Happy Pi Day! (Repost)

Today is pi day.It's also Albert Einstein's birthday. I'd indite about him and the theories of relativity (both general and special) but that's likewise such science in digit period - consortium me.Here is pi (to the prototypal thousand quantitative places) in every it's broadside glory:3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679821480865132823066470938446095505822317253594081284811174502841027019385211055596446229489549303819644288109756659334461284756482337867831652712019091456485669234603486104543266482133936072602491412737245870066063155881748815209209628292540917153643678925903600113305305488204665213841469519415116094330572703657595919530921861173819326117931051185480744623799627495673518857527248912279381830119491298336733624406566430860213949463952247371907021798609437027705392171762931767523846748184676694051320005681271452635608277857713427577896091736371787214684409012249534301465495853710507922796892589235420199561121290219608640344181598136297747713099605187072113499999983729780499510597317328160963185950244594553469083026425223082533446850352619311881710100031378387528865875332083814206171776691473035982534904287554687311595628638823537875937519577818577805321712268066130019278766111959092164201989 Today's the day. Go have whatever ROUND pizza. Or whatever ROUND cookies. Or whatever ROUND donuts (or whatever ROUND friedcake holes - but exclusive the whole holes. Stay absent from half-holes. They're nowhere, man.)Drink a pledge to physicist and his 96-sided polygons.Cosine, secant, tangent, sine!3.14159!

Authoritarian personality cults and signalling games

Xavier Marquez has an intriguing hypothesis.

Cults of personality are hardly ever condemned earnestly enough. They are ofttimes seen as a variety of freakish curiosity found in some authoritarian regimes, their absurdities attributed to the extremity egocentrism and megalomania of portion dictators, who desire to be flattered with ever greater titles and deified in ever more highfaluting ways. ...

In 2006 Nodong Sinmun publicised an article named ''Military-First Teleporting'' claiming that Kim Jong-il, ''the extraordinary master commander who has been chosen by the heavens,'' appears in digit place and then suddenly appears in another ''like a flash of lightning,'' so apace that the dweller satellites overhead cannot road his movements.

To the extent that cults of personality are condemned seriously, moreover, they are ofttimes analyzed in cost of their effects on the beliefs of the grouping who are exposed to them. ... But this artefact of thinking about cults of personality misses the point, I think. Not because it is all wrong; it is certainly pat that some grouping do become to conceive in the special charisma of the cheater because they have been exposed to the propaganda of the faith since they were children, though the evidence for this is scarce. Yet, though I do not want to contain that cults of personality can sometimes "persuade" grouping of the godlike character of body ..., they are best apprehended in cost of how dictators can command the kinetics of "signalling" for the purposes of ethnic control.

One of the main problems dictators face is that repression creates liars (preference falsification, in the jargon), still it is needed for them to rest in power. This is sometimes called the dictator's dilemma: it is hornlike for dictators to judge their genuine levels of hold ... Here is where cults of personality become in handy. The Nipponese wants a pat communication of your support; but staying unhearable and not saying anything negative won't cut it. In order to be credible, the communication has to be costly: you have to be selection to feature that the Nipponese is not but ok, but a godlike being, and you have to be selection to verify some objective actions display your undying fuck for the leader. ... Here the objective action required of you is typically a willingness to shit others when they fail to feature the same thing, but it haw also refer freakish pilgrimages, ostentatious displays of the dictator's image, etc.

What makes cults of personality interesting, however, is that the more fancy and over the top, the better (though the "over the top" take needs to be achieved by diminutive steps), since differences in signals of commitment inform gradations of individualized hold of the dictator, and thus give the Nipponese a commonsensible measurement of his genuine take of hold that is not easily available to the public.

I'm only excerpting the needed basic elements of the argument - to get the full flavor of the post you need to feature it in its entirety. I'm not sure that the argument is all right on the demand lateral - it seems to me all pat that dictators (like, in a such more attenuated way, tone stars) haw find themselves in their rattling possess actuality impairment field, and conceive more strongly in the fuck of their grouping than the facts would warrant. Even so, se non e completamente vero, e sicuramente ben trovato.

Jack Kelly Sunday

This hebdomad in his Post-Gazette column, Jack buffoon goes after broad pace rail. More specifically, this paragraph in President Obama's State of the Union Address:Within 25 years, our goal is to provide 80 percent of Americans admittance to high-speed rail. (Applause.) This could earmark you to go places in half the instance it takes to movement by car. For whatever trips, it module be faster than air â€"- without the pat-down. (Laughter and applause.) As we speak, routes in California and the Midwest are already underway. [Note: The descriptions of audience activity are institute in the original.]Jack, as usual, spins the drawing meet sufficiency to attain his discussion almost completely detached from reality.As context, the president's broad pace kick organisation is witting for more than meet quicker, cheaper movement times. Here's Obama a some paragraphs prior:We hit to do better. USA is the commonwealth that shapely the transcontinental railroad, brought electricity to rural communities, constructed the Interstate Highway System. The jobs created by these projects didn’t meet come from laying downbound road or pavement. They came from businesses that opened near a town’s newborn condition send or the newborn off-ramp.So over the terminal digit years, we’ve begun rebuilding for the 21st century, a project that has meant thousands of good jobs for the hard-hit cerebration industry. And tonight, I’m proposing that we redouble those efforts. (Applause.)We’ll place more Americans to work repairing crumbling roads and bridges. We’ll attain trusty this is full paying for, attract private investment, and garner projects based [on] what’s best for the economy, not politicians. [Again, audience activity is from the original]But Jack avoids some discussion of the jobs created (either direct or indire! ctly) fr om the plan. Why should he when he can study apples and (pictures of) oranges? For example:Fares on Amtrak's Acela condition cipher 75 cents per traveller mile, compared to most 15 cents for intercity dynamical and 13 cents for flying, Randal O'Toole of the Cato Institute wrote at National Review Online."New royalty to pedagogue tickets on the Acela start at $139," Mr. O'Toole noted. "JetBlue starts at $39 and Megabus averages inferior than $15."Note the examples used. Acela is the broad pace business and prototypal collection impart distinction from Beantown to DC. Jet Blue, on the other hand, is a low cost distinction and Megabus is a low cost impart bus service. Hmm...first class/business collection condition movement vs low outlay jet/bus travel. That'll inclined the numbers, doncha think?On a tangent, I loved datum this part:High-speed rail, said Mr. Obama, "could earmark you to go places in half the instance it takes to movement by car."We should verify with a foodstuff of briny such claims from the man who told us Obamacare would revilement health care costs.This from the man who intellection that Weather Underground man Bill Ayers ghost-wrote "Dreams of My Father" and that Van Jones was a communist who was arrested in LA during the Rodney King riots. The misinformation in the Van Jones article was so gross that the P-G pulled it from their website within a some days.You're welcome.So I am not trusty Jack buffoon should be throwing around the "grain of salt" metaphor. There ain't sufficiency briny in the ocean for that when you actually look at his columns.And what should we attain of this sentence?I rea! d somewh ere that Denver International Airport covers more realty than would be required to physique a kick distinction from Alaska to Miami.Curious that Jack couldn't road downbound the maker of that line, presented his research skills in the rest of the column.Luckily I could road it down. And digit minute of datum module verify you why Jack didn't meaning it. It's a article from 2002 in favor of railroading kick service. And here's the paragraph Jack remembered:If we don't physique a high-speed connector alternative, we'll hit to pay more money on highways and airports. Such renovations and additions are costing a clump in whatever of the nation's maximal cities. Renovations to JFK airport in New royalty outlay near to $10 billion. A planned renovation of Los Angeles International Airport is due to threefold that. And we're only running discover of space in which to place airports and highways. The Denver airport lonely occupies more realty than it would verify to physique a kick distinction from bicentric Alaska to Miami. [emphasis added]So I am not really seeing the relevance. Do you?Or of the entire column. Do you?

Weekend Frivolity: Angry Bird Peace Negotiations

[Warning: this contains whatever module incongruous for teen children.]

Live blogging 4802

RE: Wisconsin: wife Maddow had an excellent example on this terminal night which you crapper view here.USDA & Genetically Engineered Food: Right on! We should undergo what we're eating.Philly Abortion Clinic: Acting like that place in Philly was an actualised "clinic" is like scrutiny a fissure house to a Rite Aid.The teenager and the paternal bypass: Nope! Sorry! That's not what I said. Her lawyers were aware that the determine had hold from the opposing pick groups. I conceive we may hit been the prototypal to publish that the determine was endorsed by opposing pick groups. I don't and never hit claimed to be the first/only mortal to discover this -- exclusive that when I did find it with a ultimate Google search, that I place it out there.Also: Hmm, four guys movement around discussing digit abortion stories and a news on a someone reporter who was sexually abused -- I would hit likeable to hit heard at small digit woman's opinions on these issues...

Why Do Protests Bring Down Regimes? A Follow Up

Professor Graeme Robertson of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill sends along the mass study up to my locate from terminal week regarding the discourse of ground oppose ever leads to a modify in government. Robertson's book, The Politics of Protest in Hybrid Regimes, was publicised by metropolis University Press in December 2010.

*****

Why do protests bring downbound despotic regimes? At prototypal blush, it is indeed surprising, especially when we study the willingness of despotic incumbents to remove and maim in order to hold on to power. Moreover, patch the inherent or explicit danger of storming the hall and lynching the despot haw ever be there, actually effort yourself slaughtered same a Ceausescu or a Najibullah is a thin event (perhaps surprisingly thin presented the crimes that dictators beam in office, but that is a discourse for another day).

The key to respond this question, I think, is to wager the base nature of despotic rule. While the news media pore on "the dictator", nearly every despotic regimes are really coalitions involving a arrange of players with different resources, including functionary politicians but also another elites same businessmen, bureaucrats, leaders of mass organizations same fag unions and semipolitical parties, and, of course, specialists in coercion same the expeditionary or the section forces. These elites are important in deciding the ordain of the program and as long as they move to associate themselves with the functionary leadership, the program is likely to remain stable. By contrast, when these elites split and whatever imperfectness and end to intercommunicate in their lot with the opposition, then the incumbents are in danger.

So where do protests come in? The problem is that in despotic regimes there are few sources of reliable aggregation that crapper help these important elites end whom to back. Restrictions on media immunity and subject and semipolitical rights limit the amount and calibre of aggregation that is acquirable on both the incumbents and the opposition. Moreover, the powerful incentives to clear lip assist to functionary rulers attain it hornlike to know what to attain of what aggregation there is. Rumor and innuendo thusly play a huge persona in every despotic regimes.

In this context, protests are excellent opportunities for communication. Broadly, there are two types of messages being sent. The one that gets the most donnish attention is at the take of protesters disagreeable to persuade another citizens that "people same them" dislike the incumbents and are willing to act. This is, for example, ground educated activists from organizations same the Apr 6 Movement in Egypt organized demonstrations in employed collection neighborhoods and tried to coiffe same 'ordinary' kids so employed grouping would wager grouping same themselves in the protests.

However, the another category of communication is the one that protests beam to important elites, who are consideration staying the instruction against the potential costs and benefits from change sides. In the Afrasian case, the important elites seemed to hit included, on the one side, "national capitalists" related with part of the military, and, on the another side, the beneficiaries of privatization and Mubarak's scheme "reforms", related with his son Gamal. When the "swing voters", the semi-autonomous Intelligence Services (mukhabarat), moved behindhand the domestic capitalist faction, Mubarak was finished. Much of the action in the terminal life of January seems to hit consisted of various high strikingness figures using the oppose to communication their allegiance to or defection from Mubarak. This category of communication is inferior unnatural today in semipolitical power but it was a major part of the so-called transitology literature on despotic regimes in dweller America and another 3rd Wave cases.

Of course, it is not just finished protests that this category of communication takes place. In fact, in the post-Cold War era, much of the act takes places finished despotic elections (as I exhibit in a employed essay with Grigore Pop-Eleches of Princeton). The Colored Revolutions are cases in point. Where elections communication that the contestant is viable and the incumbents weak, oppose against determination and corruption crapper hit an gist (Serbia, Ukraine). By contrast, where elections communication program capableness and curb (Belarus and Russia), oppose is unlikely to impress important elites.

The implications of intellection most despotic regimes in this coalitional way, instead of intellection most a contest exclusive between despotic incumbents and the opposition, are substantial. Most importantly, a coalitional model helps to vindicate ground the ostensibly "strong" crapper fall so quickly to a bunch of kids and workers in the street. The capableness of the incumbents is exclusive as beatific as the alliances they have. In another words, program capableness and contestant capableness are not independent variables, but are to a momentous honor co-determined. Once important allies switch, program capableness quickly withers, and, to excerpt Mark Beissinger, "the impossible becomes the inevitable": http://www.princeton.edu/~mbeissin/research.htm.

Have A Heart, Governor Corbett Rally! (adultBasic)

Via http://www.consumerhealthcoalition.org/:

HAVE A HEART, TOM CORBETT! RALLY TO SAVE adultBasicMONDAY, 14 FEBRUARY 2011 @ Noon at the Governor’s Regional Office settled at 301 Fifth Avenue (On the Corner of Wood and Fifth).We module meet incoming two the cat statues (have whatever courage, too, governor!) and hit a short feat where we module center perspective from persons who hit conventional their adultBasic conclusion letter as substantially as persons who are on the waiting itemize (along with a half meg another Pennsylvanians!).Following the rally, a assemble of us module have the Valentines to the Governor’s Regional office.

More on adultBasic here..