Thursday, July 18, 2013

Cab Thoughts 7/18/13

"What experience and history teach is this--that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it." - Georg Hegel


Robert Galbraith's best-selling novel, The Cuckoo's Calling, is getting great reviews for a first novel. It has been described as "a brilliant debut mystery in a classic vein." Publisher, Little, Brown and Company, provided a short biography of the author when the book was released back in April. "After several years with the Royal Military Police, Robert Galbraith was attached to the SIB (Special Investigative Branch), the plain-clothes branch of the RMP. He left the military in 2003 and has been working since then in the civilian security industry. The idea for Cormoran Strike grew directly out of his own experiences and those of his military friends who returned to the civilian world. 'Robert Galbraith' is a pseudonym."
But more a "pseudonym" than people expected.
It turns out that Robert Galbraith is the nom de plume of none other than J.K. Rowling, the famous creator of the phenomenally successful Harry Potter books.

"We have been informed that the FBI may be starting to question some of the community members about the two suspects," the email read. "Insha'Allah we want to help as much as we can, but of course not put ourselves at risk either." It continued, telling its members to get in touch with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the mosque "for other resources" if approached by law enforcement. This is an email sent out by the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB) whose mosque the Tsarnaev brothers had attended. The Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) distributed a poster which read: "Build a wall of resistance. Don't talk to the FBI." The major American Islamic organisation has consistently taken a hostile attitude towards US law enforcement, partly perhaps due to its inclusion as an unindicted co-conspirator in a major Hamas terror fundraising case a few years ago. ISB's hostility is unexplained.

A group called Judicial Watch has released information on a large and growing division within DOJ called the Community Relations Service (CRS). It describes itself as "the only Federal agency dedicated to assist State and local units of government, private and public organizations, and community groups with preventing and resolving racial and ethnic tensions, incidents, and civil disorders, and in restoring racial stability and harmony" by employing conciliators. Though CRS purports to spot and quell racial tensions nationwide before they arise, the documents obtained by Judicial Watch claim to show the group actively worked to foment unrest throughout Florida following the Martin shooting. Judicial Watch has been a conservative group acting through the courts for the last years and are opinionated, dogged and sometimes hysterical. One can only hope this is one of those times. But in this fragile world, people should not be allowed to publish such dangerous things if untrue.

Question: There are 13 ways to draw four of a kind and 40 possible straight flushes.
Why then does a straight flush beat four of a kind?
Answer below.

About one in every four individuals who are eligible for Medicaid in this country has not bothered to enroll. (It's free.)

In The Faraway Nearby, a memoir written while her mother was failing with dementia, author Rebecca Solnit describes an arctic sled made of frozen meat and bones. It falls to pieces during a sudden heat wave and the dogs devour its newly thawed parts. It is a grim metaphor, says Leslie Jamison in the New Republic, "of how suddenly a whole can dissolve into its parts, how our hungers compel us to destroy what we need, and how our most precious objects fall apart for reasons we can’t predict or forestall." Strangely. it raises the question of the stability of metaphor itself.

The Mafia was a disjointed organization for most if its existence. Migration of Italians to South America in the mid-1800's resulted in a drift north towards the port of New Orleans and there the Mafia took root first in America. Mussolini was successful in suppressing the Sicilian Mafia but, when he was killed, the Mafia became elevated in the eyes of the occupying forces because they were Mussolini's enemies and thus were given power and position by the military.

"The gaokao [college entrance exam] in China is everything. There’s a lot of politics around the college entrance exams, who gets to take what exam. The exam is not the same nationwide. It’s much more difficult in the provinces than in Shanghai. And one of the sources of great discontent in China is that migrant kids have to take the gaokao in their home town. So if they’re growing up in Shanghai, they’re not going to the same schools in any case, but they’re also not being schooled for the gaokao in their home town. And the result is, basically, that the parents are taking incredible risks by staying in the city and having their kids educated in “the wrong way.” And, of course, that’s meant to discourage them from staying in the city. It’s just one more way they make it very unpleasant for these migrant workers."--Gish Jen

GOP Colorado Senate candidate Jaxine Bubis was recently revealed to be Jaxine Daniels, author of steamy erotic novels.

Shrapnel: noun: Fragments of an exploded bomb, shell, mine, etc. etymology: After Henry Shrapnel (1761-1842), English army officer. He invented an artillery shell containing metal balls, which exploded in the air near the target. Earliest documented use: 1806.

Who are....the Sentineli?

The Amazon river system is home to more than three thousand species of freshwater fish -- more than any other river system on earth. The entire Missouri and Mississippi river system that drains much of North America has only about 375 fish species.

An insider reports that Hillary has been offered several chancellorships. He says none of the old Clinton advisers has been approached regarding a presidential run. He thinks she will not run in 2016 (but he also thought she would turn down State.)

Fundamental attribution error is a notion that observers tend to attribute behavior to innate tendencies but we tend to include situations when viewing ourselves. Edward Jones and Victor Harris (1967) asked people to assess a person’s pro- or anti-Castro feelings given an essay a person had written. Even when the people were told the person had been directed to write pro- or anti- arguments, the people still assumed the author believed what they were writing. This is frequently translated by observers as something inherent--rather than situational--to the more individualistic Western culture. Is that a fundamental attribution error?

Golden Oldies:

T.J. Clark on Picasso and Cubism in a historical context: Cubism was essentially "retrogressive". Bohemians like the young Picasso lived "instinctively within the limits of bourgeois society". Holed up in gloomy garrets, with wallpaper peeling and plasterwork crumbling, "they felt this society was coming to an end" and so they looked back on it, ironically, painting artifacts and personal objects — that is possessions, property. "Cubism was Bohemia's last hurrah", the last critique of the bourgeois world — that was its essential truth to tell. (Jacob Willer)

An unusually informed and informative man contrasted Egypt's current turmoil to Iran's revolution. His opinion was that the Iranian revolt against the Shah was motivated by very Western ideals and was aimed at creating a democratic system. But the overthrow of the Shah also undermined the military and, without them, the revolution was taken over by Islamists armed to the teeth. His suggestion was to encourage the democratic movement in Egypt but support the military. Pretty cynical.

Answer: The four-of-a-kind hand contains a fifth card, which can take any of 48 values. Hence there are 624 poker hands that contain four of a kind, and only 40 straight flushes.

AAAAAaaaaaannnnnddddddd......a chart:
Chart of the Day

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