Let a, b, c and x be distinct, positive, non-unit numbers (a, b, c, x 1) such that:
c + log mb a ≠ 0.
Rewrite the following using only x as a base:
a {log a/c + log mb a} ≠ 0.
Wednesday, June 26, 2024
Tuesday, June 25, 2024
Yeppers, Trump Is As Crazy As A "Shit House Rat" - His Latest 'Doubling Down' On Verbal Caca Proves It
Most sane people will admit a brain fart when it transpires and acknowledge they fucked up. Not Dotard Trump. This bombastic orange buffoon has now doubled down on a cockeyed tale about sharks, batteries and boats he babbled at a rally several weeks ago. Here is a transcript of what Trump said about sharks this past
weekend in his latest double down defense. You be the judge and try to wade through this baffle gab and see if this turkey merits the office of the presidency:
“Now they’ll say all these stories are terrible. Well,
these stories have, you know, you heard my story in the boat with the shark,
right? I got killed on that. They thought I was rambling. I’m not rambling. …
“We can’t get the boat to float. The battery is so heavy.
So then I start talking about asking questions. You know, I have an, I had an
uncle who was a great professor at MIT for many years, long, I think the
longest tenure ever. Very smart, had three different degrees and, you know, so
I have an aptitude for things. You know, there is such a thing as an aptitude.
“I said, ‘Well, what would happen if this boat is so heavy
and started to sink and you’re on the top of the boat. Do you get electrocuted
or not?’ In other words, the boat is going down and you’re on the top, will the
electric currents flow through the water and wipe you out?
“And let’s say there’s a shark about 10 yards over there.
Would I have to immediately abandon, or could I ride the electric down? And he
said, ‘Sir, nobody’s ever asked us that question. But sir, I don’t know.’ I
said, ‘Well, I want to know, because I guarantee you one thing, I don’t care
what happens. I’m staying with the electric, I’m not getting over with it.’
“So I tell that story. And the fake news they go, ‘he told
this crazy story with electric.’ It’s actually not crazy. It’s sort of a smart
story, right? Sort of like, you know, it’s like the snake, it’s a smart when
you, you figure what you’re leaving in, right? You’re bringing it in the, you
know, the snake, right? The snake and the snake. I tell that and they do the
same thing.”
Seriously, can any one of my blog readers make sense out of this verbal monkey feces? I know I can't. Or will people be duped by Trump apologists who insist he's just joshing, joking... having you on? Or trying to crater the libs' brains with more TDS (Trump derangement syndrome) ? Please. That dog no longer hunts, never did. This guy is a turkey, grade A, and has no business near the nuclear football.
Recall we witnessed this flaw in Trump’s temperament throughout his four years as president — his inability to say “I misspoke” or “I was wrong” — simply admit the brain fart and move on. But this moron head case is incapable of that. He demands imposing his batshit crazy will on the media and the rest of us whether we want to hear it or not. Further, he's incapable of admitting his errors which is a key criterion for a president. But the shark story shows that his insistence on his own infallibility is getting worse. He's now entered the domain of the certifiably insane, as in the shithouse rat. Who go slowly nuts cause all they have to consume is....well, you know.
As for the swing voters we are told we must listen to, I have about as much use for them as those morons back in 2000 who - when asked what they looked for in a president rambled: "He's a guy I'd like to have a beer with!"
Showing again the true swing voters are disengaged from political news; in fact, many avoid it - as one NY Times columnist put it: "with a determination normally reserved for toxic exes, ticks and food poisoning."
So why should I pay any more attention to these ignoramuses than to Trump? Oh yeah, because to the extent they learn what’s said on Thursday, it’ll be via repackaged clips on social media. The province of the low IQ denizens. As proof of their low IQ, ignoramus status one only needs to read this mind boggling news in the WaPo:
Trump is trusted more than Biden on democracy among key swing-state voters
Which incited Janice to ask: What form of rat shit mixed with psycho shrooms and marijuana are these bumpkin twits sucking on? Do they even know what democracy is or that Trump tried to overthrow it in 2021?
Or this apt response in a WaPo comment:
I really loathe these people, dumb as a bucket of rocks. I would bet most of them are sitting around 80-90 IQ.
Which also brings to mind this timely warning from history:
Not that most of these young Turks (18 to 25) know any history, say before 1940.
Oh lastly, concerning tests for cognitive aptitude. As medical specialist Daniela Lamas aptly noted in her recent NY Times piece:
"Mr. Trump has been effusive about doing well on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment in 2018 and recently said Mr. Biden should take the test. But what isn’t clear in Mr. Trump’s statements is that this is a screening test for dementia or other cognitive decline, not a test of aptitude."
So the raging, loudmouth dimwit can't even distinguish between a dementia screening test (which might ask the person to draw the hands of a clock for a particular time, e.g. 1: 40 p.m.) and an actual aptitude test which genuinely tests cognitive aptitude (like verbal analogies).
Because Dotard couldn't even get this difference right in his blabbery we have to say he flunks both. Finally, we all deserve to see the new movie 'The Apprentice' about Trump's rise to power. See e.g.
Inside the battle to release controversial Trump movie ‘The Apprentice’
But I understand the MAGA thugs are doing a lot of arm twisting and making threats to ensure it doesn't see the inside of cinemas. Can't have the little orange dickhead seen in a bad light now, can we? Especially in a critical election year when too many voters are concerned about Biden's mental fitness and age. When they should be more concerned with Trump's batshit insanity. As former Bush campaign strategist Matthew Dowd put it on Deadline Whitehouse:
"Look, Joe Biden is the old guy if you let him house sit might forget to turn the lights off some nights, but he'll feed your kitty, bring the mail in and lock up at night. Trump will kill your kitty - not feeding him - leave the doors unlocked and share any loot with the burglars that come in."
Bingo!
See Also:
And:
Voters Nostalgic For Trump Return To White House Need To Know Exactly Who's Behind It
And:
by Joan McCarter | June 25, 2024 - 7:13am | permalink
The Biden campaign has settled on an overriding message, a warning for the
electorate: Trump would be way worse in a second term.
“Let’s get to the message of the campaign,” President
Joe Biden said in a fundraiser last month. “When he lost in 2020, something
snapped in him.”
He’s been repeating that line in campaign speeches ever
since.
That’s the overarching theme for the campaign, Biden’s
pollster Geoff Garin told the Washington Post.
“The number one priority is to make sure that voters
understand that Trump was a bad president, and he will be even worse if he has
a second term. … The hinge is Trump’s response to losing the 2020
election—‘snapping,’ as President Biden says—and becoming unhinged,” Garin
said.
Monday, June 24, 2024
Dispelling The Top Ten Myths About Darwinian Evolution
1. If Evolution’s true then why don’t we see apes evolving into humans?
This myth errs in not recognizing that humans, apes and monkeys are all distant cousins, as opposed to species in the same SINGLE evolutionary path. Humans don’t come from apes but from a common ancestor that was neither ape nor human in the distant past. Also, it overlooks the algorithmic branching basis of evolution, see e.g.
Thus, multiple evolutionary offshoots (as shown above) confirm no (single) primate evolution is based on a single path. Thus in the past seven million years there have evolved multiple hominid species including Homo Habilis, Homo Erectus, and Homo Neanderthalis- all of which went extinct along the way- except modern humans or Homo sapiens. Meanwhile the idea of current apes evolving to humans totally turns this algorithmic-convergence on its head, and proposes a singly determined evolutionary path!
Less well known is the crucial role that dentition analysis and tool making play in sorting the fossils of prehistoric humans. For example, one of the first questions the investigator will ask is whether a given jaw and teeth found in it, can accommodate flesh eating. For some fortunate cases, this is also answered by the fossils found in the vicinity of the hominid ones. For example, in the case of one Au. garhi fossil (see image of this hominid) an antelope jawbone was found nearby and on it ancient cut marks disclosing its tongue had been sliced out using a stone tool. Radio-nuclide dating of both fossils traced them to the same time.
Obviously, genetic testing is the optimum or gold standard. In one of the most powerful ever demonstrations of the validity of human evolution, Yunis and Prakash, 1982, Science, Vol. 215, p. 1525, 'The Origin of Man: A Chromosomal Pictorial Legacy', showed that the human chromosome designated '2' was the result of the telomeric fusion of the two ape chromosomes, 2p and 2q. The effect also saw the reduction from 24 chromosome pairs in apes, to 23 pairs in humans. In other words, the duo of ape chromosomes (2p and 2q) can be considered prima facie evidence that humans and apes share a common descent.
2. No one’s ever actually seen evolution occur!
In fact, we do observe evolution happening especially with organisms (e.g. fruit flies, viruses, bacteria) that possess short reproductive cycles. The problem arises because creationists treat micro-evolution disparately from macro-evolution. Because they don't regard the former as part of a continuum leading to the latter, they consider "macro-evolution" the only genuine form. (By “micro-evolution” we mean minute evolutionary change, involving a small proportion of DNA. For example, the emergence of an orange-eyed fruit fly (drosophilia melanogaster) after 20 generations would demonstrate microevolution.)
Macro-evolution entails a proportionately large change in the DNA underlying it that probably reflects ongoing natural selection, over significant time. For example, the change from a cold-blooded dinosaur to a warm-blooded dinosaur that’s a precursor of modern birds would be a case of macroevolution.
The point missed by the Creationists (or perhaps they never processed it in the first place) is that it is hundreds (or thousands) of micro-evolution transitional components that engender macroevolution, whereas creationists think they are two totally distinct aspects that are unrelated. Once one accepts the two are integrated into one interwoven process then one can accept that we DO see evolution actually occurring as when fruit flies have altered their wing shape or eye color after 20 generations!
Once more, the key aspect that shows micro-evolution is real evolution is the fact that gene frequencies are observed to change (along with the fitness) as time goes on. Thus, it is not simply like "breeding cattle" or different species of dogs (for which many varieties may actually see the gene frequency alter in negative directions, with fitness reduced).
To fix ideas: gene frequencies help determine the success (and progress) of natural selection. In natural selection there is a genetic "favoritism", as it were, for certain species' traits or characteristics to be passed on or selected out of a group of competing traits in the gene pool. In more technical terms, preferential alleles appear by virtue of their relative increase in gene frequency.
Two quantitative measures for success of natural selection are the fitness (w) and the selective value (s): These can be measured on either absolute or relative scales, but are related algebraically on the latter by:
w = 1 – s, or s = 1 – w
As an illustration, consider a cockroach species (Blattella germanica) with allele D, where D denotes resistance to the pesticide dieldrin, and d denotes non-resistance. In the population after some defined time, let three genotypes be exhibited in the population: DD, Dd and dd. Now, on average over time let each dd and Dd individual produce one offspring, and each DD produce two. These average numbers can be used to indicate the genotype’s absolute fitness and to project the changes in gene frequency over succeeding generations. The relative fitness (w) is meanwhile given by: w = 1 for DD
w = 0.5 for Dd
w = 0.5 for dd
The selection values, or relative measures of the reduction of fitness for each genotype, are given respectively by:
s = 1 – 1 = 0 for DD
s = 1 – 0.5 = 0.5 for Dd
s = 1 – 0.5 = 0.5 for dd
As we expect, the dieldrin-resistant genotype displays zero reduction in fitness, and hence maximum survival rate. By contrast the d allele can be regarded as ‘deleterious’. Indeed, it can be shown that over successive generations of roaches, the gene frequency (of d) will decrease by:
D q= -spq2/(1 - sq2)
Here p is the frequency of the favored allele, and q the frequency of the disadvantaged (‘deleterious’) allele. Let’s say at a particular time a gene frequency ‘snapshot’ of the cockroach population under study yields: p(D) = 0.60, q(d) = 0.40, i.e. the favored allele D is reproducing at the ratio 3:2 relative to the disadvantaged one, d. Then one can work out how the alleles' frequencies vary over multiple generations. Of course, since the fundies - most of them- can't do simple algebra, this will be beyond them ....so they will never accept it!
3) Evolutionists claim the process occurs by random chance how can that be?
Not so. Natural selection is not “random” nor does it operate by “chance”. What happens is that once a particular mutation is stabilized, then natural selection preserves the gains and eradicates the mistakes (to enhance better adaptation). Meanwhile, "chance" would be like me sitting a monkey down in front of a type writer or computer keyboard and hoping there is some "chance" it will type out at least one page of coherent script. But since a monkey will likely not recognize any key - or even if it does, then make a connection to words, or how to compose them into articulated thoughts - this isn't likely. It all rests on CHANCE!
Meanwhile, natural selection rests on preferred steps each of which consolidate former steps while advancing the adaptation. Thus, the eye evolved from a single light sensitive spot in a cell to the complex organ we behold today not by chance but rather by thousands of intermediate steps – each preserved because they assured better adaptation if incorporated, and hence a better eye. Many of these steps can still be observed today in simpler organisms.
Richard Dawkins perhaps put it best:
"What natural selection does is to consolidate particular random mutations into a more stable, adaptive adjustment – governed by deterministic factors and inputs. Thus, that while the selected trait often appears at random, its preservation in the gene structure cannot be relegated to randomness”
Again, his distinction between deterministic and random factors and inputs is perhaps too subtle for creationists and their ilk to comprehend. After all, most have never taken even a high school biology course, far less a college level one.
4) The Second Law of Thermodynamics disproves Evolution
This myth commits at least two fundamental errors:
(a) The error which assumes that evolution means more primitive organisms develop into more complex or organized ones, and,
(b) The error that the second law (because it refers to increasing disorder or "entropy") applies to all living things- hence it is impossible they can "evolve" to more orderly, organized forms.
Consider (a) first: At no point and no place do evolutionists claim that more organized forms are the inevitable manifestation of natural selection and adaptation, and represent evolutionary success.What evolution states,which any high school biology student learns, is that the species which survive best are the most well adapted to their environment.
Thus, the humble cockroach beats just about all other species on Earth for evolutionary success given it's been around for 150 million years. Humans, though much more complex and organized than cockroaches, have only been around in their modern form for barely 1.5 million years, if that. Humans, up to now, have enjoyed barely 1/100 th the evolutionary success of the cockroach, measured in time!
Now, as to (b), this is a common error of those who've never taken advanced physics, but just read Googled excerpts. It's basically a direct result of misinterpretation of the 2nd law, something I often see from those who've never taken a serious physics course. Strictly speaking, the law states:
Entropy (the state of disorder) will tend to increase over time in any closed system
This is generally expressed in statistical mechanics terms as:
s = log g
Where 'g' denotes the number of accessible states. In other words, in a closed system we will expect the probability of increasing entropy and that means increasing accessible states. This was discussed at length when we looked at assorted spin systems (see the series on 'Order and disorder' earlier this month) and noted that higher entropy - as in a state with low excess spin- corresponds to the most probable state. Say a closed magnetic spin system S(2), has 10 spin ups while S(1) has five, then S(2) has a much higher degree of order (less entropy) than the system S(1).
The part about closed systems is very crucial since it is exactly the part that the creationist-ID crowd omits, which renders their complaints using the 2nd law non-starters. The reason is that neither the Earth nor its biological systems are "closed" systems, hence do not exhibit constantly increasing disorder. The Earth, for example, receives a constant input of radiant energy from the Sun - quantified as some 1360 joules per square meter per second. Plants on the Earth are likewise OPEN to solar energy, and receive it and then use it in the process of photo-synthesis.
Since Earth is an open-dissipative system then at any given time for any subsystem, entropy may decrease and order increase, thus life may evolve without violating any natural laws.
Bottom line: so long as the Sun is radiating its energy, life can continue thriving and evolving. (Thus, more highly organized organisms such as humans have had the capacity to emerge, by dint of this input energy which they've been able to consume and retain - if only briefly).
5) Only an Intelligent Designer could have made something as complex as the eye
Richard Dawkins originally shot this specious reasoning down when he observed:
"This kind of default reasoning leaves completely open the possibility that, if the bacterial flagellum is too complex to have evolved, it might also be too complex to have been created. And indeed, a moment's thought shows that any God capable of creating a bacterial flagellum (to say nothing of a universe) would have to be a far more complex, and therefore a more statistically improbable entity than the bacterial flagellum (or universe) itself - even more in need of an explanation than the object he is alleged to have created"
At the very minimum, advocates of such a complex intelligent designer should at least have provided the necessary and sufficient conditions by which its design operates, but they haven't even done that.
Secondly, the anatomy of the eye certainly doesn't bespeak the existence of any kind of intelligent designer, but rather more the outcome from an algorithmic process. For example, it's built upside down and backwards- with photons of light having to actually travel through the cornea, lens, aqueous fluid, blood vessels, ganglion and amacrine cells, horizontal and bipolar cells, before reaching the light sensitive rods and cones that convert the light into neural impulses. (Which are then sent to the visual cortex at the rear of the brain for processing into meaningful patterns).
For optimal vision, why would an intelligent designer have built an eye upside down and backwards? Further, why on earth create it with a blind spot? What kind of "intelligent" design is that?
Far from a "designer" being in any way involved, the human eye betrays the pathways and structures that naturally would result from an evolutionary dynamic based on natural selection!
6) Too Many Gaps Exist in the Fossil Record for Evolution to be true.
This is a common myth, but it ignores that fact we have hundreds of intermediary fossils, such as for Archaeopteryx (one of the earliest known fossil birds with reptilian skeleton and feathers). We also have the records for a number of Therapsids, the intermediate species between reptiles and mammals. We also have the intermediary record for Tiktaalik – an extinct, lobe-finned fish fitting between fish and amphibians. Not to mention records to piece together a very coherent picture for the elephant (see diagram)
Further we know (based on fossil evidence) there are at least six intermediate stages in the evolution of whales and a dozen intermediate stages since the hominids branched off from the great progenitor common ancestor apes 6 million years ago.
In any case, as I also showed in many previous blogs, fossil record evidence does not make up the entire evidentiary constellation for evolution. We also have genetic evidence for common ancestry, for example of chimps and humans – as revealed in both having exactly the same cytochrome-c protein sequence – for which the odds are unfathomably remote (1 in 10 to the 93rd power) to be mere coincidence.
Of course, none of this will make a dime's worth of difference to fundamentalist creationist, because they don't adhere to scientific reasoning but only what's in their 2,000+ year old scriptures.
7) Evolution's only a theory and we know theories are just speculation.
This myth is based on a simple misconception of what constitutes a theory, confusing (or conflating) it with conjecture or speculation. In fact, a theory is the most advanced articulation of the scientific process: it represents the phase at which a hypothesis has actually been found to meet its predictive tests, and been confirmed. Thus, all branches of science are based on theories. For example, in physics we have the modern quantum theory (which explains the origin of the spectral lines in atoms, as well as their energy levels) and the theory of general relativity - which accounts for the action of gravitational fields near massive objects.
A theory is considered robust and reliable if it consistently predicts new phenomena that are subsequently observed. Facts then, are the world's data, and the theory of evolution is replete with them, including: the fact that humans and chimps display the same cytochrome-c protein sequence, and the fact that the 2p and 2q chromosomes in apes have undergone telomeric fusion to become the single '2' chromosome in humans. Thus, theories represent explanatory ideas about such facts we behold.
Speculations, meanwhile, are nontestable statements that are not strictly part of science. The "intelligent designer" is such a speculation until such time the ID backers can come up with not only an explanation for its nature (especially the necessary and sufficient conditions) but also describe specific tests by which we may confirm its existence.
Unlike the speculation of the ID, the theory of evolution meets all the criteria of good science, including:
- It's guided by specific natural laws and principles
- It is explanatory by reference to these self- same natural laws and principles
- it is testable by way of using those laws and principles - against the actual patterns, constraints of the empirical world
- It is not only testable but also falsifiable using tests
By contrast, no ID proponent has yet informed us how to falsify any of his claims, not one! Until he does so, he can't be said to possess the most remote semblance of a theory. What he is then advocating is a religious belief.
8) Evidence for Evolution Has Turned Out To Be Fake or Frauds
In their eagerness to discredit evolution too many creationists - like Duane Gish - e.g.
who have actually claimed humans 'walked with dinosaurs' (such as at a talk he delivered when I was at UAF in 1986). And this blabbery despite zero evidence. Meanwhile, simply ignoring the major hominid fossil discoveries of the last century and cherry-picking examples of historical hoaxes, often in the belief that mistakes in science are a sign of weakness. But this is a gross misunderstanding given science advances by acknowledgement and correction of mistakes in what we call successive approximations. (Hoaxes like Piltdown Man are always ultimately exposed because the 'evidence' doesn't match the claims. Meanwhile, honest mistakes like Nebraska Man and Calaveras Man are eventually corrected as more comprehensive evidence emerges.
And let us note, it wasn't creationists like Duane Gish who exposed these errors, it was scientists using more refined methods and data. Creationists simply read about these errors then try to capitalize on them as if they themselves made the discoveries - duplicitously claiming the new results as their own.
9) If evolution happened gradually why doesn't the fossil record show gradual change?
Creationists in this case simple fail to appreciate that sudden changes in the fossil record are not missing evidence of gradualism. They are instead evidence of punctuation. It was Steven J. Gould who first saw that the change from one species to another can sometimes occur quickly (on a geological time scale) in a process he called "punctuated equilibrium."
Typically in this process one species can give rise to a new species or 'founder group' which breaks away and becomes isolated from the ancestral group. The new group, so long as it remains small and detached may experience relatively rapid change. The speciational change occurs so quickly that few fossils are left to record it. When Gish himself was asked about this at the UAF lecture he claimed he never heard of punctuated equilibrium or Steven J. Gould. Which figures because he admitted he didn't read any books outside the Bible.
10)Evolution Can't Account for Morality
In fact, the most recent research into primates shows that morality of a sort isn't peculiar to humans - as one find self-sacrifice and sharing behavior in monkeys, as well as in dolphins, gorillas, whales, and elephants.
As a social primate species, humans also evolved a deeep sense of right and wrong, probably emerging during the transition from the hunter-gatherer culture of the Stone Age to the Agricultural milieu. Because humans in the latter framework depended on reciprocity and cooperation to get crops harvested and that meant sharing the bounty for all. This stability for the purpose of shared work also required strict moral codes to preserve the cohesion of the group and its survival. Thus, certain behaviors such as selfish hoarding, rape, theft, or wanton aggression were unacceptable. Current evidence suggests human morality was in place on this basis long before the first religions appeared.
Thus it was that evolution created the social and moral sensibilities and emotions that inform us that lying, adultery, murder and stealing are wrong because they destroy the the trust in human relationships contingent on truth-telling. No "Ten commandments" was needed.
Nor would it be possible for a social primate species to survive without some inborn, evolved moral sense. Without that moral sense, for example, no outrage would be expressed at the rape and torture of others, and because of this incapacity, the unique cohesion and order binding human societies would soon be destroyed. Our recognition of the pain and suffering of others is a direct outgrowth of these evolved moral emotions, not an invented "god". Especially the one sought out by fundies in their scriptures who can approve wholesale genocide without batting an eyelash (if he had one!)
Contrary to religious fabrications, it is the evolved moral and ethical sensibility which enables us to empathize with the suffering of our fellows while also recognizing that such suffering inflicted by peer aggression is wrong. We need no god to tell us this, and what religions have done is merely to appropriate the natural moral sense and smother it with hundreds of religious platitudes, scriptural mandates and rules. Thus, on the evolutionary constitution of a moral human nature is built the stable constitution of human societies. Those which tend to forget that, or allow temporary tendencies such as greed blind them, will pay the price by not surviving.
See Also:
Why 'Intelligent Design' Is Not A Useful (Or Rational) Explanation of Human Origin
And:
Friday, June 21, 2024
The Sinclair Group - Exposing Millions of Unprotected Brains To Covert (Local) Propaganda Broadcasts
Map showing local Sinclair TV affiliates
We now have new evidence to explain why Joe Biden's approval and poll numbers continue to remain underwater despite a host of positives, i.e. inflation down, stock market up 10 % for year, more infrastructure projects with jobs etc. The keyfactor to explain his 38% approval? The insidious propaganda spewed by over 100 local stations now owned by Sinclair Broadcasting Group, as pointed out by Joy Reid recently, e.g.
As one of her guests (Brian Stelter) noted, it's equivalent to not merely putting the proverbial thumb on the scale in an election year, but a whole hand on the scale. Sinclair especially keeps priming the "pump" about Biden's age, as if he is a totally mentally incapacitated toddler. Most recently, they just grabbed a recent hit piece off The Wall Street Journal about Biden "slipping" (based on one dubious source, the coward and dimwit Kevin McCarthy who couldn't even keep his House Speaker's job). The despicable aspect it that all the local Sinclair -owned stations ran with this hogswill, thereby reinforcing the meme Biden is "too old" for the job.
The map at top - showed as part of Joy Reid's MSNBC segment, shows the extent of the Sinclair owned stations which must now be regarded as propaganda outlets, for Trump and the RNC. Indeed, every last one ought to feature a screen warning advising "Your mental health and decision making in the November election could be at risk by watching."
As noted by Joy's guest, Molly Jong-Fast, the reinforcement is the key given the vast Right wing echo chamber in which this crap percolates. So the spurious baloney first emerges in the New York Post or the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal, then it migrates to FOX News (also owned by Rupert Murdoch like the WSJ) then it is copied and recycled by the spin meisters in the other Sinclair stations.
As Ms. Jong -Fast put it:
"The fact that this gets into the local news where people are just trying to get the weather and the traffic seems particularly nefarious."
Given the propaganda is piped into 186 local stations it means that people who aren't even watching FOX and may have no interest in its lies, are still being fed lies by the anchors in the local affiliates. These folks aren't doing it on their own like Sean Hannity or Laura Ingraham, but they are under orders to read the prepared script (compliment of Sinclair boss man David Smith)
Worse, the FOXite and Sinclair stations won't even play Trump spiels or speeches any more because they've become too deranged. But they will play loops of Biden flubbing words in a talk or maybe stumbling a bit, to try to impose the image of a doddering elderly incompetent. As Reid guest Matt Dowd put it:
"I've come to the conclusion that what Sinclair is doing is far more dangerous than what FOX is doing. This is because we already know FOX is going to be right wing slanted so we filter it through that lens. The problem is that people don't have that filter on when they watch the weather, local sports or any of that and also the local news. And when you look at the level of trust local news is trusted far more than other news."
We now know this no longer can be "taken to the bank". If your local news outlet is owned and operated as a Sinclair affiliate, viewer beware. To use the words of LA Times columnist Michael Hiltzik (in describing RFK Jr's vaccine BS), "We've allowed this dangerous hogwash to be mainstreamed into the body politic like an IV drip of strychnine.”
In this case, the brains of that body politic are being disabled and incapacitated by that toxic "IV drip" and they may not even be aware of it. They need to be. The alternative is the autocratic nightmare of Project 2025 if Traitor Trump rises to power again.
by Thom Hartmann | June 21, 2024 - 6:04am | permalink
In less than a month, Republicans will meet in Milwaukee to crown Donald Trump as their Emperor King and Sun God. But the real powers behind the GOP — the billionaires and their institutions that created Project 2025 as a how-to manual to convert American democracy into something like the old Confederacy — don’t much care about poor old Donald.
Sure, they want him to be the nominee because NBC trained him well in the dark art of playing a successful businessman on television. He brings in the rubes like nobody since Huey Long; he’s a singularly brilliant politician, much as Putin, Hitler, Orbán, and Mussolini are and were.
But he can also be irrational, impulsive, disloyal, dishonest, and unpredictable, qualities that make the men who want to revive the Confederacy to replace our republican form of government wary. They have big plans — far bigger than Trump’s tiny dream of vengeance — and don’t want him screwing things up.
See Also:
by Maya Boddie | June 21, 2024 - 6:12am | permalink
Former President Donald Trump took the stage at the conservative Turning Point USA "People's Convention" last week, led by far-right activist Charlie Kirk, which Politico reported is currently "pouring tens of millions of dollars into an ambitious get-out-the-vote operation in three battleground states."
A devout Trump supporter, Kirk took to social media Thursday to point out what he believes is a fluke on Fox News' part — and fellow MAGA faithful Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) agreed.
“Okay, I’ve been studying this new FOX NEWS poll, and I have concluded it’s a complete outlier,” Kirk wrote via X (formerly Twitter.
"They have Joe Biden winning rural voters 50-48% over Trump. There is no way that’s possible. Zero," the far-right activist continued.
And:
by Thom Hartmann | June 18, 2024 - 5:42am | permalink» article continues...
Hitler’s brilliant propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, famously told the Fuhrer, “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.” Donald Trump and the MAGA faction of the Republican Party have taken Goebbels’ advice to heart, and it’s going to make this fall’s election one like we’ve never seen before.
Already they’ve been lying so often and so effectively that nearly all Republicans, and majorities or near-majorities of Americans, believe:
— the GOP lie that we’re in a recession (we’re in better shape, in most ways, than any time since the 1960s and inflation last month was zero while Ronald Reagan never got it below 4.1% in his entire eight years);
— Republican lies about crime being up (it’s down dramatically since Trump);
— their lies that “Democrats want elective abortion up to the moment of birth” (none have ever said that);
— Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was “stolen” from Trump by “voter fraud”;
— GOP lies that the southern border is “wide open”;
— the Republican lie that Social Security is on the verge of bankruptcy and must be saved by privatization or benefits cuts;
— their vicious lie that queer people are pedophiles targeting America’s schoolchildren; and
— their NRA lie that more and more deadly guns will keep our kids safe.
And:
by Henry Giroux | June 21, 2024 - 5:41am | permalink
"If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing."
– Malcolm X
Bearing witness is a crucial marker of a responsible press and media. It brings to light the unnecessary suffering and hardship of those rendered voiceless and disposable, as well as the underlying forces that produce such conditions. It also serves to challenge those who “wallow in willful ignorance.”[1] Shattering the lies concealed by claims of innocence is a powerful weapon for holding power accountable, making it visible and subject to exposure and resistance. Bearing witness does not guarantee justice, but it provides the awareness necessary to turn propaganda against itself and mobilize people to function as a collective force of resistance.
Wednesday, June 19, 2024
Extending Permutation Groups: Transpositions And Applications Of Permutations To Solid Geometry
A transposition is a permutation which interchanges two numbers and leaves the others fixed. The inverse of a transposition T is equal to the transposition T itself, so that:
T2 = I (identity permutation, e.g the permutation such that I(i) = i for all i = 1,...n)
A permutation p of the integers {1, . . . n} is denoted by
[1 .. . .. n]
[p(1).. p(n)]
So, for example:
[1 2 3]
[2 1 3]
denotes the permutation p such that p(1) = 2, p(2) = 1, and p(3) = 3.
Now, let's look at EVEN and ODD permutations:
Let P n denote the polynomial of n variables x 1, x 2 ……x n which is the product of all the factors x i .. x j with i < j. That is:
P n ( x 1, x 2 ……x n) = P(x i .. x j)
The symmetric group S(n) acts on the polynomial P n by permuting the variables. For p Î S(n) we have:
P n ( x_p(1), x_p(2). . .x_p(n)) = (sgn p) P n ( x 1, x 2 ……x n)
where sgn p = + 1. If the sign is positive then p is called an even permutation, if the sign is negative then p is called an odd permutation. Thus: the product of two even or two odd permutations is even. The product of an even and an odd permutation is odd.
Back to transpositions! We just saw:
[1 2 3]
[2 1 3]
The above permutation is actually a transposition 2 <-> 1 (leaving 3 fixed). Now, let p' be the permutation:
[1 2 3]
[3 1 2]
Then pp' is the permutation such that:
pp'(1) = p(p'(1)) = p(3) = 3
pp'(2) = p(p'(2)) = p(1) = 2
pp'(3) = p(p'(3)) = p(2) = 1
It isn’t difficult to ascertain that:
sgn (ps) = (sgn p) (sgn s)
So that we may then write:
pp' =
[1 2 3]
[3 2 1]
Now, find the inverse (p^-1) of the above. (Note: the inverse permutation is defined as the map: p - 1 : Zn -> Zn),
Since p'(1) = 3, then p - 1 (3) = 1
Since p'(2) = 1 then p - 1 (1) = 2
Since p'(3) = 2 then p - 1 (2) = 3
Therefore: p - 1 =
[1 2 3]
[ 2 3 1]
Expressing a permutation as a product of disjoint cyclic permutations is not hard at all. The key is to “cycle through” the mapping in the original to yield the different disjoint cycles, taking care to stop when the end element leads to a number (on the top of the original) that repeats. For example:
Express as disjoint permutations:
[1 2 3 4 5 6 7]
[4 5 6 7 3 1 2]
Solution: 1 goes into 4, 4 goes into 7, 7 goes into 2 – STOP! (Since 2 commences new cycle in next top position). So first disjoint cycle is: (1, 4, 7, 2).
Now, 2 goes into 5, 5 goes into 3, STOP! (3 repeats) So cycle is: (2, 5, 3). Then 3 goes into 6, and 6 into 1. Stop.
Answer: (1, 4, 7, 2)(2, 5, 3)(6).
Permutations applied to solid geometry (tetrahedron):
Call the ordering '1234'. In terms of signage (sign rules - e.g. for (+) or (-) being followed, it's important to note that a segment (1 2) induces orientation (+1) in the associated complex, but a segment (2 1) induces (-1). This is how differing segments acquire negative signage in the complex.
- (1 2 3) - (1 3 4) + (1 2 4) + (1 3 4)
Suggested Problem:
Express p =
[1 2 3 4][2 3 1 4]
as the product of transpositions, and determine the sign (+1 or -1) of the resulting end permutation
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