My Latest Conspiracy Theory (Movie)

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by Lisa

There is a logical extrapolation to a world with facts and ‘alternative facts’ — why would alternative facts just be used to refute a report? They can just as easily make a story of their own. Trump has made a lot of outlandish campaign promises — ones that require significant money, legal maneuvering, and time to complete. But why bother completing them at all? You can just say it is done.

So they declare the wall built. Then there’s a whole conspiracy theory about it not actually having been built, people trekking down to Southern Texas and to get pictures of the not.a.wall down there. Government press releases with this huge, aesthetically pleasing, immigration stopping wall. How do you know which is the fact and which is the alternative fact (i.e. an obvious lie).

The problem with lying is you’ve either got to have people sufficiently willing to believe you to overlook the missing logical consequences of whatever you lied about OR you’ve got to create the same conditions either way. There are a lot of people willing to believe Trump *now* … but if they don’t start seeing results, either his wall was a complete waste (yeah, it was – I still say a massive fleet of drones could actually stop human traffic across unauthorized checkpoints for FAR less money — not saying I think the stopping human traffic is a good thing or not, but if we’re hell bent on DOING it, at least DO IT) or illegal immigrants were not the cause of unemployment and huge government spending on entitlements (yeah, they weren’t).

A priori assumption: an insufficient number of people are willing to believe the lie as evidence against it mounts to sustain a re-election campaign. Now they need to recreate their predicted result … government assassins offing some percent of people on public assistance (so they can declare reducing illegal immigration eliminated this money we’ve been wasting) and maybe even offing a random percent of the gainfully employed population (to open up jobs now that illegal immigrants aren’t “stealing our jobs”).

Just need some out there hippy type in an old VW bus cruising around the country trying to stop this murderous conspiracy.

Ideas – not exactly a viral infection

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by Lisa

I remember a stir not too long after Obama took office – mid-April 2009. He was attending a conference in South America, and Hugo Chavez gave him a book, “Las Venas Abiertas de America Latina”. And people who were already saying he was a disgraceful president who undertook an apology tour decided that the mere possession of a book chronicling the history of American imperialism in South America was just farther proof of his anti-American beliefs. The whole thing struck me as silly – I’ve read Mein Kampf and the Communist Manifesto. Managed not to become a Fascist or a Socialist. I’ve read stories about unicorns flying over rainbows too; didn’t turn me into one. I didn’t realize that making oneself aware of opposing viewpoints was so controversial.

What makes me think of this incident now? The problems the UC system has had with Milo Yiannopoulos’ speaking engagements. Discourse is civil discussion of issues with people – even if their opinions differ from ours. Compromise isn’t bullying others into taking up your beliefs. To have an effective governance of a large, incohesive population requires compromise. How can there be any compromise between individuals who fear being made aware of an alternative viewpoint? No matter how abhorrent you find someone’s belief, there is generally a reason for those beliefs. And without understanding the reasons, you have no way to find a path that addresses both people’s desires.

It’s easy to dismiss someone as a white-supremacist. Or a fascist. Or an ape, or any other ad hominem attacks that forestall the type of compromise that is necessary to govern effectively. We’re setting ourselfs up for marginalized minorities (even when there are three million MORE people in the “minority”) or radical swings between left and right leaning governments as they trade off every couple of years and un-do whatever the previous administration has accomplished / mucked up (depending on your point of view).

Educational Philosophy

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by Lisa

I was discussing educational philosophy with my mom a few days ago — especially early childhood education, which wasn’t either of our specialties. But as Anya is getting older, it’s becoming relevant. And I’m surprised by the rigorous curriculum adopted by one of the local “elite” preschools around here. It’s got a wait list and enormous price tag. And it ignores a great deal of recent research regarding childhood learning – essentially that very young kids form the neural connections that are needed for formal schooling through free play. Not by getting them to sit down and listen to lectures at an earlier age, not by being told what to do and doing it … but by being left to their own devices to use toys “wrong” and run and climb.

Made me think of my experience with education — and I graduated top ten in my class, so this isn’t just “the school is why I’m failing, not me” complaining. School managed to take all of the fun out of any subject. Not sure if that’s just the Puritanical history of the country dictating that work shouldn’t be fun or just a reality of trying to teach 30 kids in a class.

I love reading. And talking with friends about what I’ve read. I do *not* love reading a few chapters and writing a five page double spaced Arial 12 point text essay on the allegory … you get the idea.

I started University as a history major – but I don’t care as much about the exact date that the Treaty of Versailles was signed as much as the socio-political impact the treaty content had on much of Europe. I don’t want a list of the crusades and their dates – but the cultural impact, the religious impact, hell even the political impact that having a large number of military leaders and men roaming across the continent had “back home”.

Chemistry lab experiments were graded on the % deviation between your results and the predicted outcome. You were essentially being tested on your ability to get exactly 12 milliliters into a container. Or you had the good sense to BS your way through the experiment, calculate the intended results, and reverse engineer your experimental values with a variance somewhere between 91% and 97%.

Art – first of all, I find the idea of grading such a subjective subject to be right silly. Personally, I would have graded on attitude and effort. Someone who lacks hand-eye coordination but put a lot of thought into the media and technique may have made an ugly picture … but they got something from the experience. A talented artist may have fobbed off the class but made a beautiful piece. I have to say, I had a physical education instructor who graded with that exact logic. Someone from the girls’ basketball team could grade poorly in the basketball unit not because they didn’t make baskets but because they were disruptive to class and weren’t trying. Someone who was putting forth a lot of effort but didn’t make any baskets could still get an ‘A’. Usually, though, physical education was graded on one’s ability within specific sports.

Maths and physics become a memorization challenge. Foreign language classes were recitation. Any class – they managed to turn it into an unpleasant experience.

Broccoli Tots

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by Lisa

I’ve seen a lot of recipes for broccoli tots, but really haven’t been impressed with the end result. I created two of my own recipes that we like a lot more – although neither approach is potato-free. The first ‘recipe’ is to take your favorite latke (potato pancake) recipe and add 8 ounces of shredded broccoli. I make a lot of ‘stuff’ (soups, stir fries) that uses the broccoli crowns, but I’ve never cared for slices of the stem in dishes. Shreds of broccoli stems, however, work wonderfully in cheddar broccoli soup and broccoli tots. Grate the left-over stems and steam them for a few minutes, allow to cool, then use or freeze. I squeeze them out before using – otherwise you get a lot of water.

The second recipe:

1 lb potatoes
8 oz shredded broccoli
3 oz shredded cheddar cheese
1 t salt
1 t pepper
1/4 t cayanne pepper
1 T corn starch
1 egg

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Shred half of the potatoes and set aside. Chop the remaining potatoes into small chunks and cook in boiling water (~10 minutes). Mash the potato chunks.

Sauté the shredded potatoes in oil (butter, olive oil, peanut oil) until they are crispy and golden.

Combine all of the ingredients except for the shredded potatoes. Mix well. Carefully stir in the sautéed shredded potatoes.

Line a half-sheet with a silicon baking mat. Scoop small amounts (1-2 teaspoons) of the mixture into your hand and roll into a ball. Place the balls onto the baking sheet and flatten a little bit.

Bake for ten minutes at 400 degrees. Turn tots over and continue baking for ten more minutes.

Amazon Prime Household and Security (or lack thereof)

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by Lisa

There are a lot of odd security lapses in Amazon’s implementation of Prime Household. Anything that uses Alexa creates shared cards that are visible in the Alexa app. There’s some implicit trust between family members, but even married people may not want to share EVERYTHING. “Echo, add this present for my wife to the list” shows up as a card in your wife’s Alexa app.

We share an Amazon Prime Household with Scott’s dad. We both have Alexa-enabled devices (FireTVs and Dots). Our Dots interact with our home automation system through a Phillips bridge emulator. Scott’s dad has some smart devices, but his FireTV could not find any smart devices when it would search. It would, however, turn the ‘outside lights’ on and off. Except the lights didn’t turn on or off in his house.

Our outside lights started turning on and off one night. We have a lot of home automation, but nothing in the logs indicated why this was occurring. I’m not sure if Scott called him or he called Scott, but we were lucky not to spend a day trying to track down some crazy issue. Evidently your Alexa can switch between profiles on the Amazon Prime Household just by saying “switch accounts”. You can ask it “which account is this?”.

The thing I find odd — our HA Bridge is not publicly addressable. Evidently any device on your account can have another device on your account initiate communication. Otherwise there’s no way a device that is connected to our profile but NOT on our network would be able to communicate with the HA Bridge.

Winter Gear

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by Lisa

My gloves say they have 40 gram Thinsulate; but every time I would work outside, my fingers would be FREEZING. Oddly, my husband’s gloves – which also say they have 40 gram Thinsulate – keep my hands nice and warm.

Evidently women’s gloves (at least the cute leather ones) do not have insulated fingers. Which is obvious when you consider the distinct lack of bulk in the fingers. I picked up a pair of ski gloves from REI – these are fully insulated.

I also got insulated overalls and work jacket on clearance. What an incredible difference. Anya and I shoveled a couple inches of snow, cleaned off the car, and played outside for a while — temperatures in the mid 20’s — and I was warm.

Immigration

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by Lisa

I know everyone has a gut reaction to the efficacy of the immigration ban – be it ‘total rubbish’ or ‘great job securing our borders’ – but a few organisations have bothered analysing the historic actions that would have been eliminated by the travel ban.

The Cato Institute, libertarian leaning but certainly not a left-wing think tank, finds no benefit to national security. The nations included in the ban account for seventeen convictions for attempted terrorist attacks – and exactly zero deaths. Now “attempting” a terrorist attack could be anything from planning to trying to actually execute an attack. Bad, but ZERO people died. A few of the banned countries (Libya and Syria) did not account for a SINGLE attempted attack. They provide a illuminating breakdown of what appears to be selectively picked data published by Senator Jeff Sessions — Trump’s pick for Attorney General. 6.9% of the list (over 500 accounts) were foreigners planning attacks on US soil. Even if I assume Senator Sessions hasn’t selected data to make a couple of countries look particularly bad, the travel ban fails to prevent 93.1% of PLANNED attacks.

A common argument is that stopping one attempt is worth it (questionable considering the disruption caused by the travel ban – doctors are unable to enter the country to take up residency at hospitals, scientists are unable to enter the country to take research positions at universities, but value cannot be ascribed to a life so arguing is a bit of a bad job). What cannot be determined, though, is how much anger does this move engender? How many people BEGIN providing material aid to terrorist organisations because of this ban? How many people are going to end up dead because of this action?

I’ve said before – it would be one thing to decree the entire immigration process insecure and shut down ALL immigration (travel tourism too. bad for, say, people who own hotels) for a period of time while a new process is deployed. Selectively banning countries based on history of terrorist activity — which this certainly IS NOT — only causes different people to undertake terrorist activities. It’s a little like the aeroport security scanners – they’re looking for everything previous terrorists have tried. Makes people feel better (even as they complain about the inconvenience) that the government is “doing something” to keep them safe. I guess this falls into the same category, but we aren’t even selecting countries to ban on historic data. We’re selecting them on some guy’s perception of risk. Or some guy’s investment portfolio. Or some guy who threw darts at a map of the Middle East.

The ISIL Plan

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by Lisa

One facet of the campaign that I found fascinating was Trump’s touted secret plan to defeat ISIL. Now, I’ve encountered a lot of situations in politics and business where there really is no good answer, and when pressed repeatedly to come up with *something* … well, if I had figured out the answer to world peace, I’d have already rung up the UN Sec Gen. Solved malnutrition and starvation, I’d have published it on slash-dot. Hell, even if I had solved the P v/s NP problem … I would have TOLD SOMEBODY.

Had I been sitting around my bling’ed out parlor lulled into a zen-like state by the sunlight dancing on the gold, well, everything when the thing that’s been missing all along in our fight against terrorism popped into my mind … what kind of asshole keeps it super-secret hidden and offers to reveal the solution if you’ll vote for him. So, yeah, either a liar or an asshole. (Also, not mutually exclusive).

Well, enough electors voted for him and where’s this super awesome solution? Did Trump think Putin’s praise meant Russia would pressure Syria to get the whole terrorism thing sorted? Implying Trump thinks Syria could do something to stop ISIL if only they tried … which is almost more frightening than many of the other points of ignorance the man has shown in the last few years. Did Trump think there was actually a good plan on the Chairman of the Joint Chief’s desk but Obama refused to implement this plan — so Trump’s plan was to say “OK, General, do it”?

Doesn’t bother me that the dude doesn’t have a plan (lets be honest, I assumed he didn’t have a plan as soon as he started spouting off about it), but why doesn’t anyone call him on yet another broken campaign promise?