SocraticGadfly: 11/1/20 - 11/8/20

November 07, 2020

Cardinals: Replace Wong with Schoop?

Red Satan suggests they'll do just that: replace option-bought-out Kolten Wong with Tiger FA Jonathan Schoop. MLBTR discusses as well, along with what the team faces with popular FA vets Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina.

OK, first, the possible swapout at 2B. Why wouldn't the Cards at least consider that even if Mo and Girsch AREN'T penny pinching?

First, the 2B situation.

Almost dead wash career wise on WAR, oWAR, dWAR, and games played. But, Schoop is a year younger. If you can save a couple of million for a couple of years, why not?

Contra Red Satan, I'm not a fan of doing a likely overpay for DJ LeMahieu. And, yes, I think it would be just that. Add in that he's going to be 32 next year.

Per Red Satan, George Springer in RF could be great. Cards would have to swallow 1 year of Dexter Fowler being a 4th OF? DH? Floater? IF the Cards were interested, they won't go past five years if that. I don't see Springer wanting less than six. Personally, I'd be fine with, say four plus two mutual option years after that or something, or even five with a player opt-out after three, tho the Birds still loathe those and I largely agree.

Waino and Yadi? I'm OK with ONE-YEAR contracts for both. Nothing more, though.

And Yadi must be told that there's no guarantees after that one year, and there's no option year on it. I'll have a separate post on myths about Yadi, including myth vs reality on him not being a HOFer, in a few days. And, that is now up.

November 06, 2020

The forgetting brain, the Loftus-refuting mind

Elizabeth Loftus, blithely forgetting she said what she did.
Having an infinite, or practically so, memory capacity seems fantastic, no?

No, in reality.

For the few people who have something like that, it's as much curse as blessing.

How does your brain prioritize anything, first of all, if it doesn't have the capacity to forget — and to judge what is forgettable?

Second, how does your brain easily recall anything if it remembers everything?

That's part of why new neuroscience research on the power of forgetting is so interesting.

One main point is that forgetting comes in a variety of forms, some more active than others. Hold on to that thought.

Main subpoint 1 below that is that some of this forgetting, one variety of it, is "intrinsic." In other words, a base-level "Forgetting 101."

And a subpoint within that is the importance of dopamine in forgetting, at least in the old laboratory staple, the fruit fly. This is another refutation of simplistic takes on dopamine as "the pleasure molecule" or "the addiction neurotransmitter."

Nope, no such thing, going beyond that brain cells have multiple dopamine receptors, all shaped a bit differently.

A second subpoint within that is that scientists are learning by experimentation (with non-human animals only, no "Clockwork Orange," but hold on to that thought, too) to manipulate forgetting. In fact, I wrote about related research with rats back in 2013. Hold on to that, too. We're going to come to the second half of the header in a bit.

The second big point? Many forgotten memories are NOT "100 percent forgotten." At the least, the brain changes caused by an initially created memory aren't totally lost, not even a week or more later, not even with such a short-lived critter as a 1-year-lifespan sea slug.

I'm sure that, in years and decades ahead, we'll learn more about what is behind the unchanged.

Main subpoint?? This refutes some of Elizabeth Loftus' simplistic ideas on how the mind works. If we don't totally forget, but do often semi-totally forget, and emotions are involved with that, that shows her quasi-Freudian strawman of "repression," which she demolishes as quasi-Freudian after setting it up as a strawman, is all wrong. (In fact, a keyword search shows I previously blogged about his issue at the time another story was written about it. But, that's OK. This piece above is longer, and the second half of this header? The issues, and the person behind them, always need addressing.)

Speaking of "Clockwork Orange" and of blogging in 2013, I wondered back then if Loftus had actually mainlined on the movie.

One thing I noted there was the use of the word "repressed." Whether she consciously uses it in a quasi-Freudian sense or not, and whether she consciously does this as an attempt at strawmanning, she often comes off that way.

(Update, April 12, 2021: The LA Times says of this time, it's more than 300 cases, that it's $600 per billable hour. Update, June 7, 2022: Per this Hustle story on the Amber Heard-Johnny Depp dual defamation suit and the price of expert witnesses, this may be WAY low. In a murder case in 2017 in Couer d'Alene, Idaho, not exactly Los Angeles, and criminal not civil, one psychologist got $210K in expert witness fees. Hustle reminds us that expert witness billable hours include prep hours and depositions, not just trial time. The piece says that psychiatrists bill $575 per hour on trial time on average and psychologists [we'll put Loftus there] $531 per hour,  So, on the really high side, Loftus may be an expert witness millionaire. )
 
No wonder she loses many cases as an expert witness.

No matter how much she's paid.

And, since Freud has been dead for almost 80 years now, not the 70 I noted then, and Freudianism, except among certain elites outside psychiatry as much as inside it, has been dead for almost 60 years now, not 50, again, it's time for Loftus to move on, whether she's been doing this consciously or not.

November 05, 2020

Coronavirus, week 31: How badly will we be screwed?

There's enough material this week for a separate post, but nothing long or major. Just some updates on how bad the U.S. is likely to be hit for the rest of this calendar year.

That starts with Anthony Fauci noting, and drug and vaccine maker Pfizer essentially conceding, there will be NO VACCINE THIS YEAR. Period. Get that in your heads, TrumpTrain, Lincoln Project, The Resistance, Greens, Communist, apolitical or other. Related? There will be NO widespread availability until May or later, when the winter/spring COVID surge on top of flu surge is (presumably) over.

SocraticGadfly provided some updates on coronavirus-related boycotts and semi-boycotts of stores, in light of lack of local, semi-rural/exurban store mask enforcement of corporate rules, corporate PR or PR by silence, and related issues.

DosCentavos posts Dr. Varon's answer as to why COVID numbers are increasing: Stupidity.

Per the above, Anthony Fauci is warning about "a whole lot of pain," and saying that unlike eight months ago, it will be rural areas, already 'bleeding out," if one will, that will face the most trouble. That's especially true for colder-weather rural areas. Hard to travel to a hospital 30-50 miles away in snow and ice if your county has no medical center.

And, rural America? It's harder to have "mask fatigue" when mask resistance and non-compliance has been higher there all along. Stop worrying and per Dr. Stranglove, Learn to Love the Mask. The alleged fatigue issue? You're being snowflakes. Let's also not forget that rural areas are, on average, older and sicker — prime candidates for COVID deaths.

Not totally rural, contra the LA Times, but Lubbock is challenging the Dakotas for worst inspection spot, and Tech is the worst university here in Tex-ass. It's made worse by the university not policing frat and other parties.

Half a million dead, says Dr. Jonathan Reiner. 300,000 by the end of this year would be no surprise in my book. Half a million by the end of February? Possible.

We all know that winter means more isolation inside with family. Household spread of coronavirus is both common and quick. Kids, do NOT listen to Trump and try to apply interior heat and light to siblings.

Regeneron has stopped a trial on sick patients over safety concerns. Paging Donald Trump ...

Globally? French President Macron expects his nation's fall wave to be worse than the spring.

November 04, 2020

Texas Progressives: Non-election news of the week

In order not to distract from all the nuttery related directly to election day, non-election news gets its own mini-roundup.

Dallas 

Schutze weighs in on elected Black leaders giving former chief U. Renee Hall a pass on the protests handling.

Texas politics

Last week, Trey Martinez Fischer became the second Dem to announce for state Speaker of the House. He was later joined by a longshot (you are) third Dem and and four Republicans. My money is on Paddie, then Ashby, if Republicans hold the House with diminished numbers, though if there's a split there, Thompson could wiggle in on a second ballot. She's the favorite if Dems win.

Texana

Midland Lee is now no longer that. As for wingnuts saying why waste the alleged "all this money" on the renaming, it's not that much. As for other wingnuts saying they'll vote against any future bond issues, did y'all vote FOR any in the past? Remembering all the Confederate-named streets in downtown Odessa is a reminder that change needs to come elsewhere in the Permian too.

National-politics

"Bloodlands" author Timothy Snyder, in this piece by Jane Mayer about Trump's likely post-election future, thinks he'll have a TV show — but on RT, not Fox, and from inside Russia. (Russia has no extradition treaty with the U.S.; Mayer's piece is in part about the possibility of criminal as well as civil charges being filed against Trump.) Option B, among others, is Trump replacing Rush Limbaugh when Rush does his #JackDorsey.

Paradise in Hell does a little time traveling. 

Lew Moorman worries about the cost side of inequality.

Americana 

McDonald's is bringing back the McRib. Why?

Dunkin Donuts has been sold to Inspire Brands, the parent of Sonic, Jimmy John's, Arby's (my nearest one has remain shuttered through COVID) and Buffalo Wild Wings.

World 

You can now legally kill yourself in New Zealand but you can't smoke a doobie while doing it.

November 03, 2020

Texas Progressives give an election day peek under the hood

Now that the act of voting is done, and you can see how well I did on my final pre-Election Day prognostications on Monday, while we wait for election season final playout, let's dive in, with plenty of election-related punditry but lots of other items as well, from regional items through state and national to global. Actually, we're going to splitoff non-election stuff to wait until later this week.

Dallas

Schutze weighs in on elected Black leaders giving former chief U. Renee Hall a pass on the protests handling.

Texas politics

Young Texans went to any length to get their votes counted. Harris County helped with a day of 24-hour early voting in person. The increase in turnout and in blueish area registered voters — did it help?

Steve Salyer had his faith in humanity restored by working at a drive-through voting location. 

Peter Holley meets a few of the people who voted after midnight in Harris County. 

John Coby calls out the Harris County GOP for hosting a super-spreader event.

Unable to win with the state Supremes, Steve Hotze and his fellow Rethuglicans tried federal court on trying to throw out drive-through ballots in Harris County. (They failed and we presume will fail at the appellate level.)

Related to all of this, Off the Kuff summarized the record breaking early voting in Harris County.

Beyond Harris County Rethuglicans' vote suppression efforts? A heaping helping of paranoia that election judges would spike their coffee with laxatives. No, really.

November 02, 2020

Final election prognostications (and post-mortem!)

Last Thursday, as a lead-in to this corner's version of the weekly Texas Progressives roundup (not counting my normal split-off of coronavirus news), I had the following semi-rhetorical questions:

• Will Biden win?
• Will Democrats regain the U.S. Senate? 
• Will Texas Dems flip the state House?
• Will Biden win Texas?
• Will M.J. Hegar beat John Cornyn?
• How well will third-party candidates Jo Jorgensen and Howie Hawkins do?
• If Hawkins is well behind Stein 2016, in part because lack of dues-paying membership put a crimp on state-by-state party ballot access, what will the Green Party do?
• Will the GP address rogue states Rhode Island (openly endorsing Biden and sending no presidential delegates to the GP 2020 convention) and Alaska (separately nominating Jesse Ventura) at its 2021 convention?

OK, let's "lean in," as the Facebook PR spinners say.
 
Note: Answers, as they come, in italics, starting late Nov. 3.

• The biggie? Eighty percent odds Biden wins. About 55 percent he meets or beats Trump's 2016 total of 304 EVs (setting aside faithless electors in the case wrongly adjudicated by SCOTUS). About 25 percent he hits Dear Leader's 332 of 2012. Ninety-five percent Biden wins the popular vote. Eighty percent he does so by bigger margin than Hillary Clinton.
 
Nov. 3: Biden is ahead, and looks likely to win after Fox gave him Arizona on an early call.

• As of right now? Sixty percent odds Democrats regain the Senate, as I've talked about previously.
 
Nov. 3: Fading, starting with Ernst winning Iowa. Stay tuned on Georgia.

• Forty percent they flip the state House. In other words, it's a definite possibility, but I just don't see it with enough legs to make it reality. (Related? I blogged a year ago about possible internecine GOP fighting over redistricting.)

Nov. 3: FadED, not fading. Be surprised indeed if by this time Nov. 4, they've won more than four new net seats. Reasons are many, including some relative lack of enthusiasm, some GOP fears, and, stop me if you've heard this before, but Texas is "a non-voting state" ... among much of its Hispanic populace. See link in next graf. (My largely White exurban Metroplex county unofficially broke 70 percent.)
 
Nov. 4: Wasn't just Texas, and wasn't just Hispanics. Nationally, Biden ran lower than Hillary Clinton among both Hispanics AND Blacks. Maybe, per Nikole Hannah Jones of the 1619 Project, it's past time to ditch "Hispanic," which is about as meaningful as "Asian" as an ethnic category. (For that matter, re "African American," where do you fit new or newish Nigerian immigrants who came to America freely vs the descendants of slaves?) More here from Margaret Sullivan, where that Twitter thread link was seen. Meanwhile, ConservaDems in Congress are making new noise about moving that old Overton Window further right. That's even though, per Mondoweiss, "Squad" type new Congresscritters won most their races.)

• Fifteen percent on Biden winning Texas. I expect he'll be tripped up by the usual bugaboo of "non-voting state Texas" having Hispanic turnout that leaves him a bit short. (I expect the break on Hispanic votes will be more pro-Biden than Hillary Clinton, but that reverse taco ConservaDem Hispanics will remain glued fairly strongly to Trump.)
 
Yep. 
 
Nov. 3: It may tighten, but, it looks like Biden's finals vs Trump will be about what the last few polls said. And maybe UH was right that some of it was some independents breaking late for Trump. A LOT of Hispanics in the Valley apparently broke Trump rather than being non-voters. "Fortunately," I've been in Tex-ass long enough to see this continue to play out.

• Ten percent. Unlike Biden, Hegar's never had a poll showing her in the lead. I don't see her pulling this off.
 
Nov. 3: Called this right. Cornyn, despite him becoming a lapdog to Trump and a second fiddle wannabe to Havana Ted Cruz, apparently is less offensive enough to run about 2 percentage points ahead of Donald.

• Jorgensen, despite Justin Amash refusing to seek the Libertarian nod because he didn't want to elect Trump, will probably get 80-90 percent of what Gary Johnson did in 2016. Contra a glue-sniffer at this piece at Independent Political Report, she will NOT increase Johnson's vote by 50 percent and take 5 percent of the national vote. You can bet on that and make book on it. Howie, on the other hand, in part because Greens are on fewer state ballots this year and in part due to Jesse-stanners and Dario-stanners bolting? No more than 60 percent of Stein. That also said, because other Greens may be like Rhode Island? If we do an apples-to-apples comp, I think he'll fall short of Stein at no more than 80 percent just comparing states where they both are/were on the ballot.
 
Nov. 8: Per numbers in this National Review story wondering if Biden won Wisconsin by Dems keeping Howie off the ballot there? Howie, on an apples-to-apples basis, may be lucky to finish at 50 percent of Stein. Not primarily his fault, but will be ammo for Dario-stanners and Jesse-stanners. 
 
UPDATE, Nov. 20: Via Ballot-Access News, "others," as in the really minor candidates, outperformed Hawkins, who is listed at less than 400,000 votes.

• No. Usual strawmen about "too pricey," etc. will be raised, and Republicans will use this loophole to run as Greens in select races and other things.

• No. But, there's a 50-50 shot trans activists will try to punish the Georgia GP next summer.