Comment to “Kofi Annan and populists”

Those of us who have the interest or the time can access a large variety of news and make some sense between opinion and facts.

Unfortunately, too many people get their news and opinion from a half-hour or an hour of watching a rather limited number of facts or opinions.

See

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/theworldpost/wp/2018/05/09/kofi-annan/?utm_term=.de64780f9b30

Counter to “Republicans” and facts

Comment to Paul Krugman’s “Facts Have a Well-Known Liberal Bias”, New York Times, 201-12-08

I think a counter-attack to these distorters of facts should be repeating over and over again their misinterpretation and misrepresentation of so many ideas.

To them, a free market means corporations are free to do what they please.  But a true free market is:

Many buyers and sellers.
Both buyers and sellers are free to enter or leave the market.
Both buyers and sellers have all the information they need.
There are no externalities (all costs are paid for in the transactions

They cherry-pick “sacred” texts to suit themselves.

Adam Smith in “On the Wealth of Nations” observed the England had laws the prevent the workers from organizing to raise wages but none to prevent the masters from organizing to keep wages down.

Adam Smith warned that those who live by profit are not to be trusted.

“Originalist” judges have changed the Constitution to mean that corporations are people.

Laugh in the name of science

In a plea for me to support the Union of Concerned Scientists I received the "2008 Center for Science and Democracy Calendar".  It has 12 hilarious cartoons about those who try to deny the science behind so much: climate change, football head injuries, and more.  Normally I throw solicitations away, but this had a real cool calendar.  I sent the solicitation back with a five-dollar bill and kept the calendar.

I checked the website at http://www.ucsusa.org/ but only found the 2017 calendar at https://store.ucsusa.org/collections/all-products.

Some sane advice from one pair of communication directors to another.

"Here’s the first rule: Your job is not to suck up to your boss. We know he probably gave you marching orders to go out there on Saturday and say stuff you (and everyone else) knew was not only false, or even demonstrably false, but jarringly, alarmingly, monumentally false.”

"Dear Sean Spicer: A few tips to maker your job easier",  Peter Donolo and Jason MacDonald, former communication directors to Prime Ministers of Canada, to Sean Spicer, Donald Trump’s Press Secretary, The Globe and Mail, 24 January 2017.

A little math test

A headline on Yahoo! Finance reads:

American families spent 16% more on college this year

Just what does it mean?

Did all the families who spent money on college last year spend 16% more this year?

Or:

Did 16% more families spend money on college this year?

The article does mention that tuition only rose about 2%, and it does mention that some families are spending more because they can afford to.

So, the short answer is that more analysis is needed and that headline writers have to be careful of their wording.  Good journalism is factual, not sensational.

Distortions in family history

If you are working on your family history, be careful of what you are told.  What you are told could be made up or it could be misinterpreted.  Document everything and then crosscheck it with other documents.

The most blatant tale that I can think of is what my mother told me around a St. Patrick's Day.  She said, "We are Orange Irish."  One, her ancestors were from England and Germany, not Ireland.  Two, she didn't know any of her in-laws besides her U.S. born father-in-law and German-born mother-in-law.

So far, I have found only one Magree ancestor going back four generations that was not born in the United States.  My great grandfather, John James Richard Magree, was born in Liverpool, England of an American father and an English mother.  Given that her maiden name was Pope, she may or may not have had Irish ancestors.  Many Irish immigrated to Liverpool.  However, all of the other records that I have for him say he was born in the U.S. and more specifically in Brooklyn.

I do know that the name Magree is centered in Kilkenny, Ireland and some of those Magrees are buried in a Catholic Church cemetery.  If my Magree ancestors were from there, they most likely would have been Catholic.

I was told that my grandfather was born in Poughkeepsie, New York.  But his death certificate gives Brooklyn, his parents were in a Brooklyn city directory at the time of his birth, and one of his sister's birth certificates gives that same address.  But somebody else on ancestry.com has that sister born in Poughkeepsie!

I read the death certificate of my paternal grandmother's father as his birthplace being "Schlossing"; the information was provided by one of his sons.  Knowing my grandmother was born in Germany I kept looking for a town with that name.  Then it dawned on me that it should be "Schlesien", German for Silesia.  Silesia is now mostly in Poland.  Somebody else on ancestry.com had his birth as "Schlassing".  As part of checking if my grandmother may have been Catholic, I looked up Silesia.  I learned that there is a Silesian German and the speakers call themselves Schlässinger.  I have since found out that my grandmother's town of leaving was called Osseg; it is now Osiek in Polish.

I have learned so much family history in the last thirty years, but I will need another thirty years to even fill in details about the people whose names I know.

But, regardless of where my ancestors came from, I do not consider myself Orange Irish or Green Irish or German or Polish or even Brooklynite:)  My nationality is American!
See also What nationality are you?  An irrelevant question!

My TicTacToe Hypothesis

I've long wondered about the relation of the size of a TicTacToe grid and the number of squares to the outcome of a game.  For example, a 2x2 grid will always be won by the first player:

The odd numbers are the first player's moves, and the even are the second player's moves.

Part one of my hypothesis is that an n to the nth grid will always be won by the first player.  So far, so good!

If we now try a 3x3 (n+1 to the nth+1) grid, we get the following result:

Many people know that in 3x3 TicTacToe game that either the first player will win or a tie will result, especially if the first player always starts from the center.  In the above example, we have a tie because neither player has any moves that will lead to a win. The red numbers are blocking moves.  The only way player two would lose is by making his or her next move in the lower left corner.


Now let's try a three-dimensional game.  If the grid is 3x3x3, then player one can always win with careful play:

Again the red numbers are blocking moves and the green numbers are the winning moves.  The second player has only two choices for the fourth move (8), as shown or where the first player made the winning move (9).  Neither would have prevented the first player's win.

OK, let's try a 4x4x4 game.  After several tries where the first player won, I found one where the second player won, even though the first player kept trying to take the initiative:

The two red X's are the only choices the first player has, either of which still allows the second player to make the winning move.  Can you find which move by the second player put the first player on the defensive?

And thus goes my hope of a grand theory of TicTacToe crashing to the ground, pulled down by the weight of contrary evidence.  My hypothesis is that I went too long to test my TicTacToe hypothesis and kept getting my hopes higher and higher.

Use and misuse of words: theory and hypothesis

"'I am taking what you have told me, and what is in this book, and what I have seen and heard, and making an imagining from them.'

"'A hypothesis,' I said, 'That is what Windlow called it.  A hypothesis; an imagining which might be true.'" - "The True Game: Wizard's Eleven", Sheri S. Tepper

How often have you heard an idea is "only a theory", for example, evolution?  Often others retort that gravity is only a theory, but don't walk off a cliff.

All of us should learn to use each word in its proper context.  A hypothesis is an idea that has some basis in facts, but not enough facts are known yet.  A theory is an idea that has a preponderance of facts to substantiate it.  The "four corners of the earth" was a hypothesis based on limited geographical knowledge.  A round earth is a theory based on so much evidence that few of us question whether the earth is round or not.

How many of us are going to use "hypothesis" instead of "theory"?  My hypothesis is that few of us, including me, are going to use these words properly.

To be or not to be a government employee

…or to have been or not to have been a government employee.

Many so-called conservatives constantly complain about government employees, especially those at lower levels who are "feeding at the public trough".  If government employees can do nothing right, why are so many Republicans clamoring to be government employees?  Or their large corporation bedfellows clamoring for government contracts?

Now we have an interesting attack from so-called liberals on former government employees who have taken jobs in large corporations.  See "EXPOSED: Fox News, BP, And Goldman Sachs Don't Want You To Know About This" http://www.upworthy.com/exposed-fox-news-bp-and-goldman-sachs-dont-want-you-to-know-about-this, Sara Critchfield, Upworthy, 2012-04-23.  The article shows overlapping circles  of government employees moving to corporate jobs, whether appointed or elected officials.  People in both parties have done this.

These moves sound fishy and maybe some are fishy.  On the other hand, if you are, say a geologist, who is most likely to hire you - an oil company.  Does every government expert in every field start out as a government employee for life?  No, they often build up credentials in corporations or academia, serve for a few years in government, often at lower pay, and then go back to a corporation or a university.

This is the problem with taking sides on political issues.  Too much is at stake to open oneself to a broader view of issues.  As a result, sound bites become the "facts" and few look at a problem thoroughly.