The U.K. parliament debates a state visit by Trump

I communicate frequently with people in Scandinavia and Great Britain, and on occasion have offered my apologies for our country having placed Donald Trump in a position of authority.  One correspondent in England wrote back to note that he had signed the petition opposing a state visit by Trump.  He was kind enough to send me a link to the fulltext of the parliamentary debate, from which I excerpt the following:

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)

I beg to move, That this House has considered e-petitions 171928 and 178844 relating to a state visit by President Donald Trump...

I thank the Petitions Committee for allowing me to introduce the petitions. There has been a great deal of misunderstanding about their nature. One of them, which has been signed by more than 300,000 people, states:

“Donald Trump should be invited to make an official State Visit because he is the leader of a free world and U.K. is a country that supports free speech and does not believe that people that oppose our point of view should be gagged.”

The other petition, which has gained the remarkable total of 1,850,000 signatures in a few days and which has been much misunderstood, states:

“Donald Trump should be allowed to enter the UK in his capacity as head of the US Government, but he should not be invited to make an official State Visit because it would cause embarrassment to Her Majesty the Queen.”

That is a fascinating prospect. The first petition suggests that cancelling the state visit would in some way deprive President Trump of his ability to speak freely, when in recent days we have had a ceaseless incontinence of free speech from him—the man is everywhere, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The other petition is saying not that he should not come here—he should come here, on business or other matters—but that he should not be accorded the rare privilege of a state visit. Only two Presidents of the United States have been granted a state visit since 1952, yet we are in the extraordinary and completely unprecedented position in which, seven days into his presidency, President Trump has been invited to have the full panoply of a state visit..

Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s response to Mr Trump’s perhaps ill considered phraseology, but what complaint did he make when Emperor Hirohito, who was responsible for the rape of Nanking, came here?

Paul Flynn

Many people have come here who have been less welcome than others; that is absolutely true. We have had people here who were very unsavoury characters—not from the United States, as it happens—but we certainly should not try to imitate the errors of the past. We should set an example by making sure that we do not make those mistakes again... It is extraordinary that Trump, from the cavernous depths of his scientific ignorance, is prepared to challenge the conclusions of 97% of the world experts on this matter. He makes a bad science conspiracy theory conclusion when, apart from the nuclear issue, climate change is the most important issue of our time. On the nuclear issue, Trump is almost unique in that he believes in nuclear proliferation. He is trying to persuade countries such as South Korea and Japan to acquire their own nuclear weapons. We know that the danger of nuclear war exists not because of the malice of nations but because of the likelihood that it will come by accident—by human error, or by a technical ​failure similar to the one that happened when one of our missiles headed in the wrong direction towards the United States in a recent test. The more nations that have nuclear weapons, the more likely it is that that problem will emerge and we could be plunged into a nuclear war.

Mr Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, although the proposed ban is clearly completely absurd, there is something quite refreshing about a politician actually doing what they said they would do before they were elected? The [immigration] ban is ridiculous, but it is a reaction to the chaos caused in the middle east by previous generations of politicians, which in my view is far worse than anything that Trump has done, and for which many of the people in this Chamber voted. Where is the hon. Gentleman’s respect for the will of the American people?

Alex Salmond (Gordon) (SNP)

...the Prime Minister’s holding-hands-across-the-ocean visit would be difficult to match as an example of fawning subservience, but to do it in the name of shared values was stomach-churning. What exactly are the shared values that this House and this country would hope to have with President Trump? Exemplifying what shared values are is a process that is fraught with danger, but the Prime Minister tried it when she was Home Secretary. She said that they were: “Things like democracy…a belief in the rule of law, a belief in tolerance for other people, equality, an acceptance of other people’s faiths and religions.” Which of those values, as outlined by the Prime Minister, has President Trump exemplified in his first 30 days in office?

Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)

Barack Obama waited two and a half years before he was invited on a state visit. George W. Bush waited three years. Nixon and George Bush Senior were never given a state visit. My question is what Donald Trump has done. In my opinion, all he has done since he has been President is insult the press, champion economic protectionism and try to ban Muslims from entering the United States. Are those reasons to grant him a state visit to our country?​ Secondly, a state visit is meant to be a celebratory event for people. However, millions of people have signed a petition to say they do not want Donald Trump to be given a state visit. Thousands have marched along Whitehall, in addition to the people across the country who say they would not welcome it. If we listen carefully we can hear the thousands of people outside the House right now, saying they do not want Donald Trump to come to this country on a royal state visit. We have a duty to listen to those people and give them a voice. If people from the Trump Administration are listening, I would say to them that that is not fake news. The people protesting outside are not alternative facts. The protests are real ones, by British people who do not want to give him a royal visit.

Paul Flynn

I will make just one more point. I believe that the debate went off the rails when some hon. Members suggested that the petitioners were asking for a ban on President Trump. Not one of the 2 million people is asking for a ban. In the largest petition, people are asking for the visit to be downgraded from a state visit. That is the whole point, namely that by giving this rare accolade of a state visit to President Trump the implication is that we approve of him and his policies. It is fine to have the President here and it is fine to have a visit on business—there is no objection to that—but this marvellous debate that we have had shows that we are reacting to the voice of the people, and to the anger and fear outside. It is a good day for Parliament.

Much more from the three-hour debate at this link

"We Are The World" (1985)

YouTube link.

In the mid-1980s I took advantage of the new VHS technology to start building a library of video entertainment - especially classic movies and seemingly memorable sports events.  Those mostly-unwatched tapes traveled with me for thirty years from Kentucky to Indiana to Missouri to Wisconsin.  Now I'm at that point were I need to "declutter" my life, and the VHS tapes need to go.  Goodwill doesn't want them, so this winter I've been giving all my old tapes one "goodbye" watch just to sort of justify to myself the trouble and expense of having stored and transported them for so long.

Mostly it was a wasted effort. The movies are available now in better definition from the library and Netflix (except for some of the oldest Hitchcock ones that weren't that good anyway).  The Kentucky basketball and football games that were thrilling in 1988 mean nothing to me now (but I'll keep the Minnesota Twins World Series appearances, because they may never have another one).

Then there's the rock videos.  In that era I typically spent New Year's eve at home, and I used those occasions to copy MTV's "top 100 videos" of the year.  So for the last few evenings I've revisited 1985 and 1986.

Mostly it's a vast wasteland.  Video after video with enormously "big hair" and concert venue recordings.  There are some that break the mold and show some artistic innovation (a-ha's "Take on Me" comes to mind).  And then there was the embed above.  It was interesting to see how many of the soloists I could recognize (I think about 15 out of 20 or so, plus another half-dozen in the chorus).  But Dan Aykroyd? - maybe because of Blues Brothers?

Coincidentally I note that today is the anniversary of the release of "We Are the World," so here's some things-I-didn't-know (or forgot):

The first ever single to be certified multi-platinum, "We Are the World" received a Quadruple Platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America.

(Lionel)Richie had recorded two melodies for "We Are the World", which (Michael) Jackson took, adding music and words to the song in the same day. Jackson stated, "I love working quickly. I went ahead without even Lionel knowing, I couldn't wait. I went in and came out the same night with the song completed—drums, piano, strings, and words to the chorus."

The single most damaging piece of information is where we're doing this. If that shows up anywhere, we've got a chaotic situation that could totally destroy the project."

Quincy Jones' associate producer and vocal arranger, Tom Bahler, was given the task of matching each solo line with the right voice.

They were also greeted by Stevie Wonder, who proclaimed that if the recording was not completed in one take, he and Ray Charles, two blind men, would drive everybody home.

Despite the song's commercial success, "We Are the World" received mixed reviews from journalists, music critics and the public following its release. American journalist Greil Marcus felt that the song sounded like a Pepsi jingle. He wrote, "... the constant repetition of 'There's a choice we're making' conflates with Pepsi's trademarked 'The choice of a new generation'.

According to music critic and Bruce Springsteen biographer Dave Marsh, "We Are the World" was not widely accepted within the rock music community. The author revealed that the song was "despised" for what it was not: "a rock record, a critique of the political policies that created the famine..."

Since its release, "We Are the World" has raised over $63 million (equivalent to $138 million today) for humanitarian causes.

He helps his human with the hard words

Image cropped for space and emphasis from the original here.

"Rattleback" explained

YouTube link.

Other videos here and here (QI).

A rattleback is a semi-ellipsoidal top which will rotate on its axis in a preferred direction. If spun in the opposite direction, it becomes unstable, "rattles" to a stop and reverses its spin to the preferred direction.

This spin-reversal appears to violate the law of the conservation of angular momentum. Moreover, for most rattlebacks the motion will happen when the rattleback is spun in one direction, but not when spun in the other. Some exceptional rattlebacks will reverse when spun in either direction. This makes the rattleback a physical curiosity that has excited human imagination since prehistorical times.

States without a river for any part of their border

I had never paid attention to the Montana-Idaho border, assuming that the squiggly line included a river or two - but it's just a line following the crests of mountains.

The separation between Idaho and Montana begins where the Continental Divide intersects the 111th meridian. It then follows the Continental Divide to the point where it intersects the Bitterroot Mountains. Here the crests of the Bitterroot Mountains becomes the boundary up to the Clark Fork River, where a straight line due north completes the border.

The history behind this border is discussed here (politics and maybe money involved).

Image via Vivid Maps.

Deviant duck dicks

"As part of the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, four of the world’s great thinkers were invited to give 24/7 Lectures. Each 24/7 Lecture was on an assigned topic. The lecturer was asked to explain that topic twice:

FIRST, a complete technical description in TWENTY-FOUR (24) SECONDS; and THEN a clear summary that anyone could understand in SEVEN (7) WORDS."

Here's one example:

Lecturer: Patty Brennan (Evolutionary Biologist and Behavioral Ecologist, specializing in the morphological evolution of reproductive structures)

Complete technical description in TWENTY-FOUR (24) SECONDS:

“In many species of ducks, males often fail to attract a mate, so they resort to forcing copulations on females. Males can sexually force females because their penis functions with an explosive eversion mechanism that quickly and forcefully inseminates females despite their resistance. Females, however, have co-evolved vaginas with dead ends and spirals that prevent full penis eversion when she is not receptive.” [Time called by the Referee]

Clear summary that anyone can understand, in SEVEN (7) WORDS:
          “Deviant duck dicks foiled by fabulous vaginas.”

The other three (clock genes, time, fluid dynamics) are posted at Neatorama.

A profile of the Great Lakes

Via Vivid Maps.

Intimidation? Or free speech?

An anonymous blogger who uses the pseudonym “Doe Publius” knew he would stir controversy when, in July 2016, he published a “tyrant registry” listing the addresses and home phone numbers of 40 California lawmakers who supported a new gun control law in the state.

In California, courts have ruled that similar dossiers targeting abortion providers are tantamount to death threats. Publius published his list anyway. “These tyrants are no longer going to be insulated from us,” he wrote.

The post was quickly picked up on another gun rights blog, and within days, several of the named lawmakers reported receiving threatening phone calls and social media messages...

But on Monday, a federal court ruled that the “tyrant registry” was protected speech. In a lawsuit brought by Publius, Judge Lawrence J. O’Neill of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California said the post and its republishing by another blogger were “a form of political protest.”

More at the Washington Post.

There are NO red pixels in this picture

Your brain sees the objects being bathed in blue light, so it compensates by adding a red that is not there.  The fact that the objects are strawberries accentuates the illusion, but is not a necessary feature.

Further discussion and explanation (and a photo with the "red" sampled to show that it is actually grey) at the source article in Vice's Motherboard.

Use cell phone while driving = lose your license

New drivers who are caught using a phone at the wheel will lose their licence under new legislation that comes into force today.

From Wednesday anyone found calling, texting or using an app while driving will face a £200 on-the-spot fine and six points on their licence.

It means that new drivers – who can lose a maximum of six points before being banned for the first two years after passing their test– will face an immediate ban for sending a single text message. 

Some additional details at The Telegraph.

Storm damage

Via.

The religion of Genghis Khan

"Eyewitnesses report that upon reaching the center of Bukhara, Genghis Khan rode up to the large mosque and asked if, since it was the largest building in the city, it was the home of the sultan. When informed that it was the house of God, not the sultan, he said nothing. For the Mongols, the one God was the Eternal Blue Sky that stretched from horizon to horizon in all directions. God presided over the whole earth; he could not be cooped up in a house of stone like a prisoner or a caged animal, nor as the city people claimed, could his words be captured and confined inside the covers of a book. In his own experience, Genghis Khan had often felt the presence and heard the voice of God speaking directly to him in the vast open air of the mountains in his homeland, and by following those words, he had become the conqueror of great cities and huge nations."

An excerpt from a book I've started reading - Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, by Jack Weatherford. Quite interesting so far.

3-D printing of... a house

YouTube link.

"Located in Russia, this 400-square-foot home (37 square meters) was built in just a day, at a cost of just over $10,000... The main components of the house, including the walls, partitions and building envelope were printed solely with a concrete mixture. Fixtures like windows and furnishings were later added on, and a shiny coat of paint added to the exterior of the house.  The house consists of a hallway, bathroom, living room and kitchen."

Note the equipment used in this process is portable.  Details and interior photos here.

Blogcation

I'm tired of blogging, and I'm scheduled to give a lecture next weekend, so I'll plan to use much of this coming week to get materials ready for that.  You guys are on your own for a while.

From the archives of The New Yorker. 

Nazi-grave robbers are not Nazi grave-robbers

 

The distinction is explained at Bloomberg Business Week:

“In Latvia, it is normal for you to have dead soldiers on your yard,” Esmits said. “When people came back to their homes after the war, they saw there was a dead soldier here and a dead soldier there, and they just buried them.”..

During the final months of World War II, Latvia was the site of especially bloody battles between German and Soviet forces. Approximately 350,000 Nazis were cut off here from the rest of the German line in the autumn of 1944, in what became known as the Courland Pocket. In the months that followed, about 100,000 of them were killed...

... in recent years, the often illicit market in Nazi memorabilia has intensified, creating a new class of diggers across eastern Europe that is at odds with Esmits’s work. Of particular interest are relics... Some $50 million in military memorabilia is sold each year, according to an estimate by the Guardian, and Nazi items fetch a premium...

For the Volksbund, grave robbing remains a persistent problem, especially in Russia and Ukraine. “Grave robbers blight our work,” Kirchmeier says. Many illegal diggers dutifully give over information to officials if they come across a dead body, he says, but others “open graves and then take out anything they can sell—steel helmets, pieces of equipment, medals, belt buckles, personal mementos belonging to the dead, sometimes even the skull, leaving the rest of the bones on the forest floor.”

Yngve Sjodin, a Norway-based militaria seller who sometimes digs with Legenda, says he was confronted with a “black digger” during one of his first digs for soldiers in Latvia, in 2014. “He screamed at us that it was his forest,” he says, “and started attacking the guy next to me.” He adds, “The driving force for the black diggers is money, which they need to survive, or party, or whatever.”

Much more at the source.

Photo: German rifle grenades, a boot, drinking cup, mess kit lid, and gas mask recovered from a trench.  Credit: Reinis Hofmanis for Bloomberg Businessweek