I’m almost afraid to see what you come up with today…
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Ethics Alarms 
A little encouragement (and inadvertent?) humor and schadenfreude from an article cited at the Net Zero Watch website: “In August, a German company began dismantling a wind farm in Westphalia to make way for a coal mine expansion.”
Oh, it is worse than that. They are going to fuel their coal-fired plants with lignite (not bitumous or anthracite) because they shut down their nuclear reactors over ‘global warming’. Yes, substituting nuclear reactors for lignite is ‘environmentally friendly’ now.
The German government is giving Siemens five billion Euro to cover their losses on wind turbines and buck up their balance sheet.
https://x.com/BMWK/status/1720130870864998800?s=20
It is a shame we don’t have a president that can speak like this.
I am still wondering if Hamas is using the Palestinians as human shields or are the Palestinians using Hamas as a means to protect their victim status.
“However, precisely now, this fear has returned. Here, today in Germany, almost 80 years after the Holocaust. ”
I didn’t watch it all, but he makes some powerful points — and especially describes the special relationship Germany has with Israel precisely because of what happened in the Third Reich.
I hope Germans and others around the world take heed.
Here is an article worth commenting about.
https://reason.com/volokh/2023/11/02/are-right-wingers-more-prone-to-believe-conspiracy-theories-than-left-wingers/
The problem with the ‘conspiracy label’ is what is labelled a ‘conspiracy theory’.
Conspiracy theories:
“Trump didn’t conspire with Russia to win his election”
“Covid-19 was developed in a lab”
“Covid-19 was developed using NIH funds”
“Covid vaccines weren’t tested for safety and efficacy the way all previous vaccines were”
“Covid vaccines aren’t actually vaccines, they are gene therapies”
“Hunter Biden’s laptop shows that the Bidens take bribes from foreign governments”
“The Obama Administration spied on the Trump campaign”
“There were a bunch of federal agents at the Jan 6 mess”
“Brian Sicknick wasn’t beated to death by Jan 6 protestors”
“Masks don’t stop COVID”
So, lots of conservatives believed these conspiracy theories.
The best explanation of the conspiracy theory fallacy I’ve found:
https://iaindavis.com/some-call-it-conspiracy-theory/
The label of “conspiracy theory” is intended to stop people from questioning the state. It is a propaganda tool, not a psychological diagnosis.
https://twitter.com/gaza_report/status/1720457311951499372?s=46&t=hYBRdyKc75ixaD6bBbzJZw
An ordinarily anti-Israel observer of the 2023 Hamas War- this account is openly reporting *this*.
They’ve feigned objectivity in the past but have had a clear and present bias.
And yet they report this.
I’m really forcing myself to not wonder what the angle is and accept that they may actually be waking up to the reality.
So you probably knew I was going to make a baseball post today.
Just parenthetically, I note that the Texas Rangers are WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS!
That also means that baseball has come to an end for another year. *sigh*
But what I am actually posting about is robo-umps. I’ve probably watch (as opposed to listened) to more baseball in the past 5 or 6 weeks than the previous two or three years combined. And I’ve been watching the little strike zone box on the screen.
Fox, or whoever was televising the Series, has a nifty little feature where the virtual baseball on the screen turns red when it’s in the calculated strike zone, and then you could see what the umpire ruled. Just by the by, does it not seem that umpires, especially on called strike threes, are taking a relatively long time to call strikes?
At any rate, I noted that whilst umpires’ calls generally agreed with the TV strike box, there were a decent number of pitches where that was not the case. From comments by the broadcasters, it sounds like an accuracy rate of about 95% or so is considered very good.
Fair enough — it people we’re talking about not machines. But I think watching this is gradually causing me to shift somewhat more in favor of the robo-umps calling balls and strikes. By and large, I don’t think umpire screwups really affected the games much (at least, after taking into account the challenges and reviews). Possibly because MLB uses the umpires it regards as the best, so you don’t expect egregious errors (which, of course, can happen to anyone on occasion). And I don’t think challenges and reviews slowed the games that much — as contrasted to, say, most NCAA basketball games no matter how insignificant.
So I am softening my stance on automatic balls and strikes calling.
===================
Something else that really struck me, while I was exclusively listening to radio feeds all through the playoffs. For much of October, it seemed that between innings MLB.com was virtually nothing but a PSA fest — I cannot count how many Smokey Bear spots I listened to or spots on adoption. However, at some point, with just a few day left it was like they woke up one morning and said, “Hey, maybe there’s people listening to our broadcasts. Maybe we should, you know, haul out some actual commercials from, like, real companies that sell stuff.” From that point on, the PSAs were toast. It was strange.
=========================
And, just in case you might have missed it: THE RANGERS WON THE WORLD SERIES!
If I read Facebook correctly, Jack is less than nonplussed by the Rangers victory.
The Texas rangers always remind me of the delightful story of German soldiers who heard that “army rangers” were coming and were terrified because they assumed that meant the “Texas Rangers” of western lore, which they had read so much about as boys being fierce frontier warriors that asked no questions and took few prisoners.
Oh, no I quite understand that Jack is not excited about a Rangers win — but at the same time he totally understands the thrill of finally breaking through after many decades to win a title.
It seems to me that I read a story somewhere about the Texas Rangers being called upon to quell a riot somewhere in Texas. The mayor was astonished to see that they only sent one Ranger and questioned headquarters about it.
Their response: Well, you only had one riot, right?
If I was a German soldier, I sure wouldn’t want to come up against a Texas Ranger either.
I’m always happy when the clearly best WS team wins, unless its the Yankees. This may be a hangover from losing a fortune betting on the Orioles in 1969 against all my New York friends backing the Miracle Mets, which were inferior in every way.
Absolutely.
I’m sure you know that the New York NHL team is named “Rangers” because its first owner was Tex Ritter, the great Western singer (and father of John Ritter of “3’s Company Fame.) Hence the team was “Tex’s Rangers.” The team name is based on a play on words.
I didn’t know that. That’s awesome.
Never mind all that…Shoulda been the Braves!
That one strike call in the 9th inning of Game 4 against the D-Backs was egregious, and I was glad the Fox team carped about it right into Game 5. 95% isn’t good enough: just one call that bad can change the outcome of a game.
I have been thinking a lot recently about a situation I had when my oldest was 4. We received free preschool and a requirement was that I spend one day at the facility to observe. One of the children was extremely cruel to my daughter saying things like “you have no friends” “everyone hates you”, etc and the other children naturally copied. I, of course, didn’t like this and told the teacher so. She told me “If you only knew what he’s been through, you’d understand.” I was so shocked, I had no response at the time, but she didn’t attend school there at age 5. My feelings on this was they made their choice and they chose the bully. Fast forward a few years to another child in another public school. This one was my middle daughters friend in 2nd grade. The boy was physically pushing her against walls and my nephew and others got in trouble for protecting this little girl. The mother told me the principal told her the same “If you only knew what he’s been through, you’d understand.” (That child’s family moved in the middle of the night a few months later.)
I have heard this excuse (is it on the rationalizations list?) frequently in the public school system. I now have a reply.
It doesn’t matter. I am very sorry and wish they had a better loving family, but it doesn’t matter. You can’t excuse poor behavior because of what someone has been through. It does them no favors to give them a pass to treat others like this and it certainly doesn’t do the other child any good.
Now we get to the Hamas attack and I’m hearing this same excuse again. “If you only knew what they’ve been through, you’d understand.” No, I don’t understand and I don’t care what bad blood is in their past or why. Today, now, they are wrong and so are you if you tolerate it. I am sorry that happened to them. I truly am, but that’s no excuse for bad behavior towards innocents. Whether it’s kids in school or groups, it’s not okay and we need to say so.
Under this rationale, vigilantism can be excused.
Under this rationale, Israel could dust Gaza with cesium-137.
That rationalization isn’t on the list, though other are around it and close. I’m going to add it. Nice catch.
That is exactly right. As the saying goes, two wrongs don’t make a right.
Past bad experiences don’t give you a pass to commit atrocities.