Category Archives: Intelligence

UPDATE II (11/5): California Collapsing Under The Weight Of Affirmative Action

Affirmative Action, America, COVID-19, Energy, Free Markets, Intelligence

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When it is reported that “among the hundreds of people who handled the blackouts from Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s emergency operations center, only a handful had any training in the disaster response playbook that California has used for a generation”—you know this is a nice way of saying:

Affirmative action.

The Associated Press found that, “The utility entered 2019 planning to ‘de-energize’ its aging electric grid during autumn windstorms, so that downed lines couldn’t spark a blaze. Yet among the hundreds of people who handled the blackouts from PG&E’s emergency operations center, only a handful had any training in the disaster response playbook that California has used for a generation, The Associated Press found.”

The emergency personnel managing the blackouts for the nation’s largest utility, Pacific Gas and Electric Company,  delivers  third-world quality service to California.

From “When Merit-Based Hiring Is Deemed Racist, Bridges Fall Down”:

When the best-person-for-the-job ethos gives way to racial and gender window-dressing and to the enforcement of politically pleasing perspectives; things start to fall apart.
A spanking new bridge collapses, new trains on maiden trips derail, Navy ships keep colliding, police and FBI failure and bad faith become endemic, and the protocols put in place by a government ‘for the people’ protect offending public servants who’ve acted against the people.

You can be sure that the same fate awaits the task of contact tracing vis-a-vis COVID. It is a highly skilled endeavor, detective work, if you will. The South Koreans, for example, to it to perfection.

Contact-tracing, however, will be used as a job-creation opportunity for the government. Instead of merit-based appointments, state and federal authorities will make politically advantageous appointments .

AP News Wild Fire Hub.

UPDATE I (11/1):
Exactly. Even Tucker, commiserating with fleeing Californians, failed to mention that they pollute every other locality at which they arrive. Idaho, apparently, is getting toxic. How low IQ can you get? Escape a place due to x, y, z; replicate x, y, z in new home.

UPDATE II (11/05): Prop 16 in California may just fail, but, somehow, I think they’ll find a way to retain That Sinking Feeling.

‘MAGA, Mama’: A Parrot That Loves POTUS

Donald Trump, Intelligence, Parrots

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It was in 2016 that Donald Trump captivated my cherub, Oscar-Wood Mercer.  When a Trump rally would begin, he’d fly to his chair at the dinner table and perch there mesmerized.

Here’s the sequence:

“Just landed, mama. Must get into position for the rally.”

“What do you want, mama? Can’t you see I’m busy? Let me watch.”

“OMG, this guy is good. But I’m also an Alpha Male. Let me impress him with my wing span and feathers.”

 

 

UPDATED (10/14): No Notes, No Nonsense: The Genius Of Amy Coney Barrett

Argument, Constitution, Democracy, Federalism, Intelligence, Law, Reason, The Courts

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After hysterical preludes, Amy Klobuchar, the senator from Minnesota, questioned Amy Coney Barrett. I feared Barret’s tart tones—the American woman’s gravelly, vocal fry of a voice—would drive one to distraction, but she’s brilliant. Barrett looks disarmingly sweet and girly, but her replies are gloriously pointed and cerebral.

Advisory opinions are prohibited on the Court, Judge Coney Barrett teaches, as she explains a “concrete” as opposed to a “procedural” or “abstract” injury to the plaintiff. Her duty, as she sees it, is to address “concrete” wrongs, only, and in accordance with democratically-enacted law.

To the question of, “Why fight the Affordable Care Act, Amy Coney Barrett answered: “Ask the litigants. I don’t know.” Genius, because her replies are meta: They nail down the role of the SCOTUS in the federal scheme.

No doubt, Amy Coney Barrett will be the best mind on the SCOTUS! Her analytical reasoning—construction of an argument, the way she seals it logically, her preference for higher-order, principle- and process-oriented thinking, makes Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Roberts, Alito and Breyer pale by comparison. (Roberts is oriented toward administrative thinking; he has the mind of a functionary of the managerial State. As I pointed out in 2005, “Roberts is flummoxed by first-principle quandaries,” whereas first principles is Coney Barrett’s thing.)

For obvious reasons, Sonia Sotomayor was left off my just-cited list of SCOTUS justices whom Amy Coney Barrett easily usurps. An affirmative action baby (her term for herself), Sotomayor was advised to read children’s classics and basic grammar books during her summers, to get up to speed on her English skills at Princeton University. READ.

UPDATE (10/14):

Lots of cringe-worthy cliches and schmaltz came with the “quizzing” by Joni Ernst of Amy Coney Barrett. On being a mom, advice to young girls, exercise, role models. There is not daylight between Republican and liberal women, when it comes to this mushy drivel.

Parrot Genius And Congenital Kindness

Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Intelligence, Parrots

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Parrot genius: Oscar-Wood has a luxurious aviary in a pretty garden with birdbaths and wild blooms (Columbine, being my favorite flower, because wild). BUT he hates it because he’s afraid of cats and raccoons (predators both). As soon as he hears anyone say “outside” or “summer camp,” my code, he rushes back inside his cage and slams the door. (Oscar-Wood looks like a mini dinosaur. Total tyrant.)

Parrot smart? Are you kidding me?

Parrots, the medium/larger ones, have primate-level intelligence. They’re not mere mimics; but use language in context. Adorable too. No training is involved in their fashioning of tools to obtain treats. Corvids are wicked smart but they are not naturally kind like parrots.

There is a lot people, so unkind, can learn from parrots, so congenitally kind.

Forbes: “Some parrots are more intelligent than humans, on average, the kea” is an example. The Kea “outperform monkeys — and perhaps even human infants — on certain probability tasks.”