Revealed, a True Romantic for the New Century

This man

said this: “I will fight for you with every breath in my body – and I will never, ever let you down.”

If that’s not romantic, I don’t know what is.

Update:  Shane Bouvet is an under-employed FedEx courier and Trump campaigner who scored a ticket to the inauguration, but had to scrounge a suit and shoes.  This Man read that story, and showed what a sweetheart he is.  (Tip from the Instapundit, who doesn’t do fake news.)

Got Cognitive Bias?

Buster Benson realized he had information overload trying to remember 175 variations of cognitive bias, so he got organized. John Manoogian III would rather look at a graphic than a list, so he drew one.  Check it out.

Tip from Gary Jones, whose oddball collection of posts often bears re-reading.

When Bayesian Statistics Broke into History

Wonderful article here about the Mosteller and Wallace analysis of the twelve Federalist Papers, the ones of disputed authorship–was it Madison or Hamilton who wrote them?  With a nice, easy-to-understand explanation of the Bayesian methodology they  used.

Aaron Burr insured that Hamilton took the secret to his grave.

Tip from Real Clear Life.

Nacho Cheese Soup

So the Mrs and I were sitting in a cafe at the Denver Airport a couple of weeks ago, snacking on a big plate of nachos, and I got this goofy idea.  The nachos are tastiest down at the bottom, when the chips start getting soggy, and there’s a lot of melted cheese left on the plate.  So why not take it to an extreme?  Back home, I tried it out, and ¡mira! it’s good.

Nacho Cheese Soup

• 6 corn tortillas, fried into crispy strips, about 1 x 2″ (I do my own in peanut oil, YMMV)
• one Fresno or serrano pepper, minced
• one Hatch or Anaheim pepper, sliced into thin rings
• 1/4 onion, chopped
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 12 oz processed cheese food (“velveeta”), cut into ~1″ cubes
• 2 cups coarsely grated medium or sharp cheddar
• 2 cups chopped tomatoes (I use grape tomatoes, halved)
• 1/2 cup sliced olives
• one avocado, sliced into thin wedges
• 2 oz butter
• 1/4 cup flour

Saute the peppers and onions in some olive oil until the onions are translucent, and set aside.  In a large saucepan, make a roux with the butter and flour.  When it’s bubbling and starting to brown, add the chicken stock and wisk into a gravy.  Then add in the cheesy cubes, wisking as they melt.  Then add the grated cheddar.  Then add the sauteed peppers and onions, and remove from heat.

Just before serving, stir in the chopped tomatoes (you want them cool and firm, not cooked).  In each serving bowl, place a half-dozen tortilla strips, fill with soup, and garnish with more chips, 3 or 4 avocado slices, and some sliced olives.  Serves two or three.

Christian Humor

Contrary to what the mainstream media and campus secularists might have you believe, thoughtful Christians have a well-developed sense of humor.

• Exhibit A:  the Babylon Bee, which has a special place in its heart for Joel Osteen
• Exhibit B:  the  only Lutheran joke I know — A woman of fundamentalist persuasion was traveling, and visited a Lutheran church one Sunday morning.   The pastor launched into a particularly rousing sermon, and the woman was moved to respond to each new insight with cries of “Hallelujah,” “Sing it, preacher,” “Amen, brother,” and “Praise the Lord!”  Members of the traditionally reserved–and silent– congregation looked askance at the woman (this is NOT Lutheran behavior!) and fidgeted in their seats, until one of the ushers approached her and whispered “Excuse me madam, but we don’t praise the Lord in our church.”

Tip on the Bee from Glenn Reynolds, who apparently reads everything new on the web at 5am, daily.

Maybe clothes DO make the man

Here’s a school program that’s so off-the wall it might actually make a difference: providing washing machines in public schools.  It’s early days, with little data collected, but compared to Michelle O’s disastrous school lunch madness, it’s an intriguing experiment with potentially outsize benefits.  Virginia Postrel might have some insight into ideas like this.

Tip from Happy Acres, who’s gotten this a bit muddled with the more general notion of personal hygiene* as a component of good sanitation and public health programs.

* I’m usually very critical of do-gooders descending upon folks and telling them what to do “for their own good.”  I call that the Bwana Syndrome, and progressives thrive on it, at home and abroad.  However, Bwana says “wash your hands” seems eminently sensible to me.  Can “wash your clothes” be that much different?

An end run around an impossible integral

Ever-insightful polymath John Cook shows how to integrate the Gaussian PDF, in less time than it takes to make breakfast.  The trick?  Coordinate transformations and the Jacobian are your friends.

A suitably-embellished version of Cook’s post will appear in my lecture notes in the Spring semester.  Thanks, J.C.