Log24

Tuesday, November 8, 2016, was also the publication date
at Princeton University Press for a book by one Herbert Gintis:

Gintis reportedly died yesterday, Jan. 5, 2023.

"He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania
and then attended Harvard University for post-graduate
work in mathematics. After receiving his master's degree,
he grew disillusioned with the field, and while at Harvard,
became a sandal maker with a shop in Harvard Square." 

In later years, Gintis was associated with the Santa Fe Institute.

In Memoriam:

Widely quoted description of Russia —

"A gas station with nukes."

See also . . . The Tenet Prom.

Part I — From a TV series released in the UK on Sept. 14, 2018 —

Pages scattered by the wind magically reassemble
at an Oxford witch’s command:

Part II — Images on a book cover from a Log24 search for “Dominus” —

Part III — From Log24 on the “Witches” release date —

In this Cornell page, Gombrich discusses images symbolizing sin.

What sort of sin is symbolized by the above time-reversal scene
in “Discovery of Witches” and by such scenes in the new film “Tenet,”
the reader may decide.

The Randomness

In yesterday’s New York Times, science writer George Johnson quoted a Buddhist:

“Though he professes to accept evolutionary theory, he recoils at one of its most basic tenets: that the mutations that provide the raw material for natural selection occur at random. Look deeply enough, he suggests, and the randomness will turn out to be complexity in disguise– ‘hidden causality,’ the Buddha’s smile. There you have it, Eastern religion’s version of intelligent design.”

— “The Universe in a Single Atom”: Reason and Faith

Gamblers, religious zealots, and the insane may interpret the above as utterances of Lady Luck, God, or The Conspiracy.

A Buddhist interpretation for the New York Times:

A Christian interpretation for the home state of Grace Kelly:

Mistakes Were Made

By Al Kamen, Washington Post 
Friday, April 16, 2004

“… Bush, in his news conference Tuesday…. found a way to make not one, not two, but three factual errors in a single 15-word sentence, which must be something of a world indoor record. Bush said it is still possible that inspectors will find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

‘They could still be there. They could be hidden, like the 50 tons of mustard gas in a turkey farm,’ he said, referring to Libya’s WMD disclosures last month.

The White House, according to Reuters, said the accurate figure was 23.6 metric tons or 26 tons, not 50. The stuff was found at various locations, not at a turkey farm. And there was no mustard gas on the farm at all, but unfilled chemical munitions.

Other than that, the sentence was spot on.”

Other mistakes …

“It’s not at all like CIA Director George J. Tenet to forget not one, but two, conversations with President Bush in the critical month [August] before Sept. 11, 2001. But there’s one possible explanation for his distraction when he testified Wednesday morning to the Sept. 11 commission: He was thinking about his luncheon plans.

Tenet was spotted around 12:30 at the Hay-Adams, sitting at a window table for two with none other than Jack Valenti, outgoing head of the Motion Picture Association of America….”

Hey, that’s why
they make erasers.

Real Enemies, Part I

“Even paranoids have real enemies.”
— Saying attributed to Delmore Schwartz

According to the Washington Post and Newsday today, the President’s persecutors now include

Paul O’Neill,
   formerly Bush’s Treasury Secretary

Richard A. Clarke,
   formerly Bush’s counterterrorism chief

Rand Beers,
   Bush’s counterterrorism chief after Clarke

Flynt Leverett,
   former member of the Bush national security staff

Richard Foster,
   Bush Medicare accountant

John DiIulio,
   former director of Bush’s faith-based initiatives

“Others who have fallen out of favor over Iraq include former economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey, retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni and former Army chief of staff Gen. Eric Shinseki. All voiced concerns about either the expense or number of troops needed to occupy Iraq. All were treated dismissively by the White House. All are gone, but their estimates proved accurate….

Not every White House attempt at damage-control works. Last summer, White House officials tried to pin the blame on CIA Director George Tenet for not waving Bush off his State of the Union claim that Saddam was seeking uranium in Africa for nuclear weapons.

Political analysts rushed to proclaim Tenet a goner, but those obituaries proved premature.”

— Tom Raum in Newsday today