Glibertarians.com 2018 Archive

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  • And God Stepped out on Space

    And God stepped out on space,
    And he looked around and said:
    I’m lonely –
    I’ll make me a world.

    James Weldon Johnson[i]

    This is the first in a three-part subseries about the Plan of Salvation. This article deals with our life before we came to earth.

     

    In the comments on the first article, interest was expressed in a comment I made about the Latter-day Saint view of the afterlife. Specifically, I said: “[W]e believe that only people who have accepted the gospel, and received the required ordinances will be able to live in God’s presence. There isn’t really a burning hell in Mormon theology, simply various degrees of distance from God.”

    So, if interest was expressed in the afterlife, why am I writing about what happened before we were born? In a word, context. Our beliefs about the afterlife are part of what we call “the Plan of Salvation” which refers to the overarching plan our Heavenly Parents (The Church is clear in the doctrine that we also have a Heavenly Mother, and that He and She work as a team.[ii]) have for our development and future. The goal of the plan is specifically stated in by the Lord: “For behold this is my work and my glory – to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”[iii] Immortality is just what it sounds like – we will all be raised in the resurrection and be immortal. Eternal life or exaltation is the life which God the Father lives. Immortality is a gift from the Father made possible by the Atonement of Christ. Exaltation is also made possible by the Atonement, but can only be achieved by “obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel.”[iv] Thus, the goal of the plan is for us to be immortal and live again with our Heavenly Parents and be like them – in short, they want us to become gods and goddesses – their peers, friends, and colleagues.[v]

    Spirit Children

    Why would they want this for us? Because they are our Parents, and they love us. They don’t claim that title by happenstance. The scriptures agree: God is the father of our spirits.[vi] Every parent worth his or her salt wants their children to grow up to reach their adult potential. Our Heavenly Parents are no different. Indeed, they set the standard for earthly parents to follow.

    As with all parents, they undertook to educate us with the things we would need as we embarked upon our journey to adulthood.[vii] One of these things was the use of our moral agency.[viii] As might be expected, some spirits advanced more quickly than others, and God marked these spirits for leadership roles on earth.[ix]

    Council in Heaven

    Eventually, we had progressed as far as we could. It was time to leave home and go out into the world. Our Parents called a council to discuss the plan. Jesus, our eldest brother, presented the plan: We would be born into mortality, having no memory of the time before our mortal birth. Prophets would be sent to teach us why we were there and how to return to our Parents. We would continue to learn to exercise our agency by being tempted by both good and evil. Correct use of our agency would enable us to resist the evil temptations. We would make mistakes and commit sins which would render us unable to return to our Parents. Because sin is inescapable in the mortal condition, a Savior would be provided who would make atonement for all our sins, enabling us to return. This Savior would be Jesus. Because of our agency, some of us would choose not to accept the atonement, and thus choose not to return.

    War in Heaven

    Lucifer, one of the advanced spirits, had his own plan. He would force us to live in such a way that all of us would return. Because it was his plan, the glory and honor would go to Lucifer.[x] Lucifer’s plan was rejected, and he rebelled. Because of this rebellion, he and the spirits which wanted to live by his plan were cast out of heaven.[xi] This amounted to one-third of all the spirits in the council.[xii] They became the devil and his angels, and are here to tempt us and draw us away from God’s plan. Because of their choices, they will never enter mortality, will never have a body, and will never have the chance to progress to Godhood.

    Time to Go

    Through uncounted time we had matured as spirits. In the end, we had helped to cast out one-third of our brothers and sisters when they rebelled against our Parents. With the war moved to earth, it was time for us to leave our Heavenly Parents, and enter mortality. One by one we approached the veil which would block our memories, bade our Parents farewell, and “[w]e walked, as it were, through an open door. The door was closed behind us.”[xiii]

    [i] James Weldon Johnson, God’s Trombones Seven Negro Sermons in Verse (New York, Penguin Books, 1927) “The Creation” p 17

    [ii] LDS.org – Heavenly Mother; Paulsen, David L. & Pulido, Martin “A Mother There”: A Survey of Historical Teachings about Mother in Heaven (pdf)

    [iii] Pearl of Great Price Moses 1:39

    [iv] LDS.org – Eternal Life, Articles of Faith 1:3

    [v] Chieko N. Okazaki, Sanctuary (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1997), 59

    [vi] Acts 17:29, Doctrine and Covenants 76:24, Romans 8:16

    [vii] D&C 138:56

    [viii] Moses 4:3; D&C 29:36

    [ix] Abraham 3:22–25; Jeremiah 1:4–6; Alma 13:3–5

    [x] Moses 4:1-4

    [xi] Abraham 3:27–28; D&C 29:36–38; 2 Peter 2:4; Revelation 12:7–9

    [xii] D&C 29:36-38

    [xiii] Harold B. Lee, The Teachings of Harold B. Lee: Eleventh President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ed. Clyde J. Williams (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1996), 20–21.

    I have removed the “Mormons in the Mist” title because the Prophet has asked that we not use the term “Mormons” to refer to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

  • Monday Morning Links

    Back to the grind for some of you.  It feels like its been nonstop for me.I started a new business last week with my brother and a couple other people from the equipment business. Its been hectic as things get underway and its taken me away from my assumed duties here.  I apologize for the absence and appreciate everyone who helped bail me out.  Hopefully I won’t have to lean on them all the time in the future, but only time will tell.  Anyway, my current business will continue but will eventually become an extension of the new company once my partners and I are fully underway. It’ll maintain its own identity, which makes me happy since it has my name in it and I’m a bit arrogant/nostalgic when it comes to things like that. The new company will focus exclusively on heavy equipment and such, which is really our area of expertise. And these guys expect to bring a very large book of business with them. Hopefully it will be as enjoyable and profitable as we are planning for.

    Anyway, I half brought it up last week and then wasn’t really around to address. So there you go.

    Sadly, this is happening.

    NFL winners yesterday were: Los Angeles (both teams!), New England, Indianapolis, Detroit Rock City, Minnesota, Carolina, Tampa Bay, Houston, Nawlins, Washington and Kansas City absolutely crushed Cincinnati.  Not a good weekend for Ohio teams at any level. (And that’s all I’ll say about that debacle on Saturday night.) Not much else really happened. ManUre and Chelsea played to a 2-2 draw as Chelsea scored at the death and Jose Mourinho went berserk as an assistant coach. Otherwise everybody that was supposed to win did. Liverpool are going to struggle with injuries, that seems apparent. And the World Series is set with the Dodgers and Red Sox advancing.

    Today’s birthdays of note are: composer Franz Liszt, comedian-extraordinaire Curly Howard, baseball legend Jimmie Foxx, Vietnamese emperor Bảo Đại, actress Joan Fontaine, drug connoisseur Timothy Leary, rocker Leslie West, eccentric actor Jeff Goldblum, drummer Bobby Blotzer, bassist Darryl Jenifer, musician Shaggy, filmmaker Spike Jonze, and funny man alleged comedian Carlos Mencia.

    Nyuk nyuk nyuk.

    In historical events, Sam Houston was elected first President of the Republic Of Texas, the first transcontinental telegraph line was completed, the first baseball union was formed (fat lot of good it did to get them a five-day work week), Harry Houdini got sucker-punched in the gut, Pretty Boy Floyd was killed by the FBI, Jean-Paul Sartre refused to accept the Nobel Prize, Bobby Orr scored his first NHL goal, John PAUL II was inaugurated as Pope, Reagan decertified the ATC union, and AT&T bought Time Warner.

    Well there you go.  Now on to…the links!

    8 year olds, dude. Seriously, what the fuck were these assholes thinking?  If you guessed “we can do whatever we want and never face serious consequences” then you win a prize!

    What? Don’t all streams of refugees fleeing persecution tote the flag of their country along with them?

    I wonder if Mexico would be ok with what’s going on if those people decided to stop moving north today. Or if the money they are being given suddenly dried up and they decided to stick around.  Methinks their tune would change pretty quick. Until then, its a humanitarian crisis the likes of which have never been seen (credit to CNN/MSNBC for that last sentence).

    What’s worse than Nazis? Well, nobody. But global warming is as bad, according to an idiot that’s about to become a congressperson. Way to go, New York. You’ve found someone dumber than Sheila Jackson Lee.

    Well, if you didn’t think the Kashoggi case could get any weirder, you were wrong. Side note: candidates, officials and media members are being killed in Mexico at a rate of about one a week for the last couple of years and the Washington Post doesn’t give it any coverage. But nobody wants to note the hypocrisy.

    What a fucking dumbass.

    Rahm Emanuel is determined to completely fuck up Chicago infrastructure before he leaves office. Oh yeah, and he wants to make it more expensive for commuters at the same time.

    The only sad part of this story is the need for the last sentence. If you read it, you’ll know why I say that.

    Ands now I present today’s song.

    Have a great start to the week, friends. Enjoy the World Series from hell.

  • SEA SMITH SUNDAY EVENING LINKS

    SEA SMITH SUNDAY EVENING LINKS

    SEA SMITH SEE YOU!

     

    YES, SEA SMITH DO HAVE SWORDFISH IN POCKET….AND HAPPY TO SEE GLIBERTARIAN LAND HOOMANS. SHOW HOW HAPPY BY GIVE THEM LINKS.

    • SEA SMITH KEEP LAND HOOMANS UP ON HURRICANE NEWS.
    • WHY COUNTRY HAVE TO ASK SILLY BRUSSELS HOW SPEND OWN MONEY? SEA SMITH MAYBE GO ITALY VACATION, SEE IF CAN SCAVENGE SOMETHING FROM POST APOCALYPTIC WRECKAGE TO COME?
    • THIS MAKE SEA SMITH LAUGH.

    SEA SMITH SAY “COME ON IN, WATER FINE!”

  • Three Tapas Outside of Green Bay, Wisconsin

    After a delightful dinner last week at La Bodega in Kansas City, my thoughts have turned Iberian.

    What I love most in the food world is simple dishes with strong and direct flavors. These are especially welcome when 22 oversized millionaires are pounding the shit out of each other on our TV set. Spudalicious and I started a tradition of Football Sunday, wherein we start cooking and drinking early, then never stop until we pass out. Thanks be to all of the munificent gods, SP has kept up the tradition. And here’s some simple tapas recipes which are almost not even recipes because they’re so simple- but beware, this means you have to be super-picky about the quality of the raw ingredients, no cheating.

    After you make these, pop a chilled bottle of fino sherry and start in on a food and drink coma. If you’re still awake by the end of the night game, you’re doing it wrong.

    Tapas 1: Padron Peppers

    Padrons are a wonderfully-flavored Spanish specialty. You can get them fried and salted at nearly every bar in Madrid, but they are unaccountably difficult to find here in the US. A reasonable substitute that’s easier to source is shishito peppers (or the equivalent Korean kuwari), but you miss the Russian Roulette- real Padrons are sweet, but in every bowl, there’s one that has hoarded all the Scovilles and you never know which one it is until it’s in your mouth.

    4-5 tablespoons peanut or corn oil
    1/2 pound Padron or shishito peppers
    olive oil
    kosher salt

    Heat the peanut oil in a cast iron pan over medium-high flame until it’s just beginning to smoke. Drop in the peppers and spread to a single layer. Let them fry undisturbed until the bottoms are charred. Flip them over, char the other side. Scoop out, let the excess oil drain, then drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with kosher salt and serve.

     

    Tapas 2: Piquillo Peppers

    Piquillos are what every sweet red pepper wants to be when it grows up. There’s no way you’ll ever find fresh ones to roast and peel, but the jarred ones are usually pretty good. And Trader Joe’s has them at a semi-reasonable price.

    2 jars roasted and peeled Spanish piquillo peppers
    2-3 tbs Spanish olive oil (you want a good, buttery oil here)
    3 cloves garlic
    1/2 c oloroso sherry
    coarse salt (Malden)

    Peel and slice the garlic thinly. Cut the piquillos into strips about 3/4″ wide. Heat the oil in a saute pan over medium flame, then add the garlic. Saute until the slices just barely begin to brown, then turn up the heat and add the sherry. Flame it and reduce by half. Toss in the piquillo strips, stir, then plate and then lightly salt. Allow to come to room temperature, taste for seasoning, then serve. If you really want decadence, grill some bread, brush it with olive oil, smear on some burrata, then top with the piquillos.

     

    Tapas 3: Garbanzos with tomato

    15 oz can garbanzos, drained and rinsed
    Or if you’re ambitious, 1-1/2 c soaked and pressure-cooked garbanzos, cooled (and this does taste better)

    3 tbs Spanish olive oil
    1 sweet onion
    1-2 ripe tomatoes, depending on size
    2 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
    1/4 c dry white wine
    1 tbs fresh rosemary, chopped
    1 tsp fresh thyme leaves, chopped
    salt and pepper

    Peel and slice the onion thinly. Peel and seed the tomatoes, then cut into 3/4″ dice. Heat the olive oil in a saute pan, sauté the onion until it barely shows some brown, then add the tomatoes and garlic.

    Cook until the tomatoes look wilted, then deglaze with the white wine. Add the rosemary and the garbanzos, then cook until the liquid has turned to a syrupy glaze. Remove from heat, drizzle with a bit more olive oil, then salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle with the thyme and serve warm over a thick slice of grilled country-style bread. A young Rioja would be an excellent pairing.

    Bonus Entries:

    No tapas assortment is complete without two other things: some Manchego cheese layered with a thin slice of membrillo (a thick jellied quince paste), and  tortilla espanola. I think the definitive tortilla is this one.

     

  • I Fucking Love Astrology: The Horoscope for the Week of October 21 (Take Two)

    This week I had family staying with me, so I had to work on the horoscope in fits and starts, all the while making sure that the SIL didn’t see what I was doing.  She’s the kind of person that believes everything that’s on the news, so she has completely internalized every moral panic since the early 1980s; she strongly disapproves of the occult alternative recreational epistemology.  She only lets the kids have graph paper to do homework in order to prevent them from playing D&D.  She does make a truly excellent pie crust though, and that matters a lot.

    Anyway I had some really interesting stuff in the charts: fire, war, fire, cataclysm, death, destruction, fire and victory.  But as I was typing up the results, one of my fire indicators was Sol in Leo, which cannot happen in October.  It turns out I had laid out everything for August 8, 1945.

    Anyway, this week’s skies are much less dramatic.  Venus is still retrograde, but there’s only some BARCO alignments to spread her baleful influence.  The first being Terra-Venus(retrograde)-Mercury-Jupiter.  This means that news of your venereal sins will reach people important to you.  Maybe put those sins off for a week.  The other BARCO alignment is Terra-Mars-Luna.  This often heralds military deployments, but I understand that Obama ended all wars, so it’s more likely that the alternative reading of “Military Success” is more likely*.

    What with all this warlike stuff, it’s worth noting that Mars is still hanging out in Aquarius, where it is conjunction with the moon.  It’s an auspicious time for any naval glibs.  Scorpio’s dry spell continues with additional warnings not to try and break it in an illegal fashion.  See alignment 1 supra.  Libra is hanging around with the Sun.  And FINALLY Saturn(retrograde) in Capricorn is over!!! It’s now Saturn(direct) in Capricorn.  I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see the sign of famine before.  Actually, since the returning to direct motion is such a positive thing, this particular instance of it probably has more to do with success in weight loss than in Live Aid.

    Good luck in the coming week.  If you need me, I’ll be vacuuming up dog hair.

    *These are the best indicators since it doesn’t tell you for whom the success will be.  You can read Terra as indicating “us” or it can represent the country being invaded.  If I were reading this in Poland, I’d be more constrained.

  • Sunday Morning Themeless Links

    There’s a whole bunch of birthdays today, but they are all overshadowed by one, a true giant, one of my most admired humans: the great, the only, the wonderful Dizzy Gillespie, who would be 101 if he were alive today. I was fortunate enough to have seen him play perhaps 40 or 50 times with various lineups in various cities, and met and chatted with him often. The first time I met him, I was a starstruck 15 year old, and he put me at ease immediately. He was not only the greatest jazz trumpeter ever, he was a great human being: witty, ebullient, and kind, on top of his monumental talent. I mourned him greatly when he died, which was far too soon.

    Huh, I wonder who’s cutting up onions?

    OK, we’re all here for the news, right? So let’s get to it.

    In Great Britain, protesters are on the march, this time demanding a “people’s vote” on Brexit, as opposed to the last vote which apparently wasn’t done by people .

    Among the celebrities involved are actor Steve Coogan, chef Delia Smith and Dragons’ Den star Deborah Meaden.

    It is thought that thousands of students will take part, many of whom were too young to have their say in the 2016 referendum. Hilary Gyebi-Ababio, a third year student at Bristol University, told Sky News: “I was three days shy of voting against Brexit, but I feel now that if we do get a people’s vote, I would be getting my voice back because I really feel like I lost it during the campaign, which is ridiculous.”

    Good to know that their college students are as retarded as ours.

    There’s starting to be a bit of buzz about one of Team Blue’s actually interesting presidential prospects, Tulsi Gabbard. She has Occasional Cortex’s good looks but an actual brain behind it.

    Gabbard won her House seat in 2012 and became the first Hindu to serve in Congress. She has distinguished herself with an anti-interventionist approach to foreign policy and the Middle East, and a progressive populist economic policy that has earned her praise from the likes of Sanders and former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.

    That really is a conundrum for me- would I be willing to vote for someone with a heinous approach to economics in order to achieve a non-interventionist foreign policy? And I truly don’t know the answer. It would be great if we could get both sensible economics and sensible foreign policy, but I’m not seeing that happen.

    Speaking of Occasional Cortex, she continues to be the gift to team red than keeps on giving. Because Global Warming is exactly like Hitler.

    “When we talk about existential threats, the last time we had a really major existential threat in this country was around World War II, so we’ve been here before, and we have a blueprint of doing this before. None of these things are new ideas, but we have is an existential threat in the context of war,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “We had a direct existential threat with another nation and at this time it was Nazi Germany and Axis, who explicitly made the United States as an enemy, and what we did was that we chose to mobilize our entire continent and industrialize our entire continent, and we put hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, to work in defending our shores and defending this country.”

    I don’t know why people think she’s stupid.

    I have a personal credo: everything is better with monkeys. But apparently, this sentiment is not universally shared nor universally reciprocated.

    Mr Singh’s brother Krishnapal told The Times of India : “Monkeys threw more than 20 bricks at Dharampal on Thursday. “Thrown from quite a height, the bricks were enough to kill him. These rogue monkeys are the real culprits and must pay for it.”

    Mr Singh’s family has lodged a formal complaint and named monkeys as the accused but police insisted they cannot prosecute monkeys and have declared Mr Singh’s death was an accident.

    OK, I got nothin’.

    I’m as much of a practical joker as the next guy, but sometimes it just goes a bit far.

    Surgical oncologist John Ashcraft says colon cancer is a tough subject for many to talk about and the giant inflatable colon is a great conversation starter.

    It is 10 feet long, weighs 150 pounds and is valued at $4,000. It is owned by the Cancer Coalition, which hosts walking and running events under a campaign called “Get Your Rear In Gear.”

    The fact that I was in the area at the time of this theft is purely coincidental.

    Now this is an interesting story: Canada seems to have run out of weed.

    Police were called to help shops struggling to handle long queues and with frustrated people unable to buy cannabis.

    Bill Blair, a former Toronto police chief who has led the government’s legalisation programme, told public broadcaster CBC the country was unable to supply enough to meet demand. “We expected, you know, certain strains might run out and there would be a bit of a run on supply,” he said.

    My financial advice: buy stock in Tim Horton’s and any company selling poutine.

    Today’s choice for Old Guy Music is, of course, inevitable.

  • Coming Attractions

    Happy Saturday night, my dear (and not so dear) Glibs. Just kidding! You know I love all of my (non-pineapple pizza) peeps.

    Keeping this short and sweet because I need to go make real pizza and drink some more wine.

    Next week, there are great articles scheduled for your edification and delight, courtesy your fellow members.

    We’ve got the links brought to you by the Usual Suspects–Sloopy, Brett L, and OMWC, with possible last minute subs if anyone is questionable (hahahah those guys are ALL questionable!) or out with a hammy or torn ACL. I expect the Giant Floating Stone Head and/or the SMITH family may surprise us sometime during the week, too, and by surprise, mean…surprise.

    Tomorrow, Not Adahn is warning you about the coming week and OMWC is sharing a trio of delicious recipes. Gadianton and Web Dom both return on Monday. Tuesday brings a non-GlibFit post from trshmnstr and a “Working Your Wood” post from I.B.McGinty. Wednesday wends weird thanks to two, count ’em, TWO posts from SugarFree. trshmnstr and the missus will be along with a GlibFit post, too.

    Thursday, UnCivilServant has another Kitbash installment for us, BakedPenguin helps you with your legal wagering activities, and CPRM talks about everyone. Friday brings the ever popular What Are We Reading Post. Saturday mexican sharpshooter brings us a review, possibly about beer, possibly about something else. And that brings us full circle!

     

    So, that’s what’s coming up. Now I’m back to Pizza Night and you can comment, snark, vent, rejoice or whatever on the Saturday Night Open Post!

     

  • BakedPenguin’s NFL Pick-’em: Week 7

    I think I went 6-7-1 last week, so that sucks. I’m going to put in a little more effort this week to try to improve on that.

    If anyone wants to know, I got my odds here, on 10/18.

     

    It’s that time of the week again. Here are this week’s picks:

    Denver (-1) at Arizona. I do believe the Broncos can handle the Cardinals, even in Arizona. They haven’t traveled well this year (0-2), but Arizona hasn’t been an intimidating place to play (Cards: 0-3 at home) The top two leaders in tackles for the Cards (who are both in the top 5 in the NFL) are both safeties, suggesting to me that they’re letting a lot of rushes into their backfield (To be fair, their #3 guy is an LB). Their offense is the really weak part of the team, however, as only Buffalo has scored fewer points this year. Denver’s biggest weakness corresponds to Arizona’s. Denver’s rushing defense (27th) hasn’t been very good this year, but Arizona’s rushing game (32nd) has been terrible. Meanwhile, their rushing game against the Cards’ rushing defense shows a pretty big advantage. DEN – give the point.

    Note: due to me sending this in late, this will be posted after this game has finished. If I got the pick wrong, you know that’s true.

    Tennessee at LA Chargers (-6.5). The Titans are another team with a mediocre offense, one I think the Chargers can deal with. On the other side of the ball, the Titans have a decent defense, although their passing defense is much better than their running defense (26th). This works in favor of the Chargers, particularly Melvin Gordon. Playing in LA, I think the Chargers will be able to get that extra TD to beat the spread. LAC – give the points.

    New England (-3) at Chicago. I wish the point spread were larger, it would give me more confidence in saying the Bears may well have a rebound game at home (against the spread, if nothing else). They’ve done well at home, while the Patriots have looked great at Gillette Stadium, and well… not so much anywhere else. The one key weakness I would fear would be Chicago’s average pass defense against Tom Brady and the rest of a team that knows how to make plays when necessary. Usually. CHI – take the points.

    Cleveland at Tampa Bay (-3.5). The one area where the Buccaneers have shown real weakness is pass defense, where they are giving up the highest average YPG and over 3 TDs a game. They are quite fortunate, therefore, to be playing the Browns, who are tied for scoring the fewest passing TDs per game behind high round draft pick Baker Mayfield. Cleveland’s running game is one of the strongest in the league, although Tampa has shown they aren’t too bad at stopping the run. I think the biggest question is, can Jameis Winston throw more TDs to his own receivers than “completions” to Denzel Ward? Assuming the answer is yes, I’ll go with the Bucs at home. TB – give the points

    Detroit (-3) at Miami. The Dolphins stats don’t seem to support their record (partially due to a large blowout loss in New England). The only statistical advantage I can see for them is Miami’s ground game against the Lions’ rushing defense. And while Miami’s passing defense has given up a lot of yardage, they also have the most interceptions in the league. Additionally, Detroit hasn’t shown they can play on the road this year. MIA – take the points

    Carolina at Philadelphia (-4.5). Another game where I think the home/road records come into play. The statistical matchups are fairly even. A lot will come down to how the Eagles’ can (or cannot) hold Cam Newton at bay (or intercept him three times as they did last year). While that’s unlikely, I do think they will be able to turn their home field into a real advantage. PHI – give the points

    Buffalo at Indianapolis (-7.5). The Bills have shown a heroic inability to score points, with the one unusual exception being their one win against Minnesota. They recently hired Former Panthers QB Derek Anderson to pump up their anemic passing. I think the most important matchup will be the Colts passing vs Buffalo’s pass defense. While the Bills could keep it close with good defensive play and better offense, I don’t expect their new QB to make that much of a difference. IND – give the points

    Cincinnati at Kansas City (-6). The Bengals had a hard time dealing with Pittsburgh’s passing, and they are now facing a similar problem facing the Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes. While the Bengals have shown they can play on the road, they’re also now facing one of the best offenses smarting over a close loss. Their best hope is going to come dealing with a mediocre Kansas City defense. KC – give the points

    Minnesota (-3) at NY Jets. The Jets are going to have a hard time stopping Kirk Cousins. The other matchups in this game are pretty much of a wash, statistically. They are probably going to get somewhere on the ground, but unless Sam Darnold plays better than he has previously this year, I think the Vikings have a definite advantage. MIN – give the points

    Houston at Jacksonville (-4.5) The Jaguars remain the league’s statistical leader on defense, although they appear to be in freefall after two big losses to Dallas and Kansas City. Meanwhile, The Texans appear to be on the rise after starting the season 0-3. I think this is one game where the numbers don’t matter nearly as much as the motivations for the players. The Jaguars will be looking to end their losing ‘streak’ at home, and they do have the talent to do so. JAC – give the points

    New Orleans at Baltimore (-2.5). The Saints have the league’s highest scoring offense going up against the league’s stingiest defense in the Ravens. Typically, in this matchup, you pick defense over offense. However, I’m feeling contrarian right now. NO – take the points

    LA Rams (-9.5) at San Francisco. I’ve been checking team and individual player stats for a while. For this one, I’m just going to take the Rams. LAR – give the points

    NY Giants at Atlanta (-5). The matchups for this one are fairly even. As above, I’m getting lazy, and it’s getting late, so I’m just going to go with the home team. ATL – give the points                                                                                                                                 .

     

     

     

  • A good book, a beer, and a quiet afternoon. — Part 2

    For part deux of this review I decided to go for a beer that is significantly less awful than Honey Brown.  Given that everybody here loves pumpkin ales, I found a doozy.

    This is my review of Grand Canyon Brewery  Will o the Wisp Bourbon Barrel-Aged Imperial Pumpkin Ale.

    Part 1 discussed some of the biases within the data that are making polls less reliable.  Today I will touch on parts of the book that discuss methods professional pollsters use to account for these biases, and their drawbacks.  This is the second part of the book.  The first thing Wood points out is how the public at large misinterprets polls to begin with.  Most people hear about polls through the media, who among other things, have a penchant for oversimplifying.  It is because of the way the polls are presented that most people do not realize the confidence level the pollsters have in the poll results, or even how the margin of error works.

    This factor makes it hard to definitively state that findings are wrong; more often, they are presented as simply imprecise. Probability samples using the standard 95% confidence level generally have a margin of error roughly equal to the inverse of the square root of the sample size.48 The confidence level tells us how sure we are that the true average lies within the margin of error.

    […]

    If in our above example with a simple random sample of 836 registered voters wherein 45% state they will vote for candidate A, assuming there are only two candidates in the race and nobody claims not to know whom they support such that the other 55% state they will vote for candidate B, the real margin of error for that poll at a 95% confidence level is 6.8%. While this poll would report candidate B with a 10-point margin over candidate A, in reality this poll states with 95% confidence that candidate B’s lead over candidate A will be between about 3 and 17 points.

    In closer races, this means election polls can claim to be accurate while having next to no predictive power. If in our example, the candidates instead polled at 48% and 52%, the candidate supported by 48% may actually have a lead of nearly 3 points.

    This of course means the races could have been within the margin of error the entire time, within the confidence levels, and still come out with the “unexpected” result and the majority of the public would be none the wiser.  Unexpected results as we have seen in recent events, have been met with shall we say, less than heroic reaction.

    A way professional polls will account for some the self-selection and sampling biases is by weighing the results.

    By its nature, weighting entails a lot of assumptions which do not necessarily hold up to scrutiny. It embeds the presumption that researchers somehow know the actual proportion of various groups within the study population such that deviations from those proportions within the sample can be detected. It also presupposes that each group behaves as a block with identical characteristics, rather than as individuals. This could be described as a form of scientific stereotyping, since it suggests that individuals have behaviors identical to the groups to which researchers have assigned them.

    […]

    Let’s say the researchers who sampled ten people to determine their favorite colors ran the study again with a new random sample pulled from the same population. This time, a sample of 8 people are selected instead of 10. When this group is surveyed, the results are substantially different from the first group: four respondents pick green as a favorite color, one chooses red, and another three select blue. When looking at the sex of the respondents, the researchers notice that seven of the eight in this sample were male, with only one female.

    […]

    The findings from this second study and those from the first are both equally considered valid. However, the first study made it appear that green and red were the only colors preferred by the population. Due to sampling and weighting errors, it completely missed the fact that blue is also a common preference for some. Additionally, in the second sample, a single data point was used to represent the entire population block of females. A larger sample would have reduced the magnitude of this error, but this example shows how weighting can misrepresent the data and increase error while theoretically accounting for sampling bias in both cases. Weighting trades precision in the hopes of increasing accuracy, yet it can actually detract from both.

    All Mexicans with libertarian politics like beer.  We can say that, because you all have me as that single data point.

    Further into the book, a third section begins to present potential solutions towards obtaining more accurate, and precise poll results.  The first seems obvious:

    Questions are inherently subjective because they must be interpreted by the person answering the question. Researchers require objective, quantified data rather than a collection of individual interpretations. While some question formats may appear to make quantification possible, such as a “For/Against” question, no two responses are truly comparable when individuals are responding to questions with their own subjective interpretations of the question’s meaning. The same core concept, that different people must answer the same question for the data collected to be comparable, is behind the importance of using identical wording when asking the same question at different points in time to measure changes between the two periods.19 However, because every individual has a different understanding of any given word’s definition, the folly of asking questions at all becomes apparent.

    Definitions are probably the most difficult thing to define between individuals with dissimilar viewpoints.  Lets pick on the statement, “everyone has the right to free healthcare.”  What is a right?  What is free?   Healthcare in of itself is not a right, but a commodity.  We can probably give the pollster the benefit of the doubt and think perhaps they mean access to healthcare, which in of itself may not be a right either, but not something anybody is necessarily going to deny…..Wait, what in the hell do you mean for free!?

    One can see how such obvious differences in opinions can lead to differences in how one answers qualitative questions like this.

    A potential solution is by using social media algorithms to continuously take in information on the user, and by accounting for self selection biases by measuring sentiment amongst a like minded people.  This is not without other issues.

    In doing, so these platforms are collecting data that are inherently subject to multiple biases,including social desirability bias. Social media posts are often directly tied to one’s identity, so making taboo statements or posting certain perspectives may have ramifications. Therefore, individuals using social media have incentives to portray themselves in a specific way based on the perceived preferences of their chosen social circles.

    […]

    As far as samples drawn from social media populations themselves go, there is a fair amount of self-selection bias at work which is closely related to the social desirability bias contained within the data. Many individuals, even those who nominally use a given public or semi-public platform, will react to perceptions of facing social disapproval for their beliefs or group membership by simply opting not to make statements at all, effectively withdrawing from such platforms. Some views are consequentially likely to be proportionally misrepresented. As Anne Halsall, co-founder and CPO of the company Winnie, noted, “Online representations of self must be carefully designed and maintained; a well- cultivated social media account has taken the place of the well-manicured lawn in signaling wealth, status, and general got-it-togetherness to peers.”39

    Indeed.  My social media accounts all include pictures of me wearing a fitted suit, and generally have little controversial content posted.  Why? Perhaps I like to think of myself as an adult, and present myself as such.

    The strength of large, properly collected datasets can allow for active proportional sampling. A large dataset may not itself be perfectly representative of a given population, but it is likely to contain representative samples of any given population. Once such a dataset has been assembled, the proper sample for a particular study need only be identified from within that broader dataset.

    […]

    In cases where specific representation is necessary, researchers can repeatedly randomly sample an existing large set of data until certain parameters are met and study that sample. Since the data has already been collected and researchers in this scenario are only conducting sampling to determine which data to pull, rather than who to attempt to reach, results can be synthesized without worrying about sampling bias, self-selection bias, or the increased error associated with traditional sample adjustment methods. This sample can even be tagged and repeatedly referenced in the future to examine change over time. It can also be isolated from the larger dataset before again running the sampling process until the same parameters are met in a new sample without using the initial sample group, in order to conduct verification checks.

    I am going have to go ahead and disagree here.  While I accept that virtue signaling is a thing, and one that is not going away anytime soon.  There are a number of ways I avoid giving information about myself on the internet.  I use as few Google products as possible, along with other no brainers like using a pen-name.  Plus when I go on Facebook I will screw with the ad-bot by listing any and all political ads as hate-speech, and saying that NowThis news is sexually explicit.  I get ads like this now…

     

    Whatever the results of the election in two weeks, because of this book I am more interested in seeing how the results of poll predictions play out.  I have an itchy feeling in some places, they will be dead on, and in others….well…

    This is not a beer for the faint of heart.  It is a level of insanity that most of you will happily accept, given you are receiving it as a gift.  This falls in the “overdone, gluten-free dunkel” category.  The bourbon is rather overpowering, but it goes well with the pumpkin since most of us associate it with sweetness, except it does not taste at all like pumpkin pie.  It is one to savor the complex palate for a long time.  So if you show up to chug it, you are going to have bad time.   Grand Canyon Brewery  Will o the Wisp Bourbon Barrel aged imperial Pumpkin Ale 4.8/5

    As for the book, it is now available on Kindle…unfortunately it may no longer available gratis, but I highly recommend it!

  • Saturday Morning I’m Baaaack Links

    After spending most of this week on the road, accompanied by The Wonder Dog, we returned to a bit more chaos than we had planned. And I’m still down a Winsor McCay rabbit hole from which I have not extracted myself; I grew up appreciating the wonderfully surreal complexity of Little Nemo, but I’m now discovering much of his editorial art. The politics are generally retarded, but the art is… amazing. Worse yet, I’m way behind on two pieces from my paid writing gig, and deadlines in that business are hard ones. But my obsessions and obligations will not derail my efforts to present high quality links, my usual clumsy snark, and a small dose of cheery music.

    First, though, it’s birthday time. And a rather momentous day it is, what with the birthdays of the fifth Marx Brother, Margaret Dumont (about whom legend says the jokes had to be explained to her, but never believe a legend), the brilliant and insanely underappreciated modernist composer Charles Ives, the wonderfully hammy Bela Lugosi, hookmaster Tom Petty, and Willie Brown’s protege and fuck-socket Kamala Harris.

    For reasons totally unclear to me, Saudi execution number 116,489 still seems to be a headliner. Along with massive shrieking that THIS one is the most important and the thing on which we ought to be focusing our national attention- and perhaps yet another war. Or maybe it’s not so unclear why this has become The Most Important News Story.

    [Congressman Joaquin Castro (D-Bedlam)] cited unspecified reporting “that Jared Kushner may have, with U.S. intelligence, delivered a hit list, an enemies list, to the crown prince, to MBS, in Saudi Arabia and that the prince may have acted on that.” Castro continued, saying “I’ve seen reporting to that effect … That needs to be investigated.”

    I like how smoothly the segue from Russia to Saudi Arabia has been managed. Of course, we need a full investigation.

    Know what I love? Good theater. Even when it’s produced by amusingly sleazy lawyers. Maybe especially when it’s produced by amusingly sleazy lawyers.

    Manafort, appearing visibly grayer, was pushed into court in a wheelchair, missing his right shoe. “There are significant issues with Mr. Manafort’s health concerning confinement,” his lawyer, Kevin Downing, told the judge.

    Downing requested that the court expedite Manafort’s sentencing so he could be moved to a facility better equipped to deal with his health issues.

    “His physical well-being requires a continual supply of Champagne, big screen television, a private jet, and hookers,” stated the physician hired by Manafort’s attorneys. “Denial of these basics of medical care constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.”

    It wouldn’t be a Saturday without a sex robot story.

    Jimmy Mehiel uploaded a sex robot to Tinder as part of an experiment for his documentary about cyborgs, “I Want My Sex Machine”. The 39-year-old, from New York, wanted to see how many people would be willing to sleep with a sex robot. He gained permission from Matt McMullen – the creator of the world’s first commercially available doll Harmony – and shared photos of the robot on the dating platform.

    In an exclusive interview with Daily Star Online, Jimmy revealed a whopping 56% of people polled said they would have intercourse with a sex robot.

    I talked about this story with a female friend, who was horrified. “That’s absolutely disgusting. Fucking a machine? What is WRONG with men???” She then grabbed her vibrator and left.

    Seattle continues to be a source of entertainment to the rest of the country. San Francisco might have a problem with homeless, but Seattle says, “Hold mah beer!”

    “I looked up the street and there was a sea of balls rolling down the hill making an incredible noise and hitting the cars that are here,” Robert Duffy, a West Seattle resident, told KOMO News. “Got home from work and I couldn’t park on my street, ’cause there’s hundreds of thousands of steel balls on it,” Luke Gills, another neighborhood resident, also told KOMO News.

    If these had been brass balls, the story would be perfect.

    As fucked up as things are here, at least we can say, “We’re not Europe. Yet.” The brilliant Besserwissers have managed to transform a freebie from Google into something that will cost European consumers significant cash.

    Google’s licensing terms are changing in Europe later this month on account of a European Commission ruling that barred the company from requiring phone manufacturers to bundle Chrome and search with the rest of its suite of apps. EU countries are divided into three tiers, with the highest fees coming in the UK, Sweden, Germany, Norway, and the Netherlands. In those countries, a device with a pixel density higher than 500 ppi would have to pay a $40 fee to license Google’s suite of apps, according to pricing documents.

    The European Commission ruling does not explicitly require Google to charge licensing fees, but Google is required to break apart its traditional bundle of apps. The court ruled that by bundling search and Chrome within Android, Google stifled innovation and cut off opportunities for device makers to sign better deals around preinstalled browsers and search engines.

    Chrome and search are where Google’s profits come from, and without them in the bundle, it’s chosen to fund the distribution of the rest of its apps and services with this per-device fee. If phone or tablet companies want to include any of Google’s apps, they’ll have to pay, and then decide whether to make a separate browser-and-search deal with Google to make back some of the costs.

    Of course, all of that is still free in the US, but that’s because we don’t have a government that cares as much about us as the EU does for its citizens.

    Well, I might mourn what the Orioles have become, but at least they’re spreading the infection.

    The Brewers’ crowd booed Machado as if he were in town to introduce Prohibition. Machado responded with a dry night at the plate, meekly going 0-for-4 and stranding three.

    “It was a tough loss for us today,” he said when asked about the crowd, which was the polite way of checking on the ringing in his ears. “We’ve got to come back and play better baseball tomorrow night.”

    HAHAHAHAHA!

    Old Guy Music time! And to class the place up a bit, I chose a wonderful song from today’s birthday boy. This one commemorates the founder of the Salvation Army by setting Vachel Lindsay’s paean to music. It’s a fine example of Ives, with complex and dissonant lines, a difficult piece to comprehend and even more difficult to play. But worth the effort.