Dwight Clark RIP

Dwight Clark passed away today at 61 from ALS.

Dwight was a wide receiver for the San Francisco 49ers when, in the 1981 NFC Championship Game, he made "The Catch," the football play that defeated the Dallas Cowboys and put the 49ers into their first Super Bowl. You can watch the final Niner drive starting at 2:00:00 here.

It is pure football ballet: undersized, but agile guards John Ayers and Randy Cross (typical products of O-line coach Bobb McKittrick) lead the journeyman running back Lenvil Elliott (the antithesis of the Cowboys' star Tony Dorsett) through traps up the middle and on devastating sweeps to the left and right; Joe Montana hits receivers Freddie Solomon and Earl Cooper with passes downfield and threads the needle to Dwight on the sideline, who toe-taps to stay in bounds; Freddie dashes around the end on the reverse; Bill Walsh calmly orchestrates the whole drive on one side of the field as Tom Landry in his trademark fedora, his team totally discombobulated by the variety, flow, rhythm, and force of the 49er offensive attack, stalks back and forth on the other, not realizing that the Cowboy dynasty (the first one, at any rate) is over; the lyrical Vin Scully (along with the meathead Hank Stram) calls the whole drive.

And then, finally, Montana rolls to his right, back-pedals and double clutches to avoid the unimaginably tall Ed "Too-Tall" Jones leaping right in front of him, and releases a dying quail into the twilight; for what seems like an eternity, the football flutters through the air, looking like it is going to fall, futilely, as so often before, out of the back of the end-zone; but suddenly, as if out of nowhere, Dwight Clark launches himself to a height never achieved before or since in 49er football lore and, with the very tips of his fingers, plucks the ball from the air. The Catch!

Listen to the roar that goes up from the old school, blue-collar, Candlestick Park fans (who drove Chevies to the game instead of Teslas) when Clark comes down with the ball. It is the sound of decades of futility against the Cowboys being washed away from the Bay Area in a single play. It was the football equivalent of the Giants and Warriors finally breaking through after decades of baseball and basketball mediocrity.

(Be sure to watch Dallas' last drive afterward; if not for Eric Wright's horse collar of Drew Pearson and Lawrence Pillar's sack and Jim Stuckey's fumble recovery, San Francisco football history might have been very different.)

Dwight, you lifted us all up that day. The memory of you is undying. RIP.

David Reich geneticist, Part II

Chief Justice John Roberts famously wrote: "[T]he way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." One can generalize this to: "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of any characteristic (e.g., race, sex, sexual preference, religion, etc.) is to stop discriminating on the basis of that characteristic." I have always held that general statement to be true. But, given David Reich's work, I think I have to modify that statement now: "We should stop discriminating -- except when it is rational to do so." For example, it is rational in the NBA to use height as one discriminating factor, although other discriminating factors can outweigh a low score in height. See Isaiah Thomas.

David Reich geneticist

In a recent article, David Reich, the Harvard geneticist writes:

How do we accommodate the biological differences between men and women? I think the answer is obvious: We should both recognize that genetic differences between males and females exist and we should accord each sex the same freedoms and opportunities regardless of those differences.

I have a question for Professor Reich: If the same freedoms and opportunities should be accorded to each sex regardless of their differences, does that mean that the same outcomes should be assigned to the sexes, too? If not, it appears that Professor Reich's argument undermines the doctrine of disparate impact, one of Liberalism's preferred tools for obtaining similar outcomes and a bedrock of the Obama/Holder Justice Department. For example, it seems that Professor Reich is saying that, yes, all women need to be given the opportunity to be software engineers, but we shouldn't be surprised if more software engineers end up being men. Conversely, we shouldn't be surprised if individual female software engineers exist who are better than some (or even all) male software engineers. This is quite different from the disparate impact approach, which holds that the percentage of female software engineers must be the same as the percentage of females in the general population (equality of outcomes, not of opportunity).

I would also like to hear Professor Reich address the following question: If Group A and Group B are genetically different in such a way that members of Group A require more medical care in aggregate than those of Group B, should members of both groups pay the same for health insurance? If not, who should pay the difference in cost? The individuals, the insurance company, the government, who? Is it ever ok for an insurance company to deny members of Group A health insurance? It would seem that denying them health insurance is denying them an "opportunity or freedom." But, if the insurance companies are forced to cover them at the same cost, would not the insurance company rapidly go broke?

Here is a similar question: if Group A and Group B are genetically different in such a way that members of Group A are less creditworthy in aggregate than those of Group B, should members of both groups receive credit at the same rate and cost? Is it ever ok for a bank to deny the members of Group A credit? But, once again, if banks are forced to lend to the non-creditworthy, won't they rapidly go broke?

Note that the question about creditworthiness assumes there can be a correlation between genetics and creditworthiness. I am not aware of any evidence that such a correlation exists. (I suspect Professor Reich would label this an unwarranted prejudice.) But, It seems these questions about insurance and credit and the like can be generalized: If Group A and Group B are genetically different in such a way that selection of members of Group A for some purpose costs the selector more in aggregate than selection of members of Group B, then is it justified for the selector to select only from Group B and to avoid selecting from Group A (all else being equal)?

But, if this is the correct general form of the question, then, it seems that this question can be asked about software engineers, too: If women and men are genetically different in such a way that the selection of women to be software engineers costs the software company more in aggregate (say, because of the lower aggregate performance of women; shades of Lawrence Summers!) than selecting men, is the software company justified in selecting only men and avoiding women (all else being equal). Remember: we are stipulating that we have genetic findings that demonstrate that there is a correlation between being male and having a greater aptitude for software engineering.

I think perhaps the correct approach is hinted at in the phrase "(all else being equal)" and is shown by the following example: Let's say that A and B are seeking health insurance. A has a gene that makes those who have it more susceptible in aggregate to heart attacks. As a condition of offering health insurance, both A and B are required to take a battery of tests of their coronary health and performance. Both A and B score equally well on all these tests with very high marks. Is the health insurance company justified in charging A more? Perhaps the test for the gene is just another test that should be considered in the total battery of tests, so that if A tests positive for the gene, then his overall score is, in fact, less than B's score (by the significance of the gene test) and the insurance company would be justified in charging him more for insurance because of the additional single risk factor. In addition, the costs of insuring A and B may be far less than the cost of insuring others who have scored much lower on the other tests.

The extraordinary thing is that such an approach would seem to suggest that there are times when protected characteristics like gender can and should be taken into consideration in selection processes to accentuate different aggregate outcomes, rather than ignored so as to create equal aggregate outcomes. It should be noted that such an approach would likely give us our original outcome with software engineers: more would be men, but there would be very many good women, too.

I do not claim to speak for Professor Reich in any of this. I am aware that the statements I have made above may be entirely sophistical. If so, I would take pleasure in hearing him refute them; the gain in knowledge would be mine. Professor Reich seems to be the kind of person who follows the facts and science wherever it leads him, even if they end up leading him to reject the assertions of political correctness or to refute unwarranted bigotry. I have pre-ordered his new book and look forward to reading it when it is released.

Facebook, Google, and OAuth

Another thing that is troubling to me is how hypocritical users are about their use of "Facebook login" to log in to apps. When you use "Facebook login" to log in to an app, the login screen clearly states that you are granting the app permission to access whatever parts of your Facebook profile the app lists (for example, access to your email address or to your "likes"). Thus, when users used "Facebook login" to log in to Aleksandr Kogan's "This is Your Digital Life" app, they granted him access to whatever parts of their Facebook profiles the login screen listed. See here for the documentation. Google offers similar functionality. The protocol that Facebook and Google (and many other platforms) use to enable this functionality is OAuth. For people to use this self-documenting login and then to claim that their data ended up where they didn't want it to be seems similar to the way in which people signed subprime mortgages with clearly stated terms and then later claimed they were deceived. I am a believer in personal accountability. If you agreed to be bound by the terms of a contract (whether in a subprime mortgage or on a login screen), you are bound by the terms of a contract. You had better make sure you understand those terms before you sign or click.

The end result of the "2008 Financial Crisis" was the elevation of Elizabeth Warren as a new demagogue on the Left and her creation of the leviathan CFPB. I wonder what new demagogue on the Left will be elevated as a result of the so-called "2016 Cambridge Analytica Data Breach" and what new leviathan agency will be created to "protect the consumer."

A world of difference

In quivering, almost apoplectic rage, Adam Serwer writes in Atlantic:

That Russia attempted to interfere in the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf has been demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt.

Adam, cool down, bud! Don't burst a vein. There is a world of difference between the claim that Russia attempted to interfere in the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf and the claim that Trump colluded with Russia to improperly influence the 2016 election. The second claim remains unproven. The first claim should surprise no one: Russia attempts to influence outcomes in American politics on a daily basis; just as America attempts to influence outcomes in the politics of other nations on a daily basis. Anyone who needed the massive efforts of a Special Prosecutor's investigation and a year of national trauma to realize that Russia engages in cyber activities to destabilize the United States is naive in the extreme. What's more, the charge that Russia attempted to help Trump is no worse than the charge that Russia attempted to help Bernie Sanders, this second charge also being contained in Mueller's indictments. Neither man is tainted in any way by such charges.

With each new set of indictments by the Mueller investigation, the case against Trump grows weaker. The first set of indictments simply pointed out that Michael Flynn lied to the FBI (as did Christopher Steele, obviously, and Steele has yet to be indicted) and that Paul Manafort is a crook. But no collusion. This second set of indictments proves that Russians engage in cyber attacks against the US. But, again, no collusion. And, in the meantime, we have discovered that a paid operative of the Clinton campaign cobbled together rumors from Russian sources into a "dossier", peddled it to Obama's FBI and Justice Department, which then used it to obtain from the FISA Court a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. Thus, the case against Trump grows progressively weaker, while the case against Clinton and Obama grows progressively stronger.

But the mainstream media believe that, if they respond with white hot rage and resistance to every new revelation of the Mueller investigation, they will persuade the American people that Trump is the ogre that they sincerely hope he is, even when the revelations do not incriminate Trump in the least. This is a losing strategy. With each new "nothing-burger" revelation from Mueller, and the ensuing "hair on fire" response from the media, Trump's poll numbers just rise. It was looking for a while like 2018 might be a very good year for Democrats. The chances of that happening seem now to be diminishing.

The Christmas letter as political manifesto

Over the last couple of decades the "Christmas letter" has become a common phenomenon. Tucked in with the Christmas card, the Christmas letter provides an update on what has gone on with the writer's family during the previous year.

But, this year there has been a new development. Christmas letters have now become just one more vehicle for liberals to signal their opposition to Trump and their own virtue. (I didn't notice it last year. Perhaps, people were still in a state of shock.) A couple of samples from the letters we received this year:

"A drumbeat of maddening politics and accountability (or lack thereof) has made for a troubling year." [This letter was placed in the mouth of the family dog, apparently, a registered Democrat of typical intelligence.]

"[Dad] does the lion's share of resistance advocacy with the local Indivisible chapter -- resisting and replacing bad policy and bad apples." [I half expected a solicitation for a donation to Pocahontas' campaign.]

I always wonder why the letter writer assumed that the injection of his liberal political views into his Christmas message would not be offensive to me. Was he blithely assuming that, since, after all, I am a friend or relative of his, I must be a virtuous, intelligent liberal myself? Or was he aware that I despise liberals and was he trying, in the Christmas spirit, to perform an act of kindness and gently nudge me away from my troglodytic ways? Or did he not care whether his comments would be offensive, and was he putting me on notice that if I did not change my ways ("grow," in the liberal parlance), that my company was no longer desired? One thing I am always sure of is that the writer's confidence that his own political views are right is unshakeable and that he believes it an act of principled resistance, nay, a moral imperative, that he make his views known to me (a kind of public profession of his faith), even if it means sullying his Christmas greeting with politics.

At any rate, in a season when all mankind used to try to ignore their differences, come together in a spirit of peace and goodwill, and raise their eyes to a higher plane, liberals have found one more avenue, the Christmas letter, for sharpening divisions.

Mike Flynn's crime

So, according to the statement of the offense, Mike Flynn's crime is that he told the FBI that he had not asked the Russian ambassador not to retaliate against Obama's sanctions against Russia, when, in fact, he had asked.

Obviously, Flynn should never have lied to the FBI. But, if he did, the whole story would seem to undermine the claim that there was collusion between the Trump team and the Russians rather than support it. For, if there was collusion between the Trump team and the Russians, then, presumably the Trump team gave the Russians something in return for sabotaging Hillary. But, Flynn wasn't giving the Russians anything, but instead was asking them to do the Trump team a favor, namely, not to escalate the situation. And wasn't it good for the US if the Russians didn't escalate the situation? And, in fact, the statement of charge makes clear that the Russians decided not to escalate the situation as a result of the call. And wasn't the making of such a request from a senior official of the incoming Trump team an appropriate part of his duties?

If the lie is all Mueller has, I don't see the big deal.