Interesting logic

Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has argued that "bottom surgery" is akin to circumcision.   Well, I guess there is a superficial similarity in that tissue is removed from that part of the body, but millions of Jewish (and Muslim, ahem) wives would affirm that the "essential function" of that part of the body is retained with circumcision, and (apart from Lorena Bobbitt types) would generally affirm that they would be more than disappointed if their husbands' circumcisions were replaced by bottom surgery.

Really, it seems to take elite college degrees--and apparently a Rhodes Scholarship in El-Sayed's case--to make a person as catastrophically stupid as El-Sayed.  Or perhaps he's being rather nostalgic for the "good old days" of the harem system in the Ottoman Empire, where captive women were sold into sex slavery, and the men from their towns who otherwise would have married them were either killed, or castrated and turned into harem attendants.

Whatever the fact is, El-Sayed does not appear to understand that there are reasons we don't allow minors to make certain permanent decisions, and hence he's (even apart from his anti-Semitism) an extremely poor choice for elective office at any level.

Why did they bother?

A court in Syria has condemned former strongman Bashar Assad to death, but on the light side, it strikes me that he's serving a far worse sentence already; living in Russia.  One has to wonder how many fist-fights he's gotten into while trying to get gas for his Honda Spree.

Because they never learned

I had a very interesting conversation with a young gentleman in the meat section of the grocery store last night; he made a wisecrack about "Soviet era" technology (old meat scales) being used there.  OK, it was nowhere near 1980s era technology--no red LEDs, etc..--but it was a fun opportunity to tell him what real Soviet era technology looked like.  I mentioned the Trabant (1955 Fiat with two cycle engine, body made of used clothes), East German chocolate, and the like--and he was shocked.

And as I watched him, I realized why the younger generation is willing to vote for "Democratic Socialists".  They simply have never learned about Communism.  They don't know about waiting a decade or more for a car or TV set, about long lines for bread, meat, and clothes, and they especially don't know about the gulags.

Now part of this is that, in the public schools, you never get to the end of the history book.  My senior level history class in 1986-7 hardly touched the Vietnam War, which ended of course (for us) in 1973.  But that said, that's only 14 years--and the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.   Shouldn't history teachers be covering things 37 years back?

And perhaps they are, but I think the reality is that since teachers are by and large paid by the state, and thus they have little incentive to share what happens when the state oversteps its bounds.  In my high school experience, for example, our teachers (in a very conservative town no less) really didn't admit that economic "panics" tended to last only 1-2 years until Hoover and FDR tried to "help". 

So why don't people know about the horrors of Communism?  They've never been taught.  I would suggest that some of the same weakness might have a lot to do with the rise in anti-semitism today.  People have simply forgotten the Holocaust.

One final note is that when I was starting my career, I had the privilege of working with a number of Jews who had fled the USSR.  I asked why, and the response was that one's passport--which in the USSR enabled internal travel as well as international--clearly noted if a person was Jewish, which enabled every wannabe Cossack in the security services to initiate their own personal pogrom at any time.  How soon we forget! 

Datacenters, water, energy, and noise

I had a great conversation with an old college friend last night regarding a proposed datacenter around Colorado Springs (where he lives), and my response to his frustration with "NIMBY" people was to note that if a datacenter is constructed correctly, it need not use a lot of water or produce a lot of noise.

The water issue with datacenters is cooling water--high power systems (like IBM mainframes) are not air-cooled, but water cooled.  That noted, water out of the well tends to contain a fair amount of mineral content, which tends to clog hoses and pipes, and it's worth noting that power plants don't need to use a ton of water--you simply let the air carry the heat away in the cooling tower instead of water.  There is no reason why, in my view, a datacenter ought to use a lot of water.

In the same way, I personally work around datacenters at work here, and if you walk around the plant, you will not hear those datacenters.  What makes a lot of datacenters noisy is that they are more or less kept in tin sheds, and hence that noise escapes.  If one constructs the building properly--with insulation for climate control and such--the noise is quite manageable.

Now you can't do much about the power use, but even that ought to be manageable--"OK, you're going to need a peak of 5MW, that will require that you install a new transformer and pay this much to augment the local power distribution system."  

In other words, most of the problems that are seen with datacenters are a classic example of the problems of unplanned externalities, economically speaking.  That leaves the real gorilla in the room; what is being done in those datacenters?  It could be groundbreaking cancer research, or it could be some government's attempt to install Jeremy Bentham's "Panoptikon" on the public.  My response to the datacenter is going to depend a lot on what the actual purpose might be.

Hands up for a good bowl of borsch

Apparently more and more Russian soldiers are surrendering for the second time (or more?) to Ukraine, which means, I suppose, that the borsch is better there.   

On a serious note, I think it indicates the desperation of these soldiers, as Russia is widely reputed to have their best troops in the rear to fire on their own retreating units, and in that world, I don't suppose surrendering for the second time would be the healthiest thing to do.  So perhaps Russia is starting to abandon its old-style Persian tactics (e.g. Thermopylae) due to a lack of manpower.

Praying that dill, beets, and sour cream keep working together to crush Putinism.

Ray Bradbury, please call your office

Apparently AI companies are buying vintage physical books, scanning them for their databases, and then destroying them.  Shades of Fahrenheit 451, if you ask me, and the only thing I can say in defense of them is that they're at least loading the concepts into their AI models.  Still, if you wonder why you want to keep a few physical books around, this is a great reason why.

A worthy rivalry

While on vacation, I had opportunity to visit the Babcock Dairy Store on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison,  and I thought it would be fun to compare it with a haunt of my college years, the MSU Dairy Store in East Lansing.  My verdict is that Babcock and MSU Dairy are worthy rivals worthy of anyone's first trip to the cardiologist.  Specific facets of that comparison:

Historical heroism: clear Badger win here, as Professor Babcock invented the butterfat measurement tool in 1890.  For making good ice cream and cheese, nothing says "I love you" like butterfat.

Ice Cream: tie.  Both MSU Dairy and Babcock Dairy do a wonderful job making wonderful rich ice cream.  If they should desire to have a head to head competition, I would totally love to be a judge my doctors suggest I should abstain from being a judge.  

Other comestibles: win for the Badgers, as you can get a sandwich there as well.  It's one stop shopping for Heaven food, i.e. food that will get you to Heaven more quickly.

Shop experience: Victory for MSU here, as many of the procedures at the Babcock Dairy Store are quite confusing, especially for first time visitors.

I look forward to a spirited and good natured rivalry between these eminent purveyors of arteriosclerosis!

De-Nazify who, now?

Russian forces in Africa are named, apparently, the "Afrika Korps".   OK, the article uses the letter "c" instead of "k",  but...don't you think they could name it something less reminiscent of the German fight for North Africa during World War Two?  I guess after another (illegal under Russian law) paramilitary group was named the very German name "Wagner" (composer beloved by Hitler for anti-semitic themes, BTW), it does make sense.  Plus, with Russia's support of, and partnership with, Iran, it's clear that just as Stalin and Hitler were buddies, Putin values his affinity with Herr Schicklgruber, too.

To be fair, however, the Russian Afrika Korps does differ from the original German Afrika Korps in a very important regard; Generalfeldmarshall Rommel did not get his butt kicked by a group of nomadic Tuareg herdsmen.  For the sake of the world, thank God that today's Nazis in Russia are incompetent.

Thoughts on the red card scandal

Regarding the red card issued to U.S. World Cup team member Folarin Balogun, there are a bunch of thoughts that come to mind.  First of all, as the incident was one where Balogun's opponent from Bosnia-Herzegovina could have ended up seriously injured, it is heartening to see at least one sports governing body taking seriously the possibility of team members getting injured.  Yes, WNBA, I'm talking to you.  (and NFL, and NHL, and,...I've felt for a long time that intentional fouls that injure another player ought to be punished far more harshly than they typically are)

That noted, the usual line between yellow card and red card is intent, so ordinarily, Balogun's foul would have been a yellow card, as is attested by several accounts I've read, so we have the possibility that there was already some political move in issuing and extending the red card.  Then we have Trump's call to attempt to get it reversed, which suggests a political move in the other direction.

And finally, there is the reality that at FIFA, bribery and skullduggery have been obvious for decades, so in my view, it's hard to get too worked up that Trump played that game.  Perhaps we need to remember that at the end of the day, it's a game, and at its best, it can be a great opportunity to pass lessons in character on to both athletes and spectators.  Hopefully FIFA gets their hands around their own problems in this soon.

On that note, congratulations to the Belgian squad for their 4-1 thumping of the U.S. team, and I'll be cheering you on as you face Spain. With waffles, sour beer, and fries.

Prayers are in line for Bryan Johnson

In this case, it's the biohacker trying to beat death, not the AC/DC frontman, and his current issue is that he's been diagnosed with an incurable autoimmune illness. Apparently his stomach is "eating itself" with autoimmune gastritis.  

(side note; since my sources indicate the lead singer of AC/DC is an atheist, please be encouraged to pray for him, too)

Now, of course, there is some irony in the case of the world's preeminent biohacker coming down with an incurable disease, just as critics of Nathan Pritikin were prone to crowing about his case of leukemia (and tragic suicide).  Those of us who remember the Scriptures note that it is appointed for man once to die, and then to face judgment (Hebrews 9:27).  We can remind ourselves that while we can improve our odds for avoiding certain maladies by avoiding smoking, making prudent dietary choices, and making sure we move, in the end, absent the rapture, we all end up dying.

But that said, it's also worth noting that Johnson's self-experiment is in many ways welcome for all of us.  I myself try some things that are not proven with a double blind study, but nonetheless I hope will improve my odds for having more good years as I advance out of my fifties in a few years--fish oil, aspirin instead of acetominophen, exercise regimes, and the like.  The one significant criticism I have is that with the array of supplements and therapies he does--over 100 if my sources are correct--that he's going to have trouble differentiating the effects of one versus the other, especially since his sample size is himself-- a classic "n= 1" case where you have no meaningful standard deviation for the purpose of comparisons.

And it is therefore my hope and prayer that people who have been blessed financially like Mr. Johnson will start to do some of the studies that a pharmaceutical company likely will not, the ones where the therapy is inexpensive and unpatentable, and as often as not, the results are subtle and not spectacular.  It's horrendously expensive and financially unrewarding to do this, but if he's really motivated to help people delay their purchase from the Batesville Casket Company, that would be a great approach.

And again, prayers for him.  What he's going through cannot be fun, though it may drive him to the Gospel.

Live by the dollar,

Apparently the University of Michigan is learning the hard way that when you hire a mercenary, that mercenary will leave you for a bigger paycheck.  Dusty May is going to the NBA, where I'm guessing he's going to learn the hard way that with a salary cap, you can't just buy your players.

Now when I was a student at Michigan State, we did read The Prince, in which Machiavelli warns princes against relying too strongly on mercenaries for this very reason.  Just sayin'.  It's only been in print for 513 years, so maybe someday, it'll reach Ann Arbor.

And along those lines, again, if the NCAA wants to have any semblance of real competition in their sports, athletics, and games, they're going to need to implement salary caps and restrictions on how often athletes, sportsmen, and game-players can transfer.  

Need some good music in Farsi

You may have heard of the plight of Persian singer Parastoo Ahmadi, sentenced to 74 lashes for the "crime" of performing without headcovering.  I can think of no better response to this basic violation of human rights than to encourage as many people as possible to listen to her music.  So here you go.  I don't understand much Farsi (Persian) at all, but she's got a beautiful voice and seems to have a great sense of humor--as well as a wonderful band.  It goes all the way, IMO, from what seems to be pensive songs of love and life to the Persian version of a hard rock anthem.

For additional interest, Karvansara is a city close to Iraq and Turkey, close to what we'd call Kurdistan.  

 

Needs a bit of context

An LGBTQ+ group in Kalamazoo is objecting to people wearing the Star of David because.... apparently of the trauma from Israeli military actions.

OK as far as it goes, but in most of Israel's neighbors, being homosexual, bisexual, or transsexual is grounds for being brutally murdered by being thrown off a roof and the like.  So we might infer that among the things LGBTQ+ people have to fear around Israel, the Israeli Army is the least of their worries.

We might also infer that for a lot of LGBTQ+ groups, a general progressive agenda (and not offending Muslims) are more important than the actual rights of LGBTQ+ people, which are (ahem) well protected in Israel.

On those GLP-1s

This article reminds me of how at a graduation party recently, a manager of prescription drug procurement (pharmacist by training) gave a few of us a quick tutorial on how GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic work.  More or less, it slows down digestion so that eating is actually a bit painful--the drug version of a tummy tuck--and he stated that it was actually preferable to stomach surgery because it works longer.   I'm guessing part of that is because one can actually stretch one's stomach, delaying your body's satiation signals.

It is also fun to contemplate what one does if one (like me) does not qualify for Ozempic; there are various ways of slowing down digestion like increasing one's fiber intake and replacing sugar with protein, or even deciding to choose foods that need to be chewed longer.  Double bonus is that these methods don't generally have the common side effects of using GLP-1s like nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and constipation.  And if you are on GLP-1s, and are experiencing those side effects, your best option is....to change your diet so that you're getting more fiber, less fat, and the like.

It might not be an option for many Americans with a Wal-Mart physique, but maybe....try the easy, free thing first?

Guilty as charged

Bike Bubba attributes classical music knowledge to watching Bugs Bunny cartoons.  And yes, I'm guilty of learning a lot of cool words (not obscenities!) from Calvin & Hobbes and The Far Side.

If you want to know what the trouble is with the loss of the daily newspaper, you can think about that, as well as cultural references like, yes, "The Bugs Bunny Road Runner Show."  There was something to be gained when we could all gather around the comics, sports section, and the like.