Interview

 

For the first time in decades, public health data shows a sudden and hopeful drop in drug overdose deaths across the U.S.

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In 1969, Joshua Lederberg, a Nobel Prize-winning biologist, warned that the proliferation of biological weapons would be like making “hydrogen bombs available at the supermarket.” Biological weapons confound the Cold War paradigm of deterrence because those releasing them can evade detection and hence retaliation.--Will

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Interview

Harris' interview on Fox last night was revealing. She was short-tempered, rigid, and hostile. It was easy to see why she has such difficulty holding on to personnel. Some of this may be exaggerated by the emptiness of her political history and the goofy, far-left positions she has adopted in the past; she starts all political discussions on her heels. But this was a fragile, brittle candidate who might be no more attractive personally than Trump himself.

After, Baer discussed the backstory of the interview. Harris was 15 minutes late for the interview. They knew Baer had a deadline where the interview would be aired minutes afterward and they knew the delay would disrupt Baer and his broadcast.

Nothing they do is honest or straightforward.

Anti-Americanism

The average student accepted at Hillsdale College had a 3.95 GPA in high school.

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Russia’s parliament, the State Duma, is working on a law that aims to ban so-called child-free ideology which it sees as harmful to traditional values.
Vyacheslav Volodin, the chairman of the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, announced recently that fines for “propaganda of childlessness” will amount to up to 400,000 rubles ($4,300; €3,879) for individuals and up to 5 million rubles for companies.

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Anti-Americanism

In this time of hostility to America and its creation as the country itself struggles with the significance of Columbus Day, here is an event that fits right in.

This is culled from several sources, much Politico, and is an amazing story.

The California Coastal Commission rejected SpaceX’s request to make 50 more rocket launches in Santa Barbara County.

The primary uses of these rockets are to deliver the company’s Starlink satellites, which provide commercial internet and telecommunications, as well as for military missions.

Despite bipartisan support from the state and backing of the U.S. Air Force, six commissioners voted against additional launches, clearly citing Musk’s public statements on politics. That is, a group of administrators--50% unelected-- limited the opportunity of a citizen because of his personal beliefs.

The Coastal Commission, known for its defense of public access to the state’s 840-mile coastline, has been sparring with the Air Force’s Space Force branch since May 2023, when DOD asked to increase SpaceX’s satellite launches from Vandenberg from six to 36 per year.

Things came to a head in August when commissioners unloaded on DOD for resisting their recommendations for reducing the impacts of the launches — which disturb wildlife like threatened snowy plovers as well as people, who often have to evacuate nearby Jalama Beach.

The commission ultimately approved the 36-launch plan at the meeting, on the condition that Space Force undertake seven measures to improve environmental protection and coastal access. But military officials didn’t commit to following them during the hearing, drawing fiery criticism from commissioners.

“Space Force came here and intentionally disrespected us,” Bochco said at the August meeting.

The two sides seemed to reach a detente heading into Thursday’s meeting after the Air Force, which oversees Space Force, agreed in September to meet the commission’s seven conditions, including reducing the sonic booms and increased wildlife monitoring.

A bipartisan group of state and federal lawmakers had also weighed in before the hearing in favor of the application, arguing that California should take advantage of DOD’s embrace of the commercial space industry.

But the goodwill evaporated after commissioners raised concerns about Musk’s political rhetoric, slammed the company’s labor record and questioned DOD’s contention that the launches should benefit from military permitting exemptions even if military payloads aren’t being carried.

“I really appreciate the work of the Space Force,” said Commission Chair Caryl Hart. “But here we’re dealing with a company, the head of which has aggressively injected himself into the presidential race and he’s managed a company in a way that was just described by Commissioner Newsom that I find to be very disturbing.”

Proudly rejecting evenhandedness, including a citizen's personal opinions in decisions of public policy, factoring privately held personal beliefs into government decisions--these are more than self-inflicted socio-political wounds, they defy basic elemental principles inherent in the nation's founding.

Plagiarism

Why should we expect the government to do a good job of picking winners and losers or to allocate scarce resources better than the market? If the government intervenes in markets, how will it avoid mission creep, cronyism, and corruption?--Strain

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Britain has not built a new reservoir since 1992. Since then, Britain’s population has grown by 10 million.

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Contrary to the prediction of underperformance, Trump judges outperform other judges, with the very top rankings of judges predominantly filled by Trump judges.
From a new paper by Stephen J. Choi and Mitu Gulati

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Plagiarism

Plagiarism will cost a teacher his tenure. It will get a student expelled.

Christopher Rufo has an article exposing plagiarism in Kamala Harris' book, Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer.

"At the beginning of Harris’s political career, in the run-up to her campaign to serve as California’s attorney general, she and co-author Joan O’C Hamilton published a small volume, entitled Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer. The book helped to establish her credibility on criminal justice issues.

However, according to Stefan Weber, a famed Austrian “plagiarism hunter” who has taken down politicians in the German-speaking world, Harris’s book contains more than a dozen “vicious plagiarism fragments.” Some of the passages he highlighted appear to contain minor transgressions—reproducing small sections of text; insufficient paraphrasing—but others seem to reflect more serious infractions, similar in severity to those found in Harvard president Claudine Gay’s doctoral thesis. (Harris did not respond to a request for comment.)

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Taken in total, there is certainly a breach of standards here. Harris and her co-author duplicated long passages nearly verbatim without proper citation and without quotation marks, which is the textbook definition of plagiarism. They not only lifted material from sources without proper attribution, but in at least one case, relied on a low-quality source, which potentially undermined the accuracy of their conclusion."--Rufo Substack

But it may be that the press will not allow this to become national news.

"Throughout Monday, Rufo published additional excerpts from Smart on Crime that he says prove Harris plagiarized, and he criticized legacy media outlets such as the New York Times for “refus[ing]” to cover the reports."---Wash. Examiner

But plagiarism will cost a teacher his tenure. It will get a student expelled.

Gender Rising

The NHS in Northern Ireland is the worst in the UK. During the quarter April/June 2021, over 349,000 people were waiting for a first appointment, 53 percent for over a year, an increase of 39,000 for the same period in 2020. Adjusted for population size, waiting lists in Northern Ireland are 100 times greater than those in England, a country 50 times its size

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[T]echnological innovation is essential for growth to persist in the long run. But innovation requires detailed knowledge of production processes and what can make production more efficient. Any society that frowns upon hard work will be unlikely to have a robust class of innovators. Any society that disparages finance will be unlikely to have a thriving entrepreneurial class or significant investment in capital.--Koyama and Rubin

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Gender Rising

From January 2019 to December 2023, 13,994 minor patients received gender-transition treatments, with 5,747 undergoing sex-change surgeries and 8,579 getting hormones and puberty blockers, according to Do No Harm's database. (from Don)

Historically, the diagnosis of mixed gender was made in about 1 in 30,000 births. That diagnosis was anatomic at birth with mixed genitalia.

Androgen insensitivity (usually diagnosed at puberty) is a bit different.

Complete androgen insensitivity syndrome affects 2 to 5 per 100,000 people who are genetically male. Partial androgen insensitivity is thought to be at least as common as complete androgen insensitivity. Mild androgen insensitivity is much less common. In androgen insensitivity, male hormones and anatomy are normal but the cells do not recognize androgen stimulation and do not develop maleness. This, like the adrenogenital syndrome, results in a true dichotomy between the genetic and phenotypic.

The model Hanne Gaby Odiele in 2015.

The other cause of sexual ambiguity is the adrenogenital syndrome, an acquired increase of steroids that causes changes in physical appearance. It can occur at any age. Think of the famous track and field athletes, the Press sisters.
Both were genetic females who developed benign adrenal gland tumors that produced cortisone and, downstream, testosterone, which masculinized them. Although easily treatable, the swell Russians took advantage of the poor girls' medical problems and lhad them compete in women's track and field. Tamara Press was a world champion for years.

1 in 30,000 is 0.00003333333. If there were 20,0000,000 births during that five-year period, there should have been about 666 sexually ambiguous infants born. If true, where did 13,000 surgical candidates come from?

UBI

TD Bank pled guilty to money laundering.


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Death by Lightning has wrapped filming. The upcoming Netflix historical drama, created by Mike Makowsky, is based on the Candace Millard novel Destiny of the Republic and follows the events leading up to the assassination of President James A. Garfield by Charles J. Guiteau. The show is executive produced by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, the duo behind multiple hit literary adaptations, including HBO's Game of Thrones and co-creating Netflix's 3 Body Problem with Alexander Woo.


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UBI

Universal basic income (UBI) is a notion that would provide federal cash for everyone, no strings attached. An annual payout to every citizen--age limits to be determined--to guarantee the basic necessities of life.

Comedian Dave Chappelle, a serious guy, thinks UBI would "save my community almost instantly."

UBI activist Conrad Shaw agrees, "You would effectively get rid of extreme poverty immediately."

He says a UBI will help people "start businesses, fix their homes, or invest in sustainable gardens."

Sustainable gardens.

Sam Altman, the guy behind ChatGPT, helped create a test. His big study gave 1,000 low-income people $1,000 per month for three years—no strings attached. What happened?

Not the great things that were promised. After three years of getting $1,000/month, UBI recipients were actually a little deeper in debt than before.

Why? Because they worked less. Their partners did, too.

Some recipients talked about starting businesses, but few actually tried it. Most who said they did start a business waited until the third year of the study—when their free money was about to end.

Bananas and Anti-matter

Cities with high charter school enrollment have consistently improved achievement for low-income students, according to a new report from the center-left think tank the Progressive Policy Institute. Contrary to choice-skeptical talking points, charter schools breed innovation and push local public schools to improve as well.

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In the 1950s, men outnumbered women 2:1 in college.
By the 1990s, the ratio was 1:1.
Today the ratio is 4:6 with fewer men than women attending college

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Bananas and Anti-matter

Reasons to read Quora:

Bananas are high in potassium. Most potassium is 39K39K, but about one atom out of every 1200 is an isotope called Potassium-40, 40K40K.

Potassium-40 is radioactive. Most of the time, it decays by releasing an electron and an antineutrino to produce Calcium-40. Every now and then, it decays by β+ decay, releasing a positron—an antimatter electron—which then goes on to annihilate with the first electron it encounters, producing two high-energy gamma photons.

Thanks to 40K40K, all bananas are radioactive; in fact, there’s a unit of radioactivity called the “banana-equivalent dose.”--Veaux

Other foods rich in potassium (and therefore in 40K) include potatoes, kidney beans, sunflower seeds, and nuts, especially Brazil nuts.

Tobacco contains traces of thorium, polonium and uranium. The process of drying and then smoking the solid matter concentrates those radionuclides further, creating in essence technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material.

One BED is often correlated to 10-7 Sievert (0.1 µSv). The radiation exposure from consuming a banana is approximately 1% of the average daily exposure to radiation, which is 100 banana equivalent doses (BED). A chest CT scan delivers 58,000 BED (5.8 mSv). A lethal dose, which kills a human with a 50% risk within 30 days (LD50/30) of radiation, is approximately 50,000,000 BED (5000 mSv). However, this dose is not cumulative in practice, as the principal radioactive component is excreted to maintain metabolic equilibrium.

The BED is only meant to inform the public about the existence of very low levels of natural radioactivity within a natural food. It is not a formally adopted dose measurement.

Government Priorities

Whenever possible it is better to use private insurance, such as homeowner’s insurance and flood insurance, to protect against loss. One of the functions of insurance is to make losers at least partially whole after the fact, but another is to make risky decisions too expensive to contemplate in the first place.--Cowen

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At £396 million, each mile of HS2 will cost more than four times more than each mile of the Naples to Bari high-speed line. It will be more than eight times more expensive per mile than France’s high-speed link between Tours and Bordeaux.

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Teachers make up the largest profession in the Irish Legislature

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Government Priorities

There is some discussion about the appropriateness and efficiency of the government's efforts in the recent hurricane disaster in the American southeast. Here is a parallel story that may provide some insight on the government's apparent lack of focus.

The government has decided to help expand bandwidth in the country.

There are some caveats.

The Administration has stipulated hiring preferences for “underrepresented” groups, including “aging individuals,” prisoners, racial, religious and ethnic minorities, “Indigenous and Native American persons,” “LGBTQI+ persons,” and “persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality.”

Just imagine the meetings in Idaho trying to fit applicants into these restrictions.