Phil Mayes's Blog, page 5

The Demise of the GOP

Trumpty dumped the GOP call;
Trumpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the right rednecks and all the right men
Couldn’t stand being together again.

The Republican party sustained its uneasy coalition of social and fiscal(*) conservatives for years, but this latest split, presaged by the Tea Party, is so open and so extreme that I cannot see how a coalition can be assembled. The right-wing tendency to tribalism (see Haidt) will forestall any compromise.

* They never were when you look at the numbe...

The Environmental Impact of Food

One of the reasons I reverted to vegetarianism was the environmental impact of meat, so I was taken aback to readthat cheese is the 3rd-highest in terms of CO2 production, ahead of pork, salmon, turkey and chicken. Detailed figures are on p.6 of the full report. I have to think about this for a while.

The closing paragraphs also say that locally-grown and organic foods reduce the impact. That’s interesting, as I have long assumed that environmental impact is roughly proportional to cost. My t...

How to Regard This Week’s Race Conflicts

William Saletan has written a Slate article There Is a War Over Race in Americain which he brilliantly redraws the dividing line:

This is the central thing to understand about what happened in Dallas: Black people who target whites are fundamentally allied with white people who target blacks. They’re on the same team: the race war team.

Today’s Op-Eds in the NYT are full of writings about “black” and “white”, but Saletan is saying that the divide is between violent people and peaceful people....

You Can’t Fight Words With Swords

Let’s talk about ISIS. Yes, it’s a military organization, amongst other things, but far more than that, it’s an idea, a radical Islamic idea. It’s a terrible idea, based on medieval attitudes, but it’s still an idea.

Hands up who thinks an idea can be defeated with military force?

So why is military force being used? Because people — men especially — are easily provoked into violent revenge, and because vast profits are to be made from waging war.

But it’s all pointless, because it’s an idea...

Continuing NYTimes Bias

I have railed for months about the pro-Clinton bias in the NYTimes. Today’s headline readsThree Crucial States Show Tight Races Between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton

PARA 2: “The Quinnipiac University surveys, released on Tuesday, show Mrs. Clinton leading Mr. Trump by one percentage point in Pennsylvania and Florida and trailing him by four points in Ohio.”

Buried further down in PARA 5: “The polls do offer some support for Mr. Sanders’s argument to stay in the race, as he outperforms Mrs...

Actions Have Consequences

Paris/Pasadena happened because of ISIS. ISIS arose because Iraq was invaded. Iraq was invaded because of 9/11. 9/11 happened because of U.S. missile strikes on Bin Laden’s HQ, see White House daily brief, Wikipedia. The missile strikes happened because two embassies in Africa were bombed. See the above link for why the embassies were bombed. etc.

You may quibble about this causality and ascribe extra causes; nevertheless, the point is that each reaction continues the chain. To break the c...

Handling Voiceover Mistakes

http://philmayes.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/retake.mp3

When I make a narration mistake, I make a double-click with my mouth and repeat the phrase. This shows as a distinctive pair of spikes in the audio, and it is easy to cut out the erroneous take.

What Religion Would Countenance a Confidential Handbook?

From a NYT article about a new anti-gay policy of the Mormon Church:

It appears that the new rules were not supposed to be made public. They were issued as changes to a confidential handbook, and sent out by email a week ago to leaders of the church’s 30,000 congregations around the world.

What kind of church has a confidential handbook?

Bernie Sanders will be President

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT

I came to this conclusion a week ago. Reasons:

His policies are popular He is consistent in his positions, and people respond to such authenticity His funding is all grass-roots I keep reading posts from Republicans who support him The Republicans are unlikely to select an appealing nominee

Perception of Blue is a Recent Skill

No one could see the color blue until modern times. I’ve always suspected that our language affects how we see the world, and this is a great example.