Category Archives: Weird Stuff

Who Killed Seth Rich?

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The internet is a breeding ground for conspiracy theories because it allows the like minded to confirm one another’s suspicions, even when those suspicions are nuts. That’s the way conspiracy theories work. That does mean all conspiracy theories are false. There are actual conspiracies and sometimes the explanation for some event involves shadowy elements working in secret. Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger is known to us because he was involved in a conspiracy that led to the assassination of Julius Caesar.

The murder of Seth Rich, a 27-year-old staffer at the Democratic National Committee at 4:30 AM in Washington DC is one of those events that is catnip for the conspiratorial. Throw in Assange claiming the guy was a source for WikiLeaks and it is not hard to start wondering if maybe there’s more here than just a horrible tragedy. As The Daily Mail reports, a lot of people associated with the Clintons have died under mysterious circumstances, often to the benefit of the Clintons.

What is known is whoever shot this guy did not rob him. They found the victims possessions, including his wallet, on him when they found the body. Maybe he had something else worth killing over that has gone unreported, but there’s no way to know it. The victim was shot in the back so he was either running away or had no idea the killer was behind him. The news reports say the victim had defensive wounds but that sounds like people watching too much television. Since DC does not release autopsy reports, there’s no way to verify it.

Talk to any cop who has worked the ghetto and they will tell you that the victims usually know their killer. Murder is almost always a crime of the moment. Person A gets into a beef with person B, who pulls a weapon and kills person A. Alternatively, there is a money or sex dispute that leads one person to kill their partner or associate. Even premeditated homicide almost always involves people that know one another. Even cold blooded killers need a reason and there’s rarely a reason to kill total strangers randomly selected off the street.

That’s why so many are tempted to jump to the conclusion that this was not a typical crime. This guy was not in the drug trade and he had nothing in his personal life that would indicate a crime of passion. He also lived in a sporty part of town where the cops do a good job keeping the streets safe. Calling it “recently gentrified”, as if it is still dodgy, is just what young urban hipsters like to say so it does not sound like they live in an urban daycare center, which is the case here. This guy was killed in one of the truly safe parts of Washington DC.

On the other hand, murder for hire is not a pointless act. If you just want someone dead, then you want it to look like an accident or a street crime. Otherwise, you are bringing unnecessary attention to something you want to keep quiet. In this case, shooting and robbing the guy would look like a robbery. You do it with a cheap handgun that you can toss in a nearby sewer, assuming the cops will find it. They always look at the local drains cause criminals tend to throw their weapons there, thinking no one will find them.

The thing that leads me to suspect something other than random street crime is the hour. Thug life is mostly nocturnal, but these people are not vampires who go to bed at dawn. They roll out of bed at noon and hang out into the small hours, but they are off the streets by two o’clock, even on weekends. They may still be up partying, but they are not out robbing people at 4:30 AM in a swanky part of town. It’s possible, but it strikes me as implausible. In the ghetto, just before sun up is the safest and most quiet part of the day.

The point here is that there is no obvious answer, based on the facts that are known. When a white bread honky turns up with holes in him just before dawn, it is natural to assume it is something other than street crime. The most probable answer is he was involved with something or someone that got him killed. Maybe it was a jealous boyfriend, a dispute at work or some sort of neighborhood beef that got out of hand, but it was most likely not two thugs trying rob him of his iPhone. It’s possible, but not very likely.

That does not mean Hillary Clinton did it, but that’s no more or less possible than the street thug theory. If you are going to murder people or have them murdered, political power is a pretty good reason, maybe the best reason. That said, people at that level can afford well trained and qualified hit-men. They don’t need to rely on amateurs who make it look like an assassination. Even crack hit-men have bad days so it is possible, but it just strikes me as slightly less plausible than the random street crime theory.

Millenial Solipsism

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Complaining about the millennials has become something of a pastime over the last decade. It probably started in the 1990’s when people began to notice that the young were acting a little weird compared to previous generations. Raised on video games, good economic times and technology, young people coming out of college in the late 90’s seemed to lack anything resembling humility. By the time we got to the 2000’s, someone had come up with a cool new moniker for the next generation and everyone was bashing the millennials.

I noticed the same things as other people noticed about the kids, but my bet was reality would beat the stupid out of them as it has every generation. The fact is, every generation has had it a bit easier than their parents and that means each successive generation has come into the world a little less prepared for reality. My generation certainly had it easier than my parents and grandparents. My grandfather used to tease me by saying his generation was wooden ships and iron men, while my generation was iron ships and wooden men.

The millennials are now in their 30’s, at least the leading edge is in their 30’s, and it does not appear that reality has had much of an impact on this generation. Talk to employers about them and they start reeling off stories about the problems they have had with their young people. I know a number of business owners who have thrown in the towel and no longer hire anyone under forty, even if it means paying above market rate. These are companies that used to hire college graduates and train them for their specific work. Now, they let others do it.

Time waits for no one so whether anyone likes it or not, the millennials will be in charge soon enough. Look around the mass media and you see lots of boys and girls in their late 20’s and early 30’s offering up opinions and commentary about how you people screwed up the world. Since being a chattering skull requires little in the way of talent, it is no surprise this is where millennials are making their first impression. TV skulls just have to read their lines and look concerned. The on-line types just need to do the social justice warrior act.

The thing that you can’t help but notice with this generation is the strange solipsism that is their most highly developed feature. You see this in debates on-line as well as in the media. It usually takes the form of “explain to me why….” and assumes the thoughts and emotions of the person on the other end have no value. Their only reference point is their own feelings toward whatever it is in question. If the counter argument to whatever is under discussion makes them blue, it must be wrong, regardless of its factual accuracy.

This piece by a young writer named Mathew Sheffield is a good example of the new brand of millennial journalism we can expect. Sheffield turns up on mainstream conservative sites so I suspect he is being groomed to be the next big thing. His article features the abundant use of pseudo-data that is popular with millennials, but the distinguishing aspect is it is mostly a long treatise on how conservative media is not paying enough attention to people like Mathew Sheffield. After all, if Fox News is not catering to him, they may as well not exist.

On his twitter profile, you see the catch phrase popular with young educated people. “If you can’t defend your opinions, perhaps you need better ones.” Some formulation of that pops up on social media and internet forums and it is always uttered by a young person. They can’t imagine why someone would not be eager and willing to explain and defend their opinions to them. On twitter you often see old people respond with, “I’m not google. Do your own research.” The response to that is always some form of  “Your unwillingness to indulge me means you must be wrong.”

The thing is, this generation is just as smart and educated as previous generations. You could argue they are better educated. More young people have had exposure to college material than ever before and all of them graduate high school. I grew up with guys who dropped out at 16 and then went into the army when they turned 18. That’s unheard of today. The difference is that the millennials were trained to focus their curiosity inward, rather than outward. Instead of trying to understand the world, they focused all their time understanding themselves.

This very well may be the inevitable consequence to the post-scarcity world. We live in an age when poor people are fat and have gaming consoles and 60-inch flat screen televisions. For middle and upper middle-class young people, the risks in life are not physical in the form of hunger and violence. The risks in life are all emotional in the form of lost status and hurt feelings. Once again, it turns out that Huxley got the future more right than Orwell. In the post scarcity world, everyone is focused on self-actualization, because otherwise life has no purpose.

We’re Doomed

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The Catholics say despair is a sin and perhaps it is, but it is hard to be optimistic about the world when you see stories like this one. Even allowing for the possibility there could be more to the story than what is being reported, how can society survive when this sort of thing  is even plausible?

Thomas Salbey became an internet sensation after footage of him hurling abuse at Sonboly, from the balcony of his fifth floor apartment was posted on Twitter.

But while many praised Mr. Salbey for standing up to the gunman – who aimed shots in his direction – Florian Weinzierl, a spokesman for the Munich prosecutor, has confirmed that Mr. Salbey is to be charged with libel for his comments. It is not known who reported Mr. Salbey to the authorities.

As the attack by Sonboly was already underway, Mr. Weinzierl said that initial investigations have shown that Mr. Salbey’s diatribe did not affect the course of events. The specific charges have yet to be announced, but Mr. Weinzierl said he expected that they would include “insults to the detriment of the dead”.

Detriment to the dead? How is it possible that such a combination of words exists, much less made its ways into the law? Now, loopy nonsense gets into the law for various reasons and maybe this is the case, but civil authorities appear to be ready to charge a man for insulting the dead. How is this different from charging someone with being a wizard? The underlying assumption is that through some magical means, the insult reaches the insulted. I guess the prosecutor will use a Ouija board at trial to get a victim statement.

That’s only half the problem. What sort of person reported the guy? presumably, someone complained. In Europe, it is against the law to hurt someone’s feelings so I would assume that’s the angle. The accused insulted the dead, which made someone sad so the accused must be made to suffer. This is old testament justice for the snowflake age. Instead of eye-for-an-eye, it’s boo-boo for boo-boo justice.  The fact that this exists and people go along with it suggests there no hope for the West. Only a mass die off like the Black Plague can fix this.

It’s not so much that some women called the authorities on this guys. You just know it is a woman who dropped the dime. It is always a woman behind these things. It’s that people in positions of responsibility encourage this sort of thing. For all of human history, the ruling class discouraged this sort of behavior as they knew it could get out of hand quickly. The prosecutors or police who took this call should have politely listened, promised to look into it and then forgot about it. That’s how you’re supposed to handle community cranks.

We’re doomed.

 

This Blog – August 2016

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I like to read about who reads the things I read and how many people read the things I read. Like all human beings, I’m curious about where I fit in with my fellow meat sticks. It is what defines us as social animals. There’s also the fact that if everyone like me is into something, there’s a good chance I’ll enjoy it. Alternatively, if the people into the same things I like happen to be weirdos, then maybe it is time for some soul searching. When it comes to websites and TV shows, I’m mostly interested in how many. Media wields a great deal of influence so the high traffic sites will have more influence than niche sites.

Anyway, this post on Vox Day reminded me that I have not done a post on this blog’s traffic for a while. I’m probably not alone in being curious about traffic stats so I want to post a regular update on site stats. Steve Sailer does this as part of his fund raisers. I’m always a little surprised that Sailer does not have more traffic. He’s been doing the blog thing for a couple of decades. Assuming VD is not bullshitting us with his stats, his site gets twice the traffic of Sailer. I see loads of references on social media to Sailer, but never Vox Day, but that could just mean I hang with the bad crowd.

I have installed a plugin for WordPress that lets me harvest all sorts of data. The big thing it does is filter out robots and trackers from the site traffic. I tested this on another domain and it does seem to work. I compared the stats to my server stats and there is a massive gap between the blogs numbers and the raw server logs, suggesting the robot filtering is working as they claim. According to the numbers, I have had 9,180,000 visits in the last year. Of those, 953,876 were unique visitors. The regular readership is just over 45,000. That’s defined as unique regular visitors.

I thank everyone for visiting and reading.

Now, compared to what Vox reports, my page views are half what he reports. I suspect there’s a difference in how page views are counted. His posts net three times the number of comments so maybe it is not that far off. If I were to guess, I’d say his readership is three or four times the size of this site, judging from the number of comments. Then again, some sites lend themselves to comments, while others do not. Ace gets a ton of comments, but most of them are gibberish. You see this on Breitbart where the comments often suggest the readership is missing a chromosome.

Digging through the stats, I see that the most popular post ever was this one. The most common keyword search that leads people here is “Cloud People.” The funny thing about that is someone used the term in conversation the other day and then explained to me what it meant. I know that person does not read this site so I guess the term is working its way into the language. The second most popular post is this one, so I may even get credit for the term when some TV big shot uses it. A man can dream.

I have received e-mails wondering how to donate money to me, but I have no way of doing that. I appreciate the thought, but I have not thought too much about setting up the mechanics for taking donations. In fact, I’ve never looked into how it works. I have a day job and I do this for fun. I think if the monthly readership cracks the 100K mark, I may consider it. To be perfectly candid, I’d feel weird holding beg-a-thons. Given that hitting the 100K mark is long off, I don’t have to think about it.

Again, I thank everyone for reading, linking, commenting and tweeting.

Better Living Through Chemistry

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I am a bit skeptical about claims regarding the glorious future. One reason for the skepticism is the fact that the West seems to be careening toward a bad period, similar to what happened at the end of the industrial revolution. Super intelligent robots, the singularity, forever life and so on assume a quickening pace of technological discovery. A crisis period like the end of the 19th through the middle 20th century would put a halt to that sort of progress, by redirecting resources to the crisis.

Then there is the fact that predictions about the future are always hilariously wrong. We should probably be thankful that these predictions prove to be wrong. Imagine dressing like this. The mistake futurists always make is in assuming current trends will continue unabated into the future. They also always assume things will unfold within their lifetime or close enough to it so they can get their hopes up for actually seeing it. If you spend your days dreaming of the glorious future, you hope to see it.

All that said, I enjoy reading the predictions. Stories like this are catnip for me because they seem plausible. Quality of life improvements always attract investment. Produce a practical way to transport humans from Sydney to London in two hours and you are a going to make billions. Even a six hour flight would be awesome. Making air transport faster and more pleasant is the sort of opportunity that is possible and potentially wildly profitable so I can see it taking a big leap forward in the near term.

That got me thinking about what else smart people, with an eye on profit, will be looking to improve in the near future. The most obvious place to look is health. I do not mean living forever stuff. I am thinking Viagra level improvement. The penis pills made their inventor billions because it addressed a basic human desire. There is not a great demand to live forever, but there is a great demand for a long life. The longer the better. Make the daily existence of people better and you will become richer than Midas.

My guess is the next Viagra will be a pill or treatment that solves gray hair. I do not have much in the way of gray hair, but most people my age are “dealing” with it. Woman start dying their hair as soon as they see gray. Men often go the same route, opting for ridiculous looking home treatments. Then there is the beard dying business which always looks bad. Science has a rather good understanding of the process, so solving it is plausible. Produce a cure and the geezers will beat a path to your door.

Along the same lines, skin tone is one of those quality of life issues that many people would pay to address. Women get treatments for their hands, to address the effects of aging. The “Madonna Mitts” problem is important to women. Of course, both men and women get their faces stretched and use Botox to get the wrinkles off the mug. John Forbes Kerry looks like Frankenstein because he has had so much work done to his face. Modern people want to look young and skin tone is a big part of it.

Like gray hair, this is an area that science understands enough about to think a solution is plausible. It is really not a solution that is needed, as much as it needs mitigation. The age at which humans start fretting over skin tone is the middle years. By the time you reach your late fifties you have come to terms with your mortality and get on with enjoying your time. A pill or treatment that helps the 30-year old women look twenty-five for a few more years would make the inventor a billionaire.

Finally, I was at the diner the other day and the place was full of geezers. It was also full of walkers and air tanks. The complaint most people have when they age is the lack of energy. This is mostly due to reduced cardiovascular capacity. By the time you get in your 60’s, walking up hills and taking the stairs is taxing. That is why people in their 80’s have to use walkers (often) and carry air tanks. But this is also a complaint for people in their middle years. Being tired is probably a top-10 complaint about aging.

Again, this is something we know a bit about so addressing it is plausible. Athletes have been using drugs to goose their cardio for years. Sharapova was just banned from tennis for using the drug meldonium, which is prescribed in Eastern Europe for people suffering from congestive heart failure. In the West, we have all sorts of drugs for people suffering from lung and heart disease that preserve their cardiovascular capacity or at least extend it for a while.

If someone were able to produce a supplement for people to take, like a daily vitamin, that would offer just a subtle boost to their cardio capacity, thus giving them more energy, without the long term side effects of current drugs, the market would be huge. Look at how many famous people in entertainment and sports abuse Adderall so they can be more alert. Maybe the answer is simply a pill for better, deeper sleep, but boosting cardio capacity could be part of it. Imagine how much money you would make if your little pill offers increased vigor throughout the day.

There you go, my glimpse into the glorious future.

Glenn Beck Is A Dangerous Nut-Job

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There is a guy in my neighborhood who was always known as being the sort who went all in on things. If it was worth doing it was worth overdoing. Hobbies became obsessions to the point of distraction. When he discovered alcohol, it was the same pattern. Drinking quickly went from social to a lifestyle. Then came drugs and the party life was an all consuming thing for him. The gonzo party guy was the over the top drug and alcohol guy to the point where his life was at risk.

Just like with all of his obsessions, he suddenly stopped drinking and using drugs. He quit the lifestyle and quit drinking entirely. Unlike most people who struggle with quitting, sobriety became his obsession. He was not going to be just another former addict. He was going to be the ultimate former addict. In short order he went from gonzo party guy to gonzo sobriety guy, lecturing everyone about the ills of drugs and alcohol, preaching the good news of sobriety to everyone.

Like a lot of former drunks, he drifted into religion. Maybe its the obsessive compulsive behavior or something else, but former addicts often find Jesus. It could simply be that many therapy meetings are held in churches. This guy got into religion and soon became the most devout person possible. He talked about maybe becoming minister. Instead of preaching the good news of his sobriety, he was now preaching the Good News.

Since religion always bumps up against politics, his religion led him into various causes that brought him into contact with politics. The familiar pattern started all over again. He threw himself into the topic, reading and studying everything he could about history and ideology. Being a religious guy, he naturally gravitated to causes and politics that were anti-Progressive. The gonzo party guy was now the gonzo political guy. His life was now politics and everything that came along with it.

By now you can probably figure out that I am not talking about a guy in the neighborhood. I am describing Glenn Beck, the deranged radio and TV host. I describe him as deranged because he has always existed on the edge between over the top political commentary and Jim Jones People’s Temple madness. It was never said explicitly, but the reason he left Fox was that the people in charge were a bit worried that he was descending into madness. Despite his ratings, they were glad to see him go.

Beck, of course, has done a lot to prove that Ailes was right. Beck has gone off and created a little media empire of his own out in Texas. From time to time, he has claimed to have talked with God and claimed to have been struck down with a debilitating disease. Half a dozen years ago the Lord was taking his sight. A few years later he was claiming some sort of vocal cord issue. These maladies are highly dramatized and then disappear.

Those familiar with radio preachers recognize this act. Back in the old days, radio and TV preachers would claim God was going to take them if the audience did not raise money for the new school or the new Mercedes or whatever the preacher wanted. In Beck’s case, it is possibly just attention seeking, but there is a strong case to be made that he is as nutty as a fruitcake. He never attaches a money making effort to his mystery diseases so it appears he really thinks he is Job.

In this election, Beck has eliminated any doubt about his mental fitness. He was telling audiences that Ted Cruz, of all people, was the Lord’s messenger sent to save humanity. Even more absurdly, he claims Donald Trump is the Anti-Christ. Presumably, the Ted Cruz – Donald Trump campaign in the primary was some sort of post-modern version of the final battle between good and evil. The final battle would happen in a TV studio rather than a hilltop in Israel.

Beck has now been suspended from his radio show for teaming up with another howling lunatic to encourage the assassination of Trump. I am unfamiliar with Brad Thor, but my guess is he is a dickhead. I’ve yet to meet anyone named Brad who was not an asshole. I am told he is a popular pulp fiction writer, but I do not read thrillers so I cannot comment on his work. He stalked me on twitter for a few days for some reason, but I do not use twitter enough to care.

One of the problems that fringe movements always suffer is that they attract a lot of nuts. The reason is the nuts are free to join a cause that will have them. The mass movement that is just getting started needs people so it welcomes all comers. The result is a fat naked guy doing the boogie at your big convention. It is why all successful mass movements enter a period where they deal with their loons. This is either a purge or a marginalization. Take note alt-right.

In the mass media age, a similar problem infects the media outlets. There is the gaping maw demanding to be filled with content. There is a finite number of sensible writers, speakers, performs and so forth. The demand quickly outstrips the supply so that means weirdos and lunatics are invited into fill the space. Technology now makes it easy for every nut-job in America to reach a broad audience. An obsessive nut-job can mange to get quite good at it.

Glenn Beck should not have easy access to a large audience. He should be broadcasting over short wave or handing out handwritten flyers on street corners, but satellite radio needs content. Media investors want a vehicle to exploit the audience a Beck attracts. Cable shows need a reason for people to watch so inviting an unhinged loon is a quick way to create content that creates interest. Unlike the political movement, there has been no way to purge the dangerous loonies from mass media.

I mentioned the other day that intolerance is wildly underrated. Much of what ails the West is due to the people in charge failing in their basic duties. Instead of enforcing the codes and customs that keep society on an even keel, they have found excuses to tolerate all sorts of bad behavior. It is how we ended up with hip-hop music and talking hemorrhoids like Al Sharpton celebrated in popular culture. That may seem harmless, but it is also how you end up with nutters like Beck and Thor encouraging people to shoot Donald Trump.

This will not end well.

My Advice to the Broads

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If you go over to the neighborhood google machine and enter “women less happy” you get 284 million results. When you enter “men less happy” you get 246 million results, but it quickly becomes apparent that most of the results are the same as the first search. Scanning through the first dozen or so pages of both queries reveals that the result sets are almost exclusively about women being less happy than men and less happy today than at some point in the dark past.

There was a big study on this half a dozen years ago. This being the modern age, researchers are required to first eliminate the most obvious answers and instead focus on those causes that reinforce the tenets of the One True Faith. These days, the social justice warrior phenomenon where angry young women make a nuisance of themselves, is explained away as the fault of the pale penis people. The fat, blue-haired girl with the face full of fishing tackle may have been born that way, but it is still your fault.

The truth is feminism is and was toxic nonsense. A century ago, feminism could make some claims to rationality. After all, women in the West did have a strong position in society. Encoding that into the social and political institutions made some sense. By the 1950’s, the happiest period for women in modern history, feminism was at best a stupid fad and at worst, what we have experienced, a suicide cult promising to immiserate women at a scale the Muslims could never imagine.

That is a good thing to keep in mind. If a woman wants to maximize her happiness, looking back to the 50’s and 60’s is a good place to start. Women in that age got married early. By early, I mean young adulthood, either after high school or after college. Instead of waiting until their life was full of restraints and complexity, they found a husband, with whom they could develop those restraints and complexity.

It turns out that married women are twice as happy as single women. This is a biological fact of life. The females of our species are wired to seek out a high status male, with whom they build a life-long bond. From the point of view of nature, this guarantees the greatest chance of reproductive success. Since it is vastly easier for a young adult female to land a suitable mate than it is for a middle-aged female, getting married early makes the most sense. Sure, the man could be a dud, but there are no guarantees in life.

Similarly, women should try to have their babies by the time they reach thirty. Childbearing is tough on the woman’s body so getting it done in peak physical years makes the most sense. There is also the fact that chasing around after a ten year old is easier at 30 than it is at 40 or 50. Kids will wear out even the most fit person so having them when you are at your most fit means you get the most out of being a mom.

That is the other thing. I have met so many women who seem to think they should not enjoy being a mom. They race off to work as soon as they can drop the kids off to daycare and they carry on like their kids are a burden. A woman’s reason for being on earth is to be a mother. That is pretty much their only reason to be alive. A smart and happy woman will enjoy it as much as possible as life will not be any better than those years as a mother.

Now, the reality of life is that many marriages end in divorce. This is why getting married early makes sense. Finding a replacement man at 35 is easier than at 45 or 55. It is going to be even easier if you are not fat. It is easy to develop bad habits when married, but a woman is going to be happier if she works to keep her figure and look as close to her wedding picture as possible. Letting yourself go is a good way to end up a divorced, bitter middle-aged hen.

This is not just about planning for being a swinging divorcee. Your job as a woman is to make your man happy. Part of that is keeping yourself sexually attractive. This is ground floor biology. By trying to look as close to your wedding photo as possible, you will remind your husband every day why he married you. The main reason men cheat on their wives is sex so a good way to keep your man around is remove that problem from the mix.

Finally, one thing every man in middle-aged and older knows is that women often go bonkers in their middle years. The kids gain independence and suddenly mom has no purpose. The mid-life crisis is far more common for woman than men and it is due to simple biology. The female is here to bear and raise children. Once that is done, finding a suitable reason to get up every morning is not always obvious. Plan for this reality.

A Totally Different Head

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One of the ironies of the information age is we are probably dumber as a result of the sea of information in which all of us now swim. Some of it is due to the volume of information coming at us. It’s just too hard to sort the nonsense from the truth. At the same time, publications are so desperate to get our attention, they are willing to post the most outlandish click bait. People naturally assume there is some effort by publishers to vet their stories.

Mass media seems to have encouraged the production of bullshit too. Social science stories are a pretty good example. The researchers slap on a press release that wildly overstates their results, because they know the stupid people in the media will run with it. The result is we get, often on the same day, a report saying coffee causes cancer and coffee prevents cancer. In reality, the studies are crap and don’t pass the laugh test, but that no longer matters.

Anyway, that’s always important to keep in mind when reading any medical story these days. This one about head transplants is a good example.

After more than a year of deliberation, the controversial Italian has set a date of “around Christmas 2017” in China to perform the first ever human head transplant.

He said that his team of Chinese scientists and the technology are now ready to perform the operation, and that the only obstacles needed to be overcame now are funding and, perhaps the most problematic of all, ethical approval.

Dr Canavero said: “We’re looking at a date around Christmas 2017 to perform the transplant in China.

“The Chinese team has already experimented on human cadavers to hone the technology.”

He added that the patient, who will be Chinese, could make a full recovery within a year of the procedure.

The Italian had said that he would perform the controversial operation on Russian patient Valery Spiridonov – a sufferer of a rare muscle-wasting disorder, but he said that he could not find a donor in China due to biological reasons.

Despite the obvious high-risks associated with the surgery, which will see Canavero remove a person’s head and put it onto another body, he says that he has established a way to perform it successfully.

He will cool both the donor and recipient to 12C so that cells don’t die due to a lack of oxygen.

He explained: “This’ll give enough time to cut the tissue around each neck and link the majorblood vessels through tiny tubes.”

The recipient will then be kept in a medically induced coma for several weeks “to limit movement of the newly fused neck, while electrodes stimulate the spinal cord to strengthen its new connections.”

That last bit is where I get off the bus. Medicine has been stymied by this for a generation which is why they have had no success treating spinal cord injuries. As of now, there is no way to reattach a severed spinal cord. It’s why we have protocols for handling suspected spinal injuries. It is to prevent further damage that could come from a broken vertebra. If these head transplant guys have figured out how to reattach a spinal cord, that would be a huge breakthrough for medicine.

The technical aspects are just one part of it. The human brain grows and develops with the body. This proposed procedure is not a head transplant; it is a body transplant. The brain would have to instantly figure out how every cell in the new body works without making a mistake. We know from stroke victims that “re-learning” basic functions can take years. Your brain would take a lifetime to figure out how to use a whole new body.

That said, it does bring up an interesting subject. Our sense of self lives in our consciousness, but is intimately tied to our physical self. The new body would most likely trigger a degree of madness that is unimaginable to us. Even schizophrenics can rely on their fingers moving as expected and their eyes blinking without any surprises. Imagine ever conceivable sense being foreign and relentlessly assaulting the patient’s mind.

That would be the great challenge for the singularity guys. Uploading yourself to the grid assumes you can digitally recreate all of the sensory inputs that make up your sense of self. You may be able to upload your mind to the internet, but the result is you go insane and are erased by an anti-virus program. Since you can’t know these things in advance, the singularity could very well be nothing more than a brief period of madness before death.

Send in the Clowns

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One of the many reasons so many have abandoned the Buckley Right in the last two decades can be seen at the nation’s airports. Immediately after 9/11, Progressives were out screaming for a new Federal bureaucracy to run airport security. The bodies were not even cold and the Democrats were proposing bills for a new Federal security force. You got the sense they had these bills ready to go, just waiting for the right moment.

Of course, that new agency would hire tens of thousands of dues paying union employees, who could be counted on to vote Left. Millions in union dues would flow into Democrat coffers and Democrats would work hard to expand the agency in the future, thus guaranteeing themselves another revenue stream. Like with the schools, any useful activity coming from this new agency would be coincidental.

A sign of just how awful the Bush years were going to be was in the response to this craven attempt by the Left to exploit the death of Americans. Instead of fighting they proposed an even bigger government agency. We not only got the Transportation Safety Administration, we got the staggering monstrosity called the Department of Homeland Security. Fifteen years later, our airports are grinding to a halt because TSA can’t perform its one job, which is to molest people before they enter the terminal.

With mounting delays around the country being blamed on Transportation Security Administration cutbacks and increased passenger traffic, airports are turning to musical performers and free sweets to keep travelers’ tempers in check.

And some airports are getting a little more creative.

Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport is now inviting miniature therapy horses and their handlers from the non-profit Seven Oaks Farms Miniature Therapy Horses program in Hamilton, Ohio to visit the terminals several times a month.

“Animals help reduce stress and anxiety levels and put smiles on people’s faces,” said Mindy Kershner, a spokeswoman for the airport.

“Unlike service animals, who are working and should not be touched, therapy animals can be patted and hugged.”

And while many other airports have therapy dog programs in the terminals, “We figured this is Kentucky, after all, so we need horses,” Kershner said.

This is how third world bureaucracy works. Instead of fixing the problem, they use the problem as an excuse to expand the department. It will not be long before we learn that some Senator slipped in funding for a new division of miniature horses and clowns at the TSA, along with its own director and staff. That also means expanding maintenance budgets to pick up after the horses crapping all over the terminal.

It’s not just miniature horse keepers who will benefit. Senator Chuck Schumer, a well regarded airport engineer and security expert, is demanding dogs be unleashed on the people standing in line. You’re standing in-line and a miniature horse just took a dump on your sneakers and then a pack of hounds trailed by fat guys in blue shirts starts chasing the horses through the terminal. Maybe that’s where the clowns come in. Like at the rodeo, their job will be to distract the animals.

In all seriousness, Chuck Schumer is a genius, but he does not know the first thing about running an airport or running airport security. In fact, no one in the TSA has the slightest idea how to do any of this stuff. The proof of that is this bit from a CNN story on the subject. The TSA has 45,525 employees and they claim an additional 768 people will alleviate the problem. That’s roughly adding half a person to every airport the TSA covers. There’s simply no way that a 2% increase in staffing can have the claimed benefit.

Inevitably, we will learn that this is a carefully choreographed slowdown by the TSA so they can get more money. The media will play up the lines and people will write their congressmen. This being an election year, everyone will want to be the solution so that means a boost in funding for more hack jobs and more miniature pony rides at the airport, while you stand in line hoping the pervy looking TSA guy does not put his hand in your daughter’s pants.

This is, of course, anarcho-tyranny. The self-serving security bureaucracy is only good at harassing honest citizens. A trip to the airport involves at least three glaring apparatchiks giving you the business. That’s the tyranny. Standing in line for half a day to take a one hour flight to Philly is the anarchy. In the managerial state, the basic functions of government grind to a halt or are simply abandoned.

The obvious solution is to let the airports run their own security like they used to do before we lost out minds. TSA never would have stopped the 9/11 hijackers. Private security firms have much better training and methods. Augmenting this should be restrictions on travel to and from Muslim countries. Sensible limits on letting Muslims travel to America would cut threats by 99.9999999%. No system is perfect, but I’m willing to take that chance for the ability to walk unmolested in an airport.

Blog Update

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This blog crossed a traffic threshold in the last month. In fact, every month since I started this has seen an uptick in traffic, but somewhere in the last month the average traffic crossed the 35,000 mark. That means the readership is now averaging just a tick over 35K. I have no idea how that stacks up to other blogs, but it seems like a lot given that I am not famous and I have done nothing to promote myself. You’re here by word of mouth and I am thankful for the interest.

The volume of comments has ticked up as well and I’m seeing more long debates than in the past. That’s to be expected. I ended moderation so that allows for more back and forth, good and bad. In that regard, I’ve thought about adding a discussion forum to the site. It’s a simple thing and it allows for readers to get long winded, if they choose, in response to a topic. There are many free message board systems so I may add one to the site when I have some free time. We can form a Witenaġemot!

On a related note, I’m working on adding a subscription feature. The normal WordPress feature is terrible and gets filled with spammers. I have ten thousand subscribers but my bet is nine thousand are Ukrainian robots. I’ve noticed that when I subscribe to other WordPress blogs, nothing seem to happen so something is broken with the subscription module that comes with the blog software.

As far as who reads this blog, it is mostly Americans according to the stats tracker. The UK and Canada are the next most popular countries. Interestingly, I have a lot of readers in Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. I have no readers from Mexico. Similarly, the people who link back to me are mostly American sites, with a sprinkling of Canadians and Europeans. I get a lot of links back from car and firearm sites for some reason.

I’m also getting media requests. I started this blog as a hobby and I never thought much about it being more than a hobby. I’ve had some podcasters and radio people contact me about being on their shows. The trouble is I don’t check the e-mail account here that often so I was unable to respond in a timely fashion. I may add something here for media requests, just to see if it is worth my time.

Finally, I’ve been asked about donations and I have no plans at the moment to setup the stuff you need to take donations. Maybe when the readership reaches 50K I’ll do it as it may makes sense at that point. I don’t know enough about how it works to know if it is worth the effort. Steve Sailer and Kathy Shaidle seem to make a living from their blogs this way, but I have no way of knowing this. They could be living on dog food for all I know. But, I’ll jump off that bridge when the readership gets bigger.

Thanks for reading, commenting and tweeting me!