The siege of Gaza

Gaza has frequently been referred to as the world’s largest open-air prison, housing about two million inmates. If anyone thought that this was just hyperbolic language, the events of the past week would have put paid to that since Israel was able to instantaneously cut off all food, water, and electricity to everyone living there. That kind of action can only be done with the kind of control that prison authorities have.

The attack by Hamas that killed large numbers of ordinary Israeli people and took many as hostages was a horrendous act that has deservedly been widely condemned. But those of us who are familiar with the history of the region knew that Israel routinely enacts collective punishments and would react to this with disproportionate force, just as it has done in the past. But to cut off the basic elements of existence to two million people, essentially causing an entire population to die slow and painful deaths of thirst and starvation, is an unconscionable act that violates not just the laws of war but the norms of basic human decency.

Immediately after the Hamas attack, several Israeli government spokespersons repeatedly referred to this as their equivalent of the 9/11 attacks and one knew that they were deliberately laying the foundation for rallying American public opinion to their side in anticipation of their carrying out an extreme response, because the 9/11 attacks were used by the US to justify massive attacks that resulted in the deaths of huge numbers of people in many countries, far out of proportion to what the US suffered, using the language of revenge as an excuse. It was clear that Israel was going to use the same rationale for a similar over-reaction. But I did not expect them to seek such an extensive and cruel form of retribution as cutting off food and water to two million people.

As usual, the US political establishment has come down firmly on the side of Israel, using the familiar trope of ‘Israel has every right to defend itself’ , though they never say that ‘Palestinians have every right to defend themselves’ whenever they are under attack.

Sydney Powell takes a plea deal

One of the looniest of serial sex abuser Donald Trump’s (SSAT) ‘gaggle of crackpot lawyers’ Sydney Powell has agreed to a plea deal with Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis, pleading guilty to the racketeering and other charges in her trial that was due to start on Monday. She is the second person to take a plea deal in that wide-ranging case that involved charges against 19 people including SSAT.

Former Donald Trump lawyer Sidney Powell has pleaded guilty in the Georgia election interference case in Fulton county, just days before jury selection for her trial was scheduled to start.

Powell, charged alongside Trump for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results in the state of Georgia, entered into a plea agreement on Thursday to become the second defendant to plead guilty to misdemeanor charges and cooperate with prosecutors in the sprawling criminal case.

Powell was sentenced to six years’ probation, a $6,000 fine and $2,700 in restitution to the state of Georgia. She will also have to write an apology letter to the citizens of Georgia and to testify truthfully at trial – perhaps the most consequential part of the plea agreement.

The move marks a major victory for the Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis, who secured Powell as a state witness just days before the start of jury selection in her trial. Powell was seen pleading guilty on a live video of court proceedings.

The tangible punishments are negligible though I expect that she will also face disbarment from legal bodies. The key item is her agreement to testify truthfully at SSAT’s trial. Since she is a serial liar and fabulist like her hero SSAT, one has to assume that she has already told prosecutors enough things of value that merited them giving her a slap on the wrist, that she cannot, as a witness, lie any more.

The next person whose trial on racketeering and other charges is due to start on Monday is another SSAT crackpot lawyer advisor Kenneth Chesebro.

The indictment accuses Chesebro of writing memos in early December 2020 suggesting that alternate electors from key states – where former President Donald Trump’s campaign contested the election outcome – could cast votes for Trump, despite the fact he had lost in those states. Chesebro also allegedly helped coordinate logistics of this plan.

He may be the next domino to fall. He only has time until Monday to make a deal.

The surprising resistance to Jim Jordan for speaker

[UPDATE: Jordan has said that he is ‘suspending’ his bid for the speakership (not withdrawing) and supports giving the interim speaker more powers until January 15 so that the house can conduct some business, not the least of which is the budget that is due on November 17. This means that he has figured out that he does not have the votes right now but is clearly hoping that by January, the anti-Jordan sentiment may have diminished enough for him to be elected.]

The second round of voting for the speaker of the House of Representatives that was called for by Jim Jordan saw him actually getting fewer votes than in the first round. The final tally was 212 for Democrat Hakeem Jeffries and 199 for Jordan with 22 Republicans voting for various people. Two people who voted against Jordan in the first round voted in favor of him this time but four switched the other way so that he lost ground.

I was actually surprised by this. The GOP is now a party whose dynamics are like those of a children’s playground, where one has the bullies and their allies and the bullied. In those situations, the bullied almost always cave to the pressure because they have nowhere to turn. Jordan clearly thought that having the support of serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) would enable him to bully enough members to put him over the top. I too thought that these holdouts would fold but was wrong.

The Republican party has abandoned all semblance of having any principles and in discussing what is going on, we should ignore any talk of ‘moderates’ and ‘extremists’.

You’ve likely seen a lot of the holdouts described as “moderates.” An overwhelming majority of them are nothing of the sort and their ideological views are almost identical. Where they differ is their temperament and tactics. The old way of business – which is still very much alive in the Democratic Caucus and across the Capitol in the Senate – is that you move up the ranks by making allies and getting stuff done. Consistency is key and it pays off through promotions, plum committee assignments, and hopefully, at the ballot box.

In his warparth to the speakership, Jordan has been destroying the traditional system (a common theme in today’s Republican party). Jordan has been in Congress since 2007. Not once during the past 16 years has any of the legislation he’s sponsored become law. Just three of his bills have passed the full House: this year’s establishment of a subcommittee on the “weaponization” of the federal government, a call for the attorney general to appoint a special counsel nine years ago during the Obama administration, and in his first term, an resolution expressing sympathy for Ohio flood victims (the resolution did not authorize any additional funds for the flood victims—it just expressed sympathy).

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Materialism, scientism, and meaning

I am a materialist, in the sense that I believe the entire universe is made of matter that follows laws. I do not believe in the existence of anything supernatural or otherwise that can act in violation of the laws of science. As such, I do not think that the universe has any meaning in itself. The universe just is and any meaning that exists is what we construct. This does not bother me.

Jessica Tracy, a professor of psychology at the university of British Columbia, started out with beliefs similar to mine and was quite comfortable with them but then, at the age of forty, says that she suffered an existential crisis.

Suddenly, I was unable to stop thinking about the meaninglessness of my existence. Religious belief, the most obvious source of meaning available to many people when those big ‘Why are we here?’ questions come up, was not an option. As a scientist, I had always abided by the dictates of materialism: the central scientific doctrine holding that everything that matters is measurable. Materialism is largely responsible for the uncountable scientific advances our culture has accumulated over the past several centuries, from smartphones to vaccines. At the same time, it has placed a clear-cut kibosh on the possibility of a supernatural deity running the show.

In fact, one of science’s main draws for me was its airtight logic and appeal to rationality. I had no interest in seeking a source of meaning that requires abandoning – or at least setting aside – the critical thinking that my scientific background had instilled deep within me. And yet, as I hit midlife, I realised that science’s hardcore materialism was devastating me.

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The GOP has become the party of political thuggery

[UPDATE: The first vote has just been completed on the house floor and Jim Jordan failed to get 217 of the 432 members present and so has not become speaker and there will have to be another vote. The final results were Democrat Hakeem Jeffries 212, Jordan 200, and others 20. All 212 Democrats voted for Jeffries while the ‘other’ votes were Republicans who voted for people other that Jordan and thus have been able so far to resist the thuggery of Jordan and his allies. Nancy Pelosi and Mary Peltola of Alaska were present this time and got big applause from Democrats when they voted for Jeffries. Pelosi was absent for the McCarthy vote because she was attending Diane Feinstein’s funeral while Peltola was absent because of the death of her husband. When the final results were announced with Jeffries the top vote-getter, Democrats broke out in loud applause, no doubt to rub it in to the Republicans, who looked glum and were silent.

Lauren Boebert was seated between serial liar George Santos and Matt Gaetz who initiated the McCarthy removal but she seemed to have refrained from any hanky-panky, unlike when she was attending Beetlejuice.]

I have written many times before about how the Republican party has given up on pretty much all of the norms of democratic governing. They have abandoned the idea of winning people over to their point of view and instead gone full tilt into political thuggery as a means of achieving power. This is best exemplified by their whole-hearted adoption of serial sex abuser Donald Trump’s (SSAT) Big Lie that he actually won the 2020 election, a denying of reality that is so outrageous that it boggles the mind that any sane person could believe it. Indeed, one has to assume that many of the advocates of the Big Lie among the party’s representatives in Congress and its supporters in the media don’t actually believe it but have decided that it is the only way to gain he support of MAGA fanatics and the political costs of opposing it in terms of retribution are too high to pay.

In short, we have reached the point where political thuggery is the main tactic being used.
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Using large language models to understand whales

There has been a great deal of buzz about the latest developments in AI such as ChatGPT. There have been practical considerations about how dangerous it might be to develop it, but there have also been concerns that the current incarnations of AI are overblown, that they are merely large language models that use massive databases of language to seek out patterns and then use those patterns to provide merely a facsimile of intelligence, similar in principle to Siri and Alexa and to the algorithms that autocorrect words or suggest the next words in our text messages, except that these are far more sophisticated.

Leaving aside those issues, Elizabeth Kolbert writes about a very practical application of large language models, and that is to try and decipher whale communication, because they seem to use regular patterns.
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Another thriller in rugby World Cup

Today (Sunday) saw two interesting quarter-final games. In the first England beat Fiji 30-24. It was a close game and Fiji had its chances but England were more disciplined while Fiji gave away away penalties at crucial moments and failed to convert two penalty goal attempts.

The other match between France and South Africa was a real thriller with South Africa edging out a 29-28 victory. France led 28-22 towards the end but South Africa took the lead with a goal and then their dogged defense held off a furious French attempt to get back the lead. This was another match that was worthy of a final.

One feels sorry for France. They have never won the World Cup since its inception, reaching the finals in 1987, 1999, and 2011 only to lose each time. This time they had a really good chance, especially since the tournament was being played in their home country.

The semi-final games will be Argentina v. New Zealand on Friday and South Africa v. England on Saturday. New Zealand and South Africa are favored to win. Each nation was won three times before, sharing equal honors in the last four World Cups.

Bias in coin tosses

When we have to randomly but fairly choose between two outcomes, we instinctively reach for the coin toss. It is because it is an article of faith that the two outcomes of heads and tails are equally likely. But the two sides of the coin are not identical, and hence that slight difference may make a difference in outcome probabilities. In fact, there are four possible forms of bias that may exist. It is possible that either heads or tails may come out on top slightly more frequently or that there is a same-side bias (i.e., the side that is on top when flipped is more likely to be on top when it falls) or an opposite side bias.
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Thriller in rugby world Cup

The quarter-final game between top-ranked Ireland and #4 New Zealand was an excellent game, closely fought and displaying a high standard of play by both teams. New Zealand won 28-24, defending a ferocious Ireland attack in the last five minutes. It was a game worthy of a final but due to the unfortunate seeding, these two teams met far too early in the tournament.

In the other semi-final game, Argentina beat Wales 29-17. Argentina had a good second half. Argentina has benefited from this draw that placed them in the weakest pool D where England was the only top eight team in it. Wales (#7) also had an easy path to the quarter-finals, having just Fiji (#8) and Australia (#9) as their most serious contenders. Argentina now meet New Zealand in the semi-finals, which is going to be very tough for them, and one does not expect a close game.

The other two quarter-finals on Sunday involve France (#3) v. South Africa (#3) and England (#6) v. Fiji (#8). The first match is another pairing of teams that should not meet this early. The winners of these two games will play each other in the semi-finals and that too may not be a close game.