Oh, those fiscally-responsible Republicans

Axios has an article on Trump’s love of debt. He’d borrow the first installment from Russia.

Interestingly, Fox News rejects requests from the Tor Browser. The New York Times loads perfectly normally via Tor. I don’t often visit Fox News but an article title caught my attention.

Politico has a piece today about Trump’s outrageous claims in the face of weather disasters. In almost every context, he reveals himself to be an abject fool; but lurking beneath that idiocy is another layer of loathsomeness - the complete lacking in understanding of science. I want a reporter to ask him any of the following questions about hurricanes:

• “Mr. Trump, can you describe for us your understanding of how hurricanes form?”
• “What role do Coriolis forces play in the formation of tropical cyclones.”
• “Given that hurricanes possess massive amounts of energy, what are the sources of that energy?”

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An article from the Times on why yelling at children is comparable to physical punishment. Children who are subjected to yelling have lower self-esteem, and more depressive and anxiety symptoms.^[The article cites a study that shows a reciprocal amplifying effect of yelling and behavioural problems: “Mothers’ and fathers’ harsh verbal discipline at age 13 predicted an increase in adolescent conduct problems and depressive symptoms between ages 13 and 14. A child effect was also present, with adolescent misconduct at age 13 predicting increases in mothers’ and fathers’ harsh verbal discipline between ages 13 and 14.”]

A recent piece in The Atlantic by Peter Beinart filled in a cognitive gap in understanding how a large minority of U.S. citizens continue to support an abjectly incompetent, almost certainly criminal, willfully ignorant, and generally hateful man as president. The article Why Trump supporters believe he is not corrupt makes the argument that when Trump defenders concern themselves with the idea of corruption they are not thinking of political corruption so much as corruption of the purity. This is consistent with Jonathan Haight’s research into the determinants of a person’s moral judgments as a function of political affiliation.^[This has been noted before by Thomas Edsall back in early 2016 writing for The New York Times.] Conservatives are likelier than liberals to concern themselves with tradition and purity. When Donald Trump uses the word disgusting which he has done scores of times on Twitter, he’s invoking the conservative fear of taint. The Special Prosecutor’s inquiry into possible collusion and other crimes committed during the 2016 elections, in Trump’s view, are not only unlawful, biased, or unfavourable in some other objective way. It is, to Trump, disgusting (“this Rigged and Disgusting Witch Hunt.”)

My approach to wrestling with iTunes to make it (barely) usable for classical music collections.

It turns out that command line text web browers like lynx can bypass AdBlock detection.

On macOS, I installed lynx using Homebrew. Then from the Terminal, it’s just lynx your-url. It’s actually quite pleasant to read text without all of the images and fluff.

This is an interesting essay in The Guardian on the idea of quarantining extremist ideas.

A non-trivial proportion of the population regards the media as having a responsibility to represent all idea with equal validity. So the appearance of extremist ideas in the press, even if they are treated negatively, results in more legitimacy than they are due. The authors in this essay make a case for quarantining these extreme ideas, refusing to cover them. Strategic silence, they call it.

When a petulant, irrational, and incurious baby-man meets with world leaders, what can possibly go wrong?

Turns out, a lot.

Dear Governor Brown,

By now you are aware of Nicholas Kirstof’s piece^[Was Kevin Cooper Framed for Murder: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/17/opinion/sunday/kevin-cooper-california-death-row.html] in The New York Times in which he presents abundant evidence that investigators and prosecutors framed Kevin Cooper for the murder of four people in Chino.

Advanced DNA testing could produce potentially exculpatory evidence. Or not. But the truth must be pursued. You have rejected calls to exercise the authority of your office to order such testing. It beggars belief that you would not use that authority wisely in the search for truth, when the evidence was distorted for malicious purposes is so strong.