{"id":26371,"date":"2025-11-29T17:26:58","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T01:26:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=26371"},"modified":"2025-12-08T13:52:56","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T21:52:56","slug":"incoherence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2025\/11\/29\/incoherence\/","title":{"rendered":"Incoherence"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Trump presumes to close Venezuelan airspace, as part of his campaign against drug smugglers, while pardoning a former Honduran president sentenced to prison for drug smuggling;<\/li>\n<li>About the new Connie Willis Daily website;<\/li>\n<li>The global decline in murder;<\/li>\n<li>Short takes on COVID vaccine deaths, Hitler Youth reborn, and Trump&#8217;s continued innumeracy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"center\">&#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/div>\n<p>By what possible authority can Trump say this and expect it to happen? Oh, I forgot, he thinks he&#8217;s a king.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/11\/29\/multimedia\/29DC-Prexy-ctjk\/29DC-Prexy-ctjk-superJumbo.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp\" width=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>NY Times, 29 Nov 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/11\/29\/us\/politics\/trump-venezuela-maduro-airspace.html\">Trump Declares Venezuelan Airspace Closed<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;President Trump said days earlier that the United States could &#8216;very soon&#8217; expand its campaign of killing people at sea suspected of drug trafficking to attacking Venezuelan territory.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>And because, given his extra-judicial attacks on boats in that area, he&#8217;s obviously intent on starting a war.<\/p>\n<p>\\<\/p>\n<p>But given that, what&#8217;s the possible rationale for *this*?<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-apps\/imrs.php?src=https:\/\/arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/5BJTHV3EXEL7VHMCSUCBYOJYNU_size-normalized.jpg&amp;w=1440&amp;impolicy=high_res\" width=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Washington Post, 28 Nov 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/2025\/11\/28\/trump-pardon-honduras-hernandez\/\">Trump plans to pardon former Honduran president convicted of drug trafficking<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;Former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez was sentenced to 45 years in prison for running a &#8216;narco-state&#8217; that helped send cocaine to the United States.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Trump says it&#8217;s because Hern\u00e1ndez was &#8220;treated very harshly and unfairly&#8221; which doesn&#8217;t seem quite as bad as Pete Hegseth wantonly killing even survivors of some of those boats near Venezuela. Oh, and because he&#8217;s supporting a government that&#8217;s friendly to him. There&#8217;s always some reason like this underneath the stated reasons.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sfwa.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/connie-willis.jpg\" width=\"200\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve linked a few times to a daily newsletter by the science fiction writer Connie Willis, who&#8217;s been doing long daily posts about the latest political news for at least a couple years on Facebook. Until Facebook disabled her account, a day or two ago, without explanation, according to her followers on Facebook. So now she has a separate site for her daily posts (aside from her other sites like <a href=\"https:\/\/azsf.net\/cwblog\/\">https:\/\/azsf.net\/cwblog\/<\/a>) called <a href=\"http:\/\/cwdaily.net\/\">http:\/\/cwdaily.net\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Today&#8217;s post is <a href=\"http:\/\/azsf.net\/cwdaily\/2025\/11\/29\/kill-em-all\/\">KILL EM ALL!<\/a>, about what I mentioned in passing yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>Both of the linked sites include a Thanksgiving post, e.g. <a href=\"http:\/\/azsf.net\/cwdaily\/2025\/11\/28\/thanksgiving\/\">Thanksgiving<\/a>, listing all her favorites things that she&#8217;s thankful fore. Connie Willis is cheerful and charming, a news and politics junky and CNN fan as long as I&#8217;ve known her (I was in a Green Room with her when news of Princess Diana&#8217;s death was announced), and she has a hard, determined edge to her political opinions.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p>Some facts and one chart about something conservatives don&#8217;t believe, that murder (and other violence, per Steven Pinker) has in fact declined in recent decades.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.vox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/11\/anHj4-the-global-homicide-rate-is-down-about-a-quarter-since-2000-.png?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&amp;w=750\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Vox, Bryan Walsh, 29 Nov 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/470705\/global-homicide-murder-rate-violent-crime\">The global decline in murder, explained in one chart<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;The world is aging out of killing one another.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This is, I would say, part of the transition from a globe full of tribal cultures to global society, which conservatives hate. But the article:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>One source of good news \u2014 favored both by me and, apparently, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/11\/26\/style\/narrative-violation-venture-capital-tech.html\">venture capitalists<\/a> \u2014 is what\u2019s known as a \u201cnarrative violation.\u201d A narrative violation occurs when everyone thinks one thing, but the actual evidence suggests the opposite.<\/p>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1agbrixi lg8ac51 lg8ac50 xkp0cg1\">And few narratives are more persistently violated than one common belief: \u201cViolent crime is always going up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ipsos.com\/en-us\/halifax-report-2023-conflict\">2023 survey from IPSOS<\/a> of people in 30 countries found that <em>70 percent<\/em> of respondents thought the world was becoming more violent and dangerous. Here in the US, majorities <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/short-reads\/2024\/08\/29\/the-link-between-local-news-coverage-and-americans-perceptions-of-crime\/\">have told pollsters<\/a> almost every year since the early 1990s that violent crime is going up. And <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/global\/2017\/12\/05\/worldwide-people-divided-on-whether-life-today-is-better-than-in-the-past\/\">other surveys<\/a> indicate that many people around the world insist that life was better and often safer 50 years ago than it is today.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1agbrixi lg8ac51 lg8ac50 xkp0cg1\">So, that\u2019s the narrative. Here\u2019s the violation: When you actually look at data on murder, it shows that the world has largely been getting safer, both as compared to the more distant past and in this century. I wrote earlier this year about how the 1990s <a href=\"\/future-perfect\/442607\/1990s-decade-nostalgia-homicide-violent-crime-hiv\">were actually an extraordinarily violent decade in the US<\/a> and how violent crime in the US this year <a href=\"\/good-news-newsletter\/414368\/violent-crime-rate-homicide-police-baltimore-pandemic-covid\">may be headed towards record lows<\/a>, even as many Americans \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2024\/11\/04\/us\/trump-crime-fact-check.html\">including the President<\/a> \u2014 insist it isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>With references to Steven Pinker. Let me note that term &#8220;narrative violations.&#8221; There&#8217;s an element of human psychology here, of course; conservatives, in particular, are extremely sensitive to threats, and thus fear change and &#8216;the other&#8217;. If violence were reduced to one murder a year, they would fret about that.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p>Short takes. The first one relates to the previous item.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2022\/08\/21\/opinion\/28HS-COVID-DEATHS\/28HS-COVID-DEATHS-superJumbo.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp\" width=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>JMG, 29 Nov 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.joemygod.com\/2025\/11\/fda-claims-covid-vaccine-killed-at-least-10-children\/\">FDA Claims COVID Vaccine Killed At Least 10 Children<\/a>, linking to NY Times: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/11\/28\/health\/fda-children-deaths-covid-vaccines.html?unlocked_article_code=1.408.pKyQ.ZEbwCNQQbpzE&amp;smid=nytcore-ios-share\">F.D.A. Seeks More Oversight of Vaccine Trials and Approvals<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;The agency\u2019s top vaccine regulator proposed broad changes, claiming that a new review linked 10 children\u2019s deaths to the Covid vaccine. But public health experts questioned the findings, wanting to examine the data.&#8221; &#8212; &#8212; Even if true, so what? How many people would have died without the vaccine? But conservatives don&#8217;t do math, or understand risk analysis.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>JMG, 29 Nov 2025<\/strong> (from <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/germany-far-right-afd-youth-organization-protests-53265d4217f54ad0b8669be549b9731a\">Associated Press<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/www.joemygod.com\/2025\/11\/thousands-clash-with-police-as-germanys-far-right-party-reestablishes-its-hitler-youth-division-video\/\">Thousands Clash With Police As Germany\u2019s Far-Right Party Reestablishes Its Hitler Youth Division<\/a>. &#8212; &#8212; Base human nature will never go away.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>JMG, 29 Nov 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.joemygod.com\/2025\/11\/trump-republicans-should-win-midterms-in-record-numbers-because-ive-brought-drug-costs-down-700\/\">Trump: Republicans Should Win Midterms In \u201cRecord Numbers\u201d Because I\u2019ve Brought Drug Costs Down 700%<\/a> &#8212; &#8212; Hasn&#8217;t *anyone* explained the mathematical nonsense of such a claim? Either his staff has, and he doesn&#8217;t understand and keeps saying it anyway because the rubes will be impressed by big numbers. Or they haven&#8217;t.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Trump presumes to close Venezuelan airspace, as part of his campaign against drug smugglers, while pardoning a former Honduran president sentenced to prison for drug smuggling; About the new Connie Willis Daily website; The global decline in murder; Short takes &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2025\/11\/29\/incoherence\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lunacy","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26371"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26488,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26371\/revisions\/26488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}