This Poll Of South Carolina Republicans Is Terrifying

Think Progress points out This Poll Of South Carolina Republicans Is Terrifying

The poll, which involved 897 likely Republican primary voters who were contacted Sunday and Monday, revealed significant support for banning homosexuals from the country (20 percent in favor), shutting down U.S. mosques (29 percent), creating a national database of Muslims (47 percent), banning Islam (25 percent), and allowing South Carolina to hang the Confederate flag on the state capitol grounds in Columbia (54 percent). In fact, more than a quarter of respondents (30 percent) said they wished the South had won the Civil War."

Sigh.

It’s time to kill the $100 bill

WonkBlog writes It’s time to kill the $100 bill

The fact that — as Sands points out — in certain circles the 500 euro note is known as the ‘Bin Laden’ confirms the arguments against it. Sands’ extensive analysis is totally convincing on the linkage between high denomination notes and crime. He is surely right that illicit activities are facilitated when a million dollars weighs 2.2 pounds as with the 500 euro note rather than more than 50 pounds as would be the case if the $20 bill was the high denomination note. And he is equally correct in arguing that technology is obviating whatever need there may ever have been for high denomination notes in legal commerce.

This is the first I've heard of the proposal, but I love the idea of thinking about the weight of a million dollars.

Extremely severe bug leaves dizzying number of software and devices vulnerable

Ars reports Extremely severe bug leaves dizzying number of software and devices vulnerable

The vulnerability was introduced in 2008 in GNU C Library, a collection of open source code that powers thousands of standalone applications and most distributions of Linux, including those distributed with routers and other types of hardware. A function known as getaddrinfo() that performs domain-name lookups contains a buffer overflow bug that allows attackers to remotely execute malicious code. It can be exploited when vulnerable devices or apps make queries to attacker-controlled domain names or domain name servers or when they're exposed to man-in-the-middle attacks where the adversary has the ability to monitor and manipulate data passing between a vulnerable device and the open Internet. All versions of glibc after 2.9 are vulnerable.

Maintainers of glibc, as the open source library is called, released an update that patches the vulnerability. Anyone responsible for Linux-based software or hardware that performs domain name lookups should install it as soon as possible. For many people running servers, patching will be a simple matter of downloading the update and installing it. But for other types of users, a fix may not be so easy. Some apps that were compiled with a vulnerable version of glibc will have to be recompiled with an updated version of the library, a process that will take time as users wait for fixes to become available from hardware manufacturers and app developers."

The tragedy of Antonin Scalia.

Eric Posner wrote a great piece, The tragedy of Antonin Scalia. "He thought he could remove politics from the Supreme Court, but he only made things worse."

Scalia refused to acknowledge that originalism does not enable justices to decide cases neutrally. If they choose to adopt this methodology, and manage to figure out a way to make it constrain them, they are committed to enforcing mostly 18th-century values—which are, by definition, conservative.

In fact, the historical sources are rarely clear, and foundational questions about how originalism is supposed to proceed—including how much weight (if any) should be given to post-founding judicial precedents that deviate from the original understanding, and how broadly constitutional principles like “due process” and “equal protection” should be understood—are irresolvable. One of the original originalists—Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black—was a stalwart liberal. A liberal Yale law professor has mischievously proclaimed himself an originalist and shown how originalism can lead to liberal outcomes. Scalia’s interpretation of originalist sources has been frequently criticized, and in notable instances when he could not bend them to his will, he simply ignored them. His belief that campaign finance laws and commercial speech regulations violated the First Amendment would have surprised the founders, for example.

Why liberals loved to hate Antonin Scalia.

Dahlia Lithwick onWhy liberals loved to hate Antonin Scalia.. Read the whole thing, it's short but these were my favorite paragraphs:

For years and years, I told anyone who asked that the day the high court lost Scalia would be the day I quit covering it. On that day, which came Saturday, I knew the court was also losing everything dramatic and absurd and quotable, even as it lost its cartoon supervillain. What would be left when the man in full was gone? I won’t miss his mockery or the casual slights. In some ways he prefigured the 2016 election, with all of its finger-pointing, rage, and quick-on-the-trigger sound bites. Still, I fear that the court will be a less vivid, less passionate place in his absence, even as some of the most hateful of the court’s views will now perhaps be moderated.

In my years covering the court, I ground my molars into dust most weeks, wondering how Scalia could make being so wrong seem so intriguing. Prisoners, women, gays, minorities, workers, and living constitutionalism lost a great intellectual foe on Saturday. And in the coming months we may be witness to one of the nastiest constitutional battles in a generation. But for now, I am still trying to absorb the fact that a man who seemed like he would live, and love, and scoff, and snort forever was not immortal. And that as reprehensible as so many of his views were, we will be wrestling with him for decades to come. Asked for his reflections on Bush v. Gore, the justice was fond of saying, “Get over it.” We will not get over Scalia for a long, long time.

Researchers have discovered a much faster way to learn new skills

Researchers have discovered a much faster way to learn new skills:

Rather than doing the same thing over and over, you might be able to learn things even faster — like, twice as fast — if you change up your routine. Practicing your baseball swing? Change the size and weight of your bat. Trying to nail a 12-bar blues in A major on the guitar? Spend 20 minutes playing the blues in E major, too. Practice your backhand using tennis rackets of varying size and weight.

(Via Wonkblog)

U6 Is Now the Last Refuge of Scoundrels

Kevin Drum on Trumps claims about the unemployment rate: U6 Is Now the Last Refuge of Scoundrels . "On Tuesday Donald Trump repeated his fatuous nonsense about the real unemployment rate being 42 percent."

Trump is obviously just making shit up, but the 10 percent number is colorably legitimate. It's officially called U6, a measure of unemployment plus folks who have been forced to work part time plus workers who are 'marginally attached' to the labor force. Right now it stands at 9.9 percent.

But you can't just toss this out as a slippery way of making the economy seem like it's in horrible shape. If you're going to tout U6, you have to compare it to what's normal for U6. And what's normal in an expanding economy is about 8.9 percent. This means that even big, bad U6 is within a hair of its full-employment value."

Democrats and Republicans are both making misleading arguments about Justice Scalia's replacement

Vox explains the history and how Democrats and Republicans are both making misleading arguments about Justice Scalia's replacement .

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Known For Biting Dissents, Dies At 79

Nobody writes about the Supreme Court like Nina Totenberg. if you only read one Scalia obit, this should be it, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Known For Biting Dissents, Dies At 79

Last July: GOP Blocks Dozens of Obama Court Picks

This Politico article from last July offers some interesting perspective, Judge not: GOP blocks dozens of Obama court picks. I'd look to see if more progress has been made since then, but I expect I'll see articles on the topic in the coming week.

Republicans say statistics show that Obama is receiving comparable treatment to Bush. So far, Obama has gotten 311 judges installed nationwide — compared with 276 for Bush at the same point in his presidency.

And while Democrats boast that they had confirmed 21 judges at this point in 2007, Republicans noted that 13 of them had been awaiting floor consideration the previous year. In contrast, Democrats confirmed 27 judges during the lame-duck session late last year before Republicans took over.

“We’re trying to move them at about the same speed as the Democrats did when they took over the Senate the last two years of the Bush administration,” said Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). He said the Thurmond Rule “won’t be in effect until next summer.”

I guess summer starts in February.

The Democratic majority confirmed 68 district and circuit court nominees during Bush’s final two years, a mark that won’t be matched during this president’s final two years unless McConnell, Grassley and even Obama reprioritize the federal bench. And even that comparably torrid pace in 2007 and 2008 lags behind the confirmation rates of the final two years in office of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

It's funny to see the party of the unitary executive theory say the president shouldn't nominate a justice to a vacant seat on the Supreme Court. Chief Justice Roberts for several years has been begging Congress and the President to fill vacant federal seats to alleviate the strain on the courts. It will be interesting to see if he weighs in.

Here's another good article, How Obama Transformed the Federal Judiciary by Jeffrey Tobin from October 2014.

Frakking Related 5.1 and 3.9 Magnitude Earthquakes Recorded in Oklahoma

5.1 and 3.9 magnitude earthquakes recorded in Oklahoma

A 5.1 magnitude earthquake shook northwest Oklahoma and was felt in seven other states Saturday, the U.S. Geological Survey said, the third-strongest temblor ever recorded in the state where the power and frequency of earthquakes has dramatically increased in recent years.

The earthquake centered about 17 miles north of Fairview in northwestern Oklahoma occurred at 11:07 a.m. and was reportedly felt across Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico and Texas, the USGS said. At least 10 smaller quakes ranging in magnitude from 2.5 to 3.9 were recorded in the same area by late Saturday afternoon, according to the USGS. A magnitude 3.1 quake occurred near Crescent, about 75 miles east of Fairview, the USGS said.

Oklahoma's stronger and more frequent earthquakes have been linked to the injection into the ground of the briny wastewater left over from oil and gas production. The 10 earthquakes Saturday were in the same lightly populated area near Fairview, a town of about 2,600 that's about 100 miles northwest of Oklahoma City. The area has had several quakes of magnitude 4.0 since the start of the year."

I learned that a "temblor" is an earthquake. Also that there are no nuclear power plants in Oklahoma.

Antonin Scalia found dead at West Texas ranch

The San Antonio Express reports Senior U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia found dead at West Texas ranch "According to a report, Scalia arrived at the ranch on Friday and attended a private party with about 40 people. When he did not appear for breakfast, a person associated with the ranch went to his room and found a body."

Condolences to his family. The political ramifications are going to be interesting.

He would have turned 80 next month. He is the 15th longest serving Justice.

Worth reading up on the Thurmond Rule (named for racist) because people are going to bring it up.

I wonder if Justice Thomas will start asking questions at oral arguments.

Simpsons' Movie References

I think this clip was made specifically for me. Simpsons, movies and set to Benny Goodman's Sing Sing Sing. (Brief nudity so maybe NSFW).

The Simpsons movie references from cgmzz on Vimeo.

Ezra Klein and Rachel Maddow Chat

Ezra Klein has a new podcast, The Ezra Klein Show. The first episode is him talking with Rachel Maddow on skinhead protests, AIDS activism, and why she skips the op-ed page. If you like either of these people you'll love this conversation. It's mostly her bio but there are constant asides into their interests (e.g., comics) and interesting observations (one of Obama's challenges in running in 2008 was building an organization to compete against Hillary's who had most of the traditional democratic experts, but Tom Daschle and some other Congressional leaders had recently lost office and their expert staff was available). It's 1h40m long.

I listen to podcasts using Overcast on my iPhone. One of the great features is a speed boost that doesn't distort the sound. It's a free app, the advanced features are free too (there used to be an in-app purchase to unlock them but the author removed them and went with a patronage model).

Scientists Finally Detect Gravitational Waves

A hundred years ago Einstein predicted the existence of gravity waves rippling through space-time. They are the last prediction of relativity to go undetected and now have been observed.

The Verge has a nice overview article which includes a short video, Scientists have finally proven Einstein’s century-old theory about gravitational waves

The New Yorker has a more detailed article Gravitational Waves Exist: The Inside Story of How Scientists Finally Found Them. It includes some pictures of the instruments and prettier visualizations.

Weiss’s detection method was altogether different from Weber’s. His first insight was to make the observatory “L”-shaped. Picture two people lying on the floor, their heads touching, their bodies forming a right angle. When a gravitational wave passes through them, one person will grow taller while the other shrinks; a moment later, the opposite will happen. As the wave expands space-time in one direction, it necessarily compresses it in the other. Weiss’s instrument would gauge the difference between these two fluctuating lengths, and it would do so on a gigantic scale, using miles of steel tubing. “I wasn’t going to be detecting anything on my tabletop,” he said.

To achieve the necessary precision of measurement, Weiss suggested using light as a ruler. He imagined putting a laser in the crook of the “L.” It would send a beam down the length of each tube, which a mirror at the other end would reflect back. The speed of light in a vacuum is constant, so as long as the tubes were cleared of air and other particles the beams would recombine at the crook in synchrony—unless a gravitational wave happened to pass through. In that case, the distance between the mirrors and the laser would change slightly. Since one beam would now be covering a shorter distance than its twin, they would no longer be in lockstep by the time they got back. The greater the mismatch, the stronger the wave. Such an instrument would need to be thousands of times more sensitive than any previous device, and it would require delicate tuning in order to extract a signal of vanishing weakness from the planet’s omnipresent din.

“It never should have been built,” Isaacson told me. “It was a couple of maniacs running around, with no signal ever having been discovered, talking about pushing vacuum technology and laser technology and materials technology and seismic isolation and feedback systems orders of magnitude beyond the current state of the art, using materials that hadn’t been invented yet.”

It took years to make the most sensitive instrument in history insensitive to everything that is not a gravitational wave. Emptying the tubes of air demanded forty days of pumping. The result was one of the purest vacuums ever created on Earth, a trillionth as dense as the atmosphere at sea level. Still, the sources of interference were almost beyond reckoning—the motion of the wind in Hanford, or of the ocean in Livingston; imperfections in the laser light as a result of fluctuations in the power grid; the jittering of individual atoms within the mirrors; distant lightning storms. All can obscure or be mistaken for a gravitational wave, and each source had to be eliminated or controlled for. One of LIGO’s systems responds to minuscule seismic tremors by activating a damping system that pushes on the mirrors with exactly the right counterforce to keep them steady; another monitors for disruptive sounds from passing cars, airplanes, or wolves.

Some of the most painstaking work took place on the mirrors, which, Reitze said, are the best in the world “by far.” Each is a little more than a foot wide, weighs nearly ninety pounds, and is polished to within a hundred-millionth of an inch of a perfect sphere. (They cost almost half a million dollars apiece.) At first, the mirrors were suspended from loops of steel wire. For the upgrade, they were attached instead to a system of pendulums, which insulated them even further from seismic tremors. They dangle from fibres of fused silica—glass, basically—which, although strong enough to bear the weight of the mirrors, shatter at the slightest provocation. “We did have one incident where a screw fell and pinged one, and it just went poof,” Anamaria Effler, a former operations specialist at the Hanford site, told me. The advantage of the fibres is their purity, according to Jim Hough, of the University of Glasgow. “You know how, when you flick a whiskey glass, it will ring beautifully?” he asked. “Fused silica is even better than a whiskey glass—it is like plucking a string on a violin.” The note is so thin that it is possible for LIGO’s signal-processing software to screen it out—another source of interference eliminated.

So here's my favorite thing from the article. "Ultimately, he said, 'We accepted that the most economical explanation was that it really is a black-hole pair.'" That means that the most likely explanation of what their instruments were telling them is that a billion years ago two black holes merged and we're seeing the result now by measuring a laser bouncing off a mirror and seeing that it's a thousandth of a diameter of a proton off. Science is fucking amazing.

The importance is not just observing the theory. It's a new way for us to observe the universe. Until now, virtually everything has been seen via the electromagnetic force. Whether we use a visible light telescope or a radio telescope or spectrophotometer, those all basically detect photons moving at different frequencies. They are all part of one of the four physical forces. This is a direct measurement of gravity, a different force. Usually when we get a new instrument (the telescope, microscope, radio telescope, electron microscope, etc.) we get interesting new observations and unexpected science.

The LIGO scientists have extracted an astonishing amount from the signal, including the masses of the black holes that produced it, their orbital speed, and the precise moment at which their surfaces touched. They are substantially heavier than expected, a surprise that, if confirmed by future observations, may help to explain how the mysterious supermassive black holes at the heart of many galaxies are formed. The team has also been able to quantify what is known as the ringdown—the three bursts of energy that the new, larger black hole gave off as it became spherical. “Seeing the ringdown is spectacular,” Levin said. It offers confirmation of one of relativity theory’s most important predictions about black holes—namely, that they radiate away imperfections in the form of gravitational waves after they coalesce.

The detection also proves that Einstein was right about yet another aspect of the physical universe. Although his theory deals with gravity, it has primarily been tested in our solar system, a place with a notably weak gravitational regime. “You think Earth’s gravity is really something when you’re climbing the stairs,” Weiss said. “But, as far as physics goes, it is a pipsqueak, infinitesimal, tiny little effect.” Near a black hole, however, gravity becomes the strongest force in the universe, capable of tearing atoms apart. Einstein predicted as much in 1916, and the LIGO results suggest that his equations align almost perfectly with real-world observation. “How could he have ever known this?” Weiss asked. “I would love to present him with the data that I saw that morning, to see his face.”

Update: Here's a nice comic explanation of Gravitational Waves

The Coen brothers keep making the same film twice—and it’s brilliant

Asher Gelzer-Govatos writing in The A.V. Club makes a pretty clever association, The Coen brothers keep making the same film twice—and it’s brilliant "It makes sense to view the six films they have made in this span not as a series of movies connected only by the stylistic quirks of their directors, but as a series of diptychs, each dealing with a discrete subject viewed from multiple vantage points. Each comedy acts as a complement to the drama that has preceded it, shedding new light on the central preoccupations of its predecessor. No Country shares an important DNA strand with Burn After Reading; A Serious Man has more than a glancing relationship to True Grit; and Inside Llewyn Davis finds its counterpart in the newest Coen film, Hail, Caesar!"

Internet Hall of Fame

I did not know there was an Internet Hall of Fame.

National Security Agency Plans Major Reorganization

The Washington Post reports National Security Agency plans major reorganization "The National Security Agency, the largest electronic spy agency in the world, is undertaking a major reorganization, merging its offensive and defensive organizations in the hope of making them more adept at facing the digital threats of the 21st century, according to current and former officials."

"In place of the Signals Intelligence and Information Assurance directorates — the organizations that historically have spied on foreign targets and defended classified networks against spying, respectively — the NSA is creating a Directorate of Operations that combines the operational elements of each."

"“When it comes to cyber in particular, the line between collection capabilities and our own vulnerabilities — between the acquisition of signals intelligence and the assurance of our own information — is virtually nonexistent,” said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. “What is a vulnerability to be patched at home is often a potential collection opportunity abroad and vice versa.”"

Bruce Schneier doesn't think it's a good idea: "I think this will make it even harder to trust the NSA. In my book Data and Goliath, I recommended separating the attack and defense missions of the NSA even further, breaking up the agency. (I also wrote about that idea here.) And missing in their reorg is how US CyberCommmand's offensive and defensive capabilities relate to the NSA's. That seems pretty important, too."

It seems to me that the real problem is that NSA targets use the same systems as we do, and by we I mean our government, industry and civilians. By definition a hole in these systems means we're vulnerable too and fixing that hole removes a spying opportunity. If the offensive unit isn't going to share vulnerabilities then perhaps they should be separate.

‘The Force Awakens’ Reimagined As Calvin and Hobbes

‘The Force Awakens’ Reimagined As Calvin and Hobbes Will Make Your Heart Melt "Artist Brian Kesinger from Walt Disney animation studios drew ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ in the style of Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson and it was just perfect."

His instagram and twitter accounts are the source but have other stuff. This Rickey article looks like it's being updated with new images as they come out. These two are my favorites:

Frinkiac

Frinkiac "has nearly 3 million Simpsons screencaps so get to searching for crying out glaven!"

Frinkiac is a search engine for Simpsons quotes. It contains nearly 3 million screenshots (every episode from season 1 through 151) indexed by the quote they are associated with and has a variety of features to help you find the exact screenshot you're looking for. Once you've found it you can share it with your friends or make a quick meme. Never again find yourself wishing you could pinpoint the second his heart rips in half. You'll feel like god must feel when he's holding a gun.

Details here.

Top 10 Closing Shots of All Time

To go with their 10 Best Opening Shots of All Time, here are the 10 Best Closing Shots...

My Bathroom Mirror Is Smarter Than Yours

Max Braun claims My Bathroom Mirror Is Smarter Than Yours. He's probably right.

I don't think I'd really like such a thing, but it is kinda neat and certainly a cool DIY project.

The Democratic Caucus Was So Close Coin Tosses Were Invovled

This is how close the Democratic caucus was, in one tweet. The tweet is, "I've come across three instances in which a Democratic caucus delegate was awarded with a coin toss. Hillary Clinton won all three." MarketWatch says, Coin toss broke 6 Clinton-Sanders deadlocks in Iowa — and Hillary won each time

The delegate totals that are reported publicly — 689 and 686 — are estimates of the delegates each candidate would have at a statewide convention. But individual caucuses don't pick state delegates — at least not directly. Each caucus picks a set of delegates to a county convention, which then selects delegates for a district convention ... which then selects delegates for the statewide convention.

That makes four levels to the caucus process — and there are a lot more delegates at the county level (the level for which caucuses assigned delegates Monday) than at the state level. So while a coin toss at a precinct caucus definitely gives the winner an advantage, it's not as straightforward as 'winning a coin toss gets you an extra delegate in the statewide count.'

The fact that so many caucuses came down to coin tosses isn't necessarily an indication that the entire race could have gone one way or the other if not for a bit of luck — although that's certainly possible. What it definitely is, however, is an indication of just how evenly divided Democratic caucus-goers throughout Iowa were. In precinct after precinct, Iowa Democrats got together and found out that equal numbers of them supported Sanders and Clinton."

Ok, so it's not quite as big a deal but it's still stupid. We're voting, we're picking a president, a coin toss should have absolutely no role in this. Here's a better idea, if there are six districts tied, then split them 3-3. It's amazing to me that 16 years after the "hanging chad" fiasco in Florida we still can't manage to count. We can't even staff caucuses, It took all night to count all the votes in the Iowa Democratic caucus. Here's why.

The 100 Jokes That Shaped Modern Comedy

Vulture has a wonderful way to spend some time, they've compiled The 100 Jokes That Shaped Modern Comedy. Lots of video clips to watch.

A few notes on our methodology: We’ve defined ‘joke’ pretty broadly here. Yes, a joke can be a one-liner built from a setup and a punch line, but it can also be an act of physical comedy. Pretending to stick a needle in your eye, or pooping in the street while wearing a wedding dress: both jokes. A joke, as defined by this list, is a discrete moment of comedy, whether from stand-up, a sketch, an album, a movie, or a TV show.

For clarity’s sake, we’ve established certain ground rules for inclusion. First, we decided early on that these jokes needed to be performed and recorded at some point. Second, with apologies to Monty Python, whose influence on contemporary comedy is tremendous and undeniable, we focused only on American humor. Third, we only included one joke per comedian. And fourth, the list doesn't include comedy that we ultimately felt was bad, harmful, or retrograde."

One In Three Americans Had Their Health Records Breached In 2015

One In Three Americans Had Their Health Records Breached In 2015, As Hackers Follow The Money From Retail To Medical Data "At least 111 million individuals’ data was compromised due to hacking or information technology problems in 2015, according to a report released Wednesday by cloud security company Bitglass, based on numbers made available by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. That comes after a December IBM report that found a 1,166 percent increase in reported healthcare breaches, resulting in the compromise of “nearly” 100 million records."

I find it hard to believe that last year a third of Americans had their healthcare data "compromised" (whatever that means). No one I know has mentioned such things happening to them (maybe it's just not being exploited?). I get that's it's a viable way to get information for identity theft, but again, I don't believe a third of americans had their identities stolen last year. Still it makes complete sense to me that with no oversight or consequences, healthcare providers have really crappy security.

Still a frined on Facebook was asking if when changing pediatricians could they just ask for their health records. The general response is yes, they're your's but you get a copy and the doctor keeps a copy. That sounds reasonable but she was charged $50 for copies, because...copiers. I did find it cool that I could get copies of x-rays for free on a CD at the time of the x-ray. Now if only my iMac had a CD drive :)