America has lost its mind, Maryland edition

Charging a 16 year old for a video of herself. Details. She should be on a sex criminal registry??

42%

Link.

Vegan 'fesses up

Her diet was destroying her health. Of course, health is rarely the reason for veganism in the first place.

Banach-Tarski

The Banach-Tarski Theorem, often called a paradox, is one of the most famous results in math that concerns the Axiom of Choice. This video does a really good job of explaining it. He does though skip over where the Axiom Of Choice comes into it (because it’s very technical). It is used when you perform some of the steps on the uncountable remaining points. Roughly speaking, you talk about countable things by creating finite sequences and taking their limit. But you can only do that countably often. So you cannot get at all the surface that way, it’s uncountable. You need to be able to operate uncountably. The key step is where you can “find” the uncountable number of new starting points that have not been colored.  Anyway, an excellent explanation that you don’t need to know set theory to follow.

Open fake

The real purpose of propaganda is not to convince, it is to assert the power and privilege of lying with impunity; it is to clarify who rules.

Time magazine is openly faking quotes.

PhD Recorded — Naomi Wolf Update

Althouse has a summary and observations. The big news here really is that this house of cards got a Oxford PhD. Is there a classification for “PhD recorded” where it isn’t actually issued because it would be unjust?

Colliding blocks and pi

This is quite astounding. Imagine a large block sliding frictionlessly towards a smaller one and colliding elastically. The smaller reflects elastically off an infinite wall, and the blocks collide many times. How many? If the bigger block is a power of 10 as massive as the smaller, the answer is ... quite astounding.  Do be sure to watch the follow up video, which is here.

“Death Recorded”

Here is a lovely lovely, lovely video of Naomi Wolf learning her latest book is based on her misunderstanding of a legal term. She did no checking at all; too good to check. And there's a sting in the tail!

I hope Althouse is being ironic. This kind of thing deserves derision not empathy. The longer interview, starting about 19:00 and continuing after the end of that clip, is even more crushing.

Wolf has a track record for shoddy research.  “Anorexia recorded.”

Extra Time on the SAT

Here.

Milkshakes. No big deal, right?

Stolen from here.

Destroying Good Schools

The Bernie way!

The Democrats time after time sacrifice the welfare of the urban poor, disproportionately black,  to the teachers' unions. The polling numbers Chait gives suggest voters are wising up.

Kakistocracy

I think it is obvious the Democrats have lost their minds. They aren’t the only ones.

The Distilled Essence Of Twitter

What is the essence of Twitter? Anti-intellectual, vindictive, hysterical, ignorant. Also, risible and silly. It manages to combine Gladys Kravitz and Ted Baxter in one.  A fine example.

Wow

Century Old Player Organs

These organs work like player pianos, with a punched scroll. Raucous and rowdy!

Mack The Knife.

Bad Romance

Take On Me. (And, because we live in the golden age of the accordion, Take On Me arranged for accordion quintet.)

Constable Ken B Progress Report

Earlier this year I signed up for the Vintage Mystery Challenge, at the very wimpy Gold Constable level. If I don’t write it down I'll forget ...

Where: Locked Room: Til Death Do Us Part, J D Carr, 1944.
What: Person's Name in Title: Laura, Vera Caspary 1942
How: Involves Fire: Death's Old Sweet Song, Jonathan Stagge 1946
Who: In A Medical Field: Puzzle for Fools, Patrick Quentin, 1936

UPDATES
Why: Read by fellow challenger (Kate): There's Trouble Brewing, Nicholas Blake 1937
When: During a trip (weekend trip!): The Reader is Warned Carter Dickson ( John Dickson Carr) 1939

So GOLD CONSTABLE completed!
Mini reviews and ratings are here.

Asia Bibi Update

She is in Canada. Kudos to Trudeau.

More Eisenga

Piano music by Douwe Eisenga, about 8 minutes.