Coming To America; Making Waffles; Nothing About The Bakken -- January 30, 2017

Updates

February 11, 2017: where the big four stand today:

• US: no longer welcoming refugees with open arms (links needed? LOL. Wait for the Trump tweet)
• Canada: Justin Trudeau welcomes refugees who have been turned away by US (see below)
• France: watching their refugee-guests torch police cars in mass demonstrations
• Germany: Merkel has set aside almost $100 million in a fund to pay migrants to withdraw their asylum applications and leave Germany voluntarily

February 11, 2017: maybe it's the same story, just being published elsewhere. Whatever. But over at AFP, this headline: "Asylum seekers fleeing US for Canada brave snow, extreme cold."

February 6, 2017: this is pretty funny. It turns out my tongue-in-cheek original post was right on target. From Reuters:

Refugees in the United States fearing a worsening climate of xenophobia in the wake of a divisive U.S. presidential campaign are flocking to Canada in growing numbers.

Manitoba's Welcome Place refugee agency helped 91 claimants between November 1, 2016, and January 25, 2017 - more than the agency normally sees in a year. Most braved the freezing prairie winter to walk into Canada.

Original Post

 

Wow, talk about a beautiful day here in north Texas.

My hunch: 108 new refugees on their way to Arlington, TX, now that they have all been cleared to enter the United States, going through passport control like they should have been doing in the first place. I doubt any are going to Canada despite the open-ended invitation from their prime minister, just hours before a terrorist attack on a mosque in Quebec City.

A bit of irony there. And bad timing on the part of Justin Trudeau.

By the way, of the 109 "refugees" delayed at JFK overnight, all but one had been released by this morning. Small inconvenience for the privilege of coming to America. By the way, everyone in America -- except the ones who own the waterways (and even they came across the Bering Strait) -- are all immigrants or descended from immigrants. Most Americans, I assume, support immigration but most Americans, I assume, support legal immigration.

By the way:

Customs and Border Patrol agents process roughly 325,000 visitors to the U.S. each day. In the 24-hour period after order took effect, 109 prospective entrants were detained under the provisions of the executive order, but all were eventually allowed into the U.S. after extra screening (and rulings from federal judges). 

This is the rumor: of the 109 there was only one refugee that was still "detained." Among the 109, he/she was the only one who wanted to go to Canada. The ACLU stepped in to warn that individual that Canada had really, really cold weather -- year round. Even North Dakota was warmer. It took the ACLU several hours to convince the individual that yes, indeed, the red necks in Texas had red necks because of the sun, the same sun that shines on the Mideast (apparently there was some question whether Copernicus or Ptolemy was correct; something the holy books do not address). I do not yet know whether the individual decided to continue on his way to the Northwest Territories or meander down to the home of the Dallas Cowboys. I'm not even sure if there's any truth to the rumor. Perhaps another "alternate fact."

Anyway, as I was saying, it's a beautiful day in north Texas. Around 54 degrees earlier this morning with a high of 75 degrees forecast. I haven't biked to the library in several days due to cool weather, and due to changes in the driving schedule with the three granddaughters.

Speaking of which, yesterday Sophia and I made waffles again. It turns out we need to make waffles every two weeks. Alternate weeks we will make cupcakes. This time we added blueberries to the waffles on the advice of a reader.

When it came to the blueberries, Sophia was responsible for quality control. And, yes, she will get equal pay for equal work. Which in our household is not much. No unions.

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Depression

My dad was very young at the time of the Great Depression in the United States. He often says that he grew up in a time and place where things were so bad before and after the depression, his parents never even knew there was a Great Depression at the time.

I think about that when thinking about President Trump, NAFTA, Canada, and Mexico. There is a very real possibility that Mexico will weather Trump's tectonic changes better than Canada.

This from a message board this morning regarding the prime minister of Canada (remember: this poll was taken before the prime minister invited those "refugees" to come to Canada who are "refused" by the United States; and, before the terrorist attack on a mosque in Quebec City, by Muslim terrorists, it appears). From the message board:

Trudeau's popularity has dropped below 40%. Some of the reasons given for his plunging popularity:

• Muslim immigration program expensive and not going well
• approving some pipelines, no digging yet
• running up the debt
• giving money to Palestine
• carbon tax
• support for the UN
• nuts about climate change
• elite attitude
• the doofus cabinet members 
• nobody likes his principle secretary Gerald Butts
• his wife is annoying
• he is a terrible public speaker
• he is just not very smart 

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The Literature Page

The Touchstone of Life: 

Molecular Information, Cell Communication, and the Foundations of Life

Werner R. Loewenstein

c. 1999

Loewenstein: showed that biological cell structures called cell junctions (which many scientists thought blocked movements of molecules) actually also functioned as highways permitting the flow of molecules from cell to cell. 

That's what this book is all about: cell-to-cell communications facilitated by molecular "highways" through cell membranes.

The book appears deceptively simple, suggesting that the audience only needs a high school education in biology, but after the first few pages, and then reading the last chapter, which could have been titled, the "philosophy and cell communication" suggests this book requires at least an undergraduate level of understanding of molecular biology.

Werner Loewenstein?

Former Columbia University physiology and biophysics professor Werner Loewenstein tells us what physics and quantum computing have to do with the brain in his new book, Physics in Mind. Home: Falmouth, MA; passed away at the age of 88, in 2014.

This book reminds me the difference in philosophy of education/teaching at Harvard and at the college I attended. At Harvard, one is expected to know the mechanics of the subject; Harvard professors "teach" the 2nd and 3rd derivative of the mechanics. At my college, the professors taught the mechanics, but not the philosophy or the "what it all means." To a great extend, I was spoon-fed from day one, and the professors helped me move through the mechanics of the math and science courses I took. At Harvard, I would have been lost on day one.

That was also true of my graduate training at a university in California. Comparing notes with a student taking the same course of study at Harvard, the difference in how courses were taught was quite remarkable. ]