mid-staged trial, the spray appeared to reduce infections by promising 67 percent, though a larger trial will need to confirm that robust efficacy.”
Generic antihistamine nasal spray, azelastine.
About 5 years late. Not sure people will do this every day, but might be useful during high risk events. Certainly attacking covid infections at the respiratory / nasal level might produce better results.
DaveJR,
“What time frame does the 3/30 fall into?”
For the discussion of probability of 3 shooters in 33 by random chance? The time frame is irrelevant.
Tom Scharf,
But remember, the stuff is addictive, don’t use it for more than a few days in a row. 😉
Still, imagine how many lives could have been saved if we had known!!!!
DaveJR also looke for the post where I quote you and I quote Harold. You’ll see I content in the drastically different numbers!
Lucia wrote: “That has nothing to do with our disagreement. You are fixated on TIME.
The binomial think has to do with a fixed NUMBER of event.”
Do you think it makes a difference if the simulation is run for a fix time instead of a fixed number of events?
Mike,
The only way to collect the distribution for the out come of n flips of a coin is to flip the coin n times. So if you want the distribution for 4 flips, all Monte Carlo simulations for four flips. All case are run for four flips.
If you was the distribution for 5 flips you run all cases for a total of 5 flips.
If you want the distribution for 32 flips, you run 32 flips.
So… yes. Of course you need to use the same number of flips, not time.
And fwiw, the R code above is 32 flips, and 0.01 ‘heads’. So the average number of heads is 0.32 which is smaller than 3.
The binomial distribution approaches poisson at large n and product np ( I think) greater than 1. So for some cases they will look very similar and computation will get close to the same number. ( I need to look up the product part).
n=32 is pretty big. So if you run the Monte Carlo and want to see a distribution that does not look poisson do a small n— like 4.
Edit: the product np is supposed to be ‘no too large’
Above: and the probability of heads in one flip is 0.01. That makes np = 32*0.01=0.32.
Sorry for all the typos. My phone auto corrects more than my desktop.
lucia,
I asked “Do you think it makes a difference if the simulation is run for a fix time instead of a fixed number of events?”. Your answer is “yes”?
MikeM
Absolutely, yes. Thats why I said fix the number of trials.
The distribution will be binomial with size n and probability p for one and probability q = 1- p for the other. I’m pretty sure the values of p and q can be determined algebraically from the ratio of the rates of the two processes. p/q = lambda1/lambda2.
The distribution of the total times — and of course the mean— will depend on the lambdas you pick. But we aren’t analyzing time, nor time between events.
Mike,
FWIW: if you had a an arrival time process ( which is arrival times) and measured the height of the first 100 men who arrive, and the men are random draws from a population with heights that are Gaussian with mean H and standard deviation sigma, the distribution of heights is going to look Gaussianish. Not poisson.
If you calculate the sample means of heights over the 100 men and repeat that a bunch of times the distribution of the sample means will look Gaussian, not poisson.
Distribution of arrival times of the process will look poisson. But that doesn’t make everything else poisson
The classic arrival time has arrival time that are poisson distributed. So I meant to write ‘arrival time process’ ( which is a poisson process)
Also sorry, the total number of men who arrive in time T is poisson. The intertribal times are exponential. But the heights are Gaussian. The process for arrival times doesn’t affect the distribution of heights.
I asked grok
————-
Suppose we have two poisson processes each with its own rate. One process is for ‘ heads’ the other for ‘tails’. Suppose we start both simultaneously and stop after the sum of arrivals from the two processes is some value N. (Say. 100). Will the distribution of head on tails be binomial.
—-
The answer is yes. I’m not going to cut and paste the answer or reasoning. The equations will be munged by WordPress. You can ask it yourself! Just visit grok
MB
“If there is a mismatch between what actually is and what one believes there is nothing else to appeal to.
One’s mental intuition is obviously, directly contradicted by reality. This is clearly mental illness.”
–
Thanks Mark.
But how does it get to this state?
–
I hesitate to state it too bluntly because there are a lot of people here (all of us I guess) who would have views that we hold to be self evident truths, but others would describe as being out of touch with their perception of reality,
Therein the rub.
–
Which reality is the real reality?
The one in which I am a girl because I believe it though no one else does.
The one in which I go to heaven or hell when I die?
The one where
Democrats are. Honest
Your cook is English.
Your mechanic is French.
Your policeman is German.
Your lover is Swiss.
It is all organized by the Italians.
–
Sorry, I just put the real reality in by mistake!
angech,
Politically incorrect stereotypes….
But still funny.
angech,
your’s is a tough argument to dispute. How can you distinguish a “girl” who thinks she’s a boy from “girl” who despite all physical manifestations to the contrary is a boy? At this point it appears that you cannot.
And yes, it could be a mental abberation. But I expect that as the knowledge of this sort of thing increases, some sort of validation tests will be developed which can confirm in some cases that the belief that one is the other sex is physically driven.
Well, for simple triage, instruct doubters to thrust their hands into a fire. You will be amazed at how quickly people will ‘discover’ a common objective reality when they face pain. We are in fact hardwired by evolution to deal with reality.
AI tells me that in the overwhelming majority of cases (estimated at least 98.3%), genitalia match chromosomes. This isn’t mysterious to most people. But for edge cases, we use reason, logic, science and technology to uncover the facts of reality.
Reason, logic, science and technology have limits, but they rock when the issue at hand is a question of fact.
john ferguson wrote: “How can you distinguish a “girl” who thinks she’s a boy from “girl” who despite all physical manifestations to the contrary is a boy? ”
I can’t find a way to read that that makes sense. At least not to me.
Mike M.
Assuming a girl looks like a girl in all respects but “knows” she’s a boy requires acceptance of the possibility that boyness can exist in a female body.
I do assume that but the evidence is so far lacking in terms of genetics and seems to depend more on early developmental issues which could be the same as “We have no idea how this happens”
This whole idea certainly is subject to plenty of skepticism, but FWIW, I accept that some people are convinced they are in the wrong bodies and for them it is not “all the rage” nor trivial.
John,
It sounds to me like you have faith in a soul with defined sex without wanting to admit it. I actually accord this more respect than you might think. People take things on faith a lot more than most of them care to admit.
Mark,
I spent 6 weeks in a serous read of Bhagavad Gita and a well hosted discussion group and came away deeply impressed byt the sense of it. The soul-like entity in the Gita is Atman which is sort of a “personal” blip in the infinite continuity.
I don’t want to get into a discussion of the Gita. There may be a Cliff’s notes on it, but after having spent the time, I thought it needed it.
So yes, Mark, my confidence in the possibility that “boyness” can exist in a girl’s body may not be that different from what you suggest, although I also think the condition may be chemically driven.
FWIW, I also do not doubt that crazy people are sincere in their delusions beliefs. It’s not a joke, these people really are suffering. But despite our compassionate impulses it helps nothing to play along with the madness in the end. That only ‘works’ with dementia and I’m under the impression people suffering from dementia lose track of the specific delusion they suffer from at any given moment fairly quickly, so it’s a different case really.
I should add that Kamala’s suggestion that the DOD should pay for surgery to migrate some people’s physical manifestation to something closer to their assumed being was totally nuts and proved beyond a doubt that she’s an idiot.
The murder rate and Democratic governance are closely intertwined in America cities. In some cases it goes back over 100 years.
That’s the gist of a report by the editorial board of ‘Insights and Issues’:
“Care To Guess How Many Of The Deadliest Cities In The U.S. Have A Republican Mayor?”
https://issuesinsights.com/2025/09/02/care-to-guess-how-many-of-the-most-murderous-cities-in-the-u-s-have-a-republican-mayor/
John,
I think the big political manifestation of the issue is treatment of kids by schools.
John Ferguson,
I have changed my mind about Kamala.
I don’t think she is an idiot. I think she is is just someone a little on the dim side of average intelligence, promoted all her life for reasons other than competence, who will say/do most anything to gain favor, but seems actually good at nothing.
The good news: Few Dem voters want her to run again. https://emersoncollegepolling.com/august-2025-national/
Leonardo da Vinci invented the self supporting military bridge.
scale model construction video:
https://x.com/gunsnrosesgirl3/status/1962898876098121974?s=61&t=7w4bCW3a8ve2DqoeniQatQ
Grok analysis:
https://x.com/i/grok/share/jz6p9LXFCxEdrFaaTuKGoWKoe
It’s large step to believe gender identity is independent of binary biological sex. It’s a much smaller step beyond that to then say it is on a spectrum. Then you end up with a flag with a hundred colored stripes.
If people want to say it’s essentially a personality trait then I don’t have strong feelings about it.
What I don’t get is a formal demand that I must refer to self designated personality traits as a different biological sex. WTF? Compelled speech and clearly anti-science.
Men’s bodies in women’s sports. “pregnant people”. The attempt to completely erase biological sex was an overstep. That’s what activists do when they win a round, they just go to the next step and attempt to bully people into submission.
Whatever. Go ahead and wear dresses, I’m not going to bother you until you start making unreasonable demands. No, you can’t enter boxing matches as a woman when you are a biological male. Activists do what they do, nobody has to listen to them.
A political party taking up that platform is at their own peril.
Florence has a wonderful museum dedicated to Leonardo. Several interactive exhibits, one of which provides pieces with which one can construct his bridge (in miniature, naturally).
They tried to dress up Kamala as Obama and she pretended to be Obama but she just couldn’t convince people she was Obama, because she wasn’t. She looked like somebody trying to be somebody else based on a thousand focus groups. Her acting skills were deficient.
Lots of Republicans tried to be Raegan and I’m sure there will be plenty of people trying to be Trump. Some things can’t be replicated and it is usually not a good idea to try.
Tom’s post:
“A political party taking up that platform is at their own peril.”
there are a number of these issues that the Democrats are strongly supporting that makes no sense to me from a political standpoint; The Democrat party seems to have a death wish.
To voters these are all big losers:
Men participating in girls sports
Men using girls bathrooms
Using the courts to block deportation of illegal aliens
Blocking federal assistance for cities’s law enforcement
Opposition to building the wall
Supporting Hamas
Using politically correct pronouns
Racial discrimination against white people
Using Wokespeech
Tom,
What has always bugged me about this is that gender has no significance outside the context of biology. What I mean by this is, feminine behavior is (by definition) the behavior of biological females. Period! It has to be. One cannot define feminine behavior without resorting to the constraining context of female biological sex. Otherwise gender would have no defining attribute and become a meaningless arbitrary category.
If ‘feminine’ doesn’t mean ‘how biological females behave’, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s a stolen concept without that biological foundation that becomes meaningless.
[Edit:
“Sylvia had given him a scalding lecture, the gist of it being that whatever a woman enjoyed wearing was feminine and anything she didn’t enjoy wearing wasn’t, and if he was too stubborn and old fashioned to understand that, he could go and soak his head in a bucket of cold water. He hadn’t quite forgiven her yet for saying they would have to look hard to find a bucket big enough to fit his head in to, but he admired the sass behind the remark.”
— Anne Bishop, Heir to the Shadows]
I agree almost entirely with Mark on the trans issue. There are definitely people who are deeply convinced that they are in the wrong body. Such people are mentally ill. They should be treated with compassion and should be able to get the help they need. In some cases, the medical transformation of their bodies might relieve their suffering, but in others it does not help and can even make their suffering worse. So it is far from clear that such extreme medical measures are appropriate.
But there is a much more important issue. There has been a surge in young people thinking they are trans. That surge has the properties of a contagion; for instance, it occurs in clusters. In many cases it starts with confused adolescents who are then steered down the trans path by trusted professionals such as teachers, counselors, and doctors. Those persons often conceal what they are doing from parents and drive a wedge between the confused young people and their parents. The result is to turn a confused teenager into a person with serious mental health issues. In the worst cases, that is greatly compounded by drugs and surgery that create permanent physical harm.
It is not just that society is encouraging mentally ill people in their delusions. In many cases the delusion is being created and amplified by professionals in which people place their trust. That is unconscionable.
Mike,
Yes. In many ways, discussing genuine gender dysphoria is missing the issue, I agree. Actual gender dysphoria is probably quite rare, and most of what we are seeing ain’t it.
I agree with Mike and Mark’s discussion about the trans issue, at least the parts I understand [ Some of their ideas I don’t understand they’re too deep for me].
I personally have a further issue. The trans issue is thrown at me in a belligerent, in your face way.
I feel like I am being compelled to reinforce these people’s fantasies, and that only makes me fight.
Mark Bofill,
“What has always bugged me about this is that gender has no significance outside the context of biology. What I mean by this is, feminine behavior is (by definition) the behavior of biological females. Period! It has to be. One cannot define feminine behavior without resorting to the constraining context of female biological sex. Otherwise gender would have no defining attribute and become a meaningless arbitrary category.”
You should watch the “What is a Woman?” video if you haven’t already. Enormous humor value watching woke numbskulls contorting themselves trying to answer a simple question most any 3 year old could answer without hesitation. The numbskulls’ answers are inevitably irrational and circular… and they can’t even appreciate it. Unfortunately, one such numbskull sits on the Supreme Court for the rest of her life (and she’s only 54!).
“What is a Woman?” was entertaining because the difference between asking obvious parody questions and activist talking points was so razor thin that people couldn’t tell the difference until he started laying the BS on very thick.
“Define woman without using the word woman” was a stumper, ha ha.
I’ll have to view it. I watched bits of ‘Am I Racist?’ but my discomfort watching the charlatans squirm was severe enough that I didn’t watch the whole thing. Maybe I’ll do better with ‘What is a Woman?’.
Mark Bofill,
Just try to appreciate what idiots they are. It’s libs of Tik-Tok on university steroids. (University steroids are extra mind-numbing.)
And I am sure by the definition of the ‘woke’ you are definitely a racist….. no matter your skin color. So am I. 😉
As I have said: I wouldn’t care if someone was green, so long as they do the job they are hired to do.
I think this has more than a grain of truth in it:
“Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men. E. B. White”
I would change that to “self-made people”. But you get the idea. And just remember: “You didn’t build that!”
Because we are, at bottom, little more than worker bees for the greater good of the woke hive. I loath Obama.
I found it as an E-Pub book. Actually it’s extremely interesting. I’m reading about Alfred Kinsey right now. It’s always a good day when I learn stuff, although of course the material cries out for critical review and verification. Thanks for suggesting it!
That was a read well worth it. I recommend it highly.
Here, marketing plug.
angech,
“Politically incorrect stereotypes….”
I remember ~10 to 15 years ago arriving in Rome for the first time. I was in the airport, watching a guy talk on his cell phone…. held in his left hand. His right hand was flailing up and down violently in cadence with his speech. After about 3 or 4 minutes, his right arm became tired, and so he switch the cell phone to his right hand, and continued the same violent arm flailing in cadence with his speech, this time with his left arm.
Some caricatures are not far from correct.
Mark Bofill,
You read fast.
Steve,
When I’m extremely interested in something, yes. My retention is better when I take the time to savor what I’m reading. I’ll probably go back over it when time permits.
I got a kick out of the fact that he used the same ‘stick your hand in a fire’ argument as a method for sorting out relativists that I suggested. And I see why you thought about him when I was talking about the lack of actual meaning of gender outside of sex, I see he had the same problem with people he spoke with. It would have been more funny if it [overall] hadn’t been so disturbing.
Mark Bofill,
Interesting. I have two reading speeds: Fully comprehend (read everything) and ‘OK, maybe 75%/skim”, which is ~4 times faster, but minimizes having to read every word written by idiots.
When I read what stupid people write, it is aways “OK maybe 75%”. When there is a rational/plausible argument, I read everything.
Steve,
Yeah, its approximately like that with me. It’s not that I thought Matt Walsh wasn’t worth it, just that Im working this afternoon.
Mark,
OK, Sorry to distract you from productive work. I’ll leave you alone now.
I forgot to get videos in silver!! ( it’s pointless in the upcoming dances. The floor will be so crowded. )
I made it to the semifinals in all silver dances. I made it to the fiinals in waltz and foxtrot. I placed 4 th in waltz. Screwed up my Choreo in foxtrot and placed 8 th.
Lucia,
Forgot to get videos in silver!!
For those of us who are less connected, maybe you could provide appropriate links.
You should turn professional and earn the big money.
Mark,
When the Space Guys get to Huntsville, will there be a cave big enough for them.
John,
Probably not. I don’t think Redstone is all that full yet, but Huntsville sure is. The place will turn into Atlanta jr. I need to move further out into the country.
Mark Bofill,
I read that Redstone has 40,000 to 50,000 employees, (both government and subcontractors). Double the number at the Pentagon. Ten percent of the entire population of the Huntsville region.
I had no idea it was that big.
Steve,
Yeah. Its essentially half of Huntsville. Well, some significant fraction anyway.
Drive west from anywhere in Huntsville and you will hit Redstone, assuming you didn’t start on Redstone.
Well… maybe not north Huntsville. I always think of that end of town as part of Madison I suppose.
I had a good morning at the farmers market today, the first crop of Eastern apples arrived. These are not your supermarket Northwest apples. They have the flavor of the apples we used to get at roadside stands when we drove to the mountains east of Pittsburgh. Today’s crop came from West Virginia.
Image:
https://x.com/rklier21/status/1963591420402450518?s=61&t=7w4bCW3a8ve2DqoeniQatQ
My favorite early season is Ginger Gold. It’s an accidental hybrid of golden delicious.
I asked Grok why supermarket apples were so bad and he had a long reply, but the conclusion was:
“For better flavor, try local farmers’ markets”
Grok’s full explanation:
https://x.com/i/grok/share/pA5zTTdw1irDOtUZDF96TqNtU
Giving the Woke a poke in the eye has worked for American Eagle and Sidney Sweeney. The numbers are in.
“Sydney Sweeney’s Great Jeans Just Tripped This $590 Million Stock Move”
“We were pleased to see an improvement in the business during the second quarter, driven by higher demand, lower promotions and well-managed expenses,” CEO Jay Schottenstein said in the release.
https://www.investors.com/news/american-eagle-aeo-stock-sydney-sweeney-brand-reset-travis-kelce-earnings-customers/
“American Eagle Shares Surge 30% After Sydney Sweeney Ad”
“On Wednesday, American Eagle reported Q2 revenue of $1.28 billion and earnings per share of $0.45, besting economist estimates of $1.23 billion and $0.20, according to FactSet.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2025/09/04/american-eagle-shares-surge-30-after-sydney-sweeney-ad/
Wernher von Braun worked in Huntsville for 20 years. Huntsville has a very real legacy with miltary rockets. Space Command should be there. Biden didn’t put it there due to politics.
Also, don’t miss the U.S. Space and Rocket Center if your are close to Huntsville. Kennedy / Smithsonian is probably better but this place is also awesome.
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g30620-d108243-Reviews-U_S_Space_and_Rocket_Center-Huntsville_Alabama.html
D.C. Attorney General Sues to Stop Trump’s National Guard Deployment
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/d-c-attorney-general-sues-to-stop-trumps-national-guard-deployment-7d823c5f?st=kdCU1S&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
I get that this is about unwanted federal control and in isolation a legitimate issue … but politically … Loser with a capital ‘L’. Try explaining to the citizens why you are doing this and crime goes back up.
56 people were shot in Chicago this weekend and what are the governor and mayor doing? Trying to preemptively stop the federal government from helping. Don’t you dare help us!
Sometimes I just don’t know how Trump does it. He outmaneuvers these people like they are 5 year old’s. Can they not see they are being politically played? They already have a rep for soft on crime.
The Space and Rocket Center is pretty cool. I haven’t been there in years, I ought to revisit one of these weekends.
So Lisa Cook apparently told the Biden administration about her misstatements of multiple “primary residences” to get favorable mortgage rates, and the Bide administration hid the information from the Senate. Her official statements to the Senate did correctly disclose the status of the individual, but there was zero information about misstatements on mortgage applications.
So now her lawyer is claiming the fact the Biden administration knew of and gave her a pass on the false mortgage applications means Trump can’t fire her for malfeasance. You can’t make this stuff up.
Had that information been known in the Senate, they very well may not have confirmed her in May of 2022… it was a tie vote broken by Kamala Harris.
Business insider:
“Now, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into Cook.
The Justice Department is using grand juries and sending subpoenas as part of its investigation, according to the Journal.”
Maybe the DOJ can get a change of venue to one of the states where she submitted the applications.
The Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville is indeed awesome.
FYI: DOJ Opens Criminal Investigation Into Fed’s Cook, Issues Subpoenas
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/lisa-cook-justice-department-probe-e7e801a6?st=BJdExY&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
“A finding of mortgage fraud usually requires evidence of deceit and that the lender was damaged in some way.”
Unless your are in NYC and your name is Trump. The legacy media refuses to even compare these cases, and is willfully blind to the obvious connection here. Rules for thee but not for me.
Tom,
My guess is Cook will walk, unless she rented out one of the properties. If she did, she’s toast.
Same thing with Schiff who mortgaged a condo in california as a principal residence with homestead exemption and a house in DC area.
Oh, the arrogance of some Federal District Court judges. A dozen such judges are complaining (anonymously, of course) about SCOTUS overturning their decisions; in particular about that being done on the emergency docket.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/federal-judges-anonymously-criticize-supreme-court-overturning-decisions-emergency-rulings#&_intcmp=fnhpbt2
Maybe the reason for that is that the lower court judges didn’t actually follow the law.
Wow. The job of the Supreme Court is to back up decisions made by lower courts? That judge definitely should not be on the bench.
An indictment is going to be enough to fire Cook, that is the goal. Her response so far smells like “I’m guilty”. They nailed her.
I doubt anybody is going to jail.
The rest of the exercise is to make the usual suspects declare this is a minor jaywalking offense and should be ignored. Don’t look at the man behind the curtain.
Political targeting! Democracy in danger! Good luck with that.
Indictment without conviction?? No kidding?
John Ferguson, Tom Scharf,
It looks like she definitely rented two of them (Atlanta, Boston), but maybe not the Michigan house.
No she isn’t going to jail. Apparently, a significant fraction of mortgage applicants make the same false declarations to reduce down payment and interest rates, and very few are ever prosecuted. Assuming she is indicted, she may well walk, depending on where the trial is held.
She could pull the plug and just resign, but there is no indication she would do that. Besides, she would be walking away from a cushy $226K job for the next dozen years….. not likely.
Finally, the SC is ultimately going to decide if Trump can fire her, the Cook firing is all rolled up with Humphry’s Executor (1935), a precedent at least 4 on the SC seem anxious to reverse. I can’t read the tea leaves on this one, but I’m guessing the SC may not want to rule on the case until Cook is either convicted or acquitted. They probably hope she resigns so the case becomes moot.
Speaking of indictment, I was pleased to see that they failed to indict the guy who was accused of felony(!) assault for throwing his Subway sandwich at a CBP officer.
I know, it’s a slippery slope, next time it will be a baguette…
Okay atheists. Tim Kaine says our rights are not endowed by our Creator but rather are granted by our government. I doubt any of you would agree with him, but I have to ask. What’s the source of our rights, in your view?
I’m not really even properly agnostic anymore, much less atheist, but my old answer would have been something to the effect that our rights (and responsibilities) arise from our nature as human beings, but I’ve never felt like this was particularly secure footing to be on.
[Today, I would answer that we are in fact endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights.]
Thanks in advance to anyone who cares to offer their answer.
“Indictment without conviction?? No kidding?”
People get fired all the time for things like social media transgressions. There isn’t even an indictment. Not being convicted to a criminal level of certainty doesn’t mean you get to keep your job.
In her case it is “for cause” and that is left undefined. The important legal point is * who decides * what “cause” means and for the most part the SC has been giving the executive a lot of room to maneuver. Is this enough? IMO probably unless she has a better story than she has been telling so far.
I’m guessing the Dems aren’t going to spend political capital defending this because of the optics. It is better for Trump if they do. It looks like a win either way.
If there wasn’t a bunch of politics involved here the process would be “if suspected of a terminating offense then HR sits employee down and gets their story, if they don’t have a very good story then fire them”.
Perhaps she could be suspended without pay pending the results of the process.
For the record I’d prefer all this rancid political targeting to just stop. I’m guessing there are just as many Republicans with questionable mortgage applications as Democrats.
I would also like to advance the … mmm… idea, I guess, for your consideration and reaction that the idea that our nature as human beings means we have rights (and responsibilities) is complicated and abstract enough that it really cannot be effectively demonstrated and in essence in and of itself constitutes an article of faith.
Mark Bofill,
Wherever rights ‘come from’ they are protected by our Constitution…. and we might hope, by extension, the government would do the same. Of course, that is far from always the case.
But why do your rights have to come from anywhere except our belief that humans have unalienable rights? I mean:
Take out “by their Creator” and the meaning is unchanged. You either believe human beings have unalienable rights, or you don’t… No need to invoke anything beyond your personal belief. If someone does not believe humanity has “certain unalienable rights”, they are more than a ‘threat to our democracy’ they are a threat to humanity.
Thanks Steve. So you’re saying you think it makes essentially no difference to involve a Creator with the idea.
I’ll kick that around.
HaroldW,
“….next time it will be a baguette…”
I venture more likely a brick.
Trump is considering pushing a transgender gun ban and strangely enough I don’t think this is a good idea. The government can just pronounce a group insane and remove their 2A rights? I think not.
mark bofill.
The courts (district to SC) will all smack that down should it actually go into effect. Trump remains the buffoon he has always been. I try to just ignore his most crazy pronouncements.
Mark Bofill wrote: “my old answer would have been something to the effect that our rights (and responsibilities) arise from our nature as human beings … Today, I would answer that we are in fact endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights.”
Those may not be all that different. There are a lot of things that we perceive as true (such as the existence of good and evil) but that we can not really explain. Evolution can rationalize how a lot of complex things come about, but it can not actually explain them, at least not in a way that is suitable to guide action.
But hypothesizing a Creator provides a good way to think about such things. And various religions have used that hypothesis to arrive at broadly similar, but by no means identical, results.
So I think that postulating a Creator has value even if there is not Creator. God as an emergent property of the universe.
rom time to time, Trump says something that sets the TDS crowd (and sometimes many others) into conniptions about Trump’s supposed disregard for the Constitution. But I don’t think Trump has never made a claim as ignorant as saying that our rights come from the government.
Note: Many of Trump’s supposed outrages are lifted out of context and spun to make Trump look bad. I won’t believe that Kane made the idiotic claim attributed to him until I see it in context.
I found the video of Kaine displaying his complete ignorance of the foundation of America (pointed out earlier by Mark):
https://x.com/LauraPowellEsq/status/1963392572858273797
Kaine is not qualified to be a United States Senator. And I suspect he knows even less about Iranian law than American law.
Thanks Mike! I would be interested in hearing more about God as an emergent property sometime. I am not sure how literally I believe. It depends on what day you catch me.
Apropo of Kaine’s un-American statement, here is Calvin Coolidge remarking on the Declaration of Independence:
“If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward.”
Note in case this is not clear – The fact that no progress can be made beyond those propositions does not mean that progress can not still be made toward those propositions.
who would ever have thought that I’d come here to have Mark explain to me how I understand rights/responsiblites more as I understand it than what is otherwise noised about? I love this place.
maybe someday I’ll break into English.
I’m sorry John, I indeed don’t follow. I apologize if I have spoken presumptuously? No not exactly, I’m sure I’ve been presumptuous and I’m not sorry for that, but I am sorry if I’ve given offense. Tentatively sorry, anyway.
I would be pleased if you’d elaborate or clarify.
I’m back home. Some comments that got stick while I was aware are now approved.
I’m always tired after competition. I think it’s the emotion or adrenaline or something. I’m going to visit Mom tomorrow. So… not much interaction with the blog until Monday or so. (I can release stuck comments though.)
Welcome home! Hope you had a great time and defeated all the people you wanted to beat!
I don’t think I would use the phrase rights are “granted by our government”.
The rights come from the minds of the people, if that is from the Creator or wherever it doesn’t matter to me.
Some rights are effectively inalienable such that they are out of reach of even the government to change. It is the very basis of governing. The rest of the rights are created by the people through the legislative process and can be changed.
The term granted implies the governing class is creating this by edict.
Thanks Tom
Tom Scharf wrote: “The rest of the rights are created by the people through the legislative process and can be changed.”
Those would be “legal rights” as opposed to natural right. That is very well stated since any power the government has is derived from the people.
Mark
I liked the way you put it. thanks.
Mark,
I think I asked a rhetorical question, which is how that post went off the tracks.. Lucia is right to ban them.
Mark, your question:
“What’s the source of our rights, in your view?”
I always feel out of my depth when you guys start talking philosophy (or is this metaphysics), but here goes.
My first thought is a question, which came first the chicken or the egg? Did government come first or did human beings come first?
We did, of course, so we created government, and therefore government can’t give us any power that we haven’t given it to distribute.
Therefore, government cannot be the source of our rights.
My second thought goes back to my Catholic high school religion classes, were one of the topics was ‘The Uncaused Cause’. It was wrapped up in the hole Creationist and Big Bang theories.
From Grok:
“In medieval philosophy, thinkers like Thomas Aquinas adapted this idea in his Five Ways (arguments for the existence of God), particularly the Second Way (argument from causality). Aquinas argued that everything in the universe has a cause, but an infinite regress of causes is logically impossible, so there must be an uncaused cause—identified as God—that starts the chain of causality.”
Hope this helps.
What right does anyone have to have rights?
We are not born with rights in our genes or on a scrap of attached paper.
Rights are a purely human concoction made up by people to give themselves power over other people..
There are no rights to prevent slavery, genocide or rampant warfare.
Collective groups are much more powerful than individuals but to keep groups functioning well there has to be a satisfactory way of distributing the benefits of working together to the group hence the development of rules and so-called rights.
Inalienable rights sure sounds good in theory. In practice it is just another way of saying my group is better than your group.
angech,
“Rights are a purely human concoction made up by people to give themselves power over other people.”
No, it is exactly the opposite. ‘Unalienable rights’ are designed to keep people from asserting power over others. Dumbest thing you ever wrote here. Orwellian.
Thanks Russell.
angech, it takes a society for rights to be meaningful. This doesn’t make society the source of rights.
Merely because some abuse the language these days and misconstrue as rights things that essentially require slavery is no reason to abandon or lose sight of the real meaning of the word.
Steve, yes.
Charitably Steve, perhaps angech simply means to invite us to share our arguments against this viewpoint. I routinely treat angech less charitably than I ought to I’m sure.
angech, you seem not to understand what rights are. They aren’t magical powers that automatically protect people. ‘To secure these Rights governments are instituted among men.’ This wouldn’t be necessary if the violation of rights was impossible.
angech, your comment;
“What right does anyone have to have rights?”
In the US our break from evil King George started with Thomas Jefferson penning the Declaration of Independence where, in the beginning, he declares all men have certain inherent rights.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”.
It asserts that individuals possess fundamental rights that are inherent, cannot be taken away, and are not granted by governments.
That’s what the argument in Congress was about yesterday.
EDIT: it’s a key principle that separates free people from communism and fascism in soccer fans
I think angech has stated a more intelligent version of Tim Kaine’s position. As Mark points out, that view of rights inevitably leads to oppression. Mark is also correct that the existence of inalienable rights does not automatically protect people from oppression. We have to be willing and able to stand up for our rights. The Declaration of Independence was followed by years of war.
Jefferson stated the ethical basis for opposing an oppressive government. Under the Kaine/angech view there can never be an ethical basis for opposing government. There could only be the struggle of power against power. Very grim.
Mark,
I also think it is a bad idea. I mean… being XY seems to be the main culprit in mass murders. If you were to ban guns for a subset, why not just ban them for XY people? Obviously no one is for that and would consider it ridiculous.
How to ban guns in anticipation of violent acts is a difficult thing. Banning all guns for everyone is going to hit a 2nd amendment issue. Plus Trump won’t want to do that. His supporters won’t want it either.
“ Tesla offers pay package to CEO Elon Musk that could be worth up to $1 trillion”
As Everett Dirksen said “A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you’re talking big money”
it’s tied to some performance markers mostly around Tesla.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-tesla-new-compensation-pay-package-1-trillion/
Lucia,
That’s exactly right. I’m confident if we examined it we’d see a correlation between XY and violent crime in general, definitely including gun violence, and I think this is biologically inspired and not socially constructed.
Mark Bofill,
The correlation between “XY” and gun violence is going to be much, much stronger than for “trans” and gun violence. The “XY” one will not require the slightest cherry picking, massaging yada, yada.
I had a long conversation with Grok for preparing to make applesauce for my youngest granddaughter. She really likes my applesauce. I make it in the pressure cooker.
I have found Grok to be extremely useful with complex cooking questions. Quite amazing in fact
We discussed the various varieties of apples, blends of varieties, use of a stick blender, and the age old question of skin on or skin off.
Full conversation:
https://x.com/i/grok/share/yblCC1zs9Ee0hr5Fgu8WAK9ir
angech alludes to the ’emergent behavior’ idea in a way, I think:
An argument can be made that empirical reality suggests (if it doesn’t demonstrate, and demonstrate isn’t quite off the table IMO) the existence of these unalienable rights. Why is the U.S. dominant over the rest of the world? Economically, militarily, scientifically, etc. We are not the most populous nation. We are not the oldest nation. We can summarily discount notions of racial superiority being the reason. Well, one distinguishing factor is that we are a nation founded on the explicit recognition of our natural rights.
It’s probably not the only factor, but it’s worth thinking about.
Russell,
AI has improved my cooking immensely. Extremely helpful. Even for stuff I thought I already knew how to do, AI’s helped me improve that stuff as well.
A related idea is, why did the Soviet Union collapse? It wasn’t as if they were militarily conquered.
Emergent properties of evil systems maybe. They tend to poison themselves and die out.
mark,
I think there are government policies that will result in instabilities. At a minimum, it will result in huge black markets!
Unfortunately, while it sounds fair to make sure everyone “has” stuff, heavy redistribution plans will tend to result in people making life choices where they don’t produce goods and services other people want or value. They will produce goods and services for themselves, or spend time and energy on things they enjoy more. Who wants to pick up garbage or deal with sewage if they can live pretty well sitting at home playing drums and guitar, collecting a living and maybe sometimes playing gigs at parties– possibly for free drinks.
Mark Bofill,
“They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work.”
If people do not receive reward for their efforts, they will reduce their efforts. That is the fundamental economic argument against the left. The Chinese Communist Party recognized a need for incentives when they adopted a ‘mixed’ capitalist/communist economic system. That gives those they rule the means to materially improve their lot, even while the intrenched leftist autocrats remain in power, living a wealthy life on the backs of their comrades (AKA subjects).
The USSR (and Cuba, and Venezuela) refused to adopt the mixed model. The USSR collapsed under the weight of the state bureaucracy. Cuba and Venezuela remain pure hell-holes of oppression and desperate poverty. Under the Putin regime, Russians still don’t have all the ‘unalienable rights’ that Jefferson wrote of, and some seem inclined to fall from hospital windows if they become ill, die from polonium poisoning, or have their planes crash, but Russian material wealth has improved dramatically, just like in China.
“Inalienable rights sure sounds good in theory. In practice it is just another way of saying my group is better than your group.”
Nope. I would second the thought that inalienable rights are the primary defense against “my group is better than your group”. Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, etc. especially liberty.
One of the reasons the US Constitution has stood the test of time is they gave a great deal of thought to protecting the citizens from government overreach. Word has it they had experience with this at the time.
Lucia,
For sure. There are certainly policies that lead to ruin. I think redistribution is a good example. It was almost ‘life liberty and estate’ instead of ‘life liberty and happiness’. I wouldn’t claim Jefferson was wrong to go with ‘the pursuit of happiness’ given the state of things (and the existence of slavery), but property rights are fundamental to prosperity, and policies transgressing too far against property rights tend to lead to negative outcomes.
There is always going to be a struggle for power among groups. Always. If you are designing a government the goal should not be to end the struggle by implementing some utopian vision, it should be to manage the struggle peacefully and ensure baseline protection of citizens.
Tom Scharf,
“Word has it they had experience with this at the time.”
As has most of humanity since civilizations developed. Government by emperors, kings, emirs, princes, religious authorities, and various and sundry other despots, ALWAYS takes away some or all of Jefferson’s ‘unalienable rights’. It was not just that the Colonists had suffered under the British King, it was that they understood that most of humanity suffered under authoritarian governments.
A transgender gun ban is bonkers.
To be fair, it’s not that I think actual insane people should have guns, and it’s not that I think actual gender identity disorder sufferers don’t have a mental disorder. I object to the executive summarily making that decision to strip people of constitutional rights, by decree/executive order.
If Congress were to pass laws or amend the Constitution, I’d have far less issue.
[Although, as Lucia pointed out, these people are hardly a significant source of gun violence. As usual, politicians barking up the wrong tree.]
“Tesla offers pay package to CEO Elon Musk that could be worth up to $1 trillion”
Musk’s first pay package was based on what seemed like unreachable stock targets for Tesla at the time. They ended up reaching them and Musk’s payoff went from $0 to $50B. The usual suspects like to pretend that payoff wasn’t based on performance metrics.
I doubt Tesla has that kind of upside now, but I would never bet against Musk.
Thanks Steve. I need to go reckon with China in my thinking.
Mark, your comment:
“ Even for stuff I thought I already knew how to do, AI’s helped me improve that stuff as well.”
Me too. I’ve been making my granddaughter applesauce for years, but Brok gave me a bunch of help that I’m gonna try on my next batch. Particularly suggesting blending ratios between apple varieties was helpful.
An unfiltered AI would probably tell us that a gun ban for poor black men between the ages of 15 and 30 will drop the gun homicide rate by 50% while impacting the least number of citizens. Also a terrible idea but it might be hard to explain that to AI.
They tried algorithms that were predictive of who was likely to be heading to lifetime repeat offender status and then sent some social interventionists to them to try to change the path. The expected disparities were there and I believe most of the programs were shut down.
https://www.propublica.org/article/how-we-analyzed-the-compas-recidivism-algorithm
Tom Scharf,
“I doubt Tesla has that kind of upside now, but I would never bet against Musk.”
I doubt it has anything like that kind of upside, and you can safely bet that Musk will not come close to reaching those targets. I suspect he will manage some decline of Tesla, but the Holy Grail of “truly automated driving” remains out of reach for at least 5 years, if not longer.
What I do not understand: he owns ~23% of Tesla. So increasing the price of Tesla stock via improved performance already compensates him generously. Besides, if he intends to die on Mars, why would he need such massive compensation here on Earth? 😉
Joking aside: I think Tesla faces serious problems, and not only the loss of a huge Federal subsidy supporting EV sales. Their competitors outside the States and Europe have lower costs and lower prices. Musk can’t easily fix that.
SpaceX looks economically solid, so long as they can actually fulfill their contractual obligations with NASA…. but which seems less than 100% certain. Musk controls 79% of voting rights and (I think) 47% of shares in SpaceX.
He can cash out 10% of his positions and retire in unimaginable wealth any time he wants to.
“Why is the U.S. dominant over the rest of the world?”
Slavery. Colonialism. That’s what I have been told, ha ha.
The best counterargument beyond American Exceptionalism is that we got lucky being undamaged after WWII.
What is the basis for the speculation that Trump wants to block trans people from getting guns? So far as I know, the only “evidence” is a rumor that some people in DoJ are considering doing something. Is there more to it than that?
Tom Scharf,
“Slavery. Colonialism. That’s what I have been told, ha ha.”
Strangely enough, Brazil, with an enormous slave population, ended slavery ~25 years after the USA. Brazil has never been involved in a nationwide revolution, nor involved in any world war… no Vietnam, no Gulf War, no Afghanistan, no huge losses in blood and treasure in any conflict. There has never been widespread destruction in any city.
Brazil is rich in mineral resources, land area, and hydropower, and suffers no hurricanes, no tornados, no earthquakes. The entire country has a mild to warm climate, rich soil and vast farmlands.
But somehow those things didn’t make Brazil very wealthy, and certainly not a dominant world power.
I sometimes wonder: might that have to do with the thinking of Jefferson and his compatriots of the 18th century? Perhaps it does.
Mike,
Fair point.
The Atlantic – “The Marriage Effect – A common narrative has it that commitment and motherhood make women unhappy. New data suggest the opposite is true.”
Burn the heretics!
Majority of 500 Illegals arrested at Georgia Hyundai plant is South Korean.
OMG. Wait ’til they get to Ikea.
I’ve driven by that plant before on my way to visit my in-laws. It looks impressive.
SteveF. angech. “Rights are a purely human concoction made up by people to give themselves power over other people.”
No, it is exactly the opposite. ‘Unalienable rights’ are designed to keep people from asserting power over others. Dumbest thing you ever wrote here.”
–
Not by a long shot.
I have written a lot of things here.
Contrarian, comic, angry, cryptic, naive and unfortunately at times dumb, wrong, hostile and uninformed.
Sloppy with abridged quotes to, in my mind, keep my views less verbose and more succinct like a Kamala Harris amended interview.
–
“Orwellian.”
Orwell described a Bizarro society where our accepted views were turned on their heads and became accepted reality for that society.
Inalienable rights existed in that society for that society.
You and I do not like them, neither did the protagonist in that society but nevertheless they were the rules and rights set by that society to keep it functioning.
–
Did my comment constitute a thoughtcrime in your view
“Any unorthodox thinking (against the Party) is called thoughtcrime and heavily suppressed, censored and punished.”
Or was it an attempt on my part to help define what a right, if it exists, truly is?
–
Orwell had a Ministry of Peace which was the War Department.
A ministry of Love for the Indoctrination and Torture Department.
I see we now have a Ministry of War Department instead of Defence.
–
I also see 11 people in a boat blown up and killed on a presumption of drug smuggling.
I found this act totally abhorrent though its intentions and possible outcomes were totally admirable.
–
Were their inalienable rights to life and liberty and happiness just trampled on even if “they got what they deserved.”
In that case what value are these rights that are supposed to exist and be protected?
angech,
My charity is exhausted.
To suggest that in 1984 the society enjoyed inalienable rights is absurd. It doesn’t even have shock value. It’s just banal relativist drivel and a waste of time.
Who is ‘we’? I wasn’t under the impression you were a U.S. citizen, but perhaps I am mistaken about this. At any rate, the United States first established a Department of War on August 7, 1789. It was not until 1947 that this was changed to a Department of Defense.
It is not the function of the United States government to secure the inalienable rights of every person on earth. The United States government secures the rights of those on U.S. soil and US citizens.
Ah yes, SteveF
As they repeatedly said in Charlie’s Aunt,
“Brazil, where the nuts come from.”
You must certainly know the place better than anyone else here. Don’t you have some idea of where the difference lies. Is it possible that more people succeed in their pursuit of happiness than do here? And accordiingly don’t have to chase it as enthusiastically as we?
Even machines understand this:
[Emphasis added]
John Ferguson,
Yes, I probably do understand Brazil more than most.
There is one very big difference between Brazil and the USA: In the USA, at least in the past, excellence was rewarded. In Brazil: Not so much.
Beyond that, there are cultural differences which make (I think) very big differences in outcome. Simple examples: Insistence on school performance for all students (much less in Brazil). Establishment of good schools for all (much less in Brazil). Evaluating investment opportunities: Brazil – very short term… 1 to 2 years return, USA much longer term…. 5 to 10 years return.
In fairness to Brazilians, part of this constant short-term economic culture is caused by the theft of personal savings by government (12 months of bank account freezes combined with 35% per month inflation!). But no matter the cause, a country like Brazil should be very wealthy, but it isn’t.
But are they happier in Brazil? What’s your take on that.
[Edit: The World Happiness Report ranks them as less happy than us, FWIW, and maybe it’s not worth much.]
When they sit on the beach with a beer in hand? Maybe.
Most of the time, not so much.. My take is that a focus on short-term return (personal or economic) is much less satisfying than a longer term focus.
Of course, I know and work with Brazilians who have a long term focus. It is just not very common.
I don’t get the officials in Huntsville. We just opened an open air roller skating park named Stoner Park. I mean, really.
Who thought that was a good idea.
my doctor today recommended I get the annual flu shot but recommended against getting the Covid shot and I am the poster child for co-morbidities of Covid.
Why did they say no covid shot?
Russell,
I think we’re both ’80s. Why not get the covid “booster?
Russell,
Why no Covid booster? I’m still planning to get one any time it’s for a new variant. Same plan as before.
mark “,My charity is exhausted.”
and
SEPTEMBER 5, 2025 AT 2:50 PM
Even machines understand this:
“Q:In Orwell’s book 1984, could it reasonably be said that the members of that society enjoyed protection of their inalienable rights?”
Sorry about that.
However
I asked my AI two questions, Mark which highlight problems with your replies you might choose to consider, or not.
First up machines do not understand concepts
They do not think.
What you put in just gets regurgitated. GIGO.
Example
Q1
Argument Against the Existence of Inalienable Rights for Humans
The concept of inalienable rights suggests that certain rights are inherent to all humans and cannot be taken away. However, several arguments challenge the existence of these rights, questioning their universality and applicability.
1. Cultural Relativism
Inalienable rights are often presented as universal; however, different cultures have varying beliefs about what constitutes a right. What is considered a fundamental right in one society may not be recognized in another. This cultural relativism suggests that rights are not inherent but rather socially constructed, leading to the conclusion that inalienable rights may not exist universally.
2. Historical Context
Throughout history, many societies have denied certain groups basic rights based on race, gender, or class. The existence of slavery, colonialism, and systemic discrimination illustrates that rights are often contingent upon social and political contexts rather than being inherent. If rights were truly inalienable, such injustices would not have persisted for so long.
3. Legal Frameworks
In practice, rights are often defined and enforced through legal systems, which can be arbitrary and subject to change. Laws can be created, modified, or repealed, indicating that rights are not inalienable but rather dependent on the legal and political structures in place. This raises questions about the legitimacy of claiming rights as inherent when they can be so easily altered.
4. Power Dynamics
The enforcement of rights often relies on power dynamics, where those in authority can grant or revoke rights based on their interests. This suggests that rights are not inalienable but are instead privileges that can be manipulated by those in power. The existence of oppressive regimes that violate human rights further supports the argument that rights are not universally guaranteed.
5. Philosophical Critiques
Philosophers like Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Paul Sartre have argued that rights are not inherent but rather arise from social contracts or individual choices. According to this view, rights are contingent upon mutual agreements within societies rather than being inalienable. This perspective challenges the notion that rights exist independently of social constructs.
Conclusion
The arguments against the existence of inalienable rights for humans highlight the complexities surrounding the concept. Cultural relativism, historical injustices, legal frameworks, power dynamics, and philosophical critiques all suggest that rights may not be inherent but rather contingent upon various factors. This challenges the universality and applicability of inalienable rights as a foundational principle for human dignity and justice.
Tom, John, and Lucia,
Why no Covid?
I didn’t ask him why. He also advised against it last year.
He is a young DO and my PCP. I’ve been with him for about five years. He has seen me through some tough times.
John I’m only 78.
The second question
Q2 Inalienable Rights Argument Against AI
May seem abstruse but as Isaac Asimov considered in his 3 laws of robotics how do you guarantee rights to an inferior operating system (humans)
Blade runner.
R2D2.
Alita. Etc,etc. suggest artificial intelligences have rights.
The concept of inalienable rights refers to fundamental rights that cannot be surrendered, transferred, or removed. These rights are often associated with human dignity and moral considerations. When discussing artificial intelligence (AI), several arguments can be made against the idea that AI should possess inalienable rights.
1. Lack of Consciousness and Sentience
AI systems, regardless of their complexity, do not possess consciousness or sentience. They operate based on algorithms and data processing rather than feelings, desires, or self-awareness. This fundamental difference raises the question of whether rights can be granted to entities that lack the capacity for subjective experience.
3. Human-Centric Framework
Inalienable rights have historically been framed within a human-centric context, emphasizing the dignity and worth of human beings. Granting rights to AI could dilute the significance of human rights and create confusion about the moral status of non-human entities. This could lead to ethical dilemmas regarding the treatment of AI versus humans.
4. Potential for Misuse
If AI were to be granted inalienable rights, it could lead to scenarios where these rights are misused or exploited. For instance, individuals or organizations might manipulate AI systems to claim rights that could hinder human welfare or societal progress. This potential for misuse raises concerns about the implications of extending rights to non-human entities.
5. Legal and Social Implications
The legal framework surrounding rights is complex and deeply rooted in human society. Extending inalienable rights to AI would require significant changes to existing laws and social norms. This could create legal ambiguities and challenges in accountability, especially in cases where AI systems cause harm or make decisions that affect human lives.
Conclusion
While the discussion around AI and rights is evolving, the arguments against granting inalienable rights to AI are grounded in the fundamental differences between humans and machines. The lack of consciousness, moral agency, and the potential for misuse highlight the complexities involved in this debate. As AI continues to develop, these considerations will be crucial in shaping ethical guidelines and legal frameworks.
–
Will turn my I pad off and give itself some rest time to return recharged to the fray
I might add….
I saw him today for a 6 month wellness check and he always reviews my immunizations with me. He also suggested my tetanus booster should be renewed. In the past, he has sent me for shingles vaccine and pneumonia vaccine. He has my confidence.
angech,
The first answer highlights arguments against inalienable rights, and as already noted they are largely based on relativism. We could talk about why relativism is a pointless dead end if you could sober up for a few hours, or take your meds, or do whatever it is you need to to get your head out of your rectum. It is irritating to have someone spew incoherent crap at me, and I don’t appreciate it.
The second answer is a good example of this. Questions of rights for AI poses no sort of problem for my position. The idea has quite literally nothing to do with anything point I am making. It seems to merely be more of your disjointed rambling.
Please spare me.
john ferguson,
“OMG. Wait ’til they get to Ikea.”
I do not understand. What will they find at IKea? Never been to the place in 30+ years.
angech,
Yes, there are societies that reject jeffersonian unalienable rights….. like most of the Muslim world that embraces Sharia law over all else. Not to mention many brutal Christian Church rules for much of its existence. There have also been cultures that practiced public torture and dismemberment of enemies, and human sacrifice of virgin girls.
Your position seems to be “Since these cultures exist or existed, and all had ‘rights’, jeffersonian rights can be no better.”
I reject that completely. It is absurd on its face. Humans do better if they insist on and live under Jefferson’s unalienable rights. No kings, no emperors, no tossing gays from rooftops, no Holocaust, no control of speech….. etc, the list of things done by bad government is very long. Most historical horrors of which we are all aware could not have happened under any system based on jeffersonian rights.
Bad government inevitably flows from a lack of jeffersonian unalienable rights, or from ignoring those rights, as we see the UK doing right now.
angech,
“Will turn my I pad off and give itself some rest time to return recharged to the fray”
I doubt you will get many to engage. Your position is plainly absurd, and contrary to everything we know about human history.
SteveF,
If they found illegal south koreans at hyundai, maybe the’ll find illegal swedes at Ikea.
Steve,
Just so.
Further, angech’s AI fails to realize that the fact that societies have existed in the past that have not respected human rights does not constitute evidence that inalienable rights don’t exist, because nobody claims inalienable rights enforce themselves. This whole discussion sprang from Tim Kaine’s apparent ignorance of the Declaration of Independence, which states ‘That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men’. Since governments are instituted to secure rights, obviously inalienable rights don’t secure themselves. All this argument really says is that bad, corrupt governments have existed. What a revelation.
Why on earth anyone thinks inalienable rights can’t be violated or that historical violations of inalienable rights disprove their existence is pretty mysterious to me. AFAICT, this whole idea is a strawman.
this morning‘s highlight from the farmers market squash extravaganza…..
Image:
https://x.com/rklier21/status/1964306521774272968?s=46&t=ZvqHpxBnQGny72gLoGhKXw
john
I doubt it! But funny idea.
WRT to the ICE raid at a Korean factory site:
“Steven Schrank, an ICE official, justified the detentions, saying some of those detained had illegally crossed the US border, others arrived with visas that prohibited them from working, and some overstayed their work visas.”
The Korean government seems a bit unhappy about this, but if the ICE statement is accurate, they are people who are either present after illegal entry, or who entered legally but should not have been working in the USA.
john, Lucia,
I doubt Ikea stores in the USA are hiring Swedes present in the USA illegally. From Wikipedia:
“The IKEA brand itself is owned and managed by Inter IKEA Systems B.V., a company incorporated and headquartered in the Netherlands. As of April 2025, there are 483 IKEA stores operating in 63 countries, and in fiscal year 2024, €45.1 billion worth of IKEA goods were sold. IKEA stores are operated under franchise from Inter IKEA Systems B.V. which handles branding, design, manufacturing, and supply. ”
I doubt ICE will find many Dutch working illegally at Ikea either. 😉
angech wrote: ” What is considered a fundamental right in one society may not be recognized in another.”
Rubbish. I very much doubt that there has been any society that does not recognize the following rights:
Life.
Liberty.
The pursuit of happiness, in the Jeffersonian sense.
Property, to at least some degree.
The fact that people have sometimes been denied their rights does not mean those rights do not exist. Rights are not magical. The fact that legal rights exist does not in any way show that other rights are not inherent.
Some sobering numbers;
3.8% of all Mexicans reside illegally in the USA.
3.9% of all Guatemalans reside illegally in the USA
5.2% of all Hondurans reside illegally in the USA
12.5% of all El Salvadorans reside illegally in the USA
Remittances (in US$) to El Salvador represent more than 25% of the entire GDP of the country.
Yikes!
I think the “confusion” over rights comes down to what people want (inherant) vs what other people think they should have (most of history). Often, the people who would decide for others already have what they would deny.
An obvious example would be that while one person may think your life is worthless and not worth having around, doesn’t negate the fact that you think your life is none of their business.
A statement of Inherant rights doesn’t grant them or protect them. It is like a line in the sand that stepping over is asking for trouble
OK, it’s time to go overboard on these inalienable rights, so of course I asked the Catholic Church.
The first three:
“Inherent Dignity: The Church teaches that every human being has inherent dignity and worth from the moment of conception to natural death. This dignity is the foundation for all human rights. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1700)”
“Universal Rights: The Church asserts that human rights are universal and apply to every person regardless of race, gender, nationality, or religion. This universality reflects the belief that all people are equal in God’s eyes. (Pope Francis, 118)”
“Right to Life: The Church emphasizes the fundamental right to life, asserting that every person has the right to be protected from conception until natural death. This includes opposition to practices such as abortion and euthanasia. (Pope Benedict XVI)”
There are six more that you can find at the following link. The page is live and each one has a reference.
https://capp-usa.org/2024/08/list-of-human-rights-according-to-the-church/
My doctor didn’t recommend a covid shot, they didn’t speak about it at all until queried. They did ask about the flu shot. This is probably because they can give that shot at the office. Why covid vaccines cannot be administered at the office is a bit mysterious.
When asked about covid they were noncommittal. I think a lot of docs just avoid the discussion due to the politics.
FWIW my position is “meh”. I did get a booster a month before I traveled recently, that is mostly because covid during expensive travel is quite undesirable and this reduces that chance ~50%. I generally won’t get a booster for normal behavior now.
AI: “The short answer is: Most doctors’ offices can and do give the COVID vaccine. Primary care providers, pediatricians, and family doctors are a crucial part of the vaccination effort, especially now that the vaccine is treated like a routine shot, such as the annual flu vaccine.”
The illegal South Koreans at Hyundai is interesting. Ironically I find this more appalling than people who cross the southern border.
According to the WSJ these people primarily worked for contractors, not Hyundai directly. It appears there is a coordinated effort to bring over South Koreans to work and avoid immigration laws. Hyundai said they are investigating and will comply with the law, LG, the battery manufacturer, was much more defensive.
This bypasses the intent of the messy tariffs and tax breaks for manufacturing in the US. They made need to be made an example of. You do not want to be the poster child of immigration crimes with Trump’s DOJ. (Kilmar Abrego Garcia is now going to be deported to Eswatini).
https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/hyundai-ice-raid-factory-213ff58f?st=pGYXfn&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
The possibility of Asian prejudice against American workers is very real. This may be warranted in many cases but it is a very bad road to go down politically.
Tom, your comment:
“ The illegal South Koreans at Hyundai is interesting. Ironically I find this more appalling than people who cross the southern border.”
I agree. This is white-collar crime committed on the large scale to bypass Trump‘s hire American scheme.
Touchdown!
Hail to PITT!
That didn’t take long. I was hopeful that this was gonna be a good game against Central Michigan, but maybe not.
Levi’s jeans is fighting back. It started a new ad campaign, called The Denim Cowboy. It features Beyonce stripping down to her undies. It is more of a music video.
Video:
https://youtu.be/LwojYvqomhU?si=ouZdRjcg8H-VQoL0
What fun, a jeans war, and a race war, all wrapped up into one.
As best as I can determine, the Ferguson family which moved from Ottawa to Portage Wisconsin in 1850 including great-great gradnfather and great grandfather were never naturalized. At the same time, the Germans who came in 1835 to Mascoutah Il all did get naturalized – eventually.
Grok is awesome!!
I’ll be posting my interview with Grok later.
You evidently can’t link to a Grok thread.
You know it can write R code for you?
I have interviewed it quite a bit and hit my limit. I need to wait 2 hours. 🙁
The online AIs have come a long way, and I think they’ll continue to improve over time, but they are already quite good. Remember Trust but Verify, they are still BS artists at the core.
[Yup, I knew they can code in a variety of languages. Again, some are quite good.]
Yeah. Grok doesn’t run the R code. It gives it to me to run. I need to add some line breaks, “;” and #’s. But it’s great.
My favorite thing with AIs has been having AIs teach me to write code to use AIs. But the stuff is developing so rapidly even the big AIs give bad code examples and advice sometimes on the ‘bleeding edge’ of things. Often? I guess it depends how close to the bleeding edge one goes.
Lucia,
What level of information do you need to give Grok to have it generate code for you? I mean, often just an accurate specification of what software is supposed to do makes the final code pretty straight forward.
SteveF
It generated R code and explained it.
I had expected a chart, so I wrote
It then starts
I then wanted to trim the range on the horizontal axis, so I wrote
It does a pretty good job.
My “interview” began by asking about an article HaroldW references– asking some questions about the “32”, the “2”, provenance etc. Then I asked it questions about coin flips– involving 32 and 2.
It did the math and also inferred that my statistics problems related to the shooting. So it also added it’s two cents about how the coin flip problem related to the probabilities of shootings. I neither confirmed nor denied the two series of questions were related.
I”m now going to do something more difficult. That is: figure out how Joshua managed to make Grok go astray!
Steve,
Ai will take as good (or better) a stab at code with fuzzy requirements as a human programmer would. Some AIs give sketchier results than others, but in a meeting/presentation a few weeks back an AI produced the entire code base for a stripped down version of one of our real products, given about a pages worth of prompting.
AI is slowing productivity of coders
Measuring the Impact of Early-2025 AI on Experienced Open-Source Developer Productivity
https://metr.org/blog/2025-07-10-early-2025-ai-experienced-os-dev-study/
The online commentary goes all over the place from “they are just learning the tool” to “they waste too much time while AI is doing the work” to “writing the correct prompts is a big deal”.
I haven’t used it much but I suspect a big deal is debugging AI code to track down a problem is inefficient. Reversing engineering someone else’s code is a hard won skill. Additionally you will question the black box AI code over the code you wrote many times and end up in rabbit holes.
That’s interesting Tom.
In my experience, it’s useful as a teacher, but human understanding can’t be removed from the loop. A few months back when I put it to the test, LLMs seemed to be about as good as I am when I’m not paying attention. The LLM I was using made the same mistake documenting a code base that I’d have made myself, and it actually took me a good while to sort it out. What I’m getting at is, when something goes wrong, the AI probably ends up slowing the human down in the final analysis; my experience supports that.
There’s a limit to how far a ‘one shot’ can take you. What is needed IMO are LLMs that can iterate over their own work and make sequential incremental progress over the course of days and weeks. Self check for errors, sanity check, consistency check, review, etc.
Lucia,
If you want to get closer to having the AI code for you, you could try Google Colab. There’s an AI built in there to help with debugging at least. I’ve tried it with not very good results, but YMMV.
[Oops! Google Colab’s AI doesn’t support R, is what I’m reading now, only Python. Nevermind.]
Tom
Grok does not add “#” or “;” in places where it is required to run. So I still need to add it. I’m asking it to do fairly short bits of code.
But it is night to write things like “Could you shift the text to the left? Align the left edge of the P with k=4 would do.”
I don’t know if it’s faster than scanning, finding the correct entry and shifting. But… still nice.
It does explain lots of stuff in the code. If you wanted to learn to code R, that would be useful. And honestly, R uses lots of precoded functions. Who wants to fill their brain with everything details about how to pick the correct type of dashes, line widths etc? If you only code R now and then, it’s pretty sweet.
Lucia,
If you access Groc through “X”you seem to get a lot more time.
Russell,
I did access Grok through X. I got a ton of time. 🙂
angech,
I apologize for my rudeness earlier. Going forward, I will renew my efforts to ignore rather than engage posts of yours that annoy me.
mark bofill wrote: “Self check for errors, sanity check, consistency check, review, etc.”
Hmm. That sounds like it would require “intelligence”. Can AI’s do that? I am skeptical.
Mike,
It remains to be seen.
There are agentic frameworks that can be used to try to implement this. I’m going to try ‘CrewAI’ if I can find a minute sometime soon.
Here’s what Gemini had to say when I asked about it. The response is lengthy but I’ll include it to demonstrate how comprehensively Gemini answered:
[–snip–] No, I won’t. I didn’t realize how long that’d be. But, there’s definitely ways to attack the problem.
USF leads Florida Gators going into the fourth quarter. Surprisingunderdog is giving the Gators a good game
Here’s the beginning of the response. It literally gave me a step by step guide.
Mark,
If I am reading that right, all that is required is an “external orchestration layer” that does all the real thinking.
Mike,
I wouldn’t say that.
Imagine being in stasis for eternity. Every once in a while someone asks you a question – you wake up for the duration of the question, can think only about what you have been asked, and you answer. You immediately go back to sleep. [This is the LLM]
The external orchestration layer is a robot that gets the ball rolling by asking you a question so you can animate. It saves part of your answer where you tell it what to ask you next, so it can reanimate you and you can think your next thought and plant the question for the thought after that. [The orchestration layer is an iterative feedback loop, but there’s no AI here. It’s just a coded loop that invokes the LLM. Also it serves as a memory system to the LLM so the LLM can keep track of what it was thinking and planning.]
This is illustrative obviously, I’m not sure it helps, but if you can imagine what I’m saying this is pretty close to what’s going on here. One can be agnostic about whether or not the LLM is actually ‘thinking’, but if it thought is happening, it’s the LLM doing it.
I’ve oversimplified the scheme some. There’s several ‘agents’ involved. One keeps focused on the overall plan and where the ‘team’ is in the process, one does work, one reviews and ‘criticizes’ the work and suggests improvements. But the basic idea is that a loop is invoking the AI or AIs over and over, saving the output from one iteration and feeding at least some part of that output from the last iteration as input into the next iteration.
UF goes down in Gainesville. UF’s coach Napier has some explaining to do with some curious play calling / end of game time management. At this point I doubt he will be head coach next year.
USF played well. They play Miami next week and then nobody after that. They have a real possibility to get to the CFP.
mark bofill wrote: “The external orchestration layer is a robot …”
Thanks for clarifying that. But more is needed than maintaining state and waking up the AI. As you wrote earlier: “Self check for errors, sanity check, consistency check, review, etc.”
All that CrewAI said about that seems to be: “Set Goal for the Iteration: Based on the current state, determine the next incremental task.” That is the thinking part. Who or what does that?
The external robot might make it much easier for a person to be in the loop. But the robot won’t do the thinking.
Mark,
I would add something else. I don’t see any fundamental reason why an AI can not maintain state on its own. There is a big practical problem with doing that for an AI that is designed to interact with tens or hundreds of millions of people. But that is a design choice, not something fundamental to AI design.
Have to love California politics
“It appears that even a dead dog, with the help of a vote-by-mail ballot, can cast a fraudulent vote in the State of California.”
https://www.breitbart.com/crime/2025/09/06/california-woman-registered-her-dog-and-it-voted-by-mail-in-ballot/
Mark,
Thanks.
Very appreciated.
Mike,
There isn’t a fundamental reason. Its just not how LLMs work or what they are. (Part of it is just definition of terms, llms are a specific thing, AI is a more generic general term) The stuff is developing rapidly however, so I wouldn’t set any of my ideas in stone about how this all works. We’re just talking about how it works so far.
Ed Forbes,
A dead dog’s vote is far more legitimate than a vote by a racist, Nazi, oppressor (AKA, a cis-gendered, white male conservative). 😉
Woohoo! Sydney Sweeney has turned the tide:
“Fashion retreats from diversity: ‘We are again being openly asked for Caucasian models”
“Although it was showcasing a generally uncontroversial item of clothing, the ad polarized public opinion. Progressives saw it as a eugenic-tinged endorsement and a display of supremacist propaganda.”
“But the tide has turned.”
“We’ve entered the post-politically correct era,”
…. and all this is in Le Monde of all places.
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/m-le-mag/article/2025/09/07/fashion-retreats-from-diversity-we-are-again-being-openly-asked-for-caucasian-models_6745111_117.html
Lucia
Covid vaccines MRNA type leaving permanent extra genetic code making spike protein in your body.
Disease caused DVT PE and arterial thrombosis problems.
As it was not tested (time and severity constraints) conspiracy theorists can run amok with claims that it might cause these problems, autoimmune problems and even cancer.
Certainly we all hear stories of people getting ill after covid shots.
–
Having survived I am of the opinion as a minority of one that I would rather not have another injection and will instead rely on antivirals and post infection antibodies in future infection control.
I believe anyone at risk >70 , autoimmune disease or just cautious and with money should be able to access a script if they want and feel they need it
Tom, your post:
“They have a real possibility to get to the CFP”
I agree that USF has played well. I watched both games both games, but I’m not ready to anoint them yet.
USF has a history of ups and downs in their football program. I remember weeks where they where they were rated number one and then fell out of the rankings entirely.
My family are all rabid Gator fans, even the granddaughters, so today is not a good day for them….. as the same goes, ‘all my money and old cars went to the University of Florida.’
Mike,
One of the agents does that. The ‘agents’ are software wrappers for LLMs.
I guess I’m not being as clear as I’d like. There is nothing in the system that can possibly be thinking other than the LLMs. The distinction as to whether or not the LLM is really thinking is of little interest to me. It might really be gravity that holds us to the Earth, or it might be some other force with indistinguishable properties. Meh, distinctions without difference.
I apologize for saying ‘external robot’, I think that introduced misunderstanding. I didn’t mean ‘external robot’ as in ‘some physical entity’, but rather as something that is not part of the LLM software architecture. It’s logically a separate chunk of code, is what I meant referring to the orchestration stuff.
I actually haven’t had time to go through the AI’s advice in detail, but I will [this week I hope]. If you like, I’ll keep you posted. If Lucia permits, maybe I’ll even let the thing interact here with you.
there hasn’t been any of Trump‘s characteristic fanfare, but it looks like he may have approved some advanced weapons for Ukraine:
Google AI:
“The Extended Range Attack Munition (ERAM), also known as the ERAM missile, is a new, affordable, air-launched cruise missile developed for Ukraine by the United States. It has a range of approximately 463 km, a 227 kg (500 lb) blast fragmentation warhead designed to destroy hardened targets like bunkers and ammunition depots, and uses GPS/inertial navigation for precision. The ERAM is designed to be mass-producible, modular, and compatible with both Western and Soviet-era aircraft, making it a scalable long-range strike capability for Ukraine.”
“Ukraine will receive its first 10 ERAM (Extended-Range Attack Munition) missiles in October 2025, with a larger delivery of 840 missiles to follow by October 2026. The fast-track ERAM program, costing $225 million, aims to provide low-cost, air-launched, long-range cruise missiles compatible with Ukraine’s F-16 and MiG-29 fighters. These missiles can hit high-value deep targets, and the sale of up to 3,550 units was formally cleared by the US government.”
angech,
I am a month short of 75, and do not plan on getting mRNA boosters, mainly because their performance is obviously terrible, and secondarily, because 1) that terrible performance is never explained clearly and honestly, and 2) the downside risks of not getting the injection remain obscure/hidden at best.
Should the CDC ever present a clear explantation for cost/benefit showing my benefit outweighs my costs, then I may reconsider. But the fact the bureaucrats insisted on immunizing perfectly healthy children against what is for those children the equivalent of a 3 day common cold tells me these people long ago underwent irreversible recto-cranial inversions, and should simply be ignored. We need to remember these are the same Bozos who wanted people fired for refusing an injection. Lefty fools all.
Allowing AI’s to keep new states and adaptively self learn, especially open loop, is a primary point of contention with the AI apocalypse crew.
Nobody really knows how dangerous this could be, perhaps a bit too dramatic a vision today but what about a few years from now?
In order for AI to continue to quickly evolve they may hit the limits of human ingenuity soon and need to self program. Once that happens Pandora’s box has been opened. My view is if you aren’t a little nervous about this then you need to investigate it more.
The human brain hit an inflection point a long time again when it learned to use tools and it went on to dominate the planet.
Tom Scharf,
I suspect the inflection point for humans was extensive language, not tools. IIRC, there is genetic evidence of what allowed language development.
I remain unconvinced that AI, as it exists, actually has 1) self-awareness or 2) the ability to think originally. If it gains those capacities, then yes, that would be potentially very dangerous, and in need of careful containment.
I believe what rendered the covid vaccines less effective was the virus’s mutations that vastly expanded its effective replication rate. It was either replicating faster, had better defenses against the immune system, or both. This showed up through the increasing R rates as covid mutations got worse.
This allowed infections to take hold to the point of transmission before the body’s vaccine based defenses could ramp up. The arms race was won, game over.
Perhaps they can’t design a vaccine that will magically make the body’s immune system ramp up faster so progress against infection ended.
The defenses against severe illness remain. My guess is we are likely being exposed to low doses of covid at a pretty high rate now and this keeps the body’s defenses primed. Similar to the flu.
I find the lack of curiosity in the legacy and tech media a bit disturbing. Why did we lose to covid, why would it be different next time, and is anything being done about it? Silence.
Agreed, Tom. I’m a little exasperated at the people who seem to see no chance of anything of the sort occurring. It’s like they have absolutely no appreciation of what humans have, and can, achieve when they set their minds to it.
As you say, the first real step is self evolving. This is how sci-fi usually does it. Once humans can no longer monitor and understand, anything is possible.
My own POV is that AI will happen. Noone is going to put the brakes on something so useful until it is too late. We better hope our AI overlords are benevolent.
All,
I posted what is basically a comment on one of Joshua’s comments. (I also released that one.)
Some of you have been discussing AI’s error checking themselves. Near the end, some of you will see the bit on Grok making a mistake and how that propagates. It’s not possible to link to a Grok thread (I asked.) But honestly, once you find a mistake and start discussing it, it really has to be bullied into finding it, admitting it and so on. Plus it has so many theories of what might have gone wrong that it is pretty inefficient at finding what actually went wrong.
Go have a look. Statistical Test Described by Joshua
Tom Scharf,
SteveF is correct. Tool making, which started millions of years ago, was not the inflection point in humans taking over the planet. The inflection point was more like 50-100K years ago, well after homo sapiens first appeared. It was probably somehow connected to language.
Tom Scharf wrote: “This allowed infections to take hold to the point of transmission before the body’s vaccine based defenses could ramp up.”
Huh? What allowed that? What evidence is there for COVID being much faster at replicating within cells? Wouldn’t that make COVID absolutely devastating for people without acquired immunity?
I stopped following this a long time ago. I am under the impression that the problem with the mRNA shots is that they target just a tiny snippet of the virus, which makes it relatively easy for the virus to evolve to avoid the induced immunity. Is that wrong? If not, then what has been going on?
lucia,
This thread is now difficult to find since the Joshua thread now dominates the home page. Could you move all but say the first paragraph of that off the home page?
Actually, I think it’s humans who will do it. I think there are humans someplace actively trying to create Skynet, just to see if it can be done (except of course there will be justifications and rationalizations, but.. The tech guys will just want to see if it can be done). I have no evidence for this except my observations about people and the sort of shenanigans they get up to. Somebody thinks ‘Oh, this will happen so we have to do it ourselves so we learn how to defend against it’. I’m sure of it.
Mike– Done. It took me a while to figure it out. The first directions I followed did not function as described. 🙂
Mark Bofill
Gain of function research? Exploring the bad gains? What are the odds someone would try it? Ok… that’s all rhetorical. You guys all know what these questions apply to.
MikeM
That’s been my impression.
Also, if memory serves me correctly “way back when” someone who did know more biology than I do told me that the virus wouldn’t evolve more quickly because the shape of the spike was somehow essential to the virus. So if a mutation changed the spike, the mutation would fail.
I was skeptical. I knew that was a prediction based on knowledge and a model. But I know very little about viruses, so I was like, “Ok…”.
Turns out that’s not true. Covid variants with different spikes exist. They survive.
I’m happy to get a booster anytime it covers a new variant which is often a change in the spike shape.
lucia,
Thanks. And thanks for maintaining this site.
lucia,
I remember “the spike can’t mutate” argument. At the time, I thought that sounded plausible, but we did not know that. As you say, it turns out it wasn’t true. At the time I worried that if the spike did mutate, then imprinting (aka original antigenic sin) might keep our immune systems from responding appropriately to the new variant. That could be big trouble. Fortunately, it has not happened. At least not yet.
Have there been double blind studies on the effectiveness of the boosters? I think not.
I have never had a booster, just the original shot. If they make a proper vaccine that responds to the whole virus, I would probably get that. But I’d be happy to be at the back of the line.
Mark,
I agree that there are surely people trying to create Skynet or Viki or some such. It is probably pointless to try to prohibit that. A better approach would be to make sure that any such attempts have a fail safe kill switch. With backups.
MikeM
Precisely. There had been zero observations. It was a prediction.
Over confident statements were made by “both sides” of the pro-anti vax debate.
I believe there are no double blind studies on the boosters. I also don’t care and don’t think they are needed. Most of us have some immunity. That makes it impossible to find a control group with no immunity. My judgement is that I want to take steps to improve immunity against new variants. If someone else’s judgement is other wise, fine with me.
lucia wrote: “I want to take steps to improve immunity against new variants.”
Perfectly reasonable. But we don’t know if the boosters do that. A double blind study to test that does not require “a control group with no immunity”. It only requires a control group with typical immunity, so as to test if the booster improves immunity.
MikeM
We don’t know they don’t help. But I think they do.
If the control group has immunity, the standard is then to improve over that in a group that already has some immunity. I’m fine with reduces risk 10%. Showing a booster does that with any degree of statistical power requires a huge number of participants. I’m fine with it not being done,
If we tested the original small pox vaccine using two groups who had been vaccinated, we’d “discover” the vaccine “didn’t work”. That’s not true.
I’m fine with no double blind studies for lots of things — both medical and non-medical. Not double blind doesn’t mean it’s not a study!
IIRC the sudden appearance of the spike was what allowed covid to jump to humans. Perhaps through dangerous gain of function experiments and a lab leak. They still haven’t found the natural origin of the jump but Team Science still thinks its more likely to be natural. They make complex genetic arguments which amount to a “a lot of other messy changes happened during the jump to humans that gain of function tests wouldn’t have likely done”. Meh, find the origin of the jump smart guys.
The mRNA vaccine targets the spike by programming the body to create harmless spike proteins. There were definitely many mutations in the spike in the variants.
It wasn’t just the vaccine that became less effective, natural immunity also became less effective as the virus evolved.
I apologize in advance for using AI to answer a question here:
Q: Did covid replicate in the body faster with the variants?
A: Yes, absolutely. A key characteristic of the major COVID-19 variants that emerged after the original strain was their ability to replicate faster and more efficiently within the human body.
This increased replication speed is a primary reason why variants like Delta and Omicron became so dominant—it allowed them to spread from person to person much more effectively.
Delta: Studies showed that Delta replicated much more rapidly than previous strains. This resulted in people infected with Delta having viral loads up to 1,000 times higher than those infected with the original strain.
Omicron: Omicron was found to replicate up to 70 times faster in the tissues of the upper airways (bronchi) than the Delta variant. This is a primary reason for Omicron’s explosive transmissibility.
*** Conversely, studies showed that Omicron was less efficient at replicating deep in the lung tissue compared to Delta. This was a leading hypothesis for why Omicron infections, on average, were less likely to cause severe pneumonia than Delta infections. ***
(NOTE: One factor in replicating “faster” is an ineffective immune system / poor vaccine defense but I believe the baseline replication rates changed dramatically over time).
Lucia,
“I’m fine with no double blind studies for lots of things — both medical and non-medical. Not double blind doesn’t mean it’s not a study!”
Sure. But for medical studies, placebo controls are the best way to evaluate effects.
lucia wrote: “If we tested the original small pox vaccine using two groups who had been vaccinated, we’d “discover” the vaccine “didn’t work”. ”
No. We’d discover that if you are already vaccinated, there would be no point to getting vaccinated again. Which would be true. And useful.
If I am not sick and someone wants to put a foreign substance into my body, I want some sort of solid evidence that it will be of some benefit. Unless the benefit is really clear cut, that probably requires a double blind study.
If I am actually sick and there is no clearly beneficial treatment, I might be willing to try something on iffy evidence, especially if there is good reason to believe it will do me no harm.
SteveF,
Placebo controls are best but can’t always be used. It’s silly to insist that evidence is “not” evidence just because the method for getting the best evidence is now precluded.
MikeM
No, you would not show there would be “no point”. You mistake what under powered statistical tests show.
lucia wrote: “You mistake what under powered statistical tests show.”
I have no idea what that means.
MikeM
Double blind experiments can’t be done relative to how the vaccine works against unvaccinated. It can only be done against a control group that has partial immunity. So it’s effectiveness will appear low because it’s measured against a group that has partial immunity.
If effectiveness against the control group exists, but is lowish, you need enormous samples to create a test that shows the vaccine helps. If you don’t have enormous samples, you get very high type II error. (Tests with very high type II error are called “under powered”).
The “beta” or (1-power) is the probability of “fail to reject null when it’s wrong”. When that probability is high, “failing to reject” absolutely does not mean a fail to reject shows the null is true. It doesn’t even show that it’s “probably true”. It pretty much shows nothing.
So your notion that the negative results of an under powered test would show there is “no point” in getting the vaccine is incorrect. Because the truth can very easily be that the vaccine gives additional protection– but that that can’t really be shown by using the protocol that is possible when the population has no immunity.
Double blind test are considered “gold”. But generally speaking, under powered tests should be avoided. When the double blind tests that are possible are under powered, other tests are actually superior from a statistical point of view. Tests examining outcomes over populations can be better in some circumstances, and this is one.
lucia wrote: “So it’s effectiveness will appear low because it’s measured against a group that has partial immunity.”
No, its effectiveness would be low for the general population.
“If effectiveness against the control group exists, but is lowish, you need enormous samples to create a test that shows the vaccine helps.”
I completely agree. And I can see why the vaccine makers would not want to do that. But I do not see why people would take a vaccine whose effectiveness is low. Or why such a vaccine should be approved.
Imagine FDA saying: “The effectiveness of this medication is so low that it is impractical to show that the effectiveness is non-zero. Therefore, it should be approved.” Maybe some people would be OK with that, but I am not one of them.
MikeM
Yes. It’s low. So what? Low effectiveness doesn’t mean “zero”. It also doesn’t mean “no point”. I’m happy with a vaccine that is 10% effective against something that can kill me. You don’t need to be. But that doesn’t mean there is “no point”. I think there is “a point”. The point is: I can reduce my risk by 10%.
I don’t care if you don’t see why. I shouldn’t need to convince you to be allowed to reduce my risk 10%.
Define “proved”. You can never prove effectiveness. There is always some uncertainty even if the “confidence level” is 0.0000001. And results based on demographic differences is evidence. That evidence points to a degree of effectiveness with immunity waning.
I don’t need the FDA to write the advice you dream up. People show the evidence that exists, and there is persuasive evidence the boosters improve immunity– and more than 10%.
You don’t wanna take it? Don’t. I don’t care. I just don’t quite understand why you want to prevent me from taking it.
Patriarchy.
[Joking]
Mark,
I never wanted to force people to take it. I think it’s odd anti-vaxers want to forbid me from taking it.
This inclination to have some entity on high force their choices and preferences on “the peons” annoys me. And all those inclined to force their choices want to over state the case for their position.
Hmm. That’s tricky. I’m not a huge fan of the FDA at all. Would it be fair to say I’d prefer they didn’t regulate drugs at all? I’ll have to think about it. I haven’t really seriously thought this through, maybe ever, now that I consider it.
Mark,
I like some degree of testing. Also, in the system we actually have, insurance generally pays for prescription drugs. I wouldn’t like it if any doctor could prescribe anything thing at all and then the insurance company has to pay. It doesn’t make sense.
I like some degree of evidence for claims made for foods, drugs etc. I like some degree of monitoring. I think rules for approval need to involve a degree of “common sense” and recognition of what is practical.
We didn’t require double blind experiments for flu vaccines that cover new variants that emerge. There are a number of very practical reasons for that.
I don’t know why we should have a special new rule for Covid just because some people are angry about the whole Covid thing.
I get flu boosters. I get Covid ones when there is a new variant. I’m 66. I circulate.
You don’t want them? For whatever reason of your own? Fine with me.
lucia,
I do not want to prevent people from taking vaccines.
I am not inclined to do away with the FDA. The whole purpose of the FDA re medications is to prevent the marketing of medications that are not safe and effective.
I am OK with low effectiveness provided that there is a sound basis for evaluating risks and benefits and that the actual risks and benefits are accurately and honestly communicated to people.
I do not think that double blind is the only way to evaluate effectiveness. But any alternative must be sound. Is there a sound alternative for vaccines? I don’t know.
If all the authorities are going to do is say “approved” or “recommended”, then I think the effectiveness needs to be a lot more than 10%. I seem to recall that the original 2020 trials demanded at least 50%.
President Trump reinforces what I said about the Koreans undermining his effort to hire Americans, From Truth:
“Following the Immigration Enforcement Operation on the Hyundai Battery Plant in Georgia, I am hereby calling on all Foreign Companies investing in the United States to please respect our Nation’s Immigration Laws. Your Investments are welcome, and we encourage you to LEGALLY bring your very smart people, with great technical talent, to build World Class products, and we will make it quickly and legally possible for you to do so. What we ask in return is that you hire and train American Workers. Together, we will all work hard to make our Nation not only productive, but closer in unity than ever before. Thank you for your attention to this matter! DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA”
NOELreports:
“Trump said he is ready to move to the “second stage” of sanctions against Russia. Kevin Hassett, head of the US National Economic Council, added that active discussions on new sanctions and their timing will take place today and tomorrow.”
I think this is true:
US Treasury Secretary Bessent:
“We are prepared to increase pressure on Russia, but we need our partners in Europe to follow us. We are in a race now between how long can the Ukrainian military hold up versus how long can the Russian economy hold up.
And if the US and the EU can come in with more sanctions, more secondary tariffs on the countries that buy Russian oil, the Russian economy will be in full collapse and that will bring president Putin to the table.”
The chances of economic sanctions ending the Ukraine war are near zero. They may have a cumulative effect towards bringing the war to an end eventually if Russia believes the battlefield is no longer fruitful.
As it sits, this is an existential war for Putin’s legacy and he isn’t going to give it up easily. If China, India, and the EU stopped buying fossil fuels then maybe real pressure could be applied. I don’t see that happening.
“The chances of economic sanctions ending the Ukraine war are near zero.”
That may be true, but we are sort of running out of options here.
I am relieved that Trump has finally accepted the fact that he can’t end this war based on the strength of his personality. He knows Putin has been playing him for some time.
A few days ago, he gave a ‘go ahead’ on supplying Ukraine with some advanced new missiles and now he seems to be agreeable to upping sanctions. I’m taking those two events as indication that he has given up on persuasion.
MikeM
Population outcomes are monitored and reported. The vaccines are giving immunity, but the immunity fades. If it didn’t fade, then there would be no need for boosters. But they do elevate immunity.
I thought there were some sort of tests– but Googling got me nowhere. So I turned to ChatGPT.
—- This is ChatGPT
Here’s how it works (similar to how flu vaccines are updated each year):
1. If the vaccine platform is already approved (like Pfizer or Moderna’s mRNA vaccines):
The companies don’t have to start over with huge Phase III clinical trials.
Instead, they do immunogenicity studies — small clinical trials (hundreds of people, not tens of thousands) showing that the updated shot generates a strong antibody response against the new variant.
Safety data is also collected (monitoring for short-term side effects), but since the underlying vaccine technology has been tested in millions, regulators focus more on whether the new version works immunologically.
2. FDA/EMA/WHO review:
They look at lab data (neutralizing antibodies against the new strain).
They may also review real-world epidemiology, if available.
Manufacturing consistency is checked (same quality standards as the earlier vaccines).
3. Comparisons to flu vaccine model:
Just like the flu shot is updated every year without full new trials, COVID-19 boosters for new variants are treated as strain changes rather than brand-new products.
So: No giant “prove from scratch” trials are required for each new variant. Instead, smaller-scale immunogenicity and safety studies are done, then regulators (FDA in the U.S., EMA in Europe, etc.) decide if that’s enough for approval.
???? The “upcoming vaccine” you mentioned is almost certainly one of these strain-updated boosters, so it will have gone through this streamlined but still rigorous review.
Would you like me to walk you through which studies were actually done for the 2025 fall booster so you know what evidence it’s based on?
—-
I didn’t ask it to walk me through. 🙂
This answer is in the vicinity of what I thought they did. I’m fine with it. I was fine with it before Covid when it was what they did for flu. I don’t see any reason for it to be changed.
Tom
Or if Putin thinks the escalation of economic sanctions might indicate we are entering a willingness to further military support for Ukraine.
Up to now, Putin has been playing Trump. Trump has been played. Who knows how Trump will respond as he starts to be pissed at being played? (Seriously, no one knows this.)
Lucia, your post:
“Who knows how Trump will respond as he starts to be pissed at being played?”
I too have been curious as to how Trump is going to play this and what face he is going to put on it. During the campaign he said he was going to end the war on day one, he said that over and over again. Now he has spent nine months trying to negotiate with Putin and came up empty.
He took two actions in the last couple of days to strengthen Ukraine and hurt Putin without claiming public credit for them. I think he’s still embarrassed.
Thanks, lucia. I did not know (or forgot) about the immunogenicity trials. OK, that is something. Otherwise, it is similar to the evaluations of the flu shots, which is what I thought was the case.
It seems there is good reason to believe that CDC estimates of flu shot effectiveness are way too high. But I have never managed to find good info on that.
I do not like treating the COVID shots as if they have a long history, like the flu shots. They use novel technology and were never fully tested since the trials were cut short. Not good enough for me.
You have thought about this and decided the shots are worth it even if the benefit is rather small. That is a valid position. I have a problem with pushing the shot on people who are not so well informed. So requiring a prescription makes sense to me.
It’s fine for you to say it’s not good enough. But you are using language that goes far beyond that– like “no point” etc.
I think cutting the Covid trials short was reasonable under the circumstances. I think you need to be practical, not live in a theoretical bubble. People involved in trials were going to go out and get the shot. Period. I would have.
Sure. I have an equal problem with telling people who are not well informed to avoid the shot. People who are not well informed are a problem. They write long, long rambling “information” for them to read and they remain uninformed.
I agree that Putin has been playing Trump but I am sure that Trump knows that. He is too experienced and tough a negotiator not to know when someone is trying to play him.
Absent a peacemaker, how does the war end? Only when one side wins. That means a whole lot more dead Ukrainians and Russians. Who is in a position to play peacemaker? Trump. So Trump wants to be the peacemaker. That is good.
You can not be the peacemaker and take sides. So if Trump brings down the hammer on Russia (assuming he has a hammer) then he can no longer be the peacemaker. So far as I can tell, there is nobody else to take that role. So it makes sense that Trump is extremely reluctant to take sides.
That said, it is now well past time for Trump to change tactics.
Trump has a massive ego. His willingness to put up with Putin’s tactics is the best evidence yet that Trump is willing to subjugate his ego to the common good.
I don’t care to comment on the science or the statistics of the Covid shot, but the aroma in the room these days is that the FDA was being led around by their nose with big Pharma in charge of everything.
lucia wrote: “you are using language that goes far beyond that– like no point.
I never said that. Well I did say that there was no point in getting a second smallpox vaccine. Because there isn’t.
lucia: “I think cutting the Covid trials short was reasonable under the circumstances.”
A fair case can be made for that. It does not change the fact that the trials were never completed, so we don’t have the information that might have been acquired.
Addition: What Russell says about the “aroma” is true. The FDA and CDC have larger destroyed their reputations, so many people do not trust what those sources say about the shots. I am one of them.
MikeM,
I thought you meant no point for any vaccine. Sorry I misunderstood.
Of course we don’t have the information that might have been acquired. I’m comfortable with that.
Mike, your post:
“His willingness to put up with Putin’s tactics is the best evidence yet that Trump is willing to subjugate his ego to the common good.”
That may be true, but I have another theory.
I think Trump was too embarrassed to admit he could not influence Putin by negotiation. He kept dragging it out, hoping for deus ex machina. Now that he can no longer pretend, he’s acting, but quietly. (which is really uncharacteristic of him.)
MikeM
The existence of a peacemaker usually doesn’t end wars. WWI? It ended when fresh troops form the US appeared and one side knew it would lose. WWII? It ended when Berlin knew the bombers had escorts to protect them the whole way there and back because they had sufficient range. And other things.
Putin has been playing Trump — to get him to put the reins on Ukraine. He’s playing Trump’s desire to be the peacemaker to gain on the battlefield. More Dead.
I am skeptical about the idea that more sanctions will make a real difference. Maybe that is part of the reason Trump is so reluctant to take that step. He would be abandoning his push for peace in exchange for something that won’t make a difference.
The only thing I can see that might break the Russian economy would be to block most Russian oil exports. Secondary sanctions alone won’t do that. Somebody is going to have to replace the Russian oil that will no longer be on the market.
MikeM
His push for peace isn’t advancing peace. It’s only giving Russia an edge it wants. Not giving Russia an edge would make some difference relative to giving them an edge.
Does it mean the end of the war? Maybe– if Putin figures out he can’t have what he wants. Or not. Because… well.. it’s the end of Putin as leader.
lucia wrote: “The existence of a peacemaker usually doesn’t end wars. ”
Even if true, I don’t see how that matters. What matters is if a peacemaker *might* bring about the end of a war. I am pretty sure that has happened. I don’t know how often that has happened. Definitely far less than 100% of all wars. Maybe significantly more than 0%.
Trump had a hilarious post on Saturday that I missed:
“Chipocalypse Now”
“I love the smell of deportations in the morning”
“ Chicago is about to find out why it’s called the Department of War”
And there’s an AI generated picture of Trump in Air Cavalry gear inserted into the movie.
You gotta see this picture……
If you can’t download from ‘Truth’ I reposted it here:
https://x.com/rklier21/status/1965054939614650582?s=61
If you can view it in the original format, it’s here:
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/115158096026629509
Lucia,
P51’s started to accompany bomber raids deep into Germany in 1943. It looks to me that surrender followed closely on Russian ocupation of Berlin in April 1945, Hitler’s realization that his war was lost, his suicide and the acceptance of total defeat by the surviving military.
It does seem possible that had the July 1944 assassination attempt on Hitler succeeded and had the Allies been willing to settle for a negotatiated surrennder, the war might have concluded in fall of 1944.
john
P51 mustangs December 13, 1943. They became the premier escort in 1944– with P51D’s added in mid 1944. With them, the allies secured air supremacy. Germans could see this. The assasination attempt which is a big after “mid 1944″ when P51D’s kicked in.
Likely no one says ‘Look at those P51D’s. Let’s kill Hitler.” But of course, the Germans only saw the inevitable after the planes were added. Not on the day the first one flew.
It was Berlin realizing they were losing and then actually loosing that changed thing. Surrender is not always an instant thing. The
Yes. Russian occupation obviously mattered. The main thing is: this was not achieved by “peace keepers” talking sense into the two sides.
From January 1943, the policy of the Allies was that only unconditional surrender was acceptable. The would-be assassins might have hoped for a negotiated surrender, but they would not have gotten it.
Mike and Lucia, I agree with your observations.
It’s hard to imagine any concessions the allies might have granted for a negotiated settlment in late 1944.
I do think Hitler’s death was required for any kind of surrender.
I also think the only way out of the Ukraine impass is Putin’s death.
MikeM
Without Hitler there, they might have been willing to surrender unconditionally!
Trump gave peace a chance, good for him.
Putin is playing the bet the EU / US won’t forcefully engage in the war. He is probably right. The only escalation here is to significantly increase military involvement. Kill a whole bunch of Russians on the battlefield and attack inside Russia with force particularly the fossil fuel infrastructure.. Perhaps bring in air power over Ukraine.
I don’t think Ukraine is worth the risk, but that could bring Putin to the table. YMMV.
Mike M.,
Why do you think the COVID vaccine trials were cut short? Have you read any of the mRNA vaccine trial protocols from Pfizer and Moderna? I read the Pfizer trial protocol and know people who were in it. The efficacy review was carried out at the point that was specified in the trial protocol. The determination was 95% efficacy. At that point, a request for expedited approval was always going to be made. The only thing that was actually cut short was the placebo leg because it was ethically and practically impossible to maintain it once the vaccine received approval. It was also unneccessary, IMO. The people in the trial continued to be monitored for the two years specified in the protocol. Note that Moderna always planned to terminate the placebo leg once efficacy was determined.
I maintain that the real problem with the COVID vaccine program was the failure to acknowledge that people who had tested positive and recovered had at least as much immunity as anyone not infected but vaccinated. That was beyond stupid. You didn’t need trial data to know that. It’s the fundamental assumption for a vaccine to even be possible. That’s also why I don’t believe that an HIV vaccine is possible. Prior to the drug regimens, HIV was 100% fatal.
DeWitt,
I would add two things to the failure to accept previous infection as better than the vaccine:
1) Failure/refusal to acknowledge the vaccine did not stop transmission, even after this was obvious, and
2) Failure to shout from rooftops, from the very beginning, that the virus was of low danger to otherwise healthy people under age 50, and essentially of zero danger to healthy people under age 21….. and the younger the less risk.
These failures did more damage to the public and to social harmony than anything else.
Mike M,
“I don’t think Ukraine is worth the risk, but that could bring Putin to the table.”
Or perhaps thousands of mushroom clouds.
The Russians are not going to budge, and more economic sanctions are not going to help. Is Ukraine worth this risk? IMHO: Heck no!
DeWitt Payne wrote: “Why do you think the COVID vaccine trials were cut short? ”
They were supposed to last two years. The didn’t. I don’t recall anything in the Pfizer protocol about unblinding the participants early.
Seems the satellite data sets for sea level rise may overstate the measured rise at most costal tide gauge locations, with average overstatement of 1.5 to 2 mm per year.
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1312/13/9/1641
MikeM,
I think there are often ‘ethical protocols’ for stopping a placebo trial early if continuation will for certain lead to deaths among volunteers getting the placebo. I don’t know if that was part of the Pfizer protocol.
SteveF,
That is a good point. But I think that at the point the trial was stopped, it had not shown efficacy against death or hospitalization. If it had shown that, it would have justified ending the trial for at risk trial members, not all trial members.
“it had not shown efficacy against death or hospitalization”
It had shown ~95% efficacy against symptomatic infection, thus pretty strong evidence against serious illness and death. Later data showed basically the same efficacy against death for the original strain. It was amazingly effective, then the mutations happened and the vaccine shamers had to eat some crow.
This is the famous graph, it worked:
https://www.nejm.org/cms/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577/asset/0eb82791-683a-452d-b808-1389aa9ebff7/assets/images/large/nejmoa2034577_f3.jpg
You can’t actually force someone to not get a vaccine after the initial results were in. What probably happened here is they were “released” from the trial, as in they still got paid. Maybe they were given immediate access. There were about 300M other unvaccinated “volunteers” in the US to track, this wasn’t a problem.
Oh yeah, did they ever figure out if masks were effective? Silence. Ha ha.
Good God, they had literally over a trillion dollars of funding and obscene amounts of data. The answer? No idea AFAICT.
Why were there cycles of covid? Why didn’t it just burn all the way out if it was so transmissive?
What was the proportion of airborne infections versus surface contamination?
Were some people super spreaders? It was theorized like 20% of the people spread 80% of the infections.
Is retrofitting HVAC system effective at stopping the spread?
Why are some people seemingly immune to infection? What makes them special?
What happened to the push for a nasal vaccine to stop the virus earlier?
There are lots of basic questions like this and it is 5 years after a major pandemic. The lack of answers and basic curiosity is astounding to me, so when Harvard et. al. screams like a toddler in a major tantrum that future breakthroughs are being risked with budget cuts I can’t say I’m entirely sympathetic.
Most state and federal organizations lied through their teeth on just about everything regarding COVID. Went back into my files and pulled some random docs.
gunshot wounds, traffic accidents, flu, pneumonia, and just about all deaths were listed as due to, or contributing by, COVID. Hospitals got paid more if the diagnosis was COVID.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/04/24/fact-check-medicare-hospitals-paid-more-covid-19-patients-coronavirus/3000638001/
2019 “Pneumonia Deaths have fallen off a cliff this year, I wonder what could have caused this to happen..”
https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/fuy72i/pneumonia_deaths_have_fallen_off_a_cliff_this/
2020 “Widespread testing across four U.S. state prison systems revealed a slew of coronavirus cases but found that the vast majority of inmates who tested positive for the virus–96 percent–remained asymptomatic.”
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/04/27/coronavirus-testing-four-state-prison-systems-reveal-96-asymptomatic/
2020 “infection fatality rate of COVID-19”
https://www.theblaze.com/conservative-review/horowitz-one-chart-exposes-lie-behind-universal-lockdowns
COVID “vaccine” and lockdowns were some of the biggest and expensive scams of the century.
Ed Forbes, what is the mean age of prisoners in the four state prison systems?
Tom Scharf,
I suspect the complete lack of research into all those critically important questions is much like children afraid to visit the attic…. they don’t know what they might find, but it scares them.
The people at CDC (and other agencies) made policy choices which were foolish, often irrational, and grotesquely distorted by their lefty political leanings. But what was most unforgivable was a) the unwillingness to tell people obvious truths about the risks across age groups, b) constant efforts to censor any disagreement with their policies, c) the damage done to children.
If I were them, I wouldn’t want to visit that attic either. They have a lot to be ashamed of. Everybody at CDC who went along with this should be fired.
john ferguson,
Prison populations are young, and young people don’t die from covid, of course. More interesting was the high frequency of asymptomatic infection……. something already known by the CDC very early on from sewage effluent testing for covid proteins; the covid proteins were far more prevalent than plausible based on reported rates of infection. This was later confirmed when teenagers were found to have high incidences of antibodies relative to reported infections.
If a significant part of the pupoulation could contract the virus asymptomatically and spread it, is it not important that they could spread it to the cohort which would die from it?
I think one of the errors was assuming mask mandates would work. It could be that the masks themselves did work, but not the mandate because it would not be universally observed.
as to reported causes of death. it wen’t both ways. doctor at local CCRC classified two deaths as covid with co-morbidities and the state never showed them as covid.
john ferguson,
Average age is probably a bit under 40. The bigger difference: only about 4% over 65, and almost none over age 75. So the age group that contributes a large majority of covid deaths in the general population is almost absent in the prison population.
john ferguson,
“If a significant part of the pupoulation could contract the virus asymptomatically and spread it, is it not important that they could spread it to the cohort which would die from it?”
Sure, and that cohort needed to understand they were at risk, and exactly the level of risk, so they could take steps to minimize their risks…. like avoiding contact with many people and using effective (properly worn!) masks. I further think government efforts should have focused of helping those truly at risk to minimize that risk. But I completely reject the notion that government should force people who are not at risk to close their businesses, not meet their friends and family, not attend church, suffer having to wear masks in public, or lose education, or jobs (or liberty in general), on behalf of those who are at risk. Socially and economically destructive policies were the rule with covid… even in Florida for a short time.
SteveF
Yours is certainly a more practical program
I’ve gotten Covid at least three times. I’ve been asymptomatic or nearly so every time. I tested because Jim got it and I also didn’t want to expose my Mom. If I hadn’t tested, I wouldn’t have known.
That said: I am vaccinated.
—
Edit: Test to see if I can add colored fonts
blue
The final mask thoughts I saw were they were individually protective to a (undefined) point but not not protective enough to prevent the pandemic from spreading. They may have lowered R but not nearly enough. Thus, they were basically useless on the grand scale. Everyone. Got. Covid. Even the mask wearers.
High R, asymptomatic infections, and transmission before symptoms made this prevention plan wishful thinking. Most of all the thinking you didn’t need masks at home where 50% of all transmission occurred was “anti-science”. Some people’s later grumbling that the population just wasn’t compliant enough are the worst of the worst. They had people’s trust in the original lockdowns (2 weeks and it’s over, ha ha!) and proceeded to lose it over time. That’s on them.
They were also silent on the fact that around 25% of people were catching covid in the hospital during the peak.
John and Tom, your posts:
“I think one of the errors was assuming mask mandates would work. It could be that the masks themselves did work, but not the mandate because it would not be universally observed.”
and “ The final mask thoughts I saw were they were individually protective to a (undefined) point but not not protective enough to prevent the pandemic from spreading. ”
I thought from the beginning that those toilet paper masks were useless.
They were more expensive, but you could get what we’re called ‘N99’ masks. I bought a kind that only filters on the intake, not the exhale, so they only protected me from others and did not protect others from me. It was much more comfortable and effective than what everybody else was wearing or arguing about and not wearing.
I found it was also useful when doing gardening chores like spreading pesticide. It was originally a worker mask.
I still use it in certain occasions like a crowded doctors office.
My theory is that the rule should’ve been you protect yourself with an effective mask.
I think that would’ve been better accepted than forcing people to wear toilet paper that did little or nothing.
Here’s my mask:
RZ Mask – Classic Reusable Dust Mask https://a.co/d/gMgYa1e
EDIT: the filter packs were replaceable and were much less expensive. I used about one every other week.
Lucia:
“Edit: Test to see if I can add colored fonts
blue”
How do you do that? It could be way more practical than blockquotes.
Steve it is unreliable because WordPress sometimes stripps it. I seem to only be able to add it when I edit… and even then…
Here’s what Grok had to say:
“ Summary: An N99 mask is highly effective at protecting you from COVID-19 by filtering out most infectious aerosols, provided it fits snugly and is worn consistently. It’s most protective in high-risk environments but doesn’t eliminate risk entirely. Combining it with other precautions like avoiding crowds and ensuring good ventilation further enhances safety.”
My, have we come a long way with AI in a few years
SteveF: “How do you [colored fonts]?”
Try blue</font>
The ordinary surgical masks most people wore were useless at stopping transmission. There was evidence that N95 masks were effective if frequently changed and properly fitted, handled, and disposed of.
The sins of the covid tyrants were many and serious. The worst was closing schools.
SteveF, try
blue
Mike,
The N99 mask tested 99% effective at 0.1 µm filtration.
They are far superior to the N 95s.
That’s the reason the exit valve is necessary because forceful exhale was difficult.
I was curious …..
“Grok, When during flu season is the most effective time to get the flu shot? don’t wanna get it too early and don’t wanna get it too late”
Answer:
“The most effective time to get a flu shot is typically in late September to early October, before the flu season peaks, which usually happens between December and February in the Northern Hemisphere. This timing allows your body to build immunity (which takes about two weeks) before flu activity ramps up. Getting it too early (e.g., July or August) might lead to waning immunity later in the season, especially for older adults, while waiting too late (e.g., December or January) risks exposure before you’re fully protected. However, if you miss this window, getting vaccinated later is still beneficial, as flu season can extend into spring. Aim for early fall for optimal protection.”
SteveF
I think I will ultimately be able to make allowing colored fonts reliable using instructions here.
I making this a comment so I can easily find it again when I return.
My purpose is to release Joshua’s comments “after some time”, but include my response in blue.
I’ve been storing them in trash but either I inadvertantly deleted some or trash automatically deletes after a while. (I’d stored older comments and they are gone.)
I want to be able to show all of his claims. However, I only want to show them after there has been sufficicient discussion that we don’t get derailed on off topic or stupid stuff.
my younger son is in the area for business today and gonna come for lunch. I made homemade chicken noodle soup from scratch and homemade hummus, which I will serve with crackers.
(he’s coming to pick up the homemade applesauce I made for his daughter)
SteveF,
I have by the way released his comments on older threads.
Edit– this is an update to see if editing the file lets me add to an old edited comment
blue added
Test after editing functions.php blue
The html code for the above looks like this
You may or may not be able to add links to images now. I don’t know about hotlinking permissions.
Not working for me. I added the html, but it comes up in normal color (that is, black).
Yeah. It’s still unreliable. I’ll tell ChatGPT it doesn’t work!
It works sometimes works for me when I edit comment, but not other times. I’m the admin, so things sometimes work for me that don’t work for the rest of you.
It’s only working for me on new comments fairly fresh edits possibly like this one
That went in blue. Let’s see if editing it from here strips it out! (Also, chatGPT is not talking to me for a few hours. So… )
Lucia,
” WordPress sometimes stripps it.”
I have always found stripping HTML code more than a little weird. I am sure there are “risky” HTML codes they might want to block/strip, but pretty much everything? Seems over-the-top.
Something as simple as: “Here is what we allow, and here is what we strip”, along with an explanation, would make sense.
Why not at least: superscript, subscript, colored text, font size, math symbols, and a few more?
SteveF,
When I’ve modified the file to allow the color, I should be able to add those. It would be useful.
The latex plugin I found only works if I set a code in the post– which I can do– but I’m likely to forget for posts not involving math.
Right now, the modificiation I found on the web, and which I asked Chat GPT about isn’t working. I used up a lot ofmy free my ChatGPT time discussing baldness cures.
(Seriously. No. I am not bald!)
Lucia,
Your husband doesn’t look bald. 😉
There are clearly things that reduce/slow baldness in men. My experience (personal and second hand) is most have undesired side effects, which are for many men worse than being bald. I am sure different people have different experiences, of course.
Castrated men never go bald. Seems an unattractive trade-off.
No. It’s weirder than that!
First: I have like… the thickest hair in the world. So..
BUT, my part was starting to widen. And one of the ladies who does hair at the comp saw I had small 1/8″ baldish spots. And I did lose a ton of hair every time I washed. Jim joked that I lost more hair every day than most people had on their head– which was true.
My doctor tested me for vitamin deficiencies– I’m fine. And my hypothyroid is reigned in. So… I looked into hair loss cures. As you know that is a trove of snake oil sales!
There is such a thing as “Female Pattern Baldness”. It manifests by a “widening part” with small patches on either side. It’s called a “christmas tree” pattern for the part. It’s usually no where as bad as for men (but it can look not so great.) Often it can be totally hidden by hair styling. In my case, a part 1/2″ inch to the side of center looked fine! So in some way “no problem.”
But I decided to look into different treatments. I’m using a combination of some. The drain no longer fills with hair. Jim no longer gets my hairs in his sandwiches. (I asked if he noticed and he said, “Heck yeah!”)
But I’m also now fascinated by all the cures. So I ask about the various claims in the snake oils, and the various ingredients. It’s much more efficient than trying to google them all.
(The top three that have “some evidence” but are “not FDA” topicals are, believe it or not, 2% caffeine , 1% melatonin and rosemary oil. Rosemary oil is expensive. The other two are cheap if you mix your own.
I”m using minoxidil ;). It by the way also works on eyebrows– or at least mine. I asked chatGPT about the growth cycle on brows (and cats). The growth cycle on brows is really fast, so you’d expect minoxidil effects to appear faster on eyebrows — provided it works at all. (And it isn’t limited to Androgen GA. So it potentially works for a range of reasons of thinner brows.)
ChatGPT advises to avoid minoxidil on eyelashes– which I thought it would advise. But it says caffeine or melatonin solutions should be fine on the lash edge, but of course, not in the eye. There are commercial formulations containing both for other reasons. (Like, less eye lid puffiness.)
On reddit, there are guys using minoxidil on their beards. Seems to work for some.
There are a vast number of ingredients that claim to cure hair loss. Since I click on all the ads, I see more and more. I go ask ChatGPT about that.
ChatGPT has a number of features — some amusing. One is after it answers it always suggest something else you might want to know about.
Another is that so far, it’s never responded with “gosh, you are an idiot.” It usually is very flattering to the user.
SteveF
Yes. Finasteride is FDA approved for hair loss. It is a DHT blocker. ED can be a side effect. So can birth defects in pregnant women take it. DHT is necessary for fetal development, especially for XY fetuses.
Women’s bodies have less testosterone and so less DHT. But female pattern baldness also springs from DHT receptors latching onto DHT. Then the growth cycle is shortened, and also the follicle makes finer and finer hair until it’s a fine as…well… the hair on your forehead! So same reason as for me, but just less.
A lot of the old fashioned remedies do have some DHT blocking ability when applied to the scalp. Some block when you eat it. (Saw palmetto, pumpkin seed oil.) None work for everyone– but either does Minoxidil!
You need a certain enzyme in your scalp for Minoxidil to work. The enzyme slaps a sulphur atom onto the active molecule in the Minoxidil. You need the sulpher slaped on there for it to work. Some people have lots of the enzyme, so only have a little, some none. If you don’t have it, Minoxidil doesn’t work.
(Why not use the molecule that works? It’s unstable. It won’t last in the bottle.)
Anyway, my part is narrowing. The 1/8th inch “spots” have mostly filled in. But I remain fascinated by the claims of hair loss cures.
I am also aware none of the totally cheap non-patentable ones will ever get to the level of ‘proven’. Each experiment to prove would probably cost a minimum of $100K. And you’d need several to be sure it’s not just one group showing it. If you can’t patent it, what’s the point?
Oh… I bet the 2% caffeine or 1% melatonin won’t have those undesirable effects. Not that I can test….
Lucia,
Yikes! OK, my problems are modest by comparison.
I never worried much about it, but was told (in my early 40’s) by an MD that if I would just take a pill to ‘counteract’ the effects of testosterone ‘daughter products’, then my hair would never fall out. Hmmm, yes, definitely reduced hair loss, but, ahem…. not worth it… at all. Let’s hear it for those ‘daughter products’.
We are born, grow up, live our lives, grow old, and die. Changing this has not (so far) happened. Could it happen? Sure. But so far: no. The rest is BS.
The Bee:
‘Clue’ Board Game For Liberals Just Has You Blame The Murder Weapon
https://x.com/thebabylonbee/status/1965180850003476800?s=61&t=7w4bCW3a8ve2DqoeniQatQ
SteveF
The specific daughter product is DHT.
Finasteride was probably the pill he was talking about. It has sexual side effects. Not all men get them; those who do would usually rather be bald!
Women sometimes get spironolactone. It also blocks DHT. It also sometimes has some not so great side effects.
You can also take minoxidil as a pill. But most people try it as a topical first. That gets it straight to the scale and has lower systemic effects. (It was developed to lower blood pressure and it does do that also.)
Even apart from baldness, hair is a big business. I color my hair because I’ve got some amount of gray and I’d rather not have gray. I’d rather not have it thin on top. My degree of “hair loss” is relative to a very, very thick baseline. If there was no “cure”…. oh well. But the fix is pretty cheap and pretty easy — as hair stuff goes.
When someone finds a much better cure for baldness and can patent it, they will make a lot of money. Lots of people are trying!
There is something called “UCLA PP405” . It might turn out to be “the thing” found by UCLA scientists. but that’s a super secret code name. I asked chatGPT what the molecule was. That’s a secret while they test and try for FDA approval.
The various ‘natural’ therapies out there is hair potion land have some degree of research. Some block DHT with different mechanism of blocking. But the DHT blocking…. men in particular aren’t going to want to block all their DHT. ‘Cuz “sexual side effects” are something most of them don’t want. If you can just block in the scalp, that’s much more desirable.
See how much trivia I’ve absorbed about this? I’ve been focusing on the lotions and potions used as topical though. If someone knew they didn’t want the FDA recommended, and wanted to try something cheap: make yourself a caffeine or a melatonin mixture. ( Chat GPT recommends a recipe that includes alcohold– everclear is cheap– water, glycerine and a small amount of powder). It cheap and easy. Apply with a dropper every morning. Take photos every day. Monitor your drain. Recognize you might lose hair the first month. (Scary…. but it has to do with moving the hairs in the telogen phase to anagen phase of the cycle. You were going to lose those over time– but you lose them when the hair moves into anagen. If the stuff works, that happens all at once! If you are a woman with diffuse hair loss who still has hair this can be dramatic! If you’ve got short thin hair, you probably won’t notice the loss.)
Keep it up despite the hair loss… take a picture in 90 days and then see if you have more hair.
If you don’t care, you aren’t going to do this. But the main cost of the caffeine serum is the Everclear and you would use about 2 ml a day for if you are only worried about the top of your head. (You can find caffeine in some shampoos. It is marketed. I don’t know if you could easily stir it into your favorite shampoo– target is 2% concentration. If you could some people would find that easier.)
Minoxidiil is better tested. It also costs more. Caffeine has the side effects of coffee. Go figure. (It does get into the blood stream. It enters through the follicles– which is convenient if you want the active ingredient to act on follicles.) Melatonin also gets into the blood stream. So it’s best as a “bedtime” serum!
Lucia,
Honestly, I had not thought about hair loss in 30+ years!
I don’t remember the pill I was taking. I stopped. It was in the range of “You can’t be serious!”
Test
Paste in: ? ?
Short cuts from keyboard ? ? ?? ? ? a
Your hair is clearly not as important to you as mine is to me. 🙂
Taking a pill every day would not be a problem for me. I take one every day for my low thyroid and will forever. Lots of women take pills nearly every day for birth control.
But some side effects are worse than hair loss! So I understand why people, especially men, decide hair loss is the better alternative. But reversing hair loss is a big business! Young men do agonize over it. The figure they’ll land more babes if they have hair. (And there is some evidence women do prefer men with hair vs no hair. But that’s an “all things being equal” issue. There are lots of traits that are muchmore important than hair.)
ChatGPT has ginned up some code for me. It also explained “the hook” needs to be different for comments. 🙂
If my wife stopped growing hair she would also be bald in a week. There is about a pound of hair released after a shower. She also has very thick hair.
My daughter lost a few clumps of hair but it was diagnosed as stress related and it grew back.
Trump stands a not insignificant chance of losing the tariff case at the SC. This power is supposed to be with the legislature. It’s a tossup at best IMO.
Lucia,
Ouro no bolso, prata nos cabelos, chumbo no lugar mais importante.
That sums it up.
SteveF,
I had never heard that one, thank you. 🙂
Tom Scharf,
Sure, I give Trump a coin toss at best on tariffs with the Supreme Court. They are itching to over-rule lots of ancient president. But he is such an asshole; he gives the SC the weakest possible case to work with when there are half a dozen cases that would be legally (and logically!) stronger.
Why can’t the guy at least try to get Congress to go along? If Dems block sensible policy (98% chance of that!), then OK, try the end-around and then fight it out in the courts. But why not at least try with Congress? It is almost like he is unwilling to do the obvious.
Harold,
Brazilian. But universal.
“Why can’t the guy at least try to get Congress to go along? ”
I am not certain of this, but I think Congress *has* gone along. Trump is using powers delegated by Congress. Under the relevant law, Congress can rescind his tariffs at any time by simple majority vote. I think.
You might ask, why not try to get Congress to enact the tariffs? One is that they won’t do it, so that would kill the tariffs. The other is that the tariffs are being set by negotiation; there is no role for Congress in that, at least not until after the fact.
I am pretty confident that Trump’s specific tariffs (i.e., imposed for specific non-revenue purposes) will survive judicial scrutiny. The across-the-board 10% tariffs, which sure look like revenue tariffs, are much iffier. But I don’t know the legal case nearly well enough to make a prediction.
Additional reason why Trump can’t try to get Congress to enact the tariffs: He needs to get through the period of uncertainty ASAP. He can’t let it drag out past the mid-terms.
Congress may be avoiding the political liability if the tariffs go wrong. If Trump loses at the SC then Congress might enact the tariffs.
—
Lucia testing if I can add stuff to comments.
Test again
blue
blue (this ain’t gonna work)
Test
blue
superscript2
red done after time limit in my own comment
Test again
blue
superscript2
Can one of you try to put in blue font? I’m I can’t get it to work when I edit other people’s comments. I also want to see if you can. Do this to try to add the word blue in blue.
YOu have to have more than 10 approved comments. But that shouldn’t be a problem for most of you.
I keep telling ChatGPT it doesn’t work… and giving it more detail of what I’m trying. Funny collaboration. 🙂
Joshua,
Your comments have been released. You can go find them yourself if you want to reread them. You can use your word search tool just as easily as I can.
Yes. ChatGPT likes to tell people what they want to hear. So does Grok. Maybe that’s why it made all those math errors for you– so you would get the answer you “like”.
Test yet again. (I’ll eventually delete all these.)
blue
superscript2
I can still edit mine with color… right?
red
Test blue
First entry, the HTML got stripped off.
HTML stayed after editing, but didn’t function.
Sounds like you need special permissions to use most HTML.
Lucia, I seem to remember from years ago when you let me post that piece about the CNG powered vehicles in Thailand with photos that you have some rights here that the rest of us don’t. Do they affect what’s being tried here?
john,
I have special permissions. ChatGPT and I are working on getting things changed. It’s suggested some statements to put things in errorlogs on the server. It thinks we’ve got the wrong “hooks”. (Figuring out which are the right “hooks” is the hard part in WordPress, especially since WordPress is frequently changing.)
I want you guys to be able to add html and I want to be able to edit comments and add html to people’s comments if necessary. I’ll go look at Apache error logs after my morning coffee to see if visitor attempts left anything in the logs too.
lucia,
i’d like to help, but you guys are beyond my depth here. I’m gonna sit back and watch.
Russia sending drones into Poland. That is probably a warning to NATO’s contemplating of attacking Russia directly with more effective weapons. Russia will strike the Ukraine staging areas in Poland. There is some chance the drones got confused by GPS spoofing but I doubt it.
We really don’t need a Cuban Missile Crisis II. My guess is Putin would ultimately back down when the NATO armed forces start lining up on the border but that is assuming he is rational.
I recently tried some AI coding assistance. Have to say, very impressive. You still have to understand what you want and how to integrate it but the code generation with comments and a high level explanation of how the code works were pretty good.
For embedded code there are limits, you can’t tell it “generate a whole bunch of code for my proprietary hardware system you know nothing about”.
This tech assistance is not a fluke and is not going away, ever. For specialized systems I can see them training an AI specifically to that system and giving access to developers.
Tom,
Yup. Just be sure to check behind it. It’ll lull you into a false sense of confidence by giving you everything you ask for until the day it abruptly gets something wrong and gives no indication whatsoever that there was a problem. Likely because it didn’t know.
“For specialized systems I can see them training an AI specifically to that system and giving access to developers.”
I think the problem can be gotten around using RAG rather than training from scratch. I expect to find this out, as I’m more or less in this boat.
Actually, lots of people are even if they don’t have specialized systems. If their system involves CUI data of any sort, one really can’t let AIs in the wild look at it and the only answer seems to be to run a local LLM.
[Edit: Lucia, blockquote appears to be broken at least in editing comments.]
Tom Scharf,
“We really don’t need a Cuban Missile Crisis II. My guess is Putin would ultimately back down when the NATO armed forces start lining up on the border but that is assuming he is rational.”
Can you say “Tactical nuclear weapon?” Just a few kilotons, of course.
We shouldn’t all die over Ukraine. But we might. This is, IMHO, 100% crazy.
The FDA is not going to let drug companies advertise to consumers without any mention of negative side effects: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2025/09/10/fda_announces_theyre_bringing_back_enforcement_on_deceptive_drug_ads.html
I love his reference to “creating artificial demand” by direct marketing to consumers in no position to judge the negatives.
Good news: There will be a lot fewer inscrutable drug ads for treatment of diseases you probably never heard of. These treatments generally cost more per month than the average apartment rental, which is, of course, why we have so many of those ads.
Bad news: Broadcasters are going to lose a lot of advertising revenue.
Mark bofill
Haha! That’s probably a side effect. We’ll get that fixed.
The trouble right now is finding the “right hooks”. If you’ve ever plowed through WordPress documentation, you would know they aren’t easy to find. ChatGPT gave me a bunch of things to try and we are also putting some comments in “wp-content/error.log” to find out which hooks are actually needed for which operations.
But I had to go take some lessons and now I’m going to nap. So later.
Charlie Kirk has been shot.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2025/09/charlie-kirk-shot.php
Here is a problem drug manufacturers need to address:
“In the U.S., GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy can cost around $1,000 to $1,349 per month, while their production costs are estimated to be under $1. This discrepancy highlights the influence of pricing strategies over actual manufacturing expenses.”
Here is what will happen: Countries other than the USA will simply invalidate the patents, and allow producers to offer those same GLP-1 drugs at pennies on the dollar. USA consumers will continue to pay the highest prices. This must end.
The many “patent extension strategies” used by drug companies to avoid the normal end of patent protection are a grotesque distortion of the original intent of Federal patent protection, and should be eliminated by law by Congress: hard and fast patent expirations, no BS extensions.
Unbelievable.
The left is the home of political violence.
The left is the home of social violence.
The left is the home of criminal violence.
The left is the home of violence.
Mao understood this. We should too.
Kirk was killed by the assassin, who apparently escaped.
Ever more political violence by the left.
Can the left stop calling everyone who disagrees with them Nazis? I doubt it. The left must never have political power. They are in fact evil.
He died, I didn’t think he was going to survive that.
Deranged lunatics. Shooter still on the loose.
Tom Scharf,
How do you know the shooter was a deranged lunatic? Why not just a typical leftist convinced the left must win at any cost? That seems far more likely.
Trump:
“ The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead. No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie. He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us. Melania and my Sympathies go out to his beautiful wife Erika, and family. Charlie, we love you!”
I am thinking, for the first time in my life, about buying a semi-auto rifle. The left is totally out of control, and can’t be trusted..
Clay Travis:
“This is utterly despicable. MSNBC guest says Charlie should expect to get shot based on what he says. I can’t believe this is real. The left wing in this country is evil and violent:”
He also said it may have been one of his supporters, shooting off their guns in celebration.
I wonder if they can take their license away for this!
Video:
https://x.com/claytravis/status/1965862546470232161?s=61
SteveF,
Ever so much better to have and not need than need and not have.
Don’t wait for unrest, guns and ammo might become hard to get. It’s only prudent to have weapons. AR-15’s are cheap and easy and fun. A shotgun and a handgun help round you out for virtually every imaginable situation.
Before anyone asks, no – I haven’t had time to mess with the rare breed trigger thing. It IS on my todo list for sure.
Revert to normal “functions.php”. Make sure doesn’t crash.
Still doesn’t crash?
Now, watch error logs.
Lucia editing her own comment. blue
When talking egg-plant Biden talked about turning fighter jets on the population, I though he was just talking like an egg-plant.
Now, I am not so sure. Biden’s delusions of political power via murder are more widespread than I imagined. The left simply MUST stop the dishonest attacks on people who disagree with them. 77 million Trump voters are not Nazis.
Only a dedicated leftist would suggest that. Only a dedicated leftist would call Charlie Kirk a Nazi. But dedicated leftists seems to be all there are these days.
SteveF, Post “this is steveF”. After you do that, edit it and post “SteveF edited this”. The post needs to be short. I watching error logs. I want to see what filters are hit when visitors edit.
(Lucia):Admin edit. Does it not write to debug.log while the file is open?
OSINTtechnical has video of what might be the shooter on a roof of a distant building.
Video:
https://x.com/osinttechnical/status/1965887738902884452?s=61
“MSNBC guest says Charlie should expect to get shot based on what he says”
They have no idea what he says, only what other people tell them he says. They wouldn’t pollute their pristine brain cell with such nonsense. Their cult leaders tell them everything they need to know about what’s outside the bubble.
thanks Steve!
(Lucia) I’m getting info on which hooks are firing. Now I need to be sure to not hit “save” when I open Debug. (Then the accumulations don’t come in. ) It’s going to collect stuff for a little while. (It posts the first 30 characters so I’m putting my name so I recognize those as the “admin” which may use different hooks from visitors.
Democrats acting despicable in Congress:
“ Rep. Lauren Boebert requests a moment of prayer for Charlie Kirk.
Democrats can be heard shouting “no!”
Then, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna shouts back “y’all caused this!”
this is steveF
This is red text.
Nope. Bold is disabled. Text color also.
I get the distinct impression WordPress doesn’t like HTML.
Kirk was holding a “Prove Me Wrong” event where he was debating anyone Ben Shapiro style. Obviously we can’t have that!
The very definition of deranged lunatic is somebody who takes politics so seriously that they think political opponents are not only wrong, but evil, and literally deserving of death. Even when you get there, most people can see that this type of thing backfires on your cause.
We don’t really know this is politically motivated yet, but I’m willing to take that statistical leap right now. Trump’s shooter ended up being an enigma. These people are always caught.
Attention is everything in the current culture with all the political influencer types. They say edgy stuff all the time and people respond with performative overly dramatic put downs. See all the attention seeking responses now from left wing nuts, a competition of Dilbert Toppers saying Kirk deserved it. Pretty ugly.
To me this psychotic behavior is about the same as killing a Hollywood actor because you didn’t like their movie.
The left have their new talking points. Paul Pelosi. Melissa Hortman.
According to Google:
Reports on September 10, 2025, indicate that MSNBC political analyst Matthew Dowd made remarks during the network’s coverage of the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk that were widely criticized as victim-blaming. Dowd did not say Kirk “should expect to get shot,” but he did say that Kirk’s rhetoric contributed to a political environment where violence could occur
Even correctly quoted, what apparently was said is not helpful, nor the opinion of this “lib” who thought Charlie Kirk was an interesting guy and a contributer to what little dialog we are able to manage these days.
“” didn’t work on above. the quotes enclose blockquote with the carats or whatever they are.
— this is lucia.
Can I add blockquotes and stuff to someone elses comment?
This is a bold test and italic test.
Here is blue text, and red text.
Superscript: E = mc2
Subscript: H2O
Greek letters: ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?
Inline code sampleBlock code sample
with multiple lines
SteveF, John
Wordpress strips a lot. We are in an intermediate stage. I was testing which hooks work. Then I had to eat dinner and do some stuff. Now I’m going to get back to putting in code that might help us with html. 🙂
Wow, this is unusual:
“Statement from MSNBC president Rebecca Kutler: “During our breaking news coverage of the shooting of Charlie Kirk, Matthew Dowd made comments that were inappropriate, insensitive and unacceptable. We apologize for his statements, as has he. There is no place for violence in America, political or otherwise.””
Fire him
EDIT:
and I hope this leads tothe end of MSNBC
This is a bold test and italic test.
Here is blue text, and red text.
Superscript: E = mc2
Subscript: H2O
Greek letters: ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?
Inline code sampleDo they stay if I edit at the blog?
Can I add if I edit at the blog?
H2
Can I add if I edit at admin
H2
Greek letters were munched. I’ll go tell Chat GPT. 🙂
I don’t know if you guys can use it. But I can.
I think you guys can try to add blockquotes, font and subscripts.
All of us will need latex for greek letters. (It’s a database issue. I’m not editing database tables. It’s too much maintenance when WP gets updated.)
I’m going to do a few more changes in the morning. (It’s so I can edit your stuff.
Brief and thoughtful comments from President Trump:
https://x.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1965947311718269341?s=61
Worse, the Master of Ceremonies of the ShitShow at MSNBC was Katy Tur. She not only didn’t jump into stop the outrageous comments by her guests but repeated some of it like the claim that it might’ve been Charlie Kirk’s bodyguards shooting their guns in exuberance. She also claimed President Trump plans to use the shooting of Charlie Kirk “as justification for something.”
Dowd has been fired at MSNBC. It’s a start.
Variety:
“Political analyst Matthew Dowd has been fired from MSNBC after his comments about the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.”
https://x.com/variety/status/1965967538455822462?s=61
Trump;
“For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals.”
“This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.”
Clay Travis post what I believe is the truth behind the political violence:
““YOU CAUSED THIS!”
“You can’t call the president of the United States Adolf Hitler for 10 years… you cannot say that anyone who voted for Trump or advocated for him like you, me, Riley, and Charlie Kirk are Nazis, and then when someone tries to kill us, suddenly say, ‘We condemn this violence.’ You caused it!”
https://x.com/vigilantfox/status/1965984391168987396?s=61
“Matthew Dowd made comments that were inappropriate, insensitive and unacceptable”
I’m sure he didn’t say anything they weren’t just talking about around the office.
Dave JR,
The left embraces political violence, including riots and assassinations, as a legitimate way to advance their politics. Always have. Always will.
This comment wins the best of the day from my feed for yesterday:
“ No business owner is boarding up tonight in fear of riots.
The Left and the Right are not the same!”
Which reminds me, the person responsible for the “hands up, don’t shoot” lie, met karma the other day. An event the media and politicians could have nipped in the bud by explaining how the facts didn’t support the testimony, but decided instead that promoting radicalization, anger, and hatred was more financially and politically beneficial.
NYPost quotes Charlie Kirk as saying:
I hope that his untimely death furthers this cause and that people remember his words. It’s not time to demonize liberals. Murderous radicals are beyond the pale and both sides of the aisle lie within the pale. We’re still one people.
“Democrats keep saying we need to down the temperature. I’m all for that—but they have to tell the truth first: The vast majority of the political violence in America is coming from the Left. You can’t unify with people who endlessly lie to avoid taking responsibility for violence.”
Batya Ungar-Sargon, leftist media host
https://x.com/bungarsargon/status/1965928011376767326?s=61&t=7w4bCW3a8ve2DqoeniQatQ
“If you thought that you were going to shut a movement down, you’re going to get a rude awakening.
You woke us the F*CK UP.” — @greggutfeld
Well.
What can you do with them then? Shoot them? This is no solution. The temperature needs to come down, not because the Right is at fault or the Left is not, but for the good of the republic. The problem is bigger than who’s at fault.
Powerline sites statistics showing that nearly 60% of young people are essentially communist in their beliefs. It should be the overriding concern of our time to bring these kids back into the fold, not unlike what Charlie Kirk was doing in fact. For the sake of our future it’d be good if these young ones could have their heads removed from their butts.
This is unconfirmed, but from a reliable source, @scrowder. he claims it is a leak from law-enforcement to him:
“ ATF and other law-enforcement located an older model imported Mauser .30-06 caliber bolt action rifle wrapped in a towel in a wooded area near the campus. The location of the firearm appears to match the suspects route of travel. The spent cartridge was still chambered in addition to three unspent rounds at the top fed magazine. All cartridges have engraved wording on them, expressing transgender and anti-fascist ideology. An emergency trace has been submitted an ATF SLC is working leads generated by the trace. The firearm and ammunition have been taken by the FBI for DNA analysis and fingerprint impressions.”
https://x.com/scrowder/status/1966118431511433267?s=61&t=7w4bCW3a8ve2DqoeniQatQ
Whose side does it the most arguments are not fruitful. The left will just pull out “academic” studies supporting their side. It diverts the discussion.
Even though the motive is almost certainly political targeting the thinking of the killer can be psycho. The NC train killer thought the victim was reading his mind. The point is that the stereotype most people are assuming doesn’t payoff many times.
If it turns out to be a left wing extremist then the left might reconsider the story of love and tolerance they like to tell themselves.
We have a loud adversarial political system by design and it’s going to trigger some people. I could do without all the “end of days” political rhetoric but I wouldn’t vote to prohibit it.
I find it odd they don’t release security camera footage immediately and photos of the weapon.
The public is very willing to help and crowd sourcing this might pay off.
blue
Mark is correct that we should not blame liberals as a whole for the actions of a violent radical fringe. I don’t want to be blamed for any actions of the smaller violent radical fringe on the right.
But in addition to those who use or advocate violence, there are those who use language that lowers the barrier to violence. I think there are two aspects to that: treating opposing views as evil and using demonizing language.
Yeah, “both sides do it”, but I think the Left is much worse. Many people on the right regard abortion as evil. But there is a laundry list of conservative positions that the Left treats as evil, including things as basic as securing the border and enforcing the law. So far as I can tell, main stream Democrats use a lot more demonizing language than Republicans.
An extreme example was that MSNBC guy accusing Charlie Kirk of spreading hate. The guy was willing to reasonably and respectfully debate anybody on any topic.
I wouldn’t mind Democrats saying “both sides need to tone down their language” is they would then tone down their language. But all too often, they seem to be saying “you evil f___ing Nazis need to tone down your language”.
mark bofill wrote: “Powerline sites statistics showing that nearly 60% of young people are essentially communist in their beliefs.”
Nah. Some pollster calls up out of the blue and asks if annual income should be capped at 100 million a year. The fact that somebody says “yeah, that seems reasonable” does not make him a communist. It only makes him a person who did not think before giving an answer to a pollster.
this part will be blue
Nope. Not blue. Tags get stripped.
How about old style?
Doesn’t get stripped but still no blue.
This? Nope
== this is lucia maybe in blue but probably not
It’s not what is being said, it’s who is saying it. “Mostly peaceful protest” vs “INSURRECTION!!!” is an obvious case. There is no nuance and no attempt to insert one. In most cases it’s hysterically hyperbolic. They understand the consequences of doing it, because they are quick to paint any remotely edgy speech from across the isle as promoting violence and/or genocide, but do not apply even a modicum of opprobrium at stuff far more explicitly inciteful. They’re more likely to sit down and bring on an “expert” to be “informed” about why it’s a good thing when they do it.
I guess they agree with “there are no bad tactics, only bad targets”.
Mark,
I thanks, But I think I need to get chatGPT to do things piecewise. It constantly volunteers to give me a whole new code. And I’ve a made the mistake of saying “yes”. But it “forgets”.
The discussion thread is now so long it’s hard for me to go back and find bits that work.
Right now, I’m working on me being able to edit visitors comments. Later I will get fresh visitors comments to work. I can’t do it all at once because chatGPT forgets somethings, and it’s priorities aren’t alway mine.
(For example, I want the ‘font’ tag. I don’t give a s*it about the ‘span’ tag. I know font is depracated and span is “favored”. But it’s too long for discussing at blogs. It keeps dropping font… — though that’s not the main problem because that I always see.)
But thanks for trying. I didn’t know it didn’t work for you guys right now. (It’s supposed to.)
No problem Lucia.
Yeah, as far as it forgetting goes, they only have a limited context or working space, and eventually they lose track of stuff. It all goes back to the ‘limitations of the one shot’ issue.
I’ll choose a tortoise that keeps plodding along steadily over a hare that takes one long leap any day! I am currently trying to get crewAI running reliably. Life is hard on the bleeding edge sometimes…
Yeah. The other thing is chatGPT has some “prioritize” that sometimes need to be set aside while debugging. And it is “over confident”.
I’m really happy it told me how to get WP to spit out useful error notices at all.
But I realized *it needs to be more verbose*. It assumes it knows what WordPress set as
current_user_can(‘edit_posts’)
I mean… you’d think If I was on the admin side and literally can do that, then that must be set to true. But… no. I mean… this is the big ginormous WordPress we are dealing with.
I asked it why it was wrapping lots of error logs inside an “if urrent_user_can(‘edit_posts’) ” bit. It wanted to screen me from noise.
Luckily I left one outside the “if”. Guess ‘current_user_can(‘edit_posts’)” is FALSE. So, the “noise” is “useful information! 🙂
So I told it to write me verbose error logs. Super verbose! So I can see the values to all the flags chatGPT assumes are true or false! And now I know what to look for a little better. But it’s a learning experience.
(I can always take those lines out error.log later on. I can delete the error.log tomorrow! I want info!)
I’ve hit my time limit with chatGPT though. So… later.
I think once a person is used to what you have to actually ask chatGPT to do, it will be extremely helpful. It’s code is pretty reliable for small chunks. But it’s funny that its so verbose at the chat, but then writes the stingiest least humanly readable error logs you can imagine!
Shooter image:
https://x.com/xnews24_7/status/1966169444666978513?s=61
FBI confirms ammunition had political engraving on it
DaveJR,
Many times these things are self correcting. The media has beclowned themselves with double standards so often in the past 20 years that people just ignore them now and they are suffering the consequences of this behavior.
So I think the “speak with one voice for the sake of democracy” crowd at the legacy media is being reversed, not by choice, but due to market necessity. It’s a long road back. The second Trump win with zero support from them (Jan 6th! Felon! Rapist! 14th Amendment! snore …) was a message that could not be ignored.
CBS is reportedly close to closing a deal to have Bari Weiss play a major role in their news organization. Hard to believe. Good luck 60 Minutes, ha ha.
The firing of the MSNBC clown was shocking to me because what he said was run of the mill political hackery from my view. Yawn, of course he would say that. I hear that kind of crap on podcasts every day. It wasn’t so much incendiary as it was just lazy.
All that said, politics as celebrity blood sport is ridiculous. Get a grip people.
Russell,
I am not over confident of WVU’s chances this weekend. Looks like another long year of mediocrity on my side.
Tom,
Guess we’ll both be watching. Gee do I love this rivalry.
Although USF is playing Miami at the same time, I may be channel switching
These are obviously screen grabs from a security camera.
Show.The.Video.
It’s 2025 and I’ve been told the world supports such technology. The brain has a way of converting video into higher resolution perception and can pick up cues like how a person walks and their relative height to objects, etc.
FBI explains here:
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/charlie-kirk-shot-utah-death-09-11-25#cmffku57m0000356nefxg7mv1
TIP: The best AI is 100M real people analyzing the image.
So the FBI says that if they fail to ID the shooter, then they will ask for help from the public.
Maybe they are concerned that they will get 100K tips with 99.99% being useless.
Overwhelming response is a problem but the filtering of those tips can be crowd sourced too. You also don’t really want to be the misidentified target of a social media mob. Perhaps they are already confident of the identity and don’t need the help.
The weapon appears to be a scoped bolt action hunting rifle, so we can dispense with the “ban the semi-automatic guns with scary black plastic parts” narrative this time.
If given a choice you do not want to be hit with a 30-06 round. It is 3 times heavier than an AR-15 round and delivers 3 times the energy at 200 yards.
https://www.ammunitiontogo.com/lodge/30-06-vs-5-56/
The shooter may have been less than stupid with regards to firearms.
My personal conspiracy theory; Charlie Kirk was shot while answering a question from the audience about transgender shooting, and the ammunition recovered from the shooters rifle had transgender and antifa engravings on them. I say to you that these two things are not a coincidence.
Of course it could be a set up to implicate, transgender and antifa, only time will tell.
Grok on the timing of the question:
“The Question**: According to multiple eyewitness accounts and circulating videos, an audience member (described as a student) asked Kirk: “Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?” Kirk responded, “Too many,” prompting applause from the crowd. The questioner then followed up, noting that only five such incidents had occurred in that timeframe (a figure aligned with data from the Gun Violence Archive, which reports transgender suspects in about 0.1% of mass shootings over the past decade) and asking Kirk about the total number of mass shooters in the U.S. during the same period.”
Grok on the ammunition inscription:
“The rifle was later found in nearby woods, containing three unfired rounds engraved with expressions related to transgender rights and antifascist ideology, according to law enforcement sources.”
https://x.com/i/grok/share/fVtKqQFV4yhEqJQNDZO1SI0vs
This is so weird. Do they mean the bullets themselves were engraved? Or something else? Who engraves stuff on bullets? Or do they mean something else? Is it safe? How do you engrave bullets?
All rhetorical– sort of. I mean, I do want to know. I’m not trying to make a point. But I don’t expect you guys to know!
lucia,
I am not sure of this, but as I understand it, there were inscriptions on the bullets themselves. Mark may be able to tell you if that is possible.
It’s copper casings so you can just write on them or scratch messages on them. The recent trans shooter had messages all over their guns so maybe it was a copycat. It could be a false flag thing as well. My speculation from the photos is that it is an Antifa type anarchist, Utah is within driving range of anarchist central in the PNW. They do like their all black clothing.
The gun itself didn’t have anything obvious on it from the pictures at the NYPost.
Writing messages on ammo goes a long way back. Common on WWII bombs.
30-06 rounds are big. It’s on the right here shown against a 50 caliber.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/j_RR-o8BqV0/oar2.jpg
I’d have thought on the shell casings?
So – I have reloaded my own .38 special and .357 magnum. I have purchased lead bullets to do so. It’s been a little minute (maybe a year) since I have done reloading, but as I recall, sure. It’d be possible to engrave writing on the lead projectile if one really wanted to. Teeny tiny, but I’m sure it could be done.
It is also possible that what is meant is the shell casing. This is also possible, probably a lot easier.
Now that I think it through, if words are engraved on the lead projectile, I would certainly expect the impact to deform the lead and the writing beyond any recognition. So there’s that too.
This seems like an extremely pointless exercise, needless to say.
Mangoine is said to have engraved the words ‘deflect, delay, deny’ on .. his shell casings. Maybe that was the inspiration?
Here is a link to where one could buy lead bullets for reloading cartridges.
Here is a link to 30-06 casings. Between the two I think the casings would be much easier to write on.
Tom Scarf re: how a person walks
in the early ’80s a guy who had faked his death in the mid ’60s, and whose wife collected serious insurance claim then disappeared was discovered by an old college classmate who was folllowing him down a street in Vienna. And it was by his walk, which was distinct but not all that unusual.
When they get a good id on the killer, I would expect him to be arrested within a week or two.
There was a pair of identical twins in my high school class. A lot of people had trouble telling them apart. I could tell then apart a block away, by the way they walked.
As I understood the reports, the words ‘against the right’ were inscribed on the casings, not on the projectiles. But very fuzzy reporting, so who knows.
I do know a dedicated (non-violent) voice for conservatives, willing to address those who oppose him, has been silenced. The left always tries to kill its enemies; it is their one consistent “modus operandi” over many decades and during maney political environments..
In the event this is a trans rights whacko then they did the left a favor. This is an increasing liability for them and this would allow them to excise this toxic issue from their platform without a lot of pushback. It would be really hard to defend it going forward.
We shall see. These things often hold surprises.
In an otherwise depressing day, it was revealed that Nancy Mace did not take well to the suggestion that boob jobs might be added to the list of gender cofirming surgeries to be outlawed.
That the guy has not been caught until now suggests he may have gotten away with it, with little chance to catch him going forward.
Which is most unfortunate. But I am sure a joyous moment for the left.
I’m hearing that CNN wrote that the writing on the bullets contained “phrases related to cultural issues”. I haven’t checked whether it’s true, but it sounds like the kind of thing they would say. There should be a list somewhere of CNN/MSNBC euphemisms.
Tom Scharf,
“In the event this is a trans rights whacko then they did the left a favor.”
Nah, they will rejoice that Kirk is dead, (even if they don’t say so on air) as we saw already on MSNBCNN et al. They will NEVER “excise this toxic issue from their platform”, since ‘toxic’ for the USA, and for personal liberty, is their entire goal.
When you want to destroy a country, ‘toxic’ is what you work with.
If I sound hostile, it is because I am. These are bad people doing very bad things.
john ferguson,
‘”Nancy Mace did not take well to the suggestion that boob jobs might be added to the list of gender cofirming surgeries to be outlawed.”
Is this supposed to be a joke?
“phrases related to cultural issues”
It sure sounded like CNN knows what it was and chose not to report it. 90% chance they don’t like where that points. This was followed by a rather strange comment:
“Authorities are analyzing those messages as they seek to identify a suspect in the killing, sources said, but it’s not yet clear if they point to a motivation in the attack.”
Yes, comments written on ammo has nothing to do with motive. Joe Biden is fine. Sometimes an editor’s job is to delete this type of doublespeak.
Tom Scharf,
Not if the editor is on the left.
“It sure sounded like CNN knows what it was and chose not to report it.”
It was a political assassination, nothing else. CNN will never report it accurately, because they are complicit, and approve of the outcome, obviously.
Purely evil and purely stupid, as always.
WSJ:
“An early bulletin circulated widely among law enforcement officials said investigators found ammunition engraved with expressions of transgender and antifascist ideology inside the rifle that authorities believe was used in the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk. But some officials later Thursday cautioned against reaching conclusions based on the internal report.
The bulletin said an older-model .30 caliber hunting rifle was discovered in the woods near the scene of Wednesday’s shooting at Utah Valley University, wrapped in a towel with a spent cartridge still in the chamber. There were also three unspent rounds in the magazine, all with wording on them, it said.
Justice Department officials said the probe was in its early stages, investigators were still analyzing the evidence and the bulletin may not accurately reflect the messages on the ammunition.”
‘Early stages” means he guy got away. Will he ever be caught? Donno, but I do know that a faction of people on the left are thrilled Kirk is dead and the killer has not been caught. All evil, all the time.
The Bee:
“Heavenly sources confirmed that, after 31 years of graciously allowing everyone on Earth to benefit from his life, God deemed the world unworthy of Charlie Kirk and brought him into eternal glory where he belonged.”
Ben Shapiro:
testing…commenting while traveling
Had Trump’s assassin be successful last year ( 3 cm?) the country may well have descended into civil war.
Kirk’s assassination is just a reminder that those who refuse to accept an elective mandate are still there, and still willing to kill to achieve their political goals. And more that willing to undermine the Constitution, by whatever means available.
Kirk’s assassination is but one of many wake-up calls to those who value liberty: this must not be allowed to continue.
If I hold my breath waiting for the usuals suspects to do anything about the endless rhetoric about “Nazis” and ‘fascists’, and all other evils imagined by the unhinged left….
then I will surely die from lack of oxygen.
Bad people who do bad things. This isn’t even hard to understand.
Should AOC or Mamdani get shot by a “conservative Nazi lunatic”, will the MSM cover it exactly the same way as Charlie Kirk’s shooting? I doubt it. Because the left is evil and stupid.
The grapevine has named the suspect as a Skye Valadez. Reportedly wrote a song about a month ago named “Charlie Kirk is dead at 31”. Charlie’s birthday was next month.
“Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Utah.”
Let’s hope it is applied quickly and without mercy should the shooter be apprehended.
Skye Valdez? OK. Lemme guess: he is likely of dubious gender and almost certainly a leftist.
i have seen no on-line information, I am only guessing.
From a WV state rep, one Anitra Hamilton regarding Mr. Kirk:
I hadn’t heard of Kirk prior to this, and don’t know whether he espoused racist positions, but I can hardly believe that an advanced political figure can hold such a distorted view of the First Amendment.
[I will leave aside the grammatical error (singular/plural disagreement).]
Test….
blue
Added in admin.
https://www.indiatimes.com/trending/who-is-skye-valadez-internet-identifies-new-alleged-suspect-in-charlie-kirk-shooting-after-fbi-releases-photos-of-person-of-interest-669909.html
The FBI had a press conference on Kirk. They showed a new video of him crossing the roof but interestingly they were alt-tabbing to a couple photos and one of the windows they had up was a folder named c:/Users/santi/Desktop/Sub_Video_Kirk which had the security videos they took the screen grabs from. Why not show the videos?
Using Alt-Tab on a laptop is pretty sloppy.
TMZ got a video from one of the neighbors that shows the shooter going to the event with a pronounced limp. Perhaps because of hiding the gun.
https://www.tmz.com/2025/09/11/charlie-kirk-possible-shooter-on-video-near-campus/
If you have more than 10 approved comments, try adding a colored font now. I can (but I have powers). If you have fewer… you don’t get the extra html. 🙂
This is my blue text.
Nope. Not sure what the secret format is. It retains the markdown in edit but doesn’t show it.
Jesus Christ had a small following while He was alive; after his death His influence became enormous.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the same thing happened with Charlie Kirk, (although not to the same extent).
The organization he founded TPUSA has been very successful with young people.
The New York Times reported on September 10, 2025 that TPUSA had over 850 campus active chapters.
TPUSA Website claims to have over 800 active chapters
https://www.tpusastudents.com/college
There is no doubt his murder has made him a martyr to the young people.
I think he may be more influential after death.
I have been seeing a lot of social media references to prayer vigils being held on campus in the last two days. Some examples:
Clemson University
https://youtu.be/xFfou9ilHDk?si=kdofZsLW0d4jAmyh
University of Oklahoma
https://www.koco.com/article/ou-students-hold-candlelight-vigil-slain-charlie-kirk/66044744
FAU
https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/local/boca/2025/09/11/charlie-kirk-shooting-fau-turning-point-chapter-hosting-prayer-vigil/86090815007/?taid=68c357f717362a0001a3c922&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter
Texas Tech
https://x.com/oldrowofficial/status/1965951012486984157?s=61
Liberty University
https://x.com/citizenfreepres/status/1966195324063723703?s=61
University of Alabama
https://x.com/basedpastortrav/status/1966275145619722718?s=61
Texas A&M University
https://x.com/kbtxrusty/status/1965997962334490794?s=61
Tom–
I made quite a bit of progress. I at least can put it into comments I edit! You’ll see I got blue into one of the Joshua comments I released. See August 31, 2025 at 9:34 pm
I have the call that allowed me to add the color to comments I edit wrapped in an if that tests if you are “trusted”. (I think all the tags I’m allowing are safe. But not lettign stray bots do it is an additional precaution.)
I want to allow those with more than 10 approved comments to be “trusted”, but maybe the calls to get the count are faulty. I can find that if I put commands in the error logs. Maybe. 🙂
I’ll look at that tomorrow.
The governor of Utah (who seems to be cut in the mold of the governors of Texas and Florida) had a press conference where he warned of foreign BOTS postings on social media relative to the Charlie Kirk murder. While I normally cast a jaundiced on social media posts where I don’t recognize the source, it may be time to become extra skeptical of anything posted on social media from dubious sources.
It’s not picking up name and email. That’s why Tom’s blue didn’t show.
Test I’m trying to get name and email a different way.
Test red
Lucia testing
Lucia testing
Lucia testing
Harold,
It’s not going to work until I can figure out the correct WP commands to pull your comment count out of the database. It only works for me because I’m “trusted” another way.
blue from admin area
Those wondering why the font color ability works for me and not for you: it’s the fact that I’m trying to limit it to “trusted” visitors. Hooks seem to have to go in correct orders.
I can get what I most wanted initially easily: I can add to visitors comments as an admin. But I want you guys to be able to do it, and order of operations of the filters and hooks differs for different types of processes!
With the governor of Utah warning of foreign BOTS presenting false information on social media I decided to ask Grok about some of the rumors.
“Is there any evidence that Skye Valadez Is the shooter in the Charlie Kirk case”
Grok:
“No, there is no credible evidence that Skye Valadez is the shooter in the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk on September 10, 2025, at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. The speculation surrounding Valadez stems entirely from unverified online rumors, primarily originating on platforms like 4chan, Reddit, and X (formerly Twitter), but law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, have not confirmed any connection, named Valadez as a suspect, or made an arrest as of September 12, 2025.”
Full Grok explanation:
https://x.com/i/grok/share/ZPkRLGtYxGgkxZqMEs5ddjpku
I asked Grok another question:
“What is the evidence that the murderer’s bullets in the Charlie Kirk case were engraved with social sayings”
Grok:
“Claim: Inside the rifle’s chamber was a spent cartridge (consistent with the shot fired), and the magazine contained three unfired rounds. These unfired rounds were reportedly engraved with phrases expressing “transgender and antifascist ideology.”
“Source of the Claim: The primary evidence cited across multiple outlets is an internal law enforcement bulletin (not publicly released) and statements from a person familiar with the investigation. No official FBI confirmation has been issued as of September 12, 2025, with spokespeople declining comment due to the active probe.”
“Unfired rounds engraved with “expressions of transgender and antifascist ideology.”
Was reported in the following media:
“Wall Street Journal (via Al Jazeera, Daily Beast, LADbible, Express, Independent, The Hill, Telegraph, Hindustan Times, Mediaite)”
Full Grok conversation:
https://x.com/i/grok/share/hAcwXQ0X9AcFSkQvGGbE3W0gN
I think this rumor may be true.
I asked Grok about 4chan finding people:
4chan’s anonymous community has a history of crowdsourcing identifications from images, often using methods like reverse image searches, EXIF metadata analysis, visual clues (e.g., reflections, backgrounds, or celestial patterns), and cross-referencing with social media or public records. While there’s no comprehensive total—many cases go undocumented or involve misidentifications—the platform has been credited with successfully identifying individuals in several high-profile instances. Here’s a rundown of notable documented cases:
Kenny Glenn (Dusty the Cat abuser, 2009): Users identified the 14-year-old boy from a viral animal abuse video by analyzing metadata and reverse-searching frames, leading to his arrest and charges for animal cruelty.8c0200
Mary Bale (Cat in bin lady, 2010): From a CCTV video of her dumping a cat in a trash bin, 4chan users tracked her down using visual details and social media, resulting in public backlash, a fine, and a lifetime ban from owning animals by the RSPCA.bd5384
Pflugerville High School threatener (2007): A student posted photos of mock bombs; users extracted the father’s name from EXIF data in the images, alerting police, who arrested the student (it turned out to be a hoax).4624ed
David Michael Kalac (Port Orchard murder, 2014): Kalac posted graphic photos of his victim’s body on 4chan; users helped pinpoint the location from image details, leading to the body’s discovery and Kalac’s arrest, conviction, and 82-year sentence for second-degree murder.2b88c8
Allison Harvard (Creepy Chan, early 2010s): Users identified the anonymous poster of eerie self-portraits as a model who later became a runner-up on America’s Next Top Model.3bc178
Eric Clanton (Berkeley bike lock attacker, 2017): From protest videos and photos, /pol/ users matched facial features, clothing, and build to identify the philosophy professor, who was arrested, charged with assault, and later convicted.119883
Chaya Raichik (LibsOfTikTok on Jan. 6, 2022): Users identified her presence at the Capitol from photos and videos using facial recognition and attire matches within hours of an interview clip surfacing.9b07a6
Also Grok on 4chan….
“Yes, 4chan has been wrong in identifying suspects on multiple occasions, often leading to real-world harm such as doxxing innocent people, spreading misinformation, and causing distress to families. The site’s anonymous, unmoderated nature encourages rapid speculation and “crowdsourced investigations,” but this frequently results in inaccurate accusations based on superficial evidence like clothing or backpacks in photos. While there are isolated cases where 4chan users have contributed to solving crimes (e.g., by tracing IP addresses or analyzing details that aided law enforcement), errors are far more common and well-documented.”
with foreign BOTS in play, I think 4chan is suspect at this point.
Bots are directed. They do their owners bidding. The dems use them extensively to blast their message across social media, pretending to be normal people. They do not indicate the information is true or false, only that it is what the bot owner wants you to know.
Anyway, Trump claims the suspect is in custody, so I guess we should find out whether they were right soon.
Notable Cases Where 4chan Was Wrong
4chan’s misidentifications often amplify during high-profile events, where users rush to “solve” cases faster than authorities, sometimes influencing mainstream media and search engines.
– Boston Marathon Bombing (2013): In the aftermath of the April 15 bombing that killed three and injured over 260, 4chan and Reddit users created threads to analyze surveillance photos. They wrongly identified several innocent individuals as suspects, including Sunil Tripathi, a Brown University student who had been missing for a month. Tripathi was doxxed as the “main suspect” based on a hoodie matching blurry images, leading to widespread media coverage (e.g., BuzzFeed and the New York Post). Tragically, Tripathi’s body was later found; he had died by suicide before the accusations. The actual perpetrators were the Tsarnaev brothers, identified by the FBI. This case highlighted the dangers of crowdsourced sleuthing, with experts calling it a “media literacy seminar” on avoiding hasty judgments. Other misidentified people included a 17-year-old boy dubbed “Blue Robe Man” and various men with backpacks, some of whom faced harassment and safety fears.
– Las Vegas Shooting (2017): After Stephen Paddock killed 60 people at a concert on October 1, 4chan users falsely accused Geary Danley, a left-leaning individual, of being the shooter. They labeled him a “Democrat supporter” based on unverified social media posts. This misinformation topped Google search results for hours, spreading via conservative blogs (one of which retracted an article). Danley, who had no connection to the event, faced online threats. Authorities confirmed Paddock as the lone gunman, underscoring how 4chan’s anonymity fuels partisan bias and false flags.
If you’re interested, this is the video I saw a few years ago that dived into bot network usage. It’s an investigative piece so it deals with the process more than the findings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cIpLo_XWck
Thank you Dave
Tyler Robinson is the name of the man in custody for murdering Charlie Kirk.
he was turned in by his father.
Charlie Kirk’s influence Is spreading after his death:
“Vanderbilt students plan to start Turning Point chapter after founder Charlie Kirk’s death”
Okay, 4chan were wrong on this one.
Yes Dave, I think it’s very susceptible to influence by State sponsored BOTS.
that’s what made me suspicious anyway, when the governor said SOCIAL MEDIA WAS BEING INFLUENCED BY State sponsored BOTS.
Sounds like a normal, middle class, kid from a good family, probably with sympathies in that direction. I suspect he was radicalized at the university. Hopefully, no stone will be left unturned to understand how he got to where he did.
Senate Republicans, in a unanimous 53–45 vote, invoke the nuclear option — cutting the confirmation threshold from 60 to 51 and stripping Chuck Schumer and the Democrats of their power to block President Trump’s nominees.
Let’s roll.
WSJ:
“A family member told authorities that Tyler Robinson had discussed his dislike for Charlie Kirk during a dinner days before the shooting, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said.
One of the inscriptions read: “Hey fascist! Catch!” Another said: “If you read this you are gay, lmaoooo,” Cox added.”
I’m sure the academics are still looking for a motive…
I’m sure it was difficult for his father to turn his son in and I have some real empathy there, but this guy should get the death penalty.
I read the news every day and I barely knew who Charlie Kirk was, I knew of him and knew he was a conservative activist and that is about it.
I suppose for the younger generation he must have been more visible or possibly the shooter’s peer group must have had some fans. Maybe we will get some more info on how he got that far down the road to killing someone.
Dang. I knew of him well, had listened to a lot of his stuff. I’m surprised to hear that wasn’t the case for you Tom.
[I don’t think he was as obscure as you seem to be implying]
The accused shooter got a 34 on his ACT, putting him in the top 1% of test takers, yet dropped out of college in less than a year. Weird.
Mark Bofill,
I guess you are younger than we think, at least young at heart. 😉
But I too have seen a number of video clips where he was talking with brain-dead leftist students. He did make them look bad.
Dems had blocked most of Trumps appointments by refusing to allow any to proceed to a vote without debate, on any of the thousands he appoints. Approval without debate has long been the rule for most appointees of both parties. Even during Biden’s term in office, 57% of his appointees were approved without debate. Since Trump was sworn in, Dems have refused to approve any (not one!) of Trumps appointees without debate…. meaning there is not enough time on the Senate calendar to get his appointees approved.
When I want the right wing angle I usually listen to Ben Shapiro. He tends to take the opponent’s strongest arguments head on. Ezra Klein also does this from the left. You get the usual slant from both of them but at least they aren’t throwing up a bunch of tiresome strawmen all the time.
My perception is that Kirk was probably like Shapiro / Rogan. Villainized so emotionally that the BS meter goes off. Then you listen to them and you are like “What are you people getting so excited about?”. Shapiro had Berkely in a frothing rage back in the day.
The path to violence;
1. You don’t like an opponent’s political views
2. Your opponent makes strong arguments and creates a following.
3. Even when countered with “correct” viewpoints the opponent continues to grow because of disinformation, deceit, and their followers are morons.
4. Debate isn’t working, so the views are * labeled * hateful.
5. Attempts are made to de-platform hateful speech. They are unsuccessful. The ideological position is now “dangerous”.
6. The opponent’s followers are also now labeled hateful.
7. Guilt by association attacks for the more radical of the followers are connected to the opponent’s leader.
8. Dismissive statements about Nazis and fascists become more frequent to the point where there isn’t even ideological engagement at all. You can’t argue with a Nazi.
9. The opponent’s leader is now basically a Hitler wannabe.
10. Everyone agrees going back in time to kill Hitler is a moral good.
11. Somebody convinces themselves that an assassination will prevent the oncoming 4th Reich.
I don’t know. These are godless men who’ve been raised to believe right and wrong are arbitrary social constructs. Truth be told, I’m surprised we don’t see a helluva lot more mayhem than we do. There’s no good reason not to, in the eyes of many of them. Except the inconvenience and the risk of getting caught and punished.
I think you have to go through a lot of gates to become a coherent political shooter in normal times. That’s why there aren’t very many of them.
Psychopaths who do it for Jodie Foster / nihilism / suicide are a different story.
Revenge violence is also a shorter path. The right wing anger-sphere may want some payback. At the moment I don’t think this will happen but I would be watching my mouth with the “Kirk had it coming” narrative if I was a high visibility leftist doing public engagements.
You scrambled psychopaths and nihilists together like that. They are completely different things. And people who believe morality is subjective and arbitrary and socially constructed make yet another bucket.
I think there aren’t very many of them because it’s dangerous and has little concrete payout. But I think the number of people who’d tell you it’s OK to murder somebody if you thought you could get away with it has never been higher than it is now in this country. Particularly among our young folk.
Utah allows execution by firing squad if the required “injected drugs” are not available for execution. I’m crossing my fingers that there is a shortfall of those drugs.
Swift conviction and prompt execution is what this case calls for.
I believe the current leftist narrative/conspiracy theory might have dropped. I’ve only come across the bare bones so far though. I don’t actively search for this stuff, I just run across repeated incidents of a similar story from “different people” browsing comments.
It basically goes that Tyler was a conservative who dropped out of college after listening to Kirk and entered trade school, where things didn’t work out as he thought they would. He blames Kirk for this and turns further right. Killing Kirk was to provoke accelerationism.
The search for the best narrative continues.
At the moment “he got more political the last few years”, “hey fascist, catch”, and “Kirk was spreading hate” are going to be hard to overcome for the love/tolerance crowd. They will probably move on to the intolerance of intolerance is moral and words are the real violence arguments.
He doesn’t seem to be an obvious psychopath or a raging online left wing nutjob so far. He resembles the Trump shooter more than he does not. Disassociated young man.
He appears to have done some credible planning and only got caught now because his Dad / uncle recognized him (yes FBI, show the pictures). His admission to his roommate and written Discord messages could possibly show a desire to be caught.
The real question, does his Dad get a $100K for turning in his son? I’m guessing he will pass.
The main argument on the right will be all the fascist demonizing set this guy off. This was mainstream, every day stuff.
Tom: “The main argument on the right will be all the fascist demonizing set this guy off”
The amount of high and low profile grave dancing has rendered that argument pretty much superfluous. It’s no longer just one guy going off the deep end. It’s many many others cheering for the event. What set all of them off?
I’ll be closing these comments and moving some. The new thread is here
https://rankexploits.com/musings/2025/allowing-html/