Category: Uncategorized (Page 27 of 53)

I just heard about the worst thing I think I can remember. A Battle of the Bulge veteran described an encounter with a German boy soldier. On his approach with bayonet raised, he heard the boy shouting “Mommy! Mommy!” When he asked the boy what he was doing, the boy replied that he wanted his Mommy, because he didn’t want to die. He said he told the boy to pretend he was dead, and pretended to bayonet the boy. He pressed forward, leaving the boy to his own devices. I have some hope for humanity.

Just a few days before Memorial Day, I lost my last touch of the Second World War. My grandfather had been something of a boy soldier himself. Or, rather, sailor. Unlike my paternal grandfather, who had waited to the ripe old age of 16 to enlist, my maternal grandfather had enlisted at 15. He served in the Pacific from 1943 to 1945. As the vast American fleet sat off the coast of Japan, his vessel, PGM-27, was sunk in a typhoon. All the sailors aboard survived. Over six decades later, my grandfather spent his last few years disabled and at the edge of poverty. As he waited out his last hours, his sons found that he was eligible for some awards he had never received.

I last visited a little over a year ago. Speaking to my grandmother, I am struck by how much one grows together with another after 68 years of marriage.

The generation that made this country as we know it is nearly spent.

They are missed.

I, for one, would be relieved if Obama were to simply call a Rose Garden press conference to accept guilt. He should describe, in detail, how he ordered the assault on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi. At least, that’s what I assume happen based on reading only right wing websites. Other than that, I can’t imagine any scenario in which some incompetent handling of public relations at the outset of the violence could possibly be considered criminal.

So please, Mr. President, admit that you ordered some bottom-tier terrorist recruits to murder U.S. government officials. Because that’s what secret Muslim Kenyan half-Jew usurpers do.

Bill Clinton tricked his inquisitors into accepting his CLEARLY carefully manipulated definitions in order to skate through the entire event without having technically lied.

He was nevertheless impeached in the circus that followed the Monica Lewinski affair. Many think he was lucky to have survived, despite the fact that his inquisitors were at fault for having been so easily MANIPULATED. Fortunately for Mr. Clinton, he did not have the aggravating condition of hypermelaniniasis (AKA overt blackitude) working against him.

In this case, another center-right president has failed to be far-right enough for the corporate media. While the straws at which the GOP and its media grasp are as substantial as cobwebs, Obama’s mere existence as an Executive Darkie is an affront to everything the GOP’s current iteration has come to stand for. That is to say, the importance of White Supremacy is such that any challenge to its claims is dealt with by rabid and immediate counterattack.

President Obama is such a challenge. He is dealt with thus.

Everything would work out much better if the capitulation-prone Democratic Party would simply give up, sacrifice Obama and other uppity minorities, and allow the wealthiest among us to continue transferring the wealth of this country to East Asia and the Middle East in exchange for skimming a little off the top.

Summarizing the last week’s events, I have the following comments:

1. A small bomb is not anywhere near a “weapon of mass destruction.” When that term was coined, it referred to the atomic bomb. If the largest RAF “blockbuster” bombs of World War II weighed in at twelve thousand pounds and were not thusly termed, how do the professional bed-wetters of American “journalism” claim a crude homemade device merits the moniker? And why has the justice department suddenly downgraded the already downgraded term (it had been expanded to include chemical and biological weapons, neither of which is as efficient a killer as plain old TNT bombs)? It has gone from a device whose first wartime employment killed upwards of 100,000 people to a crude mutilator with a death toll of 3. If you weren’t doing the math, that is five orders of magnitude difference.
2. Rights as outlined in that quaint document known as the Constitution (more specifically, the Bill of Rights) do, indeed, protect the rights of terrible people. The reason they exist, however, is to protect everyone. If a miserable scumbag do not have the protection from warrentless searches, neither do you. If an obviously guilty person does not have a right to a fair trial, neither do you. As one who resembles roughly 75% of wanted posters (minus the tattoos and questionable facial hair), I appreciate this right.
3. By the fear-mongering allowances granted above, the explosion in the sleepy little burg of West, TX should be considered a tragedy on par with the entire American Civil War. Somehow, it has seen nowhere near the coverage of a pair of pathetic losers attempting to earn a place in headlines. I suppose “terrorism” intent (as long as only non-WASPs are involved) is ‘sexier’ news than criminal negligence. Thankfully, the right people are on the scene to emphatically ask the question “Who could have known?” to all who will listen. Of course as soon as the federal government finished handing out public money to clean up after this private disaster, they can just get the hell out of town. Private industry can police itself. As long as Uncle Sam foots the bill for the consequences.

[Update]: Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns, and Money on the disparity in coverage between West and Boston:

Again, when workers die because of massive negligence by owners, those owners need to be charged with some form of a murder crime, perhaps equivalent to a fatal drunk-driving charge. Instead, the owners themselves are often seen as victims, including at West.

Two articles he references, Boston, Texas, and the roads: affect and the power of normalization, and The Texas fertilizer plant explosion cannot be forgotten also wonder at the peculiar focus of the corporate “news” agencies.

As often happens at my place of employment, discussion devolves into a multivocal rant decrying the inability of most people to perceive relative risk. It is not just risk, either. Anything that could be considered economic in nature is absolutely a foreign language to even many mathematically sophisticated people.

Unfortunately, the human brain is terrible at modeling statistics. Part of the reason is that it has evolved to develop its own models for making estimates based on experience. The mass media have given us the ability to observe things that are far from our own experiences. Yet the quasi-experiential information received via the outlets of yellow journalism is absorbed as if actual experience. Here are some examples of things we do not consider at an appropriate level:

The National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children study published by the Department of Justice in October 2002 gives an interesting statistic:

During the study year, there were an estimated 115 stereotypical kidnappings, defined as abductions perpetrated by a stranger or slight acquaintance and involving a child who was transported 50 or more miles, detained overnight, held for ransom or with the intent to keep the child permanently, or killed.

The number is from 1999 specifically. But forgetting about absolute accuracy, it is reasonable to estimate an incidence of approximately 1 per 2,500,000 people.

According to a Minnpost article from December 17th, 2012:

To begin with, having a gun in the home is a risk factor for serious accidental injury and death. As Hemenway points out, death certificate data indicate that 680 Americans were killed accidentally with guns each year between 2003 and 2007.
…
An average of 46 Americans committed suicide with guns each day between 2003 and 2007. In fact, more Americans killed themselves with guns during those years than with all other methods combined.
…
One study found, reports [Harvard Injury Control Research Center director David] Hemenway, that “in states with more guns, there were more suicides (because there were more firearm suicides), even after controlling for the percentage of the state’s population with serious mental illness, alcohol dependence or abuse, illicit substance dependence or abuse, and the percentage unemployed, living below the poverty level, and in urban areas.”
…
Two-thirds of all murders between 2003 and 2007 involved guns. The average number of Americans shot and killed daily during those years was 33.

From these data, we can say about 30,000 per year. For a population of 300,000,000, this reflects an incidence of approximately 1 per 10,000 people.

A Gannet News Service article from March 26th, 2008 claims that in 2006, 4,810 motorcylists were killed in accidents. (This is approximately 1 motorcyclists were killed for every 1,400 motorcycles registered.)

Again assuming a population of 300,000,000, this reflects an incidence of approximately 1 per 62,000 people.

So one is rather common among a small sample group (motorcyclists killed as a fraction of number of riders), but fairly uncommon for the population as a whole. A second is more common among the population as a whole. Of the three dangers mentioned, under the influence of sensationalist media, the most feared is a vastly rarer occurrence than either of the other two. That is dangerous.