complete with well placed mockery from the right:

Neil deGrasse Tyson blows more minds with idea to prevent computer hacking.

but they should know something.

I was a prety good Civil Procedure student back in my day.  And I taught it for five years.  Once got a call from a student who'd gotten a job with a firm I'd done some work for.  She claims they atty she was working for asked "Was Mr. Kile your Civil Pro instructor?" due to her approach to the subject.  Highest praise I ever got as a teacher.

So it broke my heart to read Adam Gopnik in The New Yorker's "The Newtown Lawsuit and the Moral Work of Gun Control."

The filed complaint—the numbered paragraphs give it an oddly religious feeling, like theses nailed to a church door—is worth reading in full,  ....

ALL complaints have numbered paragraphs.  Court Rules at every level with the possible exception of Municipal or Mayors Courts and JP Courts.  And as far as theses nailed on church doors - medevil church doors were the college town telephone poles af its day.  EVERYTHING got posted there.  

As one writer obeserved: Yeah, I don’t actually know anything about the law, I’m just making shit up.

See also Gell-Mann

If the data doesn't give you theresult you want or conform to your hypothisis, change the data .... or bury it .... or ignore it .... but the narrative MUST be maintained at all costs.

Has NOAA Once Again Tried to Adjust Data to Match Climate Models?

PHRAUD? New questions on “ocean acidification.”…

I have been contacted by a group of central Ohio Libertarians who want me to run for office.  The problem is, there's an issue in my past that's holding me back, especially in light of the recent Scalise kerfuffle.  So in the interest of full disclosure here on the interwebs I feel that it’s time for me to confess a similar transgression — although, perhaps more serious, since I actually spoke with the group in question and I knew what I was doing at the time.

The group I addressed has devoted decades to advancing discriminatory policies that treat blacks and other minority groups as substandard, inferior and virtually handicapped compared with whites. What’s more they’re unrepentant, even proud of it.

Worse, the group has been responsible for racially segregating schools and neighborhoods, by literally funneling taxpayer dollars into substandard housing zones that become generational poverty traps for poor racial minorities.

In addition, the group has coordinated money, manpower and strategy with kindred organizations to block minority children from receiving a decent education, and to box out independent minority entrepreneurs from lucrative contracts that could lift them and their neighborhoods up from the bottom.

Worst of all, the group before which I spoke has successfully promoted and funded race-selective “medical procedures” which have resulted in the deaths of millions of black infants.

Yes, that’s right: I confess that some years ago, I spoke before a group of Democrats.

(blatantly stolen from Scott Ott)

First, I did NOT watch Holiday Inn this season.  The copy I downloaded was bad and I didn't bother to get another.  No big deal but worthy of noting.

Second, I use several sources of recommendations for what to watch - Netflix lists, Flickchart lists, Amazon ... and the IMDB Top 250.  On any given day I've seen 240 of them.  I usually pick the oldest one I haven't seen and add it to my list.  There are always 5-6 new movies who haven't yet stood the test oftime but that the fanboys and/or critics acclaimed when they hit.  I'll let those simmerfor a while.  And then there are the foreign films who get a cup of coffee in the top 250 but usualy in the 200-250 range as a flash in the pan, only to be displaced by the next blockbuster with staying power.  Curently there's a Bollywood fild called "Gangs of Wasseypur" from 2012 holding down the 196 spot.  It WOULDA been added to the listtoday ....except for a Turkish film called "The Bandit" starring Senor Sen - the Turkish Al Pacino.  Popped up on the list today at 127!

The formula for calculating the Top Rated 250 Titles gives a true Bayesian estimate:

weighted rating (WR) = (v ÷ (v+m)) × R + (m ÷ (v+m)) × C

Where:

• R = average for the movie (mean) = (Rating)
• v = number of votes for the movie = (votes)
• m = minimum votes required to be listed in the Top 250 (currently 25000)
• C = the mean vote across the whole report (currently 7.0)

Looking at the formula, I can't figure out how this movie JUST hit, and hit so high? Have the Turks been loving it for two decades and it just NOW got the "International Acclaim" it needed to qualify? 

Just an interesting statistical anomaly but one that keep my brain fed.

The awesome Jonah Goldberg, ringing out the old year and hoping for a better 2015:

Barack Obama was friends with a domestic terrorist, Bill Ayers. His spiritual mentor was a vitriolic racist, Jeremiah Wright. One of his administration's closest advisers and allies is Al Sharpton, a man who has inspired enough racial violence to make a grand dragon's white sheets turn green with envy.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party venerated the late Sen. Robert Byrd, a former Klansmen himself. He was one of 19 senators (all Democrats) to sign the Southern Manifesto opposing integration. One of his co-signers was William Fulbright, Bill Clinton's mentor.

When Republicans are in power, "dissent is the highest form of patriotism." When Democrats are in power, dissent is the racist fuming of "angry white men."

Peaceful, law-abiding tea party groups who cleaned up after their protests -- and got legal permits for them -- were signs of nascent fascism lurking in the American soul. Violent, anarchic and illegal protests by Occupy Wall Street a few years ago or, more recently, in Ferguson, Missouri, were proof that a new idealistic generation was renewing its commitment to idealism.

When rich conservatives give money to Republicans, it is a sign that the whole system has been corrupted by fat cats. When it is revealed that liberal billionaires and left-wing super PACs outspent conservative groups in 2014: crickets.

When Republicans invoke God or religious faith as an inspiration for their political views, it's threatening and creepy. When Democrats do it, it's a sign they believe in social justice.

One can do this all day long. But while examples are easy, explanations are hard.

I don't know who first said, "Behind every apparent double standard lies an unconfessed single standard" (and as far as I can tell, neither does the Internet), but whoever did was onto something.

What looks like inexplicably staggering hypocrisy from the conservative perspective is actually remarkably consistent from the liberal perspective.