Sandbox (3)

Sometimes very active discussions about peripheral issues overwhelm a thread, so this is a permanent home for those conversations.

This is also a continuation of previous Sandbox threads (1) and (2) that have fallen victim to the dreaded page bug.

1,013 thoughts on “Sandbox (3)”

  7. I want to extend my thanks to Alan Fox, Neil Rickert, Rumraket and Allan Miller for running and participating in TSZ.

    A discussion of a lysyl oxidase two years ago has proven to be very valuable to a project I’m currently working on:

    Beating a dead horse (Darwin’s Doubt)

    As always thank you [Allan Miller] for reading and responding. Even though we’re usually in sharp disagreement, I often come away from the discussion with something of value personally. If nothing else, make me want to keep studying chemistry.

    With respect to your claim, because of the limited number of folds in living organisms, it is true there will be structural correlation with as little as 12% pairwise identity.
    http://peds.oxfordjournals.org/content/12/2/85.full

    Indeed, most similar protein structure pairs appear to have less than 12% pairwise sequence identity (Rost, 1997).

    The fact I can still find that comment at TSZ and that oh-so important paper in the link is priceless. Thank you all, and thank you God for TSZ!

  8. Socrates’ Children

    How is this history of philosophy different from all others?

    It remains perennially unpublished. I think this volume was originally planned to come out in 2013 or so and they keep moving the date.

  10. I’ve been unable to post at TSZ for a few days, partly because I met up with Allan Miller for lunch yesterday in the Tech valley. If I owe anyone a response, my apologies, and please feel free to give me a nudge via PM or a comment here.

  11. Alan Fox: I’ve been unable to post at TSZ for a few days, partly because I met up with Allan Miller for lunch yesterday in the Tech valley

    Allan Miller has been holding you hostage, and preventing you from posting?

    Okay, that isn’t what you intended to say, but your wording was a tad careless.

  13. Neil Rickert,

    There are worse things than being held hostage over lunch by Allan Miller. 😉 Just to report Allan has now paddled in the Mediterranean and, inshallah, should be back home in a day or so. And I hope he can then find time to respond to comments in his “Evolution of Sex” thread.

  14. Science Mag,
    Ancient DNA reveals fate of the mysterious Canaanites

    One of those sources is the Bible’s Old Testament, which suggests a grisly end for many Canaanites: After the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt, God ordered them to destroy Canaan and its people (though other passages suggest that some Canaanites may have survived). But did that really happen? Archaeological data suggests that Canaanite cities were never destroyed or abandoned. Now, ancient DNA recovered from five Canaanite skeletons suggests that these people survived to contribute their genes to millions of people living today.

    http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/07/ancient-dna-counters-biblical-account-mysterious-canaanites

  15. Alan Fox,

    There are worse things than being held hostage over lunch by Allan Miller.

    If I’d known I was preventing vital TSZ work … priorities! Your dolmen hunting skills need a little refinement too 😉 . Very pleasant lunch it was too though.

    Just to report Allan has now paddled in the Mediterranean and, inshallah, should be back home in a day or so. And I hope he can then find time to respond to comments in his “Evolution of Sex” thread.

    Yep, it’s right up there on my ‘to do’ list, after the lawn, the hedge, edit my photos, learn a new song, do a gig, visit my daughter … !

  16. Allan Miller: Your dolmen hunting skills need a little refinement too

    It’s my map mislaying skills I need to work on! Thanks for the photo of Caixa de Rotllan. Never been the subject of an archeological dig, I see.

    Anyway, glad to see you back safely in civilization.

  19. Many years ago I had an argument with a co-worker about me having to pay more taxes to pay for the food of welfare moms and their kids who were born out of wedlock and the daddy skipped town. I was working fulltime as an engineer and simultaneously going to school full time. What the crap will she and the absentee daddy ever do for me, and why the crap should I be recruited to fix their problems?

    I resented my taxes being forcibly collected to pay for the mess two people made of their lives and their kids. If the government demands I pay X% of my money for the public good, I’d rather be the one to choose the charity it goes to rather than dishonest politicians. I give money to widows and orphans whom I deem worthy. I resent the government deciding for me that some stranger will get my money without my direct say.

    Any way here is Ben Shapiro in debate against some left-winger saying it better than I ever could say it:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgSdHMVvJfI#t=291.4556277

  20. Sal,

    Many years ago I had an argument with a co-worker about me having to pay more taxes to pay for the food of welfare moms and their kids who were born out of wedlock and the daddy skipped town. I was working fulltime as an engineer and simultaneously going to school full time. What the crap will she and the absentee daddy ever do for me, and why the crap should I be recruited to fix their problems?

    Yeah, screw the little brats. They should have chosen their father more carefully.

    Jesus wept.

  21. On this anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, it’s worth considering the comparable effects of left wing politics that devastated Detroit Michigan. Below is a comparison of Hiroshima and Detroit at the time of the atomic bomb drop and today (see below for some hyperbole).

    But on a more serious note:
    http://www.leftwingnonsense.com/A_Liberal_Utopia.html

    A Liberal Utopia.

    There was once a great place, with good jobs, growth and wealth. It had it all: Educational institutions, manufacturing jobs; entrepreneurs and innovators; and natural resources. It had transportation advantages and geographical advantage. It sat next to large country without a lot of manufacturing: Another market to move into. It grew bigger and wealthier. During World War II, it had government contracts. Its population was growing. It was the wealthiest place in America. Because of organized labor, the African American migration north, large immigrant population and strong government employment, it had a strong base to provide Democrat party majorities, and liberal government.

    The Democratic Party government became more entrenched, and it was one of the most liberal governments in the United States. It had everything needed to create a liberal utopia. More government jobs, more welfare, more union power. It had middle class wealth, corporate wealth, and low unemployment. Think what it could become over the next 50 years. What would progressive government do with all the abundance?

    It became a disaster. It now has one of the highest unemployment rates in America. A majority of its kids cannot read, let alone graduate from High School. It is now one of the poorest places in America. Millions of dollars are now spent to bulldoze empty buildings and billions are spent with one plan after another to save the city. Blocks in once prosperous areas are vacant. It has one of the highest crime rates in America, and its one party, the democrat party, is corrupt. It now has only a short time till bankruptcy.

    If you haven’t guessed it yet, the place, the liberal utopia, is Detroit.

    What happened? The decline cannot be attributed to one corrupt politician, or one unfortunate mistake. Instead, it was the belief in the Democratic Party, government jobs, and big unions. It was a political ignorance of the free market economy. First, the upper middle class fled the city to the suburbs, robbing the city of the tax base. Then, somewhere, along the way, other countries realized that they could build cars: Japan, Germany, and then the US right to work states. The suburbs, now taxed by the state to support the city, lost population to other states. Further, companies began to move to greener pastures, and no one wanted to start their businesses here. All the advantages went down the drain. Instead of competing, they held fast while they lost jobs, lost the tax base, lost the advantage that they had. Businesses moved out, and took their employees. The creators, innovators and entrepreneurs left too. Really, who would want to move to Detroit? Who would want to subject themselves to crime, their kids to a substandard education, and their businesses and futures to a corrupt Democratic Party government? No one would ever anticipate anything ever getting better.

  22. stcordova,

    Are taxes somehow a leftist thing? Don’t all governments anytime anywhere impose taxes?

    Moreover, don’t welfare laws mirror the OT, where duties towards the poor etc. are laid out in the Law of Moses? Isn’t it the duty of the country (and its general population) to take care of its own poor like in any decent family? Why should this be left to individual generosity, which most individuals, such as yourself, don’t have anyway?

  23. Thomas Sowell who grew up in Harlem and is now a Stanford professor on the Legacy of the Welfare State:

  25. stcordova,

    What a ridiculous argument Sal. Should I be able to decide I want none of my taxes to pay for the military? Also I don’t want to pay for roads, is that ok?

  27. Here’s a photo of republicans:

    http://humanevents.com/2006/08/16/why-martin-luther-king-was-republican/

    It should come as no surprise that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican. In that era, almost all black Americans were Republicans. Why? From its founding in 1854 as the anti-slavery party until today, the Republican Party has championed freedom and civil rights for blacks. And as one pundit so succinctly stated, the Democrat Party is as it always has been, the party of the four S’s: slavery, secession, segregation and now socialism.

    It was the Democrats who fought to keep blacks in slavery and passed the discriminatory Black Codes and Jim Crow laws. The Democrats started the Ku Klux Klan to lynch and terrorize blacks. The Democrats fought to prevent the passage of every civil rights law beginning with the civil rights laws of the 1860s, and continuing with the civil rights laws of the 1950s and 1960s.

  28. Professor Walter Williams at my undergrad alma mater points out:

    http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/walter-e-williams/true-black-tragedy-illegitimacy-rate-nearly-75

    Hustlers and people with little understanding want us to believe that today’s black problems are the continuing result of a legacy of slavery, poverty and racial discrimination. The fact is that most of the social pathology seen in poor black neighborhoods is entirely new in black history. Let’s look at some of it.

    Today the overwhelming majority of black children are raised in single female-headed families. As early as the 1880s, three-quarters of black families were two-parent. In 1925 New York City, 85 percent of black families were two-parent. One study of 19th-century slave families found that in up to three-fourths of the families, all the children had the same mother and father.

    Today’s black illegitimacy rate of nearly 75 percent is also entirely new. In 1940, black illegitimacy stood at 14 percent. It had risen to 25 percent by 1965, when Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action” and was widely condemned as a racist. By 1980, the black illegitimacy rate had more than doubled, to 56 percent, and it has been growing since. Both during slavery and as late as 1920, a teenage girl raising a child without a man present was rare among blacks.

    Much of today’s pathology seen among many blacks is an outgrowth of the welfare state that has made self-destructive behavior less costly for the individual. Having children without the benefit of marriage is less burdensome if the mother receives housing subsidies, welfare payments and food stamps. Plus, the social stigma associated with unwed motherhood has vanished. Female-headed households, whether black or white, are a ticket for dependency and all of its associated problems. Ignored in all discussions is the fact that the poverty rate among black married couples has been in single digits since 1994.

    Black youth unemployment in some cities is over 50 percent. But high black youth unemployment is also new. In 1948, the unemployment rate for black teens was slightly less than that of their white counterparts — 9.4 percent compared with 10.2.

    I don’t think racism by whites has caused this rate of absentee fathers in black communities and the ensuing higher probability of all sorts of pathologies.

    It’s now evident how the leftists wasted my hard earned money while I working as an engineer and going to school fulltime.

  29. stcordova,

    Guess which party welcomed those segregationists with open arms after the Voting Rights was passed?

    “The idea that King was a Republican is built on a historical sleight of hand. King’s father, the Rev. Martin Luther “Daddy” King Sr., was a Republican. But so were many blacks in the early to mid-20th century. Then the Republican Party was the party of Abraham Lincoln, the Great Liberator. That party identification, though, started shifting in the mid- to late 20th century as Democratic presidents began championing civil rights.
    (Daddy King publicly shifted allegiance to the Democrats when President John F. Kennedy displayed public sympathy for his son.)
    Legum, in an essay for ThinkProgress, cited a 1958 interview where King said, “I’m not inextricably bound to either party.”
    King, though, was particularly critical of the Republican Party’s selection of Barry Goldwater, an archconservative, as its 1964 presidential candidate.
    King worked closely with President Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat, to help spur the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, two critical civil rights laws championed by Johnson. When Johnson ran for president in 1964, King let the public know which party he preferred, Legum says.
    “He was basically campaigning for Johnson in 1964,” Legum says of King.”

  30. phoodoo: Should I be able to decide I want none of my taxes to pay for the military?

    Yes.

    phoodoo: Also I don’t want to pay for roads, is that ok?

    Yes.

    🙂

  31. stcordova: Here’s a photo of republicans:

    I am somewhere in that shot, and was not a Republican then.

    A fairer summary would be that the Democratic Party in that era was an alliance of northern urban political machines that were mostly liberal, and southern segregationists. The Civil Rights Movement forced the issue, and Democratic Party had to come down off the fence. After the civil rights laws were passed in the mid-1960s, white southerners started their odyssey from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party.

  33. Phoodoo:

    Should I be able to decide I want none of my taxes to pay for the military?

    Yes, I think so.

    The solution.

    Set the tax rate, but let the tax payer’s earmark which public project the money goes to! In the computer age this should be feasible. I the government collects taxes, I’ll ear mark them for the NIH, NASA, FEMA, public works and for compensation and care of wounded veterans.

  34. Joe Felsenstein:

    I am somewhere in that shot,

    You’re a good man, Joe. I salute you. Guys like you helped make life better for non-whites like me. Thank you.

  35. Joe Felsenstein: A fairer summary would be that the Democratic Party in that era was an alliance of northern urban political machines that were mostly liberal, and southern segregationists.

    And Southern liberals.

  37. stcordova: Yes, I think so.

    The solution.

    Set the tax rate, but let the tax payer’s earmark which public project the money goes to!In the computer age this should be feasible.I the government collects taxes, I’ll ear mark them for the NIH, NASA, FEMA, public works and for compensation and care of wounded veterans.

    If Phoodoo chooses not to pay for roads, what is stopping him from using them? Not fund NIH , we keep their research private?

  38. Joe Felsenstein: There weren’t a whole hell of a lot of those.Though the ones I met back then were very brave and admirable people.

    In my house there were, compared to the hardcore racists it was not hard to be considered liberal

  39. Still waiting for Sal to explain why kids should suffer for “choosing” the wrong parents.

  40. Jesus would throw up in his mouth if he knew what these far right christian wackos believe

  41. newton: In my house there were,compared to the hardcore racists it was not hard to be considered liberal

    I grew up in the south and have lived on northeastern cities. The northern cities are much more troubled by racism. By and large, southerners are not wealthy enough to send their kids to private schools.

    Bigotry now is more about class than skin color. More about education level than money.

  42. stcordova: Yes, I think so.

    The solution.

    Set the tax rate, but let the tax payer’s earmark which public project the money goes to!In the computer age this should be feasible.I the government collects taxes, I’ll ear mark them for the NIH, NASA, FEMA, public works and for compensation and care of wounded veterans.

    This is such ridiculous folly, that it almost has to be followed up with folly Sal. You don’t seem to get the concept of a community very well Sal, or a country.

    I noticed you didn’t decide to earmark any money for police Sal-you won’t be needing them? You also don’t need the military? What about the FDA, you won’t have to worry if you kids are eating poison? Cool.

    But, there is one problem, are you going to have enough money left over, after you have given your money to NASA, to buy the guns and ammo you are going to need from all the out of work street sweepers, and garbage collectors, and orphaned kids of the former trucking and farming industry, who are going to start banging on your front door, to steal your food (that is if enough people click the NASA box on their taxes, if not you will also be fending off the former NASA employees kids)?

    You have actually spent time thinking about this, now have you Sal? And after your intense intellectual curiosity, you have discovered that to run a country better, you don’t need decision makers, managers, they are a waste. EVERYONE should be a manager. In fact, that is how all companies should be run, not with a boss, but with employees ALL deciding the best way to run the company, individually! What could possibly go wrong!

    “Listen Mr Ford, I don’t think cars should have four tires, I think they should have six.” “Nope, I want them to have three in the front, one in the middle, and none in the back, that is how I am going to put the cars together Mr Ford. And I don’t like Michigan, I prefer Tiajuana, let’s invest in a factory there! Free nachos for everyone!”

  43. newton: If Phoodoo chooses not to pay for roads, what is stopping him from using them? Not fund NIH , we keep their research private?

    Nothing is stopping me, because Sal didn’t pay for the highway patrol. And if Sal doesn’t like it, let him sue me. There is no money for federal courts anyway.

    But all those vets who need health care, that’s not my problem, that’s yours Sal. I didn’t click the boxes for bullet proof vests anyway.

  44. newton: Just don’t drive on my roads or use anything that uses my roads.

    No no, Sal still wants to use the roads, he just doesn’t want to pay for them. What’s the problem?

  45. phoodoo: No no, Sal still wants to use the roads, he just doesn’t want to pay for them.What’s the problem?

    Next thing you know he will want us to subsidize his education

  46. phoodoo: Nothing is stopping me, because Sal didn’t pay for the highway patrol.And if Sal doesn’t like it, let him sue me.There is no money for federal courts anyway.

    But all those vets who need health care, that’s not my problem, that’s yours Sal. I didn’t click the boxes for bullet proof vests anyway.

    Irrefutable logic

  47. petrushka:
    I grew up in the south and have lived on northeastern cities. The northern cities are much more troubled by racism. By and large, southerners are not wealthy enough to send their kids to private schools.

    Bigotry now is more about class than skin color. More about education level than money.

    Ever been to Mississippi, they might be 50th in every other category but they don’t take the backseat to anyone when it came to racism.

  49. newton: Ever been to Mississippi, they might be 50th in every other category but they don’t take the backseat to anyone when it came to racism.

    I’ve never been to Mississippi, but I’ve lived in the south side of Chicago. I’ve seen what happened to my wife’s childhood neighborhood.

  50. Ever been to Mississippi

    Well yes. I didn’t see much racism there, personally, so times probably have changed a lot (for the better).

    Ah yes, the marvelous casino towns of Mississippi that are here now with some gone away:

    Greenville (scary place, looked like left-wing Detroit in some places)
    Lula ( ok )
    Tunica (escorted out under threat of arrest)
    Vicksburg (escorted out under threat of arrest)
    Biloxi (my favorite)

    Ah yes, Biloxi and the Beau Rivage

    Ever been to Mississippi, they might be 50th in every other category

    Actually they’ve ranked #1 for some years for the fattest people in the USA! Congratulations to Mississippi:
    http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/mississippi-the-fattest-state-again/article/2565096

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