“Underground DSM-IV – Full Version”

An interesting and entertaining post from AVI:

Related: “No one is listening to me,” means “no one is agreeing with me.” This has been remarkably durable over my career. The idea seems to be “If you were really listening to me you couldn’t possibly disagree.” Countering with the statement “I hear what you are saying, but i don’t agree with it” can actually provoke assaultive rage. It must come near the core of problem.
 
Pts. referring to length of time they have been in hospital as an argument for privileges or discharge means they still don’t get it.
 
Gazing intently slightly upward — choosing among several things to say (Lots of people do this.)
The further up the gaze, the more possible responses – usually not a healthy sign.
Gazing at ceiling: = Choosing among a multitude of things to say, i.e. lying.
Turning back to interviewer, spinning in chair: = Antisocial PD

Worth reading in full.

Is Hillary Clinton Directly Responsible for the Execution of Sharam Amiri?

Sharam Amiri, an Iranian nuclear scientist, was executed by the regime on August 3 after being convicted of providing secret information to the Americans. Sharam Amiri was also discussed in emails that were found on Hillary Clinton’s unsecured server.

Did Clinton’s negligence lead to Amiri’s execution? Possibly not: the regime was suspicious of him for other reasons, and we don’t know for certain that the Clintonmail bathroom server was hacked by the Iranians. But discussing a foreign intelligence contact on a system that is not certified for classified information can easily lead to the deaths of American agents and other individuals, whether or not it happened in this specific case..

There is no excuse for Vox’s flippant attitude in referring to this matter as “Trump’s fake controversy.” If you take several passengers for a high-speed drive in your car while knowing that the brakes are bad, then you are doing a terrible thing, even if that particular ride does not end in disaster. If you feed someone a regular diet of poisons, and he is killed by someone else before the poisons have a chance to act, that does not let you off the hook. Clinton’s extreme irresponsibility may have led to Amiri’s execution or it may not; it may have led to the execution or murder of others of whom we were unaware. This case provides one more piece of evidence about Hillary’s utter lack of concern about the lives and well-being of actual, particular human beings.

Two Posts from Seth Barrett Tillman

From President James Buchanan, Chief Justice Roger Taney, Copperheads—and the Quakers:

If our moral intuitions accord with the second view, if we credit the Quakers’ behaviour without regard to their religious inspiration, then why do our standard histories judge President James Buchanan and Chief Justice Taney so harshly?** Buchanan and Taney preferred the United States to go to pieces rather than maintaining it by war. They were unwilling to order or to support a war, and the deaths, which would undoubtedly follow. Yet very few today see Buchanan and Taney as heroes or as acting on moral principles akin to those of the Quakers. Why?

——-

From Law of the Clinton Candidacy (Again):

#1. If Hillary Clinton resigns as the Democratic Party’s candidate prior to the general popular election, what process does the Democratic National Committee (“DNC”) use to select a new candidate?
 
[. . .]
 
#8. If President-elect Clinton were sworn in, but subsequently became incapacitated prior to her appointing any cabinet members, can the Vice President succeed her, even temporarily? See Twenty-Fifth Amendment, Section 4 (“Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments … transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.” (emphasis added)). Do acting heads of executive departments (i.e., senior high level civil servants not subject to presidential nomination and Senate confirmation) count for this purpose? Isn’t this a good reason for the members of President Obama’s cabinet to remain in office until their successors are actually nominated, confirmed, appointed, and sworn in?

Both posts are worth reading.

Efficiency and Restaurants

Since I eat out a lot and have frequented restaurants of every stripe over the last few decades I am always interested in restaurant efficiency. The restaurant industry is brutally competitive and it always disturbs me when I eat at a restaurant and enjoy it but then fear that the restaurant won’t survive because it lacks a critical mass to make enough money.

There is an Italian restaurant called “Grassa” in Portland (you can see their logo, below). They are attached to another restaurant called “Lardo”.

These restaurants serve high-end food (not luxury cuisine, but far from fast-food) and alcohol but have communal tables and always seem to be packed with a line out the door. They are different because their menu is a large signboard (dishes are frequently updated) when you enter the space and you order your food at a central register and they hand you a “flag” to bring with you to your table. Then when your food is ready, they bring it out to you and take away your flag and you eat your meal. Drinks are brought out first (and appetizers) and you can also flag down one of the servers to order more drinks (although most people tend to have one drink with their meal and then leave, based on a few times that I’ve sat at the restaurant). You can also order your food “to go” at Grassa, as well.

This model drives peak efficiency at the restaurant. There are many fewer tables than you would need at a “standard” restaurant due to the communal standing tables and the food comes out as soon as it is available (the servers don’t have to take orders, they just serve the food as soon as it is up and return back to the kitchen area, unless they are bussing a table that just left). They don’t have to take reservations or mess with any of that complexity, either.

Read more