Category Archives: Blog Thoughts

Vote Fraud

It’s common in election years to have accusations of vote fraud thrown around. There is no question that it happens, some where, to some degree. The real question in the debates I have is how much is there, who is doing it, how organized is it, and does it actually have any significant effect on election outcomes? I’m talking the basic ballot-box stuffing, counting fraud, etc., not the back-room deals and pressure WRT who runs or not, and a partisan media giving free positive coverage to one side and negative coverage the other way. Just the actual vote casting and counting “irregularities.” So I put up a page, listed under “plague” on the menu (where I’ll put all “off-topic from writing” pages, I think), and just keep adding things there as I see the stories.

I believe it’s reasonable to assume that people who are partisan Dems in their other activities will commit fraud in favor of Dem candidates and causes, and in Dem strongholds pro-Dem fraud is much more likely to occur; similarly, long-time partisan Republicans will commit pro-R fraud.

How is this not fraud?

I built a new computer because my old one was ~10 years old, getting flaky, and slow. After a few hiccups it works fine, as near as I can tell. I have both Windows 10 (because they don’t sell Win7 any more, and I got a good deal on it) as well as dual-booting with Linux. In the interests of maintaining current on popular technology, and because I could not find my MS Office 2007 disks which I had installed on my old machine, I bought a license (again, a very good deal) for Office 2019. Continue reading How is this not fraud?

Computer systems

Long story short, I’m less than enchanted with MSFT these days, as a company, its operating systems, or it’s other products. There is a reason it is called by many “the Borg.”

In any case, I had an old laptop; very old – bought as a WOOT deal by a neighbor years ago, and given to me for free because the kids didn’t want it). It’s only got 2 GB of memory, and a 32GB HD, and the latest “update” to Win10 broke it, and with nothing on it but the OS it didn’t have enough room to update. So I bit the bullet, pulled out an old Linux Mint USB drive I picked up a while back, and tried it out. It worked faster running Mint off the USB drive than Windows did on the HDD. So I paved the windows disk and installed just Linux Mint, no residual Windoze10 at all. It found my network drivers, could surf the net, and do everything you need a small, cheap, expendable laptop to do. And it had ~20GB of disk space to spare for programs, data, whatever. Totally cool. Ran a few largely automated updates, and it all worked flawlessly. interface was windows-like and easy. Libre Office installed fine, so I can write or do normal modest “productivity” things.

If you have an older machine, and don’t like the MegaCorp Monopolies, support the alternatives, so that they can work on better, more moral AI warships :-).

Update – it works fine with an Ethernet cable plugged in, but doesn’t want to see the WiFi . Claims the drivers are installed, doesn’t see any WiFi anywhere, even though it used it two days ago after the initial install just fine.

Gell-Mann equivalent for politics?

To quote the originator of the term, Michael Crichton, The Gell-Mann Effect is:

“Media carries with it a credibility that is totally undeserved. You have all experienced this, in what I call the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. (I refer to it by this name because I once discussed it with Murray Gell-Mann, and by dropping a famous name I imply greater importance to myself, and to the effect, than it would otherwise have.)

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward–reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story–and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I’d point out it does not operate in other arenas of life. In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say. In court, there is the legal doctrine of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which means untruthful in one part, untruthful in all.

But when it comes to the media, we believe against evidence that it is probably worth our time to read other parts of the paper. When, in fact, it almost certainly isn’t. The only possible explanation for our behavior is amnesia.”

End quote. Is there an equivalent for politics? We are quite willing to believe the most horrible and devious behavior of THAT party, but while our own party may have a few flawed individuals, it’s not in any way systemic… all the evidence is simply individualized, atomized, anecdotal, and anomalous, not generalized. Even when the evidence is that the leadership of both sides is utterly corrupt and controlled is overwhelming.

Honor / Dishonorable

The concept of “honor”  – in the sense of ethical in conduct, meeting expectations of behavior, being an honorable person, etc. – is complex. The idea of “fairness” is pretty basic, one a couple of two year old’s being forced Mom to share a cookie understand can grasp; they know getting the smaller portion is unfair, regardless of the details. But “honor” comes in so many flavors – at least one for every culture and subculture – that defining it and explaining why it’s important is difficult. What is expected and honorable in one culture may be anathema, disgusting, and disgraceful in another. Continue reading Honor / Dishonorable

Heresy

Heresy : noun- (1) An opinion or a doctrine at variance with established religious beliefs, especially dissension from or denial of Roman Catholic dogma by a professed believer or baptized church member.
(2) Adherence to such dissenting opinion or doctrine.
(3) A controversial or unorthodox opinion or doctrine, as in politics, philosophy, or science.

Heretic: A person holding an opinion at odds with what is generally accepted. Continue reading Heresy

Power of the laugh track

Pointed to it from Vox Day’s blog, I just finished listening to Owen Benjamin’s description (show number 494) of the sit-com Seinfeld and how the laugh track destroyed our culture. Pretty deep  stuff. But is it over the top? One thing that it brought to mind was how the Japanese military conditioned their soldiers.

It’s not a normal act to stick a blade into someone and be OK with it. So they’d tie up a prisoner (POW or civilian, made no difference to them), perhaps put them in a trench where they could not run away or retreat, and order a soldier to bayonet the victim to death. While he did that, his squad-mates would be standing around him, cheering him on, laughing, clapping, making a joke or game of it. They’d already done the same, or soon would be. It conditioned them to think it was normal, and fun, and it dehumanized the victim. But it was the cheering, laughing, and open mocking of the dead and dying while their mate butchered a man… or woman, or child… that made it such a powerful social pressure.

It was murder with a laugh track, and it was undeniably successful at its intended mission.

Yes, what Owen says is spot on. Not over the top. It’s psychos conditioning a whole generation. No wonder there are so many people today who need a shrink. Or, better yet, to purge their lives of screens.