Republicans: Welcome to Credibility Gap

I've been getting a lot of posts from the right. Notably, from Human Events, Ann Coulter, Patrick Buchanan, Patriot Ledger, etc. I will not dignify them with a link.

I had thought there could be a meeting of the minds. I had thought we could have a rational discussion.

I was wrong.

I had forgotten the first rule of fascist propaganda: demonize your opponent.

According to the latest drivel from Human Events, I am a member of the extreme left and part of a conspiracy to make the USA socialist. According to Ann Coulter, people like me are "spineless little girls in pretty dresses who can't play rough because it musses up their hair."

Claire McCaskill, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, sent an email to Senator John Comyn, National Republican Senatorial Committee. It opens this way:
Senate Democrats are ready to turn President Obama's bold prescription for the country into the law of the land. But Republicans just keep standing in our way. That's not what America voted for last November. We want a new direction. The change we all seek starts with each and every one of us. Today, we have a tremendous opportunity to give Barack Obama the filibuster-proof Senate majority he will need to put this country back on course.

John Comyn replied beginning with this:
I received an unbelievable email from Claire "lean to the left" McCaskill, the DSCC's latest "snake oil" pitchman for failed policies. In it she calls Republicans "naysayers" for asking hard questions about the higher taxes and runaway federal spending currently before the Senate. She even calls Obama's dangerous plans a "bold prescription" for America.

Which rhetoric sounds more believable? Forget whether you are a Republican or a Democrat. Listen to the temperature of the rhetoric. How people say things is important. What people say is important. By using demonizing rhetoric, Comyn draws his lines in the sand: I don't have to respond to the opposing viewpoint as they are contemptible.

These people don't want debate. These people want power. And they will say anything to get it.

Okay. As far as I'm concerned, they are tainted. If they don't want me to use reason in discussion, I am compelled to believe their position will not stand up to reason.

The Republicans truly are the party of the stupid white guys.
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Still tired. Still in Huntsville.













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Nothing much today.
Enjoy the links.











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Cause and Effect

There's a disconnect in the way we discuss cause and effect. Here's an example,

A man is driving a runaway train. He's determined to run that train way to fast for the upcoming curve. He refuses to listen to anybody. You are standing by the switch. You are told to throw the switch that will cause the train to go into a siding. The train will self destruct. The driver will be killed. Instead, you do nothing. The train continues down the path and flips on the curve, flies through the air and destroys a school. Hundreds of children are killed.

Who killed the children?

There is a school of thought that would say you did. You had the opportunity to stop the train. By shirking that moral responsibility your culpability is equivalent to the driver's.

I don't believe that primary fault lies with the person that fails to prevent a failure. Now, that doesn't mean I don't believe that there is no responsibility here. Just that the primary criminal is the driver not the signaler.

Pat Buchanan disagrees. Apparently, he's channeling Milton Friedman who also disagrees. In his column he says of the 29 crash: "A Fed-created bubble burst, causing margin calls..." etc. And later, quoting Friedman, "The Federal Reserve had the power and the knowledge to have stopped [the loss]. And there were people at the time who were... urging them to do that. So it was... clearly a mistake of policy that led to the Great Depression."

Let's see. It wasn't the rampant speculators. They bear no responsibility?

It's a similar line to connect 1923 French military intervention to Weimar currency devaluation to the wipeout of the German middle class to discrediting the democratic republic to Hitler's rise to power to World War II. Clearly, it's France's fault.

It's the corollary to the classic morally challenged business decisions: "Well, if I don't do it, somebody else will." That might even be true. But that doesn't excuse the action even a little bit.

As much as we'd like to blame France and excuse speculators, or that train driver, proximate cause must trump secondary permissions. If you do something morally, ethically or financially culpable, it's your fault. Not Ben Bernanke, Barack Obama, the janitor cleaning up the school or (sigh) France.

BTW: More on Ada Lovelace Day:
Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here.

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Ada Lovelace Day

Today is Ada Lovelace Day. (Biography here.) She suggested means by which the Charles Babbage Difference Engine could be used-- in effect, the first programmer predated the first computer by nearly a hundred years. The day is intended for recognition of women in technology.

So.

Here's Bioephemera's contribution on Pollock fractals. Make takes the opportunity to recognize women makers. Nancy Evans preserved the heritage of human space exploration. Did it against policy, too. Finding Ada has a mashup that is fun here. The London Science Museum also has something here.

Most of the shops I've worked in have been mostly men with a smaller collection of women. I've worked in a couple of shops which were essentially boy's clubs. One boss I had volunteered that women couldn't do serious programming. He was an idiot. And, not surprisingly, a poor engineer and really bad coder. Those that can't do get threatened by people that can and marginalize them if possible.

Now I work in an environment with a government mandate to have women and minorities.

It's great.
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(From here)

Ben (my son) and I worked on his guitar much of the weekend. We've been building a 3/4 scale guitar for him to play. It's from a kit. We had taped off all of the bits we didn't want stained so we could get the neck just the right color of ebony. However, the wood of the kit didn't take to the stain and the stain ripped right through the adhesive tape and made this viscous scum.

This happened a week ago.

So, we've been doing clean up and repair work on the thing. Alcohol, acetone and something called goo gone was able to clean up the scum but portions of the neck and body were stained.

We're going to repair the neck by essentially taking advantage of the mistake and lacquer it. I'm still researching it since the neck of a guitar gets a lot of work and I don't want the lacquer to come off in his hands. Irving Sloane used varnish.

The shoulder of the guitar and part of the upper back are permanently stained. But I figured out how to veneer over it. Hopefully, it will look like some intentional marquetry.

The back is more problematic. We have to do some experiments to determine if the stain we were going to use will mask the black stain underneath.

Painter's tape next time. Not masking tape.

I had some sapele wood veneer that would have looked sweet in the role. It's a reddish wood, something like a tame bloodwood. But the veneer is just too stiff. I tried various things to soften it: soaking it in glycerin, alcohol, etc. But though I could cut it after soaking, like the Republicans: It Would. Not. Bend.

I have some other veneers that are, like the Democrats, more pliable.
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