How I think about the question of bathrooms, changing rooms, and transgender students in school

Looks like I am again on a different side of another social issue from a friend of mine. And potentially many of their friends and family. This time, it's about whether transgender kids can use the bathroom of the sex they identify as (as opposed to the one they were assigned at birth.) As a preface, I don't know how my perspective stacks up with that of the "social justice warrior" types which tend to flog these issues with authoritarian zeal we so often see associated with authoritarian mindsets, but I think that I can say that my perspective is likely (hopefully) somewhat different. But I want to first start with the position that one's conclusions may likely differ greatly depending on whether you believe sex and gender to be the same or different.

This is what my friend's comment was on the topic:

While I sympathesize with transgender individuals, I will not let [my daughter] share a locker room with a male. ... The school already made reasonable accommodations. If this is how public schools will work, [my daughter] will not be attending.

As a biologist, I read my friend's comment and thought, "How are you defining 'male' here, since we both know the dominant role that hormones play in determining primary sex characteristics during development and secondary sex characteristics during puberty?" From this perspective, we can see how biological sex and socially defined gender don't always match up. Given the various ways that biological outcomes don't align with strict US gender norms of recent history, there are a number of cases where a child can be sex-ambiguous, but have their gender assigned to them by a doctor at birth, only to have that designation change later in life, as in the case of intersex and hormone-deficient individuals. Neither of these cases are necessarily "transsexual" (let alone transgender), but given how little people understand about physiology and gender identity, they will likely get folded in with transgenderism.

• Therefore, would you have a problem with your daughter sharing a locker room with a school mate who is intersex, was assigned the male sex at birth, but then developed as a female during puberty?
• Also, would you have a problem with your daughter sharing a locker room with a school mate who, due to a hormone deficiency condition, has been taking hormone therapy since before they started puberty?
• Furthermore, in both of the above cases, even if these classmates developed as female throughout puberty, what would your position be if they publicly identified (or privately confided to your daughter) that they were male?

These issues of how biological sex doesn't align with socially defined gender create some problems with consistency, since saying that an intersex child who was designated male at birth but then naturally develops as female *should* be allowed to use the girls locker room, despite believing themselves to be male can easily appear to be creating a double standard on sex and gender identity. True, you could make the big lift of attempting to educate the entire populace about the biological definition of intersex and how it's different from questions of transgender, but I doubt that it will be very successful. But beyond the problems that biology throws in the path of sex and gender, there are alternate scenarios that are actually about transgenderism and identity:

• Imagine a scenario in which one of your daughter's classmates (or friends) underwent sex transition and became male (i.e., took their transgenderism into transsexualism, which is currently quite rare, but could become more common in the next 17 years). Would you insist that this classmate (or friend) now use the male changing room (since they are now male) or continue to use the female changing room (since they were born female)? (Would that answer be different prior to starting the sex change? And, if so, at what point during that transition would you insist that this classmate use the other locker room?)
• Given the size of public schools, it is quite possible that one of your daughter's schoolmates will be transgender. Would you have a problem with your daughter sharing a locker room with a school mate who doesn't publicly identify as transgender during their school years, but in adulthood comes out as transgender? Yes, this means that there could be a student who is born female, secretly (or publicly) identifies as male, and is in the locker rooms having fantasies about their classmates, and might even imagine what it could be like to marry one of their classmates after they change their sex or marry their classmate despite choosing not to change their sex or any number of adolescent fantasies about their crushes (who they happen to be sharing the locker room with, since locker room assignment is based solely on sex).

And then there is the personal scenario:

• Would you have a problem if your daughter told you that she actually identified as male, and was being being barred from using a toilet and changing room by other parents' unfounded preconceptions about the motivations of your child?

In addition to the above biological and conditional questions, there is the humanitarian question of what to do with someone who, by announcing that they are a gender non-conformist, automatically out themselves as a major potential social pariah. From this perspective, what is the potential benefit that an individual would have in outing themselves as a "boy who says he's a girl"? Unlike what some people might fantasize, I would posit that this an announcement that is unlikely to win you any brownie points. Even if you can win the public fight to use toilets and changing rooms that better align with your identified gender, once you go into that room, you are only going to be met with suspicion, scorn and ostracism by the vast majority of fellow students in there. Your motivations will continue to be questioned at every turn, as will your worth as a person. For the imagined boy who is going to try this in order to take a peek at girls or somehow bully and abuse their female classmates, this is a markedly stupid and shortsighted plan; he will be ostracized from many male groups and he will be ostracized from many female groups; his potential options for "sneaking a peek" at his classmates will almost assuredly be thwarted, and any opportunity he does have will likely be punished by his new gender peers. And for the girl who identifies as male? It will likely be just as bad, but in different ways. So I doubt that the majority of students who are saying they identify as transsexual are doing it for the jollies.

In sum, with the ability that we have in changing biological sex - a technical capability that is continually advancing - we are moving into a world in which biological sex can be as arbitrary as cultural definitions of gender. I think that it is because of sex transition that I think is one of the major reasons why transgender has become increasingly visible. However, in the case of children and adolescents, there continues to be a general hesitancy in going through with sex reassignment (although there are some cases where it is happening, and it could well become more common as our children grow into adults), which reduces the question to one in which individuals with one set of sex organs can only say they don't identify as being part of the larger group of people who have those same sex organs, but remain unable to do much about it until they become adults. (With a proportion of those then choosing to undergo the sex transition they were unable to do as minors.)

At the end of the day, the genie is out of the bottle, Pandora's box has been opened, etc. The question (at least in my mind) is not how to continue to enforce what is becoming a set of social norms that are incongruous with physical, technical, and (increasingly) social reality, but rather how to seek ways in which we can reassess social norms (which are - in the end - highly arbitrary) to better match the world that we are becoming, while trying simultaneously to cleave to core tenets of what it means to be who we are. And no, I don't consider toilet and locker room sex assignments to be a core tenet, just like I don't consider slavery or women not being able to vote core tenets, despite them both playing central roles in shaping the US during its history.

On the question of toilet and locker room access, my position is actually to have gender neutral locker rooms as an option for students who don't identify with the sex they were assigned at birth or by society. If you do identify with the sex you were assigned at birth, then you use the sex-defined bathroom and changing room. Boom. This option can also include people who are non-sexual, many of whom have similar levels of angst and paranoia when it comes to the question of sex segregation and toilets. Yeah, some might call this special pleading based on gender, but I agree with that argument as much as I agree with the historical argument that allowing women to attend university is special pleading based on gender.

There are plenty of other points that could be raised (including a comparison of gender norms across societies and through US history, how toilets became sex segregated in the US, or how demanding sex segregation based on birth sex actually creates very troubling outcome scenarios, especially when it comes to people who have undergone a sex change transition), but one of the main problems that I see is that of imposing social gender norms on a perceived binary in which sex=gender, despite it being more complicated than that. And as the fluidity in sex moves toward the fluidity of gender, the strict sex=gender binary of bathrooms and locker rooms (as with anything where there is a strict sex=gender binary) will come increasingly under question, uncovering the real interesting complexity of humanity that the binary merely obscured, but actually existed there the whole time. The knee-jerk response of, "not for my society!" only serves to create second-class citizens within a democratic system that is meant to protect the rights of the minority against the tyranny of the majority. And those are my two cents.

Totally unsurprising news: Using religion to justify your contempt of court doesn't work

So Kim Davis is going to jail for contempt of court for refusing to comply with a former judicial decision saying that she had to issue same-sex marriage licenses to same-sex couples who apply for them and are legally allowed to get married, despite what personally held religious belief she might have.

The Liberty Counsel, who is representing her, had a rather silly rationale as to why she shouldn't be held in contempt: she was incapable of doing her job.

No, I'm serious; their whole argument was that she was incapable of doing her job as county clerk, because her religion didn't allow her to comply with the law.

Yeah... the judge didn't buy that either.

What the judge did was to put her in jail, saying that fines would unlikely force her to comply with an order that she was already choosing not to comply with. One additional benefit of putting her in jail would be that the county clerk would then actually be incapable of doing her job (since she would be in jail), allowing the county's judge executive to issue marriage licenses.

Maybe this is one of those "think with you heart" sorts of questions?

I saw this on a friend's Facebook wall, and it made me think, "Hmm..."

I really like the sentiment, but given how quickly human beings are causing the extinction of species (including the colorful ones) on a planetary scale, the basis of the opening position that human beings cherish "the variety of color in every species" is questionable.

It is true, though, that human beings DO like certain varieties of colorful species. To such an extent that we capture them, confine them, and forcibly breed them so that our personal enjoyment of them can continue. This is, after all, what zoos and aquariums do, and the basis upon which many historically rested their conservation platforms. Furthermore, this is why there is a pet trade (indeed, a "pet industry") that makes its money in breeding and selling animals.

The presence of zoos, aquariums, and the pet industry is a factually correct response to the answer to the first part of the "why" question that specifically responds to why and how human beings choose to provide conservation help to only specific species, even as human beings also continue to cause a planetary extinction. However, recognizing that we effectively treat the colorful animals that we love as virtual or effective slaves is a ... troubling response when considering the second half of the question.

Ruminations on forward-looking ancestors and backward-looking descendants.

I don't know if it's because I am the child of two different countries, or just because I like to think about these sorts of things, but I have long thought about the reality of my highly contingent existence and how it maps on to the reality of my very lived experience. How can I exist, given all the potential possibilities of mixtures between egg and sperm that could have happened? And, even if a genetic twin of me existed, how could that person be me, given all the different ways that my environment shaped me vs. how even minor changes in environment would have differently shaped that twin? (And then scale that to all the potential changes to me and my forebears through time.)

A hint of that popped into my head when I saw this graphic:

To me, the message was incomplete. While you may be the "result of the love of thousands [of ancestors]," you are also the result of a random chance meeting between one of several million sperm (each one a random assortment of half your father's genes) and one egg (which was a random assortment of half of your mother's genes) of several million that happened to be the one that matured, developed under gestational influences that caused certain epigenetic predispositions to be expressed in addition to the genetic expressions encoded in your genome, raised in a specific time and place in world history among a random assortment of peers, and made a series of unreplicable personal decisions in concert with the personal decisions and actions of those around you, which - if any one of the countless variables had been different (amongst your peers, in you, and amongst all of your forebears and your peers forebears) - would have resulted in a completely different timeline of existence than the one in which those particular ancestors stood behind the particular person you recognize as yourself.

But it's likely that those different ancestors would have told that different self that they were the result of a differen set of thousands bestowing their love.

IOW: Your entire existence (and the existences of everyone you know and don't know) are highly contingent and effectively random. But that doesn't change the simple fact that you're here as a result of the effort and love of those who came before you.

Old journal entries from 2003 and 2004

I found some old journals from 2003 (writing for a class about my views and thoughts about all manner of things) and 2004 (field notes from my research trip to India). I'll be posting entries from them over the next few weeks.

Names of people have been abbreviated or redacted.

No, Ki Energy Does Not Explain the Unbendable Arm (Not even when the assertion is published in an academic journal)

A few years ago, I saw a link to an article titled, "The Physiological Study of Ki in Ki Aikido (2)" (PSoKiKA2) published in the Journal of International Society of Life Information Science in 2001. As a person who used to practice aikido (a lot) and who still dabbles in it from time to time, the concept of Ki and the practice of Ki Aikido were familiar to me.

And I've long felt they they were bunk.

What is ki?
Okay, so I've revealed my position right away, but the evidence for the physical existence of ki is paltry at best; along the lines of evidence for ghosts, bigfoot, and the yeti. Indeed, the idea of ki is an embedded concept in Japanese culture, and it is used in forming many words (denki: electricity, kibun: mood, tenki: weather, and aikido: literally "harmonious-spirit way"), and it also has a spiritual/religious meaning. A good analogue of ki is the word (and concept of) pneuma, which has the double meaning of "breath" and "spirit/soul": it has both a physical and a mystical meaning. Indeed, like pneuma, ki is often associated in its physical manifestation as breath, especially in the spiritualistic extremes of Aikido practice. It also has a history of deep associations with Far-Eastern religions (much like pneuma had a history of deep mystical and religious associations in Classical Greek society and - through the works of Aristotle and the Stoics - the pre-Enlightenment concept of medicine, too).

Assessment of PSoKiKA2
Anyway, back to "The Physiological Study of Ki in Ki Aikido (2)." The article is built on the whole notion that the ki in Ki Aikido is a quantifiable physical phenomenon, with the very first sentence in the introduction unequivocally stating:

Aikido is a Japanese martial art, in which Ki is very important and is not always a physical power. (1,2)

Yes. There are references.  In fact, the article cites a total of three references, each one of them about Ki Aikido. In this case, references 1 and 2 are books in the popular press about Ki Aikido (Ki Energy for Everybody and Ki in Daily Life). The final reference is actually the complement to this study (or "PSoKiKA1"), which was published in the March issue of the same journal.

The methodology seems to be okay, but remember that the whole article is resting on the (untested) axiomatic premise that ki is real and can be measured. The introduction continues, though, thusly:

To identify what Ki is in Aikido, we studied what physiological state is controlled when the unbendable arm is performed. The experiments to study the state of the unbendable arm consist of three different conditions: (1) the state of the arm being unbendable by applying only physical power, (2) the state of the arm being unbendable by being powerless without resistance, and (3) the state of the arm being unbendable by extending Ki. Through analysis of the differences among the three states examined, the difference between physical power and Ki should be understood.

Um... Yeah. A little explanation is needed here, I think. First, what is "the unbendable arm"? Here is a quick video explanation (with a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, but not that much of it) that also shows the three conditions of the experiment (the guy in the video calls state (2) "floppy arms"):



In short, when you do the unbendable arm, your arm cannot be (easily) bent by your partner, even if they are trying really hard to bend your arm (which is why it's called "unbendable arm"), and it's a concept that exists in other martial arts, too. All the stuff about the poses is hooey, and you definitely can do it as a party trick to impress people. (But it rarely does impress people, unless you use it to show a person doing pull-ups on your arm.)

Going back to the PSoKiKA2, the researchers hooked up a Ki Aikido master a bunch of apparatuses to see what physiological effects and brain activity there are when the master is (1) actively using muscular strength to resist someone trying to bend his arm, (2) using nothing to resist the person bending his arm, and (3) using the unbendable arm technique to resist someone trying to best his arm.

Not really a bad set-up, except for the premise that what makes the unbendable arm function is ki. *sigh*

Still, PSoKiKA2 gets what looks like decent data and shows that the physiology and brain wave activity is different between condition (1) and condition (3). (Side note: condition (2) is treated as if it were a refractory period between the two tested conditions, and ought to be no different than the baseline condition that was measured prior to condition (1)). Specifically, the results showed:

• Relative to condition (2), the heart rate was elevated under condition (1) but not condition (3).
• There was more blood flow at the neck under condition (1) than condition (2).
• Both condition (1) and condition (3) showed almost instant blood pressure increase, but it was higher for condition (3).
• GSR increased sharply under condition (1) but not condition (3).
• Abdominal respiration ceased under condition (1) but was continued under condition (3).
• Neck temperature decreased under condition (1) but increased under condition (3).
• Condition (1) showed both alpha and beta wave brain activity, but condition (3) showed only alpha wave brain activity and no beta wave brain activity compared to condition (2).

Now, I would look at these results, and I would say that this conclusively shows that this Ki Aikido master is doing something very different between condition (1) and condition (3). In fact, that's all that PSoKiKA2 can show. If I had data from other subjects (like other aikido masters or complete off-the-street novices who were taught the basics of the unbendable arm mere seconds before testing), then I would be more comfortable to say that condition (1) and condition (3) are not merely artifacts created by the practitioner. (As an aikido practitioner, though, I would say that they aren't, but the data of one individual do not support my personal experiential - and therefore potentially subjective - observation.)

However, this isn't what PSoKiKA2 concludes. Indeed, here's what the authors thought the results meant:

... when resisting with Ki, the subject kept breathing and the exhalation dominated when starting to resist the power, this is presumably the factor functioning to resist the power applied.

... Coordinative function of the frontal lobe of the left-brain with the region for vision in the right brain was observed. The force through Ki might generate this connection.

Yeah, mumbo-jumbo that is also self-confirmatory. Ki and breath are always connected, as is ki and the mind. Finding these things is not proof of ki, but is either an explanation of acculturation or associative physiological processes. For example, in Aikido, we are taught a form of demonstrating the unbendable arm in which we don't breathe when physically resisting. See what the instructor does from 1:00? He purses his lips when not talking; when watching a similar demonstration in other dojos, this is often done unspeaking and with a clenched position. To one extent, it's play-acting. To another extent, it is true that if we are actively resisting, it's difficult to breathe easily, but for the purposes of demonstrating the unbendable arm, it's not so difficult as to cause you to cease all breathing. (Here, the Aikido master in the study either consciously or unconsciously play-acting the role assumed in the active resistance portion of the demonstration.)

So what do I think causes the unbendable arm, if it isn't ki? Well, I think that it's two things: mechanical advantage in work and physiology.

Mechanical advantage in work (aka the dot product of orthogonal vectors)
Waaay back in undergraduate (or maybe high school), when we took physics, one of the things that we learned as a part of kinematics was the concept of the dot product. Now, dot products are important in kinematics, since forces can be represented as vectors, and vectors can be manipulated using that specialized area of algebra called linear algebra.

One of the more important lessons that we learned in basic physics (the one that tries to teach kinematics without relying on the students' knowledge of linear algebra) is that the dot product of orthogonal vectors is always equal to zero. In other words, the net work done by perpendicular forces is nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zeeero. (And - conversely - the net work done by parallel forces is always equal to one or negative one, depending on directions of the vectors.)

Why is this important?

Well, the unbendable arm is actually - on one level - about the application of forces. The one trying to bend the arm (the "partner") is actively exerting force on the arm of the one resisting the arm-bending forces (the "practitioner"). In order to not have his arm bent, the practitioner must be exerting a force, because of the Law of the Conservation of Energy.

When the practitioner is actively resisting by pressing back on the partner's force, they are effectively creating a force vector that is parallel to the partner's force vector. In practical terms, this means that the maximum potential force can be imparted in the task, and the person exerting more force will be able to bend the arm in the direction they want. Since the partner has better leverage (and is usually using two arms), the partner is almost always able to overcome practitioner's ability to exert the force necessary to keep his arm extended.

However, when in the unbendable arm, the practitioner actually exerts force perpendicular to the forces exerted by his partner. Watch the video again, especially from 1:30. The force that the instructor is exerting is actually in the direction in which his fingertips are pointing: roughly perpendicular to his partner's hand positions. Since the angle between the forces approaches 90 degrees, the total amount of force that can be exerted by the partner on the practitioner approaches zero, which makes it very easy for the practitioner to utilize muscle force to counteract the remaining force exerted by the partner.

This isn't only the case when you have a partner using their hands and arms to try and bend the practitioner's arm. It also works with simple weights strapped across the arm at the inside elbow (provided the practitioner can stabilize his wrist and hand on something). So long as the practitioner extends a forward force, the weights will not bend his arm. It still takes work, though, since the force vectors are not at precisely 90 degrees, nor is there any feedback that the practitioner can receive from the weights, which is why it's actually harder (at least in my experience) to do unbendable arm with dead weights. But this leads to the next factor: physiology.

Physiology (specifically the stretch reflex response)
The actions of the human body are not purely the realm of abstract kinematics. The forces it creates are derived from the musculature. No surprise there. However, human skeletal muscle has a stretch reflex response, and:

When a muscle lengthens, the muscle spindle is stretched and its nerve activity increases. This increases alpha motor neuron activity, causing the muscle fibers to contract and thus resist the stretching. A secondary set of neurons also causes the opposing muscle to relax. The reflex functions to maintain the muscle at a constant length.

Gamma motoneurons regulate how sensitive the stretch reflex is by tightening or relaxing the fibers within the spindle. There are several theories as to what may trigger gamma motoneurons to increase the reflex's sensitivity. For example, gamma co-activation might keep the spindles taut when a muscle is contracted, preserving their stretch-sensitivity even as the muscle fibers become shorter. Otherwise the spindles would become slack and the reflex would cease to function.

In short, skeletal muscle has a way of maintaining a certain level of stretch in them that helps maintain the lengthened arm position by creating fine-level manipulations within the muscle fibers to ensure that the overall tension of the musculature is maintained unconsciously. This is important when describing the difference between doing the unbendable arm with a partner and with weights.

When practicing with a partner, the stretch reflex response continuously recruits different muscle fibers to optimize maintaining the position of the arm in its outstretched position. As the partner shifts his leverage (even minutely), muscle fibers in the practitioner's arm are automatically recruited and relaxed, which means that the practitioner isn't consistently using the same muscle fibers to continue keeping the arm extended.

Conversely, when practicing with weights, there is no shifting. (At least, there shouldn't be.) The weights have a constant, unchanging downward force due to gravity, and (if the stabilization point is a fixed surface) the stabilization point is also exerting a constant, unchanging upward force on the back of the hand. The stretch reflex response is to continue to keep the exact same muscle fibers recruited and leave others unrecruited. This means that the arm quickly tires (unless the practitioner moves his position or unless the practitioner uses the partner's shoulder as a stabilization point, or both).

Indeed, we would encounter this type of problem were we to simply keep an arm raised at shoulder height. We might start off by keeping the arm perfectly still, but our shoulder would quickly start to fatigue, and we would be sorely tempted to either drop the arm or move it to a different position. Even rotating the arm or changing the angle of the shoulder or bending the arm at the elbow will suddenly make the task feel easier (at least for a time). This is because the stretch reflex response recruits different unfatigued muscle fibers and releases fatigued ones in order to maintain the new position.

Closing Remarks
I don't know for certain that the unbendable arm is actually caused by the realization of the dot product of forces combined with the stretch reflex response in the arm, but these two things actually have an internal logic and consistency to them that ki doesn't have. If we believe that it was actually ki energy that kept the arm straight, that would mean that the practitioner can convert the partner's physical energy into ki energy. It also means that the process of such energy conversion just happens to look like it takes advantage of the dot product of orthogonal vectors on the physics side and the stretch reflex response on the physiological side.

In short, one doesn't need to rely on mumbo-jumbo non-explanations like, "it must be associated with ki," unless you happen to be using the concept of ki purely in its ineffable sense. However, to write a physiology paper that effectively says that we can measure and observe ki in the body's response to a set-piece in Aikido circles is akin to citing the "power of intercessionary prayer" in healing the cataracts in Sam's mum:



... and the evidence about the studies of the efficacy of the power of intercessionary prayer is that the studies are heavily biased with internal assumptions that cannot be tested, are - at best - serendipitously aligned with the outcomes that the experimenters expect to see, and so riddled with confirmation bias that negative or null outcomes are often explained away or not even included as "valid" results.

Take home messages:

1. The PSoKiKA2 study does nothing to actually show the existence of ki.
2. The unbendable arm can be explained through simple kinematics and physiology.
3. Heavily biasing your scientific research with predetermined causative effects means that you will certainly draw the wrong conclusions from your science (even if your method of obtaining the data was decent or even good).

Just what does Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia think the Supreme Court is SUPPOSED to do?

In his scathing dissent in the minority opinion on Windsor v. United States Scalia wrote (and spoke) this statement, which left me scratching my head a little bit (emphasis mine):

The Court says that we have the power to decide this case because if we did not, thenour “primary role in determining the constitutionality of a law” (at least one that “has inflicted real injury on a plaintiff ”) would “become only secondary to the President’s.” Ante, at 12. But wait, the reader wonders—Windsor won below, and so cured her injury, and the President was glad to see it. True, says the majority, but judicial review must march on regardless, lest we “undermine the clear dictate of the separation-of-powers principle that when an Act of Congress is alleged to conflict with the Constitution, it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted).

That is jaw-dropping. It is an assertion of judicial supremacy over the people’s Representatives in Congress and the Executive. It envisions a Supreme Court standing (or rather enthroned) at the apex of government, empowered to decide all constitutional questions, always and every- where “primary” in its role.

This image of the Court would have been unrecognizable to those who wrote and ratified our national charter. They knew well the dangers of “primary” power, and so created branches of government that would be “perfectly coordinate by the terms of their common commission,” none of which branches could “pretend to an exclusive or superior right of settling the boundaries between their respective powers.” The Federalist, No. 49, p. 314 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (J. Madison). The people did this to protect themselves. They did it to guard their right to self-rule against the black-robed supremacy that today’s majority finds so attractive. So it was that Madison could confidently state, with no fear of contradiction, that there was nothing of “greater intrinsic value” or “stamped with the authority of more enlightened patrons of liberty” than a government of separate and coordinate powers. Id., No. 47, at 301.

For this reason we are quite forbidden to say what the law is whenever (as today’s opinion asserts) “‘an Act of Congress is alleged to conflict with the Constitution.’” Ante, at 12. We can do so only when that allegation will determine the outcome of a lawsuit, and is contradicted by the other party. The “judicial Power” is not, as the majority believes, the power “‘to say what the law is,’” ibid., giving the Supreme Court the “primary role in determining the constitutionality of laws.” The majority must have in mind one of the foreign constitutions that pronounces such primacy for its constitutional court and allows that primacy to be exercised in contexts other than a lawsuit.See, e.g., Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, Art. 93. The judicial power as Americans have understood it (and their English ancestors before them) is the power to adjudicate, with conclusive effect, disputed government claims (civil or criminal) against private persons, and disputed claims by private persons against the government or other private persons. Sometimes (though not always) the parties before the court disagree not with regard to the facts of their case (or not only with regard to the facts) but with regard to the applicable law—in which event (and only in which event) it becomes the “‘province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.’” Ante, at 12.

In other words, declaring the compatibility of state or federal laws with the Constitution is not only not the “primary role” of this Court, it is not a separate, free standing role at all. We perform that role incidentally—by accident, as it were—when that is necessary to resolve the dispute before us. Then, and only then, does it become “‘the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.’” That is why, in 1793, we politely declined the Washington Administration’s request to “say what the law is” on a particular treaty matter that was not the subject of a concrete legal controversy. 3 Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay 486–489 (H.Johnston ed. 1893). And that is why, as our opinions have said, some questions of law will never be presented to this Court, because there will never be anyone with standing to bring a lawsuit. See Schlesinger v. Reservists Comm. to Stop the War, 418 U. S. 208, 227 (1974); United States v. Richardson, 418 U. S. 166, 179 (1974). As Justice Bran- deis put it, we cannot “pass upon the constitutionality of legislation in a friendly, non-adversary, proceeding”; absent a “‘real, earnest and vital controversy between individuals,’” we have neither any work to do nor any power to do it. Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U. S. 288, 346 (1936) (concurring opinion) (quoting Chicago & Grand Trunk R. Co. v. Wellman, 143 U. S. 339, 345 (1892)). Our authority begins and ends with the need to adjudge the rights of an injured party who stands before us seeking redress. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 560 (1992).

Is Scalia really saying that the Supreme Court is not there to judge whether a law passed by Congress is constitutional or not if the specific offended party gets a positive decision in their case? Is Scalia really saying that the Supreme Court isn't really there to determine the compatibility of state and federal laws with the Constitution? I'm sorry, but whaaaa?

First of all, I don't really see this rationale in the decisions he makes in striking down legislation and court decisions that he doesn't agree with. So he's not being consistent in his framework. Or, as the Daily Show's Samantha Bee reported, "It's what lawyers call 'the Principle of Waaaaah!'":


Second of all, perhaps Scalia needs to take a refresher course in civics, because the role of the Supreme Court is often defined as follows:

[The Supreme Court] can tell a President that his actions are not allowed by the Constitution. It can tell Congress that a law it passed violated the U.S. Constitution and is, therefore, no longer a law. It can also tell the government of a state that one of its laws breaks a rule in the Constitution.

Maybe, though Scalia should contact Scholastic.com (and all the other textbook publishers) to inform them of what the real role of the Supreme Court is (right after he figures out a way to make it consistent with his own past judicial positions as well as those of the Supreme Court through time).

Maybe, too, Scalia could jump in his time machine and explain to the writers of the US Constitution what they meant when they wrote the following about the role of the judiciary (and the Supreme Court):

The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority; ...

Of course, maybe Scalia doesn't think that the Constitution actually says what it means to say.

(I also think that this is the first time that the phrase "argle-bargle" was used in a Supreme Court opinion, but I could be wrong here.)

Post #1300

Since I believe that I missed out on the rather arbitrary mark of 1000th post, I'm now taking the opportunity to point out - for no other reason than "just because" - that this post marks the 1300th since I started this blogging journey.

Hopefully there will be another arbitrary, more-than-1000 posts to come in the future.

Console Themes in Acapella

I remember these games. And now you can listen to them sung acapella by a man with long hair and a long beard.

Heh. :)

Street Fighter 2 - Guile Theme Acapella


Castlevania - Bloody Tears Acapella


Final Fantasy VII - JENOVA Theme Acapella


Final Fantasy VII - Aerith's (Aeris) Theme Acapella

Sunday Thoughts: Pedalling a bus? Potentially, yes!

This is just kinda cool, from Brazil, an idea for having a pedal-power assisted bus. Via Inhabitat, we learn that there is a design from "Rever Design Studio for a cycling double decker bus. On the second level, there are 24-27 active passenger cycles to assist in generating the power reserve of the electric bus. The lower level of the bus is for passive passengers and a bus driver. The double decker bus also comes with a back room for more than 30 folding or non-folding bicycles."

I think that this could be an interesting way to travel around Rio. (The question is, though, whether people would prefer to pedal on a bus or pedal alongside and between them...)

Friday photo(s): Male nudity, the WW2 army, and advertising

Last week, Buzzfeed's copyranter posted a few rather "steamy" and - from today's viewpoint - "homoerotic" towel advertisements from the 1940s. The interesting thing about these towel ads (see more at Copyranter's page), is that the image was based on stories from soldiers themselves - which served as the inspiration for the rather uninspired copy (by today's standards). In the below ad, the story accompanying the drawing of sixteen men in various states of undress is:

TRUE TOWEL TALES: No. 1. TOLD TO US BY A DOCTOR IN THE MEDICAL CORPS

ARMY DAY - CROCODILES KEEP OUT!

Did you ever have to put a net across your bathtub - and share it with a crocodile? Sometimes, according to this med corps captain, you have to do that for a path - in the South Pacific Islands. Since "crocks" have finicky palates, with a partiality for legs, the kids put two nets across a stream an weight them down. Thereafter the "crocks" are on the outside, looking in!

You might not enjoy the bathing facilities of our boys in the service, but you'd heartily approve of their towels. For in many of their service packs are those same husky, durable Cannons you're so proud to use in your own home.... You know how welcome a bath and a good towel are after a trying day. You can imagine how welcome to our men after long stints of marching or combat!

They need them more than we do. That's why there are fewer towels for us. That's why, too, it's important that we take good care of those we have.

When did we get SOOO prudish?

Comments management: Yup, I'm using Disqus now.

I've opted to try using Disqus as the comments section. Therefore, if you have a Disqus profile, you can automatically add comments, edit them, and review them from your Disqus dashboard. In addition, the comments are threaded - which means that (if for some reason) people can respond directly to a previous comment in the thread.

Unfortunately, this shift means that none of the comments made on the blog are now visible. They are still there, but the Disqus module overrides the Blogger comments section.

Saturday Omphaloskepsis: Re-reading Asimov's Foundation trilogy

It's been many years since I cracked open a copy of Foundation, let alone read through all of the books. However, it's been proving to be a great deal of fun. The stories don't diminish, even as my knowledge of science make the deficiencies in science and technology that Asimov lived in show through. Still, the stories remain strong.

What's interesting is that I never consciously realized that the Foundation trilogy - vast science fiction epic though it is - has exactly zero androids in it. Therefore, there are no cases of the Three Laws of Robotics, either. This is - to me - strange, since Asimov is known for the Three Laws as well as the Foundation.

Poking around on Wikipedia, I learned that in the fictional chronology, between the period in which "Robots" series of books and short stories take place and the time of the Foundation series, there was a diminishment of the number of robots. Indeed, in Caves of Steel the number of robots were already in serious decline as humans moved to get rid of them, even as the Three Laws protected them from the robots.

Another thing that's interesting is how uncannily similar Asimov's "psychohistory" is to certain economic and quantitative social sciences. I don't know if these social sciences were developed to such an extent in Asimov's time, but whenever we think about "market projections" and the like, it's almost like an analogue of psychohistory. Furthermore, the kinds of projections that are made by Nate Silver (over at 538) is itself a kind of "psychohistory".

All kinda cool, especially since these thing were in their infancy back in 1942 (when the first short story of the Foundation series was published).

Wednesday Wonderings: Michigan's Fall 2012 Theme Semester

The Theme Semester at the University of Michigan will be "Translation". "Translation from what into what?" I wondered, and looking at the site it appears that the translation is not limited to language translation. In fact, it seems that language translation isn't a major component of the theme semester. Maybe such translation is too prosaic?

Still, on the topic of translation (via the medium of machines), here's a video from BigThink about "What's lost (and found) in machine translation":

(On the topic of translating words into machine speech, and having text being read to you via machines, here are my thoughts. In short: I'm not agin' it.)

Sunday Thoughts: Of pets and sleep

For the past 2.5 weeks, I've been house-sitting and pet-sitting for some friends. They have one usually energetic dog and three cats. I've not been able to sleep much past 6:30 on any given day, and when I don't wake up on time, I learn that I have to pay for my tardiness in food delivery by coming down to dog-shredded papers.

Happily, the dog is quite friendly (at least to me; to some of my other friends, he's been frightened and aggressive), and tugs me to go on walks. When he runs after the basketball, he is like a wild dog on the African savannah. When he plays tug-o-war, he's a growling, energetic, head-tossing tugger. When he chases after the cats, he's like a still-large puppy. And when he puts his head on my lap to sleep on the couch at night as I'm watching some BBC America, he's finally dog-tired and calm.

As a partial contrast, the cats are happy to rush downstairs for food; happy to come up to me to try and get some attention when I'm plating their morning and evening repasts; and then off back upstairs or their perches once they finish eating.

It's almost like this picture is correct:

Almost, but not really.

Am I a "cat lover"? No; not a lover.

Am I a "dog lover"? Again, not a lover.

However, I do like cats and dogs. I do like the companionship and humor they provide, but I don't think that I'll ever be a true dog or cat lover, and - knowing the kind of life that I live - it's unlikely that I'll become a pet owner any time soon.

Saturday Omphaloskepsis: What if other life is right-handed?

Life on Earth is "left-handed". No, I don't mean that a majority of living things have hands, or even a preference for their left side. (Heck, some things don't even have a left side, since they are radially symmetrical.) No, in this case, I'm talking about the left-handed orientation of proteins (i.e., chirality).

On Earth, almost all proteins and sugars are left-handed: the proteins and sugars in our body, the proteins and sugars that we eat, the proteins and sugars that break down or interact with the proteins and sugars we consume or make are almost all left-handed (i.e., they display homochirality).

However, this doesn't preclude the presence of right-handed protein and sugars, or even the wide-spread presence of them.

What, then, would happen if we do discover extraterrestrial life that - instead of our left-handed homochirality - they are based on right-handed homochirality?

Would the proteins and sugars of these extraterrestrials be consumable by us? What about ours by them?

Would explorers find themselves surrounded by abundant proteins and sugars, but yet starve because their bodies can't process them?

Also, why hasn't this been addressed in science fiction, or do we just go with the assumption that either technology can fix the problem by reconstituting base elements into food or that life can only exist with the same (or effectively the same) basic mix of chilarity as on Earth?

All of this came to mind (again) when I saw this article at PhysOrg the other day:

Since life can't function with a mix of left- and right-handed amino acids, researchers want to know how life – at least, life on Earth -- got set up with the left-handed ones. "The handedness observed in biological molecules – left-handed amino acids and right-handed sugars – is a property important for molecular recognition processes and is thought to be a prerequisite for life," said Dworkin. All ordinary methods of synthetically creating amino acids result in equal mixtures of left- and right-handed amino acids. Therefore, how the nearly exclusive production of one hand of such molecules arose from what were presumably equal mixtures of left and right molecules in a prebiotic world has been an area of intensive research.

The story finishes with this additional twist that we will have to incorporate into our search for extraterrestrial life:

The result complicates the search for extraterrestrial life – like microbial life hypothesized to dwell beneath the surface of Mars, for example. "Since it appears a non-biological process can create a left-hand excess in some kinds of amino acids, we can't use such an excess alone as proof of biological activity," says Glavin.

"Imperial weight" or "Avoirdupois weight"?

Americans are pretty much the only people left on the planet that don't use metric, although the UK and many former British colonies do use pounds to measure weight, or at least the weight of some objects. These countries seem to be slowly moving toward metric-only, but that's a topic for another time (maybe). The US remains the lone stand-out.

Why?

Who knows. After all, "tradition" hasn't stopped the British from changing, and it makes things so much more difficult when physics departments are teaching metric, but Americans still prefer miles, gallons, and pounds.

And everyone still calls it "imperial units."

And there's that word: imperial; derived from "empire". And are Americans really bothered by the implications of this word, let alone the fact that they off-handedly call it "Imperial Units" and are proud to use them?

I think that most Americans likely don't even think about it, unless and until they are faced with having a choice (or at least seeing the contrast) between inches, feet, and yards and millimeters, centimeters, and meters. Then it's, "Those are metric, these are imperial." (Although some do call them "American" units, just like some people call what they speak "American".)

However, why not use the other term for these units; the historical term for these units?

Avoirdupois

Yes, say it with me: Av-wah-doo-pwah.

Okay, maybe I can understand the reticence that some Americans might have with choosing a "French" word, conveniently forgetting (or being ignorant of the fact) that many of the words that they use are French words (just not so French-sounding). It also helps that American English spelling tends to hide some of the more "egregiously French" words, like center (instead of centre), rapid (instead of rapide), maneuver (instead of manœuvre), etc. So, maybe if we changed the spelling to something less "French-looking":

Averdupwa

... yeah, I don't think too many people would adopt its use.

And then there's the problem of generalizability. Avoirdupois refers only to the weight of something, and so can only really be used to describe the system of weights, but not of volumes or distances.

I guess, then, that the terms pounds, yards, and gallons will remain "Imperial", and slowly change over time to "American" as the US continues to become the isolated case of a hand-me-down from Roman times that became standardized some 1400 years after the Romans left the British Isles.

From 1652: A really early coffee ad.

Straight from copyranter, we find this (likely) original advertisement for that novel beverage of coffee:

Transcript (with links to terms that might be unfamiliar):

The Vertue of the COFFEE Drink.
First publiquely made and sold in England, by Pasqua Rosée.

THE Grain or Berry called Coffee, groweth upon little Trees, only in the Deserts of Arabia.
It is brought from thence, and drunk generally throughout all the Grand Seigniors Dominions.
It is a simple innocent thing, composed into a drink, by being dryed in an Oven, and ground to Powder, and boiled up with Spring water, and about half a pint of it to be drunk, fasting an hour before and not Eating an hour after, and to be taken as hot as possibly can be endured; the which will never fetch the skin off the mouth, or raise any Blisters, by reason of that Heat.
The Turks drink at meals and other times, is usually Water, and their Dyet consists much of Fruit, the Crudities whereof are very much corrected by this Drink.
The quality of this Drink is cold and Dry; and though it be a Dryer, yet it neither heats, nor inflames more than hot Posset.
It forcloseth the Orifice of the Stomack, and fortifies the heat with- [missing text] its very good to help digestion, and therefore of great use to be [missing text] bout 3 or 4 a Clock afternoon, as well as in the morning.
[missing text] quickens the Spirits, and makes the Heart Lightsome.
[missing text]is good against sore Eys, and the better if you hold your Head o'er it, and take in the Steem that way.
It supresseth Fumes exceedingly, and therefore good against the Head-ach, and will very much stop any Defluxion of Rheumas, that distil from the Head upon the Stomack, and so prevent and help Consumptions and the Cough of the Lungs.
It is excellent to prevent and cure the Dropsy, Gout, and Scurvy.
It is known by experience to be better then any other Drying Drink for People in years, or Children that have any running humors upon them, as the Kings Evil. &c.
It is very good to prevent Mis-carryings in Child-bearing Women.
It is a most excellent Remedy against the Spleen, Hypocondriack Winds, or the like.
It will prevent Drowsiness, and make one fit for Busines, if one have occasion to Watch, and therefore you are not to drink of it after Supper, unless you intend to be watchful, for it will hinder sleep for 3 or 4 hours.
It is observed that in Turkey, where this is generally drunk, that they are not troubled with the Stone, Gout, Dropsie, or Scurvy, and that their Skins are exceeding cleer and white.
It is neither Laxative nor Restringent.

Made and Sold in St. Michaels Alley in Cornhill, by Pasqua Rosee, at the Signe of his own Head.

Wow, who knew that it would be such a great remedy for so many things? ;)

Also, what's the rule for italicizing? It seems kind of random in amongst all the other non-italicized words. At first, I thought it was related to the words that were - similarly randomly - capitalized, but no... Ah well, I'll just leave it as an old way of creating highlights; an attempt to draw the eye to various words through the advertisement.

One thing that they should have written, though, is that coffee does not go well with licorice whips, even though one might think the flavors to be complementary. The licorice whips are just so chock full of flavor that it completely overwhelms the coffee flavor. I've only learned of this today, when I thought of eating some licorice with my coffee, and ended up ruining my coffee-drinking experience. Ah, well... lesson learned.

Happy Birthday USA

It's the 4th of July today, which means that it's the marking of Independence Day. Although it's technically a marking of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, I seem to recall that it was described in 1776 as being written a few days earlier and signed a month later.

Still, July 4 is regarded as the date of formal date of independence, so there you go:

Happy Fourth of July! (And don't let those fireworks burn down your house or start a hazardous fire of any other kind, either.)

Happy birthday to my brother

To my brother: happy birthday! You still seem to be able to keep two years and two days older than me. Happily, leap seconds don't occur between our birthdays, since that would mean that you'd be up to 18 seconds older than me now than when I was born.

Anyway, if you happen to be reading this on your birthday, stop reading this blog entry and have a good birthday. If you happen to be reading this after your birthday, I hope it was awesome!