Sleepless in Midland

What we watch on TV allows direct marketers to target us

A few years ago my cable TV provider switched from analog to digital and required customers to upgrade to a box that would accommodate the new system. During that transition a technician explained in simple terms what the new box would do and happened to mention that a tiny bit of information was sent back to the company.

I assumed it meant the box was telling the cable provider what I watched and that the information was sold to advertisers for direct marketing purposes. Turns out that was right.

You watch TV. Your TV watches back provides a brief overview of that process and what happens to the data. The public rationale is that it is used to provide customers with a better viewing experience. Oh, and of course, it will provide the viewer with commercials for products you might want or need. How convenient.

BTW, Roku does it too. So streaming may not provide an escape.

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2:22 PM 10/30/2019

Take your vitamins -- not that they would do any good

This is discouraging, initially. But it may save us money. Turns out that researchers have declared most dietary supplements don't really do anything. See these headlines:

Vast majority of dietary supplements don't improve heart health or put off death, study finds
Save Your Money: Vast Majority Of Dietary Supplements Don’t Improve Heart Health or Put Off Death
Effects of Nutritional Supplements and Dietary Interventions on Cardiovascular Outcomes: An Umbrella Review and Evidence Map.

You can have my supplements when you pry them out of my cold dead hands.

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2:51 PM 10/28/2019

Tom Selleck selling mortgages says not his 1st rodeo

There's a commercial airing regularly featuring Tom Selleck peddling reverse mortgages. It's too soon to call this a good ad or a bad ad -- the test is how many widgets a commercial sells.

But one notable feature of a version of that ad has Tom Selleck beginning his spiel by telling the camera lens this isn't his first rodeo. What exactly does that mean in this context? This is not his first commercial? Buying a reverse mortgage is like mounting a bucking bronc, and he's done it before?

Grammarist.com defines it this way:

This ain’t my first rodeo means I am not a novice to this situation, I have experience in this area and I am competent. The idiom this ain’t my first rodeo is mostly used in instances where a less experienced person is trying to give advice to a more experienced person, and is meant to establish superiority.

It doesn't quite fit. The TV viewer is not trying to give Tom Selleck advice, it's the other way around.

In any event, an IMDB search dug up a made-for-tv movie in which he played a rodeo rider. The movie is Ruby Jean and Joe summarized thusly:

The elderly and fading rodeo-rider Joe Wade (Tom Selleck) picks up the young female hitchhiker Ruby Jean (Rebekah Johnson). Even though that Joe is constantly being corrected by Ruby Jean their beginning friendship is growing. Their conversations on the road puts both of them in a position to deal with their lives.

Ah ha. It's getting clearer now. Selleck is getting old and has to deal with new things as he ages. He assumes his audience is too. It's starting to make sense now. But sorry, Tom. I'm not in the market for a mortgage, reverse or obverse.

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1:43 PM 10/27/2019

Lavrentiy Beria -- history remembers his famous quote "show me the man; I'll find you the crime"

Just who was Lavrentiy Beria? Most of us have heard his famous quote: "Show me the man and I'll find you the crime."

Beria was the head of the Soviet secret police beginning in 1938, and during his reign of that agency he conducted Joseph Stalin's purge of the old Soviet big shots who fell out of favor with Stalin. One has to figure that he made that quote while boasting about all the confessions and guilty verdicts he was able to obtain.

His famous quote comes up quite often when writers address over criminalization or seriously question the Democrats' search for impeachable offenses.

After Stalin died Beria himself became a purge target, was convicted of an assortment of crimes, and executed in 1953.

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Here's some book trivia.

The other day on this blog we talked about the novel, "Darkness at Noon," by Arthur Koestler, which was a fictional account of one such party big shot who became a victim of those Soviet purges. And the main character, Nicolas Salmanovitch Rubashov, was supposed to have been a composite of a few real people who had been subjects of those purges.

Beria is wearing pince-nez type of glasses in the photo. So it may not be a coincidence that there were at least a dozen mentions of Rubashov's pince-nez glasses in the novel.

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1:48 PM 10/26/2019

Abigail Shrier in WSJ -- claims of sexism less about women's feelings, more about hurting competitors

Abigail Shrier penned an interesting editorial the other day titled Ken Fisher, Joe Biden and the Merciless Young how a clumsy old guy can easily get trapped by the "me too" movement.

Apparently, Ken Fisher made a remark at a conference to the effect that people need to be careful what they say, using a crude example:

... it’s like “going up to a woman in a bar and saying, ‘Hey, I want to talk about what’s in your pants.’ ”

Cue the outrage. Competitors pounced on the remark with their twitter feeds, and according to Ms. Shrier,  "As of this writing, Fisher Investments has lost more than $2 billion in institutional assets, and Ken Fisher has been widely tarred for sexism." Ouch!

Likewise with Joe Biden's touching -- years ago women could handle it, but not now.

Ms. Shrier gets to the point:

None of this is about women. Denouncing sexism is a pretext that permits one competitor to damage another while playing the hero. Messrs. Biden and Fisher were successful in their fields, but vulnerable because of old age. They failed to keep up with political correctness. This is the competitive advantage of the young—that they can so readily assimilate the ever-expanding list of shibboleths and forbidden expressions. Mock horror is the next generation’s form of rent-seeking, and political correctness the younger players’ edge.

What then are the lessons for other Ken Fishers and Joe Bidens? Shake fewer hands, make fewer jokes, never speak freely or off the cuff. It’s a tall order.

For now, their younger competitors need only lie in wait. But someday age will render them more human and less vigilant, too. Eventually, they too will cough up the keys to their own downfall. Viva la revolución!

Accusations of sexism for minor touching and unguarded comments are now merely weapons to be used against competitors.

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4:02 PM 10/26/2019

Fox Friday 10-25-19

The dog food is edible ...

... but it's better on the days you mix in chicken scraps.

Well, the birds certainly don't mind eating dog food.

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2:58 PM 10/24/2019

Selective outrage over taboo words

In today's society the N-word is off limits. And even college professors risk being fired for using that word even in what most of us would think was a proper context. But African American comedians can use the word freely and have the audience laughing.

This selective outrage strikes many of us in flyover country as hypocrisy.

The most recent example of this double standard is screaming from Democrats about President Trump's use of the word lynching. But wait. What's this? Democrats threw the term around like rice at a wedding back when Bill Clinton went through his own impeachment. Go figure.

It's almost as if everything in the news these days is simply partisan politics.

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1:45 PM 10/23/2019

How does one make a death threat against someone they can't identify

Sometimes it seems as though some of the hard core lefties wear death threats like red badges of courage.

We hear from news sources that an individual was so disturbed by President Trump's phone conversation with the Ukrainian president that he just had to become a whistle blower to out the whole conversation. The transcript was released, however it wasn't the smoking gun we were led to believe it would be.

And the whistle blower has gone underground. Anonymous. Identity hidden. Full Jason Bourne.

But now those news sources are rationalizing the anonymity by alleging death threats were made against said whistle blower.

The obvious question that arises is this: How exactly does one make a death threat against someone the threatener can't identify? Presumably, the threats come through social media. But if so, wouldn't there be a pixel trail of some sort?

In any event, it often seems that some public figures love to boast about death threats they've received. Reminds me of the old SNL skit in which socialites at a cocktail party bragged about the crack babies they've adopted.

Meanwhile, many conservatives are opting to stay undercover because of real fears of threats coming from the left, e.g., Jordan B. Peterson film sparks threats: 'We really don't want to have to bring out the guillotine'.

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1:33 PM 10/21/2019

Some municipalities are banning fast food drive throughs to save the planet

NPR tries to answer the question: Why U.S. Cities Are Banning New Fast-Food Drive-Throughs:

In August, Minneapolis became the latest city to pass an ordinance banning the construction of new drive-through windows. Similar legislation restricting or banning the ubiquitous windows has also passed in Creve Coeur, Mo.; Long Beach, Calif.; and Fair Haven, N.J.

Most bans focus on curbing emissions, reducing litter, improving pedestrian safety and enhancing walkability. In Minneapolis, City Council President Lisa Bender notes that the ordinance fits in with Minneapolis 2040, a plan for growth and development that includes achieving an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

So they are reducing green house gasses, huh? If they want to reduce the time vehicles sit with their engines idling they missed the mark by a mile. The time spent by commuters sitting at red lights is probably incalculable. But it's huge.

If municipalities really wanted to reduce idle time they would improve traffic conditions. One way would be to coordinate traffic light changes to minimize the wait time. Also, when traffic is light, flashing yellow lights could replace red lights. However, many people in government love control over people, and making them sit still when they want to go somewhere is a great way to show the rabble who's boss.

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1:22 PM 10/20/2019

Darkness at Noon -- Stalin's show trials similar to Schiff's impeachment thingee

I just finished reading the novel "Darkness At Noon" written by Arthur Koestler and published in 1941 (translated by Daphne Hardy). The period described in the novel, although not identified as such in the novel, was during Stalin's rule over Russia, and particularly the period of the purging of the old guard.

The main character, Nicolas Salmanovitch Rubashov, had been a hero in the revolution and eventually became a party big wig. But the dictator, called "No. 1" in the novel, implemented the liquidation of all those old guys. And Rubashov ended up being charged with thought crimes, speech crimes, and conspiracy to assassinate No. 1.

After his arrest, he was subjected to "hearings" which were one-on-one examinations conducted by an aggressive and experienced interrogator. Although there was no physical torture, sleep deprivation was sufficient to ultimately get a signed confession -- Rubashov having resigned himself to the same fate as his old friends from the early days. We learn of the resulting trial through an ancillary character reading about it in the newspaper, and the actual trial had all the earmarks of a show trial in which the verdict had already been decided.

Fast forward to the present, and Donald Trump is on trial in a secret chamber which is off limits to the plebeians. Only the insiders know what is going on there. And presumably Trump is being accused of all sorts of things for which the evidence is very slim but with enough exaggeration and no rebuttal could be stretched into something serious. But the outcome has already been decided by the inquisitors. They will only need to move the goal posts just enough to fit the facts.

Most of us believe by now that the intent of the Trump inquiry really isn't to impeach the president but to increase the likelihood that he won't be reelected.

Nonetheless, the similarity between the Stalin show trials and the impeachment inquiry is striking.

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3:32 PM 10/19/2019

Fox Friday 10-18-19 Cat chases fox

The fox and the cat had a tiff the other night. The camera snaps three shots then waits 10 seconds before snapping again. So often the still shots display a short sequence of events, like stop action video.

Anyway this scene developed the other evening. The fox approaches the food, Lil Gray leaps into the scene, chases the fox into the bushes, then returns to the food to eat.

Since then that night they've apparently worked out a truce.

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1:37 PM 10/17/2019

We really do look alike to people of other races

Most of us could probably provide an anecdote or two which demonstrate the truth of the old saw that people of other races all look alike. I assumed it was predominately white people who thought all black people looked alike until I heard a black man say that all white people look alike. So if the situation exists, it must be universal.

So here comes a study that proves it, at least as to whites. They used an MRI to measure the high-level visual cortex in the subjects to test the changes when exposed to images of people of different races. Anyway, here's a report about the study at You All Look Alike to Me’ is hard-wired in us:

Their findings affirmed previous studies, determining that participants showed a greater tendency to individuate— recognize differences in—own-race faces, and less for other races.

It was a small study, so if this is a serious area of analysis, then more work is needed. Also, all the test subjects were all white, and the woke scientist declined to extrapolate:

Previous studies have found the “other-race effect” is found in populations other than whites. But Hughes isn’t comfortable extending his findings to assume that black people also “de-individuate” white faces in the high-level visual cortex. The reason: Majority vs. minority perceptions.

Meanwhile, jury members should try to keep this in mind if testimony of an eye witness is crucial evidence.

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10:54 AM 10/16/2019

AI article writers are everywhere

An interesting article appearing in the Wall Street Journal contains an item honestly described as a fake news article created by artificial intelligence.

My favorite line: "Johnson hopes to find another place on Earth to explore to, but one that's closer than most -- the moon." It's not perfect, but it would provide fillers between ads for those newspapers that can no longer afford to seek real news.

Type 'ai article writer' in your favorite search engine and see all the software available to write articles for you. It's an interesting concept, but the quality is lacking, at least in the example they offered.

Editors' notes:
Hey, Sleepless, I could do it for this blog! Robo-ed
Well, it takes artificial intelligence. You've got the artificial nailed, but the intelligence is lacking. Sleepless
I heard that! Robo-ed

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1:58 PM 10/15/2019

Vote yes for amendment prohibiting Texas state income tax

Texas voters are slowly turning Texas blue with the influx of new Texas residents and a determined effort by Democrats.

While the state is still mostly Republican it's probably a good time to make it harder for lawmakers to install a state income tax.

Next month Texas voters will have the opportunity to vote on amendments to the Texas constitution, and the Houston Chronicle helpfully summarizes them in Voter guide: 10 Texas constitutional amendments on Nov. 5 ballots.

Here's what they say about Proposition 4:

What it says: “The constitutional amendment prohibiting the imposition of an individual income tax, including a tax on an individual’s share of partnership and unincorporated association income.”

What it means: Texas has long maintained its anti-income tax position. Current law says that an income tax can be proposed but must be voted on before going into effect. In the past, voters have blocked such attempts at the ballot box.

Proposition 4 would change the state’s constitution and impose an explicit ban on an income tax. If legislators want to remove that ban at any point in the future, they would need another constitutional amendment to do it.

Supporters say this is a symbolic gesture demonstrating Texans’ commitment to a low-tax economy. Opponents say the anti-tax bar is already high, and raising it even higher cuts off a stream of revenue that the state could someday need.

The state of Texas has a high sales tax (around 8%). And that's something many of us don't particularly like. But bringing it down would be a herculean task. And if lawmakers ever did try to implement an income tax, it would be in addition to the sales tax, not as a replacement.

It's not to early to stop any state income tax in its tracks.

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2:36 PM 10/14/2019

Fox Friday 10-11-19 -- one came back

Maybe it's the cooler weather. Or maybe it's the longer periods of darkness. It probably isn't the dog food at the fox cam bait station, unless it's better than whatever he/she was getting elsewhere.

At any rate, something has drawn back a solitary fox. Here are a couple of snaps.

The little kitten who took over the back yard has grown up and probably doesn't like the idea of a fox eating food she thought was hers.

Here we see the top of the cat's head perched atop the log that secures the camera. Maybe she thinks the height might intimidate that trespassing scavenger.

I declare. The fox must be an offspring of Old Crooked Tail -- a regular visitor here a while back.

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3:11 PM 10/10/2019

NY mobster planted GPS tracking device on girlfriend's car -- apparently that's all that was necessary for government to obtain wiretap authorization

This story comes to us by way of Naked Security in GPS tracker from stalked woman’s car led to indictment of 20 mobsters. The DOJ news release tells us this:

As alleged in the indictments and the government’s detention letters, the investigation began in November 2016 when a GPS tracking device was found concealed on an MTA bus.  Amato had earlier obtained the device to surveil his then-girlfriend and boasted about the resources at his disposal to keep her under close surveillance.  ... His then-girlfriend discovered the device on her vehicle and removed it, and it was subsequently attached to and recovered from the MTA bus at a depot n Staten Island.  Thereafter, the government obtained court-authorization to intercept communications over various cellular telephones used by the defendants.

As detailed in the government’s court filings, Amato and members of his crew used violence and threats of violence to earn illegal proceeds and solidify the crew’s reputation and standing. ...

The court-authorized wiretaps also captured the defendants’ scheme to fix an NCAA college basketball game.  To further the scheme, defendant Benjamin Bifalco offered members of a college basketball team thousands of dollars to intentionally lose the game.

That the girlfriend located the tracker and sent it off on a bus ride is interesting enough. But the shocker is that that's all it took to get a cell phone wiretap warrant. There must be more to the story than what we're told.

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3:34 PM 10/8/2019

Which is better for a country's economy, autocracy or democracy? -- conflicting studies

A few months ago we noted a study which concluded that democracy may not be that important to prosperity. See Poli Sci profs say democracy isn't necessary for prosperity previously at this blog.

The science isn't settled, apparently. For now we see Strongman leaders make for weak economies, study shows. Excerpt:

Autocrats whose countries experienced larger than average economic growth were found only as frequently as you would predict based on chance alone.

In contrast, autocrats overseeing poor economic growth were found significantly more frequently than chance would predict.

There was no evidence to suggest dictators had a positive influence over growth trajectories in the five or ten years after taking power. ...

The same analysis, carried out on dictators overseeing poor economies, to see if they had merely found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, found instead that economic growth dropped significantly after the entry into power of an economically ‘bad’ autocrat.

In short, dictators were shown to have little influence in driving economies up, but often more influence in driving them down.

Confirmation bias has a strong influence on my own analytical abilities, so I'm going with the freedom-is-better theme.

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3:36 PM 10/7/2019

David Charles Wilson case -- mirror image of Amber Guyger case

Amber Guyger dominated the headlines recently as the guilty verdict was rendered in the murder case against her. You will recall the facts of that case. She entered the wrong apartment thinking it was her own. Being a trained police officer, upon seeing a stranger sitting on the couch she drew her weapon and gave the stranger instructions. He didn't comply, and she shot him dead.

The David Charles Wilson case now pending in Midland, Texas, is the mirror image. Mr. Wilson was in his home when he shot and killed a police officer at his door.

The prosecution side of the argument will contend that the police officer was responding to investigate an automatic burglar alarm, opened an unlocked front door, identified himself, and was shot by the homeowner, Mr. Wilson.

Wilson was charged with manslaughter. And we learned in September that his attorneys have filled a motion to dismiss. Caitlin Randle describes a brief filed to support the motion in Court brief: MPD was mistakenly alerted. Here are some excerpts from that MRT article:

MPD was alerted about an alarm breach in the Wilsons’ pool house, according to the brief. The Wilsons’ have separate alarm systems in the pool house and the main house.

Heidelberg and the other officer first checked the backyard, but the gate was locked, the brief states. The officers then proceeded to the front of the house where they tried the front door and found it to be unlocked.

Once the officers opened the front door, a door alarm chimed, according to the brief. The chime woke Wilson’s wife, who then woke him and said she thought someone was in the house.

“Mr. and Mrs. Wilson can hear and see silhouettes outside with flashlights,” the brief states. “But they have no idea who is outside, what they are saying, or what they are doing. There were no red and blue police lights.”

It continues, “No one has contacted the Wilsons in any way to tell them it is the police outside. All they see are surreptitious silhouettes lurking with flashlights outside their home after midnight.”

The brief states that after seeing unidentified figures outside with flashlights, Wilson frantically retrieved his gun and ran from his bedroom at the same time Heidelberg fully opened the front door and shined his flashlight inside. It does not say that Heidelberg entered the home.

Wilson fired one shot before closing the door and calling 911, according to the brief.

The brief filed Thursday was in support of a motion by Wilson’s defense lawyers to dismiss the indictment.

Mistakes were made on both sides of that early morning mishap. We'll see whether this goes to trial.

Previously on these pages: Cop shot by homeowner in Midland fearing home invasion

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2:46 PM 10/6/2019

Alzheimer's Walk 2019

The Alzheimer's Walk in Midland, TX, took place on a late-summer Saturday morning, 10/5/2019. Here are a few snap shots.

The cure for Alzheimer's Disease has remained just out of reach for years, but they tell us it's coming. For many of us of a certain age, promises of a cure for something are tantalizing. But there's always that nagging fear that the cure will come the day after we die from it. Oh well. Life. Nice while it lasts, but no one gets out alive.

For more information visit Alzheimer's Association.

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3:27 PM 10/5/2019

Media pounce on distrust of media

Politico's playbook is a reasonably good source of what is of interest to folks in the media on any particular day. Directed to their media allies, it's as partisan as you might think.

What got my attention in the one for 10/3/2019 was the link to an AP article titled ‘Are you talking to me?’ Trump’s anger on impeachment erupts which revealed Trump's impatience with the reporters who, instead of directing a question to the Finish President, wanted to ask about impeachment.

So here was Polico's take on it: TO BELIEVE THE PRESIDENT’S SPIN at this point is to believe that every single news story printed is wrong. [Caps theirs.]

Well, let's do some fact checking. That the public doesn't believe every news story is wrong. It's the ones about Trump they don't believe. Rasmussen provides some documentation of that. See Voters Don’t Trust Political News, Say Most Reporters Want to Stop Trump. See also from Gallup, Americans' Trust in Mass Media Edges Down to 41%.

Is partisanship a higher goal than credibility for the main stream media?

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11:12 AM 10/3/2019

Fox Friday 10-4-19 -- coming back, one fox at a time

Not many foxes this summer, but maybe they're migrating back to the area -- one fox at a time.

Fox sniffs warily at food the cat didn't eat.

Son of Old Crooked Tail?

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4:44 PM 10/3/2019

thanks for saving my air conditioner -- GAO asks DOE and FERC to do more to guard against cyber assaults

Way back in the good old pre-internet days it was easy to guard the electric grid with a tall fence around the plants. But the internet provides a much easier way to get in and do damage. Who would want to do that? For starters, there are nation states, criminals, and terrorists.

The smart people think the nation states wouldn't do anything right away, but that wouldn't stop the smart people on the other side from planting a bug that they could activate when the time is right.

The Government Accountability Office just released a report titled Critical Infrastructure Protection: Actions Needed to Address Significant Cybersecurity Risks Facing the Electric Grid. A link to the full report in PDF can be found at that site.

The GAO has recommended that DOE and FERC up their cyber security games. Hopefully, they'll find and plug any gaps in their present security plans.

Meanwhile, thehill.com writes about this at Watchdog: Energy Department not doing enough to protect grid against cyber attacks capsuling some key concerns:

GAO wrote in the report, originally finalized in August, that “the nation’s electric grid is becoming more vulnerable to cyberattacks — particularly those involving industrial control systems that support grid operations. Recent federal assessments indicate that cyberattacks could cause widespread power outages in the United States, but the scale of such outages is uncertain.”

GAO emphasized that DOE “plays a key role in helping address cybersecurity risks in each component of the electric grid’s infrastructure. However, DOE has not developed plans for electric grid cybersecurity that address the key characteristics needed for a national strategy.”

The report also found that while the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which regulates the flow of electricity between states, has approved mandatory grid cybersecurity standards, these do not fully encompass current federal guidance on grid cybersecurity.

It shouldn't be too much to ask those responsible for protecting the people they are supposed to protect to actually try to protect them. I need my air conditioner.

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10:57 AM 10/2/2019

FBI crime stats 2018 -- weapons used in murders

The FBI crime statistics for 2018 have been published. And one interesting segment of it addresses weapons used in murders. The table you see below was adapted from Table 20.

Table 20 - Murder - Types of weapons 2018
Total murders	Total firearms	handguns	rifles	shot-guns	firearms unknown	knives or cutting	other weapons	hands, fists, feet etc
14,123	10,265	6,603	297	235	3,130	1,515	1,671	672
100%	73%	47%	2%	2%	22%	11%	12%	5%

As you can see, roughly 73% were committed with firearms with almost half, 43%, with handguns. Rifles only 2%, same as shotguns. But with 22% being unknown firearms then some of those other percentages would probably be higher.

In any event, it's an interesting set of stats the FBI has put together.

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4:24 PM 10/1/2019

Ladies, your future husband may work in the oil patch

There have been numerous articles citing a recent phenomenon, for example: Why Are Marriage Rates Down? Study Blames Lack Of ‘Economically-Attractive’ Men. To wit:

Researchers found that these estimated potential “dream” husbands had an average income about 58% higher than the actual unmarried men currently available to unmarried women. These synthetic husbands were also 30% more likely to be employed than real single men and 19% more likely to have a college degree.

Sure, he's a nice enough fellow, but he just doesn't bring home the bacon. What's a modern highly educated and highly paid hypergamous woman to do?

Ladies, if you've been looking for love in all the wrong places, you're in luck. Wages are high in the oil patch -- so high that the oil companies suck up all the young working age men. That's where the eligible men are.

Here's proof, if you need it. State Personal Income, Second Quarter 2019:

State personal income increased 5.4 percent at an annual rate in the second quarter of 2019, a deceleration from the 6.2 percent increase in the first quarter, according to estimates released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (table 1). The percent change in personal income across all states ranged from 7.5 percent in Texas to unchanged in North Dakota.

Professional, scientific, and technical services was the leading contributor to the earnings increase in Texas, the fastest growing state, as well as five other fast-growing states-- Washington, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and Oregon (table 3).

(Bold added.)

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3:16 PM 9/30/2019