Skeptophilia — a closeted semi-believer?

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I have Skeptophilia, a blog by Gordon Bonnet, on my blogroll, and he's been here for several years. It's generally good stuff, but at times, more than once, I've wondered how skeptical he is on some things.

For example, I think he wants to believe that there's "life out there" and so sets the bar lower on Drake Equation issues. On something else, he linked uncritically to a guy in Houston, a pastor or similar but not a Ph.D. archaeologist from an accredited university, who claims to have found a curse tablet at Mount Ebal that had the name of Yahweh on it dated to circa 1200 BCE. (More here on how much of a circular reasoning fail it is, in a generally good r/AcademicBiblical piece except the one fundagelical there.) In another post, he claims that a coin in the name of otherwise generally unattested Roman emperor Sponson is legit, when it's nowhere near settled among numismatists. I blogged together about both, then separately about his claim about extinct gomphotheres and distribution of some trees in North America.

And, on my other site, I recently noted (He's "Tales of Whoa" on Twitter) that his willingness to believe humans are hardwired to know the difference between happy and sad music was based on a survey of dubious scientific value, if any. Given that he's an avid amateur musician, he should have noted my caveats about Western vs non-Western, as well as pre-Baroque, or even more, pre-Renaissance vs modern major-minor Western music. As a retired AP science teacher, he should have noted the small sample size and other issues.  (I've since updated that blog post of mine based on a new one of his where he seems to at least indirectly undercut himself.)

And, now, there's his post two weeks ago about ChatGPT threatening to replace pastors' sermons. First, as someone who's a PK with a graduate divinity degree, this ignores that many a pastor has been preaching out of either sermon books or online equivalents for decades if not centuries. Second, pastors and priests and rabbis, at least in denominations where they work full time, do much more than lead religious services.

Anyway, there's this from that post:

To make my own stance clear right from the get-go, I'm what the philosophers call a de facto atheist -- I'm not a hundred percent sure there's no higher power (mostly because I'm not a hundred percent sure of anything), but the complete lack of hard evidence tilts me in the direction of disbelief. As far as spiritual concerns, like the existence of a soul (or at least "something more" than our physical being), I'm an agnostic. There is a great deal of weird shit out there that might be explainable by virtue of some sort of non-materialistic model -- but it might just as well have to do with a combination of our own flawed cognitive processes and incomplete understanding of science. (If you have five minutes, watch this video by physicist Sabine Hossenfelder about why quantum wackiness doesn't support the existence of souls. I'm not as convinced as she is, but wherever you're starting, belief-wise, it'll get you thinking.)

Really?

He's interesting enough in many ways that I have no plans de-blogroll him, but I wouldn't add him over at my philosophy and critical thinking blog.

As for Sabine? I DID de-blogroll her, after she went on a rant about climate scientists being too alarmist.

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Update, July 28: His piece on David Grusch and his UFO testimony says he's a closeted semi-believer here, too. The obvious answer is the simple one: They didn't see it. In cases like radar screens and pursuit aircraft, they saw UFOs that are that — unidentified. (The bogeys were probably later "de-identified" with more scrutiny.) As for the rest of his claims? Simple answer is that he's lying, for one or more of related psychological reasons that usually drive such things.

Kyrie Irving's antisemitic roots: Do they go back further?

This very interesting and in-depth profile by New York Magazine has me wondering about that and more. Let's start here:

In early 2017, Irving’s teammates Channing Frye and Richard Jefferson created Road Trippin’, a podcast they’d record while flying on the team plane. Irving regularly joined in, providing the wider world with an unfiltered window into his free-associative mind. He riffed on the possibility of a faked moon landing and noted that JFK’s murder took place just days after he tried to “end the bank cartel.”

I'm not saying that IS antisemitic, but it's a short hop from there to "they" control all the banks.

NOTE: Contra nutters on Reddit, where I posted the story link, I totally reject all forms of JFK conspiracy theory, which is why I added the "JFK Assassination" tag. Whether they will eventually focus on possible early roots of Kyrie's "lizard people" thinking, I don't know.

Especially when you then go to:

In one podcast episode, Jefferson and Frye began debating the Illuminati. Another host, the sideline reporter Allie Clifton, tried to change the subject, but Irving stopped her. “It’s okay, this feeling you’re getting in your stomach,” he said.

Well, there you go. And "there" is where Allie Clifton seemed to see Irving going.

But, the weirdness goes beyond possibly deeper antisemitism than I first knew, or other issues like the flat-Earthism.

Like "Anthony Browder." He's one of those "Black Egypt" types. One who believes Egyptian genius is behind much of the modern world.

Then there's Frances Cress Wilding, going quasi-Freudian with her ideas on a sport's ball size and color vs. White vs Black skill levels. Alert Larry Bird and Tiger Woods.

I already thought Dallas trading for him was idiotic. This just adds to that. 

Then we get to the Black Hebrews film fallout.

“Was I surprised that he tweeted out a random antisemitic documentary? Yeah, a little bit. Then again, if you know the YouTube or Instagram algorithm, what kinds of things get fed to a conspiracy-minded guy like him …,” said one team front-office figure, who happens to be Jewish. “I feel like the antisemitism thing is such a footnote to the whole Kyrie story, another example of him spouting off on things he doesn’t know about. He thinks he’s discovered something nobody else knows.” 

Before returning to the Nets, Irving offered an apology during a televised SNY interview. When he had claimed he couldn’t be antisemitic because “I know where I come from,” he said, he wasn’t referring to a lost tribe of Israel. He said he meant suburban New Jersey.

OK, now we're into an allegedly deep thinker telling a lie and a laughable one.

From there, the piece looks at the history of Jewish-Black tensions, Jewish friends of Kyrie's childhood and more.

Then it moves to his narcissism as a player:

At his first press conference as a Dallas Maverick, Irving seemed to characterize his time in Brooklyn as a success. “I left them in fourth place. I did what I was supposed to do,” he said. (The team went 5-9 in games that Durant missed.) “I was incredibly selfless in my approach to leading.”

More reasons the Mavs shouldn't have made the trade, at least not at the price they did.

And finishes with a cold assessment of his psyche:

There’s another way to look at Irving too. He’s often treated as a Neptunian, but many of his qualities are, at heart, pretty familiar for a 30-year-old American who spent much of the pandemic staring at a screen: a borderline solipsistic obsession with his identity, a vague distrust of the country’s political Establishment, a radicalization on matters of social justice. ... Off the court, at least, Irving is far from unknowable. In his own way, he can even be considered — and here’s a word no one has ever used to describe him — ordinary.

I agree. And, for Kyrie, that last cut — being called "ordinary" — is surely the coldest of all.

"Come and take it": The Canon of the Battle of Gonzales

Otherwise called: Rich Lowry must still be brain-fogged from thinking Sarah Palin is winking at him.

In.a Politico column about Trump vs the field in the 2024 GOP presidential run, Lowry penned a doozy:

I could have put a "(sic)" in the header, but, that might have spoiled things.

There’s been a lot of buzz about DeSantis, understandably, who’s done all the right things to establish a national brand, win credibility with populists, and cultivate big donors. But there should be no mistake regarding Trump’s leadership of the party, he can set up like the Texans defending their canon at the Battle of Gonzales and defy his adversaries to “come and take it.”

As I said on Twitter:

Rich Lowry not knowing or misspelling the difference between "Canon" and "Cannon" is funny! Were Texians at Gonzales defending the Protestant Old Testament against Catholics with Apocrypha, daring them to "come and take it"? .@RichLowry .@cltomlinson https://t.co/lAoowsQ1Xi

— TheRealSocraticGadfly (@real_gadfly) March 2, 2023

Or, this might have been the case:

Possibility B., under Rich's spelling, is that the Battle of Gonzales was fought over cameras. Texians were determined to resist Nikon-wielding Mexican troops trying to take their Canon 5Ds.

— TheRealSocraticGadfly (@real_gadfly) March 2, 2023

Oy, in either case.

We could go other angles, like the canon of "dead white males," per Allan Bloom and "The Closing of the American Mind." We don't need no steenking Hispanic books! 

Or we could go Pachebel! Can't you play SOMETHING for late night classical music besides the Canon in D? "You'll pry this canon out of my cold, dead earbuds"? That's not to mention Pachebal having a bad rap in the canon of dead white composers.

Or Bach, with the Endlessly Rising Canon being how you "walk in" yardage on a canon's range?

And, of course, there are lesser, but more serious, errors beyond that goof.

First, it's TexIans, not Texans, as I noted in the first Tweet, showing Lowry knows little about the actualities of Texas history, which is why I tagged Chris Tomlinson. 

Start with Wikipedia on the Battle of Gonzales. Then, re legend vs facts?

Related to that? The Twin Sisters? Especially if they were only 4-pounder, not 6-pounder, they were pop guns. And, just about everything about them is disputed, so that Texas legend photo is probably not right.

A 4-pounder bronze would have been about 75mm in caliber. But, its range? With solid shot? A Civil War 6-pounder shot a little under a mile. A 4-pounder, if the Twin Sisters were this, even with the best of black power, would have been no more than 1,500 yards. With crappy powder, likely the real situation? 1,200 yards max, if that.

The reason they helped win San Jacinto was that some artillery was better than nothing, especially after Mexican artillery had been neutralized. (Mexican conscripts probably wouldn't have fired well, anyway.) But, in an open field, with trained troops, especially if they marched in double time between rounds? Even with canister or grape, just two of them would have been of minimal effectiveness.

New COVID hysterics?

Via Pat the Berner on Twitter, sounding like he's trying to score points on Warmonger Joe's coronavirus coverage.

He cites a medical news site which, first, gets the ratios of the original study (abstract) wrong. IF that study has real facts, then the COVID rate in the middle of last summer was underreported by 24-fold, not 44-fold.

But, does the original study have real facts? The full study (PDF, pre-proof) says maybe not.

First, the persons in the survey were asked about "COVID-like symptoms" as well as contacts, etc.

Second, that's from last August, and as noted, it's a pre-proof. But, the story date of the site citing it? Feb. 27 of this year. It doesn't tell us if there is a final version that was printed in that journal, and if so, did it have significant differences from the pre-proof and other things. (Nor does the abstract page, which itself was just written / content-uploaded on Feb. 20.)

Third, there's the issue of what counts as actual COVID symptoms:

COVID-19 symptoms included any of the following: fever of >100OF, cough, runny nose and/or nasal congestion, shortness of breath, sore throat, fatigue, muscle/body aches, headaches, loss of smell/taste, nausea, vomiting and/or diarrhea

Really? Even in summer, you have no idea if that's from a summer cold, a less likely but still possible summer flu, or plain old allergies. Note that it says ANY of these symptoms, not ALL. In other words, it's an "OR," not an "AND," per your old Venn diagrams and elementary-school logical terminology.

Surely, it was. more than that. Yes, they did ask about positive test results, but in an iffy way:

The survey questionnaire (Appendix 2) ascertained SARS-CoV-2 testing results of viral PCR, rapid antigen and/or at-home rapid diagnostic tests taken in the 14 days prior to the survey.

Let's look at that.

First, 14 days is a big window. And, with NO asking about test results in the 14 days AFTER, well, you've left the door wide open for the symptoms above and COVID to have a purely correlational and not causal connection.

Second? At home tests are about 80 percent accurate. Better than nothing, but not fantastic. And, the study doesn't say how many respondents used what tests. As for research about the at-home tests' accuracy rate? This appears to cover only false negatives, which would bolster the survey. But, how do we know there aren't false positives?

Third? The definition of Long COVID in the piece is vague and also, even more than COVID (like) symptoms, dependent on self-reporting. And, the self-reporting also involved a leading question:

Respondents in our survey who reported a history of prior COVID were asked “Would you describe yourself as having ‘long COVID’, that is you experienced symptoms such as fatigue, difficulty concentrating, shortness of breath more than 4 weeks after you first had COVID-19 that are not explained by something else?”

Hard to believe that an A-grade journal would have published this as written, with things like this. So, we're presumably looking at a pre-proof that wasn't published, or if it were published, it was at some other site.

Fourth? Even if this survey IS airtight, it was still more than six months ago. Contra Pat's claim that COVID is not endemic NOW, this has nothing to do with that. Unless he really believes the survey is airtight then AND reflective of 25x misreporting today.

Contra that, per Worldometers, even if you reject its claims about declining case numbers, there's no really easy way to explain yourself around the declining death rates. The flip side would be, if you think COVID is THAT prevalent, then it truly and fully is "just the flu" on strength.

And, if THAT's the case? I've got beachfront 5-year protection mRNA vaxxes to sell him. Pat would be better off nailing Warmonger Joe on why we don't have non-mRNA boosters, as I was doing months ago.

Let me reiterate and restate the last two paragraphs, for Pat, who I suspect may not be just trying to "own the neolibs" here but may be a People's CDC fellow traveler. You CANNOT both have your cake and eat it on this issue. COVID can't be both much more prevalent AND more deadly (or even semi-deadly) than official statistics.

Some national and global tidbits from Texas Progressives

Omaha has seriously cut gun violence. Here's how. For people like me, who ardent on gun control, I think this demonstrated that a multifaceted, community-based approach is needed.

The London Review of Books has a great longform on "the reaction economy." In other words, there's advertising and other money to be made off trolling.

China impersonating journalists? Shock me. And, it's COVID-related, too? Alert the fake leftists like Rainier Shea, Max Blumenthal, and Howie Hawkins + Margaret Flowers. And, it was past time to add "pseudoleftism" to my list of labels.

Great piece at Counterpunch by Sam Husseini on possibly the Senate's most maverick member in at least 50 years. No, not Fred Harris. James Abourezk.

And, another good one, by Melvin Goodman, about how Warmonger Joe and his former boss, Dear Leader, have liked to personalize Cold War 2.0 against Russia and Putin.

Lula tells Warmonger Joe to fuck off.

Texas Progressives talk COLAs and more

Off the Kuff looks at the latest bit of "Colin Allred for Senate" speculation.

SocraticGadfly offers his thoughts on the "Paxton Four," namely paying for their lawsuit settlement and related issues.

The state Permanent School Fund's bond guarantee program has hit its debt ceiling. That means that, unless the IRS raises that cap, or Congress acts to that end, school districts launching new bond programs will pay higher interest. I disagree with Tex-ass Congresscritters wanting the cap removed entirely.

Phelan and Strangeabbott want to expand Medicaid for new mothers. They also want to eliminate sales tax on things like diapers. Them seeing that the "red wave" didn't happen in Tex-ass any more than nationally, in large part because of abortion, is the reason why.

Why isn't the state's basic student allotment inflation-indexed? Donna Howard's bill, among those addressing a hike in the allotment, proposes that. At my day job, I've said that all sorts of federal and state programs, from the minimum wage to the homestead exemption, should all be COLAed.

Strangeabbott has cut a deal with one of his top political donors for a new section of his state border wall. Shock me.

How troublesome are far-right White Catholic activists to the body politic? Though not justifying FBI "tripwire" surveillance, the Observer is right: Said activists should shut up until they also condemn previous such actions against Muslims, Blacks, etc.

An interesting new exhibit at the Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth, all about our modern digital world, is reviewed here. (I've walked by the Modern before, and seen what I could see from the outside and in the lobby, but never paid admission freight.)

Our fee-for-service private insurance health "care" industry is part of why med schools don't teach doctors nutritional medicine. Some schools and some recent grads are doing what they can; they may get help from the many companies that have self-funded insurance.

Whether for teacher retention or other reasons, the idea of a four-day school week is growing, and moving from smaller to larger school districts. (With smaller school districts, where teachers often double as bus drivers, in some cases, there is that added pressure.)

A history prof wants the state to officially establish a "truth and reconciliation commission" about the official violence, usually racist, or the Texas Rangers in centuries past. Idea's great; good luck with getting Danny Goeb to back it.

Chip Gaines bought Larry McMurtry's book store.

The 19th celebrates the legacy of the late Texas transgender activist Monica Roberts.

The Observer looks back at the portrayal of Houston in the movie classic Local Hero.

The Current lists seven weird movies shot in San Antonio that you're probably never heard of.

Your Local Epidemiologist takes a deeper look at the efficacy of masking.

Biden's tech-neoliberalism immigration heartlessness

Yeah, Biden's dropping Title 42, but some of his immigration policies look more heartless than Trump's.

Among them? 

The idea that asylum-seeking immigrants need to either seek asylum in another country en route (ie, Salvadoreans or Guatemalans seeking asylum in Mexico, rather than the US that has disrupted their countries) or else needs to schedule an appointment in advance with US officials using a smartphone app.

No, really.

This sounds like Gavin Newsom as Mayor Pothole of San Francisco telling people to report potholes with their smartphones, but in spades and on steroids.

Only with people likely to have much lower levels of smartphone ownership, and older smartphones. AND, this neglects the possibility of their governments spying on them doing this, to boot. 

Plus, as the story notes, this is illegal, this requirement, especially when tied with Bordermonger Joe's idea that Ill Eagles arriving at the border to claim asylum without going through these hoops will be turned away.

In addition, as that Guardian piece notes, that app sucks.

It's clear that Bordermonger Joe is "pivoting" to the general election.

But, he, like other Dems, have been "good" on immigration only by the Bushian soft bigotry of low expectations for decades. And, his pivot assumes that it will actually do much good in a general election.

Politicizing the county chief appraiser's office

Here in Tex-ass, the system for determining property values is via a central appraisal district. All taxing entities in a county have weighted votes for the board of directors. Appraisal staff, including the chief appraiser, are hired and theoretically apolitical.

So, it might be bad optics for a chief appraiser to speak to a county political party.

It's surely far worse optics for a chief appraiser to speak to a political activist group.

But that's exactly what Cooke County Chief Appraiser Doug Smithson is doing.

He's speaking to a group called Cooke Conservatives. Worse yet, he's doing it on May 15, right before the end of the Lege session. And, they are nutters. Their February meeting had a "vaccine choice" speaker, Rebecca Hardy of the antivaxxer Texans for Vaccine Choice. (Link is to their Wikipedia page; even with a no-follow code, I wouldn't send you to their website or Facebook page.) They were around pre-COVID, but that has of course exacerbated their nuttery.

Abortion seeking help gets narrow win in Texas

For right now, at least, Texas abortion funds cannot be criminally charged for assisting out-of-state abortions. (That said, how long before the nutbar Fifth Circuit overrules Robert Pitman?) It should be noted this is a narrow ruling on SB 8, the "let citizens sue them" law. Pitman said that, because SB 8 didn't mention extraterritoriality (and how could it?) it doesn't go beyond state lines. Pitman DID say that older Tex-ass laws about abortion COULD be used for such enforcement, though. That said, he did say this was "plausible (albeit unlikely)." And, he noted that the state's pre-Roe statutes have been repealed, anyway, Pitman said, which is the main reason AG Ken Paxton was dismissed from the suit.

A Reuters story has more about how this will play out in months ahead. One sidebar: It notes Pitman said the pre-Roe laws had been implicitly dismissed. That said, he cited a Fifth Circuit ruling to bolster that. Of course, like with the Supremes on Bush v Gore, it could say "don't quote us against ourselves."

Per Reason, at the Volokh Conspiracy, yet more. Pitman found SB8's would-be extension like this to states where abortion is legal raised First Amendment questions.

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Related: Donna Howard has an in-depth conversation with the Observer about a whole set of related abortion access issues.

Doug Henwood slouches further toward Gomorrah

I noticed Henwood's name among commenters on Seymour Hersh's original "welcome" piece on Substack last week.

Henwood, with whom I've tangled before, which led to him blocking my original Twitter account,  maybe is himself a COVID minimalist or worse if he also follows Vinay Prasad's Substack. He's also a paid subscriber to Modern Monetary Theory tout Stephanie Kelton's Substack, and Doug used to laugh at MMT touts like Michael Hudson and Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism. Again, PAID, not free, subscriber; this is far worse than somebody sensible on Twitter following some nutbar for free.

I said then that I might have to do a small sidebar piece about Doug, and here I am.

Previous tanglings?

First, six years ago? The Electoral College for electing U.S. presidents, while tangentially connected to slavery, was NOT "all about slavery." 

Second, not too much later? Jim Crow was NOT a class-based issue. As I noted, Jim Crow was in place across the South before the steel industry took off in Birmingham, Alabama and other things. I soon thereafter noted Henwood and running buddy Adolph Reed (punked by Barack Obama about 25 years ago) largely ignored the likes of Franz Fanon.

Third? And what led Henwood to block me, since Reed isn't on Twitter? Reed's anti-Black Lives Matter stance on death by cop. (For the unknowing, Reed is Black himself; he also, like Henwood, Chomsky and others, is one of those hard-core leftist duopolists.) Anyway, as part of his argument, Reed cited the high death by cop rate in the large White (in his mind) New Mexico. As I noted, in an extensive takedown, New Mexico being largely White would be huge news to the massive amount of Hispanic and American Indian residents of a state that, already 6 years ago, had been majority-minority for 20 years, and nearly that for decades before. I then noted that the American Indian death by cop rate was even higher nationally than the Black one.

Anyway, back to what I noted above, about the hypocrisy, it would seem, of him paying to follow Kelton, too. Several years ago, he did a big take down of MMT at Jacobin. I blogged about it, calling my piece "MMT is Maoism, or New Ageism."